Porchbound

lost gander

2011-04-23T12:01:00.000-04:00

Last night. Goose travels through changing seasons, from falling leaves to falling snow. What does he seek? Brethren pass in and out of our lives. We still move on. Time passes; the seasons mark. Our days the only constant. The banjo plays high and lonesome and the spirit leaves the body. Tune out tipsy voices, the hush of rustling coats. The notes crawl inside you and sound out in the cavern of your heart, the echoes so loud you hear nothing else. You hear nothing else, only what the goose knows, without even knowing it. Restless and lost, with only the seasons to remind us of the coming end, our silhouettes stark against a bone white moon.

Lost in video translation.

enveloped, washed over, striated

2011-04-14T23:50:00.000-04:00

Your notes, your chords, your melodies, your harmonies, your voices, your guitars, your high lonesome fiddling, your otherwordly banjo picking, your drumbeats, your basslines thudding in my heart, your Jungian tones and rhythms, your making noise out of feelings where words cannot. Your urges you give me, your urges you satisfy, your urges you provide the soundtrack to, your warm sounds to fall into over and over year into year into year, your harsh sounds to resurrect to when there is nothing else, no one else. Your memory-building, your memory-recalling, your memory-erasing. Your differentness, your sameness, your interconnectedness, your powers to unite and reunite, to destroy, to build, to soothe, to agitate, to signal triumph, to remind us of the many things it means to be human. Thank you. Always.

shaking the box of time

2011-03-06T17:46:00.000-05:00

The gulls circle above, screeching, then settle to the ground. We walk among them and they don't mind. One peers up at me as I approach, decides I am to be avoided, and grants me a few inches. I think about how all of us deserve the life we are given. The weather turns warm, then cold, then warm, then cold again. I can't keep up. I prefer warm, but still a five-minute walk in the sunny cold assures me that I am alive. At my desk I had doubts. The harbor glitters. Pairs of mallards snooze on concrete, their bills tucked neatly in their feathered backs. I am as uncertain as the weather. Once every month my work email inbox reaches capacity. I receive an automated message and I must spend time archiving and deleting. What if I didn't? Meetings are weekly, biweekly, bimonthly. Payment for services rendered occurs twice a month. You earn vacation time because you don't deserve it. This is the metronome that governs us. Someday none of it will matter. I'm unsure of when but I sure see it bleeding at the seams. I am nervous for all of us.

hemingway said...

2011-02-22T14:25:00.001-05:00

"There is nothing to writing. All you do is sit down at a typewriter and bleed."

I have been bleeding a lot. I very near hemorrhaged and had several transfusions.

Obsessive line editing. Deleting. Tightening. Harvesting ripe words and squeezing until they stain the page.

I'm not sure what this space is to become. I feel a shift has occurred for the moment. For a long time this place was my only outlet for writing. When I was feeling dried up, I'd come here and try to bleed a few drops.

Perhaps this will become more miscellaneous, although it's always somewhat been that way. Or it may lie fallow until I once again hit a wall. For it's inevitable that I will. But I'm hoping that won't be for a while.

Hempel redux: the murkiness of genre

2011-02-11T16:36:00.001-05:00

Running on the treadmill today I started thinking about Amy Hempel's writing again. Recently I read some vitriolic criticism of her work. It bothers me when critics slag a writer in such a way that suggests a near personal hatred. I sometimes think that reviewers shouldn't even bother writing about work that they hate, unless they are able to muster up some degree of objectivity. I see no value in completely trashing someone's creative work in a public forum. Above all, everyone's definition and expectation of a particular genre differs, and so basing your critique solely on your own understanding or expectation is a flawed point of reference.

To follow that thread, much has been made of the blurring of genre boundaries in recent times. Flash fiction, mini nonfiction narratives, and prose poetics often entwine to the point where some have suggested that only the authors themselves are capable of declaring what genre a specific piece falls into, should they even care to label their work at all. Some don't, although this can make it harder for them to find their audience.

Amy Hempel's writing is a perfect case study when examining genre's murky waters. She's been described as a minimalist fiction writer, though that term has been loaded and discharged so many times over that it's mostly shooting blanks now. Amy has said that most of her inspiration comes from poetry, and I would say that can definitely be seen in her work. Her stories are like frames, each sentence a neatly trimmed two-by-four, nailed together with precise punctuation. Sure, she could then cover this frame with thick boards of wordy prose, but why bother? Sometimes readers (and writers) want to sit on a bare floor and peer out at (or into) the world through the spaces between sentences. We don't always (and sometimes never) want it all spelled out before us. Of course, there are those readers that do want a lot of action; they want a story to progress at a certain pace and get somewhere. But then there are those who aren't interested in a destination, who enjoy an aimless walk, who love when a story ends leaving them breathless and unsettled, but not with perfect closure.

I think of Amy as more of a poet than a fiction writer. Poetry does not have to rely on the ease of line breaks and stanzas. Poetry can reside within a paragraph, with word choice and punctuation hammering out a steady rhythm on their own. But maybe even these terms, poetry and fiction, are not needed. For all writers draw from life, and life is real and true, but when we commit it to the page it takes on a different form altogether. Sometimes we determine what that form will be, merely with how we organize the words on a page. We can then try to bend it to fit a genre's flimsy label. But perhaps that is unfair. Maybe we should not be corralling these words within fences. Maybe as readers and as writers, we should just let them flow through us, without the burden of our demands, without the limits of our expectations.

silver jean

2011-02-02T15:43:00.000-05:00

Glaze extended as far as the eye could see. She walked, placing one foot in front of the other, right down the middle of the road. At the end of the block she looked both ways. A passing man hollered, "Looking good!" She ducked her head and stepped onto the sidewalk. A pack of dogs cavorted in the field beyond the hedgerow. The sound of ice cracking in the trees passed like gunshots through the air. The rubber soles of her shoes made no sound. At the next corner she halted. The bus stop sign leaned warily over her, its blue face smeared with arcane symbols spray-painted in the dead of night. It did not inspire confidence. But she folded her hands and set to waiting.

summary

2011-01-26T14:57:00.000-05:00

From start to now. Crumbling plaster, dripping water. Swearing man, broken flange. Home computing, home arrest. Chest cold rising, spirit sinking. Snow falling, BSS blaring. Always reading, reading, reading. Reading Sentence, reading sentences. Words still coming, in fever dreams, at all times. Words with warmth to wander in, words to plaster together, to hold back water. Words like lungs, barren yet soaked with life.

where silence reigns*

2011-01-21T00:49:00.000-05:00

*stolen from Rilke, not that he cares now

Late summer music coming through the speakers now. Confusing with such snow pouring down at streetlight level. A week is long; a week is time like saltwater taffy stretched as far as you can swallow. Not as far as the years you've seen. Delve into the past and balk at words since forsaken. Self-censor then and hope for the best. Look to fire's cleansing fangs for answers you cannot give. Dreams, it's always been dreams that fuel those flames. Conquer them and you'll rid yourself of answers. Thus ridden will you fall. Thus ridden will you never wake. Even yet, what words we write. Words in spite; words dull, not bright.

from a room with slanted ceilings

2011-01-14T12:52:00.000-05:00

In another place, for once. These walls blue instead of yellow, yet the likeness remains. A window from which to gaze, at treetops, at sky and clouds. What we endure like some concrete mix plastered to our outsides, layering on another wall between what we feel and what we show to the others. The talking we do, so careful, so orchestrated, a hackneyed script whittled down to nothing. But today is not a mere trailing on of yesterday. No, today is a rope tossed back to us, its intricate knotted fibers there for fingers to grasp and pull us forward to lighter times, when we are who we are and we do what we are here to do.

the wind empties your eyes

2010-12-30T17:02:00.000-05:00

Peer through the doorway to see the yellow light fall across the bed, cat curled up within the warmth of its rays. Recharging on solitude, or maybe just reverting back to it. Unfamiliar pangs of hunger appear after two days of illness. Mind is a mess of directionless chatter. Soon there will be work again, a sinking back down into the morass.

Daydream of the cloistered life: a seat in front of this window, a view onto this rooftop tableau. The players: a mockingbird and a pair of cardinals. The drama focuses on a small pool of water at the roof's edge. Herky-jerky movements like puppets as each actor attempts to take a drink. Have you ever watched a mockingbird tip its head back and swallow? It is truly a sight to behold. A couple of juncos show up as stand-ins, filling out the stage with their sprightly steps.

My attention in life ever shrinking to smaller details, my eyes wandering farther the larger the concepts grow, my ability to feign interest sinking like an anchor into cold black water. The rooftops, the treetops, they catch and hold me, leave me breathless. A new shoot poking out from an aloe's center stuns me. And always the music to sink into at times like this, a warm aural bath that clears the mind and calms the nerves. It doesn't ask, only gives, already knowing how you need to feel.

defaulted

2010-12-18T00:54:00.000-05:00

Seventy years ago you smoked and talked at the same time. Seventy years ago you drank scotch and sherry and rye. Seventy years ago you flirted with every woman that crossed your path. Seventy years ago you were larger than life, transposed from page to screen. Seventy years ago you dished out repartee like so much small talk. Seventy years ago you moved fast, thought fast, dressed fast. Seventy years ago you always figured out what to do and why. Seventy years later I fall short, nearly every day. It doesn't matter. Not as if you're a person. But it's still cause for thought, anyway.

1:11

2010-12-05T00:14:00.000-05:00

It's the fragility of everything that just makes you crazy. It's the sense that it could all just fall apart in a few otherwise empty moments. But the fragility also holds beauty, a fractured bitter beauty you can't ever manage to turn away from. It's Fitzgerald's always three o'clock, the dead darkness of winter burrowing away at your soul, searching desperately for another year's rest. And outside you pretend, outside you patch it all together with plastic smiles and nods of the head. Inside you roar mightily, you spin the cylinders of every single year that's passed you by, you listen for the pins to drop into place, you pace the worn empty floors of your mind, waiting waiting waiting, always waiting.

Is it all confusion? Is it all random? Or is it your own fault for believing that. For not deciding what to do and when. For not saying you won't let anything stop you. For continuing to wait.

No, but I saw you, after all. I saw what you have accomplished. You did not give up. You did not falter. You rose above it all. Yes, you did.

For that, then, for that I am grateful.

from walking to running to darkness

2010-11-17T22:32:00.000-05:00

The moon hung white and low in the sky. I stared out at it from the unhinged window of no sleep. Behind me were the sane and the simple. Ahead was a rather steep decline, were I to accept it. And alongside me she spoke words to soothe, masking barbs and jabs, small they were yet enough to make a difference. I was almost alone already as they began to pierce me through.

Out there in the dark you just never know. Do you choose wide open sky with stars and nothing below. Or do you take obscurity above and fear below, with only a narrow space between in which to crawl around. Maybe you run it all into the ground, that unforgiving and barely permeable substrate upon which we all laughably try to build.

When daylight came, or when it comes, there is always that moment, it's like a prism that you look through at all the places to which you could've walked. And if you turn the prism a little more, as the hour when you must leave approaches fast, you see yourself running. But if your wrist twists past a little too much, you don't even see a thing.

this just in: subtle schedule shift forces new cracks in worn shellac

2010-11-05T14:59:00.000-04:00

The pendulum swings upward again. Remember a sky of polished stone. The tree of many birds. Cracked sidewalks underfoot while perched alone at the end of the earth. How hard it is clawing our way up to have a look around. How sweet the first taste of syrupy mania when we finally do. Tap your foot to the mighty dirge. Scream 'til you're hoarse inside. Run until your soul leaves your body and then keep on running until it returns. Record your dreams and re-read them until you understand. Untether yourself from what you think matters and wait for a sign. Pay attention to the crows circling above at dusk. Their presence is no coincidence. And neither is yours.

indivisible

2010-10-28T08:44:00.001-04:00

"We are living in the dark ages"--NMN

The crows are gathering...

Life is in the interstices.

In the moments after what happens is where we find ourselves.

It's all we've got left. It's all we ever really had to work with.

Not answers to find, per se, but maybe a subtle understanding.

Maybe some rocky, unsettled...peace.

when you don't leave the house

2010-10-22T00:03:00.000-04:00

I watched Faces again tonight. It's been at least a decade, maybe longer, since I last watched it. Cassavetes crushes me every time, maybe more the older I get and the more I've seen and felt. When I think about the movies I like, the art I am drawn to, the music I connect with, the books I fall in love with, I see that they all share a common thread: their creators do not shy away from an honest portrayal of life as a human being. They do not judge; they simply show life for what it is. We humans are messy, we screw up a lot, we're vulnerable, we're fallible, and sometimes we never learn from our mistakes. There is a beautiful ugliness that hangs about us...it could go either way what you see, depending on our moods, depending on so much beyond our control. And when you talk about things like trust and expectations...well, then that is where it really gets complicated. People don't bargain so easy with those, and with good reason. We can build and destroy these over and over, throughout a life of trying not to be alone for a little too long, carrying resilience with us, the one weapon we hope to always hold close to our hearts.

events transpire, time passes, and what end do we all hurtle toward

2010-10-07T23:29:00.000-04:00

A year is a collection of days. These days fashion themselves into months, which clump together into seasons, both hot and dry, cold and wet. But only one continuum extends as far as we can walk. All else arbitrary. All else rationalizes what we look away from. That being our own end, from which we run, even as we draw nearer to it still. Peering back through the wine-sweet debauched years at the dull bluntness of youth, with the long and short of our yawning parched futures hunched on our bony shoulders. With the many criss-crossing paths diverging from our own, now choked with twisting brambles, now hiding forever what secrets they may once have held.

welcome, aliens

2010-10-07T10:12:00.002-04:00

UN 'to appoint space ambassador to greet alien visitors'

"Opinion is divided about how future extraterrestrial visitors should be greeted. Under the Outer Space Treaty on 1967, which Unoosa oversees, UN members agreed to protect Earth against contamination by alien species by "sterilising" them.

Mrs. Othman is understood to support a more tolerant approach.

But Professor Stephen Hawking has warned that alien interlopers should be treated with caution.

