20040629 
20040628
Like when I walk across the Williamsburg Bridge and I have to fight the urge to climb the fence and jump.
Man, I get that all the time. I mean, I've never walked over the williamsburg but I can't help the feeling of jumping whenever I'm on high. I can't help the urges to jump off boats as you slice through the ocean waters. I can't help the urge to careen off the edge of the world right between where the cliff starts but the guard-rail is still a few feet off. I can't help the urge to stand up on a table in a crowded bar and scream.
But I never do it. Not any of it.
I can't help the urge to not let up put push harder on the gas pedal and go smashing into the retaining wall. I can't help the thoughts that race through my mind as I stand atop a 40 foot paint ladder leaning out over the roof trim with a gallon of paint in my hand. I can't help the knife, in my hand, that twitches ever so slightly towards my arm. I can't help the internal destructive force of nature.
But I never do it anyway.
I can't help the urge to set everything on fire and watch as the inferno burns to the ground. I can't help the desire to turn on the water faucets and watch the house flood. I can't help the need to chase a dog till it's drained and panting and asking for mercy and then chase it a little more.
But I don't, not like I want to.
Of all the wants all the desires all the need it's the little ones that count and so I just bottle all the urges up and every once in awhile when I'm just tipsy enough or just scared enough and the time seems to stand still I lean over, look into her eyes, and I kiss her. I send all of the urges into that one action, my way of living on the edge, one day at a time. I kiss her.
26 and I still get butterflies when I try to kiss a girl. I don't know what sort of statement that makes about me but, I'm not complaining...
For now, it's saving me from jumping off a bridge.
Talk of infidelity over at my-soliloquy which only reminds me of an old ex I once had. Well, I guess she is still my ex.. but at one time we were full-fledged 4-year relationship people.. fully into things in a way only possible with a few years under your belt. We knew all the things we hated about eachother, all the things we hated about our respective families.. all the weird shit that people just get upset over for no reason whatsoever..
which means we could push eachother's buttons like no other.
To me it was a great place to be.. there is closeness in that sort of vunerability.
One of the problems, though, was that she suffered from severe insecurities. I don't know if it was a lack of maturity at that age or if it was a more deeply rooted issue in her psychology but it was tough. The main manifestation of this insecurity was her insistence that every single girl friend of mine was, in fact, after me. I don't know if it was a woman's intuition thing or what, but I personally thought she was crazy.. at the time.
Now, looking back through years of experience, I see that there was some truth in her antics. Almost all of the women she was "scared" of back then have since made a pit stop in my bed, so to speak, and I have to wonder at this point how the social fabric bends like that.
If I step back from the situation I can say a few things about the situation. Number one is that there was no cheating going on between me and any of these women while we were dating. Did I find some of these girls attractive? Sure. Did I like them as people? Sure. So her worries were not completely out of the wild blue. But she always verbalized her worries in such a way as to make the other girls sound like harpies who were going to swoop down and seduce me when she was not looking..
ridiculus, I have will power of the gods, nerves of steal.
plus, none of them ever swooped down on me.
But on occasion there would be sitting on laps or arms-around-the-shoulders sort of things at parties or group-gatherings. To me, in my perhaps overly-naive mind, I thought we were friends. Brother-and-sister like. Innocence at it's best.
She never believed in innocence.
There is something scary that comes out of a childhood full of questionable uncle's and disbelieving parents. There is something scary, a small dark spot in the mind, in every girl or boy who has had to endure an inappropriate situation with an adult. Sexual or otherwise. You can see it if you look hard enough, even if you know nothing of the person's past, and looking into that dark spot is like staring into a black hole - the light getting sucked into it and only the severe darkness of cynicism is left to stare back at you.
She undoubtably was a bit paranoid, as well, but that's another story.. point number two is that she herself was not innocent of the infidelity. One particular occasion had me listening to her on the phone (hours away at college) while she sobbed out a story of accidental alcohol-induced makeout. I said it was alright, I said mistakes happen, I said I'll deal, she said "you're not going to yell at me?".
"No. You seem remorseful. Yelling will accomplish nothing."
For better or worse, right or wrong, I could not get raging mad about a hole I knew I too could have fallen into. There are traps everywhere in life.. to think we are safe is to be unwary is to be foolish is to fall, into, those, holes.
It was a blow, to her. It was a big question mark on our love. For me not to rage, scream, cry into the phone. For me not to threaten. She wanted a big session where she could attempt to defend herself. She wanted to be yelled at - a sort of punishment for her sins. I was just happy she chose to be honest with me.
When we finally broke up she came to my house to deliver the news.
"So.. yah. I think we should break up." she said while I typed out an email.
"uhh.. alright." I said - not in a whatever tone, but more of an accepting i-saw-it-coming tone.
"But.. so. That's it?" she expected a fight.
"Yeah, I guess that's it. I mean let's be honest, we knew this was coming" she expected a fight because in the four years we spent together every time I tried to break up with her (not once for another girl, always only because I thought we were emotionally draining eachother) she would fight fight fight kicking and screaming and crying and in the end we would walk away still as a couple. I could never cut the cord, not when she was hurting so badly.
"So..." she looked wounded, "you're not going to cry?"
"No, I'm not going to cry" I never cry. I hadn't cried in over three years at that point. Not by choice, but just because I can't.
She couldn't understand that I accepted her decision to leave. She wanted to see some passion, maybe, but I saw that this time was for real and she wasn't coming back so there was no reason to bare my soul to a dying cause. If you love them let them go, they need to do what the need to do, for better, for worse, for nothing at all.
After that I did not believe in love for some time. Not negatively or with sadness in my thoughts but just factually, as if that were just the way it is. I did some dark things. I did more physically then I did emotionally. Certain special areas of me were closed for business, doors shut and locked up, "gone to florida, back in the summer".
I wasn't perfect then as I am not perfect now but I can say truthfully that I am a worse person now than I was then. The years of life have worn away at my spirit like the sands of time and some rougher spots have been exposed. Road weary and maybe more cynical in some ways, I am more self and less people now. I am wounded, scarred, beaten down by the love that comes and goes in this world every year every month every week every day. I am hurt but I am blessed with the luck like irish and my childhood remains golden, in tact, my parents still love me, no one close to me has died, life - in fact - is pretty grand.
So as wounded as I may be, as tired as I may feel, I am okay. I really shouldn't complain, and I'm not.. just examining. What exactly is infidelity. If I did not have the carnal thoughts at that time but I have since fooled around with a girl - was I an infidel for letting her put her arm around me at a party? Did I expose the possibility only because, by being attached, I was friendly and unassuming and therefore built a repore with these girls in a way that never would have been possible if I was single? Did the social fabric bend and twist on my actions or did fate plan it all out in front of me?
What is infidelity?
20040627
Asked a lot out of the body this weekend. Rolled on down to Connecticutt for a beach house party and drank an awful lot of beers. Beers in the ears, as they say. Went to beer city on thursday night and then went back on friday and saturday too. Lots of beer. Went running to sweat out the hangovers and went sailing just for the fun of it but burned the skin. Bright pink on the back where I couldn't reach with the sunscreen and now all over the face cause I forgot on saturday.. Then lots of blisters from rowing - I was the dingy bitch - and hell, a little dehydration never hurt either. Splintered my big toe and bruised my knee. Got a big mystery-knock on my head - probably a drunken escapade behind that one. Then, back on the bike to ride the 4 hours back home.
Torn and weary, but I'm home.. with very little to say. Fun in the sun with beers and good people is just that.. not a whole lot of need to over-explain it.
20040623
This is pretty funny.. if you find cats humorous at all - just keep clicking "next cat".
So Madonna really did become esther.. or, ahem, rather she "reattached herself" to esther.
Yet they accepted Madonna at trivia night last night during the picture round.
20040621
Through some weird chance I was informed of Madonna's name-change recently. It's not like I follow Madonna or even watch the news - let alone E! news, so it's certainly a random event that I was even informed. It's funny how chance plays such a large roll in life.
