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FEBRUARY 2007
02.28.07 - 09:07PM MST >>
deep thoughts, by misteradiant
i stutter dream i step inside the place i've never wanted to be but i must. i must work the dead-end job for forty grand and pray for her success, for her to be back in school. i pray for her to make the right decisions, for her to release the memes of the past of sex work and struggle. they've never mattered to much, but the dream of a master's is still within her reach. i don't want anything until we pay her school off. i don't care if we have little in the way of furniture. i don't care if we eat the same foods over and over and if we don't go out much. like once in six weeks. we've done it before, but it was because of struggle just to survive. i've been happy at home with her night after night.
but it won't be that way any longer. even if we are poor, we can spend time with my father at his home. there will be sunday afternoon football games and thursday nights of basketball. there will be good food and beer and wine and laughter. there will be love that really matters.
it's amazing what i have done. i am a lucky man. if i work this lame job and take care of bills, indigo will have time to go to school and may only work part-time. her efforts will be spent on learning and obtaining her degrees. she needs to be a professor. i will be a writer then. then, when she is in the career of her dreams. that's how it will go. i will likely have to struggle away over a third of my life for years in working in ways that won't immediately grow my art. it will be a struggle to pay for her to get her dreams first but that is what love is. i will get mine, but the path that lies before us may mean it is with peace inside, without any fame.
i will know something about love, and so will she, if what i have done sees her through to the things she says she most honestly wants to be, a professor in a university.
what i have done is embrace my father. he really needed it and so did i. i dream so much of what it really means. it might not be so many years of me working unhappily. i may find a way by the help of my father to work and be happy.
writing is not work. it is too much fun. it is what i want to be on that future day where indigo goes to the university and i sit in a room filled with windows and books and art and a desk and a chair and a typewriter.
i pray she will make the right decisions and that she will be in school. i pray i will find a job that won't make me cry for the first three weeks. i pray that her daughter is challenged in school and she gets great grades. i pray to find a way to honor my father and the things he has built around him that are beautiful and wholly unique. i pray that indigo and i will finally marry on halloween in new orleans. i pray every day, sometimes more open than others, in the shower, before bed, on the motorcycle ride to work nine miles down 7th street. i pray to be happy at work, with indigo in school. i want that soon. i pray that it is good and that god and the heavens and all that surrounds me might see and agree and pronounce it worthy of having it. i pray to be able to give it to julienne and that her children will remember my father with love in their hearts and a tradition of remembrance on their minds. i want him to be remembered. i pray that my father will be remembered.
i have too many things to cry about. my job should not be one of them.
i am betting my dreams and the love of my father on the woman i love.
i don't know if people often do that for each other. i don't know if people know what love is. love is a great sacrifice. for those that give up things to love, it is because they know that love is the best thing to have. things can be anything. a rare screenprint, a car, a fantasy of who you could be. we dream all the time of being other people. you do. you might look the same or you might not. you might have more money, or recognition, or a different job or car or husband or home. but we all work to be something new. how many people who live actually achieve all of their dreams?
my father might be one of them.
i am lucky. he loves me. i've gone off and been a crazy motherfucker of pierced steel and permanent ink in my skin. i've been he who rides a motorcycle, shaves his head, drinks mad dog wine with mountain dew and tabasco and writes poetry high upon it, chain smoking. now i can receive a little from the man who has achieved most of his dreams. maybe i am one of them. maybe julienne is one of them. maybe indigo and julienne and me together is one of them. he is really happy. he hugged me tonight and simply said so. he hoped i felt good, too. i do. i can't wait for the girls to come here.
indigo is concerned that dad and his wonderful wife think they have to buy the punk kid's love. i let her know that it is nothing huge to them. they have more money, so they spend more money. they want for nothing. their cup spills over. all we have to do is be gracious and remember what it was like to be poor and teach her daughter to respect it.
