impressive literature, or smutty sludge?

"squeeze! squeeze! squeeze! all the morning long; I squeezed that sperm till I myself almost melted into it; I squeezed that sperm till a strange sort of insanity come over me; and I found myself unwittingly squeezing my co-laborer's hands in it, mistaking their hands for the gentle globules. Such an abounding, affectionage, friendly, loving feelind did this avocation beget; that at last i was contiually squeeing their hands, and looking up into their eyes sentimentally; as much as to say, -- Oh! my dear fellow beings, why shuld we longer cherizh any social acerbities, or know the slightest ill-humor or envy! Come; let us squeeze hands all round; nay, let us all squeeze ourselves into each other; let us squeeze ourselves universally into the very milk and sperm of kindness. Would that I could keep squeezing that sperm for ever! For now, since by many prolonged, repeated experiences, I have perceived that in all cases man must eventually lower, or at least shift, his conceit of attainable felicity; not placing it anywhere in the intellect or the fancy; but in the wife, the heart, the bed, the table, the saddle, the fire-side, the country; now that I have perceived all this, I am ready to squeese case eternally. In thoughts of the visions of the visions of night...."

well.... sometimes i wonder to myself about the world. isnt it easy to think that there is some kind of chaotic order to it all? maybe its karma. maybe its luck. maybe its a big bearded god in the sky. but if its so. dont you just wonder when sometimes that luck might be skipping on people. not off. but on. like that people get too lucky. i have a cousin in a near-by state who, was diagnosed near bith with failing kidneys. shes on dialysis 3 times per week. with several surgical procedures, and a lifetime of medication and treatment, shes lucky to still be alive. alive enough to be put on a state organ transplant list. and shes waited. thursday she got the call that in peoria, they might very well have a match waiting. 5 minutes later; they confirmed it. they drove immediately and prep'ed her, and did a kidney transplant from a cadaver. a heartfelt story indeed. as my aunt called me to tell me on the phone tonight.

but luck skips on people. the cousin we remember... most definietly went through that ordeal, but since the age of 14 or so, shes been out of control. fights her parents. runs off. started drinking heavily and doing drugs. im not certain she made it much to high school. and i dont remember whether or not shes got a G.E.D. or not. but she has a kid. or two. its hard to remember. and shes about my age. the kid alone could have killed her, the one half functioning kidney was overloaded on her, let alone supporting a child. ofcourse the father is nonexistent from what i know. but i know her to be a drunk, lawless, habitual drug user. so much so, i know her case was reviewed by the state transplant board. you only come off that for two reasons folks. either you dont need an organ. or the state decides, you arent worth one anymore.

so she got her kidney. had her surgery. and were all supposed to bask in the glow. just left me wondering about how life, luck, karma, universal order, magic, voodoo, etc. seems to click and keep clicking for some people. i thought i was lucky that i could ever learn to walk as a child after what i went through. and i took advantage of that. i was active. i played sports. i adapted. i made good on what people and doctors did for me almost 25 years ago. sure; im not a major-leaguer. but i gave it a shot. even mornings now when i get up, and i have to physically straighten out my joints; im still glad i did what i could. even happy that i can walk. and i wonder an awful lot about people whom seem never to acknowledge how lucky they are. cute story. yeah.

finally.

image is property of Associated Press, all rights reserved by them...

i cant help but wonder about these people. the entire hurricane lasted about 3 hours. the flooding hasnt ended yet. but these people have no idea that their entire life will grind to a halt for the next several years. from what ive been watching on foxnews and cnn; these people seem to think a snap of the fingers is going to end this, and they can walk right back to what they had. in reality, they might never get back what they had. its not a sense of just loosing a home. these people are now unemployed. with dependents. there is no housing. not temporary, not permanent. there isnt supplies to build any either. there isnt even land to put it all back on to. everything now is still underwater. it cant just get put back the way it was.

as a sociologist, i guess what disturbs me the most are the images i see of looting, gangs, and group mentality exhibiting dangerious tendancies. there is no food. no water. no medicine. the dead are lying around them. there is no hope. and there is lawlessness. its a bad situation that could go off like a bomb. people are openly calling for the military to interviene on the ground. the attorney general is on tv making statements about how this will not happen. its a strange predicament. never thought id hear the words, "please bring in the army to march in my town"

what clearly is to blame is the ill prepared state of response. the federal emergency management organization has been throwing money arond since 9/11 for states and cities to produce working large scale disaster prep and plans. it looks like nothing was planned here. for a week they knew they were getting a hurricane. for 3 days they exact knowledge it was going to be a category 3 or more, and coming straight at them. and look what happens. there is no order. no plan. texas has more planning, in 24 hours, to deal with the problem, than either states of MS or LA. preparedness should have said;

forced evacuation of all population, block by block, with in 40 miles of the city. staging of emergency personel 150 miles out, days in advance. staging of transported goods and resources, including food water and clothing, 150 miles out in the advance days. in the final day or so, the army corps of engineers and city works should have been fortifying the fuck out of that burm around the town. 40 foot might have made a difference. much more so than 14. and if that meant bulldozing buildings for materials, so be it. then wait out that storm. come back in after 4 hours, and expect lawlessness, and death. restore order. restore health conditions. then restore the people to the area. simple. simple enough to have saved lives.

how would i handle it? being someone in that hurricane with my house coming down around me? i wouldnt roam the streets and start looting. pragmatically speaking. job 1, has to be creating shelter. people are walking around, crying, looting. but still have no place to go. the first thing id do, is build something. anything. get the sun and rain off myself. get some kind of temporary shelter up. id still have to survive. that means sanitizing whats around me. drag out the dead, and start burning the bodies. purifying water. then setting up to connect to the outside world. clear out a football sized area for every 300 people, to accomodate air drops. the name of the game is order. its having a plan. its knowing how to survive. right now, these people are living on borrowed time. 7-11's are going to run out of grape soda to steal, and four days later they have no temporary shelters, no signals out to where they are. and no sense of what to do. just thousands of throngs of people, rampaging like animals on a sinking ship.

its a tragedy. it could have been avoided. but it wasnt. instead, we have a refugee situation very similar to Bosnia, or Congo, or Cambodia. there is no hospitable place for these people to go. they have nothing. yet, only in america do we seem to demand help in 30 minutes; when it took months before the same level of assistance could begin in foreign countries for similar predicaments. and yet, most shocking. for all the money we raised for a tsunami. for all the aid we air lifted to eurpoe. for all the villages we created in africa. there isnt one country showing up to help america. who is there to help when the World's Helper, needs a hand?

well... the gasoline speech. everyone has asked me for my opinion. so. angrily. and without any sense of direction or desire to make it coherent. i think outloud to those that listen:

first. im not an economist. nor an accountant. i dont know the pricing strategies, or the specific costs associated, and nor do i know what market principles guide something to be this volitle of a price point in such a short time. but. here is what i do know.

for this week, 22 aug 2005. gas is now at approximately 2.52 per gallon in my area. last year at this time, we paid about 1.83. the year before that, it was about 1.78. if you look at our trendings of the price per gallon, over that time; we see the same basic patterns. gasoline prices generally start to fall till they bottom out in december, then rise till mid spring, then spike over the summer... the only problem is, we didnt really valley out this winter. no. we didnt. the price, for whatever reason, in sep to dec 2004 actually ROSE. then fell to its pre-rise level, before increasing in value again. now, we arent seeing an valley to this years fall slow down either, instead its gone off like a bomb.

were paying 73 cents or so more than last year... about a 140% increase. so. if we were cans of soda, selling at the standard 60 cents per can last year, we are 84 cents now. if we are a gallon of milk last year, we are over 3 dollars this year. so what. well. that 2 liter of soda you get, even at gas station prices is only 1.79... well its just under half the price you pay per gallon of gas. so why do we bitch?

