Sinbad and the Cyclops Sailors

(Artichoke Pizza, NYC)

Well, yesterday's post won my readers back. Witches = Good. 

So, today we're going to explore trolls, tomorrow maybe elves.

I get myself in trouble far too easily. I must enjoy digging myself out, or pretending to dig, or something.

In fact, Selavy was explaining that to me in detail this morning while I drove in to the city. He believes my problems are all self-induced, and handily created through eager choice. 

I was trying to choke on a dry donut with nothing but exceedingly hot coffee to prevent asphyxiation while he was detailing my various relationship problems. He blames me for everything that has ever gone wrong, says that it all leads back to me and my inability to correct myself, says that I must enjoy this.

I offered to take him to a 12-step, self-help meeting.

He got off the phone, said he had things to do.

That is the nature of our friendship: confession for one another. 

Not our own confessions, of course. We steadfastly confess the other's faults, rarely missing an opportunity to identify one another's foibles. 

If we weren't able to correct each other from time to time then we would both end up being enormously full of shit. 

We can't have that. It is a thing that is not allowed. 

So, it's ogres and ogresses you want, is it?

Well, to start with, they all tend to have disproportionately large heads...

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The Nighttime Consternations

(the stars at home)

Back in the city, the early morning. The seasons are changing while I have been napping, again. The sun has not yet risen by the time I am in the office. There is only the multi-tone haze of light that indicates that it's well on its way. The glowing pastels of atmosphere. 

It's okay. I do like driving in the dark. The other drivers act differently before the sun ignites their wicked ways, mostly. They are less like me in the early mornings: driving as if all points in the future are an emergency competition, and I in rivalry to arrive. 

Perhaps the other drivers are asleep still, also. 

How could they realize that I am in a race with the newborn horizon?

It's not their fault.

I do enjoy seeing the sun come up over the bay while I am crossing the bridge. Though the tilt of the earth is taking that pleasure away, little by little, in degrees of motion. 

When I stepped out of the house this morning to depart the sky was full of stars. So, there is that, as a consolation.

Last night was the last quarter moon, which hung in the morning sky among the stars without overpowering them.

I have always been able to spot Orion with the most ease. The hunter.

The Big Dipper is supposed to be easy to identify but I always seem to confuse it with another series of stars that look similar. I used to feel more correct about the stars than I now do, before I had this app on my phone which isn't any fun to argue with.

Lately, I have been having irrational thoughts, runaway notions on the steps of fear. Walking out to my car at night I imagine that there are witches in the dark, waiting in the backseat, crouched in shadows with razor teeth and the blood of cold air, voices made of dark whispers and gusts of evil suggestion. 

Blair Witches, or worse. 

It makes no sense, but there is an element of distinct fun to it. Anything to ignite the senses, I guess. I should pay somebody to throw surprise firecrackers at me, and jump out of the bushes in the night wearing masks. Every day, Halloween. 

I don't own a gun, so there's little harm in it, etc. 

I'm not really in fear of witches eating my fingers or teeth, draining my blood with foot-long needles, or the cackling of cauldrons, and chicken gizzard amulets... but I do like to pretend that maybe they are out there in the darkness, hungry and watching me. 

I guess they could be watching anybody. But fear, once given in to, dictates that they are mainly interested in me. 

It is an admittedly odd pastime for an atheist. I feel guilty about it, perverse even, but not enough to apologize, or ask the stars for forgiveness. 

 .

Dangerously Bottom

(Mollino)

Jesus Fuckstink, I'm glad we're all done with the Ray Rice story. To barely even speak to an idea of equality or inequality is a very dangerous one. It turns out that they are very different things, for everybody, even in theory.

People guard their prejudices far too carefully, even violently.

I'll try to remember that.

The phrase, "How dare you..." echoes in my recent memory. 

I have my own thoughts and feelings about the subject, but there's no point in exploring those, they are even far more dangerous than the more obvious ones that I was positing for the entertainment of an ever diminishing few.

I decimated my readership. I'll see if I can win them back over the next few weeks.


Several people told me that they enjoyed most my post about desert kissings. 

Everybody seemed to simply love to read about my impending divorce. It gives them an open opportunity to be empathetic, and I must admit it... I do so like to be loved.

So, somewhere between kissing and divorce lies online infamy.

What a word, divorce. It sounds so unpleasantly mature, and shameful, and dated.

Divorce was invented in the 70's and 80's, something that parents did.

When people blithely tell you to "hold on to your inner child" they must mean that you should not get divorced, or else never get married.

I feel as if I am about to lapse into Pat Benatar lyrics.

I'm "bruised fruit" now, probably a brown banana. There's little avoiding it. No young female suitors will want me, none to come calling and courting in the sitting room, just off the entrance vestibule, on a summer Sunday.

I might hope to sweet-talk them, to keep their company and interest, offering them licorice from the country store or a fresh cold seltzer, then I might slowly direct their hand toward one or two balls.

