And so, in the end, it turns out that life is neither so cruel, nor this cruelty so addictive that it may not be overcome with a little time, and good natured humility; and time, being a finite thing in the microscale of our minds and lives, is likely better sentenced running on, than with the running on of sentences.

It's been fun. But it may be a bit before (if these long pauses were not indication enough) I find myself writing here again.

Thanks. Good luck! I know you/I/we'll need it.

-Tim
Tim at 6:34 AM

I've always taken a bit of misplaced pride in the fact that I'm my best under pressure. I think, as a child, I learned to take some thrill in stacking the odds against myself and escaping consequence with as little clearance as possible...

...I think it was a habit I formed, that carried on into the rest of my life...

...And so I say, I've always taken a bit of misplaced pride in the fact that I'm my best under pressure. Because it is a prideful thrill that demonstrates little more than a lack of foresight.

But, enh.

Too late to do much than buckle down and ride another one out, eh? Here goes.
Tim at 7:04 PM

Somewhere in the wilderness of Yosemite my phone rang. The message was that I had been selected for promotion to Staff Sergeant during my first cycle of eligibility. Things change, don't they? One minute you're underage, trying to find someone to buy you some beer, and the next minute you wake up and you're supposed to be filling a position where people listen to what you say then do it.

I was asked if I was ready for this sort of thing. Ready for leadership.

I had to be honest. I said that I was hesitant to say yes. Because I am so concious of all my own shortcomings. But I'm willing to step forward and do my best. I guess that's what its all about. These last three and a half years have been about learning to step forward.
(You must be faithful with little, before you can be faithful with much.)

My track record is such a joke. And not the kind of joke that earns a couple chuckles from the crowd. The kind of joke that trainwrecks, and you in the audience just sit there and stare, and hope there is a punchline. Somewhere. Out in the distance. I can only thank the fact that the military kicked my ass royally up and down until I finally got it. Finally got it. Finally, finally, finally got it. Finally got it.

Was skipping every day of my calculus class supposed to be funny? Was getting kicked out of biology class every day supposed to be amusing? Who the fuck was I kidding? Myself?
My enlistment is due to finish, pretty soon. Except I keep looking at what I've learned. What I've been taught. All the finest men and women I've ever had the pleasure of knowing. I look at the members of the military that helped me pull myself up by my bootstraps. And I keep thinking that I'm probably not the only one, sitting, lurking, waiting for someone to inspire them...

I'm coming to a point where I need to make a decision. On one hand, I can seperate. I can take all the perks that I've earned: My College paid for, my job experience, my contacts. I could follow in the footsteps of a few of my coworkers, seperate from the military and find myself a fat six-figure contracting job for the man.

But on the other hand.

Maybe money isn't everything? Maybe there is something noble there, in what I do? Maybe there will be a time when good men must step forward and sacrifice so that others will not have to?

And maybe, someday, when I'm gone from this world I'll lay on my back with six feet between myself and the sunrise. I'll have a short, marble, faded headstone. Unremarkable. Simple. And marked in even workmanship.

"Here lies Timothy Wade. He wasn't a good man. But he tried his damnest."
Tim at 11:54 PM

That was as exhausting as ever.
Tim at 2:32 PM

In case I forget about you: Happy early 5th birthday you sexy, saucy little Babel Fish Production Facility.
Tim at 1:20 AM

With a head swimming; it is there,
it is because I never enjoyed the taste of defeat until that early time,
the trappings of my youth,
it was not because I was undefeated,
but because I did not venture out to be defeated,

the first time I tasted that copper taste
in my mouth; wiped my face
to discover I stained my arm
it was there that I discovered;
something far greater, in the span of
staring at that pavement,
reeling,

that there was no greater sensation,
nothing more disheartening to an adversary
than to be knocked down,
...and to rise, once more,
wipe your face,
and stand again on two feet.

And there, boldly: Knock me down, again...

