Portland Fall

We hardly refer to it as autumn here
Fall is the perfect term
The homecoming of a season to its name
Everything falls from summer heights
Into newly made beds
Clothed in clinging mist
Overcast loses its sticky grip
On the day's heat
Instead relinquishing itself
Downward to smear the
Charcoal strokes of bare trees
To insinuate its non-color into
The company of summer proud
Shades and hues of house paint
And garden plots once prideful
Now only exhausted and limp
Turning over in their beds
Pulling up tight the covers
Searching for a perfect space of
Comfortable slumber to await the coming end of
Spring's long wet cold journey
Around the Earth
The leaves
Are the snow of this place
Collecting in yellow brown
Gold rust drifts in the gutters
Against born to the wind
Faces of garden walls
And under the soothing lee of
Eaves and foundations
Topmost stubborn leaves
Rebel against the downward
Migration of their kind
Safety in numbers
They cling to the treetops
Disguising themselves as
Birds nests
Foiling the principles of
The season
Grass resurrected from
Drought's trap screams
Green enticements to
The leaves above
Fields of emeralds flecked
With golden flower tops
Winter's wet gray blanket
Arrives soon
Confidently finally stealing
The last fighting clinging
Colors from the light
All ends
All will return

What should you do? (multiple choice)

What should you do when you come across an ATM that is beeping loudly and asking whether or not you would like another transaction?

a) Do nothing.

b) Push the button indicating "no", retrieve card, give card to teller inside bank.

c) Push the button indicating "yes", make a withdrawal, let card remain in ATM. (Note: this is a crime.)

d) Push button indicating "yes", transfer all but $6.66 from checking to savings, let card remain in ATM. (Note: this may also be a crime but is way more amusing.)

Dude on the bus. . .

. . .was headless!

I figured it was blog-worthy if nothing else lately has been. Although. . .I have had a ton of fun working with ('for', actually, since I've been getting paid) a good friend who is in the midst of a full home remodel. And when I say 'full', I mean down to the everloving c. 1926 studs. I've learned a lot, too. Like, how to hang sheetrock (oww!) for instance. I've also learned how NOT to hang sheetrock as well as how NOT to do a lot of things. It's a learning process and I came out knowing more than when I started. I would have to say that them most satisfying task was the demolition process (I only got to do the tail-end, though). There is something deeply cathartic about smashing plaster walls to smithereens and then yanking out the lath one piece at a time. Nevermind the cumbersome goggles and respirator. It was a blast (or, was it a smash?).

Then, there's chess. I've taken to sitting down at a chess board with a friend who has recently re-taken-up the game when I don't want to wait forever for a pool table to open up. I've known how to play the game for as long as I can remember. Or, rather, I know how the pieces move. Knowing how to play the game is something I have not yet even begun to approach. But, it's a great diversion and I find that it's good for my head. Mindfulness: that is the key to not losing. . .badly, anyway.

My Friend 1993-2008

My friend has gone. She was with me thick and thin these last twelve years. With an impact of suddenness as powerful as her presence, she disappeared. A large and very significant piece of my heart went with her - where ever she went. I will miss her every day for the rest of my life. My friend. My always companion. Be well.

Like a prehistoric mosquito trapped in amber

Such is my want and need to write -- anything. So much is whole and preserved; encased in golden sap gone agate-like from time under pressure.

It's all there in my head. So (too) much to focus on. Sicknesses of numerable stripes. Mind-numbing chemistry. This (job loss), that (infections viral and bacterial), and the other (medication juggling). Oh. . .and the other-other: my cat has gone missing. I seem to be getting shit on from several directions at once.

Shit or shaved truffle; it's all me in the middle for better or worse. My battles. My decisions. My life. Certainly I would much rather be writing stories, essays, or any number of banal utterances. But, I can't right now. There are too many tasks competing for my attention. Writing for fun and for mental health has been squeezed out; marginalized. Very frustrating, to say the least.

Alas, that I am sitting here at two in the ayem saying this much feels like progress. I shall be triumphant and my return to wit will be as such. Until then, don't stop stopping by, faithful "readers". You're faith is in evidence at the bottom of this page - seven hits since the last time I surfed by. Thank you.