Habitual sleeplessness

The night started out as usual, with bed, with sleep. I awoke about two hours later and could not return. After around 2am or so I took two Xanax, hoping that would do it. Two hours later I took two more. Around 7am I fell asleep, for about an hour, an incoming text woke me up. The new phone that Apple raped me for yesterday has the capacity to have the alert tones on, a thing my older phone had lost long ago. So, the text tone coupled with the vibrate feature was enough to stir me back to wakefulness. 

It was Rachel, wanting to know where the boy's jacket was. It was in my car. I got out of bed, unlocked the car in the nude, texted back and told her where she could find it. Only afterwards did I realize that her text might have also been an invitation to go ice skating with the boy. The question was not asked explicitly, so who knows. We have been trying to do things together. It seems to make the boy happy. Seem is not the word, it does.

His world seems so simple. It is divided and he wishes it to be whole. Who might not want the same. There are some who wish to keep their lives separated, unknown and unnamed from one end to the other.  It takes courage for either, I suppose, after a certain age it is an accoutrement. 

A friend texted me the other day, something about the feeling of being stalked by listless loneliness, a feeling he was being hunted by after his mom went back east after a short visit to SF. My mother passed away about twenty-five years past. I told him that I didn't quite know what he was talking about. I've never had the feeling of being stalked by emptiness in that regard. Overtaken perhaps, consumed at times, but there was never a feeling that I might escape. His text upset me for reasons that are difficult to explain. I responded poorly. He's lucky, as might anybody be in his situation. His mom is still alive. 

It's only insensitivity, many must have it.

For weeks now I have had the unexpected urge to call my dad. A few times I have even picked up my phone to dial, habit being so strong. It's a common impulse, I've been told. It takes a while to accept that the phone won't get you there. Nothing will get you there - maybe time, or choice, or some thing over which you have little or no control, the mysterious moment that moves towards us each in darkness, the depth to which each of us peer, begging on our knees for hints, for just a few more moments of darkness.

.

As-salamu Hanukkah

It will need to be a quick post this morning. I must drop the boy off at his mother's place so that I can go to the gym, then pick him up in time for her to go to yoga. Afterwards, the boy and I will go to the mall this morning. I need to go to the Apple store. After nearly ten years of owning an iPhone, never using a cover with it, I finally cracked my screen. It's just a single crack across the front of the glass, but it must be replaced. A man of my disposition must defend his standards. What sort of message would it send to not use a protective cover and then to have a cracked screen. Not during Christmas season…. it would displease the Lord Vader.

Then, there will be a day of cleaning the house. Guests this evening and I must prepare for the Christmas cycle, decorating the place for the boy. It is an odd obligation for an aging Jedi Atheist, but what is one to do? I could be both The Grinch and Darth Vader for the boy, yet something tells me that I should choose one, forego the other. 

We went and bought a tree yesterday, a silver tip fir. We will decorate it and make popcorn and I will sing him desperate Neil Young songs on the piano. Maybe Dylan, at least he had a Christian phase. Wait a second… didn't Dylan record an album of Christmas songs? I think he did. Dylan has done many terrible, forgivable things.

The album Shot of Love…. piteous. It's always such a shame to see talent ruined by Christianity. 

I am trying to teach the boy about it all now. I've rightfully started with the Children's Crusade and the Spanish Inquisition. After he has grasped those historical facts and concepts then we'll move on to the Rebel Alliance's struggles against the Imperial Empire, and the late conversion of Darth Vader.

.

Black Friday Month

(Crusader, Infidel Bandito, Fireman Extraordinaire)

So much for the spirit of Thanksgiving.

I announced on this site yesterday that I have skin cancer and not one person reached out to me to verify if I was okay. I suppose I'll wait until I get an actual prognosis from a qualified professional (one with a "doctorate's degree in medicine," preferably dermatology) and then…. oh then…. the waves of concern, thankfulness, and gratitude for my life and friendship will really come rolling in.

I also explained yesterday that I have an unrelated college degree. Self-diagnosis should not have arrested anyone's capacity for concern.

I half kid, of course. It was an experiment of sorts, one to confirm CS's cynical views of such holidays. It turns out that he was quite right, and I am a cancer-riddled naif, at least at the epidermal level. The other half, the part in which I'm not kidding at all, is that I have skin cancer.

It's fine. I have plenty of money and insurance. What could possibly go wrong? Only about ten percent of the people who get this die from it. So, I'm golden like the sun.


Today, I will go with the boy and buy my first Christmas tree as a truly single, cancer-stricken dad. I'm hoping that there amidst pre-Christmas I will find many hot milfy cougar moms cruising for some +middle-aged+ meat.

Or, one.


As I've screamed, having a child isn't for everybody. However, if you're into middle-aged women whose clocks are becoming roadside bombs then a three year old caped super-hero is like a vibrating oyster composed of Spanish Fly, just a dash of the present, and then a strict glimmer of hope for what may lie ahead.

(Son, and Moon Traveler)

.

It's not just the parents

We went ice skating last night, Alameda.

I was going to make a faux list of all the things that I'm thankful for today, just to piss CS off, but when I started to think about things that I was grateful for, either real, farcical, or worse, I became depressed at the forming of the list. I'm thankful to be alive. I'm thankful that my son is healthy. 

That's about it.

