Life Goals

My ultimate goal: obtain at least 2,000+ friends on a social networking site (the powers that be only know that I associate with few of them), be tagged in 1,500 photographs, many of which look strangely similar and show me in lascivious or otherwise lewd positions performing overtly sexual acts resembling forms of cunnilingus. I also want to have a seductive profile picture, which would ideally show my cleavage. Now, since I have male parts, let your mind imagine my cleavage. I also would ideally like to forget every rule or grammar taught to me. Status update: Nathan Brown cant beleve wut happened wen i stepped out of da showa cudnt stop lookin at myself for an hour.
And, omg, where is the dislike button?!?! I want to dislike all of these conservative pundits (yes, that's you, Jack. You're just a mouthpiece) who post and re-post and re-re-post political articles because, of course, if you're not Liberal, well, we just can't have a thing to do with you. Geez, can't you see how much I'm doing by posting pro-Obama articles to my wall? I'm actually doing stuff to promote world peace.
And tell me this. Why wouldn't you, when I sent a request, and re-sent it when I noticed you didn't respond the first time (Argh, you lackluster boneless can of worms), like my cause? It's a CAUSE. This is serious. Do you like testing non-lethal, but chemically-laden cosmetics on dolphins? For Christ's sake, dolphins are the most intelligent animals, like, in the world.
Wow, thanks, Jack, for putting me one more step further behind from achieving my goal.

Some idle considerations for your idle reading pleasure

I've fought with it for far too long. I've come to realize that I live in one of the most gorgeous places I've been to. I'm extremely blessed and I use that word without any certain religious connotations. Some days I wake up and know that I could be the luckiest man in the world and other days it's a struggle to realize any personal worth.
I stepped outside today at around 8:30 and felt the nip of an oncoming winter. My breath hung like smoke around my face as I propelled myself on my bicycle to work. I set up a small card table outside where I work and started wrapping books in plastic book covers, drinking coffee and listening to This American Life. The chill in the air, the self-propellment, and working with one's hands. It's all hard to explain, but small things can mean a lot.
I reminisce a lot while I'm at work. I miss my friends from college and from Evansville. I miss playing my drums and creating music I love with people I love. The many months I have been in Durango have been spent in search of something. I want to know what I need to do and where I should go next. I can point out so many instances in my life where I've been extremely happy. I could recreate similar circumstances by going back to these places, but, as they say, "You can never go home again." Once these moments are realized, they are gone. Why must they be taken away? Could I go back to Bloomington/college, do it again and have just as much happiness as I did have? Can I go back to Evansville and pick my music back up where I left off?
But all of these are just idle considerations. What matters now is that I am still moving myself forward.
I'm learning Spanish and doing so quickly, which is motivating. The book club I started seems as if it is actually working and generating new interest in new members, and I'm reading/studying many things I never got the chance or opportunity to in school.
I also want to take a moment here to thank a man that has been a source of inspiration and admiration - John Linnemeier. He took me outside of the United States for the first time to Guatemala. That trip truly changed my life. He showed me how travel can be the most fulfilling action one can do. He showed me how to be happy and how to be kind. I don't think I've come across a more kind man and a more accepting one either. If you haven't yet, please take the time to check out his book on Amazon. I would also suggest you purchase it. It's a great read and very entertaining. The book is a collection of vignettes from the most interesting man I've met. Follow the link here: http://www.amazon.com/How-Average-Lived-Adventurous-Life/dp/1438912803/ref=sr_1_2?ie=UTF8&s=books&qid=1286996052&sr=8-2

Currently reading:
Italo Calvino - If on a winter's night a traveller
Henry Miller - Tropic of Cancer
Vladimir Nabokov - Lolita (for book club)
Just finished rereading Crime and Punishment - Fyodor Dostoevsky

If you've made it this far, just know that I leave these things unedited and don't reread them. Maybe I should. I'm probably embarrassing myself.

Kids trying to be intellectuals. Rain comes and goes, but spills out torrentially on its scheduled hour. Been ill for nearly a week. Mucus hanging on for life so tightly to my uvula, it's suffocating.

Need something like a purpose. Boredom is creeping in through my nostrils and ear canals and lulling me softly to sleep.

George told me he has to start drug testing me. Randomly. I have to pee in a cup whenever it strikes this man's fancy.
I told him that'd be fine. I think I would pass since I consume no controlled or illegal substances; daily multi-vitamins are my drug of choice.
George said if he finds out I'm not doing enough drugs, he doesn't want me working there.
"Got to have drugs in your system to work here. Don't know how else you could stand it. I don't want any clean people working here."

