30th May, 2006
Memory
A girl on a bike keeps circling the block. Repeating as she has done numerous times before. Time marches inexorably on.
I remember sitting in the den of my step-father’s house – my mom happened to live there at the time – I was in college, the first year or so, and I still had a tremulous relationship with my mother. We sat there, my mother and I, one weekend evening watching the Comedy Channel. Some sort of comic spotlight. Def Comedy Jam. I have no idea. I think there was a brick background involved. And a stool. A glass of water. All of this is inconsequential. This comedian, I think male – again, it does not matter- related some story of being stoned and I laughed. Not just a chuckle, but one of those uncontrollable belly laughs that wells up from deep within your being. About midway through my laugh, I noticed my mom was silent. At this time, two things passed through my adolescent, 19 year old mind: one was: oh fuck, she knows I’m a stoner. The second: that was really funny.
Nothing ever came from this. I never mentioned the show and neither did she. Time went on and our relationship progressed to its inevitable ending. (That’s another story.)
She passes again.
Cut to present day. I watched what I think was the end of Trailer Park Boys (snagged through BitTorrent since no US carriers will air it). There is a scene where, after smoking some marijuana, one of the characters is shown sipping ranch dressing, much like a fine wine to accent someone’s tournedos de boeuf, a handful of mass-market white bread in his other hand. And I laugh. I laugh every time I walk down the condiment aisle at the grocery. I doubt I will ever laugh so hard in my life, simply due to the fact that I was there. To someone who has never experienced it, it will probably elicit either confusion, disdain, mild humor due to stereotypes.. any number of things, but it won’t be funny. You had to have experienced that for it to register.
And that brings me to the rest of my life. Perspective. Whether I knew it or not, I’ve been living with depression for a long while now. It is a part of me. It has shaped me. It helps define who I am. Dealing with depression, as I suppose dealing with any sort of disease, is sometimes difficult to put into words. The emotions are there but it seems as though the English (or any?) language is incapable of truly expressing them. One thing that I have noticed is that it is infinitely simpler to explain depressive feelings to someone who has experienced it themselves than it is to explain such feelings to those who are fortunate enough to be ignorant of such. I don’t feel elitist about this, or that I and other sufferers are somehow above those who have escaped such feelings. Instead, I feel at a loss, I feel discouraged that I am unable to communicate such feelings. Sometimes I feel like humans need to evolve a little further so we can communicate empathetically. Maybe speaking from the heart would help heal a lot of the hatred that we have today. I don’t know what the answer is, all I know is that experience, until we stumble upon some other solution, is the key.
The girl passes, a final time, intent on maintaining forward momentum. Perhaps oblivious to her surroundings. Life goes on.
Posted at 8:03 pm | Comment (0)
30th May, 2006
plane will gnome unconditionally
Over the weekend while I was being lazy and lounging about in the sun, I accumulated 452 pieces of spam (with clever subjects like the title of this post). On the slim chance that someone actually made a comment (highly doubtful), I inadvertantly deleted it (hurray for the mass deletion button). Sorry about that.
Spammers can fuck the hell off.
I love parentheses.
Posted at 8:57 am | Comment (0)
22nd May, 2006
Gore
I’m liking Al Gore more and more these days. First, he’s coming out with a well-regarded documentary (and book), An Incovenient Crisis, on May 24th, and now there comes news of the climate-focused group that Gore is behind: the Alliance for Climate Protection. This group, which is being headed by a diverse collection of bigwigs that spans government, corporate and non-profit, Democrat, Republican and independent, intends to launch “a massive media and grassroots education campaign trumpeting the urgency of global warming and targeted at all manner of Americans”.
Posted at 2:11 pm | Comment (0)
17th May, 2006
Feeling Uneasy Yet?
It’s not just WorldNet customers who are being spied on — it’s the entire internet.
Wired has details of the evidence that has been provided by a whistle-blower in the recent EFF vs. AT&T case which alleges that AT&T has been allowing the US government to spy on all internet traffic that flows through its pipes. This is the same information that AT&T is trying to keep hidden from the case. Scary stuff.
Posted at 6:42 am | Comment (0)
12th May, 2006
DICKS
So, the latest poll is out and Dubya is proudly sporting a 29% approval rating. Congress (this includes all parties) is lagging behind with an 18%(!) approval rating.
Hmm. You think there will be any changes after the ‘06 and ‘08 elections? I sure as hell hope that people wake up and educate themselves (and voke for chrissakes) this time around.
Digging further into the poll is the frightening information that people are most highly concerned with the war, immigration and gas prices (28%, 16% and 14% respectively) while silly things like education (5%), human/civil/women’s rights (2%) and ethics in government (2%) hardly register with people. Way to think about the future of this country, everyone.
Posted at 1:39 pm | Comment (0)
12th May, 2006
Dumbfounded
Sure, there’s recently been a lot of hullabaloo regarding the NSA spying on tens of millions of Americans by tracking their phone calls, but I was really shocked when I saw this article regarding the other time this year that the NSA was caught spying on US citizens without a warrant. In a nutshell, the Department of “Justice” was supposed to investigate this matter, but the NSA doesn’t want them to, so the DoJ closed the investigation. Say it with me: WTF.
Posted at 7:05 am | Comment (0)
8th May, 2006
Happy
For those of you who don’t already know, I just wanted to let you know that KP and I got engaged this weekend. ^^ No set plans for when the wedding will be; a lot of it will depend on the legal system and her ex-husband. I am hoping that he will be civil and do what is best but who knows.
Posted at 8:01 am | Comment (0)
5th May, 2006
Yawn
Reading this article at Seed made me yawn. No, really. How about you?
Posted at 7:55 am | Comment (0)
