Here’s an example of how screwed up I am:

I met a lady at work who lived in the Washington, DC metro area for a while. She lived there longer than I did. We were talking about all things Washington, DC, and she told me a story about how - through a friend of a friend of a friend - she ended up at a party thrown by members of the Dupont family (as in Multi-national chemicals and health care, I guess), and how there were Senators and Congressmen there and so on, and it was a huge, grandiose and swanky affair, and she felt slightly out of place, but she showed grace and got on quite well and actually connected and so on and so forth.

Somehow, after that, we got to talking about the monuments in DC. And we talked about the World War II Memorial. Then I completely took over the conversation and explained how the design for the World War II Memorial met with some controversy because people were saying it looked too much like some kind of Pagan memorial, like Stonehenge or whatever - and of course Hitler was into Pagan symbols and all that - so the people didn't want a Pagan-lookin memorial.




So I took a grand conversation - a simply grand conversation - took it over, and I plunged it into strange, strange, creepy territory - and it only took me a few seconds. I didn’t even use transitions. My new DC buddy cleared her throat and said well good seeing you and walked away.

I need to go to charm school. Or is it etiquette school?

I'm taking IQ tests and trying sample LSAT questions and looking for any other mirrors or gauges of performance, maybe I'll do the Myers-Briggs Type Indicator thing next. Still trying to find myself: my skills, my identity, my aim, my art, my abilities, my disabilities. Who am I? What do I do? What should I do? Am I just some dumb-ass fool who ought to just make as much money as possible - while I can - in order to prepare for when senility sets in? Pre-pay my looney bin tuition, save up for the rent payments at the group home.

I do this now and then: I do all of this searching - self-searching, and I gather some data, and then I do nothing with it. Sometimes you just need to check under your own hood. You just need to know your abilities and thus have indications about your options. Whether you take advantage of any of the options is another matter.

My class starts tomorrow. It's an online class. Cost me more than three hundred beans. It's a creative writing class.

The Engish Department adviser said that creative writing took a hit because of how jacked-up the budget is. You see, Florida doesn't have state income tax. And now that the real estate market has pooped in the bed - there ain't no money - and the Governor is off hangin out in DC trying to get on with the next phase of his career - and meanwhile there is a serious budget problem here in Florida. So important stuff like cops having enough bullets in their guns, firemen having enough hoses, the arts and me being able to rant and rave in a creative writing class - all - facing cutbacks. But I'm getting off track here. (Was I ever on track?)

The Engish Department adviser also said that they lost some key staff in the creative writing shop. I recently obtained a copy of their journal, Florida Review. Not much of a web page, but the actual hard copy journal really got me excited. It's a serious journal, no doubt. I hope that journal doesn't suffer because of the budget mess.

Anyway, I'm searching and searching for myself - if you see me out there sleep walking, give me a call when I wake up.

I'm creeping myself out lately and possibly worrying about nothing. I'm tempted to delete these latest blog posts about my concerns over mental health. I'm a little embarrassed. Moreover, this might be distressing or insulting to others.

Maybe there's nothing really wrong with me. Everybody gets depressed. Lots of people obsess about certain things. Being somewhat solitary is not anything terribly out of the ordinary. Moods will swing. They swing and swing. Noncompliant doesn't mean crazy. Idealistic doesn't mean out of touch with reality.

I guess it all depends on the degree of these symptoms. Maybe I should stop referring to them as 'symptoms.' What's a better word?

I've been reading about personality disorders for hours at Wikipedia. I guess schizotypal personality disorder looks promising, except for the bullshit about believing in magic. I don't believe in magic.

I was liking borderline personality disorder, but I don't think my trip is quite that intense, you know what I'm saying? "Pervasive instability in moods," they say. My mood swings aren't that pervasive, but I'm not a good judge.

As I read about schizoid personality disorder, I thought I had found my disorder. But then I read that the people who suffer from this disorder, "Harbor little desire for sexual experiences with others." That's not the one.

I guess I'll keep reading. I know I ain't right. I'll find what's ailing me.

The Cure Is Coming

The mental disorder that I have has not even been invented yet. I mean, the disorder is there (here, in me), but they have not identified it yet. They haven’t given it a name.

No, but seriously: THEY'RE SO EAGER TO STAKE CLAIMS TO NEW CONDITIONS SO THAT THEY CAN SELL YOU THE PILLS FOR THESE CONDITIONS

Maybe they’ll identify a mental disorder and diagnose me with it. (Of course they’ll have to catch me first...and drag me screaming into their office...and then plug electrodes in my ears or whatever they do.)

The DSM keeps getting revised. More definitions keep getting added. Before a lot of these disorders were identified, people just thought, Woah, I’m pretty screwed up, but that’s life.

That’s how I feel a lot of the time.

Maybe some day I’ll read a wikipedia entry or an entry at National Institute of Mental Health and realize, wow, they are describing me here. I have an identifiable, identified mental condition - albeit a minor one.

Maybe I won’t care. Maybe I won’t have health insurance at the time. Maybe the cure will come after I’m long gone.

Or maybe what I'm wondering here is: If I took a little pill, could I be a little happier?

So with Twitter, the more times you update, the more people will see your words up there, and the more chances there are of somebody clicking through on your name and following you. Right?

But if you're constantly updating, constantly sending tweets, this can serve as an annoyance to your existing followers. They might love ya and all, but they don't want to hear from you five times per minute. Especially if they've got Twitter set up on their cell phone.

Some people want to post with more frequency than others. Some people want to use Twitter pretty much like a chat room, replying to everybody they see in the main window and carrying on conversations. Other people just want to post the occasional, more potent, meaningful blasts of wisdom, or they just want to tell you what they're doing.

So I guess you have to figure out what you want out of it - just like any other social networking jank. Or don't.

And what is the true nature of following ...like following somebody without ever having contacted them first, for example... I wonder how often that happens compared to following somebody you have existing communications with. ...you just see somebody who seems interesting, and you follow them without knowing them, like stalking them almost - accepted and expected staking. This is probably the more likely and frequent scenario of the two. It's easier to just hit 'follow' on somebody without a lot of foreplay and then see how they feel about it later ...do they follow you back?

