February 2007 Archives

rivulets of joy
meander from lips to floor
problems solved by beer

rifling through my now packed (on account of the move-in) brewing closet in search of my trusty brew-pot, to conduct a test of the suggestion that i brew upon a stove trivet, to minimize harmful brew-pot-to-burner contact, i came upon an obscured cache of homebrew! score!

I thought I had depleted my entire supply (except for the reserve crate, of course). even though the total-depletion theory didn't quite add up, i figured it was the addition that was wrong, since i was most likely under the influence while conducting my additions. but lo! behold! as previously mentioned! a cache of undiscovered brews!

so i took the opportunity to sample a well-aged EPA at cellar temps, chilled in the fridge for no more than 15 minutes. at cellar temps, I got a well-formed head that was all too ephemeral, yet still mightier than the head i normally get from the beers (though not -- oh, forget it). hop flavor/aroma was very much mellowed, but bitterness was still there. i had to donate nearly a third of a cup (!) to my homies, there was that much sediment. the flavor was estery (i think!), fruity, delicious, with malty toast if i paid attention. but best of all was the color: a deep auburn like my beard.

alas, that my brewing experiment this evening did not go so well. oh well, better to find out now than when it counts, eh?

verdant skeleton
each branch a life never lived
each space silent death

leaping dance of flame
paths erased by reaching blaze
dark finality

lightning slashes out
vanishing the starry sky
guided mystery

afloat and awash
pebble rides the forking stream
stream becomes river

And yet here I sit, as the result of the latest in a long string of ridiculous events called "life." It all began some 500,000 (or 5,000, depending on who you ask) years ago, when some very silly monkeys thought it would be a good idea to come out of the trees (or when two folks got booted out of paradise for seeking what modern folks are most unlikely to seek). Skip ahead a couple thousand years (astronomically, who will notice?), and here I am: aboard a marvel of modern physics, rattling and buzzing and making about as much racket as a rickety old 30 seat airplane, which it is. Yes, and not only do I have to put up with the skull crushing buzzing, but the air is most foul upon this giant metal gizmo. Perhaps a patron on the previous flight made use of his barf bag but was lax in the disposal thereof. Perhaps he missed his barf bag altogether. Or perhaps airplanes, like the glorified apes that design them, begin to smell queer with age.

For all the ingenuity of these glorified apes, they have never managed to grasp the sense in serving the pretzels before the drinks.

For joy, it has been announced that we will be landing shortly. Perhaps the air on the ground will be of a more enjoyable nature than this cabin air. Perhaps -- except "the ground" in this case is Los Angeles.

100 years ago, this marvel of modern physics would actually have seemed marvelous -- a flying machine -- not for kings or robber barons or duly elected government officials -- but even for the common man! And yet now, I view this miraculous vehicle as an annoyance on a tedious leg of a ridiculous journey. What sort of annoying miracles of modern physics will travelers be pressed to tolerate in another 100 years?

There are some people who tell us we need not worry about the tedious nature of modern life 100 years from now. There are a few different groups that espouse this view, with vastly divergent reasonings. But the conclusions are all the same: soon, humanity as we know it will come to an end.

I just had dinner at the airport. Having dinner at the airport is like having dinner at a good restaurant, except that at a good restaurant, the food tastes good. Why is that? Because at a good restaurant, the chef enjoys his job. Think about that for awhile.

Some people believe that if -- in his last breath before the warden closes the circuit -- a murdered and a rapist repents of his sins and asks for the forgiveness of the Lord, even he can be accepted into the Kingdom of God. If this is so, what's the point of living a good life? And if there is no god at all, what then?

Now I'm on a big plane. Planes that go farther are bigger. The farther away you get, the more people want to go there.

It must be my lucky day. The man with the baby did not sit next to me.

Some old people smell like mothballs. Maybe it's just their clothes.

One of the groups of people that is worried about the state of life in 100 years is the same bunch that fancies themselves unrelated to the apes. They figure that same self righteous character that kicked a couple folks out of paradise for acting like monkeys is going to come back and destroy the world. How can he do that? Easy, he made the world. Why would he do that? Because he told us not to act like monkeys, but we did anyway. Maybe after he busts up the world, he'll make a new one, and make the people more like snails than monkeys.

Nobody came to claim the window seat. Now I know it's my lucky day.

A snail is a slimy creature that carries his house on his back. Someone once said, "wherever you go, there you are." For a snail, it's "wherever you go, there home is." Some people don't have homes. They sleep on the street or on park benches or under trees until the police tell them to leave. Leave to where? If they were nails, they wouldn't have to leave, they'd already be home. For some people, there's no place like home, anywhere.

Looks like it isn't really my lucky day. The owner of the window seat showed up after all. He looked as if perhaps he had run through the airport. Maybe it was his unlucky day. He said I could keep the window seat anyways. That isn't luck, that's human kindness.

Snails are not curious like monkeys. If you put a monkey in a room with a bright red thing, he will go over and inspect the bright red thing. He wants to know what it is, and what he can do with it. He will pick it up, toss it around, and have a lot of fun.

If you put a snail in a room with a bright red thing, he won't play with it. He'll slide right by it without even stopping, leaving an icky trail along the way. But he'll be home throughout the journey.

Also: snails don't have human kindness.

This flight doesn't have foul air. It has free-TV.

