caveat emptor

The Unexplained

I brought enough for everyone if anyone wants some. Anyone? There's plenty. I made it myself. I think it's pretty good. How about you? No? Are you sure? I brought enough for all of us, just in case. No? Okay. Well, that's cool. I'll just hold onto it, then. Let me know if you change your mind. There really is plenty.

Dirty water, is that all we are? The planet is 85% water, or something like that. We're 70% or 90% water too. I forget the actual number. There's water in the dirt and water in the plants and water in the animals. Just dirty water, really. If you evaporated all the impurities out of this world you could drink it. Dirty water, that's all we are.

Sometimes I get tired of these hands full of emptiness, so I put all the emptiness into my pockets. Then I look and there's more in my hands. So I put that into my pockets. And then again. My pockets are so full of emptiness at this point that I fear they may burst, spilling emptiness everywhere. I think I might start canning it and storing it in the cellar. I wonder how long it will keep down there. "That's where I keep my emptiness," I'll tell the curious children. "Would you like some? I've got plenty. Why are you running away?"

Hello, friends. I should probably explain. Yes. I definitely should.

Later. Love.

Jumper

She lives near the top floor of a tall high-rise in an apartment her closest acquaintance once described derisively as "post-pubescent and pre-informed", words she now has tattooed in Victorian script above her left shoulder blade, sad evidence of her willingness to vandalize herself. The homeless man who watches her come and go from the post of his eternal vigil beside the mail drop box on the sidewalk far below thinks of her as Asian, though she is half Puerto Rican and half American mixto. Her window high above the street is always open, symbolizing for you the endless opportunity funded for her by her wealthy parents with whom she never speaks. "I am an artist," she lies, when people ask her what she does. In truth, she occasionally throws pieces of bread out through the open window at the unsuspecting world, but she doesn't describe herself like this because it wouldn't impress anyone as much as a fantasy of art might. Her only art is standing naked with her eyes closed and her arms upraised in front of the blast of harsh, angry guitar raging from her expensive music system, art that her neighbors all hate because, all too often, they get to hear it and feel it but they never get to see it. The violence of this music rouses something less dead in her soul, something almost alive, almost vital, if unhealthy. This music gives her the scraps of resolve she requires to throw on something too revealing and head out past the homeless man to abuse herself around town, to let others have a go at her, to crawl home to the elevator that loves her. For her, this life is an apartment in an empty world, where she's not an artist, not even Asian. For her, death is like bread falling naked to the world below, guitar music fading away far above.

Hello, friends. I hope your feet are on the ground, so to speak.

Later. Love.

That Great, Good Someday

In that Great, Good Someday there will be no more pain. In that day we will gladly offer our everything to one another in exchange for anything or for nothing at all. There will be neither lack nor excess, only a boundless sufficiency, an abundance of just enough. You will kiss my lips and I will thank you. I will take your hand and you will smile. Men will grasp enemies in their embrace and release them as trusted friends. All the armies will surrender to each other, shake hands and then turn and carry the spoils of peace home to their mothers, fathers, children and lovers. In that Great, Good Someday brows etched with confusion and consternation will smooth and then crease anew with laughter. The lion will offer himself as food for the lamb. The four winds will stir and blow all heaviness away from everywhere, toward nowhere, a gale blowing only out and gone. The grass on this side will green and grow, soft and lush, and we will lay down together and sleep, the first night of forever. Dance, children, dance, and sing with me the songs of that Great, Good Someday.

Have you ever noticed all the beauty you've never seen? Look today into all the places you cannot see and your eyes will kiss your soul.

Hello, friends. I trust you're well. I'm just a sucker like that.

Later. Love.

Reality and Diatribe with Mushrooms

Reality left another message on my voice mail. He's been trying to get in touch with me for months now, and I keep ducking him. He was leaning against my car in the parking lot a few evenings ago, but I saw him from my office window, so I sneaked out the back way and walked to the bus stop. Reality seems to think I owe him something, but I contend that it's the other way around. If I own him some debt, I refuse to pay it. He can send his goons all he wants, I don't care any more. I'm done dealing with reality.

"I can imagine a creator," she said, "but I see no evidence that that creator wants anything specific from us. If some creator wants something from us, it should be more obvious. It would be unreasonable for a creator who created this vague, mysterious world to punish us for failing to fulfill some duty that creator didn't even bother to make plain."

