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Life in the Empire

Been writing cover letters for job applications (two submitted yesterday). More of a movement artist than a wordsmith but, to get things started, here is something I wrote for Migrant, my section in Train.

Where is home?

Moved twelve times in the last 16 years. The transient in transit. Pierce Transit runs through it. Before I came here I was in Rush Limbaugh’s home town before I was surrounded by corn fed Norwegian bred Lutherans singing praise in perfect four part harmony to that Home on the Plain before I’m taken Home – Praise Jesus. I grew up in Iowa, Little Town on the Prairie an island afloat in the ocean of corn. Lived in SoCal, in the Desert where golf and plastic surgery reigns, might have the grit to stay in rainy Tacoma, but, I always say I’m from San Francisco - though I rarely visit anymore.

Home, where is home?

Home is where you are. Correction, home is where you and the two cats are.

What is home? That safe place. That place with love. I love that old car, it always brought me home. The ’75 Westphalia could be home. Or rather, the place that used to be home. Too old, too unreliable to be trusted anymore. Baling wire and duct tape. Just like the U-Haul I drive to the next place, hoping for home.

Searching for home. Migrants with heavy furniture. U-haul. Our orange travois with wheels keeps getting bigger. Full of stuff. Heavy Stuff. Stuff that anchors us. To a home of nostalgia. Anchors to a home that never really existed. That place. This is the place! Well bully for you Brigham Young. Bring ‘em young. Not young anymore, with more stuff each move to stuff in the moving van and every move leaves behind anchors that are mourned in passing.

A house burns down and the anchors are cremated and the past has passed on.

The bubble is burst. The house is on the market. The anchor is weighed. The trees we planted are left behind. Do the new owners love that Japanese Maple we planted as our 10th anniversary gift to our dream of home? Have they maintained the landscaping? Have any of the plants, the dreams, the love we planted been cared for in our absence? Or have they been torn up by the roots to make room for the next owners’ dream of home?

Where are the anchors? Is there a home port? Adrift. Without a home. Drift wood is picked up for beach fires to warm the beach rats without a home. Their shacks have been bulldozed like West Bank ancestral olive groves to make room for more condos and home-loving dreamers blowing a bubble. Pop!

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Of course.  Will have to figure out my situation before that happens though.

"my situation" sounds ominous, dude.  and i just lost an extensive post that elaborates on this shit.  dont want to waste time trying to recreate it.  point was... think it's a "gender problem."  

Mouse Hannah Hal:  please weigh in on this and tell me i'm wrong.   

Very likely I will be moving at the end of April to Tallahassee, with or without a job to go to.  I will then have to figure my situation out as far as how to continue to make shows and how to make money.

Interviewed for a Career Liaison gig in Florida.  If I get it it will be 40 hr/5 day/12 month thingy but I would be working and living in the same place as Jo.  

  They won't tell me what's up in Kansas - Governor Brownback has screwed up the economy and is asking for a 4% holdback on funds from the Unis....my position may disappear.  And then there is also the likelihood that my position description will be rewritten so that the Director can get rid of me and hire one of her recent graduates. 

to be with your own true love is the thing, For those that have still those trusts and comforts and sheer being, nothing matters more than keeping close, and most especially in times of turbulence.
gesture here on the riverbank so clear that impossible breaking the rules in this way, being intense is not allowed in public. I stay in.
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still have the photos from the days before, and now flexing atrophied muscles to blast a fresh peal of laughter into the abyss
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  • Yup those ideologues in Indy are an outrage. Socialism is the answer so we can all be equal

    • "Socialism" is another word you do (or pretend to) not understand. 
      "equal" yes. equal voice. equal opportunity. Organized means of production. Nature favors the collective. Life favors the individual. Balance of individual and collective. Words *mean* something. Stories don't have to be true to tell the truth. Embrace the paradox. duh.

Oh my.....that was entertaining.  Problem is, they probably thought that they showed you a thing or two - and didn't understand that the only wit they showed was half.

Loved this line:

If you have to kiss a lot of Physics professors before you find your Einstein what is the purpose of education?

I've never seen the word psychobabble used so incorrectly before....

Nicely done, Waldo. "Sailled over your mullet like a frisbee." Love that line.

Wrote a rant about all industries in the US being corrupt -- including what were once services established to advance our culture. But y'all have heard it a thousand times.

So, what more is there to say than half the US population are maggots. The other half, albeit well-meaning, are dumber than hell. Tis why the maggots won.

My only hope is for millennials who seem to have no interest in participating in the Republic of Shit. They're [rightly] rejecting the whole fucking thing.

Our problem as boomers is, we witnessed the destruction of a country. We think if we scream loud enough, we might be able save it. Millenials were born into it and only know the US as the fucked-up country it is, and probably always was. American dream? fuck that...it's a lie.

So, what happens when a new generation rejects everything they're supposed to embrace? Not sure. But it won't support the status quo. They know the system is beyond saving.

My own kid has taken to wearing an anarchy t-shirt and I couldn't be prouder. I once had plans to send him to a 'good' college. Now, I wouldn't want him subjected to the programming. It wouldn't take anyway. He's always been so much smarter than his teachers. Why go to school to be dumbed-down?

So, what happens when a new generation rejects everything they're supposed to embrace?

Some join their ignorant elders to don Black Shirts under white bed sheets and support a stubby-finger ill Douche to make America grate again.

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