May 20th, 2019.

The first boy I generated into this world turned 14 on the day of this post's title. I've been tardy in posting this as the usual slump of depression around his birthday has tolled across the clockspace of my head. I called him on the day, vidchat, and he answered in an unseemly location. I bid him bon chance and later, called back on a different day to find him en route with his bros, in the back of a minivan, to some swimming pool based venue. Motherfucker did he look beautiful, all burgeoning man and squaring jaw, his hair pulled back and thickly glorious. I killed the call on the quick so as not to impose. He presumably had a rad time. 

The day prior to his birthday I biked loiteringly around town. There was no objective, no mission. The day was fantastically summer, clear and windy, the insects were about and I paused by some communal roses and snapped this. I think often about the flowering of plants, their (plants, that is) history, the altogether unsure future of pollen based reproduction and the unguaranteed persistence of their evolution. I mean, shit, plants fucking flowered, man! 160 million-ish years of perseverance. Jesus.  

I was mega lifted for the bike-venture and found myself tooling up and down the old haunts of the river by the elementary schools near the old apartment. I used to amble regularly there, alongside the river bluffs and was surprised, stupidly, to find erosion had taken her toll on the well remembered outlook. Sitting down in the grass like a hobo, past the concrete barriers, I found this petition spraypainted on the defilade from the main trail. Who knows the outcome of this request? Mysteries.

Facing the river, I found her all the iterations of deity that she rightly was. It's said that Narcissus was borne of a river god and a nymph, Liriope, raped by said god. Looking into the deepness of the flowing, from the remove of the bluff, I could almost see all the chaotic surge of the river that would precipitate the creation of such a myth. Narcissus would himself go to perish under the spell of water and another, different goddess irked at him. We're a record on repeat.

I finished ("finished") a story this morning, 28th May. The other day I was in the arboretum where someone had sawed spruce trees into seats and this happy crab graced one of the chairs. The absurdity of stories is something never far from me. The crab bears witness, the tree rings too. My own constructed things, organic and written, flail about in selfsame record. The destructed sign and garden bed of the arboretum entrance was a shambles, evidence of some new owners perhaps, all folks unknown and churning, much the same as I. 

Christ does it all hurt deliciously.

Springtime Depression and a Thickset Woman in an MLP Onesie

Joke's on you, bronies, the title was based on a scene I saw and did not photograph in my local cafe and designed only to hit search algorithms for clicks from your horde of slavering basement dwellers. Your friendship is magic bullshit can take a hike. Shower already and stop fapping to rule 34'd children's cartoons, you filthy troglodytes. 

Here's the memorial to Doris at the Moosehead. If you squint, you can see her hat in the back on the touchscreen for amusement only video game crouching at the end of the bar. I've been thinking a lot about death and this stupid body I'm housing and how I'm doing many things to shorten its timeframe but am somehow unperturbed by this. There may be a message in that but I am at a loss to know what that would look like.

We took in Captain Cat some years ago (2? 3? The speeding never stops, never stops.). He's a testament to the gritty and foolish persistence of life in the face of ultimate absurdity. A true Sisyphean hero of the Camus variety, struggling uselessly up that slope into nothing. I'm glad he's found a relatively easy place to shoulder on toward death.

Christ, am I becoming a fat bastard. Ulybear was sick recently; a stomach bug laid him somewhat low. Myself too, although with none of the youthful resilience of being able to jump around for hours then crashing into a heap on the sofa in a languid mid-morning haze of recuperation. As he laid on me, we talked about the window to the outside scene, the mountain, the budding trees, youtube videos. I'm the age now that my old man was when I was born, roughly, and all I can think about is that countdown timer that will snatch me from this grand boy, my youngest. Maybe we'll be able to have beers together. Maybe not.

The chickadees have inhabited the birdhouse for a second consecutive year. I don't know if it's the same pair, but like to think that way. At work, I found a bird nest, possibly a magpie's, and now it lives in my office. It is broken, suffering a fall from a security light, but would still work if the birds had returned. This ruin will fade, much like our own fantasies of stability and future. 

Sanity seems fleeting. Beach House. Jesus. You ever wonder about those people who say things like "No bad days" or some such? Must be a treat.