Two Fat People Holding Hands

As I was walking down the street in my fair city the other day, and as I fended off the panhandlers and just plain loony people that congregate around my work place, I noticed up in the middle distance two fat people holding hands. They seemed happy enough I guess. Trundling along towards some buffet place. Of course that is unkind, I had no idea where they were headed, perhaps to a weight watchers meeting. Then again, whose business is it really? Besides of course, theirs. Being a life long fellow traveler on life's chubby highway who I am to condemn these people for going anywhere? After all, they seemed happy enough. Holding hands in public and all must be a sign of affection, and since they were not handcuffed to each other I had to assume they were willingly holding hands. Two fat people in today's society holding hands walking down a public street. Have to at least admire their bravery. When ever other advert
is about weight loss, and how being skinny makes you such a better person, here are two unabashed lard butts being loud and proud. You have to admire that. Regardless of the side long glances they were getting from other people they seemed rather happy, and at some level is not that what a lot of life is about? Just being happy with who or what you are. All this self improvement bullshit, and pill mania tries to turn people into ideals. If we are all skinny, shiny, happy people how will we know if we are better off? Don't we need some depressed or fat or fat and depressed people around for contrast? This is not a brave, new world, we should not all be test tubed or pilled out of our own unique personality. Certainly, some of us are so obese or so fucked up that chemical or surgical intervention is the best path to take, but the vast majority of us just need to make that huge leap, and accept ourselves for who or what we are. It is a major leap, one worthy of Kierkegaard, but at least it does not have to be necessarily blind. To climb out of bed one day, and announce to the world at large that this is who I am, and that is how it is going to be, and that the world can fuck itself if it does not approve is a very tough thing to do. However, when we try it let's pause and reflect for a moment on our guiding principle. Sometimes it is just lovely to be two fat people holding hands.

Stumped

I wish that I could say that my lack of posts has been to me working so much keeping society safe from all the bad guys of the world. However, that is just simply not true. It seems that no matter what level of effort I put into my job, the world has an inexhaustible supply of people who like to do bad things (in my job that would be domestic violence, hey if you can't beat your wife who can you beat?). They just keep coming, it rather feels like I am bailing the ocean out with a spoon, a very, very, small spoon. No, my lack of posting has been mostly because I am stumped (hence the cute picture). Bereft of ideas to actually post about. I have two ideas in mind, but I am currently unable to turn either one of them into a worthwhile post. Perhaps, I should just post worthless crap (and I think I do that enough already), but I at least like to pretend I have a (low) standard that needs to be met in order to post about something. I realize the absurd nature of posting about not have anything to post about, but hey, it is seems to be all that I have got. Take what you can get I suppose. The lack of ideas is rather disturbing. All I manage to have lately are half-ideas. A line from a book that sets off a train of thought that eventually goes nowhere. A off-hand remark from a friend that leads to a discussion that is unfortunately forgotten in a haze of beer and jager shots. Perhaps if I was a more disciplined thinker, or less of a drunk these ideas would make it onto the blog, but since I am a lazy drunk they vanish like apple pie at a fat person's birthday party. Fare thee well ideas, perhaps you will float away and find a hard working, sober fellow to mould you into something worthwhile, in the mean time I think I will take a seat on that stump and ponder what might have been.

Solving

Today's lesson is in solving problems. Feel free to take notes. Also, feel free to write in with suggestions. I have several problems. Not major problems, nothing that has the power of death over life, or any serious, long-term repercussions. However, they remain problems, my problems which does tend to make me sit up and take notice. I can ignore other people's problems all day long and twice on Sundays, but when they become MY problems then suddenly becomes painfully serious. The nature of these problems is not really important. What is important, and what it has taken me a while to realize (and when I did there was much wailing and gnashing of teeth), is that I have created all of my own problems. At first this was a little sad, then after careful consideration it became funny (I mean life gives you enough trouble without you creating your own difficulties), and finally I developed a sense of pride. Pride that goofy as I am, I can still create something. I felt a bit like Frankenstein must have when that monster of his first twitched into existence. It is alive! Fantastic! Much rejoicing! Time to dance around the maypole, and celebrate life. Then reality reared its ugly little head, and brought the entire party to a screeching halt. Two things dawned upon me, first that I was an idiot for celebrating my new found problems, and secondly that I had absolutely no clue how to solve any one of them. Damn and blast! How could this have happened? I suppose identifying the problem/admitting the problem is the first step, and that was pretty easy. I figured them out rather quickly, but as I tossed and turned through my night of now quite interrupted sleep, it slowly sank in that a solution would not be forthcoming anytime soon. This was and is quite distressing. I know the problems, I have identified the problems, and yet they remain problems. This type of absurdity would make Camus proud. To think that I could have created these problems,and then be unable to at least attempt to solve them boggles the imagination. I like to think that I am a rather clever fellow, and yet here I am as lost as last year's Easter eggs. This must be why people invented worry beads.

Clearly I need a Hobby

So very bored at my job dealing with crime, I decided to look up other people's crime problems.

http://www.thelocal.se/13508/20080805/

Lovely story of some lunatic in Sweden killing the two (very young) children of her ex-lover. Fantastic stuff. Glad to see that there are nut jobs everywhere. Clearly, this woman is batshit crazy. However, as I was reading through the articles about this crime, I was appalled to find when the woman took the stand the following exchange took place.

When prosecutor Johan Fahlander then took over questioning, he immediately inquired about the letter Schürrer sent to Hellberg explaining that she had given birth to his child and given it up for adoption.Specifically, he asked her when the child was born, to which Schürrer responded, “Why do you want to know that? That’s not an important detail, in my opinion.”Although Fahlander pressed her, Schürrer continued to avoid the question, as is her right under the rules of Swedish criminal proceedings.

This little interplay floored me. I am a prosecutor (not a particularly zealous or good one but still) this is the stuff I get paid the big bucks to do. Though I have yet to have the pleasure of questioning a murder suspect on the stand. That this woman can get on the stand and REFUSE to answer the prosecutor's question boggled the imagination. Then to say that is not an "important detail". The prosecutors I know (myself included) would have went ape shit on this woman. You will answer the fucking question, you will answer it right fucking now, and you will do it with a song in your heart, and a smile on your face. Telling me what is an important detail is a clear attempt at suicide. If I ever do go around the twist and climb a watchtower I am going to do it in Sweden. You can get on the stand, and decide what to answer. Fantastic. You can pretty much tell the prosecutor to "piss off." How liberating would that be? I clearly could not do my job in Sweden, the first time someone told me this from the stand I would go bonkers, and have to be restrained. I figure my career there would last about 22 seconds. Then again as far as I can tell the whole damn country probably only needs about 5 prosecutors. The shock and outrage this trial has generated is rather large. These kinds of things (the murders that is) happen about twice a week in the lovely, and peaceful city in which I live.

Maytag the Merciless

The above appliance, and its partner in crime, the dryer, have become my life. My life has become an never ending cycle of wash clothes, dry clothes, fold clothes, put away clothes, and repeat ad nausem till the end of time. Not exactly the exciting, wild, life style I had envisioned when I was a younger lad full of piss and vinegar. I feel like the Maytag man's bastard child. He never gets a call to replace these fabulously engineered machines, and I can' t stop using the bastards. My life has become as boring as watching paint dry, well that is not exactly true, at least paint eventually drys. Laundry does not STOP it is merciless (kind of like that guy name Ming). It just keeps coming. I thought about trying to at least slow it down, but I got nothing. I mean what can you do? Buy more clothes? That is a shit plan because they just get dirty as well, and then you are doing MORE laundry. Just throw away your clothes when they get dirty? That seems a little costly. It is a futile task. I feel like Sisyphus pushing that fucking rock up a hill just to watch it go tumbling back down again as soon as it reaches the top. Unless I am sitting here stark naked typing this (and who says I am not) I have dirty clothes that will need to be washed soon. I launder all the clothes I own, the sheets on the bed, the towels, the place mat, everything, but if I am wearing clothes then the cycle is just itching to start again. I just want to make it stop just for a week. That would be fantastic. Of course I could just not do laundry for two weeks or so, but then I would be faced with the dirty clothes hamper giving me those guilt ridden looks as I staggered into the bathroom. Laundry is like a lion on the savanna. All it has to do is wait by the nearest watering hole, and food will come to it. You have to drink/do laundry sometime, and when you do WHAM! there you are washing clothes, drying clothes, folding clothes, and putting clothes away. Thus, the circle of life and laundry is complete.