The much celebrated and seasonal family balls and dances are designed to preserve a young woman's reputation, you see. It is all an established folly to which twitching trousers must sometime conform.

Together, in the moonlight, we can enjoy The March of the Dual Ovals Dance, and of course, Beware the Sinister Loure of the Malignant Idlers, with its haunting overtones and spritely explosion of last minute melodies.  A fountain of masquerading pleasures.


Fuck, fuck... too much Victorian lore in todays spewings.



Though, in truth:

I do wonder what it's liked to get fingered. 

I mean, I think I can guess what it would be like, but it's mostly just a guess, based on having stuck convenient things like my own fingers into my butt before.

But the corollary curiosity is an assumption to which I have only corollary access.

If these things were the same then somebody certainly would have said so by now. We must assume that these things are rather more different than similar, in the way that flying is not swimming, nor swimming vice versa.


I once had a girlfriend that was obsessed with sticking her digits where they barely fit. She also had a collection of skin-tight gloves, but I only made that obvious connection afterwards, and far too late.

She was all thumbs and forefingers, mostly.


As for genuine fingering: I'd much rather be told what it's like, from a close, trusted, breathy witness.

Curiosity is a funny and odd thing, encouraged by many but then denounced by all.

I'm curious about lots of things, not just one-time investment opportunities, and online articles that denounce previously accepted knowledge. 

What am I doing?

Well, I'm trying to win readers back and perhaps this is not the appropriate tack, approach, or method.

As misguided as it might be, this post was the result of chatting and considering the clever affection of shared butt enthusiasm, and the many butt enthusiastas.

Why should I finger it all up with so much silly talk.

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Pluperfects, intransitives, and all the rest

Equality under the law. That is all that I was questioning.

I had several people reach out to me privately yesterday and ask me why I'm for domestic violence.

No, they didn't, but it would not have surprised me much if they had. A few friends online reminded me how unnecessarily forceful Rice's response to his wife's assault was, a thing that was and is evident enough by watching the tape, and a thing I believe I addressed already.

None of that should matter by those who look to claim innocence for others elsewhere in similar situations.

For some odd reason the "right to defend yourself" withers when held up against the light of hotel security video.

That's mostly what I was saying. There is an inherent hypocrisy to the claims of many, particularly those who believe that responding with a gun to the claim of having been attacked is legitimate. 

Because if the use of a gun is considered a commensurate and sensible response to a physical altercation then Ray Rice's knockout punch should not be considered at all.

Again, if he would have shot a woman who attacked him in an elevator then a whole group would come to his defense and scream about his right to defend himself.

But he didn't shoot her, and he's black, and it was his wife, and not one person other than myself (that I have seen) has correctly labeled Ray Rice what he is: the victim of domestic violence.

I'll not say any more about it. I've learned not to compete with those who wish to claim victimhood exclusively for themselves.

I went to the annual company picnic on Friday. I feel much differently about the people I work with this year than is indicated in that link, a thing that can only mean that I am changing. But going in to the city left me stranded, of sorts, until Saturday afternoon with Cato. 

We bumbled about Friday evening, went to an opening of a new art / performance location with James of Burning Man notoriety. We were all at the same camp this year, Hiburnia.

There were guitar players and spoken word poets, a piano player singing "Georgia on My Mind" with an infant strapped to him. His wife sitting next to him. She might as well have been humming the national anthem. Who knows. 

She's the type woman that everybody refers to as "sweet."

Some of the poets were good, though few of the poems very inviting. It was mostly a catalogue of personal miseries and moral pedagoguery; a tyranny of sorts, being trapped until the end of each poem, then the unexpected clapping that you find yourself also committed to.

Pluperfects, intransitives, and all the rest.

We escaped back upstairs and listened to some more music. 

My bed time comes earlier and earlier each evening. Staying out until midnight is an increasing stretch. I must be aging in lumpy, unequal ways. 

All of it leaves me feeling so overexposed.

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Double Punch Standards

My experiment worked. 

None of the usual suspects were willing to engage with me concerning my post yesterday. Nobody seemed willing to address or acknowledge it on any level.

I found out only after making the post - which was designed to incite people but somehow didn't, or at least not publicly - that Whoopi Goldberg had made a similar comment, stating that if you hit somebody then you should expect to be hit back. 

She was universally denounced.

It reveals how profoundly sexist people are about certain subjects. People are clamoring for "jail time"!  

If a cop had witnessed all that happened in that elevator he would have been legally obligated to arrest Janay, not Rice. Ray might very well have been arrested also but there is strong likelihood that the DA would not have brought charges against him, because his hitting of Janay, even though much more extreme, to the obvious point of excessiveness, was done in defense.  Though this outcome likely would have required for both parties to be arrested, where aggressor and victim could be taken into consideration. A thing that now seems lost on everyone.

Now consider this simple fact: Ray Rice is the victim of domestic violence. We have very clear evidence of this based on what has been shown in the video. 

That's right.  

