Comfort Doodlings

Banging on things, staring into fires, doodling on rough-textured emu toes while chatting on the phone...

Sometimes, there are things in life that just seem to be so natural, so comfortable and so easy.
They're the things that gracefully call to us, enticing our primal subconscious, and luring us into game-play without ever requiring a second-guess or a reconsideration...

Let's call these things "Comfort Doodlings" (...because..., I've been told that "Banging, Fire-staring and Emu-decorating" was already copyrighted by a Swiss psychologist to denote an oft-neglected, abnormal-tendency disorder prevalent among down-under pyromaniacs with mobile phones...)

Anyway, these "Comfort Doodlings" are different for everyone.

For some, these experiences come with simply devouring chips and guacamole, dissecting amphibians, cycling into the wall at the gym, watching a good movie, partaking in orgasm-goaled orthopedics (--hey, some people are into that--), and taking romantic walks on the beach.

Me, though..., I'm much simpler.
For me, I'm comfortably doodling when I'm being ass-soaked by moist soil under an Oak tree, writing incoherent perceptions, miming conversation with someone whose language and culture don't translate, reading my way into a fun, new world, engaging in mental impiety while observing an orange blossom-driven hummingbird, taking a bus in a foreign country without knowing its destination, exploring "whys" with curious kids, discovering a novel instrument as new music is conceived, and discussing arbitrarily relevant subjects like home-made salad dressing, skunk-dating habits and the dental benefits of purgatory inhabitants.

But... the reason I set out to write this post (though I seem to have gotten a bit silly-style side-tracked...)
was to express how Rico Suave smooth and comfortable it is to hang out with old friends.

I recently saw a core group of kids that I knew from age three through highschool.

And, though, we've all changed immensely, are on different paths. it was oh-so doodle-comforting to be in their presence!

What can I say? Nothing calls for Comfort Doodles like chilling with someone who knows you used to be a book geek, who saw every truth-or-dare you fumbled when you were twelve, was there when you began your portfolio of Firsts, and remembers when you used to wear florescent Body Glove accessories and pretend like you were a mountain bike expert...

Ahhh, yes... everyone's got their Comfort Doodling favorites... (be they blogging, skipping rope, panda-painting, laughing with the family, creating stick figures, eating raw horse, walking the dog or whistling...)

I DO sometimes wonder, though, if anyone else's comfort doodling involves pineneedles and prisms...

Peace March Delirium

Pour a handful of energy, a fat Zeusian craneful of heart, and a shoebox-full of shared passion multiplied by (3.14159...) times Hope + a few bottled waters + handmade signs of support + i to the Public-Wants-to-be-heard Power, and you've got the makings for a fine, envigoratingly exhausting three days of anti-war marching.

(I actually had some great photos ready to post- to inaugurate my picture-less prose blogousity- ... but, being the self-proclaimed luddite MAC-user I am, I went and just lost all of them to the ether... --Luckily, I believe them goofy scientist geeks who say that energy lost here, is energy found elsewhere...)

But...
If I HAD shown a few photos..., you would have seen thousands of marchers for peace with creatively-penned and painted signs, students and mothers, citizens and lovers, workers, chillers, teachers, policemen, sons and daughters and brothers and sisters who went out of their ways and missed buses home to protest what their Country is doing, and asking WHY?

... I even had a nice little shot of myself, looking quite hippy and naive beside a "PEACE" sign and a home-made "Democracy by example- NOT BY WAR!" banner...
(You couldn't have cut my innocent, hippy idealism and cultured optimism with a samarai sword!)

You also wouldn't have known by looking that I was a perditious cynic, prone to excessive sarcasm, circuitously random blogging, and utter written absurditiy!

You wouldn't have known by looking that, when I can't sleep at night, I count stars like sheep, alternating from English, Spanish, Japanese to German (One, dos, san, vier, five, seis, shichi, acht, nine, diez, juichi...)

You wouldn't have known by looking that my voice is currently coarsely shot from chanting anti-war slogans:

"Que queremos? PAS! Cuando? AHORA!"
("Whadd'we want? PEACE! When D'we want it? NOW!")

and my legs are aching from 20 miles of walking.

But, I've got no complaints... Afterall, I've been walking only a few days with Fernando Suarez (the 50-year-0ld father of one of the first latino soldiers lost in Iraq) who is marching from Tijuana, Mexico to San Francisco for PEACE with many others (check out the mission and awesome trek of these amazing folks at: Fernando's site and Pablo's site)

I have to admit, though, that I'm ready to eat someone's grandfather because I lost my photos, and that, last night, as I tried to relax, I was still chanting as I dreamt...

Whadd'we want? PEACE! When do we want it? NOW!
Whadd'we want? SLEEP! When do we want it? NOW!

(But, I DO promise that if too many more politically-slanted experiences or observations creep into my future, I'll start a new blog for politics alone. This creek shall not be tainted! Nor shall platypuses be hit with political paddles!)

Good-Guy, Bad-Guy, Love-to-Hate Hypothesis

Oh yes...
Bold defiance poking indignant talons at the faceless "them"...
Raging despondency sticking its tongue out from its foaming mouth at the pillars of "normalcy"...

Yes, these are some of the great things in life; these are some of those wondrous marvels that allow us to feel vulnerably alive... the things that let us voice adament public condemnation while simultaneously feeling secret admiration behind closed doors...

I mean, honestly, who doesn't disguisedly love a clever and ingenious villain or a sagacious art thief who takes off with a Monet, using nothing but brilliant cunning and a stick of bubble gum? ... or a modern-day Robin Hood who hacks into the military spending fund, using an orange peel, a rusty antenna and 49 spearment-flavored toothpicks?

Deny it if you will (-- I won't ask you to take a loss on your social credit report points --) but..., we all love a good, old-fashioned Stick-it-to-the-man Trojan Tale every once in a while.

I guess, maybe, that's why I was glued to the doofus tube yesterday, watching FOX News cover a high-speed car chase through Los Angeles. While I clenched my cavities and furrowed my never-once-plucked eyebrows at the reckless speeding and deplorable endangerment of innocent lives, there was some cavernously camouflaged whisper (... probably residing in my rebellious Achilles wedding-ring finger with all those wanderlust parasites and self-destructive, tite-rope-walking, membrane-depleted, nomadic white cells...) that said: "Go Mr. Car Thief! Left at the next corner, and you'll lose them coppers!"

But..., later on in the evening, I learned that the leading role in the Breaking News attraction (the pimped-out Chevy SUV with flashy rims, cable TV, GPS, X-BOX and atmospheric pressure-Stabilizer) was my friend's stolen vehicle that had chauffeured me to dinner and karaoke not three weeks before!

Suddenly, I was cursing what had once been exciting shots fired at the rear window, hexing the once romantic, joint-toking, hot-wiring bandit, and praising LoJack.

Though, it's an age-old lesson, it's one human nature seems to always blank on when Exam time rolls around... Face it- it's easy to love things until they directly attack you or your loved ones, and it's a pleasure to hate things until they pat you on the back and give you a candycane and a kiss.
(Hey, afterall... 1st Amendment rights are all rainbows and puppy dogs until the grandma-mutilating, Mother Theresa-fisting, elephant cock-bearing 12-year-old gymnast-impaling Nazi Oil-coholic Militants get their protest permit!)

But..., that being said..., I'll still be a rapid page-turner if any genius diamond thieves decide to publish their authority-outwitting memoirs of clever deception and criminal successes!

And, hey, the only reason most of us live in LA anyway is to have local coverage of all the car chases!

Peace and Big Screen Fame

Some people go to church on Sundays. Some people lounge about the house in fuzzy pink platypus slippers. And some people make a pot of coffee and read Dear Abby columns to their loved ones.

But, nope. Not me.

So, what was I doing this past Sunday at about noon?
Why, dragging coffins across the sand on Santa Monica beach and lining up white crosses, of course! Why...? What ELSE would I be doing?!

My mother and I and hundreds of others were taking part in a national Women Say No to War event organized by CodePink. It was an assembly of concerned men and women for peace who gathered on the beach to have their voices heard and be a part of a large, aerial artistic statement.

The sand was the canvass, the people, the paint, and a circling helicopter was the capturer of the image.

And, yup. I think my big debut in the spotlight was quite a hit! I see wide-open Hollywood doors on the horizon and, most likely, a supporting role alongside George Clooney in the near future.

Check me out here! If you squint a bit, you can make out my dramatically intense Cry-for-Peace pose! (I'm the faint pink splotch on the upper right hand side of the O in NO.)

And, if anyone knows of a good agent who'd be interested in helping to find high-paying forums for my powerful theatrical performances, I'll be interviewing all next week...

Suckers and Paint

Finger painting has to be one of my all-time favourite pastimes. There's nothing quite like walking up to the visceral gates of artistic orgasm with your hands swamped in raw color and earthy clay-like goop squishing between your fingers...

It just can't really be beat- (... even with a weasel-tail whip or a ceremonial bamboo stick)...

So, why am I inclined NOW to write about this finger-friendly, raw and primordial channel to the divine?

Well... because I just completed a lovely finger-painted piece that, I believe, deserves high accolades for its unlikely and brilliant choice of artistic medium.

--No--, I didn't just rub vomit into a rabbit hide or smear shit all over a canvass, and step back to smile at my workmanship....

But..., ACTUALLY, that's not too far from the truth...

You see, I had first peed conventionally into my mom's toilet bowl and flushed, when I noticed that the water was still continuously running...
So, as one does,
I removed the lid of the toilet holding tank and discovered that the crucial suction sucker, plunger-lookin' thing-a-ma-bob of the flapper was weak and reluctant to properly suck...

And as I tried to coax it back into its sucking vocation, I discovered the bounteous black-orange rusty silth that had accumulated at the base of the tank...

And, wow! what could be better for finger painting than this pasty grime?! (... Had plumbing existed back in the age of Salamancan Cave Life, I'm sure those wall paintings of buffaloes would have been even more alive...!)

With my hands bathed in mamma's neglected sediment-shit-tank ink, I grabbed the first, flat-surfaced disposable item I saw in bathroom sight (a 1970's cut-out foam shoe inlay- probably used as some hiking boot design for my father's first outdoor gear company) and dove into artistic misplay and unsupervised finger painting...

And, so I composed and completed the "Bowl-rusted Soul-shocked Beauty on Blue Foam Foot" (Bids on eBay start at $35 for this creative rendition of a catapulted stick figure trapped in a multi-colored footprint, representative of the loneliness of lavatory life)...

It seems that my mom and I will be trying to install a new fill valve and flapper in the toilet this evening, as I secretly await the big bucks that will inevitably pour in after the release of my first Finger-painted Toilet Sludge Exhibition: Solitude, Synergy and Sink Scum.

