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D is for dreamer, A is for actor…

Down the rabbit hole.
Welcome to 11:30pm on my Monday night. ‘Twas a busy Monday at work, where I win my bread. It seemed I was no sooner in the office than I was on the phone or on the computer or on the tiles, meeting and working and walking and talking and thinking. I have to go do it all again tomorrow, and I wish I didn’t… have to, I mean. Enough with the exposition though; shall we?

I’ve been listening to the new NIN album the past couple days, and I really like it. In particular, there’s a part in the song “Right Where It Belongs” that’s really rad. From the beginning of the song, the vocals have a muted, in-the-background presence which is slightly off-center to the right in the stereo image. Then, about 3/4 of the way through, they totally morph, taking on a much warmer, foreground presence that’s dead-center in the image. At the same time, a crowd noise sound effect is ramped up in the background, and the “wetness” that’s added to the vocals also gets layered on the instrumentation… along with the addition of a little bassy synthesizer. Very cool effect, almost like the song “comes alive” just then. You can listen to it if you want. Just take the URL of this page, and change the root by: adding 18, subtracting 8, subtracting 2, adding 9, and finally appending ’12.mp3’. Neato.

When I was in high school, I used to like to write things down without actually writing them out. Meaning, I liked to write little cryptic things. I think my inspiration came from the back pages of Lewis Carroll’s Through the Looking Glass, where Carroll closed the book with a poem, which, when read every-first-letter acrostic style, spelled out Alice’s real name: Alice Pleasance Liddell. I adopted this, and variations of it, to write down secret things in my journal. So, what seemed like a semi-poignant limerick about some thoughts or feelings was, to me, really an admission of infidelity or something more exciting. My favorite, and most challenging, was to write a small poem where the lines’ first letters read forward spelled half of what was really being said, and the lines’ last letters read backward finished the hidden message. Care had to be taken: to manipulate the shrouded thought to contain an even number of letters, to split it in half and write the opening and closing letters of each line, and finally to fill in the gaps with a cohesive thought. I masked things like that all the time, but only the most super-secret – the stuff that should only be thought, not recorded. When reading back over my journal, I can spot these instantly. In fact, they stand out to me as only the intended text, the contrived filler only there to protect what shouldn’t be put down on paper. Useful, if you’re into that kinda stuff.

Saturday night was a party at Ben’s house, in honor of Ben now having the house where the party was. We went there. It was good. After the crowd dwindled, and all that was left was what partygoers sometimes call the “hardcore crew,” we set a fire in Ben’s backyard. Not on the grass, but in a pre-fab firepit that came in a cardboard box from a warehouse store. Ben had gotten it as a gift, and he and I had spent some time earlier that day assembling it. Anyway, the box of Hot Wood purchased at the grocery store up the street was set alight, and six or seven people huddled in chairs around the fire. It was a chilly night, so the pre-warmth period of the fire was somewhat of an endurance – but the few powered through for the sake of conversation. Something about sitting around a fire brings out the best conversation. Staring into the stuff. Pat said it was because that’s all there was to do at night for ten-thousand years. Maybe. Maybe it’s something primal, pre-conditioned into our consciousness at birth. Although huddling around the sub-$100, assembly-line, terra-cotta and metal firepit, burning our purchased-at-Albertsons, came-in-a-cardboard-box firewood (with kindling) wasn’t exactly recalling caveman days. Anyway, it was one of those moments for me where I was just…. complacent. Good friends were around, and the planets aligned around a little firepit in Ben’s backyard. I’m a sucka for flames.

Did you see that paragraph about the firepit? That’s writing. That’s what I used to do. That’s what was gone. That’s what I feel slowly creeping back into my hands as they click the keys. Keep the faith, it may be back… it just may be back. Also, today at lunch we went on an adventure to the 150 year old abandoned Chinese mines. I’ll write about that tomorrow OK?

Goodnight.

