I used to hate cinnamon raisin bagels as a kid. Eating one right now.

The title is true.  Anyway, I’ve read that rubbing a banana peel on a mosquito bite can alleviate the itching.  More importantly, I don’t want to expand on that because I am defiant of mosquitos and afraid of fruit.

I tire of bargaining for the life of vegetables at the trade markets in my neighborhood.  Therefore, I intend on growing vegetables on my back patio in giant nuclear power plant shaped ceramic pots to avoid the stress of haggling over and proving the worth of bell peppers, jalapenos, green onions, and tomatoes.  Speaking of which, tomatoes — although a fruit — are nowhere near as threatening as bananas or other fruit.  They’ve received a waiver from yours truly and I view them in a less terrifying light.

Additionally, mint, basil, and a few other herbs that will not cross my mind because it’s flooded with awesome will participate in my food version of the League of Nations.  Hi Woodrow Wilson!

I am becoming domesticated, something slightly strange to me considering my nomadic nature and enjoyment of traveling and moving.  I like it, though.  Putting down roots the same way my vegetables are going to.  Mine will be better and stronger.  Capsicum annuum Spartans.

Aren’t bell peppers in the botanical sense considered fruits but in culinary terms considered vegetables you ask?  No more questions.  By the time this post is complete, you will have learned a great deal about food and my life.

This post is complete.

Currently playing: “Pursuit of Happiness” by KiD CuDi.

The dark side of insectoid upstarts.

Last night, a penta-cluster of black widows was discovered loitering at my address of residence.  The sonar security system I had installed months earlier that emits a high pitched frequency that can only be heard by young adult web crawlers — and in turn drive them away — did not phase these emo-arachnids.  Which means that they are over forty and can talk my sonar system to death with life-experience.  Upon inspection, I took note of many bbw’s (baby black widows) running amok, upsetting the establishment of my carport.  I put an end to it immediately.

The picture posted above is not of the earlier referenced spidey-sads, but is of one of my roommates who I’m quite sure is casting black magic spells on me at worst or working as a conduit for bad energy and filling the house with it at best.  Skeptical?  Perhaps you should consult the tv psychic I sought for counsel and confirmation.  Face!  This year has been a bad one for roommates but I am grateful to say that such undesirable circumstances will soon come to an end and the love of my life and I will be in our beautiful new and first home!  Clean start to a brighter future.

Currently playing: “Just What IAm” featuring King Chip (Produced by KiD CuDi).

In one picture?

To live strictly within a defined world is to retard your understanding of it.

Currently playing: “Ho’ is Short For Honey” by KiD CuDi.

St. Francis the praying mantis.

St. Francis the praying mantis hissing at me over my discovery of him.

 

SFTPM (his acronym) sliding down the front screen door like an ungraceful and awkward stripper. Upside down.

 

Right before his first leap, his rubbed his misshapen front legs together, whispering the word ‘precious’ like Gollum from Lord of the Rings. He then leapt from the door to the white brick road like some white supremacist’s version of the fairytale of Oz. Look at his eyes. Fucking alien.

 

He is running like I have a spotlight on him and all else is dark. He has not noticed me still watching him and is running for exercise, not for his life. Can he run his own life? Not like I am running it he can’t — ooooooo!

 

The angriest bug of all Bugdom. Once again, angry that I have found him, hissing and pretending to spew magical venom at me. Stupid mantis, you are the brontosaurus of the bug species.

 

After taking a swing at the camera, he ran off, engaging in things such as cockiness of the spoken word. I was going to step on him at this point but he yelled out, “Man vs. Mantis” in the same accent as Bear Grylls from ‘Man vs. Wild’. I was temporarily enamored.

 

Acting like a paintball assassin, as he creeps along the leaf line, trying to trap me. He is completely unaware that I am mocking him behind his back, much to the enjoyment of his peers.

 

Frustrated over my alleged absence, he slowly crawls forward to find me and hears me move. He freezes in place and waits, considering retreat due to my superior skills in stealth.

 

On his way back to the front door where his friends are, only to discover that they are laughing and praying at him. His reaction in one word? Shock. Hahahaha! Tell your self-esteem I said it’s ugly, Francis Mantis.

Tyranny, precedent of totalitarianism.

For the constitutionally apathetic, you must be on the verge of a dream world, one being brought about under the auspices of the federal government — our ever vigilant Uncle whose glorious disdain for constitutional restraint is surpassed only by his ravenous appetite for power.  In the name of safety, we must do our part (do nothing) as our Republic is bled dry by officials that took the oath to protect it.  We have no greater enemy than those citizens who will stand for liberty in the face of tyranny.  Stand down, a new order closes in around us and it would be impolitic to resist it.  Serfdom is becoming.  That in mind, let the chains of debt encourage you into inaction and your partisan bickering restrain you from effectively uniting.  May the rise of the police state in America continue largely unchallenged.

