I just made it back from a few days out camping at a boat-in site with Mark, Zya, her sister and brother in law, all hosted by Can-Do Tiger Dave (Zya's progenitor) and his goon squad of drunken loggers. Good times. I feel that all Americans should drive a speed boat at least once every four years.

It was hot and nasty on the way back across the Sacto valley (110 and humid at the low point) but Moamar held up fine in the heat, and here in Westhaven it's fogged-in and maybe 60 degrees tops. I'll be here until Sunday when I fly to New York for a bit.

I read some news today as a way of reorienting myself. The local paper out in the Sierras was all about parade coverage and exotic police-blotter stuff (woman with sword detained, etc), and I knew that The Fear would be progressing even over a holiday weekend.

It strikes me as odd how disconnected things are. Like, the giant -imperial palace- embassy being built in Baghdad, which is news because of construction problems. What the fuck, you know? The undercurrent of doom is returning.

Never underestimate the power of inertia to keep things going, but the total lack of sanity in this country's brain-trust is kind of alarming at times. Feels like we've all just accepted that Shit's Bad, and we're just going to make the best of it for ourselves and those around us. I lump myself into that group. It's hard to know what else really to do but bide time and work on yr own life.

So another long post, but this one because I stumbled upon an old cache of never-blogged textfiles from 2003 and before. Dynamite stuff from the archives -- like these old artistic source texts -- and some of it still topical!

Here's a bit from deep inside my mind back when I was still a Young Buck, and right before I fell in love again, it's interesting to note. Borderline arrogant, true, but that kind of free and open state of mind is something I think it would be very positive for me to reconnect with.

h4. Dancing.txt (1/27/2003)

There was dancing, and I overheard a fairly nubile 20-year-old tell some lucky chump. "I want sex. I like it. It feels good to me. I don't do it a lot, but I want someone who will give it to me now."

He seemed at first to be too much of a weify wannabe hipster/jock hybrid to step up to what she was pitching, and for a moment I entertained a fantasy of "cutting in" so to speak. She and I had been dancing somewhat in sync earlier, and lustful thoughts had been propagating for some time. But I hesitated. In the moment I became plagued with doubt; about who I was and what I was doing; about who she was and if I really wanted her; doubt about the very nature of my own desire.

During the intervening doubtful minute, the lucky chump realizes the what score is and decides he knows what to do. Soon they are gone, and thinking it over I'm not all that bothered. You see, I realized if I were going to try it with her, it would have to be something like this:

Josh: Sorry, I couldn't help but notice the proposition you just made to this gentleman, and I'd like to make my services available to you this evening, should you be so inclined. I'm good, and I'm leaving town for New York City in two days. There will be no complecations.

20-y-o: Ummm ok. [resumes talking to other guy]

[But then... 20 minutes later]

20-y-o: Ok, are you game?

Man, I loved that little bit from Idiocracy That's what I'm talkin' about! Lol. Anyway, uhhh...

Wake up, Wake up, Wake up
It's the first of the month

Well, as alluded to below with work seeming to progress well, I've reached another milestone in my quest for financial freedom. I'm square with the tax-man, the last big fiduciary obligation. My bank account is low, but I'm free and clear of serfdom: it's all gravy from here on out!

Translated to more realistic terms, that means I'm now in the novel situation of having only low-interest consolidated student loans as debt, and consistently (reliably?) earning more a month than I need to survive.

I feel like quoting Deadwood -- Ellsworth's line -- "I’ll tell you what: I may have fucked my life up flatter than hammered shit, but I stand here before you today beholden to no human cocksucker."

Part of me wants to take this opportunity to settle things down, cut down on my bills and cut down on my work too. The hippy thing: simplifyyyyy. But I think for now this is unlikely.

I'm too ambitious for that just yet, not ready to take the "one big score and I'm out" thought into action. It seems much more likely to try to work a simplicity/tranquility component module into a more complex life. Like building a cabin on top of a mountain in Lawless Trinity County and keeping my home-base in Westhaven while holding down an apartment in the Bay. These things can be done, if I want to do them. I could also make other choices.

Freedom; terrible terrible freedom.

Giving free reign to my inner project-manager voice for a moment, let's take stock of things.

It's been a big week at the office. Unless I miss my guess, we may be set through the end of the calendar year for work, which is an intersting and good situation to be in. It's bringing the "what's next" kind of pressure to a whole new level, putting our interpersonal management skills to the test and generally upping the stress level another notch.

It's looking like a roller-coaster ride of a summer too. Next week I'm off into the hills for some Independence Day celebration, then to a 7/7/07 wedding in the HC, then flying to NYC to close out a project, then back to Cali where I transition to my Berkeley sublet, then back to NYC for a family visit w/the mom and sis, then back to Cali, then out to Chicago for another wedding and maybe some convention crashing, then back to the Bay/HC for a couple weeks, then Burning Man, then down to Mexico for two weeks for a long-postponed work retreat, in the middle of which I'll fly to Oregon and back for yet another wedding.

That's me through mid September. It's exciting and suits my rambling nature, but it also sounds very exhausting and overwhelmingly work-related. All work and no play makes Josh a dull boy.

So, grappling with the problems of "success" is another weighty luxury. A big part of me still wants to find a little woman and hide out in the HC, the old Hank Stamper dream. Still nothing doing on that front either, naturally, so it's all dreams and fantasies for now, but dreams and fantasies are important.

