Room for None.

Oh shit yes, you're here girl. Blocks where I first laid my crosshairs on you, girl. I was hollerin' at my boy just this mornin' 'bout how you'd be crawlin' back to get some more of this. You was all over my shit last night at karaokee. Askin' me for some of my two-dollar tots...when girl you knew it was free game. Then I figured it was free game and asked you to duet some of that new Killer's bullshit and you was all, "that shit sets me right off, matty." So it was on, you hit the highs and I was all-up on those lows, hoes. Then we scattered back to the Motel matty with a grip of some whack-ass websters that were all, "let's post-okee some of that Fems back at room 86ed." I wasn't gonna be all, "nah, not tonight lads." But you had to be knowin' I just wanted it to be you and some matty kickin' it to some Marshall Mathers, while I be craftin' some tops-shelf microwave noodles for us to dine on. It's cool though, because we got some time to just talk about shit that just blew my mind straight off, canvassing. You was all twenty-five completes and two positive interactions, and I was all yeah we really shared something tonight, girl. And now you back in the spot to get all round two on matty, well girl welcome to Motel Matty; we gots to be wakin' around eleven.

A Wolf at the Door.

I’ve never been the one to flaunt a clean bill of health; mainly because I’ve never had the opportunity to do so. You see, I’m not the fresh-faced student that receives the year-end perfect attendance award. No Christmas bonus will ever alleviate my family’s holiday spendings, for this body will never fend off disease for a yearly duration. But I don’t request all your thoughts, sympathy, or goodwill intentions. You see, I’m selfish and not always deserving of such. A kind gesture or light inquiry is all I desire or deserve. The constant pains I endure are not all brought upon by myself, but I’m not exactly breaking a sweat to take the best care of myself either. You see, I’ll never be confused as your considerate friend or your healthy brother or your innocent son. I’m not pulling the wool over anyone’s eyes on this, it’s fact and shouldn’t come as a surprise to anyone. However, I have lately been receiving your thoughts, sympathy, and goodwill intentions. I have friends altering their own actions and rutted behaviors to aid my debilitated movements. I have siblings (one of true relation) exclaiming for me to take better care of myself and stating that they will provide any necessary support to see that I do. I have my parents concerned and offering aid, and friend’s parents praying for my health in the most sacred places in the most sacred of lands! Thank you. Thanks so much, but please suppress some of this concern. Don’t get me wrong, all of this attention has helped, I’m just not deserving of it all. I mean, if roles were reversed would I be providing this kind of support or attention? I hope that I would, but I’m just not sure how selfish I really am.

The Great Trans-Alaskan Pipe Dream.

Here it goes. The doubters will believe and the believers will be disappointed. Having recently caught up with an old friend in a present time conjured up strong associations and shared interests. By the time of our first face-to-face in some three years, myself & my former housemate(slash)boss, I had long passed on the pursuit of any profession or future involvement in public radio. The window had been shut by now, the ears were listening to the newly accustomed monitor hums from a cubicle and not a booth. Yet, a simple breakfast at a Killingsworth café near the end of this reunion and celebration for separate futures, sprang a moment of spontaneity where the former housemate(slash)subordinate decided to question time’s passing and inquire about a reunited future of sorts. I should have a more narrow vision by twenty-five, but what about expanding oneself and furthering optional avenues? The latter I had been pondering for some time, and had now seized on a slim opportunity to do so. Managing to land a second position in musicland could reopen this tightened artery, and allow myself to build upon past experience. This may be a favored balance to graduate school intentions in environmental planning in the not-too-far future. Managing to land an advanced schooling in studying the not-too-far future would keep a functional artery opened, and allow myself to build upon past education. This can wait ‘til autumn. Wake up! There isn’t much time before the window is completely closed and you can no longer escape down this closing passage. Clutch onto any sort of chance you have and ask the housemate(slash)boss about an escape. Hell, the friend(slash)friend is in front of you eating salmon cakes! So I asked him about aiding his community radio station this summer for a month or so, expecting little more than a passing glance and smile, and he throws back some gurgled direction about a possible paid-internship. Which brings us a month later, where I have now sent off the necessary pre-requisitions for a potential chance to intern in musicland and view the Great Northwest:

Michael,
Thank you for your consideration for this desired position.
[attached: Steven Gehrke KIAL Cover Letter.wpd, Steven Gehrke KIAL Resume.wpd]

Sincerely,
Steven Gehrke

ALARM: Believers, don’t forget the preface.

Enjoy your day, sister!

