As I gain velocity on the downward slope of my time here, I'm feeling the friction burns of my deliberate and total lack of planning. I think it's very likely at this point that I will not be able to see everyone that I wanted to see, and definitive that I will not be able to spend as much quality time as I now feel is necessary. Two weeks seemed like a long time to me before, but now I'm thinking it's really not enough at all.
Tonight I'll be seeing my sister and my Auntie Rina. I'll sidestep the sister introspection and hurry along to my Auntie. Rina is my favorite Auntie. That's not just an opinion, it's actually her title. Many years ago I slipped and told my Auntie Janina that she was my favorite auntie, and she said, "Oh come on now Matt, you know Rina is your favorite," which tells you how common-knowledge this fact was. She is my favorite mainly because she's always accepted my black-sheep status and I think secretly is a bit proud of it. Most of all she has always had respect for me, and I for her. That is the stuff of solid relationships.
Apparently my window of opportunity to write (a whopping 10 minutes) has elapsed, so that's all for today.
In a burst of focused, spontaneous energy, Joe thankfully decided to make the decision to get the Long Island trip underway. Consequently, I'm here in somewhere, LI on a lakeside superhome. I call it a superhome because the kitchen is bigger than my whole house and the bathroom is equipped with both a bidet and a jacuzzi. In my mind, that puts it in Robin Leach territory.
So far the trip has been a moderate success. I've acquired some kind of mental/emotional flu, wherein I feel very mildy disjointed or depressed for no particular reason. It feels a little like having a sense of Deja Vu about a Deja Vu moment.
Example: Yesterday, I was walking around 13th street and 8th Ave (roughly lower west side of Manhattan) and I felt both as if I were 15 again, in a strangers body, and also as if I had been there before - even though I couldn't remember anything in particular. Like I was haunting myself. I wanted to cry really hard at that moment, and when that passed I wanted to vomit.
What the fuck?
So Joe grabbed me and dragged me out to LI. I'm here with an old acquaintance/friend Alex, and his pal Matt. We spent last night drinking and telling horribly obscene and offensive jokes and stories. Apparently Alex and Matt had spent quite some time in Germany, and I think they have some kind of industrial music band so I guess that makes sense. They had some pretty incredible stories to tell about drugs, girls, and drinking. I think it's safe to say I won't be able to think of German girls in the same way ever again.
I think I'll be staying here for tonight as well and going back tommorow.
It's very very strange being out here. Trying to negociate between feeling at home, feeling far from home, and feeling homeless is a dailiy struggle. I dread being back in my apartment in Berkeley as much as I dread the notion of leaving it. I've been asked many times whether or not I want to move back to NYC, and my confident response is that visiting NYC doesn't change my lack of desire to move back at all - but definitely increases my desire to leave the bay area. There is just so much more to do and involve yourself in here. I've met an artist, a lawyer, an accountant, a plumber, a singer, and so on, and they are all so very different and yet not really in different worlds. It's all just NYC.
The Bay Area seems to me to be just so separate. You can find all the same things, but they are all spread out over different regions and neighborhoods. I think in some ways I'm a little tired of the sheer diffuseness of it. Here I'm not allowed to be wishy-washy. People don't have the time or patience for it. Downside? It's true that if you want to stroll, mentally, verbally, or physically, you are at risk of getting trampled, but I think maybe it's time for some more of that in my life.
At the end of the day, or perhaps just today, I am just so tired of being broken up.
I've bought 20 minutes on an internet terminal here at "AnyWWWhere," an internet cafe on 1st and something here in the East Village. I don't have much time left (it goes surprisingly fast) so this post is basically a heads up.
There are more fucking super hot girls here than my poor little brain can handle and when I get back I will have to re-assess my parameters for designating "HOT" to chicks.
It's so fucking expensive here.
It's about a thousand times more clean and high-tech than I remember. 42nd street is devoid of whores and low-lives and now it's just a massive, glowing tourist trap with millions of folks thronging with their children where there used to be nothing but broken lives and misery. It's creepy and heartening at the same time.
I haven't had a slice of pizza since I've been back. I'll have to remedy that later.
Toss a beer back for me, folks. My time just ran out.
