Don't State, Insinuate

Are y'all familiar with the world's shortest horror story?
"The last man on Earth sat alone in a room. There was a knock on the door..."

Uh huh, I see you shakin' in ya booties.  I thought about that story on the way to the bathroom just now, and when someone walked in as I was walking out it scared the crap out of me.  Why?  Cuz of all that story leaves unsaid.  The mind runs wild with posibilities when the gate is left open.  Why is he the last man?  Was there an apocalypse?  If so, what kind?  Animal, vegetable, zombical, other?  And who the hell is at the door!  Vague things are scarier than defined things, any day.  I'd even venture to say that vague anything is better than defined anything, any day.  Magic tricks, movie endings, sexual promises, all better when you don't try to cram it into a little box.

There's a quote somewhere that I've remembered for years about how human language is made up of eight basic sounds or something, but I can't find it.  (Literally an hour later) Oh wait, here it is: "Language consists of five basic sounds produced by the vocal cords. They are the vowels a, e, i, o, u. The other sounds are consonants produced by air pressure: s, f, g, and so forth."  So it was more than eight, but less than fourty-four.  Anyway, people's thoughts are defined by their language; what makes us think that which we think could ever encompass what is really there, based on such a limited number of simple sounds?  That's why the undefined is scarier/more beautiful/more honest than the defined.  How much more is said with a caress than with words?  I didn't really have a point with all that, I'm just sayin'.  It's slow today, sue me.

The weather has been beautiful lately.  Too bad I've been a lazy turd and have ridden exactly .03 miles per month.  It's really more than that, but it doesn't feel like it.  I need to get out on Saturdays again, even if it's by myself.  I've made a goal internally to not drive to work a single day in October, come Hell or high water, which is still better maneuvered on a bike.  Speaking of, we had craaaazy rain storms on Thursday.  A bunch of the roads I would have taken home were closed due to flooding and once or twice the highest speed setting of the wipers couldn't keep my vision cleared.  It was fun, I love bad weather.

Animals are good, Kasey is good, friends are good, Walden is good, Story of O was good (but ended badly), Lady Vengeance is good, Virginia is good, I'm good.  Just need to relax; I made fun of a fat guy yesterday without even realizing it.  Time to take more naps.

 - David

Remiss You

Werk Entry

I have been remiss.  I have been busy.  I  have been buried.  I have been lazy.  I'm sorry.  I haven't blogged, I haven't called, I haven't communicated with anyone past the carry of my pretty little voice, with the exception of a few spurious e-mails between the gal and I.

It's been interesting, being without a cell phone.  Generally it agrees with me, but I'm getting a phone card tonight so I can reach out to friends and family and soon either a land line will be installed (almost a novelty) or the cell phones will be resurrected.  I know how my old woman worries when I'm out and about on the bike without a way to be contacted.

Presently I'm e-mailing this in from work between phone calls and reboots.  Work is the reason I've been incommunicado, as well as that which will allow me to be con communicado again.  Mandatory overtime for months is a mixed blessing.  I think I'm getting used to it, as long as I get two days off.  For a couple of weeks I only had one day off, then back on for six more fun-filled, 10 hour shifts.  But it is allowing me to crawl out of the hole I'm currently in.  I just hope it ends soon.  I'd rather slowly crawl out of this money pit and take a nap or two along the way than jump out of it and land a grumpy, tired, malcontent on the other side.

Fall is here, just today.  The weather feels like it, too.  Soon I'll have to change my change of clothes for the ride home.  Kasey's new Starbucks opened today as well, just outside our neighborhood.  She's been walking every day and shift-managering like a pro.  My little Kasey, starting off as shift manager in a brand new store which is bound to be busy and successful.  *sniff sniff* I'm so proud!  And avoiding internal combustion too!

Lately instead of browsing channels we browse the book store, and always come away with something new or a title added to our lists of future reading.  I have two books with me at all times, and whether it's the biological history of the human body, another David spending two years by a pond, ancient Chinese secrets, or the story of a French submissive, I'm kept in good company.  I should have been a book reviewer, or perhaps the person who writes the crappy story summations on the flaps and backs of new novels.

Kasey and I just finished reading the same book at the same time, which something I had always wanted to do.  One of the character's internal thinking matched mine to a surprising degree, despite the fact that she's fictional, Canadian, and a middle-aged woman.  I've read characters I would like to be, and characters I've shared isolated quarks with, but never one who thought as I did.  Margaret Atwood knows lives; I can see now why Kasey loves her.  Currently for me it's Walden (which I am enjoying immensely on many levels; that guy, is a genius) and Story of O, which is a dirty, dirty book.  But it's pretty damn good too.  I found it in Barnes and Noble's "eclectic classics" section and was sold after the first ten pages.  Let us just say they contained a lot of wieners, and there wasn't no BBQ.  It's very interesting to read such things in a writing style that is very proper, girlish, and shy.

One hour to go, I can make it.  Take care.

 - David

Salsa

To my handsome, sexy, benevolent, virile, and intelligent loyal readers this post will probably feel more like my normal writing then the recent stuff I've put out. Why? Because once again it is spurred by boredom at work.

It's Sunday and I'm seven hours into a ten hour shift. Today marks the start of my pemenant schedule of Sundays through Wednesdays, 7:00 AM to 5:30 PM. (As an aside, for someone who takes pride in being a grammar and spelling Nazi I have no idea how times should be correctly written out and am too lazy to check. Everytime I write out a time I think of that.) In seven hours I have taken three calls and my Average Talk Time is six minutes, fourty-two seconds. It's fantastic. I have all this time to read away from televisions, chores, dogs, and girlfriends who need some attention from Y.T.

The downside is I'm a bit sleepy. My new book The Tao is Silent has kept me awake and entertained thusfar, but getting up around 5:30 catches up with a person. I'm over one hundred and seventy-two pages in and just now read the back cover to find that the author is a mathematical logician! I don't even know what that is but I would never have guessed someone with "mathematical" and "logician" in their title would be able to write with such humor and spontenaity. Which is how I like my learnin', especially about philosophies of which I currently subscribe.

Walking around today trying to find cream and sugar for my office coffee I spotted a strategically placed co-worker napping. Strategically placed both in location and position as he was away from the bulk of traffic and slumped just out of sight behind his quarter-cubicle partition. Attempting in my own subtle way to practice Taoism in my daily life I decided to take a nap too. The Head Resting on Hand technique did nothing for me as my apparently unbalanced head kept falling off my arm everytime I passed a certain point of unconciousness. I opted instead for the Laid Back school, resting my head on the back of the chair.

Success! After waking up a few times to find my mouth hanging open and stifling the rising fear of drooling I even managed to have a little dream in which someone was debating me about marshmellows. I awoke fifteen minutes later or so, refreshed and energized, just in time for two tech leads to walk by looking for magnetic letters to stick up on a whiteboard. To you this may seem deplorable, unprofessional, and irresponsible but to me it makes perfect, natural, sense: I'm sleepy, the beeping phone would wake me up if there was a call, and if you could get away with it at work you'd do it too. Plus, all last week was a shit storm of varying degrees so I'm owed a slow day. Or at least I'm prepared to take full advantage of one.

Kasey's car is busted, still. Turns out it was the alternator or something. Her dad is currently in possession of the White Talon, a tow truck having picked it up yesterday afternoon in literally ten seconds. I have never seen anything so efficient involving one vehicle, let alone two. I hope that guy get some kind of recognition for being able to back that truck up, lowering the crucifix-like tow arm in the process, hooking the front tires, and lifting it up all with perfect precision. A bowling trophe with an abandoned car on top instead, perhaps.

One of the fun things that happens to me a lot in life is that things work out nicely all by themselves. For instance buses don't run Sundays but one of the guys I went through training with is on nearly my exact schedule, so I car-pooled in today. I'm now working Sundays and out of the blue Kasey gets offered to switch schedules for one that would includes Sundays for her, too. This type of thing happens so frequently, it seems Kasey is even to the point where it's no longer remarkable.

Okay, I'm off to locate some sugar for my instant grits while I take the last break of the day. Or maybe I'll try some more of this napping thing in the Quiet Room, which is really just a restroom with a lockable door and a plastic chair.

Happy Sunday.

- David

Exhile

Woo! This is my 500^th blog post!

Sorry I ain't been around more. Four weeks of finding a job and then two weeks before my first paycheck has taken it's disabling toll and now I have no phone and no Internet. Although for the time being I can still receive calls. Six days 'till payday! Hopefully that means six days until the restoration of my communication services. I'm lightly considering pilgrimages to the local coffee shoppe to partake of their Internet only.

Things have been okay. I'm trying to be a better Buddhist. What does that mean to a whitey in the big city? Reading my old teacher, mindfulness when I remember (ha!), and meditation on the bus. Apparently I'm full of bitter anger and despair. Who knew? Beneath this Peeps-ish exterior lies something not as sweet or fluffy. I'm working on it, it's a road not a destination, it's all in the process, etc, etc, ad naseum.

I finished The Road. It was awesome. Did I cry? Yes. Was it worth it? Fo sho. I highly recommend it.

Be safe, the weather seems weird all over.

- David

Evo-viewtion

Everyone has their little idiosyncrasies. Kasey counts things repeatedly, in little patterns. Riley sleeps on her back. My brother is very particular about certain textures. One of mine is thinking about human evolution and how it pertains to the current moment. When I'm picking out food, when I'm going to the bathroom, when I'm getting sick, etc. I'm always wondering what my body is doing/thinking from an evolutionary standpoint.

Like for instance, today my body probably thought the following occurred:

I woke up and ingested twigs and berries (whole-wheat toast with jam) and some seriously filthy stream water (coffee). Then apparently there was danger or food, as I furiously fled or chased something for about thirty minutes (the gym).

After that I found some clean stream water and rested a bit before chasing down something big enough to fill two bellies (biking to Ghent for huge burritos). The Fuel Imperative fulfilled, I then set about fulfilling the Reproduction Imperative. Details aside, once completed my body shutdown for digestion and repairs. All in all, from a biological/evolutionary standpoint, a good and complete day.

As soon as I'm done with Spook Country I'll be grabbing the tome you see above, which plays perfectly into my preoccupation. Alliteration! And rhyming.

Tomorrow I'll be driving out my new work route to make sure all is fine and dandy with bridges and traffic and whatnot. 8.3 miles, son. Each way. Gonna be goooood. There's no way to puss out on miles like if I had gotten into the base three miles away.

Peace out, have a good weekend.

- David

Farewell, My Lovely

Oldboy is a great god damn movie (thanks be to Aero!). A very strange movie, yes. But still, a great god damn movie. It has action! It has drama! It has comedy! It has the longest uncut fight scene in movie history! Saying anything about the story gives it away, so I won't. Be even if I did, the last parts of the movie are crazy and unexpected. All the acting is amazing and the story is intense. One of my favorite movies of all time. And the soundtrack? Beautiful.

Today I got lucky and found two awesome books. It was kinda funny, after going to have lunch/dinner at 3:30pm (slept in till 2:00pm, hey, I was working late!) at the 5 and Diner and then hanging out at Staples for a bit, we just decided to drive around and ended up at the mall. Being pretty broke until Wednesday we headed for the only bookstore in the place. Not even one I'd ever heard of.

So I go to their Religious section and 4.5 of the 5 shelves are Christian stuff which is understandable but still kind of frustrating. But on the last shelf near the bottom is a small section of Buddhism and an even smaller section of Taoism.

I managed to find a book by Thich Nhat Hanh, a Buddhist monk I've only just found through podcasts. Just from a few talks I've listened to I really like him. His teachings are very profound and simple and I love the way he talks. It's very calming and compassionate. The book I found was "The Heart of the Buddha's Teaching". The fact that Thich Nhat Hanh wrote it and it's about the core of Buddha's teaching was a one-two knock out for me and I didn't even read the back before buying it. I still haven't, haha.

The other book is the "Tao Te Ching" translated by Gia-Fu Feng and Jane English. I've been reading some translations online but it's slower going that way for me because of more distractions and after all, it is the Internet. Who knows how valid the translations and interpretations I'm reading are? Just cuz it's on the Interweb don't make it true! I'm really excited to learn more about this philosophy and this book was just what I was looking for.

I also got a nice journal cheap to help me keep notes. I put my "I Am Ten Ninjas" sticker on it, so it looks all mysterious!

While I was in Staples I noticed that HP has put out customizable printable covers for the iPod. After payday I'm gonna pick up a pack and see if they work with our Canon printer. Usually HP paper comes out looking like ass but hopefully this works out. I've been trying to decide what cover to get for my scratched up iPod. Ones I can make myself are the perfect idea!

Lately I've been thinking that a lot of Buddhist schools are too complex. The Buddha's teachings are very simple and direct and I feel that over the years too much unnecessary stuff has been laid on top. For some this isn't a problem, but I feel that I need something simple and pure. I picked Tibetan Buddhism to follow because it seemed to be the closest to the original teachings, but I've been wondering if there is anything closer out there. After over a year with Tibetan Buddhism I'm thinking about following a different school, if I can find a better one out there. More updates to come as this goes along, and any suggestions and advice is most welcome.

Have a great day, filled with peace and success!

- BuddhaDave

Simple minds, simple pleasures.

Mic Check, One Two, One Two Three

Let's see if this works!

Just switched to Google's Blogger so lets see how it works. It came highly recommended and so far looks good.

Have I mentioned how much I love my iPod? I didn't even like Apple before (One mouse button? Ewww) but iTunes and the iPod are just awesome. Even if I didn't have an iPod I'd still use iTunes, it's just such a nice management tool. If you're on the decision see-saw about whether to get one or not, I hightly recommend doing so.

Think about it man! Every song you own on one little device! All your adio books, albums, everything in the palm of your hand. After a week you won't know how you lived without it.

I've been listening to Nine Inch Nails' new album "With Teeth" a bunch lately. At first I didn't like it and set it aside for like a month. But then I went back after the "Only" music video came out. (P.S. this song rocks) What I took at first to be a butt-rock album (Sorry Trent!) is actually really good. Some of my favorite songs are "Right Where it Belongs", "Only", "All the Love in the World", and "Sunspots". It's like $10 on iTunes, go get it!

I just finished reading this cute little book called "The Tao of Pooh". I didn't know much about Taoism before reading this but I'd heard good things about it and I like books with this type of format. I'm still reading "The Dharma of Star Wars" and it's honestly the best book on Buddhism I've ever read. The best thing, actually. And I've read a bunch. It's so much easier to understand abstract philosophy when it's based on things like Star Wars and Whinnie the Pooh.

Taoism (pronounced DAOism) is pretty simple. Now I may not have this exactly right, but the gist of it is as follows: Everything is governed by the laws of nature, i.e. cause and effect. The same laws that govern trees growing and snow falling and the formation of planets also governs us. The harder one works against these laws the farther away one moves from harmony and the unhappier one gets. Sooo...the more free-flowing one is and the more one can just let things be the happier one will be. I have to read a lot more to be sure, but I think that's it. So that's new and cool for me.

Imma post this because I still don't know if everything is working correctly, so I'll add more later if necessary.

Adios!

- BuddhaDave