i pray that the punk kid will love my dad. i believe she will. i want my dad to have what he never had with sarah through julienne. he needs it. he will receive so much from her that things like clothes and bedroom sets he bestows upon her will be nothing compared to the joy they will share together and the healing in his heart. dad will live to be a hundred and i'll be happy. i think indigo and her daughter are magical and they're lucky, too. they will heal dad as they heal a little in themselves.
i am sometimes sorry that it took me so long. i could have done this years ago, when i knew indigo and i would be together forever. i am in love with the thing that can heal my father's greatest hurt. i pray that the punk kid's children will remember how their mommy helped an old man get over the sadness of his dead daughter, which for decades wrought more sadness in the relationship with his son. i pray that they will remember the old man with love for when they visited him and received his gifts. i pray i can keep this job long enough to see all these things come true. i won't have to have it for ten years, or five, but two? maybe. something better will come along by then. then the glorious future of ten years and twenty are laid out before me with love and acceptance. i will see the wealth of my dad be spread out among many who love him. i will find a way to even help my mother some day.
i am better than this job, but in this test i must prevail.
i have the promise of wealth and the gift of love. what i have i share with my parents. my mother loves julienne. julienne loves my mom. i hope that they can see each other again soon. julienne will love my kooky father. he's gonna love her.
love will make the job worthwhile.
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02.25.07 - 03:33PM MST >>
mass insanity
motherfucker and dreams. they go together like i was never here. remember that, when you thought i meant to hurt you, ever. i know, little girl. i know the difference between the dreams of a madman with a good heart with cliché and a drumbeat and honesty. it's different when you read it this way. the motion, the rhythm and credit card sixteen. they need more minutes.
you need more minutes. you are a professional with a rebel past that sets trends and became a disposable phone. if you're thinking for an instant that impressions of time and space wish they didn't know, you might be mistaken. they are sick of repeating the past. if you're thinking that the lives of my children are not my tears for what i must give to them, you might be right. you might prove anything with any fact and still be wrong. it's true. it makes me sad, sometimes.
there is music that hums in my memory singing dreams and motherfuckers, yes sir with a heartbreak and a community like katrina and new orleans. something will tie you to them, scattered as you are. scattered as you read of the past and the vision of jesus appears. or mohammad or names you cannot pronounce. because they said so.
i wake to a day where i cry before work. what i have done and what i must sacrifice that those who have done it before me might be respected and praised. these themes in a novel, drug out with pomp, circumstance and dialogue. action! i'll act for ya. i'll be alone or i'll be in love. i'll be anything to be in love.
pay attention and crave anal retention for the moments you're angry because the procedure was created by a series of repeated mistakes. it's not like she doesn't know, a child thinks. they might not know, but they will suspect. being the suspect of your parents or friends is a pretty bad thing.
with dialogue.
people are speaking. they are sitting at a round table under a fan under the ceiling of a balcony. they are talking about computer codes and they convinced her with laughter and nodding agreement.
it's a never ending story. it's a song.
shivering in the winter in phoenix is still being cold, anywhere.
i hope to dream of more songs. to dream of that rhythm when i sleep and it's good. of the days of trying and loving and still only managing two out of three. i must love and must dream and remember the work one must do to accomplish anything. praying, i kneel in the shower and speak to god. only god knows what i say because i never repeat it. not anymore.
it's an impossible dream to live without sacrifice. some are not as aware of theirs as the rest are of their own. like a chilling stop in a movie with kids not wearing seatbelts. a meme of my past.
i see the news bump that drives you to them with stories that might most terrorize us. for fear we must know. but it never killed you yet, nor anybody you touch with your still-living fingers and toes. and that's most people, you know.
you can't trust your old friend when he comes calling for the promise because people always save it for when it's a lie. the television shows paid for by ads for things you don't possess and probably never will. i am not a marxist, i'm only telling you as i see it. you don't have to agree. what i work for in this world is a way to have three out of three. have love. have god. have the one thing of which i most dream.
i love you, indigo. i love you.
