I was going to go and post on this here blog that I was going to be a lame-ass and do nothing to celebrate New Years...but the only friend that reads this thing on a regular basis (why, hello there!) beat me to the punch and now it seems so lame to do that even...dammit.

The thing is, I don't care about New Years, I really don't. What's there to care about really? To me, it's just an excuse to get falling down drunk mid-week, but I could do that any time. Instead, I obsess about stupid things like which of the parties that I'm invited to am I going to be at when the ball drops, what I'm going to be drinking, and the doozy of how it sucks that I don't have a girlfriend to kiss when the clock strikes twelve...it's all lame, I know, but it's unneccesary worrying that has no purpose other than the fact that sometime some guy or two or three decreed that the year shall begin on the stroke of twelve on January the First. Whatever.

Some people really get into it, some people see it as a chance to renew their lives and make positive changes. That's cool, but it just doesn't work for me. Every day is a chance to do all of that stuff and it is just plain silly to get all excited about such an arbitrary point in time. I don't know, I'm a party pooper, I know, but it's all good. I'll probably go out, dance, and kiss a bunch of semi-friends and total strangers, and get drunk enough that I show up at work on New Years Day still drunk. Or maybe I won't. Who knows.

But for those out there that do care...Happy New Years.

Last night was bad...first, I started talking a bit about my step-father with a friend but the conversation got cut short for some reason and so the thought was floating around in my head and I had to get it out. Hence the posting below. Secondly, it was one of those nights where you drink a tad too much and you start dreaming wierd dreams, tripping really. Between the two, I had a scary dream that just sort of piled up all my "troubles" (in quotation marks because they're not necessarily troublesome -- just those things that I have been thinking too much about lately) into one big, wierd storyline that involved a burning school bus, people trying to shoot me while I delivered pizzas on a bicycle, and then some big house with walls covered with post-it sorts of notes dealing with all the overly-critical thigns I have said to friends and family in the past. It woke me up, well, the bladder thing did too, but that brings me to my point...

In all of that craziness, I went to the bathroom but as I was washing up I got this paranoid idea that it was possible that an alien could be standing outside the bathroom door when I opened it. It wasn't that I thought that there was definitely going to be one or even that it was remotely likely, but that there could be one. It caused me to hesitate in opening the door...it honestly did. I have no idea what was up with that.

I just think that that's hilarious and a damn good example of the the perils that come with drinking. As Nancy Reagan told us in the eighties: Just say no.

I just realized that in each entry on this blog, every paragraph but the first is justified. That's wierd...and I don't know if it's on purpose. Oh well, hopefully I can get back to sleep. nighty-night.

I got reminded of my step-father tonight...I wasn't going to write in my blog, because I need sleep, but if I don't get this off my chest, I won't be able to sleep. Bare with me. In any case, I haven't seen the man in a year, year and a half. It's not that I don't care about the guy, it's that he doesn't seem to care, or at least doesn't seem to care enough to reach out and give me a call or anything. We kept up, meeting now and then, for the first year or so after my Mom died, but he's just too wrapped up in things, or too something to call. I don't know.

If I ramble or something, it's because I've had too much to drink, I should be honest about that...I may erase this the first chance I get.

Anyway, three years and some odd months ago my Mom died. It was tragic for us all, but my step-father couldn't handle it alone, I guess, and so he hooked up with another woman right away. He said that it was because her husband had died earlier in the year (which he did) and that they "understood each other" and what they were each going through. Mind you, this bothered me, tremendously, at first because of the fact that he was "seeing" someone else (even though he contended that it wasn't anything like that, that they were "just friends"), but later on because of something else, or a couple somethings I guess. First off, this woman became his sense of happiness. He couldn't be happy himself, he could only be happy in confiding in and mutually dealing with the issues of losing his "soulmate" with someone else that had gone through the same thing. He became a shell of a human being. He lived his life in "happiness" by being in denial of his loss by sharing his grief with another person. Instead of just coping, instead of allowing himself to heal, instead of allowing himself to fully grieve, he tried to replace that hurt with another person. In doing so, he wasn't allowing himself to fully absorb the tragedy, the pain, and the loss, instead sitting around and talking with someone else who had lost someone and instead trying to help them cope with their problems (that person using my step-father for the same purpose). Under the guise of "healing" they tried to form something new by pushing all that they had to deal with aside. They thought that what they were doing was healthy, they thought what they were experiencing was something more than friendship. Instead, it was nothing more than co-dependent bullshit. "I hurt and you hurt, let's make out" is not cool. Pushing aside the hurt and the pain by hooking up with someone else who's gone through the same thing doesn't "help" in the long run, it may mask the pain, maybe push it aside, maybe honestly make you feel better for the time-being, but in the end it is hurtful and phoney. Plastic: pure, unadulterated polyetheline. A farce. Happiness is deeper than that, and true Love is three-thousand times deeper than that yet. But they decided that it was best for both of them...and I played along whether or not they knew that it was not good for them in the long run. As far as I know, they're still together living a sham of a love life.
The other thing that gets to me about the whole thing is that in his dependency upon her for his happiness, he gave up everything else in his life. For awhile there was an attempt to keep in touch with me and others in the family, but that soon faded. He needed his new "girlfriend" for his survival, he needed her to be happy, he needed her just to wake up in the morning. Instead of dealing with life as it had presented itself to him, instead of dealing with fate and the loss of love, he had to shroud himself in her. Gradually, nothing became nearly as important as her. Spending time with his friends and family and everyone else became a far second cry to spending time with her. He became hooked on the "happiness" (co-dependent and fake though it was) that she brought him (which was nothing more than a mere coping mechanism and pain-reliever) and it became such that nothing else mattered. Fuck his friends, fuck his family, he and she forever and ever amen -- there was no need, no room, for anything else in the end -- this became his creed. Any time spent away from her was a time of unhappiness because it meant that he was forced to open his eyes to the world and cope with reality instead of basking in the warm glow of mutual hardship, sadness, and loss. And so he slowly walked out of our lives.
At first I understood, problems with his "finding someone new" aside, I thought it was good for him to find someone else that had gone through the same things, who truly understood what he was going through. But then it became too much. Life, for him, lost meaning outside of her and he died inside. The man that married my mother became someone other than himself -- a co-dependent sycophant that had to leach off of the misery and "love" of another. He thought that he was "in love", that they were placed in each others' lives by God so that they could help each other cope with their problems, that what they shared was deep and meaningful. To some extent, I could see that, I guess, but the thing is, there are millions and millions and millions of people that go through the exact same thing every year. There are billions that go through the lesser, though still hurtful, experience of breaking up, divorcing, or otherwise losing touch with the most important people in their lives. It's a common thing, it really is...but he latched on to her because she was the best available thing at the time, because she had her arms open, because they were already friends and it became too involved -- to the point where they needed to pretend that they were in love, or would eventually fall in love, in order to keep each other. And the thing is, I think they both really felt that there was something really there. But he could have gone to anyone for support...I would have helped him, my Uncle would have helped him, the people in his church would have helped him, reading any one or two of a gazillion books dealing with that sort of shit, fiction or not, would have helped him and he would have realized that he was not alone just that simply instead of having to fuck up his entire life -- estranging himself from those that cared about him -- just because she was pretty and she "understood" and they were friends. That is absolutely no basis for a relationship. None, zip, zero. Love should be the center of all relationships -- not sympathy or lust or confusion or hurt or pain or advice or a warm body or any of that, but Love. And the thing is, those things are often confused for Love, as is the case with my step-father.
I speak from experience, and I myself have passed the tests that these trappings present to us all in life. Shortly after my Mom died I too was offered this sort of relationship with a girl who, months earlier, had experienced the death of her sister. I said no because I knew that it would only push away the pain for so long, making it bigger in the end, and that it was destined to be a shallow relationship based in nothing deeper than sympathy, pity, and mutual compassion. We were friends before, sure, that's usually where it begins, but to bump that friendship to something more would have done nothing for either of us short of hurting us in the end when we found that all that was holding us together was the fact that we both had experienced similar rough times in life. We were not alike enough to be more than friends (alike enough to be friends, good friends, but nothing more): we had totally different personalities, personas, and everything else that is necessary to makes a deep relationship work. Sure, we would have been "happy" together, but it would have been a fake happiness that would have worn out over the years leaving us both more hurt than we were in the beginning. Sometimes pain is a learning experience and though it may hurt -- a lot -- it's something that you have to do to move on in life (I'm reminded suddenly of the Biblical story of Job).
I am glad that I passed that test, because it is the one thing in my romantic life that I can be proud of, the only test that I have passed (to much credit that it's one of the few that has been offered to me...but that's a different story). Too many people fall into that trap, the world is full of co-dependent and rebound relationships -- some that have gone on too long, but none that end happily -- where both people wrap themselves up in each other because it's the only thing that brings them happiness...it's the only thing that can push off the demons that at some point they have to fight in order to be truly happy. My step-father one of them.
He did not pass that test and he has more or less ruined everything else in his life as the result. We tried to stop him, because we all saw it coming, but he wouldn't listen...he was "happy" and that's what mattered and he knew what was good for himself and blah blah blah...bullshit. Now I'm minus a step-father and though I'd pick up the torch where he dropped it in his co-dependent stuper if he was willing to offer the chance, I am the exception to that rule (being a good person and all), he has effectively lost all else in his life in his compulsive search for meaning and happiness...