My father warned me about the security people at the airport making you take your shoes off, so I wasn't surprised when they asked me. I was slightly surprised to hear an alarm go off on the machine they ran them through, and to see "Explosives" and "Chemical" light up on the screen. I was much more surprised to see about six security people huddle around my shoes and send one guy off to get my bag and go through it like I was an ex-husband. But the real surprise came when they told me there was nothing to worry about and handed me a plastic box with the fucking pieces of my destroyed boots in it.
But despite small inconveniences like that, I've arrived. I'm home. My trip took just under half a day, including waiting time at the airport when leaving, and the roundabout route I walked to get here from Grand Central Station.
Man, has New York changed. I was suprised at how clean it is, even though by bay area standards it's fucking filthy. I was so happy to see that many of my favorite stores are still in business, although most of them had moved about a block away from where they used to be. Weird. I bought some prosciutto bread, which is a big O of spiced bread with bits of salami, pepperoni, ham, and prosciutto all through it. It's about the size of a frizbee, and I ate almost all of it.
The subways now have electronic signs inside that tell you the time, the next stop, and what train you're on. They also talk. It's spooky how high-tech they are in comparison with the rolling steam engines I grew up with. Get this - you used to be able to open a window big enough to climb out of on the subways. No longer. They're more like space shuttles now, except they don't explode.
With the towers gone, the New York skyline is fucked up. Period. I'll probably write more about that when I go to the hole where they used to be.
Right now, the city is hot. I mean hot and humid and I'm sweating like a Kentucky convict. It's about 3:30 AM here, and I'm not tired at all. I feel like going out and taking a walk, actually. But I think I'll be going to bed soon.
It's hot. And I miss you.
Please, please, please spare me from excess banality. If you are going to run down to the store to pick up a paper, please do not spend more time telling me about it than it takes to actually do it. If some random you don't know from Adam said something rude to someone else you don't give two shits about, please don't bother telling me about it - you shouldn't care in the first place, much less me. If I've told you "yeah, you told me about this," please do not interperet that as an affirmative conversational sound like "uh-huh" or "really?" It's not. It means I don't want to hear it again.
Oh, and just for good measure - if you only know five phrases, for god's sake use them sparingly. Only comic book heroes should have catch phrases.
So far, my experiences with Match.com, hotornot.com, and friendster.com are really pretty disappointing. Generally speaking, it is strip-mining for precious stones. You may interact in varying degrees with hundreds of people to maybe meet someone who isn't rude, boring, desparate, or any number of other unpleasant possibilities. You meet that "special someone" and it's like meeting Jesus since you've been forced to wade through such thick mud that simply climbing out of it for a second feels like ultimate freedom.
Don't get me wrong. I never had any real expectations of meeting a winner on the internet (that notion being something of a contradiction in terms to begin with) but I never expected to discover the sheer volume of losers. In retrospect, I suspect that perhaps my failed efforts to find much of value online ironically shunts me into the latter group. Perhaps that is simply it's nature.
She's looking at me, and he's there with her. We're staring and not and are again.
The staring goes on and on and cars pass and people pass and our eyes lock and not and again.
She says, "So, do we just stay here?" and I notice her purple overcoat, the sheen of it, the smell of her innocent perfume and her eyes and they're beautiful and hurt and painful.
"Do we just stay here?" I mimic. And I turn and I take a step. "Do we just stay here?" and I punch a stop sign and it makes a resonant tone like a monastary bell. "Do we just stay here?" and I grab the sign's pole and push and it creaks and folds over and I cannot breathe and it's "Do we just stay here?" in my hands curling the metal and folding the metal and crushing the metal and the metal is screaming and it's bending and I grab it from the base near its roots with both hands tightly and I plant my feet and and and I pull
"DO and I'm pulling it
WE and it strains
JUST and the sidewalk and my hands crack and pops
STAY and it breaks free, a concrete lollypop with a wicked twisted stick
HERE?!" and I'm just holding it, kneading the metal in my hands and frozen still in impotent rage and horror in my impotence at my helpless action and the metal screams and her eyes scream and his eyes mock and scream and "Do we just stay here?" and I wake up and my guts are liquid stone a seething magma and there are no tears but I'm filled with them hot and stagnant and immobile and it's just silent and dark and my heart is broken so I can't be hearing it but that is all there is.
