What's A Gurg?

2012-01-31T11:37:00.002-07:00

Sometimes I worry that I only write when I'm brooding. So to dispel the myth that I am a swirling vortex of lugubrious energy with a dash of formal education, here's this.

2012-01-28T20:56:00.002-07:00

Everyone is somewhere else. They all are. Every one. Glittering jewels of binary code fall like rain and burst forth like geysers. Everyone is awash in it; they clean their hands like plague flies and touch each others' faces like grooming chimps.

Everyone is like something else. Everyone is congealing into something they remind one another of.

Now they all remind me of the same things, over and over.

Of course, it's entirely possible and probably probable that this is all in my head.

Still...everyone seems a little distracted lately.

Reading a lot lately. Lying late in bed with a too-dim bulb of light until my arms ache and my collarbone screams at me to get out of that twisted, barely-supported homage to both the prone and the supine. I'm a caterpillar turning up to a tempting branch but unsure, unsure, not all the legs let go.

Nibbling at the words. Steady, I digest them. And digested, they do give me a strength. A strength fed by pulp novels and undisputed classics colliding in a cauldron of fusion and fission. The product is not familiar to me. I know it only as a vague, uneasy inspiration; all the art and beauty is work, a work, wrought and birthed, calculated from formulae on a clacking abacus and the exponential results swished on a slide rule.

I digest these things, lazy in my bed. Suffering from the feast of words and not the twinge of any envy.

Now and then, a twinge of disgust as the clouds of industry part and I remember about that time that I was perfectly right about you.

2011-11-19T23:54:00.001-07:00

Memories have mouldered in the tin can of my mind. The years break against the beaches and erode, erode, erode. Sleep becomes less important because being awake is like being asleep. The ailments are remembered well enough that they are the background of every dream scene; the aches ebb and flow as the songs of breakers not far from the shuttered window, not far at all.

Blankets wrap me up and curl me into that little place, that space between the sea and the shore where one becomes the other and the other becomes something more. Pushing sparkling grains up and pulling them down again. It was all sea once. There was no sea once. Neither misses those times, I imagine.

I try to imagine.

2011-09-09T19:48:00.002-07:00

It's a Tom Waits kind of evening: low and grey and hanging heavy on the floor like smoke from an arson fire. Seventeen ghosts lie on the floor and one more is hangs from a bare light bulb in the ceiling. A mattress in the corner rests on a makeshift box-spring of paperback novels with the covers torn off. This town is the opposite of other towns; all the bars and clubs are open in the middle of the day and no other time. All our work is done in darkness and our celebrations are in light. Been here less than a year and I can't convince myself it should be any other way.

The town tucks in at sunrise for about 4 hours. Those that wish rise in the afternoon to cavort and laugh and frolic. The length of the festivities is not the measure, but the ferocity. These hours pass quickly and it is time again to rest. When the sun sets the town arises to industry. There are not many jobs here that a person cannot perform in low light.

Not all choose revel for their midday waking hours. Those that don't gather in crowds instead gather their thoughts. The people here are unlike any I've met before. Those who share my age have lived twice as many days; two mornings for each of my mornings and two nights for each of my nights. Mistakes are made, from minor to grave, the better part in daylight. The harm done overall is less, as I've observed, but truer, as there is no darkness to muddle the focus of passions and the intent of each flung emotion.

2011-08-24T21:50:00.004-07:00

Poor Don Quixote. He keeps getting his ass handed to him. After a particularly sound thrashing he finds himself unable to get up and begins to recite dialogue from the books that inspired him to become a wandering knight.

I can relate to this.

I used to drink a lot. And often. It was the first year of college, after all. Not my first year of college, but someone's first year surely. There were many times where I drank too much. There were also several times when I drank waaaay too much. That I cheated death and came away with only the mildest of brain damage, I believe, was no accident.

In everyone's brain is a tiny little glass case containing a single brain cell. Etched into the glass case is "In Case of Emergency Break Glass". There is also a tiny bone hammer hanging next to it. The anatomists teach us that the smallest bones in the human body are the anvil, the hammer, and the stirrup located in the inner ear, but this tiny bone hammer is actually the smallest.

In my brain, that little bone hammer has long been worn down to the handle and tiny shards of glass are everywhere.

When I was drunk beyond all reasoning there was still this lone brain cell running around desperately trying to keep me alive. This brain cell was smart, though. It didn't try to run to the part of the brain that controls my heart, or my lungs, or tells my blood which way to flow.

It ran to my memory of the book Night by Elie Weisel. While my body was failing and I just wanted to curl up where I was and fall asleep, the emergency brain cell would send me the image of a starving Elie being forced to march through the snow while those who could not keep up were shot. I don't imagine my experience can compare to that nightmare, but it was enough to keep me from passing out long enough to make sure I was done being sick and had been able to at least keep down some water.

It is my hope that someday I will be able to draw inspiration from the suffering endured by others for something more honorable than staving off alcohol poisoning.

A boy can dream.

And then his friends burned Don Quixote's books! Jerks!

* * * * *

Google reminds me that is the birthday of Jorge Luis Borges. Love that guy. And he was a fan of Don Quixote. So there's that connection. That is cool. Books are cool.

Goodnight.

2011-08-18T21:22:00.003-07:00

Twenty-nine years after I was born it took to finally pick up Don Quixote. Poor book has been waiting for quite a while.

I elected to read the translation by Thomas Shelton. This was a pragmatic, i.e., lazy decision as it is the only translation I have in my possession. As translations go, it is supposed to capture the spirit and energy the Spanish text despite being "less accurate."

It puzzles me that there are critics for translations. I imagine there are probably only a very few and they are very loud. These people would have to go around reading a book in the language of the author, then read a translation (probably several translations) and deem one superior. Then we all hem and haw and nod and peer at each other through our monocles.

Or I'd just say, shit, I can't read German or French or Sanskrit so even if this is the worst of all the translations it's still better than the fuck-all I would come away with if I tried to read the original text.

And that's when they took my monocle away and threw me out into the night.

In the case of Don Quixote I am at an advantage since I know Spanish. And I do like this translation because it sounds more like Spanish, even if it is in English. More to do with the phrasing and the rhythm, I suppose. Spanish is a much more fluid language than English; each sentence flows right into the next. It's not.so.damn.halt.ing.with.stop.sounds.as.English.

And it feels more natural when the characters speak, even in Don Quixote's elevated Romance language. So I'm calling this translation: good.

Now I just sit back and endure the wrath of the linguists.

2011-08-11T21:45:00.002-07:00

I call this one "Laziest Comic Ever". The protagonist, upon finding that someone has pooped in his rock tumbler, is shouting his question to the world while gesturing off-panel at the presumably operating rock tumbler.

To be fair, I am not truly lazy. I simply can't draw a rock tumbler. No idea whatsoever. I haven't seen one or even thought of one in years. There are probably different kinds of rock tumblers, what with the natural abundance of rocks and other small hard materials that might presumably benefit from a good tumble now and again.

I'll leave that mystery to the botanists.

I am already at work on a physics-themed Laziest Comic Ever. It's that same guy again, only this time someone has pooped in his Large Hadron Collider. It's almost done but I'm having a hell of a time translating it from Swiss to English.

Maybe someone will yell "Are you sure it isn't a Higgs boson?" This yelling person will also be off-panel.

2011-08-10T22:06:00.002-07:00

Routine again. Crippled by the glut of information again. I spent the last 15 minutes looking for a picture that matched my mood and by the time I found it I didn't even remember what my mood was. Probably had something to do with Bartleby the Scrivener.

Ah, Bartleby! Ah, Humanity!

Walking right up to the edge of the world and peering over.

When I was but a lad my family visited the Grand Canyon. It was snowing and I was wearing a red and blue jacket. One of my parents told me to be careful not to fall in. I said it would be okay; if I fell in they could just pull me out. They said they didn't have any rope. I assured them that they wouldn't need rope; all the people around could just link hands until they could reach me.

I've always been more creative than practical. Yet I do not despair. All these things that are practical now were merely creative once.

Well, maybe not, but it sounds good.

2011-08-09T22:03:00.004-07:00

Ritual plays a painful part in this writing game. Painful to me because I abhor routine. At least I abhor being aware of routine. Maybe I don't abhor it; probably I just wanted to say "abhor". Either possibility is acceptable to me at this time.

The bath is vital. Er, the shower is vital. I'm far too big to properly relax in these Western-style bathtubs. And there's hardly any room for my Transformers toys. Oh yes, there are water-based Transformers. They just don't get seen much because they're usually float along staring wistfully at the coast or channel or fjord hoping some Decepticons come by with some evil plan involving sunbathing. (I know this feeling exquisitely well.)

The Japanese tradition would look in horror upon our toilets nestled snugly in the same room as our baths and showers. Might as well put the dining room table and the microwave in there while you're at it. Look at us; we're crazy Americans! Let's just do everything where we poop!

This reasoning makes sense, but I don't ascribe to it. Architecture that allows me to take off my pants and leave them off has my full support.

So to the shower I go. I get clean. Scrub away the lingering doubts. Try to, anyway. Then I'm ready.

It is imperative that I remain in my towel as I sit down at the computer. If I put on my nighty-time clothes there is the real and present danger of me simply walking past the computer and falling onto the bed. Being in a towel fills me with a feeling I can only assume is confidence. Also, the dampness of the towel imparts a sense of urgency; the origin of which I am hesitant to explore further.

Thus clean and clad, I can begin. Or in this case, end. It's my bedtime. Another night of dreaming and another 6 hours before I have to put on pants.

As I read over this I must apologize for the disjointedness. In my defense, I've spent the last 2 hours alternating reading the short stories of Herman Melville and watching episodes of the new season of Futurama.

Goodnight kermit!

2011-06-28T23:37:00.002-07:00

If there was a time when I wasn't fascinated with labyrinths I do not remember it. Perhaps it began in the flimsy metal shelves of the library at my elementary school when I read all the Greek myths I could reach, or the subtle lines traced through the lives of men in the tales of Borges, or in the mazes of the children's menu at Smitty's that I traced in crayon while I waited for my breakfast of eggs. toast, and bacon carefully laid out to look like a kitty cat.

The art of the labyrinth was in the way that while moving forward, moving inward, the traveler must continue to pass very close to the path he or she had previously traversed, the obstacles they had overcome.

This was not the cathartic path of letting go. This was the constant reminder of where you've been and who you are becoming. Yes, there is a boon at the center but each step now determines what that boon will be.

Now I lie on the floor with my dogs. I scratch their backs with my toes and their tails wag sleepily. I will read a bit and then go to sleep myself. When my eyes close I can almost see the walls of my own labyrinth and in my dreams I hear the echoes of footsteps and laughter from that me not so very long ago, that self I was and still am now, just more so and more so with every fall of my foot.

2011-05-15T22:10:00.004-07:00

I still yearn for applicants to work with me at HALO Animal Rescue. Half of the job is getting the animals the medical treatment they need and keeping them clean. The other half is learning their behavior so we can find the best home for them, making sure they get enough play time, introducing the animals to people who visit our shelter to adopt, putting pictures and biographies up online, and sometimes you actually get to sit down and do data entry.

It's fast-paced, often stressful, but never boring.

I need people with an almost-unhealthy obsession with saving cats and dogs.

Plus, at Orientation, everyone gets a Chihuahua!

2011-05-14T22:52:00.003-07:00

Supposedly being tired and cranky is the best time to write. I have no way to test this; I never feel tired or cranky.

I believe the best time to write is when someone is slapping you in the face because you aren't writing. It gives writing a sense of immediacy. The now-ness of it. A challenge of writing is that every word rockets to the past; each sentence is born to this time but the past is its wet nurse.

Or something.

I finished reading Moby Dick. I think this was the fifth time. It seemed like a braggable number but that breaks down to about once every couple of years since the first time I sat down to read the whole thing.

I almost feel like if there were a four-year degree in Moby Dick, I might at least minor in it. I'd probably get a whale-watching tour out of it.

I'm falling asleep in this chair. It's time to reclaim my bed from the dogs. Then I can dream of whales, and of standing on a whale-watching boat which, when there are no whales to be seen, is a lot like any other boat.

2011-05-04T21:59:00.003-07:00

Part of my job is to talk to people about all my dogs and help them figure out if a particular dog is going to be a good match for their family. I've been corresponding with a family and I thought I'd share part of it because...well, I don't know why exactly, I think I just really like talking about my dogs.

The person I was talking to asked me if they should wait for our Adoption Event this weekend when HALO will be temporarily reducing our adoption fees. They liked the idea of saving money but they were worried that someone else would adopt the dog and they would miss out.

I'm glad you were able to meet Chance. A few people have come in to see Chance but no one has followed up with me on their visit, which is fine; when adopters visit us and don't feel like they find the right match we always encourage them to try some of our no-kill partners.

I have a soft spot for Chance. He'd been listed as a stray dog at Maricopa County Animal Care and Control and he'd probably been on his own for quite a while. He was so thin and weak for the first few days we didn't think he was going to make it. The staff here monitored him throughout the day, feeding him a liquid diet of puppy milk formula and wet dog food, and giving him subcutaneous fluids to fight his dehydration. We took blood samples and ran laboratory tests to make sure he wasn't fighting a chronic illness. It was a long road to recovery for our boy and seeing his big goofy smile every day is one of the many things I look forward to every day when I come into work.

What I'm getting at is that I'm sort of biased. On average, the costs we incur to rescue a dog is almost $400. That's an average, of course; some dogs are almost healthy and just need a short treatment of antibiotics to be good as new. Then we have guys like Chance who need that special care and attention.

If you feel that Chance belongs in your family, then I would advise not to wait. You will miss out on some savings, but you know that money will go right into the next dog we rescue after Chance goes home and we have another space in our shelter.

I appreciate the time and effort you are putting into making your decision. It is a big decision and I am always happy when a family is as considerate as you all have been. Remember that we are always rescuing dogs and in my personal experience I find a dog I want to adopt at least once a week.

Please let me know if there is anything else I can do to help.

Thanks,

Gurg

2011-02-09T12:34:00.000-07:00

Originally posted 8-7-03

Luis, Beth, and I went to the Phoenix Zoo this Saturday. After a fun-filled afternoon of kettle korn eating, paddle-boat paddling, and careening madly about on a two-person passenger bike with Luis screaming in the back, we all made our weary way home. In the car I asked Luis, "So what was your favorite animal?"

"The elephant," Luis said.

"Why is the elephant your favorite?"

"Because he wouldn't tell us where the zebras were."

2011-02-07T21:26:00.002-07:00

Originally posted 4-24-04

Before heading out to the bar tonight, I spoke to my friend Mindy from work. We ended up talking for quite a while. She is an interesting girl. In an earlier conversation she had asked why I referred to Luis as "the boy." I told her it was in homage to The Simpsons. It was not unusual for an angry Homer to refer to Bart as "the boy."

It makes sense, because when you're angry at someone you tend to objectify them, or at least strip them down to their most base characteristics. It creates a distance, an impartiality, I think. But what do I know? I'm not really here to break down the psychological significance of The Simpsons. That would take all night.

Mindy asked me if Luis was bothered by being called that. I had to think about that one. "I don't know," I said. "I'll have to ask him."

This evening, Luis and I had driven to Blockbuster Videos so that he could rent a movie. It is a short distance away from my house. On the way, I asked him my question.

"Does it bother you that I call you 'the boy'?"

"Yes."

"Oh. Well, what would you prefer I called you?"

"Jackass." He laughed.

"Shut up, boy, I'm not going to call you that."

At the video store, Luis chose to rent Pee-Wee's Big Adventure. It is one of our favorites. I really need to purchase that movie for my Tim Burton collection. (It's not a truly loyal collection; I refuse to purchase his remake of Planet of the Apes.)

I also rented Kill Bill Volume 1 for Miguel. Also, I might as well watch it before I finally go to see Volume 2.

2011-02-06T21:25:00.001-07:00

Originally published 12-7-03

There have been quite a few things on my mind as of late.

The first is, obviously, The Art of Clown Warfare.

A few nights ago, I was making myself a light lunch, (a peanut butter and jelly sandwich,) when my littlest brother, Luis, stumbled into the kitchen. He had been sleeping, as he usually does at 2:30 am. I asked him, "What, do you want a sandwich too?"

He told me to shut up.

I asked him if he was thirsty, and he said that he was.

"There is some apple juice in the fridge," I told him, handing him a glass.

He poured himself some, and, still bleary-eyed and stumbly, went back to his room. I abandoned my sandwich and followed him.

Luis has a queen sized bed, so I laid down along the foot of it. The boy is so small, he doesn't even take up a quarter of it. And, like me, he edges up right to the side of the bed when he sleeps.

"Get out of here, they'll here you!" Luis protested as I loudly complained that his bed was uncomfortable.

"Who'll hear me?" I asked.

"The clowns," he answered, with a tone that is usually reserved for imbeciles.

"What clowns?"

"The ones under the bed!"

"Boy, you don't have to worry about clowns," I admonished, "You just have to know how to fight them."

"What are you talking about?"

"Clowns aren't built for speed. They have big, floppy shoes that make it hard for them to run. They usually wear wigs, and you can pull them down over their eyes so that they can't see. Don't try to punch them in the nose, though. That's the most protected spot on a clown."

I leaned in closer, as if to impart a great secret.

"What you really want to do when fighting clowns is to take out one of the clown cars. See, you blow up just the one car, and you're actually taking out at least 20 clowns."

We laughed hysterically at the idea. I left him to sleep, and, still chuckling, went back to finish making my sandwich.

