Goodbye to my Face page

I don’t like Facebook, but I feel trapped there.  I don’t really check it anymore, really should cancel it.  I don’t know which would score higher on the percieved ignorance scale, never replying to people or just vanishing out of everyone’s friend list.

Funny thing, now that I think about it, with people so vigorously collecting friends, I don’t think I will be missed.

Still…I am curious to see who will contact me.  So far it’s not the people I would expect.  I have a problem keeping superficial connections with people and I don’t make many deep connections either.  Life is always stranger than I.

I am agitation.

It occurred to me you were blurred to me so you never heard of me.  Don’t take it personally, memories are not for me.  You had a chance to shine, but you were unable because you’re too stable for friction.

Good Friends (a wierd wedding tale)

Saturday was a beautiful day.  The weather was perfect – cool & cloudless.  Great day for driving.  We had to venture 200 some odd klicks to get to a friends wedding.  The wedding was at Viamede Spa and Resort in Lakefield, Ontario (north east of Peterborough).  The wedding was nice.  Ceremony was on the shore of Stoney Lake.  One thing worthy of mention for the ceremony.  While the Bride & Groom were signing the wedding license, the fathers retrieved fishing rods, stepped to the shoreline and cast their lines.  Within seconds, the bride’s father caught a fish.  Within moments of the fish, at 4 in the afternoon, the moon came out, but only for a minute or two.  I am not a semiologist, by any means, but I think those were two auspicious signs bestowed upon this couple by nature.

We didn’t know anyone else there, except for another couple.  Very nice.  I like them.  Otherwise, we were alone in a sea of strangers, some young, some old and all not in the mood to talk to strangers!  Picture time for the bride and groom.  We tuck away and have a couple of drinks.  When the Bride & Groom venture back toward the main resort building to take a few more photos, I notice a couple of idiots sitting on the balcony.  They’ve got their pants down and are hanging their asses over the railing, hoping to get into the background of the pictures.  Nice friends.

An hour or so later, it’s time for the receiving line and dinner.  The Bride and Groom have two really nice families.  Weddings are overwhelming for the families, so many people, so many things to do, so many so manies that the day vanishes without many memories other than the blur.  Thank goodness for the professional photos (with the asses in the b/g).

We were seated in the very back corner of the reception room, which was perfect – we didn’t know anyone, plus we had the best view of the lake!  Here’s where things start to get interesting.  There were the four of us (two couples) sitting in the back corner, the rest of the table was populated with six other young people, probably in their early to mid-twenties.  There was one guy from Perth Australia, who lives in Oakville now.  There were two guys who girlfriends were bridesmaids.  And the bride had a girlfriend from college, and two girlfriends from high school.  So there we are…a group of six and a group of four, neither group familiar with anyone from the other – table of ten.

I’m sitting beside Preston (real name).  I don’t remember anyone else’s name, but his is etched into my memory.  Preston was a little drunk.  First sign of trouble came in the form of wholly inappropriate comments.  “That’s the bride’s step-father.  He’s a homo.  He doesn’t like me.  Homo.”  This while the step-father was introducing the wedding party.  Then the bride’s mother stands up to say grace.  “Oh listen to this bitch, she yabbers on and on and on.  I can’t wait to hear this.”  He then proceeds to laugh hysterically throughout the entire prayer.  Awkward for the four of us.  The rest of the other group have smirks on their faces, like we did out of discomfort, but they knew this guy.

Dinner service begins.  “The soup tastes like dog’s ass.”  So enjoy your soup!  I loved mine, some cream of something, but damn it was good.  Then comes the salad, “I don’t eat this green shit.  Where’s the meat?”  When he wasn’t complaining about the food or the people, he was talking about fighting, or calling me ‘Jimmy’, “I call everyone Jimmy.”  (My name isn’t Jimmy!) 

Then, out of nowhere, he grabs my thigh and holds it.  I was surprised.  “Hey Jimmy, you’re not a homo.”  His hand was closer to my nuts than my knee, if you know what I mean.  I tried to make light of the situation, I cracked a joke or two, but they were feeble and tinged with anger.  My girlfriend was upset and our friends (across the table) were both upset.  (I hate doing these without names, so I am going to refer to our two friends as Ray & Linda!)  Ray was pissed, he looked as though he were about to leap the table.

