Crystallization

Now you will be wondering, if belief in God need not make us good, what is the benefit, now, of believing in God? Sure, in the by and by and hereafter there's all sorts of fab rewards. Like, uh, harps, and clouds, and, uh, choir singing. Very musical, and, um, meteorological.

It's a complex question -- if it were easy almost everyone would have the same religion, or none. So the real question should be, is there a God at all? In other words, what is real? We determine what is real by testing the matter. You know, science: organized knowledge. Organized: the imposition of order upon chaos by the application of intelligence; knowledge: what has been determined to be true. Intelligence: awareness of truth. Truth: things as they are. We're talking about testing reality.

How can we do such a thing? Descartes was very fretful about, well, everything. He didn't even know how he knew he existed. We went over this some years ago. He choose thinking as his proof. Seems a subjective choice. Why not feeling, or perception, or will? The Buddhists would have desire as the proof, and cause, of existence. Why not memory? Or the sense of continuity we call the self? All of these things can be distorted or deceived or deceptive. I think that all certainty is moral certainty -- that which we know, by faith and assertion, to be true. We trust our reason, our memory, our perception. Moral certainly is all there is, mostly because nothing can be satisfactorily disproven, without agreement. Yes, it's all very circular.

So it doesn't pay to get too philosophical about these things. That's the reason I think philosophy is crap, and a waste of time. I love to argue, or used to. Eventually though we gain some maturity, and care more about what is than about what is not. The answer then, to get back to the original question, about God, is science.

Theories have to make predictions, the results of which must be observable, testable, falsifiable. Obviously what cannot in some manner be observed, even indirectly, cannot be tested, and so cannot be falsified. So when we mix precise measures of chemicals together under the same conditions, we demand the same result. We demand uniformity of physical laws. When we talk about supernovas and Evolution, observations and tests and outcomes become so mired in ad hoc assumptions that by strict definition we must consider them hypotheses -- they are thought experiments, and whether true or not, are mostly about faith. To find rabbit bones in Precambrian strata is not a falsification of Evolutionism. Special pleading is always possible -- by definition, if it has rabbit bones, it's not Precambrian ... if it's Precambrian, the bones must have migrated there.

So. Complexity exists. Randomness never produces organization -- only order, patterns predicable from the nature of the material. Agitated aggregates stratify, smallest particles lowest down. Snowflakes are beautiful, orderly, and complicated because of the way water crystallizes. Complication and complexity are not the same thing. Organization, as opposed to order, is the imposition of intelligence onto a system. It is a surprise, nonpredictable. Nothing in the nature of silicon atoms predicts a computer microprocessor.

Everywhere we look in the material universe, we find that entropy, the principle of disorganization, is the presiding law. Energy is always becoming less available for work. The Sun is wearing out. The universe will end in heat death, as a cyrstal, utterly still, absolute zero, with not even the movement of an electron. Or maybe not. Maybe everything just goes on forever, in perpetual motion. But observation predicts otherwise, of the material universe.

But we're talking about God, which means the whole universe, material and nonmaterial, physical and metaphysical, natural and supernatural. And yet we're talking about science. No contradiction. Because there is organization, not just order. There is intelligence, not just randomness. Either, then, the merely physical can get metaphysical, and rationality is invented, and life is Evolved, out of chaotic and inert matter. Or. The material universe, imbued with life, is the artifact of something greater.

Is this true? Atheists say it's not. Such is their faith, that they hold that science requires testing and observation, except when it comes to the tester and observer himself. We just are. Life just is, just happened. And with this happenstance of intelligence, which might as well be something else, we judge. Rationality, fathered by nonrationality, is to be trusted.

Doesn't make sense to me. I prefer consistency. I prefer inductive reasoning, using specifics to construct general rules. Enough observations give us the right to draw conclusions. The universal conclusion of observation is that randomness does not create complexity, organization, intelligence. Life.

Atheists, then, and their beliefs and nonbeliefs? They have too much faith for me, and too much emotion, and too much irrationality. I need order, and consistency.

God loves complexity, and simplicity, like following a light through a storm. I'm sure God loves happiness. I know he loves joy. He requires pain, too, which is a fact hard enough to make us atheists. But sanity agrees with reality, no matter how unpleasant.

I haven't been to church in ten years. I don't know that I'll ever stop being angry with God. I am a stiff-necked man, and I'd like some obvious blessings before I'd consider myself called back into the fold. No shepherd has left his flock to seek me out. I have now the blessing of a good friend, but what of my wife, and lost sons? Everything Job lost was replaced. I'm not good, but nothing has been replaced. Friendship is a new thing to me, and I'm not very skilled at it.

It has to do with encouragement. Once, long ago, at a very hard time, I said to someone on the phone that I didn't see how I could go on living in a world like this. His sharp "Hey" pulled me up short, out of my self-pity. It wasn't encouragement, but it threw me back onto my sense of duty. No matter what, we don't give up. We are always sane. We are honest.

We don't always love, though. Or feel loved.

And that's the answer.


J

Billboards

If only you could view the contents of my magnificent brain. No, I mean mind. You wouldn't want to see my actual brain. Yick. Gray matter, all wrinkled and shiny, or gooey ... like liver, twisted liver. Yick. But my mind, my magnificent mind -- in its undiluted presence your puny intellect would dissolve like bubbles of Silly Soap in a child's bath. Pathetic.

Take for example my amazing thoughts about God, and atheists. Seems some dude or group has taken out billboard ads saying that people can be good, or have hope, or lead meaningful lives, without believing in God. Isn't it interesting, finding out what people think is worth spending money on?

It's said not infrequently by religionists that believing in God makes people better. I suppose it's true, since God implies judgment. But everyone, almost, has a conscience, and that's punishment enough, almost. And society has been known in the past to punish wrong conduct. So there are two layers of punishment, before we get to God. But none of that says a lot about believing in God. Because it's not so much about belief, as reality.

If there is a God, it is secondary whether or not we believe in him, or whether such belief affects our conduct. Primary is that we agree with reality. Good things should ultimately follow from that. Take for example gravity. Believing in gravity doesn't make me a better person. It makes me fit better into the physical universe. Believing in God, if there is a God, is sane. Not believing in what does exist is the equivalent to believing in what does not exist. Both are inconsonant with reality.

And of course there's the uneasy question of, which god? Does belief in a god that does not exist make a person better? Gandhi was a good man, as men go, but which of the countless Hindu gods was his particular favorite? And how does having a false god make one better than having a true conscience? Nazis most assuredly had a god.

It isn't God who makes us good. It's following moral teaching. Whence does that come? Well, God, and in diluted form, from sane teachers. But sanity comes from recognizing and agreeing with reality.

