The Jack Noodle Journal

A couple years ago after a few drinks I would go on and on about the greatness of Nine Inch Nails until the person I was talking to found a way to sneak quickly away. In 2010 my intoxicated musical evangelizing has been for the new Eminem album “Recovery”.

What is the significance of this? I’m not sure. It’s just an observation I made when I woke up the other morning.

“Recovery” is my pick for 2010 album of the summer. I have been listening to it nonstop. I know. It’s probably rotting my brain. not very healthy. The poet in me really digs the crazy rhyme flowing. How does he do that?

I have also been listening to the Big Boi album “Sir Lucious Left Foot” and MIA’s album, “Maya” . Lots of hip hop for me this summer hmm?

Albums I haven’t heard enough of and need to listen to more are Arcade Fire’s “The Suburbs” , “Transit Transit” by Autolux and Menomena’s album, “Mines” .

Oh my gosh, I almost forgot about “How to Destroy Angels” by the Reznors… oh uh, no I mean by How to Destroy Angels.

So that’s some of what I have been listening to. There’s been been some good stuff in 2010.

Have you heard? There’s another baby on the way! We’re pregnant! G Noodle is going to be a big brother. We of course are very happy.

The due date is February 14th.

I need to get on board with some good Noodle Journal posts. I think I had a ream of pages written here by this week in the pregnancy last time. This time the news broke on Facebook before it broke here on my lovely blog. I should have announced it here first. Oh well. Darn you Facebook! I’m already noticing how things have changed in the tech, social media, blogging, postings, smartphone, Twitter, and instantly updated universe during the two years and four months since the last birth.

So far the second time around is a bit different than the first. At first I thought “Alright, we’ve done this before. We’ll be experts now”. Not the case. It’s a whole new thing. I think it really sunk in a few weeks ago. I’m going to have to go back and read all of my old baby posts and refresh my memory.

We are slowly delivering the news to Little Noodle #1. Dropping hints here and there but not trying to blow his mind all in one sitting. When K’s sporting her giant baby belly it probably won’t be as abstract of an idea to him as it is now.

Exciting times!

Hey yo yo! What’s is up my homies? It is I, your humble narrator after many weeks away from you. I am typing this entry into my cellphone while sitting on the curb downtown waiting for the MAX train to pick me up and take me to work.

Yes I have been horribly neglectful of this here magnificent journal. My writing schedule has been in tatters the last few weeks. We have been pretty busy. I know that isn’t an excuse. I’ll try to be better and write more.

So yeah, fairly busy folks we be. One of the things that has been occupying our attention is that our lovely home is now for sale and on the market.

See how that works?

It is now August 11th. 2 weeks after I first started this post. I need to think about figuring out a writing schedule. Maybe I should just relax and just accept that I’m not the blogger that I once was. Ha ha. Well it was a good run.

It’s 2 weeks later as I was saying, and I am no longer on the MAX. I am now riding in the car heading to the coast. K is driving don’t worry. I’m not typing while behind the wheel. We are going to the Waldport house again to do some vacationing. We might be stopping here in Lincoln City in a few minutes for sandwiches so I might be stopping here and continuing this 2 weeks later.

It has been a pretty good summer. Have I said that already? We haven’t done too much. The last 3 weeks we have been trying to sell the house. Getting it tidied up and all. No offers yet. It really isn’t that great of a market to be a seller in right now, but it’s definitely a buyer’s paradise. You can get a lot of house for your money these days.

These troubling economic times, high unemployment numbers  and the weak housing market is making for a sour go of things in this here country.

We are hoping to be out of the seller’s world and in the buyer’s realm before too long. It will be pretty cool if things work out for us like we are planning. I guess everybody wishes things would go like they plan.

Well maybe I will write a little more later. I am going to look out the window at the ocean now.

