Shut The Gate

I know I need to shut up.  I know saying I don't understand only flies for so long, but this is something I wanted to float out there that I've been mulling over for several months.  So I'll get it out of the harbor.  I don't understand, and I swear it'll be the last time for a long time I start with something like it or around it, but I don't get how I can be outside of it looking in and inside of it and trying to look out.  I'm getting one or both wrong.

Either I think I'm looking out or I think I'm outside looking in and, regardless of the math, I'm not getting it right enough.  Not to be doe eyed, but I'm at a loss.  Did I mess something up?  The tracers are not lining up with where the rounds are actually hitting, is my suspicion.  I'm donking something up.

No, it's not a missing piece.  I am underthinking?  Overthinking?  Which one is it?  Shit.  Which one is it.  No, I don't need to sleep.  That's stupid.  That's putting shit off.  I need to cuss less is somethin, though it keeps you honest.  I'm missing something.  Not sure what.  God knows it's not religion.

I'll figure it out.  I know I need to shut up.  I will.  I have some work to do.  It would be nice to collect teeth at will.  That would be fabulous.  Just wear a mane made of collected teeth.  It would be nifty.  They're not easy to come by.

Dealing & Check In

Gotta change the motor oil now and then.  S'not the first time or the last.  I was concerned.  The panels were lighting up in not so good ways and it's kind of like changing your alarm because sometimes the tune you design to play goes doot doot doot and then you start dancing instead of waking up and that's no good, ya know?  It's no good.

Instead of waking up you get like "aw, this sounds great, who made this?  I can jam all day" and that's no good at all.  Time to change the motor oil.

An overactive imagination they said.  Spirits was put past me too.  Talking to angels got floated.  Talking to demons got floated too.  "Just pick which ones" got floated too.  Hawky talk.  All of it trash.  Waking up to the signals again.  The check engine light.  Sky zoe frania.   I hate that word so much.  I hate that word so fucking much.  I hate that word so fucking much!  I hate that word.  I hate that word.  I hate that word.  I hate that word.  I hate that word.  I hate that word.  I hate that fucking word.

Delusions of grandeur.  I don't understand!  I don't get it.  I'm very happy.  I'm working on a concussion free year and I think I'm gonna be able to get it this year.  The first one in five without one.  The first year in three that I haven't broken my nose.  I'm looking forward to it.  It is going to be a gold belt when I check off December.  I'm dealing.

Six years without a pain killer (minus alcohol but that only halfway counts.... a pain putter offer).  Nothing to the significance of a tylenol.  I'm not allowing myself to sniff anything near an edible.  It's good though.  It's a bad track to go down, plus pain lets you know where the line is.  There's nothing wrong with that.  I'm dealing and it's great and terrifying because I'm - not sure when the line happens, ya know?  When we click over and aren't talking to people anymore or are extremely unreasonable.

The concern comes from knowing that an existence without you is doable, highly doable, but not nearly as ... well, not that far.  I won't go that far.  Within the framework of citizenship, yes, absolutely.  An existence without you is by a landslide far more favorable and speaks to my heart in ways I don't always and can sometimes not do at all.  A self starter to a degree; turn the dial far enough and hydrolock blows the push rods to bits and reduces the engine block to a 300 lb paperweight.

Does that make me dependent?  I hope not.  I guess, what I'm saying is if I was the last man on Earth, my reign would be fairly brief.  We laugh saying it out loud, but it's true.  Maybe a decade or two, if that.  I hope I am doing a reasonable job of it.  I know I slip sometimes and the clutch engages and I am two gears off of first and I don't always know whose driving the damn thing to begin with and sometimes ... talking out of school.  Nope nope nope.  None of that.  Enough of that.

I want a fucking present.  I want a parade and a band and a fucking float.  I want the parade, the band, the float, and a present.  I tore after my pap paps for talking to me in snippets of things he's seen and not actually talking and here I am doing it too.  Anger management was neither of our strong suits.  I wonder who talks to him.  Who did he have to talk down.  Did he?  It would certainly explain a lot of a few things.  It really fucking would.  He's not talking though so I guess I'll grill him in heaven or hell.  Chaa!  Have the rest of eternity to exchange phone books.  Wouldn't that be the fucking cats.