Today I was down at my bar reading the local music news and enjoying a pint of PBR, sneaking peeks at my favourite bartendress out of the corner of my eye when I heard her mention a madonna concert in a few weeks.
Skip forward 15 minutes.
"So you're going to a Madonna concert?"
"Yah, it should be interesting, anyway"
"Hmm.. did you hear she changed her name?"
"What? Really? No, I didn't hear anything like that!" She became visibly animated.
"Well, I don't know for sure. Just heard it from someone. Certainly sounds strange to me."
"Maybe it has something to do with all this new religion she is into"
"Hmm, yeah. Something like that.." new religion? What the hell is she talking about? I'm outta the loop but I'll keep playing along anyway. "Yah, I think changed it to something weird... like matilda.."
And so I was able to have a non-contrived conversation with the cutest bartenderess in town. Aren't I lucky?
Yeah.
I'm lucky.
Sometimes.
I am so so sad that I did not run across this death pool sooner. This is the sort of thing that makes blogging fun!
Once again I am reminded how poorly this computer at work is set up.. or how poorly windows handles color.. or something. The pictures I posted a few days ago are all not what I intended. On my little iBook they look pretty and colourful and vibrant. Here on the windows box they are dark and dull. I wonder what it is, why it's doing this to me.. why does it hate me?
20040619
I'll admit that maybe I never would have tried iTunes if it wasn't for the fact that I got an iBook for a laptop and I started in with my CD collection the day I got it and a few weeks later it was all in there and after two straight weeks of cd ripping the last thing you wanna do is trapse around the internet looking for a good freeware mp3 player for the mac because god knows we don't have any _really_ free shit on the mac..
Which brings me to my point here. Apple has been showing people how to get your money for years and still people don't get it. Create a superior product, and they will come. It's just the way it is.
Now, don't get me wrong. I'm under no confusions here. Apple has had some technical support issues. Apple has some warranty horror stories. Apple, even, can put out a flawed piece of hardware. What they do right, though, is give a better user experience. They stop and think about how people use and abuse the information we're inundated with everyday. So when your iPod breaks you buy a new one. You eat it. You accept that your money was spent on something that broke but you liked the user experience so much that you went right out and bought another one. I think that says something right there for apple.
So when I got my laptop and I spent two weeks ripping every CD I owned to the harddrive I figured I'd give iTunes a try because it was right there in the dock and I'm lazy. I fired it up and imported all the songs and I was immediately impressed with the search feature. Type anything in the search and it'll find it. Song titles, Albums, Artist.. what have you. A simple idea, a simple interface, a simple thing to do really.. but somehow I'd never run across anything as easy to use in a mp3 player before.
So I was hooked. All cause a simple search feature. Now my listening habits weren't completely random. I started listening to things based on groupings. Albums. Artists. Genres to match my mood. All of a sudden I was not a slave to the random button. The repeat button took on a whole new meaning (repeat means shit all when you're playing randomly from 2000 mp3s.. you're never going to through them all in one sitting anyway). The rest of iTunes I could take or leave. It's just a music player, afterall.
So now that the new iTunes inserts little arrow icons after every song and artist and album in your library that allows you to jump directly to the iTunes music store, it's okay. I mean, I personally hate it. The icons are eating up valuable screen space. It's pushing me to use apple's music store. Fine fine, they gotta make a buck I guess, but fuck you for not making it an option..
But back to my point: the users will take this in stride. They'll grin and bear it. They'll even, *gasp*, use it. People won't run screaming from iTunes to the nearest knockoff replacement. And why? Because Apple sat down and developed a better user experience. They will be rewarded with brand loyalty.
Ducati is a perfect example to brand loyalty. Talk to almost any ducati owner and they'll freely admit that the brand is known for somewhat high maintenance costs and prone to some unique "italian character" when it comes to build quality. They'll admit that you can get more horse between your legs for a heck of a lot cheaper if you head down the street to your local suzuki dealer. They'll admit, in fact, that the likes of gsx-rs, cbrs, and ninjas - japanese inline-4s - are great bikes. Decently priced with good dealer support and lots of juice.. what they will also say, though, is that those bikes lack the soul that Ducati carries. They'll tell you that a Ducati might not be able to win in a straight-line drag race but that once you get the bikes up in the twisties of a mountain pass then a Ducati can hold it's own, if not more, against much more powerful bikes.
So it's all about user experience, in the end. I'll keep suffering the direct-to-itunes-music-store arrow icons and ducatists will keep suffering flaking rockers, poor electricals, and other common problems. We'll even pay more to do it.. cause in the end, it's all about the experience.
20040618
..how iTunes just perfectly faded out the end of anti's audblog and powered up Van Morrison's "Cleaning Windows".
Fucking perfect.
Teacher's Pet
XyxXyX: What will you do with a PhD?
Britcoal: i will get laid
Britcoal: by alllll the college chicks
Britcoal: i'll become a leecherous old professor
XyxXyX: Well, that's a great goal
Britcoal: oogling at the freshman as the file in at the beginning of the year
XyxXyX: And all the girls will giggle about what perv you are
Britcoal: "Extra credit, class, is given every friday evening, at my house, in my bedroom... group sessions are encouraged, but all you males are probably smart enough already so no extra credit for you"
Britcoal: yeah.. they'll giggle and make comments...
Britcoal: but they'll come running anyway
Britcoal: dirty sluts
Fucking Popups
YYXxxx: you know what i hate more than popup ads?
Britcoal: popup boners?
Britcoal: the ones the sneak up on you in a meeting or at a restuarant..
YYXxxx: ahahahahaha no i like those
YYXxxx: because then i can put it in people's food
Bitches
yyyyXXX: the pug loves the hair dryer
yyyyXXX: either she lays down when I put the heat on her, or she jumps and barks and bites at it
Britcoal: ha.
Britcoal: i want a girl like that
Britcoal: ;)
How Michael Got His Fart Back
Britcoal: i find that beer does it to me now
Britcoal: when i didn't drink for the whole month of may I lost my fart. It was like a singer loosing their voice.
Britcoal: I practically didn't for an entire month
yyyyXXX: thats nice
Britcoal: let me tell you, it was one BORING month
Britcoal: life is so much more enjoyable when you're farting
Britcoal: I know that sounds like a joke
Britcoal: but i am serious
Britcoal: nothing can make me giggle to myself - even when i'm alone - quite like a good ripper.
I can't say that the news about the madpony sisters quitting madpony.com is a real surprise but, *gasp*, I can't exactly say I care a whole heck of a lot. Sure, Kristen was funny and witty and wrote some funny stories.. but for a site that updated rarely, if ever, in it's last six months, I just didn't see the draw.
So maybe that alienates me because I don't see the point in popularity based solely on pictures of cute girls. Come on people, there are pictures of cute girls ALL OVER the internet. Naked ones, too. I dunno.. maybe you visited their site because they were "real", because you could believe in the sisters as people more than you could believe in a bunch of random pictures on the sublimedirectory.. or maybe you just liked their writing..
..but if you liked their writing, then you were aware that they posted once a month..
.. so explain your compulsive reloading of their website 3 times an hour day in and day out..
See, what I'm saying is.. I liked Kristen's posts too.. A lot.. and I visited their site every month or two to read them. But I didn't go looking for candid shots of kristen showing off her new shoes or kristen hanging off a jungle gym so I could have some new material for my "midnight picture book". Come on people.
So another one bites the dust. Another "quality blogger" goes the way of the dodo.. don't fret, my boys.. there is a new one right around the corner.
Another blog is born every billisecond. Seriously.
Okay, I might have made that word up.. so what. Get on with it.
I like slashdot's daily quote today:
"Every morning is a Smirnoff morning."
20040617
Frankly, I'm a list fan. Ever since my 2nd & 4th year high school english teacher pointed out that all great writers use lists in their prose, i've liked them. The perfect example he loved to use was the list of guests arriving at the Great Gatsby's parties. I'd love to be able to say that I was the originator of this thought - that I came up with liking lists all by myself - but alas, I'm a copycat.