"I don't want to discuss this," he said.

"And don't tell me it's written in some book. There are a million books. Which one is the one? How are we supposed to know? I contend that we live in a world created by an itinerant prankster and that he or she is long gone and never coming back. And no book was left behind, just this beautiful mess of a world, this never-ending joke."

"I didn't say anything about it," he said. "I just want to enjoy breakfast. Can we just enjoy breakfast? It's a beautiful morning."

She stared at him with evaporating intensity until her anger dissipated and her stare slid down from his eyes to his mouth to his chest and then down to the plate of pancakes that was growing cold in front of her. "It is a beautiful day," she agreed. "How is your omelette?"

"It's pretty good, especially the mushrooms."

He loves mushrooms.

Hello, friends. I hope reality is treating you well.

Later. Love.

The After

The ghost never admitted to herself that she was dead, although some part of her certainly knew it. She kept going to lunch with her friends at the tea room on Thursdays, though they didn't really include her in the conversation any more. She had been the life of the party before, but things had been different lately. She still took the bus to work every day, spent the morning in meetings, the afternoon trying to logon to computer terminals when people got up from their desks. She couldn't seem to make the mouse or keyboard work any more. Several times she'd gone down to IT and sat in the director's office and complained to him, but he ignored her. Tonight she was going out on the town. She wanted to try the new dance place her friends had mentioned. Who knows, maybe she'd even meet someone, someone who would dance with her, someone who might take her home, someone who would, at the very least, look her in the eyes and treat her like she existed. "It's just a funk I'm in," she thought. "I think it's the weather. A change of scenery will help." She couldn't feel the weather these days, and this worried her when she thought about it, so she didn't. Last night, for the first time, she hadn't even gone home. She'd just wandered around the city streets on the edge of a painful admission she couldn't bring herself to confront. All evening and night she gazed in through windows at people, a bad habit she'd picked up lately. She's standing outside the window now, wanting to come inside, wanting to talk, wanting to hold your face firmly in her hands and to force you to look deeply into her eyes and to hear you say, "Oh. It's you."

Hello, friends. Are you well? I hope so.

Later. Love.

Cold Notice and Lies About Eyes

I've given up on the ineffable. I cannot effin' figure it out. I've moved on, instead, to smaller mysteries. I wonder, for instance, why my car tells me when it's 37 degree Fahrenheit? My car doesn't tell me if it's 35 degrees, or 12 degrees or even four degrees. My car pops up a little message on the dashboard screen, however, if it's exactly 37 degrees outside. I'm not sure what I'm supposed to do with this information, so I've started logging it into a little ledger. I record the date, the time, the mileage and the temperature, which is always 37 degrees Fahrenheit. I assume someone is going to ask me at some point, when I go in for service, "How often have you driven this car in 37-degree weather?" What other reason could there be? So, like a good car owner, I log it into the 37-Degree Ledger and keep driving. I may not understand it, but I'm sure it's important. Probably it has something to do with Kevin Bacon. I don't know.

I haven't opened my eyes in almost six months. I've just been staying in the ruts. This is not meant to be understood as a metaphor but a literal fact. Opening your eyes always costs something and I've been a little short lately. I certainly hope I typed this correctly, since my eyes are supposedly closed and all. It's not true, of course. I could see that you didn't fall for it.

The 37-degree notification feature on my car is, I'm convinced, a bad implementation of someone's idea. This cannot be what they intended, whatever the specification said. Read through the specs, engineer. Ask yourself this question, "If I were a normal human being, how would I want this feature to work?"

Hello, friends. Cold?

Later. Love.

Regarding Talks with The Machine

You don't know this, but I've been in negotiations with The Machine. We all know, as we've always known, that The Machine exists only to exploit and consume us, that it is powered by the energy of our struggles and trials.  The Machine has nothing to gain from our happiness. The Machine has no use for our contentment. The Machine does not love us. Nevertheless, I've been, for the past several months, in negotiations trying to convince The Machine that a lightening of our burdens could be mutually beneficial, that, because The Machine depends upon us for the suffering it craves, it will gain something if we are healthy enough to suffer well and if we actually have something to lose. My arguments have been eloquent and cogent. I went into this knowing that this might well be our last chance to work through the System to improve our lot in life. For months there was no reaction from The Machine, so I haven't mentioned my efforts to you, lest I set you up with false hopes. Yesterday, however, something happened. Yesterday, after months of debate, The Machine made a decision. Yesterday The Machine called off talks and ordered me back to work. Yesterday diplomacy failed.

