at work, we show this religious video where the dance move for "freedom" is turning around in a circle and pointing at the sky with your index fingers. what does that represent? were slaves beaten for doing that? am I supposed to feel free when I do that?
today I decided, to hell with being dissatisfied with a misnomer of a dance move. so I spun around really really fast when the time came to make that move, because the word that went with it (freedom) was enough encouragement for me to do my own thing. but I didn't feel more free doing something nobody else did. I just felt dumb, because I was the only counselor who did anything at all, and kind of dizzy, and sad that the closest thing I could do to resemble an expression of my freedom would be to spin things around in the place that I'm in and pretend it's somewhere else.
wherever that's supposed to be, who knows.
a while ago, I asked the question, "does my confusion offend god?" and I still haven't got any answer. one thing I know about being frustrated with all these questions: I divide the number of times I want to wring my hands so hard the bones blend into each other by the number of times I think "what the fuck are you talking about?" so much that I'm shocked I didn't say it out loud. this number has never been negative. so that does, at least.
should I feel stuck right now? everybody says a world of endless possibilities is open to me. should I feel like a liar when I agree with them, just so they don't get upset?
Monday, June 30, 2008
Saturday, June 28, 2008
chapter eight: how to order an omelette
unlike most cooks, people who make omelettes at buffet-style brunches have ten or more aprons under their stoves. this is so you don't notice the shit they put into your omelette if it gets on their clothes. it rarely does, but they are a very careful people.
if you don't want a bad omelette, do the following things:
- don't order one. it's safest that way. few are friendly towards people who are ignorant of the omelette-ordering norms and mores, all of which must be observed without hesitation or even a thought of doubt or sheepishness swimming behind your eyes. they can instantly tell a first-time omelette orderer. if you want one at all, use extreme caution, or you might regret every morsel of food you've ever eaten.
- don't cut in line. in a good brunch, there are three cooks behind the omelette stove. only one of them actually cooks. the others aren't just standing there. one helps the guy who cooks and the other pays attention to the line. if the line guy sees you cut somebody, or slouch, or roll your eyes at the seemingly sluggish pace of the delicate and time-honored omelette-making process/tradition, he will clue the others in. they will tag the word "asshole" to your face, and that tag will never come off in their minds.
- don't talk to other people in the line. if somebody tries to start a conversation with you, look at them with a slightly annoyed, impatient, god-fearing expression. this is the only part of the process where you can come close to expressing something that resembles what's actually going through your head while you're in the line. if you give too much of yourself in this expression, the line-watcher will notice, and you will get "asshole" stuck to your face, and you don't want that. give just enough to discourage the person who's trying to talk to you from ever trying to do that to you, ever again, in an omelette line.
- when it's your turn to order, step forward to the omelette-making stove with your right foot first. the cooks will like it best if your right foot also takes the last step towards the stove as well, but sometimes you can't do that. don't try to take babysteps just to take off and land your walk on your right foot. then you will get "kissass" on your face forever and ever.
- always wait to be spoken to when you order. the line-watcher will say "next." this means step forward with your right foot. the cook's assistant will then wait exactly three seconds, starting when you stop walking, and then ask for your order. be polite, but if you're too polite, you will get "kissass" all over your face.
- after you've ordered, step away from the line. wait while making as little sound and motion as possible. if you're too still, they will sense your fear and lose respect they never even had in you. a little rocking back and forth on your feet is permitted. you may cough, quietly.
- don't look at the cook. he doesn't like to be watched.
- when your omelette is finished, the cook will slide it from the frying pan onto a white china plate, then put this plate to the side of the stove. grab the plate with your left hand. this is an ironic mockery of the rule about stepping with your right foot, which they find funny. thank the cook's assistant. he will pass it along to the cook. the cook will not care.
if you don't want a bad omelette, do the following things:
- don't order one. it's safest that way. few are friendly towards people who are ignorant of the omelette-ordering norms and mores, all of which must be observed without hesitation or even a thought of doubt or sheepishness swimming behind your eyes. they can instantly tell a first-time omelette orderer. if you want one at all, use extreme caution, or you might regret every morsel of food you've ever eaten.