gas went up 18 cents this last week. understandable. a 20% increase in a product over night is pretty uncommon. ha. imagine if that one ounce of gold you have... pure gold mind you, melted and congealed from all the jewlery you own, surged 20% in value this week... at about 450 bucks an ounce, you made a cool 85 dollars. so. gas too. is a valued commodity. anything that can rise that fast, has to be valued preciously. bullshit? i dont think so. look at the gasoline consumption lately. see something wrong? its up. we are actually consuming between 5 adn 15 million barrels of gasoline MORE, than our normal trend. or.. with about 300 million barrels.. its about a 105% of consumption, maybe 110%. so in a perfect world, maybe we could just be even and say, if we rise the demand for a product, the rate increase would match. this is wrong, i know it. but what if. wed be paying a dime more now, rather than 70 cents more. so keep in mind, that the rate of consumption will effect the price. it has to. so now lets figure that we should actually be paying 1.90 per gallon, since we are indeed, demanding more of it. think. what happens to the price of that one bottle of booze you want, when you arent old enough to buy it? its not 20 bucks.. its 25 dollars now. you pay someone else a premium, because you want it. the supply is nil. the price goes up. and either you buy, or you dont. so. the question i want america to answer is... why are we outstripping our growth on gasoline consumption?

why? if you want cheap gas. stop buying it. stop using it. the price will plummet. if we, as americans used 85% of the expected volume... the price would dip. it has to. because some refinery is pushing out at 99% capacity, and those lines have a constant flow coming in the pipes. its like produce in that respect then... how much do you pay for bananas? its a sin to pay more than 30 cents per pound.. why? they rot in 3 days. if you wont pay 30 cents for bananas today, tomorrow, they have to be 20 cents. or less. its product that has to go. now sure. you can sit on it. you can keep those bananas on the shelf till its a pile of black pudding. but it wont sell. same with gasoline. gasonline has a shelf life. gasoline goes stale. the only way to back the quantity off, is to slow production a facility, and slow the replunishment from it to stations. thin it out. if you stopped driving, all at once. that gasoline in the lines, now being pumped at 99% capacity is worthless. and dont tell me it wont get noticed. lets fucking say, that each gas station in the US sells oh.. 100 gallons a day. thats it. fewer than 10 cars fuel up. ok? 163,000 gas stations in this country, that collect federal excise tax. say you boycot it on friday. 100 x 163,000 = 16,300,000. you use that much a day. 16.3 million, gallons. at 2.52 per gallon, someone just lost in the neighborhood of 40 million dollars. now. im way off. gas stations in my region take a tanker truck about 2 times per week. thats just shy of 9,000 gallons a pop. if there are 50 gas stations in davenport, id be missing most. so. 50 x 18,000 = 900,000. nearly a million gallons of gasoline per week. at 2.52 per gallon, thats 2.3 million a week were paying out. imagine if you stopped it for a day. but... heres the kicker... all this joyriding you do, at 110% of the gasoline consumption, thats at a clip of 800 grand a week someone is making off your fat ass. just in davenport. just purely speculating with low-ball guesses. now can you see why the gas game is so volitile?

not that im pulling up green party roots here people. but. the reason the price of gasoline is what it is, is because of your nature to consume. plain and simple. its not some man in a grand red cape and crown setting prices on a black board. its you. the lacksidazical goon that goes to QwikTrip for a soda. then later for smokes. then drives across town to see a movie. then home. then to work. then to eat. then drives around in his big SUV for an hour, running the airconditioner and massive stereo for the neighbors to hear. you, the person that drives around without any clue that each trip consumes gasoline. each gallon of gasoline is made from about 2 gallons of crude oil. the process takes a shit load of heat, pressure, chemicals and precision, and is so dangerous, we like to do it in foreign countries that dont mean much in the real estate books. plus we have to dig it up. before that, we have to wait around for a t-rex to fall down and god damn die, and decompose with a bunch of plant matter, praying that a specific geothermal process encloses it all at a specific temperature, to produce oil. so its a bit more involved than that "gotta get some smokes" craze, that you bitch about to Ahmed and Sanji at the gasmart, feeling they are targeting your white ass because we brought a war to their shithole in the world.

if you just ended the oustanding increase on gasoline and crude oil based products, the prices wouldnt rise. look at it another way. if. if a future fuel source could be developed and marketed tomorrow, it would never sell for what the price of gasoline does now. consider if we just widened the exploration for current fuel. consider if we just decided the standard 40% fuel efficiency of the gasoline combustion engine was not enough to be sold. imagine if we paid for gasoline what people in other countries pay for milk. just imagine alot of other factors that would also change the price you pay per gallon. but none of them would matter nearly as much as consumption. dependancy on oil is what the green folks call the problem. but really, its the level of consumption. and sure. its youre right to buy any old monster truck out there, pushing out countless drives across town at 3 gallons per mile consumption. but. its the oil cartels right to charge you as damn much as theyd like, now that youve found yourself squarely married to the prospect of living and dying by your gasoline. its our bed. weve made it up. sometimes its not so comfortable to lay in it so long. however. it will swing back again in our favor.

after the gas prices of the 1970s of adjusted 3 dollars per gallon, we spent nearly 30 years paying less than half that for the same product. but it took a generation off guard, and it adjusted their outlook. its about time something grabbed us by the crotch that wasnt as sweet as britney spears. its a national conversation that could easily be a critical motivating factor for our generation. as it stands, we are sat hunched on the threshold of development. true development. we demand and then we consume. cheap as possible. easy as pie. thats what should be our motto. and now, we found out, cheap has its limits. at this point, there isnt a walmart we can run to, to buy Made In China gas on a shelf at 30% of normal price. we cant simply sell a product like that so under valued to make it acceptable, or it would kill the very industry we desire to see serve us. we dont have a new flavor of the month.. we cant abandon gasoline like we do Michael Jackson cd's. we are now stuck digging deeper to pay the piper, because we loom on the edge of morality in the international market. we stand at a line that says, PUT UP || SHUT UP. to eat the grumblings of our misgivings to take the cheap handouts and steamroll forward, or, to quietly look around and wisen up that Americans have gotten a good deal for a long time. do we, as a generation of Americans really want cheap gas, our way, right now... or are we willing to accept the responsibility for what that entails? sometimes that might mean going to war for it. sometimes that might mean you cant make 15 trips around town to do errannds. it might mean you cant all have a car when you go to college. but right now that means, paying more at the pump.

am i really that wrong this time?

s.

i was going to write something. but once i sat down here. nothing really has come to mind. last few days havent been all that exciting really. well for the past week or so, it hasnt been that exciting. nothing new as a job development yet either. i have my 2nd interview with dixon wednesday. again. i want that job. but im still keeping my eye on any other potentials as well. so pretty much i do that. then a bunch of nothing once im done. i sped through the submission class from this summer all over again, i had to resend every assignment. so i took the time to read them and proof it and change some things as i went. pretty boring. reread the books again. still didnt make much sense. so today i made the trek to the library, thought id been missing reading a bit... haha. not with all that crap. so now im reading for fun, and i have to say i like that alot better than reading for class. this trip was mainly non-fiction. some biography on M. T. Cicero, and something about the war of 1812. oh. and faulkner. i picked up the sound and the fury, to read again. hadnt read it since late highschool. kind of forgotten what its all about anymore. still waiting on my other books that i had to order to appear. harry potter book 4. i feel like a kid reading it. sometimes its good, sometimes its not. my goal is to get caught up on those things to where the rest of the world is. they arent much of a challenge, and for 500 pages i blow through them in just under 4 hours. i also found them to be a bit humorous. the stories are kind of funny. i laugh at the funny parts. and i really laugh at the magic spells. most of the spoken components to the spells are broken latin. harry's use of "lumos" for light, and the root of the word they use in the charm spells comes from a verb to entice. so i like that. anyways. it got me on the subject of latin. i actually went looking for trouble in the library, found out all they have is a dusty shelf of dictionaries, and one ancient copy of Wheelock. no lexicons. nothing else. i was hoping to find maybe one book in latin to read. but nothing. the handlers in special collections had nothing that came to mind either, but they did think that the private catholic college might have something. so, if the joblessness and boredom persist, guess ill follow up on that. or i suppose, i could always just drive back up to iowa. atleast i know where i can find latin at. there is some on the net too. but id rather take it to a park and read, you know? but my july project finished. on the sly, i worked my way through all of De Bello Gallico. g.j. caesars self referenced accounts of his gaul campaigns before his return to rome. mark, bob, and heather would be proud of me for sticking through it. although i missed mark's random comments about Space Ghost as i read it... and im sure bob would tell me my grammar was totally off from what REAL romans would speak. heather would just cackle at me. ah. the things i already miss about school. lots of people, parents included, thought it was strange that i wanted to keep reading it after torturing myself for over 3 years on it. i did too. but. i want to keep reading it. poetry too. so im challenging myself to keep it up in the head. atleast whatever made it in there to begin with.

