The Street Called Straight.

The Ideal Place.

2011-09-07T23:33:00.002-05:00

This is really the ideal place to keep up with what I am up to, thinking, doing, seeing, processing, et al.

Nashville.

2011-07-20T15:05:00.006-05:00

I was in Nashville the weekend before I left the East Coast. A burling looking, tattooed, and bearded fellow approached me during the closing worship songs of a church service I had joined my friend in attending. This fellow was Irish; his hair, skin, and freckles betrayed him and his eyes twinkles merrily above his cracked, toothy smile. “You have something big coming up don’t you? What is it, I am supposed to listen to you and pray for you as you head into this thing,” he explained. I was quite taken aback at this verbiage, naturally. How could he have such boldness in approaching a perfect stranger? What compelled him to climb over chairs and rustle through a crowd to find me, only to put such a strange set of words before me? What if I had responded, “Get away from me, you lunatic!”? This fellow had noticed me enter the building, and from that point had determined that I required a hearing and prayer. Nothing would frustrate his plans to reach me. Nothing would deter him from obedience.

Retroactive post.

2011-07-20T14:46:00.000-05:00

Apprehensive:

I’ve come back to the word over and over these past few weeks. Perhaps it is simply a nice word choice for “anxious”; I hope not. There is no concern regarding the choice, or the decision to go. It is the unknown, the fear of failure, the desire to be genuine in the face of hypocrisy that causes said apprehension.

djmase

11.05.27

Halfsies.

2011-05-19T18:01:00.003-05:00

“The mind of man plans his way…”
---
Robert Burn’s 1786 poem, To a Mouse, only handled half of the thought correctly, and in that half it is arguable if “correctly” is even the proper word. His “…best laid schemes o' mice an' men, Gang aft a-gley, [often go awry]” sentiment, while true, is not fully true. The issue is within “awry”, and who is the determinant of its proper qualitative position. If Robert deems himself the authority on what is “awry” and what is the actualization of “best laid” then truth is no larger than a dead mean.
Yet, another option is available. Perhaps the best laid plans of men are merely that; the plans of men. These same men live seventy years, die, and then rot into dust. Yet, in my estimation, not all of them dies; for they are not dead, dead…but this thought is moving off topic.
The point is this, the plans of men are continually frustrated, and “… lea'e us nought but grief an' pain.” Yet, such a pessimistic view leaves one longing for a gun and but one bullet, thus in finishing the above started Proverb is a welcome predicate.
---
“…but the LORD directs his steps.”

The Alleged Literalist.

2011-05-17T18:43:00.004-05:00

It’s a very nebulous word; transition.
It’s much like when one explains a date as being, “interesting…”.

Now, that is not to say that every “interesting” is a horrifically egregious experience, yet one would not be remiss in the generalization that “interesting” is a benevolent surrogate for words of a less than delightful nature, which have yet to be formulated.
On the other hand, there are those who are generally at a loss for words who use “interesting” to mean something akin to, “I’d like to see him again, perhaps…”. [As an aside everyone one would benefit from stating said sentiment, plainly.]

“Transition”, is a similar such word, one that receives substantially more mental mileage than the ten keystrokes it affords. For example, were one to note, “We are in, sort of…a…“transition” right now…” the comment could be interpreted about thirteen different ways depending upon, but not limited to, body language, facial expression, tone, former sentiment, latter sentiment, et al. The word, and its variants, is simply too broad a noun, verb, and participle; used in a way that is often overly abusive of the finite definition.

Granted, I am loquacious by nature and often accused of being far too much of a literalist, but come now, if the race is ever to approach commonality in communication, this ever-growing exhibition of postmodernity within linguistics must be curbed. How is one to communicate effectively within a society that so liberally reinvents the usage of words on a whim? This orthopraxy is a direct function of and is in turn revelatory of the standard operating procedure of postmodernism, as well as its error.

All of that being said, this author finds himself in something of an interesting transition.

Vapor.

2011-05-13T16:18:00.001-05:00

A good friend of mine and I continually return to one simple sentiment, “We need more lives….”

We dream and consider the future, we understand that life is before us, and is open and ready for cultivating, yet the simple multitude of options presented us is so daunting that we become paralyzed. Literally, we could become doctors, we could be come lawyers, we could become carpenters, painters, or yoga instructors…there is no end.
Yet, there is an end. Every heart does stop beating, every lung does stop breathing, and the end will have come; generally before it is invited.

In our paralysis we slowly grind forward --- for there is little else to do --- looking toward that next carrot dangled before us: a job, a raise, two weeks in Cabo, an Aston Martin, a spouse, Junior, retirement, et al. But, as Solomon mutter time and again, “It is all Vanity and chasing after wind.”

Since Blogger is Ghetto-fabulous...

2010-10-16T17:03:00.006-05:00

...See here for some goodies.
Feed-back and propagation would be a delight.

djmase

Vulnerability.

2010-09-10T18:55:00.003-05:00

Position:
The very utterance of the word elicits a desire to cover up vital organs, brace for impact, and protect oneself from certain impending affliction. The series of letters slices through the eardrum wearing a loathsome sneer, “I know your heart, I know your hurt, and I know exactly where to strike.” It wears a face; every person knows the face of vulnerability.
Yet, there remains a desire to redeem this fierce vermin of a term. Perhaps it is a theological disposition? After all, what has vulnerability done to desire such a bad rap; what culpability has he?

Consideration: (Second person intentional)
Has vulnerability left you holding a bucket full of holes?
Has vulnerability made promises it didn’t fulfill?
Has vulnerability whispered sweet, false nothings in your ear?
Has vulnerability harvested you then left you for dead?

Verdict:
Given the data, perhaps there is something in the nature of vulnerability that warrants skepticism. Perhaps it maintains a disposition that is slightly less than loveable and slightly more than horrible…one’s phenomenological response would suggest so. Erickson contends, “Credibility, once compromised, is not easily regained or preserved in other matters,” a position that is nigh impossible to refute.

The “But,” and there’s always a but:
Vulnerability is something like air. The commonality of its essence is pervasive, within both sacred and profane worldviews. In The Four Loves, Jack Lewis poignantly explained that there were two paths a being may take, the path of love (vulnerability) or the path that seeks to protect from loving anything in an effort to protect the heart; in the case of the latter the tale ends sadly, ironically. Some years later Emmylou Harris penned a song in which she states, “God knows how I love you, like a user needs a drug,” this sentiment follows the path of the typical user…down the rabbit hole, but once again provides a paradoxical insight into the psyche.
Yet, there is a theme strung through the profane. Although it hurts and the going is very difficult, there is a need, a want, a desire for this thing; this one dangerous, elusive thing. And the only extant bridge is named Vulnerability. (I do not know the Elvish word for “vulnerability” nor was the English to Elvish online dictionary of any assistance, yet if I did know it, this is where I would use it.)

So:
The human condition exists, in its unaided state, as one of brokenness with an innate desire for complete fulfillment (Here the position is theologically inform). Through this longing for restoration and ultimate communion one finds symptomatic tangential desires, such as said desire for vulnerability, permeating everyday life. Fear not, this urge, though frightening, is proper. It is an exhibition of how life was truly designed to be, yet due to the broken status of the world, vulnerability has yielded searing fruit resulting in a misconception of the entire entity. Vulnerability, at its root design level, seeks to be and provide fruitful relationships; storge, phileo, eros and agape.

Commission:
While the desire to protect oneself requires one, selfishly, to withdraw into their cave of protection, this place of “respite” will ultimately wield the most damage; sin is a brilliant paradox. Redemption of vulnerability exists as one verb of God’s overarching redemptive outworking.

Go.

Do.

The measure of a blog (post).

2010-05-16T23:34:00.007-05:00

I've been told my posts are too long.

I am in complete agreement.

Yet, it is very unlikely that I will shift my writing style, specifically regarding length and the surplus of it---after all, if it is a story worth telling, it is worth telling thoroughly.

I’ve also been told that as terseness replaces loquaciousness, regularity should beset my current infrequency.

I am in complete agreement.

Yet, stories only come every so often, whereas research of a substantially more boring nature than my long stories maintains a position of primacy in my day to day.

I’ve this token to offer.

I am writing (hopefully) for fun again (hopefully).

---

Also, I have finished a year of Seminary only to realize the more I know, the more I don’t.

Chapter Two: Fear & Gripping Grendel. (In part, 3)

2010-02-19T18:18:00.009-06:00

-When an aircraft is stalling, flying too slow to create a low-pressure zone above the wing, two things are required immediately in order to avoid a fatal crash. The pilot must apply full power and push the stick forward, directing the nose of the aircraft at the ground. Now, this sound moronic, “We are ‘crashing’ by stalling, and you want to add power and fly straight at the ground?” “Yes, that is exactly what I want to do; it is our only way to survive. We need to gain speed in order for the wing to respond as it is designed to. Once we speed up, we will pull up and pull out, theoretically.” An awkward conversation one hopes to never find them self in, yet does on a daily basis in choices that are a bit lower stakes.
-I was not willing to obey to my doctor’s orders, not fearful of the stall-warning, willfully disobedient to the instructor’s directions to add power and nose over. My life was stalling out, with all my efforts I was trying to nurse it along, but I was unwilling to take the measures necessary to recover from an impending doom. I was too afraid to nose over at full throttle, “What if I can’t pull up in time? I will die!” I knew the stall-warning would not lie, buzzing and blinking away on the dashboard, but I also knew I did not have to obey it; after all, “I was the master of my own destiny. I was in control.” I had proven that over and over.
-There was a pendulum in my spirit that cyclically swung through anger, sadness, peace and questions; rinse and repeat. There was one underlying, pervasive monster in the early season of grief, Fear. Fear is a living, breathing, personal Grendel.
-“The joyless creature…The fiend’s temper was aroused; from his eyes came an unlovely light, like a hellish flame…The horrible monster intended to tear the life from the body of every one of them before day came. He hoped for his fill of feasting.” –Beowulf, Chapter 13.
-My fear was paralyzing. It is nearly humorous, in a sick British humor sort of way; the fearful paralytic is really in a tight spot for he is a self-defeating person, bent on doing nothing detrimental, therefore doing nothing at all. The fear grows so great that all of his life grinds to a halt. I saw it in minor ways within myself; the fear of make bad decisions on very basic levels, “Should I go home now or later?” to which I could rationalize myself is circles with justifiable reasons to do both or neither.
-The rationalizing created a bigger tear in the fabric of ability; after all, rationalizing had in part landed me in this jam in the first place. The powers, my powers, of rationalization allowed and facilitated me in compromising much of my supposed ‘belief system’ with ‘perfectly legitimate’ reasons for nearly everything. What could not be rationalized away was out right disobeyed resulting in the aforementioned stall-warning condition.
-As with any insatiable monster, fear was not satisfied to devour only the appetizers, it wanted the meal, he “Hoped for his fill of feasting.” Fear had a taste for my ability to create and write as well as my ability to engage in normal human relationships, particularly with women. The “What if I mess-up?” monster is far more dangerous than any multi-armed, well-fanged and smelly creature under one’s bed.
-My journal provides another telling and substantially humiliating truth about a person subscribing to this fear. It was a long time in the making, many quite hours of reading and thinking before I lifted a pen. “I am so afraid of having nothing profound to say. That I will read this in years to come and feel foolish about myself…at least feeling foolish is something, to ignore the present will erase it as I go forward. So, what will I have then? Nothing because pride kept me from it now.” To learn from the lessons granted us is one of the brilliantly defining elements mankind possesses over beast; that and the eternal soul. At this point I believe Grendel started to realize that my grip was strong. I hadn’t need of a blade to take his arm off.
-“Now the ghoul found that never in the world, anywhere on earth, had he met a man with a mightier handgrip. He became afraid in his heart, but he could not get away any the sooner. He was eager to be off; he wanted to flee to his hiding place and seek out the company of devils,” -Beowulf
-It must have proved a terrific blow to the façade, and the man behind the curtain with the PA who we are to “Pay no attention!” Realizing that my pride was blinding me started to allow some amount of melt, I began the slow process of trading my inky blackness, for the whisper of a brownish-burgundy smudge.
-Fear, or the Devil as I see it, has no interest in letting one’s mind out of itself. Freedom is the enemy of fear, for all freedom is bound in fear if allowed, and the Devil is the enemy of Freedom therefore by the transitive property of 9th grade geometry, the Devil is Fear incarnate. Hey, look at that, a formula! A mind inside of itself is the safest place for disintegration; living death to take place.
-Fear had explained to me, “Look, what ability have you in sorting through any of this? You put your best foot forward, so to speak, and look at the shape of things! Just give up, give in, and enjoy the read for the sake of it, that is the best we can offer you!” While bogged down in the trenches of Grendel, I found only one place where I was safe, or reasonably safe; or so I thought.

And now for something totally different...a backpack for your waist.

2009-12-01T15:04:00.002-06:00

Hume Apparel from Hume Lake on Vimeo.

http://humeapparel.com/

Chapter Two: Fear & Gripping Grendel. (In part, 2)

2009-11-11T23:52:00.001-06:00

-The loss of control yields fear. Ironically, one never had control; one never had control of anything! The control to take a breath, or to keep the atmosphere balanced, or to ignore gravity require a skill set that humans simply do not possess. One little cog in the human condition has ‘total lack of control’ inscribed on it, part number 3-5498-726. Yet, just as the little boy on the bike, people delude ourselves into thinking, “I have it in my pocket!” or “I’ve got the world on a string,” like uncle Frank, only to realize gravity effects them just as much as the next fellow. So, the loss of control is not exactly the fact of the matter or the concern at hans; it is the loss of perceived control, the counted loss of something that never existed. Generally, losing something that one never really had is not such a difficult reality. Yet, the natural man’s mind is so bent that perceived control has convinced the mind that it is actually real control. The weight of resulting loss feels equally real. Perhaps the human machine has deposits of grease and grime; perhaps some of the inscriptions are covered and cannot be easily viewed?
-The natural laws are etched into the human heart. They can nearly be proven, though no need for this exists, by the appearance, usually largely by surprise, of the moral compass. It is the woman who takes no issue with a set of hot topic items such as abortion or gay marriage, but then gets particularly irate over marital infidelity. It is the fellow who takes no issue with infidelity while brooding towards rage relative to an acquitted child molester. It is said child molester angry with the government of stealing votes at the ballot boxes. The circle of injustice has looped on quietly for thousands of years, and the bar by which it is secretly measured remains the intrinsic inscriptions upon the human heart.
-The inscription of the law is not an inoculation though, the law is solely a prescription for health, yet like every patient, the gift of choosing a their own path is in the mankind’s hands. One chooses daily to follow the diagnosis or ignore the requirements. Each chosen day of willful disobedience will yield calluses. Substantial callusing is required to fully mask the inscriptions but even the slightest extra layer is enough to cause blurred vision.
-If one is astute of their surroundings, the more they seem to ‘put together’ relative to the world around them, the less they seemed to control or even understand, for they realize through failure that they really have nothing! The rock star found overdosed the in his bath-tub at the Four-Seasons Paris, the actress who jumps off the tower or the dictator who shoots his mistress and himself in the head deep beneath Berlin in a dank little bunker; they almost had the World in their pocket, or so they fooled the World into thinking. The World is too big for a pocket; it is too big for three or four pockets. Princess Leia once said, "The more you tighten your grip, Tarkin, the more star systems will slip through your fingers." she pretty much nailed it.

Chapter Two: Fear & Gripping Grendel. (In part.)

2009-10-29T15:51:00.002-05:00

-“No one ever told me that grief felt so like fear. I am not afraid, but the sensation is like being afraid.” Lewis opens A Grief Observed with this sentiment, if one finds them self reading A Grief Observed, meaning, if one seeks out the book because of a need for it, chances are this line will fillet them. I too found grief akin to fear, but I would go further than Lewis. I would say that the primary manifestation of grief is fear. I was afraid.
-It was three months before I wrote anything. My time was consumed with reading, crying, thinking, replaying, justifying, rationalizing and a plethora of other half wasteful, half insightful oddities. Sleep generally came early; I begged its arrival and would settle into uneasy dreams who seemed to have lost the ability to create new material. The mornings providing work and the bittersweet distractions that earning a paycheck creates. It was acidic to be at work, but basic to be busy, it was sweet to get home but bitter to be alone, it was an ugly state of being, all the while I willfully elected to fuel the demise, for a time. After all, there was a lot of neat stuff to see doubled over with my head buried in the ground.
-Sam and Simon were best of friends. Being small boys, their world was both large and small at the same moment. It was large in the sense that they both understood that beyond the smoke covered mountains there were many, many miles, kilometers, fathoms, or whatever one fancies for measuring given sections of land-mass to be discovered. Conversely, their world was small because they made it such. The concept of how small they were was not lost on either of them, particularly Sam, or Samuel. Taking a wild world and cramming it into one’s pocket is not an easy task as one can well imagine. It must be done one day at a time, one spoonful of dirt by one spoonful of dirt. And, Sam and Simon did in point of fact dig in the dirt with spoons. There was a clay ditch across the street where the two of them spent a good deal of time developing a dense maze of traffic tunnels in the sticky, red wall. It looked much like a giant ant farm to the causal viewer, a shot of red surface with spaghetti thrown at it, sinking into the surface just far enough for a matchbox truck to amble along the edge of the precipitous ledge. It was a beautiful, miniature version of the Stremnaya Road in Bolivia, “The Highway of Death.” Though they were not self-aware enough, neither of them, to realize what they were doing, they did go out and make war on the wide World everyday. Determined to make it palatable, manageable; controllable.
-At this juncture a parallel story requires telling. Sam and Simon were raised in a community where status was based on BMX racing. More specifically, status was based on winning BMX races. Armed with a continually growing resolution to win they set about expanding the control of their destinies by practicing religiously. Simon was older, bigger, faster, and he was in a different age group, which was lucky for Samuel. That did not dissuade Simon from poking fun at Sam regarding his choice of starting location on the ‘Hill.’ The real racers all started from the crest of the Hill at the ‘starting gate,’ where from one would gather the most speed, and frankly it is illegal to start from any place else. There was one caveat to said starting Hill, at the bottom of that seemingly immense Hill, was a seemingly massive jump. Gravity is not pocket-sized.
-Upon sufficient berating, Sam pushed his bike from the preferred, middle of the Hill starting point, to the top of the Hill. It is a historical fact; sweaty palms were born on this day. He narrowed his eyes down the Hill, Simon’s prodding, “Eyes on the prize, Newbie!” ringing in his ears. He had borrowed Simon’s helmet for the occasion and it gave him some false sense of courage in his quest to slay the Hill. There were grand visions of racing down the precipice, flying off the jump, and turning his head as he soared through the air in slow motion locking eyes with Simon as he mouthed, “What’s up now?” He imagined the voice of the announcer calling out the starting position verbiage; his small heart beat loudly in his little world. There was a moment when the announcer in Samuel’s mind summoned him and the other 6 invisible racers, “go!” Hurtling down the Hill was pure ecstasy. The speed, the whirling, the rush of certain victory at hand resounded emphatically; his World was indeed small enough to fit into his pocket.
-Somewhere between the split second realization of how large the bottom of the Hill jump was and a rough calculation of speed to weight ration Sam’s briefly pocket sized World began to grow, rapidly. He nearly had had it all the way into his pocket…but inflation was as inevitable as his trajectory. There was a moment, Simon could attest, Sam left his bike, he was traveling though the air, but not majestically. The travel was that of a baby bird on its maiden voyage hitting every branch on the way down; that is precisely what he did.
-Three hours and ten stitches in his chin later, he found himself jumping rope after a dinner at Simon’s parents’ house. “Man, I can feel this weight tugging my chin down every time I hop, it is so weird. It is as if the world is trying to drag me down into itself, it’s heavy…” he thought quietly.

