..on that same disgusting vein, from the Seattle Post-Intelligencer:

At the University of Washington, athletes often play in feces because workers cannot clean it up fast enough, said Charles Easterberg, an environmental health instructor

just thought you should know, from Animal's Health -Coprophagy


...

e) Feces can be tasteful to the dog.

...

the previous 'some people' are, namely, me.  i thought there might be some confusion... 

also, there's a new post at my journal.

some people are so negative...  they never get it!  you can even tell them straight to their face, and they gloss it over like you didn't speak, and they just continue unimpeded on their whiney-ass, self-pitying way.  get over it, will ya?  jesus, get a life! 

doing nothing. 

still.

jeez, a couple hours ago, when i couldn't, i was anxious to post stuff-- i don't know exactly what i wanted to post, but i was anxious to.  blogger's been back up for hours, and i'm barely able to scrounge-up a post before midnight. 

i wish everything was different...  i don't know how, exactly.  just not like this.  some days suck, and some days suck a little less.  i'll be up til there's a light. 

i wish mays would put up another voice blog-- right about now i could use the soothing sound of gentle sanity. 

it's the old 'old-posts-within-a-new-post' trick...

doesn't the post office pick-up on Saturday anymore?  (i sound old). 

i filled-out some cobra paperwork for the ex-employer, put it in an oversize envelope along with a pithy tome, and set it out for usps retrieval.  i just left the house to get a grinder (aka a sub, elsewhere), and there was my important mailpiece.  i grabbed it, stuffed it in my shirt (i was traveling via bicycle) and set off to find a mailbox which i found right outside the pizza place, and which i walked by, not once or twice, but three times without it occuring to me once that i need to take the envelope out from inside my shirt and place it in the mailbox.  perhaps the supreme being is trying to tell me not to send it. 

i didn't know she had jurisdiction over the post office, though.

i'm a writer, aren't i?  why won't this happen to me?  i thought the one on the left was cute, and i look like the one on the right-- sort of. 

maybe i should get a pipe...

i could be here the rest of the day...

cute quote at wordsmith

Times are bad. Children no longer obey their parents, and everyone is writing a book.

-Marcus Tullius Cicero, statesman, orator and writer
(106-43 BCE)

books like these?

it's like giving in to an addiction... i can't help it.

...What you said in better word is what I think.

nothing could possibly be more complimentary.  if only i could speak french the way she speaks english...  no, if i could just speak english the way she does.  oh. 

she slays me

inspired by blogger's right-click menu extension, i have written three other tiny little scripts to provide me with that same easy access to a few 'utility' sites i use all the time... 

for web searches, it used to be AltaVista.  now i use Google to find everything web (and a hell of a lot non-web).  i just highlight the text (a word, a name, a phrase) and with the rc-menu, select 'google'.  a new window opens with my precious info.  if nothing is highlighted on the page just right click and select 'google' and a prompt pops-up asking you to type in your search string.  same with the other two. 

the online dictionary i use is Merriam-Webster's.  just because it is the most accessible.  it will even try to find misspelled words, and give options based on the search string. 

the latest addition to my right-click assortment is for encyclopaedia (i like that spelling) look-ups.  it searches britannica.com, which always returns several short articles, and sometimes a longer, comprehensive one. 

one of the major benefits of this method for me is that i no longer lose the window from which my search originated-- a cause of me getting very lost sometimes (like Terry Gilliam's Time Bandits). 

if you want these trinkets on your system (sorry, IE only) then download and 'merge' these three reg keys into windows registry-- one each for web search [goosrch.reg], dictionary [define.reg], and encyclopaedia [encyclopedia.reg].  be careful, and back-up your registry first.  when you click on these .reg links you can select 'open from current location', and the merge will happen without fuss.  if you require extra peace of mind, select 'save to disk' and inspect each one from a plain-text editor, like editpad, notetab, or windows notepad.  then merge, close all instances of IE, restart IE, and voila. 

to remove the changes, use [joeRCremove.reg].

the menu options each call a different javascript on burgwinkel.com (about 400 bytes each-- smaller than the previous paragraph) which forms your query into a url string and opens a new window to display it.  i like it.  you can get an idea of how each one will work (before installing) here: 

highlight a word on this page and click one of the following links.  for example, highlight Terry's name and movie above, and click 'google'...  then try it with nothing highlighted.  (these links use this window, the menu extension will do the same as these, but in a new window.)

