Random Musings

A New Direction

2010-01-20T13:08:00.000-08:00

After spending the last eight months building up my previous firm's litigation and mediation practice from scratch, I'd been laid off, and the department cut. It was distressing, as I was about a month away from buying my first home, and just before Christmas is never the best time to lost your job, but I'm hoping this will be more opportunity than setback. I've decided to forgo looking for new work and instead to open my own practice. So as of January 1, 2010, I have begun Kern Law, Ltd. Hey all, I was recently laid off from my previous firm, and decided it was time to make my own opportunity, so I've now opened my own firm, Kern Law, Ltd. Initially I'll be focusing on foreclosure mediations, but will be advising clients on all solutions to mortgage issues, and will hopefully be expanding to include full litigation within a year or so.
I'm excited about it, though its a risk. But then I'm all about trying something new.
Wish me luck, and check out my website: KERN LAW

Cats Shouldn't Die

2009-04-13T20:50:00.000-07:00

Holden died today. Holden was my ex-fiancee’s cat. He never belonged to me, but I still loved him. He had as much life as a cat could want, he lived 19 years, he traveled the entire United States, and had adventures untold. After I broke my engagement to Jules, I think it was him that I missed the most. He loved to sit on a table or counter, wait until I bent over to pick something up, and then jump onto my back so he could sleep draped over my shoulders like a stole, and he would lay there happily purring for hours while I walked around. He loved Mozart, and would rub against the speakers endlessly anytime you played "Fur Elise". Anytime you’d give him a french fry, he would growl at it from a distance for a while, then viciously pounce on it, pick it up between his paws, and then throw it around so he could pounce on it again, and not until the french fry was properly subdued would he eat it. He was also my Buena’s first boyfriend, and the only other cat she ever loved. She met him when she was a kitten and would come to his house to steal his toys.

After a long time thinking I finally thought of something that gave me a smile. The way that cats seem to love life the most when they are sleeping next to someone they love makes me hope that death holds no fear for them as long as their sleep lets their spirit remain close to the one they love.

Kerouac

2009-03-04T16:13:00.000-08:00

I know he's terribly overquoted by poseurs, but Kerouac just rocks. He just has a way of capturing a feeling no no words should ever be able to. Some of his words capture how I feel now.

“no girl had ever moved me with a story of spiritual suffering and so beautifully her soul showing out radiant as an angel wandering in hell and the hell the selfsame streets I’d roamed in watching, watching for someone just like her and never dreaming the darkness and the mystery and eventuality of our meeting in eternity,”

Crossroads, revisited

2009-02-18T13:01:00.000-08:00

Okay, now I'm tired of the view of the open crossroads. Give me a path. Any path. Seriously.

Crossroads

2008-09-12T19:16:00.000-07:00

I am now again between jobs, not completely certain where life will take me, and I'm slowly developing the suspicion that this is my natural state. This liminal phase where I always come back to zero, to start from scratch in a different direction is becoming very familiar. I suppose I should clarify that I'm speaking of this in terms of work and profession, not personal life.
I'm now 35, and I don't think I've ever held a job for even two years. Thats not really good if you think about it. There has been a good reason for ending each one, so I've never really been concerned about it, but I am getting older. Should I be concerned?

Thinking about it, I guess it all boils down to the fact that, other than teaching, I haven't found a job I like. Teaching I liked, but couldn't pay my bills with. I did like working as an attorney, but after a few months, a personal issue arose between me and one of the partners, and once you have to tap dance on eggshells, all the enjoyment just gets sucked out of what would have been a good job.

This time its just that the election is coming up and my position was temporary, so I was offered the choice of taking on another role, for which I was horribly unsuited, or leaving the campaign, so I chose to leave. I'm not going to take a paycheck for something I'm not qualified to do.

And so now I'm back where I started, and ready to go in an entirely new direction. I actually have a very specific thing that I'm trying for right now, but I don't want to jinx it. So I won't tell you what it is until there's more to tell.

But I suppose the point is that despite being broke, with nothing to show for the years of work, aand not knowing how I'm paying rent next month, I like this. I like that I'm doing so many things, that I feel like I'm living a life for each path I travel, I like that my future is not set in stone, that it can still turn out to be anything. And I like the view of the open crossroads ahead.
I fear I'll never get tired of seeing it.

Buena

2007-12-09T21:32:00.000-08:00

When you hear news that means the end of your world, it always seems like your first reaction is to want to tell the world the tragedy that has fallen, and then you want to keep it the worlds greatest secret. Then you want people to know, but without you having to tell them – you want them to understand, but you don’t want the inevitable look of pity that comes first, along with meaningless words made more uncomfortable that the person speaking them knows they’re meaningless, and that there’s nothing mere words can do.

It's been three months now since she died. The worst of the pain is past, but it will never be over. Its sort of like losing a color. There are many beautiful colors, and you can have a full life without ever seeing the color blue again, but with that one color missing, the beauty you can see will never be quite what it was.

No matter how many times my heart's been broken, I could always believe that a true love was still out there, yet to be found, and it eases the hurt, reminds me that there's still hope. But when I think of Buena, I can smile only until I realize that there is no hope of ever seeing her again. I may love many other cats, and grow very close to them, but there will never be another Buena. It really kills me that even in my greatest imaginings of the future, I can't imagine one with her in it anymore. And for that, it could never be perfect.

Faith

2007-04-22T13:06:00.000-07:00

I’ve always had a faith. Faith that all life, and my life, has a very special purpose. A purpose greater than Darwinian survival, greater than the worship of God, greater than success and power and all the facets of hedonism. And that purpose is true love. A love so great that the light of its beauty can illuminate half the world, and throw the rest into shadow.

For so many years I held onto that faith, held it tighter than a Baptist preacher. In the face of every bit of evidence I found over the years, all of it saying my faith was in error, that there was no such thing. This faith was taught to me by no man, woman, or book; it has just always been there in my heart. I broke hearts, and caused pain to myself and others because I would not let go of this faith, would not compromise. I questioned many times whether it was just fantasy, questioned how I could justify such faith, and yet I never let go of it.

When I met Ann-Marie, I saw it as a vindication of everything I’d believed in. Proof that my beliefs were not a fairy tale, that faith and patience had paid off, and I had finally found what I was looking for.

But now it’s over. She’s left.

She was the affirmation of my faith, of everything I believed in. And what do I believe in now? I know that logically my faith is equally viable now as it was before I believed it proven. But I’m tired of logic. It gets old being logical when none of the rest of the world makes any sense. Why give me a taste of that, only to yank it back, to show me that it was never really true at all?

It is discouraging. I thought I was doing a good job of getting past things. Then Friday night I dreamt of her. Dreamt I was at her house, but afraid to go talk to her. When I did, she greeted me warmly, and everything was great, but something kept tugging at my mind. “Didn’t we break up?” I asked her.

She smiled. “I know, I said all that. But I could never stay away from you.” She assured me. None of that was real.

And I was really happy.

And then I woke up. Happy. And then, slowly, had to remember that the good part was the dream, and the bad part was the reality.

I know that there are still millions of girls out there, and probably thousands are amazing people. But when you’ve lost something amazing, its always hard to imagine that any of those possibilities could be as good.

But shaken as it may be, I still have my faith. As much as I thought so, Ann-Marie was not the one. Not as she is right now at least.

I guess it was a bit early to have solved the great challenge of my life.

