6/29/2022
Our maple tree started dropping its seed pods all over our yard a while ago. For fun I decided to take some of the sprouts that had taken and plant them in some spare pots that I had in the shed. I have about fifteen little maple trees now that seem to be growing strong. A friend told me recently that maple trees make good bonsai trees. I had always assumed that a bonsai was a type of tree but turns out really any tree can be a bonsai with enough dedication. Looks like I might have a bonsai farm on my hands now.
6/28/2022
Upon the hill there lay unwaked, unwept,
A condor hearkening an age before.
Its neck an iv’ry tow’r and wings windswept,
Revered in blood and salted air no more.
For in the town betrayed a shadowed tide
Where symphonies of saws allude refrain,
A testament to those who once had died
And in their fatal flaw made young again.
Beyond the shore that bridges Lethe’s lake,
Where days are breaths and years are vanity,
Abide the tide and memory forsake
Determined grief of ye of earth and sea.
Return from whence all came, that virgin womb!
Our fathers killed the prophets
But we built their tombs.
An early attempt at a sonnet. It was cannibalized from the introductory passage to a novel I once tried to write. In the story, a young VietNam draft dodger comes to a California coastal town looking for work. He meets another man who is full of ambition and together they work a small fishing boat together and scheme their future. It was inspired by a lot of things–Steinbeck, William Randolph Hearst, Odysseus, and the story of the egg wars on the Fallrone Islands in the late 19th century. Two thirds of it was probably written before I gave it up. I’m not completely sure as to why it fell apart. Partly because I don’t think I’m a good novel writer and partly because I don’t think it was a good novel. I think there were a lot of good ideas in it but I couldn’t quite figure out how to piece them together as a whole as I had initially envisioned. I ended up chopping the whole thing up into a series of poems where I experimented with different forms. They somewhat form a narrative but are fairly disjointed–I wouldn’t expect anyone to see how they were meant to be related. I appreciate poetry that isn’t on the nose but I also hate when it’s so cryptic that you would have no idea as to the meaning unless the author was to spell it out in a separate narrative. I guess that’s almost what I’m doing here.
I think I have a hard time piecing things together and even actualizing what I’m trying to get across myself and my lack dedication to see the idea through dooms it prematurely. Like most things I feel like the problems could possibly be worked out with patience and hard work but I also think I might just not have stumbled upon my novel idea yet–something where I can contribute something unique in any way that wasn’t just supposed to be either a short story, poem, or a song. Whenever I write I want to distill everything down to its most basic essence and none of the novels that I have attempted have ended up as such I think for that reason. Maybe I’m not meant to write novels, which is fine, but it’s a damned hard idea to shake once it sets in.
6/26/2022
Yesterday was our eleventh anniversary. We decided not to do anything too special for it besides going out for dinner at an Italian place on Killingsworth called Gabbiano’s which was super solid. We got cocktails, appetizers, and some really good pasta. We ended up going next door for dessert and espresso only to learn that they were experiencing something of a power outage. They were able to seat us anyway even though their espresso maker was down so we just shared a very expensive piece of carrot cake. I hadn’t recognized that we were in the former Beast location until I saw the owner looking very frazzled behind the counter and had to pay our bill to her personally on venmo. Breana realized we had a bottle of bubbly at the house so we went back home and spent the rest of the evening doing one of our favorite things which is sitting on our deck, drinking, and talking way too loud into the night.
After the past year it’s clear more than ever that we need each other, but it’s nice to know that we still love and even still like each other a lot. We never would’ve guessed when we met each other 14 years ago how things would turn out but I’m glad that we’ve been able to grow together through it all. We still have tons to talk about and I still look forward every day to waking up next to or coming home to her.
6/23/2022
Been pretty busy with work recently but I did get to go fishing last weekend with my buddy Adam. He’s one of the first Portland friends I ever made and still one of my best friends. We met in culinary school ten years ago. We hadn’t seen each other in almost a year due to life so it was awesome catching up. We’ve both independently gotten into fly fishing over the last couple years but this was our first time ever fishing together. We left dreary Portland for the sunny lower Deschutes for a Sunday afternoon. Didn’t see much action but I did manage to net a 12in brown trout at the very end so I left pretty satisfied.
