Did you settle down or did you simply settle?
If it’s the former, congratulations. You obviously needed to put aside an overly-stimulated lifestyle for a more restful, routine one. People grow up, they nest. Happens all the time.
If it’s the latter (reaching into the quiver), there are some major decisions (pulling the arrow back on the string) to be made (firing) and you already know what your choices are.
Bullseye.
I was looking for home inspirations this morning - mainly lighting - and I ran across this really neat website dedicated to mid-century design and decor.
If I could find a way, I’d install our vintage steel kitchen cabinets (currently still in residence at the office) in our kitchen here. In fact, I’d strip the paint off them to get to the base color, which is salmon. Yep, salmon.
Instead, I think they’re going to end up on Craig’s List. Along with a lot of other furniture we no longer want or need.
I should really get on that.
The event is TWO WEEKS this year - February 20th through March 5th - and all the information is here.
We’ve booked our own romantic dinner at Restaurant Kevin Taylor, where we’ve been trying to get the $52.80 deal going on three years now. This year, I made the reservation a month in advance, and we still couldn’t get in until 8:00pm on an off night. Sure, we could have headed there anytime during the year, but at a place where the appetizers are $15 and the entrees are $30-$65, we prefer to try it at the lower rate and then go back if we like it.
In the interest of helping my fellow diners / lushes, what follows are the restaurants which are offering tasty alcoholic beverages with their special $52.80 ($26.40 for singles) menu. (Please note these links go to each restaurant’s home page; if you want to see their Restaurant Week menu, click the information link above and find them on the restaurant list.)
Angelina’s Fine Dining
Bonefish Grill
Cafe Colore
Caveau Wine Bar
Dixons Downtown Grill
Fish City Grill
Hacienda Colorado
Hapa Sushi
Jewel of India
Ling & Louie’s Asian Bar & Grill
Maggiano’s Little Italy (Pavilions)
The Oak Tavern
Pearl Street Grill
Pi Kitchen & Bar
Piatti
Racines
Rock Bottom Restaurant & Brewery
Shells & Sauce
Via Baci
So are we alcoholics or cheap bastards? That’s not up for debate.
My liver knows what it’s done.
I turned this in as part of a writing portfolio last term, in which my topic was Evil (go figure). While my love helped me write it initially, there have been many changes since that first draft … both literally and figuratively.
***
“Evil people don’t get second chances.”
Just reading that makes you feel better, doesn’t it? To think that the evil people in the world get their just desserts, that every dog has its day, that karma works (insert your favorite “good triumphs over evil” metaphor / cliché / simile / hyperbole here).
Excuse me. It should be, “Evil people don’t deserve second chances.” We all know at least some of the evil among us gets not only the second, but the third, fourth, and umpteenth chances. You have probably wondered why it is that the people you can plainly see as detrimental to humankind, those who would serve the purposes of the species at its worst, are allowed to do so with impunity.
I will tell you why: It is because some of us are the creators of divine payback. Some of us have been given the unique responsibility to cause havoc among those who most have it coming to them. There are agents of Karma, the ones who arrange and rearrange so that those who really deserve it will get what’s coming to them.
I am one.
***
In the beginning, there was darkness. God created the light, but it doesn’t say there in Genesis that some of us were never to see it. For me, God’s light is missing. I feel … something … among the followers, but it is what the believers feel, nothing more. True Believers don’t always have to project a fervent belief in God; just a fervent belief in anything. Their power transcends any higher being they worship, but it would be dangerous for them to know that. Religion does a very good job of keeping people unaware of their own power.
For many years I tried to understand why I was swayed equally by prayer meetings and rock concerts. It is because I feel what is being projected upon me at all times. The joy is not my own and it is not my choice to feel everything thrown my way; rather it is a talent which has been cultivated over time. It has become a hallmark of my work and there is much work to be done.
There are not many like me. We are special; like fish at the bottom of the deepest ocean, we are the ones who see clearly where there is no light. Don’t think for a moment that this means we lack enlightenment. Like the blind, who use other senses to make up for a lack of visual input, we see with our other senses as well. Illumination, for us, is feeling and seeing things as they are, or as others see them, not as we wish they were.
I’m not sure what my own wishes for the world would be, if I had them. I require the input of those around me to tell me what is good or bad for the Earth and its inhabitants. I really don’t know the difference; I am passionately ambivalent about humanity, family, the environment, religion, work, or anything else which may be important to other people. Passion is clear to me only when it comes from outside myself. Global warming, animal cruelty, starving children, preventing AIDS, or helping others in any way, without the direct input of others, is impossible for me. Unless I am infected with a passionate empathy through someone else, I simply do not care.
Does that bother you? That I don’t care? Call me a pessimist, if you must; our tendency to see the world as it really is tends to make us seem that way. (Optimism or pessimism, black or white.) We call ourselves realists. The glass is half full, the glass is half empty … all I know is there is some sustenance in the glass, I don’t know when more will come, so I’d better make this bit last.
