I have to be truthful.

With a suddenly tighter income, moving concerns, and the brain-bludgeoning boredom that comes with being neither a student nor a worker drone, I haven't had all that much to share with you lately. And frankly, I don't think the situation's going to improve for at least a week. So in the interest of sparing you from increasingly inane and mundane posts, I'm taking a leave of absence for seven days.

Oh you know you like it. Don't pretend to be sad.

Well, you can pretend a little...

In any case, I'll be back in a week, hopefully with new job news in tow and with any luck, some crazy stories about being stalked and/or running from the police after an exhibitionist act or two.

Until then, soak up this little image.

And everybody say....

YATTA!


What the hell am I talking about? Oh, just a little yatta, that's all.

Not Pulling A Graduate

I dream of having days so filled with tension and emotion that I'm torn in two by the thought of competing desires. If I were to be getting married and someone "pulled a Graduate," I'd consider myself lucky.

A girl can dream, can't she?

...wartime revelations....

On the other side of the fence, I'm a betrayal, feeling new and right and opened. But I don't have the strength to say that I'm here, hiding behind these bricks, peering back over to see if I'm missed. I was naive. I claimed righteousness. But in truth, I was illogical and emotional - taking my cues from snap judgements and passionate dissent.

I'm not mingling with these birds.
I still cling to this fence.
But I can no longer afford the luxury of blind indignation.

How the world changes in one afternoon....

I'll be worthwhile someday.
I'm trying.
Not hard... but still trying.
And one day I'll get there.
One day I'll be something to write home about.
Just you watch.
I've got big plans.
But they can wait until tomorrow.

New York to benefit from a blanket smoking ban.

Let's see, what are the chances we could get something like that passed here in Vegas?

{Jenny whips out her calculator.}

No? No. Okay. Damn.

"The most wasted of all days is one without laughter."
e e cummings

I'd venture to add music to that sentiment as well.
I've never had a day that felt completely wasted when I had at least three minutes with a song, as loud as it could go, flooding my ears and making me sing out to communicate with it.
Any day that I've had that, I've had a worthwhile day.

The major news media outlets seem to think that we thirst for an uninterrupted stream of blurred nightvision shots of streaking bombs and pixellated videophone images of speeding tanks. Maybe some of us do.

If so, maybe there's some comfort in knowing that the nation's hunger for disaster isn't a 21st century novelty.



Okay, so maybe it's not so comforting.

Over the rustling of department store bags, I heard a woman say, "$5,000... that's five times my normal clothing budget for the whole year!" And she squealed a little bit as she turned to a rack of low-rise capri pants.

Looking down, my shirt paints a decidedly different picture about my clothing habits. "VFW Post 9466 Ladies Auxiliary," it says in bright green. Surrounded by racks and turnstiles supporting $80 sweaters and soul-sucking Tommy Hilfiger button-ups that cost more than sane person should spend on them, I'm wearing a thrift store orphan that I rescued for a mere $1.50.

A pair of tight-pantsed trend whores pass by.
I have clothes in my closet that I bought eight years ago.

And I begin to wonder why I should care. The fashion race, the masturbatory Cosmo worship - it's all for people who need acceptance from equally empty souls, patching the holes in themselves with brand names. When I really think about it, I feel really sorry for them.

And, besides, this lime green VFW shirt has at least a few more years left in it.

In a relentlessly futile debate about the reasons for this ridiculous war, my father reiterated the need to disarm Saddam, calling Iraq a threat to America's safety because it "trained terrorists" and harbored "an arsenal of WMDs and biological weapons." I tried to keep a straight face as my claims of American arrogance and unilateralism were met with a decidedly jingoistic disregard for the wrong-doings of this country.

I didn't start the conversation, mind you. It's been obvious for a while now that I think even contemplating Bush's war crimes is fruitless. But with my parents' TV permanently affixed to Fox News (another tragedy that I won't go into), it's hard to avoid belligerent requests for one's stance on the matter.

Today I found the map that would have given me, at least, the graphical edge in the debate. The Indypendent has put together a handy map of the U.S. to make spotting a dangerous nation quick and easy. Training operatives? Developing weapons of mass destructions? Oh that's right, she says sarcastically, we do it too.

