Words in the Woods

JWise Photo of the Day, Thoughts, Travels

Fern growing from a tree along the Pistol River on the Southern Coast of Oregon

It was raining as we fell into sleep, and by morning, it was still doing so. We had mixed feelings; a part of us wished for it to not relent while the other side that’s aware of our brief time along the coast desires to venture out and find those aesthetic moments that convey a perfection generally expected by those who have been witness to our travels. On the other hand, it was my intention to busy myself in writing of events unrelated specifically to this particular journey but instead to find the words that tell the story of the unknown I would like to explore.

Turning on words, though, is a fickle thing. The beginning of the thread can remain elusive until it’s not, and then the tapestry appears in my mind’s eye and wants to be captured all at once. I suppose that there are dozens of threads in my imagination, probably all I need to make the grandest of quilts, but the chaos of having so many of these random elements strewn chaotically throughout my brain without organization inhibits my ability to find order. Like creating a song, I should probably focus on uncovering a melody or a rhythm and then discover what compliments the emergent structure.

Mushrooms growing from a tree stump next to the Pistol River on the Southern Coast of Oregon

Instead, I feel drawn into this sabbatical from routine desert life during a pandemic and desire nothing more than sitting here in the forest enjoying the constant drizzle and our removal from the troubles of the zeitgeist. So, I write about whatever comes to mind and consider that I’m in the process of winding down to a point where I can fall into flow.

How does one find symbiosis with the mushroom? Not the apparent lack of thought but the patience and wisdom to know that one doesn’t rush off to change their station in life by desire alone. We must first accumulate a mass of presence, and for us humans, that is found in experience and the thoughts discovered in reading. Born with a blank slate, we know nothing about what we like, how we will ultimately communicate, or even how we’ll get from Point A to Point B once our leg muscles are able to propel us. Beyond that, we also know nothing about the structure of stories, the melodies of tunes, or the cascade of light we find patterns within. Our mental machine must be tuned and then constantly refined to operate more efficiently with increasing performance or should we accept that the one-horsepower stream engine sputtering inside our head since we were but children is sufficient?

Apple from The Fish Inn next to the Pistol River on the Southern Coast of Oregon

Should we allow the fruit of our efforts to languish in the tree, it will slowly shrivel, fall to the ground, and rot, becoming fodder for that which will come along and feast on the waste. In this sense, nature is merciless and is quick to recycle that which is not producing growth. Do we really believe we can escape this law of nature? The trick facing humanity is to know how to encourage that which is blossoming to come into their own and seize their moment to become whole. The current evidence suggests that we are failing, but I’m not out here in the woods to follow my own laments; on the contrary, I want to discover what I don’t yet know.

The rain comes down with renewed vigor while the gray clouds seem to close in on Earth. When the rain picks up, the birds that had been about when things were at but a drizzle return to quiet and remain out of view until one drops from a giant, perfectly still tree, bouncing from rock to ground before zipping back into the branches above. Meanwhile, we whittle away the time locked into the conveniences requiring electricity and communication. Caroline is talking with her mother in Germany via Skype while simultaneously knitting a pair of socks for me and occasionally referencing various stories on the internet as the two explore topics of interest. I sit in the kitchen at a small table by a window, writing this here that you are reading, and from time to time, I head outside to snap a photo of ferns, mushrooms, apples, and the house we are staying in.

The Fish Inn next to the Pistol River on the Southern Coast of Oregon

But the house we are staying in cannot be stayed in all day. Well, it could, but that would deny us the opportunity to get a modicum of exercise which is highly important on vacation as the inclination might be to nest. Nah, that’s not us, so with a heavy amount of ambivalence, one side of me saying stay and write, the other side reminds me that this isn’t just about me, and so it wins with the argument that we need to do things that involve us.

