Cymbal Monkey

It means look inside the dark places to see if there can be sky.

This little rectangular photo, of paper and ink and a moment in time when my father was a grown-up boy, playing on the beach with the other boys, turning handstands and backflips: I can smell the fresh and sweaty salt in his hair, hear the shouts and laughter and gulls through the wind gushing in my ears and the surf shushing everyone: I feel grit in my teeth and the nearly-overwhelming urge to be at the sea.

Yesterday a complete stranger bought me lunch, and it was good.
But in the big room many chairs were empty, and only one of us
Sat on the side with the ones he did not know.

Nature reclaims the old hotel’s outside even as the new owners renovate the lobby. The fences do not hold. Even the trees make secrets of trodden paths.

In this park the oaks and magnolias tower overhead. The creek bed is deep, but the water is shallow, revealing its egg-shaped rocks.

Thus, the ground is at loge level, a mezzanine between canopy and the underground.

I crossed this bridge when I came to it.

And then I crossed it again to have a better look.

Signs of Man

I imagine that I’m following the river overland, no signs of man for days.  Yes, there are still places that is possible.

I come to this bridge.  In actuality it is still in regular use, but I can imagine it abandoned by men, left as a sign, a remnant.

Underneath the bridge at the Clark County line, the river flows gently in the cool winter afternoon.

It is quiet today, and the sun thickens the February-thin air, warming it in spirit if not in fact.

Well, I got hacked!  Congratulations to the geniuses behind that little caper, as they managed not only to interrupt a tiny personal blog that no one even looks at, but also to completely squander the opportunity to use their hacking skills to send a message other than that they are illiterate asses.  Nice work, guys.

Now I will undertake to restore my own content, and they will undoubtedly move on to some other equally-magnificent and world-changing feat.

Before I end, though, I would like to say a word or two about responsible hacking.

First of all, you should know why you hack. If you are hacking only because you have no other hobbies, no pastimes that actually add something good to the world, strive to make it better (or at least more interesting) in some way, STOP right there, and slowly back away from the keyboard.  Call your mom and try to remind yourself of a goal–any goal–you once had, even for a minute, that might have made her proud.  Think of how you could pursue that goal instead of this one which wastes your life away.

If you decide to stay in the game, know what you want.  And, want something real.  It isn’t really enough to want me, a smalltime vanity administrator, to “Patch [my] shit, yo.”  You have to admit, you will get nothing out of it if I do except a more-challenging hack next time.  This amounts to nothing, yo.  So, develop a list of demands, at least.  Craft a message for your highjacking redirect that makes a real statement–about the world, conditions in your neighborhood, the joys of a perfect martini, man’s inhumanity to man, whatever.  “U got hacked” is unworthy of your talents.

And finally, for God’s sake, don’t be a Johnny-one-note. Get some sun, maybe take a lesson or two in English grammar.  This hacking thing, it pays for shit.  And it makes people pity you, you poor, pathetic thing.

That is all.