It’s taken me a long time to come to terms with the darkness. Some of us never do. The casualties of those who can’t face it are many; you can see them in the windows of mental asylums or on the streets, the casualties of a war they didn’t know existed until they fell into the trenches. Rare is the individual who can take the journey into their own soul, peeling back their own layers like an onion, tears flowing freely, until there is either the core of the person … or nothing. You can’t imagine how terrifying it is to find the latter, nor can you imagine truly knowing someone who has seen it.
I am one.
***
Scientists have discovered something called “dark matter,” which they say fills the spaces between subatomic particles. This theory has helped me deal with the space I found when I got to my core. If it has a name, dark matter, it must be something. Once you’ve seen the abyss that is the self, “I think, therefore I am” doesn’t quite apply. “I am not a void” is not something I can say with certainty, either.
Sociopaths are defined by their deeds. Those who have been clinically diagnosed are usually serial rapists or killers. Some of us, however, find that we can live productive, meaningful lives, all the while not caring in the traditional sense about those around us. I have taken recently to calling myself a “misanthropic Darwinist.” That is, I don’t care for you, your family, where you came from, where you are going, everyone who looks like you, and everything associated with your being. I usually say, “Don’t take it personally; I dislike you as much as I dislike everyone else.” It’s hard not to take that personally, isn’t it? It’s meant to be. Understand that all love is unrequited, accept my hatred, and move on. You are a successful human being if you do. Otherwise you are just another moth circling the flame.
Don’t hang on to me for clarification. You are likely to get a dose of the Karma you have coming to you. Yet here you are, reading along, as if there is some sacred or meaningful knowledge to glean from this. I’m game if you are.
We don’t act out. We don’t cry out for help. We don’t live lives of quiet desperation. We simply do what needs to be done. We suffer from the Burden of Enlightenment. This is a very special predicament and one which King Solomon referred to in Ecclesiastes: For with much wisdom comes much sorrow; the more knowledge, the more grief.
People learn to hate us for our wisdom, some for jealousy, but most because we are always right. I have penned a slogan for us, “It’s not that we can see through people, it’s that most people choose to be transparent.” We know who is bound to make mistakes before they know they’re capable of making them. We see who is worth saving and we try to steer them toward the path of success. We see who is not worth saving and we let them go, easily, as if we never cared at all – because we never did. We see who does not want to be saved and we leave them to their fate. If we were to suffer any sorrow at all, it comes from knowing the difference.
Of those we see whom we deem worth saving, they learn to hate our sight, our illumination, our ability to see them more clearly than they see themselves. We lob the truth at them and when the arrow hits its mark, it hurts. Flesh wound or bone-cutting, Zen Archers bring the truth one does not want to hear, but which needs to be heard.
I am one.
***
Those who survive the first onslaught are taken under wing. There aren’t many, but rarer still are those who take the next round. On that, I cannot elaborate.
What I can tell you is this: I do not care about my fellow human beings. I don’t mind disasters, natural or man-made, which cause an unusually high death count. I firmly believe that stupidity and incompetence comes in all races, creeds, religions, and orientations, and so I despise just about everyone on the planet based solely upon their stupidity and incompetence. Hence, in the traditional sense, we are considered evil. The people who mark us with the label don’t understand the gray areas in which we work. Dualistic belief – good vs. evil, right vs. wrong – are the only sides of which they can conceive, so when we are discovered to be the uncaring and unloving sociopaths we are, they call us heathen. Yet without the darkness, there is no light; without the pain, there is no pleasure; without the abyss, there is no universe.
Who am I? I am a functioning, productive member of society who consistently works for the downfall of those who don’t deserve to be where they are. I am an erudite, illuminated being who is at one with all and with nothing simultaneously. I am diplomatic when it serves my ends. I am self-serving, arrogant, and I know your place on the food chain. I will eat you alive. I can see through you.
I am one who knows.
I am one.
I AM.
***
The above is dedicated those who find themselves in the same predicament which initially inspired it; I’d prefer my vindication didn’t come at your expense, but please don’t hold it against me for reveling in it nonetheless.
This, too, shall pass.
I’ve never had a request take more than three songs.
If you like it, please donate. I’d hate to see my favorite station go under because people were too cheap to send $1.
I do it sometimes twice a month.
That’s how close I am to my goal. It will be the weight I was in 2003, between our brief stint in Wichita and going back to Albuquerque, and it is 22 pounds lighter than I was at this time last year.
What happens when you reach a goal? You get a new goal. Immediately, if not sooner. I have a few ideas to implement, including some light surgical touch-ups (mole removal, for one), and attempting to add more vegetables to our diet. The latter is more difficult than it sounds, since we both abhor most veggies.
Meanwhile, I’m trying to decide where to go shopping when those last two pounds go away.
I’m thinking this Saturday.