He said: "I imagine they might exist in massive ships, having used up all the resources from their home planet. The outcome for us would be much as when Christopher Columbus first landed in America, which didn’t turn out very well for the Native Americans.""

if only

horoscope

2010-09-28T15:19:00.000-04:00

My horoscope for the week, courtesy of The Onion:

"Your life will soon lose all direction, which, considering how it has been going, should come as a vast relief."

I thought this might serve as a jumping off point for a longer post, but I don't really see a need for further elaboration. I realize that sounds overly dramatic; it's just funny, that's all.

Latest lifer, Lincoln's Sparrow, found at Cromwell Valley Park on Sunday evening at the tail end of a very productive walk (photo courtesy of Kelly Colgan Azar via Flickr under Creative Commons license).

aggravation

2010-09-23T23:55:00.000-04:00

My bikes are all jacked up and I can't seem to fix them. I ordered a part and the place has sent the wrong size twice now. TWICE.

The crime chopper keeps flying over my house. Daytime, nighttime, all the time.

The autumnal equinox began last night and tomorrow's high is supposed to be 95. WTF?

The words quit spitting out, mind's dry as an old corn husk.

I'm tired.

the hour of happiness

2010-09-16T23:44:00.000-04:00

Eyes sore looking out at the world. Perhaps it's air pollution; maybe it's hate. The hour grew long in a place I rarely go. The wheels turned fast toward a place I always go. In between lies emptiness, in between tempts fate. The fading light hides that wandering path in a cloak of longing. But I roll on. I always do. On these worn out streets, these angry streets, where nothing ever remains the same, a worn out wraith, near transparent, rattles its bones for the few who listen.

in the wilderness

2010-09-15T21:29:00.000-04:00

"Dreams: the place most of us get what we need"—Amy Hempel

see you when your troubles get like mine

2010-09-02T23:05:00.000-04:00

Small tragedies and minor victories twist around your idle fingers like woody vines. You trade witticisms like barbed wire slipped underneath your tongue. A single scent scatters a part of the brain already always a bit on edge. But at arm's length, you don't ever find the visceral. You won't ever find it there. So push away the veil of ions, then, and you will see the rush of blood. Warm air on skin, brushing off a touch that never came. Color in cheeks, déjà vu and try to ignore imagination prone to wanton escapades. Think and wish, then, and think again. Fall into the ordinary, fall into it open and true, with wild grit in your gut.

i realize everyone's got an agenda...

2010-09-01T21:50:00.000-04:00

...but this is just a waste of a good beech tree.

in the morning or the late afternoon or in the midnight hour

2010-08-26T23:22:00.000-04:00

When sleep still clouds your eyes, and the day has not yet dawned upon you. When dreams still stuff your head from ear to ear, and sleep still lies in reach. When there's still a chance the day belongs to you. When you haven't yet sat down for hours and when your mouth can form words and electricity showers the air with invisible sparks. There is a single moment, plucked from so many others, where you feel it, that which you grew up without but saw in others instead, from afar. Then later, sifting through a pile of the day's written words, stacked up in your electronic woodlot, a certain desperation grows again. Even later still, the banjo duels with the fiddle across the orange light seeping into the wooden floorboards. The country in the city, within these four walls, shut up in the stale air, but breathing life. The night's sleepy eyes begin to shut, and in between each drowsy blink, I think of you and you and everyone.

Amy Hempel

2010-08-23T16:48:00.000-04:00

So I just discovered Amy Hempel's writing. I guess I am behind the times, but whatever...at least I found her! I looked up an interview and her answer to this question below struck me. In particular, this statement of hers rang like a bell in my head: "I'm still drawn to MOMENTS, moments when power shifts between two people, or moments when something small but encompassing happens."

YES. Yes, Amy.

I also really like the quote from that Jane Hirshfield poem...I'm going to have to look that poem up. In her answer to the next question, Amy talks about poetry and how important it is in helping her craft stories, how you learn about rhythm and conserving words, among other valuable lessons.

RH: Your longest written work, Tumble Home, is a novella. Have you ever considered or attempted a full-length novel? And what attracts you to the short story form?

AH: I have never wanted to write a novel, though I might write another novella someday. I never get tired of what stories can do. I'm working very short again, and will continue this way (short-shorts, prose poems) until that gets old. I'm still drawn to MOMENTS, moments when power shifts between two people, or moments when something small but encompassing happens. There is a poem by Jane Hirshfield titled "Changing Everything" that best describes what I mean by that last-- a person walking in the woods who picks up a stick and moves it to the other side of the path and says, "There, that's done now."

another day in the woods

2010-08-21T21:51:00.005-04:00

So I had a photo to post from my outing yesterday, but wouldn't you know it, my camera's USB cord is MIA. I've scoured the house to no avail. So all I've got once again tonight is my stream of words. Let's see if I can hydrate this barren electronic soil with them enough to grow some trees.

The oppressive heat continues, and as I'd had a late night on Thursday, I left the house later yesterday morning than I would've liked. By the time I spun my wheels down the final leg of my journey to Lake Roland, I was near soaked in sweat. Locking up my bike to a No Parking sign, I listened to woods devoid of birdsong. I didn't really care, though. What I needed first and foremost was a restorative walk in the woods, and if there were some birds around, even the better. But if they were laying low, I certainly couldn't blame them. The day was still a ways off from reaching high noon, and yet the heavy air already steamed with the essence of warm bath water. I knew once I stepped from pavement to soil, though, that the temperature would cease to register as a discomfort to me.

As I walked down the dead end road to the entrance to the park, I opened my ears and my eyes, and set the pace for the day. Today was a day to practice slow birding, where I often stop for long periods of time, standing still, and wait for the birds to come to me. Sometimes it works better than other times, but it's always a worthwhile venture. It reminds me of the reason I truly love birding; it's not the feeling I get from ticking off a new lifer (although that's always nice), but the wonder I experience when watching a bird close-up, by really observing its behavior.

Once in the park, I picked up on a few birds here and there. I started out on the path down toward the lake, thinking I'd start there and then backtrack. But as I reached the first crossroads in the trail, I heard the soft hooting of a Barred Owl. I decided to backtrack and see if I could find it. I'd found one before in the general area where the hooting was coming from. I crossed over another trail and entered the shade of the pines, but had no luck in locating the owl. As I moved in slow increments down the path, I did find some pockets of bird activity, though. There were many cardinals and catbirds present, and a few singing White-eyed Vireos.

I soon encountered what would be my slow birding highlight of the day: ten minutes or so of close proximity to an Eastern Wood-Pewee as it practiced its trade, swiftly and efficiently hawking insects from a tree branch. Flying out in a swooping circle, it would snatch an insect and then return to the same branch to eat it, all in one fluid motion. I hear pewees often, as they are one of the few persistent forest singers in the deep heat of mid to late summer when many birds have long since clammed up for the season, but rarely have I had a chance to be this close to one for so long. As I peered at it through my bins, I could see its eyes darting back and forth as it followed the insect paths through the air. This bird was a true master of its craft.

Eventually I left the pewee behind, and made my way down toward the feeder stream heading to the lake. On my way, I found a Monarch butterfly and watched it feeding on nectar for a few minutes. This monarch's colors looked fresh, and I marveled at how nature could fashion such a beautiful creature. The monarchs have begun their epic journey to Mexico, and this particular one may already have been en route. Monarchs are the only butterflies to make such a long two-way migration. The ones that emerge from the pupal stage in late summer and early fall know by instinct to head straight for their ancestral wintering grounds in Mexico. Then in spring, they return north to reproduce and finish their life cycle. So when you see monarchs in the fall, they are performing one of the more amazing feats in the natural world. I find it surprising enough that such a small creature as a hummingbird can migrate such a great distance, crossing the entire Gulf of Mexico and beyond. But to think that a butterfly, so seemingly fragile and ephemeral, can travel for thousands of miles, survive an entire winter in Mexico, and then travel thousands more miles to its breeding grounds...well, it just seems so unlikely, so absurd! And yet it happens every year, whether we notice it or not.

Once at the stream, I disrupted some crows roosting in the muddy bottomlands alongside it, a favorite afternoon spot of theirs. A couple of individuals scolded me vigorously for at least ten minutes, but I was too absorbed in some movement way up high in the treetops to pay them much mind. I was about to give up on IDing whatever it was because it was so far up there and mostly obscured by leaves as it hunted insects. But then it flew to another tree and I saw what it was: an American Redstart, an immature male or a female, my first "fall warbler" of the year.

As I followed the stream I encountered many robins and catbirds, with a sprinkling of chickadees, titmice, and goldfinches. On the other side of the stream I spotted a hummingbird feeding from some yellow trumpet-shaped flowers (haven't been able to ID them yet). I heard and briefly saw a Great Crested Flycatcher. When I reached the lake, many Chimney Swifts suddenly flew out from the trees out over the water. I walked down the wooden steps to the water and sat for a while, eating an apple. I felt at peace, and I knew then that it was okay to leave.

perched on the precipice of the week

2010-08-19T23:54:00.001-04:00

Thursday night once again I come drink from your dirty trough. I am like a moth dancing with the flame, my paper thin wings licked by fire's cleansing fangs. The filmstrip of my life rattles on, a string of vague faces in scenes etched on celluloid. I stumble along behind, stretching out an arm or leg here and there, just trying to stay in the field of view. And in the shadows the fiddle plays high and lonesome, keeping perfect time to the insanity of it all.

it was dark as i drove the point home

2010-08-15T14:51:00.000-04:00

Rain and cool breezes hint at what is to come. I've felt it for weeks now...the impending shift in seasons. As I applied yet another coat of paint to the doors down in the basement, I turned up the melancholy on the stereo...the inaugural playing of The Smiths. Morrissey crooned over my shoulder as my brush moved smoothly back and forth across the wooden surfaces.

This summer has been particularly rough, the oppressive heat sucking the life out of everything...the plants, the trees, and me. As always I'm looking forward to fall, but maybe even more than usual this year.

friday morning

2010-08-13T11:07:00.002-04:00

I throw open the windows to let in a surprisingly cool mid-August breeze. I sit close to hear the cottonwood leaves rustle as they tell their stories. A crow calls, soon he will be joined here by his brethren on their winter roosting grounds. A cardinal chips, probably while out there eating the grapes growing on my neighbor's arbor. I've been finding them on the deck railing lately, pierced through and emptied of their insides. Out through the sun porch windows I see a hummingbird pass by, lingering first at the crape myrtle blossoms. On the stereo now, Walker and Jay play their twisted and gnarled mountain music; the sad soulful notes swirl around this round table where I sit and soar up through the window screens to the grey skies above. I have two doors to paint today and that is something.

3 AM

2010-08-11T09:29:00.000-04:00

3 AM, the witching hour. Eyes pop open and then...a kaleidoscopic filmstrip of every thought you've had lately chugs to life and begins the slow plodding death march across the 360° screen of your head-space. The thoughts are lurid and over-developed, much more menacing and ridiculous than their original incarnations. You toss and turn but that just makes the film move faster. Three nights in a row at 3 AM...you've come face-to-face with the dreaded triumvirate of sleep interruption, blazing an insomniac trail through a week of too much daytime coffee and too little time at peace. Congratulations, here is your gold tie tack.

commuter rant

2010-08-09T14:00:00.000-04:00

As a long-time bike commuter, I have always prided myself on my ability to keep all senses on high alert while traveling between home, work, and anywhere else I choose to ride. My 360° awareness and accompanying quick response time are what keep me relatively safe on the streets. But now I am weary. I am weary of asinine drivers. I am weary of ignorant pedestrians. I am weary of the need for this constant vigilance. Take this morning, for example. I approach a red traffic light. A car waits at the light across the intersection. The driver does not have her turn signal on. I am headed straight. The light turns green almost immediately, and so I push off into the intersection. At the same time, still without signaling, the driver turns left into my path. I dodge to the right in order to avoid being hit, yelling out in frustration. As she completes her turn, the driver reacts in outrage, yelling at me, "What the fuck?!"

So, let's review. We are facing each other at an intersection. Neither of us is indicating an intended turn, which means that we would both have the right-of-way to proceed straight without pausing. Now, if she intended to turn she should: (a) indicate her intention with her turn signal, and (b) wait for me to pass through the intersection before executing her turn, as I have the right-of-way. The fact that I am on a bike is irrelevant to the traffic law. A bicycle is a moving vehicle equivalent to a car in this state and thus should be yielded to in the same way that other cars are yielded to when they have the right-of-way.

If I had to guess, I would say that if I had been driving a car, this driver would have yielded to me, because if she hadn't, she would quite likely have been hit, especially considering that she didn't have her signal on. But because I was on a bike, I was, what, a non-entity, not a physical threat to her car, and therefore not worth yielding to? She had to have seen me. My body language indicated that I was going straight through the intersection. But instead she chose to ignore me, and then reacted with hostility toward me when I was merely exercising my right-of-way. What's more is that her hostility seemed so genuine. How can I expect to survive on the streets when drivers believe their horrible driving practices to be right and true?

The bottom line is that I'm tired of deconstructing incidents like this. They didn't used to bother me as much. But I don't feel like it's getting better out there. You would think more cyclists on the road would mean more awareness among drivers. But that awareness is either not coming, or it's approaching with the speed of cold molasses. A common argument stated by the trolls who post comments on bike safety articles online is that cyclists shouldn't get treated like regular traffic until they start obeying all the rules (stopping at every stop sign, etc.). To that I say, why would I wait at a stop sign (or red light) if I can proceed safely through it ahead of other traffic? Is it better for me to wait there with the automotive traffic, and then risk being hit by a driver eager to cut me off? I have to think about what's safest for me because I'm not surrounded by two tons of steel. And from my observations over the years, I've determined that the safest thing for me is to stay ahead of traffic whenever possible. It's quite obvious to me that most, if not all, drivers do not want me in their way.

