tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-69861894876715160312024-03-04T23:26:26.419-07:00Tales From Beyond the End of the WorldLive!...well, sort of...From a Pocket of Nowhere!
This being the adventures and observations of one tall and lanky aberration...Robbie Greyhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/06708885869170287258noreply@blogger.comBlogger630125tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6986189487671516031.post-19574796985685166442023-04-16T21:16:00.001-06:002023-04-19T19:37:02.766-06:00At the Edge of Empire <div class="separator" style="clear: both;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjRjKSyfbJBAffMxa9YNgraL0mqkCfFfmvf0-zLJRp30FdIHS9gS4bKV5FZaApz5SFNoQ3Y2zSytD6JlyoPGsfZrfx6Crp7bHrvYYvrj3z0TAIwaMJKE78NjjhEAiSsEsogawjfZ6z2hDyfJ6aPM5u0hebSu7Vx-NGJy5liadpDiiVjJSX-KYHaLV1whw/s3024/20230203_114406.jpg" style="display: block; padding: 1em 0; text-align: center; "><img alt="" border="0" width="320" data-original-height="3024" data-original-width="3024" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjRjKSyfbJBAffMxa9YNgraL0mqkCfFfmvf0-zLJRp30FdIHS9gS4bKV5FZaApz5SFNoQ3Y2zSytD6JlyoPGsfZrfx6Crp7bHrvYYvrj3z0TAIwaMJKE78NjjhEAiSsEsogawjfZ6z2hDyfJ6aPM5u0hebSu7Vx-NGJy5liadpDiiVjJSX-KYHaLV1whw/s320/20230203_114406.jpg"/></a></div>
This is the end of the world. I used to say that about the mountains, but I realize it was a different kind of frontier. Here is the edge of Empire. The closest I get to being an expat without fucking off to Kenya, Morocco, Spain, Nepal, or Brazil.
The sense of humility I get when I stand at the the furthest precipice of lava cliff overlooking the ocean is wholly different frm that of looking out into Backcountry wilderness or looking into the cosmos, whether via a telescope or just plain looking up. Here, I am looking into and across the void. Perhaps, were I ever to truly step offworld, I will rethink my assumptions.
Zoological anthropology along with all my other ologies keeps me Holmes-like interested. I realize I've barely grazed the surface and have only started poking at the worms underneath and that's part of the fun of it. Here, I can indulge my curiosities, for I am a curious bastard.
Oh, and I like to learn things tooRobbie Greyhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/06708885869170287258noreply@blogger.com2tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6986189487671516031.post-30702739751222982202021-05-13T18:25:00.000-06:002021-05-13T18:25:58.500-06:00Over Browned OnoinsIt starts with browning onions. Once, when passing through Mumbai, I spent the night with a woman who said the sign of a good wife was how well she browned onions. I never learned about her cooking skills, but I never had any intention of marrying her.
Part of the magic of cooking is you can travel the world without leaving your kitchen. I've never been to Fiji. However, I had a better traveled dinner guest tell me I cook like a native.
Does that make me a <i>chef</i>?
<i>Hardly</i>! Of course, I believe the second you go calling yourself something, you're definitely <i>not</i>. You're just trying too hard. Because of this, I had a buddy say I was a <i>philosopher</i>. He stopped after I punched him in the throat and told him to stop calling me names.Robbie Greyhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/06708885869170287258noreply@blogger.com4tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6986189487671516031.post-84464575052471353832020-11-18T08:48:00.004-07:002020-11-18T08:57:13.509-07:00Looking at the MoonIt's been ten years. Technically, your recorded death date is four days from
now. That's when your family pulled you from the machinery. However, I was there
that night after your rollover, looking upon you battered and bloodied frame.
Your body spasmodically working to push out your unborn son who would die in
your mother's arms. My experience in transplant helped me recognize the
obviousness of your situation; the lights might have been on, but you were not
home. You were not so much my friend as family. Oh, how you could piss me off to
the point of wanting to spit coffin nails. To throttle you and never speak to
you again. Yet when things came down, if I needed you, you were there with a
fury and without hesitation. When my mother was diagnosed terminal, when, a year
and change later, she died, you were one of the few to call. An online comment,
a text, would have been too impersonal, you said. When I announced I was done
with city life and heading to the mountains with that woman I'd been running
around with, you were one of the few who thought I hadn't totally lost my mind.
Although I know it is vanity to second-guess the dead, I like to think you'd be
behind me on this zany scheme we've concocted involving a tropical island. Your
dying inspired a mantra I still use when things go pear-shaped;
<i
>it's not okay. It's not going to be okay. It just going to be, and what will
be is not what any of us expected</i
>. Perhaps that was your last lesson to teach me... It's been ten years. You
were far more family than my friend. Like family I have lost, you do
occasionally show up in my dreams. Like them, you are missed more than all the
words in all the languages could ever describe.
Robbie Greyhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/06708885869170287258noreply@blogger.com2tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6986189487671516031.post-27460834526771953542020-08-28T22:06:00.004-06:002020-08-28T22:11:21.998-06:00<p> It's quite obvious that the sci-fi and disaster films are truly fiction. As good a mythology as that presented in a religious text. </p><p><br /></p><p>Humanity uniting in a time of crisis? Oh, how <i>vvveeerrryyy</i> droll...</p><p><br /></p><p>Terrorist attack? Inside job! Clash of civilizations!</p><p><br /></p><p>Pandemic? No worse than the flu! Biggest virus in over a century!</p><p><br /></p><p>Civil unrest? Anarchy! Reckoning!</p><p><br /></p><p>Climate change? A hoax! An extinction event!</p><p><br /></p><p>And somewhere in the middle is truth, but we, as a species, are too solipsistic to notice or care...</p><p><br /></p><p>Fuck all y'all. It's days like this and times like these I remind myself I all but gave up on the species when I was eight.</p>Robbie Greyhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/06708885869170287258noreply@blogger.com3tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6986189487671516031.post-79921792859036537512020-07-07T06:38:00.001-06:002020-07-07T06:38:30.938-06:00Facetime<div class="kvgmc6g5 cxmmr5t8 oygrvhab hcukyx3x c1et5uql ii04i59q" style="animation-name: none !important; background-color: white; color: #050505; font-family: "Segoe UI Historic", "Segoe UI", Helvetica, Arial, sans-serif; font-size: 15px; margin: 0px; overflow-wrap: break-word; transition-property: none !important; white-space: pre-wrap;">
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<span data-offset-key="896cu-0-0" style="animation-name: none !important; font-family: inherit; transition-property: none !important;">My parallel about what's going on in the world with the pestilence and what the powers that be asked us to do after 9/11 and the now almost twenty years of a surveillance state. When 9/11 first happened, more people were willing to just go along with what the powers that be deemed necessary for the greater good than not. In recent meditation, I think I may have come across a reason why; tangibly.</span></div>
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<span data-offset-key="frghc-0-0" style="animation-name: none !important; font-family: inherit; transition-property: none !important;">A terrorist has a face, a virus does not. You can hear, see, smell, taste, and feel a terrorist. A virus can seep straight through you and it's not real until you're actually sick. The virus is so much more of an abstract than the terrorist.</span></div>
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<span data-offset-key="9blhl-0-0" style="animation-name: none !important; font-family: inherit; transition-property: none !important;">That's why some dismiss out of hand; it's not tangible. Just a story to frighten us. The powers that be cannot declare a military victory over it. Instead, focus on the faces. Focus on the economy. </span></div>
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<span data-offset-key="cv70p-0-0" style="animation-name: none !important; font-family: inherit; transition-property: none !important;">Ever notice those pieces of paper are imbued with the tangibility of a face?</span></div>
