Friday, September 26, 2008

So you say they don't like livers?

Well.
To hell with them.
I say, and I say it with some vigor and vim that could only be provided by 2,000 miles of emptiness,

Fuck em' if they don't like chicken livers.

I know...

I have a bad reputation, and it is not just talk talk talk. I love things that I cannot have.

Tuesday, September 23, 2008

The Wedge...



This is some place I may never get to go - someplace I think I was supposed to go, but ended up at a waterfall instead - all the same, just as beautiful, and the company was just as wonderful, but not LaPush, not the coast. I imagine there will be other opportunities in between family vacations and conventions and the occassional wanderlust, but for some reason, much like the emptiness in this picture, the quiet solace, I suspect the feeling will be one of retrospect, not dreaming. That is a tough thing to come to grips with.

I wonder, being some sort of an agnostic, if that driftwood wants to be there, by some piece of sheer will wanted to be next to that rock, and rest a while in the sand, and let the cool mist blanket while awaiting for the next tide. I am beginning to think that I am somewhat drifting - I thought the past year was a dreamlike state - but the funny things is now that I have found it magically easy to slip back into my past life, it was the only real year that I have had in a long time - sort of like the movie or book "Awakenings" - awake for a while to experience life, then back into the haze to enjoy the quiet solace.

Disappointment came very easy this week. It was not intentional, nor malicious, but it was selfish. I feel it was selfish. I feel it was almost a jab to push back further, and to separate the distance even further. But those are just my thoughts. You know what they say about thinking...think in one hand, love in the other, and both hands end up empty...

That's enough for now, I am tired, but happy. The phone is ringing...

George

Saturday, September 20, 2008

Top Ten things to Do during an economic downturn...

Nobody can tell me that they have lived through an economic downturn this severe that is my age - unless of course they were mysteriously teleported from the early 1930's into today's age by strapping an electrical device to their heads and drinking some bootleg bathtub gin - and I, although gullable and open to the idea of time travel, find that very,very slim. If I was to do that, it would be to teleport myself into the disco era of the seventies - I love silk shirts, polyester pants, and hell, flyback hairstyles were the bomb...

I digress my friends, I digress. As the solidly entrenched upper middle class wage earner that I am, (you know there are 12 classes - hell I think there are two - rich and those who shop at Walmart - I fall into the latter), my wife and I embarked upon our cost reduction program by deciding that we would not use the air conditioner after receiving a pleasantly large electric bill that probably could have sent another 10 Zimbabwean troop to joing the coalition for another year or so - and even as I type, my allergies are making my eyes look like I smoked two or three bags of cheap weed and then poked them with ice picks. Needless to say, I did sleep pretty well, even if I did wake up feeling like it was time to pack the tent, and wash the sleeping bags. Don't let this be mistaken as my household going green - we'd have to sell the minivan for that to happen, and wear clothes made out of hemp, and we just have not gone that far....yet.

Segue into my first top ten list for those of us who, trusting in the Horatio Algiers possibilities of this great Nation, want to try and save a few bucks during this economic downturn - trust me on this one, the ten things below will not only save you money, but, if you start a revolution, may get you elected to your PTA Association:

1. Eat at Costco on Saturdays and Sundays. I know the old ladies and screaming children are a pain in the ass, but who can deny that the samples they provide you are a filling and cheap way to feed the family. Just last week I had two medicine cups full of red wine, three or four bites of mediterranean chicken, some struedel, and then to top it off, I "sampled" four grapes to make sure they tasted pretty good. Hell, make an evening out of it, I let my kids wear their heelies and gave them a quarter for being the first to find a new sample location. A new spin on potluck....

2. Sell your spouses favorite things on ebay - they never understood why you did not like them, and now they never will.

3. Read a book. I know with the current state of education these days, this may not be an option for everyone - so let me rephrase - read or LOOK at a book.

4. Hang out with friends ALOT. They don't know why you are spending inordinate amounts of time soaking up their electricity, eating their food, drinking their beer, and using their shower - and if they are REAL friends, they will gladly let you do that.

