Right now it's like a dream. Right now, right this minute. It's more like the memory of a dream, actually...
That's so weird, how I get these feelings. It's surreal, like this
moment is a page out of a children's book. Not a book written for
children by grown ups... this is more like a story that has sprung
straight out of the mind of a child who has yet to develop the idea of a
reality that's more than a few minutes
to either side of now; where the substrate of existence is so simple
that concepts like good and evil can find nothing tangible upon which to
take root. There is only the pure interest of being, and a strong will
to continue being, according to the natural rules of movement along the
zeroth dimension of the absurd simplicity of now.
Dang, don't I turn into a convoluted windbag when I start thinking about stuff.
Wednesday, April 16, 2014
Thursday, March 13, 2014
13 dimensional string theory, God, and quantum music.
Have
you ever been so emotionally moved by a piece of music that you wished
it were possible to actually BE the music? To somehow exist as the
actual notes and chords and harmonies and melodies, with the entire
song comprising your life, with the beginning as your birth and the end,
your death? Even if it's just a short song, or just a piece of a song.
I've got a theory as to what music really is. You know how music is made out of math, basically, and how the universe is also made out of math, which - functioning as math does - is essentially just a description of vibrations? And how musical notes are simply the atoms and molecules, which together and in abundance make up a medium which can vibrate at certain frequencies, and how those very atoms are, according to 13 dimensional string theory, actually, at their most basic and fundamental level, individual pieces of the very essence of space-time vibrating at different frequencies, with specific frequencies describing the specific bosons and force carriers which comprise all forms of matter and energy, which in essence means that (I just saw a shooting star, by the way) the fabric of creation can be accurately described as, and in fact is, the penultimate musical instrument, with the laws of physics as the musical theory, and matter and energy as the notes, and the struggle of order against entropy as the time signature, and the galaxies, stars, planets, and all related macro and micro phenomena as the theme, and with life as the complex and interwoven melodies which bind it all together and give it meaning, with God as the composer and conductor?
So, what music is - that stuff we actually create with our minds and hear with our ears - is the expression of ourselves in God's image, as we were made. It's an essential part of communion with God, which is why we feel such joy and ecstasy when we hear it and write it and play it and sing it... it's just that most of us have forgotten what it's for, and what that feeling means.
I've got a theory as to what music really is. You know how music is made out of math, basically, and how the universe is also made out of math, which - functioning as math does - is essentially just a description of vibrations? And how musical notes are simply the atoms and molecules, which together and in abundance make up a medium which can vibrate at certain frequencies, and how those very atoms are, according to 13 dimensional string theory, actually, at their most basic and fundamental level, individual pieces of the very essence of space-time vibrating at different frequencies, with specific frequencies describing the specific bosons and force carriers which comprise all forms of matter and energy, which in essence means that (I just saw a shooting star, by the way) the fabric of creation can be accurately described as, and in fact is, the penultimate musical instrument, with the laws of physics as the musical theory, and matter and energy as the notes, and the struggle of order against entropy as the time signature, and the galaxies, stars, planets, and all related macro and micro phenomena as the theme, and with life as the complex and interwoven melodies which bind it all together and give it meaning, with God as the composer and conductor?
So, what music is - that stuff we actually create with our minds and hear with our ears - is the expression of ourselves in God's image, as we were made. It's an essential part of communion with God, which is why we feel such joy and ecstasy when we hear it and write it and play it and sing it... it's just that most of us have forgotten what it's for, and what that feeling means.
Tuesday, March 4, 2014
Some time passes
There's too much beauty out here, and too much reality for it to exist inside of. I know, I know... I keep going on about how beautiful it is; the beauty of the night, ad infinum, ad nauseum. But think about it for minute. What's so good about it? What exactly is it that is so inspiring that when I'm out in it, I feel compelled to express the experience for the purpose of sharing it with other people? What is it that's so good to see or experience that it requires tired legs, a mustache covered in frozen snot, a lack of sleep, and a concatenation of bored cops who wanna play 'tag, you're it, baggy eyes' with me?
Or what's so bad about it, for that matter? There is a little bit of bad mixed in sometimes, as a result of having almost eight thousand miles of rock existing there between myself and the life giving photons of the Sun. Is that a problem for anyone else, or just me? Anywho. So mostly the bad is contrived... but however it got there, there it is, exactly undeniable, and being undeniably bad.
But. The bad is necessary, because to really appreciate a whole lotta good, I mean like... the whole lotta good that I've come to expect every now and then from the extraordinary banality of simple awareness, then there ain't no getting away from the fact that, from a human perspective, that whole entire experience of good would be meaningless without something for it to contrast against, like all that bad I was just going on about.