What do I want out of it? Do I want a zillion followers? I remember asking myself the same thing about blogging. Am I trying to win a popularity contest here?

Why would I post my thoughts on the WORLD WIDE WEB unless I was going for maximum exposure, you know? Or at least some exposure. I think I just want somebody - anybody out there to hear what I say.

I probably sweated off ten pounds that day. We both took a few doses at about eight o'clock in the morning. We drove to Sea Shore State Park as planned - about a forty-minute drive. So by the time we parked and got out of the car and got onto the trail, we were into it. Trippin real good.

It was hot that day, in the nineties. Neither of us brought water.

We hiked and hiked and hiked. Fast. We would stop here and there to trip out on something. Like a zillion minnows darting through a narrow section of the creek - we gawked at their skeletons, each one, we had high-speed x-ray vision. Or these scrambling little lizards with blue stripes down their backs. Or gigantic owls swooping in. Odd-shaped bald cypresses that looked like wooden ghosts, wading through the marsh, spookin. Spanish moss hanging off of everything, like old hair, or industrial spider webs, or mesh armor - it was draped over everything.

We hiked and hiked. I don't know if we spoke to anybody else on the trail, but if we did, anything we could have said would not have been in human language.

It was a bit of an athletic contest between him and me. We were really hiking hard. I think we even ran some. He'd pass me and look back and laugh. Then I'd pass him.

We hiked six hours, I guess. Then I had to go to work. I was well passed my peak, you know, but I still had not passed out of the spirit gate. So, yep. I'd go into work trippin somewhat.

At the time, I worked at a seafood restaurant on a river. I cooked shrimp and fish and crab and clams and orsters and all of it. Running the steamer was the worse. It was already a hot-as-hell day. But when you open up that steamer, the whole kitchen filled up with this stunning cloud of steam. You could just fall over dead of a heat stroke right there. There was that, the grill, the oven and the fryer to keep up with - to endure. I worked fast though. I wasn't screwing up. I was keeping up with all of the orders. If you start screwing up, you tend to hear about it quickly. But nobody was complaining. But finally, as I was preparing a plate of food, a waitress blurted out loud-as-hell, "Why are your hands shaking?"

Another week ends, and the usual time stamps apply. Mark the score card. People continue to invite me to start taking life seriously. And I'm out flying kites. Flying kites drunk. But: I don't have to kick over those trash cans every day. I'm reading and reading, but I'm wondering if a big blank empty head would be better for my purposes. In a big blank empty head, the purposes get erased. Today I made mistakes at about my usual rate. I was not fired (in other words: who cares). I was one of the last ones out of the office, and I'll be up pretty late. I will probably revise this post over and over, like I do. You'll probably receive a message from me some time soon. I'm not trying to rhyme, but there's nothing wrong with rhyming.

The house where I grew up was on the main street leading into the neighborhood. Half the people who lived in our neighborhood had to drive by our house to get home. There were two schools right across the street, and there was a park; there were three softball fields and like ten soccer fields. There was so much traffic going by.

When I stood on the porch, it felt like I was standing on a stage. No joke. I felt this weird anxiety. You had a huge audience (huge, moving audience) - with all of those cars going by. I could feel the eyes of every driver and every passenger in every car that went by. It didn't bother me until I hit my teens. I didn't like hanging around out there at all. People in school would come up to me and mention it. Yo, I saw you in your front yard and shit. You were eatin an apple. Hee hee der her ha ha hee hee.. Yo. What? Were you stoned?

Like. Maybe.

I don't know why I blogged this.

That Other Kind of Blogger - On Twitter?

Maybe I'm not happy-go-lucky enough for Twitter. Maybe I'm not together enough.

People on Twitter seem to have their lives and their mentals wired up proper as hell. They're about something, they’re on to something, they’re doing something...about...something. Tangible somethings.

I blog about how screwed up my life is. People who 'got it together' don't want to read about my stupid problems. They read other blogs so that they can get tips on their projects or get some quick laughs in between their serious business.

I mean, I'm not that screwed up. But my life isn't perfect. My mentals aren't running perfectly. Sometimes not good at all. And I like to analyze this mess - not only in the hopes of perfecting my mental state,* but because I find mental strife to be very fascinating. (*I don’t really want to perfect anything!)

I don't know if I'm clinically depressed or O.C.D. or social anxiety disorder or some joyful combination of all the above...or imagining all of it!* (*Which would be the screwiest of all!) I mean: I can function. I go to work. I love. I communicate. But I do check whether I locked the door more than once sometimes. But then again -- I am able to get some sleep secure in the knowledge that, yes, the goddam door is locked, and nobody wants to break in this dump anyway...(I am now ranging far far away from where I started this essay. This always happens.)

Twitter folks out there are very specialized. My specialty is generalist - my specialty is how screwed up I am - like - generally. I have no specialty. A specialty seems like a dark, depressing tunnel to me (and that ain't right, right?). I don’t think I can be captured with keywords (What's my problem?). I don’t subscribe to feeds (I'm a scatter-brained doofus).

Writing about my mental problems gets old though. Posting my horrible creative writing definitely gets old. I'm not that screwed up and I’m not that creative, so I run out of things to write about. Am I just repeating the same old blog posts over and over? Anybody who's read my blog for any amount of time knows my deal: Weird guy from Virginia-DC-Maryland, puts up stickers, leaves notes, explores his own neuroses, crime obsessed, thinks he knows somethin about music or art or literature but not really, loner, joker, generalist, loser, posts very strange blog posts and then takes them down shortly thereafter (like this one probably).

I guess there are some of 'my' kind of bloggers out there on Twitter. A few of my very very favorite bloggers are out there on Twitter. I was trying to convince some of my other very very favorite bloggers to go out there too. On Twitter, I hope to meet more of my kind of blogger - one of our tribe - the pensive, contemplative, mental strife tingling, artist, self-helpin, spirit-bloggin, song-of-one-self, mother-huggers* (*or whatever we would be categorized as).