Mr. Kibbles

It seems I am a plague on the animal kingdom. Yesterday's casualty was poor Mr. Kibbles, a poor cat that no one really wanted. Seems Mr. Kibbles (who was less than 2 years old), just could not ever seem to gain his health. He always had one illness or another, and finally life became more than he could bear. The wasting illness that finished him off has some extremely long, complicated name that really isn't important to the story. The experts told me that when I got Mr. Kibbles that he was a bit sickly, and did not predict a long, and successful life for him. However, I thought that with enough care, and dedication Mr. Kibbles could at least live a few good years. Well, it seems I was a bit too optimistic. The downturn was not pretty to watch, and I may be off of owning pets for life. At least the end was fairly quick and painless, only one small bump on the road to kitty heaven, but it was smoothed over easily enough. The last six months were not pretty to watch, and I had become resigned to sending Mr. Kibbles to kitty heaven. Resignation does not equal acceptance, and a few beers had to be drunk in Mr. Kibbles' honour last evening. Which is perhaps why I woke up feeling like Mr. Kibbles or one of his feline buddies had taken a dump in my mouth.

Time

Time is an extremely funny thing. A lot of philosophers can explain a lot of things ethics, morals, pain, suffering, god, and all that other crap, but have a very difficult time wrapping their minds around the concept of time. What exactly is time? We decided to divide it up into months, days, weeks, years, minutes, seconds, etc etc, but did we really catch time in a bottle? Being awake about 19 hours a day gives you plenty of "time" to ponder questions about time. I have become an expert on knowing when it is 11 minutes past the hour. Any hour, any time of day or night, I am able to sense it. It is actually kind of creepy, and scares me just a little bit. I also can chop time up very well into 9 minute intervals. This is because the alarm clock that I have possessed for almost 20 years has a snooze button that allows for 9 minutes. I am eerily able to wake up before the alarm goes off, and then hit snooze wait 8 minutes and hit snooze again. Of course, the older we get time seems to go by faster. It has something to do with the amount of "time" we have left I think. Those last few grains of sand seem to run out a whole lot quicker than the first few. Time travel is a favourite subjects of authors the world over since H.G. Welles posed that lovely "what if" question in the The Time Machine. Certainly, some us would love to go back in time, and change how we handled certain situations, but usually it would be futile. Going forward in time has its allure as well who wouldn't want to know their and the world's future? We waste so much time that it is silly. We spend a great deal of energy wishing time away. It is ever going to be 5 o'clock so I can go home? Time punishes us all, at least eventually. You can't bargain with time. You might bargain FOR more time, but usually that is pointless as well. Just try to waste one hour someday when you are NOT a home. Leave your house, and think where can I go for an hour? Maybe you have a movie you want to see, maybe you can go to a book store, or a friend's house, but just see if that hour does not seem to drag by ever so slowly. Deadlines are all about time. Something has to be done by a certain time, then time seems to just fly by. It compresses till it seems that minutes are zipping by at the speed of light. Time does funny things to all of us. We set great store by being on time to place, but we smile indulgently at people who would "be late to their own funeral." We have all had experiences in which we leave thinking "man, I wish I had the last 20 minutes of my life back." Even reading this post is, I am sure, killing/wasting someone's time. I know that writing certainly did mine.

Murder Most Foul

I would like to report a crime. At about 7:15 a.m. today, poor Mr. Spider who lived near my bookcases was horribly killed. Initial reports that it was an assassination paid for by several rogues flies have been proven false. However, Mr. or Mrs (not sure which) is just as dead. It all started somewhat harmlessly. I was stumbling my way out of my house after an exciting Fruesday (TM) night with Tidy, and decided that I needed to supplement my 3 hours of sleep with that loveliest of drugs, caffeine. I manage to grab a can of the nectar of the gods (in this case known as Mountain Dew), and after both of my legs agreed on which direction to proceed, off I went on my way to work. However, lack of sleep, or lack of coordination quickly led to tragedy. I had not taken two steps to the door, when whoops the can slips from my loose grasp. WHAM! it lands on the floor and rolls off into the sunrise. I muttered several curse words mainly because my drink would explode now if I opened it, but partly because I would have to bend over to retrieve said can, and in my current condition that could lead to me just toppling over. I managed to retrieve the can without too much difficulty, and proceeded to place it back into my refrigerator. As I was performing this simple task, I looked down and noticed the rather squashed, but completely dead aforementioned, Mr/Mrs. Spider. After checking the vital signs, and determining that Spider was, in fact, not longer with us I burst into uncontrollable laughter. I mean what are the odds? Here the poor bastard of a Spider was walking along minding his/her own business, and BLAM!!!! here comes this very large object (at least to the Spider) whistling out of the sky and you become deceased. I am sure the family of the deceased is presently at home in their grief plotting their revenge. I would like to issue my condolences to any surviving family members (numbering in the thousands, I am sure). It is the equivalent of a person walking down the street and a piano coming out of a window from 20 stories, and killing some (human) bastard. I think that lack of sleep made me giddy, because I laughed so hard I cried, and am still chuckling about it as I write this post. I am even trying this story out on co-workers to see if it is funny or not. I am sure most of them will agree it is funny, but will not find it as hilarious as i did/do. Hopefully when I get home there will not be a group of spiders clutching large, blunt objects in their eight arms ready to exact revenge.

Blank

As required by law and by request, a brief change of subject.

This study/article does not bode well for me. http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/health/7504798.stm Seems that a good night's sleep is the best way to boost memory. That is fantastic. I have been struck by at least 3 instances of serious failures of my short term memory in the last week or so, and now perhaps I know why. Since I average about 3 hours of sleep a night it would seem that I might be in danger of just forgetting my entire life. Not that there is a whole lot worth remembering but, I am being to feel a bit like Guy Pearce in Memento. If this lack of sleep keeps happening I may have to start writing little things down like my address, where I work, and reminders to pay the utility bill. In fact, the major reason that I am writing now is it helps in my struggle to stay awake during the day. I am pretty sure I could fall asleep right here at my desk, but also convinced that it would only last about 12 minutes. Although those would be 12 glorious minutes. Minutes to savour, and look back upon with a sense of accomplishment and joy. Of course, it will all go horribly wrong as soon as I arrive home and attempt to take a nap. Then, of course, I will become alert, awake, and a productive member of the team. On the upside of things it does appear that I sometimes seem to arrive at a place I like to call the "other side of being conscious." It is a happy place where everything starts to make a whole lot more sense, and more things are absolutely hilarious than you would believe possible.

Rood

Dear GI,



Perhaps our problem is based on a lack of communication. It is rather like having a conversation with a non-native speaker. You and I, at least in theory, speak the Queen's English. In spite of your butchering of that language we should be able to communicate with relative ease. That being said, it seems that some of the CC's intentions have sailed gently over your head, like a lazy fly ball over a dazed shortstop's head in your lovely American game of baseball. Your response does strengthen the idea that perhaps rest and relaxation would do you a world of good. The only question now is the length of the time necessary for your recovery. Your "answer" to the round the twist question is not important. The CC has made their determination on that question, and your protestations to the contrary do not matter. Your recent erratic behaviour have raised concerns about your state of mind. These concerns need to be addressed. Your contributions to the Ministry are not in question, and are greatly appreciated by senior management. In fact, it is those contributions that are driving the CC's concerns. We do not wish to lose such a promising member so early in his career. There needs to be a hand to take hold of the scene, someone to make sure you recover your balance. Do not worry about drowning, do not fret about anything but your health. We are sure you will feel we have treated you harshly, but that is not the case. We are acting out of kindness. We are attempting to save you from yourself. We bear you no ill will, and we genuinely hope you recover your senses. You have marvelous potential, and it is our strongest desire to tap that potential for the betterment of the Ministry. If, as you say, you are the most grounded of men, then I trust you will see the great good sense of our proposal. Remember, once a member, always a member.

Gris

Dear Hugo,

I must confess that I find myself shocked at the tone of your letter of reprimand. I never meant to offend the Ministry. My membership in the Ministry is one of the few things I hold dear in my life. I would never wish to put that in jeopardy or to call into question the direction the Ministry is taking. You, and the other members of senior management can rest assured that I have not "taken leave of my senses." I am baffled by that question. How do I answer that question to any one's satisfaction? If I were to say "no" would you really believe me? I expect that most people would hotly deny having gone round the twist. If I were to say "yes" then what would you think? Could you believe me or anything else you have ever heard me say or write? I mean after all I would have just admitted to being mad as a hatter. I leave the question of my sanity for another day. While I appreciate the Central Committee's offer of a "water cure" I would have to regretfully decline. My "people" as it were have a evil tendency to drown around water. It usually does not act as a cure, unless you consider it "curing" being alive. I sincerely hope that was not the way the offer was intended. Believe me when I say that I truly look forward to serving the Ministry for the rest of my life. In fact, I have several ideas that I have been working on that, I believe, will make the Ministry proud. I fully intend to advance my position and standing within the Ministry, and will maintain the required discipline. I have reread the manual to which you referred, and I find that it is vague at best on the matter of publication. A certain amount of publication is allowed in order to keep the Ministry from dying due to lack of new members. Perhaps the tone I used was a bit flip, or perhaps it was misinterpreted (I find that misinterpretation happens quite often with the written word). In fact, I am reminded of certain publications of yours dear Hugo, in your younger days that would have run afoul of your present reading of the manual.
Also, I am no Kamenev or Zinoviev. I am not "naming names" the names I "drop" are well known members. Members whose membership cannot be denied or called into question. I have not, nor shall I, ever use a member's name that would expose them. I consider myself the most grounded of men. I follow the tenets of logic and good sense in most of the matters that I am faced with, and vigorously deny that I am "afflicted" with "flights of fancy." I understand the CC's position, and respect it a great deal. I will be more careful of my conduct in the future, and hope to serve the Ministry well. Once a member always a member.