Not satisfied, Preston starts rubbing the back of my head.  I can’t stand when people touch the back of my head.  I asked him to stop.  He did it again.  I kind of snapped, slapped his hand away and said something like, “Don’t do it again.”  He puts his hand back on my thigh.  Okay, so this is happening over say the first thirty minutes of the dinner.  None of the people who know Preston are doing or saying anything.  They are basically ignoring everything.  Oh sure, we were making small talk here and there, but goof ball essentially dominated the focus.  I got up to leave a couple of times, I needed to get away.  When he announced that “I piss alot.”  I finally lost it. 

My girlfriend and I went outside to have a cigarette.  I was fuming.  I wanted to smash wine bottles across this guy’s face.  There were either one of two things happening here:

1.  Preston was intentionally trying to antagonize me into some kind of conflict.

2. Preston is homosexual, but has not yet realized or come to terms with it.  No straight guy, no matter how intoxicated, grabs and holds another guy’s upper thigh for a prolonged period of time.  It does not happen.

Either way, this guy is a poor excuse for donkey’s rectum, let alone a human being.  On the way back to our table, we stopped at the head table.  My girlfriend mentioned something to the bride (her friend), I don’t know what she said.  There were some looks of consternation.  Then one of the bridesmaids laid claim, “Preston is my boyfriend.”  I told her that her boyfriend was being antagonist in a really drunken kind of way.

We get back to the table.  Preston is gone.  Passed out.  But his buddy, noticing our little stop at the head table asks me if everything is all right.  Then, he has the nerve to tell me that everyone at the table is just trying to make the best of it.  I could’ve screamed.  I reply sarcastically, “I appreciate you pointing that out to me.”  And he goes on, as though I am the one causing a disruptance.  I wanted to rip this prick’s tongue out.  “We’re all just trying to make the best of a bad situation.”  In my mind, if this guy is a friend of Preston’s he would’ve taken him out of the room much earlier.  He would’ve been trying to calm him down, or at least to leave the strangers alone.  Nope.  Dumb prick just sat there the whole time and let his buddy irritate four complete strangers, then told me that they were all trying to make the best of it.

Poetic justice – the meat plate was served moments after Preston retired to his room for the night!  Then I find out, the fool was taking pain killers (some incident with his hand) and drinking.  No wonder he was out of control, still no excuse for his dumbass friend to let him behave the way he did, especially since these were the two morons whose girlfriends were bridesmaids.

It gets better.  During the speeches, the bride’s step-father, who acted as master of ceremonies (and loved it!), was recalling anecdotes about everyone in the wedding party.  When he turned to Preston’s girlfriend, I think the comment was, “Whoa, now you’ve got some catch there!”  Then someone called out, “He’s gone for the night.”  Apparently no surprise to anyone in the room who knew him.  Then the bride’s step-father proceeds to tell a story in which numb nuts some how ended up using the ladies room at a McDonald’s one morning earlier in the week.  Hang over was his excuse.  I’d have to be pretty far out of it to end up in the ladies room!

Anyways, this only fuels my belief that option number two (as stated above) is closer to the truth.  I think that subconsciously, he thought he belonged in the women’s washroom.  I think the combination of pain killers and alcohol opened up that same part of his mind at the dinner table.  I think he wanted to touch my thigh and rub the back of my head.  He was clearly in a state beyond self-control.  I would wager large dollars that this is not an infrequent occurence.  I bet every one of his male friends have had to fight off some kind of aggressive, but strangely sexual advance from him.

As a footnote:  It turns out that Preston and his buddy who was ‘making the best of it’ were the two idiots hanging their asses over the railing.  Good friends!

Food & Fresh Water

If you ever wonder why we (humans) are engaged in constant warfare, just watch how chimpanzees establish and defend their feeding grounds.  It’s marvelous, for chimps (our closest relative), but not so for us.  Aren’t we supposed to be more intelligent than a jungle creature?  Oops…we are jungle creatures, the smartest of the them all (according to us!).  We’re intelligent enough to envision ideals, but not wise enough to achieve them. 

 Just by virtue of our numbers, we’ve thrown the natural balance of nature out of whack.  The feeding chain is very top heavy & soon the foundation will crack, crumble and collapse.  Nationalism will overtake self-determination in the struggle for survival in the tough times which are bound to come.  We will give up our liberty for some fresh water and real food.  If a Nation cannot provide, it will be swallowed by one which can. 

We need to make some hard decisions regarding our collective future.  We need to re-establish the natural balance of the planet.  This will have to include moderating population growth, harnessing natural sources of energy & a more equitable distribution of wealth.

It will never happen.  The planet will do it for us.  The strong are more likely to survive & there is none stronger (here) than Earth, so odds are in the planet’s favour.

