America, the... cute, I guess.

I was walking North on Fulton and I heard that hawk sound. You know, the hawk sound? The one that goes with the purple mountains majesty, and the soaring heights and the vast expanse of glorious natural fundament, and the tired Indian on the tired horse and all that stuff? You know, the hawk sound. It goes... let's see. Kinda like a, it's a, uh... kind of a screeeAAA...ch...uh. With a sort of raspy thing on the end of it. Geez, it's in all the movies and commercials.

Anyway, that sound. So I stopped, cocked my ear, and said, "Do that again!"

And it did it again, and I used my built in sonar to determine the direction from which it... what's the correct word... Uh, absorbed in reverse, deabsorbed, and I looked in that direction, and there was this little bird about three inches long sitting on this thing under a thing.

Well, I shouldn't have to tell you that I was just about ready to get severely pissed off, but I didn't yet, so I looked at that bird and said, "Do it again, I dare you."

And it opened its stupid little beak and went scrEEEaaa...fyunch...click...ch.

So. That's it then, I guess. It ain't a hawk that makes that sound. It's this puny little... SQUAB. Thanks, SQUAB, for taking a tremendous SQUAT on forty years of hardwired memories.

You're welcome.

Ooooooh CRAP I just figured out one of the level-ups in real life! I'll go ahead and tell everybody for free, because I'm just that kinda guy.

What it is, is when you're cleaning up your compartment, or your domicile, or abode, or asylum, castle, special dump, memorable hell hole, where you hang your stupid hipster hat, whatever you call it, when you're doing that, here's what you gotta remember to do.

All you gotta do is start at the front near the front door, and work yourself forcibly through the trash and toward the back, cleaning and wiping and sweeping and smoking and stuff all the while, and then!

Then, once you've reached the back, near the bathroom, and all of the flotsam and jetsam and flora and fauna and detritus and toxic waste is all pushed up close together into that one space, all you gotta do after that is to keep throwing little bits of whatev into it, until it becomes so dense that you get a quantum singularity some day, and all the crap that's shoved in there gets sucked away into the eleventh dimension. Then you're finally done.

First though - and this is the most important part, and you can't just skip it, because it's required in order for the whole thing to work - first you have to have been awake for a long long long long long long long long time, because otherwise you won't get realistic hallucinations, and it won't be convincing, and you won't believe none of it really happened at all.

Shokinaw!

See that? The picture? More often than not, that's what makes me go ass-over-teakettle when I'm walking and minding my own beeswaxiness. I'll give a brief description of what it's like to encounter that thing in the picture:

Ok.

It's dark out, and I'm walking on the sidewalk (when there is a sidewalk, otherwise it's either in somebody's yard, or right in the big-ass middle of the road), just tooling along, listening to music or typing up some kind of crap like this, or filling up my brain crevices with words and pictures from teh interwub, when suddenly, and without warning...

AMBUSH! SNEAK ATTACK! SHOKINAW!

Suddenly my steady stridely impetus is violently interrupted! I find myself without forward leg support, and my cerebellum goes into overdrive, commanding the other leg to HURRY UP, HURRY UP, HURRY UP! while at the same time, activating the OMCS (override manual control sequence) procedure for my arms, forcing both of them to enact violent pinwheeling counter-rotations! An emergency application of centripetal force as a brutal attempt to absorb the unexpected and violent downward/forward momentum of the core personage! Blatant chaos ensues, as Order and Entropy grapple for control of the application of Pure And Unaligned Motive Energy!

Whew. Luckily I caught myself this time, because my cerebellum kicks ass, just like my immune system.

So... Does that sound exciting? Dramatic? Does the description capture the 'Holy Crap, All Balls Out, One-And-A-Half Second Struggle For Control', describing the brief but furious battle between the Dark side and the Light? The fight to keep me, myself, I, from doing a violent and abrupt faceplant on the concrete sidewalk, likely resulting in yet another broken hand/phone combo?

I hope it came across that way, because that's the only reason why I took that picture and typed up all of this crap and put it online.

That dog, again.

