20050429 
I think the first time I ever thought about kids in a real way was a few months after I'd met her. This was the sort of thing that guys like me didn't think about. In fact, I was a little scared of kids. It wasn't that I thought they were gross or irritating or anything, I just had a healthy fear of the responsibility involved. Somehow she changed all that. It didn't happen over night. It's still happening. I didn't all of a sudden want to go out and get a child of my own. This wasn't some sort of burning desire born out of some void that needed filling like a 9-11 crash site. Nothing like that. It was just a realization that at some point, yah, maybe I'd like to have some kids. Part of me thinks it might have just been my age. I was right there on the cusp of real adulthood and things were begining to coalesce in my mind in ways that they never had before. I was a quarter century old. I thought that was a lot at the time I got there and then - WHAM - all of a sudden I wasn't so old afterall. I discovered an official looking notarized document floating around in the back of my mind that said you can do whatever you want to do, you can accomplish whatever you want to accomplish. I was flabbergasted and I've been spending the last few years picking my chin up off the floor but somewhere in there my thought process went from, "Hey, I could have kids someday" to "hey, I might want kids someday". It was a giant leap. So I don't know if it was just the age I was at. Part of me questioned if it had anything to do with her because it certainly felt like it did. She opened my eyes to a world that was hustling and bustling right there in front of me that I had never seen before. She made the world twinkle like so many stars in the night. She made me feel like I wanted to share this toy: this earth, life. She made me feel like it was worth sharing. She made me feel like maybe I'd like to have a kid someday. The whole process was sort of like going to bed in the dark and waking up in the light. Sure, I was miserable the whole time because we were never more than maybe friends - that's what I called it to myself. Maybe friends. That's a place "somewhere inbetween" where unsure sexual tension acts like an electron cloud, forcing a certain amount of distance between two nuclei. Closer, and maybe a great friendship would arise. Any farther and the tenuous bounds would no longer be strong enough to hold anything together; the two parts would float away slowly like a spaceman drifting from his ship, creating a greater hole. I guess you can figure out what happened in this case. But though I may be a drifting spaceman, I have learned a lot from the experience. People ask me if it was worth it. I meet everyone from extremely bitter to euphorically happy and they all want to know, as if my answers might explain life a little more to them. So I tell them that, sure, I got part of me ripped out.. This hurt. But I felt for the first time, too. Truly felt. Not the kind of feeling that you feel in your brain when someone steps on your toe. Not that kind inside your head. I felt it at the toe and everywhere inbetween. The tingling sensation of an entire body, the whole greater than the sum of it's parts. So I saw something I'd never seen before. It was like discovering a whole new room of Van Gogh paintings in the museum of life. They were gritty and hard to look at, invoking emotions I wasn't used to dealing with, but it was a beautiful excercise. Having done it, I don't know if I'll ever go back into that room full of Van Gogh's but the point is that I now know it's there. It exists. This is worth something. I think I might want to have a kid someday.
20050428
As fast as time flies old age has a way of slowly sneaking up on you and WHAM - when you least expect it there it is. It's like chomping on soda ice and feeling that ice-cream cold shooting down a tooth that never gave you problems before. Everything wears away.
Rachel mentions recently that she can't deal with people and I can only nod my head slowly in agreement because the number of times I find myself gritting my teeth or grinning-and-bearing-it or otherwise stifling cries of "Lunatics!" lately.. Well I oughta. Part of life, surely, is learning to live with the inadequacies of others.. which is code for learning to live with your own flaws - like your inadequate coping mechanism. Mine is definitely lacking. So much so that the majority of my blog posting lately has ended in me clicking the little 'X' box up in the upper right-hand corner, just because I don't want to deal with it anymore. If I allowed myself to hit 'Publish Post' more often than I do I'd be one of those seething zealots we all despise. Extremism is evil, they tell us. Especially religious extremisim. While I happen to agree, this is only my personal opinion and I have to wonder what the poor religious folk think of the matter. If you recall they used to have a lot of the power and clout in this world and, for a very long time, speaking out against gays wasn't extreme at all - it was status quo!! Sometimes I think we forget these things, in our age of elightenment. High on the mount, from whence they came Now low in the trench, trudging in shame. Anytime someone has their world tipped upside down you have to expect a little bit of growing pains. That doesn't mean I'm defending the religious extremists, or agreeing with them, or even feeling too badly for them.. but let's just say I understand why they are there. I understand the reasons that they are having trouble adapting to the new order of things. I don't think it would hurt to be aware that the environmentalists, extreme in their own right, are often the same people standing out against the religious extremists. The extreme militarists and right-wing conservatives are often the same people who speak out against the pro-abortionists. Whether you agree with abortion or not, you have to admit it is a fairly extreme social idea. We're all extremists in our own little way. That doesn't make it right or wrong.. it just is. This maybe is why I, like Rachel, can't deal with people sometimes. So I write a few lines of ranting bitterness. I reconsider. Then I delete the post and go about my daily life. It's a venting process that keeps me a few steps closer to the middle - a few steps within the safe confines of "normal" where extremism is just an idea out there, not in here. I try anyway. In the end I'm just stuck in the middle with you.
