liquid withdrawl...

Today I walked outside and was forced to look down because the sun was too bright. I remembered what the sun meant to me, and braved what I knew would only last until my eyes adjusted. Then I noticed a particularly efficient spider web. The fabricator had managed to snag many insects in the threads of his web, but either he only cleans up from his meals periodically, or his long-term web upkeep is like my housecleaning. I felt like shaking the web to help him out, and remove the excess corpses from spots which could likely snag new victims, but then I realized that he could be nostalgic like me, and could be displaying the remnants of his favorite catches for passersby. I feel as if I should invite people over to increase his viewership from just myself. Perhaps he doesn't like more than just one, but he should really be proud of his survivalist accomplishment. I suppose I should invite them soon before his web is destroyed by another one of our rainstorms.
I feel like his location couldn't have been better chosen: he is slung over a flowerbox. I sometimes wonder where and when I'll die. But when I do, I hope my head comes to rest in a bed of flowers.

When at last my body falls and there is no energy left to stop its plummet, yes, I hope to fall among flowers. I may crush a few, but those I have mashed into the ground will be replaced by more when at last my decaying corpse fertilizes their earth. I am just sojourning here. I leave it to various flashes of color stuck atop green needles.

Bo lent me the movie Once. I am very impressed and may watch it with Deutsch A if I get the chance. The main title song moves me. I had to stop it mid song and call Bo to thank him for the recommendation. He says he has the soundtrack to trade me for a copy of the new Coldplay CD. What a worthwhile trade.
This week I must find a pool. My body and mind are missing those motions. I feel as if the gym is isolating various parts of my body, whereas the pool equally caresses all parts. I miss the water's tenderness, and I miss the way it runs down the valley in my back.

a candle and you

This image is the fascade of the Neues Museum, resplendant with unsuspecting tourists.

MAJESTIC REDUCTION
It was rather majestic,
And became a public point of interest.
The coasters I hoarded,
Bob's camera recorded.

They formed a tower,
Taller than he thought I could build,
With a portion of coasters,
On which empty glasses had been filled.

But the most majestic thing,
That occurred after the construction,
Was when the thing crashed down on the bar:
Not its having been built, but its reduction.


DORIAN GRAY
When ashes blow, these times I know,
No other than myself to live,
I find that low undiscovered self,
Hath for myself it's hurt to give.

For I, the man here passing by,
Doth outlast all mere mortal form,
If one love hast caught on my eye,
I can only postpone the torment, forlorn.

When one knows one's love will lie,
In a mahogany box, while I live, not die,
There lays a disconnected ambition,
Which comes from surviving life's attrition.

My picture, it torments me from the wall,
Not for its length, nor the way its shadows fall,
But for the truth it knows for me,
That my loves will be rendered in pictures, similarly.

Somebody asked me why I write poetry. I write it because I have a sentimental tinge to me which wants to reminisce over memories I find poignant. I remember most of these things in vivid versions, but some I like to bask in the Sun next to. The Sun's rays, however, allow me to clearly see the expression of what I've just experienced, and that expression, if set down on paper, clearly delineates a set of words which could be called a poem, with their subject a part of my history. I only wonder if it comes across as meaning anything to anyone else, but then I'm not really sure that actually matters at all...

O, SEE TREE-TREE
Oh, see tree-tree, wondering what will befall,
The very essence of your being after the magistrate's call.
On what you consider natural and blessed,
Your prosecution's case will rest.

To disallow the proclivities of a body,
Is to distract the mind from pure pursuit.
This creates mannacles, strong but shoddy,
And provides derision too incalculable to compute.

And there are many like you,
Oh, see tree-tree, who wish they wouldn't
Catch the eye of the magistrates too,
But for defense: none are as articulate as you.

For the purposes of a line,
You've passed, your imagination somewhat steadied
By the manuscripts you left behind,
Into which our own ideas are levied


I was a bit unhappy went I went to pick up a sandwich, because my favorite sandwich maker was not working. Quite frankly, I'm glad he's not because it's Sunday, but I missed my usual fix of entertainment. I very much enjoy watching him construct the sandwich. He is the most METICULOUS sandwich maker I've ever come across. It gives me shivers, quite like goosebumps in waves, to watch him do it. This feeling is very pleasant to me.
I have experienced it in other places as well: in a quiet office when someone, with swooping penmanship, is filling out a form in front of me; or when my Mother runs her fingers through my hair to be followed by the trimmer to make my head look less mop-like; or on a warm evening when a resonant voice tampers with my eardrums; or from the intimate finger grazes of a lover. I can't really pinpoint the experience to a set of causes which are related. They seem rather unrelated, actually. And any hypothesis I could manage to equate them to a specific stimulus, however, would surely be thrown off balance by the introduction of this new situation the making of a sandwich by a meticulous food preparation dude. Who knows.

Last night, I stupidly left the sunroof open, and the weather played a hydrating trick on me and drizzled. Today, I drove to work perched on a raincoat, and laughed at how easily I confused the coldness of the seat with the wetness of my ass.
Just went for a walk, as I can barely stand the office anymore. I mentally went through airflow models to optimize the drying of my car, but out of laziness and lack of desire to conjecture further, I went with the both front windows rolled down. The task of checking periodically to ensure that the weather does not screw with me farther will aid in my escape from this dungeon. Good thing too...

Among the many toys I encountered, perhaps my favorite is the pool noodle. It's long, thin foam tube for the beating of brothers when pool-bound. A distant cousin to the pool noodle is even thinner, perhaps a bit shorter, and constructed of harder plastic. When held at one end and spun like a rogue garden hose, the air across the opening creates high-pitched, breathy whistles. I haven't touched one since I was young.
The faucet in the bathroom down the hall makes the same noise when the water is turned on. The water pressure is, at first, worthy of being called a faucet. Yet progressively, the water flow dies to a trickle. It is during this decrease in flow rate that the breathy whistling occurs, and I am brought back to my childhood every time I wash my hands. I've never enjoyed going to the bathroom so much!

establish where I am
peace and quiet of the dead i find comforting

one day i noticed an older chick open lift the latch, and close the door as if she wouldn't want to rouse the dead from sleeping
go...

LET MY OWN FIRES BURN
Twas was fair and bright and sunny day,
Amid the stones, on grass I lay.
Each stone had carved upon its face,
The name of bones boxed under its place.

The solitude does comfort me,
Like a walk in the woods, or a climb in a tree.
I stop here often, to hear quiet sounds,
And lie amid stones, on the grassy, green grounds.

The sun began to dip and bow,
I pondered if I should be leaving now.
Then came a small click, followed by a creak,
As into the silence the gate began to speak.

From its gaping mouth, there came a shoe,
Followed by an ankle, then a dress of blue.
About this old woman, the gate had quietly spoken,
And her entrance had the silence barely even broken.

(She seemed as a mother, entering a room,
Where a child sleeps in bed, on the floor her toys are strewn.
Then the toys are put away, and with the broom the mother sweeps,
For her desire is to let this precious baby girl sleep.)

She replaced the latch, then pivoted 'round,
Slow to make her way, 'cross the grassy ground.
Then up to a stone, like a ship to a distant shore,
On a path she had known, and traveled on before.

Her lips began to quiver, her face in great inquire,
As her imploring eyes belied her long-held desire,
To be with this lover, as he lay in the ground,
Amid the stones and the candles, and the flowers planted round.

It was sometime before she turned and departed,
Perhaps a little relieved, though still broken-hearted.
To experience the living talking with the dead,
Fills the mind with longing, and very rarely dread.

I noticed I was again holding my breath,
As I witnessed a love, unshaken by death.
And I vowed I would love, let my own fires burn,
Then I left there that day, never wanting to return.

i've seen many beautiful things

description of the candle, and you, and how i like it?
how I can't stop it? how I

A CANDLE AND YOU
I've seen oceans of warm, placid, aquamarine blue,
I've seen sunsets and rainbows, and fall colors too.
I've seen beauty which captures and burns in my eyes,
I've seen lilies on the land, butterflies in the skies.
These things have me roused, almost too much to handle.
But they pale when compared with you, waiting for me, beside a lighted candle.

I'm rather pissed that I had to squeeze the last one out like an extraction of the large intestine. Hopefully a change in sensation and another look at it will allow me to edit satisfactorily.

THE PARTY NEVER ATTENDED
He must have fought hard against the snow,
Freezing from the swirling wind, and the ice below.
He may have seen inside that fateful night,
As the guests laughed and toasted, and the fire burned bright.
My door was sealed tight,
To keep out the snow and the night,
The next morning, what I saw made me fall to the floor:
My best friend, lay dead and solid, just outside my door.


I can't really believe myself, but I got tired of reading, and I wanted something mindless to look at. The dude in SDO had the football game on! How perfect! I enjoy the vernacular, but it's funny watching imbeciles fall down, stand up, and fall down again. I know they're getting paid more than I am, and perhaps have larger social circles and better sports therapists, but give me a notebook, and a view in the mountains any day.
The funniest is their quick spurts of celebration, whether at a touchdown, or after a good sack. Very few touchdown dances are very memorable, but there are some which deserve mention. I won't mention them though. The post-sack slapstick is hilarious: football players don't wear helmets for protection, but to save cerebellums from a celebratory smack from a teammate! These hits seem to be the most vicious. I just did something well, what the hell did you just punch me for! But I'm assuming this is the adopted celebratory method. I'd probably try to execute a back-flip, or something else worth remembering, rather than socking my valuable teammate. Oh well.
Luckily, while in this office, I remembered that there was popcorn and a microwave in that office. I ball parked the cooking time based on the girth of the bag, and was rewarded by something like 98 percent perfect pop: none burned, and only a few un-popped kernels. Needless to say, my hand quickly developed a film of butter as I ravenously dove it deeper and deeper into the bag. I'm fully awake now, and it's a rather fine 5:28 in the morning.
I have successfully resisted the urge to decorate the adjacent wall with a creation of post-it notes. But I think a waste of perfectly good, sticky, yellow paper. Furthermore, removing them from the wall would warrant a trashing, because I could not adequately replace them on top of each other in a uniformed fashion. Screw it, the post-its are staying in the drawer. Goddamn right!
Goddamn these computers are too slow! Again I'm thwarted by placement. I'm in the freaking basement, so any launching of computers out the window would not cause too much damage to the offending instrument. Curse holes and the filling of them with structures of cement!
I'm going to go revisit that crap about some hot chic and a candle. I have the image in my head, but it's not coming out on paper!

once their feet were safely clear...

THE PAINTING
What brings you to me?
What causes you to erect your body stationary
in front of my rectangular flatness?
I am a stretched cloth bridge abutment,
Waiting for the artist to lend a hand;
A hand and some markings.
The markings make hands,
Sometimes minstrels; or stern, posed faces; timbers, or black eyes.
Terror has been gently mixed in, but I hang and do not perambulate.
I am all things to no one,
But something to everyone who chances a glimpse.
What am I but canvas and colour?

Last night, I chose to rest my head in a garden just outside the city walls of Nuremberg. The night was long and full of great beauties and good beer. We were unceremoniously kicked out of our hotel because one of our party flicked off the concierge. Those besides me decided to employ a taxi driver to ferry them back to Ansbach. I was intent on seeing the Neusmuseum: State Museum for Art and Design in Nuremberg, and therefore chose to close the doors on the car once their feet were safely clear.
It was four in the morning, and I headed to the nearest, uninhabited garden, pulled my sweater around me and plopped down on my back amid the mulch and chlorophyll. Five gently restless hours later, I stood up and brushed off as I meandered towards the huge glass facade of the museum. Huge shades rolled up to reveal the building inside. 5,50 Euro allowed me the time and the pass to amble amid artwork and objects.
I must say that only a few pieces did anything for me. Luckily, art could be categorized as "the quality, production, expression, or realm, according to aesthetic principles, of what is beautiful, appealing, or of more than ordinary significance," and pieces which I thought were crappy could actually hold aesthetic appeal to someone else. One of my favorite pieces is the building architecture itself, concocted by a man named Volker Staab. But the piece on display in a certain art-containing room was one on the third floor. I don't recall what it was called, but it aroused me like a sunset over snowcapped mountains. It was a large square of black metal approx one meter squared, and uniformly half a centimeter thick. One corner was bent approx thirty degrees off the plane of the rest of the shape, the crease in the metal describing the hypotenuse of an isosceles, right triangle. This triangle couldn't have been more than 5 percent of the whole, and the whole form was screwed into the wall using three screws placed at natural intervals a few centimeters in from the vertexes of the triangle. This caused the angle between the wall and the larger portion of the square to be congruent with that caused by the bent portion.
It caught my eye at first due to its novelty, I was confused when I saw it out of the corner of my eye. I couldn't resist the urge, so I waited until no guards were around, and thunked it with the knuckle on my right hand. The sound was gentle and low, which seemed to complement the black color.

"...the little thing that locks the bottle of beer?"
"bottle cap" I answered.

On those things upon which I'm reliant,
I find myself strangely compliant,
For the needing makes the wanting
Ask the hoping for advice.
And of my neediness, I'm wont,
To know I'm heading towards fabricating vice.

Well Balanced Tray

Tonight I was enjoyably rejuvenated by some tanning and chinese food, in no particular order. I find this combination to be utterly restful when combined with the sound and aesthetic of a fountain, around which children are doing laps, well placed in a public area.
I'm starting to lose grasp on a well-balanced tray. Must re-cage and find balance again.

