Tell me about Detroit

When I first came to this state one of the first things I did was go to Detroit for a Flogging Molly Concert with Loo.

I used Google maps to find the place, a big theater, can't miss it.

I missed it. Over and over did I miss that stupid theater.

The directions were good until I got to Detroit because Detroit is always under construction based on my one visit and years of Hollywood movies about it, meaning there were detours for detours to detour you to detours.

But it was Motor city! And I am a gear head motor guy, so this should be like the holy grail, or rather that road that Jesus walked carrying his cross. You know, hollowed ground. This is where it all goes on, and down and off and up. All of it. Detroit Baby!

I did not like Detroit.

The roads criss-crossed the city in a one-way labyrinth of battered pavement and steaming man-hole covers. The roads you needed to be on went the other way and it didn't seem to connect to any road you could get to--a perpetual parallel paradox preventing perpendicular progress propagating persistent panic, poisoning planned preconceptions, presuming to prevent prosperity, preferring peculiar places where pioneering panhandlers pass personal precincts peddling profitable panacea prospering persistently while pantomiming personal progress predictably prone to prosecution, prison, and punishment, while presently I proceed to perspire persuaded to persevere despite parallel progress through puzzling pavement. Whew. The road signs were strategically placed behind traffic signals and stop signs so tourists like me could annoy the native people of Motor City as we creep up closer and closer to see if we should turn on this upcoming road or not. They must be familiar with this occurrence because it didn't seem to phase them.

While I was there I didn't see any cool cars. Just Cadillacs on 26's, and yellow Crown Victorias.

Parking was a nightmare, or maybe more of a nightstallion, I'm not sure. It was cash only. I didn't have any cash and the ATM machines were inconveniently located somewhere else.

Finally I asked a Taxi driver and he pointed me toward one 3 miles away. There was a three dollar charge for it, and there was no where to park to use the stupid thing. I parked right in front of a NO PARKING UNDER ANY CIRCUMSTANCE sign and got some money out.

Loo had already arrived and was hiding in a bar/club thing because she felt unsafe on the street and it was cold outside. Which meant when I called her to ask where the heck she was all I heard was the music blasting through my earpiece. Using her mother and her Mother's un-boyfriend we were able to find the place, the theater, and where Loo was and where to park.

I parked, walked across the street in 40 degree weather--something a California boy will never get use to--and entered the bar/club thing around the corner of the venue. On my way there I saw a gang-banger looking black guy who greeted me so cordially it caught me by surprise and forever changed my preconceptions of Detroit. It also made me abundantly aware of my prejudice, which I didn't like about myself.

Inside the bar the pungent cigarette smoke bit my nose--another thing a Cali boy will never get use to because our state is legally smoke free, no cigs anywhere public or private except for your own car and house, I think. I coughed a few times, my eyes stung, but through the mediocre band crashing cymbals offbeat to barely audible lyrics screamed into a microphone by a small man with a top hat, I was able to find Loo. She was hungry.

We went to the restaurant part of the place and asked for a menu. The Chicago Dog caught my eye so I ordered that. It was covered in onions, which I don't normally eat, but I ate them all that night. I don't remember what she ordered, some kind of egg thing. But while we were waiting for our food I watched people come and go and greet one another--this countered the picture I had of Detroit in my head of rude aggressive people you see in movies all the time. They were nicer than the people back home, who weren't rude per se, but too self-involved or aloof to waste time greeting strangers. Then a man with a pit bull walked into the restaurant.

I was instantly prepared to tell the man that you can't have an animal in a restaurant on account of certain health code violations--after working in several food markets, and owning lots of pets I knew quite a bit about this--but I didn't say anything. Detroit was a city in a state I knew nothing about. I was also angry at how conditioned I had become to do that, to tell this guy, "Hey guy, you can't have a dog in here," even though I love dogs and would like to see a dog in a restaurant. I think people have more germs than dogs do anyway.

The chef guy offered to feed the dog some food but the owner said no, then greeted the next few people that came in cordially, genuinely, as they picked up their take out orders. The dog owner paid for his take out order and left to keep walking down the street in a t-shirt. Evidently he didn't care it was sub forty degrees out there. It made me shiver thinking about it.

Pecking order group dynamic

Maybe its just me, but have you noticed when strangers meet and they will meet again they have to establish who is the alpha male? The pecking order group dynamic.

I have read and studied too much about human behavior not to notice. What's worse is that I understand things far more than I am able to express. It's a major bummer because if you could know what I know the world would be a better place, but I can't seem to show you what I know the way I know it. I can, at best, give you glimpses into my brain, my thought processes. This has resulted in people imagining what that's like and saying, "Wow, it must be crazy to be in your head all the time."

It is, don't kid yourself.

I filter the crazy out of what I say most of the time. And by crazy I don't mean crazy-insane asylum crazy, I mean the thoughts I have after a mountain of information I have thought about.
Metaphor start:
I am on this mountain's peak, looking down at you and I want to share this view with you, but in order to do that I have to tell you where the path is, how to walk it, when to take a break, how to get to where I am and it's a long process. Nobody has that kind of time, so what I do instead is say, "this is the path, and this is what it looks like at the peak if you want to walk it sometime I'll show you how." It is rare that anybody wants to walk it themselves, they'd rather hear a description of what I see and go, "huh, that's interesting," and never think of it again. Metaphor end.

