HEADLINE: Breathing Robot Roams Industrial Forest

2006-06-23T20:21:00.000-05:00

If you get spam in your email, like most people do, copy and paste it into the guestbook at the forest.

You never know what's gonna happen!

2006-05-04T23:15:00.000-05:00

It's a new kind of thing. There's a lot going on at once. One at a time. Ampersandolpjin. You give it away like you never know and take when you give a damn,. Talked to a guy who did his master thesis on how they built the pyramids.

2006-04-02T20:47:00.000-05:00

Yesterday was the best day of my life, in the classic Westgatian sense.
***
I wake at 4am to bid my parents good-bye as they head to the airport 270 minutes early following a week of North-Central Sunshine State tourism/taking me out to meals I can't afford. The emotional blender tends to get set on pulverize around Ma & Pa, since they're great people but also very difficult (like me I guess), and the bottom line here is that it's almost worth getting up way too early just to be able to go right back to sleep 5 minutes later.

What a beautiful sunshiny face the day has put on when it stirs me for the second time. Within an hour I've got a tall rum & coke in my belly and off we go the 35th Annual Charles H. Fairbanks Armadillo Roast. The demographic of the Armadillo Roast is 95% anthropology students and professors. I know many faces and an ever-increasing number of names owing to attendance at half a dozen events over the past 8 months hosted strictly by and for this very crowd. A vast tea-colored lake lends backdrop to the delightfully rustic rural setting. Kids are swimming, career academics are drinking, and a perma-chill black guy is singing "Just because you fall down, it doesn't mean you'll never get up..." while accompanying himself on amplified Senegalese cora. A table grows increasingly covered with pies as more guests arrive.

Shortly before assembling a plate of potluck lunch, I agree to join my newest old friend (referred to henceforth as "Tony") as a contender in the seemingly friendly horseshoe toss competition. I am to be 50% of "Team Unknown," our identifying moniker on the official tournament bracket.
I ask a grad student named "Mike," an acquaintance with whom I talked Nintendo shop at a past function, "Is this horseshoe thing a big deal?"

He shrugs. "I'm reigning runner-up."

The food is really good. It's nice to have a little bit of 20 different dishes. Everybody brought one thing, you gotta try it all. As we head to the horseshoe pit for our first match, Tony says to me, "We can't lose." It's both a prophecy and a direct order.

I remember after a couple minutes of consideration that horseshoes is a sport I play left-handed like baseball, instead of right-handed like tennis. In the time it takes to review the rules and scoring system, take one practice toss, and win the game 11-0, I am through beer #3. Obviously it's time to find that keg again. As I pass by Mike (the reigning runner-up, recall) I mutter something about having him in our sights and he is going down or something to that effect. I like Mike and this is meant as a joke, but he looks a bit taken aback.

In addition to the food spread out on the large picnic tables, there is now a paper plate holding some rather large, conspicuously joint-shaped joints. Closer inspection reveals the word "salvia" handwritten on the plate and it's not long before I get that somewhat familiar feeling of all my bones turning inside out and then becoming suction cups in a fluid motion. The man and his cora sing on, "You don't have to say anything... Just watch the waves vibrating..."

There is a tall skinny guy with a black t-shirt and kind of a mohawk headed right for me. He's carrying a 2-liter of Fanta and definitely thinks he knows me. I have never seen him before in my life. "Hi, I'm Chris," he says after 20 paces worth of direct attempt at eye contact. I shake his hand.

"Nice to meet you." Speech proves surprisingly easy considering I thought my knees were on backward less than 30 seconds before. He cuts straight to the point.

"Are you Archbishop Shabby?"

I could stop the story right there, 'cause that alone would have made for a top 10 all-time day in the life. First time anyone has ever called me out by that name. It turns out he is a local electronic music show organizer. He recognizes me from a photo on the interweb and wants me to start coming to his events and performing around town. OK.

Round 2 of the horseshoe competition. Tony and I take down an ancient professor and a fit young sideburned student with a ponytail. The professor cheats by taking a huge stride over the throwing line every single time. God sees it and punishes him. Beer tastes good.

A different stranger comes up to me and comments on my KSPC t-shirt. He was program director for the station in 1981. I wrote public service announcements and hosted the worst radio show possible from 2 - 4am in 2000. Nice guy.