One more wish to go . . .

Aladdin

2007-01-09T16:20:00.000-08:00

I’ve found myself in an unusual situation, and this time, “unusual” means something good. You see, I’ve had a wish come true. And that’s a very good thing this time.
You’re asking, “This time? Isn't that always good?” Well, no. It’s not. You see this has happened once before. Twice now in my life, I have met a girl who was the exact incarnation of what I wished for. You know when you sit there thinking of, if you were able to snag God’s sneakers and wear them for ten minutes, the girl you would create to be the absolute most perfect girl for yourself? Well it has happened twice now. No, I’m not just saying that I was in love, I mean really, exactly, down to the smallest detail. To a degree chance just doesn’t account for. The first one was Jules.
I had just finished the first year of law school when I met Jules. I’d been wishing to find a girl who was beautiful, with angular features, a perfect body, feminine, but buff as well, intelligent, strong, but with a dark and tormented artist’s soul; wild, and spiritual, and passionate. I found exactly that. And she nearly destroyed me. I was another person before I endured all that, and I learned a great deal. One of the things I have since decided is that being granted my greatest wish was a test. A test to see if what I’m evolved enough to really know what I want. That first test I most clearly failed. I was granted my wish, given what I wanted, and it was not what I needed. I think people don’t realize that the closer something gets to being exactly what you want, without being exactly what you want, the more dangerous it is to you.
Just over ten years have passed since the day I met Jules. I’ve learned and changed a great deal since then. And now, it has happened again. I’ve been granted my wish. The image that I have developed over all my years of dating, carefully sculpted and adjusted from what I’ve learned with each relationship, has now taken life and knocked on my door. And it’s scary. Not because I think this one will destroy me again; but rather because this time I think she’s the right one.
I really do believe that being given what you want is a true test of your soul – it will make you immensely happy if you’re evolved enough to know what to wish for. But if you don’t, it will make you suffer. This time I think I wished for what was right, and I think (hope) she did too. I’m in love. And her name is Ann-Marie.

Dreams

2006-10-22T10:28:00.000-07:00

Before I start, I suppose an update is in order. All of that torment payed off, as last week I got the word that I passed the Nevada Bar exam. And even better, later in the week I got a very good job offer from a firm in Vegas. So its off to Vegas for me in a week or two, after over six years in Los Angeles. For those of you counting, that's the longest I've lived anywhere, ever.

Now dreams are strange things. sometimes you understand them, and sometimes you don't.
This is a dream I had a while ago when I was a teacher:
Dreamt that one of my students wanted to commit suicide, it was in the future, and the law required that he be allowed to. There was a bed in the classroom, and I sat on the bed with him after he took the lethal dose because he was scared. I was giving him a hug when a somewhat pretty girl went in front of the class, and his body tensed at the sight of her. I asked him if she was the one who had hurt him, why he wanted to die. He silently nodded. I squeezed his hand and told him that he didn’t have to worry about that anymore. He was going to a place without hurt where everything would be better. He clung to me tighter, either from fear or from hurt at seeing the girl. For some reason I truly believed what I was saying, that it was best for him to go this way even though he was so young and it was only a high school crush gone bad. I guess I felt it was beyond my control by then. That’s all I remember.

That dream is something impossible to know for sure exactly what it meant. The dream I had last night is a different story. Last night I dreamt it was thelast day of high school, though the dream combined people and places from both Dublin and Parkview high schools, and even a bit of Law school, but it was all of the end of that last day, when you're going room to room to say goodbye to your favortie teachers, your football coach, staying after the last bell to get last minute contact info from your friends, finding out which college they're going to, and overall, just savoring the moment, and feeling sad about leaving the thing you've spent years dreaming about leaving. Having that dream last night is no big surprise. I'm leaving Los Angeles. I've been dreaming so long about getting a real job, being a real attorney instead of a half-ass pseudo lawyer for Gibson Dunn, and now its real, I have the job, I have the apartment, and I have half my stuff in boxes. And now I dont want to go. Of course I want the job, and I will go. But I hate leaving Los Angeles. There is so much here that I love. Las Vegas seems so empty in comparison, but then something new always does; it takes time to find the soul of a place. But as irrational as it is, I'm finding myself depressed these days. Depressed about what I'm leaving. About those lonely days that come with each new city, before you've found your friends. But its an adventure too, and as always, once the time comes to step into that moving truck, the feeling of adventure will take over, and it will be better.

Torment (aka studying)

2006-07-12T16:57:00.000-07:00

God I hate studying. You do too? No. I mean I really really really HATE studying. Way more than you do, I'm serious. My tattoo took 5 1/2 hours of serious pain, and I'd take that over 5 1/2 hours of studying in a heartbeat. It just takes so LONG, and its so BORING. I'm A.D.D., I cant do things that are boring and require long periods of focus, it just doesnt happen. When I finished law school, after 19 years of schooling, I swore I'd never study again. Then I had to take the California Bar, and when I passed that, I swore I'd really never have to study again. And yet, here I am. Again. This time for the Nevada Bar. You want to know how much I hate my job? Enough to voluntarily go through this hell again, that's how much.
So I've taken three weeks off work (unpaid of course); two to study and one for taking the test (yes, its three 8-hour days). And really, its not nearly enough time. And yet the thought of two weeks of nothing but studying is already killing me. I've got 2 days down, 12 to go. and about 12 hours before my roomates need to start keeping me away from sharp objects.
But so far I'm doing it. I want this that much. I mean, how much is too much of a price to pay to get a job you like doing?
Okay, so now back to learning the intricacies of the way Article 9 of the UCC provides priority payment of PMSI's in secured transactions. Wheee.
You all better congratulate me when its over. Both of you.

Trials of the Roll

2006-05-28T14:28:00.000-07:00

Its been a hard weekend for the roll of toilet paper next to my bed. A triumvirate of attacks.
First depleted by the sniffles of her sickness. Then by her tears, and mine. And now, torn apart by the cat in his fit of joyous destruction.
Is there some symbolic meaning there to be gleaned? Perhaps, but its beyond me at the moment.

Dawn

2006-05-14T06:09:00.000-07:00

Today I realized that Dawn has a smell.
And it is a good smell. I imagine if I were able to ask a dog, he would think it the most obvious thing in the world, since the air has different physical properties at different times of day, but to me, it was a surprise.
I realized it when I walked out of the party today. I was at a friend's party, got to talking, and so on, and finally realized, after the band closed up and the last DJ stopped playing, that it was probably time to call it a night. So I said my goodbyes, and walked outside, only to be surprised by the daylight. It was dawn. But the moment I smelled that air, it took me back to those old days when dawn was a regular thing, and simply meant the end of my shift at work. Back in Law School I worked as a bouncer at the local dive bar, going in at 9pm and finishing at 6am, then going out to either study for the day's classes, or to party a bit more before bed, depending on how responsible I was feeling that day.
But all it took was one breath of that air to take me back. I guess I'd been used to it then and never noticed it. Not until now, when I'm so unused to being awake for dawn's early light did I realize that there is a particular smell of this time of the day, and its a fittingly beautiful smell, Fresh with the birth of the new day.

2006-03-24T11:06:00.000-08:00

Oh man. I am not looking forward to this.

I think this is my least favorite thing in the whole world.

Pop Quiz

2006-02-01T09:54:00.000-08:00

We're always focusing on me in this blog. Today I want to focus on YOU.