I self-diagnosed yesterday - about an hour's worth of online research, coupled with knowledge of my own medical history, a history of basal cell carcinoma. I know, it's not something one should do, self-diagnose. But: Actinic Keratosis. A few of the lesions seem to have transitioned into squamous cell carcinoma, though I'll wait and let the dermatologist determine all of that. It is a popular form, and one on the rise. So, I won't be alone. 

I spent years mismanaging a landscaping business in Florida, naked to the panties and boots. It is how I achieved my Bachelor's of Arts degree, Motion Picture Technology. I almost typed out "baccalaureate" but then felt like such a tosser in thinking about doing so that I stopped myself. 

A rare example of self-editing for this site.

I am of mostly Irish descent, which makes me an albino. My skin lacks the necessary melanin to protect itself, though protecting myself is not something that I have ever been all that great at. I've worn sunscreen about as often as I have rubbers: never. The damage is clear, though inconsistent to the eye. Anybody that has ever been naked with me can see it, though it has become more pronounced in the last five years or so.

It is nothing much to worry about, truly. Very few people die from it, considering how many experience it, and most of those are ones that go untreated. They live in denial with it, or do not have medical coverage. So, the medical issue ceases to be, right along with the patient. Life is commerce, like anything else. Like all things. No insurance company has a responsibility to keep you alive. 

I guess I'm thankful that I have insurance, and a job, and a lot of cash... today.

There was a time very recently when a friend reminded me that I made a pronouncement in his Florida living room, many years ago, concerning my feelings on being employed. I guess it left an impression on him. He was telling me how moved and impressed he was at how my attitude had changed, how effectively my behavior had followed. 

Having kids does powerful things to a person, or it can. Some don't care much for it, others fetishize it. Many say that it is the most important thing that you can do, while a number of known artists and writers ignored their children, presumably to secure their place in history, or for perhaps some other inner, unnamed need. Eternity, or the lack of it… spoke one among them. There are many, many others that have ignored their children with perhaps less eternal or noble intentions. 

As for not having a child, I can no longer pretend to speak. 

I could tell you what it was like to be young and childless, but that is where my experience ceases.

Few wish to be thought of as bad at parenting, I might guess. It would be similar to being bad at sex, very similar. Too related, perhaps, akin to having unorthodox or suppressed impulses. There would follow the attempt, the need to convince. In that same way, the parent might wish to express their own impulses through the life of their child, as the child is the result of their sex act, and can be considered their sex object, more than any other. It is the embodiment of their behavior. 

The incapacity to express a thing must rightly be repulsed at the ability to freely do so. Narcissus in denial. Repression is perhaps the greatest voice among us, or at the very least, the most recurring and openly fought against. It is curious.

As a result, there is much said in how to avoid bad parenting, suffocated within the form of how to do it well. In an age of voices the airwaves will be filled. Talk of others on this subject is as tedious as most other subjects, I suppose. There is no theme left to Americans that can escape the process... the most studied population in all of history. 

It is perhaps easier to conduct studies on the child-makers than the others. They tend to congeal into testable groups.

The ones that count themselves among the thankful, anyway. 

.

The knees are the last to go-go

(Somebody's Babble)

Kids. They aren't for everybody. 

CS is curmudgeoning his points concerning happiness again; the nature of, path to, or eventual away from… contentment, resentment, regrets, happiness, whatevz... He argues that happiness is a state that can not be maintained, then proffers studies that reflect parenthood don't quite provide it. Really? A lifelong commitment doesn't provide this transitory state that you speak of. 

Really? 

One must wonder about the "methods" involved, or something. 

It's all over there on his corner of the mystery. He cites all studies that claim adults are unhappy and that they don't like other adults very much, even if those adults happen to be their own children. He is bored of pictures of children also. I can't say that I blame him, unless it's my beautiful boy, of course. I find that kid fascinating. Even the dull pictures stir me like good poetry used to. Precious, indeed.

As far as I can tell the studies point towards having children as late in life as possible. Once they are adults they become ugly and unlovable, or so say those in the know, and I have confirmation on this from a scientist. 

Seems about right. I struggle enjoying my time with adults more than I do with kids. With kids you just have to go with it. With adults, if you do this… then, you will arrive sooner rather than later in their self-defined version of hell. Aging offers a more mitigated version of heaven and happiness. Or, that is what I have found. I'm no expert. I only hope to arrive at an age where I can conduct just a little bit more research. Not a lot, not too much, just a glimpse more into what might be.

I mean, this can happen rather easily with kids, also. It's hard to take their versions of hell very seriously. It has a few "bad guys" lurking amidst the super-heroes. Bad guys perhaps in need of vanquishing at the tip of a sword, or becoming the unwitting recipient of an ever do-gooding arrow. 

This is Rhys' North Pole plea to Santa: a bow and arrow, perhaps with "dart suckers" instead of sharpened metal tips. This only to prevent the accidental doing away with of one of the good guys, like Mommy. 

I dunno. I'm no scientist. I'm not even an analyst, nor an analgesic... I never thought that a kid would ensure my happiness. I was scared shitless, still am. I'll say this: the kid has brought me some of the most unexpected moments of happiness that I've had. It is hard to describe, and perhaps would seem silly doing so. Being a parent is open to insult and interrogation, but then again so is aging. Parenting is a series of moments when something else becomes more important than you. In that one way it is liberating. 

People in glass houses shouldn't fuck Adele.

