The Blue Book To Bird Heaven

December 18th, 2006

The birds are mocking me.

They race overhead in an unorthodox pattern, squawking in a language they know im too feeble to understand.

Incomprehensible heckles.

It doesn’t irritate me the same way that chewing loudly on food or gulping water does. Those things are pure annoyance. The birds peeve me in a similar way as getting clearly made fun of in a different language does. You can never prove it, because you are not familiar with the vernacular, but you can hear it. The tone. The speed. The stares.

They always stare.

As they perch on streetlights, they huddle together and collectively gaze upon me, rather into me, with those judgemental unforgiving beady eyes. On fountains they glance between sips of water, like humans do when they try to avoid making eye contact, but clearly want to see something. Like friends telling you “don’t look now, but…”. So at that level I guess that insatiable urge and curiosity is a likeness between humans and birds. But that’s where the similarities end. Birds are just so uncivilized, and their flight has always, seemed to me like a way to escape. We aren’t that lucky. Why can birds, a far less evolved species, travel so much higher, soar so much further, than us?

December 19th, 2006

After yesterday's entry I can see how it seems that I have a vengeful vendetta against birds. That is not the case. My critique and frustration comes out of a place of painful curiosity. A sort of admiration in fact. I’ve spent my entire life studying animals. From land dwelling goliaths, like the fabled Ceratotherium Simum to sea mysteries like the Colonial Siphonophores, I’ve studied all. But birds for some inexplicable reason have always vexed me. I understand biologically how they work, and fly, and live. That’s never been the fascination. It’s how they think. Can they fully comprehend emotion, family, are they capable of having human ideas, and even ideals. What makes one crow different from another? Is it purely the shade of their feathers or is it something deeper, more substantial like differing personalities.

Sure there have been numerous studies on birds and their emotional comprehension, but none of them have convinced me that there is definitive proof of much of anything. For this seldom dwelled and contrary opinion I've been called crazy, or “mentally mismanaged”, whatever that means. But I believe I'm as well as every other person on this planet. Do people ridicule those that challenge religion, because there’s no concrete proof? No. They might be disputed, but not questioned for sanity. So what makes this different? This is my religion. And I shouldn't be laughed at for trying to get into bird heaven.

February 2nd 2007

My bird fascination has only intensified since the last time I wrote. It’s only been two months yet so much has changed for me. I’ve adopted three cats. I haven’t taken the time to name them so I just remember them by their coat. I have two white ones, one slightly darker than the other, and a slender black cat. They help keep the distance with the birds. In order to do my research I have to get uncomfortably close with the specimen so I have to have some protectors in case things go awry. However nothing of the sort has happened yet.

A key proponent to studying birds is to get them to stay. And for that the only thing that works, believe me I've tried, is food. One food I found that the local birds are fond of is the bread of a local bakery, Not Knots Bakery. I’ve never gone except for this project, because it is a new generation, hipster bakery where a clearly over-caffeinated employee greets you with a “Your Knot welcome to Not Knot’s,” as soon as you open the door. However the birds are so keen to this bread that it’s become a necessity in order to make any level of substantial progress, so sacrifices have had to be made.

Actually interestingly enough, alongside my investigative bird work I've also met a bird enthusiast, named Susan Ermita. Susan is an interesting person. I think she finds birds so lovely because, no offense meant, she is so birdlike in her own qualities. She’s so quick witted and shifty and clearly can’t sit still and overall feels like a species swapped bird. Her personality isn't where the similarities end though, because her features are also bird like. She’s tall and lanky, with sometimes unsettlingly broad shoulders, and has these huge blue eyes that look like a bit of sky was captured and put into each one. Now despite our juxtaposing beliefs and her fowl features she actually is quite charming. She has a way of making each word bounce interestingly off her tongue, so every sentence feels like a new rollercoaster that you can just anticipate but at the last turn a corkscrew pops out at you and twists the whole thing up. She tells these extravagant stories of things that, may or may not, have actually happened in her life and her career. She’s a computer technician. An interesting contrast to her bird observation.

That’s what makes birds so interesting. No one knows if these nuances exist to them above the clouds. That’s my goal. That’s my passion.

February 3rd 2007

THERE HAS BEEN A MASSIVE BREAKTHROUGH.

The birds can communicate with me. I have conducted numerous experiments to try and delve into the psyche of these feathered phenomena but nothing has worked quite like this. In order to do the work that is required of me I had to assimilate with them, and the only way I saw that I could reasonably test and control the data of birds is if I got one myself. So I swallowed my pride, and put my own reservations aside and bought one.

Her name is E2. E1 unfortunately showed no promise of intelligence so I gave it to Sue, who with no hesitation graciously accepted. I don’t know what she sees in it considering it is evidently not an astute bird, but she values it dearly regardless. Now I don't know what puzzles me more, Susan or the birds.

