Tag: spring

Coffee Log, Year 2, Day 299

garethlivesayLeave a comment

Hi.

Coffee: Organic Dark Roast, Don Pablo’s

A goose gaggle had taken over the parking lot outside Trader Joe’s. They were everywhere, and it was hard to drive.

I heard this story from M about how kids in an art project at her museum were asked to think of objects that they used everyday and 99% of them said their smartphone. And when she tried to poke and prod for other answers, there were blank faces, incredible stares, like ‘what else is there?’ These were first graders.

I took my cactus, Herbert, from the old office because no-one was watering him. He doesn’t need much, but he does need some, and now he’s sitting in my bedroom window drinking up the sun. I watered him yesterday and liked the way the dirt clumped around his narrow roots. I liked the idea of touching something, remotely, through a simple act of benevolence, it made me feel like a Messiah, in my own way, the best sort of full-of-yourself. Because the fact is, this cactus needs me, and another fact is, I need him.

What objects do I use everyday? It’s a long list, smartphone’s certainly up there. Then there’s the desk, and chair, and water glasses, the first and the second (I always forget the first glass and pour another before I come to my senses), computer keys. I don’t know what I’d do without any of it. Modern comfort. The first world.

The geese are headed south. They’re only here for a stopover, I don’t know how far they’re going. Geese like to eat and sleep as I do, and they like the company of other geese. They’re a million miles high sometimes, and others they’re on the ground. In a few months they’ll hatch their eggs, New life, new birth. What will the goslings says coming into this world?

‘Mom, where’s my iphone?’

Currently Reading: Giovanni’s Room, James Baldwin

Support Relief for Family Suffering at the Border  – RAICES DONATION CAMPAIGN

Suddenly there they are (the geese), a wavering V headed directly over the hilltop, quite low, beating southward down the central flyway and talking as they pass. We stay quiet suspending our human conversation until their garulity fades and their wavering lines are invisible in the sky.
They have passed over us like an eraser over a blackboard, wiping away whatever was there before they came.

Wallace Stegner

Coffee Log, Year 2, Day 52

garethlivesay2 Comments

Hi.

Coffee: Maxwell House Drip, Office Coffee

Countdown to my reading as featured author at the Third Wednesday Open Mic:
WHERE: Fig Raleigh, Raleigh NC
WHEN: 04/17/19; 6:30p.m. (open mic sign-ups start at 6:00p.m.)
DAYS REMAINING: 2
Come out and support the Coffee Log!

The thunder woke me up twice last night. When I woke up it sounded more like a long checklist of things to do.

Sometimes when I’m bored or lonely I’ll take a long shower. I tilt the nozzle so it’s close to the drain and lie down. I’m not too tall (five-foot-seven) so I fit going lengthwise in the tub. It feels like one of those rides at the water park: a dark, gushing tunnel, no room to move.

In the spring, I like to sit outside and think about smoking. I don’t smoke. Not at all now, not much ever, but nice days are conducive to watching thick burnt embers trail out of your mouth and no matter what I do I can’t seem to shake that image. Burnt lungs in a fine garden. It’s the contrast, maybe.

Later this week I’m going to Richmond. I don’t know what to expect from that trip. A coworker gave me suggestions. I spoke to a hostel worker about parking options over the phone. Secretly, I’m exhausted, and when I think ‘vacation’ I see a dark blanket wrapping me up at home, but I have to go, because if I don’t it means something I’m not ready to admit: that I’m not someone with the energy to get out and move.

I saw a scared cat. She was hiding around the corner from a rough brown dog. I came down the stairs and scared her a little more, then she recognized me and we got along. I’m a scared cat some days, and others I’m coming down the stairs. No telling which I’ll be tomorrow. No choice but to find out.

Novel Count: 38,047

Currently Reading: The Sense of an Ending, Julian Barnes

Support Relief for Family Suffering at the Border  – RAICES DONATION CAMPAIGN

regret is mostly caused by not having
done anything.

