On occasion, I find myself writing lengthy blog posts and then, for whatever reason, either not finishing them, or not posting them once they are finished.
Other times, I write a post and copy it to a permanent file to save for posterity.
I have accumulated many such posts on this trusty Department of Defense computer.
It is time to clean house.
To that end, I am posting all the pieces, parts, and otherwise undisseminated fragments of postings below. Be advised that there may be repeats in here, and others may make no sense whatsoever, nor accomplish whatever aim they originally had:
A True StoryAs a high school student I travelled with my father and a group of churchgoers to Egypt. On a train platfrom in Karnak, several members of our group -- including my father -- were waiting when somebody heard a distant 'bang'. Nobody thought much about it until one person looked up and noticed that one of the assembled tourists had stuffing billowing out of the wrist and elbow of his jacket.
"What's that?" someone asked.
"I don't know," the guy said, puzzled.
"What's this?" someone else asked, reaching toward something on the ground in the middle of the group.
It was a spent bullet.
Apparently the guy had been leaning against a wall with his arm upraised when a bullet of unknown origin fell from the sky, punched through the stuffing of his jacket at the elbow, travelled parallel to his arm, and emerged at his wrist -- without him noticing.
I was on the platform that day, but I did not know about this occurrence until my father -- a minister -- told me about it later.
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Unfinished Church RantSome of the responses I've heard about Gibson's "Passion of the Christ", as well as Lapsed Cannibal's recent foray into church, reminded me of some thoughts I had while attending church a few weeks ago.
Be aware that I grew up going to church, and that many of the most decent and thoughtful people I know go to church. The church has fed me, clothed me, given me lifelong friends, and taught me much about how to be a conscientious human being. Additionally, "the church" as an institution is capable of transforming individuals and accepting people from extremely diverse backgrounds. I personally know many Christians who live up to the standards they preach, and it gives me heart.
That being said, I find the act of going to church profoundly disturbing. Part of this feeling comes from observing the disconnect between the vestigal remnants of old, intolerant mideavil Catholicism with the newer, more progressive forms of Christianity specifically (in this case) as practiced by modern Methodists; the other part of my trouble comes from a general unwillingness to believe that the Bible is a reflection of some higher truth above and beyond any other form of human mythology. But that's a huge can of worms, better left for another post.
Church a few weeks ago went like this:
Church opened with some sort of missive in which we declared forthrightly that we were worthless, pitiful, horrible excuses for humanity, barely fit for the air we would need to inhale in order to plead for Jesus' mercy.
(Note: Jesus is dead, by the way. We're supposed to be bummed out by that and sorry because he died for us. Even though we weren't born at the time. Be aware, that even though we killed him, he is not dead. Still we are guilty of murder. We can't win. What a drag.)2. After being summarily torn down, we are supposed to rebound with "Words of Inspiration" or some such in which the "leader" reads a line, the congregation responds with a line, then both read a line together. This excercise has all the spontenaity of a wooden spoon, but has the capacity to raise the self esteem of every Speak N Spell within earshot.
3. A hymn is sung. It sounds very much like every hymn sung before and since. Most hymns were written at a time when it was thought that the only appropriate way to demonstrate piety was to restrain all emotions, improvisation, or variation. Any possibility of injecting bodily motion into the music (i.e. gyrations, hand-clapping, hip-shimmying or...*gasp*...dancing) are ruthlessly supressed by the ubiquitous, plodding organ and such interminably breathless, trite lyrics that they make The Collected Poems of Jewel seem like prizeworthy muses.
Back then, it was also considered ostentateous to have more than one melody for a song. Hence, all hymns sound identical.
Smiles are permitted, but not for the purposes of flirting with sexy choir girls.
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Song Lyrics or: A PoemTonight I could go on a crime spree or try to dirtyflirt.
I could squeeze into my party shirt --
I could snort DMT --
till my brain turns to mercury,
collect the droplets and sculpt them into a statue of you and me.
Shred my fingers.
Kick off my shoes.
Wear out my feet doing walking blues.
And all the while think of you, Blue Light.
The city's mine tonight.
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A Close EncounterThis is a true story. Every word of it. Except that I'm lying throughout most of it. If I lie when I say I'm lying, am I lying? I don't know. I can't figure it out. I'll leave it to the satellites who record my every word, who hold onto my every thought, to keep this record until social scientists can crack the Clay Sails algorithm.
I'd pay good money to get that formula. At least $15. With it, I'd know exactly how/when I would have my next existential crisis, my next dose of irrational euphoria, my next ill-conceived plan.
I was writing to my grandmother this morning on metro...
Whaaat? You don't believe me already?
Fuck off. I really was writing to her. A paper and pen letter, too, not an email.
The part about the aliens (coming up) didn't happen, but so?
Alright, I'll leave the aliens out of it. But I'm sure that guy in the green sweater with bug-eyes and a frizzy mullet was from an evaporated nebula formerly near Rigel II. Either that or Minneola. How a nebula evaporates, I cannot say, but probably it had something to do with a nearby supernova which acted like a giant interstellar hair dryer.
