as the whining playlist of doom spins in the cdrom and i spin within, i realize i have to code what amounts to a miracle before morning. we are talking final deadline. final. not a personal deadline mind you, those i've blown through like a los angeles criminal through stoplights with a hundred of lapd's finest in hot pursuit. hot pursuit. no, this is a real actual deadline.
*deep breath*
ok then. it's on.
unusually this woozy this early but here it is, time, time. relentless procession of thoughts shuffles past, shabby refugees of the uncivil unrest of the past four decades, anxiously searching the uncertain territory ahead with shattered eyes mostly but here and there a glitter, a glimmer, hope.
hope has always been the enemy, cunning and deceptive and utterly merciless and yet after all these years still irresistable still powerful persuasive with the delicious feasts of visions, how easy it is to settle into the warmth the fullness the seductive comfort; sedated in this decadence i drift off and the next thing i know it's the same old hard cold wakeup in a muddy ditch missing everything that mattered, even though it was unreal, it is still a loss.
is this depressing? shit i was gonna be funny but i had this in draft and i thought hey, have i whined enough lately? why yes. should i whine some more? why of course!
in unrelated news i am having to hold myself back by my own hair to keep from installing mysql 4.1 alpha release, i *need* the new features. oh god you have no idea. subselects! i need subselects sooooo bad. but it's in alpha. thou dost not subject thine webhosting clients to alpha releases unless ... unless you really need to right?
sigh.
i've said it once i'll say it a million times it is supposed to be difficult if you do not encounter serious challenging circumstances that test you to your soul you are doing something wrong life does not get better being easy, it merely leaves you numbed out complacent stagnant struggling to stay awake under the influence of the inertia.
maybe that's what's wrong with me, huh? maybe life is supposed to be easy and the same thing day in day out maybe it is about comfort and moderation in everything except numbness, can't get enough of that? or, here's another question: what's better, to have bested a beast of a difficult situation, or never to have had the difficulty?
now for some people comfort and moderation is the thing, but for others among us it is not. and though we may long for it even pine for it and consider ourselves suffering for the lack of it, our minds have other plans. we can try to defend against those plans, adorn ourselves with the psychic shock absorption the insulation the well-appointed interior the long list of amenities, and do our level best to cruise through it controlled but for us comfort is really not the thing, it looks good it seems like it should feel good but it is never quite right with us down deep, that restless shifting within that vague disquiet that surfaces in the idle silence between heartbeats, a sense of urgency that is all at once impractical and illogical and irresistable. and oh, resistance is costly, though it's intensity that it costs us and that's hard to justify; much easier to take credit for our efforts against surrendering to the messy chaos our dreams suggest to us. logic tells us that messes and chaos and red 1969 z28 convertibles are difficult and stressful and therefore wrong for us, but logic knows naught of intensity. logic tells us intensity is not a need. i beg to differ.
some of us just aren't buick people, no matter how hard we try to convince ourselves otherwise.
i therefore rescind all my whining about wanting to be normal. fuck normal. i'm a freak. i'm weird. but life is interesting, and i am awake, and i am alive.
a. snobs and westlake village
q. what are, things that go together, i.e., counterparts**.
time&tide cut&dried tried&true fast&loose free&clear fair&square rough&ready slow&steady quick&dirty cheap&cheerful nip&tuck tuck&roll duck&cover dick&jane kick&scream chop&change ball&chain safe&sound lost&found up&around bow&scrape short&sweet aim&fire live&learn slash&burn smash&grab search&destroy fear&loathing bait&switch cut&print rank&file wash&wear cut&paste loud&clear up&up out&out spit&polish serve&volley search&rescue chalk&cheese rack&pinion hit&run hit&miss high&dry hue&cry skin&bones sticks&stones stars&stripes stripes&solids new&improved dollars&sense chapter&verse over&out out&about above&beyond far&away hope&pray night&day swing&sway down&away happy&gay straight&narrow hide&seek hunt&peck rhyme&reason lock&key lucy&ricky moose&squirrel cats&dogs tooth&nail hand&foot hook&ladder cloak&dagger block&tackle bow&arrow odds&ends off&on dead&gone hither&yon heaven&hell fire&brimstone flotsam&jetsam flora&fauna matter&energy momentum&inertia drawn&quartered tarred&feathered bound&gagged bound&determined thick&thin kith&kin barbie&ken now&again pins&needles apples&oranges bells&whistles cruel&unusual charm&strangeness armed&dangerous words&music gin&vermouth rhythm&blues socks&shoes rock&roll song&dance smoke&mirrors shuck&jive hot&bothered sugar&spice cock&bull beck&call bump&grind wine&dine rise&shine slap&tickle stand&deliver lift&separate ribbed&lubricated in&out fore&aft give&take long&hard over&over kiss&tell alive&well stop&go high&low yes&no touch&go fast&slow body&soul flesh&blood one&all pride&joy peace&love time&again over&over
AMEN.
q. what type of lizards are out there?
a. i am. i am out there. there are others, but let's worry about me first, ok? be afraid.
q. use the word irrepressible in a sentence
a. okay.
q. the inspiration of mosquitoes
a. um. blood?
q. what an autobiography looks like
a. mine looks like this. but i'm kinda different that way.
q. wasting time at work and not getting caught
a. well i never.
q. how does music affects the lizards
a. i can't speak for all of lizardkind, but i personally would be dead without it.
q. what makes lizards die
a. same thing that makes you die. life.
q. lyrics blackmail radiant carrot
a. i knew this would happen. meet me by the starbucks, we'll talk. i'll be the wired, nervous-looking person sucking down strong coffee.
**lovingly transcribed from the cover art of counterparts, which holds endless fascination for this lizard, and which probably got more than a little inspirational assistance from this. the lizard's google-fu is strong.