I'm dealing though.  The committee deals back and we play our cards and try to beat the dealer sometimes.  Sometimes we just fill the house coffers and call it.

It's a juggling act with a little bit of severed limbs when the chainsaw comes down two seconds earlier than expected or turns a rotation before it was supposed to or hangs in the air a tad bit longer for no god damn reason whatsoever and control goes out like a tungsten bulb and its tomorrow already and you're talking to people in daylight and how the hell what the fuck am i doing here happens and you have to review your notes.  I really hope it's not like this when I'm fifty.  I'm afraid it might be, or worse.  Da fuck is paranoia anyways?  Why can't I sleep in the dark?  What is out there?  What the hell is out there???  I've been looking for you.  I've been searching for you.  Come out!  I know you're there.  I can fucking smell you, you fuck.  I can fucking hear you!  Why can no one else hear you!  It's not fair.  It's not fair.  You know what, 'ats fine.  We're fine with that.  For fucks sake, just once, speak to someone else too.  I dunno.  It's tiring and very difficult to explain how energy is expended without losing traction altogether and paying for it in a big way because I am just like you.  I want to be.  Let's trade.  S'not a grift if it's an even trade.  Keep routine.  Stay alert.  Routine will rescue you.  I don't like change.  I'm not stubborn.  I'm not antisocial.  I just have to maintain parameters and readings and locations to the "t" and to the dot.  Please don't be offended if I whip donuts and drive like a madman when designated play time comes about.  It's the only time I have to spend when high alert can be tuned down to "we are all present and accounted for."  Why won't you fucking die!?  Time to change the oil.

My tracking is suffering again on certain very important things.  We are not enthused.  It is unacceptable.




///Nancy Sinatra - (Bang Bang)

A Quick Thought on Authenticity and (ffs) Go Protocol

Knowing what you are and what you're not is where it begins, that's the baby step.  There's nothing wrong with being a baby.  Complaining let's you know, if you've ears for it, that you are not necessarily happy with the way things are or how they're going.  Everyone's a baby.  At some point.  Everyone complains.

The option is to take the turn or drive the motivation straight over the edge and hope you land somewhere nice.  Hope you land in something like a pillow factory or a bin of sand, or just anything more forgiving than concrete.  Take the turn.  Complain like a baby and then adjust.  You can take your authenticity to the grave with you or you can exist within it.  Sounds pretty simple.  It's a bit more complicated, unfortunately.  Sometimes you just have to realize that you are striped and a tiger and sometimes imaginary in a pack of lions.  Doesn't mean you have to be at war with the lions.  You're both after the same things.  There's nothing wrong with that.  You've honed your way and they've honed theirs and you're on the same field now so you have to learn how to play together effectively that you not step on one another's paws and sink teeth too close together on the same kill.

It's "go protocol."  It's trigger pull.  It's losing my train of thought and getting heckling from the rest of the committee and continuing to ball because YOURE NOT THE BOSS OF ME YOU @#$%S.

Fight through the noise.  Embrace the sound.  Love who you want to.  It does not matter if they love you back.  You have the right to love whomever and whatever you choose to, whomever and whatever you can't refuse to.  If they cannot respect that, it's their loss.  In a world lessed for loves lost, why waste it?  Let it fly.  Untenable as it may be, let it fly.  Let it fly!  Allow it to cross the distance that must be enforced for whatever reasons are reasonable.  Include a few that are not.

Remain authentic.  Stick to the protocol.  You have not lived as long as you have by ignoring protocol.  When the Go sign says go,  go!  Think twice, for sure.  "Fo Sho!" does not mean for show.  I can put on a fantastic show when I want to.  I can put on a show for the fucking ages.  Fo sho means for sure and it's pretty much a miniature pact.  A handshake and a signature of gumption.  With no risk comes no reward and you know what comes without whisk?  I do.  I'll give you another second to guess.  Time's up.  Without whisk you get a big old cup of pineapple pulp and undissolved sugar at the bottom of your pitcher of pineapple tea.  Gross.  Also, really hard to drink.

Obey Go Protocol.  Stay authentic.  Bow to be courteous, not to fit better.  If you win the single combat and fit well, you'll hate them later because they will know what you did.  They will talk about the event, if not active, in passing.  You will know too.