- don't cut in line. in a good brunch, there are three cooks behind the omelette stove. only one of them actually cooks. the others aren't just standing there. one helps the guy who cooks and the other pays attention to the line. if the line guy sees you cut somebody, or slouch, or roll your eyes at the seemingly sluggish pace of the delicate and time-honored omelette-making process/tradition, he will clue the others in. they will tag the word "asshole" to your face, and that tag will never come off in their minds.
- don't talk to other people in the line. if somebody tries to start a conversation with you, look at them with a slightly annoyed, impatient, god-fearing expression. this is the only part of the process where you can come close to expressing something that resembles what's actually going through your head while you're in the line. if you give too much of yourself in this expression, the line-watcher will notice, and you will get "asshole" stuck to your face, and you don't want that. give just enough to discourage the person who's trying to talk to you from ever trying to do that to you, ever again, in an omelette line.
- when it's your turn to order, step forward to the omelette-making stove with your right foot first. the cooks will like it best if your right foot also takes the last step towards the stove as well, but sometimes you can't do that. don't try to take babysteps just to take off and land your walk on your right foot. then you will get "kissass" on your face forever and ever.
- always wait to be spoken to when you order. the line-watcher will say "next." this means step forward with your right foot. the cook's assistant will then wait exactly three seconds, starting when you stop walking, and then ask for your order. be polite, but if you're too polite, you will get "kissass" all over your face.
- after you've ordered, step away from the line. wait while making as little sound and motion as possible. if you're too still, they will sense your fear and lose respect they never even had in you. a little rocking back and forth on your feet is permitted. you may cough, quietly.
- don't look at the cook. he doesn't like to be watched.
- when your omelette is finished, the cook will slide it from the frying pan onto a white china plate, then put this plate to the side of the stove. grab the plate with your left hand. this is an ironic mockery of the rule about stepping with your right foot, which they find funny. thank the cook's assistant. he will pass it along to the cook. the cook will not care.
Tuesday, June 24, 2008
chapter seven: push ups
so I had my ankles elevated on the footstool in my living room and didn't notice this footstool rocking back and forth until I'd already done twenty of them. so I redid those twenty and started at the beginning and had to do some crash-course physics to figure out if the work done by the arms is made any easier by an ill-established, rocking-back-and-forth foot/base. which meant I went back into my original position, ankles poorly balanced, footstool leaning on two legs, and found that yes, my arms were in pain, and no, it didn't matter if my feet were secure or not.
then I stirred around some banana-flavored powder past its expiration date (2007, when I first decided to make my upper body un-pitiful) in a glass of milk and drank it like it was my third beer. I learned not to mix it with water because the powder cakes to the edges and collects into little dry lumps that stick to your throat and explode in foul-tasting off-banana-flavored dirt clods. milk somehow works better. those are notions I don't pursue. (I figured it works for nesquick, why not protein shake.)
it didn't taste awful, until I realized that if you're not doing anything, your body will convert most of the protein you eat into fat, virtually none of it will go to muscle mass. then the protein shake tasted awful.
anyways, today I bought a watch from wal-mart. now I know what time it is. I expect this will make my job easier, knowing what time it is. or it will make my workday excruciatingly long, counting every second with my eyes hinged to the wristwatch on my arm, frozen in place as the clocks on my finite life and even more finite paycheck turn slowly, slowly apart.
when I go to sleep the digestive dynamo in the half inch of pure laziness outside my gut will gain another couple thousand cells, because I didn't know what time to drink a fucking protein shake. and there they will stay. free lunches all around; they'll carve loopholes in my metabolic expendatures so they can live fatly and happily, like fat, happy fatty-cell fat-cats, pennies added on to my national debt; to express that metaphor exponentially:
(m+(1/x))^b
M is the guilt and X is the part of M I actually deserve and B is time, time, time.