*Have you checked the sediment in YOUR local toilet holding tank for colorful, artistically-usable paints lately? You'de be surprised what gifts rusted pipes and apathetic plungers can bring!

Door-to-door Redemption

With the daily nagging atrocities of our misguided Administration, the commercialization of humor, the replacement of love letters by text messages, and the exponential super-sizing of life's simple truths..., it's sometimes a matter of heavy weed-wacking and muscle-soaring sludge-removal to get to the essence of things...

That's why it's always so refreshingly grin-grabbing when we actually encounter things that still retain their originally inherent elements of purity...

And, that's why today I'd like to give thanks for one thing that, Thank the Cosmos, still remains sacred in this country. And, that is
the Integrity of the door-to-door Salesman (-- or "salesperson" if you're the type who prefers "person-hole" to "manhole"--)

I just had a lovely exchange with a bubbly young girl, selling window cleaner. It went something like this:

Bubbly Girl: Well, HEY there, girl!!
Me: Uh... hey there.
Bubbly Girl: Is your mom or dad home?
Me: Nope. My mom's probably at work, and my dad lives on a sailboat in Europe.
Bubbly Girl: Whoa! That's some crazy stuff! GEERL, how old are you?
Me: Uh... 27.
Bubbly Girl: DAAMN, girl! YOU lookin GOOOD! C'mon- give it up!
(* Bubbly Girl extends upright palm and I tap it "five")
Bubbly Girl: So, check THIS out!
(* Bubbly Girl takes out a blue marker, draws a line across her white towel and proceeds to scrub it with the aid of her "window cleaner")
Bubbly Girl: Betchu've never seen no window cleaner do THIS before!
(* Bubbly Girl shakes her booty to non-existent beats and the white towel takes on a light blue goopy tinge)
Me: Uh.. nice.
Bubbly Girl: Hell YEAH, that's nice!
(* another enthusiastic extended palm and another "five"-giving)
Bubbly Girl: Just imagine what it can do with coffee stains, red wine, water marks and shower grime... you know what I'm sayin?!
(* Bubbly Girl then - NO JOKE - takes a suck on the nozzle of her spray bottle and..)
Bubbly Girl: It's DAMN good with chicken too!
Me: ..eh.. hee hee..mmm...
Bubbly Girl: So you wanna get you some of this?
Me: uh... I don't think we really need it...
Bubbly Girl: Alright then.
(* Bubbly Girl does one last little music-less hip-shaking performance for the road)
Me: But, good luck to you! Try my neighbor's place!

To be honest, I feel like I should have bought some of her sugar water, if only to thank her for brightening my day, and re-instilling some nebulous crumb of humanity... That, AND, I wish every salesman would dance and high-five with such inhibition... What a marvelous world that would be...

("We have this fine flatscreen available for only $640 - would you like to see my break-dancing moves?")

Change and Golden Calf Worship

"Do you think that's how she has sex?" my friend asked, nodding toward the acrobatic fiddler on stage whose hips floated to musical tide while her smile stunned stars in the sand when arpeggiotic waves receded.

"Well, I dunno," I answered, leaning over a pint of Sam Adams and a bottle of Coors Light, "but she sure moves her bow as if she had embraced and forgotten everything all at once... which is ALWAYS a good sign when pursuing fulfillment of primordial urges!"

"Yeah. It is, isn't it...."

And, back to silly conversation we went, drinking and reminiscing, munching and greeting old friends.

It was my first time back in four years to the mountain/ski town I used to live in. The amazing mountains and trip-you-if-you-look topography were still there. Some of my old coworkers from the bookstore/videostore were still there, wittying up the world. The smiles were the same. The street names were the same. Even the plowed, layered snow on the sides of Main Street looked the same.

Only, it had changed. Three Starbucks had come into town. A multitude of tourist-marketed restaurants had settled. A vertical poll with scantily-clad hired dancers had snuck into one of the bars. And many a tiki joint with Mai Tai specials at escalated prices had landed in the High Sierras. The police force had been tripled, 70% of the locals could no longer afford to live, and private jets crowded the tiny runway south of town.

But..., thanks to my divine Savior and Leader: The Holy Winged Platypus (...now, I don't like to preach, but if you're interested in attaining true happiness and contentment in life, contact me and I can talk to you about how the Winged Platypus can help YOU to help YOURSELF and help OTHERS- 1800-PT-PUSSY)....,
anyway.., thanks to the Winged PlatyPussy, I ended up among good company in what's left of the old mountain town I remembered...

... good people..., good music..., good lovers of the outdoors..., good stuff!

(And, by the way, I have no affiliation with the referenced 800 number.
But...., if it DOES in fact exist, I'd like to submit my resume, and say that, though I don't have webbed feet or a rubbery snout, I have a pretty sexy phone voice...)

Olympic Occasions and Evasions

So, I wasn't a very dedicated fan of this year's Winter Olympics…. In fact, I kind of feel like I let down half of the citizens of Italy with my pathetic Petri-dish support (“Eh Georgio! Canna you believa we hadda one less aviewer of California thisa year!? Don't tella momma-- she will cry this year's awine harvest into molto big salty puddle!”)

I DID tune in, however, to watch the little cutie snowboarder, Sean White propel himself just two and a half feet short of orbit. (I guess when you're 19 years old, it's way cooler to rebel against physics than get a lip-piercing these days…).
I also caught a few moments of the “(insert random string of numbers) meter, elliptical-track, ice-skating race”. I quite enjoyed the intellectual stimulation this event brought me. I spent the whole time mentally calculating the precise ratios of the competitors' body weight distributions. (Now, if that Swiss dude were an ant, could he carry 40 times or only 10 times his weight in lower calves??)
Plus, I did get a few minutes in watching the off-the-ice reality show between those artsy, figure-skating “dancing” couples. I didn't much care for the event itself, but I was truly applauding and yelling my approval at the television when the couples stepped off the ice. They gave each other the iciest cold shoulders and subtle butt-flicks that screamed “I can't believe you dropped me in front of all those people on the greatest night of my life!” and “Well… if you weren't such a fat-ass!...”)

Other than that, I didn't get much more viewing. But, my brother and I DID managed to watch a few moments of the closing ceremony… (To be honest, we had no idea what was going on…)

Brother: OK, I think that opera singer's vibrato represents patriotism and international sportsmanship.
-c: Yeah, but what are those Canadians doing out there, stacking up giant sugar cubes in white robes?
Brother: I don't know… An amalgamatic rendition of The Blue Man Troupe does toddler Avont-guardianism….?
-c: …Plus Avril Lavign for color…? And those women in wedding dresses…? Clearly, symbols of purity and the inherent global trend towards ball-and-chain-ism, right?
Brother: …got me….
-c: Yeah, me too… What else is on?

Aesop probably has a little fable to illustrate the moral here, though I'm not sure what is… But I think he'd put it something like this: It's easy to criticize and poke fun at what you, yourself cannot do.

Afterall, I can't carry even twice my body weight in baby cows, and my feet are certainly too big to borrow Avril's high heels….

'blogProps

I'm about to admit what any dignified blogger should never admit. (Hate me if you will, but….) The truth is that I don't actually read many blogs.

And, on top of this sad blog-deprivation disease I suffer from, I also have a benign cancer that renders me too lazy to list my favorite crème de blog links on my page…

So, to make up for it, here are the few and wonderful blogs that I DO read in no particular order:

Meandering Musings Muster Madness (Texas) A brilliant sense of humour, an always-inspiring creativity, an altruistic determination, and provides a warm and embracing feeling of family and a never-ending game of wit and cleverness.

PureLand Mountain Excellent prose, witty insights about life in Japan, and spot-on, humour-tinted observations about life, nature and everything.

Leprechaun Soup - (Japan) well-written and engaging thoughts from… well, let's just say he's a special and inspiring someone coming home soon…

Random_Speak (Tampa bay, FL) This woman is hilarious! An incredible writer, artist and, I suspect, human being. She cracks me up with her sardonic humour, Onion-esque articles, and her uniquely honest take on the world.

On Gaien Higashi Dori (Japan) An amazing Irish writer who grabs me with his love of nature and the outdoors, incredible photographs and responses to the media at large. (if you're into futbol, or soccer, he's got something for you too!)

Felix's Daily starfish and waffles - Felix (Canada) provides the finest simulated online reality episodes as well as superb cocktail recipes, excellent photographs from travels around the world, and fun musings

Life and other such events (Chennai, India)- Fun anecdotes, stories and thoughts from a banker/thinker/humanist/philosopher in India

Notes from the 'nog - (Japan) Superb writing, thoughts, observations, musings and haikus from a friend and long-time resident guru of my Japanese hometown, “The 'Nog” (also, a great source of good reading material and music!)

Circus freaks in training - (Japan) The entertaining thoughts and experiences of my Canadian sister who lives, breathes and walks the walk of our corner of the rising sun set land. (In person, she can be even more sarcastic and biting than me, if you can believe it!)

The Logic of the silent Cascade - (Boston) A recent addition to the blogosphere, he's an old soul, an old friend and an articulately descriptive ponderer of the universe. (More J.H. for everyone!)

Tokyo Damage Report - Hilarious with a sense of humour and irony to beat all others. He just moved back to the states from Tokyo, so I can only look forward to what lies in store…

anchored nomad Another hilarious liver-of-life, with an enticingly fun and worldly view of everything!

the long division - Another daily-life blogger who cracks me up.

Well, there are more but I fear losing crucial cranial globules (c'mon! they're those all important squigly, tubular things in the brain!) if I cut-and-paste another thing...

Bigger than a toothpick

What's bigger than a breadbox and smaller than a giraffe wearing prayer flags, a menorah and stigmata piercings through its hooves?
What's warmer than a refrigerated avocado but colder than a draft beer?
What's smarter than an x-box but stupider than a stone?
What's more mobile than a doorknob but less limber than a jellyfish?
What's more inquisitive than an armchair philosopher but less apt to retain the answers than a politician?
What's more alive than a supernova but just as dead as its sister?
What's bundled up in four layers of cotton, fleece and down and still shivering in the sun?

Why, it's ME, of course!, sitting on the shore of Lake Tahoe in the snow, trying to post something to my blog. There are two feet of snow-less pebble beach upon which I sit, but everywhere else is covered in a majestic blanket of new powder (I hear God has his house-keepers on their way to do some vacuuming, but St. Maria called in with laryngitis and St. Carmelita de la Virgen had to pick up her kids from iPod practice...).
The air is crisp, the water calm, and all that I hear is the melting and falling of snow from the pine branches… (well, that, and the loud wailing of my MAC: “Mommy, why are you doing this to me?! I showed you everything I hid from you a few days ago… why must I freeze like this? Remember those documents you thought you lost last year…? Well… get me a hot chocolate and feed my battery, and I can assure their safety for you!)