Like hiking to the top of Half Dome in Yosemite. At the top of that rock looking at the valley below and the mountains around and being in awe, to have someone who could hike up there if they wanted, to have them ask you what its like. It's wrong. It is indescribable. All you can do is say its pretty and they should go, and you can talk about your own personal feelings after seeing the vista, but they will never truly know what it's like unless they go themselves. And even if you try to explain to them by recalling the view, or showing them a picture or a painting it isn't the same.

Anyway, I been meeting a lot of new people. It seems to me you have to establish a pecking order for alpha male. I really don't care about it, I'm not invested enough to be alpha male in every situation. It's too much work. But I am aware of how it goes down when I meet people. And by It I mean the following:

I met a guy at a party once and he says, "What up man, how you doin?"

"I'm doin well. Thanks. You from around here?" Already I am establishing my position as alpha male-grammar guy with the inclusion of the word 'well' and I am steering the conversation to me being from California--instant cred.

"Nah, im from far away. Grand Rapids."

"I don't know where that is."

"Its like an hour from here. Where you from?"

"SoCal." Instant cool-guy points as his face lights up.

"What the hell are you doing way the fuck out here?"

"A woman. University. Work. You?"

"Women. And my band plays here." You see that? He brought out the big guns after my so cal comment. He is in a band, that's cool, it might rival my growing up in Cali. If I were unaware of the pecking order dynamic being established I would think of something that tops his band, or find away to discredit his band. But I don't want to. I just want to talk.

"A band. Cool. What kind of music do you play?"

"Metal mostly."

"I love metal music, Metallica is my favorite band of all time." If I were a woman, or he was gay he would invite me to see him play sometime.

"Metallica is great. I play bass."

I couldn't think of any better way to end that conversation (metallica is Great I play bass.), so I spotted my woman and said, "Found my woman, take it easy man." And raised my beer to him, he raised his cup and thanked me.

He would forever be that guy that plays base in a metal band and I will always be that cool Cali guy that likes metal music. I'm ok with that.

Later on that evening some other guy walked right up to me and said, "I haven't seen you here before, I come here a lot."

"Yeah I'm new."

"I can tell by your clothes."

"Oh yeah?"

"Yeah, they look gay." This drew a crowd.

"Does that attract you?"

"No."

"Are you sure?"

"Yeah, I am not gay dude. Are you?"

"No. You just know how gay people dress?"

"Yeah, wait no. No I don't."

"Uh-huh. Ok."

"Dude im not gay!"

"Who are you trying to convince?"

"You. Dude. This is fucked."

"You started it, you can leave if you are uncomfortable or embarrassed and want to stop."

He looked around and then left.

Maybe these were bad examples, but next time you go out and meet a bunch of people try to pay attention to the establishment of the pecking order group dynamic.

They figure out who you are and what you do and then say something about themselves that is greater than you.

I am done thinking about this.

Cards and faces

And action...

It has been awhile since I posted something. This web journal thing is tougher than I give it credit for. I told myself I would write everyday and I think I end up writing every week.

Beedoo.

Lets see here, what do I want to talk about...

Something funny which may progress into something interesting, poignant and cool.

At work a new full-timer was transferred to the Kalamazoo tire store, his name is Christian and he wears a gold crucifix around his neck that he likes to flip out of his collar so everyone knows or thinks they know that he has accepted Jesus Christ as his personal savior. It makes me kind of sick and annoyed. But that's just me. There is something I dislike about broadcasting things like that; it's ostentatious. It is also an effigy of a man being tortured. What can you say about a person who wears a torture device around his neck?

That reminds me of that catholic hospital I took my brother to. In the recovery room was a tortured man on a cross bleeding from a spear wound to his heart, with a crown of thorns. Nothing says "get well soon" like that. If there was some other torture device hanging on the wall would it creep you out? Like the Pear, that thing that was inserted into the anus or the vagina and cranked like a pepper shaker, which caused it to open with spikes ripping and tearing as it expanded. Or perhaps the Iron Maiden, or The Rack. Why do I know so much about the torture devices of the Spanish Inquisition? The world may never know. My brother looked at that tortured man and said, "I hope I don't end up like that guy."

Anyway, Christian comes out back and says, "You will be installing two new tires on the Ford Tortoise."

One of the other employees says, "You mean Taurus?"

Christian says, "Taurus means Tortoise, doesn't it Poetry? Help me out here." He calls me Poetry to make fun of me for writing poetry. That's the kind of guy he is. I disliked him instantly when he said it.

"No, Taurus is Latin for bull. The word you are looking for is 'Tortuca' the Latin word for Tortoise." I impressed myself. I didn't know that I knew that. I instantly felt like I knew how everyone was looking at me at that moment, not physically, but mentally. I am still new to the store, they don't fully understand just how smart I really am. I don't mean to brag, I really don't. It's just a fact that I vacillate between sheer brilliance and stupidity, but my brilliant moments outshine my stupid moments. Usually. And if I can have more brilliant moments than stupid ones, or if someone only sees my brilliant moments, think of how that colors their perception of me, their understanding of who I am. Conversely, think of how people see/perceive/understand you if you mostly do stupid things around them.

I imagine Loo thinks I am pretty dumb, because I do most of the dumb things I do around her. Imagine when Loo meets a guy from work and the guy says, "Wow that Brian guy is pretty smart." It might clash with everything she knows and she might say, "Huh? Really?" Or maybe she knows how smart I am. Who knows? Who knows what other people think about you, or me? Moreover, who cares? I am who I am, and at the end of the day the only person that has to live with me and my decisions is me.

Where was I? Oh yeah, Christian was angry because he was wrong and he said he was leaving the conversation because I wouldn't help him out. And I said something like, "I can't help you out if you are wrong." And he said whatever and left.