20050427
I know I'm really angry when my mind is so tied up in it's seething and bubbling process of hatred that all motivation goes out the window. Normally this would be the perfect sort of time to pick up a guitar or sit in front of the computer in order to hammer out something useful or beautiful from the whole deal.. but there just isn't any energy for it. It's like some sort of unexplainable catch-22. You decide to go running but you forgot your sneakers. You decide to build a cabinet but you forgot your hammer. The idea of productivity is there. The thought of production is thick on the air like ham in the smoker.. the tools are just not available. Sometimes I wonder if this is a personal flaw. When the real shit hits the fan - when there is real emotion there that would normally make for the greatest catalyst in the world - I seize up. It's almost as if nothing that comes out is good enough. Not good enough to explain the want or desire, anyhow. Not good enough to explain the roaring disatisfaction. Not nearly good enough to serve as a simulation of my state of the union. Perfectionism rearing it's ugly head. When I look at the Statue of David or Starry Night I sometimes wonder how they ever did it. It's as if real artists fall on one of two sides: casual to the point of not worrying in the least or bitterly emotional to the point of bleeding on the canvas. I guess I lie somewhere in the large grey area that constitutes "the middle".. which about sums up all of my disatisfaction with the situation.
I've never been more angry about loosing a post than the one I lost today. Damn. I just don't have the heart to retype it all. Sorry.
20050426
J-Mo rebukes my earlier post regarding piss-poor frozen pizza instructions: I can see the point of the bold. Rather then have to read all the instructions you can locate answers to questions quickly.
How hot should the oven be? 425
How long do we cook it? Till the chese is melted.
Are there options: Crispy or Soft
Then reading is required to fully understand your selection. And while I understand and agree with his reasoning, I think the nature of my post was suggesting that they did a very poor job of accomplishing what he suggests is their intention. For example, do I need to be told to preheat? Well, questionable. As any person old enough to use an oven I should probably know how to preheat, but I'll skip right over that. What's more important is the juxtaposition of crispy crust and preheat oven at 425 deg F. This suggests to me that there is a relation between wanting crispy crust and preheating at 425. This may be true, but it also suggests that if I perhaps do not want crispy crust I will have to preheat at a different temperature. A quick scan of the instructions, however, reveals no more boldfaced preheat instructions. I'm stumped! Do the instructions "For a softer crust, place pizza on a baking sheet or aluminum foil and bake at 425 deg F fpr 10 to 12 minutes." suggest that I should not preheat at all for a softer crust? If I want a softer crust should I not "Remove pizza from carton. Remove overwrap" as instructed in the paragraph explaining how to achieve a crispy crust? Should I really leave plastic on my pizza in the oven? This is ambigious at best.
I told you more everyday life, yah? Well here we go. Roller coaster ride. Are you ready? It's 3:20AM. I'm handling frozen pizza directions. They read as follow: For a crispy crust, preheat oven at 425 deg F. Remove pizza from carton. Remove overwrap. Place pizza directly on oven rack and bake at 425 deg F for 8 to 10 minutes or until cheese is melted. I kid you not. I did not embelish. The boldfaced words are actually bold faced on the package. I'm not sure if I think this is stupid or a fairly good idea. If in fact the directions could have been reduced to those in boldface, then why complicate things with all the extras? If the could not be simplified, are they not doing a diservice to those whole will read the boldfaced instructions and think that's good enough? Am I over analyzing this? Okay, you're right. This needs more thought. For a softer crust, place pizza on a baking sheet or aluminum foil and bake at 425 deg F fpr 10 to 12 minutes. I'm confused. I see softer crust there in boldface, but it's unclear what I should do about it. Do I want softer crust? Is the company trying to tell me they would prefer I prepare this pizza with softer crust? If I want softer crust, what do I do? These things are not in bold. I am lost. So you see my dilemma, what with pizza directions and everyday life to live. Yah? Confusing as all heck. Can you blame me for making no sense?