Now the path is clear. Now we have no choice but to tear the fucking Machine down. Wait for my signal. Good luck. See you in the aftermath.

Hello, friends. You remember the signal, right?

Later. Love.

Cosmic Sandwich and Not Porn

The universe is a chicken salad sandwich, and our world, everything we are, is but a poppy seed on the roll, one poppy seed among the many. Everyone is worried that someone has made the sandwich for a reason. "There is only one reason to make a sandwich," they say. But I wonder if maybe we are just a sandwich for sandwich's sake. "We will become one with the gods," some say, believing the old maxim that we are what we eat. "If we are what we eat," one man suggested, "that implies also that we are what eats us." Is that true? I cannot work it out. We are both the sandwich and the sandwich eater, perhaps. But I forget myself. I am not the sandwich. I'm just one tiny part of one tiny poppy seed here on the bun, looking up at the sky at night, wondering if there is a mouth.

And now, an unrelated issue. It has come to my attention that some people cannot see my blog because it is blocked by their filters. Why is it blocked? Well, these filters seem to feel that my blog is a porno blog. I'm not an expert in porn, but I am fairly certain that this blog is not porn. If this is porn site, it is not a very good porn site. I never post nude pictures of myself on this blog, nor sex movies of myself. Not here. I'm very careful about that. If I knew the appeal process I would contact these filter managers and argue with them that I am not a porn site and that I should be removed from the porno list and whatnot. I do not know the process, however. I'm just a poor, dumb, barely-legal college girl gone wild, after all.

Hello, friends. I am pretending that we are all well. Maybe we are. What do you think?

Later. Love.

Irrational Concerns and Updates

Sometimes I am overcome with irrational fears, like my fear that every animal I cannot see has gone extinct. Today I'm concerned about manatees. Has anyone checked on them lately? Are they still there? Have you seen them with your own eyes? I hope they're okay. I worry so much about them, out in the water like that, all alone, without phones or email addresses. Do they have healthcare coverage? Have they put anything away for retirement? Has anyone checked their teeth lately? Do they brush and floss? How could they? There aren't any drugstores they can access. It's a troubling situation and I'm not sure what we can do about it. If you're near where the manatees live and you have a few minutes, could you check on them for me? I know they're probably fine, but it would be good to know for sure.

Okay. Breathe. Let it go, Scott. There's nothing you can do about it right now. Think about something else. [sigh]

People are constantly asking me, "How is Chuck, your Gnome friend?" or "How is your wife, Susan?" People want to know these things, but I'm usually too distracted by some nonsense to give a proper update about the people in my life. The answer is that Chuck is recovering well, though still struggling to keep food down, and Susan has an ogre friend visiting from somewhere far away and they have been making quite a racket drinking, smoking pipes and laughing loudly at jokes in some language I cannot identify out behind the shed every evening this week. I think that's right. I have troubling keeping the details straight, but I'm mostly sure that that's right.

Seriously, though, have you seen a manatee with your own two eyes recently? I'm really worried.

Hello, friends. I hope you, and the manatees, are well. Here's hoping.

Later. Love.

Fixing The World, Part One

I've just concluded a detailed inspection of the world and I'm afraid we have some work to do, people. You wouldn't believe what I found out there. I'm listing some of the top issues that come to mind and I'd like for people to volunteer to handle them. Don't make me start assigning them to people, people. If I don't get any volunteers, I'll do it. Mark my words.

Here's the list.

• Several of the mountains in North America are out of plumb by a degree or two.
• Trees all over the Pacific Northwest are lopsided and depressed.
• The ocean floors need to be swept and mopped.
• The Sahara needs dusting.
• I saw two one-legged birds in the Ireland. Fix them. If you cannot find the legs, perhaps you could just make one normal bird out of them.
• There's mildew building up around the edges of the planet's core. It's starting to smell.
• Kanye West is getting out of hand.
• Antarctica is crooked.
• Several people need to lose weight. I won't name names.
• The swordfish need sharpening.
• Bigfoot is constipated.
• Pirates.
• Many aspiring actors have wide noses.
• There's a toilet in Sydney that's confused about the Coriolis effect.

