Silent Night (Damien Rice Cover)

Maud, working on her blue steel

Quiet monday night. I played indoor soccer at the local presbyterian church, and Maud kicked it at home on her favorite blanket.

I've been trying to write more frequently, but also capture the simple moments, without putting too much effort into trying to make things sound more than what they are. I'm working on simplifying a lot of things.

Here's to that.

my favorite poem

The beautiful thing about anyones favorite anything, is that there is no requirement for it to be the best or the greatest. The best is too obvious, and the greatest is debatable, but a favorite is a favorite, period. 

I set out last night to write my favorite poem, walked to the closest diner, ordered a grilled cheese sandwich and started with dear los angeles, 

i read jack london for the first time in high school, a short story called ‘to build a fire,’ about a man fighting for his survival in the wilderness. classic man vs. nature, in which nature wins and the man dies of hypothermia. during my first summer in alaska, i brought along ‘the call of the wild’, and probably underlined the entire first three chapters. i read it again two years later, and ever since, i try to read it before every big decision i make. 

a girl once asked me what my favorite animal was, and i remember feeling embarrassed to not know immediately what my favorite animal was. i thought about it long and hard, and was tempted to say a lion, after all, i am a leo, but i said giraffe, and i meant it. 

i discovered my dad’s paul simon records when i was seventeen,  the night after my high school girlfriend and i had broken up. we didn’t have speakers for the record player, so i set the needle on the record and placed my ear as closely to the album as i could. i listened to both sides of ‘there goes rhymin simon,' and i knew everything was going to be ok. 

the first constellation i was ever able to see in the night sky, was orion: the hunter, with legs and arms outstretched. i have lived on both the east and west coast, an island in alaska, el salvador, and along the italian mediterranean, and nothing makes me feel like you and i are much closer than we think, than seeing that constellation, standing so confidently in the sky. 

when i was twenty-one, i moved away from south florida.  and since then, i hadn’t really been home long enough to remember how much i liked cuban sandwiches; until two years ago, when i moved home for the summer to be close to the people i love. we ate them nearly every day of the week, at least that’s how i remember it, and cross my heart - those are some of the most favorite days and meals in my entire life. 

the night i fell in love with los angeles, she sent me four songs by tom petty, and told me if i supplied the coffee, she’d always bring the cup. since then, i have poured every ounce of me into getting right here: 

dear los angeles,

i didn't call you my favorite 

because i needed, 

you to be the best or the greatest. 

i called you my favorite 

because you already are. 

like i didn’t tell you forever

because i thought we were perfect. 

i told you forever, 

because i still think you’re worth it. 

i’m sorry if you took that 
for me not having any other plans. 

dear los angeles, 

i have never needed to make it,  

i have only ever wanted to keep trying. 

dear los angeles, 

wrap your long winter nights around me

and i’ll prove it, 
just how much i meant it 
when i called you my favorite.

post thanksgiving feels

Maud's favorite place in the apartment is against the living room window. Most mornings she'll wake up before I do, and gets the coffee started.  I normally start to stir at the sound of the blinds being pawed back just enough to make space for her to crawl through, where she lays on the sill, sips her coffee and stares out into the alley.

We have separate routines, and I don't ever bother her to join me for breakfast. I can tell she's deep in thought, sending her solidarity to the folks at Standing Rock, and contemplating the deeper challenges of the modern era. I imagine she says a small prayer for mom and dad to be happy, and wonders how her brothers and sisters are doing, out there somewhere in the wild.

Maud is balanced, and while she has her hesitations about certain things, as well as her limits on uninvited affection, she is warm and playful, and is constantly looking for ways to contribute, even where she hasn't figured out how.

When I first thought about adopting a cat, I had all these fears, as if taking care of an animal was going to somehow take away from all the other things I intended to do. The hypothetical world had me by the balls. But over the past six months, I've realized that having her around to take care of, and letting her take care of me, was what I'd really needed all along. Thinking it over - I'll take reality, my tiny framed, cheery, skeptical, and contemplative ball of fur, the litter box, the canned tuna, and the mid-night hairballs on the hallway rug; all day, all night, period.

