(un)lost generation

I found this in a customer review for Gertude Stein's Tender Buttons.

Mimic and talk and write like some kind of Gertrude Stein. We don't know what roots are - rootless - my generation is not lost - we're staying put on the couch where we live. No one can say we're not (or are) expatriate because the shores of our big sea end at the edges of a computer screen - are virtual (and not) reality - no one travels to get there. No hurt feelings (disaffected) because we're all equal - a populist nightmare with the volume turned down. The self-leveling society. Every idea is as good as another is as good as none as all are included. Our defects become differences become diversity become democracy become diluted and die. An eye for an eye made the whole world blind or one-eyed and only some (although they don't want to be singled out) try to make something new something cyclopean (formerly one could say at least but that is pejorative) toward the future but that detracts from the past which we defend on principle only but not in actuality so as soon as we can think of it we'll change that name too but don't pressure us.

Spring and the family good luck charm

I'm having an... interesting semester. Much to learn about life and all the things that the writers of The Wonder Years would have found prime material for an episode.
Now Spring has arrived, the bugs are back, the birds are singing, the trees are sprouting. I just came across something very near and dear to my family. My first sighting of a cardinal for the year.

My grandfather and grandmother loved cardinals. My grandfather died when I was eight, and ever since them my mother told me that seeing one was a sign of him. Since then, they've become sort of a good luck charm for the family. If you see a cardinal, thinks are going to be in your favor soon.

Well, honestly, I wish it came to me awhile ago. I haven't seen a cardinal in a long time, maybe over a year. Maybe now things will work in my favor, I could use a some luck right now and after everything maybe a little good karma might come my way.

America the fucked, or, How I learned to stop worrying and love the bomb.

Today General Petraeus is being grilled in front of Congress over the war in Iraq.

And does it matter?

NO!

For fuck's sake, the man isn't going to give you a real answer. He'll dance around the goddamn question and refuse to actually say anything other than "Surge = Working, War = Continued forever."

I'm not watching it, I don't want to start grinding my teeth like the time I watched Bush invoke executive privilege for anyone called to testify over former AG Gonzales.

UPDATE: Okay, I caved. I watched it while in the Park Laptop Center. Every time someone spent a minute or two of their alloted five caressing Petraeus for his "service to the country" I made the motion of someone stroking his dick. Anyone who walked by would have been really really bewildered. Also, there was lots o that juicy "Iran is linked to violence in Iraq" bullshit.

Here's the only real good one, by the guy everyone thinks I'm crazy for liking.

Hey blog, how have you been? That's nice. I've been fucking great, really. I mean it. No, I won't tell you about it, piss off.

I'm registering for classes in 5 hours and 40 minutes (by the end of this writing, closer to 30) and it dawned on me that three years of college are over.

I guess the age old saying of trying to find yourself in college is almost universally true. Everyone changes when they're finally cut lose, and I'm still changing. The question I'm asking myself is no longer who I'd like to be. I figured that out finally, and it took a great expanse of time, merciless destruction, and rebuilding. You can say that your outlook on life runs cyclical, that every once and awhile you do destroy yourself and rebuild on knowledge gained. The cycles have no predetermined length or stages, other than the existence of oneself in homeostasis and the fall from grace that precipitates change. I can mark these moments not in exact dates, but I know what they are and what havoc they wrought. I won't tell you about them here, this isn't the place for that kind of emotional drudgery. Let's keep it ambiguous and topical with a touch of the serious folks.

What scares me is that even though I have figured out who I want to be, I fear that the mistakes I've made and the habits I have will keep me from being that person. It's a question of finding salvation in myself. Can I? The buildup to the end of this semester is going to be a cathartic moment in my life. The deciding factor of whether I can live up to myself is me, right? That's my assumption, I think it's the right one to have.

Goddamn Cartoon-Journal/Blog crossover again.

