westhaven

Last night I tromped around in the woods with my roommate, us and her wolf-dog on a jump-roap leash, ranging on up and around Westhaven hill, cutting back through the creek bed by the Arts Center, and finally returning home to simmer up some steak bits with Larrupin’ red sauce. An ideal evening in the Redwoods.

So it was with more than a little preemptive nostalgia that I had to break the news to Kells that I’d be probably moving out this summer. This decision came to me over the holidays, and I’d been digesting for a while, waiting for the right time to vocalize it. Much as I’ve loved my time here, and it’s done some really good things for me, my future is pulling me back out into the world, and into the world I must go.

But no rush; I don’t have a destination set yet, and I won’t be clearing out until June or July. That’ll make it four years in this place, the longest I’ve stayed anywhere since I was a teenage kid leaving the little Eugene house I grew up in for the big city. That was quite a while ago, but the idea of getting back out there has the same whiff of adventure.

I’ll always have a little piece of my soul here in the HC, and hopefully will be back through to visit on a regular basis what with my company having an office and so many wonderful people around. Expect to be on the scene for 2010s Christmas party for sure.

I am returned to my Redwood hideout after a harrowing run through hilly country in 99-degree weather with a failing radiator. Unlike my other theft-related automotive troubles, this has probably been an issue for some time, but obscured by the mild temperatures of coastal Norte Norte California. Still, I made it, with only one minor steam-burn and a new-found confidence in my understanding of the 22R engine’s cooling system.

Good to be back at home, and set about the task of organizing the Next Big Push. I’ve got a month before I take a little mini summer vacation to Oregon, and there’s a lot to be put in order.

On the immediate personal front, one thing for sure is I need to get back into the gym. My recent struggle with Sciatica sort of put me on a very low-impact physical schedule, but after riding a bike a little in SF last week, and discovering previously that stretching and massage were effective treatments, it feels like the kind of thing that needs to be worked through. Plus I feel the metabolic buffering around my midsection. Plus I crave the psychologically side-beneficial stress-relief that tends to come from running the robot at high rpms.

More broadly, the search for my true life’s purpose and some Gold Dust Woman continues; finding the ideal life/work balance, both in time and focus, and groping for the plot outlines of the movie of my life. While I’m momentarily overworked and looking forward to a little leisure time in the Summer sun, I know the scope of my ambitions and nature are such that I’ll never find true or lasting happiness in repose.

At the same time, as per my previous post below, the grind eventually brings out the worst in me, which tends to be the case with all of us monkeys. Arrogance and its concomitant small-minded frustrations are a quick flip-side to sustained peak performance under duress. So let’s talk about that a bit.

First of all, this is normal. It’s like anything: in order to keep your head up under non-ideal circumstance, your self-opinion hardens a bit. Unfortunately this lends itself to a big-picture-unhelpful sort of sneering, the Pride which cometh before the Fall.

This is commonly exemplified in my industry and among various practitioners of the hard arts as a sort of nerdly machismo. You get it from deep-thinking coders who’ve lost (or never learned) the patience to effectively communicate or coordinate on an organic level. You also get it from people who got rich and/or who are highly compensated for their time; this condescending certitude and impatience with the little people.

Indeed, operating as we do in a capitalist society, being paid hundreds of dollars an hour — or some other, larger multi-millionaire-making equivalent — can quickly warp ones perceptions. Think of the way a VC snaps his or her fingers in the midst of a pitch (“I get it, move on”) or the way a Producer dismisses an auditioning actor or presenting screenwriter in the first sixty seconds. These are the stereotypical behaviors of the overweening elite, and while I’m no fan of having my time wasted or wasting other people’s time, and sometimes even dare consider myself to be an elite individual, I believe the arrogant confidence that drives these kinds of action is ugly and dangerous.