One’drin

If curiosity kills the cat, but the cat has nine lives, then what does this tell us about being curious?

God Made My Heart & Then Traded It

The concept of Original Sin has worn thin on me.  I don’t believe it exists.  We are not born with fault.  We are born in a pure state of animalism & wonder.  Our Original State of Being begins to change the moment we leave the womb.  We learn the wrongs of our parents, of our friends’ parents and of our community.  Original Sin is something the Catholic church created to ensure a constant supply of penitents. 

In terms of economics, the Church has manufactured the single most unique product ever made – salvation.  The Church has generated a false demand (value) for salvation by limiting its supply to only the most worthy, where the criteria for ‘worthy’ is determined exclusively by the product’s manufacturer.

Then the Church devised the greatest marketing ploy ever – Hell, eternal damnation.  They even created a mascot – Satan.  He’s like the Jolly Green Giant, Stay Puff Marshmellow Man or Chef Boyardee, except for hell.  He is the internationally recognizable symbol (devise) designed to force you to the cash register with a cartload of pricey, but valuable, salvation.

Let’s face it.  There is no definitive evidence to support the existence of a Hell, Purgatory, or Heaven.  So, if salvation is a ‘one way ticket’ to Heaven and the subsequent avoidance of the other two, less savoury, destinations, which don’t actually exist (as we understand today!), then…what are we doing? 

We’re participating in the most enticing speculative commodities market.  This market has many centres, but none more popular than the City of Jerusalem where the Big Three Westerns deal their stock & trade.  I guess you could call it the meta-market.

We pay to play for what we pray is the winning team.  It is a competitive game, so you better believe you’re better than all the other teams.  If you don’t have faith, you will most certainly lose.

We dream of holding up the championship cup (The Holy Grail!) and screaming into the camera to an audience of billions, “I’m going to HEAVEN!”, as though it were the greatest theme park ever.  Then the camera pans over to the loser’s bench, where the players are hunched over, head in hands on knees, their shmaghs, turbans, yarmulkahs, or whatever helmet the opponents have chosen, pulled down to hide the shame on their sweat drenched faces.  I’ve paid my dues, time after time.  The music blares.  I’ve done my sentence, but committed no crime.  Oh and we’d cry and hug each other, offering over emotional congratulations and praise.

It’s all bullshit.  If someone loses in this game, then no one wins.  This is sooth.

My Monday Morning March into Madness & Mayhem, maybe!

The con science is an appliance of loose morals and an appreciation for quarrels.  I think I live in Lividity ten miles beneath Crusty and a thousand miles from Lucidity.  It’s so damned hot.  I beg for the sweet grief of temporary relief, but for me there’s no reprieve, or so I believe.  Is there hope?  Gaze around in wide eyed wonder.  Nope.  Nothing but scorched earth.  I think I live in a cave where the mood is sombre and grave, save for the clown who likes bringing everyone down with his painted frown.  I hate that clown.  He stole my show.  I think I live in a place where a smile on a face can lighten the mood of even the most miserable brood and change the world for a day, or so I say.  That’s where I’d like to be today.

Even the Strong Sleep

Two years ago September coming, I hurt my back like I had never done so before.  I have a history of back problems stemming from a quasi-fractured right hip, an injury which occurred when I was only twelve or thirteen.  In terms of musculature, one side of my back is slightly more developed than the other resulting in a mild curvature of my spine.  The muscles on either side of said spine are engaged in a constant struggle for supremecy and the innocent victims of this internecine strife are my vertibrae.

In that September, I was so out of alignment that when I walked, my right hip felt like it was ahead of my left hip.  It never felt like I was walking straight.  I was always slightly skewed to one side as though I were trying to squeeze through some tight spot.  Then one night, all hell broke loose.  I could barely move.  My back was in full spasm, primarily in the area of my shoulders, shoulder blades and all points in between.

Three or four months prior to this I had stopped my monthly massage therapy, I decided it was time to start again.  I found a new health clinic in the area I was living.  The clinic offered chiropractic and massage therapy.  In desperation, I see the chiropractor and the massage therapist.  I start a rigorous routine of visits to both of them, three times a week, sometimes more.  This goes on for nearly three months, costs over a thousand dollars (some covered) and there were no results.  My back was hurting as much in November as it was when it started.