Later, as we watch our potential semifinals opponents toss, the professor acting as head judge and administrator of the competition confides to Tony and me, "Mike there is a real competitor. He plays poker every Tuesday and one time we were all watching football but he kept changing the channel because he had money on so many different games. Got a bit of a gambling problem, I believe." Meanwhile Mike and his partner are winning their quarterfinal match right there within easy earshot.

It's time to walk the walk as we square off against these guys for the right to play in the championship. The professor/judge advises me of an advantage inherent in left-handedness due to a tree overhanging the playing area, so long as I throw from one particular side of the pit. I am beginning to think he really wants this Mike guy to lose.

We go down 6-1 to start the match as Mike hits two ringers. Tony claims to have "pulled a hammy" during the last game and wears a pained expression. He gets tough, though, and we chip away at the lead until it's tied at 7. Except, of course, that Mike swears he's up 8-7 even though his own teammate doesn't remember it that way. Whatever, we still win.

A shout goes out and people gather around for the final match. It's Team Unknown vs. Osteo-Docs. Our opponents are a world-reknowned forensic biologist and a biomechanics professor, who incidentally was often forced to fill in for hungover DJ's on 88.7 so the station could broadcast continuously and thus hold onto its license during the heyday of the LA post-punk scene. He throws horseshoes like Kobe Bryant takes foul shots. It's a science that has graduated to an art. We may be in over our heads.

The match turns out to be extremely close. At one point, the forensic biologist hits a ringer and the judge declares, "You've got to top that." And I do, with a ringer right on top of his and another shoe landing close enough to the stake for what amounts to a 7-point swing. If you're not versed in the scoring system of horseshoes, as was my case until yesterday, that's basically tantamount to being pushed off a cliff but landing on a soft pile of money. Tony ends the game with a true leaner, the rarest of scoring tosses, and the judge asks the crowd, "Does anyone know these guys?"

A brief ceremony ensues. It is claimed that we must answer a question correctly to finalize the win. I think this is in reference to a TV show, not sure which one. If you know, please fill me in. Ostensibly because we just beat a team called the Osteo-Docs, the question is "How many bones are in the human body?" I couldn't help myself. "It's just one big bone, man." People laugh. We are handed our trophy. The Armadillo Roast Cup is a coffee mug featuring 5 of the eponymous foraging mammals, depicted in rainbow colors and spelling out the word "Texas" with their contorted bodies. I've never been more proud.

As the sun heads lazily for the tree line, we jump in the luke-warm lake. A gator splashes not far from the dock, and later, the Gators secure a spot in their own finals matchup. I've got a whole year to enjoy this day until the time comes to defend the Cup at the 36th Annual.

2006-01-02T00:58:00.000-05:00

Plump and sweet, the massive silver apple boasts a grittiest gloss. "Going anywhere is like wading through a giant swath of humanity." It is hard to get through. Verbal communication's staggering propensity to facilitate organization seems occasionally overshadowed by its own wake of misunderstanding, confusion, and frustration. The gravity re: clean dismissal of the craft's worth, like any judgement, pulls relatively less on the moon than it does on Mars. But you fall to rock bottom no matter how fast, and it'll all get swallowed up by the sun if everything goes according to plan.

2005-12-20T13:30:00.000-05:00

The right turn signal on my station wagon won't turn off. I had to pull the fuse, and now I cruise around with the window down using hand signals when I turn. It's kind of jaunty, feels like an adventure.
...
For some reason, it reminds me of when I was a kid. The street I grew up on had very little traffic. There are two huge dips in the road at the intersection next to my parents' house, each about 3 or 4 feet across and a foot lower than the rest of the road at the nadir. People used to drive extremely fast over them (probably still do) because your car would launch dramatically into space like that scene in Ferris Bueller with the garage attendant in the Ferrari and the Star Wars music and everything. I recall a Jeep Wrangler full of teenagers hitting it one time at about 60 and two girls standing up in the seat fell over backward and very nearly out of the car. At dusk or in the dark, the observer was treated to a spectacular display of firework-like sparks issuing from the underside of the speeding vehicle as it scraped the road on re-entry. We used to find hubcaps in the dips pretty regularly, and even a cell phone one time (it turned on but didn't get reception). The stangest episode occurred sometime just before I walked out the front door of the house one Saturday afternoon to find an enormous dent in the side of my mom's van, parked in the driveway about 100 feet from the celebrated intersection. Lying next to it was an old spare tire. You could see the skid mark on the road where the tire had apparently flown off the bed of a pickup mid-bump and proceeded at high velocity down the street, across our lawn, and directly into the vulnerable, slumbering Dodge. The whole family was home at the time, and none of us heard it happen. Even when it was fixed, the moulded strip on the side of the van would never thereafter stay reliably attached.

