Shoes

Shoes go on your feet. They can be a fashion accessory or make a statement. One statement comes to mind with the original converse shoe. People bought it because it was anti-establishment and cool, they bought so many of them that the converse people had to become an establishment to keep up. This made hipsters mad, but not mad enough to stop buying them. Converse still trumpets its anti-establishment stance, just not very far.

I recently bought shoes. This is a rare occurrence for me. It wouldn't normally be blog-worthy, but seeing as how I rarely write anymore, any topic is better than no topic. Also shoes have suddenly been a big thing recently. Here's the story:

I was down to my last pair of shoes, a busted and abused pair of black converse (I bought them because they were on sale for 25 bucks--Chinese slave-labor special). My usual modus operandi is to by casual shoes that are black so when I wear out my black work shoes I can switch them out and toss the old work shoes out. They last about a year. Anyway money was tight a while back, until I got my tax return. I wore the same pair of shoes everywhere. They were so abused. The left one is cracked from repetitive kneeling while the top of the right one is scuffed away from lifting tires with it while kneeling. There are other occupation markers, but it isn't important.

Then I got to work 54 hours for a couple weeks and made a bit of money, but had no time to spend it. Also I had hardly any time to do anything else. I was so tired from working all day that I would simply shower after work, eat dinner and go to bed to do it all over again the next day. It made it hard to do anything writing related. I felt like I wanted to do something fun and anything would do. That something might be a book or an episode of a show or a video game. Perhaps I have inflated writing to this status where it needs my full attention and when I can't give it that I wont attempt to write at all. (But after talking to Erin for an hour and a half she really encouraged me just to do it. Hard work, walk it, no cable car.)

I had to dress up to go to another lame tire corporate meeting in Lansing and I couldn't wear my broken work shoes because the Suits would have made disparaging comments and ordered me to get new ones because I am the face of the tire company and I must look sharp. So I borrowed my roommates' shoes. Amazingly he has bigger feet than me, size 13 while I am a piddly size 12.

I wore a suit to the meeting. I love that thing. I feel fancy and people on the street call me Mr. and sir. That is not the reason I love it though. It has so many pockets and I feel like a spy reaching inside my sport coat to get my wallet. Loo found the suit for me at Nuway the thrift store (her favorite store. She always finds great stuff for great prices it's eerie, like a super power.) So with borrowed shoes on my feet and a thrift store suit on my body I went to the meeting and got all kinds of comments about dressing up.

"It must have cost you a fortune for that suit. I guess that's no matter to you, eh California?" (that's my nickname)
"Actually," I said, "Loo got this for me at Nuway for four dollars." The response to this was strange. Envy maybe? I didn't know, but they quickly dropped it and focused on sports teams instead. There are a lot of them. I know nothing about sports, so I read a book.

Then there was some dinner I had to dress up for so I asked to borrow the shoes again. Than Loo graduated and I had to borrow them again. Than we went to see Yo Yo Ma so I dressed up again, but I felt bad for borrowing the shoes and wearing them more than he did so I used the failing work shoes. They fell apart while Mr. Ma passionately played his Cello. I walked out with the shoes flapping in the air. I don't know how they kept together, but they did. Tough shoes. Also my only belt broke.

The next day was my day off. My to do list looked like this:

Shoes!
Belt!
Eggs.

I looked into my closet behind Bup's cage (a young Savannah monitor lizard) and looked at my hanging shoe shelf. It was slim pickings in there, but there was one pair of shoes left. For the first time in a year I slipped my well worn flip flops on. The shoes reminded my feet of California beach days while I walked to my car on a gray, cold and rainy Michigan day, the fourth nasty day with two more to go, but I didn't know that at the time.

I walked into Meijers (for you California types this is a mega store, like a walmart where you can get groceries as well as automotive supplies, furniture and etc.) and looked for the shoes on sale. I found some black boots for 40 bucks, which in my experience is both the average price for black boots and the maximum I am wiling to pay. I knew I was size 12 so I picked them out and put them in the blue wire mesh cart without trying them on. Those would be my casual shoes. I wanted to get some fancy shoes on account of the fancy events I had been attending recently. I found some brown ones for 15 bucks. Winning! I grabbed a size 12 and threw those in the cart. Then I went looking for work shoes. I found some Dr. Shoels (sp) black shoes for 30 bucks. Score! I threw a size 12 in the cart. Then I went to get a belt. Actually, this is the boring part. I got a new compliment of leather goods, belts, wallet, shoes. And a pair of Levi jeans. All of my old leather goods were failing. And since I needed them and had money I bought them.