No but, really… I'd say chilly lakeside solitude is a highly, under-appreciated yet entirely necessary element when it comes to human happiness. (…but, then again, this comes from someone who finds ecstasy in finding a-symmetrically-patterned bird dung on the sidewalk….). But… I'd certainly go so far as to say that the POTENTIAL for glimpses of happiness in sitting by a cold lake in the snow is definitely larger than a breadbox and smaller than a 35.9 katrillion dollar winning Lotto card.

Man... it's beautiful...!

Ring-a-ling, Sting-my-bling

I've been back in the states from Japan for many a month now, and still haven't gotten a cell phone...

Maybe it's that I'm fearful of commitment.
Maybe it's that I'm just plain simple.
Or, maybe it's that I haven't been enticed by the right ring tone yet...

Because, really.... I'm a sucker for sound.

Give me a nice police siren sound as a ring tone with my "homies". Hit me with a bird-call ringer when my hiking peeps are feeling the natural silence. And, ring a fucked-up drumming bridge when chillers from the band are perfecting rhythmic continuity...

Then, maybe, just maybe....
I'll get a cell phone.

But, until then, I'm northward bound for a few days.
I'm catching a U-Haul truck with my father to bring Belgian furniture to my brother up in Oakland, Then, we'll see... Maybe I'll find the right ring tone there (I hear those San Francisco hippies have a lot of absurd sounds up their sleeves), and maybe I'll even sneak a blog post in between ring tone auditions...

Anyway... be back soon with cacophony for the circumspect cell phone owner!

Pucks and Dunks

Jack Nicholson's eyes were suavely angled towards the Laker's scoreboard four rows in front of me, and the team's sweat was potable. Filet mignon, fine wine, fun company and an excellent King's come-back tickled my dizzy excitement... How did I get so lucky??...

Rather than plead the fifth, I guess I'll just come clean...

I had to do a few favors, if you know what I mean... (namely, for a donkey and four acne-excited horses).
... Hey, I can't be the ONLY one willing to try new things for tickets to a few professional sports games...

No-- c'mon! Here's what really happened:

A good friend of mine took me to see my second-ever LIVE hockey game (LA vs. Chicago- The Kings came back in OT after a seven-game losing streak! Yeah!)

We were then treated to go out and eat at a high-class, $35 a plate restaurant where we tried to converse in multiple languages and play "How many eyebrows can you raise with inappropriate antics?"

We chatted about world destinations, snowflake types, unconventional parking lot motifs, and finally invented a spilt-wine coverup story that involved the accidental collision of innocent dining pedestrians, blinded by the luminescence of a fallen fork.

We were then generously bought tickets for the Lakers basketball game, and ended up sitting court-side and cheering...

And... well... I never thought I'd say this more than once... but I think I'm really getting a crush on watching live professional sports.

... but, please scar and leather me if I ever start tossing around names of famous athletes (or if I ever learn their significant others' hobbies and pass-times...)

After all,
Pucks are for fucks,
Dunks are for monks,
And, Sports
are for those in
tight, lycra shor--

(*p.s.- I made up the horses, but... well... let's just say that some donkeys can be more charming than you'd think... especially when they put on a tuxedo and dot their thick, firm neck with cologne...)

Unlawful En-peachment

So, here in the states, there's been a lot of talk about government spying, bird droppings on eaves, and targeting of individuals who use coded "terrorist phrases" in their e-mails (like "protection of Uncle Bill's amendments to his pre-nuptual," "the Paparrazi dive under Paris Hilton's sheets again," and "the eagle has landed, and the Administration is out scuba-diving with imported parrots")...

Now, I don't really want to get into this, but I WILL state the one conviction of mine that I feel very strongly about, and that is:

My privates should be kept out of the public sector!

And, I don't think I'm being too extreme or close-minded on this one either... Afterall, my privates are my special, sacred places! Even my grandma (God/Allah/Winged Platypus, rest her soul!) told me, "Always keep 'em clean and keep 'em safe!"

And... I just can't argue with my grandma.
No one touches or plays with my privates without permission, and no one has the right to fire me from my job, en-peach me (the act of exiling a person to the center of a Giant Peach- What?! Did you think James was all that sexually innocent?) for my privates' recreational habits..., AND, it is absolutely inexcusable to put my privates' profiles in a 'Possible Terrorist Threat' folder just because they are (--even if I DO say so myself--) of exceptionally high ogling-quality!

And that's that. I'm pretty firm on this one... just as I am on my belief in the Separation of Church and Slate-mining, and Toothpaste and Orange juice...

And yet... I can't help but want to share my personal life excitements with my blogging buddies in the public sphere... So, to celebrate the hideous hypocrite within all of us, I now reveal today's ecstatic, fourth amendment-protected sentiments...:

I just got the BEST Valentines card in my mailbox I have ever received, and I can't stop smiling! (Now, understand that I hate the holiday, and would rather suck salmon eyeballs through a straw than entertain the Hallmark Day's silliness...but...)

Nothing beats a hand-made card packed with musings, drawings and sincerity from someone you miss.

(...well... except maybe a snow leopard singing karaoke from the middle of a pile of hot, naked surfers covered in complimentary colored paint, pious poetry, and freshly-fallen powder....- but that's to be saved for the 'Private Sphere of Fantasy and Pornography'--- Coming soon to a Blog near you!)

Cantaloupe Cascade

Over the river, through the woods, and just north of the yoga mats and fruit smoothie trees in the strawberry fields, there's a little trailhead guarded by a wooden box housing informational brochures about life, the universe, and the governing properties of existence.
For a small donation, you can grab a brochure and a long-armed Pogo pygmaeus (an orangutang) to walk hand-in-hand with you along the spongy path to the Cantaloupe Cascade...
(...it's quite a vision indeed... trickling melons... the spray of sticky orange goop on your face... the occasional white seed of eternal youth..--Lonely Planet rated this waterfall the most magical, untouched location on Earth... that was..., until they published its coordinates in their "Off-the-beaten-track, Utopian Destinations for just-out-of-college-gonna-travel-and-see-the-world-for-six-months, Life Meaning-Searchers" section, and its babbling brook began to whisper fraternity phrases and offer complimentary cantaloupe bong hits--...)

Anyway, though, tourist-tainted beauty and recreational melon use aside... Have a look at the brochure, and you'll find a few important secrets about the chaos-governed universe and the greed-groped human state.

Now..., I only know this from a seventh-hand source..., but I hear this Cantaloupe Cascade Brochure has some pretty crazy and insightful ideas to offer. For example, it states that:

*Eggs wobbling right before an earthquake can upset the molecular structure of sea horse cells on the opposite side of the globe and turn the buggers homosexual...

*... spaghetti that sticks to the wall after having been raised and boiled to techno music is 53% more likely to fall when the song changes (compared to 57% of Country/Western-raised pasta who opt to cling to the vertical paint until well into a song's first chorus)...

*... human beings are Imperfect, and sometimes stop to ogle the nutritional ingredients on Capt'n Crunch cereal boxes, whereas wheat sprouts do not.

*... nature vs. nurture discussions are best saved for those with appropriate professional qualifications (like Jerry Springer's producers, dudes who pawn uteruses for flat-screen T.V.s, and protozoan-american schooll teachers).

*... and, there is a universal, inherent buttered-toast truth that states that (despite Murphy's insecurity issues), bread should go ahead and fall on the floor however it damn well pleases!... Butter-side Up, Down, Sideways, Leaning or with a few fit strips of bacon licking its crusts!

I'm telling you...! I know someone who knows someone who knows someone who knows someone who... who, well, knew someone who'd read the brochure and hiked the Cantaloupe Cascade trail.

I wouldn't make this stuff up, people!

Self-censorship

For the first time ever, I just deleted a previously-published post.

I had to give the boot to "The Aristocrats",
because it was just too inappropriately disgusting and offensive
...even for me!

I know, I know... Lucifer is shivering...

He said, She said

Olly: "So this is how it happened... First she grabbed me by the neck and dug her gloved thumbs viciously into my Adams apple. Her brown-flecked green eyes hummed a creepy tune of murder and lunacy as she plunged her hiking boot maliciously into my groin. I tried to scream, but all that would come out was a kind of creaky, wooden breathlessness. My once hearty limbs threatened acquiescence as they listened hopelessly to my pathetic squeaking, and I knew that the end was close. It was then that I saw the sunlight at the end of the lawn, signaling the end of my path. I moaned a silent prayer, made peace with myself and my oft-neglected roots, and resigned myself to the twisted whims of the brutal, cloven boot human whose savage hands prepared to break my neck. And then, all went black. I don't know what happened next, but my buddy Gabriel who was watching from a neighboring sky-rise building says that the wicked woman then hacked me up into little pieces, tossed my mangled remains over the fence and into a big dumpster, whereupon she proceeded to jump up and down on top of my diced body until I was completely flattened. That sick bitch!"

-c: "Did I do it? Yes. Am I remorseful? No. Not at all. Olly was one of the hundreds of already-lifeles oleander trunks that I hacked up today. In fact, it's me who is the victim here. That brittle little cunt stabbed me numerous times, drawing blood and causing me to repeatedly say "ouch!". I have since experienced excruciating back pain, muscle aches and increased body odor due to Olly struggle-induced perspiration. The extraordinary emotional trauma I have endured may last for days, and I fear that I may never be able to commit to another long-term relationship with a drought-resistant plant again. I ask that you members of the jury find this barbarous bush guilty of evil acts toward a do-gooder, and award me lots of investment-acceptable compensation. Thank you."

"All you need is...."

When asked to complete the above phrase, 76% of moderately to highly literate English speakers responded: "love". Five percent said "duct tape". Three percent: "a few good yen", and the rest were evenly torn between "a phat ride", "a pair of titanium barber's shears", "grandmas's home-cooked stew", and "faith".

One polled marketing accountant went so far as to say, "all you need is humility," but the interview was cut short when he was dragged into the alleyway by a gang of 14 year old BMX bikers wearing jackets that read: Peace, SK8, ride or die, bra.

Samantha Sans, a free-thinking hair stylist from Paris, Texas reported, "all anyone really needs is security. Security and a bed on the table." She was supported by the enthusiastic nods of four, recently nail-manicured ladies on their way to the outlet mall. (They all also agreed that "nothing in the world beats Grillin Willy's chili cheese fries.")