(some time passes)
Well, I never got around to describing all of those things that actually make me Feel, because I got caught up in the details of describing a whole bunch of whatever that I was busy experiencing, and then I must have decided that the experiencing was more interesting than the describing. I remember how it felt though; that thing I originally was wanting to communicate. And... okay. Time to lapse into unconsciousness for a little while. I'll dream about that thing here in a few minutes. I can't wait!
Or what's so bad about it, for that matter? There is a little bit of bad mixed in sometimes, as a result of having almost eight thousand miles of rock existing there between myself and the life giving photons of the Sun. Is that a problem for anyone else, or just me? Anywho. So mostly the bad is contrived... but however it got there, there it is, exactly undeniable, and being undeniably bad.
But. The bad is necessary, because to really appreciate a whole lotta good, I mean like... the whole lotta good that I've come to expect every now and then from the extraordinary banality of simple awareness, then there ain't no getting away from the fact that, from a human perspective, that whole entire experience of good would be meaningless without something for it to contrast against, like all that bad I was just going on about.
(some time passes)
Well, I never got around to describing all of those things that actually make me Feel, because I got caught up in the details of describing a whole bunch of whatever that I was busy experiencing, and then I must have decided that the experiencing was more interesting than the describing. I remember how it felt though; that thing I originally was wanting to communicate. And... okay. Time to lapse into unconsciousness for a little while. I'll dream about that thing here in a few minutes. I can't wait!
Wednesday, February 19, 2014
Lost in Denton
Tonight
a cop followed me around for a little while. They do that
occasionally, because I guess it's their duty or something. After all,
it is night time, and I'm supposed to be asleep, not out lurking around
in the shadows. Do I sound bitter? Well, maybe a little. Yeah, I
understand... it's their job, and some people do wait until night to do
their lurking and to pull their shenanigans, but the jackboot flashlight interrogation routine gets old after about the umpteenth time.
So anyway. I was walking north on Bonnie Brae, and I was almost to the loop, when I noticed a car sitting at a junction about a quarter mile south of me. I stopped and watched it for a good five minutes, and then it turned north and started coming toward me. As it passed by, I saw it was the cop. Yeesh. So I started walking again, and then I saw him turn around. On his way back he stopped, so I stopped too. It was the same old rigmarole... "Good evening, is everything okay, what are you doing, where are you going, where do you live, why are you out so late, what kind of lunatic goes hiking out in bum-fucked Egypt at 3:00 am just for kicks, and what exactly is your deal, anyway?" Once he was satisfied that I posed no threat, I was free to go on my merry way.
After that, I decided to take a shortcut home through a field. I got lost. Can you believe that? I got lost in the wilderness, in the middle of Denton. Eventually I ran across a creek, so I followed that until I came to an apartment complex. And do you want to know which apartment complex, out of the gazillion and one apartment complexes in Denton? It was the one on Joyce Lane, where Leah used to live; the one that I'd been to a gazillion and two times. Ain't that a kick in the head.
So anywho and stuff. G'night.
So anyway. I was walking north on Bonnie Brae, and I was almost to the loop, when I noticed a car sitting at a junction about a quarter mile south of me. I stopped and watched it for a good five minutes, and then it turned north and started coming toward me. As it passed by, I saw it was the cop. Yeesh. So I started walking again, and then I saw him turn around. On his way back he stopped, so I stopped too. It was the same old rigmarole... "Good evening, is everything okay, what are you doing, where are you going, where do you live, why are you out so late, what kind of lunatic goes hiking out in bum-fucked Egypt at 3:00 am just for kicks, and what exactly is your deal, anyway?" Once he was satisfied that I posed no threat, I was free to go on my merry way.
After that, I decided to take a shortcut home through a field. I got lost. Can you believe that? I got lost in the wilderness, in the middle of Denton. Eventually I ran across a creek, so I followed that until I came to an apartment complex. And do you want to know which apartment complex, out of the gazillion and one apartment complexes in Denton? It was the one on Joyce Lane, where Leah used to live; the one that I'd been to a gazillion and two times. Ain't that a kick in the head.
So anywho and stuff. G'night.
Thursday, February 13, 2014
The Truth About Toad Licking
This was written back in '96 when I lived in Austin.
____________________________________________
Toad Licking
You've probably heard about 'toad licking'. Go out into the woods, find a stream, find a toad, lick it, and ta-da! La-La land. Well, it's not EXACTLY like that... although, finding mushrooms is ALMOST like that, except you don't go into the woods, you go into a pasture, and instead of finding a stream, you find a pile of cow flop... but that's another subject. But anyway, back to the toad thing.
First of all, if you do happen to find the right toad, it wouldn't be a good idea to lick it. The stuff that 'gets you off' is actually venom. The frog secretes the stuff when it gets agitated, such as when a predator is about to gobble it down. As soon as the wolf or gila monster or whatever puts the thing in it's mouth, it spits it out, because the venom tastes like ca-ca. But a human, however... a human dedicated to catching a buzz will go ahead and lick the toad, because he's got a new-fangled cerebral cortex that suppresses his natural instincts for long term survival in favor of his need for instant gratification. So before you go stuffing toads in your mouth, here's a few things you should know.