The main thing is, that freaks' secret plot to destroy Washington D.C. with a concoction of cooking spray and roasted barbie doll heads didn't come to fruition. Not just then anyway. Partly that was due to my vigilance, and partly it was due to the pair of 12" pinking shears I threatened him with, saying:
"Foe, begone. This city is reserved for Earthlings."
He buzzed his strange alien buzz toward me and hissed, then dissappeared into the crowd. The last I saw of him he was leaping over the turnstile waving a phoney looking diplomatic license plate.
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A Backward Story, Of SortsThe Kid and Lobo were stopped off at Clown Burger. Despite their stylish duds, neither had a dime to their name.
While Lobo was in the bathroom, The Kid stood and waited, chewing a soda straw. Unsupervised children darted all around him, slipping fistfulls of stolen napkins into the dispenser and sneaking ketchup back into the bin.
"Kids," he thought, amused.
One particularly forlorn child was sitting on the floor, teary eye festooned with a fist. On a whim, The Kid aimed his straw at the sniveling youngster and made a great wooshy lung-sound. A paper wrapper came catapulting from the tile beneath an empty table, bounced off the child's eye, and alighted perfectly on the end of the Kid's straw. The Kid made a funny face and poised to blow the wrapper off, much to the child's delight. The Kid calmly re-wrapped the straw and put it back in the dispenser.
Meanwhile, Lobo had found the bathroom a remarkably ordinary. In other words, it was a smelly, disgusting mess. Lobo didn't mind. He flushed the toilet (he always did this before using a bathroom, although, for reasons unclear, rarely did so afterward).
Lobo pulled down his baggy jeans and squatted in calm repose, waiting. Perhaps out of boredom, or perhaps out of some unconventional sense of timing, he snatched a gob of sodden paper from the bowl and wiped his ass with it until it was filthy.
He did not have long to wait. From even before he sat down, Lobos' excrement had begun a journey repeated endlessly in bathrooms everywhere across the nation: a blind, squishy sliding through watery tubes toward a small bright spot. If there was symbolism in the journey, Lobo did not notice. If there was irony in the fact that the journey would result in only a mere moment of open-air freedom, Lobo did not care. There were many kinds of freedom. Lobo knew that, but he did not care about that either -- especially not at that moment for, at that instant, a fizz and a gurgle issued from the toilet. Beneath him, there suddenly appeared a long turd like an oily black banana.
The turd lept troutlike out of the water, smashed up against his filthy, dilated bunghole, and wriggled its way steadily inside, all the while cleansing (relatively speaking) Lobo's hairy sphincter as it passed. Once inside it paused as if collecting itself for the next phase of its climb.
With little else to do after that, Lobo peered between his legs, bored, half-mezmeriezed by the strange man-fruits growing from his trunk. A sense of anticipation subsided in him until he stood, with a sigh, hiked up his chonies and moonwalked gracefully out of the bathroom.
He found The Kid and together they went over to the nearest trash dispenser to retrieve a full compliment of greasy wrappers and empty, soggy fry boxes. Somewhat cryptically, the can bore the words "thank you", as if the trashcan itself was capable of gratitude.
Still, it was probably because the poor guy who came and tended the can was grateful to have a job. Most people working at such low-level gigs were just trying to make ends meet the best they could. He respected that. He'd done it for years himself working at the record shop -- that is until they'd fired him for playing Black Sabbath backwards and revealing the non-satanic lyrics.
"Do what you gotta do," the Kid said as they moonwalked over to their table, and spread out the paper and cartons.
"I gotta take a shit," Lobo said, "Bitch."
"Sticks and stones," the Kid said, chewing. He opening his mouth and spit out gob of half chewed burger, which formed into a delicious looking burger. He glanced at it admiringly.
"Watching you eat is like watching a hog slaughter itself," Lobo said, pulling a whole french fry from between his teeth, followed by another. His hands glimmered with fat.
The Kid spit another blob into the wrapper. Within moments, he had in his hands a fully assembled burger.
"This lettuce is yellow," the Kid said, queasily peeling open his hamburger bun.
"Mmmm," Lobo said, eyeing his now full carton of french fries. No longer were the fries a pipe dream: they were all his, baby. Every last, golden, crispy one of them. He could be nice and share, of course, but so could the Kid.
Neither one of them did.
"Well, what do you say?" the Kid said..
"You tell me, Churchboy," Lobo said, dryly.
"Grace?" the Kid said, innocently.
They both laughed.
"But not Grace," Lobo added, soberly. He would share everything he had with his pal -- everything including some women they'd known -- but not Grace. She was different. She was special, somehow. He really felt like things were moving forward with her. Still, the Kid couldn't be blamed for trying, and Lobo knew that even though Grace was a terrible tease, she would never go for a slutty guy like the Kid. Lobo knew his bitches. Lobo softened.
"What is yours is mine, amigo. Even my women," Lobo said, magnamoniously. He dredged the last gurgly strand of milkshake foam from his throat and spit it through a straw into an empty cup on the table. Then he noticed a 'certain look' in the Kid's eye.
"Mind if I have a sip? I won't use the straw." the Kid said, taking up the shake and, avoiding the straw, tilted his mouth to the cup. White ice cream gushed upward and out, half filling the cup. Lobo took it up again.