Another group of people worried about the future are the survivalists. They collect canned food, guns and knives, and learn how to live off the fat of the land. They don't all know how the world is going to come to its demise, but they are pretty sure it's going to be soon, and when it happens, they'll be ready. They will survive.

Some people don't need crossbows and guns and canned food and any filed manuals to survive. The homeless people with no shells on their backs survive, even without free-TV. Why do they do it? Perhaps they are curious to see what comes next.

Now we're taking off. I hope that goes well.

Out my window, I can see a miniature city of lights surrounded by pale clouds and the deep blue sea. It's a prettier picture than any I've seen in a museum, though not as well ventilated. The wing of the plane is half way between the full moon and the lights and clouds and the deep blue sea. Moonlight shines on the wing tip, moves up the wing as we turn. I'd like to go to the moon someday. I bet a lot of people would like to go to the moon. After all, it's pretty far away: and the farther you get, the more people want to go there.

The sun is also pretty far away. Did you know it takes 8 minutes for light from the sun to reach the earth? If the sun decided to blow up tomorrow, you wouldn't know about it until 8 minutes after the fact. Talk about old news!

After the sun, the next closes star is about 100 light years away. (A light year is the distance that a smidgen of light can travel in 1 earth year. In just 1 second, that smidgen can go 186,000 miles. Light years are even bigger!) If there were people or monkeys or snails living around that star, and it blew up tomorrow, we wouldn't be able to mourn for our neighbors for 100 years. Talk about old news!

The free-TV just came on. I don't gave to watch it, though, because I brought some music. Someone once said: "music is our life's foundation, and will succeed all the nations to come." Who said that? The Pet Shop Boys. I bought their CD.

Right Now I'm listening to Simon and Garfunkel. What do they have to say? "Koo koo ka choo."

I guess this is going to be a book. I haven't thought of a plot, I suppose the plot is still developing. I did think of a title, but since I don't know what this book is about, I'm not sure if it's appropriate. Here it is: "Musings on the Obvious: The Conversation of Simple Simon."

I am just a poor boy, though my story's seldom told.

It looks like even on free-TV there's commercials. There aren't any commercials with Simon and Garfunkel.

In the clearing stands a boxer and a fighter by his trade and he carries the reminder of every glove that laid him down.

That's not mine, Simon and Garfunkel said it first. I hope I'm not breaking any laws by saying it here.

The program on free-TV is Jeopardy. I thought I saw Arnold Schwarzeneggar as one of the contestants, but it was just poor lighting. Who is Arnold Schwarzeneggar? He's a movie star.

Another gang of people that worries about the future is the scientists. They don't just worry about the future or make idle predictions -- they make theories. Lots of these theories predict the demise of the human race. I don't know what they say about snails and monkeys, but they'll probably take one in the shorts too, when the shit hits the fan.

The words of the prophets are written on the subway walls, and tenement halls.

I wish I could write like that.

This is no rinky dink hick town crop duster like that other plane I came in on, I just got a box with a sandwich, chips, and a candy bar. And guess what: that's before my drink! Perhaps there is hope for humankind after all!

One of the theories of the scientists says that there's a big hole in the atmosphere, and it's getting bigger and bigger. The atmosphere is the part of the sky that keeps out the nasty bits of starlight like X rays and gamma rays and ultraviolet light. But all this bad stuff come in through the hole, and if the hole is over your town, you could end up like roast turkey. Or fried chicken - colonel's extra crispy recipe.

The sandwich in my airplane food box is a turkey sandwich. That's one turkey that doesn't have to worry about holes in the atmosphere!

Some people eat snails. I guess they were curious as to how snails taste. I don't think snails are curious about the taste of people. I'm not curious about the taste of either. Or monkeys, for that matter.

What is a movie star? A movie star is like an actor, but more. In a movie or a play, an actor pretends to be someone that the audience cares about. A movie star, on the other hand, is cared about by the audience in real life. That's right, even when they aren't pretending to be interesting, people care about the details of movie stars' lives! I don't think there have been many homeless people who got to be movie stars, although a lot of movie stars have pretended to be homeless people.

It's better to be a movie star pretending to be a homeless person than to be a real-life homeless person. Movie stars get to stop pretending and go back to their big houses and pretty spouses. Real-life homeless people have to go on pretending that they aren't real people.

I do not recall any snails that got to be movie stars, although several movies have starred monkeys. This is because monkeys are cute, whereas snails just leave a trail of slime.

Looking out the window, all I can see is the light n the end of the wing. For all I know, we might have gone through the hole in the atmosphere and are about to land on the moon. Wouldn't that be something!

Simon and Garfunkel would rather be a sparrow than a snail. I wonder why?

I thought it was a sign of progress that I got my food before my drink. But now they are collecting the food boxes, and I haven't gotten my drink yet. Back to the stone age!

Another creature that is said to leave a trail of slime: the lawyer. I have cousins that are lawyers, but I've never noticed a trail of slime behind them. And they don't carry their homes on their backs. When they come to visit, they stay at a hotel.

I did not eat my chips. I am not going to eat them, either, because I am not hungry. They will most likely be thrown out. On a planet with so many hungry people, we sure throw out a lot of food!

Has this gotten interesting yet? I still haven't come any closer to a plot or a title. Apparently, the book is about my trip, homeless people, snails, monkeys, and the end of the world. I hope that's interesting enough that you won't miss a plot!