20050425
Inexplicably, the list of weblogs I am attached to, when I log into Blogger, is ordered differently when I am here at work. Everyone else, whether IE or Firefox, whether Safari or Netscape, it is always the same. Here at work with Firefox? Different. Okay, things haven't been exciting around here lately. I know. I'm trying an experiment. It's called: blog about my daily life. I've realized I don't give my day-to-day quite like a lot of bloggers do, and I sort of stick to the waxing of philosophical garbage. A bit esoteric if you don't know me well, I imagine.. but the more I blog about my day-to-day the more I question the worth of blogging. I can at least go back a year and read some bullshit post of mine about the purpose of life and maybe get something out of it: agree with it or decide I'm an Aho. But this day-to-day, it's unreadable. Three weeks from now reading a post of mine that says "I drank a lot of coffee today".. well.. suck. I don't have time for that. I'm too busy drinking a lot of coffee. So bear with me as the format gets tossed around here. I kind of like that one of the beauties of blogging is that there is no format.. you can do whatever the hell you want. I like it and I hate it. There is no forced coherence. Good, or bad? I wonder. I think the best crazy writers of our time that have been heard have been heard because there was some forced form to their words. In order to sell the book they had to present it as such to the publishers. It had to have some sense of a familiar frame about it - even if it was a false one. OOorrr maybe that's all bullshit. I really don't know what I'm talking about. Secret: I never do. So I shall return to the day to day for now. I'm back in the warm fuzzy glow of office space work. That place where tiny fans hum and whir like insects and everything has a manufactured aura about it - the rugs are purpley with a speckled pattern as random as the shape of a snowflake but every bit as mathematical. The tall metal bookcases shine with the dullness of giant palm fronds. Binders full of technical material sit ready on shelves, the plastic wrapped about them bunched up like the fabric of a suit coat as it's wearer twists around in their swivel chair. Even the light is fabricated; flourescence flowing out of long gas-filled tubes like fireflies enslaved behind opaque plastic covers - pressed into service all for the matter of production production production. And all around, even in this haven of circuitry with computers crunching numbers, yelling back and forth at eachother of the network, jockeying for the printer queue or more bandwidth over the internet line, there is paper. Paper: the most natural of human produced goods. Something about this product, this paper-thin and almost metaphysical thing, it is human indeed. Small and helpless. Fleeting and unsure of themselves, sheets float off a desk trying to escape. A printer, grabbing desperately at the last few pages in it's #2 tray goes ca-Chunk ca-Chunk ca-Chunk. The sound of paper being shuffled and straightened floats down the hallway belying the true nature of it's power. You see, the weight of the yellow pages - strength in numbers - pulls down on the crooked shelf above my desk. Paper, the peoples product, is powerful in it's ability to transmit ideas. Strength sprung forth from it's very weakness. Able to be crumpled, abused, thrown out.. yet just as easily pulled from the refuse and unfolded, the ideas scrawled upon it unraveled, understood, appreciated, absorbed. So many of us are scared of computers I wonder if this was what it was like for paper, on the eve of it's conception so many years ago. Were people as afraid of new ideas then as they are today? Is communication and exchange such an inherently frightening idea? While computers may not be accepted by all, while they present a face on which to project certain fears, they are here to stay. The low pink of a finger nail tapped on the glass of a monitor is a sound we should grow to love. Paper is perhaps not shuffling off it's mortal coil quite yet. There are trees to chop down still, there are books to print and banners to fly. But computers, this is the new paper - a jumble of metals and silicon dredged from the earth - this is a new platform for ideas.
rainy weekend? check. nothing to do? check. no invitations? check. no chores? check. one couch, one tv, and one big collection of movies? check. successful completion of "waste a weekend 2005"? INDEED.
20050424
Ass is back in the sling called work and that means a regular paycheck, money, and all those sorts of trappings. This, inevitably, means the spark of consumerism has one again lite a fire in my inner hearth. Between this and tax season economics are on the mind - that is to say purchase power and currency conversion and GPP (Gross Personal Product) - and more. Ebay is once again my daytime partner in crime. The classifieds entertain me on the weekends. I actually think about stepping foot inside a store for something other than beer, vegetables, or cigars. A fat $1150 in the mail from the gov'ment has spured a new interest in finally obtaining a decent electric guiter. For years I've been playing the same old ratty stratocaster imitation by hohner that my father purchased for me when I was in 6th or 7th grade - that and a Mako (Mako??) practice amp for $125 total. That makes it 14 years or so I've been this one and it may not be worth a dime but I couldn't sell it to save my life. Sentimentality and all. Packrat style. Anyhow, the previously heretofore unobtanium that is Gibson has once again reared it's mighty head (no pun intended for you guitar folk) and I'm on the lookout. Wood grain, sunburst, gold tops. Shiny new brass knobbies, smooth pick guards, and pearl inlays. These are the things that make me salivate these days. This only because I've sworn off motorcycle junk in an attempt to gradumacate myself with a bank balance above 0. Don't get me wrong, Gibson isn't exactly easy on the wallet either but I'm shopping down low in the Epiphone range. I've got a lead (again, no pun intended) on a nice blue LP that I might manage for $400 so I'm going to look in on that one real soon. A disease, perhaps, this perennial need to spend cash. It's always a summer episode.. the bigger the item the longer I research things, the larger the final price gets. If I'm making my big purchase in August that means the cash outflow is going to hurt like a sucker punch to the stomach. If I can get it over and done with real quick by the end of May I can sometimes manage to get out of the whole ordeal with little more than a flinch. As you can see, I'm trying to get ahead of this one.. May is just around the corner. A disease maybe, but I figure if it's going to happen I might as well try and make this episode educational and buy a musical instrument. However wasted, maybe I'll learn something. Like a chord or two.
