May 2013
12 posts
Richmond, Virginia
I’m here in a city where I got to enjoy the last moments of unadulterated youth. I’m seeing some of my best friends, I’m enjoying the start of a hot and sticky Richmond summer. Right now I’m in a coffee shop where I used to study for hours and drink refill after refill of black coffee, crossroads. They have air conditioning here.
Earlier I was with a friend who had a...
clippings and wolves
Mowing the yard at my parents house is sort of therapeutic. When I was younger I couldn’t stand it. It’s always hot when you mow, it always takes longer than it should. Now I like those things, the free time and the heat. I let this non-english speaking woman cut my hair today. “You want skin?”
“What?”
“Sides, you want skin?”
“Uh, I mean,...
Eating Bugs and In Vitro Meat
I found my summer place, its basic and cheap, which means more money for a new cyclocross bike, or a track bike if the BVV can get its act together.
“I just don’t know if it’s any good.”
“What’s that? I mean you’re helping people.”
“I know, I’m bringing the infant mortality rate down from forty percent to twenty percent here,...
Hero
There is a shanty house in a park near a D.C. Metro stop in Arlington Virginia. A man named Marcos built the shack and has been living there for nine years. The shack is waxed canvass, and the beams in its corners are large branches of trees that look water logged and are completely stripped of bark. They are slowly turning grey. Across the tops of the beams are two by fours, screwed into the...
Newly Content
I’m sitting in a coffee shop in Berkeley California having just spent the day walking around in West Oakland, I took a bus here to see the Berkeley campus, it’s nice.
Yesterday My friend let me borrow his fixed gear bicycle to ride around downtown San Francisco. I rode up the steepest hills I could find, I had to get a pedaling start for some of them because the bike’s gear...
Sore Loser
I wonder how people get stupider, intergenerationally. I theorize that it’s a result of cousins fucking each other. A long history of cousins meeting and deforming further their own genetics. They meet in closed spaces quietly understanding too much of one another and selfishly taking advantage. Holding the better mixing of the genes in like a black cap on a full water bottle.
I’m...
Anticipate West Oakland
I decided to go check out a restaurant called “The Pretty Lady” on 18th street deeper into West Oakland. A friend told me I would love the food, and that I should definitely go if I were staying in Oakland. I remember something Gene said to me when we were riding bikes through Oakland the first day I was here, “Oakland is spread out man.” I’m walking on 18th street...
A Bowl of Brains
When I was ten my neighbor had me help put on a haunted house for his two girls and their girl scout troop. I had to hide in the woods and pull various levers and cords while wearing all black. I feel like maybe my performance was less than excellent, one of the girls saw me standing in the woods. My neighbor was less than pleased.
At the end, when I was allowed to come out of the woods, they...
The Last Breakfast
I walked into the Walnut Cafe, sullen, aware of my circumstances but threaded to reality by poor stitching. “How many?”
“Just one.”
“You can sit at the bar.”
I sat down and when the waitress came over I asked her for coffee and the crayons, realizing that it would probably be the last time I would get to draw in crayola, and probably the last time I would...
Stop Lights
I’m sitting on the patio at a coffee shop in Boulder, I saw a man carrying heavy boxes to the back of a van drop one on accident, I got up and helped him put the box in the back, he smiled and thanked me, when he left, he waved and smiled again.
There is this series of traffic lights that, when you drive through town, you always have to stop at one or two of them. Sometimes you hit three...
MAY DAY
May day, while not the first day of spring officially, represents a halfway point between the first day of spring and the summer solstice. Essentially, May Day is the first day of summer in many pagan traditions. The god Flora is said to have walked through the town, dispersing flowers and ribbons and death for all in a terrible mood. Flora was a leather bound, sword carrying goddess with...
Raining
Sometimes when it rains in Virginia there’s this smell. It’s like the wet air connects you’re nose to everything granite and everything old and everything that reminds you of dust and pine needles. Sometimes it smells musty and like fresh cut grass. In Colorado, it never rains, but it did today. It started raining when I walked out of a restaurant on pearl street and the smell...
April 2013
18 posts
Ch Ch
There comes this moment at the beginning of adulthood where you realize that everything is shifting. Underneath you, around you, you. When I was growing up I got the sense that important parts are monolithic, my house would always be the same, my family would always love me, love doesn’t move.
I’m standing on the corner of two busy streets watching traffic drive by, pacing a few steps back...