then I stirred around some banana-flavored powder past its expiration date (2007, when I first decided to make my upper body un-pitiful) in a glass of milk and drank it like it was my third beer. I learned not to mix it with water because the powder cakes to the edges and collects into little dry lumps that stick to your throat and explode in foul-tasting off-banana-flavored dirt clods. milk somehow works better. those are notions I don't pursue. (I figured it works for nesquick, why not protein shake.)
it didn't taste awful, until I realized that if you're not doing anything, your body will convert most of the protein you eat into fat, virtually none of it will go to muscle mass. then the protein shake tasted awful.
anyways, today I bought a watch from wal-mart. now I know what time it is. I expect this will make my job easier, knowing what time it is. or it will make my workday excruciatingly long, counting every second with my eyes hinged to the wristwatch on my arm, frozen in place as the clocks on my finite life and even more finite paycheck turn slowly, slowly apart.
when I go to sleep the digestive dynamo in the half inch of pure laziness outside my gut will gain another couple thousand cells, because I didn't know what time to drink a fucking protein shake. and there they will stay. free lunches all around; they'll carve loopholes in my metabolic expendatures so they can live fatly and happily, like fat, happy fatty-cell fat-cats, pennies added on to my national debt; to express that metaphor exponentially:
(m+(1/x))^b
M is the guilt and X is the part of M I actually deserve and B is time, time, time.
Tuesday, June 17, 2008
chapter six: the decision to quit came abruptly
so I drove back sunday morning at five o'clock after staying up the whole night at my friend's graduation party, waiting uselessly for girls to arrive that never did, playing grand theft auto, dying in creative and expressive ways. (I blew myself off the top of the empire state building and once survived a fall from one thousand feet, and got up and walked away to explode another quarter mile above again.)
dropped my gum on the passenger seat and fished for it, eighty miles an hour on the highway, in the safest possible position, eyes obscured from road;
work begins in half an hour. don't know what I'll do at the same time I'm doing that. so many things to think about, who even has the time.
maybe I should start writing embarrassing personal details in my blog, like everybody else does. but the only visitors I'd gain are the ones that already know
most of that stuff without having to read it again, and the ones I have already (both of them) would only feel alienated and weird. so no, my dignity still belongs to me.
google has been suggesting labels for these posts since a very long time ago. among them are: "scooters, vacations, fall." are they trying to tell me something?
maybe I should make something like that. a story wrapped like a god's-eye of words and yarn, between poles of scooters, vacations and fall. or maybe just scooters
and vacations, and it would be set in the fall. or maybe there would be a kid on a scooter, in summer vacation, rolling down a hill, while the sun was going down;
going as fast as childish legs can propel kid on a scooter on a small hill, thinking that speed was a blue viscous liquid that built up in the air as you went, faster and faster,
and it filled your mouth and covered you in a bullet-trail as you pushed air out of the way, and when you stopped it evaporated and left you panting and drymouthed;
trying not to imagine the asphalt ripping skin from knee and blood from frayed veins, or the horror and embarrassment of a wailing child-boy-thing on the ground;
banking towards the lawns of neighbors, where safety was gathered in piles of dead or dying fallen leaves, crusted, old, like wear on hands at the start of fall.
dropped my gum on the passenger seat and fished for it, eighty miles an hour on the highway, in the safest possible position, eyes obscured from road;
work begins in half an hour. don't know what I'll do at the same time I'm doing that. so many things to think about, who even has the time.
maybe I should start writing embarrassing personal details in my blog, like everybody else does. but the only visitors I'd gain are the ones that already know
most of that stuff without having to read it again, and the ones I have already (both of them) would only feel alienated and weird. so no, my dignity still belongs to me.
google has been suggesting labels for these posts since a very long time ago. among them are: "scooters, vacations, fall." are they trying to tell me something?