Below I have several questions that I want you to read, and think deeply about the answers. I will do the same.

The questions are not my creation - they are from Rob Brezsny, who sends out his wise guiding words every week in his "Free Will Astrology." It is no common astrology column, and worth reading even for all the other signs too. True to it's name, it is free - check it out at http://www.freewillastrology.com

Okay, to the questions. No cheating allowed.

1. What feelings and intuitions have you been trying to ignore lately?

2. Which parts of your life are overdue for death?

3. What messages has life been trying to convey to you but which you've chosen to ignore?

4. What red herrings, straw men, and scapegoats have you chased after obsessively in order to avoid dissolving your most well-rationalized delusions?

5. What unripe parts of yourself are you most ashamed or fearful of? How can you give those parts more ingenious love?

6. What parts of yourself have the least integrity and don't act in harmony with what you regard as your highest values? How can you bring them into alignment with your true desires?

7. Is it possible that in repressing things about yourself that you don't like, you have also disowned potentially strong and beautiful aspects of yourself? What are they?

8. Are those really flaws that are bugging you about the people whose destinies are entwined with yours, or just incompletely developed talents? Are those really flaws that are bugging you about yourself, or merely incompletely developed talents?

9. Some people try to deny their portion of the world's darkness and project it onto individuals or groups they dislike. Others acknowledge its power so readily that they allow themselves to be overwhelmed by it. We believe in taking an in-between position, accepting it as an unworked gift that can serve our liberation. Where do you stand?

10. It's easy to see fanaticism, rigidity, and intolerance inother people, but harder to acknowledge them in yourself. Do you dare?

11. Would you be willing to compose a Mental Hut mission statement? Speak the following sample as if it were yours and see how it feels: "I'm ready to stop the world. I need some extended leave time. A sabbatical from life. I'm not going to wash any dishes, do any laundry, make any small talk, pay any bills. I will follow every weird train of thought or vagrant emotion that captures my imagination. Will lower the barrier between my conscious and unconscious minds. Will follow the smells I like. Listen to my body. Celebrate what's not so beautiful but really interesting about myself and anyone else. Keep my eyes out for surprising new intuitions and teachings. Have wild patience.Smash a clock with a hammer. Actually kiss the earth. Fall out of my chair from laughing so hard at nothing in particular. Listen to music I don't understand. Call out to the sky, 'I defy you, stars.' Give my whole heart or else not offer it at all."

Allright, good work. Now trade papers with the person to your left, and grade your answers.

On another note, to day is signing day for college football recruits. Lets all hope that many of our best and brightest future college athletes will have to wisdom to make the right life choices and play football for the mighty South Carolina Gamecocks. And let us pity those poor foolish boys who choose Clemson instead.

Cardozo's curse

2006-01-23T11:50:00.000-08:00

“in the end the great truth will have been learned: that the
quest is greater than what is sought, the effort finer than the
prize, or, rather, that the effort is the prize, the victory cheap
and hollow were it not for the rigor of the game”

This is one of my favorite quotes, it's by Judge Cardozo, one of the great jurists in American history. I've always tried to live by it, applying it to my life, with the goal to pursue my life as a great adventure, and to judge my life on what I've experienced rather than how far I've advanced in a profession or how much money and property I've accumulated. And I've always felt it was right. Many of my friends from my earlier life have accomplished far more than I have; they have steady jobs, families, six figure incomes, homes, investment portfolios, expensive cars, all that kind of thing. And yet I feel like I have more. I've done so much, felt so much, experienced so much, both good and bad, that I would never trade with anyone. There will always be time for money, but I've had the chance to experince true poverty, more jobs than I can count on the fingers and toes of myself and both of my cats, love more than twice, heartbreak more than that, all the colors of the palette. And the things I do have I have truly worked for. None of it has come easily. So I've found these words to be true.
But today I was thinking about the past. Past relationships, and my current one. I was thinking about a recent relationship that was a bad one. It started out well, but unlike most, she really made me work for it. I had to pursue her like no other, fight for every step, and every drop of affection I squeezed from her was a victory. She was unconquerable, and yet I was succeeding, however slowly. Despite her being somewhat cool in her relations to me, I felt for her more intensely than anyone in a long time. In contrast, a girl I dated before her was sweet and loving and giving and everything you could ever ask for in a girlfriend, and yet I never reached that same feeling of intensity; I never appreciated her to anywhere near the degree that was called for. And looking back on other relationships before these, I see this pattern repeated again and again. So I've been thinking about why. And I thought of that quote again; "The victory cheap and hollow were it not for the rigor of the game." And I wonder if that is it. That we appreciate something we have to work for, something that is difficult to accomplish, even when the prize we win is a lesser prize. Is that why when I find a girl who is absolutely great, who skips all the headgames and just follows her heart, I find myself missing the intensity of feeling from those girls who really werent so great? Because we judge the value of something by the work entailed in getting it? Sounds awfully Marxist for my tastes. I hope its not that. I hope that's something that can be overcome. I imagine time will tell.

Feast of friends

2005-11-22T00:17:00.000-08:00

Throughout my life, I’ve moved all around. It seemed like everytime we got settled in and I felt like I had a group of friends who had accepted me in, the word would come down that it was time to pull up stakes again. Some places I’d have great friends, other places I’d never really fit in. If I had grown up in one of those places where I found a really great friend, or a great group of friends, then I would have never known what its like to be without that. If I had grown up in one of those places where I never fit in, never found true friends, then I would have never really known what it was that I was missing out on. But having lived in both situations, I was acutely aware of how valuable real friendship can be, and truly missed it when it wasn’t there. Through your life there are often a lot of “Best friends” or at least there are when you move around like I do. I think my first best friend was Jeff Wilcox, in Cleveland, Ohio, and then Scott, in Chicago, still one of the best friends I’ve ever had. And it still breaks my heart a bit that he doesn’t want to stay in touch now that we’re older. Later in Columbus there was Brian and Dave, and also Devon. Mike Mitchell in Atlanta, and Chris Hardy in College. Of all those, only Chris Hardy really kept in touch, and still stayed a friend after I moved away, rather than just an acquaintance. Unfortunately I moved away from Chris a long time ago. It’s been a very long time since I’ve had a real best friend. The kind of best friends they make buddy movies about, where you do everything together, and you never have to question their loyalty, or how much of a friend they really are. Its strange, because it seems like the older you get, the harder it is to make a real bond with a guy. Us guys don’t exactly go around sharing our feelings with everyone on the street (A BLOG IS NOT THE STREET, SO SHUT UP!), so such things don’t happen easily. In fact in many ways I thought that true friendships like the ones I remembered from way back could not be started so late in life; that they needed too much history to be able to exist, that the jaded rocky ground of adulthood was a bit too rough for such things to sprout anew. But I was apparently wrong. In the last few months I’ve found a new best friend. The kind they make buddy pics about. And yes, it sounds gay, but I don’t care, friends are vastly important to me, and I’m really glad to have found such a good friend. Wednesday after my Yuma issues we went out to drink – not to pick up chicks (not that we didn’t try), but to hang out as friends and drink and talk. And it was really cool. We even talked sort of directly about our friendship. You know, in guy-talk, i.e.
“Hey man, you know . . .”
“Yeah, *grunt*”
And that’s pretty much all that needs to be said. In fact, among men, I think even that degree of open emotional discussion between men usually calls for being at a strip bar so that any ideas of being gay for talking about feelings with another man can quickly be dealt with by a lapdance.