I've said a lot about monkeys and snails and people with no homes anywhere, no even on their backs, and the end of the world, but I still haven't said why I'm up in the air on a plane. Don't worry, I'll get to that.

Although a lot of scientists believe there's a hole in the sky that will turn us all into roast turkeys, not all of them agree upon the cause or cure of this hole. Some of them used to think it was hairspray. Today, some think hole in the sky are caused by air conditioner fluid and car exhaust. Another gang of scientists believe the hole is caused by volcanoes. Which bunch of scientists you believe seems to have a lot to do with who you voted for for president.

That's funny, because the president doesn't have much to do with holes in the sky.

I say "the president," but I should probably say "the president of the United States," because there are other presidents in the world, so you might not know which president I mean. The president of the United States is often called simply "the president," especially by Americans, because they, and the president, consider the president to be essentially the Emperor of the Earth. The president of the United States never says that he is the Emperor of the Earth, or even that he wants to be the Emperor of the Earth.

One time, a president of a place called Germany said that he wanted to be the Emperor of the Earth. To prove his point, he killed a whole bunch of people that he didn't like. The president of the united states didn't much mind that the president of Germany killed a bunch of people -- but he got upset when that filthy Kraut pretended to be the Emperor of the Earth! So the president of the United States killed a bunch of people that *he* did not like. After a little more of this, the president of Germany killed himself. And that was the end of that.

To prove that he was the Emperor of the Earth, the president did not kill any monkeys or snails -- at least not on purpose. He only killed people. Those are the "rules of war."

If anyone ever got bored enough to read all this, they might wonder: What does he mean by this stuff? Just what I said.

Now we're about to land. I hope that goes well.

It's dark and rainy out. When we land, I have to find a rental car and find my way to a hotel in a town I've never before visited, in the dark and in the rain. That's independence. That's the American way!

Wouldn't it be funny if the plane crashed? Then this, my finest work, the cause of my current cramp, the terminus of a four year writer's block, would be lost forever. But don't worry, we won't crash. It's my lucky day.

Yesterday was also my lucky day. Yesterday I got a check for $123.10, a $500 scholarship arrived for me, and my employer deposited my paycheck in my bank account. Many people equate financial success with luck. It's the American way!

Thirteen pages! How's that for luck!

As it turned out, it was emphatically *not* my lucky day. The details are pretty dull, but because of a miscommunication I wasn't able to get a rental car at the airport and had to take a cab to my hotel. It was my first cab ride, at least that I can recall. The driver asked if he could smoke, and with his windows down, it didn't bother me at all. See? That's one of the details, and it's pretty dull.

The cab driver told me that he had once been knocked out while boxing. He had seen a bright light, and heard voices, and walked toward the light until he woke up. I was knocked out once, but I don't remember seeing lights or voices. But I do remember the object that laid me out. It wasn't a boxing glove, I wasn't boxing. It was a big piece of wood on a solidly constructed wooden playset. I wasn't watching where I was going.

There's a life lesson: watch where you're going.

I try not to write while driving. It takes more skill than I have to operate a pen and a motor vehicle while watching where I am going. I ended up with a rental car the day after I landed, and did a good bit of driving. When I turned it back in today, I had driven 200 miles, even though the airport was only about 40 miles from the hotel. I drive far and wide to see what I can see, but always maintain a sense -- if not a map -- of the way home. Perhaps that's a metaphor on life or something.

My cab driver told me that he believes in witches and demons. He informed me that he had even driven some around. I guess a personal aversion to evil spirits doesn't get in the way of paying the bills.

Oh look, the sky is coming out! Hurrah for the sun!

Listen: Here's how to spot a witch or any other person possessed by evil: dark clothes, long hair, or an overall dark look about them. If you see such a person, proceed with caution -- they may be servants of evil. Or so said my cabbie, and I'm sure he's had a lot more experience with people -- evil or no -- than I.

The plane looks to be about the same size as the one I flew into Denver on, only older, and no free-TV.

While I was driving around, I had the radio on. I heard a song that was big around 10 years ago. I had heard of the song, but had never heard it. It's a bout a guy that is able to remove his willie. He considers this an advantage -- until one day he gets drunk at a party and can't remember the next day where he left his pecker. Eventually, he has to buy his frank back from a street vendor. The song is called "Detachable Penis." It really isn't much of a song, once you've heard it.

You may have noticed that the majority of the last few pages has been written in the past tense. I will pretend that you are wondering why, and graciously answer. Most of my weekend has been spent either in a car or in my hotel. In the car, I prefer to watch the road and the scenery. In my hotel room, I had free-TV.

So far, I haven't said much. Here are some of the things I haven't mentioned so far: why I was on an airplane, where I was going, what was silly about it, what decisions I made, where I drove, why I'm writing this, what all this is about, and the meaning of life. Don't worry, I'll get to that.

But first: another doomsday group. This group is larger than the others, and includes members of some of the other groups. This is the Y2K bug group, which thinks that the world computer systems will go haywire on 1/1/2000, due to a software bug. All the money in all the banks will be lost. Nukes will be launched. Planes will fall out of the sky. Regularly scheduled television programming will be interrupted. And so on. I'm not too excited about the nukes and the planes, but it wouldn't bother me greatly if all the world's money disappeared. Does that make me a commie? Nah.