Natural Bridges north of Brookings, Oregon

Words at the Sea:

We’ve been here before, but that doesn’t matter. Maybe we’ll be back again, but that, too, doesn’t matter. What matters is that we are here now, seeing this under entirely new circumstances where we are different, the ocean is different, and the landscape below is different. It’s all very subtle, and no one could put their finger on precisely what’s different, but we should all understand that it’s impossible to be here from one day to the next and have the reasonable expectation that the universe of it all has not been altered in some nuanced little way. It is on us to tease those changes out of the fabric of what lies before us or from within. Is my mind different? Do I perceive colors differently? Have the trees changed height, or did some of the rocks fall into the sea? How does one measure the variation between memories separated by time?

Brookings Harbor, Oregon

On the way to Brookings Harbor, we stopped for a walk out to Cape Ferrelo, but the photos from up on the hillside were too meh to share. Sometimes, the overcast or rainy weather can work in our favor, and at other times, I don’t enjoy the results. Maybe six months or six years from now, I’ll be wondering why I didn’t include a couple should I then be convinced they were better than I remember, but that will be then, and this is now, so no photos of the place where I did take this amazing photo of Caroline back in 2006. By the way, we are traveling with that exact umbrella on this trip, too. If the weather is encouraging tomorrow, maybe we’ll reenact the image.

So what of the boats in the harbor, you ask? Really nothing other than there’s something about tall masts lined up that I find intriguing. I’ve never given it much thought though, why masts should hold this kind of appeal, but they do.

Caroline Wise at Lone Ranch Beach north of Brookings, Oregon

This is the “modified for old people” version of the wife standing in the water on vacation photos we often post. Normally Caroline would have doffed the shoes and socks, sucked up some gumption, and plodded into the bone-chilling water, but with her new rubber boots, which were just bought yesterday needing some testing out for micro-holes, she walked into a flooding stream and emerged with dry feet. Don’t worry, though, as I’m as certain as can be that no less than once, she’ll be barefoot in the water because that’s what she does.

Lone Ranch Beach north of Brookings, Oregon

This water and the water behind it, not the stuff in the ocean, is what Caroline was just standing in. We are at Lone Ranch Beach, which is the neighbor of Cape Ferrelo. The rain has stopped, which has encouraged us to take one more walk this afternoon before the sun sets. While down here we both question if we’d ever been here before as nothing looks familiar. It could be that it’s low tide, and with all the exposed rocks, things just appear different. Or maybe it really is our first visit.

Caroline Wise and John Wise at Lone Ranch Beach north of Brookings, Oregon

To mark the occasion, we pose for a selfie, and while we are properly lit, I cringe at how blown out the background is. Just look at the photo above this one to see how it’s supposed to look, and you, too, will have your skin crawl at how poorly the photographer of this selfie is at knowing how to operate his camera. I’d bet my smartphone would have done better than this archaic DSLR that only recently replaced the old guy’s Brownie Instamatic.

Lone Ranch Beach north of Brookings, Oregon

The sun has set, though we cannot see it, nor have we seen it all day. Fog has been pulsing back and forth off the ocean and rolling out over the surrounding hillsides as we spent a couple of hours out here on this short stretch of beach. We were mesmerized by the brutal crashing waves that appeared to tower well over our heads before breaking at a good distance and quickly being consumed by the water rushing back to the sea that had made it up the beach. The waves that did race up the sand felt sneaky, which had us on alert as we made our way to exposed rocks that obviously were part of a seafloor exposed by low tide. What makes this obvious to us are the mussels, chitons, barnacles, and sea stars. Oh, did I say sea stars when previously I kept calling them starfish? Today, we learned from a nearby display that they are now called sea stars because starfish don’t have gills, scales, or fins, though they do live underwater…where they kill urchins, mussels, and anemones.