You hear me say this don't make any sense As I hop up and over the fence Hooked on nicotine and phonics Fun like macro economics Still and quiet like they taught us Fun like macro economics Vigilante thoughts and a cheap guitar I am my own movie star I don't know you I don't want to I don't know you I don't want to
eve 6, tongue tied
could quote lyrics all nightlong and possibly express everything but then again maybe not, since it would be impossible to include enough context, and with me with music it's always contextual. the elaborate process by which these things become one with the soundtrack adds anything from nuances to entirely alternative meanings to these things i quote, and yet, and yet ...
Pacific Sun, you should have warned us, it gets so cold here. And the night can freeze, before you set it on fire. And our flares go unnoticed. Dimminished, faded just as soon as they are fired. We are, we are, intrigued. We are, we are, invisible. Oh, how we've shouted, how we've screamed, take notice, take interest, take me with you. But all our fears fall on deaf ears. Tonight, they're burning the roads they built to lead us to the light. And blinding our hearts with their shining lies, while closing our caskets cold and tight. But I'm dying to live.
dashboard confessional, several ways to die trying
Something 'bout the whiteness of the phone Something 'bout the Genius of Modern Music How can I think How can I fail you? Something 'bout the distance to the nerve Something 'bout white hands of fate I don't deserve The bedroom ghosts
the posies, love letter boxes
between the posies and the dashboard confessional there were things starting seeming like damn good ideas the eve6 is a little mentally healthier for me at the moment.
How much longer will I try before I realize I'm desperate in the situation that I'm in again I'm exhausting yet another topic I've exhausted frequently with no regrets.
eve 6, how much longer
my life is mostly dreamt in the textures my speakers spin around me and i live in a world where the surreal sensation of the loss of these latest dreams fades into a fantasy in which there ... in which there is ... there is no loss (but there is always kansas)
I'm woven in a fantasy, I can't believe the things I see The path that I have chosen now has led me to a wall And with each passing day I feel a little more like something dear was lost It rises now before me, a dark and silent barrier between, All I am, and all that I would ever want be It's just a travesty, towering, marking off the boundaries my spirit would erase
� � � � �
And though it's always been with me, I must tear down the Wall and let it be All I am, and all that I was ever meant to be, in harmony Shining true and smiling back at all who wait to cross THERE IS NO LOSS
kansas, the wall
yes there is. yes there is. yes there is. but nice try. nothing uplifting lasting long here in the spaces where the constant chatter obviates the answer, which is here, has been here, patient waiting for the first silent moment
If you could see all the roads I have travelled towards Some unusable last equilibrium. Run like an athlete and die like a dead beaten speed freak, An answer to all of the answers to yes. If I wait for an answer, Will the silence be broken? Do we wait for an answer? Do we leave it unspoken?
yes, tempus fugit
the answer, the answer is no.
change changing places root yourself to the ground capitalize on this good fortune one word can bring you round changes
yes, changes
and in spite of the answer everything is different and nothing has changed and this is endless and finished, now and forever.
All the foolish notions: When we'll die that's all that is. We can never really understand the broken promises. All along we run together (Remember?) All along we run as one (Remember?) When you find a perfect union, you've got to follow it.
yes, holding on
but the answer, the answer is no.
all of this in context and symbolic and filtered through my consciousness days or decades ago in ways i cannot ever explain, so it does express exactly what i meant, but only to me.
sorry about that
give me an inch of out-for-a-pack-of-cigarettes and i'll take miles and miles. well miles. but it'll take me an hour to go those miles, because i will wander, and when i wander, it's almost always downtown, i'm drawn to the lights like a moth. but not one of those big furry scary ones with the bizarre fern-looking antennae, no.
the majestic ventura theatre (either owned by someone with the name of majestic, or just a finely honed sense of irony):
the century theatre, good sign bad photo:
in the window of an upscale boutique-looking place:
the sans souci, a divine dive of a place with a most excellent sign.
i am simply enchanted by the sans souci signpicture, to the extent i am compelled to upload the big picture, just as it came out of the camera, all 1600�1200 pixels of it.
no lemons were sucked in the making of this face.
age: 15 attitude: oh yeah.
you need to be in front of your son's school at two twenty pm on the dot. you need to leave work at one thirty to allow for shit to happen because shit happens, but since you were over an hour late this morning because the person who informed you you would be changing your schedule from now on, purposely did not wake you up on his way out because he's all about tearing you down with told you so when you fail, and your lack of failure lately has got to be wearing on him. so your boss is not happy and your coworker wants these details seen to and since you were late you do not insist upon leaving when you need to. you are in the car 14 minutes after you should have been. you are dead flat on empty. it is hot, you are thirsty. you do the digging for change on the bottom of your purse on the way to the gas station, collecting some $4.25, out of which you splurge $0.75 on a diet coke. you pay with a handful of sticky hairy quarters, pump your gallon and a half and go. it is hot, you get shitty gas mileage, you wonder which is worse, bad aerodynamics or the air conditioner, you pick the aerodynamics and you sweat. you make the best time you can considering the fact neither your tires nor your brakes are actually safety features anymore. you do 80, 85 as long as you can, thinking rather ruefully about that four star safety rating, knowing the chances are a horrendous wreck would fail to kill you and just leave you maimed. the drive gives you time to reflect on your life. for the longest time you have been allowing your ex to tell you "well you just have to pay it" when there was no money, and you played the cashflow like a maestro until this month when he brought that crashing down. perhaps 'i'll hold you down and fuck you in the ass till you give me the money' was an idle threat, perhaps not; it's not like it hasn't happened before, and whether or not it's still in him to do that the words just the words took you threw you back a half decade and if you remeber correctly it really pisses him off when you scream and cry in pain, and these are the excuses the bottom line is you gave him the money you gave him more or less all of it and the checking account the whole cashflow juggling thing came crashing down and is most likely beyond rescue at this point and you allowed this, you did. and in two weeks you'll be free of this but this is small comfort in the face of total financial ruin, and it is two fourteen, and you have six minutes, and the traffic in front of you comes to a dead stop. you begin to freak just a little, your cell phone has been turned off, you are going to be late, and incidentally let's not forget the bit about life being in the toilet, not even for a moment. the coming to a stop you manage with practiced skill, many's the car you've nursed through needing work. the stupid bitch behind you whose car is not even old enough to need replacement tires or brakes has to swerve onto the shoulder to avoid hitting you and you think well at least i'm not stupid, it could be worse. the traffic the traffic the fucking traffic and your cell phone is off and it is two nineteen you are at least ten minutes out and the traffic and you think of your son standing outside the school waiting worrying and you start seriously crying like freakout crying. the traffic is constant until almost the exit, no particular reason for it except that people are fucking stupid and can't merge. off at the exit two twenty six still several traffic lights to get through, you pull up in front of the school at two twenty nine and where is your son? you creep slowly along, looking, an idiot motherfucking excursion driving bitch damn near backs into you fucking look before you back the truck up you stupid yuppie cunt and there he is, poor kid's been out there waiting, he gets in the car mommy why are you crying i said i was in terrible traffic and i was worried you would be scared.