Well, no... this is starting to seem mean, That is not how I intend it to be, at all. I am laughing quite a bit, if only for and with and in and yet to avoid the spirit of thankfulness. 

It is all a joke; and life a quick one, too. 

My guess is that your own kids won't make you any happier than most any other relationship you might have, you are probably willing to do more to protect and defend them, and the idea of them, from any ingrates and ne'er do wells, local or foreign. Perhaps the kids will bring you more disappointment as they flower into the world unfolding. I'd like to pretend that I can only speak for myself, but it's not at all true. I speak for my generation when I say: we're all doomed.

The increasing sense of generational-to-generation's unhappiness is easily calculated, a by-product of the degree to which the hippies and yuppies sold our world out without ever even asking, nor negotiating a reasonable price. They were perhaps only better crime reporters. Those semi-fuckers were dialed into a truth, or pretended to be, yet they all stood up and betrayed it, just walked away and looked to post-modernism to explain it all away. Unhappiness stretches as semantic lycra from them into the past, then towards us again, just in time to get its stocking over the marauding and familiar face of the future. 

Always in time for the holidays.

.

The primacy of possession

(A mountain of memory, moving out to sea)

I found a coffee cup that had lipstick on it and have no idea how it could have possibly arrived there. It must have survived a wash cycle and waited for me to find it in my kitchen cupboard. Rachel has stopped by in the mornings from time to time, but the only time I served her any coffee she has had her own cup. I distinctly remember it. No other woman has been here for a while, and none that I remember wearing lipstick. There's no simple or easy answer for it. It is a nearly erotic mystery, or has become one since I noticed it this morning, the mind of man being what it is.

I cleaned the cup to use it but didn't get all of it off. I sat and drank my coffee sharing a cup with a sensual ghost, our imaginary lips nearly touching. It makes no sense. What woman could have so thoroughly smudged my coffee cup without my noticing? She must really be something, for such a remainder of femininity to have survived through the wash and rinse cycles. I want to meet this woman that has snuck into my house and soiled my dishes.

On the drive home from school today the boy announced, I only want to see Mommy. I don't want to stay at your house any more.

I realized that no matter what I do I'm just a guy with a son. I'm not a family. My closest relatives are 3000 miles away, and there's only one of them that I even really know all that well. I've never relied on those that I am related to in a genetic sense as a family for the feeling of family, but sometimes it feels disconcerting, that at any sudden turn I could be completely alone, left to figure things out.

Having children can make life so much more troubling, at times, for me. Nobody wants to die, but the boy makes the thought more complicated, and more recurring. It's no trifling matter, this parenting stuff.

I'm going to feel like such a clod when I finally remember who this woman is, then be forced to acknowledge that the only reason I didn't remember her so far is because we were not intimate. What sort of a brute uses their memory in such a way. 

I'm almost afraid to publish this. What if it was an escort or worse, a woman who was paid to stain my cup, and why was I serving her coffee. Which is more shameful, I wonder: sex as an act of commerce, the forgetting of it, or the serving of coffee before, or after. There was lipstick nearly around the entire circumference. I suppose it's possible that the cup was somehow involved.

The mind is a silly, terrible thing. That it would let this woman move in and take over in this way, without ever having even met her.

.

I think towards you

I think to your delta,

brings me wander

wonder, almost

found

almost

elsewhere;

anywhere,

but right 

there,

below

also

reminisce 

now and then

away from

your eyes

lovely, as they are, 

they

offer so

very 

little

surprise

even fewer:
surprises

.

The indelible meets morning

(Alan Laboile)

A dream that mom and dad were still alive, or perhaps I was a child again, or both. Running through fields of sunshine, there was some soft giggling, a weightless vignette of charms concerning unfocused childhood.

Not sure, though I woke up in an odd mood to an empty house, a nearly untenanted space where ghosts had been paying the rent, whispering and chanting their copy of the lease; of lost agreements never read.

To look at the eyes, which hardly age, save for the skin surrounding them - what they choose to see. 

I don't live anywhere. There is only a place in which I can lock the door twice. Nowhere here offers privacy from the mind, from the voice of self. It is all there, of late. Everything disappears, death is never far off. Things vanish, tasting of what once felt as the tickle of love. Nothing lasts in some other form, some other way. Nothing recognizable, but everywhere felt. Faith prevents one thing from becoming something else.

A requirement, the horror of loss, the nature of life, and that of the living. Belief is a form of denial, by necessity it must be. A thing must not be another thing, but only the one thing that it believes itself to be. The sole object of the object is the subject of the subject.

Told by mystics and seers and women that there is an inner refusal to see, a blockage of will - an explanation that seems simple enough to me, though much clearer to them. Always.

Many wish to first convert others' doubt to a glimpse, next a belief, then to the faith, the conclusion of conviction. 

Dreams are less interesting that tattoos, nearly as permanent.

Hell must be a piping place with any number of private and public lounges where we'll all be free one morning to discuss.

.

Craps!

(Strip)

A whole weekend in front of me with nothing at all planned. The recurring temporary victory of the worker. I can spend as much time as I like at the gym or the pub.

I recently had lunch with a friend that was part of the 8% layoffs from Twitter. He had already found another job and taken the latest start date possible, some time in February. He was planning on doing a few months of traveling, enjoying each day with nothing much to do. He was shopping for new camera lenses and even bought me lunch. While I enjoy my job immensely, and just took on a new portion of the product that will afford me many learning opportunities, I was still quite envious at his description of how the next few months of his life will be. Who doesn't love a little freedom, matched with the resources to explore it. 

