Tangerine: A Book of Hours

2:56 PM, in Wednesday’s bright afternoon hours while the firehouse siren is distantly wailing and I wish I was --

Floating.

In the smooth surf, just out from the shore. Being lifted gently by warm salty water. I can hear the wave’s white noise, can see the wide blue sky. The gulls. It would be sweet to be floating, to be swimming. To walk on the hot sand. Or just to sit and watch the linear horizon.

The Memorial Day weekend is fast approaching. It’s the gateway to Summer. I’d like for it to be a fun sunny span of hours -- but I don’t know. It’s been raining here a lot.

I’m listening to Stone Temple Pilots and thinking about another cup of coffee while I write this. But I wish I was --

Driving.

A long open road unfolding out before me. Momentum...and a cool curved car. In silver. The music coming from the car stereo. No real urgency, or place to be. Just positive motion. Maybe stopping somewhere interesting to buy some summery things...

I’ve managed to screw up Netscape (my main web browser). It crashes every time I try to load it, now -- even re-installing the program hasn’t helped. Sigh. So I’ve switched back to Internet Explorer (which routinely freezes my system when I scroll too much). I suspect that I’m suffering from OS rot and that I really should wipe the slate clean, reformat my hard drive, and reinstall everything.

I’m sort of lacking in motivation in regards to that project, however.

What I’d really like to do is to get myself an Apple Titanium Powerbook and start fresh. Some more smooth silver...

Well, now it’s 3 Doors Down on the stereo. And I really should get some laundry done -- so I have some Summer things ready for the weekend. Maybe a haircut, too. I should also be writing more. And exercising. Though, all-in-all, I wish I was --

Somewhere outside. In the sun. With music swirling. Dressed for the Summer, with friends. No plans. Just laughing, having fun.

Dancing.

--- JWR, 5/23/01

Posted by The Allurium at 5:27 PM | Permalink | Comments (0)

9:00 PM, Tuesday evening. I’m feeling a bit worn out, a bit faded-through...but it is Spring-time, and there are bright things to look forward to.

I’m looking forward to getting down to the beach again this year with my mom and dad. To work my toes into the sand, smell the air, feel the sun’s heat. That is always a good time for me. I’m looking forward to the deeper days of Spring, too. Flowers are already opening; soon there will be more. And the new green of leaves, again. The lifting of the sky into blue bright days. The warming of the air. I’m looking forward to the weekend. To seeing Kelli and my friends. Spending open-ended time with people I love. Making good memories.

And I’m looking forward to seeing my short story, "Bad Animals" published on the SCI FICTION website. That moment is only a few hours away -- some of the others are a bit further. It is nice getting to them all -- and finding unexpected pleasures along the way.

All these good moments, all these pretty hours -- they make the worn-through ones slip by more smoothly.

Here’s to the bright things we all look forward to...

--- JWR, 4/3/01

Continue reading "Bright Things" »

Posted by The Allurium at 5:24 PM | Permalink | Comments (0)

8:22 PM, a small Wednesday evening. It’s warm. I made an omelet for myself, with diced tomatoes, onions, celery and some fresh chopped parsley. A little ground pepper and a few strips of Swiss cheese rounded out things. It was quite the yummy meal.

Now I’m drinking very cold water. And typing.

It’s quiet here, in the middle of the week. Everything feels smooth.

This Saturday, Kelli and I will be getting together with a bunch of friends and having dinner at Bravo! I’m looking forward to it. It’ll be nice to unwind and have some fun.

Stepping out into the night earlier in the week was like walking into a refrigerator. Temperatures are drifting upward now, though and the weekend promises to be much more Spring-like. I’m remembering what it’s like in the Summertime here, windows open, warm breezes pushing through the screens. The smell of grass and flowers. A different feel to the air.

Tall days.

It’s nice to look at that, in my mind, at the unwinding edge of March.

--- JWR, 3/28/01

Posted by The Allurium at 5:18 PM | Permalink | Comments (0)

4:18 PM, between things, the day is the color of frost on a glass. Near evening -- but not yet. Daylight...but dim. Close to the edit (like the song goes) of the weekend. Thursday. And me? Well I’m slipping back and forth too.

"Bad Animals" is scheduled to appear on the SCI FICTION website on April 4th -- which should be cool because "Deadbeat" is supposed to be published in Aboriginal Science Fiction sometime in April as well. At this between moment, I am moving back and forth, writing this entry and working on a new short story. I also have to get some time in on the treadmill at some point.

* * *

And now, it’s dark.

The new story is moving along nicely. I finished another scene today and firmed up the plot a bit. I have a pretty good idea what’s going on in the story now but I’m still not sure how it is going to end. At this point I’m just focusing on getting the thing written down. I’ll pretty it up in the re-write.

It is warm in here. I took the garbage out a bit ago and the night air was just on the verge of chilly -- sort of hovering between that and a more Spring-like temperature. The stars were vivid and bright. It is more toasty inside. And quiet -- just the tapping of my fingers on the keyboard.

I can almost feel the weekend, waiting to arrive.

--- JWR, 3/15/01

Continue reading "Between" »

Posted by The Allurium at 5:15 PM | Permalink | Comments (0)

3:50 PM, on a white wet Tuesday. I’m working on some stories while the snow lies in heavy curves and mounds over the ground outside. The trees have thick moist clumps of white stuck to their trunks. Angular branches form a ghostly lattice against a sky the color of milk. It’s quiet.

The music inside is loud, however.

I have a bit of a head cold and I need a shave -- but I’m grooving. Kelli has a very cool story on Terra Tales and I’ve been getting good news regarding my stuff as well.

SciFiction, the fiction part of the SCIFI channel’s website (scifi.com) will be publishing a short story of mine called, "Bad Animals" this month. Yesterday I heard from Aboriginal Science Fiction that they will be publishing "Deadbeat" -- possibly as early as this April.

Groovy!

My goal this week is to get at least one new short story written -- and to continue with the good old treadmill running and assorted exercises. I would never consider myself to be a jock but I do tend to think and work better when I am exercising in some fashion. (Editorial note: I must have spelled the word "exercise" three different ways while writing this paragraph. Variety: it’s the spice of life!)

So it is 3 Doors Down on the inside and frost-white silence past my window. The light has stayed the same today. All day. It could be 10am or five in the evening. The wind is curling around the trees and snow-edged powerlines. Tiny flakes are floating around aimlessly.

But inside it’s warm. Bright.

And wide-grin loud.

--- JWR, 3/6/01

Posted by The Allurium at 4:57 PM | Permalink | Comments (0)

5:54 PM, on a shiny blue-jeweled Wednesday evening and the sunlight is sloping in on a golden diagonal. I am caffeinated and filled with momentum, today. It’s pretty around here...

3 Doors Down is on the cd player. My leather jacket is draped over the back of my chair. I’m hungry. The weekend is waving from the near-distance.

Tonight, I want to get out and do some shopping. Kelli’s birthday is Friday and I want to get her some stuff that I think she’ll get a kick out of (by-the-way, congrats on the name change, Ms. Nerger!) I also have to get a new story ready to be mailed-out by the end of the week.

Joel and I went down to Rosebud last night and caught Matthew Sweet -- he put on a great show. We were going to walk over to M but everything except the lobby was shut off, so we couldn’t check-out the remodeling.

Well, I grabbed some supper. It’s out to the store, now...

"Paradise (Not for me)", by Madonna is playing now. Hours have passed. It is deep clean dark. This evening, I was out under a perfect Maxfield Parrish sky: pure twilight shadings, speckled with perfect bright stars. This whole day has been crystal.

My shopping is done and I’m ready for the weekend. Too bad it is still a couple of days away. I like the new look for my main website, Indigo. Initially I had been a bit hesitant about delving into frames -- but I like the final effect and the site seems to be working well.

Anyway, happy March to you.

--- JWR, 3/1/01

Posted by The Allurium at 4:49 PM | Permalink | Comments (0)

1:59 AM, and then...then it would whisper, February. The bell fountainhead is silent. The air is black and cold. The trees? Dark bare lines jutting skyward. The stars are hard and bright. When I am out there, my breath steams.

And yet heat is coming. They say the weekend will shift toward warmth.

What I hear, as I type, is electronic music. Percussive flourishes, looping beats. Technological notes cupped over my ears. The water in my glass is perfectly cold. The night outside is so black that my window looks like a sheet of obsidian. I’m typing with the beat in my headphones. This is like dancing -- or playing a keyboard.