5. Go back to dial up - remember the good old days when surfing the web was an all day affair just to balance your check book - well, it's still an option, and for $9.99 per month, you too can let the excitement build as it takes four hours to open Yahoo.

6. Put your retirement savings in jar accounts - mayo jars, mustard jars, baby food jars - and bury them in your backyard. I doubt too many CEO's of these failed institutions will be in your backyard with metal detectors looking for them - they can afford to lose half of their $30 million bonus they have received over the last ten years, and if you get audited by the IRS, they will never find the money.

7. Do all of those "free" things our parents tell us exist - after filling up your SUV with nine dollar per gallon gas, head to a state park, pay the $12.50 daily entrance fee, the bear removal fee, the State Fund for Gravel Fee, the Daily Fishing License (this is only for folks who think they might fish - if you are actually going to fish you must have your license tattoed on your gums), the backing into parking lot fee, and finally the weekly football pool for Ranger Dan and Assistant Ranger Chuck - and have fun. After spending an hour listening to other folks who have not excercised for years ask "Where is the escalator" on the five mile hike for about two hours, it will be the best $470 you ever spent. This is one of the generational gripes that I have - there ain't shit that is free anymore - so for you parents of middle aged children out there - stop suggesting it.

8. Get a second, or even third job. For us middle classers we need to earn more money so we can pay more taxes. Come on you unpatriotic gaggle - do your part - in order to bail out these major companies our government needs the cash flow. Who cares if we already travel 80% of the time, work seventy hours a week, our kids think we are foster parents, that leaves at least 60 quality working hours a week to invest in the next generation's future.

9. Move back in with your parents. They are the ones who thought biochemicals, plastics, aerosols, leaded gasoline, savings and loans, DEET, deregulation, etc were all good ideas - and they always taught you that you must pay for your mistakes - time for them to start paying. Besides, it will let you catch up on all of the things you feel liked you missed out on as a child.

10. Move to Canada - from what I understand from looking at books (see point 3, I was a child of public education) - they live in the woods and eat maple syrup for free every day. Save up the $17,230 dollars for gas to drive up there, the fast food meals that cost $87 for a family of four, the $1,372 dollars in tolls that you are going to pay to the Public Private Investment companies that paid to build the highway and now get the revenue from it, the $8,471 dollars it will take to apply for a passport, and go.

Now, no one can say I am not doing my part - but seriously, I think the most important thing that any of us can do is VOTE - personally, political choices are a private matter - publicly, our federal elected officials are just about the only folks with a job for life (trust me on this one, once they are thrown out of congress, they get a job with a lobbyist, or on the prison work farm as an attorney), so we might as well decide intelligently who we want making decisions that insulate their families and friends from the plight of the rest of us.

Until next time.

Friday, September 19, 2008

Facebook Stuff...

Now this facebook thing - what a concept - you can actually get in touch with people who are folks that may you may or may not remember, or really care to remember - but so far, my experience has been that they have been pleasant reconnections and it is kind of nice to see where folks are after so many years of life passing down the road. Some of them are Obama supporters, some of them have a lot of children, some of them have changed, and some of them, well hell - you just add them so that you have a shitpot of friends to for your entire facebook thing. Technology is a cathartic useful piece of stuff, even if my ten year old can program a DVD player better than I can, and if Comcast offers me another piece of equipment to try and figure out, well hell, I am going to paste a magazine to my tv set, and just pretend that it is my favorite show (I don't know who I am kidding - I don't watch much television - I use it to fall asleep at night when you sit in a hotel room). Needless to say, I like the facebook - it is a neat thing, and I am sure I will get used to it.

Kitchen Floors - why do I call this kitchen floors - well, that's simple. When I was a little kid, we did not have air conditioning in one of our houses - so in Florida in the Summer, the most comfortable place to be is sitting on a terrazo floor with a pillow and a box fan blowing across your face. I have a more serious blog out there, but I want kitchen floors to be that cool comfortable place that I go to just sit and write and bore people with my endless banter.