i didn't mention any of the rest of it.
i was going to mention the apocalypse and shit like that, but i think i'll let the 'word burst analysis' done by blogvision.com, speak for me. it shows the top 20 most popular terms in the blogosphere today, and ... well, here you go:
I can't go out no more.
There's a man by the door
in a raincoat
smoking a cigarette
i have such a complicated relationship with reality, which is why i spend so much time here, in the internet. when i venture forth into meatspace, i am so easily overwhelmed by the normalcy i perceive. sitting outside the school yesterday afternoon as other mommies and daddies gathered, even though i blend in well and you can't tell, i still felt this intense difference between myself and everyone else. times like these i am seized by this fierce wondering, this what if i had grown up when i was supposed to and led a responsible existence, what if i had settled into the world as opposed to flipping and twisting and thrashing through it as if i'd been washed ashore here, drowning in this unfamiliar atmosphere, what if i'd behaved like i was born here and belonged?
the difference isn't visible to the ordinary eye but i am not feeling it with my eyes, i sense it in the deepest layer of my skin. and i sit quietly wearing my awareness thinking wondering what it would be like not knowing what i know, not having gone where i have and not now being someone who is from where i've been.
i wonder if they appreciate the quality of their stress. i wonder if they realize how luxurious it is, having ordinary middleclass problems. i wonder if they have any idea, any at all. and why should they? and why do my thoughts take this tone? there is no unfairness here between us, we are merely the results of our different decisions.
and can't help it this is the sort of thought process that brings the litany of regrets rolling like credits across my perspective. doesn't obscure anything that isn't indistinct already in my watery eyes, but serious selfpity is never about the vision, is it? it isn't. and in this case, the introspection concludes with a few words from one of the more bitter aspects of my self, spoken in a voice one might mistake for reason: this is not unfairness. you had your chances, you made your choices, your life is your own ... here the reason ends, and the abuse begins, which makes this as good a place as any to stop all this whining, doesn't it? it does.
* * * * * * *
what a lot of words that was, when all i really had to say was this: i have reclusive tendencies, because i am weird and i have many issues and complexes as a result.
logic requires payment of at least lip service to this, this concept of release. this l... this lett... uce. this lettuce. no, no, this letting
go. this letting go. i've talked the talk to myself for some time now, and as easily as the right-sounding words come to me, they are even more easily discarded, carelessly tossed aside, or no let's be honest here they are very carefully and in fact meticulously tossed aside, a deliberate act in direct defiance of all that makes sense. excuse is as follows: what if?
what if i am wrong about how right i am about this? what if i do what i am convinced i know i must do and five minutes later i feel the universe shift on its axis (which is within me the same as it is in everyone and everything, trust me on this) where was i oh yes what if the universe shifts within and spins things around so that this terrible unfulfilled need is suddenly within the realm of possibility rather than the almost ridiculously unreal estate it occupies at the moment? everything is entirely different from moment to moment and you never fucking know, honest you don't and neither do i, and so who am i to simply turn away from this and say that i know this, that i know this is not? what if my pessimism (if that is what this is) costs me this (i have no words for what this is)?
i play the music that invokes the feelings attendant in the letting go, randomly breaking down in a manner suggesting i am feeling this letting go, telling myself over and over it's done now and time to be letting go, and still i find my self clenched in a deathgrip in the absolute opposite direction and find i am not even close to beginning this ... this letting go.
i am, however, going and getting some more beer. at least there's that.
sure, you can write one of those boring wills and all, but where's the fun in that? me, i want one of those crazy irish wakes when i go, i mean i want everyone to get totally shitfaced and tell embarrassing stories about me and share screencaptures from the tequila webcam days and things of that nature.
anyway, what i've decided to do, is put together a playlist for this epic wake event somewhere at the end of my future. i'm dead serious here. it's going to take a little time, music is important. i know i'd have to start with goodbye yellow brick road because sometimes i am a clich�, and i want funeral for a friend played at my funeral.
it's going to be a long list, i expect a nice long wake with excessive amounts drinking, also participants should absolutely feel free to abuse their own substance(s) of choice, and let's not forget the debauchery, okay? it's what i will have wanted, you know.
this is not a morbid post. it's actually rather joyous.
so, like, ping me if you make a list, ok?
found in referrer logs: wizard.yellowbrick.oz
spoofed, of course. but why?
google led me to confessions of a g33k, which in turn led me to google groups, in which this URL is used in a Perl script intended to "automate an HTML form submission" (in which case this would most likely be an unsuccessful test run, since no form submissions accompanied these visits).
so far i have these two IPs, DNS traces to arrival.net (bakersfield)?:
66.17.15.132 (dns is 132.15.17.66.in-addr.arpa domain name pointer 66-17-15-132.biz.bkfd.arrival.net.)
66.17.15.164 (dns is 164.15.17.66.in-addr.arpa domain name pointer 66-17-15-164.biz.bkfd.arrival.net.)
