YES, VIRGINIA. ELVIS IS IN THE HOUSE.

Portrait of a Seeker: Born to Wonder (by the author of this blog) is in bookstores as you read.  Over the next several weeks, it will be listed in catalogs and you will be able to order Portrait from any brick and mortar or online book seller in the English speaking world and beyond.

You can order a copy on Amazon now.

From Portrait of a Seeker's Amazon description:

“I painted this sandcastle in one long summer day because I’ve watched other ‘books,’ unwritten and unread, falling into holes and thought, ‘What a shame—no one will ever know what they knew.’”

The author of Portrait of a Seeker writes about the meaning of life and thinks he found it. He has a view that he wants to share: “I believe every self-aware creature should be allowed to find its place.”

In Portrait you will find short stories, poetry, journal entries, correspondence with others seeking meaning, accounts of living in America and overseas, anecdotes of idealistic undertakings and a unique love story. This book is an impression left in the soft mud of existence. A million years from now, Weimer muses, an archeologist might uncover its fossilized, unreadable form and wonder briefly...

I want to thank you for your patience these past few years.  Now that it's done, I will no longer post excerpts from Portrait as a book-in-the-works.  I'm working  currently on my second short story in an upcoming collection called Beyond Still.

Note: Soon you'll be able to "Look Inside" when you check out Portrait's listing on Amazon.

Portrait of a Seeker -- arriving soon, at an online bookseller near you!

This is the cover of my book, Portrait of a Seeker: Born to Wonder.  As soon as I do a final "Eproof" with the printer, One and Only Press will be announcing the release of its first book.  At long last.

Self Portrait, today, in my work van after a deck building job ended

Portrait of a Seeker: Born to Wonder

Andrée is painting this portrait-in-the-works for the cover, from a photo taken in Brittany, France, 2010.

Portrait of a Seeker: 

Born to Wonder

Destiny, Idealism,

Living Internationally

and my Search for Meaning 

 by David W. Weimer

This book is “done.”  The reason for the quotation marks is that nothing is ever done, I just stop working on it…

A shorter, more focused version of Portrait is considering entering this world in Spring 2012.  More later.

For now, I’ve just sent a 575-page manuscript to Cindy, a kind, kind friend who is helping me typeset this book in preparation for a galley printing in November, this year.

By the first of December 2011, a long- awaited book, Portrait of a Seeker, will be available for purchase at an Amazon.com website near you!  Hip, hip, hooray!

Portrait of a Seeker: Born to Wonder

Andrée is painting this portrait-in-the-works for the cover, from a photo taken in Brittany, France, 2010.

Portrait of a Seeker: 

Born to Wonder

Destiny, Idealism,

Living Internationally

and my Search for Meaning 

 by David W. Weimer

This book is “done.”  The reason for the quotation marks is that nothing is ever done, I just stop working on it…

A shorter, more focused version of Portraitis considering entering this world in Spring 2012.  More on that later.

For now, I’ve just sent a 575-page manuscript to Cindy, a kind, kind friend, who is helping me typeset this book in preparation for a galley printing in November, this year.

By the first of December 2011, a لنگ- will be available for purchase at an Amazon.com website near you!  Hip, hip, hooray!

Born to Wonder (book excerpt)

This is from my upcoming book, Portrait of a Seeker, excerpted from correspondence with a friend.  I printed two sample copies of Portrait today; man is it big--it's a phone book!  A galley proof will come out next month (after proofreading and typesetting) and a first edition printing is scheduled for the first of December.  Contact me for more information. -DW  

I feel that I have lived my potential; I accomplished something that I was born to do. It was accomplished. Not by me. I’m not the director; I’m a bystander observer. I was born to be a dreamer, a wonderer of things. I’m not implying a designer’s intentions in my makeup, although it could be there. It is just apparent that I am a certain shape and color. Fat people are fat, etc. I have always, always looked for the deep, true meaning of everything. I always felt that IT, the answer, the real reality, was there, somewhere, but people seemed contented chasing after stuff that I was convinced they knew didn’t matter.

Word associations (upcoming book excerpt)

That's part of it, she said.  Living to reproduce.  A matter of course.  To have children and a family and to be a parent and grandparent... all part of living.  That sounds so normal, logical, so right...

