Yeah, I think it's been a week. Hasn't it? Has it been longer than I week?
I don't know. I can't really keep track of my own life any more. There's not really rhyme and reason that I'm creating that I can really see. It used to be that when I did stuff, I had structure, and purpose, and "ultimate goals". I remember being in the 8th grade and first coming up with this intention of ultimate goals. Now I'm something like 27 and literally no different than then: minus the goals. I feel like I might have even regressed, really. So now I'm sitting in front of this computer after maybe 11 hours of work, seriously void of any ultimate goals other than the pretentious plans to make money at my jobs. Sure, that's fun. And sure, I enjoy thinking about other things...but none of it feel like it's worth as much as it used to.
I remember a day when I'd walk out onto the sands of a nearby hill, scraping my toes in the silence as a breeze flew by, listening to the quailing of a bird chirp, the waves of fog down the slope weaving nothingness into somethingness, and my vision extending past all horizons to the not-so-interesting Monterey Peaks stabbing thoughtlessly into my deep horizonline. But then, there was Eternity in it. There was habitual foreverness living and breathing between my eyes. I could feel it on the wind. I could taste it with every fresh breath of coffee I swallowed before seven AM on those distant mornings past. I remember scraping my toes against a white and rocky hilltop at the base of College 8 in May. I looked out at the horizon, like I always had, and bent down to the earth's crest just beneath that scraping toe. With outstretched fingers I gripped the sand, pulling dust and rocks between my left hand in a gesture of welcome to the warm ground. The crumble of rocks and dry dirt between my fingers felt foreign, and I remember remembering...I remembered then that I was alive, and that nothing preceded or proceeded, it was all temporary and I had forgotten completely until that moment (when I remembered) that I was bloody alive.
I remembered tonight. As my bloody right wrist oozed speckled bits of red, and in the chill of a 2:30am keg-room twisting lengths of tape around a hissing missing co2 tube against the head of several looming kegs, I felt something. It was somewhat moving, somewhat breathy. It heaved inside of me, in that great incredible 'I lost myself' sort of way. I used to feel this after coming off from standing on a stage, realizing I had just performed in front of hundreds of strangers something I'd been practicing and believing for months. And tonight, for some reason, I felt that same reality strike me evenly between the forearms sometime around 2am in a kegroom.

I don't intend to work at a bar, or a restaurant, for my entire career of life. But I do so love the intensity and authenticity of desperate eyes darting between your hands and full plates, your eyes and their empty glasses, the strange "can you help me?" glances you get while running between duties..I don't know why but it's as mysterious and inviting as any stage or cathedral, but on this minute and miniature extreme.

There's three torns I face every morning when I wake up. Are you ready? Could you care? I don't even care if you care, since I've never cared what anybody else thought...and if I did it was for an artificial minute. Here's my three torns, every morning:

1- I want to live in a mountain, utterly and completely excluded and separate from Americanism, off the land without the hazards of health and diet, with the select few people who wish to do the same. In this life I want to explore and observe nature, enjoy the cool and fresh outdoors, swim in rivers, hike to high mountaintops and breath without bounds or binds forever contractless and exhaustingly pleased.

2 - I want to live in the thickest heart of the deepest city's mould. I want to churn with the butter of other men, working labor and listening to the woeful tunes of fellow miserables. I want to eat the bread of the poor and salivate over riches and rewards. I want to watch the dirt collect on city streets, listen to the stories of healthy men with their noses in Budweisers. I want to work and work and deliver my meaning to thousands, climbing the ladders that are set before me and ambitiously dissolving the mysteries of Americanism before all our very eyes. I want to enjoy the truth of difference, knowing that I have edgy validation and an eye for authenticity that few can acknowledge. I want to work my way heartily into the ranks of high-caliber social movers and shakers, infiltrating and reorganizing and revitalizing my parts of society in such efficient and variable ways that everybody will be excited for the new dawn that we will all present.

3 - I've forgotten the third. Maybe it'll come to me. For a long time I've remembered these first two, being between the mountains and the city. I know I have a knack for living outside the realm of humanity, and nothing is more tantalizing I assure you. But I also know I have a knack for respecting and dealing with humanity in a way that is referential and respectful. I don't want to be stuck in either for too long.
That's my problem. I'm stuck in a temporary mindset for the time being. Everything I think about is temporary, to the point of worry about my own health in a temporary state of dissatisfaction. I catch myself occasionally unhappy with a specific part of my life, and I try to solve the situation. But then a night like tonight rolls on along, when you have those moments in the kegroom or you're standing at the bar and suddenly a jerk of utter reality removes you completely from your brain and in a second you are standing naked before the truths you once subscribed so vividly and actually completely for...it shakes you. I'm shaken tonight. And my temporary mindset makes me angry, that I can even conceieve of my life in this odd, off, unreal and temporary existence.

No. No. There is a right answer. And it lies between your toes within the gravel. Go barefoot to a hill nearby and smell that fresh salty ocean air, or that clean mountain breeze, or even that nasty dump stench or chlorinated aroma filling your nose-hairs...regardless, that's where the only truth lies. And there's a secret in that truth. It tells you about everything you ever once felt, and how you can feel it again. And again. And again. All over again for the rest of your life if you choose to let it.

That's all that matters then really. That feeling. Because you knew it then, when you were giddy and running around the hallways of the Beach Boardwalk like a 12-year-old, and you will know it again whether you ever wanted to or not. So embrace, love, and live it up.

adios.