Let's hop to it, people. The world's not going to fix itself.

Hello, friends. I trust you've made your selection(s).

Later. Love.

My Secret Blog and (finally) My Golden Globes Recap.

On my top secret blog for which only a very few elite people have the URL I have just completed a six-week-long series of daily posts in which I have detailed my beliefs, principles, ethics and morals. Everything I think is spelled out there in perfect clarity. I've wanted to sort through these issues and come to a clear understanding of them for some time. For too long my mind has been a jumbled wreck of trivia, song lyrics and punch lines. Now, on my secret blog, I've worked through it all. I'd love to go and read it and become acquainted with myself, but I'm not in the elite group that has the URL. Are you? Do you have connections over there? Could you get me in?

Meanwhile, back on the farm...

I suppose I should do a Recap of the Golden Globes. I've been procrastinating, but I'm tired of all the anxious and irritated emails begging for my opinions of the winners and losers and, of course, the fashion. So, without further ado, here's my recap: I didn't watch the Golden Globes, but I heard some of the dresses were very nice. You heard it here last. You're welcome.

Hello, friends. I hope you're well. Aren't you?

Later. Love.

Packing-Derm (A Repost from May 1, 2006)

I'm getting rid of my trained elephant, Stan. I'll send him to some sort of preserve where he can live out his days in peace. I had high hopes for Stan, thinking he could really be something special, but years of training have failed to do the trick. He's mastered juggling the flaming chainsaws and riding the unicycle across the heavy-guage high-wire. He's achieved an FIDE rating of 1950 in chess and can hit the bullseye on an archery range 99.8% of the time. He only came in second at the regional spelling bee, however, forgetting the all-too-obvious second "n" in "brunneous". Also his landing is still very shaky on his triple toe loop. It's hopeless. We've worked and worked and worked on these things, but he's maxed out. If the show can't be perfect, I don't want to put it on. I'm sure Stan feels the same way. I hope he does.

So, now I've got to find something else to fill up the hours of the long day. I want to invent reverse skydiving, where you start on the ground and shoot up and through the open door of a plane flying far overhead. I have no idea how I'm going to do it, but that's never stopped me before. I should probably buy a helmet.

Goodbye, Stan. I'll miss you, old boy. You were always friendly and helpful, and you made the best ham and mushroom omelettes. Find a cow to settle down with and I'll come and visit you guys from time to time. I'll never forget you, and I know you'll never forget me.

Hello, friends. How are you today?

Later. Love.

Regarding the "Andy" Situation

The rock troll that we hired as a temp programmer, Andy, is not working out. Don't get me wrong, his work is great. It's timely and clean and well-documented. There's no problem with his work. It's just that he's not fitting in with everyone else. He doesn't fit in socially and he barely fits in physically. He looms over in the corner of the conference room during presentations and tries not to make growling noises or drool on anyone. Also, since he lives in a mud bog near the river a few blocks away, he smells awful. Just really awful. And then there's the "smokers" thing. You see, smokers have been disappearing from outside the building ever since we hired Andy, and many people believe he's been eating them. I have to admit, there's a good chance that he has. Under "Hobbies" on his application he wrote "eating smokers". I guess I shouldn't have hired him, since we have smokers in our company, but I thought the "smokers" to which he was referring were a type of sausage or something. I mean, it sounds like something English people might call sausages, doesn't it? Smokers? Anyway, I'm going to have to fire him, and I'm really not looking forward to it. I hate firing people, even if they deserve it. It's never easy or fun taking away someone's livelihood. It makes me feel bad. And with Andy it's going to be even harder. I really like Andy. There's just something about him that I relate to. I don't know what it is. Most of all, though, I dread firing him because I'm pretty sure he's going to murder and eat me in a monstrous rage. Sure, we're going to have a security guard waiting outside my office door to escort Andy out, but, I mean, what is she going to do? Andy is, like, eleven feet tall and stronger than thirty men. He could level this whole place. She's got a walkie-talkie and a flashlight. I'm doomed. I was going to call in sick, but they'll just let him stay until I get back. It won't help. I might as well get it over with. [sigh] This is why I hate management jobs. Wish me luck.

