Overwinning voor de Nederlanders!

Another weekend. The final games of the World Cup. 

I want Argentina to win, but when I've joked about Germany winning I've only upset my Argentinian friends. When it comes to international sports one is not permitted to have too many German friends, you see.

I am upsetting people again, lately.

I have lost my sense of humor, I guess. Everything that I am saying seems far too literal. I need to recapture a sense of ironic distance. Detachment.

My ideas concerning The Master Race have not been received as well as one might hope.

Nothing is a given, either team can win at any point in elimination. Yes, it takes a team that is playing well to win four games in a row, against such good opponents, but any reasonably talented team can win a single game against the best team in the world on any given day. 

It's why World Cup elimination games are so much fun to watch, and why the first round is a group stage.

Had Spain or England played differently in the group stages either of them they very well might have made it to the final two games also. Such a thing would have surprised no one a little more than a month ago. But... I guarantee that I will have more than one person comment on the "ridiculousness" of what I just wrote.

Because: sports experts tend to emerge after the facts. Their science is not always so great at making coherent predictions. They want and need certain outcomes, which affects the data set.

I merely like to see teams that are playing well win. That's why I wished for Chile and Colombia to knock Brazil out, and either of them might have done it, but they faltered just so slightly against the mighty, mighty Brazil.

It would not have been at all unfeasible for Costa Rica to knock the Netherlands out, based on the way that Cost Rica was playing. It would have been fun to see America knock Belgium out, or for Mexico to make it to the final four, which brings us back to the Dutch. Robben's dive was almost as popular a meme as Suarez's bite. Robben's dive has nearly made people forget van Persie's header to open against Spain.

Any of those wins or losses were possible and would have been considered very seriously by anybody discussing the games just over two weeks ago. Now, you would have to be a fool to discuss any possibilities other than the ones that unfolded, and now Argentina must also beat Germany.

As the desire to see a certain teams win, the excuses for any loss increase also. It is like a wave that passes; wishes draw you forward, the weight of excuses pull the trail.

To watch the games with floating allegiances deeply disturbs many of my friends. It is unsettling to have a friend like me that picks his team based on how they are playing rather than by a love for a particular culture, language, or locale. There is something sickening about such a person. It is the result of a diseased mind. 

What else could possibly explain it?

There is a sense of, But we invited you to our country, and you came and visited, and enjoyed your stay. Now, you insist on shitting on us, after we have served you so many dinners...

It's silly, but I understand.

At least my pick for today is obvious and made well in advance: Netherlands. It's a no-brainer. Brazil didn't deserve to make it this far (see above), and even though the Dutch made it here by cheating Mexico along the way, they have gained steam in their playing and are almost as much fun to watch as other teams.

It's like watching Germany, but with some recognizable star players. Or, that's what the online pundits would have you believe about Germany, that they are the only true team, and nothing else, a machine made of humans. 

They've all had their names removed, to better reflect The Fatherland. 

Also, I have more Dutch friends than Brazilian.

It is science.

.

Horses Gone Wild

Another day, lost long before I had a chance to harness myself to it and ride.

Wild Horses would all too easily drag me away.

I think that they already have.

.

Breakdown, go ahead and give it to me...

It is done. Enormous effort went into it. Now my record collection is thinned down to a single shelf, almost. If I can just keep moving towards having an increasingly minimal life, then maybe...

A friend pointed out to me that I'm trying to take on the whole world lately, and that maybe it's not such a great idea, all things considered. He's right, of course. I'm being too defensive. I'm isolating myself, almost on purpose.

Later that same day, my new roommate pointed out that I'm using the World Cup to vent some deeply held internal feelings. I seem a little bit overly "taken" with the matches. 

She's right, also.

The separation with Rachel has taken nine months to wear me down, but it has finally won. I'm having minor meltdowns, silly outbursts, emotions are bubbling up out of nowhere. It's no good.

Yet another friend, yesterday, called me to give me several words of caution.

When three people are all openly addressing your fragile or endangered state then maybe it's time to take a step back, a few deep breaths, and reconsider where you are, where you're going, what you're doing.