Basically, I feel invisible on my bike. And it's not just the drivers ignoring me. Pedestrians don't hear I'm coming, and they never look before crossing the street, anyway. Maybe they would look if they heard something...I don't really know. I see them walk out in front of cars without looking, too...I guess maybe they just have a death wish. And even if they do look at me, they still walk out in front of me half the time. I don't know what it is. Do they misjudge how fast a bike can travel? Do they not realize that getting hit by a bike hurts? Maybe they wouldn't die or be paralyzed, but I guarantee they'd suffer some injuries.

Bike commuting used to be fun. My trips to work and back were usually the highlights of my day, times when I felt truly alive. Now, I am more likely to dread those trips. The city streets are alive with danger. If it's not a car hitting you, it will be a roving band of teenagers attacking you and stealing your bike, or just practicing some act of random violence upon you. For the first time, I'm starting to really wonder if it's worth it. How can I just enjoy riding my bike if I think everyone is out to get me? If it were just my imagination maybe I could learn to fight it. But the proof continues to manifest itself all around me, and I can't just turn away.

thoughtworm.com update

2010-08-06T18:53:00.000-04:00

After years of languishing in neglect, my website has finally received a much-needed redesign. It's a wonder I ever received any orders for my zine based on the convoluted ordering instructions I used to have on there. And let's not even begin to imagine the number of broken external links. I didn't even bother to check; I just cleared it all off and started over. It's much cleaner now and I'm pleased with the result. It will be easier to maintain, so maybe this time I won't ignore it for another five years.

wearing my badger suit

2010-08-06T00:42:00.000-04:00

Sleep evades me as manic passion envelops me. Meanwhile they're closing in. They want what they don't have and I don't want most of what I've got. But I'm still angry and afraid. It's in the late night hours that we confront the truths that daylight scatters to the dark corners. It's when the needle hits the vinyl past midnight that you start to wonder what's really going on. Drinking this American Water and feeling okay, but in a different uncontrolled kind of way. Maybe side two holds the answers? Maybe not. Maybe there are no answers.

mosquito death squad: now recruiting

2010-07-31T00:15:00.000-04:00

Ever since I was a boy, I've been marked by members of the blood-sucking insect world as a particularly tasty food source. I'm not sure why exactly every blood-sucking insect is drawn to me, but I suspect that my easily accessible veins have something to do with it. Some have dismissed this theory, claiming that insects aren't intelligent enough to seek out those of us with veins closer to the skin's surface, but my anecdotal evidence says otherwise. Others around me with deeper veins remain untouched while I serve as a feeding ground for the entire local mosquito population. I look at where the bites occur, and for the most part they are directly over the vein. So I'm willing to give those blood-suckers the credit where it's due.

In the past, I've had run-ins with fleas. Apparently I'm allergic to fleas, but what that really means is that I'm allergic to their saliva. At one time I lived in a house where fleas also lived, unbeknownst to me. They began biting me during the night while I was sleeping. I'd wake with my ankles covered in welts. Flea bites are prone to infection, and while I took great care not to scratch the bites, they would often become infected anyway. During a several month stretch, I was put on antibiotics three or four times. I began sleeping in layers with socks pulled far up over my pants, despite the summer temperatures. Nothing I did seemed to stop them. I literally thought I was going to lose my mind. To say that my quality of life declined would be an absurdly gross understatement. I flea-bombed the house and yet the fleas lived on. I finally bought some powder online that was guaranteed. I had to move all the furniture and work this stuff into the carpet really good before vacuuming. I think that finally got them, but I moved out anyway.

These days the worst offenders are the mosquitoes. Have you heard of the Asian tiger mosquito? I had not made its acquaintance until recently, but apparently somewhere on my block there is a major breeding ground. I can't linger outside my back door for more than three seconds without being bitten. The tiger mosquito came to the United States from Asia via the used automobile tire trade. These mosquitoes like to breed in water that pools up in used tires sitting around outdoors. Hooray, yet another scourge we can blame on car culture! These mosquitoes are like regular mosquitoes on steroids. Whereas other mosquitoes come out to feed only at dusk, the Asian tiger mosquito feeds all day long! Isn't that great? So now I can't even go out into my yard in the middle of the day without getting bitten at least six times. Another great thing about Asian tiger mosquitoes is that their bites last much longer on average than regular mosquito bites. I've found my bites from these fiends itch for several days, whereas regular mosquito bites usually fade rather quickly, often within the hour. Even more awesome is that these mosquitoes are like ninjas; you don't feel them while they're biting you so you can't even attempt to stop them. They are also known to be particularly agile in avoiding being slapped.

Tiger mosquitoes breed in any containers holding water, and so have thrived in residential areas. Many of the birds and bats that consume massive quantities of insects don't live in the city, and so there is not much in the natural world of the city to keep these mosquito populations in check. The best defense is not to allow water to sit outside in any type of container. But when you live in a rowhouse community, this presents a problem. You may prevent breeding in your own yard, but you can't stop everyone else from letting water sit around.

My solution this summer has been to stay out of the yard. Lately, though, some mosquitoes have gotten into the house. They bite me at random times and I suffer quietly while they go sleep off the drunken stupor they've gained from gorging on my blood. Awhile later they return to bite me again. Eventually they die, I guess, but by then it doesn't matter...they've done their damage.

I'm really looking forward to winter.

anonymity in the city

2010-07-29T13:20:00.000-04:00

Last night I was reminded of how anonymous I have become again. When I think about my time in this city, I almost see myself split into two separate people. I used to go out a lot, and as a result, I was recognized. I also volunteered somewhere that elevated my public profile even more. Then I withdrew, at first gradually, but then altogether. I embraced my inner hermit; I returned to the reclusive life that has always been my safe place. Even before this latter shift occurred, though, I wrestled with which persona was true. At the time, someone who knows me well also observed that all this social activity seemed unlike me. I am by nature a quiet and reticent person. However, I do enjoy going out and being around people. It's just that I've never been able to strike the proper balance. I overindulge in socializing and then abruptly overcompensate by retreating into my shell. I've been on this perpetual teeter-totter of extreme behavior for much of my adult life. It's nothing new, but every once in a while I receive some abrupt reminder of the gaping schism between these two personas. In response, I try analyzing myself all over again. But I never find any answers.

laws of motion

2010-07-28T13:53:00.000-04:00

I used to be in motion and stay in motion, not long at rest...not long enough to gather moss, my life a composite of broken laws of physics, mixed metaphors, and stale clichés. Now I know not where to start wrenching. Stick one in at random and the delicate workings risk collapse. No wireframe diagram exists, everything hacked together with scar tissue and dreams. Weeks fill with halting steps, then turn to months forcing chinks deep in the armor of mortality. What dwells in those points of weakness...where comes this liquid indifference dripping into my veins.

darlin' don't you go and cut your hair

2010-07-25T15:07:00.000-04:00

I cut my hair the other day in a futile gesture of defiance. I had shaved my head for years, maybe a decade or so, before growing it out again about five years ago in a laughable effort to make myself more presentable at job interviews. For a while I enjoyed the duplicitousness of blending into society with a barbershop haircut. However, I disliked the process of my hair growing out, often into a style teetering between homeless chic and deranged, and then the eventual grudging return to the barbershop, where I would have to again endure the inevitable vacuous questions and stale banter. [I swear if that guy had told me one more time that his sister was also a librarian, I would've lost it]. In more recent times, I had prevailed upon Em Ell to trim my unruly locks, which she patiently did with admirable skill and steady hands. Each time, though, I declared that the next time I was going to raise the clippers once again and return to my old self. Well, this time I did. On Friday I reached my breaking point. Pacing the house for hours in a heat-crazed mania, I finally cracked. I yanked the clippers from the closet and in a few short minutes the deed was done. What significance, if any, this has on my present and future life remains to be seen. But I do feel a few degrees better (and cooler).

five minutes staring at the harbor

2010-07-14T15:59:00.000-04:00

The water defies reflection, so murky it is. A fine place into which to hurl your cell phone in defeat. A place for casting off the trappings of a heavy life. But instead I wash myself in rhythms to quell the disquiet in my mind, even though they just bead up on the viscous surface after a while. The familiar songs last longest, the ones that bring you to a different place altogether, maybe the past, which still sometimes seems, unbelievably so, better than the present. The present is shifting sands of calm and rage, of confusion swirling around islands of content. Sometimes it's good, if you can stay in it long enough to rise above what's eating at you. But when keeping your RSS reader neat and tidy feels like a big accomplishment, you have to wonder just what kind of life you've built for yourself. One wasted, perhaps, dragging your feet along the back roads of the internet, all of which stretch on forever and lead nowhere. Enough of this, though...it feels like autumn in July, only nothing is really dying yet.

down with extremes, including temperatures, both physical and mental

2010-07-09T11:31:00.001-04:00

Another hot day dawns in the city. The lady in the alley screams at her grandson, like every other day, morning, noon, and night. It's all I can do not to absorb the daily toxic assault on my senses, to sort the good from the bad and hope I got it right. I hear the sound of a warbler singing in the tree out back (a new yard bird?!), but as I rush out onto the deck, a man fires up his motorcycle two doors down, scaring the bird away for good and drowning out the sound of everything except the white noise in my head. I miss opportunities for many reasons, not the least of which is my unwillingness to take them. Instead I sit and struggle to lose touch with reality as it envelops me in the shroud of its cold black wings. It is so much easier to continue pushing away than to tentatively open up a little and risk feeling different. The more I read about the natural world, about the beings other than humans that surround us, the more I think I was not meant to be human. My consciousness is a curse; my constant thoughts the daggers that leave me to limp bleeding through the days. What I wouldn't give to not have to make a decision and then question it for eternity afterwards. What I wouldn't give to not have to sit in a freezing cold box every day, staring at the menace of two glowing screens. What I wouldn't give to not have to keep repeating myself.

my ideals involve observing sleeping raccoons

2010-07-07T11:42:00.001-04:00

One day in Maine, I walked to the edge of the bluff upon which sat the house where we were staying. Straight ahead was the sea. Also straight ahead and slightly to the left was a tall tree about 30 feet away or so. Just below my eye level was a hole in that tree. And in that hole a raccoon was sleeping. After discovering this, I took it upon myself to check on this raccoon every chance I got. Sometimes all I saw was a patch of fur in the hole. Another time I spotted the raccoon about to enter the hole. It paused, looking out at me with a guilty expression, as if it had been caught red-handed. I gradually realized that it was not going to crawl into its hole with me staring at it, and so I discreetly moved away. The final time I saw that raccoon, it was lying on its back in the hole, its head sticking out and tossed back like that of an old man dozing in an overstuffed armchair. Its mouth slightly agape, I could almost hear it softly snoring from where I stood. Not a bad life, I thought.

It's forever a balance, the hours we stare at pixelated images and the hours we don't. I'm always on the run from this monitor, even as I sit in front of it. And I guess this song keeps meaning different things to me, since this is the second time it's come up here.

I can't be held responsible for the things I say
For I am just a vessel in vain
And I can't be held responsible for the things I see
For I am just a vessel in vain

No boat out on no ocean
No name there on no hull
And it's not a strain at all to remember
Those that I've left behind
They're all standing right here beside me now
And most of them with a smile

My ideals have got me on the run
Towards my connection with everyone
My ideals have got me on the run
It's my connection with everyone

Such free reign
For a vessel in vain

maine

2010-07-02T22:33:00.003-04:00

On the outskirts of town, we stop at a used bookstore & antique shop. I pick up a reissue of Black Sun and Em Ell finds me an old Western shirt with snaps down the front. Twenty minutes later as we pull into our place for the week, I hear the first hermit thrushes. That night I crack open the book and read Abbey's words in the first paragraph: "He hears the flutelike song, cool as silver, of a hermit thrush." Fiction mirrors life, every single time. If it's good and true, that is.

Maine's natural beauty, both rugged and fine, bowled me over. I came as a pilgrim, seeking solace from the noisy, angry city streets, and I left a zealot, prepared to spread the gospel. Maybe better to keep it to myself, I thought later, though, don't want to spoil a good thing anymore than it's already been spoiled, which is surprisingly very little, as evidenced by views such as this:

We explored by boat, by foot, by bike, by kayak, and again by foot. I saw and/or heard 62 species of birds (several of them were lifers), a little lower than my expectations, but considering I did very little dedicated birding, not bad by a long shot. We climbed in the mountains, topping out somewhere around 1160 feet. We kayaked with the loons and listened to their haunting song. This particular loon seemed unimpressed with us:

The one day I went out by myself specifically to go birding was cool and rainy. I woke at 6 AM to the sound of steady rain and almost decided not to go. I lay back down in bed, but I just kept thinking about how I am only in this place for one more day. So I went. At my first stop, deep in the park on the western side of the island, I found myself surrounded by ravens scronking their unearthly calls in the trees. I'd hear sounds like churning helicopter blades, and look up to see another raven flapping its wings, off to unknown places. I then found myself slightly off-track due to a confusing turn in the trail. So I returned to the car and drove on twisting gravel roads to the place I was looking for. I'd planned out this excursion using a birding guide to Mount Desert Island. This first place ended up a bust, though. There I was deep in the forest, and all I could find was a robin and some mourning doves. I can find those birds in my backyard any day of the week! But they don't get to see this:

A curious thing about birding that you learn early on is that the most beautiful isolated places in the world are not necessarily the birdiest places. In fact, they are often not very birdy at all. Birders often find themselves hanging around water treatment plants, landfills, parking lots, and disgusting ponds behind shopping centers. Birds don't care what a place looks like, per se, as long as their needs are met. On this particular day in Maine, I was experiencing this phenomenon. It's hard to be upset at a lack of birds, though, when there is so much else to look at, such as this White Admiral butterfly.

I left the forest and headed to the western coast, where I hiked in to some land preserved by the Nature Conservancy. This was a tract of towering white cedars, red spruce, and balsam firs that were untouched by the great fire of 1947. The trail, gnarled with massive tree roots, wound a circuitous route to the beach. When it opened up out of the forest, I found singing warblers, most very high in the trees. Busy woodpeckers worked the lower trunks. A Winter Wren trilled its bubbling song. I only lingered for a little while, though, as I'd already been out for several hours.

