Today, I jumped on at Beverly and Vermont, and shot over to Westlake park, or what is now called MacArthur Park-- named for the general known for his "I shall return" comment, and other things, I'm sure. There's a sixties song about MacArthur Park, someone left a cake out in the rain... Homer Simpson knows it, why don't you?

I've been reading a book about the history of Wilshire boulevard, which was founded in a barley field, down near MacArthur park. At one time, a hundred years ago, the run-down area where the subway currently spits you out was a foundational place, where dreamers planned the basis of the city of angels. There, a smart alecky founding father of the city (just a glimmer, by the way, of what was to come, smart aleck-wise) named Gaylord Wilshire mowed down his barley crop, and dubbed it "Wilshire Boulevard"-- the Champs Elysees of southern California... without the arch, I suppose, and the brooding French people.

Southern Californians in those days, around the turn of the last century developed it, thinking the winding road to the sea would eventually represent the automobile culture that was rapidly emerging. It was a new city then, developing around a zeitgeist of mobility, and an almost anything-goes mentality for which the roaring 20s is notorious. The city's prime thoroughfair came into being around the same time that the Ford Model A was coming into popularity, and silent movies were inflicting our first national celebrities upon us. The founders, like Gaylord Wilshire, and others, wanted to create a city that would accomodate the new technologies, and provide a glamourous and fabricated setting for the stars that began to bubble down from the hills, the way tar from Le Brea glommed itself onto the working men's shoes, as they paved Wilshire, toward the Pacific.

The turn of the 20th century marks, in my opinion, the most important change that Americans have seen-- the emergence of liesure. Before the era that early Wilshire represents, Americans were more concerned with keeping their large families fed, and avoiding being blown away in dust storms (a la Steinbeck) than wiling away the hours. They didn't really have time to concern themselves with the superfluities of life's higher, less primal aspects.

So, Wilshire Boulevard became pocked with gas stations, drive up restaurants, luxury hotels... the whole deal. Gaylord Wilsher, for the record, was considered an eccentric by many, but over time his barley field really took hold, as wealthy barrons from the east started putting up 10-story art deco department stores, and mansions, expansive hotels like the Ambassador, and cute eateries like the Brown Derby-- which was shaped like a hat. Many of them still line Wilshire, amid the newer skyscrapers and much shorter stripmalls. Several monolithic churches were built along the palmtree landscaped-strip. The palm trees are still there, but it is clear that landscaping has taken a backseat to pavement. The big stone pointy buildings and domes that represent the presbyterians and jews among us, remain also, calling those with enough faith to come sit, and be comforted.

Sadly, the Ambassador was razed last summer. After they killed Bobby Kennedy there, nobody wanted to hang out anymore. Although it lingered for 30 years-- long enough to make sundry crappy movies there, the likes that Johnny Depp trying to be as cool as Hunter Thompson could produce-- finally the time had come to bring her down. They're building a middle school there. The Brown Derby is hidden amid three Boba tapioca coffee places and a video-game arcade, 75 years, and a broken down escalator's trip from its previous glory.

MacArthur Park could still be a tourist's stop, if said tourists desired a trip to Mexico, without actually going there. The once high-end Westlake district is now a degenerative place resembling the third-world countries from which many of our newest citizens hail. It's the go-to place for fake identification cards, drugs, plastic crap, sports jerseys and caps, and rotting produce. There are sincere people who hand you pamphlets about God's love, as they see it, with little comicbook pictures of Jesus, suffering and bleeding, mostly written in spanish, fating us gringos with no other spiritual options to either learn Spanish, or to gnash our teeth in eternal damnation.

One of the shadier guys around the park tried to sell me an illegal ID, by noticing I was the only semiyoung-looking pink-colored person around. He whispered "ID, ID, ID" cryptically as I passed, thinking I was either a fat Dutchman looking for citizenship, or an underaged drinker-- maybe both. To his credit, I have some Dutch in me. The only other pink person I saw was a guy with no legs... I mean NO legs... he was cut off at the waist. He had duct tape wrapped around his pelvis, to keep his jeans from wearing away as he pushed himself on a pair of mini-crutches, more like handles, along the sidewalk. I couldn't see where a wheelchair could be less convenient or more costly for him, especially when you factor in the cost of his duct tape, which must wear out rapidly. Destitution in America looks a lot like the way I'd imagine it looks in Calcutta.

I wasn't disappointed, in my walk today. I liked looking at the strip, and thinking about how it had changed. I was in Puyallup, my home town, last week, and though it isn't famous, it's changed a lot too. My parents tell me it's changed for the worse, the way all places that we love seem to change for the worse. Things always change. It's hard to imagine that the "now" is the good memory that some person will miss 50 years down the road.

How could they, when the subway is on the honor system? I mean, I sort of miss the ticket takers, like they have on trains in the east, with the old fashioned uniforms, and the "click-click-click... click-click" ticket punchers. That alone, is worth buying the ticket.

March 1, 2006: Someone set me up. I think it was my decrepid, 90-year-old, Chinese neighbor, but it could have been anyone. There were leaflets sprawled all over the entryway, and it disturbed me. Over the years, I've become very sensitive to litter. And now, that I live in a town where people polish off their buritos from Taco Bell, and think nothing of tossing the wrappings onto the streets and sidewalks, as if the filfth floating in the air, from all of our rotten cars weren't enough to kill us, now there was litter in the form of fliers, split 50/50 bilingually, assuring me of savings on car insurance, or inexpensive transmission work, in the doorway, where I pass every day, on the way in from work.

My first instinct was intellectual. I said to myself, "if they want to live in filth, then let them". But then, my compulsions took over. I bent over to pick up the trash, when suddenly a lariot clasped around my ankles, and spun me, ass-over-tea-kettle, upward to the ceiling, so that I was hanging upside-down, very disrespectful-like.

My fists clasped onto the fliers made from 3-point card-stock, tourtise-green paper, as I swung, pendulum-like over the musty-smelling carpet, stained by driblets of motor oil, and trampled flat, into two divergent paths. One went up the stairs to the floor I live on, and the other went into the depths of the apartment building, to an unexplored place, to god knows where.

As the blood from my body cascaded into my cranium, I was suddenly overcome by it all, and I blacked out. I dreamt of pure clean streets, like the ones in Xanadu, decreed by Kubla Kahn.When I woke, I found a simple note, pinned onto my shirt sleeve, that warned me.

"I'll get you, buddy. Oh, I'll get you, and then, won't you be sorry?"

February 18, 2006: Many people don't know this, but Los Angeles is actually a mountain town. Just to the north of our spawling metropolis, lie the San Gabriel mountains, visible from nearly every part of the city. These mountains aren't girly mountains either. There is one peak amid the range that is over 10,000 feet tall. When you think about it, this represents a rapid rise in elevation from sea level, since the Pacific ocean is only about 15 miles away from the city-proper. In comparison, Mt. Katahdin in Maine is just over 5,200 feet, and it's among the highest peaks in the northeast. The San Gabriels are no Mt. Rainier in Washington (it's over 14,000 feet) to be sure, but still, they're very impressive. Most people, including myself, never leave the city. And most of us are so self-absorbed that we never look around. Which is why nobody knows that L.A. is a mountain town.

Last night, the temperature dropped drastically down into the 50s. I'll admit, until this recent climatic change, I was led to believe that southern California was the land of eternal summer. Today, while stuck in traffic, I noticed snow on the mountain peaks, and I thought it was very beautiful.

Hell, New York City may be filled with very sophisticated people, and Chicago may have good days for flying kites, but where geologic structures are concerned, Los Angeles has the other major cities beat, hands down.

Like Jim Morrison and I always say, when referring to natural scenic beauty: The west is the best.

February 12, 2006: A poem, inspired by Joyce's Finnigan's Wake, entitled...

Haiku # 1319-- or Hulligans after the Match Between Russia and Britain

Many of you flukin' reds
Flee, leery, as fists
Slam onto pansey pinkos.

Just trying to avoid an embarrassing situation. I'll admit, that it was hardly worth it.

p.s., have you ever looked at Finnigan's Wake? Open it up on any page.

p.p.s., Note to stp, read every [square root house number, add number of pets, subtract sum of office numbers] letter.

January 25, 2006: This morning, my wonderful day began by my falling down the stairs. I was lugging a bag of trash down at the crack of dawn, and on the second-to-last step, I spotted a flyer that someone had hung on my neighbor's door knob. I focused in, and saw that it was an advertisement for a parenting group, that meets on Wednesday nights, somewhere in mid-Wilshire.

Then, a memory from the night before flashed into my mind. Kids huffing aerosol in the alley outside my window, as I spied worriedly through my blinds from above. And, as I re-heard the 11-year old girl say, "oh, this stuff fucks you up. I'm hungry now" (as she had probably heard her parents say), and as I remembered seeing the horny 13-year-old boys hovering around her, near the garbage cans, my foot slipped on the shoddy carpeting, and I tubbled down the remaining steps to the landing.

The trashbag came untied, and coffee grounds, empty beer bottles, and gnawed corn cobs flew free, covering me, and the floor, as my ankle twisted, and my head "bonk"-ed against the neighbor's door.

My first thought was "please don't answer the door... this is all a mistake." It was early, and I guess they were still asleep, so I gathered up my garbage, and limped out the door to the cans.

I thought of the night before, and my dilemna. Well, you don't want to see kids messing themselves up with drugs, and prospectively raping each other. But on the other hand, you don't want to get the reputation, amongst the neighborhood youth, as a nosey neighbor, with a shiney red car that can be keyed, or shit upon, or egged, or whatever kids are doing these days.

But I felt a sense of duty and annoyance, so I started to go down. As I was headed out my door, my gay Mexican neighbor came out too (from his apartment, I mean), in a bathrobe, and it looked like he had curlers in his hair.

"Can you hear those kids down there?" I asked.

"Yeth, what thould we do?"

"Well, firthed of all, what we thould do ith... d'oh!!... FIRST of all, those kids are down there messing themselves up. So, we either need to call the cops, or, at least run them off."

To be honest, I'm never sure whether any of the people in my neighborhood are here legally or not, and it's not polite to ask, so when my shut-in, gay, Mexican neighbor shrugged off my idea about calling the cops, and nodded enthusiastically about running them off, I just went down to talk to them.

They were sitting there, innocently eating Laughy-Taffy. I walked up, and the biggest one started to run off.

"Hey you guys, listen..."

The biggest one saw that I wasn't there to bust his head open (or that I was at THEIR mercy), and stopped.