maybe I should make something like that. a story wrapped like a god's-eye of words and yarn, between poles of scooters, vacations and fall. or maybe just scooters
and vacations, and it would be set in the fall. or maybe there would be a kid on a scooter, in summer vacation, rolling down a hill, while the sun was going down;
going as fast as childish legs can propel kid on a scooter on a small hill, thinking that speed was a blue viscous liquid that built up in the air as you went, faster and faster,
and it filled your mouth and covered you in a bullet-trail as you pushed air out of the way, and when you stopped it evaporated and left you panting and drymouthed;
trying not to imagine the asphalt ripping skin from knee and blood from frayed veins, or the horror and embarrassment of a wailing child-boy-thing on the ground;
banking towards the lawns of neighbors, where safety was gathered in piles of dead or dying fallen leaves, crusted, old, like wear on hands at the start of fall.
Sunday, June 15, 2008
chapter five: but not to call me back or say good-bye
- got eaten alive by bugs at a few different grad parties/ work environments; was followed.
- made a few astonishing discoveries about nosebleeds:
1) it is manlier to call them bloody noses;
2) they are unstoppable;
3) sneezing makes everything worse.
- mourned, silently, high school.
- mourned, less silently, tim russert.
- kept coming back to this one image: I'm in the parking lot of some auditorium where I've just graduated, and I'm laying my graduation robes lengthwise into the trunk of my car. They look remarkably human, and I see the yellow escape latch on the trunk's inside, which will do them no good. I think of my robes looking out at me from in there, and think: "Nothing personal. Just business." Then I close the trunk.
- must find a more eloquent way of saying that.
- made a few astonishing discoveries about nosebleeds:
1) it is manlier to call them bloody noses;
2) they are unstoppable;
3) sneezing makes everything worse.
- mourned, silently, high school.
- mourned, less silently, tim russert.
- kept coming back to this one image: I'm in the parking lot of some auditorium where I've just graduated, and I'm laying my graduation robes lengthwise into the trunk of my car. They look remarkably human, and I see the yellow escape latch on the trunk's inside, which will do them no good. I think of my robes looking out at me from in there, and think: "Nothing personal. Just business." Then I close the trunk.
- must find a more eloquent way of saying that.
Thursday, June 12, 2008
chapter four: how to maintain homeostasis in the face of insurmountable odds
so about freshman orientation. saturday evening the counselors put on a sex ed program in the form of improv theater, most of which was surprisingly painless. they let everybody out of the auditorium and said we could do whatever we wanted, so long as we didn't leave the campus, until eleven thirty, when the dorm doors locked. after a sex ed crash course, this sounded a lot like "go forth and be fruitful."
I went back to my dorm to drop off most of the packets and pamphlets and debris that I'd gathered in my hands walking around in the hundred degree humidity while the sun was up. now that it was not up, I felt like doing something stupid, and started walking towards the auditorium they'd just shooed everybody out of. they were playing "cloverfield" and it was dark and nice and air conditioned.
except I wound up walking a half mile in the wrong direction, which if you're in college is like three galaxies away. I shelved my manly pride and asked a grad student for directions.
SCENE: (night is like a glass of coke with cigarette ashes or oily clouds obscuring the moon; deserted and useless sidewalks building lattices on otherwise pretty lawns, which seem oddly numb, novocained, when the sun is not on them; streetlights piss, endlessly, yellow on aging bugs; B is talking on a cell phone, A is very lost, and in clothing poorly suited for the heat and humidity; except for A and B, completely deserted.)
A (fully conscious of the awkwardness of the following events, though helpless to stop them): Excuse me?
B (startled? worried? whispering excuses and explanations into her cell phone? who's she talking to? who else is being interrupted?): Yes?
A (thinks: Oh, shit. Shit, shit, shit. Don't mumble.): I'm looking for the, uh, the auditorium.
B (after saying "One sec," into the cell, gloriously clutching an alibi): The Bowker auditorium, you mean?
A (in a moment of mortal fear): Oh. Are there more than one? I'm not sure.