Later that day we explored the Wonderland and Ship Harbor trails in the southwestern section of the park. It was quite birdy there, and we saw a bald eagle land off-shore on some exposed rocks where a group of gulls was roosting. The gulls were none too pleased with the eagle and started dive-bombing it. I forgot the camera in the car during these hikes so I don't have any visuals. But here is where we hiked to the very next morning:

After climbing mountains that last day, we returned to home base. I needed to reflect and absorb, as I felt the end of this time nearing and my state of mind already shifting. Near our place, at the bottom of a long cascading series of wooden steps lies a rocky beach. I go there, close my eyes and hear the tide wash in and recede. I open my eyes and see that large smooth stone on the beach as my soul, washed as it has been by the saltwater tonic of this place. I want to distill the salt-laced air, the fragrant pine boughs, the views of aching beauty, the hermit thrush's song--take it all and fill a tiny bottle to carry with me and open to breathe in as needed. But the grains of my recollections will instead likely drift away over time in the stale winds of the day-to-day. Perhaps, though, if I concentrate hard enough, I can keep some of the uniqueness of what I saw cloistered deep within my mind, where nothing from the outside can ever destroy it.

the city boils as we try to sleep

2010-06-22T16:31:00.000-04:00

I was away for a while but now I'm back. I hope to provide a full report and some photos by the end of the week. Stay tuned...

institutionalized

2010-06-03T21:23:00.000-04:00

Due to cat needing vet visits, I spent two days working from home, driving Em El down south for work and picking her up in the evening. I haven't commuted by car in years, so it was quite a shock to my system. Blood pressure rises, teeth gritted, eyes glaze over as you follow the same route over and over. I'm used to seeing the stupid things drivers pull as I ride my bike, but it's totally different when you're driving. It actually bothers me more, probably because I'm already extremely agitated just from the mere fact of being behind the wheel. Anyway, it got me thinking about people who commute the same route for years on end. Every day, a vacant thousand-yard stare fixed on the traffic lights ahead. The rote of it all would kill me in a matter of months.

So after the storms pass, and the dishes are drying in the rack, I step out into the cool air. That old cottonwood out back sings its timeless song with nothing more than leaves in the wind and I am so thirsty to hear it. I want to go to sleep listening to nothing but that. It takes me back to, of all places, Lucy Park and the hidden trails I found that one day, winding alongside the chocolate brown river. After a deep and full night of cottonwood sleep I want to wake up to the high fluted serenades of the thrushes. I want to turn my head to the window and breathe in the meadow breeze as it fills the room. I am so hungry for what feeds me. So desperate in this urban confusion. I keep fitting one leghold trap after another onto these withered limbs.

I can't stop hearing Bill Callahan sing, "My ideals have got me on the run...towards my connection with everyone. My ideals have got me on the run...it's my connection to everyone."

I don't even know anymore what my ideals are, if I even ever had a clear idea. I'm so shifty and drifty, I'm barely able to pin myself down most days. And I'm certainly not running anymore. Treading murky water, perhaps. As for my connections, they are few and far between. Far in miles and farther yet in states of mind.

I don't want to become institutionalized. I really don't. I know that much. Maybe that's an ideal? It's something I'll keep fighting against as long as I have the strength, even if it's with my last few ounces.

the sound of drilling gets me down

2010-05-28T17:19:00.000-04:00

Today they are repaving the street, thus deeming it unfortunate that this is the first Friday in a long long time that I've actually been home all day. Numbered among the factors that kept me at home instead of out romping in the forest and field with the birds were: (1) logistical difficulties, (2) general malaise, and (3) the crash that comes at the end of migration (it's just knowing that there will be far fewer birds out there, while most of the ones that are there are busy with family duties). Even though I didn't go out in the field, I did enjoy a bit of home birding. I was happy to see some robins and mockingbirds gulping down wild cherries from both the tree out front and the weeping cherry out back. And this morning a catbird's constant song made the sounds of road resurfacing much more bearable. Even a house finch stopped by to sit on the power line and sing his cheerful song, as a couple of goldfinches flew by in the background (haven't seen many of them in the neighborhood this spring).

In general, though, I found that I did not enjoy being home all day. I was restless and agitated, and while I did complete a few tasks I had wanted to, for the most part I languished unproductively. I did not write the reviews I planned on writing (that are due in just over a week). I tried but couldn't bring myself to critique other people's work, especially when I have absolutely nothing to show of my own, so really, what right do I have to criticize others when they are at least making an effort? But whatever...it's really neither here nor there what I did with my day.

As promised here are a few photos from last week, the first two of which are from Soldier's Delight Natural Environmental Area.

One of the blue-eyed grasses from Iridaceae, the Iris Family (I did not have my wildflower field guide with me, and the photo doesn't allow for definitive identification of all the necessary field marks, but I think it's either Sisyrinchium angustifolium or atlanticum).

Eastern fence lizard (Sceloporus undulatus):

Finally, from the garden...

being yourself?

2010-05-24T10:46:00.000-04:00

Ralph Waldo Emerson said that being yourself in a world that's constantly trying to make you something else is the greatest accomplishment. It sounds like a hokey kind of quote that's been overused to the point of meaningless...the sort of thing you might hear during a high school graduation speech. But it holds a sharp and poignant truth that many refuse to confront. Last night I sat on the deck and watched the clouds drift into each other. Swifts chittered as they hawked insects above me, intersecting each others' flight paths in and out of my field of vision. The air felt clean from rain and the sky showed off its blue behind clouds stained by the setting sun. It was true beauty, despite the power lines, the roof lines, all the straight and narrowness that makes me restless. I try to be myself as much as I can, and doing that has mostly made me feel eccentric and alienated. But I'm okay with that.

I have a couple of photos to share from my wandering, but my camera's battery is dead at the moment. Migration is slowing, almost halted...I only saw a few migrants last time I went out. Now I plan to focus on finding and getting better looks at some of the local breeders, particularly some of the skulking warblers like Kentucky, Yellow-breasted Chat, and Worm-eating. I'm pretty sure I glimpsed a Kentucky at Soldier's Delight the other day, but he wasn't singing and popped down out of view and refused to show himself again. At SWAP, I heard a chat sing just a few notes before clamming up. I'll be back to seek him out again. As much as I love migration, it's very hectic and for someone still learning all the songs, it can be overwhelming. I'll appreciate some quieter time where I can hone my ear birding skills and hopefully still see a few new birds while I'm at it.

gargling truth serum

2010-05-17T16:52:00.000-04:00

Never swallow, never swallow, but keep that golden truth serum swirling around in your mouth. That way it can become anything you want. A brilliant answer to a dusty question, a missing piece to a bruised and broken puzzle, a misplaced passion found again. Passed by the stairs at the top of this page again a day or so ago. Stairs to the future...stairs to wildness...stairs out of this purgatory. Traveling through the woods with my avian friends...walking the Mason-Dixon trail...coulda kept walking and walking and never stopped. There was no real reason to stop. The birds just kept singing and they just kept moving, and I just kept moving with them, ticking them off as I went. The water was there, too. And the sky. And the trees. The ground below my feet felt good. Everything felt good and right and I felt alive. I felt so good, high on the experience of being where I was and nowhere else at that moment. Something extraordinary seeking to burst out from inside...seeds laid to rest on bare soil and rising toward the warm sun. Rich feeling pervades for mere moments, gulp enough to sustain another few days, few weeks, few months. Don't wanna be the second-guesser anymore...don't want to renege, reinterpret, revisit, re- anything. Just clearing the path, one heavy stone at a time....all we can do, all we know to do.

going to shows?

2010-05-13T22:53:00.000-04:00

I have this thing about going to shows now. I see that a band I like is coming to town and I get excited. But then the night of the show draws closer and my enthusiasm wanes. Maybe it's that I heard their latest stuff and it lacks an edge it used to have. Maybe I try too hard to picture myself there, and fail miserably. Or maybe it's simply that I've been burned too many times before and don't want to waste my time and money again. Leatherface was playing tonight. I found my favorite album of theirs available for download today and bought it. I've been looking for this album for years. It's typically only been found as an expensive import or listed on eBay for a ridiculous sum. While I waited for the songs to download I listened to snippets of songs from the brand new Leatherface album, the one they're touring in support of now. It lacked a spark. The roughness I loved before sounded too polished. It wasn't bad, but I wasn't bowled over, either. Don't get me wrong. I have much respect for Frankie Stubbs. He's a punk icon who rarely got his due. He's smart and hard-working, and DIY to the teeth. His lyrics and music consistently ring true in a genre choked with cookie-cutter copies and commodified horrors. Leatherface is still putting out good music, but maybe it's just not for me anymore. I fully admit to being a flighty fair weather fan of many bands. Maybe that's why I fall in love with bands that put out few albums, and play even fewer shows. I still remember a few years ago seeing Wilderness play at Floristree. That show was transcendental. It was one of those shows where you feel your soul leave your body and float around near the ceiling. I don't often feel that way during shows anymore, nor did I even really ever feel that way. Mostly in the past it was drunken flailing around...a primal reaction. Visceral, yes, but different from that floating at the ceiling feeling. Live music is special; I won't deny that. But these days, it often seems less important to me. I know I can get what I need just by sitting in my room with headphones. I don't have to navigate the outside world, with its coarse unpredictability. It's more personal listening by myself, with no distractions, and as such, takes on that much more meaning.

it's not our fault

2010-05-12T10:51:00.000-04:00

Commentary on the oil spill from former EPA agent Scott West, now director of investigations for Sea Shepherd Conservation Society.

Of course it's not their fault; it's never their fault. They represent the same blameless old, bald, white men that are never at fault for any epic failures at corporate responsibility throughout history.

Urge to seclude myself in the woods risiNG...riSING...RISING!

doing the good work

2010-05-11T16:54:00.001-04:00

last friday

2010-05-04T23:04:00.002-04:00

After a week of sickness, I finally escaped into the woods on Friday. I visited three different local birding hotspots, and was fully rewarded for my efforts. Of course, as migration heats up, I am painfully reminded each time I go out how many more songs I need to learn in order to feel even semi-competent. At home, I listen and listen to songs on the computer and iBird. I also bring iBird with me in the field, and keep one earphone stuck in my ear. I try to match up the songs, but when there are dozens of birds singing, it often feels futile. I know I'm missing out on so many. Ah well, here are some photos from my day. I wish I had a good enough camera to capture some of the amazing views of birds I see while I'm out. Probably the highlights this time were the Prairie Warblers at Soldier's Delight. I went over there expressly for the purpose of finding them, and as soon as I stepped out of the car, I heard them singing. I found one pretty quickly just a few steps in from the road, and watched him singing at eye level for quite some time. Truly a beautiful bird with a very pretty song!

First couple of photos are of Liberty Dam. I found some Spotted Sandpipers feeding on the steps of the spillway, as Northern Rough-winged Swallows flew in and out of one of the drainage holes nearby. The second two photos are microcosmic shots at Soldier's Delight.

infirm

2010-04-26T18:00:00.001-04:00

I picked up some kind of spring bug...it hasn't been that bad so far, but it's got me down. I haven't been sick since early last fall when I had a mild cold. The law of averages finally caught up to me, though. I stayed home from work today, mostly because I can't stand when people go to work when they're sick and spread their germs around for all the rest of us to breathe in.

On Friday I went to Philly to see Screeching Weasel on their reunion tour. They played most of the right songs, and they played them well, but it was all very mechanical. Ben Weasel exhibited asocial behavior during the show, never changing his expression and speaking to the crowd with a level of aloofness I'm not sure I've ever witnessed from a punk rock frontman. I never saw SW back in the day so I don't know if he always acts like that on stage, but having read Ben's columns in MaximumRocknRoll, I always suspected he wouldn't be the type to effectively demonstrate genuine enthusiastic gratitude to his fans. Sure, he thanked us and all, and maybe he was being sincere, but it seemed very cold and calculated. I told my friend afterward that I felt more like I'd just closed a business deal than watched a punk rock show. The Troc is a really nice place, though. I hope to see some more shows there in the future.

On Saturday, I lurked around out in the countryside all day, visiting flea markets and auctions, and liberating abandoned trees and shrubs from a nursery's dumping ground. It was good times with old friends, and long overdue.

Last night I woke up at 3:40 AM and a robin was singing. I knew they started early, but I'd never heard them at that hour before. Interestingly, scientists in the UK published a study that showed urban robins sing later (or earlier) based on the levels of ambient noise they have to compete with during the daytime.

Meanwhile, migration is really heating up. The birding discussion list I subscribe to overflows with reports of returning warblers, while I am sick and/or have to go to work. NOT FAIR! Also, this time of year is rapidly becoming the one rare period where I sometimes actually wish I did own a car. Being city-bound seriously limits my birding options, and the easiest spots to bike to haven't been that great so far this spring. Losing the hour or more necessary to ride somewhere farther away crimps my plans when the most productive time spent in the field is usually in the morning. I'm thinking that maybe next year I'll just take the entire month of May off and go birding every day. That way I won't feel so bad about missing so many bits and pieces of prime time.