Just thought I'd share that, a few minor observations that my magnificent brain so easily makes, and casually. Brilliance radiates from me as light flows from supernovas. Ah.

J

Humor

Even numbers are not funny. Not all odd numbers are funny. Smaller prime numbers tend to be funny. The first funny number is eleven, but it's marginal -- the two ones make it too simple, visually, but the three syllables can make it work. Thirteen is not funny. Neither is 15 -- easy multiples are not funny. Seventeen is the first purely funny number ... funny looking, a funny age to be, with hindsight ... all that teenage angst and highschool drama. Nineteen is also funny. No number in the 20s is funny, except 29.

Almost all emotions are funny. Involuntary bodily functions are funny, especially those involving noise or smells, as are the spastic convulsions of great passion. Physical deformities, handicaps and diseases that involve bodily fluids are funny. Weakness and vulnerability is funny. All cultural habiliments, and all characteristic racial differences, are funny. Rudeness and insensitivity, ignorance and bigotry, are funny.

It's important to understand the uses and meaning of laughter. It is primarily a method of communicating scorn or ridicule. As an emotional weapon its power is almost unmatched -- commonly, only sexual molestation surpasses its destructive force. Loud, coarse or angry laughter is best, with titters and snide chuckles playing a more subtle role. In comparison, spreading malicious rumors is a blunt tool indeed.

Thus we must find it very amusing indeed, that the Westboro Baptist Church has won its Supreme Court case, defending their right of free speech, to picket the funerals of slain soldiers, calling them "fags" whom "god" "hates". Well? The standard cliche is that we must protect the right of free speech ... it's what America is about.

Well. Sadly, the cliche is right. The Constitution is about our institutions, which exist to not oppress us. The Judicial System is not about justice. Please. It's about process. Rule of law after all is what makes systems work. So where is justice, actual justice, to be found, in this instance? Well, again we find the answer in looking at law. The law does not recognize the concept of fighting words. But human beings intuitively do understand its reality.

So someone uses appropriate non-lethal retributive force against these antichrist picketers, who is then charged with assault, and a jury of his peers acquits him. The trauma and pragmatic injustice of having to bear the expense and ordeal and threat of the trial is punishment enough. And putting a real fear of the real God into the withered evil hearts of the cultists may have a palliative effect.

Meantime, in Great Britain a Christian couple is no longer allowed to be foster parents, because they believe and teach that homosexual behavior is sinful. See? We must, must, must protect our institutions. Not Canada, maybe Australia, but probably only America is left, where government does not habitually attack freedom of conscience. So the eight to one decision of the Supreme Court is frustrating, but correct.

True justice is sometimes found only at the harsh end of a horse whip. Sometimes justice is about tar and feathers.

J

What Everything Is

I know a sound guy who worked the red carpet for the Oscars. Boom man. Said it was freezing. Then Monday he did the Charlie Sheen interview. Charlie was calm and polite, chain smoked, with his two tattooed girlfriends, from the Valley, both about an 8. He helped the crew with their equipment, and sniffed a lot. If I don't really care about Sumatran tsunamis and Louisianan hurricanes, I surely don't care about Charlie Sheen.

Then I foolishly opened the door to a political talk, with an off-handed comment about how Mega Government didn't seem competent to manage micro health. Guy suggested that anyone who didn't have a hundred thousand dollars saved up, or insurance, would be a "free rider." I said I'd rather die. I think I mean it. In any case, later I brooded, a lot, about the implication, that I wouldn't pay my debts. That wasn't his point of course, but I'm a little crazy. It's crazy to take that sort of thing personally, and to brood about it as an offense, and to rather die than get sucked into the disease care system.

And someone parked in the spot I use, and I made a jokey stink about it, but it did bother me, and I carried it too far anyway. It was wondered if I'm territorial. Apparently, pathologically. The diligent reader will be aware that I have almost hermetic boundaries.

I was involved in the purchase of an Airdyne, a sort of exercise bike, highly recommended by my son. Got it at a phenomenal price, thirty percent discount because I'm a senior citizen. Over fifty. It needs a tuneup, call it fifty bucks. I'm calling around to find a place. Normal bike shops don't do that sort of thing. Sure it's a hassle, but that's what life seems to be.

I don't understand life. It seems so hard, and pointless. My own life isn't hard. Kind of empty. I find I love a very few people, and there's tenderness in that, but I'm so constricted. I should be a saint. What went wrong? If it were possible, God would be disappointed. As it is, He'll just judge me, justly.

Yesterday ended with cause for optimism. Today ended with it's disappointment. Not discouragement though. Whatever we put our faith in, it shouldn't be put into what people say. There is a random correlation between promises and completion.

There's a cat that waits outside my door for me. Not actually my cat, but I bring it in and it sleeps with me. Well? It's a wearying thing to sleep alone, always. Something about the proximity of another heartbeat. So I understand gay marriage. Even without the sex, people just want to be with someone. Too bad sodomy has to be involved.

I just don't understand how Two and a Half Men could be the number one show. It sucked so bad, the one time I saw part of it. Sheen seems to be the smartest guy involved. How did it possibly last 8 years? Inexplicable. But so is everything.

J

Duhbuh Duhbuh Duhbuh

I'm killing time before I go and transform my foolish mother's garage into a rental space. Reading some thriller, good reviews but so far just so-so. If you want to read a really surprising ending, go for Running Blind by Lee Child. One of the Jack Reacher books. I generally anticipate the twists, and I got the second-biggest one in this book -- but the big one, revealed at the same moment, was really well done. The set up was flawed, because too many professional people had to be stubborn and stupid, but it works to set up tension, so there's that. One of the things I figured out from listening to oldtime radio is that there is an economy of characters. With limited time and budged, everything has to have a purpose. So the guy who doesn't seem to have a purpose, is the guilty one. FYI.

Bethatasitmay, the hero in the current book makes a big deal about France Gall's 1965 EuroVision performance of Poupée de cire, poupée de son, "Wax Doll, Bran Doll" (son puns as "sound"; bran would be sawdust -- I'd translate it freely as sand, for the evocation.) The young Miss pulls it off through naive sincerity -- a pure but not quite polished voice, almost boyish at points, a touch mechanical in its adherence to meter. But very pretty, oui?