B: Well, that one's right over there.
A: That's probably it, thanks.
and guess what? there was nobody there at all! you'd think that the mahar auditorium would be easy to find, because I had just walked in a straight line from there to my dorm, and hadn't spun around in a swivel chair or been beaten on the head with heavy things, my state of mind was completely unaltered. but somehow- somehow!- I was standing in front of a locked auditorium with no air conditioning and no movie and nobody.
so I started walking back to my dorm. got lost again! found myself in a parking lot, completely empty except for this one subaru station wagon, beaten up, bumper stickers all along the back window. a middle-aged man was just chillin out in the driver's seat. I should be okay if I don't make eye contact. I see him in the rear view mirror as I walk by. fuck.
then after I've left the parking lot, when there's a good safe fifty feet of fight-or-flight distance between where I was and where I thought the subaru was still parked, some light spills onto the street from behind me and suddenly I am being pursued by a pair of headlights. I jump over a guard rail and begin to run away.
no big deal, though, that was a false alarm. I looked back as I was running away, a fatal mistake, or would've been if that car wasn't just a plain old all-american non-threatening silver sedan. a camry, I think.
after that was about another mile of walking before I reached my dorm at eleven o'clock. then I weighed my options: keep pushing my luck (maybe some grad student will do the safe thing and not talk to males attempting conversation outside in the dark, though the safer thing would be to scream rape and/or blind me with mace; maybe I'd get abducted by alien subarus, maybe not, it's luck we're talking about after all) OR I could just go up into my dorm room and waste the rest of my ipod's batteries on elliott smith etc. while trying not to make any. other. noise.
so I went to bed.
I waited an hour and a half for my dad to pick me up the day after. I camped out under a tree and leaned my head against my rolled-up sleeping bag, like a good hobo does. I expected somebody to tell me to move, or at least call me out on looking so pitiful, but they did not. that's one good thing about going to an enormous school, I guess.
I went back to my dorm to drop off most of the packets and pamphlets and debris that I'd gathered in my hands walking around in the hundred degree humidity while the sun was up. now that it was not up, I felt like doing something stupid, and started walking towards the auditorium they'd just shooed everybody out of. they were playing "cloverfield" and it was dark and nice and air conditioned.
except I wound up walking a half mile in the wrong direction, which if you're in college is like three galaxies away. I shelved my manly pride and asked a grad student for directions.
SCENE: (night is like a glass of coke with cigarette ashes or oily clouds obscuring the moon; deserted and useless sidewalks building lattices on otherwise pretty lawns, which seem oddly numb, novocained, when the sun is not on them; streetlights piss, endlessly, yellow on aging bugs; B is talking on a cell phone, A is very lost, and in clothing poorly suited for the heat and humidity; except for A and B, completely deserted.)
A (fully conscious of the awkwardness of the following events, though helpless to stop them): Excuse me?
B (startled? worried? whispering excuses and explanations into her cell phone? who's she talking to? who else is being interrupted?): Yes?
A (thinks: Oh, shit. Shit, shit, shit. Don't mumble.): I'm looking for the, uh, the auditorium.
B (after saying "One sec," into the cell, gloriously clutching an alibi): The Bowker auditorium, you mean?
A (in a moment of mortal fear): Oh. Are there more than one? I'm not sure.
B: Well, that one's right over there.
A: That's probably it, thanks.
and guess what? there was nobody there at all! you'd think that the mahar auditorium would be easy to find, because I had just walked in a straight line from there to my dorm, and hadn't spun around in a swivel chair or been beaten on the head with heavy things, my state of mind was completely unaltered. but somehow- somehow!- I was standing in front of a locked auditorium with no air conditioning and no movie and nobody.
so I started walking back to my dorm. got lost again! found myself in a parking lot, completely empty except for this one subaru station wagon, beaten up, bumper stickers all along the back window. a middle-aged man was just chillin out in the driver's seat. I should be okay if I don't make eye contact. I see him in the rear view mirror as I walk by. fuck.