The rain was beautiful this evening. The freshly cut grass combined with the hydrated stench to make me feel like a fool as I checked out and purchased a stick of deodorant. How much I would give to smell like cut grass and sweat in public, and have the caliber of people surrounding me who drank in the aroma like fine wine.

Today in a brief, I got a laugh from the crowd by using the description "sweet conceptual concoction" for a plan I had approved, which seemed to me well thought out and efficient. Sergeant Beard even fired a nurf arrow at me. I get no respect for being articulate. But it does keep them off guard, and that's my favorite leadership style. Keep them guessing, and you always have the upper hand. Down with the simpletons!

yyyhbyyyyyyyyy7y76 The previous y's, h's, b, and numbers are the specific keys I had to actuate to retrieve a follicle of my hair from between the keys of this confounded keyboard. I should keep tweezers on hand to increase the accuracy/efficiency of the plucking I may have to undergo in the future.

THE MASK IN THE CORNER
Screw that mask in the corner,
It's the fascade of an ancient mourner.
But with light,
I gave it life.
Perhaps it mourns in attempt to warn her.

Her is the victim of the travesty exacted,
Through its eyes, its brain registered the enacted,
Can a mask feel a twinge?
Or a deluge of revenge?
Can it retaliate with revenge exacted?

Or is the mask only a reflection,
Of the face's version of how the mind reflected,
On the action,
Or satisfaction,
Of seeing something which is unexpected?

To be left hanging

082708
We all held the line,
And the strongest men fell.
With the snow came the cold.
With the bullets, the hell.

Their faces like wires,
Their teeth gleamed like fires,
While bodies wound round,
Some laughed as they fired.

something we did.
they praised us,
but we massacred

But we knew what the hell we were doing was wrong.

I hope that our children forgive us this day.
We provided the massacre

One of the scarriest things is to feel a moment and be unable to put it into words. But there seem to be some reasons for leaving emotions in the body, and not on paper. Something about them being cheapened.

Life is picking up. Today I biked to and from work. I have to start


082908

Life is evidently and infinitely fractal.

HOW GENTLE TO BE LEFT HANGING:
Flowed down the street,
Long hair covering a mind,
On which hung woven handbags,
One shoulder high,
The other, hand low.

She strolled downhill
To a market in the square
And swiftly made a line for the stand
Of shining red apples.

The left hand lifted,
The right assisted with a vessel,
The woven bag,
For the first apple to be placed.

Then the mind considered
One crunchy fruit sufficient,
And spared the other bag
It's manner unfettered, omniscient.

AS MY BABY SLEEPS
That once in the times
When the small being whines
And the mother doth whimper with coos,
Seems it rather quite fair
For the mother's just there
And the being calms down for a snooze.

Her eyes doth flicker
Over the bed made, wicker,
To deposit this slept form for night.
As I watched this display
I wondered some day
Would I find my own child in the night?

Would I gladly behold her,
Would she then use my shoulder,
To lay her head down and close eyes?
And when out went her awake
Then the dreams would they take?
I would glance down her spine in surprise.

Her back would then curl
She'd breath in the night world,
And I'd cover her body with sheets.
Then I'd worry and sleep
As my happy kept me deep,
In the glory, as my baby sleeps.

THREE HANDS
My friend once had asked me
At what beach didst though bask thee?
Came I at him with fear
"And were you standing there"
He mentioned with resolute
"Maybe I'd followed suit
And manage a day in the sand"

Asking what was the price
After the rice and the dice
For the attachment of his strong third hand?
I paid a man out through my pocket,
Asked the clerk if he stocked it,
With the nature and size he'd demanded.

"But I can't understand,
Why you wanted the hand,
When you already have two, understand?!"
Answered him with from the sands,
Thankful I'd paid his demands,
He turned and waved back, with three hands.


error correction procedure

083008
As quick as my mind threatens me with a Focus Affliction, I return to the realization that I must let nothing obsess the mind for too long. I don't fully understand the reasoning behind it, but when I obsess over one thing, I forget other things which can turn on my entire being and drive me to ecstasy with their experience. Next I manhandle my "middle-way" mentality back into the mix, and everything is filed away to be experienced when I wish it, not when it wishes to experience me.
But it is an extreme comfort to have these possibilities filed away in the drawers of my mind's desk. Some long nights have been passed by the simple pulling on of multiple drawers to glimpse a portion of their contents. It is enough to comfort me, and I am far more comforted that simply those portions set my mind at ease because I KNEW what the whole held in store!
A beautiful woman in white underwear, a swim in clear water tinted green, morning rays filtering a curtain-clad window, the view from a mountain top, the tickle in the throat from a good glass of aged wine. All and more are reason enough NOT to become obsessed with any one in particular. This is my survival. I take it responsibly and hedonistically, only when I have time away from working, of course!

I'm glad for the orientation of my house: in the morning, the sun easily slithers into my kitchen where I'm conglomerating my morning smoothie; but in the evening, the waning sun prepares my bed with the last of its warmth before my tired body drops upon the mattress springs.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Boltzmann_machine

I'd rather sit here and think about the things I never meant to do,
Than think about the times which I wish I'd spent with you.

But sometimes when it's cold outside, I think about the fall,
And I realize it's much better having you around, then not knowing you at all.

Free Counter

A Small Squeaking Rodent

082408
It took a while to thaw from the water in the local lake. I went for a swim, fighting the frustration of having no goggles, and the size of the waves with strong strokes. I did swim only halfway down the buoys on the second lap because the wind picked up and I got tired of sighting into an oncoming wave. I'm quite sure once, I managed to slosh water underneath my eyelid, and it felt quite uncomfy.
This evening, I was invited over by the Gracious Chan-Chans. Their children are beautiful, and the icecream man knows just how to make their eyes light up with his aesthetic and tasty concoctions.
Just got home and was inspired to walk on a calm beautiful night, with RENT in my ears. The path is approximately an equilateral triangle, most of which I walked granite gutter/sidewalk mix. The 12:47 it took me to complete the circuit included the aiding and abetting the torment of a small squeaking rodent.
Leg one of Triangle: I was excited to see the feline, missing my two, so I whistled for it to come. Tried speaking English, then converted to German, which is when the kitty perked up. But it's attention was focused less on me than my focus on it. Then, as I sat down to lower my profile and decrease my shadow, something squeaked, and the scene became suddenly clear. The itty rodent tried hopping a wall which would be like me vaulting a three-story building. Then it saw something half way in the street under which it could hide, preempting a sprint to the safety of the other side of the road. It sprinted, and panted under my leg! I'm glad for the tight-pants fashion over here, which prevented the thing from shimmying up against my unshaven legs. But I couldn't sit there all evening, and the cat anticipated the running trajectory of the mouse, so I felt a bit guilty getting up to let it run into the open paws. But the cat just wanted to play, so the mouse slipped through the goalie feline to the relative safety of the grass and bushes. I looked behind me to see the cat vault the fence, and could only wonder at the fate of the two.
Leg Two of Triangle: The walk was made much more comfortable and channeled in the granite gutter. It was four blocks in width, set into a shallow, concave layout.
Leg Three: Most of the way there lays a graveyard with gravestones crushing down on ancestral remains. There were numerous small lights and flowers scattered about. It would be one hell of a place to play hide and seek. Towards the end of the leg (I live quite near a vertex), there was a bench in front of a house. The bench should've been in a park, and would be perfect for the rolling of marbles, and the racing of cars down its inclined slats.
RENT's music really has me intrigued, and has caused me, for the last few days, to immerse myself in its harmonies, poignancy, and lyrics like the welcoming water in a jacuzzi. I'm determined to learn all of it to sing to myself on dark days when the rain doesn't seem adequately thick reflect my disposition.

Mitch Hedberg (RIP)

082308
Woke up this morning with quite a shiver, so I headed to the other end of the house to oust Sean Puffy from his resting place among the other coats. His down interior was sure to provide the loft I needed to trap warmth against my goosebumps.
Mitch Hedberg (RIP) complained about odd dreams, like making a go-kart with his landlord. It took a walk to the kitchen, and a glimpse of Udo to drag up the dream I had last night. Instead of making a go-kart, we composted. You know you're going crazy when you dream about composting with your landlord. He showed me how to lay Moutainlaurel Leaves like shingles on top of a full box. He showed me how to dig small rectangular holes of specified inches, and I remember being amazed at how flawlessly the cut sides of the hole held their PERFECT shape. Then I stooped to tie my shoe, and noticed that the side of the composting box was transparent. The compost was gone, and the edges of the holes formed perfect 3-D rectangles which hung in space. The dimensions of the holes varied slightly. At the center of each of these volumes was a point, connected to all the other points in other volumes. I was mesmerized by the concoction of sea-urchin tentacles and chop-stick boxes, which was about when Udo yelled at me for not paying attention. So I stood back up (can't remember if I managed to finish securing the loops in the lace) and he resumed his instruction on composting. Something's wrong with me I know it!
***
PARSING THE REASONS:
I find if I enquire,
About a thing which I desire,
I find a peak on a mountain small,
Through which I climb, or through which I'll crawl.
But then the justification comes,
The pros are added; the cons are summed.
Then I'm left with a rationally based decision,
A clear road to follow, a fabulously vivid vision.
Then the vision takes over, and I'm left with desire,
Which snatches mental notes, and burns them with fire.
So I'm left to the whims of just what I'll do next,
It's probably no good, most of the time, I expect.
But the thought of climbing the mountain is voluntary,
Even if I must do it unsupported, in deep solitary.
Half the fun of the climbing is lacing up shoes,
The other half finding, that you have to push through.
And eventually you'll make it. What a view there is in store!
And you're desire becomes a memory of yours, forever more.

ALONE
Alone is when you haven't reason to fear,
Of anyone, or anything prowling near.
Alone is faster than the rest of them all,
Alone is the death at the end of a fall.
Alone bring home bags, all hands are employed,
Alone is that comradeship feeling destroyed.
Alone fills the spaces with calm and with quiet.
Alone brashly brings up your love and defies it.
But alone is a word with a feeling attached,
And it's easily chased, even "easierly" matched.
Alone is a challenge, and a thing to be tested.
Alone is a daunting, large beast to be bested!
I know that I'll feel, alone till I'm dead.
But that feeling is shrunken with a good thought in my head.
And I find with the thought, there comes action, and reprise.
Then I find I LOVE life, and tears stream down from my eyes.

COMFORT IN GRAFFITI
When I feel all confused,
And my head begins to whirl,
I head out on the town,
In search of a thing, not a girl.

I'm searching for a darkened place,
Or one which reaches light.
I'm looking for harkened space,
My eyes, its colors, quickly bite.

A spot there 'neath the bridge there is,
And one outside my door,
Like someone's organized the leaves,
From beneath the trees of October's forest floor.

The leaves are paint which twists and curves,
I have this sole undying entreaty,
To find where they hide, to see them all,
The grandeur that is quality graffiti.

HISTORICIZING
You're just broken down scum,
And your lips are cracked,
You're a dark rugged one,
Ain't no matter of fact.
You're a pirate, and I love you,
For all that you are.
Take ME as your prisoner,
And we'll travel far.

Show ME the high seas.
I'll teach you to read,
And we'll rend through rich men,
String hammocks in the trees.

Then one day when you're old,
All your tales have been told,
And you're mind is still bold,
We'll ponder things we have stold.

And no more in this world,
Shall our lungs take their breath.
You shoot ME in the eye,
I'll hang you 'till your death.

The stories of exploits:
Rather far, and with sails,
Of great wealth, and great death.
Of the escapes, and dark jails,

Shall drift like a leaf
To the bottom and sit,
In the minds of the children,
'Till the campfire is lit.

Then flames will flash broken,
On the face of one telling.
Sweet anxiety ebbing,
And oh! For the swelling!

'Till our stories are told,
And our lives all dismembered.
Those lives don't mean much,
'Till they're recounted and REMEMBERED.

PERPETUAL PERCEPTUAL
Hell wonders if there is a heaven up there,
And heaven is sure there's a low step in the stair.
But then good and then evil, seem to live in their places;
Given life by old men with big hats, and sad faces.

When your wonder transitions to questioned confusion,
Don't apply faith-based reasoning, all are fallacies, and illusions.
Let thinking be thoughtful, rationality flow,
You just "sold your soul" if you don't use ALL you know.

Instead just keep trying, 'till you're old and you're dying.
On your deathbed you'll find yourself happily lying.
When the end comes, you're finished, and you'll know WHAT you've given:
You've navigated life's roads, if some wrong ones you'd driven.

But faith makes the mind dull. Leaves one "lofty." Ungrounded.
After QUESTIONING, with learners and thinkers you're surrounded!
Such a task undertaken, leaves the Bank of Known shaken,
For it wouldn't have made it through the night without breaking,

If upon which it laid, was the ritual observance,
To an unchanging promise of fake postmortem life insurance.
The Known Bank takes transactions, and deposits galore,
With a strict bottom line to grow and restore!

It's novelty changes, as fast as tomorrow,
And leads not to chanting, and worship, and sorrow.

So you're never alone, being part of the Known.
And you need not pay heed to a "god" so enthroned.
What matters are questions, posed by YOU to the world,
That ensures you're connected, immortality UNFURLED.