Trying my hardest to save their souls, and disassociate myself from the beautiful red car, I said, "First of all, you guys shouldn't be doing that stuff. It will mess up your lives."

The girl said, "Mister, we're just sitting here eating Laughy-Taffy."

I said, "I know what you're doing. Everybody along here knows what you're doing," pointing to the windows along side the building.

Little kids who are stoned on hairspray or WD-40 think they can fool you.

"You need to think about what you're doing, and if you decide it's okay, then you need to do it somewhere else."

"We're just eating taffy," said the girl, as they got up, brushed themselves off, and started to leave the alley way.

The little-est one, maybe 8 years old, held his ground, as the others abandoned him.

"Hey mister, we're just eating taffy."

I wasn't sure whether to believe him or not.

January 23, 2006: I just read a story on the AP about Bush talking to the "oponents of abortion" (??!!)... because somewhere in the world there's someone who's tickled pink about abortion, and that person needs to be stopped. Bush was saying that his value for every single life is very important to him, and that he, and like-minded people would prevail.

God help us.

First of all, I'll mention that the incedence of abortion has gone UP since W took over the reigns. This makes sense to me, because the record shows that when the Clintons were in the Whitehouse, they tried to solve the social problems that lead to abortions, as opposed to trying to alleviate the problem after it's too late.

Okay, now let's talk about the estimated number of innocent by-standers who have died in his fake war (for "freedom", no less). His own estimate was "30,000... more or less." He really said "more or less". Now THAT's a man with a sense of value for human lives.

And how many lives did Governor Bush end in the electric chair? Forgiveness? Human life? Oh please... don't play the Jesus card, at THIS point in your record.

Whenever I read these stories, I think the same thing that most people think. He uses that issue to garner the support of religious people who don't know any better, and crazies who'd shoot up doctors' clinics, if only they weren't so afraid of losing their lousy jobs, and jail time-- which, if they could vote for, and elect him and his congress again, would likely happen anyway.

In this respect, I agree with what that element usually says (although they usually only say it in the context of gun ownership). Let people make their own decisions, without government intruding in their lives. But the difference between what I think, and what they think, is that I believe we should try to create a system that reduces the need for abortions, as opposed to forcing people into situations that only make peoples' lives more desperate and terrible.

Believe my instinct, my scant republican readers: The more advantages that you heap on those who don't need them, and the more that you take away from those in need, the worse your society will be. Just like the Lord said.

January 19, 2006: Today, I was reading a story about the Google people who refused to hand over records about a day's searches. Apparently, Alberto Gonzales, the Attorney General, wanted to get access to a day's records of Google searches, so that they could crack down on pornography in America.

Well, in a fit of rebellion, I got on Google.com, and queried "The Bush administration is an evil and incompetent lot of idiots." At this stage in history, you'd think THAT particular combination of words would have brought up all kinds of sites... but I got nothing.

So, I took the quotes off, and got all kinds of things about evil (mostly regarding Tom Delay, Pol Pot, and Matthew McConaughey), incompetence (mainly stories about the handling of the Iraq war), and idiots (again, the congress, and some friends' personal sites), and when it got to the word Bush, I got a bunch of porn.

So, I broke out the featherduster, and the rest of my afternoon was shot.

I don't mean to be base, or presumptuous...

But, Alberto, if you're reading this...

Kiss my ass, you hot salty devil.

P.S., from now on, if you google that statement. You'll wind up where you are now.

December 9, 2005: I love living in L.A.. I love all the excitement. I love the flower shops that sell daisies-- open til midnight. I love avacados on sale for 75 cents a piece. I love that it's only rained three times since I got here-- and one of those times it rained violently. I love 76-degree days in December. I love the Guatamalans who sell oranges by the bagfull, and toe-nail clippers embedded with a small image of the Eifel Tower, in a plastic covering, on the street side. I love the beautiful women in ridiculous sunglasses driving down less-than-perfect parts of Vermont Avenue, in Porsches, stopping at lights, next to Mexicans in dented 9 hundred dollar Toyotas with wheels that cost more than the car, the beautiful girl's teeth, and anything else they have while they're waiting for the light to change.

The only thing I don't like about it is all these people. There's 4 million of us here. A person can't hardly move, without someone being in the way. It seems like someone is always in my way.

For example, today, I was on my way to work, early in the morning. It was 6 a.m.. I was rolling down the street, listening to Queen, thinking about poor Freddy Mercury's fate, when suddenly this little girl on her way to school, had the nerve to walk right out in front of me, just as I was running a red light.

I put the brake down hard, and narrowly avoided smashing into her, by skidding into the crosswalk. When the car was finally stopped, she was standing there, a few feet from my front bumper, with big giant eyes-- scared, like the cliche'ic deer in headlights. And my eyes were too.

At first, I was really mad at her-- my heart racing like this, and my arms and legs quivering...

"What's WRONG with you?!!! How DARE you walk into the crosswalk like that, when you have the right of way. Are you crazy?!"

She really should have looked, but on the other hand, that whole Freddy Mercury thought was hardly worth running over a school-girl.

The rest of the way, I braked cautiously at intersections.

November 29, 2005: I bought a feather-duster and a 24-pack of toilet paper at a Guatamalan 99-cent store today (it was my birthday... so, I went wild). When I got home, I started flapping that duster around on my shelves. In L.A. there's a lot of dust. I leave my window open, because of my apartment's inextinguishable gas smell (propaine, not me), and often, after only a few days, there's a gritty black dust that accumulates on the window sill and on all the things within five feet of the open window.

Well, it didn't take me long to think about this, and realize that I was only shifting the position of all that crap into different places in my apartment. Sure, my picture of Grama, and my 3-inch sandstone buddha (which was advertised on e-bay as a marble statuette-- they got the "ette" part right) were uncovered from the carbon excrement shooting out from peoples' cars, but still, I knew that dust was there somwhere.

So, I sat myself down, tickled myself with that duster, kleenexed myself off, and pulled out Big Blue, the vacuum I bought at Walmart in Mississippi. I took as much of it away as I could.

November 21, 2005: I'm sitting here watching tv (I'm starting to regret getting those rabbit ears). Right now, there's a commercial on for "urine gone"-- a spray bottle that gets rid of troublesome amonia smells. I'm totally NOT kidding. Have you seen it? They don't really explain who's supposed to be peeing all over the furniture... Personally, I'd just get rid of the couch (and probably the person or thing that did it), and save the $19.95.

This TV just makes me feel, almost sickened. First, it was Cops, where everyone, including the police make me want to divorce myself from humanity, or toss myself out my second story window. Now, it's even more pathetic: a show, where faux-private detectives track down unfaithful lovers. The climax of each episode is a mixture of real pain, and disgusting pandering for the camera. People will commit amost any shameless act for fifteen minutes of fame.

I can see I'm going to have to limit myself to "King of the Hill" and "The Simpsons".

November 4, 2005: My third day, at my new place in Korea Town. I woke up early, with grand ideas about polishing off some work, in the morning, with coffee, while it's quiet. I was attempting to back out of my tiny parking place, which is smaller than my car. Suddenly, I heard the sound of terror-- metal being ripped apart. I looked up in the sky, expecting to see airplanes crashing down from the sky, but there was nothing, just the moon sinking down, and a purplish amber southern california morning sky, the sun was coming up behind the neighbor's garage. But, I could hear a spraying sound that informed me that something was terribly wrong. I hopped out, and saw that my front tire had torn the pipe away from the apartment complex... the one that feeds propaine to the building. I could smell the sour smell, that means it was not a good time to light a cigarette.

I panicked. My first thought: "Well, if you just leave, nobody will ever know it was you that did it." But then, the sour smell got stronger, and I recognized that I'd created a real hazzard. I thought, if I leave, and some innocent passer-by, a gentle Guatamalan, on his way to sell melon slices, or toe-nail clippers, or inflatable american flags, makes a spark of some sort, then the entire neighborhood could go up in a terrible apocolypic explosion. I would have blood on my hands.

So, I ran up stairs, and disconnected my phone wire from this terrible machine and connected it to my telephone, and pushed the buttons for 911.

"Los Angeles Emergency, what is your situation?"

"There's a giant gas leak at my apartment, come quickly."

"Please hold, while I transfer you to the fire department."

"Okay."

A few moments pass, and then the guy from the fire department comes on.

"LAFD, what is your situation?"

"There's a giant gas leak at my apartment, come quickly."

"What is your name?"

"Bertrand Sternwood"

"What is the phone number you're calling from?"

"Um... I don't know."

"You don't know?"

To my credit, I'd just gotten the number, and I hadn't memorized it yet. Still haven't.

"No. Listen, I accidently hit the gas pipe and it's shooting all over the place. You gotta come here quick."

"What is the address?"

Frankly, I thought they should have already known all that stuff. I mean... we DID put a man on the moon, didn't we? I thought quickly.

"210 Kenwood... I mean, 210 north Kenmore... yes, Kenmore."

"Is it hissing?"

"Is it hissing?"

"You know, is it just a leak?"

"No, I smashed into the pipe. It's pouring out all over the place."

A few minutes later, a huge red truck drove up the hill. It stopped a little bit soon, so I ran out onto the street and started waving my arms around. When I was younger, I used to deliver pizzas, so I understood how difficult it is to find places. Nobody puts up numbers anymore. I waved fantically. "Here, over here!!"

They drove the rest of the way up the hill and jumped out, with those big thick coats on, and the fire hats. I couldn't help thinking that the coats and hats were over-kill, but what did I know?

"It's up here. Over here!!" I pointed.

"Where?" said the captain.

"Over here. Follow me."

I took the four firemen, one of whom was a woman, up the driveway, and pointed at the torn-away pipe. One of them had a rubber hammer, and banged at the pipe, until he could jam a wooden stopper into the expelling hole. After all the action was finished, they strung yellow ribbon around the driveway, so that it looked like a murder scene. The neighbors began to wander out of the building, wondering what was going on. I thought, again, about how it didn't really need to be this big a deal.

The firewoman made a comment about being able to still smell the gas, and the firemen, knowing that it was just a residual smell, drifting back from the pipe leading out of the gasless building, gafawed, and lit Cuban cigars, there, at 6:30 in the morning.

Still, despite the cigars, the firemen were disappointingly unmanly. One of them was talking about how his wife had given him a parachuting trip for his birthday, but he couldn't go through with it. Another, the captain, asked me if Li'l Red was a Firebird.

"Mustang." I said. "Is it okay if I go to work now?"