2005-11-15T19:18:00.000-08:00

Jesus Christ, do I only write in this thing when I've lost all faith in humanity? How lame is that? Well I'm not going to do it today.
I promise I'll find some joke or humorous email forward to balance it out one of these days.

Burden

2005-11-09T01:06:00.000-08:00

I generally think of myself as far more rational than most. Many issues that others just take at face value, I think about deeply, especially my own motivations. That's why it always surprises me when I act in ways for which I can offer no explanation. A couple weeks ago I went on a date, my first date with this girl. I'd been trying (though not continuously) to get a date with her since I'd met her three years previously. The date went well, and while walking to my car from the bar I looked down and saw two dollars lying there on the sidewalk. I looked around, but there was no obvious place it had come from, I decided to pick it up, since it was unlikely it would remain there untouched until the true owner returned for it, if he or she ever even realized they'd dropped it. But I could not put it in my wallet. I was finally making good money, and really didn’t need this money, so there was no reason luck should have brought it to me. I had not earned it either. I decided that it was luck to find it, but that keeping it would violate some sort of karmic rule which would invalidate, and possibly reverse the luck. So I decided I was supposed to find someone else to give it to. But who? I decided it should be someone deserving, but also someone to whom $2 would be something significant, that it could really help. That basically limited it to very poor people, or someone who was in a bad situation in which they need some money right that moment. I didn’t want to give it to just any panhandler, as many of them make a good bit of money panhandling, and don't really need it, or simply choose that way of life rather than working. The ones really incapable of working are also usually incapable of making the plans for the good stories or finding the good panhandling spots. Anyway, it was a little difficult, always keeping the $2 separate from my own money, but always keeping it with me so I could give it out if I found the person it was meant for. It got a bit more difficult when I found myself at the laundromat, and ran out of cash with another wash still to do. I almost used the $2, resolving to get some cash and give out $2 from that. But I held firm, and left my laundry while I drove out to find an ATM. So last night, while celebrating my 33rd birthday with my friends, leaving the bar I came upon a homeless man cuddling up on a park bench to go to sleep. He saw us walk by but didn’t ask for anything. Something in his look though gave me the right feeling, and I fished out the $2 and gave it to him with a nod. He took it, returning the nod, but saying nothing. So now I've relieved myself of that burden, and I feel good, because I think I chose the person who was supposed to get it. Lets hope.

Image

2005-10-20T11:08:00.000-07:00

Nothing interesting to say, just a note to point out that I once again have pictures on the blog. The site hosting my pictures before had issues, so I've switched to a new host. So now, after some aid from my talented brother Chris (Check his blog at http://siriusgraphics.com/), I have pictures once again. Yes, yes, I know, you were all going into withdrawal without being able to see pictures of my cat for three days. Well now the wait is over and you can see Buena anytime your heart desires.

Another one bites the dust

2005-10-07T17:19:00.000-07:00

Yeah, so another relationship over, but I'm somewhat encouraged; that is now two relationships in a row that have broken the 3-month barrier. Only the 3rd and 4th relationships in my life to do so, so maybe I'm doing something right. Anyway, This is to say goodbye to both of the last two girlfriends. Gwennie was one of the best girlfriends I've ever had, and I'm sure I was a complete fool to leave her, but I don't think I could have done otherwise. And Yuma was an amazing chick as well; some fundamental incompatibilities I think, but an amazing chick. I'll miss her. Here's a pic of both her and Gwennie (on the sidebar - separately) to say goodbye.

Saying Goodbye

2005-07-21T19:16:00.000-07:00

Saying Goodbye is always difficult. Even when you're leaving something you hate, at the moment of leaving you always see it through a momentary rose-colored light that makes you think you'll miss it, no matter how bad the place or situation is.

That's not the case for me this time. I love what I'm leaving. Seems like that's getting to be a habit. As of today, my teaching career is over. No, I wasn't caught in a scandalous relationship with one of my students. Saying goodbye would be easy if I had no choice. No, I finally found a job as a lawyer. After 8 months of "No's" I wasn't really expecting a "Yes". It pays literally about 5 times what I've been making as a teacher, which is good, because I haven't even been making enough to cover rent lately. So I had to take it, but it was hard.

I honestly love teaching. There's plenty about it that sucks, namely parents, schools, administrators, but the students make up for it all. At this point in time I had two groups of students; my tutoring students, who are ages 16-18 and studying high school English and writing, and my ESL students, who are ages 19-37 and are learning the very basics of English as a foreign language. I've been with the tutoring students for 2 years now, and some of them feel like my children to me. They ask my advice about dating, drugs, college, everything. My ESL kids are important to me too. They're a bit olderand wiser, but they're new to this country, and I help them figure it out. For the last two years I've actually looked forward to going to work everyday. That's a nice feeling.

When they offered me the job I had to take it. I can't hold off my student loans any longer, and the goverment has just given me a very firm demand for the money I owe them as well. I should have been happy, but instead I felt like I was abandoning all the people who depended on me. That night I had nightmares for the first time in 10 years. Both the adult kind of nightmares and the kid kind, all night. Then I had to tell all my kids.
My tutoring students just looked at me with surprised disappointment. One of the ESL students cried. They got together and took me to lunch and bought me a nice gift. I'm writing this during our last class as they take their final exam. Someone else will see them every morning now, and I don't know if the new teacher will really care about them, or just teach them English.

We all have each other's contact info, and are swearing we'll keep in touch, but I have my doubts how long that will last, no matter how sincere the feelings. I guess its time to think about the new beginning, how it will feel to not be poor, to finally do the job I went to school for.

The Stormcrow is back. Not just metaphorically; he was waiting in the tree outside my classroom window when I came in this morning, and he gave me that black stare, the one that says, "It's time again."

Line in the sand

2005-06-12T22:32:00.000-07:00

Okay, yes, I'm crap. I am the worst blogger in the world and deserve to be flogged. I'm sure there's some sort of joke available for that last sentence, but I'm not quite that bad that I'd go there.
So I'm writing something now, but I'm afraid I have absolutely nothing to say. Which is really why I didn't write anything before. All my writing vibes have been going into my script, and once that is exhausted, even a polysyllabic reply in an email is a challenge.
I guess there is one thing worth mentioning here. I'm giving some thought to a return to South Carolina. It would be very hard. There are many things about LA that are very easy to get used to. Hell, I went into hot actress withdrawal just moving the six miles from West Hollywood to Silverlake. Anyway, the idea was spurred by being rejected for the most lowly bottom of the barrel lawyer job there is, even with a great interview and a personal recommendation by an existing employee. And that was for a dead-end job with no benefits, future, or the slighest opportunity for advancement, that requires me to be a lawyer only as a pure technicality. And though there's no way for you, my readers (okay, reader) to know it, I'm a damn good lawyer. So now I'm 32, still don't have a steady enough job that I can buy the good shampoo at the store (no, not gay, but living in West Hollywood and Silverlake I still have to stand next to the gay men in the grocery store line, and I am not going to be the only guy in the store who isnt hit on) So I decided that if I don't have a decent job by the end of this year I'm moving back to South Carolina for a couple years. I have a lot of friends there and shouldn't have too much trouble getting a good lawyer job in an area of law that I like. Then I can return to LA with a couple years experience and actually be able to get a decent job here. Unless I decide I'm ready to settle down there, but I'm not sure how likely that is. So that's the plan. Will I wuss out and ditch the whole idea when the time comes? Time will tell. The state of my relationship might influence my decision as well, though it won't be a determining factor.
Wow, go figure, I did have something worth mentioning. Groovy.