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still pooping taiwan

Put da needle on da rekkid...
Home is a good place to be. Even though I’m back around the same unfinished things that have been bugging me for months: the perennially unfinished backyard, the shower that needs new grout, the unpainted walls and unfurnished front room. Yes, it’s all here and all still calling to be completed. For the long term projects at least, it looks as if they’ll have to remain unfinished for the next month or so. Talking to Sharaun the other night, I realized that I’ll be away from work-proper for the entire month of May. Two and a half weeks in Taiwan again, then one day at home before leaving for another two days in Oregon, then a week off while my sister-in-law and her husband are in town. And poof! The month of May is gone.

When I was a kid, my cousin Nathan introduced me to U2 and Depeche Mode, funnily enough – he also introduced me to music in “compact disc” form at the same time. Anyway, I became a die hard Depeche Mode fan… collecting all the cassettes I could find at the local mall’s Camelot. Remember that “frequent buyers” card they’d stamp each time you bought a cassette? I think I got my Ah-Ha or Pet Shop Boys or Wang Chung tape that way, y’know, the 10th one is free or something. Yeah, my head was fried on tunes even at that age. Wow, I apologize for getting off track – but there’s something good about that – it’s writing for writing’s sake! It’s feeling free to follow my thoughts as I go. Back to the story. Today I was sitting around hacking up a bunch of MP3s with Audacity so I could import some nifty new ringtones into my phone, and I was browsing the collection for good songs to splice and dice. I fired up Depeche Mode’s Black Celebration and eventually came to the closer, “But Not Tonight.” I tell you, something incredibly meaningful from my youth is associated with this song. I can’t remember specifically what it is, but just the first few strains of the tune are enough to elicit chills and nearly stir up tears.

Ben and I were talking the other day about open source and free software, and how we’re all proud of our legal machines. However, and it sounds stupid now, I had never really thought about a piece of software that I use on all my machines, and the fact that it includes pirated warez. I’m talking about the K-Lite Codec Pack, which contains several key codecs for all sorts of file types. I use it for DivX and Xvid movies, and all sorts of other junk. Come to find out, it ain’t good y’all. So, I promptly uninstalled it and went looking for an open-source alternative. As usual, SourceForge did not disappoint, offering up the Gordian Knot Codec Pack, which contains everything I need. I am writing about codecs, what’s wrong with me?

For some more semi-tech talk, a couple things. First off, I think it’s totally awesome, and pioneering actually, that the Grateful Dead has started to sell their famous Dick’s Picks and From the Vault series of CDs as digital downloads. For years, the Dead allowed tapers to freely record their shows, offering special tickets for the tapers section. Free distribution of these recordings was also encouraged, although everyone knows that exchanging tunes for money is bad karma. Trading of tapes and eventually DATs or MDs was done in large tents at the show, where people were always in search of an upgrade to their favorite shows (because 10th generation tapes sound like ass compared to sweet, sweet binary cloning). Anyway, you can currently buy all the CDs in MP3 or the lossless, and open-source (again, pioneering) FLAC format. To me, this is the future of music: compressed, lossless online sales for reasonable prices. And when I say reasonable, I mean we get to subtract all the costs that go into a physical disc: manufacturing, packaging, transport, storage, etc. We pay for raw music, right off the soundboard or out of Pro Tools.

Soon, I think we’ll start to see more and more bands offer their music this way – at least, if their big corporate contracts have expired and they are free to do with their art what they will. I mean, who needs packaging? A sweet animated Flash experience or interactive online event is way more cool than glossy inserts. If you think about it for more than a little, you can actually visualize a world in which record labels and contracts are not nearly as important as they are now. At least, as a mode of distribution. Conceivably, you could record and “release” your efforts online without any middle-men. No contract, no percentage to someone else’s pocket. I realize that labels are currently still important as PR machines and the deep-pockets behind payola-funded radio play lists. But there is a hint here of a new paradigm in music publishing and distribution. Homogenized radio is dying, and digital music is reaching an adoption rate where Marketing 101 tells us it will begin to drive a secondary wave of goods and services. Perhaps, with good marketing and some initial investors, you could circumvent the majors altogether. Problem is: you gotta be good. The internet, the global audience, is the A&R man of the new century – we decide what’s good. Hey, I think we just cured another symptom of the majors. So, c’mon expired-contract open-minded artists… let’s do this thang.