He came back later and tried to make a joke. Just so you know: if you have to say, "That was a joke." It wasn't. And you should stop saying things like that, especially if you say, "That was a joke," a lot. Christian's joke went something like this: Bird flu and pig flu were bad, killed lots of people, but Rhinovirus hadn't killed many people at all. You would think that because its a rhino-virus it would kick our butt compared to bird and pig flu.

I will admit it is a cute word game and I could have some fun with it in a piece of writing. After he said 'Bird and Pig flu' I expected some other giant animal-like flu that would seem to be much worse. It followed the joke formula of: if Plant food is made out of plants, and fish food is made out of fish, what is baby food made out of?

So when nobody laughed he droped his smileand tried a serious face on. Someone asked if it was a joke. (if someone has to ask if your joke was a joke, it wasn't and you should modify your joke behavior) He answered, "not really. I mean if you are naming diseases, wouldn't you expect of the choices bird, pig and rhino that rhino would be the worst?"

Evidently the funny card had failed and he was moving to the intellectual card. the intellectual card is usually my card, and I usually have more than one, and they are often arranged into a royal flush, so save yourself the trouble and fold early because I never bluff.

This is what was going on in my head: Avian flu and swine flu are versions of influenza that originated from the avian flu strain, which originally came from the Spanish flu of 1928. Rhino virus is a nose cold, a virus that gives nose symptoms like runny nose, stuffy nose etc. They are not related. Rhino comes from Latin, it means nose. Virus also comes from latin (Venenum) meaning poison or venom. So Venom/poison [that attacks/effects/targets] the nose. Side note: Rhinoceros, rino + ceros, means nose + horn, Nosehorn.

When everyone was pouting their lips in that expression that means 'Huh. I never thought of that before, perhaps you are right. But I don't want to say that you are because I am not sure I like you yet,' I said, "Rhino means nose." He dropped his serious face and tried on his hurt face.

"I'm leaving because this conversation isn't going anywhere." And he left.

I didn't miss him. Although I did look forward to him saying stupid things in the future that everyone almost believed before I could thwart it with a couple words.

I have to say I may seem like the smarty-pants-asshole-guy who goes out of his way to make other people feel dumb, and in so doing makes himself look like he is trying too hard, like a mean spirited intellectual-tool. But that isn't true. I take great pains not to do that, it is my intellectual responsibility to not do that. But Christian tried to make fun of me, and has earned my disdain because of it, and I don't have to try very hard to make him look silly in front of everyone. So there.

FIN

SSN to 1,000 virgins

I had a productive day yesterday. Those are rare, and it made me feel good to be me yesterday.

I went to Chase Bank to correct my SSN mishap and the lady who had the clearance or the expertise to do so was not there. I could say what I think about the woman in Lancaster who used my SSN, but I don't have sufficient evidence to make an assertion like that. I'd like to think it was an honest mistake, that she typed one wrong number in, twice. I could just as easily think she did it to be a thieving scoundrel. I think this is a good time to talk about being a skeptic.

Skepticism is a good thing and in short supply in this society. Being a skeptic means holding ideas or beliefs that could change as information changes. Some people can't do that. They get a belief and hold onto it and fall victim to Confirmation Bias--that is preferring information that coincides with their beliefs or hypothesissisisisis. Another way or an easier way to say it is looking for evidence for your belief and ignoring counter evidence.

For example if you believe in the god of Abraham, and believe he intervenes in the everyday affairs of mortals, then when something good happens to you, you may think he is watching out for you, especially if it happens a few times.

A real world example: Loo's grandma once hurt her ankle so bad she cried and tried icing it, massaging it, wrapping it, elevating it, but nothing worked. As a last resort she prayed and prayed for God to take the pain away. Suddenly the pain stopped. She believes the creator of the universe healed her hurt ankle.

Here is another one. Have you ever wondered about why "La Virgin de Guadalupe" is so prevalent in Latin America? I'll tell you.

After the Spanish Catholics destroyed the indigenous cultures in Mexico, they set up a colony to send goods back to the queen. They had the surviving indigenous people make churches and started to convert them. One day (this is true, or as historically accurate as is possible to know) it rained all day and flooded the town/city where these destitute Mexican (Aztec) people lived and they were losing everything to the flood. So, being uneducated and subjugated they had nowhere to turn but the Spanish Cardinal in his church (palace/cathedral). They asked him how to make the rain stop. He told them that they had to open their hearts up to the lord and pray that He stop the rain. So they went back and did that, the whole town got together and prayed for God to stop the rain.

(side note: this is ironic because Yahweh was originally a storm deity of a diffuse desert pantheon. This also explains why he punishes man in the bible with things that rain down from the sky--frogs, fire, floods, etc)

They prayed and prayed but the rain kept falling, washing their food crop away and destroying their mud-brick houses. They returned to the Cardinal and told him it didn't work. The Cardinal said that it should have, and that someone in their number didn't have enough faith. He told them to go back and pray harder. So they did. They relayed what the cardinal had said and urged everyone to have a lot of faith and pray extra hard for God to stop the rain. And still it rained.

They returned to the cardinal. The cardinal was baffled and told them that someone among them still didn't totally believe and wasn't praying hard enough or long enough. So they went back and prayed even harder and longer than they had ever prayed before. And still it rained.

Desperate, they tried everything they could think of, but nothing worked. Finally they prayed to la Virgin de Guadalupe--aka Mother Mary, Mommy to Jesus--a marginalized mythic figure at the time.