But, I just don't know...
I mean, I agree that all we essentially really need is Love, but in my experience, it never hurts to have a staple gun, a passport, a ball of twine and some hydrogen peroxide either.

No, but really... on a serious note, this Love thing can be a real tough cookie on your plate. You'd think if it were really the ONLY thing we needed, it would be a little easier to bite into (otherwise, our species would have died off by now). You'd think it would be more like a cube of tofu that tastes like sunset and inside jokes and slides down your throat without requiring 93 volumes of disclaimers...

(Use Love only after consulting your doctor. Do not use Love if you have previously tried it, if you have ever lost a sock, found a hair in your salad, chased a grasshopper, bred pygmies, felt the "groove", slept on your side, tried to count the stars, cursed an appliance, 'mooed' at a cow, swallowed a coin, or if you believe yourself to be mostly human. Love may cause possible side-effects which include, but are not limited to: nausea, dementia, giddiness, euphoria, upset stomach, excessive smiling, bad poetry writing, crying, unwarranted exultation, googly-eyedness, weight-loss, weight-gain, weightlessness, uncontrolled laughing, vomiting, "this song is about me!" exclaiming, light-headedness, intense introspection, jealousy, paranoia, selfless caring, lunacy, and loss of mind. Should you experience any of these things, consult your physician, and immediately consider dropping out and tuning in.)

Uh... I seem to have gotten a bit sidetracked (not to mention nauseated, demented and giddy)... But, to get back to the issue at hand...

All you need is---

Ah, hell, I don't know...

But I have yet to go wrong with: a few intelligent and good people around, a sense of humour, and a can of WD40.

Melodious Road trip blues

Melting a few saline snowballs in the corners of my eyes, I waved farewell from my driveway this morning. Yes, parting is such sad, sad saline snowball-stimulating sorrow sometimes...

I knew that it was the last time that I would ever see her.

I'd never see her slip on the ice again, endangering not only her own bruised body but those of innocent bystanders as well... I'd never hear her endearing huffing and puffing as we ascended Sherwin grade on our way home to the snow-capped base of Mammoth Mountain... And most tragically, I'd sung Bob Dylan's 115th St. blues with her while out of gas on a mountain road for the last time...

Yup... Soul mates like her are hard to come by... I mean, how many others ask for duct-tape over a band-aid, take spilt coffee with a smile, stutter when you ask them to hurry up, socially freeze up on you in crowded parking lots, and beg strangers to jump them just for kicks...?

She wanted to share in just one last vocal song with me before she left... I can't blame her, really... A kind of parting closure, if you will... So, we sang "These boots are made for walking", then I took out the radio and said goodbye to my dearest friend: my '82 Toyota Tercel with the duct-taped mirrors and ski pole held-up hatchback.

I think the beauty and chaos of the universe have something grand in store for us all.
And she is no exception.
I'm sure she'll get over me and move on to enrich the life of someone new...

(But, I DO secretly hope that that new special someone won't be able to diligently dance in the driver's seat to a Dylan diddy with her quite the way I could...)

Hockey Enlightenment

It's not breaking news.
Or glorified mandarine-orange press.
In fact, it's a universal truth that's been backed up by statisticians, philosophers, and scientists for centuries. Pythagoras proposed it first, Darwin discussed it in his 'Theories of Adaptive Sports Enthusiasts', and Freud eluded to it once when chatting with his mother over tea...

It's the non-arguable FACT that some people are just not cut out to be effective competitive sports fans.

And I'm here to admit that I'm one of those genetically pre-disposed souls who has never been able to convincingly cheerlead for an organized sports team. (I know, I know... I've pretended to passionately support the USC Trojans, I've clenched my fists while watching the Colts make that field goal, and I've even worn a Charlotte Hornets hat because I liked the color scheme...) But... I just have never had it in me to be the kind of die-hard groupie a professional sports team merchaniser hopes for...

But, somehow, this psychological, sports team-supporting ineptitude vanished last night. My friends took me to see my first live hockey game EVER, and it was truly awesome! (... I know it's hard to believe, but the experience honestly goes up there on the list beside partner-caressed orgasms, poetry-writing in the desert, and arriving in a foreign airport without a plan).

I was one of only four other people in our section NOT wearing a Kings jersey. I was the only one who looked like a reckless, rhythm-less retard when the announcer called for organized rally-clapping, and I was certainly stupidly verbose enough to repeatedly reveal my lack of knowledge about the players on the ice.

Despite all of this, though... I had a wickedly amazing time!

And, I attribute all of it to what Freud might have called the 'natural human tendency towards collective partying'. There's just something inherently heart-justifying about jumping up and screaming exuberantly at the exact same time as thousands of other people do the same.

Who knew that a geezer psychologist years ago could prophesize my imminent acceptance of organized sports...

I've officially seen the light and accepted sports-team fanaticism as my lord and savior.
Have you?

To free tree or not to free tree...

***
Hi. My name's Stanley, and I'm a virile, young fig tree off-shoot.
I'm not sure why this crazy woman is currently wielding a chainsaw psychopathically near my throat.
All I've ever done is try to grow towards the sunlight, convert carbon dioxide to useable energy, sugars and oxygen, fertilize the soil beneath me with my leaves, provide a combative home for insects offering both pollination and disintigration, and give a few tasty bits of sweet fruit while hoping, to one day, have a family of my own...
I know that my mother, the main fig tree, will survive without me but...
I just don't understand why these humans (especially this out-of-countrol, bandanna-mummified chainsaw murderess) have to chop necks so thoughtlessly.
***

Hi. My name's -c, and I wear a bandanna. I'm a young, healthy, chainsaw-wielding environmentalist. I strive to protect all species of flora that aid in the perpetuation of unique natural habitats providing home to otherwise endangered ecosystems, and I don't want to have to cut any throats.
BUT, this feisty little fig tree-wanna-be off-shoot has cuddled with, and seductively entwined himself around, a few dead oleander bushes and an orange tree who has passed on. Now, I am no murderess, but I just can't give a proper burial to these late Heroes of Vegetation (let alone chop up any new firewood) without taking the life of cute little off-shoot Stanley...
***

We need your vote now!
Vote:

a) for letting poor Stanley live because he's such a good, prolific off-spring with nothing but an amazing future of fig-production and vegetative expansion before him!

or

b) for authorizing the massacre of a small limb so that fire hazardous, dead debris can be cleared from the peripheries of family residences and, in turn, allow for new birth of aspiring young shoots.

Celebrating Unblogged Secrets Revealed

Today, all kinds of peeps are coming together to celebrate.
Everyone who's anyone will be here!
Afterall, it's the 1 year and 2 day anniversary of this blog: Up the Creek without a Platypus!

I know for a fact that gnomes of all (well, quite a few, at least) socio-economic backgrounds are on their way. Three nationally-recognized coalitions of retired military nymphs are currently catching the bus in L.A., a few of the most respected aardvark advisors will be arriving shortly (after they pick up their pre-packaged Blind Dates on the corner by Paco's Taqueria), and, within the hour, a gaggle of gargantuan gastro-philanthropists from the United Front of Genital Protection and Geographic Insemination will be arriving (just a tip: don't ask them what they do until both you and they have consumed no fewer than 6 dirty martinis).

Then, the party will begin! First a quick, get-you-ready set by the screaming peacocks of an Ohai, California local. Then, the tell-tale wing-flapping of recently-immigrated So 'Cal parrots, and a bit of drumming by my mother's own opossom pals from the attic.

Then, after the dance-invoking, rhythm-expounding gala subsides, we'll calm for a short yet sincere speech, tears and memories:

"One year and two days ago today (sniff, sniff), I was one year and two days younger than I am today. And so was the Sphinx. And the Kelloggs company. And this blog was but a fledgling with nothing but a silly title I intended to change but never did. (sniff) I was living in Japan, had just gotten my first computer EVER, and wanted to learn to write creatively in front of a screen as opposed to a bar napkin. (pass me a Kleenex- this is too much!.. and I wanna jot down some thoughts!) I was mourning the loss of a best friend to soy and cornfields and I (oh, I can't say it!) was realizing that I no longer had the vocabulary or ability to articulate myself in my native language (sniff) without the use of Japanese bows, grunts, head-tilts, and (yes, it's true!) complicated sucking-air-through-teeth maneuvers. So I (sniff, sniff) conceived this Blog Baby to fill the emptiness. And, oh what indescribable pleasure she has given me throughout the year! (whaa!!)

Once tears and wails subside, it will be time for the dirty, behind-the-scenes, never-before-told, unblogged secrets of Up the Creek without a Platypus to be revealed...:

I'm actually not a 27 year-old, female English teacher.
I'm actually a 59 year-old, male, retired schoolbus driver.
I like drinking beer at the demolition derby, sleeping late, and sharing sunsets by my kiddy pool. I'm looking for a like-minded, pre-pubescent girl who's funny, sexy and smart, can enjoy a good boy-band tune, likes to shop for trendy friendship necklaces and who, when grounded by the "'rents", paints anarchy symbols on her backpack.
If you think you're her, please give me a call.
(if my old lady answers, just say you're with the propane inspectors.)

Up the Creek: Happy 1 year and 2 day Anniversary!

Rock-skipping Part II

Skipping rocks is to flipping pancakes, as:

a) counting books is to mounting cooks
b) throwing grounders is to growing weeds
c) playing tic-tac-toe quick is to laying desperate dick
d) addressing dignitaries is to caressing Bloody Marys
e) eating oyster is to heating a cloister
f) jumbling words is to fumbling catches
g) spilling the beans is to Chilling Supreme
h) none-of-the-above-ing is to the fun of love-ing
or
i) what?! they have absolutely nothing to do with each other


*Note: I grabbed this handy little test question from the International D.A.C.A. (Deep Anals of -c's Absurdity), Vol. 43889. For a full explanation of the correct answer, please go skip a stone, flip a pancake, consult the FAQs and consider going with answer j)

Auto Mechanics of Rock-Skipping

Are there any rock-skippers out there? (And, no, it doesn't count if you've gleefully skipped through a secluded spring meadow of wildflowers, singing Springstein songs... Nor, does your experience circumnavigating the globe as captain of a marble sea maiden with a few stones rolling on deck...)

I mean, a real rock-skipper. A straight-up, feel-the-essence-and-the-universal-power-of-rock-skipping-deep-in-your-soul kind of rock-skipper. Not a wanna-be rock-skipper who hangs out by the lakeside, holding flat stones like they were fashion accessories and half-assedly hurling them against the wind at the water's deeps. No, no... I mean a real, feel-your-limbs-and-molar-cavities-become-the-tide-worn-curves-of-a-beached-stone-as-you-bounce-across-the-trampoline-water's-surface-still-tasting-the-human-hand-sweat-on-your-matamorphic-dermis kind of rock-skipper. The kind whose thoughtfully-selected rock flies frictionlessly across miles of moon-moved liquid landscapes not entirely unlike (but actually kinda darn dissimilar to) a ping pong ball on an ice table.

