Being There

Saw "Looper" the other night with Bruce Willis and that Levitt kid. No, not John Levitt - the other guy. Long haired kid from the old TV Show, Third Rock from the Sun. Gordon, I think it is.

Anywho...

Pretty good flick. Gordon's a tad bit full of himself - at least in the interview I saw with him - has a verbal swagger that makes you want to snatch the cheese right out of his mouth* but then again he's supposed to be a young Bruce Willis so there you go.

With eyes made up to look like Bruce's, he does a passable squint/furrowed brow/raised eyebrow thing, plus this bit with his upper lip that's vaguely simian but also vintage Willis, and along with a verbal tick or two, it all works.

Writing wasn't bad written either. Good ending, though I won't spoil it by saying more than I didn't see it coming. Not a shocker, exactly, but unexpected.

Oh, and Bruce is pretty much Bruce, in case you were wondering, though somewhat cast against type.

Anyway...

About 5 minutes into the movie this guy comes into the theater, maybe had a couple pops if you know what I mean, and he starts commenting on the movie here and there, half under his breath but then again half not.

He's one row up and three seats over so I can't help but hear every single word he's saying. After one or two comments I'm ready to slide over and give my, "look man I paid to lose myself in the illusion of the movie** not your commentary" spiel, but for some reason I don't.***

Part of it was the voice - gravelly, deep and resonant - with a lyrical quality that hinted at something more... like an old blues man or pulpit preacher ready to hold forth.

And he didn't say all that many actual words, just chimed in here and there with an mm-hmm or the like - not trying to wax clever so much as just responding in earnest. It was alcohol infused to be certain, but not without sincerity.

"You don't shoot no kids," was the last thing I heard him say, before he drifted off, evidenced by a soft, intermittent snoring.

And why wasn't I more annoyed? Well...

We've all been there I guess. Not exactly, but close enough.

And really, he was just part of the whole experience. Not a bad one at that.

(notes to follow)

Moonlighting

Worked late last night and didn't hit the trail until the sun had slid behind the hill.

I'd obtained a bike light earlier in the year, but subsequently broke it and I rode out not knowing what I'd do once it got dark.

And the moon came up.

The moon came up as the daylight faded and I rode in the thin silver-blue light, eyes peeled wide for rock and thorn and whatever else. Rattlesnakes maybe.

But I could only see the path, dark edges blurred, obstacles and dangers undetected.

And I flowed around them like water.

I am a stone worn smooth by time,
consistent in singularity.

Took up mountain biking a year ago and there's this race in December  - the McDowell 60, with 9k foot of climbing and, you guessed it, 60 miles of desert terrain to be travailed - which I've foolishly entered.

Began training in earnest earlier this month, and started taking cordyceps, a Tibetan fungi believed to enhance heart health and VO2 max. That and fish oil.

I used to have a resting heart rate of around 55 beats per minute, I think - maybe a little less.

Yesterday morning I checked upon waking and it was 41 beats per minute.

Seems a bit extreme, actually. 

Dreamt last night I was a vagabond, looking like the "Tea for the Tillerman" man, with a red beard and floppy hat, wandering the war torn countryside with two kittens in my care.

Things happened. There was a storm or a flood or something and we were separated.

Finally, I found one of the kittens, half frozen to death, and I broke up a little clay tablet in the shape of an egg, and it gave him warmth. But he wouldn't look at me.

Then another kitten appeared, but it wasn't the one we were looking for, and I thought, "well, the cycle of life continues," wondering where the other had gone.

And in my mind's eye I saw the whole countryside and then I saw him, suspended in a puddle, as if in mid-leap, but with his head down just below the level of the water.

I woke up and realized two things:

1. Small things need protecting.

2. I'd failed in that.

Yet another...

Dreamt last night of my dad and his friend, Bruce.

Bruce had gone to live with the love of his life, a gypsy woman who lived on the side of a blue hill, with craggy fissures like the folds in an elephant's skin and horizontal white, calcified striations that looked like something out of the painted desert only it was in middle of nowhere. And blue. Anyway...

Dad was in trouble and Bruce, with long hair and a beard like Tom Hanks in Castaway, swung down from the hill on a vine, to the distress of his gypsy love.

But dad had moved in to town to grow old, signified by the growing accumulation of coolers and barbecues on the concrete patio beside his house.

Left in the sun, the coolers had become became misshapen and started to take on cartoon-like faces, signifying irony and the time for me to wake up.

Which I am now.

I think.

Oh, and here's another picture of a bridge.

*if this dream stuff keeps going on I may have to start another blog

Under the bridge

Dream remnants

Elements in the time mist was what he said it was called.

Looked like a mirror but contained a 3D snapshot/frozen moment:

In the foreground, a young man in a powder gray tux & ruffled pink shirt caught in profile with both hands pressing a red handled cheese slicer (or something) against the far side of his face. Behind him an empty gym with folding metal chairs set up in rows as if for an assembly. 

I moved around to see better, but couldn't make out the object or what he was doing to himself. Violence? Primping?

Earlier, my roommate and best friend - a thirty-something black man with an easy smile - had said it was time to go, get on with his life, but he'd leave the low slung, cheap Asian wicker furniture.

Then he walked out and so did I, to mill about with the people on the street, mostly homeless.

There was a portable bed - the kind you keep in a closet and unfold for guests - and I laid on it and went rolling down the street past a cluster of people where I heard an old man complaining bitterly about me to some middle-aged woman.

Sorry, I shouted back, then caromed into a clump of prickly pear in the tree curb, came away with only a few light needles in my arm, picked up the futon pad and walked off.

Turns out I'd killed someone by inserting a thin piece of metal (like a meat thermometer without the dial) into the back of their head, which is why I had to get away, had gone to see another old friend in the country and he had a mirror on his wall which wasn't a mirror, but a piece of art and when I asked him what it was he said elements in the time mist.

Time passes

Had a dream last night about getting urine samples from dogs in a veterinarian's hospital.

Actually, I think it was my dog in the dream. A bedraggled little terrier.

Not sure what that was about, but just in case you were wondering...

mothership

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