Gult

Dear GI,

Consider this a warning. Those of us who would count ourselves yours superiors are not pleased with your actions. The brass foolishness displayed in your posts about success(es), and say "bah fuck 'em" to the Ministry, boggles the imagination. We are inclined to posit that perhaps you have taken leave of your senses, and may need to "take the water cure" at one of our sanatoriums. Rest assured you will be treated well, and allowed the time to recover your mental balance. Being a junior member of our association, we are inclined to overlook your blatant violation of our policy in this matter. Fear not, we will provide the necessary excuses to your friends, neighbors, family, and employers to explain your absence. If possible we would like the course of treatment to begin as soon as possible. We had hoped that you understood (it is clearly written in the manual) that we do not like to have the inner working of the Ministry exposed to the light of day. We may be a "all is forgiven group" (your words NOT ours), but we are also a private group. Naming names like some repentant Communist at a show trial in the 1930's will NOT endear you to senior management. We do not begrudge your moments of "blazing happiness", in fact, we encourage you in its pursuit. However, we cannot allow one of our members, drunk on his own sense of power to compare the Ministry to a group of clowns. Everyone makes mistakes, dear boy, just make sure that this one, like these things have a tendency to do, does not end in tears. A period of rest and calm reflection will do you a world of good, and allow you the time to develop a deeper apprecation of the Ministry. We will attempt to help you control the wild flights of fancy which seem to afflict you. Remember once a member always a member.

Success

I just experienced an absolutely marvelous personal success, and goddamnit I am going to crow just a bit about it. I have achieved the opposite of the Joe Purdy song, and have seemed to managed to "Get it Right Today". Stick with me this is uncharted territory your dear GI being actually "happy" if only fleetingly. Hey, I know it won't last, I know that somewhere in this sea of success there is a Scylla and a Charybdis just waiting for me to slip up. However, I can say with some conviction that I really don't care. What is a little whirlpool or a six headed sea monster when you are high on the glory of actually managing to get something right for a change? Sure I might sustain a few bruises on the trip, but the destination is worth it. Who knows this happiness thing might be contagious. Next thing you know you are giggling for the sure joy of it. Plus the added bonus of having your friends look at you like you are as mad as a March hare wondering who you are and what you have done with the real GI. That itself is worth a few laughs. After all, these are my friends it is good to boggle their imagination every once in a while. Perhaps they will join the giggle loop, and after a few pints everyone is grinning like a Cheshire cat. Truth be told, this success is worth a few grins, and a few pints. It is a work of stunning brilliance, and quite beyond my normal abilities. Perhaps, god does smile on fools and children. I feel like I have managed to cure cancer, and am simply waiting for the mere mortals around me to check the math, and be sufficiently awed. Nobel laureate attached to my name has a lovely ring to it. My paterfamilias would be so proud. Plus, depending on which Nobel category I win, I would get a free trip to Oslo or Stockholm. If I am not careful the Ministry will revoke my membership. Bah! fuck 'em. They are a collection of clowns that would make any circus proud. After all, one success does not a career make, and I am sure in a little while I would be welcomed back to the fold. They are a "all is forgiven just come back" group. Besides they are quite familiar with the unrestrained joy of a success of such breathless magnitude (at least before it all goes horribly, horribly wrong) so I doubt they will begrudge me a few moments of blazing happiness.

Here comes the apology part, dear reader, I had at the beginning of this rambling post every intention of revealing exactly what this success consisted of. Upon further reflection, I have decided not to. Going on the theory that maybe revealing it may ruin the whole damn thing, I figure that silence on the details of the cause of this joy is, in fact, golden. Besides, to reveal it might make it somewhat less glorious. Sometimes the less we know the better.

Question

This is a request for information dear reader(s). Yes, that includes the three of you that actually post comments and the untold thousands (I am convinced) that do not. This is YOUR chance to "help a brother out" as the saying goes. Since I seem to have lost the ability to feel sleepy, I am requesting guidance and perhaps some inspiration. That is the question that I want (your) answer(s) to. What does it feel like to be sleepy??? Since I skip from feeling awake to feeling absolutely exhausted but still awake I skip the "sleepy" phase, and am now desperately seeking information on how it feels. Use your imagination(s) give me some good stuff. Put some thought into it. Tell me how sweet it must feel to just be drifting off to sleep, eyes closing, thoughts becoming slower and slower. Smaller and smaller concentric circles (like a Celtic knot? unending maybe?) as you slowly relax your hold on consciousness, and visit that happy land called sleep that seems to have revoked my passport. I am quite confident that someone has a lovely explanation of this feeling, and hope they would be willing to share the information. All in the interests of science, or maybe art.

Failure

A wise person once said that a man (i guess this person was a sexiest) is defined by his failures. That the true test of one's character is to be found when they are facing adversity/failure. Well, it would appear that I am in the testing zone. Over the last week I have managed to author three rather clear (though small) failures. These failures were on a rather personal level (not THAT personal, no blue pill is necessary), and were fairly spectacular in their own special way. Nothing that I won't manage to survive, but nonetheless they still leave bruises on the old ego. I suppose I should take solace in the fact that the last man to hit over .400 in baseball, Ted Williams, still made 271 outs as opposed to 185 hits. If Teddy Ballgame can't succeed more that 40% of the time, what chance do the rest of us mere mortals have? However, unlike Mr. Williams I am not precisely sure if I am going to get 456 at bats to correct my average. I am pretty sure I DON'T want to get that many more chances to prove that I am not a total zero. This is not self-pity or whining by any stretch of the imagination it is merely a thought exercise in percentages, or perhaps, hope. A person rarely learns anything by winning, they can make a thousand and one mistake, and as long as they win/succeed they are likely to believe they did the "right" things, and will continue with the "winning" formula. True lessons are learned in defeat, by failure, by looking back and seeing that moment in time when it all went horribly wrong. Trust me that moment exists, it is there you just have to find it. It might be hard to spot, or it may be as plain as the nose on your face, but it is there. That moment, that slice of time, that you, for all your wishing, can't retrieve, can't get back, and can't stop reliving is there. Fewer people remember the keeper that saved the penalty kick than remember the poor, unlucky, bastard that blazed it over the bar. Despair has a way of drawing people together. More of us can understand what Roberto Baggio felt than can remember the name of the Brazilian keeper that stood there and just watched (it was Taffarel for those that care). Failure makes mortals of us all. True as Patton said Americans love a winner, but each of can certainly identify with the loser. After three failures in less that a week, I don't have to identify with the loser, I just have to hope that a lot of people didn't see that/them.

Dormir

Sleep, precious, precious Sleep. It seems that it is something that my body has decided to forgo. Like a really loaded chocolate sundae, my body has decided that while it WANTS to sleep, it really does not need it. Lately I have been lucky to get 2-3 hours of sleep a night. Glorious stuff. Even then the sleep I get is not continuous. I get one hour here, then toss and turn for 2 hours to get the next hour. I am tired. So very tired that I am lucky to be able to string two complete sentences that make sense together. So tired that I almost fell asleep at dinner over my food (in a public restaurant no less). It still would have been glorious. I look like hell. The waitress kept asking me if I was "ok", and I do not think she meant (from the tone of her voice) that she was worried about me liking my food. I feel like Christian Bale in The Machinist or Robert De Niro in Insomnia. There have been, in the last week or so, those lovely moments when I am just about to fall asleep, and suddenly the phone rings. Damn and blast! Now I am awake again, and have to start over. Unlike our hero Hamlet the rub is getting to sleep. I will take my chances with what dreams may come. In fact, the only way I can tell I have been asleep is if I happen to remember having a dream. Another downside to this lack of sleep is I now have another 3-5 hours a day extra of time to kill. Mon Dieu!!!! Think about that for a second. You can only read so much, everyone else you know is fucking asleep, late night TV is a wasteland that would make T.S. Eliot proud, and here I am awake and staring at the walls. Notice I did not say wide awake. I am not wide awake I am in some exhausted state that cries out for sleep that is not coming. Add that up, and you have 21-35 hours a WEEK!! Talk about needing a hobby. Try filling up that amount of extra time a week. Of course, it has it upsides, a lot of things seem a lot funnier after about 4 nights of 3 hours of sleep. The downsides are there too, it is very difficult to concentrate, and spell even the simplest words. Plus, I suspect that my ability to make sense might be affected. Problem is, how the fuck can I tell? I think I make perfect sense, but then again I am punchy with fatigue.