then after I've left the parking lot, when there's a good safe fifty feet of fight-or-flight distance between where I was and where I thought the subaru was still parked, some light spills onto the street from behind me and suddenly I am being pursued by a pair of headlights. I jump over a guard rail and begin to run away.
no big deal, though, that was a false alarm. I looked back as I was running away, a fatal mistake, or would've been if that car wasn't just a plain old all-american non-threatening silver sedan. a camry, I think.
after that was about another mile of walking before I reached my dorm at eleven o'clock. then I weighed my options: keep pushing my luck (maybe some grad student will do the safe thing and not talk to males attempting conversation outside in the dark, though the safer thing would be to scream rape and/or blind me with mace; maybe I'd get abducted by alien subarus, maybe not, it's luck we're talking about after all) OR I could just go up into my dorm room and waste the rest of my ipod's batteries on elliott smith etc. while trying not to make any. other. noise.
so I went to bed.
I waited an hour and a half for my dad to pick me up the day after. I camped out under a tree and leaned my head against my rolled-up sleeping bag, like a good hobo does. I expected somebody to tell me to move, or at least call me out on looking so pitiful, but they did not. that's one good thing about going to an enormous school, I guess.
Tuesday, June 10, 2008
chapter three: return to clarity& creative responsibility, pt. 2.
dear student:
you are about to embark on an urgent journey. you will sleep more than you have to. you will get fat. everybody will. (here, "everybody" means that those who stay the same weight, or lose weight, will be hated by "everybody," without exemption, as though nothing else about them was relevant to their standing as human beings but weight.)
do not bring cigars. they are tacky, and for old men or fratboys, neither of which are you (yet).
do not bring a towel. they are free.
do not bring three-ringed binders. they are for other people, but not for you.
you will carry:
- one guitar, your father's if possible
-- unless asked, do not tell anybody whose guitar it is. they'll assume it's yours. it's cool.
- one poster, the subject of which is yours to choose, but must not be:
a) obnoxious or
b) just too colorful or
c) entirely black and white, which is for sad people, and nobody can stand you when you're sad.
- one pair of boots. now stop. does the word "boots" make you think construction boots, cowboy boots, workboots, hiking boots? any of these things could make you a total pussy. think carefully.
- one umbrella. don't get one that's too big. don't get one that's too small. don't get one that's too medium-sized, either. let's use a visual aid here.
rating from 1-3 the size of your umbrella:
(1)..................................(2)...................................(3)
too small to be of any use/ you are clearly compensating
ideally, yours will be a 1.45. if you can't find one of those, don't bother bringing one.
- one five-dollar masterlock. if you need anything more than that, you aren't hiding your shit smart enough.
finally:
- don't show people your writing. that is for showoffs, and you aren't a showoff. are you?
- don't sleep under a tree if you get locked out. actually, just don't get locked out.
- don't write an entire story and run out of ideas at the end and then decide, whoops, let's go back and make the entire fucking thing a metaphor, that way nothing has to end, it's a cycle blah blah. that is for other writers, and you aren't any of them.
- say as little as possible.
your friend,
___ _____
you are about to embark on an urgent journey. you will sleep more than you have to. you will get fat. everybody will. (here, "everybody" means that those who stay the same weight, or lose weight, will be hated by "everybody," without exemption, as though nothing else about them was relevant to their standing as human beings but weight.)
do not bring cigars. they are tacky, and for old men or fratboys, neither of which are you (yet).
do not bring a towel. they are free.
do not bring three-ringed binders. they are for other people, but not for you.
you will carry:
- one guitar, your father's if possible
-- unless asked, do not tell anybody whose guitar it is. they'll assume it's yours. it's cool.
- one poster, the subject of which is yours to choose, but must not be:
a) obnoxious or
b) just too colorful or
c) entirely black and white, which is for sad people, and nobody can stand you when you're sad.