Anyway, what I'm getting at saying (eventually, I swear!) is that anyone can be a real rock-skipper. A rock-skipper of a particular trade, that is. I mean, we have our classic rock-skippers of Paleontology, rock-skippers of puppet-design, rock-skippers of prairie dog dentistry, rock-skippers of marital unfaithfulness, rock-skippers of one-liners, and rock-skippers of toothpick architecture.

Unfortunately, I'm not quite sure yet in what area of expertise my personal rock-skipping genius lies (unless it's somewhere in between rock-skipper of the fool-player and rock-skipper of arbitrary connections)
But, I DO know what kind of rock-skipper I am NOT.
And, that is the rock-skipper of auto mechanics.

For the past week, I have spent my days in my worn overalls, lathered in grease and sweat, taking wrench and screwdriver to the tricky bowels of an '82 Toyota hatchback and an '89 Honda accord.
OK, fine, so maybe that's not quite true. Maybe, in fact, that's pretty much not at ALL true.
The truth is that I have spent this week in front of two open car hoods, staring blankly at odd metal thing-a-majigs, funny intestine-looking cables and hoses that connect the odd-looking thing-a-majigs and Tupperware-appearing wine boxes housing Cryptonite-colored beverages. And, all the time standing, eyebrows furled and arms crossed, repeating a meditative and frustrated vocal:
"Hmmm..."

Though I fear it may be a long time before I get my GirlScout's Rock-skipping Badge of Mechanics, I think I'm making steady progress. Afterall, I've already earned one Girlscout patch for replacing countless funny-looking tubes connecting funny-looking moving metal thingies, one patch for removing a fan belt, another for taking off a garter belt, and one for siphoning gasoline without inhaling. Hey, every true rock-skipper of spirit has to start somewhere!!

A-political

As I sat there at the patio table, debating the death penalty with a passionate Palisades lawyer (residing around the corner from Tom Hanks and Michael Keaton), I wondered how many times this poor man had already had this discussion.

I mean, afterall, I'm not in the business, I'm younger than he, and I've already had this ping-pong conversation nearly 2.7 patrillion times (minus, of course, 1.5 patrillion debates that ended in: "But what if a one-eyed mariner drowned your mother in a swimming pool of vinegar and pickled olives- oh, forget it. Pass me the peanuts.")...

No, but honestly... The thing that astounds me is the magnitude and sincerity of fist-clenching, intestine-raising Passion that accompanies our strongest beliefs,
regardless of the antiquity of the debate.

I mean, no matter how many times I exchange foreign policy discussions or giggle over "Bushisms", I still always get an overwhelming body-clenching anger when forced to discuss the current administration.

And, even though I've pro-ed and con-ed to excess, I still always feel my body on the verge of eruption when arguing the superiority of platypuses, discussing the downfall of dehydrated Tang, and verbally wrestling with my opponents over the inalienable rights of Pineapples as officially-recognized pizza toppings...

I just don't know how to scientifically explain it...
I mean, what kind of biologically-concocted mixed chemical drink aides in the screaming of individuals over the position of toilet seat lids and toothpaste tops? What psychological reasoning explains outbreaks of faith-based hatred, sexual-orientation-platformed disgust, and bar brawls over country music selections?

I guess I'm getting more entry-level, college-style philosophical here than I should...

All I mean to say is that I think it's absolutely wonderful that we homosapiediscohumanoids continue to get riled up about our strongest beliefs despite the repetition of questioning.

And, that discussions- even age-old, been-there-done-that ones- are undeniably excellent.

(PS - non-politically and non-religiously speaking: Dog Damn if I won't take a knife to the neck of a brick if you tell me killing is ever OK.)

The Night the Wind Had PMS

The current So 'Cal wind- she's a crafty cunt. The way she's been freestyle solo swing dancing from orange tree branch to my roof and back- it's, well... overtly sexual and, quite frankly, obscene!

Now, I know what you're thinking- in most languages and cultures that like to attach a Mr. or Mrs. title to their inanimate objects and naturally-ocurring phenomenon, The Wind is decidedly masculine (i.e. El viento in Spanish, Brother Wind in Native American traditions, Der Wind in German, Il vente in Italian and Otoko no kaze in Japanese... (OK, maybe not really that last one but...-)

But, tonight, as I sit here on the porch listening to the screams of the emotionally-battered oleander against the chain link fence, I can assure you SHE (the wind) is no more a HE than I am an IPod.
(... although... I did once genuinely believe for about an hour that I was a patch of lichen on a parched rock... but, I'm saving that for another post altogether...)

I mean, there's just no way that this sneaky force, scattering thoughts, dry leaves and gardening brochures like they were scribbles in a 3 yr old's coloring book
is anything BUT a full-fledged, irratic raging female!

And, I can say this without being fire-range stoned for breaching unwritten laws of political correctness, because I myself am a full-fledged, irratic raging female... and, I believe in the situationally-based, appropriate use of epithets of all races, creeds, religions and sexes.
And, I'm sticking to that!

So, blow on, ye beautiful, pheremone-fragranced bitch! And thank you! El tiempo oscuro de noche is made extraordinary by your womanly blow!

...er...womanly show... I mean, womanly flow...
...aww, hell, no matter what I write, I can't help but offend even myself :)

Drop a WC Bomb in 2006!

Wishing everyone a happy New Year!

Being as I'm in the vicinity of Downtown H-glamour, you might expect a bit of glitz and scandal...

Unfortunately, I have no tales of the rich and famous. Instead of hitting the strip, I went out to a friend's ranch where cowboy hats, boots and mud rang in the 12:01am.

The hugest bonfire I have ever seen was fed monstrous logs by forklift as we chatted, drank and danced about beside the bareback bull-riding arena,
and I drummed on a bucket to my beautiful brittle-fingered guitar strummers.
(granted..., my pals couldn't play their guitars, but they sure could fake it, and I played a mean pail, if I do say so myself!... Hey, even the kids and dogs were showing off their hip-thrusting moves!)

The oddest part of the the evening took place when I found myself actively promoting a "Poop Party" with two friends of mine.

"Yeah! I'm gonna go poop! How about you?"
"Oh, I just can't wait! Pooping is so much fun!"
"Yes! I love it too! Let's all fo poop together!"
"C'mon! Quick! Let's get pooping!"

I know it spoils some of my glamorous and mysteriously seductive appeal, but I have to admit that this wasn't actually as kinky as it sounds... The truth is, my friends and I really had no interest in shitting together. In fact, we all found it a rather fascinatingly disturbing idea...
But, we were restroom-bound with a friend's 13 year old, autistic daughter who hadn't squeezed out a log in over two weeks. This poor girl was deathly frightened of letting a little submarine out through the back hatch and into the sea! So, we did as any altruistic group of committed citizens would do... We planned a nice Poop Party!

Unfortunately, December 31st didn't prove to be the day for dropping digestive missiles...

But, I'm not worried.

I'm sure that the New Year will bring happy defecation to everyone!

Happy 2006!

El pueblo unido jamas sera vencido!

Today I was dressed to blend in with a Columbian insurgency group, or at least costumed impeccably to hit a jungle vine-hung pinata with a few Zapatistas...

I was wearing a pair of garden work-stained cotton pants from Guatemala with pull strings at the heels, an oversized gray thermal top embroidered with dust, cobwebs and bits of insulation, a rubberbanded headlamp and a faded blue bandana around my nose and mouth...

Though I WAS hoping to attract the attention of some cutting-edge Hollywood fashion designers, my only real objective today was to attack back-end-exited rat jewels from my mother's attic.
Obtaining the treasured jewels, though, proved more difficult than I had anticipated. I was immediately ambushed by an army of asbestos soldiers on the piped grassy knoll of rotten insulation. Then, the narrow supporting beams decided to realign themselves on an inside joke whim to watch the attic intruder run the dusty, labyrinthine gauntlet and get stuck hunched in the corner. And, to make matters worse, my nose was flooded with new flu mucous, threatening to explode into my stylish Subcomandante Marcos mask.

Sigh... I'm ready for bed...

Don't worry, though- I'll be bright-eyed in the morning, ready to flaunt next spring's line of dumpster-diving gowns.

Of algae and Turkey Basters

Every young philosophical mind, at some point, poses the ageless inquiry: Are we alone in the universe?

Well, I made up my mind at about age 9 that we are most certainly and positively NOT alone; that somewhere just past Mike's Meteor Meatball stand before you get to the international headquarters of the Excess Extra-terrestrial Excrement Dump, there is a quaint little pub filled with out-of-work algaes drowning their sorrows in pints of nitrogen, wondering out-loud in slurred algae dialect: "Is this all there IS?"

So, even though I know that this pub exists (afterall, there's a webpage about it!), I still found myself pondering the question throughout the holidays: Are we alone?

Are we the only family, I wondered, that finds it perfectly normal to wrap Christmas gifts in brown paper grocery bags with doodled pictures of homicidal snowmen on them?
Are we the only family that recites "The Night Before Christmas" with added, improvised verses about Prancer's extra-curricular trips to the gay reindeer bars?
Are we the only family that gets turkey baster in our stockings, just so we can "squirt things"?
Are we the only family that has tamales for Christmas dinner and contemplates putting guacamole and salsa on our lemon bars?

Well, anyway, it was a stellar Christmas at home this year!
Next year, I think I'll send an invitation out to the regulars at the little nitrogen pub by the Meteor Meatball Stand... I'm thinking we'll have a lot in common....

Shoulda known...

I really should have known...

when I saw the particle-board hotel sign tied to the bars protecting an upper level window...

I should have known when I sensed the tangible desperation in the cat-callish compliments of the qeued men in front of the door entrance...

I should have known when I had to pass through three gated and locked doorways just to get up the only flight of stairs...

and when I saw the dangling open lightbulb and the cigarette-burned carpeting...

I should have known when I bargained the price down from $45 to three packs of cigarettes...

But, I REALLY should have known when the channel that first came (literally) onto the TV when I hit Power was High-quality, hard-core porn...

I should have known then that I was in a hotel a perspective "teacher" should NOT be staying in the night before her interview.

But, there I spent the evening..., attempting to plan a lesson, create materials and rest, while all the time being serenaded by pogo stick-style, bouncing beds in the three rooms upstairs and on each side.
Occasionally, the squeaking and bouncing would stop for a sacred 90 seconds of sheer peace and bliss, then the metal gates would open and close, a door would drag shut over musty carpet, and the cycle would begin again.