jobs made it back into my mind just now. im looking at a calendar, and realize i havent worked in a month now. this time last month, id already moved out too. i miss my life. old life i guess. my place in north liberty would have been so quiet on a day like today, with no school kids... windows open.. lots of breeze coming in. one of those days where id have gone to the res to walk trails. god forbid even take pictures. cant even remember the last time i go to go out and do that. isnt alot around here worth it. i dont think. its different for me though. i take pictures of things that i havent seen. ive seen most everything there is around here, at one point or another. when she came home, my mother and i were talking about other things i could go out and re-see while im doing nothing. i let it slip i cant stand being around here all the time. when i sit here 2 things happen. (1) i get depressed over job matters (2) i want to see people. i want to talk to people. i want to have dinner with my friends, or stomp around dirt walmart, or end up in my movie theater seat on saturday nights at 10pm in crapids, like ive always done. now im here. i dug out my computer from storage last week. hence my away messages are back ,and me being on alot. i got tired of borrowing time on my parents, and... lets face it. i could be here for longer time than i expected. its settling in now. ive only spent a couple days at friends houses. most nights im at my parents house. but. sometimes that makes it worse. thats when i fall into a rut. i feel bad but there isnt much i can do. im trying to make the most of having time off. guaranteed, that when i find a job, i wont get much time off for a long time to come. so today i slept in till 11. yes. 11. now. the scott of 5 years ago wouldnt be concerned. but the scott of the past couple would. 5:15 everyday, regardless. now. it was 11. i feel rested. i feel good. i thought about what else i could do.

im considering working out. thats going to shock some people too. just. i guess to get out and do something. keep my mind away from where it wants to slide. atleast if im beating myself up, like i did in highschool, i cant be near a keyboard or a phone to do any damage. i thought about runing. i think id kill myself though. it would be good. but i dont even know how my knee would hold out. speaking of places in the past, i can remember sitting in the exam room... iced and immobilized, looking at my knee. purple, 4 times its size, and so unsteady i couldnt put weight on it with crutches. i remember the orthopedist coming in with xrays saying surgery was it. the question was when to do it, if i wanted to keep up with that activity. now, i sit down on the porch. look at my spikes, with 7 year old diamond dirt still on them in my gear bag, and wonder what it would have been like if i never got hurt. maybe i could have played a game or two to get noticed. maybe i could have just played on the semi-pro teams in the area, no pay. just to play. just to be out. not sitting on the porch thinking about it. even if i wasnt good at all. just to be able to go out and play. i thought about going to the batting cage for an evening, just to get out and swing. i guess its like the alcoholic that remembers that last scotch. or the lifelong smoker who has that one spare pack, hidden in the back of a desk drawer. the urge to go back out to whats comfortable. to whats familiar.

four paragraphs later,im still wondering what it was i was going to write about in the first place. mm.. i dunno. my parents though, are having their 30th wedding anniversary. scary. 30 years seems like forever now a days. funniest part was, they were looking for a throw-back party, at a place that was open when they got married. theyve only come up with a couple restaurants that were open that long ago. eesh. and they arent that old. course, that game started. the game of, remember such and such? it was a different sort of dinenr conversation, remembering all the places in town that used to be one way 10, 20 years ago, that arent there... or are completely different now. pretty much anything down town davenport is a free-bee. i drove down there the other night. ill have to take a picture of it some night... but its not what i remember. the streets are the same, but thats it. makes me feel old, no wonder they had a hard time finding a place for dinner.

phil called today. i wasnt expecting it. i always feel a bit on edge when he calls me and im not expecting it. turns out, hes redeemed himself! after nearly a week of radio silence, hes gotten me an interview at a M A J O R tech sales firm in the region. and while the name probably wont mean much of anything at all to people that read this from out of the area. RK Dixon. its a step above SMG that i interviewed for a few weeks ago [the Xerox group sales]. this is a company name that i know, and what they do. phil has my attention tomorrow and likely monday or tuesday as well getting me ready for this interview. id really hate myself if i screwed this up. money is good-great. hours are great. full benefit package. plus brand recognition. its not selling magazines or girl scout cookies to be sure. im interviewing to sell high end managed care, and IT divisions. not components. total overhaul solutions. plus bits and pieces businesses might want. im also told, this separate division of the company is held pretty much by one vice president, and a couple of sales support people. phil gave me the impression they are looking for a long-term mold-able person to make it explode. i dunno that im that type of person. but im sure as shit going to convince them i can be. definitely a job that would interest me. sure, its sales. yes. alot of it will be calls, mailing, shit type prospecting. but. its miles above what ive done. its a career sales position. not a job. its not figured hourly. the salary isnt why you work it. the commission is. thats something that really, really stands out to me. but its not till wednesday. so please... cross fingers, toes. whatever you have thats lucky. im really hoping i can pull this one off. phil said its not a highly competetive position, because its not advertised, and they arent looking for an immediate fill. they want the exact right person. phil said they were very interested in what ive done. thats good. but im very interested in what they have to offer me. thats better.

until then though, i have to resubmitt everything for my soc class over the summer. university has fucked it up. so im redoing the last couple papers... everything has to be in by monday, and so far thats stacking up to be about 10 pages a day of revisions to be done on time. guh. this is the college that doesnt end. but by next week ill be a certified college graduate, finally.

not much else to say. just that im bouncing around with this interview. no guarantees though. odds are probably against me. i have to keep looking and applying in at places. but i want this one to work out. even if its sales. even if its davenport. i know its not some huge city. i know no one will want to visit me. i wont get to be a millionaire from it either. but this one would mean a big step up for me. definitely bring in more money than ive ever earned. more freedom. more sales. more important business. more of a development for me, as a scott. i spend so much of my time figuring out what the hell i am, this one would make me free to pursue what i want. it would help pay off loans. it would give me a day job at a nice office. it would give me the cash to buy a nice car... or the camera ive lusted over. it would leave me free cash to spend on who i want to. its... i cant think that. ive got to think. interview. sell myself. sell my potential worth. but its exciting.

you ever feel like you are in an episode of the twilight zone? just... everything seems to be happening in such a way, you scratch your head and go, does anyone else notice this? thursday i drove up to see sarah for lunch. as were sitting there, mind you, the first time ive seen her in the month of august, some man on a bike comes up. pulls out a camera and a ny times, and starts talking about taking pictures of people reading, so that he can make a mural out of it. he had a sample of it run in the paper. sarah pretty much looked at me, and i said, "ok..." then he goes, well id like to take a picture of you two; as i was walking past, i said to myself, this is the perfect image! she and i exchange nervous looks and laughter. but we were ok with it. so he hands us a diary, to pretend like we were reading it to each other, and he starts snapping away. at one point he mutters, "you too just look picturesque together" im bitting my lip. shes trying to look away. then he says, "hey, talk to him about whats up with harry potter!" she and i just lock eyes and start smiling, nervously.