20050423
"At home" - my friends house, which is my current place of residence (for as long as the rent remains $0 per month, every month) the blogs I'm linked to, or rather signed up for, are in correct alphabetical order. That is, they make some sort of sense whether that be chronologically, alphabetically, or bloganetically. The thing is I'm only signed up for three so who knows if it's a coincidence that they work out in the correct order for all stated metrics or not. Anywhere else, however, they make no sense. Truly. Chronologically it's all bassackwards. Alphabetically it's jumbled up.. and bloganectically - my way of saying which blog has the most posts - well, it almost makes sense but not quite. This, I suspect, is an interface issue and an issue that we all encounter on a daily basis - computer or not - which basically sums up our inability to properly communicate. In fact, I'm pretty convinced that any aliens that end up on our doorstep, ala close encounters from of the 3rd kind, won't be disappointed with our technology - they'll be disappointed in our communication skills. We all should have taken that one extra conflict-resolution course in high school, maybe. I fear interface issues are going to be "up there" in the list of important things to worry about but no one is really going to notice and before you know it we'll be extinct. Bummer. I was looking forward to a good run of things. Solution -> Closer investigation? Careful consideration? Better understanding? These are all relative terms. Relativity, you'll notice, is something we've all been struggling with for a very long time. So much so that we just discovered it a few years ago. In the mean time we'll do our best. Even if that means wading through the quagmire of guilt, disinterest, misunderstanding, and confusion. We'll wave at eachother and wonder if we recognize one another. We'll wonder why you think you know us. We'll pretend we didn't notice you and go about our merry way. We'll manufacture our own environment (loosely based on the real world around us). When it comes down to it, we're going to do exactly what we want - whatever makes us feel good at the time. If that means not knowing you, well, so be it. Get over yourself. Nature as a system is economic. Things have worth and you can measure this worth, to some degree, if you have the correct sense of things. For better or worse we must accept the world as a place where human life is a commodity and it is bartered and sold on the open market on a daily basis. Cruel. I know. This is not so much acceptance but awareness. Different, but mildly the same. Just the way it is. I'm okay with that. Are you?
20050422
Secret of the day: I have a big crush on bigtanky. whoops. not a secret anymore.
Back in the saddle of employment now which means back into the large big coccoon that is the giant cup of coffee. 40 oounces a day or so of the wretched stuff but it's like the elixir of life when you're trying to revert your schedule back from the graveyard shift into the land of the living. I forgot how nice it was not to have to pay for coffee. It makes the world such a nicer place, really. These are my thoughts on world peace: Coffee for everyone. I can't imagine a Hitler whose had his morning coffee ever invading Poland. Who says drug use is bad? Everything in moderation. Even moderation.
20050420
The problem with driving is that I can only really enjoy it if nobody is in my way. I think that's a product of growing up in a rural area where traffic jam means two cars in front of you in the grocery store parking lot. So when I am presented with anything akin to real traffic I lose my cool pretty quickly. If I'm alone in my vehicle then the the seething hatred for idiot drivers stays bottled up inside, only spurting out at the seams in the form of zig-zag manuevers when I just can't take it anymore. If I'm with someone, however, they must sadly suffer my wrath that is truly intended for the other drivers - flaming curses, Stocato explitives.. " Fucken!" ... " GODamn mmrumblegrumble" ... "ass HOLE!" And you know what it really all comes down to? Common courtesy. I'm not really worried about getting where I'm going immediately and I'm not even concerned about speeding about, being in front of people just for shits and giggles. What I am concerned about are idiots who drive below the speed limit in the passing lane with their left blinker eternally winking away at me. What I am concerned about are drivers who pull out in front of fast-approach traffic, pedestrians who don't walk but crawl across the road, morons who don't realize the purpose of signals, and assholes who tailgate you even though you're stuck behind just one fewer car than they are. It's a matter of courtesy. Common courtesy. Not extravagent special treatment courtesy. Not royal your-highness courtesy. Not even upper-middle class courtesy (though I'm not sure if that kind exists).. we're just talking about common courtesy here. Even if you're not a driver you probably know what I'm talking about. If you've ever walked down a busy city street only to find yourself side-stepping oblivious window shoppers blocking your way or portly diners basking in their post-coital glow, shuffling along and staring idiotically at the stars, then you know what I'm talking about. Inconsiderate walkers. Pedestrians of a nefarious ilk. The selfish footian. Never am I more incensed than when a group of two or three stroll down the sidewalk hip-to-hip, chitter-chattering away as if I do not even exist. Not a one backing off or quickening their step in order to make room for traffic coming in the opposite direction (nevermind those heading hurriedly in the same direction trying to get by them). These are the sidewalk bourgeios. The fat-cats of the footpaths. The assholes in Asics. In short: Jerks. And if you're wondering if the countryside may be the perfect spot for a brief respite from such heathen you are only