40 minutes over

2010-04-21T13:02:00.001-04:00

Even before 11:30, I'm getting antsy. I've been sitting imprisoned for an hour and a half, legs bouncing, hands restless, brain screaming. Nothing to contribute, not much of personal relevance coming across the table to distract me. Just listening to the others talk, and oh, do they love to talk. The scheduled end comes and goes as everyone jockeys to get in the last word. "Well, I just have two points to make regarding what you just said." "Okay, I take your points and raise you three more!" "Actually, I was thinking it would be more like this." "Oh, but what about this issue?" More debate, more talking to hear themselves talk. The temperature rises from all the hot air spewing out around spoken words. Back and forth. Point, counterpoint. I feel my skin tingling, my throat tightening. I literally clamp my teeth shut to avoid screaming. Several times I contemplate getting up and leaving, with nothing more than a mouthed "I have to go" to my boss. Why not? Would anyone really care? Why was I even invited to this? I have zero contributions to make. I should be at my desk, doing arguably more important things. [Of course, on a philosophical level, it's quite difficult to determine what is of actual importance in this case. On a personal level, were I to make a list, there would certainly be very little on it. In fact, I really should be outside looking for warblers.] For 40 more long minutes hope grows and dies over and over in the space of a few seconds as each person dispenses another useless nugget into the mix. My stomach growls as the lunch hour approaches, then begins to pass. Several of us gather our things to leave only to then replace them on the table with an air of resignation as we realize we were fooled yet again. A guy on the phone speaks in a throaty warble...please clear your throat, please clear it, I don't want to hear you struggle to talk through a clot of phlegm. He finally tries to clear it, but the quaver rapidly returns. Inside I kick and yell and curse with abandon. Outside I just look down at my notepad and outline the same words over and over and over until the black ink screams off the page. Finally, the end comes. I can barely speak. I am completely spent with nothing to show. There's another one scheduled in 50 minutes but I will blow it off. There is only so much I can take.

blurred

2010-04-19T22:40:00.000-04:00

I'm tired...allergy season is upon me and it seems like this year it's gonna be particularly rough. I feel like I'm sorta falling apart at the seams and simultaneously sewing them back up. A little stuffing drops out each time. My dreams have broadened, become richer and more verdant, but I still struggle to recall them. This distresses me. I don't think I'm prepared for another summer in the city. It seems different now...the violence more palpable, the callousness in the streets hardened to an impermeable crust. I seek open fields with endless skies and not a building in site. I just keep blundering along, not really knowing what I'm doing at all. I miss writing...it's like an old friend I keep meaning to call up on the phone. It's a challenge for me to prioritize. I shouldn't have to prioritize that. But there's no forcing it, either. I feel like I should know a few more things than I do at this point in my life. Other people's lives fascinate me...do they also doubt themselves on a near-daily basis? Do they also feel like proto-adults? And by proto- I mean primitive. Ah well...another epic zen fail for the day.

spring

2010-04-12T23:21:00.000-04:00

dragon monday breathing down your neck

2010-04-11T23:37:00.001-04:00

Yes, once again it is Sunday night and I am reluctant to bring the weekend to a close. It started out great on Friday with an excellent day of birding at Lake Roland. Many new arrivals were on-site, both summer residents and migrants passing through. I found most of the birds I was hoping to see, with the exception of a Brown Thrasher. The day started out a bit slow but I eventually came upon a mixed flock of Palm Warblers and Yellow-rumped Warblers. It was wonderful to see swallows hawking insects out over the lake again. The crew I spotted included Barn, Tree, and Northern Rough-Winged. Other highlights included a pair of Wood Ducks, three Red-tailed Hawks soaring on a thermal (as well as one being acrobatically harassed by a crow), a high-flying Black Vulture, and the buzzing of many newly returned Blue-gray Gnatcatchers.

Much of the rest of the weekend was spent working in the yard, ripping out the evil multiflora rose and pulling weeds. I have battle scars from the rose bush. Many of the vegetable seeds in our new raised bed have germinated over the past week (photo forthcoming). Today we went to a native plant sale and bought an inkberry bush and two butterfly weed plants. Unfortunately, I found out later that inkberry bushes are dioecious, which means they require a male and female plant in order to produce their berries. Now we must determine what sex the plant is; if it's a female, it will need a male to pollinate it. If there's not one in the neighborhood (probably not likely), then we need to plant a male so the birds can have their berries.

Tomorrow begins a new week of stifling office hell. Hooray. One day I will extinguish the putrid fire of the Monday dragon forever!

minutiae

2010-04-07T14:26:00.000-04:00

I wrote a post last night but it was way too introspective to publicize on here. Seeing as much of what I write here is probably way too introspective, it must have been pretty bad, huh? Yes, yes it was. So what has been going on? Well, I went away for a few days to the beach. Did some birding over there, but nothing extraordinary. The mist on Saturday morning worked against us. Birds were present but it was too foggy to see many of them. Next day was clear, but birds were on the inaccessible side of the pond, and we had no scope. That's on the list to get. On Sunday, I saw my first of year Barn Swallow, flying over the ocean of all places. Best shot of the trip was probably that of an osprey perched in a tree limb leaning out over a pond, clutching a dead fish in its talon. It was a majestic sight, and in my opinion much more impressive than, say, a Bald Eagle holding some scrap it just stole from a Turkey Vulture. Many Pine Warblers were present in the pines (natch) but it was still early for most passerine migrants. A few other warblers are being reported elsewhere in Maryland (Louisiana Waterthrush, Palm, Yellow). In a few weeks things will be in full swing!

We planted the garden last week. The mesclun mix came up yesterday, but nothing else has poked through yet. The sprawling multiflora rose (aka "rambling rose") has been targeted for removal due to its invasive nature. I hope to replace it with a native shrub, probably one with berries that birds like to eat.

It's taking me three days to write this entry...

Updates: some radishes and lettuce up now in the garden. I put out the hummingbird feeder this morning. Crabapple tree out back is in full flower (white), and the cherry tree out front has shed all of its flowers...pink petals now scatter the yard. Weather has been in the low 90s (!) past couple of days. Not good for sleeping.

At work, I sneak away for a few minutes in the afternoon and listen to the house finches sing as I walk around the harbor. One of them has staked out his territory on the Coast Guard vessel and sings his heart out from the very top of the ship each day. This is all I can do to maintain a few tendrils of sanity.

Another cyclist was killed by a car, this time in the county on a road I've ridden often. The usual "road rights" argument rages as a family grieves another senseless death.

I am weary, and my dreams, when I remember them, horrify me.

woodcock-blocked

2010-03-26T16:23:00.000-04:00

Yesterday, the dulcet tones of the resident mockingbird guided me through my morning rituals. Once the eyes and ears have awakened to nature's wonder, they just keep opening wider each day. Even in this broken and struggling city, there are many dazzling natural phenomena to discover. Often they are subtle and may take time to become attuned to, but with a little searching a reward will come. And it will keep paying out over a lifetime.

In that spirit, we set out one night last week to look for American Woodcocks at a local park. I'd yet to lay eyes or ears on this elusive and fascinating bird. A report on a birding discussion list tipped me off to their presence at this particular park, and so it seemed like a good opportunity. During spring months, the male woodcocks come out at dusk in open fields to perform their "sky dance" (as described by Aldo Leopold) in hopes of attracting a mate. We arrived at the park around 7:30 PM and walked down the trail in the fading light. About a quarter mile in, we heard several woodocks making their "peent" calls. Soon we arrived at the power line cut, a broad open area, and found two other birders staked out below the trail at what sounded like the epicenter of the "peenting" activity. We hung around for about ten minutes, until my companion began showing heightened signs of anxiety concerning the rapidly increasing darkness. No flight displays had been observed, but I reluctantly headed back down the trail. As we neared the parking area, we saw a truck with its lights on and a ranger walking around. Two other cars besides ours were present. We reached our car just as the ranger was copying down the license plate number onto a ticket. I approached him and explained that we were looking for woodcocks, thinking that a park ranger would share the enthusiasm of people using the park to observe nature. Instead I was met with a blank stare, followed by a typical verbose string of law enforcement pedantry, whereby arbitrary rules are repeated ad nauseum in the tone and manner with which one usually addresses a disobedient toddler. Yes, officer, I heard you the first of the now six times (and counting!) that you have told me the park closes at sunset. Thank you for pointing out in an incredulous tone that it's now well past that point in time. It's a pity that the woodcock is unwilling to accommodate the draconian time constraints you impose upon well-meaning folks who endeavor to quietly observe this marvel of the natural world. Thankfully, our new friend was kind enough to let us off with a carefully enunciated and frequently repeated warning. Not so lucky were the owners of that Toyota Prius parked next to our car, who were undoubtedly still ravaging naked through the woods when we left, setting random fires and hurling empty whiskey bottles at the local deer.

I know that park rangers are just following orders, and there are perhaps (although in this location doubtfully so) people who shouldn't be allowed in parks after dark. And maybe that's the problem: it would be considered "discriminatory" to ban certain people but allow others, so as a result we all suffer. But if there were no limits on public land, would it all just end up trashed? It's a tough question to answer, because by answering yes we acknowledge that people are essentially programmed to self-destruct, or at least to destroy the planet that sustains their existence. And certainly history has more than hinted at this predisposition. By answering no, on the other hand, we are branded as naive by those who set the rules. It's a conversation that could proceed in a perpetual circle.

All philosophical musings aside, I just want to see the woodcock spiral toward the sky. A simple and innocent enough desire, or so I thought. But I don't want to be harassed by some park cop in the process. Why is that so much to ask?

this slate can never be erased

2010-03-23T22:24:00.000-04:00

Foment angst so there is a thing to describe, not straight nor flat nor dull nor the same as before, but colored instead with the red of madness. Like Dillard says, stalk the gaps. But sometimes there's waiting to be done. Blank days, empty months, they shape themselves into forms you will recognize in time. I can't even pretend to care anymore about the empty words flaking down around me, stuffing my mouth with cotton ideas, my head so ready to explode its vitriol across the table, spreading over your useless papers, seeping through the fabric of your dress pants. My internal voice so hoarse from screaming the vilest curses I can barely think just a word when I finally throw my leg up over the handlebars in defeat and make it all a shrinking dot behind me. I'm hollowed out from the inside, your words carved out whatever mattered and replaced it with a frothy foam devoid of substance. I sit and wait, sit and wait. There may be nothing out there, nothing at all, but I still sense the madness, up in the corners, in the late night hours, triggers ablaze in the dark circles around your eyes. I seize upon it and bite down to suck it dry. I will fill myself back up, every time, no matter how many times you empty me.

yup, sunday night

2010-03-21T22:14:00.001-04:00

Ah, Sunday night...when I linger even longer over ads for jobs that I will never ever bother to apply for. Sunday night, when a certain gray woolen world-weariness descends, tamping out the embers that have sparked to life over three days away from the twelfth circle of Hell.

But to focus on the positive, it was a good weekend...full of birding and time with friends (and even some family). Friday night I enjoyed an excellent dinner here with said friends and family. I spent a lot of time outside, enjoying the amazing weather. Also, gardening materials were gathered today. Soon the raised bed will be constructed and seeds will be planted. On Friday at Lake Roland, I heard my FOY (that's first-of-year for you non-birders) Pine Warbler and Eastern Phoebe. On Saturday at North Point State Park, I saw my FOY Osprey, while barbecuing with friends a few steps away from the Bay. Earlier that day, a friend and I attended naturalist extraordinaire Jim Peters' bird walk at Fort McHenry. The highlights for me were a very cooperative Brown Creeper that literally seemed to be following us around (best looks I've ever gotten at this bird), and a small flock of Fox Sparrows (soon to be headed north!). At the Fort I also saw my FOY Tree Swallows, a welcome sight indeed. So it was definitely an awesome weekend for spotting and hearing a few of the early migrants, as well as for fraternizing with some of my non-feathered friends.

Now I will return to Winesburg, Ohio for a final visit before I move on in my travels, next time to Texasville.

be all end all

2010-03-15T16:44:00.001-04:00

Twin telescreens of death stare unblinking at your bleary listless eyes. Four o'clock on a day of daylight supposedly saved, but actually just an extra hour wasted in a box inside of a box inside of a grimy concrete and asphalt wrapping. An hour saved, an hour squandered. I'm so worn down by the angles, the geometry of what surrounds me, what stares me rigid in the face. I'm tired of the traps, the ones I walk into every day knowing they are there, and knowing they will snare me once again. Day in, day out, I disappoint myself...my raging imagination like a balloon full of nitrous I suck on just enough to keep me standing up (and sitting down). It's a cheap high, and the euphoria of what whets my synapses carries me along, as the concavity of my soul deepens. Further degradation in my psyche occurs, my social development a crumbling stone wall snaking back through the years behind me, each day pounded into smaller pieces, 'til no longer can I see through the cloud of rock dust to even know there's someone on the other side. There's no alarm system triggered, no preventive maintenance performed, no evasive action taken. I am unsupervised....out roaming the barren plains, shuffling and stumbling over minor events while veering away from major catastrophes. I am giddy and lightheaded with a belly full of lead shot. I want to run and never stop. I wrote once that stasis has its merits but even then I knew motion was the skeleton key. When you're limb-locked and dusty, there is no other cure.

spring has come a-knockin'

2010-03-10T20:07:00.001-05:00

Some recent signs:

First butterfly sighting of the year...an Eastern Comma soaking up the sun in the pine barrens area at Lake Roland.

I observed in awe the sheer determination of this sycamore fruit that had poked its roots down through two inches of snow to find the ground below. Damn the snow! I will sink myself into terra firma, for I must grow upwards!

I picked apart another sycamore fruit that was lying nearby (there were many of them). Inside, it looked like this:

Meanwhile, a Song Sparrow sung mightily from the marsh area of the park. He was too far away for a photo, especially with my point-and-click, but the sheer jubilance of his song filled my heart with joy.

This morning, a juvenile Cooper's Hawk eyed the feeder from its perch on the power line out back. Looking for breakfast, but the little birds were too smart. Someone must've tipped them off. The Cooper's was a new yard bird, and hung around long enough for us to have a good long look.

Also, inaugural House Finches appeared at the feeder. A pair of'em. Not sure why we hadn't yet seen this ubiquitous feeder bird. At the old house, they were probably the most abundant bird at the feeders, but until today we hadn't seen a single one here at the new place.

Out front, a Song Sparrow rooted around under the rose bush.

On my bike ride to work: about 200 Canada Geese honking and flying in V formation, headed due north. I saw a similar sized flock yesterday morning. It gives me goosebumps...such a powerful and primal event to witness!