Another short post with no image (I'm going to redesign this boogin' blog to support more like this... maybe some kind of sidebar again), but anyway I found this to be somewhat exciting:

http://www.communitycounts.us/debates/

At this point I think people are trying too hard to model themselves after the conventional notion of a debate moderator. But the notion being driven by CNN/YouTube, and the ability for Community Counts to mash it up seems like the inkling of something that could be really important and interesting and healthy for the country.

Leaning out my window just now smoking a peta, I see a guy and a girl walking by holding hands, look like sorta-trendy sorta-"california" people, maybe the kind I don't pay much attention to, but just under my window the girl says to the guy, "you make me happy."

That's all; silence and footsteps on the bookends.

It reads as the kind of unguarded, unprompted statement you make when you're in a moment of liking someone.

Feels a bit intrusive, me spying this little interpersonal interaction, but it made me happy too.

First of all, a big shout out to my man LGD in Alemania: Crackademic, bitches. He doesn't smoke crack, but he does need money.

I've been on the run lately. Worked through the weekend with more office improvements and have been down in Palo Alto the past two days working on speccing out one of our next big (cross-fingers) clients. Too busy to really worry about much, and happy to note that my urban biking skills are returning with a vengeance.

It is getting to the point with everything being all work all the time that I miss the old homestead. Called back and talked to Mark to try and work out plans for next week, and it made me kind of want to bail on the city. I'm having serious dog-envy, at least.

Tying a few threads together from recent life, I'm feeling an acute lack of community. Coupled with a (arguably snobby) disinterest in making new friends or social connections, I've created a little catch-22 for myself. It's the Westhaven mental disease; on the phone the other night I literally said, "but, man, I don't want to go out and like meet people or do things." I can try and dress it up with paeans to my existing roster of friends and comrades and bemoan my over-booked schedule, but the truth is that's a strongly anti-social statement. Which is not really something I like.

These things are connected: community, identity, sociability, self-esteem and some bedrock notion of what the hell I'm doing here. I don't have any problems with professional networking, and indeed I'm pretty good at it when I'm in the mood, but outside of my worklife things are tattered and lone.

So, you know, you can get this off the internet the same way I get most of my video entertainment (savvy?), and I just watched it and it was really good. I don't go for Moore's coy, "gee mister, don't people in Cuba have to pay for healthcare" character, but his films can be quite thoughtful, and this is some of his best work. The assembled stores really speak for themselves.

One thing that stuck out for me was this bit from France, where they make sure that if you're poor and you need to take a cab home you can walk out with some cash. There's a line where the French doctor says, when asked about paying bills, something along the lines of, "the only qualification for walking out is that you're healthy enough and are going someplace safe."

That hit home for me, reminded me of the bike crash that got me wearing a helmet:

Actually, the stitches are not that much of a pain. There were a few woozy moments in the ER, but the real damage is muscular. I righteously pulled out my groin and jammed by elbow, both on the left side. Heading in I could walk and move pretty well. Walking out of the hospital took me a full five minutes gimping along, coming close to out and out crying on the ramp leading to the street. It’s a hell of a thing to be totally incapacitated.

In case you forgot.

The man and I went out last night to a birthday party for one of the principles at one of Chapter Three's first clients. Them being a high-end furniture operation and the place being a yuppie/hipster crossover bar we figured maybe we'd meet some girls. Turns out the old law-school posse was in attendance, which provided a nice diversion as neither of us really turned out to be in the mood to try and talk to strange women.

It's an interesting turn. I'd sort of hoped that being in the City would coax me back into action on that front, but the whole concept feels tiring, like work. That tells me for whatever reason that I'm just not ready, but I'm finding that to be annoying. It's, ahh, been a little while since there was any sexy zing in my life and while I don't feel hard-up or sexually frustrated per se, I do miss it; and in those "I'm getting old" moments I sometimes worry that it's all down hill from here.

Will there ever be guilt-free casual unhurried adult physical fun again? This makes me think: Keep hope alive!. Heh.

For now I'm just tired. After we'd done the crossover bar thing to death, we repaired to the Zeitgeist -- where some other clients were hanging, also coincidentally: SF is a big small-town -- and stayed until closing, yelling about the nature of the state, and my round of Powers and Pabsts at the end was probably unnecessary.

Just click that and let it play.

The friends you keep up with over time are the ones that matter, and I always feel sorry for people who seem surprised when I tell them I live with a best friend who I've known since we were 14, and I get even older friends I've known since wee-boy childhood coming through touring with their bands and what have you. That whole scene.

We all reinvent ourselves; we all go through changes; for all the excessively individualistic ideology we grow up with about identity in America, I think it's our connections in many ways define us as people. I'm proud to have history, maybe more loosely tied to my flesh-and-blood family than some, but rich with a pretty wonderful array of souls all around this great blue-green earth. My own world-wide-web. Ho ho ho.

I dunno; it feels like everyone is waiting for something. Sometimes it's that undercurrent of doom -- when will the other shoe finally drop? -- and sometimes it's just that fleeting, unprovable, but totally undeniably unshakably true feeling that there's more to life than this. I most often feel like I'm waiting on revelations, for some kind of heavenly inspired moment of clarity or strike of lightning or burning bush to show me the way.