The Adventures of Floyd Pittsley

-40 degrees

2011-06-15T14:28:00.001-07:00

Floyd stared at the chart. "At -40 degrees, both Celsius and Fahrenheit are the same?" The consideration that two separate lines of measurement converge to meet and agree suddenly set Floyd back to t 5th grade, when he first understood that plants were technically living organisms. He spent afternoons during that spring, attempting to coerce an acknowledgment from a field of Dandelions. He couldn't foster a thought about how to validate Ms. Lavoie's claims that plants grow and reproduce and live. He needed to hear it from a plant itself, that its existence in the gardens and forests and yards of his neighborhood were actual community members and not decorations.

Floyd had done well at math in high school, and had passed with good grades Mr. Brown's physics. There must be, he thought, a mathematical formula which answers how this can be. The alarm clock in his roommate's room began buzzing, in a cycle of louder and softer electronic buzzes. Floyd stopped thinking about temperatures and turned to the paper that sat on the couch folded and crumpled to reveal the editorial page. A woman from Medford had written the Globe about the inadequacy of the city to manage the growing potholes. She had lost a tire to one on Maple avenue, a pothole known for its size and severity. Drivers along Maple avenue were being forced into oncoming lanes to avoid the unpleasant and destructive collision with rotting asphalt. Floyd chuckled at the thought of a pothole as a boil or lesion, oozing with tar, stinking of rotten flesh, and the good citizens of Medford, fearing the loss of property value, create a mob to destroy the pothole or simply run it out of town. Floyd couldn't help but wonder whether the potholes of Medford were living organisms and a right to exist and evolve along with noxious weeds, pine trees and Dandelions.

Bottle Caps

2011-06-10T08:19:00.001-07:00

In the beginning, Floyd accumulated bottle caps from wherever he could find them. Along the sidewalks of Somerville, he would find different species, particularly around public garbage cans, he observed. Regardless of size, shape, or condition, Floyd anxiously grasped at the abandoned lids, as though they held a secret code or were meant to serve as the blocks in a construction. Perhaps a model or sculpture, representing the actual Prudential building, but subversively serving as a metaphor for something else. No one truly understood Floyd's fascination with bottle caps, and, despite routine questions, many of his closest allies (people like Floyd categorize people as acquaintances, allies, and potentials. Close friends and family typically fell into the ally category) turned away confused by his obscure answers and frustrated by the evolving mass of aluminum.

Floyd began collecting caps as an 8 year old, when soda companies started luring unsuspecting imbibers into believing they could win a new car or a dream trip to Jamaica. Hidden under a cap, somewhere in the freezers of American mini-marts stood the code that would launch a life of happiness. Floyd started drinking copious amounts of soda, which began to affect his sleep. His teacher sent a note home, inquiring about Floyd's health, as the bags under his eyes slowly grew darker each day. An 8 year old insomniac is one matter, a 2nd grader on a permanent caffeine rush and sugar buzz is an entirely different concern. Floyd's mom started limiting the change from her purse upon discovering a shopping bag of bottle caps under Floyd's bed. This did not deter Floyd, as he was much more interested in the bottle caps than the soda. After all, it was the caps that held an allure for him. Plus the soda upset his stomach, made his hands quake, and created inopportune periods of belching. The paper bag, reused from a Star Market excursion, was stained along the bottom from remnants of carbonated beverages that lingered in the nooks of the threads.

Around age 18, Floyd turned his bottle cap attention to the aluminum, pop off types, common to expensive beers and gourmet sodas. This collection, he felt, would hold value to some collector in Asia perhaps or the Middle East, who possessed a fetish for American brand paraphernalia. What Floyd didn't understand was that despite the billions of people sharing space on this planet, he alone possessed this unique fetish. But that was in the beginning.

Sandwich Blues

2010-05-02T15:46:00.000-07:00

Another long gray day. Sundays meander along waiting for something important. Without any designation, Floyd captured the essence of Sunday in a large hoagie. Stacked high on a kaiser roll, three different meats sliced thin after a long period of curing. Tomatos sliced thick and allowed to leak juice everywhere, because the bread is protected by layers of lettuce nad onion. The mustard: a tangy Dijon, with no hint of sweetness. Leave the sugar for the milkshake.

Floyd could never understand the meager attempts by many to concoct a sandwich with little regard for materials and construction. Most grinders lack the synchronization of a middle school dance, allowing the ingredients to overwhlem and never reaching any potential sum. The sandwich should always be greater than its parts.

Floyd struggled: grilled or not? Pickles or not? Mayo - mostly never. Mayonnaise is the sauce of the unimaginative. Only the correct pairing and juxtaposition of ingredients should be considered. Floyd felt pride in great sandwiches and shame in the mediocre.

2010-03-10T06:01:00.000-08:00

Floyd recalled a hamburger he'd eaten as a child. Somewhere in Boston, in a loud deli, filled with smoke from the grill, stifling like an August day. But the burger held his imagination. A thick cut of ground beef, seasoned with special herbs held secret through family traditions. A thick bun, crunchy on the outside, soft on the inside; onion, thickly cut; tomato, thick and juicy; a complete concoction too thick for the mouth of a child. Floyd remembers attacking it in pieces, aiming at the sides, picking away at parts until it slowly receded.
Memories of one's childhood often overwhelm any semblance of reality. Floyd struggled to recall the location of that deli. His adolescence, his vegetarian years, the memory slowly faded, losing details that could lead him back.

The Shadows

2009-12-31T07:23:00.000-08:00

A faint stream of light slipped under the crack of the bedroom door. Across a hardwood floor, it straddled the sneaker tossed from the bedside, and continued straight under the dresser. Floyd could watch the dust bunnies dance along the floor, directly in their spotlight. A slow swirl of city collected daily in small increments, building their own story. Floyd awoke without startle, as each morning, forgetful of reasons and hopeful for experiences. His motion, swift and graceful, landed his feet on the floor and sent the bunnies back under the dresser to search for more mass

Pushing the grocery Cart

2009-02-04T17:35:00.000-08:00

Floyd tripped and hit his shin into the lower shelf of the shopping cart. With a brief stumble, all his momentum was lost and the seemingly effortless task of pushing large cartons of Red Bull, Sam Adams, 2% milk, and toilet paper from Costco up the hill to his apartment suddenly seemed burdensome. For Floyd, finding some sense of momentum to ride was a daily quest, regardless of location, intention, or footwear.
Floyd paused to collect a breath before continuing. Across the street a cab pulled over to let out Ms. Flannery.
"Shit" flashed into Floyd's thought line as he contemplated an afternoon wasted opening blinds in Ms. Flannery's apartment, after carrying her groceries up the three floors to her musty and moldy apartment. Following a regimen of opening dusty blinds, he would move onto watering the plants on top of her teetering bookshelves, and then moving baskets of laundry downstairs to the basement laundry room.
he was trapped. In the middle of the hill, just a few doors down from t he cab and in clear view of Ms. Falnnery. Her modus operandi typically involved scanning the block for any passerby. Her glaucoma and senility prevented her from ever remembering any and every soul who felt the universal pangs of guilt a the contemplation of not helping her. Floyd knew he could not say no or ignore her incessant pleas. It was a genetic fault he blamed on his father's side of the family.

Floyd crouched below the shopping cart, hoping she might think it had been abandoned in the middle of the sidewalk and miraculously fought any urge of gravity to carry down into Miller avenue. Floyd imagined remaining crouched low above the sidewalk long enough until some other person happened by and found themselves stuck in her web.