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Robbie Greyhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/06708885869170287258noreply@blogger.com1tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6986189487671516031.post-20620458837510880002020-07-04T10:34:00.001-06:002020-07-04T10:34:52.273-06:00Just think, if the insurrection of 1776CE had been crushed, such hoopy froods as Thomas Jefferson and Benjamin Franklin would be remembered as traitors and the stars and stripes a symbol of treason. This would be just another day.<br />
<br />
Only in the US is a failed rebellion romanticized. That status were erected to venerate traitors to the union and a battle flag of treason is flown in certain places and at certain events. Only in the US is treason a virtue, and those who would champion this concept as virtue hypocritically call themselves patriots.<br />
<br />
Isn't that something?Robbie Greyhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/06708885869170287258noreply@blogger.com3tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6986189487671516031.post-66275854307014969342020-04-02T15:09:00.001-06:002020-04-02T15:09:12.773-06:00<div style="background-color: white; color: #1c1e21; font-family: Helvetica, Arial, sans-serif; font-size: 14px; margin-bottom: 6px;">
I am more solitary by nature, so being away from my fellow hominids is not terrible. Towns are for social experience, trails are for reflection, meditation, and reverence. Out there is what some may call holy or profane. Perhaps. What I know is it does not play favorites.</div>
<div style="background-color: white; color: #1c1e21; display: inline; font-family: Helvetica, Arial, sans-serif; font-size: 14px; margin-top: 6px;">
However, Homo sapiens are social animals. With the exception of Orangutans, all of the Great Apes are. Not that I'd call humans great. Somewhere between okay and fair to middling, perhaps. From a zoological, anthropological, and sociological standpoint, I am very interested to see how this pestilence changes the way we, as a species, interact. The coming months are going to be very telling of how we adapt.</div>
Robbie Greyhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/06708885869170287258noreply@blogger.com1tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6986189487671516031.post-87212701512164817052020-03-25T08:19:00.001-06:002020-03-25T08:19:14.582-06:00<div class="_1dwg _1w_m _q7o" data-vc-ignore-dynamic="1" style="background-color: white; color: #1d2129; font-family: Helvetica, Arial, sans-serif; font-size: 12px; padding: 12px 12px 0px;">
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A little over twenty-nine years back, but not quite thirty, I was helping a buddy with his photography final. It involved me standing by his Scout as he took double exposure photographs, my hair and duster blowing in the wind. It was phantasmal, and artsy, oh so rock and/or roll.</div>
<div style="font-family: inherit; margin-bottom: 6px; margin-top: 6px;">
Things got to taking longer than expected and I phoned home to give an update. I got my little brother. So I gave him the scoop and went about my business.</div>
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At the photo studio, we got the news; Operation Desert Shield had morphed into Operation Desert Storm. War was upon us. Via conversations and hanging out, as eighteen year old immortals are wont to do, it was again later. So I called home again, this time getting my mother.</div>
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"Where the fuck have been?!?" She demanded. Such a sweet and compassionate soul, my mother. One who had such a sense of lyrical language that I often wondered why she didn't follow in her parents' political footsteps.</div>
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Well, she did ask me a question and I did tell her. The fact my brother fucked up and neglected to deliver my initial message was irrelevant. This was somehow all my fault.</div>
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"You didn't check in and dinner's almost ready!" She said. "And there's a war on, you know?"</div>
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It was my turn to ask what the fuck...</div>
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I don't know that there's a point to this tale another than it has been rattling around in my skull all day...</div>
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Robbie Greyhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/06708885869170287258noreply@blogger.com3tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6986189487671516031.post-35029651038969128382020-02-22T08:05:00.001-07:002020-02-22T08:05:39.823-07:00<span style="background-color: white; color: #333333; font-family: georgia, "times new roman", times, hiraminpro-w3, "ms mincho", serif; font-size: 13px;">I have written the first draft of my father's requiem. There is symmetry, twisted, in its countenance, that his death was within ten years and change of my mother's. In late summer, we scatter his ashes under the bristle cone where we left my mother ten years back.</span><br style="background-color: white; color: #333333; font-family: georgia, "times new roman", times, hiraminpro-w3, "ms mincho", serif; font-size: 13px;" /><br style="background-color: white; color: #333333; font-family: georgia, "times new roman", times, hiraminpro-w3, "ms mincho", serif; font-size: 13px;" /><span style="background-color: white; color: #333333; font-family: georgia, "times new roman", times, hiraminpro-w3, "ms mincho", serif; font-size: 13px;">So it goes...</span>Robbie Greyhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/06708885869170287258noreply@blogger.com3tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6986189487671516031.post-88837711857839227742019-06-16T10:02:00.003-06:002019-06-16T10:02:56.364-06:00A Father's Day Tale<span style="background-color: white; color: #333333; font-family: georgia, "times new roman", times, hiraminpro-w3, "ms mincho", serif; font-size: 13px;">It was many years ago, I was perhaps ten or eleven, that we all sat down for a Sunday dinner. There was roast, potatoes, broccoli, and salad. My mother, at the start of the meal, mentioned she was going on a diet and not to be served too much. My father, the compassionate soul he is, was more than happy to oblige. After all, he deeply loved my mother.</span><br style="background-color: white; color: #333333; font-family: georgia, "times new roman", times, hiraminpro-w3, "ms mincho", serif; font-size: 13px;" /><br style="background-color: white; color: #333333; font-family: georgia, "times new roman", times, hiraminpro-w3, "ms mincho", serif; font-size: 13px;" /><span style="background-color: white; color: #333333; font-family: georgia, "times new roman", times, hiraminpro-w3, "ms mincho", serif; font-size: 13px;">He cut the thinnest sliver of roast. A single wedge of potato. The very smallest floret of broccoli. Then he paused to look upon his beloved.</span><br style="background-color: white; color: #333333; font-family: georgia, "times new roman", times, hiraminpro-w3, "ms mincho", serif; font-size: 13px;" /><br style="background-color: white; color: #333333; font-family: georgia, "times new roman", times, hiraminpro-w3, "ms mincho", serif; font-size: 13px;" /><span style="background-color: white; color: #333333; font-family: georgia, "times new roman", times, hiraminpro-w3, "ms mincho", serif; font-size: 13px;">"Would you care for salad, dear?"</span><br style="background-color: white; color: #333333; font-family: georgia, "times new roman", times, hiraminpro-w3, "ms mincho", serif; font-size: 13px;" /><br style="background-color: white; color: #333333; font-family: georgia, "times new roman", times, hiraminpro-w3, "ms mincho", serif; font-size: 13px;" /><span style="background-color: white; color: #333333; font-family: georgia, "times new roman", times, hiraminpro-w3, "ms mincho", serif; font-size: 13px;">By this time my mother was not much caring about the presence of her three young children as her middle fingers flew fast and liberally...