I have listened to Dire Straits at least three thousand times this past weekend.

Of course, I don’t actually know. But it started during a walk slash errands spree on Thursday evening from somewhere around 5:45 to about 7:10. And it was just the one song, “So Far Away,” which measures just over five minutes and twelve seconds.

The math says that in that eighty-five minute span, that I had actually only listened to the cut for just over sixteen spins. That’s not counting the times I listened to it at one in the morning in the car after the Haven or making a vanity reel of spinning fire for social media trying really hard to time the main introductory riff to the walk and light-up bit like a *inhales* nerrrrrrrrrd, and then proceeding to listen to the whole album, Brothers in Arms at one in the morning on Friday.

Altogether it was about seventeen listens in addition to the morsels, bits and bobs during video editing.

But to be honest, that’s amateur hour.

During my service in AmeriCorps NCCC, I roomed with a guy named Paul. Cool guy; he was the first person I ever met someone who actually grew up in skid row. Could he have been lying? Sure, but the stories were pretty vivid. A Bostonian with Cambodian roots, he stood roughly five feet with braided hair and had been in the program for a couple years running. If you met Paul, you would have thought he was one Clint Eastwood flick away from owning a Gran Torino.

During our first project round, our team helped a skeleton crew perform grounds maintenance at the Salton Sea State Recreation Area. For six weeks, we camped on the banks of the Salton Sea. For six weeks we would work from seven to four and then come back to our tents, drenched in sweat, watching the set at five behind the Peninsular Ranges. Those ranges also blocked out the light from San Diego, opening the night sky to us as it did the ancient astronomers. Every possible star or galaxy was revealed, every trace of the Milky Way.

It almost made you forget the constant smell of salt (hence the name) and rotting tilapia coming from the lakeshore. That’s because the sea is not actually a sea but a manmade lake, created when one intrepid Los Angeleno thought it would be a fruitful endeavor to divert the Colorado River. One faulty canal later and the water burst out, submerging the town of Salton before the Hoover Dam eventually killed off the flood irrigation.

Since then, the water just continues to evaporate with no replenishment and no natural outlet. What’s left is increasing salinity and rotting fish on the banks. And that would have been enough to drive any person crazy.

But one day Paul decided to add on to it by listening to one song on repeat for four days straight. Not even on headphones, on speaker. A phone speaker. It was all he listened to and something we were all forced to endure. I spent two hours trying to find the song, but shaky memory prevented the internet from fully divining the tune. Probably out of a sense of guardianship; I would have gone into post-traumatic shock because it was all we heard for four days.

Eventually, our team lead, Star, had to ask him to stop. Well, that must have driven Paul up, over, and three thousand miles past the wall because he left AmeriCorps within two days, shipped back home to Boston.

Why am I telling you this? Because imagine how much you must love a song if you can listen to it for a half a week, nonstop and then leave a government job program you had successfully completed two years running because you were asked to take it easy and use some headphones? I’m being kind of facetious here, but the point still stands: seventeen rough listens to “So Far Away” by the Dire Straits and I decide to call it quits?

Amateur hour. I’d have actually been disappointed in myself, crushed by the thought that I loved this song more if it hadn’t followed me far past just a Thursday walk.

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Forget about the song playing in the background for a moment, however. If you couldn’t tell by the title, this is going to be one giant walking creative writing experiment. And no I did not mix up Ivan Pavlov with Anton Chekhov. I didn’t realize it when I went to Trader Joe’s for the first time, but I was just playing into the hands of the experiment by the second trip.

To be clear, this is a bad habit; it’s not like I didn’t already have food. I had been to Trader Joe’s. All I had needed then were some eggs for the fried rice, bread for sandwiches and cat treats for Charlie B. Tonight was going to be breaded chicken tenders night, eight o’clock; don’t be late. I had only one wok, so it was going to take at least an hour to cook up both the chicken and the fried rice. My cashier, Trader Joe, rang me up and the experiment was off to a flying start.

But after getting home, I couldn’t find my lighter. I searched everywhere. Every possible pocket it could have been in after a night at the Haven. Nothing doing, so I left again for the shops. Another bad habit.