2005-12-16T17:31:00.000-05:00

Fingerprints everywhere. Contrary to the common misconception about a perfect crime - that it goes off without a hint, hitch, or trace - the massive wealth of evidence surrounding the burning, looted pile of rubble resonates to the tune of the proverbial omnidirectional halo. Is the massacre to facilitate the robbery, or vice versa? "Boy, if one seems a mere bi-product, well, you just don't get it."
...
The source resources outsourced, still enough remains to paint a moving picture, realistic enough at last to replace fantasy. The artist has acknowledged the inherent shortcomings of the medium, that canvas called time, place, and matter, as if by this admission we can be insulated from the ramifications history has shown are surely on the heels of achievement. In a way, it does succeed. A life well spent is still only a life; a death as final and permanent with or without justification. Let us carve a chunk from the steaming mound, that a smaller piece may prove beautiful in contrast to the gravity of the whole wretched mess. But don't you dare speak of it, or it will be ruined for all of us who held it dear because it was our own.

2005-11-22T14:35:00.000-05:00

An enormous granite cave gapes shallow. Graffiti on every surface to let me know it's been done before. Countless times. I lie at the very edge, wallowing on the uneven ground between waking and hyperspace. My head can't be but six inches from the threshold. Beyond the open rocky mouth, nothing. Not even a single star as beacon. Not blackness, but the very darkest blue on Bob Ross's palette. She stands over me, laughing easily, smiling. Long dark hair, and even longer eyes. The next day I quit my job.

2005-10-26T21:07:00.000-05:00

Lately, I've been listening to three albums pretty much everyday cuando estoy trabajando: Demon Days by Gorillaz, Get Behind Me Satan by The White Stripes, and It's Not Funny by David Cross. Changed my life.
Those finished and 7 more hours to go, I also hear a lot of other stuff including KCRW's To The Point. Since it is political in scope, my reaction generally boils down, when the sun sets, to questioning the limitations of love, judgement, and forgiveness. It turns out the Bush/Cheney crew is somehow worse than initially imagined, a veritable gourmet smoothie of bigotry, deceit, greed, and incompetence. Can I get some murderous irresponsibility as my extra instead of ginseng? Why, then, do I battle with myself and try to fit them into a universal schema that makes everything ok? Hey inner self, can't you wipe off that ridiculous fucking grin and draw a straight goddamn line?!?

2005-10-18T23:47:00.000-05:00

The house is huge as it is dusty, with tile floors both gritty and slippery, and soft-focus air that is smelled not with the nose but with the ancient preverbal childhood memory. Cobwebs and chandeliers, voyeuristic as their eternal wish, hang useless in the light of day. It is to be a reunion. The old gang assembled, at once and for once we begin the fruitful cooperation that drives and evades us to the man. Rickety boxes house rusty strings in sets of three, hammered at the touch of yellowed enamel for lack of which a great gray animal would be rendered defenseless, were it not for the preemptively lethal nature of its extraction. The aerial shot in National Geographic, chunks of bloody flesh, a ring of death. With the gift of a red-hair corona, however, I am fatefully drawn to indulge old habits in hopes of saying good-bye for the last time. There is nothing for it but to pull tubes, and then presently we retire to the back yard, crackly and brittle with the heat of the summer sun. Tobacco smoked by each in his own style, here hurriedly and tense, there with a guilty blink, the moment is gone so quickly we might suspect it never happened at all if we knew not that it was only a great stack of the same translucent instants holding our place in time, like so many turtles all the way down. Walking back to the house in the dusty afternoon, I notice the lawn is littered with dry thistles and cat-sized skeletons, vaguely reptilian, and I begin to get the fear. There is a daylight basement. A feast has been prepared and I create the memory of agreeing to dine with my former history teacher, a slightly adversarial character yet an old friend. Served by white tuxedos are impeccable, tender curries of every color. A heaping bowl of long-grained rice is adorned by a single egg yolk. Have I been so sidetracked by a Swiss cheese textbook as to forsake what truth I may already know?