Another funny thing about flying: they explain in meticulous details, with both illustrations and demonstrations, how to operate the airplane seat belt, but they don't really show you how to use your seat-cushion-as-a-flotation-device. I've flown a respectable number of times, and I'm still not sure that if the shit were to hit the fan, I'd be able to use my seat-cushion-as-a-flotation-device. Any idiot can use a seat belt.

INGREDIENTS :
6 gallons crystal geyser
1lb victory
1lb caravienne
1/2lb carapils
1oz UK challenger pellets (7%AA)
2oz whole fuggle (4%AA)
5lb gold DME
WLP023
3/4C corn sugar

PROCEDURE:
bring 2.5gal water + crushed grains to 180F, turn off heat, remove grains (sqeeze grain bag into water)
add DME, 1oz challenger, .5oz fuggle, return to boil
boil 60 minutes
add .5oz fuggle @ -5min
add 1oz fuggle @ -1min

chill wort in ice bath to 130F
add to 2.5gal refrigerated water in carboy
pitched @84F, OG (adjusted) 1067
set thermostat 73F

rack to 2ndary after 9 days

bottle after 9 more days

TASTINGS:

early tastings: hoppy, malty, not fruity, slightly too bitter, lots of sediment
later tastings: fruity, slightly too bitter, slightly over carbonated

in an attempt to gain some insight into my own obsessions, my folks went and saw the new jim carrey vehicle trainwreck, "the number 23".

then they called me up and asked me to explain it to them. since i hadn't seen it, the best i could offer was this: at the time i called my bro to read me its tomatometer, "the number 23" had scored a whopping 8%, and as we all know, 8 is 2 to the 3rd power, and there you have it: 8 => 2^3 => 23.

when i mentioned that 23 is only of consequence because it illustrates and adheres to the law of fives, the folks asked whatnow is the law of fives, on account of it weren't mentioned in the movie! huh?

Victor sat silently across the table, staring at me. He lifted his beer stein, slowly, to his mouth, took a sip, licked the foam from his lips, and replaced the mug on the table. I returned his stare. Moments passed.

Again, he lifted his stein, still thick with head, but this time, halfway into its ascent, he abruptly changed his trajectory and velocity, and tossed the entire mug of beer directly into my face. He continued his silent stare. I blinked, opened my mouth, and closed it again. Droplets of lager dripped from my eyelashes and landed on my nose. Moments passed.

"A little out of practice, are we?" asked Victor.

"Looks that way," I said.

"I think we went a little overboard last night," said Victor.

"You're telling me," I told him. I glanced up from my beer and caught Victor staring vacantly across the room. Immediately, he sensed my gaze and turned to return it. I went back to my beer and listened to the sound of Victor's breathing. Victor has allergies, the kind that don't go away with meds. He's got a constant wheeze from blocked sinuses. It's almost impossible to hear, like the sound of a television or a fluorescent light bulb, but having known him as long as I have, I can no longer not hear it.

Victor wheezed. I listened. I kept my thoughts to myself.

"Do you think he'll recover in time?" Victor asked.

"No," I said. "I think he's down for the count."

Philip had had a rough night with the two of us, last night. It came at the worst possible time for him. In three days, Phil's flying out to Rochester to meet with potential investors in his new, innovative toilet-paper softening process, and to spend time in Jersey with his girlfriend. Phil and his woman don't get to spend much time together, and it's truly a wonder they've been together as long as they have.

"It's just as well," said Victor. "His girlfriend is probably cheating on him."

"How do you figure?" I asked.

"Oh, come on!" said Victor. "How could she not? She only sees him once every three months. She's smart and attractive and he is never there."

"So?" I asked.

"So there you go," said Victor. "It's part of our programming."

"Oh man," I said. "Not that again!"

Victor gave me a sour look and went back to studying dust particles suspended in the stench of Chancellor's stalest air. I could tell he was disappointed that I wouldn't engage him on his pet topic. We'd been over this ground too many times, and neither Victor nor I was about to change our mind. As much as I was tired of his views on the biological imperative to mate, I also did not crave to suffer through Victor's take on the silent treatment.

"Phil did well up until the third guy," I said.

"No way," said Victor. "If it hadn't been for Margie, he wouldn't have made it past the first one."

After her August seminar in Rochester, we'd been nagging Margie, constantly, to swing by the dojo. It was her own fault, too; when she came back she decided she had to show off her new moves. Victor, Phil, and I threw our best into it, but none of us have been training for very long. Even so, we've been at it for a lot longer than just the two short weeks that Margie had spent with the Colonel (retired). Those two weeks were well spent, it turned out, and the practical training that Margie applied to us made it obvious that all the martial mumbo-jumbo about Chi and balancing energies and visualization and "flow" didn't help much at all against someone trained in a modern martial art.

So Margie beat the crap out of the three of us her first evening back. She felt a little sorry about it, I think, and we used that to our advantage. She became our teacher, and since August, under Margie's tutelage, we've been training in Krav Maga. That's in addition to our regular Aikido training. Margie's been off to three more seminars since then, and the speed with which she's absorbed the material is a little frightening. She's deadly.

"They didn't get his mask off, at least," said Victor.

"Thank god," I said. "You think we went overboard last night, well, that's nothing compared to the disaster we avoided."

"Margie was amazing."

"Yeah, I know, I was there," I said. "But you know, it ain't the movies, where they come at you one at a time."