And, because it fits really well here, considering the context – I’ve been busy listening to the new, and freshly-leaked, Nine Inch Nails album, which comes out in a few weeks. I like it. I like it more than that double album I bought in college and hardly listened to, and consequently can’t remember the name of right now. Anyway, some songs are very good, some are OK. Oh, and the contextually relevant bit of this rambling? Seems that Mr. Reznor has released one of the album’s tracks via the NIN website as a GarageBand2.0 file. What that means, essentially, is that he’s released the source multi-track recordings – just like a producer would get before mixing down a final track. He’s encouraging fans to “… create remixes, experiment, embellish or destroy what’s there.” What an awesome idea. At least there are some musicians out there who are embracing this age of everything-on-demand, no-secrets digital freedom.

On a completely unrelated note, caught this story via Slashdot over the weekend. The part that really caught my eye was the statement: “They even believe they are likely to find lost Christian gospels, the originals of which were written around the time of the earliest books of the New Testament.” Things like this always intrigue me, and I must admit that it’s not always for the most noble of reasons. Somewhere in me, I have this secret wish that some long-lost Christian writings would come up that really through a wrench into modern Christian dogma. No, I’m not rooting for some discovery that would completely deflate billions of peoples’ believes and values – I’m just talking about something that might force people who are staunchly set in their ways to think outside the box and perhaps view their religion in a different way. And I don’t mean things like the Dead Sea Scrolls or Nag Hammadi texts, which stubborn believers can easily write off as offshoot-group documents which simply aren’t part of the Biblical canon. With the whole process of canonization having effectively relegated any non-canon writings to irrelevance; something like an early version of on of the New Testament gospels, maybe on rife with all sorts of Gnostic ideas, would be an awesome rock in the pond. Some small evil imp in the back of my brain would really love to see some self-important, card-carrying Southern Baptist have to chew on a lost verse of John in which Jesus says, “Verily I say unto you, women can speak the word of God as well as a man.”

Holy crap this turned into a long entry… I hope I didn’t blow my week’s wad in one shot. Stay with me, we’ll see what we can come up with. Actually, I haven’t written an entry this easily in a long time, maybe my near week off last week did some good for my writer’s block or something.

Goodnight.

Posted on

war memorial

Cute, and yummy!
Stupid United Express terminal… always smells like hot dogs, and everything’s always delayed. At least I got here today in time for the first flight – so I can actually be the one that starts the domino delay for the poor travelers later today. Anyway, if it wasn’t made clear already – I back. Taiwan was, Taiwan. I had a good time as always, but missed home as always.

I felt much more “local” on this visit. The “acquaintances” I’d met on my previous trips have started to turn into full-fledge friends, and where I used to need a local intermediary to schedule outings with them – now we just get together directly and do things. I had a good time with the usual crowd from the hotel bar, and managed to spend some time with Eric and Suzy as well, who are staying in Taiweezy for 6mos. Towards the end of the week, I really started burning the candle at both ends tho… wandering the streets of Taipei as the sun came up, and somehow managing to make it into work. It’s OK though, because all I needed to catch up was my flight over here – which I slept through solidly, I might add. I guess 48hrs of waking-time doesn’t match too well with ~4hrs of sleeping-time. And, the MP3 player on my phone (you’ll read about it below) faithfully served up tunes for the entire ~10hr flight, without a single bar reduction in battery – I was impressed.

And, because I’m lazy and I did the work anyway… I wrote the following paragraphs sometime this week, but never posted them… so here’s the dump.

