saying grace

control control control control control control is power control is power not you you are not the power you do not have the power you are in control of the power control is power control the power you are not the power you are not the power you are not the power the power is control you are in control of the power control the power control the power control the power control the power control the power control the power control the power control the power control the power the power is not in control the power is control power is control power is control you are not the power you are not the power you are not one with the power the power is control the power is the power the power is not in control the power is not one with control you are not one with the power you are not the power control the power the power is control you do not power control you control the power control the power control the power the power is control

Evolution and Filial Piety

Sometimes I dream of success.  Not of rock-star or oil executive success, but of real personal success.  The end of these dreams is always the same, though, which is me realizing that I haven’t paid my dues yet. 

I am currently leaning towards blaming my parents on this one.  I get a chuckle out of saying it too.  I don’t actually believe that we’re all just attempting to heal from our parents and grow our own way, but some of the learning you get as a child must be shed; and paying one’s dues is a lesson my parents had ALL WRONG.  I was taught as a child and young adult that it was not really one’s dedication and acquisition of skill that caused one to succeed, no, the version I got was that God would come down and turn you into a well hung virgin raping CIA agent who drove five racecars drunk on Dom as long as you just kept your faith long enough and were sure to tithe.  Loyal members always get perks I suppose.  And even though I am largely purged of this indoctrination, the idea that my good intentions or behavior would some day pay off like a loaded slot machine never left me.  I have been coasting by like a blind sailor completely oblivious to the nearing reef.  I was sure to sink, in the most dreadful and pathetic fashion.  At any rate, I let this belief stay for some reason.  I accepted credit card offers with the idea that some future reward for my good behavior would cover the costs.  I let women fall in love with me knowing the whole time that that is all I wanted from them; to see if I could get them to love me.  After I had their love I tossed it over my shoulder and walked on thinking that what I gave them was of such value that surely it was a net positive.  I hacked out music to roughly a third of its potential simply believing that people would be so impressed by the evoked emotions that someday I would profit enough from the sales to finally take recording seriously (like a record label jesus coming down to give me $5000 and an 8-ball).  On top of all that, I used my psychological intuition to land jobs I wasn’t qualified for, and with that boosted confidence I started quitting jobs at my leisure, only to grab another one in an industry I had no knowledge of.  Now I can’t get an interview to deliver pizzas.  I guess I thought that someday I’d simply charm my way into a financially secure job should it ever become necessary.  It has, and 300 plus applications later, I am unemployed.  Of course, I did get a wealth of real world knowledge you just can’t be taught from working so many different jobs for such a variety of organizations, but for what?  I can’t take writing seriously enough to even commit to an hour a day… because some day publishing jesus will come down and give me a cabin in the woods stocked with nothing but twelve year old scotch, chronic and typewriters waiting for my genius to ravage the ink ribbon.

Sorry folks, but this was a big one and I hope that less and less children are taught this.

We’re all selfish. That’s the bottom line.

hahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahaha!

A Serious Problem

I imagine that more and more heterosexually coupled males and females are going to be running into a serious problem that my feminist wife and I have discovered: the battle of emotions versus rationality.

I believe the reason this is going to be made apparent, soon, is because its a discussion that is appropriate for modern young couples faced with this seeming dichotomy.  I leave out homosexual couplings because I am not familiar enough with homosexual relationship dynamics to either include or exclude them with any intelligence.  However, I am sure something similar could crop up in any relationship where one person approaches conflict emotionally, and the other rationally.

I want to quickly stop you here and clarify the question already forming in your mind; is this guy about to assert that one is better? No.  The first mistake my wife and I have discovered about this discussion is that the initial problem is having emotion pitted against rationality in the first place.  It is counter-productive to start from there.  Both emotion and rationality have distinct and necessary functions in our human development.  However, one theory I am now leaning heavily toward, is that emotion is also a sort of genetic leftover from when humans were subject to more predators than Big Business or general systematic oppression.  I’m talking about the days of “I win because I am larger.”  You know, before we realized we could flourish with technology rather than our biology.

Understandably, you are thinking I just shot myself in the foot by suggesting that emotion is an antiquated, useless leftover of our primitive ancestors.  Maybe, but before you react, do YOU know anything about our historical and genetic development?  Additionally, both emotion and rationality have a dynamic weakness in communication when used one without the other.  For example: in an argument, person X becomes emotional and begins yelling insults.  While the insults do not invalidate person X’s need to communicate, person Y has an easy rational out by simply criticizing person X on the grounds that they are simply excited and acting like irrational.  But… but: person Y didn’t actually say anything at all to the point of person X’s initial concern.   Likewise, if person Y attempts talking about their feelings rationally to person X, who is more resonant with emotion, person X will more often than not try to re-orient the discussion around emotional realities, when that is not what person Y wanted to discuss; therefore, they both lose.

So what should the modern heterosexual couple do about this problem?  Shut up.  Both of you, shut up and think about what you are ACTUALLY TRYING TO SAY.