ARIN returns this, consistent with the above:
Arrival Communication, USA ARRIVAL-COM (NET-66-17-0-0-1)
66.17.0.0 - 66.17.63.255
Lightspeed Technologies ARRV-66-17-15-128 (NET-66-17-15-128-1)
66.17.15.128 - 66.17.15.191
i will now pause to contemplate my navel referrer logs for further spoofage and ponder the meaning of this, life, the universe, and everything.
there is a new version of PHP. i am going to go compile apache with it. there will be a glitch, when i restart apache. you might not notice it, or, you might. however it will be brief i am good at this.
i'm sorry, these are just too good.
q. sick of my short fat girlfriend
a. there's only one thing to do then. Seppuku is highly ritualistic, exquisitely precise and earns you maximum respect from some truly world-class babes.
q. bored beyond words
a. i couldn't give a shit if i tried.
q. i couldn't give a shit if i tried.
a. i'm number one! i'm number one!
q. what does gaze mean
a. Kinematic non-locality, or quantum entanglement between the states of separate non-interacting particles, is implied by the symmetrical form of the combined wavefunction that is used to describe many-particle systems. Imagine, for example, two beams of particles, with momenta of p1 and p2 respectively, being fired from independent sources (1 & 2); the particles from both sources are detected at two separate locations x1, and x2. The combined wavefunction for these particles is, then:
And the probability distribution for position is just the square of this combined wavefunction,
hope that helps.
q. caught pants down humiliations
a. whoa, i've never seen one that little.
q. self pleasuring pictures
a. i'm sorry, that's a passworded area.
q. who am i named after
a. you are an old woman, named after my mother.
q. lyrics and busy and post-it and monday tuesday wednesday
a. [sings] ohhhhh, let's all get drunk and get naked, let's all get drunk and get naked, let's all get drunk and get naaaaaaked ... and lay in a great big pile
when there is so much work to be done before monday morning there are always the referrer logs, other than that i am frantically busy trying to afford my life.
q. I know I am behaving badly, but I have every intention of behaving badly. There are certain situations that call for bad behavior.
a. i could not agree more without spraining something.
q. camouflage catsuits
a. i was kidding. honest.
q. sine wave, alien blue eyes
a. hmm. evocative. might need to appropriate that at some point in the future.
q. picture of guy in a towel
a. happy to oblige.
q. how to get a hard body in three weeks
a. the fact your flabby ass got all the way to result number 265 does show some determination, for a lazy idiot that is.
q. hate being a web designer
a. then quit your job you stupid asshole. there are people who love doing this, who need work.
q. it's perfectly normal.
a. no it isn't. freak.
q. is fosters beer made in canada
a. yes.
q. ..... to get me a book'' was a quote from which book
a. um. what? the fuck?
q. short slogan for a sysadmin
a. have you tried rebooting?
q. lizard crawling reptile indian
a. weird searching abnormal google
q. first panties, then bras
a. no, first bras, then panties. get it right.
q. things to do to a pizza guy
a. first bras, then panties. or was it the other way around? i forget.
q. definition bottomfeeder
a. think about it. bottom. feeder. still confused? try the mirror then.
beer: $7.99
swingset: $159.99
hanging upside down on a sunny saturday afternoon: fucking priceless.
question: do you have your blog setup to require email addresses for comments?
if you answered no, carry on. if you answered yes, i need to have a word with you. the word is why? does it stop the trolls from trolling? does it stop the flamers from flaming? no, it just makes them make up idiotic fake email addresses, adding insult to injury, basically.
the little box in the MT preferences, the one that says 'allow anonymous comments' -- go check it. go on. do it. because it's a misleading little box. it gives the illusion of control -- as if by unchecking it, you are somehow going to make the various cowards who troll and flame come out and identify themselves. they won't. they can't. they are sad, emotionally growth-stunted losers, and their little fake email addresses are just so fucking pathetic.
allow them their anonymity, it's all they have, really. and in allowing that anonymity, freely, you prevent them from having to take it from you, insulting you in the process.
so, my son has a girlfriend. well, he did for a minute there. her name is kai, with a lowercase k. but then he changed his mind. because ... because he's worried she might get fat.
... back to being speechless.
i was a little weird last night. seems the random thoughpatterns increase in direct proportion with the number of functions i write in a day which do things i didn't know how to do till i made them do them. i'm out past the wire deadline wise, mostly because i took on projects approximately five hundred percent past my existing skillset (i tend to get really confident about shit like that, because, well, that's just what i do) and so i stalled and ok i scared myself is what i did. a year ago i was possibly the world's shittiest computer programmer. i mean it. the only thing i did with any success was run my mouth and get all kinds of expectations going and landed smack dab in the middle of downtown 'you want the computer to do what? um ok, sure piece of cake ohmygodohmygod'
i remember the first thing i got working, totally surprised the shit outta me, all i did was keep trying different things till one worked. no clue how. just knew it did. i remember thinking, hey, if all i have to do is obsess until the answer accidentally presents itself, i'm golden.
somewhere along the way it started making sense. and when i did something that i thought of and got it to work for the first time it was more than a rush. it was more than a thrill. it was power. and it was just the tippity-tip of the power, and i knew that. it was like standing holding onto a tree and realizing there was a planet attached to the end of it. since then i've done very little else but program stuff. i do it for a living i do it for fun and personal use, i do it for other people, for fun and to impress them. yeah. go figure, hubris, me. i know. but it's beyond that, i mean i dream code. if i'm not doing it i'm thinking about it. or sex. code and sex, and coffee. i think about coffee. and sex. but that's about it.
php is so fucking cool.
so i have been good, i have worked and stuff. but i needed a reward, there there whatta good lizard here's a biscuit. or in this case, gathering much of my various poem--type things in one place, one of those multitudinous extra URLs i have laying around.
liz2
alrighty then back to actual work.