It has been a while. Eh?

But this is a pretty fluid medium. You’ll be able to read these entries in a sweep, the passage of time ticking over with a barely noticeable click. Perhaps the sound of my fingers hitting the keys. Maybe I’ll remember the beat in my headphones when I re-read this. Another metronome.

It seems a journal, like anything else, has a rhythm. Seasons. Beat. All this just works out as it goes along. The real key is in spanning time.

I enjoy writing in Tangerine and I have missed updating.

It feels good to be back to it.

Hello again.

--- JWR, 2/23/01

Posted by The Allurium at 4:45 PM | Permalink | Comments (0)

7:46 PM, and the air is cool indigo -- deepened by the sound of crickets and the oceanic susurration of the highway. My iced tea is sweating in its glass, ice cubes clinking. I can hear the bell fountainhead in the fish pond: a soft whispery trickling.

It has been months. I know.

Do you like the velvety sound of skin on skin? Or the vague distant roar of a passing airplane? The thump of the surf is sweet, but also lovely is the shimmering sound of waves trailing back over wet sand, returning to the sea.

Time could be imagined to have soft lips, curved into a subtle smile.

This Sunday evening is cool and calm. The machinery in the dishwasher contains a miniature ocean, industriously swirling. Attentive-yet-sleepy, is the sound of the fan in my computer: the auditory equivalent of a motion-filled dream.

Those warm lips could whisper. So close to your ear that the words are a touch.

I am going to drink my tea and read short stories. At the deeper end of this Sunday night, I am looking forward to hearing Kelli’s voice in my ear. And of sleeping smoothly -- to a bright and productive Monday. But, before all that, I might go outside for a bit. And feel the air on me.

What would time whisper? Perhaps one word:

October.

--- JWR, 10/1/00

Posted by The Allurium at 4:42 PM | Permalink | Comments (0)

Beach time, liquid days...

[picture]

On Tuesday, I called my machine. Something was lost in the translation, though, and as the signal faded to oceanic static I was unable to retrieve my message.

*

She walked languidly along the shoreline, accompanied by an attentive entourage of dried seaweed, rolling along like tumbleweeds in her wake.

*

Bits of sand dropped with soft pats upon these paper pages.

*

Reading Gibson on the beach, upon a ground of stylized green turtles, set in faceted blue...

[picture]

I found a piece of sea glass today. Gray and smoky smooth, worn into gentle curves by the workings of wind, sand, and water. It is warm, almost hot, to the touch.

*

Got a Corona buzz, accentuated by the heat. I can taste the ocean salt on my lips, feel the wind upon my face. Warm sand shifts beneath my bare feet. My movements are slow and sun-lazy. Smoothed by the whispering surf and bone-deep relaxation. (And my handwriting sucks at this point, though the ink flows oh so readily.)

*

I imagine sleeping in air. Buoyed up by warm currents, caressed by heat and day-lit sand. The tidal shift of fabrics. The breathing of time.

*

I imagine sleeping in brine. Weightless, floating. Curved into an amniotic posture. Lifted and swayed by vast, intimate, currents.

[picture]

When I cross over heated sand, when I move through the sea foam breeze and incandescent sunlight, I think I shall have a vegetarian corn dog.

Yowza.

*

Women are a curve. Men are a line. Sometimes...

*

This sat on the beach most of the day, stirred by wind, lit by sun. It sat, amid the salt spray, the sound of wave and water, of people. I wrote on this while the sun heated my shoulders and back and while my eyes grew heavy from the blue-sky warmth.

*

Time to eat.

[picture]

12:10 AM, Time for bed...

--- JWR, July 9th through
July 23rd, 2000

Continue reading "OBX" »

Posted by The Allurium at 4:36 PM | Permalink | Comments (0)

3:23 PM, It seems like the day is suspended in a bright sunny moment but that the hours are, never-the-less, pouring by. I’m tumbling into the weekend a bit disheveled and with a lot of stuff to get done.

But what I really feel like doing at this moment is to take a long cool shower, get dressed, and lounge in the sunshine.

I have a rushed/not rushed vibe going on, and I sort of like it.

While I’m at the beach, I’ll have my good old paper notebook and will be writing Tangerine entries and other things. So there will be updates, once I get back. Yesterday, I got a new pair of contact lenses that have sharpened the edges of the world to a noticeable degree. I’ll enjoy those for sure.

This seems so brief, a little flick of the camera shutter. But it’s true. A small bright moment. I hope your small moments are sweet today, full of motion and relaxation combined. I will be here again after a span of moments have passed.

See you then.

--- JWR, 7/7/00

Continue reading "Motion Vibe" »

Posted by The Allurium at 4:29 PM | Permalink | Comments (0)

5:48 PM and Leona’s recorded voice is singing smoothly. Warmth is weighting the air like cotton. It’s Wednesday and once, as a child, I had a fever. I told my parents about the birds I could see fluttering here and there. Today, real birds fill the trees. Chirping and tweeting, swooping. Evening sunlight makes their feathers shine. And the leaves (multi-shaded in a thousand green flavors) shift and fold the air. Gently.

Last night, glimmering curtains of light hung over the city. Vast ephemeral blossoms opened wide in the black sky. White-snap flickers thumped the air, echoing back from the hills. Colors leapt into the flash-strobed darkness as boats posed on the black glass of the river. I stood on the railroad tracks, head tipped back, watching and grinning.

On Sunday I’m leaving town. Ten hours or so to the Outer Banks of North Carolina. I want to smell the ocean, dig my toes into the sand. I want to feel the wind in my face, the waters on my skin. I want to see the sea.

I bought some books today. Beach reading. I’ll be there for two weeks: I hope is goes slow, sweet, and bright.

--- JWR, 7/5/00

Continue reading "A Thousand Green Flavors" »

Posted by The Allurium at 4:25 PM | Permalink | Comments (0)

2:44 PM, At this point, I am drinking green tea with lemon -- and reflecting. Billy Idol’s "Daytime Drama" is backgrounding the sun-saturated room. I feel a bit worn-out inside my skin, today.

But.

Relaxed.

Too.

I should iron a pair of pants for tonight.

The Jimmy Buffett show was tall heat and open skies. Laughter and Corona. Bob’s tangerine vodka slush. Sunglasses and Hawaiian shirts. Honey roasted peanuts, baby. Yeah. And now the Fourth of July is almost here. Summer is pouring by like a deep strong river: glimmers of gold and emerald shifting and sliding away. I want to swim in the depths of it, suspended in that luminous heat. I want to be washed to new places, inside and out. I’m tired of a lot of stuff...

I don’t like to iron, for one. And this is a lazy Saturday.

I’m too relaxed, but...

My voice is smoke washed, still reflecting last night. The room’s soundtrack is now the Guns n’ Roses version of, "Live And Let Die". I feel like shaking loose and bright-gliding through the evening. At this point in the moment river, however, I’m drinking cool clear water.

--- JWR, 7/1/00

Posted by The Allurium at 4:20 PM | Permalink | Comments (0)

3:37 PM, It’s a sweaty Thursday afternoon. Outside, the strong wind is pouring through the trees. Making them hiss and bend.

I’ve been getting a lot done today. Hopefully, I’ve ironed-out most of the bugs in Tangerine’s new design. Do you like it? I feel that it has been a bit too dark in the past. It was time for a more colorful aspect.

I’m ready for the weekend. It’s supposed to be bright and warm, a mixture I’m all for. I’m not sure what will be going on Friday evening but, on Saturday, I’ll be going to the Jimmy Buffett concert with a large group of friends. I’m not an expert on Buffett music but the parking lot party is always fun. I’m looking forward to a good time.

I’m also looking forward to updating this journal a bit more often. (Though I’ve made that statement before, I know.) Anyway, the heat has me thinking of a nice cool shower -- so that’s where I’m headed now.

After that, I’m going to pour myself into the evening and relax...with words and music.

--- JWR, 6/22/00

Continue reading "Nice Cool Thinking" »

Posted by The Allurium at 4:17 PM | Permalink | Comments (0)

1:25 AM, With the rain falling in perfect lines, like vertical static, I’d want to zoom in on the horizontal splash-plane. Little pops of white spattering and spraying out as raindrops hit slick gray asphalt. Then do a Matrix turn, jump-cutting to people in motion. Just fragments, intercut into a rapid mosaic. Cut and zoom to a single droplet sliding slowly down a velvety flower petal.

