I went to the courthouse recently - to get the approval of some mammal in a black robe - and had to pass through the security checkpoint at the door. The cop looked at my keychain with it's tiny, red Swiss Army knife and told me I couldn't take it in because it was a 'weapon.' He had a waste-basket ready to receive it.
"Ok, then," he says... "You can go stick it on the wall between the bricks outside, then get it again when you leave. So that's what I did... but oops... wrong courthouse. I collected my knife from the crack, then ran to the other courthouse. By the time I got there I'd forgotten about the 'weapon' in my pocket and passed through the metal-detector without a single beep.
I coulda carved up all they all's carcasses when I was in there.
Thursday, March 11, 2010
Monday, March 8, 2010
Bicycle diaries...
It's been a long, flabby winter, but I'm back on the road.
My ass, once a magnificent specimen, is now soft and doughy. My lung capacity is embarrassingly tiny, and I get winded at the slightest provocation... I could say it's for money, the environment, to prevent crowding... it's really because of exercise. I was fearing a long break-in period (and goodness knows, I'll be sore) but my first day out felt as if I hadn't put my bike away at all. Then it started snowing.
I like the idea that I get my exercise from my simple movements from here to there... like a wild animal. Driving makes me feel so domesticated sometimes.
It's a real 'seat of the pants' experience around these parts. You take your life into your hands riding a bicycle on the street in this city. There are two ways I can ride my bike to work, and neither of them are any good. Both have extended portions where the streets make no room for bikes - and big segments of these don't even have sidewalks to ride on. Hands down, I feel safer on these streets on a motorcycle than I ever have on a bicycle.
We're not welcome on the roads by most of the drivers around here (even when there's a bike path,) and in Salt Lake proper it's illegal to ride on the sidewalk... last I heard. The reality then becomes that you ride wherever you have to just to be safe. I stick to the street when I'm not going to work, and use my best manners with traffic so's to help avoid a brutal squishing.
But no... I will not sit at a stoplight with the car people when there's no cross traffic, I'm going to keep riding. I yield to pedestrians on the sidewalk, but those who don't want me there are invited to fuck off. (Like that guy I always see 'round 9th South and West Temple who likes to shout, "Ride on the street!" You ride on the street, dumbass, and if you don't get splattered like a grape under an SUV by some idiot on a cell phone, then you can lecture me.)
Yes... I'm feeling a little pissy today, but I promise, it's completely genuine.
I came across this picture today on the internets. The same amount of people with cars, bus, and bikes... three pictures are worth a thousand words.
My ass, once a magnificent specimen, is now soft and doughy. My lung capacity is embarrassingly tiny, and I get winded at the slightest provocation... I could say it's for money, the environment, to prevent crowding... it's really because of exercise. I was fearing a long break-in period (and goodness knows, I'll be sore) but my first day out felt as if I hadn't put my bike away at all. Then it started snowing.
I like the idea that I get my exercise from my simple movements from here to there... like a wild animal. Driving makes me feel so domesticated sometimes.
It's a real 'seat of the pants' experience around these parts. You take your life into your hands riding a bicycle on the street in this city. There are two ways I can ride my bike to work, and neither of them are any good. Both have extended portions where the streets make no room for bikes - and big segments of these don't even have sidewalks to ride on. Hands down, I feel safer on these streets on a motorcycle than I ever have on a bicycle.
We're not welcome on the roads by most of the drivers around here (even when there's a bike path,) and in Salt Lake proper it's illegal to ride on the sidewalk... last I heard. The reality then becomes that you ride wherever you have to just to be safe. I stick to the street when I'm not going to work, and use my best manners with traffic so's to help avoid a brutal squishing.
But no... I will not sit at a stoplight with the car people when there's no cross traffic, I'm going to keep riding. I yield to pedestrians on the sidewalk, but those who don't want me there are invited to fuck off. (Like that guy I always see 'round 9th South and West Temple who likes to shout, "Ride on the street!" You ride on the street, dumbass, and if you don't get splattered like a grape under an SUV by some idiot on a cell phone, then you can lecture me.)
Yes... I'm feeling a little pissy today, but I promise, it's completely genuine.
I came across this picture today on the internets. The same amount of people with cars, bus, and bikes... three pictures are worth a thousand words.
Sunday, March 7, 2010
Move with the energy...
A torrid affair with a new phone... consumer electronics make me horny. Fending off Bouncing Betty... 'crazy bitch' it turns out, is not just a locker room pejorative. Falling off my schedule how many times? Methinks there's something rotten in Denver.
When has there not been something rotten in Denver? It was two years ago since my depression subsided, but even then I knew full well I'd go right back there if things didn't change. I began writing, adressed my medical problems, came out from under my girlfriend's bed and figured out what it feels like to be 'happy.' I kept the dead-end graveyard job for the security and the freedom... And why not? It's a scary world out there and I'm one of the few I know who actually has health insurance.
So for the past year, at least, I've been attempting to do my creative projects while working a job with no potential for satisfaction while dating casually. It's clear to me that my schedule is really putting a damper on my creative energies, and no matter how good the sex is, my relationships are (very) far from satisfying, and socially, I've only succeeded in alienating the interesting people I've met.
I did have one failed attempt as the bold entrepreneur, one that gave me a taste for working with my hands at something artistic, that ended when my partner ripped me off. I've even been in and out of school in that time.