Not one article I've seen or news reporting of the incident has stated this very simple fact. And not a single person who has seen the video or read my post yesterday is willing to refute it. Watch the video for yourself. It is unpleasant, and Rice's reaction is definitely unnecessary and involves much more force than would be required to resist her attacks, or "defend" himself, etc.

But that's not the point, a point that there appears to be a willing and universal blindness to. Ray Rice backs up after Janay starts swinging, then she comes at him again, and he knocks her out.

People are spending a lot of time an energy ignoring the obvious: Ray Rice is a human being with the same rights as everybody else, and should be protected by the same laws. But he's not.

I haven't even read that many articles about the case but several that I have seen speak about Rice as if he is only a violator of the law. Charges were brought against him and he pled not guilty. He went through a diversionary program to avoid the pursuit of the charges any further than that. 

Now, of course, they are talking about bringing more charges against him. A lawyer will easily beat those charges, if they ever even make it to trial, which is doubtful. But sometimes the cops and DA are expected to "do something." So they do. What Rice's lawyers should be doing is preparing a case to sue the state. 

Another common and recurring theme in the articles I've seen seem to be that "a man should never hit a woman." Only Whoopi Goldberg apparently seems to understand the more universal principle that people really shouldn't hit people. 

If a 6 year old girl was beating on your 4 year old boy at a playground would you be okay with it? You know, girls will be girls...

Don't let any of what I am saying mislead anybody. Domestic violence is a horrible blight on society and continued steps should be taken to reduce it, as difficult as it is to address and correct. But a woman hitting her boyfriend or husband is a violation of the law. Some reports indicate that it is the most unreported violent crime in existence.

Also, male on male violence, as in a homosexual domestic relationship goes mainly unreported.

Does violence against women far outweigh violence against men? As far as I know the two statistics are barely comparable, and there is no question that women who are trapped in violent relationships should be assisted in the best way that we can to get them to safety.  It seems to be the only sensible thing for any society to do.

The damage done by violence against women as compared to the damage done by violence of women against men is also hardly comparable. Women are battered by the men that they love, that they hope to protect them. The reality of it is horrific, there is no question about it.

But the extent of the damage done in these situations is already a consideration of the law. It does not render the laws inconsequential, and it does not apply exclusively to one gender.

People only seem to wish to discuss or address domestic violence as a one-way affair. Or, when they do address the "dynamic" of it they only consider the "cycle of violence" as it pertains to a man's behavior and history.

But nobody has the nerve to say what they really seem to want to say, and that's that women should be allowed to taunt and hit men without any recourse whatsoever, and that man has no right to defend himself against being attacked.

Say that to yourself the next time you hear somebody say, "You should never hit a woman" because that is a part of what is meant by that statement, that a victim never needs to be held accountable for their own behavior.

What is a society called that demands and expects laws to apply differently to one group than another?

Would it be considered a liberated society?

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Running Ground

(Innocent White Guy)

Photography is an expensive hobby. Each day something new is released that I must possess. I have several reasonably expensive things that I've never used before, or only just barely. 

It makes no sense, yet still I want more.

I do nudes, of course, though most of my female friends seem too afraid to ask. I am an artist, god-damn it... a thing that escapes some once they must disrobe and have me stare for hours or seconds at the minutiae of their sexuality.

Sometimes I forget to even shoot any pics. I just get on all fours and growl, prowl, or hump their legs. That is how dedicated I am to my craft, my art, my calling!

No, I'm not in the mood to write like that, in that voice, any more this morning.

I do think it's funny though, all of the noise that gets made about Terry Richardson. People actually make the claim that he is "a fashion photographer who acts unprofessionally," without laughing at themselves, or even cracking a smirk.

They question whether this photographer is an artist or a predator, and what should be done about it.

What immortal doofi...

There is no end to the confused misery of the masses.

A man using his talents and wits to spread his unholy seed is the most natural thing there is, and there is no stopping it, ever. Even the great Christian god smiles on this old-fashioned pre-testament behavior.

It is written.

It would be like questioning whether a woman is "only being a mother or is she smothering the children," and how society should stand up against the inherent evils of abusing the unique situation of maternity.

There should be laws designed to protect children, right? Because one day those children might be models, and what then? What? You tell me.

People are retarded, truly. Don't be alarmed at the use of the term retarded, it is a perfectly valid technical term, while also being a helpful slur.

It means that the subject is less advanced in social, physical or mental development than is expected for one's age.

 That is what our entire society suffers from.

Either retardation or political anger, or both. If you mix them online you get a libertarian.

I have a handful of such friends that claim libertardation. They are often the first to stand up and pronounce or denounce some perceived evil, or to explain justice to the incensed or unlearned, or worse. They are all very angry about things and they are all white men in my approximate age group.

They combine politics and capitalism in a very traditional way, and would love to burst a blood vessel explaining the evils of otherness to you.

They were all quite smug when George Zimmerman was acquitted, knowing the true verdict of innocent gun use well in advance. They also seem to believe that looting in Ferguson is a much greater crime than police brutality, either there or nationwide, etc. The issue with Ray Rice isn't the law, of course, it's domestic violence.

