Secular eschatology

sevahhhhd! xD

Mon, 19 May 2008 17:56:34 GMT

I divorce the thoughts of you in love with me,
I divorce your innocence and my guilt,
I divorce the lying sellout confidence,
I'm divorcing every mother fuckin' thing
I divorce the love bled meaningless,
I divorce the makeshift harmony,
I divorce the taunting acts of violence,
I divorce the pastime of jealousy,
I divorce control,
I divorce the faith,
I divorce the virtue,
I divorce the rain,
I divorce the excuse,
I divorce the greed,
I divorce the need,
I divorce iniquity in this mother fuckin' bullshit life
Just want it all to go away....

where did you go?

Mon, 12 May 2008 18:27:16 GMT

i used to find you in this place, the one where our discomforts and aspirations and everything in between found their voice. here in the dark we said everything we felt and nobody needed to hear. here we talked of love, what it had failed to be, what it could be. and as our minds wrapped themselves one tendril at a time around each other they grew into something luscious. we dug our roots in and each tapped the well that was the other's soul, feeding voraciously, and our joy and our hunger for each other only grew. you were my shelter as i was yours. you were the place where i would fall when my fears had utterly broken me, and i was the one who would catch you when you fell, no matter the height. you became for me no longer a means to an end, no longer a reason to want more for myself. my love for you became the hope itself, the thing i screamed to the world any time it would lend half an ear to my rantings. despite all the anxiety and urgency we spoke unendingly of taking time to make things right, to build ourselves into what must be, to avoid all the traps that await those undertaking such a delicate endeavor. but in the dark things move and things grow that are not easily seen for what they are, and only in shifting flashes of light did the picture begin to change. and now even though i see and hear you all around me, though every sense picks up remnants of the one who trumped everything, the substance escapes me. even when you hold me, it is more misery than comfort. the hopes that you had, the ones i did everything i could to feed and nurture, now seem to gain nothing from my encouragement... indeed i take from you nothing but doubt as to whether it meant anything at the time. did you really think i was too good to be true, and did you really just think you were beating me to the punch?

i reach for the thing i saw and it vanishes, reforming again in misty illusions that mock my perception. was this ever real? did you ever believe the way i did? do you still not believe after all you have seen?

and yet... i have come to know that i will never walk away until the vision has utterly disappeared from my sight. despite all the disillusionment and disappointment, i can't find the strength in myself. i have scraped out everything inside me that had any desire to distrust and hate and reject, brought every single impulse to the forefront and aimed them squarely at you, and all my attempts and all your answers have only told me again and again that you are exactly what you seemed from the beginning. so where did you go? how can you be so close and yet so impossible to reach? and why... why is it that it seems you would rather suffer alone than fight this fight together?

i loved you with all my heart, whether you believed it or not, and i still do. i would have gone anywhere with you, for you, and i still would. i would have been behind you in every step of every exploration and growth and understanding, and i would have denied you nothing. and now... you're inches away, all the time, wanting no part of it. preferring, it seems, to cut your own legs off just to prove you can stand without help. still every time you look at me that part of you that wants a part of me is clear as day. it resonates in me and it puts me right back where i always was with you... trembling with tenderness, filled with the desire to give you my strength the way you gave me yours, to fight for something sweeter and stronger that would rise above the mundane and the dishonest and everything else that we reject. and the truth is, until i see something more than i have so far, i will continue to pour myself out for you, because nothing and no one has ever been worth it like you were. and if i accomplish one thing in all of this, it will be to erase all doubt as to who i really am, what i'm capable of, and how real this thing was. so fucking believe it, princess.

Voice Post: Surfing

Sat, 29 Sep 2007 19:50:22 GMT

Voice Post

Sun, 23 Sep 2007 08:14:49 GMT

Maya Calendar

Fri, 14 Sep 2007 15:28:12 GMT

[aunt]Kathy: Well, my interpretation of the 2012 thing is that there will be a paradigm shift,
a shift of consciousness, and more

me: we all realize that it's futile to try to make peace, our inner nature is martial terror,
and we are happier butchering each other?

Golfers at Jamos

Thu, 13 Sep 2007 15:17:35 GMT

Warning... I am slipping back into "frequent self-indulgent contemplative writing" mode. Expect more in the near future. Yay!