I decided to visit my family doctor.  He looked at my back from six feet away and prescribed a remedy within ten seconds.  “Get an obus forme.”  I walked across the street to the drug store and bought one.  I strapped it to the seat in my car and went home.  A little uncomfortable at first, but within ten minutes I could feel little cracks in my spine as it slowly slipped back into alignment.  I was still sore when I got home, but in the thirty minutes it took me to get there I had accomplished more with the obus forme than I had in three months with a chiropractor.

As an aside, the obus forme is about the same price as an initial visit to a chiropractor (roughly $80).

In retrospect, I should’ve gone to my doctor in the first place.  The lesson for me is simple – the chiropractor’s focus was on the symptoms.  She did not address the cause – my posture.  For in fixing the cause, rather than the results of my problem, she would’ve lost a customer, for I would no longer have a reason to visit.  This is a measure of self-preservation.  You cannot make yourself obsolete.  You always have to prove your worth to people, even if it means prolonging their pain.

So beware everywhere you go, everything you see and are told, its almost all a mistruth.  We see, speak and listen with a measure of self-preservation and it changes everything.

Your lack of knowledge will almost always be used against you. 

Pee Pole

As fas as I am concerned, there are only two types of people on this planet – living ones and dead ones.  This is a real distinction, where race and nationality are superficial.

Begrudger (the transparent actions of a monarch)

Misery breeds misery and nothing is tougher than nothing.

I know a person who is so full of misery she can barely function.  She sees the world through shit-stained glasses and can’t keep it to herself.  She drags her feet when she walks.  She drags everyone down into her world of insecure cynicism.  She drags down the general morale.  She can drag a second into an hour.  Everything is crap.  Everyone sucks.  Work is a chore, please don’t give me anymore.  It never ends.

If someone is off from work on any given day, she will be off within a couple of days.  If someone leaves early on a Friday afternoon, she will leave early the following Friday.  If she can pawn off work or fluff people off, she will.  If she doesn’t have to learn, she won’t.  If she feels as though the world owes her something, she will begrudge everything in it until repaid (and probably forever after because it’s a habit!).

One cannot have the best of both lawns.  One must choose a side of the fence and tend to it, weeds and flowers alike.

Motions of the Living Dead

Some days I am insane with rage and frustration, where I snap over the slightest of slights and freak out about nearly nothing which is almost everything. I feel this tension in my head, in my skin, in my spirit. I flex and clench my muscles, trying to break out of my skin, to free myself from the anguish of this body.  I have a glare in my eye and a snarl on my lips.  I can’t contain myself.

When I am like this the world becomes very antagonistic.  Things happen that never happen on better days.  I want to tear people to shreds for their rampant stupidity and complacency.  And why the hell are they indignant about everything?  Ignorant fools.  One of the essentials in life is to not be an obstacle.  Get out of the way.  People only ever make themselves appear dumber.

A little (true) story from work – I was copied on an email in which the sender asked one the recipients for their email address.  That would be like me walking up to Mary and asking, “Hey Mary, what’s your name?”

Here’s a quote that has been on my mind all day – “Vision without action is a daydream.  Action without vision is a nightmare.” [Japanese proverb]

On days like today, whenI am experiencing this profound anger, I feel as though I am living in everyone else’s collective nightmare.  In this place, people act without thinking and move without looking.  They have no idea of what they’re doing, nor any sense of the impact on their surroundings.  Most people are already dead.  They’re just going through the motions of life.  I can hear the zombies now, begging, pleading, doing anything for someone’s brain.  “Please don’t make me use my own.”  The living dead are indignant about thinking or doing anything on their own.  Any exertion of effort could knock what little is left of their life out of them.  Heaven forbid.

Please leave me alone.

Twisting My Plight Away

Do you ever wonder if your actions are driven by id or superego? Are you conscious of it in the moment of your action?  Are you aware of how you feel in those moments?  Your body tells you more about your emotions than your mind ever could.  Your mind is not wholly you own, so it can and will play tricks on you.  I let the pleasure override most of the time and it feels good.  When I let the superego take control in moments which aren’t as rare as I would like them to be, I feel burdened, head-achy and tired.  Here’s the quirky part about me (and many others I suppose!), I can’t stand when other people let their ids run rampant.  They always seem misguided and foolish to me.

I find a certain measure of pleasure in order.  I like the idea of first come first serve.  I like the idea of everyone letting one car merge in front of them when it comes to closing lanes.  I like the idea of slower moving vehicles keeping to the right.  I like the idea of joining the express line at the supermarket with eight items or less in your basket.  These are a few instances where the superego takes control.  I am quick to fury when other people break these little social conventions.  Speaking of which, I really like the idea of signalling lane changes.