Margie's training taught her to deal effectively with multiple opponents, and that's the way we trained together: never one on one or even two on one, but always three on one. When she went to the seminars, they usually trained four or five on one, and often, three or four of those would have weapons. Margie told us she was routinely pummeling five armed opponents at a time, and based on how she fared against the three of us, we believed her.

We didn't do so poorly ourselves, though it was confusing at times when we began to execute Krav techniques in the Aikido class. That's the way it goes, I guess, with training.

Back in August, right after she mopped the floor with Victor and me, we asked Margie to swing by the dojo and demo some moves for the class. She refused then, but constant wheedling over the months wore her down. She agreed, Monday, to a Tuesday night demo. On her terms.

"It wasn't the numbers," said Victor, "it was who went at him. If he'd gotten Willie and Jones, that's one thing. But he ended up with Angeline and Jose. They've been training for sixteen years, minimum."

"Yeah," I said. "But Margie beat all four of them to get at Phil. I'd say it's more a matter of who your teacher was than how much training you've had."

"You saying Margie's not a good teacher?"

"I'm saying that the training we've gotten from her is not as good as the training she's gotten from the Colonel (retired), yeah. That's no surprise. That's why he gets paid."

"I guess," said Victor.

Tuesday night, after a light warmup, we jammed ourselves into Phil's Civic and drove on down to the dojo, right in the middle of the advanced class. Half the class was doing striking exercises and the other half was sparring. The four of us approached the sparring ring. Margie spoke up, announcing that she was trained in a martial art far superior to what was being taught, and asked if anyone would care to be the subject of a demonstration.

After three students and an instructor ended up on their backs, she asked them to try using weapons.

Until this point, Victor, Phil, and I had been standing around the sparring ring, just watching. As the other half of the class filtered into the sparring room, we explained that a demonstration was in progress, and that they were welcome to join in.

Maybe that was not the best possible phrasing.

The newcomers piled on to Margie all at once. They didn't go "kung-fu style" like in the movies, they all went on at once, elbowing each other as they jostled to get in (clumsy) punches and kicks. There were eighteen or twenty of them, and apparently, that number is above and beyond Margie's sweet spot. She didn't ask, but it was clear she could use some help.

Phil, Victor, and I came in from behind the crowd of attackers, pulling them off and tossing them around the ring. I was pleased at how well the new techniques worked, though, of course, I had to be careful to avoid using the deadlier choices at my disposal. Just as things were going well, for those first few seconds, the remainder of the class, another twenty or so students and instructors who had been watching the sparring before we arrived, joined in. Very quickly, we were all well beyond our sweet spot for number of opponents.

"We probably could have managed a more graceful exit," said Victor.

"I'm not so sure," I said. "All things considered, I think we did pretty well."

"It would have been wiser to leave the engine running," said Victor.

"Now that," I said, "I agree with."

When someone shouted, "take off their masks!", we knew it was time to leave. We didn't have to say so, though. We'd agreed well beforehand that if it looked like we were about to be exposed, it was time to get out, fast. We moved in unison toward the door, but our combatants followed us, and in a flash, Phil was overwhelmed. Once Angie put him on the floor, some of the more junior students, lesser trained in the peaceful ways of Aikido, began to pummel him. Margie caught my eye and gave me a hand signal to go start the car. I nodded and squeezed out the door.

Back in the car, I recovered the from under the seat and got the engine running. A second or two later, Victor and Margie emerged, dragging Phil, all three of them with their masks still on, fortunately. They made it to the car and pounded on the windows as they realized the doors were locked. Phil's car has manual locks, so I had to scramble to get the doors open with the angry class tossing insults from the bottlenecked dojo doorway.

None of us took away any serious injuries, and as best as we could tell, none of us dealt out any, either. Still, Phil had a bloody nose and a pretty good cut over his eye, and all of us scored multiple bruises.

"A little overboard," said Victor.

"Yup," I said.

while cleaning up a week or two ago, i came across a Little Black Book that I made a while ago. Since i'm not a pimp, it doesn't contain phone numbers of hookers. no, it contains something much less valuable: aphorisms and platitudes that I thunk up my very self, or borrowed from others. that, and a run of the mill TODO list.

i recall that the plan was to carry it around with me for a while and write todo items in one end of the book and succinct little this-is-my-philosophy-of-life nutshells in the other end. kind of a book of reminders of what i needed to do in the immediate future, and what i needed to do to keep living my life the way i wanted to live it.

i figured, i think, that maybe i could codify (to what end?) my own personal philosophy, such that it is (aha! that's the end! to find out what it is!). to codify, clarify, and systematize; so that i could avoid that most egregious of sins: hypocrisy.

instead, i got to about the tenth or twelfth little saying and threw it "away" because it pained me so.

i started out with "never lose momentum" and "what are you going to do about it?" and got all the way to "wherever you go there you are."

it pained me so because i wrote "never lose momentum" at a time when I had it, and "what are you going to do about it?" at a time when i had a problem i wanted solved, and yet, i quickly lost my momentum and promptly ignored my problem.

which is to say, i wrote those things after i came back from a spring break of painful longing and frustrated inaction. and rather than live up to what i wanted my personal philosophy to be, i hid my little black book.

now that i've found it again, i can't think of any thing to add to it.

but i don't need to hide it.

