2002:

[ october : ¤ : november : ¤ : december ]

2003:

[ january : ¤ : february : ¤ : march : ¤ : april : ¤ : may : ¤ : june : ¤ : july : ¤ : august : ¤ : september : ¤ : october : ¤ : november : ¤ : december ]

2004:

[ january : ¤ : february : ¤ : march : ¤ : april : ¤ : may : ¤ : june : ¤ : july ]

7:37pm :: Today it rained for about five minutes. It was even really a rain, just a slight drizzle that smelled up the air, made the women with perms walk only a little faster between shelters, but still managed to flood the parking lots and streets. Juts a drizzle can do damage.

So I've decided that I'm definitely going to watch more movies. Fuck this renting shit. There is no sense in paying $4 for a DVD rental when I can watch it in a theatre for $3. I guess there is sense, but just not always. Sitting in the theatre today (which was surprisingly crowded considering that the movie is on pretty much its last run at that theatre), I got really disgusted with the crowd and the movie companies, both of whom I think are in cahoots to ruin society. The reasoning behind this being that when they showed previews for these worthless, shallow Hollywood pieces of crap, people erupted laughter and made comments about how funny it looked. I shouldn't let things like this bother me, but it has to bother when you think that these same people are going to be voting in a couple of months.

The idea of holes popped into my mind this evening. Maybe it's the holes in the road, that fill with water. Maybe it's the more metaphorical holes: those that exist within everyone, that drive us to either dig our way out, or dig ourselves deeper. Either way, we need those holes, because if we lived our lives on the surface all the time, we just wouldn't know what to do. Enough of that though.
So I haven't updated this picture yet even though I have the images made. I don't know why. I made a new web site, but I'm just so reluctant to put it up yet, mainly because it involves a lot of database coding in PHP that I just don't feel like tackling, not to mention the actual manual population of the database. I've also decided to change the formatting of the web site so that it's not so long-winded and doesn't have like 5 sections of me complaining about how boring Tucumcari is. No one wants to hear bad news I suppose. I could write a bunch of stuff about gardens of daisies, although I don't really think that a garden of daisies is all that more beautiful than a cloud-covered basaltic plain, or a grassy hill lined with yuccas and agaves. I suppose that's why I live here though and not somewhere else. I need to take a trip soon, and I'm thinking it will be Kofa again to sleep in my truck and make it further down the road that I can never seem to make it down. Man, now that says something that should be analyzed, but not just yet. Tonight I need to lay down until I'm no longer tired and then not be able to go to sleep until 1am. So is my weekend cycle. Next weekend I'm supposed to build a house with a guy that keeps calling "pimp-playa," even though I'm not really happy with the name. That should be fun though. I would like to build a house, even one that I won't live in, nor ever set foot in.

So where are all of these sweet deserts that I'm supposed to have? I keep seeing cakes in the supermarket and just cannot justify paying $7 for them. I'll buy birthday cakes sometimes and celebrate the special of random people, but this doesn't happen much.

Raza-madazzle

9:29pm :: Blanding, Utah. I remember a gas station with an A&W crowded against a hill. That's it.
Watching π for the first time in about a year, I have a lot of feelings about it, but few that I really feel like I need to write down. After all, who the fuck am I, and what the fuck is this that's worth really taking the time to articulate everything that I'm thinking, right?

No, that's a little too harsh. Maybe I've had too much alcohol for the evening. Or maybe just not enough. I kept thinking tonight that I wanted to just go the airport and sit there. But I know that I would end up just falling asleep and getting kicked out, like some crazy bum. I think that I should go to the Grille later tonght. But maybe not.
So I just took like five flash pictures of myself and things around my apartment, and really got nothing but spots in my eyes. Why don't we have a better name for that in English? These pictures will probably not be used though.

Where are my pancakes?

3:44pm :: So I came to Ike's today with the full on, sincere intention of getting work done on the Wildlife Museum web site, but unfortunately, the wireless card has again failed me. I guess it's just taunting me, or maybe I'm just doing something wrong. Eh?

What is very apparent is that there is a rather large, black cloud looming over the beautiful Catalinas, but here in the valley we are stuck with a hot, muggy sunshine of a day. When they say the rain will not come, it pours, and when they tells us to stay indoors and away from the dangerous, deadly lightning (not to mention West Nile virus, terrorists and little cars without drivers), it's sunny. No science is exact science I suppose, but as general mankind has advanced, one would assume that our prediction abilities (notice that I leave out the word "weather" insinuating that the ability to predict the weather involves something a little more like predicting the future) have advanced to the point where we can tell Joe on Dirt Lane that a tornado will hit his trailer tomorrow. But unfortunately, that hasn't happened just yet. Why? Reagan. That's right, Reagan.

