2008 is winding down. Quite a busy year. I've fallen a bit under the weather -- plague running rampant at the office -- and am generally feeling the decompression beginning. It's been cold at night up here, good for making fires and nice and contrast-y with the hot tub. Moon is almost full, and tonight we took a quick little night mission down to one of the overlooks by Luffenholtz beach where you can walk all the way out to the jutting end of a rock outcrop and watch the waves crash in on all sides.

It reminded me of when I first came out here, going camping with a girl up in the Redwoods north of Orick and walking/sliding down what turned out not to be a real trail, or at least not one made or typically used by humans, ending up on a coarse-grained sandy beach miles from the usual access road. We came for an adventure, and to carry salt-water back for cooking, and to make out a little bit. Something about the way the froth of the waves catches light in the night... connected those two moments for me. Made me feel like a page is turning.

So I've been rolling this one over in my mind a fair bit in the past week, thinking about what I want out of life, what/how I want to be.

One thing I want is to hold on to my far-flung cadre of friends, the bigger Family I have that's grown by choices. I don't have any illusions about everyone all living together in one big happy hippy compound, or cutting a swath of stylish destruction as a king-hell gang of city-dwelling bohemians. No, people want to do their own things, and that's cool. I'm good with it. There are 31 flavors and more. Please sample them all and stick with whatever fits you the best for as long as it feels right.

What I'm more thinking about is keeping up the knitting, maintaining fresh contact information and some sense of What's Up with all these people I fucking love so much. Keeping up the process of running them into one another whenever possible, expanding the network when appropriate, etc. I don't want to sound like an ass, but I like being a part of an elite crew. I'm ambitious. It drags me down being around sad or needy or low-caliber individuals. You know the tune; Rise above, we're gonna rise above.

I was talking the other day with my Gypsy Princess roommate, about how she's always felt the lure of travel, the open road, adventure. And the more she thinks about it the more she wonders if the life of a rambling gypsy isn't but one of many possible outlets for her inner desires, maybe the easiest and best-practiced and ergo most alluring in a default fallback kind of way. Life tough? Go travlin'. That always gets the juices flowing. But maybe there's something more out there, something more substantial, another expression, a way of being that answers the same calling, but more creatively, substantively, sustainably.

It's a heady collection of tags: authentic experience, nyc, love, sex, friends; should be a real barn-burner of a blog.

Back in Humboldt for a week now, feeling the raw world-conquering momentum bleed away into wood smoke and the smell of fallen leaves. It's not unpleasant at all, this country home of mine -- next week will be alive with family and friends; the way I fell in love in the first place -- but today it gives me a feeling of wistful sadness.

It seems I make myself a smaller person here, or maybe it's vice-versa with the Mother City making me bigger. Much as I believe the hype about the internet flattening the world, it will always be true that different things happen in different places. It was an immense recharge, to walk again the streets of Brooklyn, to feel the quick hard snap of real subway doors, the great heaping crush of humanity, densely packed ambition and excellence. I draw power from the capital of the world.

And it's not just the women, but I won't lie: they're a big part of it. I have a no kiss-and-blog policy, but this little slice from William Gibson has stuck with me since adolescence, and pretty much nails me to a T:

But Bobby had this thing for girls, like they were his private tarot or something, the way he'd get himself moving. We never talked about it, but when it started to look like he was losing his touch that summer, he started to spend more time in the Gentleman Loser. He'd sit at a table by the open doors and watch the crowd slide by, nights when the bugs were at the neon and the air smelled of perfume and fast food. You could see his sunglasses scanning those faces as they passed, and he must have decided that Rikki's was the one he was waiting for, the wild card and the luck changer. The new one.

Back in the country home and it's nice to feel the soft touch of nature as I run Moamar off Ox road and into a slick grassy ditch. That's what you get for playing with neutral on steep gravel avenues. Everything worked out though with a midnight chain-gang mission.

After being on the road and on the run for three weeks, I'm looking forward to digging in a bit and really getting some things accomplished. Among them is a yoga class. Next week's thanksgiving festivities should be epic.

Much has happened, but I currently lack the wherewithal to chronicle it with justice, so we'll leave it there. I'm back in the Redwoods and things are going great.