All of a sudden I have to see Pinocchio. I haven't seen reviews for a movie this bad since Battlefield Earth, and I loved Battelefield Earth. There's just something about horribly bad movies that brings a bit of sunshine to my life. I'm doing some reading of reviews at rottentomatoes.com and this is the best line yet:

From the New York Times (registration required to read the entire review): How Many Actors Does It Take to Make a Log Talk? It's an oddity that will be avoided by millions of people, this new "Pinocchio." Osama bin Laden could attend a showing in Times Square and be confident of remaining hidden.

United States: Reports of Torture of Al-Qaeda Suspects (Human Rights Watch Press release, New York, December 27, 2002) — The Bush administration must promptly investigate and address allegations of torture of suspected al-Qaeda detainees or risk criminal prosecution, Human Rights Watch said today. In a letter to President George W. Bush, Human Rights Watch said it was “deeply concerned” by allegations made in the Washington Post that detainees had been subjected to torture or other forms of mistreatment while in U.S. custody in Afghanistan or while held by U.S. allies.

I was writing about the resiliency of the human spirit the other night while working on my book. In that case, it had to do with the way that people rebounded very, very quickly after the plane that we were all on almost ended up cartwheeling down the runway on landing. However, I find it even more true in my own life as of late in that two weeks ago, I was moping about and couldn't care less about anything, and then suddenly everything came into focus and I felt much, much better. Today, I feel good, as I have for the last two weeks. I feel as though I was able to battle my demons and win, or at least accept the fact that some demons are not something that I can fight as they are part of being human, which is as good as beating them in my book. I feel now like I could take on the world if I felt so inclined, and in that feeling I have been able to do a lot of writing these past few days (on average, 2000 words or more on my book in addition to everything that I post here and other short stories and essays that I have been finding myself writing)...I'm seriously thinking that I will have a rough 60,000+ manuscript done by the end of January, something that I can then work on to clean it up and then try to find a publisher or agent or just publish excerpts in zines and hope that someone important reads it and wants to see the rest of it. (or maybe some publisher out there reads this blog and would like to see it...wink, wink).

In any case, I find it incredible that I have been able to do an about face on my take on life and see things in such a more beautiful light. For the first time in months, a year even, I feel alive and I honestly can't wait to see what tomorrow holds...I couldn't say that for so long. It kills me because I don't really understand what changed in my life, nothing substatntial that I know of did at least, it's just that things "clicked". Maybe I gave up some sort of idea that I needed to control fate or something, maybe I just allowed pragmatism to re-enter my worldview enough to balance out hope and dreams. I don't know...but it feels really, really good.

This is scary. If it's true, I fear that we have stepped beyond any line ever drawn in the sand of bioethics...first, the fact that experimenting is being done on a human being, second that human being's purpose in life is nothing more than an experiment, and third we are playing God on the most intimate of levels -- creating life.

Group Claims Creation of First Human Clone (TechNews.com) Randall Prather, a reproductive biotechnology professor at the University of Missouri, said an independent expert not named by Clonaid would be essential to conduct DNA fingerprinting to determine the baby is in fact a clone.
"Is it possible in humans? Potentially. Have we seen problems with cloning domestic animals? Yes. Do we understand what causes those problems? No. Therefore we shouldn't do it," Prather said.

Lucky bastard...but then, I hope that he keeps true to his plans for the money. If he does, I'd almost have to consider him a hero. It's cool when good things happen to good people.

Yahoo! News - West Virginia Man Wins $315 Million Lottery Jackpot A millionaire construction company owner claimed a $112 million lottery prize on Thursday, a Christmas gift he said he would share with his church, his family and his business to put employees back to work.

Sporting a trademark black cowboy hat, 55-year-old Andrew "Jack" Whittaker, Jr., was handed an oversized check by lottery officials in Charleston, West Virginia, and said: "I can take this money and do a lot of good with it.

creepy...

United Press International: Jordanian doctors remove 'fetus' from baby AMMAN, Jordan, Dec. 26 (UPI) -- Jordanian doctors have reportedly extracted a fetus from a girl who was only recently one herself, a 10-day-old infant who now occupies a strange and rare place in medical history.

In my procrastination of posting any more essays on such matters as love and truth and yada yada yada, I am going to waste time in posting something else. A few weeks ago, NPR spent some time bringing in authors and others to share with the listeners the "books that changed their lives" meaning those books that either made them get into writing or somehow changed their view of the world or otherwise, well, changed their lives. I meant to do the same for myself here on this blog at that time, but for whatever reason, I didn't. So now I am. With explanations as to why I include them. And short, incomplete sentences.

1) The single most important book to me would more than likely be Walden by Henry David Thoreau. I have worn out more copies of it than any other book (except my yearly need to purchase a new dictionary). Walden taught me the need for independence, the lack of need of material possessions, and the wonderment of short, excedingly profound, snippets that can say as much in ten words as could have been in ten sentences. Walden is the first work of Philosophy that I read and understood to be philosophy (though some would not regard it as such) and is a large reason for why I majored, and fell in love, with the subject in school.

2) The Catcher in the Rye by J.D. Salinger helped to mold my voice when I write. I feel most comfortable in that sort of casual speak that Salinger expresses through Holden. Of course, part of that has to do with Holden's age, but it also has to do with the subject matter which I also find invigorating. To follow a young man explore himself so completely over the course of a few short days helps bring insight to my own life. Holden is a dreamer in a world that doesn't really cater to dreamers and that's definitely something that has helped me through some of the more rough patches of my life.

3) Ecclesiastes is the one book of the Bible that I can turn to in my times of need in order to feel good about life without feeling as though I'm being talked down to or told stories to make me feel good. It is the most straight-forward and honest book of the Bible and is beautifully written. Furthermore, it has taught me that life is meaningless, utterly so, if I take for granted and accept only those things which exist "under the Sun". There is more to life than stuff and love and money and, well, everything material and immaterial. There are things beyond us -- Platonic Forms, truth, God, whatever your heart wants to call them -- and those are the things that bring life meaning.