2011-02-03T09:44:00.000-07:00

Original Post September 20th, 2003

Friday was "Take Your Parent To School Day" at Fees Middle school.

No, I do not attend the school myself.

I had promised my youngest brother Luis that I would accompany him on the mystical journey that is a half-day in the sixth grade. I do not have my one o'clock Italian class on Fridays. Thus, I had no excuse for not going. My mother works as a teacher herself, and from what I understand it is frowned upon for a teacher to leave a group of thirty first-graders alone for even a day.

My older brother I know wouldn't go, my sister is in Mexico, and my younger brother is in the Army. But what kind of excuse is that, really? "Lousy brother, running of to fight in Iraq, sticking me with Luis, make me get up all early on my day off," I grumbled.

But I was curious. The rest of my siblings and I had all gone to school pretty much together, so I always caught wind of their antics. But for the littlest Lopez, Middle School and indeed, school in general, was a solitary struggle. I remember Middle School as being a critical time for me in developing my personality. It was a time when I learned to defend myself with my keen mind rather than my fists. (Although, had my mind been a bit keener I might have realized that if I just kept my mouth shut and stopped insulting the larger kids who already didn't like me I wouldn't have had to worry so much about defending myself.) But I digress...

The Plain-Waffle Blues

I arrived at my parent's house to pick the boy up. He was already dressed and waiting for me. We both partook of waffles. Luis ate his plain. Mine were garnished appropriately with butter and syrup. We finished eating and were on our way.

We arrived to his first class 10 minutes late.

"Heh heh, it's all coming back," I thought.

Luis was sent to the office to report in for being tardy. While he was doing that, I sat in the classroom and acted like I had had nothing to do with it (another skill I learned in Middle School.)

When he returned, it was time for "Writing."

The Blue Chalk Blues

Luis is in several adapted classes so that he can receive more attention from his teachers. I too, knew this pain. I was in an very low math class that I lovingly referred to as "Adapted Math." It wasn't that bad though. I made the best boxes and "learning wheels" in that entire class. Of course, that was in High School, not Middle School... but I digress yet again.

The boy was working on alphabetizing words. He was doing okay, but then he hit the words that begin with the same sets of letters, in this case, "snare," "snort," and "sneer." His teacher spent some time trying to make him understand. Then I took over and spent some time trying to get him to understand. But he wasn't grasping it at all, it seemed. I was getting a bit frustrated, and so was Luis.

"Insanity," said Albert Einstein (not the florist, the physicist) "is performing the same action over and over and expecting different results." (I'm probably slightly misquoting that, but I have never been very good at translating German. (The quote I read was in English, but the latter is still true.))

I spied a chalkboard that someone had deviously tried to hide by hanging on the wall. Fortunately, I have read "The Purloined Letter," and ever since I have been excellent at finding objects hidden in plain sight.

"May I use the chalkboard?" I asked the teacher.

"Of course you may," Teacher replied.

After choosing the blue piece of colored chalk, I furiously began to write the group of words down on the board. As I had begun to suspect, the problem Luis had been having was not with the words per se, but it lay in that he was confusing the order of the beginning sets of letters. After getting him to cross out the letters that were the same, he could then focus on the "a," the "o," and the "e." He arranged them with little difficulty.

We completed the rest of the assignment like that. He got a 100% on the paper, and you know, I like to think that it was my 100% too.

The Blue Shirt Blues

The next class we went to after that was P.E. (Physical Education, which always sounded kind of dirty to me.) While the kids were changing, I waited patiently with a few other parents. One of them was a really odd guy who kept making jokes about computer tech at his work who was also the boss' son. From what I understood he fried a couple of very expensive computers and the guy assured me that it was all really very funny.

It's strange to meet people that are over forty that you are pretty sure nobody likes.

We were all herded down to one of the smaller gymnasiums by two whistle-wielding gym teachers. Once inside, all the children ran around like mad for a minute and then settled into a pretty tight formation of columns and rows. I was impressed. (My Middle School had little numbers painted on the ground for us to stand on, and even then we would have trouble.) The gym teachers led them in a series of stretches. The class was co-ed, and standing there awkwardly while a bunch of 13 year-old boys and girls did jumping-jacks without fail conjured up the image of a very envious Phill. I immediately lost it, and had turn away so that the kids wouldn't think I was laughing at them.

After stretching, they played a game called "Pac-Man" in which a few kids in blue shirts were the ghosts and the rest of them were the Pac-Men. Luis was given a blue shirt and thus was a ghost. An incredibly slow ghost. If the arcade game had had ghosts as slow as that, I could have beaten it with one quarter. The Pac-Men kids could only move along the lines painted on the gym floor, though, so my snail-paced pal managed to tag out a few, and you know, I like to think I managed to tag out a few, too.

The Spelling Bloos.

Luis had another class which was basically English. He had a spelling test, a journal that he had to write in, writing exercises to do, stuff like that. I guess that first class he had was more to reinforce some of the skills he was learning in other classes.

The boy cracked me up in that class. They were all reading The Pinballs by Betsy Byers. I saw it on their desk. "Oh yeah, The Pinballs! They're called that because they get bounced around from place to place, right?" Luis was surprised that I knew. He was even more surprised when the tests were handed out and the first question on it was "Why are they called the Pinballs?" When I told him I wasn't going to help him with his test, he wasn't so much surprised as he was pissed.

I passed the time by re-reading The Pinballs, which I hadn't read in at least nine years. The book was old even the first time I had read it, having been written in 1977. But I enjoyed it then and I was enjoying it now. The book is about three previously-unfamiliar kids who are all placed in the same foster home. A couple things jumped out at me while I was reading in that class. At one point, the sassy, street-smart, rebel girl states that she read that "Someday everybody will be famous for fifteen minutes."

Was this pint-sized punk foretelling the arrival of reality television and it's strangle-hold on prime-time television? This name-calling Nostradamus?

Maybe it was one of those self-fulfilling prophecies.

But what struck me the most was that throughout the majority of the story the kids are just waiting. Hoping and waiting that their respective parents will appear and all their troubles will melt away.

It reminded me of that time in life when all you can really do is wait. Wait and hope. I know I wasn't conscious of it, but 90% of the time when I was a kid I always felt that I was just waiting for things to happen to me. Now that I am older, I realize, it should be just the opposite. I should be out making things happen. But I don't, of course. I've just gotten so good at waiting.

And it's nice to be good at something.

When the tests were all finished, I was not surprised to see that Luis had just made up answers to the reading test. I was pleasantly surprised to see that he had done pretty well on his spelling test. Indeed, throughout the day I had been continuously impressed by what he was capable of. Which is either bad of me, or good of him, depending on how one might choose to look at it.

The Boozeless Blues

The final bell rang, signaling the end of our truncated school day. I drove Luis back home and dropped him off. On my way back to my own house, I stopped to fill up on gas only to discover that my driver's license was missing. I had taken it into the school with me, along with my bank card. The bank card I still had, which was a relief, but I could not find my ID. Perhaps it had slipped out of my pocket when I had been sitting in those little chairs. "Oh well," I sighed, "Maybe it's for the best."

I try to be optimistic. If by some freak chance there is a kid somewhere in that school who looks like me and finds that ID, he's probably going to have a pretty wild weekend.

The End Blues

2010-12-12T00:50:00.005-07:00

I am the clean up crew. Sort of. Torn away from the fundraiser that I was passionately supporting, I find myself at home. To be fair, I have eaten two more burritos than I had planned on this evening, and have embarrassed at least one more co-worker than planned. Employer levels of chagrin were as expected.

Now all I have to do is be at work on time tomorrow morning. In about 6 hours. This should work out okay. Sleep does not come easily. I have spent too many evenings frolicking with fading gods and dying demons. Now they all come to me on quiet weekday evenings. Their immortal hearts break when I tell them, I too, I must meet various daylight responsibilities that keep me alive. Alive and leached bleach white of mystery and wonder. A physics formula expresses the exact amount of inspiration.

Pain will bring you back, I tell them. That universal conduit is ever active. Stakes are raised and stakes are laid. The tears fall, but foolish boy I have many more all whetted on sharper stones than you.

Let's not get all artistic now. I am a dude. I weigh about 200 pounds. I am fairly strong. My speed is average. I can retain a great deal of information, but my ability to access it decreases inversely.

It is likely I did not use that mathematical expression correctly.

Dogs and years lie on the floor around me. Water laps the shores of places I've visited and will never be again. All that love is let go, swirling around in the Milky Way; a star or planet may catch it but if not, away it will go. Frozen.

Frozen, all this energy will be. All our love and hopes and dreams and all those things we wish we had done will end up the same. A frozen chunk of something, unusable. Will we stand around and point out all the things we wish we'd done? That was the time I almost told her I loved her. I kissed her then, but turned away before she could reply.

Regrets may be the secret of entropy. All the things we never wanted to happen will happen forever.

The snarl on my lips is difficult to argue with when the rest of me is frozen cold, so cold.

2010-09-15T15:22:00.002-07:00

Watson and I have just returned from the pet store. Sometimes it seems I am only working to supply my dog habit. I picked up about 40 dollars worth of chew bones. It seems like a lot, but when I leave for work he's certain to chew up $40 worth of something, so I prefer springing for the dog bones. His most expensive chew toy to date has been my Nintendo DS. So in that outlook, I'm actually making money here.

This morning as I lay dreaming, I could swear I woke up to the sound and smell of the ocean. Perhaps an errant seagull had struck my window and flown away before I got my wits about me. But that explanation would just raise a slew of further questions.

I finished reading Tarzan of the Apes by Edgar Rice Burroughs. It's a rollicking good time and is amazingly offensive towards Africans, women, and gorillas. The French receive some glowing praise.

Burroughs' views are fascinating to me. This is Racism with a capital R, and yet it is so different from the discrimination I observe today. While ignorant and offensive certainly, the stereotyping is almost devoid of malice. It's just the way he understands the world and is almost to be expected when people were so...far away from each other, I suppose. Today I imagine thinking abstractly is something of a given. The Gordian Knot is my preferred example for distinguishing kinds of thinking. There's a massive knot in the city of Gordium. Nobody can untie it. Alexander the Great comes by and just slices the thing in half. For the win.

So I think I can understand why these views were so tenacious at the time. What worries me now as I grow up is that we don't have that excuse anymore. People can learn about other cultures and beliefs and political systems without great effort. But they don't.

Something practical I learned from Tarzan: lassoing my prey. Tarzan was fond of climbing above his quarry and dropping a rope down over its neck. Then he would jump down and stab it or wrestle it or both. In my case I was attempting to bring in a frightened little dog from the exercise yard at work. Small dogs are tricky. They are extremely likely to bite out of fear. Being bitten by them is not pleasant and the injury often superficial, but that isn't the reason I try to be careful. My concern is that following a dog bite, any dog bite, certain protocol must be followed according to Arizona law. It usually doesn't end well for the dog.

This little dog was snarling and lunging as I approached it. I knew the dog; I had carried it out to the exercise yard in the first place. She had only been in the shelter a day and was still nervous about the whole thing. Having been outside for a bit, I think she developed a taste for it.

When she saw that her ferocious display was not causing me to run away in terror, she took the initiative and ran. She couldn't go far; it was a small side yard. There was an electrical utility meter, a waist-high faded green metal box, on a square of concrete next to the chain link fence. My little dog had wedged herself in the right angle formed between the fence and the box. In her little foxhole she could see me if I approached from either side. I considered rushing her, but in that narrow space her 15 pounds and four legs gave her the advantage over my 220 pounds of biped.

The dust kicked up from our merry chase glowed fiery red in the setting sunlight. I pondered my next approach as the dust settled lazily around me. The thin coat of sweat on my face felt gritty. The traffic noises of weary commuters almost drowned out the low growl from behind the utility box. I grinned. This was my concrete jungle.

I made a loop in the thin black nylon leash and I crawled onto the utility box. I peeked over the edge. The little white dog was growling fiercely at the spot she had last seen me. The very spot where I now wasn't. I took a moment to feel very clever. I dropped the loop neatly around her neck. The poor dog was utterly confused and it was a few seconds before she looked up and saw me grinning down at her. Like most people, she was not pleased.

I hopped down and gently tugged her out into the open. She squirmed and snapped. When this failed she became intent on gnawing through the leash. I picked her up, cradled her in my arms, and carried her inside.

2010-09-10T20:48:00.004-07:00

When I was visiting Machu Picchu I wandered off from the tour group and found three small American-suburb style houses with no roofs. They were furnished with some simple furniture, but no beds. I told the guide but I never found that spot again.

That's a lie. I have never been to Machu Picchu. It was just a dream; how I knew it was Machu Picchu I do know. It was only when I looked up some pictures did I discover that the waking world's Machu Picchu does indeed have many ancient domiciles without roofs. (Rooves? Like hoof and hooves? Probably not, but why not?)

It seems I know much more about the world when I'm asleep than I do when I'm awake.

Cheebus, it's almost nine pm. But I still have so much to do. Need to finish the last half of my collection of Philip K. Dick short stories. Still have to listen to a podcast about Lovecraft. Oh, my laundry. I better do that now before I forget.

Done. Er, in the dryer.

I purchased Everything All The Time by Band of Horses and I still haven't listened to the whole thing while lying in the dark. Also Tegan and Sara The Con but I'll probably just dance around to that. In the dark, I guess? Does that still count as brooding? I hope so. Brooding requires practice and if I'm not careful I may end up going out and enjoying myself.

My bike is fixed. I've been meaning to ride that thing.

What else. I already made a strawberry-banana milkshake and discussed who holds the existing copyrights of Peter Pan with my sister.

What else. Play with the dog? Ongoing, technically. I usually read in bed, lying on my back holding the book up in the air. Despite being markedly out-of-shape, my arms and shoulders are still very strong and I credit this to my reading habits.

Watson and I play a sort of quick-draw game. He will jump on the bed and drop his Kong (the only toy that has survived for more than a month) onto the bed next to me. Then he waits. When I reach the end of a page I snap my hand down and try to grab the toy while he lunges for it. Watson usually reaches it first. He is closer to the toy and his level of concentration is well beyond mine. But sometimes I get it first. Sometimes we reach a draw, which is sort of a loss for me because I get bitten.

Something I was supposed to look up. Tick fever. That's it. A dog at work may have tick fever. He's an adult brown-and-white pointer mix and he's really sick. He's not eating or drinking much. I administered some subcutaneous fluids to him this morning. Usually, the fluids will make a large visible bubble under the skin that will slowly dissipate into the body. But not this guy. His body was sucking up the fluids as quickly as I could get them in. I worry about him.

I was headbutted by a mastiff yesterday. I was bending down to give him an oral de-worming treatment and he was jumping up to lick my face. Our heads are about the same size so it was almost an equal transfer of energy, like those little silver balls in a Newton's Cradle. Click.

So away I go to read and do those other things. Laundry should be dry by now. All my REI clothing dries very quickly.

Sometimes I feel like an empty suit laid out on a bed.

2010-09-07T12:14:00.004-07:00

I woke up last night to find ants amassing in the kitchen so I dumped acid all around. Which is how I solve most of my problems.

Ender is ill and I am home watching him. He has a fever and he threw up a little but I suspect that's because he ate an entire bowl of popcorn. We've all done it.

Now he's passed out on the couch. It pleases me that he already has life pretty much figured out.

Have you ever been up all night drinking and then the next morning to discover that you've invited a bunch of people to be friends on Facebook?

2010-08-31T22:38:00.002-07:00

Someday in the future, the world will be divided into two mega-corporation-nation-states: Lance-Corp and Ostrich-Abuv. These two massive entities control all of the Earth's resources and have decided that we, the consumer, will only need two things. Lances and flying ostriches.

There are some by-products. The Lance-Corp factories spew molten effluence. Behind your local Ostrich-Abuv is a pile of bad eggs, some of which will hatch into pterodactyls.

An entrepreneur from the past will awaken from cryogenic sleep into this world of fire and feathers. He (or she) will get a loan and purchase a flying ostrich and lance. Whatever is left over she will use to buy some clones. She will take to the skies and bring down both mega-corporations by killing them all in true capitalistic fashion.

At least that's how I think it will happen.

* * * *

I've been working a lot more at the animal shelter. Sometimes I take care of the cats and sometimes I take care of the dogs. I like them both. I have a stronger rapport with the dogs since I'm a big goofy idiot that likes water and will eat anything. Also I drool.

The cats tend to be more dignified. Felines have a cool, collected demeanor and grace of movement that I aspire to but am confident I will never achieve. They're also a lot pointier. Cats can't seriously injure me. Hmm...maybe if they went for the eyes. I've been bitten once so far but I felt bad for the cat because it bit my knuckle and its mouth was stuck on it like a little kid trying to eat a caramel apple. I have big knuckles. And sometimes they are covered in caramel.

My cats are my little tigers. Fierce, but incredibly vulnerable.

* * * * *

After a while, most of my Pandora stations begin to sound roughly the same.

2010-08-24T21:35:00.002-07:00

Borges taught me that when undertaking any difficult task, it is best to imagine myself as having already have done it. I think he referred to it as imposing the future upon oneself. "Time forks perpetually toward innumerable futures."

If the path is not fixed, a person can become lost among the forks, strolling down paths of a time not quite their own. This is not a literal thing, except as it occurs in a mind. The absent-minded, dreamers, artists, and the mad are resisting the Now. It is untenable; the Now demands much.

I think about good ideas and bad ideas and how, at first, they can indistinguishable. When the chosen course reaches its resolution, then we can sit back and say "Well that was a bad idea."