Night Ride
This afternoon I was driving up 28th street and a ladybug landed on my arm, it had two spots, one on each wing. I count the spots and think of a wish. I wonder for a minute what I want if I can have one thing forever and I decide I want to be happy. I decide this and I hope that it means a few things for me. I hope it means I get to help people. I hope it means I get to be in love. I hope it...
Zombie Fred
I was sitting in the dining area at the table with a few of my friends from school. Fred was there, eating his medium pizza and drinking a coca-cola. Staring straight ahead at the glass door on the back of the house, he didn’t realize we were there until we sat down when he was suddenly and violently pulled out of blankness, “We’ll I’ll just move” he says.
...
Return of the:
I woke at 2:30 a.m. to the loud sounds of clanging things emanating from the garage. In my half sleep half awake, half drunk state I immediately envisioned a robber wearing the hamburgerler mask, hunting for electronics, and meth. I could see him in his pin stripped uniform, clanging things around with his careless cape. I got out of bed quietly, I heard the garage open, then close, then open...
Craigslist Poem and Scotland
I woke up remembering time I spent in Scotland as an exchange student. Callum, one of the Scotsmen, suggested we go to a driving range. We went with Callum and borrowed his golf clubs. He was an athletic sport loving Scotsman who, upon arriving at the driving range, used his putter to hit a golf ball just over 200 yards. He had nice graphite shafted clubs. I was hitting his three wood when I...
Up the Mountain
Dearest of lords the amount of work I have before me expands rapidly into the sunset like the flats of Eastern Colorado. Equally bored with it, I turn to you, blog, for the type of comfort only an ambient textual mirror can provide.
I don’t talk like that, I talk like this:
Yesterday I woke up at 8:30 a.m. and went for a coffee, at 9 a.m. I sat down and worked on school until a little...
Reefer Madness
I drove my gas using carbon emitting automobile to the coffee shop near my house. I parked in the lot and left the engine running because I was on the phone, and my phone works better when the car is burning gas.
I noticed a larger bald man wearing three hundred dollar sunglasses. They were Oaklies, the type that some cyclists in the Tour de France get paid money to wear so large bald men from...
The Poor Decision Process
When ever I decide to make a poor decision, there’s a process.
First I have to listen to old gangster rap and get really angry. Not at anyone in general, just angry, in general. After I get hyped up on aggression I transition into punk rock and work out. If I start to think about, anything, I turn the music up a little louder or do what ever I’m doing a little faster. It’s...
The Bunny Solution
I took this picture while I was out riding my mountain bike up Flag Staff mountain. I had some leg openers to do and I felt like staying warm so I decided to do them on a climb. When I rode down there was a mountain rescue unit on the scene, I didn’t stop to ask. There were a lot emergency vehicles there and more were arriving as I passed.
I think I’m just going to sit at my house...
Quiet Day
I’m watching the first episode of season six of Mad Men. There’s a scene where Roger’s mother passes away “She was 91” Roger says, “It’s not like we didn’t know it was coming.”
A few minutes later Roger is walking to his office, a few minutes after he says he feels nothing. A few minutes after he says his life is a series of doors and...
The Saturday Rule
On Friday I had a few friends over and we played dominoes. We rode bikes for a while and played basketball too, then we played with toy helicopters and listened to music. I felt like I was rebelling against something, like I was having a punk rock concert in my house by slamming dominoes on the kitchen table. The very act made me smile to myself. Sometimes its nice to hang out and act like a...
Shout outs
I have a few shout outs that I’ve accrued over the past few days that I should probably get out there for everyone. First, one from Sunday, shout out to that dude on the Horizon group ride in the morning, you said “I’m not really into reggae and I mean, dub-step is alright. You know what I’m really into right now though? Dub-step reggae.” Shout out.
Shout out to...
Go Marching In
I’ve got some new music on, it’s a little southern. but it makes me happy.
Today I woke up to sixty eight degrees of Boulder excellence. I donned a light sweater, my sunglasses, and a smile. I boarded my bus. The bus driver, equally cheery, looked at me and asked “how are you this morning Christopher?”
“Why Doris, how nice of you to ask, I’m feeling...
Parquet Autre Vie
I’ve decided to leave this post in what I call “first draft form” where I leave space for clever witticisms to be inserted later, providing a description of the purpose they are to fulfill when I write them.
I’m listening to Parquet Courts and working on law things.
Last night I went bowling, I am a terrible and immodest bowler. The combination is at...