(the Spanish Catholics refused to accept her as an important religious figure worthy of attention until they finally made her the patron saint of Mexico in 1996--about 500 years after this event).

After they prayed to la Virgin de Guadalupe the rain stopped.

The people rejoiced and believed in the power of La Virgin de Guadalupe over the power of God. It had such an effect that the Catholics were unable to squelch their belief. And that is why La Virgin de Guadalupe is so prevalent south of the USA, and, well, north of the USA as well.

Another side note: as indigenous cultures are conquered, subjugated and forcibly converted by the colonizers, they secretly--amongst themselves--disguise their beliefs into the religion forced on them. For the people that were once Aztec that meant transposing one of their important mother Goddesses onto la Virgin de Guadalupe. To an outsider, like a Spanish cardinal, they looked as though they were worshiping the mother of Jesus, which wasn't ideal but better than worshiping their heathen gods. But in actuality they were praying to this Aztec mother-goddess, like a Greek Hera, or a Viking Frigga, or a Japanese Izanami. The name of this Aztec goddess has been lost, but pictures of her still exist as archeologists uncover artifacts that the Spanish failed to locate and destroy.

Over time generations learned less and less about their mother culture and their mother goddess until eventually they forgot all about it. Now all that is left is an almost inexplicable adoration of la Virgin de Guadalupe.

Ok, back to the main point. With both these confirmation bias stories, both the pain in the ankle and the unending rain and subsequent flooding, something obvious is being overlooked. And that is that both a seemingly unending pain in the ankle and a seemingly unending rain storm will, eventually, inevitably, end. And whatever you were doing at the time will confirm your bias. In Grandma's case God healed her. In the other case La Virgin de Guadlupe stopped the rain and saved the town/city. The reality of the situation is that pain and rain both stop eventually, and would have ended on their own without any supernatural help. (sometimes pain doesn't stop, like for the terminally ill, but I think you get my point)

And that is through no fault of our own. We are pattern-seeking animals. If you can make a headache go away by drinking milk or eating something you will remember that the next time you get a headache. If you can get increased cellphone service by tilting your head a certain way you will probably do that. It is human to do that and often times throughout history pattern-seeking has been good for us. Like if you ate a plant that smelled good but gave you dysentery, you would learn not to eat that plant anymore. Or if you threw virgins into a volcano and the 1,000th virgin made it stop you would keep 1,000 virgins nearby and handy in case that volcano started acting up again.

Now we know this about ourselves, well, some of us do, and we can understand why we do things. That is the first step to correcting or changing ourselves and our behavior.

So skepticism is holding ideas in your head based on evidence and changing those ideas as evidence changes. This means you don't have, or rather shouldn't have, a fondness for a particular idea or belief, or you will lose your objectivity/skepticism, and the idea may change.

This is counter intuitive, but its the only way I know how to think.

Was this too long? I think it is, so I'm moving on to another post.

Such a nice boy.

I wrote this Saturday but couldn't find the time to post it online.


Today is Saturday. I don’t know the date. I never know the date. I have to look it up every time.

Anyway I have 4 days off in a row for some reason. I got Saturday off, which is unheard of, and Sunday the store is closed. Next week I have Monday and Tuesday off. It will be really nice to have 4 days off in a row like a vacation—if only everyone else around me had those 4 days off we could go do something like camping or backpacking or exploring or something, but they all gots stuff to do. They are still in college and finals are coming up. Which reminds me, I have to e-mail my college professors and ask them about graduate school and writing me letters of recommendation so I can get into the best schools and live the dream of writing for $. But about that, one of my friends from college--we were in a lot of the same classes together--he applied to a bunch of grad schools and was universally rejected. It hit me hard. What if that happens to me? I mean I apply all over and they all reject me and I have to wait a year before they open their doors for applicants again. I need to look at my MFA book again and figure out how to look like an amazing applicant so the grad schools want me.

What was I talking about?

Today I told—well yesterday or the day before I told Loo’s grandma that I could fix her leaky bathtub/shower faucet because I had seen dad do it twice and figured I could remember enough to do it myself—but I couldn’t so I called him up and asked him about it after chatting for awhile—he had to go to court and stayed there all day. I asked him if he told the court that he can spot a criminal like that and snap his fingers--he usually gets overlooked for that reason--but he said no he just sat there and waited all day it was very boring. Bummer. I asked dad how to fix the leaky bathtub faucet and he told me so I started on it pretty confident I could fix it.

~end typing Saturday~

I could drag this story out, turn it into a full fledged story with character arcs and rising action and climax and katharsis (which I always spell in the original Greek), but I don't want to, for two reasons: it would take a long time and I got stuff to do. I guess that's just one thing. Wait lemme try again: I dont want to for two reasons: one, it would take a long time, and two, I got stuff to do. It still seems like those are inter-related. Like a conditional statement, if A then B--I have a shortage of time, therefore I can't justify spending it writing out a story. But maybe if I have time I will. I'd like to, it would lend itself easily and probably be enjoyable.

So right quick: I fixed the faucet and became the star of the family, again. I fixed a failing doorknob a while back that they had lived with their whole lives--it drove me nuts. (I don't know if I posted that here or not... I'll go look.) I also fixed Loo's Brother's broken car when he got a flat tire because his spring front coil spring broke and stabbed the tire. And I have been doing things around the house and for the family since I got here, things I consider little things, but things that they can't do.