Secret Society

The time has come to confess to my long standing membership in a very, very old secret society, fear not, this society is not the kind to dump me in the East River for spilling the beans on my membership. In fact, we glory in being known it helps us to identify and recruit new members, and we are ALWAYS (for reasons that will become painfully clear) in need of fresh meat... err new members. First, I suppose I should reveal the name of the society of which I am such a proud member, it is a very simple name we are called The Ministry of Bad Ideas or The Ministry for short. No, we are not some sect of religious morons, the Ministry here is more like a cabinet minister not a fire and brimstone kind of minister. We have a sister/brother organization that people may have heard of it is called the Ministry of Silly Walks. However, we are the older organization, and are still thriving to this day. We are an international, multi-cultural group. We take all sorts if you have an idea run it past our Central Committee (the ones that have survived that is), and if it is deemed worthy of our attention, and you survive a demonstration of your idea, voila!!! you are a member. We scour the globe for acolytes to bring into the Ministry. Our budget is small, our equipment might be outdated, but by god(s) our imaginations are boundless. Secondly, I suppose a brief history of the Ministry is in order. We started a LONG time ago, no one is quite sure of the name of our founder or the exact date which we were founded. We are not the most adept at record keeping (fire, which we LOVE to play with, has a tendency to destroy records). We do know that the Pharaoh that had all those problems with Moses, he was one of ours. That whole "let my people free" crap would not have been possible without us, and Charlton Heston owes us a bit of thanks. The long standing, but now defunct, medical idea that health was based on the four humours i.e. black bile, yellow bile, phlegm and blood, that was one of ours. You have to admit it did have some sticking power, and we were able to get a decent chap (for a Greek) like Hippocrates to expound it for us. One of the quirks of our society is not all members know they are members, and not all members are totally incompetent. We have had a number of "successes" over the years most of them without trying. A surprising lot of our members have been doctors, we are not quiet sure why this is so, but as long as they pay their dues we do not ask too many searching questions. William Harvey was one of ours until he had to ruin it by solving that whole blood circulation thing, then we had to read him out of the Ministry. He was a nice chap for an Englishman. Most of the guys who tried to copy Da Vinci's flying machine were ours. In fact, that footage you see from time to time on TV with all those spectacularly complex machines crashing miserably, comes from our archives. Ockham's Razor is not a favourite theory of ours. That bastard has caused us a great deal of grief. We thrive on the absurdly complex, simple is for the weak minded, and the morally bankrupt. Alfred North Whitehead who came up with a theory of relativity more complex than Einstein's, one of us. Polytheism was mostly our idea, why have just one all encompassing god when you can have hundreds of them for all sorts of stuff. It helps you shift the blame, and who knows one or two of them may smile upon you as you leap off that bridge with papier mache wings, complete with real live duck feathers glued on for safety, strapped to your arms. Asking any number of gods, fates, pixies, fairies, idols, or really cool looking stones, for luck is one of our major tenets. Being an extremely eclectic organization, we sometimes expand our membership to include non-humans. Mrs O'Leary's (nice lady for an Irishwoman) cow was one of ours (I told you we like messing about with fire). The cat and mouse that recently caused a seven day electrical failure in Albania, they were ours. In fact, our history is so long and colourful (and taking into account the length of this post and my readers attentions spans) I would be doing the Ministry an injustice to attempt to squeeze it into one post. Stay tuned.

Mea Culpa

I guess you could consider this apology to my readers (both of them). Though, truth be told, as I have said before in the blog I don't really write for my readers. Considering I really don't have to bother with a fucking apology, you are particularly blessed dear reader(s). The apology in the case is for the horrid writing of my previous post. The idea was sound, the premise was good, but the execution was piss poor. I had a very specific idea to attempt to illuminate, and I used expressions that, upon rereading the post myself, make me want to vomit. Hackneyed expressions, and simplistic attempts to covey an idea are unforgivable. I should take at least some pride in something in my life, and since there isn't much to choose from, I should at least be more careful when attaching my "name" to the things I write. They say a hundred monkeys typing away for a hundred years would eventually write Hamlet, I hope for fuck's sake that I am slightly more literary gifted that your average monkey. I am somewhat cheered by the fact that even Shakespeare wrote reams and reams of absolute drivel. However, the downside to that is the bastard also managed to squeeze out Hamlet. Well, at least I have got the drivel out of the way.

Castles in the Air

I have a tendency to build them. Which is NOT a good thing. I have been on this planet (at least in this form) for almost 39 years, and I have recently discovered that I am a very poor judge of character. I pick the wrong horse with a shocking degree of regularity. It is a talent that I would not recommend anyone trying to cultivate. With it comes with a lot of pain, sorrow, and a great deal of disappointment. None of this is news to anyone who knows me. Do not get me wrong, I have great, good, friends. Friends that would do anything for me. However, my friendship wagering has been rather hit or miss. I tend to hit or miss in a BIG way. The friends I have are awesome, the ones that I have missed on have left bruises on my ego and pschye that won't be going away anytime soon. The problem is that I have missed more often that a)I would like to admit and b)might have lost more than I could afford. I understand that I should shake the misses off like dust off a boot, but it appears that I am the type of fellow on which failure lingers. It clings to me like a bad odour. It is a personal failing, I sometimes miss the forest for the trees. In my younger days this was not as bad, perhaps age makes it harder to turn the other cheek to these blows of insecurity. All those friends that have gone in search of fairer weather are, for reasons I CANNOT fathom, still rankle. One by one they left leaving me here sitting in my storm wondering was that lightning that just struck? How could I have thought that horse was going to finish anything but badly? What was I thinking? Perhaps while I am pissing away all this time building my castles, I have forgotten one very important thing. A good castle has a drawbridge and a moat.

Il buono, il brutto, il cattivo

Being homebound after a lovely 10 day stay in hospital which cost me about a foot of my colon, I have had the extreme pleasure of getting to watch the good the bad and the ugly twice in the last 2 days. I have to say it is one of the greatest films I have ever seen. It gets better (and somehow sadder) each time I watch it. Clearly, Sergio Leone was a genius even if he was Italian. Now clearly the "good" character played with perfection by one of my personal heroes Clint Eastwood, is the most famous character. Playing the "Man with No Name" with the fewest words possible our boy Clint delivers a masterful performance. However, to me the true "hero" of the film is Eli Wallach a.k.a. "the ugly." Played with zest and robustness Tuco is a Mexican bandit that is the personification of us all. Lee Van Cleef plays "the bad" a.k.a. Angel Eyes. Truth be told the line between all three of these guys if pretty thin. Blondie (as Tuco calls Clint Eastwood's character) is no saint. He freely indulges in a money making scheme with Tuco, and when that has, in his opinion, reached it zenith he leaves Tuco to die out in the desert. Not what you would call a sterling fellow. Angel Eyes leaves his own trail of death and destruction behind him, but as with all the characters is in the pursuit of the lost $200,000 in gold that motivates him. At its core this is an anti-war film, the needless slaughter of the bridge scene, and the characters reaction to it show that Leone had a point to make about war and its madness. Throughout it all, Tuco steals the show his is the most developed character of the film. We know nothing of Blondie or Angel Eyes' family or past, but we get to see Tuco's brother, and heard his explanation of why he turned out "ugly." He is the most human; "Whoever double-crosses me and leaves me alive, he understands nothing about Tuco." Showing that humans cannot be either all good or all bad, and that most of us are just ugly.

Normal Service

Normal Service has been restored. The asshat that sullied the blogwaves has been duly punished, and new and improved passwords and security has been installed. However, I decided NOT to delete his/her vandalism of my site because free speech is just that free. The post did have some valid points which are worth, at least in passing, exploring. Perhaps, the failure act has been going on for years. However, I think it is because I measure myself against the wrong people. Not really going to dig deeper than that, because I quite simply do not want to. The last thing I want from anyone is pity. Pity is for the weak. Those of us that know me well (and there are quite a few) know that I am not generally weak. I may be a lot of things, but weak is not one of my major flaws. I may have weak moments, but even while having them I am working out how to eliminate their recurrence. I certainly do not need attention, dear, sweet Donna of all the people on this planet, I had hopes that you would know that. That is a bit of a letdown, but nothing I will not forgive you for. Do not feel bad, the vandal (for that is what I will call him/her) should have known better as well. However, he/she is a perpetual disappointment to me, so his/her inability to understand the nature of my post is no great surprise. As to his/her invitation to join the human race, like brother Ivan from the book which I stole my name, I quite simply return my ticket.