The lost journal

2009-01-30T11:29:00.000-08:00

Floyd stepped off the outbound Red Line T and instantly felt naked. Not without clothes but rather naked to the sour ether of the city as it rolls over and around everything. Floyd always traveled with a small black notebook, hard covered and ruled. His thiughts, he had discovered sometime in high school, ran out of his head without any abandon or pattern and were eternally lost to any rhythms of the city block he was nearest. Thise thoughts, forever gone, held small bits of Floyd and over time he feared he would slowly fade away like the colors of a favorite t-shirt.
Standing on the T paltform, he suddenly realized he had set the current notebook on the seat next tio him as he pulled out his sandwhich from his courier bag. (Floyd struggled daily with maintaining the appearneace of a big city hipster, while secretly fighting an inherent urge to drive large American pick-ups and drink cheap beer.)
There on the hard palstic seat, next to the woamn with the rolling hand bag, Floyd had left his most recent collection of thoughts. In a sudden moment of panic, he felt several layers of color wash away.

Resolutions

2008-12-28T11:35:00.000-08:00

Floyd couldn't tear the industrial cellophane wrapping around the stack of blank note cards. Unlined and completely blank, the cards would serve as points of collection for any and all the thoughts as they ventured into Floyd's head. Like a 9th grade English student, Floyd imagined arranging his thoughts like the research for a paper on the Great Gatsby. Along the open space of his floor, he would arrange the individual thoughts in an emerging order, hoping to discover some resemblance of order to all the notions that back up in his mind.
At this time of year, post-christmas, as hangovers of over-indulgence slowly dissipate, Floyd routinely engages in a period of persoanl reflection toward dissolving any acts of ineptness for the upcoming year. A laundry list of goals, accumualted during the previous year in a notebook of myriad thoughts is perused and only the best make the Resolution list.
A list of what he will do for the upcoming year, Floyd spends the week after Xmas revising this list into a polished guiding light that will remind him of the thoughts he had while stuffed on ham and cheesecake.

Solace

2008-07-26T22:40:00.000-07:00

Floyd wandered through the stacks of the Engineering library at Boston University. Impressive for its subtle presence and infinite quiet, the engineering library held a collection of resources specifically for the various fields of engineering. Floyd never conducted any research here; partly because he never did research and mostly because he was not an engineer. In the basement, desks sat along the outer walls under narrow windows that opened to the street level. Through these windows, natural light rolled into the room, a rare find in the myriad libraries of Boston.
Windows in the public library stand as high as the ceiling and flood the room with outside light. The windows in the basement of the engineering library acted as filters, allowing through only enough light to complement the fluorescent light bulbs that stood in between each stack.
Despite the enrollment of the engineering school, the library typically remained half empty, with only a few dedicated students perched deep in to the corners of the basement.
Floyd would visit the engineering library in the Spring, during the baseball season, before games at Fenway, which was only a 10 minute walk. Study sessions in the spring could happen anywhere for Floyd. The library had always represented to Floyd a place for creative inspiration. As a place of solace, any library acted as the place to sit quietly amongst others who also sat silently and executed "mind exercises". For Floyd, libraries rest as temples or sanctuaries for thinking. In high school, Floyd discovered the ritual of sitting in a library for contemplative work and the energy it required to remain focused on whatever work was at hand. Walking out of the public library in Somerville as a high school student, Floyd could feel a buzz about him that slowly settled into a calming rhythm. As a college student, Floyd utilized this buzz to enhance worthy experiences. The first time he visited Fenway after an afternoon study session, Floyd could swear the grass was greener than normal and the voices from the dugout were as clear as talking to Toby in their living room. Red Sox games, after that first time, were always experienced with a vigorous study session, even during he summer, when he wasn't taking nay classes.
For Floyd ,the solace from living in the hustle and bustle rested in a routine that bordered on ritual. Rather than removing himself entirely from the city, Floyd hit the library followed by a Sox game. The act of solace for Floyd did not require physical solitude; instead it simply required the process of quietly thinking then experiencing the sanctity of Fenway. Some head to temples or monasteries; Floyd catches a Red Sox game.

Visions

2008-06-26T14:13:00.000-07:00

"I'd give up my vision" Floyd stated after several minutes of imperceptible silence.
Toby looked up from the Style section of the Globe, which was laid out over the coffee table.
"Why vision?"
"I think giving up my hearing would be too lonely."
"Yeah. I could see that."
"But really, its the music. Can't imagine not having it."
"What about your 'inner saxophonist'?" For 3 years Floyd had regularly buzzed about the apartment humming to himself, proclaiming his development as a jazz saxophonist without he necessary and customary background of training and practice. In his visions, Floyd watched the notes well up in his stomach and slowly percolate up through his diaphragm, falling into the air without perceived control or design. Floyd hummed his way about various locales in Boston, buzzing like a purring cat and about as aloof as one also. Toby was barraged with an incoherent diatribe about letting the notes come out how instruments were not necessary except for amplification.
For the most part, Floyd was rational and coherent. But for brief instances, as Toby knew, logic and reason were conveniently substituted with entertaining stories and anecdotes that made sense only in Floyd's head.
"Its not really the same. I'll always have my music. It's the collaboration with other artists that I would miss."
Toby lifted his head and stared at Floyd who was busying himself with organizing his shelf of periodicals. "Collaboration? Like when you sing in the shower?"
"You have to be able to envision the notes to understand the music, Toby."

2008-04-12T06:42:00.000-07:00

"Fearlessly the idiot faced the crowd....Smiling." -Pink Floyd

Floyd's father hummed constantly, periodically interjecting lyrics into the melody. Some lyrics were correct; some were not. One summer as a young boy, post-diapers, Floyd hummed after his father the songs of Pink Floyd's Meddle. For years, Floyd was convinced he was named after the rock band, feeling for a long time an obligation to enjoy and understand the band's library of music. Well into high school, Floyd continued to develop into the persona of someone bestowed withthe burden of carrying the name of P. Floyd. Eccentricity did not happen, like shit does. Instead, he sought hte unique experience simply for the sake to say it so.
The figure in "Fearless" was always his favorite. A person so unconcerned with the potential consequences that his figure sets a tone of idiocy. Yet, as Floyd learned through experience, idiocy has nothing to do with intelligence. Fearless rests in displaying little concern for potential consequences and instead accepting the uniqueness of the experience.
Floyd's father never explained the purpose of naming his son Floyd. But, in his last year of high school, Floyd discovered jazz music and understood the idea of fearless experiences rests in an ability to improvise situations

2008-03-02T14:43:00.000-08:00

TIME MACHINE

Floyd opened the apartment door to the easy-going sounds of Lionel Richie, post-Commodores. Only a dim light from the living room carried into the foyer, where Floyd removed his jacket and hung it over the desk chair. Floyd shuddered at the sudden flash of memory that overwhelmed him. In 7th grade, his classmates held the odd commitment to holding weekly parties at someones house, usually in the basement, with sporadic parent supervision. It seemed that each Friday and Saturday night, a party that included lots of junk food, soda, and dancing to slow songs with little light occurred in the variety of basements around Somerville. Awkward as he feels in his skin, Floyd could sens a metallic taste build on his tongue at the memory of sweating through acrylic sweaters. All the while holding on to the back of some eagerly desperate girl from his class, who felt the obligation to attend the parties were secondary to dancing as a sign of social status.
Floyd vomited in the kitchen sink. He was still holding his head over the sink when Toby walked in.
"Hey, Lynette and her roommate Mikela are here. Come on in and have some dinner with us."
"What?" was all Floyd could choke out.
"Are you all right? You don't look good. Have you been saucing?"
"No. But I think I might have to start. What are you guys drinking?"
Toby paused. "Lynette brought over a bottle of chardonnay."
Floyd held back another wave, brought on by the sudden memory of a college dorm room party and the stocked closet of white wines. He held back any remnants of his dinner and walked toward the front door.
"Where you going?"
"I don't think I can afford the pain of another memory."

