i-phones an wall-e

with the new internet accessing i-phone-type phones, one can be attached to all the worlds info at the touch of a button. if it was implanted in one head, IQ scores would skyrocket. effectively it does increase ones intelligence. ask me any question and if i can look it up in a few seconds it may as well be my knowledge.

but the detractor is big, it can dettach one from their fellow man.

HBO apathy

i remember watching HBO at a cousin's house as a kid. we'd stay up late and peek it away from adults, and occasionally spy some boobage. i remember seeing some boobage on fast times at ridgemont high. i also remember that a movie would be replayed frequently.

im in a hotel now that has HBO.

on rare occasion i catch a decent movie, but when i do its usually half way over by the time i start watching. i saw the entire "the time travellers wife". i almost started crying. which would have been bad seeing as how i had a roommate.

more often than not though there is not movies playing but HBO special series' for instance theyre now playing a documentary about the NY Jets. you see them playing football and see them practicing for games and you see the coaches get all mad and cuss using the F word a lot.

dreams of fighting

fight one.
we face each other on our knees. my opponent is a tiny vietnamese kid. we shake hands and begin fighting. hes fast. too fast. he's up and around my neck before i know it. the fear of being beat my such a small person is all that allows me to escape his grasp. were told to fight at 70% but hes clearly giving 110. i twist and turn and nearly manage a rear mount before the whistle blows. i call that a win.

fight two.
my battle buddy. a heavy but teddy bear like doctor. he asks before we start, " are you going to give it your all or just 50%. i tell him i base in on what my opponent gives. after shaking hands, i get him the guard position fairly quick. he tries the taught maneuvers but they fail him. the whistle blows. i win.

fight three.
a beefy guy who taught fighting techniques for his powerpoint presentation. hes a nice guy though. we shake hands and i lunge for a hold. in what seems like slow motion he grabs my collar with both hands and pulls my collar and twists. i'm choking. its a blood choke. what the hell! hes choking me. i feel as though i'll pass out. i tap out. he wins. "what the hell! i didnt know choking was allowed!?". an instructor is listening in and says, "well consider this a lesson. you just learned something you didnt know."

fight four.
awkward. its a middle aged woman, notorious for not being able to take any suffering. we shake. within a few i have her in a hold. she moans. the instructor steps in. she says her ribs hurt her. he ends our fight. i am glad.

did you know?...part 2

in 1960, Inejiro Asanuma, leader of the neutralist socialist party was assisinated by 17-year-old Otoya Yamaguchi. Inejiro's party was bitterly opposed to the security treaty with the United States. Otoya later hanged himself in his jail cell. notice the ninja like quickness of this assasination. you dont even see what happens but at the very end of the video they slow it way down.


http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=D4KROpdUkrM&feature=related

did you know?...part 1

Did you know that recently deceased DEMOCRATIC senator Robert Byrd was a member of the Ku Klux Klan when he was a young man? During his time in the KKK he was given the titles of Kleagle (recruiter) and Exalted Cyclops. During WWII he penned the following letter to segregationist and DEMOCRATIC Senator Theodore Bilbo:

“ I shall never fight in the armed forces with a Negro by my side... Rather I should die a thousand times, and see Old Glory trampled in the dirt never to rise again, than to see this beloved land of ours become degraded by race mongrels, a throwback to the blackest specimen from the wilds. ”
— Robert C. Byrd, in a letter to DEMOCRATIC Senator Theodore Bilbo, 1944,

In 1946 or 1947 he wrote a letter to a Grand Wizard stating:

"The Klan is needed today as never before and I am anxious to see its rebirth here in West Virginia and in every state in the nation."

Byrd defeated REPUBLICAN incumbent W. Chapman Revercomb for the United States Senate in 1958, a campaign in which Revercomb's record SUPPORTING CIVIL RIGHTS became an issue which played in Byrd's favor.

Byrd joined with other Southern and border state DEMOCRATS to filibuster the Civil Rights Act of 1964, personally filibustering the bill for 14 hours.


Of course, later in life he noted that joining the KKK was "the greatest mistake I ever made" and that he regretted making the filibuster.

more info...

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Robert_Byrd

j.k. leopold entry (June 1934)

From my J.K. Leopold diary...