The combination is not friendly.  They are not looking for maps the same way you do.  The same way you are.  Do not expect assistance when you go.  Do not expect support.  Do not armor for resistance either.  You were invited for a reason.  You were on their wing for a reason.  That reason may not be for back up should combat come down.  That reason may not be for mounting an assault that day.  That reason may not be for humor or for "to hell with them"s.  You may never know what that reason's reasoning inside their head was, but there was a reason.

So go.  Go!  Stay authentic.  There was something asked of you.  Think about what you've asked of them in return by answering the howl.  The details will work themselves out, if they do.  The details will work themselves out, if they don't pull your card again.  Through the noise, through the fire, through the poise, through the ire.  For once,

allow yourself to see it their way and do not Chameleon.  Do not lock up.  For @#$%s sake, remain authentic.  Uncertainty is a bitch, be certain of this.




///Girl Talk - (Ask About Me)      chapter one...  still writing the jacket

Shove Off

Often times, many times, too many times, you cannot shove off where you left go.  It's just fact.  There are no two ways about it.  It's not that not alright, you know?  Sure, it's rotten.  We all get that.  It's not all rotten.  You cannot advance without memory.  You can not advance without recall, dispute me!

They're different.  They are very different things.  Hypothesis and road up to where the pages were included, had you possession of the expansion boxed set.

It's unusual?  Maybe I never picked it up while growing up.  It feels very weird as I've come to understand my body...  am I now finally full grown?

Twenty nine.  The number feels okay, reasonable.  Going backwards my last/earliest memory is looking at the park next to preschool.

Weight is the question.  Topped out around 155 +- 5, third year of college jumped to 160 +- 10 then ten years later topped out around 195 no matter what I do.   Am I now growing into my body?  After all this time?  Laughing indignation?  I do not get it.  I don't get it.  I don't fucking understand it.  Why did it take so long.  How come no one warned me?

Feels reasonable.  Seems reasonable.  I'm pretty sure puberty is not supposed to last 16 years.  That doesn't sound right.  I've noticed my footfalls are heavier with the extra weight.  I have to think farther ahead to not step on or run into things.  Am I officially stocky?  Dear God!  Am I stocky?  Am I permanently 5'11", no less than 190 lbs, arms and legs damn near equal in length?  Well, I'm not okay with that!  It's unsettling.  Why couldn't I have had an abnormally long ring finger or something.

It is a nuisance: having to understand your body and check back to understand the trouble codes on the high line.

The Changed Landscape of Warfare, Want, and The Spacefarer's Bible

I won't say I will not continue to try to make myself happy.  That's foolish and, honestly, a little bit petty and a lot of bit lie no matter whose mouth it comes out of.  I do and will (most of the time).  Sometimes I completely screw it up and ruin everything for all of us.  Life is about that sometimes.  Let's begin and find our ending and hopefully put a bow on it so we can assault the next stronghold.

We're a consumer organism.  Advancement, the byproduct.  That's easy to yank out of the air because it's been floating around there since I was a kid.  "We don't make stuff anymore!"  "We export everything!"  "We import everything!" And on and on and on.  It's very easy to get lost in macro markets and who owes whom X amount of ... have you ever watched a history show?

A show where they talk about ancient constructs or modern constructs or ancient economies or modern economies or ancient populations or modern populations?  Have you ever watched a speculative show where they talk about what could be at X time in Y space  if A and B happen or if C continues to happen or if D changes to a ridiculous extent and ceases to be or metastasizes into some sort of creature all it's own?  Have you ever watched the news or an informative program or a program garbed as one that is vested in speculation or sometimes vested in pure facts?

If you have not laughed, laugh the next time you watch one.  Not because what they're saying is true or false.  Not because what they're saying could be true or could be false and massive death or infinite life may be just around the corner.  Not because what they're saying is a ridiculous analogy or because what they are saying makes no damn sense at all given what we know about the world, given how long human beings have been recording information and analyzing information and the fact that even the people that were completely off were still right by a few degrees and it's largely been a war of precision and infomatic attrition.