..google..  ..merriam-webster..  ..encyclopedia.. 

enjoy.  now it's time to ...zzzz

ya know, i have to say something in worship of blogger, and Ev:  in a time when most 'enterprises' offer a plastic smile, and an all-is-well attitude publicly --especially when all is not well --blogger has been honest.  Ev, the guy behind blogger presently and as far as i can tell, the sole occupant of its organizational flow-chart, has been uncommonly up-front with blog users about the blogger-related things that affect them.  blogger is the 'new' kid in town in an economy leaning heavily-- indeed, falling-- into the hands of an already over-powerful and over-rich minority like the industrialist monopolies of a darker economic past.  and Ev prophetically reminds us that there is, or should be, another way. 

unfortunately, the successful business model in the investment culture of today demands style over substance and values skillful self-deception over truth, and it makes no distinction between appearing sincere and actually being sincere-- to its detriment (i hope).  perception is reality, i have been told by those whose profession is marketing.  it follows then that controlling the consumer's perception is controlling reality.  woe be to us, in the most gluttonous nation on earth for swallowing that lie, hook, line and sinker.  haven't we swallowed enough, already? 

i, for one, have heard the lone but welcome voice with which blogger speaks.  its business is push-button publishing, but its message would be the same whether it baked bread or built houses: trust people-- unlike my web host, who assured me nothing had changed, when in fact everything had changed, and unlike my ISP, whose customer service staff has no contact with the technical staff and no clue about what they do.  they both apparently keep their customer service staff uninformed (or even mis-informed) to protect ...who knows what?  and they never put anything specific in writing, even in something as mundane as e-mail.  perhaps they are trying to preserve their place in an overheated economy of overvalued stock and undervalued people. 

but Ev's openness regarding blogger stands in stark contrast to these guarded, suspicion-based behaviors.  when it 'hiccups' he acknowledges that, instead of staying silent.  Silence regarding problems with a product makes a company look dumb, and if that company is huge-- say, like aol, or intel-- then silence makes it look dumb AND abusive.  Thank you Ev for trusting us enough to tell us the real deal.  your trust is greatly appreciated here; i will do whatever i can to reward that trust. 

not in the mood

An army of one? 

This is the pop-up I got when leaving the britannica article about Himmler and Hitler, and the Gestapo.  He's got a cute face and nice lips.  And I'd fuck him in a second.  But I don't trust whatever it is that they're selling. 

I just don't. 

Speaking of the Third Reich, a brief visit to Britannica.com informs that "...the Sturmabteilung was reorganized in 1925 and soon resumed its violent ways, intimidating voters in national and local elections."  Not only that, but the US Army pays for recruitment ads at that page.  It is the same page which describes selection for military service based on physical perfection and racial purity, saying, "With their sleek black uniforms and special insignia (lightning-like runic S's, death'shead badges, and silver daggers), the men of the SS felt superior..."  Oh, my!

The US Army is seeking out young readers of history's horrors, hoping to find closeted 'sturmtruppen' among them. 

Hey, I can try to be a prophet too! 

Qouted on 9/28/00 in the Philadelphia Inquirer Karl Rove (the scariest political insider since the Schutzstaffel) said, "It's going to be the closest race since at least 1960, and it's going to be settled in the last ballot box, in the last precinct in the last state in the last hour of the last day."

He's a prophet.

None Dare Call It Treason an article by Vincent Bugliosi discussing the recent (mis-)conduct of the Supreme Court.

i'm going to get outta here and eat...

found this at CodeWarriorU.com "The Introduction to C++ Programming course is designed for both beginner and experienced programmers."

for the beginnier it's an intro; otherwise i'd guess that it's designed to be a sedative...

Jesus of the Week 2001 "Jesus is coming. Look busy."

gm.  this is the earliest oob since i quit my job.  laid in bed listening to the 80's; journey, styx, queen (winamp auto-starts at 8:30am), then crawled out, started coffee, folded futon, and judi called.  "change of plans, stay in bed," she said. 

"rrrrph, ihg nooo ate," said i. 

