Path to Enlightened Insanity

On and off the traffic flow ebbs and flows under the tyranny of the three eyed enforcers, employees of the local governmental subdivision.

The cars trickle in under the direction of their dreary eyed caffeine deprived drivers.

A collection of packages under the watchful eye of a global multinet connected big brother slide by, some racing the clock to arrive within the next 45 minute by 9 AM.

The ebb and flow continues. The helium powered underpaid light spends part of yet another fortnight battering down, causing epidermal carcinomas, but as yet the employer of enforcers has yet to regulate this brutal photon source.

An employee of another floating gas ball stops outside, calls a friend with the code powered wire deprived collection of circuits. His friend goes inside and obtains two containers of caffeine.

Within a matter of moments fellow dihydrogen oxide bags descend next to me and begin a ritualistic exchanged of minimally useful information.

The ebb and flow of caffeine, people and cars continue.

Me? I sit aloof detached, silent watching everyone, everything consuming my 30,000 km stream of protons per second, devouring the resonance of the compressions of the acoustic ether.

A veblenesque vehicle pulls up, the driver bolts from it ignoring the attempted wing damage to the vehicle next door. The future direction notification device left on by tis status obsessed driver, turns itself off.

The ebb and flow of caffeine and cars continues. And me I sit, aloof outside the flow observing. Delaying the listed activities that beckon me from beneath this sheet of paper.

Observations are exhausted and time spent on the frivolous, but fulfilling activity of string together well recognized pictures.

The end, comes.

I don’t know what the fuck I just did. I just took some time off work to go eat at Denny’s and write. I’m strange thats for sure.

NB: The manger is cute and the server is intriguing – Dang – My internal needing to have sex clock has gone off… lol

I’ve been waiting for A to call me. He’s a closeted bisexual guy at work. I’ve called him once and emailed him – talking to him once a week, when I see him at work, isn’t frequent enough. He’s told me he likes me.

Damn, I can’t just wait and take things slow – Its not in my nature it seems. I either procrastinate or do things really, really fast.

I’m stuck wondering who reads this? I know A does. Tommy does. Brian has read it. Does Shawn? Does Steven Johnson? (I wish) Does Phil? Does Jordan? Does Dave? (He’s commented)

Of course a bigger and better question is why the fuck do I care?

I’ve proclaimed previously that I write this for me, but I’m intimately conscious that it gets read by others. Its one of those things though that I’ve had to learn. I’ve made the mistakes of putting people’s names in here in a bad light. I’ve also conducted breakup fights over eJournals/Blogs.

I honestly like those entries, they’re raw, true. There is no bullshitting going around in them. No calculated political thoughts about who I’ll piss off and what they’ll think and how to backhandedly slap someone.

I agree with George Carlin, there is too much euphemistic bullshit language that just cloaks and diminishes meaning. Its all fine and dandy when its done for a good laugh though.

People should say what they mean and mean what they say. Can you imagine how much more vibrant and honest political discourse would be if you just put it out there?

It of course wouldn’t be kinder and people would get in a tizzy and there would be more murders/assassinations, but isn’t this worth it for some honest discourse? Probably. (No!! Fuck I just did it, again — see? Even when talking about honesty I get into that political bullshitting mode.) Yes. I’d choose greater honesty at the expense of a few lives.

So let me start here:

1. President Bush is a fricking idiot and should be impeached as soon as possible for the good of the country and the good of the world. I watched him today doing the exact spin bullshitting that I so despise. Yes, Clinton did the same thing too, but he was talking about trivial things compared to what Bush has been going on about.
2. Gay men need to stop worrying about getting their fucks so much and think about relationships, if we ever really want to be seen as “normal” and equal in society. A bunch of 25-35+ men acting like horny teenagers is embarrassing to the whole concept of gay rights. If you want gay marriage stop acting like a horny promiscuous teenager. If you don’t give a shit, go and do what you please, just don’t be a hippocrite by joining the HRC and Lambda Legal — They advocate for gay marriage, etc…
3. Everyone has the right to say whatever the hell they want. (save shouting fire in a theatre and similar things, that endangers others.) If Michael Savage wants to go on and on with his anti-gay comments so be it. He should just expect the gay activists to complain, they’re not silencing him per se just applying pressure to remove him from a venue. If he really wants to say it let him purchase the airtime, until he does that he’s a pawn of MSNBC. TOUGH SHIT!

