Futures

I've been brooding lately, mulling over my potential and skill set and conjuring career plans. A new year, a new direction. Whatever that direction shall be, I needed one, by the start of the year. Call it OCD.  And then it hit me. At first I laughed, and wrote my sister and amusing facebook note about it. We grew up with the same obsession, she'd understand. Yet as I wrote, the more attractive this idea became. Until it actually began to make sense. The varied topics, the far away places, political undertones and scandal. I could be an actress of an unconventional sort, immersing myself in a character I'd make as real as myself. Do whatever it takes. Tie in my love of written words into my desire to make a difference, serve justice, and ignite a spark within people. Step on some toes. Solve mysteries. Perhaps I'll become and investigative journalist.

Guinness goes with everything

I wake to a paw in the face. Why, Cinc, why? Persistent whines tell me he's needy, perhaps to go out, perhaps to play, but the lack of sunshine here brings with it an unenthusiastic start to the day, assuming a certain premature drudgery to an otherwise untainted and ripe day. I know it's not the day's fault I hate it so, but from the horizontal position in my bed I can see it already promises to be colorless and insignificant. Born only to pass the time. Why bother at all, I muse.
I lead the dog downstairs, for my first signs of life have stirred him into a frenzy, a bouncing firework of energy to which I am the match. I open the door, and his boundlessness heads for the small patch of leaves he favorites every morning, and bends, back arched in sweet relief, nose sniffing.  I watch from the door, and my foggy comprehension affixes itself to a likewise desire within myself. After calling the dog back in, I head to the bathroom, already assessing the order with which I will complete the morning tasks. Waking up is a process I've not yet perfected, but the rigid order of objectives is the scaffolding to which I cling for deriving success and satisfaction from the dredging smear that is today. Oatmeal, microwave, bathroom, coffee, retrieve and season oatmeal, water dog, water self, vitamins, eat, drink. In the space of a few minutes, the haze clears, and the caffeinated satiation sweeps the morning cobwebs from the corners of my mind, clearing space for a mild degree of optimism. The promise of a new day. Optimism is the revered owner of my mind, the bustle prior to its arrival hellbent on ridding the streets of this morning's lackluster thoughts and hopeless negativity, the shooing of unaesthetic street people out of my square frame of mind, watching with crossed arms as their draped figures shuffle out of view, muttering of the inconvenience, and of their eventual return. I resume the task list, it's denizens varying more in complexity as I add them one by one, their completion, the key to a successful day.

Alex Martino: Malibu Beach

Into the Hills

Axis

Infinity was premeditated, the smooth curve of the figure eight, a finger trace from forever. One two, one two. I can feel this winter on my lips, in the intake of breath as I let it come over me. It's got a taste of clarity I can't really place. It's a new feeling, a winter of cleansing and rebirth. I am a just a baby in this world, watching in wonder at everything that simply...is. Like stepping out of a hot shower, and watching the steam swirl and flow out of my open window and into the cold outside. High pressure to low pressure. I suppose I've reached an age where I'm able to truly recognize and appreciate what is happening around me without overwhelming bitterness and judgement. Yes I have failed, yes I have struggled. Yes I have lost, yes I have loved. Loved with every atom of my existence, and watched it dissipate, like a puff of smoke into the air.  Yes I have lived, quite the little life in my young years, and inside I know I am wiser than most. Age is the weight you wear around your neck, and it pulls you down to the ground, fallen, at the mercy of gravity. But today gravity has mercy on me, I am just born and I breathe this cold air into my lungs knowing how it runs through me, into my blood, and then out of me. I am an amazing thing today, that I have survived this moment and all the rest. The space between my point of birth and my current state can be divided countlessly, and today I know I have survived infinity. And if I am infinitely old, I'm no older than I was when I first begun. One two, one two.