Winter is approaching. We know this because the turkeys are desiring community. We know this because of our new methods for reaching into the sky. There was a time for tweezers. There was a time for forks as well. These are no longer those times. Our skies are testing our grasp on skies. How we are able to get a hold. Be gotten a hold. Turkeys increase their tail size. You see they want to be held. Even that way.

We have reached our dream center. Our ability to question our abilities. What lights do we look best under? Do we look best under anything at all? I don't know.

The turkeys are swarming now and we are beginning to feel a part of something bigger. We may not look best under these lights, but we do believe we look warm. We look warm and therefore have something to offer. To proffer. Turkeys, we say, our arms are long and appropriately hinged. We can hold all sorts of things, even if the sky escapes us.

The turkeys look at us queerly. They warble a few pleasantries and like you opening the jar I've struggled with for so long, they take the sky. We are intrigued and incapable of hiding and realizing it's time to edit that page in Wikipedia. The one that says nothing about what has just happened. This is stuff, we agree, the world needs to know.

Our eyes can distinguish 2.3 million different shades of color. We've only named a handful of these. There is red in the sun and red in the shade. They are different reds, but we don't bother to name them differently. That's just how we are.

When you have red cheeks I like you. When you have red cheeks that you let me kiss I like you more.

Let us leave here and be healthy. Let us leave here and get some color. Leave the bulk of the 2.3 million for everyone else. My eyes are busy taking in so much that I'm afraid I don't have the time for every purple.

I'm sorry, purple. If it makes you feel better.

Orleans is a city in north-central France, about 81 miles southwest of Paris. I'm sure it's a lovely place, but I'm not going to old crappy Orleans. No. I'm going to New Orleans.

I went to New Orleans, I mean. This is what I get for not paying attention. A lack of retention. Some slack in the tension. Tense Ions. Tense I am. I am making logical leaps. Do you follow?

I've involved myself in a fantasy. There are rainbows there. In fact, there are multiple kinds of water, all reflecting multiple kinds of multiplicity. This leads to a multitude of hard but ultimately satisfying lessons. I'm told there are numerous methods of counting. Of places we can put our numerals. Of how this fortifies us.

How can we ever truly know our own pleasantries? you ask. You must watch the exchange program, I say. Yes, I am going away soon, but until then there are many good nights to bid you on. Good night, I say. Night, you answer.

There is spite. There is despite. There is respite. There is also in spite, but that's just where our questions begin. It's a locator, you see, and I'm actually looking for something more in the interlocutor market. We should talk soon, you and I. Of course, this will all depend on where we finally decide to place our vowels. What's really worrisome though, is my inferior design of our interiors...but I'm reading up on the internet.

Do you remember that time in 1987 when you held soul music up to your ear and heard Billy Ocean? Do you remember a few years later when you held Billy Ocean to your ear and heard the Fresh Prince? Do you remember how this is really how you got into hip-hop? Do you want to come over to my house and say marina to each other again and again until we do?

Marina. Now you go. Marina. My turn. Marina.

Yesterday I went the broken bird zoo. Do you know what happens when birds who eat flesh break? They keep trying to eat your face and you get real glad there are signs that say "Do NOT Put Hands and Face Into Cages." You normally aren't that good with signs, but the weather was just right today and so your face was always safe. Still, you can't help but be startled.

Startled. Try that one. Startled. Today you startled me. She has a startling present. She startles with presents. But you can never promise to startle. I will startle you. Being startled comes from a lack of expectations. If you expect a startling, it will never come.

They have no starlings at the broken bird zoo. Because they are passerines and have strong feet. Eagles eat passerines. I eat nectarines, but not like an eagle eating a passerine because I don't eat anything the way an eagle eats passerines.

Do you remember when I was looking for a job? Turns out I was really good at that. I have two jobs now.

I like that...

Jobs are busy things. I'm new to this bustling and I like it. Sometimes I try to be cute when I should be more smart. My body is frequently more busy because of it. There is much to be doing, but I'm still waiting for paychecks. In the meantime, I busy myself with bike riding.

Last week was pleasant in all the best lunarways. The moon was almost full. The moon was full. The moon rose and I smelled the best apple smells ever. I had a birthday party and the moon waned the whole time. It was still a very good party.

Right now, I kind of want to go to bed, but that is an involved process and so, it seems, I am not going to bed just yet.

These are things I ate at the State Fair: a turkey leg, a funnel cake, fried Oreo cookies, fried pickle spears, more turkey that had a stick added to it after the fact, a few bites of ice cream and a gross slushy that didn't taste like what I thought strawberry lemonade should taste like. There were many other things I was going to try, but instead, I didn't. I feel good about a lot of decisions. That remains one of them.

The most important question you may ever face: Why not get an airbrushed tattoo of 2pac? As in, congratulations, Poet, here is your airbrushed tattoo of 2pac! Or, if that doesn't tickle you, what about 2pocahontas? That tickles me. Also, saying the word, Okoboji. It's like saying, Okay BJ, but different.

I started a new job today. Actually, if you ask the federal government, I started a job today, having had no former job (in the last 18 months). You can't be unemployed if you are believed to have never been employed to begin with. I wasn't unemployed, no, I was simply not employed. But that's over now. I'm totally ambient.