The other day I visited father for his birthday. We planned to play boche' ball and whilst I was retrieving the equipment from his closet, he hovered like a mother hen, nitpicking the trivial. "dont take the balls out of the bag!", "careful with that!", "don't touch that, put it back." he whined. He reminded me of his bitter sister.

It is an irritible heart in him that i posess as well. Only mine is directed at him.

Last Thursday, he met my wife and I for lunch at the local cafe'. I was excited for another chance. another chance to connect with this kind man and yes there is a definite kindness to him. A meekness and gentleness I don't posess.

I tried so hard to connect with him, but to no avail. His talk was always self-focused. When I talked to him, his eyes and attention were fixated on his food. I thought as I talked to him, "He would look exactly the same eating that food, if no one was talking to him." As my wife tried to make small talk, he couldnt hide his boredom, looking around the room, ignoring most of what she said.

Perhaps what stings the most is it all highlights to me that he seems not to know how short life is. He has doubtless a few short good years ahead of him. I want to cry. I want to tell him to live! live! I want him to connect to others. I want him to connect to me.

I talked to him about his dream of flying in a hot air balloon. He talked of doing it one day, not realizing that the day may be here and is probably long gone. I know I know that I shall grieve for him terribly when he passes, because I grieve for him terribly right now.

don't you hate it...

when you visit someone and their crazy dog jumps all over you?

musical enclaves

i don't tend to like a lot of Christian music. we'll this is partly true. i almost always like the sentiment but i find the music itself is often lacking for me. much of the music is praise and worship like. this is good of course, but its kind of like watching an interview with an athlete who won a race. theyre happy and they won and they thank their coach and all that. thats good. the person has arrived. they won. the struggle is over.

but for me thats it. the race is over. i want to hear about the struggle. i want to watch the race. some Christian music goes there and does it well and i am moved by this struggle. i can relate to the struggle and it holds my interest.

one of my favorite Christian tunes...

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=GHpuTGGRCbY

"C.S. Lewis song" by Brooke Fraser

the power of dum-dum.

i cuss when i drive. not like benign cussing but more like the full on, "get your a$$ out there mo*@*-f*#&er!! what the f#$k?! type of cussing.

its become habit-forming and tends to serve two purposes. first, it lets off steam and second it amuses me. the problem is it is wrong. you know, sinful. it taints my already too tainted soul.

i read once, by a famous author i think, that instead of calling people legitimate names like "a$$hole", he would instead call them made-up names like "fliberty birch". while clever in its own right, i'm afraid this approach requires verbal creativity i lack. also i think it would ultimately leave me unsatisfied. deep down i really know im not calling them a real name.

so, since i have a problem with vehement cussing while driving, i decided to instead just call people "dum-dum" when they do things i dont like. it is a real put-down but a really benign and childish one. the results have been fantastic. to begin with it amuses me. i laugh at myself when i do it. "out of the way dum dum!". and more importantly, i have begun to see the juvenile nature behind my original cussing in the first place. calling names & putting people down. childish.

re-conditioning of panic symptomatology sought

over the past 4 years i have been conditioned to a type of panic.

when's the next paper going to be due?
when's my next presentation?
when's my next group project?
when's do i see my next client?
when do i meet with my supervisor?
when is my proposal...my defense?

now that i'm done with academics, i dont know what to do with myself?
maybe i should play with my self. (in a mischievous voice)

boy speaking to brother about imaginitive game wherein they pretend they are other people. this play required nothing but the imagination. no toys. thereby it was termed playing with one self.

boy 1: "hey i know what! lets go play with our-selves!"

boy 2: "yes that would be splendid! let us go to our room straight-away and do just that!"

dad: (listening in the distance) "play with yourselves?!?"

the days fly by and it feels like i hardly get anything done. the grass is up to my knees, the wife keeps nagging me about it but i just dont care.i just dont feel the sense of urgency i used to. i even have time to post to this silly blog. if that doesnt make my point i dont know what will.

descent into misanthropism

In 1930, J.K. Leopold penned the following letter to an unnamed confidant:

I tire of seeing people around every corner. No place can I go where there aren't hordes of people doing the same damn thing that I'm doing. It's like a gathering of ignorant beasts I tell you! Less so, like a swarm of insects. mindless insects never questioning their existence.