partly correct in your assumption. For here it is that the roles are reversed. By foot you are in constant danger of bored teenagers racing at break-neck speeds down narrow rural roads in their parents pseudo-sports sedans; Audis with "sport tuned" suspensions and heated seats. However, by car you are subject to bounding bambis, horton hedgehogs, and bradley badgers. On wet rainy nights?.. even Frog and Toad. Travel, I fear, is simply wrought with danger no matter your form of transport; the danger of infuriating nuisance, the danger of the most hideous of all indecencies: The lack of common courtesy. Can I blame the occasional spoiled brat testing the limits of his father's new 32-valve behemoth? Hardly. Can I blame those venerable old men from my childhood fairytales Frog and Toad? Barely. Humans, though, real adult humans with jobs and responsibilities.. is it so much to ask for one more ounce of awareness out of them? Is it far beyond the reaches of the common man to look up, look out, look around him and acknowledge that other people do exist.. that they need space to move? Perhaps I should relax. Let loose. Count to ten, say amen, scream "Serenity Now!" and ask the gods for just a little time off. Maybe it's too much to expect out of Donald the dockworker and Sally the seamstress. Maybe, just maybe, they really can't help it. Who am I to demand such respect - to be treated as an equal? A human being? I am demanding and over-expectant. I think I'm notable enough to be aware of. Valuable enough not to step on. Quotable enough to be keen on. Meritorious? Common courtesy, it would seem, is in reality far from anything common at all.
20050419
Check this guy out. I think he may be worth reading. In fact, you whould let me know. Wow, I think I'm going to start posting more often. The japanese porn thing is crazy, because you do find japanese porn everywhere. http://tar.weatherson.net/
20050418
If all goes well I will not show up for work tomorrow only to find out it's a company holiday... like I did today. If I manage this, I will be in front of a computer and this station will return to it's normally scheduled program. thank you for your patience.
20050411
Walking through the park the other night the lamplights were like giant fireflies in the dark. A bum slept on a bench. A man in a thick designer leather jacket stood in the middle of the sidewalk staring up at the pink hued sky.  I tiptoed quietly along on a blanket of air capturing a snapshot of the scene through the ghostly bare branches of springtime trees. A dog skipped by and then it's owner, trudgingly, with a leash in his hand attached to nothing. The dog carried a small rubber ball in it's mouth with a giant cheshire grin, pissing on sign posts. The bum woke up and looked through me. The dog walker was not aware of my presence as I floated by. The man in the leather jacket didn't move. An ambulance siren wound up to an ear-splitting volume but at such a distance it sounded tiny and toy-like. It was Wednesday.
20050410
For five months now I've had the same one message stored on my voicemail. I never understood the message saving feature before.. I mean, you hear a message and.. that's it. Why do you need to hear it again? But this message.. this message changed everything. A revelation of a voicemail message. It went something along the lines of the fact that one girl far far away was happy that i had sent her a birthday present. It was the happiness, somehow, that was important. Not whether or not she missed me but whether she was happy. I dunno, I'm going crazy here but I care about someone more then myself. I know that sounds like 9th grade but gosh if it's not true. First time. yah. I swear. No joke. So the message was sort of little kid kicking kicking their feet around and staring at the ground, sort of shy like. Not a shy like regular shy, but a shy like they just busted your window with a baseball shy. She sort sung a sweet story about really liking the present that I had sent her. Then she whispered that she would really like to talk to me. Okay so call me a sucker. Call me a blowhard. call me whatever you will but I am hooked. I've always said that I'm no habitual person, not me. I break habits like cheap chopsticks. But this voicemail message has become a bit of a ritual with me. Not once a week, or anything as scheduled as that.. but just when I need a pick me up. A reminder. And every time I listen to this message I learn one more lesson about the human condition. There are levels to this voicemail like there are layers of an onion. The first time I listened to it I was just a bit blown over that there was a message at all, because I honestly didn't expect to hear from her ever again other than maybe an email every once in a while. But here it was, this voicemail. on my phone. yah. I swear. No joke. The second time I listened to this voicemail, well. I'll be honest, it was right after the first time I listened to the message. The second run I was a little more composed. The little girl in me had stopped jumped up and down and clapping and had crocked her head in interest. Um. She said um a lot. It was in that cute sort of pouting way and I think it was because she was having a hard time leaving the message. I think it's gotta be the hardest speech you ever have to give, that you're amazed by someone but you're just not interested. Worse then your first interview. Fer sure. No doubt. That third time, that was the first dark one. Since then it's mostly green pastures. Like part of the sun in your cellphone, in a voicemail. But every once in awhile.. on a particularly bad week, well, it's dark. But it's the dark where you learn about yourself, sort of sparring with your own demons. So it's a good voicemail. It's sort of an epic, in it's own right, considering how many times i've listened to it and how much I've gotten out of it. Sort of like a little fountain of youth. A bit of patience bottled up.
