You're alright, Miley Cyrus...you're alright.

Holla, mi viejo amigo

Attachment and desire is the cause of all suffering, somebody once said.  And it is a true statement. Win or lose, Superbowl champs or not, eventually we will all die alone.

I don't know how many more of these disappointments I can take. sigh....

It's terrifying how emotionally invested I get in a football team.  A football team for Christs sake!  Kids are starving to death in Nepal and I feel sad because my preferred group of overpaid muscular men couldn't get an oblong piece of pigskin past two arbitrary points in space more often than another group of overpaid muscular men. 

I wish I can remember who recommended "The Elementary Particles".  Was it a friend of mine?  Was it an online recommendation?   Anyway, upon this second reading, I am struck by how interesting the story is.  There were so many interesting nuggets of philosophic prose that I don't remember from my first reading.  I begin to wonder if I should re-read every single book in my collection, there must be so many good things I've forgotten, it would be great fun to rediscover them.

As much as I enjoyed The Elementary Particles, it's not a book I would lightly recommend.  Not because its not a good read, nor because it's heavy thick reading, it is in fact a light and thin novel.  I hesitate to recommend it because...I wouldn't want the person I recommend it to, to think the novel reflects who I am as a person.  Though I find myself relating, at times painfully so, with these depraved, dysfunctional fictitious (supposedly) characters, I would take the philosophies and worldviews presented within the novel with a heaping tablespoon of salt; also, I couldn't be bothered to decipher whether the author was making sense with the numerous references he made to various brands of Western intellectualism.


I am very excited about the Patriots AFC Championship game on Sunday.  I can't wait to go to sleep tonight, because the earlier I go to sleep, the sooner kickoff will come.  Like a child on christmas eve who goes to bed extra early so he can hurry up and wake up on christmas day to open presents.  The only difference is, I'm not a child, there are no gift wrapped presents under a sparkling pine scented christmas tree, and nothing in the NFL is guaranteed.   I am so nervous and anxious, I'm not sure I like being attached to a sports team.

Rat Race

even if you win the rat race, you're still a rat...

and if you lose the rat race, you end up decomposing behind my refrigerator. 

We watched storm tossed waves crash against cliffs.

We watched a little girl fly a kite.

January 5th, a saturday.

It was a Saturday.

it was rainy.
it was cloudy.
it was cold,
for hawaii.

i surfed in the ocean.
broke my surfboard.
fixed it. 

dinner was spaghetti and potato salad.
and one beer.

chores.
a thin book with neon green cover.
some guitar.

great day.

I've seen a lot of pretentious art in my time.  In fact, I consider myself a connosieur of pretentious art.  So it was to great delight and disgust that I stumbled upon this: The most pretentious, crap, ridiculous, meaningless, immature, incoherent, amateur, insulting, ugliest piece of shit shit I've ever seen:

The end of the world

I read somewhere on the internet that if people knew the world was truly going to end,everyone would be running around confessing their love to their secret crushes.  I imagine that would be a pointless task because their object of desire would be too busy having end-of-world sex with his/her significant other to have time to listen to the confession.

But what would I do at the end of the world? I'd probably be too worried about doing the "perfect" last act.  I'd probably get too distracted by deciding if i want to do something crazy, funny, defiant, or serious and just end up missing Armageddon all together.  Procrastination and laziness to the very end; true to who I am, to the end.

I feel an uncomfortable amount of pressure to write an appropriately fitting post for the tomorrow.

If I close my eyes, and imagine really hard that the world ends tomorrow...all I can think about is the deep fryer incident.  I will go to my grave haunted by the deep fryer incident. 

Last month of the year

It's true.  When I'm not traveling, i have nothing to say and my life has no meaning.

Me drinking coffee and having a smoke. A moment in El Salvador.

Beans and cigarettes.  The only two food groups available to me on that particular costa rican mountainside.

no wait, there was coffee as well.  So...beans, cheap cigarettes and coffee. 

Those two weeks were the best of my life. 

I was stuck in traffic in town on my way home from work at 6:30 on a friday night.  It was then I realized if my life was a cell phone, my battery charge would have two bars left.

If I woke up in the morning of a busy Saturday and found that I had two bars left on my phone, I wouldn't be too worried.  Two bars would get me through the day and I would feel confident enough to go about my business and and work through my to-do list.

In real life, two bars of battery remaining would mean I am aware of the decrease in my useful life expectancy, yet have not reached a point where I am worried.  As of this point, I still have enough time to do all the things I have planned and take care of any other unexpected issues that might arise during the day. "day" being life.

Patriots 49 : Jets 19

For my thanksgiving dinner: one energy bar and half a yam.

It was delicious.

It seems like everyone around is me having babies. At the same time, everyone around me seems to be dying.  Cancer, babies, suicides, babies, old age, babies.  Babies on purpose, Babies on accident.  Death by accident, death by intention.  Umbilical cords, nooses. C-sections, malignant tumor removal.

"Would you like baby or death?"
"Death, please."

High School Reunion

I went to my 10 year high school reunion last night.  it was very enjoyable.  i am glad i went. I'm glad i was convinced to go.  I'm glad that many of my classmates are doing well for themselves. I am sad that some of them are stuck in jobs too small for their spirit.  I am a little disappointed that my old high school crush didn't show up...It was nice to see these people, pure and true.  the three hours we were there went by too quickly. 