...but I'll stand, once more.
And you can't keep me down.
Tim at 1:05 AM

The Sovereignty of The Fisher King

If The Author and The Photographer were to find themselves overlooking the San Diego bay on an April morning; the pair might begin to wander through a few cigarettes, and a stout cup of coffee. A few palm trees would be speckled about the boardwalk and, if the morning fog had burned off, there'd be clear shadows cast beneath all manner of watercraft: yachts, jet-skis, and fair-weathered dinghies. This encounter would begin altogether pleasantly. Perhaps they'd strike up famously. And conversation would navigate through the sea lanes of their respective artistic crafts. But no doubt, at some point, The Photographer would turn, with broad grin, and state: "You know, old friend. A picture is worth a thousand words."

If the statement were made in passing, with detachment, perhaps The Author would nod politely, and continue on his business. But if there were any degree of smugness in the comment, innocent on the surface, but pointedly vile beyond even the barest hint of scrutiny, The Author might fly off his handle; stand in outrage, and demand the sort of apology that involved generations and generations of Photo-progenic reparations. After all, any fool can wander into the type of place that sells old things and buy a book and a postcard for roughly the same price; if the postcard costs a quarter, and that fool has a calculator handy, he could quickly tally up a sum that notes that a picture is not worth a thousand words. In fact, a thousand words is by far too generous a figure, perhaps by a magnitude of a thousand times over.

The Photographer knows very well that his handiwork involves as much guesswork as anything. Surely, he sets up his angles, adjusts his lens, and picks his scenery. But then he lets loose with the sort of barrage of clickity-clacks that recalls to mind the belt-feed of a machine-gun nest. And then, amidst his rapid-fire spraying and praying that some print will turn out fine enough to display, almost assuredly, one does. And every poor frame is discarded to make room for that single, definitive still. It's mounted, bracketed, coated with a glossy finish, and then it's only a matter of seconds between the time the subject views the still, and is struck with the artistic nature of the thing. The Photographer is the sort of artist who drags his nets along through that San Diego Bay, drudging up all sorts of filth, knowing very well that with enough dragging and ho-humming there will be a very large fish to catch, at the end of the day.

But The Author enjoys no such luxury. In the span of the seconds that it takes The Photographer's audience to view, analyze, and summarily appreciate, The Author has barely had his audience turn from the Title Page on to the Foreword of Chapter One. And even if there is the sort of climax to be had at the end of his novel that brings strong men to their knees, and women to all manner of weeping, there's an entire mountain of precipitous ravines to cross before that point is reached. Even if the first chapter is so captivating that the audience spends an entire night with sweat racked palms, flying by the edge of their seat, from one word to the next, there are countless pitfalls the reader can fall into, torn away from the Author's work: dropping the children off at the pool, working late at the office, fixing dinner, or just plainly not having enough time. By the time the Author has shown a single, complete record of his skill, his photographic companion has assembled an entire gala to be viewed; each still taking but a fraction of a moment to be taken in.

The Author, after all, does not drudge. There is no room in his craft for casting nets, and if he did, there would be no perfect catch awaiting him. With the patient, backbreaking labor of a bricklayer, one word is cemented to the next. He threads his line, purposefully, and diligently selects his bait, and makes one, single cast out into the ocean. If he does not wind his reel at just the right rate, with enough pitch, and bobbing, he returns empty handed.

But therein lies the true strength of The Author; the secret grail by which he finds himself. For all his wounded outrage spurned by The Photographer, he is no less poor; the charge of that hidden dielectric, the sovereignty of it all. He is selective, and tireless. He knows exactly what lurks beneath those waves, and precisely how to catch it. That he is wounded in remarks is of little consequence, because it is from those wounds that he draws himself up, and speaks life into lifeless language. He is the creator, not the imitator, not the happen chance interloper.