Monday (but not this one).

Summer is now a stratospheric pile of time perched on the top of my head. Blue-skied to the distant top. I ran in a race on Mother’s Day -- almost twice as slow as I did it last year. Still, I did finish. Going out to a cd release party the night before and not exercising for months in advance probably did not help my performance. I’m glad I ran, though.

Talking.

I’ve been talking to interesting and involving people. Unexpected verbal and textual gifts, these are.

I’m sleepy today -- though I rose late and consumed twice my normal amount of coffee. Sky Cries Mary is on the cd player. I don’t know what I am today. I don’t feel like a thing of this world at all. I’m a static rain ghost. My voice would sound like that. I’m dreaming awake. Or I’ve not awakened at all...

Time to eat.

Time stretches backwards, vanishing over a slow curve into the past. At 3:06 PM (then) a small brown bird flew in to perch on the grill of a faded Ford Ranger. The animal sat there a moment, seemingly surprised at its location. Then it flew away...

At another point (closer to the curve) Johnny Indigo sat back during the twelfth day of May, contemplating heated air. Ceiling fans cut an intermittent breeze: delivering parcels of coolness that arrived and vanished like ghosts. He was thinking of a woman. Then. The sounds of the highway surged and receded through an open window in the background. A tide of engines.

Now.

Well, that’s a relative word, isn’t it?

The music playing now is Depeche Mode (Only When I Lose Myself) and it is night. The month? June.

--- JWR, 6/20/00

Posted by The Allurium at 4:13 PM | Permalink | Comments (0)

4:34 PM, Sometimes, I think that the secret sound of leaves opening in Spring is the same as a woman slipping a dress of emerald silk over her bare skin.

Sweat and typing. The rolling hiss of the treadmill. And motion without arrival. I say that I had coffee and Lucky Charms for breakfast today. And it was windy and bright, new-greened trees swaying. Me at the keyboard, typing query letters and emails. Sarah McLachlan on the CD player.

My father and I registered today for Pittsburgh's Race For The Cure. Last year I said that I would cut a few minutes off of my time, this time. Since the majority of my physical activity for the last month and a half has been confined to thinking about excercising, I think I might back off from that prediction.

If you are in Pittsburgh and are planning on attending the event, stop by and say "Hi". I’ll be the guy in black, crawling across the finish line.

--- JWR, 5/1/00

Posted by The Allurium at 4:06 PM | Permalink | Comments (0)

12:54 AM, the prologue of another Wednesday. A girl exhaling. The vaporous sorcery of cigarette smoke making breath and words visible. Sinuous gray swirls drifting to the sky and dissipating. Expression falling upwards.

There is music coming from the left. I’ve taken off my shirt because the room is hot.

The feel of water on bare skin, a full tactile caress. The warmth and silken rushing. Weightless. Rising to the boundary between liquid and air. Hazy golden light comes through that shimmery barrier.

Earlier tonight I made a snack out of slices of tomato topped with fresh ground pepper, Italian seasoning, and thin slices of Brick cheese melted in the microwave. Washed it down with juice. Cranberry-tangerine...

Night time, in Winter. Looking up into the jet sky as snow falls. All that silence, filled with slow motion. Crystal-white stars drifting down. It’s easy to imagine the feathery bits of snow hanging motionless while you move upwards. Flakes touching skin like faint cool caresses.

I touched a flower today, as I walked to the car. Reached out and ran my finger over velvety petals. Far above me, clouds rolled against blue.

Her words were smoke. Those memories and sensations. Time. We breathe it out, move through. Imagine. These little moments, now made of light and symbols.

It is late. The room is hot and I am sleepy. A Ben Folds Five CD is on the stereo. Care to guess which song from Whatever and Ever Amen is playing?

--- JWR, 4/19/00

Posted by The Allurium at 4:02 PM | Permalink | Comments (0)

2:58 PM, on a Wednesday afternoon. The sky is shined and tall pale blue. Spring flowers are splashing their colors low upon the warming ground. It is not yet that season, however. Like film skipping forward in some odd narrative, the content seems out of place. But beautiful, none-the-less.

And welcome.

[PICTURE]

[ spoken ]

I’ve been doing a modest two miles a day on the treadmill, growing my sideburns, and shaking off some Wintry cobwebs. I want to be poured more brightly into my life. To fill it more truly.

And I want to write more.

[PICTURE]

I try to give things too much structure at times. It might be interesting to just improvise at points. Get a little jazzy. Make it more about rhythm and feeling than topics. Like now. What is this entry about? I have no idea: it’s just little blips popping into my head. Things I’m feeling at the moment as the sunlight washes through my window and as I breathe Wednesday’s air.

As the song goes: "I was just wondering if you’d come along."

[PICTURE]

--- JWR, 3/15/00

Posted by The Allurium at 3:57 PM | Permalink | Comments (0)

1:38 AM, Saturday morning. Dawn opens up in a slow, slow blink. Flicking from darkness to wan light in a moment that is so easily lost to the eye...

I’m drunk -- I admit it. This is (I’m afraid) verbosity under the influence.

I spent time tonight. With friends. And I’m thinking now about what "friend" means to me. I’ve been told that I am loved, that I am special. Telling is easy, I think. You can say anything to a person, pour out words that, in the end, mean nothing. There are people. There are women who have told me I mean something to them. But I don’t see it. I don’t see their meanings.

As cliched as it sounds: actions speak louder. Speak volumes.

Anyway, sorry about the self-involved angst-fest. What can I say? I’m in my cups and feeling sorry for myself. I suppose it really is only my own fault. If I were a better person I’d be living a better life. Ah well... All I can say is that I’m trying.

And I’ll never try to make you feel like this, like I feel now. Maybe that’s something worthwhile...

(Thanks for letting me vent. The next entry will be better...)

--- JWR, 2/12/00

Posted by The Allurium at 3:53 PM | Permalink | Comments (0)

4:06 PM,

First was a low cinderblock wall to climb over. Then it was up the scattering rock and dirt of the steep hill -- a winding path that traced an almost invisible contour. To the rock.

It was big, like the thick rounded head of some balding giant made of earth and stone. No weeds or grass growing, just that sun-heated curve. Sitting there you could see over the rooftops of the neighborhood. Sitting there you could imagine the rock to be hollow, a mysterious cave filled with dinosaur bones or other secrets. Sitting there...years in the past.

Minutes past the late afternoon hour of four: caffeine clarity.

The water is so cold now, pipes chilled by winter imparting a shivery perfection to a long deep drink. Soothing fluidity. Snowflakes falling can almost look like water flowing. Perhaps there is some mathematical composition that patterns the visuality of both.

Snow falling from the midnight sky is a lovely algorithm.

I wonder if there are physical structures that are evocative of sounds. Perhaps a building, designed in a certain way, would call to mind a certain musical passage. Moving through the hallways and rooms could generate a rhythm. An atrium: an aria.

I wonder if there is a music to memory...

Then again, memory is thought and music is thought made audible, like a building is an idea made solid. These words are my thoughts made visible. In a song, Laurie Anderson says: "I can see the future and it’s a place -- about 70 miles east of here. Where it’s lighter. Linger on over here. Got the time?"

It is 5:08 PM, hello from January in the year 2000.

Today was bright like memory, like light through an icicle.

--- JWR, 1/6/00

Posted by The Allurium at 3:49 PM | Permalink | Comments (0)

6:33 PM, Decembering through October (and colder still in November’s harvest-confetti drop down) Johnny Indigo winced at the taste of sherry. Gray-tied, he split la casa and hit the club. The night is long when you start early.

Not much to write home about there, though. A lot of standing, bookended by extended drives to and fro. And then a period of inactivity.

Now.

Clicked into the cool clarity of the twelfth month. Christmas lights: mostly whites and greens, glimmering. His breath making ephemeral clouds. Black seems a good choice for attire.

"I’m a sad panda."

Blurring into the circular booth in the Lava Lounge, he talks smoke. A set piece like something out of Naked Lunch:

"One day, I was walking out to the ocean -- the second biggest one, you know? Anyway. No sandals and the sand is hot, radiating up through the soles of my feet. The sky just towering above me. It was probably July; who knows what year.

"So I’m walking through the dunes and damn if I don’t step on a tiny cactus. Barbs in the heel." Rolling his eyes behind the shades, he takes a long sip of his martini. "So I pull a flamingo, wavering there on one foot, picking the needles out of the other. Swearing bright and quiet, if you know what I mean. But that’s eventually over with. And I eventually get down to the water. Really ready to unwind at that point.