- one pair of boots. now stop. does the word "boots" make you think construction boots, cowboy boots, workboots, hiking boots? any of these things could make you a total pussy. think carefully.
- one umbrella. don't get one that's too big. don't get one that's too small. don't get one that's too medium-sized, either. let's use a visual aid here.
rating from 1-3 the size of your umbrella:
(1)..................................(2)...................................(3)
too small to be of any use/ you are clearly compensating
- one five-dollar masterlock. if you need anything more than that, you aren't hiding your shit smart enough.
finally:
- don't show people your writing. that is for showoffs, and you aren't a showoff. are you?
- don't sleep under a tree if you get locked out. actually, just don't get locked out.
- don't write an entire story and run out of ideas at the end and then decide, whoops, let's go back and make the entire fucking thing a metaphor, that way nothing has to end, it's a cycle blah blah. that is for other writers, and you aren't any of them.
- say as little as possible.
your friend,
___ _____
Tuesday, June 3, 2008
chapter two: hillary's master stroke
as if she hadn't said "assassination" a week ago, as if she hadn't been praising the republican contender at her party's expense, as if the welfare of her party had anything to do with the vicious, callous, disgusting, insensitive campaigning she's been running for month after excruciating month, as if she hadn't praised fox news for its fairness and balance, or hadn't implicitly cast doubts on obama's christianity, or stiff-armed him into a roast session with stephanopoulos, the man her family gave a career, hillary clinton would like, pretty please, to be barrack obama's running mate.
now he'll have to weigh his options. does barrack obama want the next in line to be a political opportunist hinging her entire campaign strategy on the horrifying possibility of his assassination? or does he want to snub her offer, allowing her an infinite amount of sound bites explaining how shocked she was, how sad she was, how sad all the other people she'd conned on her side were, their sad faces staring back at her at the podium, vampire-casey struck out sixty pitches later. thank god for the drunk umpire.
if only the party elders had come out and seen what was happening. "please do not drive a wedge through the party," they could have told her. "you are at a serious disadvantage. consider the millions of people that voted for you. they won't get you; would you like them to get mccain?"
if only she would apologize for the hurt she's put on the people who are ideologically identical to her, on the people who want to help the people she says she wants to help.
ugh.
now he'll have to weigh his options. does barrack obama want the next in line to be a political opportunist hinging her entire campaign strategy on the horrifying possibility of his assassination? or does he want to snub her offer, allowing her an infinite amount of sound bites explaining how shocked she was, how sad she was, how sad all the other people she'd conned on her side were, their sad faces staring back at her at the podium, vampire-casey struck out sixty pitches later. thank god for the drunk umpire.
if only the party elders had come out and seen what was happening. "please do not drive a wedge through the party," they could have told her. "you are at a serious disadvantage. consider the millions of people that voted for you. they won't get you; would you like them to get mccain?"
if only she would apologize for the hurt she's put on the people who are ideologically identical to her, on the people who want to help the people she says she wants to help.
ugh.
Monday, June 2, 2008
chapter one: return to clarity& creative responsibility, pt. 1
I know that the "pt. 1" in the subject heading should go right behind the colon in the subject heading. it should read: "chapter one, pt.1:", and admitting that I am wrong is the first step towards getting over another problem in the subject heading: creative responsibility.
that's a total lie. creative responsibility, what is that horse shit? it sounds like one of mr. kevin trudeau's magical mystery cures for alzheimers and crohn's disease. although self-medicating would probaby help the problem I tried to solve by sticking a nametag on it and telling a lie on that with bubble letters, I don't have anything better to prescribe myself other than cheap labels and euphemisms.
maybe I should write a story where all the characters are in happy places, but are not happy. titled "why pandas don't procreate in captivity." that would be a little too pointed.