Sorry dear readers, but this is NOT the jackass that owns this blog. Though he knows me, knows me quite well as a matter of fact. So well does the fool know me that he allowed me to figure out his password, and here I am. I expect I will not be here for long, so I will have to have as much fun as I can before the "GI" comes back. I read his last post with utter disgust. The pity party that this moron is throwing himself makes me want to puke. Worse yet, is the fact that his readers feel sorry for this fuckstick. Do not encourage him to feel anymore sorry for himself that he already does. He is nearly insufferable as it is. His "I am such a failure" act has been going on for years, and is wearing thin. He is a failure because he is a lazy, lazy, lazy bastard. Life did not screw him over, he was not dealt a bad hand. He is quite simply too fucking lazy to get his ass in gear. He whines and cries about how bad his life is. That is horseshit. His life is better than a very large population of people on this planet. If he is broken it is because his is brittle. Do not allow him to sucker you into feeling pity for him. He is beneath comtempt for his obvious attention seeking behaviour. Tell him to grow up, grow a set, and join the human race. I for one, am tired of hearing his wailing like a Jew at the wailing wall. Welcome to the human race "GI."

Who Wants to Live Forever

I just want to stop. I want to stop being myself, stop existing, stop having an effect (good, bad, or otherwise) on anyone or anything. Granted, I am not so arrogant to believe I have much of an effect, but I am tired of having even a minuscule one. I want to disappear completely. I want to be able to say (like Radiohead) I'm not here, this isn't happening. I want to walk through that final wall, and not be me, or anyone for that matter. I understand this is not really that hard to do in theory. All one needs to do is screw their courage up to the sticking point, and it is done. The problem (besides a lack of courage) is that despite my sincere lack of belief, I just can not be sure that I will not be trading one level of existence for another (possibly worse) level. I suppose it solves my immediate problem, but who knows (answer NO ONE!) what I get in return. Perhaps, this is my Kierkgaardian earthquake, an existential crisis of my unfaith. Perhaps I would kill for just a little bit of faith, even if it is a negative faith. At this point, I am willing to take a negative anchor, any anchor will do. I had (yes at my age it is time to admit HAD) such potential, and I have bottled it completely. The time has passed where any hope remains that I will manage to get my shit together and accomplish anything. Failure is not an accomplishment. Pissing my limit talent(s) away is not an accomplishment. There is little to no chance that I will accomplish anything worthwhile in the remainder of my life. This is not a pity party or a cry for help, it is a simple, logical, inescapable fact. Also, it is (as far as I can tell) entirely my own fault. I have to stand at the bar, and plead guilty to a wasted life. Guilty! Guilty! Guilty! Ship me off to my own private Devil's Island, and close the book on me. Perhaps before I go I can make a few Public Service Announcements on the pitfalls of failure. I do not wish to see or been seen. Don't take a picture, don't make a scene, and for pity's sake don't follow my example.

L'hopital

No need for a key for this post, plain English (or at least my English) will suffice. My lack of posting, for once, has a valid reason. I managed to spend about 5 days in hospital last week/weekend. It was a lovely experience. Bit of a plumbing problem that, in my opinion, my doctor made worse with his "treatment". Either way I will have to go in for surgery eventually, get my oil changed and hopefully will be as good as new, or as good as a stocky, near-sighted, 38 year old former drunk can be. The hospital is the WORSE place in the world to get rest. I have gotten more sleep at a Ozzy Osborne concert. People coming into your room drawing blood at 4 a.m., taking vital signs at 4 a.m. here is a newsflash for you people, at 4 a.m. I DONT HAVE vital signs. Piss off, and let me try to get some sleep. The great part was I didn't have solid food for about 3 days, that was lovely. Fat people don't like missing out on solid food even if it is hospital food. I did make one observation while flat on my back in the hospital bed. Try watching TV for one hour and notice how many commercials deal with food. No wonder America is a nation of Homer Simpsonquese lard asses. Every third commercial is about some sort of food. After a couple of days of no solid food that became torture to watch. It was just plain cruel. I would like to thank the people that visited me (one in particular was a total shock, you know who you are, and i was/am very grateful) and to the ones that did not bother even to call to see if I was alive, you can piss off. Though it is my belief that being in the hospital is like being an animal at the zoo. People come to see you, and all you do is lie there scratching yourself, they gawk at you, they cannot feed you, and off they go. Although, I did manage to have a little fun while I was bedridden, my "doctor" (who is younger than me which is scary) let slip that he can not tell when I am being serious or not. That came in handy when he came to visit me, and in my fevered anger I threatened to make him pay for the "day and a half of pain he caused me." The look on his face almost made it all worthwhile. Almost, but as the bills have not come in yet, not quite.

Merci

New post, New Key.


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“Bz koh zw mb baznfr, vgampa wq tuwczz; vysnl ray tu o cbvqp mt nyi ocgbwawbk, t wepp wq eii koce; lt w pqoo mg knlyso ykup fk ham grs, Slkvtc ea esf pcgm...rqm ins's opchu wzatlwmyie ax, jspsijx P ek evgzmzcr ce pojxnno”
Rtoamvr, T fopv rqjxz o umbuklh naznpox yulvhr svyh Xc. Fcagv’g efsiic, nim Q qnf gvx osu ev dajxc cz dbgayk ie ckbtl kffc tii qq ol esyd. Hyxyidkzp, T iets xvfwzri tslv kubcs T aohesf px ib vkzrgk M awv npsxywhcb opgjmae vc oxtcxc o jvrublczn. A qrgusr, ocnnfwqtocom wg qeldv, qhm dmdczz rtmfm nfbe hyx lrrezp hpvjr. Hf popgjr szy vnku W epm nyids tzs tgwez as za ateverwiev kdrwe T scjr mf wyrslrgf cg i jrjm gxywmjiw wfzcz qzwv kgmec swang sstlum. Ysisomf, V UOE epqgp bslu eaqyjv ojq yhle kbgxionrwie xa “ukwiav” cw ff suj kszpwgba. Z da cbnnr eq sexth xw jyic akg Xmewbvxz, elz xzavpyhy kksi jnts rwoew kchcfm rrp phzrrj qihzwgjod eier W grq. Daemaad vvnm nwwj aubi ns vczgmfresc zwkvhbvbg, jvuvwcx ie hkzy kvhlpr gp kdcpbv nk o yntel xmtyh. M ya hfw gqej tslv W jteh em ulfa mg t pizsb sxpre, wvo afvfojj L keyq tsckjr be hsgg hva edtks V zomx jeprmo zvx dcl dbgayk. Oyp qt gafgp yqwvwe dhqbgk kzes fc pptd cpmu, vlw zqppy qzt ar mys euc “zimqbwa” hush jihvial esjw afcjlg zb soe etchucs efsgjixjxa hb jsrw px.

Vigenere

This sentence is the only one you will be able to read without my help, if you want my help to read the rest, email me or post a comment requesting the key.

Kx nqueu okpgei vhtk at bnsx jal sszn "hslpd" up hce hsieel ft zvkp. Zp tazg xaui, kjolv tjreij crx rgnhqpvu am dm jfhmtg. Ogv wi pcvkkcncom wjs, wqr gfk, nhcpc tefrwi ncqvnelj. Hcetiwqrx, kvds rsjv, agu dzrjegu omysms ymcn bx zb xofi. Z fiw vlklcme vhtk hce dpfi wtj tjr oi rnogv zvsv xzoe, ter teu M jge mys kateuqx hw dptvmei shdsohkrx qn mys rotpu yiwv kzb vlrv il aint hsi oe, ulh D dkh jcy myoo I rsjv fhi o xetxrkn ilpgie, eef tarh kudpze wbcz we cpcqwxu hj cqrkknnv hj rgeu. Pop, kvds kw eqt mys xlqeb cnw uobggv fh shds Modiiv Lnuzpm psmgl, bk wn jwwk K dh eco ccvv hok tsmtcme lavbonsgw Z cm xddgoaiu yimy hj mcov yilvons esdoegkg vbqyk oy uccb. Tjizt tazbfipk sgigx W nhqycf pnk on mwgy gfyffo ipxf yokb on I fs kjil szjg. Qj tqukjs ohg nfme bj ci tjid, K pnk jzra pzvtev safqvk knmf sdtjii. K wbcz krqzzfe mys "fea" xf erttydni xyks vfrz tq xyqsx ft tow xyct vrfz epslih mf onk. Kx nkle eco bg lrtd. Mysme gbzutl r kzbumkg tarh xrcgbu tav qjdg jft yhl, ogl asl jaov hj dq mj eum rby pcwkg. Im nwgl cpjq bx gfjvkhvf. Tazg ds c fzv oy r uvmdpv cnw r zdtvpv iohwm, wuv mk yal r ggoy avgk.