Black-on-black crime is the subject that nobody is discussing, they say.

They are eager to explicate the details of any crime, particularly one in which the main evidence is an online video that has gone viral. They all moonlight as trial lawyers.

It only takes something like Ray Rice to reveal how unquestionably and irreversibly decelerated their thoughts on justice really are. The same is true for most online feminists, as well; indistinguishable from angry white men. They possess advanced ideas on equality and power, and its varied uses.

Suddenly justice becomes something about feelings, agreement, and results.

The only question is "what to do" about it.

Yet none of them are using this opportunity to further their opinions on black-on-black crime, a thing they were screaming from their soon-to-be-looted rooftops a week ago.

If Ray Rice would have been white and his wife would have been a man then there would be nothing to consider, at all. Therein lies the plain, bare hypocrisy of all that they say and do.

In the video it is very clear, a person is attacked and defends themselves, twice. 

They "stood their ground." Simple as that, or should be, anyway.

It does not matter that they are married, or that the man is standing rather close to the woman when she suddenly erupts in recurring violence. Married people are allowed to stand close to one another. There would be no crime there, except that the man is black and healthy and rich.

The perpetrator attacks the victim and he defends himself. The perpetrator attacks the victim again and he defends himself, again.

Case closed, right freedom marchers?

If Ray Rice would have been a cop and he would have shot and killed the woman, then none of these original purveyors of liberty would have even batted an eyelash. They would all just sit back and question why everybody is so upset, and point out how stupid everybody is.

But they all took the opportunity to grandstand about what a real piece of shit Ray Rice is.

All of them.

And maybe he is, seems quite likely with this one thing considered, and that he's black.

I don't even have to truly perform this experiment in hypocritical justice. I only have to assume their position for them, since they lack their usual indignation towards the facts, anger, and sense of criminal justice to do so themselves.

None of what I am saying here is internal to me. It's just the simple facts combined with time-tested law, as seen through the eyes of the just and correct patriots, right?

They're looking at something other than the facts, this time, a thing they take great pride in with themselves elsewhere. But here, for some strange reason  - a reason that is not racially motivated at all - they are able to shelf their capacity for reason, justice and law... and then become sudden experts on exactly what should be done in the NFL to fix this blight on America's favorite secondary sport.

Do you see how easy it is? It's not even necessary to believe what you say. That's why they embrace this flawed would-be ideology, because it allows them to spew the greatest level of self-righteous racist bullshit and still feel right, ever blurring the distinctions between rightness and righteousness.

Their sense of beauty is just as misshapen, uneven, or non-existent as their sense of justice.

They all clamor to look at the facts until, the facts aren't what matter any more.

They do not understand art because they are artless. From this sense they deduce that art is meaningless, senseless and probably a social evil. It is why America will never produce a Picasso. We peaked out at Warhol, or Pollock.

They'll never say this, of course. How could they? They'll just focus exclusively on the sound of themselves demanding results.

They are against action when cops kill, but all for it when a black George Zimmerman stands his ground.

Action! is what is needed here, not careful thought and consideration about law and what violence means to all people.

These are the same people whose opinions on Terry Richardson we are supposed to believe and grant credence to, because something must be done.

You tell me, dear philistine?

If violence is so wrong then why are only women and white cops the victim of it?

Also, if unnecessary overreaction is the real issue, then why isn't it the real issue in all conversations?

I'll tell you why, dear reader... it's because equality is only a subtext, and a clinging one at that.

.

Adjustments

(They were fixing the penis of the robot)

People who hate Apple products are sad, aren't they?

Just very sad, sad people.

I am looking forward to getting a new phone, though.  Extra screen real estate will be very nice. I'll be able to bluetooth it to my watch and then send the data directly to my penis pump. Apple will be able to report back to me on friction and speed, for the improvement of technique. I think it's called a circuit.

They'll know that I'm about to have a heart attack long before I actually have one. That'll be nice, and a stroke, too.

Hulu commercials will look so nice in their new patented "retina vision."

No, I'm just being cornea.

But soon enough, Apple will need to take over the health insurance industry. It's the next logical step for a tech giant, a company that will have more information about your daily health habits than your doctor, pharmacist, insurance company, and even you.

The NSA must be simply fuming.

It won't require much research on your part to discover that the information they have about you, info. they are charging you to both collect and store, is also theirs to share. Willingness to give away health data in this way is not exactly covered by HIPAA. 

Cash registers everywhere will explode in a frenzy of transfers. You'll be able to give blood anywhere you choose with the new integrated iNeedle. 

No, iKid, iKid....

If they have their way, they'll be charging you a monthly fee to listen to commercials off of your own hard drive.

It's the missing link in the capitalist equation. It's called a convenience charge.

I know I get a real charge from convenience. 

It won't take much for somebody on the board of directors to finally figure out where they went wrong with what "the cloud" was offering, to charge you to store your own property, when they should have been charging advertisers to store their commercials on your local hard drives, and letting you fend for yourself, but then charging you to do so. 