Which reminds me, I been told by several people I know that their parents or their friends or someone I haven't really met thinks I am a nice young man, that they can tell. If it happened once I'd just say thanks to be polite, but it happened five times yesterday.

I fixed Loo's Grandma's leaky bathtub faucet and she thanked me, and Loo's Mom thanked me and told me about her sister and brother, loo's aunt and uncle, who said that they really appreciated it and knew that I was a nice young man. Two thoughts, first thought: They probably felt guilt-relieved (is there a word for that?) because Grandma probably asked for their help for months and they couldn't justify a trip down there to fix it, so they didn't, even though she probably mentions it often to them just so she can visit for a day. But then I pass by, fix the problem so they don't have to. This relives them of the mental burden that comes from guilt at not being able to fix a problem for their mother. Does that mean they are thanking me for relieving them of the burden on their brain, rather than thanking me for doing a good deed for their mother? Maybe both. Maybe that is a stretch and I am just neurotic. Second thought: We all know I am neurotic.

Then at Loo's friend Ginny's sister's new house warming party thing the parents didn't speak to me mind you, but told her that they thought I was a nice young man, that they could tell, and they liked me. I don't know how I feel about that. Did they pull her aside together and say, "Listen, Loo's boyfriend Brian is a nice young man. We want you to tell him we think that, but we don't want to say it ourselves. It was nice of him to diagnose your car problems, and help your sister too. He is a nice young man. You tell him for us." People are strange. I am a people, ergo I am strange.

He3 for the win.

ps: someone stole my ssn, so I have to prove my identity.

gtg buh

real quick b4 bed

I was just reading http://ranalevy.blogspot.com/ and it made think of all the times I have written about similar things, like creator gods and faith v science and on and on. But in the middle of her post she starts talking about the stars, well towards the end, and I remember a point I made in poetry class once.

It was about how we are made of carbon-- a self assembling molecule -- and carbon comes from the deaths of stars. And I went into this beautiful (to me) explanation to my religious peers about how a star had to burn up all its hydrogen fuel before it started in on its helium fuel before it ran out of that and kept getting denser and denser with heavier elements until it collapses in a spectacular implosion throwing those bits of carbon and EVERYTHING else across the universe so they could collect in other places to start the process up again--but a little bit of it collected elsewhere and became rocks, and planets, and water, and well, everything.

You are made of the pieces of a dead star. There is no other way to get carbon than the fusion that takes place inside stars.

A star had to die a violent death so you could be here, billions of years after it died.

A star had to die so that you could live.

Now isn't that more spectacular than Jesus casting the demons out into a bunch of pigs? Or a burning bush? Or a blood-red river? And if it isn't (so claim the people of faith) at the very least IT IS TRUE. That is the crazy part. The most amazing thing about science and cosmology and physics and all that is that
it
is
true. And provable.

Compare that with the myriad of religious belief, a specific belief for a specific time and place that evolves to fit the current population, or dies to be studied by archeologists.

The worlds religions can't all be true, but they can all be false. The best way we have of learning what is true is by learning what isn't.

And the best way to know something is to prove it wrong. Like Socrates allegedly said, "I know through not-knowing."

We are made of carbon, which self-assembles. We are made of carbon chains of various lengths. In the primordial soup that was our blue planet the water was full of carbon, which self assembled for billions of years until it assembled the most popular arrangement which would become DNA and RNA, after that comes evolution by natural selection and genetic drift and the rest of it, which is not random as the religious talking heads like to claim. They have a problem with humanity coming from the lowly bacterium, but no problem with the biblical account of our coming from dirt.

I don't have a problem with coming from random self-assembling carbon molecules for two reasons.

1) All evidence points to this as the most likely origin of our species, and all life on this planet.
and
2) It is humbling.

Jesus tap-dancing Christ look at the time!

Good night.

ps: I saw the dragon movie in 3d. I loved it.

The Great Worm Rescue

Hello again!

A post so soon Brian?

I know, right? I want to change my habits to blog often--for two reasons

1) I like it, I don't know where it will go when I start
and
2) It gets me writing everyday, and thinking about writing everyday
and
3) I made a new years resolution to write everyday that I failed at. (pretend above it says three reasons instead of two reasons)

I meant to write yesterday but I didn't and I felt guilty about it, which is why I am on here now.

brb espresso.

Back. I think espresso was invented by gods. I have no proof, but you can't prove I'm wrong...so...ha!

So lets see I wanted to tell you something what was it...

Yesterday at work I was checking the air on a customer's tires and while I was crouched down by the right rear tire I could see inside the fender well and I saw an earthworm wriggling. It was badly damaged. It must have been driven over, crushed, picked up by the tire and flung into the fender well where it writhed in agony. A memory came then, I couldn't help it.

I was standing in the street by my first home in Gardena (25 mins from Pasadena) California, I must have been five years old or something. It had just rained and the sidewalk was covered in earthworms that had struggled to get out of the ground. The kids of the neighborhood would gather all the worms up and give them to the big kid Allen who was probably 16 or so and he would double dog dare us to eat one from a big mayonnaise jar. I never did. But I helped gather them up. I don't know what he did with them.

That was back story. Here is the memory:

I was gathering the earth worms up because I had just learned from Moms that earthworms were good for her garden, and they didn't breathe water (I had in the past deliberately put them in the water flowing by the curb because I thought I was helping them, saving them, that they needed water) they breathed air.

I spent that whole day gathering up all the earth worms from the water by the curb, the sidewalk and everywhere I could find them that they might get squashed. I carried them back to Moms and she showed me where to place them in her garden--the garden plots were mostly protected from the rain--The worms burrowed into the dry soil quickly. Her plants turned out great that year.