++++++++++

Oh RedBull,
My mind is active and fulfilled,
With a beverage lightly carbonated,
And apparently best served chilled.

I'm not sure I left the house for more than a short while today. The rest of it was spent setting up my Study, installing the printer, fighting with the scanner program, and wondering why I dreamt of composting. Composting is Eco, and that's good.

I went out last night, and noticed I was absolutely comfortable with the roads on the way. It's taken about six weeks to get comfortable with Germany. But I feel I am now settled, and will learn of the things I don't now know. Plus I still have to get furniture from IKEA, and other similar places with good prices.

Since I received it from MTP on Thursday Evening (2 full days ago), I've watched the movie RENT 5 times, once with the director's commentary augmentation. Needless to say, I'm now obsessed with the music, lyrics, and most scenes in the movie.

Bo Diddly is pulling his weight with large days full of hours. He's learning much, and meeting people from Egypt. Right now we're on a tear of religious discourse, and he's thankfully extending it to those acquaintances from northern Africa. Just so sipped beer and lovely waitresses may be added to a thorough discussion, he said he'll fill me in upon his return.

I think all the universe is perfectly fractal, which gives it some unity. So speaking is like exocytosis? Sure. Perhaps the basis for something extremely complex can be found in a detailed magnification of something simpler. I don't know if it's supportable, but I just feel it's somewhere in the ball park, and worth analysis. Proud to say I studied. To bed now.

RENT

080808
Another cool date.
Udo and Alfelia are installing my bathroom cupboard/mirror thing. It sounds as if they've hit a nerve of the house, and in retaliation for the gross injustice, I'm sure I'll end up lower than I am, as this second floor house falls to the first. That's why I'm typing here on my mattress on the off chance that my greatest fear is realized. Perhaps he's not screwing it onto the wall. He could be bashing a HOLE in the wall the dimensions of the thing, so that it's like setting inlaying wood, but instead of itsy little pieces of beautiful geometric shapes of would, it's a box of shelves, lights and mirrors. Anyway, I trust his craftsmanship, or at least I'm prepared to live with whatever the finishing product may be.
Today I ran past the sports fields, and down by a pond. The geese did not find my attractive, and took to beating the air en mass, leaving short wakes as they taxied. It was windy, and I realized that they took off downwind: very inefficient. Reeds by the pond shore told me the wind's persuasion by their leaning. But they happened to be leaning over the trail on which I was running. Or at least the wind blew them there. So it was really rad.
As I approached, the wind increased and the reeds bent and I imagined hundreds of spectators offering out their hands for a celebretor slap as I bombed towards the finish line of a huge race. The feeling was all the more exhilarating as, according to my Garmin 305 GPS watch, I was crusing at 5:05/mile. It was totally in the zone, and silently thanked the reeds for their support, then creasted the gentle rise and slowed to a 7:00/mile to catch my breath. The music vibrating my eardrums was slightly edged out the reeds' rustling, and I thought I heard applause! The day is beautiful, and my smoothie hits the spot like a crack shot, the marksman, not the illicit substance.
The last few days could be characterized by strollers. Each day acquired a feeling of urgency as my list-o-stuff to do mounted. But the memories kept astonishment in my mind, and a bounce in my step that I was there to witness what I did.
Thursday, I was driving back from the simulators with some fellows, when we turned a corner at speed and slowed to zero fast enough to lock the seatbelt reels and give us all a small case of whiplash. Why had we floored the break? Well there was an antiquated carriage with springy suspension rolling out into the street! A mother was helping another child do something I can't remember, because my astonishment was fixed on the babies legs jouncing just below the rim of wheeled item. I thought that only happened in movies!?
We creeped forward and to the left to provide a barrier lest the baby transport catch a decline and continue into the other lane. Miraculously it stopped before it smacked the car, but I could see the baby was lovely and unharmed. The mother turned around, looked both ways, and leisurely ambled over to it and pulled it back onto the curb. Certainly an attention-getter!
Today, another mother was attempting to shift altitudes with her carriage. The baby sat facing her, with a little bar to prevent it from pitching forward and being crushed by her feet. But the difference in height from the road to the sidewalk seemed to have escaped her as she was repeatedly mashing the wheel into the curb.
Perhaps this sounds humorous, but only slightly, until I add the part about the fabulous baby's disproportionate physique. His planetoid head jingle-jangled back and forth. We nearly crashed the car laughing at the predicament.
This weekend contains a shopping spree in Nϋrnberg courtesy of a fine lady named Chrissi whom I met at a bachelorette party in this fair city's cobble-stone streets. Sunday I'll venture to Wiesbaden to encounter the start of the Half Ironman there. 2500 participants, 75 slots for Clearwater, and an apparel Expo open all day should prove to be worth a Pulitzer if I was a good enough writer to capture it in ink. But I will capture it in the SD card of my Cannon 7.1 Megapixel. Don't know what's going on tonight. Hopefully a brew with the folks, and some rockin' tunes. We'll see.
Things with Udo have quieted down and I listened to Ben Folds' Ascent of Stan. Freakin hell I miss performing on stage! My plan is to receive my household goods on Monday, then practice the violin in off-time for sporadic trips to Nϋrnberg for the playing of fiddle tunes and the reception of Euros in my violin case.
I've already been successful in this endeavor. A fair few days ago, Bobby and I managed a day trip to this fair town. While walking around with a Beer and Goblet of Red Wine respectively, I noticed this dude who said he was from Romania. He had the entire violin but the vibration chamber, or whatever the container is called under the finger board which allows the sound to resonate. In its place, he (or somebody) fixed a horn which came out the right side at an itty acute angle to the fingerboard. I ambled over, handed off my alcohol, and motioned that I'd like to try. He feigned the protection of his violin, with his body, from the vocal shrapnel of my question. Then I signed that I had played the instrument before, and he handed it over. I started fiddling Irish tunes, and he listened for a few seconds, then ambled out as if I were tag-teaming the audience with him. A lady across the way got up from the table across the courtyard and lobbed a short-range two Euro piece into the case. All in all, Bobby stood transfixed as I made 5 Euro in 3 or 4 minutes. And a small crowd was gathering. At that time, the hoss came back to retrieve his rightful place in the spotlight. I retrieved my red-sloshy, and we jived away down the cobblestones.
Random: In Interlaken, Switzerland I noticed a dude trying to ride more than a few feet on a unicycle. I offered him some tips, and he sarcastically asked if I could ride. I took the thing, set for a man taller than I, but still conducive to buzz off down the street to see the confused looks on my buddies' faces as I whirled a 180 and returned the unicycle to the dude with the desire to ride it.
Still scary sounds emanating. The boys are headed out en masse tonight. Should be worth the trip!

081108
This weekend was another memorable one, though some of it will be more infamous than usual in my mind's eye.
I will write, trying to drown out a dog's bark with David Gray. There are a few dogs in this neighbourhood, though one stresses my senses more readily because it's in a small enclosure just beside the stairs I travel to come and go from this House. This dog is like all others: it "protects" by barking at EVERTYHING, on the off chance that SOMEONE it barked at was a criminal and is now deterred by its bark. I hope it habituates me, and may need the aid of some canine treats to both make it shush, AND as a manner of poisoning it if I can't get it to shut up. Just kidding.
In the way of sounds and words, a BARK is one of the loudest and most peace-disturbing sounds in the world to me. Most sounds tend to harmonize with the ambient noise at least a little. Hell, screeching car tires even seem to be normal when I hear them, although they get my attention. A man at the end of this street bangs a bell around at the end of his arm when he wants to notify the neighbourhood that his fresh veggies are for sale. The sound of an auctioneer has a sort of musical quality to his/her script. But a BARK has never come close to blending into anything for me. It's an angry and raucous deviance from the common chord of white noise in any given moment, and as such I wish it didn't exist. I have experienced moments I thought too rare to grasp, and therefore decided to sit and absorb so that I could think about them later. Then with a dog's bark, I was immediately made angry ripped away from something when I was most open to it. This hurts the most for me.
Friday evening, we carpooled to a town called Dinkelsbϋhl. There was talk of some sweet action, so we followed Samantha (Diddly's GPS) which led us on some unpaved portion, undergoing construction. There was some reticence about proceeding until The Diddley sighted BMW's famous 4-wheel drive and told me to continue. I'm quite sure an old lady with a walker would have rocketed by us if there was one out at this time in the evening, but we did make it back on paved road eventually. We then stopped to check for damage and pee abreast on the roadside. There was none, and then someone noticed a vast array of spotlights in the distance, which we figured to be towards Dinkelsbϋhl.
There were two concentric circles of lights, one larger and higher than the other, both rotating around the same radius. It suddenly came imperative that we find the source of said blazes in the sky.
The higher above us they got, the more ravenous we became. When at last, we seemed just under the clouds their intensity failed to pierce, they disappeared! A cry filled the car, and the feelings of an unfulfilled hunt filled our bloodstreams. But the hunt need not have ended here, and it didn't. Instead, it was refocused on the objective which is usually that of men at this time in the evening on a Friday. We found what we were looking for in a loud bunch of women who sat next to us in a bar with Gothic Flavor. They told us they were headed to party, that we should come, and the walk was long but we would stop at bars to take shots along the way. I would have the pleasure of staying a good Designated Driver, and would enjoy the interaction sober.
The night began to flow into the wee hours of Saturday, and by the time I dropped them off, I had acted as DJ, lackadaisical bottle stacker, German language learner aided by some women more than willing to teach me. When I drove Samantha into the garage, and headed up to bed, it was 0630 and I was quite sure that I'd seen the lights again that we'd seen the night before. But I planned to get up in a few hours and didn't have the time to investigate further.
***
Next I found myself in Nϋrenberg's Hauptmarkt, under the grand clock tower where Charles IV stashed his crown jewels. I had tried to see the cooco-clock-esque display before, but had always arrived late due to my friends' hangovers, laziness, etc. So today, I drove Samantha up, and couldn't quite be sure about the legality of the parking job. I resigned to take the hit of a ticket, if one was written up, because I was NOT going to miss the march of 7 electoral princes around this great figurine of Charles at noon. It was worth seeing, though not spectacular.
As I waited, I formed a paper crane with some refuse which I planned to give to Legalista when I left in the evening. I ended up not giving it to her, for reasons I can't really know, but mostly because I wanted to hit the road to escape what had turned quickly from a swell day into one overshadowed by culture shock and empathic stress.
I suppose that culture shock could be construed as the feelings one experiences when exposed to a new culture. I experienced an astounding situation, and felt a monstrous language barrier which prevented me from doing anything to help said situation. The feelings of anxiety persisted in me until 2100 that night in Wiesbaden, 250k away, with the help of two glasses of red wine and some friends with empathic ears.
Legalista phoned to say she'd stepped off the subway and was walking down the cobblestoned hill to the Hauptmarkt. I headed off to intercept, and smiled as she approached. A delicate hug was passed between us, and we headed off down the street with her two children. She planned to show me some places to shop to allow the Euro look to cover my fair skin. But the day would be filled with viewing the sights, munching the food, allowing Lena to use the bouncy house. I'm not really feeling this flow to write, I feel it's been choppy since I began this entry, but I want this as therapy, so I will continue.
The days was full of me expending Euro for clothing, and she providing pleasant chatter. Alright, I'll cut right to it.
We had just come out of a store where I bought some Lacosta's she helped me choose, and were standing eye to eye on the incline of the cobblestones. I clad in my new shoes, she in humorous mock admiration, Lena chasing birds, Julian asleep in the carriage, everything was a joy. Just after we managed to find that we were both born in May, I broke eye contact and glanced around for Lena. I had been doing this all day, and enjoyed the child's energy and novelty, and was usually rewarded with a sighting of her little pink skirt and childhood antics.
But this time no pink skirt. I brought this to Legalista's attention, and we both spent a moment spinning and gazing. Still no pink skirt.
Lena had been infatuated by a pair of buckled shoes in the shoe store a few steps away, and Legalista went to search it while I continued to pivot and glance. She came out with a shrug, and I smiled encouragement. She told me that she would search a few more stores which sold shiney things, to which Lena was drawn.
After I saw Legalista's beautiful form pass in and out of doorways, and noticed no pink skirt with MY continued pivoting, I knew it had to be more serious. She returned and told me she would search farther up and down the cobblestones and shops. I said I would prowl back and forth with the sleeping Julian on the off chance Lena meandered out of a shop close by.
The language barrier prevented efficient interrogation of strangers, and all I could do was walk back and forth. In a few minutes, Legalista appeared obviously stressed, and started talking in German to me, obviously too anxious to make the conversion, and all I could do was smile encouragingly and shrug.
She bombed off the other direction. I got more and more anxious, and thought the worst for a child I cared for. After 25 or so minutes of walking, I noticed pink flash at the right level with an ice cream in her small mitt. I left Julian, still asleep, swooped Lena up, and and dodged back to the carriage with many broken thank you's. I figured from the way he was pointing, the man was telling me where he had found her, and that he had bought her the ice cream. But I understood nothing other than to guess what he was getting at, passing out Danke's ("thank you's") by the ton. They walked on and I held Lena while and waited for her mother to surface from the crowd.
Out of the corner of my eye, I noticed a flash, and Legalista swooped in with arms outstretched, soaking eyes pleading, as I prepared for the handoff. She squeezed Lena as I stood there happily watching the reunion, wishing I could have been more help. Then she set Lena down and cupped her eyes and gently convulsed in a way I no one ever had to. I held her for the briefest of moments as she cried on my shoulder. But that was the only other comfort I could give her, for I was almost speechless. We waited for a friend of hers to arrive, and when he did, I became blatant third wheel. I wished to console her, but the familiarity of the face and his understanding of German beat out my desire. For the next 30 or so minutes, we walked around as she vented to him, and I understood exactly none of it. My cortisol levels must've been off the wall by that point, and I wished to come down from the negative high as I listened to her recount/debrief herself. But I could not as nothing she said made the slightest sense in my brain.
She asked if I would continue shopping, and I escaped to the changing room of a local retailer to make an attempt at composing myself. I came out with new clothes, but the same feeling/anger at my inability to help this woman. I had just experienced a traumatizing situation for two of the SAME language, and my alien individuality there in the street was made all that much more apparent as I was unable to ask anyone, or even console the mother to which it had occurred. I HATED the feeling of helplessness, and couldn't shake it from my mind until later that evening.
I was tired of spending money, and we were thankfully heading back to the car, so I turned down her lovely offer to escape to a noodle dinner, and instead escaped to glasses of red wine, and the company of friends 3 hours way in Wiesbaden. I sang at the top of my lungs the entire way, and was amazed at the venue for the wine fest: the streets surrounding a church!
There were too many people to count, and the wine poured. At 5, pleasantly tipsy, and tired, we headed back to the hotel. But they only took Military ID's for the party I was staying with, and so I was turned away.
I ambled back to Samantha, and crashed in her leather seats to wake up 2 hours later to watch the Wiesbaden 70.3. An older woman, walking with the quick, sharp gate BeachBum does, zoomed by the car just after I opened my eyes to the morning light. She had a volunteer shirt on, so I jogged sloppily out to find that the triathlon was point-to-point, and I would need to take a bus to the swim start. The bus ride took forever, and I thought I would miss the starting gun. But when I arrived, there was plenty of action to see. It was a tread-water start, and the heats were well populated. Cheering, announcing in two languages, heavy on German of course. I got the requisite pics, then hopped the bus back to transition to check out the sports expo and await my favorite leg: the run.
The expo was arranged around a three-tiered fountain, at the foot of a casino with Roman Columns. Rather imposing for a casino really. I walked back and forth, stripping to my new shirt, and enjoying the buzz in the air. The first three of each gender were accompanied by a biker, equipped with whistle and flag.
I watched different forms. There was a beautiful woman across the way, miming the runners to more visually portray her feelings as she discussed their form with a dude standing next to her. I felt compelled to join in the critique, but I still had misgivings, and decided to stay silent, rather than to bring back memories of the previous day's experience.
Then I heard an unfamiliar name describing the steed of a man who cruised around the corner. He had a beard I recognized from somewhere. Then I realized it must've been Faris al Sultan from the Triathlon Magazines I'd poured over. The dude next to me confirmed this, and the pronunciation of his name my ears were unfamiliar with. The day just shot to one of my finest, as I watched the buzz of the crowd, and the strength of this man while he raced to an easy win with a 4:10. It was a childhood dream, coming true! I didn't find him to get his signature on the unopened RedBull I had in my backpack, but on the drive home, I reverently drank the can like it was bequeathed to me from the sports star.
All in all, the tally for the weekend's sleep didn't turn out so well. 3.5 hours Friday evening. I ate well Saturday until late evening, and was on my feet all day. Saturday night, I got 2.5 hours, and had no breakfast, and in fact ate nothing until the evening when I finished the smidge of French loaf I was saving for the drive. I starved for fear of the Esso Station turning down my MasterCard for the exchange of gas. I only had 45 Euro left and would need it to get back to Ansbach, if this was the case.
But there's something about purely experiencing which allows the emotions to forget about the status of the body, and revel in each moment. I rode this wave all weekend, and only slept the day away on Monday to make up for the lost sleep. My household goods arrived today!
I forgot to mention about 15 min of calm laying which lasted until the rain scared me off. It was on a curving bench just near the giant vertical spray in the lake nestled in the middle of the park around which the athletes would run. I reveled in the sounds I heard. The athletes instigated the blowing of whistles as they cruised around the lake. And as this was the first, fastest few, I could track their speed by the time it took for the next whistling group of people to make a ruckus. Shit, I realize that the above is filled with what I think may be typos, concerning the world ruckus and it's noun vs. adjective forms. No matter...
The other thing which sprang my excitement on Sunday was the confusion somebody may have felt when they could see it was raining, but they noticed, as I walked by them, I was wet ONLY on my front. Perhaps, if they were even looking, they would have realized that I must've been on my back when the droplets started dropping. But I enjoyed providing this opportunity for further assessment and conclusion as I walked along and dried from the short drizzle.
All in all, another set of fabulous experiences. One I wish I didn't have to experience, but like the other things I'm studying, learning the language has become all that much more important to me.
Culture shocks. In Morocco, it was the robbery. In Germany, it was the lost child. It brings to bear how important communication really is. While walking home to the Bride-to-be's house, the night I first bumped into Legalista, we ran into a met a dude with Dreads riding his bike. He and his friend told us to go to the castle to meet him and his friends. He couldn't have been more than 23 and he first prompted us by asking Espanol? Deutch? English? I was surprised when he flawlessly switched from English with my friends, to Spanish with me, to German with Legalista. That is my goal. And it will take time. But I owe it to those I meet on this fine planet. I must learn a slew of languages. That may become my new thing. But who knows.
I'm really glad I slept some today after the movers dropped off my household goods. Many things are busted, but I just cared about napping. It was therapeutic to write out the events of this weekend, especially those pertaining to the lovely woman in Nϋrnberg.