"Do we just stay here?"
I just got back from seeing "28 Days Later," a Danny Boyle movie. Let me make it clear that I have liked, if not loved, his other movies - Shallow Grave, Trainspotting, and The Beach. That said, here is my short list of major flaws with this miserable piece of celluloid. SPOILERS INSIDE!
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em·pir·ic [em pírrik] n
1. somebody guided by experience not theory: somebody who relies upon observation and experiment rather than theory to determine the truth about something
2. charlatan or impostor: a charlatan or quack, especially in medicine (archaic)
[Mid-16th century. From, ultimately, Greek empeirikos “experienced,” from empeiros “skilled,” literally “tried in,” from peira “try” (source of English pirate).]
I have thought of myself as a rational, logic-based kind of person for a long time. I have made fun of hippies and crystal worshippers for being "touchy-feely" and basically lost and confused. I've prided myself on my own objectivity, and my ability to abstract myself in order to see both my side of things and another side of things simultaneously. I love to bring things down to earth, and I find that practical experience is the perfect sword to slice through relativism's gordian knot.
Then I met Rose. She gently but systematically turned my head to look at the immense influence my emotions have on my behavior. She made me see that I edit my own memories based purely on my feelings at the time. I dramatically alter my speech and behavior depending on my moods, and my moods shift radically. She turned my introspective scrutiny towards binding my long term perspectives with my short term. She caused a meteor shower of grudging epiphanies, and the effects of the impacts have yet to be tallied.
I discovered that I'm hardly the logical philosopher I thought I was. I see that I have a razor-sharp mind, but it's more a force unto itself rather than a grounded anchor of reason. I use this mind to operate on myself constantly. It is constantly updating. I watch a love story on TV and resolve that I should open my heart more. I hear my friend talk about getting ripped off and refresh my cynical constructs about protecting my stuff. I arrive at the bar and far more people want to greet me than I want to greet in return, and I see myself as famous. This update process is so rapid, so frequent, and so urgently profound that there is little time to check for consistancy.
At the time, each time, every time, it is so flatly true, so real, that it simply is. It's my reality. The connections between moments are so tenuous as to be unimportant. One moment I'm friends with Bob, then he upsets me and he's not my friend, then he says something funny and we're pals again. Each is true and in conglomerate the pattern may mean that we're not such good friends, or very good friends, or any number of other relationships depending on an incalculable number of factors. The connections between the moments are less real than the moment itself.
I've had best friends betray me, and I've betrayed best friends. I've known people for many years who change completely who they are in that time. One day the pizza shop is there, the next it's gone. I've fallen in and out of love. My understanding of how the world works and why it is the way it is changes constantly. I just don't trust it enough to rely on it's consistency.
The only thing I've been able to trust with any real reliability is my instincts. My feelings about things have rarely been wrong, and I see now more than ever that it is they that comprise my foundation. At every major point in my life, it was my instincts that made the final decision. So naturally I find myself in the awkward position of realizing that my image of myself is fundamentally wrong. I am one of those crystal worshipping hippies. I'm just in disguise as a intellectual hard-liner. I am often moodier than a pregnant teenager, and without the excuse of being one.
You know what? I don't feel like writing any more.
I decided to take the remaining eggs I had in the fridge and use them before they hit that nebulous "expiration" date. Naturally, I chose Deviled eggs as the recipe du jour. Well, I can say 4 hours later and two eggs in the garbage that I don't think I'll be quite as cavalier next time I get a whim to cook something that requires multiple preperatory steps.
10 deviled eggs now sit in my fridge, hopefully getting cold enough to eat before I go out. I am so hungry.
Stolen from Econopundit:
A meme is a cognitive or behavioral pattern that can be transmitted from one individual to another one. Since the individual who transmitted the meme will continue to carry it, the transmission can be interpreted as a replication: a copy of the meme is made in the memory of another individual, making him or her into a carrier of the meme. This process of self-reproduction (the memetic life-cycle), leading to spreading over a growing group of individuals, defines the meme as a replicator, similar in that respect to the gene (Dawkins, 1976; Moritz, 1991).