4) The Jungle by Upton Sinclair has taught me the value of human life and the way that that value is exploited by those that can do so. Through the plights of a single immigrant family, Sinclair wrote about the strife of the labor class, the tyrrany of the rich upon the poor, and the power that money has above all things worldly. It has also taught me that meat is yucky.

5)The Economic and Philosophic Manuscripts of 1844 by Karl Marx was written well before Das Kapital and therefore offers only a little glimmer of his more influentual economic theory. EPM instead examines the way that money affects human existence and how it changes us. It is, in some aspects, an exploration into the nature of money, but I read it as an exploration of the human species -- our purpose and our folly. It is by far the most "existential" of Marx's work and weirdly poetic in its style. Passion is something that I love to read in philosophy -- something the early Marx was not short of.

6)Brave New World by Aldous Huxley is my favorite fictional work of all time. The more commonly discussed issues of cloning and helicopters aside, I find it a fascinating look into the role of pain and suffering as giver of meaning in life. Paradise would be boring and meaningless, but it is the downs that give the ups in our lives so much joy. Furthermore, I find the explorations into the role of money playing such a huge role in the Utopian society presented (praise Ford) to be telling of the direction that our society is headed.

7)Into the Wild by Jon Krakauer is a study into the life of a young idealist by the name of Christopher McCandless who sold and burned all of his worldly possessions and hit the road in order to live life to its fullest. I identify with the kid as he was also huge into writers like Thoreau, Dostoevski, and Tolstoy and also because our lives have shared tracks much of the way so I found it to be a sort of study into my life and the dangers that dreaming without a touch of pragmatism thrown in for good measure can bring about.

Well, those are the "biggies" I guess. Don't get me wrong, there are many, many other books that I have read that have brought me joy and introspection, but I think that these seven have advanced my life more than any of those others. In any case, I just wanted to throw those out there perhaps to give some ideas to those of you that may be looking for a good read (after exchanging gifts and all). Again, I have put the comment thingy back on this blog so if anyone wants to discuss, add their own, whatever, feel free to do so.
5)

I don't get this, what kind of complaints did Wal-Mart receive? It seems like a bunch of BS to me. Of course, my problem with it is that Wal-Mart does this all too often. It "doesn't like" a product and so forces the producer to either change it or have it taken off the shelves nation-wide. This is especially troublesome with books and music and other forms of artistic, free-speach, expressions. Considering that if Wal-Mart is successful in a community, especially a small community, it has already effectively shut down all other outlets for such products (if you don't know the schtick, check out this site) thus leaving the citizens of the community with no option but the censored one. I don't care, but sometimes the violent, crude, or sexual is important in expressing one's inner torment or whatever it is that is forcing an artist to produce. I don't know, I just hate Wal-Mart I guess.

Wal-Mart pulls pregnant Midge doll. - Dec. 25, 2002 -- World's No. 1 retailer takes doll set with pregnant mom off shelves after customer complaints.

Well, I'm taking a break from watching the Lord of the Rings Special Edition because I want to make good on a promise I made last weekend. 'Twas a simple request, one that I give a shout-out on this here blog for someone. It would be easy to just keep it simple and say "hey you" or whatever, but no, I am too much into overdoing things, keeping the thing alive, being overdramatic. I could eaily just say it and leave it at that, but I would actually rather make a huge production out of it. It seems appropriate in a way, and I don't really mind -- I don't think Frodo does either, even though he's been engulfed by the screen-saver by now I'm sure -- so it's really kind of fun.

Playfulness is something that is not so acceptable in our society, as far as I can tell. It is "immature" or whatever, but I could care less. I'm a kid at heart, I readily admit that and if people can't accept it, they can bite me. I just like playing games, beng cute, and building forts in the woods...there's nothing wrong with that is there? I think this friend accepts that about me, if she even realizes that I am half as playful as I really am (since much of what she thinks of me has come from the last three or four months, the "morose-mother-fucker era" as it will go down in my personal history). That's cool.

But anyway, back to the shout-out, I don't even have any idea what to say really. Do I say "what's the story morning glory?" and risk having my relating it to morning tumiscience come back at me? Do I use her real name and threaten the anonymity of this blog for me and her? Or do I relate her to the buttercup, for she has built me up and never calls me when she says she will, at least when it comes to kareoke? Nah...I'll just go back to the ol' Woody Allen movie and the name she picked for herself when signing my guestbook (a thing more people need to do by the way) and just say, simply (not to mention finally):

What's up Tiger Lily?

Well, it is finally Christmas. It is finally that one day of the year when hope is not ridiculed, peace is not a pipedream, and Love is not frowned upon. It is the one day of the year that kindness is the norm and the human spirit is allowed to reign supreme. It is a day of family and friends, a day for children and the young at heart, a day to reflect on all that life has brought to us in the past year. It is the day to give thanks for all that is good and to promise to do more good in the year to come.

Christmas is often overdone. Too many get all wrapped up in gifts (the pun there being a gift from me to you), parties, and hoopla and never really get into the true meaning of the season. But I do believe that come Christmas morning most people are blessed with a repreave from all of that garbage and instead see it for the message of peace, understanding, joy, and Love that has been intended from its beginning. I believe that we all have that spark of childish wonder and hope and innocence inside our hearts and that there is something magical about the day that releases that spark, if only for the day.

It is the only day that I do not feel so alone. The only day that I truly realize that I am not the only dreamer left in this world. It is the one day that I have no fear about where my life is headed or the future of this world. It is the one day, if there is any, that we are all truly equal.

It is Christmas, God bless us everyone.

Okay, so I spent the last hour and a half re-inserting the code to include comments once again...it seems that enetation was off-line or something and I had forgotten what I had done to take it my blog a few months ago. Anyway, feel free to comment on any of my posts using it. I don't hear from enough people that read this thing (two people lately, that's all)...it makes me feel unwanted :( jk.

This makes me sick, for one thing, until four months ago I lived about two blocks from there. Secondly, Papa John's still won't listen to me when I say that we shouldn't deliver to this neighborhood. I love working for a place that puts their profits over my safety...if people that read this want to boycott Papa John's for being evil, go right on ahead. I sure as hell will never give them my (paid) business.

Police identify suspect in deadly car attack Detectives have identified a suspect in a weekend shooting that killed a teen-ager and wounded a man on Grand Rapids' Southeast Side.

Police hoped to meet with Kent County prosecutors today to obtain a warrant for the man, whose name was not released, said Capt. Kevin Belk.
He said officers are looking for the suspect, who apparently knew the victim, Kamar Raynard Merriweather, 18, of Grand Rapids.
Merriweather's body was found around 6:40 p.m. Saturday in the front seat of a white Cadillac in the 1200 block of Dunham Street SE. He was shot in the head, police said.

Oh man, I am so incredibly conflicted on this. I so want it to be true, but something tells me that it isn't...oh the jokes I could make. The jokes. Man...

Ananova - Woman shot in chest but saved by silicone implants A Brazilian woman, shot in crossfire between police and drug dealers, was saved by her silicone breast implants.
Doctors said the silicone had slowed the bullet up enough to prevent it from causing her a serious injury.

I don’t know why, but I got myself thinking of Voltaire’s Candide tonight, specifically the line “best of all possible worlds”. It got me thinking about the role that contentment plays in our lives, the way that we so often settle for things the way they are, or at least accept them to the point where maybe we don’t strive for better, instead conceding that the way things are is the best things are going to get. Or maybe we just get frustrated and give up. I don’t know.

I say “we” in order to be congenial to those that might read this, because I think that maybe that is what sets me apart from the masses, or at least is much of the thing that sets me apart. I do not settle for “good enough”, I always strive, I always fight, I always am trying to improve my situation in life.