Moral/aesthetic underdog-loving considerations aside, and moving beyond general maxims about the corrupting nature of power, I think it’s important to note that being inflexibly and domineeringly self-assured is nearly always counter-productive from the all important perspective of getting shit done. Winning arguments is usually a distraction, and haughty attitudes poisonous to the kind of conjoint peer-productivity that’s required for any substantial undertaking these days.

Not to mention that if you think you’re always right, you’re probably factually wrong. Even in out in the 99.9th percentile, which you have to be pretty bullish on yourself to even consider, you’re just one in a thousand. You may grow accustomed to being the proverbial Smartest Girl or Guy in the Room, but you are still wrong or misinformed or ignorant with regard to Very Many Things, nevermind our universal human impotence in the face of the myriad Unknown Unknowns which cloud around our every decision. Indeed, unless you operate in a legitimately very small world — which we of the internet by definition cannot — there are plenty of people at or beyond your level, with better (or at least different and still accurate) perspective, who are right in many of the ways that you are wrong. For the sake of the species as well as your own pet project, you’re well advised to keep that in mind.

In my experience, real wisdom is complex. It flows from intelligence and a strong grasp of axiomatic principles, leveraged into a mastery of various domains of knowledge, but also tempered with the humility of experience and driven by the honest curiosity of an innocent. One must never cease to wonder, for this is a beautiful thing.

To the contrary, the hardening of smarts into sneering certitude is a great loss. As I said, it’s generally the result of great outside pressure — think of the life of Cheney, really, the actual life; the years of paranoia, ladder-climbing, back-stabbing, skeleton-stashing… it becomes possible to have some sympathy for the man, if not his actions. Yes, life is unfair, but this sort of thing is a tragedy, one for which responsibility must be borne by the individual (or organization; groupthink being the multiparty equivalent here) in question.

The real problem in practice is that there’s quite a fine line between the kind of confidence required of real edge-pushing leadership in the world and the kind hubris which the ancient Athenians regarded as a crime. What’s more, it’s virtually impossible to discern the contours of this boundary from inside the thing. Rational perspective is rare and fleeting. Much to the chagrin of economists and engineers everywhere, all available evidence illustrates the fact that such deeply human processes are intensely and inevitably emotional, sometimes even spiritual, unquestionably subjective and mercurial.

But modern life continues to revolve around choices. All of this rambling think-chew is just prologue to the moment of decision. It’s your existence, after all, and you can do what you want. No-one is going to dignify your life for you. Some take strength from outside sources, literal leaders or role models to follow. Others take bold and risky steps on their own, eschewing tradition and offering new trails to those that come behind.

For my part I’m in the latter camp, even though I clearly don’t know (or don’t clearly know) the destination. I feel ok with this because I have good friends and faith that it’s the habits of action that add up to beliefs, and that you can approach this tangle from either end of things. Singular events — from vision quests to elections of presidents — may be the result of long and arduous struggle, but inflection points matter because they lay down new patterns. Otherwise it’s just a party. Patterns being the thing, you can get pretty far along your footpath to the revelation by repeatedly doing right and keeping an open mind. One step at a time.

Redolent with potential I walk this earth alone, seeking the key to unlocking myself, to be a king unburdened by his kingdom. For as the song says rulers make bad lovers, and only in my fully radiant and footloose flower will I ever come upon the crazy brain-sex I so richly deserve. And so I strive to stand at my full height, head up, heart open, to see the mysteries and miracles of the universe unfold.

Is there a word for this particular combination of stressed-out and horny? Ala Al Swearengen, “I need to fuck something.” Somewhere in the nexus of sexual frustration and nihilism, where the survival urge cycles like a mobeus, inside out and never ending; that’s where I’ve been finding myself lately. Kind of amped, kind of tired, kind of desperate and kind of over it too. It’s a peculiar place.

Personally, frustrating though it is, this seems like a small measure of progress, hunger being preferable to numbness. I feel meta-better with itchy and pent-up than I do with bored and blase. It’s been a while since I’ve had a steady lover in my life — or much action to speak of at all, really — something that’s not terribly likely to change without proactive effort, itself unlikely without some genuine desire. So this is where it starts.