There is no other place in North America where more people interact as much oras often than on the roads and highways carved into our beautiful landscapes.  If you want to check in on the general status of a population’s psyche and emotional well-being, look at the way we drive.  A lot of people are generally malicious or careless drivers and I am not sure they’re even aware of it in most cases.  It was a long time driving before I became aware of my subtle actions on the gas pedal or brake.  I was subconsciously screwing people over all the time.  I still do, but now it’s on purpose, part of the pleasure.  And this is the problem.  I think we enjoy screwing each other over because we’re getting screwed over all the time, little things, big things, makes no difference.  There’s always some kind of screwing going on!

It doesn’t matter where you are or under what circumstances, somehow you’re getting screwed and you know it.  You know what it is?  On a certain unconscious level, we all know that, in general, we’re screwed!  It doesn’t matter how many electric cars there are or how much we recycle.  It doesn’t matter if we save another species nearing extinction because of our bullshit global antics.  We’re screwed.  You know it.  I know it.  We all know it.  Some of us just don’t want to admit it, preferring the mind numbing comfort of network television and food.  We’re screwed and we’re acting out on our subconscious fears in passive aggressive ways.

Well, I’m going to go and clean the bathroom now.  No sense in being screwed and having a dirty toilet all at once.

A lot in life and parking.

I had a guy groove me at a stop sign when it was my turn to go.  “That prick cut me off!”  Then he pulled into the same plaza I was going to and nearly hit two pedestrians.  We parked pretty much face to face in the parking lot.  He got out of his car in a hurry and walked briskly to the door, almost as if he had to beat me there.  I didn’t really give a shit, but I was a little upset about being grooved at that stop sign, not to mention his carelessness with the pedestrians.  “Big friggin’ hurry!” 

I strolled along.  He got inside the Dominion, then dilly-dallied around the entrance and became an intrusion in my path.  He proceeded to walk slowly and in such a way that made it difficult for me to get past him.  That was a little weird, I thought this guy was in a rush.  I finally squeezed by and went down the coffee aisle.  He stood at the end of the aisle and watched me for a bit, then moved on.  I grabbed the coffee and a few other things.  I was in there for about ten minutes.  I lined up in the express lane, which is closest checkout lane to the exit.  Little note, I had precisely eight items. 

Anyways, the lineup took about five minutes.  I step up to the cashier and in my periphery I see this friggin’ guy lingering about.  He doesn’t have anything in his hands!  He’s been there for fifteen minutes, was in a big enough rush to get there that he cut me off and nearly hit two people and he hasn’t got a single thing in his hands.  He’s there for no apparent reason.  I pay for my goods, grab my bags and head for the exit.  Guess who’s walking right in front of me in such a way as to make it difficult for me to pass?  It was almost as if he was waiting for me to finish at the checkout before he decided to leave. 

We finally emerge into the parking lot where I can hustle past him.  He starts walking faster like it’s a race to the cars.  By now I’m thinking, “Screw you buddy!  I’m beating you out of this parking lot.”  I boogie to my car, open the door, fire the bags onto the passenger seat, jam the key into the ignition, press the clutch, fire it up, throw it into first and fly.  I didn’t beat him to his car, but I did beat him out of the parking lot. 

This does not, however, explain what the hell that guy was doing in the first place.  There are only two things I can think of.  He could’ve escaped from an institution of a mental health orientation.  Or he’s just some guy who gets beat up by life every day and does these small things to get even and noticed all at once.  Either way, buddy was messed up.  Quite possibly one of the most irritating human beings I have encountered but never had the pleasure of speaking to.  He inspired such negative feelings in me from that one action at the stop sign and everything about him became the epitome of irritation.  He pushed all the wrong buttons in me and I wanted to pummel him.  I exercised restraint. 

What the hell was he doing?  Why was he at Dominion when he didn’t need anything?  Why was he in a hurry at some points and not at others?  For instance, he stood looking at the 25 cent candy machines by the exit for a couple of minutes before I completed my transaction.  I don’t understand.  Could it all be a figment of my imagination?  Was he there at all?  Maybe he didn’t cut me off.  Maybe he didn’t nearly hit those pedestrians.  I could’ve been in an agitated or irritated state and manifested him from the depths of my frustrations.  It’s quite possible I’m the one who escaped from the asylum,stopped taking my meds and have become a menace.  Shit, what if I cut him off?  Are there people looking for me now?  Trying to return me to the general safety of a padded cell.  Are you reading this?  Am I writing with my mind or my fingers?

Nothing is real.  When am I?