so i'm bailing this town

or tearing it down...probably more like hanging around...

*

and so i write to fill the days. and i'm realizing i should have finally broken down and spent the money for this days, weeks, months ago. time is a bitter tragedy that is always broken down into cliches.

*

my sister in law related a story how i sent a letter to my brother when he was in boot camp and he realized that maybe i had had something, and also, maybe he just didn't know me at all. he related the same story before booting my ass to the curb (with good reason, although the stated reasons i'll probably never really know).

maybe i'm just better behind a keyboard and trying to find a way to make words pay. way back i did have a couple things published in trade mags for no pay, sent to me mainly so i could rewrite them and make them presentable. tech writing has come a long way since 1997 unfortunately.

on the other hand i'm still thinking i could make a go of this semi-auto-bio-whatever that has been rumbling around for the last 12 years...and gaining more speed with every year. hell, it took Bourdain until he was 40, i've still got 4 years on that.

so to speak. it's bad enough my supposed mentor is suffering divorce and the one chef i feel closest to just had his third stroke (aside from working on his second heart attack).

we'll see. i may just need to start something up aside from this so i can properly work on this stupidity. downloading my LJ crap, geez that's like 4 years to sort through. and then i've got this, which goes back to 2005. urgh. my personal history is such a crapshoot of "do i really need another hole in my head?"

Rock of ages

...I am tumbling down...

*

It's October. In my memory I always think it is August, but it's late October. I've finally visited the Oriental Institute at the University of Chicago. A place I dreamed about. Imagined skylights glancing on Egyptian and Sumatran ruins, mummies and hieroglyphics all around...

What I got in late 1998 was a museum being remodeled. It was still amazing, finally seeing things I had only read about for so long...but even seeing the Assyrian lion from the triumphal gate of Ninevah, somewhat still in packing box and whatnot didn't quite do it for me.

So I walked around the campus. For all I know I passed Tucker Max or one of my future ex girlfriends that day. I did make it to a few bookstores. And while browsing I kept the headphones on.

And I walked outside after a brief rainstorm, and it was hot and muggy and the kind of air where it hurts to breathe...but I had this playing on repeat the entire way back to the metro. My backpack was overloaded with books I've long since lost, loaned out, or just plain lost. But for a few moments, walking amongst those buildings, I had a sense of history and place.

*

...in an avalanche, in an avalanche, such a heavy rock...