2005-10-16T21:52:00.000-05:00

Flickering candles like midnight sunflowers coat the pastoral hillside. Second night of Woodstock comes to mind. After a few minutes, more and more details recognize you: the solid line of trees on the horizon, highway noise about half a day's walk away. Not hibernating the way you do, just scotopic. And the stars. The third dimension sometimes escapes up there, but not tonight. Clearly, a vast river leads away from this earth to the next one. Hovercraft indestructible skirt the eddies in seek of a place so unfamiliar as to offer riches forbidden to polite interaction. Ninety percent, unseen on any scale, do the work of logic, magick, or both. Soar above your old neighborhood in the purple night, always purple, where the river flows straight through an old armory building. Frictionless surfaces make defensive footwork a moot skill, especially in light of the sheer abyssal vastness of the playing field. Yes, there are predators, but rest assured they will clog one another's throats with bloated corporealities before you even arrive. Learn to swim, it will serve you well when the time comes for flight again.

2005-10-13T18:32:00.000-05:00

Been getting into self-hypnosis the past couple of weeks. It helps me motivate. Unfortunately, the boss doesn't like it when I work fast, because it makes her looks bad. Time to find a new job. Also, I have been remembering more dreams than usual lately, which is always rad. What's up with the New Orleans cops? I heard forty of them stole new Cadillacs from the dealership right after the 'cane hit.

2005-10-11T20:21:00.000-05:00

I highly recommend the new movie Thumbsucker. It was filmed near Portland, and the high school where some of the action takes place was in our league where I grew up, so go ahead and picture me standing there next to the actors. This film asks the age-old question, "Is Keanu Reeves for real?" Yes, he is. There is this feeling of watching a foreign film that happens to have been made in the US. It's becoming more common, definitely for the better, in American cinema. Though tough to pinpoint, I can say this foreign feel owes a lot to the development of many different characters of diverse ages. Popcorn is so fucking expensive now, just bring your own Jiffy Pop and a camp stove to the theatre.

2005-10-06T18:51:00.000-05:00

This is a must-see.
...
My new job is a surreal, zen type of boring. Four days a week, ten hours of my time is spend listening to the ipod without interruption. I think I also type long numbers into a database, but to tell the truth, this is not a toll road of attention. As a result, I am in the throes of an intense podcast binge. A strange and intoxicating realm, podcasting proper is about one year old. The lighted path leads to NPR stories, live rock performances from KEXP, and a meta-podcast about other podcasts. After that, it gets real obscure real fast. Some of the most popular shows are still amateurish, with horrible sound quality and editing, and often completely lacking in content. One show features a girl simply talking about how she has a podcast, sprinkled with worship of her own boobs, for the vast majority of most episodes. It reminds me of this girl I hung with sometimes in Little Beirut who would verbally work through ideas for her non-existent TV show in every social situation without fail. There's some dude who is really one of the creepiest guys I've heard speak, his schtick is basically If Tom Leykis Were a Certified Hypnotist. ~shudder~ Last but not least, you've got your international cornucopia of pirated/independent music. Indie is an electric proposition: totally unpredictable, with the potential to strike it rich with a real uncut gem at every turn. Of course, most of it sucks, but it sucks refreshingly, not like the shitty shit you've had shit on you hundreds of times by FM. Why just today, I was into minute 46 of a techno mediocrity set when DJ-To-Remain-Anonymous busts in with motherfucking Bubble Bobble soundtrack. For that brief moment, I was back at Pietro's Pizza on 99W, when RiteAid was Payless, winning nothing at a Little League awards dinner...

2005-10-03T21:29:00.000-05:00

Scott McClellan is evil, not like Jabba the Hutt (Cheney), but like Salacious Crumb. The annoying little hanger-on bitch creature who R2D2 zaps directly. He is an icon of what it means to be radically, pioneeringly dishonest, but often even manages to avoid the "courageous" stance of bald-face lying employed by his predecessor Ari Fleisher. Scott tends to ignore every single fucking question he fields in order to vomit out some mindless, irritating, pre-fabricated talking point. Anyway, a bit of today's "briefing":
...
Q And can you give us some indication as to how the President decided he would deal with these charges of cronyism, what his reaction might have been as it was discussed during the process?

MR. McCLELLAN: He doesn't spend time thinking about it.
...
That's a lot like asking what Manny Ramirez thinks of fastballs low and away. He doesn't spend time thinking about it. Once you're that honed in on a behavior, you just do it. W doesn't think about cronyism, he just hits homeruns.