I have been thinking about traveling again soon. Las Vegas, to visit some friends, the newlyweds whose wedding I was at in Mexico not so long ago. They were also at Burning Man. I had hoped to bring the boy but the timing didn't work out as well as I had hoped. Okay, done, just booked my flight. Vegas in December it is. I will start smoking cigars and learning how to master poker and blackjack, try to remember what it feels like to have sex as part of an exchange of currency, etc. 

Well, I have nothing to report today, that much is clear. It is time for me to go to the gym and meander through some sets. Without being pressed for time I won't have to do my usual circuit training.

This must be simply fascinating reading. Maybe things will become more interesting later today at the pub. It's hard to say, though I have the sudden urge to bet that it might.

.

Sailor Semen on your Eyeballs

No, the title was just clickbait for what I hope (have been promised by my publicist) will be my new audience: those that are most deeply, though very temporarily, concerned with the Syrian refugee crisis. 

Another night, memories flashing against the darkness as the murmuring of owls.

Nope, too poetic. Doesn't sit well with the Syrian sailor semen. Let me try again. Maybe I can work them together into some seminal soup.

Yesterday, I took the boy to the grocery store to buy some supplies to get us through the night and morning, then maybe part of the weekend by myself. A few bottles of wine, some veggies, olive oil. You get the idea. Ham.

When we were getting in the car the sun was going down. The sky was lit in oranges and yellows and reds and background blues. We stopped and looked at it for a while, taking in all that there is, all that the moment of life had to offer. I explained that the sun was going to sleep for the night and we'd see it again in the morning.

The boy said, Daddy, if you move into the city where it's noisy then I'll understand.

I spent a few minutes trying to impress upon the boy what a non sequitur is and while they can sometimes be used artfully they can also be confusing to the listener if the imaginary or literal connection is somehow lost (see above, son). While unexpected juxtapositions offer up their own value - as the collision synthesis of the film cut does in montage - one must be also careful in these sensible times.

Then, I told him that he didn't need to worry about me moving into the city, my knees were getting too old to go out dancing much more anyway, and my stomach gets milky whenever I eat too much powdered ecstasy quickly.

I really do wonder where he gets these ideas. The mysterious oh, well of Mommy.

Well. Well. Well.

There is what is known as a backstory to the sailor semen stuff, though now for the life of me it escapes me.

Once, that first link above worked its way back into the vortex I clicked around until this one sat on my lap. 

I got a man who tries to run me

That's the way to make me run away

He don't know he's just a pushin' me 

To a man who make me happy

I'm an independent woman, mmm

I don't need no man to take care of me

Can't nobody pay for my problems

'Cause I supply my own security

I need a hi, hi, hi, hideaway

Don't make me run away

Listen to me, need a hi, hi, hi, hideaway

Don't make me run away 

No, no….

I need you to go

If it 'aint one thing it's another

Don't you get caught in the two timin' lovers

Love will make you blind every time

But now I need a little piece of mind

My mistake was letting my guard down

Settin' myself up for this runaround

Now you just don't need to let me grow

'Cause now I know you don't have no control

I need a hi, hi, hi, hideaway

Don't make me run away

Sing it with me, need a hi, hi, hi, hideaway

Don't make me run away 

No, no….

I need to go, hey, don't you wanna know

I want you to go

I need yeah, a hideaway.

I need your love. 
Don't you wanna know. 
I want you to know.
I need a…
… a hideaway

Honey, don't you need to know….

- De 'Lacy, "Hideaway"

I wanted everything for a little while, why shouldn't I?
I wanted to know what it was like.

I pushed you too far, started layin' down the law
'til I didn't love you any more


The ground's gonna' swallow you, I was wrong.


The ground's gonna' swallow you, I was wrong.

This girl I know needs some shelter

She don't believe anyone can help her

She's doing so much harm, doing so much damage

But you don't want to get involved

You tell her she can manage

And you can't change the way she feels

But you could put your arms around her

I know you want to live yourself

But could you forgive yourself

If you left her just the way

You found her

I stand in front of you

I'll take the force of the blow

Protection

I stand in front of you

I'll take the force of the blow

Protection

You're a boy and I'm a girl

But you know you can lean on me

And I don't have no fear

I'll take on any man here

Who says that's not the way it should be

I stand in front of you

I'll take the force of the blow

Protection

I stand in front of you

I'll take the force of the blow

Protection

She's a girl and you're a boy

Sometimes you look so small, look so small

You've got a baby of your own

When your baby's gone, she'll be the one

To catch you when you fall

I stand in front of you

I'll take the force of the blow

Protection

I stand in front of you

I'll take the force of the blow

Protection

You're a girl and I'm a boy 

Sometimes you look so small, need some shelter

Just runnin' round and round, helter skelter

And I've leaned on me for years

Now you can lean on me

And that's more than love, that's the way it should be

Now I can't change the way you feel

But I can put my arms around you

That's just part of the deal

That's the way I feel

I'll put my arms around you

I stand in front of you

I'll take the force of the blow

Protection

I stand in front of you

I'll take the force of the blow

Protection

You're a boy and I'm a girl




I've leaned on me for years







.