On The Pistol River

JWise Photo of the Day, Travels

Dawn on the Pistol River in southern Oregon

The veranda is dripping while fog clings to a mountainside across the way. Between us and the mountain, the forest is showing some of the colors of fall. Somewhere unexplored just yet is the Pistol River that will have to wait for us as we are moving lazily after two solid days of scurrying over the desert, through farmlands, and into the coastal mountain ranges that have brought us to the edge of the Continental United States. We are on vacation and determined not to act urgently unless trying to capture peace and quiet in our remote self-isolation.

At the moment, there’s a reluctance to move at all as the quiet reassures me that it’s okay to sit here and listen to the birds chattering in their morning routines. The pink of the first sky has given way to clouds reminiscent of yesterday’s that we experienced just south of here. Steller’s jays and robins flutter about, telling my imagination in their tweets that they are our prison guards here to ensure that today we do not move from our encampment in the woods. At the moment, I’m good with their command, as parts of our human routine come with their own demands that are on hold while I follow this word trail in my head.

Alas, the breadcrumbs of thought bring me to ideas of food that won’t be had down the road in some toasty seaside cafe. No, we are eating right here as soon as I move my cold self into the kitchen. Cold because last night I turned off the heater in order to have a cozier quiet, as our luxurious feather comforter from home is along to make strange beds more familiar. How’d that work out for us? My poverty of language when it comes to explaining the warmth and happiness of sharing a bed with Caroline as we nuzzle in a chilly room will never convey how, from shoulders to toes, we bask in a sense of delight. The old cliched, “This ain’t our first rodeo” comes to mind as it was right here on this coast that it had first occurred to us to bring our blankets along after learning we didn’t enjoy our sleeping bags in a yurt that much and that with the little space heater that is available in every one of these little canvas dwellings by the sea that our own bedding would be better suited for our stay. So on subsequent visits, we brought our pillows, a sheet, a blanket for insulation between the sheet and a plastic-covered two-inch thick mattress, and our big fluffy comforter. Seeing we cannot stay in yurts this trip due to the pandemic, we are doing “modified yurt” while luxuriating in a house.

Road near Pistol River in Southern Oregon

The likely inaccurate weather report has us heading into town. Yeah, this is our road leading to and from our spot along the river called The Fish Inn. With high winds predicted, we don’t want to be traveling this tree-lined trail through the woods, as it could be a minute before a fallen tree gets cleared. Maybe we should consider acquiring an ax in town in case an emergency were to arise.

Caroline Wise at "By My Hand" yarn store in Brookings, Oregon

Speaking of “emergency,” you must have known that if a yarn store was open, we’d be stopping in. Caroline’s justification, which was almost but not really valid, was that I could get a photo of her wearing her Monterey Bay mask in Oregon. “Wow, wife, that’s such a novel idea,” said the reluctant eye-rolling husband. But of course, I fell for it as not only do I want to remain happy, I want Caroline to be happy too, and if supporting a local business so I might gain a new pair of socks is part of the equation, well, then I’m actually pretty enthusiastic about my side of the win. Do you see that yarn she’s fondling? My feet will be adorned with that after it’s automagically transformed into custom-fitted socks.

Old rusting U-Haul truck in Brookings, Oregon

The idea was to fetch a couple of things and get back up the road before the purported gale-force winds hit, but it looked so nice and tranquil that we decided some sightseeing was in order. Zoomed into the map, it looked like there was a trail we’d never been down, and so, being the intrepid adventure travelers we are, we moved down the road in that direction.

Face carved into sand near Chetco Point in Brookings, Oregon

Chetco Point is guarded over by this totemic figure that is likely some vandalism more than the ancient carving I’d like to tell you it is. This idea spurs another thought about the first humans who learned to draw as they trolled their fellow tribal members. Think about it: it’s about 35,000 years ago, and you leave a face like this in a known location; the next time your group is traveling through, they’re startled by the giant face looking at them through the rocks. You get to claim that aliens must have done it or that the gods left it as an inexplicable message to spur deeper thinking, but you don’t have the intellectual tools yet to examine the phenomenon, and so the tribal members remain perplexed for centuries, a big win for the prankster artist.