I have no doubt that if i took the time to get to know most any one of these individuals I'd probably grow to like them. I might even love a few. However, for the most part, it is not the individual that chafes but the mass of individuals.

Every year the population grows in leaps and bounds. I have a secret wish that there will be a report one day soon that the population is actually shrinking. This would clearly mean that more people died than were born. When a tragic accident occurs and is broadcast on the radio and written in the papers, I hear the numbers of those killed and think "that means this counteracts the X number of babies born". Again, my hope being that more will die than are born. Horrible, yes?

-J.K. Leopold

confessions of a tree-hugger

i have always been a big fan of trees. i climbed them when i was about 3 or 4. i once ran away into the forest when i was about the same age. this has been rather constant. as an adult i try to jungle-ize my yard with trees. one of my favorite things at disney...swiss family robinson tree house. plus, i have always hated how developers move into an area and cut down all the natural trees to build houses and walmarts. beautiful areas of natural beauty cut down for progress and for paper. on a less global scale, when anyone tells me they need to cut this tree down or that tree down, i usually say "why? youll miss all the shade it provides."

the other day on a cruise boat i had an epiphany.

i was in the bathroom. i finished washing my hands and i had the option for paper towels or air-dry system to dry my hands. i thought "what does the ship do with all the used paper towels?" well they must dump them or put them somewhere. then i thought the obvious...trees are cut to dry my hands to be dumped in a landfill.

im part of the problem. every time i use a paper towel to dry water off my hands im supporting the over-killing of trees. how many trees get cut just to dry my hands?

"my hands must be dry dammit all!

if you think about it, its really kind of effeminate and weak and silly.

"i must wipe the icky clean water off my hands!"

its madness. i decided on that very cruise that i would cease and desist using paper towels after washing my hands. i'll use the air-blower if available and if not i'll just wipe my hands on my pants.

afterall, its just water.

the cast

hero: maybe a forlorn monk or maybe a lonely travelling mystic.

damsel: good, sweet, & innocent, given in marriage to an evil, unruly and drunken king.

damsel's father: retired warrior, good natured, kind-hearted

damsel's mother: dark, mysterious, uses her dark magic to sow chaos and discord. she often wears a saintly habit to hide the darkness beneath.

damsel's siblings: 2 brothers and a sister all of varying evil nature.

villain: evil, unruly, and drunken king

premise: the damsel marries the villain unbknowing of his evil nature. together the damsel and the villain have two children. a mix of good and evil is present in each child, but which side will prevail? the good or the evil. the damsel gets away from the king and in hiding raises her children on her own. enter the hero. he falls in love with the damsel and takes her on with the two children. as the children grow their nature becomes more apparent...what will happen, im on the edge of my seat!


P33, your thoughts?

Jesus hand-me-down

when i was a kid, i think we were a lil poor. one day i was getting ready to go to soccer practice and all my shirts were in the wash or dirty or something. i complain to my mom and she procures a grocery bag of hand-me-downs from a friend of hers who had two boys about 5 years older than me. there was only one shirt that was not a dress shirt. i put it on and to my horror it said "keep on truckin' for Jesus". beneath it was a picture of a 4X4 looking truck. i was mortified to wear it but desperate.

i wore it and tried to keep my arms crossed so that no one would see my embarrassing shirt. unfortunately within minutes someone shouts, "HAHA Oh my God, 'truckin' for Jesus"! several others looked and laughed then moved on. i was about 10 or 11 but the memory left its mark on me.

why was i embarrassed? probably because i anticipated the reaction i got. but why did i anticipate it? at that young age was i already aware that this was an unacceptable mark to wear in an enemy's camp. like waving a U.S. flag at a Hitler parade. and if one is so apprehensive to wear Jesus on their chest, how much more so are they to reveal that he is in their hearts?

so many questions, so little time to answer them.

passing the time while in traffic

i have driven so many miles in my life that i practically drive on auto-pilot anymore. i just get in the car with destination in mind and my body takes over to do the rest. it does this with only the minimal need of brain capacity. automatic responses. like a bus passenger, sometimes im surprised that ive reached my destination. "oh were here already!", my brain will say. i say all this to say that my brain is often bored while driving. so ive come up with a few activities to pass the time:

sometimes i'll imagine i have the power to move things. like cars in front of me. i'll imagine i can focus on a car and throw it thousands of feet in the air. or i can look at a line of traffic and cause it to part. like moses red sea, allowing me to drive down the middle.

