Postman

I saw a job posting in the classifieds the other day for mail delivery. Starts out at twenty bucks an hour. I can't imagine making that much money. I did let my mind wander and day dream about what life would be like as a mail carrier. I pictured the wonderful life of a mailman. They walk around suburbia with safari hats on, shielding the sun from their eyes. Wearing short with blue socks. Having fabulous tans. Getting to know the neighborhood. Saying hello to Granny Mcfarron, rocking in her front porch chair. Maybe even being invited in for lemonade, sipping from a straw as mothers read letters from their loved ones serving bravely in Iraq. Sunshine, sprinklers, morning dew, bird songs, beautiful old style cursive writing on pulpy envelopes sealed with heart stickers. Oh how I would love to be a mailman.

Hold on. What am I thinking. Mailmen don't deliver mail anymore. People don't write letters these days. Do they? All the mail I get is electronic mail. My mail woman, Penny, is a sweet lady, but I don't look forward to her appearance on my front porch. She hasn't delivered anything but coupon books, credit applications, and bills to my house. Same goes for the neighbors. The poor mail people. Their job used to bring joy to the common folk, now only annoyance. The mail comes; I come home. It is the same routine everyday. Take the mail out of the box and deposit it in the recycling bin. Mailmen are nothing but litterers. I am going to change this by writing more hand written letters. You should do the same.

Freedom?

It is Friday night. Went out for Mexican food. Had a few drinks and then we headed home. On the way home we stopped by the Best Western cocktail lounge to have a few drinks. It is Friday night and although there is no such thing as a weekend in my life it would still be nice to have a symbolic drink with the people that are winding down from their work weeks and preparing for the weekend. We get into the lounge. It is filled with middle age people that are laughing about their kids or their SUV's or what ever it is that middle age people laugh about. The guy stops us.
"Can I see your ID's", the kid asks us. I take out my ID and hand it over. He studies it way to long, like he is trying to penetrate my inner being. Turns out my drivers license is expired. It expired not two weeks ago and I have not had any time to walk the 12 blocks across town to renew it. I don't even have a fucking car, renewing my drivers license is the last thing on my mind. "I'm sorry but I can't serve you", the guy tells me.

Uh last time I checked I was a free American citizen. If my friends and I are coming to your place of business willing to fork out money for over priced drinks, the last thing you should do is turn away money. Am I missing something. I am 25 years old. I am required to prove my age to drink not prove that I have a valid drivers license. Who gives a shit if it expired. Here is a picture of me with an official proclamation of my date of birth underneath it. That is proof enough. Now I have to go down and renew my license. When will I even have a free afternoon to do that?

The thing that is scary to me is when our ID's become computer chips under the skin. Then they will control us completely. Freedom? Yeah right. I am going to go listen to some rage against the machine now.

Hyper Text

Why the fuck are words in my blog now linked to advertisers web sites? Who said they could come into my site? I am filled with furious anger right now. I'm off to frolic on the the treadmill.

Running Through Pixelated eFields

I would like to be a great athlete. Being a professional baseball player would be nice. Such a summer time game full of smells and sounds, it would be nice to make outrageous sums of money to play a little boys game. Golf would be nice too. Walking around manicured grounds, every hundred yards or so swinging a rod of iron, slicing small chunks out of the earth and getting polite hand claps from the white guys lining the fairways. Running would be fun. I think I would be at complete peace running forever--thinking, breathing, sweating until finally the mind goes blank and all that is left is burning muscles and pain. After awhile even the pain disappears and it is just the unconscious and the sweating body under the sun.

Running conjures up ideas of spirituality in my mind. Ancient warriors running over great planes to battle. Clouds parting with golden pipe organs bellowing rhythms in an inaudible frequency. God, running in the sand, Jesus building sand castles, and me laughing between bites of my cheese and sand sandwich. This is what I think of when I think of real, natural, honest running.

