Yet another scrap rescued from dust only to befuddle and annoy. This little morsel had neither a date or spot in my memory to call home...

-----------------------------------------

I was alone, and I couldn't help feeling that there was a reason for it. Maybe a reason for all of it - the way I cowered from the darkness of my closed eyes and the way I resented the words "need" and "forever." If there were reasons though, I couldn't feel them. Not acutely anyway. No, it was more like they worked within me silently to undo my conscious efforts to be normal. They were desperate moles digging holes through the foundation of my facade of stability. It was then that he came home. At the moment I doubted everything most, he walked through the door. I don't even know whether his entrance put the reasons to sleep or awoke them. The fact was that I couldn't feel. I couldn't feel the reasons. I couldn't feel the need. And I most definitely couldn't feel forever. I was the child of the present living moment, a slave to the here and now. And so when he walked in the door, ........

Hey there boys and girls! It's that time once again to play "Let's Talk To The Magic Eight Ball!" Hoorah....

.....

Hm.

Oh that's right. I already packed my eight ball.
Damn.

Where's the logic in enjoying something your not very good at?

Today's example: house painting. We spruced up a back room today in clean white, and I proceeded to drip and streak and muddy up the whole mess. And yet, the whole time, I thoroughly enjoyed myself.

Maybe it's like bowling. Even if you're just happy to break 90, when you're with friends and family, talent means nothing.

Of course, the walls will probably need retouching, but that's beside the point.

If nothing else, power outages are all about possibilities. The flicker of candles replaces the flicker of the idiot box, and everyone stumbles around, groping for the familiar landmarks of their everyday space. That sudden interruption of the daily machine...

I thought to myself last night, in the fourth hour without the hum of my computer, "Imagine how much reading and writing and thinking a person can get done when you're not distracted by some pointless TV show or video game..." With that, I snatched up Chaucer to get a jump on Monday's assignment and settled into the still coolness of my candlelit room.

{15 minutes later}

"I am so not in the mood for Chaucer right now..."

So much for all that reading and thinking.

Luckily, my PDA was still fully charged. And so I whittled away the night with digital solitaire and small screen scrabble.

Though, you know... Productive or not, it was really nice to see the stars outside my window...

..And the packing continues...

Under the dust blanket that years had left draped over my closet's contents, lay a stack of notebooks, forgotten papers, jaded ramblings, and silly scribbles. I don't know about you, but finding pieces of my past on paper like this is a surreal experience. Jenni and I flipped through notebook after notebook, each one's pages littered with all sorts of goofiness...

Stuff like...

No, on second thought, I don't think I even want to let the public ponder those contents. Suffice to say, it's not pretty. Stick figures in obscene positions everywhere...

{Jenny shakes her head.}

And you realize how you've changed and how you've stayed the same as the person you are now clutches remnants of who you were.

I remember when nothing was a done deal. There was time to decide this way or that, and things would just unfold as they would...

Well, it's all unfurled now. No mystery left.
Or at least that's how it seems.

I've lived fourteen years in the same place. I should have realized that in a span of time equal to more than half of my entire life I would have acquired a HUGE amount of material posessions.

What to take and what to toss...
What to keep and what to forget...

I had another nightmare last night.
What's new?
Well, it involved something that can actually happen, tonight at work.
And so I'm worried.
There were happy parts.
The presence of certain people.
So I'm torn on how to think of it.
I have to scamper off to work now, though.
If I don't return, tell my minions I love them.
Really.

"None are more hopelessly enslaved than those who falsely believe they are free."
- Johann Wolfgang von Goethe

Not that anyone cares can do anything about it.

I say we should all just bury our heads deeper and find some good music to lull us to sleep.
"Crank it to 11... The bombs make too much noise."

...and I don't care what anyone says, blood is just not something one should get urges for.

It's probably an indicator of something gone awry if after nearly every song you think to yourself, "Ohhh... I want to be loved like that..."

{Insert list of nearly every "guy loves girl" song you can think of here.}

Yeah...

I expect far too much.

And now it's time for another...
Psychomusical Mood of the Moment

Ben Folds - Annie Waits
"And so, he forgot, he forgot, maybe not. Maybe he's been seriously hurt. Would that be worse?"
"...Annie, I can be, if we're still lonely when were old..."
Road noise and late-september heat. I was on the road home today when this song finally hit me. Broadsided me, and I fell in love. It's just one of those songs that sneaks behind your head, crouching for the right moment to slip inside your ear. ...And these lyrics...