* * *
oh but i have to majorly update this. after the ... refreshing drive, i came back to the same thing that was kicking my ass all afternoon -- i set up liz2 to reject any $id not specifically intended for display, but there was a bit of beastly if this and either that or the other unless of course involved in getting it to kick back a smartass answer to people deliberately trying to snoop, while being polite and welcoming to those who were behaving themselves. it was an afternoon of thump thump thump (head vs. brickwall).
and i came home, and i gave the code a couple of quick twists, things i swear to you i tried already a million times this afternoon, it just ... worked.
besides drives in the country, there's just nothing finer than a nice smartass algorithm.
25 miles cruised through the country (both ways) (each way i mean) (oh hell it was 50 miles) (in opposite directions) (taxis call it 10-6, 10-19) (it was not nearly long enough) (and yet it was perfect)
and there was a shoe sale in the middle and then the 99� rack at goodwill at the end and sometimes i'm such a girl. sheesh.
there are certain combinations of patterned sunshadows and 75 degree wind in the hair and all the windows down and robert plant and pink floyd played loud on the buick's concert sound IIs (which are perfectly capable of creating a resonance within the well-worn leather seats) and this clears away all the usual existential angst i mean seriously, give me one of those dour-faced sourpuss nihilists for an afternoon and there would be a change in philosophy, i guarantee it. c'mon, jean paul, climb on in, frederich, ima gonna take you for a leeetle ride ...
however i never need company on this drive. highway 118 is a straight curvy flat rolling ribbon of two lane unwinding sixty-five seventy dangerously sexy daytime headlights type of trip, strictly business this was, i don't cruise around unregistrated for pleasure, no sir. it was all about practicality and necessity and responsibility and there are certain air temperatures at which it should be illegal to remain clothed, and by this i mean i believe i might be regretting the whole deciding - not - to - spontaneously - take - my - shirt - off - i - mean - why - not - there - are - way - skimpier - bathing - suits. not complaining, merely mentioning that so i could slip in the fact i seriously might have done that, but my hands were kinda busy. and when it comes down to the windblown seduction of patterned sunshadows skimming the skin intimate and mirrored in the scintillating rushing oncoming traffic intimate i mean between us we've got a hundred twenty miles an hour and not eight feet separating us and i take the thirty five mile an hour curves at fifty right around the time will you listen to those tires screaming [insert name being screamed here] i mean what are the chances?
[do not i repeat do not try this yourself. i am the best driver i know. and i do this all the time so i have plenty of ... um. what? no, no, that's not what i meant to say at all ... wait. yes it was. ]
not sure whether i'm more of the former or the latter, but ... um. ok, back to work with me.
yes, they've gone all commercial and stuff, but weeeeee is still a valid expression of ... oh i can't explain it, you'll just have to go seeeeee. recommended you do so without small children in the room, they will want to know what that is and you will most likely not want to explain.
it has been much, much too long since i've updated kurtwood.com (how many people do you know have their own first name.com? my kid does.) and he's been featured elsewhere, for instance on photojunkie's 300 exposures project and twice on the mirror project, in other words i'm not just operating on mommy prejudice here, the kid's good. he started really liking using the momcam, now deceased, and the new momcam is too much for ... maybe it isn't, but it makes mom too nervous letting the boy roam around with the new-to-me oly.
but we have the other cameras, and we need to get out and about, because this isn't one of those things one should just let fall by the wayside.
it's on the list.
"There is a last correlation that is slightly less clear than the others. The spirits one sees in hallucinations are three-dimensional, sound-emitting images, and they speak a language made of three-dimensional, sound-emitting images. In other words, they are made of their own language, like DNA."
There was a long silence on the other end of the line.
Then my friend said, "Yes, and like DNA they replicate themselves to relay their information." I jotted this down, and it was later in reviewing my notes on the relationship between the hallucinatory spirits made of language and DNA that I remembered the first verse of the first chapter of the Gospel according to John: "In the beginning was the logos"�the word, the verb, the language.
→ go read this article ←
if you read this place anywhere near regularly, you have an idea how much resonance there is in this, in me. of course, you'd find the connections in the really deeply spacey meditations on communication and language and spacetime, and i'm never sure how much of that actually makes any sense outside my head.
i have always been made of my own language. which makes me uniquely well-qualified to conduct further research on this matter, yes?
'tis true, sometimes in lieu of content, i give you, other people's content. i have some quality opc for you today, permanence. enjoy.
in the interest of full frontal disclosure i wrote this other one too. again, iffy iffy. but hey.
you strip down
lay yourself out
i know you can't fake it
but are you tired and naked
are you tired and naked?
~michael stipeyes. yes i am.
well, if the award is best deeply psychotic response to 'poke the bunny'
i don't think they let folks in lockdown psych wards surf the interweb, so it's safe to assume this person lives among us, somewhere. maybe safe is the wrong word.
better than remembering
the illusive truths
lost in the circumstances
and the vastness
of the spaces
in between
the lines
given what was
left unsaid
and
in return
an answer
and
yes, i am less
than willing but
i find i must,
and
so i will:
listen carefully
this whisper will only be
forced once from me, twisted through my
tightened throat, there,
there, i did it, dammit,
i did admit it,
did you
hear it?
~(me) 09.12.03
it's possible there was just a small earthquake. also i might have had too much red bull. you just never know.
aha -- and oh man how cool is that place? i submitted my little report and everything. damn the internet rocks.
this just in:
q. there are lizards and there are lizards
a. got that right. and i am number one, baby.
thanks, jon!
q. meaning of low fuel light and
a. and what? i can't interpret your low fuel light without additional information. please resubmit query.
q. zen terrorists
a. omg. you have them too? little ninja lookin' dudes that come sliding down the risers of the shelves and scurry around behind the monitor and fuck with your little zen garden at night? dude. i thought i was the only one.
q. lyrics clowns will eat me
a. now i did not know this was an alice cooper song. but i do now, thanks for asking, and the lyrics are in the lyricbase now.
q. "shaved my arms"
a. "so did i". but that's not the real story here. the real story is almost every other thing google finds is some site selling cars or prescriptions or some shit. [cue twilight zone music]...