"So I wade into the surf. Not bad. Warm...that lean brine smell. I’m easing back. Swimming, letting the water work the tension out of my body. I roll onto my back, floating.

"And look down at my stomach just in time to see a school of milky-white jellyfish slide casually across my bare skin. Ouch."

He laughs and takes a drag on his cigarette.

"Sometimes when it rains, it pours."

--- JWR, 12/6/99

Posted by The Allurium at 3:44 PM | Permalink | Comments (0)

2:53 PM, a Thursday in November. Sunlight and falling leaves. Music in the background. Wearing black and blue. Estranged.

I am.

I jingled as a jester on Halloween. Sort of fun but, you know, the weather was turning chilly even then. Foolish to feel foolish while wearing a fool but sometimes you forget the aspect you present. The onset of self consciousness can be so disappointing. But, hey...

There’s the sky: blue, blue, blue. Light as crisp as the edge of a fallen Autumn leaf. Like a glass of ice cold water is the air. November, wrapping around like a long coat, hands cupping the warmth of a steaming cup of coffee. Winter teasing with chilly caresses. Soon to be Decembering.

I got my hair cut and like the look. A little bit longer on top.

Bowie is repeating on the CD player.

Days ago, a Johnny Mathis song was looping through my mind. "Here comes that landmark question in advance..." Hah, something I’ve been wondering, myself.

Writing and I have been distant from each other recently. I don’t really know why. I fuss around the edges of the problem and then stare, nonplussed, at the wide quiet lake sitting where the road used to be. Like: Where the hell did that come from?

So I’m soundtracking this entry (like I do, more often than not). Writing to music, a little mind and finger dance. It’s a CD from the 80’s now: Michael Penn’s March. Haven’t listened to this one in years. He had a couple of hits on this album. "No Myth" and "This & That", if I remember correctly. Pretty smooth. I haven’t heard much from him recently, though.

Anyway, "I’ll do this/and I’ll do that" and I really don’t know what I’ll be doing New Year’s Eve.

But, hey, I have a tux.

--- JWR, 11/18/99

Posted by The Allurium at 3:40 PM | Permalink | Comments (0)

7:41 PM, While slipping thin batteries into my complementary Maglite flashlight, I thought about the stone tree. Rock-a-bye...

Outside my window, the storm is a rushing whisper accented by snaps of blue-white. Cracks and growls of thunder hint at the possibility of the lights flickering and then going dark. Hence my flashlight and the fact that I’ve shut down my computer for the night. I’m sipping Merlot and scratching away in my notebook. Paper and pen, don’t you know.

Yesterday, as a passenger, I saw a tall stone wall built of huge age-darkened blocks -- the kind of imposing slabs that ancient castle keeps might be assembled of. At one point in the twenty-foot high barrier a heavy stone had fallen free, revealing dusty earth. From that rectangular hole grew a tree as thick as my arm. The tree jutted out horizontally for a bit and then almost turned a right angle and went vertical. Reaching toward the sky.

I wondered at the symbolic meaning, if any, as the car swept me by.

Now the storm is muttering to itself -- its former vigor reduced to distant rumbles and vague wet sounds. In the distance, the fire alarm siren is wailing. The sound is stridently-plaintive. Sort of cold.

--- JWR, 10/13/99

Posted by The Allurium at 3:36 PM | Permalink | Comments (0)

6:36 PM, Monday evening. So, as I was saying...

Through the window, comes a breeze like a caress. Cooling. Whisper-soft. And David Bowie is singing "Seven Years in Tibet" on the CD player. Just had dinner, and a cup of coffee. My thumb is on the "rewind" button. Experience is so flexible.

Press it.

Phantom of the Opera, under the vaulted elegant dome of the Benedum Center. The loveliness of the day eclipsed only by that of my companion (Hi Kelli). Walking in the city, the splendor of the play, drinks afterward...

A soft surge further back, memories of the beach:

John’s Speedy Vacation Book Reviews (continued):

Starfish by Peter Watts (ISBN 0-312-86855-3). Involving. Lenie Clarke (and the world) don’t get many breaks, but her character is vivid and captivating. The descriptions of life at the bottom of the ocean for a crew of surgically altered psychopaths is memorable and spooky -- even if the plot seems a bit tacked-on.

The Age of Spiritual Machines by Ray Kurzweil (ISBN 0-670-88217-8). Excellent. Though I am no expert, I believe that Dr. Kurzweil is more often right than wrong in his predictions regarding the evolution of computers (and consciousness) in the 21st century. When I am a "software-based" entity and you can access this website as a fully convincing 3-D virtual reality environment, we’ll know for sure...

The Girl Who Loved Tom Gordon by Stephen King (ISBN: 0-684-86762-1). Excellent. A slim little book that manages to be involving, scary, and ultimately very moving. Highly focused and very quiet.

Well past the beach now. Random accessing the last days of August...

At this point we haven’t experienced the final day of Summer yet. Remembering the Blair Witch. Dancing under the flick and flare of colored lights. Getting closer to the present. Worries about Floyd. Summer ends and the skies cool and deepen, stretching up forever into pure cerulean. Out at Star Lake in my biker jacket and mirror-shades. Bob, Amy, Steve, Kelli and me. Hot pretzels, Corona, and a comfy blanket on the grass. Perusing Halloween costumes at the malls.

And the heat returns.

In Autumn, sweat trickles amid bright air and flowers still holding the line. Moving forward. A lot more than moments behind, but no time now. Presently: Vegetarian chili. And coffee. Bowie on the stereo (though now it’s Outside).

7:15 and I’m back.

--- JWR, 9/27/99

Posted by The Allurium at 3:33 PM | Permalink | Comments (0)

3:25 PM, So it’s Tuesday and the heat has lifted up and away. The light outside is bright and crisp. Depeche Mode, Ultra is playing on the stereo. The beach is a silken sea foam dream, now -- scattered images and sensations: The rough tan warmth of sand, floating in a shimmering bar of reflected sunlight, watching the sun and the moon, together in the same azure late-afternoon sky...

I lounged and drifted for two weeks, reading, swimming, staring at the sea. At times I scribbled thoughts in a Mead composition notebook, wrote little reviews of the stuff I was reading. Mostly I just switched into sensation mode and left the thinking to the wheeling sea gulls.

If today were a transparency, the Outer Banks would lie just behind it -- still visible but growing distant...

1:45 AM, 7/15/99: Well, somehow I’ve managed to get sun-burned on a day when the sky was totally capped with steel-tinted clouds for as far as the eye could see. A few wan rays barely managed to filter through that thick cover -- and then, only for a handful of moments. The wind was constant, however: a bulky insistent animal, full of edges and speed.

Appraising the situation with my keenly-informed knowledge of sun and surf, I decided that sunscreen was not needed.

Now, of course, my face, neck, and legs (from the lower thighs down) are glowing a tight hot pink. Sigh. I must be a vampire or something; the next thing you know I’ll be getting moon-burns. Sheesh...

John’s Speedy Vacation Book Reviews:

Hannibal by Thomas Harris (ISBN 0-385-29929-X). Disappointing. Bad people doing bad things to other bad people (for the most part). Some legitimate "creep-outs" with the descriptions of Mason and in Dr. Lecter’s culinary excesses.

It was two-and-a-half days of windy, rainy weather followed by days that just got better and better. I’ve been going to the beach for over two decades now and I love it again every year.

Today is nice too, though. I’m back in an exercising groove, feeling a bit hungry, and have just discovered that the tape I was making of the previously mentioned Depeche Mode CD has gotten a bit screwy. Time to try that little project again...

--- JWR, 8/3/99

Posted by The Allurium at 3:28 PM | Permalink | Comments (0)

1:04 PM...Saturday. I’m worn out -- and the day is wavering between bright and stormy. In a span of hours I’ll be heading down to the Outer Banks for two weeks. I’m looking forward to it. Big Time.

I simply have to change things in my life. Too much stuff is getting me down, lately. I’m hoping that surf, sand, and distance will give me some perspective.

So.

U2’s "Mofo" is playing on the stereo. I’m doing laundry and getting ready to hop out to the bookstore to grab some vacation reading. My cup of green tea is almost finished and I need to find my beach towel...

Thrills, eh?

Still.