The other morning on my way to work I heard this bit on NPR about the prevalence of hooking up as opposed to traditional dating and courtship. I think their square-world take on it is kind of prudish — “sex without intimacy” is an awfully normative frame, and I’d say hooking up can be quite intimate, even when it is ephemeral — but there’s something to this. One part that particularly struck me was where the young woman they interviewed talked about how bringing someone into her circle of friends seemed like a much more scary (or, specifically, vulnerable) thing than bringing someone to bed. I can understand that.

But the part that really got me was the lyrical description of the process. The idea of a dance. That’s something I miss, powerful like. It’s not something that life in the woods offers many venues for, hooking up, especially when one lives and socializes with a smallish inner circle of peeps.

I don’t really know what to do about this. Kellymundo and I used to joke about “secret hour” — going out on the solo-prowl — but I’m not sure this is really my style. More’s the pity, my daily life routine isn’t conducive to casual social commingling with pretty and available ladies. Most of my friends are settled down, and they pretty much hang out with one another. Not that I blame them, but it doesn’t help me out that much.

So I’m stuck. Toe-tappingly, jaw-grindingly arrested in space. Contents under pressure. In the words of Yousef Islam, “It’s another Saturday night, and I ain’t got nobody.”

The killer thing is that it’s not like I can just go out and get fucked. That might be literally possible, maybe even desirable, but the truth is I’m not really down with the lowest common denominator, and even if I were the logistics seem daunting. I envy those satyr-like dudes, those ready willing and able to get it on wherever and whenever (and with whoever) they can. It’s not particularly classy, sure, but it’s honest, uncomplicated.

I envy too my younger self, my sluttier self, more willing to let the moment roll and go along with someone else’s notional good time. These days, I’m too wrapped up to turn off my mind, relax, and float downstream, and when I look out at the world it’s all pessimism and reasons why not. Hardly a winning attitude.

In the long run I’m sure this will all work out, but in the short run, it feels like I need a little more adventure, and that’s something I gotta work on. No real conclusion here, natch: it’s sort of my deal to work these things out semi-publicly. Helps sometimes to confess, and the sticky personal business generally makes for the best writing, so that’s what I do. With any luck, even when I overcome my petty personal pathos I’ll still find worthwhile inspiration for blogging. Pretty sure that will work out too.

For now, it’s time to leave the house and get out into the world for an evening.

First, the news.

My postmodern uncling career is really taking off. Our lead story is last night’s text message from Tommy reporting the birth of baby Ramadan Adderall Callabasa Sparks-Plus Stereo-Clutch Manmohan Death-Machine, a strapping 9lb 4oz girl. Actual name turns out to be Mirella Colette Dauter. Beautiful! I had a feeling about that one.

Also noteworthy: the recovery of my automobile in the East Bay hamlet of Hayward. I’m hoping my attorney will be able to disentangle it from the impound lot, have conducted some long-distance bureaucratic maneuvers via facsimile. Luckily my office is near the jail, and the bail bonds people are also notary publics. Mechanical status is unknown, but the report doesn’t indicate wreckage or any stripping. Perhaps Moamar will have a glorious third act.

Last night was also opening day for the Humboldt Crabs, America’s longest continuously running pro-am baseball team. It was good old fashioned home-town hillstomping double header; I caught the night game, which the Crabbies walked away with 13 to 1.

And now, for some analysis and context.

It’s really a great scene down there at Crab Park. It’s everything you know of baseball, complete with highschool kids selling nachos and old men keeping stats with over-sized clipboards and complicated paper forms. But it’s also lots of neck-tatoos, microbrew, heckling, and a volunteer brass band that plays Sabbath.

The combination represents, in my opinion, some of the best of America — layers of idiosyncrasy, honest fun, community spirit, low-stakes gambling, social diversity and ritual tradition. It is also specifically some of the best of small town living. When it works, it’s like everyone’s a VIP.

