How many of the times?

A lot of times I find that I have to think I'm not gonna find something before I can actually find it.

"Life is not lost by dying; life is lost minute by minute, day by dragging day, in all the thousand small uncaring ways." - Stephen Vincent Benét

Here is what I have

See, hear, feel, smell, taste
wonder, understand
and to laugh.

A view from a far off shore.

At one point we were all speaking
Portuguese (I was just repeating phonetically!)
laughing and talking, holding each other with our
eyes.

The tyranny of the remembering self.


Even thinking of the future
in terms of what will be remembered.

July 15th, 2012

Twenty eight times he
has spun around the sun.
That's the last of this that rhymes.
Happiness, adventure and sadness
 as he makes his
own way in this space time.
I get to experience Than tides
without which my inter-tidal zone
would not be the same.

Here is the danger

In the rat race, working because I like to work,

and taking a step back to look

at what it might be about

and being hit between the

eyes and not knowing where

to fall.

 July 6th, 2012 trash messages.

Weird 1 - trash hasn't been getting emptied at work this week.
Weird 2 - someone put out my trash and took the barrel and recycle bin back in at the apartment without me seeing who.

Every once and a while it still freaks me out that we see everything upside down and slightly in the past.

Lets see the Professor fix that with coconuts.

It is no wonder the Skipper crashed the boat on that 3 hour cruise.

Front Step Farm

Bend,lift,carry
sweat,listen,laugh
drink a lot of water
dirty hands, create.
Push a wheelbarrow down the road.
Live.

Rachelle came into this world
after me.
We got to know each other
in some small way.
We had laugh, cried and talked.
Rachelle has moved on
and I am glad to have known her.

My hemisphere leans

Tilted over at its most
today as I stand under
the dark side of the moon
with Pink Floyd in my head.

A Gift

That has me up the next day
before the alarm
with a grin on my face.
I can imagine Sisyphus
happy.

Maybe its blowing smoke up your ass and calling it sunshine.

The new Front Step Farms stands on the bones of the old, not to shabby a heritage.

Rainy day

I stop for a bit
on the way to my car
and let some rain fill my coffee a bit.
Even the light is liquid,
without direction. The dryer
exhaust making small clouds blowing
by the windows. A day
for some Eric Satie.

Almond milk

In my smoothie
no chewing
and just a little more
smug.

Wind gusts blowing rain

Thunder with lightning
never any closer than
five Mississippi.

Memorial Day Weekend, Ayer MA, upper Flanagan pond

Cognitive dissonance

Camo hot pants
Look then look away.

Does the term "maybe" mean the same thing as "maybe not"?

Free market

I had a dream where the SpaceX
Falcon 9 rocket was strapped to a space shuttle
to bring it up to orbit. At the last minute the shuttle would not stay attached to the Falcon9. There was an announcement that a SpaceX competitor had its rocket ready to go. In an hour or so they strapped the shuttle to the new rocket (called Velociraptor) and took off successfully
I then was running around Fenway park trying to find someone to talk to about this.

Hmmm...


"The universe works on a math equation
that never even ever really even ends in the end
Infinity spirals out creation
We're on the tip of its tongue, and it is saying
We ain't sure where you stand
You ain't machines and you ain't land
And the plants and the animals, they are linked
And the plants and the animals eat each other..." -Modest Mouse

Didn't see this coming

Walking around at dusk
through the woods, fields and small farm plots
talking about coyotes,
looking for hidden things
and the next day fasting.

Between ear erotica

My space porn went
a little S&M this morning
at 4:55 am when the SpaceX Falcon 9
launch aborted with one half second on the
liftoff clock, abnormal pressure in engine #5.
Then, Grrrrrr... a chick talking rocket science.

Laptop roulette

I wait until the last
possible minute to plug
in my laptop to external power
just to see the little scolding nag
that oblivion is immanent.

Birds, bat and a moth.