Greta Garbo

I know, I know an odd title to a post, but stick with me all will become clear in the end. First, an apology is in order, dear reader, by the time the few of you that read this blog are finished with this post, I will have to issue an apology. So upfront here it is I am sorry. Sorry that anyone would possibly think that this blog is written for them to read. I can not make this clear enough, this blog is written for me to write, and even though I do it badly that does not change the reason the blog exists. If some people (demented as they are) get some pleasure out of reading this blog, then that is just gravy. However, at its most cellular level this blog exists solely for me. I do appreciate readership, and for the ones nice enough (and smart enough to figure out how to) post comments I offer my sincere thanks. I am not Flaubert, I do not agonize over sentences or paragraphs for weeks at time searching for the bon mot that just fits. I think/brood over my topic for about 2 days, and then sit my fat ass down and out it comes. POW! Right here on the keyboard, the act of creation, thankfully it is not a messy act, and there is no afterbirth to stain the computer. It is an act of self-will born out of self-doubt, and based on the need to at least appear to do something with my life that does not involve looking over my shoulder to worry about how I will be perceived by the general public. You, dear reader(s) (assuming there are more than one of you) are NOT the general public, and for that I am grateful. You are a very specific public, one that I have cultivated, and one that, for the most part, I respect. Still, remember what I said, this blog exists for one person in the world, me. Much like the aforemetioned Ms. Grabo. I just "want to be let alone." She herself had to explain that the difference between "let alone" and "left alone" was a very large difference. I think given the high intellects of my reader, I do not have to go through a long explanation of that difference. I adopt Ms Grabo's philosophy and wish to be let alone as well. I warned you before, dear reader, that I would owe you an apology before this was over, and now you know why. It is not the smartest move for a writer (using the term VERY broadly) tells his readers to "piss off", and I hope that the readers that know where I am coming from will not believe that is what I am doing here. I am just explaining my motives, my reasons for the blog, and my desires for the future. I will continue to blog whether you come to read it or not, but I hope that you come back, read and understand my blatherings, post comments that you feel you want to, and both enrich me and are enriched by the experience.

Be your own Frog Prince

Take yourself down to your local, do not forget to invite the people you are presently calling friends. I say presently because that is what this post is about. Present friends, old friends, new friends, dead friends, and undiscovered friends. When you and that group of people you called get to your local, and have that nice cold pint in front of yourselves take a look around. Are these people (your friends) the people you knew when you were 20? 25? 30? 35?. Will they be the people you still call to meet you for a drink when you are 40 or 45? Will any of them attend your funeral? Will you attend theirs? Have you wandered so far from the person you were 10 years ago that you have replaced your entire "set" of friends? Is there one old familiar face? Like a well broken in baseball mitt that you keep around as a friend in order to hold onto the past. Who among this group is the longest serving friend, and is that the friend you like or trust the most? Or is it that this is the group that you prefer to drink a pint with? If that call you placed earlier was to go to the movies, or to a concert, would that call be placed to different people? Take out your cell phone scroll the numbers how many of them would have been there when you were 5 years younger. How many times have you moved in the last five years? Do you have a place you call home or is home just where you happen to be living right now? (sadly for me the latter is true). Take a good look around would any of these people be "friends" if you were taken out of the group. Did you create this group of friends or did you just join it, and your presence would be missed but would be dealt with. How long would it take the memory of you to fade? How long would it be before they started mentioning your name less often till at last you are erased like a drawing in the sand at high tide? Is there one amongst this group that you feel a stronger bond with? One that you would tell things that you could tell your family pictures? One that knows that you are full of addictions, contradictions, and fucking fictions? Do you serve that purpose for any of them or are you like a passenger on a train, only here for the ride, and waiting to get off at your appointed stop? "Sorry lad, it has been a real pleasure being your friend but here we are at Paddington Street, and I must be off." "Keep in touch, call me we will have drinks or something."
Knowing full well that you are muttering the things you are supposed to mutter, and it will be sublime centuries before you see this person again, or want to for that matter. Are these "friends" of yours good people? Do you deserve them? More importantly do they deserve you? Are you a good friend? Certainly most of us think we are good friends, who would want to be a bad friend? Have the friends that we thought were so very together now off in search of fair weather? Is this search for fairer weather a mass exodus, or do they just drift off one by one till you glance around and think you are reliving the water fountain scene from Ocean's 11?

Dust

One day everyone you and I know will crumble to dust. You, me, the person you love the most, the person you hate the most, everyone blasted one of us. There is no escape we will pay for the violence of our ancestors. This inescapable fate is the thing that makes us all equal. Kings, queens, street sweepers, doctors, lawyers and bums all end up as dust. Returning to the elements that at the most basic level are our building blocks. For those of us with a mean streak this realization does make us feel at least as important as the King of Spain. Granted his coffin will be nicer, his funeral more impressive, and someone besides the people he owes money will mourn at his funeral, but all that notwithstanding, he turns a similar pile of dust as the rest of us. Of course depressing thoughts like this certainly do not help one's moral fiber, so in the spirit of a new year let us ponder something else. Clearly, a lot of people who have too much time to think fall in love with the idea that the universe is so vast, deep, and wide, that our actions can seem rather small and pointless. After all, we all wind up as dust so in the end, what difference do one individuals actions make? This is cosmic pessimism at it finest. A negative view of the world, and of our place in it. Sort of a free pass to act however you want because in the end nothing matters. However, it occurred to me as I passed the time with my thumb up my ass what if the reverse were true. What if everything matters? What if (those dangerous words) everything little thing you did rather than being magic, mattered in some meaningful way? Some way that you might not even be able to explain or comprehend. Talk about chaos. Every little decision or action that you made mattered. That particular choice of attire, the decision to turn left or right, the idea that you left the lights on so you turn back to check just one more time just to make sure, can these trivial, everyday petty little things matter? Maybe they put you behind schedule enough to miss getting hit by that bus at the intersection down the street. Perhaps you did leave the iron on, and turning around prevent a lovely little house fire. Maybe some trivial thing you did loses your mother's love try that dress on for size how does it fit? What decision would be easy to make if everything thing mattered. Suddenly even "fries with that" makes a huge difference. I would suppose a paralysis of the will would be the ultimate result.

Gulag

I feel as if i am in one, a Gulag that is. Not as cold here, and I am not forced to do physical labour (thankfully). No, the Gulag that I inhabit is not a physical one, but an intellectual one, and in some respects it is self-created. The self-created bit makes it even harder to escape, strange but true. My guards are not stolid large men with murder in their hearts, but sloth and ennui. Guards of my own creation, and right hard buggers to sneak past. This Gulag is not in one spot, not surrounded by barbed wire, or vast expanses of frozen tundra. Being unbounded on any side makes it very difficult to explain to other people. The sadder part is my own role in building it. My job does not challenge me on an intellectual level except maybe once a month (sshhh do not tell my boss). Therefore, it is incumbent upon me to provide my own intellectual challenge, and I am not talking about doing the New York Times daily crossword puzzle. Though I seriously doubt I could finish it, that is not the intellectual challenge I am looking for. Also, I am not trying to compare my intellectual wandering in the desert to the true tens of thousands of victims of the actual Gulag for that I recommend an excellent book by Anne Applebaum. However, I have no concept of that kind of suffering and that kind of evil so perhaps I exaggerate. The larger problem is that I know I am trapped in this intellectual Gulag, I am aware of my guards, I have attempted to, and failed to take their measure, but there does not seem to be one goddamn thing I can do to escape. Books are my best hope, but as I was doing my year end's accounting the other day, and realizing that this year I have read 42 books despair hit me pretty hard. Certainly, all 42 of those books were not hefty tomes of great intellectual import, there was a fair share of "fluff". The problem that became clear to me is that if I were to maintain that reading pace I would need 42 more books to read to get me through to next year when I whine about this in another post. I am sure I could locate 42 books to read with minor effort, but the problem, and the major reason I tremble as my guards make their rounds is I realize that I need to find 42 books worth reading. Not some dribble by the likes of Tom Clancy or John Grishman, but books that are worth my while, books that help me dig that tunnel (ever so slowly) out of this prison my intellectual Gulag. Anyone, anywhere have any suggestions? Careful though the guards shoot to kill.

pour l'éducation d'autres

Translated from (very poor) French.