Well, being in Taiwan, I managed to pick up a 1GB MMC card for my new Nokia 6230 phone. I’ve seen on the web that there are 2GB cards available in Europe – but I can’t seem to locate them here. So, I settled for 1GB, and now I can hold a pretty decent amount of tunes on the phone’s built-in MP3 player. I tested the functions a little bit, and it seems pretty neat. The stereo headphones I got off Ebay have an integrated track-advance button and microphone, and will automatically pause the music and allow you to use them for incoming calls when needed. My only gripe would be that it’s kinda hard to setup playlists, and you can’t do any folders on the MMC card – so everything gets all jumbled. I did manage to make playlists and get albums playing in their right order, but it’s a little bothersome. Also, the phone doesn’t support any kind of “in flight” mode like some other phones with MP3 players. This means that the radio/antenna is active at all times, which is technically not allowed during flight… but… I’m going to ignore that. Anyway, it’s kinda cool to have a reasonably sized MP3 player built into my phone, handy for long trips when you get a yen for some good tunage.

Today (Wednesday in Taiwan) turned out to be a pretty busy day. Had a lot of work to do so spent most of the day at the office doing e-mail and meetings. Also managed to book my travel for the next trip out here, as well as get Sharaun’s ticket and make sure we had adjoining seats. I hate booking international travel, and trying to coordinate my booked-through-work tickets/seats with her normally booked tickets/seats didn’t make anything easier. But, I did finally manage to square things away, and we’re both set for the upcoming trip. I’m actually looking forward to being here with Sharaun, but not really looking forward to being away from home again so soon. On the plus side, since I had some previous engagements back home in mid-May, what I thought was going to be a three-week stay turned into only two-weeks and change. The bad news though, is that my “previous engagement” was yet another travel-trip, this one to Oregon. So, I’ll get home from Taiwan, get one day back at work, and then hit the air again. And, since Breck and her husband are coming to visit the last week in May, I’ll effectively be out-of-the-office for an entire month – a first for me.

All the times I’ve been to Taiwan, and I’ve always assumed the “dark” tofu was just some variant of the regular tofu. Y’know, different ingredients, different flavor, whatever. Only today did I come to find out that it’s just gelatinous hunks of coagulated duck’s blood. Mmmmm… duck’s blood. It’s funny how something can become unpalatable just because you find out what they really are. I mean, I had no problem eating it when it was tofu – but when it was duck’s blood, I had to really work at chewing and swallowing. Scenes of strung-up ducks spilling out their life’s blood into inch-deep pans filled my mind, and thoughts of just how they form liquid blood into little jello-like cubes… ugh. Anyway, Taiwan never really disappoints when it comes to food experiences. But don’t let my tales of duck’s blood and fish eyes and chicken heads scare you off, the food here is really good – it’s just different.

Until Monday then, welcome home.

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the first rule of boondoggle club

Got it? Good!
Sitting in a beanbag on the showcase floor, it’s Tuesday in Taiwan. And before I begin, I’m going to get right down to it – honest-style. This is probably the most purposeless trip I’ve ever made to this island. I mean, I love Taiwan. I love the people, the food, the work environment – but for real I have no reason to be here this week. It’s not so bad, I’ve been hobnobbing and palm-greasing and breeze-shooting, all of which are quite enjoyable to a closet socialite such as myself. I’ve even been spending my work days on the floor at a large conference, answering questions and smiling to strangers. So, there’s a lot I could write about if I needed to justify this trip – but between you and I, I’m using it more as face-time than anything. But, where is my mind? Afterall, the first rule of boondoggle club is: you do not talk about boondoggle club.

Now then, I didn’t write yesterday because I just didn’t have much to say. Oh, sure, I hung out in the hotel bar, ate great food, and even went karaoke-ing with the standard Taipei crew, but I’ve written about all that before… so when I sat down to write about it again, I thought better of it. The trip out here was nice, got bumped to business class on the Tokyo-to-Taipei leg of the flight, so I got to fly in style for a few hours of the long journey. The only thing bad about being here for only a few days is that there’s not enough time to hang out with the people I want to see. It’s small solace that I’ll be right back here again in a short two weeks… I’ve got the standard mixed feelings about that trip too. I am, however, really excited about bringing Sharaun out… I’m hoping she likes this place as much as I do.