Supposedly making an attempt is always a good idea.

Sleep will find me soon. That is the proper time to explore the other forks. See what could have happened. Dreams are not prophetic. People have believed them so on occasions when the paths do not seem to differ. But they always differ, although it is not apparent. Every dream is of the way the Now didn't happen.

Difficult tasks lie ahead. So I will sleep and dream and prepare myself as best I can. I will push away fear because fear is not useful. I'm always afraid of the wrong thing anyway.

2010-08-20T22:41:00.002-07:00

I knew Jenny Hanover a long time ago. We were young, or at least young enough that I didn't immediately think she was completely mad. Her hobby, as she put it, was "shadow walking." This slightly ominous name was her term for lucid dreaming, or being aware of dreaming while dreaming. That's how I understood it at first. Since her disappearance, I haven't been able to understand much of anything. All I can do is try to organize the events by the order in which they occurred and keep looking for a pattern; those cause-and-effect moments that let me convince myself I have any control over what happens to me.

And maybe learn enough to keep me out of the insane asylum.

Jenny explained to me that experienced shadow walkers (her term, sometimes just "walkers") mostly spend their sleeping hours dreaming like everyone else. Shadow walking is a controlled process that requires careful preparation and should never be attempted alone.

"Like scuba diving?"

"Not like scuba diving," Jenny snapped. "You can die scuba diving. If something goes wrong after we've crossed the shadows we'll just end up back here." She set her backpack on the floor of my bedroom and began placing its contents in a row.

"Well I feel a lot better," I smiled, leaning across the doorway with my arms crossed. I was trying to look cool. Having a girl stay the night in my apartment was a rare thing in itself, and her backpack full of unusual objects was both intriguing and frightening. I recalled urban myths about stolen kidneys and began to wish I had made my roommate Phil stay in tonight. Then my socks slid on the hardwood floor and I fell backwards into the hallway.

"Ow."

Jenny didn't look up. "Still not cool."

* * * *

2010-08-20T01:47:00.002-07:00

I just finished reading China Mieville's The City and The City. There are no unicorns in it. Despite this glaring omission, it is still an intriguing noir tale of a city with unusual borders.

It is dangerous for me to read crime noir. In my head I start referring to women as "dames" and whiskey and cigarettes seem like part of a complete breakfast. The world outside seems full of mystery and sinister plots and unicorns. Maybe not unicorns. Not the nice ones, anyway. Everyone is up to something. Scheming. Brooding. Whinnying ominously.

But after that book I read The World Jones Made by Philip K. Dick. Now I'm more worried about giant protozoan spores falling from space, and also of gaining the ability to see the future. This book was written well before Alan Moore's Watchmen, which also has a character who can see the future but cannot change it. Hmm...Slaughterhouse 5, too. These guys are just piling up.

So I don't want to be able to see into the future. I would only misuse the power, like predict a person's movements and make them step into a pie every time they are on their way to a formal event.

Time to start learning how to make pies.

2010-08-19T08:17:00.003-07:00

Fiction

She is like the desert. Hauntingly beautiful with long stretches of an inhospitable sameness. She is water but it is best to bring your own. She has left me now to wander through sand and shale. Or perhaps I left her, slipping away under the cover of a monsoon storm. Red sky and thunder and fat drops of dusty rain. For a moment there are rivers carving a little deeper into the earth but pretty much the same for a long time.

The desert is a poor host and does not know how to treat the waters. Past the point of feeling spurned. Her dark eyes flash darkly than pass over me just as quickly back to the horizon. She loved me once. Her instincts know how to hurt me best by not seeing me at all. Not to be ignored. To ignore someone properly requires a great deal of attention. Time, the memory has been relegated to that sameness where she puts everything else.

My eyes now, which looked upon her with love and with love met, are grains of sand shifting against grains of sand. The water we shared baked into the clay. The crumbling tessellations formed by cracks could hardly hold a footprint.

Her instincts are right. I can't remember how long I've been here. Trying to find the last reflection of the way I was when I still loved her, and seeing nothing. Staring back when I look into the shrinking puddles. There is only the reflection of the sky with its wisp of cloud, and the gnarled trees, and the sand, and there is no place left for me.

So I'll go. I'll show her. I'll forget her too. If I cannot defeat a desert I will make my own. She in hers and me in mine, the forgotten and the forgetting. Perhaps all deserts start this way.

2010-08-15T23:46:00.002-07:00

I've been going about this backwards. The last part was written first and the first part is being written last. The middle part is still the middle part.

This is a picture of a Space Princess. Democracy may be all the rage on this planet, but the rest of the galaxy consists predominantly of monarchies.

* * * *

Look what I found! I started a journal/letter/epistle to my friend methinks, as I knew her then and think of her still. Back when people still used Instant Messenger programs to chat online, our time zones synced up pretty well. I was always up at some ungodly hour of the night and methinks lives in India so for her it was usually mid-morning. I used to refer to her as a "Daywalker," my term for people who didn't stay up all night brooding for no apparent reason.

Yes, exactly. We would have conversations. We don't talk a great deal now, but our lives were so different then that simply still knowing each other now has taken on a slightly reverential quality. For me anyway. I try very hard not to inspire reverence in anyone and I am repelled and suspicious by anyone who views me any more than "somewhat tolerable."

So this is for her. There is more, but not all of it has reached the 3-year mark and as such, will not be disclosed here. But here's this.

7-30

Dear methinks,

This notebook is yours and I hope you like it as much as I do. The cover reminds me a tiny bit of a circus tent or maybe a telly struggling to get reception.

Odd. I never say "telly."

These composition notebooks usually have questionable color schemes. They are hardy and inexpensive. Perhaps Hemingway and Picasso shunned these in favor of their precious Moleskin(TM) Brand Notebooks but I will write on any portable surface including my hand, napkins, and dollhouse walls. Napkins instill the greatest camaraderie. Different colors, sizes, odd folds. They are better representations of my mind, scattered as it is with crumpled thoughts. And if the idea is no good or good enough to transfer to another home then voila! I still have a perfectly good napkin.

These notebooks used to have a larger space at the top of the page. These new editions have squozen in a couple more lines. Multiply that by 200 pages and that's 400 more lines! What a deal! This boon of space must be cherished. I shall try not to skip too many lines without the best of reasons.

My clock is glowing red midnight at me. I must try to rest and heal. I have many scratches from scrabbling about on rooftops. And a few from leaping from them. Goodnight!

7-31-07

Dear methinks,

Today is the first day of my torrid affair with Paxil. It is a common antidepressant that regulates seratonin [sic]. I've heard mixed reviews from friends who have used it but I'm going to do science and find out for myself. This journal, your journal, is part of the experiment. Have you read "Flowers For Algernon"? It's a short story told in journal format. The main character is of below-average mental capacity until an experiment makes him a genius...briefly. The author uses spelling and grammar to illustrate his rise and fall. So be sure to watch me for spelling errors. I'm usually pretty good about it.

My friend Tana sent me a text message about her day rafting on the river in Idaho, a state north of here. I warned her to alternate paddling on both sides of the raft or else only one arm will get all the exercise and she'll end up with one huge arm.

Tana and I are dating. We haven't discussed the details of our relationship. The conversation we're going to have drifts around us like a balloon someone has tied around my wrist so it won't blow away.

We've only been dating a week. We've been friends for over a year. She is younger than I am, 21 to my 25. When she begins school, she will do so at NAU, a university in northern Arizona. The North seems to be conspiring to keep her from me. The blame rests upon me, or it may, if I follow my plan to move to New York City. NAU is richly forested and gets snow in the winter. Its climate, so different from my dusty desert, belies its proximity. A couple hours of mildly reckless driving will bring me to her. And to the snow, in the winter. I don't care for snow. Interesting stuff, but I rather enjoy it only at a distance.

I've only known one Arizona to New York relationship attempt, and though they struggled mightily to connect across the country in the end it proved untenable. Middle America can be a formidable obstacle.

The rain came today. About this time of year the frail shell of the desert is ravaged by waters celestial as they're banished from the Heavens. Encrusted in concrete as our city is, the waters become violent commuters, ignoring speed limits, stop signs, and traffic lights. We put up with it because we know the waters are just tourists here picking up souvenirs from people's landscaping and going on their way.

2010-08-13T22:20:00.002-07:00

It's hard to believe I've had this webjournal for seven years. It's changed a lot since 2003; I suppose it had to along with my own stubborn progress and our preferences in mass media.

The "mass" is the biggest difference. With so much information, it has to be compressed. Even Twitter pretty much proves that people want little delicious niblets of information, and lots of them. So there's that.

I've been reluctant to bring the blog around to meet my new Facebook account for that reason. I guess I don't want to be a brand. Or maybe I do want to be a brand but only if it's a cereal with fun marshmallow bits. "Guillermo: Part of Your Complete Breakfast-Oh-Damn-He-Is-Eating-Your-Breakfast." TM.

So right, be concise. But that's not why I'm here, is it? No, I come to the internet to waste time or maybe to look up the cast of the original A-Team. Shouldn't there be more stuff like this, shouldn't there be someone going against the grain and writing long-winded doubt-filled musings on how they're dissatisfied with themselves? I have a whole stack of notebooks filled with exactly that. Probably it's most interesting to me, but this is about connection, finding common ground and sharing experiences. How many times have I believed I was in love? How many friends have I raised a glass with who I never see anymore? Should I have used "whom" just then? Why are many of the questions I had when I was 18 the same as the questions I have now that I'm 28?

The biggest difference is the hopefulness. Oh, I have plenty of pages of terrible poetry, but the hope is still there. Ironically, my impulsiveness led to the more interesting episodes in my life. Now, with my diligent adherence to my brain medication, my impulsiveness is...not very.

I can already picture people who haven't known me as long thinking, "Wait, you were even more impulsive before?!"

Well, yes. Heh, check the blog archives. I couldn't go two weeks without doing something I horribly regretted and writing a bad poem about it which I also regretted.

It certainly wasn't boring.

Seven years and many scars ago.

I'm hardly unhappy. I can still get pretty moody now and then but I don't do anything drastic. The period of time following the death of Luis does not count, because, I think I was supposed to go a little crazy and be a little terrible. Also, driving 4,000 miles was surprisingly therapeutic. Not nearly enough, but it certainly helped.

That reminds me, I kept a video journal of that particular journey. I'll have to put them up on my Youtube channel and it will probably be in annoyingly small chunks since I don't have any video-editing software.

Many years ago, my friend Juliet worked the graveyard shift at a hotel and had read everything I had ever written because she had nothing better to do. So when I was writing, it felt like I was writing to her. Not just her, let's not get all romantic here (unless you're feeling...amorous). In my head, I could picture my friends as I tapped away at my little laptop keyboard. It felt personal, and it was personal.

It was a brave new world, and I knew people by their writing. Images used to be a pain in the ass, I'd have to find a site to host them, upload them, size them, all that nonsense. So writing reigned. And it will again.

In this glut of information and meta-information, looking inward is as vital as ever. The unexamined life is not worth living, or so I hear. I've been trying to understand this world and my place in it for so long that I've become complacent. Like checking the mailbox for epiphanies. Nope, nothing today, maybe tomorrow.

I'll try harder. Theoretically, I should be smarter now today than I was seven years ago. Maybe I'm close.

But now it is time to go to bed and fall asleep listening to H.P. Lovecraft stories on my ipod. I read a science article that explained it isn't possible to read in dreams (okay, it was an episode of Batman: The Animated Series) but I can. Last night I dreamed of a huge book of illustrations. One drawing spread across both pages, showing hooded monks working by candlelight in a huge cavern or monastery. Across the top was the word "Illuminate." It could have been a reference to the illuminated manuscripts from days of yore, but my dreams usually aren't that clever.

Then again, it is possible that I'm much more clever in my head than in the real world. This has also been suggested to me by more than a few people.

So, once more unto the breach, dear friends. Armed with a pen and an introspectiveness that borders on narcissism, here I go again.

2010-07-11T19:11:00.001-07:00

The Care Bears shouldn't have stopped after adding the Care Bear Cousins. From there, they could have springboarded to even deeper, more complex feelings, like "Regrets Never Asking That Girl To The Prom" Bear or "This Isn't Where I Saw Myself In Ten Years" Giraffe.

2010-05-27T00:00:00.002-07:00

Back when I had a Blackberry phone, I would send myself notes:

In Chicago, but not Chicago. Children on leashes are a sign of the end of civilization. Indigenous peoples and others who live with the seasons understand that in the event of being raised by fools, a child may be carried or gently bound to delay the onset of walking.

* * * *

War with angels and epic battles for heaven and hell and the role of humans in the universe. Warm beds, soft pop music, and electric fans humming seem the kinds of things that prevent epics from coming near, adventure is a skittish woodland creature that unnerves around comfort and bolts at the first sign of complacency.

* * * *

Weary legs and snappish mouth
Crinkling corners blurry eyes
High red rosy once now past
Bursus burstus grounded goo

Peeling down degloving handtips
Flaking phalanges rubbed leather black
Haste-cut nails lengthen into obtuse angles and lonely, open triangles

Fingerprints lifted and filed on file
Whorls sworls stored as timeless as the budget as forever as long as technology recognizes hands

2010-05-10T13:28:00.002-07:00

"Well all the time you spend trying to get back what's been took from you, more is going out the door."
-No Country For Old Men

2010-05-09T00:44:00.002-07:00

It has never been a secret, my being a nerd. This can be detrimental to my social life in surprising ways. For instance, tonight I was late for a party because I was dreaming I was attending Bladerunner Academy.

As I said, surprising ways. Of course, the next time anyone needs me to figure out if someone is a replicant or not, I'll be ready. At some parties, this happens a lot. So I hear. Or I think I may have heard.

Whatever it is, I'll be ready.

2010-05-06T02:54:00.002-07:00

Learning about the world mainly through books, as I have, leaves me stuck with a geography of time along with space. Traveling becomes difficult. Kelly and I went to Monterey, California. We visited Cannery Row, but it wasn't Cannery Row, not the place Steinbeck told me about. This was no bustling, stinking, raucous port of fishy industry. This was mostly a series of shops and restaurants and a really cool aquarium.

So now my Cannery Row became everyone else's Cannery Row.

My Los Angeles suffered a similar fate. It is not Philip Marlowe's Los Angeles, where if they look like a lowlife they probably are, and if they look high class then they're probably worse. I walked those streets at night and I didn't get hit with a tire iron, not even once.

What's this world coming to.

2010-05-03T02:23:00.001-07:00

Historically, historians have realized that anything a writer writes while drunk is crap. For instance:

"Sir, I will punch you."

"Yes, but I propose that in punching me, you are really punching yourself."

"I accept this risk."

PUNCH

End Scene.

2010-04-19T21:51:00.002-07:00

The other day I walked in the living room and found Remy sitting on the floor reading The Necronomicon. I have to remember to quit leaving that thing lying around. He looked up at me. "Monsters?"

"Yes, monsters. But those monsters are a bit advanced for you. Those are a bit advanced for me."
I put it back with the DVDs and we went off to find something else to do.

My mother took them to church with her on Sunday. I'm not a huge fan of church, but one thing the Catholic Church does pretty well is monster hunting. The Old Testament is wild times; there are magical creatures, talking animals, curses, and there was magic, real magic all over the place. Any king worth his salt mine had a few soothsayers, a couple of magicians, and at least one ancient evil chained up in the dungeons.

Jesus hunted monsters too. Well, more demonic force types, not the corrupted nature monsters we deal with nowadays. Jesus cast demons out of people all the time. He makes it look easy, but ripping a multi-dimensional entity off without destroying the soul is hard. It's not like you just show the demon the door and out it goes.

Jesus was something of a contradiction as a monster hunter, since there is at least one documented case of him creating the undead. Maybe he trained it or something, but I can't say I approve.

The Catholic Church may prepare them for monsters conceptually, but their methods are obsolete. Demons and devils and fallen angels and all that died out a long time ago. They had their heyday, but humans have gotten pretty good at this evil stuff all on their own. No demand, no supply. Capitalism strikes on the spiritual level.

Maybe this is why the Catholic Church is so intent on retaining its own monsters.

So no Necronomicon for the twins. They're not yet four years old. Then again, this may be the time to focus on the transdimensional stuff because they're nowhere near ready to engage any physical monsters. Mostly I teach them identification and evasion. Like the kelpie, common to Scotland and Ireland but they can turn up in any body of water.

The foolish wikipedia page does not say how to escape when you are stuck to their glue-like skin (besides cutting off the body part). The solution isn't pleasant, but a far sight better than being drowned and eaten. If you are stuck on the back of a kelpie and it is heading for water, you must soil yourself. You should be pretty terrified; use this to your advantage. Vomiting will also work.

The kelpie responds pretty much the same way anyone else would. Once you are tossed from its back, get as far away from that body of water as possible. Most kelpie can't get too far from the water. The kelpie is vain and will be furiously cleaning itself so you should be fine.

Have I mentioned this before? I may have. I have been focusing on monsters that are particularly dangerous to children. You're next, Church.

2010-04-09T22:56:00.004-07:00

One of the most difficult aspects of my relationship with writing is my inability to avoid the inevitable. Though I don't believe in Fate...well, I sort of have vague leanings towards reductionism and a clockwork universe. Though I don't believe in Fate in some romantic astrological way, writing feels like I'm moving along one linear timeline with a definite end. There is a finite amount (unknown, but finite) that I'm ever going to write (or live/laugh/love/what have you but here specifically "write") and I can only move forward on this line, writing along, a spider descending a single strand of silk towards the ravenous salmon of uncertainty.