It's funny that at the same time I was learning about lists from my english teacher my world history teacher was basically teaching an entire course through simple lists. He was, by all accounts, a list fiend.
5 Reasons Rome Fell.
The 4 Julian Emperors.
The 5 Largest Technical achievments of the Greeks.
And that's just the beginning. He used lists for everything. Important historical figures became lists of accomplishments and dates. Wars became lists of battles. Battles became lists of key personnel. Personnel became numbers.
For a high school history class it worked pretty well.
So ever since then I've been a big fan of lists. It's no wonder I enjoyed high fidelity and all it's wonderous lists.. in fact it's no wonder that I often argue in lists. Lists are bite-sized. Consumable. They aren't large bodies of text that make a person jump right over to the conclusion. They engage...
Lists are awful fun.
Here are two lists. Just for you. From me, to you. All for you. Just cause....well.. just cause i like to bleed.
Top Three College Parties
3. Parties are all about the people and because of that I'm going to have to say that New Years of Ought 2 has got to be the standing winner of all new years to date in my life. Lots of people returning to our old stomping grounds of Montreal to relive our heady days as drunk, dumb, undergraduates. In the end we threw a houseparty with a few kegs of really bad Quebec microbrew and we didn't even leave the house. As new years was on a Wednesday, we spent the entire week in town and drank every night. Each evening was capped off with a 4am run to St Viatur bagels to get fresh-from-the-oven baked goodness that we would stuff into our bellies until we passed out. Oh yah, we watched The Manitou that week too.
2. Toga Kegger. I'm not sure which of the Toga Keggers were the best but they were all good. Anytime there are lots of people, lots of booze, and lots of skin, it's a good time. If pressed, I'd probably go with the first one I attended. I was a new freshman, completely out of my wits, new to drinking. So new that I brought a bottle of wine to swig off of to a kegger. What the? What a shmuck.
1. I don't know if it was the biggest or if it was the best but it very well could have been. In the fall of 1999 I was a junior in college and I'd just moved into a big apartment in downtown Montreal with 4 other people. We moved in all our furniture and, realizing we had a big space to fill in the huge living room, we built a bar. We wanted to celebrate and have a sort of house-warming shindig and we figured we could stock the bar by inviting all our friends to bring a bottle of their favourite alcohol. Just to make things interesting we decided to go with a theme - dress right up in tux, tie, dress, or what have you and - because it was the right time of the year - we had the party scheduled for Sept 9th. So.. heck, 9/9/99 - Let's call it the "Dress to the 9's" party. In the end it wasn't on the 9th but the news of the party made it's way around and we filled the apartment to the brim. We drank over 22 liters of alcohol that night and had enough left over to make the bar look very respectable indeed.
Top Three Breakups
3. Cathy. The only thing that really got me about this girl was her name. It's not that I didn't like the name, it's just that it reminded me way too much of that dumb cartoon in the funnies. I was graduating from college and returning to the states. She had another year or two in Montreal. I liked her, she was cool, but... where was the passion!?! Nowhere. In the end I was a true dick about the matter, no if-ands-buts about it. I sort of stopped calling. I could explain it as a fear of confrontation - there truly wasn't any ill will - but in the end I was just a dick. She came to a large party a few weeks later that I threw and she was drinking and dancing around and having a helluva good time. I felt so guilty I had to say I was sorry but when I tried she stopped, put her hands on either side of my head to steady herself, looked me straight in the eyes, and said "Don't worry about it. It's alright". I dunno.. maybe she thought I was a dick, maybe not.. but I always appreciated that brief encounter.
2. Stephanie. I have to put this at number two because it's the longest relationship I've had - a four year stint that spanned part of high school and most of college. In the end it was the right decision for both of us. In the end we weren't right for eachother. I didn't have a whole lot of emotional struggle with the actual breakup but I do still miss the girl from time to time. I think what truly qualifys her as #2 is the fact that, after we broke up, she vented her bitterness by telling everyone that I was gay. The best fun was when she would approach some of my best friends as if they didn't see me every day: "Hey, did you hear? Mike's gay!" Luckily my friends aren't too gullible and they never bought the story but I have had to explain my heterosexuality to a few acquaintances over the years.
1. Remy. Well it's fitting isn't it folks that the number one breakup this old man can muster isn't even really a breakup at all. This girl - beautiful, that was probably my first mistake - pretty much tore the heart right out of my chest while it was still beating. Jumped up and down on it. Handed it back to me and said "Sorry, this isn't the one I'm looking for".. well not in so many words. It was a six-month teeth-gritting excersice in futile patience, waiting for a confused girl to become a strong woman. It was six-months of i-know-i-shouldn't-but-i'll-wait-around-anyways. Anyone who has paid any attention here, well, you know she dropped the heart in the garbage can and headed for Alaska. In the end I have a few good times to remember, one awkward chance encounter in a bar when I found her out on another date, and the memory of one of the more annoying "girlfriend's best-friend" you could ever imagine. And she never really was my girlfriend to boot. How'd that happen? Shmuck.
Alright, that's all I got today. I'm out.
how many rubles to get to jamaica these days?
ivan and i have tentatively planned a yak-packing trip for next summer...fly into uzbekistan and take yaks into china. want to come?
So it's summer and nice out.. real frickin' nice out.. so I should be sitting on my stoop with a couple of 40's duct taped to my hands starring off at the ocean but I'm not.
I'm in here. A/C. Computers hummmmmmmming around me. Flourescent glare. fuck.
It's fine though because this is the summer.
Sure, last summer was the summer of mike. I said it and I did it - had a good time of it, tooling around (and I mean that in the pejorative sense) on my motorcycle, working a few chicks (who burned me in the end, so it all worked out) and generally getting drunk. Went to work late. Skipped meetings. Heck, I even had some montreal folk down for an end-of-summer extravaganza where more pitchers of PBR were drank than i care to recount.
So this summer isn't the summer of mike, per se.. it's just.. well.. it's the summer. Yeah, ever summer is the summer.. just like the fall is the fall.. but I'm just saying this time it's all good. Ima gonna drink some beers, do what I wanna, and take way too much time off of work..
The cool thing about taking time off from work when you know you're quitting in a few months is that you'll never have to make the time up later.
So no promises about this summer but I'm going to try much harder to record this fucker on camera. I'm going to carry that shit with me wherever I go and maybe, just maybe, if I take 100 pictures a day I'll get one or two good ones to post up on buzznet and score some "cool" comments and maybe make at least one of you fuckers out there think "fucking rad, I want to be in Maine.. that place looks awesome"..
cause it is.
awesome...
I take horrible pictures.. I've said it before and I'll probably say it again. Not as in point-click-shoot, but as in the subject - the person in the photograph itself. I always look like shit. My neck looks fat or my eyes are glazed over or my chin is sticking out or the flash over-exposes the film as the light glares off my greasy hair. Sometimes I'm leaning back with my beer gut sticking out or I'm smiling, which makes painfully obvious my crooked face. Symmetry is a dream of mine folks, not a reality. My nose is lumpy. I think it's uneven and, even though it's never been broken, I'm pretty sure it's crooked.
I hear tell that the only thing that gets bigger on a man after puberty as he gets older is his nose.. any truth in that?
god i hope not.
But I was over at anti's today and saw this picture of him sittin by his computer:
and hell if that doesn't look a fuckload like me. Just that angle, with the hair that way.. I dunno, it's like a timewarp - a picture of me if all the things i said above were erased. no lumpy nose or crooked jaw. no chubneck.
I mean sure, I got no chest hair and I don't on a big bong like that but. shit. it's about me, right there. People who know me will attest to that.
So now when someone asks for a picture of me I'll just send this one along. I mean hell, I've been saying anti's my hero for some time now so why not just try to be him. Screw stalking.. that's for pussies. Identity theft is so much more fun.