There are a lot of things I admire about Adam but one of them is that he is one of those rare individuals who truly enjoys the process in all things. He would do an annual barbecue where he would make everything from scratch–hot dogs, cheese, buns, pickles, beer–everything he possibly could and it would take him 8 months to prepare for and then he would invite all of his friends to the cookout. He has an old Yamaha motorcycle that he’s been restoring for years. Originally he thought it would just take him a year or two but as he’s gotten deep into the project he’s taken on doing all of his own welding and even machining a lot of his own parts. Adam has a curiosity, patience, and willingness to learn and put in the work necessary to do things correctly and not take shortcuts, even if it means delaying the gratification of a finished project by years time. On top of that, he’s just a chill-as-fuck and cool guy and I find myself looking up to him as well as trying to emulate the example he sets as a husband and as a father. I’m proud to call him my friend.
Oh and here’s another picture of Ash from the other day. Too. Much.
6/17/2022
This guy is too much. He literally sits at the kitchen table waiting for his food while I cook dinner. His name is Ash and I love him.
He was originally found as a kitten with his sister in the Eagle Creek Wildfire and he flopped into our lives about two years later. I was fairly adamant about not getting a second cat but, as these things go, he is probably my favorite (don't tell the other animals!). He's very derpy, clumsy, walks a little bow-legged, can't jump, and is incredibly food-motivated. He's a chunky boy with a bulbous nose and a tiny, squeaky meow. He chirps at squirrels, gets huge kitten-eyes whenever you flash a toy in front of him, and lies down in your lap by throwing all of his weight into you without reserve. He's got another origin story that is much more involved and accounts for all of his odd mannerisms (he's so unlike our other cat that we say that he's actually an alien posing as a cat) that I'm sure I'll tell later.
If we give him his all of food for the day he will eat it all at once and inevitably puke it up two minutes after that (and then whine for more food) so we feed him breakfast, lunch, and dinner. We also hide his brother's food from him so he can't eat that. This is done fairly easily because Ash doesn't jump up on anything higher then the bed (and even that takes a couple false starts for him) so we just keep Fin's food up on a desk or dresser. Hence, Ash sitting at the table waiting for his dinner. 😍
6/16/2022
I’ve done a little bit more thinking about what's even the purpose of me writing this blog and I think it's come down to two main things.
One of them is making this a kind of love letter to the early days of the internet. I was born in 1988 so I can remember a time before this technology dictated every aspect of our lives but only just barely. When I was a kid the internet seemed like a place with so much possibility and potential. Now it feels like a dumpster fire responsible for the rise of so much depression and ignorance. I’ve chosen to not participate in the internet for the most part and only engage with it out of necessity of not being a total luddite. I think this site is a way for me to engage with the internet on my terms. To be able to share about myself in a venue where I’m comfortable because, let’s face it, I’m writing for nobody. I’m not promoting this site in any way, its on an ancient web hosting service, if everything goes right nobody should ever read this. This allows me to write with minimal pretension or posturing which is something I feel like the modern day internet is ripe with. Still, "all is vanity" they say, and I guess that's why this isn't just a giant word document a la "Creed Thoughts".
The other purpose I hope this blog serves is to help me during this particular time of my life. I am crushed with grief most days and am constantly struggling for perspective. I’ve taken to dealing with a lot of that grief by writing which is something I usually enjoy but, like everything else right now, has felt hollow. Much of these writings have been relegated to notebooks. Occasionally some of these scribbles may get edited and formed into something that resembles a coherent idea but not often–most get trashed and forgotten, never to become fully realized or formed. This has been incredibly unfruitful as of late and has been harder to keep accountable for. It also leaves an imperfect and unwhole picture of everything that I want to express. I’ve been thinking a lot about interconnectivity–how tragedy informs comedy and how we are, as Sagan says, all stardust. I hope that writing in a public forum will force my hand at honesty as well as to reconcile some things within myself. It’s also, for whatever reason, has been fun to write. I don’t know if it's the multimedia aspect or just the format of an early 2000’s era blog but as long as I’m enjoying it I think I will try to keep it going and, I hope as a byproduct, it will help me regain some perspective on my life.
