298/365

everyone is out.
to classes or working:
mary lane is empty
but for gabe and me.
the san diego sun
drowns our living room
in a lattice of beams.
i’ve chosen to cut class today
to listen to mellon collie
and the infinite sadness.
it will become the soundtrack
to the end of nineteen ninety five
and much of nineteen ninety six.
twenty six years ago:
we’re twenty one years old:
unencumbered and impetuous.
the introductory piano lines
an open door to twenty eight songs
running the gamut between
the sacred and profane.
jason will hate most of it and complained
loudly and often about corgan’s whiny voice
and the rat in a cage line.
never one to champion victimhood,
one assumes he felt the band
lacked integrity or grit.
knowing the job like obstacles
he had cleared even then,
i can see why he might
not respect a pasty bald narcissist.  
but not me- i crawled into those songs
and hid behind the wall of sound
treating each tune like a nest
in which to find shelter,
from which to jump.

gabe and i spent the whole
day with the songs:
in the yard, on the floor,
in his car, on walks to the taco place,
it was dark and night
when we finally powered off:

the sun shines but i don't
a silver rain will wash away
and you can't tell, it's just as well
goodnight, my love, to every hour in every day
goodnight, always, to all that's pure that's in your heart.

the songs
remain embedded
in the ventricles.
held in place
by the loose
tapestry of memory.

233/365

wine and cheese
a few cocktails.
soft music:
the decemberists
and phoebe bridgers.
close friends
sharing first time
told stories-
the car crash in mexico,
the possum in the fridge,
and veetus the one-legged
russian neighbour being sprayed
by the hose as the couch goes up
in flames at mary lane.
it’s a miracle anyone cares
enough about anyone to listen
to their stories.

162/365

there was that night he worked until eleven thirty as a bar-back at that random three-story bar on mission beach in san diego where he didn’t know anybody and no one knew him, just running up and down the stairs carrying ice and bottles and kegs being ignored by the staff and the customers and rather than go home to that tiny apartment with the jack in the boxes wrappers on the floor and the cockroaches and the stale smell of isolation and loneliness, he decided to get in his car, crank up that stone temple pilots song that always felt like a road trip and make his way north up the four-o-five through the tangle of los angeles to the grapevine, to 1-5 the main artery of california and keep the needle at a steady one hundred ten, eyes open for the looming lights in the darkness that would try and slow him down, hoping to make oakland by dawn, the city shimmering across the bay and onto the richmond bridge up to novato where they would still be sleeping after a long friday night, the dog on a bed, bottles on the countertops, and the tattered mat that read welcome home.

115/365

i don’t remember
ever doing laundry
in my twenties:
not in san diego
not in san rafael
not in novato
not in san francisco
not in new your city.
there must have
been jars of quarters
and laundry bags
and laundromats,
hours of hungover
waiting. reading
big sur, tropic of cancer,
hells angels and love
is a dog from hell.

as a matter of fact,
i don’t remember
ever buying clothes
in my twenties.
things fell
into my lap.
picked up
from the floor.
here and there.
took that shirt
from his places
in santa barbara and la,
cut up those
fox motorcross pants
and wore them to
classes before
dropping out.
checkered chef’s pants
worn as long shorts
with a singlet
to pier 23.
maybe some
goodwill slacks
and vintage tees.

but i must have
washed the clothes
somehow. somewhere.
because,
the one time
jeff brought home
jewel that pitbull
when we all shared a room
in that place on mary lane  
and all our clothes
jumbled on the floor
and the dog
was seldom walked
and it got stuck
in the room overnight
and in the morning
the whole room stank
and we couldn’t find
the turd;
i probably didn’t
leave the house
smelling like dog shit.

or maybe I did.
i don’t remember
ever doing laundry
in my twenties.

Bigger Pieces of You

One of my favorite toys as a kid was my dad’s wine opener. It was one of the ones that has two long arms that rise as you twist the cork; I used to pretend it was a scrawny metal robot doing jumping jacks. I used to grab it from the table on Saturday mornings from the rest of the debris as my parents slept upstairs. The smell of stale smoke and wine fumes in the air. Glasses laced with ruby rings and overflowing ash trays. The stereo was still on and a Neil Young record sat gathering dust. The low grade buzz silenced as I turned it off and sleeved the vinyl to make sure it was safe.


I would lay on my stomach and use the wine opener to attack Luke as if it was a droid from Tatoonine. Until of course Han Solo would come and save Luke yet again and defeat the wine-opener droid.


My childhood was lonely but happy. Filled with hours of solitary play. I don’t ever remember anyone actually actively playing with me. I often entertained myself on the periphery of political debates, long hours in the darkroom and empty Saturday mornings.

…

I took some kids from my Mentor class to dinner and laser tag tonight. Not everyone could make it, and it was the smallest group I have taken out to date, but they had a blast. It was a good reminder that all connections and teaching need not always be for every kid all the time. You spot teach and connect with those who need it when you can. This random group of six kids tonight, would not have been out together if it wasn’t for our outing. And a few of them probably would not have been out at all. We ate, We chatted. We shot each other with lasers and then we went our separate ways.


If you want to build community and connect to kids they need to trust you and they will never trust you if they only see you in teacher mode. They need bigger pieces of you. Some people might not agree or not have the time, but the truth is that the student teacher relationship is a human one, and as humans we need to let down our guard and relinquish the authority teacher student dichotomy. You want a kid to trust you, they need to know you. I know that an few hours eating Nando’s and running around in the dark is not enough for this kind of connection but it is a step in the right direction.

…

“Wow I didn’t know guitars could sound like that.” Kaia listening to the solo at the end of Seven Nation Army on the way to McRitche today. She has been obsessed with the song since she saw a middle school mad play it at Sound Asylum.


I was so proud of my girls for hiking the trail with zero complaints. Kaia even had blisters and she sucked it up. They were wet and muddy and hot and sweaty and all into the creeks and trails and having fun in the jungle.


Kids need so much more time in nature than we give them. Living in a city and following an intense structured international school system, our kids need dedicated consistent time running and playing in the mud. Free to get dirty and make mistakes and take risks.

…

I closed my eyes and thought of a memory:


I was living in Mission Beach with Jeff in a one bedroom place that housed his motorbike in the living room. I can’t recall how long we lived there or where I slept. Did I have a room? A bed? That detail feels unimportant. I do remember flooding the floor one night. Riding his bicycle to Caroline’s house for a keg- me on the handle bars screaming and waving away the people. I remember cockroaches and the darkness, but somehow seldom the ocean. Why did I not learn to surf in those days or ever swim in the wave? I worked at a series of shitty jobs and called you on the payphone from across the street because I was lonely and only your voice seemed to make it all go away.