(See what I am saying?)

St. Augustine Said it Better

Behind us the tractor trailers moaned by us on the 101, their pistons pounding like courtroom gavels on fossil fuel from the opposite apex of the earth. Their headlights shined on the cliffside as they snaked along the coast. The lights cut across the erosion and fissurs of the vertical shoreline, making the malibu canyon cliffs look like the ribs of an emaciated dog.

The moonlight made the breaks in the surf show like the backlight dashboard of a luxury sedan, soft sea green like candlelight through mint jubilee . Below us the waves kept crashing in an acute angle into the rocky coast line. The asphault broke away in front of us like a fork through a cake, and the crumbs rolled away below us into the pacific ocean.

Neither of us spoke for a very long time.

Eventually, without looking away from the ocean, I spoke.

"It's amazing to imagine how long these waves have been breaking here before we were were around."

"That's funny." she replied.

"I was just sitting here thinking: it is amazing to think for how much longer these waves will be doing so after we're gone."

Why Greg Lawler Bought Me Dinner

His South African English snuck out between the bites of barbecue ribs. We batted stories back and forth across the table like a shuttlecock, words floating over the salt and pepper shakers, peanut shells, and silverware that sat on the veneer like bored spectators. He was buying dinner, a farewell of sorts, or a long overdue discussion. Like a cardboard box, i began to unfold. I began to fill up with valuables, before closing myself back up and shipping off. The sun set during dinner and Ryan sat in the corner enjoying one of his first legal beers. As we left the restaurant, and drove back down rt. 33 towards Ventura, instead of looking forward, i looked back. I thought about how it came to be that i was riding down the hill in his truck. More importantly i wondered how he came across taking me to dinner. So i asked him.

The lights from the sound stage behind the school came into view as we drove under the rt. 33 overpass.

"Well, i will have have to give you the two minute story" he said nonchalantly, almost reluctantly as we aproached. And very matter of factly, he told me this story:

He and his brother left South Africa with $10,000 and headed for London.

None of it was their money.

They were asked to be couriers for a wealthy friend to deliver the money the the patron's son, living in England. The delivery service paid them $1000 of the parcel, and with and with that sum, the brothers started out in York as waiters working to keep their stay. South African seasons and people must be a little warmer than northern England. After waiting tables for long enough to know they wanted to leave, they paid a visit to a travel agent and bought the cheapest flight to the nearest and warmest place. Fuel prices, demand, trade winds, taxes, geopolitical nuances on that given day, and perhaps simply the travel agents bias, put them on that day to South Beach Miami, Florida.

In South Beach, Miami, He and his brother worked construction and waited tables. Their service must have been exemplary. It afforded them $600 dollar aquistions of fully loaded Fuji del rey bikes, complete with panniers, ready to ride across america. To their amusement, when reviewing their map, found a city named Santa Barbara, and deemed any city named after a soap opera a worthy destination. And at least, he said, all the daytime fans back home would know where they were.

3210 miles later and 49 days later, (and a few local newspaper articles)they made it to their destination, and while living in Santa Barbara he met friends and good times, and from there, hitchhiked north. He was arrested at the Canadian border with an expired visa and was jailed in Blaine Washington. Upon his release from jail and the friendly officers in Blaine, he traveled back south camping in Vashon Island, and eventually making his way back to Santa Barbara to pick up thier odds and ends. Realizing his visa was past it's expiration, he and his brother returned to England.

Back in England, the pair backpacked throughout the greater Britian archipelago. To Whales, north to Scotland, and returning to London. Then without any change in his visa he flew back west to New York. At JFK Airport, without any hassle, was allowed back in the United States. From there his brother made his way to Chicago, and he back across the county to Santa Barbara. Upon his return, he worked in a mom and pop computer shop, made his way to a local Monticito college campus in the IT department, taught himself how to program, began consulting Brooks Institute of Photography, was hired on as the head of the IT department, gave me a Powerbook when i began working there, and then, bought me dinner at the Oak Pit Barbecue in Oak Springs California.

The truck pulled up to the school and I got out. He and ryan went inside to start working on replacing a school email server. I walked through the foyer and into the front yard to where i was parked. I stood there for moment at the front doors.

We can only walk through doors once with the same result. We cannot eat at the Oak Pit with friends twice and have it ever taste the same. We cannot ask for the cheapest plane ticket on different days and get the same ride. We may not even be able to have daytime T.V. executives pick the same city twice to name their show after. We cannot try each day differently, and make different decisions, to see which outcome we prefer best. Our time is not like a suit in a store we can try on and compare sizes before we buy. We simply wear the world we have, or at best, spin our our own wool and fashion our own suit, make our own decisions, and live out the path it yeilds. With nothing to compare our days against, they are our reality, and our reality, be virtue of being all we know, is normal; even perhaps mundane - a story to tell only when asked after a dinner of barbecue ribs, with two minutes to spare. If nothing else, it is simply what it is: an unwinding spool of string, a thread we weave to make our time and our memory to wear out our days in.

