ok. maybe less grass?

i'm outta control.
walk good.

it was cool when i looked...

...and saw my post commenting on its predecessor spanned either side of midnight and got different dates although they happened in 1 sitting...
walk good.

no-talent assclown

this disobedience of my word-dominating commands is fuckery.
if i want an empty line, it's free-with-free-blog.
i apologise for the scripted sprawl below. it's their fault, not my oversight.
and the "below" link was just in case you got here by some magical means, bypassing my mainpage. in case you were unable to see below as you read it.
walk good.

timespace

appended shortly thereafter...

picked this up while catching up on spinning girl and had to have it, even if it's used:
given the choice between these pairs, and no other alternative, which would you choose?
1. salt or pepper?
2. oreos or milk?
3. peanut butter or jelly?
4. going blind or going deaf?
5. out of toilet paper or out of soap?
6. shoes or socks?
7. saliva or tears?
8. telephone or computer?
9. ac or hot water?
10. electricity or vaccination?

i feel like the winter solstice should be the turning point of winter so that the coldest day is also the shortest and we get longer and warmer on either side of that marker. and since both are connected to the planet's movement, on itself and through spacetime, it feels like a logical assumption. but far be it for me to suggest that natural laws are in any way counterintuitive...i get vex when car commercials suggest their vehicle's motion has the grace of a cheetah's. and i appreciate mechanical beauty in efficiency. but. well, here's my answers:
1. salt or pepper? pepper.

2. oreos or milk? oreos.

3. peanut butter or jelly? jelly.

4. going blind or going deaf? can't. sorry. well, i almost think deaf but i don't want to think too loud about this.

5. out of toilet paper or out of soap? out of tp.

6. shoes or socks? shoes. unless it's winter; then it's socks.

7. saliva or tears? tears.

8. telephone or computer? computer.

9. ac or hot water? hot water.

10. electricity or vaccination? i can still read with cholera, right? and i'ma die anyway. electricity.

even though i saw it before i answered it (cutting and pasting it to here) it was harder than i thought on a couple.

walk good.

addendum: the perfectionist in me has re-logged-in to blogger twice to try and insert an empty line between my last answered question and my comment about the difficulty of answering. i put it in and publish, and blogger says "fuck you". with a sneer, after already emboldening text i didn't select for any such purpose.

i was willing to let the emboldening go.

was.

so this time i've inserted 4 empty lines plus additional text, top+bottom.

your move, blogspot bastard.

i thought it first!

i'm @ the radio station and thus will be brief, but just for posterity's sake, after seeing this article about penguin theft, i'd like to make it publicly known that i wrote my short story about a penguin-thieving expedition over a year ago, well before this currently-publicised exploit.
when i'm @ home with my files, i'll even post the date mine was completed, so there can be no doubt.
i also know that at least 5 people in this world have read my penguin piece, so i hold the 3 of you 5 who may read this post (you know fred don't do internet, and i dare not let karen know i have a blog, or i'll have to start censoring-on-mom's-behalf) responsible for backing me up if this should come into question- not that i think anybody else will care about the merits or originality of my silly little penguin story, but i care. i like my story.
actually, i've temporarily stopped posting my fiction here because the second story (after soucouyant) i tried to serialise for blog-friendliness was one of my favourites, and breaking it into pieces ruined it- it wasn't good in small chunks because the feel of the piece was lost and it came off as very wooden. it was discouraging and i haven't revisited that experiment yet, but maybe the penguin piece would work well in this forum...
i think i'll start serialising and posting my penguin story. fiction sooncome.
walk good.

happy new year

i'm taking the opportunity, while i have it, to let you know that me+grims are running off to australia for 3weeks, leaving christmas day (thankfully avoiding all that shit) and returning january 14, 2006.
i thought i'd blog like crazy before we left, making up for lost time and delivering the gremlin chronicles (by the way, i thought narnia was flat, but enjoyed the kid playing lucy in spite of usually disliking children trying to convince me they're preciously precocious and cute, and loved tilda swinton, then finally saw constantine and am thrilled that after liking her for some time, tilda swinton's getting some notice, and just hope it doesn't result in her being swamped with crappy scripts, thus making it harder to find the good ones @ the bottom of her pile)- damn, that was a long aside, even for me, so i'll do a minor backpedal- thought i'd blog before leaving this weekend, but my laptop's being a piece of shit and wouldn't turn on all day. so now that i have it temporarily behaving, i've put everything important on the flashdrive, and i'm letting you know that there's a small chance this may be it for me until next year...
so if i can manage it, i'll deliver the gremlin escapades first, but just in case: happy new year!
check me back, and believe that i'm trying to solve this problem so i can write more before we fly.
january will make it a year that i've been blogging, and it's been a ride- thanks for reading.
back as soon as i can.
walk good.