The problem is that I still love the kitchen floor - we have air conditioning now, but for now, I still find the happiest and quietest place is sitting on the kitchen floor with a cold glass of white wine late at night when the house is dark - and you just sit there and think and let the white noise of the fridge kick in and lull you to sleep. I know it sounds a little crazy, but I have never been one to be accused of staying terribly sane, nor do I profess to a system of beliefs that says kitchen floors are only for walking.

So for now, that is enough of an explanation as to why I call this blog Kitchen Floors - A State of Euphoria is still plugging along, and contains the heavier stuff, but this one, hell - join me on the kitchen floor, pour a cold glass of white wine, and let's listen to the fridge for a little while.

George

Working Class Stiff.....

I am what you would call a typical working class stiff - I am not really sure what that means, or how you would describe it, but I sit in front of the soft glare of a flat screen monitor pumping out numbers, return to a hotel room to have some sort of middle American cuisine that generally consists of carbs, wine, and carbs, followed up with a healthy dose of simple sugars to be followed by five or six hours of restless sleep - then I get back up and do it again -

The reality is, I love it! I love my life and the things and toys and treats and music and people and spreadsheets and challenges and the boring minutia that cranks my heart and my head into a sloppy and tired mush. Oh what a life to live - I have been to all four corners of this country, and to just about every small town in between, have had dinner with their people, have watched their young ones grow, and the old ones leave, and have very rarely, if ever made an enemy, maybe a few combatants, but never an enemy -

Tonight I am restless, I find it harder and harder to sleep at home without the assistance of heavy doses of benzodiazaprene (or something like that) because I long to be back on the road and thinking in a quiet space and unfamiliar things - familiar is a funny concept - some are comfortable in familiar normal surroundings, I think my wife craves consistency, in everything, sort of an IKEA mentality. Me, I have a flea market furniture store mentality - it is damn near the same stuff, but it is piled up in dirty boxes, and there is no perky breasted, bleached white teeth college student selling it to you like she just found god in the IKEA 12 step program. I am afraid my kids are more like my wife - my son especially, he likes things in order, my daughter, she is more like me - if she is thirsty, she drinks, if she is hungry, she eats, if she is tired, she sleeps. I learn lessons from both of them, and hopefully have passed on a few before they start to keep a distinct microsoft outlook calendar that lists everything that they need to do before they die...

Unloading trucks in college, working in a gay bar, and mergers and acquisitions - I guess all of them have a familiar tune - they are extreme and intense sectors of society - they are energetic and exciting, they are muscle and sweat and work and emotion and they possess you - whether physical or mental, they possess that space that always never feels full -

Very rarely do I invoke "The Digger" - that is more of an emotional state to me. You dig rows of emotions, and there are seasons every year, some things die, some things you plant, some things you nurture, and then you do it again. My working class stiff mind rolls around in that emotion way too much - maybe that is why the distraction of full tilt work has always appealed to me.

I miss things too. Maybe that is why I work hard and play hard and think too much - have you ever gone the monkey exhibit and seen those monkeys just stare up - not at the gaggle of brightly colored tourists and the ill-behaved children pointing at them, they are staring at a tree that used to shade the blue sky, or looking for a bird that never flies near them anymore, or maybe just listening really hard for a familiar sound that they don't hear anymore - but they remember. Maybe they sit there and ponder all day about that time when...

I love being a working class stiff, a ham and egger, a Joe Nobody. I love the keys on my laptop that are worn shiny from typing, I love the work.

There is a little song that was written in the late sixties - "God Bless Mommy I know that's right, and wasnt it fun in the bath tonight? The cold so cold, and the hot so hot...

God Bless Daddy, I almost forgot..."

The thing is that you just don't forget - so you work - Arbeit Macht Frei.

Thursday, September 18, 2008

Working Class Stiff..