Storytime:


George was working one day and some lady with an affected Texas accent walked in and asked for an old kids book, "Little Black Sambo."
"Yeah, I got it," he said. "Don't know why you'd want it."
"Well, ok. How much is it?"
"Twenty."
"Oh, now, that's a bit too much. How about ten," the lady asked.
George picks up the book and puts it inches away form the lady's face. He rips it in half and says: "Lady it's wroth more to me than my original twenty dollars to do that to you, you racist!"



One of my favorite things I've heard George say, though (he's a really intelligent guy, although a bit ornery):
"You can have enough Starbucks, McDonalds, Coldstone, and Sushi, but you can't ever have enough books."



Jarring subject change:
Liz's parents are in town. They took us to Mesa Verde, which is a massive national park. We purchased tickets for a tour of "the long house" at the visitor's center, about five minutes of driving into the park. Then, we drove about forty-five minutes into the park to get to the spot where the tour started. The drive consisted of about ten-thousand switchbacks, views of mesas, rabbit brush, junipers, pinons, and a massive line of SUVs in front of us.
We arrived at the covered picnic area to wait for the start of the tour. Standing there, you could turn in circles and see into the foggy horizon. Miles and miles of rolling desert land. A cloud system was blowing in from the east. I could see that start and finish of the rain it was dropping. To the right and left of it was arid, sunny desert. It was an intruder into the desert, but a most welcome one. Mesa Verde receives about eighteen inches of rain annually.
The storm stayed to our east and we went on our jolly way to the long house, a small community of sandstone-constructed apartments built into a massive curved-L amphitheater hundreds of feet above the dry gully below. Why the hell anyone would live there is beyond me. All those mysterious theories of the peoples' disappearance is full of crap, stories put out by the early railroad to promote tourism and sell train tickets. The people of Mesa Verde simply moved on. It's dry there. The land, sandy and rocky, farmed to it's full potential.
The railroad's story is way more romantic, although impractical and irrational at best. It was an awe-inspiring place; impressive in it's construction and it produced a lot of inquiries on my part about who lived there. These cliff dwellings were actually the last of a series of living spaces constructed by the Ancestral Puebloans who lived in the area. They were built around 1200 A.D.. Earlier spaces consisted of buildings constructed on top of the mesa and dated back to about 450 A.D., which shows that people were living in the area nearly 750 years before some idiot Native American had the idea to build a humongous city into the side of the mesa. Didn't think that one out did ya, buddy? Gotta carry all those fucking rocks down the side of a cliff.
Needless to say, the people who lived at the cliff dwellings didn't stay in residence for very long. From what the park ranger who led our tour said and from what seems most plausible to me, the people who lived here just moved out, went to better land.

There's a lot of beautiful land out here - so much to see. As a boy who grew up in the Ohio River Valley, my eyes and mind have trouble comprehending and fully appreciating the ever-changing lands out here. The dust sweeps over the mountains that seem to explode out of the earth. The wildflowers ornament the landscape like lights on a Christmas tree. The moon shines brighter than anywhere else in the world, like a hundred watt bulb in a denuded and lonely room. The people here don't become nervous and snap their heads as if on rubber bands away form you when you make eye contact. In the morning, God paints the sky with the brightest azure and heedlessly tosses a handful of cottony puffs of moisture into the atmosphere as a coup de grace to his daily masterpiece.

Verbal Diarrhea (I spelled diarrhea right the first time. That's a tough thing to do).

As I'm sitting here sipping my icy manhattan, I'm reflecting on the old man sitting in his Dodge pickup truck in the AC who had the audacity to comment on the sticker on George's door: "Veterans for Obama."
"Hey, you should really stake that sticker down," he said with a cheesy smile.
Get out of your truck and say that. Sure, I'll take it down and shove it somewhere you won't like.
Well, that's what George told me to say, but, man, that guy really pissed me off.

I've worked almost 60 hours this week, which includes reading. Finished "The Witches of Eastwick." Sure, it's chick-lit and no, I don't care. Updike is a hell of a writer who knows how to craft a sentence and use words to his advantage. Now I'll finish up "Dubliners" and move on to either Tom Robbins or more Bolano.

I want to start a literature and arts magazine in Durango, but I'm skeptical about how well it would go over and I don't know how the hell to begin the process. I'm working on some stories and I have ideas for more, but I'm hesitant to make them public. It'd be like opening a new wound and having some poke it if any criticism came around.