Cardinals sang in almost every block of my ride. And the grackles have grown much more vociferous with their strange electronic sounds. They've also been making daily visits to the feeder. I like to watch them drink from the bird bath because they have to point their beaks straight up in order to swallow. It actually looks quite elegant, especially when the morning sun catches their iridescent feathers just right.

furthest

2010-03-05T00:01:00.000-05:00

I've made it to the end of another of my work weeks. There's something that seems not quite right about this drive to "make it through another week." Shouldn't we be treating every day as an amazing gift, not something to slog our way to the end of? People say, oh, if I can just make it to Friday. Yeah, well, you made it...so what are you going to do now? Get drunk for the next two days? Try to forget your crappy job and live your "real" life for a brief moment? What a sick system we've built for ourselves here. I generally try to spend Fridays in the woods, away from people, but the blizzards and general crappy weather have hampered that often in recent weeks. I guess you could say I'm ready for Spring.

Back when we had our work retreat, during one meal I was eating at the same table as our facilitator. Someone commented on how this one guy had hardly been seen at all outside of the work sessions. Well, the facilitator said, some people are introverts and it's hard for them...they need to be by themselves and recharge. She said that actually she herself was an introvert, and, in fact, that she would probably opt out of the scheduled "social time" after dinner that night (so she could recharge, I suppose). [I wrote more about this night in an earlier entry]. Anyone who knows me is, I'm sure, well aware of my introverted status. Sometimes I feel like I never recharge, though. I often can't spend enough time by myself. But other times it feels unhealthy, and I get to the point of craving companionship. I spend so much time alone that I can drive myself to the breaking point, where I just generally feel crazy and by then it's too late to be around people because I would just feel and act too weird. I often find it much easier to connect to sounds, smells, and textures, than to carry on a conversation with a person. Music is an important interface for me to explore emotions and just generally function in the world. And clearly nature is integral to my life. Even though technology surrounds me and I use it every day, I would always choose the natural world over the manufactured world. Every single time. So...that's where I'm at right now, here nearing the end of this week. We'll see how it goes tomorrow. I'm supposed to go look at the stars tomorrow night. Peering out into the night sky at those celestial bodies so far away. It sounds pretty perfect, actually, and the forecast looks mostly clear.

wind watch

2010-02-26T14:29:00.003-05:00

We are under a Wind Watch. So this morning I watched the wind. It was snowing and the world outside looked like a snow globe shaken by a vicious god. The relentless wind blew the flakes in every direction, hardly ever allowing them to touch the ground. The vent on the skylight rattled, and I found a feather that had blown in through it and landed on the bathroom floor.

I listened to Fahey's "America" and watched the frenetic flakes dance outside the window to the rich, odd twanging of steel strings. The coffee went down smooth, as did Heinrich's ruminations on a winter spent in Maine's woods. There was a certain synchronicity to my morning that doesn't often visit.

I fed the birds and repotted a few plants. I recorded my dreams of the night before. Everything seems to be in order, for the moment.

something was missing

2010-02-22T10:52:00.001-05:00

At the end of the day on Friday, I felt irritable. Typically, a Friday spent engrossed in the woods restores sharpness to eyes dulled by a week in front of a computer in the office. However, this Friday was slightly different in that more time was spent in the car, driving around from place to place, than was spent actually walking in the woods. I know myself pretty well at this point in my life, and every time I get behind the wheel of a car my soul takes a beating. To mix the joy of watching birds in the field with battling moronic drivers on the road, therefore, is a bastardization of everything I hold sacred. This was actually the first time I tried this method of visiting various places across a sprawling geographic area in order to maximize the number and diversity of birds seen. Many people on this birding discussion list I follow use this method at least every weekend, and sometimes most of the entire week. They are not necessarily all twitchers (birders who travel great distances to view rare birds in order to build their lists), but I think many of them are and certainly they exhibit the tendency. I think it's fair to say that people who travel all over the state to fill out their "county lists" may as well be called twitchers, even if the birds they are chasing are not rare, per se.

I always suspected I couldn't be one of these people, but after Friday I now know for sure. I can't stand driving; everything about it is abhorrent to me. Impatient drivers who crawl up your car's ass particularly drive me insane. Just being on a road in a box made of steel kills me. I much prefer to bike to my birding locales. What this means in practical terms is that my list(s) will grow at a much slower rate than if I were a gas-guzzling twitcher. I'll also end up birding most of the time in the same place (my local patch, as it's known in birding parlance). And that's fine with me. Sometimes I get impatient with seeing the same birds over and over, particularly in the winter, but when that happens I need to just stop and remind myself of why I like birding and, more importantly, why I love birds. It's not a competition for me; I just want to observe. It's fun to keep track of what I see, but it's not the ultimate goal. The ultimate goal is to reach that plane of existence, however tenuous and short-lived it must be, where I can untether my soul and let it roam free, as I immerse myself in the natural world around me.

Occasionally I will continue to travel farther, by car, to go birding, but I think I will restrict myself to going to just one place and staying there, instead of driving around to multiple places in one day. And I found on Friday that birding from a car just feels wrong to me, sort of unnatural. Walking down a country road looking for birds is one thing, but driving down it is different. The birds are more easily frightened, for one thing, and so I see less of them (not to mention more significantly disturb their activities), but it's also the principle behind it. I don't use a car to commute to work, so why should I use one for my recreational activities? I felt like a big hypocrite on Friday driving all over creation, when I could've just stayed in one place. Sure, I would've seen less birds, but at least my soul would've remained intact, and I would've ended the day with a more peaceful inner state. I also don't like myself behind the wheel of a car, because I get too easily worked up by other people's asinine behavior on the roads. I'd rather completely remove myself from that equation whenever possible, but especially when I am engaged in an activity that is as free and pure to me as observing nature has become.

signs of spring?

2010-02-21T12:35:00.000-05:00

One day this past week I heard a male cardinal singing from the top of a tree in the alley. That same day, Em El reported seeing a male cardinal feeding seeds from the feeder to a female. Later on, she also saw the female fluttering her wings, as the male retrieved more seed from the feeder. This is a courtship ritual where the female mimics the behavior of a helpless nestling, and the male then feeds her. Northern Cardinals typically begin to breed in March, so these birds have begun courting right on time. Soon they will be looking for a nest site, if they haven't found one already.

I went out Friday and spent the whole day driving around up in northern parts of the county. I spent some time at Prettyboy, where there were tracks in the snow to follow, but the snow depth still prevented easy walking. I had to keep watching where I was stepping, so couldn't accomplish much in the way of intensive birding. This was fine, though, as it wasn't particularly birdy out there. I walked down to the edge of the reservoir, which was partially frozen over. The open water was much too far away for me to tell if any waterfowl were present. I saw and heard mostly titmice and chickadees, although I did find one Brown Creeper working a snag along the trail, which made the trek worthwhile. As I headed back I found a solitary Blue Jay loitering around not far off the trail. Another singing male cardinal rounded out the walk. No one else was present on the trails, and the snowy silence did my soul good. I only wish I'd remembered the camera!

After Prettyboy, I drove around on some back roads, hoping to find a flock of Horned Larks, and possibly a Lapland Longspur or two mixed in with them, but I had no luck. I did see some sparrows along the roadsides, but nothing very exciting. The best bird was a single sprightly Savannah Sparrow, hopping around on top of a snow bank. On the same road, I found an impressive flock of at least 300-400 blackbirds feeding on some exposed patches in an otherwise snow-covered field. I didn't have a scope and couldn't pick out many individual birds, but it looked to be mostly Common Grackles, with a few Red-winged Blackbirds mixed in. I could see there were a few smaller birds, too, but they were too far away for me to identify. The flock also kept rising up and shifting back and forth, which while presenting an arresting visual image, further hampered my attempts to pick through the flock for any interesting individuals. When I reached the end of this road, I spotted a chipmunk poking its head out of a tunnel it had dug through the center of a three-foot high snowbank. It quickly reversed direction once it saw me approaching.

I ended the day at Irvine Nature Center, which was significantly birdier than Prettyboy, in part because of the feeders the staff maintains throughout the woods. Many White-breasted Nuthatches, chickadees, and titmice crowded the feeders. A titmouse even treated me to a cheery song, which made the otherwise very wintry landscape feel less cold for a few moments. Downy and Red-bellied Woodpeckers were present in healthy numbers, as well, but not the Red-headed Woodpecker I had hoped to find. I did not find many sparrows, either, only a few juncos and a single Song Sparrow. After another hour of tromping through snow up past my shins, my boots were soaked through and my feet had grown quite cold, so I called it a day.

I returned home to find water finally surging freely through the rear downspout, and most of the ice melted off of the rain barrel. This warm spell arrived just in the nick of time, as those icicles were looking more menacing with each passing day.

serendipity

2010-02-17T10:42:00.000-05:00

It was quite birdy this morning! Although Larry, Moe, and Curly (the three squirrels) brought along a friend (Shemp, perhaps?) for their now-daily assault on the feeders, there were still a lot of birds waiting around in the crabapple tree and up on the power lines for their turn. Unfortunately, squirrels don't know how to share (even with their own kind), and so there was more squirrel feeding going on than actual bird feeding. Surprisingly, later on a European Starling appeared at the feeder tray while the Mourning Doves were having a go. I think this may be the first time at the new house that I've seen one at the feeders.

The two highlights for the morning, though, didn't happen at the feeder. The first one occurred as I was preparing to leave for work. I took one last look out the kitchen window and my jaw dropped as a Great Blue Heron flew low not far above the roof lines across the alley and then over the house. Perhaps it was heading for Lake Montebello? Although I haven't been over there recently, and it may be frozen over. Not much other open water nearby. But it's always a good sign when my spirit bird appears. And a new yard bird, as well!

The second highlight happened during my morning commute. Today was the first day I biked to work after the double blizzard. As a result, I had to alter some sections of my route due to traffic congestion and ice-covered roads. Inconvenient as it may have been, I was unexpectedly rewarded when I turned onto one road and heard the "kee-aah, kee-aah" of a Red-Shouldered Hawk. It was so loud that I just about fell off my bike! I navigated through some snow onto the side of the road and had some good looks at this noble bird as it surveyed the urban landscape from its perch high up in a tree. I wonder if it was the same one I saw on Sunday, soaring above the neighborhood?

blizzard of oz yields new yard birds

2010-02-11T16:43:00.001-05:00

Well, the dual blizzard effect blew in a few new yard birds to add to my meager list. At one point yesterday, I looked out the window at the feeders (mounted on the deck), and saw a single Song Sparrow in the middle of the feeder tray, flaring its wings and aggressively charging the various members of a rather nonplussed gang of House Sparrows. After a valiant effort to defend its newly discovered cache of sunflower seeds, it flew off into the crabapple tree. A couple of minutes later, a White-throated Sparrow (another new yard bird!) popped into view. The Song Sparrow reappeared shortly afterward and fed undisturbed.

Other blizzard birds at the feeder: Northern Cardinals (both male & female), a pair of American Goldfinches (not seen in the yard since mid-fall), many Mourning Doves, and the local Northern Mockingbird, who has done his very best to micro-manage the whole operation.

Tomorrow I may actually get out to do some real birding. Oh, and this weekend is the Great Backyard Bird Count, so if you feel so inclined, it's really easy to participate and can take up as little as 15 minutes of your time for one, two, or all four days. It's a fun way to help the birds by providing scientists with data on a scale they would never be able to gather on their own.

it snowed...again.

2010-02-07T11:56:00.001-05:00

The bird feeding station prior to snow removal. Even before I got out to clean things up, cardinals, sparrows, and doves were all jockeying for the one section of the feeder not covered by snow.

Not a typical seed eater, this hungry mockingbird made many trips to the feeder while I was clearing off the deck, several times while I was standing only a couple of feet away. He was so close I could see the seed travel down his throat as he swallowed.

The city has a history of never plowing our neighborhood. After the big storm of December, it was weeks before the alley and streets were finally snow-free.

r.i.p. j.d.

2010-01-28T16:54:00.002-05:00

And the giants keep falling.

not really off the wagon

2010-01-26T09:09:00.000-05:00

I've been making music again. It feels really good. I've also finally entered the digital recording age, so I am better prepared to collaborate with a long lost musical soul mate who remains separated from me by a slight, but still significant, geographical divide. However, I have a hard time diverting the creative river inside me to multiple channels. So, the prose writing suffers when the music writing flows. We'll see what happens.

redemption

2010-01-16T15:07:00.000-05:00

Yesterday, I decided to salvage what I could of the day and left the house, observing curiously as the late afternoon blossomed unexpectedly before me. As fate would have it, during its period of disuse, the chain on my other bike (meaning not my commuter bike) had achieved a patina of rust and gunk that prevented it from making a successful circuit around the drive-train. So I crouched next to the back door, generously oiling the links and massaging them back into working order, until one of my neighbors arrived home next door. I hailed her, and we spoke pleasantly at length. When she went inside, my neighbor from the port side hailed me and we engaged in a discussion of a less sprawling, though just as neighborly, nature than the previous one. It is good to be friendly with the neighbors, I thought to myself, and I am lucky to have such affable and considerate ones! With that, I was off on my bike across town to my old birding and exploring haunt where I spent a couple of happy hours tromping through the woods, restoring the waning energy levels of my soul and communing with the natural world. As the sky darkened, then, and I wound my way reluctantly forth from the woods, the sweet ethereal song of the Hermit Thrushes rose surprisingly from the forest floor and carried through the trees, as if to ease me ever so gently back toward the main road, and harsh traffic, to that which I always must return.

random

2010-01-15T12:32:00.004-05:00

Nicest day we've had in weeks and I'm stuck inside waiting for a tardy contractor. As I wait, someone intermittently uses a loud drill next door. Sometimes homeownership sucks. Muggings and robberies are up, in both the neighborhood and the city at large. This depresses me on an epic scale. Drilling next door probably indicates installation of new deadbolts. Bars on windows, steel doors, quadruple locks, where does it end? How safe can you be? Muggers lie in wait looking for opportunities. We really have no control over it. The problem is systemic: the haves and the have nots forever divided. No reconciliation possible. Only solution is to take to the woods. The cities are doomed.