When I came home that night, everything was fixed. I got out of my car, and looked at the new pipes. A few of the neighborhood kids were making cracks about the giant propaine leak. I went in and reheated the lasagna, with five different cheeses.

October 16, 2005: Most things in America are east of Beverly Hills.

October 7, 2005: After the lab meeting today, I went out to lunch with my labmates, Annbert and Roger (pronounced ROE-Szay-- and he corrects me if I don't say it right). So, the three of us are at lunch, sitting in a giant food-selling place, with dozens of miniature-counter cash-register restaurants under one roof, that sell you their fairs, fast and easy. Annbert got some kinda Greek thing, with veal and fries. Roger got a burrito from the Mexican place run by Chinese people. I had to run to the cash machine, because none of the places would take my debit card, but I finally settled on the Mongolian noodle joint. We all sat down, and began eating and talking.

At first, the topic was on the lab meeting, but then, suddenly, a tall beautiful woman walked by with her four or five-year-old daughter. The daughter had on this long blonde wig that made here look like a miniature Lady Guidiva, without a horse, and fully clothed. You could see strands of her dark hair beneath the wig.

Roger started talking about some toy horse that was on the market a few years ago. Annbert hit right on the "My Little Pony" concept that Roger was refering to, and ran with it.

I sat there thinking about Dr. Jenkins, the beautiful clinical psychologist I met up in Maine, who would go out into public with her date and her young boy, with his faux razor.

Dr. Jenkins believed that if she let her boy indulge himself in every ridiculous four-or-five-year-old idea that he ever had, then eventually, he would make his own conclusions about society's view of shaving yourself in public. They would sit there (the three of them) in restaurants, Dr. Jenkins and her date, eating and discussing important clinical psychological matters, while the boy sat their and pretend-shaved his chin and cheeks.

Personally, I didn't think it was right for her to sit there like that, while her (slightly weird) boy made the rest of us in the restaurant uncomfortable. But she had a Ph.D. in clinical psychology, and I was just there for the happy-hour special, so who was I to say anything about it?

Anyway, back to the table with the veal giro, the chinese burrito, and the noodles. We sat there agape, at the little girl's Darrah Hannah-like hair.

"Personally, I'd have to draw the line somewhere," said Roger, "and I'm normally pretty liberal on matters like this."

"Parenting styles are so different between people. You kinda just have to wait to see how it turns out," said Annbert.

"I wonder what ever happened to Dr. Jenkens's boy, and his razor" I thought.

October 3, 2005: So today we went to an outdoor food mall east of Beverly Hills where they have food from all the different countries. My friend ate crepes. I had the drunken-shrimp po-boy. Later, we went to some galleries. I looked at some beautiful art today, but kept my mouth shut because I didn't want to say anything stupid. I'm one of those people, who actually enjoys when artists try to make meaningful semi-realistic shapes and images. I am eternally (and some may argue, dull-ly) literal.

There was this one gallery with six giant pictures of a young girl in a field with tall grass. Each canvass was bathed with a single color: yellow, green, red, purple, orange, or blue. The artist made contour and texture by putting the paint on and then wiping it away, so that some of the paint remained in the weave of the canvass. As the pieces progressed, you could slowly see this innocent image coming through to you from beneath its respective blanket of color.

If you stood there and looked at number one long enough, which was yellow, you might see a ghostly image forming, because he'd only given us a hint of the shape by wiping away that paint. Then if you walked along, and looked at the others, you saw more and more color being added, and more shape in each one. In green number two, for instance, you could barely see the hint of her blue eyes. And it progressed like that. More and more color, more lines were added to each of the solid-color canvansses. So that on the last one, blue number six, the giant image of the girl with one sandal kicked off was ablaze with all of the beautiful colors of the previous five.

Then, in the next room, by the same artist, there were five paintings, done the same way, where the paint is put on, and then taken off, leaving only a trace of color in the weave. All of these pictures were of mustacioed muscular men with their shirts off; some were firemen, others were construction workers. I was dying to say something about the Village People, or Freddy Mercury, but I decided against it. Art people are very serious, even when the joke is obvious. So, I asked my friend whether the paintings of homo-erotic workmen and the ones with the little girl in the grass with one sandal kicked off were by the same artist. She said they were. Naturally, by the end of it all, I finally concluded that this artist was a very talented pedafile, but I didn't ask my friend about his personal life.

I'm still refusing to remember the names of galleries and painters. I don't want to seem pretentious, after all.

September 29, 2005: I can see that I'm going to have to kick it up a notch. Today, I got a paper back that I worked the entire weekend on. After a few comments that belittled my flagrant ignorance for functionalist theory, I was further ridiculed on the last page with a big fat "F".

The professor wrote, and this is verbatim, "You may be so fluent with words, that no one has ever challenged your ideas." At first I kinda took that as a compliment, but then I thought about it. Essentially, he said that nothing I've ever written has had any clear logical substance to it. Clearly, this particular professor has never read my trout story.

Well, I have to admit, that in my past, professors have been tickled that I could write a coherent sentence at all, let alone one that had anything meaningful or right in it. Still, I had never had anyone reduce every idea that I had ever put down on paper to ruin like that.

My first response was, "Hey buddy, what do you think I borrowed untold dollars to get my English degree for? Do you think I ENJOYED reading Thoreau?"

Actually, I do enjoy reading Thoreau. I like all that crap about eating woodchucks, and trout fishing, and walking along in solitude in the woods.

But, I'm a little like everyone else. I'm a victim of my education. I can't be held responsible for my knowing squat about functionalism, or socialist femism, or approach theories of cultural diversity. To tell you the truth, I'm kinda happy that I didn't come across those socialist feminists before last week. I'm sure I wouldn't have understood. But, I have to admit, I see their point now. And, since they seem to use so many other words inappropriately to describe an inclusive perspective of scientific thought, I'll let all that talk about "oppression" slide. In the class, I thought I did a good job of explaining Kuhnian ideas about paradigm shifts, but I got an "F" on that paper too.

I just gotta raise my bar up a little bit-- kick it up a notch. And maybe, if I ever get any relevant ideas, I'm comforted in knowing (at least), that I'll be able to write about them.

September 24, 2005: I think it is Murphey, the complex cat-- meaning that he lives at my apartment complex, not that he's that multifaceted or hard to get along with or understand (although, I admit that I could be underestimating him), who has been devouring my basil plant. I've been noticing great clumps of leaves missing. I guess he must be a vegetarian.

At first I thought it was my roommate, who is not a vegetarian-- she'll eat anything that isn't nailed down-- clocks, knick-knacks, laundry detergent. We don't even need a vacuum cleaner to keep the dustmites from balling up on the carpet. In fact, even when things are nailed down, I often find little piles of brads, mixed in with some sawdust.

Nevertheless, all fingers point to the cat. The evidence lies in the black strands of fur I found in the remaining branches.

Murphey visits me when I'm out on the balcony. He makes vertical jumps of no less than 8 feet to continue with our nightly conversations, as the sun sinks down, and the San Gabriel mountains turn purple in the north. I thought it was my acumen at keeping a cat entertained that brought him back each night. Turns out, it's the basil, which must have a catnip-like allure for him.

I better do some editing on this post. My roommate, whom I'm certain refrains with all of her might from reading my on-line journal (though, on the off-chance) would not find my "brads" comment the least bit funny. She's one whose fur is all too easily stroked backward.

September 18, 2005: Mustang Bernie! Oh, you got to slow that mustang down.

Well, I went to get my car this weekend. I flew out of LAX early on Friday morning, and arrived in Starkville after the sun had gone down. Excitedly I jumped behind the wheel, and took off for a speeded trip across the country. Because I had been living in a small town since I bought her, and because I never really had anyplace to go, I never had the chance to open up Li'l Redup on the highway, the way a car like her periodically needs to be driven.

I drove from Mississippi to Los Angeles as fast as I could. Through the Mojave, I raced with the other sports cars, dodging in and out of freight trucks. At one point, when the highway was clear and straight away, I tested the car's speed. I pushed until it scared me, and then I slowed down, and tried to appreciate the scenery.

September 12, 2005: So, I'm standing on the corner of Vermont and Sunset Boulivard waiting for a bus, and one drives up. The doors open, and a few people step on. I hold off.

When they're all on, I step up and ask, "Do you go on up to Jefferson?"

She says, hurridly "Yeah, but the express stop is two blocks up, and it's faster." She closes the door on me. At first I'm mad, for her closing the doors on me like that, but, I walk two blocks and get the fast one, and we pass her bus along the way.

September 10, 2005: At my new place, west of Hollywood, I can hear, late night, people in the other apartments strumming madly on their guitars. Some play the blues, and others play it Mexican style.

Today, I went into the neighborhood library, and picked up the LA times and read something about Kurt Vonnegut. He's 82 now, you know? And he's disgusted with all of humanity. You can't really blame him, I suppose.

Nevertheless, I'm thinking of buying some of those prints he's producing, as an investment... because I'm greedy and rotten.

The other interesting fact I picked up was, when I started reading about my new mayor,

Antonio Villariagosa, the first hispanic mayor of LA, since, say, sometime in the late 19th century... but listen to this...

Apparently, when he was a kid, he was a unionizing muckraker, Andy Villar, they called him. Later, when he met the love of his life, her last name was Riagosa. So, they combined their names, when they got married, to show their dedication to each other.

Later, I was sitting in a noodle place on Hollywood Boulivard with my friend g-b, explaining the whole thing to her. We slurped up our noodles, both of us fascinated by the whole thing.

June 3, 2005: I love the sound of rain. It relaxes me, and so, when it rains in the middle of the night, I open the window next to my bed, so I can listen to it falling. I will listen until the steady "pitter-pitter-patter-pitter-pat-pat-patter" sings me to sleep.

I'm a lite sleeper, and I often wake up late in the night time, hours after midnight, too early to get up, before the birds start talking to each other, and before the sun has risen. I might lie there, awake, chronically sleepless, for some time, until I open my window, and let the sounds in, from outside. Maybe I'm fortunate, and it's raining; or maybe it's the buzzing and clicking of country morning kadydids; or maybe it's a night when there is nothing, just pure silence.

When I can't sleep, I find it's helpful to open the window next to my bed, and let the sounds from outside come in, and seduce me back into sleeping.

I woke up last night at three a.m., as a storm broke. Lightning was striking down, far off, but the its flicker still registered softly on my dark walls. I could hear that it had begun to rain, so I stood up, slipped my fingers through the blinds, and pushed the window open. The sounds flooded in-- the sounds, and the smell of new rain, cooling the air. The sounds and the fauna from the outside burst into my room.