Some of us out here - we’re trying to convey some serious meaning. Having only these obsolete or inadequate words at our disposal...words just don’t do it...or we run out of words...just like when cannoneers ran out of cannon balls, they jammed bits of metal down the cannon barrel: chain links, nails, knives, forks spoons, buttons, door knobs. etc...jammed it down the barrel and fired it...this is how we’re trying to use these limited words to describe...something...blam - a splatter pattern of text, trying to hit with it. Painters paint because they can’t say it with words. Some of them spraypaint. We’re out here spraying unlikely words - words that don’t go together - in the hope that they say plenty.

RANT: When All The Newspapers Fold

Where will we get our news when the newspapers go out of business? You hear story after story about layoffs and buy-outs at newspapers. I can understand why paper newspapers are taking a hit - I read all of my news online (while I’m supposed to be working.) I haven’t bought a newspaper in a long time.

So is it all going online? When you go to a newspaper online, you see these gigantic, screen-obscuring advertisements that move around, and you try to chase after the ‘X’ in the corner of the ad to close that beast out. It’s ridiculous.

What is media going to look like after all of these bankruptcies happen, and all of the buy-outs and buy-ups by huge media conglomerates...and...also with the internet neutrality issue (another scary scary thing)...what will they allow us to see on our screens?

And TV news? I gave up on TV. Almost completely. The only time I watch TV is when I'm on the treadmill at the YMCA. And when TV tries to hit me with the commercials, I unplug my ears from TV and plug them in to my iPod - no shit - while I'm running, I'm fumbling with the goddam wires, trying to get my earbuds unplugged and re-plugged at each commercial break. I won't be sold to. Sorry. TV...Cable TV... Why am I going to pay so that they can bombard me with commercials? No way I'd pay for cable TV.

So how will I find out what's going on? I guess I'll just sit in a dark room with the radio on.

I think I’m reading too much into the expressions on the faces of the folks at work lately. (I hope I am.) I mean, the expressions on the faces of the folks at work don’t look good. But I don’t think it is necessarily my fault. Without getting too specific, times are generally turbulent there - particularly in the department where I am. I always get paranoid when everybody is freakin out around me - I start thinking it’s me. Maybe it is. Maybe not. Never know until they come and take away your nice spinny chair and your stapler and kick you in your ass on your way out the door. Don’t know why I’m stressed out about the possibility of losing this crummy job. Except for the fact that I’m starting to actually make friends with a couple of cool people and I’m having some interesting conversations with more and more people. I would miss a lot of people there if they canned my ass.

CAN'T SLEEP - disorganized notes on this: causes, symptoms, etc.

Do you ever wonder if somebody is going tit for tat with you? Only you’re not aware of it. Equivalent retaliation, but you barely suspect. The game is on, but you didn't hear the ref blow the whistle. The players are running all around you, but you’re still standing there contemplating meaning in slow motion.

(This video has little to do with this (or anything), but i thought of it anyway. Monty Python makes so little sense in such a brilliant way - so really it always applies.)


People are misinterpreting you. Some people.
Some people are going eye for eye.
Gesture for gesture.

They are watching everything you do and interpreting it and responding in kind - exactly - or even escalating things because of what they're interpreting - because of how they're interpreting what you do - because of who they think they are and because of who the hell they think you are - they perceive you doing them dirty maybe - doing them one worse each and every time - so they need to swoop in for the one-up or the two up or the three-up.

Maybe nobody is as sensitive as you are.

Maybe people are operating on a level of sensitivity so intensely scoped - microscoped - telescoped - you are missing out on nuances of life, my friend. Maybe.

Life means a lot less than you think it does.

Life is full of meaning, meaning hangs off every single second, every word, every twitch, every breath, every motion.

People really hate your guts.

People love you but you just don't realize it. Less people are capable of hate than you would think. It's like shock news - life isn't really as bad as the headlines they cherrypick.

There's more good news going on than bad news.

We're just in a short term slump. The long term trend is up up up.

How many people are keeping track? What are they tracking?

Am I keeping track too closely - more closely than everybody else - like a raw nerve being dragged down the sidewalk - stepping on every crack - hitting every bump - feeling every clumsy flailing meaningless motion made by any thoughtless fellow human. Interpreted when there is no interpretation.

Where do these conflicts begin? Where do they end? Can’t they just end wordlessly...without apologies? Who really means it when they apologize? Maybe one of the worse offenses is forcing someone to apologize. Did you understand well enough to demand an apology?

When I was a little kid, I used to hang out in the our folk's garage and watch as my brother and his friends hoisted V8 engines out of cars using a hand-cranked winch. The winch was attached to chains that hung through holes poked through the garage ceiling. I remember questioning my big brother. Where do those chains go? Won’t daddy be mad that you poked holes in the ceiling?

There’s a steel beam above the garage ceiling in many houses (in all houses?). That's what that chain was wrapped around up there. Later in life, I actually had a job in construction for a short time. I was working for my big brother, framing houses. When we were building the garage, we had to set the steel beam in the ceiling of the garage, a serious task, because that beast is really heavy. Everybody around would stop what they were doing and come help lift the beam into place.

My Thought Budget

I’m wondering how disappointed I would be if I broke down the amount of time I spent thinking about each subject. What if I actually spreadsheeted it? What would my categories be? Would this make me more efficient? What if I sat there with a stopwatch, and in between thoughts - like when I reach a good stopping point between waves of thought - I stopped the stopwatch and recorded what the thoughts were and how much time I’d spent thinking them...I would become a much more efficient time user!

This, of course, is crazy.

Or is it?

It is.

I, personally, don’t have that kind of mental control. I will be reading a book, for example, and I’ll realize that, hey, that whole last paragraph, my eyes were passing over the words, but I was thinking about...say...putting a frozen pizza in the oven. I can’t direct my mind resolutely enough.

I think I would be ashamed if I spreadsheeted my thoughts. How much time did I spend thinking about stupid stuff like, Damn, that asshole didn’t say Hi to me. Or completely embarrassing stuff that I can’t even bear to mention, let alone record on a spreadsheet. I guess it would be like any other kind of bookkeeping - you hide the embarrassing items under another more vague category, What is this charge on your credit card to...a massage parlor? Yeah, file that under 'OTHER.'