I feel like it’s been forever since I’ve written. Maybe because it’s already Tuesday night here, I feel like I’ve missed one more day than I really have. Do you guys know how hard it is to come up with new things to write about? I mean, here I am, writing again about not having things to write about – that should give you some indication. For a while, writing about not writing works OK, but soon you get tired of it. So, rather than follow my drive and make a post every day, regardless of it’s merit – I’ve pretty much adopted a policy of: no substance, no entry. I know, this entry is questionable at best, but there’s some stuff in here that might be worth it.

On the plane over here, I was (for some reason) thinking about money. Nowadays, people never even seen most of the money they have and use. I mean, there is no “hard” money anymore. Our paychecks go into the bank electronically, and I trust some computer to sum up what’s in my account. I never see half the money I spend. I hand someone a piece of plastic and trust some computer to subtract it from my balance. All my money is nothing more than a number on a computer screen. My bills are automatically debited from my account, subtracted right off that phantom total. It’s kind of scary when I think about it. Makes me somewhat understand the stories I’ve heard about old-timers not trusting banks, and keeping lockboxes full of cash under their bed or something.

Well, another day comes to a close here in Taiwan. Goodnight.

Posted on

catharsis

And now, the undercard you've all been waiting for.
Up late on Thursday night slash Friday morning. Working on getting acclimated for Taiweezy. By the time you read this, I should be airborne and hopefully asleep (or at least engrossed in a sweet game of Zelda64 on my laptop). If the urge hits you, you can track my progress across the peaceful sea. And I’m off traveling again, St. Christopher be with me. And now it gets personal.

Let me tell you something. As a man, I unequivocally believe that women sometimes desire to argue. I don’t know if this is a subconscious desire, or something that is premeditated, but I am 100% convinced, beyond a shadow of a doubt, that women will on occasion not rest until they’ve engaged in an argument. Common indicators that one of these destined-arguments is about to take place include irrational criticism, blatant button-pushing, and the raising of recurring-theme fight topics. Recurring-theme fight topics are flashpoints, words or ideas that have been so well previously established as argument fodder that the mere mention of them can ratchet an argument up a full two notches. I have also found that there is little in the way of escape when a fight is a woman’s goal. Short of up and leaving the general area, you better be ready to argue. Oh, you can try to ignore it – but you will be sucked in. Before you know it, you’ll be arguing.

If you can’t tell, Sharaun and I had a fight tonight. No, we didn’t come to blows, I’m just using the word “fight” to denote something bigger than your garden-variety disagreement. Let me expand on that a bit. I’ve been married for almost five years now, and over that time I’ve been through a lot of spats, disagreements, and tiffs. Fights though, those are rarer. I think all couples will at some time bicker and argue, but true fighting is different. Arguments and disagreements can be settled, can be “won.” No one wins a fight, a fight sucks for both people; trying to “win” a fight is futile. I don’t know how it is with other couples, but for Sharaun and I, if you break it down, we really only have a limited amount of things we actually “fight” over. For instance, Sharaun’s short-list of things that she uses against me in fights goes something like this:

1. You don’t pay me enough attention.
2. You don’t do anything you don’t want to do.

Likewise, mine for her would go something like this:

1. You don’t contribute enough domestically.
2. You talk down to me.

Oh sure, they rarely take on the boiled-down form I’ve presented them in here – but if you strip away the situational stuff those are at the heart nearly every time. I could go into paragraph after paragraph on the various incarnations the above short lists can take… things like, “You spend too much time on the computer,” or, “Why are your underwear in the middle of the living room?” And, I’ve come to realize that these are sure-fire fight-starters for one reason: they are truths. The reason that they are the cornerstones to all our arguments is because they are inescapable aspects of our personalties. More than just a difference of opinion, they are the 180 degree out-of-phase destructive waves created when two unique individuals operate together as one couple. If a fight is desired, they will always be there to incite one.