Marcy Playground - Comin' Up From Behind
"She's got an avalanche packed into a snowball."
If I had to throw together an impromptu striptease, it would be to this song. Not only does it have that sexy, slow, deliberate swagger, but it's got power. This is one empowered, angry girl... she's been messed with and now it's her turn... It really doesn't get any better.

Vast - You
"Your eyes look like they're from God..."
"Why are you going to be outside eternity?"
The lulling, soft, ethereal quality of this song's opening is more than enough, and it's been with me for the past three weeks at least. There was a spot down the street from my house, a dirt lot with a sizeable hill atop which stood the foundations of what some say used to be a church. I'd go up there at night and lay beneath the sky, staring at the stars. This is the song that would have made those moments whole.

Elf Power - Jane
"Jane went to sleep. She was weary, she was weak. And she dreamt about the lie that washed over her that night..."
I sense a pattern developing in my psychomusical mood today. ... Maybe not. Either way, this is just one of those songs that takes you from yourself. It's melodic and wistful, dreamy and light. And it's best enjoyed on cold twilight evenings as the sun slips behind the mountains.

Barenaked Ladies - Light Up My Room
"There are luxuries we can't afford, but in our house we never get bored 'cause we can dance to the radio station that plays in our teeth."
"If you question what I would do to get over and be with you... Lift you up over everything to light up my room."
You see, I have these silly ideas about love... Helpless romantic in the most natural sense... These laughing afternoons and silent, knowing stares... Love should be light and laughter, sadness and pain, friendship above all... I hear this song, and I hear these things, and I smile....

One of the most beautiful 2 AM rainy night songs EVER....

Azure Ray - Sleep

Okay... so most Azure Ray songs fit that title. But they're completely deserving of any and all melancholy praise...

Mmmm....
{Jenny lights candles and waits for rain...}

Soliciting the Public for Opinion
Vol. I

With my old speakers, which by the time they had to be put out to pasture with their monitor companion were seven years old, I fell into the ease of being able to plug my headphones right there into the side jack, lean back in my chair, and immerse my ears in sound. Unfortunately, the speakers that I'm using now don't even have a headphone jack, and I've noticed that's a pretty common trend among speakers.

What I'd like to know is if anyone out there knows of a good sounding set of speakers, your basic two or three speaker set, that has a headphone jack readily accessible on the side or in front. Any ideas?

In completely unrelated news:

I've been chipping away at this thing they call life, and I've come to the conclusion that it's both tiring and unsatisfying. If I'm not at work, I'm in class. When I'm not in class, I'm doing homework. And when I'm not doing homework, I'm spending the last remaining moments trying to remain acquainted to loved ones.

Tony and I, on Thursday, went hiking in the Valley of Fire. Petroglyphs, a native-american hideout, and stone cabins built in the 1930's... all there. Unfortunately, my camera sat forgotten on my desk at home as we approached the stunningly carved red sandstone, but it was still completely worth the heat.

And it was a nice break in a schedule that has been all go and no stop for the past two weeks.

A word to the wise: Work sucks. Find a viable 'get rich' scheme and then let me know about it.

So, I've been thinking that society needs a new filter... There are far too many worthless people milling about. Oddly enough, I saw a good majority of them by watching 10 minutes of MTV earlier today.

Yeah... just a few rockets, some rope, and a pop music award show as bait and we can lure the airheads and the assholes and the bimbos and the image-driven into a trap to blast them into the sun.

Sound good? I thought so too.

Driving around tonight, I was saddened by the amount of "Yes on 2" signs I saw staked into the otherwise innocent green of so many lawns. Question 2 here in Nevada for the coming November election is the so-called "protection of marriage" initiative, and it's complete bullshit. It would enforce the idea that the union of two people should only be legally recognized if it's between male and female persons.

What might have made this sad little piece of homophobic and ignorant legislation slightly easier to swallow, would have been the presentation of it in purely legal terms - as in, insurance companies being the soulless bloodsuckers they're known to be and fighting to avoid regarding a lesbian spouse as a dependent... or the state government not wanting to handle some new complexity that allowing the marriages might present.... or whatever sad governmental excuse they could come up with.

