Loaded Questions 07

. Everyone has favourites. Favourite foods, favourite pets, favourite ways of spelling certain words. Ways that are still correct when spelled that way...
But I think when it comes to favourite odd-ball creature I have in this world it would be the octopus. The darn thing can get into and out of anything as long as there is the possibility of a small gap. They are clever problem solvers and while I hate to admit it, the calamari I had ages ago was actually pretty tasty. Since aquiring a respect for the creatures (and discovering a seafood allergy) I haven't eaten these magnificent critters. Now, I for one, am a fan of the Pug. I like critters that some people find to be ugly. Even I think octopi are ugly if you look at their anatomy. But overall I think they are adorable. Put together perfectly to serve their purpose and lacking any encumbering features that are unnecessary.

. Which brings me to the point I think I'm trying to make about myself. I am a bit of a utilitarian. Not in the political sense. I think people should have the freedom to achieve the ability to have excess. But I personaly like to have a use for everything and put everything to use and if some item in my life (or brain for that matter) is not serving a purpose of hasn't in a recent while; I loose it. It's kind of cute how certain memories I haven't used to tell tale with lately, either it was over told or just getting boring to me, how those memories just dissappear. It is the seldom someone who has been in my life for any extended or constant period of time. But on occation I reminesce with an old friend and they will say something that usually starts with: "remember that time..." and anymore it makes me sad to admit but anymore I look at them with a funny look saying "rings a bell, refresh my memory." But when I do remember and that light bulb goes off. I love the feeling it gives when the brightest smile creeps across my face in realization that this experience with this person that I adored I get to relive as if the first time because I'd completely forgotten until it came rushing back.

. But I ramble on uselessly. I do wish though, that, memory-wise I had better recall. And I wish I had a better sense of humor. I'd like to be able to make people laugh. It's funny because I have the ability to ramble on and on and on like two of my favourite comics: Robin Williams and Lewis Black, but I don't have their ability to inspire laughter. Maybe I'm just looking at things too closely. After all taking a step back is what made Carlin his millions right?

Loaded Questions 06

. What is failure? For some, it is what drives you. For others the fear that motivates. For me it is another reason to say I'm sorry. I have a lot of people to appologize to. A lot of explaining to do. But sorry. That's a different word. It is an admission of guilt. I am guilty of being a sorry individual. I AM sorry. But what I need to do, ya know; healing... getting past it, moving on, starting over, what I need to do is appologize to several people for my failings. Starting with myself. I thought I could measure up, put myself to the test. I wasn't ready and therefore set myself up for the initial failure. I failed to say I wasn't ready or to do something about the fact that I knew it. Forgiveness is another matter for another day. Today is about admission. I couldn't have done better but at least I tried despite the odds.

. When I was a kid I could never write thank you notes because I wanted people to feel stupid for giving to an obvious failure. That and I was lazy. Seriously though, I never felt good enough, never felt that anyone was proud of me. Least of all my parent. Having a mentally challenged brother will give the reasonable excuse. Pick your own, whichever you like better. Ready? ... Either he was always so far below be that all the compliments I got I felt were against an obviously inferiour comparative. Or ... Caring for him made me so much the adult at an early age that failure was inevitable considering a child was competing against college grads.

. Suprise! It was both. But somewhere I stopped trying to compete. Maybe because I didn't get the lead in the school play, or the other kids didn't like me or the adults refused to have real conversations with me... But I tried to be a kid for once and it failed. I didn't know how to be a kid. How to have fun or whatever else kids feel. When my mom said she was proud of me I saw a lack of sincerity in her eyes and I wasn't suprised. When she insisted on humiliating me, I saw a spark in her eyes that I knew made her feel alive. I haven't looked in her eyes since.