Chetco Point in Brookings, Oregon

Enough of the comedic shenanigans and back on to the path of beauty. You’d never believe what’s up this paved trail between the two giant rocks that make up this point jutting into the ocean; it’s a bridge. A beautiful heavy wood bridge connects the rock outcroppings so we can step out even further away from the habitable land onshore. This moment of human goodness has been brought to us by the commons. For those who need a refresher on exactly what the commons are, please take a gander here at the explanation from Wikipedia:

The commons are the cultural and natural resources accessible to all members of society, including natural materials such as air, water, and a habitable earth. These resources are held in common, not owned privately. Commons can also be understood as natural resources that groups of people (communities, user groups) manage for individual and collective benefit.

Chetco Point in Brookings, Oregon

Sure, we want to indulge our senses every minute of every day we’re out here on remote self-isolation, aka vacation, but due to the volatile pandemic situation and news flying in about shifting lockdowns and quarantines with rising infection numbers and death toll, we pay attention with an alert ear to what’s on the wind. We do not look at the clouds with the sun trying to poke through and wish for a moment of blue sky as the glistening water is already all that we could have hoped for. Just to hear the sea crashing into the land after a long journey from the other side of the planet is a gift of extraordinary value offered to so few. Should we have to cut short our plans, knocking on wood that we won’t have to, we are resigned to the notion that even this will have made for a perfect getaway.

Chetco Point in Brookings, Oregon

Maybe you thought I’d leave out the details of a pile of nothing? Not a chance because without the visual reminders of those things underfoot and overhead, we only have the myopic view of what was obvious and in front of our noses. What is under our nose and outside of our peripheral vision also holds attraction, should we take the time to recognize the picture is best experienced when taken in its totality. Trying to convey a composite image of our day requires that I find what might have been overlooked if I was only looking for the obviously spectacular. While some will object and say this accumulation of twigs and branches washed ashore by the tide is a pile of detritus, I’d counter and ask them to see the sunrise and sunset that once shown upon the remnants of these former plants and remember that one day their own bones will one day be bleached and discarded as the beauty and wit they once supported is long gone.

Caroline Wise at Myers Beach North on the South Oregon Coast

Just how amazing can this kite you bought ten years ago that fits in a box the size of your palm be? Well, to Caroline, it may as well have been the greatest kite ever made because even at 50-something years old, she giggles at her flying skills as the tiny kite goes aloft. The winds were so strong that, at times, she appeared to possess acrobatic skills for flying such things as it raced towards the ground and performed a dozen or so tight spins. In the end, the short 30-foot-long string was a tangle of knots that put a stop to her moment of entertainment. Time to go check out what’s exposed here at low tide.

Myers Beach North on the South Oregon Coast

While I’m redundant in stating that this is our 20th visit to Oregon over the previous 18 years, this is once again an encounter with a 1st. The shark tooth rock at Meyers Beach North, south of Gold Beach but north of Pistol River, has never been inspected by us from close up. Maybe the water was too high, or we missed the break in the guardrail that indicated where the trail was, but here we are down on the beach, getting a different view of things. The silver plants in between the ice cycle plants were what caught Caroline’s eye up on the sheer cliffside. I couldn’t answer her as to what they were as I have no idea, and while I’d love to ask someone who reads my blog what it is, the fact is that no one reads my blog, especially these particularly long-winded entries that are loaded with rich nuggets of wisdom.

