The Luck I've Had

In the past week, I held a modest gathering to thank my closest comrades for helping me through a vulnerable time, signed a lease on a gorgeous apartment with one of my favorite roommates ever, bought a hilariously dorky car that will hopefully get me reliably to all the places I want to be (with help from my dad, whose vocal and tangible support over the last year or so has been especially touching), and drove my charming bandmates and all our gear in said car to our first out-of-town show, where we were received warmly and paid more than enough for gas and road snacks.

Maybe it comes of being a Capricorn, but I tend to focus on the things I don't have, the problems I need to solve, the stuff I have yet to accomplish. I make lists, I pine, I analyze, I wear myself out.

Today I heard a Smiths song and laughed out loud with joy. (The Smiths have that effect on me quite a lot, actually.) As much as I relate to Morrissey's yearning, most of these lyrics don't apply to me. I have dreams all the time, and a lot of them do come true. Then I'm on to the next, bigger dream, almost without pause, the goat scrambling up the cliff. So it was nice to reflect for a moment, as Moz crooned longingly, on the sweetness of my life, which often feels like so much struggle and worry.

There's still so much I want, for myself and those around me, and stopping to see what's been achieved through the collective efforts of those I struggle alongside makes me want to keep climbing. Also, I want to find Morrissey and hug him.

Seventeen by The Smiths

Please, please, please let me
Get what I want. Lord knows it
Would be the first time.

This wagon is flaggin'.
(During our road trip, someone discovered his boxers were too long for his shorts.)
(Not me.)

It's too damn warm out.

Last night, after a rock show in a small venue full of stinky young people, a friend brought a bubble machine into the space and pointed it out the window. We scrambled down the stairs and into the alley to chase the frozen bubbles.

The cold made them more durable, not solid but gummy. We could catch them without popping them, and they would cave in but not disintegrate. After a while, they started collecting on the pavement, sticking to each other and rolling down the street in clumps of bubble-tumbleweeds.

We screamed with laughter and staggered around the alley like sugared-up toddlers. And wished it were even colder so we could see what the bubbles would do.

Seems like that's the value of magic, even the silly type of magic that makes soap bubbles into something strange and wondrous: that we are willing and even glad to give up what's comfortable (relative warmth at 20 degrees F) in exchange for possibility.

Haiku for Barely Frozen Bubbles

I stayed out too late
Breathing body odor and
Chasing bumbleweeds

One of Us

Before coming to this tiny New England town, I couldn't have guessed how welcoming and restorative it would be after more than a decade in major cities. As much as I can claim any geographic place of origin, it was rural and suburban Minnesota, which I experienced as oppressive and depressing. Cities provided the noise, distraction, and adrenaline I needed to feel safe and alive. But I still felt isolated, in love with something I was not a part of.

Friday night, after a screening of Rock-n-Roll High School, I helped lead a Ramones sing-a-long in a church-turned-theater, the pews filled with friends and assorted weirdos belting out "Sheena Is a Punk Rocker" at top volume. It was one moment of many over the last two years that have felt like my life come full-circle. You don't even know in how many ways.

I might grow restless here and find my way to broader horizons, but in a world where connection and community have been so hard to come by, I'm content for now to just soak up the love and wear a mullet wig at every opportunity.

Haiku for February 7, 2014

In a former church
I finally feel at home
Gabba gabba hey

Circa 2002, Chicago. Foreshadowing.

The sincerest form of flattery

So last Thursday night a dear friend shows up to the Halloween show looking pretty damn stylish. Plaid shirt, argyle sweater vest, bow tie, black cap. I'm not about to ask, "What are you dressed as?" because I want to figure it out. I do almost say, "Hey man, you look extra fly tonight," but I'm shy sometimes.

A short while later, this friend wordlessly hands me a slip of paper that reads:

My jaw crashes through the floor and into the basement.

I then have several more costume details pointed out to me, like a plaid fanny pack, the patchy "future haircut" I got a couple months ago, and my wrist tattoos, which my friend has duplicated expertly with a sharpie.

Also, eight more little slips of paper with a haiku on each.

I was really touched, and I maybe it's because I'm self-obsessed and vain. And maybe it's because I felt loved, and seen, and appreciated. If I have done anything to deserve such honor and beauty in my life, I hope I keep on doing it.

Its structural perfection is matched only by its hostility.

Almost a couple weeks ago, someone gave me (as in, "Hey what's this thing I just picked up off the ground? Here ya go!") a green, spiky orb on a short, thick stem. It was sharp enough to cause a delightfully tingly-ouchie sensation when I held it in my hand (after I had twirled the thing til the stem fell off).

I left this magical alien plant life on the dash of my car (like ya do), and over the course of several days, it dried and split open, revealing a shiny, dark brown nutshell with a light brown spot.

And it seems like a theme of this blog, and of my life (I guess there's some overlap there): transformation, a very solid, beautiful thing hidden inside a bizarre, prickly thing, which is also beautiful and thrilling. And sure, I could have researched any and discovered that it was a (SPOILER ALERT!) horse chestnut, but why take away the mystery?

Haiku for What the Last Two Weeks Gave Me

Do I like it more
When it's new, strange, and pointy
Or smooth, dark, and hard?

DEEZ NUTZ LOL

Nature an' shit

This might be the most "haiku" haiku on this blog yet. It comes from trying to explain, yesterday, what's so calming about a mountain creek.

Haiku for June 12, 2013

Running water, fire
Night traffic from the high rise
White noise, steady flow

Blissed out by a waterfall (photo by bzzzzgrrrl)

Ramblin' Guy

Yesterday was a day with no plans. I just did what I did.

A walk to the farmer's market, some housework, a leisurely drive with a friend and their dog, spontaneous dinner-making with another friend, finding myself on the bottom of a kitten pile, and watching boring TV in an overcrowded bed.

Analog time warp

Last night I was working on a mixtape. Is a sentence that I haven't said in at least 15 years.

Confessions of an occasional cook

If I haven't already told you, dear reader (because I tell anyone who will listen), I belong to a group of people who comprise four households and who all take turns cooking dinner for each other. Four nights a week, I get a home-cooked meal delivered to my door. One night every other week, I cook for eight.

Sunday bromance

Haiku for April 7, 2013

Montague Bookmill
Books you don't need, friends you do
Bro date, at long last

Happy. Birthday.

Last night I celebrated my friend's birthday at her apartment with pizza, costume changes, and booty beats. She asked everyone in attendance to make a list of 31 (her age) things that make us happy. I thought it was going to be really hard; it sounded like so many things. But I was actually the first one to finish my list. Does that mean I'm happy?

Haiku for March 22, 2013
(for J.D.)

Hard cider. Dildos.
Naughty naps. Hot baths. The moon.
Cassette tapes. Haircuts.

We are all made of stars

So, last night I read the following passage in Imogen Binnie's debut novel Nevada, available for preorder from Topside Press:

She can't think of anything else to write, though, and after four and a half words her hand is starting to cramp. She can type all night, but with a pen, not so much. Maybe she should keep a haiku journal, in a non-appropriative way.

3.13.13

Yesterday I got an unrecognizable tattoo and an unpopular haircut. I'm fairly pleased with both.

Haiku for March 13, 2013

Pinball inked on wrist
I have three dollars left now
"What's your tattoo of?"