. What bothers me the most however, is my mother's insistance on not letting the family know who I am and what is actually going on in my life. I am a stranger to them. A fact I plan to change shortly. Provided my Grandfather can stay alive long enough for me to figure out who I am and how to introduce myself to them. After all what they hear of me, they think they know who I am. I want them to actually know. More than that though I want them to accept me for the person I am. It would be healing, comforting, progressive for me to know that I have family who cares, knows me and cares still. I hope they accept me. They probably won't ignore what they have known so far. But none of it has been more than half truths and concealed realisms. Most of all I want to appologize for not coming out with it sooner or being honest and open with them all along. I did feel ashamed afraid and as if I had no right to. I have recently realized the error in that and I don't want to shock, but I want to be honest and forward and hopefully loved anyway.

. I appologize for not realizing the truth, for not being forthright about it, for not believing it myself and for hiding it because someone implied I should.

Loaded Questions 05

. All people come with side effects I believe. I have one friend whose side effect is the people around him become short on cash. One friend whose side effect is drama. One friend whose side effect is laughter. He's a teacher! I think, considering I'm the one who has lived my life and been with me long enough to see the long term side effects, the side effect I come with is heart ache. I have a nasty habit of somehow causing people to fall in love with me. I say nasty because I don't want people to fall in love with me and I don't like hurting people ever. When someone says they are hurting because I can't spend time with them. It breaks my heart. Though I can tell you from experience, what they told me the first time I had a broken heart, it does get easier to deal with over time. I wish my side effect were laughter though. Unfortunately I don't have a humorour personality and disposition.

. Neither do city folk I believe. But you gotta be tough and hard to live in close proximity to so many other people. Otherwise you get lost in the overall feeling of me first. Think about it. With so much competition for one's own best intrest around you, either you learn to be just as strong about your own intrest or you get crushed trying to help everyone else who all wants whatever is in their own self intrest. If I had to describe city folk as a general whole in my hick mind, I'd say they are self-reliant, self-serving and they are strong. But like I said, I think you gotta be to live like that. You've got to be strong to know crime and poverty is right around the corner. To know that there are jobs here but there is a lot more competition for those jobs. To know that education is not what it should be... then again where in America is it?

. I remember Being younger and full of hope. Some time right around before the first heart break. I knew little of the world. My favourite ice cream was plain and my favourite soup was chicken noodle and my favourite book was black beauty. And oh things have changed. I love grahm cracker ice cream now with swirls of marshmallow in it. I love french onion soup. I read books like they are going out of style. As a matter of fact it is my intention to read a bunch of
books which have gone out of style. Like Moby Dick, Huck Finn, ... Speaking of Huck Finn... .

. Did you hear they are releasing an edited version without the n word in it. Call me strange to be among today's 'youth' and be uncomfortable with the word, but I am. Reading it, hearing it. I cringe not because it offends me, but because I know it offends someone and I hate to see people feel hurt. I disagree with editing a clasic to be politically correct, and while the standard on the n-word is changing with today's youth's revolutions, I still (shy to admit that I) might actually buy the edition so that I can read it without cringing two hundred and nineteen, or so times.

. But that's one of the very things that pisses me off. The man wrote, was an amazing writer. In today's day and age he may have used a different term himself. But it is part of the integrity and authenticity of the story he told. Part of the reality he so vividly portrayed. His words should not have to be re-written, revised, edited or otherwise censored to pander to the public. Here; solution, ready?: offer an editable downloadable digital version that one can go through it like MS Word does and automatically replace any word with another of your choosing. Hell I had friends do that in their mind when we were in High School together. When they were reading a really boring book they would replace the word the with chicken to make it more bearable. Let today's lazy public do it with an expensive application. I'm still a fan of the power of the mind.