Stay lady stay
Stay with your man a while
Till the break of day
Then youre gonna see him smile
His clothes are dirty but his hands are clean
And you're the best thing hes ever seen

every day i marvel at how much i miss youse
the missing is not marvelous, i've been through it before
what amazes me is that after so much solid time together
and even in the face of seeing you again after just a few short hours
i can't stand the separation

is it a sign that: i have lost my independence?
or a sign that: i'll be smiling right 92 days from now?

and, just like that, the hundred-day mark passes, without notice or regard.

how 'bout that, eh?

i wondered aloud, some days ago, after having wondered silently, whether that thing which i accomplished, the only thing of note that sublimated from my dull, impactless expanse within this depressing or unexamined existence, would persevere now that my circumstances generally do not require its graces. in short, boring, non-fancy words: i wondered whether, now that loneliness is no longer my lot, not even the kind of loneliness that comes with proximity to (the wrong) people, my hard earned ability to conquer the ill effects of my own isolated, underutilized, anxiety-accelerated mind, would dissipate into the same nothingness that consumed my bachelorhood.

you see, i lived as a monk for a long time. i sort of planned it that way, even. it had benefits that paid off, but the obvious irony is that 203 conducted her own life in nearly exactly the opposite fashion, and yet she and i "ended up" in "the same place". that sort of realization might cause the honest introspector to suspect that perhaps "it wasn't worth it". of course, that same introspector might realize, were he to think a step further, that if he considers his present "worth it", then his past was necessary, unless he were to believe in fate, in which case -- and so on. it's a well trod and tired path that leads nowhere.

but again: from my years of isolation and inward "growth", did i accomplish anything, or is it all a sham i created in my mind to justify the waste of a decade of the only thing precious on this world?

(a note: i win either way. if it's a sham, then the very sham-creating superpower that i posess i gained from the isolation makes it "worth it", since a sham is a handy thing to have around. and if it wasn't a sham, then "it" wasn't wasted. clever, eh?)

i live my life as a narrative, because to do otherwise is boring to me. i dramatize my own life in my own mind because the alternative is to have to do things for myself. got that? i'm authoring my own life moments or hours or days before i go and read aloud from my script. or, sometimes, i go back in time and fill in the narrative bits that tie together the pointless sequence of events that make up my life.

i am pretty sure i don't experience sanity in the same way as others. that's okay with me, i think i prefer my sham, anyhow.

there's not a single thing i have to complain about in my love life since last may, and not a single regret that i have for the way my life has turned out since last december, but i still haven't gotten my acceptance around the facts of the world prior to those months. the past saddens me because i see now that i could have lived it otherwise, and because while she was living it otherwise, i wasn't living it with her. i suppose this is normal for folks who dont successfully marry their first love. normal doesn't make things easier, it just means i have silent company in my difficulties, folks that, presumably, could tell me how they cope. but i don't need to hear it, because coping is what sainttoads do best.

i can conquer any bout of anxiety, loneliness, ennui, or realization-that-she-had-a-life-before-me induced angst by recalling the fact that while i may be without her at the moment, there is no time in the forseeable future when i will be without her for more than a few moments. afternoons and evenings drag on, but they are not days, they are not weeks, and before i am faced with eternity, i expect never to be apart for more than weeks. days, perhaps, if desire never fades.

and yet, my old methods of coping had nothing to do with her. is it irony that my methods now consist of simply acknowledging that the cause will cease? the old method was to acknowledge that the cause did not exist -- now that there is a cause, my methods shift from self-reliance to extra-self-dependence, and thus, they are no longer "my methods". so what?

so what. that brings me back to the beginning: was it all for nothing? i want, always, more. and more. and after that, more again. and why not?

inside, some corner of mind pays the price for smoothness of the rest of being. this is not me, i think: this is everyone. away far off in some dusty attic of what passes for consciousness, a tiny, shriveled prisoner twists chained to torturous eternity, folding and contorting himself that the rest of a man may capture some semblance of sanity, and function in life with a smile. this sad homunculus is the one that sees suffering in the world, and bears the burden of missed opportunity, lost chances, and unconquerable shackles of being. it is he that bends the mind to obscure and vanish the worries and the honesty that will consume and digest happiness. from him, i live. i can't be the only one.

the idea, needless to say, is a bit disturbing. but then, so are world events, so are life events, so are the events of the last five minutes here on this very couch. how else can one continue smiling but to embrace the sham?

this stupid mustache's got to go

only lasted a day, the poor dear.

yesterday i forgot to mention an important point:

the playful sillyness of the ceremony is the point. in the same way that the good vibes of the guests will provide a wave of super-duper upon which we will begin to surf the years of our happy marriage, the sillyness of the ceremony itself will symbolize and encourage the retainment of the sillyness and playfulness that currently inhabits our relationship. the neither of us wants to lose that, and the neither of us wants to pretend it doesn't exist, so why pretend, during the ceremony which kicks off our eternal bondagement, to be all serious-like when that's such a downer?

a large portion of the cumulative brainpower of humanity is permanently or partially devoted to squeezing meaning out of experiences, whatever "meaning" may happen to be. we, as people, want to believe that life is not a pointless endeavor, and that "at the end of the day", when life ceases, there was some purpose -- or if not a purpose, at least some symbolically extractable non-concrete interpretation of events. in other words: meaning.

example:

Roman #1: Hey, you hear about that dude they nailed to a tree?
Roman #2: Yep, reckon he died.

example (this time, with symbolically extractable non-concrete interpretation of events) :

Roman #1: Hey, you hear about that dude they nailed to a tree?
Roman #2: Yep, reckon he was a bodily incarnation and only-begotten son of the everlasting, all-knowing Creator God of the Jews, came to Earth to appease his vengeful Father for the inheritable sinful willfulness of our ancestors by sacrificing Himself in our place.
Roman #3: Well, you would believe that, Roman #2, wouldn't you, since you are incapable of interpreting events symbolically, and thus missed the possibility that the King of the Jews story is just a recapitulation of the older Egyptian mythology of the dying and resurrecting god, itself symbolizing the spiritual rebirth of Man-initiated who recognizes the duality of his lower and higher selves.
Roman #1: Hey, what's for lunch?