The toad's venom is concentrated on the surface of it's skin, and that's why licking is dangerous. Smoking it is a different story, however. The toxic ingredient in toad venom is called bufotenine, which is burned off while smoking. After the toxic stuff is gone, what's left is the hallucinogen 5-MeO-DMT. THIS is what sends you to never-never land. The only toad known to contain 5-MeO-DMT in it's venom is Bufo Alvaris, also called the Colorado River Toad. It is found in the Southwestern portions of the U.S., usually along the Colorado River in Southern Arizona, California, and Northern New Mexico. 5-MeO-DMT is classified as an unscheduled substance, which means that it is legal to posess... but B. Alvarus venom also contains bufotenine, which is scheduled, so you are hereby warned of all the cop crap.
B. Alvarus is a very large, squat toad with smooth, leathery, greenish-grey skin with tannish underparts. It has several round warts on the body, and four large parotid glands found where the hind-leg meets the body and also above the ear membranes. They can grow up to 9 inches long, but they usually range between 4 and 9 inches. If you ever do actually have one of these greeblies in your hands, be very careful, because as I stated earlier, it secretes venom when agitated, so wear gloves or something and don't rub your eyes or any other orafice on your body after handling it.
In order to get a smokeable sample, put the toad on a piece of glass (a pyrex baking dish works well) and rub the parotid glands behind it's eyes. This will irritate the toad, and it will secrete a milky fluid. Once there is a goodly amount of it, let it evaporate to a crystal and then scrape it with a razor blade. Put it in a glass pipe, and then SHMOKE IT!
These are the commonly reported (generic) effects
Coming on INSTANLY, you will feel a buzzing head-rush and notice a profound change in light and color perceptions. Acute closed-eye visual hallucinations are commonly reported. Effects last for 5 to 15 minutes, falling off rapidly. WARNING: Venom smokers may experience dizziness and/or heart palpitations. If this occurs, breathe slowly and deeply until the effect fades.
Here is a first hand account by Yours Truly
A friend of mine mailed me a sample of this stuff, and included was a note that read 'have a nice time'. I had no idea what this 5-MeO-DMT stuff was, and expected some kind of a mellow buzz akin to marijuana. So, confidently, I loaded the stuff into a pipe, sat back in my lounge chair, and prepared to chill out. Two seconds after I had inhaled my first (and only) hit, the room exploded. When I say that, I mean... it EXPLODED. Everything came apart like a puzzle, but the pieces were still next to each other, like it had only come apart at the seams but hadn't scattered to the four winds. It was an extreme, instant rush; VERY INTENSE. I gripped the arms of the chair I was sitting in like I was on a roller-coaster, and looked over at my lifelong buddy Clintmonstah, and his face flew into 5 different parts. Actually, it was his face, reproduced 5 times, hovering around the central image of his REAL face. I can remember saying something like "oh shit, this is heavy", and then Clint left the room, knowing that something SERIOUS was going on. What followed after that is very hard to recall, because it seemed like a VERY long time passed... a lot longer than the 5 minutes that actually passed in reality between the time when Clint left the room and when he came back. When Clint came back in the room, I was starting to chill out a little, but during those 5 minutes, I was somewhere else. Where, I do not know. Not only was I someWHERE else, I was someWHEN else too. I could have lived an entire lifetime in those 5 minutes, because it seemed like an eternity had passed. Time lost all meaning. EVERYTHING lost all meaning. I was in limbo for those 5 minutes. But I finally came back... and had a frame of reference again! I exhaled in relief. After that, things calmed down, until the effects were completely gone. The entire episode lasted for about 30 minutes from the time I inhaled to the time I was totally back in reality. And what a journey it was...
If you've ever done acid or mushrooms, then imagine the heaviest trip you've ever had magnified about 100 times. That is what it's like when you inhale about 5 milligrams (the recommended dose) of 5-MeO-DMT. And it's instant, not like the slow, gradual coming on when you take an acid hit or eat a shroom. So if you ever have a chance to smoke some 5-MeO-DMT, now you know what you're in for, unlike poor naive me who was expecting a mellow buzz in my comfortable lounge chair in my air-conditioned apartment. But, it's definitely worth the trip, even if you take it only once.
____________________________________________
Toad Licking
You've probably heard about 'toad licking'. Go out into the woods, find a stream, find a toad, lick it, and ta-da! La-La land. Well, it's not EXACTLY like that... although, finding mushrooms is ALMOST like that, except you don't go into the woods, you go into a pasture, and instead of finding a stream, you find a pile of cow flop... but that's another subject. But anyway, back to the toad thing.