Chapter One: Starting at 'The End.' (In part, 4)

2009-10-26T16:38:00.005-05:00

(Cont.)

-Humans often find themselves searching for definition, that, “This is who I am,” a personalized Thesis Statement that will inform them of exactly who they are and what their major objective is for the next 60 or so years. A journal entry from four months after ‘day one’ paints this portrait, “I feel like I mostly only have questions. I am not thrilled with all questions. A few are okay, but answers go a long way.” There is an identity crisis here that is causing chaos in the mind. Questions abounded, answers have left a note on the shop door stating they’d be back at three, it is now half past four and there is no sign of them, the street is deserted, dark, damp and eerie.
-A cohesive recipe for success is a fool’s errand; yet this is not a reason to quit running the race. Hopefully, I had not set out on such a quest, to find the exact recipe, yet I was unsatisfied to merely quip, “Welp, that is that…what’s next?” Only quitters quit, age 26 was hardly the time to do so.
-Humans live in a world of perpetual paradox. If they eat food it will give them cancer, clog ateries, or make them obese, yet if they skip food for said safety reasons the results are equally and oppositely devastating. “Cars are killing the earth,” they hear, so public transport is used; only to deliver the rider to the office late, repeatedly, resulting in a loss of employment and the ensuing problems of being destitute.
-“Here is your cake, would you like to have it?”
-“Yes, please!”
-“Would you like to eat it?”
-“Yes, please!”
-“Well, do you want to have it or eat it? You can’t have both”
-“Oh…”
-The paradox list is endless, sit down and consider it objectively and honestly, nearly anything within life appears on it. Search for the paradoxical yang to the personal ying, generally speaking it is there, pretending not to see it will only delay the inevitable, ‘unplanning’ of “the wedding”.
-There are the ‘blessed fools’ in this universe that subscribe full-sail to the bliss of ignorance. They justify, “I needn’t know X, Y or Z” or “I needn’t accept X, Y, and Z” for a myriad of reasons. These fellows seem to find sleep at night, seem to find stomachs at ease, and pleasure in everything; I am not such a fellow. I was not blessed with the gift of “I don’t care.” “Care” is a bitter pill. It is actually a package deal, one can’t buy “care” in a white five-speed with a/c, but skip the leather seats because they get hot in the summer and are cold in the winter. “Care” is a hook, line and sink sort of business; it gets deep inside and when landed in the 16’ glittery, bass tracker on lake Wannawingo, “Care” rips your guts out leaving you a twitching little fish who swims for a little longer, tilted partially sideways. Why should the fisherman be concerned over one undersize bluegill, there are plenty of other fish in the lake, right?
-I had to ‘pop start’ us too often, my hand was no stranger to the emergency brake, I wouldn’t make excuses for her anymore, she was “over me,” her words failed and her behavior had made it transparent…my guts lay on the bottom of the bass tracker, thank goodness her hook was salvaged though. Imagine if she had lost that precious thing, they cost at least twenty or thirty cents a piece! The world was bobbing 45 degrees off true plane; my surety of control was suddenly and very lucidly a farce.

Chapter One: Starting at 'The End.' (In part, 3)

2009-10-22T23:14:00.002-05:00

(Cont.)

-‘Truths’ in life are always, always harder to accept and learn to “live harmoniously” with than lies, at least at the outset of the revelation. By harmoniously I mean, let them sink in, let them become a reality, begin to see the merit in them instead of ‘just dealing with them.’ Lies are easy, at the outset, due to this very natural law. Truth and lies are inversely proportional; Truth is tough going in the beginning and easier as time passes, lies are easy going at the beginning and grow unbearable as seconds grow up in to minutes who in turn age into hours. The knee jerk human reaction is to put one’s fingers in their ears and say, “LA-LA-LA-LA-LA-LA!!!” this is not an effective way of dealing with problems in case there remains any confusion. Truth is Truth, acceptance and obedience to them is one option, the other option is pain and death; apologies to the post-modernist.
-A child standing in front of a bank of vending machines with one quarter is better suited to comprehend this complex of The Eros Dilemma than most learned scholars. It is very acute, and very difficult. It is a ‘simple to comprehend, but nearly impossible to make choice’ type of situation, “I can pick one of these treasures, or I can save my quarter because something better might come along when we get to K-Mart.?.?. I mean anyone of these ring pops would suffice, but what if K-Mart has super bouncy-balls? What if?” All that is left to do is accept the fact that there is one quarter, one crank of the chrome cross-handle, one opening of the plated trap door of goodness. But the human mind bends and bows for a way to have their cake and eat it too. When one has spent, ‘invested,’ a word I use gingerly, a great deal of time, emotion, money, dreams et al on an ideology, any ideology; romantic, bouncy-ball or otherwise, letting it wash down the stream of life, as a stick in the gutter of the street, is as difficult as swallowing a horse pill.
-Using the logic/intellect, balanced with approached objectivity, applied over a path of memories and history, juxtaposed with the a limited gift of discerment/prophesy, one, could begin to see as I had so often been told, “Yes, it is better, it really is…” even one so deluded as me at that time. Now, that nearly sounds like a formula; please do not malign my misguided thoughts as formulaic. Formulas have a place, they perform well in finding the distance a cannonball will fly if fired at a specific angle to the horizon, with a certain initial velocity, with such and such a wind condition, all within a vacuum, of course. Formulas perform well in vacuums, in the event that there remains any confusion, the earth is not a vacuum. ‘Theoretically’ is about the end of the use of ‘formula’ on this terrestrial ball; so check all formulas at the door, please. There is no exact formula to human life, there is only seeking, truly seeking, resulting in finding. What one does with the findings is a whole other story.
-Piecing together the history, the reasons or as many as I could find as to why we had failed was painful, it was truth so no less than pain was expected. The pain made it genuine, in as absolutely non-masochistic way as can be understood. Yet, the finding process challenges one’s self-worth, constantly. Allow one’s self to be defined by what other people think of them or more realistically the way that other people treat them, or even more realistically the way that other people mistreat them, which is the truest measure of value that one being holds for another, is wrong; plain and simple. If one subscribes to the theory of ‘what so and so thinks about me economics’ and chooses to establish their self-worth based upon another human’s, extremely dynamic opinion of them, prime conditions for heartache and sneaking, permeating untruths have been established. This deluded definition will, more than likely, lift the person just high enough so that when they fall, it does not simply smart; it shatters. It is a sad tale authored, mastered and propagated by a despondent, lonely monster, to yield more woe and destruction.

Chapter One: Starting at 'The End.' (In part, 2)

2009-10-20T16:49:00.003-05:00

(Cont.)

-Eventually, I couldn’t take the disappointment any longer. Perhaps disappointment is too large a word? I am wary of using words that that are too large for there utility, Jack Lewis taught me that. If I were to insert a better word, or a better string of words, it would look more like this, “The car usually worked, it usually ended up getting me to the destination, eventually, but there was a certitude in my mind that a better, more fluid solution existed, I had but to seek it, diligently.” I ceased to see the value in the lessons of, “Oh, so that is how a fuel pump works!” or “I bet this brown wire is supposed to be connected to that little bracket thing right there…” and desired a car that I could get in, turn the key, and drive to Hanny’s diner, day or night, no questions asked.
-Cars can be sold; wives cannot, at least not within my belief system. I selfishly, perhaps, wanted a car that loved me as much as I loved it; I think I felt same way about what I wanted in a wife.
-Yet, a valid counter argument could be made regarding this sentiment. After all, as aforesuggested I do subscribe to the ‘the two shall become one flesh’ school of thought. With that being said, I would love me, therefore I would love her, therefore she would love me. Maybe it is not such a selfish desire after all? It is not that I have said I wanted a car that loved me regardless of mistreatment; I said I wanted a car that would love me back. My shoulder just brushed against the thorny hedge of the ‘does unconditional love exist?’ question, I shall pass on the hedge cutting, after all I am wearing short sleeves. Maybe it is innate in the make-up of the human nature to seek this Eros, and all that it touches, be reciprocated? Maybe it is part of the natural law, perhaps?
-My “library” was actually the second bedroom of a two-bedroom condo that I bought for me and my former fiancé, Marie. I use the term ‘bought’ loosely as I would be paying for it for the next thirty years; it is strange how often one refers to a residence as “his house,” when in reality the bank owns it, and the bank is owned by the government and the government is owned by a group of Asian business men in Hong Kong.
-I entertained so few visitors in those days and procured so many books that a library seemed a better use for the space; a place of respite away from my normal world, the kitchen and living room, who were already deafeningly silent. The life of a celibate is one of ‘domestic silence.’ There is no sound of one puttering around in the adjacent room, no tapping of a foot on the floor, or laugh resulting from a Jane Austin quip. There were sounds mind you, but they an amalgam of sirens leaking through the vinyl double-hungs, drunk bar-goers struggling home still finishing their last call beverage, and the creaks of the old, abraded floor. But those sounds were not mine, Neil Diamond would agree with me, that song belonged to everyone. My song was now silent, it was sort of my own little version of Spinal Taps’, “It goes to eleven!” but conversely mine went to eleven; quiet.
-We had spent months planning an October wedding, and unplanned the same wedding a week before the nuptials during a less than delightful ‘conversation’ on a more than delightful Saturday. There was no single straw what broke the camel’s back, straw is manageable. Yet, there was a time when one plus a million equaled too much and better senses prevail. “Better senses” is again a poor choice of words; it is far too small and requires expounding, which is my intention.
-“It is better this way,” how many times had I heard that ‘encouragement?’ Too many to count; oddly enough I believed it, not out of bitterness mind you, from day one. Day one being the ‘unplanning’ Saturday or sometime slightly before that warm, otherwise sublime, afternoon. The idea of, “This {marriage to be} is a messed-up state of affairs which will only get worse, and walking down this path really should not be continued,” was not revolutionary to me, yet by the same token, it was an immensely difficult Truth to come to terms with.

Chapter One: Starting at 'The End.' (In part)

2009-10-18T14:10:00.007-05:00

(Ed. note: With difficulty I have divided the text where I have such that mouthful sized bits can be served. I have come under some reproach, good reproach mind you, regarding post length. This selection represents only the first portion of draft two's first chapter in an effort to avoid excessive yawning, as I know is your custom.)

Chapter One: Starting at ‘The End.’

-When I was fifteen I gave $2,200 to an old woman in Milwaukee; she gave me a 1966 Volkswagen Beetle. Her son had purchased it new, driven it a short time then given it to her when he left for Vietnam. Vietnam in the mid-sixties was nasty, I saw Deer Hunter and that wasn’t even the half of it, poor kid. She had carted groceries with it for another twenty odd years before a brake line decided it was sick of the constant pressure and broke. Three years before we exchanged goods, she had deposited him in the carport, left for dead. Needless to say, but I will say it because that is our method of speaking; the car was in a sad state of affairs. It could have easily been mistaken for the barn abandoned Herbie, as I recall it was frowning slightly and the wheels had that sad sort of outward cant, a telltale sign of clinical-auto depression. I on the other hand had wanted a Beetle for time out of mind and was giddy beyond words. We collected the Beetle with a trailer borrowed from someone that escapes my mind and brought it home to a receptive garage full of tools. We, my dad and I, lovingly worked through that dejected little machine. The motor was on the floor in the corner awaiting a new clutch and re-install, the interior was strewn about the shop, there was a pile of glass what had been and would again be my wind screens, $2,000 worth of boxes crammed with new parts sat in a queue waiting to be assigned respective roles, and heaps of old, oxidized metal said teary farewells under the cover of darkness to their longtime Bavarian master.
-We developed a relationship in those few months. We spoke often, between sanding the hood a fourth time and mounting new tires, I’d chatter about the times ahead and how things would be one day when we’d be found cruising along with little more to do that just be. The AM radio would play big band music through the one tiny speaker on the left end of the dash, all would be well, happiness would be had at a comfortable 55 miles per hour. He rarely offered much above a scrapping shutter or peal of pain while I ground out his cancerous rust, but there was a connection of some kind, at least I thought we were on the same page. In a short time the car was stripped, patched, repaired, and renewed.
-I was elated. I drove that car for six months before I sold it.
-Wait, what? Six months?
-Yes, six months.
-There was no major melt down, it never exploded or the like, it simply required me to park in slightly down hill conditions because the 6-volt electrical system was rarely enough to start it, it simply left me broken down at the side of the road time and again, often in the rain or snow, it simply required me to use the emergency brake on multiple occasions due to massive brake failure, it simply…yeah, that. All the while I would wash him, and vacuum him, change his oil religiously, and protect him from any foul element be it nature or man. Through all of this, the dynamic remained, though was increasingly one sided. If I was not at an appointment on time, chances are the lower half of my body could be found halfway ingested by the bonnet of a white VW on a blue road somewhere between my parents’ house, and the meeting place.

Soon My Friends...

2009-09-09T20:41:00.006-05:00

...soon.

Break time is over.

Time.

2009-06-30T12:38:00.003-05:00

I have been on a bit of break, and will continue to be on a break for a bit longer.
I am sorry; for the present I will continue writing but it will be done with the doors closed.
Email me if you are curious.
Thank you few for the thoughts.
~Jack

Regarding Government Mandated Abortion. (in short)

2009-04-19T18:12:00.002-05:00

Not long ago there was an accountant who operated a small storefront business. Now during a particular ‘intake appointment’ with a perspective client, the client explained to that he would require the accountant, through financial manipulations, to commit financial wrongs of the greatest proportion. Aforementioned wrongs not only went against the accountant’s creed sworn as a professional of his Province; these wrongs also went against the moral conscience instilled in him by ‘A Higher Power’ as he called it. What is the accountant to do? Is he to fulfill the wishes of his client or is he to obey the undeniable, intrinsic moral direction?
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In another instance there was a lawyer, a practitioner, a keep of the law. He met with his client to discuss how they would go about defending his case. The client defiantly stated, “Look, I killed that man in cold blood, it is not a matter of what I did. It is a matter of you doing your job and keeping me out of the hot seat!’ This lawyer was not a God-fearing man, but he knew the laws of his country and he knew that murder was a capital offense. What is the lawyer to do? Is he to fulfill the wishes of his client or is he to uphold the laws of the land that he understands with absolute lucidity?
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In both of these cases you have a professional who is asked to perform a duty that is ‘wrong’, even to a child. The subjects are faced with a decision regarding right and wrong. In life absolute right and wrong, matters absolutely, but one must understand that that topic will spend too much paper and ink. Suffice it to say that within this context, the right and wrong of a personal obligation is the Trump card. In the end of it all, each person will be responsible for their own actions and will receive in themselves there due penalty for said actions.
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If one accepts the concept that one is to do whatever their job requires and be done with it, this entire train of thought can be finished. Close the page.

Alternatively, if one considers the life they have lived, recalling instances where they have been faced with right and wrong only to choose wrong, and were subsequently haunted by said action, our conversation must continue.

At this moment one much choose what heart they posses. Does their heart justify their wrong doing by its own value, or does their heart understand there is a right and there is a wrong that overrule the role of such and such a temporal vocation? Or perhaps there is a higher power that overrules every decree of man? A choice exist for both the deist and the humanist, the only position any individual cannot maintain on the wrong versus right debate is to ‘not have one’.

Now, if the concept of 'there is a right thing to do’ has been accepted, one must push forward, make further discoveries. Said moral conflict is magnified when one recalls specific, personal experiences where they were placed at a juncture by a secondary party and were forced to make a decision. As a rule, making the ‘right choice’ is generally more painful at the outset than the ‘wrong choice’. But, and herein lies the crux of this text, the person IS given a choice, they are offered a wrong and a right path as it relates to their personal freewill, whether that will is guided by humanism or by faith. Thankfully, even in such a secular humanist society as the world of today, this concept of freedom to choose ‘what is right for you’ is fiercely protected…or is it?

(Writer’s Note: 1.21 million abortions were performed in the US alone in 2005, rough 3,300 a day. Meanwhile, 3,434 in combat fatalities have been reported in the war on terror as of 01.26.08., roughly 1.34 a day.)
http://www.guttmacher.org/media/presskits/2005/06/28/abortionoverview.html
http://www.antiwar.com/casualties/

Waiting To Be Used (Filed Under: Documents>Thoughts>Scraps)

2009-04-18T19:27:00.004-05:00

There was a massive white room, I can only assume it was a room because I could not see the sun and everything was far too white and smooth for it to have been an exterior, in which sat a man on a chair. There were no walls to be seen and the space was devoid of a ceiling. A shiny white ribbon of floor stretched out in every direction and the air was uniformly, gleaming white. The only variation in the visual value was due to the vignetting of my eye, a sliver darker at the corners. I invested a good deal of time in making sure that this was no trick of the room, it wasn’t. The room stood in perfection. The only fault within the space was myself; of this I was keenly aware. There was never a sunrise or a sunset, seasons were absent…it was one perfect moment in time; but unlike anything I had ever encountered, it was frozen. Perhaps it was an infinite series of perfect moments standing in a row, but my wanting brain was stretch too thin already; such a concept would certainly have burst it.

The chair was a very ordinary chair by the unspoken standards of the room, yet I desired it madly. It was the chair of greatest portion. The man sitting in it did not seem to possess any particularly obvious reason for having such a divine seating appointment, at least not at my first glance. Yet there was something that was not all-together plain about him. His face was placid. His eyes were exceedingly clear. And though his lips never ceased to hold there ever so slightly set smile, it was clear that lucid wisdom would flow forth if he ever broke his silence. I am not sure how I knew this, I simply did. The room had a way of slipping things into your head, unbeknownst to you, but their factuality was certain. He held himself in a way of respect, but not in as you see soldiers who crave attention, his objective was not attention. For all the circling, poking, prodding and whatnot that I did, he never took the slightest notice of me. I was fascinated. He was becoming less ordinary, far less ordinary. My desire for his seat was ever growing.

Time was as useful there as drink or food. I had not seen either of the ladder two since my arrival eons ago. My preoccupation with the seat grew. “When is he going to leave?” I asked myself time an again. The waiting was unbearable.

Finally, I stood directly before him, “What are you waiting for?!?” I shouted.

“To be used.” he replied.