Time: Five minutes after waking up, soooo... some time in the afternoon.
Attempting: To devleop X-ray vision so that I can see through the cat sitting in front of my monitor.
Feeling: Lackluster, intellectually lacking, lackadaisical, lackey-like.
Refueling With: Water. The beverage excitement never ends here.
Lung Activity Of The Day: Coughing! Just like yesterday! It's fun!
What I Can Barely Keep My Pants On For: Moving back to Boulder City on the 16th. I feel like throwing everything into boxes now. YES! No... That'd be silly. Sorry, I got a little worked up.
Hearing: Cars, the computer's whir, the absence of music.
Last Thought Provoked: The Screen Savers interviewed some smug round man about online ethics who wagged a chubby finger at file traders and music collectors, saying, "just because we can doesn't mean we should." And I wondered, has he told that to the Almighty Kings of Ethics, the Recording Industry and asked them why they think they should be allowed to charge $11.99 for a plastic disc that cost less than a dollar to make and saw only 2 to 3 dollars of that sale going to the artists who produced it? I mean.... just because they can, does that mean they should? Tsk tsk, RIAA.
Beaming With Pride For: A man CNN interviewed on the street during one of their obligatorily pointless "America Responds" segments. Calmly and eloquently, he issued the most spot-on hope I've been holding next to my heart for, ohh, two and a half years now. He said (something to the effect of), "I think this war is unconscionable, arrogant, and wasteful. But we'll have a say in November 2004, and hopefully we'll have a regime change here in Washington." {Pumping fist into the air RAWK style} YEAH baby!

...and Jenny drifts dreamily away, counting the days until she can look at another ballot with Dubya's name on it, and yet again vote for the other guy.... ahhhh....

War.
War.
War.
War.
War.

Sick of hearing it?
Yeah, me too.

Want to know my remedy for the situation? Turn off the TV. Go outside. Walk a dog. Play checkers. Anything other than fixating on the squabbles of two tyrant dictators.

Primarily, I blame the absence of nightmares.

Sure, I realize that I complained and did my fair share of hand-wringing when they were a near-nightly occurence, but to be honest, the terror kept me sane. It may sound odd to you, the dreamer, but a month without a nightmare is, to me, a month without a thrill.

Of course, you could tie it all back to the fact that my biggest chances for excitement these days come with a trip to the supermarket or the library.
You can stop laughing now.

All I'm really asking for is one more run at it. I can do it right this time.
I know I can.

I locked her away, because she was becoming too unruly. Always with her sarcastic comments and persistent self-loathing - you see, something had to be done. And so she's gone, and I'll be taking her place for the time being.

You can expect to see a tighter ship being run around this place: the melodramatic romantic intrigues are on hiatus, the angry wit will be more smoothly blunted, and you'll be glad to know that you won't be seeing any more inane appeals to higher philosophic ideals. That Jenny is safely secured behind a thick, thick door.

From here on out, we're straight shooters. We're a two bedroom, two bath, well-oiled, suburban confidence machine.

Oh yes, my party people. It's that time of year again. Bust out the Guinness and Irish Cream and drink yourself into a coma!

Woooooohooo!

But seriously... You have to love St. Patrick's day, no? Essentially, it's a religious holiday - celebrating the life of its namesake, who spread Christianity between Ireland's shores. But it's a religious holiday known primarily as one of the best days to use as an excuse to get competely and desperately trashed. Of course, other holy holidays try their hand at becoming alcoholics: Christmas with its raucous eggnog chugging, Easter with its... umm... okay, maybe not Easter. But no day does drinking better than St. Patrick's Day. Yes, I think the green-robed saint would be proud.

And now, if you'll excuse me, I have to go rummage through my greenless closet so that I can attend to a bottle of Irish cream that needs my assistance.

So it's raining outside again. Perhaps that's an understatement.

Water is shooting down from the sky like so many sharp spears of gray from countless angry gods. The force of it makes the metal parking covers roar with the din of ten Super Bowl stadiums. Above, the mountain has silvered behind the sheet of rain, fading and retreating until its crags and points are benign slides and knolls. And along the ground, the pavement throws the water up in waves until the road is the back of a stalking black cat, muscles rippling just below the surface.