Tomorrow will be the twenty-fourth birthday of my one and only sibling, Jackelyn. She is a unique woman that I have so little in common with on the immediate surface, but a greatly shared bond in everything that is of significant meaning to me. It is only presently becoming easier to view her as a mature woman, now that I am spending the sixth of her last seven natal celebrations apart from her; viewing her maturation from afar. Throughout this period (and our entire lives), I have been fortunate to be given every opportunity to succeed and pursue my dreams while she has been forced to encounter numerous hardships and misfortunes. Selfishly, I rarely stop to think of everything she has accomplished and done despite these unwanted restrictions. Instead, I usually get lost in my next careless adventure or meaningless accomplishment and unknowingly gloat, while she is living with and helping to care for my wonderful parents...not to mention my grandmother, who is currently amidst some difficult health issues. She has chosen this path of nurture and familial concern despite her past of irrational behavior, and I have somewhat narcissistically chosen to unintentionally distance myself from those desired traits despite my past of apparently rational behavior. Are we simply following deeply embedded gender roles? I am not too sure nor concerned, I suppose. I just know I owe to her a great deal of gratitude that, at most times in our lives, has not been displayed. So, thank you Jackie and have a great birthday (I wish I could be there to spend it with you, but you know I can’t stand that small town of ours!)!

What will the turn of the monthly calendar bring?

Additional responsibilities were being presented to me as late as last week at my lowly position on the corporate totem pole. Signs that the duration of my temporary fit into the machine may become more permanent than I had initially perceived. That, however, was as lasting as a dry spell in a Portland season other than summer. Over the course of this week past, I have witnessed a severe fleecing of my recent expansion in professional duties to a degree that has left me with a workload equivalent in time delegation to that of your basic teenage neighborhood babysitter. I only loosely miss the direct interpretation of the word when I state that the work my position is obligated to accomplish, in a daily manner, has been decimated. This is referred to by honchos of the great machine as "phasing out," and is an act that is sheepishly applauded and cherished by heads of these totem poles, who flaunt their distinguished familial crests. Leaving the bottom of the post in an endless struggle of keeping his segment from being pressed into the settling mud by the pressure of the figureheads - until the base is forced to move on and leave another in his unfavorable position. It appears that I am being forced into the wet ground and will only be able to breathe, if I take action upon the writing that has recently appeared on the proverbial dry-erase board. Bringing me once again to the undesired position of searching for sparsely available gratifying work, which will likely turn-up fruitless and force me to temporarily contract my labor to another emotionless machine that leaves me without the personal aspirations of human healthcare and mental gratification. Fortunately, plans of summertime travel followed by graduate school enrollment are underway and keep thoughts of future progression positive.

"Three feet deep is three feet too shallow, gravedigger."

Many of us have old vices in our past that we are convinced to have permanently loosened years ago. We have deceived ourselves to believe that there is no possible way these long-suppressed escapes could resurface into our present lives that are resonating with responsibility and advancement. Through the practiced tactics of displacement and education, the vices that once had an overbearing control of a psyche that was starving for altered experiences and constant action have been left to remain in those four-years. But sometimes we have a directionless will that reappears to us, which reminds us that we are weak to these avoided frailties that we all have; no matter how deep the present gravedigger buries them. Recent physical limitations seem to have directly led to a coup d’etat on the improved regime, seemingly indestructibly built on newly practiced tactics. Thankfully for this new regime, the gravedigger realizes his lapse and will continue to dig until his labor is complete. Yet, the vice still needs to be continuously loosened through deserved resentment since it will never completely be removed from the present, even if it is buried in our distanced pasts.

Our beloved disenfranchised trailblazer.

This dreary and bleak season has been an enduring and disheartening one, full of unsuccessful yearning and achieving in the romantic life of our disenfranchised trailblazer. The past winter has witnessed copious amounts of precipitation beat the rooftops, treetops and hillsides of this weathered and sequestered community, leaving a forced solitude for many, including our disenfranchised trailblazer. Self-embattlement and endless introspection left our disenfranchised trailblazer with an undesired emotional dependence to the damp and darkened climate, which we all know, is a formula for a slump in any facet of life’s game, especially that of love. But have we all been wronged by our disenfranchised trailblazer? With one week remaining in the season, our disenfranchised trailblazer has found one of both a physical and mental attraction more than desired, an honest idea that the supporters had long ago dismissed. A melancholy season had suddenly seemed more than salvageable for our disenfranchised trailblazer, for he has discovered a supporter who believed he may possess more than youthful potential and unattainable aspirations. Although it appears we were wronged by our disenfranchised trailblazer, we have in fact become a blind victim of belief. It has been recently brought to attention that the delightful new supporter of our disenfranchised trailblazer will be temporarily relocating away from our desperately hopeful city for the upcoming season. A new season that had miraculously appeared from this struggling season of disappointing effort and development, which is happily concluding for our disenfranchised trailblazer. Perhaps our beloved disenfranchised trailblazer also needs to relocate next season to rebuild, restock and, eventually, reintroduce his game to an eager and refreshed base of supporters.