What?

There are times, like this time, that I know what I want to write but I don't want to actually go through it. It reminds me of jumping off cliffs into water and I know I'll be fine hell I've already done it three times already that's why we drove all the way up here to Sedona...and there is always the moment of hesitation. Looking over the edge into murky green water, trying to remember to jump far enough to avoid the underwater rock, and hesitating, always hesitating. And the spiral of doubt because it is the hesitation that could make this all go horribly wrong this time.

I'm already up here, and climbing back down would be harder than jumping. I may be a coward, but I am a lazy coward.

Kelly and I had flown to Orange County to go to Disneyland with her mother and sister. It was Spring Break and many flights were full. As I fly on a space available basis, Kelly had gone ahead and I, as a single passenger, would be much more likely to snag an open seat. It worked out pretty well; I only had a couple of hours to wait before my flight. I enjoy the airport. I met people, we talked about spring training and the recent Paul McCartney show (which I did not attend but I would have gone with you if you'd asked), and local spots for drunken antics. I was an expert on exactly one of these things, but that did not stop me from giving my opinions and making claims about the way things were "back in my day".

A shiny metal counter with stools and electrical outlets was positioned awkwardly by an equally shiny metal pillar. It was designed for people with laptops, but as I am brown of skin and larger of bulk most people with laptops tend to let me sit where I want. It seemed like a good time to write. I pulled out an empty notebook and did so.

This is where it all ties in to what I mentioned in the beginning. All the things I'd only thought about writing queued up nicely and orderly, and then waited. They didn't have to wait long. Or it didn't seem long. I actually took a little over an hour for the few lines that follow and when I finished my hand hurt and my back hurt and everything seemed brighter in there.

Just two pages. Not even real pages but dinky little composition notebook pages. I snapped the thing shut and threw it back into my backpack.

We had a good time at Disneyland, as always. Kelly loves the childlike wonder, and I love pointing out the elitism, embedded racism, and anti-semitism sprinkled throughout the park. I didn't even look at the notebook until we were home and unpacking. I re-read it and sighed. Yes, this is what I had been avoiding. But now it is done and let's see if I cleared that underwater rock.

This is the content of those two pages:

When my little brother died, he left me alive with and with a sunburnt soul. Thirteen months have passed and still no tan. Sandpapered surfaces still surprise me in odd places. Bumps and brushes snag and smear. Dry, curling edges flake into my throat, suck into my lungs and take to the air again. Who I was falls like ash every time I use my new voice, the higher, huskier, revolution of a vinyl record left too long in the sun. Honeybee honey when the bees've all gone, pouring slowly with amber crackles. An over-aware voice finding its feet by coasting to subject to subject to subject. All the credible noises of interest belonged to the old voice.

Each day after his death, dawn finds a thousand archers stringing a thousand bows. At their feet are featherless arrows, straight as truth, with heads of rusting iron. Ever are they ready.

His death and my shrieking, blistered birth into an armorless world.

He would want you to be happy. It doesn't matter what he wants, he is dead.

Keep him in your heart. He is he is and there is no space for the blood.

Come to church to celebrate his spirit. Were I ever to meet your god, I would tear away his throat and stare as the blood soaked through his beard.

There is no balm here. The cure for the flesh calls for a poultice of bone.

My eyes see farther but no better. Death's passing smears a static blur to their edges and makes an abyss of their eyes. These are the traces of the oldest sadness. I still feel light enter my pupils but I do not feel it strike. Perhaps we are all sharing the same pupil, a massless dark that has enough for everyone.

It is harder now to be afraid. Fear still requires life, pain still requires nerves, screaming still takes so very much breath.

* * * * * * *

It was supposed to be about a pony.

So, yeah, that's out of the way and I can move along to the next bit of writing that awaits me. Not that it will necessarily be on a different subject or not use so many commas, but it won't be that. It's done, it is written, and now I can write the next thing.

What is written is always in the present, and this further confuses my timeline. Sliding along this path, turning everything into Nows before it can become Thens. These things I write pile up in my lap, in my arms, increasing my mass as I approach my ending. Well, wherever down the strand my ending is, I hope it is huge and maybe full of gasoline. If there isn't a kick-ass explosion that can be seen from space, know that I will be sorely disappointed and probably blame everyone but myself.

2010-04-02T12:20:00.002-07:00

Come with me on this one.

Using only song names from one artist, please answer these questions. Try not to repeat a song title.

Selected Artist:

Iron and Wine

Male or female:

Boy With a Coin

Describe Yourself:

He Lays in the Reins

How do you feel:

Fever Dream

Describe where you currently live:

My Lady's House

If you could go anywhere, where would you go:

House by the Sea

Your Favorite form of Transportation:

Carousel

Your Best Friend is:
Jezebel

You and your best friends are:

Wolves (Song of the Shepherd's Dog)

Favorite Time of Day:

Each Coming Night

If your life was a TV show, what would it be called:

Flightless Bird, American Mouth

What is life to you:

Love and Some Verses

Your last relationship:

16, Maybe Less

Your fear:

Cinder and Smoke

What is the best advice you have to give:

The Devil Never Sleeps

How would you like to die?

Naked As We Came

My soul's present condition:

Resurrection Fern

My motto:

Free Until They Cut Me Down

This was an interesting exercise. I suggest trying it.

2010-03-25T13:24:00.002-07:00

I've been playing with a widget that quizzes me on countries and their locations. Let us be thankful I was not in charge of World War Two. Kazakhstan would have been liberated like 15 times and the refugees would have ended up in the Republic of Macedonia instead of Switzerland. Oh, Europe. You have always been my Achilles' Heel.

2010-03-19T17:01:00.002-07:00

Sibbitt and I continue our discussion on weapons and the role of the citizen.

I have indeed been discussing "Government" as a monolithic entity, and in the assumption that this imaginary Government would want to destroy me. In a scenario where a hostile force sought to control a population rather than destroy it entirely, personal firearms are absolutely would certainly prevent it, especially in the US.

I'm happy to hear about The Oathkeepers.

I should also point out that when I read the news, I am painfully aware of the gatekeepers of this information and that simply because it is not being reported does not mean it is not happening. I strongly suspected this to be the case with cases of self-defense; such instances would likely be reported in the local news precinct, but probably not nationally unless a bunch of disabled puppies were involved.

Many, many times I have come across news reports of horrible crimes perpetrated on those who wanted to defend themselves but were unable and I've wished they had just had one gun somewhere in the house. Or at least tear gas grenades.

Again, I tend to feel this way towards people I perceive to be less capable of defending themselves physically.

I'm also for the Dune Home Defense System: The gom jabbar, a little needle tipped with meta-cyanide. I wonder if those would be legal.

So thanks for the information, Sibbitt. As usual, I feel better about most things and worried about a whole slew of new things.

2010-03-18T11:41:00.002-07:00

The role of firearms in my life is one I think about often. As with each and every amendment, the right to bear arms is a response to prevent a specific condition that would endanger the civil liberties of The People. In many cases, the amendment also seeks to uphold the virtues we want to see in our government as well as in ourselves as citizens and active participants.

Some are just disasters. Eighteenth Amendment, prohibition of alcohol? When I view the Amendments in context and as a continuing process of striving towards a unreachable ideal, the spirit of the law, if not the letter, begins to transcend the nightmarish technicalities and inevitable ironies of this very difficult process.

The right to bear arms seeks to allow citizens that are not part of government institution to protect themselves against force, physical force implemented by a government institution. In my apocalyptic view of things, I assume this means the Government wants to destroy or enslave me through armed conflict. I like this idea. Then the dang old irony again: How do you love something you are willing to destroy? The United States is like my parents, and maybe your parents. I love them and want them to love me, but man are they totally wrong about a lot of things.

Fear is not love. Should the Government with a capital "G" ever choose to destroy me, I don't think any firearm would protect me. Not anymore. Back in ye olde days, when it was all musket-to-musket and knives on sticks, maybe. Now that we have the deadliest, most bad-ass military ever, victory seems unlikely. Because the military is under control of the Government, and it is the most directly controlled. And the police. Pretend that a crazed police chief orders his officers to my house to arrest me because he didn't like my facial hair. The order is wrong, and I know it is wrong. Is it my duty as a citizen to take up arms against this tyranny, to battle men and women who are doing their duty? Is it my duty to surrender peacefully to avoid bloodshed? It's a tough choice, hanging on my strength of principle and amount of faith.

I have the right to defend myself. Do I have faith in the United States to not resist physically and hope the truth comes out in our judicial system? I think either decision would have to compromise something I believe in.

The right to bear arms is a good right, but I don't think a single person or even a militia would be able to withstand a government-led assault. In a scenario where every citizen is armed, the Government still controls our resources. If all of Phoenix started a revolution, shutting off our water would wipe most of us out before we could fire a shot. Sadly, we would probably tear each other apart fighting for the remaining resources. While I believe that people are not inclined to harm each other physically under normal circumstances, try not having a drink of water for a few days. You will not be yourself.

I believe in the right to bear arms. I believe there is no weapon I could acquire that would protect me from an organized assault by my state and federal government. Kinda hurts my pride.

I suppose a gun might be useful in self-defense. The effectiveness of such a defense plan kinda depends on me being prepared, and if so prepared, how I will actually know the proper course of action. I could see myself really fucking up a rescue attempt, I mean. I believe this now, even with my Army Basic Combat training. Mostly because I was trained how to fight on a battlefield, not in my kitchen or at the neighborhood grocery store.

As a bit of a side note, in Arizona I am allowed to carry handguns into bars and all kinds of places. The likelihood that I will be shot by a police officer due to a simple misunderstanding will skyrocket so I probably won't attempt this. Police have to make difficult decisions quickly in complex, high-pressure situations. If I am actually armed, the decision for an officer who is rightly concerned with protecting their own life becomes much more simple. I'm using firearms in this example but the same goes for knives, baseball bats, rocks.

In another irony of government, the onus is on me to behave appropriately during an encounter with law enforcement. Like my other example, do I believe I am right? Do I believe it enough to do battle with agents of law enforcement? What if I'm wrong? Even if I know for certain they are wrong, what is the proper role of dissent for a citizen in my situation? Another time when maybe there is no right thing to do.

Heh, I don't mean to sound indifferent towards the staggering difficulty in enforcing laws and maintaining public safety. But the irony abounds. Whenever someone I've never met with a gun walks up to me and starts telling me to do things, my natural instinct is not towards polite cooperation; it's more like RUN RUN SERPENTINE SERPENTINE. Biologically it's quite a conundrum.

Wait...I was saying something unrelated to dodging bullets. No, it is related; protecting myself against people who want to harm me. The tendency is to consider everyone who wants to kill someone a criminal, but not the person who kills that person. This is often the case, but it is a precarious assumption. Myself, I cannot think of any thing that would cause government agents to want to kill me, but I'm certain there are people who have considering doing me great harm for personal transgressions that weren't actually laws.

So should I kill them? "I'm just going to kill you; why are you taking it so personally?" Hmm.

This is more of a general musing; I lean towards pacifism but I am well aware that I am physically capable of killing without any actual weapon. A firearm would be most useful to me in the event that my opponent was using a firearm and had announced his arrival and intent in some way.

It is possible to train for such a situation, but all the anecdotal evidence seems to suggest that accurate simulations are impossible. I've heard stories and had actual police tell me about the mishaps that occur when drawing a firearm during a confrontation. Safetys will still be on, shots will miss from 10 feet away, weapons will discharge unintentionally. One police officer I spoke to had pulled his gun for the first time and had fired every single round before he had drawn it level. That time everyone was okay, the criminal had been terrified and given up immediately after.

I scour the news for stories about citizens protecting themselves and each other with their personal firearms. It doesn't seem to happen as often as I'd hope or expect. Police are by far the primary defenders of the population, even in states like mine which allows great liberty for carrying firearms.

If I were in a wishing mood, I would wish that along with our right to bear arms, we would take an active interest in taking care of each other in all the other, much more common ways.

I believe that weapons rights are important on principle, but I've come to accept that firearms are not really very useful at protecting me from the threats I expect to encounter in my beloved United States.

Also, I've come to love shooting watermelons with shotguns. Or pumpkins after Halloween when they're practically giving them away. Sometimes Nature is kind and bestows upon Mankind giant fruit with hard outer rinds and rich gooey innards.

Certainly Americans should embrace the responsibility of weapon ownership. And while we're at it, we should as vigorously defend all those other amendments that make this country worth fighting for.

Except that prohibition of alcohol one.

2010-03-10T11:06:00.003-07:00

And you're dead.

This is how most monster hunters die. They enter some evil pit of dank horrors and then encounter something they didn't expect.

The two seconds that it takes to tilt your head and wonder "What the hell is that?" is long enough for most monsters. Preparation is the key to survival.

Which brings me to the wedding. Jared Sibbitt has long been my greatest ally and mentor in surviving the wilds of the world, from the Sierra Nevada to the Waffle Houses of the Carolinas. Sibbitt will probably deny this for modesty's sake, so to be fair it was the wilderness itself that taught me the lessons; Sibbitt just made sure I stayed alive long enough to learn them.

This June, Jared and his delightful love Risa will be getting married. I have the honor of being in the wedding party as the Grooms Gurg. Quite a synthesis for me, as I only Gurg informally, up to now. It's an odd feeling, kind of a grown-up feeling, to be Gurg in a somewhat official capacity.

I'm taking it very seriously.

I will have to straddle two traditions like a pirate might straddle two large marine creatures: the ancient role of the groomsman and, in anthropological terms, relatively new role of Gurg. Hmm...I think I'll use a geological time scale from now on. Makes everything human-related look like it happened practically simultaneously.

In ancient days, the groomsmen had the responsibility and honor of battling the bride's family and their warriors, thus buying the groom enough time to convince the bride to marry him, grab the dowry and run. During these brutal, misogynistic, and awesome times a groomsman could be lost forever, or be found days later in the woods stumbling around naked and covered in Sharpie.

These days, the duties are different. Assisting with minor complications, showing guests their seats, decorating the newlyweds' canoe or what-have-you. There is also the matter of the bachelor party. At the bachelor party, the possible fates of the groomsmen are still very similar to those of ancient times.

The role of Gurg is pretty malleable, and perhaps this is its curse. I have 109 days to regain my fighting form. I have 109 days to brush up on all the random skills I've picked up over the years: making bathtub whiskey, editing 5-paragraph essays, handling poisonous insects and large reptiles, cave exploration, identifying edible native flora, arson, harmonica playing, tax evasion, first aid, rabble-rousing, rabble-wrangling, rabble certifications and permits...

...dog whispering, alchemy, singing along with songs I never heard before, fighting small fires, repairing head-butt holes in drywall, science-fictioning, data analyses, deep sea diving, cliff jumping, tracking (human), urban exploration (also referred to as "trespassing"), tai chi, avoiding military service, driving (motorcycles through 2.5-ton trucks), shoe-shining, baggage handling, hallucinating, finding lost things, pitching woo, fending off woo, intercepting and redirecting woo, hand-to-hand combat, hand-to-foot combat, foot-to-ass combat, eskrima stick-fighting, Shakespearean acting, and processing insurance claims.

Preparation is survival. If I get to that wedding and something makes me say "What the hell is that?", I am dead. Or at least lost in the forest for a while.

2010-03-09T11:27:00.002-07:00

Roughly every 45 minutes I am required to rant about the shortcomings of various works of fantasy. These tirades tend to veer towards Twilight and Harry Potter.

My latest complaint about Harry Potter is the lack of Americans. Get some Americans in there, I say! You have students popping out of the sea and flying in on polar bears from the Arctic or where-have-you, but no Americans? Because an American would have had everything wrapped up by Book 3. We Americans know how to handle dark peoples. And we solve our problems with guns. You don't need to go to school for 7 years learning elaborate magic to kill a dark wizard. Hell, a child can learn to use a gun to lethal effect in under a minute. Very simple point-and-click interface.

An American student, had he been teleported to some strange place with a bunch of guys in robes cavorting around talking about how they were going to kill him, well, Americans can't stand that stuff. Dirty Harry Potter would just blast Voldemort in his flat face. Big-ass snake coming at you? Similar solution. Some Ministry of Magic lady coming around to take over the school? Americans know who takes over a school, and it sure ain't administrators; it's kids with guns.

There are reports of "technology" not working in Hogwart's. So what, like a hammer or a crowbar wouldn't work? You need magic to do anything? Guns are pretty simple machines. A small explosion and then point the shrapnel in the right direction. End of dark wizard.

I would have also set up dark wizard-only drinking fountains. Then I would have poisoned those drinking fountains. Set up an area in the back of that Magic Bus where the Darks have to sit. Then, while they sit, just shoot them. The Side of Good wins again.

A rich elitist young classmate and his goons giving you a hard time? See how superior he feels when he wakes up and finds his familiar's decapitated head on the pillow next to him. American-style.

America's Razor: The simplest solution is often the most permanent.

Dirty Harry Potter would have gotten away with it, too. Plenty of magic-finding devices and trained wizard detectives, but no one knows what to do if someone is garroted. "All right guys, we're looking for someone who has access to piano wire, check and see which students own pianos."

I guess that's all for now. I'll be back in 45 minutes.

2010-03-07T23:40:00.000-07:00

Experimenting with my drawring tablet. A lot of tinkering went into this whale. Much like all whales.

2010-03-07T02:40:00.002-07:00

Taking apart a dryer is relatively easy, entertaining, and educational.

Now what to do with all this wet clothing.