I was in the gas station the other day when the clerk asked the man before me how he was doing. “I’m working, and I guess I have to if I ever want to be happy” he replied with the obvious tone that he did not love his job or have any feelings about it in that direction. And the thing is, I think most people are like that about most things. A lot of people work jobs just so that they can make ends meet, they get no joy out of it or whatever, they are, as was sang back in the 80’s “working for the weekend”. Maybe, like me, it is a short-term thing until thy can go to school or until the economy picks up and people start hiring again, but I think most people just assume that that’s the way life goes. And it isn’t just in work.

I see so many people dating and marrying people just because they figure they can’t find better, for whatever reason giving up even the opportunity to look around, even though something better would be there if only they’d open their eyes. I see people go to Church just because it’s easy to follow some regiment of religious dogma rather than search out for their own answers in life, even though their hearts will let them in on the secrets if they’d just take a leap of faith. I see people shrug off the way they’re treated for the vainest of reasons – ethnicity, sexuality, gender, religion, creed – and then just shrug it off as “that’s the way life goes” and never think twice of doing so. I see people vote for “the lesser of two evils” not even looking into the platforms of the other two hundred and some odd candidates that are running in the same election. I see people overlook chances of betterment of whatever kind just because they’re so wrapped up in excuses of their current situation that they’re completely oblivious to alternatives. I see people give up all that they believe just because it’s easier that way and they have the attitude of “hey, it works, and it’s not hurting me at all, why should I bother trying to fix it?” It’s all over the place in every facet of human existence, in every corner of so many peoples’ lives. And to top it all off, they pass off that contentment to themselves as being true happiness, whether on purpose or not, lying to themselves about themselves.

It’s like shopping for a home, you look and you look and you look and finally give in, even though it’s nothing even close to your dream home, not because you’re expectations are too high, they may even be humble, but because you’re sick of looking or somehow justify in your mind that that fixer-upper is in some way better than what you’ve been dreaming of from the time you were six.

I don’t understand that mentality. As long as there’s a chance, even a snowball’s chance in Hell, that I can make things better, I go for it, I take that risk. Maybe that’s foolish and naïve, but I could never live with myself knowing that I could have done better at some step in life’s journey but instead chose to settle for convenience and what was easy. Decisions, especially ones of love, life, and faith, are life-long and not easily changed, makers and breakers of the life you have always wanted to live, not things to be compromised and shrugged off. Certainly, the chances of making mistakes are greater – bridges, as they say, will almost inevitably be burned at some point – but the payoffs, if and when they occur, are gloriously grander than what that fear of failure could even begin to cast a shadow upon.

I could kick back and cultivate the garden that is before me, and it would be a grand garden indeed, but I know, or at least have a very strong feeling, that there’s more for me out there, bigger gardens, farms even, that I can dig my hands in the dirt of and be content. Truly content. Truly happy. There’s no need to settle for second best, or third best, or fourth best, ad infinitum. Strive for the best in everything that you do, force yourself to take chances, risks, and at some point they will pay off. That’s what I keep telling myself, and that is what I am now sharing with you, dear reader. I’m starting to believe it for myself, and it’s opening up whole new worlds for me.

It's Christmas time and we all know what that means: crass sonsumerism. Yeah, in today's world the Christmas season has many reasons -- from buying stuff to celebrating the birth of Jesus and time with family -- but somewhere in that hierarchy of meaning a bit lower than presents and tad higher than Jesus is the beauty of the human spirit that shines so true during this time of year, especially on the roads...in lieu of not wanting to write anything else (or for the fact the next of my essays, this one on love, is taking me forever to write), I will post a story I wrote a few years back. Please don't mind the all lower-case style, I was an e.e.cummings wannabe at the time.

'tis the season

it is december 20 and i am driving home down a busy city street. i think to myself how ironic it is that so many celebrate the only day where most stores are closed, closed because they are letting their employees celebrate the birth of their Lord, by giving those businesses a good third of their yearly business in one month’s time. purging wallets, i guess, of their money – the root of all evil – in hopes of showing appreciation for a God that gave them life everlasting but maybe only using the day as an excuse for having others fill up empty closets and offering to help fill the closets of others. one cold make the argument that i don’t help with that irony much either, but i know that others feed the beast so much more than i do. i suppose i could do more, or at least something else, maybe volunteer my time, maybe...

but the light that i have been stuck at through my thoughts turns green and all thoughts are lost as i slam my right foot down on the accelerator. i frantically attempt to cut in front of the woman to in the left lane because i see a truck ten car-lengths ahead of me approaching another light that will inevitably change by the time we get there. my God that’s the last thing I need is to lose a minute stuck behind a semi that can’t accelerate even half as fast as I do. i need that minute – it’s that much more time to push off the inevitable task of wrapping the gifts that fill the passenger seat to my right. i know it doesn’t make sense to race so that i can procrastinate, but the irony of shopping to celebrate the birth of Jesus re-enters my mind and i forget it. but all thoughts are lost as i approach the now yellow-turning light having succeeded in cutting in front of the woman in the left lane and receiving a congratulatory gesture of a single finger for my deeds. i return the salute.

i stop at the light, her behind me waving her hands at me in disgust. i look at her in the rear view mirror, laugh to myself, then shrug it all off. why get worked up about that sort of thing? there just isn’t enough time in life to get all worried about someone cutting you off on the road. hell, there isn’t enough time to worry about much in life that people seem to worry about...schedules, blasphemers, rudeness, it all seems so frivolous and non-personal. why should we care?

the light goes green and again my thoughts return to the road, this time to getting to the right lane because the woman behind me has moved beyond hand gestures to honking at every opportunity and flashing her headlights just to piss me off. i cut in front of the truck to my right which doesn’t seem to upset the driver as i’m accelerating twice as fast as he. i drive on, my mind free of thoughts as i look around at the shops on either side of the road. they move past quickly as traffic is now moving faster on this stretch of road with a mile or more in between busy intersections with their guardian signals above them. shoe shops, clothes shops, bookstores, and restaurants, all dressed up in pretty ribbons standing in wait for the masses to come in and buy all that they have for sale. i shake my head as i remember my days of working in these stores, having managers and owners get excited about all the business that they’ll do over the five week shopping season. moving displays by fractions of inches, they’d do anything to make sure that everything’s perfect, that everything screams out “buy me!” and that people develop a sense of need in the frivolous and otherwise useless items on the shelves. i almost cry at the way people are so manipulated and the way that i partook in that manipulation for so long.

but a car honks and those thoughts are lost as i whip my head around to see if i were the one whose attention was trying to be grabbed. i wasn’t.

i giggle to myself as i notice that the radio voice is singing of being “comfortably numb” and i am anything but. i wish i was numb, but that must wait, now i must battle this beast of a road.

traffic slows and i notice the light ahead is red. i’ll be lucky to get through in two cycles, let alone the green that will come after cross-traffic has its turn. i sit back and try to relax though my instincts tell me to shove down the accelerator and race to the red light. ahead of me, traffic is moving, behind me, it wants to. in the drive of the gas station before me is a car with a man behind the wheel with his left-turn signal blinking, trying to get across two lanes of traffic to the temporary safety of the center lane where he can wait to get into traffic himself and continue on home.

though i am rushed, i know it does me no good to race to the light so i, in the right lane, stop for this poor damned soul whose only mistake is trying to turn the wrong way down a busy street. i stop, those behind me honking, wanting me to move forward so that i can stop again a hundred feet down the way. instead of stopping, some veer to the left to join the traffic, including the lady who flipped me off – now repeating the gesture – racing towards that stop. one lane not moving, the other filled with cars lurching forward towards their inevitable halt, the man trying to go home is stuck where he is. the left lane stops moving, cars bumper to bumper from the light to somewhere beyond the reach of my side mirror. there is no way through for the man i tried to help and so i have i have no choice but to shrug my shoulders and step on the gas, not able to help another human being during the holidays because others are unwilling to help me help. he returns the shrug in a way that says “thanks anyway” and i drive past. raising an eyebrow, i look at him and even though he can’t hear me, i wish him a merry christmas.

