Has It Sunk This Low?

I've been buying soda in these 32 can flats- four eight-packs, from Costco. It comes in a cardboard tray with a plastic wrapper. Mary was using one of the cardboard trays for some bunches of flyers that she was working on. She set it down by the desk, and Booger the Cat hopped in, curled up, and thinks that it is the greatest cat bed ever made.

We should all be so easily pleased. And this, I suppose represents the absolute nadir of blog- resorting to animal pictures for that awwww cute thang in a desperate effort to fake some content. What can I tell you? I'm out of ideas, and shameless to boot. Just be grateful I'm not cheap enough to try and rip off FU Penguin with some snarky narrative directed at the poor cat.

JWM

Short Call Tuesday

UFO Diapolon Header robo

Wouldn't you know it, it was just before eleven, and I was just getting ready to leave on foot when I got a call to go finish the day shift at the school by my house. Four hours. Done.

So, back home, and sign in to the wfb.

I've reached a point where I'm asking myself why I'm doing this- writing a blog, that is. I was clicking some links on Joan of Argghh's blog, Primordial Slack, and I ran across a guy who had a set of rules to make your blog get a zillion visits a month guaranteed. Most of it made pretty good sense, but as I read through the list I realized I had no inclination whatsoever to put any of it into practice.

Get a thousand hits a week, or a day. Have hundreds, or even thousands of people regularly clicking on to read the things you wrote. See dozens of comments on every post. Is that what this game is about? And if it isn't, then why invest the time and effort at the keyboard? It would be an odd move to make a film, or write a story that you never planned to let anyone see. Stranger yet to invest effort in a project, and be almost indifferent to how the work is received. I remember how it felt submitting art work for juried shows. Would I get in? Would I win anything? Those were questions worth losing sleep over. I suppose if I were sitting and composing serious essays on serious topics like Van does, or writing fiction then I'd be more concerned with how the work was received. Is anyone going to read these small ramblings, the details of a rather uneventful life that I type out, and submit for public consumption? I'm almost indifferent. Almost.

In a way, I suppose this is a kind of graffiti, an extended tag on Blogger's wall that may get noticed, and may get ignored. Maybe it's a message in a bottle. Or maybe it's a half assed bid at fame that is guaranteed to return the rewards of all things done half assed. All of the above, I suppose. But the last details of the day still need attention. Dinner, and the peace of the evening await.

JWM

Six Mile Monday

DX Diapolon

I mentioned having that 'day out of synch' feeling a while back only on a seasonal scale. Today was another such day- early May, yet it has the feel of November. And the 'day out of synch' bug seems to be going around as well. Several Raccoons have reported symptoms. Odd. No doubt it's all a function of The Inversion, and a sure sign of the impending end of the world. You know- 2012 is coming, and it's going to make Y2K look like a mild case of the swine flu. These timewave disruptions could be the foreshocks of some meta psychic hoedown that's just going to leave everything in ruins. The Aztecs will return, and rule the world. And Quetzalcoatl is gonna' be hungry for virgins. National Geographic will do a multicultural special on the newly rebuilt temple including interviews with some real virgins (pre-sacrifice, of course).


But then again, 2012 could mean a big ass meteor will smack into us like some cosmic cue ball and knock us out of orbit, and spinning straight into the sun. Actually, that would be kind of cool. I mean- since we're all going to die anyway, why not go out with a bang?





Or something.





I was too tired after work Friday to write anything, and it felt good just to let it go for a couple of days. And I got through the weekend, and discovered last night that I was a week out of synch. I thought I had to go in to work today, but it's next week that I'm on. (More evidence.) I woke up this morning, sat with Sam the Cat, and cup of coffee in the graylit den, fell back into a half dream which carried me into the morning prayer, past seven, and the day was mine.


So I made one of the six mile walks through the hills. Odd the way it measures out. Following my regular route through side streets, it's exactly two miles to where Solejar crosses West Road. From that intersection I can go right, left, or straight, and the loop back to the intersection is exactly two miles. I went straight, which is a very steep couple of hundred yards to the next intersection at the top of the hill. It's been a while. I've been lazy lately, and I felt it on the climb. Thank heaven for the cool, hazy morning. From the top of the hill you could see out only a few miles- at least as far as Knott's Berry Farm before the horizon fuzzed to nothing in the haze. I took the downhill loop to the left, which meant a long, but shallow climb on the return. Saw two snakes, and an alligator lizard squashed on the road. Bummer, guys. Someone had tossed what looked like a perfectly good pair of stainless steel salad tongs on the roadside. I have a pretty good collection of tools, and large ball bearings that I've picked up on various walks. Salad tongs would have been a great addition to the collection. But when I picked them up I could see they'd been run over by a car. Oh well.





It always feels good to get the muscles moving, and feel the blood flowing. Animal life. Primal energy. It is tonic. Clears out the head. It is medicine, in the sense of "That which makes you whole". The afterglow from a workout hangs with you for hours, too.