Lately I've been really adamant on making sure I draw in my journal every day. It's easy, the sentiments are more straightforward, and I guess it keeps my wits up. As I do more and more of these drawings, I realize that my captions (and therefore writing) are becoming much larger. Today I pondered something in my journal that I usually leave for the blog: political meanderings and dia-dribble, thing is it was also very personal. There's no doubt in my mind that this country is flushing itself down the toilet, and if I were to leave it would be fully justified.

So if I were to describe the drawing: its a plane, and its encountering various symbolic clouds that represent my family and friends, my home and things, my education, my money, etc.

And the caption being:
So I value freedom as my natural right in life, but I asked myself, "Live Free or Die!" or "Life shackled and down-ridden with your friends and family around you!" When I put it to myself, the answer is very clear. I can't leave.

Unless some one/people would leave with me, then it would be a party.

Old post from older blogs: The Judicial Affairs Letter

I'm starting to dig up posts from older blogs... this one from my Media Writing Blog. I read it and realize how far I've come as a person since then. This was my judicial affairs letter when they tried to take away my rabbit (i tricked them, I didn't)

I ask that when I am placed in the stalks in front of town, spare me my dignity and honor. My grievous wrongdoing was bad, I know, but I understand my punishment. Let the physical pain be all there is to give me.
It was a foul, rainy day when my letter arrived to me. It was the indictment that was inevitable, the eviction. I had been harboring a fugitive hare for quite some time. I assumed that eventually the rage of my neighbors boiled over. Some of the extremely discontent advocated a violent solution, reaching to the very heads of state. Luckily, cooler minds prevailed and the authorities were contacted.
Their rage was justified in what that hare did to interrupt their everyday lives. It would scream throughout the night, disrupting quiet hours. How would they catch up on their sleep? While my back was turned that filthy hare would open up my drawers and rub its disgusting, germ-infested hairs on my unworn clothing. When I stepped out of my room I was the allergenic equivalent of the hydrogen bomb.
A comrade of mine who was visiting decided to take the hare home with him. There she will have the company of other filthy hares in the University of Rochester. That institution is noted for the serious allergen problems had by students, since small animals run untamed in their hallways. It is a serious issue that causes the very academic spokes that run the show to stutter and fail.
My prayers have been with my friend, hopefully he can make the trek back without incident. Hares are known to be carnivorous when without food for long periods of time.
I have complied with the judge’s order for re-education. What a profound effect the presentation had upon me! The decisions that Holocaust survivor juxtaposed next to the teenager who was simply too loaded to do the right thing really spoke to me. I actually was so compelled by the comparison that I proceeded to apply all my maligned collegiate decisions to various pogroms.
As the day closes, and my punishment ends, I hope we can all put this ordeal behind us. The dark ages are no longer with us, and we can now resume prosperity in our community. I will never falter like this again, for the damage I have done was far too great.

prose with cartographic imagery.

When tectonic plates break and continents dissolve, whose duty is it to name and classify the once familiar now thrown into a game of Boggle that spells farce, hope, and the unknown ahead? Any major dude with half a sense of the human condition can expect gerrymandering and the inevitable upsets, but even as you charter the unknown with surveying tools less adequate than you believe, you still have doubt when you drag the pencil on paper.

Certainly no maps lie unfinished when the invisible pressure of the nebulous interpersonal forces bring you to your knees. As for myself, I would subscribe to and collect any steel magazines that would put you in peril. The nerves that reside in my spinal column would silently instruct me to stand upright, for I am in the presence of an aspect of the divine whose beacon I cannot fathom but must understand. These are more than just mere sentiments, they are marching orders over a dense forest, lush with wildlife, both tangible and simple manifestations of fear spun into yarns that panic anyone who might let this undesirable linen get the best of their peripheral vision.

Yet even if the turmoil subsides and you march upon the Northwest Passage, and you return in glory with ticker-tape parades and front-page articles... if life has taught you anything it is that nothing you have drawn can ever be a certainty. It makes you wonder why you draw maps at all sometimes, and why even with their seeming futility you can't help but keep your pencil sharpened.