So, that's what I'll do next, right after the final game on Sunday.

.

The Marathon of Movin'

(The artist, formerly known)

What a strange day I had, yesterday. 

So many of the records I went through I had completely forgotten. I guess this is to be expected. I am retired.

There were thousands of them, many were only played a few times or not at all. Still, others were never memorable to begin with. It is the curse of much electronic music. I know, I know... I will have some fresh new enemies for that one. It's true. Drugs help differentiate many of those tracks. Without the drugs, and now across much time, they are flat. The differences are so minimal between them as to be negligible. It is what contributes to the myth of "smoothness" in some djs' djing.

There was some joy in yesterday, drops of it. The little curious things I found among the records - flyers from parties I had played, notes from label managers written directly on the sleeves, artists wanting to know what I thought of their records, reminders of different cities, countries that I have played. Smiley faces, peace signs, phone numbers.

I was never very good at giving feedback.

Many of the people that I spent my youth with were illiterate, or maybe they just happened to be high when they sent me their records, or both. Some of the writing was indecipherable. Nobody seems to have agreed on how to spell my name. There has yet to be the great "ecstasy movement" in literature, etc. There was a time when promo copies came only in paper sleeves, so the records have long since been destroyed, just after the sleeve was, years ago, being jammed into record boxes, packed far too tightly.

Always in a rush.

Towards the end I got so tired of flipping through records and inhaling the dust that rises that I was just glancing every 10 records or so and setting entire boxes aside to be given away. I'm sure there are some hidden regrets buried in that process.

I could still slim down what I have set aside to keep, and there is much more to do. I amassed double and triple copies of some records, just to be sure. The love of collecting is partly a neurotic habit.

My sinuses this morning are filled with foreign dust.

Some of those records reminded me of times that I shared with old friends, long before cameras were invented, back in the war. I would love to have pictures of some of the things that passed between all of us without ever having been recorded. I suppose that is the paradox of time and fleeting youth, nobody thought about taking pictures of such a thing. To try to record it would have sent the wrong message. It might have suggested that the whole thing wasn't going to last, an impossibility at the time. Though oddly, less likely now.

But this is not the morning for sentimental reminiscence. There was enough of that yesterday.

Now it is time for coffee, the gym, more sorting, more snorting, more boxing, more loading, more Movin'...

.

Collection: Records

I will sort through my records today, to determine which ones will stay with me. I've decided on keeping approximately 2000 of them, another 4000 or so will be given away. Perhaps I have my numbers wrong. I have enough to fill four of the shelves pictured above. I'll be keeping enough to fill one of them.

I thought of recording them, but didn't think enough of it, or often enough.

Some people buy houses so they are able to keep their lives, for others it has the opposite effect.

C'est La Vie.

There are a lot of other things I should get rid of as well, like all of my cds now that I've converted them to mp3. Though, I sadly converted them at 192 kbps when the technology was relatively new. A tactical error, one that I will likely never correct.

Oh well, almost everything is available online now. Paid subscriptions are the future of all things.

I have a fair amount of studio gear that might go also. That stuff could get saved, delivered to a place where it could be set up to be used. We'll see.

They are all relics from another time, somehow still occupying space. My life is quaint but stuffed with objects.

One less. I've lost my phone again. That's three times in three days. Suddenly things have changed on me. The world has shifted and I have less to attach myself to this new world.

Moving my stuff out is another ending, of sorts.  I would be lying to say that it doesn't sadden me. We've given ourselves no way back, and neither is resisting it much, or enough.

C'est La Vie.

I don't even look forward to going through all the records today. It's an enormous task. One that I might have enjoyed a few years ago. I suppose that is the way of things. I don't need them. They serve no functional use and as a collective memento they are burdensome, unwieldy. 

It represents a lifetime of something, then that thing simply becoming something else. It is the way of things.

There are albums that will be very difficult to let go of, Talking Heads. I have them all on cd, of course. But these are the copies I bought when they came out, so many years ago. The Clash. What use is the vinyl to me now? I'm not a purist. Or, I'm not as much of a purist to get a storage unit to lock all of this stuff up again for another ten years. I also have two Technics turntables, which seems like such a silly pair of things to own.

