Try to see how easy it is to imagine...

the little snow hut

This past week was a coloring book of subtle lines filled in with the vibrancy and saturation of the following things/events: the train, snowshoes, hotsprings, skinny dipping, snowstorm, twister, revelry, yoga, tacos, puppetry, and climbing. Also, I over-ate, for sure. And I am, at this moment, famished.

Overheard on the Railrunner, or atop a hill at sunset:
Lady says, "I think that ___ has been tanning too much, don't you?"
Meet with a shrug from the listener. "He's outside..." says Guy.
Lady, gazing out the window, "I mean, I know he has more tannin in his skin than..."
[fades out]

Three elderly ladies engaged in chatter. All three roughly the same body type, shorter, heavier, with rather short gray hair. Each wearing a sweater that was probably bought at the same place that the other two were purchased. All three with hands full of glinting jewelry and stones. Two of them wearing very sporty sunglasses, Bolle and Oakley. They rap about "the little old lady across the street," saw her? "You know the type." One reads out loud to the others from a book about how Obama is against veterans. The author writing something to the effect of "Obama voted against legislation (introduced by McCain?) that would have guaranteed college monies to veterans blah blah — I can't believe that Obama thinks that higher education is too good for our vets." The ladies nod in accordance with disgust and frowns that never leave their faces even when smiling. And then this, from the woman on the left, slightly hushed, "the next time we pass those pillars, try to see how easy it is to imagine them as erect penises!" They choke laughter out, "Oh dear!" and "Only you!" Hahaha.

Large, "good-looking" guy, talking rather loudly into his phone: "ya know what service I wanna do? I wanna start a speed dating service in Santa Fe." [pause] "Ya get 30 men and 30 women together who wanna speed date ... blah blah ... 3 minutes ... a buzzer ... see if there's a love connection ... blah." [pause] "People like you! You need exposure ... blah ... then there are guys like me that just ..." [trails off]

Here are some visual recordings of recent events —

You drop off to sleep

A couple of poems culled from a larger series by Tachibana Akemi, a japanese poet of the early 1800s:

Happiness is when
you're talking in bed
with the covers pulled up
and while you're talking
you drop off to sleep

Happiness is when
you get up in the morning
and see a flower
that wasn't there
yesterday

Read them again. Good. Unlinked to the poems, other than through my own recent experiences: did you know that it wasn't until 1973 that the APA removed homosexuality from the DSM? Prior to that, homosexuality was categorized as a psychosis. Do you understand the breadth of the consequences of that? Anyone could lose their job, or be denied a position, based solely on their sexual orientation as a mental illness until the 70s. It was in the books as "crazy." That's fucked. The episode of This American Life on the topic brought tears to my eyes. Let's hear it for the GayPA.

1973? Seriously. Also, I watched Milk the other night. That was very worthwhile.

The other day, I was told that I'm brave. Less true than the "fit as a mountain goat" thing — especially when compared to this little toaster. Brave, nonetheless, is a great word.

I thought I felt an earthquake for the first time in my life the other day. The couch seemed to lurch in a strange way. A scan of the USGS site though suggests I made it up. Or that a very large truck must have cruised by. Possibly related, possibly not: the sky of Albuquerque is the loudest sky I can ever remember experiencing. Anywhere. There is an airport not far out of the city — but I can hardly understand how that could account for some of the daily rumblings that tumble from the sky above. Windows shake. Things rattle on shelves. It was definitely something that I noticed right away when I first got here (like the iron bars over all the windows, our jails) but then I became accustomed to it over the course of a few months. Visitors comment on it often, though (same with the iron bars).

The point is, the sky of ABQ rumbles somethin' fierce. And it can't simply be the airplanes, which certainly take off hourly. This massive rumble happens just a couple times a day. My hypothesis is that ABQ is located in the gut of a world with indigestion. That said, the planes are sometimes quite loud, too.

The next place I live will have no quaking sky. And no iron bars.

Much Contemplation, Unsaid, Forever Unrecorded

maid of smoke, made of phantasy (click for the colouriffic)

Some shorts:

Someone described me as "fit as a mountain goat" recently. That's definitely nice to hear, even if not necessarily true.