</span><br style="background-color: white; color: #333333; font-family: georgia, "times new roman", times, hiraminpro-w3, "ms mincho", serif; font-size: 13px;" /><br style="background-color: white; color: #333333; font-family: georgia, "times new roman", times, hiraminpro-w3, "ms mincho", serif; font-size: 13px;" /><span style="background-color: white; color: #333333; font-family: georgia, "times new roman", times, hiraminpro-w3, "ms mincho", serif; font-size: 13px;">Years later, but a few years back from today, I recounted this tale to a couple of pals. At the end, one looked up at me and said;</span><br style="background-color: white; color: #333333; font-family: georgia, "times new roman", times, hiraminpro-w3, "ms mincho", serif; font-size: 13px;" /><br style="background-color: white; color: #333333; font-family: georgia, "times new roman", times, hiraminpro-w3, "ms mincho", serif; font-size: 13px;" /><span style="background-color: white; color: #333333; font-family: georgia, "times new roman", times, hiraminpro-w3, "ms mincho", serif; font-size: 13px;">"So you're telling me it's genetic."</span><br style="background-color: white; color: #333333; font-family: georgia, "times new roman", times, hiraminpro-w3, "ms mincho", serif; font-size: 13px;" /><br style="background-color: white; color: #333333; font-family: georgia, "times new roman", times, hiraminpro-w3, "ms mincho", serif; font-size: 13px;" /><span style="background-color: white; color: #333333; font-family: georgia, "times new roman", times, hiraminpro-w3, "ms mincho", serif; font-size: 13px;">To this day I have no idea what she meant...</span>Robbie Greyhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/06708885869170287258noreply@blogger.com2tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6986189487671516031.post-42776086046267655292019-01-15T11:47:00.000-07:002019-01-15T16:24:04.237-07:00Winter HymnThere comes a point in September, when the streets of our towns and backroads are chocked with all manner of vehicle, and slack-jawed rubes the wide-world over want to know where the best place to see aspens are-<i>they're fucking </i>leaves<i>, people!-</i>that I catch myself all but preying for and upon the first of October. See, by then, the only leaves left are defiant scraps of rust and faded saffron. The last of the summer tourists have scuttled back to their homeplaces and lives they seek to escape from by means of vacation, gone until either the snows of winter and spinning lifts or when it is green and warm here once more.<br />
<br />
October is when it supposed to slow down up here, but that is not really true. This is when the hunters come; camo drag and money spent out of guilt for family left back home. There are still tourists too; Europeans and cats who know some things might be closed or are getting ready to close for the coming winter, but it is not as crowded. Some of us travel during October.<br />
<br />
Well, how about November? Around here, not so much. We host the Sheep Festival, honoring one of the biggest herds of bighorn in the state. The non-profit, which runs my professional obligations, hosts a volunteer party of some to-do that a good portion of the community shows up for at least a cocktail or two. And, of course, Thanksgiving, when we must once more reunite with further-flung family with gluttony and professional sports to properly kick off the drinking season.<br />
<br />
December? <i>Ha!</i> I say. The first two weekends of that month up here are the Christmas Market. There is the attendant brain-damage of the holidays, and December houses some fourteen or fifteen of them, aside from Christmas. For someone of a more solitary nature, it can be a bit of a psychic maelstrom.<br />
<br />
Then it is full on winter. January and February. Oh, fuck yes.<br />
<br />
It is dark. It is cold. At professional obligations, time is suspended in agonizing amber. If one goes out, it is in layers-no bad weather, just the wrong clothes.<br />
<br />
However , it is <i>quiet</i>...<br />
<br />
This is when I wander the snow and ice sculptured landscape in meditative contemplation, recharging from the rigors of summer and autumn. I watch the winter stars with small smiles. The music I listen to has a more introspective countenance. As January ends, I watch the slow creep of direct sunlight back upon my house, telling me the Long Dark is over and it is now mid-winter.<br />
<br />
Here and now, the dawning of direct sunlight is about two weeks away. I anxiously watch the far valley wall, as I do this time of year. At my professional obligations, <i>Senpai </i>complains about the state of things, but, if he didn't, I'd be digging a hole, or, at least contacting the paramedics. I wander, listening to the rhythms and rhymes of the cosmos. It is winter. Here and now, I rejuvenate.Robbie Greyhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/06708885869170287258noreply@blogger.com8tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6986189487671516031.post-86097214871393909452018-12-23T08:10:00.003-07:002018-12-23T08:10:24.987-07:00Mountain Moonlight<div class="_1dwg _1w_m" style="font-family: inherit; padding: 12px 12px 0px;">
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There is something about a full moon night in the mountains in winter; the silence, the way the refracted light illuminates in the countenance of diamonds in dragon's hoard. I stood out back to look at the moon. There was someone I once knew whom of which we'd excitedly call each other over the state of the moon we were seeing, but that was long, long ago. Another story for another time.</div>
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And perhaps a bottle of whiskey...</div>
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I looked at the moon through a set of ancient binocul<span class="text_exposed_show" style="display: inline; font-family: inherit;">ars my father got for us to see Halley's Comet, back when I was thirteen, some fifteen hundred years back now. The view of the moon was as good as through my telescope without the time of set up, scope, and focus. Even here, away from city lights, there were few stars this night.</span></div>
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There was a breeze. Gales, up higher. Looking to the high peaks, glowing phantasmal in the moonlight, were the snow devils; their orographic bones being blown across the ridge lines. I smiled silently at the zen excellence of it all.</div>
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If you ever need to ask me why I love it here, you'll never know...</div>
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Robbie Greyhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/06708885869170287258noreply@blogger.com2tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6986189487671516031.post-59018094768633823972018-07-25T17:21:00.000-06:002018-08-26T12:11:06.279-06:00StandSo, let's talk about rock and/or roll...<br />
<br />
Okay, maybe not. How about instead we talk about a sense of place? About that, which is intangible? About the price of admission? About lines in the sand?<br />
<br />
It was not too long ago I spoke down from the mount about being presented with a grand <a href="https://robbiegrey.blogspot.com/2018/01/the-price-and-prize.html">opportunity</a>. One, which would be outright folly to pass by. We opted to make it work. Word has gotten around. Here in the mountains, in these small places, secrets are a very hard thing to keep, and I am <i>adept</i> at keeping secrets. Like being <i>both </i>a masked vigilante and an esoteric porn star.<br />
<br />
Oh! Did I just say too much?<br />
<br />
The thing is the price of admission. <i>Everything </i>has a price. That is the very nature of the Deal. Only cheap things are purchased with bits of folding paper and jingling coins.<br />
<br />
I have found myself afflicted with a crippling sense of grief. Look out my front door, I see a twelve-thousand two-hundred eighty-seven foot peak with no distinct trail that I have summited three times. Go out back, I spy, with my too-big-for-the-rest-of-my-face eyes, a twelve-thousand two-hundred-seventy-five foot peak that catches the first light of day, and, in its bosom, cradles the bones of an aerial tramway that operated in the early years of the twentieth century, which I have yet to get to. I <i>live</i> where others come to vacation.<br />
<br />
When I first came here, I felt, head, heart, and gut I had found my <a href="https://robbiegrey.blogspot.com/2009/12/kashmir.html">place in the world</a>. Though I am not given to the nuance of such things as romance, I find I can only describing it was when one first falls in love; <i>you</i> know what has happened, but trying to make logical sense of it, or, put it into coherent words, is another animal. Sometimes, I wonder if it is a similar sensation my sister-in-law gets when she steps into her megachurch and is delivered scripture.<br />
