the mind doppler. when the origin of a sound is rapidly closing in on an open ear, the ear perceives the inbound sound to be increasing in volume exponentially. the doppler effect. when the origin of relief is rapidly closing in on an anxious mind the mind perceives the eminent relief with elevated expectations of pacification. exponentially.

trying to fathom 362.5 fathoms afoot consumed most of my last civilized hours, stuck in the way back of an overcapacity suburban. forty-five miles an hour up hills with three women and a dog in the car; it was going to take us several days to drive 2,174 miles.  at one point i began thinking that i had realized what a six month hike meant. i dont know what made me think that…

while on the road to maine i still had not hiked anywhere with my full pack, i hadn’t even felt my full pack. groceries were last. as it was the forty or fifty pound sea turtle shaped back sack was nearly too much for me to lift one handed, and that was too heavy for me in my mind. as we left the great captain Stan’s home in cape cod my pack was sixty three pounds and capable of killing me if i let my guard down.  it was stuffed like a tic, nearly every cubic centimeter was filled with my idea of survival necessities.

day one was a 20 mile up and back on  katahdin. we left our packs at home and started with the sun, just about the only way we had a chance of making it back to camp by dark.  not four minutes into the trail my legs were pumped solid with blood, i couldnt move my ankles and spots in my eyes were just one or two more deep breaths away. “holy fuck, im going to die.” even before my legs went useless brad and emory were way past my range of vision. “how the hell did they do that?” five minutes into the trail, with no pack on, i was completely dumbfounded by the task at hand. it was so obvious that it couldnt be done, i just knew that by night fall we would all agree.

somewhere around tree line the pessimism had fallen off of the forefront of my thoughts and we were all slowly but constantly chippiing away at the feeble hearted Thoreau.  we passed Thoreau springs, took a nice drink and laughed at the silly man who was afraid of this great mountain we were now traipsing all across. the Hunt trail leveled off and we saw our first white blaze, our first glimpse of the trail.  we followed the appalachian trail’s 90 degree turn from the trail we had been following and leaned into the last uphill of the day. atop, we made this photograph and set down in history that we three;  brad, emory, and I truthfully summitted Katahdin and gave ‘ol Henry David a real what for.  our first steps along the Appalachian Trail as south bounders came as we stepped off of the summit and headed back down to where we had started the morning.

the next day’s events fell under the heading “day two” in my journal, but proved to be the first day of real punishment.  sixty three pounds on my back and heavy boots on my feet made every step a battle. walking away from my dear friends and their automobile on the caleche road i had a planet on my back and a worried heart in my chest holding me back. the trail made a 90 degree turn again and we left the road and into the “hundred mile wilderness”. ten feet into the woods a rickety old sign reminded us of all the peril at hand. “for experienced hikers only”. i was not that.  i could barely lift my feet, my trekking poles were useless and seemed to be more of a snare than an aide, at this speed i wasnt sure if i would qualify as hiking. in our 4 mile first day i stopped walking, to keep from dying, 5 times.  i walked past a man lying on his belly sucking at a shallow mossy spring, desperately sucking life from the water, trying to find the energy to stand up and follow his daughter on down the trail. maybe he was having such a hard time finding what he wanted in that spring because of the dead frog that was three feet upstream from him. not sure, never asked him.  six hours or so into the real woods of Maine, we finished our first four miles under pack and found our first lean-to shelter of the A.T.

at sunset of day two i began to grasp what 2,174 miles looked like, it looked endless.

critique let out from a craig buck class and we all had a bad taste in our mouths. i went… or no i had to … fuck, i have no idea what i did. but i didnt follow emory to molina’s to console the freshly jenni-dumped dayton. i may just have been avoiding him, i cant remember.

i do remember emory later that night half drunk and with a strange tone on his voice, talking about the appalachian trail. as an out, from a dive bombing airplane emory coaxed the pilot back to level flight with the idea of thru hiking the A.T. it worked. at that point in his life there were only a few things dayton would talk at length about: boy scout camping and women, or rather, woman. or really just a woman. one woman. that was all. thank god for camping and emory’s quit drunk wit, or they may have been there for several more pitchers as the plane spiraled out of control in into tears.