I’m going to keep "Tangerine" up-to-date while at the beach (shifting to good old pen and paper mode for a time). Those entries will be posted when I get back.

Viva la playa, baby!

(I gotta grab a shower.)

--- JWR, 7/10/99

Posted by The Allurium at 3:22 PM | Permalink | Comments (0)

2:34 PM, Thursday -- and the memory of time moves like cloud shadows over a wide calm landscape. Perfect lips. The heat, fading: remembered saturation. Air like a slow thick wall. The enfolding shine of sunlight and the trickle of sweat on the Fourth of July.

The slowly lifting engine of a tequila buzz.

Peppery Garden Burgers. Ray-Ban shades. The night sky traced and trickled with pops and trails of color. Glimmering lines, falling. Sharp white smacks that echoed off of the hills and thudded within my chest cavity. The shape of a rustling tree acting as a deep green mask. And the river: dotted with boats. Music. Shimmering light.

And, after that day, more time. Like steam escaping from an over-heated pipe: stress. Loneliness.

Compassion too, though.

A long drive to the airport in the rain. Fruitless; hours to go. Tension -- and fragments of Beetlegeuse on the Comedy channel. Conversation with a special friend. Arrivals.

A hundred year old print from Ireland.

Gritty eyes, tired. Sneezy from some recently emergent allergen. A dish cloth wrung dry. But small pleasures, too. Coffee and sweet company. Erotic dreams. Just phantasms, though. Still alive: the dream of something more.

Accepting the reality of the situation, however.

So.

Today? More cool, still cerulean and sunlight. A peanut butter and jelly sandwich in my stomach. Sleepy eyes. Something new? Hopefully. Now, a quiet anticipation of leaving this state -- for a time, at least.

Those clouds sliding by: days and hours. Too tired to write, too tired to think, at times. Soon running to the South, to the coast. The sea and sand -- long time paced-out in novels and heat, sun, and the wash of salt water. Waves. Deep sky.

Clear skies.

--- JWR, 7/8/99

Posted by The Allurium at 3:17 PM | Permalink | Comments (0)

1:05 AM, Wednesday morning...

In a book, an android was trying to understand why some hard-scrabble humans would name a space ship The Laughing Life. I bet I could tell him (and how melodramatic is that?) There is a lot you can laugh at in life -- problem is, hardly any of it is really funny.

Or maybe it all is.

While riding home in a car earlier tonight, "Scar Tissue" by The Red Hot Chili Peppers was playing on the radio. I thought: how pointlessly appropriate.

Hah.

--- JWR, 6/30/99

Posted by The Allurium at 3:13 PM | Permalink | Comments (0)

7:08 PM, Yesterday, I sat outside in the slow dusk, reading a novel set one thousand years into the future. A cold mouthful of Corona swirled in my throat during chapter breaks -- or when I just felt like setting the book aside and Rorshaching the almost abstract view of leafy treetops silhouetted against the luminous, short light sky. If I tipped my head back, I could view the moon, set in blue clarity. I have always enjoyed the lunar glow -- but it is never more striking and eldritch than when it is visible in daylight hours.

I finished the book and sat back, watching the atmospheric colors settle to the horizon and deepen to a rich purple-black. Across the way, a firefly gave me a bioluminescent wink and I took a deep breath of the cooling air.

I felt stressed-out, used up, and sad.

But the book had been good. And the night was crisply sweet.

Today I’m just tired; eyes a bit grainy. I need to brush my teeth and I’m doing laundry. Though it is evening, the sky outside is still bright. The air is much warmer today, filled with a humid heat that you can almost run your fingers through, like the heavy mane of some elemental beast.

It is Thursday; the weekend is almost here.

And the daisies are blooming, next to the water garden.

--- JWR, 6/24/99

Posted by The Allurium at 3:08 PM | Permalink | Comments (0)

6:52 PM, on a Thursday evening, and the air outside feels like a million tons of heated caramel...

I’m not exactly sure how personal loopiness is officially defined but I think I might have qualified today. While boiling two veggie hot-dogs for dinner, I performed a stunningly progressive, almost jazzy, version of The Flintstones theme song. Several times.

Fortunately I had no audience.

It also occurred to me, early this morning, that Lucky The Leprechaun (who graces every box of Lucky Charms -- a cereal that I was munching on) is a bit too avidly gleeful to look at when you are in the: "I have risen but am not due to shine for quite some time yet" stage. Of course, after a couple of cups of tea and the sugar from the Lucky Charms kick in...

Anyway, now I’m chewing some gum, thinking about the weekend, and slowly drinking a tall glass of cold water. What can I say? I live on the cutting-edge...

Things I remember about my Grandfather: cigars, his big chair...and the bright yellow packets of Juicy Fruit gum he kept in his desk and used to give to me and my brother.

Things I remember about kindergarten: the taste of milk sipped through the paper straws we used to use, the smell of finger-paints, and the blonde girl with bright blue eyes who gave me my first kiss in the back of the school bus one afternoon.

And today? Green tea, Lucky Charms, "They’re a modern stone-age family," and heat that folds down like a thick liquid blanket...

--- JWR, 6/10/99

Posted by The Allurium at 3:06 PM | Permalink | Comments (0)

1:57 PM, And what day is this? Ah, oh yes, it is Tuesday -- the long bright holiday weekend has blurred things a bit. The timing seems a bit off, like a film skipping a few frames. I have to make time to exercise today. I’ve been smoothly putting it off for quite a while -- gotta get back into that sweat-groove again.

I feel better that way.

The "shush" of the wind in the trees counterpoints the day’s hazy light. It’s a beneath-the-surface sort of Tuesday, a sleepy slow motion dream of hours. Can’t seem to get a damn thing done.

There’s the promise of rain in the air...a sort of heaviness, lazily waiting.

And I’m like a TV tuned to static.

--- JWR, 6/1/99

Posted by The Allurium at 3:01 PM | Permalink | Comments (0)

7:46 PM, Monday evening: a wan, moist ambient light has been wrapped around this day -- a span of hours that has also been accented by static-like rain showers and a chilly crispness in the air. It’s the aloof, cool face of Spring.

The previous week was weird for me -- full of unexpected things and uncertain situations. It has spun me into today with a feeling of change and new beginnings. I’ve been shifting things, in personal space as well as cyber. Nothing really huge on the inside; more a new outlook than anything else. As for the outside, well, the website wrapped around this journal has certainly changed...to your liking, I hope.

So I’m doing laundry, watching the day, tweaking files and directories, feeling open and sort of "out there" and, oh yes, writing. I saw The Matrix on Sunday -- such a sharply-cool movie. I’d like my writing to be able to move like the characters in that film. Six degrees of freedom. Hard to be that flexible, though...

In the theater parking lot was a silver New Beetle -- a car that I’ve been pining over for some time. And a funny thing: the license plate was customized. My Dad and I laughed when we saw what it read.

"JONSBUG"

How cool is that?

--- JWR, 5/24/99

Posted by The Allurium at 2:58 PM | Permalink | Comments (0)

1:24 PM, Monday afternoon and, a day afterward, my legs are a bit sore -- but not too bad...

The crowd surged forward with a couple of false starts before things actually got underway. It was a chilly but clear morning and me, both my parents, and my brother Joel mingled with a crowd that would eventually break the attendance record for Pittsburgh’s Race for the Cure. Over twenty-five thousand people participated in the event on Mother’s Day. After finding our Mom a good spot by the finish line, me, my brother and my Dad made our way to the starting point, where people of all ages smiled, joked, stretched or contemplated the more somber meanings behind the five kilometer race.

In the steadily growing crowd, were runners with pink placards on their backs dedicating their participation to the memory of mothers, wives, sisters or other special people who had succumbed to breast cancer -- as well as others with signs that were in celebration of women who had survived the disease. Many survivors themselves (identified by pink shirts and/or caps) were participants in the race or in the 5k walk. Though there was a sense of remembrance, the over-all feel was one of hope.

The true start of the race began with a cheer and applause, as runners began crossing beneath a graceful arch of blue and white balloons. My brother, my dad and I stayed clumped together as we walked/trotted up toward the starting point and, eventually, crossed over.

Having never run five kilometers before (or, indeed, any kind of race since High School) I wasn’t at all certain that I could do it -- and the slight uphill climb near the starting point got my leg’s attention fast. Still, the cheers and the enthusiasm of the runners around me were encouraging.