2008-02-23T20:48:00.000-08:00

Second chances never occur without some fore-warning. Floyd thought about the pawn shop, which smelled like mold and cat urine. Typical walks through Somerville for Floyd involve earphones, sunglasses, and a rhythm debilitated by the random syncopation of the city. Floyd walked about the city, the entire city, with an intention and commitment seeking resolution. But today Floyd became distracted by a sudden glimmer, of tinsel, he thought, in February. A glimmer of gold speckled through the dim winter, catching Floyd in his steps. A saxophone, a tenor saxophone hanging from the ceiling by a string of fishing line in the window of a pawn shop, next to a pair of skis, a flat-screen TV, and a fire-proof safe.
Floyd had played saxophone in his middle school band. For 3 years he tooted his way through afternoons of rehearsals, while others played basketball or, more importantly, hockey. Never a fan of sports, the saxophone called out one afternoon in the school auditorium as the band instructor held try-outs. Try-outs really should be reserved as a selection process. Floyd chose the saxophone over the trumpet, clarinet, and drums. Although drums secretly appealed to him.
In the pawn shop, i nthe window with other items of abandoned love sat a saxophone and suddenly Floyd remembered holding the #2 reed in his mouth to soften it up before playing. His wallet held $125, enough for the saxophone nad a music stand that the pawn shop owner recalled having somewhere in the back. It came with a black plastic case that was lined with synthetic fur to protect the finish. Floyd took it home, eager to test the sound limits of his apartment and re-discover some rhythm.

2008-02-23T08:28:00.000-08:00

Floyd tripped along a broken floor tile on the top landing of the stairs. Running into the lit building, he squeezed passed a group of Existential Literature students blindly debating the essence of passion. Floyd breezed past, afraid of drowning in the swirling rhetoric that would never lead anywhere except back on itself with increasing force.
Professor Beasley had emailed a request to meet about Floyd's research paper. without much consideration, Floyd had turned in a shorty story about a moose living in the underground T tunnels, who enjoyed munching on used coffee grounds deposited into Newbury street dumpsters. The assignment had called for a discussion on the courage of Cyrano to remain silent in order to retain the happiness and contentedness of those he loved in Rostands' Cyrano de Bergerac. Beasley felt he had not completed the assignment; Floyd felt trapped by the lack of imagination and creativity of a stifling and moldy institution. It was not the first time.
A poster of the Louvre hangs squarely on Professor Beasley's office door. Tucked into the frame of the opaque pane of glass is a card displaying office hours, neatly typed and faded. Floyd realized he had come the wrong day. Relieved he would not have to endure any rants abouthe proper format and forum for the exchange of ideas pertinent to the course, Floyd scatted away, back down the stairs through the foyer, past the existential students, who were slowly realizing their folly.

2008-02-17T11:40:00.000-08:00

Floyd often suffered through long nights of short sleep. Never one to find true solace in the deep refuge of dreams, Floyd more often slept as the need suddenly presented itself. His most productive episodes occur in the library, head down in the crease of textbook, a pile of drool slowly seeping along the page and under a cheek.
As a child Floyd conducted a nightly ritual of bath, pajamas, cookies then bed. Never sleep necessarily, but bed. Hours of lying with only stories running in his head. Stories that were potential dreams and lost to the ethereal subconscious. Floyd could spend countless minutes logging through fantastical plots in his mind. Occasionally he was the hero, complete with a super power that afforded him a unique niche in the welfare of the world. Other stories involved the extraordinary luck of a financial windfall.
The skill of occupying his mind with stories was not lost with puberty, high school, and minimum wage jobs. Traveling about Boston, Floyd frequently concocted tales of people who walked past, imagining their jobs, homes, and secret lives. In fits of sleep, Floyd loses the creativity of day dreams. Lost in the confusion of an early morning, all connections to the dreams from the previous evening are lost. Sleep never seemed productive, fun, or interesting to Floyd. Not with so much happening in the waking.

2008-02-10T08:43:00.000-08:00

Floyd dropped a can opener into the sink. Somewhere under the gray water, it settled next to a fork,a pizza cutter and a porcelain mug with a broken handle from the Cambridge Hilton. Floyd considered the winter, dreary in its light and oppressive in its discomfort. As a child, his winter mornings were filled with bowls of oatmeal, filled beyond any adult palatability with brown sugar and butter.
The snow on the window sill melted during the day and refroze overnight. An icicle hung off the sill, funneling each drop of melt-water toward the sidewalk three stories below. Sundays always confused Floyd. Never a church-goer or a football fan, Sundays always seemed lost in a week of schedules and appointments. Floyd's mother, Patrice, spent Sunday mornings preparing a family meal for Floyd, his sisters, father, and grandparents. Saturday afternoons, Floyd and his mother would head to Haymarket and pick up any fresh vegetables that were available, riding the T with old canvas sacks. On the walk back to their apartment, they would stop at the butcher and pick up pork loins or a beef brisket. Meals were heartier in the winter, Floyd recalled, pulling the peanut butter from the middle shelf. The fridge was definitely more filled on the weekends, with very little space, which would slowly increase over the week as the lefovers were depleted.

2008-02-03T21:18:00.000-08:00

The quest

Floyd threw the magazine on to the table, next to a dirty ash tray. His mind floated to a memory of the library, deep i nthe basement stacks, somewhere in the middle of the religions section. The book he'd been searching for had a title with the name of the Bhudda in it. Thinking it would be an easy find, Floyd by-passed the card catalog and headed straight to the shelves of Eastern religions. At a school of engineers, he imagined the religion section would be slight. Instead, shelves upon shelves of volumes on the Bhudda, the deities of Hinduism, of Zen, and of Confucious. In a haze of overwhelming confusion, Floyd picked out a book on Zen, reading through an entire chapter leaning against the stack.
Sitting in his living room, a sudden spark about that library search entered his mind without any noticeable provocation. It was an entire afternoon walking along each row of shelves, head cocked to one side, perusing each book spine.
Floyd often wandered the library waiting for books to jump out at him. Often at the expense of his studies. His patterned wanderings first began as study breaks. A few minutes of walking between periods of work. In the end, as Floyd looked back at his 6 and a half years in college, much of his best learning happened randomly, lost i nthe rows of the library.