Quote of the week

2005-04-17T18:00:00.000-07:00

Instead of writing about the significant events of my life occurring this weekend, I will instead give you a quote of the week. Maybe later I'll tell you about the weekend.
"The hair shirt is the new thong"
-Frank Rich

Christening

2005-03-31T08:55:00.000-08:00

My friend Brett told me last night that he is going to a Christening for his baby nephew this weekend. Maybe its because I haven't been around babies that much, but this is something I'm entirely unfamiliar with. Do they not name the baby until then? Is it the same as a baptism, or different? I'm not sure. I only hope they use a mini-bottle or something rather than the champagne bottle.

The Tin Man

2005-03-28T16:30:00.000-08:00

Does anyone remember the old 70's song "The Tin Man" by "America"?
I was listening to that song yesterday for the first time since I stopped having to listen to my parents' radio station, probably back in 1979 or '80. When listening I finally heard the correct words to the song, which say "But Oz never did give nothing to the Tin Man, that he didn't already have." This was apparently suggesting that the Tin Man already had a heart, as evidenced by his actions in helping Dorothy in her cause.
Now that is somewhat different from my understanding of what the song meant when I was a child. I had always thought the song said "I never did give nothing to the Tin Man, that he didn't already have." Very similar - only one word different, Oz for I, but it gave me a very different idea of the song. I had always imagined a rather sadistic guy who would always give gifts to some unfortunate guy in town called the Tin Man, but every time he would give a gift, he would make sure that it was something the Tin man already had, just to torment him. He would always give it with the greatest sincerity, and always things that most people wouldnt know he already had, just to see the Tin man excited about getting a gift, wondering what it was, and then the inevitable disappointment that it was something he already had, then watching the Tin man struggle to be polite and pretend he really wanted it. And each time a little more, the Tin Man would wonder if the giver did this intentionally, but would immediately feel guilty for having such a thought and banish it from his mind; that is, until it happened again. So apparently that wasn't what it was about. Maybe I should write a song about that then.

Penance

2005-03-18T16:49:00.000-08:00

Yesterday I was with one of my tutoring students, waiting for him to complete some work, when I had a memory that helped give me a breakthrough in a story I'm working on. Some background is in order.
Long ago, maybe 7 or 8 years ago, I went through some difficult times. Of course, that's a serious understatement. It was something that entirely broke me spiritually and psychologically, that I am still trying to heal from. As you can guess, it began as a relationship. A great relationship. The perfect relationship, with the perfect girl. No exaggeration. Beautiful, very intelligent, artistic, talented, honest, fun, confident, strong, and she was as in love with me as I was with her. And Robert Frost was right: nothing gold can stay. It didn't last. after several great months, for no clear reason, she began using heroin, and quickly turned into a junkie. Things pretty much went downhill at that point. Really really far downhill. So now, 7 or 8 years later, depending where you count from, I decided that telling the story, writing it so I could really see what happened would be the best way to finish dealing with the whole thing. I still couldn't write about it directly, at least not if I wanted to be honest, so I switched the genders of the characters to make it feel more like a story and less like my life. I thought this would help me, and maybe also help anyone I am close to - its too personal and bad for me to ever be able to tell anyone the whole story in a way that conveys anything, so I'm hoping that I can let them read the story to understand what happened then. Okay, so now you understand why I'm writing the story.

Now, I know the point is supposed to be therapy, but I'm not going to write a story that doesn't work as a story too, so I was stuck. I was writing, and I realized that I would have to explain somehow why the perfect person would just suddenly flip a switch and fuck their whole life by getting addicted to heroin. I tried to think how to convey it, then realized I needed to decide what the reason was first. That was when I figured out that I had no idea why she had done it, and that that was one of the mysteries of it that really continued to bother me. Then yesterday I remembered for some reason a statement she'd made, seemingly at random. She had commented that she was intrigued by the idea of the hair shirt. I hate to admit it, but at the time I had no idea what a hair shirt was, I assumed it was something like a mohair jacket, so I didn't think about it at all. But yesterday I remembered that comment, and it fit. For those of you who dont know, a hair shirt is a shirt made of boar bristles that is worn underneath the clothing on the bare skin. It scrapes the skin raw and then scratches the raw skin all day long. The purpose of these was for penance; if someone felt they had sinned very terribly, they could pay penance for their sins this way, and through other methods of self torture - like Reverend Dimmesdale's self-flagellation in "The Scarlet Letter." It fit with so many other things about her - her sense of honesty was so strong that she could not abide the idea of having an unpaid moral debt, and though she never shared what it was, I could feel some hidden guilt in her from long in the past, in childhood. I suspect she never consciously enunciated what she was guilty of; most likely that would have revealed how foolish it was to feel guilt over it. I think that was where the heroin came from. I don't think that she felt she deserved to be as happy as we were together. Maybe I'll understand it all by the time the story is done, although I somehow dont think so, and I dont need to understand all of it, just the important parts.

Learning

2005-01-11T21:36:00.000-08:00

There is an image from a movie that has always stuck in my mind. It is the scene from “The Matrix” in which Keanu Reeves has an epiphany that allows him to see the world in a different way. The world around him is suddenly transformed into living information that he can read and understand now that he has learned how to look at it. Learning is about figuring out how to see the world in a different way, how to see that the wisdom of the world can be read from every droplet of water when it is looked at the right way. Learning to see the age of the earth in the layered rock of a mountainside, or the force of the ocean in the curl of a breaking wave, watching how the waves provide both life and destruction for the denizens of a tide pool, and understanding a little more about life because of it, these are examples of the type of sight that learning must cultivate.
Learning in a classroom is valuable, but to become truly learned requires learning from everything: from the experience of living, sleeping, eating, and everything in between. The classroom teaches what can be taught, but a true education also requires a person to be able to learn that which cannot be taught. I think that our primary education system fails in this task, and those few students that do truly learn more often represent the failure of the school to tame their minds rather than the success of the school in producing such an individual. I believe that in order to produce well-thinking and seeing people, critical thinking and basic philosophy must be taught at the elementary and middle school levels. I think such a program would create a class of students who are accustomed to thinking rather than accustomed to simply reproducing whatever answer they are told is correct. In a democracy, where the direction of the most powerful country in the world depends on the knowledge and decisions of its voters, it is not simply important, but essential to ensure that our citizens enter the world with a lifetime of training in both how to think critically, and the framework for developing an informed system of values derived from the world that they have experienced around them, so that their wisdom can decide in which direction their intelligence should be employed.