Joel vanished into the crowd ahead within a minute or so. My dad and I stuck together for a bit longer, until the crowd thinned and everyone seemed to get into their personal pace. The race route, which wound mostly through Schenley Park, was Spring-like and clear -- and was spotted with encouraging onlookers.

I was feeling pretty good by the time I hit the first water station at the one mile point. I checked my watch and saw that twelve minutes had elapsed -- hardly a blistering pace but better than my normal speed when running on a treadmill. (I later found out that the winner of the race crossed the finish line a few minutes after I downed a cup of cold water, handed to me by a smiling volunteer at the first water station.)

In a sight that was both inspiring and depressing, I saw two guys running smoothly through the crowd while wearing large (and apparently fully packed) military backpacks. They didn't even look remotely tired...

By the time I got to the second water station (at the two mile point) I was, shall we say, "feeling it". I slowed to a fast walk for a minute, drank my water, and then started running again. A little bit further on and it was mostly huffing and steady foot-pounding from myself and the runners around me.

Toward the end, the race course climbed a rather steep rise, curving first one way then the other. I really had to push at this point -- but I was encouraged by a woman and her daughter who moved briskly up the hill while carrying on a conversation.

The hill conquered, we moved into a curve, where police and spectators clapped and told us it was all downhill from there. True enough, the end of the race was soon in sight. As I crossed the finish line, I looked up to my right and saw Joel and my mother waving to me.

A nice lady at the end of the line collected the bar code from my racing bib and I walked around to join my family. A little bit later we clapped and cheered for my Dad, as he finished the race.

After some free water and bananas (and a couple of complementary Eat ‘n Park smiley face cookies for my Dad and brother) we all went home and had a toast to Mom, the race, and to Mother’s Day...

It took me thirty-seven minutes and seven seconds to run the five kilometers (about 3.2 miles) and I’m a bit sore today -- but I’m very glad that I participated in the race and hope I can do it again next year.

--- JWR, 5/10/99

Posted by The Allurium at 2:55 PM | Permalink | Comments (0)

4:25 PM, Powder blue skies, hyacinths and daffodils, cool water, laundry, Dovetail Joint, and one sore foot. A pretty piece of time on a Thursday afternoon...

I’m planning on running in the Race For The Cure. A 5k race that raises funds for breast cancer "screening, education, research and treatment". Now this should be interesting because I’ve never run in anything before and, frankly, don’t run a lot at all, in any situation. But I’ve been scampering on a treadmill on and off since the beginning of the year -- so maybe I won’t keel over a third of the way through the event. This Monday I did 3.2 miles on the treadmill -- and also managed to hurt my left foot somehow. It feels better today, however, so I should be able to go for the run that my brother suggested we try Saturday morning.

The Race For The Cure is on Mother’s Day, May 9th, and I’m looking forward to it. My brother Joel (who is a far better runner than I) and his friend Tatiana are going to run as well, and so are some other folks that I know. It’s a good cause and I hope that the weather holds up...

This is the kind of day where you want to be blurring down a wide-open road with the top down, a pair of shades and the radio on. Wind in your hair, sun in your face and a your sweetheart by your side. If the weekend is like this I’m going to feel as bright as a searchlight.

I once saw a band at a club called The Headroom, down in Myrtle Beach. The music was so loud that the billiard balls were shimmying on the pool tables.

This fine shine is making me shimmy too.

I love it.

--- JWR, 4/8/99

Posted by The Allurium at 2:48 PM | Permalink | Comments (0)

6:25 PM, Friday evening. All right, I give in: I have Spring fever...

RealAudio entry #5 (73K)

--- JWR, 4/2/99

Continue reading "Ready to Go" »

Posted by The Allurium at 2:45 PM | Permalink | Comments (0)

4:53 PM, Thursday evening. Five miles south of Lancaster, PA, just off of a gracefully curving country road, lies the Easterhaus family farm. Their primary crop is certified organically-grown jelly beans and, man, until you’ve tasted them you don’t know what you’ve been missing...

Most of the jelly beans that you see in stores are grown on large corporate farms based either in Minnesota or Holland. They typically produce bountiful, uniform crops, but often at the expense of taste. The beans grown on smaller family farms can lack the vivid coloration and symmetry of "corporate" jelly beans -- but they more than make up for that with delectable flavor.

And don’t forget freshness: at the Easterhaus farm (especially at this time of year) they have "pick-your-own" days where individuals and families routinely take to the glimmering fields and harvest their own jelly beans. It really is a good time. The foliage of the jelly bean plant is soft, vivid green, and stringy (the plastic green filler usually found in Easter baskets is modeled after the actual jelly bean plant) and the pastel-colored beans themselves are quite easy to pick. "Pick your own" day is also the perfect time for the Easterhaus family to inform their customers about the surprisingly versatile nature of their favorite crop.

As with grapes, the wide array of healthy compounds found in blue, purple, and in some red jelly beans has already been widely publicized in the national media. What is less well-known is how flexible a food the beans actually are. After personally tasting Mrs. Easterhaus’s "Jelly Bean Gumbo" I can say that the bean is definitely under-used in the kitchen. Also, jelly bean cider (pressed from the skins of green and white beans and fermented in sugar-lined oak casks) is a taste experience that you will not soon forget.

So, if you get the chance, try a bag of organically grown jelly beans this Easter -- you’ll love the difference. And if you want more information on organic jelly bean farming, you might want to consult the AOCF’s (Association of Organic Confection Farmers) excellent website at: http://www.organicjellybean.com (they get swamped with hits at this time of year, though, so keep trying if their server is temporarily down).

--- JWR, 4/1/99

Posted by The Allurium at 2:43 PM | Permalink | Comments (0)

8:29 PM, Wednesday night. All this bright air and the vivid emergence of spring flowers has me feeling open and kinetic. I want to change things, get out and about, party...buy a new car.

Instead, I blew my nose a lot today and ordered some new CDs from Music Boulevard. What the heck -- I’m working my way up to that other stuff...

A while back I was reading through some story fragments that I keep on my hard drive. The files are mostly just little chunks of this and that, experiments, free writing, and well...crap, actually. But there was this one unfinished story that really caught my attention. The thing was extremely sharp, fast and edgy, and barely seemed like something I’d write at all. (Hah. No sarcastic comments!) I read through the story fragment a few times trying to find my way into that frame of mind, trying to get back into that particular groove. But I couldn’t. I’d really like to finish the thing but I don’t want to push and lose the vibe the story has now. It’s frustrating.

Sometimes a certain style will click for me and a story will blossom with hardly any conscious effort on my part. Other times (unfortunately) it is like trying to plant a flowerbed with your eyes closed. I know that, with practice, I should be able to work my way into any kind of groove I need to create a story. However, I wonder if certain works just have to grow on their own terms.

Eventually I will finish that story fragment. I just have to wait for the right inner season...

Anyway, things here are clear and wide. For the first time in months I have my windows open, feeling the air. Soon the hyacinths will be blooming. I bought three CDs today (Dave Matthews, Creed, and Dovetail Joint) and the weekend is just around the corner.

I’m working my way up to it.

--- JWR, 3/31/99

Posted by The Allurium at 2:38 PM | Permalink | Comments (0)

4:44 PM, Tuesday afternoon and the skies are deep and perfect. I don’t get sick often, but since Monday I’ve had a cold that is both annoying and exhausting. Ironic when the weather is so Spring bright and I’d much rather be enjoying things a bit more. Ah well.

I think I’ll go staccato...

Last week, up on the roof with a handful of nuts, washers, and bolts. Nothing but cerulean skies above. Fixing the metal chimney cap. The smell of McDonald’s french fries.

Today, the moon at dawn looks like an impossibly close tangerine disk hovering on the horizon’s edge. It has slipped below by the time I go out to the car.

Roadside daffodils and a bright yellow VW New Beetle with a dusty red flower in its bud vase.

Koi carp and goldfish gliding like bright dreams in the pond.

A scratchy throat and vegetarian hot-dogs for dinner.

I’m worn-out today. I’m going to lounge around for the rest of the evening and then get to bed early. Two and a half teaspoons of sugar in a cup a green tea...

--- JWR, 3/30/99

Posted by The Allurium at 2:35 PM | Permalink | Comments (0)

7:49 PM, sheen...

