6am

• May 30, 2007

6am

It says something about our society.

On the BART in the morning, just over 50% of the passengers on any given car are asleep, or trying to sleep, or trying not to sleep, or at least resting with their eyes closed and their heads leaned over.

Sacrificing sleep in order to start the business day an hour earlier - every single day.
Why is this required, and why do we allow it? Is that much money really made between 7am and 8am?

Of course I am on that train too, in order to see it; but then that's because my job is a service specifically to commuters. So I have to be there before the commute. All those people on the train at 6am can't all have jobs specific to commuters.
And, well, in my case, something about skating 2.5 miles to BART while listening to Shock G and the DU as the sun comes up, it just makes it feel different. I actually enjoy my commute, even when I'm tired.

Look at these faces: they are not happy faces. Even without the loss of sleep, they are not happy faces.

I remember my bike trip through Mexico almost a decade ago now. It wasn't like this.
I would come across a store or a restaurant. The sign, if there was one, might say they opened at 9. But whether or not it was actually open at 9, that seemed to depend more on whether or not the owner felt like opening by then or not than what the sign said.
Which could be a little annoying when I had just ridden 15 miles and was looking forward to breakfast, but even then, I understood, I still liked that system better.

Money is to support living, instead of life being a means to make money.

Like a mountain stream

• May 28, 2007

Like a mountain stream

following the path of least resistance

gravity will take you down, with no effort on your part

no effort is always attractive

but you end up lost in the vast ocean

or at the bottom of the deepest chasm

only then will you rest

and to get to better place you must hike all the way back up

when had you taken the effort to control your direction from the beginning, the path would have been shorter

to reach the peak takes effort

effort rewarded

taking the path of least resistance, like a mountain stream,
you may not end up where you want to

Guess who just did his first one handed pull up?

• May 27, 2007

Guess who just did his first one handed pull up?

Oh hell yes!

And to think, so much money, so much time wasted on gym memberships and working out.
When all I had to do was start working as a mover/hauler.

Ok, ok, I admit it
It wasn't really a proper pull-up.
It was what the junior high school gym teacher referred to as a 1/2 pull-up, so that he didn't have to give out so many zeros during the annual fitness test. 
(Back then there were a lot of halves, ones, occasionally a two.  I used to pop off 10 or 15...)
Not the entire range of motion, from full extension to full contraction.
I can go from either full extension to half way, or half way to full contraction, but not quite both at once.

But this is sure the closest I've ever come!
I'm pretty happy with it.
Give me a couple months with my new in home pull-up bar, and...

Free stuff for everybody

• May 26, 2007

Free stuff for everybody

I am tired of having stuff in my driveway.  I made enough off of picking them up and the stuff that sold quick
http://sfbay.craigslist.org/eby/gms/339793224.html
Ignore the prices listed.  With the exception of the grill, if you see anything you have a use for, mention this blog, and its yours. 

*update: this is the current link*

I understand sleeping with the TV on

• May 25, 2007

I understand sleeping with the TV on

Some sleep with the TV on every night.
Once in a while may not mean anything, but every night, that is unmistakable.

Others are more subtle

Insomnia.  Some part keeps saying 'what are you doing trying to sleep when you could be using this time to go look for it?'

Drinking; a lot. Exceptions include alcoholics and college  students.
Most other drugs too, same thing.

Excess exercise.  You can tell them from the truly health conscious because they will work out even when sick, injured, or sore from last time, when exercise is not healthy, and probably counter-productive. They know that it is, but feel compelled none the less.

Overtime which is not really needed financially.

Volunteering so much that it displaces all or most personal life.  Hard to distinguish between those who really care, because surely that's a factor for everyone, and there are no concrete lines to draw.

Singular obsessions of nearly any kind.  This I don't know so much about, I could not tell which instances were this, and which were simply neurosis

It may involve constant (but primarily or exclusively superficial) social interactions, or it may be a complete withdrawal from social life.

Just, one way or another, filling all of ones time, never allowing for down time, for rest.  It doesn't make any difference what that time is filled with, if it feels imperative that it be something, every moment.
Every type 'A' personality is unsatisfied.  There is something they need to get, something they need to achieve or to find or to prove which they know they will never be able to.

Its all the same.  We know we are missing something.  We don't want to admit it to ourselves.  We don't want to think about it.
Some are in such deep denial that they don't even know there is anything to look for, have no idea that their activities are a coping mechanism.  They rationalize it, "this is just what I enjoy doing".  They really don't know.

I know exactly what I am missing. 
Sometimes I envy the ones who don't, but in the end, I don't really think it makes them happier.  It just means they end up throwing away the chance when it comes by, because they'd rather keep up the illusion than risk having to feel.  They'd rather go without than risking finding it and losing it again.

But is a guaranty of acceptable really worth a chance at excellent?