And so, as the Photographer says those words: "A picture is worth a thousand words." The Author is engaged in subterfuge, in his hot protests, and outrage at insult. It is precisely this fact that fuels the secret fire of his trade; that sovereign wound. So as he quickly finishes his coffee, rises, and steps out into spring air, there is the slightest lopsided grin upon his face as he replies: "Yes, my friend. But those words were not merely stumbled upon, they were words I chose."
Tim at 11:34 PM

Rick, a Case Study

It was a warm, and sweaty handshake to take and one accompanied by a sort of fire in his eyes; A warm, glowing intensity that even to this day I am not sure if I completely understand. Heavy set, and unapologetically so, he gave me the briefest smile and said: "So nice to meet you, my name is Rick. I am a paranoid schizophrenic. I hope that doesn't bother you." And it would be the detachment to these words, the way they were formed with such disregard for any stigma attached to them--From that introduction, it was an odd, tingling sense of a man who somehow managed to wake up every day, and place his square peg into a round hole; Well aware of his place in this world, and strikingly oblivious all at once. It was here that I decided that Rick was, quite certainly, the most unique human being I had personally ever had the opportunity to come across.

I had met Rick at a time in my life when I decided that it would be in my best interests to cease my formal learning in the California Eductional System, and instead enroll into the entirely unaccredited School of Hard Knocks; The University of Humanity at Large--Working a dead-end job to finnance a sort of experience, though an experience to what end I couldn't entirely be sure. If my broad observence of humanity was casual to this point, Rick would mark my first formal attempt at a case study.

He was, and still is I imagine, one of the untapped creative outlettes of the greater San Diego county; With his T-shirt just barely hanging over his belly, his tendancy to wear the same set of shorts each day, his habit of carrying a single half-gallon tub of rocky-road ice-cream across a half-mile, steamy parking lot and settle into shade. At that point, he once explained to me, somewhere in that last stretch of white-stenciled parking lanes, the icecream would reach just the right point of meltiness. A simple statement, surely, but profound all the same--He had quantified meltiness and in his own way, determined exactly how to measure it.

The shift I worked stretched after sunset, and ended each morning after I'd had a chance to see the sun rise over the foothills, blinding through a pane-glass storefront, but welcomed just the same. That we shared the same hours seemed to be the most obvious catalyst for what I can only describe as a mutant friendship. Pills, and diagnosis, psychiatrists, and instituions; He had enough of this, and I was entirely unqualified to provide such a role, even if I thought it was appropriate--Instead I gave him the sort of thing that could not be prescribed. An attentive ear, a friendly grin, a few soft words of rebuke when appropriate, and the constructive matter of encouragement otherwise. I was a voice to speak, and an ear to listen, in a place where neither could be readily found. In return, all I asked was the ruthless honesty that seemed to be entrenched in his condition.

And so, like clockwork, he would lumber near the store sometime after midnight, the choice hour of wakefulness, from the shade of a nearby dumpster; His smell, potent for at least the first ten minutes of each encounter, made my managers decide it was inappropriate that he actually enter the store more than just briefly. Instead, I would stretch cigarette breaks into hours, and we would discuss the ways of the world. And he would begin with any number of non-sequitors: "I think there is a man who has been following me." - "I haven't been taken my medication, Tim, and it helps me stay more alert." - "I can't believe they cut Tom Bombadil out of the Fellowship of the Ring, who do they think they are!?" - "Have you ever thought about quitting smoking? It isn't good for you, you know." He was a blunt, cutting, and really no-holds-barred type of conversationalist. At times, he demonstrated an almost childlike glee for life, coupled with an almost childlike sense of expectation. But this was not without a more adult, cynical side--Tiny ringlettes, barbs, often thrown into his words, testing to see if I was actively paying attention.

Over the course of our friendship, he confided in me the tale of how he had become, what he had become--And with a solemn oath, I promised not to repeat. And so, instead of focusing on his past, I will leave a small shard of his present; Consider a man, an obtuse creature, unfit for society at large. Consider the animate action of jumping whole-heartedly into puddles, or the calculated, cutting inclusion of well-timed humor. Consider the utter resilience of the human spirit, and the drive to exist. Consider that even in tragedy, there are soft spoken words, and brief friendships to be had, and consider that the man I have described was both as resilient to the outside word, as he was stubborn to conform to its solutions. Truly, willing to take both the bad, and the good, and wake up each day to place his square peg, in the world's round hole--Rick, my first case study of Humanity.
Tim at 10:26 PM