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Published: January 15th 2009
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Now and then life dips its greasy hands into the belly, through an incision in the universe's ether, and thus into the void. Every once in a while my heart races with each balanced step on the edge of a steep scree slope, as if it mattered. Today I stared at a computer for ten hours, while nibbling on pretzels, digitally drawing my life experience and perceptions over a 2D map, with satellite accuracy(DOP<1m). Yesterday I climbed to 8000 ft above the sea of this tiny planet, to the top of a mountain ridge(<1/3 skin of apple), then back and down, the last 3 miles in absolute darkness, pre-moonlight, followed by an hour drive, pumping CO2 out the Explorer tail pipe, probably too fast, until I submerged below the level of the rising sea to this place I call home...
Sometimes, my mind is overcome with the futility of each step forward, overcome with the vastness that crushes any importance I give to this biological bag of cells I call myself and my clipboard full of numbers. Sometimes, I shrink in the face of a tiny rock, billions of years older than I and my fangled perception of time, or
the scraggly remnant of a saltbush, who lived a long long life, full of physiological struggle more than I could ever fathom. But, more often than not, I smoke yet another cigarette, my one true skill, and think about suckling upon a cheeseburger, stuffing it into the hole in my face, and washing it swiftly down the esophagus with a thick and malty, yet hoppy ale.
Then there are the times when a fighter jet flies over Saline or Eureka valley, occasionally locking in on the one moving object in the empty desert, me, silently invading my sight and blaring thoughts, then shattering my bones like glass and raising my heart beat to near supernova. This is when I think of the many people in our world who under similar circumstances would be breathing their last breath. That good ole' American made plane would thus be annihilating mine and my family's existence, or at least bloodying us into a meaty and deformed version of our former selves with their American made weapons of "small-scale" destruction. Oh wait, this is happening now, far far away...
The only thing empty about the desert is my mind, and only when I
fear my own death. Everything else attached to this false phenomenon of emptiness is like a Mylar balloon stuck in the unforgiving grip of an impartial boxthorn.
When it's too cold to do anything but lay in my sleeping bag and wait for the inevitable cougar maul, I stare at the stars, somehow without seeing them, unphased by their all encompassing presence in my field of vision and stream of consciousness. My thoughts bounce from star to star, drawing its own demented constellations on the sky, reliving random moments and events from all that has been impressed upon it. Invisible, yet feverish scribbles on the blackboard. I fall asleep. Wake up from the cold. Sleep and wake a thousand times with no transition. Each time again, the stars are different, rearranged in my mind however it has chosen. This is what I am left with. The entire day. Ones and zeros, dying brain cells, data sheets...Memories. Shooting stars. Supernovas. Phosphorous bomb blasts over Palestine...
Hope. And despair.
God Bless America,
steve
P.S. God had indeed blessed America, with a budget that continues to support, not only 2 wars and a growing system of corporate socialism,
but also me and my meanderings through the desert (including my 3.18% pay raise) throughout the next fiscal year. And so...
God bless America's deficit spending,
again,
and again,
steve
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wild cat
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no cud chewing in those lands sand face
My baby's future tax burden is rising so you can soliloquize solitude and lust carnivorously after the beasts that made your evolution possible? stop the cerebralcide, free the death valley 0