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02.19.07 - in the 9:00 hour PM MST >>
a killer poem
drink a thousand beers motherfucker
seek the truth through misery
the focus wanes fuzzy small words on a box with numbers
i dream of ghosts that haunt and wish me harm
i wake to them
i wake to a nightmare this morning
the quiet kind where the scream never comes
just the shudder and fear
lets fuck for money
spam sushi in a little girl's tummy
email letter for a virus plague that saved the world
the ocean and the great sea are two different things
moving seeking feeling the earth fight the sky for supremacy
rock and rain
repeating
drink a thousand beers motherfucker
drink ten thousand beers
drink until you don't care
drink the dreams away for the love of death that seeks you
sister in a truck
motorcycle wreck
gunshot click
hurricane wind what's next?
i resist the smiley face
my eyes cry for love and trust
i give up the killer poet
poor whore because of me to see her smiles and hear her frustrated words
what she did to see me write
to know her wish be the one thing come true
to pray and receive yes
i must remember her when i am alone
in a corner at the job for nothing but money
not food for the soul
peanut butter
twelve grain bread
gathering praying tears that what i hate will be her dreams come true
the hero journey dream she wakes from hers
to find me hold her close no words
but tears that feed the flower
i will one day rest upon
in the sun
in love
with her
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02.16.07 - 07:39PM MST >>
of brothers and boobies
going out with my brother tonight. on the phone earlier, it was the first time we've spoken in over ten years. i'm taking him to a strip club. great thing about being in love with a former dancer, she knows it's the perfect thing for us to do and wants us to have a great time.
"just don't let her get any body fluid on you."
"what, we aren't going to a nudie club!"
"i prefer that you do. i don't have big tits and at a nude club you're not thinking that."
"please. i'm in love with you and you know it. tits, ass and pussy are just for show tonight."
"okay, lover, i know. i want you to have a good time. just imagine she's a girl we're taking home later."
"no problem, baby."
life is hard. then you talk dirty.
so my brother and i are going out for the first time in over a decade. i am pretty excited. we have a lot of shit we could rehash but i don't wish to. i want to live for these moments and let the past be gone. i could blame him for busting up our band. after only three shows, we were getting some great gigs and we even opened for a national act (name withheld because i'm feeling like a poseur)... after three gigs. we were good. but i am now too old to break into rock stardom. i don't have a personal trainer so i can look like i did when i was 25. instead i am drinking scotch and thinking of how mellow i am when i drive.
people are so angry behind the wheel. that is the last place where i want to get mad. risk of death or dismemberment: high. at home, it's better. well, maybe not. then people you love take the frustration instead of some dickweed driving a lexus.
i was driving a lexus today. i took dad's suv to work. i wouldn't take his convertible. when i was fifteen years younger, i would. not any more.
tonight i am taking my little brother to a strip club. he needs it. i'm excited. yay.
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02.14.07 - 08:01PM MST >>
update from the sonoran desert
drinking a glass of merlot in the wine room that is now my office. my father's home has hundreds of thousands of dollars worth of art in painting and sculpture in oil and bronze, mixed media and glass. pieces worth 50 grand each. i've described my father's home before here, but i took my archive down to turn the best into a book. the rest won't come back.
the front door opens to view the main room, which is about fifty feet long by 35 feet wide. the ceiling above is 27 feet high and it slopes down to nine feet to a bank of french doors and windows up to 15 feet high with wooden shutters that are always open and look out over the pool and yard of palm and orange trees. catclaw vines cover the pillars the support the balcony. the jacuzzi is raised on redwood under palm trees. an orange tree has a dozen incredible bird houses hanging from it's branches. the sky is blue and the clouds are fluffy white. i sit out there in the morning and read the paper with a cup of coffee.
inside, the carpet is beige berber with dark red mexican tile in the bar and kitchen. upstairs is the master suite, bigger than most apartments, with a full weight set, a sauna, a walk in closet 20 feet deep and a custom tub made entirely of tile. i'd guess it is about 1500 square feet up the swooping stairs that encompass the master bedroom and guest room. between them is twenty feet of a balcony over the front door. wall to wall is a custom stained glass window in modern shapes.