Charles Bukowski


Coffee Log, Year 2, Day 50

garethlivesayLeave a comment

Hi.

Coffee: Maxwell House Drip, Office Coffee

Countdown to my reading as featured author at the Third Wednesday Open Mic:
WHERE: Fig Raleigh, Raleigh NC
WHEN: 04/17/19; 6:30p.m. (open mic sign-ups start at 6:00p.m.)
DAYS REMAINING: 4
Come out and support the Coffee Log!

The AC froze in our apartment. You’d think that’s a good thing – icy cool – but it’s not as good as it sounds. The coils froze over and the ice warped the filter. We called maintenance. A tech came over. He did what he could. A nice thing to have someone help you on a Saturday.

Anyway, the problem’s not fixed so now it’s just set to fan. Thankfully we’re still early enough in the year to have cool nights. I thought about cracking the windows but there’s too much pollen. I’m noticing the lack of sound in the apartment now that the AC’s not blowing. Sometimes it’s nice to miss something.

I stayed in Oita for one week when I was working in Japan. We had some camps at a rec center there. Oita’s in the mountains and surrounded by verdant fields. Picturesque, except for the hot sun and endless bugs.

Like most of the places we stayed, the rec center had no AC. We slept on the floor with five of us to a room. All night long, our sheets crawled with tiny critters. Working those summer camps, everyone was so dead tired that they usually fell asleep right away after the long days. But in Oita we’d stay up telling stories by flashlight. It was something to do, something to take your mind off the heat. We’d drop off gradually, talking quieter and quieter, until everyone was asleep.

Summer will be here soon. NC’s no joke when it gets going. Here’s crossing fingers our AC gets fixed soon.

Novel Count: 37,459

Currently Reading: The Sense of an Ending, Julian Barnes

Support Relief for Family Suffering at the Border  – RAICES DONATION CAMPAIGN

I guess I’m supposed to sit here in this oven like it’s 1950, hoping I don’t go to hell for stealing a church fan.

K. Martin Beckner, Chips of Red Paint


Coffee Log, Year 2, Day 46

garethlivesay1 Comment

Hi.

Coffee: Maxwell House Drip, Office Coffee

Since it’s Spring, and cool, and a little cloudy, I took a short walk after work today. Nothing special, just a circuit around the apartment complex. There were weeks last summer where I would take a walk like this every day, but with winter and rampant rain for the last few months my strolls had tapered off.

Here’s what I saw:

Two kids were swinging on the swing set. They were both wearing blue, though not the same shade, and they were both talking loudly about school, though with different pitched voices. Isn’t it nice how kids become each other when they’re playing together? It’s easy to slip together with someone when you’re still learning who you are.

I saw a lot of crushed flowers on the creek banks. It rained so hard yesterday that trees were coming down. The creek flooded. The wind walloped. The brightest spring colors were washed into the mud. This means we’re close to summer. Another couple weeks and the heat-stink will be back. Oh well. Spring’s mostly beautiful because it doesn’t last.

A family of four was walking with their dog, a big black German shepherd, and the dad had to reign the dog in when it saw me. It started barking and slobbering. It was trying to protect it’s family. It looked very young. It hasn’t been around long enough to know I spend just about every day choosing to not be a threat. That’s what being human’s all about, right? The choice to avoid violence? Puppies can’t do that without a leash and a firm hand.

Two geese went by as I got home. They shared a long, sad honk. They looked like they were headed somewhere, maybe farther north for summer. I don’t know what they were sad about, what they were missing.

Novel Count: 37,208

Currently Reading: The Sense of an Ending, Julian Barnes

Support Relief for Family Suffering at the Border  – RAICES DONATION CAMPAIGN

A sound like a big crowd a good way off, excited and shouting, getting closer. We stand up and scan the empty sky. Suddenly there they are (the geese), a wavering V headed directly over the hilltop, quite low, beating southward down the central flyway and talking as they pass. We stay quiet suspending our human conversation until their garulity fades and their wavering lines are invisible in the sky.
They have passed over us like an eraser over a blackboard, wiping away whatever was there before they came.