As usual, I quickly dozed back to sleep, and continued the ongoing and evolving dream I've had for the last several years, involving a menacing being, that watches me.

After the sun had come up, I laid there, lucidly hearing the rain, and feeling it dripping down my face, like a tear. The water tickled every nerve in my cheeks, lips and forehead. It felt pleasant, and I opened my eyes and became conscious to dry my face.

And there, looking me straight in the eye was a two inch black wasp, sitting on my brow, between my eyes, perched on my nose, like a raven on a wire. Our eyes met, and I yelped out in terror. It said, "buzzzz!!! buzz!!!" And flew away, into the corner, to escape the waking giant.

May 31, 2005: I have to admit, I had, what I considered, a very disturbing dream last night. The characters included important persons from my distant past: Kookie-Jean Stinkerson (ma raison d'etre, circa 1992); Gertrude (her wicked witch-like mother); and Darling (Kookie's younger flamboyantly gay brother). It occured in a strange airport in a strange city. For some reason, many of my dreams occur in airports, in cities that are a co-mingling of Seattle, Boston, and Pittsburgh. I never dream about Memphis, or New York, which is interesting, since, in my conscious waking life, I claim those are my two favorite towns.

So, I show up at the Seastonburgh airport, and begin looking around for the ticket counter. And who should show up, but Kookie and her entourage? I assumed they were there to take a trip, but they had come to ride bags on the luggage carousel--this, was Gertrude, the witch's, idea. At first, I see that Kookie is barely interested in talking to me-- she has found a cowhide suitcase that she likes, and is straddeling it, riding it one-handed, like a rodeo doggy, whooping. When she finally dismounts and acknowledges me, she mentions how the last time she heard anything about me, I was stealing Cadillacs from people in predominently black neighborhoods. She had seen it in the papers, she tells me. I tell her that none of it is true.

Then, over the public address system at Seastonburgh International, as though to make a liar out of me, someone begins reading from my journal, beginning on the page where I'm (more or less) bragging about stealing Cadillacs from black folks. She says, "See? You see?!! Shh, shhh, listen", and she points to the ceiling, rolling her eyes back, as though to hear important gate-change information.

I see that I'm making no headway with Kookie, so I move over to Gertrude, who has mounted a guitar case, stowed below at the last minute, because it would not fit in the overhead compartment. I see that the wart on Gertrude's green nose seems to have shrunken since I saw her so many years back. Still, her disdain for me looms large; she looks at me with an air of disgust, as she circles around the conveyor belt for the third time. I don't say anything to her, but I make a gesture that's intended to plead: "Can't we let sleeping dogs lie? Can't we just let go of the past?!" And, Gertrude looks at me, just as a business-class passenger snaps up the bag beside her. Her contorted face seems to say that forgetting is impossible. So, I turn away from her, and move toward the concourse, to catch my flight.

Suddenly, a very beautiful woman, with long blond hair, supple breasts, and slender legs appears next to me. Her perfect form is further enhanced by her low-cut blouse, and skin-tight mini-skirt. She speaks to me, "Nevermind them. They're both crazy" she says, in a notably deep voice. At first, I'm attracted to her, because she's so pretty, but then I realize two things: First, that the beautiful woman is Darling, Kookie's brother; and that he's now, not only flamboyantly gay, but a transvestite to boot.

Nevertheless, Darling is sympathetic to me, and he seems to understand what was so entertaining about my stealing all those Cadillacs. So we talk; we order ice-creams from a park vendor; we run hand-in-hand, barefoot on the beach. We discuss the unfairness of this all; we talk about how we've both been victimized by all the easy judgments that are tossed around, as though the truth never even matters. Old fashioned, as I am, I start to really feel something for this transvestite. I start to wish his voice weren't so deep; that I could forget all about him being Kookie's younger brother.

One thing I'm sure of, and I'm sure you've been thinking the same thing for a couple seconds now: When people tell you about their dreams, it really is more discomforting, than entertaining. For instance, I never stole any kinda car in my life, let alone a Cadillac; and to my knowledge, I've never even met a real transvestite-- well... other than my unfortunate old friend, Persephanie Boame, whose sad transformation resulted in her bearing a greater resemblance to a shaven pink orangatan (an unattractive one), than a woman of any sort. And that's exactly what I was trying to explain to Kookie-Jean, there at the airport.

May 16, 2005: Now, I am sipping coffee, reading the complimentary USA Today, and ignoring a too-sweet grocery-store danish on a styrofoam plate, at the Holiday Inn- Express, in Biloxi, Mississippi--The Redneck Riviera.

Earlier, I had gotten up before the sun, and watched it rise over the Gulf of Mexico. Everything in the sky this morning seemed to be arguing between which was better-- amber, purple, or grey. I was walking along, in the sand that almost looked like sugar, thinking about how, generally speaking, people who are reared near wide expanses of water seem to me, somehow, free-er. Maybe being raised, looking across great bodies of blue water, and not being able to see the other side, is even the difference between the red and the blue states?. Perhaps living near the sea creates people who inately carry infinity along with them, in their heads; people who see something beyond their day-to-day life, and their own row to be hoed. Is it possible that growing up near wide bodies of water makes people give the benefit of the doubt more often, instead of being so sure all the time?

So, I was walking along the shoreline this morning, thinking about the forty-bucks I'd lost in the Casino last night, and I was thinking about how expansive the gulf waters seemed to me, and how I was happy that the sun decided to come up again, and just then, at the last second, I looked down, and saw the nightmarish dead fish with part of its bones bared (very distastfully, I might add) and some of its flesh still there, so that I could still recognize it as some sort of fish, and my bare toes were about to squish into it. I narrowly avoided stepping down by shifting my weight suddenly, and staggering to the left, toward the water. After that, I thought to myself... "You better start paying better attention, while you're walking along here."

About a mile later, I turned around. I had picked an arbitary spot to start heading back, where someone had put down a post, that marked the parameters of a business, renting sea-going jet-skis, sailboats, and beach chairs, with shading umbrellas. The blue beach chairs were all lined up, and had painted on them in a stensil font "RENTAL". I sat down on one for a moment, there at 6:13 a.m., and felt like I was stealing from someone.

On the way back, I came across the same dead fish. I thought about how, if I was a fish like that, I wouldn't be SEEN near a shore like THIS, to be kicked up onto the sand, so disrepectfully, by the waves. No sir! I'd be out there, splashing around in the wild sea. Anyway, I was tickled to analyze my own foot-prints. The entire story was written out, there in the sand: Someone had been thinking about other things, maybe about the Betty Boop slot machine the night before-- bargaining with the casino gods for just one chance at the Triple-Betties; and the plate of broiled softshell crabs that my friend ordered the night before, which to me appeared like a heaping plate of deep-fried tarantulas (served with cole slaw), but I spared my friend that particular commentary; the stunning wing-span of the blue heron, when the little diapered kid, with dirty supermarket-bare-feet, chased it from the dock. It was all written there in the sand, how some distracted fool had only seen that rotten decomposing fish, with flies buzzing around its empty eye-sockets, at the last moment, and side-stepped in fear and repulsion around it.

March 15, 2005: Dear friend, I saw the future tonight, and believe me, it's not pretty.

When I see you next, in Manhattan, you'll give me the change back, that you tricked out of me, and you'll charge the exorbitant meal that we eat to your expense account. Our reunion will be going along nicely until our after-dinner-walk, when we get mugged in Central Park. Or, at least YOU do.

I don't wanna tell you this next part. It's sad and shameful.

You get stuck with a small knife by the robber, and I run off squeeling into the bushes.

When the coast is clear, I come out of the bushes, and cradel you in my arms, as though you were Martin Luther King, up on the balcony, in Memphis. I tell you that I've always loved you, as though you were my brother. I tell you that everything I've ever told you was true. I tell you, "I'll see you in the next world." I kiss your forehead goodbye, and I place the two quarters you'd just given back to me, onto your eyelids.

Then you stand up, pocket the quarters, and brush yourself off. You pull your book of tricks out of your breast pocket, and show me how the knife got in up to the hundreth page.

February 25, 2005: It is snowing fiercely outside, but each member of the group has white-caned it over from the dorm, across the quiet campus to the art room, located in the main building at the school.

All of the students, except one, Jeremy, who is late because today is his last day at the school, are sitting, dispersed casually around the room, at their various works-in-progress. It is the goal at the school to train their deaf-blind students to live and work independently in their communities. In general, this is achieved through training in orientation and mobility, communication skills, and functional living skills. However, the students are also encouraged to explore their creativity, in the art room, which has walls decorated by former students' work.

Claire, the teacher, encourages the students, who have already begun working. She signs assurance to each artist, each of whom is clearly engaged in what they are doing. The students see me, and are curious about why I'm there. They smile a lot, and seem very proud at their accomplishments. I feel compelled to ask one girl in sign language, "What are you making?" She is oral and begins speaking to me. She explains how she is applying masking tape to an old bottle, covering it to appear scaly, like a reptile's skin. She says she will paint it blue, and put flowers into it. I hold it up, scrutinize it, like fine art, and say and try to sign, "It is very, very pretty."

Another student is working on a project that dumbfounds me. It is macramé, ropes, woven together into an intricate design. Claire explains to me that this is a favorite project. She gives me three pieces of white rope, and explains to me the most commonly used knots. I try my hand at it, which admittedly, is not very skilled. In comparison to my tangle of knots, one student has woven ropes into an "I love you" hand sign. Others have made harnesses that hold plants, hung from the ceiling around the room. I consider the time, and work, and concentration that have gone into each project, and I am amazed that such impressive works have been tied by the hands of people who neither see, nor hear as well as most other people.

Across the room, a boy is working on a mosaic. Clay has been applied to the surface of a dining room tray. In front of him, there is a container filled with sundry colored and shaped stones, marbles, and buttons. The boy, who is completely blind, paws through the collection of tiny objects, seeking just the right stone to fill an empty place in the clay. Although his project is visually attractive, Claire tells me that many of the mosaics created here are intended to be experienced tactilely. She finds a finished example and urges me to close my eyes, and feel the surface with my fingers. From this perspective, my perception is completely different, as I try to experience the work the way the artist must have, during its creation.

Another form of tactile art is in progress on the other side of the table. A teenaged girl is painting on paper that has been lain over with a waxy string. The string is raised above the surface of the paper, and arranged by the girl into the shape that she wishes to paint. She follows its contour with a brush, covered in reddish orange paint. It looks like the arc of the sun.