Sat outside drinking tea (Constant Comment)
in between dusk and dark (favorite time of day)
and heard the birds settle
in for the night as a bat
twisted overhead. When going back inside
a brown moth followed me in and spent a while bumping
into the white ceiling above any light that was on.
The moth paused on the edge of my bed where I was
reading.
The next day it was gone.

"Hey...your OK...you'll be fine...just breath." - ZeFrank

Cull the chaff

Bob Seger joins
Stevie Wonder
and Elvis Costelo
on the Pandora thumbs
down pile.

"He preferred the hard truth to his dearest illusions." - Carl Sagan on Johannes Kepler

More metaphors.

The zipper went from forehead
to groin
and I had a way to unzip and step out.
Today I felt wings and
decided to stay in this body.

 "I've convinced myself — I hope I'm right — that children despair of you if you don't tell them the truth." - Maurice Sendak

High off the hog.

me: "If I took that apartment in Providence
I would be living like a king."

he: "Why, because the rent is so cheap?"

me: "That and I would have access to all sorts of stuff for my smoothies!"

he: "Oh, right...the not chewing thing."

1981 Chevy Luv diesel pickup

It was trying to tell us something.
There was a different squeal
accenting the cavalcade of
normal operating noises.
It wanted to let us know something
and the best we could
do is send it on its way
for more context.

N 42° 30.472 W 071° 16.732

Found my first geocache today
and got a little thrill
knowing there is something
hidden by where people walk
and don't know.

Weird thought today

I can literally do almost anything
I want to do today and most
likely I am going to pretty
much repeat stuff I have
done before.
That's great for somethings
like raising kids, caring for
those in need, yet can blind me to the
joy of the new.

"Smile your little smile --- take some tea with me awhile.
Brush away that black cloud from your shoulder.
Twitch your whiskers. Feel that you're really real.
Another tea-time --- another day older." - Jethro Tull

Living arrow

A metaphor and reality
borne out of relativity.
My past set as a living
future.
30 revolutions and
this bow could not
be more proud.

From the profane to the religious

Alzheimer's is a miserable god damn fucking disease
and
my Dad is doing sacred work
right here,
at this time,
in this world.

Just before I am wrong, I am right. - 99% Invisible

Day starts

Up at 6:15 with cup of coffee,
some Morning Edition (not to much)
45 minutes of moving listening to
trance.
Something just right for breakfast.
The best days in my life are
those I do something.

Really

Invited to a meeting to be told I did not have to attend a meeting.

"I remember firelight, you remember smoke." -Molly Drake

A book

Reading at one time was

the thing unto itself,

What am I doing today

you might ask? Reading I would answer.

Then I became busy and I used to squeeze reading

in around the edges. Then for a while I hardly

read at all.

Today, a cool rainy spring Sunday,

the long dark teatime of the soul,

and all day to read.

A gift returned.

City Refocuses Its Vision on Urban Farms

Frank CariniPROVIDENCE — The words hit with the force of a hoe bashed upside his head. After all the work his soil-stained hands had done to transform a derelict city lot into a bountiful urban farm, Than Wood couldn’t believe what he was reading: “… a vacant lot, which we propose to purchase and convert into a community-based garden.”

What!? During the past two growing seasons, Wood’s Front Step Farm had produced more than 2,000 pounds of fruits and vegetables, and this upcoming season two dozen neighbors had already bought weekly community-supported agriculture shares in the Backyard Farms CSA.

However, a neighbor of Wood’s urban farm recently was awarded a $10,000 community development block grant (CDBG) from the city. In its grant application, the nonprofit organization referred to 1240 Westminster St. — aka Front Step Farm — as a “vacant lot.” Organization officials wrote that their project “will catalyze community development, stimulate social interaction, beautify the neighborhood and provide nutritious food.”