Laugh because it is hilarious when they tell you the heart pumps enough blood in your life time to fill an olympic swimming pool.  Okay, that's not that outlandish.  Bad example.  Are you laughing yet?  Laugh when they tell you the sun produces as much energy as  two billion nuclear power plants over the course of their lifetimes in a single second.  Laugh when you hear the Hoover dam can power 900,000 refrigerators for ten days with one day of it's output.  Laugh when you know a bullet packs the same punch from a .357 as  200 horse power driving a single 30 cm diesel piston pushing a ten mile rod one inch into glacial ice.  The scales get insanely arbitrary, but sound impressive.

We're not a consumer organism.  Advancement is the byproduct.   Want does make excellent bedfellows, though.  Maybe it's just the people I know, or choose to know and the ones I choose to not associate with.   Yeah there are a lot of consumers.  It gets me down.  Who doesn't it get down?  Silly question.  Programs and users.  It get's depressing.  On this little operating system.  It does.  I'm not going to lie and even if I did, you'd know.  Consumers give the rest of 'Merica a bad rap.

Where you going to put it?  What's your percentage of consumer to user?  Well, if you must know and you must because we must... 30% - 70%.  The thirty percent gets all the play though.  Eventually the 70% become dull eyed.  The economy does love the 30%, but some of them, many of them keep the seventy employed or at least in cummed.

The other best two words in the English language?  You guessed it: "I'm cumming."  And no, that's still not three words.  Niggler.  I'm on to you and your detail oriented cant.

I came to this point what for was for this: (partly to make a cup of tea and nod off to sleep knowing my books are clear for whatever's next but also the following point) driving through an upscale neighborhood, enclave, everything was out for display in the mid afternoon light.  Every garage had a car parked outside of it.  Every garage was parked outside of high square footage whatever you want to call it, shoulder to shoulder with the one beside it.  Parked outside each was a fit human being.  Parked beside them was a fit child or bicycle or motor bike or domesticated animal.  Parked beside them was a very well attended tree, beside it a clean swatch of cement and occasionally a glittering sign or hydrant.  Parked between them was a fine manhole cover.  All of it a strange display.

All of it begging to be wanted.  Not to be contrarian. All of it unreal.  All of it horribly unreal.  All of it violently upsetting at it's worst and unsettling at it's least.  Who want's to live in a gift shop?  Do you really want to know those people?  Do you really want perfect?  Do you really want to consume that violently?  By all means, take care.  Take care and maintain and perform and do not give in to kipple.  Kipple only breeds more kipple.  It's disconcerting.

Yes, my kingdom is of sand and tied together bits, but they're well taken care of bits.  That, I do not mind.  When you want me to want yours because someone informed you that it is something to be wanted because someone taught them that it is something to be wanted it get's a little gross and wretchworthy.  It get's a little arson worthy because I wonder what you'd be without it.  If you'd still be you.  Ostentaaaaaaaaaaagh!  -tatious.   Fueling the economy with your fanned feathers.

My own hang up.  I know we're a country of makers, producers, writers, painters, builders, organizers, innovators, capturers, battlers, warriors, sportsmen and women, communicators, grifters, flippers, destroyers, and outright creators.  Why are the consumers the most flagrant?

I feel bad taking money sometimes.  Earned money.  I can't remember the last time I outright stole something from someone and didn't tell the person I stole it from what I did and why within 48 hours.  That doesn't count as stealing.  Especially when I give it in it's original state or better than I left it, right back to them.   It's aggravating.  I would be so much further ahead if I could steal better.  I would like to think.  I dunno if that would work out.  I don't believe so.  I feel bad taking money sometimes and I have to remember why I had to convert to pay for play a couple years ago.  Allow me to relate it briefly.  It's a very short, kind of funny story.

One day someone asked me to help them move furniture.  After another round of my long standing slug fest with who is and who is not a friend, I realized I could not continue to accept a hug and a few beers for my services.  The first time I did it, it was a great time and chummy and sexy and kind of fun to laugh and live and love and help build a new space.  It was fantastic.  It was downright fantastic.  The second time was the same.  The second, too.  The third, as well.  The four, you guessed it, the same.