"WHAT?" 

then i started up the tractor which i have been keeping in the back of my throat for the past couple weeks, and dredged a path of intelligibility through the night's accumulation.  then i said, again, "well, dear, that's nice, but it's too late now.  i am up and about." 

also, the second time, i moved my lips. 

well, let's see if i can come up with any more inane crap to post... 

tweaked the blogvoices 'flag' script for the last time—i hope.  i should just pretend it's cool, but it's not.  all it does is switch from blogvoices' dynamically-generated javascript source (during BV's server-overload time period) to a 'dead' copy of bv.js on my server.  the script doesn't even know whether bv is slow or not—it just switches during whatever time i programmed it to (from 2pm - 9pm, i think.  i don't even remember.)  making it actively watch 24-7 for a delay and then automatically switch to an archived—or better yet, preloaded—version (ooo, there's an idea); that might be cool. 

no matter, though, because my server is not much faster than blogvoices' server lately, ever since the goldbrickers at XO communications bought my domain host, concentricnet.  i used to have a ping (at burgwinkel.com) in the 80's.  today it was 414!  i know that i know very little about network protocols, but the increase in ping rate seems to coincide with a newly sluggish page loading rate from my site, independant of any slowdown by blogvoices.  not to mention all the ftp and telnet disasters they (at XO) have been creating...

enough.  i must ...ohhhmmmmmmmmm... relax, and focus my mind on peaceful ...ohhhmmmmmmmmm... things, and prepare my body to slip off ...ohhhmmmmmmmmm... into the netherworld that follows after ...ohhhmmmmmmmmm... one finally comes to the complete acceptance ...ohhhmmmmmmmmm... that another totally wasted day is over.   ;)

besides, i'm getting heartburn. 

got im'd on napster yesterday by a guy from france who was downloading maria, by blondie.  'hi', he said.  i said, 'hey.'  blondie hasn't been in france lately, he said.  he's a 35-year-old firefighter, in Strasbourg, France.  '...and u?' he innocently asked. 

he didn't know i used to be a firefighter—how could he?  but i sat there frozen for a moment, as my frame of reference expanded in a breathtaking instant from the 18 inch space between me and my monitor to the 3711 mile space between me and this guy in france.  whhoooh.  just remembering it is a rush. 

the poor guy was then subjected to a gush of my reminiscences about firefighting.  he sent a pic, and asked me for one.  i sent my best one—me at work last year.  but i think he wants pics of people around firefighting stuff—like his pic.  i have none. 

listening.  overtaken by the sounds of garrison keillor's banter with greg brown, and i recall that music is people -- human people, human hearts, simple sound. 

listening to 'never so far' performed by greg brown on a prarie home companion in october 2000.  its surface has the naked texture of brushed metal, the sound of greg's voice does - and it's as substantial as iron, it's so very deep and gentle. 

gotta be careful, or be overtaken... 

sorry, no.  that's another scene. 

i'm off to postmark my request for a hearing -- i am going to appeal my disqualification from unemployment.  i have 48 hours left (to postmark my request), but better early than not at all.  (gee, work would never think that was me talking.)  cya.


§

my, how time flies...

i have been tweaking (you know how i am with tweaking...) a new blog which i started on a whim.  i guess the germ of the concept was planted when bernard (happy birthday, bernard!) told me of a court case in which a former FBI agent accused of drunk driving was ordered to repeat, exactly, the hoisting of drinks and gorging of Mexican food he did on the night in question.  The judge in that case -- apparently a 'law-and-order' man -- is engaging these extraordinary departures from judicial practice in an effort to acquit the lawman based on some bizarre logic that says we can make you repeat what you said you did (as if that's the truth) and thereby 'prove' that you were not drunk (as if that's proof). 

it started me thinking how there may be many ultra-conservative, fanatically religious, racially biased judges out there who, inspired by the Supreme Court's gerrymandering of law, may now feel freed from the judicious restraint they have imposed on their biases in the past.  why bother now that the gang of five has, on the basis of untenable arguments, so vigourously expressed their true colors?  <fade to rehnquist doing plies in a sunny flowered field while cindy lauper sings>

well anyway, that's what got me started on starting the other blog, and to tell the truth, it scares me, looking at those fleeting dark thoughts out here in print, and observing the shift in the behavior of many judges and the new boldness of some of them to violate long-standing ethical prohibitions against partiality. 