DT's

2005-01-06T10:23:00.000-08:00

Did I mention that I moved? Yes I know, its a blog, I could easily go back and see for myself if I've mentioned it, but then I'd use up all my motivation doing that, and would have none left to write, and all of you (okay, both of you) would have to live without the sage wisdom of my words. So yes, I moved. From West Hollywood to Silverlake. For those of you outside the LA area, its a distance of about 6 or 7 miles. Silverlake is a nicer area, and still hip, but not like Hollywood. Its really taking getting used to - I go to the supermarket, and there are no models, no strippers, the place is filled with normal people, people with abs that cant be seen, people with families and real jobs - its strange. The good news about that is that I can always drive a little further to shop in Hollywood if I need to be surrounded by strippers and homeless poets in order to buy kitty litter, but the part I really can't get used to is the absence of crazy people. I told you about crazy Tim in the closet - well now he lives in someone else's closet, and my closet hold nothing but clothes and an old broken vacuum cleaner. The homeless girl who thinks she's an arcangel can't walk all the way to the new place, so I only hear from her occasionally, and more importantly, I just dont meet strange people on the street in my daily life anymore. Its almost as if I've gotten old or something.
Well, I think I have a solution. I didn't write it here, I was too busy doing shots of Patron after I found out, but I passed the California Bar exam recently. That means I'm a real lawyer now. A real unemployed lawyer. So maybe if I can pull off a public defender job, defending all the criminals too poor or insane to defend themselves, I can get a bit more of that Hollywood vibe back in my life. Yeah, I think I'm going to try that. So if either of my readers out there happens to do the hiring for the LA County Public Defender's office, give me a call.

Intermission

2004-12-29T11:25:00.000-08:00

Okay, I'm still alive - had a move and a lot of preparation for my family's visit for the holidays, so have not had a chance to write in a while. In reference to my last post, I'm happy to say that after the debate got even uglier, we decided to just stop and all apologized - no matter how much you disagree with someone's politics, its never worth breaking freindships over. Well, unless you're friends with Dubya.
I had an amazing Christmas - for the first time ever I hosted the holidays, with my parents coming from Hawai'i and my brother and his family coming from Atlanta, and for the first time in six years we had the whole family together in one place. It was a really great holiday - everyone was happy, we all had fun, there was no drama, and the beautiful Christmas dinner I cooked came out really well. I was sure something would go horribly wrong somewhere along the way.
On another subject, I watched Donnie Darko last night. What a great movie! My only criticism is that the movie didnt really provide enough information to understand it just by watching, even to the most attentive and intuitive watcher. Sure, you could figure out the basics of what happened, but only the barest impression. I'm not sure what I think of leaving that amount of information out - I do like the fact that like life, all the mysteries are never solved. Anyway, its given me some ideas to think about in my own writing. I fully recommend the movie to anyone.

A Dark Day

2004-11-04T23:48:00.000-08:00

Black Tuesday. Wasn't that what they called the day the stock market crashed that led to the Great Depression? I'm not sure, it doesn't really matter. But this tuesday was a black one. About a week or two ago I got a forwarded email titled "The Fall of the Athenian Republic" - It purported to tell about how an 18th century political scientist said that all Democracies fail after 200 years or so because they vote for Liberals, and that voting for Kerry would cause the fall of American democracy. When that was supposed to have been written, there had only been two democracies in the world - Athens and Rome. Athens fell when they were conquered because they were too proud to keep up their allies. Rome's democracy fell because they allowed a leader to scare them so much about an outside threat of barbarians from another culture that they gave him emergency powers to fight the threat, and he used those powers to make his absolute power permanent. Do either of those sound familiar? No, back in the 18th century, when America's democracy was novel, there was one thing the political scientists all said would be the downfall of America - that it allows the uninformed masses an equal vote with the educated and knowledgable, and that such a flaw would allow a demagogue to take control of the country. For over 200 years it was never really a problem, but somehow that's changed, and I really don't understand why. Always before, with even the most corrupt of politicians, there has always been that line that they dare not cross lest they will never become re-elected if the public finds out. We have now written out a message to the politicians of America - "Don't worry about the line. Run a good campaign, give us some nice lines from a Rambo movie, and do what you want." I honestly believe that the precedent this election sets is the removal of re-election as a check on the government's power. It's what we formed this country for, but we're more than happy to give it away now as long as someone is there to make the world look as comfortingly simple as the gunfight at the OK Corral.
Okay, done with my rant. I know it sounds like I'm over-reacting, but I really don't think so. In the long term, in 20-50 years, you'll see the difference. Unless we do something to change it. And it will take a lot.

Betrayal

2004-10-08T10:47:00.000-07:00

It doesn't matter how many times it happens, the blow from a friend's betrayal never gets softer. You expect betrayals in life; people are like that. To a certain degree, you expect them in love, just because the instinct of sexual desire is so powerful that it can never be discounted. But the betrayal of a friend is different. It is never something that wasnt intended to hurt us, never really forgivable. The first was Devon. After spending my entire life never living in any city more than three years, Devon was the only friend to stick with me even after I moved away, from childhood through adulthood; for sixteen years I had called him my best friend. I wont go into what he did, but it was a blow that took years to get past. He has since tried to be friends again. I still talk to him, but he'll never again be my friend, with all of the things that word means to me.
This time it was Kirk. Someone I invited into my home, who quickly became friends with all my friends, whom I would have done anything to help out. There's even a picture of him in my photoblog on the side there, in the blue cowboy hat. When he lost his job, we gave him a free place to stay until he had the money to live on his own. Then he suddenly disappeared without a word, all his things with him, and no one having an idea where he'd gone. The next morning I went to my drawer for the $1,700 cash I'd saved up to fix my car. It was gone. I didn't really hide it; I would have never guessed I'd need to. I'm told he was last seen that night leaving town with a brand new pair of Chanel sunglasses on. I just wish I could have been robbed on the street, or lost it, or anything where I could hate the person who took it. I wish I didn't have to mark down another betrayal on the scoreboard. It breaks my heart.

The Aussie Invasion

2004-10-06T11:28:00.000-07:00

Right now I've got six Australian guys sitting in my living room watching "The Crocodile Hunter" movie. We met them at Barnie's Beanery Monday when we went out there to watch the football game. We took them in when their hostel threw them out for being a little too rowdy. They've already convinced my roomate to put vegemite on everything he eats, and have gotten us kicked out of a couple bars already. But they sure are fun.
They're on a 5-month road trip in a van around the entire United States. I so envy them. I miss those days. When I was with ESPN I was able to travel all over, but that was work, and never allowed the kind of travelling where you have no deadlines, no hurry, you can spend as much time anywhere as you want, explore anything you find. I've had the time for such a trip, and the money for it, just never both at the same time. They're heading on to Vegas later today. I really miss the old road trips.

Seisin

2004-09-29T22:07:00.000-07:00

Hmmm... Just been feeling like all my recent posts have been far too serious - you'd think I was walking around dressed like a romantic poet spouting philosophy. Unfortunately I just haven't been very funny lately, not even amusing really. Too much to worry about perhaps. I'm moving yet again, jumping once more into the hell that is known as "Renting an Apartment in LA."
Maybe I'll just use this post to rant a bit about how much the landlords in LA absolutely suck. I've lived in three places in LA, and of those, I've been in four litigations with my landlords (yes, more than one litigation with one of them - wow, you've really impressed me with your math skills). Actually my current landlord is a pain in the ass, but not terrible on the degree my other landlords were. My last landlord actually just walked into the house one Sunday morning, without knocking or anything, went straight to the bathroom, and took a vicious shit in our bathroom, then left. Without a word. He also had the habit of opening the door and yelling things in russian inside at us at 7am every other morning. That was the least of it, but I'm way too lazy to write the longer stories. The other landlord was far worse. He would make up laws from his imagination and sue me under them, and since he's not a lawyer, I couldn't charge him with filing frivolous lawsuits, so I had to just defend them all. He would also spy on us, and whenever we had a guest, interrogate us about whether they are staying without his permission, and then scream and tell us we're hurting his feelings. Okay. I wont torment you any more. The good news is that I'm told the landlord at my new place is very cool and unobtrusive. I wonder what that's like? It will be a novelty.