Than Wood, in April 2010, preparing Front Step Farm, 1240 Westminster St. in Providence, for its first growing season. (ecoRI News file photo)Re-Focus Inc. can sure write a grant, but its observation skills are suspect. Beans, cucumbers, tomatoes and salad greens have colored the 6,000-square-foot lot for two years, a greenhouse and a handmade “mud” oven made of cinderblocks and used to cook community pizzas adorn the urban oasis, and many a neighbor has stopped to chat with Wood about what he is growing. Visitors often leave with a handful of raspberries and some good growing advice.

The nonprofit at 1228 Westminster St. can also be less than neighborly.

Only days after planting the first seedlings for his third growing season, Wood was rudely told to pack up and leave — despite the fact he was a legal tenant with rights; he was paying $100 a month in rent. It was a hostile takeover of a plot of land long ignored until an ambitious East Providence native picked up the trash, lugged out rubble, ripped up pavement, pulled weeds, planted flowers, dumped 40 yards of topsoil, grew chemical-free produce, and continued enriching the land with manure, seaweed and neighbors' food scraps.

Little work needs to be done to “catalyze community development, stimulate social interaction, beautify the neighborhood and provide nutritious food” at the “vacant lot” at 1240 Westminster St.

The former City Farm apprentice was told he could stay until the end of the season, if he paid more rent for less access to the land he nurtured back to life. Wood’s other option was to leave immediately. The nonprofit so interested in “stimulating social interaction” bullied an engaged member of the city’s West Side community off the property without even a “thank you” for the work he had done helping revitalize the neighborhood. Instead, he was told it would soon be changing the lock on the gate.

For the next week, Wood attempted to contact Re-Focus officials to ask them for at least 30 days to get off the property — a right afforded to him under state law. He needed time to move out his tools, the greenhouse, the “mud” oven and the soil he worked so hard to create.

Re-Focus officials ignored Wood and his request for mediation through the Community Mediation Center of Rhode Island, until, that is, a besieged official in the city’s planning department was moved to intervene by Front Step Farm friends, neighbors and CSA members.

Garry Bliss, director of compliance for the city’s Department of Planning and Development, took note of the outpouring of support, and in a memo dated April 19 to the chairman of the Committee on Urban Redevelopment, Renewal & Planning deemed the Re-Focus grant application ineligible.

His decision was based on three key points:

1) In its application, Re-Focus characterized the lot it would be acquiring as  “vacant” and “empty.” However, according to city ordinance, the lot at 1240 Westminster St. doesn’t meet the definition: “A lot with no existing structure that is littered with trash and obviously abandoned.”

“The lot in question has, in fact, been the location of an active and well-maintained urban farm,” Bliss wrote in the memorandum.

2) In its application, Re-Focus stated it wished to acquire the lot and “convert (it) into a community-based garden.”

“This is a misrepresentation as, stated above, the lot is already a garden serving the community, including low- to moderate-income neighborhood residents who obtain fresh produce from the farm during the growing season,” Bliss wrote.

3) The money requested in the grant was to support the acquisition of the lot and the projected date for that activity, in the application, was September 2012 — well within the time period for grant-funded activities.

“However, Re-Focus acquired this property on April 4, 2012 (for $27,000). Grant funds for the July 1, 2012-June 30, 2013 Program Year cannot pay for activities conducted prior to the beginning of the Program Year,” Bliss wrote.

And for those of you concerned about Farmer Wood, he’s currently looking at land in the city and on the outskirts. He’ll be growing food again this season and selling it to neighbors and restaurants, at farmers’ markets and through the Little City Growers Cooperative.

Hi Rick!

A good day.

Its more than a thumb in Re-Focus's eye,
although that part is pretty sweet,
its getting knocked down
and getting back up.
Its pride and conviction
shared. Its making this place
a little better for others. This smells
like an intentional community,
that's right, hippy talk!

Stone Man

My rock collection is
now watched over
by a inuksuk made of
rocks from a  Shogun fortress
and Shinto temple and they from
the even older strife
of planet formation.
A cool roommate indeed.

Been on a conference call since noon

1:39pm
2:37pm
3:07pm
3:40pm
4:05pm
5:00PM
5:08pm done!

At Front Step Farm.