A sensation began to creep in.  A very woeful sensation.  As I filled the gas tank and counted bruises and counted unvitations to normal events and counted invitations to things I could not attend for lack of fuel and bodily integrity it dawned on me that myself and my peers were no longer fighting the same war.

One of the great equalizers is college.  University.  Call it what you will.  We're all, more or less, fighting the same battles: studying, trying to eat, trying to have money on the side for fun, trying to pay for housing, trying to connect, (some of us) trying to work too, trying to keep up with family.  The war has changed and it took me years and years afterwards to identify the change.

I was doing too many favors.  Far too many favors.  Far far too many favors.  My peers and I are not in the same trenches anymore.  Not nearly as close as they were.  When they fire their rifle their elbow does not knock my shoulder.  When I miss a beat and drop my canteen it does not land near their boot heels at all.  When I want a smoke I cannot shout for one and catch their ear.  When I slop lunch at the mess hall they do not hear my fork and I do not hear theirs when they do the same.  We're on entirely different fronts altogether.  Not that we're not still friends, bunk mates, and lifers.  We're not all infantry anymore.

What I would and have done for them for free, nearly without asking, no longer applies.  Changing watch shifts means little to them and the world to me still.  An extra half apple means the world to me.  To them, it's something to throw in a pocket for later, ya know, just in case.  An extra magazine is the world to me.  To them, it's something to leave at home because they're operating beneath air superiority and, hell, the whole god damn squad will be resupplied at the push of a button if need be.  The war has changed for many and damn near all of them.  Not for me, though.  Not yet.  When a comm line has been shelled to hell I have to army crawl out to fix it, but they don't.

So now, when they ask me to, it's not a favor anymore.  It's mercenary work.  I hope it doesn't distance them.  I hope they understand.  If anything, I hope they are amazed I am only now realizing it.  Realizing that "smoke em if you got em" still applies, but now, if you ask me for one of mine I will ask you if you have my back when we get back home after we've shared the same trench because when you get shot you get to go back to the forward base and when I get shot, I get to sit down with a bowie knife and a lighter and a rag and a few minutes, and hope it doesn't get infected.

We're not nearly as close as we used to be.  I miss those days.  I miss loaning out clean dishes with the only caveat being you had to return them.  It's pay for play now.  On the big stuff.  The little stuff, as long as you can promise I will not get shot, I'll still do for you.  May not be the same war, but as long as your fighting, I'll fucking see what I can do and keep my own chatter to do or die please and thank yous.

Do not get offended if I flip out because you spent $250 dollars on a fucking chair.  A fucking chair!?  Are you kidding me?  Different theaters, I know, but that could have kept me and my unit supplied for two months.  Just saying, mickey.

A clean ship is a very happy ship.  Returning to kipple.  It really does breed.  Kipple makes it difficult to wake up.  More difficult even to think once you are awake.  It breeds violence too.  They never spoke about that part of it.  Kipple particles that flake off of the kipple and get breathed in and become a part of your insides and work their way into your nerves like heartworms.  The effect isn't the same as a neurological disorder that causes you to lose motor control and not like the effect (if they existed) of ingesting some sort of nanobot that takes over your musculature or even the effect (I would assume) of incorporating some sort of particulate life form or virus that forced signals.  Breathing in kipple dust provokes a profound loss of fidelity.  It is very important to keep a clean ship.

More importantly, in the vacuum of space, it is critically important to know what is wrong exactly, or as close to exactly, to diagnose the problem effectively and come to a solution quickly.  The margin for error is thin.  Part way out of the necessity for distance and part way out of the necessity for the fact that calls for support will take a lot of time to travel to the nearest waypoint or planet or orbital station that you happen to be near and an answer will not, regardless of distance, be able to be assumed available before your ships integrity has been completely compromised and you have to either float until you are picked up or hope the entire structure was lost somewhere close enough to another grave yard to piece something back together.  The bonus of being a ship builder and engineer by trade and everything else by passion.  It gets hairy sometimes.

Whatever planet I'm on, whatever city I occupy, whatever vessel I visit, whatever waypoint I frequent, when I talk about going home, I'm talking about my ship in orbit and my airlock with my key code and my pressure settings and o2 mix.  Sometimes I leave I leave the radio on because it's nice to come home to tunes banging through the tunnels.