“we just had to talk about something else or tears and vomit would have been all over molina’s. so i guess we’re hiking the appalachian trail.”

i couldnt figure out the look he gave me and just figured it was that he had assumed i was hiking with them. he was right. and it was on. from that moment we both knew we were going to hike the trail as soon as we graduated. it would be an easy incline for dayton to climb out of depression on and help him stay focused through may and graduation. ultimately it would provide us all with some stalling time before real life. emory and i knew we would be on the trail in a little over a year from that night. we also knew dayton could not be counted on to make it to the trail in the first place, much less with gear that we didnt pay for.

for the next eight months we would cleverly snare people into asking,

“what are you going to do after school?”

well darling, let me tell yah, we would say and boast for a good ten minutes or so about the three of us friends heading up to Maine for a bit of a walk. we would brush it off nonchalantly as if this was our type of thing and we were prepared for every curve ball mother earth had for us. after all there was two boy scouts, two wilderness first responders and three serious crazies.

twelve days before i graduated college i randomly spammed this message to everyone in my contact list.

im warming up the rusty and hardly used mass email skills. ive added basically everyone in my contact list to this group. if you hate nature, or me, or both and have no desire to hear of emory, brad, boo, and my progress through the appalachian trail just reply and tell me to piss off. so the current status of our trip is this: im still in commerce. infact im being paid by the wonderful state of texas to write you all (ya’ll for you real texans) this. we leave the wonderful homestead which has been shelter, a close friend, and home for three years in 11 days. boo is in good shape. emory is actually a yeti so he should be fine. brad is the most convicted, inspired and sometimes just plain stubborn person i have ever met so he’ll be good. the doctor said if i keep drinking ensure that i should be over my rickets in a few months so im pretty confident in my ability to hike as well.  for those of you that were added to this list with out consent and are not sure what the hell im talking about but are interested to see where this whole seemingly eminent disaster is heading allow me to fill you in.  i graduate in ten days. so in 11 days wheels will begin rolling that will eventually get me, my roommate, my dog(actually has less hair than my roommate), and a friend that few of you know to maine.  from maine were going to essentially walk back home. 2200 miles. four and a half months 2 million plus extremely weighted foot steps, seven summits, the windiest place on earth, and one section of over a hundred miles of wilderness. its gonna be a cake walk. were so confident we didnt even plan for it. does anyone know how to use a compass? any ideas where we could buy maps for something like this? what about shoes? any color suggestions? and for those of you that feel like you dont belong in a group with these other yayhoos… well too bad. they probably feel the same. most of you will get a more personal email atleast once, more if you write me back, more still if you mail me things on the trail (or less whatever pleases you enough to send me things) speaking of sending things.  in the next few days (i promise) ill send out a list of the post offices that will hold packages for through hikers.  we wont have any idea when we’ll be where until a few weeks into the trail. ill also send everyone updates on our e.t.a’s to certain P.O.s. anybody have any idea what the weather is like up there?   for now, good bye. for later, hello.
moving
jordan

where the hell is maine anyway?

my mother and father were both caught completely off guard.

this photograph has nothing to do with any writing i have in my head. ever. believe me i tried finding some. none. so, here it is. this guy sad about MJ and interested in the yankees score. rainyday in the gayborhood.

lightning chased whatever it is that lightning chases and i gobbled up yellow stripes like pacman pills.  from the panhandle of the ok state to the goddamned center of the kansas cornfields.  i run from the big sleep monster like a blue scared pacman ghost, but swallow up the yellow pills just the same. put more miles behind me. the sleep will win. this is his level. he knows the corners and the darkness and i havent slept a full night in four days.  i bang a luis at salina and leave behind the leap frog lightning and any hope of staying awake. its time to pull over and dream on the wheel for a while. 

the crust came up out of the earth and built mountains all around, threatening to bury us beneath. new york city took on characteristics of new orleans and japan and the mother planet herself began making music. her music changed us all, turned something in us off. we were free of the eternal paper push, job, rent, bills, and ambition all slipped out of worry.  free to experience and enjoy what we had built and thus destroyed. it was the last days and the music falling from the ever-shrinking sky reminded us of that. well dressed me took off their shoes and loosened their ties, homeless men found no desire for the freshly polished shoes and showed the suits what they had been missing for years. the ultimate labor day party, no work for anyone ever again. we smiled and tried to dance to mom’s music, started conversations and began friendships that never would have otherwise happened. we lived and smiled right in the face of death and loved the idea.  others had different plans though. mushroom shaped clouds of noise and fear rose up from the growing ground. waves of rubble, whole buildings caught up in the state sized flow of man made mess.  the music changed and we lost our smiled. the sound of a terrified city drowned out whatever music may have been coming from the sky and four thirty a.m rolled around.

i was back awake with freightliner lightly embossed on my left forearm. sleeping on the wheel never did any good for rest. i flicked on the headlights and pulled back onto the highway and found myself inexplicably singing a janis joplin jam.