So I'm laden with sickness. If I were twelve, I'd be relishing this sore throat and congestion. If I were gainfully employed, I'd be grateful for a day or two out of the proverbial grind. But when you're neither a student nor a worker, being sick is no blessing and accomplishes little more than providing a break in the endless string of similar days.

Maybe I've been infected by that monster flu that's going around.
Hey! I could be a statistic!

...Wait... no... Nope, it's just your average cold bug. Damn my luck. I suppose I'll go back to whining to myself in front of the incessant "Big money!" chants of the Game Show Network.

The constant sound of a growling freeway will no longer climb into our bed at night. We're moving back to Boulder City. There's a sizeable condo tucked inside a quiet residential corner just waiting for us...

We'll be finalizing the deal today.

I'm not saying that I'm five inches from braindead, but that wouldn't be too far from getting the peaches into the hole...

What?

Yeah. I'm really, really gone.

Wooo. I need a Slurpee.

There really is a website about everything these days.

Wireframe

This is far too fascinating. Much like being some kind of voodoo priestess or a lesser god who's only control is over limb movements.
Nothing like tossing a skeleton across your computer screen and watching it jerk back into a semi-upright position like an abused boxer coming back for more...

Calling all technically advanced beings...
Some help here?

My new Asus A7V133 motherboard, cradling an AMD XP 2000+, looks lovely...

But it won't show me any love.... no boot, no beeps, won't even POST. I've got a glowing LED power light on the MB; the fans fire up. But the screen continues glaring that "No signal" sign at me. At first we thought the AGP video card may need to be pulled out and put back in. That didn't work. Then we realized that the power supply's an older one - a 300W Antec that says something to the effect of "Peak output: 160W." That has me hoping that I just need a new power supply.

I'm running three hard drives, a 128MB AGP video card, a little over a gig of SDRAM, and three PCI cards (firewire, ide, and ethernet). We tried pulling the plug on two of the hard drives, to see if we could determine for certain that it was a power issue, but we still couldn't rid the screen of that "No signal."

Any technophiles out there with an idea of what I could do?
Help would be appreciated. Email me or click "Make noise" just below this post.

Call me a pessimist. Call me apathetic.
But we all know, deep in our hearts... stir it around and eventually it'll float to the surface... that Bush will have his war.

No, no... don't start. I know it's wrong. There's no excuse for this war.
But that's not the point, is it?

If you're an American, Bush owns your ass (at least for another year and a half), and he's going to do whatever the hell he wants with it.

I've stopped caring. Really. You can too. It's easy.
Just take about half an hour to read a few of the countless anti-war blogs and then move on to the less numerous but far more venomous pro-war blogs. Soak in the circular debates that offer no resolution. After that, let your mind chew on an image of Bush and Powell and Rummy pounding their fists at the world, saying, "No, it's not good enough. Saddam must be stopped now."


Case in point:
"As for the protesters, Bush said that while he respects their right to demonstrate, 'evidently some in the world don't view Saddam Hussein as a risk to peace. ... Saddam Hussein is a threat to America, and we will deal with him.'"

Feeling hopeless yet? That's right... Just learn to give into it. You can't change anything. And nothing will change. Your rallies, your signs, your anger won't make a bit of difference.

We're going to war.
I'll lose Tony to 7 days a week of 12 hour work days.
Some wives will lose their husbands altogether.
America will lose any lingering shreds of credibility that it might have had hidden up its sleeves.

In the past, I've championed the idea that making your voice heard can change the world, and about some things, I still believe that. But this war... it's coming, and nothing short of... No...

War is coming.
That's all there is to it.

So here's where I fling up my arms once and for all and decide to devote my attention to more important things.

It may be obvious.
But I need to clear it up for those who enjoy silence.

My brain has run off. I'm not sure exactly where it's headed to, but the vacancy it left in my skull has been an echoing irritation for at least a week now. If you've seen my brain, please contact me with any possible information.

In the meantime, I'd like to leave you thinking about amusement park fatalities. Isn't it funny how we strap ourselves into little metal boxes smaller than our cars and demand to be hurled toward the ground along a set of steel pipes? On rides with names like... Montezuma's Revenge, The Crusher, Scream, and Mangled Steel Train Of Death.

Okay, so I made that last one up. But still, you have to admire the faith we have as human beings that when we're doing something in good fun that we won't end up missing a head (or a brain for that matter)...