Some observations from the last week or so:

A man, homeless and anonymous, told me that he asked a woman out and that they were going to be going for dinner at God’s Kitchen, a local homeless shelter, that night.

An old man struggled to open the door for his even older wife. It took all his strength.

A child wished me a Merry Christmas without a prompting from his mother.

The sky was clear and there was snow on the ground, the brightness overwhelming.

A store clerk made fun of the customer previous, knowing that I would not be upset by her doing so.

One squirrel and another in a spiraling chase up and down a tree. I watched for five minutes.

An old woman let me turn onto the street before her, even though it cost her the green light.

I got to sing Heart of Gold at the bar for the first time.

I became comfortable with myself for the first time in months.

It’s the little things in life that matter, the little things.

Happiness -- oh, that most elusive of ideals. You hear it mentioned all the time but I don't think that that many people have really taken the time to understand what the word means. The word -- the idea -- is thrown about like it's just some petty emotion, slightly more positive than contentment. But it's not, happiness, after Love, is the most important thing that we have to strive for in our lives. It is the purpose of life.

The ancient Greeks, Aristotle in particular, would argue that happiness comes from living your life in moderation. It comes from not being extreme in any trait -- neither magnanimousness or stinginess, but sensibleness for example -- through every set of emotional dialectics that life consists of. Living life, then, becomes a series of choices between extremes and happiness is found in being completely balanced in those choices and lacking extreme positions. The Buddha also preached such a Middle Road, as did Jesus to some extent (though in many ways a more humble road than middle). Happiness later became something that had to do with enlightenment more than how one lives one's life. In the Middle Ages it became something almost entirely having to do with the Church and one's expectation for the afterlife. Then happiness became more philosophical again as the rationalists and empiricalists mulled over philosophical questions and physicists tried to figure out how the world works.

Today though, I look out into the world and I see happiness defined in ways completely foriegn to its reality. I see happiness defined as success more than anything -- as a description of how things are going in life rather than what's going on inside. I see this concept of "happiness" dependent on romance, on money, on things, on power, on fame, on eveything that is outside of the heart. I see people claim to be "unhappy" because they are lonely and "happy" because they are not. I see people claim that when they are broke they are "unhappy" and claim that if they were rich that they'd be "happy". I, myself, felt that I was unhappy because things weren't going right in my life and that getting a woman, a good job, fewer problems, and and all of that American Dream™ stuff would suddenly make me happy. How ignorant is that way of thinking, how naive. Yeah, it's natural, but it's so foolish that I can't understand it. I can't understand how I allowed myself to fall in that trap. Loneliness does not equal unhappiness, being poor does not mean that you cannot be happy. I know this stuff, I've spent years and years and years of my life struggling with the great questions of life and the nature of happiness has been high on my list from the beginning. And yet I fell for the trap that society set for all of us. The trap that most of us, slightly fewer than all of us, fell for.

But now I remember what it all means, like that second-take of the Sun after two straight months of clouds. Happiness has nothing to do with who you know, what you own, where you live, or even how you live your life. It doesn't require anyone else's love or acceptence. It doesn't require any comparing of oneself to anyone else. If anything, these notions that we all have are positive hindrances to true happiness. That is because happiness is dependent upon nothing outside of you. It is based entirely on what's in your heart. Happiness comes from accepting oneself, from believing oneself, from knowing oneself, and, most importantly, from loving oneself. It comes from being comfortable with the person that you are. Happiness is letting go of anxeity and distrust, fear and loneliness, disallusionment and self-pity. It comes from allowing yourself to just be, not do or have or any other verbs that we allow to dictate our lives, but just being and existing and being comfortable with that. Not to feel like you have to be something to someone or everyone else, not to feel like there even is a pass or a fail in life: there's not.

Wow. This is a really well done flash animation about how our country's been acting a little...uh..."different" lately. Just thought I'd pass it along.

I just got back from a midnight showing of the new Lord of the Rings movie...man, it's late considering I haven't allowed myself much time to sleep lately. Anyway, like many reviews that I have read, I found it to be something less than the first movie. It was still good, don't get me wrong, but considering that the second book is by far the better of the first two, I find it odd that the corresponding book made a lesser movie. It's funny how that happens: books that are so good, so vivid in your mind when you're reading them just don't seem to translate so well into film. Perhaps it was that there is not much that can be cut out of the The Two Towers that wouldn't destroy the story...that plus Peter Jackson's amplification of the love stories of Aragorn (stories that I don't really remember being in the books at all...and stories that do not really play a huge role in the overall plot of good versus evil)...but it moved too quickly I think, and the images were blurred in the process. In any case, I will probably write a review (something I do when I see a movie on its opening weekend) and post it here tomorrow or soon. In case anyone is interested.

I also want to take a moment to warn those that read this blog that over the next few days or week or so, I plan on posting a series of essays that I am currently working on that deal with the idea of abstracts. I plan on hitting such topics as "truth", "happiness", "Love", and "justice" and possibly more. If you're interested, keep your eyes peeled. Unless something happens in the news or my life, that will be about all I will be posting though. I just want to say that so that I will feel more motivated to do it (and I feel that it would be good for me to do so given my recent departure from melancholy).

Oh well, beddy-bye for me. (I even turned my phone off so that work can't wake me up in the morning, even if they try...) :)

Amazing...fucking amazing. I don't think anyone realizes just how incredibly awesome I think this is...

McDonald's Expects to Post Its First-Ever Loss (washingtonpost.com) The super-size problems at McDonald's Corp. - sagging sales, aggressive rivals, antsy investors - are taking a toll on the bottom line of the world's largest fast food chain, which said today it expects to post its first-ever quarterly loss.

I woke up this morning because I had to pee real bad. And then I couldn't go back to sleep. D'oh! The thing is, if I can get up, do my business and get back into bed without thinking at all, I'm good to go...but then a thought just had to pop into my head, and then another, and then another and just as easily I was awake, not wide awake, but awake enough to not be asleep. :)

Anyway, I wanted to say something about my posts of the last couple days. I think I am still happy. I have not been dreading life, I have been able to fall asleep at night, I have even been able to cope with the Christmas shoppers on the roads, cutting me off, as I try to go about my necessary duties (that's saying a lot). I have even been able to laugh and cry. I don't know why, but for the last couple of months I haven't been able to do either, but just in the last couple of days both have come out so easily (though I suppose for a macho-man like me the crying should not be so easily admitted to...especially given the circumstances, which I will not disclose). And both felt really good. It is, I have to admit, taking some adjustment on my own part because I think that I had gotten myself used to moping and the like, and for that matter hiding how I was really feeling lest everyone that I know try to either consult me or run away from me. I think that it may take some time for me to truly rip off that mask and begin again overwhelming people with the power of Kyle sunshine®, but at least I feel good inside, and that's what matters most. I guess.

I sound like friggen Stuart Smalley, I know, bare with me.

So I finished writing that last post last night and decided to go and take a walk. Somewhere in between the two, I came to the realization that I am happy. Honest to God happy. For so long I have been over-worried about my problems and wondering what the hell they meant. I have a very good self-image, as I have said, but it all made me wonder if maybe I needed to change. But then it dawned on me...my problems aren't my problems, they aren't exclusive to me. They are the problems that we all face because we are all human. So what if no girl will date me? That's their problem, not mine. I'm who I am and that's cool, that's awesome. You know what? Girls don't know what the hell they want. So what if I don't have a job that is fulfilling? With the economy the way it is, there are plenty of people in the same boat. So what if I don't know which way I want to take my life in in the future? I know that whichever road I take will lead to my success.