First of all, if you do happen to find the right toad, it wouldn't be a good idea to lick it. The stuff that 'gets you off' is actually venom. The frog secretes the stuff when it gets agitated, such as when a predator is about to gobble it down. As soon as the wolf or gila monster or whatever puts the thing in it's mouth, it spits it out, because the venom tastes like ca-ca. But a human, however... a human dedicated to catching a buzz will go ahead and lick the toad, because he's got a new-fangled cerebral cortex that suppresses his natural instincts for long term survival in favor of his need for instant gratification. So before you go stuffing toads in your mouth, here's a few things you should know.
The toad's venom is concentrated on the surface of it's skin, and that's why licking is dangerous. Smoking it is a different story, however. The toxic ingredient in toad venom is called bufotenine, which is burned off while smoking. After the toxic stuff is gone, what's left is the hallucinogen 5-MeO-DMT. THIS is what sends you to never-never land. The only toad known to contain 5-MeO-DMT in it's venom is Bufo Alvaris, also called the Colorado River Toad. It is found in the Southwestern portions of the U.S., usually along the Colorado River in Southern Arizona, California, and Northern New Mexico. 5-MeO-DMT is classified as an unscheduled substance, which means that it is legal to posess... but B. Alvarus venom also contains bufotenine, which is scheduled, so you are hereby warned of all the cop crap.
B. Alvarus is a very large, squat toad with smooth, leathery, greenish-grey skin with tannish underparts. It has several round warts on the body, and four large parotid glands found where the hind-leg meets the body and also above the ear membranes. They can grow up to 9 inches long, but they usually range between 4 and 9 inches. If you ever do actually have one of these greeblies in your hands, be very careful, because as I stated earlier, it secretes venom when agitated, so wear gloves or something and don't rub your eyes or any other orafice on your body after handling it.
In order to get a smokeable sample, put the toad on a piece of glass (a pyrex baking dish works well) and rub the parotid glands behind it's eyes. This will irritate the toad, and it will secrete a milky fluid. Once there is a goodly amount of it, let it evaporate to a crystal and then scrape it with a razor blade. Put it in a glass pipe, and then SHMOKE IT!
These are the commonly reported (generic) effects
Coming on INSTANLY, you will feel a buzzing head-rush and notice a profound change in light and color perceptions. Acute closed-eye visual hallucinations are commonly reported. Effects last for 5 to 15 minutes, falling off rapidly. WARNING: Venom smokers may experience dizziness and/or heart palpitations. If this occurs, breathe slowly and deeply until the effect fades.
Here is a first hand account by Yours Truly
A friend of mine mailed me a sample of this stuff, and included was a note that read 'have a nice time'. I had no idea what this 5-MeO-DMT stuff was, and expected some kind of a mellow buzz akin to marijuana. So, confidently, I loaded the stuff into a pipe, sat back in my lounge chair, and prepared to chill out. Two seconds after I had inhaled my first (and only) hit, the room exploded. When I say that, I mean... it EXPLODED. Everything came apart like a puzzle, but the pieces were still next to each other, like it had only come apart at the seams but hadn't scattered to the four winds. It was an extreme, instant rush; VERY INTENSE. I gripped the arms of the chair I was sitting in like I was on a roller-coaster, and looked over at my lifelong buddy Clintmonstah, and his face flew into 5 different parts. Actually, it was his face, reproduced 5 times, hovering around the central image of his REAL face. I can remember saying something like "oh shit, this is heavy", and then Clint left the room, knowing that something SERIOUS was going on. What followed after that is very hard to recall, because it seemed like a VERY long time passed... a lot longer than the 5 minutes that actually passed in reality between the time when Clint left the room and when he came back. When Clint came back in the room, I was starting to chill out a little, but during those 5 minutes, I was somewhere else. Where, I do not know. Not only was I someWHERE else, I was someWHEN else too. I could have lived an entire lifetime in those 5 minutes, because it seemed like an eternity had passed. Time lost all meaning. EVERYTHING lost all meaning. I was in limbo for those 5 minutes. But I finally came back... and had a frame of reference again! I exhaled in relief. After that, things calmed down, until the effects were completely gone. The entire episode lasted for about 30 minutes from the time I inhaled to the time I was totally back in reality. And what a journey it was...
If you've ever done acid or mushrooms, then imagine the heaviest trip you've ever had magnified about 100 times. That is what it's like when you inhale about 5 milligrams (the recommended dose) of 5-MeO-DMT. And it's instant, not like the slow, gradual coming on when you take an acid hit or eat a shroom. So if you ever have a chance to smoke some 5-MeO-DMT, now you know what you're in for, unlike poor naive me who was expecting a mellow buzz in my comfortable lounge chair in my air-conditioned apartment. But, it's definitely worth the trip, even if you take it only once.
