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.

a taste

A lot has happened, and there is a lot to tell. So you can think of this as a taste of things to come, while I will think of it as a reminder/list of things to write about.

In order, I hope: Leaving California, Leg One of the trip out to Michigan-Jonar's surprise call to his lady, the night we stopped at a super 8 motel and I smuggled my rats in, Leg Two of the trip-writing my name in the snow and the train, going to Detroit for the Flogging Molly concert with Loo, the Flogging Molly concert itself, driving in Michigan, Going to Indiana to meet Joey-loo's gay friend, going to the gay clubs with Loo and...work, which I start tomorrow. Yay.

Hopefully I'll get a moment to write this all down because I want to, but I am tired now.

The trip; Prolog

"Yeah, but why Michigan?" my brother asked.

"The University of Michigan in Ann Arbor is tied for first place on my list of grad schools with Iowa because it fully funds its students; if you teach the undergads they waive tuition, pay you 8-12k dollars a year with discounts on campus living, and Loo is there. The only cost would be non-resident out of state fees. If I become a resident and get in I could get my MFA with a positive money situation rather than a mountain of debt."

"Wow. Makes sense. As much as I hate to see you go, logically it seems like a solid choice. What if you don't get in?"

"The other schools out of state fees aren't very substantial, or are waived if you teach. If I get accepted back in Cali than I'll reclaim my residency--its apparently easy to do if you were born here, and your family lives here and stuff."

"Makes sense," he said. I could tell he didn't like the idea of me going, but knew it to be the right thing to do, the logical thing, regardless of how unintuitive it seemed. He is like that. In a few months he would move out himself to go to CSUN for mechanical engineering, so either way we would be moving away from one another.

That was my brother's reaction. My best friend's reaction was more of a

"No!"

"Yeah."

"Crap. Who will run with me everyday now?"

"Dunno," I said, than I explained it to him [see above]

"Well. Horse shit. Makes sense, and I cannot deny your logic, just hate to see you go. But wait! My AK-47 shows up Monday, when do you leave?"

"Wednesday-ish?"

"Damn bud! That's quick! You can't see my AK. I wanted you to shoot it. We can still play 360 over the interwebs though, right?"

"Hell yeah, bud. And we can shoot your AK monday night at the range."

"And sight your rifle."

"Yeah, that too."

"Sweet," he said. And we did. The AK was pretty flippin sweet I have to say. His first shot went right through Osama's face, between his eyes. I think I could write a post about the shooting experience, but it has nothing to do with the trip, so I wont.

My parents were both sad, my mother fell apart. It made it difficult to leave. I cried. She cried. 5 minutes went by before she said, "Go."

And I went.

changes

I moved from California to Michigan by car.

I arrived yesterday around 1pm michigan time, which I think is 'eastern time' though I am not certain.

I have a lot to say about the trip, however I am tired. Too tired to write about it I am afraid.

I drove the last 1600 miles in one fell swoop, unpacked, than slept for 18 hours uninterrupted. It was glorious.

I woke up this morning to Loo's sister shaking me. She was excited to see me. They all were. Loo's Mom, brother Chris and sister Shannon. But where is Loo? You might wonder.

New York.

yeah, she was in New York when I arrived at her house in Kalamazoo. She went to see her cousins in Pennsylvania. I knew that much. Then she decided to go further on to New York to visit friends. It's only 5 hrs from Pennsylvania.

What had had happened was she called me after day one to ask where I was.

"Colorado."
"Oh, Cool. When will you be in Kzoo?"
"Probably Saturday morning."
"Okay. See ya then."

She thought I would be there Saturday morning so she went to New York to visit friends she hadn't seen in awhile. I didn't know that. I drove the last leg of my trip nonstop, all 1600 miles, and arrived Friday 1pm. I really wanted to see her. But she planned to be there at my arrival Saturday. So when I called to tell her about the surprise of me arriving a day ahead of when I said, well, it did not go like I expected. So I just went to sleep in my new room for 18 hours.

Now, the next day, I am sad and disappointed, maybe even depressed a little. The trip--leaving my home in Cali, my family, all of it--has made me very emotional, and I was looking forward to seeing Loo to ... do what? In some way alleviate it maybe? I'm not sure. I guess I expected something and when it didn't happen the way I expected I got sad. We planned to go to the flogging molly concert in Detroit Saturday evening, so that's where I will meet her.

It is also why I must leave now to prepare.

I have never driven to Detroit before.