Super Bowl, morning paper, evening news, the weather, favorite shows on TV, going to the movies, putting gas in the car, paying bills, taxes, beer and pizza, calling family at Christmas and Thanksgiving, birthdays, big breakfast on Saturday morning, corn flakes, coffee, toast, bagel, grocery shopping, snow sledding, diapers, life insurance, check-ups, hospitals, convenience stores, malls, beef jerky, McDonalds, traveling, headaches, feeling angry, guilty, sad, happy, daydreaming, sleeping in, dreaming, going to the bathroom at home, restroom at restaurant, eating out occasionally, reading a book, telling the time, turning on a light in the morning, radios in cars, favorite music groups, cassettes, CDs, radio stations, eggs, milk, butter, lottery tickets, Sunday papers, pet dogs, zoos, recycling, Styrofoam, magazines, snow storms, rain, thunder-lightening, mowing the lawn, flowers, birds chirping, mosquito bites, flies, earth worms, fishing, barbeque, iced tea, Kool-Aid, Band-Aids, wrist watches, painted fingernails, pantyhose, alarm clocks, VCRs, video rental, Chinese food, exercise, football, basketball, hockey, baseball, horse racing, car racing, best seller, TV guide, cable TV, space shuttle, satellite, bright sun, moon at night, crickets, grass hoppers, deer hunting, rabbit, license plates, voting, cigarette butts, beer cans, Doritos, tooth decay, broken bones, cuts, scabs, toenails, haircuts, eyeglasses, contact lenses, baldness, wrinkles, hearing aids, bras, pants, shoes, dresses, coats, boots, gloves, hats, basketballs, quarters, spoons, lighters, matches, fireplaces, electricity, phone booths, vacuum cleaners, pencils, pens, antennae, tools, power saw, drill, hacksaw, crow bar, spare tire, concrete, asphalt, stop signs, stop lights, leaves, snow, wind, rain, bats, safety pins, vitamins, razor blades, tooth brushes, books, paperbacks, hardcover, posters, bookmarks, cardboard, plastic, wood paneling, nails, engine oil, semi truck trailers, blenders, coffee machines, coke machines, vending machines, tests, diplomas, classes, teachers, students, desks, chalkboards, glass windows, screen doors, light bulbs, famous, poor, rich, honor, coward, war, fighting, army, cannons, guns, bullets, shouting, boots, knives, stabbing, eat, sleep, bomb, weight bench, house plants, buttons, zippers, fans, sewing machines, filing cabinet, belt, underwear, neck ties, scarf, car keys, death, crying, laughing, shouting, breathing, hearing, listening, writing, telling, asking, answering, feeling, believing, remembering, wondering, silence, finishing.

David W. Weimer (c) 1992

Timeless day

When I'm walking near the fence line I'm working on, I feel the heat radiating up from the grass, twenty degrees more than the mid-90s air.  It feels like I'm walking in an open oven.  I breathe in, and the air is hot in my lungs.  I pace myself, in order to not drop from the heat.  I feel like I'm a deep sea diver on the bottom of the ocean or an astronaut trudging along the "magnificent desolation" of the surface of the moon inside my spacesuit.  In the 4x4 "Mule" parked up the hill over there, on the other side of the fence, is my water cooler, resting against a chainsaw on the metal floor of the vehicle.  It's filled with ice and colder-than-imaginable water.  When I get to the hot bench seat and sit, I hold the small blue container over my head, letting the water pour down my throat.  I can stand only three large gulps of the nearly frozen liquid at a time—pouring the arctic into a volcano.

God

How can we find nothing when we look at the center of ourselves?  You mean, at home, there’s… nothing?  Well then, what are we?  Just a nothingness looking out from—nothing? 

I think we are trapped inside of a sphere resting on the sand of a desert island.  When we stop observing the objects on the small circle of land—palm leaves, sand, birds or waves or shells, sticks and flotsam and jetsam and crabs washed up on shore—and retreat into ourselves, we feel… bored.  What?  Yes, I think that we do.  We’re so used to looking at the moving objects outside our windows; our whole attention is outward.  Even so, if we’re determined to get to the bottom of things, and we decide to start digging a hole right in the middle of where we’re standing, what will we find? 

Here there be dragons... (excerpt from my upcoming book, Portrait of a Seeker: Born to Wonder)

You’re heading off the edge of the planet, into unmapped territory governed by a solitary tyrant, well-intentioned but not clearly sane; his solitude, some have said, has been working on his head.  He is opinionated, honest, earnest and verbose in turns.  The following excepts from his correspondence with others are mere bits chipped from a vast iceberg of interaction with outsiders near and far, who, too, are working on the same arcane problems of inner meaning, truth and insight.

You are warned that this will be a lopsided read; a Siamese twin without its twin.  The voices of his partners in discussion are largely silent, save for one section at the end between himself the tyrant’s younger brother; there, the brother is permitted to speak more than the customary two sentences. 

So.  Why? You ask.  Why has the tyrant allowed only his own voice to remain un-muffled in the following pages?  Though an academic question to most, who feel the answer is self-evident, the best of speculative thinking on the matter has produced two elegantly simple guesses: first—he feels his opinions and statements contained in the following excerpts paint a better, more honest picture of his view of things than volumes of essays could, and second—this is his book, after all; let it reflect him… and let these others, referred to in initials only, say who and what they are when they write their autobiographical tomes.  Sometimes cruel and arbitrary-seeming, this tyrant (it is believed) regards publishing the private words of others… beyond.