I'm walking to Kroger with headphones on, oblivious, and a brown wind goes tearing by and brushes my leg. This startles the craptaculations out of me at first, for almost exactly one second, and then I see this brown, long legged dog gallivanting clumsily ahead of me. I bust out laughing, but I can't hear myself because of the headphones.

This dog follows me almost the whole way, sometimes ahead, sometimes behind, sometimes taking a side trail, but always coming back to just ahead of me. It's got a collar and tags, but my phone ran out of minutes yesterday. No, this here phone is just for Wi-Fi.

After about ten minutes of that dog, and about fifty yards ahead, I see this guy and this girl sitting in their car with the doors open. That dog tears off at warp speed, into that car, and ALL over those two kids and inside that car like a berserk thing. It's like that cartoon where everything becomes a chaotic blur of motion, with a foot or a paw or a leg or a hand or a head sticking out briefly and getting sucked back in again.

Just as I pass by the car, all three of 'em pop out at the same time, each one from a different door. I remove my headphones.

"Is that your dog?" Says I.

"NO!" Says they.

The truth about me.

The truth about me.

I'm 45 years old and can't quite believe it. I still feel like a kid, but a kid lost in time and separated from everyone, permanently and naturally. I've always been out of synch. If I could just trip over a cosmic string, I might could get jolted into the place where I should belong.

More truth about me.

When I hear music, I get emotional. That's normal, so everything's ok so far, but I feel ashamed when music makes me cry. I feel dirty and worthless. I feel like I need to cover myself up in every scrap of clothing I have, and get under the covers with the lights off, and hide from my emotional reaction.

More truth about me.

I am an addict. I'm not a heroin junkie, or an alcoholic, or a crackhead, or a psychonaut, or a tweaker. I'm addicted to anything that will give me some relief from the constant pain of just being, and whatever that chemical is, that's what I'm addicted to. I'm addicted to anything artificial that offers an escape from the sharp, abrasive edges and surfaces of the unsympathetic passage of time. Melodramatic, but true.

More truth about me.

I'd give my kidney to a stranger if they needed it. I'm one of the good guys. Maybe I'm kidding myself as the shadow of my purpose is cast against the stark, white and pure surface of the Truth... but in my mind, I believe that I am, at least a little, and I don't think that I'm insane.

Some more.

I'm a selfish bastard, and an angry, unforgiving asshole. I know this is true about myself, and the knowledge of it hurts, like knives cutting me all over. It don't hurt enough for me to make any kind of real effort to do anything about it though, because enduring it is easier than trying to get away from it or change it, because I'm lazy.

I used to get pleasure out of things like drawing, playing video games, playing guitar, washing dishes, taking care if myself, hell... drugs took all of that away from me. I don't know if it's permanent, but it seems that way. I still get pleasure out of reading though... man, I dunno what I'll do if that ever goes away.

More.

I'm afraid of everything. Everything. I always have been, and it's always been this way. There weren't no distressing, traumatic event that made it this way. Not one that I can remember, anyway.

I'm afraid, really afraid about what happens to the music in my head when I die.

I think about suicide all the time, but I'm too chickenshit to ever do it.

I put myself to sleep with violent thoughts. Like a lullaby.

I want to live, but I'm being killed by the beauty of the world. I realized that a couple of years ago. Isn't that weird? It's a conundrum.

I'm just a tad bit insane, and I'm not even trying to be funny. I know I said that I wasn't a few lines up, but when you're insane, it's easy to forget that. You know what I mean?

I hate myself. Hate hate hate myself. Why? I don't know why, really. I don't deserve to hate myself.

I've killed three people. There ain't no evidence for it, and nobody outside of myself would ever believe it or think that my reasons were legitimate, but I can't escape from it. My one, single life isn't worth three people. So, there it is.

I think I'm good looking, and that's the sole, precarious basis for my own self worth, so I decorate myself in ways that are off putting and repugnant.

I really, really really REALLY want to believe in God.

From what I understand, peace isn't something you ever actually attain... it's just something that you experience now and then. In short BURSTS.

I carry a grudge for a LONG TIME. Sorry... but only for mortal wounds and insults, k?

I'm gonna feel embarrassed about posting this after I've slept, and I know this now, but I'm still compelled to do it because I'm pathologically shy with a ginormous ego. Dang, that's gonna hurt.