Which brings me back here, afterglow, or no. Monday afternoon on a sweet, cool day. The errands are run. I got some exercise, and all that remains is to finish spilling some goofiness, and accounts of a blissfully uneventful day into cyberspace. Last days of the world as we know it? Could be. At any rate, they are pretty darn good last days, as last days go.





JWM

Slack Thursday

Astro Boy (Hot Toys 2005 Hong Kong Toy Show limited edition)

Today's slack rating scored in the high nines on a ten point scale. I oiled up one of my favorite defenses against The End Of The World, and set the machine in motion. Selective denial. No talk radio. No headlines, or newscasts. No politics on the internet. If I pretend it doesn't exist, then it all goes away. Bye Bye.

And part of what made the slack a little sweeter, was knowing that I have an enjoyable shift to work tomorrow morning followed by a weekend, and then a week of my favorite detail. The bills will be paid, and some modest gains will be made in savings. All stuff to be grateful for.

But for today, I walked down the tracks, up to the corner, and talked to old John for a while. Or rather I tried to listen. We sat outside at the corner table, but the kids running the Starbucks had the music on just loud enough that I had to strain to hear John. To boot, they play a really crappy station, Grate XM: All Irritating, All the Time. No deejay; no commercials; nothing to let you come up for air in the nonstop jangle of irritating songs.

And I ended up missing most of what John had to say. Much of it I have heard before. Nonetheless, I try to tune in when he talks. You get his story in fragments- a little here, a little there. It's not easy to fit it all together. Today I could not glean anything distinct, and after a while I quit trying. It was enough to sit and listen.

The afternoon was taken with the small details- the 'chop wood, carry water' of life at this place and time. Sometimes you take it for granted; other times you hold your breath until bedtime. Then you exhale, grateful for an uneventful day. Mary gets home in an hour. We're going to have steak for dinner. It's good. Sometimes it is just plain good.

JWM

Good in the Small things

Daikumaryu Gaiking

It would seem that I am not alone in noticing The Inversion. (but I take credit for the cool capitalized name.) Odd set of feelings at work- Partly I feel vindicated. When you get a sense that there is something amiss on a vast scale it's a good idea to take a step back, and try to make sure you're not just seein' things. We often joke about people with paranoid delusions, but when you encounter the real thing it's very creepy.

I was going to a storefront Serenity Hall some years back. It was right when the first Gulf War was starting, and America was pushing Sadam out of Kuwait. A young guy took the podium- looked to be in his early twenties, and neat enough that he didn't look like he was on the street. He identified, but within the space of a minute he was telling about how he was receiving radio messages from Sadam Hussein in his head, and that he had contacted the CIA, but the agents are still tailing him because he knows too much...

After a couple of minutes someone took him outside. Nobody who saw it thought it the least bit funny.

anyway-



Like I said. Before you start writing about mass insanity, it's a good idea to make sure that you're not the one who's nuts. But Dr. Sanity is not nuts, and neither are the people who left comments on it here at the wfb. That still doesn't mean that I'm not nuts, but it does indicate that I'm not the only one to see it. It would seem, to borrow a phrase from the Lizardoid Master, that there is indeed, a 'bad craziness out there'.



So what can you do? That's the real question. Get in the political game? Engage the forces of The Inversion, and act like some noisy old crow on someone else's blog? I don't really have an answer. If the society lurches toward cultural suicide what can you do to dig your heels in against the pull? Focus on what is True...



Watch me sling some advice that I won't take- no. Forget it.

I'm generally doing pretty well when I can keep my focus on the regular details of daily living. Shopping. Fixing food. Paying bills. Once in a while straighten up the house, and change oil in the cars (which I need to do). Get out and walk. Work when I can. Even so, I was glad not to get a call this morning. The coffee pot broke. The internet was depressing. I had a case of the blues, and all the energy of calculator battery. I drove down to the corner. Old John was there. He had nothing to do, so we drove down to the frame shop to see Mary. But Mary had already left. The Boulevard was choked down to one lane in either direction, so we cruised back along the side streets. Soon the jacaranda trees will be in bloom and those neighborhoods will be lined in giant purple bouquets. But not yet. Today it was all just spring gray.



Got home, and found the house insurance bill. There went next month's check. And just when I thought we were going to get some breathing room. I know. Be grateful that there will be a check to cover it. Still. I said fuck it, and went out again. Sat and had coffee at another Starbucks. Didn't want to talk. Drove home, and picked up a burger for my mother. The boss had called when I was out. I got a gut drop, because I was tired enough that I didn't want to go pull an eight hour shift, but broke enough that I couldn't turn it down. Besides it was already after two. I called back. It wasn't for tonight. It was a day assignment this Friday, and a week long assignment next week at The School By my House. Couldn't be better. So if we don't get ahead in May, there's still a chance for June. Nothing left for the afternoon except to sit here, and let the day flow out onto the keyboard. Mary will be home soon. I got some Chinese bao muffins with barbeque pork to steam before dinner. Life is good in the small things.



JWM