1. Sushi at an authentic Japanese restaurant and playing footsie under the table
2. A snuggle on a park bench under a full moon
3. Natalie Cole’s collection of her enchanted ballads on the CD player during our drive home
4. The Animatrix (a sci-fi classic) on our DVD-player
5. A shower together with the ordinary electric lights switched off and decorative candles providing ambient light
Why do you ask where and how I’ve been when I’m always a mouse-click away?
Why do you seem to be allergic to Facebook and Twitter?
Where is the shared, open flexibility Cyberspace once promised me?
All our conflicting “options” divide us forever
If you’re sincere, send a crapless, gagless e-mail to just me, and not a contact-list
Learn something about the first sites I rush to, not just the ONE site that you cling to
Why is this so hard to understand? I’m rushing to touch base, and gee what thanks I get
Why simply assume I’ve just vanished into thin air, and then ask me “Where were you?”???
There is a lot more to Cyberspace than just Multiply Dot Com
When was the last time that Multiply Dot Com was mentioned on the news?
Blogging allows more than telephones could first do when they first came
Yet there is chit-chat entirely throughout countless ordinary blogs
I have Googled many of you, and discovered where else you’ve popped up
Just to be asked where I vanished to everywhere I fail to make frequent time for
I should rediscover my introvert-self, and feel free to just type
Letting the Muse have her way, and accepting that I can’t appease every reader
I’m as confused at least as much as I am confusing, when and if I confuse at all
Why are you so sure the site you’ve chosen is where I’ll appear every day?
Why would your single one irrelevant, obscure chosen site have such broad appeal?
Why do you ask where and how I’ve been when I’m always a mouse-click away?
1) My life was not perfect yesterday. My life is not perfect today. My life will not be perfect tomorrow.
2) I laughed a few times yesterday. I laughed a few times today. I will probably laugh a few times tomorrow.
3) I was okay yesterday. I am okay today. I will probably be okay tomorrow. If for any reason I am not okay tomorrow, I will probably say that I am not okay, clearly and explicitly.
4) Sometimes I experience sad and melancholy feelings about The Human Condition. Sometimes I find it therapeutic to express these feelings. And then I get annoyed when someone responds to my expression of some of my melancholy feelings by panicking, and asking me what horrible thing has suddenly happened to me, and how can they rescue me.
5) When I am offline, I am usually outside getting some fresh air, or doing housework, or writing a blog-post, or spending quality-time with loved-ones, etc. My absence from Cyberspace has NEVER been an indication that I’ve suddenly been kidnapped or struck by lightning or anything of the kind, and it is never likely to be an indication of any such thing (contrary to what some online-community-members seem to habitually think).
6) I had autism yesterday. I have autism today. I will have autism tomorrow.
7) My spouse and I loved each other yesterday, we love each other today, and we will love each other tomorrow (July 17, 2010 will be our eighth anniversary)
8 ) I drank lots of coffee yesterday, I am drinking lots of coffee today. I will drink lots of coffee tomorrow.
9) I was a Secular Humanist yesterday. I am a Secular Humanist today, and I will more-than-likely be a Secular Humanist tomorrow.
10) I was a cat-person yesterday. I am a cat-person today. I will be a cat-person tomorrow (I like cats better than dogs; our landlord won’t allow pets, though).
#smilesandhugs #everyone
All of the things my sister and I wrote and drew in sidewalk chalk in our youth have long since faded away . . .
The time we pretended she was a teacher and I was a student, and I wrote:
“i will do what teacher says
i will do what teacher says
i will do what teacher says . . .”
The time we drew Pac-Man and Mario throwing barrels at Donkey Kong and The Ghost-Monsters.
The time we drew Mario walking up to a mushroom cloud and thinking “Golly, how do I get out of this one?”
The time we drew the sun smiling down on a cornfield and saying “Grow, grow . . .”
The time we wrote:
“KEN AND BARBIE SITTING IN A TREE
K-I-S-S-I-N-G”
The hopscotch-court we drew . . .
The time we drew the Middle-Aged Pervert Krishna Gerbils.
The time we drew the Care Bears versus Ewoks football game.
The time we wrote “COKE RULES AND PEPSI SUCKS” up and down the neighborhood.
The sloppy pictures we drew of our super-hero “OttoMan” saving the world from “The Evil Dr. Byzantine.”
All of the things my sister and I wrote and drew in sidewalk chalk in our youth have long since faded away . . .
One cold February day, when I was still a preteen (this was still a while before my mother died of cancer in 1993), I made up my mind that the Christmas decorations had stayed up in front of my mother’s house long enough. We were always the last people in the whole neighborhood to take down the Christmas lights in front of our house. I made up my mind that this was a priority, that someone had to take the initiative here, and that it might as well be me.
With stubbornness, incredulity, and focused determination, I suited up in my winter coat, mittens, and boots, and marched straight to the front door, where the goofy multi-colored flashing miniature light-bulbs lay draped across a wiry, scrawny, leafless deciduous tree just beside the front steps of our house. Why weren’t these dxmn things taken down by now? How hard could it really be anyway?