Wednesday, February 12, 2014
The process of wenting
Tonight
I couldn't wait to get off work so I could go out on a walking
adventure. The wind was at zero, the moon was almost full, it was
luxuriously cold, and I had a full charge on my tablet, my phone, and my
mobile hotspot. Baby, I was ready to go, as Republica said back in
'96. They were ready to go too, standing on the rooftops and shouting
it out... but that was almost 20 years ago, so I don't
know if they're still ready to go, or if they already went, or if they
just gave up. I didn't stick around to find out; I went ahead and went.
After all these years I'm still in the process of wenting, I guess, even as I type this, and I'm still wondering where my went is going to wind up... although I'm pretty sure it doesn't matter, because we are all eventually going to wind up up as old farts anyway. Right now I'm still a relatively fresh fart, but I can feel the oldness coming on, and I'm sure it will be here before I even know it.
I don't necessarily mind becoming an old fart, but dang... those ripe ones can really really really really really stink. That's the only thing that worries me... the smell. I hope I don't smell too horrible when I'm a ripe old fart.
Anyway. I think I kind of ruined the mood when I started talking about farts. My original intent was to attempt to describe the indescribable beauty of the night which surrounded me tonight - that's a weird sentence - but I wound up talking about farts somehow. Not that a fart doesn't contain it's own inherent beauty. A fart can be quite a lovely thing! For example - imagine a life without farts. And while you're imagining that, try to imagine that you are appreciating something lovely, after holding in a couple of years worth of farts. I can practically guarantee you that nothing will seem lovely to you after a couple of years of cooking up a crock pot full of pressurized farts... except maybe an actual free-floating fart.
So where was I? Oh yes. Tonight. Dang, it sure was pretty tonight. That's all I really wanted to say, I think. If I could go back and do it again, I would have written more about the awesome beauty and less about the farts. I guess I could go back and do it again, but no.
Anywho. I'ma bed now.
After all these years I'm still in the process of wenting, I guess, even as I type this, and I'm still wondering where my went is going to wind up... although I'm pretty sure it doesn't matter, because we are all eventually going to wind up up as old farts anyway. Right now I'm still a relatively fresh fart, but I can feel the oldness coming on, and I'm sure it will be here before I even know it.
I don't necessarily mind becoming an old fart, but dang... those ripe ones can really really really really really stink. That's the only thing that worries me... the smell. I hope I don't smell too horrible when I'm a ripe old fart.
Anyway. I think I kind of ruined the mood when I started talking about farts. My original intent was to attempt to describe the indescribable beauty of the night which surrounded me tonight - that's a weird sentence - but I wound up talking about farts somehow. Not that a fart doesn't contain it's own inherent beauty. A fart can be quite a lovely thing! For example - imagine a life without farts. And while you're imagining that, try to imagine that you are appreciating something lovely, after holding in a couple of years worth of farts. I can practically guarantee you that nothing will seem lovely to you after a couple of years of cooking up a crock pot full of pressurized farts... except maybe an actual free-floating fart.
So where was I? Oh yes. Tonight. Dang, it sure was pretty tonight. That's all I really wanted to say, I think. If I could go back and do it again, I would have written more about the awesome beauty and less about the farts. I guess I could go back and do it again, but no.
Anywho. I'ma bed now.
Monday, January 27, 2014
More shenanigans at work.
The store got robbed tonight. The owner wasn't here at the time, but we all looked at the video; me, my coworker, the owner, and the cops, so we all had a pretty good idea of what the guy looked like by the time we were ready to open the store back up. Then afterward - and this is the essence of irony - the owner was driving around town to see if he could spot the guy just by chance, and he sure did, at a deli on Carroll. He called the cops and they promptly showed up and nabbed him. So, the guy who robbed us was found by the owner of the store, who wasn't even here when the robbery took place, and he was caught just two hours after the fact.
Saturday, January 25, 2014
Gasping choking dying
Oh man, that was just awful. I was starting to panic, I was starting to think that I was really going to die. Why does there have to be such a horrific panic response to a lack of oxygen? I mean, I can understand the purpose of pain, to warn you away from danger. In most cases, removing oneself from a source of pain is fairly simple. Stop doing the thing that hurts. However, this "I can't breathe, oh please God, I don't wanna die in agonizing mortal terror!" bullshit is going overboard. I mean, how often do we run across a lack of oxygen in our daily lives? Do we really need such an agonizing warning? Wouldn't common sense and a level of pain equivalent to, let's say... a stubbed toe, be sufficient? Is it really necessary to be forced to discover a reality shattering epiphany regarding our mortality?