there is a courthouse in worcester, massachusetts with this harsh motto carved in stone: obedience to law is liberty.  i have never liked it, but my observations of new judicial excursions outside the law while under the color of authority make me want to re-carve it thus: obedience to truth is liberty. 

are these too looooooooong?

napster is up and down upanddownupanddownupanddownupanddown... today.  but it is not gone. 

i fear it will be, though.  they ask us to press our congresspersons to support the movement, to express our napster-devotions to record companies, and to stay connected and keep napster running on our computers.  the last i will do.  hell, i religiously practiced the seti 'distributed processing' thing for a long time.  and if i am going to be religious about it, the napster thing is much more a part of my world and closer to my heart than ET. 

yet, i hope... 

ok, after some motrin and broken dishes, i think i have that stupid script working!  comment at will...

napster was smokin last night (or this morning, like 4am) -- everybody was there!  searches were fast, high bit-rates were abundant, and i got stuck in some sort of sixties reminiscence (thank you kvjc, you have an excellent collection!) 

now, of course, i obey the wishes of those pricks (whose assholes are so tight they could snap broomsticks) who want the RIAA to rule (heil!), and i do not actually keep any of these things.  that would upset the economic balance of the universe, and send us careening into really dangerous places (lions and tigers and bears -- oh my!) or at least into places unfamiliar.  (lions and tigers and bears -- oh my!)

anyway, these are most of the gems i found, almost all at 320.  and of course i am not listening to them right now, of course i am not flying through the intoxicating ether that is music, of course i am not swimming in that exquisitely delicate, massively moving sea that is music. 

i am not.  that would be anti-social (or something). 

enjoy life a little. 

i have been re-reading a minor history of bubble-baths.  it is amazing how often they were needed throughout the progress of mankind, yet how often their soothing peace was forfeited for our familiar angst.  i am no queen (marcus schenkenberg notwithstanding), but i am also no dummy and i have learned a bit from a minor history.  now i will imerse my aching, flabbous (well, really only slightly mis-shapen) frame into the gentle (mmmmmm...), warm (aahhhh...), slippery (oh, yeah...), pulsating (!), uh, no -- got a bit carried away -- not pulsating, but nonetheless rejuvenating bubblebath.  therefrom i shall emerge -- serene. 

oh, and might i mention the tinkering (apparent at the top of this page) which i am doing to try and make this page actually load when BlogVoices is blogged down (like earlier this evening).  the code is only half finished (scriptus interruptus via vomitus), but the idea that is developing is to just prevent calls to the BV server during their peakload times, thus allowing this immeasurably valuable page to load quickly, while relieving some of the stress on BV. 

i really do appreciate that service; it is nothing less than precious to the cohesion of this type of community, as given witness by the massive demand on it.  and if i have overstated that, then at least i can say authoritatively that the comments it yields are precious to me. 

thanks, you commenter, you. 

of course my tinkerage disables commenting during the time it is speeding up page loads.  ah, well.  perhaps it's only temporary.  more tweaking tomorrow... 

as dudley moore's manservant in the movie arthur would say, "you're bahhhth awaits." 

i was feeling fine at noon, and by five i was starving.  so i cooked up <gag> a bunch of greasy sausage <retch> and eggs.  two bites and i was closely inspecting the condition of my toilet seat.  oohhhhuuukchffft, (wipes mouth).  sorry.  you know how that taste... oh, never mind. 

anyway, the turmoil seems to be, ...um, ...passing, so to speak (or at least on its way there).  you know, it is amazing how certain urgencies can make us gladly put our fair faces in certain places where, once having seen it up close, we then think twice about putting our fair asses there. 

if the rapid progress of this storm through my alimentary canal is any guage of its duration, then i can predict i will be through this -- or it through me -- by morning.  and already i am tolerating a little cherry garcia.  i would faint if not for ben & jerry; this weak-trembling-ness sucks, and i think i'll be in bed by eleven. : that's at least six hours earlier than my usual bedtime, for about the last month anyway.  so maybe this is a good thing, to get me back on track.  (yeah, right.  like curing jet-lag with a crash.)