I don't think he'll mind. he says he has shit for credit anyway.
Everyone has their schtick and on here, if you've paid any attention, mine is that I'm blessed. Not in some religious way, just generally lucky. Not super win-a-sports-car lucky, but just.. well.. bad shit don't happen to me. People around me don't die (before their time). Nobody steals stuff from me. Simple stuff like that. Stuff that some people would take for granted but don't think for a minute that I don't appreciate my place in this world every single day. I do.
 My roommate is cursed by the phantom theif. Don't ask me why, he's just doomed. He has had $3000 worth of CDs stolen out of his car at the beach. He has had his backpack stolen at work more than once. He has had his car towed from out in front of our apartment when I've parked there for three years - even on no-parking bans - and not even gotten a parking ticket. He bought a new freestyle bike last year and got it stolen 2 days later.
bummer.
So a few weeks ago when my first ever leather jacket got stolen - on my birthday no less - I didn't panic. In fact it didn't even phase me, really. I think it's a testament to my.. hmm.. maturity? serenity? I don't know what you call it. I don't feel particularly mature or serene, ask my friends, but this stuff.. this life.. you just gotta roll with it sometimes.. Especially when things have worked out so well for me up to this point.
Okay, no more jacket. I'll deal.
 Felt a little naked riding around on the motorcycle, though, so I needed to do something quick. Luckily, someone invented the internet. I sent a note out on the CD-ROM (crazed ducati riders of mass.) mailinglist and I said: kind people, i need a jacket. does anyone have an old one they'd sell me on the cheap? A few responses came in, I settled on a nice $320 msrp Fieldsheer.. got it shipped for $100 flat. Fits like a glove (not oj's) and now I'm back on the road, equipped, safe, and smiling from ear to ear.
The worst part of this experience, in the end, was that my pipe was in my jacket pocket when it got stolen. It was a real expensive pipe but it was a gift from one of my best friends. Sentimental value, and all that. Guess you can't win 'em all..
Today Tony writes to us about how to blog. He jots down 30 ways to blog well. He says do it.
Thing is, for the most part, he does it. Taking your own advice is good. Taking your own advice is like owning your own opinions more than just saying them. Taking your own advice is gold and the more you can do it the more of a real actual individual person you become. Even if your advice is bad. If you actually think you give bad advice then maybe you should stop giving it, no?
Own that shit.
The problem with tony and all his points is that they're often black and white and nothing in this world is black.. or white. Sometimes people want to think so.. in fact, people want to think it's all ABOUT black and white and nothing else. I think they're missing the point. I think they're concentrating on the wrong things. Move along. Get a new pair of goofy sunglasses. Carry on. Stop whining. Get over it.
Just do whatever the hell you want to do and if you find yourself hesitating because you care what other people think then ask yourself:
is this me
And if the answer is yes.. no matter how much of an asshole thing it is that you're about to do.. if it's really you, then hell.. at least you're not misrepresenting.
Misrepresenting is perhaps worse than the worst of sins. It's falsification.
Blarg.
Sure, write every day all day and link people and run around with your camera taking loads of pictures, no apologies, and audblog.. I guess. Thing is I'd be trying too hard if I audblog'd (i gots no phone) and that would be a misrepresentation which would eventually show itself cause I'd stop audblogging at some point cause the laze would catch up to me so fuck it.
No Aublogs here.
Maybe someday.
Tony also said to display your email address on your blog. This is something i've never done but alright, fine, I'll do it. okay, done, there you go. email me words of praise because, frankly, that's all I deserve.
The weather is beautiful here in southern Maine today. take that.
20040615
I am in need of a (good) bottle of Absinthe. Not just any old absinthe but good quality fuck-shit-up absinthe. The real deal. Where I gonna find me some? Heck if I know. I have approximately two months to acquire this bottle.
I'm not on my way to Europe anytime soon so if I'm lucky I can just find someone here in the states hording a case or something. How does that stuff work, anyway? Clearly I have no frame of reference here. I'm out of my element.
I'll entertain offers in my comments below. muchos gracias amigo.
These are just words of encouragement for the world.
Get up and fight. Do what's right.
These are just encouragement for the people. Do something intense, be a personality.
Breath in breath out
It's a matter of energy that's really the problem, in the end. projection of thought - ideas, where to go with all this energy.
Motivation. What?
No, I didn't think so. Me neither. much easier to just hate the world, hate the people - the citizens of the fuckbrigade, as it were. Much much much easier to stare in disgust..
from the tiny perch
up on the little pedestal.
In your mind up is down, down is up looking down from your high pedestal - Realize. Fuck you. FUck you too. So I'm wrong, so what, you're going to kick me in the stomach for that? Like you've never ever been wrong before?
Fine.
kick me.
It's easier just to take the blows, not to like it but just to say you took 'em and then you have an excuse. I was abused. It's perfect. That's why I do it to others.
feel like shit now? no? not yet? how about now? yah? good.
me too.
It's strange the way we visualize ourselves onto the canvas of our community - odd the way our eyes don't line up and our faces are two dimensional ameobas in oil or maybe water colours. No one knows you better than you because you think you know you.
i know someone. you know someone. different people. same body. From outside the shapes are there with depth and shadow, not like some picasso. Inside it's dark and different.
Doesn't make it right. Is no right.
Never enough energy for everyone so always perception.
of right and wrong
so people can feed off eachother.
It's really a sweet sweet symbiotic relationship we have, Good vs. Evil, Light vs. Dark.
And poor Lucifer, he gets a bum rap cause of poor casting.
You should really blame the director
20040614
The American people aren't as dumb as you think they are. Sure, we're pretty thick headed sometimes but we usually come around.. eventually. We will not allow Bush a second term. We will vote him out of office in favour of the lesser of two evils. Kerry will be our next President, for better or worse. Those on the American right will vote more democratic than they ever have and third-party candidates will see a shortage unlike those in recent elections. Kerry, though he might not win by a land slide, will win.
 Took off late on Thursday night after a rocking show featuring Ogre, a local Black Sabbath meets Stoner Rock band.. took off out of this city and headed up into the real Maine, the one with sticks and stones that will break your bones. Took a pit-stop at my old stomping grounds of G-town to pick up some stragglers and then it was on up to central Maine - not the "Central Maine" you hear about when people talk about Augusta, the capitol, but the real central Maine - the geographic center. Pulled into the small town of Dexter Maine, a spot on the map barely noticable at all if not for the Internationally known Dexter Shoe Company.. the same company that pulled out it's last factory recently in favour of puerto rico or some such place, killing 1,400 jobs in a region where 500 is astronomical. Now Dexter is a dried up town, a shell of it's former self, depressed as any in this State, and struggling not to blow away in the wind. If it were located in the plains of the mid-west a good strong gust could pick it up and send it tumble-weeding all the way to the Pacific ocean but here in Maine we're lucky enough to have the northern end of the Applachians keeping the wind above our shanty shacks while we try to light our GPC cigarettes and staple the tar-paper back down over the cracks in the walls.
Took off for a weekend getaway where I could stop life for a second, for one short weekend, and just breath. Took off for a place - both mental and phsyical - that is fleeting at best but oh-so-sweet while you're there. Took off for camp.
Camp for some is synonmous with "summer camp" where, as a kid, you packed away your sleeping bag and shipped off with a bunch of other brats to a compound replete with tennis courts, sailboats, ping-pong tables, cabins, and counselors. Here in Maine we have gazillions of such camps but they are populated mostly with out-of-staters. Kids of celebrities and company CEOs from California or New York. Jewish American Princess' and their male counterparts learning how to sneak out of their cabins to kiss behind the mess hall. No one from Maine goes to these camps.. we go down the road with our fishing pole and jump off the bridge into the river. We go to our family camp - often older than our parents with leaning frame, leaking roof, and rickety porch. We don't judge camps for their amenities such as telephones, cable tv, or broadband access because none of them have any. Camps are for open fires and swimming in lakes so cold as to make your testicles climb up inside you and hide next to your liver. Camps are for grilling hotdogs in the fire pit and picking fiddleheads in the spring, for lying out in the sun in your underwear listening to the ballgame on the tiny radio. Camps are for getting away from the world, from people, from places, from everything. Camp is the eraser applied to the blackboard of your mind, clearing away the fog of society to leave a clean slate - a breath of fresh air - a second to catch your breath.