[love is more thicker than forget] - e.e.cummings

love is more thicker than forget
more thinner than recall
more seldom than a wave is wet
more frequent than to fail

it is most mad and moonly
and less it shall unbe
than all the sea which only
is deeper than the sea

love is less always than to win
less never than alive
less bigger than the least begin
less littler than forgive

it is most sane and sunly
and more it cannot die
than all the sky which only
is higher than the sky

for leonard cohen, still waiting on the miracle

if you could see al the dead ends i've walked down
this place starts to feel more like a prison cell
i keep tellin' myself there's a way out
but words only go so far for so long

i'm still waiting on
i'm still waiting on
the miracle

if here is fine with you
then i don't need to get nowhere
i've got a loaf of bread and some red wine
we could share

i'm still waiting on
i'm still waiting on
the miracle

it's a good thing i still believe
it's a good thing i still believe.

John Moreland "You Don't Care for Me Enough to Cry"

Maudie, helping to read a script with Ben

Ben is one of the newest folks to move into 1823 Garfield. For work, he had to have a 150 page script read by the morning, and Maudie took time out of her evening cat-nap to help him take notes. Maud Brewster doesn't miss a beat. She's up at dawn, eats all her food, loves her toys, and is constantly a part of the action. She's thankful for what she has, is kind to everyone, and would give you the hair off her back. Couldn't be a prouder cat dad. 

come find me tonight, los angeles

if you ever want to see the sunrise, head to the beach, lantana florida, look for both sliding doors open on my white minivan and those months just after my seventeenth birthday. if you ever want to feel the sea, come swim with me, headfirst into the mediterranean, we'll come up for air just where the surface of the water meets that last bit of sundown. if you ever want to hear what the stars are whispering, hike to the top of bear island - kodiak alaska, in the middle of the night with just a sleeping bag and the infiniteness of our early twenties. if you ever want to feel your heart skip a beat, drink four too many whiskeys in her dad's garage, fumble for the letters to spell out what you've been thinking, and quiver when you say that you love her for the first time. if you ever want to tempt eternity, take the red eye home to el salvador, not knowing when you're gonna say it to her eyes again. if you ever want to open your lungs up wide, drive out to california, pedal the pavement, rent an apartment, rescue a cat, make love and come out on just the right side of enough, to breathe one more day to payday goddam if you ever want to watch a resurrection, come find me tonight, los angeles.

elegy

drummer boy

ever since i was kid, i have always liked the drummer boy quarter. something about the rarity of it, something about the surprise, something about pulling it from the change slot of a vending machine made me feel like i had discovered some buried treasure, as if the universe had this unique way of wanting me to be happy.  i wasn’t a collector or anything, i just liked it, and i’d try to hold on to it for as long as a kid can hold onto anything. it was always the last coin i’d spend, and the one i’d hope to find. 

i can’t remember how many times this happened, but it’s just the kind of woman that my mom is, she used to hold on to those quarters because she knew how cool i thought they were, and she’d get them so much more often than i did, because moms are always going past the bank and buying shit for everyone. i can even remember times where she’d be paying for a coffee, and when the change came back, she’d light up, like she’d won the lottery or something.

honest to god that feeling never got old, and it’s been a while, but i still hope with both hands digging through lifes cup of loose change, searching  for enough coins to finish my laundry; as if the universe still has her money on me to pull through this thing, it is the last coin i’ll spend, and the one i hoped to find. 

Lief Vollebekk 'Off the Main Drag'

darts

darts. 

is a great game. 

darts is great

because it is the best of both worlds. 

simple enough for anyone to try,

and challenging enough to still be unpredictable. 

the bullseye 

is the most definable piece of the target,

still difficult as hell to hit square in the eye 

no matter how many times you’re aiming 

no matter how many times you’re missing 

the next throw 

is like the last throw,

always the hopeful

you’ll hit what you were aiming for. 

the greatest game of darts i ever played 

was in, 

of all places, 

orlando, florida. 

in the back of orlando brewing. 

i challenged her to a game. 

the loser of which, 

i said,

would buy all the gas on our cross country road trip. 

we threw darts for hours, 

to a tune of the stale evening breeze 

and the slow pink 

of a descending central florida sunset

darts, 

is a great game 

because no one ever remembers how many times you missed the bullseye. 

darts is great

because i only ever remember how much i loved her company,

because perfection 

was never the intention 

and yet it still is the pursuit,

love is darts. 

love is darts, 

because it is the best of both worlds. 

simple enough to pique her curiosity

and challenging enough to keep her wanting more. 

our forever, 

is the central piece of the puzzle,

still difficult as hell to put together,

no matter how many times you’re aiming 

no matter how many times you’re missing, 

love, 

is a mutual contentment 

in missing the mark daily. 

Mama (a cover)