/sarcasm.

Late winter, 2012. Phoenix, Arizona.

When I compare this February to last, I am astounded by the contrast.  Where last February at this point was emotionally chaotic, painful, and full of uncertainty, I now have peace.  Every now and then I become nostalgic for New Hampshire even though while I was living there, one of the main things I spoke of was coming back west to Arizona.  What I really miss are the times with my brother, who is my best friend.  Boy, if you are reading this, I’m gonna punch you in the ass.

To him I said, "Thaniel, make a face."

A moment with man’s best friend.

I love Thane.

And the poor shall hermit.

I wish it didn’t take so long to write my dreams out – I have not posted one since March I think.

I am temporarily broke.  It makes me feel like Frodo Baggins of The Shire if, instead of having Kareem Abdul Jabar feet with Austin Powers chest hair for foot hair, he had well rounded stumps for feet.  Epidermal peg stoppers at the end of his lil legs.  Yes, that is exactly what it is like.  Imagine trying to get to Mount Doom on those rubber-tips.  And by Mount Doom I mean financial security.  Awful comparison.  I shall get back on my ‘non-feet’ so with that in mind, as my friend William Shatner said while doped on goofy gas in Season six, episode 142 of Fresh Prince of Bel-Air, “It’s all good, it’s all gooood!”  I have no idea where I am or what I am even talking about now.  Wait, I am temporarily broke?  Run those stats again, stat.

I remember a post I put up last November about being broke; this is not quite as bad by comparison – new starts are always tough!  Fortunately for me and unfortunately for new starts, I am tougher than silicone railroad spikes made out of adamantium.  How things have changed since last November.  I love being in Phoenix but have not yet had a chance to truly explore the area due to my wallet’s unabated bigotry toward paper currency and plastic that can access funds from a special account that nobody even knows about.  Not even I know about it.  It’s that exclusive.  And my wallet hates it.  I, however, am full of adoration for it even though I have not seen it.  I call it faith (I just made that up now) and I believe Jesus said something about having faith the size of a mustard droplet and inheriting a mountain?  Yes, well…..it appears I will be inheriting the Rockies.  When I do, I will throw my current wallet from it’s peaks and replace it with a more open-minded wallet made from the skin of a Rockies-dwelling Yeti snowman.  Not the mammal creature, but an actual snowman I will make in my own image and name “Yeti”.

I’ve been hanging out in my room a lot for no particular reason aside from my dog’s antics and practical jokes that consist of peeing on the carpet of my roommate’s new house.  Yea, I don’t find it very funny.  It made me uncomfortable so I retreated to my room to draw out complex and extremely artistic abstract battle plans to prevent him from doing that to the poor carpet ever again.  The plans are so theoretically preventative that I am thinking about marketing them as a contraceptive.  It wouldn’t be as ill thought out as my condom car experiment back in the summer of 2010 as I left the southwest for the last time.

Handsome incarnate.

For no reason, here is a picture of my boxer, Thane, whose bloodline saved Scotland from absolute ruin at the hands of the handless and cynical space urchins.  Just going to let you go ahead and admire him.  I do, I typically follow him around every evening as I take him on his walk and take pictures of him.  I’ve attached 15 separate flashes to the camera, giving the short-lived illusion that the paparazzi follows him around, asking him loaded questions.  What a bunch of race-baiting reporters.  At least he has stopped giving the plush underfoot cushion golden showers.  I found a small treasure chest under my bed that Thane had put together to idolize R. Kelly.  Yea, I put a stop to that immediately.

I would like to get out and do things in the Phoenix area such as the Apache Trail and not just because everyone else is doing it, but because I hear it is splendid.  I am all about splendid.  Actually I want to take my gf Sonia out there and get pictures as well.  In time, I guess.  In addition to the Apache trail, I am interested in visiting the ‘Mystery Castle’.

That's mysterious if I have ever seen it. And I have, I see my reflection everywhere. Even in non-reflective surfaces.

As a fellow mystery, I look forward to discussing life’s mysteries with this castle.  If I can find out how to access funds from that secret account I mentioned earlier, maybe I can pay the guardians of that castle and move in with my brown suga.  I wouldn’t need to work, I can just charge people a little extra to come see not only the castle, but my own mysteries as well.  I hear registers ringing!  I’m not sure why though.  Hm.  Additionally, the Phoenix Zoo looks fun.  Not only because there are all kinds of exotic dinosaurs trapped in fake habitats for humans to gawk at, but because I brought a member of PITA to Arizona with me.  She locked herself in a dog kennel, naked (for some reason aside from an obvious love of voyeurism) in an attempt to raise awareness of animal cruelty.  I think she would feel right at home at the Phoenix Zoo!

