High Tea

It was somewhere in during my adolescence that I developed my taste for hot tea. Sometimes, I wonder if it coincided with when I first became fascinated with the far east. Maybe it doesn't matter. Like my tastes for good coffee or wine, tea is something I have found I enjoy.

There was the girl who bought me bags of loose-leaf tea and an infuser one Christmas. I thought this was lovely, though, sadly, the only time she wanted to have tea with me was after I decided done and over in a case of too little, too late. From that I gained an appreciation for loose-leaf over pre-bagged teas. Perhaps that was just a little bit of snobbish on my part.

These days, I sometimes joke I'm a tea addict, although perhaps that description is inaccurate. I know I can go without just as easily as I can coffee or wine. In fact, the only things I really need are food, water, and oxygen. Tea, like a great deal of other things, is an indulgence of mine.

Still, if I do not have at least one cup a day, I find myself annoyed with me. Perhaps it's because of all the supposed health benefits. Even and especially the ones purported with green teas. I liken it to when I sit for my daily clearing and focusing of the mind, but don't sit for too long; that I've somehow short-changed myself.

There's something relaxing and meditative in sipping a steaming cup. Whether that's first thing in the mourning, right after sitting, or later in the afternoon whilst watch the world go by. Sometimes, whilst taking in some of that warm liquid, I feel as though I'm taking a sacrament. One, which only I know and understand.

Mountain Monsoon

It's raining like Africa. Like India. Like the great rain forests of Brazil and Borneo. Thunder echos through the high peaks and valleys, carrying on for centuries after. Lightning snapshots everything into crystal clear resolve. The sky is the color of slate and the air smells of green.

I step out onto the porch, a steaming cup of tea in my hands. Whistler and Luna lay companionably at my ankles. Inside, the radio is playing Mozart. Outside, the rhythmic tapping of rain is the only backbeat.

With a smile, I sip my tea, the warm liquid radiating throughout my thin frame. This is the Monsoon, and it is beautiful. Here and now, as it rains like Africa, I am at peace. Here and now, the moment is perfect.

High Summer

Gray's and Torrey's, the nearby fourteeners. I thank and blame Elvis, Sabina's very best friend-a heretical Buddhist in his own rite, with an affinity for Mount Everest-that I have taken to calling them Vulture Peak [left] and Chomolangma [right].



Two of Luna's three kittens. Yes, it's true, Sabina's cat whored about and got herself knocked up. They've just started walking about the house. They'll be getting placed fairly soon, and Luna will be visiting the vet for a...discussion...on her promiscuous ways. Fucking cat.



The hounds. Something of a rare shot; Milarepa is sitting still. Most of the time, when I let her run with the Grumpy Old Men, she's somewhat beating up on Chevy, which gets her an ass-beating from Whistler. The three of them are still working out their hierarchy. Whistler is certainly alpha, but Chevy and Milarepa are still trying to get their standings figured.


It's that time of year when the temperatures reach the upper seventies in quaint American degrees and mosquitoes are ravenous. For the first time in eleven years, I wear shorts on a regular bases. That's right, deal with catching further glimpses of my skeletal build. After all, it's been hot up here. Those upper seventies on the fahrenheit scale get me to reconsider that window air conditioner I gave my father.

Of course, flatlanders, before you mutherfucker me too much, just remember which of us gets the longer winter...

I have been helping Saint Christopher with some catering. It's entertaining and otherwise intriguing. Of course, this means it's catch as catch can and the paper could be better. Ain't that always the way? It seems the ways of acquiring income that had me contemplating suicide, or at least alcoholism, were the means of getting the most paper. Still, I don't trip about this whole endeavor. See, the summer's just getting underway and there'll be more gigs.

Then again, I don't worry about too much, but enjoy the moment. After all, the moment you're in is the only thing you really have. Everything else is a memory or a jack-off fantasy. And, at any time, the number can be up, and that string of moments that made up your life is over. Lights out. Take what you have now and ride that snake's tail for everything it's worth. If you make it to that rocking chair the memories and stories you'll have will be more precious than folding paper, rubies, or glass beads.

The Precipice of Exile

Whistler, the other half of the Grumpy Old Men, and Chevy's half-brother. I guess, now, should missionaries, traveling salesmen, or any other unwanted company show up at the House of Owls and Bats, I can call out;

"Release the hounds!"

I'm sure the pre-Holocaust shotgun my father gave me, which once belonged to my grandfather, could be of some use too...

Boxes. Furniture. Badlands dust. Artifacts. Innumerable hops between the Rub 'al Khali and the greater metroplex. Heat. Rain. Fitful sleep and sore muscles. Beer and blues. Time away from home to do the right thing.

It doesn't matter whether it's me or someone else, I despise moving. My father is in his new place, though. To say he's tickled, that he's like a fox in a chicken coop would be gross understatement. For that reason, to see the smile on his face, the gleam in his eyes, I would make a thousand more hops.

Albeit, begrudgingly..

There has been blood drama of a short. My brother. See, out of the three of us, my sister and I have been helping. The consensus is I've done the most, my sister being limited what with caring for a two month old. Whitie's contributed too. My father took us out for seafood to show his gratitude.

My brother cannot be bothered. He has his reasons and rationals. Apparently work and time with my sister outlaw are far more important than helping our father. Even when he took vacation time.

And I am upset. Disappointed and perhaps a little angry. I have made it plain to my father, sister, Whitie, and Sabina-who deserves sushi and a metal for looking after the dogs, r'ts, and cats whilst I kite about in the name of helping my father-that I do not want or need to speak with my brother any time before we scatter my mother's ashes, on what would have been her birthday, after my birthday. I want that time for the murder thoughts to abate, because here and now, Cain and Able don't have shit my brother and I.

Mei fei tsu. My brother's actions are his own. Not mine. Late at night, when the demons come to tea, he is the one who must own up to consequences of those actions.

So it goes...

And thus things have changed. Things continue to change. My father is out of the Rub 'al Khali of the badlands of eastern Colorado. My sister and Whitie are looking at moving to that side of the greater metroplex. Within a year, at most, my father, sister, and I will all be closer to one another. I might find myself traveling down below a little more often. None of us know what my brother might do. Presently, we all have a very hard time caring, but, blood is a funny fucking thing.

What matters most is that smile on my father's face as he watches his new place take shape. The gleam in his eyes as he blares the Beatles Rubber Sole and James Brown at levels that would have offended my mother. He might still get lonely, and he knows that. For that reason, I cannot say if his exile has ended or has only began. I will say, to help him, I would move him again, no matter how much I bitch about it. He's my dad, after all, and that's blood, and blood is a funny fucking thing.