Pathetically, and unfortunately for those of us who'd like a little less Bible-thumping in our laws, they chose to say with indoctrinated, ignorant tongues, "Protect marriage. Vote 'yes' on 2." That's right. These people want to legislate morality. They want to be able to deem who can and cannot love each other, or at the very least, who the state will recognize as loving each other. (Not that I'm a big proponent of marriage, but that's beside the point.) This is no different than if the government deemed interracial marriages unlawful.

I just cannot get over how 1950's this all sounds. I thought we lived in a more enlightened world than this. But I guess women are still sex objects, Mexicans are still lazy, and homosexuals are still the worst of the immoral worst...

The only question I have left for these "moral" crusaders seeking to "protect marriage" is whether or not they've seen the divorce rates for male/female marriages lately and whether or not they've heard of a little show called "Who Wants To Marry A Multimillionaire?"

Yeah, exactly who and what are we protecting marriage from here?

This initiative only needs to be passed once more for Nevada to be lumped in with 35 other homophobic, circa-1956-thinking states. If you're a registered voter in Nevada or in a state in which this initiative might also be rearing its head, don't allow the Christian reich to push government around. Get out there and protect open-minded progress. Vote no on 2.

Drunkpenguin, huh?

Yeah.

(Jenny pouts.)

"...and every word is nonsense, but I understand."

I'm procrastinating again.

I have 1,357 lines of Middle English Chaucer poetry to decipher, and two sleeping males crowding my room. Not that I'm using that as an excuse. I really need no excuse to put off reading until I'm so bleary-eyed I that Chaucer starts looking like a TRL transcript. You see, when you've perfected the art of procrastination, excuses become a non-issue. I'm not reading, because I don't want to right now. It's as simple as that. You can even try it at home.

Have something you need to get done within the very near future? Just ask yourself: is there anything in the world I can be doing right now besides what I'm supposed to be doing? Once you have a time-waster in mind, set it to work and whittle away the minutes. I, for instance, have been channel surfing. Anyone who knows me, knows that I hate most TV. So why channel surfing? Because I'd rather do that than read Chaucer right now. See? It's simple. Your preemptory task need not be worthwhile or even very likeable - it just needs to be better than what you should be doing.

Go ahead. Give it a whirl.
I think you'll find that life is better when everything is put off until tomorrow.

Oh my God...
Why wasn't I told of this atrociously unhealthy, tremendously fabulous, completely tasty news before now??

That's just amazing.
In a bad and good way.

[More regionalist babble...]

Do you think that the pronunciation of a locale should rest in the hands of the residents or by those who believe that the word's origin and spelling should dictate how it's said?

Okay, in other words...

You might have seen the commercials for the new show "Push, Nevada" (nonexistent town with a chamber of commerce website). The narrator pronounces Nevada as Nevahhda. The common consensus among actual Nevadans (and not people that just moved here...) is that it should be pronounced with a short 'a' [as in 'cat']... Nevadda... as it were.

Of course, anyone who knows where the name comes from knows that it should be pronouced Nevahhda. Nevada is a Spanish word meaning "snow-covered" (ironically), and being that there is no short 'a' sound in the Spanish language, most Nevadans actually pronounce it incorrectly.

Technically.

Meanwhile, Louisiana residents drop the first 'i' in their state's name, while those that hail from Missouri tend to turn their last 'i' into an 'a.'

So who decides who's right?
I know that I speak for at least 75% of my fellow statemates when I say that, right or wrong, hearing someone say "Nevahhda" makes me cringe.

Advertising Roads Less Taken

Air. Breathe it!

Hell.
If it's evil, it's us.

Have fun. Eat grass!

Baby oil
Now with 75% more baby juice.

See... I have this problem of listening to other people's conversations. It happens all the time, and usually I walk away disheartened. While I think that one of the greatest things a person can do intellectually is to remain open-minded in the face of challenging thoughts, I remain unable to overcome my seething dislike of conservative, rich, old men. It's the strangest thing really. Today in a Mexican restaurant, I listened as a drooping, mid-fifties, white guy in a Stanford T-shirt expounded on how all of the problems in our society today can be tied back to that "wasteful, democratic Clinton administration" and the rising wave of immorality/anti-Christian sentiment in our country.