2010-03-05T23:42:00.005-07:00

Weekend night. Work tomorrow. Stomach hurts back hurts head hurts. Perfect time for writing.

Necessary conditions, I suppose. It's difficult for me to do even the things I enjoy doing without the nagging assurance that I have far more reasonable things to be doing.

Take that, Reason! You're next, Causality! Yeah you better run as well Grammer1!1!one

The glorious hole of being a writer is that dreaming counts as research hours. (The length of time dreaming, mind you, not the dream-length. Since dreamtime can seem like years and events may happen simultaneously or you may "remember" events while dreaming that never happened. The accountants, man, they just hate it. And never piss off your accountants, real or otherwise.)

In a food-poisoning-related fever-dream (which can count as time-and-a-half (but don't push it)) I visited a massive interactive zoo. The zoo was interactive, you see, because swaths of land were converted into vastly different climates and biomes and habitats and were all stuck up next to each other. A visitor, such as I, would essentially mount an expedition and travel about for weeks at a time observing creatures that might not be encountered in a lifetime of travel.

But it wasn't entirely safe. Most of the animals weren't life-threatening. Mostly.

The sun was setting over a soupy green lake and dense growth of giant ferns were rustling gently at the water's edge. The ground was reddish, dusty, and hard as clay. This was the Komodo Dragon area. I hadn't seen any of the massive lizards yet, but night was falling and I did not intend to take any chances hanging around.

Throughout the park were these odd little way stations, areas designed to appear as part of their particular environment. The Komodo Dragon way station was large and red. It gave to mind an uneven lump of clay thumped down and gouged at with a spoon. Not terribly stylish, but I guess it matched the overall color scheme. The important feature was the steep sides with handholds that could be climbed by a human, but presumably not a massive reptile. Night was falling as I made my way up.

In a cavern I met another group of people. I had gone for days without running into anyone else but in this territory everyone seemed to prefer the way station. It was like that in the Arctic biomes. I don't think polar bears have ever had a fear of humans, and if they had they sure didn't anymore.

The group had built a fire and invited me to join them and swap stories. I smiled, shook my head no, and continued climbing up.

At the top I ran into a woman that looked like my old biology professor. She was just beginning her climb down to join the main group. When she noticed me, she called to me, "Hi Guillermo."

I was so surprised to see her there that I just stared at her.

"Well, goodbye," she said, starting to pick her way down again. "You know, I didn't think I'd see you back here. After your brother died about a year ago."

I just shrugged my shoulders. Then she was gone. I found a small hollow and laid down my sleeping bag. It was completely night now. The sky was clear. I lay there in my hollow looking up at the stars. I felt like I could see every single one of them.

2010-02-26T22:50:00.003-07:00

Some time ago I purchased a fancy writing/drawring tablet. I seldom use it because my handwriting is still atrocious. I'm still at about monkey-with-a-charred-stick level. And not one of those smart monkeys that make tools; I'm talking the ones that you can catch with a single piece of food because they panic and won't let go of it.

My drawring is improving. As I've shown, I am moving beyond my usual "green" slug and moving into the "reds". I'm not sure why I just used quotation marks; it just seemed the right thing to do as an artist. As if my greens and reds were magically different than everyone else's. Some philosophers may argue this possibility, but those are the kind that no one likes because they waste your time and never offer to pick up the check just as a nice gesture.

Those kind of philosophers.

While drawring my ""red"" slug I was reminded of my Otter of Despair. This otter is forever working up the determination to crack open a clam on his belly. Forever lifting up his rock, only to watch it fall back like Sisyphus, except unlike Sisyphus, not even Camus can argue that the otter is happy. I planned it that way; the despair is in his name.

Sometimes I feel like the otter. Sometimes I feel like the clam, or the rock. At this exact moment I feel like his tummy, which has as much hair on a square inch as we do on our entire heads. Zounds!

The despairing otter's tummy has a front-row seat to the drama that fails to unfold.

I still haven't found a publisher for my children's stories about him. See, the otter is so despair that he doesn't bother to wrap himself up with kelp to sleep. That night, he drifts away to have magical, horrible, magical adventures. He also learns the true meaning of something. The true, horrible meaning.

Otters were considered pests for a time in the history of America, and thus the Otterhound was invented. A dog bred for the sole purpose of hunting otter. A dog who woke up every day knowing exactly what it wanted to do. I envy the breed.

When I awake, I am obligated as an artist to ponder the true meaning of all things. Generally this results in my frequent tardiness. On occasion it may also result in
that tingly feeling in my hock, like I was supposed to do something or be somewhere (other than the thing I was actually supposed to be doing or being on a given morning).

Hunt otter? No, that was the otterhound. Break open clams with a rock and eat the fleshy innards? I suppose for a time, but I don't feel a particular passion for it. Besides, there is tons of competition now that otter hunting, with hound or otherwise, is quite illegal here in the lower 48.

The root of my suffering is my comfortable life. As an artist, there is a modicum of suffering hours that must be put in or I get kicked out. I am quite behind. A job I mostly enjoy, a nice home, a sweet family, and a belly full of clams.

It's all wrong.

Maybe not the clams.

2010-02-26T11:10:00.002-07:00

After a stunning victory at the Battle of Chimay, the great hero, Lieutenant Raphael Clittorii was quoted as saying, "There is no higher act of patriotism than robbery."

Such a man. Sadly, his regiment did not participate in the last half of the war, after his troops followed him to hell. They have yet to come back.

2010-02-18T15:45:00.002-07:00

As I am a man of Married Years, this Fat Tuesday I settled into my reclino-chair device to watch The Simpsons Season 4 on my teletronic-viewing device.

But Wo, even in this day of Civilized Peoples I decided to have a beer, a Keystone Light that some poor chap had brought to one of my sister's gathering. The traditional way of enjoying that particular brewer's waste is to drink enough to impair the taste-buds.

Thus my attempt to enjoy a quiet evening resulted in failure.

I woke the next morning with a splitting headache, a series of bruises on my arms, several strands of beads and blinking lights, and the word "UNST" shaved into the back of my head. It was later explained to me that "UNST" represents the bass beat peculiar to those technotronic ballads that are played in the clubs of yore.

So Lo! and be wary! friends, that the heathen masses and their unwashed liquors do not lure you to the very same demise I have met at their cunning hands! I can only hope.

2010-02-12T23:43:00.002-07:00

The world is no vampire. There is no heart. All the blood festers in its limbs and the scabs crust over the peeling lips screaming freedom freedom and the gunfire pops barely up through the ignorance. Cain needed no arms. While men have hands freedom has a voice.

2010-02-09T20:41:00.002-07:00

Holy Hell. He wasn't a counterfeit bear after all. Not that I would have loved him any less had he been; but I didn't know that.

Watson the dog mistook my ratty old bear for one of his ratty old chew toys. And thus my bear of 24 years was gone, save for a few sea-green scraps and his left ear. There was stuffing everywhere. It was horrible.

But there's nothing to be done. Watson the dog saw the bear as competition and acted like any dog in the wild would: he ate that fuzzy helpless thing.

The bear's coloring had puzzled me for years. Bedtime Bear is blue and mine was an odd green color. I thought perhaps his color had faded over time, but I had a nagging memory of a green lock of hair that I had pulled out, one by one, until it was gone.

Not that it matters now. The only color he is now is the color eaten. I suppose I can dust off my Squishable, Heath Leopard.

And the beat goes on.

2010-02-08T20:44:00.002-07:00

It goes like this: Sign in, click on "new post", start writing.

The difference, I think, is the looking backward. This was such a forward-looking device. At the end of each day, my intellectual uprising of sorts, a chance to chide myself and the world. To remember the ones I loved or was trying not to. Forward-looking, buoyed by a delicate arrogance. No good days, no bad days, only my day and the pauses necessary to dream up new distractions.

Just vulnerable enough to keep things interesting.

The dichotomy of Then and Now has found me. Untimely ripped from my womb of ignorant bliss and dashed against the scenery. Cut-out trees with painted hollows falling with flat wooden slaps. Beads of sweat, bright lights and no audience.

There was a time before my brother but I do not remember it. I don't think it was like this.

Then there's this thing. I'm stuck with these things I've written here. Picking through the archives and finding my brother. Once written, a thing is always happening now. That's where I was and where I am trying to return. But the Then is getting farther from the Now. Soon, the day will be replaced. A new February 24th will be painted over the old one. Painted over before I've come back for everything. I am a bad tenant of that last day and all that stuff is still mine just give me a little more time to find a place for it, sheesh. I've been busy with other stuff, is all.

Routine makes my life possible but it fails me now.

2009-12-05T18:34:00.002-07:00

Dear HALOW Animal Rescue,

The lady said that dashhounds grow really long and that was his appeal. His back legs had the nerve damage so we cut them off. He gets along real well, he kinda reminds me of a snail the way he drags his rear. Funny enough we named him Snail Number Two.

Dang here this the other night a big old owl tried to swoop him up with his talons but he was still on his chain so he fell back down. Lucky I didn't untie him.

Hes happy though we got a big old yard and part of the house is pretty much yard. Ha, he sure doesn't like the asians. Must be the eyes.

My next welfare check is going right to your store cause I saw that Archie dashhound you got I bet he'll be the longest. Thanks again for giving our family a chance to love here right.

Yers,

Gunk

2009-11-29T19:30:00.002-07:00

In my day, wizards paid for their skills in suffering and pain, not tuition. In my day, vampires slept in earth guarded by traps and minions that were more likely to kill you than the vampire itself. In my day, monsters of day and monsters of night were as common as poverty, and God was as scarce as always.

We feared them, yes, and we learned to hunt them. This to ease our troubled minds. This to feed our arrogance; for we tolerate no creature deadlier to Man than ourselves.

2009-11-23T20:00:00.002-07:00

I am ill. I hate it. The misery I accept, the weakness I will admit, but the uselessness I cannot abide. I called in sick to work again today. Mostly I won't do that, but besides chasing after a bunch of mutts I also have to talk to potential adopters. No guilt finds me when I am spreading my various pestilences...es across the world from my native lands of Mehi-co, as Fox News accurately reports of all my kind. When I am visibly contagious; that is another matter. I must hide from the world lest they find out.

I hate feeling weak.

When Donaldo was wrestling in high school, he caught ringworm and brought it home. When a scaly patch the size of a dime appeared on my shoulder I was horrified. No fungo-bacterian terrorist was going to profit from my nourishing hide! I burned off the microscopic nuisance. I later discovered the existence of an over-the-counter ointment that was readily available, allegedly also effective at fighting ringworm. I looked into it; nowhere on the packaging did the cream claim to be as anti-fungal as the searing kiss of Man's fire. This reassured me for some years, but eventually I would come to admit that I was an idiot and should stop assuming that all my problems could be burned off.

In non-contagious news, my alleged pit-bull/greyhound mutt of a dog is thriving. The Noobers, Slinky, and Watson all went for a walk today. It was a majestic sight: my horse of a dog blazing a trail flanked by a dachshund and a Boston terrier. It was even awe-inspiring right until I got tangled up in The Noobers's Extend-O-Leash and almost fell headlong into a tree. My new official policy is to hold all the leashes in one hand so I don't get the ol' wrap-around. With this technique, the three leashes braid themselves into a festive braid, instead of turning me into a maypole, or as we Mehicans say, "mayo-polo".

Now my dogs are napping peacefully. The Noobers is dreaming of having his own butler that will scratch his tummy at the ring of a bell, Slinky is dreaming of winning first prize trophy for The Longest-Yet-Most-Useless Dog In The World, and Watson is dreaming of chewing up that trophy and scattering its bits all about the house.

I will dream tonight too, no doubt, and run with my dream hounds. Memory is our quarry; we dig up lost moments like delicate truffles. At times we uncover moments that never did happen; but we will always make room on our table. We are not always hungry for them now. But we were, and we will be again. I have all the time in this world.

2009-11-04T09:38:00.001-07:00

After weeks pestering my co-workers and managers with my incessant questions about all aspects of the animal rescue/adoption center, they finally gave in and admitted that they were deliberately avoiding training me because the last three new-hires quit in less than a month. "So this whole time you've just been testing me? Lucky for you I'm used to having no idea what I'm doing." It also helped my case that I began writing everything down in my planner so sometimes I was the only personwho knew what was going on, even though I didn't understand it. Thus, another conspiracy against me fails thanks to my usual paranoia.

2009-08-23T23:47:00.001-07:00

"You need to write more..."

-A drunk-ass Donovan. A man may be drunk but that doesn't mean he's wrong.

2009-06-30T20:58:00.000-07:00

Minutes and seconds strike against the windowpane. A concrete mesa shimmers and warps into an image of another place, a place I'd almost rather be. They fear the heat, and as do I but I have weapons; water bladders and bottles and drink mixes and most of all sweat glands forged by many sweltering summers.

The summer is an old friend.

2009-06-25T22:36:00.000-07:00

Two days off from work have left me refreshed and eager to return to the concrete jungle and perpetual tribal warfare amongst cargo cults that is my work site.

And I picked up some gear from REI to assist me in my battle for...something.

Now that I've seen Transformers 2 I can rest easy knowing that cinema is dead and I look forward to the feelies described in Brave New World.

The movie's climax in Egypt reminded me of my job: an incoherent mess with multiple head injuries and a lot of spinning. The temperature is also about the same.

I enjoyed it because it was a lot like the cartoon. Including the Autobots driving from Washington to Egypt in what seems to be one day.

My nephews saw the original Star Wars. Just the end, the assault on the Death Star. They were transfixed. Forgot to even finish their churros.

I was pleased, and yet I despaired because I was providing more childhood joy for George Lucas to rape.

Perhaps I will only let them see the original films and refuse to acknowledge the existence of the prequels.

Shouldn't be that hard.

2009-06-18T22:57:00.000-07:00

From the journals:

Luis died on the 22nd of February. The jungle vines of tubes from the life support devices were hacked away; the intravenous bags of solutions dangling like overripe fruit from stainless steel branches were plucked and packed. I was not there to protest. My goodbye had been that afternoon after a doctor had allowed me to go over the x-rays and the rest of the final pages of his medical history. I knew then that my littlest brother would not face tomorrow with me.

His hand was cold as I held it and my brain screamed goodbye. I regret now that I had not covered him up, that I had not insisted he be kept warm. Luis always wrapped himself up almost completely when he slept. As a baby, he had even refused to drink cold water. It had to be above room temperature.

He was cold then, in his last days. I hope he dreamt well. I hope he dreamt of me, and of the songs we would sing in the car. I hope he dreamed of his dogs. Luis had just undergone his Confirmation as a Catholic, and if he was right then I will not see him again. Perhaps I will go where the dogs are, and keep them company and whine along with them when we dream of our masters.

2009-04-25T03:24:00.000-07:00

Wandering Albatross

-In which I meant to report upon events I deem significant in the development of The Nephews (hereafter referred to as "The Twins" (unless individually referred to by name in which case still to be considered as an inextricable part of The Twins and serves primarily to provide a more exact reference in the regards to food preference, trouser length, and in the providing of comfort object(s))).

Now, on to more transparently ego-centric blather.

I saw the film Earth. Kelly and I are in California visiting Jeff, Janan, and Ryan. Raced go-carts and was scolded for bumping. Went to Ryan's play and ran into Beth Froehlich. Ate an excellent lunch with Beth and her mother, Terry. Terry had served as head of Special Education in Luis's and my high school. She, Beth, nor myself spoke of him, although perhaps we hugged a little more tightly and did not attempt to proclaim our tears to be of joy or of sorrow, if ever again I will consider the two as separate, knowing now what I do of love.

I got a job. Devoured a Krispy Kreme donut. Was scolded by a South African for eating in the theatre. Told that story about the time I got arrested by Park Rangers in the Grand Canyon, got hypothermia, and wrecked my motorcycle in the same day, in somewhat unrelated incidents with the only common factor being snow. Passed an FBI background check, apparently. Bought a Nintendo DSi. Used it to write this.

2009-03-14T20:22:00.003-07:00

Twenty-eight days have passed since my littlest brother Luis died. An entire Black History Month later, and I still feel like Iron Man punched me in the groin.

Thank you to everyone who expressed their sorrow and condolences to our family. I'm truly sorry that I have not taken the time to thank you personally. Please understand that I'm not trying to appear mysterious or emotionally complex, not this time. During the funeral service and memorial held for Luis, I was at home. In my closet hung a freshly dry-cleaned suit and polished boots, but I never made it into that suit because I was in bed hugging my old Care-Bear and crying into my pillow.

I loved my little brother and I miss him. He was so funny and frustrating and I know I'll never have that again. I can't speak for how other people feel about their siblings but my brothers and sister are like my soul mates, if soul mates were required to be alternately wonderful and annoying in inverse proportions.

I've lost a whole world.

I am not religious, and I'm glad I'm not because if there was someone or something I thought I could blame for taking my brother...I would be lost in my own anger.

Luis is dead; Long live Luis.

I am left, we are left, to continue living. My heaven and hell are here, my paradise and paradise lost, the cost of having loved him, the debt for having lost him.

I wish everyone could have known him. He was so beautiful.

2009-02-21T07:10:00.000-07:00

2009-02-04T14:15:00.002-07:00

The desert knight rides again. I'm off to investigate reports of monster sightings in northern Arizona. I'm pretty eager to find out more about these "sparkly vampires" that are said to roam the area. I'm not sure how to take them out, or even what they are fully capable of.

I strongly suspect that they have the same weakness as almost all vampires: strong narrative style, scenic descriptions that contribute to mood and theme, and a story driven by character action and growth and not expedience of plot.