Hello, friends. I hope you're well. I'm fine.

Later. Love.

This Bean, Like Us

This coffee bean is broken for you, this bean picked and roasted and shipped to where you are. This coffee bean gives everything to you, though not of its own free will. Your appetite has supplied the demand for this bean, so it was plucked from its mountain home and brought all these miles to die for you. You drink the life essence from the departing soul of this bean and you are renewed, reborn. You do this, as you should, without shame. You must be strong and brave to leap each day into the gears of this grinder we call civilization. We are, all of us, picked and roasted and consumed each day, and the aroma of our plight brightens the eyes of some larger life.

"We're not picked and roasted and consumed each day," she said.

"Not literally, no," I said.

"Are we picked and roasted and consumed each day figuratively? By whom?"

"By critics," I said. "For example."

Hello, friends. I hope you're well. Aren't you?

Later. Love.

P.S. - If you're reading this from my actual blog site and not some feed, I'd be interested in hearing what you think of this new layout. I got tired of the other. This one is much simpler. Thanks for stopping by.

My Song and Words Used Wrong

I've been asking myself what it might sound like if I wrote songs and sang them, my own words and music, my own voice and play. I have to admit that I'm not sure. I don't know what it would sound like. I think it might surprise me, but I don't think it would disappoint me. Not much, anyway. I think I'd be pleasantly surprised and intrigued. Having lived through all these years in all these places with all these people has affected more than I realize, I realize. I've always assumed, I think, that I am something other than my life. But I'm not. I bet I'm not. We'll see. One day, maybe, we'll see.

I have to punch in because I'm doing clockwork. I'm paid timely. Sitting at my desk, my thoughts speed secondary, but the day creeps hourly. Straining toward the future, I am present tense. When it's overtime I punch out, my mind slipping through the nightshift, becoming myself again. Before long the sky is less daily and I am retired. Colliding with the bed I hit snooze. Bedtime passes quickly, though, and too soon light pours heavy through the window. The prospect of new day dawns on me, and I go into morning. Time to put my clock face on again. I think I need a daybreak.

If I ever sing my song I'll share it with you. If you don't like it, pretend you do. I'll be able to tell. You're not that great at pretending. I'll appreciate the gesture, nevertheless.

Hello, friends. It's a new day, but don't worry. It won't last forever.

Later. Love.

Fate, Reggae and Whimsy

I am playing Scrabble with Fate. She is beating me badly, like she always does. She sits quietly with that troubling, knowing look. I haven't the  letters to form the words of my frustration so, seeing no better option, I pluck an "H" from my rack and turn "OURS" to "HOURS". Then she turns "MY" to "COLOSTOMY" with a triple word score for the "C", which also makes "CRAW" of "RAW" in the other direction. Then I "CRAWL" and she "XYLOPHONE"s. It continues like this until she has the last word and I perform the aftermath. "I am second," I tell her, "and you are next to last." Fate smiles.

Today reggae is playing from somewhere, and this feels right. Slow and rhythmic, simple syncopations on the downbeat, it takes no genius to feel reggae, to understand what is happening. Reggae tells you that good things are good and that bad things are bad. Reggae decries suffering and glorifies pleasure. It cries with you and dances with you. When you're paralyzed by the complex interweaving of the nuances of reality, listen to reggae. Don't think about it too much or you'll overrun it and leave it behind, you'll be bewildered and confused. Just close your eyes and count out the simple beat with the slightest nodding of your noodle. Everything is gonna be alright. Everything is gonna be alright.

Tomorrow I'm having footraces with Whimsy. I'm not optimistic about my chances for winning, but I hope at least to make Whimsy laugh.

Hello, friends. I hope you're well. Are you?

Later. Love.

The Pearly Gates Processing Center

This is it, this is Heaven. Everyone just keep moving in an orderly fashion and we'll get all of you through registration as quickly as we can. We ask that you be patient with us. We've done our best to make this experience as pleasant as possible for all of you, and to make this a place you can enjoy, but the logistical complexity of dealing with the expectations of so many people is staggering. We trust you'll consider that fact carefully. Were we able to create the Heaven that all of you were expecting? Probably not, but it wasn't for lack of trying. We've spared no expense. We hope you'll appreciate what we've put together for you. We're certainly open to suggestions and you'll be given several cards on which to write them at the end of the registration line. Please be courteous in what you write. If you just cannot bring yourself to accept what we have here and to participate in this community, we'd like to remind you that you can go to Hell.