With E1’s disappointing failure aside, E2, on the other hand, is showing a lot more promise. E2 is a North-American Black Billed female Magpie with an incredible fascination with beer and bread. Something about yeast really does it for E2 I think. Now considering how in California it is illegal to own a bird like E2, I might’ve had to do some not legally sound things to get her, but she is guaranteed in good hands. I give her the proper food she needs and provide her a spacious backyard to be free and nest however she likes. We have a mutual agreement in a way. I make sure E2 lives the best life possible and in turn she lets me monitor her. A prosperous arrangement for both of us.

I wouldn’t venture so far to say that I’m doting on her, but I certainly have changed my view on birds. They’re not as nefarious as I once thought.

March 19th 2006

I feel strange. For the first time in a while I doubt this entry will be about birds. Sure things with E2 and my studies of her are great. But I am beginning to question if any of that is even worth as much time as I have put into it.

Sue has died.

Now considering I only knew her for about a month, my feelings toward her death is surprising to me. I wouldn’t count myself as a stoic individual but rather pragmatic, which sometimes leads to a feeling of pessimism in my daily life. I'm painfully aware that people die. The world goes on and will keep spinning with or without us. Our impermanence is an unchangeable fate.

But then why do I care so much?

May 16th 2006

The birds consumed my life. In my effort to understand and comprehend them I lost comprehension of myself. The birds took up so much of my time, effort, and attention that I completely neglected her. Susan.

I realized that the reason I was so distraught for so long was because I had deeper feelings for her. Reading my previous entries I can’t believe how little I wrote of her. She was everywhere in that month. In the cafe, at the park, she even came home with me sometimes to help with my studies. She was the one constant in my life. Besides the birds.

It’s hard to not feel resentment towards them now. Even though her passing wasn’t directly their fault, I still feel like they took her from me. The time I had with her was so limited. So minute, in the grand scheme of life. I don’t mean to get philosophical here about my anger or longing but I just don’t have anywhere to go.

I'm alone.

And the only thing left are the birds.

May 30th 2006

A lot has happened since we last spoke.

Charlie has passed. Charlie was my black cat. I got him when he was old so I knew he didn’t have an innumerable amount of time left. So the death part was expected, but the pain wasn’t. He was in so much pain near the end. Meows at night that seemed to be never ending. Garbled cries that would go without ceasing and the only interruptions were to stop and wheeze. The echoes still ring in my mind, persistent, grinding on every ridge of my brain.

The worst part is at the funeral there was no one but me, and his brothers. Two other cats that would one day pass as well. But that doesn’t bother me. As long as there’s no pain. I pray for no pain.

Also I returned E2 to the wild.

I decided it wasn’t fair, especially in my current state, to keep an animal trapped like me. So I let her go. She flew away without as much as a glance back or a caw of goodbye. But i think it was better that way. I think my obsession with them will never leave. Maybe it’s just shifted from less of a painful one to an accepting one. Maybe some things don’t need to be understood.

September 30th 2013

I'm happy I found this. After Charlie died I decided to put down the journal for a while.

But I'm sick. Very sick.

I’m not sad though. I’m actually quite happy. Not because I'm excited to die. Because I’m content with my life now. I like knowing that I did what I could do to be happy. It might not seem like I did but I promise it. I spend time with my cats, Cookie and Vanilla. Names I personally would never have chosen but Susan said that those names fit and I don’t argue with the dead.

Sorry for the dark humor. I’ve sort of adopted that nearing my own fatality. Life is so funny when you don’t take it so seriously.

I’ve started bird watching. Not studying, just watching now. Hummingbirdshhhhhhh hover by my window, looking inside at the flowers on the window sill, contemplating whether or not the risk of flying through the slight crack is worth the reward of the vibrant colored carnations. Ravens and crows still stare but now I stare back. What can they do? I’m already dead. So pick away at me, I'm the new Prometheus. Except I brought no fire, or substance, or really anything to the world except notebooks full of demented scribbles about bird psychology

To be able to come out of the other side of the tunnel with the birds is more interesting than the birds themselves. I don’t feel like I wasted my time anymore. Who knows, some of the things that I wrote might not be complete chicken scratch. Maybe someday after I'm gone a scientist will follow in my footsteps, become obsessed with fowl, lose the love of their life, and this time discover something actually substantial.

But in my closing days, I think I actually solved the bird dilemma.

The birds were never fascinating. It was the control. Some part of my life that I can hold and have and actually affect. The birds were never the only ones staring if I spent all my time looking back. The entire time I was the bird all along. I was the one flying above, evading my problems.

Anyways, I guess none of that matters anymore. My life is coming to an end and I don’t really have any last words. Sad.

Even if I did, being honest, they’re probably for the birds.