see... to backfill some on this odd meeting. you have to undestand, about 2 weeks ago, sarah started telling me all about this book she was reading. i was shocked that she had time to read. so naturally our conversations always came back to the book. eventually she told me it was the 6th harry potter book. we talked about it. and, id never read any of them. so. i decided if she liked it that much, id read it. just to see. about a week and a half later, and 3 books finished, im catching up fast. but we joke about harry potter stuff, she asks me whats happening in the book to know where i am. just one of those things. i guess something we can half way enjoy together. [although, i cant convince her to pick up something I ENJOY.. cough hemmingway. cough faulkner. cough].

so. were sitting on the retaining wall by the hospital, being models. for me it was tough. not looking at her, or keeping eye contact. not even trying not to laugh. because i did. in my nervous, almost forced way. the only thing that came into my head was, who on earth pulls out a phrase like, "tell him whats up with harry potter" it was like someone knew. like someone was reading this in their book, and walked into the middle of it. i wasnt necessarily spooked. i was just. i dunno. anyways. he snaps about 6 pictures. smiles, thanks us immensely, then scurries off on his bike, and cuts behind a cambus. we immediately start talking about it and laughing, and in the exchange i lost the guy. how? its an empty parkway. 5 people on the sidewalk, one bus. no cars. and the guy was gone. sarah said she thought he must have ridden off. but he just dissappeared too fast for me. i dont get it.

so i mentioned the idea of omens and signs. about the lady in the restaurant [who at dinner earlier in the night i went back and confessed all to her, stopped us and asked her "is this your man?" --no "isnt he your boyfriend?" --uhm no! "well he ought to be, in 26 years of marriage, my husband has never looked at me that way or said a thing like that to me... this guy is a good one, you cant let him go, you just cant."]. about the kid in the bookstore [who starts asking me about harry potter books, and why someone like me is reading them. then about my friend, and if she was my girlfriend] about our ability to damn near hear each others thoughts [i stop her before she says anything, she finishes my sentence, we pick out the same dresses out of a dozen that we both like]. she didnt think it was anything. just a weird guy. but its going around in my head. im a detail person. i see things that are out of place. you know those Hocus-Focus things in the comics? the difference between two pictures? in a glance, i usually see those differences, that people spend 20 minutes on. and im just picking up on this. i dunno. maybe i am stupid. maybe im bored. maybe i have an over active imagination, and just am seeing things that arent there. but.

the mind just sits and cycles over things. like today, we were talking on aim, and she mentions how she went and got pizza last night... weve never had the pizza talk. so im not sure what she likes, what toppings she hates, or where she likes to go. so i throw out two specific places. not chains. specific mom-pop places in iowa city. the answer was. "wow. thats really funny you said that..." she ate at one, but wanted to go to the other, but it was too far to walk to in the rain. ... you know. sometimes it scares me. how alike you can be with someone else, and just not know it. then again, it scares me how you can be so much alike with someone else, and not do anything about it. to me. its got to mean something. something more than, you like pizza. because now its pizza, books, stories growing up, family 10 minutes from each others homes, same exact cds, and same dvd... its and its little things... they just keep piling up. and i look at it and go... why am i not with this person? go back to my last post... yesterday i found out two things... she desparately wants to be married, but doesnt think it will happen; and she wants children. it came out of nowhere in a conversation that turned to that. i didnt say anything. it just seemed to perfect to ruin it. i just said to her, that.. "if anybody is going to be married and happy forever, its going to be you. its me thats going to end up wondering what the hell happened to my life" because i just didnt know what else to say. im just scratching my head going; doesnt this all make sense? look at my horrorscopes... yes, im the first person to say exactly how broad, generic, and non descript these things are... but for the day i told her how i felt, and the day after....

day of:

You're not much for letting the world know your innermost secrets. But now? Well, let's just say that keeping things under wraps won't just be impossible, it'll be uncomfortable. So why bother? Speak your mind, proudly!

day after:

One way or the other, everything that has to do with that pressing relationship
issue yesterday is going to work out fine in the end. If it's not fine yet, don't worry. All that means is that it's not the end.

it makes me wonder. it makes me think that this has to be right. for once. or am i just looking past the reality? but it just sticks with me. thing after thing. time after time.

i was officially offered a job from enterprise yesterday. its somewhat exciting. the pay is pathetic. but it is a job. i havent decided to flat out say no. i told them id need time to consider the offer, as i was interviewing with several other places. all of which would pay potentially twice as much. i suppose it cant all be about money, right? well. it is. for the kind of money enterprise wants to pay me, id have made more staying with staples. yes, MORE. its a slap in the face for what they offer. after speaking with the head of iowa operations, it sounds as if enterprise hasnt updated their payscale in 10 years. ten years ago, 19,500 probably wasnt too terrible coming right out of school. today, its pathetic. they ofcourse, had to stress to me other earning potential from rental comissions, fleet sales, and referrals. i laughed. looking at the chart, the company superstar in the first 3 years only makes about 5 grand different than the i-just-show-up-to-work-most-days employee. and of that difference, 1500 is mandatory bonus for finishing exam work, 1000 dollars is in referral bonus [for new employees], and 850 comes from fleet sales to customers. the other 3000 some odd dollars is in comission sales over 9 months for an early placement. none of that can be counted on. no base pay bumps. no extra benefits. 5 days paid vacation, after 1 year. 3 flex holidays. mandatory saturdays. and 11 hour days. its not a good offer to be honest. but its something. something is still more than nothing. but nothing would cost me LESS in taxes. thinking back over their superstar vs. bad employee pay scales... after taxes, youd never see that difference. knowing corporate america, those bonuses arent cash in envelopes. they are taxed out at high 30%. so after taxes, id make approximately 14,600 to 19,900. i made more working PART TIME. now i see where this place creates all that revenue. its a large and growing company. it runs on a very thin margain. and this is what hits the razor's edge. the probably 10,000 people on the bottom end that do 80% of the work. i thought about it on the drive home from des moines, how difficult it was for me to stay motivated with staples numbers and requirements at my pay. enterprise would have rediculous amounts of pressure for less than i made working part time. but with more hours a week than i usually put in working full time. that 19,500 spread over their 55 hour work week, for all 52 weeks [recall i dont get any time off till AFTER the first full year], makes me about 6.80 an hour. after taxes, id keep about 5.45. take out benefit payments for health atleast, im left with approximately 4.89 an hour. below fucking minimum wage, requiring a 4 year degree. pathetic. see why im upset about this? why on earth would a college graduate take a job like this, when they should be smart enough to do the math and see what they arent getting? granted, breakign down any kind of salary, is going to make you mad, when you see how little of it you actually keep. but at 19,500 its embarrasing. i couldnt afford to live on my own. i couldnt afford to replace my car. id never have money to spend on Someone. id be more poor than i was in college, come to think of it. and that is not right.

sigh. so. im still here. sitting in the basement, trying to figure out what else there might be for options. phil called me this morning to tell me a place that sells orthodic shoe insoles wanted me for a store manager. pay would approach 50 grand. no benefits! none! id have to pay health insurance out of pocket. retail-like hours again, and NO WEEKEND. id "be given time off during the week, but weekends and sequential days off could not be given at this point" fucking christ. im my own store manager, and i couldnt be able to get a weekend off. ever. plus pay everything out of pocket. and deal with people's feet. no. i had phil give them my official, not interested letter.

and im still sitting here. thats pretty much been my developments on jobs over the past couple days. atleast this week, ive had the power to say no. and not the other way around as it had been. i still hope there is something out there. something thats going to give me real money, half-way descent hours, and benefits. so far im not finding it. and ofcourse, it would be nice enough to find a job i knew something about. unlike renting cars or selling shoe inserts. thinking it over though, most of my friends took a full 6 months to find something. some of them arent even working in a real field. answering phones. doing email responses to bulk questions. tech support. retail. not real careers. not real pay. but after 6 months, thats where they ended up. im dreading that. dreading waiting 6 months for a crap job. being stuck at my parents house for that long, or longer with a crap job. if i turn 25, and dont have a job, and am living at home still... im over with.