I am becoming increasingly minimal.

What comes after minimalism... what tether holds.

.

Halfway across another year, my dear

(An entrance to Wolf House)

Well, Christ didn't work out for me. His magical healing powers proved to be ineffective, no match to the task, and I no mere Lazarus.

As if that's bad enough - not having a Christ-shaped life parachute - I find this article, which states that drinking increases your chances of longevity. 

It is science.

I've been recently enduring a period of self-pity. I've recognized it over the last couple weeks and decided that maybe drinking and self-pity are not such a good combination and I should eliminate one. But I wanted to be certain, and not overreact. 

To add to this, I haven't been going to the gym as much as I had been and I've gained several pounds. I eat like a pig with two erections. It's awful. I'm an emotional eater, and drinker. If I stop working out, or even slow down, then it manifests itself in my moods very quickly. I have much less patience for some people and they seem to feel the same.

It's unfortunate and unpleasant. Perpetual sweat seems to be the best counter-balance to inner turmoil and dissatisfaction. 

Under normal circumstances I am able to adequately ignore the folly of others. For some reason this is noticeably less so when drinking, which is what two World Cup matches on the same day, two days in a row, will cause. I very rarely experience withdrawal symptoms from alcohol. But late yesterday and last night I had a headache, and even mild craving for beer, which I recognized as a symptom. It is an unsettling feeling, to know that your body is trying to persuade you to do a thing that you have decided that you won't do. I figured that two days of drinking invites some abstinence once it is over, etc.

But, back to my self-pity... It is finally dawning on me that my idea of a life with Rachel and Rhys, together as a family that lives together, is ending. It will become increasingly difficult to maintain much faith in any healing process between her and I. It's simply not happening, and enough time has passed to acknowledge that. 

It's partially my fault, of course. But it is far more convenient for me to explore how I was a victim in this scenario. That's one of the great things about a relationship: there's plenty of evidence to believe just about anything that you wish to believe. My inner world is like a bad Pink Floyd double album: corrupt with snotty blame and self-involved fantasies of suffering at the hand of historical fate, always on the verge of an emotional outburst that borders on the completely irrational. Spoiled to the center, unable to escape a cartoon version of human interaction. 

God, they are fucking miserable, though I'll still listen to their new album. I owe my childhood at least that much, etc.

Don't get me wrong, Rachel and I are getting along as well as we ever have, nearly. It's because we have reduced our relationship almost down to the exclusive responsibilities involved in being parents to a child. All the other stuff has just evaporated, taking some (too much) tenderness, affection and attraction along with it.

All that remains is the echo of love. It is there, we can both hear it and even evoke it when we wish, but it is most often at a slight remove, a distance that reminds, little else. It is no longer a space that we can enter, but instead one that separates us, though not always unpleasantly so. 

As for recognizing the stages of loss and grief... we have both experienced anger and depression, we've conducted our bargaining with the stars, we are each now being forced out of denial. All that remains is eventual isolation, then acceptance.

I don't look forward to it. I have constructed a life out of not accepting anything that I didn't want to accept. I have magical powers of denial. Witches and Warlocks contact me to get my potions. 

Perhaps a dose of self-pity, after all these months, is what is needed. I will fire up a cauldron of rusty needles and chicken blood, in thunder, lightning, or in rain....?

---------------------------------------

Rhys is two and a half years old today. He woke up telling me how much he loves me. It is impossible not to be touched by such an innocent and open gesture of warmth and love.

Maybe he's right, and I've got it all wrong. 

He doesn't seem to feel sorry for me, at all.

.

I've found it!

I have just discovered the most wonderful and effective coping mechanism and I would like to share it with all of you:

No matter how heinous my behavior becomes I simply tell people that I have accepted Jesus into my heart and am now prepared to live The Christian Life. 

The Christians are happy for me and everybody else just leaves me alone. Because I have so few Christian friends they are easy to avoid. I might end up going to church here or there, but that no longer seems like punishment. It's what's known as a "content rich" environment. 