another thing i'll do when at a stop sign where traffic is turning in front of me: i'lll study the faces of the drivers as they pass. its interesting, theyre almost all sad looking. rarely do you see a happy or tranquil face. very telling of our world i think. sometimes rather than focus on their face i'll note how many have a phone glued to their ear. many do. its like were afraid of silence and alone-time anymore.

another game i'll play is conceptualizing other drivers babyhood. driving around you see a variety of characters on the road. some are quite used looking as though life has given them a rough haul. they'res ruffians, wrinkled tough ladies, sex-pots, thugs, and the like. when i see them i'll give careful consideration that they were once babies. i'll imagine what they looked like as a baby. then i'll consider how life and their choises in life led them to their particular genre, outlook and life. once innocent, during life they bought into a schema which says, "i have to be tough", "i have to be mean", "i have to stand out and be different" or "i have to be sexy".


when i arrive at my destination, i put the game away, until the next time my brain catches a ride with my body.

killing the weak

i'm sick. la grippe: the phlegm, draining, snorting, sniffing, spitting up blood and gasping for air. you know, the usual. over the years ive noticed a pattern when i get sick. the wife keeps her distance. this morning im sitting on the couch watching the morning news and shes nowhere around (normally she sits on the chair next to me, sipping a cup of coffee like me). i look around and shes all the way in the dining room, standing up, drinking coffee and watching tv from there. a full 15 feet out of the room that i'm in. i know what shes doing, she doesnt want to catch it. i laugh to myself about it. while her demeanor here is not particularly florence nightengale-ish, at least she's not malevolent with me when im ill.

the dog is another story. he gets primal when im sick. he'll bark and growl when i cough and hes particularly vicious when i need to cough up phlegm. its like he knows the sound of a cough which elicits phlegm and he goes on the attack following me to the bathroom growling. i tell my wife that he senses im sick and he'd like to kill me to take on the alpha male role. i swear at him and tell him not to mess with me thus asserting my alpha-maleness is still intact. he reluctantly backs off. but as soon as the coughing resumes, it happens again though hes right back at it, moving in for a potential kill to dethrone the king.

it reminds me of my cat archimedes. he was 18 or 19 years old and dying. i dont know what of, he was just not eating anymore and kept skulting off hiding here and there trying to find a safe place to die. i found him in a neighbors yard behind a stack of wood and carried him back to our garage. he could barely walk. we made a bed for him and doted on him for a while. then our younger stray cat, tiger, the most loving animal ive ever seen, walks in. he looks at poor dying archimedes he hisses at him and started making weird fighting noises, id never heard him make. i took tiger outide. it was strange, they always got along before. actualy seemed like friends...now tiger acted like he wanted to kill the old man (archimedes).

its the natural way i guess, the way animals kill the weak. but it also points to the unnatural (i.e. supernatural) way people care for their sick. even those not related to them. even those who will not get better.

the soul of man transcending the animal flesh.

dictator of the world, pt. 1

i often think about how i'll handle my power when i become dictator of the world. i will definitely implement some changes as i'm pretty unsatisfied with how things are being run currently.

1. to begin with, no more free welfare for able-bodied & able-minded individuals. if you dont have a job, dont worry the government will put you to work doing menial labor. you may be building prisons or sewing government uniforms or paving roads but you will be working.

2. no more baby-making to gain tax and welfare benefits. having children will cost parents. they will have to pay the government a baby tax to have more than one child.

3. if a mother (and father) chooses to have kids anyway in spite of being unable to pay for them, the children will be removed from their custody and placed with parents who can afford them.

4. everyone will serve their government for 2 years. this may be in a civilian or military role.

5. jails are no longer places for the criminal to sit and wait. in my new world it is a place of forced penance. the criminal labors while in prison. that labor is more or less hard labor based on the severity of the crime. you may make clothes or licence plates, or break boulders. it just depends. heres the beauty of it. the prisoners are paid a low sum and 95% goes directly to their victim or victims family.