there is a 12-foot glass obelisk that looks like universes and star clusters all over it. there is art by dali and a crazy man from the desert named james rome. there are sculptures in wood and bronze from bali and arizona. oil paintings of beautiful women and flowers.
it is a great place for me to get my life in good order.
i am very thankful for my dad. he has missed me. he is looking forward to meeting the littlest one. he loves the mate of my soul, indigo. his wife of eight years is a great woman. she has mellowed him and helped him and been strong when he needed one to believe and have patience. i bought her a dozen roses today for valentine's and told her i was glad she was with my dad.
a thunderstorm has developed. the temperature has dropped a few degrees. i have always loved arizona thunderstorms. it is good to be back. i gathered some wood from around back and we started a fire in the fireplace. dad is making stir fry for dinner. the suns will be on tv in an hour and a half.
he is taking indigo, the littlest one and i to the suns game on march 12th. four seats six rows up. it will be an incredible experience for the punk kid. they may take her to the boat in san diego. dad has a 60-foot yacht that he visits twice a month for a few days. she'll go deep-sea fishing. she'll see dolphins. what she will be able to accomplish is greatly enhanced now. i feel like crying. she deserves it. the girls i love deserve this. we have struggled in poverty with rotting teeth and angry rants, hurricane winds and loss, month after month of struggle for nothing until now.
now i am in phoenix living with my dad. i start a job tomorrow.
they manufacture and sell high-end weights, rolling papers, and head shop smokable stuff. my labret piercing and tattoos are not freaky. i can be myself and kick ass as a professional designer for them. i am looking forward to it.
so that is it, folks. phoenix in the sun and thunder. misteradiant is where he was born. living in the inheritance of what was once lost to mistakes. forgiveness has gone both ways.
the thunderstorm is over. the rain has stopped. i am thankful to be back in phoenix.
+ + +
02.14.07 - 05:02PM MST >>
valentine poem for the woman i love
this day for love shines poolside reflections of cigarette ash memory warm coffee and gentle kisses
the clouds change for the dream of tomorrow
when god and lust and forgiveness falls
the rain looks like diamonds in the sun
splashing wisdom about me
they speak of how i love you
how i miss you
how i fill you
how i pray for you
and how i work
this day looks like any other day
but it's different
to pierce my soul and heart and glimmer in the light
dripping red and pink all over
gathering life
we are one on most days
and apart on the rest
by time zones and moving trucks and desert birds singing thinking what we would do for the other
following falling beautiful tears of how we cry
wings of love and dreams that felt important when i wake
when i remember your promises
soulmate understanding gathers the water of rain and tears that make my coffee
you smile perfectly
knowing how i believe in you
it's your turn to come
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02.07.07 - 10:02PM MST >>
getting the message
the five steeples call me
misplaced desert mountains appear
forget what you were looking at before
orange blossom springtime memory
create this again with me she thinks
create your beautiful dreams
i enter the cavern of the past
turn around and see the sun
it will be there when i finish
scattered thoughts trying for one thing
absent paychecks in the ether
wrong address incompetence
breaking story fear for sale
if you watch this cartoon
and all my time
and all the commercials
and all the things i need to buy for my family
what they need
that they may need no more
and only want.
like five steeples crying christ
upon a desert mountain
please just love me as i love you
hanging by a nail he must have felt betrayed by god.
i drive west again after moving east for years
the western american desert calls me
it keeps doing that
and five steeples in new orleans can't stop me
my window will have a new view
and i will let god inspire me through the barren landscape
somehow
caring for millions with palm trees and water from far away
like jesus crying for the storm's ruin
that he might save us all
from his church
his dream belted from the top of a desert mountain
seek god in everything
and love.