Let it Bleed

(Still, jus' hangin' 'roun' and 'roun')

If it were not for The Rolling Stones I don't believe that I would survive my daily gym regimen. After twenty minutes of sadomasochistic-cardio and another twenty of dumbness-bells, I feel as the young possessed girl in "The Exorcist" must have felt when she was just starting to lose her looks.

I wear headphones and play music as loudly as Apple technology permits, which is a moderate approach to what we all must endure. I chant "Fuck Me, Fuck Me!!!" as green spittle dribbles out on my priest, sometimes spews. 

Jesus. He was a handsome man.

Let me start again.


I have been having emotions, anew.

CS ridicules me because I feel things fully, yet differently than an artist would or could or might by candlelight.

Privately, he calls me a pussy. He is too sensitive to announce things publicly, you see. 

Let me start, once more.

I have been having emoticons, afresh.

Paris. I had nearly forgotten. It was a trip to Paris which jumpstarted this hideous site. Go back and check, you'll see, it was the year of two-thousand and winsome. When I reference the meta-story, there is that to consider, also.

Getting back to the Subject at top. Blood.

I once saw an interview where John Lennon was whining about how, all the The Stones ever do is copy us. 

Let it Be known that Let it Bleed preceded the Beatles more flowery, benevolent, Catholic effort.

Fuck Lennon. He was a menstrual twat most of the time, when not recovering from being Yoko's husband. Lennon's guitar playing in that link, by the way, showed how ready the was to enter the 80's, or would have been. If only.


If the lonely were wishin' then the devil's horses might sigh.

.

Sticky Fingers

(Warhol)

What a great rock and roll album. Oh man. I listened to it in its entirety at the gym this morning, sort of. I always skip over "I got the blues." That song is almost useless. One wonders what they were thinking, if at all. If I don't listen to it for a few years then I can sometimes go back to it once, hear it fully, then think to myself that it is not as bad as I've previously claimed. Then I'll listen to it again…

… always too soon. 

I picture a hotel party, summer of 1971. The Stones are wandering in and out while this album is playing. Mysteriously, Mick and Keith are both absent during this song, always. They would seek to avoid eye contact with anybody during such a shameful private spectacle. Then there must be the girls, occasionally relaying how it's just simply their favorite. 

Or worse, the dudes. Always, they are so much worse. 

Could they think of no other line: "I've got the blues"…? A song should make the listener feel a thing. The horns at the end do little to assist in this regard.

The Triumph of the Abysmal.

I'm okay with sexism as long as it is couched within rock and roll lyrics. I even like some of the flagrant sexism of the better gender. Few things make me as happy as hearing a female country singer denigrate men, and announce that she can easily find another, if she chooses. It tickles me. Freedom.

Racism is still, of course, terrible, but something about sexism just feels so natural.

Well, of course the careful reader will recognize that I am not kidding here. If sexism is so hideous then why does everybody engage in it sooner or later? All that you have to do is not let them talk, and sure enough, they'll eventually trot some out. Doesn't matter what gender they are, or wish to be. It is nice to see women united under the banner cause of "Feminism." You know, just give up their usual personal in-fighting and competition for the purpose of advancing a cause. All of that.

Sexism is like taking a hideous old mangy dog for a walk in the sun. Nobody wants to see it out there, but there is something nice about it, knowing what it must feel like for it to finally get some sunlight on its sporadic fur and lumpen skin.

Like taking Gollum to the beach. Putting a little suntan lotion on its back, spreading it out evenly. Then just sitting back and enjoying the music of the waves cresting gently against the sand.

The earth's jukebox, nature.

When you're sittin' back in your rose pink Cadillac

Making bets on Kentucky Derby Day

I'll be in my basement room with a needle and a spoon

And another girl to take my pain away...

.

Mandatory Sentences

(Alain Laboile)

I did it.... I'm pregnant.

I have had a tremendous outpouring of shock and alarm since announcing that I wouldn't mind having another child. The responses have ranged from accusations of irresponsibility to concern for my state of mental health, even to talk of a late-term abortion. I'm in no danger of having another child, so everyone can rest easy knowing that a baby will not be the result of a Jaegermeister fueled evening. 

It's not that simple. My abdomen suffers from the careful gestation of adipocyte accretion, nothing more.

It's merely something that I've been thinking about. I write about a number of things on this site, absurd and otherwise, few subjects elicit the sort of responses I've been receiving since stating that I'm not opposed to having another child. I once proposed a race track where midgets (or even dwarves, if they qualify) could ride on dogs for the exclusive pleasure of a live gambling audience. This didn't get a single response. Subscription based hobo-hunting likewise garnered no public outcry, nor did it generate a chorus of support, it should be noted. But dare I state that I might want my son to have a brother or sister and there's been the arrival of a steady stream of telegrams expressing an array of anxious worrying from each and every corner of the civilized world. 

One doctor suggested that I quadruple up a rubber band around my testicles to kill them on the vine while I still have the chance, before they escape and inflict their malevolence upon the world. The villagers have amassed outside my door with torches and flaming pitchforks, bags of pooh, demanding that I publicly reduce myself to a hobbled gelding. They will not rest until my empty scrotum is on display in the town square.

So, left with little choice: I formally rescind my public fantasies and daydreams. All of them, even the barely whispered wishes and whims… to stardust they each return.

.