Along the way, I saw a lot of dogs. One dog was just a tiny all-black pug puppy and oh my god was he not the cutest malformed expression of domesticated evolution I had ever seen. He perched in his person’s arms at Papa Haydyn’s, presumably waiting for a check.

Not a surprise, Portland might be the most pet-friendly city in North America. Even if not in facilities, certainly in attitude. I live within walking distance of three separate pet stores and two different dog parks.

Thus, I see a lot of dogs and a lot of kahus.

What’s a kahu? It’s native Hawaiian translating to “honored attendant or guardian,” which feels like a much more holistic way to describe the relationship between a domestic animal and its person. I don’t own my cat, I just attend to him when he meows like a menace. When he dies (furiously knocking on wood), it will shatter me.

I saw another dog, a white Labrador. He pulled his person over to me in an attempt to get closer. I just mouthed a hi and kept going. I wanted to pet the dog. I like dogs. But I don’t pet the dog because I don’t want to be laying my hands on a dog that the owner didn’t want me to lay hands on. Consent is important. And dogs deserve consent, too. Kahus also deserve consent otherwise they’ll ragdoll one the leash of their Labrador-Shepherd mix, body-slamming into me on my way home.

I wasn’t even mad, the dog was just excited and overstimulated by the amount of people doing people things. And his trajectory into my legs didn’t even break my stride. “Whoop!” was the only sound that escaped my mouth.

That dog’s poor kahu, however, was not ready. Veered suddenly into the middle of sidewalk and now in an even greater rush to take Fido home than she already was. I realize now I should have turned and said it was okay just to calm her spirit. But no harm, no foul. There was nothing to apologize for; let sleeping dogs lie. Or, I guess, tackling dogs tackle?

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But I’m getting ahead of myself.

Walking down 23^rd Avenue, I passed under the marquee of Fireside Grill. Per tradition, the Grill doesn’t use their marquee for information of what’s playing—nothing’s playing, they’re not even a theater—they just use it for silly messages. But what I saw was a sign and, forging on ahead, realized I would have to come back to snap a picture.

I stopped at Lovejoy Market for a half second just to see prices and lighter selection. The convenience mart closer to me requires an eight dollar purchase for debit and doesn’t take credit unless it’s Visa. So MasterCard, American Express and what-have-you are all out. They don’t take that kind of fake money there. And no lighter was worth eight dollars, real or fake, no matter how cool the art. Alas, no solid color block lighter is worth three dollars, either. So I left the market and continued my trek.

When I finally arrived at Mellow Mood, an elfin, redhaired cashier was helping another customer perusing the glassware. I swooped right to deliberate on how much French Lavender incense I wanted, then headed over to the lighter station next to the register where the lighter art was bombarded with too many pot leaves, not enough geometric shapes.

I shouldn’t be surprised, I thought to myself, but it also wouldn’t hurt to ask. I walked towards the cashier and pulled off my right headphone cushion.

She noticed immediately, “Did you need help finding something?”

“Yeah, I was wondering if you had any other lighters?”

“All we have is in that lighter tower and the glass case underneath.”

“And I get so tired when I have to explain,” Mark Knopfler started his verse as she finished her sentence.

“Wait, you said the lighter tower and where?” I asked, taking the headphones fully off.

“The glass case underneath.”

“Ah, thanks,” I said and returned back to the subpar selection of disposables.

I turned the lighter tower in circles. Deliberating just how much of a stoner I wanted to be declared by my choice of a future lighter. Within a minute she was already back to me asking in a cashier voice, “Need help selecting?”

“I’m kind of struggling with what I want,” I said half-mindlessly. The lighter tower continued to scroll past, like a social media feed full of sponsored posts and braindead memes.

“Ah, actually, here we go.”

I settled with an option that just read “Let’s Play” in retro video game typeface, before handing it over to the cashier.

“Just the incense and lighter for ya?”

Now I don’t know if it was the red hair or what, but I was smitten. Another bad habit. All I do was give a sarcastic smirk; “Yep. And no one will have any idea what I’m about to do with this stuff.”

She shined her own smirk, “Oh yeah?”

The red hair beckoned I keep going, “just a lighter and some incense—you can’t prove anything occifer!”

Transaction over, she laughed and I left it at that. Returning to Fireside grill, I took the picture.