So of course I rifled through the archive, my heavy heels and greasy thumbs leaving their indelible imprints -- what I touch, I ruin ... where I tread, only destruction remains -- and came across Les sucettes -- "Lollipops", or, more bluntly, "Suckers". To be brutal, "Things to Suck On". I won't do all the lyrics. Enough to note that Annie likes to suck, and that anise [Annie, anus] suckers

Give her kisses / An aniseed [cf. anusy] taste. / When the barley ["orge", cf. orgy] sugar / flavored with anise / Slides down Annie's throat, / She's in paradise. ... / For a few "pennies" [cf. penis], / Annie has her anise suckers. / ... When on her tongue / All but the little stick is done, / Her legs take her body / Back to the "drugstore".

Now, it's rather subtle, the images in this 1966 television production, so let me explain. The elongated confections are phallic, and represent penises in a condition of sexual engorgement, tumescent with blood (during which state the male may penetrate the female's vagina with his erect, or turgid, penis). The young women in this video are then simulating the act of oral copulation, a form of sodomy. Get it? The four throbbing quivering dancing penises represent candy, about which the young woman is singing. The footlong cylinders that slowly plunge into the women's mouths, or linger on their lips and tongues, are in some manner meant to figure into the imagery. See? As I say, it's subtle.

Thing is, it really is clear that young Ms Gall did not understand the puns. So when we see Serge Gainsbourg, the lecher who wrote the song, give the most incredible smirk at second 48 of another performance ... well we can't help the shape of our nose, or our chin, or our ears -- but our character can be awfully ugly, non? Lot's of talk about how brilliant Gainsbourg is. No. Clever, the way an adolescent who discovers sarcasm before his peers is clever.

If anyone argues with me about this, or any other of my opinions, I have an unanswerable retort. I always do it. First I shout that they're wrong. Then I fart, really loud, and it sounds like this: duhbuh duhbuh duhbuh duhbuh -- and then I laugh. And everyone is all stupid with silence, and I say, that's right, sucka, and there's PLENTY more where THAT came from -- and I fart again to prove my point. Mess with me and that's what you get. Sucka.


J

One-Eyed Jack

When I have a disagreement with someone, I don't notice it for a while, no big deal. Then later I think, now they will try to destroy me. And I look to see if my position is secure -- anticipate their attacks ... broken windows, stones thrown at the back of my head, slashed tires. That sort of thing. Or betrayals, vicious things, just to get even, get revenge. It's an attitude I have that's prudent but not rational. Not everyone is a monster. I just expect that they can become monsters. The phases of the moon might have such an effect. Because I am rational. It's the world, and its population, that isn't.

After all, I was married, and then betrayed. I had a family, expanded, foster kids, and I was betrayed. The distinction between thoughtless and vicious is negligible. Or maybe it's me that's the problem, my earnestness, my need for absolutes, and integrity, and honor. I remember joking with my wife, that she was mine, and I'd never let her go. And I laughed. And I didn't understand her expression. We had, you see, incompatible senses of humor. Because she let me go. Is that a betrayal? To me, yes -- because I mean what I say. Except of course when I'm joking. Love, springing from a generosity of spirit, should have been able to discern the difference. Chalk it up to communication problems. Pronoun trouble.

Friday I found I had some extra money, and went to a restaurant and had a vegan pizza. Do that once every year or two. Luxurious. Made a little joke a few weeks ago: "So you're telling me you actually go out to some other place, you drive there, and eat? In public?" Like it was unthinkable and obscene. I get a kick out of myself.

And today it snowed in my suburb of LA. An inch of snow on the car. I came out and said to myself, "You gotta be kidding me." Took a plastic lid of something or other and scrapped off the windshield. Been about ten years since I've been to the snow. Back when I had sons.

I am subject to depression, to melancholy, but I'm not often insecure. But I'm feeling insecure. It's not a matter of whether or not I'm up to such and such a job. It's, is what I do what other people want.

I did some stuff with a bunch of kids today, sort of a teaching situation with bjj. It's been a long time. I've aged quite a bit, in that I'm not as good at seeming ungrumpy. I have little patience for silly six-year-old disruptive attention-seeking behavior. But I kind of found myself thrown into the situation, with no time to prepare. Gotta prepare. I hate to fake it. Like Obama, just talking until you think of what to do. It's good to think on your feet. But how about thinking ahead of time too? An issue of integrity.

We learn by seeing other people do it. I learned to teach, in the classroom setting, by seeing good teachers teach, and copying them. Teaching is about organization, management, presentation. The classroom, the class, and the teacher. Calm rather than chaos. Lines rather than crowds. Simple instead of complex. For kids, define the terms. Most of them don't know what "pivot" or "guard" or "post" means. Say, then show, then do. Use colorful and easy-to-remember examples. Analogies they can understand. This thing is like that thing. Simple verbal formulas. Larger than life. The point is, be memorable. That's called teaching, if what is remembered is worthy of the effort.

I think I used to be a good teacher. As for bjj, I've forgotten so much that I'd just be faking it. It's a little discouraging. More than a little, frankly.

As for my lower back, thank you for asking, I find I take more than five days now to heal. Hope it's only a muscle, and not a disc. Took the whole week off from training. Not that I'm actually training. Toward some goal. Don't judge me. When you're my age and can do half what I do, then you'll have a right to voice an opinion about me. In a little squeaky piping voice, peep peep.

Which brings me again to the real topic, my penis. I've decided to call it my one-eyed jack.

J

Wed

San Diego is talking about making circumcision illegal. Not having it -- having it done. I mean, they gotta allow me into the city, right? After all, they let in the illegals. What am I, chopped liver? Little yuppie babies with their fretful, syndicalistic parents, shall go forth unaltered into the big bad world. A foreskin must have many uses, after all. It's uncivilized to mutilate a baby boy. Jews and their superstitions? Screw em. An exception however will be made for the moslems and the Holy Religion of Islam. Except for female circumcision, which the mossies love, cuz it ruins sex for the chicks, which is good. Stinking women.

My understanding is that it's not circumcision at all, with females. It's the removal of the clitoris. Exact counterpart, if my grasp of comparative anatomy is solid, would be the removal of the glans -- or as I think of it, the power ball.

It was a topic of radio discussion on the drive home. Yuppies and bureaucrats butting into other folks' business. Seems like parental choice is not a good thing, when it's only a penis in question. When it's cutting apart the whole baby, though, male or female, well ... choice is good. Dicks, no. Brains, yes. Struck me as ironic. Is abortion illegal in the City of San Diego?

One of Saint Diego's miracles is that his dead corpse cured a prince who, after whoring all night, fell down a flight of stairs and became blind and paralyzed. Paralytic blind whoremongers, flock, all of you, to San Diego. It's your kind of town.

I've decided yet again that I was not a very good husband. Piss poor, in fact. Immature and critical. Not abusive, but not much of a catch. Now, a quarter century later, I'm not immature but I'm selfish. Just want to be left alone, unless I don't want to be left alone. I have noticed over the years females who give evidence of being attracted to me. I am generally very successful in ignoring these signals. Hurrah. I win. But I've always been loyal, to those I owe loyalty. Select group.