Why am I griping and carrying on like this? Well, what happened was this. Tonight, just a few minutes ago, on my way home from the Shmelvin-Elvin, I was just a-walking along, minding my own business, chewing on a malted milk ball (you know, Whoppers) and watching a movie on my tablet, when I almost freaking died. I must have inhaled just a tiny bit of whopper saliva, because suddenly my throat was closed and I couldn't pull any air into my lungs at all. I would take a little tiny breath, and I would get a little bit of air, but whenever I tried to pull in a good breath, my throat would close and all I could do was make this terrifying wheezing sound. This went on for about three minutes. Long enough for me to scan my surroundings, scope out the nearby houses, gauge their distances, calculate whether or not I had enough oxygen in my lungs to make it to the front door of the closest one, realize I wouldn't have any breath left at all to shout, and maybe not even enough to knock or kick, and that I would likely die right there, tonight, on some strangers doorstep, wheezing and gasping, and experiencing the worst death possible, short of being burned alive.
It took me about a minute to realize that short breaths were the key. Oh man, damn, those sixty seconds sucked. Just the memory of it is almost enough to bring back the actual feeling of suffocating. What a great memory! I'm sure that I will reflect upon it with nostalgia in the years to come... that is, if I don't suffocate to death before I get the chance. So... short breaths. After another minute or so I was able to get about half of a good breath, and my panic started to subside. And after another couple of minutes, I was fairly sure that I was going to live.
I'm pretty scared now. It was a lot like those times whenever I've woken up in the middle of the night feeling like I was suffocating, except that this time it went on for about four times longer. So, this sucks. My own saliva can kill me anytime it wants to. Just any old time at all. Asleep or awake, it doesn't matter. I really don't like this new 'random possibility of death' thing that's going on in my life lately.
Why am I griping and carrying on like this? Well, what happened was this. Tonight, just a few minutes ago, on my way home from the Shmelvin-Elvin, I was just a-walking along, minding my own business, chewing on a malted milk ball (you know, Whoppers) and watching a movie on my tablet, when I almost freaking died. I must have inhaled just a tiny bit of whopper saliva, because suddenly my throat was closed and I couldn't pull any air into my lungs at all. I would take a little tiny breath, and I would get a little bit of air, but whenever I tried to pull in a good breath, my throat would close and all I could do was make this terrifying wheezing sound. This went on for about three minutes. Long enough for me to scan my surroundings, scope out the nearby houses, gauge their distances, calculate whether or not I had enough oxygen in my lungs to make it to the front door of the closest one, realize I wouldn't have any breath left at all to shout, and maybe not even enough to knock or kick, and that I would likely die right there, tonight, on some strangers doorstep, wheezing and gasping, and experiencing the worst death possible, short of being burned alive.
It took me about a minute to realize that short breaths were the key. Oh man, damn, those sixty seconds sucked. Just the memory of it is almost enough to bring back the actual feeling of suffocating. What a great memory! I'm sure that I will reflect upon it with nostalgia in the years to come... that is, if I don't suffocate to death before I get the chance. So... short breaths. After another minute or so I was able to get about half of a good breath, and my panic started to subside. And after another couple of minutes, I was fairly sure that I was going to live.
I'm pretty scared now. It was a lot like those times whenever I've woken up in the middle of the night feeling like I was suffocating, except that this time it went on for about four times longer. So, this sucks. My own saliva can kill me anytime it wants to. Just any old time at all. Asleep or awake, it doesn't matter. I really don't like this new 'random possibility of death' thing that's going on in my life lately.
Tuesday, January 14, 2014
time-like entropy
Everything
feels like a dream right now. Everywhere I look, I can't help but to
imagine myself, or an alternate version of myself, existing in
conjunction and in some variant way with whatever happens to live in my
field of view - trees and houses, sidewalk and sky, dirt and moonlight;
the muffled sound of a distant conversation, and footsteps; a barking
dog. I'm imagining myself embedded within the
swath of influence that these things have shaped and formed as the
phenomenon of existence flows over, across, and around them... like a
glacier of time-like entropy winding a path of consequences through a
mountain range of causal events; splitting and merging and splitting,
and merging again. And I'm aware of how magical it feels to be both an
old friend and a complete stranger to myself.
Dang. I sure as heck don't know where all that came from.
Dang. I sure as heck don't know where all that came from.
Sunday, December 29, 2013
A dream - Jerral
I was sitting in a rocking chair in front of this gas station in Mt. Pleasant on the north side of town that we used to stop at on the way to Clint's. I was rocking back and forth pretty good, thinking about these stunts I'd seen earlier that had put this idiot in the hospital. It was a news report I was remembering. It was funny, so I laughed. Then I saw Sam coming up the hill, and I thought, "Time for a smoke," and started fumbling in my pocket for a couple of cigarettes. Then to my left, I saw Jerral walking up. He was just like the last time I saw him. Stocky and healthy with a shock of unruly blond hair, arms so big they kind of stuck out to the side a little as they hung naturally from his shoulders, and there was this grin on his face that got bigger and bigger as he got closer. I jumped up out of the chair in disbelief, and I said, "No, no, I knew it, you're ok, you're not dead," and I ran over and gave him a hug and started crying, saying into his shoulder, "Why, why man, why did you scare us like that?" And then we sat down on a couch and he started to explain how he'd almost died, but it was his wife who had saved him, and then his voice started to recede and things started to fade, and I said out loud, "This isn't real. You're dead." And I burst into tears and woke up.