As time goes by and you look at the things you once thought were all-important, or all-encompassing, or to-be-avoided-at-all-costs, how much do you find has changed?
Sure, comic books and arcade games used to be high on my list of priorities. In fact, they scored higher than girls in my old journals "top 5 most important things" list. But when I turned 10 or so it became girls, and girls rapidly filled all but one slot of that top five list.
I thought that people were inherently good and if only they had basic neccessities that there could be world peace. Then I learned that there were just flat out bad people in the world who would always screw it up for everyone else. I gave my love to every girl I felt it for. Then I learned that scarcity = demand. I remember thinking that the world would be a better place if it was all just paved over. Then I sat on Mont de Sol in Santa Fe and cried with how beautiful the world was undisturbed.
I used to hate broccoli, brussel sprouts, asparagus, and ocra. Now I adore all of them except ocra. 75% change. Not bad. I used to hate Metallica and hippie music like Greatful Dead and Phish. Now I don't. I used to hate spending time with my father. Now I don't.
So when I mentioned to my dad that I thought that "two days of hanging out is about our limit" and he responded with, "you know, you're 30 now" I could only stop and think about whether or not things had changed now that I was 30. I think that there is only so much time I can spend with anyone before I need to move on. I think depending on the person it could be anywhere from one to three days, extending to up to a week if I have romantic feelings for them.
Two days is plenty. It's enough time to bring someone up to date, to discuss politics and arrive at the inevitable dead-end, to tell jokes and to mull philosophy. It's enough time to have an adventure. It's enough time to have the earth rotate a full 360 degrees. It's also enough time to get into an argument - and that is unacceptable.
I guess I'm not old enough to have one more second of anger between my father and me. I can live with that.
Your heartbeat. It's been with you since before you were born, with the curious distinction of having arrived roughly two months before your sexual organs even formed. When you die, if you've done anything at all with your life, it will have beat roughly two and a half billion times. Seems like a lot, huh? Thumping away, somewhat more than one thump a second, every moment of your life. Inside you. Talk about intimate action - that's about as good as it gets. If you stick your finger over your wrist, or on your neck under the jawline, you'll feel it. Go ahead - do it now. Lub-dub, lub-dub, lub-DUB. That is the rhythm of your life you're feeling. Now try and remember every time in your life you felt your heart beat.
This is what it is like trying to remember my life with Denali. Since the moment we met (see Part 1) she has always been with me in that unconscious and intimate way. But it's only the highlights and the horrors that I remember. Those times my heart was beating hard enough for me to feel it.
I remember going to a school production of hers. She played a crazy person in some sort of comedy scene. I actually liked it. I thought she was overacting, but the bottom line was that I laughed - and that's good comedy. I got there extra early and felt like a retard watching parents and high school kids collecting for the show. Someone drove me there, I think Nora.
Another time I saw her in a musical where she sang. I was shocked to hear her voice singing. She has a strong, passionate voice and she used it then with surprising effect. I was impressed. I probably shouldn't have been surprised. She has always been into performance. You name it - she's into it. Dance, music, art, drama, writing, and on and on. I didn't think she had much talent for these things, but I learned over time that I was wrong and I still feel bad about not being more supportive.
When we first started to see each other romantically, I remember it being such a unique experience. Like sitting and waiting for a meal at your favorite restaurant, the anticipation amplifies the arrival and enjoyment. I don’t think I had ever waited quite so long for something to happen, barring a four year crush on Mia back in high school, and I remember being so thrilled that the time had finally come. I frankly don’t remember much of those times, or at least they don’t come to me with voluntary recall. I was still playing things loose, and I think I was at the tail end of my Milvia street days.
There were always a number of girls I was seeing at one time or another, and my memories tend to smear along an emotional axis, so sometimes my memories of the rapture of the moment borrows from the one next to it. At any rate, I think it never got better than those times. It was simple, clear, passionate, and best of all uncluttered with the gremlins of practicality. I simply loved her, and she loved me, totally. In some ways, I guess it would be a pattern that we would follow until the end. The habit of being together with great passion, only to find some conflict that would simmer, brew, boil, and explode into bitter separation.