also, thanks to whoever returned via 'permalink'.  you alerted me to my sloppy url-coding.  for the first time, i'm using non-relative, (i.e.: "../../img/me_and_marcus_schenkenberg_in_bed.jpg") non-absolute (i.e.: "http://burgwinkel.com/img/me_and_marcus_schenkenberg_under_the_bed.jpg") url's in my image links, like this: "/img/me_and_the_bed_on_marcus_schenkenberg.jpg" -- no dots and no domain name -- soze i can move pages down to the blogchive directory without losing images.  and i have no eff'n idea why i'm explaining all this.  it would have been interesting to me once.  i guess that's why. 

or maybe i'm delerious... 

shawn fanning can have anything he wants at my house...  <grin>

you know something?  i really like the pat metheny group.  i never would have realized that, except for napster.  i mean, come-the-fuck-on, napster does the same thing as radio stations, only napster isn't wrapped around the record exec's cocks like radio stations are (or at least napster hasn't taken that position in the past -- we'll soon see if they can continue to abstain...).  it's a tantrum we let the recording cartel get away with; napster ultimately does what the recording industry pays dj's to do -- only napster does it better and without advertising expenses -- but the RIAA exec's stomp and whine and shout "NO!" 

just cuz they can. 

excuse me whilst i puke. 

tweaking the layout, halfway there...

g'day.  coffee, windowshades, the knowledge of a perfectly sparkling-sunny-crisp-clear-bluesky day outside, and lots of html to tweak, all make for a contented (if unemployed) soul. 

fascinating rambling thoughts.  and don't go there just for his voice.  but go there. 

now, finally, i am going to bed (i promise) and go to sleep, listening to mays talk. 

Tales of a Slut

it thrilled me with its class, its antics made me laugh out loud, and i cried for its more than close to the heart familiarity.  bravo. 

reminder to self:  investigate this guy, chay, more later on. 

i can't believe he calls this image 'chaysilly'.  i know that i have a rather flattened affect as the result of my own caffeine abuse; perhaps he and i have something in common.  he does drink coffee (espressoes, lattes, etc.). 

<sigh>  fevered dreams upon temporal brow, still-beating hearts do hope, and the soul in angst exudes its glistening sweat in the innocence of tear'd eyes.  bedtime. 

go here, and then here.  i did. 

no appreciable progress made.  time to leave for supper at stephanie's (hey!  that sounds like a title, like maybe the sequel to breakfast at tiffany's.  umm, no?  <sigh>) 

<sigh>

you know, stealing webcam images is getting pretty tedious.  i mean there was a time when it was interesting to learn about http and html, tracing links back through server redirects, frames, and javascripts, across domains, extracting and deconstructing html designed by others...  <sigh>   i do a lot of sighing, don't i?  heh. 

so, the point is that right now i'm gonna try to update all my webcam image links, or write a script that will do that for me.  whoopeee.  just wanted to alert the world. 

oh, and btw, good morning.  apparently, i'm following the time zone of the central pacific, or someplace.  oh, and btw-#2, what the hell is up with those half-hour time zones?  like india.  or central australia.  if you know, please speak

oh-#3, here's a site i stumbled upon (meaning i have no idea how i got there -- this ain't surfing, it's drowning!)  aaaaanyway, it is created by and imbued with the personality of a dweeby nerd, who's really not dweeby at all.  and she's not a nerd, either -- except that she likes not being dumb.  i guess that makes you a nerd. 

oh-#4, that's her blue-tongued dog.  cute, huh?

here's a view of the place where i was born (which is not far from where i am -- about a pixel away).  as i write this, the day's light onrushes from the east; the shadowed curve of that face turns toward the dark at mid-atlantic and there takes on the cloistered quiet of night. 

the bright shine from the sahara, and the gleam from scandinavian glaciered coasts are vexing lights to me in this image, they mark the awakened day as beacons in basking revelry, while the cities on the dark side -- my friends -- display their puny helplessness in tiny zits of faint light beneath the massive comforting oppression of night. 

a day in the life

got the letter from unemployment today.   :-(   quoting from the claim adjuster's comments: "you left your work because of stress.  you failed without adequate reason to request a leave and thus your seperation became final.  leaving work under these conditions is voluntary and without good cause attributable to the employing unit.  therefore, you are disqualified..."