Got into camp around 2 AM and had a smoke out on the porch. Listened intently at the night and heard nothing. No cars, no sirens, no hum of a city at night. Breathed a sigh of relief. Climbed up the stairs to the loft and climbed into bed - wooden platforms with twin mattresses thrown on top with old sleeping bags for blankets. Turned off the lights and turned on the fan - a rectangle frame of pine wood with two fan motors screwed into the cross beam, an attempt to save what was left of a cheap walmart jobby built out of plastic. Listened to the hum as we drifted off to sleep, listened to the loons calling back and forth to eachother out on the water, listened to the sound of our minds winding down - like a big V-8 muscle car coming down from 7,000 RPMs to settle in to a low idle. Listened to nothing.
Woke up early on Friday - early for us, anyway - at 11AM. Walked around outside in bare feet feeling the grass between our toes and smelling the fresh air. Looked up and squinted at the sun. Sat around. Camp is all about sitting around. Played some horseshoes, some cribbage, and some JU. Watched the Outlaw Jocey Wales - a Clint Eastwood classic. Rode into town with our arms and legs out the windows looking for sweet high school girls to appreciate and some sweet corn to enjoy. Got vegetables and lean meat for the grill, got some Moxie, got some more cigars. Went slow.
Went so slow we forgot what time it was and for the whole weekend we ate when we wanted to and slept when we wanted to and swam when we wanted to and just sat around - when we wanted to. Didn't look at the clock and didn't worry about the rest of the world spinning so fast around us.. as if the axis - the center of the world - was right there in Dexter and the whole globe was spinning and gyrating around that very point, all the energy of the universe bubbling and broiling and go-go-go-going except right there, right in Dexter, where we just sat.. and smoked our cigars.
 Stood wasit deep in the frigid water waiting for the legs to go numb so the rest of the body could handle the cold. Arms crossed, looking around at eachother with Moxie cans floating nearby for quick retrieval, damp smoldering cigars hanging from the corners of our mouths, talking about whatever. Counted to ten as we slowly lowered ourselfs into the water one inch at a time until our entire heads were underwater and we were screaming bubbles at the shock of the ice water. Swam out to the underwater rock pile, built back when we were industrious 15 year olds wander the moon-like surface of the bottom of the lake with huge rocks in our arms, bouncing slowly through the water like moonwalkers. Had an underwater swimming contest - who could go the farthest - didn't notice who won, and went to smoke another cigar while we layed in the sun drying off.
Cooked some corn. Drank a Mox.
Drove around town for no good reason going five miles below the speed limit flying our hands out the windows like little mini-airplane wings. Explored the shanty houses and run-down businesses and stopped for breakfast at the Dexter Cafe. Chased cute girls into the department store and bought reject Carhart's for half price and went back to camp to smoke a cigar.
Sunday evening rolled around and dishes were washed, floors were swept, beds were made, and windows were pulled shut. Locks were bolted, backpacks filled up and snapped shut, and we piled into the car to head on out of the center of the universe where no one knew what was going on in the rest of the world, where the unemployment rate is higher than it was during the great depression, where people who live there don't know if or when they will get their next paycheck..
Maybe a sad place to be for the rest of your life... but absolutely perfect for the weekend.
- Broadband usage in U.S. up 42% in 2003 over 2002
No real surprise there as DSL has been coming down in price like crazy and $29.95 seems like the standard lately - which is about what we used to pay for services such as AOL dial-up back in the early and mid 90's.. The proof is in the pudding. There are the superusers, there are the regularusers and there are the dinosaurs. Superusers will either pay the cost to be the forerunners of technology or they will DIY homebake their own versions of new technology. Regularusers are not early-adopters but they do want their technology.. it just takes time. Dinosaurs are out of the picture, essentially your younger cousins waiting for hand-me-downs that are 5 years out of style.. It's just too bad that technology doesn't work like fashion, it never comes back in style.
Regularusers are the bulk of the population and they have their price point.. apparently it's about $30 a month for internet service. Or about $50 a month for cellphone service.. It's no surprise that everyone is hoping on the broad-band-wagon now that it is "affordable".
- Realistic Human Graphics Look Creepy
@ Slate: When an android, such as R2-D2 or C-3PO, barely looks human, we cut it a lot of slack. It seems cute. We don't care that it's only 50 percent humanlike. But when a robot becomes 99 percent lifelike—so close that it's almost real—we focus on the missing 1 percent. We notice the slightly slack skin, the absence of a truly human glitter in the eyes. The once-cute robot now looks like an animated corpse.
Is this news? Is this surprising? Sometimes research seems to ignore the obvious just so they can go ahead and prove it anyway. This is exactly what Kubrick was playing with in the movie A.I. which, if you haven't seen it, is about a family who gets a small "boy" robot whose likeness to a real boy is uncanny, yet not quite right.
- Cell Phone Customer Service Ranked Next to Last
@ Slashdot: A recent report shows that cell phone companies are the second lowest ranked industry in terms of customer service, just above cable companies. Also, they are second only to car dealers in number complaints to Better Business Bureaus
Ahhh the very reason I do not own a cell phone.. or pay for my cable.. or buy cars from dealerships. It's not through any concious choice to avoid these things, I just look and I do not see quality service. I do not see a benefit/cost ratio greater than one. In fact, I'm not sure it's greater than 1/2. Here in Maine cellphone reception is decent in Portland, our most populated city (at ~65,000) but wander as little as 10 minutes north and you'll find a dead zone. Farther north towards the state's capitol Augusta you can find decent reception but don't count on much if you wander outside the Interstate-95 corridor... and they want me to pay the same amount of money as someone in L.A. for my service? What the? Who? They should be cutting me some slack while I put up with their mediocre networks. They should be susidizing my plan with money from strong markets so that they can truly build a "nation-wide network". And as far as cable companies go, back when I paid for cable I had service problems somewhere in the range of once a month - always after hours when you couldn't reach tech support if your life depended on it (and sometimes, when you're home alone, bored, on a Sunday evening and you're missing "Curb Your Enthusiasm", your life really does depend on it). When my old roommate moved out and cancelled the service (since it was in his name) the cable company forgot to turn it off. Ever since then, I have not had one single problem with my cable reception.. it's been almost 1.5 years. Thanks, Time-Warner!
20040609
subject says it all, really.
I'm terribly sorry and I hate "stealing" but Jaime's archives don't work (for me, at least) and I know I'll want this again sometime.. yes, maybe it sounds bitter and jaded or too much a fuck-it attitude but ain't that just it? Ain't that life? We can pretend forever that we don't care, we're not hurt, not effected by the world and people around us but we're just lying lying lying lying to ourselves mostly because people can see through us like
..revolving..
...glass..
..doors.
So here it is in all it's stolen glory. I ain't perfect. I've taken a candy bar from the corner store and cackled in the sunlight, cackled with delight. And I've felt the guilt and the gutwrenching fear and I've looked around with numbness and glazed eyes of fear..
So I ain't perfect.
So shoot me.
the known universe:
I think it's funny when a girl tries to warn me of who they are or what they're capable of. I mean, not funny ha-ha, but funny nonetheless. I am so beyond being hurt, that I just have to smile.
My heart breaks and heals with every beat. I fall in and out of love with every breath. If you doubt that I've seen it all, then hit me with your best shot. I'm just a revolving door. Push quickly or push slowly, it doesn't matter, you'll still pass right through.
Not that I don't appreciate the ones who linger. Those bold and unafraid, guiltless and free. It's just that sometimes there's too much momentum for me to stop spinning.