Did it start with the age difference conflict? Maybe it was the monogamy crisis. There was always an unbridgeable crevasse between our personal interests. The list of impediments to our being together was daunting, and our efforts to overcome them was perhaps the best testimonial to the degree of our commitment. After she graduated from CPS (College Prepatory School), she got a job at Royal Coffee, and I got a chance to see her begin her journey into the employment machine. I would listen to her complain about her managers, or a customer, and I’d relate it to my time at Tower Video and try to offer advice. I can only remember seeing her there once, and it tickled me to see her in command of a position. She managed to focus her seemingly endless supply of energy into controlling the machinations of the coffeeshop chaos – and she liked it. I related well, since I also like storming into chaos and manhandling it into a focused result.
I spoke with some acquaintances (friends?) of hers outside the shop that day, and I don’t think they liked me very much. That was always a common theme. Few of her friends liked me, and fewer respected me. I don’t think I noticed for many years that this was the case, and when I finally saw it, it came with the understanding that it was not wholly undeserved. I was viewed with a repulsed reservation, like someone who has a disease whose communicability has not yet been established. Despite this, over the years there would be only a few of her best friends that I hadn’t slept with, a guilty pleasure for both participants, typically deliberately forgotten by them under a persistent pressure of shameful regret. Like much of my life, I don’t regret doing it as much as I regret not knowing better in the first place. Ignorance may be bliss, but stupidity pays hefty dividends of pain.
When I was working at IDG Games Media there was some big party event, I think the Christmas party, and I wanted to bring Denali as my date. My boss took me out shopping for a suit, or at least something that would fit in the formal style required of the night, and I wondered what Denali would be wearing. She showed up in a loose dress and I won’t mince words, she was fucking beautiful and sexy. In the crowd of squares this dinner was supporting, she was a spyrograph pattern in rainbow colors. She was a hit that night, and I got to hear about it for the next few weeks. Denali always was increasingly flirtatious in direct proportion to the volume of alcohol she ingested, and that night there was a lot of free booze. You figure it out. I was simultaneously honored and embarrassed by her that night. Honored because of how strong and beautiful she was, and she was with me! Embarrassed by the response of my co-workers and their questions about her age and her status with me. She ended up flirting hard with one of my co-workers who ended up feeling really guilty and never really getting over it. I think his name was Brad. He apologized about a million times, and I told him she was a free girl and she can do whatever she likes. I knew she loved me, and that her actions did not reflect on our emotional bond.
He was one of many, over the years, who would apologize to me for their varying degrees of intimacy with her. I imagine she got the same, inversed. When panning through the logs, journals, and raw memories of our time together, it's harder to remember the good times than it is to remember the insane or painful times. Of the best times, they were always the best because we were "in it together." Like a random party we went to off Telegraph, where she flirted and I flirted and we both felt out of place but were having fun. The plane ride back from London and our attempts to get seats next to each other by stripping down and letting the odor of showerless Europe speak for us. Taking nude pictures of her while she was lying about or watching TV. The weird gifts she would give me, like the Hawaiian mask, the Mexican painting, or the sunrise painting she had done and how I loved them completely despite how bizarre they were.
I remember inviting her to coffee at the Drunken Boat cafe, very early on, and she showed up drunk or stoned or both with a friend, and they proceeded to giggle their way to total destruction of that table. Sugar and milk and spills everywhere. I remember sitting there and thinking, "good lord, what have I wrought?" and saying sorry to the waiter for the mess. The waiter looked at me, then the table, then back at me and said "No, I'm sorry," and I got his point. That event would be in stark contrast to her post-Royal Coffee days, where the far more controlled Denali would make things just so, and vigorously critique everything cuisine.
