Bread & Butter

SF's City Hall at Sunset

The view from the Asian Art Museum, standing in place and noticing with surprise the amount of foot traffic passing behind, that it is considerable. People speak very brashly, from inside their heeled or unheeled shoes, from inside their disabling wheelchairs, from beneath their tufts of hair. A woman in sunglasses stood at the end of the line and asked mocking questions. A casual bet with her father that seemed not some kind of dare but performance arty. That perplexed the general community. At first, they ignored her presence, but once she persisted in line after ten minutes, realizing she may not leave Fuk politely asked her what her business was. She explained herself with a smile. Her excuse seemed reasonable and harmless, so Fuk left her alone. After a few more minutes standing in line, she walked away. Her father joined her, and they entered the Asian together.

Crowded Bart car reminding me of Tokyo

3rd & Geary Blvd. SF

The Dream

Eucalyptus trees down at Stanford

motorcyclist on Thanksgiving

Cold today. Do not think any heavily laden outdoor excursion would be soul warming. Tea may be the infusing thing when skies are gray. Tea spiked with ascorbic acid, tea shared with paperback books. Literature, cook books, mysteries, social anthropology, books about recluses, books written by recluses, picture books. Literature's unassailable clutter. Think about attempting to spreadsheet this violent psychic array, for a few moments, and then be torn apart at the seams, threadbare. The ideological burden deflects every single attempt at attain a systematic or organized form of understanding. Turn every corner. Who knows what words may mean, when laced with feeling? Expressions fly into the room, float above our brains, weave intricate cobwebs into all four corners, cling to moldings and figurines. A moment later, a window opens, winter gusts rush in, rolling it all up into a sticky ball of thoughts, then into a cinnamon bun, then into clots of dust. They leave with the wind through windows when they came in, just a moment ago. A moment passed, or was it years? Was it years ago?

Thanksgiving turkey

Crouch on hands and knees, with aches in a wrist, calcium gathered in unwelcome layers into frigid black earth below, wires coiled tightly around both shoulders, twisting into the flesh under newsprint colored skin. Maxwell states that if you ease off on all regimens, physical, mental, emotional, digital, spiritual, and the rest you are at leisure to name, in relative terms, naturally, and if you just enter into a pilates inspired pose, with both legs shot out before you, but with hands and arms parallel to the earth, forming right angles with your rigid spine, then believe me, then believe. Your tribulations will end. They end. You need not swallow your heart in order to have two hearts with which you can finally love half as well as others with just their one allotted heart. Pilates, in accordance with the Rule, and arms will fling open. Revolving doors aside, they swing open for you and invite you in with toothy blinding smiles and slow wave gestures of a hand. They hide their palms, however, and give just enough to catch your eyes on the shine in their just combed hair. It's brilliant.

But there you are, and there he is. My ankles bound with copper wire, they must have used ten whole feet to do such a job. It must have taken all those minutes accrued over the past years of months to store up so much poisoned steam. The devil lurks in roasting time recommendations, he said. Once you get it in, nothing can prevent the charred, black, crusty inevitability from ruining your Saturday morning. Sit patiently, pretend that you can see through the glass, don't look them in the eyes or smile back. Wait patiently, take deep breaths, wait patiently. Escape does not exist at year's end. Wait, and do not worry. Everyone gets used to the smell of their own carmelizing skin at some point, sooner or later, if you live long enough deep among the dunes. They rise up these walls of sea and twist and claw and rut, delivering up it's harvest of sad mouthed sardines while all this time those forgotten little pickets of hothouse steel sleep a restless sleep, submerged in their silent ticks, awaiting.