081708
This past weekend was awesome after I ditched the weakest links: the rest of the group. There was the decision to stick with and confuse my system over the pure seeming incompatable personalities, or just walk off to my own tune. Freakin-a I enjoy singing, and I chose the latter in a heartbeat. I find them excessively boring, denigrating everything and everyone, waiting for approval instead of focusing on the objective to be experienced. Engagement is a quick look both directions, and a confident and energetic street crossing to the icecream stand across the street. These folks' heads are still turning side to side, prolonging a worthwhile choice, and fearing to even be on the same road with the traffic of others' views. It disgusts me like the stench of putrid urine.

"His eyes?"
"Yes, I wasn't sure what they meant by it. But I think it's adequate punishment for the way he ended that potentially golden life." He looked down and kicked the ground with his feet. She had been his sunrises, and now the sunsets would no longer be the same, sitting alone at the dining room table.
"Look man, I'm really sorry."
"I hope it takes him a long time. I hope it drags out like my taxes." The brief moment of humour was a welcome addition to the conversation. Carboxyl knew that he would have to let Jon's feelings run their course. It was his experience that trying to manhandle strong emotions is like closing your hand around a stick of dynomite.
Carboxyl thought about what he'd heard from the Judge, how the new punishment had been legalized and authorized by those on the Hill. Visual Strobing is what he said, just before he belted "case closed" and smacked the coaster with the gavel.
He couldn't imagine it. His father had taught him what a strobe light was back when his feet dangled in the chairs his bottom occupied. It was truly impressive to watch the motioned slowed by the illumination of specific and regular, noncontinuous snapshots. His mother's eyes focused down, head tilted as she spun Bison fuz into strands. The absolute focus and attention on the faces of the Boyscouts scattered at her feet as his father turned the knob to make the snap shots go faster and slower. It was almost a shame, he rememebered, that his father had to turn on the lights and end such an engrossing show.
But that show was engrossing because it was in a controlled environment. And it ended. Ruino's show would be continuous, random, and painful, until he would be driven insane, fall into shock and then die in about two weeks.
The people who made the film for movie theaters knew something about it. They saved money by experimenting and then using the fewest number of frames per second that would wheel by the bulb, fooling the audience's minds into seeing seamless movement. 18 is the magic number. The chip injected into Ruino's optic nerve would continuously change, once every ten seconds, the rate at which images reached his brain stem. In short, he would see random strobe effect whenever he opened his eyes, and this varying imagery would kill him by overloading his brain.
No one knew why it had the effect it did, but some biotechnician made the discovery when he was attempting to marry neurons with a small micro chip meant to increase visual acuity in the optic nerve of an unsuspecting lab rat named Mickey. So the story goes, post-op when the anesthesia wore off, Mickey stood in place for a few seconds, and stumbled forward haltingly, then stopped again. His chip had successfully integrated its silicon interior to the web or neurons woven into the chord of his optic nerve. But the faulty chip would broadcast what Mickey saw in randomized fits and starts. The technician noticed the Strobe-like nature of the transmissions, and could only assume that he had made a mistake in implanting it.
Mickey's autopsy 6 days later would reveal that his brain had unbelievably short circuited from its inability to adapt to the random flow of information which provided a large percentage of the brain's usage.
Google bought the rights to the chip, worked out the bugs, and provided installations into anyone with 135 dollars to download information and not have to look at a computer screen. Information is not strained through the vitreous humour, but is "injected" closer to the brain along the optic nerve.
The Law Enforcement Agency in the US adopted the chip for punishment purposes, and reprogrammed the chip to mimic the original malfunction, and thus Visual Strobing was spawned.
No longer does anyone have to push the button, inject the nerve agent, or feel culpable. A chip now embedded in 98% of the population on the planet (who takes over hearts and minds, visual filters on the optic nerve instead of having cable boxes which filter out channels, computer viruses which threaten humanity filtered out by doctors) is just reprogrammed as the subject lies on the table in front of the victim's family.

081908
Fucking image: the sunset glinting off a hand full of water.
Finding something so bold as to have lost nothing but indolence in the process of locating it.
Knowing something you hold will last you until you decay into sand.
Watching the glint from the depths of it,
and knowing it lays in your hand.

082008
Set up my Skype, Land line, Wireless, and called millions of people for free to the states. Nicole is on the other side of the planet from me, so I caught her in the morning, as I called at 7 in the evening my time. My writing must improve.

082008
Just finished the week, on WED, and I know not how frisky this evening will become and have determined to write now.
Today, in the office, I enjoyed the carcass of the same spider I noticed the first day I walked it. It's pleasantly suspended just under the window, where it's plans for ensnaring prey were not realized as the window stays closed more often than not.
082108
Something to Burn:
I went for a walk,
Met this bum in the street.
He asked for a dime
So I thought for a time.
"Give me something to burn.
I'll give you something in return."

I searched through my pockets,
and looked at my shoes;
then went through my wallet,
pulled out this bum's dues.

He looked at the bill,
Then glanced at my eyes.
He was standing there smirking,
His face warm with surprise.

He said "boy, I will give,
THAT upon which I live,
From the worst things I've bested,
To the last cocaine I ingested.

It has not a language,
It's pure and it's free,
From the depths of the gutter,
To the heights of the trees."

And with that he let slip,
That which holds us together,
No matter the distance,
Regardless the weather.

It was fleeting, but I caught it,
And it gleamed bright in the night.
His lips spread and he smiled, then
Began walking more miles.

The Witness:
I've seen mothers cry for children lost,
And beggars hold out hands,
When dealers pass the bads for the deal,
And children playing in sand.

When the moment's right,
As my eye glances;
I've seen some things;
Caught others by chances.

Why am I the witness?
How have I the fitness,
To see these moments appended?
They are mere slices,
Of grandeur and vices,
Together as they seem intended.

Perhaps 'tis because I pay attention
To the things which might have slipped the mention.
Farther down the lane, I travel,
But with solitude's intention.

The Trigger:
Just take it and go,
And let it be known,
I've run this long race,
And not been overthrown.

I've found my calling,
I've found the trigger:
It's empowering something:
That something is vigor.

A Kiss:
I could see he was thin,
And her hair was yellow,
She was a lovely girl,
And he a handsome fellow.

She reached her hands up,
To snake around his neck,
Their eyes all closed tight,
There was no hunt, no peck.

Their lips seemed guided,
Their faces both fell in,
Their tongues slowly slithered,
As if guided from within.

I watched this kiss from the park bench,
And sat transfixed in the light.
There was such subtle power there,
Such positive delight.

I was suddenly up,
And on my way.
To leave them with their selves;
To leave them there that day.

My heart seemed slightly gladder,
My mind dwelled on no mangy matter.
I walked on the curb for a while,
Then noticed my lips were split by a smile.

Silence After the Show:
I heard it stand and saw it grow,
That silence immediately following the show.
I breathed it in,
And knew again,
It was what I've always wanted to know.

I wish to wrap it 'round my hands
And casually weave it in to strands,
To make the blanket I clench tight,
That keeps me warm on dark, cold nights.

We all need something to push us along,
A helping hand, or the right kind of song.
And what I want can be found in the night,
It's not molded firm, but broken right.
Not the sound of clapping, or the feel of new snow,
But the sound of silence, at the end of a show.

BACK at Me and Smile:
Your voice is wholly listenable.
I find you irresistible.
It's not that I wish you, for your sex,
But that I find you sweetly complex.

Believe it or not,
For some reason, in some way.
You engage me most,
When you're looking away.

That way I can watch,
A sweetly candid you.
Full of apprehension sometimes,
And sometimes full of blue.

But the times I cherish most...
Almost feel I shouldn't mention,
It's when you happen to change your attention,
To glance BACK at me and smile.