After one of our longer separations, we decided to go for a hike up in the hills, and I was absolutely terrified she was going to confirm the permanent end of our relationship in some kind of "tell me about the rabbits again" way. Instead, we just talked and flirted a little, and spend that time together. At one point we happened on a very large boulder that I decided I wanted to climb on the spot. I like rock climbing. It was easy enough getting on top of it, but I quickly realized it would be significantly more difficult getting down. There were two options. One was just jumping down - roughly a 15 foot drop. Not so bad, but a broken ankle in the hills is not very romantic. The other was climbing around the rear of the boulder, where the holds were much better but the drop was a good 40-50 feet. Clearly lethal. Naturally I went for the latter. While going around this boulder, my cellphone rang and I instinctively grabbed for it - which left me with three fingers and about one inch footholds on the face of this cliff. Incredibly stupid. I left the phone alone and used the incredible adrenaline rush to maneuver myself the rest of the way around the rock. It took me a good half an hour to come down from that rush, and I think it's likely the closest I've ever knowingly come to death. I did it just to show off for Denali.
I've sent about 5 emails and written at least 4 things that warranted response, but there is nothing coming back. My inbox is eerily quiet. Even my bank is failing to respond. I wonder what's up?
I'm going to take this "friendster" profile thingy step-by-step.
"I want someone that wants to play pac man, and go on random adventures while listening to good music and not caring about what the world thinks of them. someone who is smart. someone who likes to skateboard. someone who doesn't act their age. someone that wants to buy me a 64-67 convertible volkswagen bug or a sit down cocktail ms pacman machine. someone who likes kitchen aids and new knives.someone who likes to eat food, since I pretty much love to cook. someone who isnt a complete shithead. "
I played pac-man just last month and kicked ass bigtime. I love random adventures and go on them all the time, even if they are Tiny Toon versions of adventure. I discovered the fruitlessness of caring what the world thought of me sometime in elementary school, unless of course expensive prizes are involved. I'm smort. I think skateboarding is just plain crazy. I wouldn't know how to act my age if someone my age spent the rest of their life teaching me. I no longer purchase gifts that cost over one hundred dollars unless really kinky sex or marriage is involved (maybe both.) I love kitchen aids and I love the set of Faberware pots and pans I just got. I eat food in small portions about 6 times a day; you do the math. I am a complete shithead, or at least I've been told that on several occasions, but only by close close friends.
It's worth noting that that semi-colon I used is I believe the first one I've ever used. I'm sure I used it wrong.
One of my favorite websites, USS Clueless, recently posted one of those hard-up-for-content list thingies. I respect serendipity as much as the next guy, and as the last comment some reader posted here was a lengthy treatise on how god damn boring I am, I figure I'll just snatch his filler and regurgitate it as my own.
Without further ado,
1. Do you have a personal hero? If so, who is it?
I think probably Indiana Jones. Sure he doesn't really exist. So what.
2. What is your favorite book of all time and what made it so fucking good?
James Thurber's "The Thirteen Clocks" probably made the greatest impression on me. I'm playing it a little relative here, as there have been plenty of books that I thought were fucking great, but this book immediately jumped to mind when I asked myself the question - and I read it before I was 10. That's enduring quality. I loved it because it has everything a book should have. Great characters, great plot, great writing, great meaning, great drama, and best of all, a great ending.
3. What does “diversity” mean to you?
A variety of different things. That's my answer, not a preamble.
4. What is the wildest thing you’ve ever done?
Tripped on acid and danced on the roof of my Brooklyn brownstone in the rain with my friends. I don't remember if it was day or night, but I woke up on that roof next to my boombox (still playing) completely soaked and wondering how my box could still be playing music despite that it had been completely exposed to pouring rain for hours. Mind you, I was lying in the same puddle as it and it was plugged, through a couple of cheap non-grounding extension cords, down the side of the building and into the wall socket in the bathroom. The real funny part is that I was only afraid to touch the power button.
5. Do you regret doing it?
Hell no.
6. Can you drive a stick shift?
It's been about a decade. I think I could do it.
7. What’s the highest speed you ever traveled in a car?
Just a guess, since I likely did it in a car filled with dopeheads. Probably somewhere in the 120 range.
8. Were you driving, or riding at the time?
Riding. This comes as no surprise to anyone who knows me.
9. Which is better: snakes or spiders?
Spiders. I have a pet spider, Vein, who lives on my bathroom window sill. Occasionally I'll clean out his web by pulling all the bug carcasses out. You wouldn't think it was creepy if you could see how cute he is when he's cleaning himself in the morning.