I'm consuming way too much information lately. Today I read all day, but I could barely recap any of it to you. I mean, that information is there, stored in my memory. If the subject comes up, I'll remember some article I read, and I'll mention it maybe. Hopefully I'll get it right - I'll recall enough of what I read to make it worthwhile to open my mouth. Otherwise, maybe I should just shut up. Maybe I'm reading all this stuff for entertainment, not for educational purposes - it's not doing me much good.

I get depressed - bloated with barely digested bits of info. I decide, well, it's time to go with what I got and take some action. Create something. Finish something. Do ...something. How many unfinished projects do I have? How many unbegun projects do I have?

At least I'm posting to my blog. I'm typing words and hitting 'PUBLISH POST.' I'm getting some kind of message out to the world. ...or out to a few people anyway.

I was leaving the YMCA, and I saw a little kid and his mom walking into the neighborhood across the street. The little kid had just finished his karate class at the Y, he had his karate suit on - his gi. The mother was holding the kid's hand as they walked...or...the kid was holding his mom's hand. He seemed to lead the way. I can guess what the kid was thinking. He's fresh out of karate class - even though he's only five years old - he's ready to defend his mom against any attacker - using round house kicks, jabs and flying sidekicks if necessary.

I remember how I used to think when I came out of karate class, when I was five or six years old. I felt cocky. I remember in kindergarden actually saying the following to another kid in my class, "I could beat up a grown-up if I had to."

"Me too," said the other kid.

Disrupted Sleep Patterns, Horrible Videos and Steadfast(ly) (absent) Morals: A Rant

It’s 1:00 AM, and there’s no prospect of sleep, so I’m all over the internet. Inevitably I am faced with the prospect of watching some kind of horrible video - a video I know I shouldn’t watch - but which I am compelled to watch because of my terrible curiosity. If I had a dashboard for my morality, I wonder how the dials would read as I watch some of these videos. Would the needles twitch when I actually decide to watch the video and click on the video? As I watch the video, are my morals shifting? Are these videos changing me? Maybe all the gauges are busted on my morality dashboard. What would an amoralist dashboard look like? I just watched a video that made me never want to have kids - never want to subject a teen to the horrors that other teens will inflict. This video is all over the net right now. You probably know what video I'm talking about.

Sorry, no link.

Maybe watching these videos is necessary - bearing witness - maybe it is making me a better person, because it makes me feel such horrendous pity for some of the characters in the endless stream of videos that makes it to the internet. Maybe instead of being desensitized to violence, I’m becoming more sensitized to violence by seeing these horrible videos. Maybe my moral gauges are not moving a single tick - neither up nor down - no matter what I see out there.

All the New Folks Coming Online

I'm so busy trying to keep up with all of the Web 2.0 stuff, a more worthwhile subject to consider might be the growth of the internet in terms of users. You often see estimates in the news - estimates of how many new users will start going online by the year so and so. These estimates boggle my mind. The internet will be a better place because of the sheer numbers of people and the diversity of the people contributing to it, I think, not because of any of the latest widgets or social media. More people means more ideas. A million new people means a million million more ideas.

I started going online in 1998. That's when I set up my first email account at Yahoo (and actually checked it regularly). I started going into chatrooms at that time - the Yahoo Books and Literature chatroom was where I hung out. Very little was said about Books and Literature in there. In fact, you were scorned if you mentioned books. Not exactly educational. I mean - I did learn to type fast.

I'm ten years into my internet addiction. I can't imagine the nonexistence of the internet. When ever I can't find something on the internet, it really surprises and irks me. Surely this is on the all-knowing, all-seeing internet by now.

All the information you could want is out there - or if it's not the right information - it is still much more than you could consume. Hasn't this made us a much more efficient bunch of busy bees? Or has it just made us busier?

Has the internet made us all more capable of stretching our brains around lots and lots of data and know-how? Is the internet making us into better thinkers? ...or just different types of thinkers. Is the type of thinker we are becoming better or worse? Billy and I had a telepathic chat instant message kind of a thing going where we were both bloggin on this kind of stuff.

I hope all the new users of the internet start blogging everything in their lives. I'll read it all. And I'll leave them goofy comments.

If a huge flood came, I wonder if I could balance on the tip of a light pole. I would build a tree house dwelling on top of the light pole using whatever debris and material floated by. I could fish and eat what I catch, I could eat seaweed. Drinking water would be a problem. I could condense water inside plastic bags and drain the distilled water for drinking. My friends would float by, and I would adorn their bodies with flowers - flowers that I find floating by. Holy books would float by, and I would transcribe the the pages. I would tuck the transcribed pages into the pockets of my friends, and then I’d gently shove their bodies away into the current. I would reach a point in life where I no longer want to occupy these coordinates - on top of this light pole. I would assemble a raft with whatever debris and material floated by. I would step aboard this raft and float away with the current.

A Four Item List:

1. I run on a treadmill a lot lately. When I run for real, I get dizzy or disoriented, my head swims. I'm not used to being in motion when I do the act of running.

2. I've had the same dream a few times lately. There's a soccer game coming up, and I'm running late. I can't find my cleats or shorts or something. I miss the game. I can't play. I wake up disappointed. (I'm not even in a league or anything - - and the players are players from my childhood or different pick-up games I've been in over the years)

3. I'm thinking about graffiti hidden in plain sight... like where you figure out what the font is on an existing 'establishment' sign, and then you duplicate the font and make a sticker to put over the sign - with your own message. Or finding stains or smudges in your surroundings that almost look like a face or whatever - in carpets, or on walls or on this or that - and then finding a paint or something that matches the color of the stain and then completing different images in there.

4. At night, I'm just another set of headlights.


# # # # #

In unrelated news, this is Yellowman at Reggae Sunsplash 1982. I saw him at Sunsplash in nineteen ninety-somethin in Norfolk, VA.



Also, this is Eek A Mouse...saw him a few times.

