Two and a half hours from now

And on to December on Lawrence Ave., where a small dog barks, repeats. The black snow shimmers, ice in oil, before headlights creeping from my left slink off to my right, red taillights. The gated corner stores, the billboards peeling, the gritty bowed faces fill me with energy and importance. In December, I feel warm.
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It's Silly (perspective on attachment)

You are worth more to me than you realize and probably more than I realize. What I love lies in your shadow, the realm of which you're not aware, the things you deem offensive, something in you that fears itself. If I identify it to you, you will kill it. You can be vicious to yourself because you're strong enough to take it and recover, believing it makes you a high-quality person. It's silly because you already are and can't help but be.

Problem/Solution/Com- plication

Problem: The light is too bright.

Solution: Close my eyes.

Complication: My friends like to slap me in the nuts (they're such good people when I'm awake).

Solution: Wear a protective cup.

Complication: I can't show off my moose knuckle.
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Absolute Value

Their buttons too tight, moralizers affect nothing but themselves. They heat a belief with fiery self-righteousness until it turns to vapor, and then they blow that vapor in great foul-smelling jets out of their righteous holes, their asses more truthful than their mouths. I love the ass. It does not pray to smell sweet. I understand that morals comfort, provide a framework in what is often a senseless and terrifying world. There is a need for comfort. I need comfort, to share beliefs with someone somewhere. But perfect good and perfect evil are the same distance from the center, from the laughing Buddha. The center, the zero, is where I should want to be, is where I am, is where we all are. It seems.
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Three Links

Let's do it again. This is a fun weekend activity because it doesn't require me to be particularly sharp. Let's do a regular commenter version, with apologies to Amadea's World. If you read German, Austrian to be specific, I encourage you to check her out.

These are interesting bits, in no particular order (again, a lie -- of course there's a particular order):

1) I Am A Camel

2) you don't know how lucky you are, boy

3) paranoia fail

This (American) Thanksgiving week, I'm thankful for all your voices. You occupy the coveted last positions in my Google Reader. You guys are the chocolate at the end of my Drumstick (Cornetto for Europeans, Bell X1). Thanks.
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The Boss Man and I

Judging by the toilet bowl stains in his private bathroom, the boss man shits a lot of blood. Good. He shits what he drinks. Everyone who works here is pale, chalky, even Rahib. The copy paper has the healthiest complexion.

The boss man, because of his brazen love affair with money, assures me that no matter how barren or unhealthy my relationships become, there is always work, and that work stabilizes life by filling any gap like adhesive caulk. The unbalanced thing is that my work enriches the boss man while draining energy that I could put into relationships. But that's the system. I can't change the system. And the system is not the boss man's fault, although his motives elude me.

I have a choice. I could remove myself, give up material comforts and learn self-reliance. I could be poor and take shit and smile. I could refuse money, abhor it. I could be Jesus.

But I'm not Jesus and I don't choose that. I'm scared. I'm scared that if I made that decision it might not stop there, that I'll end up running through a dark tunnel pursuing an illusory and impossible goodness, through pain and pain and pain. I'm scared of falling and suffering.

That's life.

The nice thing is that I can always replace "I" with "we," or, if necessary, "me" with "us."

Meditation on buying drywall screws

The hardware store has a distinct lovely smell. Each aisle contains the potential of labor, the potential of the accomplishment of building or repairing, of cleaning or lighting or moving electricity from one place to another, hopefully avoiding the body as conductor or even conduit (and the taste of pennies). There is metal and wood and rubber and plastic. There is paint and paint thinner and solvents and solutions. I wander, not knowing anything, imagining chain jewelry and chain weapons measured from spools, hats made of orange funnels, music in a drill bit, laughter from a ball cock. With knowledge and the right tools, any wish can be granted. In a hardware store, a man becomes a child, small but vast.
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Three Links?

Really? I don't do links -- but maybe I should -- I mean, I'm generally saying something about interconnectedness, but probably not putting enough effort into connecting.