The students are all engaged, mentally, and with their hands, but there is a buzz of energy in the room when Jeremy walks in to say goodbye. Claire explains to me that this is his last day; he has come to pick up his project to take home. His is a picture frame that is made out of wood, with four spaces for pictures, cut into it. He has painted its surface azure blue, and speckled it with cobalt. I ask him whose photos he'll put in the frame, but he is shy, and can't answer me. Instead, he hugs Claire and some of the other students. They say goodbye. They say that they will miss him, as he heads out the door.

February 12, 2005: This morning I had a great get-rich-quick idea. I'm visualizing a portable levitating device, say the size of a flashlight. Sort of like those $27 toys you see at Walmart, the radio controlled things that will hover around. Anyway, I'll advertise them as "the grandest new craze, to move you from here to there, the way you fly in dreams."

It'll cost 359 dollars.

What I'll do is, send them the toy (that I bought at Walmart for 27 bucks, with a little sticker appended that says...

"WARNING: if your weight exceeds the maximum capacity of this device, it may not function properly." Using the word "may" will give them hope.)

The way I see it, it's 27 dollars for the thing, plus, maybe 4 dollars for the lables. Add shipping, that's another ten bucks per unit. Total, 41 dollars.

That leaves $318 dollars for you me, per sucker, clean and easy.

Plus, it may help to reduce the incidence of obesity in America.

See where I'm going with this? It's patriotic, and profitable. I don't see how it could miss.

January 18, 2005: Today, I drove the new stang up to Memphis. It was a holiday, so I spun by the Lorraine Motel, where they gunned down Martin. The line was too long to go to the museum, so I paid my private honor, and drove over to Elvis's place, and looked at the mansion over there on the hill.

December 29, 2004: Red is the color of my true love's paint. Smashing up my nose was the final straw with Ol' Blue. I decided to trade her in. To celebrate my graduation, I bought myself a 2004 Mustang... bright red .

It's kind of gaudy, I have to admit, but I think I can get used to it. My new hobby is wasting gasoline. I spent half the day today, driving in circles and listening to John Coltrane on the sound system. I've decided to try to be happy in 2005, and a nice new car, although materialistic in origin (which normally goes against every fiber of my being), seems to be getting me off to a good start.

December 22, 2004: Well, today was a day that I'll have to tell you about,
because I think it would amuse you. Here's why: because by the end of it, I'd
given 200 dollars to a scheister mechanic, and I'm nursing a self-inflicted gaping wound.

I should have known to take it easy today, because last night I had adream in which two of the three women I have loved showed up to taunt me. If all three would have shown up, it would have been completely Shakesperian-- The Three Witches, I mean.

It was only sprinkling a little bit, and I decided to jump to it, and get some things done around here that needed to get done. For example, I lost the key to my apartment a few weeks ago. I've been leaving the door unlocked, and hiding my valuables under pillows and blankets. I'm pretty sure thetwo or three times that I've been broken into since, the culprit just looked at the bicycle-shaped blanket, and the pillow covering my laptop, and was completely dumbfounded, gave up, and left me alone, unaccosted.

Anyway, I had to change that lock. Also, I've been noticing a metalic noise, when I apply my brakes in li'l blue, so I decided to change the pads, before my trip to seattle on friday.

The weather was a little bit drizzly, but I always figure, one good thing about me... when I get wet, I usually dry. Laying there in the mud, I took the brakes apart, and after about a half hour, I said to myself... "WHAT the hell are you
doing?"

It was just like a jigsaw puzzle. All these pieces that I knew had to fit in there somehow. When doing brakes, you NEVER want to have parts left over.

I persevered, and just as I was trying to pull the last spring into place, my wrench slipped. I clobbered myself in the nose, harder than I've ever been hit before (even when I deserved it). I did the whole cartoon thing: I saw little birdies and stars spinning around my crown. Seriously, it knocked me half into unconciousness.

When I came to, I noticed that there was blood everywhere. Coming from my
face, which, as you can imagine, is never a good sign, blood pouring from your face.

After jumping around in the driveway for five minutes, saying "oh my god, oh my god, oh my god, etc.) I came to my wits and ran into the apartment, leaving a hansel-and-gretel-like trail of crimson droplets behind me. I had the sense to snatch an ice-tray from the freezer on my way to the mirror in the bathroom. When I got in there, there was blood pouring off of me... I thought I may be mortally wounded. In fact, later, I noticed that it looked like someone had gotten murdered in here.

It was awful. I've got this 1/2 inch gash across the bridge of my nose. My big beautiful "ethnic" nose. First thing I thought was, "I need to go to the emergency room". But then I remembered that my truck was in pieces in the driveway. I called a friend from work, and left a very dramatic message. Five hours later, after I'd gotten the bleeding under control, she drove up into my driveway, and we talked a little about it.

Anyway, so I'm standing out in my driveway, holding a pair of underwear to my nose (yes, I use old boxers as rags for dusting, and for occasions like this), trying to make ol' blue drivable, so I could take her to a professional. I found a pair of needle-nosed vice-grips in the drawer when I was looking for an underwear rag for my nose--and when I got out there the second time, with those vice-grips, the spring popped right into place.

It just goes to show you, that with the right tools, things can really be made much easier. Of course, this lesson was learnt too late by ME, because as of today, I'm done with mechanical work. Maybe, I can make that lesson into
some kind of metaphor or something... something I can use.

Okay, so now, I've spent the good portion of my day icing my face in underwear, trying to keep my eyes from bruising. The mechanic (naturally) found a whole bunch of other unrelated stuff wrong with my
truck-- which seemed fine before I took it to him. I DID get my lock
changed...one handed, holding the underwear to my face with the other.

I should have just known to stay in bed. Dreary days, preceded by nights dreaming about that which bothers us most... usually it's a telling sign that should have cued me in.

I'm going to Seatle on Friday moring, and I'm getting my "you should see the OTHER guy stories" in queue.

November 27, 2004: I came to Pittsburg to visit my friends on Thanksgiving. Trying to cut expenses, and I didn't want to put too much burden on my friends, I have rented a cheap hotel room-- or rather a motel room, which reminds me of that place I stayed in Baton Rouge with the hourly rates and porn movies. There are no bullet holes in the walls this time however, and the sheets appear to be clean, that is to say, there are no speckles of blood on them. There is not a sign on the ice machine-- although you wonder what sort of event has to occure in order to justify a sign that says, "No Children in Ice Machine." It's tough to imagine, but I bet it wasn't pretty.

Anyway, the Afgani consierge eyed me suspiciously-- or maybe I'm just paranoid. He made me pay a ten dollar deposit before I could call up my ISP to make this posting. This place has cut back on the amenities to keep the costs low-- there's no coffee, and shampoo. I'll have to use the soap in my hair. When I was registering the old man in front of me asked if he got a senior discount. The clerk said, "It's already that low," and told the old feller to "Please sign here."

Well, it appears to be snowing outside; it sure is cold enough, and I've turned the dial on my heater to maximum heat. I'm going to watch a little TV, and then get some rest.

November 26, 2004: Regarding Thanksgivings past-- quick rememberances, dedicated to my kin, for whom I'm thankful, and whose company I miss:

We were very traditional. We had our turkey, divided on the platter, white-meat on top, dark meat beneath, and a leg, for my uncle who thought he was the King of England. We had gelatinous can-berries, and grandmother always did something with french style green beans, with almonds, and those little onions; a few of those eggs, with their yokes mixed up and spinkled with paprika; maybe a platter with olives, that you can fit on your finger-tips, and celery. Mashed potatoes, with a square of butter, sitting in a divot, melting. Sweet-potatoes, pan too hot to touch, with bubbling marshmellows. Stuffing out of a box.

I sat at the "kid's table" until I left up there, with my other adult cousins. We joked that ours had become the regular table, and that our moms and dads and grandparents, were in fact, sitting at the "old folks table". We had pick-up football games in the yard, that inevitably ended in arguments, until one year, we just stopped playing altogether.

September 19, 2004: Today, I was strolling through Central Park, looking at the ducks and the trees, right there in the middle of the giant city.

July 15, 2004: All day long, I've been sitting here thinking about the trip to Kansas City. The downtown reminded me of Al Capone, or Laurel and Hardy, or F. Scott Fitzgerald (who was actually from St. Paul), with its old brick architecture, and sandstone carved gargoil hawkfaces protuding from the corners and, looking down at the steam rolling out from the vents on the street-- even now, in the dead of summer. I kept expecting a one of those old black round cars to bolt around the corner, with flappers gleefully yelping, tickled at riding along on the running boards, or with gangsters shooting tommy-guns at the police hot in pursuit. When I was in Kansas City, I had chinese food in an empty old building. The restaurant was quiet as were the streets that I looked out at as I slurped my wanton soup. It looked like a movie set, and I kept waiting for something to happen.

April 11, 2004: Today it was very embarrassing. I was talking about food with
one of the student workers, and she told me about a pea-salad that her mother
makes.

I said, "Gross."

She said, "Yah, I'm not wild about it either."

;I said, "Is it yellow?"

She said, "Yellow?" and looked at me quizically.

And then I realized what she was really talking about. I reallized we weren't on the same page, as they say.

Fortunately for me, she never understood how I misunderstood her.

April 8, 2004: Sorry about the haikus. I had penciled them down on napkins for a contest I read about. I stuffed them into my pocket and forgot about them. I only found them weeks later in the lint basin of my dryer, too late to win first prize. But, since I was somewhat behind, blog-wise, I decided I'd throw them down in order to make up a few days. I don't think my haikus are exactly right though. According to the Japanese tradition, their syllabic pattern is supposed to be 5-7-5. Mine, of course, comply to a 7-5-7 pattern. I got it backward when I was writing them. I wonder if the judges would have held it against me.

I just read an interesting comment about haiku form on the internet. It says that much more information can be presented in 17 English syllables than in the poems that are written in 17 Japanese syllables. This explains for me why some American poets that I've read have altered the pattern. In order to maintain the intergrity and purpose of the form-- which to my understanding is to present brief images that carry a larger understanding-- the poets reduced the space they allowed themselves.

April 6, 2004: Haiku #756: Red dusty soot drifting down, adding up like snow while the men keep cutting bricks.

April 5, 2004: Haiku #755: In line to order my lunch, I noticed the cashier sneeze into her open palm.

April 3, 2004: As for me, I was enheartened today, to find out that Andy Warhol was born in Pittsburg as Andrew Warhola-- Polish I think. I love Pittsburg... spent a week there last summer. You never really think of great artists, when you think of industrial towns, like Pittsburg, or Tacoma. Not only that, but listen to this... he also went to Carnegie Mellon, a high-fallootin' technical school. I think he studied photography there. Many people associate Andy Warhol with those pistol-packin' Elvises or those Campbell's Soup cans... I know because I experimented today.