6/15/2022
Brief Encounters is a support group for those who have experienced infant loss. They had asked for fathers and partners to write a little about their experience for their June newsletter and this is what I wrote:
It’s not a word that I would use to describe grief but there are ways in which I do feel fortunate. I was fortunate to witness the birth of my son, Milo, to bring him home and spend three priceless weeks with him where I was able to hold him, feed him, nurture him, sing to him, and read to him. I also got to stare into his eyes, that looked so much like his mother’s, and tell him how much I loved him. I know not everyone gets that chance.
I was also fortunate to share that experience with my wife. I’ve never seen her as happy or proud as when she was holding Milo. With the three of us we were so complete, so content. We were a family and now had a new understanding as to what purpose our lives served that made everything before seem like it could only be leading to this.
I’ve also never seen my wife as broken or devastated as when we had to say goodbye to him.
Being a partner to someone means being vested in them and sharing in their experiences. It means taking part in the same joys, accomplishments, burdens, and sorrows. Grief can be so profound that it often feels like you’ve invented it but in truth you’re one of countless throughout the world and throughout time. Having a partner to share that with can make it easier–you have someone to depend on, to cry with and to cry to. But it can also make it harder as you now have someone who also depends on you, often at times when you’re at your most frail and you don’t know if you can even depend on yourself.
Our grief is still new, Milo would have been 6 months old last week, and we are still learning how to grieve. We know we may not be grieving the same way and, with so little chance to reconcile the time in which life was given and taken away, we know we may not even be grieving the same thing at the same moment.
We’re grieving not just the loss of our son’s actual life but his prospective life as well. We’ll never get to see him grow up, become his own person, laugh, fall in love–all the things that you wish for your child to experience. We’re grieving that no matter how many times the doctors explain to us that we did everything we possibly could for our son that it still wasn’t enough to protect him from the infection that took him. We’re grieving that we will never have closure.
We’re doing all the things that we’re supposed to do–attending therapy sessions and support groups, practicing mindfulness and giving ourselves grace. We’ve been overwhelmed with the outpouring of support from family, friends, and our workplaces but still our house is silent and our lives are hollow. The nursery is still sealed off. Inside are all of Milo’s things that seem both wrong to move and wrong to keep. It's become the crying room, the room where you go to give into the hopelessness.
I go through the motions of daily life–I take the dog out to the park, shop for groceries, go to the coffeeshop–all throughout talking to strangers who don’t know about Milo. Sometimes it’s a respite to pretend that I’m not grieving and that life is like how it was before I knew him. Other times I just want to tell everybody I meet about him and the fact that I can’t yet bring myself to do that makes me feel even more alone.
Fortunate is not a word that I would use to describe grief but I’m fortunate that I have my wife. It’s a small comfort, and oftentimes not a comfort at all, that our grief is shared, but I can’t imagine trying to go through this alone just as I can’t imagine letting her go through it alone. It’s not a weakness to admit that you need someone else. I don’t just need my wife’s fortitude and perseverance, but her tenderness, patience, and vulnerability, just as I know that she needs the same from me. Grief can’t be overcome through hope or strength of will, it can only be endured, and the only way we can ever expect to make it through is if we have support.
6/14/2022
So I learned how to knit recently. I had been wanting to take up a project for when I'm sitting down on the couch and watching tv in the evening. I had first contemplated fly tying but knitting just seemed so much more practical plus I didn't have to go out and buy a bunch of equipment to start and I had a teacher right at home. I think Breana had to have felt like one of her innermost dreams was coming true when I asked her to teach me. My first project was knitting a scarf for Mia, our dog. Mia is pretty indifferent to it but I love it. I did it with some extra yarn that Breana had laying around. It's nothing special, but it was good practice for me and showed that I could finish a project.