Hello, friends. I trust this blog is meeting your needs. If there's anything I can do to make it better for you, please don't hesitate to keep it to yourself.

Later. Love.

The Middle is Near

Most of the paths to enlightenment are too heavy for me. Everyone chooses their own path. He's into Mahayana. She's doing the Weight Watchers. Some of the brightest people I know have stopped striving for enlightenment. "This is all there is," they say. I wonder how they got so smart? I wonder how I could get that smart? Maybe I should stand on my tiptoes and hold my breath. Maybe I should put my knees behind each other. Maybe I should shave my head and follow the remains of the Grateful Dead around. "It's not the answer, it's the question, man," says the barefoot dude in the robe with the dreadlocks and the shades. Things always sound stupid when you add "man" to the end.

Then the prophet says:

In those days the clouds will wage war on the seas. Fools will trade apples for oranges. In those days seams will ride up in your hinder and you'll find no peace in repose. The buffalo will play checkers with the postmen. The rocks will melt and dirt will freeze and the heavens will default on their loans. Wise women will cry in the street, bemoaning consumer confidence and acid reflux. A child will say to his neighbor, "What has become of my innocence?" In those days hamburgers will be served without tomato. Porch lights will burn through the night. Van tires will all go flat. In those days the echoes of distant laughter will keep you awake all night. Then you will know the middle is near.

Thus spake the prophet.

Sometimes the alarm clock surprises me and I begin the day with a start. Seems like a reasonable way to begin something. Man.

Hello, friends. I trust you're well. Everything's cool.

Later. Love.

The Fate of Humanity and How We Should, Therefore, Live

One day humanity will be destroyed by a race of superior beings, and this will be their superiority: They will have two opposable thumbs on each hand, one on the lateral side, like us, and another on the medial side. We will be helpless against their pollical dominance. Other terrestrial primates will see this as justice, I suppose. We've lorded our single thumb over them for millennia. We had a good run. Our conquerors will be impressed with what we were able to accomplish despite our limitations. They'll write songs about us, songs with complex finger-snapping rhythms, as is their way.

We should enjoy the time we have, my friends. We should be alert to each pleasure and joy that comes along, experiencing them actively, with our minds and hands and senses and wills. We should attack each sorrow fiercely and stab it hatefully in the heart and rend it limb from limb and pound our fists in the pools of its blood and scream profane curses at the memory of it. We should dance enthusiastically to the beat of every song, however stupid we might look doing so. Of course, I don't really mean all of this. Some of us prefer to sit quietly through it all and just smile or sigh from time to time. Still it's true. It's all true. Dance the dance of your deep stillness. Do your dance. Kill the killers. Love the lovers. All of that. I don't know.

Hello, friends. I hope you're well. Are you?

Later. Love.

Distance and Fog

Lost in an endless thought she walks so elsewhere, weaving easily among the everything that cannot, though it try, catch her eye. She adds her wordlessness to the noise of the street, cars and others dancing complex patterns from different heres to various theres all around and she, without a sound, calls to all of them, but I'm the only one that hears. "If you follow me," she says through lips pressed ceaselessly closed, eyes looking always away, "I will take you where you never knew you wanted to go." For soft fear, for love of the painful repose of this uncomfortable chair, for conservation of potential, I sit and watch her pass, more unaware of my stare than the distant afternoon moon. The wind comes behind her and blows away the memory of her passing, only now a dream with no antecedent, disconnected from any reality. There never was this street, this day, this lovely obliviousness in the long black sweater and high winter boots. Some part of you knows that she cannot but remain so aloof. Were she ever to focus her gaze it would shatter the world.

The fog pulled himself together, came in from the cold and sat down with me for hot tea. We talked of balmy days and warm winds over the water. The fog had something on his mind, I could tell, but he couldn't bring himself to say it. So polite, our banter, and never getting to the heart of the matter. As he left he leaned in and kissed my cheek. They do that where he's from. Then he dissipated and floated away and I only saw scattered glimpses of him for many months. I hope he is okay.

Hello, friends. I hope you're well. I really do.

Later. Love.