now, i take me everywhere i go. i take a whole slew of things with me everywhere i go. my phone, protected from the outside world by my front left pocket and a small plastic body guard. on the back it wears the colors of a clayton anderson photograph from another country and another time. my phone, my umbilical cord to my mother, the only planet i orbit. when we ring we answer. if the call falls to the recording we know a return call is in the near future. hole halves of hours will pass learning of the day’s passings. her’s, plants growing and pets misbehaving, fish slaying and the subsequent tacos. mine, state lines and good times, plants dying and nothing changing, lazyness and the subsequent tacos. 

my music collection, protected from the world by its scuffed shiny surface and hidden behind a myriad of codes. no three words consecutively fit in modern language except to describe the thousands of following encrypted combinations of lyric and beat. when the correct tumblers are beat, and considerations of the weather, time of year, location, activity at hand have all been weighed in the code unfolds, the little box begins to work and the keys or the stripes tell me exactly what i want to hear.  

my camera, my memory. kept in my domke, along side thousands of other unknown bits, safe from the rest of the world’s dust and abuse. its weight on my shoulder is a constant. its tricks and tactile riddles are second nature and the medium itself unnoticed. together, my memory and i, we leave bread crumbs for my eyes to follow from one state to another in times less crowded. my voice is muffled from behind the lens, my peripherals never useful, sacrifices i make to later follow the bread trail and live it all for the first time. trying not to forget what seems to never change. 

my wallet, my paper trail proof of existence. kept in my back right pocket. i make up that my grandfather said “never trust a man who keeps his wallet in his left pocket”. truth is i dont know where i got that, but after years of keeping an eye on the subject, i have found it mostly true. a whole list of seemingly two dimensional  card sized clutter piled high enough to cause back pain and numb foot. the same three or four long numbers repeating over and over again with varying relations to each other. sort these numbers out correctly and you have all my worth and being. i keep it close and loathe it always. to stoop as low as nerddom, i frodo bear my ring wallet to save the rest of mankind.

i should be able to see my breath. my hands say so at least. the expression “you could hang meat in here.” comes to mind, and it isnt funny. you could. 

i walked into a bathroom at some random truck stop on some highway somewhere one time. it was like walking into my apartment right now. a sudden twenty degree drop from normal indoor temperatures. again, the expression of hanging meat came to mind. as i stood in my urinal slot shocked at how quick my hands got cold i decided suggesting to a truck driver that he should hang meat in the bathroom might be taken the wrong way. i decided to keep shut about the temperature. as i zipped up a senior citizen walked in and was instantly mad that you could hang meat in the damn bathroom. he said so out loud. as i walked away from the pisser i looked at him and said, “just was, you can!”

i really only think of making a trip to the store to buy ice cream when it is cold outside. im not putting on my hat and heading out today though. its could out, so i want ice cream, but its cold in too. i wouldnt want to touch it.

a day of halves

cavemom is hiking with us. thats emory’s mother, catherine. caveman, cavemom. it was an obvious name. such a sweetheart, but absolutely getting it handed to her. its not fair for her. here we are at the peak of our fitness in the easiest state we have walked across. totally legging it, and her, totally green.  she manages make it to camp every night and smile and laugh at the gay jokes.

today we took a good long break at the half way point. well, maybe not the true half way, but at least where the sign was. a pretty big deal. the rest is the way home. walking till the paint on the trees runs out. on both sides of us 1,082 miles of trail. a mile down the road we came across another half.

a half gallon of ice cream with my name on it. caveman, slimfast, and i all attempted and succeeded in eating our very own half gallon of ice cream. it took me 2 minutes under an hour to drain my 14 servings of fudge ripple. my head went swimmy and opening my mouth was nearly vomit inducing, but i made it. and all i got was a lousy wooden “spoon” . more like a miniature tongue depressor. the 84 grams of sugar kicked in and the last ten miles disappeared in 2 hours and 38 minutes. my ankle feels great.

Day sixty, Wallingford.

No hitch into town. always a bummer. at least it was all down hill. wallingford seems like a cool town. well manicured and completely left behind by change. Unjo and mommy marshall both sent us food. full packs for free and rain clouds moving in the other direction to put a smile on our faces. we also all have arguile socks now. we wear them at the same time to make us look extra queer. as if brad and i wearing skirts isnt enough. 

On our way out of town we hitched a school bus. i havent been on a bus in seven years. i think we are in first place for the coolest hitch so far.  ”I aint supposed to do this, but no body’s on board they wont know. where you heading?” i have no idea what he looked like. i saw a friendly smile and an empty bus, i went into flashback mode. thinking about, i dont know, nothing. somebody else told him where we were heading. “oh i think i know where that is. up there next to the state park?” people always ask us things like that. i guess if we look like we live in the woods we know where every road to civilization is. upon some emory map reading the driver says, “oh thats the park im headed to.” we read signs back to home. “trail head <-”. “oh hey! there are my kids, id of driven right passed them. well, have a good hike.” we piled off the vacant bus and headed into the bush right in front of two teachers and 12 or so ten year olds. i wonder if the driver ever got in trouble?