well, what'd i expect?  hell, based on that version, i'd have denied me.  i called the director of human resources at adcare hospital (where i worked) today, a very nice guy named paul.  he started-out working in the admitting department, and i was on occasion his supervisor during that time.  anyway, i called because i need to liquidate my retirement funds, i would not have called if i could have avoided it.  paul was cordial, even friendly, explaining the retirement fund's procedures for wresting money away from them.  it takes two weeks. 

then, paul felt it necessary to address the denial of my unemployment claim.  hmm.  i had hoped to bypass that awkward issue and his complicity in it entirely.  but he had a need to talk about it.  (awww).  without coaching from me, he said of his brief tenure in the admitting dept., "i know firsthand that job is the hardest in the hospital.  it was the hardest work for the least money i ever made."  he went on.  "just this week we had a woman walk out of there after only three days."  i found out later they had another walk-out after fifteen minutes.  awww... 

not. 

plausible deniability.  if i were in their position, i would use it.  the employee has no written proof of his expressions of distress, of gasping, choking and drowning.  no taped recordings, or even transcripts, of his conversations with administrators about abusive conditions and about incidents of specific abuse. 

but i knew all that when i went there.  it is pretty obvious right up front (aparently within three days), how not up-front they are about things, about their responsibilities and your responsibilities, and how policies are tolerated in a loose-leaf binder, somewhere apart from actual practice, and how a wink and a nod or a glare and a scowl is how things are really done.  it comes across the first time you see that face, the face of a smiling glassy-eyed refusal to care.  'it's all very nice, you bringing this to my attention, thank you very much.'  period.  it is the face of a pledged allegiance to a particular set of corporate self-interests, a narrow inflexible and dehumanizing framework that denies any reality outside of itself, inviolable no matter how compassionate the impetus to reach beyond its limits (or rather, its limitations).  and they call themselves a hospital. 

there should be rage, but there is not, from one who came perilously close to reaching there and fitting in, but didn't.  fortunately. 

it's midnight, and i'm just getting started.  (maybe i should move to new york.)  i unplugged the phone today, about an hour after i plugged it back in from being unplugged since yesterday.  <sigh> 

where is this tedious place?  what strands touch it from afar, anchor it within the (in)firmament, at once toying and discarding?  and why do we stay...  we, who can do anything, be anything, even reinvent reality; is this life perhaps a fun-house we chose, during some past enlightenment, to visit -- a dark and startling place intended for amusement only -- and have we perhaps forgotten this?  taking life seriously leads to suicide.  it really is all a joke -- and i don't mean that derogatorily.  i'm serious.  it's a comedy, a light farce, heavy with camp and desperately believable, and tempting, so very tempting to believe...

and where is faith?  belief?  the concreteness of knowing?  should we just make it all up as we go along, like so many do?  how much should we allow ourselves to lie?  and we really only lie within ourselves; everything else is costume and pretense, even when we try our best, still then, the expression of our truth is incomplete.  any representation of the other -- of what they think, say, or do, of who and what they appear to be -- is never as significant to us as who and what we are ourselves.  besides, one could argue that no truth survives intact the transit across the interval between persons.  we are only naked inside.  the best we can hope is to discover our own nakedness, and perhaps to approach the nakedness of another.  but we can never get all the way there.

along that vein, it occurs that i would like a chance to approach the nakedness of my abercrombie-attired neighbor, matt.  he is young, short of stature, innocent of eye, fresh of face, italian of descent, and loose of boyfriend; my neighbor is gay (i hope?) like me.  of course i am almost 20 years his senior, and somewhat reclusive (interpreted, i hope, as enchantingly mysterious).  i am probably viewed by him as somewhat strange.  he and i seem to be up all night, every night lately.  he comes and goes til about 5 am which is when he sleeps, i think.  on those rare occasions when our paths do cross, he gives me a look that might be saying, "gawd!  you're so fucking desperate!  will you get a life!"  but i like to think his shy, expressionless glance is saying in breathy, whispering needfulness, "did he notice me?  doesn't he want me?  isn't he ever going to grab me and press me against the wall and hold me as i faint?  well, isn't he!?!". 

