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There’s this dream I’m wondering about. It’s floating in space but standing, like on a cloud. Lots of white all around. Disembodied, sort of. You’re floating in white. There’s a shotgun pointed at you. It’s the old double-barrel type. It’s pressed into your flesh just enough to leave marks, but not for long. It comes in out of the white and into your torso or your head. It starts at the torso usually. It presses in and just bam, it goes off. The thing tears a hole into you and the particulate isn’t flesh or even colored. It’s gray streaks, like charcoal on rough paper. Little pencil dots. The gray gets absorbed into the white and then you’re whole again. One shotgun after another. It finally presses into your head. You don’t think pain. It doesn’t hurt. Just pushes you like hanging meat in a freezer. Swaying in the white space until that final shotgun into your head. It blows it all away. That’s about where it ends.

The view to the south from San Bruno Mountain in California.

apolloniasaintclair:

Apollonia Saintclair 252 – 20121206 La présentation (The introduction)

I’m waiting for December to be over. Hunkered down inside like a scared kid. Figuratively, of course. I’m out among people, listening to funny stories. Laughing. I’ve become a depressive sort if you can believe it. But I’m also a very happy sort. I like to laugh. I wish I knew a girl who could make me laugh right now. I think I’m done with all that. The easy fucking around. I really do miss tenderness.

After spring I’ll have nothing left to write. Other things call my attention. When I was 13, I drew a sex comic book. It was a guide. The naked female protagonist showed you how to fuck. She was kind and caring about it. Afterward I didn’t know what do with it, so I threw it in the gutter on the way to school. I stopped drawing about that time. I’m going to pick it up again. Photography too, on account of my poor memory. I see things and wish I could take a photo. People talk about things from just a few years ago and I stare blankly. An emptying vessel. Programming is an abstract way to express things, but it’s important for me to know it. The career and all. There’s just a lot to do.

Almost through, in any case. We’ve come far. I’m going hiking this coming weekend to take some photos before the year is up. It’s a start.

For Sale: A Dream Fulfilled.

I come from a car family. Few buses, less trains, annual planes. Transportation that was not one’s own was to be practically shunned unless absolutely necessary. This included dreaded monthly car payments. This was the stuff of chumps. You could afford it or you couldn’t.

No half-measures, as I’ve said before.

Some people recall their childhood dreams and fantasies with great relish. They fetch them from their archives as if they were children yet. Me, I had only three: become a airplane pilot, that the ground would crack open and swallow the neighborhood and school in the year 2000, and drive a Jeep. My first attempts with the latter were feeble, given the meager retail earnings I had during college. Old, busted, near-dead cars were all I could afford. A near-dead Jeep breaks your heart when you see it. They’re not meant for it.

Later, after being convinced that an old mail carrier Jeep was not a wise option, it was time to seriously buy a car. I was earning good money for the first time, saving well, and I seized the opportunity to buy a car when the time had come. A Jeep was the only option. I scoffed at suggestions of buying a sensible car, or even worse a sedan. A sedan like every other chump on the road, making payments.

I searched for a few weeks before I found this one, nicknamed Ellie on account of those tusks in the front. She only had a oil small leak and 60,000 miles on the odometer. I got him to knock $500 off the price and drove her home that first day. Since then I’ve driven from San Diego to Victoria and all points in between. The memories I have of this Jeep are far more potent than anything remembered in a house or apartment. This was my freedom and rite of passage. I owned it, I drove it, and the responsibility was entirely on me. The decisions made were my own.

But by and by things changed. The engine started to feel like it wasn’t strong enough. Not enough space in the back seat—or enough space in the back, period. I first considered changing up a couple of years ago but a big move and other expenses later I decided I didn’t need a new car. I continued with Ellie. We did alright.

My situation changed, again. I resumed my search.

A buddy of mine from Oregon also happened to be into Jeeps. All sorts of things mechanical. I told him my tale of the first Jeep and wanting something more. His first suggestion was the type of Jeep he owns.

“A Jeep Cherokee,” he said. “A ‘90 to ‘96. They’re work horses, get decent mileage, and parts are cheap. They’ll take you to the moon and back if you set them up right.”

“How’s the space?”

“Plenty of it.”

I thought on that a while. It makes sense. What I need is an older car. A simpler car. Something I could maintain without the need to stop in at a mechanic’s place on account of overly complex wiring, computers, plastic parts packed into the tiniest crevices. New cars aren’t the same. A new car would kill what remains of me.

Ellie runs fine. We get to the beach and back without so much as a stutter. She’s got a small rear diff leak that needs to be patched. Heavy work, what with the transmission lugging involved. Something I’ll get fixed before I trade or sell her away. If, I should say. The interested parties so far haven’t made a good mark on my seller’s conscience. One spelled and wrote in a tone I didn’t like. The other spoke like he would part her out and junk her.

I’ve encountered several Cherokees already that look promising. Mileage at the low end of 100,000. Generally two or three previous owners. Yes, a Cherokee will do. Older and Jeep is best. Familiar, trustworthy. Ready for anything. Entirely mine.

We each have our way. Some things are good, some aren’t. Them’s the breaks.