Most people don't know what pop art was really about. In the 60s Andy had a studio, called "the Factory" where he had every freak off the streets of New York mass-producing prints of those Marilyn Monroe things, making them accessible to many many people... so there is NO one single original... get it? "Pop-art"? Art for the populous? I may have this wrong-- I mean, it could conceivably be, in fact, it likely is more to do with the popular images he chose to depict. But I like my interpretation.

Still, Andy is not one to be sneezed at. He even had an assassination attempt on his life. Some sole member of SCUM (Society for Cutting Up Men): She nearly took it all away from us. Of course, he lived, and only died years later, in the 80s from a pancreas surgery gone horribly wrong. I still often wonder, though, whether there was some kind of conspiracy going on.

Andyway, to get to my point here, which is... I've been thinking about going into the visual arts. This writing stuff is keeping me sorrily under-recognized. It appears you actually have to write to be successful. So I thought I'd give painting a spin, while I'm here in limbo.

Painting may be the same; you may actually have to paint, and I don't have any supplies. So I got on ebay today, and I ordered myself a seven by 16 foot canvas, where I'll make my masterpiece. I don't have a studio, no space, so I'll have to roll it out gradually, as I go.

I'm pretty sure I have what it takes. (I mean, I HAVE seen modern art, after all.) All you really need are a few good brushes, and plenty of soul, which, rest assured, I got plenty of.

Plus, this is something you don't know. I got connections. A friend I met up in Maine a few years back, in a creative writing class, is getting successful in the art scene. Last month, she appeared in a prestigious Canadian art journal, which would be the northern equivalent to Art World, an American journal where talented creators are featured, and showings at hoity-toity galleries are advertised. If you appear in these types of journals, it means you're on your way to fame and glory. So, what I'm sayin' is... my friend, she's in the know; she's got friends who can help me out.

April 2, 2004: I picked up a cup of coffee at the campus bakery, and I saw a lovely southern belle that I recognized from the psychology department. She was sitting there reading a book, minding her own business, so I thought I'd disrupt her, and say hello.

"Hi there, whatcha readin?"

"It's ma babble."

"Ma babble?"

"No, ma babble."

"Hmm, I've never heard of that."

"You've nevah huhd of the babble? You don't know Jeeesus?"

"Jesus?"

Oh-oh, what had I done? The book that I had mistaken for the Norton Anthology, because of its thin tissuey pages, was in fact, her Bible. Now I was in too deep to turn back-- I didn't want to be invited to fellowship, or otherwise proselytized, so I had to think quick on my feet; I had to come up with something, and fast, to head this off at the pass. But what? What could I say about Jesus that would throw her off my trail? It would only exasperate the matter, I was sure, if I mentioned the words "cult leader," or "dry-rot of the mind" so I decided to fight fire with fire.

"Jesus? Oh sure, me and Jeeze are like this," I held up a pair of crossed fingers, "We go way back."

March 31, 2004: The smell of death permiates my cubicle. Let me explain. You see, I brought a cucumber in to work last week, in a plastic shopping bag. I was planning to eat it, but instead, I tossed it onto my desk, and buried it beneath a pile of very important papers.

This morning, I smelled it right off; I dug down through the papers and found the plastic bag that was inducing my gag reflex. The cucumber didn't much resemble a cucumber anymore-- it looked like it had lost substantially more than 21grams; it was more-or-less a bag of water and pulp, that stank to high heaven. I scooped up the bag, and the very important papers and threw the whole kit-and-kaboodle out the backdoor, into the parking lot.

March 28, 2004 Well, I re-retook the GRE today, and sometime, about midway through the test, I thought about jamming the two pencils they'd given me deep into each of my wrists... like Jesus.

Fortunately, they took my ball-pean hammer away from me at the door, or my infantile soft-spot would have been mush at about the fourth question they asked me regarding some passage about the chemical composition of meteorites, that was written in Albanian.

I've been comparing my scores with the "average scores" at various universities. At schools I'd really like to go to, the really good ones, the medical schools, and bio-science schools-- their scores are out of this world. People who have doctors, not thinking, but tacit, men for fathers; verbal families, that talk about the days events... not those, like mine, who just sat around and stewed.

At regular, decent well-respected univerities, in livable areas, I seem to just slip in near the mean-- higher or lower by a point or two. At these schools, I compare fairly well.

There is a third category of schools where I dwarf their scores, and I think..."what a bunch of dumbshits."

I'm kind of like Woody Allen, in many ways, besides my urban jewish heritage, and the fact that I married my daughter, and have a dry stand-up routine. Woody Allen once said that he wouldn't want to date somebody who would date him.

Choosing a school, at which to aquire the imaculate degree is a lot like the dating scene. You disregard those that are beneath you, you're not attracted to the ones that will accept you, and you're dispicable to the ones you want to be with.

March 24, 2004: We hunger, and we move forward, like the cliche'ic mare behind a carrot, tied to a stick, which she herself propells forward out of her reach. There is no way out of this. Our own desire tricks us into believing that we'll get there some day; into behaviors aimed at satisfying our "wants" that can never become sate.

March 21, 2004: Somtimes, when I dream in my sleep, the contents seem so profound, or so witty, that I actually feel a somnambulistic pride with myself. For example, I might dream that I'm writing or speaking with great eloquence and tone that far exceeds my waking ability. Or, I might come up with a concept that seems so novel or so useful for mankind, that I don't understand how we, as a species, could have made it this far along without me and my brilliant mind. But then, sadly, I wake, and I realize what a jumbled load of tripe I had been speaking or writing; I see what kinds of unclever gadgets I'm capable of contriving in my sleep.

Last night, I had a dream that seemed earth-shaking in scope and importance; revelationary at least. I could hardly wait to wake up and share the insights that my nightly rest had bequeathed upon me.

I dreamt that the Trix Rabbit was actually excreting those colorful crunchy little spheres (and, anyone who's ever seen rabbit turds, will immediately relate to the similarity that my subconscious dreamt up-- Cocoa Puffs (the chocolate version of fruity Trix), in fact, are a dead-ringer for rabbit poop.)

Anyway, when the rabbit said "Trix are for Kids!!!" his deceitful ambiguity was not lost on me. No way!! It suddenly became very clear to me, what I must do; my duty, my role in righting years of wrong, was suddenly elucidated: I must warn the kids across America that all these years they'd been eating sugar-coated rabbit shit, and that, in fact, the "Trick was on them."

You can see why, when I awoke, I was disappointed and felt less inclined to share my revelation.

March 19, 2004: I'm trying to incite some interest among my co-workers in a weekly Muu-muu day. Maybe, say, Muu-muu Monday? A happy day, when we all arrive at work clad in flowery flowing Polynesian gowns. So far, interest has been minimal, but I'll keep pressing for it. I'm just positive they would sing a different tune, if they knew the comfort and freedom that a loose fitting muu-muu can afford them.

March 14, 2004: Whenever I read about W, the "president", talking up the troops, and telling them what a good job they're doing fighting the "enemy". I always think it's kinda weird.

First of all, to my knowledge, Iraq was just another screwed up country, like Haiti or any other crappy place in Africa or Asia or Eastern Bloc Europe, except that Iraq just happened to have a whole hell of a lot of oil... (see the connection my fellow SUV driving Americans?). Do you think it's just a coincidence that a man who has run at least one oil company into the ground (nevermind the cellar-dwelling Rangers) and been involved with countless others, decided to invade Iraq?

Despite the fact that George W. Bush is a failed business man, and the first horseman of the Apocalypse... you can't really blame him for the Texas Rangers... As an American League follower, I know that the Rangers never are very good.

And the connection that keeps being drawn between that sad day in September a few years back, when I was wandering around blank-eyed, but decked in my mardi gras beads, because I thought "the end was near", and you wanna look good when you're going to meet your maker; between that day and all these innocent people that keep dying today... that connection just isn't clear to me.

Let's think about this in simplistic terms to make a point, and so that republicans can understand: Some savages from a god-forsaken land across the sea get all wound up because they're hungry, and nobody in the world cares what they have to say, so they crash a jumbo jet into a great proud symbol of America, and, sadly... very sadly, kill three thousand innocent people.

So W gets ta thinkin' (in his common-folksy way)..."How can I cash in on this...? How can I make sure, that a) my oil buddies get appeased, and b) that I get my slimey lying, butt elected in this country filled with cheetoh eaters, and c) is there anyway that I can avenge Dad at the same time?"

Says W to himself, he says, "I know... I'll kill 15,000 innocent skinny brown people, and then tell the fat pink people that we're the good guys. I'll tell them I love Christ and America. I'll tell them I'm killing innocent people for Jesus and the American way. And thems that's not for us, must be against us. And if I'm lucky, maybe Mel Gibson will mass-market a movie with mediocre CGI to Christians and make 350 million dollars in two weeks (do the words "get out of my Father's temple" mean anything to anyone?), and the cheetoh eaters and Walmart people'll will feel even stronger about their faith, and their narrow beliefs, and get all riled up about them skinny brown guys, trying to take our freedom to shop and shoot guns away from us. That'll surely convince any God fearing, patriotic Americans that I'm the man who should run the country, even if I don't read more than the headlines and the Bible. And even though voting for me is completely against their interests, and the interests of the country at large, I'll convince them by making them scared shitless and patriotic. I'll tell them I'm just doing it to defend us from evil, doing what God told me to do." he says in that charming share-cropper accent.

But in my mind... I'm just sitting here thinking... "This half-wit is a madman. He's gunna get us all killed."

Let's see... In chapter 1, wild religious skinny brown crazies on their side kill three thousand innocents... In chapter 2... wild religious rotund pink crazies on our side kill 15,000 innocents... um...?

...um? What's chapter 3 going to be like, I wonder.

I'm not a big supporter of W. This you've probably gathered. But if I were, I still don't think I'd undersand why more and more people keep dying, and W keeps congratulating himself and all those soldiers for the success of it all.

March 10, 2004: I don't like people praying for me. To me, it implies an arrogance-- an "I'm-right-and-Bernie,-you're-wrong" kinda scenario that makes me uneasy.