I know it's late, late in the game but the reason I finally started to blog was because I knew I was at a cross roads.. and that I could either turn into a monster, some simple angel that figures it all out, or I could turn into an every day's man. I knew there was a decision that was going to be made and that, no matter what the choice, it would be a monumental one.. One to go down in the history books. So I started to blog just in case.. Just in case there was something worthwhile to gain from the spiral downward. Some lesson. Maybe for the next guy. Three years later and I'm still at it. Which means I guess I haven't figured it all out yet.
20050408
So what's with teen actresses always having to do horror flicks before they get their street cred? Okay, so not all of them do it, but there are enough examples out there to make me go hmmm. Neve Campbell, Jennifer Love Hewitt, Jessica Biel, Rose McGowan (who probably likes 'em anyway).. heck, even Wynona Ryder got a start in Beetlejuice and Heathers - not horror flicks, but not bubblegum either. And there there is little 'ol Christina Ricci who got going at the age of 11 or 12 in Casper - she was a kid, so she did a kid's horror flick. Sorta. Am I stretching? So sue me. Arguably, Natalie Portman was given a break for doing the gritty Professional. I dunno. Anyhow, I bring this up because I saw a trailer for some silly town full of wax people, no no they're real, wait, are they? horror movie with Paris Hilton in it the other day. I even feel like there are far more horror films out these days.. What is it, America? What do you want? How do you want it? Just tell me. I can read your mind like a fucking book with no cover anyway, so what's the point in hiding it? You sick sick beast. Enter the movie formula: hot dame, in distress, saved by masculine hero. Used to be pretty simple. Somewhere along the line it started getting complicated with ugly sexual fantasies, heads cut off and shipped around in boxes by fed-ex, and ticking time-bomb predators. Somewhere along the line women became objects and they're either still struggling to climb out of the tarpit they were thrown into or they're just sinking deeper and deeper. I don't know which. I'd like to think the direction we're in - temporally speaking - is a positive one.. that we're all climbing a bit farther out of the tarpit every day, but when I step outside it doesn't always look that way. Here in America, I'm told, you get what you pay for.. and I think it's true. A sports car buys you balls and makeup buys you a thin disguise.. people love to run around and complain that corporations are forcing consumerism down our throats but I honestly gotta say: we're buying it. And heck, why not? It's the quick fix! We can afford it. We're sorta like the fat kid on the block.. only mommy and daddy are rich so we can go out and buy some liposuction. Sweet, huh? But under the pretty exterior there's a world of rot, and I don't know how long it's going to be before this house of cards comes fluttering down. Oh, I sound scared, don't I? No.. I'm not really. I actually believe fully in the human drive. We'll be halfway to the other side of the galaxy by the time you can say kalamazoo, but it's not the future I'm scared of.. It's those people in the future. They'll be sitting around a thermal riser, a big black picture window into space behind them and ion drives humming away below, reading bedtime stories to their children and you know what horror stories they're going to be telling? How utterly retarded their ancestors were. The holocaust of the human mind, they'll call it. I know that nature doesn't have room for the bottom 10 percent, but does that mean the middle 80 have to be morons? Does that mean we can walk around like zombies, luxurizing ourselves into oblivion, debasing our very natural value as human beings for the imaginary wealth of money? Is this our destiny? I know a girl who dresses to kill and stays up late telling me things like I know I'm good looking, so I use it to my advantage. She thinks she has the sheep figured out. She's the wolf in their clothing. But I can't help thinking it's a debaser. They the sheep, and she debasing herself to their level. A wolf! In sheeps clothing. Integrity? Baahhh. It's lost in the mix.. in there somewhere, but being tossed around like a hot potatoe. It just doesn't pay to like yourself. We're animals, in the end. I think we forget that sometimes. We're animals running scared, tearing at the raw flesh we kill because there is scarcity out there. There's a limit to the resources. We're hungry, tired, running.. And we'll knaw our leg off if we get caught in a trap. We'll fight teeth and nail for our piece of territory. We'll eat our own young... .. and we'll even gorge ourselves when we have the opportunity.