I think you and I are expecting a punchline about putting those shoes on for the first time. But there is no punchline. They fit great. 12 is my size. My jeans on the other hand, not so much. I stopped working out and my butt must have shrank. 34" is too large. Good thing I bought some belts. Time to hit the gym.

When I got home Loo bought new shoes as well. They were neon pink Kroc knock offs. She liked how they felt on her feet. The color was cool too. She also got these golden and bejeweled high heels that she wore to graduation. At her commencement I was able to spot her by her shoes, dazzling gold beneath her dark graduation gown.

And then she bought sexy shoes to wear just for me.

I have never had a reaction to shoes before. I've always been, "whatever, they go on your feet," about shoes. Than she bought these stiletto high heel things by Candies. They are a little platform high heel stiletto thing black and white plaid with a black leather bow over the toes. She wore them for the first time today.

Yowza!

With those shoes on she stands eye to eye with me. I have never had a girl I saw eye to eye with before. I am always taller, always. At six foot four inches it's easy to do. But looking into her eyes without looking down took me by surprise and I had this childlike reaction. I just had to hug her and say how cool it was. I didn't realize how a shoe like that would also change the way she walked and the way her legs looked and she suddenly filled me with this dopey feeling and for a good 20 minutes I was totally enamored with her and her shoes.

I felt so silly, but I couldn't help it.

I can't think of an ending to this so I'll just share the second stanza from Pablo Neruda's Ode to a Pink Shoe:

it holds me
moves me
carries me
across asphalt ocean
and gravel dreams
stained by travel
to carnival skies

Great job Loo!

Wow it has been a long time. And as always a lot has happened. Loo graduated with a degree in Accountancy. I am so proud of her. It is a really tough degree to crack, made more difficult with crappy professors, health problems, car problems, family problems, friend problems also known as life. Which is why graduating is so important, it means that despite hardship you persevered. I read somewhere that about 2% of people get a degree. I'm currently too tired to go check that out, but the point is that it is a small population of people that make it to the end. So kudos to Loo for making it. The sleep deprivation and late night study sessions are over and I don't have to see any more scary accountancy formulas.

Now she can get her CPA certification thing, make 6 figures a year, live in California with me in our own super cool house, and I can be her house boy; massaging her feet, shoulders, back and neck every night, making delicious dinner every night and writing best sellers in my free time, which would be often. At that rate we should be able to retire in five years. YaY!

All we need now is jobs :-/

Portal 2

Is a masterpiece. I played co-operative with my roommate for three hours and it didn't feel like ten minutes went by. It makes you think and with two people thinking together there is a huge feeling of accomplishment when we succeed. If you liked the first portal, or like video games or Valve I highly recommend you check it out. I think anybody could pick this game up and play it no skills required.

In normal mode you play a human ( I think ) but in co-op you play one of two robots a short fat one named Atlas and a tall skinny one named P-body. When you die as a human it is game over but as a robot a new one just gets made. It comes to a point where you get stuck and it is easier to die and start over than to get unstuck. Also that means the level hazards are more devestating and difficult because if you fail there is one second of down time until a new robot identical to the first drops down and you can try again. Meanwhile GLADOS the synthetic creepy voice makes funny and disparaging comments about it like, "...Will someone remake Atlas please?" except she says orange or blue depending on your guy who has orange or blue trim for players 1 and 2. Anyway, fun game.

I'd say more but I'm getting over an illness and should sleep.

Character sketch: Veronica Meyers - Lesbian Gasoline

I want to tell you about Veronica Meyers.

I saw her headbutt another girl at a club once. I don't know what the argument was about, but Veronica laid the other girl out before going back on the dance floor. I asked her about it later and she said, "Bitch was annoying, I got bored."
"So you headbutted her?" I asked. The logic didn't track for me.
"Yeah." She said. She could have been waiting for a drink.
"What if she calls the police?" I asked, just one of the many concerns I had that would prevent me from headbutting someone that annoyed me.
"And says what?"
"Some crazy dike headbutted her."
"Who'd believe that? Girls are all emotional. Probably PMSing"
"Well, there's that," I said. Veronica went back to the dance floor. She liked to dance.

Another time I saw a guy grab her ass on the dance floor. She spun on her heel with an extended knee. The guy was down for the count. I heard he needed surgery later, but that could just be a rumor.

