I will welcome the rain, the cold, anything to wash down this convulsed atmosphere. Rain will melt the edges, slick the rough surfaces, calm the hurricane and maybe even bring my appetite back.

Okay, that was random.

I'm still watching the craigslist parade, watching and waiting for that perfect deal on a mid-80's Suzuki 500cc naked-frame. Less-than-perfect options march by, an '89 Honda CBR F1 that's been lowsided and has 51,000 miles, an '82 Honda 550 that's hardly been ridden, sundry and divers 250's, and then there was that '83 GS1100E that Howdy had. I was a bit taken with it, actually. In spite of it's wretched-excess bulging-valve-covers four cylinder massiveness and expected 35 mpg, it was clean, a burnt-orange color, and looked pretty damn comfortable. I wouldn't mind putting away a few freeway miles astride that beast. The question is, would I mind filling up as often as your average Geo Metro driver....

But I'm getting impatient now. I have a thesis to work on, and I don't have the time to always have motorcycle shopping in the back of my head. I just want to get a bike and a cover and luggage and park it and not think about it. I need to think about other more important things.

I got me a lid.

And so it begins...

MSF course starts next Wednesday.

I still haven't found a bike. Apparently 450-500 CC's go like hotcakes here in SoCal. A 250 is just too small for me, and an 1100 is too damn big and wasteful. Where's my happy medium?!

The coffee shop somehow seemed far too noisy and bright, even from my corner underneath the potted plants. The misty darkness outside looked inviting and comforting, so I wandered out into the cold. Hands jammed into pockets, I slogged across the muddy lawn, mind sliding on three inches of cloudy ice into a blurry snowbank. Two hours of Hegel, two other hours of not looking anyone in the eye in a crowded room, I was tired of it, tired of people, tired of all the nameless things that remain nameless because I have no more energy to give them shape.

There were only five cigars left in the box. I dimly remembered Kakashi's voice echoing into my sleepfogged ears: i'm grabbing one, and my reply, you're buying the next box, and his rejoinder, i don't care.

I couldn't sit down anywhere though. I hate it when I can't sit down and have a peaceful smoke. This is my campus, dammit. I've been here four years, literally, and I should be able to sit wherever the hell I please. . Apparently I wasn't the only one who found the night an inviting place to be; there were people everywhere in the dark. Voices of couples whispering and giggling followed my back as I crept restlessly from darkened bench to darkened bench. I had nowhere to run, nowhere to hide.

I finally sat down on a relatively deserted, dimly lit flight of steps and sucked on my cigar for a while. Eventually the mist began to soak into the back of my collar, and determinate shapes began to soak into my mind. The slick feel of the remote on my car keys as I placed it into John's hand, the aged-leaf feel of the monstrous wad of twenties I got in return, a day later. It's going to hit me sooner or later. I know it will. I no longer own a car. I no longer possess a possession that I sank heart and soul into getting and keeping for five years, and WHY THE HELL DOESN'T IT MAKE A DENT? Why does it seem like Nighthawk's only sleeping as they pull the sheet up over her clay wings? Why am I sitting here staring vacuously out into the fog, still sliding over the ice, three inches of protection between me and any disaster in the world?

(I still don't feel very intelligent.)

I'll write up something soon. I promise...stuff has happened, my life is different, and I'm not used to it.

(That didn't sound very intelligent.)

(I don't feel very intelligent.)

(Maybe I better post tomorrow.)

(Yeah.)

I need to find a good motorcycle helmet and appropriate armor. Was planning on heading down to CalCoast Motorsports this afternoon to check out such. I'm really on the fence about colors. My favorite color is glowing blood-red, but flame orange or yellow is going to be more visible, and therefore more safe. Is my vanity a worthy tradeoff for safety? Do I really care?

This is SoCal, remember. There are more cars than people and more people than roadspace.

But yellow is such a painful color...

I turned in my thesis proposal at 9 pm last night. If I wasn't such a lazy bastard I would have had that done a week ago and my conscience would have lain in peace for a whole week, and I would be that much less ragged today...I just don't know what's good for me.

overpass walls glow dusty in my insect-yellowed brights
graffiti tangles boldly with mirages from the day

I hear the cold wind rushing lulling me to sleep
I hear the engine breathing rushing me to death

I snap wide with a jerk the car's across the road
mountain fills the window frame terror fills my blood

I hear the cold wind rushing keening through the rift
fingers stiff and shoulders straight and glass driven deep

overpass walls glow dusty in their insect-yellowed brights
graffiti tangles boldly with strobes and blue and red

*drool* I want it. I want it bad.