   well, it is possible.  remotely.       

in the end it is all intellectual dishonesty, a game that i am drawn to no less nor more than anyone else, a game i would gladly play with matt, because we humans are a species that does very much love to lie.  come matt, come lie with me. 

i must be getting very, very old.  a prarie home companion (a.p.h.c.) has become my comfort, like brioschi, or motrin.  some parts can be tedious, but it has gems, jokes, and joy.  And a fair amount of 'biting' satire. 

i would like you, generous reader, to do me a favor.  below is a link to a sound clip from a.p.h.c.'s most recent show, of John Hiatt singing a song he wrote, and i would appreciate it if you would listen to it.  be patient if you do, for the song does not begin until about 2 minutes in.  but it's a very nice song. 

they say all good things about you in retrospect.  he had a good career, he did good things, he was a good man.  but while we are in the throes of these moments what's real is all there is, and what people will say or are saying cannot matter -- because what's real is all there ever needs to be.  the mistakes we made, the bad choices, the stumbles and falls are all forgotten in deference to the flying we did, but i have always been troubled by the dismissal of those lesser moments when we take time to remember, for there is as great a dignity in them as in any. 

Mr Hiatt flubs a line, but in so doing, and in the way he recovers, he makes the experience of this song immeasurably more moving -- at least for me, and for you, too, i hope.  and it's timing in my day today was almost appropriate, too, because i heard this song right after i started writing this post, which was right after i got up at about 2:30 pm.  it took forever to get it posted -- but you know me and tweaking... 

good morning.  it's a bit past my bedtime, but the roast beef sub i had at midnight keeps returning (it's the onions).  so i tweak.  all night i tax blogger's web servers with tiny template alterations and style sheet touchups.  i am insatatiably curious, but lazy and undisciplined -- a combo that leaves me comfortably unsatisfied.  not comfortably numb; i don't want to lose my curiosity, i just don't persue it, much. 

staying up all night is not so bad -- it keeps me out of the world and away from... from people?  so i post a weblog.  this really is like mumbling in the subway: know me know me know me know me know me know me know me, but... don't come near me.  those wild-haired subway lunatics and i have a lot in common; we're all stuck in isolated prison cells aware of the world and unable to engage it, aware of each other down the halls or through the walls, and gaining some half-assed sense of companionship from that, and always afraid to be released.  "don't hate me cuz i'm beautiful," i hear the pretty boys on the street call out to each other in mock indignation, disembodied voices intruding through steel-barred windows, and sometimes i want to lift myself and glance at life, sometimes i don't. 

i don't hate you cuz you're beautiful.  i hate me.

alright, 'nuff a-that.  time to take a nap, reset the neuro-chemicals to a better place.  time has turned us again to face the sun, and i need get me cheerful for that, or for what's left of it after i awake.  good night. 

i have been made real.  the best kind of grace is annonymous grace -- she's the lucky person who was first to post a comment (actually i was the first, but me and all the employees of publisher's clearing house and their families are inelligible).  as such she gets my gratitude, and a coupon for a free foot massage, redeemable at any public men's room (just pass your foot under, oh yeah, just like that, oooo baby...).  if you want it in the ladies room, you got to give me 24 hours notice to do my hair, and find some pasties.  (but don't the stall dividers go all the way to the floor in ladie's rooms?  and if they do, why the difference?  hmmm...)

me and blogger mcgee are starting to get along quite well.  finally. 

now, if i could only acquire a little taste...

tweaking...

what was that all about?  i really have to stop drinking so much fuckin coffee.  i mean it.  last night, i downloaded and listened to the song that was #1 the day i was born.  then i proceeded to get quite psycho, and balled my eyes out.  (cried)  as if that is not enough, i then had to describe it all in great detail to a complete stranger in an e-mail.  which is i guess kinda what i do here, but here it is more like mumbling out loud in a subway station.  the e-mail thing is a little like pouring your heart out to the cashier-kid at the supermarket.  creepy. 

gotta go make coffee...