Admittedly, we've learned to entertain ourselves.  There is no slight to the galaxy outside ourselves or Sol.  We just don't get along.  I remember the shit times and the good times dragging around the inner system.  It was pretty fun sometimes.  It was pretty hell too.  There's a disconnect.  I understand that.  I'm not going to stage a war against it.  The book taking precedence over the rest is the composition of the Spacefarer's Bible.  Not to be confused with the Hitchhiker's Guide.  It will be a handbook (so I have to keep it short) on how to not screw up when you are responsible for every single last little thing that happens to and for and within your ship.  It's taking some precedence.  Should I even be talking about it here?  I don't know how that shit works.  Let's stop cussing so fucking much.  How about that?

I woke up yesterday with the realization that since the cessation of communication with my birth parents life has been a very pax by comparison.  I had to remind myself not to forget new memories while running from the blacked out ones.  I was going willy nilly, erase that one, and that one,  n'at, n'at, n'at!!!!  I think everything that should be glass is finally glass and god damn I feel pretty nice about it.  I will not say mission accomplished just yet, but almost.  Not 'til they're dead and I can move freely.  Then, yes.  Camo theory.  The double fake.  The triple fake?  Off grid: suspicious.  On grid: innocuous.  Off grid:  hello.  On grid:  hello.  Who has the discipline for that?

Do not forget to look up.  Every summer I think about and pain over how hard summer is going to hurt me.  It's hot.  It's bright.  It's humid.  The days are long.  The nights are too short.  The world is busy.  Kids run everywhere screaming.  Teens judge you and you want to knock them down with a well placed baseball to the teeth and then beat their ears in with rocks for having the nerve to say shit to someone they do not fucking know.  And the little children run around bewildered at how green everything can be and you want to spin around in circles with them too and pick flowers and the littler ones just scream and cry because they're too hot and the pool is too cold and you want to scream too because it seems like good fun and one hell of a way to get to a good nap for a few hours until it cools off enough to sleep alright if you want to or run around alright if you want until you're too tired to run around and then take a good long nap under the stars or maybe go fishing and start a fire and find some dumb ass tweens to beat to death with a rock you found at the river while they're getting high and being rebels in the woods behind your fishing spot or find the guy who lives there each year or open your mouth in the 10 A.M. sun shower and just look up at the sky and the thunderheads and the moon all up at once and see lightning at ten in the morning.  Don't forget to look up when the air is hot and thin at night and the stars come clearer.

I know I'm not a write off or disposable.  Scratch that, I am disposable.  That I do know.  I'm okay with that.  The challenge is making yourself indisposable for stretches.  Making yourself available.  Laying out the factory floor.  Not changing the blueprint for the map's sake, but changing it because you've changed.  Because we've changed.  "WHO DO YOU WORK FOR" shaken by the collar.  I work for you.  Don't you remember me?  I came in during operation sea hawk midway through mission wolf noose.  You don't remember me?

Save things for a good time.  Save nothing for a perfect time.




///Django Django - "Zumm Zumm"    sometimes you yawn and realize you still have 8 bit roots

That Instant

You realize "If not now, when?" is kind of silly, but you'll forget, you realize, if you don't commit, you'll beat yourself up later for not taking the safety off and that road is kinda something awe more filled than the alternative.

Window Shopping

I tried to get happy and fell flat on my face so let's go.  We've tuned up.  We've laid the bones.  It's time to go.  It makes some of myself smile to say it out loud.  Let's go.  The greatest two words in the English language.  Well, one of the greatest pair of words.  Does it count as three?  No.  It does not.  Don't be silly, tripping over imaginary bags trying to catch a bus that left the same hour yesterday.

Count me in.



///Starkey - "Striking Distance"   attitude adjustment in progress.  please wait.

A Thought On Taking Ears

To take an eye is a bit excessive.  I don't care what fight you're in if it's not life and death.  Taking an eye is excessive.  Taking a tooth is, by a stretch, not easy.  By no stretch, 10/10 on the difficulty scale.  Let alone taking the seconds and minutes to pick it up and pocket it after smashing it loose in an uncontrolled environment.