Today I cut myself twice on the same door. There is less of me now than there once was. I have less Benjamin to speak of. However, the door has a tiny bit more. Or, I guess, since it didn't have any before, it has some. Some Benjamin. The door, it seems, is basking in my newly found ambiance.

Ohio is the worst. I've said it before, but feel a more permanent record is needed. Anyway, as I've said before, Ohio is the worst. Driving through Ohio is like driving through a Larry The Cable Guy album. You don't mind it at first, but by track 2, man, you can't wait for this shit to be over. That's when you realize you're only in Cleveland and the CD player is broke and the only way to get to the next disc to let it play. But then, just before the last track is over, it stops and charges you $20 for having listened to the CD all the way through. Ohio...you're the worst.

Of all the problems we deal with, I can't believe we so readily overlook "places to keep our dog while we shower at the rec center." It's also easy to forget that sometimes the best possible solution to this problem is a combination of solutions...like an I.V. drip or a bombpop. The dog goes on the clothes on top of the locker next to the backpack just below the sign that says no camera phones. This is a perfect solution. I think we can all agree.

Have you noticed how every time "Kung Fu Fighting" comes on, it always seems to be the perfect time for "Kung Fu Fighting" to be on? Phenomenology, maybe, but I have to believe in something more sound. Something like, "Kung Fu Fighting."

When I was a kid I loved the Foucault pendulum at the science center. As I grew up, it never occurred to me that Pendulum Foucault wasn't Phenomenology Foucault. How great was this guy, I'd say to myself, with all his ways of existing. But I know a lot more now than I did this morning. Leon Foucault was not Michel Foucault and was pretty rad in his own right. Eddy currents, gyroscopes, pendulums and light speeds. He did those things! I often wish I lived in world where swinging weights and playing with tops were still science experiments. Alas, they are nothing more now than office decoration and bad birthday presents.

It's hot. I wish it were less hot. But then I think of how wishes are usually limited in quantity and I take it back. I'm saving my wishes for something better.

But I do kind of wish it were less hot.

Walks. I've been on some. One day I came across a camp of migrant workers. I would have felt sad, but they were all so happy. I went back there a few days later to see them again. They were gone and my assumptions were correct. All there was was a pillow, a few t-shirts and little ways down the path, a blanket. These things aren't sad in a dresser or on a bed, or, even when someone is using them under the bridge the trail goes under, but they are sad here.

The clouds are all moving the wrong way today, but my typing is progressing as expected. So time travel, my initial and gut-based conclusion, is most likely not the answer why. What ever is going on, these clouds are going to be pissed when they see the Rocky Mountains again...

Hey Thanks Benjamin is the name of this blog. HEY THANKS BENJAMIN is the name of my manuscript. I used them both to try and score a job today. I hope it worked. I did make them sound very interesting.

Further Adventures will have a small but noticeable presence this Saturday, July 16th at the Iowa City Book Festival. 10am in front of the UI Main Library/Gibson Square. I walk/ride through that park everyday. I'm looking forward to spending a bit more time there and maybe talking to you. I'll have free stuff. Mostly free stuff, actually. I'm down to only a few books. You should say stop by and say hi. I'll say hi too. It will be a pleasant exchange.

I was recently at a place that looked like this. I went to see the Mississippi River, but found it less interesting than the place I was looking at it from. Alfred Caldwell designed this place. Alfred Caldwell designed other places too. Namely, the Alfred Caldwell Lily Pool in Chicago. I've seen that too. Do you know about the Prairie School aesthetic? I do. Natural landscapes using native materials in an effort to mimic local ecosystems. Ecosystems take care of themselves. But we're not building ecosystems, we're building structures. Upkeep becomes necessary. We know this because we take showers and get haircuts. Most of Alfred Caldwell's parks have recently taken showers and gotten haircuts. And they're all pretty again. Hey, that's a fact!

And here's another one: Caldwell was hired by Mies van der Rohe to teach at IIT. This blog started with me being in a place called Mies van der Rohe's Farnsworth House.

Harold "Duke" Dejan used to tell you that "everything is lovely." You were often hesitant to believe this, but then, somehow, it just became true.

Sunsets like this definitely helped in that.

Kansas City A Go Go! Kansas City I Went Went! I'm sure there are many, many things to do in Kansas City, but I only did these things; ate BBQ at Oklahoma Joe's, saw many great things at the Nelson-Atkins Museum, including the museum itself, spent time with good people, and fell in love with condensed milk.

On the way home I stopped and looked at a bridge of Madison County. It was romantic as shit.

A haboob is a dust storm. A dust storm is really fucking scary. A haboob is a funny word to be scared of.

I drove around in the country yesterday. I picked some wild flowers. I walked in corn. I saw a huge fire. There was also a sunset and an unhitched trailer rolled over in a ditch that said "Funnel Cake" on its side. That's a funny way to make a funnel cake, I thought.

I also heard this really great song:


Do you know the reason why iced coffee costs more than regular coffee? I don't, but whatever it is, I bet it's stupid.