...and fade. now we are in a darkened room, behind glass, watching the surreal scene as tommy chong gets sentenced to nine months in prison for selling bongs over the internet. and the crowd goes wild! another stunning triumph of truth justice and the american way! the feds are on the job, baby, making sure we are safe to enjoy baseball and hotdogs, apple pies and chevrolets without fear! taxpayer's hard earned cash, well, spent.
the world is full of crazy people, and idiots. some of them work for the government.
in other news, i am now banned by at least one firewall. i am humbled and honored.
first i wrote this re-living the morning in question. then i thought no. then i was going to collect silly links, but that became too time-intensive. so, in all due respect, i present to you a post in the same spirit with which i wore a perfectly coordinated all-ivory outfit (including veiled hat and little gloves) to my son's funeral some 19 years ago. it was my way of saying a big fuck you to untimely death and all that traditionally dark attire and the attendant imagery; it was me, defiant, celebrating life.
and so with that, on this anniversary otherwise filled with moving tributes and so forth, i give you my new pet hat. i thnk it used to be a rabbit, or rabbits, which i ordinarily don't approve of however since i will not be using this as headgear, rather keeping it as a furry inanimate companion, i will sidestep the fur issue thankyouverymuch, besides the tags are in russian and they have good reasons for furry hats. he was a gift from a coworker -- my coworkers, they see weird things, they think me.
this is my pet hat:
this is my hat's ass:
asshat! i love the term, asshat.
this has been brought to you by the exceedingly silly committee known otherwise as liz, who has also been known to keep dead insects and bags of caramel popcorn as pets, and wants to inform you that she does have an actual cat, a real, live cat, so ... that makes this either more or less weird.
and if you find you are indeed in need of a distraction, i welcome suggestions on what sort of name would best suit my new pet hat -- correction, my new pet asshat. yeah.
a large spaceship has crashed into harrods of london, and a large robot has emerged, and said, �take me to your lizard�. ford prefect explains this to arthur dent:
�It comes from a very ancient democracy, you see ��
�You mean it comes from a world of lizards?�
�No,� said Ford, �nothing so simple. Nothing anything like so straightforward. On its world, the people are people. The leaders are lizards. The people hate the lizards and the lizards rule the people.�
�Odd,� said Arthur, �I thought you said it was a democracy.�
�I did,� said Ford. �It is.�
�So,� said Arthur, hoping he wasn�t sounding ridiculously obtuse, �why don�t the people get rid of the lizards?�
�It honestly doesn�t occur to them,� said Ford. �They�ve all got the vote, so they all pretty much assume that the government they�ve voted in more or less approximates the government they want.�
�You mean they actually vote for the lizards?�
�Oh yes,� said Ford with a shrug, �of course.�
�But,� said Arthur, going for the big one again, �why?�
�Because if they didn�t vote for a lizard,� said Ford, �the wrong lizard might get in. Got any gin?�
(brought forth from the old archives, it needed to be included here)
...endlessly fascinating sociological research: the things folks ask google:
q. MOUNTAIN LOINS.COM.
a. dotlizard.com, the the only place on the whole interweb where you can find mountain loins, according to yahoo.
q. lizard therapy
a. i'm fine, really. but thanks.
q. find me words of inspiration
a. hey! these are mine! find your own damn words!
q. the number of pounds of skin you shed in a day
a. oh, it's ... quite a few pounds. quite a few. pounds.
q. is hair living?
a. no. idiot.
q. how to get a lizard alive from your car
a. one, but the lightbulb has to want to change.
q. click paranormal sound hear night
a. eerily enough, this request came from around the 460th result, and yet there was no link anywhere within ten pages that led here. so it must have been a para ... yeah.
q. can't see, can't pee
a. alrighty then, i'll see what i can do. um, turn your head and cough? oops! ooh, that had to hurt. sorry.
q. lot lizard
a. this is the number one query that leads folks here. do you know what it means? it means truck stop hooker, is what it means. *ahem*
q. panties in a bunch
a. you'd have yours in a bunch too if google kept sending you people looking for lot lizards.
a. lizard sex x-ray
q. what is, when i come up number one on google for lizard sex x-ray because of the answers i posted to previous google queries, does the universe begin collapsing in on itself?
stay tuned. but i'd get under the desk just in case.
ok i can't resist. i tried. but i can't. resistance is futile.
q. blogsex � girl in ventura ready for sex
a. hey! where'd you go! come back!
q. if I look down from the second I'd see cookie and say yes please, I mean, I'm gonna take five now, I mean, a 26 hour workday, mmm, I hope I'll wake to see you !!
a. me too. meeee tooooo.
not recommended if realism is important to you. not that this isn't real. your mileage will most definitely vary. you were warned.
madame fabulous writes some wicked satire: the back from the dead tour
in a universe such as this where all possible histories exist, is it any wonder my mind wanders? i am aching in waveforms in eleven dimensions, exactly, most of which (as hawking tells it) are just very, very tiny, which is why we only see the four.
we being a generalization, and as we know all generalizations are false. as for myself, i have been aware of anywhere from five to seven dimensions for at least as long and probably longer than i can remember. this awareness is written in the same cryptic runes as all the things i fail to explain in fullness, the best i can express is just the extent of what's lost in the translation.
if you sense any futility in my struggles with these words, this is why. if you sense this process is almost effortless, this is also why. if you think these things are contradictory, think again.