Ah well, a minor misstep, one easily enough corrected.

It's called subsidized pricing. It'll all be part of the new Terms and Agreement. You buy your phone and get told in the process that your phone company is buying most of it for you. Always reminded that you are lucky for being treated so well by your cell provider. Give them a call to thank them one day, see if you can get through.

Monthly pricing will be based on how many Facebook friends you have, and how willing you are to share. 

Because if we are not free to share then the bad guys must be beaten, again and again.

Ah well, at least I'll finally have something that feels like a Galaxy in my pocket.

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Safety First!

Wow... I had not quite expected the reaction to my post the other day, the one concerning Rachel and I finally deciding that it is over. I perhaps falsely assumed that people read my blog more often than they do, and could read between the lines. I have said the same thing in various ways many times already.

Bad news travels fast. 

It is very nice to feel loved, and cared about, though. It is not just nice... it is a necessity, a requirement even. I demand it.

I refuse to wash the dishes without it! 

I probably should have explained that Rachel and I are getting along quite well and working together successfully to co-parent Rhys, who is a daily marvel of happiness and springtime juvenescence.

The problem is that she and I have insisted upon never being happy together again. We have structured our futures around the concept.

But the boy is a true delight, a source of much shared love, and I say that at great risk of criticism and loss of online friends. I now know the dangers of publicly expressing happiness about children. There are important studies to disprove and counteract these very misleading and dangerous feelings, etc. 

This is not the 80's any more. We no longer have to live in darkness like Robert Downey Jr., in mirrored post-disco reflections, or as an unsolved Rubik's Cube, shelved for less troubled times.

We know this now.

Ah well, there are lots of studies to prove lots of different things. Maybe one day I'll find the one that's just right for me.

.

Nurse!

Fuck, fuck, fuck. 

Why do I wait some days to write a post?

My senses are usually beaten out of me just before noon. Then, I sink towards the sunset like a halfwit shipwrecked castaway.

A stepped upon jelly donut, plunging fast. I am amazed that nobody checks my ears for liquid damage around midday. 

Though, in truth, some charm does return upon leaving work for the day. It must be the same effect that makes one only feel truly ill when they are trapped at work. 

Once I go home for the day then I always magically recover a bit. It is what I learned in high school.

Never tell the nurse you have a fever, avoid the easily testable. 

Do not tempt a skeptic. They have tools to use against you.

It's always just a headache, never a concussion. 

A stomach ache, even though your bottom plug may still hold for a bit. Best to head home where there is good, reliable plumbing and an available bike helmet to protect from an inadvertent couch fall.

If it's possible to get the nurse to inspect your balls before releasing you then that is often preferable and nice, depending.

Just tell her they're sore and quite tender to the touch, to have a look, that she might understand them better.

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Father of one

Well, it is over.  Rachel and I had lunch today and agreed once again that there is no saving our relationship, at least not in its present form, remaining married.

We have been separated for almost a year now. I stopped wearing my ring about a month ago. 

Now, all that is left is to update Facebook. 

That, of course, and court.

Why can't the court just check Facebook?

It is all amicable, though sad, it simply must go before one last judge. 

I have never cared much for standing in front of a judge. Occasionally, they insist upon it. 

So, who am I to argue?

An old friend cheered me up a bit by sending this video.

He noticed, "In this performance, Mick manages to look like BOTH The Captain and Tennille."

It made me laugh out loud.

So, there is that still left, some laughter.

I have always said it, "Don't kid yourself, wild horses would definitely drag you away...."

.

More baby pictures!

(To annoy my online friends)

Some people don't like kids, don't like pictures of kids, or even a public or private mention of them, anything. 

I understand.

I was indifferent to kids until I had one, perhaps more ambivalent than indifferent. I would let an idea of myself inform my behavior, rather than the truth of my own feelings.

All of that changes, one hopes, once you have kids. The idea is that you become more loving, patient, and concerned for the child or children once you are tasked with raising them. For the most part this is true, sometimes startlingly so. 

Though, the feeling of nearly unending chaos is one that I have yet to adapt to. 

I know that I should not wish maturity on my son. He is an only child and he will mature much quicker than I would like him to, and true knowledge of that fact will happen only too late for me, even though I know it in part now.

Rhys didn't really seem as if he needed me much the first two years, and I suppose he didn't. I don't have a "control group" to establish this observation, but it is how I feel, which should be good enough. He certainly needs me now. We are good buddies and are quite unashamed in our love for one another. I hope to enjoy these years as well as they can be enjoyed, while they last. 

Once he hits puberty he will become ashamed of me, as many sons do, and I hope to be graceful during that time, knowing what is involved.

I'm getting off point here.

Yesterday, a friend posted an explanation of why he does not like children, or pictures of children. It was difficult to read, not least because this friend celebrates life in other ways, ways we once shared, and still do to some degree. There is perhaps a limitation to the celebratory feelings of life. They may be one directional for some, in time.