    Pulling myself up

Through the emergency hatch
Harder to stand than I thought it would be
On the rooftop
Of my train leaving
Wind blowing, gathering balance, step forward an inch

The six o’ clock train speeding towards me in the distance
On the opposite tracks heading back
To Germany
Behind me

It’s
Blasting
Now along side the moving train I stand on
My black cocktail dress not the best uniform
For this stunt
There wasn’t time even for a quick change
    Move slowly to the edge
Step back
    Move again to the edge
    I will have to time this just right
    Finding a spot with my eyes
Run along the train as it continues to pass
End of the train car coming under my feet

    I leap

    For a brief second I am in the air between trains
    Freed from both, floating

My life isn’t getting any longer
That wasn’t the real me
A bad sandwich made with stale bread
Poisoned with boredom
Too young to know then
I was meant for more

Now I know better

I am brave, I am sexy, I am strong

Smashing down on the roof of the next train
Scraping knee, twisting ankle, snapping fingernail
    Rolling rolling rolling

    Catch myself
At the last possible moment
Arm caught on a pipe or railing
Pulling myself back up on the roof
Feel the pull of the new direction
Pause and watch
The old train
Tear off into the distance

Carefully inch my way over

    Lower myself down
Through the new emergency hatch

I knew the second after I let him in, this was it
For him I will give up my friends
For him I will give up my children
For him I will give up my god
Tear it all down
Drown the house
Burn the family

Later

He will catch me
Staring out our new window
Gazing at our new view
He will pull me down on our new bed
Wrap me in our new clean sheets
Kiss my bruises

Maybe I will stack the blocks back up
Maybe someday his friends will be my friends
Maybe someday his children will love me
Maybe someday his gods will forgive me
If they don’t then so what
I don’t care
I love the feel of new me lying next to him

Wait,

Who are
You
To question
Me
Anyway?

photo by Alicia

Man oh man. Yeah, what’s the deal Noodle? Do you blog anymore?
Well, yes. I think I do. It’s kind of funny ironical because I did a couple of guest blog posts and one of the topics I wrote about was the importance of blogging. Ha ha ha… ah.. ha… hmm. Sure, I still blog. Just not very often.

I have been chugging along with my poems. That has been taking up my writing efforts and brain power. You may have noticed (maybe not) that some of the poems you had previously enjoyed on the journal can no longer be found here. I hid at least 5 of them. I guess on Wordpress it’s called making private, and I stopped posting the new ones. Why you ask? Well I have been submitting my poems to different magazines and journals (4 publications so far) and they have rule-ish guidelines that state they want only previously unpublished work and some of these places consider a blog as being previously published. So I’m keeping the gems off of the Noodle Journal for now. I can put them up later if you’d like. I’m at around 26 poems currently. I’m going to try and have 50 done by the end of September.

Look at that it’s June! What is going on? What is up dude?

We have had an incredible amount of rain here these last 4 or so weeks. I don’t remember it ever raining here like this at this time of year. The older I get the more it rains. I know, I know. We live in Oregon. That’s what it does here.

There is green everywhere and that is lovely of course. It’s like a jungle. The weeds are flourishing! We get three days of rain and then half a day of sunshine. The plants just love that. Our whole house is going to be devoured by ivy. Luckily I was able to get the lawn mowed down yesterday during a sun break. Just in time. It has been pouring today.

Oh yeah, about the house news. We are going to sell the house! Yep. Well, we were going to put it up on the market here in June. We are 9 days into June now aren’t we? We should get on that.

Yes. We need a bigger place. A little more space. K wants goats. G wants a more kid friendly outdoors. I want an office, no wait, a den. Oh yeah, I also need more closet space.

This house has been awesome for us for the last 9 years, but now it’s time to move on. It’s a marvelous starter house.

We need the adventure of a new place.