Yeah, well, I know: I shoulda known...

But I also shoulda known that, albeit philosophically speaking a dung beetle is no different than a garage door opener, they cannot be used interchangeably...

that a captive audience is not always grounds for a strip-tease or a hokey-pokey performance

and that just because the cat's away, doesn't mean he won't come back to find the mice a playin'...

And, even though I shoulda known..., well... the world's still spinning (...it IS, right?), and I'm pretty pleased with the wobbling groove it's got going on!

North to Something

There's just something about those over-night buses...
and, this indescript Something beckons me,
singing ever come-hitheringly...

So, I must follow.
For, if I don't, well..., we all know what Indescript Somethings are capable of...
So off I go towards San Fransisco for a few days...
Be back soon!

Christmas Curse

I think Nostradamus forsaw the coming of this frightening day. And Bible Code-crackers around the globe are rejoicing at the fulfillment of this profound Prophesy.

Yes, this terrifying fortune has finally come to fruition..., and I fear the menacing atrocities have yet to ascend to full zenith!

Beware! The Day of Too Many Christmas Lights and Excessive Holiday Lawn Adornments is upon us!

No longer will a single strand of colored bulbs lining the roof suffice. No longer, can we rest content with a simple seasonal wreath hanging on the door. We must have more! There must be lighted bucks and mechanical does, balloon-bellied Santas and militias of gingerbread men!

I admit, that I, too, have fallen victim to the charm of this vicious prophesy, for not weeks ago, I blew a fuse helping to decorate a friend's house. We couldn't stop with just the white icicles. No, screamed the tempting serpent: You must do more! So, we added colored bulbs. But, still, our appetite for the Forbidden Christmas-light Fruit was not appeased. So we hung a red-eyed Santa in the window. But, he eerily begged for company. So, we hung a Snowman beside him (because we all know that Kris Kringle's eternal loneliness lies in his lack of snowball brethren..). But still, something was missing! Our two merry men were alone with their unfulfilled desires for goodies and booty. So, we gave them a giant lighted present and a red and green stocking and plugged it all in.

And, for one beautiful fleeting second, the angels sang and the lights evoked little boys with gleeful I'm-gonna-shoot-my-eye-out grins, and peace was felt by all in the neighborhood.
Until... the lights went dark and the fuse went black, and we knew, first-hand, that the Curse of the Day-of-too-many-Christmas-lights was upon us.

Now... don't get me wrong. I'm no practicing Scrooge or Grinch, but... I feel it necessary to say:

America, once again, you've gone too far!

If I had it my way, we'd all forget these blow-up candy canes and mechanical sleighs,

and just make-out under unlit branches of mistletoe...

Teaching Trials and tantalizing Topics

If you're hiring a butcher, you first want to see him hack a few bloody limbs.

If you're hiring a dog-catcher, you'll probably want to see his pup-bagging techniques prior to contracting his services.

And, if you're looking for a wing-walker, you'd probably want to see how he does thirty floors up in a glass elevator...

Well, the same goes for a teacher. So, next week I have to give a "sample lesson".

I'm actually really excited about this, as I love getting up and displaying my oddness and foolishness in front of other people. But, the hard part is picking an appropriate and engaging topic... (They suggested such topics as: The difference between similes and metaphors, Balancing Equations, and How a Bill becomes a Law.)

Personally, though, I think I can do better than that...
I was thinking more along the lines of:

*Evolution-Schmevolution: Study of Scientific Stupidity

*Odd or Even Numbers: Which are better?

*Popsicle Comparisons: Push-ups vs. Big Sticks

*Alternative Shoe-tying Techniques: When the rabbit goes UNDER the tree, AROUND the huckleberry bush and THROUGH the slinky

Well..., I just can't quite decide which one I'll choose, but...

I think I definitely have this interview nailed, baby!

Micky slipped me one and I missed

I was only gone for a minute.
90 seconds at most.

But, as any seasoned bar patron knows, you should never leave your drink unattended while powdering your nose or fingering the jukebox. That's just asking for trouble. You might as well leave your opened beverage with a post-it note that says:

"Dear broke, lonely, two-toothed trucker,
feel free to drink my martini or, better yet, slip something into my drink and take me out behind the dumpster.
Signed,
Yours and Waiting"

In any case, I think some divine, inebriated hand recently spiked my bottled Elixir of Life with something. I suspect it was Natsukashii-morphinephedrinhydrobermide. But, I'm no chemist...

How does this drug affect the body?, you ask. Well, in my case, it has cut my days with a series of film-frame Natsukashii Moments.

(*a "Natsukashii Moment", for those with no knowledge of Japanese, is an Awww-that-brings-me-back Moment of Nostalgia)

Although these invasive Natsukashii Moments have not yet interfered with my precious REMs, they have taken over my otherwise ordinary waking, present-moment routine.

And, the most potent dose of Natsukashii Moment as of late came when a friend took me to a local, renowned Sushi place in the San Fernando Valley...

There's nothing that makes me exclaim "Awww... that brings me so pleasantly back!" quite like bantering in Japanese, being brought free food and sake, miming kanji on your palm and debating the differences between Asian and Western lovers with a sushi chef...

Awww, how I miss Japan!

and, how glad I am that I left my elixir unwatched while rubbing the jukebox's g-spot...

Truck-Stop TP: What we need to pee

How many plies of toilet paper do you use on an average just-filtering-the-liquid-through-your-body visit to the little girl's or boy's room? Do you use an equal length of wiping material regardless of the TP brand, thickness, fluffiness and density?

These are the kind of questions that peppered my brother's and my Thanksgiving holiday conversations.
You see, we had both returned to our mom's house for the "Thanks, here's a bullet" celebration of our colonial forefathers to find that our mother had switched from double-plied, cushioned loo rolls to, what we refer to as, economical Truck-Stop TP (TSTP). Upon being questioned about her motives, she replied that she had conducted a month-long study of her own personal hygeine habits and had come to the conclusion that she pulled an equal length of cleansing towel regardless of the nature and makeup of the toilet paper. Therefore, using TSTP saved her money and lasted longer.

Now, let's think about this... There is quite a broad spectrum of closet-room activities; each activity requiring a different length of TP to successfully and sanitarily complete. There's the ordinary, and most common Let's-get-these-glasses-of-water/juice/soda-through-the-system pee. In my case, this calls for about three or four plies. For a man, it often requires nothing more than a healthy shake. Then, there is the I'm-still-shaking-from-seventeen-cups-of-coffee relief. Logically, this should call for no extra plies, but the inaccuracy of a jittery wiping hand must also be considered... We also have the Is-that-8-or-9-cans-o'-Coors? pee. This one is tricky, as the results are scientifically unpredictable: a quarter of the TP roll could disappear, the entire thing could be used to redecorate the living room, or the TP could be forgotten altogether- you just never know. Then, of course, there are the nitty-gritty Get-that-meal-through-digestion bathroom activities... This topic, though, being so complex and extensive in subtleties won't be explored in this post... but, let's just say that plies necessary can range from four to two hundred seventy-nine. After that, women have their Special-time-of-the-month powder room exercises, which require additional TP usage, and virile men with imaginations or excellent reading material may wish to use a few extra plies during clean-up as well...

In short... well... I've taken on a monster of an issue here and haven't even tackled the question... but,...

My gut, evidence-lacking stance on the controversial issue is that toilet paper should be soft enough to sooth while simultaneously being expendable enough to wipe the seat with.

Of dreams, monkeys and NASA

I really admire those people who are absolutely and entirely certain of what they want to do and be in life...

You know, like that kid who knew at age 12 that he wanted to be a pediatrician, specializing in rare elbow and ankle deformities...

or that girl in grammar school who said she wanted to be a horse, galloping across the countryside with her mane flapping in the breeze,

that driven twenty-something who said: "I will let nothing get in my way of becoming a data-entry slave for Mitsubishi",

or the guy I met in Guatemala who knew beyond a shadow of a doubt that his calling in life was to take ground water level samples and pass the results on to people who knew what to do with them...

I, on the other hand,
am not so decisive.
In fact, I tend to be passionately dedicated to a new career plan roughly every 23 minutes...:

2:34pm-- Quick, -c, grab your Nalgene bottle, hiking boots and nature-lovin' smile; you're gonna be an environmental educator, giving lectures about praying mantis ecosystems and symbiotic moss-bark relationships!

2:57pm-- Hurry, -c! Lose those khakis and sport your smock; it's time to make millions off of painting driftwood and beach pebble sculptures!

3:20pm-- Go on! That law degree awaits! Your career fighting first amendment violations and enforcing the ousting of stupid people from positions of power is just around the corner!

3:43pm-- You mean to say that I don't have the qualifications to be a free-lance astronaut?

4:06pm-- Since when is prodding discussions about the Nature of Existence with sarcastic jibes not a high-paying corporate position?

4:29pm-- What?! There's no salary available for traveling the world with a pet monkey, eating, sleeping and scribbling incoherent thoughts on napkins?!

Oh well... Some may say that I have a little narrowing-down to do... But, I can't wait to see the look on those people's faces when they read my autobiography written on globally-collected bar napkins about my life painting driftwood and sarcastically impaling philosophical discussions with my monkey on my environmentally-sustainable, ACLU-funded space station... So, there, ye doubters!

Krishna, toss me a dog!

It's always kind of special when someone throws something at or towards you... (unless, of course, it's a brick, a skillet, or a heavy water heater...).

No, but, REALLY, you have to admit that there IS some invasive sense of irrational soul-assessment and subconscious ego-transformation that accompanies the arch of an odd projectile aimed in your direction...

In my case today, it was a hotdog. Well... a hotdog wrapped in aluminum foil to be exact..., and a cascade of plastic-bead necklaces, tootsy rolls, chewing gum, and a fountain of flyers, fun and music...

Yes, I was attending the annual Doo Dah Parade in Pasadena: the lively and fun Rose-Bowl-Parade-parodying spectical of the year! The Spoof parade to beat all others!