Their conversation rolls around the room like a chip shot on a loopy green, careening to one side and then the other. The grass is dry and the words run far, spilling over the tables into the corners of my ears. Road trips, pro courses, the pinnacle of it all - details may stray but the gist of it runs true, eighteen holes of common interest without so much as a putt of self-disclosure. Is this what men are. Is this what class is? Faces like mine and a language I speak well betray nonetheless complete strangers to my soul.

Samurai X

Tue, 28 Aug 2007 02:16:44 GMT

Each man must seize happiness for himself, regardless of the state of the world.

629b - testing the limits of my intuitive reasoning capabilities

Fri, 29 Jun 2007 15:33:54 GMT

So, I'm sitting here pondering something else I saw this morning. Somebody passed me with a sticker that said "Peace '08" and it kicked the wheels into motion. I guess that just caught me at the right time. Let me first say that I'm almost never in favor of violence. Even though I am a military officer and have been kind of a fan of military hardware since I was a little boy (who isn't, when we're all conditioned that way), the last time I felt any positive sentiment toward its actual employment was the beginning of OEF when Afghanistan got the shit kicked out of it as punishment for having been enslaved by a gang of hypocritical fundamentalist thugs from western Pakistan called the Taliban, in concert with a genuine, high-powered, well-funded terrorist organization called Al-Qaeda. My sense of justice, not the actual image of bombs falling, made it a fairly exciting thing for me. We were gonna set things straight and I was gonna be part of it. Yay. Woo ha.

Since then, my sense of justice has been completely outraged and the illusion that wars are fought by good guys against bad guys for all the right reasons in any time or place except history books has been totally obliterated. And even a just war (if such a thing exists) is a worse thing than no war. Nonetheless, peace advocacy has never lit a fire under me. It's like something was missing, something that made it seem inadequate and ineffective.

So what's wrong with peace movements and peace protests? Nothing really. Aside from the fact that literally millions of congregated bodies and voices of the moderately free and empowered worldwide seem to have no effect on the ability of politicians to aim their weapons and troops at whoever they care to, paying lip service to the victims of the crossfire while lacking the right kind of vision to understand the deeper patterns and reverberations of today's wars.

What is war? The paradigm (shut up! I had to use that word! damn you...) that developed in my head this morning while chugging coffee at 60 down Governors Drive was a dual one... two ways of explaining a deeper pattern that cannot quite speak for itself. In a word, synergy. Haha... you probably guessed I was going to throw it in there. It's just how I compensate for never being able to hit the bullseye. The midpoint between the impacts of my projectiles is the point I'm trying to send you to.

Point A: War is a path to ground from voltage. It is simply a means by which potential becomes entropy. It exists because it can and it continues because it has not been superceded by a more viable option. Humans especially, but even tribes of "lower" primates and creatures as "simple" as ants, have learned that a collective struggle is more effective than single combat, more rapidly facilitating the bleed-off of excess accumulations of energy. This energy is expressed as material wealth in our societies, though ultimately it derives its basic power from such simple things as fossil fuels and biomass and the ability to apply them in effective (though largely inefficient) ways. The net effect of wars is to reduce these stockpiles, though oddly enough its proximate cause in the mind of the instigator is usually the goal of accumulating more. Territory, whether controlled by ground troops, alliances, or unwritten subservience, contains energy and/or means of manipulating, storing, and directing energy. Populations of living people and animals, farmland, oilfields, legal systems, I don't want to muddy the waters by drawing the circle ever outward but you get the point if you've read this far. War is a path to ground. It happens because it can. It's like lightning... the movement of charge from point A to point B, or from several points A/x to B/y, will happen at some point. Since our ability to hurt each other long ago passed our skill at feeding and enriching ourselves, the potential only grows until it finds a path to ground. How and where is a matter of opportunism and politics.

Point B: War is a means of satisfying an appetite. If war is a banquet, peace is dieting. Dieting is an ugly word for most of us. The ability to abstain from simply satisfying a craving is not something that has largely served humanity well, with isolated exceptions. Scientists know that we tend to overeat because before modern industrial farming it was advantageous to accumulate energy in the form of extra biomass on your frame (Fat!), informed by the genetically programmed biological (if not always conscious) knowledge that times of scarcity would be survived by those with the predisposition for such accumulations. Telling a normal human being (let alone a "decider guy" in a three-piece whose entire perceived value to the world is in decisive action) to ignore the potential for consumption directly in front of him is futile. Especially when you have a chief exec who lacks the restraint to eat things like pretzels without choking. But seriously... war feeds a need within us - several, actually. The need for resolution, the need for validation, the need (in some of us) to demonstrate superiority, solidarity with our overgrown tribe, the craving for Lebensraum, even my sense of justice. Peace leaves us unfulfilled because, going back to my first mark, it leaves the potential in place, ripe for exploitation - potential energy awaiting another path to ground. Entropy waiting to happen. "Don't cut the rope" is a well-intended but useless answer to the problem of a crushing weight hanging from a great height.

