Thefunpolice's Blog

PT Log 5/18

thefunpolice — Wed, 19 May 2010 00:44:27 +0000

10x pullups (underhand)
20x dips
50x ab rep
____________
x6

Totals:
60 pullups
120 dips
350 ab rep
_____________
Time: 22:40

Winter

thefunpolice — Fri, 27 Nov 2009 07:01:42 +0000

There is a harshness to the mountain winter. Even in temperate weather the barren branches of the oaks stand out shockingly against the sky, and the evergreens seem a little less vivid in the afternoon sun. Dry weeds still stand, remnants from the summer, but they trample easily underfoot, as if submitting to their inevitable fate-the cold suffocation of the snows-and they are brittle, lifeless.

The leaves from the oaks are everywhere-caught in branches, in weeds, and lying lightly on the ground. They crunch and swish underfoot, stirring up in little eddies and swirls behind a walker. As they burn in the fire they send their skeletons back up towards the branches from which they fell, and pure white smoke before they are consumed; they are the frankincense of the mountains.

The earth is cold and damp. When there is a frost the ground splits, like dry air will split a lip. Ice crystals form in these ruptures, intricate beyond imagination. The morning sun is brief and pale; very quickly the afternoon sun takes over and the mountain is soon back in shadow-a perpetual evening this time of year.

There are winds in the tops of the tall trees that do not make their presence felt on the ground below-they are betrayed by the slow, steady sway of the sugar pines, the diagonal flight of a raven. Sometimes I hear it, faint, insistent; winter is coming, it says: prepare, prepare, prepare.

All My Yesterdays

thefunpolice — Sat, 24 Oct 2009 19:32:14 +0000

Something about autumn ignites the nostalgic within me. I suppose that makes sense; after all the season is made of the dying days of the year. More directly, Fall is a voice whispering in my ear, reminding me of my own mortality.

All the Autumns of my life seem now to have passed so quickly. Surely it wasn’t a decade ago that I was walking through an October snow with my father, carrying the axe for splitting firewood and wishing for the day when I could use the chainsaw like he did? It hasn’t been that long since I stared out the window at the rain falling from above the tallest pine trees and tried to follow individual raindrops to the ground…has it?

Sitting here in the Los Angeles sun brings to mind the trips, not that long ago, that I took with my family. It mirrors those mornings spent in some coffeehouse or breakfast nook along the coast, my father’s love of coffee a source of mystery and irritation to me because then (as now) my heart longed to return to the dark, silent forest of my home, and every minute spent elsewhere was a minute not really lived…

I want to go home. I want it, I need it more than anything but it is the one thing I can’t have. My yesterdays are through and all that remains are my tomorrows.

A Vapor in the Wind

thefunpolice — Wed, 21 Oct 2009 03:54:03 +0000

Its odd how little it takes to snap your mind back to a particular time or place (a particular memory, I suppose); a smell, a color…
Tonight it was a song-more specifically the opening notes of a song-and the memory they returned me to was of chilly autumn nights in the loft, listening to rain on the roof. Homework lies undone next to me, the wood and the fabric and the paint in the loft all give off their scents, mixing in that certain way that was at the time unremarkable, but that I’d give anything to smell now.

The memory continues-the way I lean back in the old office chair, tilting precariously close to the tipping point; I am lost in thought then, as now. My gaze rests absently on the ceiling, as if I can see through it to the rain and the trees and the sky, all lying wrapped in the cloak of the storm. Inside it is warm, of course, the fireplace below sending its heat upwards, through the loft door. The bare bulb above me is bright, too bright to look at, but I do anyway. For a moment I bet my vision against the power glowing in the filament, I lose myself in a private battle with electricity, but I pull away before my eyes hurt. I always do.

Wind buffets the house. The loft window, nothing but screen and plastic, flexes with the wind-mirroring the breaths of the giant just outside the window. (I realize only now that the same sheet of plastic must have hung on that window for years. It never once gave way.) My thoughts repeatedly turn to the storm outside. I din’t notice the frailty of what separated me from its awesome power-nothing but wood and paper and metal.