The dried horse manure,
gotten free from the Providence
Police horse barn at Roger Williams Park,
was still in dry clumps after the dry winter,
waiting to be released by April showers..
Yellow blooming dino kale that had overwintered.
Barrel of seaweed tea waiting
for the tug of the moon.
Stinging nettles daring me to lightly brush
at my peril. Scallions and carrots getting
ready to do the heavy lifting,
strawberry plants making a promise
of a sweet trip across the tongue.
Mint having its way in a side bed.
A salute with a quick piss goodbye behind Al's shed.

Listening

During the day I use my hearing
to navigate and inform.
Some of what I hear brings me
pleasure, some becomes a memory
and some is immediately forgotten.
What happens to what I hear
when I am a sleep? So just like I
have a set of awake sounds is
there a whole other set of
sleep sounds stored away?

Post card from Rick and Michelle in Japan

Weird juju at work today. Better slaughter a chicken.

Critter

One of the things that scamper around through
the walls of my apartment has created a hole
in the wall of my bedroom. I haven't seen the animal yet so I am
not sure what it is. I called and reported it to the landlady
and she said she would come and take a look but
she hasn't shown up yet. However that's
not my problem because to quote the great Mitch Hedburg
"I am a renter, I ain't fixing shit!"

Adding casein in a blender.

Speed nob set to about one third
so a whirlpool is formed
start to add the casein and
at the same time slowly increase the speed
otherwise the increased viscosity
will collapse the whirlpool
sending the casein to clump on the
sides at the top of the blender.

My mind is of my body, my body is meant to be in motion.

I want to stop being self deprecating.

This weekend I was invited into the lives of loved ones to share and to bear witness in struggles that I see as the definition of what it is to be human and truly alive.

50 fucking 5 and I just wrote someone in prison for the first time in my life, go figure.

This morning I listened to a RadioLab piece on Alan Turing. A story that showed both startling human brilliance and abysmal human cruelty.

http://www.radiolab.org/blogs/radiolab-blog/2012/mar/19/turing-problem/

I was counting my breaths...1...2...3 and I realized I could be just as well counting down if I knew where that number started. What surprised me was the sense of pleasure at that thought. Counting up from one mystery and counting down to another.

Gots a 2nd hand vacation buzz from dropping travelers off at the airport on their way to Japan.

I have to make sure that I have a 10 second delay on my mouth today as I am chock full of piss and vinegar.

The first day of spring and my god it is full of stars.

Cananda...crap

Bang brothers...crap.

What lions might think - If you make them run some before eating they taste a little salty.

For me change comes as I accept myself for who I am.

Lucky man sitting in the sun late winter.

Michelle with a pole saw and Rick a rake de-cluttering a little section of Flanagan pond.

If software development is similar to making sausage then yesterday was the day we were adding the pig anuses.

Dearest Samira.

Thanksgiving 2011.

Data cleanup scripts....seems just like yesterday we brought them into the world to only be releasing them in to production with the hope that they don't show up at your door in the middle of the night in the company of police.

Gods damnit

That was a busy work week.

1) People sure like to fetishistize Thanksgiving and Christmas.
2) Found I was self censoring myself on Facebook. Fuck that is what I wish I could post there.

INTO my heart on air that kills
From yon far country blows:
What are those blue remembered hills,
What spires, what farms are those?
That is the land of lost content,
I see it shining plain,
The happy highways where I went
And cannot come again. -A.E. Housman

An event horizon

Stopped behind a school bus
picking up first graders
the Chekhov radiation
pulsed out as the kids,
and I don't use this word lightly,
scampered aboard.
I wanted to get out of the
car and join the parents
to wave good bye as the bus
drove away but that
would have been just weird.

Its going to take a little time to process this weekend.

Just 2 conversation tidbits.

"I had never camped until I met my future wife. She took me camping all over New England, except of course New Hampshire where there was a warrant out for my arrest."