Among my favorite marchers were:

(!)The Men of Leisure: Synchronized Nap Team (they periodically lied down in unison on the concrete and napped, and engaged in synchronized ass-scratching mid-march)

(!)The Howdy Krishna (wearing full Krishna garb, he cutely removed his cowboy hat and bowed "howdy" to everyone he passed)

(!)The Habachi Crew (they grilled and bazooka-tossed hot dogs and potatoes while dancing and wearing goofily magnificent costumes and charcoal bags on their heads)

(!)The Drop-the-ball-withGeorge Troupe (who featured a masked Dubya repeatedly dropping a beach ball, as individuals carrying signs bearing Bush failures tossed bouncy balls to the crowd)

(!)The friendly Chia People (who marched with the local chapter of the Green Party, claiming "Chia people make their own oxygen")

and

(!)The Body Piercers (who featured two guys swinging from their backs, held up by a few shoulder-blade skin piercings)

There were, of course, many other noteworthy political groups present (all situationally-biassed liberals, as well), in addition to the numerous red-hat chapters, cute dog acts, awesome marching bands and the "Invisible marching drill team"...

But...
overall, I give it a thumb and fingers up, and request that more odd objects be thrown at me at the earliest and most promptly convenient time!

Womb with a view

It was a sunny Tuesday morning when they came for me.

The birds were chirping sweetly. The fire truck sirens were drowning them out, and the Taco Bell drive-through was crammed to capacity.
They put me under a blanket with a biography and told me not to come out until the captain had turned off the seatbelt sign. They assured me everything would be fine, and that I would be safe once we arrived at the CBD (Center for Blog De-tox).

The CBD was a charming and warm institution that hummed of family and informed vitality. Every room had been ingeniously designed with protruding, motherly arms that reached out to welcome and happy-hug the visitor.

The whole establishment was like a giant Womb...

Like an enormous, muscle-plumped Womb with a locker-room steroid secret and a perpetual drip of EHC (Excessive Human Caring)...

... (except without all those sticky, disgusting Wombly fluids circulating through and around it...)

Anyway,... the CBD hooked me up. I was provided with a brilliant buddy to womb-trot with and offered such daily seminars as:

*Dominoes, Debauch and the Decline of Dignity
*Anarchy, Alfalfa-harvesting and Afterlife
*Bucket Beers, Banter and Bread-neck Bars
*News, Nicotine and Caffeine: What the Indianapolis Star doesn't tell you
*Revolution, Resilience and Retribution: The Return of Roller Derby
*Horseshoes and Whore Issues: What they didn't teach your skanky sister in kindergarden

And, in the end, I graduated from the Blog De-tox Program! Yeah!!

But... here I am again... De-toxed and back for another fix...
I just can't seem to kick this one...

*Update: To fulfill prerequisites for the Roller Derby Seminar, check out my friend's Chicago roller derby league here. These sexy renegade chicas will beat you into proper learning shape, if I don't get to it first...

Bugs- be right back

Man, I hate it when I get these....
These little cabin fever, travel mites.

But, I hear that only paper cuts, bluegrass dancing and plane tickets can put these little monsters back at bay...

So, I'm off tomorrow to visit a friend south of the Great Lakes and, possibly, do some exploring.

Expect forth-coming poetry soon from the travel mites!

See Spot Speak

I guess we're all guilty of it sometimes...
guilty of being under-informed yet outstandingly curious;
guilty of asking asinine questions driven by parched knowledge...

For example, if someone informs me that they're a taxidermist specializing in rare Angolian, long-snouted amphibians, I might dumbly blunder an embarrassing question like: "So, tell me - I just have to know- can a lizard declare unbirthed eggs as dependents?"
... y'know... just to keep conversation rolling...

Or, if someone says they just returned from a language-study sojourn in southern France, I might retardedly hazard a dimwit joke like: "Vous lez vous coucher avec moi?",
thinking it's genuinly funny because it's the only French I know (well... that and "Il merde, sui'l vous plais"- but that's hardly a conversation-enhancer...)

But, anyway... the point is that I can fully understand and relate to wierd and off-track conversational responses to new information.

So, I always thoroughly enjoy the responses I get from people when I say I just got back from living in Japan.
Mostly, I get:
"Wow! Must be great eating sushi every day..."
or:
"Is it true they have cell phones that can change your underwear for you?"
or:
"Cool! What movies did they show on your flight?"

But, the most frequent response I get is:
"Oh really? Say something in Japanese! - I just want to hear how it sounds-"

When I get this one, I just never really know what to do... Usually, I get into position, bark "konnichiwa" and then roll over and play dead.
But, sometimes I get bored of this routine...
So, recently I've been trying out a new response:
First, I carefully compose myself, usher in a serious, Japanese head-tilt (complete with concerned eyebrows),
and then say:
"Du siehst wie ein Hund aus,"
and then bow deeply and ceremonially - (Japanese-style).

And, this one seems to be a universal crowd-pleaser. Not only does the audience enjoy hearing sounds of the Orient, but I get to giggle to myself, knowing that I just said "you look like a dog" in German to my conversational companion...

Hey, c'mon, you can't blame me for desiring a little personal entertainment!

"Bad Squirrel!"

There's something both wonderful and disturbing about the blurring of Identity I'm feeling now back in the states.
While living in Japan, I abhorred being boxed into the Gaijin (foreigner) Label; being identified as a blue-eyed wonder with questionable chopstick-maneuverability skills and a dislike for natto (fermented beans that look and smell like they are bathed in cum).
But, now, I actually kind of miss it.
I miss having a foreign foothold to call my own.
I miss having a crew of backbreaking reinforcers to beat on drums, strum strings in the street and spout infantile potty poetry into Piman's, pens and publications.
I miss having a valid I.D. to hold in my hand over a clever, semi-flippant joke.
Ok, so I admit it.
I miss being a baboon.

Maybe, it's because every local in the neighborhood I grew up in now mistakes me for a European tourist.
Maybe it's because at every anti-war rally I've attended, I get odd looks when I say that I didn't come with any "organization"... I don't know. But, I know I have to do something...

So, I've decided that, in order to give myself a box to fit into and a pretty flag to bear, I have to identify the flag I do NOT bear.
And, because the bees are no longer causing me angst, I think I'll pass the torch to the Squirrels. Yup... that's right:
The Squirrels.
These militant foes have been perpetuating evil and plotting pernicious plans in my mom's yard for years. In fact, just last week they dropped four, unripe, green oranges on my head while I was innocently reading!
My reliable sources have also informed me that these subversive rodent scoundrels have been stealing our walnuts, and engaging in repeated Squirrel rights atrocities.
Yup, that's right... AND, it's no secret that they have potentially fatal supplies of Walnuts of Mild Destruction hidden around the garage and mulberry tree...

It's time to take action! ... time to show these buck-toothed beasts of Badness what flag I carry!

Ok... I feel better now. Not only do I have to play the baboon in Japan, but I can wear the suit in my own country also! What a relief...

Now... back to the issue at hand... scrapping squirrel civil liberties...

The Wa of Burrito

I like to talk a lot about Living in the Moment and Being Here Now. In fact, some days, I find it a matter of utmost necessity to spout my philosophies about the Ephemeral Now to anyone and everyone who will listen. Ask my friends. They know. Hell, ask the kid at the local Mexican food joint. He knows.

Kid: Refried or black beans?
Me: What's the difference? There is no yesterday or tomorrow. A bean's a bean. A bean just IS.
Kid: ...er...OK. Spicy or mild?
Me: How could we know Spicy were it not for Mild? Do not confuse Oneness with Opposition. Overlook not the yin and yang ingredients of the ever-changing burrito.
Kid: ...uh...OK. I'll have that for you in a minute...
Me: A minute? Listen, there is no minute, no past or future- only the Eternal Present.
Kid: Yeah, OK. Here's your Coke.

But, even though I like to preach about each and every moment being The One And Only Moment, that's not really true, is it?
Afterall, when I'm telling the telemarketer I'm not interested, I'm really just trying to hurry up and get through that moment so I can get to the next moment; a BETTER Moment.
And, it's easy to feel when those Real Moments come. There's a sense of everything in the universe simultaneously locking into place and jiggling out of that same place. You feel everything all at once, yet, at the same time, nothing. not even a burrito.

Anyway, I had one of those Moments yesterday.
I'd just finished raking and bagging Mulberry leaves, and I sat down with a beer in the yard to read.
Then it came.
The sky started to rain ashes.
My white t-shirt was soon covered in gray, smearable soot, and the hot air breathed the scent of fire and smoke...
And it was the spicy-mild, refried-black bean Present of my day.

And, just to make this cheesy post more cliche, here's the Robert Frost poem I arbitrarilly opened to as it snowed ashes:

Dust of Snow
The way a crow
Shook down on me
The dust of snow
From a hemlock tree

Has given my heart
A change of mood
And saved some part
Of a day I had rued.

Ok, so fine. It wasn't snow. (It was ash.) And it wasn't from a hemlock tree. (It was from the neighboring brushfires.) And I didn't rue the day. (In fact, I rather liked the day.) But...
it WAS a cool moment...

Fear Factor times 1,984

There aren't many creepy crawly creatures that really scare me.
(...granted, I always feel a wee bit uneasy and spooked around idiotic moths and misdirected June bugs that repeatedly propel their bodies at lightbulbs and window panes...)
but... honestly, stealthy vampire bats and teething turantulas have nothing on me...

Big Brother could lock me in an unlit, uninformed Republican's closet filled with tatooed, nose ring-wearing NYC sewer rats, venemous Aussie snakes, and electric eel executioners,
and I STILL wouldn't concede that 2 plus 2 was five.

Big Brother: Admit it! 2 + 2 = 5!
Me: No, 2 + 2 = 4
Big Brother: -c, please step into this warehouse the size of Luxemburg inhabitted by 493 trillion black widows...
Me: OK. Bring it on. Zwei und zwei sind vier.

Big Brother: Please, -c, allow me to place you between a Grizzly and her cubs being ambushed by a ravenous pack of wild, kendo stick-wielding, flame-throwing wolves.
Me: Sure. No problem. Mind if I bring a drink?
BB: No drinks! What's two and two?
Me: Four.
BB: Shit...

BUT, ...if one teeny tiny, mostly-harmless baby bee does innocent air summersaults across the street from me..., I immediately begin to wonder if I have any terrorism-fearing neighbors with a bomb shelter for rent...
It's completely irrational, I know...

Big Brother: OK, -c, here's a small poached egg-sized bee hive to hang from your mother's roof awning. Now... what's 2 pints of Guinness plus 2 pints of Guinness?
Me: Uh... er... I dunno... 4 pints...?
BB: 4 pints... Are you sure? Afterall, 'tis the season to seek pollen...
Me: No! No.. wait! 121 pints. Yes. Wait-- no! ... a poached egg-sized hive...?... Five! Yes, definitely five pints of Guinness! Dos pints + dos pints = cinco pints.

Well, so..., I've got bees and a hive and no evacuation plan. A friend recommended gasoline. My mother suggested redirecting local ant pathways. Personally, I'm leaning towards total capitulation...
Afterall, any creature with a really sharp spike protruding from its ass must deserve a few days on our sunny porch...