We are looking for our next house anywhere in the neighborhood of Newberg Oregon all the way up to around Olympia Washington. Anywhere in between. Well, not really. We are looking for 4 bedrooms and at least an acre of land. That may sound like a lot to ask for but it’s actually out there believe it or not. My advisers have informed that the current horrible housing market is seeing some signs of life for being a buyer’s market. If you can swallow the bitter pill of the seller’s market you can do alright once you get to the buying side of the transaction.

We’ll see. I was a bit more excited about all of this a month ago. I’m sure I’ll get pumped up again when we find the perfect house to move into.

Plus we are in the process of trying to do some credit score repairing and that’s no fun.

What else? I’m sure there’s more.

Maybe I should ease back into this blogging thing. Take it slow for now. Not get too typing crazy.

I was born in this mud puddle
Like a worm flailing around and rolling over in the wet muddy lawn
It has rained every single day of my life
This rain is going to kill me

Miserable dripping dropping, sliding down slinking pooling
Constant misting and trickling for hundreds of days
Not even kind enough for an interesting storm
Mediocre cold pissing and water drooling

This grey is going to kill me
Flat sheets of blank unintelligent dark grey clouds
Held over my face like a scratchy slobber covered pillow
The spot of brightness on the other side not saving me from drowning

Running down your face, run down your leg
Blinking frozen fluorescents stab the luggage under your eyes
Your bags are sitting in the cold darkness weeping
Trapped in bank vault as it fills with water like in that movie

Oh little tear drops from heaven
No. These are spasms of acid splashing up from hell
We are all angry here, we are all sad
These hundreds of days of darkness are going to kill us

I do not care now as I stand, shoe filling up with dirty water
I can not bear you rain, I cry out for a drought
Cracked dried dirt, dead crops and panting thirst
Please Lord hurry and destroy the Earth with fire like promised

Today only drizzle with chance of showers
Rain pounding down on soft skulls spitting them open
Drip drip drip pouring leaking from the blocked drain
Spurting forth mold, dribbling festering pus over pavement

There are stories of people who have never seen snow falling
I want to be the person who has never seen rain falling
In the children’s song we tell it to come again another day
I am teaching the boy to sing never come back again

Good morning all. I am sitting outside on the back porch now as I type this post into my cellphone. The sun is shining brightly and I am enjoying a fresh cup of coffee.

K and the little Noodle are up in Shelton helping at a craft bizarre thingy selling the lovely ladies of W.ink Print Studio’s wares. Check out their website here won’t you?

I stayed here and worked this weekend. I have been working weekends lately. Amazingly there has been quite a few overtime hours available at the office. What recession? Right? (knock on wood…salt over shoulder…prayers to the maker) Overtime is good. The Noodles will be requiring the extra cash for our percolating schemes and diabolical plans.

Well when the cat’s away the mouse will… blah blah blah. I shaved my head down to the skull! Yep shortest it’s ever been. I BICed it. Shaving cream and razor. No hair. Bald. I’m touch my scalp now… Hmmm. It’s still not as smooth as I would like. Maybe I’ll go for it some more… No! Leave your noggin alone Noodle!

Really now though people come on! I am not a skinhead and I don’t have cancer. You dummies. No, I am the captain of the starship Enterprise. No wait, John Locke. No wait, Moby.

Oh yeah. I have been taking an online poetry class that started last week. I’m taking it through the continuing education courses at Portland Community College. It’s been pretty fun so far. I need to do the next lesson though some time today maybe.

I’m serious about this poetry stuff. I DO want to be a poet. I’m not screwing around. My little scribbles have been giving me much joy.

Oh yeah did I mention here in the journal yet (already announced on Facebook) that my poem “No Rocks on This End” took first place and is going into Boise Novel Orchard’s chapbook, “Bites from the Orchard: Bridges?” Pretty exciting I think. Now a published poet!

Why Boise? What’s the deal there? Well my lovely Mom suggested that I enter the competition. She is part of that writers group and joined up with them when she lived in Boise.