Besides, I talked to God on my red-line to Heaven just last Thursday, and He told me you could stand to lose a few (His temple doesn't need to be THAT big); He doesn't like that you don't read the great authors; and your SUV is driving His wildlife crazy; and stop bitching about Bill Clinton--last time He checked, your three divorces, and your amorous thoughts toward 19-year-old babes were considered adultry too in His book. And stop your grovelling. It gets on His nerves. And your smug assurance upsets His stomach...

Oh, and one more thing... God told me to tell you that He and His boy are Buddhists, so everyday is holy-- Not just Sunday: That means straighten yourselves up Monday thru Saturday. And take off those stupid ties at services...your tastes are a bit loud, and besides, what is this, a funeral?

In short, God says that you're wrong, and that I should pray for you.

March 7, 2004: All of the information that my senses feed me is filtered through things I already know. So forgive me if I'm wrong more than half the time.

March 4, 2004: "I live in a silver mine"

...Okay, okay... there IS something beautiful, and powerful about a large group of people, bonding, and loving the same thing. Dancing and shouting in unison, singing together, sharing drinks, pulling each other up when they fall; letting go, loosening my tie.

Who the hell do I think I am anyway?

I just feel left out a lot, because I don't give a rat's-ass about sports, I don't like the way some people dance, I don't like people touching me, and Christians creep me out-- and TV just makes me wanna spoon feed myself leprous vomit. Alls I got left is Elvis and Jerry Garcia.

Two fat dead fucks.

March 4, 2004:*insert interesting thing here*

March 2, 2004: After a long cold winter, the sun finally broke today, and gave many of us the welcome chance to stretch our legs, get outside, and alleviate the cabin fever which had built up after a winter indoors. Sometimes, down here in Mississippi, the temperatures can drop down into the 30s, and when that happens (burrrr!!) the entire state hibernates. Yes, it sure does, until the dawning of the new spring.

So, I was strolling across campus, when I saw this man, circling the perimeter of a large oak tree. He was looking up into the branches, and then making marks on clipboard. He just kept circling the base of the tree, looking up, and making those marks on his pad.

He looked like someone who actually works for a living (unlike everybody else here on campus), so I assumed he was there to cut the tree down. People always cut down trees for no good reason.

When I got up next to the guy, I couldn't resist, I had to ask him, "Countin' squirrels?"

As usual, the joke was on me though. He responded by looking me directly in the eye. "Yep," he said "I just now got up to one."

February 28, 2004: One string of words that a parent should never have to utter is... "Oh, my boy just got swept off the deck by a sealion. I'll never see him again."

But that's just what happened, today, in Alaska, I read.

Some kid was scoopin' out fish guts, when this giant barking leviathan swept him from the bow of his dad's fishing boat. I could barely believe it myself, but this 1500 pound THING lept six feet out of the water and scooped him up, and took him under. I read it in the news.

His father said, "The sea-lions were swimming around the boat like they aways do, when we're bringing up fish."

None of us will ever know just what happened to poor Tommy (except Tommy), those thirty seconds he was submerged 'neath the brine, but I bet it wasn't a preditory act. Those sea lions are known for being luscivious toward sailors.

I've read that Sperm Whales, the type that Ishmael hunted, have penises that are six feet long.

And the news report I read said that when poor Tommy was pulled out of the strait, he was "kinda walkin' funny."

February 26, 2004: Okay, that's enough stream-of-consciousness... back to describing my experiences.

For example, yesterday, I was cruising down the highway in a rental car, headed to Jackson for an event, when I saw the most peculiar accident. The man must have had a substantive leak in his gastank, because, when he flipped his cigarette out the window, it ignited a line of fuel, like the way gunpowder burns in the cartoons.

He was driving just fast enough that the fire could barely keep up. As the flames chased him down the highway, I thought to myself, "I better try to warn him. I better try to help out."

I raced up along side his car, and tried to point at the imminent threat that was hot on his tail (sorry), but he took me for a drunk or a crazy. He flipped me the bird and sped on (for the record though, it was only 9 a.m., and I was a good two hours from being drunk.)

A few miles down the highway, the flames finally caught up with him. When the car exploded, it flipped three times through the air, and came to rest, splashing down in a swamp beside the road.

I pulled over, again, to see if I could be helpful. The driver climbed out of the car, aflame from head to toe, pawing around in front of him, like an on-fire blind man.

I shouted, "Stop, drop and roll, Dude!!!... Stop, drop and roll!!"

Having been reminded of the correct protocol for being on fire, the man flopped himself down in the swamp, began rolling around, and was immediately extinguished by the stagnant, murkey water.

"You alright, man? Looked kinda hot there for a few seconds..." I said.

"Yah, I'm fine," he said, with charred swamgrass and algae dripping down his cheak. He glanced over to the smouldering burnt-out remains of his car.

"'Gotta get that tank fixed."

February 24, 2004:You're doing it, dimples; you're fallin for it. Dozing off.

Don't fall for it, sweet lips, punkin head, turnipseed.. No, never EVER be "tired"... be "a little hazy.." be... "running on two cylinders"... But "tired", no, never be tired.

And never tell people what drugs you're taking either, because the religious people, and people with the same ailments you have will judge you for it, or want to talk to you in great detail about what precisely makes you ill... and personally, I would rather just take the drugs and be left alone.

But if you must tell them, then... only do so, with jim morrison wailing, blailing, whining in the background... it'll make you seem chic and retro.

And never mix valium with a half case of beer, take it from me and jim. People'll think you're crazy and got problems, when all you're doing is just kicking around in your sleep, and dreaming of 3 years ago when you were last happy, walking through knee-deep snow in wingtips.

Always take wooden nickels when they're offered, but don't try to spend them. Throw them in the coin dish you got, on the shelf, next to your old movie stubs, and the two-dollar bill they gave you when you visited Monticello that summer a couple years ago.

Don't save good bottles of wine for when your good friends show up again; count on that they never will.

And please, don't go to sleep on me dimples, please don't go to sleep. But if you do... before you go... I want to thank you for letting me share this special evening with you.

February 21, 2004: Bruce, it's funny that I should listen to your message this morning, because last night, I had a dream and you were in it.

You see, I was dating this brunette Russian Jewess, and she and I were living in New York City; you came down from Maine to visit us. She had this wild jealous ex-boyfriend, who came to fight me, and... because it was my dream, and not reality, I won the fight.  But this really pissed him off, and he sent a thug named Busta with a pistol to kill me.

That morning, you and I were enjoying three-minute eggs and hashbrowns at the kitchen table in my apartment, when suddenly Busta kicked the door open, waving his pistol around. I hot-footed it out of there, shimmied down the stairs, but it was no use, Busta shot me in the head.

A little bit later, when I was walking around in my new etheral state, I ran into you, back at the apartment.

I said, "Bruce, is it you? Look, I'm a ghost..."

And you said, "Yah, I'm a ghost too..."

I said, "Busta busted a cap in you too?"

You said, "Yep, had to, I was a witness..."

I said, "Sorry, dude."

You said, "'Salright."

I said, "Hey, check it out... we're both dead..." And we gave each other high-fives.

It was one of those dreams where I was consciously laughing in my sleep.

February 19, 2004: We had a big windstorm today, which swept the big 30-by-30 foot clear plastic tarpaline off of the tar blocks in the parking lot. It got carried away and looked like a Giant Jellyfish swimming above the campus.

February 18, 2004: Since the workers began retarring the roof at work, the air inside the building has been noxious. Several of us have mentioned our fears that such a stagnant and bitter aroma might cause us some brain damage in the future, or to have children with extra limbs.

The system for applying tar to the roof of our three story building is interesting. There is a man on the roof (presumably, though I've never seen him), who uses a hose to siphon the thick, hot, gooey tar from a machine at ground to his level. He spreads the tar around with a brush.

Down below, there is a giant heating vat, into which big blocks of hardened tar are fed by a different man. That's all he does. He sits there, starring blankly at our cars in the parking lot, until his partner, up above, tells him to feed it another one, which he does.

February 17, 2004: If it were not for her stunning beauty, I would have asked for my money back, when the waitress dumped scalding hot coffee into my lap this morning.

Down at the Cafe, where I sometimes take my breakfast-- I get the BEG special (that's bacon, eggs, and grits, but they call it that, because it's supposed to leave you begging for some more)-- the new girl, whose black hair spills over a red ribbon, like a waterfall, bumped the cup she'd just filled, pretty hard, sending it straight onto the fly-region of my jeans.

She apologized profusely, took up a handful of napkins, and began to pat me down rigorously. When she realized how this might look to the other customers, she reddened, handed me the wet napkins, and let me finish drying myself.

Honestly, though, if the coffee had been a few degrees cooler, it wouldn't have been a completely terrible start to my day.

February 15, 2004: I woke this morning to a beautiful winter wonderland; a light falling snow. It was nothing really, but a few flakes, blowing sideways in the winter breeze, mixed with the heavier, straight-falling rain drops.

The snow, itself, melted the moment the flakes hit the ground. It never amounted to anything. It sure was pretty though, while it fell, and I knew it, likely, would be my only chance this winter season to get out and enjoy the snow.

In a fit of childlike excitement, I put on my stocking cap and mittens. I pulled on my golloshes. I climbed into the dusty attic to retrieve my tobogan. I went out there, and let the sparse flakes light on my eyelashes and tongue. Unable to contain myself, I dropped down and made a line of beautiful mud-angels in the driveway. I slid my tobogan gleefully across the course gravel.

February 10, 2004: I have been reading Hemingway's stories about trout fishing on streams in the Upper Penninsula. They take me back to my younger days, on cold mountain snow-fed streams, rolling out of the Cascades. With me, standing up on a sun-warmed boulder, my shadow cast down upon the deep still hole I'm fishing.

And suddenly one of those trout hit my roe and worm. It's small, but it's still exciting. The fish pulls and tries to flee, but he's hooked. His run and the strength of the line yank him sideways, and the sun reflects off his silvery scales, up through the rippling water, and I know, now, it's a fish and not a snag.

I give him some more line, I want this to last. He uses it to leave the hole, but uses all the line I gave him. He's done. Makes a final conciliatory leap, up out of the water. I reel him in, the line zig-zags on the surface. As I pull him to me, I can feel every single movement of muscle.

February 9, 2004: This coming weekend will be Valentine's Day, the celebration of the heart's deepest longings fulfilled. Romance will ride light-heartedly across wafting air, cool and scented with red rose petals. Cupid flitters, that rascal, and sends his love-arrows to pierce ready hearts; you can sense the sweet newness, like spring-time; hope hangs in the atmosphere like smoke from incense; hope, that unity will swallow lovers' beaming hearts, bringing two together, into one heart.