20050407
 When I asked the pope what he was doing in town he just pointed up at the cross on the mountain. I looked up and noticed it was purple - a soft rougey/violet.. almost heading towards pink - but clearly purple. He told me he wanted to trapse around the world and appreciate all the fare-the-wells that were being sent out to him in his final duty as pope: being dead. Then I asked him what he thought of it all. Well, it's quite the production he said, shaking his head. I couldn't tell if that meant he approved or if he thought it was silly. "And..?" I was expecting more. And nothing: it's a production. Life, in all it's banality, demands great productions. So what if it was a bunch of jews in the desert who came up with the greatest production of them all so far? You think I'm bitter? That's like biting the hand that feeds you, no?I just sort of shook my head and shrugged. I wasn't sure where he wanted me to lead him with his questions. "Well what do you want me to say? You know I'm not god material." Oh hogwash the pope sang, we're all god's creatures. "Look buddy, " I waved my hand. "I'm not saying there is or isn't a god, I ain't saying you gotta listen to me, alls I'm saying is that I choose not to believe in all of that gobbly-d-gook." Yah, I know he sighed, I'm just supposed to say that. It's in my contract."So when do you suppose this contract expires? I mean you're frickkin' dead, right? I mean god damn... whoops, sorry." Oh don't worry. god gave up on that shit a long time ago. the pope rolled his eyes and dabbed at the drool on his chin with a hanky. "So, when do you.. yah know.. retire?" Ohh. I suppose pretty soon. Basically they gotta find another pope, turn those damn purple lights off, blow some white smoke up people's asses, and I'm home free he said waving his hands around in disgust. An old lady walked by and he waved at her instinctively. "Is that going to be a long time?" How the hell should I know? I got the feeling he was starting to get irritated with my line of questioning. Or his depends needed changing. I wasn't sure. "Do you think it means anything, though?.. All this catholicism? All this.. production?" and with that he stopped, looked up and down the street to see if anyone was within earshot, leaned it a bit close and said, It's the greatest theatre on earth, my friend. Then, with a sort of chuckle/cough and a snort, he turned and continued shuffling down the street.
20050406
From September 19th, 2003 at 3:33PM EST:MESSAGE TO: Alex Schwartz Hello everyone,
My name is Niva and I am a member of Zeta Phi Beta Sorority Incorporated on the UCSB campus. We are hosting our 3rd annual Freestyle FridayZ contest on Friday October 17 in IV Theatre I. The pot is at the very least $100, but most likely more. For those of you interested please contact me ASAP cause the brackets fill up quick.
Thanks and have a great day.
Niva
"To live life judging the weightless treasures of others
is but a lost one." -- Siniva Tulua REPLY TO: Siniva Tulua Niva,
You might be interested, you might not, but here it is anyway.
The 'one' at the end of your quote doesn't refer to 'life' earlier in the
sentence, as I think you mean it to. 'One' in this sentence is referring to the
whole infinitival phrase ('To live life . . .') - it just doesn't make any sense.
It's like saying 'To play piano badly is but a lost one.' What you probably mean to say is 'A life spent judging the . . .' In that sentence, 'one' would refer to the noun phrase, 'a life.'
Also, do you really mean 'weightless?' What would it mean for symbolic treasures to be weightless? I think you probably mean 'immeasurable,' or 'boundless.'
I'm not intentionally being a dick; I thought you might appreciate the suggestions, as everyone that gets an email from you gets to see that sentence.
later,
Alex And Alex, responding to his own response, says: Am I a fucking dork, or what. I couldn't just let that go. It was really fucking irritating me, and I am sure my anxiety level will decrease if when writes me back having changed it. I don't even know her.
But she's probably hotter than I can possibly imagine. Campus is UP and running again . . . I biked past the sorority registration yesterday on campus. All I can say is, BRAIN FUCK. I could literally hear my circuits overloading. I'm not even exaggerating. After a while, I just had to look away. I told the married guy I was with that it was almost better to have a significant other in this situation. The brain power lost to senseless calculation of mate value is just extraordinary.