If we compare this martial appetite to a bodily one, an interesting contemplation occurs: what is the alternative to both overindulgence and self-imposed moderation? How do we "eat ourselves thin", avoiding both Mutually Assured Destruction and the totally impossible prospect of simply choosing not to fight over anything?

Unfortunately, this meditation falls short, at this time, of reaching a verdict or a plan of action. This is a part of my struggle to develop and synthesize a worldview all my own and project what I can of it out into the arena of free thought for review, feedback, annihilation, you name it. It gets what it deserves. Hopefully it makes the cut.

Tell me what you think.

629a - lighthearted

Fri, 29 Jun 2007 15:30:30 GMT

At the last stoplight this morning before pulling into the office, I looked over and saw, sitting next to me at the line, my car. There aren't a lot of us so we notice each other. Of course, we were pretty much polar opposites - black/white, racks/none, kit and wheels and springs and all the attention-whore accessories of my asphalt-scraping toy in contrast to the higher-set family car next to me. She was a neat and orderly-looking gal, early thirties, probably headed to an orderly office to work methodically and appreciatively all day long, while all the underfed teen angst in me continues to pretend its bodily shell isn't pushing 30 and beset with the same obligations that creep upon the rest of us. We had a moment and the light turned. Zoom zoom.

Voice Post: boo

Sat, 23 Jun 2007 07:50:00 GMT

Voice Post

Sat, 23 Jun 2007 07:34:58 GMT

Warning: Post-hypnotic suggestions

Thu, 21 Jun 2007 21:29:38 GMT

I'm turning 29 on Sunday (jesus what?) and I'm planning on making a shitload of wacky birthday resolutions for the final year of my twenties. Some of them I may take seriously, some I will simply announce with much fanfare in a tyrannical drunken voice to a large crowd of worshippers between midnight and 3AM that day. So I'm opening the floor for suggestions. One day before I get on the road, make your voices heard.

*bonus points if you catch the subject line reference....

Voice Post

Fri, 15 Jun 2007 23:53:14 GMT

wedding etc before/during/after blog

Mon, 04 Jun 2007 22:08:36 GMT

Condensed version.

0. Pre-trip, mom came. Great to see her. My cousin Jono showed up. Even nicer to see him. Stayed up, got shitty playing pool, made up for lost time. Drive down was good, an amusing Cracker Barrel breakfast and various other derailments didn't quite prevent us from reaching Gulfport before my sister Mer landed. Good to see her too. She's looking healthier than I expected. Tim Glassco bought dinner and fed me Jack and coke. Sweeeeeet.

1. Bachelor party in New Orleans - drunk. Eventful but not scary. Made a lot of people laugh. Got a lap dance. Managed not to cheat on Michele. As far as you know. Muahahaha.

2. Wedding. Strange but very nice minister. Smaller but cooler crowd than expected. Sand was dry. Sun was out. Reception became a hasher circle after mom left. Beer and singing lasted till dark.

3. Post-reception... got a mohawk in the hotel room. Dawn watched us consummate through a crack in the curtains! (dirty bitch! hehe) Got shitty in bar. Fun. Next day, I toured the coast with family and girl saw the hashers off.

4. JAMAICA - secondhand everywhere. Huge effort not to become stoned from the air alone. Holy hustlers. Resort was sweet. Private security. Relaxing as fuck. Crystal water, snorkeling, extremely hella. Drank incessantly for 4 days till became immune to rum, vodka different story. Have now quit drinking for indefinite period. Left at 4AM Friday for the airport.

5. Return home - got lucky in Miami. Hopped early flight into NOLA, hauled ass. Made Montgomery around 9. Slept. 2 days ANG drill, got wife registered (mil ID etc), tantalizing possibilities of future assignments. Sunday afternoon, hit some traffic but got home about 7.

6. Last night - COMPLETELY FUCKING SUCKED. The dogs disappeared from Chad's house about 8. If we'd had room, we'd have already picked them up on the way home. We drove over, helped Chad look till after 10. No sign. Went to bed after midnight kicking and tossing and hardly slept.