I'm a sucker for pain, as long as I'm the one inflicting it on myself.

Even after all of that though... I really am one of the good guys, and I'm carrying the fire. I promise.

Oh... and I hope all of this is entertaining. Really, I do.

I hope that's enough.

New York Schwa

I just realized something pretty dadgum stupid. You know how, um... how to explain it...

Like, a New York accent. Imagine somebody saying 'shirt'. It would sound kinda like 'shureet', with the 'uree' all kinda on top of itself and falling out as one sound, like saying 'uhhee' at the top of your throat with the back of your tongue.

See what I mean? There ain't no phonetic representation of that sound. No letter or combination of letters to express it. You have to waste five minutes of precious life just trying to explain it.

What is that anyway? Howcome there ain't a letter for that? I mean, there's a schwa for some kind of sound that nobody cares about, howcome there ain't one for that?

Well, I'll invent one then. That's a New York schwa.

I wasn't born, I was enrolled.

I was scrolling down my face book thing wallago, and man, that takes forever... and anyway, I get ALL the way down to March 25th, 1971, and you'd think that it would say, 'this guy got borned today'... but nooooo! It says, 'March 25th, 1971. Started school at Starfleet Academy'.

Star Bores - The Gritty Reboot

I watched the new Star Bores movie tonight. Wow! That was the best remake I've ever seen! Holy cow! They even had all of the same actors playing the same characters! Ham Yoyo, Princess Laidup, Creepio, Barstool, Chew-bacco, Lube Guystalker, Garth Gaydar (an albeit melted one), and even Oldie Von Moldie! Super cool!

I thought it was great how this movie followed the original movie EXACTLY, with the poor kid on Tattooine scratching out a living, and then escaping in the Aluminum Beercan in the nick of time with this fat dreidel that has the secret hologram in its SD card, just like Barstool in the original Star Bores!

Then there was that part where the stormtrooper rescued that other guy, what's his face... who was that, anyway? I thought the Saarlac got him. Anyway, that happened, then the helmet comes off, and SURPRISE, I'm here to rescue you, and I have your dreidel, plus I also got this hella fine chick! Let's go!

Then Ham Yoyo gets killed at the Death Star Planet, just like Oldie Von Moldie in the first one, and everybody got pissed off, and a bunch of  innocent stormtroopers got blasted on the way out! Awesome!

Oh yeah, and the Death Star Planet blew up a planet with the Death Ray. A bunch of planets. I thought that was going a little overboard, but whatever.

Then after all that stuff happens, there's this countdown that Death Thing has to wait for before it can blow up the... rebels? Rabble rousers? Resistance! That's it. So the resistance blows up the Death Star instead, because it had this secret vulnerable spot right there on the surface, and it wasn't just two meters... that dadgum thing was like, a gazillion times bigger than a womprat! So some x-wings fly down the trench and blow up the whole damn thing in the nick of time! Wow, I never even saw that coming!

There was even a party in this cantina bar thing, and a big ugly emperor hologram thing, and a Garth Gaydar type dude who got seduced by the dork side of the farce, just like that other guy from the other movie! SUPER COOL!

The one thing that really surprised me was when Oldie Von Moldie showed up at the end! I can't believe that guys still alive, man! Plus, didn't he already get the sword put to him by Gaydar in Star Bores, part 4?

Anyway. Great gritty reboot of Star Bores!

The language of the wind

I just thought of something amazing. Check it out. Consider this:

It's windy tonight. Normally I hate the wind. I curse it! It's cold. If it ain't cold, then it's blowing my hair everywhere. If it ain't blowing my hair everywhere, it's touching my skin. If it ain't touching my skin, it's blowing all of the trash out of the parking lot, so that I don't have an excuse to go outside and sweep so that I can smoke. If it ain't blowing all of the trash out of the parking lot, it's blowing out my lighter so that I can't even light my cigarette. If it ain't doing any of those things, then it's probably bothering somebody else, somewhere. Wind. Stupid, buttheaded wind! Right?

Check it out though... and I only just realized this, about half an our ago, the thing with wind. See, the thing with wind, is...