<br />
A few days back, a preservationist of my acquaintance and admiration asked me when I was leaving. This was a practicality, in a sense, given my involvements in my community, one such thing is a land use commission with her. With a bit of flippancy, I told her I was sorry to disappoint, but it may be a bit. Sabina would say it's because we're in the throes of summer, and it's the sweet time when it's almost perfect here, but it's more than that.<br />
<br />
As we spoke, the preservationist of my acquaintance and admiration mentioned she can go somewhere for months-<i>of course</i> because of who she is-and immerse herself in a place, but there is an intangible that draws her back and keeps her here. I totally get it. The intangibility has been the source of my bouts of melancholy.<br />
<br />
I remember my youthful wish of wanting to live in either a nature reserve or a museum. Making the intangible tangible, I got that. A friend of mine once said Heaven grants all its gifts with a righteous fury. I do not believe in Heaven, unless I say that is what I have. Nor do I believe in righteous fury, because if you are right, there is no need for fury, and, if you are wrong, you cannot afford it. However, brass tacks and bedposts, I got that wish I made so many years and lifetimes ago. I know that down into my marrow.<br />
<br />
How can I sacrifice <i>this</i> for that? I have meditated and agonized over it. In the end, I find I am unwilling to contemplate the option of all or nothing.<br />
<br />
Will the opportunity be taken? Certainly. However, it will be on <i>my</i> terms and no one else's. Not the whims or pressures of friends, family, acquaintances, or even the Department of Transportation trying to manipulate travel routes to get more tourists to the resorts. Should you try, muster all the armies of the heavens, earth, and the hellscapes, but, make sure to pack your white flag of surrender lest I march through <i>all</i> of you, but not before taking out my ire upon three generations of all of your families, for I am possessed of glacial patience and a fertile imagination.<br />
<br />
<i>Be careful...</i><br />
<i><br /></i>
I figured out living in the middle of a city. I figured out the love and affection of a quirky blond x-goth/metal girl. I have figured out the mountains as they continue to surprise and amaze me. I will figure out this opportunity, but not at the sacrifice of somewhere I intangibly see as my place in the world.<br />
<br />
<i>This</i> is my line in the sand. <i>Here</i> is where I will make my stand. <br />
Robbie Greyhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/06708885869170287258noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6986189487671516031.post-88626761779034486752018-01-28T20:36:00.001-07:002018-01-29T10:04:51.380-07:00The Price and the Prize<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
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<span style="color: red;"><i><br /></i></span>
<span style="color: red;"><i>Here and now; What I see when I walk out my front door...</i></span><br />
<span style="color: red;"><i><br /></i></span>
Oh, where did the trouble start? A question I sometimes ask myself at the outset of a long story. A riddle I inevitably solve.<br />
<br />
It was probably three years back, this coming summer. That is when Sabina's parents, after telling me I was good for their daughter-something no parent had <i>ever </i>said unto me-told me they were going to pay for us to come and visit them at their place in Hawaii come that winter. I couldn't have been more reticent. See, I didn't <i>lose</i> anything on the Island. I was rocking the mountain love. Here, I was still exploring and there was not enough time in a single human lifetime too uncover all the secrets and treasures contained therein.<br />
<br />
Fast forward to mid-January of two years back, and I ended up on the <i><a href="https://robbiegrey.blogspot.com/search/label/Hawaiian%20Exile">muthafuckingIsland</a>, </i>and, it was not even a fraction of how horrific as I imagined it to be. I found myself fascinated by the fact the landscape was still being made, as opposed to my wonderful mountains, which were being worn down ever so slowly. The flora and fauna were intriguing, as well as the aspect of pictographs, which were carved into lava rock so many thousands of years ago. Colorado, for as much as I <i>still</i> will say it has everything, does not have whales. I saw my first one my first day there, and that image in my mind's eye is as vivid as the second I beheld the sight.<br />
<br />
There was also the fact Sabina's parents had purchased some quarter acre lots, not but a block from their place, and two from the mighty Pacific Ocean itself. Those were for Sabina and I, as well as her sister and brother-in-law. Free and clear. All we have to do is pay the property tax. Were I to believe in such a thing, I would call it an interesting twist of fate, but I am far to much a fan of chaos to be so suckered.<br />
<br />
None of this was enough to make me want to pull up stakes and move. Unlike the the greater metroplex when we first came to the mountains, I was not done with the mountains. I was dug in. This place <i>still</i> gets me to fall in love daily, if not by the <i>moment</i>. However, the seeds of restlessness began to germinate, and, like stubborn weeds through concrete walks, made their presence know.<br />
<br />
Fast forward again; Colorado has seen growth in terms of population and tourists. Sabina's father, at almost eighty-two, has been sentenced to a pacemaker. We used to speak of places we could go if the crush of humanity became too much. I have always said my compass pointed <i>west</i>, but I always figured it would just be somewhere deeper into the mountains. At the most extreme, around the Four Corners region.<br />
<br />
But I know better than to <i>plan</i> anything. There is the notion of the story, and then there is the way the story goes. Back in my roaring twenties, I threw my lot to the winds of chaos, and, the night my mother died, eight years back now, I reaffirmed that.<br />
<br />
I love this place. I always will. When we closed on the house, I told my mother if I got bored enough to die, to bury me out back. End of chat. This was <i>home</i> and I was not going to leave it.<br />
<br />
Then the<i> muthafuckingIsland</i> went and happened. Sabina's parents have made it plain they want us to be their Island neighbors, if for no other reason than to help look after them as they grow older. We have land and the opportunity for a new phase in our adventures. I liken it to being handed a winning lottery ticket.<br />
<br />
What would you do. Jump? Or would it be <i>no thank you, I'm good</i>?<br />
<br />
Yeh, I though so...<br />
<br />
And all I have to do is walk away from what I believed was <a href="https://robbiegrey.blogspot.com/2009/12/kashmir.html">Kashmir</a>, and the price of admission is enough to bring me close to melancholy. All things for a price is but the very nature of the Deal. Only cheap things get purchased with pieces of green paper and jingling coins.<br />
<br />
Yet, we will do this. By the time I'm fifty, at the latest. That gives us four years and change here and now. A goal to work toward.<br />
<br />
But I cannot help but sense it will be sooner. It's nothing rational I can pinpoint. Just a feeling. Well, <i>more</i> than a feeling. Like when I hear that old song, babe.<br />
<br />
I will continue to rock the mountain love as long as I am here. This landscape means too much to me to do otherwise. Another set of adventures looms upon the event horizon. As Sabina says to me in comforting tones when the melancholy of leaving the mountains seizes me, we are going to conquer an island chain. Despite the price of admission, I'd be lying if I said I wasn't the least bit excited about it.<br />
<br />
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<span style="color: red;"><i>Soon enough; the future site of the Owl and Bat Island Wellness Center...</i></span> Robbie Greyhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/06708885869170287258noreply@blogger.com4tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6986189487671516031.post-79346040730582793752018-01-18T17:41:00.001-07:002018-01-18T18:10:46.534-07:00GraceWhen I first met <a href="https://robbiegrey.blogspot.com/2013/11/job.html">you</a>, you were so much larger than life that the term <i>rockstar</i> would have been an insult. You were my hero and guru. Somewhere along the line, <a href="https://robbiegrey.blogspot.com/2015/02/the-student-master-changes-of-roles-and.html">our roles got reversed</a> and I was never sure of how to approach the subject.<br />