Magellan

2004-09-29T10:52:00.000-07:00

Do you remember that all-important question of childhood; "What do you want to be when you grow up?" Most of us at one time or another answered, policeman, fireman, superhero, construction worker, astronaut, or something of the like. I probably mentioned all of those at one time or another, but what I really wanted to be was an explorer, like Leif Eriksson, or Magellan, discovering new lands and civilizations and exotic cultures and making friends with them (they only teach the nice version of history in elementary school). And I remember being terribly heartbroken when my parents explained to me that I couldn't be an explorer, because the whole world had already been discovered - there was nothing left to discover.
I cried.
I would have rather known that there was no Santa Claus, Easter Bunny or Tooth Fairy than to be told that there were no more frontiers to discover, no more possibilities of discovering Atlantis, or the Amazons, or El Dorado, or anything else.
There is something seriously wrong with knowing too much. Don't get me wrong, I am a lover of knowledge, and like to absorb far more of it than I will ever have any practical use for, but what I mean is that the world becomes a far less interesting place when there's no more mystery left in it. Isn't there something great about being able to imagine mythical creatures, strange civilizations, and being able to say - they could exist, on some undiscovered continent, somewhere in the world, and the thought that someday you could take a ship where no one has ever been before, and discover something no one living has ever seen before.
I think this is the reason behind the popularity of science fiction. Science fiction is not about a scientific desire to methodically categorize the world, but rather the desire to find that which has not been found, to discover and imagine and find that there are still mysteries beyond our understanding, even if they involve quantum physics instead of lost cities. Science fiction serves to reassure us that there is still enough mystery in the universe that we will never have to worry about using it all up.
I think this desire for the unknown might even be related to my aversion to getting a real job. Once you are a laywer, for example, you can't really still imagine the possibility of being a rock star anymore, or an astronaut, or an accountant. There's something I find truly fearful about the thought of my future becoming predictable and secure. It doesn't necessarily make sense, and yet sometimes not knowing what my future will hold seems to be more important than money or fame or anything else. Or maybe I'm just good at rationalizing my own crappy situation.

2004-09-26T16:32:00.000-07:00

I just thought this was a really cool story. Check it out.
http://www.faultline.org/place/pinolecreek/archives/001950.html

Hollywood

2004-09-16T10:06:00.000-07:00

You know, I really like living in Hollywood. I've been a nomad all my life, never living anywhere more than three years, and no matter how interesting that can be, the fact remains that you spend your life as an outsider. You make friends everywhere, but you're always the "New Friend" among the group that has been friends since grade school. But of all the places I've been, Hollywood is different. It is the only place where as an outsider, you can still belong. Part of it is that being an LA person has no bearing on whether you grew up here - an true LA person is someone who came from somewhere else, and didn't quite fit there, and came west to find somewhere they belong. And so, after an entire life of not belonging, I found a place where, after only a few months, I did belong.
What is even better is that in Hollywood, there is no one style, no choice between preppy or punk, goth or jock, everything is too big and varied here to have any such labels, so you make your own self without reference to labels, and really find out who that is. Here you can be a conservative with purple hair, or a rebel that can wear polo shirts, or anything in between, and still belong, not because you're different, but because you're you.
And beyond that, is that mosaic of different/crazy/strange/interesting people you see and meet here every day. If you've been reading my blog, you already know about Tim in the closet, but there's also the homeless nudist who thinks she's an archangel that comes here to crash occasionally, my friend Newbie, who was a guy from Indiana who wanted to make a movie, and was so determined to make it happen that he talked a state government into building him a studio for free, convinced investors, and is now shooting it with a fairly star-studded cast, Trish, the model who used to rob banks, all the homeless people that just have amazing stories to tell, whether true or not, and more others than I could ever list or count. There's just no other place like it. Rich or poor, you could never have a life this interesting anywhere else.

Discovery

2004-09-14T13:50:00.000-07:00

I have recently discovered that you dream more when you sleep on your back.

Tim in the closet

2004-09-13T23:35:00.000-07:00

People never believe me when I tell them about Tim. They always seem to think I am exagerrating, or making the whole thing up, but I'm not. Tim is real, and he lives in my closet.
No, this is not some metaphor about being secretly gay, Tim might date girls if any of them were brave enough to enter his closet, but they're not, and with good reason. Its just not a place you'd want to go. But back to the point, yes, I have a crazy guy named Tim who lives in my closet. No matter how much I explain that he is literal, my friends are always surprised when they're over at the house, sitting in the living room, and Tim jumps out of the closet raving about something or other. The response is always the same: "Oh my God! I thought you were joking about the crazy guy in the closet!"
But seriously, I'm not. This is the part where I'd tell you he's not really that crazy, and about his redeeming qualities, but he is, and he doesn't really have many. About 10 minutes ago I had to physically throw him out of my room because he had been lecturing for the last 40 minutes about how many eggs are in the refrigerator, how he had counted them, and how it was entirely too many. Trust me, that topic fulfills all its potential for novelty in the first 5 minutes.
My favorite Tim-ism always happens around 10-11pm. He'll be sitting on the couch watching "The Andy Griffith Show" for the 7th time that day, and then suddenly start yelling at everyone else in the living room, "Shut up! Stop talking! I'm trying to sleep!"
Me: Tim, you're sitting up, watching TV, and drinking a beer; you're clearly not trying to sleep.
Tim: Yes I am. No wonder I cant sleep with you guys sitting here talking.
Me: Tim, you havent even gone to your room yet.
Tim: I will soon.
Me: Then you can start bitching about trying to sleep then.
Tim: If I do, will you stop talking?
Me: No, this is our living room. Its the place where we socialize. But you might find it less noisy when you're in a different room.

This exchange would be less remarkable if we didnt have it at least twice every week.
He also argues that we should help conservation; that washing the dishes is a terrible waste of water, yet he (seriously) uses an entire roll of toilet paper every day. No, I dont know what he does with that much toilet paper, all I know is that it disappears.
Well, Tim may be a bit odd, and he may be a bit of a misogynist, and he may be messy, and occasionally attack a guest if left alone, but . . . well . . . yeah . . . oh! He's a hell of a violin player. I knew there was something positive to say about him. And he does make life a bit more interesting. Kind of makes you feel like there's a studio audience out there watching the popular sitcom "Rob's Apartment."