I’m feeling a little bit anxious about my writing currently. I’m worried that I don’t know what I am doing and that my stuff is just silly crap. I suppose getting feedback from the instructor and students in my class will calm me down a little bit.

I have been listening to the awesome podcast “Poetry Off the Shelf” from the Poetry Foundation website and the episode “Good Bad Poetry” is really troubling me. Abigail Deutsch has an essay on it here.

I don’t think celebrating bad poetry is clever or fun people. Argh! These poor shmoes are just trying to express themselves through writing. Who are we to say their work is bad? I guess I am mostly just frightened that I am writing bad poetry and don’t know it.

That term “bad poetry” has been chasing me around. I’ve been hearing it come up everywhere. Maybe it’s like seeing VW’s everywhere once you own one. Maybe the topic of bad poetry is coming up because April is national poetry month.

He talks about some chick writing bad poetry (although confesses he might also be writing bad poetry in the next line) on one of the songs off the new LCD Soundsystem album. A great listen by the way. Might actually buy it.

Some guy was talking on NPR (I think) about somebody else being too young and naive to know that Jim Morrison was actually writing bad poetry. What? NO! “The killer awoke before dawn he put his boots on” ? Really? I like that stuff though!

Seems like there was another bad poetry reference on TV or in a movie I recently saw.

Well, whatever. I’m going to try and not worry about bad poetry too much more. I’m going to just keep writing and not stress on if it’s good or bad.

Happy birthday G Noodle!

We had a birthday party for him already last Sunday. It was fun. G needs to get some younger friends though.

Tonight I think we are going out for a birthday dinner.

His grandpa, Mr. Baptist has been in town helping with the birthday celibrating. It’s always fun having him around.

The little noodle is an awesome boy! I would like to write more about him here in the journal but his allotted writing time is now being spent chasing him around and watching him grow.

I thought about it again while watching him joyfully open his presents and blow out the candles on his cake, but getting a really good mental picture to remember of all of these events and being there in the moment is far more important than getting it down in a blog or on a photo.

He is truly the joy of my life! Not in a cheesy way either. In a solid, real way.

Conversations are starting to take shape now. That has been really fun. It’s still surprising hearing some of the new things he says. He talks mostly for his mom and I now and we have to translate for others.

The wonderful twos! It’s going to be fun.

We are in the backyard playing now so enough typing.

Today I will choose to be sixteen again

The lights were brighter then
Food taste better then
Everything was so important then
Love was deeper then

When I am sixteen again

I will read more books
I will be better at math
I will learn to play the guitar
I will ride my skateboard more
I will take more photos
I will make more art
I will kiss more girls

A day with sixteen year old eyes again

This time around I won’t go home early
This time around I will cry with you
This time around I will listen to the song
This time around I will runaway with you

We knew everything except that we knew nothing

Hello, hello. We are once more at the Oregon coast. The beautiful Waldport Oregon.

There was a pretty substantial storm that blew through this morning. Oh yeah. Looks like the sun is poking it’s bright face through right now. It’s pretty cold on the beach. I’m bundled up fairly tight this morning. It’s okay. Storms are dramatic and entertaining when you’re on the coast.

I’m writing this here post on my cellphone again. Being connected to the WordPress of the Noodle journal is pretty cool. I’ll try to get a nice photo of the ocean to add to this post for you.

Oh man. We might have to get into that sun now while it’s out. I’ll continue this entry a little later.

Mr. Baptist is here at the beach with us at the Walport house. He’s in town to be a part of G Noodle’s birthday festivities. Sarah, Amaya and Chad should be joining us here in the evening. Oh yeah, the puppies are here with us as well of course.

Well the rain is back. It came down pretty hard there for a while. We are hanging out inside now eating chips and salsa.

We went into town earlier and checked out the flea market and book store. Had some coffee at the bakery.

I would like to sit on the beach and write some odes to the ocean but it is too windy, wet and cold. Maybe tomorrow.