In the early morning, when sleep is still stretched over the world like a sheet of pale silk, things seem unoccupied and other-worldly. An inveterate night-owl, I’m not normally one to be awake at five AM -- unless I happen to be getting ready for bed, that is. I rose with the sun today, though, and ended up having a pretty productive time of it, getting things done here and there.

It seems to me that morning is composed of three parts. First, there is the illusory beginnings, that stage at the threadbare end of night when the presence of light rises just above the edge of your visual threshold. Almost like being on the edge of sleep, the first stage of morning is a drifting "partially there" moment that seems to pass without you really knowing it.

The second stage is that spectral, pale silk time. The light is cool and covers the world in a soft emptiness. Less tricky than the glimmer-in-the-corner-of-your-eye first stage, the second part of morning is the real thing. But it is still new and vaguely unoccupied. The fact that people are just starting to live in this area of morning gives it a newborn, almost alien aspect. It’s the day’s New Territory -- and a fine time to be driving, watching empty miles of road unroll before you.

Then the third stage of morning arrives. It’s when the light gets hard, bright. When the day machine starts running on all cylinders. The third stage is coffee, traffic, car phones, radios...and work. In a busy montage of engines and activity, this stage blurs, eventually, into full-fledged daytime.

I’ve never been much of a morning person -- but the time does have its pretty parts. Especially that second stage sheen...

--- JWR, 3/29/99

Posted by The Allurium at 2:32 PM | Permalink | Comments (0)

4:57 PM, it was (eventually) morning...

Out on the road last night I saw an interesting thing: a church steeple and a smoke stack -- almost right next to each other and each the same height, width, and general shape. Don’t know why the image has stuck in my mind.

On Friday I had a Guinness -- for Guinness Toast Night at Moondogs. Spent the last bit of the evening listening to the band (the SPUDS; they were good) and petting a small goat that someone had brought into the bar. The animal’s name was Snowflake, and it didn’t seem very happy with the surroundings. It seemed content to let me pet it, however -- so maybe that made Snowflake feel a little bit better.

I don’t know much about goats, though, so I can’t say for sure.

At dawn this morning (with me, sleepless) the world was the color of water running over stainless steel. It was cool, rainy. A perfect environment to sleep through.

Pearl Jam’s "Immortality" is playing on the stereo. I’m thinking of the church steeple and the smokestack, Snowflake the goat, and bleary pale mornings. I’m very tired.

Think I’ll go have a cup of tea.

--- JWR, 2/28/99

Posted by The Allurium at 2:29 PM | Permalink | Comments (0)

4:30 PM, Thursday afternoon: drinking ice-cold water and listening to Art Blakely and the Jazz Messengers. Smooth. Clear. Glide. And the day is pristine and wide all around me.

I’m just be-bopping along today. My eyes are pleasantly tired, the rest of me following behind in a mellow stroll. Earlier this week, I bought a "classic" analog watch from the Timex website (I don’t know about you, but I’m all-too intrigued by those "Indiglo" electroluminescent dials). This afternoon I got my hair cut. Things are still in short mode on that front. I’m looking forward to the weekend in a low-keyed sort of way. I want to hang out with my friends, have a drink, maybe find a girl to dance smooth and smoky slow with.

Hmm, just switched to Robert Johnson; the jazz was making me a bit too sleepy. He’s singing "Cross Road Blues" -- talk about a storied life. I know very little about blues (even less about jazz). I’ve just started listening to this stuff and have no vocabulary for it yet. I like both, though.

I’ve been doing pretty well at the treadmill -- rambling on, you might say. I should be able to clock a total of just over five miles this week. Marathon boy I’m not -- but it’s not too bad for only having started two weeks ago.

Hey, just to keep things interesting, now it’s time for Garbage on the CD player. I saw them at Metropol when they were touring for their first album -- great show. I love "You Look So Fine" off of Version 2.0, especially that extended "fine" Shirley Manson hits near the beginning of the song. Cool.

Smooth.

My mind is like a butterfly in a slow-motion snow fall today: flittering from one bit of mental fluff to another. At least the scene has an interesting soundtrack, though. Different tunes weaving together under a sky that is now a luminescent cobalt blue. Evening time. Time to glide...

--- JWR, 1/28/99

Posted by The Allurium at 2:26 PM | Permalink | Comments (0)

3:06 PM, Thursday afternoon.

Two mugs of home-brewed "PassionFruit Peppermint" tea and I’m tapping my foot and ready to roll...

In an exercise in positive visualization, I’m looking at the New Beetle brochure from Volkswagen again. A silver bug is still my top choice but I’m continually drawn to the yellow version too -- probably because a car that color is fairly out of character for me. I can’t seem to help liking the brightness of it, though.

You see, I have the feeling (make that: creeping certainty) that I have to shake things up. Alter my orbit. Indulge in a little re-invention. I’ve babbled about it before but the point keeps being driven home to me: I have to change...

Once, when I was snorkeling in Kitty Hawk NC, I swam out to where the waters deepened. As I glided along, I watched the sandy bottom drop off into hazy, greenish-blue shadow. It felt like my body was suspended over a cliff. Ahead and below me was this deep wide space, potent with uncertainty. A little shiver of agoraphobia slipped through me as I felt the coolness of those greater depths against my bare skin. I held my breath for as long as I could, looking into that shadowed space and thinking of Nietzsche’s quote.

Then I rose to the surface and cleared my breathing tube. I removed my mask and rolled onto my back, floating, looking up at the tall sunny sky. Swells lifted me up and lowered me down as wavelets lapped at my body. I thought about the depths below and above me for a long time, letting the sun warm my face.

Then I slipped my mask and snorkel back on, turned over, and swam back to shore.

I feel like that now.

--- JWR, 1/14/99

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10:49 AM, Sunday morning. Oblique.

It’s like that saying:

Fool me once, shame on you. Fool me twice, shame on me.

Fool me more than that and all I can do is shrug my shoulders and say, "Heck, I’ll eventually get the message."

-- and --

"This time next year I won’t be so dull."

It’s a dish rag day: gray and sodden. The ground is pale and rain-chilled. The air is cold and weepy. And the sky? Well, the sky is the color of leftover milk in a cereal bowl. My initial plan was to sleep in today. Slumber-dive into warmth and languid dreams. But I’ve been up and aimless for some time now, so I may as well write a bit.

Sometimes the mood is served up to you, know what I mean?

This week I’ve been "go boy go". Here, there, everywhere. Time stretches out when you’re busy. Stretches and widens: so that you don’t really feel like you are in the moment so much as skimming along the surface of things. It hasn’t been that bad, though. Sort of fun for the most part. Motion.

But I still have Christmas shopping to finish.

Greg Bear has a great quote from Emily Dickinson at the beginning of his novel, Slant:

"Tell all the truth,
but tell it slant"

How very cool, I thought, when I first read it. I still think it is cool now. Dickinson was a gifted woman. Her words have been on my mind today. Flittering here and there...

My glasses get downright grimy at times -- and everything looks hazy and dull. But, hey, a little spritz and wipe and things are a lot more clear and bright. Even at night. Sometimes it’s not that difficult to get a better view.

It’s evening now, here. Out on the street, the Christmas lights are lit. All that gem-like shine and color. Things are brighter now than they were during the day. Surprise! (Well not really, I guess.)

I’m feeling slant, today. I also feel unavailable and foolish.

Oh bleak.

That’ll pass though.

Live and learn.

--- JWR, 12/20/98

Posted by The Allurium at 2:19 PM | Permalink | Comments (0)

12:13 PM, Inside the snow cave it was crystal quiet. Breathing created a sorcerous mist that swirled and vanished before your eyes, melting the innermost layer of the cave to a blue-white translucency. The cold was...gentle, more a suggestion, a reminder, than an actual chill. Perhaps the Winter Queen’s icy palace was like this.

We’d made the cave by shoveling the driveway and piling the snow up over a garbage can. After much packing and patting with our gloved hands, we carefully pulled the garbage can free -- leaving a mysterious snow-blue cavern, prime for exploration and frosted fantasies.

I remember playing for hours with my brothers and friends in the snow. Playing until ice crusted the cuffs of our gloves and the yarns of our tousle-caps. Playing until our coats and pants were uniformly damp and our noses ran constantly. Snotsicles, don’t you know? I remember the thwack of snowballs, the rush and rattle of sledding, and the bright taste of icicles snapped from the eaves of snowy houses.

