Tag Archives: patience with the writing process

At the DMV

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I had all of my documents, passport, old driver’s license, social insurance, proof of residence, everything. I just needed to pop in for my picture and a signature.

“Do you have your appointment?” The security guatrd offered a friendly smile.

“Appointment?”

I waved me over to the window. “Scan the QR code.”

“Oh.” The website listed every DMV in the state, a litany of addresses and zip codes. I was fucked. I would have to come back. I scrolled down and found a slot in just 20 minutes. What miracle was this? I showed the security guard my screen.

“Check in over there.”

“Thank you.” I filled out the form and sat with my ticket, U0091.

Now serving U0091 at counter 11.

This was insane. I had slipped into some other dimension where the DMV was an easy, almost plesant experience. I gave the woman my ticket and signed the document.

“Please look at the camera. You can smile if you like.”

I was aghast. “You are so efficient!”

She gave me my ticket back. “Sit and they will call you.”

“What do you mean?”

“They will call you.”

Now serving U0062 at counter 19.

“Oh, okay.” I sat and looked at my ticket again. U0091. It was beginning to make sense. I looked around at the many others all waiting quietly, staring up at the screens.

Now serving U0063 at counter 4….Now serving WF0045 at counter 21

What was I thinking? Of course I would have to wait. I scrolled through the news, my mind glazing over at more Trump insanity, assembling the generals, telling them that the cities were training grounds. This fucking guy.

Now serving WL001 at counter 12…Now serving LR045 at counter 7…Now serving EN008 at counter 17…Now serving LE018 at counter 14…Now serving U0064 at counter 10.

This was going to to take a some time. I wouldn’t back to work on time.

Now serving EM009 at counter 21. Now serving U0071 at counter 12.

Very late. I texted. Sorry about that. The DMV, you know.

Now serving LR0047 at counter 11. Now serving U0072 at counter 4.

What did matter? I was in the queue. It would happen sometime. I scrolled and liked and posted retorts to the brazenly false images and data on the White House Instagram account and wondered when they would come after me. Crazy world. Interesting world. Whatever.

Now serving U0090 at counter 15.

I looked up. My time was almost up. I checked my papers. Did I have everything? Odds were low.

Now serving LE022 at counter 6. Now serving EN012 at counter 4. Now serving LE023 at counter 7.

Crazy fucking world. Why couldn’t we just make sensible decisions and get along? I had a friend in college that always said that. “Why can’t we all just get along?” He was a first-class moron.

Now serving U0091 at counter 14.

I stood sharply, stepped the wrong way, turned, and realized that that was the wrong way, that I had gone the right way the first time, and approached counter 14 and handed in my paperwork.

“Your slip.” She looked bored. At least she wasn’t angry.

“I’m sorry?”

“I need your slip.” A little irritable perhaps.

I gave her my U0091 slip.

“Okay.” She waved for my paperwork.

“Sorry about that.”

She highlighted my problems in green. “Your full name.”

“The signature too?”

“Just write out your full name.”

I returned the form.

She highlighted more. “And check the box.”

“Which one?”

“Just check yes.”

“Okay. Sorry.”

There were more highlights and fixes, and suddenly it seemed I was almost there.

“Follow the prompts on the panel.”

“Okay.” It was the voter registration stuff. I registered as a Democrat, even if I was only marginally so. I mean, it was obvious what had to be done. Get this guy out of there. But the boxes wouldn’t click. “Uh…”

“Tap. Don’t press.”

The screen worked half of the time, less than that. I kept at it, tapping not pressing, and eventually made it through. She gave me my old license back.

“I keep that?”

“Oh no.” She took it back.

I offered a smile. “At least I got that one right.”

“How are you paying? Credit?”

“Yes.”

“Follow the prompts.”

She gave me a slip of paper, my temporary license, and I was away. I had done something big. I had a renewal for eight years, the enahnced one. I was enhanced. And no one was chasing me down. I took a peak back around as I thought that. At least not yet.

