Road Notes: That California Trip

Amendment for 7/24:
San Francisco (Incarnate)

What to say today; what to say to bring my experience to you.

I could go on for pages about everything from the man walking next to me on the street crooning "Summerwind" or I could mention holding an original 1965 copy of Charles Bukowski's chapbook Confessions of a Man Insane Enough to Live with Beasts, a book older than me and rarer despite me being a single original.

Instead, I will say that we just passed by a happy young man in Daisy Dukes and a silk muscle shirt walking his dog; his poodle; his fluffy white poodle, which had been dyed bright pink all over except for its paws and tail which were dyed a bright teal.

The teal tail wagged and wagged as the pink poodle passed us by, and ladies und gentlemen, I must tell you, when a pink poodle passes you wagging its teal tail, you are in San Francisco.
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Road Notes, July 25, 2004: Alleging My Way Over Rapid City, South Dakota

I feel on the verge of a Coleridgian moment, but that paranoia might be caused by the 231 people around me; absence makes the heart grow fonder, flying in coach makes the heart cry out for a slippery grip on a baseball bat.

RN: Moaning Over Wyoming at 7 Miles

Why would anyone wear swimming trunks on an airline flight? Especially one that isn't crossing any significant body of water? The shame is, if I ask, I'm sure to be arrested -- I know how I ask questions.

RN: Somewhere Above the Joys of Nebraska

I have realized through rum and revelation that at its fundament, I do have a perfect life. Since the inverse is naturally true as well, this means that my life has a perfect ass. Remember that the next time you see me.

RN: Hopefully Over Minnesota by Now

Am I on time, positive and particular, if I can manage as many letters as miles travelled? What about words themselves, do I have that stamina? Hell, why stop there, why not challenge myself with sentences or paragraphs, chapters or pages?

Somewhere around 3600 miles have ribboned into my travelogue while flying from Madison to gorgeous San Francisco and back again -- do I have that much in me, words and sentences, paragraphs and phrases, chapters and pages to match an endlessly ejaculated voyage alighted to a pounding breast? Do I have so much in me??

Fuck yes, I do.

Road Notes: Finale: To Write As the World Spools By

I have at last connected the coasts, smelt the salt air from this nation's thigh to thigh, wrapt both in sticky fog. Now, rum in hand, I hang in the air over a fleeing desert and realize that this moment is an ultimatum; the plane will keep moving, my body will land in the place I call home, but I will still be suspended, hanging breathless between fleeing desert and glittering darkness, one question now capitalized in my mind:

Chris -- What about yourself do you have faith in?

I have been hiding under the security of my book "Cursed" for nearly ten years, and just like nights when it is too frightful to shut the television before trying to sleep I have been afraid to peek out from under my book's covers.

Connecting the coasts lifted a corner; and there is a rush in knowing one has become self-crafted as fearless.

So here I hang now, in the glittering darkness, peeking out with a corner of the Earth raised, my life a clean Phoenix risen and clothed in the caparison of a dragon, my breath held until I answer this one devastating question:

Am I ready to be me?

My breath is held behind a grin that could worry dynamite:

"Yum," I say. "Yum."

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