2005-10-02T22:32:00.000-05:00

Slouched down behind the wheel like a piece of crumpled paper. There is no struggle like keeping the vehicle on the pavement after a dozen Kirin Ichiban, especially when you've got an audience. In this case, my mom is the passenger and a cop casually grins in the rearview. For some reason, it seems very important not to cross the line a third time in one mile. Meritous urban legends, few and far between, are like an elephant riding a bicycle. But we've reached the house safely, despite my station wagon's metamorphasis into a jankety Ford pickup with bed canopy, to park in the shelter afforded by a green semi-tanslucent corrigated plastic awning. I take mom on a quick tour of the place, discovering a laundry room and guest suite I hadn't noticed before. I guess that's what happens when you keep two homes on opposite sides of the continent. It's overcast and gray, and we haven't worn these clothes since the early eighties.
...
Christmas day, and new friends are pulled from the street like so many lake fish. We sit in a wobbly circle, and some of the kids quickly begin ripping hits from a bong that matches the green plastic carport. The older generation turns a blind eye in favor of anthropocentric contact of the animated, humorous variety. How many of your daily interactions with strangers aren't based on jokes? Of course, all this taking place on the west coast, the smoke is particularly potent and we'd soon sleep were it not for the profusion of amyl nitrate capsules making their way around the group. Everyone can choose to be a quarterback with a concussion. I've never even seen an amyl nitrate capsule.

2005-10-01T16:18:00.000-05:00

Fuck this place. Instead of showing the baseball game today, FOX showed some very lame regional college football. Inexcusable. Retardedly, no bars in town were showing it either, since FOX had the TV rights so it was not available on MLB satellite. I paid $8 to listen to it online.
...
On the bright side, the Water and Light website is actually working now.

2005-09-27T18:01:00.000-05:00

One bittersweet perk of being a C-SPAN junkie is you occasionally witness a truly savage bipartisan dissection of one unfortunate soul. Today's hearing/public mockery of Michael Brown tread the path of countless conversations among friends astonished at what happened in Louisiana, Alabama, and Mississippi surrounding Hurricane Katrina. Real, nontechnical concerns about the fragility of life and chinks in the armor afforded by civilization interspersed with an incredibly complex and saddening version of The Blame Game, and no one really won, but boy did Mr. Brown ("chauffeur-driven around...") lose. "Who is Mr. Brown?" asked the House of Representatives, groping for any indication that the highest-ranking officials in this country are kind, courageous, remarkable, and failing these things, at least capable of reflecting upon such a nightmarish situation (or at least their own roles) in a way that instills some confidence. In proper form for an official of the current administration, Brown answered with a compassionate, "Fuck off." The assassination of character that followed surely must have Kid Dynamite nodding in a vigorous, knowing fashion. I've seen nothing like it on reality TV since the Enron and WorldCom executions in the early oughts.

2005-09-26T21:37:00.000-05:00

Double-helix tentacles sprout forth in vivid ever-shifting color. They rise from the playing field, hundreds growing scaly serpent heads with enormous glistening fangs. Capacity crowd, feverish, completely immersed in sensation, screaming with eyes too large to shut. Frenzy surpassing audibility, the Voice from above thunders directly into each mind. "GUILTY!" Shimmering snakes recoil, shrinking into orderly lines of musket-toting foot soldiers. Moving with uniform speed and purpose, they spill and stretch at the tesellated fabric of prescience. Methodically, the unseen force crushes each and every one in due time, face down to the turf. The same voice, but younger, kinder: "It's all math."

2005-09-25T22:39:00.000-05:00

I miss Oregon for a lot of reasons, including Senator Ron Wyden. He shares some deep insight into the whole domestic oil scene here (gotta scroll down a little). But in a way, it's good that gas costs so much, because we may end up using less of it as a result. And since so many of the biggest companies are linked together (media, manufacturing, oil, etc.), are we really kinda subsidizing all the free shit on the internet when we dish out $ at the pump?

2005-09-24T23:57:00.000-05:00

Not busy, I just don't want to sleep. Not tired, just don't want to wake up. You can validate my existence here.