6. certain violent crimes are dealt with severely in my world. if one is convicted of rape, murder, terrorism or child molestation the punishment is death. by hanging. the executions are viewable on public television. lesser crimes are dealt with less severely of course but more severely than in todays world.

7. if convicted of a violent crime, one is entitled to one appeal. this appeal is made by ones lawyer and the lawyer has a maximum of 1 year to make the appeal. people are no longer in a prison for a decade prior to execution. executions happen the week after a failed appeals.

8. there is no more lottery. this just has poor people spending the little they have on false hopes.

9. there are no more vanity licence tags. vanity is a sin afterall.

10. automakers must have 50% of their vehicles as electric or hybrid.

11. land developers must keep all large trees intact and build around them. if thats difficult or impossible, too bad.

more to come...

weighing costs of odd jobs

men tend to know the costs of household maintenance. when i say "costs", i dont mean financial costs. no i mean costs to ones personhood. ones ego. ones soul. the job is never what it seems. never. it may start easy enough but halfway into it you will find a screw rusted to a beam or a widget that just wont come undone or a missing nut. beyond that, you may not be able to fix it and this is the worst. to start a job only to admit defeat halfway through it taxes your ego and your soul.

my wife does not nag, typically, but she will speak about things that need to be fixed. like "the water faucet handle it partially broken off". i agree to this observation but knowing there will be a cost, i add nothing more. then a week later she'll mention it again. i still say nothing. i know there will be a cost. then she'll mention that while im at the store i might want to pick up a new handle. i defer to another time. or feign forgetting.

at this point she pulls out the big guns. "maybe we should call a plumber to fix the handle". its a very sneaky ploy. she knows i have a cost i my head and at this point she has levied costs that trumph a potential cost to my ego.


i go and buy the handle. i unscrew the screw holding in the old one. "so far so good i think". i pull on the old handle to remove it. its stuck. shit. i spray it with oil. still stuck. ah i see. now i see the cost. its almost a relief because i knew it was there only now i see it. the cost has reared its ugly head.

i use brute force and pull on the old handle and it breaks off into my hand. a piece of the copper sticks into my finger. blood is dripping. i wedge a screwdriver behind it and force the beast off. without attending to the finger i put the new handle on and screw it in. the cost is evident now. blood dripping from my hand. it feels good because its less costly than having failed or been unable to fix it. that is the most costly.

for history's sake

ive always had a keen sense of history. no, not like sensing world history but sensing my own history. it turns out not everyone is aware of the passing of time the way i am. in fact, it seems, some people stumble-bum through life never really cognizant of their past, present and future.

but not i!
why, it is practically a mutant gift i have. you know, this sensing of time.
maybe a few examples are in order:

when i was 4 i discovered that smokey the bear had died. i quickly realized that this meant i would die and more importantly that my parents would one day die. i ran to my mom in tears over this painful discovery.

when i was 7 i remember being melancholy at my birthday realizing i would only be 7 this once. that it would all be a memory one day.

when i was 13 remember being depressed when driving home from a family vacation. i remember feeling that i would never be a kid again nor enjoy the innocence of childhood again. adulthood was near and i knew it.

today its somewhat different. im still very cognizant of the passing of time but rather than being down about it, i try to use it to my advantage. i do the things i want to do now, because now is passing quickly. i say the things i want to say. befriend those i want as friends. disregard those i dont.

i guess when you realize how short life is you can get sad or get busy.

standing up and stood up

he and i were stood up by the trainer. we were supposed to train but the trainer did not show. i attributed it to his foolish and careless youthfulness. later in the day i came to find out i stood up her. her being one i barely knew but we did have an appointment and i missed it. how could i have forgotten? laziness and distractability in all likelihood. Later in the day still, my friend and i were stood up by they, the other friends. the excuses: ones dog swallowed a tampon, another overslept, two others left no word.

coincidences like these point to meaning beyond what coincidences can bring.

i surmise the lesson as thus:

be forgiving when stood up. it may not have been on purpose or due to anything more than being falliable and human. to be hurt is over such is wasted emotion.
especially when you consider youve stood up as well as been stood up.

parasites

3/14/1911

I'd say probably 3 or 4 years ago my wife and i bought an antique cabinet to house my antique books. it has the wavy glass showing its age. i loved it.

then about a year late i noticed a bunch of little wood pellets inside of it. each just slightly bigger than a grain of sand. some parasitic critter was living in my beloved cabinet. i took out all my books, inspected them then sprayer insect killer into the cabinet. i hoped that did the trick. About a year later still and the little wood pellets are back. something is still there. gnawing at my cabinet then shitting out wood turds. the little f###er!

i've finally decided i cant have it. i have to get rid of the thing before this demon spreads and eats other beloved things in my life. or better yet, maybe i'll pack my bags and move to the fiji islands, leaving the little parasite to its own devices. who knows?