<br />
Twenty-four years we knew one another. In that time you watched me grow into the person I am now. I saw you be diminished slowly, like sandstone whittled away by desert winds. Your death, whilst it elicited an emotional reaction from me, was, in the end, not shocking. Sadly, I saw it coming.<br />
<br />
After I learned of your death and its cause, one question still remained; when did you lose your grace? I am not one to leave such a mystery unsolved. I began to dissect. It is my nature to do so. Were I to give it a date in clumsy timekeeping of Man it would be June twenty-first, two-thousand seven. That was the day you told me you were getting divorced.<br />
<br />
She was your high school sweetheart. The one who got away. When you told me you found her again, that you were going to marry her, your smile threatened to swallow the rest of your head. When the end came to your love story, it broke you.<br />
<br />
<i>That</i> is when you gave up...<br />
<br />
First you lost the home your father left you. Once the divorce was done you were sentenced to a one-bedroom apartment with barely a couple coins to rub together. Somewhere in there, you decided to stop taking your insulin. To say your health suffered because of it is as blindingly obvious as the direction of the rising sun. Your body began to betray you, soon making it that you could not earn a livelihood.<br />
<br />
There were the amputations. First, a finger. Then, a toe. Your foot. A leg. They were going to take the other leg when you had your septic stumble and all fall down. It was as if that deity you so zealously believed in, to the point of being born <i>again</i>-because the first time didn't work out so great?-was taking you a piece at a time.<br />
<br />
I watched you move from one toxic situation to another. When you moved down to Arizona, I though you might get things turned around, but you fell into your pattern pretty quickly. Almost like habit. You once told me you saw yourself as a knight, owing to your time in law enforcement and security work. Did you really think you were going to <i>save</i> any of those cats you fell in with?<br />
<br />
"The fact you have fallen is interesting. The time you remain down is important."<br />
<br />
You said that to me once. I was going through my divorce, sitting in coffeehouses scribbling bad poetry to a backbeat of Nine Inch Nails. I was in pain, certainly, but I got up. <i>That</i> was when I decided <i>nothing</i> would break me. <i>That</i> is when I decided not to bare my jugular to <i>anyone</i>.<br />
<br />
No matter how many times I said that to you, you never got up. You never even tried. I am not a saint or a superhero, but you showed you cannot save someone who had no desire to be saved. You lost your grace.<br />
<br />
The last time I spoke to you was shortly after the leg amputation. Whilst you glibly said you were glad you did not have access to a firearm, you sounded relatively cheerful. That was the thing; no matter the drama or tale of woe, you <i>knew</i> there was no one to blame for it than yourself. You may have been beyond grace, but you knew how you got there.<br />
<br />
You left rehab in anger, without medications of any kind. Without crutches. You stopped talking to everyone; your sister, your favorite cousin, even <i>me</i>, supposedly one of your best friends. The mental image of you crawling on your hands and knees in a manure lagoon is seared into my mind's eye. I would rather remember that picture of you when you got your Harley, your smile threatening to swallow the rest of your head, or any other moment in the twenty-four years we knew one another, but that's what I keep seeing.<br />
<br />
Your sister told me, like an animal, you chose to die alone. That you gave up. I know that. We just have different idea of <i>when</i> you gave up.<br />
<br />
And, oh, how she raged. After the two of you buried your father, that was supposed to be it. She didn't want to be the last one. Part way through, she stopped herself and apologized to me for unloading.<br />
<br />
"No, you <i>need</i> to do this. You may need do it a few more times before you truly work through this," I said, not out of empathy, but honesty.<br />
<br />
Once, when relating a bit of trauma, you said your life should serve as a cautionary tale to others. You may have gotten your wish. There was this one last lesson for you to teach me; <i>never</i> lose your grace. <i>Never</i>, ever, give up. Once you do, although it might take years, it's lights out, and it will be lonely, and cold, and disgraceful. You <i>must</i> keep raging.<br />
<br />
Keep raging...<br />
<br />
<iframe allow="autoplay; encrypted-media" allowfullscreen="" frameborder="0" height="315" src="https://www.youtube.com/embed/JwYX52BP2Sk" width="560"></iframe><br />
<br />
<span style="color: red;"><i>You loved to quote this jam when we would speak;</i></span><br />
<span style="color: red;"><i><br /></i></span>
<span style="color: red;"><i>"No one told you when to run</i></span><br />
<span style="color: red;"><i>you missed the starting gun..."</i></span><br />
<br />Robbie Greyhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/06708885869170287258noreply@blogger.com4tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6986189487671516031.post-8765074395443830702017-11-27T14:27:00.001-07:002017-12-20T19:19:14.693-07:00DecadesMy father turned seventy a week back. <a href="https://robbiegrey.blogspot.com/2016/12/holiday-meditation.html">The year before</a>, there was question whether he'd make it past sixty-nine. It was good to call him and wish him a happy birthday.<br />
<br />
When we spoke, he mused how each new decade is a new adventure. A new lesson to be learned. My father was glad to be out of his sixties finally. His sixties were about sickness; my mother's and his own. About loss and learning to live with it. About death; my mother's and his own, although, his was a brief and he got back to this side of the grave with some quick medical intervention. My mother was not so lucky.<br />
<br />
This got me thinking. Well, I'm always thinking, the penance of a mind that never quiets. I caught myself meditating upon the decades of my adult life, and the lessons contained therein.<br />
<br />
My roaring twenties, as I so poetically call them, was where I learned, as if there was any doubt, that I was not like the other boys. The idea of a suburban house, a lobotomized wife, two-point-five kids, a dog and a career was not success, but perdition. Team sports were phallocentric soap operas for morons and the social construct of reality was for squares. I needed to find my own way.<br />
<br />
I knew my end-all be-all was not to be a parent, any more than whatever it was I was doing for money at the time. I do love my daughter beyond measure and believe I have done things for her, but I did not put my existence on hold for her. She was just a new factor in the equation of me finding my own way, and, most likely, that way of thinking was a contributing factor in my divorce from her mother.<br />
<br />
That's not to say I don't have regrets. Everyone <a href="https://robbiegrey.blogspot.com/2012/06/regrets.html">regrets</a>. I like to believe my daughter understands, or at least, accepts, what came to pass, but I don't pry. We have our relationship in which we get along and have our moments. Sometimes I wish for more, sometimes it's just enough.<br />
<br />
So it goes...<br />
<br />
Here and now, I theorize my thirties were about a sense of <i>place</i>. I rocked living near downtown in the big bad city in that little historical district. There were the other places I wandered through the greater metroplex, like uptown, Little Asia, Capital Hill, and the Highlands. Downtown itself, where I would go to monkeywatch, was neon magic and mystery and koo-koo-kachu.<br />
<br />
Then the mountains happened...<br />
<br />
<i>Oh</i>, the <i>mountains</i>. <i><a href="https://robbiegrey.blogspot.com/2009/12/kashmir.html">Kashmir</a></i>. I am now five years and change away from anywhere in my thirties and this landscape sings to me upon esoteric tongues. <i>I live in the mountains of Colorado! I </i>live<i> where other people come to </i>vacation<i>! </i><br />
<i><br /></i>