2005-09-23T23:15:00.000-05:00

Wireless communication has been around for over 100 years. The aforementioned Nikola first demonstrated it in the 1890's. Recalling a clear spring morning in the 1980's...San Francisco. Businessman looked so fucking important taking a call in the middle of the sidewalk, cord bridging the whopping receiver and leather briefcase. Perhaps because we are all so important today, the elitism of wireless was short-lived and there are far more cell phones than land lines worldwide. And what is life without self-centered contrast; good vs. evil, now vs. then, mine vs. yours? It seems the only remaining way to stay on top of the RF consumer heap is to kick your "friends'" asses in the ringtone department. It's easier said than done since we all have access to pretty much the same shit - T-Mobile's jingle, maybe some Ludwig van. Until now. You, by virtue of enduring this blog, are a new breed of Insider. If you have a mobile phone and you want a custom ringtone, email me. You won't be sorry. The past few days have sweepingly renewed my respect for the world wide web as a source of information, once proprietary and guarded, now completely free of charge. "MIDI is the language of gods." This archbishop would go so far as to say communication is God. Especially when MIDI gets involved. Nokia apparently agrees, and the gist of it is that I will send you a completely original composition optimized to alert you to an impending conversation with whomever may wish it upon thee. I'll need the model # of your phone, your service provider, and dem digits. If you don't know all 3, do what you can. A completely unique ringtone can be a special reminder that you are one-of-a-kind. Just like everyone else.

2005-09-19T01:57:00.000-05:00

So basically on one hand you've got your UFO's, time travel, shadow government, weather manipulation, Florida voting machines; and on the other, cooked food, making out, strummed chords, and especially baseball. Of course, you're constantly striking a balance. <--Cross the line, meet some oncoming traffic. That shit's fast and it's made out of metal. But who knows how deep the ditch is?--> Overcorrection often proves more venomous than the initial mistake. Burroughs warned you against planning and moderation. Then he validated them like a slip from a downtown parking garage. Well shit, he also shot his wife in the head. Since that's not real appealing, keep it on the road. Why then, does it feel like the only safe lane is circular? Final question: was it the same guy (or gal) who built the pyramids and burned down Tesla's lab?

2005-09-18T02:57:00.000-05:00

"If I'da known there's a pool, I would've worn underwear." But alas, the poollord is not persuaded of the merits of chlorine, so abundant mosquitos command the guests' attention despite it being too dark out to see them. And the lizards... there are lizards everywhere down here. Many are doing push-ups. There is a certain Girl at the university who may never have gone through puberty, but whose _HS graduation gift was a new set of boobs from Mom and Dad. Does that work? In the happiness/self worth/world a better place big picture? No, the real question is: what makes you so sure it wouldn't?
...
Ninety thousand, seven hundred sixteen people all sat in the same room. Floodlights, goal posts, marching band, and a BUMPIN' public address with bass strings about 3 feet thick. It occurred to me over and again, I wish I could take a digital picture and see what the colors look like in reverse. Everyone is wearing one of two solid complementary tones. The "sport is war" metaphor has some serious issues re: scale and quality, but I wish they'd make the announcement: "Your attention please. For those spectators seated at the top, please keep in mind that defense wins championships."
...
Hiroshi Inagaki's Samurai Trilogy, one chapter daily by eyes/ears. Do not stop treatment until contents are emptied.

2005-09-16T01:57:00.000-05:00

Back home, clouds meant no sun, look at the ground, go to bed early. It's different here, surrounded by hot water in the air all the time. Watch C-SPAN, drink a beer, ask a search engine to show the basics of an outdated programming language, or local rock & roll bands, or definitions of success for the INFP. I've got some Insurance, not as much as I think I need but probably a lot more than most (historically). New license plates symbolize that this transitional period will be longer than some previous ones. It's actually just one really nice plate, meant for the back of the car, I gather, and an extra $20 a year goes to "helping the sea turtle survive." Presumably not one particular individual but the archetype, the Platonic form of Sea Turtle. The ideal.
...
Chances are she's asleep now, hopefully having won the nightly struggle against her own skin. Sometimes it helps if I'm there next to her, other times I just make it worse. The road to the gates of unconsciousness can lead straight through the blackberry thicket you put there in the first place. Sometimes this organism of labyrinthine density lies content a l'interior and passage to meet it is swift and silent. Too common, however, are the nights spent tearing at the same fibrous aggregation, now overgrown and obstructing the very keyhole. I imagine waking up in the middle of surgery.