Pulled a muscle deep in my lower back on Monday. Maybe overtraining? Well, I really should have stretched first. I wish I could get more sleep. Healing time. I'm a brighter and less unpleasant guy when I get rest. Ah well. Someday I'll win the lottery, after I start playing it, and then I'll hire someone to sleep for me. It'll be great.

That's all. Remember me in thine orisons.

J

Neglect

You know what I think? I think Obama is so far up his own ass that he's made it through his mouth and up into his ass again. He's coiled so many times around himself he's like a magneto. He could power the eastern seaboard. Except, energy is bad.

So the dominoes fall. The Middle East is going south, dicpotato after dicpotato, latest Kadaffy, off to get more plastic surgery, the Cat Lady of North Africa, like some sort of malignant sphinx in a loin cloth. By summer gas will be $12 a gallon. So much for the recovery. Chavez will be our new best fiend. Suck my oil. Say hello to my little friend. Feckless fools.

It came to me as a highly predictable bolt of lightning. Natural gas. I don't know the mechanics of it, but there are such engines, and there must be compressors you can hook up to the household line. How do you spell it ... cheep? -- cheap? Just google it. "Natural gas engine." It's not rocket surgery. We've got more of it than anybody. Seems obvious. Sort of a not-19th century fuel. Wouldn't it be nice to go back to not needing our enemies. Only Hitlers need their enemies. Normal people don't want to have anything to do with them. Hitler needed the Jews. We should not need the Arabs. Let's just need our friends. Deal?

I pulled a muscle in my lower back this morning. A few weeks ago my son did some sort of fitness assessment on me, and of course I'm amazing, although he hasn't given me the analysis yet. But there's a problem with my flexibility, and my muscles are absolutely full of knots. And today someone insisted on putting some pressure on the pulled spot, and that actuality helped a lot, and made me even more aware of how dysfunctional my dysfunctionality is. Touching me is like juggling a bag of marbles -- I squirm, and I'm tense. Jumpy and lumpy. I'm also itchy and scratchy. Yes, I do need a massage -- a series of them. Last time I had one was a chiropractor in Sydney 25 years ago, and that was just an assessment, lasted about 15 seconds. This is what wives are for. And friends, I guess. We find out who are our friends are when we're snake-bit in the butt. So far up which I am that I can see light at the end of the tunnel. Let's call it hope. Yes, we need friends.

There are areas I have sorely neglected. Flexibility and lumpiness are one of them. My income has taken a hit in the past year, never huge, but I have lived modestly for, well, always. But I could see going to a chiropractor and being cracked into place, or to someone who would gauge the lumps out of my musculature. When my son was little I used to have him walk on my back. Then he got too big. The circle of life.

Ah well. Just needed to vent. Stuck up my own ass as I am, sometimes I need to come out for air.

J

Respect

I don't claim not to be odd. I have my issues. So I find myself on a regular basis in a certain place, and I don't like it when people just appear out of nowhere, and I told someone this, and he jingles his keys jokingly to let me know of his approach, but today he didn't, but instead just appeared at the door and said, "Don't stand up." Ha ha.

But it really startled me, and it was deliberate, and that really really bothers me. Because I had already communicated my reality about that. Dude was sort of cavalier about my mild expression of displeasure. "You know, I'm kind of high-strung." Should I have been harsh? It messed me up for a couple of hours, though. I know, I'm nuts. But I'm nuts. And how clear do I have to be, beyond actually telling someone something in a straightforward way, as I had done?

No, I have only one issue. Disrespect. And the sad fact is that once trust is lost, it's lost. How do you get it back? I don't see how. Repentance? Who would even see the need to repent of that little joke? I'm not reasonable. I know this. And I'm sure I've crossed people's boundaries too. I apologize when it's made clear to me. It's only right. We don't have to be perfect. We have to be courteous when we offend. And we have to be trustworthy. Sometimes I'm amazed at how important loyalty is to me.

I told my pathetic little feeling to someone, about disrespect, and he said he had something like that about being lied to. We're all different. When I'm lied to, I usually just observe the liar, fascinated by the insight into their souls. We lie to protect ourselves, or to manipulate someone else. No, I didn't pee on the toilet seat. Or: Dude, I saw your mama last night on the corner picking up men. In any case, the lie is always about the character of the liar. Well, it's all about character. So ... nothing solved. And everything.

My foolish mother a while back got into the habit of throwing my things away, as the whim struck her. I'd had some things stored at her place. I went so far as to put locks up, but she found her way in. It's amazing. I seem to have solved the problem, but trust is completely and totally destroyed. I will never believe her. See my point? It's not that she's crazy. It's that we have to respect, or at least acknowledge other people's boundaries.

I'm generally sleep deprived, and it's delightful how much energy I have and how productive I am when I get something like enough. Getting in some good workouts, everyday this week. Need to do strength, and more rowing. Ah, tomorrow then. Yes. Am I looking even more beautiful, if such a thing is possible? I don't know. No one has the decency to tell me. Seems like I work hard for little or no results. But futility has not stopped me yet.

Yep. We're all nuts. Taking offense at what other people see as their right, or as wit. It's so tiresome. This is why there can be, at most, only one God.

J

Sunday So Far

My foolish mother had a plumbing problem -- house, not body -- and I'm the guy who deals with that. Toilet backing up. Snake didn't do anything. Then the shower backed up too, so it was deeper in the pipes. Well, a big pee company is always, always always advertising itself, "clear any drain for only $99." That's close enough to rooter-rental cost to make it worth while, so she called "Mike Diamond, the Smell-Good Plumber". Dude came out and asked where the cleanout was. She didn't know. So he said it would cost $1800 dollars. She called me, rather distraught. "Forget that," I ordered. You know, forget that, like the song. No way. So she said she'd had good luck with Rooter Rooter in the past. Guy came. $2400. No. They are crazy about their cameras, their very very apparently expensive cameras.

So that's what I did Sunday afternoon. Went online and looked up how to replace a toilet, if need be. Not as hard as I'd feared. Rented a Home Depot rooter. Got her washing machine line working -- she'd been letting it drain into the yard. Pretty rough on the fingers, that cable twisting around. Hunted down some gloves. Very earthy smell, sewer pipes -- not fecal, swampy. Went to the other side of the house to the four inch line, cleared it out to the sidewalk. Bit got stuck and I had to crawl under the house and cut the pipe open. Hassle, but I got the bit back. Toilet still backed up though. Crawled around some more, belly and back, dirt down my collar and up my shirt, silk of course, the very finest, and noticed the pipe from her bathroom didn't have any slope to it. So of course it wasn't draining. Plumbing is all about gravity. I propped one end up with a stone, and the problem was fixed. Total relevant cost, $0.