That's not to say that I'm bitter or jaded. I see no reason -- other than it would probably get me laid more often -- to treat another human being like shit. So I just go on stubbornly being kind and attentive.
I'm bewildered when I pay an honest compliment, or listen to what a girl has to say, and they suddenly think I've fallen hopelessly in love.
'I'm afraid I don't like you the way that you like me.'
Is showing up on time or returning a phone call really all it takes for a girl to feel overwhelmed and hotly pursued? Don't flatter yourself, doll face. I treat everyone this way.
'You're too good to me,' they say, while waist deep in a quagmire of guilt.
'What the fuck? Hasn't anyone ever treated you with respect before? Give me a break. Pull yourself up, and dry yourself off.'
But they never do."
20040608
Objective? I certainly hope this is a joke..
- The real operating system hiding under the newest version of the Macintosh operating system (MacOS X) is called... Darwin! That's right, new Macs are based on Darwinism! While they currently don't advertise this fact to consumers, it is well known among the computer elite, who are mostly Atheists and Pagans. Furthermore, the Darwin OS is released under an "Open Source" license, which is just another name for Communism.
- [BSD Unix and it's Mac OS X Darwin offspring] extensively use what are called "daemons" (which is how Pagans write "demon" -- they are notoriously poor spellers: magick, vampyre, etc.) which is a program that hides in the background, doing things without the user's notice. If you are using a new Macintosh running OS X then you probably have these "daemons" on your computer, hardly something a good Christian would want!
- the new MacOS X contains another Satanic holdover from the "BSD Unix" OS mentioned above; to open up certain locked files one has to run a program much like the DOS prompt in Microsoft Windows and type in a secret code: "chmod 666". What other horrors lurk in this thing?
20040607
In matters of the heart you can only know your own.
- To be nobody-but-yourself -- in a world which is doing its best, night and day, to make you everybody else -- means to fight the hardest battle which any human being can fight; and never stop fighting.
e e cummings
- A man cannot be comfortable without his own approval.
Mark Twain
- A man should never be ashamed to own he has been wrong, which is but saying, that he is wiser today than he was yesterday.
Alexander Pope
And I just got up for another cup of coffee that I don't need to put into my system. Not a 'holic, but just nothing better to do than drink some more because, well, I just don't care - does that make any sense?
It's our generation's national anthem, doncha know? I don't care. Whatever.
Which is another way of saying I'm lazy. I'll deal with the consequences of my current actions later - even if the consequences are hard, painful, large.. if I can put it off right now, right this instance... well, why not?
People sometimes wonder where it all comes from - parents, older people - the same people who voted for Reagan and watched him piss away trillions and thought "eh, we'll deal with that later". They wonder where their kids got their laize-faire attitude when every time they go to the grocery store it's on the plastic card and the bills get bigger, but the payments stay the same. People wonder.
I wonder about people.
I wonder where it comes from, what is it with the human mind that makes the immediate so much more prevelant in our minds. What is it that makes the future seem so surreal and un-plan-worthy to most? I know that sure, we're here now - right now - and that must seem so much more prevelant to our simple little minds than even 5 minutes from now, but come on. We're "smart", right? We invented the concept. We're sentient. We think. We process. We know everything, right?
So maybe everyone else isn't planning diddly but up in here, I'm grinding away at a plan 24/7. Processing directives and blueprints and ideas - sending them out to the various departments of my mind for approval, meetings, sub-committees.. you name it. I'm forming this plan - this idea - where everything I type or say has ultimate meaning. Where all thoughts are brave and insightful. Where every action is well thought out, charming, and gentlemanly. Every time you'd want me I'd be there for you and in fact, you would want me to be. You'd think of me when I wasn't there and you'd want me to call you up on the telephone just so you could hear my voice. You'd realize your desire for me and we'd be together. We'd be a indestructable team taking on the world - not like a fighting team but a problem-solving team, making things better brighter bigger faster. We'd appreciate the world together, celebrate our individualities, enjoy our company.
But for now I'm waiting. I'm waiting for you to want me, need me, notice that I'm even still here. I'm waiting for a sign, a message, a note, a thought. I'm waiting for you to realize I am the one. If only for that one moment when you grasp that slippery elusive thought swimming around just outside your reach, the one that says to you you want him.
Deep breath.
I'm perfectly imperfect, waiting for a split second that won't happen, thinking of a life that won't materialize, overly patient, confident, knowing without a doubt in my mind I would, could, should make you happier than anyone could possible make you and knowing, knowing, knowing your inability to make the realization, knowing you, too, are ultimately imperfect, ultimately human, unable to grasp the wisp of rope floating out in space right near you, the one that could connect you to me, the one that would seal our fates together as a knot binds a sail to it's ship, knowing I will one day dangle that rope as close to you as I dare, knowing it will catch the corner of your eye but you will be unable to see it for what it is looking directly on it, knowing I will waste my hope on a hopeless waste and knowing that I will do it regardless, just because.
Exhale.
Is it even possible for me to write one post that isn't painfully self-aware? Everything on here is blogging-related. Every post questions blogging, compares other blogs, contrasts blogging with real life. It's like I'm trying to come to terms with the process and in that, I am missing the point.. maybe.
I imagine this is what the first thinking chimp went through.
I'm eating a banana, he must have thought, why am I eating the banana? It tastes good.. but would I have thought to eat the banana if the other chimps didn't eat the banana?. He'd be confused. Am I eating the banana because I am supposed to eat the banana, or because I want to eat the banana? Am I paving the road of my own destiny or walking the path already cleared for me?
And then he'd write some philosophical mumbo jumbo about self. Probably some ego, id, super-ego stuff.. Then he'd publish it on some bark - ignoring his feat of creating the first written language known to chimp - and later on down the road some dude named Freud would find this bark, learn chimp, and pass the ideas off as his own.
People have been ripping eachother off from the beginning of time. Is it any surprise that we'd rip off the chimps, too? Of course not.
Man, this is good stuff. the chimp would think as he was writing down his manuscripts on some banana leaves, I bet this shit would blow some minds, man.. good stuff. And he'd be right.. it really did blow some minds. What he didn't know, however, was that his fellow chimps were stealing his bananas while he was engrossed in philosophical thought and that his life work would be ripped off by a pervert named freud.
Fucking perverts.
So the chimp would toil away with his theories as the other chimps hung around in trees smoking banana peels and generally not thinking too hard. They had found, early on, that thinking too much resulted in odd anti-social behaviour they dubbed "contemplation" and they wanted no part of it. The more anti-social one of them became, the less chimp-ass he was likely to get.. and if you've ever seen chimps.. ain't nothing any more depressing for a chimp than not banging for a few days.
Later on, the thinking chimp - now relegated to the lower branches of the tree, his social status that of a tree-bug - would become curious about the flat surface below his home. "Ground" they called it. It was as foreign as the moon and scary but as he spent more and more time near it he became more and more curious. There must be something to this "ground", else why would there be a name for it? he wisely thought. None of the other chimps ever considered this. They were too busy touching themselves, eating bananas, and banging. He, however, became so curious that one day he reached out his toe and poked at it. It didn't poke back.
Why is there a ground if we are not on it? the chimp thought.. and with that, he leapt from the tree and landed, firmly, on the sand. Wow he thought. I am on the ground. After his initial discovery the chimp ran around, on all fours, thinking I am on the ground, why am I on the ground, what will become of me - on the ground, how long can I stay on the ground before I blow up? Are there bananas on the ground? If so, I will eat them and have to question why I am eating them - no other chimp eats bananas on the ground, so I won't be eating them because other chimps are, anymore, I will be eating them because they are on the ground and I am on the ground so do I eat what is where I am because I am me and I eat because I am on the ground. He stopped to take a breath. Well? Am I?.
By this point the other chimps, taking a break from banging, had noticed that he was on the ground. They became curious and, while there were in fact no new bananas on the ground, there were a few rotten ones that had fallen from the tree here and there. The chimp tried some of these out and found them to be strong, a bit pungent, and not particularly tasty, but holy crap did it make him fart.