I'm a User

Software designers decry the creative writing compatible. I train my eyes to avoid large areas of the reading surface. With some messaging, you learn to use their own weight against them. A juke and a sidestep. Exhale and it's like so what. A little league yawning contest. Checking for a pulse. Acupuncture my turned cheek. My folded up demographic wouldn't make a good airplane. Ink toxins, ween my fresh air. Leaving pieces of myself here and there. DNA as graffiti. A fuzzy image. An old book smell. Less than fascinated with each and every spore. My stories have too many selves in them. First person credible. A pair of eyeballs. Trembling hands misusing a keyboard. Stammering into the microphone, the telephone. Label makers were made for guys like me. Time for whatever.

# # # # #

In other developments, watch this because it's crazy:

Múm "They Made Frogs Smoke Til They Exploded" Fatcat Records

Am I Too Self-Absorbed To Write About Issues?

I write a lot about my self, my situation, my place in the world. I am motivated to provide something useful from my own experience in the hope that it will benefit somebody, something that somebody can relate to. I am best able to write about myself. My contribution is in the more personal things that I experience - the experiences that I evaluate and share, because I think they could have meaning (and maybe value) to others.

I consume four hours of news per day, more if it’s slow at work. And lately, it’s slow at work. I think I could mount a pretty decent rant on an issue if I wanted to. Maybe I’m shirking my duty as an informed citizen by not opining. Opining can repel people though.

The one thing that I can tell you about with absolute expertise is me - my experience. I can give you my little piece of the world. You can fit that piece into your world view.

...sometimes, though, I just let the fingers fly on the keyboard with my brain set to CRAZY MODE and hit 'PUBLISH POST' when it's done...and the meaning may or may not be available...

Man Addicted to Twitter Sells Kidney to Pay for Text Message Overages

That's me. I am completely addicted to Twitter now. It only took one night, but I'm hooked.

The first thing I'm trying to do is learn the etiquette. Is it okay to just start following somebody even though you don't know them? I guess that's what's it's all about, right? It's like encouraged stalking. If I see somebody interesting, I follow them. Or should you go into it with people you know?

A lot of people intimate that they don't want any more followers. I even saw some who ask that you request invitation. I already have enough friends, thank you.

Social networking has got to be a good thing - I mean in terms of net effects. More information reaching more people faster - that has to be good, right? ...if it's useful information, and it's used for good... But doesn't it also make us a more connected human race? ...and therefore, a more sympathetic and empathetic human race? ...with members who care and mobilize and fundraise and raise awareness about issues and spread the word fast... Or does it just encourage formation of cliques, factions, gangs, in-crowds, and so on - groups who don't want you in them.

Twitter me, or tweet me, or whatever it is it's called when you send a message to somebody. Please.

More Notes on 37-Year-Old Me, Going Back to School:

Yesterday I went to an orientation at UCF geared for transfer students. There were 350-400 students in this ballroom getting oriented. There were powerpoint presentations that covered procedures, and there was a video that portrayed student life and so on. The video was like something you’d see on MTV or like a commercial you’d see during a college football game: cheerleaders cheering, football players colliding, students running into the fountain on campus and all kinds of craziness - with a hard driving guitar soundtrack. It was very loud, and I was right under a speaker.

At one point, we were escorted out of the ballroom in groups, by college and by major. So all of the engineers got up and walked out. All of the Business majors. And so on.

I wasn’t the oldest one there, and I was glad, because you’re walking out of a crowded-as-hell ballroom with hundreds of students lookin at you. I don’t know why I can’t get over this issue. I mean: I even had trouble looking these younger students in the face. Isn’t that weird? There were young students running the orientation: escorting us to our advisers, escorting us to registration stations...these escorts were young-as-hell. I felt so out of place. Usually, though, I don’t even need conditions like these in order to feel out of place. (It can all be traced back to some greater mental problem, I'm sure.) I don’t know why I worry so much about what people think of me. I swear, though, I know I never looked that young - not even in kindergarden. But there were a few students - very few - who were older than their twenties, older than old-ass-me even. Maybe one percent.

It was weird sitting there at the table with all these young-as-hell students - some had their parents with them. Their parents didn’t look much older than I am . . . YIKES! Enough about that. It doesn't matter. I'm taking classes online. All of them, if possible.

They almost didn’t let me register for the class I wanted. I am only tentatively enrolled, in fact. I might get dropped. I didn’t have an exact match to their requirement for freshman comp part two or whatever. I have a B.A. in English already. ODU thought I had enough classes to give me an English degree. The course numbers just don’t match. I hope I don’t get dropped!

In other college campus news, saw this article about how colleges are 'watching troubled students.' Um...yeah...good luck with that. How do you decide whom to watch? How do you administer treatment or enforce laws? How do you even find a legal path to take? How do you avoid infringing on people's rights? The article described the activities of some students who they were 'watching.' One student was found sleeping in a car. Well. That might be me if I ever decide to go to quit my job and attend school full time.

...you realize it's impossible not to think about people from the past. Your brain just goes there. Ghosts. You realize even the hardest people think about people from their past whether they want to or not...

I am all but enrolled in classes. I’ve been accepted to the University of Central Florida, and I’m immunized and approved for an orientation session. I’ve even changed my major already! Actually what I did was I declared. I changed from undeclared to creative writing. I might change to sociology though. (Or MAYBE information systems technology or teaching or health information management OR...OR...OR...)

I’ll start out this summer with just one class, I think. I don't want to strain myself. My first class, hopefully, will be a creative writing class, creative writing for English majors - it's a prerequisite for some other classes I want to take. If I can’t get in that one, I’ll take one of these terrific and fascinating sociology classes.

I earned a B.A. in '96, and I’ve gone back to school since then, and I've made false starts. I took some drafting classes around ‘98-'99, some AutoCAD. I never did anything with it. Back in 2002 I was looking into University of Maryland and George Mason - when I lived in metro DC. I even sent in a financial aid form. I never did follow through on that however.

Friday I went to the UCF campus to run an errand, and as I walked around, I felt pretty old. I'm almost twice as old as the incoming freshmen. I felt pangs of absurdity. But. Whatever. Age is just a number. It's how you feel, right? Your spirit. All ages are allowed. You can only feel humiliated if you let yourself feel humiliated, somebody once said. It's not like they all stopped what they were doing to stare and point at me and laugh. Not yet anyway. Any humiliation I would feel would be self generated.