When I got back home, I realized I had left the supermarket purchases on the counter, thawing. Shrugging before I put away the food, I also realized I had been listening to the same song for about an hour and half and I still wasn’t done. The next tasks were clear: bread and pan fry some chicken, eat it, light some incense, and practice with my LED staff to the vinyl copy of Brothers of Arms.

Busting out my vinyl copy of Brothers of Arms, I scrolled through the first half of the record and checked the runtimes.

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“So Far Away – 3:59”

“What the fuck?!” I hollered, astonished in my apartment, loud enough to echo through the building. Charlie ran into the next room from the noise. This was criminal. The unabridged song runs five minutes and twelve seconds and it uses all five minutes and twelves seconds to great effect.

It fills all of it with lush music and imagery that matches instrument to lyric. Beyond an understated guitar that flies off the last note in each lick like a ski jumper off the ramp before sticking the land on the next, almost the entire runtime features a synclavier bouncing between the two most important notes in the entire piece.

Of course, the words spell it out; for most of the song, Knopfler just repeats the title line, only giving single sentence descriptions to an emotional landscape. It’s not just a record about a story, it’s not even a record about a moment. It is a moment.

One captured within a metronome melody that just sits there, da-dum, da-dum, da-dum. One sending signals back and forth over the bars like two voices on a telephone going end-to-end, da-dum, da-dum, da-dum. One like a lighthouse beckoning I come, dock, dance in the living room, da-dum, da-dum, da-dum. A moment to forget just how far away I am from where I want to be, da-dum, da-dum, da-dum.

Caught in that moment, there’s nothing to be done, nothing one should do, da-dum, da-dum, da-dum. It’s just me and just you, da-dum, da-dum, da-dum. My contact staff will roll down my right arm, swinging over the nape of my neck and, with a flick, fly back up the other, da-dum, da-dum, da-dum. There are other songs we could dance to, but this is one, the one I dedicate to the craft, abridged or no.

Da-dum, da-dum, da-dum.

This abridgment happens all up and down on both sides of the wax; “Money for Nothing” is shaved from eight-and-a-half to seven; “Your Latest Trick” is shrinkwrapped from six-and-a-half to just under five; and, most flagrant of all, “Why Worry” loses its entire three minute coda. One of such relaxing quality, that the Buddha would have used it for his guided meditations.

“I would sooner chop off three minutes from ‘Ride Across the River’” then ‘Why Worry,” I declared to the living room, “what the hell were they thinking?”

For once in my life I had to admit—and it pains me to say this—the digital version of the record was actually a better listening experience. The only imperfections to the vinyl should have been the skips I incurred on the turns of my feet or the drops of the staves. Each of them a lesson to step light, stay agile and keep the staves within arm’s reach.

No matter. The next tasks were clear: I was going to bread and pan fry some chicken, eat it, light some incense, and practice with my LED staff to my now flawed vinyl copy. All I have is the moment, be it four minutes or five.

As I breaded the chicken however, the cup of flour was not drying up enough, nor had the breading. Not being one to “waste” a cup flour down only a quarter, the only logical course of action was another batch of chicken.

Off to the supermarket again for more chicken. Fuck it, I thought, get some hashbrowns, spices and more olive oil, too. Trader Joe rang me up again and despite his lack of red hair, I gave him the details on the recipe: bread and butter pickle juice, panko bread crumbs, flour, salt, black pepper, red pepper flakes, garlic powder, two eggs and whatever chicken is available.

Soak the chicken in the pickle juice for a day, blend the seasoning with breadcrumbs, then pour in a mixing bowl. Take a cup of flour and beat two eggs for another mixing bowl. Pour a cup of oil in the wok, then start breading the meat. First in flour, then egg, then bread crumbs. Once breaded, throw it into the wok and let it cook on medium-high heat until golden brown. Five minutes, usually. Working optimally, one can fry up four strips or two thighs every five.

And by the time I was done cooking and cleaning, I had enough chicken to last four days. When I looked at the clock, it read half-past eleven. I sighed. Practicing to Dire Straits was still on the cards, but first I was going to eat. This was the moment.

I sat down at my desk with my odyssey of chicken. Without thinking, however, I opened my phone and scrolled through the camera roll.

“Tell your dog I said hi,” the sign read.

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