Christ's love is truly a get-out-of-jail-free-card.

I'm set free.

Yesterday alone I accepted Christ into my heart three or four times.

I want to find a way to monetize this feeling. 

.

Moist Mayonnaise

(Pic by Manu Fernandez)

Both of my teams lost yesterday, France and Colombia.

Today, luckily, I like every team that's playing and have fond memories of every country represented. So, I'll just be content to be happy that somebody has won.

My first choices would probably be Argentina and Costa Rica, but I'd be happy to see Belgium and the Netherlands win also, just don't tell anybody... no true friend would ever be for the opponent.

Nationalism runs deep in these international times.

I don't hate Brazil, I just wish that their winning wasn't such an assumed given. They haven't been playing that well and are lucky to still be in the Cup, though they did play well against Colombia yesterday. It's too bad Neymar is out of the cup now (above). They will have an increasingly difficult time winning their next two matches. But that is what is what will be required of the champions.

I love that every match eliminates somebody. Gripping.

I got in a few arguments on Facebook yesterday, they all ended badly. I have far fewer friends to maintain now. There should be a built-in app that checks your posts for typos, frequency and truculence, then just shuts you down. You can see what others are saying but you can't try to interrupt them.

That would be useful.

Would have been, etc.

Why do Brits always try to correct people's usage of English? No matter how laughably ignorant and grammatically incorrect they are they tend to believe that their misuse trumps anyone else's correct use of the shared language.

It is a fallback mystery that always appears online after a shameful showing in international sports of any kind. 

That, and they will also remind you how they invented the sport of football. They act more and more like Americans as the losses pile up.

Okay. I need coffee and then a good seat for the 9am game. 

Well, I had better charge my phone battery, to prepare for the furious posting that will most likely be a part of my day.

I don't think I ate any food yesterday. No, wait, I do remember having a Chicago-style hot dog. It had everything on it; peppers, tomatoes, all sorts of stuff.

But then that was it, nothing else for the rest of the day. I tried. I looked at sandwiches in a bodega, but they looked awful. White bread and turkey, in need of mayonnaise just to render it moist enough to eat.

I hate mayonnaise, as much as some people hate the word moist.

.

... the consent of the governed

(Celebratory Incendiary)

1976, I was getting dressed for a July 4th parade. It was the bicentennial. The big one. I was only seven years old but I had the foresight to get dressed entirely in red, white and blue. 

Those civics classes in school were really paying off.

My family made fun of me. I'm not sure which one it was - it would have been my mother or father - made me change clothes.

The parade was exactly as one would expect, a procession of costumed others, giving normal people a chance to act like Canadians.

Afterwards, they asked all of the kids that were dressed only in red, white and blue to come forward. They had a prize for each of them, a big stuffed bear, or something. 

I stared straight ahead and fought through the bitter anger and frustration, watching others kids go collect my reward. I felt my mother's hand rest gently on my shoulder. She leaned down and assured me that we would stop at the toy store and get me something.

Like what, recognition? 

No. But I remember feeling it, knowing that nothing at the toy store would feel as good as getting to go up on stage to get a free bear and be praised for my unashamed and perfectly appropriately timed patriotism.

You see, luck does not always favor the prepared.

.

California Highway Petroleum

I can't get my head together this morning. The day has launched without me, again.

I am so sick of getting speeding tickets. I got one yesterday, again, on my way home from work. That is about four or five in the last year, maybe more. The natural speed that I drive is apparently above the posted limits.

I'd be amazed if my license isn't already suspended.

When I asked the cop if it was he told me that he didn't know, that he didn't look up my driving record. He must have been in a hurry. I suppose I understand how he can write me a ticket without looking up my record. I just wasn't sure why he would ever do such a thing. 

Getting a speeding ticket comforts me in one way, at least I know there's not a warrant out for my arrest. It acts as the poor man's lawyer.

I wield a NY State license. I never bothered getting a CA version of it. I just keep telling the police that I live in NY, also. 

My wife and I keep a modest chateau in the real city, so that the maids have somewhere to rest, you see..... 