And that’s what it’s all about folks, making it work. Sure there will be arguments, disagreements, even fights – but they damn well better be insignificant when compared to the otherwise bonding elements of a relationship. Relationships work when each person can: work to minimize the aspects of their personality that are their mate’s short-list, as well as work to be less bothered by the things on the short list they’ve created for their mate. Or, in layman’s terms: Work harder on your faults and be more accepting of your mate’s.

Fights suck, but they end.

My mom wrote me Wednesday to say that she liked my blog that day, and that it was sad. Yeah, I liked it too… and it was sad.

Goodnight.

Posted on

a bush and a peek

It's wordplay.
Sometimes I wonder when you actually become an “adult.” I still look in the mirror and insist that the face staring back isn’t really all that different than the one I knew in high school. But it most certainly is different. I’m a year and a half away from thirty, earn my own keep, and own things like a house and car. I’m losing hair and gaining weight. Now, maybe I don’t see that face in the mirror because I don’t feel like that face in the mirror. While I’m not quite at the point where I worry about falling off the toilet and breaking a hip, I guess I am older than that kid from high school… perhaps even an “adult.” I’ve walked through the mall before and wondered, as I pass the other people, which of them look at me and think “kid,” and which think “grown-up.” Surely older folks recognize me for the relatively spry young’n I am, but just as surely the teenagers in baggy pants peg me as old and out of touch. I mean, a collared shirt tucked into denim shorts… with a belt?

When we used to live in L.A., there was a girl who lived across the street from us. I’m not sure who she lived with, but it was a woman – stepmother, mother, I don’t know. I was young, couldn’t have been more than five years old because that’s when we moved. This girl, Naomi, wasn’t treated well by the woman she lived with. Frequently, Naomi was not allowed in the house. In fact, my most vivid memories of her are freeze-frame scenes of her sitting out on the stoop… doing nothing, just sitting. Because she was so often not allowed in the house, she would sometimes come over to our place at odd hours to ask if my brother or I could play. Early-early in the morning, late-late at night; I didn’t really understand it until later on when I figured she was just locked out and probably bored or scared or both. I don’t think I really understood any of it at the time, I just played with her like she was any other kid on the block. Kids are beautiful that way. Class, station, economics, you’re blind to them all at five years old. In fact, overhearing my parents expressing sympathy for the girl was my only indication that anything was different than my situation.

I don’t think I’ve ever talked about this to anyone before, so it makes its debut right here on the blog, direct from wherever it’s been locked away in my head for all these years. One day I remember Naomi asking me if she could use the bathroom at our house. I’m not positive, but I’m pretty sure this little girl actually spent more than a few nights sleeping on that porch stoop outside… barred from entering the house. Considering that, what other option did she have? She had to use the bathroom somewhere. So, we struck a deal. Naomi could use the large bush in our backyard as her personal bathroom, provided she let my brother and I watch. I know people, I can feel you all recoiling in disgust, I know. Remember, I’m five years old. I’m not thinking about how exploited this little girl already is, or how humiliating of a situation we were putting her in, I’m just thinking I’d like to see how a girl poops and pees. So, we watched. She pooped, she peed, and we watched, fascinated. I don’t remember, but I’m pretty sure this didn’t happen more than a couple times total. Thinking about it today, I don’t feel much else but sad. I don’t feel guilty, too young to hold myself very accountable… just sad. Sad for that girl having to poop under a bush in a neighbor’s backyard while curious little boys watched from the wings, heads pressed to the ground to get a better view.