Weight of Glory: (in very short)

2009-04-10T11:40:00.007-05:00

The premise is this, there is often a selfish feeling that through a hard event in one’s life, not of their causing, God will “teach” the one who perpetrated the offense against them “a good lesson through this”. One needn’t look far to see the human mind working overtime to stretch their logic around God’s, and once again we see the thread worn seams break open. The concept of “bad things don’t happen to good people” has been widely propagated and is far from biblical, with supporting reference after reference after reference. The alignment of the natural man’s mind is such that his economy and God’s have about as much in common as the act of falling and the act of flying. Both instances involve a body, one body who is whole and one body who is mere moments from being broken into many irreparable pieces. In said misalignment, there are certainties; success is not a listed outcome. Perhaps I must take a few steps backwards in order to take one step forward?

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“But a natural man does not accept the things of the Spirit of God; for they are foolishness to him, and he cannot understand them, because they are spiritually appraised.”[i]

In setting a stage one requires a few key elements; our stage will be set through 1Corinthians 2:14 lens. There is a man, a natural man; his mind set could be referred to as ‘the crux’ of the passage. In this very thought process a brilliant concept is illustrated, firstly in the fact that as men they instinctively think it is about them, secondly it is not about him but he is limited in grasping this in several capacities.

According to Unger the natural man is, “…the unbeliever, who does not possess the Spirit (Jude 19)…”[ii] Unger’s choice to follow his surprisingly brief explanation of the natural man by referencing Jude 19 presents a very particular point in a very round about sort of way. The effort of Jude 19 is to warn people of the shape of the future. ““In the last time there shall be mockers, following after their own ungodly lusts.” These are the ones who cause divisions, worldly-minded, devoid of the Spirit.”[iii] Now at least one pointed question remains which Unger has yet to answer. What is to be made of ‘christians’ who behave as the picture Jude has painted? It is a menacing question that will not be properly sorted at present, but the seed of thought is required to properly cultivate one’s mind for considerations in Glory’s Weight as well as the state of man and his position to understand and accept said Weight. Suffice it to say, the natural man may well be the one’s ‘un-churched’ neighbor, yet it is plausible that the natural man is not as simple as the Joe average heathen on the street, more than likely an alarmingly large number of natural men attend church every Sunday, there are even a few who sing in the choir.

With a vague notion of who he is, let us now consider his ability to ‘understand,’ that is, his ability to discern the wisdom of God such as in Ephesians 4:18, Philippians 1:9, Colossians 1:9, Colossians 2:2-3, & Titus 1:1. It would seem the term ‘understanding’ is larger than one understanding that the light switch turns the wall sconce on and off; it is more akin to the electrical engineer’s mindset when he flips a light switch. Granted, the engineer does not sit and process through the entire set of reactions, one electron bumping into another and so on, each time he flips a switch, but he does understand, on a far deeper level than most, what is happening and why. It has been revealed to him. Reconsidered on a more particular level, the natural man’s understanding is of the Earth.[iv] As he receives and processes information he has but one lens to view it through, one mill to grind it with, which is the mortise of Earth. The fallen man will judge, after all what is perception if not a form of judgment, through all that he knows, “this small blue and green ball, spinning through its endless void”.

Now, not only has it not been or been revealed to him; but he has in turn accepted or rejected it. It is quite understandable for a natural man to reject something that he does not understand, therefore the inclusion of “a natural man does not accept the things of the Spirit of God” is doubtfully, actually, directed at the natural man. Potentially, this bridges a gap we have previously only gawked at; perhaps the statement of non-acceptance is not directed at the natural man? Now there’s a thought… A tenable argument could be made for it being directed at those who have sampled the understanding, who have learned some chapter of wisdom only to determine, “that is surely not my cup of tea, far too much losing of myself involved in that, it is fine for you Jack my boy, but for my money, I will stick with what I know. What’s that you say? Yes, fine, I will indulge you by pretending to ‘know’ what you ‘know’, but deep inside I find it a load of childish stories and far-fetched madness propagated by a lot of pompous do-gooders, war mongering demagogues and the like.” Perhaps, now be patient it is a working title; this is the, “The Modern ‘christian’ Man”.

Where a lack of desire for communion with God pervades, no communion with God will exist.

“For the mind set on the flesh is death, but the mind set on the Spirit is life and peace, because the mind set on the flesh is hostile towards God; for it does not subject itself to the law of God, for it is not even able to do so; and those who are in the flesh cannot please God.”[v]

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In reviewing Glory and its Weight the Christian must bear these mentioned conditions in mind. The natural man lives in a continuous state of delusion, a life governed by complete lack of truth is no life at all, it is mere chaos. Christians far too often find themselves grabbing at the life Jack was willing to give up, their idols are generally too dear to give up, or give up for long. In doing so, in loving idols, one will lose alignment with Truth, Wisdom, Understanding and Discernment, understandably for they are in complete disobedience with the greatest commandment. With the compass no longer pointing north things seem to become ‘easier’ but in time one finds they have become ever more difficult, truly difficult. The bent economy of the natural man slips back into the mind of the Christian much more subtly than most sins. A Christian realizes they are stumbling when they wake up Saturday morning in a pool of their own vomit, but the same Christian would not think twice about said gradual misalignment. The prince of the air dresses as an angle of light and is very cunning, this needs to be noted time and again.[vi]

To put skin on said misalignment, let one again visit with the wronged individual from the inception of this text. He stands with a misaligned heart, he stamps his foot on the ground, or in a worse case folds his hands, closes his eyes and prays aloud, “Oh God, I hope that You teach them a lesson for hurting me!” The second man, the Christian,[vii] he is not of this earth, he is of heaven and this is commanded to act as such and will act as such for fear of losing the one thing which he holds above all, his communion with his Maker.

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The second man is a blessed man. The promises he owns are beyond all expectations of the natural man.

“Therefore we do no lose heart, but though our outer man is decaying, yet our inner man is being renewed day by day. For momentary, light affliction is producing for us an eternal weight of glory far beyond all caparison, while we look not at the things which are seen, but at the things which are not seen; for the things which are seen are temporal, but the things which are not seen are eternal.”[viii]

The second man understands he is blessed to be afflicted; he understands that in such moments his Maker is showing him an extra portion of Love. His Lord is taking a specific interest in the refinement of his and His being. He, the Maker, is producing the eternal weight of glory. One should notice, very near the last thought on the second man’s mind is “I hope that he (the wrong doer) is getting his!” the second man hasn’t time to be occupied with such natural things, he is far too busy being purified and produced!

“Blessed is a man who perseveres under trial; for once he has been approved, he will receive the crown of life, which the Lord has promised to those who love Him.”[ix]

Said crown has often been considered a prize given in the after life to those who have walked righteously, which no doubt is true. Yet, is it at all possible that the Maker gives us ‘crowns’ even as we walk about this fallen earth? It seems quite a valid conjecture given the process of sanctification and a lifetime of gleaned spiritual wisdom.

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(On a far more personal note: I know this man well. I know that one who has sought God’s vengeance on those who’ve ‘wronged him’. I also know that in his times of ‘being wronged’ LG has revealed Himself to him in ways he never before was open to; LG humbled him through ‘being hurt’, drew him in, comforted him, refined him, and produced a better, less natural man. When asking LG for refinement, one generally gets ‘more than they bargained for’, which they grumble about at the outset, but later value over all other treasures. Little by little, this man in who is hopefully truly in process, begins to approach hardship with a more aligned perspective. He begins to grumble less, be thankful more, and seek wisdom in the process, the time commonly known as ‘hard times’. As an earthly ‘crown’ he finds himself blessed beyond all measure that he is found worthy of LG to be used as an instrument for ministering to those around him who are in need.)

[i] 1 Corinthians 2.14 New American Standard Bible.

[ii] Merril Unger, Unger’s Bible Handbook (Chicago: Moody Press, 1966), 628.

[iii] Jude 18 New American Standard Bible.

[iv] 1 Corinthians 15.47 New American Standard Bible.

[v] Romans 8.6 New American Standard Bible.

[vi] 2 Corinthians 11.14 New American Standard Bible.

[vii] 1 Corinthians 15:47 New American Standard Bible.

[viii] 2 Corinthians 4.16-19 New American Standard Bible.

[ix] James 1.12 New American Standard Bible.

The Simple Story. (in short)

2009-04-07T15:51:00.005-05:00

“For what it is worth, I truly did love you,” he forced his flooded eyes away from her as he offered her these final words. He stood empty, feeling like an honest man before a jury whose sentence would surely be one of death. She responded indirectly, yet direct way by walking away, getting in her car and driving off without a word, gesture or glance back. It was the end.

Not the end, another end. Simple stood hands hanging limply at his sides. Through the haze of the street lamp he watching the taillights fade into the October night. He told himself she would not turn around, she would not be seen coming back white lit this time in place of red. He told himself to just let it die, let the last gasps of air escape the lungs and the spirit soar into the life beyond; yet self would not listen, self hoped beyond all logic for twin, white lanterns to mark the rebirth. The lanterns never came.

In his mind’s eye Simple was as plain a man as the next man on the morning train. He knew that each ageing character surround him carried shadows behind their eyes, dark trunks of un-sorting items and other maladies; everyone does. Simple was no different than anyone else. Simple had had ends just as stubby little accountant that sat across the aisle from him day in and day out had had ends. Simple had scars no deeper than the beautiful ‘aspiring model/secretary’ that sat in front of him each Monday, Wednesday, and Thursday as he returned to his flat. Simple was the quintessential man.

Looking back now I think it was this archetypal quality about Simple that first struck me when we met; or that and the fact that he was my roommate, my slightly ‘square-ish’, roommate. We were both students in secondary school, and I say ‘think’ because at the time I had not the presence of mind to put my finger on the draw. I knew we were agreeable, luckily, and that was sufficient. He was nondescript, did not need a crowd, did not even like crowds. He always took his women one at a time if he was invested in one at all. If ever I could drag him to a party he was generally found in the corner, nursing a drink, discussing something that I found altogether disinteresting with an individual I generally had never even taken heed of. My continued attempts to pull him towards the limelight, where I lived, “to show the world what I see in you” were always met by him looking at the floor, drawing circles with his big toe whilst shrugging his shoulders. “Simple, Simple, Simple…But there will be girls there!” I used to say in exasperation. It seemed a book or a paper generally stole his attention away from the more beautiful persuasions I ceaselessly chased. Yet, he was my mate, my best mate.

djmase
incomplete
10.15.08

Methodology of Fictional Worlds and Their Discovery. (in short)

2009-04-05T15:29:00.005-05:00

The problem is this.
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When I sit at my desk and set about to put down some sort of fictional bit of never-mind, I can rarely find where to start. There is always a time before the time where I start, and this time before always seems so vital to the whole. For example in the case of The Princess: I have yet to establish where this kingdom really is, where is the queen, when is this, what language do they speak, what is the shape of this people group, what is the work they attend to, are they at peace, etc? I mean, how can a story be put down properly without a history, yet when does (or should) the history start? You see now how Lewis had to start his worlds in the Wood, you see how The Silmarillion takes shape…they had to be born for the rest of it to exist.

The myth was actually fact; in myth, fact is merely a matter of viewpoint. (Within the context of the construct)

The logical question, logical to me at least, is how do I get there? I know that it, the history of this myth’s world, already exists; the map has simply to be recovered

What will my methodology look like for discovering this lost civilization? Do I start with a history and write forward, or do I do what I am more inclined to do, create a story and postrationalize a history? By postrationalize I mean, write the past, based on the now.

If I opt for postrationalization as my method, the later date main point story is difficult to construct because it is a house built upon sand. Yet building a cold-start history for a world is something I do not believe is within my skill set upon a multitude of fronts. I haven’t the linguistic background, the sociological concepts or world experience to attempt such a climb. (Or potentially I am just frightened to venture into it…?)

Perhaps a highbred exists. Begin the construction of the myth…when presented with an enigmatic portion of the journey, discover the required history to inform the story.
-Does history dictate a myth?
-I think not…or should I say, ‘I think it needn’t, yet it more than likely will, for all we have, we have learned from history, therefore, it will intrinsically sculpt the myth.’ Therefore, I think it will, regardless of whether it should or should not. After all, most ‘Great Stories’ are merely thinly veiled recreations of Real Actual World History.
-How is history to help said issues for the characters?
-I don’t know exactly…but perhaps I can find it or perhaps it is as simple as myth tellers of older days who again, thinly veiled the successes and failures of thinly veiled Historical Characters?

I have always held that storytelling is in the making. One does not sit down with a clear vision of the events, outcomes, and finale of the story…not in a true story leastwise. (In my not humble enough opinion) When one is dreaming…do they get a memo prior to departure into the dream that tells them of the outcome? When one is born are they issued a syllabus informing them that they will be nominated chair of American Literature at Yale. Which will undoubtedly lead them to live a celebratory life that could potentially involve being hit by a bus while stagger home in a drunken stupor only to completely negate the original syllabus…thus a paradox is revealed, but I digress.
Why do we assume that the story will be clear at the outset? Why do we assume that we will not go through valleys as dark and triumphs as grand as our companions? We shouldst. It has been said we create because we wish to be little gods, I find this not only heretical but a dangerous ground to venture into. Perhaps some do create for said reason, I am sorry for their state. I offer this contention; perhaps we create to educate?

(30 minutes later)
I retract portions of this statement. When this earth was created I do not feel that Lord God was ‘hoping for a good outcome.’ I do understand that He is perfect and divine and I am far from that…I will not hold my entire tale in my head and often I will lose my way. Writing this is akin sanctification. We approach wholeness day by day, we are not whole now, and we will not be until we are done.
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Aim for a final target, do not expect failure, but accept it. Seek excellence daily.
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Eternity is a decision one makes a day at a time.

Regarding the question of ‘Renewing of the mind’: (in short)

2009-04-04T09:20:00.006-05:00

The basis of this text will be Ephesians 4:17-32, from this passage rabbit trails will provide us with a, hopefully, further insight into the specific calling to “…be renewed in the spirit of your mind.”
And so the regeneration begins…

-Forward.
We begin with a post-fall man, the natural man. The natural man will them become a Christian, one who has recently become an un-natural man, then we will explore how one goes about seeking to be a truly sanctified Christian. We will not revisit the natural man in this text, but Lord willing, we will review that thoroughly in a future text. For the present one need only understand this basic state of the old-self, the natural man.

“But a natural man does not accept the things of the Spirit of God, for they are foolishness to him; and he cannot understand them, because they are spiritually appraised.” (1 Corinthians 2:14)

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To renew a mind one must desperately seek the Truth that is buried deep within the Word, one must Obey the prescriptions of the Lord(said Truths), and have Faith in the healing of the Holy Spirit.
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-The Outset.
17“This I say therefore, and affirm together with the Lord, that you walk no longer just as the Gentiles also walk, in the futility of their mind, 18being darkened in their understanding, excluded from the life of God, because of the ignorance that is in them, because of the hardness of their heart; 19and they, having become callous, have given themselves over to sensuality, for the practice of every kind of impurity with greediness.”

At the outset of each of our existences’, from the womb, unlike John the Baptist(Luke1:15), we are separated from LG/HS and our infantile hearts are already hardened to His essences, our eyes are darkened. Every true Christian understands this hardened/darkened state of being whether they wish to admit it or not; we have all walked in them, some ‘christians’ continue to walk in them, which begs further questioning not addressed within this text. We, the little ‘hard-hearted’ humans that we are, quickly grow into big ‘harder-hearted’ humans that are filled and practicing greedily of every kind of sensuality. We fill ourselves to overflowing, and go back for seconds and thirds; satan is very cunning. The wisest of all men, Solomon spoke at length regarding filling himself with sensuality in Ecclesiastes, again, his story does not make its way into this text but is illuminating supplementary reading.

Special note: Per Paul in Romans 1.
21“For even though they knew God, they did not honor Him as God, or give thanks; but they became futile in their speculations, 23and their foolish heart was darkened. 22Professing to be wise, the became fools, and exchanged the glory of the incorruptible God for an image in the form of corruptible man and of bids and four-footed animals and crawling creatures.”

With this in mind…one must wonder where the Eternal Securitiests are going with their arguments.(?) A child of God cannot walk in darkness, yet these fellows will be given over to darkness…the prospects are bleak. Darkening can happen to any human soul, no one is safe, regardless of present church dogma.

-The Change.

20“But you did not learn Christ in this way, 21if indeed you have heard Him and have been taught in Him, just as truth is in Jesus, 22that, in reference to your former manner of life, you lay aside the old self, which is being corrupted in accordance with the lusts of deceit, s3and that you be renewed in the spirit of your mind, 24and put on the new self, which in the likeness of God has been created in righteousness and holiness of the truth.”

Paul is particular about his usages of personal pronouns. He says YOU. He is not making an open ended, “take it or leave it, it is just my point of view…after all, what do I know.” type of statement; he is saying ‘YOU DID NOT…YOU LAY ASIDE…YOU BE RENEWED’.

Special note: Per Paul in Romans 12.
2“And do not be conformed to this world, but be transformed by the renewing of your mind, that you may prove what the will of God is, that which is good and acceptable and perfect.”

The believer, the ones who have “heard Him and have been taught in Him,”(Eph4:21) have no recourse BUT to ‘LAY’ them, aside.

Special note regarding said ‘them’: Colossians 3.
5Therefore consider the members of your earthly body as dead to immorality, impurity, passion, evil desire, and greed, which amounts to idolatry.

We are commanded to have no other God before us, enough said.
If we take the ‘lay aside’ directive very literally, which is rarely if ever a bad approach when dealing with much of the bible, one would cease and desist to behave in the manor that they once behaved in while walking in darkness. We are called to ‘walk as children of light’. (Eph 5:8) Other usages of the term ‘Lay’ often imply a type of final resting place or submission or sacrifice or subjugation. Again, ‘Lay’ is not a suggestively toned directive. It is a matter of obedience. Will You or will You not ‘Lay’ Your old self, Your natural man, Your darkness at My feet?

Faith is a matter of action…all the glorious words of faith matter not in the face of pure obedience.
_
Obedience is faith with skin on it.
_

Do or do not, there is no try.

-“You be renewed in the spirit of your mind,” Here we enter into the point of this discourse. It is a simple statement with a seemingly exceptionally multi-faceted, biblically sprinkled, set of verbs attached. I will offer three tools for mind renewal, but it is by no means an exhaustive list. To renew a mind one must desperately seek the Truth that is buried deep within the Word, one must Obey the prescriptions of the Lord, and finally have Faith in the healing of the Holy Spirit. Incase this concept is lost upon the reader; One must know what Truth they are to Obey so that they can practice their Faith.

Finding the truth is the foundational action of the one seeking renewal of the mind. Without TRUTH, there can be no renewal.