Making up for lost time posting uber amounts of verbage

070508
Last sunset in the country. I'm sitting in a farmer's field, the green grass gently woven with the dead. Rows which run parallel to the road at my back. The sun is setting over the moutains in Freyburg ME. I've seen the family in an environment which complements their natures: Woods Pond, Boothby's Cabin. Bugs float around me, but are unsure of where to strike.
Clouds hang wispy over the moutains, the sun before, seemed like a gathering of trickles, leading to a drop which hung from the bottom of an ice waterfall. The drop is forming a stalagmite with the moutain, which is only a short distance away, but the two aren't in contact, save only for the temperature of the ice waterfall being conveyed to the stalagmite by the drop. A sort of proof of life for the stalagmite, which may or may not be replenished by a drop from above. It's like the letter received from a long lost, unreachable friend, and it brings that same solace to the receiver.
I'm preparing for a show of backlights. I have two cans of redbull tucked away in the mesh portion on the lateral backpack fabric. I with Redbulls as an unnecessary backup, will deliver myself to 22 Talcott Mt Rd safely to see my babies for the last time. I miss them already. I'll be extremely sad to see them stay. But it is quite complicated and I must be settled before I am to receive them properly.
Just wrote out a running plan for Wiggs. He was excited to receive it and may purchase a GPS watch similar to mine for easier quantification of his exercise.
The backlighting of the clouds has begun! There is are a few small wisps of clouds which are white and lighted, like the plume of an electric turkey. Its head hides sheepishly behind the ridge, but its gaudy plume shows off its position to me well. I have no patience for its shyness, for I only intend to admire it.
My new camera is working out with a flourish I would only hope would be brought by 200 dollars worth of electronics (I realize it's less than that, but the cost to me is 200 smackers).
To the left of the turkey plume is what appears to be a projector, casting forth a movie to some ginormous screen behind me. I care not what it shows, for I am captivated by the way it brightens the air by its passing.
Time to hit the road. I've had a good dinner. I've spent time with those closest to me, and now is the perfect time to begin a journey which will place me across the planet from them.
Giddyup...

070708
On the drive home from Maine through the White Mountains, I turned a corner and encountered a white orb, or specter. I'm not a deity fearing man, in fact I don't even believe that I have anything to fear, but there are times in one's life when something out of the ordinary could be given some lofty description and explanation, or I could just have realize that I had a very near brush with the ass end of a Moose.
There were actually two, and they were thankfully in the other lane, standing parallel to the centerline. The first one's head was swung like a boom crane over the double yellow lines, but luckily I was driving the truck, and as a testament to the sheer size of these beasts, I cleared under its chin. The other was closer to the shoulder.
I did the only thing a pertinent character would do: I pulled a yoo-ey and headed back with camera extended in video mode. No problem shooing them off to the safety of the woods, or should I say, it was no problem shooing them off to make it safer for the drivers that would inevitably take that same turn at speed, just as I had, but in the opposite direction. I'm glad Heir Bull decided to have the duo in the opposite lane because, true to the Mythbuster's conclusion, no amount of acceleration or deceleration would have caused a happy outcome for either the structure of the cab, or the stability of my skull.
Home and I nabbed the Kids. They were scattered in the woods, but had been eating their food and were happy to see a familiar face. Tigger ambled up like a tiger, meowing a sort of "marco-polo" (he Marcoing, I poloing) the entire way. Besa loped up with the vibrato, whiney meow I've come to love so much. The comfort at seeing the two other massive. They had provided a point of sustenance for my psyche down in Alabama, as I lived alone in a cave with a tiny window. Having someone else to take care of is a special experiece when things get confusing in one's life. I'm told that their purr is a way to evoke healing within their bodies, but the purring of their chords, and the rubbing up against my leg was like the strongest purr of all.
I packed the night away, and went for a walk up and down the hill (.96 miles according to my GPS watch) in an old swimsuit and tight elementary graduation T-shirt. Having no clothes that I wanted to get sweaty and then check through, I used the old suit then garbaged it. And the shirt I folded neatly back to hide under my bed.
Diane Bailey came to pick me up in a sleek outfit and car, headed off to church after she dropped me off. We chatted about how fun learning is, and how excited I was to travel. Then the 80 dollar charge I was doomed to for having an overweight duffle, and I was on a plane to Atlanta.
I arrived and got lost at the correct baggage claim and then re-checked my red-apple duffle for the International Flight. The seats were ample, and I sat next to an Airforce NCO, a single mom whom I will call Startle. We were like two pieces of bread, sandwiching an open seach which was used for staging of empty food containers and magazines. She was a single mom with a 10 and a 13 year-old, the latter having it "together," the former actually voicing her feelings about the social riggors a service brat is doomed to live. Startle was very excited that her child had given her the courtesy of voicing her opinion about her feelings rather than taking them out negatively on Startle. All in all, she noted, they were a happy family triumvirate.
I watched 3 movies in a row, stopping every half hour or so to get up and deliver the contents of my bladder into the receptacle for that purpose. It was good to stretch my legs, and to glimpse the other people joining me on this trans-Atlantic journey. There was this Mother-Father-Daughter family trio seated behind me. And it was from listening to the little girl that I realize an important linguistic point: from the sound of German, even spoken through the precious lips of a young girl, it sounded as if even she would have no problem kicking my ass. If Spanish were a gentle massage, German would be Japanese massage. If Spanish were a flowing brook, German would be the coins flowing down a sorting slide. Both sounds beautiful, one requiring a little more force from the vocal chords to produce.
There was this woman with a swimmer's body from Alpha Kie Omega in Montgomery. I chatted with her at the baggage claim about how her sorority didn't have a House because more than 6 women in one place is deemed a brothel, when recognized by an institution. So she and her Sorority Sisters lived in apartments, in which the number of inhabitants need not be specified on the contract. Sadly she left, for the aesthetic of the room was significantly improved with her in it, and I was left to wait for my sponsors, Yodel 1 and Yodel 2. I ambled around the airport, realizing that I should have emailed him to hold a sign, or given him a picture of me to make the meeting easier. But as it was, I actually got to guess if this or that person looked like a "Yodel 1." I guessed correctly when I noticed a North Face fleece. He intro'd me to Yodel 2, his lovely wife of one and a half years. Destroying the lovely arrangement of bags balance in one chair, I hefted my duffle, while he took the Black Backpack and she the green satchel.
We went to sign in and promptly got lost on our way to finding the car, Yodel 1 sighting construction on Frankfurt Airport. Most things, aside from the people, could have been in the US. And my first truely we're-not-in-Kansas-no-more experience occured in the parking garage. Firstly, the cars are all small, and the parking spaces nearer than would allow an obeise body, a derth of which are here, a concentration of which are sadly across the ocean. Secondly, the telltale euro, skyscraper license plates, just large enough to accommodate black bold numbers and a vertical blue strip on the left side. They are a trim relief from our sack-of-potatoes license plates with comparatively anorexic letters.
A GPS as guide, Yodel 2 was sweet enough to allow me the front seat for the views that were to flash by at Autobahn speeds. I saw wind mills like the one Mike Rowe worked on in Dirty Jobs. I saw beautiful architecture, some dating back to the 12th century. There were winding roads, and cobblestones, and fountains with animals spitting streams. I couldn't even begin to describe it all, except for to say that I was glad that Yodel 1 was driving: I would have stopped every 13.5 feet to capture an image on my new Cannon.
My head was splitting from lack of food and water, so we stopped at a rest-stop to refil my vessel, snag some sustenance, and purchase some caffeine to kick the migraine. The Redbull cans have this stylish blue pull tab with a single bull stamped in the end which gets all the action from the finger. I suppose, depending on the pressure applied to the tab during the opening, one could have a small stamp of a bull on the finger until the blood re-perfused and the skin adjusted back to baseline taught-ness. There is a substantial fee associated with the purchase of a Redbull can. This is not news to me. But there is an added "deposit," as described by Yodel 1, which makes you more likely to recycle as you would be reimbursed when you do. Everything is recycled here, even, as Yodel 2 explained, "the plastic that your chicken comes in." They only sell smaller trashcans, which a. are picked up twice per month, and b. have a volume which encourages more recycling and less trashing just to prevent inevitable overflow onto the floor! How Eco.
Katterbach Airfield is itsy and feels so un-american so as to be comforting. (just slapped my first Bavarian mosquito, he fell like a stone) It has the traditional PX, and some overflow they've put in some retail space across and down the road called the PXtra. Whoever thought that up should be very proud of themselves. I would be.
Checking into my hotel, I found my reserved room to be adequate and efficently arranged. The shower delivers volume with adequate pressure, which I prefer. The lights are on toggle switches large enough so that any tipsy inhabitant is sure to survive at least the crossing of the room to drop onto the bed therein. The plugs require adaptors (courtesy of PXtra), themselves resembling thick stools that would not stand on only their two legs.
I layed on my bed, napped and rested for the next few hours, and caught the Tour de France live. Invigorated by so much sweat, I headed out to do the same in my Asics. 5.63 miles later I had glimpsed architecture, people, stores, fountains, etc which wetted my appetite for more and more and more. I confess that I was turned around, reorienting myself with the (Second Bavarian mosquito greased!) compass needle pointing toward the hotel waypoint. (Never admit to being lost, it doesn't instill confidence in others, and is one of the many Man-traits specific to my testosterone-heavy gender) Luckily I was .93 miles SE of it.
Stretch and shower, and collation of clothes later, I find myself on a cobblestoned walkway, pink and purple roses to my back, green shutters on the windows: happy to be alive and in Deutschland.

070808
Today was an early start, so I headed downstairs to the continental breakfast, orange crocks cushioning my tootsies as I ambled. There was lots of food, in small healthy portions. The mostly hardboiled eggs nestled in hot sand in a covered hotplate, their counterparts scrambled and mixed with sausage in the hotplate next door (sans sand). I had yogurt, some flat bread crackers, scrambled/mostly-hardboiled eggs, frosted flakes (not as much sugar as the name brand I usually ate in the states, so it could be something similar but not that exact brand...), a glass of milk, another of orange juice, and a scrumptious roll. There were extras like granola, and other stuff that I either a. could not identify, or b. just didn't feel like munching.
Into personnel office, and I was taken aback by the woman behind the desk. She was, to put it in boxing terms, rather a knockout. I quickly refocused and handed over the pertinent paperwork. The next stop was a bubbly older woman who had the same last name as me, and had a plastic pig for her "black money" (money not taxed) collection for the candy clients were sure to munch at the pig's hooves. Her office had four taller, thinner windows which preached the variability I've only seen in the latches on German windows. Allow me to explain.
Most of the windows I've seen have a 3-position handle. This handle may go to the twelve, nine (or three depending on the direction the window swings open), and six position. Turn the handle to the six, and the door is latched closed near its four corners. At 12, the window hinges from the bottom. At nine (or three), the window hinges from the side, swinging outwards. My room has a loose screen-like shade which works adequately to keep those things out which fly and buzz. Most rad.
More offices, more novelty. I ran into a German who's had the worst thing to say about this country of anyone I'd met. He called this "truly a hardship tour." When queried, he responded that 25 years ago in a private college in the states, while studying theology and history, he received culture shock upon returning to his native Deutschland. He pointed to his head and heart while telling me that he is no longer German but American. Why is he still here then? Well, he came back from college to get a quick job for the summer and 20 years later still holds a similar position. He punches my Social Security number into the computer with a matter of fact determination to take out his lost hopes on the keyboard, only to realize that the number-lock is not activated and will therefore leave his cursor lonely for accompanying numbers on the prompt line.
Before the gym with Yodel 1 and 2, I visited their house which blew my mind. It contains a stair case which sparked their imagination, but not their eyes for dimensions as their tactic for furnituring the upstairs is to "see whatever can be broken down to fit up there," as described by Yodel 2.
Having lived in a wee studio apartment for the last two years, my mind rolled with the possibility of both seeing the sun through a window without the world's largest eaves above, and the thought of compartmentalizing my junk into different rooms! Let there be freaking light!
I came home to take a sit on the toilette, which is flushed by pushing a rather large blunt button that unleashes a fury of water with complementary bubbles the size of marbles into the unsuspecting bowl. For those of you who kayak (Wiggs), I'd propose a class of 5 for the churning and boiling fury which easily wooshes down anything which isn't attached to the bowl sides with 24-hour cured epoxy. Even then, I shudder to think of the havoc a second flush would inevitably wreak. The high quality wooshage combines with the German's impeccable attention to the cleanliness of all bathrooms, at least public, and those private ones I've seen.
Following the torrent, I attended to getting my swell on in a Gym with as many rooms as I've ever seen in one. It's like the difference between sitting in the middle of the restaurant floor, and taking on the intimacy of a booth. But the feeling of closeness quickly resolves when one notices that tattoos and shirts proclaim a mindset of vigor and exertion: "genetic freak," "hunter-killer, "crusher." I felt like the skinny guy getting pushed around by the bullies, and wondered if I should paint "incredible hulk" somewhere visible on my body, just to blend with these heathens.
Tomorrow night is spin class, and my hotel shower is the most ergonomically designed I've found for the shaving of lower extremities. In the biking spirit, aided by the fact that live coverage of the tour is on channel 11 each day, I settle in to study the gazillion road signs for the written driving test tomorrow at 7:45a. At 9:51 in the evening, I look out my window to glimpse dusk and the five identically-square windows set into the roof of the house across the way, pondering the glorious light which will surely bathe the rooms of my own rented house.