Right now, in the here and now, I am happy. I have no HUGE problems -- no secret crushes, no diseases, no impending financial disasters, no huge family problems, for crises of faith, none of the myriad troubles that so many people face every day -- just little ones. Wants, not needs. For that I should be grateful. And now I think I'm ready to realize that that is the case.

So last night, even though it was a Friday night and I was alone at home as usual, I was overcome by this euphoric high, this feeling that, indeed, everything is alright and that even though things aren't perfect in my life, that's good enough. I can't hope for more than that. I have people that care about me, my health, no huge issues, and I am, at an existential level, very, very comfortable with myself. That's more than most people, I think, can really claim. Sure I want more, but those are wants and not needs. I think that maybe my hopes that all would be perfect in my life, my belief that all should be perfect, clouded my ability to realize that what I have already is pretty damn good. Hope can sometimes do that to you. Especially if you wager all your emotional energy in it. Hope can only carry you so far, and rose colored glasses can fog your vision. But hope has a place and I have found it and so I can now put everything into perspective and it feels really, really good.

I am happy. I realized that and it made me even happier. So happy that I took it upon myself to tell people all over the place. And the best part is, everyone that I told seemed to have been made a little happier themselves in knowing that I got there. Even though it still left them with their own troubles. It felt good to be able to lift so many people up, if only for a moment.

Last night, I was telling a friend about a situation in my (love) life but I didn't get through it because fate, in the form of a cell phone call, intervened. Damned technology. But what part I did get to tell was very therapuetic for me so I think I'm just going to post the whole thing here.

Anyway, I met this girl at work...my first day. It was only a month or two after my mom had passed and I wasn't in the mood for love at the time, but I still took a fancy to her right away. Well, because of my lack of desire to get into a relationship, but my still being interested, it so happened that she and I started to become friends. We'd work together, take breaks together, go to movies and hang out together outside of work. It was swell. Really swell.

But as time went on, the feelings that had been there from the beginning started to grow as the death of my mother (the only real emotional barrier that had, for the time, kept me from wanting to get involved with anything) started to become less all-encompassing in my emotional life. So I started trying to push our friendship into "that" direction. For months I tried, for months I went through an emotional rollercoaster.

At first all was cool, I asked her out, she said yes, but I don't think she knew that I had done so wanting it to be a "date". We went, everything was nice, I thought that maybe it was going to go somewhere. Then I went to Europe for a few weeks. From there I called, I brought her a gift, she seemed entirely grateful for my thoughtfulness. And so I thought, "damn this is great". But then it didn't seem to go anywhere further for a few weeks. I brought it up to her, "what's going on here? Between us, I mean." I asked. "Well, I'm really busy, Kyle, you know that. You always aske me to do things on weeknights, you should ask me out on the weekend."

Score! The hormones were in gear and I felt that, for the first time in my life, I was getting myself into a real relationship. But the euphoria was short-lived. Within a week or two or three, we hadn't moved forward with the relationship that I thought for sure was starting to bud. I started losing hope, I started thinking that I was crazy and that this was never going to happen. But then it happened again, just as I was giving up hope on all of it, she made a little gesture -- a tap on the back and a girly little wave and giggle as if to say "hi Kyle, my day is complete now that I have seen you". That's all it took really and I was on cloud nine. I must have been impatient, I thought, I must have not been reading the signs right. She obviously wanted this to move on, just like I did, she just, like she said, didn't have the time at the time (and for the record, she was working three jobs and had just bought a house). Heaven.

But heaven clouded up again over a few weeks as nothing still happened. We still hung out, we still talked, we still went to lunch together and the movies. Even a concert or two or three. But "it" wasn't happening, the spark just wasn't there. My hopes fell again. Until another sign, another answer to my lingering question of "what gives here?" came and went, and then another, and then another...a series of ups and downs.

Of course, all the while, her good friend (and our mutual coworker) was egging me on, telling me to keep trying, telling me that it would happen at some point. Everyone that knew the both of us would tell us "you two are a cute couple" or "she's a good girl, Kyle, hold on to her" and I would smile and say "yeah, she damn well is" and be chipper as a boy in love for a day or a week.

But nothing ever came. It wrenched at my heart, it poked at my heart, I began to have anxiety attacks, and couldn't sleep. Nothing was happening but at intervals. Up and down I went in my little bipolar relationship until suddenly I called it quits. I realized what was going on. She didn't want to hurt me, she didn't want to ruin our friendship, she didn't want to deny my worth as a guy so obviously infatuated with her. But she didn't want me as anything more than a friend either. She had played along because she knew that it meant a lot to me that we be something. She offered a taste of girlfriendom in an attempt to appease my appetite. She had been leading me on, unintentionally, because she didn't want to break my heart. That was sweet. But in the end it required that I figure it out all on my own that this thing wasn't going to happen, she wasn't going to tell me. I had to take the initiative to stop before it got so uncomfortable for both of us that one of us would have to stop us from being friends. But I did, and it was rough, but once I finally accepted it, it was an amazing feeling...like one of that first breath after trying to swim across a pool underwater. I was free and we were free. And we could again be "just friends". Secure in that, or so I thought.

For I had damaged that friendship in the process. I had been too...there. I had been too emotional, too, well, creepy. It isn't a comfortable position to be at the end of a crush for months and months at a time, trying to be a good friend and not hurt the other all the while trying not to give the wrong impression. Sometimes she would slip -- and I in all of my hopefulness and optimism would see that slip as a sure sign that things were going my way. But they weren't that. They were just slips. I had misread them, and now the thought of those slips hounded her and she was afraid of making any more. Even though I had given up on the pursuit, she hadn't accepted that as the case...she had seen me give up too many times before only to come roaring back. And so things became wierd as the only way to avoid a slip is to stay comfortably away from the line -- not be too nice, not be too present in my life. And our friendship suffered.

And even now, after two years or so, it is still suffering. We can again talk, we can again hang out, but it still not the same. That closeness is gone, that insecurity that she developed is still there. And it kills me that I was such a fool. A stupid, infatuated fool that let my hormones and hopes get the best of me and made my mind go to goo.

The End.

I share that now because it's been bottled up for way too long and the fact that lately I have been discovering that it isn't such a personal story after all. It's something that a lot of my friends have gone through, something that some of them still go through. Unrequited attraction is a very ugly thing..ugly because our minds are so easily distracted away fromt he reality of the situation by our hopes and dreams. I know, and so do a lot of other people. And I feel a hell of a lot better knowing that I am not the only one. And now I share in the hopes that others can feel the same way, that, yes, there are others that have gone through the same thing...it's not just them. It's us all and our desire to be loved. Pitiful as it may be, we are all in the same big boat.

God bless.

Listening to a CD of a friend of mine, I got to thinking about how ridiculous it is that I am unwilling to share any poem or story that I've written that has anything to do with the idea of love or lust or fantasy on this blog. I'm always afraid of what people will think of it or the motives put behind my posting it. But that's stupid. What's the point of writing if I don't share it? Tell me that, won't you mister? So anyway...

This is from my upcoming book of poetry and short short stories entitled Secret Smittenosity or something along those lines (I don't have a publisher or a definite idea of what exactly is going in there so the title might change)...a journey through a fictional secret crush based on all the secret crushes that I've had through my life:

The Prison

The prison to which my heart was sent is bordered by no walls but fear--
a chain link barrier of trembling joy and profound unknowing
topped by the barbed wire fence of unshackled emotion,
sending a message to my heart that there is no hope for escape.

The bars of my cell drip with the dew of tears shed in agony;
agony over the loss of control of the direction my life takes--
the sense of what is to come erased from my soul,
in its place an unmarked map upside down and backward.

My bed is one of sharpened needles piercing my skin, drawing blood--
sleepless nights spent in the solitary of my mind,
thinking of what it means to be free and not in love;
days spent healing the wounds, forgetting about pains of nights past.