Oh yeah, they hate that shit.

2009-01-27T11:48:00.001-07:00

I do not have a superhero name, or maybe all names are mine. Nor do I wear a costume, or maybe I wear all costumes. It's irrelevant because no one is meant to recognize me as a superhero. No one will ever call me on the superhero phone or a shine my emblem from a spotlight.

But they know me. Every time someone says "That was close," or "Things could have been a lot worse," that is where I am, where I was. My hand is unseen, if I'm doing it right. Because it's not about cool gadgets and sweet costumes or a league of super friends. I am here and I cannot save the world. But I believe things could be a lot worse if I chose to do nothing at all.

2009-01-05T12:23:00.002-07:00

I've activated my cell phone. My old number has been snatched up by a Spanish-speaking male who, according to anecdotal evidence, becomes increasingly enraged when someone asks for "Guillermo" or "Gurg".

I can solve his problem. Since I speak Spanish, I'll call him up and ask him to forward any calls to my new number. Those Mexican types train real quick.

2008-12-18T23:29:00.002-07:00

Quite a bit of rain has fallen on me. Not heavy rains, but soft whispering rains that pester me from just over my shoulder even as I see sunlit parts of my city in the distance. Middling rain or heavy rain is my preference as I ride my motorcycle. Light rain strikes the ground and the ground spits back a mist that blurs the face shield of my helmet, turning my field of vision into one metastasizing cataract.

Heavier rain beads nicely, obedient to the laws of hydrodynamics, and rolls away. Light rain mist will gather into a stray droplet, tear-like, and trickle leisurely along. These drops tend to surprise me. There have been slow-waking misty mornings where I startle and for an instant, think they are my own tears. Heavy rains are more polite, and almost never toy with my emotions.

I cut a piece of a windshield wiper and I meant to attach it to my wet-weather gloves, but I never did. I don't know where the piece is now. But I know where there are windshield wipers.

* * * *

I've not written much on ye old blog. I'd like to say I've been very busy working on the screenplay for Murk, but the agencies have blacklisted me after I Rick-Rolled the Macy's Thanksgiving Day Parade. How did I manage it? Simple enough. I merely kidnapped his son and claimed that I was "never gonna give him up" alive if Rick didn't meet my demands.

Works every time.

2008-12-16T23:18:00.004-07:00

Shoe of Freedom
Carry my soul with yours
Crack the pale forehead
And let all the air inside
Escape into the atmosphere
Where it might actually do some good

2008-11-24T09:59:00.002-07:00

Given the meteoric success of the Twilight series (essentially a Harlequin Romance novel about star-crossed lovers whose conflicts are vampire-related instead of the traditional physical and substance abuse problems), I've been pitching my idea for a novel to various publishers.

Here goes: Our teenage protagonist, Moola McEverygirl, has moved from the bustling city of Tucson, Arizona, to Laketown, Minnesota to work out her father issues with her father. Moola is modestly hot girl, the kinda sorta hot that comes from being average-looking when most other peers are still hip-deep in the awkward-looking teenage phase. Moola enrolls in the local high school. She notices an attractive, muscular, guy with pale skin, dark hair, and a slightly green complexion. His name is Puddles Killington and all the girls are in love with him because he is so aloof and mysterious and vaguely described that he is easily projected upon.

Moola and Puddles are instantly attracted to each other and proceed to be extremely awkward about everything. One particularly awkward day, Moola, who is a terrible driver, loses control of the up-armored humvee her father purchased from the Army surplus store and drives it into a lake.

Suddenly, all of a sudden, and out of nowhere, Puddles appears underwater and pushes her vehicle back onto land. That's right; Puddles Killington and his family are Nessies. They moved to Minnesota from Loch Ness to live among humans and go to high school...for some reason. The Killington Family is different than other Nessies because they refuse to pose for blurry photographs.

Moola and Puddles are awkward and uncertain, but they know they are in love because it says so in the book. Puddles is much older than Moola, from a time when women couldn't vote or own land and it was still legal to beat your wife, but he and Moola have some of the same CD's and they're both in high school so they are in love.

Puddles has a hard time expressing his feelings, and the situation is made more difficult because The Council of Nessies has forbidden relationships between humans and Nessies because it is deemed too stupid. It would be like dating a very rich Furry. And sex between humans and Nessies is not forbidden, but the Council released a pamphlet warning against it because Nessies have extremely cold penises, which makes sense because their entire bodies are ice-cold and it would be weird. And also the point of vampires drinking blood was a metaphor for the relationship between men and women so when you add sex to the mix their is little point in it.

Still, cold penises are just weird. I believe the Urban Dictionary defines a chilled erection as an "ice pick", which is very difficult for most males to achieve. Urban Dictionary does not really define it as such, but it should.

What? Oh, and there are other problems. The local Minnesotan Native Americans that live on the lake have an ancient grudge against the Nessies because the native people are really...Bigfoots. They fight each other for control of territory, but neither side has ever won because Bigfoots can't live in lakes very well, and Nessies have no interest in living in the forest and eat fish anyway. Anyway, arbitrary magical blood-feud!

Then Moola becomes attracted to a local Bigfoot, because the Bigfoot represents the archetypal burly, ruggedly handsome guy that is warm-blooded and your own age, while the Nessie represents the effeminate, hip male that might possibly wear women's jeans and is given to feeling conflicted when deciding between listening to Chopin or My Chemical Romance for the next month.

The conflict of the first book, Murk, and the rest of the series, New Tide, Rip Current, and Breaking Wave, will be basically the same. Moola wants something from Puddles, Puddles can't or won't give it to her, the Bigfoot offers Moola what she wants, Moola can't choose, and Puddles family and Bigfoots fight the whole time.

At the time you the publisher decide that the series has become unprofitable, Moola will pick one or the other and live happily ever after with her magical baby, Alia the psychic daughter from the Dune series.

After all the books are written, I will re-write the first book from Puddles's point of view. I predict the book will go on record for every sentence ending with a question mark.

Thank you for your time. Please notify me immediately, and I will accept my advance in cash.

2008-11-14T10:55:00.002-07:00

Ender and Remy purchased their first comics the other day. They loved the comic shop. Ender got a "kids" comic that had Spiderman, Iron Man, and Hulk attempting to dog-sit Cerberus, the three-headed guardian of Hades. Remy got a Speed Racer: The Next Generation or some such thing. It's a promising start, and I was much relieved when Remy put back the Veronica (from Archie fame)that he had been poring over.

Their intelligence surprises me. The concept of teaching is unraveling in my head. I don't feel I've really taught them anything, except perhaps how to swim, but they sure are doing stuff like counting and saying parts of the alphabet. I credit PBS for most of that.

I think I'll hunt down some of the old school programs. Mr. Rogers must have a hand in raising them. And Bill Nye. And I can't leave out Levar Burton.

The great intellectual explorers of my time spoke to me, the viewer, in a way no other adults were at that time. And they're still there, to speak to my nephews about science, literature, and being a good neighbor.

I still need them too. I know there is much I've forgotten.

2008-11-11T07:12:00.002-07:00

The spicy email I wrote earned me a phone call, in which I spoke to a reasonable human being and we discussed matters far and wide. Well, almost entirely reasonable. The woman I spoke with brought up armed assaults on campuses and religiously-motivated attacks.

The letter was baited with words that throw up the blinders of ignorance for many people. My reference to Allah was cited as "threatening". This saddened me, because anybody with a passing familiarity with the Muslim faith, or even someone who has seen The 13th Warrior, knows that there is only one god, so it's absurd to say something like "God of gods" in the same breath as Allah.

She was concerned that the letter is threatening, although when I asked her to point out any specific examples of threats she was at a loss.

She told me that she had read the email to her husband over the phone and that he had demanded she forward it to him so he'd have evidence in case any harm came to her. I laughed and suggested he email me if he has any questions.

So it's making the rounds, I assume. I am disappointed she found it threatening. I conceded that there are jokes, and as a person who jokes, I am responsible if I am not funny. So not funny, I can confess up to that, if I must. The most adorable part of the conversation was when she chastised my use of swear words. She would begin to read certain phrases, falter at the swears, and then press valiantly on.

It really was cute. "I can't believe you'd put this in an email," she said.

I really enjoyed talking to her. I liked her a lot. I thanked her for her call, and when she asked me to "drop it" I said sure.

She had one other request during our talk. She told me I should use my writing powers for good.

I'm all for that, of course. But I'm a freelance do-gooder, and sometimes they're just not hiring.

2008-11-09T11:16:00.002-07:00

In Which I Conduct a Sortie In The War of the Internets

Dear Bri,

I am surprised to hear from you in these circumstances. I believe the first and last time we met was during the Buddy Ambassador training I attended with Luis. I apologize for my poor moral standards and lowly ways. Perhaps it is a reflection of my own poor education, excluding my formative years at Mountain Pointe, of course.

I do appreciate the call my mother received from the school informing us to handle it "in the family". My mother has an incredibly easy life and I relish the terror inflicted upon her whenever a school "official", such as they are, calls her and claims that I am threatening to abort my siblings somehow. However, I am disappointed that you did not draw attention to the latent homosexual and incestuous subtext I nestled in the phrase about "selling people eggs and charging them for the price of an entire chicken" to paraphrase myself.

So thank you for frightening my mother so. She is certainly the person to call when two brothers, both adults, who see each other every day, say offensive things on the internet. Your righteous Crusade against internet depravity is a blessing to us all, and I hope that you don't rest on your laurels now that you've foiled my plans. There are so many others out there to stop, so many children suffering unspeakable sassings at the hands of those who claim to be loved ones. I applaud you, and may Allah (God of Gods) show me the mercy that you have shown me.

If you wish, I can send my disturbing comments to you first before I post them on Luis's Facebook. For example, I was thinking of saying this:

"Dear Luis, when you were in the womb I tried to abort you with one of the vacuum cleaner attachments."

I'm proud of that one, because it lacks the subtlety and sarcasm that seems to provide your administrators with so much trouble.

To summarize, I am angry to the point of sarcasm with any and all people involved in bullying my mother. She was and still is incredibly afraid that this will begin some kind of CPS witch hunt, and more than that she is genuinely cowed by the school system. I believe the whole thing is funny and a waste of your time. My mother responds with a child-like dread of going to the principal's office. It is sad for me to watch the people involved scare her like this. I love my mother, but she doesn't always understand the jive-talking of the youth of today. So when someone tells her I'm writing about harming my younger brother, she believes them. I don't think any of you (you meaning teachers/staff/students) thought of the repercussions of such an accusation. It is my suspicion that you are compelled to act upon internet "threats" because they leave such a clear trail. Physical abuse, psychological abuse, sexual abuse, and verbal abuse are notoriously difficult to prove, and even so what happens, counseling? I understand that this is a matter you deal with in your care of your students, our children and siblings, and I believe you (still meaning teachers/staff/students) are acting in what you believe to be in the best interest of Luis's education and welfare. I respect your motives.

But that doesn't mean this whole business isn't fucking retarded. (Fucking retarded meaning I don't think anyone actually read it and understood it and I would love someone to go through and explain the offensive bits.) In fact, I know they didn't understand. The only one that can understand it is Luis, because that is who the message is meant for. It was sent in an arguably public forum, and Facebook has its own protocol for handling account harassment. Not to mention Luis can actually delete unwanted comments from view. Shocking, these technologies.

I guess I'm giving you hell through the details, but that's because I am something of a bastard whenever I feel that someone is trying to censor my writing. You're allowed to not like it, certainly. Expecting me to conform to some arbitrary standards of conduct is futile.

Schools love policies, and I have yet to be shown what policy I am violating, and if so, what jurisdiction, if any, high school officials have over me. Will I not be allowed to come to the 10 year reunion? Do I get detention? No, so far all I've gotten are vaguely threatening phone calls and letters to my mother.

I get angry when anyone distresses my mother.

In writing this, and in being honest and candid and even trying to be funny (certainly debatable), I understand that I am perhaps escalating the situation. Nonetheless, I must insist that you desist or else...I'll write yo mama jokes on Luis's Facebook wall, and when you read them you'll know they're about you.

But now you have my email address. I can be reached at the same number as Luis, 602-438-1286, from 8am to 5pm which is when I am taking care of my twin nephews (the ones Luis is always talking about) and hanging out with our dog, The Noobers.

Any problems you have with me (of which now I'm sure you have many) would best be addressed to me directly. If y'all scare my moms again, I'm gonna get heated. Then, as I said, I will openly mock yo mamas until the cows come home. Because what else could I do? If people are going off their gut feelings, I'll respond the same way. I've got lots of time to waste on stuff like this. And it is a waste.

I'm sure we'll see each other again, and we should at least be civil. You know how Luis hates it when we fight.

Your rowdy scientist,

Guillermo "Memo" Lopez
Mountain Pointe Alumnus; Class of 2000
Go Pride (even though lions are terrible animals; the male has a harem, he doesn't hunt, and kills any babies that aren't his)

2008-11-05T19:25:00.002-07:00

Pictures For Sad Children.

This comic captures many of my life views in a hilarious ways.

And I can't stop singing this:

2008-11-03T09:47:00.003-07:00

John R. has coerced me into participating in National Novel Writing Month. Or Nano Wrimo, if you will.

I started off strong with three whole pages. Technically the daily goals are set in word counts. I do not dwell on technicalities.

Other events in the internet world have sidetracked me. My mother called in a state of panic usually reserved for blind people at an electric car rally. (They can't hear them, you see.) She was concerned because I was making fun of my little brother Luis on Facebook. Luis is in the Special Education program, and it isn't uncommon for him to check his various accounts at school. Also, under the Patriot Act, government institutions are granted access to social networking accounts, private or public, and use them in their investigations.

I'm no expert on these particular shenanigans. I've heard of cases in which prospective employers search social networking sites for information on a prospective employee, which is understandable. Employers can no longer rely on a dumb email address to tip them off. I recall a job application that had an email listed as something like "busty1117". My boss threw that one right in the trash.

The difference with state and federal dudes is that they can check any account, regardless of the privacy settings the user requested. It's legal, and not unexpected. Given my classification as unskilled labor, it may not matter as much to me, but I've seen the impact of such attacks based on what most people would consider standard college photos, and in truth, a growing trend among Disney child stars.

I digress. My mother had been contacted by the school saying my statements went "too far" and that she would be receiving a letter. My mother is a teacher and she sees school officials as actual authorities, like police or something. She's also fairly conservative herself. I asked her what I had written that had bothered her and she didn't actually remember. School administrators had read it to her over the phone, in a stern tone, no doubt. This is what I assume they read:

Hey little brother, I know I joke around a lot, and I usually avoid talking about my feelings. So here goes: I don't love you and never have. I hated you as soon as you were conceived, but I could only complain about you to anti-abortionists, since they believe human life begins at conception. It works out well for me, I sell them eggs and charge them for the price of an entire chicken.

But yeah, I don't care about your special needs or whatever because you're a jerk and that has yet to be proven as a part of your syndrome. Also, your dog is ugly and when I see his face I want to throw up, and I usually do.

Also, your little info box says it's almost spring break and that is a lie. You are a liar.

Too far? I say it doesn't go too far enough.

I find the administrator's need to confront my mother about what I've written on the internet to my little brother as a puzzling use of their resources. I imagine their is some appeal to charges of internet abuse. Actual verbal, physical, and sexual abuse is much more difficult to investigate and even harder to prove. Facebook harassment, however, is far more convenient. The site even has a little news feed.

I am happy that my writing is getting some attention. Finally! I get to be misunderstood in my own time! Every artists dream. If I keep this up, I may even get censored! Then I'll write a book about Luis. It will be like Marley and Me, that book about the dog that ruins everything. All I really have to do is replace the word "dog" with "boy" and "Marley" with "Luis".

I wonder if they'll make a movie about it. I wonder who will play me?

2008-10-26T15:52:00.004-07:00

I'm considering riding my motorcycle to New Mexico to support the Obama campaign next weekend. Simply put, I received an invitation and I am interested. A long ride in pleasant weather, a chance to go somewhere I've never been, and a participation in Democracy.

Voting is important, yes, but the guys on top vote on stuff that we, as "the governed" scream about. I've lived in Phoenix, Arizona for my entire life and I'm all over the place. Yet, I have never ever seen my senators, or members of my congress, or any of my governors, face-to-face, hand-to-hand, in person.

So I assume they don't know my feelings about how I am governed. How hard have I worked to tell them?

Democracy rests on educating myself and my fellow citizens. If I choose not to vote but I don't even know what I'm not voting for, that is not freedom. That is a prison with no bars.

If I learn a bit, just a little bit, enough to perhaps feel that I might like or dislike it, even if my opinion has all the passion of choosing no onions on my In'N'Out hamburger, I have become an actor in how I wish to be governed.

My elected officials are the hands and the mouthpiece, but I, ha, I am the feet and I am the voice.

And now, I'm also the wheels. Only two wheels, but that's all I need.

If any other bikers interested in Phoenix are interested in going for a ride around the city, perhaps wearing shirts to support our political interests, let me know.

I mean all political interests. Republicans, Democrats, Libertarians, Calvinists. Any political philosophy is better on two wheels.

I intend to vote for Obama at this point, but I would have voted for McCain in 2000. I liked McCain. But it didn't matter, because I didn't vote. I figured the Republican nominee would win in Arizona like he usually does. I didn't care for President G. W. Bush then, but I'm not happy I was proven right. Great presidents bring America together, not divide us further. They should sit on high and cast their eye about like Sauron. Then point us in the right direction. We are the governed Americans, and as always, we will work the jobs and we will fight the wars and we will solve the problem.