And so on.

It could be a dude nailed to a tree. It could be a God man nailed to a tree. It could be a story allegorizing the process of Mystery initiation. Or it could be a dude nailed to a tree.

I, personally, haven't found much satisfaction from letting others dictate to me the proper symbolical interpretation of my life's events, and I certainly haven't found much enjoyment in recognizing the strong chance that "meaning" is nonexistent. To that end, I use symbolism, interpretation, and the generation of Meaning as tools to enhance my own life and put a smile on my face.

Because whether or not Meaning, God, Eternity, or Love exist in the Cosmos, a smile on my face is a good thing to have.

And so it is with great joy and amusement that I have gone about crafting potential ceremonies for my own marriage. And the punch line is this: whatever silly-ass ceremony I come up with, and whatever silly-ass subset of that actually gets performed, will have much more meaning (in which I don't really believe) and power (in which I most certainly don't really believe) than the alternative, Off The Shelf solution.

First, a bit of history that I have not researched in the slightest.

Marriage, I suspect, is older than religion. Over time, the meaning of marriage has evolved (in the strict, scientific sense of the word, no less), the implementations of marriage have diverged across cultural lines, the ceremonies, the societal benefits, the post-ceremonial ways-of-living. All are different now than they were at "the beginning". But one thing that has remained constant, I reckon, is the desire for a marriage to last. Okay, perhaps not once it has begun, but at least, that's the desire at the heady, foolish beginning of all (well, most) marriages. Presumably, before the "I do"s are exchanged, the couple has already agreed to everything that they'll agree to during the ceremony. So beyond custom, beyond tradition, beyond making parents happy, beyond wedding registries: why bother having the ceremony at all?

It all comes back, of course, to "meaning". Humans are suckers for ceremonies, because ceremonies give "meaning" to events. Birthdays, weddings, anniversaries, funerals, bar mitzvahs, communions, reunions, baptisms, goofy fraternity/fraternal initiation rites: all ceremonies designed to inject meaning into events that might otherwise be meaningless.

But more than just infusing events with nebulous meaning, or providing an excuse for beer and liquor (as if an excuse is needed!) some ceremonies bring something additional to the table: force. Nuptials, BMs, baptisms, communions, shamanic initiations, even the ceremonial signing of a contract; all these are designed to lend the kid-tested mother-approved force of ceremony to ensure that the participants really mean it. A baptism is just a bath, but with a priest present, the bather is supposed to really mean it. A wedding is just a rehash of old agreements, but the ceremoniousness of it all is supposed to ensure that the couple really means it. A promise is just a promise, but a nuptial is an eternal bond. Right? Right.

Why are there guests at a wedding? I can't speak to your wedding, but I can tell you why there will be guests at mine. But first, I slight digression (surprise!). When designing a ceremony, a quick and easy way to increase the force of the ceremony is to add witnesses. In fact, witnesses are so important to initiation ceremonies of all kinds that within the "magickal community", if you haven't got any friends and have been doing a mail order course in hermetics, you can always get the folks who cash your checks to be present "astrally" as you self-initiate yourself.

huh?

Non-participants are present at ceremonies to decrease the odds of backsies. You don't want to look like a lying jerk to your friends, do you? You don't want to be seen as a liar by all those people that heard you promise eternity to your new wife, do you? It's easy to sin when no-one is watching, so if you're going to have a ceremony that has a promise or two, it's prudent to have witnesses.

But there's even more to it all than that, as I see it. Earlier I mentioned "power". To the extent that I believe in things (nothing to fear, Donny, this man's a nihilist), I currently choose to believe in such things as "power" and "the force" and all kinds of silly gnomes and mysterious faeries that imbue us and the world around us with magical energy. Or something like that. Think of it this way: we can imagine (and probably dig up statistics to lie prove) that a child raised in an abusive, inhospitable household will have a tougher time growing into a wonderful adult than one raised in a nice, happy home. Surrounded by not only yelling and hitting and swearing and anger, but also invisible "negative energy" day in and day out, the first kid has to work harder to "make it" than the one surrounded by "positive energy".

Too cheesy an example? How about this one: try infusing yourself with "negative energy" (go on, you know how to do it) next time you step up to the bar and attempt a max deadlift. Think you'll make it?

Not silly enough? When my beer is a-fermenting in the closet, I choose to believe that thinking happy, positive thoughts about it, talking to it, and spending some daily Quality Time with my bubbly, closeted friend results in a better tasting beer. Does it "work"? Who cares? What does work is that I've thereby created a universe in which that sort of thing does work, inhabited said universe, and become happier for it. After all, the kind of universe where thinking happy thoughts about beer makes better beer is just the sort of universe where I want to live. And if all that stands between me and such a place is a smidgen of belief, that is truly a small price to pay.