First, you know trees? Wind blows trees every which way. We all know that, but what happened tonight was... and I'm being totally serious... I'm not even trying to be funny. What happened tonight, about half an hour ago was this.

I was sitting in my compartment after work, just sitting there with the lights out and the door open, trying to air the place out. A tiny space like my compartment gets stinky with cigarette smoke and scorched vegetable oil and heaps and heaps of neglected laundry and stacks of dishes and skid marked underwear and a bathroom nook that was designed without a door and a commode that wasn't designed to process the sheer volume of 32 craps a day after a month of remission, and the good intentions of Febreeze can only go so far...

... and as I was sitting there, just kind of existing as a thing, I could hear the wind blowing outside. I thought it was my ceiling fan at first, but then I saw the tree leaves blowing on the trees. I thought...

'That's pretty damn cool, those tree leaves blowing, and the sound they make.'

I wanted to go out into them and hear them up close, so I went outside (after buttoning up the compartment) and after I got out there, I saw this tree across the street. Man, it was blowing up a storm with its leaves, just going all over the place, like some insane, gesticulating kind of sign language of the vegetable kind, like it was a genuine frikin' emergency! ALL LEAFY GREEN WOODEN THINGS, LOOK AT ME, LOOK OVER HERE, THIS IS FUCKING IMPORTANT!!!

That's what that tree was saying, in wind language. And I understood, at that moment, about the wind. And the trees. And everything that those things are inside of... that the wind is, that the blowing winds are the nerve impulses of an immense, slow motion alive thing, and the trees are the hands, the vocal cords, the contracting irises, the vibrating tympanum, the muscles which receive the impulses, of this alive thing, and then I thought...

What the heck am I? Holy shit, I'm a part of it... And it was less of a question, and more of just a curious musing of how awesome it was.

My immediate peril

Ok. OK OK OK!

This has happened before, what I'm about to describe, and it serves to demonstrate my immediate peril. My life, that is. Danger Wil Robinson! DANGER, YOU STUPID KNUCKLEHEAD!

What happened before was this:

About a year ago, I had clocked out from work, and I had just about made it to the curb when I almost turned myself inside out, screaming inside of my head:

OH MY GOODNESS OH MY GOODNESS OH MY GOODNESS WHERE'S MY WHERE'S MY PHONE WHERE'S MY PHONE???

I went cacadoodypoopoo crazy for almost an hour looking for that dadgum phone, and I'd just about driven the guys on third shift bananas going on and on and on with all of my goings on about it. Every time I'd come frantically pinwheeling back into the store, screaming about the stupid thing, they'd go:

DIDJA FIND IT DIDJA FIND IT DIDJA FIND IT???

Everybody almost had a stroke that night. Then what happened was this loud, smelly fart sound with the wha-wha-wha-wha-WHAAAAAAAAAAA....!!! trombone thing that signifyies the announcement of the stupid loser. Here he is, the moron, the dumbass, the guy with the minus 4000 IQ, in the flesh. And that's when I discovered the phone, plugged up and charging, just where I'd left it, on purpose.

That whole thing just happened again tonight.

See, what worries me is this... One day this scenario will play out, YET AGAIN... only next time when it does, I'll DIE!!!

Because it won't be my phone I've misplaced, it'll be my DIALYSIS MACHINE!!!

Glimpses

The way it seems to me, frequently, and for the most part of my life, is that I'm surrounded by a bubble containing the things that make me feel. Such a rich environment, but so small. So contained. So cut off from a lot of things that I have a strong suspicion should matter to me.

And these possible things that matter, they are all the more important, because they're never known or realized fully. I only catch glimpses of strange, important attractions that are happening all around me, full of the meaning of things, but I can only ever discern vague synonyms of the truth.

This is the root of what's wrong with me, I think. I believe that I've just said it fairly clearly. When I read what I just wrote back to myself, I'm surprised that all I need to correct is just a little grammar.

I wonder about myself a lot, mostly because I'm the only sure thing that I can be unsure about. Because I'm inside of me, and I can see my reflection from the outside in. I can't see anyone else like that. I don't think anyone else can, either, except for a living saint, maybe.

So what am I yammering about anyway? I ask myself that. I guess it's just the Question. The always unsolved thing that moves the mitochondria in our cells so that we can continue to try to figure stuff out, because not doing that means death.