To get here, I was relentless. I all but created a myth around it, if you believe the words of others. Here, I put down roots and found my Homeplace. Here, forever and a day later, this place does not fail to fascinate. To resonate. I fall in love daily, if not moment by moment in ways language cannot articulate.<br />
<br />
Five years and change into my forties, perhaps I am learning about community. About being involved in something rather than passively being a part or observing with that cold reptilian detachment. I am on the board of a historical society, a museum committee, a stewardship group for a historical structure out in the Backcountry, two land-use commissions, and I've counted ballots in a few elections along with the other random bits of volunteerisum.<br />
<br />
<i>Me.</i> Yeh, the not a joiner for fear of lynch-mob mentality. <i>Me</i>. Yeh, the solitary one. How the world has turned and isn't it funny how it's all played out? And, no, I do not bring up my involvements to whip it out on the table and have the live studio audience marvel at the magnificence of my genitalia. That's rude.<br />
<br />
By fifty, there is something I have intended to accomplish, although, the price is admission is something, which pains me grievously. However, when I look that now four years and change ahead, I wonder what lesson, what adventure awaits me at the half-century decade. As intriguing a mystery as that is, I am not in too big a hurry. After all, I still have the rest of my forties to play out, and, that lesson, that adventure is far from over. Robbie Greyhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/06708885869170287258noreply@blogger.com3tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6986189487671516031.post-65212644899503454912017-09-14T18:19:00.002-06:002017-09-14T18:19:34.312-06:00Sixty-Six<span style="background-color: white; color: #333333; font-family: georgia, "times new roman", times, hiraminpro-w3, "ms mincho", serif; font-size: 13px;">You would've been sixty-six today. Seven years to the day, we gathered at that one bristle cone between the ruins of Waldorf and the bones of the Santiago Mill to scatter your ashes. Me, the heretic, reading the requiem I composed for you, playing preacher-man because of that zaniness with the Universal Life Church, but that's another story.</span><br style="background-color: white; color: #333333; font-family: georgia, "times new roman", times, hiraminpro-w3, "ms mincho", serif; font-size: 13px;" /><br style="background-color: white; color: #333333; font-family: georgia, "times new roman", times, hiraminpro-w3, "ms mincho", serif; font-size: 13px;" /><span style="background-color: white; color: #333333; font-family: georgia, "times new roman", times, hiraminpro-w3, "ms mincho", serif; font-size: 13px;">Nine months and nine days before that, your youngest, my brother, and I stood over your cooling body. The stench of the disease that devoured you was still heavy in the air. My brother did not understand why I asked for two coins to cover your half-lidded eyes, and, in the moment, I was not in the mood to deliver a mythology lesson.</span><br style="background-color: white; color: #333333; font-family: georgia, "times new roman", times, hiraminpro-w3, "ms mincho", serif; font-size: 13px;" /><br style="background-color: white; color: #333333; font-family: georgia, "times new roman", times, hiraminpro-w3, "ms mincho", serif; font-size: 13px;" /><span style="background-color: white; color: #333333; font-family: georgia, "times new roman", times, hiraminpro-w3, "ms mincho", serif; font-size: 13px;">It was that night I truly cast my lot to the winds of chaos and let's just roll them bones...</span><br style="background-color: white; color: #333333; font-family: georgia, "times new roman", times, hiraminpro-w3, "ms mincho", serif; font-size: 13px;" /><br style="background-color: white; color: #333333; font-family: georgia, "times new roman", times, hiraminpro-w3, "ms mincho", serif; font-size: 13px;" /><span style="background-color: white; color: #333333; font-family: georgia, "times new roman", times, hiraminpro-w3, "ms mincho", serif; font-size: 13px;">Seven years, nine months, and nine days later, I often dream of you. You're never sick then. There was a hoodoo-voodoo article about visitation dreams I came across recently, and, you know me; I get curious, I dissect well past the marrow, watching the worms beneath squirm with savage amusement. So, of course I read it, and none of those dime-store diagnostics fit.</span><br />
<br style="background-color: white; color: #333333; font-family: georgia, "times new roman", times, hiraminpro-w3, "ms mincho", serif; font-size: 13px;" /><span style="background-color: white; color: #333333; font-family: georgia, "times new roman", times, hiraminpro-w3, "ms mincho", serif; font-size: 13px;">Brass tacks and bedposts, mother, I miss you. Terribly.</span>Robbie Greyhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/06708885869170287258noreply@blogger.com7tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6986189487671516031.post-64296760175785146962017-08-27T11:42:00.001-06:002017-08-27T11:42:34.256-06:00Double-EdgeSometimes, when meditating upon the next phase of our adventures, I can get so restless I can all but taste the sea spray and hear the songs of whales...<br />
<br />
Then I go for walk, whether it's about town or out in the bush. I take in my surroundings. The wind and weather, that interplay of light and shadow, those tiny details you can only really notice when moving at people speed. Sometimes, I run into a fellow walker, and, after I help them back up, we have one of those moments of simple human interaction that gets me to smile, to get me to have a little hope for my species instead of thinking we are merrily careening toward extinction.<br />
<br />
It is then I catch myself feeling morose, as though I am being forced into exile...<br />
<br />
An opportunity has been presented. A gift given, which is the metaphor of being handed a winning lottery ticket. What would you do? Turn it down? <i>No, it's cool, I'll just hang here, thank you, though.</i><br />
<br />
No, I don't think you would, and, though I ache, I cannot turn this away either...<br />
<br />
<i>Mei fei tsu</i>. It's coming and there is little can or want to do to stop it. I stand upon a knife and my feet bite into both edges of the blade. So it goes.Robbie Greyhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/06708885869170287258noreply@blogger.com5tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6986189487671516031.post-7230064778981134102017-05-18T18:46:00.000-06:002017-05-18T21:21:58.713-06:00The Spurning <a href="http://robbiegrey.blogspot.com/2011/02/ode-to-snow-queen.html">Yuki-Onna</a>, the Snow Queen, the Goddess of Winter raged. Oh, how she raged. Snow fell heavily, snapping the branches of trees, freezing rivers and lakes, and burying bare ground. The cold cut through to the marrow and visibility was greatly reduced to a study in monochrome. As she raged, and the snow loaded, the roar of avalanches echoed her mutterings and musings.<br />
<br />
"How can you even <i>consider</i> leaving <i>me</i>?!?" She roared.<br />
<br />
I stood calmly, hands clasped tightly behind my back, something, which may have resembled a smirk played across my lips. When I first came here, I was chasing unfinished tales, but I then became a student. Of landscapes of weather. Of the sky and stars and clouds. Of ice and free-flowing water. Of the harshness and softness of a place that truly show indifference to its inhabitants.<br />
<br />
Certainly, the Snow Queen had a strong influence here, but she was not my patron. I have never been one to prey, unless in the context of the food chain. What I would sometimes whisper to her on the cold night winds would hardly be considered a prayer, but perhaps a provocation. Then again, I never made any effort to hide my sense of heresy.<br />
<br />
<i>Yuki-Onna, Snow Queen and Goddess of Winter, hear me, and be without distraction; I fucked your mother last night. Well and repeatedly...</i><br />
<i><br /></i>
"I never bent my knee in worship to you," I said plainly. "That is submission, and submission is for dogs."<br />
<br />
"I know how much this place fascinates you, and you <i>live</i> to be continually fascinated," she said. "Where do think you can go?"<br />
<br />
"I intend to go where the world is sculpted by fire and water," I replied. "Where the world is still growing, by degrees, instead of being worn down."<br />
<br />