An out-of-line profile.

You view a stranger from afar and find their actions to be fascinating and captivating. This completely unknown figure has quirks and general idiosyncracies that are intoxicating to you; conjuring up premature thoughts of a shared future that is absent of a present. Almost instantaneously, you have become enthralled by an object whose existence was unknown in the prior moment. Being drawn to, you decide on approaching this fascination with awkward steps confident in hopeful intentions. As this attraction nears, you find what the earlier voyeur in you had seen as near perfection and delight to be riddled with flaws of superficiality and actions of the intrusive sort. Somehow this intriguing stranger has become someone very mundane possessing beliefs and opinions that you have never found to be inviting or valued. Fortunately, you have been oblivious to the knowledge that this now unwanted guest to the present has traveled the identical path, the entire duration; reaching the same unwanted conclusion.

Unwanted guest: "I am happy to have given this experience a try, but we are completely different people."

Gracious host: "As am I, and I would have to agree. Good luck in your future."

I, anonymous.

Reclaim your dignity, shave your ironic mustache.

In the world of meaningful existence there is no place for you ironic mustache. You awkwardly appear on the face of so many identity seeking twenty-somethings, including one table bussing dolt. Next time I dine at your velvet laded venue of employment, I will be sure to specify that a portion of my tip goes to you in the form of a shiny quarter so that when your excruciatingly challenging day of employment is finished you can insert it in a nearby pinball machine. Better yet, seize the opportunity and flip this new found prosperity to determine whether or not to shave your face and pursue that college degree or to continue your free fall into the annals of pop culture mishaps. Lets all hope the coin lands with the well groomed face of George Washington staring at you, ironic mustache. Otherwise you will be left with a limited house of potential with Tom Selleck and John Oates lying face down on the roof. I must admit your antic had me laughing at first, but then I relapsed into my gratifying sense of worth and you remained reveling at your ridiculous lip cover. So tomorrow when you wake up, stop the mental masturbation to Burt Reynolds and take a long look at your minor attempt to revive an unwanted past. You will see in those private eyes that you can now finally evolve with us and shed your anomaly of Darwinism. Pick up the razor or dwell in this cycle of shame like your forerunners.

Shadows grow when viewed.

It had been thirty-seven days since the divine star had shone through the pulled curtains of this dreary stage. Darkness in my thoughts had since doubled, but listening to the rain subside today in favor of a sound of the earth hardening and drying leaves crackling made the seemingly eternal wait more deserved. Winter days full of warmth and promise bring renewed affection and vigor for the cast of this drenched setting and their hollowing souls. The arteries of the city were once again filled with life emanating from old smiles and broken slumbers; warming the pavement and scattering the collected puddles into isolated drops by lifting our shoe soles a little higher. In one bright afternoon, the bounce in my step has returned and brighter times seem ahead, although the red star has once again settled into the western horizon’s endless stretches.

When do we settle?

The plan was devised during a tour de force bender in a Denver apartment, two American birthdays past. It was broad intentions and opportunity that became the catalysts for a move from the Midwest's familial grip and patterned normalcy to the Northwest's expansive reach and progressive aspiration. Now, just over a year has passed and I question what it is that makes one remain in a foreign locale and not willingly relapse into a second free for all of wishful pursuit. Is it the presumption of a repeated fate, or simply the warm embrace of comfort that keeps one from falling off the wagon? Both are prevalent in recent thoughts, but truth be told, the hops grow better in this drab and unrestrictive climate.

So this is how it starts...

The latest search for employment in Portland has officially begun today, on a day where I have discovered a new “profession” in the guise of a call center representative. It appears for the immediate future I will be aiding the digital world in their quest for additional minutes on their cellular leashes. Pause, for now I must allow the collective sigh of a world that hoped for so much more from their golden child to gather into a category five. It seems that something that should bring one pride and purpose has done little more than place an atoll in the path of this Katrina of inner-reflection and disillusionment. Hopefully this unfortunate event will be as short and painless in duration as the discovery of a new long-lasting and gratifying “profession.” I will keep my golden fingers crossed along with the rest of this wireless globe.