I walked to my car, and left school. I took the long way home.

Photo by Greg Lawler.

California Train of Thought (or: Curtain Call)

motion and solitude are amphetamines for the mind. like empty window sills, pills or needles. the tessellating tweed patterns on the seat reminded me of infinity and once again i began questioning ideas that i can't answer and the subtle yet infinite difference between a straight line and a circle. I was reminded that energy never dies, only changes form. and sadness turns to joy, and sometimes back again. and the ocean tides and train rides and prokaryotic cell division and amtrak upholstery patterns and all things in this world that have no beginning or end.

like vascular systems and dry cleaner conveyors, trains go in both directions on their tracks like a pendulum swing that never stops. sometimes i don't notice that i am sitting in a seat facing backwards to the current direction of travel. sometimes i don't notice i am growing older and time is moving and neither of which are doing so in a direction i am always comfortable with.

trains have carried me across their lines like sutures stitched across the continent. like a pill sliding down a throat. like blood in veins. from harrisburg to elizabethtown, from toledo to rochester, from penn station to baltimore i have sat at empty window sills. i have sat alone and discovered infinity, both in my head and out the window where the sunshine turns to chlorophyll. where rain falls down from the sky on the dirt and runs downhill to the ocean. where a boy and girl hold hands and walk on the beach between san clemente and oceanside at low tide.

i leaned back and closed my eyes and saw chandeliers made from wagon wheels. carousels, train tracks and looking back but moving forward. always moving. but feeling the same. i reclined my seat and felt the sun set on my face. i felt light turn to heat, the western hemisphere fall dark. i felt the earth spinning, my heart contracting. i felt confusion. i felt alone. and then infinity.

i began to say good bye.

and i knew i would continue to do so for weeks to come. i felt bittersweet, like a kiss on the cheek on the corner of the street, when a simple goodbye would do. i felt myself falling back inside my skin. gathering myself and my thoughts like a goose gathering her goslings, like gathering and grasping an arm full of dirty laundry, like sweeping up dust in a dustpan, like packing up camp and moving on again.

then i realized i will be saying goodbye for months. and then i realized i will be saying goodbye for years. and then i realized i will always be saying goodbye. i have always been saying good bye. i felt the train tracks and remembered looking back but moving forward. always moving. but feeling the same. i thought about the friends i let down and family i am not around. i thought about girls i may never get to meet. and the ones i have but will never see again. and the ones i have met but will never be close to. there were dogs lying in the pantry their chests slowly expanding and collapsing. snow was falling. chimney smoke was rising. cells were dividing. yeast was rising. wine was fermenting. sandstorms were blowing. the sun was setting. and again, i was moving.

i felt myself growing older. i saw time move. neither were doing so in a direction i was completely comfortable with while sitting on the amtrak surfliner from san diego to ventura.

the air outside went dark and all i could see was my reflection in the florescent light bouncing back on the window . I pulled the curtains across the window. i didn't want see myself. my face seemed to be the only thing coming back to me. san diego was moving farther away. california was moving farther away. the sun was moving farther away. nothing seemed to be coming closer, or close enough, or fast enough. i was alone. and, as always, i was moving.

Also see: Past Trains of thought

Sea Sickness

The entire ship smelled like fermenting jet fuel. Steve said it smelled the same as it did in 1972 while stationed on her in Vietnam. The flourcent lights lit up the metal and paint as we wandered through the USS Midway with our heads tucked in our shoulders. Steve is a retired captain in the Navy. He served as a doctor in the service for over 20 years. He hadn't been back on the ship since then, and now it is decommissioned and turned into museum docked a few miles away from his home in San Diego.

We began to decend the black metal staircase from the mess hall into the sick ward.

The tour of the ship conjured up stories of men over board, liberty leave, the evacuation on board the ship during the fall of Saigon (more stories came out later that night after the 4th of 5th bottle of wine later that day).

The historical photos and anecdotes at every turn painted pictures of hard working men and high moral. The self guided audio tour narrated facts and figures as we walked about the 1001 foot long ship. Intrigued and impressed, i turned to steve:

"What the most common illness you came across on this ship?" i asked him.

"Gonorrhea." he replied gazing across cafeteria, then walked down the stairs.