Her cold eyes narrowed and gale of ice-barbed air struck me. I held my ground. Never once, no matter how much her cold countenance hurt me, had I backed down. It frustrated her, but it also won her grudging respect.<br />
<br />
"Are you insane?!?" She exclaimed. "Do you really think you can thrive there?"<br />
<br />
"Of course,"I said. "You adapt or die, that is the imperative and gospel of biology. Besides, it snows there too, so I can antagonize one of your incarnations, or perhaps cousins."<br />
<br />
"Just like that, you're finished.? You've grown bored of here?"<br />
<br />
"This place sings to me in ways that can fill me with endless longing. When the time comes, I know I'll miss it here, and the only other place I miss is where I spend my childhood, but that's another story."<br />
<br />
Yuki-Onna, the Snow Queen, the Goddess of Winter, reached out to me. Her chilled fingers brushing my cheek. For the slightest of moments, she was almost tender. Almost seductive.<br />
<br />
"Then why not stay? Stay with me?"<br />
<br />
My gaze hardened and a low growl rebounded in the back of my throat. That, which lurks behind my eyes like some kind of ambush predator in a nameless African river, came a little closer to the surface. Quickly, she withdrew her hand, for fear of losing fingers, if not her whole hand.<br />
<br />
"Because it is where my fascinations lead me," I replied, it was my turn to be cold and unforgiving. "It is an opportunity and a gift of which would be folly to turn aside. There is <i>nothing</i> that can convince me otherwise, not even the adversarial acquaintance of a mercurial snow deity."<br />
<br />
Yuki-Onna, the Snow Queen, the Goddess of Winter turned away. Ours had never been an easy relationship. I heard her sigh heavily and noticed the snow lightening ever so slightly.<br />
<br />
"You are one of the most relentless creatures I have ever met," she whispered. "Perhaps there was something to the guru telling you the only time you don't get what you want is when you decide you no longer want it."<br />
<br />
"If you wish to give into such superstition," I said, not hiding my heresy.<br />
<br />
"When will you go?"<br />
<br />
"I don't know. It could be a season, it could be in a few years. Do you ever tell me exactly when you're coming or leaving?"<br />
<br />
"Fair enough. I think I might miss you once you're gone."<br />
<br />
"Doubtful, given I start my conversations with you by mentioning what I do to your mother."<br />
<br />
Yuki-Onna, the Snow Queen, the Goddess of Winter chuckled. Oh, how she chuckled. A laugh of bitter sweetness and frost-covered mornings. And just like that, she disappeared into the snow. And just like that, with a sigh, I looked up at the breaking storm clouds to behold the setting of the sun and the rising of the moon.Robbie Greyhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/06708885869170287258noreply@blogger.com4tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6986189487671516031.post-18302128992060856452016-12-22T16:54:00.000-07:002016-12-22T16:54:07.839-07:00Holiday MeditationGet to know me well enough, and you realize I don't get into holidays much. At some point, I began thinking of them as a sham. Why should one day have greater importance than another?<br />
<br />
This time of year, especially, has had a tendency to fill me with a special kind of vitriol. The hypocrisy of goodwill and thinly veiled cruelties. Blatant materialism. On a personal level, I've gone through bad break ups, deaths, and drama, both with blood relatives and social acquaintances, this time of the year that have left a fair amount of psychic scarring.<br />
<br />
For those just tuning in, the day after Thanksgiving, for twenty seconds and four chest compressions, I was an orphan, My father, with pneumonia and septic shock was sentenced to the sickhouse. Now, that would plumb rattle some folks. Me? I kept my reptile zen, because someone had to. My sister has her moments of melodrama and my brother has his moments of jerking his knees, which can make you go blind, because when you knee-jerk, you do not <i>see </i>reason. Someone had to talk to doctors and nurses and sign forms and make grotesque decisions. That someone ended up being me. I have been lauded for it, but I'd rather never go through it again.<br />
<br />
Three, getting close to four, weeks later, my father is home. He is on the mend. Trained medical professionals are dazzled by his recovery and drive to walk in the lands of the living. One of my southern relatives says her prayers were answered. My father will say it wasn't his time, but god taught him a lesson. I call it luck. In a cases of twisted symmetry, three doors down in the MICU was the <a href="http://robbiegrey.blogspot.com/2016/11/dead-man-walking.html">loco drunk</a> I called EMS on six days prior. Both men left the unit on the same day, the difference was my father went to MedSurg. The loco drunk was in a box.<br />
<br />
Christmas is in three days. For the first time in so-long-I-can-no-longer-remember, I am looking forward to the holiday, We mean to gather at my sister's house. She's got the biggest place and it is the most centrally located. We shall eat, drink, and antagonize one another, because that's what we do when we get together.<br />
<br />
At one point, I shall contemplate whiskey with my father, because that's what we do when we get together. Perhaps we shall toast, or maybe we'll talk about music and a thousand memories from forty-four years of acquaintance. It doesn't really matter. When it gets down to brass tacks and bedposts, it will be a good day.<br />
<br />
Robbie Greyhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/06708885869170287258noreply@blogger.com6tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6986189487671516031.post-57359756764099394222016-11-20T10:20:00.002-07:002016-11-20T10:20:33.139-07:00Dead Man Walking<span style="background-color: white; color: #333333; font-family: georgia, "times new roman", times, hiraminpro-w3, "ms mincho", serif; font-size: 13px;">The loco drunk said he was sick, his face ash gray, his countenance that of a dying man. Two former nurses were about, one, saying his pulse was thready and breathing labored. He was refusing help, just wanted a case of water and to go back to his </span><i style="background-color: white; color: #333333; font-family: georgia, "times new roman", times, hiraminpro-w3, "ms mincho", serif; font-size: 13px;">camp</i><span style="background-color: white; color: #333333; font-family: georgia, "times new roman", times, hiraminpro-w3, "ms mincho", serif; font-size: 13px;">, a burned-out trailer up the mountainside.</span><br style="background-color: white; color: #333333; font-family: georgia, "times new roman", times, hiraminpro-w3, "ms mincho", serif; font-size: 13px;" /><br style="background-color: white; color: #333333; font-family: georgia, "times new roman", times, hiraminpro-w3, "ms mincho", serif; font-size: 13px;" /><span style="background-color: white; color: #333333; font-family: georgia, "times new roman", times, hiraminpro-w3, "ms mincho", serif; font-size: 13px;">We debated and agonized on what to do. Since he was refusing help, should we ask for it anyway? They looked up to me, well, because I am six and a half feet tall, how could they not? In the end, I called </span><i style="background-color: white; color: #333333; font-family: georgia, "times new roman", times, hiraminpro-w3, "ms mincho", serif; font-size: 13px;">senpai</i><span style="background-color: white; color: #333333; font-family: georgia, "times new roman", times, hiraminpro-w3, "ms mincho", serif; font-size: 13px;"> for advice and he said unto me to call EMS with the disclaimer the loco drunk could refuse treatment. When I told said loco drunk that, he spoke of someone helping him.</span><br style="background-color: white; color: #333333; font-family: georgia, "times new roman", times, hiraminpro-w3, "ms mincho", serif; font-size: 13px;" /><br style="background-color: white; color: #333333; font-family: georgia, "times new roman", times, hiraminpro-w3, "ms mincho", serif; font-size: 13px;" /><span style="background-color: white; color: #333333; font-family: georgia, "times new roman", times, hiraminpro-w3, "ms mincho", serif; font-size: 13px;">"That is </span><i style="background-color: white; color: #333333; font-family: georgia, "times new roman", times, hiraminpro-w3, "ms mincho", serif; font-size: 13px;">exactly</i><span style="background-color: white; color: #333333; font-family: georgia, "times new roman", times, hiraminpro-w3, "ms mincho", serif; font-size: 13px;"> what we are doing, Sir," I said as I went to call EMS, my voice reptilian, detached, cold as the airless void between the stars. </span><i style="background-color: white; color: #333333; font-family: georgia, "times new roman", times, hiraminpro-w3, "ms mincho", serif; font-size: 13px;">Hou lain, hei tsin</i><span style="background-color: white; color: #333333; font-family: georgia, "times new roman", times, hiraminpro-w3, "ms mincho", serif; font-size: 13px;">-thick face, black heart-ask Sun Tzu.