An ear is about right.  It's pretty much a receipt and sensitive if not cauliflowered so it can be an end of itself, sending the "I am not alright with this" signal to their brain.  There is little lost beyond the cosmetic and pride to boot.  Next time you're in a scuff go there.  It's a fine and thoughtful and effective solution.  The chances are very good, after the tangle, it will not be able to be replaced, resewn, or glued back.

Win or lose, a trophy is a trophy and if you're terrible at grappling there is an answer.  An answer a notch below gouging an eye; striking a life long user blind is just sad,  and above clawing their ball sack; we're not savages.  They get the benefit of walking around with one ear and you get the benefit of nothing to collect because it is already in hand and you get to keep it, assuming you did not lose too poorly and were beaten to death by their friends.   It's a fairly fair trade as I see it.




///The Knife - "We Share Our Mother's Health"   ...god damn, do we still come down from the north?  still?  we're going to have to choose eventually.  new york city is garbage.  pittsburgh isn't quite the midwest.  is it?  we come out from the hills.  doesn't have the same ring to it.  we do have the same mother's though.  like it or not.

A Brief Intermission and Yes, I Know You Don't Work Here

I just want to know if you've seen tea bags anywhere in Wal-Mart.  That's all.  I'm not hitting on you.  I've been over the aisles six times now multiplied by six aisles and I cannot for the life of me find any tea and it's getting frustrating and I know I'm a little not all there, but it makes sense that if there is a coffee section with a very wide selection of coffees and methods of making coffee there should at least be a shanty town for the people who are not allowed to have coffee and do enjoy the brewed beverages containing caffeine who still worship at the teapot instead of the press or grinder.  It makes perfect sense.

I know you don't work at Wal-Mart.  I only ask so I can know that I'm not losing it and my map is still relatively accurate.  No need to flip an attitude Ms. Ma'am.  No need to ignore me Mr. Guy.  It's a genuine concern.  Not a conversation starter.  I don't get out much and I like it that way.  Who wants to start a relationship based on the search for tea at a store that has no business selling foods and potables in the first place!  Absurd.  It's a yes or no question.  And for that matter, what's wrong with working for Wal-Mart, you classist....  ugh..... it's weird sometimes how closely the town I love abuts a town a have a distinct distaste for.  Well, guess what, mister... we share the same store and I don't like it anymore than you do.  I'll clip the mirror on your double parked Bentley GT on my way out.

It is kinda funny though.  My truck is difficult to park sometimes.  I don't bother with trying to park close to the shopping center entrances because that's asking for a cluster fuck.  Every few times a year though the excessively wealthy find their way to parking in the lots at the shopping center equidistant, them to there and there to me.  They usually park in the way back.  Where I park my horse.  You know where this is going.  I snuggle my beast right up next to them whenever I can.  Inside the lines.  Perfectly parallel.  The ambassador from the other side of the tracks.  As you get older, the games you get to play increase their restrictions and demand more creativity.

I know you don't work in my factory.  I know what you build is not what I build.  I know what you make is not what I would make, given the same choices.  Don't be offended if I ask for help because, when I ask, I've already been over the information and the outcomes and the paths and I know going it on my own is begging disaster.  I don't want your help.  I need your help.  Need makes strange things out of us.  Cookies and milk and a nap?  You can have a nap, or cookies and milk, not both.  I know you don't work here; can you save me some time?

Never did find the tea.  When I got home, though, found a full box of 100 bags of black tea in the pantry, still in it's plastic wrap.  Yep, already solved.  It was one of the happiest cups of tea I had in a little while.  Massive relief.  I could see why tea leaves could and have started wars.


///Stereolab - "Space Moth"   ...i've been here before, haven't you?

One Last Tune Up

The enemy of "good" is "perfection."  Decision time is here again.  The thought of gestation makes me laugh, but it's true.  Poetry is still my best friend.  Fiction is still my mistress.  Still too orchestrated.  This is still my sandbox.  Leafing through notes, it's difficult to not get frantic.  Slide over, bacon.  Let me drive for a while.  Okay?  I promise I will not crash.  Okay?  Okay.  You're still two handing the wheel.  Sorry.  Okay?  Okay.  Let go.  Okay.  Alright, I'll see you soon, you know that, right?  I do.  Good.




///DJ? Acucrack - "Wickerman"