This weekend Liz was gone. I drank beer, ordered a pizza, and played video games. Testosterone does strange things to your body and makes things like that sound attractive sometimes. I often wonder what the masculine heaven would be? A dusty retro-patterned sofa with springs much too soft, a food preferably fried or salty, an erratically moving television show or movie, the lack of a need to move for hours, alcohol, a favorite band or song on very loud (which, in the case of the average male, would include music not suited to the average, semi-intelligent human's ears), the opportunity to glance at a nude female, and possibly more depending on what specimen of male we are discussing. Often times, they're vile, lewd creatures.

Anyways,







This is where I work.

Saturday 0600 hrs. - Helped set up bike racks and traffic cones for the Iron Horse Classic (one of two huge tourists draws in Durango. The IHC is a 50ish mile race up three mountain passes from Durango to Silverton. Cyclists are racing an old steam engine. If you don't beat it, you're either dead or morbidly obese. It takes nearly four hours for the train to get there).
Helped set off the 3,000+ cyclists in their different categories. The men with their penis envy and napoleon syndrome all clad in spandex and shaved legs and their carbon fiber aerodynamicized flashy-looking midlife crisis bikes (scarily enough, even some kids had these bikes!!!) - the men were all sizing each other up. Stone-faced. Leg muscles bulging and shining from the reflective grease smeared on their smooth skin. Every ounce of weight gone. Must. Be. Fast.

0830 hrs. - Home again. Eat pancakes with honey. I love Liz.

1030 hrs. - Arrive at Gouldine trailhead. Switchback after switchback after switchback after switchback after switchback up a mountain. We went nearly 3,000 ft. in about an hour and a half. Soaked with sweat. Trudging. Heavy boots. Winded. Can't stop though. We go a ways up the wrong trail. Moods sours. Turn around. Here's the trail. Shit, more uphill. Small steps. Sweating. Panting. Heart racing. I become discouraged and pout like a child. I can't do it, but I must. Stop go stop go stop go. She says we should turn around. Yeah right, I'll show her. Another ten feet. Repeat.
I think about the perfectly mechanized bodies of those perfectly calibrated men. Why can't I be like them? Why can't I have perfect skin? A beautifully Greek, statuesque body, which men would stare in awe at? Why can't I not break a sweat when doing aerobic exercise? I think about all my days of inactivity. The days I decided to burn up my lungs with smoke. The days of junk food. My years and years of not caring. Nihilism. I think about my dad. About my mom. About air pollution. Prescription drugs. And I cry. I cry and sniffle and trudge down the path. Reassurance doesn't matter. I'm too far down. It's self-pity. I realize this and chin up and look around. Where the hell are you, Nathan. In the most beautiful city you've ever lived. Listen to the birds, the stream, look at the gargantuan trees, feel the air, the water breathe the air here, look at her, look at you. Without the years of inactivity, the junk food, the dad, the mom, the hometown, the drugs you did, the high school, the old friends, the new friends, the past, the present, and the future, you wouldn't be you. Those perfectly musculatured beasts don't matter. They're not you. People love you and hate you for the same reason - you're you. Revel in it.

1600 hrs. - Home. Relax. Supper.

2000 hrs. - Walk to Carvers. Drink a beer that reminds me of one of my favorites from home. Three Floyds Alpha King. Talk with Liz about all my friends from years past and all the great ones I currently have. I miss them, but I laugh about it.

Mahalo - Nathan D. Brown.















Southwest Book Trader.














The three bears racing in the cruiser crit in downtown. The day after the Iron Horse, most of downtown is closed off. Cyclists do figure eights around downtown. It all is capped off with the cruiser crit, in which riders are encouraged to have fun and dress in costume. Durango is fun.

WeirdThingsGerogeSaysAndDoes.Com Pt. 2

1. A couple, 50-something, walk in and pick up an old air force jacket.

"Yep, that a nice jacket there. Bought it for about $300 brand new. It's U.S.A. made," George says.
"Forty dollars, huh?" The guy asks.
"Thirty-five and it's yours."
"Now, honey, why would you want that?! I picked it up and looked already and it's all worn on the back," the woman says.
"....."
The man says nothing.
George puffs up like a rooster.
"Lady, that leather is almost in perfect condition."
"No, I know it's not."
"You know?! Lady, I know. My wife did leather working for almost twenty years. Sheesh.... you know.... If you want some leather you know why don't you go down to Wal-Mart and get some of that cheap China leather made by little kids in sweat shops."
"Well, we just might do that."
The man says nothing. George looks at me and smiles real big. He has what I think is a tuna salad (maybe egg salad) with banana peppers sandwich in one hand and a half-finished Odouls in the other hand. The couple walks off toward their Ford F-350 extended cab, diesel sucking blue pick-up truck. George is propped up in his door way and spits, almost like he's marking and guarding his territory.
"Lady, you want a number for a proctologist? Might help ya find ya head. Jeesh," he says, turning to me," see what the wind does to me?! Makes me cranky."