So this is where I expurgate my vulgarity re ripoff artists, who see an old lady and think they can have their way with her. Cuz, y'see, they'd like to help, but, like it costs $2000 to look under the freaking house.

Then I went and used the rooter someplace else that needed it, because it's a sin to waste. And then I went to Trader Joe's, a store with quality products at a reasonable price -- nuts and berries for me. Funny thing though. I saw my brother there, with his new wife. He didn't see me, so I just went about my business. Store was out of strawberries, and out of almonds. In line I hear a voice at my back, "My wife wants to say hello to you." And she seems to be a sweet young thing. Must be 20 by now. Little Asian girl. Well, Asians are okay, I guess.

But man. My brother. Earlier, before I saw it was him, and her, I just saw their backs, both dressed in night-on-the-town black, and my thought was, that man has strange posture. Then I saw it was my brother. And in line I got a look at him. Beard now. Haven't seen him for a couple of years. Very strange looking. Something is just off. Really rather unhealthy looking. Okay color though. Thing is, his basket had 15 or 20 egg cartons -- you know, by the dozen. And perhaps 10 quarts of yogurt. And a big heap of almonds bags. And another heap of frozen strawberries. He'd cleaned out the store. And that's what he eats. Eggs, yogurt, almonds and strawberries.

Man. Like my father's diet: cranberries and fishsticks.

It did not occur to me in line to ask my brother to let me have one of the bags of strawberries to buy.

On the drive home, I decided that from now on I will call everyone "boyfriend." So that's my Sunday, so far.

J

This and That

I'm leaving you. Because you're not worth loving anymore.

Sorry. I thought of it, and just had to say it. But that's the kind of honesty that shows how clueless I am sometimes. I work on tact, but it ends up mostly as silence.

I am going to beat you until you shit your pants. [some time later] Stop? Stop? But no. Remember what I said? I told you when I'd stop. You haven't shit your pants yet.

Generally I don't share the odd thoughts that fleet through my head.

You don't know me. You have no idea what I'm capable of. Sure we were friends, insofar as such a thing is possible. But nobody knows anyone. We don't even know ourselves. Just the shadows.

Sad thing is, not only do I mean it, but it's true.

J

Superb

Congressman Christopher Lee, shirtless.

So ... "Christopher Lee":

No, that's not the guy.

"Shirtless politician"?

No.

No.

No.

No.

No ... but then again, YES!

So, uh, "shirtless congressman"?

Aaron Schock? Mmmm. But, no.

Scott Brown?

No, not the guy. But yum.

Ah. Yes. That's him. Conservative family-values pol Christopher Lee of NY State. Resigned just few hours after this pic came to light. Y'see, he'd posted himself on craigslist, a well-known pornography ad site similar to WikiLeaks, representing himself to some chick as a 39-year-old single dad. Well, he's 46, and for the moment still married. Described himself in his ad as "fit fun and classy". Yeah, babe, I got a lot of class. Jus' ast my wife ... oops, I mean, DON'T ast her, if y'get what I mean, LOL.

Well, he's clearly spent some time in the gym. Typical stuff. Sitting on a bench, bulking up those guns with excellent curls, and it looks like he's even worked on those delts, and traps. Shrugs, maybe. Good on ya, mate. A bit, what, soft in the middle. Not flabby -- just little-boyish. Like Oakland: there's no there, there. And honestly, he's trying to pass himself off as 39? Ah well, maybe I'm spoiled, by my own superb genetics and superb lifestyle with its superb results, or as I like to say, resluts. But dude -- 39? Just, no. On a related note, I read recently that someone described me as looking 40, and it hurt my feelings a little. 40? Me? Try 34.

As for former Congressman Lee, frankly, yick. Just creepy. At least there's no weener shot, that we know of. Maybe something headless somewhere, but we'd have to go into his blackberry to find that. One of the circles of hell. Huh. Loneliness is understandable. Even betrayal is understandable. So is shame, and resigning quickly because of it. It's all understandable, not because we're all wise, but because we're all fools.

But now you must pardon me. I've just discovered the personals on craigslist, and I'm trying to upload some bodyshots. "Tall, blond, vvvgl, virile 29 year old, totally hot, classy, brilliant, an assload of integrity, hard in all the right places, looking for fit moslem, male or female, for fun times and maybe more if chem is rite. Where you lead I will follow. ddf, hiv neg, ub2."

What a world.

J

My Real Topic

Of course you have missed me. My wisdom, my brilliance. How I pity you, not being me, or at least around me. So sad.

"Let me just say this. What we need to do is..."

Oh, pardon me. I was channeling Obama. So very, very eloquent. Eleven useless, wasted words. But so eloquent. Very. Humble, see, cuz he's asking permission. And then inspirational, cuz he's informing us about what we all need to do. That Assistant Professor Obama is such a pedagogue. That's so good.

Back when I was a father I was a real hugger. Kisser too. Touching has always been an odd thing with me. Even when I was very little. Pre school. Elementary school. Kind of strange I know. I'm sure I was abused. Wish I could remember. Not even family members, birth family, were in the theoretical group of people who could touch me. Then I got married, somehow, and I remember my sister-in-law saying I was a lot more normal, touchwise. Yes, I was. I had an anchor. Maybe I even said something like that, outloud. But it's been a long time since I've been married, and quite a few years since I had kids.

Then the other day someone I know, and love, hugged me, and others commented on the fact. Apparently I am notorious. And I said something like, "He is in my family." It seems that to me family does not mean blood ties. Repugnant is too strong a word -- but I do not want hugs from, say, my brothers. I wish I could forgive. But it's nice to love. I always squeezed my boys, hello, and always goodbye too. I'm around a few kids now once in a while. I might be loosening up a little with them now. But they are other people's kids, not fatherless, not unloved, and they don't need me. That's okay. We can love even when it is not needed. Never know when it might come in handy. It might save a life. It might save mine. In any case, it is the difference been happiness and misery.

I have become aware that I don't smile much. I used to, I think. I think I don't now, the way I used to, because I want to be left alone. A sort of don't fuck with me thing. Unpleasant. Maybe I should try to change that. There are people in stores I frequent, clerks, who have gotten to remember me. They start conversations. It's like pushing a truck, for me. Maybe I should make the effort. Who am I trying to be? My father?

