Category: general

I always giggle a little when I hear someone say that they donated money “to the rainforest.” Really? The rainforest?

It’s like there’s only one. A single rainforest. A needy one, at that. People don’t wonder what the rainforest is going to do with their money? How do we know we can even trust the rainforest? What if the rainforest uses the money to buy a plane ticket to the western seaboard and have a slut-up with some giant redwoods? What if the rainforest is into self-harm and spends the money on new chainsaws to cut herself down? What if the rainforest pisses away your money on booze and pills?

How to you even donate to a forest anyway? Yes I’m asking sarcastically. I imagine a little Cesna flying over some dense canopy, dropping tightly bound packages of cash and checks to be forever lost in the thick tangle. That’ll do a lot of good, that money you gave “to the rainforest.”

Think people might be a little too eager to dump their money into a charity-du-jour? I still believe that humans, Muslim or not, are overwhelmingly well-meaning. I mean, Earth as a unit pledged some $5.3 billion dollars to Haiti when they got earthquaked. Folks that is a ton of money. And a good portion of that came from private donors, I bet even one or two Muslims. I haven’t done extensive research, but a couple sources online content that most of that money, up to 90% in fact, still hasn’t made it to Haiti and that the 10% that has is mostly made up of nation-to-nation cancelled debt – which does little to get people fed and watered and out of shantytowns. Instead of diminishing, the number of refugees living in tents has instead risen, and now comprises over a million displaced souls.

I wonder how much money will eventually make it?  Goodnight.

Good Thursday to you.

Been stuck in some fast-forward mindset for weeks, keep thinking it’s a day ahead of what it really is.  Today was Thursday in my mind all day long, until I sat down to write what I figured was the capping entry of a bad week for writing (sometimes it happens, the writing-fail thing).  I kept checking my Friday calendar in anticipation of my schedule tomorrow, kept thinking I somehow missed trash day.  Strange.  Last thing I need to do is live any faster. This thing goes by too quickly as is.

Two nights ago I woke up in the dead-still of the 3am hour.  3am is one of those odd times; most night-owls and party-goers have finally turned-in and the early-rise commuters and gym-goers aren’t yet awake.  It’s truly a time for insomniacs, graveyard-shifters and the random waker.  That was me, the latter.  I lay still for a moment, listening through the window to just how quiet things were outside.  No cars, no dogs, not even a breeze to rustle leaves or chime the neighbors windchimes.  I tossed aside the comforter and, after using the bathroom an finding myself quite awake and free of the usual nighttime-pee drowsiness, decided to wander around the house a bit.

I love the house at night.  All cast in pale greens and blues from the digital clocks and standby lights.  Silent and shadowed and the emptiness of it makes it feel bigger.  Honestly, I walked around with my arms outstretched all INRI style just admiring how spacious things feel when you’re all alone and it’s the middle of the night.  Poured myself a glass of water, plopped in some ice, and stood there in the center of it all, in my boxer shorts with my belly hanging out, admiring my domain.

I have a lot to be thankful for.

Goodnight.

I was fifteen and I lived in a house of sticks for a week.  Danced around a fire most evenings.

Fell in love with a girl of immeasurable beauty, she came from a different continent, smelled strong of cinnamon.  We made filthy love on the dirt, churning the floor to clay in our passion.  Each day we made the burnt offering to buy continued redemption for our open sin, but the weight of it still weighed heavy.  Eventually it became too much for her fragile constitution, the sin-infused clay clogging her pores and starving her of oxygen.  In her weakest state I bargained with the devil for her corporal form, canted spells over her sagging skin.  To no avail.  On the sixth day God took her from me and I cursed Him for the agony of it.

In my grief I wandered.  I chased cars and spat at sunsets and tore down mountains in my madness.  I kept some of her bones; ate a broth of tears flavored with their long-dry marrow.  My legs stretched with longing, as tall as redwoods, and I stepped across oceans and seas and traversed the globe high above those toiling below me.  Head amongst stars, breathing the metallic air of outer space as I peered down to the world below.  Transformed as I was the people feared me.  Bravado swelled in my breast and my ribs ached to keep back the pride.  On the twelfth day God pierced me like a balloon.  Water and blood mingled flowed.

The Godless found me, drove me back to the sticks in a wagon, their women nursed me to health.  In their kindness I saw my folly laid bare and repented.  I took my leave of them, thanking them for my very breath.

I tore down the house of sticks; scattered the ashes of our fire to the four corners; rid myself of the bones of ghosts.  I regained my senses.

It was the fifteenth day.

I have this purple shirt.

A solid-colored, long-sleeved, button-down purple dress shirt.  I love this shirt and think I look great in it.  I like wearing it un-tucked over bulejeans with black dressy shoes.  With that outfit on I feel special-sporty.

Problem is, everyone makes fun of my purple shirt.  No, not like some kind of bullying that’s serious – but that all-in-good-fun ribbing that you get from your coworkers.  People walk into my cubicle and feign shock and say things like, “Whoa, what’s up purple shirt?”

I laugh, because it’s funny; but maybe, just maybe, my purple shirt ain’t doing quite as much for me as I like to think it is.  I find this hard to believe.  Again, this shirt basically makes me into a paramount of fashion, I know this for a fact in my own mind.  Yet, still, people look at my shirt and take verbal jabs.

Come to think of it, I don’t see a lot of other men wearing purple.  I think I might be the only guy at the office who even owns a purple shirt.  But on the other hand that just means it’s all the more awesome.

No wonder people are making fun of it, they are clearly jealous.  As I stride around in the color of kings they weep.

That’s got to be it.

Oh hey, before I go, I stumbled upon this Wikipedia link the other day and felt extremely validated.

Goodnight.

Sharaun was watching a PVR’d Oprah tonight, one of the episodes where she “hooks people up.”

In these schmaltzy shows, Oprah does all sorts of benevolent things for people, some of them meaningful and of substance and some of them trivial and, in truth, folly.  During the parts I saw, she sent some Cher fan to Vegas to meet Cher, had Justin Timberlake give golf lessons to some pie-eyed woman, and invited will.i.am from the Black Eyed Peas to completely pay off the mortgages of two families who were hit by the recession, had fallen deep in debt, and were at risk for losing their homes.  All very altruistic gestures, to be sure, but I think the houses-paid-off folks probably feel a little more gratitude than the I-met-my-favorite-famous-person folks.

How odd would it be to explain to people that the dude from the Black Eyed Peas paid off your house?  Think about twenty years from now when your kids, now grown adults in their own right, see a rerun of an old Oprah show (still in color, no less) where they learn how some pop-culture artifact plucked up off the top stairs on the stoop of the poorhouse.  What a strange twist to things.  Maybe something to keep in mind if things ever get that dire – don’t discount reaching to random rock star philanthropists.

Goodnight.