the five steeples call me
misplaced desert mountains appear
forget what you were looking at before
orange blossom springtime memory
create this again with me she thinks
create your beautiful dreams
i enter the cavern of the past
turn around and see the sun
it will be there when i finish
scattered thoughts trying for one thing
absent paychecks in the ether
wrong address incompetence
breaking story fear for sale
if you watch this cartoon
and all my time
and all the commercials
and all the things i need to buy for my family
what they need
that they may need no more
and only want
like five steeples crying christ
upon a desert mountain
please just love me as i love you
hanging by a nail he must have felt betrayed by god
i drive west again after moving east for years
the western american desert calls me
it keeps doing that
and five steeples in new orleans can't stop me
my window will have a new view
and i will let god inspire me through the barren landscape
somehow
caring for millions with palm trees and water from far away
like jesus crying for the storm's ruin
that he might save us all
from his church
his dream belted from the top of a desert mountain
seek god in everything
and love.
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02.07.07 - 04:28PM MST >>
happy birthday steve nash
now we've done it. there is a 14-foot uhaul truck in my driveway. in it is my motorbike, strapped down nicely, and what few belongings my little family has. i still have a few things in my room to load into the truck such as my desk, tv, clothes, toiletries, vargas print and futon bed. all that will be packed up and loaded into the truck tomorrow morning. then indigo and i are driving to el paso, where we will spend the night. we will arrive in phoenix friday evening.
this is the biggest thing that has happened to us since katrina. we are driving 1000 miles farther away from new orleans, but she is not ready for us. my father is flying indigo back to austin on monday. she and her daughter will stay until the littlest one's spring break in mid-march. all i have to do is find a job before then. dad will find us a place to live and pay the rent for a few months so we can get safely settled and have the things we need to have a home. then we will all live in phoenix where we have family and the support we've needed since before the city we lived in was ruined by a hurricane.
i don't know what else to say. i want to smoke and drink and let out some beautiful thing, but it isn't coming. my mind is set on the work to come and my thoughts are centered on a great unknown before me. how well will my dad and i continue to communicate? i hope we continue to do at least as well as we have been for the past three weeks. that will make all the difference. he is trying to hook me up with design work. he wants me to succeed. the thinks i am a good designer. i wonder what he thinks of my writing. but my writing is not what matters right now. design is what will make money for my family. who knows, maybe there is a job with one of the many motorcycle companies in the area that will pay me enough so that indigo does not have to work full-time and she can go back to school. that is why there is no poetry right now.
right now everything is about indigo in school. like she was when i met her. when she had everything she needed but me. i did not mean to take away anything, and certainly not her school. but that is how it's been since ten months after she met me. it's been two and a half years since she was in school. it is time to change that. may that happen for her with me in phoenix.
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02.06.07 - 02:38PM MST >>
another poem
start something with a flashlight and the last five beers
slant fifteen years
they're all you're gonna get now
now comes the dry times
now comes the work
now comes the commitment to others
and not just to yourself
now comes the dream you profess as yours
the dream of someone you love
their dream first
walking through the desert
riding freebreeze
cocked knees
in hot skies pouring down sun
poring over strong words in a drink with ice
the motorcycle engine purrs
i will work to be home with the best people in the world
the girls i love and who love me
like that night simply watching tv and talking and laughing
it made me cry to tell her about it
the best moment of my life
yes
like that
with peace and stability
with dirty deeds done for lust
with whispered jokes to still be a dad and her mom
telling stories of the past
learning about the future
like a song everybody cries for
because they wish for it too
moving to the desert
drinking beer
thinking about a flashlight metaphor for love
i can walk through thirsty lands
praying the anger to dry up
betting my father can help me with that
i hope to be wise when i am his age
i pray to learn right now about humility and strength
honesty and triumph
love and inheritance
work and blessings
that my anger will pass away forever
what have i got to be mad about
i love and am loved in return
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02.05.07 - 07:07PM MST >>
poem
the sun is shining in my face
bright promise of the world around me
angry thoughts from stolen ideas from liars protesting innocence
she may doubt me
but i am what i am
popeye ate spinach
i get mad at what this world has become
and computer gliches
and greed and billboards blocking the sun from my face as i walk the earth seeking knowledge
seeking love
seeking understanding between father and son
seeking dreams come true
seeking wisdom and god
seeking life after death
and a fantasy where the best is real
the sun is shining on my face
it feels nice
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02.04.07 - 02:43PM MST >>
letter to a friend
your letter put a really huge smile on my face. thanks, man. no, i no longer have your cell. mine will be XXX.XXX.XXXX until around the 15th. by then i figure to change it to whatever area code cell phones get in PHX now. i actually had a 602 cell in 1999. wish i still had that number. it was like 977.9700 or something freaking rad like that.