Lately in my training (I am going to run a half marathon in march) I find more pleasure in the shiny lights embedded in the treadmill than I do in the mind/body/soul of running. The treadmills, like every other part of our lives, are now just a convenient place to watch TV. The boob tube. Fascinating how television screens are hooked up to work out equipment now. TV watchers are not just couch potatoes any longer. TV watchers are like oxygen breathing organisms...If they are alive the condition of TV watching is an integral part of life. TV's are everywhere... On cell phones, in hair salons, on my computer screen, floating billions of miles away beyond our solar system, carried aboard voyager. So I run on the treadmill and forget that my legs are moving, that my lungs are burning, that spittle is leaking out of my crusty lips, I forget I am even alive, sucked in to the television. That natural escape is covered up by that all to familiar form of escapeism... The damn TV.

I love that scene in The Two Towers when Aragorn, Legolis, and Gimili are running over the fields of Rohan, closing in on the Orks. How silly would that scene look if the three were running on treadmills out in the middle of a grass field, each staring into a television screen, each with headphones on.

In the Hall

Busy day at work today. Didn't even get a lunch or a break. I was cleaning up a storm, half listening to the TV, half comatose when I nearly bumped into a man in the hall. A thick grizzly man he was: grey goatee, black tank top, a little tattoo on the under side of his wrist. "There jacuzees in these rooms?"

"No sir. No jacuzzes."

"What the hell's the difference between an executive suit and the regular rooms?"

"Well your executive room has a vanity and a balcony. It is also substantially bigger than the regular rooms." I thought about adding the fact that the executive rooms get mouthwash and lotion in addition to the shampoo and conditioner which are standard complimentary gifts, but that sounded really cheap at the time.

"One last thing" the guy says to me. "you guys ain't got no women maids?"

Perplexed. Where is he going with this I was thinking. "Uh, yes sir, I am the only male house keeper here. Our lady house keepers are down stairs."

He looked at me confused as if my answer was not satisfactory; like he wanted me to apologize for cleaning for a living, start working at the dock yard, drive a motorcycle to work.

Tea Leaves

People that live in clean white washed homes perplex me. How does one maintain order and cleanliness? I do not collect anything. I make a habit of only keeping special things--photographs, writing, artwork, all of which can now be stored digitally. I have a meager wardrobe, there is no food in the house, no treasures stored here on earth with my name on them. Minimalism is what I am striving fore. Coffee pot? Who needs one? I brew cowboy coffee. A set of matching dishes? Just more to wash in the end. So why is this apartment such a mess? It will not stay clean. I clean it every week and by the middle of the week it is a mess again. Not so messy that Maury Polvich is going to show up with a camera crew to document and broadcast my squalor to countless fat house wives across America--but unclean enough to make me anxious.

Peoples insides have a way of finding the external world...To be seen by the rest of us. Our insides are leaking out of every pore of our body, collecting in pools to be gawked at by all. Art work. I wonder what does my apartment say about me? Is my mind a mess? The architecture of my synapses mirrored by the architecture of my methods of organization, speech, worship? My apartment is a work of art that can not be contained or directed. It has a will of its own. In many ways my apartment is more alive than I am.

sentiance is not unique to my apartment by any means. The roads, the buildings, the lights, the shape of water fountains, the oil spot in the jack in the box drive through window: All works of art; humanities insides molding the outside. We spill oil in the ocean--we lubricate our minds in alcohol and processed food. Love and happiness reflected in our neighbor hood parks, our cement slabs by the bay. What does the skeletal remains of last nights chicken dinner laying on my computer desk say about the human condition?

Boy I really need to clean this dump up.

I am a Spirograph

What 80's toy are you?


http://quizilla.com/users/littlelilly/quizzes/What%20childhood%20toy%20from%20the%2080s%20are%20you?


PS... How do I make cool links that don't have hideous addresses in them?

Punching Hides of Beef

I went and worked out at the Recreation Center up on campus yesterday for the first time. I guess it is one of the nicest gyms in the universe or something like that. It won a lot of awards when it open last year. The point is I went there yesterday with Robbie. Rob is 40 pounds over weight and that 40 pounds is muscle. Bodies like that look like they hurt. I would rather be built like Bruce Lee. I am built more like Bob Sagget.

That gym is so nice! Television screens all over the place. Computer terminals built into the walls. Have you been in new buildings lately? The buildings I usually go in are at least 4o years old. This building looks like something from Star Trek. The equipment is HIGH tec. There are TV's built into the tred mill. Indoor track, swimming pool, big screen television, snack bar, climbing wall, basketball courts, cheese cubes--all there.