If I were to try to say something deep about things, as a product of all of that stuff I just went on about, it would be that figuring out stuff hurts, which is natural, and that we must discern the answers to things through a pain filter.

It seems like an oversimplified, kindergarten answer to a PhD question. And so what? Maybe the meaning of life really is 42. Maybe there is such a thing as infinite mind, which makes our mental meanderings seem like the consciousness of cockroaches.

A feeling of a memory

I just remembered something.

The thing is though, I don't know if I'm actually remembering a piece of awake time or a dream. It's just a snippet.

It's a description of a person who, for some forgotten reason, has to experience every type of pain that is possible to feel.

I remember a couple of specific ones... the torture of not being able to breathe, turned up to maximum strength. That's one. Crushed bones and burning alive are some others.

Mental anguish is included, too. Fear, depression, shame, and heartache are there, cranked up to eleven.

It feels like a memory of something I read, or a dream I had. It feels like a dream, but I don't remember remembering it.

Isn't that weird?

If you read this, you'll magically increase the amount of information stored in your gray matter.

Ever wonder what the heck a volt is, anyway? Why you can have 50,000 volts in a nonlethal taser that any schmuck can acquire online, but the electric chair only needs the comparatively lesser amount of 2000 volts to make you dead, dead, dead?

If you're actually interested, like I am, then you can click here:

http://hyperphysics.phy-astr.gsu.edu/hbase/electric/watcir.html

That links to an illustrated, interactive explanation, which uses the comparative analogy of water flowing through a pipe to explain electricity flowing through a wire.

Or you can just read the text that I robbed from a website that explains it all.

You should do both, you know. You really should. Because it exercises your left brain AND your right brain.

Here's the text that I robbed:

When describing voltage, current, and resistance, a common analogy is a water tank. In this analogy, charge is represented by the water amount, voltage is represented by the water pressure, and current is represented by the water flow. So for this analogy, remember:

Water = Charge
Pressure = Voltage
Flow = Current

Consider a water tank at a certain height above the ground. At the bottom of this tank there is a hose.

Voltage is like the pressure created by the water.

The pressure at the end of the hose can represent voltage. The water in the tank represents charge. The more water in the tank, the higher the charge, the more pressure is measured at the end of the hose.

We can think of this tank as a battery, a place where we store a certain amount of energy and then release it. If we drain our tank a certain amount, the pressure created at the end of the hose goes down. We can think of this as decreasing voltage, like when a flashlight gets dimmer as the batteries run down. There is also a decrease in the amount of water that will flow through the hose. Less pressure means less water is flowing, which brings us to current.

Current

We can think of the amount of water flowing through the hose from the tank as current. The higher the pressure, the higher the flow, and vice-versa. With water, we would measure the volume of the water flowing through the hose over a certain period of time. With electricity, we measure the amount of charge flowing through the circuit over a period of time. Current is measured in Amperes (usually just referred to as “Amps”). An ampere is defined as 6.241*1018 electrons (1 Coulomb) per second passing through a point in a circuit. Amps are represented in equations by the letter “I”.

Let’s say now that we have two tanks, each with a hose coming from the bottom. Each tank has the exact same amount of water, but the hose on one tank is narrower than the hose on the other.

These two tanks create different pressures.

We measure the same amount of pressure at the end of either hose, but when the water begins to flow, the flow rate of the water in the tank with the narrower hose will be less than the flow rate of the water in the tank with the wider hose. In electrical terms, the current through the narrower hose is less than the current through the wider hose. If we want the flow to be the same through both hoses, we have to increase the amount of water (charge) in the tank with the narrower hose.

These two tanks create the same pressure.

This increases the pressure (voltage) at the end of the narrower hose, pushing more water through the tank. This is analogous to an increase in voltage that causes an increase in current.

Now we’re starting to see the relationship between voltage and current. But there is a third factor to be considered here: the width of the hose. In this analogy, the width of the hose is the resistance. This means we need to add another term to our model:

Water = Charge (measured in Coulombs)
Pressure = Voltage (measured in Volts)
Flow = Current (measured in Amperes, or “Amps” for short)
Hose Width = Resistance
Resistance

Consider again our two water tanks, one with a narrow pipe and one with a wide pipe.

