Back in Japan.

This trans-continental travel thing has simply got to stop. In the last month or so I have covered almost 15,000 miles. And I have the scars to prove it. My bowels have long since stopped working properly. I haven't know what day it is since at least thursday, whenever that was. Being home, and it does feel like home now, almost seems like a luxury. Tokyo, Minneapolis, Houston, Minneapolis, Portland, Eugene, Tokyo...

Time zones are irrelevant, sleep is irrelevant, you will be nauseous.

Surrounded now by LPs and zen, robots and pollution, apathy and self-effacement.

Thank you, whoever delivered me here finally.

Not that it wasn't delicious to see everyone again, don't get me wrong. It just that so little of life seems worth talking about after a year that small talk is all I could seem to muster. "Been a long time... So, um... You're out now? How's that feel?"

The changes are just so unapproachable that it's a all or nothing kind of talk.

"Had a baby.. Got married, father died... Seen any good movies lately?"

This kind of communication felt so forced and stilted that it was almost like there wasn't anyone else in the room, or that I was just one more person that needed an explaination of a long since unfunny inside joke. Don't mind me, I'm just "that guy who lives in Japan."

Just when it seems that the connection is gone, withered or lost, sometimes we get lucky in the strangest ways. Trying to explain it now, and the particulars of it would seems silly, but when 200 people are straining to hear what you are saying, and this sudden stranger looks like he's about to die of happiness... well, it all melts away. You can remember that it doesn't matter, that the important thing is that even though time and distance and money and love and work and death have shattered the mirror, we are reflected in each piece. Enough so that the image is clear and one is able to swim in it again.

If only for the afternoon.

Peace,

J.

The reason for the season?

It's the longest night of the year. People long ago thought this to be significant, and in a lot of very real ways, it is. None of those ways have anything to do with what we celebrated the other day.

It's going to just get colder from now on, for at least three moons. so if you don't have your shit together, you are going to die. Furs? Check. Flint? Check. Dried meats? Check.

Oh shit. We are out of nuts, and all the sticks got wet.

See you in the next life.

So why all the fucking shopping? Not that I don't like to get stuff, and the giving isn't bad either. But really. Its got nothing to do with life. Or does it?

Some dudes with long white coats and clipboards and shit say that being alone, or just lonely, triggers the same panic response in our brains as the threat of starvation. Tell someone that you never want to see them again or tell them that the sandwich they just ate is the last food they will see for three and a half days, and the same little part of the brain lights up bright-red on a PET scan.

Oh shit, I'm out of friends and everyone knows what I did.

See you in the next life.

So maybe that's what were all doing at the mall, wandering around, glazed and perused. We are just bunking in for the long cold winter ahead, trying to make sure that come spring, we are still alive and have a reason to come out of the cave.

Peace,

J.