071008

Yesterday's Driving Class: Two people were in it with me. It was taught by a woman who's been an army wife, in Germany, for the last 23 years. Her mannerisms were entirely too engaging and the three hour explanation of the gazillion signs, and right-of-way descriptions went by quite likety-split. During break, someone was racing a time trial in the Tour.

Yesterday's Spin Class: The bikes were yellow, the saddles where equipped with gel covers which provide an individual bump for each cheek to be buoyed by. I had no water, which was a mistake, as the only fans in the room pointed towards the ceiling. The Spin Instructor counted down to different positions we were to assume over the bike: locking, hover, and standing. It wasn't periodized, and had no specific structure but the whims of the teacher, but there was this cool video of St Croix's streets on a big screen in front of the class. The speed of travel along the streets on the video was entirely too constant, but the vistas were nice; and the left and right bottom of the TV had a one-quarter bulls-eye reflection off the screen which kept expanding and contracting as I bounced up and down on my bike. Between the video, the "3-2-1...", and the bull's-eye , I was distracted enough to complete the hour. Then I managed one front and two side planks with Yodel 2 and MadCardio.

Dream: Last night's dream was a kick in the direction which leads to insanity and confusion. Hence the designation "dream." It started with me as a part of a threesome of men who would violate this beautiful woman. I remember myself excited about upsetting the whole idea, and I bounded down the brown steps of one building up onto the red and pink ones of another.
I met her as she came out of a hanging basket full of fluffy fabrics, and she descended naked, beautiful, and absolutely uncaring of her vulnerable sumptuous body displayed. She descended, and I bowed, and she headed off up the stairs to the elevators, which were woven square baskets with 3 foot walls and huge handles which arced overhead when one entered the fluffly fabric interior, similar to that of the basket she originally descended from. I remember admiring her, walking in front of me up the spiral stairs to the elevators atop a tower, like the top of a slide. I recognized someone in the other elevator, but it was just this woman and me. No words passed between us as we entered the basket, and I was able to glimpse the beginning of the love-making, but not the entire, nor the end.
Again we arrived in a huge cave, where two warriors made out of black present boxes where casting an army of knights into the air, and against the walls, to their deaths. I remember seeing from the uppermost roof, and a night twisted towards me at a terrible rate, then slow-motion gripped the scene. He spun towards me, but his rotation slogged on as his face opposed mine. He knew he was to die from the sudden stop at the end of the fall, and took his sword and sawed through his metal helmet into his head, and sawed down to the nose on his face. He seemed determined to be in charge of the way his neurons would fire last.
That's all I can ring from the cloth of this dream.

Day: Last night I performed the death-like sleep state brought on as a byproduct of the urge to do stuff in a new place, the jet lag associated with a 6 hour timezone change, and the inability to fall asleep without a fan as I've always done.
This morning, Yodel 1 drove me the housing office. Once I dealt gently, but firmly, with the extreme inefficiency of the GermanHatingGerman, I toured a single house. It offered two garages (bad idea, will clarify later...) and the entire upper floor, which was nothing but two bathrooms, a balcony, 4 or 5 other rooms, and a humongous backyard. The owner said that I could have two cats, no problem, but mentioned that he wanted me to keep them indoors as his 5 were out. I was worried about my cats fighting with his until I glimpsed the sheer girth of his favorite, a behemoth which could be safely taunted with no recourse from a distance of 3 feet, for it probably couldn't move its roundness. I need only remind my cats not to get below him/her on a slope, while its spine was perpendicular, and things would be alright.
The more I think about it, the more I want it. It's well within my price range.
Next we went to the office in which my electric orange Crocs caused a small stir. I've already found two who ride road bikes (the pedaling kind). I'm learning more about everything from the unit, to favorite restaurants, to the number of languages a Specialist studies while her little one is watching TV on the weekends.
From there I headed to the Yellow Ribbon Room to utilize the free internet. I answered emails and found that my little boy had come down from the tree he raced up. Mama told him not to go up into the tall ones if he couldn't manage the descent, but I'm sure he'll disregard that. My little girl fell into the sun roof of Ma's car, again. Ma says that the sunroof will now be closed permanently to prevent any more kitty head-dives to the upholstery below. I thought I trained her better...
In the internet room, I met BlondandBlueEye. Her Husband is here for some training, and works with Jag. She mentioned that she was from Pheonix and had chaperoned some foreign children into the Havasu Falls area of the Grand Canyon. How rad! I had been there and could discuss just such grand cascades of Earth's perspiration. She mentioned that her knees have never been the same, and when questioned about it, I figured it was the problem Aunt B and I had suffered at one point or another: a patellar tracking problem. I told her the steps to rehab it and told her it couldn't hurt to try. She asked what I did, and excitedly told me that her husband talks of nothing else but his desire to fly. He even makes bunches of little model helicopters and places them all over their house back in the states. I gave her some ideas of where to get information for pre-learning some of the information I had before I trained, pending his acceptance into WOCS of course.
Then back to the office to talk about cars, see CliffTwo, and hitch a ride back to the Zur Windmuhle (The Windmill, a hotel with a large one out front) where I'm staying for the time being.
At 7p I walked downtown as the sun was still in the process of setting (it's light until very late here). Saw a bike shop and took a picture for Grute. Saw some rides and buildings for the purpose of a carnival.
I also learned that there is a Wii version of the game Cranium. OOOOOOhhh!
When things seem to shift around like they have in the last few months, I enjoy the constant of something. I have chosen the movie: The Island. I watch it when something major occurs in my life. I have successfully begun my assimilation and acceptance of my new job/lifestyle, and have therefore granted myself a viewing.
They've just escaped from the living silos at Merrick institute.
Fav Pics 583, 589.

071208
Last night, after a day of cell phone comparisons, in two languages, I managed a fine purchase of a phone. The masculinity of it (and, perhaps by association, Me) has been called into question as the description "cute" has been applied by more than one Fraulein of Caucasian persuasion. This is unacceptable. I have attempted in vain to describe such manly characteristics, but the joke still holds. Sadly I already signed a monetarily spicy contract and cannot easily get out of it. But the phone works for what I need, and the ladies will hopefully give up their jesting.
We went to some restaurant inside a walled-in city. Beautiful in its ancient architecture, ringing went the bells, we meandered by people on bikes and on foot who labored with this cart, or stood to crank up some incline.
I had cooked chicken smothered in Currey, topped with indian rice and a salad on the side. I feel I will get fat in this country.
Next it was back to the Yodel's for a chance to let the belt-lines loosen, and to enjoy what became a heated, gender-divided game of Cranium. The dudes came from behind to come within one of winning, while the chics took every opportunity to rub this in our faces. But these people will all be here for a while, and further finals will inevitably be played. I am not concerned.

This morning we head to Nuremburg to see, among other sights, the location of the trials for lethal and infamous crimes. I awoke to check the weather and visually inquire as to the grub situation downstairs where the Continental Breakfast is usually arranged. B said we were going to wait for Dee-fence-drive. Dee-fence-drive has something both B and I covet: a car. Ours is still in shipment, and mine will apparently arrive some late day in August!
I grabbed a loaf of round bread, no larger than a Dunkin' Doughnut, cereal, yogurt, butter, two glasses of OJ and Milk. They no longer inquire as to my desire for either Coffee or Tea. I've turned them down continually, and will continue to do so, until I have a desire to try the tea. Coffee has too bitter a taste for me, and I need no more electricity in my system.
There was a group of Italians sitting at a table Northwest of where my breakfast things were piled. The server, an older woman who works hard and delivers coffee or tea on the fly, asked her usual question. I ended up translating into Spanish, from her broken English, for the Italians to order 3 coffees, 2 with cold milk, one with hot milk. Next I translated from their Italian (similar enough to Spanish) to English which I pronounced clearly and slowly (two conditions of the language I rarely seem to adopt anyway). She understood, they thanked me and received what they wanted. I was then amazed by how the room quickly filled with people entering the room with a "Bongiorno."
I'm extremely psyched to learn German. And I'd like to manage my time to learn a few other languages. I feel Italian is close enough to Spanish, with which I have some familiarity. French requires a rolling of the inner tongue I have yet to manage, but that will come.
***
I'm not really sure what happened, but I'm not sure the font Courier New still holds the same grip and place in my heart. I'm just running over some limits, and I practice them by furiously typing them onto the computer screen. This action allows me to think of them, say them as I type them, and of course see them on the screen. But I just had a paradigm shift of affection for the aesthetic of Calibri (Body). I'm going to try it for a while to see if its sleek simple design appeals to me for the long term. If not, I will endeavor to find the perfect font for me.

One of the best responses I heard yet in Germany: it was yesterday while conferring with the T mobile rep.
"do you follow the Tour?"
"oh, you know, fractionally."

071308

There is an even and frosty layer of fungus on the crust of the bread I removed in order to construct a sandwich. Needless to say a loaf change is in order...

I was mistaken. I mentioned that I figured there would be nothing that could put up against the onslaught of sloshing caused by pushing the button above the toilette. But a layer of baby powder took the first stress-fest like a pro, and only after three more flushes did it diappear entirely from the side of the bowl. How did the baby powder get there? That, my friends, requires a story.

I awaited Quiet's call, and once it came, headed down and hopped into the back seat of Dee-fence-drive's car. We were whisked to the Bahnhof at which we bought 21 Euro tickets to catch the express train to Nurnberg (Nuremburg). I was introduced to ticket purchasing at the kiosk, and could probably manage it again if I needed to now.
The train rocketed us through a scenic country to arrive late 16 min late for the Cooco-clock's showy performance at noon. Our goal was to get off the train and meander into the old town encircled by city walls, cut the diameter to cross the River Pegnitz, and then move laterally as our eyes attracted us to shiny things for us to investigate. The moat around the old town was prodigious, and I wondered about the optimum width and depth of such a moat. Is there a template or equation describing relationships to widths and depths? The relationship of a circle's circumference to its diameter can be described as Pi. What is taken into account when deciding on the width and depth of the moat if your walls are y tall and x thick?
Small shops immediately enticed us with their novelties and clever use of space. Most of the people inside these shops spoke transactional English. But to my detriment, I still speak 3 or 4 words of German. Crash-course and follow-on German classes will begin next week for me. I CANNOT WAIT!
The walls of an art building loomed in front of us and dazzled us with its architecture. Further moseying lead us past a slew of sex-related stores. Upon investigation, I found it to be exactly the same as those in the states. Some things never change.
Churches loomed over the skyline in most directions. Huge dark spaces with stained glass windows. I'm totally done writing for now. For some reason, writing for me is difficult. And I think of how much an attempt at describing something weakens it true first-hand experience. Now, I love to pass on experience and knowledge whenever I can, but right now I feel selfish and hope to continue this tale later.

Saw a man STOP running. The amount of time that one spends running, it's hard to spot someone who has come to the end of a jog or a saunter. But I saw one.





I am continually amazed by the attention to detail in the Water Management of German towns. Granite ditches, grating, culverts are only a few of the tactics they apply.

071408
Just got back from a car ride with Bo Diddly and Mr Morphine to an unpronounceable (until I've taken more German) hamlet to retrieve my hotel key from a Water Closet. I'd been keenly in need of one on a run Sunday evening. I sat down, had a glorious depressurization of the organs, and then gotten up to close up shop and run home. Suffice it say, I ran back about 4 miles and realized only then that I had no key.
The hotel manager told me I had to find it. I couldn't really explain to his German satisfaction what faux pas I had perpetrated. He saw me again this morning and asked if I had found the key. I told him no, that I would try to reacquire it today. He said it was "necessary," and I agreed, as he was not privy to my lack of personal transportation. This is where Bo and Mr Morphine entered the picture.
I have just turned in the spare keys (much smaller and more comfortable on a run then the monstrous bauble on the usual set), as well as a statement of non-availability to the kid at the desk with nice cheek bones. From it they can sift that I will be here for another 10 days and not to worry about being paid, as they SHALL be reimbursed at a later date by Uncle Sam.
I plan to read a chapter outside, study (probably inside), then do some pushups and abdominal action, then whatever.

071708
I've been thinking about writing for the last little while, and the flood gates seem to be held back by the phrase: look, it's not like I care what other dudes do.
Truth be told, the common theme or tactic of other men is to pursue women with intellectual upper handedness, assuming that their rescue is the best for the woman at hand. Where as I manage to find things out when I ask them intellectual questions. But for some reason, I feel less apt and/or willing to engage in any questioning.
Holy shit, I feel really alone.
Ahh. just threw on some queen and eased the shit out of my spastic mind! Life is good.
I just need reminding.
So I get burned out by OTHERS and their METHODS. I know this shouldn't happen, and probably reflects some sort of lack on my part (lack of self respect, lack of attention to forwarding my life and experience...). Now I'm just bitching.
I'm totally missing my cats. Last night (anoche) I constructed a conglomerate file of their images. I must view it now. Truth be told, I'm ecstatic to move into the new house, and all I can think about is making it habitable for two little babies. And I'll have to train them to stay away from certain parts of the yard, etc. But I really miss them that badly.
Sometimes I hate on myself (I'm sure I do that too often) for not writing. But really, it's not like everything I miss is a show-stopper. Frankly, my life is full of things to be done and seen, and I've taken that to heart and attempted breadth of experience. So even if I write once every six months when the moment grabs my fingers to the keys. The things I write about passionately are just as good if not superior to those things which I experience and feel not the urge to write about.
I keep studying a bit and then going out for the entire night. I really must buckle down to it. But I don't want to burn out. There is no reason. This is the real thing now.