There were other older folks there. A few. I studied them carefully. I don't know if they were faculty or staff or old-ass geezers like me re-entering college or entering for the first time or what. Some of them looked like they were trying to look or act young. Some of these oldsters looked like they were trying to dress or accessorize like the kids there. Or they arrived on scooters or or bicycles or those big-ass skateboards they ride now a days. For a second I thought, wow, now that's pretty pathetic. Man, be yourself. Wear your no-logo clothes, and wear your comfortable, affordable shoes and be old with pride. But I quickly corrected my thinking, I quashed the ridicule working up in my head. These snap judgments occur to you, you don't necessarily summon them, and you gotta ignore them. Who the hell am I to judge? I don't want people looking at me and thinking I'm ridiculous. I don't know, you know? I wanted to walk up to my fellow old dudes and talk to them. Hey, fellow old...dude! How are ya holdin up? How are your bones? Getting enough calcium? What's it like around here? Don't let these youngsters push you around!

I'm hoping I can take most of my classes online. I'll need to go on campus some - to go to the library. I'm not incredibly uncomfortable going to the campus - I don't know. I don't know how I feel about it. When I went to ODU, there seemed to be a lot of people in their thirties, forties, fifties, plus - especially in the evening classes. ODU was a commuter school. People from all over Hampton Roads went to school there - people looking to change careers or improve their skills or whatever. Back then, when I was around twenty, and I was taking classes, and I saw people in their thirties and forties and higher in my classes...I used to follow them to their cars after class and strong-arm rob their asses. Ha ha, nah, actually, the observation of their apparent age went no further than any surface observation like hair color, eye color, height, whatever. It didn't mean anything to me. Universities are supposed to be open places, right? Open to anybody who wants to learn or teach or both.

It’s time for a normal post because lately I’m just too dramatic and whacked out - I’m always too dramatic and whacked out - so here goes: Um...what do I do?

I work for a professional association. There is a particular type of certification out there - if you want this type of certification, you have to take our exams and go to our seminars and conferences. I ride a cubicle. I scan documents in and I approve them and index them. That’s it. I am an administrator. I push paper. I make frequent errors and apologize rarely.

It’s really slow right now, so I take frequent breaks outside. I hang out with the smokers. I used to smoke. I actually miss it. I smoked ten years and quit. I quit in 2001. I miss those breaks outside the various buildings I’ve worked in and the chatting and all the smokin buddies. I think the smokers where I work now are suspicious of me, they look at me...hanging out next to them...maybe eating an apple...or asking them questions...or just generally being a pest...refusing to court lung cancer, flipping off fate and all that. Ha. Nah. One of the smokers pointed out that each of the smokers in the organization seems to have a nonsmoking friend - a sidekick who sometimes comes outside with them to hang out and fool around and look cool or whatever.

# # # # #

Man. I wish I was back in DC.

I was following links around in WIKIPEDIA, and I found this list of performance artists. Then I started searching the names of some these performance artists at You Tube and found quite a lot of amazingly creative stuff. The following video is a mixed-media installation called Bang-Bang Room. It is by Paul McCarthy.



Another video at You Tube by Paul McCarthy is called called WGG Test. If you watch it, you are one brave soul.

# # # # #

In other news, I have been writing on scraps of paper and stuffing the paper into my pocket all week (as usual). Here's what is written on the paper:

1) I experience each design flaw

2) Sudhir Venkatesh

3) I was in a fight with my girl, and I was driving around looking for a motel. I pulled into the parking lot of a poorly lit pink motel. I swung my legs out of the car, and the first thing I saw laying there was somebody's piss bag...laying there on the pavement...an actual piss bag - a clear, plastic bag with a hose and a plug/connector thingy - laying on the asphalt. Somehow it was worse than seeing a used condom (but really, it was just as bad). It wasn't completely empty either(edit: really there's no comparison - It saddens me to imagine a handicapped person, frustrated with life and circumstances, says fuck it and yanks the damned thing out and drops it right there and speeds off - it's terrible that I've even mentioned it--sorry). Rooms at this motel cost $85. I drove on.

4) ethnography

5) CAN YOU GET FIRED JUST BECAUSE THE PEOPLE AROUND YOU DON'T LIKE YOU?

6) The way that I perceived my dad - his clothes, his after shave, his golf clubs, his cars, his shoes, the change on his dresser, his mints, his pocket comb - the way that I viewed all of that stuff as a kid...nobody will ever look at my stuff like that. Not as a son or as a daughter. Nobody will ever look at my car and think, that is the perfect car. It's daddy's. Or, that is the perfect sweater because it is my dad's. That is the ideal golf club, it belongs to my dad. Nobody will think that or say that about my stuff.

# # # # #

And in closing, I have been tapped to write a six word memoir by PoisOn CoAtEd ELiXir or Seraphic Girl

Here it is:

Long walk day dream word count.

You should write a six word memoir too!

I could cry or rage over each human interaction, no matter how intense or mundane the interaction. Every conversation is the best conversation I've ever had, each time the record is broken. Each insult or slight or sneer is the most heartbreaking and infuriating incident ever. Each compliment is the most inspiring, beautiful spoken word I've ever heard. With each human interaction, my mind races through every possibility, every perspective, every consideration. I perceive each person for everything they are - everything I know them to be. Everything that I know about people, I note it in every person I ever see. I consider myself in every possible relational position to them. I imagine myself as them. I consider everything about them - everything my brain has time to take in, I consider. I break off these observations and this data processing with one person only when another person comes along whom I must consider. Everything means something. Tone. Gesture. The eyes. Word count. Breathing. I interpret everything. I don't do it voluntarily. My brain just does it. My emotions get swept up up into it too. And my imagination. I play out scenarios with data my brain has gathered. And there's a serious aftertaste. Guilt. Resentment. Longing. And even though I do all of this thinking, I still manage to be a total flop socially. My words come out like I'm dumping them out of a trash bag. My actions are those of a drunk person. Even when I don't drink. I am a complete social disaster.