The two prattled on like that. Eventually, they moonwalked passed dozens of patiently waiting customers and went to the front of the line. One lady smiled at Lobo as he passed. She reminded him of someone he knew.
Lobo and the Kid passed the cashier their trays of food.
"Here you go," the Clerk said, handing the Kid nine dollars and seventy cents. From the back came a frenzied cacaphony of beeping microwaves, shouted orders, and steaming fryers. Clown Burger was never quiet.
"That's all I got," the Kid said wistfully.
"2 burgers, 2 fries, 1 milkshake, 1 soda -- that's nine-seventy," the Clerk said.
"Your treat, -- you owe me," Lobo said to the Kid. "I'm having a burger, fries and vanilla shake."
"And for you, Sir?" the Clerk said.
"One burger, one fry and 1 soda," the Kid said to the clerk behind the register.
After giving their order, the two young men waited patiently as several people stepped in line in front of them. Soon they were at the end, with looks of anticipation on their hungry faces.
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100 Things1. I threw my watch away in the desert. Its still there, somewhere.
2. I watched F-16s blast Hezzbolah positions as "Frankie Goes to Hollywood" played over loudspeakers. I was and am still ashamed at my elation.
3. I love disorganized dancing in dark, anonymous throngs.
4. I prefer dark complexioned women with accents.
5. I am very happily married to a fair complexioned women without an accent.
6. I shot my uncle with a shotgun. I caught myself in the same blast.
7. When I drink, I prefer small amounts quickly to large amounts slowly.
8. I am more critical of myself than anyone I know.
9. I do not believe that humans have the capacity to confirm the existence of god.
10. I prefer "Get Smart" to "I Love Lucy".
11. I've never seen even a single episode of "The Honeymooners".
12. I think Astrology is fun but should never be taken seriously.
13. The first book over 100 pages I read was "The Hardy Boys: The Tower Treasure"
14. I won back-to-back titles of the "Miss [Camp] Cisquito" contest, where girls dressed up guys and held a beauty contest.
15. I recognize the genius of the Beatles, but am sick of Beatlemania.
16. I have a guilty affection for romantic comedies.
17. The older I get, the more beautiful people become.
18. The continents intrigue me in this order: Asia, Europe, Africa, North America, South America.
19. I don't watch sports because games are more fun to play than watch.
20. I can't decide if I should take myself seriously or not.
21. Bernie Mac doesn't make me laugh.
22. There's nothing better than having the giggles but I don't get them very often.
23. I rarely finish what I start.
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The First Page of A Non-NovelWhy.
Besides.
("Besides
what, Clay?")
I dunno.
Its Emotions that govern my days more than thoughts, more than Dogmas or Beliefs. So that...
...some nights barreling down the highway with certain music playing, hopelessly manic, propelled by some Spike in lustful Appetite. You unstoppable, lost in destabilizing dreams, as if you may not always have to feel this way Alone but, moments later, down those same lanes, far away farmhouses bestride air so dense nothing at all could Ignite (& its just you and the Moon, bound by unspoken Pact: She illuminates nothing and you tend your secrets in darkness without leaving so much as a shadow to be remembered by).
...slouched in a crater on a waste of a Sunday, hating the motionless of the walls and every word the Telephone might say if it could see you where you hung it.
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Another Poem At a campfire onion and a ring of toes,
with ballerina walnut glue in the nose,
your struggle for love still unexposed,
upon the useen yonder,
you see it now in three-fifths time,
slide her down the column lime
in a cool expanse of turquoise vines,
beneath a shady pool or
placement of a single spark,
a well-placed glint of tinfoil heart,
a sandstone clock with just the part
to wind up winter’s ill.
And there you are with parchments bold,
pronouncements shivering to be told,
where you’ll wait out the revolt,
your fear of fear itself.
Cuz if she’s next, you’ll stay your hand,
Letting her win her man
But rocks and scissors don’t combine,
She’s smashing you despite it,
And all those shivery walks in sand
telephone
welcome to the new alone
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Another False StartNever fight a man named Teague. Its a policy of mine. Somehow being saddled with that name just makes men tougher and meaner. That's not to say you can't win in a dust-up, but there will certainly be blood.
Since some of my crimes are not beyond their statute of limitations, I have changed the names of people and the locations of certain events. This was not done to deceive, and otherwise my story remains true: every word of it.
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Questing & QuenchingThe primary conceit of self-awareness is an ability to find in one's existence
some measure of great, central, or even cursory importance to some
all-encompassing whole. Whether this be Fate, Karma, or an earnest belief in some
Invisible Other whose Hand (such as it may be) traces Designs in which You, the
brain hoisted above self-propelled meat, are compelled to follow (and sometimes
love, and sometimes delight in the very incruitability of, as if abstruseness
itself Proved some quality of Intention over stupid Chance...)
Where was I? Ah, yes...
Recognizing that the act of simply passing a nonsensical idea from one generation
to the next imbues it with a quality of Wisdom that no application of Reason (or
that other great habit of meat-based intelligence: forgetting) can dispell, it is
rarely of any use (and certainly of no cosmic importance) to disabuse the faithful
of their beliefs in Order, Karma, or the Transcendent Soul.