I have five days to wait before graduating, which reminds me of the four years I have spent doing the same. I forgot most of the math by now. I remember about the human kidney, and the distance between the earth and the sun, and how the moon rotates at the same speed it revolves, and how the sea adds torque to the whole equation behind the awkward waltz, and if it wasn't for that, the two of them would careen happily, coldly, through space all this time, occasionally pausing to wonder, "really, though, what if?"
to which nobody anywhere could pause and think over, or give reply, because they wouldn't exist. no apical meristems. no high schools. no water buffalo. earthquakes would swallow, emptily, lonesomely, what would have been san fracisco or lisbon. the earth would politely demur when waterlogged asteroids invited themselves over. he'd get called sour grapes, though no grapes, not even sour ones, could exist at this time.
maybe an alien civilization would visit and think, "why, this doesn't make any sense at all. it's just the right distance from the sun. it doesn't rotate so fast that nothing gets hot, or so slow that one side gets baked. and its only moon pulls on it in just the right way (little did they know), so that it has... seasons! why, if it just had liquid water, there'd be limitless possibilities for this little ugly thing." and since there would be no such thing as cliches on a lifeless planet, it would be OK for aliens to visit in the middle of the story.
and the moon would listen and say, "he's not listening to you. he's probably asleep." although the aliens would not hear, because they are aliens, and not cool like that.
then they would leave, wondering if the paradoxes of interest that interplanetary travel lends itself towards would keep them from keeping their promises to the folks at home by dropping tons upon tons of water on the sleeping earth. they gave it a fifty-fifty, leaning more towards the "no" option. would they come back and open the flood gates? would they drop a packet of yeast in the mix? would the yeast survive the freezing and then the thawing and go on to turn the sea into beer and then the beer into rivers and salmon leaping up waterfalls into the mouths of bears?
does it matter to the sleeping earth?
that's a total lie. creative responsibility, what is that horse shit? it sounds like one of mr. kevin trudeau's magical mystery cures for alzheimers and crohn's disease. although self-medicating would probaby help the problem I tried to solve by sticking a nametag on it and telling a lie on that with bubble letters, I don't have anything better to prescribe myself other than cheap labels and euphemisms.
maybe I should write a story where all the characters are in happy places, but are not happy. titled "why pandas don't procreate in captivity." that would be a little too pointed.
I have five days to wait before graduating, which reminds me of the four years I have spent doing the same. I forgot most of the math by now. I remember about the human kidney, and the distance between the earth and the sun, and how the moon rotates at the same speed it revolves, and how the sea adds torque to the whole equation behind the awkward waltz, and if it wasn't for that, the two of them would careen happily, coldly, through space all this time, occasionally pausing to wonder, "really, though, what if?"
to which nobody anywhere could pause and think over, or give reply, because they wouldn't exist. no apical meristems. no high schools. no water buffalo. earthquakes would swallow, emptily, lonesomely, what would have been san fracisco or lisbon. the earth would politely demur when waterlogged asteroids invited themselves over. he'd get called sour grapes, though no grapes, not even sour ones, could exist at this time.
maybe an alien civilization would visit and think, "why, this doesn't make any sense at all. it's just the right distance from the sun. it doesn't rotate so fast that nothing gets hot, or so slow that one side gets baked. and its only moon pulls on it in just the right way (little did they know), so that it has... seasons! why, if it just had liquid water, there'd be limitless possibilities for this little ugly thing." and since there would be no such thing as cliches on a lifeless planet, it would be OK for aliens to visit in the middle of the story.
and the moon would listen and say, "he's not listening to you. he's probably asleep." although the aliens would not hear, because they are aliens, and not cool like that.
then they would leave, wondering if the paradoxes of interest that interplanetary travel lends itself towards would keep them from keeping their promises to the folks at home by dropping tons upon tons of water on the sleeping earth. they gave it a fifty-fifty, leaning more towards the "no" option. would they come back and open the flood gates? would they drop a packet of yeast in the mix? would the yeast survive the freezing and then the thawing and go on to turn the sea into beer and then the beer into rivers and salmon leaping up waterfalls into the mouths of bears?
does it matter to the sleeping earth?
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