Anyway, so I'm out in the desert yesterday, the Santa Ritas to be exact, looking for the ever-elusive Cave of the Bells. The cave is supposed to be in Sawmill Canyon, although the forest service makes no mention of this. However, I did get the topo map coordinates for it, and it completely conflicted with the directions to the forest service's Sawmill Canyon trailhead. So I follow the directions, and end up on this dirt road which ends at a gate where a large group of Tohono O'odham have strangely parked their truck. This is Greaterville, and there is no sign, nor buildings to confer this, just an Indian with no teeth. He told me that Sawmill Canyon was in fact on the other side of the mountains, and that I would have to go towards Madera Canyon and turn off at some unknown spot. So I assume that the unknown spot is left, or towards the mountains. There were three roads that went left off of the main road, FR 62: one was a tiny 4wd track that I gave up on because it looked like it was about to end; the second was the road to Florida Canyon, at the end of which is a University of Arizona facility, as well as the Florida Canyon trailhead; the third was a small, but good dirt road that led me to an abandoned ranch site. This site consisted of one large and three small water holes, an old generator on a trailer, a smashed shack (possibly an outhouse), and an abandoned windmill which no longer had its blades. Upon the windmill, a pair of ravens had built a nest, and when I approached, they sat, perched on their nest facing opposite directions. It was very surreal and looked like something Edgar Allen Poe might have painted had he possesed that particular artistic talent. As soon as I got out of the truck and shut my door though, the ravens "caw-ed" and flew off in opposite directions. This, and the approaching storm clouds made the scene very eerie. Something is especially forbidding about the quiet of the desert, especially around man-made objects. These abandoned ranch sites seem to be everywhere in Arizona, and I've been to quite a few, but I never get used to this feeling. I suppose you feel as if you are trespassing, maybe not necessarily on some other person's land, but rather on land that nature has stubbonly re-claimed. Maybe this is a little overboard. Nature is not explicitly or intentionally wrathful I think, it's just that when the general, natural occurences destroy our creations and disturb our little lives, we feel it necessary to blame something, that something often being nature. After all, who is to blame for tornadoes, hurricanes or flash floods?
The point of the story here is that we were both wrong. Sawmill Canyon is off of Gardner Canyon Road, which is about 5 miles to the south of where I ran into the toothless man. I got FR 92 confused with FR 62, and they do not intersect. So, that just leaves it open for another weekend, and it allowed me to explore some areas on the north slopes that I had not had a chance to see. There's something much more sinister and creepy about the Santa Ritas, and this is what always pulls me towards them. Even though there are more roads leading into them than any other mountain range in the Tucson area. But that may have something to do with it, what with my unending paranoia towards my fellow man in the desert. I may go back in 2-3 weeks, but it always seems less fun when I really, genuinely know where I'm going. Half of the fun is exploring, and finding the right sign or the right direction for yourself.
Directions are what it's all about. Not just north, south, east, west and right, left, up, down, but advice: words and phrases spoken with the intent of directing others. That's what drive our society: that idea that we always know what's better for others.

Yeah, but whatever.
The money situation is much better this weekend because I was paid on Friday and I really haven't had to spend my money on anything. I bought a Silver Mine sub last night, and I guess that was my treat because besides the coffee, I'm only planning on buying Del Taco for the rest of the night. It's hard to emerge from that cheap, college lifestyle of fried and processed food, bad beer and late nights in front of computers.
I'm now recalling the night I decided to quit UH, got drunk on two King Cobras, and then drove to Starbucks in the rain. I don't remember what I did after that, but I'm sure that it was fun. Or maybe not, since not much in Houston was really that much fun.

I think it's time to leave. My wireless still refuses to function, and I'm just lost without it.
Whatever.