Good luck.

today i die

i am leaving.  Whoops!  I’m back.  Shit, that was fast.  Did I already write this?

this is confusing.  there’s no joy to be had in time.  we must run from it.  if we adapt our bodies to night/day, light/dark chaos it could possibly save the species.  we must adapt our enjoyments or risk losing enjoyment as a motivator.  human creativity is suffocating itself to death, we must fight soon.  time is a motherfucker not to be trifled with, but, how did it get this power?  i smell an oppressor.  i’ll be first and zealous in the slaying of the defenders of time.   defenders of quantity and measurement.  they are the evilest, vilest and most sinister lot, those, while they undo our creative instinct, molding it with time.

fight this bullshit oppressor however you can.  write fiction on office time.  have everyone on your block get night jobs and have bar b-ques after work at 7am.  get a tivo.  sell your tivo.  make your own bread.  spazz out about nothing in the most loving way you can and then hide in the bathroom.  find peace in rejecting zen.  make samyama on the mundane.

Most important, give yourself a chance.

back to school

Don’t read this if you’re not a voyeur, it’s going to be very uninteresting and journal-ish.  I may just be documenting this for my own decompression’s sake.

Mondays are going to be very tough for the next 13 weeks.  I learned that today.  I (should) get up at 6:45, work until 2:30, go to classes from 3-8:30, and then brave the bus or take the not-so-scenic 40 minute walk home.  I chose walking.  Now I am finally relaxed in my ‘fort’ with a glass of wine and some herbal platitude feeling the desire to write but not necessarily have to think about it.  I figured imnotme was the place to do just that.

So, this semester I am taking Intro To Writing Fiction and Asian Philosophy.  Both conceptual walks in the park, though I have been additionally blessed by two extroardinarily competent instructors who are also both gifted facilitators and lectors.  This, of course, translates into more challenging work, and more challenging work.  Not what I had hoped from the course titles.  I figured I could doodle my way to a 4.0 for the term.

Oh well.  A. and I have been living in the aforementioned ‘fort’, which is our office turned snuggle-pen via streaming netflix movies on my computer aimed at the bed that was not always in the middle of our office.  It’s a cramped, but cozy place.  So cozy we even watched 2 seasons of Family Ties.  And liked it.  This is also the only room in our ginormous apartment that has air-conditioning, which neither of us are huge proponents of, though it’s aided the desperate-crack-addict appetite we’ve had for fits of snuggling and various other pillow-and-blanket oriented tasks.

Getting high does improve both my writing, and my reading.  I’m sure of it.  Hehe.

I’m going to abandoned this now and go let my friend in the house.

gonna be a daddy

A. and I took the plunge, pun intended.

I am ecstatic, to say the least. Also, we now work in the same office, so every time I see her walking by, or walk by her, I get butterflies in my stomach. To think she’s the girl I had a crush on nearly three years ago, and then to have our unrequited crushes mutually manifest at the same time and lead to this… it’s amazing.

So, plans are to get out of this less than fortunate apartment we thought we’d love so much and find a nice, family friendly environment in which to birth and raise a child. We’re hoping for a girl first, so if it’s a boy we’ll name it Sue.

In a lot of ways this marks the end of a saga. Debaucherous you may call it, adventurous, silly, scandalous, or any suitable title for this summer, it’s over, and honestly: it’s time. I gladly cross this threshold into sobriety and parenthood. In fact, I do it with wild enthusiasm.

cheers,

imnotme

oversleeping

Apparently it is unwise to stay up until 3am drinking wine and playing Risk when you need to get up at 7am that same morning. The reason it’s unwise is twofold.

Firstly, getting drunk doubles your chances of setting your alarm to PM by not going all the way through the numbers so that the proper dot is lit next to the display. I’m sure this happens to all of us. Second, depending on the volume of wine ingested, 3am may not be far enough away from 7am to sober up, increasing your odds of sleeping through your alarm, shutting your alarm off and going back to bed, or getting a DWI on your way into work. This morning, on top of the lingering buzz and the panic of realizing I was late, I was asked to do some stunt driving. Someone was either moving in or out of a neighboring residence, and as I park in the back off the alley, their truck was blocking my exit.

“Got enough room to get out?” called the male driver.

“Yeah, I think so” I lied, up to the challenge.

I managed to back out between a telephone pole and the nose of his truck with mere centimeters on either side, whipped backwards into the neighbors spot, and went on my way, noting the look of respect on the man’s face. As I drove off I thanked something or other for letting me through that without incident. They were in a rental truck, so there would have been a claim no matter how minor the damage.

Anyhow, I think this particular late arrival just avoided radar detection. I won’t know for days. What I do know, is that I really need to safeguard myself against oversleeping, because let’s face it, oversleeping is annoying for everyone.

updates to nobody

The only fun thing about having a severely crippled hand at work is that it makes you’re handwriting look very childish.  I like to imagine letters and catalogs going out to clients, to be received with speculation on our labor practices.
A. and I move in two days and we couldn’t be more excited.  The place isn’t as stellar as the first few we looked at, but it has it’s charm, a 3 season porch, two separate office-type rooms that will accommodate us nicely when I began classes again.  For NE Minneapolis I’d also say it’s a fair price.  The living room is a good argument for flat screen televisions though…
New spaces/environments often cause internal changes for me and my lifestyle.  It’s good to change the scenery.  I think that our surroundings also affect our self perception and identity, so this move with A. is important in a lot of ways, even to the relationship itself.  We will no longer be the overgrown teenagers living in a mother’s basement drinking too much out of boredom.  We’ll have our own food, that alone is like being handed keys to a new car.  And, assuming bikes are in the budget, I’ll get my cardio on the way too and from the office, as we’ll be within a mile or so.

Things are looking up.