ps: chrissy, i realise i have email from you that i was too busy to reply to a couple weeks ago, but i will, assuming that i can keep this machine running long enough (tonight was intended to be a catch-up night until technology screwed me). but until i can remail, i wanted to tell you that i think you sound ready to not just walk good, but swing it when you do so...

early-ish fff

it's been awhile since i got one done this fast, especially considering that the gremlin's still here and the universe still (and always, i assume) revolves around her.
so big up the fabulous jj in purgatory for setting this all up, and here's some very short fiction. i opted to intentionally keep the opening phrase the way jj delivered it, and see how much i could do without having to make a choice about which person it was.
i like to experiment.

I/He/She watched the bubbles rise... tiny at first, and fast moving around the bottom of the kettle, then finally getting big enough to hold their own on their rise to the top. while it might be true that watched, it could never boil, it was a risk taken to make the most of the tea-making. it had to involve numerous trips back and forth to the kitchen to check on the hopefully-but-never-yet-boiling, even though the sound it would make when it actually hit the boil was something instantly recognisable, even in sleep.
watching the gradual approach of the boil was part of the fun. carrying on a conversation in the living room while simultaneously attending to something imminently delightful in the kitchen, back and forth, tying the details of the evening together with the hot drink smoothing the disparate edges of small talk among those who knew each other too well.
hosting was something so many seemed to enjoy and take pride in, but with this group it all came down to how the mellowing progressed. the boiling of water for the teas, cuban coffees, and host of other hot toddies was the essential turn of the evening, when the last acquaintances left and only true stragglers (read, friends) remained to wind down together with shared history, warmly alcoholic beverages and the lingering sweet smoke that was the wrapping paper around the box set of their many evenings together.
new years, birthdays, anniversaries, house-warmings, pity-parties, wedding- and baby-showers, dinners and drunken debauchery – after everything, who were these people?
the bubbles were more insistently roiling the surface of the water and the kettle was making it’s boiling noise, but suddenly all that mattered was the question.
the fire wasn’t turned off from under the kettle.
the bubbles were now softly sounding mini-explosions, vying for steam passage upward and outward.
the walk from the kitchen back to the living room was slow and sticky, a testament to feet afraid of an answer. but the question had been thought and now had to be asked.
feet acknowledged arrival with a shift to redistribute weight, as eyes surveyed the would-be-imbibers of any product of the rapidly-drying kettle’s contents, the hand lifted the needle off the al green record, and the question was addressed to the room with a shout:
“who the hell are all you people? and what are you doing in my house?”

walk good.

man.

consider this a psa:
dudes on public transport or in any other public arena- do not ever assume, or in any other way get it in your tiny minds, that i am reading only because i was previously denied the pleasure of your company. i am not reading simply because i don't have you next to me, rinsing out my ears with your particular line of shit-talk. i am reading because i enjoy it and because i want nothing to do with you and hope the sight of a book might keep you away, and a marginally more functional brain would make that apparent to you.
thank you.

ps: i'll deliver the gremlin chronicles closer to the end of her stay.

walk good.

grrr.

i couldn't find an article about tookie's execution that i wanted to post, but i thought this piece was closer to what i wanted to say anyway. besides, anybody who can find their way here can google stanley "tookie" williams + execution or any such related terms, and/or his nobel peace prize nomination, and/or the movie redemption (starring jamie foxx) based on tookie's memoir, and/or the crips, etc...
i'd also like to say that it is a fuckery that cnn.com had footage of the execution on their homepage today. the fruits of civilisation...
i can't believe that they finally have a rehabilitated prisoner that allows them to say their bullshit system works, and they did this anyway. life in prison would've effectively continued to punish him for his crime, while allowing him to continue atoning through his positive, community-service programmes. and i recognise that victims feel they need closure, but as someone who has lost many, i think we can recognise that "killing somebody back" is revenge. it doesn't bring the dead to life so you can have that final moment you wish you'd had, or kill the loss, just another person. how is that closure, not vengeance? and i can see the justification where there's concern about repeat offences, but that was the whole point with tookie. he wasn't trying to be a repeat offender.
i don't even always have a clear opinion about the death penalty. i just think this was bullshit.
i guess i'll retreat into my corner, muttering to myself that these are not my people and not my problem- although america seems determined to make itself the world's problem...