always looking at the past. something i have to get over by the time my girls get to me this spring.
my dad has missed me. it's been 15 years since i last spoke to him and really, in all of my life, he and i were tight for maybe one year. in the past decade and a half, that has worn on him. i called him at his office about three weeks ago and we've spoken every day but two since then. he's pretty amazed at what my girls and i have been through. and it hasn't gotten better since katrina. i will surely fill you in over those beers.
now, i have the opportunity to receive support from my family in ways what will allow me to build a foundation of stability for the women i love. they need it desperately. i come to PHX with triumph as an inheritance. all i have to do is treat that inheritance with respect and try to learn from it. the cool part about all of this is that triumph respects struggle, knowing nothing comes easy and there are infinite ways to reach the same goal. it feels for the first time that my knowledge will be respected by family.
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i return as the warrior poet you have called me. my dad even asked if i would show him how to ride my bike. i told him i wouldn't put a first-time rider on a 110 cubic inch motor with 115 ft. lbs. of torque. as we spoke, dad on his yacht in san diego and me in an empty house in round rock, i could hear the objections of his wife of eight years in the background.
no way she wants him on my bike. she's seen the photos. i told dad to ride a 500 or a 750 and take a rider's edge motorcycle safety course. i'd love to design for him a custom with a harley 88-inch twin cam powerplant, though. if he takes a safety course, he ought to handle a well-designed bike i'd have built for him.
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maybe i'll get him to do that. it would be awesome to go on motorcycle rides with my dad. we'll ride to carefree and return to town and have a drink at the high liter like we used to do in his porsche 911 turbo when i was twenty one.
that year i mention wasn't consecutive. "a few months here, a few weeks there" sort of thing.
my poor writer days will be over. a job i might obtain through the connections of my family is less likely to trigger the fuck you reflex ingrained within me. respect your family, mister, and you'll be able to provide for your own.
anyway. the rest for another time. it's a heavy thing i've done. pardon my effusiveness.
T
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02.01.07 - 06:49PM MST >>
watch cartoons or die
i love this story about the city of boston totally freaking out over a guerrilla marketing campaign for the cartoon network that made them think ads that looked like a children's toy from the 70's were a possible bomb because it was under a bridge.
fucking hysterical. lite brites under a bridge might be a bomb!
how fucking.... fucking... sigh.
okay mister, get it all out:
FUCKING IDIOTS! how fucking brainwashed and scared can you get? jesus! was your ass washed by the bush administration with a warm, wet cloth and blown dry by the hot air from dick cheney's chapped lips? fuck! you fucking fuckhead fuckdick fucker fucks are scared by lite brites flipping you off! how fucking ignorant of what your kids watch on tv can you be? you fucking dipshit skullfucks are so brainwashed and frightened that you see a cartoon man as a call to death. how sheltered were you to not just park and walk up to it and steal it? FUCK! at least touch it! it's on a bridge support! you've seen it for two weeks! you might be a hero or fuck! how cool is this lite brite toy under the bridge? will you be more dead touching it or twelve feet away in your car wondering what the fuck it really is? a bomb that fancy ought to destroy a city block!
