sunshine kin

I don't know how this whole business of my life began. Maybe it was a dream I had when I was younger. We all have those dreams, where it seems to point to something unnecessary or even frivolous, that in the end turns out to be the very thing that saves us. Something usually quiet, a semblance of a feeling that we miss upon waking, or even a drunken nightmare that shakes us from sleep. Still, dreaming is better than being dead. People generally aren't nice to the dead. They stuff them in boxes and make them lie underground for their entire dead lives, and in New Orleans the bodies got flooded and floated around the city; making these little tours of the city but not really seeing anything. It was all quite a spectacle. It still is.

But what I am trying to say is that I seem to have found a rare appreciation. Call it a humbling wonder, call it too many beers, but don't call it crazy. Because if you do, then you are what you say, what you label other people. What you say about people is what you are saying about yourself, partially. But I think we could move past that. Like a rushing river we never see, life is a winding journey through the wilderness, in tune with the universe to some extent, but you have to be a good swimmer. People have drowned in such rivers; they don't cushion falls like in the movies. But the reward for peregrinations are many, even if you can afford a canoe. It is like you've seen through the waters to the smooth pebbles below. You dive down, scoop some up, and continue swimming. Then you have something to skip once you get to the other bank.

Anyways, I am writing because it is a decision, a certain pre-dialection to the craft that is not commonly congradulated. People must fear writing. Nobody can do it, much less do it well. I'm not saying that you can't learn, just that it takes years of practice. Writing is life. It is a difficult as life. You have to constantly be making decisions like some crazy backwater politician who is convinced that Armaggedon is coming, so he is doing everything he can to appear virtuous, like kicking poor people out of Section 8 houses for vague reasons and getting loaded with hookers using a fake name at a filmy hotel. But the trick is to know that if you have suffered a lot, then that makes you moral. It is an automatic get out of jail free card. Because when you write, in a sense, the whole world is still moving out there, going on in time while you are in a different timezone, three hours ahead of everyone not to mention how many years. But if you drink, you end up like those poor native Americans who didn't know the lies because they were so loaded. Alcohol is an instrument of genocide, remember that, not a friend of writers. What is funny about that is the fact that people lie about drinking to seem with it. "Oh I was drinking wine all last night." Yeah right. You were probably howling at the moon, but how much did drink really have to do with that? Wasn't it your own decision?

You know, in my life, I have been plagued by jerks and thieves. People want your stuff, lets face it. All you can do is pretend like you have already lost so much that what you have isn't worth taking. And if you pretend long enough, it becomes true. That is what you are, a pretense. You almost have to be.

But that is enough stuff fluctuating on the negative. There are many positive things about this world. You go down the rollercoaster at the Boardwalk, and then it brings you up a second time. Maybe even a third. But what is so interesting is the fact that you remember Santa Monica as a place that was filled with magic because of some broken down old coaster that the pier reopened in order to suck on the wallets of tourists. That is what is important. You are a human being; you have memories. Use them. Write them out in a letter, not an email, and send them to your coolest relative. I am torn. Either grandmother of mine deserves a letter. They like there lives as much as I do.