Tiger Woods’ Sex Fantasies ‘Not Normal’ is the headline here. The piece goes on to describe that Tiger “likes role-playing, he likes to be the guy in control and wearing a suit while there are girls performing girl-on-girl and guys entertaining guys.”
Voyeurism? Completely normal. Exhibitionism? Totally normal. Seeing that men and/or women enjoy themselves in a sexual context, that is ensuring everyone is having a good time?
NORMAL.
Preaching married monogamy while fucking around on your spouse? Also normal. There are people who are born for only having sex with one person their entire lives, but there are also people who don’t, won’t, or can’t. The reason Tiger is being treated like a sex addict is because he hid his activities from the wife he loves - the mother of his children - because she would not understand and would leave him if she knew.
I’m not saying his wife is at fault by any stretch; what I am saying is that one should not be “unequally yoked,” to quote the Bible (of all things). Radical honesty in a relationship requires that you’re up front about your needs, from the first date to the “I do” moment. If you can’t be honest with your potential spouse, you shouldn’t marry them. End of story.
If only Tiger - like Will Smith and Tilda Swinton - had chosen a partner who understands that sexual fantasies are great, but more importantly, that the sex act itself is NOT EVEN CLOSE to love …
Well, we wouldn’t have the celeb story of the year thus far, would we?
Come out, come out, wherever you are.
Just about the time I get a solid pity party started …
I was not a happy camper last night. Nor was I this morning. I had a lot of options for a Saturday evening, including going out to dinner or the club and/or inviting people over. I let all these plans go in favor of a “better offer” from my love.
Such an offer is, actually, better. Usually. But last night, he fell asleep around midnight.
Left to my own devices, I watched more Frisky Dingo than anyone should be allowed to watch in one sitting. It was a good distraction, too, until I got tired enough to go to bed. So I rousted The Maestro off of the couch and headed off to dreamland.
Except I couldn’t sleep. I had stereotypically girlie moments which made me mad at him at first, then mad at myself for having a completely emotional reaction to what amounts to nothing. Yet no matter how many times I told myself not to take it personally, I still did, and I awoke this morning kind of cranky.
I was wallowing, I admit it, but my love was tuned into it and he made me breakfast. He was just sweet as pie - his version of apologetic - then he laid down on the couch because he’s wasn’t feeling well. He’s cold in a warm room now, so it looks like a fever is coming on.
I sat quietly on the couch opposite him, reading up on my friend’s lives online, and I learned that my girlfriend has food poisoning. Like fever, vomiting, the works. And here I sit, unable to help either of them except if they ask for something specific I can provide.
I’m not disappointed in myself for thinking only about my own needs. That would be futile, since that’s what we as humans do. I wish I could say it will never happen again, but that would be a big lie.
What I can do, right this moment, is get the hell over myself.
Over and out.
Marcellus Wallace does, in fact, look like a bitch. Just ask Zed … oh, wait … he’s dead, baby … Zed’s dead.
Quentin Tarantino may not be the best film maker of all time, but he does - by far - write some of the best dialogue I have ever heard in movies. If you haven’t seen Inglorious Basterds yet, do it. It’s a hoot, a holler, and I wish I could write conversations/monologues like that.
I’m sure Dennis Hopper and Christopher Walken took their roles in True Romance when they read their respective character’s tête-à-tête scene. It comprises all of perhaps five minutes of the film, but it is BRILLIANT (all caps, no apology).
The best part for me? The day I realized Tarantino was the weird, borderline creepy nerd-boy working the counter at the video store in Hermosa Beach where my best friend and I would rent tapes in the early 1980s. Actually “weird, borderline creepy” doesn’t begin to describe him. He was … obsessed. That’s it: Completely obsessed and creepy - totally, unrepentantly creepy - about it.
You know, kind of like his characters.
Being a fool for a woman such as yourself is always the right thing to do.
It’s that time again, boys and girls! As always, if you think the Zen Arrow is about you, don’t be so touchy…
Knowing a weakness doesn’t automatically lead to exploitation. That particular leap is made by choice.
Dogs and cats get stroked daily, not people.
What you say to the most beautiful girl in the world is, “Hello.”
Anything else you want us to carry, while you’re at it?
Tolerance, love, forgiveness … how is it those particular days in Sunday school get missed most?
Has anyone ever noticed when a void has gone missing?
If the boundaries moved, maybe the limit wasn’t set in a strong enough foundation.
When teaching a lesson, be sure the lesson isn’t your own.
I’d pat your back, but I’d have to work around the knives.
Degenerating into confrontation just means you’re doing it wrong.
The opinion wasn’t asked for, so why are you upset it was ignored?
You can’t invade my dreams, but I can invade yours. (Wanna see? Just keep it up.)
The dead bear no grudges. That is the ultimate peace.
We shouldn’t even be having this conversation … not just because you’re close-minded, but because I have legs.
Sharing is not always caring.
If your ego really is that hungry, feed it your personal demons. It will never starve again.
… but if the shoe fits …