I am what you would call a typical working class stiff - I am not really sure what that means, or how you would describe it, but I sit in front of the soft glare of a flat screen monitor pumping out numbers, return to a hotel room to have some sort of middle American cuisine that generally consists of carbs, wine, and carbs, followed up with a healthy dose of simple sugars to be followed by five or six hours of restless sleep - then I get back up and do it again -

The reality is, I love it! I love my life and the things and toys and treats and music and people and spreadsheets and challenges and the boring minutia that cranks my heart and my head into a sloppy and tired mush. Oh what a life to live - I have been to all four corners of this country, and to just about every small town in between, have had dinner with their people, have watched their young ones grow, and the old ones leave, and have very rarely, if ever made an enemy, maybe a few combatants, but never an enemy -

Tonight I am restless, I find it harder and harder to sleep at home without the assistance of heavy doses of benzodiazaprene (or something like that) because I long to be back on the road and thinking in a quiet space and unfamiliar things - familiar is a funny concept - some are comfortable in familiar normal surroundings, I think my wife craves consistency, in everything, sort of an IKEA mentality. Me, I have a flea market furniture store mentality - it is damn near the same stuff, but it is piled up in dirty boxes, and there is no perky breasted, bleached white teeth college student selling it to you like she just found god in the IKEA 12 step program. I am afraid my kids are more like my wife - my son especially, he likes things in order, my daughter, she is more like me - if she is thirsty, she drinks, if she is hungry, she eats, if she is tired, she sleeps. I learn lessons from both of them, and hopefully have passed on a few before they start to keep a distinct microsoft outlook calendar that lists everything that they need to do before they die...

Unloading trucks in college, working in a gay bar, and mergers and acquisitions - I guess all of them have a familiar tune - they are extreme and intense sectors of society - they are energetic and exciting, they are muscle and sweat and work and emotion and they possess you - whether physical or mental, they possess that space that always never feels full -

Very rarely do I invoke "The Digger" - that is more of an emotional state to me. You dig rows of emotions, and there are seasons every year, some things die, some things you plant, some things you nurture, and then you do it again. My working class stiff mind rolls around in that emotion way too much - maybe that is why the distraction of full tilt work has always appealed to me.

I miss things too. Maybe that is why I work hard and play hard and think too much - have you ever gone the monkey exhibit and seen those monkeys just stare up - not at the gaggle of brightly colored tourists and the ill-behaved children pointing at them, they are staring at a tree that used to shade the blue sky, or looking for a bird that never flies near them anymore, or maybe just listening really hard for a familiar sound that they don't hear anymore - but they remember. Maybe they sit there and ponder all day about that time when...

I love being a working class stiff, a ham and egger, a Joe Nobody. I love the keys on my laptop that are worn shiny from typing, I love the work.

There is a little song that was written in the late sixties - "God Bless Mommy I know that's right, and wasnt it fun in the bath tonight? The cold so cold, and the hot so hot...

God Bless Daddy, I almost forgot..."

The thing is that you just don't forget - so you work - Arbeit Macht Frei.

Friday, September 12, 2008

Text Messages and Misunderstandings Part Deux...

I hate text messages that convey being pissed off - what good does that do - it really does no good for anyone involved - they send me through the roof - I mean literally -

There are some lyrics to a song that I am working on - Let it go, let it roll right off your shoulders. I wish I could live by that mantra, but right now - I can't. Somewhere between my heart being on my sleeve, and my brain stuck in a constant flushing action, I can't live that mantra.

You know, intention is a powerful thing - particularly when it is understood to be for self-serving reasons - my intentions are not self serving - in fact they are self-defeating - and one day, perhaps, someone will notice that, and will start telling me to not promote the success of others and brag about the accomplishments I have made - but you know, fuck it.

I don't want to write anymore, this is childish, stupid, insensitive, and you know what - maybe it's best that it is this way. It certainly makes the situation more bitter than sweet, and hell, maybe it's the pill we all need to swallow. Maybe one day I will feel like explaining myself, but that's kind of like having to put more whipped cream on a pile of shit, and I am full up on whipped cream, and certainly don't need anymore servings of shit.