Some of them get rather incensed about it. I explain that I am in NY approx. 182.5 days out of the year, but that I've often considered getting a CA license, as the whim takes me... I just don't have the time. It's part of the reason that I am so rushed today...

My air-conditioner works better when I'm cruising about 90 mph, etc.

I asked the CHP if I could see the speed he recorded me at on his radar and he said that I couldn't. He explained that they are encouraged not to store the results, which seemed odd to me. I told him that destroying evidence is a crime.

He laughed at me. I told him that if he really wanted to destroy some evidence of a crime why didn't he start with his copy of my ticket.

Then, I not only denied speeding but I also explained to him that I wasn't even the one driving, that I was somewhere else at the time of the alleged infraction, that he wrote the ticket to an impostor and that I was declared legally brain-dead at several after-parties. 

This ticket would never hold up in court. 

I had a rock-solid alibi. I will see him before the judge, though I will be wearing a disguise, so that he won't be able to identify me for the jury of my peers, which had better be made up of aging ravers.

I claimed to have been born without fingerprints. The doctors had never seen anything like it. It's part of how I am able to maintain dual citizenship between NY and CA.

He gave up and said that he will be looking forward to seeing me in court, or on the road sometime later.

I told him that he should get out of law enforcement and come fight with the rebels. 

We need more people whom are willing and eager to swallow the facts.

.

Teen Secrets

There are some inherent challenges to raising a child while also having a roommate.

When trying to use the bathroom, #2, there is a balance one must strike between privacy (in the event the roommate comes home) and monitoring the child's destruction quotas. 

Taking a crap is a thrill that is similar to shoplifting. It is heinous, rushed, shameful, cautious, forced to be out in the open, and always done with a strong sense of getting caught with your pants down.

If I had more sense when I was fourteen years old I might have combined the two joys, shop-pooping: making off with a volume of Robert Frost while dropping a Bob Chocolate in the back aisle of Barnes and Noble.

They frown on that, don't they?

Some will always find a new way of frowning on things.

The formative years are very different for boys and girls, I guess. 

Few girls, I do not think, ever thought things like this: I wonder if I can get that guy to eat my pussy in this bathroom stall, or maybe show me his balls and asshole.

I don't think any of the girls I knew when I was young ever thought anything at all like that.

If they did then they kept it a very well-guarded secret.

.

Sides Matter / NSFW

(Mein Unkle Heinrich)

I lost a few more friends yesterday, and am feeling a bit remorseful this morning. I got a little bit too excited about the Germany vs. Algeria game and was perhaps making light of some very delicate continental sausage munching.

Why can't we openly discuss the war-mongering Germans without feeling as if we're doing something wrong? When did they become victims? They always seem so strong. I don't get it.

I blame Oprah Winfrey for this, again, though don't tell them that.  

No, I only kid. But I did receive a few death threats.

I was called a racist, sort of, for not being adequately incensed that somebody referred to France and Germany as having already "met on bigger battlefields"... 

I was reminded that if America was playing Nigeria and a commentator mentioned slavery that they would be fired.

Possibly, but I believe my friend of direct German descent doesn't realize that it is socially acceptable to stereotype blood-loving Teutonic savages as such, but slavery is a very sensitive issue here. I've never seen Fritz cry before. It was really something, like a chilled Riesling.

Sure, we're supposed to celebrate our differences but what if I celebrate through laughter and derision? Why should I be ostracized for my personal preferences when acknowledging other cultures and nationalities.

I'm Irish. Nobody even thinks twice about poking me in the stomach with whiskey.

Okay, ok. I'll stop. I am only kidding, of course. I harbor no ill-will towards any race or nationality, of course. It's just that the World Cup makes bigots of us all. If you really care about the game, that is. The dividing lines are based on nation, land mass, privilege, language, etc. 

I have some friends that will only root for smaller countries, etc.

I just don't see *much* difference between racism and nationalism. Racism is bad, nationalism is applauded and encouraged. I don't get it.

The only difference between the two mindsets is arguably that of the discriminate and the indiscriminate.

If I'm missing something then please send me an email and let me know. It's been a while since I've thought about any of this stuff.