We moved away from that area when I was five years old, and it didn’t take me long to forget about Naomi. Years later, I remember being back in town with my parents, driving down our old street. I couldn’t have been more then ten or eleven at the time, and I can remember my folks commenting on how the place had changed. Then we saw her. A girl about my age, sitting on a porch. It took a minute before it hit us, but eventually someone, I think my mom, said, “Oh my God, that’s Naomi.” Five+ years later and still out on the porch. Sometimes I wonder whatever happened to that girl. Back when I was a kid, I can actually remember going in her house once. No details, just a still-frame image of a messy rug and coffee table. Can you imagine growing up on a porch? Just feet from where you should be – inside with your parents. Hey Naomi, if you’re out there, I just wanted to say “I’m sorry” for watching you poop. I’m pretty sure that at least my mom had an idea about what was going on. I can remember her being suspicious. Had I been able to understand…

Next paragraph. Goodnight.

Posted on

i still got it

FM 21-76.
Today I spent $45 on a tank of gas. That’s a lot of money for gas, right?

Four days and I’ll be back in one of those richly outfitted hotel rooms, looking out over the dirty sprawl of downtown Taipei. I sometimes get this crazy fear that Taiwan will just up and declare its independence during one of my trips. I imagine myself sitting in a cubicle while the Red Army swoops down on that tiny island to crush the rebel uprising. The fantasy goes on… usually ending with me riding on top of a tank, policing the streets. One thing about work is… thing can change pretty rapidly. When I wrote that sentence last night, I was preparing for a two-week trip. Today, I learned that, due to some circumstances beyond my control, the nature of the trip had changed. Turns out I’ll only be gone for a week, still leaving this Friday. Then, I’ll come back for two weeks, only to leave for Taiwan again in early May. The May trip will be the longest ever, clocking in at three weeks. However, since Sharaun is off-track in May, she finally gets to accompany me and experience Taipei. To me, there couldn’t have been a better change of plans. I’m hoping my work schedule while there is flexible enough to allow us some decent “exploring.” And, I feel comfortable enough in the city to act as a sort of “tour guide” for her while she’s there. Awesome.

As you may have noticed, I didn’t really break any new ground with respect to my post-frequency this week. Leading off with a no-show doesn’t really set a good precedent. But… I’ve kind of accepted that I’m just in a slump right now. Whatever the reason… maybe I’m just not putting myself out there and hunting up good stuff to write about, I dunno. I mean, last week’s entries don’t amount to much more than the birthday present story fluffed up with a bunch of rambling. Lately, I’ve warmed up a little bit to the notion of “talking” about my writing. Before, I had this unspoken rule that I didn’t like talking about the blog in person. I mean, the blog is self-serving enough, but making it a topic of discussion was too self-indulgent even for me. Lately though, I’ve opened up a bit and don’t shoot people down as quickly when they bring it up. After all, when it comes down to it, I am proud of it. If half the reason I write is for me, the other half is surely so that people will read it. Anyway, talking about my writing doesn’t put me off as much as it used to. Although I still get surprised when I find out, through some twisted grapevine, that there’s someone reading this who I wasn’t aware of. Where was I going with this?

I’ve been having escapist fantasies again lately. Y’know, researching survival techniques online in case I do decide to abandon the modern world for a tent in a national forest or something. Tonight I learned how to dig a latrine. When I was younger, I can remember being fascinated with a secondhand copy of the Army Field Survival manual. I’ve always had a fascination with self-sufficiency… and I like to think I could handle myself on my own. Now, I’m not saying I actually could… but I like to think I could. I read that Field Manual over and over again, the detailed pictures and diagrams of shelters and snares had me in a trance. I can remember trying to commit things to memory: how to make a fishhook out of thorns, how to smoke meat to preserve it, how to build a lean-to. Just like I will never forget learning from a Hardy Boys book that you can escape your bonds if you flex your muscles while being tied up. Stuff like that has always stuck with me. I think it’d be totally fun to do one of those survivalist training “adventure” things… where they take you out into the wilderness and teach you how to live off the land. Right?

With all the pope-inspired news of late, I somehow stumbled across this vintage link from CNN – I’d never seen it before, but man… hilarious. Goodnight.