-J.K. Leopold

immortal love

i think this is probably my favorite "love" song. in it Sting eloquently puts his love for another above all. above time, place, status, identity...everything. however, what the song leaves out is the "why" of the love. it is solely focused on the permanency of it and unconcerned with describing it or explaining it.

A thousand years

A thousand years, a thousand more,
A thousand times a million doors to eternity
I may have lived a thousand lives, a thousand times
An endless turning stairway climbs
To a tower of souls
If it takes another thousand years, a thousand wars,
The towers rise to numberless floors in space
I could shed another million tears, a million breaths,
A million names but only one truth to face

A million roads, a million fears
A million suns, ten million years of uncertainty
I could speak a million lies, a million songs,
A million rights, a million wrongs in this balance of time
But if there was a single truth, a single light
A single thought, a singular touch of grace
Then following this single point , this single flame,
The single haunted memory of your face

I still love you
I still want you
A thousand times the mysteries unfold themselves
Like galaxies in my head

I may be numberless, I may be innocent
I may know many things, I may be ignorant
Or I could ride with kings and conquer many lands
Or win this world at cards and let it slip my hands
I could be cannon food, destroyed a thousand times
Reborn as fortune's child to judge another's crimes
Or wear this pilgrim's cloak, or be a common thief
I've kept this single faith, I have but one belief

I still love you
I still want you
A thousand times the mysteries unfold themselves
Like galaxies in my head
On and on the mysteries unwind themselves
Eternities still unsaid
'Til you love me

the task driven versus the people oriented

my supervisor appeared cross with me. her words were snappy and she seemed ready to pounce on the slightest weakness. she challenged the content of a recent letter. apparently feeling that i was not coddling enough with my subordinates. she accused, "well that should have been a clue to you...".

a clue to me? why would i look for clues. a person looks for clues if they do not know the answer, which i did. my way, perfectly acceptable. my approach in the letter, unassailable. go to hell.

i did not cower or apologize. i did not defend myself. i didn't nod my head to affirm her evaluation. i no longer had reason to fear. i am now a colleague and not a neophyte. she no longer the expert on all matters, especially social matters.

i just looked at her. an angry look. surprisingly, one of my subordinates shot back at her, "look, we know what we are doing!" my leader was floored. she had had over-stepped. loyalties had shifted. -jk leopold

hierarchy of sins

m.scott peck derails laziness as the lowest of sins. he reasons that one must continue to strive, to fight against atrophy and decay and to do otherwise is death and sin.

others, i think, c.s. lewis, inclined that pride is one of the worst for its impediment. specifically, if one feels themselves better than their fellow man and even God, well it makes communing kind of difficult.

c. stanley discusses blaspheming the Holy Spirit as essentially ignoring God's call to come to Him. a certain pinnacle of sin.

i sometimes think my dad holds smoking as one of the worst sins. whenever he mentions that someone is smoking, he gets an extremely disdained look. He'll be saying, "i saw her out back smoking a cigarette", but his face is saying, "i saw her out back rolling in her own feces." he'll witness to these heathens that they ought not engage in such sin, for their health.

i know a foreign lady and her american lover who think that eating meat is the deadliest of sins. they consider it so for what it does to the human body, the environment, and i suspect most importantly what it does to those poor lil animals. they are fabulous proselytisers and miss no opportunity to preach the figurative fire and brimstone about thier favorite sin.

on a more global scale, the voodoo culture of haiti note that disloyalty and ill-will towards ones family is of the most abominable (at least according to "the serpent and the rainbow"). so horrible is the sin that you may be justly turned into a zombie for the crime.

for some people, sexual sins seem always to be the worst, most heinous of sins. you know, gay sex, pre-marital sex, masturbation, what-not. i wont prolong myself here (pun intended).

i dont know if God weighs sin the way we do. one being worse than another. i may despise one more than another, but maybe thats more about how i was raised or the pain that particular sin caused me or the sin witin me seething beneath the surface.