10:19am :: So today is that day when my fellow countrymen and I celebrate our freedom by eating large quantities of dead flesh and blow shit up, drinking all the while. I don't think that I should drink today. Reason one being that I like to protest these holidays, which are, in their pure form, sorry excuses to drink and be with loved ones (who, for many of us, are unbearable wthout the aid of drink); reason two being that I have no alcohol and am too concerned about my finances to spend anymore money on it. I really do wish that I had some drugs, because that is truly the way to celebrate freedom, or at least the double-standard of it all. I think that if I lived in the Pacific Northwest, or anywhere near the Canadian border, I would head up there each 4th just to get away from the over-bearing patriotism. It seems to have died, no longer do we put animated American flags with "Support Our Troops" on the footers of our emails, and those damn little flags sticking off of our cars have dissipated somewhat. Maybe in the depths of rural America, the psycho patriotism continues, unfettered by traditional pop culture influences. What does that mean though?
I thought about it long and hard for like 20 minutes, and I have decided to make a trip to California in August. I'll drive to San Diego, check out the town and spend the night. Next day, drive to LA, hang out with whoever I am obligated to see and try to find a suitable indoor place to crash for the night. The next day, get up early and drive to Oxnard to catch the boat to Anacapa Island. Beautiful. Depending on whether or not I take a day of PTO, I'll either drive back from there, or spend the night at the hostel in nearby Santa Barbara. So is my plan, but so often how it fails.
I complain about money, but really I'm not that bad off. I have extensive credit card debt, but it's just a matter of time to pay this off completely, maybe 4 paychecks at the most. Anyway, it's worth it, spend that money quickly before you die. 35 is my target age. That's when things generally start dropping off significantly and you really have very few places to go in your life that do not involve the settled sort of demeanor that begins to haunt us in our late 20's. The family, the job, the mortgage, the death of parents, everything comes to a head at this age, and I think that this is by far the best time to die. Something fun, like going out into the desert and putting a bullet in my head. Good stuff. But that's not for over 10 years, and I'm not even sure where I'll be in 5. I have a feeling that it won't be Tucson. Something about being stuck in one place for too long that drives me nuts. Maybe that's why I began to hate Houston so much...nah, Houston just sucks. I have a few more things that I want to see and do before I die anyway.

Enough of this talk of mortality/fatality/black nothingnesss. There are half-hearted heroes out there to recognize, and the local news only catches the ugly ones. The majority fall into the cracks of obscurity, thanked with karma, gratitude, or possibly a brief, but rewarding sexual experience. That's who all of us strive to be, the modest, but appreciated hero. Few of us are heroic, modest, or appreciated, and even fewer of us are really deserving. But so is the expectation for life, and we tramp on hoping for our moment when the sun shines clearly on our faces, and the sweat breaks just enough to cool the forehead in the swaying breeze.
See, I get so non-sensical with this coffee. I came here to work on the IWM site, but I just have no ideas for it. Something is stifling me. I am a non-artist stuck with an artist's job, and the expectation of being whole-heartedly broken down by my holistic environment. That's not true. I just need to get out into the desert and work to the map lights. Draw sketches, storyboards and outlines for life, all to the soundtrack of psychadelic drugs. But alas, these drugs and subsequent ideas are elusive, and I am stuck looking for much more striking inspiration, from the low clouds that gather over the Rincons, to the sparse, sandy desert surrounding my home. Such is why I am here and such is why I continue my life. There's something more than inspiration, there's resolution, and it's out there waiting to be discovered. It's personal, subjective and singular in that you find it briefly, unexpectedly, and uneventfully. Maybe I've found this already and I'm just waiting for it to materialize into much more well-formed ideas.
Maybe not.

I've promised myself cleaning this weekend, but I'm not so sure if that's going to happen now. I know that I'll be home for the fireworks, but I don't know what I'll be doing the rest of the day. I was hungry, but that's subsided, probably due to the coffee, which I need a refill on.
I don't really understand myself coming to these places all the time. I'm not here to meet others, nor am I hear to watch others. I wrap myself in my computer like some sort of madman. In worried piles I typed for miles. But I guess it's similar to my love of bars, and maybe it's just that I like being around people, just not talking to them. Or maybe it's just nice to get out of the apartment every once in a while, even though I love just watching the city from my patio or typing incessantly to the breeze coming off of the western mountains. Whatever it is, these places usually represent my best thoughts and these places have become a staple of this time in my life. Starbucks on Gray, Dedrich's on Montrose, Ike's, Epic, all of those places that are pretty meaningless to those who don't know any better, or know them as simply coffee houses. They're not just coffee houses to me, they're places to kill time, but in a productive manner. Productively wasting time is an oxymoron, but it works better than just "wasting time."

11:23am :: Okay, so after some thought (I seriously have been thinking about it for a while), it's definitely time to re-design lonely-crowded west. For one, it needs to be PHP-based.