Damn, I want to go to Magic Mountain... Ah well.

Jenny Wisdom #1:

"Any time you can incorporate Pop Rocks into your breakfast, it's a good thing."

Now that I find myself in this sudden upheaval of life, my mind is swimming with ideas grasping for the surface, trying to reach air...

And I want to be coherent, and I want to be steady, but it only looks like the water above me is growing.

The sun was brighter a minute ago.

Maybe I'll drown.
Maybe I'll grow gills.

Michael Totten has posted an interesting article on the diminishing left, and though I'm still opposed to the idea of Bush Incorporated's second installment of Desert Storm, I'm impressed by the way he calls the reactionary left into question.

"Dissidence for its own sake is acting-out and posturing," he says.

For months now, something has been living under my skin and irritating me about people who do nothing but criticize authority - all authority. Totten put into words what I wasn't able to pinpoint. Reactionaries like to hear themselves talk, and in the absence of true ideas, the remain only defiant critics. I think that as the conscience of the political strata (because we obviously don't want to leave that up to conservatives), liberals have to do more than criticize. We have to be able to develop new strategies, compromise when necessary, and stop dissenting for dissent's sake. Because sooner or later, everyone will stop listening.

Wow. Now here's a surprise.
According to this quiz, it appears I'm a left-liberal.

Shocking. Heh.

"I've seen teeth
across the horizon
fangs spanning yellow against the earth..."
Sparklehorse - Chaos Of The Galaxy / Happy Man

I'm scraping the skin off these eyes and wriggling out of myself. I'm beginning to see things more clearly now. I've always been here, I think... just hiding underneath these scales. Are you ready for the new me? Ready for the raw pink of it?

I am. Finally.

"Cut-backs."
"Slow business."

I finally know the sound of recession.

And I've never felt like a more useless human being.

The ground moves. I don't. After thirty seconds of watching the the line skip lightly across the screen, I almost wish for the jagged leap of an earthquake. You know... just for a change.

You know the image of a sad little boy holding out the insides of his pants pockets, too poor to buy more candy?

Okay, well, imagine the boy is my brain.

Yep. Nothing there.

No candy for me.

My first foray into lucid dreaming last night had nothing of the calm control that I'd expected. Instead, I found myself, at times, struggling to change some situations and being confronted by unwanted results in others. The night began oddly anyway... I wrestled with the sheets for nealy an hour before my mind gave in to sleep, and in the meantime, I was confronted by voices that sounded so real that I was tempted to get up and check to see if any windows were open.

Voices? Yeah... I might be sliding a little more towards the schizo end of the schizotypal slide... Moving on...

When I finally fell asleep I found myself in a relatively bland dream having a discussion with Tony. The topic eludes me. But at some point I realized that what he was saying was nonsense, and not just in a "I'm right, so you're just being nonsensical" kind of way. He literally wasn't making sense. "Wait..." I said, as I slammed into the metaphorical lucidty wall, "this doesn't make sense. This is a dream. I'm dreaming." I reached for a light switch on the wall and tested my ability to change lighting (Waking Life style). The lighting didn't change. At that moment, I felt a sense of elation, excitement, and immediately began wondering what I should do with this power. My first test of my new ability: I turned back to Tony and promptly commanded, "Dance an Irish jig. It's my dream, do it." And off he went. Recreation of last week's Ed was complete. It was time to move on to bigger and better things... dangerous things... sexy things...

I soon discovered, however, that without practice, lucidity is an unwieldy toy. The settings I conjured quickly melted into uncontrollable situations, and the people I called forth melted in front of me. It was as if I'd been given molding clay that would never hold its shape. My nightmare tendencies twitched back into life within a few short scenes, and I found myself being belittled by a college dean for an inability to file paperwork on time.

The idea is exciting, but if the execution of lucidity continues to be as frightening as last night, I'd rather let my subconscious feed me the bland slop it's had on the menu for the past few weeks. Really. I wouldn't mind.

Somehow I know that I could be amazing.
I could be beautiful, unstoppable, rare.
But no bird is beautiful under wire.

Terrorism preparedness tip number 3: "When no one is looking, it's OK to curl up and cry."

This and other informative tips on deciphering the Department of Homeland Security's Ready program can be found at idlewords.com. "Helping America prepare for a fiery death" since 2003.