The other chimps liked to fart. It reminded them of banging, somehow.. and eating bananas. So before he knew it all the other chimps were down on the ground, banging, eating bananas, farting, and not thinking too hard. They sent him away, up to the tippy-top of the tree - a place that used to be the end-all-be-all of chimp-pads, with the rippest bananas getting the most sun and the thin branches creating the most bouncing-swaying pleasure for banging... but now it was nothing special and he was left alone to think once more.
He sat on the highest branch, legs curled up under him, brow furrowed, chin resting on his fist, and he thought some more. He considered the situation carefully and he said to himself It was their perception that the ground was a bad place, and now they love it. Perhaps nothing is as it seems. Maybe bananas are really disgusting. I happen to know that crabs and lobsters are disgusting "garbage disposals" of the sea but maybe the other chimps will gladly eat them if for no other reason than that they are rare.. rare up here on land, anyway.
And so, his manuscripts secured away in a dark dry cave somewhere, he went off to conquer the sea, build himself a lobster boat, and start the first chimp seafood distribution company. He went on to do alright but that was the end of chimps in trees and no one thought much about bananas for a long time....
Until some dude named Freud wandered into a cave one day so he could play with himself in peace.. and he stumbled upon some old banana leaves. Before he noticed any writing on them he had used half of them to wipe his butt after poking at his prostate but when he did notice the writing he was in awe. He went on to spread the theories of that first chimp-philosopher and became rather famous for it..
It's just too bad he wiped his butt with the really good stuff.
20040603
Don't get too close to the flames or you'll get burnt.
Journey to the center of the universe and you might find a closet full of dirty underwear you weren't exactly looking for.
Don't be surprised when, after three licks and a chomp of the tootsie pop, you run into the middle full of crap.
From far enough away everything looks like a point.
20040602
Is it any wonder that, given the general distaste - disgust - I have for the normal person on the street, I spend an inordinate amount of time interacting with a computer - a whirring spinning electron-firing glob of machine-ness - that doesn't talk back even in the worst of times? No, it's not really surprising at all so I don't expect it to be any real epiphany to verbalize it. Just talking out loud.
It's dark and I'm walking home along the working street called Fore and things are hustling, bustling, people are in and out of the bars spending money like it's their job - like, gosh, this american economy is really crankin, eh? like there is so much to live for, yah? like, let's go have a beer with all this extra money lying around. It's as if the service industry were enough to support the whole damn town, the whole damn state, the whole fucking damn world for that matter - all on minimum wage and tips - tips which, coming from the cheap/rich elderly up from the retirement communities of the "big city" and from the canadiens down from the north who don't know any better, well it ain't that great just to let you know.
Don't get me wrong.. no, never get me wrong.. Someone's gotta work the service - service the work as it were - otherwise who'd make the burritos? Who'd serve the beer? But someone - and this is what I'm really getting at here - someone's gotta buy those beers. Someone's gotta get drunk.
I'm sayin' it ain't too easy to get drunk when you're paying 60% of your pay towards rent and the other 40% to bills, loans, payments, charges.. It's goddamn impossible, is what it is.
Today, here, in this town, the newspaper printed an article: $625 for a two bedroom - in which the author - a journalist, of course - searches for an affordable apartment in this city for him, his two young children, and his stay-at-home wife. The atrocity here is that he a) expected to find something "perfect", b) thought it reasonable to be raising two kids and supporting an unemployeed wife on a journalists salary in the downtown district, and c) thought inside the box. That last one is the important part - thinking inside the box. Anytime you do that you stuck... inside... the box and you're f u c k e d by G dubya and his merry men cause they WANT you to think inside the box. They WANT you to pay your taxes and work work work like a motherfucker - yes, 100 hours if necessary - because every last hour you work is one last hour that they have to work.
Excuse me Mr. Journalist. Do you think that perhaps people joke about english majors for a reason? Do you suppose apartments, unlike money, grow on trees, drop to the ground, root in, and advertise themselves for reasonable rent all because you need one? No, I did not think so. Don't colour it purple when it's really blue, please.
What would be reasonable is purchasing a second car - a beater, maybe. At 30-something you could find a $500 shitbox and pay *maybe* $150 a month of liability on it, and heck, while you're at it, run biodiesel at 50~75 cents a gallon. So now it's $1200 a year for a car (let's presume you have to buy a new beater every year, yah?). But that $1200 would get you far enough out of the city to find you your $625 two bedroom apartment.. and yah, it might even be perfect.
What would be reasonable is expecting some hardships in life - expect things don't come for free. If my neighbour can live alone, with her 3 year old kid, while working crap jobs, and going to college.. and graduate.. then certainly you, too, could bend a little bit? Do you think perhaps mom could get a part time job? Do you think perhaps you could LOOK a little bit for reasonable housing?
I'm far above the poverty line. I wouldn't qualify for section-8 housing if I wanted to. Yet when I looked for places they practically looked for me. Section-8 housing was to be had everywhere. I found landlords willing to stretch the truth, landlords willing to look the other way..
Portland isn't the worst place to be looking for an apartment.
I suppose you'll tell me that you shouldn't have to do these things. Living in the United States of America is your birthright. Cheap housing is your birthright. Federal subsidies are your birthright. We should approve more, right? We should spend all our money, in fact, supporting single-income english-major families?
There is a reason we don't live under communism. It's because it doesn't work. It's because the guy carrying the stones around all day can't come to terms with the fact that the dude sitting in an office typing newsprint gets paid the same. It's because the guy who tries real hard, puts in the effort, he can't stand it that the lazy bum gets the same. It's because jealousy is a human reality. It's why we're capital. Capital, tip top, happy as clams to live free or die - to kill or be killed - to survive as the fittest... that is until we aren't free, are killed, or aren't the fittest.
Then we want federal subsidies.
Lost my jacket. Lost it, left it at the bar. Nice, too.. leather with my favourite pipe and some half & half tobaccy in it. Expensive - expensive to me, anyway. Survival of the fittest? I certainly wasn't too fit to forget the jacket, now was I? Bummer.. but I'll deal.. but first I gotta go pay my rent. It's reasonable, but I put up with crazy roommates and poor maintenance. It's reasonable but I share things and I don't have the biggest rooms. The floors could be re-buffed.
I guess I'm saying it ain't perfect.
but it's perfect to me.
..Everyone once in awhile I do.
Tony gave me a happy birthday note the other day, thanks to rachel mentioning it on rampantsmaats, and now today he starts out his answer to What's your top 5 movies of all time with
A. 1. The Blue Brothers
Amen. There is a reason some people are just cool.. and it's not just cause. There is action/reaction at work there. causality. effect. All that jazz.
Anti didn't get where he was by smoking a lot of cheeba and drinking buds on his couch. He got where he was because he is a genuine guy who visits folks blogs, visits folks buzznet galleries, and generally leaves a swath of interesting and friendly comments in his wake.
And I ain't sayin' he got where he is cause he wanted to be there. I ain't even sayin' he wants to be anywhere at all, except maybe on some tar somewhere with his feet planted semi-firmly on a nice piece of wood atop a couple a' trucks atop some phat wheels. I'm just sayin' that he is where he is and there is reason behind it.
And so it is with Tony, as well, and that's just fine with me.
This birthday of mine was officially the first birthday in memory where I got more birthday wishes from people I have never met than I did from close friends. I don't know what that says about a) me, b) my friends, c) the strangers I've never met.. somewhere in there one could find insult, dispair, disgust, hope, and harmony.. me, I'll just take the good wishes and roll with it. No need to be negative about it.
No need at all.
Dude. 60 pages in and swinging hard. The whole spacial contraction is still hard to grasp. And I don't think he did a great job with the train / warring nations thing. But it's been interesting. The most interesting thing so far is the idea, which I have never heard before, that velocity is shared between the spatial dimensions and the time dimension. That's pretty rockin.