Honda Nighthawk 750 Specifications

Manufacturer: Honda
MSR: $5799
Model ID: Nighthawk 750
Model Year: 2003
Type: Cruiser
Emissions: California version differs slightly due to emissions equipment.
Available Colors: Red

Honda Nighthawk 750 Engine:
Engine Type: 747cc air-cooled inline four-cylinder
Bore and Stroke: 67.0mm x 53.0mm
Compression Ratio: 9:3:1
Valve Train: DOHC; four valves per cylinder
Carburetion: Four 34mm CV
Ignition: CDI

Honda Nighthawk 750 Drive Train:
Transmission: 5 Speed
Final Drive: O-ring-sealed chain

Honda Nighthawk 750 Suspension:
Front Suspension: 41mm fork; 5.5-inch travel
Rear Suspension: Dual rear shocks with five-position spring-preload adjustability; 4.3-inch travel

Honda Nighthawk 750 Brakes:
Front Brakes: Single disc with twin-piston caliper
Rear Brake: Drum
Front Tire: 110/80-18
Rear Tire: 140/70-17

Honda Nighthawk 750 Dimensions:
Rake: 0 degrees
Trail:
Wheelbase: 59.3 inches
Seat Height: 30.9 inches
Dry Weight: 463 pounds
Fuel Capacity: 4.8 gallons

My connection is really slow today. I don't know why. Probably because I chose to get up at 9 am instead of 6 am, it's smoky overcast, and the entire world seems to have slowed to a crawl.

Reality is somehow grayer when I oversleep. I feel (somewhat) more rested, but that feeling is (somewhat) canceled out by the knowledge that I half my day is gone forever. Half my seminar reading, half my thesis work, half of jogging on deserted narrow roads through the cold SoCal dawn.

I'm sober, and calm. Object of the day is to complete Monday's Hegel and to ponder thesical things. A modest goal, but according to murphy's law, it may not be entirely achieveable.

The friend to whom I intend to sell my car showed up again today to discuss payment options. We decided that a 1/4 down payment with five payments after that would constitute a fair deal. He will make the down payment in November after I complete my MSF course, if he still wants to buy the car by then. Resident pessimist says that he will find something cheaper that he likes better by then, and I will pay over 200 dollars to get my motorcycle endorsement, for nothing.

Someone I know well stopped me last night. I was wandering through the commons in a half-drunken haze, to leave a commons coffeecup I had just purified of brandy. "Hi, what's up?"

"My car died, and it looks like you're selling yours. Could I..."

Yeah, no, uhhhh, absolutely no problem you can drive it let's run down to my room and get the keys. What can I tell you about the car? (what can I tell you about the car) Well, I've had it for five years and it's a good car (some problems though) I had the tranny rebuilt this summer and new water pump and new rear brakes and it drives like a dream. Her name is Nighthawk, yeah, weird but my car had to have a name I REALLY DON'T WANT TO SELL IT but it's getting to that point you know I just don't have anything left to keep it up, yeah, you'll like it. head up to the parking lot. you need to get home tonight, let me show you the basics, let's take it around campus....

We took it around campus. I was vaguely aware that I was, in fact, selling my car. Selling my baby, my life, my freedom. Everything I sweated for those miserable months in the packing plant, in younger simpler years.

Letting it all go.

But the alcohol smeared this awareness so badly I chattered away cheerfully, automatically, enthusiastically.

you'll like this car, John, it's a great car, feel that power? Feel those power windows and power locks and tight brakes? You'll like it I'll even drop my price a bit, since I know you and there are a couple rough edges. We can work out a payment plan if you can't front the price right away talk to me Sunday...

yeah talk to me Sunday...

For Sale
1995 Buick Regal
Custom Coupe

25 mpg mixed driving
29 mpg freeway
antilock brakes / dual airbags
ice cold AC
reliable 3800 engine / good tires / new rear brakes / new water pump
Kenwood CD and speakers

This car is very clean inside and out and has been well maintained by a loving 2nd owner. All service records for his time of ownership are available.

132,700 miles on engine and 100 miles on newly rebuilt transmission.
$2500 firm
Abovementioned price may include free oil changes and minor maintenance for as long as the car stays on campus. To be negotiated with the buyer.


*****

WHY?! WHY, ye gods? Why hast thou decreed that man's freedom be taken so lightly and so mercilessly? Why has thou abandoned me to rot in this prison of greensward, jasmine and dusty books?

The sun is glowing like a citrus fruit through the fleece otherwise known as sky, the air smells like smoke, and it's raining ashes. And I should be working on my thesis.