These are bits of internet debris that I find interesting, in no particular order (a lie: of course there's a particular order):

1) Growing roadkill

2) Housewifery

3) Comic 287

This is a cheap, easy post, a microwave dinner of a post, so I think I'll do it more often.
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Suggest titles in the comments

I can't explain my driving compulsive perfectionism to others, nor would I want to. My train's wheels squeal and spark against the tracks. My own words stagger back and forth against the walls of my mind, dehydrated but defiant, stunned by the cruel rigor of my demands.

So they rebel. In that spirit, here's my (latest) effort at hip-hop:

(Untitled)

Challenge me son, and I'm not so nice
I'll cut you apart on my recording device.
When the crowd falls quiet, then I get the panics,
So I hide in a corner, and I chew up a Xanax.
I don't like to curse, but what the motherfuckin' heck...
Crazy Johnny's my name, I'll stick a needle in ya neck.

That's how I'm gonna get laaaaid!

When you step to me, I step on back,
Because you stink real bad and you whyme weal wack.
You remind me of Jimmy, he talks like a clam,
And when he gets drunk, he gives his wife a choke-slam.
Now he's in therapy, and it's good for him...
He's more sensitive, and I'm with Mrs. Jim.

That's how I always get laaaaid!

We'll blow up the chorus, don't linguistically bore us.
Brave the danger, explore us
Because it's death to ignore us.

If I don't make sense, just feel my tone,
And check the vibration, now stroke my bone.
Take a taste of my skin, it's honey sweet.
And I ain't got no foreskin on the end of my meat.
Most of my life is about my penis...
But don't worry 'bout the herp, creature of Venus.

That's how I never get laaaaid!
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Problem/Solution/Com- plication

Problem: The sun goes down too early.

Solution: Tell the sun you prefer a little more buildup, a little more romance, before things get hot and heavy.

Complication: The sun gives you a dozen roses, opens a bottle of wine, and grills you a delicious dinner, and somehow doesn't burn it, and seems content to sit and gently touch and kiss for hours, or is it days, or is it weeks now?

Crops die. Everyone starves.
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Walking with Whitey

It's a grim future for whitey. In the purple dusk he walks and curses those who do not know how to use a sidewalk: the left side walkers: Bohemians and drug addicts, the same pace walkers: stalkers, the three abreast walkers: lousy teenagers, and the cyclists: bicyclists.

"God damn you," he thinks. "Walk on the right side. Walk slower or faster than me. Walk single file -- there's mud around. Bike on the street like everyone else. Risk death like everyone else. You're not special. You're not even white."

Oh, no whitey. Oh, ugly whitey. You're going to fail, and then you're going to seek revenge, maybe inspired by Cheney's book, and then you're going to fail spectacularly. The world does not move according to your order. The world does not have manners. The world is chaos, and you must learn to find delight in that chaos, in strange and foreign experiences, in confusion and terror and tacos. But I see you can't. You can't get mud on your pants. You won't.

I'm sorry. I regret that I can't help. I'm busy not becoming you.
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Diagnosis and the beat

Doctor, the reason I haven't sought treatment before is that it's been my lifelong goal to be clinically disco. I've always dreamed of sequins and polyester in sequined, polyester pajamas. I've always immersed myself in disco's throbbing intricacies to remove myself from society with the goal of becoming a funky mystic.

I don't listen to other music. I fear that different beats will pollute my pristine four-on-the-floor pulse (DUB-thub-DUB-thub), despite my EKG's and some doctors' advice. But having gone so long with the same beat, the same beat -- dancing, shopping, even masturbating to it -- I'm exhausted. I wake up in the middle of the night, heart thumping and hips churning. Now that I've given up cocaine and Quaaludes, I need sleep.

I know that disco lies mostly in the dance steps and others' perception of these. I know that as soon as I shuffle my feet, even before I speak and fill the room with my spinning reflections, people will call me disco. This doesn't bother me in itself, but it's a laziness when strangers don't even evaluate the funkiness of my opinions. It bothers me when they reflexively distance themselves, maybe to protect themselves from the beauty of the disco beat.

Inside I feel that beat and it hurts. I breathe it. I work it to make a living. I break it down. My four seasons are Autumn, Winter, Spring, and Donna Summer.

But still, Doc, I don't know if I'm clinically disco or just pretending. How could I know? The most disco are the ones most convinced that the world sees them as singer-songwriters. Do you see me that way? Do they still make Quaaludes? Doc?