I think of the morning. Maybe it will bring a clear fall day, crisp and cool with a bracing wind in the pines above. Such a day is made for hiking, for walking silently on a carpet of wet oak leaves; I feel a sense of freedom and inexplicable joy at the very thought. The afternoon would be short, the light fading quickly to dusk. I know that in the crystal fall evening the lights of the house will blaze even from the depths of the forest. The axe I swing will feel a little lighter when I think of the warmth those lights project…

But maybe the morning will bring a somber and unbroken mist that hangs just out of reach in the sky. Maybe the air will be heavy with water-that peculiar feeling that is a heatless humidity. Maybe the forest and the firewood and the clothes I wear will soak up this moisture, causing my skin to soften and my breath to slow. If the morning is heavy like this, then the afternoon will likely bring another storm. It will start slowly-a drizzle, maybe for hours. As darkness falls the drizzle will become a rain which will by nightfall be a downpour such that the foundation of the house seems inadequate to deal with the torrents it spawns.

Just like that my thoughts run themselves in circles, returning ever to the storm, and my refuge therefrom.

The storm is of a different sort now. The rain comes harder, the foundations quake and shift and threaten to give way. Refuge isn’t as simple as it was when I was 16-I know that I must soon venture out into that storm. At 16 I knew the clothes I wore were sufficient to run the water off my back, but gazing into the years ahead I suspect that what I wear now is not.

How similar I am to the mist that hangs above the trees during autumn storms! How odd that I am preparing to live as the metal roof between the storm and the house.

Gay Marriage

thefunpolice — Thu, 24 Sep 2009 21:00:36 +0000

I do not advocate that society should prevent homosexual couples from living together. What I will never stand for is calling homosexual couples “married.” Marriage has come down through the ages (entirely discounting its unimaginable importance in the Judeo-Christian tradition upon which western civilization is founded) as a union between a man and a woman for two very important reasons-the unity of humanity (two parts joined to make a whole), and the continuance of humanity through childbearing. Marriage was never a simple declaration of love or a ticket to sexual fulfillment. If it was, it would have no meaning.
That said, the real goal of the homosexual lobby is not to gain visitation rights or tax benefits. It is to co-opt society’s most precious institution for the purpose of legitimizing a practice that otherwise would not be accepted.
If homosexuality is so natural, would it require any effort to legitimize it?

Fish Tales

thefunpolice — Wed, 02 Sep 2009 05:24:33 +0000

Sometimes I lie to myself. I tell myself that I don’t fish to catch fish, I fish to relax. I fish to experience the wild. I say that I fish for any reason other than catching fish. This makes me feel sophisticated, above the petty desire for a catch. When I say this, I claim my spot among the Volvo-driving, fly rod toting, wine drinking purists.

The truth is not nearly so zen. If I am honest, I must admit that when I throw a lure out into the blue, I expect a fish to come back on it. And if one doesn’t, then I throw that lure out again. I will repeat this process unceasingly and without much variation, all for the electric struggle of the rod tip, line, and fish.

When I catch a fish, I am happy. That is all there is to it. The slime, the gasping mouth, the bulbous round eyes, and the flashing fins-these are the elements that make up happiness.

Its a good thing I don’t drive a volvo.

Grandad’s worst fear.

thefunpolice — Fri, 28 Aug 2009 04:52:37 +0000

Grandad had me cornered again. His mind had been working on this lesson for some time, I could tell. As he talked, his hands traced shapes in the air, helping him articulate what he was trying to impart to me, his mind grasping at a concept better understood by his 70-some years than my 19.

“My worst fear is that you will meet someone like yourself [on the field of battle] and because of the profession you have chosen, be forced to choose between being destroyed by him, and having all your potential and dreams and future extinguished, or destroying him and his future, his potential, his dreams.”

Last year, I would have easily dismissed this as the ramblings of an old man. This year, I cannot.

I don’t want to hurt you…

thefunpolice — Thu, 27 Aug 2009 20:29:57 +0000

…but sometimes you leave me no choice. You love me powerfully, obsessively…perhaps too much. I feel like I have to tiptoe to keep you happy, because the slightest disturbance to your vision of our relationship threatens to destroy you.

I do love you. How could I not? You are all but perfect-a man could hardly ask for more. You promise me forever with every whisper, touch, and smile, and I want that. At least, I do sometimes. Sometimes I just want to live in the moment. I want to love and kiss, and I want to be absent. I want to hold you and sleep with you in my arms, and I want to be far away. I want my own life, as I come of age. I want to pursue my future with nothing on my mind but myself, and I can’t imagine a future without you.