The last few Winters in Pittsburgh have been mild, very little snow to speak of. A year ago, I didn’t even have to break out the snow shovel at all. Today is crisp and perfect, under a faultless wide blue sky. You could almost fool yourself into thinking that the tulips and daffodils are starting to poke out of the ground.

But it is the last month of the year and Winter, though it is being quite courtly at the moment, is soon to come. I know that many people have favorites, but I can honestly say that I enjoy all four seasons. And I’ve always appreciated Winter -- whether it be clear, cold and snowless or warmer, mounded in glittering drifts and awash in tumbling flakes. Winter, like the other seasons, carries its own enchantment. Memories and experiences pile up around it.

I guess that, if you stretch things a bit, you could say that every month has its own charms, every day its distinct character, every hour its unique tone. Every moment has its own magic.

Happy December.

--- JWR, 12/1/98

Posted by The Allurium at 2:14 PM | Permalink | Comments (0)

11:26 PM, Thursday evening. Bells and hilarity.*

RealAudio entry #4 (117K)

--- JWR, 11/06/98

Continue reading "Bells and Hilarity" »

Posted by The Allurium at 2:10 PM | Permalink | Comments (0)

2:37 PM, all this bright coolness and the swirl of colored leaves, drifting down like Autumn-tinted confetti. It’s a Wednesday afternoon and I love October.

A couple of weeks ago, my brother Joel and I caught the Frank Black show at Graffiti. As cool as I’d imagined him to be, Black played songs from his days with the Pixies, solo stuff, and new music -- it was a fun night, prefaced by a bite to eat at Valhalla (excellent veggie wraps and a tasty home-brewed pilsner). I’ve slipped into a casual rut of late and the night was a welcomed change-of-pace.

Habits can be such reluctant things. Good ones are so hard to coax into being and bad ones wish to stay forever. No real newsflash there, I know. It is easy to fall asleep in your life. Relaxing even. There is something very comforting in a well-worn routine.

Ah, but that inertia-killing reluctance...

Too much change is chaos but too little is stagnation. A small new thing, now and then, deflects your glide path just enough to keep life fresh. Hopefully. Radical changes on a day-to-day basis are a bit much to ask of anyone -- but small stuff, hey, that’s not too bad. And you never know from where those soft inspirations to shake up your routine will come.

Early today my phone rang, awakening me from a vague ephemeral dream. Without my glasses the room was an impressionistic blur of morning-white and I was reluctant to move from the body-warmed covers. On my desk the computer whispered into alertness far more rapidly than I -- taking the message for me.

It was a single word, from a woman who’s voice I do not know.

"’Morning," she said.

Indeed it was, and though I had been planning on sleeping late, I decided to get up then instead. And enjoy it.

So, from me to you: good afternoon.

--- JWR, 10/21/98

Posted by The Allurium at 2:05 PM | Permalink | Comments (0)

12:05 AM, Friday morning -- and the skies are a deep clear black.

Like slowly swallowing a spoonful of ice cream, Autumn glided in two days ago: a bright and cool feeling. I’m savoring it -- and contemplating the mini-manifesto thrust upon me by circumstance.

No more will I submit work first to markets who pay on publication. If I sell to payment on publication markets they will only hold my writing for a year. After that it will be contract re-negotiation time...or time to withdraw my work.

I have just tallied up the amount of time and money I have lost to markets that buy my work, promise to pay me when they publish, hold the stories for years, and then go out of business without printing a word.

It’s so much better to think about the weather...

All these endlessly deep skies. The crisp slanting daylight and the cool wide nights. It’s raining now. Soft, barely there at all -- just the ground growing damp in shadowed time-lapse. Alanis Morissette’s "Uninvited" is playing on the stereo. At this moment I would like a glass of ruby-red wine, something velvety and decadent.

Better yet, I’d like to taste the same on someone’s lips.

Time to sleep now, I think. Or else these Autumnal thoughts will hold me awake for hours...

--- JWR, 9/25/98

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10:50 AM, Tuesday morning. Bonnie: All Day Long...

We are in the middle of packing -- according to the Weather Channel there is a mandatory evacuation in effect for the Outer Banks. Hurricane Bonnie is heading this way.

The day is beautiful, warm and bright. The ocean is a bit rough but not too bad yet. Scattered folks are still on the beach, walking, sunbathing, surfing. We are paid up until Sunday so it sucks royally that we have to bail now.

Gotta look at it as an adventure, though.

11:38 AM. It is still oddly nice here. Not much happening: a few sirens, helicopters floating by for the news stations, lots of packed cars heading North -- not many going South. The surf is a bit more foamy, active.

All-in-all, though, it’s a pretty day.

12:06 PM. Haze to the North and South. The wind has picked-up and chilled somewhat. Fewer people are on the beach -- one woman and her children are sunbathing nearby, though. The surf is constant but not very high. It’s still sunny, more-or-less.

We are almost completely packed.

1:05 PM. Mandatory evacuations are in effect all up and down the Outer Banks. We’ve cleaned up the beach house, brought in all the beach furniture and packed our own stuff. The beaches are considerably emptier now. Winds are stronger but the skies are still fairly sunny. The ocean looks brown -- like foam-topped chocolate milk.

You can hear people hammering nails, boarding up. Bonnie is supposed to hit Cape Hatteras this afternoon. This part of the Outer Banks is supposed to get hurricane-strength winds by midnight. It’s all a lot of guesswork, however.

We have hotel reservations in Richmond.

1:53 PM. We are on the road, heading out of the Outer Banks. Big Traffic and swamped gas stations. This might take a while...

2:22 PM. Crap. I just remembered that I left my hat back in the cottage...

Two long lines of traffic leading out of the Outer Banks; lots of taped and/or boarded up windows along the way. Even though the sky is getting milky white with clouds, it is still nicely bright here...

3:42 PM. Still on the road. Can you say, "traffic"?

A young woman is hanging out of her jeep, snapping pictures of the lined-up vehicles. If I had a dollar for every SUV I’d have, um...a lot of dollars.

At this point along the route it is sunny. Pretty. A perfect day for lounging at the beach, wouldn’t you know?

I’ve never evacuated before and the experience is (not to put too fine a point on it) boring...

4:15 PM. Some people are downright nasty it seems. A guy crossing the road almost got run over a while back and there has been some very pissy driving going on.

Now they are predicting gale force winds in Cape Hatteras tonight and hurricane force winds by daybreak. Heard on the radio that 200,000 people are leaving this area.

All-in-all, I’d rather be sitting on the beach drinking a Corona.

5:54 PM. Still evacuating...

After a while you start to recognize folks in some of the cars you pass.

The most recent predictions place landfall for the hurricane a little West of Cape Hatteras.

7:53 PM. At the Holiday Inn in Richmond, VA.

Consider us evacuated.

I’m sort of hungry...

11:49 PM. It’s been a long day and I miss the beach. I hope we can go back and enjoy the rest of our week but I sort of doubt that we will get that chance.

Here’s wishing the Outer Banks good luck with the hurricane.

I’m going to catch some zees...

--- JWR, 8/25/98

Posted by The Allurium at 1:58 PM | Permalink | Comments (0)

12:45 PM, Monday afternoon.

Some clouds now, faint whispy swirls and puffs. A cool, steady breeze and surf that goes from nearly flat -- to foamy and rambunctious. Across the street two beach houses have been boarded up: hedged bets on Bonnie. It’s warm and I’m sweating -- mostly because I am pretty well covered up in Julia’s beach chair. I have on a tee-shirt, ball cap, and a blanket over my legs. Hiding from the sun. I’d go swimming but the red flags are up. Riptides.

So I’m sitting, reading (and writing a bit in my notebook here) and indulging in some cerveza mas fina. A few seagulls are hanging out nearby, facing into the wind as seems to be their habit.

It is a wide and beautiful day.

Tiring of sweltering, I have staked a red and white beach umbrella next to my chair in the sand. Divested now of my hat, shirt, and towel, I sit in the cast shade and savor a fresh Corona. I have definitely developed a taste for that.

In the distance, attenuated by the wind, Sinatra is playing from a portable stereo. Time to read for a while...

Does this mean anything to you? To me? Is it a code of selected images, experiences? Why do people choose to tell the things they tell? Is there meaning in it, or is it just reflexive?

Don’t ask me. I haven’t a clue. If I knew the answer to that question I would keep it safe in a box made of driftwood, with a few specials shells and a scattering of sand to keep it company.

--- JWR, 8/24/98

Posted by The Allurium at 1:52 PM | Permalink | Commen