25“Therefore, laying aside falsehood, SPEAK TRUTH, EACH ONE of you, WITH HIS NEIGHBOR, for we are members of one another. 26BE ANGRY, AND yet DO NOT SIN; do not let the sun go down on your anger, 27and do not give the devil an opportunity. 28Let him who steals steal no longer; but rather let him labor, performing with his own hands what is good, in order that he may have something to share with him who has need. 29Let no unwholesome word proceed from your mouth but only such a words is good for edification according to the need of the moment, that it may give grace to those who hear. 30And do not grieve the Holy Spirit of God, by whom you were sealed for the day of redemption. 31Let all bitterness and wrath and anger and clamor and slander be put away from you, along with all malice. 32And be kind to one another, tender-hearted, forgiving each other, just as God in Christ also has forgiven you.”

There are a handful of tangible directives in here that when practiced will lead to a renewed mind. Like every other habit, practice will perfect in some cases or solidify improper practices in other cases; it is a matter of choice, followed by obedience. A Christian mind brings much along from the natural man’s mind. God does not re-format our brains in as simple a stroke as ‘C:\format’, upon the uttering of a few words. Yes, you are new creations in Christ, you stand before Lord God justified! But you are plagued more than ever by the fiery darts of the Devil, and as a new Christian who does not even know about the Armor of God, much less how to put it on…the Christian mind can easily be wasted; reclaimed. The parable of the Sower clearly demonstrates this set of scenarios.

“Therefore putting aside all filthiness and all that remains of the wickedness, in humility receive the word implanted, which is able to save you souls.” (James 1:21)
“This is pure and undefiled religion in the sight of our God and Father, to visit orphans and widows in their distress, and to keep oneself unstained by the world.” (James 1:27)
“Draw near to God and He will draw near to you. Cleanse your hands, you sinners; and purify your hearts, you double-minded.” (James 4:8)
“All Scripture is inspired by God and Profitable for teaching, for reproof, for correction, for training in righteousness; that the man of God may be adequate, equipped for every good work.” (2 Timothy 3:16-17)
“Be anxious for nothing, but in everything by prayer and supplication with thanksgiving in let your request be made know to God.” (Philippians 4:6)
“Finally, brethren, whatever is true, whatever is right, whatever is pure, whatever is lovely, whatever is of good repute, if there is any excellence and if anything worth of praise, dwell on these things.” (Philippians 4:8)

Next, obedience is a simple verb; one merely need do obey obedience. Every time the finger of God pokes a believer in their first step process of seeking truth, the believer must Obey Now!
“But prove yourselves does of the word, and not merely hearers who delude themselves.” (James 1:22)
“For this is the love of God, that we keep His commandments; and His commandments are not burdensome.” (I John 5:3)

Interestingly…
“If anyone does not obey our instruction in this letter, take special note of that person and do not associate with him, so that he will be put to shame.” (2 Thess 3:14)

Finally, the Holy Spirit Will heal the faithful man.
“He saved us, not the basis of deeds which we have done in righteousness, but according to His mercy, by the washing of regeneration and the renewing by the Holy Spirit.” (Titus3:5)
“Therefore, confess your sins to one another, and pray for one another, so that you may be healed. The effective prayer of a righteous man can accomplish much” (James 5:16)

To renew a mind one must desperately seek the Truth that is buried deep within the Word, one must Obey the prescriptions of the Lord, and finally have Faith in the healing of the Holy Spirit.

__________________________

Further text below for additional reflection. They have not found their way into this text, but Lord willing they will land in another.

More parts to work in and consider…

Col3:
1Therefore if you have been raised up with Christ, keep seeking the things above, where Christ is, seated at the right hand of God.
2Set your mind on the things above, not on the things that are on earth.
3For you have died and your¬ life is hidden with Christ in God.
4When Christ, who is our life, is revealed, then you also will be revealed with Him in glory.
5Therefore consider the members of your earthly body as dead to immorality, impurity, passion, evil desire, and greed, which amounts to idolatry.
6For it is because of these things that the wrath of God will come [a]upon the sons of disobedience,
7and in them you also once walked, when you were living in them.
8But now you also, put them all aside: anger, wrath, malice, slander, and abusive speech from your mouth.
9Do not lie to one another, since you laid aside the old self with its evil practices,
10and have put on the new self who is being renewed to a true knowledge according to the image of the One who created him--
11a renewal in which there is no distinction between Greek and Jew, circumcised and uncircumcised, barbarian, Scythian, slave and freeman, but Christ is all, and in all.
12So, as those who have been chosen of God, holy and beloved, put on a heart of compassion, kindness, humility, gentleness and patience;
13bearing with one another, and forgiving each other, whoever has a complaint against anyone; just as the Lord forgave you, so also should you.
14Beyond all these things put on love, which is the perfect bond of unity.
15Let the peace of Christ rule in your hearts, to which indeed you were called in one body; and be thankful.
16Let the word of Christ richly dwell within you, with all wisdom teaching and admonishing one another with psalms and hymns and spiritual songs, singing with thankfulness in your hearts to God.

Rom6:
1What shall we say then? Are we to continue in sin so that grace may increase?
2May it never be! How shall we who died to sin still live in it?
4Therefore we have been buried with Him through baptism into death, so that as Christ was raised from the dead through the glory of the Father, so we too might walk in newness of life.
5For if we have become united with Him in the likeness of His death, certainly we shall also be in the likeness of His resurrection,
6knowing this, that our old self was crucified with Him, in order that our body of sin might be done away with, so that we would no longer be slaves to sin;
7for he who has died is freed from sin.
8Now if we have died with Christ, we believe that we shall also live with Him,
9knowing that Christ, having been raised from the dead, is never to die again; death no longer is master over Him.
11Even so consider yourselves to be dead to sin, but alive to God in Christ Jesus.
12Therefore do not let sin reign in your mortal body so that you obey its lusts,
13and do not go on presenting the members of your body to sin as instruments of unrighteousness; but present yourselves to God as those alive from the dead, and your members as instruments of righteousness to God.
14For sin shall not be master over you, for you are not under law but under grace.
15What then? Shall we sin because we are not under law but under grace? May it never be!
16Do you not know that when you present yourselves to someone as slaves for obedience, you are slaves of the one whom you obey, either of sin resulting in death, or of obedience resulting in righteousness?
17But thanks be to God that though you were slaves of sin, you became obedient from the heart to that form of teaching to which you were committed,
18and having been freed from sin, you became slaves of righteousness.

The Departed.

2009-04-03T15:56:00.000-05:00

(A dream of 03.10.08)

Having reached cruising altitude absent of turbulence, the seat belt sign blinked off. He could see her silver wing glistening; the western sunset was blazing upon it from behind her. She was sleeping pacifically next to Him. She was a perfect specimen. (well, as near perfection as one is to find on an earth so fallen as this to a pessimist so pessimistic as He)

After a time, He decided to have a look about the craft. It was His first flight on a bird of this class. she was a big bird. Seven floors completed her, most of them were full of people. There were a handful of compartments that contained cargo and such with a large elevator connecting all the levels, if there was a stair He did not find it.

He had been lucky enough to procure seats for Them in the bulkhead of the third tier. From this vantage point they could see all the coming terrain clearly, straight ahead, through Their windshield, of sorts, like that in a car. They pierced through clouds, they were the arrow head of this bird, the pupil.

He read a bit but the text would not stay in, He tried to sleep and but that would not come to him either without the help of some drink. Finally, there was enough drink and enough time, and enough boredom; He succumbed.

His dreams were black velvet. They slipped one into another the darkness ever growing, all of them surrounded Her, themed in Her. He did not much subscribe to dreams, but maybe there are times to and times not to, then again, maybe there are not? she sailed through a rhythm of jarts…a 3 year-old had a drum. Subsequently, the seat belt sign turned on with a ding. He did not wake. Deeper and deeper He fell, there as no time to wake. Darker and deeper the dreams of Her grew.

He awoke to a very gentle shaking. “Wake up my Love, my morning sun, my mountain peak, my ever-after, wake up.” It was their custom to do this. He hated to wake, loved to sleep. Soon after She Knew Him, She began this ritual of rousing, it was always brilliant.
she slowly rolled to align with her harbor.

-

Horror came in an instant. The old girl bucked from a docile, aged mare into a stallion of purest pedigree. She was upside down and diving instantly. They watched the ground grow larger and larger. He held her tightly. They were pulling up, it seemed there was a chance that they could make it out…He knew better. He looked at her---a life passed before Him, a slide show of Knowing, there was another life lived in this moment that can be measured by no clock yet created---˙then all was black, velvety black.

-

They could see the runway ahead. The bulkhead is amazing. her captain set her down gently, he must have been older. The gate was not far away.

A rickety little ramp was drawn up to the craft, it was odd, she was so glorious, and this shoddy ramp was her birth. Across the ramp to a pier, water was on both side, then down the pier to another boat was their path. He led her on. The small ship did not last long, but had it not been there the swim would have been horrific, dodging all sorts of large maritime traffic. Once They left the swift they passed through a large door that seemed more in keeping with her, “this is a proper port.” Up a maze of escalators, through a line of officials, more hallways, and elevators follow. He led her on.

At last there was a Gate. A very normal type of Gate. It had a destination marked, and a time for departure. The time was near, growing ever nearer as time so often does.

“I have led You here. I cannot go with You. You are here now and You will be fine henceforth.” There was a look, it was a visual embrace that is all but lost in this day, He then turned and strode off.

δεν έχει νόημα.

2008-11-22T21:23:00.000-06:00

(My blog is telling me that my last publish date was 11.06.08, and that entry can hardly be qualified as an entry. Indeed, it looks as though no ‘typical for me’ entry has been dropped since 10.23.08. There is a moral and I am getting to it…here it is; a proper entry is due, and I am setting about to do it. (Maybe not quite typical (so to speak), but something beyond a few photos and a rant.) With all qualifiers out of the way, I now venture into the unknown…and I only brought one pair of slacks…Oh, dear me.)

The intention was to get up at 7a. Getting up at or prior to 7a is reserved for special occasions; going on a trip, going fly-fishing which I did once…that sort of thing. I did not get up at 7a. I think I rolled out of bed nearer to 8a, which is still remarkably early for me, especially on a Saturday. I suppose going to bed at 6.30p could have assisted in my early morning exuberance for an otherwise gray winter day, but that is neither here nor there. Regardless of reasons, there I was, alive and awake at 8.

A vague list was percolating in my mind as to what was required of me for the day. The weather was not all together horrific, but there have been nicer days if you take my meaning. My car started which was no great surprise, yet I am often taken aback by the magic of a running engine. FAHHHHH, to those who claim it is simple physics… As Sam and I headed northwards toward our first stop I decided a list was in order that I presently put together and entered into my small, white, electron-pumping pocket device.

I completed the first stop with only minor issue. It was a business related situation and it was between me and someone who’s faith does not support business transactions on Saturday mornings… I debated with myself regarding how to actually go about it, a compromise was met and the deal was done in a mutually agreeable fashion.

Following this I ventured further northward, deposited my paycheck then went into a shoppe that is, on occasion, pure bliss. Today was ‘on occasion’. Generally, I am not much of a shopper; my methodology is usually, get in and get out while holding your breath or as close to it as one can. The growing climate of holiday cheer or some other devilry must have gotten into my feet because I found myself a shopping fool. There were a handful of shoes that simple dominated the scene…several of the retro new balance family…and a few more in of the leather, saddle colored, square-ish toed variety. Between the shoes and the men’s wear I passed through the women’s handbag section. I would have lingered longer here had my little sisters not just landed the illin’-est purses in Mexico… The men’s jeans were slightly disappointing when compared to the usual samplings, but the winter wear made up for denim’s shortcomings. I found great delight in four jackets as well as a smattering of knits. In the end I walked out empty-handed feeling accomplished for besting a deadly foe. (AKA, I am waiting for the jackets to go on sale)

The next shoppe was the usual, I bought my small merchandise, the proprietor was a jerk and all was well.

The next shoppe was closed. (Yes, I was saddened by this; it generally has great books. They must assume that people who read don’t rise to go book shopping at 10a on Saturday mornings…So, yeah, noted.)

The next shoppe, The Armadillo’s Pillow, was open. The blast of incense and the ringing bell were in order upon my entry; this is always encouraging while simultaneously slightly noxious. This book shoppe is of the ilt (type) of shoppe where their products smell of old ink, older paper and incense for a long while after purchase and subsequent removal. The air is pungent inside the Armadillo; when one buys a volume they are issued a small amount of pungence whether they wish it or not. Picking through my usual sections I found nothing of interest. The sole employee directed me to the ‘foreign language’ section upon my request. It was during this interchange that I noticed something that froze my blood. (Not really, and yes that is too big a word for this usage (sorry Jack), but I just used it so deal!) Her head was down when I first asked the question, which is not uncommonly the case of employees in these sorts of establishments. As I rounded the register to address her more formally regarding said texts it immediately became clear that she was not reading a book, she was in fact reading a Sony Digital Reader Book. It was horrifying. My mind is still struggling for a proper metaphor but it must be along the line of a pregnant nun or the wedding of siblings…something upon this scale.

In the end I bought four books, three of them on dead languages and one on Italian. I thought that I would be able to keep a lid on my simmering pot of thoughts regarding a used bookstore clerk reading a digital book but seemingly I overestimated myself, surprise-surprise. “Isn’t it sort of sacrilegious of you to be reading on that thing?” I probed while she swiped my cc. “I am trying to save trees…” she replied in a manner that seemed very hollow and thin. I let the thought hang in the air and held her gaze a few milliseconds longer than required but not so long as to generate great discomfort. (You sit here day in and day out surrounded by thousands of already dead, pulpified trees, yet you go to your digital deity and claim to be crunchy.?.? I forgot, that that ‘book’ is powered by happy thoughts and granola. Absolutely not fossil fuel or coal is burned to generate the electricity required to charge that little pocket monster…you’re right, I am not sure where I get off thinking that this is a shade logically misguided.) I left without further adieu or the lambastement that I felt was appropriate.

For 2 hours I poured over an alphabet that made little more sense to me than sony girl, then took a three hour nap.

djmase

11.22.08

Historical Fact.

2008-11-06T15:50:00.000-06:00

11.06.08_closing_numbers.

11.06.08

11.05.08

http://www.newsday.com/services/newspaper/printedition/thursday/news/ny-bzstox065914217nov06,0,7790603.story

http://in.reuters.com/article/usMktRpt/idINN0531971420081105

http://www.bloomberg.com/apps/news?pid=20601087&sid=aj_ayFUP0riQ&refer=worldwide

http://www.chicagotribune.com/business/chi-thu-wall-1106-nov06,0,1978679.story

And now the take home point...the market is only as good as people say it is...aka if people have hope in the market, it is up...if people do not, it is down...So...it would seem people do not have hope in the market or the state of the World...yes, World. This is all very ironic give the past 48 hours. I understand problems were pre-existing...YET, the market is run on Today's HOPE, all of the gains posted in the pre-election weeks, have been washed away in the post election two days...an interesting on-going development to observe...
(editorial note: often times people say what they do not really believe in...perhaps people also vote for what they do not believe in...perhaps. (?))

From the Hip.

2008-11-05T10:49:00.000-06:00

I have been reading forums and blogs all morning...I was happy to place the election outcome on over zealous gen Y'ers....but it seems it seems young people are only a fraction of the problem...the morality of the whole society is so far eroded that the immoral voting strategies permeate all sects, we live in an emeregent society full of emergent people with emergent thoughts...aka there is lawlessness and people are delighted with the prospects it presents.

ZERG!!!!!!!

djmase

11.05.08

My Precious Cathartic Black Smudge.

2008-10-24T08:30:00.001-05:00

I once knew a young boy obsessed with stuffing the world into his pocket. Yet, the more he seemed to put together relative to the world around him, the less he seemed to understand. Something akin to “The more you tighten your grip, the more star systems will slip through your fingers.” (The truths in SW continue to blow my mind.)

The ‘means’ for ‘sorting’ issues in one’s life is very great. Without a still, turning ‘A’ into ‘B’ simply will not happen; regardless of all the wishful thinking one can muster. Beyond this, person to person stills are nearly unrecognizable. Our boy from above found his in digging about in the dirt much like one’s half mad neighbor woman, Beatrice; yet had that tid-bit not just been reveled, the world would be none the wiser.

At a time, my personal still was black; much of her seemed very mechanical…but she was extraordinarily beautiful. “Beauty is found within,” and I will add, “and without, at least at the beginning of it all” to that bit of historical verbiage.

As with most relationships, yes, there is the ridiculously fast fading immediate attraction for the still; the ‘I must have that now!’ bit of time. Thankfully, this passes or burns out quickly so the real work can begin, or a better mechanism can be found respectively. Mine passed exceedingly quickly, note, passed…did not burn out. At our first meeting we were surrounded and could not get down to brass tacks right off the bat, but after 30 minutes or so we were finally left to our own devices and spent a merry 2 hours together. Oh, the glory of it! It was windy and cold the day we met, but that is just a shadow in the corner of my memory when recalled. I actually think the first batch was brewed just then, between Stoughton and Home; and it was not a bad batch at that.

Jumping ahead to some later point in time, when a grand repoire was already in place, I sat admiring her from afar. She stood across a high, stony plateau. There was a distinct smell of heather stirred with cold, wet, salty sea air hanging between us. The low lying clouds brought ‘the big lands’ almost to a human scale, yet the long view of our world remained interminable. I had never seen her so disheveled, dirty and weather worn; yet she had never been more satisfying to me. (Maybe those old wise men really were wise?) A smile broke across my rough brow. I had asked a good deal of her over the past few weeks and she had sacrificed without protest. She had run on when she was empty, she had shelter me from the driving rain, bearing it upon her own breast, she had taken me to places I had never seen and never will again. Selflessness was her name. All the while she listened to my lamentations, my bitter, muffled sobs. Patiently yet firmly she comforted my heart…she was my cathartic, black smudge, MY precious, cathartic, black smudge. It was a completely inhuman experience. As near as can possibly be, she was the exact plug that my leaky heart required. And loved her.

djmase

10.23.08

With Best Intentions...

2008-10-23T19:49:00.000-05:00

...I set about to pay attention to that which has been neglected...namely WaLST...despite my best efforts a legitimate post will have to wait as I have spent all of my time putting together tomorrow's musical drive-thru. Real blergs will be here presently.
Sorry.

djmase

10.23.08

Falling in Like.

2008-10-14T15:32:00.000-05:00

(I will write this vision through the lens of the single person, for at present, I have none other lens to view through. I am well certain that counter statements to this text abound.)

There is a perpetual state in the life of singledom; this state personifies the idea of the rolling stone failing to gather moss. The concept of ‘love at first sight’ is a farce, we will do well to have that out and go forward understanding that it is a thought propagated by the same people that would never tell a dear friend the truth for fear of hurting them. Love, real Love (or as close as we can approach on so fallen a spinning ball), as has been clearly delineated by thinkers far greater than I, is not physically capable of growing within the few parsecs that birth an emotion. Walk with me: a fellow is riding his bicycle down the street, he happens upon a girl at the crosswalk. They make eye contact and a feeling emerges that each reader knows exactly. This feeling says, ‘She is perfect, she is beautiful, I need her or my life will not be ruined.’ Oddly enough, when the light turns green and he peddles off in one direction, she in another; the world continues spinning, gravity continues to operate, and all is well. ‘Falling in like’ is the state that the vast majority of the world around us confuses for Falling in Love; it manifests itself in a myriad of ways, most commonly in the state overestimating one’s attachment to another, a regular changing of the be’liked’ or in the more difficult cases, there is little change with be’liked’ yet they are not a viable candidate.