There is a lot in a memory, you know? I had to explain it before I could show it to you. Now that you know all this, let me show you the memory: I'm looking up from all the wriggling brown and gray worms in my hands to look down the street during an overcast day and thinking about how much time I have before they die, whether I can save them all or not.

Can you see them? Criss-crossing one another in my hand, some of them wriggling free and leaping from the pile only to be caught by my other hand and put on top of the worm pile. Can you see them? Their segmented bodies stretching and scrunching, their little hearts (we called it the turtle-neck-part) pumping blood down a long vein down their length.

That's the memory. And it had an emotional ....thing to it... aspect, flavor whatever. I felt guilt. Guilt for my ignorance. I thought I was helping them. I really wanted to help them, to do good and in so doing I doomed them. I learned even then that the lust to do good for others, no matter how small or insignificant, could harm them if I was ignorant.

Maybe that is why I hate not knowing things. Maybe that is just how I am, and the earthworms are my first memory of it. Memory...

Memories aren't just pictures, but imprints on your senses. I can smell that day. Feel the worms wriggling in my hands, their pointed ends probing my palms for fresh earth to burrow into, how it tickled. The pungent smell of hundreds of dead worms run over by cars and rotting in the street carried on the breeze into my face. The feel of a worm rescued too late, that limp, soggy, lifeless feeling that made me sad. If only I was a little faster I thought to myself.

And then the auto inflator beeped to let me know 32 psi had been achieved in the right rear tire. It stopped the memory. The memory probably went on for a second. There is a lot in a second of a memory. I could tell you more even, a lot more.

My younger brother was in tow behind me doing what I did. He didn't ask questions, he understood that this was important work and helped. When the other neighborhood kids came out to ask us what we were doing my younger brother explained to them (he explains things a lot, he is really smart) that the earthworms breathe through their skin, and they breath air, not water and they can regenerate from incredible wounds (all of which had been learned from dad and an earthworm book the night before) and "we have to save them!" We had the whole street being combed by seven kids or so rescuing worms.

After the memory I felt a tickle in my hand and looked down to see no worms in it. I looked at that wriggling worm (I like that word wriggling. I rarely get to use it.) in the fender well. I plucked it from the fender wells fibrous coating and closed my hand around it so the customer couldn't see. Then I walked over to her and talked about the tire pressures being almost perfect, and how much longer the tires should last her, how often she should come back to get them checked for balance, rotation and air, etc the whole time that worm was probing for dry soil in my gloved hand. I could barely feel it. It tickled and I had to repress a smile. I told her to have a nice day. As she drove away I ran behind the store to a big leafy pile of compost that is back there and dropped the worm in it. It probed the leafy dirt like a searching tentacle. It slithered under a leaf, and started digging in the soil.

If I could be silently observed from afar this is what someone would have seen:

"He bent down to attach the air hose to the valve stem and looked at the tire and inside the fender well. The auto-inflator beeped about a second later. He looked at his right hand and plucked an earthworm from the fender well and closed his hand around it. He talked to the customer. After she left he ran behind the building and dropped it on a mound of leafy dirt. He watched it for a second before returning to work."

I could make some sort of pitch for skepticism, ignorance and organizing people to do good here, by simply giving this piece the title of something like, "The trouble with Activism" or "Activists at a young age" or "How activism should look" or "How to help those less fortunate than you." But my intent was not to pitch anything, or attach a moral to the story, but to share a memory I had, so you could reminisce with me.

The Difference Between Here And There

Here has one less letter than There.

Does there even exist? Once you go there it becomes here. Our here can be over there if we go over there, but everywhere is here.

That was an argument my best friend and I had in 3rd grade. We had it with the teachers until we were countered by me in 6th grade. The counter goes like this: "There ISN'T here, there exists to distinguish between here." But then we were both sad because the pseudo-intellectual mystery had been removed. So we just never brought that up again, the counter I mean. We did the here there thing all the time, and often use it to test new people out. You can learn a lot about a person by arguing with them about silly stuff like that. You can even make friends. It's all in how you present it. I dont know how I got on this I meant to talk about the differences between here and there.

There being Southern California, aka SoCal and also Cali. I call it Cali myself. And here is Kalamazoo Michigan.

The weather channel is relevant here. It's weird. As far as I know nobody watches the weather channel in Cali. How many times would you tune into a place that always told you it would be 78 degrees with an ocean breeze? You may think I'm being funny here, and I am to a certain extent, but I am also being truthful. Because when the weather deviated from the '78 degrees with an ocean breeze' pattern it made headlines and news anchors would talk about it. When the weather guy came on and talked about how the temperatures would range from 75-79 in the whole southern half of Cali I know I tuned him out and I bet many others did too. But here weather is constantly on the move. I have heard a bunch of Michiginians say, "we have a saying here, if you don't like the weather in Michigan, just wait a few minutes." Meaning it will change and it changes all the time. So the weather channel, weather stations and weather iPhone apps are relevant here.

I expected the weather here to be bad. I heard horror stories: torrential downpours for days, feet of snow dropped over night. Things that made my Californian brain say, "Thank some imaginary god I don't live in that horrible place." And now I am here, but it was there to start. Get it? Ha HA! I crack myself up.

What was I saying? Weather here. Right, the weather here has actually been pleasant the last couple days. They had a heat wave. 76 degrees. I know right? That's HOT. No cloud in the sky, a barely-there breeze and a nice temperature yesterday or the day before had me sighing all nostalgically until the Manager at the tire store said, "Remind you of home?"