(they intersect in surrender)
and i don't remember was it dreamt awake or otherwise just i was in the midst of it and the thought hit i have never known pure surrender always obeyed these externalized fears, never brought them flowing free through me so that they do not limit me but rather become catalysts for different levels of pleasure like more surfaces exposed to sensation. but unless there is trust perfect trust the fears are still separate and still in control. and control is the balancing element in this give and take, control can be taken but unless it is also given, as in relinquished as in completely, the fears are still in control and still separate from the experience, and the experience is incomplete without them. and i want i need to know no control. and i know, i know it's mostly only just a dream.
one, wonderbras? they work
two, i can pick pants off the dollar rack at goodwill (no dressing rooms) and get a perfect fit every time. perfect.
three, 3000 words
four, there are only really three things
five, wait, there are four! he's taking the new roomie out to dinner thursday. everybody think gooooood thoughts and don't even worry about her i'm sure she'll be fine. and if not, then she'll be gaining valuable life experience. mmhmm.
junior damn high school. mrs. allen's creative writing class. it wasn't my first choice of electives, you know. but it changed my whole, entire life.
what if ... naah.
and i've never exactly thought of it like this, but you know, mrs. allen was a saint. can you imagine, your whole career devoted to the care and maintenance of bad teenage poetry (including publishing an entire book of it every year). and believe me i only post the stuff that is waaaaay over to the 'not so bad' end of the bad teenage poetry scale.
there are copies of echoes '75 and '76 that i could seriously be blackmailed with.
and oh, how i wish i meant that at the depths of me. i think it would improve life a great deal to greet every day grateful for what is and what has been and say, if today is it then so be it let's on with it.
so i think about death. more than i imagine is normal. i think death is what defines life, certainly it is the point at which a life is complete, finite, a solid finished product rather than the tracings of a path through space and time that i tend to define by saying 'you just never fucking know' in a solemn and thoughtful tone from time to time. i think being fragile and rather easily killed is probably a good thing, without this humans would be an insufferable lot. but while i would tend to object to immortality in a general sense, i also tend to think that it would be okay if just a few of us had it. even a few extra centuries would be nice, i have so much still to learn, and i'm at least halfway done with my years, probably further than that, and i'm feeling my limits these days, oh my. and of course what you're hearing here is the illogical but vital voice that speaks in all living organisms, life forcing its will to continue into the future. it is a simple message, life is. this is a mindless, single-purpose, one-way force, life, its business is to resist death which is irresistable and i feel this conflict from the bones on inward, in the marrow where the blood is forged and further in the cells themselves and matter of fact i consist mostly of this conflict. well not mostly. but enough of me. and enough of that.
i think about dying well, and wonder if i'll be able to manage that, i don't exactly have a history of living well. i like to think i could accept an acute terminal diagnosis (as opposed to this long term, indefinite one), but chances are i'd freakout and waste whatever time i had left screeching about the fucking unfairness of it all.
i understand enough about being seriously ill, i know that acceptance is built into the process, it's about being tired in a way that even the worst exhaustion in a healthy body doesn't even come close, it's about enough of the struggle and on with it already, and yet a determined whiner such as myself could no doubt manage to bemoan the loss of even the most unrecognizable remnant of existence ... it's just not a good hairday is it?
ideally of course i'd have the amazing strength and be calm and focused and make every minute count yeah right, because i've got such a stellar record of achievements in the areas of calmness and balance and focus and i've always been so emotionally fucking stable it's just unreal isn't ... um, maybe this isn't a good time to discuss this.
i think about death in every day i live, more than in passing; for perspective for one thing, and for another in hopes i can create the sort of acceptance i so admire in others and would treasure in myself, if the need ever arose. as a matter of fact i might not be thinking about death enough, not so much thinking about it as living my life intense and with purpose since it is such a finite amount of time until my journey turns into that inanimate object at the end. also it would be nice if that object wasn't completely and utterly insignificant, but what a conceit that thought is, and with that i'll end this.
more important sociological research, courtesy of the folks google sends us:
q. Mr Sun blink his eyes at me Oh! that's nonsense, now you are talking foolish she said.
a. funny, i said that very same thing, just this morning. wait, no i didn't. my mistake.
q. "idiot mode" fuck
a. i knew before i clicked this one, i'd be number one. sure enough.
q. What's life like in Reems?
a. well, i doubt you'd find that information in a page entitled "pimpin' like a madwoman", but nice try.
q. lizard hope
a. it's better for lizards not to get their hopes up
q. short midgets
a. nope. too easy.
q. midgets with dogs
a. oh how i wish i could believe this is a search for an appropriate pet for a little person. (aside: i knew the consequences when i posted that rambling tangent inspired by a prøn spam subject line, and i'm not complaining. just trippin'.)
warren zevon, 1.24.47 - 9.7.03. life'll kill ya. but what a life it was, eh?
sentimental hygiene
Every day I get up in the morning and go to work
And do my job whatever
I need some
Sentimental hygiene
Everybody's at war these days
Let's have a mini-surrender
I need some
Sentimental hygiene
Everybody's had to hurt about it
No one wants to go without it
It's so hard to find it
Sentimental hygiene
Every night I come home exhausted
From trying to get along
I need some
Sentimental hygiene
Everybody's joining up to fight
For the right to be wrong
I need some
Sentimental hygiene
Some nights I drive my car
Up and down the boulevard
It's so hard to find it
Sentimental hygiene
Everybody's had to hurt about it
No one wants to go without it
It's so hard to find it
Sentimental hygiene
Some nights I drive my car
Up and down the boulevard
It's so hard to find it
Sentimental hygiene
Sentimental hygiene
I need some
Sentimental hygiene
~warren zevon
so lastnight whatsisface is babbling 'bout this place right down the street he might get, he's got his boss lyin' for him and his mommy cosignin' and probably lyin' too, it's more than we pay here but not by much, so i ask, i ask "so you're going to have a roommate?" just to make sure there wasn't any of that denial stuff going on and he says, "oh i have a roommate. didn't i tell you?" he beams. "it's the mommy of kobe and mando" (these would be children that go to the same babysitter as kurtwood, have for years).
this is one from the vault, i had to edit this to reflect a slightly different mindset and still find the peace in it. it might have lost something in the translation to past tense.
it is also possible nothing at all was lost. i'm too close to this to tell the difference.
it might not be online too long either, not sure about the releasing it, but clicking post anyway.