At camp we stayed with a few nobo’s. one flip flopper HiLife – the champaign of hikers- might meet us when he flips at harper’s ferry. should be fun times. the school bus story went around and caused a laugh and some disbelief and sent me into thinking. time and its crazy refraction. it had been seven years since i have last been in a school bus. a lot changes in seven years. but not school busses. buses are horrible. rattling, rumbling yellow cylinders of death in the worst circumstances. obnoxiously slow, painfully hot yellow tubes of depression for most of the time. but every now and then a pearl is formed from all that sensory chafeage. 

The bus i rode my freshman year of high school carried me 67 miles one way and most of the time was a monumental pain in the ass. but i do remember laying on my back across the isle listening to ocean man by ween and staring out of the newly removed emergency exit sun roof. just singing along watching the puffy simpson clouds roll by. the surf had been up for a week and the clouds told me it would still be so when i got home.  a girl i liked kissed me at lunch. and the emergency sun roof made it to loud and windy for anyone to take my mind off of everything. i laid their hitting the repeat button smiling all over. i still smile when i think about that day. i also think about how much i hated vinyl seats.

still do.

The great thing about doing it this way is i can let any ‘ol word i want stumble out of my fingertips and on to this screen. 

I think ill do it that way. 

There is nothing i would rather be doing than sitting at home thinking of something i would rather be doing. 

I left my functioning bowels and will to exist in the parking lot, crawled into big blue and headed west to find what middle age and early death feel like. in big blue we live on the peripherals, human extremophiles; uninterested in our nearest kin and a square peg for a round hole to the rest of the world. we sleep in dark parking lots, under no parking signs, under the highway, on the highway, on the way, hello, goodbye. 

a window seat to the country. a slide show of what is down that road. and that one, and that one, and that one. we started with finding out what was down the road that followed the sun. el paso, phoenix, desert at night, los angeles. we looked into the end of the road that follows the coast. malibu, cliffs, beaches, big sur. in san fran we found an end of a road at the beginning of a peer into the bay and made it home for two nights. we picked one more road to investigate and headed east. reno, salt lake, wyoming at night, and winter. the top of the hill was not the end of the road, so we descended and turned back into late fall. made a right at middle america and made it home on the tail of a thunderstorm. 

10 p.m rolls around and the novel idea of my nakedness is finally beginning to wear off for the day.

There just isnt enough time to find a place to start. 

I wake up and ask “where am i?” like the village bicycle after a night at the pub. scratch my eyes, spit out of the window, and act like hired help. twenty miles down the road or so i learn the state i am in. after my nap im in another. i rattle on day after day like this. piecing together the country side one sleepy morning drive at a time. 

Sunrise and cornfields. rolling flatness and a black finger scratching the sky. sunset and concrete. detroit’s hardest scratching out a home on the sidewalk. nighttime and a rattle-box vibrating bed. dropping gears, stabbing breaks, weigh stations, and. sunrise. parabola passes in the dutch hills. stop sign red, winter sharpening it’s knife. sunset and light pollution on the horizon. every crack and hole. toll booths, second hand smoke and. sunrise. 

The lines of trucks and that island across the way tell me where i am. my second home, my turf. a coffee in hand, xavier rudd on the speakers, smoke in my lungs and a foot on the floor. icy long island, lazy lic, grumpy brooklyn and the city till long after dark. 14 hours of driving for 100 miles of emptying the tanks. 100 miles for millions of dollars filling up the banks. 100 miles for hundreds of high schools filling up with students. 100 miles for a million faces filling up my windshield. two more times over the bridge. once in big blue, once in a big bus. under the river, out of the bus, four flights down, a tube marked “c”, under another river, up one flight of stairs, right on schermerhorn, left on court, right on baltic, up three flights of stairs and home. we dont lock the door but i get out my key anyway. nobody is home, but i bring to boxes of rent anyway. its 4 in the afternoon, i am worked like a dog and it is raining, but i have a family of beers on the roof anyway. the other mr. d. calls, rain falls and takes the mercury with it.  the oldest church in the town, dust from the war, if i tell you will you buy me a drink, spontaneous game of quarters, we show the man our empty pockets and we can drink no more. another round or two down the block to wash the bad taste out of our mouths. left, over that way, around here, in a tube marked “c”, and.

Sunrise, “where am i?”