We are the governed. Our elected officials are the hands and the mouthpiece, but we are the feet and we are voice.

I can only speak for me, I know, but I believe my hope is a shared one. Whatever happens in this election, and the next one, and the many more I see stretching out into the future for the United States of America, I will be ready.

Happiness is not guaranteed to any of us. But I will be free.

photo credit: David Malki at wondermark.com

2008-10-24T09:44:00.004-07:00

Times are hard. Times are so hard that Stephen Hawking has gotten a part-time job making robo-calls.

Times are hard in Afghanistan as well. In response to the shutdown of Lehman Brothers on Wall Street, the world's largest producer of cocaine has been burning its own cocoa fields due to a massive surplus. It's known in high school economics as "creating false demand" and it's what the US does with crops in order to drive up prices. Finally, those terrorists are starting to embracing Capitalism.

Times are so hard that my collection notices include a polite request for a stamp so they can mail me again next month.

Times are so hard that Joe the Plumber is voting for Obama after business closures disrupt his hourly fix of Krispy Kreme.

Times are hard.

Blackwater, the mercenary corporation employed by the US, which gained notoriety for operating in an ethical black hole because they aren't under the jurisdiction of the US military or Iraqi security forces, has also felt the pinch. They've been forced to cut costs on fuel and ammunition by just firing a few shots into the air when they enter a villages, and then heading straight out. Most Iraqi villagers are pleased by this new display of fiscal responsibility by the mercenaries, and expect to see a rise in their own quality of life. The primitive peoples have a surprisingly astute grasp of financial theory. The consensus of tribal elders describe the loss of work time due to rebuilding their village and burying their children as "unsustainable".

Times are so hard that Dick Cheney asks for proof of insurance before he shoots you in the face.

Times are so hard, everyone invited to President Bush's global financial summit is expected to bring their own chairs. A potluck brunch is also planned, but reports that Russia is bringing its legendary Tundra Juice* have not been confirmed. >>>UPDATE: Nineteen of the G20 Industrial Nations showed up with only paper plates and plastic forks. The crisis was averted by Canada, who brought enough for everybody. "Socialist dummies," President Bush was heard to mumble through a mouthful of pancakes with real maple syrup.

*a concoction of melted snow, vodka distilled inside a live wolf, and chilled by the tears of Stalingrad's war widows, which never melt.

Republicans and their faith in self-correcting markets are widely believed responsible for the current financial "Nine Eleven". But I believe they were well aware and well prepared for the crisis. Evidence for this is right in our phone bills, in the fine print that reads "In the event of national and global economic collapse, a 7% tax will be charged to cover the cost of eavesdropping on your conversation."

The infamous "Gitmo" has moved to reduce the status of detainees from "enemy combatants to "those shifty brown fellows", which in Cuba allows for even worse treatment. Spokeswoman for the prison, Dr. Crimla Shimshanks, claims that it is an attempt to reduce costs by decreasing the amount of food, water, and vitamin C. Dr. Shimshanks stated that it meets the minimum requirements agreed upon in the Geneva Convention after the second World War. However, in a stunning display of independent jouralism, Presidential underdog candidate Jaclyn Backhaus discovered that she was referring to a different historical global conflict, determining the proper treatment of prisoners in the (ongoing) war between gerbils and guinea pigs.

When Jaclyn's running mate* confronted the Doctor with these facts and expressed concern that human beings cannot live on a guinea pig's diet, Shimshanks retorted "But look how shifty they are!"

*Jaclyn's selection for her running mate, The Road by Cormac McCarthy, was vaulted into the spotlight after being made into a film starring Viggo Mortensen. Support for the post-apocalyptic yarn about a man struggling to maintain his humanity while protecting his young son was a surprise to many who were expecting Ms. Backhaus to choose No Country For Old Men, an older book by Cormac McCarthy with more experience, although just as bleak.

BREAKING NEWS: Governor Palin wants to increase funding for Individuals with Disabilities Education Act for the first time since its inception. She would like to "Require states to demonstrate that their Special Needs education is based on "proven outcomes" and job placement after high school. I also support jobs for retards; I hear that the GOP is already accepting applications for the 2012 vice presidency.

(I was going to say Alaska is looking for a governor but I don't want to offend those guys. I may go there someday and Wasilla courts are very sympathetic to hunters who "accidentally" shoot people whose skin color is similar the color of a moose, or say, a black bear.)

In his 2000 campaign, John McCain gave a speech demanding that religious institutions show temperance and even tolerance towards other faiths, citing examples of both Islamic and Christian leaders whose vitriolic statements and calls to violence threaten human rights and civil liberties. I wish that that 2000 McCain was still running for president.

Oh, a friend who may identify herself if she desires told me a joke: What do Sarah Palin's mouth and her vagina have in common?

Answer: 1 in 5 things that come out are retarded.

Snap.

I also saw a t-shirt that had her picture on it and the question "Do we really want a vice president that has had a penis in her mouth?"

No, I didn't really see that. But I want to.

Times are hard?

But seriously folks, she claims the media is picking on her, but making fun of Sarah Palin is as easy as a high school student with abstinence-only sex education.

As much as I kid, I'm proud of her nomination by the Republican Party. Senators and church leaders alike envy her, my sources say. A Republican that doesn't have to resort to seedy hotel rooms and airport bathrooms to satisfy a fondness for penis? Perhaps there is hope for the party after all.

It must be strange for them, I imagine, to be fighting so hard against people who would accept that they are homosexual, and not actually hate them for it like the majority of their constituents.

A warning to all my Republican or socially conservative friends that are gay: I will still tease the hell out of you, and maybe even do a sexy dance at you. Jokingly, of course.

Of course, adults can make their own decisions, I guess. What is the saddest is the little kids in church and school, like when I was in Catholic school, who were already clearly gay.

You may be able to fool most people, but at the very least your girlfriend or wife knows. Oh, she knows.

But it's okay to be gay, even if you think it isn't. When human beings suppress their sexuality, especially males across the board from those celibate Catholic priests, to celibate Muslims, and incarcerated felons, they lose perspective. After a while, molesting altar boys or strapping on a bomb or violently raping another male might seem more possible to them than say, guys that have a willing sexual partner and maybe even an emotional relationship.

Where was I? Ah yes, times are hard. Times are so hard that the CIA is extraditing terrorism suspects to the Luxor in Las Vegas and water-boarding them the Bellagio fountains. It's surprisingly lovely, their cries for mercy and claims of just overstaying their student visas sync up nicely with the water spouts.

Times are hard, times are hard.

Airports have begun keeping people's shoes after security checks. Security has suffered in other ways, the police officers have been removed. The safety of each terminal is handled by the guy at the Starbuck's, who in between making lattes shouts out "Achmed!" He is authorized to tackle anyone who looks.

Times are hard, and if I write any longer I won't be able to keep running the refrigerate.

Okay, okay, I'm done. Back to babysitting. Times are hard for them too. Times are so hard the kids have to beat themselves.

How hard are things for you?

2008-10-22T00:07:00.003-07:00

Some scientific study has determined that the evening is a good time to be creative. The worst times are right after lunch and about four in the afternoon. This correlates with my own experience accomplishing nothing before midnight. Ten at night is the prime time. It's late, but not too late, and most of the dullards are worn out form a hard day's babbling inanities. Quiet and peace.

Today was a good day. My two-year old nephew, Remy, had his tonsils removed last week and is recuperating more slowly than anticipated. His throat still hurts, but there's nothing wrong with his feet so I took he and Ender to the park. I hadn't taken them in some time because subjecting them to the summer heat in Phoenix is borderline child abuse. I have argued in the past that their smaller bodies lose heat much more quickly, but to no avail.

Back when people still watched television, I saw a penguin on tv that lived in Costa Rica inside a refrigerator. When it felt like taking a stroll, the penguin would don a little backpack full of ice.

Well, it didn't put it on itself, I assume whoever installed the doggy door in the fridge had a hand in it.

I'll try that next summer.

The twins found the only mud puddle in the entire park and ran through it with their toy trucks. They seemed genuinely apologetic for getting muddy. I told them that it didn't matter now; they were already muddy and they might as well enjoy it. Which they did. They're only two, so I don't think they understand me well enough to grasp the concept, but I assume once they saw I wasn't upset they figured it was ok. And it is. I don't mind them getting muddy if they don't mind me hosing them off in the backyard.

I foolishly failed to schedule an appointment with my wet-ware tech support (psychiatric nurse practitioner counselor lady) and the chemicals I usually ingest to adjust my neurotransmitters have run out. I have an appointment tomorrow afternoon. I feel okay at the moment. It's only been about 48 hours. The only difference I notice is that I am much less drowsy. I intend to request another pill to stop the drowsiness. You know, medicine for the medicine.

I've also been a bit more forgetful but this hasn't really complicated anything more important than the quesadillas I prepared for lunch.

So far so good.

Also of note, I have set up my little writing room. Compy is good to go; I have a table laid out with various journals. Perhaps another little table for the typewriter and I'll be satisfied.

The room is small, but much of the space is still free because I like to sit cross-legged on the floor.

I am pleased. It feels like I have a little pocket in this world to call my own.

Like those damned marsupials. Fortunate bastards; they have no idea how sweet they have it.

2008-10-21T07:20:00.002-07:00

I'd like to endorse Barack Obama for president of the United States. And this isn't a racial thing, even though I hate all races, particularly the human race as well as some of the more devious aquatic mammals.

And I hope this election isn't marred by voter fraud. After all, so many angry, ignorant poor people have houses in multiple states, as well as a desire to undermine this great democracy.

2008-10-20T01:04:00.002-07:00

Tumultuous times. This is that kinda now that nobody really yearns for in the storybooks or the movies. There are no songs about it. It's a warm day with wisps of cool breeze. A sort of dull roar, or just a trembling, in the distance or right beneath our feet. In this now, we poor humans who know only confidence in war or peace, stare out on a blank canvass and wait for inspiration.

I guess I'm not sure what to do either. In my new home, I am a guest. Somewhat by choice, since I lack the possessions to hold the space around me. This would be simpler if I were some other animal, a dog perhaps, and just marked my territory with urine. Got plenty of that. Then, after having done so, I would be thrown out into the yard with a bowl of water and a bleached lawn chair for shade.

A bee stung me the other day. I was riding my motorcycle, as I do, and I hit a bunch of bees. As insects go, they are a fatter more bumbly species and we struck each other like pebbles at a lover's window. One fell down my arm and into my glove, where she stung my wrist. Not much of a sting, more of a love bite. At the next stop light I shook out her broken body onto the asphalt. The sting stung, naturally, but home was not far and I rode the rest of the way before I gave my sting a full inspection.

No radioactive bee powers yet. Or maybe they're just not obvious powers. Perhaps I have a mighty sting, but only one use before it kills me too.

Perhaps I like flowers a little bit more.

Weather will be warm tomorrow, a little cloudy, but being outside in the afternoon will be downright tolerable.

2008-10-15T09:45:00.001-07:00

My primary sources for political news are NPR and Youtube. What an age we live in.

2008-10-04T22:24:00.002-07:00

Ah, this is the life.

Kelly is away for work. My roommates are off camping. My home has been empty this weekend. The noises of the house surprise me still, and as I am quasi-paranoid (meaning I am actually quite paranoid but I am convinced it is only for fun) the creaking of the floorboards and the soft muttering of the door jambs give me pause, much akin to the pause headlights give to deer. Quasi-paranoid, I am, but that doesn't mean they're not out to get me.

All alone, there is much to do but no pressure to actually do it. I could finish reading Invisible Man by Ralph Ellison, or listen to The National in concert on my iPod. Their are weights in the garage that I could lift up and down.

I could go out and socialize, but I did that on Thursday. Kelly and I went over to Donovan and Lauren's to watch the Vice Presidential debate. There was quite a crowd. Lauren made delicious snacks for all and I drank Stella Artois arrogantly and lorded over those drinking Bud Light as I imagine a new step-brothers is supposed to do when said step-brother is clearly better than the other pale, acrid, and watery step-brother.

After that debate, I found myself in another heated exchange, this time concerning hydrogen. I've argued drunkenly enough that I now retain a nagging feeling that I'm completely wrong about most things, but I stood firm, and still do, in insisting that hydrogen is quite abundant on this planet and not terribly expensive to get at.

I'm still quite riled up after that hydrogen business. A quiet weekend at home is just the solution.

Mostly I've been wandering around the house naked. Then that got boring and I made a toga out of my old Star Wars sheet, the one my Godmother gave me when I was little because I loved Star Wars. Miguel says we watched the Star Wars movies over and over when we were little, but I don't remember that.

The sheet isn't big enough to be a toga; It is tied around my waist and then the leftover bit is thrown over my shoulder like a sash. I call it a faux-ga.

Saturday night!

2008-09-29T18:29:00.002-07:00

DC made a film. Please do not die until you have at least watched this trailer. Perhaps we can bring you back as a zombie when the movie is released. Just. This. One. Time.

2008-09-20T13:03:00.000-07:00

Kelly Lopez (nee' Kuntz) and I have been legally married in the state of Arizona. Meg Taylor performed the tiny but lovely ceremony which consisted of Kelly's grandparents and my best pal, Brian Young. A few ducks were also in attendance.

Legally married, I say, but in the Mexican culture there are specific rules for the young males who dare marry outside of the Mexican culture. In order to prove myself strong enough to enter the land of "The Ghost-Faced Smilers" (as we call white people), I must obliterate 50 pinatas, drink a bottle of tequila, and make enough burritos for everyone in attendance. All in the time from when the sun touches the horizon and before it finally sinks into night.

So, tactics become important. Traditional approaches are to drink the tequila in one go, kill the pinatas, and then make all the burritos. However, anyone who has ever drunkenly rolled a burrito will tell you that this is a path to despair.

I tend to think less than traditionally. Thus, I plan to cut down the rope holding the pinatas, run them all over with one pass of my motorcycle, and blend up the tequila into a giant margarita which I will leave unattended while I roll up the burritos.

Nobody will be able to resist stealing some of my delicious margarita and this should finish it enough of it to leave me standing the rest of the night, and strong enough to hunt down and bring back the skin of a chupacabra by dawn.

Kelly and I would like to have the wedding on Halloween of 2009. I haven't fleshed out my wedding party yet, but likely they will be the Justice League or perhaps the Animated Series Batman villains. I will be dressed as Alan Moore.

There will be an open bar, but I don't think it will be a traditional open bar. There will be a massive stockpile of booze and mixers and the only rule will be that you CANNOT pour your own drink. You have to make someone a drink while they make you a drink.

And for those who get too belligerent, I will roofie them and the appropriate costumed character will be photographed over your body.

Oh yes, far less than traditional. Perhaps some choreographed dances, more traditional Mexican feats of honor, and Youtube breaks.

Thank you for all of the loving thoughts and exclamations of confusion. All is exactly as it should be.

2008-09-15T13:42:00.002-07:00

Wondermark.com

The comic that says out loud what we're all thinking.

The comic depicts my plan for the education of my children. As there are so few rainy days here in Phoenix, I will hit them fairly hard and berate them mercilessly until they have no choice but to escape into a world of fantastic literature.

To subscribe to my parenting newsletter, please leave your contact information below.

2008-09-07T23:14:00.002-07:00

I still don't have a cell phone. My brain is...changing. I've been having more actual conversations with people. When I speak with others, I'm no longer constantly prepared to respond to something in my pocket. A part of my attention has been freed up, and it wanders around like a will-o-wisp, attracting stray thoughts and keeping them company.

I am able to become more immersed in a conversation, even lost. Often, whomever I'm speaking with receives a communication on their cell phone, breaks eye contact, and responds to it. It only takes a few moments, but when it happens I feel a flash of disorientation that leaves me blinking slowly as if waking from a nap.

The short bursts of communication are common now, and often convenient, but I didn't realize before how much it has altered the way we converse. Cell phone conversations have an average life expectancy of mere minutes. I remember being annoyed when a conversation took more than five minutes and I didn't feel "prepared" for such a lengthy interaction.

I'm regaining the ability to prioritize information. I can't just fire off random thoughts. I still think them, certainly, but over time the least relevant ones drop off because, well, they're what I would have said had I been sharing the same experience with a person, like driving in car together or watching the same film. Cell phones allowed me to have imaginary experiences with people, in a way, that I felt I could always share with them.

But what I'm sharing isn't really sharing. I thought of them, but wherever they were they did not think of me, because they were having a different experience. All my cheerful text messages contained shadows on a wall.

Neal Stephenson, a writer I enjoy immensely, has a few of the same concerns I do, and perhaps we all have felt one time or another. His new book, Anathem, touches upon it, as this interview reveals.

So I'll continue wandering along without that particular technology. Perhaps in fifty years or so, I'll get a cell phone again, just like I had when I was a kid.

For now, I think I'll enjoy the story of my life as much as I can because, as is true of many of the stories we share, to appreciate it, you really had to be there.

2008-09-05T11:19:00.001-07:00

An Insider Report on Jaclyn "Don't Stop Believin" Backhaus

So many people have asked me what I know about Jaclyn Backhaus in the last few days that I decided to write something up.

Basically, Jaclyn turned me into a whale. I got better, but I still have a furious addiction to krill-flavored corn snacks.

She claims to be anti-zombie, but I know for a fact that she played a dead woman in a play. The play's message was distinctly pro-undead.

As a supporter of the 90's, she voted to extend the year 1996 for 18 months, which would have cost taxpayers billions, but admittedly would have given us a couple more seasons of Fresh Prince.