2. George walked into the shop today and farted in the doorway while I was in the process of carrying out boxes to put on the porch.

Dead Kiwi Hedgehog

You're riding along and then *wabomph*, damn, you're instantly 10 mph slower than you were, cruising crooked because of the force coming at you from the east, now the west, now straight on, and damn, you're sweating, but the wind is so cold, goosebumps, shift down, the winds blowing so hard you can't hear "Zoot Allures" anymore, one of the best Zappa albums next to "Joe's Garage."

Riding in Durango is kind of like that. I did a 32 mile loop yesterday, with the turning around point being where highway 250 crosses the Animas River. There's an overpass where you can jump from into the muddy river. A bunch of folk of Latin origin were relaxing on the surrounding rock drinking some low-alcohol-content-sweet-beverage-type-of-looking things. I sat down, pondered the dirty water while my legs rested.

Hopped back on my bike. I'm pumped. Headwinds the whole way back. No longer so enthusiastic. At the end, felt like I rode at least 50.

On the way back, I think I saw a dead hedgehog about the size of a kiwi and I know I saw a rotten pile of bones and fur of large size (animal unknown) on the side of 550 that was there last time I rode. Don't these people ever shovel their deceased? A decent burial in an industrial crematory at least? Sheesh........

WeirdThingsGerogeSaysAndDoes.Com

I'm considering changing this blog to "WeirdThingsGerogeSaysAndDoes.Com."

Yesterday, during "training:"

1. About 10:30 a.m., Geroge walks up while Wes and I are putting the multitude of stuff on the porch to prepare for the workday (the porch of this place is like a humongous garage sale on a small porch).

"Welp, eh, been tryin' to turn Wes gay. It'd help 'em do this job a little better, gets things organized better. As you can see, he ain't gay yet."

2. About 12:00 p.m., George is sitting behind his desk. Only the top two buttons of his denim shirt are buttoned and the rest of his grease stained shirt are sliding down the sides of his belly, revealing an equally unkempt t-shirt.

(With a real weird laugh and smile): "Wes told ya about the initiation yet?"

"Uhhh... No....?"

"Huh. Figgered he would've." He unclasps his fingers resting on his belly and fumbles around in the top drawer of his desk. "This is the cash drawer." He takes out an envelope with money in it. "Try to keep bout a hundred dollars in here. If it's less, I gotta pay sales tax on it." Continues fumbling around in the drawer. "Ahhhh, here it is." He takes out a taser, one that looks police-issued, and turns it on. An electric-blue bolt of stuff I don't want to be near cracks and pops and cracks and pops and sounds like bubble wrap being popped except at a much higher decibel rating. "Can I try this thing out on ya? Wes wouldn't let me do it either. But, see, if anyone ever comes in here givin' ya trouble, we gotta know what we're dealing with here. We gotta know how well this thing works and we can't know unless somebody is willing to let me try it on 'em."

He said he was kidding and purchased the thing mainly for the women who have been employed there, just in case anyone tries anything funny. Part of me wonders.

3. George had a bowie knife stowed in between some books next to his desk. He said he's get rid of it soon... whatever that means. When I went in the shop last Friday, he had two old sabers next to his desk. They're gone now.

I like George.

Hiking in Hermosa

I found a stick yesterday. A stick - one minus the bark with squiggly little engravings probably squiggled by some little woodivore. It's curved, allowing for a preferable weight distribution. I brought it home.

Yesterday, Liz and I went a few miles outside of town to Hermosa to hike. We twisted and turned up a dirt road to the trail head and hiked about 9 miles to somewhere around 9000 ft. The Hermosa Creek trail is a heavily used outing for hikers, bikers and those disgusting dirtbikes that leave trails of dust and exhaust. Aspens are abundant in the forests here and their white bark makes it seem like winter when you come upon a clearing of a couple hundred of them. All the pictures in this post are from the hike.

Every few miles we'd happen upon a narrow trail on the side of a steep hill (I don't mean hill in the Midwest sense of the word either). The tree line would thin out and you could see for miles and look all around at the still snow-capped peaks in the distance.

Did you know scat means poop? Public schools failed terribly - I didn't know that.

I think it's pretty damn cool to live in a place where a legitimate concern while hiking is encountering a bear or mountain lion.