I got to thinking why have I been paying money to work out at the YMCA when I can go work out at "Globogym" on campus.

YMCA--Old flabby people
School Gym--supermodels

YMCA--musty smell of old person sweat.
College Gym--the smell of sterility, micro chips...

YMCA--Rocky's gym, Mick in the dusty corner, growling and cussing, sides of beef hanging from the rafters.
School Gym--Rocky III: the Russians first class facilities.

I am thinking about skipping classes today

Valentines Day

Aren't we waging a war on drugs? Our citizens are the enemy, Our cops, the soldiers. Funny, it's as easy to buy illegal drugs as it is to order delivered pizza--just dial the phone. Bridget is on the couch talking (to Andy, to me?) about marriage. "I think I am destined to marry a black man." I am listening to R.E.M.--Loosing My Religion.

The last Valentines gift I got was a card from a gay guy in my painting class four years ago. He passed out Brittany Spears Valentines cards to everyone in the room, just like we used to do in elementary school. Valentines day was fun when I was 9. I couldn't wait to read what Laura or Sarah wrote in my card. I was going to marry Laura, and Sarah was going to be my mistress. I was in third grade.

I hear that the citizens of San Francisco are thinking about building a suicide barricade on the Golden Gate Bridge. Apparently people are jumping off of that mother in record numbers. I am sure tomorrow will see a spike in "jumpers".

Shiny Happy People. Grimy working people. Male house keepers. Dreamers.

Award

And the Lifetime Douche Bag Achievement Award goes to...Christo and Jean Claude. Do not insult me or the hard working people of the world with works such as the "Running Fence" or "The Gates", we are smarter than that. Your a phony. That is all I can say about that. Christo is a phony ass douche bag.

Hermitude/Birthday/Spice

Yesterday was my birthday. I have breathed air and shed skin cells for 25 years...A quarter century of being stuck to this wet marble as it plays ring around the rosy with the sun. I guess I have five years left before I officially start evaluating my life path.

Andy treated me to a dinner at The Pepper Sisters last night. The food there is really spicy, I am not sure what you would call that kind of food. Beans, sour cream, chicken, blue tortilla chips, coose coose...Maybe southwestern? Cajun? Great food. We had a few beers there and then came home to find Justin and Doug sitting on our porch cradling 40 oz'ers of Steel Reserve in high spirits. We joined them, talking for a while. Doug busted out the digital video camera every couple of minutes to record our conversation. After awhile, talking wasn't what we wanted to do anymore--listening to silence was no good either, so we all got instruments. Justin had my fiddle, Andy, his guitar, Doug, Andy's bongo drums, and me, my harmonica. Justin may be borderline schizophrenic, but he sure can play music. After the music we came in and Doug busted out his map of whatcom county outlining the areas he plans on living this summer. He is going to leave in June and live in the Cascade national forest for three months. He leaves civilization every couple of years to find himself I guess, who knows why people do the things they do. There were times when I wanted to move up to the mountains and be Davey Crockett or a hermit monk, but not so much anymore. Doug went on and on about that map, chattering into the wee hours of the morning. I had to work today, he doesn't have a job. Jobs. I finally said good night as they picked up their instruments, begining again that old style fiddlin' music.

eLanguage

Our language, evolved over thousands of years, breaks down in cyber space. For instance, this dialogue occurred while playing halo 2 online:

WeStSiDEkillA: I swear ya'll, if you let dem score I'll rip off yo balls and feed dem to ya'll.

Now this is typical male sporting lingo and if we were on a soccer field I would kick it up a notch so that WeStSidEkillA wouldn't castrate me and my team mates. But in cyberspace what does this threat really mean? The threat of physical/material harm in an immaterial environment is a completely empty threat. I imagine that this sort of perform-or-be-assaulted interaction among men originated deep in the historical past when warriors rallied the weaker men to defend tribal territories. It doesn't work however when the people in your tribe are thousands of miles apart, sitting on thier couches, drinking beer, smoking weed--are completely removed from reality.

1940s

Red wine. Whistling. Lionel Hampton. All components of teleportation. For a second I forgot I was alive, not fully aware that I had been swept away, free floating in jazz.

This kitchen was alive before WWII. It was alive before electronics was invented. Oh the stories wrapped up in this old kitchen!