2008-02-02T07:20:00.000-08:00

"Foul"
Toby poured out the unexpected remnants of an open Miller bottle. The thick chunky sludge dropped into the sink, filling the drain trap with pieces of tobacco chew.
"Who was dipping last night?"
Floyd walked past the sink with an armful of bottles and cans, many still slightly filled with beer. The linoleum on the floor was covered in a dried mixture of beer, water, and road grime dropped from the shoes that had traveled through the winter streets.
"I tried a little last night. Franny had a package he got for free at the packy. But I didn't use any beer bottle."
"Where did you spit?"
"Spit?"
"Foul! Seriously, that's really foul"

2008-01-05T21:43:00.000-08:00

Floyd inherited an antique toaster from his uncle Owen, who regularly ventured into New Hampshire on Saturdays just for the yard sales. It was an old piece of tin, shaped into a cylindrical pyramid, with holes perforated through the walls on each of the 4 sides. Originally designed to be used over a gas burner, the toaster holds the bread on its crust, with the bread center of each slice slowly absorbing the heat as it rises up and out the chimney. Once a side has reached optimal toasting, it is manually flipped over for the remaining side.
Floyd had no intention of using it. At least not for toast. His scheme, as with many others, loomed large in its original intention. Uncle Owen drove an old Subaru Legacy wagon with a Dukakis '88 sticker proudly displayed in the rear window. It's state remained nearly perfect, since it was taped on the interior and did not require the use of its included adhesive backing. Uncle Owen regularly collected artifacts and passed them along to various members of the Pittsleyfamily. Floyd's mother still held onto a shelf clock that did not work and confused several clock repairman. Stuck at 2:23, it has remained on the bookshelf in her living room, waiting for the instant when it suddenly remembers it must be measuring the time. Owen found the clock in a bakery in Manchester, siting on a counter beside a cash register. Originally craving a chocolate croissant, he quickly became distracted by the subtle curves of the long-based timepiece. Staring at the face, realizing the time wrong, Owen quickly inquired about the price. The owner, standing behind the display counter in a dirty white apron stared blankly at the odd man staring at his broken clock.
"It's not really for sale. It's been broken since my wife divorced me 13 years ago and left me with her family business."
"How'd it break?"
"It didn't really break so much as it stopped working."
"How much for it?"
"You want it? You can have it. Just know that it's probably cursed."
"Cursed? I'm not religious, so that doesn't really work on me. Can I give you something for it?" Owen never took anything for nothing. It wasn't so much an act of karma as much as he simply couldn't afford to collect all the things he found. While he collected things, hording was not one of Owen's characteristics.
"I have this pen that write upside down, in water, in space. It's what the astronauts use."
"I thought they used pencils. Sure I'll take your pen."

Owen never bought the croissant. He passed the clock onto Floyd's mother for a book on Japanese calligraphy, which he eventually traded onto his nephew, Floyd, for a pair of Converse sneakers. In the end, Owen got the book back from Floyd for an antique toaster, which he'd discovered easily burns bread unless one is diligent in monitoring the toast. Owen is frugal, but not necessarily diligent.
Floyd enjoyed the prospect of inheriting something new from his uncle.

2007-12-15T13:02:00.000-08:00

Floyd danced up the stairs, moving to Ben Harper's "Burn one Down", in a flow with limited senses. Unaware of the opening door on the landing, Floyd breezed past Mr. Whiting, who became alarmed by the sudden presence of a rhythmic figure with no noticeable or predictable pattern of movement. Floyd never noticed the old man, who smiled at Floyd's synchronized steps.
Without any perceptible hesitation, Floyd launched onto the next flight and breezed on through another floor.
Floyd regularly lost himself in the meditative flow of dance. Never a student of the modern, ball, jazz or interpretive styles, Floyd moved with a distinct signature of separate arm and leg motions. As though the arms were listening to Ike and Tina, while the legs followed Tony Bennett. With his headphones on, Floyd unconsciously accepted a n air of invisibility, where nothing mattered much and if anything did happen, it could never be considered real.

2007-11-25T11:22:00.001-08:00

Technorati Profile

2007-11-21T08:13:00.000-08:00

Dear Mr. Pittsley,
We certainly appreciate your concern for the welfare of our esteemed corporation. We particularly appreciate your loyalty to our brand of products and the revel in the joy you express from their use.
While admittedly appreciative of your loyalty, we can not honor the warranty you claim still exists for this product. Emerson last produced 8-Track tape players in 1978. Warranties fro Emerson products have always enjoyed a 3 year warranty, a policy our company continues to honor.

While we undersatnd your frustration at the the lack of continued performance by your 8-track player, we will not honor a 30 year old product's 26 past-due warranty.
We want to thank you for your loyalty to Emerson electronic products nad wish you success in replacing your stereo "hi-fi" system.
sincerely

James Houton
V.P. Customer Relations and Large Market Sales

Prepping for Xmas

2007-11-18T15:00:00.001-08:00

Floyd was spinning through the television channels, hoping some program would Karmically present itself at the moment he sped through the channel. A story on PBS caught his attention. The picture showed a young man standing over a metal table and the unavoidably mesmerizing paleness of a dead body. Floyd paused, wondering whether there would be graphic gore or the boring over-voice of a the standard documentary.

Floyd moved past, flipping quickly from channel to channel, recognizing various commercials. An ad for Wal-Mart appeared , professing the need to get shopping done early for the holiday seasons. Floyd looked at the stupid smiley face and considered the fact that he had not received a Christmas gift from Santa in several years. Santa always brought the fun cool gifts when he was younger. Never a sweater or a bok. It was Santa that left Stars Wars figures and Matchbox cars. And so Floyd has begun to think about a letter to Santa, highlighting his accomplishments and stellar behavior. With the tv on an archived episode of Oprah, Floyd found an old legal pad on the shelves and begun to create a list.

The Closet door

2007-08-30T16:50:00.001-07:00

Floyd never understood why the closet door was always slightly open. Whenever he passed by on his way to the bathroom, he noticed the door, slightly cracked, just enough to cast a sliver of light into the empty space. The nearly empty space, as it held several boxes of old albums on a shelf and a Dacron sweater on a hanger, most likely left by the previous tenants. Each time, Floyd would close the door, hearing the latch catch. Then he would proceed on his way to the bathroom, conduct his business, and then venture back to the couch and Sportscenter, Lost, or American Idol (his one indulgence that he would deny if ever discovered). At the next break, walking through the hallway towards the bathroom, the door would near certainly be open to the exact spot it had been before. "Weird", Floyd thought, "I know I closed that door."

2007-08-15T22:50:00.000-07:00

Floyd never understood jazz music, but it never stopped him from pausing by Riley's Lantern Pub, where a house band stood Thursday through Saturday nights on a small stage in the corner. A saxophonist, drummer, piano player and bass player, with the occasional female vocal. Floyd imagined himself dressed in a fedora with a suit that fit a bit too large, but quickly relished the thought because of the fact that not only could he not play an instrument, but more specifically, he did not possess the discipline to even begin considering the training required to understand and play improvised music.
So Floyd would stand outside, afraid that he would burn through any cash in his pocket at the bar, entranced by the syncopated rhythms and the soulful melodies. Once in the rain, a fall rain, cold with the dying leaves and the shortening days, Floyd stood for an hour listening to a woman sing about the lover she had betrayed. In that moment Floyd wished he had loved and lost since the pain she sang about sounded quite alluring especially to a young man who wished to simply feel. Floyd stood ignoring the water in his shoes and the cold running down his back. His belly felt warm, anticipating with excitement the idea of a broken heart.

2007-08-08T00:00:00.000-07:00

Floyd quickly threw thw empty can of PBR at the radio. Hollow and weightless, the can ricocheted back toward Floyd, landing half way from the garbage can. Still, on an old linoleum floor, the can stood upright, landing on its intended bottom. In a shadowy silver of nighttime, the can glimmered through any late spring that frequented the area.