Once I was getting hassled about parking and Veronica convinced the guy she would blow him if he let us park in the lot, which was supposedly full. The guy agreed and scheduled a time for her to meet him after we were done clubbing. She didn't stick to the time and when he approached her all hot and heavy she went down like she was going to blow him and stood up real quick. The top of her head slammed into his chin and he fell back unconscious. I felt bad for the guy, I empathized with him, you know? You think you are getting your lucky break, that some super hot chick was so desperate to park and so fast and loose with her body and inhibitions she would blow you for a parking spot. The guy didn't know the super hot chick was like a lesbian superhero. And I mean nobody knows that at first glance. How could you? Besides only about seven percent of the female population is gay. Veronica looks like a porn princess, her body speaks to heterosexual DNA and says, "You must make babies with that woman." She says its like a curse to be pursued and followed by slimy guys. But I digress, the parking guy was okay and standing up as we drove away.

I invited Veronica to a party once and I told her to stay away from this one girl, Tina, because I had my eye on her and Veronica said that she would, no sweat.

I guess my first mistake was believing her. My second mistake was leaving Tina and Veronica alone for a moment while I took a piss. On my way out I had to help a girl hold her date over the toilet as he vomited up what seemed like a gallon of whiskey. Fucking fraties, you know? They think whiskey doesn't apply to them.

When I got back out to the living room Veronica and Tina were lip locked. Tina's hands were on Veronica's face, while Veronica's were on Tina's ass. I watched them for awhile in seeming lesbian bliss, Veronica pulling her in closer. This was a moment in life where I had a choice to be angry or not. "Fucking Veronica," I said. I smiled and had a good time at my party.

The next morning Veronica walked up to me, bite marks and hickies on the tops of her breasts, probably other places as well.
"Bit yourself shaving again?" I asked. She smiled, maybe embarrassed. I couldn't tell.
"Happens. Look man, she came on to me," she said as though that explained it.
"A likely story," I said only half kidding.
"I told her you had dibs on her," she said. I laughed.
"I bet you tried really hard to hammer that home," I said. Veronica stuck her tongue out, biting the steel stud and smiled.
"Yeah, hammered it real hard. But she wouldn't have it. Now I'm pretty aggressive, but Tina makes me look timid by comparison."
"uh huh."
"And she said she wanted me. I said no."
"Bullshit!" I said and laughed, she smiled.
"And then she kissed me, and I could tell that she really did."
"Uh huh, and when does the rationalization come?"
"Here: because I didn't actively pursue her and did my very best to ignore her, this was not a violation of trust because she came after me," she looked at me and started doing that ubiquitous twisted body-rocking motion made famous by little innocent girls pleading for an ice cream. It's interesting to note that her feminine wiles still work on me even though I know there is zero chance of the two of us getting together.
"You are such a shit," I said. We both laughed.
"Forgiven?"
"Forgiven."
"Hugs?"
"Hugs." I said and hugged her. "Can you try harder to shut them down? I really liked that girl."
"It wouldn't have worked out between you two, I awakened the lesbian flame in her. I doubt she'll ever go for dick again."
"I just have to prevent you from dumping lesbian gasoline on that flame."
"No man, it was already there, like a pilot light. If not me than someone would have turned her burner on."
"Can we move away from fire metaphors now?"
"Yeah I was getting bored and ready to headbutt you anyway," she said and we both laughed. Then we went out to breakfast.

Ah Veronica.

Rick Santorum's google problem

Former Pennsylvania senator Rick Santorum seems like an anti-gay religious wacko to me. And in 2003 he likened gay sex to bestiality, pedophilia and other nasty things. This wasn't the first or last time he would say such things. Dan Savage took notice and held a neologism contest to attribute his name to the nastiest sex thing anybody could come up with.

I imagine at the time the anti-gay crowd, in their infinite naïvete to gay sex and gay culture, thought this a meaningless exercise. What's the worst that could happen?

Somehow they forgot that gay men, are in fact, men. And further that men are well versed in being exceptionally gross and disgusting when there is call to do so. It is part of our natural male super powers along with opening stubborn jars, fixing things with our hands, being out of touch with our feminine side, our inability to have opinions on fabric, and other things. In fact it is normal and natural to have competitions revolving around who can gross out the other most. Such contests can go on for months. This is an innate ability for men, as women need training to do this. Such training usually comes from being a coroner, nurse, vet and etc. (however one of womenfolk's innate abilities is to pick up or otherwise clean the nastiest stuff in the world without complaint, like vomit, baby poop and month old rotten food; men require training to do this, such as being a coroner, trash collector or similar. Though men can talk about it later, and often do to gross out other men.)

Where was I? Right, so when Dan Savage proposed this contest to find the grossest sex related thing gay people searched long and hard proposing one thing after another and than voted. After much time a clear winner was determined. That winner was then attributed to Rick Santorum and it is easily known by googleing 'Santorum.' Go ahead, Google it if you are unaware, everyone else: onward!

