the endless procession to the guillotine.

10:38pm: I am her human.
I've made it my objective to go on a hike at least once every day or night this past month. I've seen the regular fare of birds: Black Phoebe, Common Yellowthroat, Downy Woodpecker, Acorn Woodpecker, Northern Flicker, Bushtit, Wrentit, Hutton's Vireo, Bewick's Wren, California Towhee, Spotted Towhee, California Thrasher, White Crowned Sparrow, Western Meadowlark, American Kestrel, Cooper's Hawk, Red Tailed Hawk, Great Horned Owl, and some kind of Warbler I cannot figure out.
Ack, I really need to start up my field notebook again.

I got a new feline companion last weekend. She is a 2 year old, solid gray longhair. She came with the name 'Grizzabella' but I don't think either of us could live too long with a name like that, so I refitted her with Faolán, which means 'little wolf'. I might have made a poor decision in getting her if I am to go to Oregon this month, since she seems already attached to me and indifferent if not wholly frightened of anyone else, but like most cats she is observant and resilient.

She is licking the salt off my knee from tonight's sweaty hike. Late dusk hikes are some of the more enchanting with shadow figures and moon tans. Katlyn and I saw a Common Poorwill nestled in the middle of the trail. I was so excited to see one so close but I really wasn't able to see it in full detail due to the fading light... the gray dusty trail outlined its hard black silhouette and there was a definite white streak under its cheek. It's best to learn how to identify birds by silhouette, flight pattern, and voice rather than by size and colors, methinks.

5:06pm:

'What meaneth this sad, this fearful change,
That withers my heart with woe?
The house of my father all joyless and lone,
Its halls and its gardens with weeds overgrown,
A dreadful and strange overthrow!

No conquering heroes, no hounds for the chase,
No shields in array on its walls,
No bright silver goblets, no gay cavalcades,
No youthful assemblies, no high-born maids,
To brighten its desolate halls!

An omen of sadness--the home of our youth
All ruined, deserted and bare.
Alas for the chieftain, the gentle and brave;
His glories and sorrows are stilled in the grave,
And we left to live in despair!

From ocean to ocean, from age unto age,
We have lived to the fulness of time;
Through a life such as men never heard of we've passed
In suffering and sorrow our doom has been cast,
By our stepmother's pitiless crime!'

--The Children of Lir, from 'Irish Sagas and Folk Tales' by Eileen O'Faolain


(katlyn) we will never see the davies brothers (the kinks) together, ever, i don't think, since dave had the stroke. damn it all, we will have to make our own way, prince of the punks style.

11:32pm: just another idiot in the dark.
dio is the biggest influence on both alice cooper (katlyn) and king diamond (me).

9:11pm: oh boy.

12:22am: me as king diamond eating feline.

Oh am I too concerned with the burn of scrutiny?
And when will someone swing a scythe against me?

9:37pm:

9:14pm:

edge of the ocean.

10:39pm:

7:22pm: on my way to this film festival yesterday evening, i saw a mountain lion on the edge of the pacific coast highway (! never before, never again). this thursday i will see my favorite sing along band, toxic holocaust with skeletonwitch. can someone please elaborate on the latter band?



( elfin forest, los osos... )

8:41pm: mantodea massacre & fungi freeloaders.
this morning i collected my first specimen for my insect collection. i found a mantid quietly camouflaged in my sea lavender leaves. at the moment it is experiencing a slow death courtesy of my cyanide laced killing jar. i'm a little uneasy with the thought that i might have poisoned myself in the process. i don't want my last dying moment to be filled with the image of two green beady little eyes saying, "i'll take you down with me, human." i wonder if my guilt would have been lessened if i had killed/collected a few pest insects first before i killed the beneficial predator that is the mantis. i wonder the response i would get if i were to write in this purely scientific approach in my field notebook. shouldn't i be studying its anatomy, metamorphosis, and taxonomy rather than wondering if it would make a cute and cuddly pet? it's now a frozen piece of a grade.

plant pathogen fungi. more squeamish studies in the form of a diseased plant collection.
( leave it to me to do the dirty work. )

i'm also mulling over, "what is a species?" and natural vs. artificial selection. those kind of definitions that turn into concepts and clouds. shit, did the fungi poison me as well?

10:08pm: Aquarium of the pacific.
( phantoms of the deep... )

6:51pm:

10:19pm: i can feel the lifting of my blues... katydid, soon.
( great blue hiraedd. )

7:45pm: Schedule...
ASCI 211 Meat Science  
Muscle food processing methods and operations. Conversion of muscle to meat. Meat inspection, grading, composition, curing, preservation, food safety and related topics. Carcass beef, pork, and lamb processed into consumer ready products. 3 lectures, 1 laboratory.

EHS 337 Park Planning & Management  
Overview of the management and maintenance of private and public parks and recreational areas. Field trips required. 3 lectures, 1 laboratory. Prerequisite: Junior standing or consent of instructor.

EHS 343 Turfgrass Management  
Turfgrass species and uses. Principles of turfgrass physiology and communities under different environments. Overview of procedures and equipment for propagation, mowing, irrigation, fertilization, aerification, and pest control. 3 lectures, 1 laboratory. Prerequisite: HCS 120 or consent of instructor, EHS 123, SS 121.

I don't think I know how to approach these topics properly. I want to learn everything and more, yet I still don't see myself as a vocational student. I want to run out into the field with botany and biology (zoology) under my belt-- envelop myself in native plant and birds of prey studies...

butt-fuck management.