Of course I noticed the Bulgarian, I mean how could you miss him? Greasy little bugger with dark, limpid eyes that never seemed to be focused on anything in particular. Dark and swarthy little chap dressed in cheaply made, poorly tailored Eastern European knock-off of Western clothes. The problem was that someone(s) had taken the trouble to hire him, and therefore I was not really in a position (at first) to sidle up to him and ask him his business with me. Since I am not some clever spy-master, it took me a few days of seeing him on the fringes of crowds, or popping up at places where I was to figure out that maybe he was becoming my (thinner) shadow. Racking my hazy memory, and taxing my limited intelligence, I was unable to conceive that anyone, anywhere, would want to have me shadowed. If you are curious about my day to day activities, then you my friend, need a hobby and maybe some therapy. Either way, there he was my shadow. What in the bleeding hell had I done? Who had the nerve to want to know what I was doing? Christ, just ask me if you want to know. No need to go through all this trouble to hire some (clumsy) bastard to trail me around. So, I decided to give the little bugger a peek into my day (see previous post) as you can tell not a lot is going on in my life. I wish I could say that I was being sneaky and giving him a look at a boring day on purpose. Sadly, that is not true, the day he observed is pretty much a slice of my life. Pretty exciting stuff huh? Either way the more I thought about it the more pissed I became. I mean who the hell hired this jackass, and why? However, I really did not consider myself set up to spy on the spy. After all, he is (in theory) a trained professional. Me? Not so much. Also, for some reason it just seemed a bit hypocritical of me to going prying into this fool's life when it offended me for him to snoop into mine. Luckily for me, he was an inept bastard. Apparently, he did not read the Stasi manual about sleep. It is all well and good to question a "subject" (I really enjoyed being called a subject made me feel so very cheap). when he or she first wakes up. You just need to be careful to ascertain IF he or she just woke up. Some people wake up in stages, some people wake up right away, and some people you just are not sure if they are awake yet or not. Certainly, if you have your subject in custody this is not a problem, but if you do not have all hours access to the subject, you should be very careful. It evens the odds a bit, and you have to sleep yourself eventually. All sorts of mischief can be done while you are snoring away the afternoon. Once (or I guess if) your "subject" realizes you are there, things become much more difficult. Granted, they might be terrified in submission, or scared enough to make a critical mistake, but you never know when you run into a clever bastard that might not want to be eliminated. Worst case sceanrio you get someone who wants to be a hero, and decides to make your life an object of their attention. Now, I am certainly not a hero, and from from being a clever bastard (well bastard yes, clever not so much), but, I am not a total fool. Once I wrapped my mind around the concept of secrets I begin to realize we all have them, and it is incumbent upon us to keep them, or tell them as we see fit. This is when I figured that even the Bulgar must have something that he did not want me or anyone else to find out. Since I am aware that one Bulgar does not a Stasi make, I am going to leave it to him (or his handlers) imagination if I was able to find something out that I can use. Ne trahir rien.

Stasi

To psychologically break a suspect, constant questioning is necessary. Continue asking questions even if they are repetitive. Deprive suspect of sleep for a couple of days, all the while asking questions, then let suspect sleep for a very brief period when suspect awakes immediately ask questions, suspects are at their weakest when they first wake up. Stasi instruction manual.

The following is translated from the original Bulgarian.

Report on suspect D by Agent Birov

Per instructions I, Agent K.A. Birov followed suspect D, and created the following report.

9:42 a.m. Suspect awakes, gets out of bed, and goes straight to bathroom, several minutes pass.

9:48 a.m. Suspect staggers out of bathroom, goes downstairs and greets cat.

9:50 a.m. Suspect turns on TV AC Milan 0 Roma 0 Halftime

9:54 a.m. Suspect turns on small handheld device (later investigation proves this to be suspect's cell phone)

10:01 Suspect changes channel Bolton 1 Aston Villa 1 77 minute.

10:17 a.m. Suspect tells cat to "shut up."

10:20 a.m. Suspect cleans his glasses.

10:23 a.m. Bolton 1 Aston Villa 1 Fulltime. Suspect changes channel Roma 0 AC Milan 0 66 min.

10:25 a.m. Suspect enters bathroom. Running water heard, assume Suspect is taking a shower.

10:35 a.m. Suspect exits bathroom, notices score Roma 1 AC Milan 0 says curse word apparently upset that he missed the goal being scored, or is a AC Milan supporter. Suspect puts on socks.

10:45 a.m. Suspect turns on his laptop computer.

10:54 a.m. Suspect pours and eats a bowl of cereal.

11:34 a.m. Suspect calls Liverpool player a "piece of shit" then yells at Steven Gerrad to "get the fuck up." Suspect is apparently not a Liverpool supporter.

11:37 a.m. Suspect urinates

11:52 a.m. Suspect changes channel to ESPN at halftime of Liverpool/Arsenal match.

11:58 a.m. Suspect lets cat inside the house.

12:09 p.m Suspect receives phone call. Conversation appears to be about gambling on American football. (typical of the decadent West) phone call lasts 11 minutes.

12:58 p.m. Suspect urinates

1:28 p.m. Suspect takes a drink of water from water bottle.

1:34 p.m. Suspect lets cat outside tells it to "stay out."

2:12 p.m. Suspect urinates.

2:42 p.m. Suspect makes, and eats a peanut butter and jelly sandwich.

4:55 p.m. Suspect urinates, and then trundles into kitchen to get a drink of water. Takes 3 bites of left over tuna salad.

5:25 p.m. Suspect finishes tuna salad (4 bites), and eats 4 club crackers.

5:47 p.m. Suspect exits bathroom after 7 minutes. Urinated and shaved.

6:09 p.m. Suspect folds and puts aways his laundry.

6:32 p.m. Suspect begins to read, surely some bourgeoisie propaganda.

7:11 Suspect eats dinner.

7:30 p.m. Suspect begins to watch American football game.

9:45 p.m. Suspect goes to bed.

Agent realizes there are gaps in the times mentioned above, during those gaps the Suspect was merely sitting on his couch watching TV. Agent is not sure what the importance of Suspect is to the revolution, but it appears that he lives a rather staid, boring life. Report filed promptly, and further instructions are requested. If further surveillance is deemed necessary please advise. If Suspect is deemed to be expendable, then Agent can eliminate him without trouble.

Robbery

As Tidy says we live in a shithole of a town. King Willie the mayor blathers on about crime being down 6.5%. Well, I can tell you that is a load o crap, but that isn't the point of this blog. The point of this entry is that I would like to report a robbery. It seems that God has been robbed right here in Memphis, right next to the Criminal Justice Center no less. You see, there is a church right next to the Criminal Justice Center (where I work), and they have this pithy little glass display case out front. This case has a letter board that always contains some holier than thou bullshit message about how god is good, great, and beautiful. Well, it seems the church fathers decided to put up a display about tithes. Some message about giving to the lord (he needs the money). This message was accompanied by a little display of a small glass containing small change. This change was mostly pennies, but I guess there were some nickles and dimes in there as well. I say were because as I was walking to work today I noticed (I really wish I had taken a picture) that someone had thrown a brick through the side of the case, and made off with the small change. Priceless. So I would like to report a crime, God has been robbed, and I hope we are able to provide him a line-up so he can identify the bastard who did it. Since it is a Lutheran churh, I am desperately looking for a note from some Catholic claiming responsibility, and calling them splitters.

Of Pain

Since today, so far, has been my first real pain free day in a week, I decided to celebrate by blogging. The pain I have been afflicted with is not life-threatening, or the type that make other people admire me for suffering it. It is just simple, mind-numbing, average pain that just happens to localized to a extremely sensitive spot for the male of the species. Yes pain below the naval academy is not a lot of fun. Every time I took a whiz I burst into a verse of "O sweet mystery of life at last I've found you." That was to keep from crying or otherwise acting like a girl even though I was seeing bright lights from the pain. Anyhoo, it got me thinking on the nature of pain. I tried the Stoic approach, and tried to imagine the pain being in A body, not necessarily MY body. Well that does not work when your johnson is on fire with pain. Maybe those Stoic fellows did not experience urinary pain, but let me tell you trying to "push" it out to some ideal version of a body does not work. Of course there is always the John Wayne approach of being too tough to show pain. That works for about 15 mins of intense bathroom agony. Then you realize John Wayne was ACTING, newsflash you're not acting, you're feeling. Don't get me wrong I am not an advocate of pain pills, I think people rely on them way too much. I think that feeling pain at least makes you realize you are alive. The more intense the pain, the more intense the feeling of being alive. However, I guess there are limits, and I would not pretend to think that my week of fever and "private parts" pain came anywhere near reaching them. Nor, would I attempt to compare my pain with people who are really sick with things like cancer. All I know is that now that my pain is mostly gone, I am pretty happy about it, but there is a part of me that misses it in some weird sort of way.

Centre

Turning and turning in the widening gyre
The falcon cannot hear the falconer;
Things fall apart; the centre cannot hold;
Mere anarchy is loosed upon the world,
The blood-dimmed tide is loosed, and everywhere
The ceremony of innocence is drowned;
The best lack all conviction, while the worst
Are full of passionate intensity

The Second Coming

WB Yeates

Of course this is only the first stanza, I steal, but I steal with purpose. The second stanza did not suit my purpose, therefore it remains undisturbed. The centre for my purposes is, in fact, me. I am not quite sure I can hold. I am not sure I want to hold. Everything seems broken, and I am not sure if anyone speaks my particular brand of English. However, I do not want your sympathy. I probably do not deserve it anyway. This collapse of the centre is, for the most part, self-inflicted. This wound may never heal. So good night to the street sweepers, the night watchmen, and the gate-keepers.