Mountain Bikes and Washington
Yesterday I took a friend mountain biking up at Walker ranch behind Flagstaff mountain. I thought we were going on an easy hour long trek. We ended up riding for three hours over two mountains and we had to walk up thirty flights of granite stairs from a river over a cliff. I thought we must have taken a wrong turn somewhere. Turns out we were just riding to Mordor.
We finally get over the...
May it please the court
It’s been awhile since I had a dream, or remembered one anyway. for me, dreaming happens all at once, I either don’t remember a single second of the dream, or I can recount every strange detail of it, in color from start to finish. I can even remember the strange parts that connect the pieces together, the transitions of place which only make sense while asleep appear in my memory...
1 tag
Riding in the Spring
I had a bike ride to do today, the weather was kind of crappy which is weird because its Boulder and it’s literally never cloudy. Without looking at the forecast, assuming the rain was a fluke, I set out north of town. The rain got a little heavier, and then after half an hour or so I noticed it was snowing up in the mountains. Suddenly the wind picked up, A white wall of terror charged on...
Costco Zombies, Untitled short Story
Today was uneventful, except for “Costco.” The Broomfield Costco should be featured in “The Walking Dead.” They could pull extras from the store and save money on makeup.
I saw a woman buy a box of eggs, that’s over 100 eggs, with four of her children in tow. Everyone was smiling at each other in this forced social way, empathy smiling, while slowly pushing...
Dear Roommate
Dear roommate,
I hope you’re having a blast in California. I hope that you saw the golden gate bridge, and I hope that you stay out there for an extra week so I can continue walking around naked, cooking naked, and talking to people on the phone naked. The intrepid if not somewhat lonely time I’ve spent in my house will forever scar me. I reverted into my original cave-like state,...
March 2013
8 posts
Churches and Bikes
He sat down in the back of the church. He could smell the wood of the pew, humid August air. The pine oil, that musty old wood stench that you have to learn to ignore. A family sitting next to him stared, all in their dress clothes. The little black boy wore black oxfords and two miss matched dress socks. His dark Khakis riding way up his shins, feet dangling from the pew. The little boy held...
Sun Tzu: The Art of Sleep Numbering
So now I’m back in Boulder. Santa Fe’s impression remains, New Mexico in general hangs on me. In New Mexico you can do what ever you want. All land not owned is held in common by the residents which means you can walk out into the middle of a desert, fire your rifle into the sky, do donuts on your dirt bike, and drink beers at the same time.
I woke up this morning in my Boulder...
Cleaning up in Santa Fe
I ran into the guy who sent me on the great mountain bike ride and, like some sort of knowledge fountain, he dropped another thirty miles of trails on me. “yea man, go check it out, its up the 599.” again with the maps, he simplified Santa Fe once more and off I went. The trails today were so fun that I ended up riding for four hours. I had no idea that much time had passed.
Right...
Woah Santa Fe
Found a sign warning me about the existence of unexploded bombs where I was riding my bike near the Rio Grande today. The sign had pictures of mortars and hand grenades on it. This morning I asked the concierge where I should go mountain biking, Santa Fe has hundreds of miles of trails all open for riding. He gave me some elaborate directions and sent me off thirty minutes south west of the...
Denver Traffic
I’m in Santa Fe, New Mexico. I was driving down 25 through Denver and traffic started to slow down. I realized that the slower traffic was moving the more people around me were on their phones. Eventually traffic stopped and literally everyone around me, myself included, were typing away. I figured out later that the traffic jam was actually caused by this compulsive phone addiction.
The...
Light Green, and Red Grease.
Chris walked out into the snow with his hood up and his heavy wool coat on, it was still coming down. Joe and Joe’s girlfriend walked along with him. The procession was marching, lifting feet high over the light powder covering the ground. Each step was a chore, there wasn’t much reason to be outside during this except that Amanda’s car won’t start. He pops the hood.
“Looks like this bolt...
Peaches and Coconuts
I went for a hike yesterday with my friend, he was visiting from out of town. I thought we could make it up to the top of a flat iron. we did, we made it to the top of two.
Now, I’m in pretty good shape, I ride my bike a solid 12 hours a week, I can run for ever, I eat like 5000 calories a day. What I’m trying to say is I live in boulder with all of the other athletic freaks of nature. We...
August 2012
1 post
1 tag
LAST POST, YES REALLY
I’m riding my bike up some highway in Boulder when I get a phone call from an 804 number.