speaking of other life plans. id been thinking alot about how it all plans out for me. plans are pretty linear. you pick, you plan, you wait, it happens. anymore, i pick, i plan, i wait. and thats it. somehow weddings got brought up, and my mom started in talking about how hers went. after awhile i asked how old she was, knowing damn well the answer. 21. at 24 shed had my sister already. another year or so, and shed have me. i could help but feel pathetic. she reminded me that shed have waited if she did it over again, but that things were different back then. i still somewhat disagree. knowing how many of my friends are all married off now. i cant say it doesnt bother me a little bit to know this plan is going down in flames quite quickly. i figured, that if i wanted children, i couldnt wait much longer than 33. preferably by 30. i just dont want to be in my 50s taking kids to jr. high. i also figure i wanted to enjoy being married for a couple years first, without children. so figure 27. im almost 25. its pretty reasonable to figure a year of engagement or more, and a year of serious dating before that. im looking down the barrel of the gun at this point. my odds arent great for sticking to this plan. and while there isnt any reason why i couldnt push every thing back. it starts to get more complicated. think. women's fertility rates drop steadily after 30. in a ten year period, between 30 and 40, a high 80% of women go from their lasting peak to almost zero percent odds of pregnancy at age 45. sure there are cases of 50 year olds with twins. and 44 year olds. but the odds arent there. thats why they make the newspapers with those kinds of births. realistically childbearing is not and endless time frame. its a window. its a window thats quickly closing around me. now i suppose that must means i have to find someone in that window. making me the cradle robber. someday, ill be the guy trying to buy a bride in her 20s, when im 60. i dont want that. i still believe that i can marry my best friend. that were going to enjoy each other for more than something petty like money. and i dont believe in divorce. so it leaves me with shot. even more reason to worry i suppose. its a tall order. its a hell of a lot to ask someone. its probably too much to have going on in the back of my mind. but ill argue all of that... its necessary people. i have to think about it. if i dont. it wont happen. to keep to the plan, i have to know i only have about 4 years left. 4. i didnt even make it through college in 4 years. with no job. no real direction. and knowing i sure as shit cant count on how i look to attract someone; 4 years is a small window to do that much. to do what i wanted for myself.

for along time, all ive really ever wanted to do with my life, were three things. three. three measley little things, that to me, would say i accomplished my life, i did what i wanted, and i had some meaning to what i did.

1. find a career, that pays me what im worth. pay me what it takes so that i dont have to worry about money every day. that i have enough to take care of things... maybe not scrooge mcduck piles of cash. but to afford some comfort. to never have to sit and wonder if i deposited my pay check before i paid rent, while standing in line at the grocery store, planning if my check for groceries will bounce on the spot. never having to worry about having money for my kids for clothes, or food. sure i cant buy them a namesake building at Harvard, but that id always have enough money for what we need. and some extra. enough that i can spoil them, and spoil my wife once in while. a job i dont hate. i job i dont dread getting up for every day. but one i can leave at the jobsite, and come home from for my family.

2. a wife. a wife that loves me. someone thats my best friend. someone that understands me, that worries about me. someone that wants to be with me for me. who knows all the things that make me, me; and how to deal with that. someone i can understand just by looking at. someone that comes to me for strength. someone thats not affraid to cry. someone that wants everyone else to know how happy she is with me. someone that wouldnt ever want to leave me. someone that wants children. that wants a life with me. someone that says, scott is the only one i want. a woman that agrees with my list of 3 things.

3. children. the job pays for it. the wife and i have each other. and the children have us. i want kids. i want to have kids runing around. i want to have kids to watch grow up. kids i can go to school functions with. kids i can ground occasionally. kids that light up when they see mom and dad. kids that end up alot like me. fullfilment. having all of that. kids fill that out. and thats what i want.

only three things. i cant truthfully put them in a ranking like that... but it would kind of work that way as listed. kids have to come last. id have to find a wife like that to have children with. and id need some money and job security to do it. and the more i thought about it, the more i realize, for me... asking for all 3 is asking for quite alot. looking at everything on that list. its hard to imagine myself realistically with all of it. maybe my magic number really should just be 2 of them. maybe i could find a job like that. but maybe i couldnt ever find a wife like that. and as hard as ive tried, ive only found a pair that id even consider it with. so. jobs and kids. i could always adopt i suppose. raising kids by myself that have no real connection to me. to blood ties. someone elses throw aways like me. that would be alright. its not all 3. i wonder how hopeless i am if i cant even manage 2. right now, i cant even get 1 down. im at zero. and i have 4 years to move that. 4. if i dont have 2 of those crossed off in four years, i wont ever cross them off. no matter which two they are. because i cant start over with a job at 30 something. not with other committments. i cant abandon a wife for children, or money. i cant bail out on a wife and kids with no job. ill know by the time i blow out my candles on my 29th birthday what my odds realistically are for myself. ill know how short i was. or how close i am. and its only four years away. i kind of wonder what it would be like not to get anything on that list. what it would be like to end up with a job i hate, for not much money. no one to come home to. no one to make fun of me for getting bald. no one to sit and share thoughts with. no one else except myself. and not for four years.. for-ever years. maybe Someone should see why my motivations are what they are, if i spell it all out like this. being young only happens for so long. being youthfull, and crazy, and dodging responsibility only last for a short time. at some point you have to take on those things in life. thats .... thats maturity. thats respectability. thats the natural progression. thats where i want to head. i dont want to be the only person thats prepared for it, but gets passed by for it. i feel like ive done too much of that already. and most people would say, ive lived more lives than anyone else they know of at this point. i see that as the experiences i need to go forward. 1, 2, 3. no ones ready for that. no ones ready for me. its the sinking impression i get, living in the basement of my parents house at almost 25. with no job. no money to my name. no real place to go. and no one to call me back when i want it. no one else to notice that im serious about it all.

for the last time? 



quite possibly. the interview i have with the big name company on monday has a zero facial hair policy. not that i even want to work for them, just i cant afford to blow it off or anything. i have to go through with it, even if i decide id want to go for it later... or out of more desparation. regardless. "phil" my hiring guru, has twice barked at me that i need to shave. ugh. everything. ugh ugh. i cant even remember the last time i was totally clean shaven. i hated having sideburns to deal with. i hate trying to shave that spot under my nose on my upper lip. i have scars on it from cutting myself repeatedly. and quite frankly. i think i look like im 8. i dont like that. if i shave i look really, really young. 8. and im not kidding. and maybe if i dont look 8. just 15. i feel older. "phil" seems to think its bullshit. and its all in my head. he tried convincing me that i was a "youthful, good looking guy." it all sounded a bit like a gay come on. but. he knows more about this kind of game than i do. i went with him, because hes being doing professional placings for 30 years. i gotta trust him. hes odd. the first time i met him in person, he starts in telling me about his bouts of insomnia. appearantly he had fallen asleep in his car over the lunch hour, and my 2pm appointment came at the end of the first sleep hed had in almost a week. then there was the quirk of him only drinking soda from a cup. over the past week, i even offered him a can of diet pepsi, just to see if hed drink from the can. he refused. went and found a cup. and offered one to me too. strange man. however. after my friday interview, all i did was drop the company name on the phone, and he knew the hiring manager's first and last name, personality, hiring standards, leading questions, as well as how i did based on how she exited the room. according to "phil" i wont be getting a call back. i thought i did ok. maybe not exceptionally well. but ok. it was a first rounder. how bad could it have been? "phil" says they have 20 people vying for one spot. "youre out. you didnt do well, you didnt close. you just didnt have it. trust me kid, they have realtors there only because they are looking for hardcore sales and closing skills, and you dont have that right now. she knew it. so. big deal. we'll get you something else." and like that my day pretty well fucked out. i call him "phil" because im supposed to. hes a phillip. but he said "you can call me Phil now". like that means i will? im always leery of people telling me what to call them. "phil" too. i dunno. job searching bites. my mom said i should be quite proud of myself to have gotten in with 5 big places for face to face interviews in a weeks time. but really id just like a paycheck. that would make me proud at this point. no such luck. so going with "phil" on this one, ill shave. and a hair cut. he gave me that one too. my hair appearantly suggest something about me that says im "over easy, too relaxed, and unfocused" according to "phil" im starting to think he really wants to judge American Idol. regardless. shave and a hair cut.