*

"In traveling, a companion, in life, compassion," she repeats, making sure of it. "I think it means," I say, "that chance encounters are what keep us going. In simple terms."
- Kafka on the Shore, by Haruki Murakami

*

There is an episode of RadioLab that explores "laughter". They interview a scientist that offers evidence that mice laugh. Chimps laugh. One of the folks interviewed suggests (and is not alone in this sentiment) that laughter is totally a social mechanism — that we laugh as a way of communicating one thing or another. Jad asks Robert, or vice versa, how often he laughs out loud to himself. Rarely, his response indicates. I recently passed a mass of months without doing so even once — but in the past several weeks have done so somewhat frequently. There was no one around to whom I could have been communicating anything. I was alone, spurred by a joyous memory, or maybe something that a friend wrote to me. How does one explain those times that we laugh, out loud, to ourselves? Am I a rare case? Am I going mad? How often do you do it?
*

Here is Something Likely Unplottable in 2 or 3-Dimensional Space

*

o trees, o tree

The last post was a cheat, it was old; I found it in the back of the refrigerator. This one, on the other hand, is as fresh as fresh can get — picked from the vine this very evening! Fai clic per vederla meglio.

Roosevelt Park

whites and

whites and, 2009

driving is to biking :as: biking is to ____

Most of the miles that I travel while in Albuquerque are by bicycle. I'm someone quick to deride car transportation as alienating and violent and won't hesitate to list the combustion engine in the Top 5 List of Causes of the Impending Apocalypse. When traveling by car, you experience and understand very little of the environment, flora, fauna, people, and neighborhoods that you pass — maybe because that's exactly what you are doing: passing. You are separated from all of the Life. Cars are coffins.

When moving by bicycle, on the other hand, you are exposed to all of the elements, your surroundings. You feel the wind, the weather. You smell trees, you smell exhaust. You hear conversation (albeit in snippets and scraps). You appreciate distance, and closeness, in a more tangible way.

By bicycle, I've discovered that Albuquerque must be falling apart. I can't explain why, but the city seems to be littered with assorted sockets; laying in gutters, camping out in intersections, loitering in bike lanes — where do they come from?

The first three.

The first time I saw one, I squeezed my brakes hard and went back to pick it up. Hah, must've fallen off a truck, I suppose. Then just a couple days later, I saw and picked up another one. Strange coincidence! Then when I found a third in that same week, I understood that something bigger is at work here. I might have picked up the fourth, but left them laying in the street after that. There are plenty of bolts laying about, as well — obviously meant to pair with the sockets: which should keep all the bolts from falling out. The bolts would stay in if people could hold on to their sockets, I reckon.

The spontaneous emergence of sockets on the streets seems to outpace the deposition of snow in Albuquerque. With the lack of snow for projectile making, I fear that I may soon find myself ambushed by giggling friends hurling sockets from behind their socket-fort/igloo. Blood and shards of teeth will be shed. We will secure carrot noses to the socket-man with bolts.

In other news, click this photo for a good time (wait for it to animate):

やった

Another observation that I've recently made is this, in Aristotelian format:

DRIVING : BIKING : : BIKING : WALKING

I just recently remembered what it is to walk. I get so accustomed to jumping on my bike to go anywhere that I rarely end up walking very far around town. I realized that, for me, biking retains a lot of the alienation of driving — I tend to bike fast, with a destination, a time-limit: it's utility. I've chosen to walk more lately, and find myself much closer to the world. As a gift to myself for my birthday, I spent 5 days away from the internet — combined with deliberate walking, I experienced an emotion, a sensation, that I haven't felt since the last time I was living on a farm (rural Wisconsin). I want that back more and more.

When I choose to pedal now, I try to give myself more time, not make it a work-out every time. I go slower.

"When man invented the bicycle he reached the peak of his attainments. Here was a machine of precision and balance for the convenience of man. And (unlike subsequent inventions for man’s convenience) the more he used it, the fitter his body became. Here, for once, was a product of man’s brain that was entirely beneficial to those who used it, and of no harm or irritation to others. Progress should have stopped when man invented the bicycle." - Elizabeth West, Hovel in the Hills

Chalk and Sweat, Fresh Air and Sharp Stone

Clouds and Climbers

Maggie and Stone

Blood and Shadow

Stef and Edge

Ice and Sunset

Some images born from recent activity. Specifically: bouldering in the Jemez Mountains near Ponderosa, New Mexico.