Update: I am starting my job this weekend (finally)!

I love the piano.  It can be played in ways that make me feel like I am flying through pianos.  You think it would be painful due to all of the wood shattering as I pummel through them but it sounds quite lovely.  Please sample the song “Missing Persons 1 & 2” by One Republic to experience the ethereal quality that piano and good production can have when mushed together like a lunchtime pb&j sandwich trapped under a piece of fruit and drink in that brown paper bag you hate to have to carry and wish you could just buy the shitty but great tasting cafeteria food.  Those vocals carry with it quite well!  That song not only sounds amazing to a sober state of mind but a high one, too.  By ‘high’ I don’t mean by an herb, but the high that naturally develops after eating too many apples covered in pesticides that I refuse to wash off because that can be considered molestation of the environment.  I’m not interested in a courtroom battle with the EPA.  They fight too dirty.

I think this blog post is done.

Currently (still) playing:  Missing Persons 1 & 2 by One Republic.

A phoenix returns west.

Three days.  I arrive over one day ahead of schedule even though I pace myself.  By ‘pace myself’ I mean I drive 15 hours the first day and 17 the next.  Dover, NH to Howell, MI.  Howell, MI to Oklahoma City, OK.  As I push through southern Kansas I can feel something tugging on my heart strings.  Whether it is a product of my imagination or not matters little; it is incredibly real to me.  It is the west calling.  After fifteen months of separation I feel the spirit of the southwest calling out to me, beckoning another nomad to it’s wild and rugged beauty; a place that can keep a restless soul within it’s expansive borders.  Impatient & wanting to be in the southwest, I am also held by a permeating feeling of calm, knowing it is only a matter of time before being back home.

My last night of July is spent in Oklahoma, truly leaving the east for good and beginning the end of summer at the gates of the west – the panhandle of Texas.  I am aware that these descriptions seem exaggerated and romanticized but if you knew how the west made me feel, you would find joy in my descriptions.  After five hours of sleep in Oklahoma I hungrily push further south on a diet of orange juice and combos snacks.  Gross – an unnatural combo (forgive the pun!).  8:43am marked the arrival I had been anticipating the previous day.  To me, Texas equals the gates at the end of the Midwest’s

At the gates of the southwest.

beltway.  I try not to think about the few hours of driving over the unimpressive panhandle to get to where I want to be.  I don’t have to think about it since driving through the town of Vega reminds me why it is best I refrain from doing so.  The offensive smell of asphalt and cow farm-factories compliment the washed out color of the landscape and the trash everywhere.  I am inclined to believe it is a federal prop town like the government used to make in the mid 19’s as weapons testing sites.  Oddly enough, it bled right out of the town of Amarillo like leftovers.  Halfway there.

Watching the blue arrow indicator on my gps more than the actual road, I count the minutes until I reach the first part of enchantment.  Finally…..12:12pm arrives and I let out a scream like a cowboy high on adrenaline while racing his steed across the flats and under the towering mesa’s of the desert’s first frontier.  Dear New Mexico, Snads has arrived!!

Welcome to the magic of New Mexico.

Although the state line is not much for scenery, it quickly changes as you move further through the state and broad mesa’s stretch out from nowhere taunting you from your car on the road.  You feel smaller and in the presence of something far older and greater than you.  This is the nature of nature in southwestern America.  It challenges you.  It brings me peace.

Over the years I’ve heard my friends impressions of the southwest, only one of whom has actually been there; that it is barren, brown, and a wasteland.  While some parts fit that unflattering description, there are plenty of areas that are full of life, water, greenery and beauty.  Allow me to show you.

Welcome back to the open skies!

For the next 5 hours, I climb in elevation and the air naturally changes with it.  Crisp, light and detached is how it feels.  In spite of it, I am infused with a feeling I cannot describe.  Perhaps it is just a placebo effect and I want to feel it or have anticipated it and created it myself.  Who cares!  This is my land and where I belong.

As I charge toward the mountains sitting in front of Albuquerque, I see the sunsets I have witnessed in this exact spot over the years; hybrids of orange and red light spill over the ridges of the dusty purple mountains.  There is little transition from the warm colors of the sunset to the cold, deep blues of the impending night sky that hovers above it.  Magnificent in my mind and fresh it is!  One would think I’d pull over in Albuquerque and find a place to live due to my reaction to it.  No, it’s not enough and I always knew there was more further west.  Having arrived in Albuquerque 4 hours early, the debate over whether to stay the night there or continue onward is brief.  Arizona, I am coming for you tonight (as creepy as that likely sounds).