marketing mystifies me. i went out especially to pick up Alexander on dvd today. there are two versions, both in two screen aspects. 4. why? the special edition, and the directors cut. looking at the backs, i couldnt find any differences, other than the special edition bled over on to the second disc, while the directors cut used the second disc only for features. which, were the same features on both versions. the run time was 6 minutes longer, i believe, on the special edition. but only the directors cut advertised itself to have missing scenes. i bought it. i havent seen anything that wasnt in the theater. sigh. as much as the film itself didnt satisfy me, i still enjoyed it. maybe more this second time. on the theater screen, its cut so close to the action that on a 50 screen you can seen whats going on. at home on a tv set, squared away in letterbox, i didnt get lost in the battle scenes or get dizzy from trying to swoop to look at different corners of the 50 foot to see who was doing what. i liked alot of the film. lots of little things irk me. some of the documentary on the making of the film was interesting, explaining the differences in grades of film, and types, used to capture certain coloration and contrast in scenes. i had expected alot of that to be done digitally now. kind of nice to see the old standard way still in use in places. its worth a rent. most people probably wouldnt want to own it. warner brothers would have done better to release one version now, and one for christmas time, to possibly double up the buyers. as it stands, i doubt anyone will want two copies of it at the same time. its an ok story. its chopped up badly. appearantly linear story is no longer fashionable. angelina jolie's fake accent is still hideous and detracts from her lines. as is how her whole character is personafied. colin isnt so bad. and yes, his garbage still dangles out there in one shot of him getting into bed with some man whore. sir anthony hopkins isnt in it enough to save it. but... i do love his last lines, poorly transcribed by me...

but the truth is never simple. yet this is. the truth is, we did kill him. by silence we consented. because... because we couldnt go on. what by Ares did we have to look forward to, but to be discarded at the end? like [lighters]. after all this time, to give away all our wealth to asian sick offenses. we dispised mixing the races, harmony. bah. how he talked about these things? wasnt it really about alexander and another population to obey him? i never believed in his dream--- none of us did. thats the truth of his life. the dreamers exhaust us. they, must die before they kill us with their blasted dreams! . . . all his life he fought to free himself from fear, and by this, and this alone, he was made free. the freest man ive ever known. his tragedy was one of increasing loneliness and impaitence with those that could not understand. and if his desire to reconcile greek and barbarian was failure. then what failure, is failure that towers over other mans' successes? ive lived... ive lived long life Catmus, but the glory of life will always remain to those that follow their great visions.

Current Musical Selection: String Cheese Incident - various

well alot has happened in a few days since i last posted. people wanted to know more about what happened, who the girl was, and where the hell i am now... so in no particular order.

im homeless. kind of. my parents are letting me stay here for a while till i can get something figured out. its strange. i guess i appreciate having a place to go. but. i apprecaite living on my own just fine too. kind of loose that sense of independence and individuality without my own place. i dunno. its all pretty hard right now. i ended up in this position because of several factors. first the university screwed up on this last class i was needed to get my degree. then the loan payments just decided to hit me retroactively. lease was ending fast. couldnt find any other jobs to pay me enough to over that place plus expenses. so. i lost it all. quit staples. moved out. stored stuff. and here i sit. homeless. jobless. and quite frankly somewhat down on myself. knowing how my other friends have faired at this stage; it could take 6 months to find a descent job. im really looking for a specific dollar amount. and id take it at this point.

the story on the last post. well. it was sarah. i suppose ill spill my guts here. ive liked her for along time. but i didnt know. what to do, what to say, how to act. so i just kept it as friends. all the while, i knew it deep down. eventually all of the above shit happened, and something else, and i realized id be leaving. and i didnt want to leave someone like her. i guess thats when i figured out my own feelings that somewhere i stopped on the friend level, and wanted more than friends. the right thing to do is tell someone about that. and i couldnt do it. i was just too scared. which is just rediculous in retrospect. i was scared to tell her i cared about her. she and i talk about everything and anything. but i was too scared to tell her how i felt about her. so that whole previous post happened that night. a few days later we talked about it again, and about what happened. and its pretty much an in limbo thing. shes just too busy for a relationship. everything with me not knowing where i was going to be, probably didnt help matters either. and i respect that. i realize, at this point, im a pretty awful pick for anyone. jobless, homeless and all. however. she does care about me. i most definitely care about her. and nothing really is going to change. i told her id wait as long as wed have to for us to figure everything out. she is worth it. i could say alot of things why, but its private. thats stuff i tell her, and no one else. but i can say, that i just have that feeling. the feeling that you get steered to someone for all the right reasons. you make it through enough crap in your life, and at one point you just walk out of it, and here stands this one person. thats perfect. i had to do that. and shes had to do that. and shes beautiful. she interests me, shes compelling in a way that i want to be around her constantly, shes charming, intelligent, shes sweet, shes fun, she can finish my thoughts, and i can beat her to hers, and she makes me smile. even typing stupid crap like this, im sure i have some half-idiot grin. i really like her alot. i think there was only one other person id put before myself in my life before, and im doing it here again. but for the right reasons. and for the right person. and its funny when you have a quiet argument with someone like that; about some self sacrificial things to find time for the other person. i suppose i read into everything way too much. but she really is special to me. regardless of having a Title, she matters more to me now than any other girlfriend ever had. so. i see her when i can. we talk as much as scheduling allows. and i enjoy every second of it. i just, i hate to jinx anything. but i feel like there is alot of potential with her. i dont see a short term relationship between us. there is just too much of an understanding, too much in common, to say "whoops, my bad, why are we dating?" without details, there is a comfort level between us, that i know i havent had before, and im sure she hasnt really had before. i really look forward to seeing her, and talking with her. just sharing. whether its phonecalls before bed, or our millions of text messgaes during the day. there is just that, i dunno, emphatic weight behind it, that to me lets me know how exactly why im serious about her, and why i feel that thing at night was the best thing i ever did. romantic points aside. thats kind of the story about that.

job wise. ive got to get something going. ive lost count how many aps and calls ive sent out. easily in the 100 to 150 range now. still nothing. ive had a few interviews. one major interview with a fortune 500 company still to come. but i dunno how much id really like that job. pay is low. lots of work. long hours. but. its a job, right? Someone gave me that nudge the other night on the phone, that its a job, and i dont have to stay, just long enough to get something else going. shes right about that. ill see. ive been sending out stuff for sales positions. id rather get out of the retail hours if i can. staples didnt cough up a single opportunity for me. but funny enough, OfficeMax did. sigh. i dunno. sitting arond cold calling places to buy things, does not appeal to me. its pretty harsh to say, i feel like i can do better than that. according to the job market, i might not be able to. but im trying.

people.


they fucking make you do the stangest things. so does love.



love.


for the longest time ive wanted to say something to a person. about love. and i couldnt do it. so here i am, on my last day here... the moving truck is here at 9am. and all i can think about is one person. not that i need to pack. not that i have no place to go. that i dont have any job. nothing else. one person. and i had a chance tonight to say what i felt. and i fucking blew it. dinner. driving around. a few hours at her place. i still couldnt fucking do it. looking at my watch knowing im on a countdown. comes time to leave. and were both standing at the door. and i cant say it. i just. i cant. the awkward silence. she looks at me. im looking at her. i babble. but i just fucking cant do it. and i hate myself.

and i left.

i closed the door behind me. and i walked out. and i didnt get to say what i wanted. i didnt get to say what i felt. i didnt get to say what i needed her to hear. i just walked out. i punched my fender. i got mad. and i drove. i ended up at home. and i was so pissed off at myself, i couldnt say anything straight. i complained to my friends. i complained to myself. and i hated it. i hated that in mylife this week, everything controls me. loans. jobs. housing. moving. leaving. i cant tell them all what i think. so i picked this most important battle. and i took some encouragement from my best friend.

and i went back out the door at 1 am.

i drove 30 minutes back to town. back to where i was a few hours before. and i sat in my car, i closed my eyes. i thought "what the fuck am i doing here" it was the worst thing i could do. offend people. get them out of bed. have the cops show up. what the fuck kind of crap am i thinking about getting myself into? thats when we think about people. we think about love.

i called her, without opening my eyes. and i kept calling her. until

"what do... wh.. what do you want?"

and then i just did it.

