Wednesday, March 9, 2016

An encounter with ruffians

Last night at about 2:00 AM, as I was walking to Kroger, I had my awareness focused on two guys who had been walking behind me for the past few minutes. When they had almost caught up to me, I did an abrupt about face. They kept walking for a couple of steps, then they both turned around and kept following me. Then they separated and tried to come abreast, one on either side of me. Those two no-good rascals were trying to corner me!

I turned around and walked backwards and extended both arms straight out with palms forward, one for each of them. The unmistakeable and common gesture for Stop. Cease. Desist. Now. I was walking backwards like that, with my arms extended outward like I was propping up two columns. They didn't stop, so I said, loudly -

'No!'

'Gimme a cigarette,' said one. 'You got any spare change?' said the other. 'Whatchoo got?' said the first one. 'We ain't gonna hurtcha,' said the other one. And they both kept coming.

I stopped then and fumbled around quickly for my sheath and extracted my flashlight blade (I call it my flashblade) with one hand, and my laser pointer with the other. I opened the blade, hit the light, and pointed the laser, the blade, and the light at the ground between the two of them.

'I got these,' I said. 'Gawn now. Go.'

That finally got 'em to stop, and the three of us just stood there quietly for about ten seconds, regarding each other. Then I turned to the left and quickly walked away, keeping my eyes on them as I did. They didn't follow, but they sure did holler after me. Really nice, friendly stuff.

'M-f'er! Bitch! You little bitch! Mother-f'er, you better run, you little bitch-ass (vulgar word that used to commonly mean cat)! Run away, mother-f'er! Little bitch ass! Run, you little f'er!'

I didn't run. I just kept walking until I couldn't see or hear them anymore.

So, anyway. That just happened. And that's why I carry a flashlight knife and a laser pointer.

Tuesday, March 8, 2016

The world through a dirty glass.

I wish I could really communicate the dream feeling. I'll try to describe the view of it from my minds' eye. The view accompanies the feeling; that's the only way I can even begin to approach the actual sending of the feeling from my cloud of thoughts to yours.

Ok. This is naturally somewhat abstract, but there are recognizable elements familiar to everyone - the elements are like words that form the grammar of the sentence which describes it. The dream feeling. The derealization phenomenon. Here goes:

Firstly, imagine that everything I'm about to describe is taking place behind a window, or a screen. A glass screen... like a TV screen. It's the language of it, I suppose. The phonetics are in color; a palette that tends toward yellow-beige-gray, with reddish-purple hints where there are shadows, or things of a darker shade. The glass screen is smeared and dirty, and everything visible beyond that glass has a smeared and dirty accent. A profoundly decrepit and unconcerned ignorance.

It's like looking outside through the large front window of a small town laundromat, or a gas station. I mean a real gas station, not a convenience store. Think thirty or forty years ago, if you have memories that go back that far.

So, if you're able to get a picture of that in your mind, and you can speak a description of it to yourself using that visual grammar, then all you have to do is stain it with a couple of coats of apathy, coat it with a layer of old dust, put it inside of a dry, still late summer afternoon, and then name it 'Eternal Evening, 7:30 PM, and Old'.

Ok, that's the predicate. Now let's form the subject - and here's where I'm pretty sure the communication falters, because what you see through that window has to be very personal.

Everything I've described so far is the womb, but it's the movement inside that makes it a thing impossible to express, but which I can't ignore. Because it's MY feeling, a singular feeling that comes from a deepness inside of me that nurtures a painful but comforting kind of discord, surrounded by a melody consisting solely of minor diminishments that are just slightly out of tune, and only barely audible.

I'll give you mine.

When I look through that window, there's no motion. Not even a slight breeze to stir up the dust and dirt; and there is a dirtiness everywhere, and on everything. There's life out there, but it's a still life. People are out there. Sitting still, mostly.

Sometimes that window provides a view out onto a porch; hot and splintered and dead. Sometimes it's the laundromat window, looking out onto a few yards of cracked concrete desolation, with weeds stuck in the cracks.

Looking outside, through the backseat window, I can feel sticky bare thighs on a hot vinyl surface.

There's a horizontal view of the world through that dirty glass, tipped vertically and with an earful of dirt, and a darkness underneath a flat and protesting deadness of wood that's nailed to itself and sharing its splinters, punctuated by cinder blocks and clods of dry earth which sprouts gray weeds; all dead.

Underneath and permeating it all, there's a living satisfaction, imbedded inside of and agreeing with the view of the world, and the dry, dessicated smell of it. The essence of it is captured like a still frame that was left out and overdeveloped, in mid-rot.

The sum total is extremely unsettling, but it's what the experience of living inside of the world feels like to me, sometimes.

The Prestigious Starfleet Academy

I figured I should pass along some sage advice about what I learned so far, and how I got it learned, because it's bad karma to hog it all for myself. Here goes.

The prestigious Starfleet Academy is a real school that I actually think I went to. It offers all kinds of things. They have classes for lots of stuff, which is their main draw.

Here are some of the valuable classes I signed up for:

Counting Recycled Calories 101
Fucking with Feng Shui 101
Algebra for Assholes 101
Killing and Cooking and Killing 101
(this was an elective for Klingons only, but I never showed up for class and nobody ever even knew that I'm not a Klingon)
Quantum Theory for Preschool Retards 101
Drawing on the Right Side of Somebody Else's Brain 101
Thirteen Dimensional Alternative American History 101

And one other elective:

Bickering with Barriers - Sound, Light, Time, and Concrete 101

They give you a dot matrix printout of your degree when you're done, which is a nice perk. I'd recommend Starfleet Academy to anybody who just don't give a crap about nothin'.