meet death
we were watching videos of storms last night. they were frightening and as huge as the whole sky while they rolled in off the ocean, over mountain ridges, and across the plains. my mind wanders to explaining weather to aliens (the intergalactic traveller variety). i think of our ancestors. imagine looking up and seeing the dark and morphing faces in the clouds as they cover blue skies. the wind picks up. giant limbs throw light from the sky that burns the earth. a strange tongue begins mumbling in the distance and then booming, demanding as it gets closer. it’s come for you. cower, mortal. these are the moments that invented god.*
i wonder what it must be like to not think these thoughts. to sit quietly and listen as someone tells me what they’ve been told which loosely relates to something in a really old book which someone a long time ago interpreted from an ancient tongue. not to use the brains or the guts that thousands of years of evolution and fucking blessed them with. to not see divinity in science. to not see soul and the spark of consciousness in the eyes of our fellow non-human earthlings. to pass on cherishing the present moment and each other or forsaking our mother earth for a “more perfect” afterlife. to not adore our bodies and our home as a player in a magnificent stardust orgasm, scattering the darkness at the speed of light for the last 14 billion years, put into motion by forces outside space, time and our illusions of physical form. it gets me hot just thinking about it.
some people take this knowledge and wonder why they should be in awe of, what boils down to, ALL of this being the unwanted, yet interesting, product of a cosmic one night stand that has, with statistical certainty, happened elsewhere in our multi-verse. me…i’ve experienced enough hurt and disappointment during my tour our “insignificant” little world. i want to and will believe that we’re all cherished… even if it’s just my imagination.
* that’s not to say that i think deity is a hoax because we can explain, and sometimes control, these and many other phenomena. i think the more we know, we realize how much we don’t know.
in absentis of muses
And there’s something on yer mind you wanna be saying That somebody someplace oughta be hearin’ But it’s trapped on yer tongue and sealed in yer head And it bothers you badly when your layin’ in bed And no matter how you try you just can’t say it And yer scared to yer soul you just might forget it And yer eyes get swimmy from the tears in yer head And yer pillows of feathers turn to blankets of lead And the lion’s mouth opens and yer staring at his teeth And his jaws start closin with you underneath And yer flat on your belly with yer hands tied behind And you wish you’d never taken that last detour sign And you say to yourself just what am I doin’ On this road I’m walkin’, on this trail I’m turnin’ On this curve I’m hanging On this pathway I’m strolling, in the space I’m taking Last Thoughts On Woody Guthrie – Bob Dylan
VIRGO (Aug. 23-Sept. 22): “Ever upstream from myself,” wrote Belgian poet Edmond Vandercammen. “I advance, implore and pursue myself.” I suggest you adopt that attitude, Virgo. Assume that your best self is sailing along at a rapid clip, somewhere in the distance ahead of you, and it’s your job to catch up. Your highest form of expression is eluding you, but you’re hunting it down. The most beautiful possible embodiment of all your potentials is surging toward the future, and it’s your fun job to close the gap between you and unite with it.
Mother Earth, you’re my life support system. As a soldier I must drink your blue water, live inside your red clay and eat your green skin. Help me to balance myself. As you hold in balance, the Earth, the sea, and the space environments. Help me to open my heart, knowing that the Universe will feed me. I pray my boots will always kiss your face, and my footsteps match your heartbeat. Carry my body through space and time. You’re my connection to the Universe and all that comes after. I’m yours and you are mine. I salute you.
Bill Django in The Men Who Stare At Goats
der Sport des Fußballs
Over the last year I’ve been spending a lot of time on IRC, which, for the uninitiated, is internet relay chat, aka multiplayer notepad. I’ve made some great friends and met some über douches from all over the world. i’ve also gotten to learn quite a bit more about canada and europe and how *vastly* different they are while being just like home.