2007-08-01T08:21:00.001-07:00

Floyd read the advice, but still refused to believe that procrastination created more stress. The Vogue issue he was reading had the mailing label torn off, either to protect the original owner's identity, or morel likely, their dignity. "Proven Stress reducers" located three pages before "How to tell if your man may be Gay". Number one on that list, Floyd thought, should be reading Vogue in the doctor's office or any other public place. He quickly returned the magazine tot he end table and picked up Popular Mechanics. The models were not as attractive, but he could feel testosterone begin to flow back into his bloodstream.

2007-06-11T20:52:00.001-07:00

Floyd never cut his sandwiches in half. Always in quarters, so they neatly fit into one hand without possibility of losing any ingredients. In these small sizes, he is able to securely hold the sandwich, holding each layer in place, so Floyd could focus on other projects. Eating always seemed such a chore; inconvenient and tedious, except for the sensual pleasure. Floyd could recite with tremendous detail the ooze of grease that falls off a patty melt. A combination of hamburger grease and the fat of the cheddar cheese from cooking slowly over the meat. An oozing heat, that would never spread around in his mouth, but rather sit on the back of his tongue, waiting with an eager and silly anticipation. If Floyd didn't enjoy eating so much, it would truly be a burden.

2007-05-29T14:37:00.000-07:00

Floyd pondered the stale donut, sitting on the National Geographic on the coffee table. A glazed piece of dough, once brilliantly glistening with an oozing sweetness that dried up overnight amidst the ether of smoke and spilled beer. Now, sitting alone and exposed, the donut seems stranded, forgotten like a tire alongside some road in the middle of Nevada. It's potential can only be understood by the full commitment of a curious onlooker. Floyd looked at the bronzed dough. "How hungry am I?"
At this confused moment, Toby strolled out of his bedroom, across the living room floor, kicking over a half filled cup of beer and scratching at his privates as though they were infested with mosquito bites. Floyd didn't respond to the spilled beer. Calmly he picked his feet up off the floor, reclined onto the couch, and placed his feet, shoes and all, onto the coffee table, straddling the donut. Such a vulnerable piece of dough he thought. I could crush it as easily as I could eat it.

2007-03-12T21:55:00.000-07:00

Floyd pondered the complexity of his building. Sixteen apartments neatly arranged over 3 floors and a basement, housing, he estimated, somewhere between 20 and 43 people. Certain he'd never met more than half the other tenants, Floyd wondered if a party for the building could ever seem enticing enough to each of his neighbors. He considered sitting all day, one day, on the front stairs, greeting each person as they returned home.

The stairwell out the back door of the kitchen scared Floyd. He wasn't sure how many other apartments shared access to those stairs. He knew not all could, since several aprtments were clear across the building without any common boundary or wall. Floyd never took the secret stairway down, only up, onto the tarpapered roof, littered with cigarette butts and empty Genny light cans.

2007-03-02T08:32:00.000-08:00

Floyd woke with the whiskey hangover he'd once experienced in high school. A feeling as though his head were removed, floating two to three inches above his neck, completely disconnected from any sensory input of his body. Not a painful hangover, but rather a foggy feeling as though the world was not entirely clear to him.
His sneakers were still wet from the walk home last evening through the early March slush. Spring time arrives with a dampness that soaks and chills without mercy. The piles of snow that have spent the last month increasing in weight, suddenly slough into the streets and back onto sidewalks with the slightest hint of rain. Puddles at each corner are a gravel slurpee, awaiting vicitms like a fraternity boy watching his prank. Cold, wet sneakers in the morning are simply a reality, and some mornings can not afford to be an inconvenience.
Floyd had a job interview this morning at a local print shop/graphic design company. While advertised as a front desk associate, Floyd hoped that it would open into possibilities to design for clients. Creating intermixed with a bit of photcopying and collating. Think for a little. Don't think for a little. The perfect balance for the consumate underachiever. Do just enough to get noticed and fight off the boredom, but not so much to attract repsonsibility.

2005-05-30T21:00:00.000-07:00

Sometimes the weather sneaks up and catches a person off guard. Not as a suddent afternoon thunderstorm might, but rather a pattern of weather,unusual for the season or differnet from the current tends. Springtime in Boston certainly holds the citizens at bay, cahsing them from parks and sidewalks with days long rains and blustery winds, as though a final test before allowing the onset of summer. Mother Nature isn't cruel, Floyd thought running in to a T-Station. She's just a big bully.

Floyd shook himself off, subtly squeegeeing the water off his shaved head, which ran down his forehead in rivulets. A cold water, left from the rain in its third day of cleansing the city from winter's last crumbs. The snow piles, once standing several feet high and dense as cement, had disappeared weeks ago, around opening day at Fenway. But the silt, layed down during the iciest periods of the winter, remianed after the melting, in small islands, along curbs. as people walked about around and upon this silt, pieces woill collect on shoes and relocate in stores and businesses and homes. an unsightly reminder of the long cold winter.

But the rains of spring attend to silty remainders, washing the precarious deposits adown through grates toward some appropriate place for an accumulation of winter silt. Floyd had figured that May meant warm days, with long evenings that fade into a cool night. May is the rpedcursor to summer, where baseball games ocupy the radios and afternoons are menat to be lazy, becuase the heat is too much to get anyhting done. So Floyd wore shorts, with alongsleeved sweatshirt, which he'd anticipated placing around his waist and saving until the cool night. Bit a soaking sweatshirt doesn;t keep anyone warm. It draws the heat from the body as efficiently as a cold winter night. But it's May and the weatehr should be much better than it is.

Floyd figured tha tthe T ride would at least gain him a reprieve form the elements, free from the wind and the continuing rain. The air in the T stations rarely resembles the air outside. Travelling by train underground reminds Floyd of a sci-fi movie where one enters a room only to leave entirely different. As simplistic as it seemed. Floyd enjoyed imagining walking out of a T station to find himself in Hong Kong. Or in a different century. Imagine, he would think, walking out of Kenmore station in to 1875 Boston, before baseball, before the Garden. Before Orr, Yaz or the Babe. Before Newbury street hosted models or the Bulland Finch hosted Cheers. Men in top hats and all the women in long skirts and parasols. What fun he could have walking into that setting. Floyd shivered, shaking the sudden chill that set in on his back. A slight breeze stirred from the approaching train, which screeched past the platform. Dorrs opened. Passengers disembarked while others patiently awaited for any passage into the cars.

2005-05-18T17:39:00.000-07:00

Floyd rocked alng in his seat on the Redline. ryhthmically miming the rider across the aisle, who passed the time with closed eyes. Over the Charles river, for a brief time, the Redline tastes dirty water air, before heading back underneath. FLoyd began to wonder again why people no longer dressed in the classic style of his grandfather, back in the 1930's. I t seemd all the men, even the true laborers wore three piece suits with perfectly creased fedoras. Evry photo Floyd recalled seeing from that era, all the men were dressed as though having a personal tailor was a birthright. Floyd had never owned a suit, let alone worn one except for the obligated tuxedo at senior prom. He wondered why men no longer dressed like that, and even began to contemplate accepting it as a personal style, when a gentleman walked onto the train at the St. Charles stop, dressed in a tempered brown suit with two of three buttons fastened and a brown fedora, with the front of the brim set flat, and the back slightly curled upwards, beginning over the ears. The late afternoon sun, setting over the Charles set Floyd's eyes into an uncomfortable squint enough to miss the details of this man. The gentleman found a seat several down and across the aisle from Floyd. As the train continued along, Floyd glanced over and realized the man was a professor at Tufts. Thornhill? Turton? A professor in some obscured discipline in some department which existed simply because someone long ago had considered it worthy and important to continue studying that subject, even though it no longer was being produced. Medieval French literature , or something like that? A dead subject, Floyd continued, because no Frenchman still wrote literature in a medieval style. All the medieval French literature had been created, and read and studied. Why keep studying it?