I have a suspicion that many of them still keep in touch, through face book if nothing else, and that the novelty of the whole night was exciting only for people without facebook, such as myself.

and thank god for alcohol.  liquid confidence. fun in a bottle.

ooh! and for the first time in my life, somebody called me a social butterfly.  I am a social butterfly.  Can I put that on my resume?   
"i am charming and a vicacious people-oriented personality.  I thrive in situations that allow me to interact with clients, co-workers and superiors.  I am energized by new situations and networking opportunities.  I will be a benefit to the company, as it is a sales-driven operation that profits from person-to-person business model paradigms. My greatest weakness is that i probably love people too much and have too much energy and personality, friends call me a social butterfly. 

viva las vegas

Just came back from my Las Vegas trip.  And like all my trips, I learned something profound about myself.  There was a lesson to be distilled.  The lesson I learned, the fact I have accepted, is I am a boring old man. 

My partner and I stood with our signs and waved at the early morning traffic driving by.   It was the big day. Election day.  Our organization decided to stake out an intersection next to an all-girls catholic high school.  I noticed most of the cars were filled with teenage girls being dropped off at school.  I figured, what's the point of waving to them if they aren't even old enough to vote?  So, I stopped waving (it's not like they were paying me to do this).  I noticed my partner was still waving, very enthusiastically in fact, at all the cars pulling into the school.  I told him to stop waving at those cars, that it was pointless. He shrugged his shoulders at me and kept waving.  I told him, "those girl area all too young to vote".  He said, "that's not why I'm waving."  Without thinking, I said,  "then why are you waving at them?" He turned around and leered at me.

quite possibly, the saddest thing I ever saw: a man carrying a twin size bed mattress out the door of a RAC Rent-a-Center. 

It doesn't surprise me that it exists; it makes me warm and fuzzy inside, there are videos of people eating potato chips that can be found on the internet.

New Girl

Damn Zooey and her big round eyes.  I hate Zooey Deschanel cuz she's so good at that thing she does.  I hate Zooey's character on the hit TV show New Girl for being so unrealistically dorky yet charmingly loveable for it.  And I hate myself for being such a sucker for that cliche old gimmick.

New Girl

I never understood the appeal of Zooey Deschanel, until about last night.  New Girl. It's the kind of TV show you regret watching as soon as the credits roll; the premise, lines, characters, story, jokes are ridiculous, but at the same time, it's all amusing.  And Miss Deschanel is well cast in the role of Jess, as much as i hate to say it.

update: new drinking game:
1. watch New Girl
2. Take a shot every time Zooey's left eyelid takes longer than her right eyelid to blink, close, open, or contribute to a facial expression.  

high school reunion

It's been ten years (already)?
It's been ten  years (only)?

I was recently notified of my high school ten year reunion.  The only reason I found out about it was a chance encounter at the drug store with an old class mate (I really need to get on facebook). For the past ten years I always planned on not going.  I couldn't even say I "planned" on not going, going wasn't even an option.  But, being the person that I occasionally am, i decided to go on a whim.  Better to regret the things you did instead of the things you didn't do, right?

All I need to do now before the reunion next month is lose weight, become rich, and get a hot girlfriend.

Got whacked by my surfboard.  I was coming up to the surface in the white wash and my board was still being tossed around by the water, and just as i came up , the board whacked me right in the head.    I'm wondering if I should give up this hobby.  it's pretty dangerous.  I mean, that cut on my head isn't that bad, but it could have been the skegs that got me, or it could have gotten me right in the nose or eyes.  It hit me hard enough to split my skin.  I wouldn't be surprised if my skull is cracked and I didn't know it and I'm slowly hemorrhaging to death.


In other news, I saw some old friends of mine.  We went to a high school football game. It's nice to see old friends.  However, it wasn't so nice to see my old high school football team lose in the first round of the playoffs. 

Here is a picture of fennel seeds:

fennel seeds are a staple flavoring agent for baked goods such as cookies, bread and cakes.  Fennel is particularly good with pork dishes fish and stronger game dishes like wild boar.  Use fennel seeds to flavor fish, cheese, vegetables and pastries.  Or do like the Indians and serve with crystallized sugar as an after-meal breath freshener.

It's 2am now, there's a meteor shower tonight.

I may be hypochondriac, or I may have nose and throat cancer.  I'm not sure.  I'm leaning towards the interpretation of incurable disease.

I've had the same Bob Marley song stuck in my head for weeks now because somebody at work decided to post lyrics on the bulletin board as an inspirational quote. 

global warming, climate change...i ain't ever seen southerly winds last this long in hawaii.  ever.  2012, if we are lucky, will sort our lives out for us.  

has old age finally found me?  Last week the waiter at a restaurant merely asked me my age when i ordered a glass of house red wine, he didn't bother to check my ID.  Today, the check out clerk at the supermarket didn't ask me for my ID when I bought a six pack.  Both times I had my ID in my hand, ready to prove my age...

So it goes.  My grandmother, who is very sharp for her age,yet kind of senile, continues to base our conversations around repeatedly asserting I am too skinny and need to eat more.  Our "conversations" could last for as long as 10 or 15 minutes, and based completely around variations and repetitions of her telling me i need to eat more and that I am too skinny.