Most persons with any style or substance knows that the final match of the World Cup is right around the bend. I’ve been dumbly watching conversations about fútbol, fotbal, le foot, fußball, podosfero, sakka, football, and good old soccer. One of my friends, whose blog I read on a regular basis, is a HUGE fan of the sport. Me? I’m a fan of outcomes. There are three reasons I’ve never watched a sports match, from start to finish. The first my attention span is total crap. If you look away, you’ll miss something (thank goddess for highlight reels and instant replay). The second, I cannot take the stress of the ups and downs of a match. They’re winning! They’re losing! Oh god THEY’RE HURT! Even if my team is obliterating the opposition, I can’t stand it because I feel bad for the other team and can’t bear to watch. Heh. Third…the rivalries. Oh god. They tear families apart and make newborn kittens cry.
Anyway. The US team was knocked out fairly early (but at least they qualified, right canada? ) so I have been without country for the better part of the games. I asked my Dutch friend who she was rooting for, (ORANJE OF COURSE.) which is kind of a dumb question, I suppose. Apparently only Americans cheer on teams outside of their own country for the cup. All my european and american friends understand since the US team kind of sucks, but they held on a little longer this year than normal so… NICE TRY GUYS!
I was complaining that I COULD NOT watch the matches (for the above reasons) but my IRC friends were having *none of that nonsense* and they found me a stream so I could watch the Spain v. Paraguay match. I’ll interject here that the only sports I’ve ever attempted to watch have been basketball and American Football. Two of THE MOST boring sports ever. but this…was exciting. This actually held my attention. If you don’t know anything about american football…they can’t move 2 feet without stopping, resetting the field, and starting the clock again. It seems like a single game takes eleventy hours. but this…when it was over i was left feeling like it hadn’t gone on long enough.
So. All this to say: SOCCER… I LIKE IT! Like it enough to watch it year round…probably not. For starters, I wouldn’t know where to being. I’m only able to watch the world cup matches because AT&T signed an agreement with ESPN so I get to watch it online for free. Anyway, I’m rooting for ORANJE for the cup. We’ll see.
In and Out
C
A consult was performed, a procedure was scheduled, a puppy was sedated. Now, a week later, I am finally calm over the situation. We brought her home with stretchy purple thing wrapped around her, a few pieces of gauze, and a bottle of death-inducing pain pills (that we did not administer). The *giant* suture she came home with was bad enough to make me want to cry. The way she was listlessly wandering around the office, as if she were in a very strange dream, made me coo and rub her head, telling her everything was ok and i loved her. She laid on a nest of dog pillows i made for her in the floor of the office and whimpered softly as the anesthesia wore off. Needless to say, I felt pretty bad about putting her through all that. Then the infection started. I knew it would happen. I mean, she’s a dog. She walks through the grass, she lays on the floor, she licks her own butt and she licks her own wounds. You’ll note that while the vet did send us home with the death pills, he did not send us home with antibiotics, an e collar, or a drainage tube. I thought this was a little strange but what do *I* know. I didn’t go to animal doctor school. At 3am, early Tuesday morning the area under the suture had gotten so filled with fluid that it was starting to resemble a fraying baseball. She was panting pretty heavily and pacing. I woke Hugo up to confirm my diagnosis (“It’s fscked up, right?” … “Yeah. It’s fscked.”) and made a phone call to the animal ER. This makes my third trip there and I like their team quite a bit. While we were there something finally gave way and the fluid started seeping out of my poor dog, all over the floor. She had a fever which pointed to an infection which means our vet is a retard and I need to learn to speak up. A credit card swipe and 45 minutes later, they wheel Coco out on a metal table with wheels. She now appeared as I had expected her to when I picked her up the first time. Totally stoned with a very well bandaged side (stretchy blue this time!), a drain tube stitched in place, an e collar, and antibiotics. It took 3 of us to get Coco, a 90 pound, dog shaped lump of spaghetti, into the back seat of my 2 door coupe. Coco is a rock star though and she managed to stand up and walk out of my car after a little encouragement. If she hadn’t done that… we’d have probably taken a nap in the car until the sun came up. I finally got in bed and asleep sometime around 7am. At 1pm I pulled off her dressings and it looked 100x better than the night before. It’s looking even better now, almost 24 hours later. As for me, I’m looking for a new vet. I don’t know why I don’t trust my own instincts more. That’s something I need to work on.
it’s why you love me
A
I have contracted…what feels like…a chest cold…or it could be wicked allergies moved south. Either way, there are cinderblocks where my lungs once were.