George

Wednesday, September 10, 2008

Heavily Chlorinated Swimming Pools -

I did not have much to write about this time - a dinner, where the jokes were at my expense, and the bill was not, a boss floating in the swimming pool like a half harpooned whale only being kept afloat by the bubbles in the beer, and a finally some peace and quiet from a house filled with eight bereaving guests -

I meant to post something more serious over the past couple of days - sure my grandmother died, sure I watched her breathe her last breath, and sure, there are better things to do than sit by yourself late at night and sob for the time that you failed to take advantage of - but like my Uncle Chuck said - "Her time on earth is over, ashes to ashes, dust to dust, not remember to love one another and not forget this lesson of loss" - she was a bus driver - a very opinionated, deep woods Southern Baptist, a very strong and stern woman, but she was my school bus driver. When there was never enough food - and it seems like, until my mom remarried that there was never enough food, we always had a hot meal of fried chicken or london broil or beef stew - and we always had a haircut and clean clothes and we always had a place that we could go that was simple - but safe. I always said that I did not agree theologically with my MeMa - and I still believe that - but in retrospect, I always have agreed with her need to fix anyone - I mean anyone, a hot cup of coffee, and tell them that she loved them - she was not one to say I Love You - but when she put that old chipped mug in front of you, and pulled down the loaf of Merita and broke out the butter (she never - I mean never - had anything close to margarine or HeartSmart Fake Butter in her kitchen)you knew that she wanted to just be with you and talk with you, and occassionally, just pour you another hot cup of coffee and have you stay a little while longer until the peace she felt was part of you...She is gone now, Shirley Valine Lundin, buried in an old cemetary that is not as kept as it used to be, full of Florida Fire Ants and tombstones of the oldest folks in Jacksonville - but, I think I inherited two important things from her - my constant inability to keep my mouth shut, and my willingness to fix a hot cup of coffee...I don't know if she can read this from where she is, spirit or otherwise, but I do love my MeMa, and even though I did not always spend the time when I needed to, or always stop by when I was close, I think she knew that I loved her and that she gave me some things that are a little hard to come by without guidance. Enough about that, rest well Grandma...

So here I am, in a much nicer hotel in Kansas City, and they cholrinate the hell out of their swimming pools. I missed a call earlier, I was sleeping, and Jesus H, I hate missing calls. So, what do I do, I swim - and of course, as I swim, and my nostrils are being burned out by the chlorine gas that they seemingly are pumping into the pool, I can see my skin starting to blend into some Michael Jackson twisted issue - my nose did not fall off, but I expect that to happen any minute now...

I don't know why I sat down to blog. Sometimes it just feels okay to write. Sometimes it is good to just type what comes to mind - sort of a Turrets Syndrome of the fingers - I just need to write. Hell, no one can read this damn thing anymore, it is locked, but one day, maybe someone will read it, and the posts will make sense or they will send an email, and say - you know, you are a big fucking idiot. Most of all, it makes sense to me, and it is a comfortable place when you are half tired, half drunk, and completely broke to spend a few minutes of time.

As always, A Demain Mon Ami -

George

Monday, September 8, 2008

Voice.

It is a defining term - and an ambiguously funny term - I am happy right now, there are no other voices audibly expressing themselves right now, the only noise is just the whir of the ceiling fan, and the sound of my fingers tapping the keyboard. We all have a voice, whether it be one expressed in artistic brush strokes, or pen, or musical notes, we all have a voice - and now I just want one voice - and I get to hear it every day - but sometimes, that is just not enough.

I love to hear rythm. That's what I have is a simple voice - and at times, it does not seem worth the feelings and the longing, but that is what I have - a rythm, and I want it more and more everyday - maybe my own voice is being drowned out by the need to hear that one, maybe that's okay.

When the images and memories in your head start to disappear, and the only thing that you have is a song or a picture, well that voice comes across as a lighthouse, a welcome, and a comfort - I love to hear it, because, I am not really sure if I mentioned this earlier - but that's all I have right now.

A demain.

George