071708
All I know is that there's a weak point to every room.
And while I'm not sketch, I have a point of fragility, a point which brings me to my knees when the wind from the alps blows up my sleeve and down my spine. It's this clock I've heard of, only I'm not sure that it really exists. But when you're on a downward turn from your last tank, you realize that there's no harm in believing something without any reason behind the believing. It's like all those fuckers who believe there's a god. It brings some to kill others, it brings others to help some, but in the end, it's the shred of meaning onto which these crabs are inclined to clasp.
Who knows what kinds of battles I must win. I find that these days, most of them are in me. But it's hard to have a battle with the kinds of demons which seem hard-wired to the system. There's always good with the bad, so I'm focused on a goal which finally gives me solace. Where I have to go to find this grand ticker isn't clear. Frankly I'm not sure if I read it in a book, ask a stranger on a street, or enter into some lethal limbo with a pair of horse thieves. But I'm determined, and that's all it takes nowadays. That's what most don't understand about their gods. Somehow we're being selected away from determined minds. It's those who hit it big that others can't imagine how they got there, and know from past genetic experience that they should want the same thing, but somehow can't. All we need is determination, and existence is a byproduct. I'm determined, and I want to center my being around this clock. Why the hell not?
I've seen worse done with more. So I wanted to pick through the seashells on the beach and say that this is what I'll do from here on in. On in to where? It doesn't really matter to me how I get to the clock, I just have to.


071808
You can't capture everything, every day, all the time...but you can sure as the deluge try.
Off to the south. Good luck wish me.

072208
It really sucks when a body cannot locate a cherished tool: the leatherman wave.
Fuck it, I used a key.
Bed now, shed those things which, today, gave you fresh strains, for tomorrow is another crack at it.

PLEASANT EYE OF THE SUN
There's nothing more sacred than a sunset over mountains,
With colors, it cuts like a knife.
But with its setting, it brings to life a monster looming.
The mountain enjoys the warmth of its own sun on the back,
And stands tall to measure the heights of hopes and the stars.
Whether it stands jagged, or whether it lounges curved,
Its size belies the gentle warmth of its gaze over the valley, when the sun rises for another time.
Who are those who seek the moutain?
They are the wandering human forms which incorporate a piece of some shard which crashed down from the same mountain.
Likes attract their similars.
Water brings them together.
And at the end of the day when the human mountain crumbles,
There will be anew the lights of sunrise on a distant developing being,
Bound to return to the mountain again,
All under the vigilant, pleasant eye of the sun...


Whether you wander with wonder or wander with anger is directly related to the breadth of your mind.

CONTINUALLY ON MY PENINSULA
The sloth crept up my feet, but still I held.
The cold slithered up to my groin, I grimaced but sat determined.
The shivers crept to my diaphragm, and then I dove.
Awake flashed my senses, a slight panic gripping my cerebellum.
A breath in cold is like a strong sneeze reversed.

Stroking powerfully, looking down into the green glimmering waters,
I sighted continually on my peninsula.
There held respite for the short moment until my swimming return.
The joy of laying and rolling in water prepared me to endure this.
I took each breath as if it was my last.

My head began to spin as the cold water replaced the air pocket insulating my eardrum.
But I knew my spine to be straight, and trusted its arrow-like guidance.
Pulling out, standing stupid, diving in, I returned the favor to the water I had pushed this way,
Hoping to leave it undisturbed when I slithered out on the rocky shore where I began.

My head spinning, I stumbled to the sun-soft towel.
Nothing ached but my diaphragm and the top layer of skin cells.
They would heal, the pain would subside,
And I'd lay to roll through the water another day...



When correcting a person, one must enter one's cognitive brain-child to reference mistakes made. Once one can be identified which, upon lightning inspection, resembles that of the perpetrator, one may enlighten that person to the point of quiet resolve, and a change is made. Of course this may not always work, for the mind is wont to return to old ways it knows well. That's when inspiration must be injected, for only in inspiration may a change of behavior be sustained. Duh.

GLADLY DROWNING WITH ANOTHER
Engaging in dance is like a waterfall tendered to another.
You do your best to slosh as they swish,
To spin as they twist,
And the best dancers know only too well that they are coming ever so close to being at peace with the other's body.
But on the psyche, this has the binding effect.
It's a visual you're not alone.
This weekend, my body was spoken to thusly,
And my bones have not forgotten her challenge.
I am now even more dexterous with my own waterfall,
And as I sweetly bathed another, she returned with a deluge of her own construction,
And we gladly drowned together.


blog or something: my travels with a hung. it would be novel. i would put the smallest things from how my cats reacted to its shape, to how it allowed me to be received in group situations.
called "hang time" an explanation of the name of the blog could be given in one of the opening publishes, but three of four down...



Tonight,
I saw bales of hay wrapped in plastic blue, the shape of the marshmallow my brother swallowed, the color his face turned when it lodged in his trachea. There were trails piercing thickets of green. A young man was posing for a picture; posing for his lady's love, posing with his own aesthetic in mind. Old couples rode their bikes slowly, and wrinkled in years of affection. I saw open doors, and a man whose lip quivered as he fabricated audible vibrations which answered my query about a local pool. I saw the telecommunications tower of Ansbach piercing the sky like a hypodermic needle. Legions of Aztec warriors with green feathers in headbands replaced the stalks in cornfields. A mammoth cylinder of wood, roughened with sandpaper and turned at regular intervals on a lathe, was then rolled into tan dirt replaced the swaths of grain. Cats scouted out hides for rodents. I wondered if this awe would last...


072408

I rather think a broken glass defers me to my dreams,
For when the glass had not a tear,
Its shiny edge did gleam.
But when it lay upon the floor, thus broken with the fall,
Who let it go? Who tried to catch?
Matters almost naught at all.

The thing which slices lemons to limes,
The thing which turns my head,
It isn't force, or men prosaic,
But the weaving of glass into a mosaic.


STUPID BUGGY
This bug had died, skin and all
Down in my backpack pocket
I didn't crush it, or maybe I did,
But there was no lock to lock it.

I remember last night, hearing buzzing,
Then naught.
As I walked into the parking lot.

But never a care did it drivel from me,
Il;ja;lkjsdl;kjasdf
gone
flow gone
shit
lk
A bug jus died and I can think of nothing well to say to mark its passing.
Uncool.
I do like it's multifaceted eyes. I wonder if that was a trait evolutionarily weeded out due to incompatibility. I've been brought to tears by beautiful sights, so powerful they made my breath stop in my lungs. I've seen vistas which made me feel so connected, but lost me in their vastness. But all I saw was the brain's construct of whatever my lens focused on the neurons in my eyes. There seems to be a direct relationship between complexity and the potential for overload. I'm sure the deluge handed off to my brain from the number of heart-stopping images focused by those multifaceted lenses would certainly cause a state of catatonic shutdown. Who knows, on some days, I would invite that.
It's like any other extreme. But the real question is: could I find my way back from the abyss? Who the freakin hell knows... I'm glad for evolution.

********************

I have to go set up my will, power of attorney. But I think it should be in two places, so I shall write some stipulations here. I want my remains incinerated and tossed into a can which is to be sunk into the Marianna Trench. And if a gravestone is to be erected in my worthless honour, it shall be in the shape of a Tupperware container. I've realize that the body can only perform with energy, provided by the breaking of bonds in the various forms of sustenance I munch. And while I've spent the majority of my time eating out in this fine country, I think it's time I stop craving food at the local market, and begin harboring a stash to munch upon a whim. I usually carry things with me in my travels, on my flights, and it needs to be compartmentalized, especially so as not to tarnish or debilitate the foods scrumdiddly-umptiousness. Therefore, a small choir assembled and sang a saintly note to honour my purchase of my first Tup in Germany. As such, I can revert back to the old ways. It is for this reason, and the part it has played in my life, that I nominate/command Tupperware as the structure of my gravestone. Hell, make it out of pink granite and polish it up so it gleams in the sunlight, to tell all passersby that here lies (or would have, had I not been burned to ashes, then crushed by PSI at depth) a lover of Tupperware. Grr.
Tonight I chatted with MTPman. He knows a lot, and I hope to sponge up most of that knowledge. I've taken him running once, and he has a fit pair of legs underneath him. But he lacks the periodization mentality I think quintessential to the fabrication of a fine training schedule.
Freakin a. Nurmberg manana. Some German studies tonight.
Peace
I have a wee cough that gives me frustrations and makes me feel feeble. OJ I say, OJ's the way to a healthier me.

072108
I've not really had the experience of what I would call an "off night" on the town. But there's a first for everything and I'm rather proud of how I handled it all. Tonight tanked for the dancing, but was kept up hopping with the number of women we chatted with.
I have little talent for the creating, but I must say that I've got a mad crush on a woman untouchable and more than perfect. This allows me to use her as a primer and to move on in search of the one for me!
Giddyup.
I feel so crappy about it that I must look at pictures to ease the frustration.
Rocking. I also SERIOUSLY miss my Kitties. I will gander pics of them before I turn in.
No. I'll be nice to my broken body and turn in now!
Night. it's 5:31 am

072708
I have no idea why, but I'm into the brand name buying right now. I'm trying to look more European, and the attempt has been laughingly looked down upon by a group of German woman we met at the club this past weekend in Nurnberg. One of them will take me shopping. I find that communication with her is really enjoyable. 1. I must speak slowly and clearly, which has an overall calming effect on me. 2. I watch her body-language intently, watching for the slightest hint of misunderstanding, at which point, I circumlocute, restate, etc. I am learning German slowly, so there are German words she puts in the conversation which she knows I know.
The best example of the process involved with learning a new language is in the movie "the 13th warrior."
Every night I go out, one thing I do is find someone who is willing to say German words or phrases so that I may repeat them. They usually find it funny, and the ones who take the time on a Saturday evening to instruct me in pronunciation are usually quite fun to hang with. I intersperse these lessons with dancing, drinking, etc, but my goal is to slide my tongue around this language.

When I listen to a powerful song, it paints shivers up my spine with a soft brush. It perks the animal in me to quickly consider killing or caressing. I find my weight supported if only I am standing, and lean back with arms outstretched. I close my eyes knowing full well that the sounds will hold me at a comfortable angle. That's how I feel when a powerful song lulls me into a calm.
But if a powerful song quietly rouses the strength in my being, it takes on a more wavelike shape. It still approaches from behind me, and breaks as a wave. The break gently bends me forward and cushions my tuck into a roll which bears me on a level path. I become the circular shape of a rolling tube of water. But the water is warm and has no bubbles or foam. My eyes close, my hands tuck in, and there is no stretching or straining, just rolling and rolling.

072808
At the Biergarten in Ansbach, I got pleasantly toasted off of 3 beers, ate two stakes, and managed another Coke/Sprite mix called Speitz. Bob got pissed at the number of yellow-jackets hovering traffic patters around the opening of his Speitz. He began to flick at them. I thought this humourous, until he actually hit one and it shot off on a trajectory spectacularly perpendicular to the table and parallel to the long axis of the bottle. Then I really started crying in laughter. We spent the rest of the evening chatting about women, flying, and hanging out in public places. I told him I should count down the next time he flicked one. He gave me a heads up before he roughly flicked the next one, and my stomach hurt. My cough intensified, but I didn't care: I had a few beers in me, and Bobby had just flicked a yellow-jacket towards the sky.

073008
I got no words, but I DO have a serious cough.
Watched CLOSER.
Felt no closer...

073008
This morning I woke up having dreamt about my current favorite sport: triathlon. But it was a bizarre triathlon. Allow me to explain...
I arrived late and tried to find a place to put my bike in transition, on a peninsula of bike racks. The area was sandy and pock-marked with holes, and I was nervous that I'd run too far in T1 to find my bike, and then would have to backtrack. I had to borrow another competitor's pump, and quickly ran over to the swim start, only to find that they were far ahead of me. Just before I was about to jump in and lay a line of chase which would jut to the school of swimmers, I realized that they were coming back in. I whirled on a spectator, confused, and this person directed me to the other end of the transition at which the actual swim start was. Before I was about to jump in, I noticed a bunch of people who were bobbing towards the shore. I watched them get out and noticed that they all had some metal attachment around their necks, like a spring with studs. Further above that, in their mouths, they had two metal bars clenched in their teeth. They showed me that if they rocked their heads back and forth, to twang the metal bars at the right angle, the bars would deeply resonate through the clenched teeth, up the cheek bones, and administer a calming set of vibrations to the user. But they only wanted the vibrations to be concentrated in their heads, and a very specific vibration at that, and they mentioned that the salinity and temperature of this water would yield the desired effect. When queried about the name of such a thing, they mentioned that it was called "Kora." I woke up then, and was annoyed that I hadn't dreamt of swimming, for I felt it would have been quite a beautiful dream. But then I remembered circumstantial dreams which, when I had them, would result in me wetting the bed. They always involved me floating in the warm waters of a chlorinated pool.
Speaking of a pool, MTP and I were driven down to the Aquela where I poked a Usedtoswim. There were hundreds of people, and attempting laps was a study in sighting, as I had to pop up every few feet to check out the situation in front of me. Despite this, I only had ONE head-on collision with another swimmer.
Upon exit from the pool, MTP noticed that Usedtowswim had a book in English. I asked about it, and it was written in 2003, and made into a motion picture in 2007 starring A. Jolie. Along into the conversation, she complained about being unable to understand a word, and then missing the meaning of the entire sentence. I asked if she wanted help with their definitions. She held a finger under "outrageous," "devoured," among others. Devoured, in this context, meant to pervade a space. She then asked about "palpable," so I used a previous word "philosophical" to describe a concept which was un-touchable. Then I poked her, and told her she WAS palpable, and slightly further expounded. Major cackling from both MTP and Usedtoswim could be heard following my finger-thrusting, but she understood the meaning. Next I had two hemispheres of white rice and bottled coke, and MTP devoured a duck, rice, and vegetable dish.
When I open a two liter soda bottle, I don't cross radius over ulna to loosen the cap to remove it. I place my index and other fingers parallel to my thumb, and hold my hand, index and thumb on top. Then I use a sawing action to turn the bottle cap couterclockwise with a push along the length of my index finger, and pull along the length of my thumb. Tonight, I used the same motion for the purpose of turning something, but this something wasn't a bottle cap, but an entire glass coke bottle. If you hold a bottle within a specific mini-acute angle range (measured from the perpendicular to the flat surface), and the CG isn't too far out, upon release the bottle should rock to vertical. It is this feel for the CG, coupled with that same sawing motion that I combined to allow the bottle to quietly roll around on its edge for minutes while I kept the angle and sawing motion as a force on the bottle. It was way mesmerizing and therapeutic.