Missed opportunities really grate my potato because they can cause regret. It’s an awful feeling to look back in that context. What could have been or what shouldn’t have been. It becomes a feedback loop if one isn’t careful. A horrible screeching sensation.

A free form inventory starting in 1982:

Pop’s daily drivers – white 1978 Chevy pickup, white-then-silver 1963 Chevy Nova stationwagon, yellow 1957 GMC pickup. The latter was in the worst state of all his project cars and sat in the driveway until he decided to invest. He turned her around real nice. He chose sunshine yellow, if you can believe it. Solid red oak for the bed slats. It’s a beautiful ride. He sold his stationwagon this year and decided to flip the GMC over to his daily driver. That stationwagon was a monument in front of our house for 24 years. It sold for $1,000.

Pop’s project vehicles – black 1965 Chevy Impala, black 1961 Ford Galaxie Sunliner, that GMC pickup. The cars were purchased in running condition but not painted black until he fixed them up. They got hot in the summers and on long road trips through the desert. Thighs readily stuck to the vinyl upholstery of the bench seats.

Pop’s purchases for mom – orange 1978 Chevy van, white and brown pin-striped 1982 custom Chevy van, dark blue 2005 Nissan Pathfinder. The vans were family vehicles that discouraged my mother from ever driving on the L.A. freeways. The Pathfinder’s a much smoother ride. She still avoids freeways.

Pop’s purchases for me – brown 1983 Oldsmobile Cutlass, black 1998 Toyota Tacoma pickup, gray 1978 Chevy Nova. The latter two were for his use, but he passed them on to me as daily drivers when other members of the family needed cars. The black pickup was passed on to the next son in line, and I wrecked the Nova. He removed the engine from that one to build up his GMC.

Pop’s purchases for Abe – the black Toyota pickup. Abe never did let it go. Turned out to be a real frugal sumbitch.

Pop’s purchases for Cris – gray 1993 Toyota Camry. Cris hasn’t shown much interest in buying his own car either.

What I missed was the engine swaps and maintenance he did. I didn’t care for it and only now do I have a taste for taking things apart and rebuilding. Whether it’s a delayed response or a genuine interest, I caught on. Late to the party is my way. I wonder if I waited too long. I mentioned my motorcycle and got nary an excited comment out of him.

The realization that life is an attempt to make him proud. Imagine it.

I don’t bring up my mother much and I can’t speak as to the exact reason. Or write about it. Looking at a body of work (think of my collected ramblings lost to a hard drive in a electronic scrap heap), there’s a tone to me. Aluminum plating welded to a step and covered in mud. I’m this way about myself, my father, and the women I run across and through. My mother doesn’t get this prosaic treatment. I get the feeling that she doesn’t deserve to get dragged through this mud.

But she pops up yet. She most often appears when I absent-mindedly sing. “Mama told me a dark car’s done come, come to take me home.” Doesn’t much matter where the song’s headed. She’ll be there.

“All my life I’ve been a lonely boy.”
Somber this, somber that.
A man’s showering technique says much about his character.
There’s a certain level of skeeve here, but what is acting, what is by design, what is the reality of the setting and characters?
Dialogue is out of an episode of Seinfeld.
Ben Gazzara? I mean, Jackie Treehorn?
You always blame the kicker.
I had me some Goon hair until all that rustling got to me.
“Don’t do bad things. Just don’t do any bad things.”
What is this? Post-industrial fantasy? Super reality?
Made sure the bed was straightened after he sat on it.
Okay, yes—Christina Ricci’s tits.
Life is an improv. Didn’t they teach you the rules of improv? You go with it. You move forward. Don’t trip anybody up.
To fall for a pouter is obvious.
They dance for you and lose interest when you pay attention.
D’you ever get caught up in a stranger’s ways, goin along on some sorta immeasurable tangent where you were just tryna get through your shit for another day, and later, when you’re back to your shit, you don’t know who you’d be if you hadn’t.
Reminded of that motel room in Chicago. The blinking red.
The red room from my visions.
What is the significance of the red shoes / What is the significance of the black hat.
Confront the 2nd person.
A nice girl to bring hot chocolate to is all.
No one can expect the happy ending. We simply hope.
KT: There is a level of realistic portrayal that helps a work achieve its tone without the sense of overproduction. The midwest and the east are familiar but distinctly strange. If it seems too outlandish it’s all the more believable/real.

Survive.
“I just missed your heart.” Always the heart. Guaranteed it will repeat.
Flip the switch; be a woman.
Laika’s story always ends the same way.
The military-industrial complex is strong with this one.
How can anyone trust a uniformed white man who smiles? Investigate innate racial bias.
The desert. Open. Wild.
The killings in the fields far from your home.
Cate Blanchett is in all of the films.
Unto the world of men. Life, voices, music, kettles, Arabic, guns, bombs, beds.
Snarky Brits.
And insufferable family road trips are not missed by this man.
Esas Españolas se ven que son de sangre furiosa.
“We need paper or computers so we don’t have to ask people their name or look them in the face.”
Abandoned Cold War playgrounds.
As comes maturity, so comes death.
Satisfaction—it ends with the heart.
KT: Story is essential to action, but action is not beholden to story. Sexualization is not always characterization. The confidence of knowing takes one far. There is always a quest to create the master race.