In 1960, John Steinbeck traveled the United States with his dog and wrote a book about his trip. At one point he notes, "I wonder why progress looks so much like destruction." Since then, we have happily continued to destroy all the natural places, with the exception of a select few that are so overrun they project a carnivalesque atmosphere. We have built a society so spread apart that most people see the automobile as the only way to traverse the uncomfortable distances between point A and point B. To not own a car is anathema. You are branded a freak and possibly un-American; at the very least, you are suspect. Similarly, to eschew the consumerist lifestyle that is so red-bloodedly American is also viewed with suspicion. Why wouldn't you want to buy all the latest greatest stuff? You saw it on TV, after all, and it looked totally awesome. And everyone who had that stuff looked really happy. So why wouldn't you want to be happy? Get out there and shop, sucker.

Often I think I was born in the wrong century, perhaps in the wrong country, possibly of the wrong race, and maybe even on the wrong planet altogether.

I just got back from a work retreat that I had been dreading for quite some time. During said retreat, I spent some late night hours carousing with a few coworkers who I hadn't really gotten to know beforehand. I found them to be decent and fun to hang out with, at least in my inebriated state. I'm sure they were surprised by my sudden bout of gregariousness. I'm not a mean drunk, but I can be a saucy one. During the work sessions, I was surprised to sense a tiny flame of enthusiasm ignite somewhere deep below the layers of cynicism within me. But I know better. We can talk grand and eloquent away from the office, but reality is grim. Knowing how long it's taken to get this far (still a sad state of affairs) makes it impossible to expect that even a quarter of our lofty ideas will ever come to fruition within the next three and a half years. And that is not cynicism talking; that's just pragmatism.

The place where we stayed was a Bavarian-styled inn that was the type of place where the Griswold family would've roomed during one of their epically disastrous vacations. My bathroom had a disused-looking bidet in it and a space heater mounted in the wall that smelled like burning dust when turned on. Still, the king-sized four-poster bed was comfortable and the vaguely shabby past-its-heyday look to the entire place was preferable to the sterility of modern hotels. Not a good place to be a vegan, but I got by (barely). I wish I had photos to share, but the camera was left behind.

why, yes, i should've finished painting that wall by now

2010-01-10T11:45:00.000-05:00

When we bought this house I made a list of things to do/fix soon after moving in. I think my idea was to get it all done and then kick back and relax. There were certain things, like painting, that I just knew if we didn't finish before moving in, they might not get done for some time. Well, I was sure right about that. As I sit here at my desk, my eyes wander to the pile of switch face-plates that have yet to screw themselves back into the wall, probably because they are patiently waiting for me to first slap on that final coat of paint. After so many months of living with half-finished projects, you become dangerously ambivalent to their incomplete status. In all fairness, I did complete some things. But there's still a list and I still look at it regularly and sigh. I am quite adept at avoidance, wasting colossal amounts of time daydreaming and mindlessly surfing the Internet. I could blame this on the cold winter, and my desire to hibernate. Really, I could blame it on a lot of external factors. But mostly it's because I just don't feel like doing it. I guess I am a slacker at heart.

early reading

2010-01-03T18:38:00.000-05:00

Yesterday, the leafless trees etched achingly across the blue sky, and where the clarity comes from all of a sudden I do not know. Like the right lens finally passed across the eyes and the details sharpened into focus. Today drinking yerba mate and feeling okay. Working out, flexing muscles, living outside of the mind; indulging the physical senses, where the grit of life grinds against you, polishing the brittle edges of your psyche smooth. Time to cast aside the shell game and dive in the fray. So far, so good.

halting the aversion

2010-01-03T00:23:00.000-05:00

The holidaze has come and gone, a blur of mostly family and some friends, a lot of eating, a touch of music with an old compatriot, some reading and sleeping, and a long, luxurious respite from work. I traveled by train and car, but have been off the bike for far too long now. Worked out at the gym, tried my hand at pedal steel guitar, cooked and ate with some of my favorite people. I received an unexpected gift intended to enhance my birding, which I haven't done in about a month now, besides car birding, and some very meager backyard birding. Christmas Day did unexpectedly bring to the yard jays, cardinals, doves, sparrows, and even a junco or two. We've seen glimpses of a hawk (probable Cooper's) in the trees across the street. Meanwhile, with the close of the old year and the dawn of the new comes the inevitable reflection. I don't make resolutions, but it's hard not to stare ahead at a blank slate of 365 days before you and not scratch around in your head for some ideas of what you want to see rise up from that expanse of time. Personally I know I need to stop treading water and start making headway on the changes I yearn to see in my future. No more averting the eyes. My passivity knows no bounds and the time to corral it is way past due. I need to spend the afternoon, as Annie Dillard says, because I can't take it with me. There is a path that I am supposed to be on and I will claw my way through the brambles to get to it.

thanks, trey!

2009-12-23T09:22:00.002-05:00

something different

2009-12-20T20:15:00.003-05:00

My back hurts:

Epic Baltimore snowstorm shatters existing record for December! We walked through white-out blizzard conditions on Saturday to purchase the second-to-last snow shovel at Rite-Aid. Then came home and played Scrabble and watched movies. We spent much of today digging out. I wish it would snow like this more often; it made me nostalgic for all those childhood snowstorms I lived through (and played in!). Of course, next time let's make it happen during the week, shall we?

3:33

2009-12-16T11:43:00.000-05:00

Wake up uncertain, through blurred eyes reach out, unmask the dread box full of time: 3:33 AM. I am untethering; I feel this, yes, I do. I float above myself all day, drifting, occasionally deleting Russian spam, wondering when this gossamer thread shall fray, then sever, to release me. I remember being young, staring at the ceiling, imagined walking on it, stepping over door frames to enter rooms; it seemed better up there. My thoughts upside down, always, then and now; my records all broken, need to melt them down, re-groove with new sounds and words.

far corners

2009-12-13T14:18:00.000-05:00

In motion, we are immunized against lassitude. Working muscles open the vessels for more oxygen to enter. Don't want to stop, don't want to sit still. When you do, extremities lose their warmth; thoughts dull to a sluggish tempo. But outside, even as the wind wipes the smile from your face, the crows revel in it, swooping and soaring on currents we can't even see. Later you glide on one of those currents in your mind, as the mood pendulum swings in your favor, without the benefit of active motion, but this time with the slow warmth of drink and easy talk. But when all that is over, quicker than you'd like, you still can't stop the mental projectiles shooting off in every crazy direction, moving too fast to follow, all with holes burned through like the strip of caps you carried in your jeans pocket as a kid, one after another spark-cracking under the strike of a rock, as you watched and inhaled the acrid plume of smoke drifting up. Reach up quick to snatch them down with inked lines onto bleached white paper, but they are too elusive, having turned to vapor, damp and transparent like late night fog hanging over an empty field.

routine part ii

2009-12-08T18:35:00.000-05:00

Certainly routine has its place in life. For example, recently an infant stayed at my house for an extended visit, affording me the chance to observe how routines helped both the parents and the infant (unknowingly, perhaps) to manage their life together. Point to ponder: even from an early age, we humans experience life as an ordered structure of events. But when too much of your life feels governed by routine, this can't be a good thing. Take office work, for example. I work in an office setting; however, many of the people in the field in which I work are drawn to it because of the opportunity for travel. They itch to travel, and when they don't get to, they are restless. They seek escape from the office drone lifestyle, so infused is it with the boredom of routine. I personally don't want to travel for work, and I suffer the consequences of asserting that preference. I face the blandness of routine each and every work day, but I don't think that I wish for the complete disappearance of routine from my life. It has helped me in the past and I still see some value in it. In some cases, I even think it keeps me from completely falling apart. But what does everyone else think? I feel like I'm talking in circles. Will anyone de-lurk and weigh in on this issue? I know there are at least a few of you reading this thing.

routine

2009-12-08T12:02:00.000-05:00

Drinking cold coffee and thinking about routine. Do you love or loathe it? I'm conflicted, myself. Stepping outside of routine allows new perspective to flood in, the cracks and gaps full of seeping insights. But without the comfort of familiarity wrapped around us, we are vulnerable. There is exposure to the unknown. There is loss of control. The older I get the more I think about this. Do I want to walk along the boundaries, toeing the lines, free to move across them at any time? Do I want to take those risks that seem less appealing with each passing year? Does being grounded have to shut off the tap to the creative flow, or even merely reduce it to a trickle that barely hydrates a parched mind? Is there a way to squeeze a pulsing ribbon of liquid life down to those potbound roots? Perhaps I have not struggled fiercely enough. Maybe there is a balance that I just have not yet discovered.

if dante had worked here, there would be another circle of hell in the inferno

2009-12-08T09:57:00.001-05:00

Today is meeting day at work. Tuesday is always meeting day. In my lexicon, meeting day is known as the Inferno. We have an all-staff meeting, and then after only a 30-minute reprieve (Purgatorio), my section has its weekly meeting. These section meetings are excruciating and often stretch their weedy tendrils into the lunch hour, so that near the end everyone has been stricken blind by the gnawing hunger in their bellies, and they begin to hallucinate that there are even more items to discuss on the agenda. Nine times out of ten there is absolutely nothing on the agenda that relates directly to my work and so the torture is particularly poignant for me. The boss man spews his oily drivel and we all flop around in it. We drink down his bitter poison and smile through our gag reflexes, even as our insides melt away. Then I go back to my desk and stare hollow-eyed at the computer until the end of the day.

On many of these days, the only moments I truly feel alive are those I spend biking to work. Attention to my surroundings is crucial, as traffic is unpredictable and hazards abound. At work, at my desk, my senses dull to a blunted finish. I sit for hours, an empty husk, with glazed eyes and blank mind. At the end of the day, I struggle to shake it off for the ride home.

Every day they dump new blazing coals upon us, and the greedy flames consume another chunk of our dignity. As the fat sizzles, so do our ideals.

P.S. Someone just told me that the staff meeting has been moved to Thursday. Perhaps there is light at the end of the tunnel after all!

snowy day

2009-12-05T12:59:00.000-05:00

As I stare out the window, fluffy puffs of snow drift purposefully down from the sky. They signal a lazy day, or at least they provide rationalization for such. As the first of the season, they also hammer the final nail in the coffin lid of autumn, and prod me into a grudging admittance that winter is definitely here now. Yesterday morning, I searched in vain again for the Red-headed Woodpeckers at Irvine. It was cold, gray, and quite birdy, with loads of other woodpeckers, sparrows (including several Fox Sparrows), many jays, and the other usual suspects. I also surprised an interesting looking squirrel. It was smaller than an Eastern Gray Squirrel, with a reddish tail and mostly blonde body. Blonde phases of gray squirrels are not uncommon, but I'm not too sure about a red/blonde mix.

Feeling a bit restless now so I think I better venture out of the house. Maybe more later?

expert daydreamer for hire

2009-12-02T09:46:00.001-05:00

Hello, I am a fully licensed and bonded daydreamer. There is no one more qualified than me to stare out a window all day and think fanciful thoughts. My highly active imagination generates a constant flow of grandiose ideas and intricate schemes without a single accompanying thread of motivation to follow through on implementing any of them. Lately, this has become an unwieldy burden while attempting to complete the typically mundane tasks that comprise my current job. Hence, I am seeking alternate employment. If you choose to hire me, I ask only for a desk near a window, preferably with a comfortable chair, perhaps even one that reclines. I propose to sit at that desk from approximately 9 AM to 5 PM, Monday through Thursday (I always take Fridays off for personal time), and gaze thoughtfully out the window as my mind wanders untethered to any one particular task. I take approximately 45 minutes for lunch, and I prefer to be left undisturbed during my working hours. However, often at the end of the day I grow more gregarious and can often be provoked into imparting some of the keen insights and clever theories that have sprung forth from the fertile loam of my grey matter during the previous 8 hours. These bits and pieces of mental flotsam may often have grave relevance to the success of your business, and I will freely expound upon them, provided you do not expect me to do anything beyond that. Salary requirements are available upon request.

from the bottom of the roiling pond

2009-11-30T13:18:00.000-05:00

As I mentioned a couple of posts ago, the previous name of this blog had nothing to do with the content. It was just a nod to a type of wordplay that I enjoy. I think that many disappointed web searchers arrived at the site as a result. The new name is actually an old one, the title of an essay I wrote many years ago. It's about a common thing that happens between people: you bond through shared experience, but as the vaporous passion and overstimulation of youth burn away over the slow dull coals of maturity, you perceive the true tenuous nature of that bond. Either what we need from other people changes as we grow older, or it just takes us awhile to figure out what we needed in the first place. Then again, with human beings it is rarely a matter of one option or another. Sometimes other people simply stop giving us what we need, either consciously or unconsciously. Or we tire of seeking it out from them, realizing we'd sooner squeeze blood from a stone. I suppose that, in the end, it's usually a blurry blend of all of the above. Often when I look around and try to figure out what's going on in the world, it's like I'm peering through a jar of cloudy pond water. I see signs of life and movement, but what it all points toward is beyond me.

sparrow dreams

2009-11-28T14:45:00.000-05:00

Yesterday I decided to go birding this morning at Irvine Nature Center, because there had been reports of Red-headed Woodpeckers seen and heard there recently. I've only seen one once before, and it was only a brief glimpse. Then last night I dreamt that I saw a Fox Sparrow while out birding. The Fox Sparrow is my favorite of the "winter" sparrows in this area, and I hadn't yet seen one this year. So today I was hoping that even if I didn't see a Red-headed Woodpecker, I would at least get a Fox Sparrow as a consolation prize. Well, I did! I found one scratching around up along a ridge. I also kept hearing a Brown Creeper (another favorite) calling shortly afterward, but never could locate it. There were plenty of other woodpeckers about, and many Dark-eyed Juncos. I ran into some other birders who were also out looking for the Red-headed Woodpeckers. We exchanged birding pleasantries, and then I headed back to the parking lot, not completely satisfied, but satisfied enough.

rethreading the needle

2009-11-20T20:30:00.001-05:00

I decided it was time for a change around here. Not just the colors, but the name itself! A misnomer I've been itching to fix. The name never reflected the content, so I vowed to one day rectify that duplicity. Now that day has come! Unfortunately, the few of you who read this thing will now encounter a broken link. Hopefully we'll reconnect at some point.