The great philosopher Ferris Bueller, once stated, “Life moves pretty fast…” If one honestly looks at the face before them in the mirror, whilst repeating the day’s date, this statement will become inevitably, inexplicable real. When high on the natural amphetamine of time, ‘like’ becomes a deranged, tormented, globual of energy. ‘Like’ hopped up on speed will take a casual, passing glance and grow it into a 50-year marriage if not well protected, if not chaste. There is an innate need engrained into the human psyche. There is this need for a woman in a man, and a woman in a man. (Call me a close minded bigot, you will not be the first, nor the last if I guess correctly.) I take the Law to be truth, and therefore I take the word of the Law relative to the creation of women out of the rib of a man to mean completely literal things. Moreover, the master teacher, the master metaphor architect is not of flesh and blood but of spirit that holds the entire universe in perfect balance…if that spirit deemed that women should come from man and they should be united, I am not so bold as to disagree…but by all means, be my guest if…I am certain that each of us will have the opportunity to stand before this Creator and air out if our beefs…if we have the legs to…but I digress. This manifestation of the ‘falling in like’ malady is one of Alice falling down the rabbit hole, there is a blink and it is past; the like has already happened. Giving of ‘the like’ over in one’s mind is akin to saying a word, once it has escaped the lips, there is not way for it to return.

This affliction becomes more apparent when the afflicted begins to monitor the regularity with which it cycles. The process of ‘FiL’, in the general public, is derived from reading and properly following the directions on shampoo. “Rinse and Repeat” There are only two ways by which the mountain of scar tissue amassed on the average human’s heart can be explained. Either the like and loss on a scale of the holocaust, or a myriad of likes and losses sequentially. The ladder is the model of society.

Yet, not all who participate in this idolatry flippantly jump from one temple to another. There are those that become devout followers of one, these poor souls are the most pathetic, saddest lot, not surprisingly they also form the majority. They ‘Fall deep in like.’ As a rule, the verb of falling in deep like is brilliant. Error occurs when one party falls in deep like with another party that does not even know they exist. If we take our fellow again we can learn another lesson from his troubles. He rides the train to work each day. The train leaves his stop at 7.47a. He sits in the second car everyday. She sits in the second car of the 7.47a train everyday as well. Over the past 10 months he has ’fallen in deep like’ with her 30 glorious minutes at a day, 5 days a week, 50 weeks a year, yet never more than a few glances have been exchanged. This fellow does not know her name, her faith, her family, her background --- she is an utter stranger, yet just by the proximity his mind has constructed, he feels a relationship that is also as much a construct as the moon landing. (had to) The hard truth of this model is this, on a specific Friday our boy happens upon the be’liked’ at a local pub, she is celebrating her recent engagement. He is crushed…yet who is there to blame for the state? Precisely.

__ personal note I had this editorial note in a draft (she doesn’t see him) and do not recall what it means…yet maybe it is poking at this concept ___

I Am 'The Dúnadan'

2008-10-07T10:22:00.000-05:00

Being the fourth, fifth and sixth parts of six parts. (finally.)

2008-10-01T10:36:00.000-05:00

The short list: (remainders)
-Flickr and how if you are a girl you get hits much easier, esp. if you are doing a 365.
-How I hate it when my boss treats me like I am a three year-old.
-How it bugs me that good things happen to bad people. (Clearly, I was getting saltier as the day wore on. I blame said map for acting as a catalyst.)

Since I have more or less completely lost interest in this endeavor and that of the that last three, two are trivial, I am going to enter a brief summation of thoughts on these three so that I can move on to (original text shows a strike through the next three words, but blogger is limited) bigger and better things. I have a ‘writingpad’ (iPhone app that is a must have for any blogger) that is stacked with ‘material’… and frankly I am getting impatient with my continual procrastination.

The lesson to be learned here is, never, ever, under any circumstance, promise a series on one’s blog. If this ever does happen to agree to aforementioned commitment due to water torture, bamboo shoots under the nails, or prolonged, forced Hannah Montana exposure, at the next available time, step in front of a speeding bus.

Onward: Flickr. This one is quite simple. Look at history. Who, generally speaking, spends more time oggling the opposite sex? Do women look at men more then men look at women…sadly for me, no. With this FACT on the table, the outcome of any 365 competition held between a man and a woman is a no brainer, IF the winner is based purely on photostream hits. (If the male participant was 1986 Tom Cruise vs. 2008 Cher…the men may have a chance…may.) Basically, it is sexist. (women have an easier time getting huge flickr hit numbers.) (Rant finished, wasn’t that one short? I told you I would be brief.)

Onwarder: 3 Year-old treatment. Because this blog is public and my boss is web suave enough to find it…I will stop there. (Even shorter…I know right? Scary stuff.)

Onwardest: Good things to bad people. This is a topic that, hopefully, will at some point be revisited because I do not see it as trival. Additionally, I do not really hold this point of view, it was said in a rash moment, but the though is one that I wrestle with. It is very easy as a standard sinful person to say, “Ahhhh, he is such a good guy, man, I wish he would get a break, why does so much bad happen to him?” But we rarely take the opposite tack, the view of, “She is a rotton, horric being, an apple with a bite out of it that reveals a soft core, and half of a worm…yet good things keep happening to her, and that chaps my hid.” Now this is pointing out many things in myself. Pride mainly. I am in some viewpoint to say, X is good and should get good, and Y is bad and should get bad. My faith puts me in a position that tells me all are bad. ‘There is none righteous, no not one, there is none that understandeth, none that seeketh after God.’ Yet in the above thought, we clearly see a god complex, a state of mind that says, I should be calling the shots around here.
Again, I do wish to revisit this sentiment, but for the present I simply apologize to the reader for being out of line.

djmase

10.01.08

In my other life I am more than a mild mannered newspaper reporter. (architect)

2008-09-24T13:58:00.000-05:00

http://www.advrider.com/forums/showthread.php?t=347404

Being the third part of six parts. "How falling in love was one of the, if not THE, stupidest things I have ever done, yet I am, apparently.. ."

2008-09-20T17:26:00.000-05:00

<-How falling in love was one of the, if not THE, stupidest things I have ever done, yet I am, apparently, dying to do it again. (The salt is in full effect now. It is like 20 minutes after surfing---you feel the crackle with each movement.)>
(Sorry Ms. Ryan, a ‘2nd person’ word slipped in there…)

Let it be known that I will not be slicing my chest open from the bottom up with my ginsu knife and dumping my heart on the keyboard. If a hot cup of tea, grandmother’s afghan and this blog are at hand with the expectation of reveling in me spilling the beans over my demise…I am sorry to disappoint. Although, It can be hoped that something mildly entertaining will emerge for the reader…but no money back guarantee will be made. (The best part of a blog is that a thesis is not required to be in this exact location.)

Now, A.D.D.-boy, to the task at hand; the messy business of love, the wake of destruction it deals and the peace of wisdom it plants. (Is this an adolescent thesis? Let us hope not.)

If one were to tell me that they were an expert on the subject of love, I would tell them were they could find the door. As far as I can surmise, there is only one supreme authority on the subject and He is not fleshy and boney as one might wish. There are however many false prophets of love who will ‘tell you lies, tell you sweet little lies.’ Chiefly one’s self is the leader of this cult.

Since we do not have an authority on love to stipulate ‘this is exactly what love is; this is how it looks’ or to stipulate, ‘in your specific relationship, yes, you have love.’ To have someone say, nearly like a doctor’s, ‘yes, you have shingles,’ regarding your relationship would be convenient in some instances. While we do not have this doctor, we do have the book of I John; an excellent test strip. Does it turn purple, is it acidic, is it basic? To temper one’s own personal David Koresh with I John is never a bad habit to get into, nor is it ever too late to begin the process.

(This is one ugly disjointed bit of garble…I too see it.)

Now that I have a handful of qualifiers, which is generally my style, I can get to a slightly more personal set of thoughts. Without having a clear vision of what ‘falling in love’ really looks like, it seems foolish to make the quoted statement I opened with. Not only does it seem foolish, it is foolish. How can I claim to have done something which I know next to nothing about? I can sooner claim that winning the world series was fantastic than falling in love was stupid, for I am as near to knowing what winning the world series feels like as I am to being certain what love feels like, much less whether the action was stupid or not. There are some truths to be found in the ruble of a relationship as mine; always a perk. When the fire-fighter pulls the baby out from a little cave of smash concrete and the wonder of how did she survive is on everyone’s mind…that is the feeling I am talking about.

Falling in love, which is what I will call my experience though the past few paragraphs would take issue with it, yet for my part I contend it was a love, was not stupid. The knee jerk reaction at the end is to call it stupid because the tearing hurts greatly. While the love itself may well be very ‘unhealthy’ for the person, which in my case it was, the healing is so much more than healthy.

It is growing, it is not merely healing. Love takes a person who is idling along in life, and uses a series of events to break the person of what seemed ‘healthy’ at a time, and re-work them into something more grand than they ever could have achieved ‘with or with out you {her}.’ This concept of the Authority, Love, using all things for good is new to some and old hat to others. May it be new to all in this instance, the old hattedness is David Koresh killing what issues that need breaking and reworking.

I have not done this topic justices. After two days of wrestling with it, I have determined this is not the proper medium to dissect this subject.

.

2008-09-14T20:46:00.000-05:00

(Here is a thought I have been puttering around upon.)

I will now present to you the person who sees the 800-pound gorilla in the room and contrary to the actions of ALL THOSE around him, decides to poke her. Nay, poke is too kind a word; maybe it is more akin to running and tackling her off the bench were she so casually (pompously) slumbers.
As these words ensue, you will no doubt be whole-heartedly convinced that I am the lowest scum of the earth, a male chauvinist. And you may be right…or you may just be drinking the delicate, little lies that society nurses you…”A drink for me? No, no thank you. Okay, fine…if you insist…but just one…after all, you have always watched out for me my closest of friend (instructor or mentor,)” then two…then three…then, “Oh, what the heck? Just get me a societal lies beer-bong and lets have at it…IT TASTES SO GOOD!”

(Find someone that knows me well and ask them if I am a chauvinist, if you have the gumption . If they answer ‘yes,’ then I am and you are simultaneously vindicated for the moment, if they answer ‘no,’…well then you – actually - never-mind.)

Were I a demon I would find the work of satan in the 20th century, literally, awe inspiring. I would have no choice but to redouble my efforts to be a better, more cunning tempter with his resume of astounding recent work so near at hand. I do not call upon the World Wars, The Islam explosion, extermination of over 6 million children of Israel, Roe Vs. Wade, gay marriage, (am I touching anything hot yet?) the genocides in Africa or even AIDS…all fantastic pieces of work to be sure; well done, but alas, not nearly my point. While these are, as I have stated, fantastic works for the kingdom of darkness, they are all very obvious, very plain, very common, more or less everyday, run of the mill, evil vehicles. From the prince of the power of the air one must expect better. Better is there, and it is so much better that it goes unnoticed by and large. Herein lies the brilliance, the cunning.
If you want to lead someone astray, you do not stand on the street shouting it…contrary to the “turn or burn” talking billboard peoples’ method. Instead you slowly curve the road, you move comfortable landmarks off the normal, “good” route, on to the “bad” route, but only by a few feet at first so that nothing “seems” to be amiss. Then, after some time, you move the landmark a bit further off, and so on and so forth, until you have this fellow who has been walking with his head down, heading back in the same direction he has just come. Two carefully placed items have yielded this complete failure. One is external and one is less external…to point fingers, the internal. The slickster whom moved the landmarks around is very external. Yet the fellow who is bombing along, not noticing that the Sun (Son) is no longer ahead of him - well - that is his own fault.

All of this is well and good to consider, though still not my specific point, merely the preface. Certainly there are a few of my 7 readers who are feeling no issue with what I have written thus far, and maybe there are one or two who think they know what I am angling at…I assure you, none of you have yet so see where I am going with this. (do not mistake that as prideful, did I not say she was sleeping and no one is poking her but me?) Likewise, while I will point out just one angle of the evil one I am certain that I am missing fifty thousand more cunning, better hidden, insanely more destructive ones that hover just beneath my nose. Begging forgiveness for the density of my mind; I humbly bring this thought to you.

---
I have in some ways dwelt upon this for a long time. Long in the sense that it came up long ago, and not long in the sense that I continually repress it for it bears a grotesque snout and reeks of death. If one were to ask me, in this moment, what is the single most destructive threat to Christian Unions today, I would firmly reply, “Feminism in some way shape of form” without a seconds worth of thought. (Let it rain, I can wear it, God has let heavier hammers fall upon me these past ten months) (Furthermore, I have read the dictionaries description of ‘feminism,’ and I see a glaring different one present by the culture as a whole. My discussion regards the 2nd of the two, The actual manifestation, not the cunning guise it masquerades around the square in, calling righteous people…’squares.’ She has another name in Proverbs; Folly. In the end, when you return whence you came, past all the moved landmarks, she will have you believe you do not need men - period. How cunning, how similar to a certain other spirit telling a certain other group they do not need Christ…isn’t it ironic…don’t ya’ think? Apparently, there are worse things than rain on your wedding day.)
This ideology is born upon many fronts, from the mass-media, to public education, et al. I have little concern with these aforementioned elements as they are not Chosen, they cannot be held to any standard, much less the one which I am preparing to draw. Shockingly (or maybe not so), when carefully reviewed, the finest level of installation occurs at our beloved “christian universities” (spell check has marked both of these as spelled incorrectly, I assure you, they are spelled correctly)
“We chose X university for our daughter because we wanted a good, christian framework for her to learn within, we did not want her surrounded by party animals that would no doubt have her turning tricks by thanksgiving,” said Bob the dad.
“Thank you Bob! (you moron)” quipped satan.
Cunning, I come back to the word because it is such a beautiful personification of a snake. Cunning professors feed our young women filth. Pigs have been cunningly done up with make-up, push-up bras, false lashes, etc. and our daughters have bought them hook, line and sinker. These pigs, these feministic ideals sold as “good, strong, christian womanhood,” will sooner have you reading any book written by anyone, as long as it is not the Bible. These cunning pig herders will gently instruct you to believe that there is nothing in the Bible that you cannot find in any other ‘good bit of literature that is not so antiquated.’ Allow a translation.
Cunning teacher: “Little girl, you are too dumb to decipher it, so why try? Here, read this one, it is much more ‘on your level’ ” (who is chauvinistic now?) Allow further translation.
Satan: “Teacher, you are only saving them a life of hardship by servitude to some evil “God Fearing Man”.”
Cunning teacher: “How right you are? Life is so unfair!”
Satan snickers:

I must confess, this is a dark piece of writing, one of the darkest I have ever put down. I did not choose this essay.

Strong Christian Womanhood has as much to do with ‘Feminism’ as a glowworm has to do with putting a man on the moon; possibly even less. Strong Christian Women will be formed in no other way then by an immersion in the Word, ceaseless pursing of Christ’s example, a humble and contrite heart, and an unparalleled prayer life. Tasty little books, written by ‘self-made, tumble-down women’ about the virtue of self would fall into the moved landmark category in my mind.
At this juncture I sit/sat and toy/ed with the need to place a series of biblical reference points to show the sad nature of feminism, the picture of Christ and the Church, the origin of Man and subsequently Woman…I have decided that I will not do so. After all, by doing this, would I not merely join those saying, “You, little girl, lack the discernment to do this yourself, therefore, I, MAN will show you,” which is exactly what I am trying to avoid?
If you are a woman, if you are aspiring to be a Woman of God, then seek! Show us! Do not sit around collecting your unemployment check while bemoaning how good the tax payers have it because they can afford a car…(to drive to and from work in, so that you do not have to)
Strong Women of God, just as strong men of God, are not strong due to the fact that they stand around like a pharisee, praying loudly in the temple or a friend’s eat-in kitchen, “Thank you God I am not like that sad woman over there that loves, honors and obeys her husband. Thank you that I know what is mine and I take it. Thank you that you have given me a mind that is vastly superior to so many others so that I can better worship you through my enormous spiritual gifts so bountifully bestowed on me. Thank you that I have insight far above the average man and that I am not afraid to use it. Please bless these common folk in their meager pursuits....” (you get the point)
SWoG are the ones that never HAVE to say anything, yet when the rubber meets the road, they DO comfort, they DO soundly advise, they DO sweep the floor and clean up puke. (Strong Men of God are called to many other similar and differing tasks that this diatribe will not touch; yet I am not ignorant to them nor will this pen spare them for long)

---

“So writer, I have chosen to go with you on this hooliganism for the present…what does it matter? So what if small ‘c’ christian women want to be feminist, who really gives a rip and what business is it of yours?”
I do! And, if you are truly a God fearing Christian you will have no choice but to do so as well. This is one of the most urgent matters of our time! I do not wish to spell this out, but I feel I must to be abundantly clear.

Feminism in a Christian woman CANNOT spiritually exist.

Feminism, even on the dictionary level which I find generous,
“the women's movement, the feminist movement, women's liberation, female emancipation, women's rights; informal women's lib.”
is no way, shape or form concerned with ‘dying to self.’ The sole concern IS self-promotion, self-service, and if I may be so bold, self-worship. It is no wonder that it has taken such flight, it only another, more P.C. name for Humanism. As I have noted, folly is cunning, she will dress as ‘seeking equality.’ Equality is in the eye of the beholder…it is an illusion. She is seeking promotion above all else because, ‘every little girl is a princess…’(am I right?).

(Again, I earnestly petition you to find a friend of mine and ask them my feelings regarding chivalry prior to burning me at the stake for being chauvinistic.) (you now may head down the road of chivalry IS chauvinistic. If that is your path…there is no helping you, best of luck in your endeavors.)

Now if we imagine that one could be a ‘C’hristian Feminist, which I contented you cannot be anymore than you can be a ‘C’hristian chauvinist, we have another bridge to cross. This bridge is that between Man and Woman.

Marriage.