But last weekend, after much soul searching, defining what I want out of life, and consulting the oracles (presided over by my most favoritest Moon Goddess...) I finally internalized a notion that came to me when I first snapped out of my depression: I have quit my job.
If I'm trying to maximize my energy, then I need to be sleeping at night and getting up in the morning. I have to move with the energy and not against it. As it turns out, I've an excellent opportunity for learning a real trade with artistic overtones and unlimited potential for expression. I'm going to apprentice in my roommate's shop (which is about 50 feet from my bedroom door) and do all I can to make myself indispensable to her. When they roll out the latest round of lay-offs in what I expect will be the next year or so, I'll volunteer. I'll get a couple grand in severance and will drop into my new work full time.
That's the plan, anyway.
My writing projects are still there in my mind, of course. I work on them when I can - which is all I've been able to ever do anyway.
Part of this realization came a few weeks ago when I became entranced in the gaze of Big, Green-Eyed Trouble... If you've never had the experience of looking into a girl's eyes and suddenly figuring out what's important to you, I recommend it highly. It put the image in my mind of my last LTR, all the closeness of shared goals and a shared bed, doing nice things and nice things done for me. ...And a real 'bed' too, and not some afternoon nap together because I have to be at work by 10pm... a relationship not weighed down by years of depression. All that sounds like home after the last two years...
It would definitely be what I'd call a leap of faith, but I'm certain that my health, mood and energy will do nothing but improve. I've just never had the courage before.
It's been my experience that nobody really knows what will make them happy, and this realization is speculative, just like any other. And if it is that the rest of my life is to be spent flailing about trying to find something that fits... so be it. But if the last two years have been any indication, I'm on the right track and only getting closer.
The last few months have been the happiest I've ever known. I emerge from my little shack and see the purple-orange sky and I'm filled with such gratitude that I can't contain it. The moon overhead stirs my soul and opens my mind to accept a world I've so long rejected. I entered this life with all the advantages, got mangled, mutilated and spat out the bottom with virtually nothing, but still I can't believe my luck. At my age, with my past, it's almost as if I've been granted a new life completely.
I'm healthy, happy, and have spread before me many fat, succulent opportunities at which I can succeed or fail spectacularly with minimal interference from all the old, bad things.
So it is true... wonders will never cease.
When has there not been something rotten in Denver? It was two years ago since my depression subsided, but even then I knew full well I'd go right back there if things didn't change. I began writing, adressed my medical problems, came out from under my girlfriend's bed and figured out what it feels like to be 'happy.' I kept the dead-end graveyard job for the security and the freedom... And why not? It's a scary world out there and I'm one of the few I know who actually has health insurance.
So for the past year, at least, I've been attempting to do my creative projects while working a job with no potential for satisfaction while dating casually. It's clear to me that my schedule is really putting a damper on my creative energies, and no matter how good the sex is, my relationships are (very) far from satisfying, and socially, I've only succeeded in alienating the interesting people I've met.
I did have one failed attempt as the bold entrepreneur, one that gave me a taste for working with my hands at something artistic, that ended when my partner ripped me off. I've even been in and out of school in that time.
But last weekend, after much soul searching, defining what I want out of life, and consulting the oracles (presided over by my most favoritest Moon Goddess...) I finally internalized a notion that came to me when I first snapped out of my depression: I have quit my job.
If I'm trying to maximize my energy, then I need to be sleeping at night and getting up in the morning. I have to move with the energy and not against it. As it turns out, I've an excellent opportunity for learning a real trade with artistic overtones and unlimited potential for expression. I'm going to apprentice in my roommate's shop (which is about 50 feet from my bedroom door) and do all I can to make myself indispensable to her. When they roll out the latest round of lay-offs in what I expect will be the next year or so, I'll volunteer. I'll get a couple grand in severance and will drop into my new work full time.
That's the plan, anyway.
My writing projects are still there in my mind, of course. I work on them when I can - which is all I've been able to ever do anyway.
Part of this realization came a few weeks ago when I became entranced in the gaze of Big, Green-Eyed Trouble... If you've never had the experience of looking into a girl's eyes and suddenly figuring out what's important to you, I recommend it highly. It put the image in my mind of my last LTR, all the closeness of shared goals and a shared bed, doing nice things and nice things done for me. ...And a real 'bed' too, and not some afternoon nap together because I have to be at work by 10pm... a relationship not weighed down by years of depression. All that sounds like home after the last two years...
It would definitely be what I'd call a leap of faith, but I'm certain that my health, mood and energy will do nothing but improve. I've just never had the courage before.
It's been my experience that nobody really knows what will make them happy, and this realization is speculative, just like any other. And if it is that the rest of my life is to be spent flailing about trying to find something that fits... so be it. But if the last two years have been any indication, I'm on the right track and only getting closer.
The last few months have been the happiest I've ever known. I emerge from my little shack and see the purple-orange sky and I'm filled with such gratitude that I can't contain it. The moon overhead stirs my soul and opens my mind to accept a world I've so long rejected. I entered this life with all the advantages, got mangled, mutilated and spat out the bottom with virtually nothing, but still I can't believe my luck. At my age, with my past, it's almost as if I've been granted a new life completely.
I'm healthy, happy, and have spread before me many fat, succulent opportunities at which I can succeed or fail spectacularly with minimal interference from all the old, bad things.
So it is true... wonders will never cease.
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