Siblings

(Alain Laboile)

Somehow, I didn't close my freezer door last night before going to bed. This morning I cooked all of the meat that was in the refrigerator below, which relies on the functioning of the freezer to perform its function; nearly one pound of salmon steaks, two organic chicken breasts, a significant ribeye steak, a rasher of maple bacon. I ate the whole salmon steak for lunch, no veggies, no side dish, just myself and the pure joy of seafood, my favorite of all the foods. 

It's too bad I wasn't able to eat the chicken also. I created a unique dry rub for them and had only one bite when they were done, which was delicious, but meat is not like ice cream, it can be preserved when the freezer goes warm by cooking alone. I left everything as juicy as possible, as re-heating will be a necessity. 

I'm slowly becoming a better cook. I wish that I would have paid more attention while sitting in the various kitchens of my friends, drinking their wine, watching them do all the work. 

There are so many things that I wish. It is a good and lucky thing that there are so many stars. 

Even though it would have made the disaster of our marriage more to overcome at the time, I wish now that Rachel and I would have had two children instead of one.

Don't get me wrong, I love the boy very much, but I want him to have a brother or sister, and it seems that he feels the same. There's no easy answers there. The boy might remain an only child. 

It's been on my mind. I can't tell if it's selfish of me to want another child, stupid, irresponsible, or benevolent. Or, none of these things, or maybe all of them. 

This feeling will probably pass soon enough, most of them do. The intermittent emptiness of my life here is starting to gnaw at me. My life feels most meaningful when I'm caring for the boy. I moved here to have a family and I didn't quite get one, or at least not a complete and full-time one, now it seems that I probably never will. There's no way out, and yet I'm not sure if I would want a way out, or even take it if there was. I love the boy, etc. The boy would love a puppy. 

Is life really that simple? When you're feeling incomplete, buy a puppy. The road to hell is paved with veterinarian appointments.

I have fond memories of my brother when we were kids, though there were lots of tears and fighting also. My tears, his fighting. He was my hero, as many big brothers are. He was funny, and seemed cool, and knew more than I did. I imitated him until I learned how to do it on my own. 

Things changed somewhere along the way. To hear him tell it he would likely attribute this to a self-confessed problem he has, though for me there's more to it than that. I never felt as if I belonged in our family. I loved my mother, I suffered the near complete absence of my father as person, and my brother was my brother, the clearer reflection of my as yet unformed self. 

Sometimes I attempt to imagine life without him never having been it. Such thoughts are incomplete, even troubling, as the memory of siblings can not be erased. Likewise, it would seem, neither can the memory of their absence.

The blackbird whistling 

Or never having

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Daddy, where does coffee come from?

I have run out of the ground coffee beans that I had and now I am back to the normal stuff. We'll see. I suspect that I have been ruined for Café Bustelo now. I went to Target yesterday and was going to buy a new coffee maker, a grinder, a French press, all of it. I was with the boy though, and his interests were more of the Captain America action figure sort. I couldn't decide and it occurred to me that if I'm going to become a coffee snob now as well then it is best for me to do some online research. A friend sent a link outlining the virtues of the conical burr grinder, as well as sending a recommendation for a new style of brewing altogether.

Well, my morning coffee is ready. It's not freshly ground beans, that's for sure. I am a newly ruined man again.

Last night, I cooked dinner for the boy and I; ribeye steak, asparagus, potatoes, a small pasta side dish for the boy and a glass of cabernet sauvignon.  We ate the way that a father and son should eat, like a team seeking victory. Afterwards, we sat together and watched a little of the Mr. Peabody and Sherman show then I read him two stories before bed. Once the stories were done the boy asked me what dying is.

I said not to worry about it too much, that people continue to live in our hearts where it makes us happy to remember them. Like Grandpa he asked? Yes, like Grandpa. I said that it's all a normal part of what happens. Then I made the critical error that gave him the wedge he needed.

It's nothing to worry about, buddy, it's a normal part of life and it happens to everybody.

Is Mommy going to die one day?

Wanting so badly to lie to the blue-eyed boy, Not for a very, very long time and she will always live on in your heart, where it will make you happy to have her there. That's where my Mommy is, in my heart.

Then something very curious happened.

Mommy told me that there are bad people on the other side of the earth.

Buddy, I don't think Mommy would ever say something like that. When did she say this to you?

It was Grandma. 

Well, Grandma might say something like that, I'm certain of it, but she probably just meant that there are some people that are bad out there in the world, but there can be bad people everywhere, just like there are good people everywhere, on this side of the earth and the other. Did Grandma maybe have the television on and she was trying to explain something to you that you saw?

Nope, he wasn't going to say any more about it. Whatever it was that he was told or imagined that he had been told wasn't going to go live this evening.

Ah well. Clever kid. There's no way to get it all right all the time. So, I did what any responsible father would do in a situation like that. I told him that the only bad people there were in the world were the ones who drank pre-ground coffee from a Mr. Coffee brewer.

Then, I showed him how the good people of the earth were meant to live.

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Fuck The Pope! (Or, how I learned to stop knitting and join the pirates….)

(Jolly Roger)

I did not get a chance earlier to outline my full opinion on international terrorism, of course, nor do I have one and neither do I have a coherent set of geo-political opinions. It scares me to try to link any of my opinions together, they are all of such odd shapes and sizes.

I have stated here several times that I am against the killing of American nationals by drone, without the due process that is afforded them by our Constitution. That the president has assumed this power, and that it has gone mainly unchallenged in the courts… well, I can only see this as a very, very bad thing.