maybe i can warp myself into some other sector of the metaverse that doesn't involve people.

i was gonna post about the gremlin+me adventuring yesterday, but after doing my tookie googling i'm sour, so memoirs of the gremlin will have to wait until my mood improves.
prob'ly tomorrow- well, it's already tomorrow, so later...

walk good.
and don't kill. except rats and roaches and schwarzenegger. they stink. i'm making sure i don't own any of his movies as soon as i walk away from this machine.

pee pressure

i hate the constant need to pee that accompanies winter.
later: updates on days with the gremlin.
plus: i'm upset that they killed tookie, and if i weren't @ the radio station and needing to get shit done, there would be an accompanying link for "tookie", but it'll have to wait until i find the article i most want to link to, which i won't have time to do until tonight...
walk good.

slightly sloppy fff, sorry...

so i admit this is rushed, due to the gremlin being in town (the universe does, after all, revolve around her) and a computer malfunction that prohibited my typing for the 1st half of the 1 hour i had available to work on this piece.
but since jj, our friendly neighbourhood purgatorian took the time to set it up, i must comply, in any small way that i can:

I think it was his/her photograph that made me... jump back, more so than the person him/herself holding it. i mean, in said photograph, he/she hadn’t shaved, but was wearing a push-up bra, in spite of needing the razor more than the pushing up. actually, he/she was well-enough endowed up top that women were looking over enviously, so i could only hope there was a comparably-sized endowment below.
i suppose i shouldn’ta been taken aback though, seeing as i knew i’d placed the ad and shoulda been prepared for anything to come through that door. not that "brandi alexander" was by any means a poor candidate. i guess i just expected a bigger turnout. i mean, where were all the people straddling the divide without surgery when you needed them? surely i was a better cause than jerry springer – and even if not, i’d pay better and be more fun for all involved.
i pushed brandi’s picture away and surveyed him/her appreciatively. like i said – not a poor candidate at all. even my type – tall, strong-looking but curvy, not too much makeup…
i suppose an orgy didn’t have to be the order of the day. i could definitely, happily settle for just brandi, once i made it clear that the photo was unnecessary since this was not an audition, but it would still be well worth his/her time. so i leaned in and whispered in his/her ear that perhaps we should take this up to my room and sort out the details.
brandi looked a little put off, but slowly agreed, and after looking around to make sure nobody saw him/her leave with me, we went up.
once there, i suggested we get comfortable, but brandi looked more and more uneasy.
he/she was asking persistently what this was all about, since it was clearly not the audition i’d advertised it as.
i wasn’t quite sure how to broach my intent, but i managed to spit it out, as genteely as possible, while placing the cash on the table where it could be seen, just to demonstrate my ability to make good on my promise.
there was a moment of silence while it all sank in, but i expected that. i mean, it’s not every day some guy asks you for sexual favours specifically because of your genital ambiguity – at least, not for most people – but what i didn’t expect was the cold metal click around the wrist of the hand i’d softly placed on his/her knee, and the armed officers busting in the door…

walk good.

getting back...

been meaning to get back to this for days...
nico says (typos and all, nico, you know how you stop): "She is a nutter. Its been proven that people who experience major trauma in their lives block it out. I don't know about the Alien people but i know atht peopel block stuff out. And where does fogetting fit into the whole mix ? is that unconcious repression ,cause the thing that you forgot is still in your head you just cannot find it .Or am i wrong about the whole thing."
that was in reference to the harvard chick who studied people who believed they were abducted by aliens, to research false/recovered memory, and said that human beings don't have the ability to repress memories.
so, to respond, nico, basically she said that people can forget (the info is still in your head but you can't find it) or choose to forget (convince self something didn't happen) but the the former is simply forgetting, and the latter is suppression, not repression. the word repression implies that it's an unconscious reaction to trauma, and she's saying we don't have a brain mechanism that allows for that unconscious reaction, we can only forget, or make ourselves forget (suppression). i don't know what proof there is or isn't, but she (who studies this shit) claims there's no proof human brains have the ability to repress, just to forget and suppress.
anyway, more later. we just picked up the gremlin from the airport and we organising some food here.
walk good.