However, there are limits to what prodigious athiesm and contempt for whatever
form of ephemeral dogmatism might be in vogue that century might accomplsih. No
quanitity of animism, B'aalism, Zoroastrianism, the Jesus cult, voodoo, Kaballa,
Feng Shui, Falon Gong, Numerology, Astrology, Buddhism, Mormonism, Branch
Davidianism, Islam, etc. has ever conclusively sated the human desire to invent
new contours of importance for ourselves and our little bluegreen bean pod, yet to
individually expose the folly of each is an even more futile effort than questing
for immortality among gods.
Thus, I drink.
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Please Excuse This PostEverbody's too fucking polite all the time.
Yeah, yeah. Get it out. Snort. Chortle. Then admit it, 'cuz you know its true.
You know its true, because I'm talking about YOU.
Actually, I'm talking about me. Who else would I be talking about? Do I have to apologize for talking about myself on my own goddamn blog? If you wanted to read about someone else's life, you could pick any number of other blog's. There's a few out there. Million. I recommend ones with title's like "Kyle's Ramblings" or "My Random Thoughts".
Nothing more enticing, more promising, than reading self-described rambling. Especially when its written by 14 year old chicks in Singapore who can only write in symbols.
i.e. this excerpt from a random
blogthat turns your cursor into a teddy bear:
Sunday: Went out with Wendy in e afternoon to e Healthcare exhibition @ Suntec. But before meeting her, went shopping! It just felt soooooo good... To be able to spend money on sth that you liked for e sole purpose of pleasing yourself *giggles* Bought a pair of tie-kind of sandals & a brown skirt with string at e hem line. [Is that how it's described?] Anyhow.. M)Phosis is having sale up to 70% off!! So those who luVvvWell, I'm sorry to subject you to that. What was I rambling about? Oh yeah: over politeness.
I thank everybody for *everything*, no matter how minute.
To the clerk:
"Thank you for giving me this change. I know that you are just doing your job and there is no way you would refuse to give me my own money back -- especially when I have just chosen to patronize your store and you would be fired if you didn't. "
To my boss:
"Thank you for heaping even more work on me. I never feel fulfilled unless I have another meaningless assignment that allows me to serve you better."
To the customer service agent:
"Thank you for putting me on hold again. I'm really grateful to be treated to several more minutes of Whitney Houston and pre-recorded advertisements."
In addition to thanking people for rediculous, or obligatory transactions, I'm always feeling a necessity to excuse myself, as if my presence is a uniquely insufferable addition to the teeming mass of humanity.
To the grocery shopper in the crowded metro car:
"Excuse me for placing my eye on your baguette. I hope I have not left it sodden."
To people in the elevator:
"Excuse me for causing you to have to shift your fat ass three inches to the side so that I can exit. I do not know what I would have done if you hadn't. Probably just stood here and sweated some more."
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Welcome to the Prison WorldOne of them jabbed me with a nerve nuke. When I awoke, I had my tat. My head was scraped raw. I had a name.
They called me:
7-0-5-0-7, or "lucky" because no one with an anagram name had died yet.
Yet.
So I was told.
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Yes, But Your Mental Health is in Serious Jeopardy How to Remain Healthy:
Lately, people have been trying Atkins, a diet that says, essentially:
1. Remember how your mother always said the best way to lose weight is to eat less, excercise more and eat your veggies? Forget everything your mother said.
2. Don't avoid eating fat, just avoid eating stuff that stops you from burning fat. Bread is a good example of this.
3. People accumulate fat by leading a sedentary life: browsing web pages, sitting in cars, reading books.
4. Read my book.
Another popular diet takes a whole different approach, namely:
1. Remember how your mother always said the best way to lose weight is to eat less, excercise more and eat your veggies? Forget everything your mother said.
2. Don't avoid eating fat, just eat less, excercise more, and eat your veggies.
3. People accumulate fat by leading a sedentary life: browsing web pages, sitting in cars, reading books.
4. Read my book.
The Clay Sails diet plan involves yet a third approach:
1. Get your wife/husband to nag you mercilessly about every calorie you eat.
2. Excercise more. Especially common sense when selecting books to read.
3. Never ever ever believe the hype surrounding a fad diet. (Historical perspective, for the record: all fad diets appear to have "real scientifically proven" results. This is not a new phenomenon.)
4. Eat your veggies.
5. (This is the most important one) buy my 7781 page "How-to lose weight by using this Book". If you carry it with you and consult it before every meal, you are virtually guaranteed to lose weight.
But I am not here to promote my new, as of yet untested, weight loss plan. Hell, I am lunching on frosted donuts as I write.
I am here to tell you that yesterday I did my general health a favor by going to the doctor. Now, for those of you who do not know me, I am not going to browbeat you with statistics about how when a man gets to a certain age he requires a regular finger up the ass to ensure that he will be able to sustain a long and healthy life. First of all, I am not at that "certain age" yet (but will be at around 114), and secondly, I would prefer short, sick life to getting an annual meathook in the colon by a stranger who isn't even decent enough to wear pasties and call me "hon". (NOte: if your doctor is a fat, hairy man, this image might cause you consternation. Best just to move on.) Fortuantely, all my doctor needed to do was stare at my tongue and root around my ear for missing car keys. This ordeal was enough to justify the considerable trouble I had gone through to get to the doctor's office. Allow me to elaborate.