But let me tell you this....

There is a reason that World Cup is bigger and better than the Olympics: Men.

The Olympics are a competition that has institutionalized overt sexism. Nobody seems to notice, mind, or care.

Imagine hearing this: I'm sorry, but we do not allow your gender to compete in this competition at all, and certainly not for a gold medal. 

We award those based on gender.

You'd be rightly pissed if you heard that, wouldn't you? Who the fuck are they to tell you what gender you are... Make them prove it in court.

But, it is a very recognized and celebrated part of the Olympics, Men's and Women's competition. 

That's why people who are truly for equality watch and support World Cup Football. It is based on merit alone. Well, that and national heritage. But you get the idea...

The girls get to play for their countries in World Cup if they're good enough to be on the team.

Oh wait, I just got word that FIFA are a bunch of sexists as well. Jesus, as if they don't have enough problems, now they have to host women's football also.

Has anybody that I know EVER watched women's World Cup? If so, please delete me as a friend. 

Oh well, there is no end to it.

I have learned a valuable lesson though: always claim victimhood. 

It's more difficult than it sounds. There's a lot of competition for the title. 

What do you say to the person pictured below that wishes to compete, and be recognized for their modest athletic accomplishments?

What?

(Don't worry, she's merely a referee)

.

Sun in the sky, you know how I feel

(The kite of Dr. T.J. Eckleburg)

The beach. Yesterday. We went with friends, kids.

For me, it was unfamiliar, not far from where Hitchcock shot The Birds, Bodega Bay. His last unflawed masterpiece, concerning the high costs of emotional chaos and its source in insincerity.

The only birds we saw were friendly enough, easily chased away down the beach by children bearing Rice Krispie Treats.


We set up blankets, umbrellas, flew kites, ate snacks, and rushed back and forth with the advancing and receding waves, giggling to be alive. There is no upper limit to how much sand, surf, and beach mud a child can enjoy. It has been tested.

That morning I had purchased two frisbees for the trip.

A very odd and mysterious thing occurred to me while we were there. Rachel stood up holding a classic orange and asked me to teach her how to throw a frisbee. Impossible, I thought. How could my girlfriend of 15 years, my wife of five years, and the mother of my child not know how to throw a frisbee. How could I not know this.

There was only one logical answer: thousands of dollars spent on relationship counselors had failed us in ways we did not yet know. The problem was floating there in front of us the whole time. Rachel and I had never thrown a frisbee together before.

Teaching her the basic throw was easy enough, done with a flick of the wrist rather than a swinging of the arm. She was an immediate convert. In short time, she couldn't get enough of it. It was adorable. Upwind or downwind she adopted the necessary throwing styles and was able to roughly predict its flight path. Watching the disc teaches what there is to know. It required very little additional input from me - only that to be a professional at it you must catch with one hand, as if you are barely trying.

Whenever I would try to stop she would convince me to throw some more; running, jumping, leaping to catch or grab at a near miss. Giggling. As the day got hotter her clothes started coming off. First the sweater, then the shirt. Her bikini top seemed a little bit too tight. It was not my imagination. It was a little bit too tight. Did she have her hair up earlier?

I imagined getting her pregnant the old fashioned way. I kept wanting to kiss her and to squeeze her, tell her things about the sun and the moon and the stars. Where we would go, together.

Though I was not quite sure what I would tell her.

Have I already told her all of this, I wondered.


Maybe it was the sun, it had softened me like a layer of wax protecting a later of fat. It must have an effect on the mind, the heat. My head was getting sunburned, no longer protected by hair or the atmosphere.

I kept staring at her, thinking beach thoughts.

I don't know if it was the World Cup, or if I'm actually Rocky Balboa, but I think I would have taken her right there on the beach towel if common sense, communal standards, her wishes, and a vague memory of dignity hadn't stopped me.

All of that, and the little blue-eyed boy running about, patterned after me, who kept cheering, Daddy, daddy, look!


I was.

.

A wanting

(Josef and Jakob Hoflehner)

Going to the beach today. I had plans to write a post about the inaccessibility of life, how certain people will yearn for something even as they are experiencing it; like sex, or water, or autumn.