"you need to come down here right now, i need to talk to you"

"uhg.. ill. ill be down in a few seconds"

and i was scared. dont get me wrong. i was fucking out of my mind. because i was in control of one thing. one. i was in control of telling the one person i love, that i was in to her, just her, only her. and then she opened the door.

so i walked over. i grabbed both of her hands. then i let it go. and i dont know what i said. i lost track. im sure i was stupid. my grammar was terrible. i sounded like a mad man. so i said what i needed to. she was dazed. she also just woke up. and i dont even know how much of it she heard at first. so i just kept talking. i wouldnt let go of her. i just kept going. i just kept saying everything that came to mind. i told her the truth. i told her that i care about her. i told her "ive never met anyone in my life that could finish my sentences, and you did it three times tonig.." she said "tonight at dinner" and i told her how leaving wasnt my choice. i had to. but i wasnt leaving iowa without her. and when i said that i didnt want to leave earlier, i didnt mean my apartment; i didnt mean my job; i didnt mean the school; and i didnt mean her place so she could go to bed. i meant i didnt want to leave her.

it was silent.


i squeezed her hands. and i told her that i cared about her more than i ever wanted to realize. and i didnt know it until not long ago, when she left all weekend, and that was the first time i felt shut out without her. she quivered. but kept smiling. still half asleep i think. and i told her that i loved her, and that to me she was that special and that awesome as wed always joke about. she said "thats about the sweetest thing anyone has ever said to me. i think i want to cry"

so i hugged her. and i kissed her. and i didnt let her go for a few minutes. we just stood there in the wet grass, under the light pole by the fire door.


people.


and love.

honestly always was my best policy.

i just dont care for it much now.

see. to be honest would need me to say more than i have to.

and i dont think i have to do anything more than i have to.

my life sucks. i dont think anyone would argue that long. im approximately 3 weeks from homelessness. and i have an exact number of 3 paychecks left. there isnt any jobs. none for me it seems. there isnt any place to go to. i most likely will sell off some of my stuff, and dump the rest in some storage lot, till i can get something figured out. but this isnt good. why does my life end up this way? college wasnt supposed to guarantee you a spot on the street... but thats what it did for me. and maybe homeless people have it better off than me... atleast in one respect... they dont have 20,000 dollars in debt tied to them... college did that to me. all this shit about building work experience. or working hard. or letting opportunity knock. its all a bunch of crap. i busted my ass harder than anyone else around me, and look where thats taking me to. its not a pleasant topic. nor am i in a pleasant mood. people dont like the sincerity of attaching someone to a plight. not just a someone, but a Someone. a person you know. i think two of them at work were ashamed to look at me when they asked me the final question, "what are you going to do... are you going to end up living in your car?" and my answer was. "if it has to come to that" like i have a fucking choice. oh sure. im sure the staff is friendly and room service is grand at that 5-Star deluxe joint up the road. the pleasantries money can afford. the niceties that arent afforded to all of us. money just buys insulation. innoculation. isolation. just some distance from it all. and ill be right in the middle of it. hows that for a pleasant thought?

reality isnt about being pleasant i suppose. its about being quaint. bumping elbows with anyone and everyone. people from the top of the pile... and people at the bottom of it like me. its all ebb and flow. its about moving between stations... and hoping something doesnt mix into a slurry. like being a 24 year old fuck up. having a college degree and no place to live. being the lone gunman at every occasion, standing alone as always on the knolls. being the one that gets ignored by choice. or being the one that gets treated disparingly. and why not. isnt that what we teach our kids about homeless people? dont well tell them they are dirty. loathesome. undesireable. isnt that what ive become.

dignity is that line that separates it. i guess. the line that calls out who fits that role, and who doesnt. but whats dignified about being a 24 year old loser. whats up and comming about the person that cant con a girl to dinner? what distinction do we give someone who isnt good enough for a job? what do you call the person that just is the opposite of together, by our standards?

its the person that gets treated like shit in every relationship running. the one who fears the world love. because love just brings more shit. and its been slathered on a bit too thick already. and forget for a moment that a person like that has any feelings left. theyve paid their dues in memories. but it just doesnt cash out to much. never take him seriously. always look for the cute worthless boy instead. decline an offer. ignore his hand thats opened. call him names. if you even choose to call him back. thats the way it should be, shouldnt it? shouldnt be that we feel sorry. we dont want to do anything out of pitty. and besides. that frat boy is cute anyhow. why waste the feelings on some scruffy 24 year old piece of garbage. it will rot and disappear soon anyhow.

Current Musical Selection: Kenny Rogers - Just Dropped In

well this is a moment folks. i do believe this is my first legal download of music from the internet... now thats not to say that none of the songs i have now, are of anything but illegal nature... but this is the very first, on-demand, type of purchase ive ever made. yes. i resorted to the shit snorting itunes site to do it. so... of all the non-conformist, unrecognizeable artists one-hit songs that are never attributed to them... i chose this one. cracks me up every time i hear it on the Big Lebowski. so i thought id start it up... just to see what condition my condition was in.