It's just how I am. I've been told that I think too much. I should chill the fukc out. I need a pill that makes me think less. Period. My brain just does a bit too much.

I read a great book called The Curious Incident of the Dog in the Night Time by Mark Haddon in which the narrator is an autistic boy. The boy describes the crippling condition he deals with every time he enters a new setting. He must count every tile in every room he enters. He must count every spot on every cow he passes on a ride through the countryside. He must know every specification of every scene he enters. He must consider and make note - catalogue - every quantitative aspect of every setting he experiences. If there is any number of things around him, if there is some numeric measure, he has to calculate it and know it and incorporate it into his understanding, and he absolutely requires this for his ability to function in life.

That's how I am with people.

I consider everything I know about the person and everything I believe they are capable of and their tendencies and what I believe their opinions to be and what I believe their outlook to be.

I think of the whole story. It is exhausting.

I don't get out much.

Back when I did get out a lot, I was a mess.

. . . this is what it seems like anyway. Maybe everybody does this and they just don't complain about it or let it do damage to them. Do you do this?

Saturday - I had nothing to do, so I ended up here. I had been in the book store, but I became bored there. I decided to leave, but I had nowhere to go, so I decided to walk all the way around the mall. I ended up in front of this sealed off storefront. I don’t even know what store this was. I just stood there for a while. For some reason, this situation seemed to have meaning...or...anti-meaning.



I started to wonder: What difference does it make where you spend your Saturdays?


I don’t know why my brain stalled on this question. I have plenty of things I like to do on Saturdays. I could go to a park. I could roam around some more. I could go to the gym. I could start an early drinking binge. I could call somebody. But I kept asking that question: What difference does it make what I do? Really! Why does one activity have more value or meaning than standing right here in this spot? Why do I need to do anything? For some reason, at that moment, I could not answer that question. I was frozen.


Did standing in that spot make me happy? Not really. Would hiking in a park, drinking, exercising - would any of those make me happy? Maybe. I started to wonder whether it mattered if I was happy. Would my pursuit of happiness be a waste of time. Is time mine to waste? Am I an eligible judge of what is a waste of time and what is a worthwhile use of time?

Some day I’ll die, I reminded myself. That seemed relevant at the moment.


Then I thought, wow, this is kind of dumb. People are using the entrance to JC Penny nearby, and I’m taking photos of an entrance to a store that isn’t even open anymore. (I had to go get my camera and come back - to illustrate the true absurdity here). So I got back in my car and drove home. I changed clothes and went to the gym.

Your twenties versus thirties: A continuation of a great conversation developing in the comments window below.

One thing that did seem to change from my twenties to my thirties: I seemed to gain credibility. I'm not sure why. I honestly don’t feel any wiser. Maybe it's because I look older. Or maybe it's because I am a lot more likely to admit it when I don't know. I doubt that I am any wiser. That simply can't be it. Maybe I learned how to be more convincing. Maybe I seem more confident. Maybe I was full of you know what back then and it was obvious to any observer.

My twenties were tough: A lot more of the back breaking and teeth grinding and stress - a lot of it unnecessary. I had anxiety that felt like physical pain - like I was on fire or something.

I felt like I had to prove myself all of the time in my twenties. I felt the need to TRY to fit in everywhere. Instead of finding a situation that suited me, I tried to suit myself to the situations I encountered.

I don't know. I guess I have enjoyed my thirties more, but I have gotten a little lonely. I lost touch with a lot of the friends I had from my college days and my partying days. I don’t go out much anymore. I’m somewhat content with that, but sometimes I do get a little lonely - sometimes you just want to be rowdy with a crowd of people who know you and all that stuff. My thirties are definitely more chill.

I guess I am in my element - a lot more aware of who I am and what I want out of life. I’ve learned how to give myself a break from the demons and the neuroses and the guilt and the regret and a lot of that stuff.

I don’t know. Maybe I just off-loaded one crew of demons just so another crew of demons could climb onboard.

There's so much happening in the world. It seems like all I can do is watch and listen from my stupid little cubicle.

Somebody asked me how old I was the other day. I told them, 37. And then I fell into this trance or intense inner session of calculation or a construction of the timeline that led from my high school graduation through my twenties and now almost through my thirties. Finally somebody snapped their fingers or something to bring me back to the conversation. Where did you go?

Yeah. Where did I go?

I've been submitting poems to journals lately. And I'm hearing back too. Rejected. But, whatever.

Hopefully something will shake loose when I start school at UCF this summer. Maybe I can get something published in the journal at UCF, The Florida Review. Maybe I'll just wander the country enrolling in classes at various schools. I'll just keep taking classes there and submitting stuff to their journal until they accept a piece. Then I'll move on to the next college, the next journal.

I'm taking a creative nonfiction class at UCF - if I can get in before the class fills up. I'd like to take some kind of writing class there - - or literature or sociology or . . . there I go . . . that's how I got here - 37 and aimless . . . being such a scatter brain.

Anyway they don't even want me to set foot on campus until I get all my shots! They had a crazy bacterial meningitis scare over there at UCF (maybe I should do the UCF online classes - from the bacteria-free safety of my home). I have to provide proof of vaccinations before they'll even let me do an orientation there.

I should just show up, and right before I walk in the registrar, I'll take a bunch of whip cream and smear it all around my face and start flailing around spazzing and shit. That shit would be funny. Great first impression.

trying to find my poems in the ways I was and in evenings, noons, afternoons and nights and contemplations of various objects and scenes and in odd news events and just in words like dice thrown making magic watching out for false starts being as focused as I have to be. I hope somebody gets me...like...GETS me before I die of old age.

Chaos doesn't exactly rule where I work, I mean: chaos doesn't rule outright, chaos is more like a cranky supervisor with life issues, uneven attendance and considerable (though inexplicable) influence.



Often there doesn't seem to be a rule, so I take my own direction. Then I discover that there was, in fact, a rule - that I was supposed to be doing a thing a certain way - a different way than I had been doing it. And I realize that huge blocks of work I'd just done - and maybe even some blocks I'd done further in the past - were no longer holding up. And now the floor is shaking. And people are...talking about me...severely.