i said, "what?"  knowing exactly what he had said.  he replied, "nothin," and he darted out the door.  feeling like that had just made me appear like a prude who was temporarily in the middle of a friendly-talkative-manic phase, i went outside after him.  "  h e y !   " i yelled.  he stopped -- this was a good thing.  he could have ignored me, abandoning our encounter as just another wasted few moments of human interaction.  he certainly could have misinterpretered anger in my voice when i yelled 'hey!' -- imprecise vocal modulations are the way with us manics, and i was a bit loud.  but maybe it was my frustration because another social effort (which are rare as gold in these parts -- at least for my part) was wasted because i was mistaken, again, for something i am not, or at least for something i don't want to be. 

he probably thought i wanted to rat him out, or fuck with his head, or threaten his apartment situation just because -- oh, who knows why, just because once-upon-a-bad-time-reagan told us it was o.k. to hate certain people for certain reasons.  but he (my laundry encounter) stopped anyway and waited to hear me.  i look for that; people who still hold out for the potential of the unknown in spite of their fear of the known.  it felt like kindness, and as he stood there looking at me, his eyes were clear as innocence. 

anyway, (this is going on forever) i didn't want to take the easy way out, and stay with my laundry while he brought his home, and let it end without at least an effort to be clear, to understand and be understood.  "maybe i do and maybe i don't want some," i said to him. 

"i don't know what you're talking about," he started to say before i got the first 'maybe' out.  i forged on, tolerating his understandably defensive reaction, hoping i did actually understand, hoping i was not acting irrationally.  i've done that before...

"i know a lot of people who have used lots of drugs in the past, some of my friends still use drugs, occasionally.  i like them all, a lot.  i might even consider buying some weed from you in the future, who knows, but right now i just don't want there to be any misunderstanding; i don't have any problem with that.  it was nice talkin to ya, i'll see ya round." 

i turned back to the laundry room, half expecting him to roll his eyes and dismiss me with a disconcerted sneer.  i left him just standing there, holding his laundry.  'i tried' i thought with resignation, as i descended the few little steps back down to the basement laundry room door.  when the door didn't close behind me, i looked, and there he was. 

he sat on top of one of the dryers, and we talked until my laundry was all dry.  it didn't seem to take long at all.  over weeks we got to know each other, he would stop by for coffee.  he'd smoke, i'd pass.  usually.  one day he walked in, i said hi, he didn't say anything.  he closed my apartment door, and leaned back on it.  and never taking his eyes off of mine, he grabbed his cock and... 

speaking of   h e y !  , check out hey mercedes (their cool front pictured above).  of course they have a blog! 

bernard says, "i think if you are secure and strong at home, you can be secure and strong anywhere."  how true.  shit. 

mmmm, coffee.  hmm, me.  coffee and me. 

still up, waiting for inspiration to come home.  it's out partying with those other two -- love, and success.  the three are getting blitzed at a bar someplace waiting for me to show up.  i'm going to bed. 

a hole in the wall is worth far more in guilt value than the cost of the spackle it would take to fill it.  one of the best deals since horse-hair plaster. 

fixed tire.  bike was very grubby.  just finished cleaning it--with a toothbrush.  i get a little carried away. 

hey, when i was still depressively employed, i would have sooner stuck needles under my nails than take care of something so intimate to me--so very 'joe'--as my bike.  i even cleaned the fridge last week.  i do laundry.  i might even replace those rags i use for towels with new ones. 

but right now, i still need milk before i can have some more coffee.  and i am desperate for coffee...

i need to go get milk.  i have to bring my weekly unemployment claim form to the post office (still not approved for it yet).  i have to fix my bike's flat tire (or keep pumping it up every seven minutes).  and it's snowing, hard. 

there is a very dark brew in my cup.

out of bed.  finally.  have to make coffee with 2 scoops decaf and 6 scoops regular, different than my usual 1/2 and 1/2 recipe, because i only have enough milk for three cups of coffee, plus a real dark fourth, maybe.

hoo-eff'n-ray.  now it's all almost the way it's supposed to be... er, i mean, it's all almost the way i want it to be.  after trudging through supposed to's all my life, i am now stunned and charmed every single time i watch as my legs lift off and fall back under rediscovered wings and a new trust of flying; what i want is what i am supposed to do.  i'll be damned!

(good night, Irene.)

well, getting sleepy, and can't shake the journal-type template.  if i fuck around with it much longer, i'll be up all night.

diving in, playing and splashing.  hope i catch a cold.