It has been shitty cold, icy and slushy lately. This woeful weather is supposedly anomalous in a climate that, locals *swear* is "mild". Yeah. Mild like Liza Minelli after half a bottle of pills and a 5th of scotch. "Thank god we don't live in Minnesota, they say". Chuckle chuckle. Yeah, sure. Whatever. You don't see me trying to get a spread in St. Paul now, do you?
(bastards)
At least in Minnesota when a body of water un-freezes it becomes a lake. Here in Maryland when a lake melts, it becomes...a parking lot...a highway...and, (if you're like me), the front seat of your leaky car.
Speaking of which -- the car is partly responsible for my health-minded adventure yesterday afternoon. Remember how I've been bitching lately about how expensive that little beast has become? $1000 here, $600 there. Something like $2500 in the past 8 months. Remember? What, you can't keep my rants straight? YOu only remember me bitching about the thousands I've spent recently on dental bills ($5500 in the past 2 months, no joke, including another $1500 yesterday *after* I went to the doctor...and not including the wisdom teeth he said I now need removed...which my wife assures me is ok because the less teeth I have the less cavities I will have to get filled in the future). But back to my car. My precious little 1995 Ford Escort. Turqoise. Grandma's last set of wheels, (may she RIP). A thing that has gotten a new alternator, a new radiator, a new set of tires, new brakes, new rotors and a bunch of other new stuff in the past year.
Well, two weeks ago the blower motor (i.e. the heater) broke. It just went kaput. *Pfft*. Nothing. Now it gives off no heat except for the occasional disdainful gasp of warmth that works its way naturally through the ventillation system when I'm going high speeds. Just a fuse perhaps, you ask? No. I wish. I replaced the proper fuse to no avail. Probably that means its the heater core itself -- the second most expensive repair after the transmission. Needless to say, I ignored it. Who needs a heater? I need a heater about as much as I need a kick in my fancy new teeth. Besides, when its 11 degrees outside, I can pat myself on the back that I wasn't foolish enough to acquire my frostbite in a place with a *really* cold climate (like Minnesota).
So the heater broke and I've been cold. Big deal. Absent a heater, I am cold in my car. So what. So what? Haven't you been watching the news?
There's been an ice storm the past two days. For those of you unfamiliar with the concept (I'm talking mainly to the Californians here), an ice storm is a bit like electing a movie star for governor except it comes with a massive quantity of hard-packed ice, has no star-appeal whatsoever, and cannot possibly making your state the laughingstock of even bingo addicts in Ohio. In fact, when word gets out that someone somewhere is suffering from an ice storm, people stop laughing altogether. Everyone from the Carolinas to Canada engages in one bit, collective gulp, causing tornados to form in Brazil that will eventually result in small small pacific islands being devoured by hordes of wayward butterflies.
So...cold in ice storm. You'll grant me that. Again, so what?
Well, cold is unhealthy for one and the whole point of this discussion is to demonstrate that I was healthy yesterday because I went to get (3 year out of date) annual physical. But absent a heater, a car has one other problem: it has no front defroster. Every breath I exhale, every wisp of steam from a life-sustaining warm beverage (whose succor can combat the effects of having my own personal glacier on the passenger seat floor), will materialize on the windshield in the form of opaque mist.
Which led me to a catch-22: if I rolled up the windows to build up (body) heat on the inside, steam would form that would obscure all vision and might not cut the ice anyway. If I left the window down, the inside of the car would be so cold that every single droplet of frozen rain would remain present and frozen on the outside of the window. This is exactly what happened. The instant I got onto the freeway, a carapace of ice formed on my windscreen thicker than that which formed on Hillary Clinton's thighs the instant Matt Drudge outed Monica to the world.
Yet I still had 20 miles to go, and 40 minutes get there, otherwise I'd miss an appointment I'd waited four months to get and take a day off of work to go to. If I missed it, how would I ever find out if I was healthy or not?
Reasoning thus, I did what any health conscious individual would do: I sped down the road hell-bent for leather, leaning out the window, scraping ice on the outside as I drove, blasting music to create vibrations strong enough to loosen the smaller bits of ice. I guzzled tepid coffee to sustain my inner strength, and prayed that the misty blob hovering before my eyes was not either:
a) the onset of frostbite on my iris or
b) a snow plow behind a screen of mist, glass, and ice
I paused at every stoplight to scrape (effecting an odd sort of "chinese fire drill" in which I exchanged places with myself).
Eventually I made it to the doctor's and found out that despite my stressful travail, lo! I am perfectly healthy.
I even think I lost some weight in the process.
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Well, Okay -- As Long As There’s Nothing Good on TiVo…I need to go hunting.
Yes, you heard me right. My Attorney and I have spent considerable hours hunting insects at various times. We use sticks and rocks mainly. But hunting insects is hardly sporting. Its easy enough to kill one insect, but if they want to kill you (i.e. me) they just swarm you and its over very quickly. Nor do I wish to go hunting with a rifle. Rifles are just too darn unsporting, and who likes eating deer meat anyway?