The mess hall clammers with the voices of other lost souls
afraid to admit of the troubles their hearts contain--
screaming poets suffering unreturned emotions
writing on the un-walls of the prison of love.

That happens to be my personal favorite, just thought I'd share. No, wait, that isn't my favorite, this is...just because I think it's funny in that cute kind of way (and I use the word "uvula"...hehe):

My Silly Wet Dream of Being Orally Assaulted Suddenly and Unprovokingly by the Tongue of the Girl of My Dreams but With Whom I Am Only Friends

“What would you do if I stuck my tongue down your throat?” She asked me out of the blue.
“I dunno” I shrugged.
And so she proceeded to tickle my uvula until I came.

I was going to e-mail this to a friend that inspired it (you know who you are), but I figured after the crap I posted last night and earlier today, I might as well post it here for everyone to read it. I guess it's a sort of apology, or at least a sort of a ying to the yang of my depressive rant (or maybe a tit for the tat?).

The thing is, I am frustrated with my life. I am frustrated with the fact that try as I may to do the right thing in everything that I do, I get nowhere. It doesn't matter if it's in the workplace, in my family life, in my romantic life, my social life, or wherever else it doesn't go anywhere. I try to do good, and I honestly believe in the bottom of my heart that I do do good...at least most of the time (a record that I am proud of and do not feel it humanly possible to do better). And it kills me, it does. It seems unfair to me. It seems unjust. And sometimes all of that shit just piles up and it just has to come out...and it does...here. It isn't because I have a necessarily negative view of the world or of people in general, and I certainly don't have a negative view of myself, it's just that sometimes things get to a point where you just can't take the punches anymore and you have to say something. That's what it was. That's all that it was. A silly sort of "so's your mama" sort of attack on the world...a true existential rant.

But I fear, and I've been told, that it makes me seem negative. I've come to realize that in recent months thanks to the friendship that has grown between myself and the person mentioned above. I'm trying to change...not myself per se, but the face that I show to the world. I will always be a gadfly on the ass of injustice (and hopefully someday as a lawyer, or writer, or public servant), but I realize that I needn't allow it to spread to every facet of my existence. I needn't complain to my friends about how the world is fucked up, about how nothing is fair, and how there's no sense of decency in the world. When I do that, I lump too many good people into those vague categories -- people that shouldn't be lumped in. Not only that, but when I allow myself to be consumed with these thoughts, it transcends my own personality (a loveable, spunky sort if I do say so myself) and becomes me, if only in the visage of myself to the world.

I need to calm down, take a chill pill, smoke a few herbs or something, and stop being such an asshole...even though, deep down, I'm not really.

It seems that Sen. Trent Lott )among the half dozen most powerful people in Washington) is a racist...he kept it under wraps for years it seems, but his latest comments at Sen. Thurmond's birthday bash have troubled some, including me, and I have found some interesting stuff on past instances of his remarks and actions. It seems that Sen. Lott has had associations with racist groups in the past. Among them, a group called the Council of Conservative Citizens down in Mississippi, generally considered by many racism watch-dog groups to be the direct descendent of the white Citizens' Councils of the 1950's and 1960's which fought vehemently against desegregation and Civil Rights. Lott, of course, denies any knowledge of this group's racist philosophies, but supposedly it is common knowledge what these people stand for down South...and considering that Lott is most likely in the political know down there (being Senator and all), it seems unlikely to me that he would not know them well. It just reeks of more back-peddling on Lott's part.

I do not know of the validity of this report or of the person who published it, but I feel it is worth postingthis for others to investigate.

A more reliable account can be found by a writer for the Village Voice, here

Or, if you'd rather, the New York Times

Also, according to Matt Drudge, trent Lott was quoted as saying "You know, if we had elected this man 30 years ago, we wouldn't be in the mess we are today" at a ralley for Strom Thurmond back in 1980. It seems so much less a quip (as he immediately called it once people started complaining this past weekend) and more like a personal opinion all the time, doesn't it?

I didn't sleep much last night...I was haunted too much by my dreams -- dreams that hit too close to home -- and was kept from dreaming by a million thoughts racing through my head.

The problem is that I am too sensitive, I read too much into things. The problem is also that I have a tendency to overlook the obvious while in denial...when those two things combine, it is a dangerous combination because it leads to a bursting of the dam so to speak. I tell myself that everything's okay, everything's okay, everything's okay until it is painfully obvious that it is not and then it all comes crashing down on me as I realize how naive I have been, how childishly stupid I am. It doesn't matter what it is, whether it's my mother's sickness, the futility of a job, the apparent worthlessness of my life, a friend who's lies are destroying my trust in them...I avoid the circumstances until I can no longer do so and suddenly everything becomes crystal clear that everything's not okay as I had been telling myself and I just fall uncontrollably into pieces.

I wish I could turn off my mind, I wish I could turn off my emotion. Sometimes I feel screwed over by God that I was not born with the ability to do that as so many (especially men) have been. I wish I felt nothing. I wish I was numb. I wish I could be nothing more than some automaton sheep like oh so many of my brethren are. I wish, wish, I wish. But that is just a dream...

"I want to say this about my state," Lott said last Thursday. "When Strom Thurmond ran for president, we voted for him. We're proud of it," he said to applause. "And if the rest of the country had followed our lead, we wouldn't have had all these problems over all these years either."

I just don't see how he could have made that statement without forseeing people reading it as a slam against the Civil Rights movement. How can you?

Apologize all he wants, Trent Lott is still an asshole for having said that...a perfect example of assholes getting ahead in life.

My apologies to anyone that read the post that was here for the last three hours. I had to delete it because it was too cryptic for anyone but me, too easily misuderstood, too damn ugly to leave up here...I realized that as I took my late-night stroll through the neighborhood. The same stroll that allowed me time to think about what I wanted to put up to replace that garbage. The same stroll that inspired this existential rambling...if you're weak-hearted or sick of my bitching, you better turn your head away, but I need to scream at the world in a bad, bad way.

The thing is, I am sick of this world. I am sick and tired of the people that it is filled with, I am sick and tired of the lies. I am tired of the hate, of the jealousy, of the usery, and the spitefulness. I am sick of the wickedness, the narcissism, the materialism, and the anger. I am fed up with the endless one upmanship, the selfishness, the wretchedness, and the violence. And most of all, I am sick of being the person that I am in it.

I am a good person. I live my life, to the best of my ability, in Love. That means that I give and give, without expecting anything in return. Or so I think, or at least thought. I do expect some things -- things like respect, maybe a thank you now and then, maybe even someone or two taking from my mentorship a sense of what it means to live your life in the way that I do. Instead, I am used. Thoreau once said, and I posted the quote here a month or two back, that "he who gives himself entirely to his fellow man appears to him useless and selfish, but he who gives himself only partially appears to him a benefactor and philanthropist." I may have that wrong as to the exact wording, but that is okay because I repeated it from memory as they are the words that I live by, or at least the warning by which I view my situation. In any case, most everyone that I come across in life views me as somehow being useless and selfish, even though I am anything but. It doesn't matter whether it is the woman in her car that I allow to turn onto the road in front of me or the bastard who selfishly blocks the door of a business I am trying to get into but to whom I take the responsibility to say that I'm sorry that they have to move, but little things like that are just, well, little things. It is family for which I bend over backwards to please only to have my faults thrown in my face, the friends to which I am completely honest but in turn feel a need to lie to me, the women who take me on as a faux-boyfriend when their "real" jackass boyfriend isn't all that they are looking for in a relationship (only to, of course, return to them when things become less troubled), the bosses that complain that I don't do enough when I already go above and beyond my duties, the preachers who tell me I am going to Hell for not following this little rule or not believing that, the teachers who fail me even though I learned more than they even began to teach, these are the things that irk me the most. I give and I give and I give, but all that is given to me is harshness and nothingness, anxeity, hatred, and loneliness. I Love, but receive none. I give but am given nothing. Even though a thank you, a sense of recognition, would be enough.