7. Today - oh my god I don't know if I can do this job. On the plus side, the dogs showed up at the pound, I brought them home at lunch. Muddy and scratched (esp Molly) and tired as fuck. Poor things. Now I shall visit Home Depot and the pet shop (crickets for Pogo the dragon) and get my ass home.

8. Tonight - puppies and little boys, not much else to say. Yeah yeah, I welcome your jokes. You fuckin sickos. I love you all.

THREE DAYS LEFT

Wed, 23 May 2007 19:11:20 GMT

Hell fucking yeah!
My cousin Jono is sitting at the airport right now and my mom should be landing in less than 20 minutes, at which time I'll be out the door to pick them up.
Wedding is Saturday afternoon. 2:00 PM, Front Beach, Ocean Springs, MS.
BE THERE OR SATAN WILL EAT YOUR BABIES.
2567240501 for any questions.

Voice Post

Sat, 19 May 2007 00:30:38 GMT

Two weeks left

Sat, 12 May 2007 23:18:18 GMT

Saturday May 26th, matrimony, 2PM, Front Beach, Ocean Springs.
If you're reading this, you probably already know you're invited.
No rain plan yet, hehe... please wish us luck ;)

fuggered

Tue, 08 May 2007 19:53:40 GMT

sounds like two of our biggest jobs in the middle east are about to tank, the bosses are not too happy... it's all rather mysterious & coming apparently from very high up in the DoD echelons. not sure if this is fallout from the current congressional/presidential budget wranglings or just somebody irked at the corps of engineers, or my company, or whatever... sux tho. bob's not happy 'cause he spent months engineering kuwait and did a damn good job, and would have made the company a couple mil in clean profit, and now we may not collect much of anything for all his work... just time/material cost. i helped with the qatar job a while back but have been off it for months... at least everything i'm involved in is still funded for now. one more reason i don't wanna depend on this industry my whole life....

Voice Post

Thu, 12 Apr 2007 22:07:11 GMT

Voice Post

Tue, 10 Apr 2007 22:09:10 GMT

we like the cars, the cars that go boom

Thu, 29 Mar 2007 20:31:22 GMT

hey all
my phone number is now two five six 724 oh five oh 1.
i had to get a local cell number to put michele on a family plan with me. actually they can do that without relocating the base area, but to port her 256 number to a cingular account mine has to be in the same area code. don't ask why. reeetards. of course at the same time i got a new phone, couldn't transfer the numbers, and lost the old one.
THIS MEANS I DO NOT HAVE YOUR PHONE NUMBER.
since the only person on here who ever calls me is dawn, i will let you know that i ESPECIALLY want your number. so call me. quickly.

Fri, 02 Mar 2007 16:53:35 GMT

i took work home last night. spent a couple of hours finishing off what was supposed to be the last major task for this design i've been working on (read: fumbling my way through) since last august when i started.
i sent my spreadsheets off, and 3 minutes later bob was at my door to tell me it was all fucked up. i did everything i was specifically instructed to do but it turns out there is a hell of a lot more to how it's done and what's not flat-out wrong is terribly incomplete.
grrrr.
not really anybody's fault but my lack of experience and the "needs of the customer" have put us way over on design budget (read: my paid time) for this job and it irks me that this will be viewed as simply a case of me wasting more of the company's time and money.
i worry about these things more than i should.
tomorrow till next saturday i'm in the air force again.
fucking a.
oh yeah. i'm getting a little obsessed with the pop culture suicides lately. bear with me, these things all run their course eventually ;)

A counterpoint to "Free Trade"

Wed, 21 Feb 2007 17:11:29 GMT

Fairtrade It was supposed to be a link to an article but I couldn't get the damn 3-page URL to link properly or even show up inside the link. I just figured out why.
Check out the foundation.
Then again, if you just want to live the rest of your life by proxy fucking over the helpless just to keep the price of your underwear down, don't bother to find out what it's all about....

;)

cheers

Sweet Jesus

Wed, 21 Feb 2007 16:48:58 GMT

Stick a fork in me.

Unfortunately

Sat, 10 Feb 2007 03:05:18 GMT

I can't read, reason, or form simple sentences, so "Tuesday afternoon" is actually "Wednesday afternoon". It's V-day, that's all I know. Supposedly I'm confirmed now.

\m/