Feb 11 2008
finger tips…
heat-seeking missiles
exploiting target-rich terrain
tongues… peanut butter salty sweet smooth
sex smell. sweat, sticky warm
an audience of two
falling backwards,
landing like pick up sticks
arms legs fingers toes interlocked
soft there
safe there
in amber chamber light
he catches her breath
she holds his hand
moaning laughing at the groaning
not afraid to find each others eyes
to look there, stay there
smile as a child and say
i love you
Feb 08 2008
This morning on NPR’s Morning Edition they had this report:
Iraq Vets Charged with Murder of Fellow Soldier
A soldier who had survived two tours in Iraq and had been sent home after suffering traumatic brain injury was murdered in December in Colorado Springs near Fort Carson, Colo. Army Spc. Kevin Shields was killed, according to police, by three fellow soldiers who had served with him in Iraq.
Feb 08 2008
buhdy wants to know… what should we do to fight evil?
harsh and simple: stop partnering with it.
Feb 07 2008
Not long after the 2006 election, I came to the realization that the Republican party needed to go, and so I wrote a piece explaining my reasoning and an overview of how I thought it could be accomplished. But for various reasons (primarily I still lacked the self-confidence), I never posted it anywhere and eventually forgot about it completely.
Then buhdy posted his essay Good Thing They Don’t Believe In Evolution and I saw this line:
DESTROY THE REPUBLICAN PARTY.
“Holy shit,” I thought! “I wrote something saying exactly that about a year ago! Wonder if I ever finished it….” So I went off in search of it, and lo and behold, there it was, still sitting on my hard drive. And it was completed, too!
I wasn’t sure if I should post it in it’s original form or edit it to reflect my current outlook. I was naive enough at the time to believe the Dems might actually start working for us, and I had done very little research into voting systems, laws, etc. I might also have worded some parts a bit differently, now. But after looking at it and wavering back and forth, I finally decided to leave it as is. (Okay, I admit laziness played a part. I don’t feel like rewriting it.)
I wrote this a little over half a year after I beat my depression. (Took me about 15 years to do it, and it’s been about two years since, but that’s another essay.) In a comment I wrote, I said that it can take me a long time to decide on something, but once I decide, I don’t mess around. This is a case in point. Once I decided to become politically engaged (around mid to late summer in ’06, I think; first comment I ever made on DK was in August), from that point to when I wrote this piece, I went from being completely clueless about politics to someone who was engaged and actually knew more in some cases than the rest of my immediate family (who aren’t exactly political slouches). I became the family political geek. So for me, this is not just an essay about destroying the Republican party, it’s also a look back at a milestone in my personal growth.
The only editing I’ve done is some formatting so it looks perty.
Feb 05 2008
I made another trip to the old house today and grabbed most of my power tools. shop vac, a small table and some other odds and ends. There was a table down in the basement that needed some attention, I cleaned it up and tightened the legs, now it is in the living room with a small bankers lamp and a backgammon set on it. The cats like it because now they can stare at teh bird feederz and the apple trees. The two cats from the other house made it up yesterday, they seem to like the place so far. So now the total is 3 barn cats, 2 inside/outside cats, 2 horses, and one dog soon to be 2 dogs.
I ran through the electrical panels and verified the labeling was correct. Found one live wire buried in the wall, fixed an outlet in the front hall that was never properly installed. Installed a new phone as the one I had was old and kept breaking up. The new one seems fine. There is a small leak in the shower unit but I have the tools to fix that tomorrow. Started laying out ideas for vegetable garden locations, perennial beds, natural wetland areas etc. There is a spot on the South side of the property that is perfect for the first garden area, I’ll just need to create a gate in the fence to access it and add a small composting area.
The horses were very active in the warm weather today, Rio seems to be the more inquisitive of the two. They got a good brush down yesterday and are starting to respond to my voice. They got fresh bedding today and rolled around in it right away.