And I mean what I said when led off with my position as postmodern uncle. Family is a pretty virtuous thing, blood-related and otherwise, and it’s really fun to help wrangle a bunch of kids at these things, especially when it’s a once a week event and not a daily responsibility.

Outside, in the Big World, I’m not so sure what to say. I’m far from being one of those who takes such a dim view of things that they don’t want to bring kids into being, but we’re heading into some turbulent times for sure. Politics is moribund and lifeless; the right typified by bitterness, half-crazed infighting and literally murderous extremism, the left ineffectual as ever, a fact made abundantly clear by the Democratic Trifecta. They’re blowin’ it, in my opinion, unable or unwilling to take the kind of action necessary to, say, guarantee universal health care.

Meanwhile, Governors around the country are slashing already meager social welfare programs as jobs continue to evaporate at a rate of several hundred thousand a month. With GM set to begin mass layoffs (which will have significant ripples as the whole automotive supply chain adjusts) and another wave of mortgage resets and real-estate losses in the mail, I think harder times are coming. Our institutions are failing.

I see no reason to be worried about my own personal fate, or any reason to expect anything bad for my business (the viability of a boutique bicycle startups notwithstanding), but it’s getting really tense and shitty for a lot of people who are already on the bubble. The dark reality is that a lot of companies are bloated paperwork-clotted clusterfucks, and they really can lay off 1/3 of their workers and still do just about the same thing.

One in ten citizens is functionally illiterate. One in five unable to balance a checkbook. We live in a nation wracked with inequality. Not quite Brazil, but headed in that general direction, even as Brazil steadily improves.

The old philosophical struggle between revolution and pirate utopia, running hot these days. But it’s a nice sunday afternoon, and in spite of my aching back, the time is now (now!) to dig up the septic tank.

It’s good to have a single place to hang my hat again. I got a sweet rug that really ties the room together. Richard(?) the Rug Man down in Eureka is a trip. Voice like a tenor Tommy Chong, great gesticulations, and a real old-world merchant’s style. Gave me an un-asked-for discount since I came in twice (had to measure) and he “needed to show some appreciation for some business, you know?” I’ll take it.

The Persian pattern goes well with my mid-quality Ikea furnishings and robustly hung outsider-art — big I-screws holding up a vaguely schizophrenic mandala painted on the hood of a vintage Dodge Charger — the big beeswax candle, little box stove, etc. Always room for a few more touches like lighting, maybe a little mini-rug to cover some more of the underlying commercial-grade carpet, etc, but it’s starting to feel like home. A new home.

It’s also good to have some literature around. Armed with some inspiration from friends (thanks for all comments), I made the circuit of local used book stores. Got some DFW short stories, a book by Spaulding Grey, and Everything is Illuminated, which the book guy told me he had to “throw across the room” a couple times. We’ll see how that goes, but The Girl With The Curious Hair has been a winner so far. My brain is happier having some exercise, and as soon as my back is in shape I’ll close the corporeal loop on that.

The Summer season is creeping in. Foggy weather, but the students are gone and people are up in the hills farming, so the business cycle has shifted. The Governor is planning to gut services to the poor, desperate and struggling, which doesn’t seem like such a good idea form where I sit. My business is cruising along, but the wider recession is getting harder to ignore. The crazy street people and tweaker indexes are on steady upward trends.

It also feels like things are possibly getting out of hand in The Industry. Maybe more people turning to grey-market agricultural enterprise in absence of normal tax-paying employment. The housing rental scene is a little nuts and apropos the aforementioned hill-farming, local talk has been all about this deal gone wrong just down the road in Macville. Two amped up teenagers with body-armor and AKs, ripping off a fourteen-pound deal on the open street, running from the law out the 299, spike strip, driving off the road, attempted suicide. It’s well outside the lines, even for Humboldt, and with the blue-collar despair and aforementioned tweaker index, seems to be sparking related rumors of unreported armed robberies. They proliferate like mushrooms after a late spring rain. ATVs roam the night; the rural paranoia.