I'm trying to rediscover my writing voice. I temporarily lost it along the way somewhere. Or rather, I stopped using it as much and it faltered, got rusty, dried up, whatever. But I feel the words welling up again, surging toward my fingertips. And I'm hoping that as they travel through me their flow will act as a salve to the ugly welts that have sprung up in my psyche.

darker ends to days

2009-11-06T17:24:00.004-05:00

Well, I spent much of the week battling illness. It did enable me to catch up on my reading, while also keeping me away from work, which is always a good thing. I felt incredibly restless at times, in between catnaps and long stretches of reading, causing me to marvel again at how elastic a day can seem when there is no set agenda. Time off to myself leads to reflection, of course. I've neglected this blog, my attempts at musical expression, and inevitably a few other things (keeping in touch with people comes to mind). I could make excuses, but they've exhausted their validity by now. I have a house now and that is incredibly awesome. However, I'm deeper in the city and I miss my feathered friends at the window feeder. The overwhelming majority of feeder birds in my backyard now are House Sparrows and Mourning Doves, with only occasional chickadees and cardinals. The age-old seesaw continues to teeter and totter: city versus country, socialite versus hermit. My mind expands but I'm still really just going nowhere. In short, not a whole lot has changed. There's a strange sort of comfort in that. Maybe it's getting older and becoming more comfortable in my own skin. It's like I feel less inclined to explain myself; my funny ways are just part of who I am. And I'm okay with that.

fall into music

2009-10-13T13:49:00.003-04:00

Some autumnal musical selections of late:

The Mercury Program
The Dismemberment Plan
Six Organs of Admittance
Joy Division (of course)
The Cure (of course)
Red Sparowes
Built to Spill
Shipping News
Pavement
Out Hud
Codeine
Ida

I heard a song from the new Sonic Youth album and I really liked it. I haven't bought one of their albums in a long time, but I think I will get this one.

Not much to say these days, just living, living, trying not to brood too much. Fall migration is winding down and I'm starting to think about projects for the winter. Lots of possibilities rattling around up there: planning for spring planting, sorting out the zine collection and shipping it off for donation somewhere, going through old recordings and getting this music collaboration with JF off the ground, finishing the painting projects, writing, writing, writing...yep, plenty to do.

acute

2009-09-29T14:15:00.006-04:00

Autumn advances with staggered steps. Windbreaker for the morning ride. Skies of grey with a sly nip to the air. First bite into a crisp apple, newly arrived at the farmer's market. And that old familiar unnamed feeling, a sense of urgency juxtaposed with futility. Last Friday, I listened to an episode of Radio Lab while returning from a four and a half hour bird walk with some nice folks from the Baltimore Bird Club. One of the stories was about Cotard's Syndrome, a major symptom of which is a very deep sense that you're not completely here, that you might not really exist. I briefly wondered if I had a touch of Cotard's Syndrome...certainly there have been times in the past that I've felt that way. These days my existence feels more grounded, but there are always those few moments here and there when I question reality and my presence within it.

Meanwhile I've succeeded in luring the birds, and not just the thieving squirrels, to my postage stamp yard. The chatter of chickadees fills my insides with warm golden light. How I've missed that sound in my everyday life.

Yup, I reckon it's time to join the gym again.

primeval

2009-09-22T21:36:00.008-04:00

Em El and I took some much-needed vacation time last week. Part of our journey included a return trip (for me) to one of my favorite places in the South: the Congaree National Park. This park protects the largest remaining tract of old-growth bottomland hardwood forest on the continent. The average canopy height of the trees is over 100 feet, with many trees well over 150 feet high, including the National Champion Loblolly Pine, which tops out at 167 feet high and almost 15 feet around. Here I am below in front of one of the Congaree's mighty giants. To put things in perspective a bit, I am about 6 feet 2 inches tall.

On this day, we spent about 6 hours exploring the swamp and it held many wonders for us. Migrating warblers and vireos flitted through the park, often coming quite close, and we frequently heard the wild cry of the Pileated Woodpecker, a bird that is in my mind the perfect ambassador to a place like the Congaree. During our sojourn, we were also lucky enough to spot two Barred Owls. Perhaps the biggest surprise, though, was the small herd of wild boars we startled (the startling was mutual, believe me) as we hiked through one of the more remote areas of the park.

Between the massive trees, the clumps of Spanish moss hanging everywhere, and the overwhelming primal feel of the place, I felt like we'd traveled back in time, and I couldn't help wondering what it must've been like before our ancestors tore through here like a pack of Tasmanian devils, chopping down trees and draining swamps like there was an endless supply of both.

All I can say is I am so glad that the National Park Service exists. It is arguable that it was too little too late, and that in the grand scheme of things, the NPS protects a mere shred of the natural beauty that once adorned this country. But if it weren't for places like the Congaree, it would be so much harder to drive through the South today and see how suburban sprawl eats up more and more land. I think of my trip to the Congaree like a pilgrimage. I return to the city renewed inside, for a little while at least.

still here

2009-08-02T11:03:00.003-04:00

I am still alive. Hard to believe it's been almost a month since last post. But in that time I have been consumed with the home buying process, moving, and all the associated time-sucking activities. I figure it will be a few more weeks before I am back to semi-regular ruminations. Hope you all are well.

corroded contact points

2009-07-06T10:20:00.004-04:00

Sometimes we disappoint ourselves, in either the short or the long term. Sometimes both. Not much has left my head lately and traveled to the page. Other life things have taken precedence. Which is fine, but I'm getting anxious for them to be resolved. As refuge, I've taken to the woods when spare time presents itself. Many of the birds have finished breeding already, and fledglings are out and about: rambunctious teenage woodpeckers, even tinier than usual chickadees, not-as-wary young catbirds. A couple of weeks ago I saw a female Wood Duck with 12 fuzzy little ducklings following her en masse. At the same time and place, I saw two adult Bald Eagles. These birds are truly majestic, so much so that perhaps our country doesn't always live up to the pure ideals that they have come to represent.

Meanwhile, change looms ahead and I suppose when the transition completes, I will remain the same. But perhaps not. Certainly the opportunity to learn new things will follow. Certainly the chance to reorder and rearrange my life will dangle in front of me once again. And armed with a little steel wool, I can clean the corrosion off of these contact points in my head. Perhaps then the clarity I seek will reach its target.

romance in the woods

2009-06-16T11:00:00.005-04:00

Love was in the air during my weekly Friday birding expedition. I followed a pair of Carolina Chickadees for a while; the female fluttered her wings as the male fed her treats gleaned from the surrounding branches. Not far from them, a pair of Northern Cardinals were engaged in the same courtship ritual. And all around, male birds were singing their hearts out, proclaiming "Mine, mine" on their individual territories. Eastern Towhees were particularly present and loud that morning. A Veery sang down by the water in the same spot where I found one a few weeks earlier. I love the Veery's song! Wood Thrush, too. We are lucky to have some in the woods behind our house this summer. Overhead, crows harassed a juvenile hawk (Sharp-shinned or Cooper's, I think, without good enough looks to confirm either way), chasing it from tree to tree for quite some time. Several deer crossed the road about 50 feet ahead, completely oblivious to my presence. Tiny Eastern American Toads hopped here and there all over the trails. I heard more birds than I saw. It's getting harder to find the birds now, but I try to think of it as more of a challenge and work on my ear birding.

Last night, when I returned from a walk Em said the birds were raising a ruckus outside and she thought there might be an owl around. When we went out a few minutes later to run an errand, sure enough we saw a Barred Owl up in a tree behind the parking lot! It stared us down with its spooky black eyes for a few seconds before flying off. Owls are so awesome!

Scissor-tailed Flycatcher

2009-06-08T20:51:00.008-04:00

A couple of weeks ago, a sighting at Eastern Neck NWR over on the Eastern Shore caused a bit of a stir on the MDOsprey birding discussion list. The bird was a Scissor-tailed Flycatcher, a rarity in much of the United States, with the exception of a very few states where it breeds in the summer. People were driving over to Eastern Neck from all over the state to see this bird, and frantic messages kept appearing on the list asking for updates on when the bird was last seen. Not being one to drop everything and drive many miles for a rare bird sighting, I enjoyed the excitement vicariously through the list and didn't think much more about it after the uproar finally settled down. Fast forward to this past Saturday when I was down in rural north Texas at Em Ell's mom's family reunion. I'm sitting there chowing down on some vegan "chicken" salad under a tent in the 90+ degree heat, when I look out over the grass and see a Scissor-tailed Flycatcher doing a rendition of its "sky dance"!!! As soon as is politely possible, I sneak over for some closer looks. Unfortunately I did not have my bins so had to make do with the naked eye. There was a pair of them perched on the barbed wire fence, taking turns shooting up into the breeze to scarf down some bugs. I suspect they were a male and female, based on the sky dance routine, but can't say for sure. One of the photos shows what looks to me to be a male on the fence (based on the longer tail, as compared with photos of females). I took some lame photos with my not-made-for-photographing-birds camera. If you click on them and enlarge, you can see the birds a little better. I hadn't checked the bird's range when I saw the posts on MDOsprey, but as it turns out, this flycatcher is a yard bird in Texas, as well as in Oklahoma to the north, where it is the state bird. The bird also breeds in a few other bordering states. To me, this is one of the coolest things about birding. In one state a bird can be a total rarity, and yet fairly common in another state. This makes even casual birding while traveling often an exciting time!

abandoned umbrellas

2009-05-26T11:42:00.002-04:00

A common rainy day sight in the city is the abandoned umbrella. I find this practice of flagrantly abandoning umbrellas at their point of failure to be extraordinarily odd. Countless times have I seen these cast-offs downtown, their broken metal frames splayed obscenely on the sidewalk, or folded and perched forlornly on some faceless building's window ledge. Their bright hopeful colors belie the tragic loss of function in their mechanisms. Certainly I sympathize with the frustration that suddenly vulnerable pedestrians feel when they are faced with the prospect of getting wet. I have been there myself. But a broken umbrella is a large piece of waste to simply toss aside in the street. Fast food wrappers I can sort of (painfully) understand. However, the step up to throwing an umbrella on the ground is one that my brain can't seem to navigate. If I were to follow this logic, it seems like the sky would be the limit as to what is deemed "acceptable" as litter. However, I might just not be properly connecting the lines between umbrellas and what else I have found abandoned on the street. For example, during one recent 6-mile bike ride back from an early morning birding expedition, I counted no less than 5 pairs of women's underwear lying in the road, quite evenly spaced between the park and my house. I felt like I was traveling along some sordid trail at the end of which I had no idea what I might find. I have also seen plenty of shoes, pairs or singles, littering the streets, as well as a surprisingly diverse collection of other clothing items. I always imagine the scenarios that might lead to a particular item ending up there. But maybe I'm over-thinking it and the answer is simple. Perhaps there is a certain fraction of the population for whom disposing of used and unneeded accessories in the street is a commonplace activity. I guess that after giving it some focused thought, it really wouldn't surprise me.

indirection

2009-05-18T20:31:00.002-04:00

Watched them build it block by block, a jail for accessories to the crime of vehicular manslaughter, both direct and indirect. Each week the view diminished, the city slowly disappearing behind a monstrous swath of grey concrete. Can’t think of a structure much more obscene, holding cells for what makes us get there faster. And where did that urge even come from? Everyone who’s anyone knowing the journey is what matters.

Time moves on and I look around to see everyone waiting, wondering if the next step is up or down. She guesses that there’s something more. But it’s the finding it that tricks us all. I have laid down my arms before many a battle, and for that have left with scars in places I only know.

At the end of one such battle, I stood in a wedge of life amongst a wider field of death. There I watched new lives in the midst of discovery. We marveled at each other and I in my disbelief grew soft and still. For despite the asphalt jaws slavering and gnashing around it, this place provided a haven for what I love. Facing everyday that which I did not ask for, that which has been cast upon me, that which was fashioned before me, my throat grows tight and I want to flee. But instead I sit and trace, unsteady, around the blurry borders of my muddled thoughts.

I struggle to crane my neck and stretch myself out, out, just far enough out beyond the band of thieves on my heels. I try to head for the open places, away from the corners, away from the blacktop. I try, but I don’t always succeed.

When I finally step out into the yellow light, I pause on the bridge and hear the kingfisher rattle. I wait and watch for my reward. He shoots up and out then, a sleek bullet streaking across the tracks and back down under the bridge on the other side, his wild cries splintering the air around me.

at the fort

2009-05-14T11:12:00.004-04:00

we walked along the edges of the marsh, picking our way through what the dirty harbor water washes up of the hideous effluvia of humanity, anything that might float, the plastic outcasts of society. i tried not to look down, to keep my heart from breaking again, to stifle the bile rising in my throat. we were there to look for birds, and we found some. swallows, sparrows, robins, gulls, herons, ospreys, orioles, a few warblers. it was another wednesday night walk at the fort. drier this time, but windier. birds wisely seek shelter from the wind and the constant rustling of leaves makes the trees look alive with bird activity, even when they are not. conditions were thus less than ideal. still, a good time was had.

tomorrow i'm going somewhere new and different to look for birds. i continue to wring this month dry while it lasts.

migration

2009-05-02T20:08:00.003-04:00

Spring migration has been keeping me pretty busy. Up early before work for an hour of birding here and there, then back out in the evening if I'm not too worn out. On the weekends, trying for more extended trips, like last Sunday's all-day adventure at Blackwater NWR. So many Bald Eagles!! Yesterday had a banner day at a new local spot I'd heard such great things about. It did not disappoint. And the rain could not dampen my jubilant spirits. A definite highlight was the Summer Tanager. A stunning bird, for certain. When not birding, I've been probing current disillusionment with my day job. Also reading Proust. And Joseph Campbell. They complement each other nicely, actually. Listening to a lot of Bill Callahan, aka Smog. Generally enjoying the spring weather and spending as little time inside as is required by my unfortunate need to exchange time for paper that has value and can be traded for things such as shelter and food...I think you've heard this all before.