Marriage happens – generally - after a certain amount of dating. Dating happens - generally - after an interest is formed between two ‘like-minded’ people to decide to have a go of making a union. This is a very loaded sentence that will require some digestion.
A union:
“unification, uniting, joining, merging, merger, fusion, fusing, amalgamation, coalition, combination, synthesis, blend, blending, mingling; marriage, wedding, alliance; coupling. antonym separation, parting.”
Well, that is quite a little bit to bite off. More over, it begs the question, how can so many of these qualities be met when one party is engaged in self-idolatry? The antonym seems more fitting; I mean she is seeking to rise correct? For one body to rise, one body must fall, in chemistry we would call the male body the precipitate, he must fall. It is simply a law of nature, oddly enough God wrote not only the laws of nature but also the laws of the heart. For a more comfortable Feminist sentence we could rework it to end with “…a go at engulfing and precipitating the male”? (If we have P.C. we may as well have F.C.)
“Like-minded” is our next victim. Given the general public’s understanding of women’s-lib, or feminism, I can only assume that a male with a ‘like-mind’ to a feminist is either a transvestite, or a gelding. In all seriousness though this, again, cannot exist due to the aforementioned idolatry point.
This is an extremely cursory view yet the loose threads are beginning to poke through already. How can a marriage be built upon this? How can one half of the union bear this mentality while the other half of the union is so dissimilar? I contest it cannot. Therefore, either there will be no marriages or there will be failed marriages. This begets no children, or mixed-up, non-Christ centered home children, respectively. This begets the cunning, efficient demise of the Church by…one marriage, two members…at…a…time.

“The safest road to hell is a gradual one – the gentle slope, soft underfoot, without sudden turnings, without milestones, without signposts.” ~C. S. Lewis

djmase

08.07.08

Being the second part of six parts. "That flipping map interactive thing of singles in the U.S..."

2008-09-14T20:33:00.000-05:00

“ -“That flipping map interactive thing of singles in the U.S. that James sent me” (A very interesting map that allows you to see what the situation is like for single men or single women within a given age group, within a given area. A good friend of mine emailed it to me today and I found it very curious.) http://www.xoxosoma.com/singles/ " (expounded)

With respect this blurb it will do the reader well to take 10 minutes and check out the noted web page above. Move the little slider at the top around, look at the trends, read his thoughts, or skip them…I will ramble on regardless.
(I am going to check my facebook while you look at that stuff. Meet me back here in a few.)

---Back. Are you now informed? Great, lets dive in.
I am going to be upfront with you, blunt. This will come as a great surprise in that I rarely ever speak my mind…er…nevermind. I am going to take the only natural stance for a 27 year-old, heterosexual male to take when faced with this data.

‘Girls have it made in the shade!!!’

Notice, “Gals: Do single young girls exist? Not according to math! Fact: around 1/3 of 20-24 year old women are married. Only 70% are single!
Guys: Again, fact: Only 1/5 of men are married by age 24. 80% single! Like suburban deer, there are too many of you in relation to your prey, and you're destroying each others' game. Older, wiser deer who don't spend their time doing kegstands are snapping up your lady-foliage.”

Our author has a style that differs slightly from my own, but his point is well made---aka. young women go for older men and older men for younger women, Fact.
I have done further digging into this topic, I felt the internet, though it has made fantastic advances in the subject, still could not be taken as gospel in the areas of anything. One particular study revealed a couple that divorced at about 35 years of age. Both partners have since remarried; interesting statistic that totally supports my theory commencing now. She re-married a man that was 11 years older than her while he re-married a woman that was 10 years his junior. “The defense rests.” (not really, I just have always wanted to say that.)

Now, it is a good time to interject the sentiment that I am not putting forth what is wrong or right, I am putting forth a thought, a suggestion, a recognition.

One could take this at face value; which I am greatly tempted to do because I am tired and I fell off my motorbike a few times today and (I have more excuses if need be). But, I have decided to toss up one more idea in this mix.

Why is this happening?

I have probably never asked such a ridiculous question. The answer, I think, is quite obvious (sorry dave, I had to).

The two parts of the ‘why’.
-Men are immature. (you can quote me on that one) It seems to me, being an expert on the matter after all I am a man or trying to be one, that men are very, utterly immature. It is genetic. It is innate at a chromosomal level; there is a small rider piece on the male DNA, that will be discovered in 2037, which will explain this in gory detail. (check back then for an in-depth ‘why men are so immature’ chromosome review) Seriously though, if you put the most ‘mature’ men of a given age group in a room with the most ‘mature’ women of the same age group I am quite convinced you would not see ‘connection’ on a relational level in the order that you would if you repeated the same experiment but replaced said males with the same type but of an age group 5-10 years senior.
-Or…perhaps due to the skyrocketing divorce rates in the U.S. (~50ish%) and the vast majority of children being raised by single mothers…there is a break-down in the female psyche, especially as it relates to men? Now, as previously stated, I am a man consequently not an expert by any means on women. I know this much about women; they are very complex organisms without a manual.

More than likely the above two thrown into a blender with some bananas and milk are the driving forces behind soma’s fancy-pants little graph and the conundrum facing people like me.

What is to be done about it?

Absolutely nothing. ☺

djmase

09.14.08

Being the first part of six parts. “-How living in a van really would not be that bad.”

2008-09-13T17:55:00.000-05:00

There are 6 finalists. Picking which animal I will attack first has not been an easy task--- As I have mentioned, inspiration comes and goes, and at the moment it is gone pretty much across the board. Like any muscle, my brain must be given a work out so I will select today’s subject at complete random.

-“That flipping map interactive thing of singles in the U.S. that James sent me” (A very interesting map that allows you to see what the situation is like for single men or single women within a given age group, within a given area. A good friend of mine emailed it to me today and I found it very curious.) http://www.xoxosoma.com/singles/
-Flickr and how if you are a girl you get hits much easier, esp. if you are doing a 365.
-How living in a van really would not be that bad.
-How I hate it when my boss treats me like I am a three year-old.
-How it bugs me that good things happen to bad people. (Clearly, I was getting saltier as the day wore on. I blame said map for acting as a catalyst.)
-How falling in love was one of the, if not THE, stupidest things I have ever done, yet I am, apparently, dying to do it again. (The salt is in full effect now. It is like 20 minutes after surfing---you feel the crackle with each movement.)>

“-How living in a van really would not be that bad.” (expounded)

I cold brewed a bulk of Joe over the night and the aroma hangs heavily in the air between these brick walls.
Chicago has been rain soaked for a few days now and the humidity will not allow itself to dip below the 90th percentile.
I had a house showing today at 12:15 so I went out and about doing things that I pretended really needed doing, so my realtor could pretend she was doing something that really needed doing. I do not own an umbrella.
Recently, I had new kitchen counters installed. It cost thousands of dollars…for what? A thin horizontal slab located 18” below a set of boxes screwed to the wall, resting on another set of 36” tall boxes sitting on my kitchen floor. It is indefensible. I guess the upside is that said slab cost less than my yearly taxes…er wait…is that an upside? Okay, here must really be an upshot. With the use of a house, I can amass tons of possessions that is absolutely required to be happy, per the world both verbally and non-verbally.
The bathroom. This space solely earns its keep.

djmase

The Short-list. (of 091108)

2008-09-12T09:08:00.000-05:00

I was sitting at a computer pining away for the better part of the day; all the while wishing I could be writing what I am setting about to put down now. I did not do it earlier because I was at work and like a good employee; I was working.
Now it is game time.
There is something to be said about “being in the moment”. I am now sitting, looking at this silver box, with a freshly cracked screen (don’t get me started on that) and I am having a hard time pulling my mind together. Not so much a hard time pulling it together, a hard time directing it into what I wish to gush about today. I am going to short list the topics, pick one and fire away. (This is why I am a project manager right? I am a trigger person…usually; in certain aspects of my life…sometimes…where was I? Ah yes, short listing.)

The short list:
-Sushi. (I am slow in coming to what is and what is not ‘in’…see dmb post below for better explanation…”Jesse welcome to the sushi party”…”Why thank you…wait, what is this? No, can you cook my fish please? Thanks.”)
-“That flipping map interactive thing of singles in the U.S. that James sent me” (A very interesting map that allows you to see what the situation is like for single men or single women within a given age group, within a given area. A good friend of mine emailed it to me today and I found it very curious.) http://www.xoxosoma.com/singles/
-My iPhone. (‘nuf said…amirite?)
-Flickr and how if you are a girl you get hits much easier, esp. if you are doing a 365.
-How living in a van really would not be that bad.
-How I hate it when my boss treats me like I am a three year-old.
-How it bugs me that good things happen to bad people. (Clearly, I was getting saltier as the day wore on. I blame said map for acting as a catalyst.)
-How falling in love was one of the, if not THE, stupidest things I have ever done, yet I am, apparently, dying to do it again. (The salt is in full effect now. It is like 20 minutes after surfing---you feel the crackle with each movement.)

Eight items on my short list. Now, if my memory serves me correctly that is just under the wire for maintaining ‘short list’ status. Had I hit nine two problems would have happened, well one actually, but it has two parts. I would have been bumped into ‘medium list’ status…and I do not have the bandwidth for that…crisis averted. (and I don’t even have a fancy suit for when I save the day…go figure.)

Of the eight, Sushi is the weakest link without question. I am sure there will be disagreement regarding that assertion; thankfully this is not a democracy, this is a dictatorship and I really don’t care what you think. Sushi out!!! (Three should suffice.)
My iPhone falls victim next. What a coward, I saw him hiding behind a Banzai roll holding a tube of wasabi…sheesh.
Only 6 remain…I wish votes could be phoned in or texts, or whatever anti-socially activity it is that you kids are doing these days. Of the remaining six I can make a compelling argument for each one, and I can blather on any of the topics for a length of time sufficient for a blog post.

(Insert jeopardy music here)

The solution is this. I will give a dedicated post to each of the remaining topics, one at a time.

Adventure.

2008-08-31T11:08:00.000-05:00

An immense plain lay unbroken before me, it was of purest white. “Pure as the driven snow,” how many times had I heard that? Many. Not nearly as often as she had begged me not to go though. Usually I ignored the plea; ‘suggestion’ as I wrote it off to be in my mind’s eye. In hindsight, that was probably not one of my better continual choices; that is most I will give.

I’m a proud man, I wouldn’t say that I was wrong in doing what I’ve done, nor would I say that I should have done anything different. I did what I did, how could I be me had I not done what I did? Is not each man formed by what he does, just as each new perception in life is received based on a previous memory? After all, had I been born an Eskimo, maybe this cursed frozen desert would not look so heinous to me? I suspect that, growing up as an Eskimo would cause this to look like home, or at least allow it to have a better face than that of death. I did not grow up an Eskimo, and my desert does look like death, or at least it does for now. If my previous musing are at all correct, there seems to be a chance to form some new perception, some new memory such that next time if find myself in a barren waste land of a frozen landscape, I can meet it with a cheerier perspective. This is no great stride of mental walk.

Standing here isn’t making me any warmer, best to move along. Not too quickly though, I can only move fast enough as to achieve an objective of distance and stay warm. To move too fast, fast enough to cause a sweat would, more than likely, be problematic.

My objective for today…tough to really measure when it such an amaranthine wilderness, was some point ahead of me. The point seemed to move, it was my own mirage oasis. The incessant waves of static snow silently mocked me. Man, how I grew to hate the interminable wrenches. Near the bottom of my hope I was holding out that there would be a dell, the smallest break in the hell. Someplace that I could dig in for the night, someplace hospitable enough to let me dig sideways, not down. With any luck I would have to fear for being drifted over due to the hill being large enough, and properly oriented, wind to my back. I began to identify whole heartedly with the pirate marooned on some God-forsaken island, the cowboy caught cheating in five card draw, buried neck deep in sand somewhere outside of Carlsbad.

It is a crappy road to hoe, even for a criminal. I thought a lot about how criminals felt and how criminals dealt. I was still walking. My eyes hurt, I seriously doubted whether they would ever be the same again. There was no chance of future unbiased in my mind relative to the color white. White was ruined. Criminals were saved. The sun was moving on past 3. Huh, what a plot?!?

A swell ahead? Or so my blistered eyes would have me believe. I made for it. The night came early there, the light was short and cold. Only thing worse, in my experience, then a short cold day, is a long absolute zero night. It seemed to me, from what I have been told about hell, that if you took the horrible qualities of hell along with its darkness, you would nearly have an arctic night, on a scale of nastiness. If you took the degree to which hell gets hot and turned that into an equal and opposite degree of cold, then my situation was well explained.

If I counted the days right Mary would be seven tomorrow. Happy birthday kid from…where am I…well it must be close to hell if how I recall it is correct. I couldn’t tell a daughter, a little daughter, happy birthday from hell… I better make up a name for a town that I will also make up when I send her my birthday wishes, telepathically. Not that she will get them either way, but it just seems the right thing to do, so long as I am going to just wish it, maybe utter a few words, may as well make it out to be kosher.

The swell proved fruitful, in a manner of speaking. No, there was not a banana and ripe orange there, but there was a bit of snow over a ledge. The hardish stuff, perfect for digging in. it was half past four when I arrived, as good a time as any to settle down, slightly later than I generally liked. There was no fire, there was no wood. At any moment I hope to hear that MIT students have finally learned how to burn snow. I never saw the satisfaction with sending pulses through some micro tube or whatever it is that they do. They have brains as big as a frigate, why not use them to do something useful for man kind, namely me? I would have been much obliged to anyone that could have taken the edge off with a little pot of ‘fire snow.’ I was carrying my fire in a few bottles, it would keep me warm tonight, why should it be any different than any other?

She was a nice little dig. Beautiful little hole, had I had the presence of mind to take a photo I probably would’ve, had I had a camera. I got out my pencil and my book to scribble down a few notes, after all, what was I being paid for? I think my lead was frozen, it had to have been something akin to that. I look back on the book and there is some scratch of the proposed date, then some drivel of cold fingers, low victuals and that I thought I had seen a fox, but he was rabid and I had had no desire to eat him. It then scrawled off the page, like a typewriter turned run away train. There was no more writing that night.

Walking through snow miles a day is difficult work. With food as scarce as it was, I should have slept, more or less, quickly. Yet I found it had been getting harder and harder to succumb to the temptress. Maybe yielding had nothing to do with it? Maybe I was actually chasing her and in some ironic way even in the chasing of tired, I grew less tired. Whatever it was I was there, not asleep.

The frozen hell had one weapon that I had yet to consider. Time. Painful time. The perfect concoction of torture would be one part cold, one part dark, and fifty bagillion parts time. Too bad I wasn’t sent to do torture research, I would have won a Nobel Prize, I could have stood up there next to the nano-tube guy…that would have been grand. King of torture and king of the useless inventions nerd guy. I am sure we both would have left the event escorted.

Sometimes it gets too cold to think, I thought about cold thinking when I was there. It is not as if one were a river freezing that finally stops flowing all together. It is more like if one were take oil for example, a heavy weight oil, say 80 weight, put that on a stove bringing it to a nice simmer. That is a great fluid. Now if it is taken and set out on the back deck in a winter night…you do see it slowly change. Not visibly, functionally. Slowly it winds down, slowly it becomes more sedentary. Approaching fixed, never arriving though. At a point it seems that it would under no circumstance flow out of the pot if tipped sideways, but if given enough time, it would, sure as shootin’ it would. I guess that it is not too cold to think then, I guess it is too cold to think well, or too cold to think bad for that matter, one is just trying to holding onto reality, and even some lose that if they get cold enough, dark enough for long enough…or so I have surmised. I know all I cared about was holding on.

I must have drifted off eventually. I don’t recall the drift, but I recall the wake, so there must have been a drift. It was still dark, my night had not passed.

It is funny thinking back how I cursed the day, the burning sun, the glaring white…then when the night fell, I was worse off, I cursed it evermore. I seem to have never been happy in that place, yet there I was, by my own choice.
Man it was dark. It was growing darker. How could it, night had long since come, I had apparently slept, and night would have inevitably advanced. It could not be getting darker, my eyes must just be a bit out of sorts, probably that blasted sun, irreparable damage has been done to be sure.

There is nothing for developing patience like sitting in a miniscule snow cave, in seemingly ever-growing cold, and ever-growing darkness, with absolutely no recourse aside from waiting…just waiting. What I would give to have my watch back? For one it could tell me what time it was, and for another it could shed the faintest of light on this God forsake hole of an existence. I had lost my watch in a poker game on The Dreadful, a fishing trawler I took out of Anchorhead. Pretty sick sense of humor…or maybe it was meant to be a threat on the fish… Don’t really recall much about how I got myself into the game, but I did. I would have to guess it was a product of boredom, fueled by a bit of liquid courage; I was not a gambler…nor was I good at it, apparently. It was a nice watch.

Dark and Cold. Could it really grow anymore? It did. And I had my answer…over and over again I had it. After was seemed three months I set to counting seconds, then through a reasonable crafty method of counting seconds, minutes and hours I decided I could count to ten hours, or I could get reasonably close, unless my guestimation of one second, one-one-thousand, was way off. In this way I arrived at Ten hours and there was still no light…either my snow cave had caved in around me, or well I don’t even want to image what else could be causing this hellish, ever growing dark and cold.

djmase

02.25.08

$18.

2008-08-30T10:48:00.000-05:00

I left my house with $18, my pipe and an intention of getting bread, aromate and sausage.

It was bitter cold. The cold that forced one’s hands to fight over which one gets to wrap around the warmth of a well packed, well burning wooden pipe.

The walk to the butcher was about 6 blocks. We had many inches of snow last week followed by rain this past weekend; I walked on over the ice. It was 6 treacherous blocks.

The butcher does not allow smoking in his shop, thank goodness, for as much as I like sausage and I like pipes, there are some things that belong separate. Ironically, they smoke the sausages…but I digress. Bearing this in mind and not wishing to stand in the blistering cold while my pipe simmered down, I carefully timed how much time I would need for it to self-extinguish. Brilliantly, I arrived at the butcher with a pipe that had quit and hankering for food that would not. In the back of my mind I could hear her voice reminding me of all the damage that my eating habits were doing to me and how I should be eating some organic crap that tastes like sand and mud evenly mixed.

‘sorry for the inconvenience, we are closed on the 19th for remodeling,” the sign said, ‘are you kidding me?’ I asked myself.

Utter dejection was born in this moment. (not really, but I was quite sad)

I had intended to go to my favorite bookstore which was across the street, now I was determined. The lights were very dim inside, but in my mind I knew that he was open until 7p (he always was). It was a shade after 6p. Without looking I pressed the door, fully expecting it to be open, it was. I walked inside as one does into their own home…(finally, I am back!) I had stepped about 6 steps and was nearing my shelf when I heard, ‘hello? We are kind of closed. The lights are off.’ Good point, the lights were off.

If utter dejection was not born at the anti-sausage moment, it surely was delivered here! (again, not really, but I was worse off than before)

‘I just want to see if you have any new Lewis and Tolkien!’ I heard myself plead. (ugg, how pathetic) ‘Oh,’ he said, I think remembering me. ‘When were you here last?’ it had been three weeks, and he did have new stuff. I bought it.

I ended up at home with $18 worth of old books, 5 old books; no sausage, cheese, bread, or the like.

djmase

02.19.08

How It Was Then.