metro chat

i usually talk about crazy people on the bus, but this was some of my train driver's running commentary on the way to the radio station wednesday morning (non-stop for 20 minutes):

"when my train stops like this it means the leader's stopped @ the platform...i was right, i can see him now. whooo..."

"believe it or not we're gonna wait here another minute...they gave us a little leeway so i'm just gonna roll on forward..."

"while we wait i'm gonna give you a little metro info... you just punch me up, that's how you talk to me..." (about the call boxes in train cars, i think- i was almost too busy writing this shit down)

"remember what i told you about that elevator maybe being out of service..."

"...and that trash. put. it. in. the. traaash...i'm not gonna tell you. i think you'll remember."

"good evening. oops, it's not evening for awhile yet..."

"if you're exiting, have a great day. or even if you aren't..."

damn lady. i'm glad you're glad, but it's not even 9am yet...
walk good.

irony

appended about 45minutes later...

i just bit my lip eating soup.

i finally figured out why even though i love fruit i generally don't like it as dessert, unless somehow juxtaposed with extra sugar, cream, maybe some pastry, chocolate, and caramel, where possible: it's like liming. part of dessert's point is slim to no nutritional value or otherwise healthful purpose. fruit is good, but it's just too good for you to be real dessert without assistance. but it's a greak snack. or meal, depending on how much you have...

walk good.

there's a lovely piratical theme in my life right now. i'm reading moby dick, we talking about both maritime and intellectual piracy @ work, just watched the life aquatic with steve zissou and now we watching sci-fi's the triangle.
arrr!

finally, fff...

i haven't done this in a coupla weeks (missed fff#17) so i'm kinda excited. and i like this one too...
set-up courtesy http://purgatorian.blogspot.com/.

Incredulously they turned their wondrous eyes to... the feast laid out on the floor. for people with no furniture or clothes other than what they were wearing, they were certainly living the good life in sector 9.
they had no idea how she’d made this meal happen, but it was the best thing any of them had seen in days, since leaving their blasted camp. there was still no meat, but everything else looked so healthy and appetising – and plentiful – was there clean running water in sector 9?
until this, all any of them had thought about was whether leaving was the right move – could things really be any better at somebody else’s camp? they’d been doing alright for themselves until that last big explosion, and they’d built it, so couldn’t they rebuild, instead of taking up with strangers?
if there’d been materials within reach it might have been a different week.
but now, seeing all that food, they knew they’d done the right thing. none of the now-seemingly-miniscule creature comforts they’d outfitted their camp with compared to this abundance. they couldn’t believe anybody’d been eating like this since the revolution started. and how much smarter was the revolution, now that it suddenly didn’t involve so much deprivation…
after the first few seconds of staring, the silence was interrupted by 369’s mad dash for the spread. she dropped and grabbed and was stuffing her face before any of the others caught up. but once she started the feeding frenzy there was no stopping it. it was 20 minutes before any of them even though to thank 108 for this act of largesse – they had nothing to offer in exchange.
108 stood by the doorway watching and smiling, and finally, 450 glanced up.
“thank you so much. we haven’t eaten since we had to start walking last week.”
“we understand. you have to give some to get some…”
“i wish we had something to give. we’ll help out any way we can.”
“you already have.”
they’d all been too busy wolfing down the widest variety of dishes they’d seen in months to notice the ubiquitous armed guards shifting from guarding to more aggressive postures, and it was almost too easy for 108’s team to neutralise their guests.
as she started the skinning and gutting, 108 found herself singing for the first time in months – what were the rest of the lyrics to more hot pies? maybe she’d dig out her sweeney todd soundtrack to keep her company while she prepared the meat…

walk good.

mtv tempo?

we'll see how well they do with this. i have high hopes, but it's mtv and they barely qualify as music television anymore, and have shown in the past that they know nothing of our region and aren't willing to look too hard to find out...
walk good.