Concept album for a psychedelic Red Dawn fantasy rock band. Working track list:

Trip Narnia

Rockin' Out in Xibalba

Sleep With Your Third Eye Open

Rebel Unicorns

I can't claim any more than collaborative authorship. I'm just a conduit, one of many tiny condensing cells of consciousness, small sparks in geological time, looking to do battle with entropy. Maybe the b-side will feature dirty-beat and dub reggae remixes.

The Autumn is upon us. We are honest outlaws. We've got a shed full of wood and we're not afraid to use it. We recognize decay and even calamity as parts of every life-cycle, and we're not afraid of a little turbulence.

Most of all, we're winning.

It's a very two-steps forward one-step back kind of winning, but you have to recognize progress when it happens. Is it enough? Of course not. It's never enough, but it's something. We're winning feet and inches with miles to go, but that's a hell of a lot better than giving up ground, because in addition to (slowly) making progress, we're also getting stronger.

What do I mean, "we," white man? I mean the forces of hope for the 21st Century.

It's easy to see the apocalypse around every corner. Seductive even. The undercurrent of doom runs strong throughout our world, and it too is a real thing. Stock markets crash. Carbon dioxide accumulates. Our lives slip away in a fitful series of fluorescent flickers, gasping for traction. As the good word says, "it’s so easy to be sad."

But there's light out there. There's promise in the sun, in snowflakes on mars, in the premise of a Black President and Millennial Power. Every year there are more people like us, and not just because people like them are dying off, but because we're right about a lot of things. We're right and we're passionate and passion+truth is a powerful combination. We win converts every day.

I'm in the paper! You can see why my back was so screwed up yesterday, and yes those are my underpants on over long-johns. I was told that was the right way to dress for the team.

Also, there a nice photo from Roller Derby with our friends Hanna and Sarah in it.

You go girls!

Just call me "Uncle Beefcake."

It's 80 degrees in Westhaven! Sort of a miracle even for summer. I'm going out to check out some potential local office spaces.

Things have been good. Work is a little harder when I'm not in the office. There are social dynamics I can't keep spinning when I'm out of town. In the long run these plates need to spin themselves (with the aid of ye olde partners) but in the short term it looks like I'm the secret sauce.

Personally I'm still recovering from a hell of a weekend. Good, but left me feeling a bit dazed and behind on things. I had a real live date though -- a fulfillment of my "power-dating" mandate, even -- which went pretty well, although with schedules being what they are who knows when a second rendezvous might occur.

I have a shit-ton of photos from the party too. If you're on facebook you can peep them there. I'll try and get something up on Flickr too. Lots of excellent knuckle tats.

Anyway, apologies in advance to everything I'm behind on. I will be playing catch-up over the next week/end I'm sure, but you're all in my heart and thoughts.

In brief. I've lived to see the ripe old age of 29. My mom has been having a lovely visit. The Country Soul Carmival Speakeasy was flawless victory (pictures a-plenty, for a change), and they have Jalapino Poppers on the menu at Larrupin, where I took the momster for her special day (poppers wrapped in bacon, natch).

Exhausted now, but in a very good and soul-satisfied way.

Flashing through the accumulated images of the past week, it's a heady mixed bag. Trying to work my way from being a direct-actor to a manager. Trying to get ahead of the curve. Trying to continue my studious avoidance of all feminine diversions. Trying not to get boring as I get old. Trying to figure out what I want to be when I grow up. Trying to communicate. Trying to love. Trying to speak correctly. Trying to listen. Trying.

And a few things occur to me.

In the smear of pint-night down at Everett's, veterans of the military and Gillman st telling stories early, Kelly and Zya creating interpretive dances to Neil Diamond, then the kids coming in as the evening sets in; there emerges a ray of light in shiny blue tights, sheer brilliance, such as to make me avert my eyes. She looks pretty good at the coffeeshop usually, but this is another level, enough to make a man reexamine his beliefs. It occurs to me that my "my head's not in it" excuse for studious avoidance of such is a self-fulfilling prophecy with real limits in its utility. Something's got to change, but for the moment, hey, at least you've got a collectable pint glass to duck into.

And from this, a potential remedy for my romantic listlessness, a possible self-concept, an avenue of habitual action. How does "power-dating" sound? It's more applicable than my retired manslut persona non grata, and it could be useful to get me out there in some way. It ties in with ambition and other shadowy forces that need outlets. I don't know how it squares with living half-n-half between here and the Bay -- where exactly do I set my sites? both? -- but it seems worth trying.