Around Valentine's Day, I often reflect upon the women whom I've loved. I wonder about where they are, what they are doing, who they are with, are they happy and successful now? Residual thoughts of yesterday, remnants of withered but weighty passions, heartfelt adoration spent; heartbreak born out of longing.

Yes, I often think of them, and I wonder and I hope whether they are not all fat and unhappily married.

February 6, 2004: I have endured my final humiliation from Bitsy the butt-snapping terrier. There was only so much I could take; I finally had to make a stand against her.

I slipped a small whistle, like the kind in squeeze-toys, into a bowl of kibble and called her over as she sniffed around in a patch of grass. When she saw me, she immediately came running, barking and growling viciously.

I put the kibble down, and ran back into my apartment, slamming the door behind me. I could hear her clawing at the base of the door for fifteen minutes. I thought she might tunnel through, but she eventually gave up.

When it became quiet, I peeked out my window, and there she was, munching away on the kibble I had put down. Soon the bowl was empty, whistle and all. Now (heh-heh), when Bitsy, the ill-tempered little bitch, tries to sneak up on me, I'll have some warning. She whistles when she runs.

February 2, 2004: I laughed hysterically over the weekend, watching some old movies with Bing Crosby and Bob Hope. During the years between 1949 and 1962, they made about six or seven movies about a pair of dancing and singing, girl-crazy vagabonds. "The Road to (insert location)" movies... I'd like to see them all. In their prime, you can really see why people felt entertained by Hot Lips and Scat.

January 30, 2004: There are jackrabbits everywhere. It's kind of like an Alfred Hitchcock movie, except instead of birds, they're jackrabbits. Long-legged little fellows who pass great distances in just a few strides, they look more like dogs: hopping dogs with long ears.

I went to a ranching heritage museum today, where they had a giant outdoor spread, with all the different types of houses that people in Texas have lived in over the ages; ranging from giant, luxurious ranch houses, down to simple places made of sticks and mud. I enjoyed the simple places the most. Many of them reminded me of Thoreau's place, up there in Concord. Except for all those jackrabbits, lounging around in the shades of the Joshua trees: Thoreau had his woodchucks, while people in Lubbock have got all these rabbits to contend with.

January 29, 2004: Reporting live, from Lubbock, Texas, down here for an interesting project with some folks from Texas Tech University. This is the birthplace of Buddy Holly-- an expansive land with wide-open skies.

Flying in, the irrigation circles looked ten miles wide, or more. I've seen those oil pump things, the ones that look like chickens pecking up seed, in the strangest places... even in people's back yards. It's no wonder many Texans think they can drill anywhere in the world, anytime they want.

January 26, 2004: A dirty trick on myself, this morning: I woke up at 3:15a.m. I know what time it was, because I rolled over, to look at the clock-- to see how long I had to sleep. "3:15", the clock blinked. Two hours, 15 minutes more, I thought. I love this warm bed. Suddenly, the alarm clock began beeping, and I woke up... but I was really awake this time. What a dirty confusing trick, dreaming that you're awake.

January 23, 2004: Last night it was very clear outside, and warmer than it's been, so I decided to go for a late-night walk. I was looking up at the glimmering stars, and thinking of the infinity of the universe. Suddenly I saw the most beautiful shooting star. I was in awe of its three lights, flashing red, green, and white, as it roared across the night sky.

January 22, 2004: I got an email today, soliciting for members of a new community band, made up of people, like myself, who played once, but may not have done so for quite a few years.

From fifth grade, all the way up to my second year in college, I played percussion in the chamber band. I have experience playing many of the instruments: typani, snare-drum, base-drum, xylophone, vibroslap (seriously), cymbles, triangle, chimes, woodblocks, and even the gong. So I thought I might give it a try by going down there on Monday and seeing what it's all about, maybe I'll even audition.

January 20, 2004: It happens with such great frequency to me, and yet, strangely, I'm still like a deer in headlights whenever the neighbor's terrier comes after me. The very first time, she snuck up on me as I was retrieving my mail from the box out front. She got ahold of my pant leg, and began shaking her head back and forth, tearing visciously at my jeans. Although, she is only a little taller than a foot and a half, she has surprising strength in her neck, and sharp teeth that have ruined almost half of my wardrobe.

She doesn't make a sound as she's approaching me, so I often have no warning at all that she's coming. I only know I'm under attack when I feel the teeth tear into my flesh. My desperate cry of "Down girl! Down!", is usually only met with a greater fierocity of growl. "Bad doggie!!"

Today was no different. I went out early in my pajamas and slippers, to take a bag of garbage out to the curb. As I was returning to my apartment, I suddenly felt those teeth. She had gotten a running start, and had leapt through the air to sink her teeth into my left buttock. "Bad doggie!! Down!!" I only got away, by pushing at her snout desperately, but she did not let go. Instead, she tore a swatch from my pajamas, leaving me exposed to the cold air. And like that, the little bitch was gone as quickly as she had come.

January 19, 2004: DSOCPs... I can easily count ten of them on a short walk across campus. It seems to get worse every year. Nobody acknowledges anyone in passing anymore, because there are too many DSOCPs: Dip-shits on Cell Phones.

January 18, 2004: I just realized that much of the content that I've posted here are lies. Well, not a lies, per se. Let's call them "fiction". People tell lies when they're trying to occlude the truth. Lies are malicious, and set the whole system awry.

Okay, okay... I am concealing the truth about my existence, but it's not to gain anything that I have no real claim to. It's just that many of the details of day-to-day life are so mundane that I can't see how they could be of any interest. If I wrote the facts as they were, this whole thing would be about my doing laundry. I could spruce it up a little, by giving details about colors, and water temperature, and the permanent press cycle, but even then, who would care to read it?

January 17, 2004: I spent the whole of today, Saturday, indoors. It's somehow forgivable though. It rained cold rain from morning until night.

January 16, 2004: Today, on my bike, I got a flat tire when I ran over some bird bones. Yes, bird bones. The auspices were ominous. A dead black bird had a bad day, by getting creamed by a passing car, and then stripped clean of his soft organic tissue by some other scavengers. His carcass was nothing there, on the road, but bird bones.

I hit it by accident. On a slight incline, I'd begun to pick up speed, and suddenly there it was. There must have been a razor-sharp rib sticking up, or something, because a few feet after I'd hit the bird bones, I heard the "Psssssss..." sound that communicates to a bike rider, that he'll soon be walking.

There is always the possibility that the two events are not linked at all. Who, among us, is immune to the error that Aristotle warned us about: the tendency to link occurences that share a temporal closeness?

January 15, 2004: I've been wanting to spit this one out for a couple of days now. It's been bothering me so.

The other day, while standing in line to buy stamps at the Post Office I was eaves dropping on a conversation between two gentlemen who were in line behind me. It was clear by their shared rural dialect and the content of their discussion (I had never thought of squirrels as potential food) that these men, though possibly of good character were, nevertheless, none too bright.

They were talking about the hunt, knocking squirrels out of their trees, and taking them home for stew. But this was not what bothers me. Where tastes in cuisine are concerned I'm a qui que suum type of guy-- to each his own.

It was when they began reminiscing about shooting empty beer bottles off each other's heads that I blinked. I would think the glass would get into their scalps, or maybe one might shoot the other, accidently, in the face-- either way, the risks seemed bigger than the potential for reward.

Being a utilitarian by nature, I thought that this was no way to spend an perfectly good afternoon, shooting bottles off your pal's head.

January 13, 2003: Last night, I dreamt that I had evolved into a cyborg. This morning, when I woke, I realized I had eaten three vowels and the ampersand key off my keyboard, in my sleep.

I'm normally not one to make resolutions when the new year rolls around, because I'm so wont to break them. Sometimes, I may resolve to be a better person by cutting out fatty foods, drinking less beer, and being more considerate of the feelings of others. But on average, things stay pretty much the same.

However, I was given a startling wake-up call in the dawn hours this morning, when I stepped on the scale over at the spa. As a former avid bowler, I often think of body weight in relation to the number bowling balls that you could make with all that fat.

Let's say you prefer a 14 lb., super-high differential, low-breaking, gold-speckled ball (as I do), and that you are 30 pounds overweight. One would have to cut off more than two of those bowling balls worth of fat from your body in order to get you down to your proper weight.

Now to bring the issue of your morbid obesity into even tighter focus, imagine, if someone just randomly decided to duct-tape two bowling balls to your sleek waist, and what a pain-in-the-ass that would be dragging them around with you everywhere in your day to day life. Imagine if you wanted to run around a track, or walk around at the grocery store, or flirt with pretty girls, or ride rides at an amusement park, how awful it would be to have to lug those bowling balls around with you-- gold speckles or not.

In short, though I'm not technically resolving to do so, the scale's ugly face of scorn and mockery make this bowler's reduction a priorty here in the coming months.

January 12, 2003 (6:00 a.m.): Thunder-legs, my upstairs neighbor, so dubbed because of his night-and-day clog dancing, tumbled down the stairs this morning as the sun was rising, raising a ruckus, larger, even than the drunken stampeding elephants that often wake me, running up to his apartment at four o'clock in the morning, on any given day of the week. I threw open my window, and saw him lying , face-first, in the gravel at the bottom of the steps.

"You alright there?" He turned his head to me.

"I'm fine, I just fell down the steps."

"You gunna be alright?" He stood and began brushing himself off.

"I'll be fine. I just fell down the steps."

January 11, 2003: I've spent an inordinant amount of time on my couch since the beginning of winter break in mid-December. One end of the couch that I've been sitting on is beginning to sink in, so that all of the objects on the other end of the couch-- books, my computer bag, etc., all seem to be up-hill from me. I've had to bring pillows in from the bedroom for support, and to prop myself up a bit.

January 10, 2003: In an effort to set milestones upon ephemeral days of my existence; to textually sketch my moments and ways for public scrutiny; that they may wade, knee-deep into the swiftly passing eddies, swirling by, pulled along in the current of my personal stream of time; or less dramatically, as Eliot said, to "measure out my life with coffee spoons," I've decided to keep a posting of salient goings-on, here at the "'BLOG" section of my website. The criteria by which events are judged, as to their worthiness for inclusion, are likely to be as elastic and dynamic as the life that inspires them. Nevertheless, I like to imagine in advance that each of the musings laid forth here are so lain because I, personally, have found them (at one level or another) to be, at minimum one, but preferably a fine co-mingling of all the following adjectives: insightful, interesting, poignant, philosophically-sound, clever, spiritually fulfilling, truthful, wry or just plain old fashioned amusing.