I went to a potluck Saturday night with Liz and met some more friendly Durango(nians?)(ans?)(phers?)(ons?). One of them shared a few bear encounter stories that happened to people she knew. Allow me to paraphrase:

So, her friend was camping in the mountains and had to take care of a little business. He goes off into the trees, finds a nice place where he can lean against a tree and look out to this beautiful view. He starts doing his thing and hears a noise. Turns around and sees a bear. That will definitely get things moving.

Another friend went to go find some water. He took a water purifier and some other bottles and such. Now this guy had been trained on all actions dealing with encountering a big-toothed, blabbering, black, brown, brazen, brave, blood thirsty bear. Guess what? On the way to the water he runs right into a bear, drops all his stuff, and dashes back to camp. Once his courage finally trots back to camp, he goes to collect his things that he'd dropped and get some water. He finds the spot and sees a long track of bear scat going off into the woods. They both scared the shit out of each other.

Referring back to my last post, I got a job. I went into the bookstore, Southwest Book Trader, and, by golly, there was George in all his cantankerous, crotchety glory sitting behind his desk, which is sitting behind a floor-to-ceiling, wall-to-wall stack of milk crates full of books.

I talk to him and all the while he's moving things for the sake of simply moving them. He stacks books and they fall and re-stacks them. He makes god-awful mucus-rattling, guttural noises and spits in the trash can. He has a long whit ponytail, small glasses, a big belly, and a cowboy hat He asked me about three different times in ten minutes why I was in Durango and supplanted Indiana University with Iowa University, Illinois University, and Indiana State University.

He never really looked at me while I was talking to him. He showed me how they keep track of hours while they work - 3x5 cards. I'm pretty sure pay is under the table. George told me to come in and train today. Hope he remembers that I'm coming.

The store is dusty, dimly lit, has a good front porch, and about a million books - my kinda place.

Did I miss something? Is there something in the water? Am I hypersensitive to the movements of the clock? What the hell is wrong here? Days in the Southwest go by so slowwwwwwwwww.

Life by the Hood.

Durango, CO

This is day three. My third day of life the furthest west I've ever been. The third day of post-college, real world life. The third day I woke up with a scene that could have been painted by a backdrop artist for Hollywood movies - the mountains that cut the clouds in half, which makes them give way to the sun.

Durango, Colorado is nestled at about 6,500 ft. inside of a bowl of mountains. and has a population of 15,000. Only about seven square miles, Durango attracts yuppie tourists, hitchhikers, outdoors enthusiasts, and some damn good-hearted, easy-going folks. A pair of Carhartt work pants with a pair of gloves tucked in the back pocket, a flannel shirt, and an old sweat-ringed hat make up the fashion aspect of life. And at a few bookstores, locals get a ten percent discount on books.

My life in the last couple days has consisted of walking around Main St., popping in and out of shops, going to the library (Borges said: "I have always imagined that Paradise will be a kind of library"), cooking, and reading "Infinite Jest" by David Foster Wallace. But, more importantly, I've been pursuing employment.

My job search has been like this so far:

Yesterday, I went in to an old bookstore where the carpet by the entrance was worn to the wood underneath and the floor leaned in different directions depending on how tall and heavy the stacks of books were. Wesley, one of three employees (including the owner), was outside with his golden retriever (Durango has a plenitude of canine companions cleverly named "the durango dogs").

The day before, Liz and I walked by and seen Debbie, the second of three employees including the owner. I asked if they were hiring.
"Sure, I'm leaving in July and so is Wesley. We're probably hirin'. It's tough work, but if you don't mind moving boxes in and out of the store everyday, it's easy. We had 98 of these (milkcrates) last summer that had to be put out every morning and put up every night."

According to Debbie, the store is run by George, a cranky old man.

Yesterday, George was out - fly fishing.

"Might be out there all day or he might come in. Just don't know," said Wesley.

I stood inside the doorway talking to Wesley and the phone rang. While I was looking at tired-looking, used books on native Americans, Wesley answered:

"Yeah, hey, George. There's a guy in here looking for work."

"..."

"Yeah, got all his teeth. Shoes on the right feet, both tied. Got a right and left foot. Not two rights. He's tall so he can stack books too. Yeah, I'll write his name and number down."

I sure hope George calls.

Liz and I rented a not so quaint apartment in a not too shabby looking area of downtown. Except for the abundance of churches all within about a block of each other and the Hood Mortuary, the neighborhood lends itself to old, made-up ladies and young, urban professionals.

Our neighbors. Hood Mortuary.

Part of the Animas River Trail