When I moved into the department, I definitely sensed animosity. I don't think it was all directed at me, I mean: I was new - how could they hate me so soon? Well, it turns out that this was entirely possible. In fact, it's possible to be hated on sight! My supervisor hated my guts almost immediately. I think she was forced into accepting me into the department - you know: I was tempin in another department...silent, sullen weirdo blah blah...but he works hard as hell...just keeps head down and works...makes some mistakes...but he works...whatever...




I think my supervisor was at odds with a lot of the people already, before I ever came along. So when I came along, it gave everybody a direction to target their hate. So instead of hating each other, they were able to unite under the common cause of HATING ME. So I was able to help out and unite the team!

Because I'm so excited about having seen Billy Collins, I'm posting this video from You Tube. It's an animated poem. This poem is in Billy Collins' book Nine Horses. There are a few of these videos on You Tube.

Today I saw Billy Collins read at Valencia Community College's Kerouac Festival. I bought his book, and after his reading, I got in line so he could sign it. As I got closer to the table for my turn with him, I started to get nervous, really nervous for some reason. What am I going to say to this guy? He was the Poet freakin Laureate for Christ's sake. So when I got up to the table, I just said, "Bobby."

I don't know whether he even asked for my name. He opened the copy of the book I bought and turned to the page he would sign, and he started to sign. He said how do you do or something as he was writing, and then he started to say something else, and I blurted out, "Can you write something sexy in there? Ha ha." And then he started to say something else, but before he could finish that I asked, "What's next? Disney?" I live near Orlando, see, the reading took place just outside Orlando, or maybe that is Orlando out there.

He started to say one last thing, and I cut him off yet again and said "Well I heard that! Thanks man." And I grabbed the book he'd signed and walked away.

# # #

In other developments, you absolutely have to watch the documentary called PROTAGONIST. It will change things for you.

You're in my shot there, Smiley.

You can just tell he wanted to grab that thing and start crankin away.

Every time I feel a negative emotion lately: anger, sadness, embarrassment, whatever - I feel some area of my guts burning, or I get a serious head ache. I feel some kind of chemical squirting into my guts from some duct somewhere, and it gives me this stinging tingle feeling. Or my spinal column buzzes. Or I get a feeling like a balloon suddenly deflating in the center of my chest. There is nothing that I face in my work day that should be causing this kind of stress, these kinds of feelings. My life isn't really that stressful.

Maybe I'm supposed to be in a more stressful situation, not my cozy little cubicle comfort zone. Maybe I'm geared for something a little more...trying. I should find a setting that matches my temperament. I've been reading in the Occupational Outlook Handbook about social work. A lady at work use to do social work. She majored in sociology, and then she became a social worker. But now, she's like screw that, and she works in the finance department of the organization where I work. I think I'll ask her more about social work.


# # #


This morning we stepped outside, and a hot air balloon was floating by. I waved. A good start to a Saturday. It's going to be nice today, I heard.

Work

Clouds completely covered the sky except for one perfectly round opening. The cloud cover was thick, looking up through this one opening in this thick cloud cover was like looking into a tunnel. Two stars were visible in there. One was dim the other was bright. So what does that mean?

If I care so much about work, why haven’t I gotten anywhere with it - I wonder about this at 3:48am, unable to sleep because work thoughts are keeping me awake... MAYBE I SHOULD BE ASKING: If I care so little about work, why am I awake at 3:48am thinking about work... I'm not supposed to be caring about work. What the ?

...with these questions, these run-on sentences which start out as questions but just end up being clueless, aimless statements - these twitching chops of paragraphs (currently of the work variety but not always so)...these clumps of words, they do tend to run on, and then I think: Hey, maybe this is some kind of poem, maybe I'm being visited...but it’s not a poem. It's the broken thoughts of an incoherent idiot (there is a difference) (am I getting less and less coherent, less and less comprehensible - so that one day I'll wake up and start yackin, and nobody will know what the hell I'm talkin about (because I won't be talkin about anything, I'll just be saying words that don't go together (and then a Human Resources Representative will take me by the hand to a little room where he or she will show me a series of pictures depicting...me, turning in my card key and walking out to my car and driving away and not coming back as coworkers wave to me through the window with relieved smiles on the faces)))

(For now, work is the reality. For some reason they let me continue to go there and drink their coffee, and they give me money every two weeks too. (I have this image of myself: image of an idiot who smiles too much - and at the wrong time...and who also scowls too much - and at the wrong time...and who knocks things over and screws things up...image of an idiot getting by just barely))

I have another image of myself. Image of completely independent, uninfluenced...guy...tough guy...loner (but in a cool way) thinker reader observer outsider (dare I say it? writer) spits at work, like outside - spits, COULD NOT CARE LESS, don't give a sheeyit, does just enough to get by but basically...whatever...point made...

Work is the reality. Work is where I have to go every day. Even if I try to convince myself that I’m way up above it - that I only go to work for the paycheck, that I don’t really care what happens there as long as I get that paycheck...well...obviously I do care - my brain won’t let me off work that easily. It’s a weird duality: I really do not want to care about work. But I do care - I care on an instinctive level, I guess. Work problems bother me long after I’ve left work. I feel like I should have the work thing licked - all the work done when I leave - so that I can go home without any guilt or cares at all and forget about it until the alarm goes off the next morning.

When I wake up at these weird hours because of work stuff buggin me, I might type long e-mails that I never intend to send. Typing all this mess out helps me sort it out. But then I just have these files sitting on my computer that will never be read - files that I can’t bring myself to delete.

I took a bunch of photos around this town I live in, Eustis, Florida. If I have my Eustis history right, this band shell was actually moved to this spot from another part of Eustis.

Lake Eustis is so beautiful, but swimming in it could really mess you up. A lady I met who grew up around here said that she remembered when they first started to realize that there were amoebas in the lake that were messing people up. She had just entered nursing school (twenty or thirty years ago I guess). I think what she was saying was that they didn't know whether they had a bunch of polio cases on their hands or if the amoebas were causing a condition similar to polio or if the amoeabas were actually causing polio . . . or what...I should have payed closer attention to what she was saying I guess - what do I know. Go ask a freakin scientist.