Current Musical Selection: Audioslave - Like A Stone

well.... hunched over a fuming bucket of chemical stripper, i found myself questioning why i was hanging around here. its a warm, bright, friday night. the kind of night everyone has plans for. the ones where youd be damned to find a keg of natty light in stock anywhere in this town. and im up to my elbows under shelving units, trying to erase the pile of goo thats all over my floors. its staples. its sterile. or atleast i will be after all these fun fumes im breathing in. i guess some people find out things about their life in the oddest of circumstances. i think i found a pen. or a french fry. regardless. after picking out all the recongnizeable pieces of shit i find, i get to bathe this whole area in something we dropped out of planes in Vietnam. except this bucket is purple. clearly the orange would have clashed with staples color pallet. its a hazy synthetic smell. not overpowering. not pleasant either. but it waifes about. some times i can smell it, sometimes i cant when i walk away from the bucket. i could have always burnt out my mucus membranes, so im not really sure. the shit is quite slick. slippery. but after i slop a pool on the blackened and gunky tile, the shit starts to congeal. after twenty minutes it will buble. thicken. stink more. then cure into stringy bits of shit, the shit that used to be on the floor, into a rubber cement like substance... that glistens more like snails or semen. then i get to use these fabulous rubber gloves and scoop it all up into a bucket and bag. then deposit it directly in the dumpster. its a good feeling! must not have been a pen. maybe some sort rodent tail. regardless. its a friday night, and im evaluating the shit thats rotting underneath shelves. i wonder to myself, where did i loose any sense of a life i had? how come im not one of those people, getting phone calls about the hot party, or the cool place to be? when did i become so, so fauxpaux that i get this treatment? ick. some of it sloshed back on my arms. i can feel it run down them like water... yet it feels heavier than water. or more lathargic. more blackish stuff to scrape up. id get sick of it. but i dont have much else to work with. it is a friday night. and. somehow that means im the only one that doesnt have plans. well me, and the gi joe arm i found under this pannel. everyone else has something to do. someone to do, even. and im scraping away the staples barnicles from the shelves. at 9pm at night. and its a friday. i always sort of figured i wasnt popular. but never this bad. never this much stuff stuck to the tile. never had to use a nylon brush on the shit before either. its alot like scouring pots and pans really. just with more caustic chemicals. and i suppose ive applied my own variety of caustic wipes over the years to my friends and social life. but alot like the tiles, ive kinda been cut through a bit too much i suppose. when the colored striations of the tile come off... then i know ive put a bit too much stripper on it. so i take a wet paper towel, and i wipe it down, feeling the smooth, pale color of acid burned tiles through the rubber gloves. and that leaves me with another 4 foot done. i take a razorblade tool and do the last bit of scrapings to pull the now snot-like strings up off the tiles, so i can take clean water and mop it off. friday night isnt all that great. i gotta tell myself that. i have to lie, and say how much im not affected... or is it effected by friday nights anymore. unlike the cool kids... the guys driving motorcycles shirtless past me with blonde girls on the back of the bikes. seems like everybody has some place to get to. cept me. thats why i get to clean and peel off the shit from the floor. staples janitor all the way. and its friday night. my phone rang as i was walking into the building. for minute... i just got happy.. relieved that maybe id have an excuse... that id have a reason... or a life. it was an automated message from my bank, reminding me to authorize this month bill pays online. i savored it. as much as anyone should. in fact.. i wish id let it go to voice mail... so i could listen to it again, as i searched for the tubs of chemicals... so that i could use it like a parachute... to bail me at the last second, from plummeting downwards in the uncontrolled spiral... that would save me. that would pull me up.... and separate me from the earth once again. but by the time i thought of that, id already found the gloves. it was a little late. even though it was very early on a friday night.

well jacko got off. with little boys. and while im not quite sure whether he was guilty of it in this particular instance, this one becomes a head scratcher. you see. it becomes a practical problem of how to put away repeat sexual offenders. on the one hand it would be much easier if we just drug them out of the holes they lived in, and locked them up. on the other hand, we have to be legal about this. michael jackson is rich. he can afford better representation that id say any other sexual pervert could afford. and it worked. and while i do believe in the rule of law, and preserving the rights of those until proven guilty, beyond a reasonable doubt... which this jury could not find for. i have that feeling about him. that feeling where you go, "gee, this isnt how its supposed to end" i have no doubt in my mind that jackson believes in what he does. no doubt whats so ever that he cares for children. but he fits a pattern folks. he fits a very specific pattern of probable future sexual offenders. various early life pyscho-stigmatizers were appearant in this mans life, that in the general course of policework, would lead you to this mans door 30 years later, when boys end up missing and abused. and for his defense, jackson admits to us; "i sleep with young boys. i read them stories. i tuck them in. i give them hot milk." that was the defense. i do this to lots of boys. it look bad. but i dont believe that it constitutes criminal wrong doing. jackson didnt think so. but i would still be knocking on this assholes door when underoo's turn up missing. you see, for jackson, sex is not normal. for a man who's friends are chimpanzee's and liz taylor; for a man who owns a complex named after a fairy tale, a man who is so self conscious about his own image he parades in public in surgical masks.... nothing is normal. and for us. enticing young boys in the privacy of one's bedroom, is also not normal. sexual or otherwise. jackson is indeed guilty. guilty of our pitty. guilty of our despair. guilty of our dark fears. jackson is guilting of being perverse. but thats not a crime. thats a reality. and were left with the probably's, and the most likely's that jackson did, but that we'll never know much about. as far as hes concerned, it will be harder than ever to make something stick now, after this finding of fact in california circuit court. and i dont really know how else to express what i feel, aside from a let down of nothing.

forget that its out of focus.... 

so a bit of story i suppose. sunday i was pissed... thought id go for a drive.... start driving all is fine... just as its about to get dark, on the interstate... BAM rumble rumble... car rolls hard right.. the road is running a jog to the right, so i down shit, break, and throw the wheel to the left to compensate for it... the rumbling is violent i can feel whatever pounding against the floorboards... and i guess i forgot about traffic... so i panic break as the car isnt slowing down or correcting... so i jog it right, then all the way left to break it...... i loose the back end... it fishtalils out away from me, and the car is skidding pretty well out of control towards the left across both lanes of traffic. i slid to a stop with the only the right front tire on the gravel shoulder of the road... everything else is pointing down in the median. i get out to look. turns out i absolutely shredded this tire... smoke is pouring out, ive got huge 60 foot skid marks across the lanes... then i see the tire is so ripped and shredded that its tangled inside the wheel well and caught up on the skirting and ripped that out... 2 pieces of trim came off and were laying in the right hand lane, and the tire was pretty well wrapped around my coil spring, jammed into place.... hence my inability to turn the wheel... smoke is just pouring out from it. it stinks to all shit. i just stare at it.. then i get a blare. some semi comes flying past me by about 8 inches. i shit myself a bit i think... then remember where i am. i walk back to the drivers side and see bald patches on the front tire from the skidding.. but it looks ok.. then i set about on the task of changing a spare tire while inches off the passing lane on the interstate. which turned out to be better than i thought. most people stayed off me. the real fun was in trying to pull the damaged wheel off the hub. with near liquified rubber and steel belts going every which way it was hard to separate what was trim, molding, steel, tire, and assorted debris. the top picture shows you how bad the tire warped around the post. nuts. i guess im glad i didnt snap the suspension off. guess im glad a lot of things didnt happen. and im thankful that i DO know how to drive and handle myself. regardless... i put the spare on and baby-ed her off the interstate, and limped to a service station. i eventually had to get two new front tires installed this morning.. the drivers side was so blemished from the panic stop that the wrench-monkey said it wasnt safe to drive on anymore. so 130 bucks poor-er. ive got new tires. new pictures. and another story to tell.


whats wrong with this picture

Current Musical Selection: Meatloaf - I'd Do Anything

well... its not that i forgot that i had this... just i havent had any kind of time in quite a long time to do much with it. sigh. its all very busy. too busy. filled with things that dont really matter. things that just frustrate me to no end. i try to tell myself at night, right as i take that last look at myself in the mirror, i try to say, "its going to be better in a few months" and im starting to have a hard time believing myself. schools going to be done. and then what? ill have no job. no place to live, less than 50 days after that point. truely, then what? i try not to think about it much. but it creeps in at night, when you bring the covers over your eyes sooo tight, that you think it might shut out the light of those dreams.... dreams that are bright with their dark thoughts. dreams about the rest of your life, with nothing. no direction. no place. and no one. and its then you realize you are suffocating... hiding under heavy covers. in the dark, all alone. and its just all a dream. and its only a few months away.

its all so depressing really. thinking about the future. it used to seem clear. predictable. possible. now its a subject id rather not finding myself thinking through. but its supposed to get better. thats how i lie to myself. thats how i have to project it. like cynicism. that just oozes out of me now. i suppose that its all really just one and the same. everything tied to everything else. and then again. its hard to be taken seriously when you take it on like i have lately. its hard to want to believe thats all my serious options are in life anymore though. which is worse? laughing at your odds; or your odds are just laughter? so i grew this way. and... sometimes. i wish for once.... i just pray...... that id get something i could take serious again. i wish i had inspiration. i wish i had desire. i wish i had committment. i wish i had it all. i wish i wasnt me. i wish i wouldnt do the things i do.. or that i would fall in the traps ive always set myself up for. i wish i could have paid attention or answered a question better... or maybe just smiled instead of saying something. or that someone else could have done that once or twice to me. hell. i wish alot of things were different right now.