I find the death of any innocent individual to be worthy of thoughtful consideration. It has never brought me happiness. When I have heard reports of terror cells being effectively targeted and destroyed, even when there were collateral deaths involved, I have thought to myself that is perhaps a good thing, as these people wish to disrupt my way of life, and they are willing to do so through death and threat of death, and through the use of terror as a tactic. Though it does trouble me that we are not able to assassinate more effectively, and then it bothers me that I feel that way.

Do I pause to consider that perhaps my government is likewise terrorizing people everywhere? Of course I do, but here comes the more important part: I prefer my way of life over theirs. If there is a commitment by one to end the other then I want my side to win. I want my side to do so as responsibly as possible, always, but do not ever think that I am so liberal that I want the religious mumblings of idiotic easterners or mid-easterners to replace the value system that I was educated to esteem. I want no exotic foreign religion to replace the idiotic one already well established here. 

I don't. I just don't.

I regard the western ideas of enlightenment and romanticism, however much they may be in opposition to one another, well over and above the tenets and rantings of jihad, or other such regional jingoisms. Just as I don't want the religious right of America to have any more control over the political process than they already do through their right to vote. I resist stupidity, imaginary and otherwise, on its doorsteps: religion. 

I would probably advocate surgical drone attacks on Christian citizens, or even entire churches, right here on U.S. soil, if I were the president and I needed to raise some tax cash through a property grab. Fuck, I would have teams of drones deployed, there would be entire HD video units to accompany the attack drones, just so that I could make sure to get good cross-cut coverage of all the Christians running for cover, like mayonnaise separating in in boiling water

That's one reason among many that I have never considered running for office. I would not want myself in that position, and the voting public would agree. I abuse the little power that was given to me through a Chase credit card. 

My political leanings are nearly Caligula-esque. I oppose my own impulses, on moral and political and legal grounds. It's a tough thing to admit, but there it is. I would be forced to step down from office before the ballots were even collected. I have shamed myself. 

It Takes a Nation of Minions to Scold Us Back.

Well, I digress, on multiple disconnected paths. I would not hurt anybody (unless they gave consent in advance of their chemical sleep). Most of you understand this, and some have felt it. I simply detest the religiously faithful. It is a well known leitmotif of this site. Those people who attacked the restaurants and concert venues in France did so because their imaginary friends had been informed by some very strict readings of an textual ideology, and they had an obligation to meet the imaginary at the point of the nether. I can only hope that the virgins awaiting them are all boys like them, and some of them must privately hope for the same. 

Now, that is science. Fuck them, you see. 

With these people, death does not bother me so much. Theirs, I mean. I don't celebrate death, but neither do I weep for those who arrange their lives around the principle of doing death or harm to others. 

Fuck them, you see. 

I know that our country has been very naughty all over the globe, bombing civilians into death or misery, only because they are unfortunate enough to live too close to terror cells. Or, even not being anywhere close sometimes. A school full of children nowhere near any known terror targets. I cringe at this, just as I do at the deaths of innocents attending a rock show who are gunned and bombed, and the rest run for their lives in fear and panic. 

I have very mixed feelings about the "war on terror" but not as much when I watch the videos, a thing I try not to do, but such is the curious nature of the curious and morbid mind. 

I am not so liberal that I am "against badness" and "for goodness." Few things are ever so simple, except maybe this: I prefer my way of life to theirs. 

If this issue can be resolved by death then I want theirs, not mine. 

I suppose that I am getting old, when I look at thoughts like that, spread across the page as if they once also lived.

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The reason that many are showing allegiance with Paris and France online, I presume, is that France more greatly participates in our meta-story. The history of our nations, as well as the many other nations of the western world, is and always has been inextricably bound up together. For this same reason westerners have traditionally sided with Israel and perceived the Palestinians to be ruthless, untrustworthy savages. Because: the Jewish story is the Christian story. That attitude is changing among some as injustices and bodies pile up, but it has taken an enormous amount of media coverage combined with liberal guilt to accomplish this magical transformation of allegiance.

Everybody wants to be righteous; or, when there is a lack of righteousness to be had they wish simply to feel right about things, etc. 

Nobody wants a world with no one to denounce. 

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I like France. I like French writers. French wines. Movies. Music. I like to visit France. I look forward to returning once again before Paris has been completely destroyed as an idea, if not also a place, overrun with worse ideas than those that it allowed. Without pausing or stuttering I could name ten, perhaps twenty, French writers that have affected me deeply. As for Islamic writers, I would be pressed to name a few. Leopold Weiss comes to mind. I am hesitant to call Kahlil Gibran Islamic… though neither (none) of these writers have ever gripped me the way that the French writers and poets have. 

I own a copy of the Koran and have only ever flipped through it, though I have read some key passages several times, to make sure I grasped the full complexity of the nonsense. Conversion was never considered, though I was converted upon the very first reading of Rimbaud, Celine, and even Proust. 

Balzac, Zola, Hugo, Baudelaire, Sartre, etc. As much or more than any of these, the expatriates that wrote their best work in France. Too many to list, really. 

But this post is about one American, not the others.

People hate their governments much and so wish to express that disdain that they are willing to align themselves with the awfullest of people on the other side. Well, hooray, your iPhone lets you believe whatever your thumb can click on. While I would question your government, I would question the others even more fully. It is not a sin to question the motives of the enemy. It is a question to not question your own.