I don't know, and can only assume here. I feel and think differently.

Another friend chimed in to the same online conversation, referring to children as the "incomplete byproduct" of their parents, tickling those that agreed.  

Though, based on at least some of what I was seeing... I would have to say that I greatly prefer the "incomplete" version to the "complete" version, if that is what in fact they were offering. 

There may exist other versions of completeness to which they are not aware.

It was hard to tell exactly what they were offering, except maybe the attempted censoring of other's online behavior to better suit their life choices, a thing they might vehemently fight against in its other forms.

Ah well, I have drifted too far from my point.

I worry about my friends, and their access to love. 

That is maybe just the newly formed "father" in me.

All that, and then the unexpected passing of a sweet old cat.

Yesterday, my roommate texted, asking if I had seen her cat. I hadn't, not since the day before. I sifted through my memories of coming home, and compared them with Rachel's memories of stopping by with Rhys the day before. We had seen the cat in the early evening, but I had not seen him in the slightly later evening when I came home. 

It was not like him to wander off, but cats sometimes do.

Then we got the news. Taz, the cat, had wandered quite a ways off, and apparently met his end on a road several blocks distant, the "main road" that cuts through the neighborhood and crosses the creek.

News came in that a friend had seen a cat that had been hit the night before.

There is no easy way to say that it is "better to know than to wonder" even though that very well might be true.

Cats wander off when it is "their time."

None of that matters, and it is borderline cruel to state it. To suggest that a cat's death is somehow better than an alternative is idiotic, but I believe I might have done that anyway. It is in my nature to say stupid things at inappropriate times. 

To wonder and worry and search for days... No, it is better to know, though knowing in no way reduces the empty sting to the center.

Later in the day I brought the boy over, and he and the roommate played with a red balloon in the kitchen together, kicking it back and forth and chasing and giggling.

She said, thanks, that it helped.

Few things can touch nature's heartache. The breaking that can not be unbroken, nor quickly mended.

A simple affirmation of life is found also in its passing, but at what cost.

So, that. Kids and Cats. 

To this is what the mighty carelessness of youth is one day reduced.

Please don't tell anybody. It would simply crush me.

(Taz)

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The Velvet Delicate Delta

So, that's my version of pornography, a nearly innocent kiss. 

I must be a pubescent girl, writing in a loosely padlocked public diary.

Initially, yesterday's post had a very different ending, one that had to do with "sucking off the neighbor" and "plowing her wet, hungry pussy"... both in the true spirit of Penthouse Forum. 

But, I couldn't do it. 

I liked the fantasy kiss and did not wish to ruin it, a thing too easily done.

So, that's my brief foray into masculine erotica. Anaîs Nin would be proud. 

The î doesn't seem right. Isn't it a diaeresis, the fancy double-tittle, a syllable break between two vowels? 

Where is that on my keyboard?

Like this: Anaïs Nin (I had to copy and paste...)

What is an umlaut? That's verbal and not syntax, right? Where are all of my language friends when I truly need them and barely want them? 

Sleeping.

Yesterday, I tried to assemble Rhys' bed. The surrounding furniture was 1" too wide. Nothing fit. So, now I will need to buy new things, smaller versions of things I already have. Is there no end to it.

Well, I will need to buy at least one smaller item, anyway. A version of a thing that is 1" smaller than the one I have. 

That is the most boring stuff I could possibly think of to write this morning, I guess.

I should delete it all and start over, a fresh new piece of mascu-fem-erotica, but the gym opens soon and I have a newfound dedication to, and love of, fitness.

I think I am the only person who has ever gained weight at Burning Man. 

On departing, they asked me not to come back. They told me that it is perfectly okay to have an "old soul," but not one that is in assisted living, etc.

They were all very nice about it, in their radically exclusive way.

No, it is radical inclusion which seems to titillate them most. 

True self-reliance need not be preceded by the word "radical." The concept, when taken seriously, is radical enough on its own. 

It's not as if Ralph Waldo Emerson is a newly released brand of Doritos.

A transcendentalist, you see, is a dedicated flosser that also likes to wear dresses and panties.

I should stop making all the cross-dressing jokes. People will start to wonder what size I am.

Why people come here to read this nonsense is beyond me. Though, I truly miss them when they're gone.

I have become so accustomed to having a certain number of daily readers that when it slips below that minimum threshold I feel as if I've done something wrong. 

Who might have ever guessed heartache, or something that resembles it, could be caused in this vapid, superficial way.

What next?  Facebook "likes"?

Is there no end to the casual desultory surface of it all?

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Playahouse Forum

(Sky Vulva)

An old buddy wrote me. He had tired of my Burning Man posts, already. He wanted the "other" stories from the week long sleazy dusty bacchanalian desert festival.

His exact request:

I click with anticipation to read a salacious account of orgies and free love sex but all I get is some story of some goofy marching band.

Just make something up, like Penthouse forum !

Because... apparently, people believe that being an aging ex-dj, navigating many enormous and unwanted life changes, then escaping from it all at Burning Man... that I should somehow be doing it all better, and yet still live to write, to tell about it.