It is a terrible paradox, my love for you. I feel suffocated; I can’t breath with you, and I can’t breath without you.

Relax your embrace, my love. Hold me, but not too tight. Love me, but not too much. Be there, but not always.

Summer

thefunpolice — Mon, 24 Aug 2009 06:55:52 +0000

I think what I miss most about the mountains is the sky. It always feels like you’re on top of the world here-the pines are like a crown ringing the sky. Even in the deep forest, where the old growth oaks and cedars close in and shut out the light, there is a sense of height.

Days like today are perfect-the breeze under the leaden clouds keeps the humidity down. The sky will drop some rain here and there, a feeble attempt at a summer storm, but all it will do is cause the fish to stop biting.

The fish. That’s probably second on the things-I-miss list. The absolute thrill of peering into the murky pond to see what is tugging at the end of my line, the excitement at what I pull from the water…there is nothing like it in the city. The hybrid delight of sky and fish-here at the ponds or up at Huntington-must be the peak of enjoyment. Wetting a line as the pines whistle and sway in the wind, watching the sunset like fire behind the ridges, biking home in the dusk…these things make up my dreams.

They are the hardest things to leave.

A time for war

thefunpolice — Tue, 04 Aug 2009 03:40:38 +0000

I’m listening intently to a man not much older than myself. He is teaching me to kill, quickly and efficiently. The cold steel of the rifle I hold is in sharp contrast to the heat of the body armor I am wearing. The kevlar helmet I’ve strapped to my head traps the heat pouring off my body and gives me a headache, and the long sleeves of my uniform are drenched in sweat. It is not yet noon.

The corporal tells me about speed and violence of action. All the social mores I’ve lived with in my nineteen years are overturned-I am to kill, as violently and as free from remorse as possible. We are taught the coldest logic- we learn that it is the junior man who is first through the door. His position in the platoon makes him the only choice-he has no responsibility, no decisions to make. Nobody’s life is in his hands. His position is as close to cannon fodder as the modern American military will permit, and when I send him through that door 4 years from now he will be younger than I am at this moment.

For now I play his part.

Blood pounds in my ears as I point my rifle at the door. I know there are enemies inside-I hear them talking and moving around. I feel my comrades behind me in the stack; we are stacked as tightly as we can get. The number two man’s rifle points over my shoulder, and the black steel of the weapon dominates my peripheral vision. I experience alternating waves of adrenaline and exhaustion, all in a few seconds time, and the air seems to thicken in my throat.
The number two man bumps me with his knee and hisses into my ear, “With you!” I step into the door, weapon in my shoulder, cheek welded to the buttstock. The rifle points wherever I look.
The walls are slate grey, and they are dusty. Its funny the details I notice in the microseconds it takes me to swivel to the right and begin my clearing of the room. I complete my turn, and find myself staring at a large man pointing a rifle at me. Almost reflexively I pull the trigger, and my rifle shudders. Brass shells eject with every shot-they smoke slightly as they spin away from me. Over the din of my rifle I hear the faint metallic sound of my brass hitting the concrete floor. I keep stepping towards the man I am shooting as I fire, and I notice that he is firing at me. The brass ejected from his weapon hit the wall next to him and fall around his feet in glittering showers, and the smell of cordite is heavy in the small room.

For training purposes, he stops firing and my team finishes clearing the room. There was another enemy in the opposite corner, and firefight between him and my teammates has left a visible pall of gunsmoke in the air. Brass crunches and rolls underfoot.
Our technique was good, the corporal tells us. We killed the enemies and completed our micro mission. It is a simple, repetitive drill, and we practice all morning.

I can’t forget the flashes from that first man’s weapon as I turned the corner. For all my technique, he was shooting before I pulled the trigger. I am a dead man. In four years, the 18 year old PFC I send through that door will not walk out as I did. I will watch as my men pull his body from the room. I will write a letter to his wife, explaining why her high school sweetheart isn’t coming home.

How do I prepare for that? My position will prevent me from taking his place, though every instinct will scream at me to do just that. How will I live with myself after that? Will I be wracked with guilt at every milestone of life? Will my children’s faces mirror the men who went to their death at my orders? Will my wife’s graying hair serve only to remind me of the women those men left behind?

What in life could ever overcome the agony of ordering men to die?