My next project has been a bit more ambitious--I want to knit a blanket for my bedding at the fire house. Breana showed me the wonderful world of ravelry.com to help me choose a pattern. I chose one and then we went to the crafts store to buy my own yarn and needles. The pattern I wanted to do was one where I knit a square of the blanket at a time and then would just piece all the squares together to make the blanket. The pattern wasn't too complicated to start but because it was working from the outside-in of the square it got increasingly complicated and hard to work as the space you had got smaller and smaller. Upon (almost) finishing the first square I conceded that I didnt' think I could do a whole blanket like this and found another pattern. This one is similar but much easier. I found I could knit a square a day if I really worked at it. After finishing the first two squares Breana did the math of how many squares I would actually need to finish the blanket. I was thinking maybe 30 but it turns out its closer to 80+. Was I off on my calculations! So I'm hoping to have it done before the cold weather sets in around late fall. Until then I've got quite a bit of Star Trek to watch.
6/13/2022
Got back from the Gambler yesterday. It was a rainy and muddy one held in central Oregon. I went with my buddy, Chris, and his son and we had a blast. A weekend full of offroading, races, and cleaning up garbage on public lands. This was my first year but I already can't wait for the next one. I'd love to invest in a beater car to race in the HooptieX--for sure a goal for the future. The jeep held up well on the trails and I got to use my CB radio quite a bit which was fun. Chris had gotten a motel room for the weekend so we didn't have to camp at the Gambler which is probably a good thing--things were getting rowdy there in the evening time and I don't know if I would have been able to hang. We had planned on hitting up the Crooked to do some fly fishing while we were there but it never happened with all the weather that was pouring down. One of the highlights was while running into other Gamblers on the trails. We had pulled over to picnic and enjoy the scenery and when a couple guys rode in and asked us if we wanted any apple pie. Confused when they procured a jug and began to pour us drinks into our empty beer cans they explained it was everclear flavored with apple and spices that tasted just like apple pie. I didn't drink much of it--I didn't need to--but it was delicious. Just like mom used to make.
6/8/2022
Breana and I went to see Chris Farren and Jeff Rosenstock the other day playing at the Wonder Ballroom. We had grabbed some food at Black Water before and ran a little late but did catch the last song from the opening act, Catbite, and were blown away. Just a fun ska band. They had a keyboardist too which I always appreciate. Here's the song we heard and I haven't been able to get it out of my head since. Wish I was able to catch the full set.
Catbite - Excuse Me Miss
6/7/2022
Here's a couple photos I took this past weekend on my phone. The first one is of a doe that we saw on our street. It’s short presence in our lives started as a text that my wife got from a friend who lives several blocks down and across the main thoroughfare with a photo of a deer just chilling in their backyard. I left the house to go run some quick errands and as I was coming home I saw the deer on the main intersection navigating through four lanes of traffic. I pulled into my driveway and the deer seemed to be following right behind. I ran inside the hosue to grab Breana so she could see and the deer just very casually pranced on by and kept going to the very end of the street. My next door neighbor, Ruth-Anne, had come running outside too. She's lived in her house for decades and she said that she's never seen a deer on our street before. How crazy! I wasn't sure if ODFW or somebody should be contacted but since it’s late spring it could have been a momma deer looking for food for her babies and it would be best to leave her be. Goodspeed, deer.
The other photo is of a crow in my backyard. He started coming around about a week ago when I was feeding the chickens treats. He would try to join but inevitably he would get chased off by the chickens (usually Rose, finally she had somebody bigger than her that she could boss around!). He flew away to the maple tree and since I was on the patio eating some chips and salsa I decided to take a handful of Juanitas and stick them in the crook of one of the branches where it meets the trunk. The crow took the bait! It cautiously meandered its way down from the higher branches, grabbed a chip, and flew off into the neighbor's yard. It came back several minutes later to take another chip and repeated that pattern until they were all gone. I've been sticking chips or mealworms in that branch every day now for the past week and every day that crow comes back. I'm just sayin, when the shit hits the fan you're going to want the crows on your side. I'm already fortifying my alliances.
6/6/2022
Look out internet--I'm all up inside you now. I'm not sure what the point of this website is or what compelled me to start it today but here we are. I think I'll primarily use it to journal--I'll post some photos, some writing, maybe some links to songs I've been listening to. Who knows. Here's an embroidery that my wife did of me from a few years ago--probably my favorite gift she's ever given me.