With firm resolve, I stomped down our front steps, strutted right up to the decorated tree, and stood in front of it, assessing the seemingly straightforward task before me. Christmas decorations up in February, how silly! This, I decided, was not going to wait a moment longer. It was time. Period.
I reached out in front of me to where part of the bulb-laden cable hung down from one of thin, limp, brittle deciduous branches. I grabbed the electric cable and began to pull. Suddenly, the tree-branch itself snapped off, whopped me on the forehead (leaving a slight scar that I would see in the mirror later), then fell on the toe-end of my left boot. I blinked, grunted, then noticed that the cable itself was no further off of the tree than when I had begun.
Undaunted, I fiddled a bit with the cable, searching for its proverbial Achilles’ heel, a place where it was more loose and more vulnerable to being removed. After a minute or two, I came across the end of the cable that extended a short distance away from the tree. I followed this extension with my eyes, and found that it terminated at the outdoor electrical outlet attached to the front of the garage, where the cable was plugged in. My lower jaw dropped to what must have been my ankles! How stupid not to have thought of unplugging these stupid flashing Christmas lights before getting them off the tree!
I took a deep breath, sighed, and plodded toward the electrical outlet to unplug the dxmn cable. Suddenly, I slid on the ice and fell with one hard WHOMP down on my ass! “OOH!” I grunted! Now, I was really pissed off!
With a sneer, I picked myself up, brushed myself off, and took slow, cautious steps toward the electrical outlet. I finally unplugged the dxmn cable, and carried the plug end back to the tree.
I wound part of the plug end of the cable around my forearm. I could almost taste victory. I reached my hand closer into the tree to get at the bulb-laden portion of the cable and pull it out. But much of the cable was intricately intertwined with the dry, cold, and prickly deciduous branches. The cable could not just be pulled; it had to be untangled.
I pried apart two deciduous branches that had a portion of the cable between them, and suddenly they snapped apart like a wishbone! The next thing I knew, my right wrist was scraped and bleeding! How did THAT happen???
An hour later, the dxmn Christmas decorations were finally down and put away in some box somewhere, and I was wearing bandages in several places. Just as I was resolving never to attempt taking down Christmas decorations ever again, my mother called me to the kitchen, where a found that she had baked a tray of delicious chocolate muffins, as a kind of reward for my labor and my helpfulness.
i am your misery
i am your sleep-deprivation
i am your headaches
i am the slap of my palm on your face
i am your disappointment
i am your starvation
i am a mouth and stomach eating more than we can afford
i am the stink of my body odor in your nostrils
i am the unfxxkable fat you hate to see naked
i am the dust in your coughs and sneezes
i am your stress
i am your burden
. . .
forget me tonight
don’t let me ruin your evening
Trees, you stand strong through the deaths of whole generations of leaves
Trees, you stand strong in summer’s roast and winter’s chill
Trees, you flex buff, macho bark, and stand high and mighty as gods
Trees, you grope stars and clouds, and tower over all
Trees, you love birds; trees, you welcome nests, never charging them rent
Trees, you let squirrels run amok across your bark
You remain calm, cool, serene throughout winter’s wearisome frost
You do not rage against the ice, the cold, the dark
Trees, I long to feel your love and embrace of the universe
Trees, I yearn to share your courage and peace
Through the many trendy zeitgeists and eras of emptiness
Through the deaths of generations of leaves
World of dudes and honeys, help yourselves to whatever’s left of me now
Every step is heavy, and every keystroke is fluff
Now, an ache of disillusioned anguish within continues to grow
I believed Authority’s hugs were gentle and safe
World of dudes and honeys, if you only knew your impact on one innocent soul
Go away. Why are you even pretending to read this?
Go enjoy the system in the void; return to places like church, school, and the mall
Go enjoy all the commodities money can purchase
Somewhere, off in some distance verging on the fringe of the wedge’s thin edge
That’s where you’d find me, if you paused and cared long enough to look
Once or twice, a few strangers listen to my silence across a burnt bridge
Nobody notices my gnashed, abused tooth-enamel crack
Go enjoy witnessing the same routines and patterns forever
Go enjoy whatever daily life has become, all that we know
Life is one voluntary-motor-function after another
World of dudes and honeys, help yourselves to whatever’s left of me now
Service Providers are free to take back the services we fail to afford
Service Providers are free to charge the fees that they charge
Shareholders only invest in big, tough conglomerates that profit from greed
Service Providers can keep themselves attractive and large
Leave our apartment as dark and bare as the Paleolithic Era`s caves
Finally, at long last, I no longer care
Cyberspace isn`t a right for poverty-cases; ìt`s not like food or clothes
Privileges are not promised, not always there
This has been waiting to happen so long, I shouldn`t be as dumbly surprised
How we`ve had access at all is quite unlikely and strange
Service Providers are free to take back the services we fail to afford
Service Providers are free to charge the fees that they charge
Inside a public bathroom cubicle, just above the empty toilet-paper-dispenser, the grafitti reads as follows:
“LET’S USE OUR IMAGINASHUMS AND PWETEND THAT THERE IS TOILET PAPER HERE JUST BECUZ PWETEND IS FUN”
The sign floating in the toilet-bowl reads as follows:
“OUT OF ORDER”
The sign half-stuffed into the tampon-disposal-unit reads as follows:
“We at Merco take to heart every aspect of your experience as a valued customer in our store. If you find the maintenance of our public washroom facilities to be anything less than satisfactory, please notify any of our staff immediately. Thank you for shopping at Merco, and have a nice day.”