I'm reading it instead of reading my reading list articles. Perhaps this will spell doom for my exam. But, it's so hard for me to get motivated to read, that given how motivated Iam to read this (now that I have it, finally) that I respect my brain's compulsion to see it through. I may not sleep tonight.
My brother proposed (to himself, and repeated it later to me) to fail his qualifying exams intensionally to be let out of his phd program with a masters. That's fucking interesting, dude. But funny enough, I kind of got re-motivated today. I realized that a large part of what has made me feel like shit academically is how slow this year's labs were compared to last year. I have decided to take more control of our lab meetings. Bring up interesting points. Throw around ideas. Have experiments running at all times. Fuck it, dude. Daphne will have to understand.
I think I will see this thing through. It's become more than just intertia these days. My motivation for other things has waned. It's wierd, but I don't really want to do anything else that bad anymore. My fantasies of kitesurfing off in the carribean fade, as even two days of kiting a week I find more than enough. I want to play more music, though. I want Ted to ask me to play with him real bad. I want to be in a good band.
Fuck it dood. I got the spins . . . subtle, but unpleasant. Perhaps an effect of the coffee. I'm going home. Sorry I haven't written for fucking ever. All you anonymous readers out there can still fuck yourselves. Did I tell you about the kids the other night? After the cops left, giving those underage nothing but a warning, I was summoned to my car to let one of the girls in. Being loopy as fuck, I got completely lost, and ended up attracted to the only burning fire in the campground. It was inhabited by early teenage boys. 13. 14. perhaps some 12. They offered me cookies. I tok them, let the girl in, and returned to them with Rachel. We sat with them and chatted. I think they were pretty freaked out; it seemed like they were embarassed to smile. At one point I went around and repeated their names, and upon my completion did a little victory dance in my seat. It was funny. One of the kids almost laughed, but didn't. I swore a lot. Mostly to tell them how fucking happy I was that they gave us cookies. But it was pretty wierd nonetheless. I wish I had connected with them more. I wish we had talked about what was important to THEM. I tried, but they didn't get it, or were unwilling to go there. Fuck, it's hard enough to get undergrads to talk about themselves. You want to hear the excercise that was a complete failure today? I wanted to get them thinking about, yes, adaptations, constraints, and byproducts. So I started with, let's take a few minutes to think about some part of human life that interests you. Then we'll try and figure out why that thing is the way it is. Examples were given. Object permanence. Girls enjoyment of flowers. ANYTHING! I says. Nothing. Five minutes of nothing. I had to lead them through every fucking step myself. alas. They enjoyed it.
I felt a little lonely tonight. sad. but also spinny and irritable and just wanting to read this book. goodnight.
20040601
i complain a lot, huh? it's the blog thing. it's a ranting mechanism. it's narcissiticly satisfying.. but as one friend says: you choose your energy, your path and all that.. he's a funny fuck, always getting drunk and rambling but saying some good shit. regardless, it's boring i think.. boring to complain in too deep a way. boring to fill the space with negative thoughts. i mean, being irritated with a incorrect phone bill is one thing.. being boring and depressive all the time is something completely different.. especially when it's not me. it's not me at all.. actually, i might be one of the happier people i know.. so why the complaining?
I think blogs are full of complaining because it ellicits passion. Either you write about your interests or you write about what makes you mad. for some, that's the same thing. tony gets going like a motherfucker on politics and i think it's great. whatever fires you up.. but some people - a lot of people - the real passion comes in getting cut off on the highway or being on hold for 5 hours and hey, who the hell can blame them? So it's no surprise about blogs and their general ranting line..
but no more here. i've said it before, so i shouldn't say it again.. but i think i've made progress since last time. as anti often says "you sound like a crybaby" because i DO sound like a crybaby. and fuck it, maybe i AM one. who cares, suck my dick... or some shit like that anyway.
yah. so, i'm done. ima go watch some adult swim.
Agent Orange has got to be one of the best names.. and what? They give it to a fucking chemical weapon? What the hell is up with that? Somehow, I imagine Agent Orange as more of a pseudo-superhero name.. maybe slightly sinister, like a vigilante type ala V is for Vendetta. vendettas are pretty damn cool, too. So that's it. Agent Orange would be a superhero on a vendetta. He would, of course, wear orange.. or drive an orange motorcycle.. or maybe he'd have orange hair. If I was feeling cheeky he would be a she. And of course he would fight against the tyranny of the oppressive government. It would be great. GREAT.
My favourite pastime is getting letters from people I haven't heard from in ages, graciously replying, and never hearing from them again.
I've been told by a few that the really good stuff on here is my mopey depressed shit when a woman doesn't swing my way. That may be true - I have a hard time evaluating my own - but if it is I have to apologize for the complete lack of quality on here lately.
I've just been numb.
Somehow graduate school decisions don't ellicit quite the deep emotional channeling that women do - whodda thunk it? So you've had to stare at this dullard stumbling his way through his quarter-life crisis of where-why-what am I doing with my life? Always questions that don't mean squat when it comes down to the women.. why that is, I couldn't say.
I suspect it all has a lot to do with a little thing we call sex - it being our reason here on earth, to procreate like good little children and make more little children.
So what I did there was try to tie the woman in with the weight of the school choice.. Tried to claim I'd make my decision based on her, this one female, based on what? On a few months and a couple overnight visits? Who am I?
But I did. Somehow I make a heck of a lot more promises to myself, in my head, than I do to anyone in the real world.. and those are the promises that get kept the most cause there is no fooling your own. Like promising to run six miles and trying to run four. I just can't do it.
So I made this promise in my mind and in doing so sealed up my fate like a letter dropped in a mailbox - the kind that you're grabbing at two seconds too late, wishing you didn't send it, wishing maybe you'd been a little less harsh or a little more diplomatic - the kind where you sit down, head leaned back against the mailbox, sighing, waiting for the mailman to come and unload the damn thing so maybe you can beg for the letter back even though you know that's a federal offense and he couldn't do that if he wanted to - the kind where even though you'd pay anything in the world to get it back you're damn glad you had the balls for that split second it took to actually drop it down the slot in the first place. I sealed up my fate, I'm happy with that, now it's just a matter of waiting the two long years for that proverbial letter to get proverbially delivered.
And then someday there will be a real letter, delivered, and that will be the period on the end of a very long sentence within one chapter of the book of my life.
The worst thing about blogging, the worrrrst thing (spoken in Chris Rock's voice ala the worst thing about niggers) is that every time I read one I get motivated to write.. and I hit the BlogThis button... and the post title fills in with whatever blog I happen to be on - in this case my soliloquy - and I find that the title of someone else's blog fits perfectly and and and then I have nothing to write about.
As if you anyone could tell exactly what I was thinking simply by reading someone else's catch line which they themselves took from a favourite author. Mmhm.
Wouldn't that be nice?
Or not. Probably not. Most definitely not. I may be niave but I know the worst thing ( or possibly the very best thing) that this society could have happen to it is everyone being able to hear and understand what everyone else is thinking. Very worst or very best, it's probably not a good idea. Extremes tend to tip the apple cart and we all like them apples. People get upset with change.
So my tale of ordinary madness is one of birthdays and drinking and local music and I could tell it but it's rather ordinary. I'd much rather you just know what I'm thinking.
I'm thinking that it's amazing what the weather can do to one's mood. I'm thinking that it's amazing what the people around one can do to one's mood. I'm thinking that it's amazing that outside ques effect one's mood. Of course I'm being sarcastic. It's not amazing at all. In fact it makes perfect sense.
Adaptation or by-product? my friend is always asking. I don't have the answers. I just know that I get up in the morning like you and I think and talk like you and I become attracted or detracted to people. Ebbs and flows. Am I adapting? I don't know.
All I do know is that I'm making evolutionary progress in the 4th dimension.. which is to say I'm getting old. Late mid-twenties to be exact. No longer a child, not much more a man - but always wondering just the same.
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the guys: philogynist jaime tony - the gals:raymi raspil