This may be most of us.  What it is we are each missing in our lives, they may be totally different for each of us, they may have nothing in common.  It doesn't matter.  The feeling is the same.  The actions we take to deal with it when we have no control are all the same.

Sleeping with the TV on can mean many things, but it always means that there is something which you are afraid to let yourself think about.  There is something which is hard to repress without distraction.

Me, I can't sleep with the TV on.  When I first noticed this habit in others, I recognized it for what it was, but I really didn't sympathize. 
I wonder if I could learn to sleep with it on. 

After all, I have such a nice flat panel TV in the bedroom...

I HAVE to have a subject line, MySpace says so

• May 23, 2007

I HAVE to have a subject line, MySpace says so

the human mind is just so strange

dare you ever feel the slightest confidence that you have "figured it out", it'll show you a thing or two

If all the most important things are crumbling, how does that justify this sense of contentment, actually joy.
One or the other, they could compensate, but both at once, I should be inconsolable.
And yet. Next? No idea. And yet. Music in my brain. Feeling the present. And its ok.



Even the guy just now, I can't stay mad at him, even crazy people have to ride bikes. Must be hard to go through life convinced that you are "black-listed", that everyone is after you. As obnoxious as he was, and even with the threats, I mostly feel sorry for him.

I've been crying from TV shows and movies. Drama, comedy, sometimes cartoons. From bad moments and good. What the hell is that about?
I am not the man I once was.
Not that it's brand new, but its excessive, or at odd times, or... its just abnormal.

I know repression. Oh dear do I ever. This ain't it.

I think I like it. How can I not? Happy is happy. Is all in the mind after all... I guess. Or?

Who got the gravy? That's the real question isn't it?

Problem with memory being so damn small, its way too easy to misplace. Real-to-real magnetic storage medium, now that ain't gonna be misplaced. This thing is friggin 1cm square; what did the hell did I expect? I lose things literally thousands of times bigger than that.

Pointless to ask, not even I know.

She might have been cute. The black eye was just too distracting. It wasn't this way when we moved in. There was just the one guy. A death, a move, a change in management, and the stereotypes become more and more valid each day. Plus side that my yard looks clean by comparison, but not really worth it.

What is this about? Everything. Blog is just an outlet, for words, for thoughts. They have to go somewhere. Else you end up thinking groups are targeting you, and threatening to use "devices".

It is time for midnight skating with some bumpin' music. Fuck sleep. What has sleep ever done for me? Cancellations, and BAM free time. Oh yeah baby! YEEAAAH, Bay-BE!! Sunny weather.
Lets leave the future for the future. The sun is out. 5 more hours underground.
Interest bearing debt fading fast. Nuts to a real job. Maybe Alex was right. Omari agreed: planning is pointless. How did he say it? "A plan is a prayer to father time" I would have said to Malomar, but its no less valid for it.

How did I go so many years not knowing Zapp (and Roger)? I always liked them, just never knew who they were. Thank you Grand Theft Auto San Andreas, as if we needed another reason to like you.

This is not a short blog!

Passion

• May 20, 2007

Passion

riding all day down the coast of California.

Typical early spring weather.

Cool.  Misty.  Bright.  Windy.

Tired, a little hungry.

Rain starts.

Rain gear doesn't help - all wet.  Cold.

Arrive at camp ground, check in, restroom / shower key

Clothes off, in the shower, all alone, faucet, hot, almost too hot, almost painful
Almost, but not

Perfect.
Warm.  Soft

Like your body is going to melt.
Right there in the campground shower, melt into a puddle, but you don't mind.

Wonder briefly what person in shower stall next door thinks of the pleasure noises involuntarily escaping you, but, the feeling is too distracting to think.  Ordinary showers never feel as good.

Take that feeling, the hot water enveloping, but instead, picture it in girl form.

Passion.

And yet -

Music.   Music in the genre they call "funk".
Sure, music is a matter of taste, personal preference.
But there is something ,  that, eee-gha. When your feeling the live band.  The rhythm gets into you.  People to ashamed to dance can't help but tap feet and wiggle heads.  There's a break, a pause, and then that first perfect beat, that first note, and if its done right, the dancers no longer have control over their bodies.  The musicians do.  And they know it, and they play with it.  And its not about what you look like, or about picking someone up, its just the music, just you and the music, and it just feels right, it just feels good.

Take that feeling, and put it in girl form.

The music with that ngha and the melting in a puddle.  They are not compatible.  They are both good, but one is calm and one is energy itself.  Or at least, not in any other context are they compatible.  Some how, passion, with all its physical movement, all its effort, makes you melt just like the shower, just like a really good massage.  Even with out sex, even with out love, it is like combining every good sensation, every good feeling that life has to offer us, into one concentrated moment, so intense as to boarder on excruciating, but somehow never crossing that line.

That sound, in the Beatles song "Girl" on Rubber Soul, the sucking in through the teeth, sssss, I can't find a proper onomatopoeia for it.
But you know what I mean.