It's nearly August

I am sleeping on a floor without a futon, windows full of sun to the east each morning. It's hard to get out of bed before 11am when you are just then adjusting to a good level of comfort on the thermarest and the mummy bag and you didn't get back from work until 11pm, the next day starting 14 hours later. It's like the dial of your daily life gets turned clockwise about 4 hours, and there is no time to write. But I lay in this room sucking sleep from the waning morning long enough to feel like the potential of Seattle pushes against the windows and the ceiling. So when I get up I instantly feel like the pressure releases, and when I walk to the grocery store, see people walking their dogs or restaurants mingling between the breakfast and lunch crowd, and the sun pours down on this place so newly called home, the pressure is gone and the potential burns. I am so young in this city.

It's almost that magic month of August, and my birthday month will bring even more solidity to this move than July carried. A new home on the horizon, a new job for the year, continued growth in myself and in my relationships with others. All the hard work continuing and the benefits showing themselves in some very intangible ways, an unexpected kind of growth for a man who has relied and often thrived on instant gratification.

In Deep End - Dance

About a month ago, in the heart of an already challenging time up in Washington, my singular '95 Chevy was impounded, towed, released and towed again to a shop called Clary's where it sat way too long to get fixed after a sudden CLANGdropBLAMrattlerattle over Interstate 5 disabled her and kept her from going into anything greater than third gear, much less into reverse. Insert new transmission over long time. And a few weeks ago my beloved dirty, woodchip-filled, food-stained, paint-pealing car with San Diego sage hanging from the mirror replaced my too-new rented Kia sport sedan with the tight turning radius and sunglasses compartment. Nothing has been quite the same since.

The next day I interviewed for an activism job and was working three hours later. As I patrolled the hilly and lavish area between the University of Washington and Lake Washington in the same clothes I had on that morning, I wondered what vehicle had brought me to this point? A few days later a charming room in the back of a clean, wifi-equipped college house outside the University district of Seattle came up and I took it, with east sunrise windows and a pair of walk-in closets above a laundry room opening themselves for me and all which will happen for the duration of the summer. Now, a week and a half later I am on board at the Democratic National Committee while I continue to look at teaching opportunities for the fall. 

A new trannie and all of a sudden things start to click. If the trannie were a human body part, I think it may be the nasal cavity. Not the lungs, yet similar.  You really don't get the most out of the air you breathe unless your nasal cavity is clean and well oiled. 

Today Americans (and a hilly gathering of people in Rebild, Denmark) celebrate American Independence. And around the world there are celebrations like Reunification Day in Germany, May Two-Four in Canada, other calendar days of significance for people around the world that, for many reasons, I think we need to celebrate on our own independence day to honor the freedoms of others as well as our own. Why not just think on them? It's a long day, and you have time to consider all of them.