Loaded Questions 04

. There is so much in this world that is marketed. And the strongest sales strategy, it seems, is promising that this product will make a person feel good. I wonder though, why there isn't a greater market for good feelings. Sure it's impossible to quantify and ration out according to price just such. And there's the other issue of what makes one person feel good might have exactly the opposite effect on another. but in the brain there is a pleaseure center. And discerning what stimulates that for each person shouldn't be so far from the capabilities of today's technology. I look forward to the day we have a brain scan system that can read, interpret and stimulate different parts of the brain. Think Matrix, plug in and it teaches you calculus, or it allows you to have the worlds best dream ever, or you wake up to be told your career, the one which you will enjoy and be good at is... Yeah I'd love to invent and market that machine. In the mean time I do my best to be that machine. Talk to me about what makes you smile, what makes you happy, what your favourite happy memories are. ... I guess I should be a psychiatrist.
. But when that machine is invented, I mean when we have the brain mapped completely and we understand how to communicate directly with it, what will happen to psychological medicine? What will happen to the sex industry, what will happen to schools and what will happen to the concept and existence of Darwinism? What would the whole world look like? And we humans as a whole are so afraid of change. How hard will it be to use such for good without protests quelling the good such a thing can do? After all so many people already believe the world is trying to control their mind. What will they think when the brian can be plugged into and taught something? Hell even given memories that stimulate pleasure centers that are associated with one thing or another. I personally would be afraid that one would be plugged in to have basic programming that includes trust in government or, a certain religion is good, or always believe this one person is telling the truth or some other nonsence like that. I'd rather stick to firing the pleasure chemicals while sending electrical pulses that teach the brain what the y quadrant means.
. But life here in the real world, at least so far, is comprised of one long, fragmented memory. At least for some, like myself, being in the moment is so fleeting. It is impossible to stop and decide in those crucial moments. I act on instinct. I can at least take comfort in knowing that my instinct is to be helpful, protective, nurturing. When I feel threatened I've found, my flight instinct kicks in. I've been wrong in my life and rather than hurt someone with my wrongness, I'd run. I couldn't go to war in the middle east. I don't understand their culture, and while I've learned a little bit, such as it is beyond custom it is way of life to give to charity, I still don't know that mine is right or more right, or so right that it justifies killing. Them feeling justified to kill justifies capital punnishment, sure. But hiding behind the innocents makes me as a person hesitate. I couldn't be a troop. I do, however, respect, love and admire our troops. Standing up for what is right.
. I digress. Memories. There are good ones and there are bad ones. Have you ever imagined that scenario where you are lying on your death-bed, life flashing before your eyes. What would my experience of that be? Lots of good? Lots of bad? I know it wouldn't be in order. Would I die smiling? I'd like to die smiling. We all have unpleasant moments of our lives, there is no avoiding that. It's how we allow ourselves to feel about those times, our perspective that makes all the difference I think. And have you ever been in a situation where it wasn't good, it wasn't bad, it was just dull? having a good life or good memory of life I believe is about taking those moments and doing something to make it good. Not just good though, memorably good. I still remember this one time I was at the gas station. I smiled for the hell of smiling. Then I dances, then some random stranger expressed the fact that it brightened his day. I felt good for brightening some one's day. All for the hell of it.
. Right now though. I feel I need more to smile about. I think we all need more to smile about. SO I think it's time to remember what friendship is about. Sitting on the school bus next to some kid and starting a conversation just to pass the time. Come the end of the year that kid is your best friend and you are theirs. Time to sit and have a conversation just to pass the time. It's bound to lead to some smiles once you realize you have to sit next to them and have another conversation again tonight and tomorrow and the next day.

Loaded Questions 03 part 1

. Water. Water I think is the most overlooked, most precious, tastiest, best thing in the world and it suprises me how few of us consume it by drinking it. We cook food in it. add it to soft-drink syrups, carbonate it and use it to pawer turbines. But how many of us drink it? I do. Usually in the form of tea. But catch me parched, nothing else will do.