Wallace Stegner


Coffee Log, Year 2, Day 29

garethlivesayLeave a comment

Hi.

Coffee: Maxwell House Drip, Office Coffee

I’m sneaking in this coffee log right at the tail end of the day. It’s 11:20pm. It’s a blue-purple kind of dark. That tells you it’s Spring, because only Spring has nights like this.

I spent most of my day working. I spent the rest resting. I didn’t go out for dinner, I didn’t much leave my room once I got home. That’s how I wanted it – what a week… Because of that, though, I don’t have much to say tonight.

Here’s a poem:

It’s like a pearl necklace
And you wear it
Only in your hair instead of around your neck
And nothing had to die to give it to you
Well, maybe some old, rotting dinosaurs
And maybe the planet, if you look hard enough
Rough cracked road asphalt
Looks a lot darker
More appealing
When you’re wearing that pearl necklace
Of streetlights.

Novel Count: 31,808

Currently Reading: The Sense of an Ending, Julian Barnes

Support Relief for Family Suffering at the Border  – RAICES DONATION CAMPAIGN

Marco Polo had seen the inhabitants of Zipangu place rose-colored pearls in the mouths of the dead. A sea-monster had been enamoured of the pearl that the diver brought to King Perozes, and had slain the thief, and mourned for seven moons over its loss.

Oscar Wilde, The Picture of Dorian Gray


Coffee Log, Year 2, Day 5

garethlivesayLeave a comment

Hi.

Coffee: Sumatra Medium Dark, Trader Joe’s Brand

The forecast says its strolling weather. And by ‘forecast’ I mean the three families and half-dozen kids that are hanging around the apartment playground.

I took a short walk around the complex. Here’s what I saw:

Three 3-foot girls in pink puffy jackets skipping on stones in the creek-bed. Two old men – completely unrelated to each other – both wearing ball-caps and working hard at that sort-of-scowl-sort-of-smile you expect of a grandfather. One dog walking, ignoring it’s owner, and another dog upright behind a black fence watching people walk by. So many cold winter trees. It’s almost spring but they haven’t caught on. A few cars. And a 2nd floor railing that’s still strung up with Christmas lights.

Strolling weather – my favorite time of the year.

Novel Count: 26,709

Currently Reading: Killing Commendatore, Haruki Murakami

Support Relief for Family Suffering at the Border – RAICES DONATION CAMPAIGN

I only went out for a walk and finally concluded to stay out till sundown, for going out, I found, was really going in.

John Muir

Coffee Log, Day 68

garethlivesayLeave a comment

Hi.

Coffee: Large Americano from Caribou Coffee; paid for by a tip from Meg. Thanks Meg! The espresso was dusty like an old book but pleasant. Meg and I have been talking about Starbucks. Last week, a store manager called cops on black customers for being black. Loud-mouths argue it’s because they weren’t ‘paying,’ or were ‘threatening,’ but those are just code words for sharing yourself with the wrong color lips. Meg showed me an article from Slate. The commentators described Starbucks’ business model as ‘commoditizing diversity’ and selling it to a white middle class in easy-to-digest doses. I went to Caribou and saw white men and white women with smiling faces served by smiling white baristas. There were people of color there too, but I couldn’t help thinking that the article was spot-on because here was a space designed to make you comfortable and comfort is a privilege given in America on a sliding scale of class and skin-tone.

April’s almost over. I’ve spent the Spring mostly jobless and now I’m ending it well-employed. I like my work so far. I’m making more money than I had been. Still, when I look at the crowning trees and listen to kids playing with the good weather, I’m restless. Spring and Fall are anxious seasons. The more beautiful – the more comfortable – something is, the less you can trust it. Sometimes I think a nice day is just a reminder of how deep the gully is between people. If I can enjoy this weather, there’s a good chance that enjoyment is predicated on someone else’s subjugation.