The sign sticking out of the trash-cylinder reads as follows:
“AUTHORIZED PERSONNEL ONLY”
Read the world
Write your life
Be a child
Guard your turf
Be an embodiment of hope
Radiant beacon in the dark
Dreams are the lessons in your sleep
Leaving you inwardly awake
Decades end
Life is brief
Read the world
Write your life
Our apartment is now thoroughly infested with emoticons. Hundreds of emoticons are zooming across our floors, bouncing off the walls, tying shoelaces and USB-cables together in sailor’s knots, playfully tunneling around in the flour and sugar, bungee-jumping off the ceiling-fan with elastic-bands, and generally wreaking havoc, spreading gross germs and bad memes everywhere. An exterminator is on his way here as I type this text.
These emoticons are such devilish little monsters, they’ve even discovered that it’s fun to use our DVDs as their own personal giant Frisbees. Some of the emoticons are even entertaining the others by skillfully juggling our vitamin-supplements.
But that’s not even the worst of it: Emoticons are so resilient that vacuuming them with a vacuum-cleaner has no effect other than giving them an exciting thrill, not unlike an amusement-park ride, and then they all jump out again, scattering dust far and wide.
We did kinda sorta bring this upon ourselves, actually. Not many people know this, but emoticons generally survive by eating the undeleted e-mails that accumulate (if unchecked) in the Spam folders of e-mail accounts. Also, the undeleted applets and javascript-cookies that can accumulate (if unchecked) in the cache of any given web-browser application are very nourishing and revitalizing food for emoticons, really helping them thrive, grow, and breed vast multitudes of offspring. This is why it’s a good idea to periodically clean out all the folders in one’s e-mail account, and frequently cleanse the cache of one’s web-browser.
So a word to the wise: SAVE YOURSELVES ! ! ! DO NOT LET THIS HAPPEN TO YOU, because you SO do NOT want a home full of emoticons, trust me.
I am the fingers that love your muscles
I am the palms that adore your skin
I am the hands that bestow caresses
I am your arms when your strength is gone
You are my comfort and joy in struggle
Healing and warmth when the world is cruel
We are renewed when we hug and snuggle
We are the halves of a perfect whole
Post-Traumatic Stress Disorder
After years of blame and pressure
After years of self-denial
Anger cracks my tooth-enamel
Call this posted text “depressing”
Why the fxxk are YOU complaining?
Every day, the world is colder
Every person’s just a soldier
Now, I fear I can’t recover
Post-Traumatic Stress Disorder
Suddenly, I felt this strong craving for fruit
Suddenly, I felt this dry ache in my throat
Suddenly, I felt that Kraft Dinner is gross
Suddenly, I needed sweet, natural juice
Suddenly, I needed and grabbed that can of pineapple-slices
Suddenly, I felt the relief of making sensible choices
Suddenly, I knew my whole diet is shxt
Suddenly, I felt this strong craving for fruit
Walking from Marion Street to the Millennium Library and back
Daily routine of returning to the shelves and discovering a book
Living without the experiences others can recognize and share
Learning that nobody reads about the cares and concerns of the bizarre
Yeah, I’m still okay, for those of you who wonder how I am
Hard to entertain a readership addicted to the norm
Each day is a search for ways to entertain the easily-bored
Warm fuzzies are all that people want; whatever else is ignored
Leave me to live at a distance as remote and convenient as you like
Walking from Marion Street to the Millennium Library and back
fists
packed hands
tightly clenched
ready to fight
knuckles bent in rage
dare to attack
win and lose
left right
punch
Push a shopping-cart through the aisles of the Retail-Maze
Boxes, jars, and cans, grams and litres of wants and needs
Endless, grueling, soul-numbing task that my spouse enjoys
How I hate the grand scenic tour of competing brands
What a relief to finally haul the groceries home
Mention another “coupon” or “sale” to me, and I’ll scream
Has to be the most deathly-spiritless chore of chores
Push a shopping-cart through the aisles of the Retail-Maze
blaudience, commentariat, daily life, life, my life, visitors, weather
NEW WEATHER UPDATE: rainy day
In my world on May 25, 2009 at 2:05 pmYeah, it’s raining today, but y’know, sometimes it does have to rain
Lawns and gardens are thirsty again; so are the crops, corn and grain
Yeah, we need our umbrellas and boots, under a sky gray with clouds
Yeah, it’s chilly and windy, but don’t worry ‘cause this too shall pass
We’ll be wiping sweat off our brows in the sun’s intense heat before you know it
We shall tan again, have our picnics, and ride our bikes, once the rain has ended
May through August are sunny and hot months we enjoy while we can
Yeah, it’s raining today, but y’know, sometimes it does have to rain