The tank with the narrow pipe creates a higher resistance.

It stands to reason that we can’t fit as much volume through a narrow pipe than a wider one at the same pressure. This is resistance. The narrow pipe “resists” the flow of water through it even though the water is at the same pressure as the tank with the wider pipe.

The narrow pipe resists the flow.

In electrical terms, this is represented by two circuits with equal voltages and different resistances. The circuit with the higher resistance will allow less charge to flow, meaning the circuit with higher resistance has less current flowing through it.

Blue Laws

I just thought of something really, really stupid, that I only just realized, after 30 some odd years. What happened as blue laws, back when I was a kid, in Texas, have now distilled down to just liquor stores. Taught to be the only commercial purveyor to resent the 'closed on Sunday' law, which now only applies to them.

It's political religion, being forced down the throat of only one, just one, particular type of sinner. In Texas. Every other sin of this type is ok, though. But only at certain times. But not really, though... the ok part, that is.

The blue laws were more honest.

https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Blue_law

It's just an observation. I really don't have any reason to be upset... unless other people agree with me. Otherwise it ain't nothing.

Also. I've come to a conclusion about Drug Emporium, on University, next to Kroger. The reason why they can keep prices low is because they never ever turn on the air conditioning. Ever.

A dream - ancient treasure

I was at an outdoor flea market, and there were hundreds of square tin boxes for sale, with lids that would come off like those metal containers for Charles Chips. The boxes were arranged in categories, according to specific time periods in history. These were the categories:

Medieval
Romantic
World War I
World War II
Modern

Each of the tin boxes contained war relics according to its time period. I was perusing them and trying to decide which one that I would buy. I opened one from medieval Pakistan which contained a ridiculous military sweater. It was green and yellow, with a Muslim crescent, and the sleeves were too long and the midriff was too short. I purchased the British medieval tin box.

After that, I was with my dad, and we were driving to an apartment where a friend of his lived, which was located at the end of a long alley. I'd been there before, but when we arrived, the entire alley had been repainted in vivid colors. Dad went inside, but I just wanted to stay in the car, so I did. I wound up inside anyway, because the car became a bed in the apartment.

So there I was, in bed, in the living room of someone I didn't know, feeling very uncomfortable while my dad visited. I was naked under the covers, and I drew them up around me protectively. Then Dad said:

"I have to borrow that sheet, son."

So he took the sheet and left, and all I had was a pillow to cover myself with.

Later I was pissed off and in a pool hall. Somebody miscued and sent the cue ball flying off of the table and straight at me, and I snatched it out of the air, just inches from my face. I flung it away with a quick snap and and underhand backspin. I meant to land it on the pool table and have it spin to a quick stop, but it hit the opposite wall and shattered.

I was amazed that I had thrown it so hard. I quickly ran over to where the largest piece had landed and I picked it up. The cue ball was still whole, mostly; but about one fifth of it had been knocked away like a flint nodule, forming a wide, shallow and jagged crater-like declivity, at the bottom of which a handful of tiny diamonds lay nestled, sparkling.

When I moved the cue ball, there was a short delay before the cluster of diamonds followed suit. It was as if they were suspended in a thick liquid. Then they swirled and stirred, and tiny microscopic facets refracted the light in exquisite detail. It was almost as if a cloud of diamond dust, suspended in a slow-motion matrix, had settled there. I started at it, enthralled and motionless.

Then the cue ball began to crack, and as the cracks widened, brilliant light issued forth like the light of many lasers, illuminating the room and tracing intricate and shifting multicolored patterns onto every surface. Then the whole thing split wide open and fell to the floor, exposing a geode of concentric circles consisting of diamonds, emeralds, rubies, sapphires, and every other type of gem of every possible color. There were two halves to it, and both were illuminated from within and were almost too bright to look at directly.

My sister, Cheyenne, was there with me. The brilliant beauty of what we saw was deafening, and I had to cover my eyes and shout to be heard over it:

"Look at what it became, Chey! Look, it split open into a geode! Look! Look, look! Look at it, it's a treasure, a treasure, a treasure..."