Floyd felt dissappointed at his realization that his new style would be a rip off of a professor who professed in a lame department. Floyd cast off any hopes of dressing like a 1930's jazz trumpeter.

2005-05-15T22:32:00.000-07:00

Floyd crushed the beer can between the palms of his hands and tossed it back over his rigth shoulder toward the kitchen. It landed on the linoleum in the middle of the work areea of the kitchen, next to 7 other crumpled up beer cans. Frm the sofa, facing the tv, the kithen stood 11 feet directly east, toward the inner walls of the apartment. These walls were shared with other apartments or the hallway. Only the western wall of the apartment tasted actual city air, with two windows overlooking the alley next to the building. western facing views included 7 stories of brick face, accentuated by a steel fire escape. Foyd only paid $225 per month for the shelter.

2005-04-09T08:05:00.000-07:00

Author's names are difficult to remember, since so often there is no face to associate. Professor Beasley focused on the memory of a jacket cover, left on the corner of his desk during his second year as an assistant professor. The book had been dropped off by an older colleague, a mentor to Beasley at the time, who suggested its contents for a course offered the following term. Beasley squinted and wiped his forehead hoping to send blood into the necessary regions of his brain where a neglected synapse might fire up and deliver a clear image of the book. There are few english speaking writers who dedicate time and energy to 18th century French literture, a fact which made this task so infuriating. Beasley tossed the pen in his hand onto a stack of papers, rose out of his chair, and stood in front of the southern wall of his office, which was formed by shelves. Shelves that sat an inch or two off the ground and rose completely to the hieght of the 10 foot ceilings. They stretched from the southeast corner of the room to the southwest corner, facing the door, imposing a sense of academia, intimidating the most ambitious undergrad. At last count, 1197 books held refuge on those shelves.

2005-03-28T22:00:00.000-08:00

Floyd looked throughout his room for the left LL Bean mocassin, after securing the right one on his right foot. Limoing unevenly about his room, Floyd felt boils of frustration begin to creep upwards through his veins, the result of inevitable powerlessness from a lost shoe. Still, he limped about. Into the living room where Toby, his housemate, slept under the gentle lullaby of daytime soap operas.
Toby and Floyd met freshman year, singled out during a fraternity rush function by Skip or Brad or Trevor, who huddled them along to meetthe President of the house, and refill their beers. Somwhere around the 12th hole (it was minature golf night), Floyd and Toby slippedi nto a room labeled "watering hole". For 3 hours they imbibed in "frozen mudslides" and relished the stories of pranks held in hallowed academic halls. As freshmen, trapped in dorm rooms of random roomates, both Toby and Floyd created a solidified bond over tales of roommate debauchery and ineptness.

Toby's freshman roomate, a soccer player, returned home one night early in the semester, drunk enough to forget his name. Two older teammates dropped him off with implicit instructions to monitor young Brian. toby, peering back over his shoulder, down from the top bunk of his bed, grunted and quickly resumed his sleep. In the middle of the night, somwehere around the hours when night merges into morning, Toby awoke, choking on hte fumes of suffocating fumes of fecal matter. In the dream immediately before waking, he was in the bathroom of his childhood, directly after his father's use. Toby awoke to the overwhleming stench of shit, and the incoherent sounds of Brian assuring someone it would be all right. Toby switched on the light clamped on to his headboard, revelaing a streak across the opposite wall, toward the door, before slanting downward towards Brian, slumped in the corner behind the door. Smeared in his own shit, Brian continued to assure his imaginary friend that it would be all right. He just needed to clean up his little mess before his roomate got home.

Brain left school after the semester.

2005-03-28T08:25:00.000-08:00

Floyd got lost somewhere around Beacon in Brookline, after stepping off the Green Line and turning the wrong way. Never a student of the cardinal directions, Floyd relys on landmarks and their relations to other landmarks. "On the right side of the theater" or "to the side of the supermarket". Never "on the east side of the building".
So Floyd got lost in Brookline looking for a Greek restaurant, South of the T line, at the Coolidge Corner stop. Floyd exited the west bounfd train and turned left (west), follwing the tracks toward Chestnut Hill, travelling away from the hub of commercial and retail business that populate the corner s of Harvard and Beacon Avenues. Soon after beginning a walking pace of cardio levels, Floyd passed brick aprtment buildings and generations old three family homes, along a sidewalk of piecemealed concrete. Up the hill, along a carriage road, in sight of the T line he had left. An occasional train, green and white passsed along below, rocking along at a moderate speed, passed by every car along Beacon Avenue. Floyd lost his thoughts of Greek food, of Pitas with sprouts and suflaki and goat cheese, Instead he started considering the land benoeaththe uneven squares of concrete which comprised the sidewalk. What did the earth look like underneath the layer of hard surface and obscene slabs? How much has been built through generations of adding on top of additions, compiling more surface over broken and worn surfaces? Floyd began looking for bare earth. finding small lawns, dressed with shrubs and patches of grass. The only bare, untouched earth lay at the base of each tree, framed by concrete slabs, serving as the occasional receptacle for papers, wrappers, beer cans, etc.

2005-03-01T06:33:00.000-08:00

Floyd turned the hot water on, feeling the temperature with his hand held steady in the stream. Still groggy from a long night of sleep preceded by several hours of beer and ESPN classic, which had shown the 1994 Stanley Cup Finals, in their entirety. The New Jersey Devils, a team long considered a pariah among Northeast hockey connoisseurs, completed 7 nail biting games to take the title from the Rangers of New York. Floyd and his roommates sat watching 18 hours of hockey without hint of understanding the absurdity around watching repeats of sporting events that didn't provide any cultural significance.
Except for the fact that there is no actual professional hockey on tv this season. Instead, ESPN has sunk to showing NCAA basketball every night, regardless of the teams and their sophmoric skills. Floyd has considered spending his evenings reading, knocking off the list of classic novels that sit exposed on the shelves in the living room, held up by beer bottles filled with wet sand. Six Budweiser bottles, filled with dirt from the small yard behind the house stand in packs of three on either end of a line up of paperbacks, written by Fitzgerald, Hemingway, and Twain. The American library, securing a fantasy about tough and adventurous Americans. Floyd and his roomates had inherited the library from the previous tenants, college students as well, whose degress had required literature classess, not a profound appreciation of the written story. Floyd had passed his fingeers along the spines, wondering if any wisdom really would come from the absorption and digestion of these stories. Entire depaaartments of universities are devted to understanding the messages of these books, so surley there must exist somewhere within the stained pages a messsage for himself.
Floyd's shower was cut short by the abrupt presence of his roommate Toby, a heavy set guy who would be considered lanky, if not for the thickness which ran through his torso. Toby quietly burst into the bathroom, a victim of the laxative effects of the hops or barley common among American beers. Floyd's mediatative shower suddenly became disrupted by Toby's morning cleansing. Gone were thoughts of greater understanding through the vicarious travels along the Mississippi with a runaway slave. Instaed, Floyd vowed to sdiscover enlightenment in the repeats of hockey games.