2008-07-25T19:30:00.000-05:00

-This is how it was then. ‘Then’ was a time ago. Some of then was just a few days back, Some of then was this very morning, and some of then was weeks, months, and even years ago. We speak fondly of ‘Then,’ or at least some of us do, some of the time. Some of us never speak fondly of past ‘Then’ only of future ‘Then’ while others have the quite opposite malady. Regardless, we all have a ‘Then’ or many a ‘Then’ and we all speak of it in one fashion or another depending on the present day, feeling, frame of mind, and intended usage for the ‘Then’. Is ‘Then’ quite dead yet? I should say not, and for the sake of my ‘, T, h, e, and n keys I will just say T from now on.
-On the particular day that I sit and think about a few particular T’s, I can draw a few particular points, which in no doubt will play into some angle that I have set about, consciously or subconsciously to make. If I end up making the point I am not much sure I care, that is in large part to do with, I have little idea of what point I am actually setting out to make. It is no small wonder how it takes the strain off the ol’ mind when one has no direction where they are going, therefore can not possibly be bothered with whether they are going in the correct direction or not.
-T1. It was a time of peace and harmony, for the most part. LOVE, a word that drips out of my mouth with utter disdain, was abundant in the air and all was right in the universe. (or so they tell me) (and so I told myself) (although as you read this you no doubt see that I am writing this having seen the erroneous way in which I was traveling) I was in LOVE, that wretched and traitorous whore of all words, and loving it. (Pun intended because poor puns flow so intrastately with sappy love sentiment.) T was a time. It was there and it passed. In T1 it did seem as there though there actually was a love, which was made of two…almost. In my heart of hearts maybe I wanted so to believe it that I would allow it to be nothing else. OR it actually really was, and in my now heart of cynicism, I cannot see it for what it actually was. (I lean toward the first explanation and you may or may not agree with me by T’x end)
-T2. Is a time nearer to now, now being when I am writing this, not now being when it is read. Although, T1 is, in the course of straight line time, before T2, so it would seem that from this point forward T2, will always be after T1. How much time I waste! At T2 I look back at T1 as if I was having an intestine transplant, not sure why I would be, but I am, and I have opted for the blue light special, which uses no anesthetic, and is performed by a group of 9th graders deprived of their frogs on dissection day. It is a fantastic state of affairs. Little grubby fingers probing around in my belly. How did I ever think I was living before this? (yes, I am being mildly sarcastic, mildly perverse, but not at all overstating the position of my T) I am living now, and while I will not say, ‘in hell’ I will say ‘I am not living well’ so there is that. It is not that I aspire to live well in the traditional sense of the saying (yet I do) but that is not what I am pointing out. I am seeking to explain that things are bad, and by bad I mean, very, very not good. I cannot relate the state of current affairs to hell anymore than I can relate them to Brazil; I have been to neither. I can say that I sit now with a feeling of T2 that is reflecting on T1. T2 would tell me that in T1 there was love from my part. That in my part I loved the best I could know how. (the word sickens me) (yet I am a cynic and I would retort to me, ‘isn’t it nice to hide behind what you think you did…then, self?) Regardless of jesse, or jesse, I can only say what I can say, and only record what T2 tells me. T2 tells me that I did love the best way I knew, and in this I did love…period. T2 goes on to say that in missing and hurting and bleeding soul in the wake of T1, there is no other explanation aside from love. Finally, T2 tells me that if you are on the end of T1, looking over the destruction, the barren wasteland that lies below, and there is no cry from behind a stone, no whisper in the broken trees, no subtle babble from the dying brook, “I did too”…it is easy enough to deduce, it never did. T2 further degraded me by explaining that I needn’t be anymore discerning than a frog to deduce this final, pointed fact.
-I suppose then, if this were a good story, there would be a T3. T3 would use these lessons on the past, and look at the future and potentially project the outcome, or forecast some lessons that should be abided by. This is neither a story nor good, so I am lucky to avoid having to be concerned with writing about T3 and whatever other fairytales a story would wish me include.
-This is a brief recorded history, facts. While my whole life I have contended that history is written by the winners, I am clearly not a winner in this instance, (or maybe not in the traditional sense of the word, maybe I am a winner in the ‘well I did not end up marrying someone that does not love me back.” Yes, there is winning in that!) At battles, or wars, there are winners and losers, or there were in the old days, after which, some crusty old vet would sit and pen the account. No doubt events were changed, 500 men in the last stand was reduced to 50, and 400 Japs was increased to 2500…all of this is to say, I am sure there are points here that are amiss, points I do not see, because I am involved and points that are much larger or smaller due to my involvement…none the less, in some way I contend that that this is fact. I can contend this is fact, because even if this is not exactly how it unfolded, at this T’x, it is how my mind is unfolding it. (I think, this is not clear, more a stream of thought…not clear at all)

djmase

02.16.08

iHate. (the_thoughts_of_an_inwardly_jealous_man)

2008-07-19T11:30:00.000-05:00

The norm and what I hate about it…uggg; where to begin? There is no clear thought in my mind as to whether the average man is really seeking the average life, or if he is seeking more or even possibly less than said normal life. I am not speaking in terms of some spiritual or spirituality concept or the like, (with fingers in Mr. Burns form) I am speaking purely in terms of ‘everyone says X is so good, so X must be awesome.’
Example:
For the longest time as a kid I heard people rave about DMB. The lunacy eventually became so rancid that I had to kill myself.
The End.
Okay, that was a minor bluff on the suicide bit; but hardly an understatement. Everywhere I turned my ear I heard satellites and two-stepping…life was in a state. Eventually, as per usual, the hysteria wore off and people began to feel their lips again, I believe many people felt the scars from constant biting while under the anesthetic. Note, DMB did not fade into the west, but the tide had turned. About this time or soon thereafter I happened to win an event at Younglife. I do not recall the specifics but if I have to have a game I will imagine in involved a tarp, ice cream, water noodles, and a strobe light. The treasure I was granted for being the greatest tarp-rolling, noodle-battling, ice cream-eating, strobe light-dealing athlete was Crash, and not the film…don’t get me started on ‘the norm’ and Crash the film…you don’t have the bandwidth, and I am already 27, so I haven’t the time.
I made a face like this (only much more angry, scoffing, and resentful) when I looked at the CD.

It probably could have been (insert your least favorite album every recorded here) and I would have been more receptive. Sigh…if only iTunes had existed and I had been gifted a gift card…I would not be writing this now, you would not be wasting your time reading it…(I need to stay on track here) Begrudgingly I jammed the CD into my overly generous pocket and skulked back to my respective seat on the floor amidst a shower of congratulatory cheers from my peers; double-ugggg.
Now my point is this, after months of sitting on my shelf, I finally did put the CD in and listen to the set. Much to my shagrin it was quite good, I actually found myself liking a handful of the tunes. This brings me to the larger point, the largest point of this minute drivel.
The iPhone, seems to be my own personal next DMB. There are differences and I would be remiss if I did not spell them out to get the full-bodied aroma this thought is due. (had too, sorry) Since the iPhone was introduced I have wanted it. It is all that is functional in my ridiculously, stupid techie mind. (note: I chase ‘cool’ too, I just call it ‘functional’ etc.) Then there was the overflowing of people buying it; this brought on the aforementioned general DMB aura. The mad DMB influenza is a close relative of the iPhone influenza, or visa-versa, I am not certain of the proper genealogy of influenza as it relates (or inter-relates) to music and or technology. With the inflation of iPhone’s ego, I found it less and less palatable, like his brother Dave.
My issue is this, I never yearned for Dave…(that is not a dangling sentence I ever thought I would type) But, I do yearn for the iPhone. GPS, web, talking, texting (not that I do it), music, pics, etc…it just goes on and on…if you are reading a blog; you more than likely know the functionality and interface attractions all to well. Yet, in wanting an iPhone I become one of them, and I hate them.
I mean seem to have developed ‘iHate,’ apparently macs are not as impervious to viruses as once thought.

djmase

07.18.08

Long Strange Trip, More A Stream of Consciousness, Less A Ride Report.

2008-05-31T23:26:00.000-05:00

(written over a series of days)

After dinner I found myself reading a little bit of Joseph Conrad and a sliver of Daniel Defoe. A thought has been growing in my mind for some time, percolating. Finally I feel as though I am approaching something that remotely resembles a conclusion. The past year of my existence has been quite excellent at banishing all thought of finality out of my life; particularly in my ability to make decisions…but in this instance I feel that I am actually quite close to right.

Diner tonight was a spicy dish of penne. I started with a glass of wine, it was not satisfactory. Some how I ended up with Miller-Lite out of a bottle. I went to school in Milwaukee, for a time, but Lite was on sale…so it really should not feel special or any allegiance. I sat alone at my desk and eat while Dylan sang about a woman and her need to stay, to lay about his big brass bed. How she should stay with her man awhile, how she needed to stay and make him smile. The thoughts of Her and the thoughts of a wedding that was planned but never happened flood back over me; what year indeed. I have another gulp of the Lite. The next thing I know Bob is singing about another girl, he was wondering if she had changed at all. I can tell you She hasn’t. He was standing on the side of the road, and rain was falling on his shoes…he comes back over and over again to this woman, and his inability to escape her. What a poor sucker. I wish there was not so much Bob in me.

For centuries past, time out of mind, men have taken to the sea. In this time there were Sea-Men and there were Land-Men; Defoe and Swift understood this concept, Conrad was the ladder. These men had a birth or many a birth that gave them the resolution. The answer always manifest itself in a blanket of undulation, a fluid uncertainty marked their paths. For these men nothing fixed the indefinable hole in their hearts like the medicine of the sea. It was never about getting to Burma. The journey was only the conduit, the conduit that through solutions to their messed up lives could flow. This is what she never understood, that is what they never understand.

The Lite is getting empty, luckily the pipe is just tampered, and in these times there is an icebox in the kitchen, I believe more Lite lives in the bottom shelf of the door.

End of the thought.

Average modern man has not changed with the rising and settings of a few suns. The problem of problem solving, the inability to resolve issues, and the general principle that the harder you look at something, the less you really see, is still quite evident in said modern man. Though cycles have heated grips, abs, efi, traction control, boxes that carry more gear than one can shake a stick at, and all other fashion of other fancy gadgetry…these completely missing the point of the cycle and what it endows on the modern man; what the cycle actually DOES for the modern man. After all, the Seamen did not seek the sea because the helm of “The Dauntless” had heated pegs. I am quite certain it was not until “The Dauntless IV” that anyone even considered the idea of heated anything. These men went to sea for one reason, only one. Only there were they far enough away from the forest to see it through the trees. It is only in ‘the doing’ only in ‘the sailing’ that they found what would have never been revealed in all searching, high and low, about the earth.

“In this particular place, in this particular time, there were two small boys. Sam and Simon. Sam and Simon were best of friends. Being small boys, their world was large and small at the same moment. Large in the sense that they both understood that beyond the smoke covered mountains there were many, many miles, kilometers, fathoms, or whatever one fancies for measuring given sections of land-mass, to be discovered. Conversely, their world was small because they made it such. The concept of how small they were was not lost on either of them, particularly Sam, or Samuel. Taking a wild world and cramming it into one’s pocket is not an easy task, as one can imagine. It must be done one day at a time, one spoonful of dirt by one spoonful of dirt. Sam and Simon did, in fact, dig in the dirt with spoons. Though they were not keen enough, neither of them, to realize what they were doing, they did go out and make battle on the world everyday, determined to make it palatable.”

--

If one is to claim that they lead a life anymore amazing, interesting, or excellent than anyone else…one could suggest they were an arrogant self-centered prig. Yet, it would seem that based on the way of the world, and the decisions that people make that inevitably there will be folks with more colored pasts, and folks with more even keels. There is a particular chap that will more or less shape this story, his life is his own, far be it from me to make an conjectures regarding it, or upon it any judgment pass.

--

04.29.08
Had dinner with a fellow inmate (stromboni) tonight. The topic of conversation was all over the place. Cycles were a headliner, naturally, but we also dabbled in ride reports. This musing came up as I tried to explain my issues with rrs in a very inefficient and round about sort of way.)

05.31.08
Had my last dinner with my sister and her family, my mom, and another inmate Lamoson tonight. When I left I said good-bye. The good-bye was my much different than the usual ‘later’ I offer as I peel off on one wheel. Something about ‘the next time I see you will be 5.5k miles and three weeks later’ stopped me, made me check myself, sort of a taking account moment. The weekend was spent in preparation, oil changes, checking bike, rechecking bike, repacking….sorting, lose this bit of luggage, repack. Finally, had to go blow off some steam and did some dirt eating on the drz, always a good time, nice to hone the dirt, mud and crud skills at every opportunity. I digress, as I was saying good-byes, heartfelt ones --- Nordstrom’s types --- not the Wal-mart variety, I was flooded with emotions. It is easy to get on my bike and blitz down the road, never thinking twice about too much of it, but this little stretch is not as such. It is strange, things happen; bad things happen daily on bikes. Once in awhile I pop into the ‘faceplant’ forum, helps the perspective. I love my family; negative thoughts never helped anybody, I doubt even for motivation, but supposedly an argument can be made. Pretty tough to keep my mind going in a straight line these days, there has not been much sleep lately. But then again isn’t the game of this trip to get my mind sorted out a bit? Maybe being a mental slob is ok for now, maybe for always? Guess the next few thousand miles will tell me a bit more about that… I wonder if my water pump will fail, I should have done it, but with 5k should it be able to handle it? I don’t speak French, how did I end up being born in a third world country and end up with only a smattering of village speak coupled a Spanish vocabulary of a verbally stunted 24 month year old Spaniard child? What about those fuel pump threats or the fact that I am running a TKC with 600 miles on it, and my trip is no less than 5,500 miles? Guess I will throw the old Scorp on top of the rest of this luggage, it is good for a few more miles…just need a place to swap it, and break that accursed 950 bead….ugg.

I was riding my Z through town today, and I just had to give her a hug. In a strange way, when I lost one girl in my life I gained another, and then another. These last two, though much more mechanical and seemingly cold, have been much easier to deal with than the first one. Moreover, they do not talk much, except in excited purrs, thumps and or growls…none of which ever involve lies, with I relish kindly.

djmase

05.31.08

Tell Me a Story.

2008-05-24T23:11:00.001-05:00

“Tell me a story, Jack,” she said looking at me through the tiny slights created below the bottom of her upper eyelid and the top of her lower eyelid.
“Ok. (time passing) Lets see... (time passing) Give me second here to collect myself,” Jack half spoke, half motioned, setting his task aside. Simultaneously he ceased chewing his mustache and commenced tapping his foot absent-mindedly.
A few seconds passed, but neither Jessi nor Jack felt it as such. They both felt much more time pass but also it seemed only a sliver of time in some other queer way. It is a tough thing to understand exactly unless you had been Jessi. Or Jack, I suppose.
Eventually he, he is Jack, get it together. She is Jessi, to be fair with introductions all the way around. My apologizes, I was never one good with introductions of any sort. Someone once said, “Men don’t introduce themselves, it is a strange thing, but men can be friends, of a sort, for years and never learn each other’s name. We are blessed to have a language with so many words that can fill in where a Christian name ought be.”
Now, now…full disclosure here, I am----you know what? Lets leave that bit out for now and move into The Story for Jessi, on a Particular Eve.

---

In a world, not greatly unlike the one in which we presently dwell, there was a Purveyor of used books. Day after day He toiled away in His dank, dusty, and all together desolate book shoppe, The Book Shoppe as the neighborhood knew it. He loved books, there was no other task at which He loved more than lording over the Shoppe, continually buried in volumes all in different tongues, tones, and times. Now as one can well imagine, He had read more pages than the whole of Harvard University collectively since inception. I kid you not (and I am not one prone to exaggeration) after-all; He was a very old Man.
It came about that on a certain summer eve, as closing time was drawing near, He finished a particularly unsatisfying tale and was not keen to settle His night with such an unsavory read. As was His rule (His general rule) He did not take works from the Shoppe home with Him. He was very conscious about mixing works. Yet, as I have said, He was quite put out of sorts by His recent pages, so much so that He slammed the book down, collected His hat and pipe curtly, and made a straight line for the (seemingly) rarely utilized portal that ceaselessly (when utilized), creaked on its hinges. Just as He was passing through He glanced an ‘unsort’ as He called them, that struck a chord in His Great Heart. This chord had not been heard in a dragon’s age. (The ‘unsort’ books are books yet to be sorted, no great word-smithory here though assuming makes an as---nevermind. Oh, and a dragon’s age is a very…long…time, write that down!)
The book that, drat, what was His name…I have missed that introduction too…boy, I really was never much for names. It was a rich, grand name, fills one up like hot chocolate does the tummy after a long night of skating on a stiff forest lake. Nonetheless, I digress. Rest assured, if I come to recall it, I will tell It at once. More than likely it will come to me when I least dwell on it, that seems to be the case, more and more as the time, unyieldingly, marches on. My Oh My how my tongue needs a tighter leash!
The book! Yes, The book was named…Oh dear…not again! No! Here it is! It was hidden in this little nook of my brain, the book was named, “The Tale of Jessi, Queen Over the Three Hills.” As aforementioned, He had read most of the books ever to be written, but not this one, what’s more, this book promised a Fantasy, which touched a well hidden soft spot in His heart. Hurriedly, He shuffled home skipping dinner, after all, what was wine and bread next to The Feast “Jessi” promised? The beginning was more or less the boilerplate type of fantasy, only very well written. There was, of course, Jessi, who was a princess (of course), in a vast, prosperous kingdom. There were two sisters, who one could only imagine were the other ‘two hills’, and there were the usual merriments surrounding life in a fairytale. As the pages passed the story moved more from a well worded, fantasy into a darker/deeper story of Love, turmoil and introspection. (along with the occasional lack thereof.)
Our Reader was One who could read at pace, He could digest the syntax even faster. No time was needed to ‘mull it over’ as commonplace, coffee chugging hipsters often claim, in desperate attempts to sound wise. (curses to wicker park and their hipster poison) The same moment that the words crossed His eye it was already through His brain and observed from more angles than an average human could observe in one hundred of our years. Again, I am not overstating the breadth of this Beings intellect…shear madness by all measure. “Jessi” was growing into a delicious Banquet, He felt all time before had been ‘a Fast’, just for this event. There is no word in our tongue to classify his disgust when He turned the next page, about one third of the way through the book at this point, to find nothing but white staring back at Him. “A colossal publishing mistake!” He bellowed, for at this point He truly was, utterly engaged. He scornfully rolled His piercing eyes and whipped to the next page as if it was yet another unfit application in the hand of a scrupulous dean of admissions.
Another set of pages sat and smirked at Him. There was nearly an audible chuckle from somewhere in the binding. Without a moments delay He hurled “Jessi” across the room, knocking His cap clean off its nightly storage place atop a bust of Winston Churchill.
It was late, He sat for three minutes, then went to His quarters and settled down to sleep.
“Jessi” lay on the floor near the entryway. The questionably audible chuckle had long since faded and was questionably replaced with what sounded like very quiet, muffled sobs. The kind that people let out while hiding in their closet because they do not want to be asked by anyone, “What is wrong my dear?” (Yet, it nearly seemed that “She” grew ever so slightly bigger through the bawling. The book actually would not have fit onto a shelf that previously it had just squeezed into)
He was up early. Two poached eggs and two slices of toast for breakfast. On His way out the door he stooped to pick up His waylaid hat and saw “her” lying there. All was quiet now. He picked “Her” up gingerly, slipping “Her” into His satchel. He only had half a mind what He would do with “Her” but there was clear air outside and eight blocks to consider it. When He arrived at the Shoppe, He decided that any book that had caused Him such a fit was un-fit for resale, nay; it was far too precious a treasure for some brute to buy, undoubtely with a mind slightly above that of a german shepard.
“Jessi” sat in the safety of His Backroom. The company was good. There were not many volumes in this part of the otherwise cluttered Shoppe. A child of Israel would have seen this section as something akin to the ‘Holy of Holies’ of The Book Shoppe. Organization of the Backroom was impeccable, this and the fact that there were only the choicest of volumes in this backroom, were the main differences between It and the rest. And whether one chooses to believe it or not there were a handful of other volumes that He had run across that too sat with pages unfilled. He filed “The Tale of Jessi, Queen Over the Three Hills” next to “The Tale of Jack, The First.” He filed these two volumes next to each other with more than half a thought. One should not be so simple to think that it was not was due the first ten characters of their titles matching. I said He was organized; not alphabetized. All of His precious books are placed where they will be written best.