Santorum than became the subject of a google bomb as people began, purposefully, searching for the phrase. Now 'Santorum,' that poignant frothy mix of feces and anal lube is way more popular than the senator.

You can imagine how difficult it might be to run for president when everything you say is cast in frothy brown font. Thus we have Rick Santorum's Google problem. A problem he wants desperately to be rid of, but one that has been going strong since 2003 and gives no indication of slowing down.

Furthermore Rick Santorum (as far as I can tell) is bat-shit nuts and wants to be president in 2012 (idk why he would bother because we all know the world blows up then) and he has been trying to pass bills that regulate sex and masturbation. Both of those are very dear and near to my heart so I will do my part to fight tooth and nail to make sure Mr. Froth fails at every opportunity.

I predict in the future, long after the memory of the senator, Santorum will live on, strong as ever, as a very accurate description of an appalling, gross, vile, nauseating, detestable, and revolting man.

Take it away Dan:


http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=iG62Gh8ffbY

Ah, Miss Yalie

What a pleasure it was to talk to my great friend Yalie all the way in Paris, France. Through the amazing and free technology of Skype. I even saw her smiling face and watched her talk. Until it froze in a zombie like pose at the end. Clearly technology has come a long way with still further to go. :-)

(She said she would check out my blog, so I had better write more and more often.)

It's a beautiful California winter day. Blue sky and sunlight and 55 degrees. My best friend Mike and I are going to go hiking along the Cozy Dell Trail near his house. It's a few miles long and climbs to the top of a mountain that overlooks the valley. I will try to bring back pictures. It rained yesterday so I hope it isn't muddy, but if it is it won't stop us.

After living in the flat lands for the last 11 months these mountains make me especially happy. I was telling my brother Kevin about driving differences here and there. In Michigan, the land of seemingly infinite flat land, driving is straight and direct and takes time to get from place to place solely from the distance separating places. More than that though, you have no feeling for progress as you drive. You could fast forward the drive two hours or rewind it two hours and it would be hard to tell where you were, it looks very similar. In Cali there are mountains, hills, valleys, ocean. As you drive you get closer to the mountains, you feel like you're going somewhere.

I have more to tell you, but I have to go hiking.

So, lets do this again sometime soon. Remind me to tell you about showering at home and driving in LA after 11 months of michigan driving, and the definition of cold.

Terminal Reality

While I sit at the Gerald R Ford international airport terminal a memory comes to mind, sudden, unbidden. I had a strange class called filmic bodies which was a dance class, and a few others. I called it my si-fi theory class, because that's what it was. One of the many books we had to read was 'Terminal Identity' which tried to convey the idea that life is very much like a terminal at an airport, or computer screen with respect to how things around us seem to change, yet stay the same. For example while I sit here lots of people get in and step out of planes, people I will probably never see again, yet this place remains the same unchanged, a terminal for people to pass through. Also like a computer terminal that remains largely the same, yet new people step up and use it. As though what matters is the terminal rather than the faceless person using the terminal. There was a bunch of other stuff it talked about within its 420 pages, which I must admit I didn't read at all. Although I have plans to do so.

The whole point of this was to artificially create a seeming natural start that would lend it self 'organically' to a segue to my present position inside an airport.

But now that I've told you... ah shucks.

So yeah, here I am in the middle of the terminal sitting in the corner, writing, with my iPod in, listening to heavy metal cellos (Apocalyptica), trying to think of something really cool and poignant to say.

I got nothing, however.

I am going home to So Cal for two weeks or so to celebrate my birthday on the 15th. I'll be... 27... Wow. Where did all the time go? Did I mention Alexander the Great conquered the known world by the time he was 25? And that Copernicus... ah you know the story. I'm trying to convey to you the feeling I have in regards to my age and how I haven't done anything earth shaking yet. I feel destined for greatness--also aware of how cheesy and naive that sounds--and I also feel immobilized by fear, perhaps of failure. Imagine I do my best and I think its amazing and others read it and think its a joke, or bad or stupid or [insert pessimistic thought here].

I see now as I write it down it is stupid to think this way, the largest obstacle in my way is me.

"What if they..." Screw them. Write without fear, grab them by the collar and shake them, dare them to read. That is the only way to get the really good stuff, you know like when you dance when you think you are alone, but someone is watching nearby, impressed by your secret skills.