2005-02-21T07:46:00.000-08:00

Floyd tossed the empty coffee cup at the wastepaper basket missing far to the right. A few drops of coffee dribbled onto the carpet and quickly soaked into the shag, amid the various other hues of stains. Laying on the coffee table, opened to a dogeared page, is the copy of an Ansel Adams book, stolen from the waiting room of Floyd's former dentist. Former after he was fired, as Floyd enjoys spinning the story. A year ago, Floyd had experienced the excruciating throb of an infected tooth, set deep in the back of his mouth. A throbbing pain that resisted any form of pain medication (over-the-counter) or homeopathic salve. Floyd endured the pain for several days before breaking down and realizing that the meager retail job he had at the time, had a dental plan, for which he had been paying into.

2005-02-16T08:46:00.000-08:00

Floyd never visits the Globe Corner Bookstore About Usenough. Sitting in a tiny red brick building, in the back of Harvard Sqaure proper, on the corner of Church and Palmer, the bookstore holds, for Floyd, fodder to the extravagant adventures he plans in his head. Hiking to Machu Pichu; kayaking the inside passage; catching an opera in Vienna. Floyd strides up the small stairs and into the main room. The bookstore resembles a small accountant's office, in the old world of Europe, in London or Amsterdam, where the winters are cold and unpleasant. Standing in front of the South American section, Floyd wonders about the original owners of the building, maybe a doctor or lawyer, working the cases of Harvard students and professors , which dominated the city of Cambridge.
Floyd grabs a copy of The Lonley Planets Peru guide book, glancing for a moment at the cover photo of a native dressed in customary garb. A young child, swaddled in a colorful blanket is strapped to the back of the adult, presumably a woman, and peers over the shoulder of its ride. Floyd wonders about the weather and if they ever expereince the miserable cold that accompanies a NewEngland winter day. A cold which seeps through countless layers of fleece and flannel, and never disappates without an extended stay inside. The bricks of these old buildings, Floyd thought, must retain some heat. He thought of campfires, where rocks, long after the fire has been put out, retain heat and give relief to the hearty who remain late in the night. These bricks must do the same thing, absorbing the heat to hold until later when the outside temperatures become untolerable. They then offer a buffer to the cold, fighting a plummeting temperature.

2005-01-31T20:27:00.000-08:00

Floyd remembered the red maple in the front yard when it barely stood higher than the gabled roof of his parents home. The entire front yard stood in shade during the summer, as did the front of the house, which remained hidden from the street. During the summer, the tree held burgandy leaves, almost blood in color. Not the blood you use during Halloween to dress up your costume. It was a deep, thick red, heavy with a dark hue, that absorbed any lightness. Floyd recalled instances during the summer when he would disappear under the wide canopy, melting from the humidity, wishing his father would buy a riding lawn mower.

Living in the city, Somerville actually, Floyd ahd grown a callous to the changing leaves, although they still changed each fall. In an urban setting, there exist too many distractions to settle the attention of a hyperactive post-adolescent. Floyd managed quite well, absorbing all forms of messages, from lighted billboards to bus advertisements to smellls of hot dog vendors. Floyd sponged up all components of the urban setting, putting dormant the spirit of the forest and creeks that run near his parents' home. Dormant, not dead, for occasionally, suddenly, out of no where, Floyd would pause, stretch, and focus on the subtle curves of a leaf fluttering towarsd the sidewalk. Floyd, for a moment, would savor the meories of a childhood spent chasing rabbits and deer through pine forests. But only for a moment, as the horn of a passing car awakend him to the bustle of activity surrounding the sidewalks, captured with in the cage of brick, steel, and glass buildings.

2005-01-19T16:43:00.000-08:00

Floyd trhew down the cd jewel case, not caring much about the 38 pieces it shattered into on the linoleum. The cd was scratched and beyond repair, or at least beyond listening condition. The incessant skips during tracks 2,3,5,6,7,9, and 11 subjected Floyd to diligent managing of the skip button on the cd player. It was difficult to fully engage in music meditation when the inevitable riff of guitar repeated as though attempting to insstill a mantra into the conscious of the listener. Floyd quickly grew agitated with the repeating notes, picked the cd out of the carousel, and promptly smashed it into the linoleum only moments before anihilating the jewel case.
Among the shards of plastic, Floyd noticed a business card that had flown out of the jewel case, supposedly, and landed among a pile of clear plastic.

The card was a blue tattered piece of heavy card stock, with black letters in the style of an old fashioned typewriter. "Stewart Blankenship, Purveyor of Tales". Floyd didn't recall accepting the card, stashing it in Al Green's Greatest hits, or ever meeting anyone who purveyed tales. The cd had been lifted from an open house of a former classmates of Floyds. Open house was the intended mood, but resembled more of a fraternity party. Leslie Ulster had invited past classmates nad current acquaintences, all of whom ran in similar circles. People who go to school in Boston tend to stay, forgetting that beyond the 495 boundary is a world that doesn't stop revolving during October, and eats red clam chowder. But, for Leslie, a houseful of roomates nad paintings and a revolvng door of friends offered the opportune for quick cash and quicker ego stroking.

FLoyd had simply pocked the cd off the low table in the corner which supported the one piece stereo system, common to most sorority rooms. Men, Floyd had observed, never rely on a single component to fill a space with music. Insted, men's stereos resembled carefully pieced sculptures, with components that sent the purchasers home numb with excitement. Floyd first glanced at the table and noticed a slender Al Green, standing with a slight sideways glance, smiling staright back at him, begging Floyd to relieve him from the hi fidelity purgatory. Floyd, without ethical, moral, or musical dilemmas, picked up the cd, glanced at the back cover, and slowly slipped the case and cd into his jacket pocket. Surley, he thought, I can find a more suitable environment for musical sweetens of Al Green than Leslie Ulsters flowery living room.

2005-01-17T17:13:00.000-08:00

Tumalo Mountain once again threw a barage of undesirable conditions at us today. Saturated from the migration of wet weather patterns, the slopes of Central Oregon's most noted BC ski run were less than ideal. A deep snow pit with an easterly aspect revealed a progressivley stabalizing snow pack, which must fend off any actual precipitation in the next few days. We were able to make a pit slide, but it faced West and had a distinctive slab in the middle layer.

2005-01-17T07:26:00.000-08:00

A honking car horn startled Floyd, who awoke out of his daydream in the middle of an intersection. Momentarily confused, he beelined toward the far corner, consciously ignoring the tirades from angry drivers. Leaping over a puddle of slush, Floyd quickly moved along the sidewalk, crwded with people impatiently waiting for al a light. Their glares and stares of contempt fell short, as Floyd quickly regained his thoughts and continued along.

Without a full awareness, he wandered effortlessly between the approaching crowds of people. Negotiating each obstacle as a moment of inherent or instinctual motion. Just sliding between the crevice of shoulders with a quick turn at the hips.

"You can Have a Good Cat" was the title a lithe man had been reading on the bus. Floyd couldn't escape the peculiarity of a man with translucent skin studying cat training on his afternoon commute. Floyd imagined chapters with titles like "Disciplinign your cat" or "When healthy scratching becomes unhealthy", and "Catnip: it's not for good cats anymore."

Floyd's experience with cats had been limited to chasing them off the landing to his building, as they would approach and affectionately cuddled up against his ankles, hoping the seduction would gain them entry into the building. Floyd imagined there was a gang of cats, hiding under the hedges, who had persuaded this specific feline into a prank or act of initiation. This cat was determined to return without the details of the interior, a reconnaissance mission hoping to discover an old lady who couldn't bare the thought of a homeless cat.