So, here is one such tale:

We sat together on the playa floor. She in nearly nothing and I in scarves and goggles, together in tatters and scraps arranged thusly, us arranged closely.

We were sharing a thing. It may have been a drink. It had and would be more; waves of elation moving between us.

I asked if we could kiss. If I could kiss her. I don't remember. Suggested the idea of it, I suppose. She leaned in. Before I could think about how poorly this might go we pecked and then pulled away, not quite bashfully. We had only bumped faces at the lips, a dry thing which hardly qualifies. Barely a kiss. Barely anything.

There was a brief moment when we both seemed to listen to the music, taking casual and disinterested note of the people near us, as if I was preparing to hand her something illicit. We were being as nonchalant as two can be in anticipation. Just glancing about.

I told her that was terrible, that we should try again. She nodded.

We came together at the lips, she tilted her head to the side. I moved closer, above her in height, her neck bending perceptibly back even as she moved forward, pressing her tender lips against my tender lips. The last thing I saw was the line of her neck leading down to her arm and then to the earth. Her mouth opened and we did the softest things together. I thought of her there and elsewhere, of her curves that lead or follow. I thought of her everywhere and then again at the lips.

In that instant, she enacted an enduring mystery. We nearly disappeared. 

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The applications of blame

For those of you not quite sick to death enough of Burning Man posts:

I present to you The Burning Band... They came into our camp, Hiburnia, at the end of the day and into the night, a marching band, and proceeded to play some snazzy dance jazz. We all had a grand ol' time and the girls seemed to simply love it, gathering towards the center of the circle in bare feet, mimicking the Charleston and Lindy Hop, the Jitterbug and the occasional Chicago Step. (I missed those pics, was having too much fun, etc.)

Then, just like that... they were all gone. So, there is that type stuff there, also.

In truth, I should just give up here today, but I need a break from work. 

If I don't write a post first thing in the morning then I am just a confused string of code-like gibberish.

It is my job, technical and highly focused. 

You can just imagine how well I do some Tuesdays.

Occasionally, I will write a post in the background while spewing high-speed jargon at strangers across the interwebs, demanding that they grasp my meaning, intuit arcane smtp concepts and rfc protocols at will.

Try writing a daily personal essay in that climate.

I dare you.

I double-dog dare you.

My job invites intense analysis, not so much charmed reflection, etc.

So, as with other things, I blame other things.

Living with Verbs

(pic by Cato)

Too many difficulties with managing time. Each day I awake and blink a few times, then it is noon. I am already too focused on work, perhaps. It is good in one way, then disastrous in others, making it difficult to maintain a coherent sense of self. 

I must list myself among the many things that I seem incapable of managing. There now exists money, time, diet, impulse, oblivion, and of course love already crowding that catalog of handy pocket disasters. 

I have been back to work for just over a day and I have sunk myself into runaway ambitions. 

How can this be? 

Is "ambitions" the right word? Perhaps nervous success, a touch of productivity escapism. 

Efficiency-ism.

I have become less flexible, negotiating changes in slower, wider arcs. I snap back into the shape I was with a crispness that resembles a dried branch rather than the flexibility one would wish for themselves. I have lost touch with the sinuousness of youth. Everybody screams "Yoga!!!" at me, but I can't seem to listen.

I wish that I did not have to believe these things about myself, but the denial of them causes suffering. It is never very easy to be honest about life changes. There appears to be a fundamentalism about the subject. People seem to insist that admitting to aging is the worst thing you can possibly do, short of complaining about it, of course.

I try to swap out my feelings on the subject every so often, just to make sure that I am never quite right concerning it. There lies danger, too.

Trying times awaiting me at home; new obstacles to overcome, new landscapes to be arranged. The mind asks if there is ever an end to it but then the heart shudders at the answer.

Something is crumbling around me, the past and future disintegrating at my feet. The things that I have counted on, even in loving failure, are shifting and falling away.

It forces some self-examination, yet also works to deny self-honesty. I can hear the voices mumbling and re-offering the same truths that have not worked before.

A friend has engaged me in a daily exercise, one in which I am to publicly list three things each day that I am grateful for. 

It seems easy, though my answers feel either too specific or too vague. Is that part of the nature of gratitude, or at least my version of it, that it exists mainly in abstractions and analysis? 

I don't want that to be true, of course. I wish for gratitude to exist through and throughout. 

There are things that I still struggle with:

I loved her too much, for too long, but not well enough.

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Blunderella

(A view from the basin bin)

Well, the nail polish remover has been applied to all ten fingers, twice. All of my dresses have been packed away for a later date. The panties and wigs have been dusted and returned to their easy-to-get-at location. 

It's over, except for the playa dust that is still emerging deep from within my sinus cavities and lungs. As a ten day dream that leaves your body sore from a sleepless exhaustion, it must be over.

People on Facebook who either were or were not there are all agreeing how terrible Burning Man has become... wishing things away that they can not control, improve, adequately denounce, or fully ignore.