I had some very wise things to say about Egypt. All figure out. But I've forgotten what they were. Might have been that democracy is not all it's cracked up to be. It's not how we get there, it's where we get. We want to get to a place of justice and equality before the law. And I thought, and it's true, that monarchy is the best form of government. For those of a certain orientation, it's undeniable. When Jesus comes again, he is not voted into office. He rules as an absolute monarch. Whereas democracy elects, oh, say, well, pick a demogogue, or a pedogogue. The wisdom of the crowd is a logical nullity. Intellect v emotion -- gee, who will win? Civilization is an entropic slide away from a few initial good decisions. The Constitution, then decay. So much for Evolution.

Stay tuned for my continued sporadic observations of brilliance and beauty, like me, and my penis. That has after all been my real topic.

J

Nothing Much

I hardly ate yesterday, and I didn't sleep at all last night. Every once in a while I go a bit mad. I've been exceptionally angry recently. It's really a little crazy. How am I even still alive. I observe these thoughts of self-destruction -- far more frequent than they used to be. It occurs to me for example that I own a gun. No risk, I think -- I'm too stubborn to give up. And no great crisis in my life, to merit anything cowardly.

I find though that I just don't believe anything at all. Oh sure, my grand principles and theories and worldview, but people, and what they say -- just don't believe it. A family member complained with some affect that I used to be more human, and wanted to get into an argument. I had self-control and stayed rational. That's not very human. Oh, I'm so very perfect, it was said. No, I am deeply flawed, but am I the topic of this discussion? I just can't have patience with the dishonesty, sneaking scheming lies -- one can't show contempt for family members, but one might feel it.

And part of the loop is the conviction that I am completely unable now to have what is in contemporary parlance called a committed relationship. Sort of a shame, given my need to give and to receive tenderness, not to mention a libido undiminished from my adolescence. How did I get stuck with this body, and that family? We are too blessed, to be so cursed.

It is my belief that I was molested as a very young child. No memories, but I was always sexualized, and that's not normal. And then I became highly repressed. I wish I knew why. Ah well. It's an easy excuse, and a good theory to explain this pervading, consuming inability to trust. And this rage. And this wasted potential, and life.

God saves us through human interaction, and by inspiring us to useful work. I have a few friends, now, although I don't think I am a very good friend. You have to take me for what I am. That's sort of selfish. Well, normality is a skill, and skills take practice. Give me time, and have patience. Like I did, when I was a father. As for work, well, even I don't know what I do for a living.

My point? Well that's a problem.


J

Blood Libel

All right, moron, let's take your retarded premise "seriously" for the few moments it will take to confirm your invincible stupidity. (You know, Sarah Palin is, like, totally a terrorist and evil.  Examples of your stupidity here, here, etc.)

 President Garfield was killed by Charles Julius Guiteau,

who wanted to be made ambassador to Paris, which is the capital of France, in Europe. When his dream was dashed by the cold reality of his complete lack of qualifications -- like, sanity -- God told him to buy a gun. Having plagiarized a book on theology, Guiteau counted himself sensitive to the Lord's will, secured a revolver -- not as pearl-handled as he had wished -- and killed Garfield. At trial his defense was that he was legally but not medically insane. All the while he was planning his triumphal post-trial lecture tour and campaign to run for president in 1884. On the scaffold, he asked for an orchestra to play so he could sing a poem he had written: "I Am Going to the Lordy."

McKinley was shot by Leon Czolgosz,

 anarchist of the Emma Goldman flock. The president had to die because, uh, there are rich people. Bang. Czolgosz was electrocuted, zap, his body dissolved in sulfuric acid and his papers and clothes were burned. Good riddance.

Kennedy? Well aside from the Mafia, which does not exist, and the CIA, and Castro and Johnson,

and, uh, all the others involved in the conspiracy, like the Dallas police, there was Oswald.

Who was a Marxist.

Theodore Roosevelt was shot but not killed by John Flammang Schrank.

TR, with a bullet lodged in his chest, continued to give his speech, for another ninety minutes. As for Schrank, he wrote poetry and was told by God in a dream to avenge McKinley's death. So, of course, what else could he do? He spent the rest of his life in an insane asylum.

FDR was shot at by Giuseppe Zangara,

a delusional bricklayer, who instead shot five other people, killed a woman and Anton Cermak the mayor of Chicago, who threw himself into the line of fire. Zangara's motive: he hated rich and powerful people, because of talk radio and especially Rush and also Sarah Palin because she used the term blood libel. (You are stupid.)

Truman was shot at by Puerto Rican leftists, Oscar Collazo, right,

and Griselio Torresola.

Ford was shot at by Manson freak Squeaky Fromme

and by hardcore radical Sarah Jane Moore

definitely related as a matter of absolute fact to michael moore.

Samuel Byck

-- a Sean Penn look-alike

-- was a psychiatric patient, Jewish, who tried to join the Black Panthers and also incidentally wanted to fly a plane into the White House, to kill Nixon because the government conspired to oppress the poor. He killed the pilot and co-pilot, then himself. Bang bang bang.

Reagan was shot by John Hinkley

to impress Jody Foster.

The madman thought Jody would be interested in a man of his ... caliber.

Saddam Hussein Obama

tried to get HW. So, another madman.

Frank Corder,

a drug dealer, tried to fly a plane into Clinton. Francisco Duran

fired 29 rounds at what he thought was Clinton. Tourists tackled him. His defense at trial was that he was trying to save the world from a mist fed by an umbilical cord connected to a space alien hidden in the lofty mountains of Colorado. He might not have been insane.

Robert Pickett,

emotionally problematic and employmently aggrieved, stood this side of the fence and unloaded a handgun at the W White House. Sentenced to three years. The gun, which is the real criminal, got off scot free again. Then on 9-11 some moslems tried to sneak into Bush's motel room in Florida.

These two pasty geniuses,

Paul Schlesselman and Daniel Cowart, had it against Obobo, as did these three, Shawn Adolf, Tharin Gartrell and Dwaine Johnson ('The Rock' -- he looks different in his movies),

also geniuses and at least as smart as you, moron. All White Supremecists, the best thing to be of course, very smart, the same as you, so of course their target was the Kenyan, but only the black half. Is that how you spell supremicists? Yes, that's how YOU spell supremecists.

So that's about it then. Everyone who's gone for a president. I'm not forgetting anyone, am I? Can't think of anyone. No, that's about it. Well, I've left out some boring ones. But, yep. Uh, right. Done. But it just seems like maybe I ... maybe I'm forgetting someone? OH! LOL!!! Silly me!!!!!! LINCOLN! HAHAHAHA!!!!!! Killed by a Democrat.

