how to snap out of it

I would generally sway from "snap out of it" but I think it can apply. I'm not talking mental instability, more in the lines of irritability. You can snap out of a bad mood and such. Sometimes I rather not but other times, okay, sure, I'll snap out of it. First, if you have children, just go hug them. You know that'll do it. So if you don't really want to snap out of it, don't hug them. But that will work damn near every time. Probably wise and ideal to hug your children a minimum of ten or fifteen times a day anyway, until they get too teenage/cool/grownup for that sort of thing. So the failsafe for "snapping out of it" - hug your children, tell them you love them. That simple.

Next, read Shel Silverstein. You can go with Peanuts or Calvin & Hobbes, but I'd stick with Shel. It's like saying Dylan or the Beatles. Can't really go wrong but I'd take Shel. I'm inadvertantly comparing Shel Silverstein with Bob Dylan and Charles Schultz / Bill Watterson with Lennon / McCartney. Not sure what that means. Probably nothing.

Another, do yoga. Find it on demand on your little digital cable box or youtube. Don't start with the beginner's stuff. If you're into yoga, fine and good and I'm all for yoga in all its various stages and methods. But for this purpose, go to advanced yoga. And turn on some loud music you don't especially care for. This only takes ten to fifteen minutes. You'll get into it and forget what all the fuss was about.

Get yourself some old television sets. I don't care where you get them from. I don't need to know that. Find some quick DIY articles/videos and make something out of them. Do the fish tank thing if you can't think of something more clever. The easier the project the better. Just sayin.

So there's some. I'll finish up this line of mumbles at a later time. I was in a pissed off mood earlier so I should go hug my children real quick...

anew

I'm not sure what the future holds. Maybe nothing. Maybe something. One or the other. But one thing I know for sure. I'll be bitter about it. I'm not the brighest bulb but I'm not no ignerint tool neither.
I find myself interested in a slew of things of late. Quantum physics for one. I don't understand it really at all. But that 80s show sure was cool. I assume quantum physics had something to do with Scott Bakula jumping through time and strangers' bodies to "make right what once went wrong". Remember when Sam jumped into himself as a teenager? Good stuff. I'm also getting into the Science channel and that stuff with Morgan Freeman narrating, whatever that is. Mysteries of the Universe stuff. They always have the genius space guy, the cool Asian man with flowing white hair. He's the coolest. I also am more and more enjoying invading the lives of others. Hitching rides, buying groceries for strangers, showing up and weddings and funerals. People's reactions when something comes into their small worlds is so interesting to see. It never gets old. I try not to do the same thing more than a couple times. But when I run out of ideas the reaction is still new because the person is a new victim. I might start posting video of my excursions. For now I'll content myself with writing about it.

Love. Religion. Politics. Pick one.

Love, religion, politics. The holy trinity of pain and suffering. Never combine any two of these unless they are already combined. Yea, yea, there are some remote and random tales of merging of the three. But like R-O-U-S's - I don't believe they exist. Not in whole. Not really at all. Sure, you might meet your spouse at church, or maybe over a first date someone accidentally spills it that they are a closet conservative. Two might work, not all three. Don't attempt it. It will fail. Maybe later, likely sooner. Then again, how in hell would I know. I'm single. Not religious, not in a while at least, and apolitical. Still though. Just sayin.

somethin's not right

Yea, something's wrong. With me. Pains in odd, and personal, places. Waking up in odd positions and places. It's not passing out really. Maybe it is, but not what I thought of as passing out. Alcohol not involved. Drugs not involved. I seldom drink alcohol and do not do drugs. The intense pains though, really annoying.

how to get smart and retain knowledge

Laughable that I'd even joke of such a thing. I have little knowledge and retain little of what I have. Nevertheless.
You need to read. Read a lot. But more importantly read the right stuff. What's "the right stuff" is up to the reader.
History, law, science, these subjects matter and have far reaching reciprocal value.
Talk to people who are much smarter than you. Do it regularly.
Take a week and spend just an hour a day on a single subject. Anything - Frank Lloyd Wright, local economy, iphone apps of interest, photography, whatever.
But before all that, go to the park. Go to the cemetary and go to the nearest urban downtown. thoughts and silences and snippets of life you'll see there are not quantifiable.

how to write the great american novel

How would I know? If I did, I'd have done it instead of typing that in a blog that no one will ever see. Type "how to write a novel" in a google search. You'll see hundreds of links. Different procedures and methods. Those are all crap. The way to do it is to simply do it. The beauty is the simplicity. First you have to find your voice, your writer's voice. You need to tell the story, but in your writer's voice. How to find the voice? By writing. Just sit and write. Doing so will bring out that voice and eventually the story will come. So simple a moron could do it.

how to get hit in the head with a bike chain

This one's simple. Walk through my front yard, half way to my house, smoking a cigarette, talking loudly on your cell phone at midnight. Then show up an hour later and throw a tomato at my front door. Then come back forty-five minutes later looking for more trouble. That's when I sneak out from the bushes and sling a bike chain at your face. Then your knees, then your back as you begin to crawl away. Consider reading or video games rather than skalking through a peaceful neighborhood.