Today, but gents in the car refrained from shoving shit into my mouth while I slept leaning back against the rear seat in the van. Alright! I get it...I look like a retard when I sleep.

073108
Tonight I went tanning with Bo Diddly. We spent a bit figuring out which of the machines I should get into.

IF I WERE A TIMELINE, WOULD I BE KNOTTED?
To speak about the future,
Is a game to most, not few.
To plan without the future,
'Tis the lot of those who knew.

But knowing what the future is,
And being unable to tell?
Is the lot of a woman Cassandra,
And her individual hell.

I know not of the past,
I care not for its siren's call.
I drink in what's been passed,
Having never known I'd lived at all.

And when I level my body for rest,
I simply ask this one request.
It's to be heeded, not so repressed:
I wish this known to all the rest;

That when I lay me down to die,
My heart it holds one hope:
To know that I, not when, or why,
Had climbed life's beautiful, knotted rope.



080108
get "everybody's changing"
These are the names of my landlordess and lord: alferia, udo
Capitalize on what I know. Learn what I don't.

Last night MTP and I moved ourselves, via car, to Nϋrnberg, for a night at El Focόn for a night of Salsa and Meringue. It was more than I expected, and I learned from some sexy looking women. The others I watched, were as beautiful as watching a great painting that moved.

I've heard of paintings, scenes in time,
Which evoke the strongest emotions.
They rock the heart, they roll the mind.
They effect like an explosion.

But take a painting, melt it down,
And look at what you see:
A group of people dancing 'round,
Their feet move swift; lively.

I can't take credit for the above lines of crap. I wrote them while listening to beautiful music. It was the music which allowed me to write down such emotions. Plus it really is shit. I don't feel any of it today.
Hopefully I'll head to IKEA to find out what they can do for the spaces in my house. I'm waiting for some to come down from their hangovers. Nothing like a good poisoning to waste the day.

IKEA eluded our consumerist hands, and the directions I received began to seem more like heresy than actual pinpoint intentions. Just before throwing in the towel and returning on Autobahn 6, we halted to ask some gas station personnel in Nϋrnberg. The teller spoke no English, and my prononciation for IKEA had nothing she could draw a similarity to in Deutch. I managed to wrest the name of the town from here brains, and then managed to locate it cardinally by remembering the lyrics of the first and only German song gay college roomy taught me. She said it was in the east of Nϋrnberg, and the dude behind me expounded by giving me directions down the road, to the third light. The blond next to him told him she was going that way. So I took the keys and chased after them in a hurry. And that's when it happened.
There happened to be five in the small car in front of us. At once, the blond stamped the breaks, and came to a stop behind a massive bus, but far enough from the curb to indicate that she only intended to sojourn. Being my guide, I followed her every move, including this one, like a toddler following a mother. Then all of a sudden, the dude hopped out of the front seat of the car with a coke bottle in his hand. This he set on the ground, but he had no such gentle intentions for its red cap, which he drop kicked. The flash of red sailed in a bow-curve toward the grass on the other side of the paved sidewalk. Almost before it came to settle, he was back in the car with the bottle snatched up in his right hand, and the blond was back in traffic. I gave pursuit.
At a stoplight, their volume was high enough to be noticed, so I mimed my best Travolta to make a musical connection with them. These kind of connections are hard to make, but can draw a feeling of intimacy between total strangers if conveyed correctly. The back-seated boy turned and laughed at my seated hand motions, and the front-seater casually jabbed at the turn we were supposed to make. Like that, we separated, and we became lost again almost as quickly. Well, perhaps not lost, but with no reference or comfort that we were gaining on IKEA, it was as good as thrown.
My groin has reached the itchy healing stage from the burn it received courtesy of the UV lights cocooned around me in the tanning bed this past Thursday. I plan to instigate the production of melanin again this week, but at less duration in a beginners' bed.
The ebb and flow of Matthew Good Band washes over me and sloshes me into a calm evening.
I just had the desire to munch frost flakes. Tearing open the box top yielded something smuggled just on the top of the bag of flakes, which probably cost more to make and package than the flakes underneath. Upon opening, I found it to be an Indiana Jones emblazoned, plastic spoon, complete with stamped spider on the concave of the spoon, and red LED in the handle to illuminate those sugary flakes for consumption. Then handle is a small version of some Sought American column, complete with large, robot-featured faces. This is cause for celebration.

I had a dream in which I was an artist. I didn't actually paint, or sculpt, but noticed and had cornered the market on a specific type of morbidly unique canvas, which had come under the desirous eye of those whose money is bottomless, but whose want for explosive novelty is never-ending. Currently my artwork was en vogue. They sold for five-hundred thousand dollars each, and NO two were alike.
My method was parasitic on a Don in Nicaragua who ran a prosperous trade in, and had vertical control of the production of, white haze powder which was shipped to the States in quarter ton "bales."
He ran a ruthless business, and had only attained his position through backstabbing and treachery until no one would stand in his way. Like any corporate engine, he had cogs which did not pull their weight, or had committed an unforgivable act against the machine in which they turned. The Don's henchmen carried out the investigation and detention of these persons, while the Don himself made sure he was present, and mentioned the final words to those who would be disposed of in a matter of seconds. That's where I came in.
My workers would have the unwitting job of setting out sturdy easels on which to affix white canvases, blank except for my signature in black indelible in the bottom right corner. The position of these easels was no mistake, and I operated in parallel with the Don's infrequent disposals, "cleansings" he called them. My workers would witness the Don's final words to the victim, and position him in front of his own individual canvas so that his brains and blood would be scattered, uniquely covering each canvas, after the bullet fulfilled its only purpose at point blank range.
The body would crumple lifeless to the ground, but my workers would ignore it, instead dash over to the easel and set it down flat, or at a slight angle so that the blood would only run a little, or not at all. Once having been dried in the sun, a sealant would be sprayed over, and it would processed for shipping to my wealthy consumers in the states, who would most likely be sniffing white powder, the price for which was untold thousands, and the life and brains of the victim on the canvas they admired so stupidly.

080408
Sometimes I write to pass a drizzling day. Sometimes it's because I'm feverish and expect my body to rend screaming if I don't let the pressure release. But it's usually for the purpose of the capture of a moment or a thing. Quick as a well placed arrow, clean as a hunter's blade. I expect nothing more from the act than time; time to dabble in something beautiful.
Above me a bird balances on a high tension wire, escaping the lethal shock because it forms no attachment to the ground. It must measure a quarter mile between towers, but none of the lines are populated except for the one with the lone bird.
At first I thought it was gazing at the sunset, but then I realized it was efficiently oriented aerodynamically into the wind. Turning around would cause a loss of easy balance, and perhaps a drop towards these shorn wheat fields. Even these fields I stand in are wavy with their plantings. The high tension lines stand out against the sky because they are so regular. Their lines hang in a flawless curve, connecting insulator to insulator.
The bird makes small adjustments of its tail for the maintenance of CG.
Here I lean against bales which edge me out with their diameters. The perfume of their damp, cleaved stalks is intoxicating. The clouds float as if the largest of smoke signals were being created by the most zeppelin of natives, with a moist swath of cloth.
I like the space here. The pink clouds peak over the red roofs of Bavaria. And I hate the mechanical giant which arranged these cylindrical bales in piles perpendicular to these slopes. I think it would be exceptional if I could dodge in and out of them as they all lumbered down this hill like a heard of Clydesdales. I would risk no goring if I mistakenly judged the distance, only a heavy thunk, followed by a crushing weight which would squish me into this soft earth. O what a depression it would make!
A hawk sits on the topmost bale across the field. He can have my bales and adjacent land to scan, having the superior acuity. Plus, even IF I managed to ensnare a rat in my talons, I would have the foggiest idea what to do with it.

I just had a thought, while reading about authenticating self in Psychology Today. It was a memory, actually, about a discussion at the table of a restaurant in Steinach, just a train ride from Ansbach with the Head Start class. I was seated at a table with The Moos and two chaplains. One the colour of deep coffee beans, the other the colour of warm mahogany. One catholic, the other protestant.
In conversations, I find it telling to adopt a neutral stance, whether I know something about the topic or not. I remember Meg laughing at me when I energetically questioned a dude we met at the Gillsum about climbing. He told it fresh and from a newcomer's perspective, but rather than mention my knowledge on the topic, I tried to wring more information about his experience with casual but thoughtful questions. The more I questioned, the brighter his eyes became in the telling. This is how I questioned the chaplains. I simply asked them to take the tougher stance as I questioned what they believed.
The Hispanic Chaplain told me that he wanted to fill, instead of the usual state-side niche, one in a country in which he could bring his protestant word to a population not privy to such tidings. He wanted to make a difference, and thought he could better serve god there.
To this end, he held weekly prayer meetings in which he would instruct Koreans on god's word, through the protestant strainer. I asked him about how lucky it must be to have a destination planned out after his death, like a vacation getaway after the work on this earth. He told me it was such a blessing, and then laughingly told me about a Hindu Monk he posed the after-death question to. His words were broken by further fits of laughter when he noted the monk pointed toward the flames of a fire nearby, and then the smoke above it. He said "how could he live like that?! Expecting to turn into smoke!? That's REDICULOUS." I was amazed at how strongly his mind was fixed to a set of rules by divine inspiration. How close minded? How mesmerizing to see a living being who honestly thought his unfounded beliefs were better than that of another, when neither had support, just lofty conjecture. It was amazing to watch him cackle next to me. And I realized that I must bask in this moment, for I love to watch a man caught in the gutter of his own belief. This man's gutter is fashioned from granite, which I had not the time to chip, but could only gaze at in wonder. I don't understand people like this, and have promised to attentively watch their ways to learn more about things I cannot fathom. If, in the human experience, PERSPECTIVE could be quantified as a single number at a point in time, it would be exactly equal to the number of human beings living on this planet at that given time.

080508
How are you sir?
Good. You?
Another day in paradise...
What do you like most about this paradise?
Oh, sorry. I wasn't sarcastic enough about the paradise part.

Malicious sarcasm never gives me a warm-fuzzy about the person who rolled it out of themselves.

I think of flicks of the brow, shifts of weight over the feat, which

"do you understand?" is like saying "have you reassembled a complete puzzle which, to be conveyed, I broke apart into discreet bundles forming vocal vibrations, without having to force a piece into a place that didn't fit smoothly and snugly?" That provides a two-dimensional structure for ideas. I actually think ideas are multidimensional. But that's my simplified, Flatlander view of them.

Neurons have negative synapse relationships to other neurons. Broken down into its most simplified form, neurons are conveyors of messages that say "not this." When a concept is perceived, neurons fire to say that it is "not this" piece of the past experience. By saying something is "not like" another thing, it strains out possibilities of what the first thing COULD be. It's like getting a patent. One has to show how one's invention is UNLIKE any previous thing, firstly describing how their invention has a portion of it which is like this one already in existence, but showing that it is indeed FUNDAMENTALLY different.
Somehow the mind can pear down bunches of "not this" to come up with an emergent property of what something IS. So the relationship of perception to the neuronal network is like that of an operator to the abacus.
This whole argument is not freestanding without the supporting beam of the mind having a vast database of previously experienced things to compare novelties to, which would require more than a finite mind can manage (??). So there must be discreet things which have many features for comparison that the memory holds on to so that a novelty can be evaluated through negative association by the neuronal pathways. So memory and the expanse of neurons act in unison to create conceptions for the mind to notice/fathom. It's like an encyclopedia laying next to a bin filled full with sea urchins.
Goddamit, I can't freakin convey the puzzle without y'all uncomfortably forcing a piece into a spot you think it would likely fit. So you're picture is different than mine. AND I broke the fourth wall! I totally should be studying.