"Yeah, a little bit. Temperature is spot on. Although the sky in Cali is bluer, darker blue I mean, and it might be hotter but we have a cooler coastal sea breeze that makes it real nice."

"How often is it like that?" someone else asked.

"Almost everyday," I said. They laughed, in disbelief mostly.

"Welcome to Michigan," the manager said. We all laughed. Later that day it rained.

The difference between here and there: People are nicer here, friendlier, not so quick to blow you off. Things are slower here. I have a story about that.

For Easter, Loo's mom wanted to have a big family meal BBQ. With lots of food and drink and you know a big Christian hoopla. Gather around a bunch of food and talk about the wonders of Jesus as they hide colored eggs and eat chocolate rabbits--you know, from the original Pagan festival celebrating Eostre, a fertility goddess. Isn't it cool that those ancient practices that predate Christianity are still alive and well today and hardly anyone knows about it? The Vatican just stole the day and decreed that Easter was the day Jesus was resurrected.

I think; I get Christmas and Easter mixed up, I mean which one Jesus was allegedly born in, and which one he allegedly got resurrected in. Christmas usually has nativity scenes out (a total farce btw because all the cool kids are born in mangers or caves throughout the mythic traditions of the world. It is only those two places. Weird huh?) and with nativity scenes out I know its the birth of Jesus, December 25th--a date not corroborated in the Bible either. By scholarly study they say Jesus was born around July. December 25th is the middle of the Pagan/Viking tradition of Yule that celebrated lots of things that the Vatican just adopted... how did I end up talking about yule? What was I... oh yeah Easter, I swear I had a relevant point about that...

Yeah Loo's mom planed the whole thing and invited the immediate family--Loo's sis, and her bro--and Richard, Loo's mom's un-boyfriend. Richard talks a lot and its hard to get a word in cornerwise sometimes. (I made cornerwise up just now because edgewise doesn't make any sense and you might have expected it because it's vernacular, but by saying cornerwise you understood what I meant, or not, either way moving on.) Richard talked about how he heard on the radio that people are more rude now than they have been, that he started noticing it was true after he heard that and wondered if people in Cali were more or less rude than here. I disagreed with him completely on three points in my mind, but didn't vocalize any of them because I didn't want to argue. I was trying to be polite and make him look good in front of Loo's mom cause he seemed to be trying really hard to get her, impress her, date her, whatever. And everyone looked to me to entertain them for a spell. Whether they wanted someone ELSE to talk, or were interested in what I had to say I'm not sure. Probably both. I didn't answer his question, but a question I pretended he asked.

"The people here are much nicer, friendlier," I said.

"Wha-- really? I didn't expect that," he said.

"People are in a hurry in Cali. And there are so many things competing for our time and attention that we just skate by with the minimum of human interaction, usually. Just yesterday I saw a man walking on the street by my work and he saw me and gave me a great big friendly welcome. 'Hello. How are you today?' and he expected an answer. I was so surprised I kneejerked back to him, 'finethanks.howareyou?' "

"That doesn't happen in California?"

"No."

"What would happen if somebody walked up to you and gave you a big ole greeting like that?"

"I'd think he was trying to sell me something and I'd ignore him. It's a common thing for salespeople to do. We plug our iPods in, talk on our phone and just ignore those people."

"Golly. That sounds rude."

"It isn't though, not to us anyway, that's how it is. I remember going to the outdoor mall in SB--"

"SB?"

"SB, Santa Barbara. I was in the outdoor mall with my friend and we saw these gorgeous women walking toward us and he looked right to them and said, 'Hi there! How are you doing?' and they walked right by without acknowledgment he had spoken. They probably thought he was trying to sell them something. Happens." Everyone shook their head, either because I had that tone that I was done speaking and Richard would inevitably start up again, or because they couldn't believe how disparate the places seemed to be, probably both.

The difference between here and there: The speed limit is 70 here, back home it is 65, everyone drives about the same speed though: 73ish.

There are a lot of churches here. I have come to refer to Michiginian region as the Bible Neck Tie, kinda like the bible belt of the US, but further up, like on the neck, get it? Of course you do.

They also have religious billboards here. And Christian centers. I don't know what the difference between a church and a christian center is, but there are a lot of those as well. My favorite religious billboard is this one that shows a faucet with clean water flowing out of it and the water is being caught by a wine glass where it splashes around the inside red like wine...cause Jesus can turn water into wine (Merlot? Pinot Noir? Shiraz?) get it? And it says, "Got Faith?" Isn't that clever? With a critical eye I might suggest that they are saying you should have faith so you too can make your own red wine and get drunk for free. But I digress. No I dont. Fooled you.

The difference between here and there: They have basements here, every house has a basement. It's trippy to me, having a basement because I never had one of those ever. None of my friends houses, or family or neighbors or coworkers or anything. Here everyone has a basement. With a dehumidifier, another thing I never seen before. It pulls water out of the air. I don't know why that's important yet, but I heard it gets to be 90+ degrees here with 100% humidity and it's hell. I have never experienced something like that. I ran a 10k in 116 degree heat in Cali once, and I been camping/hiking all over the south west when it was 115+ in the shade day after day (kinda like how the weather channel is irrelevant in Cali, the temperature is irrelevant in the southwest Arizona/Nevada/New Mexico area). Never have I experienced heat and humidity, so I'm looking forward to that. Not.