i never told the rest of this story, not entirely sure why.
brilliantly dressed punk-goth youngster comes roaring up in a beatup veedub driven by a rather stressed out regular sort of guy; she needs to get to LA. she *has* to get to LA, something about two girls named Crystal and violations of probation and she can't ride the Amtrak train, it's in her conditions due to an unfortunate sort of incident involving standing up for the courage of her angry, twenty year old convictions.
here we have one of the lower forms of life on the spam foodchain, a festering lump of putrescence known as the comment spammer, and a very slippery example of the species; whereas the average commentspammer bottomfeeder drops in a whole messload of links, nice and obvious, this one's hoping you won't notice the fact it's an attempt to (a) get an accidental clickthrough or two and (b) artificially inflate rankings on search engine algorithms (most notably google) which measure inbound links, via the use of generic flattery. clever.
burningbird tells us about social engineering and how these clever bastards use our habits against us -- good to know. nancy got a different subgenus of bottomfeeder, but they all suck the same scum.
http://surreally.org/news/mt/mt-comments.cgi?entry_id=42
IP Address: 219.95.2.151
Name: zip codes
Email Address: lady2004@hotmail.com
URL: http://www.zipcodesdownload.com
Comments:
I agree with the author.
starting to feel just a little selfconscious about the thousands
of people who have gotten a first impression that i am a sex-starved, pottymouthed freak -- no that's not the problem, accurate first impressions are important, i just wanted to clarify things a bit.
you see, the pre-coital agreement occurred to me as i was remembering years ago, when my then-future-ex-boyfriend-to-be and i were involved in one of those heavily passionate makeout sessions, in the midst of which he stopped and said, "you don't date small men, do you?" and i said, "no, not really, why?" and he replied, "because you might break them."
now that's always stuck with me, because there was some very real concern in his voice.
either that or he was in pain.
so i worry.
The quality of mercy is not strain'd,
It droppeth as the gentle rain from heaven
Upon the place beneath: it is twice blest;
It blesseth him that gives and him that takes:
William Shakespeare
[Merchant of Venice, IV. i. 184]
and what is given what is taken what is left laying out in the rain rusted wasted lost the extent of it is unknowable like the lamented potential i personally pissed away back in the day. and though i try and never wonder what might have come of me, in vulnerable times my own voice still rains down in my own mind, a voice that lost itself years ago, screaming ranting raging until it reduced itself to this ragged whisper, a difference which passes for grace in this journey of mine defined by rain and it hasn't been gentle with me, nor i with myself.
as i pass through the merciless aftermath of my latest mistakes, my path takes me straight through the worst electricity of an entirely stormy existence; i am at the mercy of the elements here, but i am also the elements themselves. i am my own solstice i am my own justice, and as such i have neither given nor taken very much mercy.
oh. a conclusion? don't have one.
mothra de-cocooned somewhere near the porch, this afternoon. i'm sure these would have been clearer had i not been hyperventilating and squeaking and generally carrying on like a person with a severe bugphobia. these are big pictures, huuuuge filesizes. it's a big bug.
at first his wings were wet and kinda scriggly. he was still very big.
i wasn't thrilled with the first batch, went to get more, and discovered mothra was unfolding rapidly.
i wonder if he's still out there, and how much he's changed, and if he's the sort of bug that would just fly in someone's face. i'm going to go find out, because he's a bug, and i take bugs' pictures. it's what i do. oh.my.god. (breathe, breathe). ok. i'm fine.
who can explain the technicalities that lead to a midlife existential crisis?
dotlizard.com - me. liz.
offtoseethelizard.com - lyrics
liz�.org - stuff i wrote. like poetry, i suppose.
thelizard.us - resources
more lizards to follow.
q. how do you tell a girl lizard and a boy lizard apart?
a. the lizards know. leave it up to us. don't oppress us with your narrowminded gender stereotypes.
q. why don't we get drunk and screw
a. ok.
q. dead bee metaphor
a. yes! yes! i totally have one of those! didja like it?
q. bullshit goal setting.
a. mmhmm, yeah, that too. and thanks for reminding me.
q. bad teenage poetry
a. oh hell yeah. oh.hell.yeah.
q. wild lizard molecule
a. the chicken howls at midnight. xray alpha foxtrot niner, repeat, xray alpha foxtrot niner. over?
q. my pants are too small how do i fix them
a. welllll, maybe if you weren't sitting on your ass asking google silly questions, they might not be too small? just a thought.
q. somebody's watching us
a. shut up! they're listening too!
q. lizard sex art
a. inspiring. ok, i'm going to need a volunteer from the audience, a can of e-z cheez, some ping pong balls, and a spatula.
q. dyed her hair leather boots pierced -xxx -xena
a. yeppers. why, you wanna fool around?
there are things i have frightened myself writing. perhaps frightened is the wrong word, unless it is; i am referring to intense intimate things that happen in the text box of a weblog entry screen, and since i have private places to keep private things, it means these things mean to be public things, which makes me an exhibitionist, in a fluffy, pretentious sort of way.
i was going to go on a rambling tangent about other fluffier more pretentious aspects of this tendency of mine, not sure whether i was going to intellectualize it or go for the touchy-feely fundamental interconnectedness of all things vibe, might have tried to do both, but why?
i also find it curious that i am attaching this babbling preamble so full of self-conscious apology, i suppose there's still something resembling shame that i get this delightful dizzy thrill doing it, that i find the vulnerability exhilarating, like swinging the swing up so high there's an instant of weightlessness at the top.
ever do it in a buick?
as i get stronger and healthier my levels of frustration have gotten worse, not better, and i'm beginning to worry that, in the remotely possible eventuality that i ever manage get laid again, that i might actually hurt somebody. at this point i'm thinking i really ought to come with a warning label and some terms and conditions, and so i've drafted the following pre-coital agreement. virgins, clergypersons, and those under the age of 18 are strongly admonished not to click the more text link.
it is now after labor day.