Starfish at Myers Beach North on the South Oregon Coast

They don’t jump around, don’t have fangs, and can’t fly; as a matter of fact, we’ve rarely seen them move, but starfish hold particular interest for these two intrepid explorers of things already discovered. I’d guess it’s their terrific colors punctuated with the starfield-like dots on their backs that are at least part of the draw. Or maybe it’s the cold-blooded death squeeze they put on the mussels and anemones they hang out with, whose screams we might be able to decipher if we spoke their language. While the immobilized starfish cling to whatever they can hold onto while out of the water, maybe we’d do the Cnidaria and Mollusca families a favor if we kicked in the faces of these Echinodermata? Heck, I don’t even know where the face of a starfish is. If I had to guess, I’d venture to bet it’s in the center of the other side we cannot see, but that then begs the question, where’s the butthole? Nice, Caroline just informed me that they then must be Johnfish as I, too, put food into the hole that shit’s been known to fall from.

Barnacles at Myers Beach North on the South Oregon Coast

It was getting windy, so maybe the promised storm was finally coming in. No time to stick around like these barnacles, and we were short upon running out of daylight, too, so we headed for the exit.

Myers Beach North on the South Oregon Coast

Not that we were done with the day, far from it. You see, we had gone back to the house earlier for lunch, and we’ll be there again soon so Caroline can spin some cotton into yarn and continue following a weaving course she’s been taking. I’ll return to writing today’s blog entry before tending to dinner. Speaking of that, we’ll be having seared scallops with a tomato and avocado salad, but don’t think for one minute that there won’t be some kind of snacking indulgence; we are, after all, on vacation; I mean remote self-isolation.

Remote Self-Isolation

JWise Photo of the Day, Travels

Near False Klamath, California looking out at the Pacific Ocean

After spending nearly all day yesterday driving, we did more of the same today. With a destination 1,200 miles (1,930km) northwest of home, we broke up the segments into two nearly equal distances by driving from Phoenix, Arizona, to Fresno, California, yesterday, and then today, we finished the trek. It rained most of the day, at times coming down heavy, making for some white knuckle moments on the narrow Highway 101 through the Redwoods of Northern California. Normally, there’s nothing particularly troublesome about driving in a bit of rain but we’ve not seen the stuff since sometime earlier in the year, as in back in January or February. By the time late afternoon had rolled around, we were resigned to the imagined fact that it was going to rain all day, but then, just as we reached False Klamath on the ocean and our first opportunity to find ourselves oceanside, we were offered this view above.

Caroline Wise on the beach at Crescent City, California

But the sky wasn’t done with us yet as it cut itself in two with this bisection that seems to suggest, “Leave this gray from down south behind you as on your right and to the north, Oregon is about to smile upon you.” Had the heavens closed up after our first stop, we would have been content to have had a minute to admire the silver sea. Besides, who could have asked for a moment of molten gold ocean to pull us from the car just 20 minutes later? By the way, in an alternative universe, there is a similar picture of me in silhouette, as it was Caroline’s idea to snap a photo of me with her phone as I stood in the same place. Seeing her image, I told her to assume my position, and I took this one of her. On more occasions than I wish to publically admit, though that’s just what I’m doing right now, my wife has some really good ideas and is quite inspired. Just don’t tell her I said this, as it will all go to her head, while it’s her modesty that lends itself to her better qualities.

McVay Rock at sunset in Oregon

Our minds are blown as little could we have imagined that we’d make the southern Oregon coast by sunset and that we’d see it in all of its spectacular glory at an overlook we’d never visited. As I’ve shared before, this is our 20th visit to Oregon in the past 18 years, and while I might brag that we’ve seen every inch of this beautiful isolated stretch of the Pacific coast, on every visit, there seems to be just one more place that we’d somehow missed. Today, that stop was at the McVay Rock State Recreation Site, which is less than 3 miles from the Oregon and California state lines. How had we missed this?

Our final stop was a few miles up the Pistol River at the Fish Inn that we found on Airbnb. This place off the beaten path is more than a dozen miles away from the nearest town with Brookings to the south with its population of 6,465 and Gold Beach to the north and its population of 2,293. We’ll be spending the next few days on this 35-mile-long sparsely populated stretch of coast in a kind of remote self-isolation as we try to have as few encounters with other people as possible, minus the requisite stops at Dutch Bros. for coffee.