. Speaking of parched, I've noticed lately that I seem to be in a friendship drought. I don't really spend time out and about. It would be nice to get to know the people I am aquainted with a bit better; to spend time shooting the breeze and laughing together. But in a way aren't we all a bit deprived in that sense. How many of us... seriously... how many of us spend time every day or even a few days a week laughing with buddies? Call me crazy but I think of my idea of marriage and that's what it should be; every day laughing together to wind down from a hard day of whatever. There. For those of you who keep asking me... that's what love and marriage is in my mind and if you can't keep me laughing sorry buster don't even try.

. Actually don't try at all. Nothing turns me away faster than someone working on making me fall in love rather than workin on being my best bud. Sure. I'd love to join you, but I really need to go yank my own tooth out with a pair of pliers. By the way can I borrow yours? My 'Best Friend' Broke my hand me down heirloom leatherman and I'd like to castrate him with it if I could find the damn thing. It getting broken and lost made me cry.

Loaded Questions 02

I actually thought about this in a way last night. I know everyone has a bit of criminal in them. I think it's rooted in the basic human desire to rebel. At least the basic American desire to. And I think it's almost predictable when a person is a child, in what way this could manifest itself. That is if one really looks at what personality is forming in that child in grade school. I knew several kids had a desire to see what would happen if they pulled the fire alarm, but the few that didn't have the impulse control back then to not pull the damn thing have ended up being drug addicts or have manifested some other form of impusle control disorders.

Whether or not impulse control should be a crime however, is another topic of discussion entirely. I, however had an intense intrest in both creation, manipulation and money. Chemestry was my dark secrets intrest. It only made sense I was caught up in the allure of chemistry and what certain more interesting chemicals do to the brain in the right concentrations and combinations. It's potential to manipulate others seemed far to intersting to me to be left alone. I had to learn for myself how ever I could. The only book I had available on the subject was the real world though. And when reality itself was far too abundant in my life I did my best to remove my burden. It wasn't about the money and manipulation anymore. While I did enjoy trading for favors of various kinds, mine was purely a desire to let go of the interest which was consuming me. I saw a glimpse of where I could be going and of the two paths I saw I liked neither. I haven't watched America's most wanted since the realization. Come to think of it.

I sat there in the driver seat incapable of going anywhere. Already dead inside and out and strung out as a crack whore poorly used and badly broken. I could not think I could not move. In a flash of coherence my only thought was of a need which to a competent mind would seem stupid and unappetizing. I'd have done anything for it. I'd have sacrificed my life gladly hust to feel good for a moment. And life is full of those moments, where sacrifise is too small a price to pay. It is what drives us to the next milestone, again and again. And at the moment moving my arm to my face was a feat equal to building the pyramids. Lighting something which burned me. I did not notice nor care about the burn. I was unconcious and when I woke I wondered where it had gone. I chastised myself in my brief coherence for my appearance. Saggy and empty inside.

Flash to dreams of winning a gold medal for prowess in a long trained for, difficult and self disciplined exercise of concentration and patience. I believe that fortitude itself should be an olympic sport, but every man is capable of greatness only if he can nurture his own fortitude. In us the desire to achieve the highest marks or at least to have recognition as being one of the foremose competitors is both strong and motivating as well as daunting and scary. Success hinges on the ability at an early age to discern what society has labeled as productive obsessions and the fortitude to assert one's will against the temptations we all feel.

I think of the crack-whore in us all who is victim of temptation; and I think of the Einestein in us all whose obsession with and extreme focus on finding an answer, almost autistic in nature, is victim of temptation as well. How can certain foci be labeled good? For us... For society... just good. Others, obsessions they are called; lead some to jail, the poor house, and early grave... There is a solution in using the temptations as motivation to learn patience and temperance. Oh what a fine line it would be to balance between witholding one's freedoms and providing the proverbial cartrot at the end of the stick. I think that's where consent and desire come into the legal system. Pursuit of happiness and the nonsense that is imposed upon that pursuit.
Oh but I digress.