Floyd got stuck in a moment of side-step roulette, dancing side to side with an equally confused partner heading in the opposite direction. The man stopped suddenly, allowing Floyd to dodge around the side with a quick turn of his shoulders.

2005-01-11T17:58:00.000-08:00

Skiing in Central Oregon is not at all similaar to the Colorado or Canadian Rockies, where light snow spreads over ranges of ridges. Skiing the backcountry here involves a moderate tour, followed by a climb to a central peak. Often, the climb follows a route you later find yourself carving up. We don't have endless ridge lines, which pave a unobstructed path toward chutes and couloirs. The peaks of the Central Cascades hold snow, heavy, solid snow that lingers far into the late spring. Unlike the Continental climates of Utah or Colorado, Central Oregon receives a maritime style of snowfall and weather. The snowpack sets up quickly, and can be expected to remain stable. Warm temperatures and rain may contribute to slides, but only with unique and rare condition patterns. Skiing here involves a committment that requires long trudging approaches, waiting through cold fog and dense snow falls. But, on days where the sky is blue and the sun forgetsany other appointments, the days can be spectacular.

Look here for reports of skiing in the '05 season.

2005-01-05T05:51:00.000-08:00

Floyd woke this morning with socks on his feet. Odd because he never wore socks and they weren't his own. A pair of paisley styled wool dress socks, pulled snug up his calf, with a small hole on the little toe of the left foot. Floyd looked around his room and recognized every piece of clothing on the floor, hanging on the chair, and laying on the dresser. But the socks he certainly didn't recognize. He stared down at his feet, shrugged, leaped out of bed, and shuffled down the hall, drawn by an aroma of coffee. "HMMMM," he thought. Vigorously scratching the back of his head, Floyd woke from the accustomed daze morning brings to realize that he hadn't brewed coffee. In fact, he didn't recall having coffee in the apartment. On the table against the wall stood a lidless cup of coffee, purchased from the coffee shop downstairs. It was double cupped, to prevent the inadvertent burning of hands. One can never be too careful before having their caffeine. The coffee was black, without any hint of creamer, dairy or non-dairy. Floyd picked up the cup, sniffed the contents to detect any hints of hazelnut, Irish creme, or chocolate macadamia. Tastes best left for ice cream, which should never enter the sanctity of a coffee beverage. "Seems black." Floyd cautiusly sipped the coffee. "Tastes black. Cool." Walking into the living area, which is really a continuation of the kitchen-dining area, Floyd carries the coffee savoring his windfall. Today's edition of the Boston Globe sits on the couch, scatttered into several sections. The sports section, Floyd's main interest with the Globe, is turned to the second page and folded backwards at the crease, with the bottom section laying upward. In ink is circled the NBA tv schedule, with the Lakers game at the center of the scribbled circle. Laker-Kings on TBS. Floyd enjoys sports, but no course of temptation could ever persuade him to sit and watch a baskeball game between two California teams. Not when Magic was running the court and certainly not with Kobe. Placing the coffee on to the rug, Floyd picked up the sports section, opening it to full length, and fipped back to the front page. "Holy Shit, Wade Boggs is going to the Hall??!!" Mindlessly sitting into the couch, Floyd reads Shaugnessy's piece on Boggs, and the question of which team he'll represent. Floyd continued on through the article, periodically sipping through the strong coffee. Setting the paper onto the floor, Floyd continued reading, leaning onto his thighs, with his left hand braced against the bare floor. Noticing his feet, Floyd wondered "Whose stupid socks are these anyways?"

2005-01-04T14:09:00.000-08:00

Floyd returned from the garage, where he'd been sequestered since October 27th. The rantings, droolings, and incoherent bellows, began to subside a week ago, as he realized it's only 6 weeks until spring training. Then it would begin again.
The past season proved too traumatic for his young heart, which aged faster than a cancerous dog. The ups and downs, the wins and losses, the defeats to lesser teams. Floyd patterned his days with frequent periods of meditation, acupuncture, and aroma therapy, never relinquishing the building pressure of impending doom. The inevitable, which has come to mean so much to the Northeast corner of our country, would surely emerge. The foreshadowed doom of another Red Sox team was sure to happen, one just never understood when or exactly how. Despite a lifetime of building an invisible calous to the failures of Red Sox teams, Floyd could never properly train in order to physically prepare. They say the sport of mountaineering is an art of suffering. It is 1st grade cut and paste compared to being a Red Sox fan. As an art form, Red Sox nation stands among Van Gogh and Picasso, resembling more Dali than anyhting else.
Floyd walked into the house wearing a stained white t-shirt, which has evoled to yellow and a pair of boxer shorts. A black sock on his right foot and the reversed Boston Red Sox hat on his head indicate that at some point he may have been completely dressed. Otherwise, Floyd appeared as though he'd awakened from a drunken endeavor, hungover beyond any ability to function in normal society. He skated into the kitchen, sliding the one sock across the linoleum, toward the refrigerator. There, held up by magnets of the letters of the alphabet was the Boston Globe headline "Believe". Suddenly, Floyd began wheezing, rocking up and down. The wheezing turned to a bellowing roar, followed by faint gasps. a cycle which continued for the several minutes it took him to realize that perhaps he wasn't ready to emerge. quite yet.

2003-08-27T09:19:00.000-07:00

At some point I remembered to eat. But it was too late. My head was pounding and the lethargy usually reserved for late in the day had rapidly ascended through my legs and was threatening to absorb any clarity in my head. I ran, or I imagined myself running, toward the refrigerator hoping naively for slices of olive pizza, left by Floyd. Normally he eats an enitre medium pie to himself, but last night was not par for the human sofa stain. Struggling with the progress of his life and the unforseen end to his unique and noxious lifestyle, Floyd sat motionless for hours. Difficult for a man with ADD, let alone a man with ADD and the metabolism of a teenage boy. But there he sat for three hours staring at CNN broadcasts of the NASA report on the Columbia Shuttle disaster. The report did not send Floyd into his catatonic state, but rather the scrolling news updates which travel from right to left across the screen where the anchors legs would normally be hidden. Sports scores came up and Floyd noticed yet another Red Sox loss. In spite of their recent 6 game win streak, Floyd, like all true BoSox fans can not stomach a loss, any loss at this time of the year. Struggling, as usual, behind the Yankees, the Red Sox keep baseball writers well paid and respected as they discuss the end of season slump and that damned curse. "Screw Babe Ruth" Floyd yelled at the wall. Even thought he Yankees were crushed, a loss is a loss, and no means of compensation can mask the pain. Where have you gone Pudge, Freddie, Boomer?

Floyd sat there, lobotomized by the news, which squelched all animal instincts. No eating. No mating. No sleeping. All systems shut down. But today is another game and the hope for a win and a Yankee/Mariner/A's loss. That is the beauty of baseball: the anticipation. But you can't tell Floyd that.

2003-08-15T10:11:00.000-07:00

Where did Floyd Pittsley end up? I recall last seeing him in a daze during the final days of my college career between packing my t-shirts and mopping the sticky kitchen floor. It's too bad. The world really needs Floyd Pittsley right about now. I'm not entirely sure what he could propose or dictate or concoct, but that is the magic of Floyd. From nothing appears the adventure that gains momentum with legend status. Shortly, the story is an entirely independednt beast, sprung from the experiences of one man, who never studied Bhuddism, but truly understands mindfulness. These adventures depict the lifestyle of an ethical man, whose expression of ethics extends beyond mere philiosphy classes. Read on and learn. Thus begins the stories of Floyd Pittsley.