"It's just a good thing that we have another Bush back in office. Maybe we'll get some things straightened out finally," he says as he takes another bite of a fajita. It honestly took all the strength I had in me to keep my hand from hurling a salt shaker at his head (how unChristian of me {gasp}).

So yes, I really do need to stop eavesdropping. I get far too worked up for that.

[Rant Warning]

Does a person have a responsibility to uphold the name of their hometown against those who don't know it well enough and yet badmouth it? I pose this question because all too often I hear people complaining about something in Las Vegas...

"Ugh... the traffic..."
"Where are the museums?"
"What's with all the whores?"

And I have to fight the urge to respond with an angry slap of righteous indignation. I've lived here my entire life, and though it may have some downfalls (most of which have been caused by the past decade's influx of boomtowning carpet baggers from California and abroad - who don't know how to drive and move to the desert only to complain about the heat), I feel that native citizens, in any town, should stand up for their community, defend it, and not kneel before new popular opinion.

Within the city, newcoming job seekers and profit mongers sit in their just-add-water pop-up homes and bitch about how much better their old towns were. I hear it in grocery store lines and at movies, and I resist the urge to scream out, "Then go back to where you came from!"

Outside the city, opinion is bad enough. Tourists, and you know who you are, who have spent a few days feeding the bellies of slot machines with your long-saved vacation money, have the nerve to go home and say things like, "Yeah, Vegas is as sleezy as I thought it would be." So let me get this straight... You tour one street of a city (namely, Las Vegas Boulevard) and you're suddenly enough of an expert on the place to call the entire town of nearly 2 millions residents "sleezy?" How does that happen? Yes, the Strip is greasy, flashy, and lewd, but that's what brought you here, isn't it? You may be able to name every hotel at which you pissed away money, but you know nothing about all the genuine communities scattered outside of that tiny little area you know as "Vegas, baby." Hard-working families, children walking to school, real people, actual lives - and most of us don't even go near the Strip except out of necessity.

Is my territorialism warranted? If you don't live here, and you think Vegas belongs to everyone, then you probably don't think so. But natives, like myself, should know how I feel. And in any city, anywhere that might need defending from those who truly know nothing about it, stand up for your hometown. If we don't, who will?

"Are you ready to rock, Houston? We are... Bionic Taco!"

Don't ask. It all ties in somehow to an angry taco and stumbling through guitar tabs. Ask Jenni.

I'm too tired.

And at the moment (and for the past few days), I haven't had a single intelligent thought in my head.

I'm too tired for that.

My Friday the 13th did have one interesting high point, however, when some older Italian man started as he handed me his money for his clothes and said, "Oh my, you have beautiful eyes. ...You should wear sunglasses so that old men like me don't hit on you...."

Thanks old man, I guess.

Time to put these beautifully tired eyes to sleep.

Anyone remember when the new hot issue to get worked up about was violence in schools and the psychology of today's "troubled youth"? I do.

Guess that whole mess was resolved, huh? War can do that, I suppose.

Loving the little things #28:

The way Billy Corgan sings, "...beyond the pale, beyond the dawn" 55 seconds into Jupiter's Lament.

Time: Sometime after noon but before the Apocalypse
Dixie Cup Excitement: Watered down Diet Dr. Pepper - mmm... artificially sweetened goodness!
Hearing: Your average techno dance beat
Why?: Umm... I must be drunk. No... hmm... I have no idea. That's what Winamp gave me.
Dancing Like: An epileptic leper
Holding: A pen that boldly proclaims, "Liberal Arts Graduate - Congratulations!" Now I can start my lucrative career in executive assistance. Wooo!
Wondering: Where the hell did the term "w00t" come from? Anyone who knows or think they know or just feel like being obnoxious feel free to speak up.
Ingredients Of Last Night's Dream/Nightmare: Helping a multimillionaire hit rapper find a fur coat for his son, sudden blowing out of windows by a helicopter, looting, non-sequitir sex/infidelity with newcomer to dreamland, followed promptly by the discovery that the even-numbered diamonds from my ring had been stolen and were discovered to have been eaten by an "urban nomad"
Why?: My dreams follow absolutely no logical framework. I can't be expected to answer that.
Now Hearing: Fountains Of Wayne tell me that it's A Fine Day For A Parade. "She drinks it down, down, down..."
Running Away To: Rummage through your dresser drawers.