Wednesday, November 20, 2013
A dream - string of worlds
I dreamed I was on an engineered planet, one of a ring of planets which circled the sun, all of them connected by technology. I stood on the surface of the world, and the sky was daylight and blue, but a very dark blue, and stars were visible, and the sun was shining close to the horizon, and it was indescribably beautiful. And in the sky I could see the string of worlds, and they were all attached to this shimmering length and strung along it, and I could see the vegetation growing on each world, and the oceans churning and reflecting sunlight, and each was like a mini-version of the Earth. A string of pearl Earth's stretching across the sky. I got so excited I couldn't stand it, I had to find someone to show it to, and there was a station across the field, so I ran to it. People came out, and I screamed and shouted to them and pointed at the sky, but wind was blowing, and I couldn't hear anything I said or they said. I ran into the station, and the engineers were in there, the one's who'd created it all. They were doing something that was being displayed on a screen, and I saw that they were tearing the string of worlds apart and reordering them, and in doing so, making connections which fit together perfectly, as if they'd been made that way but put together wrong to begin with. I watched as all of the worlds reconnected, and electric lines of blue surged along all of the rivers and rock strata and ocean currents and air currents and through all of the vegetation, and then it was done, and it was all connected and I ran back outside and looked up, and it was all glowing this awesome blue, and I knew I was looking at a huge, cosmic brain which had been formed by all of those connections, and that the string of worlds was now a conscious thing.
Monday, November 11, 2013
Bird
The weirdest thing! Tonight I came across a bird in the road, just
sitting there, all nestled up and comfy. Right in the middle of the
road. So I went over to it and and said, "Hey bird, hey, hey, hey bird,
hey, watcha doin' in the road, hey bird, whatcha doin', whatcha doin',
get outa the road bird, hey bird, what's up bird?" And it didn't
respond at all. Now, you may be thinking that this bird was dead, but
no... I've seen plenty of dead birds. Just plenty of 'em, and this one
wasn't dead. But what the heck WAS it doing? I reached down and was
just about to grab it and move it off of the road, and as soon as the
tip of my finger just barely touched its wing, SHEBLOGINSCHNOGUMUP!
That bird flew right off. Crazy bird. Could'a got run over.
Tuesday, November 5, 2013
Dang. I mean, yeesh. Wow! Weird!
Dang.
I mean, yeesh. Wow! Weird! Okay, so here's what happened. I was
walking along, and about to cross over a creek. It was a pretty wild
creek, with lots of reeds and tall grass growing in it. So, I'm walking
across this man-made Road Bridge, over the creek, and I see this thing
moving in it. This thing moving in the creek. At the front of it,
where its mouth probably was, there were a bunch
of reeds and grass sticking up out of the water. It had these things
in its mouth, these tall pieces of grass and stuff. So, I pretty much
stopped immediately and froze, and looked at it really hard. I thought
to myself, dang, what the fuck is this? A fucking platypus or
something? Pardon my language, but that's what I was thinking and what I
kind of said out loud, in a sort of whisper. I watched it and it kept
coming toward me, and I had the ridiculous thought that it was a cartoon
animal, swimming along underwater, and using a hollow reed for a
snorkel. I happened to be munching on a pretzel at that moment, so I
spit it out into my hand and threw it into the creek. I thought to
myself, damn, that'll stop that thing. I was sure that it would go
after the pretzels. But hell no, that thing just kept on swimming, with
the shittiest bouquet in the world, sticking out of the water in front
of it. As it was about to pass under the little piece of road I was
standing on, I threw more pretzels at it, and I even yelled at it. I
think that I said, "Yo yo yo, hey, pretzels! You're missing the
pretzels! Dummy! Wtf?" Then I got a closer look at it, and I thought
that it was either a beaver, or an armadillo. Or a platypus. or a
really hairy turtle. Heck, I don't know what it was, but whatever it
was, it was on a mission with that bouquet of weeds.
Tuesday, October 22, 2013
How we met
How We Met
by
Ash
One day I was cleaning my dust collection when I suddenly had the urge to do something impossible. So, I decided to put this quantum mechanics probability poo-poo and purgatory of uncertainty crap, espoused by such mental midgets as Bohr, Einstein, Planck, and Heisenberg, to the test.
So, using that crazy 'observation must make it real' crap that Schrodinger was trying to teach to his cat as a necessary reference point in this world of bullcrap, I observed a device into existence for the purpose of punishing all of this dumbass quantum mechanical rigmorole. Seriously, it's retarded. I mean... if we are to believe the ass menagerie of modern science, then quarks come in flavors. So, according to these aforementioned dunderheads, there is such a thing as a quark that tastes like 'charmed'. And some of them have to spin 720° just to make one full rotation... I shit you not! Now, does that make a doggone bit of sense? NO. Quarks are stupid.