I no more wish a foreign theocracy upon us than I beg for the domestic kind. Yet, liberals hope to apologize the world into a more perfect place. Some of them do, anyway. 

I am a liberal of the other kind.

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Well, I thought I would explain further while the boy naps. He is awake now and I must guard him from the onslaught. My earlier post generated a correction email from my favored aging anarchist, making sure that I still had my head screwed on straight, or as straightly as a Yank possibly can. I'm not certain that I do, but I didn't want an opportunity to write slip by while I struggled to still grip it amidst the bloody trigger fingers of the day.

(Is, is?)

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How insignificant, the coffee concerns

Now, I want a new coffee machine. I have a nice Nespresso machine, though it needs to be cleaned, serviced, something. The machine I use every day is a Mr. Coffee. It was purchased cheaply to fill a need. At the beginning of this year Rachel and I had been separated more than a year already at that point. It had become clear that I needed a place where the boy could have his own room, and where I had more autonomy. Living with roommates had run its course. So, a trip to Target with Rachel and voila' suddenly we were one step closer to divorce. A step that I'd like to say we took together, but no, we fumbled that also.

So, I wish to have a nice new coffee machine to greet me in the mornings when I am alone. I want to ground coffee beans and enjoy the rich flavors of freshly brewed coffee. It's similar to developing a taste for martinis in the morning. It is tough to step backwards. I will take a trip with the boy to Target or Bed, Bath, and Beyond today. He has announced that he is in pursuit of a Captain America action figure of some sort. Or, was it Captain Avenger? Is that the same hero? Isn't there a Captain Marvel somewhere in there, also?

There is a stack of clothes from Burning Man that still sits in a pile on the living room floor, against a wall where it is almost in the way. I should do something about it, though part of me finds it funny to pretend that they'll be there for me when August arrives.  Ah, sweetest freedom.

I found some old pictures from when the boy's mom and I went to Paris.

I do not know what to say about the attacks in Paris yesterday. They are, of course, horrible and reprehensible, motivated no doubt by ignorance and faith. It does not matter how many times I announce here and elsewhere that religion can be very dangerous, just as can young men be, that's why the two should not be allowed to commingle, particularly when the interaction is being overseen by an elder male, or group of dedicated males to a cause. This militant-cult mentality differs from the para-military in only tangential ways, by small degrees. It is the motivated replacement of nation, or people, with the idea of divine purpose. Two ideas which are also very dangerous together.

We live in difficult times. My opinions here will not help much. I detest what would be considered the "sides" on both ends of the argument, though it need not be said that I am much more strongly opposed to those that would attack and kill the innocent to presumably advance their cause.

If death is what they want then death is what should be granted them.

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… who is on the phone

Fucking. Some people have time on their hands, and they also have things to do with it. At the gym I've been listening to Camper Van Beethoven's cover of the album "Tusk."

Yes, you heard that right, they covered the entire album. My beloved revolutionary sweethearts.

It's not very good, but at least they did it. They're reasonable fellows, for being just a bunch of indie-fuckabouts from the 80's. I wouldn't go so far as to say that they're in the lineage of The Mekons or The Band, but they proved that they can stuff it if they choose to. After having been broken up for about a decade they get back together and don't bother struggling with writing new material, they simply cover a double album from a monster rock act of the 70's and early 80's.

Crackers.

I believe that "Tusk" was the first album that I bought with my own American money. I normally cite Aerosmith's "Toys in the Attic" with no pride or shame whatsoever in this claim. Though, in truth I believe that was an album my brother bought and I used to sneak into his room to temporarily steal it, to listen for afternoon in cock-rock bliss, as much as time and youth allowed in 1981. But I know I bought "Tusk' with my own money, money made from mowing lawns. I still have that copy.

I had a number of friends who wished to force their die-hard punk ethos upon me during these trying and tremulous years. I offered what I thought were great examples of people doing it their own way (Bruce Springsteen's "Nebraska") and I was laughed off, if not pummeled. I had friends who were far too into Hüsker Dü and bands like that to ever concede defeat at the acoustic offerings of such a popster monster. And still yet, "Candle Apple Grey" was discussed as a serious effort or somehow part of the pursuit of meaning,

I rest my case. I was right and righteous, of course. Nothing solidifies personality as does the external attempt at correction.

Fuck rock, while you still can.


Mend love, it can not be fixed. That's the idea, anyway. Accept the tender mending of others as if it were a social media posting on the wall of your heart. "Like" it.

Everybody has a slightly different way of living. We are all tyrants, even the kindest among us. Even monks must grumble.

I only want to help…. Few more dangerous words have ever preceded the invasion of the emotionally vulnerable, or the strong.


Time passes, love ends.



Why don't you tell me what is going on?

Just say that you want me
Just tell me that you...

Tusk!

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Ogres and Trolls

Lots of perpetrators, never enough victims, though never any shortage of victimhood.

Whose hapless children am I going to eat today…. It's just so tough to say. I suppose it'll be the ones that bumble into view.

And why not? Everybody's been wronged, particularly by love, or by you.


The bite that keeps on biting.


What I've learned: be the first to accuse; launch a subtle sidelong attack, employing the element of surmise.



Suppose your stuff into existence.

Hate stormtroopers, love the force.


Isn't it just so instant?

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