For the most part I ride above all this. It’s backdrop, cultural flavor like my outsider wall-art, economic engine with as much to do in practice with my life as Wall Street had to do with living in Brooklyn. Me and mine are the same rollicking openminded bunch of artists, shopkeepers, bureaucrats, gypsies and surf bums. Still, even remote acts of violence color the air, and I contemplate my own Second Amendment rights.

Against said backdrop, the story I tell myself is that I’m making a real run of it here in the HC. I’m entering my fourth year (!!!) of residence and am about as local as I’m likely to get. Work trucks along. I may go to Paris for a conference in the Fall. My little office door is cute. I’m getting up early doing at least semi-important things and feeling pretty good about myself in general. Open questions are around the social scene, and whether or not I find a girlfriend or non-union equivalent. I have a sneaking suspicion that the two go hand-in-hand, and a campaign of horizon-broadening is underway. Time will tell.

I’m consolidated in the HC now. Got my room all set up nice. Everything smells of wood smoke, nagchampa, and tiger balm. I’m pretty sure this is irresistible under the right circumstances. Time will, hopefully, tell.

Explosions in the sky. Humidity. The smell of tall grass and misquite. Heat ripples rising off the road, little water-mirages evaporating in the endless planar distance. I’ve been watching Friday Night Lights as my distraction du jour, and it gives my heart a tug for Texas, the great ritual dramas of teenage romance and football, and the deep allure of that thing the preacher-man calls “the purpose-driven life.” Pulls me in two directions, it does: on one hand the familiar nostalgia for those heady hormonal live-or-die days of adolescence, and on the other hand the fantasy future of being a family-man. Good theater.

Last night went out to a bonafide house-party, out on the edge of the Arcata bottoms. Skater house kegger, connect via Kellymundo of course. Lots of kids, tatoodles, ramp in the garage, decent conversation with various strangers around the margins. It was energizing to be around youth, and a weird hangover let-down the next day; one of those things where you realize something’s been missing, but you’re not sure how you feel about missing it.

Like, I think it’s questionable to find myself later on looking for the college girl I talked to in the kitchen. I’d slipped away for a reason, or maybe a small pack of reasons — fits of uncertainty, self-consciousness and ostensible “responsibility” all in the mix — and to then catch myself a half-hour hence with that hunting “where’d she go” frame of mind… well let’s just say it makes a man wonder.

That story has an ok start, but not a lot of juice to it really. It’s fun to flirt, but the scene got broken up by the Sheriff just after midnight — when was the last time you were at a party that got “busted?” — and so we retired to a more grown-up Westhaven after party of homebrew, John Prine, and dominos by the wood stove.

Familiar complaints for regular readers. My laments in love have long located around a low-ebb of liking, a late, languishing lack of lust, lessened lasciviousness. Drying out, or retirement, I’ve called it.

I’m aware that this is in part due to my spread of time and space and energy, and that I don’t casually encounter those putative “prospects” in any great number on the daily beat of my routine. Sure, it’s not Brooklyn out here, but I also think I’ve developed a little sanctimonious ego cocoon around this idea, a little conceited investment, a safe special space of non-wanting untouchability.

Earlier in the evening I got a chance to catch up with Franko on the phone, which has been to long coming. He’s out there, really doin’ it. This and the note before about the wave’o‘babies, it reminds me of that shopwarn question, “are you looking for the right girl, or the right-now girl?”

And the answer is most definitely the right girl — yes, Matilda, I’d like to settle down one of thse days — but I think this aphorism presents a false and bogus distinction for the most part, because at some point in time the “right” girl has to be “now” as well, or else what’s the point?