FEAR! it's what's for dinner.
what? afraid to meet a homeless person or trip on a broken bottle of thunderbird under the bridge? fearful it really is a bomb and the cartoon light character flipping you off is islamic fundamentalist humor?
i should get lewis black's job on the daily show. he's ninety days from a debilitating stroke anyway. this is easily more sarcastic than his stressed-out schtick, which i love. but fuck...
whew. think i got all the fucks out with that.
so. back to the terrorist plot perpetrated by adult swim, the producers of the cartoon "aqua teen hunger force". yes, back to that.
if you did not know specifics about this, let me be more clear. "aqua teen hunger force" (ATHF) is a cartoon on late at night on the cartoon network. adult swim is what they call the time when cartoons become more adult-oriented. shogun hip hop, family guy and a death metal rock band who controls the world are what happens on adult swim. so does a show where a milkshake, a box of fries and a wad of hamburger with a hair sticking out if it deal with a mad scientist's escaped experiments and random aliens. some of the aliens come from the moon. one of these "mooninites" were rendered in lights on flat surfaces attached to bridge supports in boston. the mooninite in lights was flipping off people from boston with it's right hand.
for some reason, days after they were put up, the city of boston freaked out and had a bomb scare that shut down rush-hour traffic in locations across the city yesterday.
fucking idiots jerking off to desperate housewives. i don't think people from boston are that bright. they didn't come here to misteradiant.com often enough when i'd post in their craigslist. they came from phoenix, actually. wow, that's interesting.
anyway, bostonites think lite brites are bombs.
then they are flabbergasted by the dudes who were arrested when they gave a press conference and spoke about hair from the '70's, rather than answer direct questions regarding the alleged bombs and their arrest for putting them up. they are accused of "not taking this seriously."
lite brites. you all need to lighten up, and not take this seriously. they were lite brites. the same ads were put up in similar places in nine other cities! nobody freaked out. seriously boston, lighten up. you are a bunch of fucking idiots and you have elected officials who are perfect representations of your idiocy. if that is not who you really are, remove the idiots from positions of control within your police and civic organizations and show a sense of adventure. go to the weird sign and check it out. get out of your car. raise your head up from the devices that control you and walk somewhere.
then i'll write something nice about you.
even an angry man like me leaving texas knows more than you. just because i watch cartoons. that'll learn ya. dumbasses.
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02.01.07 - 05:13PM MST >>
why i love and hate you
all right motherfuckers, i am back. but you won't get twenty months of my life for free. first time here? then you missed out. visit the archive to read a summary of what it was. donate to the cause (see the button with dollar image on it at under the menu at the left?) and i will send you the book. yes, the book. "how to cry and still kick their ass." in twenty months i wrote 150,000 words. that means i have a lot of fun to edit to make the best come out in 200 pages you can get emailed to you by supporting this crazy author.
for those of you that are glad i'm back, thanks. both of you are my friends.
everyone else is just a gawker at a psychic freeway accident. the attorneys are coming. someone is gonna get rich.
too bad he'll walk with a limp.
so read on if you must. with your stable lives. with your corporate cubicle. with your plasma tv. with your corporate logos splashed over everything you wear. fuck you. for the rest of you, you are not alone. please drop a buck into my cup every once in a while. thanks.
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02.01.07 - 01:59PM MST >>
moving to phoenix
i am sad. i am turning down a job to move back to phoenix to be near my father. i've missed my dad. there was so much that was cool about him when i was a teen and so much that was a greedy lie. in fifteen years since i last saw him, much has changed. he has been married for eight years. that alone is kin to a miracle. from what i can tell, she is the blessing my father needed. she has shown him the value of family in a way that means you give and expect little in return. she has shown him how to forgive. he has grown and it seems, gained some wisdom.
there are reasons i did not trust my dad. he says now it is about family and therefore i seek to share with him mine. i love two women who need him. i have not provided for them as they deserve. the price of my word is not enough to get indigo back in school and to provide a stable home for her littlest one. it is not enough to insure our bills are paid.
why am i sad?