The diff between here and there: Hardly any Mexicans. I seen two so far, and they were in a Mexican restaurant. Here is mostly full of blue eyed and blond people.

They have Amish here.

...They ain't really quaint so please don't point and stare, they're just technologically impaired...

They have tornadoes here, a whole season of them in fact. With sirens that warm you of an incoming Tornado. They tested them to make sure they work a week ago. I was freaked out of my skull. I didn't know what it was, why it was, what I as supposed to do. I went outside to see if I could see or hear a tornado. Then Loos mom came home and asked what I was doing. And asked her what the sound was. And she said, "What sound, oh that sound. They are testing the tornado sirens to make sure they work."

"So this is only a test?"

"Yep."

"Oh. Well. Now I know that," I said walking back inside. I felt like a fool.

That's all I can think about right now. I may add to this as I see more differences.

Those Two Little Words

...I want to live in fire
with all those tastes I desire...
--Apocalyptica, Path Vol 2--

Dear web journal, readers and browsers,

Hello.

I know it's been awhile since I wrote to you, but I would like to explain, or try to anyway. I have thought about you a lot, but when it came time to write down what I thought about I felt anxiety/fear and looked for something easy to do and told myself, "Self, don't worry, you'll write tomorrow." (I really did say that) And two weeks have gone by! Where has the time gone? There is no other way to explain this so I'll just say it. I'm afraid.

When you get right down to it I am afraid. I am crippled by fear. Fear of success, fear of failure, fear of what others might think, or not think, fear fear fear... Until finally my logical brain says, "now wait a minute here, this fear stuff can't be good because you haven't written a damn thing. So, stop it."

I love my logical brain, but sometimes it clicks on or off at the wrong time, too soon, too late, or at all. I can't help it though. It would just be cool if it turned on when I needed it to, you know? Like 2 weeks ago when I told myself I'd just write tomorrow, which I said the next day and the next and the next.

Anyway, now that I have that out of the way it feels good to be here, sitting, typing, listening to music, drinking coffee. Already I am happy with the way my brain is dealing with writing. It's as though it needs an outlet, creative or otherwise. And by not writing it just talks to itself all day, which is probably bad for my mental health.

I started work last week at the Tire Company job that I've had for 6 years now. I simply got transferred out here (in Kalamazoo Michigan) to this location so I had a job to go to. It was essential to moving out here because of all the 50 states I read and heard that Michigan was hit the hardest with unemployment, lay offs, et al.

It's a strange thing, although strange isn't the right word, but the one that came quickest to mind. In California there is money everywhere as denoted by things. People have nice cars, nice houses, nice clothes and expensive accessories for all those things. But here people are struggling to afford gas, clothes and food, much less tires. I have seen some Californian houseless people (most commonly referred to as homeless people, but home is a state of mind--these people need houses.) who were better off than some Michiginian homeowners. That is a sad state of affairs.

Spellcheck wants me to change Michiginian to Michigander which is the official term, I think. I refuse to use it though. Using "Michigander" is a sure sign of integration which I am not too hot on right now. I am currently experiencing some nostalgia for California. One of the many differences between here and there: I call soda 'Soda' while Michiginians call soda 'pop.' The first few times Ive been asked what kind of pop I want it always sets me back and I wonder just what it is the waitress is asking me. At first I said, "You mean soda right?" and she responded, "You're from California, huh?" and I understood how arrogant I must have sounded trying to correct her words. The same words she has been using for 22 years. I don't know how old she is, but I guess she is 21-22. It doesn't matter though.

Another thing, this should be up around paragraph one or two, but another thing about my writing: About that anxiety, I'd think of things to write about all day at work--which is a place I can zone out in, and flip on autopilot so to speak, that allows my brain to wander anywhere it likes, while my body does the job with a minuscule amount of mental input. And before I know it, it's time to go home. It's a really sweet thing, for 11 hours to flash by so quickly. What was I talking about again?

Anxiety. Yeah, so then after my brain has been off in wonderland doing its own thing I say, "I can't wait to share this with my web journal." And I get excited, and rush home and shower, and eat, the whole time my internal soliloquy going on and on about what wondrous things await me at the keyboard. And then it happens. I sit down at the computer, click on new post, look at the new black field (I invert my colors when I write so the text is white), and wonder what a good opening line would be. When that fails I think about what I'm going to talk about. When I don't know what the structure of what I'm writing will be I look at my e-mail and respond to whats there, but only briefly because as I tell them, "I got writing to do." Then I go back to the new post screen and think about all the cool things I have to say, want to say, NEED to say, and I get completely locked up in the fear that unless I can find the right way that best expresses what I'm thinking I shouldn't even try because it will never be as good, or clear as it is in my head. So I end up thinking about how to write about what I want to write about instead of writing it down.

Today I sat down to type and I started to wonder how to best write this until I remembered three important phrases or quotes I use in life. The first....well ok I kind of lied there. I only had one thought/phrase that started this and the others came later. The first thought I had when I was sitting there wondering how to start, what to say, how to structure it, etc, was: Fuck It. That started it. Isn't it great when you can rationalize or start any behavior by that little phrase? Those two little words. This post brought to you today by those two little words btw.

The other two quotes go like this: "Don't fear failure. — Not failure, but low aim, is the crime. In great attempts it is glorious even to fail."

and

"Cease negative mental chattering. — If you think a thing is impossible, you'll make it impossible. Pessimism blunts the tools you need to succeed."

Can you guess who said that? I couldn't. It was Bruce Lee.

Anyway now that I have released the flood gates I can make a habit out of writing again.

Stupid fear.