Notes

Long time, no post. It is a pretty sad thing that I cannot manage to post more than one thing a month. Makes me wonder how the hell all those writers managed to crank out such massive amounts of writings. Guess they did not have ESPN, and ESPN 2, and Monday Night Football to drain their time away. Also, a real job sometimes gets in the way. Plus they were probably a lot smarter than me. Anyway, I will try to do better in the future. However, today's post is about something a little different. One fine day as I sat around with my thumb up my ass it suddenly occurred to me that I have started being harder on other people than I am on myself. Needless to say, this was a disturbing realization. I am pretty sure that it is the first step on the road to becoming a hypocrite. Suddenly, other people's faults are more obvious? It seems that I think I have been appointed the overseer of how people should act. This is not something I am proud of, and it must be stopped. I have profound defects, and I am the last person that should be pointing out the "defects" of others. While it is true that I do not suffer fools gladly, I should at least not let them know that I believe them to be a fool. These people are (for the most part) humans just like me. They live, breathe, dream, lie, cheat, and steal just like the rest of us. To appoint myself as some sort of "pope of behaviour" is absurd. The house I live in isn't even made of glass, I certainly should not be tossing stones. Besides, I should probably be using the time I spend/waste being hyper-critical of others to attempt to fix my own faults. Trust me, there are many faults to fix, and it will be a full-time repair job. Hopefully, the old saw about realzing you have a problem is the first step to solving the problem. So to all of the people I have being a huge braying jackass to about this (and there are a lot), and especially to the one or two that bother to read this blog, mea culpa, I apologize.

Test

The Which Looney Tune Are You Test
Your Score: Yosemite Sam!
You scored 85 Aggression, 28 Sophistication, and 28 Optimism!
A low-down, ruff, tough, and mean varmint, your aggressive energy, vulgar attitude, and cynical outlook make you one mean SOB when angered. Little scares you, much annoys you, and a pin-drop can set you off. This is not all bad however, your anti-social adventuring spirit leads you to blaze trails other fear to tread. You could really find your place on the frontiers of civilization daring to take the risks others would only dream of and reaping rewards they can only envy. For good or bad, you'll never back down from a fight. You might want to think about medication or therapy however...

Dear Doctor K

Dear Doctor K,

Thank you so very much for the gentle prostate exam, even though it took your office three days to call me back and schedule an appointment, it was time well spent. I mean it just gave me three more days to think something serious just might be wrong with me. It gave me a chance to reflect on mortality. Notice I did not say MY mortality, I was reflecting on someones mortality other than mine, I will leave it to your imagination to guess who's. Anyhoo, I would also like to thank you for telling me the first test I had to undergo was useless. Nothing like enduring an hour of humiliation, and pain (and missing work to boot) for no good reason. I appreciate the kind and gentle way you requested me to drop trou and bend over. The exam itself was a pure delight. What little innocence I had was lost that day, and for that you will always be special to me. I also greatly appreciate the next test you sent me to as well. Having to drink a thick, milky, substance that tasted like cat piss was an experience I will just HAVE to write in my diary. The over talkative tech performing the test was also an added bonus. Finally, last but certainly NOT least. I would love to express my gratitude for you getting my test results the next day, calling me back, and then NOT telling me the results. That was just top notch, letting my overactive imagination run away with me while one of your Nazi minions explained to me that you would be off of work the next two days, and I could come in and "see you" on the day you came back was fan-fucking-tastic. I certainly did NOT wish to hear my test results any sooner, after all I am only a mere mortal not a god-like Adonis in a fancy white coat. How could I be made to possibly understand all those big words contained in my test results. Without a doubt I really want to drive the 15-20 miles to your office just to have you read something to me, and then schedule ANOTHER bloody test. Which of course would require another drive to East Bumble. Certainly all these office visits are libre are they not? You would not think of charging my insurance for just a little hand holding chat, would you? I certainly am in love with the idea of NOT knowing what, if anything, is wrong with me until it is convenient for you to tell me. After all, it is your world the rest of us we are just paying rent. I can not help but think all of this unpleasantness could have been avoided somehow if maybe you treated me like a functioning, intelligent, human being capable of understanding the basic functions of the human body. Because, and let me be clear on the point Doctor, I am a intelligent, functioning human being, and I understand more about the human body MY human body that you realize. Never make THAT mistake again, and maybe your children will love you a little more. So it is with very little sadness, and no tears that I have to inform you, Doc, that your special, god-like services are no longer required by me. That's right Doc, to use a tired, old Donald Trump phrase "You're fired!"

P.S. Finally, I want to leave you with an example of how you made me feel. Stay with me and pay attention because I think it will help you gain a better understanding of the non-gods of the world. Let's turn the tables, and pretend YOU dear Doctor had to come see ME at MY job. For the uneducated I am a prosecutor. If you are seeing me you are either a victim (something I cannot imagine a godlike fellow such as yourself ever being), or you are in a spot of trouble. For our purposes let's say you are the latter. Picture yourself arrested and drug downtown to the Criminal Justice Center. No one will tell you anything as to why this has happened, they just say you need to see someone. Sadly for you, that someone is me. Now I am a nice, fat, jolly, guy and when they escort you in to see me I tell you this Well, Doctor K, you have committed a crime, and we are going to charge you with it, and I know what it is, and what sort of punishment it carries, and if you will ever see the light of day again. I am sure that makes you feel a little scared, but maybe this will help. Today is Thursday. I want you to go home to your family, and tell them that you will know what crime you are going to be charged with and the possible punishment/jailtime you face, and all the other ramifications on your future sometime MONDAY afternoon. Now you try to have a nice day and weekend. I hope your family dinners aren't too awkward.

Bad Day

To quote R.E.M. its been a bad, please don't take a picture. The problem with this particular day is that it started out pretty much like every other day starts. Get up, get my ass ready for work, go to work, blah blah blah. Perhaps that is where the day went bad. The fact that it is just like every five days out of seven in my life. This is Sarte's Nausea come to life, and staring back at me from the mirror as I struggle to get the right contact into the right eye. Certain things in my life have stopped, others are just pottering along heedless of anything else, and others are raging out of my control. Problem is, I cannot tell which is which. What has stopped? What is out of my control? Mostly, it feels like it is all out of my control, and that is very disturbing. Some things in life are just not meant to be. What these things are I have no real idea. Perhaps we all get our reward in the end. Maybe we get what we deserve (I, for one, certainly hope I do not get what I deserve). The days run together like small streams into a large river off they go, and not much can stop them. One follows the other like B follows A. Then again maybe that is the point, maybe days are supposed to all run together into a great big blur that at the end you call your life.

Production

Tomorrow dear readers, Is the 38th anniversary of my birth. Lucky me. To have made it through 38 whole years. Well, not really. I was born into a rich country, but a poor family. Either way I did not have to suffer too badly to make it this far so all is well I suppose. Anyhoo, that is not the point of this post (if this post does, in fact, have a point). I just watched Billy Wilder's The Lost Weekend starring Ray Milland (who won an best actor Oscar for his role). A lovely film about an alcoholic. Seems this one was based on a book by a Charles Jackson, and is semi-autobiographical. The reason for the main character's drinking is changed from the book from a homosexual fling to writer's bloc. Which is part of my point. It seems my production on my blog is down due to writer's bloc (again). One of my problems is that I keep having brilliant (at least to me) ideas as I am about to fall asleep, and promptly forgetting them the next day. This has happened more than once, and is rather disturbing. Perhaps I should have pen and paper at my bedside to write these idea down. However, lucky for me Mr. Wilder helped with an idea. Seems our main character is the "hiding booze from the family" type. Going to great lengths to hide his rye from his brother, and his poor girlfriend. One of the downfalls of this type of drinker is that sometimes they get so drunk they forget where the next bottle is hidden (which happens in the film in a very dramatic fashion). The main character needs a drink to help him get over his writer's bloc. Trouble is, one drink just is not enough, and after the bottle is gone, so is the ability to write. A vicious circle, a perfect circle, the beginning is the end, and the end is the beginning. This is the drinker's dilemma just needing that one drink to solve whatever problem they are facing, but the first one just tastes so bloody good it is a shame to stop at one. If one helps me relax, and think more clearly, then two or three should allow me to solve not only my problems, but the problems of my friends, neighbors, hell the whole world! Next thing you know, you are sobbing your life away, or desperatly trying to get the key into the keyhole at what you hope is your house. For me this is the worse kind of drunk you can be. The dishonest one, hell let the world know that you aren't a drinker you are a drunk by doing it in the light of day (or at least the half-light of a pub). Besides, most of us have the drunk relative that we do not talk about in polite company so we are wise to the hiding it thing. At least our boy Mr. Milland admits to being a drunk when he is confronted. What a stand up guy. Like no one could tell by the way you act. We all have problem's be it writer's block, bad debts, bad relationships, or bad breathe, and we all deal with them the best we can. The trick is to deal with them, and sometimes that sucks, and sometimes it hurts, and sometimes it does not seem to help, but you never know until you try. Maybe the problem is not as hard as you thought, maybe the solution is as plain as the nose on your face. Who knows maybe the problem can be solved merely by watching a good, old, Billy Wilder film. Personally, I have been in the bottom of several bottles, and only found out, much to my dismay that the problems I was trying to solve were still there in the morning, and that they had been made worse by the raging hangover I had obtained in trying to solve them.