Kindness Born From...The BIG BANG?

It was suggested the other night on the radio that the red shift observed throughout the cosmos, could be explained alternatively as something other than stars moving away from each other (don't ask me the alternative theory). The raisin bread is not rising. The scientist said most belief systems are build on fragile threads--on faith. It is very possible the universe isn't expanding, that it didn't have a beginning, there will not be a big crunch, no growing cold and lonely, dying in a rocking chair--knitting. Belief systems are built like the rock formations in the Road Runner cartoons.

A lady I work with bought me groceries today. Her and her wife gave me a ride home and dropped me off with 3 bags of groceries. That was the kindest thing anyone has ever done for me.

Andy is on the couch quoting movies out loud randomly, to himself. Would he be doing that if I wasn't in the next room? Would we do anything if we didn't believe in an eye in the sky?

Mouth Filth

I heard an advertisement on the radio last night. A man's voice telling of the germs on a telephone receiver, especially public telephones. Says there are more germs on a public phone than there is in a public toilet. For a price you can buy a product that cleans the phone before you use it. Are germs really that scary? Should we be spending money on germ killing products at the rate we do?

I can't believe that the mouth is that dirty. At least not as dirty as body parts usually coming in contact with toilet seats. What are we putting in our mouths? What is coming out of them? Can language and speech create a literal filth in the mouth? Intriguing.

A Billion Shattered Alarm Clocks

I don't know what to write on my blog anymore. It feels like I am at a dead end, walking the same path day after day. Cramming my head full of feminist theory and "post modern" ideologies--all for a grade? Where are the golden wheat fields of my imagination, the comfortable little cottage that stood on the cross roads of my day dreams? The neighbors coming and going on their platinum hover cycles, bringing word of the warrior prince in the hill countries to the east? The deep purple sunsets, the pale crimson mist of mornings walking my make believe golden retriever? Where is Old Yeller...and tree forts? They used to be there when I closed my eyes. Now only contracts for food and rent, a deed on my body, my mind, for minimum wage. I had a dream once in which I set out to climb a tall snowy mountain shrouded in black storm clouds. I thought I would have reached the summit by now, whistling merrily, walking leisurely down the other side, into the rich prairie plains to build a castle and tend an an orchard of apples. Fishing and drinking steins of thick red beer. A castle. No mot necessary. And flags. Flags waving with my family crest stitched in silver on a green field of felt. Is it still ok for a man to dream about his castle, about family and friends, and sword fighting on the holodeck? Tomorrow I am going to wear a cape to work and shoot laser beams from my eyes. Kings do not keep inns. Super hero's do not wear sanitary rubber gloves. Drip coffee and slippers, like any Sunday morning, prasing God in the barn chapel, smelling cooked yams simmering in the kettle. Tomorrow I will wake up and put on my boots, stir the fire and grab my walking stick. I have to traverse tomorrow but the path looks so steep.

Cheering for The Underdog

Cheering is such a wonderful act. I had my feet up this afternoon drinking hot coffee and listening to the radio. A bible scholar was on the program. During the call-in portion of the program he was attacked venomously for being part of the "old paradigm" for being exclusive in his faith. But he didn't respond to their attacks with hostility. He calmly stated what the Bible has to say about the objections raised. It only made the callers more furious. Even though I didn't agree with everything he was saying, I had to cheer for him. He knew his stuff, after all he has made a career out of studying the Bible. He doesn't have the answers to everything, no Christian does, NOBODY does. I really admire people who know what they are talking about, who don't back down when challenged. In people that have faith in something higher than themselves. I would admire a pedophile or a Satan worshiper if he could formulate a sound argument. It is so popular to attack Christians today. I am not suggesting that people blindly accept a faith, but I am suggesting that people listen. You might be intrigued by what you hear!

Look What We Are Doing in the Ionosphere

http://www.indiadaily.com/editorial/01-30b-05.asp

http://www.indiadaily.com/editorial/01-24k-05.asp

http://www.indiadaily.com/editorial/01-24c-05.asp

http://www.fromthewilderness.com/free/pandora/haarp.html

This is very concerning to say the least.

And this....

http://www.solomonstemple.com/modules.php?name=News&file=article&sid=1346

This isn't exactly the BBC or CNN but interesting none the less.