So your point, moron, that conservatives are dangerous -- well it kind of turns out that you are a moron, don't it. Assassins are all insane, or democrats, or islamists, or potheads. People who listen to their dreams and want government jobs. So, stupid, your lie that Sarah Palin is responsible for Jarad Shit, well, you are a moron. And the term, blood libel, used by her to characterize your stupidity -- by hearkening to another scurrilous cowardly pattern of lying accusation by other bigots of your ilk -- seems pretty apt. Jews never used the blood of Christian babies in their Passover feast. And talk radio does not incite violence. Well, maybe from White Supremecists, against Obama. I'll give you that one. But they're not conservatives. They are however as stupid as you are, difference being that they believe their lies whereas you are just a lying moron. You are a Moron Supremecist. That's how you spell supremecist.

You are stupid.

J

The Latest Eh-Hole

Whatever this latest eh-hole's name is. Jared. Jared Shih? Whatever. "Please don't be mad at me." No, I'm not mad. It's just that I'd like justice. An equal amount of pain should be levied upon him, as he has provided to others. Justice. Impossible of course. Like Virginia Tech. Like 9-11. Stupid people made evil by their actions. We're all stupid, sometimes. Hardly any of us have the poor judgement to manifest said stupidity into reality. Yes, we do create our own reality -- the New Agers are right, if there are any New Agers anymore. Is my terminology out of date? No more hippies, I know. Um, Emo? Global Warmists? They are all of a piece, these Emotionalists -- and correct, in thinking globally and acting locally.

Jared Shih acted locally, per his anarchist and/or Satanist handbook, the result being a little dead nine year old girl, and some dead old people protecting their spouses, and a dead judge, and then a score or so of wounded. Some heroism, bystanders leaping toward the gunfire instead of away. Thus, even in horror there is beauty. Thank you God, for including a capacity for nobility in this world of general materiality.

Jared Shih, I hear, lived in his parent's hillbilly shack with tar buckets on the porch, and was kicked out of the Y and the library and the local community college, and was denied entry into the army, and he'd dress as a hippie one day and as a rasta the next and hip hop after that. Just trying to find himself -- an anus in search of some butt cheeks. My metaphors in this topic tend to the scatological.

Whom shall we blame for Jared Shih's actions? ... other than himself, of course. Enlightened as we are, we know how complex such matters must be. His schizophrenia, no doubt, we must blame. Who after all can resist voices telling us to do a thing? The fact that there is a lifetime of such voices, external, and real, telling us to act rightly -- this fact shall be ignored. The excuse of a mental disorder will be sufficient to excuse these murders. And of course talk radio, and the Tea Party. Sarah Palin is a root cause, no doubt -- it must be a certainty that Jared Shih studied her website, on which there was a certain congress woman's name, somehow associated with crosshairs. QED.

The sheriff of Pima County is to be excused, in his emotional rhetoric maligning talk radio. The logic isn't very sound, and his grasp of history is poor -- but his point was that civility should be valued. On the topic of free speech, Dick Durbin, Dhem Sen of Ill, confused himself by wondering, "Don't we have an obligation, those of us in public life and those who cover us to say, 'This is beyond the bounds. It may be constitutionally permissible, but it shouldn't be acceptable rhetoric? We owe it to our own in both political parties to have at least the good sense and common decency when people say these outrageous things to say, 'Wait a minute, that just goes too far, whether it comes from the right or from the left."

Um. No? It should not be acceptable? It should be forbidden? Sir. Outrageous, incivil, stupid speech is, must be, and shall remain acceptable in the public forum. I have every right to be wrong and to be offensive. It's called freedom, and it works both ways, to your pleasure and to your discomfiture. And as for things that may be constitutionally permissible, such as free speech, which may be permissible, constitutionally, well, sir, you are the reason we need a Constitution. What would you forbid, without it? The answer is apparent. Free speech, and the right of self-defense as provided for through the right to bear arms. As for the degree of incivility, it is a reflection not of a change in human nature, but of a coarsening of broadcast standards. The knowledgeable reader will call to mind the Alien and Sedition Act, in point of support.

... Oh, wait. I see I've been unfair. Dick Turgid excused his disrespect for the Constitution and covered his ass by adding some boilerplate verbiage about common decency. So that's all right then. Never mind. On the one hand he belittles the Constitution, but he makes it all right with a fix-it appeal to emotion. See?

As for the latest coward child-murderer, he was planning on killing himself. So he wouldn't have to deal with the consequences. Planning ahead is a good thing. Forgiveness? My position should be apparent by now. It is not for me to forgive. I am not harmed by the murder of children I do not know. I mean, abortion is legal, right? And I no longer distress myself over this fact. He surely needs forgiving. Where will he find it? In the hearts of his living victims? -- or from the loved ones of the dead? From God, who created or at least allows Hell? I really don't care. It's not my problem. Justice, not mercy, is the proper concern of society and its instruments. Let us then try to approximate justice.

I regret that he has but one life to give for his crimes. Sadly, the coward does not die a thousand deaths.

J

Another Email

It is true that I seek isolation. I've spun out this downward spiral so may times before that I hardly need affirm the fact. I seek isolation. It's a form of self-destruction. Since we are made for one another. It is not good for man to be alone. The need of an help meet.

But I've finally gotten around to looking at some unattended emails, and there are some interesting ones. I play the fool sometimes here, dramatic representation of an inner life that cannot be seen, only outlined, as fog can indeed cast a shadow. My self confidence is both overweening, and crippled. I am not unaware of my talents, but seared into my soul, like letters shaped from stab wounds in the back, is the knowledge that I cannot be loved. Among the dross in these pages are also to be found some items of value, however.

So in a recent email, a correspondent -- a sort of blessing to me, as I trust I am to him -- closes with this: "if I were you I would feel lonely just in the fact of the way your mind works, and how you analyze and understand things, because even I sit here and listen to law students talk, and I think, people are seriously SO unbelievably stupid, like, almost everyone."

Someone asked me if I was as smart as Theodore Roosevelt. You had to hear the conversation. I said he was world class, I'm just national. Point is, my isolation has no necessary relationship to intelligence. I am still surprised at how stupid my birth family was. But I was not despised because I was not stupid. The origin of their malice was too primitive to focus that high. It made it harder for me, though, being aware of the sickness, sensitive to it as intelligence must allow.

There is, buried deep in the extended archives here, the story, Compassion, about a pilgrim and an observation he makes. I have just been informed that this story, told in a social situation, may have played some part in leading some young man to becoming Christian -- you know, born again. Of course it's never the story, but the telling of it, that has power. You know, human contact, that cares enough to tell a story. Or write one. If only they are read, or heard. And understood. And acted upon. Prophets pray for wisdom and an understanding heart. First wisdom, knowing what to do -- then understanding, knowing why. But no. First, righteousness. Doing what is right, regardless of what you know, or understand.