Okay thats it for now. I’m bitched out and I need to start wandering back to work. But one more comment. I feel good about this, its my truth. I wish I could write fiction from this point of view, but it ends up being more like thinly veiled non-fiction.

Oh, one more honest point. A call me because well I’m getting impatient.

Okay I just read a college guidebook. I think the people who put these together have actually perfected the are of distilling all meaningful content out of them.

I want someone else to make this choice for me to take this burden over from me. I wonder if this is more because this choice needs to be made, but I don’t want to be the one who’s held responsible if its wrong.

What I’m exhibiting is schizophrenic internal corporate like “I’m not gonna make that decision”itis.

Every university at this point looks good — its pathetic — or maybe I’ve been choosy enough in my initial search that honestly they all will do.

There is the catholic dilemma though. Some of these schools are various orders of catholic schools. (Jesuit, Marinists, etc…) My interactions with catholics have tended to be us vs. them affairs where I’m with us and catholics are them.

I recognize here that I’m doing to “the catholics” exactly what I’ve been rallying against — people should be judged as individuals and not as groups.

Okay this is going to quickly disintegrate into a liberal rant about treating people as individuals. So one last thought.. Its so easy to fall into judging people by the group they belong to is it fair to condemn those who accidentally fall into that behavior

I got to be the agent in charge at work tonight for several hours. this is the first time I’ve been in a management position in a while.

I dunno, to me at first its more of a burden than a gift. Its probably because I look at the responsibilities first. We had bad weather so first things was, “Okay be aware of the weather,” so I made a point to look at that on my lunch break.

Then I had a shit fit making sure everyone got their breaks, which is a pain because third shifters don’t take their breaks on time.

I like leaders who see their leadership as a responsibility to be used in a prudent and appropriate way; it should never be abused, one should take great care to swerve their constituency/ies as best as possible.

Politics are the reason I hate leading; it distracts from being a steward leader and makes it messier. Don’t get me wrong I love political games for the scheming and the effort but I hate them at the same time because it distracts from being a good leader.

Speaking of leaders I’ve read an interesting piece about our Idiot in Chief and I’ll be writing him and my congressman a letter.

And while I’m on the subject, I think we need to rename Iraq (since we’re governing it) to “New Vietnam.” It would put things in a proper perspective.

I spent a good chunk of the morning creating the What I’m Hearing section of my website. A totally narcissistic and geeky section of my webpage, but I must say I like it, and I did learn a good deal about PHP and CSS.

I think I’ve been focusing on computer stuff because I’m either lazy or insecure with what I’ve written recently. I’ve got at least three eJournal entries that I need to get typed and here. (They’re written just not typed.)

I have also decided to focus more on Philosophy than writing. I think I’m a decent writer (perhaps even good?) but fiction is a field that I have no skill in. I like writing about whats on my mind and what has been pissing me off recently, but I can’t pull stuff out of my ass. (Okay one exception.)

Its sleep time. No more new songs for a bit.

For some reason at this moment I feel really lonely. Maybe its that I’ven’t see Jenni in one too many days; Maybe its the marriage chapter in Bill’s book, and the crap with my sister friend; Maybe because I’ve been sleeping too long and alone; Maybe tis because close friends have seen long relationships just sorta grow into something more and romantic.

I’ve been debating why I’m single. I’ve had some other guys ask me that question. By any account I should be comfortably in a LTR. i don’t play games — being faithful is something I honestly believe in; Its not just nice but its the respect that I owe the other person.

Maybe its because I don’t want to “date.” I want to get through that as quickly as possible and get onto the “going steady” part. I want to start dreaming and fantasizing about the future. I enjoy living in the present but I’d much rather think about what can be, and make that happen.

So while in my future (as envisioned by Idealview®) I’m happily in love with and in a civil union with the man who is the love of my life with 2.05 children.

Maybe its because I expect a lot from myself and someone else is why I’m single? Do I scare people away by being too demanding on the first contact? I know I shouldn’t change a date into a “will this be the one” interview, but I do it anyways, despite my best intentions.

Anyone want a date?

I was a participant in what many people would call a piss off fest today at work.