Writing Process: The Cat Inside

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A spark is needed to start writing. And the trick is to allow that thing to turn into something substantial before getting at it. This can’t be forced or ignored. It’s like a cat. She pretends she doesn’t want to interact, but she does.

Popo watching

You just have to wait, even when she is sitting there. She needs to be coddled. Oh, no, not coddled! My mistake. That can’t be said, even thought. Appreciated. That’s the word. Appreciated.

Popo watching still

Play with her. Stroke her face and sides. She will go with that. And then it’s great fun and games, moving ahead like it was nothing at all. Why weren’t we always here? Simple as that? And then she is gone, quick as it started, and it’s a matter of waiting for another round

Intelligence of a Disco Ball

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I sit on the fire hydrant protective pole and think about this intelligence of ours. The buildings are big and I am impressed by that. I watch the people pass, the conversations, always on the phone, that Doppler effect, remarkable, words whole and real with the smiling, angry face, shards fleeting by, almost seizing that, like music, trying to compose those notes, understand that language. Yeah, it seems like hieroglyphics now, walking sideways, feeling so smart and full of it, and then not. Intelligence. My faux mantra. Life is being in it. Intelligence is understanding that. And so then? Then is the word. What is behind the locked door? The memory as a child of something not there. The reason for addiction. What goes on around that corner?

We imbibe. We rock and deride. We dream. What else can do that? And, essence of it, is intelligence in those very things? Irony of ironies, what if that is the only thing, to be wet and erect, and that we only need to stay delighted or angry or just freaking about that. We are the intelligent ones. Who else could dream up the idea of a disco ball, something so pure as that, that has no name nor gender or race. It just spins and plays all the right music.

Tree-Planting is Everything

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EXT. DAY.

Davis and Baz bag up in the pre-dawn light; the horizon is purple and green. They both ingest mushrooms and take a long drink of water before going up to plant the burned ground together. Clouds of ash rise up as they begin to work. A montage series offers close-ups of the shovel blades going into the ground, the trees gripped in their hands, boots tramping over the burned-out ground, interspersed with helicopter shots of them, tiny figures in the massive dominating landscape of mountains and valleys.

DAVIS (Not stopping): Feeling it?

BAZ: Feeling it.

DAVIS: It’s good.

Montage of close-ups continues, including extreme close-up of the bright blue tape tied off on a branch, beetles scampering along the edge of a burn-out twisted stump, an abandoned chainsaw blade twisted among the weeds, a woodpecker perched on a tree at the edge of the block, sweat dripping off the nose and chin of Davis, a mosquito landing and stinging Baz on the shoulder, ending with a hard slap. They stop, look at each other, drink water, move their trees from the back bag to the side, and continue planting.

DISSOLVE TO:

EXT. DAY.

Davis and Baz continue to plant. The sound of their heavy breathing, scuffing boots and cicadas are the only sounds. They reach the back edge of the block and a band of shade, planting the very edge of the road like experts, the trees rapidly dropped in. They pause in the shadows, each eating nuts and dried fruit, drinking in heavy gulps that spill down their necks.

DAVIS: I almost like this.

BAZ: Almost.

DAVIS: There’s something….

BAZ: Being an animal.

DAVIS: A burrowing creature, like a…badger.

BAZ: Digging.

DAVIS: Bringers of life.

BAZ: At 11 cents a tree.

They both laugh stupidly, looking at each other, and then go back to planting.

BAZ: I could never work at a desk.

DAVIS: Why would anyone do that? Insane.

BAZ: Look at my arm.

DAVIS (Looking at his dirty, ash-stained arm): I see it.

BAZ: Why is that part of me?

DAVIS: It’s crooked.

BAZ (Examining it): No, it isn’t.

DAVIS: I’m not saying that like it’s a bad thing.

BAZ: It isn’t crooked.