My mother advised me not to wear my Unamerican shirt today (a wardrobe eschewment more obvious than not choosing to wear fur to a PETA rally), and though I heartily agreed, I think that what's going on in the media today is far more regretful than donning a simple shirt would have been. "America Celebrates"? Thousands of people died last year. Just think of that sentence. Thousands of people died. And the news media is ready to celebrate the passing of a year? I'm sorry, but I don't think any proclamations of dissatisfaction with the government can stand up to the heartlessness of all the profit-driven "commemorations" of a day that ended an unfathomable number of lives. I, for one, plan on not looking at the TV once today.

You know the cell phone commercial where the ferret latches on to some guy's tongue?
Wouldn't life be better if that actually happened?
I think so.

I heard a radio ad on my way to class today...

"At Weight Watchers, children join free with the membership of an adult!"

Hooray. The general populace has finally gotten so gluttonous that even the kids need to join diet programs. Isn't that nice?

I also saw a bumper sticker that read, "Satan hates kung fu."
Then again, I have no idea what that has to do with anything.

Alright, you know what?

I'm fucking sick of the American bashing. It's as ignorant and closed-minded as the accusations it breeds. Yes, a large number of Americans are SUV-driving, blindly-consuming, cheeseburger-obsessed assholes who barely know the names of their local politicians. There are also a large number of Americans who care about politics on the world and local stage, the way the government is run, threats to the environment, and the civil rights of the world's people. EVERY country has its assholes, and EVERY stereotype and broad generalization has its overwhelming exceptions.

It's easy to say things like "...watch your bias CNN reports, and your beloved president make an ass of himself on the world stage as he destroys more innocent lives and keep your gun close at hand..." Hell, I say things like that often enough about most Republicans. The key to logical thinking, however, is to realize that when you throw out a generalization, you're most likely going to fall far short of a logical argument. The majority of Americans didn't even vote for Little Bush, so throwing words like "your beloved president" around is just uninformed.

There are problems with America, and they stem from the people who are in charge and those who are unaware of the need for change. Labelling an entire country based on its loudest and most lost does nothing to bring about that change. There are those who believe that to be accepted into the intelligent elite, you must be devoted to extremist liberalism/conservatism, when in truth, intelligence lies in a willingness to see the truth in the middle. Nothing is ever black or white. And no country is ever completely lost.

I've read far too much empty drivel about how Americans (and by this, the ranters seem to always mean all Americans) could care less about the rest of the world and live cocooned in capitalist-enforced naivete. Some do. I'm sure some British people do. And I'm sure some Canadians do. Get over it. Instead of squabbling over America's slime, why don't we give true voice to the Americans who do get what's going on. Stereotypes not welcome.

A fulfilling day at Red Rock Canyon and Bonnie Springs (promptly followed by margaritas and bead catching at the Rio... mmm) ... And pictures no less! Enjoy.

        

The Sights And Sounds Of Schizophrenia

Janssen Pharmaceutica (a company that produces schizophrenia medication) has put together virtual reality simulations of what it's like to be an untreated schizophrenic. While it's important to realize that the motivation for these presentations is profit, the experience is nevertheless troubling, and if schizophrenia has even half the disturbing auditory and visual hallucinations that Janssen packs into their "Trip To The Pharmacy" simulation, I can't even imagine what it must be like to live with full time. I mean, I hear voices sometimes (don't we all?) but they don't call me names...

I always knew I was ahead of the health curve.

Caffeine could be key in fighting cancer. Maybe now I can raise my Red Bull consumption... Ahhh.... Tasty.

"I've got a funny feeling we're all born to lose."
Reel Big Fish

You have optimistic days and pessimistic days and day somewhere in between where you realize that, hey, we're all going to die anyway. I suppose this week has just been a little hard on me - school, work, work, school, work, work, repeat. Weeks like this make a person sit back and take a long hard look at their life... well, after waking up from the coma, that is. And you know, I don't think I'm doing a very good job.

But that's exactly the reason I keep a healthy supply of "Oh well"s in a bag under my bed.

...and now back to nursing my sore body.

Does anyone actually buy things as a result of spam advertising?
And if so, can I have permission to slap them on behalf of all the rest of us?

Alright, that does it.