Jesus seemed to even the playing field of sin when he noted that lusting after another man's wife is as bad as having adultery. Also he tended to focus less on carnal sins and more on those who elevated themselves above other sinners.

i think any and all sin is in essence spiritual disease. some may have differerent symptomotology than others, and a different short term prognosis, but all have the same long-term fatal prognosis.

redneck: 121, me: 1

i have a neighbor who epitomizes the stereotypical male ideal. he is a stocky & short man. he has a big beer gut and a scruffy beard. he wears a camouflage hat and smokes Marlboros. he does not exercise. that is for sissies. the only exercise he does is to mow his own lawn, while smoking. Whether its 20 degrees or 90 degrees, he will often be seen standing in his front yard, smoking, shirtless, wearing only jeans, boots and his camouflage hat. he does not give one shit what you think of him. he is the manly ideal.

for whatever reason, probably something sordid and Freudian, i am always finding myself doing something sissified or effeminate only to look up and find him standing there in his front yard, beer in one hand cig in the other, looking at me.

like i'll be going out to check the mail, i'll be listening to my ipod and singing wham's careless whisper while swaying my body to the song. then as i get my mail and start back up the driveway, i'll see him getting into his truck (oh, did i forget to mention he has a truck?). and i'll think, "oh shit, he probably heard me singing this gay song?!".

or like the time i was putting clothes from the washer to the dryer, which is clearly a job for women. i have a pair of my underwear in my hands with a noteworthy skidmark. i start spraying the skidmak with stain-b-gone. when i look up i see he is watching the whole effeminate event from his driveway. i am humiliated.

oh yeah, oh yeah! then there was the time i was in the backyard talking baby talk to my puppy. "thats a good boy, you skunkle, munkle, punkles, you did peepee like a good boy didnt you? you know daddy loves you dont you?? you do, i know you do?!" then i have this sick sense that someone is watching me. i look up and over in my neighbor's back yard stands the male archetype smoking a cig and cooking deer meat on his grill. he saw my horrid behavior. i could have just died i tell you (wait! that last sentence sounds a lil gay).

this kind of thing has happened with me and my neighbor 121 times over the last ten years or so.

but today i was the comeback kid.

i go into the back yard to yell at the dog, he sheepishly listens with tail between his legs. i look up and what do i see?

my neighbor, is checking the coverings on his plants to make sure they survive the freeze (strike one), while wearing what appeared to be a cushy brand new effeminate looking robe!

i look at him but do not smile. then i update my mental scoreboard.

redneck: 121, me: 1

closing out open tickets

in the last couple of months i have had the strangest desire to close out relationships. i am aware that i will be leaving soon and know that i wont see many family, friends, and muses for some time.

as such, i have arranged lunches, drinks, and get-togethers with people in order to close out their "case". a final session with each in order to know that ive dotted my "i"'s and crossed my "t"'s. its an effort to find finality or closure, i suppose.

by and large this has led to a measure of disappointment. the relationship is not as close as i had thought. the person does not care as much as i had hoped. they are not as likable as i had previously imagined. a variety of these types of thoughts and feelings enter my head. perhaps it is all so much justification bias. if im disappointed in all these that i'm leaving, it will be all the easier to leave.

-j.k. leopold

diary entry 1/5/1910

i'll be taking a trip with my dad in the next couple of days. a 2 or 3 day trip driving several hundred miles each way. when he asked to come with me, my first thoughts were "why does he want to go with me? did mom or my wife put him up to it?". thats weird to think stuff like that over such an innocent request.

maybe in part its because weve never really connected on a psychologically deep level. i dont know why. were just different i guess. its like we have CB radios that are forever on different channels. on occasion we'll get each other's staticy frequency...you can barely hear it...then its gone.

part of me looks forward to a trip where we'll possibly be forced to be on the same channel. but part of me fears the close proximity wont make a difference.


- j.k. leopold

tower of babel II

tower of burj dubai:



tower of babel: