Whut be da haps.

I was going to take a class at UNLV. In my profile (which now that I mention it I should probably update a bit) I mention certain insecurities which would perhaps a class would help. Let's discuss.

I have a moderately psychic friend who once told me that she had a premonition once that might be of interest to me. She was walking out of the barnes and Noble when something caught her eye on the way out. It was a book that I wrote so she picked it up and thought 'Now when did this happen?'

She told me about it later and then proceeded to nag me about not writing it yet. Her nagging continues to this day despite my lax efforts.

Last summer I was in a writing contest and ran out of momentum, but not before acheiving a modest amount of satisfactory work, though it could definitely be made better. I find out that with a little encouragement, a reasonable deadline, an inspiring theme and the aid of several gallons of legal addictive stimulants, I actually like burning the midnight oil in a frenzy of inspiration. I won't say it comes natural, but it's just under the skin. Most of my ideas incubate and one such idea actually turned out alright.

Since then I've had ideas incubating, but i've done little writing. More importantly I've been reading a lot more. I just finished 'A clockwork orange' and 'The Electric kool aid acid test' and I'm reeling.

I was tidying up my room a bit with the aid of a remote control bulldozer and amongst the knick-knacks forming the landscape was the literary issue of a local weekly publication. I read the first place winner of their literary contest. The theme was so overused it had stretch-marks, the dialogue brought to mind day old bagghettes, the characters seemed haphazardly fashioned out of cardboard, and then there was the 'surprise ending'. You could tell the guy wanted to put a smart twist in there, but he only succeeded in giving it scoliosis.

That sealed it. I'm throwing my hat into the ring. I'm still not confident in my abilities, but we'll see where I can go with this.

To bring this all full circle, I said that I ALMOST took a class at UNLV. My 800 verbal SAT allowed me to not only clear their admissions, but let me skip two of the required english courses. The more I thought about it though, the more I had to learn my lesson from the writing contest. I was up against some talented people who were ever so casually producing work much better than mine. Were this to happen again I might get discouraged and give it up. Then having a teacher pouring over my work and assigning it's worth in such a perfunctory manner is another blow I'm not sure I could handle. Plus, with only a few notable exceptions I hate college kids. But not half as much as I hate college professors.

Finally, I was having an early morning dinner with a friend of mine and discussing where I go from here. The conversation went something like this:

"Sooooo, why do you need to go to college to write?"

'Well, I want to learn how to write.'

"Can't you just do that by writing?"

'But by going through class I can develop my style.'

"Don't you do that by just writing?"

'But I want to get better.'

"Yeah. You do that by writing."

So anyway, I have a goal to be published inside of three months. Wish me luck.

Inner Narative, or; an exercise in futility

I sit in in the coldness of night afire with too much thought and not enough sleep. Worlds dance around me, people and places and feelings and stories all shifting, evolving, becoming, with or without me.

I am in a foot race to get this all down. My fingers are flying, dancing, racing, lunging, plunging, ravaging, sacking, pillaging, commanding, wreaking havoc with the keys. The keys themselves offer click, crash, snap, boom, ack, pop, clack, snicker, tick tick tick tick tick...

I am writing in a furious storm and going nowhere. I am swimming in the abyss moving about just to delight in the feeling of it all washing over me like cool water. Nothing will satiate me. Nothing will slake me. Too many words. Too many emotions. Need more sleep. Need more coffee. Need more love. Need more freedom. Need more chocolate. Need more More MORE MORE!!!

Wow. All that in two minutes. Thanks for coming along for the ride.

It has been some timne since my last post, and while I have shamefully not been maintaining this blog, several things have happened, but one currently notable.

Over the course of fifteen minutes I decided, then arranged to spend the Thanksgiving Holiday with my family in California. Almost as satisfying as the knwoledge that I'll be with my family is the knowledge that I'm making everything happen on my own. There is a tangible feeling of accomplishment in being productive.

Fifteen Minutes. When was the last time you set in motion a course of events so quickly? Why not try it more often?

A love letter I DID write.

Its been a while since I’ve written anything, or at least added any content to this page. Its not for lack of inspiration, but rather I've had quite a bit to get though. Three weeks ago I went to a bar and wrote some of my thoughts down. I've strung these thoughts together and this is what I got.


I'm nine beers into the night, or the rough equivalent of four shots of a tolerable whiskey. I've long past the point where my face feels numb to the touch. My skin is numb. My mind is numb. Even my tongue is numb. So how is it that the thought of you still pains me?

Its an interesting development. I don’t typically drink all that much. Yet here I sit in a state of alcohol induced euphoria, commiserating with myself in my loneliness.

The blankness of the page speaks to me in honest tone, and therefore requires honesty in return. I am lost without you. I am lost without you. Without you, what is life? How can I claim to be alive without the echo of our heartbeats to pronounce the fact? Who am I to dare exist without your smile to sanction me?

I feel the need to fight, to quarrel, to destroy, and in doing so be consumed in destruction. It is easier for me to endure the basest degradation than to continue in such slavery to your memory.

I cannot bare to be strong anymore. To think I have withstood blows and slurs and all the manners of savagery only to fall helpless at your touch. My lips quake and become parched in the absence of your kiss. It is the balm I need to sooth my troubled soul.

Tragic. That I needed too much drink and time to think to realize my utter dependency on you. I need you. In your presence I need. IN your absence I need.

In your presence I need to sing and dance. I need to exhaust the fates which brought us together. I need to stop time and savor you. I need to experience your taste, your voice, the warmth of your breath in the heat of passion, the suppleness of your skin under my stewardship. Most importantly I need to find the soul deep within your eyes, and in doing so, find my rest, my solace, my serenity.

In my absence I need to toil, to fight, to strive, to bite. I need to destroy. I need to be consumed, so that I may rise like the phoenix and be born again from my own ashes. You hold within your bosom my sacred purpose and without you I must find some other cause to champion.

Your kiss is the wellspring of life to me. Without it, how am I to slake this tortuous thirsting which drains even the very soul from my marrow? So kiss me. Touch me. Let me worship you. Because I need you. Because you deserve it. Because alone we are the stuff of greatness, but together we wield so awesome a power as to even halt the passing of time and create entire worlds for us to share to the exclusion of all else.

Look at me. I drone on like a fool. Then it must be love, for only love will turn a wise man to such foolish prattling. Be with me. Assuage this need in me. Have the courage to love me as I do you.

I'll never forget the time...

We all go back a long way, and quite naturally we begin telling war stories, the ones that inevitably begin with "I'll never forget the time..."

We don't see each other that often anymore, and we haven't seen each other's parents in years, and there is the southern custom of asking about one's parents.

It goes, "How's your mamma and 'en (and them)?"- which translates into, " In what condition are your mother and your other first of kin?"

We took turns talking about our parents. "My mother puts terrible guilt trips on me," somebody said. " I'll call and tell her I'm on my way shopping, and she'll say, 'I wish I had the money to go shopping.'"

"Mine does the same thing," said somebody else. " I won a trip to Las Vegas from my company and I called my mother and told her about it.

"She said, 'I guess that means you won't be coming to see me in a long time.'

"I said, 'Mama, it's just for a week.' She said,'I might not be here in another week.'

"She's in perfect health, but I called her every day from Vegas just to make sure she hadn't contracted some sort of terrible disease."

I said my mother still worries about whether or not I'm wearing clean underwear because I might be in a wreck and the doctors would seemy dirty undershorts.

"My mother does that, too," somebody else spoke up, "but it all means they really love us."

It does. It's funny how our attitudes change about our parents as we got older and they got older. These people were our enemies when we were children.

They were the ones who made us eat our vegetables, madeus go to bed earlier than we wanted to, fussed over our grades, lectured us and wouldn't allow us out of the house with dirty underwear.

But you forget all that, and you would miss the guilt trips if they weren't around to send you on them.

"Tell them about your dad and the buiscuits," one friend asked another.

"God, it still makes me cry," she began.

"Every morning when I go to work, I go right by my father's house. And every morning- I've been doing this for years- I stop by and drink coffee with him and he makes biscuits for me because he doesn't want me going to work on an empty stomach.

"One day I overslept, and I knew I wouldn't be able to stop by and see him. The weather was awful. It was cold and it was raining.

"So I called my dad and told him I wouldn't have time to stop by. He said, 'You won't?' I could hear the disappointment in his voice, but I said, 'Daddy, I'll stop by tomorrow morning, so don't worry about it.'

"So I get in the car and I start driving to work. As soon as I rounded the corner to drive the past the house, I saw this figure standing out in the cold and rain with a sack in his hand.

"It was Daddy. He was out there waiting for me so I would still have my biscuits."

Everybody in the room was in tears when she finished. 'Tis the season to be thankful. Thanks for the parental love, the purest love of all.

Revelation

I went to church today. That makes four times since I've moved to Las Vegas. Most 'non-practicing' believers who don't attend on anything resembling a consistent basis usually come for the holidays, Easter and Christmas. Obviously I bucked this trend, but I personally don't count myself as a believer because I don't think you can be a believer and not practice. It may sound like a funny distinction to draw, but I just feel like pretending otherwise would be to demean by association the faith of those who do actually live their beliefs. Could you honestly call yourself a lawyer if all you ever do is crack a few books and file a few briefs?

There are about five christian churches within the mile and a half between my apartment and the library I work at. This is because there are over 300 different denominations within protestantism catering to almost every interpretation of the bible and theological fetish. If the devil truly can quote scripture to his purpose, there's probably a church or two out there who would more than willingly justify welcoming him as long as he tithed and filled up any empty space on their pews.

Let me first say there are a lot of people-consumed with-hate who call themselves christians. I defy them for the same reason I do not call myself a believer, being that I refuse to slander those of good heart and true faith through such association. In their defiance of the word they prove they are not christians, but zealots. The hallmark of a zealot is a person who uses righteous anger to justify their hatred. These persons of hate slander the message they claim to uphold. They are wolves in sheep's clothing, and drive others away from the flock. I would challenge anyone who believes caring for a woman who has an abortion makes you complicit in the murder of a baby by asking whether Jesus caring enough for the adulteress to ask 'He who is without sin' to cast the first stone and spare her in doing so, made him complicit to adultery?

For all the problems in the christian faith, I deeply respect the basis of love and respect that its founded on. For every bible thumping zealot chastising homosexuals and women who get abortions, I know twenty christians who practice the love, tolerance, and equanimity that Jesus practiced. I believe in this concept and that all spiritual growth comes along these lines and is interconnected. Jesus provides an excellent model for spiritual growth which- depending on what you believe- is either echoed or an echo in other spiritual traditions. I have a very good friend of mine who is a member of the self-realization fellowship and he is still astounded that he can open up the teachings of Paramahansa Yogananda and find the exact passage he needs to guide him when he needs it. Perhaps its providence, perhaps its just the application of a spiritual context which allows him to move beyond his limiting influences. Either way when you open yourself up and ask for spiritual guidance you will find it, because just as science proves entire universes can exist within a single speck of sand, so too does the profound lay within the mundane.

That's what brought me to church today. I have been going through a spiritual crisis lately because of a writing contest I was recently involved in. In the process of the contest it made me confront certain parts of myself that I don't necessarily like to deal with. It also brought me face to face with whatever divine power I might yet possess while affecting within me a profound sense of my own limitations. It feels like the gauntlet has been thrown down and I must now either take it or walk away. So I opened myself up and walked down the street, fishing for guidance. I passed a Catholic curch and an Evangelical Free church before feeling compelled to enter the Methodist church across from UNLV.

My grandparents were/are Methodists, and my dad was raised in the Methodist church. Despite this family tradition and being raised in church, I had only been to a Methodist church four times in my life, and one of those times was to celebrate the fortieth aniversary of my grandparents singing in the choir. This particular church offers a 'contemporary' christian service which caters to people going through a mid-life crisis and a younger crowd with attention spans formed by years of video games and television. I've been avoiding this one because somehow breaking into a guitar solo in the middle of 'Be still my Soul' seems to be missing the point. Church should provide spiritual fellowship, but it should not just be the place you go and hang out on sundays. That's why I've always preferred the early morning services which cater to the older generations. I like to think that I'm enough of a spiritual grown-up not to require the litergy to be spoon fed to me. That and I've always liked old people. They tend to be much more empathetic.

The sermon was exactly what I needed. It was taken from Hebrews chapters 11&12 and made one essential point. There is a difference between trying and training to do something. I have been trying to do many things lately. Some things I've been trying to do for a while now without much success. I realize now that it is because I tried that I failed. Trying is expending an effort in the hope of a given outcome. Training is preparing yourself so that given the opportunity you will acheive a given outcome. If your goal is to run a sub-four minute mile, you can either try to run it and kill yourself in the mean-time more than likely without accomplishing your goal, or you can train yourself eventually reaching your goal through perseverence. It is simply not enough to try to do anything. In the course of spiritual evolution which we all go through, natural tendency only takes you so far. You have to make a committed effort to become a better person.

I also realize that I've been looking at things in the wrong way. You don't get a choice whether or not to accept the challenge. The challenge is upon you whether you like it or not. Life is how you respond to that challenge. So far I think I've failed.

A love letter I should have written...

I spend most of my time with my eyes shut, dreaming of you - lovely little cameos of you flitting past, and full-length feature films. I remember things you said, and sweet things you did. I can spend hours like this - eating lotuses, smelling poppies - hours I can hardly believe have passed.

I went to a concert tonight, but the music heightened my emotion to such a fever pitch that I had to leave, and go to a bar. A bad idea: everybody was there with their lover. Only I was alone, a solitary Adam before the creation of Eve. Except I wasn't in paradise. Far from it. I caught your reflection in the mirror. Even the beer bubbled with your humor, the way your face lights up when you laugh. The bar was haunted by you - I had to leave.

When I got home, I sat for a long time in the dark, wanting you, thinking hollow thoughts, containing only your absence. There must be more empty space in my head than I ever thought. I am going to bed now, so I can dream of you.

To make sure I do, the last thing I'll do is kiss your picture, and wrap my empty arms around the idea of you, and fall fast asleep. Holding onto my fantasy of you, I'll feel that with each breath something leaves me, and goes to you. And there I'll conjure up your face across a candlelit table, holding hands walking down a street in Barcelona at midnight, your wet skin pressing against mine on an abandoned beach in Haiti. In my dreams we are the lovers that others gaze on enviously.

Why are our pleasures so short and interrupted, and our absenses so long and unbroken?

Truckstop

The clock on the wall sneers 3:42 and there he sits on that old familiar diner stool, its red vinyl long since patched with duck tape. His eyes glance down at the tepid coffee and the half-eaten apple pie, which is by now less a la mode than a la flood.

"Can I get you anything else Finch?"

His real name was Charlie Greenbaum, but everyone knew him as Finch. That was his sobriquet on the CB radio, his trucking name. He chose that name because when he was a little boy he saw 'To Kill A Mockingbird' and wanted to be just like Atticus when he grew up. By the time he grew up, he had himself become a lawyer, and not a bad one. In the beginning he was consumed with the battle of right versus wrong and every litigious engagement took on the feel of a morality play. He started dating another lawyer. They even had their own practice. Then something changed. For years, he had quibbled over moral vagaries and technicalities with crooked judges and sleazy lawyers for the sake of clients who, even if not guilty, were anything but innocent. After so much of this, he realized he was selling his soul. He felt like a priest in the middle ages peddling indulgences,” Sin much, or grievously? Call the prayer offices of Hoffman and Greenbaum. We'll put in a good word for you with the powers that be, sparing you guilt and eternal damnation! Now isn't that worth forty percent?' Whatever happened to Atticus Finch? What had happened to the honorable southern lawyer sustained by his righteous convictions?

He began to hate his job. He began to hate the humanity that sustained his job. Worst of all, he began to hate himself for being party to it for so long. That is why one day ten years ago, after saving a client who had absconded with several thousand in ill-gotten gains from the company till on the meagerest of technical points, he cancelled all appointments and typed his letter of resignation. When he got home, he unplugged his telephones and drew the shades. For a week, his only contact with the outside world were the morning and late night talk shows and a brief visit from the sheriff to make sure he was alive and if so, serve him with papers. Turns out his partner was looking to legally acquire sole ownership of the firm. None of it offered much in the way of abating his newfound disillusionment.

One day he saw a commercial for a truck driving school serving as an interlude in the cable rebroadcast of ''Smoky and the Bandit'. How could he refuse such cunning strategic marketing? A month later his name was off the law firm, he had his class D operator's license and was heading a load of industrial fertilizer to Fresno, thinking of his ex-partner the whole time. To this day, he couldn't help but think of the name 'Hoffman' whenever he passed downwind of a feedlot.

He liked his new job. He was only required to drive a certain number of hours a day, which let him catch up with his reading. He even had a huge sleeper cabin all to himself. The clincher though, was that the only people that existed either worked in stops along the way, sent him his paychecks, or were fellow truckers, and all of which occurred with comfortable rarity. He even garnered a certain taste for country music on dull stretches of road where the same old hills roll for a hundred miles.

A few things happen when you criss-cross the country enough times. You learn the roads and the best places to stop between your destinations. At that point, Charlie knew from personal experience practically every truck stop, greasy spoon or rest stop vending machine where you could grab a meal after 2am in sixteen states. Nevertheless, this one was his favorite. He stopped here at every opportunity, about twice a week, for the last seven years. The reason was Dotty.

"What? Oh, no thanks, I'm fine."

"You've barely touched your food. Something wrong?"

"Naw, I'm fine."

"Wasn't talking about you. I was thinking about having some pie later and if you can't stomach it, I might just have the cheesecake."

"Oh, really?"

"No, but if you're not going to be honest with me, I'm not going to be honest with you either. Now finish up, you don't look like you've been eating enough as it is."

"Yes Mom."

"That's right, and don' think you're too big or I'm too old for me to take you over my knee..." She walked away cackling. He just grinned.

He had kept to himself for much of the first few years when his company started shipping to a new client roughly twelve miles east of west bumfuck. He had been to the truck stop several times before but he had stuck to his business, ordered and left, usually in under twenty words. His friendship with Dotty came purely by accident. Really.

An over-excitable teenager in a red camaro had been running in his blind spot and tried passing him on the highway two miles from the stop. Either oncoming traffic was faster, or his acceleration was slower than the driver of the camaro had expected. In order to avoid it the red camaro had cut him off, misjudging the distance between Charlie's front and the back of the car ahead of him in the mean time. The lead car tapped on the brakes for whatever reason, the camaro was surprised and slammed on his, and there wasn't enough distance or time to stop an eighteen-wheeler with a full load. The camaro took it hard on the backside and lost control, veering off into the other lane. The driver overcorrected his steering and flipped a few times off the shoulder.

The closest paramedics were ten miles away and there wasn't much left of him by the time they got there. While he was cleared of any wrongdoing, the law and a man's emotion judge his actions by two different standards. Later he would find out from the insurance report that the kid was hyped on meth and had been driving cross-country almost non-stop. He would find out that the kid had a history of driving erratically. He would find out the kid had been ticketed twice and almost lost his license for wreckless endangerment. Almost.

That night he had no way of knowing any of it. It probably wouldn't have helped anyway. That night, it was another evil act he had been party to and exactly the type of thing that he had tried to get away from when he became a trucker.

In every small-town truck stop there are a lot of folks who are just passing through, but there are always regulars and 'Finch' was one of them. They had never spoken casually, but Dotty knew by heart what he would order -scrambled eggs and a coffee- and what song he would request on the little jukebox on the counter. -'Much too young (to feel this damn old)' off the Garth Live album- So customary was all of this that when Dotty saw his truck pulling in, she'd reflexively get the line-cook started on some runny eggs and have the cup of coffee waiting and the song playing for him when he entered. He'd never say so aloud, but he always appreciated the effort and always left a fifty percent tip for the courtesy.

The night of the accident, he decided to put into the truck stop to make the call to the agency telling them what happened. For insurance purposes, they made him recount the accident. It took all his resolve not to choke on the words. When he was finished he hobbled over to his usual spot, a red Vinyl barstool liberally patched with duck tape. (He never liked the noise it made when he sat on any of the other ones) All he could do was stare at his paper napkin.

"I'm sorry, but you took so long in there that your food got cold. I'll have Pete make you some more eggs and pour you a fresh cup."

She quickly returned and set the coffee in front of him. A heavy hand half-heartedly reached for it knocking the scalding brown liquid all over the counter and sending the small ceramic cup crashing to the ground. Perhaps it was the crash or maybe it was just the seething liquid in his fly, but whatever it was he became animate once again, if only for the moment.

"GOD, WHAT ELSE?!?" Charlie was usually a very quiet man, but his frustrations had found an outlet through the violence of the spill and his emotions would not be denied this one ostensible opportunity to vent. Charlie sunk into the stool next to his. He put his fists on the table and bore his forehead into them, stifling a war cry against the injustice of the world.

After Dotty had calmly cleaned up the mess, she called to the line cook.

"Hey, Pete! I'm on break."

She then proceeded to cut two generous slices of apple pie, dalloping one with ice cream. She made her way over to the other side of the counter and over to him.

"With or without?"

His head grew heavier as the rage passed, but he managed to look up at her.

"What?"

"With or without ice cream. I didn't know if you liked your pie with or without, so I brought one of each."

"I'm not paying for this."

"That's right, now take a bite and tell me what's bothering you."

"Nothing." He felt like an ass for being so childish and for lying when he was so obviously sullen. Grown men didn't do such things, but right now, he wasn't too much of a mind to care.

"You know Finch, it is Finch right?"

"How did you know?"

"It's on your shirt, but never mind that. I've been here since this place opened up all those many years ago. In my time I've seen a lot of people passing through, and some of them pretty regular. Tonight when you came in here earlier, you were like Jacob and the Archangel. I wasn't going to say anything then because it wouldn't have been polite. Now after that little outburst I know you have something that needs talking about."

"I don't think I could."

"Then it's settled, you need the one with the ice cream." She pushed the plate towards him. "Have a bite. Its good pie, I made it myself only this afternoon. It might make you feel better." He just stared blankly at her for a moment. "Please, if nothing else do it to make this old woman happy."

Half sardonically he retorted "Oh you don't look a day over eighty-five."

"I'm sixty-eight and you're not going to get you off the hook by trying to hurt my feelings. Now, take a bite and let me know what you think."

She just wouldn't quit! He took a bite onto his fork and she was right. It was good pie. It did make him feel better. Most importantly, it helped him share the night's events. He just took a bite whenever the words seemed to be stuck in his throat. She listened intently and gasped when she heard about the camaro. Afterwards, she reached across the table and took his hand, relating to him a story that happened a few years back when someone tried to rob the truck stop. A trucker chased the would-be bandit off, but not before a stray bullet hit a server, a friend of hers. Dotty had tried to help, but she ended up dying in her arms. It was their third week on the job. Dotty related how she had felt helpless and angry, but mostly helpless. She reassured him that it was alright and sometimes there just wasn't anything you could do.

Her vocalization was everything his conscience had been trying to tell him all along, but she made it real. It was too much. His tears seemed to have a will of their own and would not be held back any longer. When he left that night he still felt bad for the kid, but part of him felt fresh, renewed. He hadn't felt that way in a long time.

He became a trucker so that he wouldn't have to make any permanent friends, but from that day forth he had come here. There was a strange feeling now when he entered this diner. It became his sanctuary. The cheap old clock, the squeaky vinyl, the lights that were always too bright and the stale of cigarette smoke, all of it became sacred to him. In short, it felt like home.

He visited Dotty when he was around, always ordering the same cup of coffee and runny eggs, and always there was a slice of apple pie waiting for him at the end. He still didn't talk much, but every occasionally, when she didn't have any other customers to attend to, Dotty talked to him. She liked to talk about the news of the day. On a slow day, she liked to talk about the truck stop or tell stories of her children. The whole time she would nag him intermittently -when he first found out she had children he just laughed to himself and thought Hey, at least she comes by it honestly All the while he'd just smile and listen intently, nodding his head. Over the years, he learned a lot about her and the truck stop.

He learned that her real name was Dorothy, but that when she started here they shortened it to 'Dotty' because it sounded friendlier. She said she didn't care because it suited her more anyway. The truck stop was partially funded by the state as a way to encourage commerce and help the local economy. He learned that it had switched owners and been renovated three times, but the faucets in the ladies' room continue to squeak to this day! A hand-full of women had given birth to their baby's in the diner when the closest hospital was twenty miles away. She herself had delivered two of them. There was a fire, a drought, and a flood in no particular order.

There was even a wedding! Hers, to be exact. She married the line cook before he was sent to Vietnam and went MIA. She had lived a whole lifetime in these walls, and there were pictures hanging on them to prove it. Mostly she just did what you could to 'give travelers a place to fill their belly and nurse their aching soles.' as she once put it. He was never quite sure whether 'soles' was meant to have a double meaning, but that's how he took it.

That brings him back to the moment, filling his belly and nursing his 'sole'.

(editor's note: I really don't know where I should take this from here. Any comments or suggestions would be greatly appreciated.)

Their Day

It was their day.

Two years ago on July Fourth was the first time they made love.

They had been seeing each other exclusively for three weeks. She had wanted to do it well before that, but he had his hesitations. It wasn't that he was shy or prudish or unaffectionate. They knew each other as friends before they started going out. In the middle of their first date, he took a reprieve in the middle of cloud watching to draw her close and they kissed for literally an hour. He hesitated taking that next step because she never really seemed to open up to him. Even in their most private moments there was always that piece of her that was guarded and that wasn't how he wanted it to be between them. He was not the type of guy who would sacrifice his ideals for a quick roll in the hay.

So it was on the fourth of July that he sat there with her watching Ever After. Consumed with thoughts of how becoming her own pair of wings would be on her, he barely noticed when she stood up. Without undue preamble she took him by the hand and led him into the bedroom. Once inside, she captured his eyes.

That night she had worn a comfortable pair of jeans and a pure cotton shirt. She was always wearing things like that. She told him once that she liked wearing t-shirts because they were always soft and comfortable, like she was dressing herself in white rose petals. At that moment she began plucking them one by one and allowed the petals to fall to the floor at her feet. In a short time she was standing bare before him, with only the gossamer glow of the moon gracing her skin. She was still, waiting for acceptance or rejection at his touch.

He was breathless. He had of course had a reasonable idea what she looked like under her clothes, but he refused to take that which could only be given. Until that moment she had always been ensconced in her own protections and insecurities. This was the first time she had truly surrendered herself to him. She had never looked so beautiful. No woman ever had.

Three hours later they lay there, bodies entangled. Neither one wanted to break the connection. He grinned and she cried.

"Gee, I hope I wasn't THAT bad!" He mused.

That got a chuckle out of her and she nestled herself more closely into him.


Two years later he found himself sitting sitting in another apartment, across town, relieving the humidor on his desk of another cohiba in his own ritualistic fashion. He admires the shape and luster of its wrapping. He draws the cigar beneath his nose and allows the smell to fill his nose. He rolls the cigar between his fingers and feels the smoothness of the wrapper. He listens for a crinkle, the sign of a poorly rolled cigar, but finds nothing unsatisfactory. He poors an ounce of rum from the faux-crystal decanter into a double-shot glass. In it he lightly dips the end of the cigar, only long enough to not spill the rum or soak the tobacco. He then clips the end of the cigar and lets it rest in his left hand. With his right hand, he passed the rum beneath his nose and knocks back the shot taking time to savor the warmth of the amber liquid dispersing like insatiable fire through his chest.

Now came the reason behind the ritual. He brought the cigar to rest between his teeth, never letting it touch his lips. He strikes a match, touches it to the end of the cigar and draws first breath. He watches as the fire dances on the end of his cigar. He watches the trail of smoke rising up to heaven as a declaration of the burnt offering. With this final sacred acknowlegement he draws the cigar to his lips. First contact was always barely a brush against the half-parted lips. Ah, but the second touch is magic.

It is on second contact that his lips commit to the draw and seem to fuse with the cigar. When the bitter shock of the rum meets the waiting suppleness of whetted lips in that first moment of realization, it almost seems too rough, too garish. As the touch lingers on his lips, what first seemed vulgar now becomes intoxicating. He is compelled to suck the marrow from it all the more desperately. He does so with a moan of satisfaction.

He had known her in the same fashion, and with the same intimacy as this cigar. He had admired her simple, unadorned beauty. He knew the fragrant blossom of her smell. His fingers had traced along her every curvature and drank of the suppleness of her skin. He knew the chime of her voice and had listened to her searching for some indication that she was too good to be true. He had found nothing. He had dressed, and undressed her and he had lain with her. He had tasted her. He had felt her warmth against the cold of night. In short, he had been inspired by her. Theirs was something unique, something special, and something sacred.

He had never smoked around her. She would have thought it was disgusting. She would have said he was killing himself. Now she probably wouldn't care. Now she'd probably save such worried entreaties for him. He pined for her, but all he had were these cigars and the ritual. Every time he smoked one he made love to her again. When his lips finally touched a new cigar it was their first kiss once more. She would have said he was killing himself, but what a sweet way to go.

Usually he paid little attention to the clock on his desk, but as he cast his glance downward he was charmed by it. It seemed to linger in that moment with him, desperately holding on to eleven fifty-nine. It held that moment for what seemed like hours. Eventually the clock surrendered to the greater will of destiny and the silly little red sticks arranged themselves to signal midnight.

It was no longer their day.

Yea, though I walk through the valley of the shadow of death...

I'm going through a very dark period right now. What brought this on was a discussion I was having with another friend regarding transcendental meditation and the different levels and planes of existence. He said that of the material, astral, and causal planes, we tend to draw either the good or the bad out of the universe, depending entirely on what we project outward.

Through what little study I've done in comparative religion, I know that Christianity considers man inherently sinful and says we can only achieve righteousness through god. I know that Islam says that man is inherently good, but is despoiled by outside influences and must therefore reject the evil in the world. I know that Judeaism says that man is neither good nor evil, but must choose righteousness consciously. I've always held closest to that last perception.

I've always had a lot of friends who've brought out either the best or the worst in me. Lately I've been remembering the second type.

I had a friend once who was a lot like me. He loved his family very deeply. His loyalty was unfaltering. His sense of humor was unflappable. He was a big ole redneck with a strong sense of justice. He liked women and whiskey and he was tough as nails. In fact, he was the last guy to hand me my ass in a fight. Needless to say we got along famously.

One day we were sitting in a take out place waiting for our pizzas to get ready and he asked me if I had ever killed somebody. I answered him honestly and told him,"Not directly." Something really seemed to be bothering him, so I told him to spill it.

"Can you keep a secret?" I told him I could. He then went on to relate to me how two years ago his mom was seeing this one guy. He was a real prince too, he beat her and got drunk a lot. His mom kept telling him not ot do anything, but one time he beat her to within an inch of her life. He couldn't let that pass.

So one day he walked up to the ass-hole's car with his 9mm at his side. Without pause or precursor he put two into the side of his head. The cops thought it was an attempted carjacking and closed the case. He told me what it felt like. He told me what it looked like and how it smelled when certain flecks hits the hot upholstery and started to bake. I was not there when it happened, but I knew exactly how he felt. He told me how it got to him at times, but that he'd do it again if he had to.

I couldn't blame him. I know that there have been times where I've wanted to kill and could justify doing it. Its not as difficult as some people might think. When someone is so vile to your loved one they cease being human. They are beasts walking upright. No different than shooting a rabid wolf.

Like him, I have had both the inclination and the opportunity. Unlike him, I have simply chosen not to. I can't say exactly what has held me back. but then I've always been perhaps too sympatico.

During a darker period of my life I had a room-mate who was both a gang-member and a satanist. This made for some interesting night-time discussions. He decribed organizing the death of some enemies and seemed like he was always for his own violent demise to come. I once tore another (usually docile) friend off him just before he would've killed the satanist. The satanist didn't even put up the pretense of a fight. He just stared into his attacker's eyes. I knew immediately why he did it and it was my first clue to understanding him. He didn't care if he died or not, but if he was going to, he wanted his eyes to haunt and torment his killer.

I asked him once why he believed as he did. For an hour and a half he described to me what his life was like. He said his life was cursed. He described to me the constant pain that afflicted him since he was young and how every time he fell asleep it felt like dying. He described to me how he saw disembodied spirits arise and torment the living when he slept. He described the ghosts of the men he killed stalking him, waiting for his turn to fall. He told me how he could wrap himself in seven blankets and still be chilled to the bone. Throughout all this I listened. I didn't say a word. Though I had never experienced these things for myself, I knew exactly how he felt.

In the end it always comes down to a choice between hate or love, lonliness or syncronisity, fear or faith. I was friends with both of them because I recognized myself in them. I know when faced with the same decisions I would be tempted and would be quite capable of making the same decisions. I am just as dark a beast as those two. I've just chosen the high road more often than not. What scares me is that I'm not strong enough to say I always will when it counts. That's what scares me.

I’ll start where we agree. We both believe that the rich nations should not impose economic policies on poorer countries which they would not adopt for themselves.We disagree in that I think we should open our markets as well, and you seem to think that's a bad idea.

Consider this...

Britain has every incentive in the world to get it's beef from New Zealand. The high amount of arable land means that it takes less resources to produce better beef. Its also safer, more sanitary and more animal friendly because the animals are allowed to roam and feed on higher quality food. Its cheaper because land is cheap. Ecologically, the land isn't overgrazed and (since the government has stopped subsidizing fertilizer) industrial fertilizers which are notorious for their ill-effects to the environment and contaminating underground water supplies are rarely used. In short, New Zealand has a clear comparative advantage in the beef market.

It would make a lot of sense for Britain to import all it's beef, yet she doesn't. You see, Britain has cattle farms, too. They're notorious for being cramped, world class progenitors of pollution, and for low quality/high cost beef. Worse, its unsafe. Its been a common practice in such 'feed-lots' to save money by thinning out the feed with saw-dust, raw sewage or even road-kill. (Anyone who has lived in Kansas should know of the practice)

What happens when you feed meat to an herbivore? You get foot and mouth disease, BSE (bovine spongiform encephalitis) and its human variant CJD (Creutzfeldt-Jakob disease). All are not only too common in Britain, but have originated in the British beef industry. 180,000 cases of BSE have been reported in Britain alone and another 1,800 cases reported in foreign markets due to lax regulatory accountability. Moreover when people eventually die the farmers are not penalized for their harmful actions, but rather compensated for the loss of their cows which now have to be destroyed. The farmers are getting paid either way. Subsidization leads to a frightening and dangerous lack of accountability.

Not only is British beef more dangerous, but it also presents a form of regressive taxation on the poor. Because of the greater resource expenditure to raise cattle and 'protect' prices and farmers, beef is incredibly expensive. Two to three times as much in fact. Between this and other protections, this means a food budget for a struggling family of four amounting to 300 dollars a month now goes half as far. Either they suck up this extra expense and pay more, which prohibits them from otherwise saving, investing, or using that money, or it has to make do with half as much food.

Been there. It sucks.

I'm not saying that company's are angels of beneficence, they're not. A company is at root a bunch of people working together to further their own interests. To that effect Adam Smith once said that there were two things needed to ensure the survival of capitalism. The first was an educated populace to sustain it's advancement. The second was the separation of private interests from politics. Not only do I agree, but that's my whole point.

If you wanted to pick an example of how protectionism helps an industry grow and at the same time ask me to evaluate it on a socio-political level, you could have picked a much better example than the cotton industry. Harvesting cotton is very labor intensive work, even with Eli Whitney's cotton gin. The cotton industry in America thusly capitalized on enslavement. This supported the complimentary industry of the slave trade, led the south to secede from the union to protect the economic interests of the few, and fostered the hatred and poor race relations which has soured American politics for over two hundred and fifty years. How's that for an externality?

The ultimate power of enforcement in the marketplace is the federal government. Consumers can vote with their dollars, but it doesn't mean much if the government rigs the election beforehand. When a special interest wants protection that's who it ultimately has to make its appeal to. Special interests pay politicians to keep other businesses out of competition with them through tariff walls, ‘anti-dumping’ laws, and lengthy bureaucratic procedures. When this happens corruption and graft not only permeate the economic, but political systems as well. This was the heart of MacCain-Feingold. Protectionism makes us all less free.

Consider this, thirty years ago it was commonly thought that for a fledgling economy to grow it needed protectionism, tariff walls, subsidies, et. al. At that time both India and South Korea were dismally destitute.

India followed the conventional wisdom. With the lack of outside intervention, competition to control the inside business grew fiercely with businesses paying off politicians and becoming subsidized monopolies in their sector. Without the accountability to the consumers fostered by competition, quality and customer service fell and prices rose to prohibitive levels. Indians were stuck paying more for less. Perhaps worst of all, even though there was food agricultural price supports meant that half the children in a country of almost a billion people suffered from desperate malnutrition because of its lack of availability in urban areas. In short, the standard of living plummeted.

South Korea decided to take the opposite route. They opened up their borders to free trade and enacted policies which fostered growth through international investment. Their chief initial resource was cheap labor, so repetitive jobs with minimal skill requirements began popping up in 'Sweat Shops'. South Korea in turn was then able to reinvest the rewards of this investment in better infrastructure and education which in turn fostered further international investment and growth. Soon it became cheaper to hold 'Sweat Shops' elsewhere and the populace was ready for newer, more challenging, and more lucrative work.

Thirty years later, the sweat shops in South Korea which coined the term 'sweatshop Earth' have led to the development and enrichment of one of largest, most successful economies in that part of the world. Beyond that, the standard of living of your average South Korean is much higher than that of their neighboring countries. All of this leave proponents of the protectionist myth declaring it an economic 'miracle'.

Meanwhile India remains one of the most corrupt governments and destitute economies in the third world. But it's getting better. In recent years India has slowly but surely began relieving itself of internal protections. Its now opening up its borders to more outside trade. Consequently the standard of living has risen as well. Its still not where it needs to be, but meaningful change takes time.

American protectionism isn't a case of some lightweight going up against a juggernaut of trade. Its more the case of the aging prize-fighter, who can no longer compete, so he makes an appeal to the referee. "Look Mac, I got babies to feed. I'd appreciate it if you could swing this a little bit my way, ya know? Maybe tie his hands, or let me take a few shots below the belt to even things up a little. C'mon Mac, we go back a long way. You can even wet your beak a little from the prize money. We both win." This is the same argument used every time an industry appeals to the government for a subsidy or tariff. Its incredibly sleazy and incredibly unfair to the young prize fighter trying to come up in the world.

That's exactly what the WTO is saying we shouldn't be doing. That's also why I think its a shame we'll never go along with it because its political suicide to go against the special interests. That brings me back to Adam Smith's quote about the necessity of an educated public and keeping business out of politics.

Bottom line, we're all better off doing what we do best. Proctectionism inhibits that and exacts a stifling economic and moral toll on our country.