I want to go spear hunting.
I want to strip down to a loincloth, oil myself in pig fat, and face down a charging boar.
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Is This A Post?oleg lungstrom russian jazz
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If Boar Hunting Ever Gets Dull…Here's my idea.
How's abouts you mosey on down here right about four hours ago.
We'll wander endlessly among ugly cement office towers and hotels.
We'll whip up community theater for pigeons and train squirrels to dance for peanuts.
We'll snarl and ape at curious children.
We'll tape pencils together to catch boots in the Potomac.
We'll array ourselves in newspaper and shamble like mummies.
We'll demand tokens from strangers and curse vehemently their suspicious retreats.
We'll make faces in ATM cameras.
We'll stand on my hands. (Ouch. You're fat.)
We'll make fine hill ornaments, you and I, festooned to nearby grassy slopes, chins on our knees and...
...squander and piss the day away in some finer way than the fashion I have lately employed this July 6.
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A Stale Set-Up, Never Unfunny I wonder if there is a political movement celebrating militant apathy.
Maybe I should start one.
Nah.
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Here’s to You, MotherEver notice the way certain young mothers carry themselves in the presence of others? Not all of them, mind you, but a select few who appear particularly alert, alive, and attuned. There’s something in their deepened features and quickened strides, but I know not what.
Perhaps it is that they have, by birthing their own, successfully glimpsed the benchmark on their own long ago births and can, at last, measure time.
I wonder: do they find that it marches in minute increments, seconds and years? Or is it, as it seems, more likely to appear millimeter by millimeter: in the steady growth of a newborn, or the lengthening lattice of worry and laughter upon the face that, like index lines, hint at onrushing depths.
I do not know the urgency of asking such questions of these mothers, as they push past me in the underground, or at the mall, or wherever I happen to find them.
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Broken Already, and its Only MayMy Nanowrimo efforts are officially over. I gave myself an extra week because Thanksgiving week was too filled with family. I did pretty well: I think I wrote about 40 pages. My momentum has flagged a bit since I re-discovered my music studio, which has been disassembled in boxes since our big move this summer.
I more oftener get satisfaction making music over writing fiction and the two compete very strongly for my already limited free time.
On the one hand, music is immediate, tangible, and sometimes trasendental (as when, last week, I went into a hypnotic state recording bass takes over and over and over. My thoughts narrowed to nothing, my hands moved of their own accord, I saw nothing for several hours. At the end I realized that my fingers still know the bass as well as ever.)
On the other hand, music is fleeting and generally profitless. The airwaves are full of smack churned out by talentless artists and genius producer/engineers. I make songs and pieces of songs and they fall into a hole in my hard drive. If I ever collect my efforts into a CD again, the songs will just fall into a hole on other people's IPODs. This is both good and bad. In theory I am just happy to have such a satisfying hobby and I really do believe that music should be made with other goals than preserving it for the ages. In practice, a few million bucks and a license to spend all my time making hit music is quite alluring. Except that one needs to be young and clueless to break into the music industry, and I have never cared to be hip enough anyway.
And although I consider myself more of a natural musician than a natural writer, books seem to be more lasting. They are also a deeper medium. Good song lyrics (ala Dylan or Alanis) or an unforgettable melody can make you say to yourself "cool", but they can't deliver the range of emotions as well as a kickass book. Someday I'd like to pull a book out of a shelf, hand it to people and say, "here you go, now leave me alone so I can make some music."
I'm giving my writing efforts short shrift here. I think its because I've been a frustrated writer for more than half my life. This blog, in fact, represents the only "successful" thing I've ever done with words -- and that is certainly up for debate! My stories languish year after year, growing ever more cumbersome. Fresh ideas are a dime a dozen and usually worthy of a page or two before inspiration flags. Maybe I have ADD. Somebody send me pills.
But forget all the philosophy. Here are my goals for the upcoming year:
1. Finish a manuscript.
2. Complie another CD.
3. Form a band.
Maybe these are "New Years Resolutions" a month early. Maybe I should try to accomplish these things before New Years. THAT would be a challenge...
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Step Aside P-Diddy, Its M.C. JitterfingerI spew typos like south sea volcanos spew crispy virgins.
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Query Me ThisIf you had to be a smurf which one would you be and why.
If you had to be a flavor of ice cream "
Have you ever killed anything larger than a bug on purpose
If you knew you were to be murdered, how would you want to die.
Would you like to know the date of your death in advance.
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Dead Presidents Make SplashWent to the spa town of Berkeley Springs, West Virginia this weekend.
Didn't "take the waters" like you're supposed to when you're at places like that. I love natural springs, but only hot ones. The "medicinal value" of "spring water" is complete crap. Unless it is polluted, water is water. Sure, some is higher in various minerals, some is lower. Big deal. One banana has more minerals in it than ten gallons of water.
My wife pointed out that in the old days people rarely bathed and probably had lice and drank polluted water, so spring water probably was healthier.
George Washington bathed there. No joke. They have a little tub of luke warm water that he used to wash off in. The thought of George Washington's lice floating in that little pool was enough to make me queasy.