We were all, at one point, the innocent child with our hand in the cookie jar. Our favourite, gooey and warm, rasins soft and chewy. Being told to wait 'til after dinner while the voice in our head whines that they won't still be gooey and soft and warm after dinner. We are all tempted. We rationalize. And for everything; good, bad or ugly. We rationalize at least for our own morbid self sastisfaction, that we are not bad. That someone loves and supports us because we are not bad.

I too have made mistakes. I am not perfect. I am me. And despite what others say to be hurtful; I am not bad.

Loaded Questions

I have often dreamt of having a den. A little nook in the wall room that I can relax in. It was Book shelves lines with old books chock full of knowledge arranged in conversational manner. And a big comfy chair paddd more like an overgrown pillow in recliner form and the floor has a fur rug on it and the furniture draped with animal hide. When I'm feeling lonely upset or depressed I imagine my room with it's wooked walls and its earth tones, dimmly lit. There's a fireplace and on the shelves between the different book genres there are little glass cases with the oddest little creatures perfectly preserved ready to be studied as if suspended in a moment in their life. There are skulls of critters like skunks and lynx and there are butterfly boxes with large moths and poisonous spiders. And there in the middle of the floor a table with a sinue woven lamp. Next to the lamp a small book on a dead culture or religion as well as a small trinket box made of old newspaper or elephant dung paper compressed into wood panels. It is a music box that plays Fur Elise. in it a small key. A skeleton key that opens some hidden door in the room. The door leads to another excitement. I sit in the chair, wrapped in the skin of a deer, reading about chinese astronomy and I am happy.
I love knowledge, but mine is limited. I have an insatiable desire to learn and sadly, while there is promise of easy access to new knowledge, truely useful and refined knowledge is still hidden between the pages of a book you must pick up and turn page by page to glean from a gem of thoguht, original and new to me.
I am able to look around the room I imagine as being mine one day and see all the creatures suspended in death, and as I look about that room I consider these things as being my best friends in the world. I wish I could tell you about nutty the squirrel sitting there as if holding some scrap of food. or Poe the crow with a shiny chain dangling from his beak, some small charm with latin and egyptian history written all over it. But while I would name these posessions, my personification of their personalities; real from life when they were pets, or imagined, the names I would call them would be far more simple and far more human. Perhaps Steve and Chuck. Manny and Bo. I am almost certain Charlie would be the name of the octopus. Almost always a male name, regardless of sex. But the pet skunk I plan to keep one day, she (or he) will be named flower. (Thanks Bambi)
Love. I think... Is something I consider a threat. Not only to my own imagined creation of the future I pursue to have. But also, it seems historically to my own personal motivations. Every couple years I fall in love. And it is not until I clense my life of the overwhelming desire to nurture another that I seem to be able once again to resume the passion I have for pursuing a better place in this world for myself. I, like all women, desire stability, serenity, the comfort of knowing I am and will be ok. I feel it least when another assumes that burden for me. I know I am strong. Stronger than any suitor I've yet met. And while in moments of darkness and weakness I have leaned on another for support I felt at the time that I had needed; I have discovered in the end, time and again, that no one man or woman (at least not that I've met of befrended yet) can give to me the satisfying feeling of knowing I can rely upon myself, that I am strong and that I can give myself this place in the world that I dream to have.
In the meantime I sleep comfortably, im my mind I am snuggled deep and warm in the pillows of books, wrapped in the skins of animals hunted by my hand for food. And the cardboard box I currently call home, is not soggy with last weeks slush running through the nearby gutter. When I close my eyes, I am warm and dry, in my den, the mansion in my mind where no one can find me and n slumber I can die restfully until the next morning comes around.

Hitch-hiker

It was an average night, but I found myself wondering about the dim lights reflecting off the pavement. I'd noticed them before. many times. Sometimes blaring and shiny, sometimes dull and hazy, this time it was just dim. I looked up. no moon to speak of. Waxing, waning. I always think that when I look for the moon. Hands shoved deep in my pockets I walk to stay warm. This highway seems awful lonesome for this time of night.