Malibu

2004-09-03T10:32:00.000-07:00

This is just a story of something interesting that happened a little while back with my friend McCall. We both had a weekday free, and decided to do something interesting with it, so we got in the car and headed north. We drove up the PCH, which was cool, and after getting about halfway through Malibu, we stopped at a small surf shop there. We ended up renting a tandem kayak there to take out on the ocean. The people in the shop warned that the waves were supposed to have been big today, but thus far it was still flat, so they still agreed to rent us the kayak. In the 20 minutes it took us to get everything ready and get the kayak down to the beach, the waves had come in; about 3-4 foot waves, breaking right on the beach, which meant it would be really hard to get the kayak in the water and any momentum going to get over the first wave before it broke over us. We were both a little concerned, and McCall suggested we give up and try again later (which is very unlike her – I think she only said it because she knew I would overrule her), of course I told her we had gotten this far, we werent going to give up without at least giving it a few tries. She was in front, and after one failed attempt, we were able to get the kayak in the water between waves and I pushed it off and jumped in. we paddled hard for some momentum because we saw the wave coming; when we hit it, the front of the kayak went up in the air, but we kept the kayak straight, and we shot right over the top of the wave. We kept up our momentum, and though there were other big waves to jump, the breaking wave is always the hardest, and that was past. Of course, we were covered in sand and soaked to the bone, and my ankles were bleeding a bit, but I had expected to get wet, so it was okay, and McCall didn’t care about getting wet since her cigarettes were still dry.
It was fun riding over the waves, and as we got further out it calmed down a bit. After we passed the outer buoy we slowed down and relaxed. McCall mentioned that it would be really cool if we saw a dolphin or anything, and I had been thinking so too – or even a seal. Though there was probably much in the sea beneath us, we couldn’t see anything, but it was very nice to just relax on the glassy water, watch the clouds pass over the mountains on the coast, see the sun shining off the buildings of Santa Monica in the far distance. Then we heard a splash and looked over to the north just in time to see a very large grey dorsal fin submerge beneath the water. We looked at each other with concern. McCall said “That was way too big to be anything but a shark.” “No” I tried to reassure her, “Sharks don’t really breach like that – only dolphins do – its probably a dolphin.” “Dolphins also never travel alone – do you see any other dorsal fins?” At that point I began to worry, because she was right – sharks swim alone, but dolphins always swim in groups. I told her again that sharks only breach like that in movies, not for real. She asked me that if I intended to debate that point with the shark before or after it ate me? At this point she had gotten me to worry a bit too, though our course of action was pretty much the same either way, hold still and wait for it to pass, hoping we dont attract its attention to the not-very-stable kayak. Then there was another splash on the other side of the boat, closer. We looked over in time to see an enormous, dark grey dolphin sliding back into the water. When we looked back north where it had come from, we saw around 12-24 other dolphins coming our way, swimming and jumping. They swam right around us, under us, and to both sides. It was one of the most surreal things I have ever encountered in the absence of drugs. One jumped right alongside, maybe six feet from the side of the boat – the thing must have been 9 feet long – bigger than most sharks I’ve seen. I had to restrain McCall from jumping into the water after them. They played alongside us for a while, and we tried to keep up with them for a while, but once they became bored, they left us behind quickly. There was just something really amazing about it that putting it in words does not convey. Like nature popped up and gave you a smile and a wink just to show you her favor. We were both breathless from it. After savoring the experience for a little while, we decided to head back. I turned us around and headed towards the shore – when we got a little closer we saw that the waves had gotten even bigger than when we had left. I promised it would be easier this way – we’d just have to catch a wave on the way in just like if we were surfing it. As we came in we built up as much speed as we could, and then caught a big wave just as it came in; it took us down – as we rode the crest the front edge of the boat was over air, and we were looking down at the beach. When the wave crashed down, it slid us right up onto the beach, and all we had to do was jump out and pull it the rest of the way up. We returned the kayak, and went down through Malibu to eat at the Reel inn – we got some food and beer and ate on the patio, still in somewhat of a state of euphoria. There was a little black cat there that I fed little pieces of my fish taco to. After that we went home, still light-headed from what we had experienced.

Licorice

2004-08-30T10:35:00.000-07:00

I just had a thought. If souls are truly reincarnated, recycled, etc, how to account for the drastic increases in population? how could those 10,000 souls from the neolithic populate the 6.18 billion bodies in the world today? Easy enough to believe that the majority of the people in the world are soulless, or that the souls are getting smaller as their material must be spread over so many people, but I think that the more reasonable suggestion woul be that souls can divide, like cellular mitosis, replicating themselves to create another that is identical until life and evolution change them. This would explain all those kindred souls, how some people
feel such a tight connection without even knowing each other, or how someone from a distinctly different background can be so much like yout that is is uncanny. I have not explored the idea yet, so I'll have to give it more thought to decide if I accept the idea or not, but it is an interesting thought.
Hmmm...
I have now constructed a licorice stonehenge on my desk, but I fear it will not be as long lived as the original, since I'm getting rather hungry looking at it. Maybe that's why they don't make more monuments out of candy.

A Relationship With Words

2004-08-30T10:20:00.000-07:00

I think that I both love and hate words. I love them for what they can do, and I hate them for what they cant do. Properly crafted words can accomplish amazing things - look at the Bible, the Magna Carta, Darwin's Origin of Species, they all changed the world. But when words try to convey the deeper truths, to give the meaning behind the word LOVE, or to explain some of the inherent truths of the soul, or to describe how the air smells different on the night of the full moon, that is where they show their weakness; that is where they fail.
To be a good writer, I think you must hate words. I think a truly great writer must see the inherent weakness of words, the great distance between words and the truths they are meant to express, and so works so hard in order to force them to achieve more, to help the words become closer to what they should be.
So having pointed out the hopeless inferiority of words, I'll use them nonethelss, since I have nothing else to write with.

Godzilla's special friends

2004-08-27T17:00:00.000-07:00

Just saw some cheesy Japanese Godzilla-type monster movie, and I was thinking. Yes, thinking. What do all the good-guy monsters or robots have in common? That they all seem to spend inordinate amounts of time alone with some little boy. They are always friends with no one but the one cute little Japanese boy. Does this disturb anyone else? When will the Japanese government stop trading the innocence of their children for the alliance of monsters and robots? Its time for this to stop.

The Secret of Kraft

2004-08-27T16:58:00.000-07:00

You know, if there was one thing I could tell all the females, of the world, it would probably be something about how good I am in bed and my phone number. But if I could say two things, the other would be to inform them that cheese of all kinds is readily available at the supermarket. You don’t need any kind of password or special connection to get it. Just buy it. I have never understood why my female roommates and neighbors always come to my refrigerator and consume all the cheese like a plague of locusts. They act as if my refrigerator is a secret treasure trove of cheese, available nowhere else.
So that is my message to the women of the world.
“Call me.”
And
“Buy your own God damn cheese!”

Sampler Platter

2004-08-27T16:52:00.000-07:00

Don’t you hate when you’re having a conversation with a girl, and she asks you some veiled meaningful question, but you don’t figure out that it was a symbolic rather than a literal question until about a week later when you’re trying to figure out why she hasn’t returned any of your calls? And after that you’re trying to fix it, calling her, saying things like
“Wait, wait, I just meant I like the sampler platter at TgiFriday’s, because its got those potstickers and the southwestern egg rolls with the dipping sauce, but like, if we’re being symbolic, I like to find one dish and settle down with it, and never eat anyone, anything else!”
She: “I don’t know what you’re talking about. And what’s with the egg rolls? American food isn’t good enough for you? You saying you want to sample some asian ho? Sample away, Sampler-Boy!” *click*

Welcome

2004-08-27T16:28:00.000-07:00

Welcome to my Blog.

Yes, Impressive isn't it.

Time will tell if I ever get around to writing anything on it.

So I expect you all to wait with indrawn breath.

Isn't the suspense killing you?

A quick note - all material on the page is copyrighted and may not be used without the express permission of the author.