how to chop onions

This is a fine, elegant procedure. It's more a happening. I like onions okay but the chopping of them is pure romanticism. Best to go with a yellow or red, rather than white. Green are great too but those are much different and more in tune with cutting celery or carrots. So you take said onion. Don't try that quicky cubicle stuff where you cut lengthwise and cut the other way and then chop down, forming diced onions. Peel whatever needs peeled. I usually peel another one or two layers beyond that, but that's just me, I'm special in ways only a mother appreciates. Then off with it's head, if there is one. And be sure to have a nice knife. And a nice plain plate and clean hands and patience and solitude. Bring the knife down in a cutting motion, not chopping. The onion has layers. Respect those layers. Ease into it, without chopping. Cut it fine and thin. After you have three or four slices, cut those in halfsies. Turn plate one-quarter turn and begin cutting in tiny little pizza crescents. The size depends on the dish being prepared. Continue prior steps until done. Lather, rinse, repeat.

how to get stuff you want

This one I dig. You know the easiest way to get something you want? Take it. I'm not talking stealing really, though I'm not not saying it either. But just take it. Fine line between theft and oops?! Just take it.

A great line in a great play/film - I'm paraphrasing here:
Lee: Now all I wanna do is borrow your car.
Austin: No!
Lee: Then I'll just take the damn thing.

See, it's not really stealing, it's taking. I admit, I can't tell the difference, but I know there is one.

Another way is the more common, more civil approach, which is simply asking. Mama always said you don't get what you don't ask for. She also made me often fear the sky might fall though. But it's partially true. "Can I have a little more butter in my popcorn", "Can I have fresh fries, not those sitting under the heat lamp the past two hours since it's 3:00 in the afternoon", "can't you swallow just this once", etc. It's going to work at a reasonable rate - just ask.

Another way is manipulation. Tricking people into giving you what you want. You can use a bunch of ten dollar words and talk quickly and sound like you know what you're talking about, make it sound like you're smarter than them and are just giving them a break. That works if you play it right.

So, there's a few of the many ways to get what you want. More to come.

how to fail

This is a simple one. How to fail? Do nothing. Seriously. It is simple but not as simple as it sounds. You have that little lingering voice in your head - the one in white, telling you to feed and feel and comfort and be good - and to generally do something.

Ignore that voice.

That voice is the voice trying to snuff out failure. So ignore it, and do nothing. Do nothing. How to fail at cleaning a room? Don't do it. How to fail at losing weight? Do not do it.

We'll go in depth later of different types and genres of failure, but this is a simple one. It's really pretty simple to fail. Only not really.

potential new format - how to...

Today I'm going to switch gears a bit. And this is my space so I'll do it without hesitation, so to speak. I'm going to begin a series of "how to's". A series of quick and dirty manuals for better living. Exploratory titles might include: how to get fired, how to get laid, how to cheat on a test, how to make a banana and cheese sandwich. All worthless bits of information sure, but I'd like to do my part. It is the little things that get us by. This is what happens, Larry.

the wheel

Found this great singer/songwriter.

Here's a video tracked down - seems the song was in a trailer to a recent indie film.

and the same song, performed live here.

the little things

The little things in life matter. They really do. I have to do little things constantly like chopping up onions very fine with my best knife - I think I inherited it from a roommate ten years ago. Or take a long hot bath with a gallon of milk added and half a bottle of mr. bubble - things like that just to feel slightly more human every once in a while. Or staying up all night once in a while for no good reason. Filling the time with digging through boxes of old magazines, writings and papers, watching dumb or bad or even good movies - the ones you wouldn't watch at 9:30 Tuesday night, or Sunday afternoon. The little things matter.

this mediocrity

Sounds rather harsh, when asked to explain yourself in a single word - mediocre. Sounds harsh, although is neither untrue nor harsh at all. In any given twenty four hours, how much is free time? How much is work, sleep, eating and leisure? Is leisure even a category? Then, how much is wasted? How much is waste? Watching a Seinfeld episode you've seen seventeen times. Staring at a keyboard or notebook rather than writing. Clicking the ad links on the right side of a browser. Add it up in a day. If the sum total of waste is more than three minutes, that's unfortunate. If it's thirty minutes, that's disdainful. If it's three hours, that is mediocre. And I'm not quite certain - nor unwilling to do spell check - if that is the correct spelling or not. Mediocre.

7-4 1230

Distant hesitation
Again, the stories blur
The lines of comprehension
Fragile as ever, the spectacle uncertain
Between these nights of starry mumbles
Delicate in word and silent in deed
All those lost and empty intentions
Like a torn and ragged, but loved, old rope
Black was the softest back then
Comfortable and contrived
Unspoken were the words
Such the beauty of ignorance declined

editorial

After three or four hours of working, go home to quickly do a load of laundry, clean a couple rooms, grab some lunch. Lots of playing going on elsewhere in the house. Looks fun.

Should this ever happen? Who's at fault?

a beginning

This is a test. Only a test. It will only hurt a little. How much and how long depends on the depth of character and what he or she is willing to lose. Characters have to come from somewhere, so why not a blog. Often the best thoughts come when least expected, when not expected at all, even when unwanted. Weblogs are quick, painless, easy and accessible. There's worse ways to capture thought and analysis. See, seventy-six words just there, without saying a bloody thing. Another twenty-five and we're over one hundred. So word-wise, do that perhaps ten times each day for two months and you'd have sixty thousand words. A work of art. Of course, you'd need some talent. There is that conundrum. Which is both the tool and the torture.