i sigh at that. it has been too much. if you were here when this began in march, 2005 when we lived in a hostel in waikiki, you may understand. but you only understand from that date, and from a description of the new orleans that made us leave six months earlier, where i damned it to drown in a flood.
i watch my words much more carefully now.
since i stopped posting here, i have gotten my motorcycle back. it was held by a former business associate who accused me of over-charging him on design. eighteen months later, he emailed to let me know i could finally get it back. since i stopped updating misteradiant, i moved from san antonio to houston and back to austin, where i lived for a year after katrina. my girl indigo took a job in baltimore that they took back while she was driving through tennessee. i've had roommate situations where drugs, violence and the ubiquitous presence of police has stressed me to the point that i sobbed at work in front of men who sold harley-davidson's for a living. i sold harley-davidson's for a living. i quit with a letter stating "my labor will not profit dishonorable men." it was run by manipulative used-car salesmen types who were not honest with people. i've interviewed for a six-figure position to head the creative department of a multinational company that creates electronic technology which functions as tools that impart a wealth of information about specific oil well drilling spots. the information is sold to oil companies.
whew. if you have been here long enough to read that far back, you might be amazed to learn that i kicked ass at that interview. i know what he liked and disliked about the corporate brochure that detailed his drilling tools and their technical benefits. we talked and listened for two and one-half hours. he told me that he was impressed with me. but i have neck tattoos and that might not fly in london or dubai. my dad was right. tattoos would keep me down.
and that is where i am instead of possessing wealth gained from being a whore to the corporate kingpins of war and lies. i would have worked for people that construct things that benefit oil companies. i would have been the worst kind of hypocrite. but that is not the job i have turned down.
i am turning down a job at a metric (honda, yamaha, suzuki, kawasaki) motorcycle shop in their parts and accessories department. it would be a perfect job for me. i would make a fraction of what i make as a designer, but it would be steady income and guaranteed. i thought that all indigo would have to do is bring in 1500 a month instead of being the one who used to bring in everything for months at a time. but we fear it won't be enough. we feel we should be near family, and my dad is the only family that can help us be anywhere but where we are.
now that i am building a relationship with my father, i gain other things. he has told me that he will put us in an apartment when i find a job. going to phoenix starts me at his home, surrounded by fine art and architecture. here, i would be in an apartment in round rock, texas. i know indigo loves the middle school for her daughter in round rock, but i can find the neighborhood in phoenix where we can live a more urban lifestyle near the arts school indigo wants to get the littlest one into. suburbia in round rock won't feed our souls any more than suburban san antonio did. my dad has missed me for fifteen years and would love us living near him in phoenix. he lives in a central part of town. i choose to find a job in phoenix rather than live in round rock. i won't do "san antonio lite." it's still middle-class texas suburbia. we might actually hate that. we have not done well here.
as indigo says, phoenix is the west. texas really is still the south. arizona is not as conservative politically as texas. austin might be san francisco lite, but it isn't san francisco and in the end, it sucks. the people are either very "austin" and southern in giving and receiving, or they are los angeles pricks out for themselves. there is no history, no architecture, no feeling of import in anything that is innovative in science or culture. a bunch of shitty texas rock bands is a marketing scheme. it isn't seatlle or new orleans. not that phoenix is, but my family is there. they are happy there. i have been happy there as well.
at least the governor for the past four years, now beginning her second term, is a democrat. texas hasn't had that in a decade. the phoenix mayor may be a republican in democrat disguise, but history shows that there is either a shyster in the seat of governor or phoenix mayor for the past 25 years. it's the mayor's turn.
so why am i sad, again?
because i'm stressed. i should just let it go. i should let my dad help and swallow my pride for the humility that teaches wisdom. i should not expect anything and find a good job that will help support my family. i should not expect that good things will not happen. i should not expect bad circumstances beyond my control will keep me from having indigo, the littlest one and the poopy puppy with me in phoenix. i should just let it go.
i have to let it go.
my dad needs me to let it go.
my brother needs me to let it go.
my girls need me to let it go.
ahhhh....
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