Drinking the water does not satisfy the desire, nor does swimming in it. One can stand on the beach and wish, and wonder, and then again. 

I long for autumn even when it is all around me.

As for sex... an orgasm will often fill me with want; there is always some sound in the distance, an image, a breathing that comes from the memory of a shape, a movement. It is a shadow which attaches itself to many articles.

I read recently that the longest lasting relationships depend heavily on kindness and generosity, to the surprise of no one.

There seems to always be a slight disconnect in life, for some. They can never be quite satiated, yet they are filled with the recurring desire to be so. To discover a nameless thing, and to not name it.

There is a yearning to find out what is on the other side of it all, knowing that nothing is ever what it is, or can be. 

Life is an unanswerable mystery, with no adequate way to stop the questioning, either. It is tiring and rejuvenating, all at once. 

Others suggest, perhaps out of love, concern, or fear: 

Have you tried not feeling that way? 

.

Eternal Recurrence

(Josef and Jakob Hoflehner)

Nothing much to write today, I have been awake for hours. I survived yesterday. Had a quick chat with my boss and took half the day off. 

Seems odd to call him "my boss." He doesn't act like a "boss." He's a genuinely nice guy, I like him. I suppose he is the lead for my team, and he could fire me if I gave him a reason. He is a manager. 

Well, anyway...

While I was talking with him it occurred to me that I have allowed my personal life to bleed over into work. I was making simple, unneccesary mistakes which were causing me much frustration; rushing for no reason, abbreviating my answers to questions. Mostly just rushing without reason. It is a recent development. I know the moment it began, though of course I didn't know it at the time. I have a bookmark in time from which to reference, a postcard of a date.

It's time to regroup, rethink, take a step back before attempting any steps forward.

The future will simply require more strength and patience than the past, that's all.

It's not as if I did that great of a job with the past either, so I should be accumulating some additional strength and patience anyway, in the event that I become reincarnated, or locked in a state of eternal return, or if time travel becomes as easy as standing on a beach talking on a phone, with a plane suspended overhead.

.

The knot that holds the dam

(Josef and Jakob Hoflehner)

"Switch on your electric light, then we can get down to what is really wrong..."

My life feels like a knotted rope lately, one that has hardened and become entangled, beyond saving, beyond use.

Last night's post was written hastily and carelessly. It got an unusual number of page views. I was surprised when I saw the daily report this morning. I suppose there is always something that people will like about suffering and confusion.

Perhaps "like" is not the right word.

I am having a fairly awful time in life right now. The dams that held the waters apart have burst, everything is suddenly driving me crazy. I am not breathing. It is showing in everything that I do. Things that seemed easy have become impossible. There is a sudden sense of irreversible collapse. The knotted rope is sinking, but still attached.

Of course it will all pass. It always has.

.

Try

I've had nothing but awful days. Too many of them, really. Too many in a row.

It feels that way, anyway.

If I looked back through my blog I'm sure that I would find that I was something close to happy not all that long ago. 

It always surprises me, time; how elastic the past.

Last night I lost (almost) everything on my work computer, which contained most of the pictures I've taken of Rhys in the last eight months. A guy at work was able to save them, luckily, but that's all he saved. I was watching the World Cup while he was working on the computer and I didn't have enough foresight to name off four or five much smaller folders that I would have also liked to have had him save, because saving any of it seemed highly unlikely. 

So, I lose... apart from the pictures. It's all my fault, of course. It usually is. I have made some poor choices and what began as a summer puddle to jump in has now become a whirlpool that can not be waded safely across. 

I should know better, as I was reminded by every single person who has any idea what I've been doing for a living for the last two decades.

Life feels like Facebook right now, a few laughs but mostly a dull repetitive misery that you can't get away from; you're not quite sure why you're not trying; arguing uselessly with the various agendas of others, of self. 

Everybody that participates on Facebook is an unwiped asshole, especially those that use the platform as one for the projection of their idea of actionable morality. 

Those that wish to be kind to animals will generally act accordingly, others otherwise.

