because the piles heaped round my desk, neglected, bound in fine sheets of dust, can't even begin to reflect the undone things that linger in my mind

i'm trying to begin documenting things. i spent one summer teaching horseback riding in brevard, north carolina. those counselors that didn't have cabin duty would slip away to get high, swim naked, ride the horses bareback, unbridled. and i used to panic at the rush of thoughts, pocket-sized epiphanies that would swarm round my head like the fireflies i had never seen before that summer. in the rush i swore to write it down, to document the deluge. but i never did, and i rarely remember to recollect the fragments of thoughts, lights that dimmed.

so up go the scraps, the half-thunk thoughts, the rambles i'm still tinkering with.

the most recent episode is called chance. it began the other morning, at 6am or so. in a car.
breakfast was bagels in the car. 'cept for T, who is allergic to the same things as my grandmother. we didn't have a map, but we knew the general direction to las vegas. we were off to a conference, a so-called philosophical rave in the middle of a casino.

i hadn't thought all that much about the conference, aside from the fact that i was intrigued by the opportunity to see one of those larger-than-life french theoreticians. Jean Baudrillard, a primadonna of the post-modern era was scheduled to, uh, perform. i've actually read very little by jean b, as my fascinations led me to the pages of others, but i looked forward to seeing one of these french philospher types that i knew only textually. some small measure of celebrity status drew me, i'm sure.

i'm much more familiar with the work of sandy stone, a cyborg of genderology. she is an academic storyteller who speaks to the issues of identity that cause complications in my body politic. she preaches multiplicity.

i was also just looking forward to a road trip, a head trip, an abrupt change of pace and place.
i have parents in the northern and the southern ends of the state. i've spent my life driving and flying between these two points. a boomerang baby.

i've probably stopped at every gas station along i-5 at one point or another.

people forget that california is mostly desert. this story is not yetr completed. come back again.
we picked cotton by the side of the road. we all spend our days in the terminal relays, shooting packets around the net. growing things seem foreign and novel, inspiring child-like curiousity.

fascinated by farm culture in general, we gawked and pointed at the detritus of agricultural living--suburban track housing, road-side shacks, a billboard with a hot buxom chick in tank top, advertising a radio station. it read "the top comes off next week." overwhelmed by the abundance of equipment rental opportunities --mowers, trucks, tanks, tractors-- s. nearly rear-ended another car.

fresh cotton
whiskey pete's
prime rib, cheap
pool crew
casino
furry pool
appliances
sandy stone
i-ching
whiskey pete's rug
bagel 2
shrimp breakfast
candy thumb
red jeanb
leopard prints