Getting from A to B

Sometimes you find that you want to move yourself and your stuff from one place to another...

Like when you find yourself holding an addressed envelope and want to move yourself and your enclosed letter towards a stamp. Or when you're dripping wet, Eve-stance style in a hostel and want to move yourself and your towel towards your bits and bobs that cover your bare bits...
Or.. when you find yourself wanting to bring your greenbacks to the supermarket to buy canteloupe...

Well, whatever the circumstances, there are an infinite amount of ways of getting you and your stuff from here to there:

For one, you could simply walk.
Or... you could amble.
You could trot, or even skip
if you so fancy...
You could cross-country grass ski, hire a millipede carriage, ride a unicycle or a bachelor donkey, roll yourself across cheese wheels, or hyjack a child's red wagon...

Well, yesterday, I chose a Greyhound Bus for my mode of getting myself and my stuff from here to there...
And there were a few things that I found note-worthy about this means of transportation:

a) that it can often take 12 hours longer than rollerskating over a vending machine plant with blisters (...though I've never personally tried it, I think the Japanese probably have)

b) that, when single, female and stuck in a bus stop for 4 hours surrounded by drunks and bed-less tweekers, it doesn't hurt to practice your Spanish and make friends with the taxi drivers/body guards...

and

c) that the unique gaseous make-up of air inside a Greyhound Bus can baffle even the hardest-core Darwinist with its scientifically unprovable ability to transform neighboring male passengers' hands into 2am touchy-feely turantulas.

But...
maybe that's just me...

In any case, I'm feeling like I want to move myself to bed and my bus baggage claim ticket to the trash trough.

...Taxi!!...

Pesce outta Aqua

If I were an animal, I'd be a fish.
And, if I were a fish, I'd live in the water.

But, if I were a fish last Friday night, I woulda been flopping around, bread-crumbing myself in dust on a wash-board dirt road as cacti and blue-bellied lizards watched on and giggled.

Yes, I was a Fish outta Water, floundering in petty conversations about wedding cakes and bridesmaid gowns.
My gills wheezed as wheezing girls whined about travesties of universal significance.

("LIKE, OMG, I TOTALLY packed inappropriately for this trip! LIKE, I brought ALL of my glittery halter tops, 6 pairs of shoes, but, LIKE, no sweatshirts! Like, if I'da known it was colder than L.A. in the mountains, I TOTALLY woulda brought my new Kashmire sweater! Like, GOD, I am SO lame!")

I tried to propel myself with my fins towards a small puddle alongside a martini glass,
but my attempts were futile...

("Like, -c, who is YOUR all-time favorite wedding dress designer? I TOTALLY love **insert unheard-of, austentatious, French name**'s work! It's SO gorgeous!)

A fourth wedding magazine was opened,
and my mantra was silently repeated for the thirtieth time:

"Oh Poseiden, Great God of the Sea,
let death come swiftly,
Go on!- just chilly-pepper and souffle me!"

In all fairness, I had a great time. I mean, really, what better way for a beached fish to go out than in a jacuzzi with an eclectic group of T.V. show hosts and scantilly-clad models...?

Congested Colon

Did you know that one of the only places that Leprosy can grow, flourish and achieve the American Dream is inside a 9-chambered aardvark? (…Well, there, and in the footprints of mice..) Or that scientists believe that you can catch Tourrette Syndrome by showering barefoot on scummy linoleum, or by having the great misfortune of getting a killer throat-ache…? Or… that the Duodenom is like an immigration checkpoint between the suburbs of the liver and the ghettos of the stomach?
Or… that, if you have water draining from your ass, you can expect your urine to be a more full-bodied dark color?

Well, neither did my brother or I until last night when we got our first edumications in human physiology, anatomy, and disease.

And, to prove how ligit our learnings were, I can even site diagrams 14 and 15, a&d (the ones of the severed corpse with a hairy ass) and page 154 of Mechanisms of Microbial Disease (the paragraph with all the long words and little blobby, microscopic thing-a-majigs)

Well, for the record, I might have gotten a few of the particulars wrong.

BUT, the point is, that I am enjoying spending time with my brother and his medicine-studying girlfriend in beautiful Lake Tahoe.
AND, I'm thrilled as ever, that my favorite and only sibling shares my enthusiasm for the falsification, bullshit-ification and humorization of Information…

Yeah!

On the corner

So, we've all been called some names in our lives...
I've been accused of being a lesbian-lover, a cuff link-robber, a spell-casting witch, a bitch, a tree- humper, a misanthrope, an irrational idealist, a Space case, a braincell murderess, a goofy drunk, a Devil's Advocate, an obnoxious Why-Asker, a dirty Hippy, a cynic, a legless leader, a silly smiler, a sarcastic sap, a soybean fiend, a serial skinny-dipper, a penny-pincher, a rock-kicker, and a circumlocutive writer...
But, I have to say, that only the vast majority of those are true...

This past Friday evening, on the corner of Laurel Canyon and Ventura Blvd., I came to the disappointing realization that I am not now, nor have I ever been, nor will I ever be,
a good, honest-to-god Hippy.

I can rack up years of barefoot ambling through forests, box up hundreds of notebooks filled with cheesy nature ramblings, stick flowers in my nostrils and pontificate for months about the evils of certain, unnamed political Administrations...
But, I'll just never make the cut.

Ok.... that was the unnecessarilly circuitous way of getting to the fact that I recently attended an Anti-War/Katrina fundraising Vigil.

I joined my mom and her buddies on the corner, waving a sign that read "Peace is Patriotic" in my right hand, and my left index and middle finger extended to the honking traffic.
After the band had sung a ballad for Cindy Sheehan, a banjo/harmonica improve session segueed into a group sing-a-long of "We Shall Overcome.."
And, it was then I realized, aside from three very uncomfortable highschool kids wearing Pink Floyd shirts, that I was the only one present who hadn't also waved a sign in protest during the Vietnam war.

...hmmm.., I wondered. Where are the students? Where IS everybody?

I guess I thought that because I was living outside of the country for the past four or five or six years, I was somehow exempt from duty.... and that I could count on those who WERE in the country to make some NOISE. I guess I thought I would come back to screams and cries, threatening network T.V. channel reporting, and causing nation-wide population Laughter Riots... (I'm serious-- you should see the enormous effects of a good, solid Laugh on the Loose!)

But, I'll stop now, before I ramble myself into a crevass of ether...

(***P.S. Just for the record: I am not a lesbian.
....unless women have recently started carrying that tasty chunk of timber we all know and love)

Just a few questions...

There was a time not long ago in the Land o' the Rising Sun, when answering inquiries was simple, even enjoyable.

Inquirer: You are not Japanese. Your country where from?
Me: America.
I: Oooh! Ahh! Disneyland. Las Vegas. And, do you like wasabi?
Me: Why yes, very much. It's the Emancipation Act my nasal passages fought many a battle for.
I:Ohh! (excited approval) And, er... What do you like color?
Me: I like the shade of a Bloody-Mary sunset reflecting off the turquoise center of a mountain lake whose shores have frozen over.
I: Yes, yes! (enthusiastic lack of understanding) And, what do you like favorite music?
Me: I like a rawhide drumbeat that goes SLAP-TAP-BOOM-CHAKA-LAKA-WOOP, a flute melody that goes SLUR-TIKI-TAKA-TRILL with a good Rock 'n Roll chorus.
I: Oh, I see!

But...
sometime recently in this Land of the setting Pacific Sun, the questions got harder, and the answering more difficult...

Inquirer: So, -c, where do you live?
Me: America... er.. um... here... ehm... there... well, everywhere I sleep, I guess... (uncomfortable he he)
I: Oh. And, what do you do?
Me: (Oh, good! An easy one!) I read, I walk, I write, I weed, I sing, I laugh, I draw, I observe, I think, I chill.... I live.
I: No, I mean, for Money...
Me: What do I do for money? Well...um.. lots of things.... er... I provide moral support for it, I listen to its philosophical ramblings and emotional ponderings... I offer it bites of my lasagna, I... (another uncomfortable he he)
I: Well... So what's next for you?
Me: Honestly, I'm a little torn right now. A-sexual seahorse breeding has always intrigued me. But then, there's Jello-bath Tai Chi, dry Oak leaf origami, sesami seed button-manufacturing, octopus ink tie-dying, fecal refuse management and, ever since I was little, I've wanted to import and export sausage jump ropes... But, really, I don't know. I kinda feel like the world is my oyster right now.
I: Uh, yeah. Well, it was nice getting to know you, -c.
Me: Yeah, you too! Gimme a call if you want in on the Jello-bath Tai Chi. I'm thinking of expanding into wrestling also.

Ask me an easy question, I'll feed you no lye.

...er... sorry... I mean, tell you no lie.

In an attempt to postpone bush-wacking through labyrinths of reverse culture shock, I headed for the hills. Seven days in a tiny cabin in the San Gregornio mountains. No telephone, internet, T.V. or running water. Mission: rebuild a patio deck, maintain sanity, send thoughts and prayers to lives touched by Katrina.

Mickey Mouse Carpentry

As I surveyed the rotting cabin patio, confidence spilled out through my ears and oozed between my toe nails. I had images of myself, a muscle-toned carpenter, wielding the chainsaw with the grace of a capoeira master, my sun-kissed skin glistening with the sexy sweat of labor as I juggled hammer, nails and screwdriver
and big, bearded mountain men in overalls stopped to admire my superb craftsmanship.
Yes, my Ego grinned with modesty-lacking pride as I set to work...

One day later
my fearless carpenter had taken quite a beating. Two projectile boards had bitten chunks of flesh from my ankles, mosquitos had built hilly landscapes across my atrophied bi, tri and quadraceps, a handful of rusted nails had blatantly ignored orders to evacuate premises, the drill bit had acquired a Napolean complex, and all supporting beams had relinquished duties and passed out on the ground like Russian Vodka Competition finalists.

If Egos do in fact smile (which I'm fairly certain they do), mine had definitely stopped...
In this state, my Ego might have been a bargain in the Salvation Army's 29cent bin, but it certainly wouldn't have sold on Ebay alongside a prune baring the wrinkled image of La Virgen de Guadelupe...

So, I went for a change in approach. Instead of Ego, I employed humility. Instead of Old West-style pistol and hammer-twirling, I embraced Mickey Mouse Carpentry. Instead of a bandsaw to sculpt delicate cut-outs, I used a dull chisel and a handsaw with dentistry problems.

And, praise be to Entropy, the patio was built!

Who says a cabin can't rest on fragile piles of odd-shaped stones and slanted logs with twigs wedged between them anyway?