Rewards

JWise Thoughts, Travels

Caroline Wise and John Wise on the California border

Our awareness of the incredibly fortunate lives we live is rarely lost on Caroline and me, but when planning our travels and especially in the time leading up to our departure, that knowledge turns into a riveting tension. This idea is kept alive by the desire to venture out of routine as we are determined not to fall into patterns that would allow us to make excuses for staying in place. Not only are we willing to go, learn, and challenge ourselves, but we have the means and, at least so far, are indefatigable in making the necessary sacrifices. The funny thing is that this all feels like it grows easier and even more rewarding with each passing year. Little touches that enhance our adventures become nuances of the extraordinary, fueling our belief that this is the proverbial icing on the cake, adding to the perfection of how we’ll greet the place we are traveling to.

Nearly two months ago, I confirmed our lodging for the trip on which we are about to embark. Back then it felt like we were gaining some breathing room from COVID-19 and that making plans was a great thing to do. Now, just hours before our departure, the pandemic is raging in all corners of the country. I’m trying to reassure myself that we are doing this as safely as possible with only three nights in hotels: one on the way there and two on the way home; all three are major brands with the hopes they are working hard to protect their franchises. Our lodgings on the coast are at five different rentals; we’ll stay at each one for multiple days and will disinfect a few things before setting up, in addition to tossing off the bedding in favor of using our own pillows and our favorite fluffy down comforter. Ninety-three percent of our meals will come directly from what we are packing, while four meals will be to-go or outdoors. Two of those will be in Yachats, Oregon, at our old favorite Luna Sea restaurant; one lunch will be at Blue Heron Cheese Company in Tillamook, Oregon, and finally, dinner in Crescent City, California, as we will be in a hotel without a kitchen.

By minimizing our contact with others and wearing masks at all times we are in shared public spaces, we feel that we are doing everything we can to remain safe while not risking others’ health should somehow we become asymptomatic carriers. The path of our travels and time of year chosen also minimizes our encounters with others, though, on Thanksgiving and the day after, it’s been our experience that beaches are relatively crowded, although late November in Oregon means that we’ll be at least 20 to 50 feet away from others on a windy open area. If fewer people are traveling this holiday season, maybe we’ll find even greater isolation, which is just fine by us.

Driving west on Interstate 10 in California

I brought up that we’ll be preparing 93% of all of our meals; that’s a very accurate number, actually, as out of 57 meals across 19 days, we really are either cooking or packing sandwiches over the course of every day. While there’s certainly a convenience to eating out during travels, it’s also a hit-and-miss in rural corners of America where options can be grim *(if you ever had to eat Chinese food in Topeka, Kansas, you’d know what I meant). Instead, we’ll be dining on my own cooking with walleye hand-caught in Canada, ribeye steaks from the panhandle of Texas, Cajun Turducken from Louisiana, Corona beans because why not, sundubu Korean tofu stew, grilled bratwurst from our favorite local German store, and spaghetti squash as everyone needs a night off. Doing the dishes and moving this amount of food up to Oregon is a downside, but on the bright side, it’ll feel in some way like we’re living on the coast instead of just visiting.

“Patience is a virtue” takes on new meaning during a pandemic due to the uncertainty, but as we near the moment of departure with our precautions to remain safe, healthy, and isolated, it looks like all systems are “go for launch.” Due to the obvious impatience of many, which ultimately means disrespect for themselves and others, the flare-up of COVID-19 is surging through many cities across America and around the globe. We must continue to act in our own best interest and go slow and steady with the full awareness that all around us are people who not only don’t care but also don’t believe that the pandemic is real. For nearly the entire year, our lives have been impacted, yet those in denial only demonstrate hostility, which is often directed at those who are trying to not only take precautions but also patiently retain the hope that lives will return to something like normal. This trip up the coast is one of our moments to dip back into what was normal, our reward for our own patience.