I mean, social media just might not have saved Michael Vick in time, even with all of its good will and intentions. The open prayers of the online world seem to accomplish much more for the one praying than for the object of said prayers. 

What little Jesus's, all of them, bunched in winter smittenses. 

It's only slightly better than pornography. Pornography is far too literal, so it tires the mind and the hand, eventually. 

The eyes, it tires the eyes, with no explanation as to why they return. 

It is a lonely, wanting vice of the heart. People come online to be satisfied with themselves, gripped in some strange fascination with the satisfaction of others, the semblance of mutuality. Barely a pretense of sharing.

Look how cool my links are, when I paste them there on the page, floating in front of you.... 

If you've encountered generosity of expression in another then what happens online will strike you as something akin to the closeup image of anal sex as compared to your first kiss, or the first one that you wished the first one to be.

There is something that always comes across as far too knowing in its naivety, lacking the charm of innocence, and its honesty.

Sometimes I just wish that I could have a talk with my eyes and find out what's really wrong, why all the staring.

Well, I should stop... I might be attracting attention with my nervous behavior.

Try this link below, instead of what I have had to screech here today: Try this: Try this:

Try.

.

Status Epilepticus

I've waited too long to write this morning and now my head is filled with smtp error codes and email header evaluation.

I spent the night last night over at my friends' house. We stayed up late, for me, and chatted about our feelings, mostly mine. It has occurred to me that I run the risk of become an emotionally "needy" friend.

I have always been an obnoxious burden, but now there is this other quality; borderline weepy, at times. 

They were offering me Nembutal late last night, as a hypnotic, to help put me to sleep.

I am looking forward to a time when I don't feel the way that I do.

Maybe it's because I haven't been to the gym in a week, and have had to miss a few rooftop boxing matches.  My schedule has just been too hectic.

We could live for a thousand years, but if I hurt you I'll make wine from your tears...

Prague is a beautiful, wonderful place that I miss greatly.

.

To get through, first you must...

(Before it went up)

I have hung some borrowed art up on the walls of my room, and a mobile hangs from the ceiling, paper pieces sit above the doorway, watercolors tacked up, reminding me to look at things, to look for things. The eyes must enjoy what they see, and the ears should be occasionally filled with music. Then, there should be some silence, also.

Rhys and I will paint the wall where his bed goes. It will be the first time I have ever engaged in a collaborative art project with a toddler. We shall see what we are able to do together.

I will move pieces in and out, to keep my eyes alive.

That is the trick, I think, a series of pleasant diversions.

Perhaps it is no trick at all.

.

Winners, losers, or drawers

NyQuil is wonderful and effective. Sleep is what is needed for the body to heal. That's precisely what I got, eight wonderful hours of it.

I am almost fully recovered, by tomorrow I'll be dangerous again.

Watching the draw in yesterday's USA / Portugal game was heartbreaking. It felt like a win, all the way up until those last few seconds when I knew that it would be a draw. Before the shot was even taken, I could feel it. But, it's why we watch the game. Studies have shown that people derive as much pleasure from close losses as they do wins, no matter what team you're for. 

Also, bad calls elicit much more excitement and pleasure than do good ones. People watch games, in part, to feel cheated. 

America is still favored to advance. If we can draw (or win) against Germany then it's a guarantee. As long as we lose without conceding too many points we can also advance. Ghana can still knock us out if we lose and they win against Portugal with more than a two point differential. It would be the third World Cup in a row in which Ghana had knocked us out either directly or indirectly, I believe.

As many of you already know, this is not a sport's blog. I am writing this as a patriot and a nationalist, of course. Because nothing speaks of American supremacy more than defeating poorer countries at sports. It's what has me worried about the match with Germany...

Americans still struggle with the concept of ties. I watched it live yesterday. A tie seems un-American. 

There were a few people having to explain to a few others what a tie means when they asked, "Well, what happens now?" You could see that they still didn't quite grasp it. The only thing that seemed to put them at ease was the impending switch to match-by-match advancement, only winners and losers, none of this mathematical trickery where there emerges a sense of off-putting evenness, or equality, with others.

.