06/22/09. Donovan. "Coulors"

And as an operational aside:
I lost my titanium, space shuttle spoon. It was excellent and probably not built by NASA otherwise it probably would have burst into flames at some point. I yanked a plastic spoon from the counter of the general store in Twin Lakes. I didn't pay for it (though I'm not sure she would have charged me). The old lady stared at me quizzically and I paid for my ice cream sandwich and left, victorious in my necessary theft. But, the boy scout I am, my hands shook whenever I touched that feeble disposable utensil. The next morning, as I was making my breakfast of peanut butter, m & m's, protein powder, and coconut flakes on a whole wheat tortilla, the spoon broke in the pb jar. I taped it together but, couldn't get it exactly straight. When I ate my oatmeal later that day, the spoon get scraping my right inner cheek as if it needed a DNA sample.

What is: karma.

As another operational aside, I haven't hung my food in a bear bag in weeks because frankly, I dont think a black bear is all that daring. I sleep with it, or place it leaning against my tent. I don't think he'll come within 5 feet of my tent just for freeze dried bananas and cream of wheat. If he didn't approach when I was carrying summer sausages, he aint coming tonight.

And now, for the rest of the entry......

The mosquitoes are hatching and it is officially summer. This makes me strangely glad, in a giddy, unreasonable way. I am surrounded by offspring and nature and sex (albeit the biting, welt producing kind) and it is oddly comforting.

It seems an important thing to witness. With this hatching it is if I've been told: 'still here, one more year, going strong.'

And in my solitude, the millions of bugs keep me company, in their own histamine producing way. And perhaps maybe they know something I do not. Maybe the rain and snow and reddening icy mornings will fade into memory.

The mosquitoes are prehistoric things, some the size of my thumbnail. They sneak inside the rain flap of my tent and incessantly drone, their high pitches bouncing unsuccessfully off the netting. I'm sleeping in the middle of an all night go-kart track.

I continue to turn to the the question of why I came out here. What secret did I expect to find. Did I expect the weighty massive of my choices and consequences and indecisions to fade away? Well, what if I said yes? Man, that'd be great. And, as a side dish to my entree of inner harmony and mellowing anxiety I'd like a short stack of pancakes.

I expected the burden to be lifted, to be granted a glimpse at a small secret that only a few know and to be allowed to carry this secret with me. It might sometimes be a burden, but it would always be my good company. But as of yet, I have found no secrets. None in the mountains, none on the winding the trails, none echoing in my own head, waiting to be discovered.

Editor's Note: this is a moment of pure solipsism on this blog. You continue to read at your own peril.

And yes, I realize this note of warning should probably be pasted across every single entry. The board will consider the topic at the next meeting.

I assumed by peeling away the din, the television, the demands, the inner-yelling, the routine, there would be something else to listen to. I would avoid getting on my bike for work, my tie flapping in the summer wind - late as usual. I would avoid running to the gym on a Sunday afternoon before it closes. I avoid the soot from SEPTA and the city rain and the drinking with friends and the dirty bars (that I not so secretly enjoy). The sighing beds and the sighing women. The brass bannisters of my office building and the brass horns in my iPod as I race down 16th St. on my bike, late for yoga.

No doubt, these are comforts that I was taking for granted. I had a job and a home and people that love(d) me. I miss these things, for sure, but how do I miss them? This is crucial. I knew I would long for the comfort of companionship and income and routine, but I didn't know how I would desire them once they were gone.

And what would replace those overstuffed cushions, bloating my head. Relative austerity had to bring something. But it hasn't really brought anything.

Would I go nuts? Would I totally crack? Perhaps I already have. Enough talking to oneself will do that.

By thinking about madness, Horselover Fat slipped by degrees into
madness. I wish I could have helped him.

For only 4 months I wanted to not look forward to the weekend. I didn't want to look forward to anything.

I wanted to avoid the feeling that I was not doing enough. In this vacuum, perhaps something else would appear.

Maybe they would be lasers and I would be infected with these lasers. They'd shoot into my eyeballs and be refracted in my brain.

And yet all I have, as I sit in my olivedrab single occupancy tent - in which I can barely fit myself much less a 40 lb. backpack - all I have are the birds warbling in the rustling trees and the nearly the same voices ringing harmlessly my skull. Or maybe they're different voices and just doing impressions of the old voices until I'm prepared to hear these new ones. If that's the case, I wish they would unmask themselves and get it over with.

The wind still scares me.

But maybe I'm not dissapointed or surprised that this is all I hear. Perhaps this trip is a confirmation that there is, in fact, nothing. Nothing except the frantic humming of newborn bloodsucking insects.

Song Honorable Mention

-Cure, The. "Sinking". (So I trick myself, like everybody else)