It’s easy to say a Spring day is free, but freedom is distributed unequally.

Currently Reading:
The Pardoner’s Tale, by John Wain

Fund the Coffee Log 🙂 – https://ko-fi.com/livesaywriting

“For to be free is not merely to cast off one’s chains, but to live in a way that respects and enhances the freedom of others.”- Nelson Mandela

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Coffee Log, Day 52

garethlivesayLeave a comment

Hi.

Coffee: Organic Sumatra Blend, Trader Joe’s Brand; tastes like green buds, which is bad at first but then kind of welcoming.

There’s something about the morning. It isn’t cynical like afternoon or relaxed like evening. Morning has the vigor to change it’s circumstances. It’s caffeine to the birds. The sunlight looks better than at any other time of day.

Mornings have always felt private. When I’m alone, they’re times to get things done. At work, even when it’s busy, they’re reclusive – the people you deal with and the problems you solve could only sit at your desk, no-one else’s. When I’ve been fortunate to spend a morning waking up with someone, the time goes slow like bee’s honey and it’s just as safe as the soft sticky stuff locked in buzzing hives.

As I’m writing this, it’s the afternoon and I’m thinking about everything I ought to be doing. Oh well.

Currently Reading:
Tar Baby, Toni Morrison

Fund the Coffee Log 🙂 – https://ko-fi.com/livesaywriting  

“In the early morning on the lake sitting in the stern of the boat with his father rowing, he felt quite sure that he would never die.” – Ernest Hemingway, In Our Time

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Coffee Log, Day 51

garethlivesayLeave a comment

Hi.

Coffee: Cafe Pajaro, Extra Dark, Trader Joe’s Brand

Sally the cat was outside again today. Whatever fear she may have had of tall pine trees is gone now. She was fussy and demanding. She hopped in my lap and dug her claws into my leg. She seemed happy.

Spring seems to be sticking but I’ve been fooled before. Everything’s chalky green with pollen. There’s a nice breeze and a hot sun. No-one’s outside, very few cars in the parking lot, everyone’s at work. I had to walk in to write this. I left my window open.

I want a drink and a smoke and a lawn chair. I don’t have a lawn chair so I’ll settle for dozy sobriety.

Currently Reading:
Tar Baby, Toni Morrison

Fund the Coffee Log 🙂 – https://ko-fi.com/livesaywriting  

“Having a bunch of cats around is good. If you’re feeling bad, just look at the cats, you’ll feel better, because they know that everything is, just as it is.” – Charles Bukowski

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Coffee Log, Day 42

garethlivesayLeave a comment

Hi.

Coffee: Cafe Pajaro, Extra Dark, Trader Joe’s Brand; Tastes watered down though I didn’t change the measurements. I’ve been drinking the same coffee for a week so maybe I’m getting too familiar with it. We all rush to watch the cherry blossoms on the first week of Spring; no-one pays attention to weeks two and three.

I took a walk. The sun was out and it was hot, a little humid. Pollen had everything turning yellow and green. I’ve made this walk many times since coming to live in Cary. I leave the apartments, cross the Parkway, snake through a hilly suburban road still raptured by the ’50’s, then cut to a tiny paved path that hugs the backyards of more picket-fence houses. There’s woods and a stream. At times, you forget you’re walking below a bunch of windows.

I stopped to take a picture of some pretty flowers by the Hindu temple. There was loud electronic music and girls in colorful clothes. A dad left his SUV running so that the AC would kiss him every time he came back for a round of boxes – and there were so many boxes. I watched the scene play out from the cover of purple flowers and finally guessed it must be a birthday party. Lots of ripe balloons, pre-teens, an optimistic girl walking her dog. It was a nice bit of community. I’m thankful for the tree that bought me time to watch.

Currently Reading:
Tar Baby, Toni Morrison

Fund the Coffee Log 🙂 – https://ko-fi.com/livesaywriting  

“If lightning is the anger of the gods, then the gods are concerned mostly about trees.” – Lao Tzu

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