Blue MAGA Red MAGA

JWise Thoughts

Voting Map of America

Here we are on the eve of the presidential election, and I’m fairly nonplussed by the drama that’s been building up to this point. Our choices are both devoid of vision aside from holding fast to a withered point of view from a past that no longer holds relevance. We cannot see ourselves in any meaningful global position anymore as we are too enmeshed in studying our own belly buttons. The joy of life found in striking out for the future is a smoldering hunk of death destroyed by our own stupidity. Resting on one’s laurels has come with a price, and for the United States, that translates into having lost our way. The abyss we are dwelling in opens the way for China to continue pushing its vision for the future of its people, where they believe that technology, education, and global collaboration will allow the Chinese to gain influence and prosperity. On the other hand, we have Russia and America wanting to modernize their nuclear stockpiles while shoring up their oil, steel, forestry, and manufacturing capabilities.

We’ve arrived at this juncture to a large degree by our open disdain for things smart. While rich is good, brainy is arrogant, elitist, and generally needs to be mistrusted. Again, rich, no matter how one got there, is good. This seems obviously idiotic, but by and large, this is about exactly where we sit.

There’s a relatively good chance that tomorrow, maybe even tonight, we’ll know who won the presidency. Maybe it’ll be contested, but who gives a shit if it is? The carnival will change gears, but intellectual lethargy will continue to rule the day. While I voted for who I did, there’s a part of me that wants to witness how unhinged we can take things. I have but one life, and to see firsthand the derangement of society compounding centuries of mistakes into a short period of time offers me a front-row seat to the self-immolation of a culture that sits at the precipice of luxury and convenience and yet is oblivious to its true value.

Then, in the middle of the night, during a fitful attempt at sleep, the tension pulls me from the futility so I might look upon the status of things with a glimmer of hope that my sense of gloom was misguided, but here in the dark hours across America, before the sun has started to rise, it looks like we’ve opted for another season of the worse telenovela played before an audience in a stupor of fear and anxiety. Our opportunity to pass from children to adolescents is being eclipsed by a tantrum of not wanting to clean our rooms, we will not conform to the better wills of our parents as they, too, demand to do as they please. Responsibility be damned, and again, who cares as the choices were Blue MAGA and Red MAGA.

I can’t say I don’t have a lump in my throat of dread as we will now see a totally delegitimized media that will look like it seriously colluded to drive a propagandistic attack on the incumbent, claiming his opponent had a better than 85% of winning. The House and Senate are not teetering yet, and looks like another four years of stalemate are at hand. In short, this is mostly fucked, but on the bright side, other players could take advantage of the vacuum opened by a country divided and seize the opportunity to enrich themselves with land and power grabs; then again, most are wise to be leery of a hurt dog snarling in the corner. More likely to happen is we’ll bear witness to a frenzied mania of self-righteous vindictiveness that will play out while the decay of the republic marches on.

What about hope and the 26 million votes yet to be counted, as it’s only 4:00 a.m. in the nation’s capital? That no longer really matters like the color and division in the country is splayed large for all to see; we are truly divided and do not care enough about rationality. We like our sick and twisted shit show and are not ready to change channels. Regardless of the outcome, how does one look at the map above and not realize that too many of us are not satisfied with the dire position we are in due to a shifting landscape of economic uncertainty? The tech revolution has made those able to adapt very wealthy, but those not on that gravy train are out in a digital dust bowl choking on the bits of nonsense thrown off as scrap with about as much value as AOL or MySpace.

Our systemic issues are not being repaired by a popularity contest between two old dudes, and as emotionally irrational as I’d like to position myself and believe that one is better than the other, that would be irresponsible of me if I still hold on to the idea that our problems are seated in an intellectual divide that has created blinders to what is ailing a society without dreams.

Tomorrow will be just one more day that I will rail about our need to wake up, but for now, I must go back to sleep and try to dream of better days.