20050404
Someone asked me recently whether my blogging was an addiction and I answered him honestly that it wasn't but I have to stop and think: where is the line drawn? I drink, and I drink fairly often. I am not, by most standards, a drunk. However, by some other people's standards, I am a drunk. I don't smoke, so that's out the window, but I do have some things that I like to do on occasion. Eat. Sleep. Take a shit. Maybe these things sound familiar? So the question here, I guess, is whether I lied to myself and actually am addicted to blogging. Or brushing my teeth (obviously not).. or any other mundane activity which I submit myself to on a regular basis. Am I, PLEASE GOD HELP ME, an addictive personality? All this comes up of course because I haven't posted [much] for [quite] some time. Frankly, I've been busy. Sometimes when other things get in the way it's a relief to be able to drop the blog like a wet sack of taters and just keep on moving up the hill... but what I find more often than not is soon enough I'll be twiddling my thumbs, counting flowers on the wall, and generally wasting time and when I get completely sick of reading all the drivel on the internet that I can find.. well.. I feel compelled to add to it. Is this what addiction is? Can't be. Couldn't be. Wouldn't be. Nah. So I thought about it some more on the walk to school today. Then I thought about what the "official" opinion on addiction is, and what it means, and I thought for sure I wasn't addicted, no way no how. Then I ran into the Pope. Hey pope. Hi duder. it surprised me that he responded without capitalizing my name. quick wit, that one. drool or noWhat are you doing here at the corner of Prince Arthur and St. Famille? Well, I'm heading to the Prince Arthur dep to pick up some flowers. I just moved into a new pad and it's sorta bare, so I'm trying to spruce things up a bit. I don't like it when things are too dull, afterall. Doesn't leave me with much to contemplate, yah know? Sure, pope. I dig it. So is your new place big, or what? Nah, nothing extravagant. It's sort of like a condo, basically, and the complex has a pool and a weight room and a sauna. But we have a doorman, that's cool. Oh yah? Who is that? Stalin. Stalin? As in Russian media darling Stalin? As in killed-millions-of-his-own Stalin? Yup. Whoa. Is he a good doorman? Yeah, actually. He was originally in charge of shuffle board but he kept pushing people into the hottub when they weren't looking. He's a big cheater, you know. No, I didn't. But he's a good doorman. Keeps him busy anyway. So did they give you a job then? No. Not yet. I get to just laze around the pool all day chasing the muff around. Is there any good muff around? Not really. Bummer. Totally. So whose your favourite neighbour so far? Oh, Goose. Totally. Goose? Yah, Goose. From Top Gun.. remember? Tom Cruise's navigator? riiiighhhttt. Yah, he's a good guy all around and plays a mean piano. I always dug on some good piano, rock and roll style, but those buttfuckers bill joel and elton john always sorta freaked me out a bit too much, to be honest. Hey man, I'm late for class.... guess I should get going. Alright duder, taker easy man. So I might be addicted or I might just be bored out of my wits sometimes to know what to do with myself. Does that make sense in this go-go-go fast, always, now, need-to age of information, speed, and extreme-networking? How can someone be so completely bored out of their minds when they're exposed to more information now than anyone before, in any time? Am I wasting time? Could I be doing better? Am I being paranoid? Does it matter? Do I care? Should I just drop it? As the pope was walking away he overhead my thoughts and stopped, turning around to look at me, and said: Well, man, sounds to me like the answer to all your questions is yes. Great, Pope. I'll just drop it. Thanks.
I usually have generally good things to say about the fine country of canadia but today I'm on a roll. For one, canadian banks suck donkey cock like no other. They're worse than Rent-a-Center on crack. Pathetic money grubbing mongers is what they are. Their hands are dirty with the blood of the coin like a dog who doesn't know when to stop gorging itself. In canadia, getting money out of an ATM owned by another bank will result in a $1.50 foreign atm charge, as is somewhat normal in the states. However, come statement time, there will also be another $1.50 charge from your OWN BANK for using someone else's atm. This is akin to double jeopardy, in my book. Do the crime, pay the fine.. but twice?! $3 for a twenty dollar bill sounds like usury to me.. for my own goddamned money! (By the way, for you non-math types, that's 15%). 15% here, 15% there.. soon it adds up to real mondey. If banks had their way we'd all be taking money out of foreign atms all the time, just paying for their lunch hour cocktails, yah know? Ultimately, someone needs to pick up the bill. Guess who? Sure, why not? The consumer. Natasha would be rolling puurrrrfect if Boris ever had such an amazing idea. Uncivilized barbarity #2: Cell phone service. Firstly, it's a travesty that 100 minutes is about all the daytime talk you can get for $30. Secondly, if you're a particularly small and piddly little cell phone company then you've never heard of american. In fact you aren't even sure there is any such thing as "credit" there, so when I sign up for a cell phone plan I am required to put $250 deposit down to allay their fears that I might jump the border and run if my bill gets too high. Don't worry grandma, I'm not calling China. Fast-forward six months later and find out that no, I can not have my $250 deposit back despite being told I could. Find out that, in fact, a requirment of the agreement was that I pay my bill on time every month for 6 months. Re-acquire intense hatred for cell phone companies, rejuvenate, rekindle, and realize that because there is no easy way to pay your bill online, because there is no blank envelope with your invoice, because you (I) absolutely hate paying bills that yes, I should just pay it all off right now. Done and done. Write out last starter check from opening a bank account in September. Wave hanky at sobbing Visa - it's not his fault - even though the company takes canadian visa, as if it is somehow better. Ha.
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the guys: philogynist jaime tony - the gals:raymi raspil