I saw an African bird in Ventura, California. Supposedly the Orange Bishop has eluded captivity and has formed a small colony in California. Interesting.

11:28pm: R.I.P. Mumsers.

9:47pm: Ray Bradbury.
OUT there in the cold water, far from land, we waited every night for the coming of the fog, and it came, and we oiled the brass machinery and lit the fog light up in the stone tower. Feeling like two birds in the grey sky, McDunn and I sent the light touching out, red, then white, then red again, to eye the lonely ships. And if they did not see our light, then there was always our Voice, the great deep cry of our Fog Horn shuddering through the rags of mist to startle the gulls away like decks of scattered cards and make the waves turn high and foam.

( The Foghorn... )

4:53pm: the papers are signed in salt spray. i'm moving to morro bay.

( ... )

6:53pm: alis volat propriis. "she flies with her own wings".
( a handful of oregon photos... )

11:53pm: a rural raid.
i made the plans one day in advance to make a spontaneous trip to oregon. the first day here: hunting for carnivorous plants, making sauerkraut, watching the sun set on the solstice, witnessing a chainsaw log carving contest, and harvesting duck eggs as the drake bled my ankles.

i can barely keep up with myself, yet here i am.

p.s. i asked for pentti linkola at a few bookstores here and i was replied with bull and blank stares. fuck.

8:58am: never buy or accept as a present anything with the mac label.

8:18pm: making of fitzcarraldo
"we are challenging nature itself and it hits back. it just hits back and that is what is grandiose about it. we have to accept that it is much stronger than we are. kinski always says that it is full of erotic elements. i don't see it so much as erotic i see it more full of obscenity. nature here is vile and base. i wouldn't see anything erotic here... i see fornication, asphyxiation, choking, fighting for survival, growing, just rotting away. of course there is a lot of misery but it is the same misery that is all around us. the trees here are in misery, the birds are in misery. i don't think they sing they just screech in pain."
--herzog in "burden of dreams"

6:15am: nothing to prove, but walk between the lines.
i am slowly chipping away at the mountain of school work piled up in front of me. i feel like i'm digging into a mineshaft that must be cracked through in through before the massive flash flood rains come washing in to drown me. my pen is my pickaxe. the school stress is compounded by my skin infection and my canary. reexamining, reflecting, flipping through a deck of wand arcana.
light has been shed on a part that has for the longest time been kept in the dark. the olfactory memory lies in my hair from his sheets.

( omen lyrics & beste photos... )

nin64

my mother is the shit. countdown to majora's mask and ocarina of time.

5:46pm: the perils of higher education.
( take a tissue culture; be a guinea pig... )

i don't mind looking like a zombie with rotting flesh, but feeling like a zombie throughout the last few weeks of the quarter due to the antibiotics doesn't sound quite as glamorous.

9:11pm: A Fenriz head on a fishhook.
Slaytanic Carnage
Airs: Wednesday nights 11pm-1am
Host: Matt Carnage
Description: Pure F*cking Metal
http://www.kcpr.org/music/live.html

I might drop into the station tonight. The show appears to be rather death metal oriented judging by the one listen I lent it. We'll see. If 'Too Old, Too Cold' rides the waves tonight it'll be due to my (oh so) refined influence. I'm still a bit surprised that I found the metal thread here in San Luis. A needle in field of haystacks, literally. I'm even more surprised that I might be making a social effort.

This should be bait enough to reel me out of my hole. However, i'm tempted to stay home alone with a snifter of scotch in The Tombs of Atuan.

( A select few from this weeks plant materials list... )

10:39pm: So, we stood alone on a distant shore.
So, my daily treetop treasure hunt proved fruitful. Not juicy fruit, but a winged fruit rare to these parts: a Western Tanager. As he meticulously picked around the cork of the tree, carrying out his own insect treasure hunt, I silently questioned how such a shy creature could be painted in conspicuous color.

The sighting only renewed my longing to move location to Morro Bay, which supposedly ranks in the top 5 for the Audubon Christmas Bird counts. I hope one day to sit atop the volcanic plug that is Morro Rock, alongside the nesting Peregrines, to ruffle our hackle feathers in unison against the wind as the flock pleads for the fog bank to consume us all. Pulling the plug and riding the lava flow into the sea is another option.

I found a new hobby. Crushing earwigs with my bare thumbs. Count: 8
There are little splotches of brown guts splattered across my ceiling. I'm getting evil face with the thought of blasting them with diatomaceous earth or boric acid. My territory has been threatened. I settled with dousing my den in Cedar oil as not to kill myself in the process.

I hiked to a serpentine rock outcrop and snatched a rare, endemic species of Dudleya only found in San Luis Obispo. It's now sitting next to a Spider plant with necrotic leaf tips. I alone could change the common name of Dudleya from 'Live forever' to 'What once was'.


I am head over heels for Primordial's lyrics...

Dark Song
[Written originally by ancient Irish pagan poet Amergin Glangel]

I am the wind that breathes on the sea
I am the wave, wave on the ocean
I am the ray, the eye of the sun
I am a tomb, cold in darkness
I am star, the tear of the sun
I am a wonder, a wonder in flower
I am the spear as it cries out for blood
The word of great power
I am the depts of a great pool
I am the song of the blackbird

Who but I can cast light upon the meeting of the mountains?
Who but I will cry aloud the changes in the moon?
Who but I can find the place where hides away the sun?
AiliIath Nerenn

From the breeze on the mountain to the lake of deep blue
From the waterfall down to the sea
Never changing or ending on the voice of the wind
Sing the dark song of Erenn to me...