(via drunkenbutterfly)
The Rabbit’s Orgone Energy is on E. Hell, it’s below E. The Rabbit is driving on fumes. A barefoot pagan ritual in the snow is just what the doctor ordered.
Looks like I’d need a redheaded priestess. I actually kinda know one. I did profile of her a while back. But you know, the mundane reality of pagan rituals really kills the fascination for a skeptic such as me. I’d better stick to the pretty Tumblr pictures.
The Smiths — Frankly, Mr. Shankly
It’s time for another Delphic update about my life!
I had the worse day at work today, and I’m not certain I’m going to have a job soon.
My writing keeps upsetting people. Is this a good thing or a bad thing? And should I learn to be more politic in my remarks now that people are reading what I write?
I’m happy, because my wife and my bro Joni both got my back. Thank you, Jesus, for making women.
—Susan Sontag, “Notes On Camp”
Change sensibility to scene, and you have my day today.
What?
Ah, never mind, it’s not worth linking.
I’m working overtime.
FuckYeahSelf-Loathing
I call dibs to the title of that blog.
Goodbye to all that
My computer was infected by some horrible virus, and I had to wipe my hard drive clean. I’m not even sure exactly all that I have lost. I know about 60 gigs of mp3s are gone. Most of them (95%) were free, so I’m not sweating it. Easy come, easy go.
I have a sinking feeling, however, that I’ve lost photos that my wife is going to be very unwilling to forgive me for losing. Technically, it was the horrible virus that lost them, but I don’t think she’s going to buy that rationalization.
Tell you what. Let’s none of us tell her what happened just yet and see what happens.
LCD Soundsystem - “Losing My Edge”
I left my blog open in a browser tag the other day. My wife came by and read it. She usually doesn’t read my blog. I suppose she’s trying to preserve domestic tranquility, but in truth she just isn’t interested. Sometimes, in bed at night, I’ll tell her about the things I’m doing or talk about my friends and co-workers. The sound of my voice puts her to sleep within minutes. If we’re not in bed, and I try to tell her about my life, she’ll drift off. I can see it in her eyes. I bore her. I find this very funny. I’m absolutely certain of very few things, but I am certain that my wife loves me. She could divorce me, tell me she never wanted to see me again, and I would still tell you that deep in her heart the flame for me still burned. Yet if a person who genuinely loves me isn’t not interested in what I have to say for myself, why should I assume that anyone else would? As a writer, you can never question this assumption. To do so kills the muse instantly. Still, it’s intriguing to think about.
Anyway, the post my wife read on my blog was the one about me puking in the morning, chasing the dogs in the rain and listening to Wish You Were Here on the drive into work. She told me it embarrassed her.
Why? I asked her.
People I know read that thing, she said.
So, I said.
You sound like you are totally unhappy with your life. Like I trapped you in a cage in the horrible suburbs.
No, you misinterpreted the post. It was about, you know, getting old, losing your edge. Everybody feels that way sometimes.
I don’t. And that’s so ridiculous anyway. Who do think you are? Some downtown hipster who sold out to the man. What did you ever have to sell?
I couldn’t really argue this point with her. She knows me too well, and unlike me she actually remembers the details. She could tell you the day we first met, how many years I’ve worked for the County of Sacramento and when I last bought new underwear. She could tell you of my legacy of ill-fitting clothes and bad haircuts. The years I spent without a single friend. The hundred-thousand times I dropped out of junior college. The fact that I worked with her at Hallmark for two years and would steal greeting cards, write love letters in them and leave them for her in the pocket of her work smock. (All the softies in the audience go, Aw, that’s so sweet. But did I mention that she was married to someone else at the time?) It’s all there in her head. It’s not that she doesn’t know me. She just prefers her objective view of the facts of my life to my subjective interpretation of them.
So I laughed and said, I’ve got to write about you seeing my blog on my blog.
That made her laugh, too.
This is me, sitting in a room, talking to myself
Look, some people are not happy with something I wrote. For years, I wrote almost exclusively to the stone silence of a blank wall, so to have Art Lessing and Michael Psycho react to something I wrote — even if that reaction is irritation and possibly contempt — is a new and somewhat pleasant sensation.
I know, my dear (mostly) imaginary audience, I’m completely hopeless.
Question(s)
Do you like it when people post vague updates about their mental state on social networking sites?
For example, without providing any context, I want to inform all the readers of this blog that the rabbit (that’s me, Jeff, for all of you who haven’t been paying close attention) is feeling anxious and unsettled today. He feels that something is wrong, but what? He feels that he should be doing something, maybe emailing somebody, but who and about what?
In my case, sadly, the answer is yes
First rain of the season today, so I had to listen to Wish You Were Here on the drive into work, especially since I had terrible acid reflux when I woke up and puked when I got out of the shower, and then the dogs got out and I had to chase them around the neighborhood. The album is about regret, selling-out, saying goodbye to youth and, this being Floyd, some totalitarian entity that micro-manages your dreams.
Anyway, I skipped right to the title song and listened to it on a loop all the way to work. The rain made the verse’s final rhetorical question quite poignant.
“And did you exchange a walk-on part in the war for a lead role in a cage?”
The Joys of Being a Pseudo-Intellectual
When we were younger, we picked up the occasional book on philosophy. They made our head swim. We could not understand a word they said. We saw the word “ontological” and we panicked like a little girl confronted by a Gila monster. This was when we decided to become a pseudo-intellectual.
As a pseudo-intellectual, you don’t have to read a philosopher. You only have to know how to spell his name. We are the consummate pseudo-intellectual, because there isn’t a philosopher’s name we can’t spell. We cannot say we’ve read Heidegger, but we have certainly spelled him. We have spelled him many times.
Don’t get us wrong. We read books. We just don’t get that much out of them. And just to be on the safe side we forget them as soon as possible. Last year we read, just to use an example, Joseph Conrad’s Nostromo. It was a great book and we can’t remember a thing about it. For all we know, Nostromo could be a jaundiced circus monkey. Or an inventor of Ronco-type widgets.
If you’re going to be a great pseudo-intellectual, you have to learn how to dodge the probing questions of annoying actual intellectuals. The best thing to do, of course, is to avoid the annoying intellectuals themselves. But occasionally they sneak up on you or leap out from behind a rock and say something like, “Are you convinced by Luther’s concept of justification as expressed in the Smalcald Articles?” The answer to this question and all other questions is, “I take my place, as usual, beneath Liebniz’s wig.” It doesn’t make any sense, but by the time they’ve figured this out, you should have been able to hide yourself in a nearby water-filled ditch.
via: Unremitting Failure
Itchy
I’ve been trying to write some fiction tonight, but I’m too itchy.
Thank you for allowing me to share this bit of personal information.
via imdb.com
Hello Monday.
The first thing that happened this morning is that a co-worker said that I reminded her of Ray Hueston, the cartoonist/sidekick on the HBO series, Bored to Death.
Oh God, it’s too true. Not only do I vaguely resemble the rumpled slacker (he’s the guy standing between Ted Danson and Jason Schwartzman in the photo above), but I share all of his bad personality traits, too. I’m infantile and narcissistic. I rationalize all my shortcomings in terms of my (mostly) imaginary vocation: i.e., “I can’t do X or Y. I’m a writer!” And I talk too much.
The family and I went to Apple Hill today. It was overcrowded and boring, as usual, but the apples are really huge this year.
Me and Rudy