DAVIS (Holding his arm out): Mine is too!

BAZ: You’re right. Your arm’s fucked up.

DAVIS: It isn’t fucked up.

BAZ (Taking a tree, rubbing the needles gently through his hand): My point is that this arm is mine. It’s a part of who I am supposed to be.

DAVIS: Extremities.

BAZ: My brain commands, the electric impulses obey.

DAVIS: You’re just in your head? The master commander.

BAZ: Not even that. It’s a tiny point in the back. Or just outside, floating in the darkness.

DAVIS: That’s you?

BAZ (Planting again): Yes.

DAVIS (Following him, planting too): What about your nose?

BAZ: I don’t have a problem with my nose.

BAZ (Throwing his shovel in hard): That makes sense to me.

DAVIS: Your nipples.

BAZ: Nipples. Yeah.

DAVIS: What the fuck are you doing with nipples?

BAZ: I like nipples.

DAVIS: Your nipples?

BAZ: Yes.

DAVIS: You find that erotic.

BAZ: And my throat.

DAVIS: I don’t like that word.

BAZ: Throat. Man, I love a chick’s throat.

DAVIS: You mean her neck.

BAZ: No. Throat. That’s erotic.

They plant in silence, the sound of their shovels pronounced against the stillness of the day.

DAVIS (Reciting Hamlet, II, II, 228-331):What a piece of work is man, how noble in reason, how infinite in… Something or other. I forget… in apprehension how like a god… and yet to me, this quintessence of dust.

There is a long pause, the shovels once again the only sound.

BAZ  (Reciting lines from Ginsberg’s Howl in a deep and booming voice):Moloch! Moloch! Nightmare of Moloch! Moloch the loveless! Mental Moloch! Moloch whose mind is pure machinery! Moloch in whom I dream angels!Moloch! Moloch! Robot apartments! Invincible mad houses! Granite cocks!

There is another long pause.

DAVIS (Unwrapping packets of trees): Granite cocks?

BAZ (Planting ahead, chanting):Invincible mad houses, granite cocks. Invincible mad houses, granite cocks!

Davis starts planting again and joins in the chant, done in chorus with their boot steps, the shovels in the ground, the tree dropped in. They suddenly hear another noise, almost the same grunting, but deeper and louder. They look up together and see a Grizzly Bear standing right in front of them, massive, only 30 feet away. The giant creature considers them, chewing on something methodically. Baz and Davis notice a bear cub on the other side of her. They waver and then, in unison, continue to plant, Baz makes a grunting noise that almost sounds like he is continuing the chant. They plant a number of trees in succession and look up again. The bear and cub have both vanished.

DAVIS: Jesus. We just had a fucking vision.

BAZ: Both of us? At the same time?

DAVIS: What did you see?

The Grizzly and cub come out from behind the slash, walking away, and crashing into the forest.

BAZ: I saw that.

Davis goes back to planting.

DAVIS (Looking back up): What?

BAZ: I think I just saw your cat. (Pause) Riding the cub’s back, guiding it by the ears.

DAVIS: What was that noise you were making?

BAZ: What noise?

DAVIS: You were grunting or something.

BAZ: I was asserting my presence.

DAVIS: You sounded like you were having a seizure.

BAZ: It’s what the mountain gorillas do.

DAVIS: When’s the last time you think this bear ran into a fucking mountain gorilla?

BAZ: That stuff’s universal.

DAVIS (Laughing to himself): Joint. (Pause) Universal joint, remember? The van?

They continue to plant toward the road.

DAVIS (Planting his last tree): Last one. How many you got?

BAZ (Looking in his bag): Same, man. The exact same.

Baz plants his last tree and they walk slowly, languidly down.

DAVIS: What are your numbers?

They walk for a few moments in silence.

BAZ: I don’t know.

DAVIS: Me either.

BAZ: Oh, shit. One more. (Pulling a tree out and planting it)

DAVIS: Baller.