Brightly Lit Red Arrow

What is a blog page if there isn't anything new to read on the regular? An empty womb incapable of providing life. A cracked glass unable to hold its liquid. A ghost town on the edge of extinction. I no longer write. I no longer keep up. I no longer read. I no longer care. I have a stack of unread novels dick-deep that I am nowhere near getting through. They just sit there piled up in a corner... awaiting my interest. I'm sitting down now for the first time in awhile, fully expecting to complete a new blog entry, but I'll be honest... I have no idea if I'll complete it. Nor do I care either way. I'm not writing for you and I no longer write for me, so that doesn't provide much hope for either of us. Ghost town, baby. That's where we've found ourselves.

Why the sudden shift, guy? You seem to have been on a positive path recently. Sure, sure. I do not discount the fact that I've made remarkable strides toward future tranquility, however, I find no shame in sharing my disappointing lows along with my inspiring highs; I am human after-all. And if you, dear loving reader(s), find yourself sharing only the good stuff in your life while purposefully trying to hide and ignore all of the bad, well... allow me to be the first to say... you are cheating. Not only are you cheating others, but you're also cheating yourself. Own up to the moments when you feel unworthy or ashamed. Own up to those moments when you feel shitty and miserable and can't exactly reason why. We all carry an enormous amount of bullshit throughout our lives and we all do a remarkable job in hiding the fact. Well, I'm not here to hide shit from you. My purpose is to share, and in doing so I find myself sharing the bad with the good, yet I feel so alone in doing so. I don't get anything back from you. Sometimes, every once in a blue moon, I get a comment saying "well said, Mick". Thank you, I like being appreciated. But seriously, what do I know about YOU? How often have you shared with me? All I ask is that you remember this the next time you judge me for being so bloggingly pessimistic. K?

So, we've established that my current state of mind is not so stellar. Fine, so be it. We've also concluded that we've all been there and done that. Cool, cool. Let's move on, shall we? Okay, I will lead the way, as usual.

The couple that moved into the house across the street are interesting. I rent an apartment that overlooks the main street from here all the way to there, so I notice any changes that occur in the meantime. The house I'm referring to used to be occupied by a family of renegade losers. They beat up the block with relentless disregard. They stayed up late, played their music loudly, cursed wildly into the night, revved their vehicle engines while racing up and down the street, and allowed their dogs to bark incessantly every single night. I am glad they are gone. I'm pretty sure they were evicted from their home. They left it in complete disarray. But now there is a new couple who moved in. They've been steadily working day after day to revert this home back into a suitable form of living. Actually let me make a correction: SHE has been doing all the work, not HIM. I've seen him show up and disappear into the house on numerous occasions while she stays outside all day long fixing the fence, cutting the lawn, trimming the hedges, and cleaning up various garbage piles from around the house. I've watched this woman work so hard that even I broke out in a sweat, but that's not saying very much for her man. Who knows, maybe he's hard at the internals?

Either way.

I came home today after a long bicycle ride, went to my fridge and poured myself a drink. I walked to the living room, pulled back the blinds, and there she was... sitting in her van with the door swung open, street side. At first I thought she was doing lines of coke off the crook of her thumb and I immediately thought to myself, "Yep, she totally deserves that." She's a hard working woman, after-all. But after spying on her through my window for a few minutes I realized she was applying make-up to her face. For a really long time. She had a full sized vanity mirror propped up on her steering wheel and a bag of make-up perched on her leg. Her tan and white pit bull sat in the passenger seat panting, watching her as she applied each layer. This went on for a very long time. She went through every option in her little make-up purse, applying everything she felt was needed. I watched this woman transform herself from a yard mule to garden jewel in the span of a half an hour. She still wore the sweaty clothes she worked in all day, but her face now resembled Mona Lisa. When she was finished she got out of her van, walked her dog over to the backyard tree, locked him up and disappeared inside for a moment. I thought she was going to change, but instead she reappeared a few seconds later wearing the same clothes and left to go somewhere.

We should all be more like her: work hard, get shit done, fix yourself up, go have fun. I think that's the point of me writing this.

Recently I have fallen in love with mountains. Not just any mountains, but the ones with a high enough elevation that maintain snow cover year round. In other words, I have become an alpine mountaineer. I say that loosely, however, for I have only summited one mountain so far: Mt Adams in Washington, but I have attempted Mt Hood here in Oregon and will be returning again very soon. After a successful Hood summit, I will then set my sights on the North Sister, then Jefferson, then St Helens, then Mt Shasta in California followed by Mt Rainer in Washington. I will summit these peaks again and again because I find myself completely drawn to them. Once I've climbed these mountains enough times to feel comfortable in my abilities, I will then direct my attention toward the highest peak in North America: Mt McKinley (aka Denali). This is what consumes my thoughts now. Like my neighbor and her make-up, I constantly apply my thoughts and research into snowcapped mountains I can climb. I spend countless hours watching internet videos and documentaries about all the 8,000 meter peaks. Granted, I don't really know if I'd ever end up attempting to summit something like K2 or Annapurna, but still, it grips my waking thoughts nonetheless. I have found a new passion; that's all I can say.


Well, I suppose that's all I have to say right now. Carry on, happy fappers.