Folks are trying to turn Berkeley Springs into a yuppie hideaway (like Sonoma or Sedona or Vale). They won't succeed. West Virginia is inordinately resistant to new forms of wierdness. That's partly why I like it. Plus old spas have lives of their own not subject to the momentary conceits of any particular generation.
This is partly why I am attracted to them: to their heavy limestone bathhouses, their inevitable photo displays of ham-armed beauties in the 20s, rotting taxidermy displays. Such places truly are fonts, not of medicinal water, but of an even more powerful potion: optimism. The belief that something transformational can be found taking a holiday to a wet crack in the ground. Belief more reliant upon hope than healing...so much so, and with such proven results that any distinction between them blurs until they flow seemlessly together. All the hopes of dead presidents and celebrities who travelled there, the wounded veterans, the tired holidaymakers and family men; all the moonlit trysts in secret swimming holes and toppled ice cream cones, lapped up by opportunistic dogs but still longed for (years later) by toddlers (now teens, now adults, now gone)...these form not a spring but a flood and the channel is no tiny, stone-lined bank but time itself.
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A Wedding, Revisited?We blew out into the San Joaquin around noon Friday. I owed Unbreakable a knife to replace the one that slipped down a latrine during a drunken fish-gutting demonstration in Yosemite (see my post from August 26, 2003), so we had big plans for hitting a mall or a blacksmithy on the way to Tahoe. Instead we hit Sacramento traffic and so much wildfire smoke that visibility was reduced to a few hundred feet. Not that there was much to see: the San Joaquin Valley is a flat, dusty waste full of impoverished agricultural villages and junk cars. Sactown, as Sacramentans like to call that slice of dubious paradise, has some nice downtown areas and certainly isn't as shitty as Fresno or Modesto, but its still an undeniable hole. No disrespect intended. (heh) The smoke just accentuated the normal vast quantities of airborne particulates, toxic pollutants, aerosols, ozone and pesticides that typically obscure the sun. Coupled with the bloated grapefruit sun, it heightened the sense that we were closing in on some apocalyptic locale out of Burrough's "City of the Red Night". In reality, we were heading to a wedding.
We climbed past Sac and up into the dry western foothills of the Sierras. We stopped at Donner Pass to read signs about a group of Mormons or other pioneers who ate each other one winter in the 1840s. By the time we left, I was quite hungry. Nervous at the way I was looking at her, so she dropped me off at a gas station to procure chile picante corn nuts (available, apparently, only in California).
We dropped into the Tahoe basin only to discover that its usual vast, pristine blue was nowhere to be found. Instead, there was a brown layer of smoke even thicker than we'd found in the valley. Even though neither Unbreakable nor Magic Fingers are the sort of people to let trivialties like a cloud of choking smoke ruin their party, I began to get nervous. Wedding days are stressful even for the most easygoing of people, and can be quite fragile.
But my nerves were uwarranted. From the moment we arrived until the moment we slipped out early Sunday morning, everything went well. The wedding was held at a wooded lodge with several sleeping cabins and a large main hall. Unbreakable & M.F. had assembled the usual cast of characters: their respective parents & step-parents, ex-private eyes (myself and Unbreakable's uncle), a transvestite or two, the son of a diplomat, a few aloof teenagers, and several kids hopped up on hormones and Diet Pepsi. There were also many friends of mine, including my Attorney & Amber, the Captain, AirMark & Amy, and, of course, the enigmatic and prenially lovely M., whom I dated for several years but have not heard from in years since a brief summernight conversation in which she described evolutionary methods of inducing insanity in ants and the scientific value of pesticide bombing trees in Borneo.
The first night we knocked off a healthy quantity of good scotch, tapped a few kegs, played ping pong & pool, and wound up forming what my Attorney likened his "Cracker Harem" owing to the fact that he (a descendent of Persian royalty) suddenly found himself in a hot tub with five scantily-clad white boys, a quantity of cheap cigars, and much intoxicating booze.
Sometime around 3 a.m. my Attorney and I shuffled off to the room we were sharing (with our women), whereupon in the semi-somnolent silence he became possessed by a sudden and very uncontrollable Fit. The trigger for this episode came in the form of a relatively mundane, if keenly audible, fart. Somehow, the wrongness of breaking silence by breaking wind in such a small, public space occupied by two women and one's chum inspired him to release in accompanyment a tiny giggle, which cut its own path through the still morning air. I returned somewhat nervously, less I become implicated in this sordid and juvinile enterprise. That did it. The wrongness of giggling after such a fart compounded the wrongness of the loosing it to begin with and only increased the hillarity. He laughed a bit louder. I found myself unable to refrain from doing the same. All hell broke loose. Soon we were bellowing and laughing with absolutely no restraint, much to the amazement and (I daresay) astonishment of the ladies in the room. Their stunned silence -- so effective at stunting impending zaniness when accompanied by visual cues -- was worthless since the room was quite dark. We were forced, instead, to *imagine* the exponentially increasing trouble we were by the minute finding ourselves in. In the way of similar Fits since time immemorial, the enforcement of self-restraint only resulted in pregnant silences, which were soon filled with resumed and (if possible) even more vigorous laughter. This lasted perhaps twenty minutes or so. Needless to say, I blame my Attorney entirely. He was under much pressure as a result of his being (did I mention?) the officiant of the wedding the very next day.