Yet, in practice I tend to dance away reflexively, some kind of weird internal vetting process going on, stacking the deck. It’s hard deciding what you want; even harder is going out to get it.

One of my great old lovers told me later, when we weren’t current anymore, that I’d get swept up by a younger woman, one of those fortune-cookie predictions from close people that sticks with you — like when the Girth told me I aught to think about marrying that Cinnamon Girl, back in the day in San Francisco. These ideas may or may not have any actual truth to them, but they have a way of sliding under the usual psychological radar. They make you consider.

The problem as per the above is that I just don’t seem to get swept up by much at all these days. The cocoon wards against this, keeps me clear of having to make many real choices, take any risks. And of course this cuts against all the things I “believe” — it’s who dares wins, and fortune favors the bold — which whips things into a meta-cycle of judgment and doubt, the old post-modern mind-trap.

Thus, here’s hoping that I can find my way back into the poetry of the moment, lose the worlds weight for a turn or three. I once wrote:

life – your life included – if infinitely full of truth and beauty, and anyone who tells you different has been jaded by their inability to participate

And it’s true. I feel lucky to have this art, these letters-through-time to myself, because even though I sometimes feel like I’ve worn-in my own set of cliches, owing to the fact that they’re personal and mine they can still get through, much like those fortune-cookies from friends.

It’s all so simple when you say it. It’s a simple game: you throw the ball, you hit the ball, you catch the ball.

Pretty good day. Sun came out. Moved/split a bunch of wood, and then cleaned out the compost bin. These fit in w/my general chores. I fill up the compost bin by dumping the bucket, so it’s kind of gratifying to see what that all resulted in after two and a half years.

Aside from the good old fashioned all-american pride that only successful dirt-farmin’ can bring, I got a real object lesson in just how big the gap between “biodegradable” and “plastic” really is. At one point, all the matter in that box was colorful and made up of distinct chunks. After sliding off the top layer of recent leavings, everything underneath was uniform except for some persistent eggshells (good for aration) and whatever bits of synthetic stuff has made it into the mix.

There, in all the fabled banality of evil, you see the still color-bright empty emergen-c packet staring you down. It occurs to you that your condoms will last longer than your putative offspring. Prophylactic irony.

Anyway, go worms!

Settling back into life in Humboldt, I’m working a mix of old and new patterns. Haven’t yet moved my room (this weekend), but I’m doing good on getting into the gym and slowly climbing back out of the hole I got into with work. It’s been a decent week so far.

Old pattern: I caught up on my internet tube. Gran Torino was worth it just to hear Eastwood sigh, and the new Battlestar is darker than ever. Looks like a finish that meets our expectations.

New pattern: with it being just me and Kellymundo here at the house, we’ve been spending a bit more quality time together, which is nice. Last night we did a great dinner w/friends at 3 Foods (which is awesome). It’s fun being out with a bunch of girls. Makes an old man look good.

Creative itch so far going un-scratched. Lots of other stuff to take care of so far, and I’ve preferred pure recreation after work so far.

Lots of new space, feels like. I hear the voices of my absent friends in the wind, and I wonder what will fill the void. It’s going to be an intriguing year.

2008 is winding down. Quite a busy year. I’ve fallen a bit under the weather — plague running rampant at the office — and am generally feeling the decompression beginning. It’s been cold at night up here, good for making fires and nice and contrast-y with the hot tub. Moon is almost full, and tonight we took a quick little night mission down to one of the overlooks by Luffenholtz beach where you can walk all the way out to the jutting end of a rock outcrop and watch the waves crash in on all sides.

It reminded me of when I first came out here, going camping with a girl up in the Redwoods north of Orick and walking/sliding down what turned out not to be a real trail, or at least not one made or typically used by humans, ending up on a coarse-grained sandy beach miles from the usual access road. We came for an adventure, and to carry salt-water back for cooking, and to make out a little bit. Something about the way the froth of the waves catches light in the night… connected those two moments for me. Made me feel like a page is turning.