I found it to be among the most wonderfully and deeply human experiences I have ever had. 

So, there is that. There is still that. 

I know that some of you were hoping for wild, irreverent tales from the sandy-side - dancing stories of my shambling dingledodies, as Jack Kerouac instructed - but I do not yet possess the returned sensibilities for it.

I am back at work, trying to align the particles of pixie dust with my eye floaters and drifting phantoms of the field. 

Cobwebs of wobbling jelly.

I will spend my day performing the very simplest of required tasks, the least possible without causing alarm or anger... all the while bravely tussling with space-spooks, etc.

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Burnt Man

I'm back. 

Soon, I will be dangerous again. 

Not yet. 

Today, we will take the boy to the beach. There, I will enjoy all the sand, sun, and water that I care to, to give myself a break from the playa sun, the playa dust. 

Then, maybe I'll go skiing in a land of endless snow, trees.

I will exhaust the elements, to return the favor. 

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Bulbus Glandis

I should be packing the car, but I'm not. I had hoped to finish up packing last night, but I didn't.

If I drag my feet a bit then I'll get to see Rhys before I go. That's my plan, anyway.

People have been reaching out from near and far to tell me that Burning Man is not what it used to be. 

Well, I certainly hope not, sort of.

As long as there are tall, barefoot, skinny blonde girls wandering around topless in just white panties and construction helmets then I'm sure I'll find the festival worthwhile.

No, I kid. naked people are disgusting and should be ashamed of themselves and their bodies. I dismissed everything I learned in church except that little sliver of useful science.

Shame and the overcoming of it are powerful sexual motivators. You can have shame without a religious upbringing but it never comes out right. It's somehow never guilty enough. It doesn't dig as deep.

Something about god watching you masturbate. It changes things.

A last-minute friend is staying in my tent with me, so I have been shopping for two. I went and bought what I thought was a lot of canned food. When I packed it all into a small cooler there was still a fair amount of room left over. Ah well, perhaps I will finally lose some weight out on the playa.

It's not fair that some people seem to enjoy life so much and they are still thin, and young.

I have to admit that I'm a bit of a dad now. I'll see some naked girl out there and I'll be thinking, She should really put a sweater on, she's going to catch a cold. You can see her nipples are hard. Her body is trying to talk to her. The sun doesn't even come up for another few hours.

I hope that I do not think those things while out there. It's tough to say. It could go either way. Things have changed for me, too. Maybe I'll love Burning Man more than ever this year. Maybe it is growing old with me.

Perhaps there are no naked people at Burning Man any more, and that is what my friends are trying to tell me.

That would be awful.

Ah fuck it. I'll go nudist while I'm there. Perhaps I should have told my new tent-mate that I've made this decision before he arrives.

He might become alarmed at the sight of my ding-dong out in the desert, covered with alkali dust. 

It's a good thing that humans don't get erections like dogs, where the pink fleshy part comes out of its fur covered sheath during moments of arousal. Humans would just ruin that poor, tender, exposed flesh underneath. I know I would. 

I'd be dipping it in bottles of liquid morphine.

People would be screaming at me, Hey, that's for all of us!... but I wouldn't care.

I look back to the many horrific things I've done to my penis and I am grateful that it is covered in some protective skin - it would have never had a chance otherwise - even though the church took some off of the end. 

I believe it is called 'tithing."

It seems such a very odd thing to have to give back to god, and so soon.

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Stranded Man / The Chicken of the Sea

The anxiety from the earthquake seems silly now, only two days distant. It's difficult to believe that it was as displacing as it was. The memory softens, recedes to the place where experiences can be safely relayed, retold. I imagine that the next one will affect me even less. In time, I'll be a true Californian, sleeping right through the tremors, dreaming of listening to The Eagles in the desert.

Early this morning, I can't sleep for all the other reasons. The terrors of normal life, no earthquakes to distract me from that.

Tomorrow morning I leave for Burning Man, I hope. There was a rainstorm/hailstorm up there so they have closed off the entrance.  They are concerned that it is going to be a muddy mess for everybody. So much for radical immediacy. 

They have turned the revelers back to Reno, unleashing them back into the wild.

I am looking forward to being back on the playa again. I have been rushing around trying to get all of the last minute supplies: scarves and beads and my old day-glo man-thong, etc.

Where have all my wigs and panties gone?

Did I really buy a 4-pack of albacore tuna to bring with me to the alkali flats? Seems improbable, disgusting even.

Eating canned tuna at an altitude of 3900 feet feels wrong, but so much of life feels wrong. We must learn to trust the food in the can. It is our friend.

That will be my slogan: Food is anything that can be a friend.

I've never met a tuna that I wanted to introduce at a cocktail party, though.

They will love my new dietary wisdom, out in the high desert of affluence, where the winds rip at the skinny people with gentle disproportion.

I am like a billboard turned sideways out there.

I should check into sponsorships.

Red Bull and the Starkist Bumble Bee...

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