---

I get ahead of myself though, and no more comes into this story at present…

djmase
01.26.08

It is Calming to Know I Am Not Alone.

2008-05-20T12:54:00.000-05:00

"Shadows are falling and I've been here all day
It's too hot to sleep time is running away
Feel like my soul has turned into steel
I've still got the scars that the sun didn't heal
There's not even room enough to be anywhere
It's not dark yet, but it's getting there

Well my sense of humanity has gone down the drain
Behind every beautiful thing there's been some kind of pain
She wrote me a letter and she wrote it so kind
She put down in writing what was in her mind
I just don't see why I should even care
It's not dark yet, but it's getting there

Well, I've been to London and I've been to gay Paree
I've followed the river and I got to the sea
I've been down on the bottom of a world full of lies
I ain't looking for nothing in anyone's eyes
Sometimes my burden seems more than I can bear
It's not dark yet, but it's getting there

I was born here and I'll die here against my will
I know it looks like I'm moving, but I'm standing still
Every nerve in my body is so vacant and numb
I can't even remember what it was I came here to get away from
Don't even hear a murmur of a prayer
It's not dark yet, but it's getting there."

~R.A.Z.

Observation of the Eighteenth.

2008-05-17T08:34:00.000-05:00

The streets have a street light shine on them. One would swear the rain had just stopped dropping on them. It has not rained for days. The atmosphere is of such a composition that the tarmac seems unable to shake the grip of the tiny gloms of hydrogen and oxygen. Photographers prefer streetscapes to look wet when photographing them. It seems they look sexier, zoomier, much more of an ‘unattainable presence concept’ when they are freshly hydrated. Light dances on wet asphalt in way that it does on little else. How else can such a prehistoric medium look so delightful? How else can a city, so easily, maximize its light value than by drenching its hard-scape so that nearly all surfaces become highly reflective? Ironically, when the city is wet, when the ground is bouncing light as fast as it can process it, they feel more unsafe. It could be that when one steals a glance over their shoulder, they not only see the world above their sight line, they also see that world reflected in the ground below their sightline. They see each person, each shadow, each unidentified-moving-object, twice. One would think that this ‘double’ vision would make the walker seem more comfortable, and informed, it is not so. The walker is disconcerted, the sound of footfalls is different, the dropping of dew on an alley garbage can lid there is even a feeling of eyes, a great many eyes upon him. It would seem now that the once thought great ability to see an object as well as its reflection, is turned out to be a great vulnerability to the walker, a chink in the armor.

djmase

12.18.07

A Juncture.

2008-05-16T15:50:00.000-05:00

To date these notes have been a bit peppered in direction. I have no intetion of changing this, but there will be additions. The pepper randomness will continue, while I may begin to add in other stragglements of slightly more current issues than goblins and digging dirt roads with spoons.

"A full tank takes me almost three hours without a stop, three hours of contemplation and seculation, contemplation of past mistakes, speculation on future dangers." ~Ted Simon

Life is a continual mixture of old and new. The Bob Dylan of my life is the same sound waves as the one of my fathers life. Meanwhile the KTM of my life is the Triumph of Bob's life, such very different animals, such similar services they provide. (more on this to follow) One could well be born in a decade or century that is wrong for them. Allow a qualification to this statement, one *could* well be...were there no God. It seems that one may have been happier at a past time, and one can only speculate this sentiment for two reasons, one they know not the shape of the future, two they lived not in the past so they can only romaticize the fantasic nature of it. 1945 would have been my birth year...were there no God, and were I given an option.
What rapid change in the world from 1945 to 1989. First hand experience of that would have been well worth the lack of internet, cell phones, and whatever hoop-la one would insist make living in the present age worth the effort of it all.

djmase

05.16.08

Scar

2008-05-05T19:03:00.000-05:00

I had hoped to have much more worked out at this point, as far as writing things down, creating stories, notes, and the history of me or you and me. Alas, I have not. There are a handful of excuses for why I have been remiss in doing this, none of them honorable.

This passage is going to ramble; it is going to wind.

We had a rather remarkable discussion yester eve. We went whirling about the merry-go-round at a horrendous rate. It was something to see. Apparently we have very contrary views of feminism, or I am very misinformed, or you are mislead, or it is a combination of all things. Regardless, it was what it was.

You said it was heated, you said, “I was heated”. There was not a time when I was heated, there were times when I was scratching my head, both mentally and physically, as to how we could be missing each other. I wondered, are we near, are we far? If it is night, I can imagine that boats could slip past one another, very closely at some points, particularly if there is a low fog hanging above the water. I wondered, is she in that boat, the one just over there beyond my power to see, the one that I can’t even hear in this deafening silence of deep, black night?

There are other thoughts, lurking…creeping along in my mind, very afraid to show themselves for fear of lambastement. (new word) These thoughts keep themselves hiding in the deep layers of my mind…(heart?). When I look at you there is intrigue, there is wonder, there is awe (in a way) and it captures my mind, if only for moments in time.

We chat, we slowly, sometimes quickly, pick at each others scabs. By the time one is 27, unless wonderful miracles have happened, he will be a walking road-rash. If, per chance, you find one that actually has some flesh not covered in scab, take a picture, it is rare as a yeti. Broken hearts are difficult to mend. Twisted minds are hard to straight. In this arduous process of picking and healing we often run across those little sacs of puss and watery blood that so often prowls beneath the particularly ugly and unclean film of temporary skin. At first you just see a little pin prick of it, then it bubbles up as you apply pressure and squeeze out the filth. Next, the process of separating the scab from the being… At the end there is a pile of grotesque gauze, a scab and a clean wound that will move toward closure…yet the patient will wear the scar of the procedure for the rest of their days.

Sometimes there is an infected scab on the knee, this is very easy to self medicate…what of the one on your back though? This one is directly between your shoulder blades, as if some imp had reached out of hell and poked one with an undying coal. It has been ground into the skin, into the muscle, it is smutty and indecent; certainly it will birth the desired infectious result so graphically aforementioned.

When this scab is present, this festering back ailment, while this contamination exists is it not required that others help us medicate? Is it possible that when we have a weeping wound, dripping of blood and soot deep in out back that it is not a suggestion, it is a requirement that it is attended to by someone that can see it? Could it be a human condition to require this, or to not require this…? Could it be that One is not really One, that One is actually one? This question needs to be answered.

If one is to help, if one is to be helped…a novel set of issues immerges. Between all mortals, all cognitive mortals, relationships undulate. There are some that never exist, people who never meet, a simple rift in the fabric of space. There are others that always exist. When a relationship exists, it will flow like wind over a mountain, it will rise up, then it will fall into a valley, further still through a gorge…unending…till death do them part. (Idealistically) The manifestation of these mountains and valleys is as diverse as the elevation of the relationship. Furthermore, the existence of the wind and its movement is very much defined by the form of the earth over which it flows. Note, earth, is very much a different thing from mountain, valley, gorge, plain, plateau; these are mere manifestations of earth, languages that our intellect can decipher, or vistas that our minds can take in. For millennia the World was believed to be flat, an eyeball on a tall tower could not see the blue, white, and green Ball, hung is Space, that Mister Armstrong could see.

Millions of these earths float in our space. Each little coop marching along in time. It is widely accepted that some terra is harder than other, chemistry will show us that a given sample may show more stone, or more clay, or more sand…different terra, different earth, different. An earth covered in sand can and very well may develop a sea of dunes, as well as wide waste lands littered with small ripples and nothing else.

Another earth may have rich varied soil, it may even have water… The sun shines on it and heats the water, then the atmosphere cools as it sun pales. The water condenses into rich clouds, the prevailing wind sweeps it off into the landscape. Perhaps an earthquake or internal turmoil erupts; regal mountains spew out of the fragile crust of globe. Great rains, carried from the sea, fall on this range and the water runs off, there is erosion on the surface, there is biting and tearing, the crust is torn open. All of this tragedy, all of this destruction, the earth bears the scars of it.

It is a wonder how gorgeous our Earth is…when one stands in the forest, in the trees, in the Sierra Nevadas, listening to a brook next to them, looking at the soaring peaks over their head, feeling ever so small, but buried in the absolute bliss of the beauty.

Maybe when you stand in a scar it does not look so much like a scar. Maybe the bigger the scars in the earth, the more beautiful it is? Maybe not.

djmase

12.18.07

Green Socks.

2008-05-04T01:03:00.000-05:00

I am wearing green socks right now. They are short ones. They barely cover the little nubs on my ankles. Are those actually my ankles??? What is the ankle? I thought it was kind of the composite whole of where one’s foot meets one’s leg…? Maybe I am wrong. I only make it through two semesters worth of chemistry on my way to becoming a doctor…that is old news…
Anyhow. So these green socks are splendid indeed.

About 5 minutes ago I sat down to indulge myself in a long bath after a very rough day of work. I had to go in early, then I ended up staying late to clean up others messes. Upon arriving home I wrote a check for my December assessments, then I wrote a check for my electric bill. I always turn off lights and electronics I don’t need, you are not as good at doing so… I in find myself following you around shutting off things you have just utilized---but I digress.

Anyhow, after the check writing and bill paying, I open a fresh bottle of wine, made a sandwich, (French bread, muenster cheese, and Genoa salami)(1) drew a delicious bath, lit a candle and some incense, then proceeded to indulge in a soak. I had take all of two bites into my sandwich and one savory taste of my wine when the cell rang… "why take a cell to the bath tub…?” good question. It was you. You were calling to chat. I did not answer it, for the following reasons, I was naked and in the bath which tends to make me feel vulnerable, I was eating a sandwich, and I my bathroom has hard, tile walls so there is no doubt that you would have said, “where are you, it sounds really funny?” and I would have had to explain the situation to you, and frankly, I was out of gas for the day. Furthermore, to do said activity would have been---what is the word I am looking for here…awkward(?) or awkward’s stronger, older brother. sorry.

Carrying on here. I had just finished my sandwich and my first glass of wine, washing it all down with a cool glass of water…when I began to make a little poem in my head. I was saying something along the lines of a guy sitting in a room filled with smoke and steam, with warm rain falling on his head, while having a cup of wine. Very standard stuff, I am certain most people think if such things while enjoying a bower(2). It was just about this point when I leaned forward to bump the temperature up on my water supply. One is no doubt familiar with the turtle (or is a frog?) in the pot of water, as the temperature is increased, he does not see it and suddenly finds himself cooked---while I do have similar characteristics to a turtle, for example my hard, exterior shell; my keen sense of water temperature is not a shared trait with my tortoise sibling. At any rate, as I continued to ‘pour on the gas’ as my grandfather would say, it would seem that I was fighting a losing battle. The more I twisted the handle, the cooler the water became, mind you, at one glass of wine, I can not blame the drink for this malady, we had simply run out of warm water in my building. THINK OF IT!!! Sitting there, a small pool of luke warm water surrounding me, stomach content with delicious sustenance, candle and incense present, and NO WARM WATER. I bid the shower good day, got out and dressed myself. It was somewhere near this point in time that I became aware that I had not taken your call, only to be frozen out of a perfectly good shower…this made me doubly upset.

All is well now, I sat down to pen this note, which save the cold water, may never have happened…maybe all things do work together for good…according to His riches and mercy.

djm

11.29.07

1please don’t think I am so simple minded. While I am a creature of habit, I am also a creature of means…if I have muenster, salami, and French bread, I have a sandwich. Nothing more, nothing less.
2bower is a bath-shower as you know. But do to common day phonetics, one could, inadvertently pronounce it BOW-er, with a long O, it is not as such. It is spoken as the name Bauer, as in Jack Bauer.

World in My Pocket.

2008-05-03T22:39:00.000-05:00

Some amount of time ago, not certain how long it was and if one were to ask 5 different people one would, no doubt, get five different answers; if the reader can picture this time, then she understands when this story takes place. It was a far away land. To journey there is possible, generally speaking, but it is an arduous journey, great peril is involved and one may find that upon arrival, they feel cheated for risking life and limb for such a state.

In this particular place, in this particular time, there were two small boys. Sam and Simon. Sam and Simon were best of friends. Being small boys, their world was large and small at the same moment. Large in the sense that they both understood that beyond the smoke covered mountains there were many, many miles, kilometers, fathoms, or whatever one fancies for measuring given sections of land-mass, to be discovered. Conversely, their world was small because they made it such. The concept of how small they were was not lost on either of them, particularly Sam, or Samuel. Taking a wild world and cramming it into one’s pocket is not an easy task, as one can imagine. It must be done one day at a time, one spoonful of dirt by one spoonful of dirt. Sam and Simon did, in fact, dig in the dirt, with spoons. Though they were not keen enough, neither of them, to realize what they were doing, they did go out and make battle on the world everyday, determined to make it palatable.

Simon found very great pleasure in capturing hobgoblins. There is a great art to capturing them, but once you have one, the possibilities for entertainment are endless. This specific lad, Simon, loved nothing better than dressing them up in little girly doll clothes complete with ribbons, makeup and all. Once he had something worth showing, he would take his pleasure to the market and parade it around. Naturally, the hobgoblin hated this and was mortified, often being forced to relocate to another part of the world thereafter, if ever he was able to escape. Simon relished this, the way that the little evil bugger would sit in his cage and sputter, shaking the little bars as ferociously as the tiny creature could. Sam also had strange character issues of the same nature, after-all, he was a little boy. These issues do not come into this story though…………

………ok, there was one habit that Sam had which is worth noting. While Simon was obsessed with Hobgoblins, Sam was interested in good old fashion trolls. Trolls can be particularly nasty, specifically at night. Sam had a long history with trolls, one incident that DOES NOT come into this story but failure to mention the following one would be plain negligence. This being said, Sam enjoyed catching, ‘and then…’ trolls. The ‘and then’ is the humorous and disconcerting part of Sam’s malady. Once Sam had the creature, he would not dress the creature up, but he would somehow convince it to play act. For instance, he once convinced a troll that he was actually elvis, mind you, trolls are a few french fries short of a happy meal. The confused little fellow had a troll-sized guitar, glittering outfit, the whole shooting match. On a particular evening when Elvis troll was really ‘rocking’, so to speak, Sam slipped into the room with a very small squirt gun filled with water. Sam must be commended on his patience, at the exact right moment, when Elvis troll was looking into the bright lights of his mind, singing his heart out, Sam sprayed him down with the squirt gun. Interesting to consider is that trolls turn into wood, immediately upon being sprayed with water. Sam was giddy with glee. Running about he had what he had dreamt about for so long, a wooden, singing troll, in the perfect stance…it was a moment of bliss. After he had thoroughly tired himself out he set his new, static friend on the shelf. The shelf had hundreds of wooden trolls in the most bizarre of states.

Sam and Simon decided that the run of the mill dragon chasing and treasure hunting wound not suffice on a given spring morning. This was not a concern as there was a fallback routine that was certain to satisfy, and quite mandatory to practice if one knew what was good for him, and both of these ones did know what was good for them. BMX. BMX was the bee’s knees of all the land. With lunches packed by their endearing mothers the lads set out for the BMX mecca. It was a similar experience to that of actually traveling to this aforementioned land, once one arrived, the mecca often failed to live up to the name of mecca. But it did have one huge hill. Huge. The theory of this track is that of any racetrack…when the gate goes down, go as fast as you can, first one done wins, last one done disgraces their family and is executed. On the particular day of this visit, there were no formal races, it was the ideal time to tempt fate, see what this dragon of a track really had beneath it’s scales, poke around and see if there was any way to exploit the track to avoid death by last place come race day. After doing a fair piece of detective work, the lads arrived at the same answer at which generations of boys before them had arrived, the dragon is impregnable. One can only win by winning, live by not losing.

Armed with a new resolution to win, or at least be the second slowest (for fear of family disgrace followed by an untimely, painful death), they set about practicing. Simon was older, he was bigger, he was faster, and he was in a different age group, which was lucky for Samuel. This did not dissuade Simon from poking fun at Sam regarding his choice of starting location on the Hill. The real racers all went from the very peak, one gets the most speed, and frankly, it is illegal to start from any place else. There is a caveat to said starting Hill. At the bottom of this very large Hill, is a very large jump. In this far away land, gravity, conversion of potential energy to kinetic energy, and all the normal physical rules that Humans live by, were to be followed. Upon sufficient berating, Sam pushed his bike from the preferred, middle of the Hill starting point, to the top of the Hill. It is a historical fact, sweaty palms were invented on this day. He narrowed his eyes down the Hill. He had borrowed Simon’s helmet for the occasion and it gave him some false sense of courage in his quest to slay. As he imagined the voice of the announcer calling out the starting position verbiage, his small heart beat loudly in his Big World. There was a moment when the announcer in his mind summoned him and the other 6 invisible racers to go. Hurtling down the Hill was pure ecstasy. The speed, the whirling, the rush of victory at hand suddenly made his World small enough to fit into his pocket.

Somewhere between the split second realization of how large the bottom of the Hill jump was and a rough calculation of speed to weight ration Sam’s World began to grow, rapidly. He nearly had had it all the way into his pocket…but inflation was inevitable, as inevitable as he eminent trajectory. There was a moment, Simon saw this, Sam left his bike, he, Sam, was traveling though the air, but not majestically. The travel was that of a bird that drank too much wine and passed out at a bird party, as birds are known to do. His fellow party going birds then decided it would be fun to shave all of his feathers off and wake him with screaming that the nest is afire. The schwaggled bird jumps out of the nest, devoid of feathers and ‘flies’ (read falls from the sky, hitting every branch on the way down) that is precisely how Sam looked. Lucky for Sam, he had good solid gravel beneath him, and a God given chin to cushion his fall.

djmase

11.06.07