Likewise with the guests at a wedding. In addition to shaming the participants into taking seriously their vows, the non-participants lend "positive energy" to the proceedings; by their happy thoughts (hopefully the couple has carefully selected their guest list) they get the wedded couple off "on the right foot." The guests are the "positive thinking" that make the max deadlift go up. The guests are closet-whisper that make the marital brew malty and delicious.

As far as the rest of the wedding ceremony, it's all clever tricks and wink-wink nudge-nudge symbolism intended to put a grin on the faces of those in on the joke. And now that I think of it, that's a fair description of life itself.

someone remind me when it's over and i'll change it back.

or maybe not ;)

visions try to tell us which ones

Don't allow your kids to become desensitized to violence. Beat them harder each day.

I think deep down, many people just want musicians to accept their new place in society -- a place that's a notch below programmers, IT people, etc. on the social and economic ladder.

They were looked down upon by the upper class through most of history and were equals of the working man.

she is not hundreds of miles away
i saw her this morning
and i will see her this evening
but still i look at her pictures on my wall
and smile

...

isn't that how it ought to be?

we all already are dead
but yet as unending vibration
danger lies only in my head

self link!

irony:

- building a page for wedding guests' reference
- linking from wedding guest page to a blog entry that sheds light on the numerology behind certain key aspects of the event
- noticing that the blog post that best explains things also contains a comment discussion between me and the friend of an ex
- deciding that such a thing would not be interesting/appropriate for guests to read
- deleting the comment thread, even though the topic of the comment thread was whether to post-hoc self-censor, especially on account of the (then-new) 203, and the position i took then was that i would never dream of such a thing on account of the blog is "part of me" or some such and thus uncensorable

so it goes!

who can take a sunrise
legs all black and blue
sprinkle in a -- oh, never mind.

who can take a sunrise
breakfast and a loo
grunt and strain and bleed
and lift a miracle or two?
the deadlift man can, the deadlift man can!
the deadlift man can 'cause he lifts in just his drawers
and makes the cheeks feel good

who can take a long bar
squat down from up high
grip the bar in half and make the shoulder blades cry
the deadlift man can, the deadlift man can!
the deadlift man can 'cause he lifts in just his drawers
and makes the cheeks feel good

the deadlift man makes
every gasp he takes
satisfying and delicious
but if your grip is not pernicious
you'll soon be sleeping with the fishes

who can take a callous
dip it in some chalk?
kiss the shins with iron as he brings it to the top
the deadlift man?
the deadlift man can
the deadlift man can
the deadlift man can 'cause he lifts in just his drawers
and makes the cheeks feel good

and the cheeks feel good
'cause the deadlift man think they should...

i read somewhere the other day that during roasting, coffee beans vaporize and expel some amount of caffeine. i consulted my favorite home roaster and he confirmed it.

this morning, when i roasted i took careful note of whether the roasting got me a caffeine buzz, and darned if it didn't!

just one more reason to home roast.

i've had a lot to say in the past about unbalanced force, usually referencing an obscure bit of kabbalah that even i can't quite really remember. but that doesn't matter, because i've taken its meaning from whatever source it originally had and made it part of my personal mythology/religion.

the magician strives to balance the elements within himself. my SVB was becoming frayed, so I re-wrapped it with fire.

unbalanced force leads the magician, weighing him down, dragging him in the direction of the force, consuming him. unbalanced fire is tyranny. unbalanced water is inaction.

unbalanced intellect is bored.

in the past, i was unbalanced force and i though i knew it, i did not understand what it meant:

i am ruled from edom
my kingdom is unbalanced force
for how long can i be still?

my desires and my goals and my dreams and my plans all pulled me in different directions. they were not in balance (or even counterbalance) and because of this, like a sailboat not balancing the opposing forces of wind and water, i floundered -- moving, to be sure, but not with efficiency or smoothness.

nowadays, i have less time for reflection (and alas, writing), because i'm too busy balancing forces. and that is precisely what it is: in the past, weightlifting balanced my slothfulness, until it itself became unbalanced and began to exert influence over other areas of my life. i couldn't eat too late because it would throw off my workouts, i couldn't do this or that because it would cut into recovery. and now, i have learned: the riddle of steel. what is the sword, to the hand that wields it?

what is strengh, a difficult squat, a hard climb, a long run: to the life within which it occurs?

so much lost time
so much conflict
i am not an octopus, but i need to be
i am not an encyclopedia, but i need to be
i am not a human, but i need to be

i am an octopus, but to be a successful one, each of my arms must balance and counterbalance the others, else i tear myself apart. lost time, conflicts: these bring the insight to balance on the edge of an encyclopedia.

what good is a 400lb squat if i can't enjoy ice cream?

what good is a mountaintop if i have no one who can understand it?

in the morning: coffee

in the evening: tequila

sometimes lift, sometimes climb. no more shall one or the other lead me to the unbalanced, unrestrained growth of tetsuo. and like a good and proper stem, the balanced forces of a lived life propel me in the direction i want to go.

it's frobuary 1, yomhc 0x14!

holy crap, that's 4 months since the last one! i guess i *wont* have the curly back any time soon :/

but at least now i can take a late night shampoo.

is getting up early, squatting, and getting in to work before 11am.

the secret to blogging is not blowing your writing wad on a big long email to your parents.

writer's block!

i'll get over it soon, i promise.