I think I'm starting to get that 'dead inside' feeling that veterans of capitalism sometimes speak of.

God I hate work.

Two Die In Weekend Boulder City ATV Crash

When I first heard about this crash, the morning after it happened, I thought, "Oh, how sad... Those poor guys..." And then I really found out what happened. You see, I knew these guys in high school, and they were fuckups then, too.

While it's noted that no helmets were worn, the news report fails to mention that the pair had been drinking, traveling 50-65 mph (as calculated by a friend's father who investigated the crash) down a 25 mph residential street crowded with parked cars in the middle of the night. And we should be sad for these assholes? We should be thankful that they didn't kill anyone else. What is it about death that immediately cannonizes the dumbest and most careless of mortals?

Am I being heartless? No. It is sad that their families have to go through the loss of their sons, and it's unfortunate that two young lives were cut so short (16 and 22). But when the memorial funds and begging for funeral money in front of the grocery store start up, you have to wonder why only those who die such conspicuously pointless deaths always get the attention. You don't see the young victims of disease or abuse getting this kind of attention. When you refuse the fund raisers at the grocery store, they say "Heartless bastard."

Like a friend of mine said, "Ask for money for victims of drunk drivers, and then I'll give you money." Otherwise, shut the fuck up.

These boys, who "lived life to the fullest" (which translates as drank every night and had no meaningful direction to speak of), became worthy of all of this just because they endangered lives and ended their own in a drunken mishap?

No. And no amount of truth-twisting will change that.

Joyless bowlers. That's what I like to call them.

If you've been bowling any time in the past decade, you'll know what I mean. I always seem to get wedged between lanes populated by this sad, unhealthy breed of recreational bowler. That's no fun....

The joyless bowlers are easy to spot. They come in with their bags and their shoes: special fit, special material, embroidered name. And they strap on the wrist protector and towel down the balls, and they settle in for a night of somber, serious bowling action. Key distinguishing marks include the furrowed brow and uncrackable, tight lips. Usually seen in groups no higher than two, this particular species often steps slowly and deliberately to the line, positioning feet just ever so precisely on the marks. In this pose, with the ball held nose-level, they'll contemplate the move and calculate forces and wind sheer and gravity and whatever else they think may be important. Hell, maybe they're thinking about cheese.

..o0O (Mmm... gouda...) {Throws ball}

It's bowling, people. It barely qualifies as a sport. Bowling, at its best, is recreational fun - add friends, alcohol, nachos, and enjoy. Bowling is friends trying their damnedest to kick each other's asses, failing miserably in the process, and laughing as the last frames of the night roll around and no one has broken 100.

My point? Last night, an older gentleman (a classic joyless bowler, with the wrist protector and shoes to match) saddled up next to the lane that a friend and I were in (characteristically laughing at how bad we were). This is all fine and good; I've gotten used to waiting three minutes to bowl a frame as the person next to me eyes their spare with philosophic concentration. The sad thing though (and the reason I bring this up at all), is that he had a kid with him - maybe nine or ten years old. The boy smiled not once during the entire two games they were next to us. He bowled famously: 180 something, 190 maybe. But come on. Is that what kids go bowling for? Are there parents hard-driving their kids to practice, practice, practice their 7-10 splits in hopes that they become the next (insert famous bowler name here)?

That kid should have been laughing, rolling balls awkwardly down the lane, and bouncing back to the chairs to get more pretzels - not calculating every frame as solemnly as a mortician.

Joyless bowlers. They've gotten to the kids. There's no stopping them.

Isn't it funny how stupid and brilliant you are at 16?

My friend Jenni just unearthed some godforsaken relic from August of 1996 (ahhh, the good ol' days) that has my incoherent teenage scribblings all over it. It's just a little doodling page, but nonetheless, it has some gems of oddness...

"When you disco, do it right."

"Dirty astronaut punchline - 'Oh, I thought you said Venus.'"

"One day, the sun and the moon will collide violently, killing us all. But until then, party on."

"Don't spit on your mom. She will not like it."

"Parallel lines never intersect. I think we can all learn a lesson from this, don't you?"

Yeah, that's right. I've been a lazy blogger.
It's the weekend though, and my work-weary brain is busy rolling around naked in all this free time...

{Jenny's brain slinks off to indulge in more carefree lewdness... mmm...}