But I wanted to post just to mention Nighthawk's return to campus. The car is now back in all of its dusty glory, and mechanically functioning like the made-over bird it has become. And in order to keep it that way I have it under a cover and in the corner of the parking lot FURTHEST from my reach. The weapon is muffled and stored, freedom shelved...until need calls...

Binge posting is like binge drinking; never a good sign.

I have a quote sent to me by my favorite tutor hanging on the cork-board in front of me:

"His mother should have thrown him away and kept the stork." - Mae West

Although I have no idea who Mae West is or her significance in history, I'm rather liking her blonde sense of humor right now.

Here's another gem, of an entirely different brand of humor:

"I am enclosing two tickets to the first night of my new play; bring a friend....if you have one." - George Bernard Shaw to Winston Churchill

"Cannot possibly attend first night, will attend second, if there is one." - Winston Churchill in response

Ah yes. Very swift.

Again, I have nothing charitable or intelligent or good to think or say, which is partly why I am copying the intelligent sayings of other people. At times like these the proper thing to do is take my hands off the keyboard and go to bed. To bed. And sleep.

...and sleep....

may the morning bring peace and refreshment to this soul, which does not really deserve it.

Damn, the 5-year-old in me has never really gone away, has he? I'd venture to guess that I behaved better at five too. At least according to my grandfather's video footage.

I can smell the ocean through the thick nausea of traffic and messenger-boy rush. I don't know how.

I finally got to oil my boots two days ago. I feel a bit better. Truly, a man needs to maintain his equipment to maintain his morale...

I'm being delinquent and taking half and hour off from work to blog. This happens occasionally when CPU overload occurs (the extra 40% happened when my thesis topic was rejected). I cease to care about anything that I happen to be doing at the moment, put my head down on the keyboard, and sit very, very still.

I just don't give a damn at the moment about the fact that I have five hours of work-study left to work, an untouched lab assignment for this afternoon, an untouched all-school seminar reading, and an untouched math assignment for this morning. I don't care. I can't carry it all anymore. I give up.

Nighthawk has become a faint memory of glistening purple-gray and steely turbine-whine and faded american flag on the brakelight. I don't know if I'll ever see her again, and if I do, I don't think she will ever be the same. I visited her a week ago and the interior was dark with fingerprints and the purple faded with dust.

Campus is fading into mist and cold. I take a cup of tea and my headache to the deserted rear of the commons and sit down under a yellow light and attempt to read and my mind drifts off into nothingness while my eyes scan the words on the page. And the winds begin to sing.

(slap) Ouch.

Why is my coffeecup empty already?

TASK MANAGER

number of processes running: 5

cpu useage: 88 percent

log off
restart
change password

Providence is very kind. My last paycheck was bigger than I expected. That sixty-hour week really added up.

I'm ready for another sucker punch.

Speaking of sucker punches, I might get Nighthawk back this evening. Like a bedraggled cat waiting hopefully next to its empty food dish, I carry a borrowed cell phone and a shred of expectancy...

Providence is kind. I will be able to buy books this semester.

I was hoping that I wouldn't have to get my boots all full of granite binder again today. I need to oil them, and they can't be oiled when they're dusty like that. If I want to oil them, I'll have to wash them first. But I'm too lazy to do that at the moment, so I'll neglect it another day....

Ragged chaos, ragged nerves, ragged and tattered and torn and back to tattered again. Sew the shreds together, bind the psyche back into something usable, it's going back into service in four days. FOUR DAYS, dammit.

I have nothing to say, nothing that will not be impatient, angry, selfish and uncharitable.

I have to be in such a bad mood for my last day of work tomorrow. Pity.

The half moon floats in a black bed of sky, sliced in half by the rear-window defroster element. Strains of Creed emanate faintly from the car speakers. Kind of an odd viewpoint, it is, lying there across the back seat, head propped up on backpacks and fridge and denim jacket. The black sky continues to float the moon like a piece of banana adrift on blueberry sauce. I am not thinking about food at the moment. I am thinking about how freaking huge the Arizona sky is, how dark it is in the middle of the desert. I am thinking how weird it is to be staring at the stars out the back window of a car speeding down the interstate at 80 mph. Behind a vague sense of God's presence out there in the blueberry sauce, lay a confused clatter of long grass, un-purchased schoolbooks, car in the shop with a 1200 dollar transmission repair, an unmoved room, and all the annoyances of life together waiting to pounce upon my consciousness the moment I woke up....

300 miles of nothing through an Arizona night
300 miles of centerline sucked into my brights
300 miles of emptiness from God's house to man's
300 miles of downhill from patience to ragged chaos