An ominous storm looms outside of the city limits – a completely different sentiment than the one I am filled with.  I had been hoping for sunshine to provide me with better picture opportunities of western New Mexico but it is not to be.  I no longer care; pictures be damned, I am now solely focused on arriving in Arizona.  The rainstorm crosses the state line and I figure I will be welcomed home with pouring rain the rest of the way.  How wrong I am.  Within twenty minutes of crossing the border into Arizona, the clouds begin to roll back, dissipate and fade into my rear view mirror, leaving me with the following sight.

The light of my life, Arizona.

Tears fill my eyes (I did not cry though) and a feeling similar to the one I was taken by upon leaving 15 months ago fills me again.  If I smile any bigger, my teeth might shatter into a million pieces.  And not because that is a defense tactic I learned how to do for the sake of my survival.  I cannot go into details.  I’m joking, right?

I spend the night in Holbrook at a Motel 6 because I don’t care where I stay the night, so long as it is clean.  The euphoria of being back in Arizona, a mere four hours from home, combined with the appreciation of the beautiful sunset out my window makes me wish this feeling has no end.  I meet a family outside that has a ten month old boxer named Milly and when I mention to their two kids that I was traveling with Thane, my 2 year old boxer they shriek with excitement, asking me to bring him out.  A 30 minute play date between the two dogs ensues, much to the amusement of everybody gathering.

Back in the motel.  Starving.  Dirty.  I order pizza & breadsticks from Pizza Hut (poke fun or turn your nose up if you wish organic zealots but that kid of food is what we all need in such circumstances, lol), shower and shave quickly, light up, turn on my KiD CuDi and enjoy the rest of the evening, the end of which includes talking with my love on the phone.  After two months we are so close yet must wait one more day.  Needless to say, morning breaks and I make the last short leg (like a stump – the stumpy part) of the trip into Phoenix.

Fifteen trying months on the east coast and now I know this is where I want to be for good.  I have finally returned!

The closing of the east coast & the lens of intensity.

It is over.  After what seemed like an endless night of groping blindly in the dark, desperately searching for solace, the horizon has bled a few ribbons of light showing me that morning is indeed coming.  A sadness with depth I have never before felt follows me around like a lost child.  Regret quietly asks if I am doing the right thing but I know that I cannot stay here and hope for an intangible; if I do it will be to my own detriment.

There are few people to whom I pledge my unwavering loyalty, but when they come into my life, I hold on for dear life.  When those relationships come to an end, I feel betrayed….I partially feel like it is my fault even if it is not.  I feel that if I am truly loyal, I will not give up no matter the futility of trying to hold things together.  I feel like I have failed my storybook attempt to do whatever I can to inspire feelings of devotion in another.  I cannot stand failure in any capacity; this most recent one is multifaceted and it is like failing numerous times in succession.  I don’t want to say goodbye.  But I have to.  It causes me to curse life, fate, chance, whatever it was and out of spite, doubt the future.  I will always wonder “why”.  It isn’t fair in the least but life usually isn’t.

I am known to say “this is the last time” many times.  However, I am almost 27, I have had an extremely difficult and enlightening year back on the east coast and it has clarified at the least where I want to be.  I am moving back to Arizona toward the end of summer, feeling so many things simultaneously that it is all-consuming.  For every ounce of excitement, there are second guesses and self criticism–taunts that make me question my loyalty.  For every feeling of “spring”–the prospect of starting over, there is extreme nostalgia for what was while I was here and I hate it.  I am tired of being upset, I am so tired of my emotional intensity but it will always be this way; it is part of my blueprint.

My young adult life has been the most internally tumultuous “big bang” I have ever witnessed; at least in comparison to those I know.  I am biased, however, since it is my life.  Everyone’s happenings are unique unto them so someone else could make the same claim I suppose, though due to the dimensions of the way I experience everything so intensely & in such a way that is quiveringly alive, I give my claim merit.  Kiss my ass if you think it is vain.  I would love to say it is downhill & easier from here but I know that is simply not true.  I may have some level ground to walk out the rest of my 20’s on, but I am quite sure those plains will be sporadic and brief.  What is my life if not a struggle of contending forces, me being one of them?  Me being caught in the middle of them?  Fate vs. free will vs. good vs. evil.  It is like a war movie that never ends and every time I want to give up from exhaustion, the second wind that comes from the desire to survive kicks in and I continue on.  I think I get that from my ma.

I am moderately excited at the thought of what awaits me in the west, but I am slightly detached as well, not wanting to know for fear of more let downs.  Let downs will always happen and worrying about the potential of them is completely impractical and bound to be a source of subliminal stress.  Not worth it.  I understand that but logic is not the cornerstone of emotion.  Sometimes I just want to break down and cry, not out of sadness but because of everything I feel and the depth of it; it is so much that it makes me physically shake sometimes.  There have got to be other people who experience life in this way and I really want to find them.

Currently playing: “Hometown Glory” by Adele.