Sunny Smoky Morning

He couldn't fall back asleep.  The first he remembered thinking about was an old cabin.  It was now his, but wasn't always.  It was cursed, or rather, it held cursed objects.  The objects were letters or maybe books.  They had to be destroyed.  The thought was terrifying.

Then, all he could think about was learning how to skateboard.  What type of clothing should he wear?  Would it be a good idea to wear pads?  Would they be comfortable?   Do other skateboarders wear them?  It was quite a moment of regression.

Eventually, he left bed.  It would still be a few hours until the sun came up.

Order and Progress

I've never been to Brazil, but their flag has become an important symbol in my life.  Maybe it is an important symbol of my life.  The words "Order and Progress" seem like good ones to have on a flag.  It's strange to juxtapose them over a field of stars though.  Is outer space the direction Brazil would like to go?  They have a space program, and can launch their own satellites.  NASA says they have an ideal launch site since the country is right along the equator. 

I don't know much about Brazil, but it seems like a good place.  "Order" isn't something I'd associate with Brazil, but I don't know.  "United" doesn't seem to describe a lot of the USA, so it's not a big deal one way or the other.  Maybe that's unfair as well.  America sure does have a lot of different people in it and it sure is really big.  We are probably more united than it seems.  Large media is starting to look more like reality television programming all the time.  It's just not that way in real life. 

Final Magic Hour

These photos are really important to me.  This was one of the last days we had on Skillman St.  The times at Skillman were full of change.  I was living a different life there.  It wasn't like any time before it.  It was when Emily and I fell in love.  Skillman St. taught me a lot of lessons.

This backyard made me feel wonder.  It had a timelessness to it that only comes from well written fairy tales or something.  Some people have all the luck.  Those people are us.  It's never just luck though.  Everyone earns it. 

What a weird place.  We should have checked passports at the door.

These are artifacts of those times.  I'm not sure what one might make of them if they didn't already know.  Some clues we left behind are pretty clear, others rather mysterious.  I hope they are appreciated, but it doesn't really matter.  I remember as a child I would leave behind misleading clues.  Maybe I'd fashion a little doll out of sticks and leave it in the woods like in the "Blair Witch Project" or build a harmless wall of leaves that blocked a seldom used trail.  I'd cover my tracks, walk backwards in the sand, and tie strips of fabric to branches at random.  Once walking back from sledding in the park, I got a bloody nose.  Instead of trying to stop it, I left a long line of bright red blood spots in the snow thinking someone might try to follow it through the park.  It sure was creepy.  Sometimes these clues had a purpose, but most of the time it was just to keep my hands busy, just to leave a mark.  I'd leave little totems around my school too.  Once we were reading a story about the KKK in English class.  I made a tiny little KKK man out of a scrap of white paper and left it near the black board.  The next day when we came in our teacher had a serious look on her face.  She found the tiny paper man and was very upset.  I told everyone in the class I did it and I didn't know why.  I didn't do it because I liked what it represented, it was a monster.  It didn't seem like it was wrong, but all the teacher saw was a symbol of hate, a symbol made by one of her students.  It was a mistake, I guess.  Mysteries scare people.  I guess I got a kick out of the idea of freaking someone out in the woods.  Philip Guston painted hooded figures quite a bit, and supposedly he hated the Klu Klux Klan.  Art critics sometimes say his hoods are masks, and the artist is wearing the mask, hiding.  Maybe that's true, but it's probably not so clear, it's just a mystery. 

The Silver Screen

This is the Silver Screen.  It's seen better days, or rather, it has been seen on better days.

It's like a bar code, or DNA code.

When I was a kid, I saw Carl Sagan's "Cosmos".  One episode he explains gravity.  By using a large flat plane of elastic fabric and rolling orbs of different sizes around the surface, he illustrated how the masses of great bodies exert pull on one another.  It had a profound effect on my perception of the universe around me.