I do not give up, mostly out of stubbornness. I seem to view life as a matter of waiting out the clock. I will endure, because I have very few needs, and a high tolerance for low-grade pain. I think I don't smile much. I think I used to. I think I'm more optimistic than otherwise, but heavy-laden and perverted with anger. Oh, I'm complicated, both bitter and gentle. To me, this is righteousness -- seeing the world for what it is, and remaining kind.

But I flatter myself.

I've rowed four 250m with a minute rest between at a pace of 49 seconds. Slightly hellish. But it's a 3:16 pace for the 1000m, and my goal is 3:15. So I'll be doing 4,5 and 6 intervals at that pace for a bit, then do 48s, then start shortening the rest period. No idea how long it will take. Instant math is guessing 70 sessions, based on no evidence, just theory (a few at 49, a few at 48, then a bunch taking five seconds off the rests). 5 months. No, that can't be right. Too long. 30 sessions. Two months, or three. We shall see.

J

Testicles

Question: How many Mohammads does it take to screw in a light bulb?

Answer: What's a light bulb?

Question: How many Allahs does it take to screw in a light bulb?

Answer: Allah doesn't need light bulbs, because Allah is Satan, in Hell, along with Mohammad.

Just had to get that off my chest. Cuz the governor of Punjab was assassinated by his bodyguard for suggesting that Pakistan's blasphemy laws -- or is it anti-blasphemy laws -- were not consonant with, uh, enlightenment.

But I've been thinking about testicles for the past few days. My own, specifically. Not a lot of experience with anyone else's There were those few times back in college, and high school, and, um, junior high. And after college. I castrated a goat in Australia. Just a little rubber band around the area in question, like choking a chicken. And I've changed diapers. But it's my own that have consumed my interest recently. My own testicles, not diapers. I don't use diapers. Because I don't need them.

Testicles depend from the pelvic girdle as external genitalia, because they need a slightly cooler than body temperature to properly form gametes. How nice it would be to have them snuggly nestled away insight the ribcage, right next to the heart, say. Penises have every right in the world to be completely and dramatically, flamboyantly even, external. But the testes, well, it leads to complications.

A few evenings ago I spent five or ten minutes in moderate discomfort from a misdirected knee. In my many countless years as a master of bjj, that's never happened before. I wear a so-called protective cup, but I remain unconvinced that they are manufactured with actual male men in mind. Who is shaped like that? The triangular ones, baseball, are useless, and actually dangerous. The more elongated ones are not ready-to-wear. Took me a while to figure that out. I bend them double and weight them down under furniture, so they take on a more homoform pattern. I ordered a muy thai one once, for reasons we need not go into, but it was metal and leather, with hemp somehow involved. Well, anyway. My junk is of normal proportions. Like me. Shapely and elegant. Highly coordinated and acrobatic. Able to lift very heavy things. I seem to have lost my train of thought.

So next time I'll examine my perineum.

J

Y2KXI

Sometimes I sleep in my clothes. Sometimes I don't eat all day long.

It hasn't been such a bad year. It hasn't been a bad year at all, in fact, I just realize. It was a hellish decade, but it's over, and I'm close to over it. It takes a sort of callousness, to move on from grief. It feels like a betrayal, an abandonment of faithfulness. But that's just stupid. Loyal to what? A memory? An idea? Not to a person. The people are gone, one way or another. Gone for a decade, mostly. So it's loyalty to an emotion, nonadaptive, malignant. Meant to be gone through, not to be stuck in.

But some people go mad. Some don't. Some waiver in between. Some are sensitive, some loyal, some hard, some practical, some foolish. More and more I argue for practical. I've seen what idealism does. I think it's a kind of insanity. Reality matters. The further we deviate from it, the more deviant we are. Be real. The counterbalance to reality is not idealism. It's honesty, because honesty doesn't stop at the surface, but uses integrity to discern what is true. Truth doesn't move from right to left, but as it were from up to down. It has depth. That way, where ever you start from, right, or left, or practical or idealistic, you dig down to the truth. So, as for grief, well, move on.

It's been an expensive decade. I suffered a lot of loss, burned a lot of bridges. Scorched earth policy. I had no friends, no community ties, no property that wasn't movable. I've been a transient in my life, however stable my location. Now I'm settled solidly into middle age, not open to change, socially and emotionally stunted. I'm ashamed to admit it, but I have need of a savior.

God is pure power, not chaotic, unformed, but the motive force of existence. The Word emanates from God as light comes from the sun -- they are not separable. The Spirit is the light by which we see, reflected, actualizing -- it is the heat that allows, and is, life. The Word, Logos, is communicative rationality. Since God is love, love is rational, and rationality encompasses love, as sun and sunlight and sight and heat are not cause and effect, but outflowing manifestations of one single and pure thing.

Today I did a little strength workout, deadlifts and back squats, getting back into it as I have said. Tomorrow I will do some rowing. I don't have access to a treadmill, upon which I like to run intervals. I do have access to a rower, so I'm transposing my running into a rowing program. 6 to 10 250m rows, one minute rests, maintaining a steady pace, speed increasing over sessions and weeks. I've done a bit of testing, and settled on a current pace of 55 seconds per 250m. I'll run through the 6-10 cycle at that pace, then see what's reasonable in terms of speeding it up. I've done a lot of running, and no rowing at all, and even through there's a transfer of benefits, I can't expect too much. My first ever 1000 meters was 3:36, which seems to be pretty good. But it left me on the floor for 4 minutes -- 250 seem more manageable. 3:15 is top 10% of serious rowers; under 3 minutes is top 10 in the world -- or at least on the Concept II site for this season. So my mid-range goal is 3:15. Take 21 seconds off my first effort. Seems doable. Something like a 9% improvement, if my instant math is right.

Of course, I haven't played with the damper setting yet. So far, dead center. We shall see. Only a handful have beaten 3 minutes. Well?

Therefore I will continue to sublimate my wayward and misapplied energies into the physical. It's not really meaningful, since we decline inevitably with great age. But I am not at a great age, and the decline need start only from the peak, the genetic limit, which hardly anyone attains. I make no resolutions. My resolve is not dependent on dates. It is just as arbitrary, and dates do matter, somehow, but I'd like people to become more important to me. Real people, who are actually in my life. Yesterday I played with some little kids, for example. Oh yes, it's work. But good.

And it's been a good year, actually. Not actually profitable, and with long rather unpleasant hours. But worthwhile. A very good year.

J