5.09.2018

Return to Humboldt


MM rented us a van to drive down, which made more sense since our car's tires are bald and about to pop and the IRS just can't seem to deposit our tax return no matter our increasing desperation. drive down took 10 plus hrs b/c of stopping extended 2 times (once riverside park in grants pass, once in crescent city). at last we arrive.


at airbandb in bayside and the smell at night/morning is so long ago familiar that it aches. there are mirrors reflecting and refracting into hallways and corridors*. here we are at breakfast at X which used to be called Y which was where we ate when M and I were pretending we weren't a couple in summer of 95 so her ex didn't kill us; here's the loggia at the Minor Theater where M and I sat after our first benign coupling (her in a b/w pixies t shirt) saying 'we both know it didn't mean anything' except now I'm yelling at our son to calm the f down. here's the Plaza in full farmers market mode w/ organic nut pastes and whatnots. here's patrick's point state park and the memories of M and I getting married there, making everyone meet us there, making everyone walk out to wedding rock; here's the memory of going there in the july before our wedding to scope it out; here's where Darren and I camped that night after my son's namesake died. here's redwood park which triggers the memory of the photo I had of CR there w/ her beau at the time who we called 'hair guy' months before she and I got together, where I went for a run or two w/ J prior to apparently turning into a giant asshole. Here's the coop where M's ex works and where we all stop for sandwiches to see him. Here's me in the car w/ DMG (who went to school w/ me and lived in LA when we were there but lives in portland now and who worked on my movie) driving and SB (who shot/coproduced my movie) en route to the Avenue of the Giants so all 3 of us can run the 1/2 marathon - all 3 of us in various states of transition, transfiguration, repair. Here we are running late, stepping forward, the air charged w/ past/present, moving, running, going, not stopping.




*the corridors contain: my first arrival, 26 yrs ago, me moving in to apartment w/ CR 25 yrs ago and working at the American Deli (RIP) while not going to school b/c I was someway or other going to be some sort of artist (though that only manifested by me reading Henry Miller's oeuvre and writing in my journal); me moving to the Beverly House a yr later after CR and I broke up and she moved to Portland; me and Matt and George moving to the 11th st house a yr after (and where M sought me out  to talk when she and not-yet-ex were in death throes); me in the shack behind 11th st house the yr after; the house on Grant Ave 6 mos later; the death of my son's namesake on the side of the 101 near Moonstone Beach; the film department at the college; a couple romantic dalliances that were defining in several ways but that share the DNA of those-people-want-nothing-to-do-with-me-ever-again which suggests I was an asshole; the summer b/f my last yr when i worked floor camera at tv station during the olympics w/ Joe S who in some manner sold me bill of goods about LA and AFI but maybe he didn't really know who he was then; the projectionist gig at the Broadway Cinema; this creeping sensation of nobody knows what I am going to be/do and boy won't they be sorry; and so on and so on, all humming at once around every corner, pulsing with some varietal of cosmic wisdom or dumbfuck randomness.