10. What is the most disgusting thing you ever ate?
My grandmother made beef stew once and didnt understand that in New York City there are about 10,000 roaches for each human. She let the stew "cool" and by the time my sister and I got served, it had been overrun with them. Yes, we didn't notice until too late that it was crunchier than normal. For the record, I was exactly as disgusted as you are.
11. Have you ever shit your pants? Be HONEST!
Yes, a few times actually. It's probably been 20 years or so, but hell, I ain't got nothin' to hide. You try going through 5 doors, one elevator (or four flights of stairs) and 5 locks when you reeeeeallly gotta go!
12. Was losing your virginity an enjoyable experience?
Possibly the best. I didn't lose it til I was 20, so I had a lot of pent-up fucking to do. I travelled 3000 miles to get it and I used condoms for the roughly two hours it went on.
13. Should oral sex be outlawed or encouraged?
Encouraged. Gingerly, but with less judgement and more communication. In my experience, there is far far far more misunderstanding about oral sex than there is actual oral sex.
14. Name one man with a fine ass.
George Michael, I guess. Although I guess he's old now. Well that's as good as I got.
15. Do you watch golf on television? If not, will you iron my shirts?
Never. Golf is fucking stupid. And sure, I love ironing, I just hope you don't love your shirts.
16. Who is Martha Burk?
No clue.
17. If you could change one thing about yourself, what would it be?
I would be more physically energetic and consequently more athletic-looking. I miss running.
18. Do you eat raw oysters?
Definitely. I need to be in the mood, but I can definitely appreciate good oysters. If you ask, I'll tell you about the horrifying oyster soup story. It's good, but it still makes me want to gag.
19. Are you claustrophobic?
No. I frequently have dreams where I am in a very tight tunnel, possibly closing in on me, and I am not bothered by it at all. So long as I can move at all, I'm cool.
20. If you rode a motorcycle, would you wear a helmet even if the law said you didn‘t have to?
Yes, and I'd also wear full-body armor and I wouldn't start the bike. I'd push it instead.
21. Name five great Presidents.
Sadly I don't have enough background to confidently answer this question. I'll take a weak stab at it by saying Lincoln for tackling the Civil War and slavery, and Reagan for handling the Soviet Union.
22. Name three shitty Presidents.
Same problem. I'll only toss Nixon in there just because he really screwed the pooch on Americans respecting the presidency.
23. Now call me fanny and slap my ass. Just kidding.
Hi fanny. *slap*
24. This is the 4th of July. Did you set off any fireworks?
No. It was surprisingly tame. Perhaps too much liquor and not enough sex.
25. If you could have dinner and conversation with anyone in the history of the planet, who would you choose?
Probably Napoleon. Maybe Ghengis Khan. I'd want to spend that time with someone who actually did conquer the world. I can barely handly my laundry - can you imagine waking up in the morning and your agenda includes ruling the world?
Happy Independance Day everyone!When you're all finished guzzling your beers and ravaging BBQ goodies, try this fun link!
The Declaration of Independence, The Constitution, and The Bill of Rights
Ok, it's not fun, but hell these wacky scribblings answer 99% of your political questions. Yes, really.
Last night brought some breathtaking dreams. I dreamt of beautiful girls. I mean girls who couldn't possibly exist. Like when you reach your peak of falling in love and you look at that person type of beauty. I dreamt of a kung-fu fight that was so surreal and placid that it was more like watching water flow around rocks in a slow running stream than anything else. It was like human origami. It was like slow sex. I dreamt of looking up at a open Montana sky and seeing it explode in washes of color and imagery so vast and awesome that I fell to the ground and closed my eyes and even the memory of the seconds I saw were so religiously powerful that I woke up crying ... with joy.
My time spent with people younger than me has given me a disturbingly useful sounding board against which I can gauge my own development. Sometimes I'm glad I'm not that young anymore. Other times I miss it. All in all it's good and I'm grudgingly learning to accept my grumpy habits and neurotic foibles while exposing myself to new things. Mogwai is a good band. Will and Grace is actually funny, sometimes.
Sometimes I wish I wasn't so aware of how tangible my limits are. On occasion I will yearn for epiphany and then realize that even stark realization of something won't give me the escape velocity I'll need to change it. Do these walls make me strong or do they make me trapped? I don't know.