The most immediate neighbor stopped by last night, she filled me in on other artists living in the neighborhood. She’s a professional writer and built her own active solar home for $75,000 about 5 years ago, she’s still working on the final touches. She is very active politically and is trying to get some things done regarding pesticides and toxic wastes. She has great energy and it is nice to know a like-mind is nearby.
Feb 04 2008
Years ago, a professor that I disliked because he had a tendency to hush the women and allow the men to expound even when they did verbal fishtails and even confused themselves, told me I just wasn’t that bright and I did not belong in graduate school. Now when somebody tells me I am an idiot, I cheerfully agree and ask them to teach me.
But it came at a time of intense personal and intellectual flux and insecurity. I came from a small school of no significance attended primary by locals. We played soccer either with the profs, drank beer with them, a few profs even taught informal seminars just for the hell of it. I had one friend who was an intellectual star and went on to be a successful corporate lawyer. The rest of us were merely curious goofballs and it was encouraged. However, being a curious goofball turned out to be a deadly downfall in graduate school.
I lacked intellectual rigor you see, I had arrived and found out taking class X was impossible if I had not already read A, B, and C. So, I panicked. I dropped a class, added another, switched my areas of concentration for my comp exams was told I would fail
because the reading list was too extensive and lured a few others into a study group for the purposes of mutually assured survival. I plowed through my degree like a chastened farm animal.
My curiosity evaporated.
Feb 04 2008
OK, so I've wasted a year of my life on the blogs. And a little. From this sad and fruvious abandonment, I've come to a sharply diminished sense of my own importance, a contradictory tendency towards arrogant and conceited assertion, and a great solidity in my belief that most people — myself included — are purely batshit. However, I've also come to a few questions, which I toss out to the members of our invisible college for rumination, digestion, and perhaps (finally) deposit, messy or neat as per your nature. To whit:
Feb 02 2008
I’ve never forgiven myself for being gay.
That’s not too surprising. I’ve never been able to forgive myself for much of anything.
Feb 01 2008
Empowerment.
The big, new-century term. I hate it.
Almost as much as i hate that last century throwback, political correctness.
Two ideas that both disable and imprison people. IMO.
Ideas like these are what make us like our pet dogs: in a perpetual state of puppy hood… needing to be fed, cared for, and looked after throughout our lives.
It’s time to toughen up. And it all starts with the way we think:::::: about ourselves.
Jan 27 2008
I apologize for the delay in uploading pics. I’m not used to the laptop yet and had to install some software to get it to work. So without further ado:
He was being a little camera shy this morning.
Kossaks helped me name him.
More pics of the land to come later in the week.
Be good and do it yourself!
Jan 27 2008
An old salty Irishman, half Pagan, half Catholic, a bootlegger by night and a blue collar man by day…he’d take me for drives in his K-Car or Escort wreaking of stale cigarettes and Old Spice. The car would round a special bend that reminded him of his homeland and he’d give me wink and say “This here is God’s Country”. That phrase meant a lot to me because I knew my grandfather was very serious about his religion…he crossed himself every time he drove by a Church…so I figured he had a special in with The Lord for doing all of that heavy lifting down here on Earth. Well grandpa…I finally finished the chain that you started when setting foot aboard that ship so many years ago. I have me a piece of God’s Country and I’m bound and determined to make it work. My life is half gone, the first half wasn’t special by anyone’s measuring stick, but maybe this last half was what I was meant for.
The horses are fed and bedded down for the night the dishes are done, the barn cats and birds are fed as well. The dog has been walked he’s passed out at my side. He loves the horses, gave them both kisses on their first meeting. It’s snowing just a bit, making the light reflect off the snow. The house is small but cozy, needs some work but don’t we all. Hey they got intertubez in God’s Country by the way, just gotta use some of that satellite love to do it. I’m sure the Holy Rollers will be pleased to hear that. Found some tapes left behind from the previous owner…now I know who buys soundtrack recordings of pop movies…and yes Celine Dion was in the mix.
I’m fading fast, g’night Grandpa.
Jan 25 2008