What was I doing to start this brouhaha? Getting naked at work? (No, although there are enough cute boys who I wouldn’t mind spending more private time with.) did I yell fire at the top of my lungs? (Nope, thats illegal although some could argue that it infringes on my right to free speech.) No, I was explaining someone else’s philosophical argument, specifically that of Bill Irvine’s in The Politics of Parenting.

His book advocates many things which by many American’s standards are “wrong.” So I wasn’t really me who was pissing my coworkers off but instead it was Bill Irvine.

I re-realized something during the argument though — I like pissing people off, especially when its from an extreme philosophical/political position. It makes me feel more comfortable about the choice philosophy for my major when I go back to school.

I was at work. I think I had the fastest coming out experience on record or at least that I remember.

I mentioned that one straight boy was a cutie to a coworker. Another coworker who I know but wasn’t explicitly out to asked (convolutely) if I was gay. I said yes. She said thats alright.

Dang, I never thought that it would get down to that short of a time. Coming out in one line. I just would’ve never thought that I could come out that fast, but its cool on my comfort level.

There has been a lot of brouhaha on the Internet, court rooms, legislative houses, and web logs about SPAM. That wonderful thing that clogs our in boxes.

Most of the solutions have focused around filtering incoming email, and while that is an effective stopgap solution. (and one that I use) I think the industry needs to work more towards shifting costs towards the senders of email, and in addition creating networks of secured SMTP servers.

Bottom line: Secure the base mail standard instead of trying to monkey with the additional layers. SMTP is insecure by design (its a 20 year old standard) and needs to be updated into a secure standard somehow, either issuing certificates, or ensuring that the mail comes from trusted hosts.

I know this is not a technical description of what to do, but legislating spam and creating ever more sophisticated filters will only end in a war of escalation. Spam needs to be dealt with in a low level technological manner and not legal manner.

I finally got most of the rest of the unpacking that needed to be done, done.

I kept running into various things I’ve written through the years:

• A parody of a play that I was working on at Horizon Theatre Company.
• My kidnapping comedy, that has been in progress for far too long
• I was thinking about my journal in fourth grade where I was really creative, but often spent recess sitting at the table across the hall from the office writing, I enjoyed writing it.
• A lyric rewrite of the song Lady Bug and The Centipede.
• Listen, a play that I wrote and directed my sophomore year of high school
• I’ve kept a journal on and off for quite a while
• My many websites I’ve put together during the years

I know thats a short list, but i just haven’t felt like wracking my brain. I think the point is that I’ve always been a writer underlying, just had other things obscuring it. The parody was just because these things had come to my head and needed to get out. The kidnapping comedy was just started because it popped in. The lyric rewrite was because I thought the song was stupid. Listen was a play I wrote to make a point, and I still don’t think I’ve made that point. The websites, was my tech geeking around.

Its a theme that I finally see. Directing a play is writing in reverse. (Whereas writing is taking ideas and converting them into words, directing is taking words converting it into actions and thus ideas.) I don’t know why it took me so long to figure this out.

The English program at my school was horrible at supporting writers, it was excellent at supporting literary analysts. I think everyone needs to learn to write and to do that well they need to write about something that they know about. You cannot learn to write while you’re attempting to figure out what the hell the book is about. A lot of people can do this, but you’re attempting to teach two skills at the same time. Someone like me who is poor at one, automatically thinks they’re poor at both, not able to clearly and implicitly separate the two out.

I don’t know its strange for me to embrace the fact that “I’m a writer.” It seems too simple, to solid, to clear. If its simple it probably won’t be right.

An additional piece, over the years I’ve found myself associating with writers of one kind or another. In college I fell into a group with Dana and other people. Jenni has always seen herself as a writer, Kevin is a writer, he just expresses it through film.

So why do I feel so insecure and scared about this path now? Right now the immediate future looks pretty crabby. I’ve now got my spreadsheet set up to tell my my negative net worth and its not pretty.

I think the most terrifying thing about this is that I need to work through my procrastination, and self motivate more than anything else, and those are not my strong points, and that terrifies me that I won’t ever complete anything.

When I answered the question “What do you want to be when you grow up?” I never thought I’d be terrified at the answer, but I also thought I had control over the answer.