The wedding took place on the lawn in the late afternoon as the sun was failing. A row of pumpkins served to delineate the aisle. The audience sat respectfully in folding chairs. I had been under the impression, up until the previous day, that my role in this wedding was confined to:
a) giving moral support to the participants
b) ensuring that the booze supply did not exceed allowable quantities for a party
Upon arrival I learned that Unbreakable's request that I "say something" meant that I was to speak in defense of the union during the ceremony proper. (Yes: "say something" was the sum total of the instruction/explanation I received on the subject, despite U.B.'s protestation otherwise). Nevertheless, it went well. Whereas mailaway ministers can sometimes lack either the intimacy or the professionalism required of such a service, my Attorney (Reverand of the Universal Life Church) lacked neither. The service included testaments from three members each of the bride and groom's friends/family (of which I was a member on the groom's side), and
when we'd had our peace, the Bride and Groom said their homemade vows to one another. I know what you're thinking: homemade vows = automatic cheese. But you would be wrong. They had each secretly written their vows and delivered them with a tenderness and unselfconscious I would not myself have been able to muster. The bride, who despite proclaiming an acute shyness has ever been possessed by a most remarkable quantity of public courage, sang a song to the groom. Again, normally brides and grooms singing to one another at a wedding = cheese, but this was very tender and successful. By the end of the vows, there was not a dry eye in the place. The Reverand had to dab his eyes with his bible (or maybe it was the latest paperback from Donald Westlake) in order to see enough to conclude the service.
Then people did something with candles as they processed out (I mean in), and we let the real gluttony begin. There was even more fine whiskey to be sampled, and much pot luck food. There was a dance contest in which my affected striptease beat out the bride's brother's worm. There was the bride's stepdad who thought it would be more fun to make the group wait to give toasts while he sat on the couch and watched the end of a football game (that he could barely tear himself away from in order to get photographed for the pictures). There were hundreds of individualized cakes baked to order by the bride and groom (note: this is *insane*. Never try it.).
Eventually we all ended up back in the hot tub again but this time with numerous women, a suave Cubano, the Bride and Groom, several IT programmers, and at a bottle of champaigne. Somebody suggested that we make more toasts and swig from the community bottle. Three hours and as many bottles of champaigne and wine later, the damage had been done. Somehow during the extravaganza, a toast was made to my nipples, somebody toasted artifice, another person squares or parolellograms (I forget which). A few of the booze bottles had become partially refilled with a new form of sweet intoxicating liquor that might be dubbed "agua de tub water". Over the course of the evening, we managed to squeeze a record number of people (perhaps 12?) into a 6 person hot tub. It was a gas.
Sometime well after midnight I bade the revellers adieu (as we would have to leave before dawn the next morning) only to find that not only my wife, but also my ex-girlfiend M. had somehow heeded the rallying cry of the Captain in his everlasting fight against the Dread Pirate Booze. They had all become marooned upon a solitary couch, beneath a single blanket, and were listening to the Captain's numerous enchanting war stories. Moments after sighting this strange and uncharted shore, I, too found myself snuggled up on that couch, shivering from the water and the mountain air. Despite the very real possibility that my presence would disrupt the strange solidarity developing between my wife and my ex, for a few moments I was simply content to be warm and in the presence of three very important people in my life. As we spun our stories up, somebody (perhaps me) put in my CD "King of the Hobos" which my Attorney had brought and I never heard it sound so good. As "Leaving Cheyenne" came on I suddenly realized that its plaintiveness matched my mood exquisitely. I'd be leaving all my good friends before sun came up. This wedding, which I had looked forward to for so long, was over and had ended well... Just as I was beginning to feel nostalgic, my Attorney stumbled in, offered some timely but unmemorable comic relief, praised my voice on "New Madrid", and stumbled out again (sensing some sort of unfathomable drama involving ex-girlfriends and wives). This reminded the group on the couch how just minutes prior to my arrival the groom's intoxicated brother had stumbled drunkenly out of the hot tub and onto the floor in front of them. Nude. With his thingy (he publically calls "The General") hanging out. Whereupon he collected his dignity and stumbled into a nearby shower. With that charming image newly etched into the brain, it was off to bed for us.
Next morning we passed the Captain and M. who had retired from the couch to the hot tub. We said our goodbyes, and headed down the mountaint to Reno. We ate Denny's served up by a dynamo that resembled a woman but operating at such a hyperkinetic level so early in the morning that she could only have been a machine. I checked in my new gun (this being the fourth time out of four trips to California I'd somehow come into the possession of a firearm), and off we went in a cloud of smoke.
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The Wisdom of A [Lapsed] Cannibal“It is meaningless -- all of it, everything -- if you take the long view. Everything we've ever done is just as unimportant as everything we will ever do, in the grand scheme of things. That's why the grand scheme of things sucks, and should be ignored. It's a question of focus, and context, and emphasis. Squint until you see only the portion of the universe that you can do something about, and live there.” [read more of him on
Glassmaze]
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