"Honey, my blood sugar is 409. Can you bring me my insulin."
Later
"138, perfect! Lets make some smores."

"Labor Day 2011, Sitting by Grinells Beach with myfavorite girl . Watching flag rustling in the wind ,birds flying, sailboats sailing,power boats powering,fishermen fishing,swimmer testing the water some taking the plunge under pale blue sky.Memories only one person knows"

-Pop on facebook

All night?

Late summer still has my windows open
and could hear my neighbors
talking and laughing
last night before bed
and still this morning
when I woke up.

Foggy morning time travel

Woke up and
first thought it was Friday
and had to go to work
then
thought it was Sunday
and that the weekend
was flying by
then
realized it was Saturday
and was happy.

Don't trust anyone over thirty.

"Go ahead, push the button."
Click
"Done."
Later that day
Dame Judy Dench says
"Listen
to this song."
Helen Mirren calls
from the kitchen
"Coffee
is almost ready."
Gaia whispers
"Come
walk with me."

Eudaimonia

What would it take?
An acre?
The right tools?

A hand from the other side of the planet.

Friendly and
knowledgeable
he helped get
the job done.

No explanation needed.

Nearly every time I
talk to, or spend time
with my kids, their friends and better
half's
I come away feeling
good.

Ease into the day with some
easy evaporation.

Part two.

Work guy who, in his car, uses
the go straight lane
to get ahead and then cuts
into right turn only
lane at the last second
did it again this morning
but wait
in work he ran by
me in the hallway
to get to the coffee machine
first.
I could not make that up.
Luckily there is more
than one stall in
the bathroom so he
didn't race me there.

"That dream of getting it right,
the way other people have done it,
it's the dream of correcting the past,
and it's powerful and seductive but futile."
Cary Tennis

Heavy rain,
low glowering clouds,
followed by bright blue
sky with white
cumulus.

It is hard to write anything
about divorce without
sounding
bitter or Pollyanna.
There were struggles and wonders
before
and
after.

Past beyond reach

That ship has sailed,
Horses are out
of the barn,
the train has left the
station
and time paradox
keeps my
grandmother safe.

How to end a phone call

"Have to
go,
I have a headlight
ready to
come out
of the oven."

Ornery.

Red squirrel in
grey recycle bin this morning.
I don't need to be forgiven.
Screw that.
August is here
and the heart wants what
it wants.

Gift

Shared suspension of belief,
bandied, postulated
and burnished
makes my life
so sweet.

Fuel

Coffee,
Milk,
Peanut Butter,
Plain Yogurt,
Strawberries,
Spinach,
Carrots,
Casein,
Banana,
Chick Peas,
Chicken,
Roasted Peanuts,
Mild Cheddar,
Caesar Dressing,
Sharp Cheddar,
Water.

Social convention,
to each of us,
ignore
the little
balls of sin.

What did today mean?

acceptance first,
perhaps then
wisdom.

Straight jacket
of politeness
keeps the blood
from heating
in exchange for
the soaring sweep
of joy.

27

3 cubed
and he makes us
laugh and cry.
Challenges us
and supports us.
Feeds us
and makes us
think.
Loves us
and is loved.
Young man of the world
making it a better place..

New Theory

What I say
makes me.

Sweet mooch!

Lunch made
soulfully delicious
with romaine
from a friends
garden.
Putting to work
right now building
this cog of
the universe.

Darkness at my back door crowds around the 60 watt build, keeping company with moths. When I throw the switch inside to end the glow I can hear darkness bump into the door, simple semaphore, asking me back out to look at the half moon and listen to the honda click as it cools. Just minutes later I can think of nothing to say on the phone.

Night before the last shuttle launch

In bed,
awakened by a gentle
rain,
breeze rustling the
trees
quiet and serene.
Atlantis poised
with its countdown
in motion far
to the south.

First World Problems

I have to laugh for
being aggravated when
trash guys leave a
barrel in the middle of
MY driveway, forcing
me to get out of MY
car before pulling in.
For a moment
what a jerk.