I asked..

I asked my inner child today what it wanted.  It’s a good question to ask more than every once in a while. I admit, I’ve been entertaining the little-me well, and I haven’t mistreated her, but I also havem’t asked what she wanted in a while. So I asked, what should we do?

She answered, We should go on an adventure. I want to travel.

Well, I suppose since I’m done with being an undergrad, now is a good time to get lost as any.

I want to see something mysterious.

I want to be shocked.

I want to be surprised.

You are keeping us too safe.

Ah, how true, how true, little me! An answer you’ve had for some time. An answer that explains so much. We’re restless. My curious self hasn’t had a challenge in so long.

It is true, I have been staying too safe. Scared by the world, I live in my little cheap basement apartment. No job, of course. But it is safe. I have food and internet. I have gym access. I see some friends. We watch movies, cook, drink. Yet, when little-me said, we are too safe, I knew it to be true. A hamster being able to see the glass tank all around it. I have allowed myself to remain suspended. Not moving, not risking, not trying…in essence, not living. I might have been resting for a while. That’s a worthy spenditure of time. After that, was I merely trying to keep my heart safe? Protect it for when my lover comes? Maybe the anxiety of a long-distance relationship was too much. Maybe that’s why I go to the gym so often?

I need an adventure.

Why am I just waiting for something to happen to me? It’s highly uncharacteristic.

Well then, time to take off the safety nets.

Daniel Kitson – The World is Too Big

The world is too big for love to be real. There are too many people in the world to ever know, beyond everything, that you are with the right person. That your heart is as swollen as it can be. Think of all the people in China. It is unlikely anyone will ever meet all of them. How can we know for certain, that trapped inside a foreign language and thumping in a foreign heart there isn’t a love that is meant for us. The infinite possibility of existence, its limitless potential, is the proof that we need that love is nothing more than an imagination, a human folly, friendship swollen with self-importance, a final retreat from the storm of possibility. The love of our life could so easily have been someone else. It is random and accidental, haphazard and unsystematic. That which we feel for one person, clinging on to the delusion of destiny, could so easily be felt for a million people should the timing and the meetings and the mutual readiness have coalesced at some other time in some other place. Should someone else have accepted us or rejected us then everything would have been different. And once we know this, we know that all love is a lie. Not honesty but deception. Not heroism but cowardice. An unspoken agreement of mutual consolidation and compromise, a shield from possibility and a bed in which to sleep, nothing more than that.

But I do still miss her.

Fuck the RIAA…again…and always

If Downloading A Song Is Just Like Stealing A CD, Why Won’t The RIAA Allow Reselling MP3s?

from the either-it-is-or-it-isn’t dept

When you hear RIAA defenders insist that an unauthorized download is “just like stealing a CD” or something along those lines, it’s worth noting even they don’t really mean it. After all, if a digital file really was no different than a physical goods purchase, then you’d be able to do other things with it — such as resell it. And yet, as you read through Eliot Van Buskirk’s article about new online services trying to create marketplaces for people to sell their “used” MP3s, you’ll see the scenario is quite different. After all, it’s perfectly legal to sell your used CDs, but now when it comes to selling used MP3s you need a record label’s permission? Why? Well, because even the record labels seem to inherently know that a CD is quite different from a download. So when the RIAA claims they’re the same, what they really mean is “only the stuff we like is the same.”

Hot Plastic, Peter Craig

Just for future reference, don’t use words like “love” anymore. It’s a very sensitive word and it wears out quickly. Romeo barely says it, but John Hinckley filled up a whole journal with it. To put it into your terms, it’s a currency that’s easily devalued. Pretty soon you’re saying it whenever you hang up the phone or whenever you leave. It turns into an apology. Then it’s an excuse. Some assholes want it to be a bulletproof vest: don’t hate me; I love you. But mostly it just means–more. More, more–give me something more. A couple of years from now, when you’re on your own completely, if you really fall in love, if it really comes to that–and I pity you if it does–you have to look right down into the black of her eyes, right down into the emptiness in there and feel everything, absolutely everything she needs and you have to be willing to drown in it, Kevin. You’d have to want to be crushed, buried alive. Because that’s what real love feels like–choking. They used to bury some women in their wedding dresses, you know. I thought it was because all those husbands were too cheap to spring for another gown, but now it makes sense: love is your first foot in the grave. That’s why the second most abused word is “forever”.

Neil Gaiman, Fragile Things

I spoke to a woman I used to love today, in a cafe in the desert. She’s a waitress there, a long time ago.

“I thought I was your destination,” she told me. “Looks like I was just another stop on the line.”

Art Arises

“Art arises from loss. I wish this weren’t the case. I wish that every time I met a new woman and she rocked my world, I was inspired to write my ass off. But that is not what happens. What happens is we lie around in bed eating chocolate and screwing. Art is what happens when things don’t work out, when you’re licking your wounds. Art is, to a larger extent than people would like to think, a productive licking of the wounds.”

- Steve Almond

Cloud Nine Had Some Turbulence Yesterday

I was in a fantastic mood yesterday. Very engaged, excited to be a global citizen and make a difference in the world! I am taking care of myself physically…yeah, go me!
Of course, the realist and Tibetan Buddhist that I am, I knew that this feeling could not last forever. I also knew that preparing for whatever bad thing was coming next was pointless because it will always be unexpected and it will always throw me on my ass. So I decided to enjoy myself with company and let it come. Not like I could do anything about it anyway.
Had a homecooked dinner with friends. Relaxed.
Then felt suddenly ill.
Very ill.
Oh sweet Jesus ill.
Then I combed through my food, and found meat. Pieces of meat.
I suppose I should have mentioned earlier that I am a vegetarian. My friends are not. But they promised to carefully make sure that no meat got anywhere near my food.
Someone later told me that the chef was not as careful as she could have been.
So my meat allergy/intolerance kicked in. I was so miserable for the next 5 hours.
I accepted it with as much grace as I could.
I suppose it’s lucky I didn’t have a peanut issue.

Why Porn Amuses Me: Reason Number 4674536

While the girl’s insides are getting a very thorough and often painful and uncomfortable looking massage…she keeps shooting us, the audience, looks. As if asking us to do better. As if going, “Why aren’t you here?”

It’s one of the things that I see porn stars have in common with models. Even though their bodies are contorted and shoved full of strange things…they still manage to have calm, serene, bored, drugged, relaxed faces…with eyes that look at you, question, as if expecting you to do something. For them? With them? To them? I don’t know.

They seems like cats to me. They can be fully engaged in something, like licking their hoodads, but then they will stop and look at you, bored and uninterested, legs still totally spread eagle, and then go back to what they were doing. Occasionally, they will look at you again. Totally indifferent.

I think this is why I prefer dogs.