anti:freeze

me, standing in the doorway of an abandoned house - taken by Michael Totten

I spent Saturday exploring the strange rocks, tiny towns, abandoned houses, and painted hills of the Oregon desert. Go here if you want to see more pictures. I already miss the faint scent of sage on the breeze.

display window for an upscale children's clothing boutique, Pearl District

Imagine a childhood this soft, with cotton voile skirts and vegetable-dyed leather shoes, silky labels printed in sweet fonts. Henny Penny instead of Osh Kosh or Lee. Ergonomic bookbags. Flower-print bloomers. Chickies lined up in the store windows.

Sometimes I pause to watch the mothers as they browse through the racks, babies strapped securely to their backs or chests - with one of those Evenflo padded infant carriers. How soft does the world seem, as a boutique child?

Up close, the little chickies are painfully cute - the kind of adorable that makes my calves and wrists ache.

I wonder what all this softness does to the senses. How rough is the rest of the world, when your street is lined with fancy boutiques? How rough are your first used jeans, with seams that scratch against pampered thighs? How strange, the scent of linoleum in a warm bathroom, when your bare toes and bottom are accustomed to the cold clinks of ceramic?

lone tree in the Oregon desert, near the Painted Hills

I feel protective of this image for some reason. Maybe because the tree is so exposed. Or so distant.

I never planned to post it at all. This week of horrifying news changed my mind.

Sorry for my silence the past several days. I have been posting on evidentiary:alchemy, preparing for a possible move, and watching the shameful testimony of Donald Rumsfeld. Today, I need some quiet time and a long walk. More soon.

In the meantime, here are some links to important information:

Mock the Vote in Rolling Stone. An article about how college students are being illegally denied the right to vote.

FAA Manager Destroyed 9-11 Tapes, from the Washington Post:

According to the report, a second manager at the New York center promised a union official representing the controllers that he would "get rid of" the tape after controllers used it to provide written statements to federal officials about the events of the day.

Instead, the second manager said he destroyed the tape between December 2001 and January 2002 by crushing the tape with his hand, cutting it into small pieces and depositing the pieces into trash cans around the building, the report said.

The tape's existence was never made known to federal officials investigating the attack, nor to FAA officials in Washington. Staff members of the 9/11 panel found out about the tape during interviews with some controllers who participated in the recording.

One controller said she asked to listen to the tape in order to prepare her written account of her experience, but one of the managers denied her request.

The New York managers acknowledged that they received an e-mail from FAA officials instructing them to retain all materials related to the Sept. 11 attacks. "If a question arises whether or not you should retain the data, RETAIN IT," the report quoted the e-mail as saying.

You can also find information here, in The New York Times.

The Selective Service has proposed a whole new draft - for both men and women, all the way up to age 35.

And do not forget the private contractors in our military, and in particular, in the Iraq war.

Seymour Hersh lays out the chain of command in the US military torture scandal.

The Atlantic Monthly details how the Bush administration went Blind Into Baghdad.

Sunday. A teenage boy climbs onto a bench in our courtyard, lifts an imaginary machine gun to his shoulder, and fires several rounds into the apartment windows, laughing as he pauses to reload. When he finishes, he spits on the armrest and laughs.

This does reflect the general mood of the neighborhood.

Tuesday. A hypodermic needle on the back stairs.

Wednesday. I find an old letter from the property managers in my desk drawer. It was slipped under our door after a woman was murdered in the building next door. Do not worry. It was a domestic dispute.

Thursday. The man with the sunglasses tells me to fuck off when I smile and say hello.

This does reflect the general mood of the residents.

Friday. Blood on the pedestrian bridge again. And dried vomit on the back stairwell wall.

This does reflect the general condition of the building.

And rent is going up. I hate to think what would make it go down.

Despite all my brooding over recent bad news, I have been giddy and excited all week (another reason why not much has been posted here - a trend that soon will change. I promise.)

One of my essays, State Lines, has been accepted for publication in Quarter After Eight. It will appear in Volume 11, Spring 2005. I signed the contract this week. Hugs and smooches to Kelley for encouraging me to submit. (Really, Kelley. I mean that. Thank you, thank you, thank you. A thousand times, thank you.)

State Lines is part of my unpublished book, Last Seen.

I am still deep into research for an essay I was invited to contribute to another publication (hush hush for the moment - an announcement will be posted as soon as possible.)

This has been a good writing year so far. One publication, one invitation, and a freelance ghostwriting gig that literally saved my sanity. My electronic magazine, Invisible Insurrection, is coming together beautifully. Time to pinch myself? Not quite yet.

Icepick chipping at the bone above my eye. Shades closed tight on a sunny day. Towel over face. Wet washclosh over eyes. Desperate to throw up so the nauseau will go away. Silverware clinking in the apartment next door. Fork tines stabbed into eardrum. And the trains, squealing into Union Station. I dread and dread and dread the noise.

Migraines. I am finally recovering and longing to write.

ps: thanks to everyone for the kind and enthusiastic words about my publishing. I cannot wait to catch up on all your blogs ...

I was sitting in a cafe, watching people pass by on the sidewalk, when a man slapped a receipt down on my table and scurried away. He had sketched my back while I daydreamed, unaware that anyone was watching.

On the bottom right corner it says, draw backs.

It was exactly what I needed: proof that this life is real.

Thank you, Joshua, whoever you are

If I had to draw storyboards for the past several days, they would look like these images.

Sliced into frames. No distinction between movement and stillness, time and space. No distinctions at all. The phone may as well be a timebomb, the printer an EEG. The radio is tuned to two stations at once, and I cannot tune the dial, cannot tell which voice is right.