I haven't read anything really good lately. And I haven't written anything really good lately either. It makes me sad and confused, I mean this is what I do, and yet at the same time it isn't. I think in terms of writing. When I tell a story I tell it as though it's been written down already to maximize its gravity or punch or what have you. I think this lack of... certainty? Direction? is the main reason I applied to grad school, I think there I will be pushed, prodded and urged to face this anxiety/directionless and understand where to go/what to do. If not, I will be forced to figure it out. Then I can make lots of money from my best sellers and give all my friends Ferraris and have fun all day. YAY!

New topic: For my birthday Loo took me to my first Burlesque show. It was pretty cool I have to say. The venue was not so good, the sound was atrocious, perhaps because the sound guy was updating his FaceBook status during the show, or because he had seven jack n cokes before the first act. I lost track after nine because I was watching the dancing girls who were cute, limber, talented and topless. They were doing some cirque de solei stuff with yoga like balance and stretching and some impressive hula-hoop stuff. But they used the fat guy too much. I think once it would have been ok, like they whet your whistle with the first act than say, "you ain't seen nothing yet!" and a whole bunch of girls in a ring come out hiding someone in the middle. The music builds up, the spotlight illuminates the center, the girls drop and this 400 pound man in a bikini is there with a blond wig and he imitates the cute girl that he followed on stage. I'd be ok with that because I think its funny, but they used that fat guy a lot, at least six times. Anyway it merits another visit I think when it hits a larger stage with better sound.

Anyway, when I got home from the burlesque show My roommates were throwing a ground hogs day party. I came right as it was dying and I went to bed, and then somehow it got resurrected and the music came back, and the yelling and the girls talking about lesbian experiences to the boys who played the interested anthropologist archetype for their stories, perhaps in hopes that in sharing in the lesbian experience with them they will have bonded in some way and sex is on. Sometimes it works.

Also, there is a big map on the living room wall of the USA and that means that the party people in their various levels of inebriation must approach the map and strike it with their finger and say, "I been there. Where have you been?" Then another finger strike, "I been there," to which the other says, "I haven't been there. I been here," to which the other one repeats the first one a few times before it changes to places they have heard about and would like to go. It is never anything more than a location. Like it would never be, "I want to go to Yellowstone to see the geothermal activity/see the geysers/check out the lava tubes," it is, "I want to go there," followed by a finger striking paper sound.

Where was I? Oh yeah, it was around 4am and I was able to tune them out and I was almost asleep when someone said, "Hey, the plural for octopus, is it 'octopuses' or 'octopi?'"

To my pillow I said, "It's octopuses."

"I think it's Octopuses," someone says. But they didn't sound sure, which leaves room for the loudmouth to declare the answer in such a way that others will believe him.

"No, it's octopi," someone says, "I know for sure." What follows next is surprise at being so smart and knowing lots of interesting stuff.

"you liar," I say to no one in particular. I wanted to get up and tell them that the plural of octopus is octopuses because the plural form follows the Greek suffix, and it wouldn't make sense to add a Latin plural ending to a Greek suffix; in order for that to work the word would have to be Latin in origin, 'octoped' in which case the plural would be 'octopedi,' but instead of getting up I rolled over and tried to bury myself under a pillow.

Sometime later there was a debate, so far as drunk arguing at 5am can get close to a debate as there was some semblance of civil discourse. The topic of discussion was the difference between alliteration and "the other one" (assonance). But they were getting it wrong. The urge to get up, correct them for their erroneous use of literary terms and yell at them to go to bed was getting stronger. I expected their topics to jump around to politics, pop culture, music or sex, but they stayed on literary terms. From Assonance to hyperbole (or hyper-bowl as they said) they failed at every opportunity.

Luckily my computer was nearby and in the dark I felt my headphones and plugged them in and fell asleep to Metallica's Ride the Lightning album.

I awoke to nature's call, stepped over the bodies to pee and walked to the living room to look at what seemed to be the aftermath of the epicenter of a grenade. People were sprawled over the couch, one another, and between the table legs. Many were still wearing their shoes. I went back to bed and woke up again around 11am to the sound of arguing.

Some part of me said, "They had questions about literary terms and the plural of octopus," and in my semiconscious state I marched out there and stood with purpose before them. They were all barely awake and with bleary eyes I said to them, " The plural of octopus is octopuses because it has a Greek suffix, conversely if it was octoped the Latin plural ending would be octoped rather than octopeduses." I had their full attention now. Apparently my subconscious recorded the literary terms they tried to define because after setting them straight in regards to octopuses I defined for them alliteration, assonance, palindrome, hyperbole, irony, sarcasm, sardonic and satire. Then I went back to bed. They were so dumbfounded that they didn't make another sound. Operation render them speechless was a complete success and I reaped the benefits with a much needed slumber.

Wow. Where did that all come from?