“Hey Chris, man did you know you were on the schedule for 11 a.m. today?”
“Hey man, I think you’re mistaken, I quit that job like 2 weeks ago.”
“Oh, well can you go ahead and come in today? at 11?”
“Dude I quit, I live in Boulder Colorado now,...
July 2012
1 post
1 tag
Grant and his Garden
There’s a lion’s head made out of stone at the back of the back garden, he faces the house from the unpainted wood shed, watching the flowers, the garden furniture, the back patio and the house itself. The shed has extra wood and molding as well as an assortment of tools and left over things that a house tends to gather. There are also a couple bicycles in the shed, one “Shogun” that...
May 2012
4 posts
THE ENCINO MAN
I woke up this morning and decided to watch television for a couple hours. Instead of all the other things I could have done I turned on the TV and watched “Encino Man” in its entirety.
They showed the frozen cave man around where they lived. Initially he tries to build a fire inside the house, to cook with, and he befriends a dog. They calm him down and he starts to dwell on the...
UNSTABLE CONSTRUCTIVIST MISADVENTURES
I took this picture while I was in Reno a few years ago. A brush fire burned up something like 50,000 acres of brush in the sierra nevadas all around where I was staying over the course of a day or so. I had forgot that I took any pictures until I found a couple undeveloped rolls of film. I paid the man forty dollars to give me a digital copy of these prints, which I’m not happy about. The...
you could sell a woman anything if you tell her...
I’ve been growing a mustache. I don’t know what for, except that I’ve always wanted one but I’ve always had something going on that kind of made growing the thing out awkward. Work, namely. I know it looks goofy, I look like a “porn star” or something, but I like it. I’m going to slick my hair straight back and wear a full, but short, mustache...
TAI-PAN JAMES CLAVELL
I was out riding my bike a lot last week, I thought about a few things that I should start doing there.
1) get a Michael Jordan chest piece of him dunking with his tongue out
2) Mimic the face as best I can when I’m doing something awesome on my bike
3) listen to more Busta Rhymes on pandora
4) Not be so afraid of bees.
I’m pretty sure those were all terrible ideas. When...
April 2012
5 posts
NO ASSASSIN NO PLANE AND NO VAN-MIER
I’ve decided to start using a web-calendar more, to increase my productivity.
“11 a.m. get up; 11:15 a.m. really, get up.”
I had a good weekend in Richmond, saw all my friends, did a bunch of fun things, it makes me wonder why people like Washington D.C.
Richmond is laid back, fun, its easier to get a job doing something in Richmond, and the crowd is younger. Crime is no...
AWKWARD GLANCES, FOLLOWERS AT A COFFEE SHOP
Hey there blog, I got offered a job yesterday.
“uh oh.”
I know our relationship has been strained lately, blog. Me making promises to keep and, subsequently, not keeping them. You silent, stoic, strong and abandoned on the internet, left to rot.
Alas, I can not take the job, which is a shame because it would move me to Richmond and all of my dreams would come true. except for the...
POLITICS RAIN GOVERNMENT
Fearlessly, I drove. The rain driving down on the interstate like a wet dream comet hurdling parallel to the ground. The water stuck to the windshield, but it was no matter, windshield wipers moved swiftly across the glass shield. I drove quickly and to a destination, an address if you will. I did forget to look up a good place to park downtown, yet it was no matter, I had the intuition of a...
TYPICAL
Hey blog. how have you been? I was looking through old pictures when I realized that I was much more awesome when I was younger. So I’m going to work on getting back to that.
Also, Just figured out who Kate Upton is, why wasn’t I told?
I had an adventure last night at a friends house. His house has a nice patio that looks over the potomac river. We decided to go sit in some...
LOTTERY, KITES, SAMURAI
I bought 10 of those mega millions lottery tickets and extended my confluence over my friends and family as best I could. I tried to leverage my tickets against my friends in order to have as many chances of striking it rich as possible. I probably spent an hour total on lottery dealings. GOOD THING IT PAID OFF BIG TIME.
Actually after it was all said and done I am technically entitled to 4.6...
March 2012
7 posts
PLAN A WEEK
So I’ve decided to stay up late to; A)beat myself up for hurting someone I care about B)make a plan for the week that includes efforts to correct A). C) make more pancakes.
I had some pancakes today, they were phenomenal. I’ve decided that, as far as pancakes go, more is more.
I will no longer taunt myself with the thought of pancakes, I drive by an ihop almost every single day. Do...