</span><br style="background-color: white; color: #333333; font-family: georgia, "times new roman", times, hiraminpro-w3, "ms mincho", serif; font-size: 13px;" /><br style="background-color: white; color: #333333; font-family: georgia, "times new roman", times, hiraminpro-w3, "ms mincho", serif; font-size: 13px;" /><span style="background-color: white; color: #333333; font-family: georgia, "times new roman", times, hiraminpro-w3, "ms mincho", serif; font-size: 13px;">They could not even find a blood pressure, and, thus, took him away. My documentation took me back to days as a triage coordinator in the field of transplant. The feeling-more than a feeling-I have is we will be burying someone from our community very soon. I hope I am incorrect.</span><br style="background-color: white; color: #333333; font-family: georgia, "times new roman", times, hiraminpro-w3, "ms mincho", serif; font-size: 13px;" /><br style="background-color: white; color: #333333; font-family: georgia, "times new roman", times, hiraminpro-w3, "ms mincho", serif; font-size: 13px;" /><span style="background-color: white; color: #333333; font-family: georgia, "times new roman", times, hiraminpro-w3, "ms mincho", serif; font-size: 13px;">Here and now, I meditate upon the reptilian...</span>Robbie Greyhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/06708885869170287258noreply@blogger.com8tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6986189487671516031.post-84476794495762104602016-11-15T18:42:00.000-07:002016-11-15T22:33:30.689-07:00Pendulum Well, it's been a week. The has been anger and cheers, smiling and tears. <i>The Onion</i>, as it is so hip to say, <i>killed it</i> with their coverage of events. The fact satire makes for more honest coverage speaks volumes to the absurdity before us. I wonder what the reportage would've been like had it gone the other way.<br />
<div>
<br /></div>
<div>
Victory is an interesting point of view. By the popular, the will of the people, one person won. The electorate says otherwise, and that's the cat running the show. A reason I get cynical about politics past a loco level, but that's another rave rant for another time. And the protests; if you tell me the winning side wouldn't have cried foul and protested had things not gone their way, I'll call you a filthy fucking liar to your face.</div>
<div>
<br /></div>
<div>
Boy-howdy, it would've been nice to see a woman in charge. After all, we are oh so advanced and enlightened as to have had a black man-<i>half</i>, technically-run things, and it was not that long ago they could only aspire to be the help. Not long before that, they were bought and sold as beasts of burden. So, why couldn't or shouldn't we? We are, after all, <i>supposed</i> to be the best.</div>
<div>
<br /></div>
<div>
In the past few days I have heard some compelling and intelligent arguments that, other than the genitals, nothing would have really changed. Sure, a <i>girl</i> would've been on top of the sand pile, but otherwise, status quo. Just some rich older cat in a suit. Another career politician.</div>
<div>
<br /></div>
<div>
History <i>was</i> made a week ago. Someone who rocked <i>not</i> being a politician won. Now just how not-politician he stays remains to be seen.</div>
<div>
<br /></div>
<div>
I'm not happy about it. He's a bigot, a bully, and a bro, which are aspects of the human affliction I dislike. However, he got the prize, and all the petition signing and protesting isn't going to change that I don't think. My liberal friends and acquaintances got eight years of sitting pretty, and now, perhaps, it is time to suck it up and survive not being the popular kids for a bit.</div>
<div>
<br /></div>
<div>
That being stated, in two years come the midterms, and I hope to see more blue in the legislative branch. I know my conservative friends and acquaintances snarl at the idea, but, to my mind there is <i>far</i> too much red in the hallowed halls of power presently, and that is an imbalance. We <i>need</i> the equilibrium in order to properly function.</div>
<div>
<br /></div>
<div>
Of course, and this is probably political-imaginary-land, but it would also be nice to elect cats on both sides of the aisle that will work <i>together</i>. That whole cliche of being there for the people. Saying you want your leader to fail or block him/her/it/whatever at every turn, even if they might have a great idea because your ideology doesn't gel with theirs is a dick move.</div>
<div>
<br /></div>
<div>
Wait, maybe I should retract that <i>dick move</i> line. That kind of jackassery is an insult to moves made by dicks. Or people named Richard. </div>
Robbie Greyhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/06708885869170287258noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6986189487671516031.post-1980644472101954592016-11-09T22:06:00.002-07:002016-11-09T22:06:43.241-07:00Cyclical <div style="background-color: white; color: #1d2129; font-family: Helvetica, Arial, sans-serif; font-size: 14px; margin-bottom: 6px;">
There it is. My dimestore guess was off, but I am no prophet. One ideology rejoices, the other mourns. So it goes. Congratulations, I'm sorry. With one exception I've observed, it seems that eight years is the dinger for one ideology to be in power, then people want a taste of the strange, but, really, what is the difference between Repulracrat and Democrican? Aside from the spelling?</div>
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The sun rose today, and it will set. Strap in. Rejoice or mourn, but remember, four to eight years is really not that long of time.</div>
Robbie Greyhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/06708885869170287258noreply@blogger.com3tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6986189487671516031.post-52458005982734069352016-08-24T19:46:00.001-06:002016-08-24T19:46:49.135-06:00A Case of Mistake-Jem Identity<div style="background-color: white; color: #1d2129; font-family: helvetica, arial, sans-serif; font-size: 14px; line-height: 19.32px; margin-bottom: 6px;">
<i>Sooo</i>, at a meeting regarding county trail maintenance and interpretive signage, the executive assistant to the commissioners called me <i>a jem</i>. Me.</div>
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This is a true story as told by a preservationist of my acquaintance and admiration. I inclined my head respectively in thanks, the whole time thinking they've got me mixed up with some other tall lanky bastard who likes to play outside.</div>
Robbie Greyhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/06708885869170287258noreply@blogger.com4tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6986189487671516031.post-13241821785319893142016-07-12T19:16:00.001-06:002016-07-12T19:21:00.761-06:00Fun Facts About the Leadville BoneyardWe were speaking of roadtrips and fun places to go. Leadville came up, because we both think it's a funky little 'berg, because you <i>gotta</i> have the funk. I mentioned having picnics in the town's cemetery with a bottle of wine, which was lauded as a good idea. Although, when I mentioned people were just <i>dying</i> to get to the cemetery, I was greeted with a groan and an eyeroll, and I don't know why.<br />
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"Of course, the people across the street from the cemetery can't be buried there," I said.<br />
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"Really? Why?"<br />
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"Because they ain't dead yet," I replied.<br />
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"Goddamnit," She snorted, burying her face in her hands, "I have no words."<br />
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A sociopath, or, perhaps a sadistic man, would have found glee in her reaction. Of course I am neither. Aren't you thankful?Robbie Greyhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/06708885869170287258noreply@blogger.com8