So. The device I observed into existence was a protractor which could not only measure both the energy and position of a particle simultaneously, but which also shat upon Planck's constant and the Pauli exclusion thing and the Heisenberg uncertainty principle, all at the same time (it was a real protractor, by the way, and not just some crazy imaginary thing... just so you know I'm not making this up) which means that according to this protractor, Heisenberg was stoned and Pauli must have been drunk on elderberry wine, and Planck was just this kid who thought algebra was a vegetable.
So, now that I've laid the groundwork, we can continue on to whatever it was I was talking about, which was how we met... I guess. That's the title I used when I saved this little essay when I started writing it about a week ago, but now I can't remember who it was that I was supposed to have met, and how it was supposed to have happened. It's pretty frustrating. Like when there's something you can't remember the name of.. like a thingamajig, or a whatchamacallit. Or that dream you had last night, or what day it is, or where you are, or how to speak English, or how to breathe... uh. You get the gist.
Anywho, that's what's happening right now. I can't remember any of that stuff. That's ok though, because I don't remember meeting anyone before, ever. I know it's something that must have or will have happened at some time in the future or as a future memory, but that I will have had knowledge of before I start writing this; the knowledge of which has, or was, or will have, or will be, or will be said or will have been said at some point either then, now or whenever, and has become or will become or is becoming or later becomes whatever it is that this is, right now.
Does anyone concur?
Oh, wait a second! I remember now. All of this was supposed to be about how I met this 120 year old time traveling version of myself from the future, who'd been on all these awesome adventures with aliens and dinosaurs. Duh! How could I have forgotten that? Stupid!
by
Ash
One day I was cleaning my dust collection when I suddenly had the urge to do something impossible. So, I decided to put this quantum mechanics probability poo-poo and purgatory of uncertainty crap, espoused by such mental midgets as Bohr, Einstein, Planck, and Heisenberg, to the test.
So, using that crazy 'observation must make it real' crap that Schrodinger was trying to teach to his cat as a necessary reference point in this world of bullcrap, I observed a device into existence for the purpose of punishing all of this dumbass quantum mechanical rigmorole. Seriously, it's retarded. I mean... if we are to believe the ass menagerie of modern science, then quarks come in flavors. So, according to these aforementioned dunderheads, there is such a thing as a quark that tastes like 'charmed'. And some of them have to spin 720° just to make one full rotation... I shit you not! Now, does that make a doggone bit of sense? NO. Quarks are stupid.
So. The device I observed into existence was a protractor which could not only measure both the energy and position of a particle simultaneously, but which also shat upon Planck's constant and the Pauli exclusion thing and the Heisenberg uncertainty principle, all at the same time (it was a real protractor, by the way, and not just some crazy imaginary thing... just so you know I'm not making this up) which means that according to this protractor, Heisenberg was stoned and Pauli must have been drunk on elderberry wine, and Planck was just this kid who thought algebra was a vegetable.
So, now that I've laid the groundwork, we can continue on to whatever it was I was talking about, which was how we met... I guess. That's the title I used when I saved this little essay when I started writing it about a week ago, but now I can't remember who it was that I was supposed to have met, and how it was supposed to have happened. It's pretty frustrating. Like when there's something you can't remember the name of.. like a thingamajig, or a whatchamacallit. Or that dream you had last night, or what day it is, or where you are, or how to speak English, or how to breathe... uh. You get the gist.
Anywho, that's what's happening right now. I can't remember any of that stuff. That's ok though, because I don't remember meeting anyone before, ever. I know it's something that must have or will have happened at some time in the future or as a future memory, but that I will have had knowledge of before I start writing this; the knowledge of which has, or was, or will have, or will be, or will be said or will have been said at some point either then, now or whenever, and has become or will become or is becoming or later becomes whatever it is that this is, right now.
Does anyone concur?
Oh, wait a second! I remember now. All of this was supposed to be about how I met this 120 year old time traveling version of myself from the future, who'd been on all these awesome adventures with aliens and dinosaurs. Duh! How could I have forgotten that? Stupid!
Monday, October 7, 2013
That Feeling
Sometimes I dream about that place where reality consists of an abstract feeling tthat describes things, such as family and friends and home and weather and seasons and love and happiness and disappointment and sadness and despair and hope and longing and utter destruction. Don't we all have those dreams? The ones that seem more real than actually being awake... the ones that we long for, that should contain us forever in a shroud of comfort, immune to logic and math, and events and the passage of time? The ones which consist of that pinnacle of perfect sadness that we would die for? A comforting blanket of grief that lasts forever. Murky and warm and deadening, like an eternal dose of novocaine. Does anyone else know about this, or is it just me?
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