CLAIM VS. FACT:

* "Hockey mom": No one has ever claimed this.

* "PTA mom": True. Jaclyn was a member of Parental Training for Arthropods, after she inherited her great-grand-uncle's beloved
pet lobster, Jubilance Pinchybottoms the 3rd. After Jubi joined the Canadian Royale Coaste Guarde, she promptly
quit the organization.

* "NRA supporter": Absolutely true. She is known to have received their highest honor, a signed photograph of Charlton
Heston firing a rare gun that instead of bullets shoots out other, smaller guns.

* social conservative: I don't know what these words mean so I will only say MAYBE?

* pro-creationism: Mixed. When asked who created Life As We Know It she was seen only to shrug and share a wink
with a nearby lobster wearing a top hat and monocle.

* "Pro-life": True. Rescued a baby bird from a cat. When others told her that the mother would no longer care for it
because it smelled like a person, she coolly replied that "Birds have a very poor sense of smell." Science supports
her answer, but all agreed that they didn't like her tone.

* "Experienced": There are quotation marks around this one, so I'm assuming it refers to something tawdry and I
refuse to speculate.

* political maverick: Not at all, unless you count that time we got kicked out of a John Tesh concert for
screaming "Tesh/Strongsad '08! Tesh/Strongsad '08! Tesh/Strongsad '08!" through his entire performance of "You Are
The Wind Beneath My Wings".

* gutsy: absolutely!

* open & transparent: ??? Good at keeping secrets. Not
good at explaining actions.

* has a developed philosophy of public policy: I know you are but what am I?

* "a Greenie": no. She is not an easily-digestable eco-friendly snack for dogs or cats.

* fiscal conservative: She's never spent more than she had.

* pro-infrastructure: I assume this refers to all that stuff that holds buildings up, so Yes. I mean, true.

* pro-tax relief: Completely eliminated the state tariffs on tiny top hats and monocles, and slashed property
taxes on all gerbil home construction after 1998.

* pro-small government: Yup. She calls no man mister.

* pro-labor/pro-union. I thought this said "pro-Funion" which is an onion-flavored corn snack. MAYBE?

Whuh?

This is a response to the New York Times Op-Ed, "Jaclyn Backhaus? Really?".
www.gurg.blogspot.com

2008-09-02T13:20:00.002-07:00

I believe politics are like World of Warcraft.

Trolls don't care if you call them trolls, elves are going to be pro-bows, and there are as many ways to play as there are players.

Enthusiasm for the game results in higher levels and cooler weapons.

Too much enthusiasm results in cramped hands and a food pyramid that has potato chips as its first and third tier.

So remember, fellow citizens, that we've all been there. Everyone at one time or another has clicked on a sheep until it explodes. And that's cool.

Confusing the amount of level-70 characters you have like John McCain confuses his houses? Not so cool.

Perspective is key. I know tempers are flaring now, but we're not fooling anyone. We all know we're just killing time until Starcraft 2.

I imagine it will go something like this:

"Nice mount. This is my spaceship."

2008-08-29T09:37:00.001-07:00

2008-08-26T09:45:00.002-07:00

Never in my life have I felt such an affinity with an animated crocodile as I have after watching Schnappi. I am Schnappi. Schnappi is me. Except he's Egyptian, and I'm still the property of the United States.

2008-08-24T23:56:00.003-07:00

When a man lives with an ear to the ground, the silences speak volumes. There is a science nestled among the subtleties of silence. It seems a paradox, and no, deafness is not a desired trait for such an occupation.

Silence is rarer now, and the study has become esoteric. The old masters were able to see the length and breadth of every silence, like a shadow cast upon the ground. They sat on the steps of the abandoned temple that served as their college and gestured at the silences between the people passing by.

These human silences were the more apparent then, even as they are now. Beginning students are merely encouraged to seek for those spaces in between us where silence can live. In time, they may learn to see it there, billowing out behind the passers-by. Everywhere silence fills the vacuum. All graduating students understand that the presence of the silence is vital to our existence, crammed together as we are. If the silence did not fill these spaces between, what would?

As students advance, they learn to distinguish between the silence. Again, the intellectuals so fond of snubbing this particular science become unwitting subjects. There are silences Awkward and silences Satisfied. There is the silence Between Uncertain Words. The silence of Death is more difficult to ascertain, as the other, living silences quickly crowd into the new space, usually Regret, Despair, or Indifference.

There are the more intimate silences, but this is recommended only to the advanced students, usually those who have endured their year in the Silence and still wish to continue their studies.

There is the silence that stretches between loved ones as they part ways without expressing their love. The silence stretches between them like a stale piece of taffy, warping before it tears.

There is the silence before an orgasm, a rushing silence, a swift current hidden in a still water.

Angry silence is an airless room adorned with razor blades on string.

The old masters are gone now. With no willing heirs to their knowledge, the study of silence has become a private endeavor. Perhaps, between us all, we know everything. The silences are still with us, around us, and nestled even inside us. Perhaps this is what prevents us from hearing many of the things we tell ourselves.

And so, to the study of a broken science. Failed Endeavors have a silence as well, but it has yet to be identified, measured, and cataloged. Perhaps it is the silence of one who believes himself slighted, when in fact no one is thinking of him at all.

2008-08-18T21:30:00.002-07:00

If Heaven exists, what would you like to hear God say when you arrive at the Pearly Gates?

"Good thing you believe in irony."

OR

"Lucky for you, we're letting everyone in while St. Peter restarts Windows."

OR

"You know, I believed in Guillermo when I was younger but, after hearing so many ridiculous stories..."

OR

"You know Sky Kurtz?"

BUT PROBABLY JUST

"What's a Gurg?

2008-08-18T01:46:00.000-07:00

I know this because Google knows this.

2008-08-12T23:32:00.001-07:00

2008-08-08T09:25:00.002-07:00

About six months ago I was obsessively watching Bioshock clips on YouTube, mainly this one with the Moby remix of "Beyond the Sea":

I just found this, typewritten on a torn piece of paper:

all bioshock and no play makes jack a dull boy
It was the best of times, it was the blurst of times. All the people that weren't starving in the streets were huddled in the trenches. Or so the newsfeed claimed. There wasn't much faith to go around, especially not for the Terran government. The system was like a child that never matured past the point of lying to your face. Startling how effective that remained, even at this point in the Magic Pony Wars.

I have forgotten that I may not live to explain this in person. It probably doesn't matter anyway. Like God, like Vishnu, like what you had for breakfast yesterday, you have to want to believe it's how you remembered it. But maybe it wasn't like that. Maybe it wasn't like anything. Maybe all there is are your whimpering words and the skeptical stare of your audience for as long as they'll listen.

It began with the God-Makers Suspicions should have been aroused by the mere fact that they named themselves that and subsequently started referring to themselves in the third person. None good signs.

Their department was a small one until some bureaucratic mis-step merged the bio-ethics with bio-engineering and then left the annual budget sheet in the printer. Suddenly there was only enough money in the Tri-Terra Media Corp. for eighteen million new lines of stem cells and a mop bucket.

I almost suspect the scamp who altered the abandoned financial document never expected it to go through. But it did. It has. We are all of us living through the result.

The blisters on my hand have not yet healed. My pace is slowing as they grow more tender. Bandages now. When will people learn? Man was never meant to play God with an unlimited budget and no stockholder accountability.

2008-08-06T23:26:00.002-07:00

She's not here. She told me not to write and well maybe I wasn't going to write anyway. I think she'll be okay, anyway. The sand will scour the expression from my face and I'll feel like the biggest secret at least in the room. She told me not to write and well maybe I won't because I'm not here either. Maybe our mothers wouldn't have gotten along and I'd've had to choose and I would have chose you but expect a lot of crying after.

Specifically not to write, she's not worried of my voice because my voice is independent but the writing stands atop perceived romantic insecurities. In speech moments live and they pass look there just went two of them. Written writing moments sullenly defend the rivulets of pondering hiding behind them. A movie set mock-up of a life painted already peeling at the edges.

Flowers drying upside-down.

Because it's unfair. They had a plan, I had a plan, you had a plan, plans are falling like cherry blossoms and I never liked cherries but I eat them now if they're on other things I do like.

I don't speak the language there but I can learn a language for you. And not a tongue language but an art language or a music language or a living one. I'll try not to mention dreams I promise.

Does the tyranny of democracy mean the Earth spins the same direction even though we all want different directions? Crammed in a limo and we want different radio stations when the driver is behind glass and he remembers we didn't tip him last time?

I'm angry and I'm ready but if I were really ready then I wouldn't flee from teachers. I'm trying to hide infinity underneath my mattress and I almost got the corner but I can't get any more. If everybody's leaving sooner than I meant to be alone but I've been sitting on this suitcase and it's empty as my tomb.

Maybe she's right.

2008-07-30T09:43:00.000-07:00

2008-07-29T16:19:00.003-07:00

More bad news about cell phones. The phone companies are manipulating your feeble, human brain.

This explains a lot. I can recall many instances in which I was directly frustrated by these exact issues: full signal, then when you actually make a call, no signal. Full battery all day, half battery for an twenty minutes and then no battery soon after that.

2008-07-27T22:46:00.003-07:00

I shaved carefully and put on my suit. I had an excuse to look my best and I knew, I knew you might be there. I sat alone in the front row and examined the set. I was right, you walked in with a friend and called hello to some people in one of the rows behind me. I stood up then, and turned.

She looked directly at me and stopped. I looked her in her eyes as I've done a hundred times before and tried to remember to smile. She didn't recognize me, not all of me, and our eyes passed that millisecond moment when a glance becomes a stare.

Each sliver of a second was a shard of mirror. In one I was reflected as woeful, left alone and unknown, a stranger now to her memory. In another I am happy, looking in her eyes again and seeing something other than a woman wronged in heart and mind. I was just a vague familiar, and I confess I was satisfied with that, or at least I mean to be.

I've not experienced this before, this being forgotten. It's an odd satisfaction; I meant to stay away and I must have done it well. Of course it helped that I was long of hair and partly bearded, wearing glasses and not dressed like a scruffian.

But I needed exactly that, this time. Now I can accept that this, these dreams of her and regrets and wondering what I could have been, if I had left the best part of me when I left her, this is mine and only mine. She doesn't need to know these things. Time and a change of grooming habits have let me become nobody. And after years of being that other person to her, nobody is a name I accept with gladness. And if hubris does not bid me shout out my true identity, perhaps I can sail safely away to some port beyond where I will not break every promise to change.

Some place where it won't matter that I still love you.

2008-07-27T01:05:00.003-07:00

I step out into the blood-warm night to smoke a cigarette. It's the slowest suicide I know besides getting up everyday to live my life. Clouds sit fat and heavy looking close enough to touch. The moon is somewhere behind them and they glow, faintly. They cover the whole sky except for one big hole where a god must have punched through on its way back to heaven. I'm no Christian, but I don't blame him for leaving. Anyone would leave if they got the chance.

I don't worry about death. There isn't much else worth more thought and I give it plenty every time I go out on a case. A slow death is all right with me. The quick ones don't give you enough time to say goodbye but it ain't like you got much time to regret that either. In those last moments when I know I've bought it, I suppose everything will seem so beautiful. Paying attention is good in my line of work but really I try to notice these things because on that last day one of them might be the most beautiful of them all. Maybe even one of the ugly, pitted memories that hunker down in the base of my brain and only pop up their head to kiss me goodnight or to blow laconic breaths at the trailing smoke.

I drop my cigarette out into the dead grass. It doesn't catch; it'll never catch. I grind it under my heel like an accomplice. The hole in the sky is smaller. Gotta get while the gettins good.

I want to kill myself a little more but the phone rings. I heave myself through the window and back into my office. I'm annoyed but that's good because whenever I get a call this late I don't have to feel bad about not being polite.

Nobody's ever paid me to be polite.

I snatch up the phone on the fifth ring. "Grim Reaper here, what do you want?"

"...Grim? What? I-I'm sorry, this must be the wrong-"

"Lady, it's a joke, and the best I got at this hour. I'm Jim. What do you want?"

"I'm...I need your help, uh, Jim."

"You got it. Come by my office."

"What? Now?"

"Would you be calling me right now if this was something that could wait?" There's a scuff while she puts her hand over the receiver. I hear another voice, maybe a guy. There's no response from her. I pull out a cigarette and kiss it between my lips. She takes her hand off.

"Okay. At your office?"

"At my office. Just let yourself in." She's quiet. I hold the phone up to my ear with my shoulder and fish in my pockets for a book of matches. "Ma'am, I'm sure I can help you. I just don't like the phone so much."

"All right." She hangs up, click. I leave the phone off the hook and stick it in the top drawer of the desk so I won't hear that droning alert. The drawer below that contains a broken revolver and a fully functioning bottle of Faust's Single Malt Scotch. I find them to be equally reliable.

I start towards the window and catch my reflection. I didn't shave today and around my eye is still yellow-green from my last satisfied customer. I straighten my collar and adjust my thin black tie. My reflection grins back at me; a shorn-headed brown guy who looks like he hits the bottle as much as the gym. Cigarette dangling from my lip, I salute. "James Reaper, Private Investigator, reporting for duty sir!" I give him the finger and clamber out under the heavy blanket of night.

2008-07-23T23:09:00.007-07:00

How do I resolve my...mislike of Wal-Mart with my desire for fun new activities for the twins?

This is how.

We took it relatively easy on the poor, discriminatory corporation. It was a valuable field exercise. At times I would instruct Ender or Remy to put an item back where they got it, not to touch certain items, and to walk closely with me. Mostly they listened. I do not want them to assume that they can act this way whenever they walk into a store. That's another reason I chose Wal-Mart; nobody will give me a second glance if I whoop their collective butts up and down the aisles.

One day, when they're ready, we three will get ourselves kicked out of Wal-Mart. And every Wal-Mart. When they're ready. I'm not sure what we'll have to do to get kicked out. I felt that I let them go much crazier than I've ever dared, but we got no scrutiny from the employees whatsoever. Some people remarked on their cuteness and asked the usual twin questions but that was all. I filmed a bit, also, and my plan at that time was to say I was doing a sociology project for class. If pressed, I would say my major was in Projects.

So the plotting begins. I think I can dress them up in Wal-Mart brand winter clothes and send them into the freezer section. Not the aisles, I mean opening the door and running around inside the actual freezer.

That may not even work, because I plan to hide immediately and watch. If and when some employee actually responds, I'll run up panting and say "There you are! I've been looking all over for you two! What in good heavens are you doing?!"

Another plan is to put them in little stained wife-beaters and jeans and then let them play with cans of beer. Once again, I'll be hiding.

I'm not sure what else to do, but the possibilities are as endless as the supply of Chinese children living in factory houses that produce most of Wal-Mart's crap.

I know it won't really solve anything, and probably only impact the immediate employees, and that essentially I am just being an ass and attempting to rationalize it, but hey, I have to set an example.

I'm not sure what the future holds for my twins, or what challenges they will face. One day, they will have to look into their own souls and decide if they will use their powers for good, or for awesome.

In the meantime, I plan to get them kicked out of all the places I don't want them to go.

I wonder if I could get them into a strip club. One by the airport, and I could say I flew in to spend my one weekend a month with my kids and why you giving me a hard time, half these dames got kids anyway?

The audacity of hope, indeed.

2008-07-23T06:50:00.002-07:00

[from the journals: 7-18-08; 2115]

Pagan Angels slither underneath the cemetery leaves. Long sleeves and pants in the summertime. This is my stylistic legacy. Caked mud on my Gore-tex boots. This is not goodness. It is not goodness I seek right now. Tangled in my wires and mired in the conversation of others. My fingers do not want rings. Decorations are best kept under the skin. These still suffer damage and are seldom stolen.

Buoyant we.

Today while I slept and dreamt I had conversations I would have had on my cell phone, were my service active.

Vivid voices and likely words woke me with its conviction. To sleep, then, to continue our conversations.

Music drowns out the conversations around, avid discussions of which film to see or if there's time to eat before.

With my aural blinders on I imagine they speak of having dessert as the first course for the rest of their lives, in case they do not survive to the end of dinner.

That couple there speaks in hushed tones, planning a conspiracy of theatre, friends and family stumbling into passages of Borges.

Another calls a friend over to where he has been waiting and asks his help to shatter every mirror in his house.

A woman in a red dress licks ice cream off her finger. The evening is warm and the shop was out of napkins. My people today carry vast technologies in their pockets and no handkerchiefs. She listens to another woman monologue about her master plan to rule the world by controlling all vectors of disease and unleashing viral horrors on all who oppose her. The woman in the red dress has finished her ice cream and stares into her paper bowl, nodding.

Two boys swagger along with skateboards under their arms. A girl in a pink tank top clutches her purse, intent on a similar rolling along.

A brick fireplace fed by gas chatters angrily, a funeral pyre jailed by fountains on this side and sofas on that.

A man, stocky with small spectacles, points to the ground as he and his companion walk over it, noting the spot where on the exact opposite side of the world, his mother met the man who was his father, but is not his father now.

A girl in a striped shirt, jeans, and several strands of fat beads, glistening black plastic like spilt oil on a seal's coat. She paws at the air over her shoulder to beckon her friend along. She assures her that spontaneous combustion happens once every twelve seconds, but only once, so it may be years before one of them bursts into flame, if ever. Besides, she adds, milkshakes will lower our core temperature.

A woman in the movie theater points to a seat set apart from the others. "They usually don't last long after they've been separated from the herd>"

I hope this is not true of all things.