But I lie again (I am not perfect, so a little lie here and there is not such a bad thing). I do want more. I want to be providential, I want to look out at the world and see that my being good gets me just as far, even further, than those that do bad. But they are rich, they have a warm body next to them at night, they are listened to, they are worshipped, they are cared about, they are respected and thanked for every goddam little thing that they do. I want those things. I want to be comfortable, I do not want to lie awake at night wondering about what could be, what should be for me. I want my good deeds to be rewarded, if not by much, by something. I want to be loved, to be listened to, to matter. I want to be someone that, as Mark Twain once wrote, when I die even the undertaker will be upset. I just want to fucking matter. I don't want my life to be meaningless, I don't want to be overlooked and taken for granted. I deserve more than that. I deserve to have the chance to be the sun in someone's sky, to have someone take my heart and cradle it gently in their arms, to be beautiful.

But that is just a dream, I have my head in the sand and I damn well know it. That is not how the world works. It is the liars and the cheaters and the scumbags that win, not guys like me, not the ones that care. It is the people that are less than genteel that get ahead in life. The ones that are painfully less than perfect (as opposed to my just being less than perfect). The ones that don't give a damn. The ones that don't even try.

I don't get it. I just don't. Maybe it's because people like to see the ones that don't deserve it to win in the end. Maybe it's because I don't lock up my feelings, feelings being seen as a weakness to the masses. Maybe my social life sucks because people would rather hang out with, or for that matter fuck, people that they can mold and change and otherwise work to improve, someone that isn't as sure of themselves as I. Maybe my fiscal life seems woefully inadaquate because people would rather see someone suffer in working than allow someone that can do it and love it to do it. Maybe people step on me because I let them, apologizing to them afterward for having gotten underneath their foot. Maybe being good is not what life is all about.

And that's what I come to. I could not care, I could not try, I could not Love. I could be the everyman, the one that steps out into the middle of traffic because I figure everyone should wait for me. I could be the one that uses women and then throws them out at the end of the night. I could be vain, be emotionless, be an asshole hellbent on shaping the world in a way that best suits me. I could say what other people want to hear instead of the truth. I could pretend to be better than I am. I could be the one that steps on other people. I could be the fucking greatest human being that's ever walked this earth, if only in the eyes of the people that venerate the assholes. But then I would be truly unhappy, then I would be living a lie, then I would have nothing to live for...for the only thing that keeps me alive is the idea that I stand for something, that I am true to myself, and that I believe in a higher power. If I did not have that, I truly believe that I would have killed myself a long time ago, for that would be an empty life. But all of this leaves me with two options: either live my life in wretched thanklessness but be happy in my heart, or be worshipped and unhappy in my heart.

And yet I choose to be happy...and lonely...and unappreciated...and wasted...and broke...

Happiness is overrated.

...I feel better now, thanks.

Two phone calls tonight, two invitations to the bar...plus a sort-of invitation from my roommate to do the same. So I just sat around and played video games...sober. :)

One of things that I hate most about myself is something that I am not even aware of. The thing is, to my friends, I am nothing, nothing, but a bar buddy. Never, or at the very least, rarely, do any of my friends call me up and invite me to a party, or an art show, or a concert, or a hockey game, or a symphony, or dinner, or a movie, or hanging out at their place, or a play, or an improv show, or a road trip, or a coffee shop trip, or even just call to talk. No one even e-mails me exeept in reply to my e-mails. Yes, I do some of these things, but they are always on my initiative or on my accidental discovery that they are going on, but rarely, if ever, do they bother thinking of me when they are doing something. The only time that I ever receive a call is when someone is going to the bar...and, frankly, I don't even like bars, I don't even like drinking for the most part -- my drinking at home in the last four months has consisted of, at most, twelves bottles of beer. But that is all I'm good for -- sitting in a dark bar and drinking alcohol. I don't know if it's because I'm only fun/interesting/worth hanging out with when I have a few drinks in me or if it's the dark lighting that hides my ogreness or if it's that in bars the people that people that people hang out with becomes anonymous or at least less important, but frankly, it leaves me feeling like I'm nothing but a piece of shit. A worthless piece of shit.

And yet I go. Not because I want to, but because I have to in order to have human contact that I desperately need lest I lose my mind to loneliness, solitude, and twenty-four hours a day of television broken up with fits of reading. I go because I care about my friends, friends that I honest to God care about and have feelings for even though I feel constantly abandoned and in need of mockingly putting quotation marks around the term. I go because I hope and pray that maybe some deeper friendship, a relationship even, might come of it at some point down the road. And it gives me hope, something to cling on to in those vast moments in between invitations to the bar, that maybe sometime someone will see enough good in me that I will be elevated to the status of someone that can be hung out with sober and in the light of day. Maybe even someone that can be loved.

Nothing to write about, but still an impulse to post. silliness. As for the suggestion that I should post more poetry...nope. Pretty much every other poem I have that's worth sharing is too personal to post here...funny how I'll post almost anything, but draw the line at ancient love poems. hmph.

I take that back, here's a non-love poem about a lady at the laundramat:

gone

distant memories of suburban dreams
held up in bags high on her cheeks
as she stares silently at the horizon.
a tear forms in the corner of an eye.

somewhere years ago the future seemed
to hold all the means to answer her dreams
but reality set and the curtain fell
and the dreaams became just that.

now there she stands, eyes glazed over
set on a distant point, ingangible
to you or I. "maybe," she thinks,
"maybe it's all just a dream".

Yeah, yeah, not so fantastic...but I never said I was a great poet or anything.

Oh, and as for Miss "Tiger Lilly" (if that is your real name), if you want to see more (even the ancient love poems), all ya gotta do is ask me sometime. geez louise.

I'm too tired to go to sleep, if that makes any sense, so I figured I'd put up a couple of old poems that I've written. The first is eight years old or so, but it still carries so weight in my heart...the second one I have no idea when I worte it, but it's about insomnia or something so it seems appropriate. Enjoy.

the rock

as flesh hardens from the wounds of bygone days,
so too does my heart slowly turn to stone.
the rock lies unseen by the myriad that pass it by,
so the un-mined gem within must lie alone.

untitled

An image of myself in my sleep,
a concatenation of spiritual and philosophical thoughts,
muddling in the darkness as my eyes twitch to some inner motor.
Body frozen but mind racing,
a race with God and with the material world,
Sweat pours from skin from head to toe and I wake up trembling.
Lying on the soggy mattress upon which I sleep alone,
with the stink of ancient cigarettes hanging in the air,
keeping me awake with the nightmare from whence I woke.
Love and hate, adoration and distrustfulness,
a paranoia of waking dreams more real than those that filled my sleep,
I search for meaning in a meaningless world.
Shutting my eyes as if a lullaby of peacefulness,
but the horrid thoughts of the disgraces of a day gone by
race through activating every muscle in my body.
Sweating, panting, I try to put myself to sleep,
though my eyelids close, I stare into the vastness of the universe through my ceiling,
wondering what could have been and what is meant for me.

Now, I'm not a huge fan of USA Today, but I am geeked that they are endorsing the idea of Instant Runoff Voting, a bandwagon I jumped on almost immediately after the 2000 elections from Hell™. I guess the fact that I am geeked about that pretty much makes me a geek too...oh well, I'm happy and that's all that matters.

USATODAY.com - Election Day replay poses avoidable problems

Interestingly, they also endorsed the idea a few months after the elections from Hell™:

USATODAY.com - Spoiler-free elections