and then she kissed me

She has a strong personality. She's tall and she's a single mother. The last time she can remember a man being interested in her that she, herself, was attracted too has slipped behind many a change of seasons. So she was needin'. She was lookin' and she was ready. So, on a typical night out on the town, a little drunk, she finds herself in the affectionate arms of... a woman. I don't know if this is her first time, but it certainly set her back a bit. She was drunk and this girl just did and said all the right things. She enjoyed it, and that is what amazed her.

She emailed me and told me the story. In the email you could sense that there was some confusion about whether or not she was gay as all the men around her had made her feel. She is an athlete afterall and she has an imposing physical presence. Her attitude is one of strength which she earned from the previous failed experiences with men and that has made her hard to woo with typical pick up lines and bullshit. Not that pick up lines woo every woman, but they do work on some, just not her. She found herself wanting men but scaring them away and confused about what to do.

It's a tight spot to find yourself in, you want a man, you desire some affection and you are not trying to scare men away, but something about you just doesn't open doors and suddenly you find yourself sitting behind two dozen social filters that weed out too many men and leave you asking questions about yourself. "Everyone thinks I'm gay, am I gay? Am I scaring them away on purpose because I really want women? Is there something that they see that I don't?" Rest easy little lady, the recent events do not make you gay. Nor do they make you bisexual, nor bi curious or bi situational. What it does show is that you needed affection and you just now see that anyone can give you that much sought after affection. And affection doesn't have to have a certain type of plumbing to be affective.

My mother, the great bastion of wisdom that she is, once told me that lesbians were opportunists. She was living in Bellingham, Washington, the second largest lesbian community in America at the time, so she had some lesbian insight she could share that seemed somewhat valid. Of course, my mother has always been one for taking abstract thought and making it philosophy. (now you know where I get it) In her experience, she felt that lesbians were angry, humorless women who looked for vulnerable women in need and then gave them the attention and affection they were seeking, thus "recruiting" more women to their way of life. I think there is some truth to this, but I don't think it's solely a lesbian tactic. I know men that seek out the recently single and prey upon them for sexual excitement in much the same way. On the extreme opposite end of this scale is the gay male. There is never been a vulnerable man that was recruited to homosexuality by a gay male that preyed upon him, unless you count prison. So this issue or tactic, isn't just a lesbian thing, thus blowing my mother's theory ( theory #496) out of the water. Good line of thought, but no. Preying upon the vulnerable is a tactic that you find in nature everywhere and it's not specific to any one group. Religious cults do it. Sports does it. Advertisers do it. Hungry animals do it. It's a pretty common practice. So lesbian shouldn't be singled out.( I do agree a little bit with the humorless part though. I have had enough lesbians in my comedy crowds that were ready to torch the place with me in it. Killing men, one comic at a time)

The strength that women have is very powerful. The social standard for women for thousands of years is that they needed "a man" to protect them, provide for them and please them. It was the belief that women will only need "one man" to all of this and that if a woman had everything she needed from one man, she would never need another or seek another one out. Apparently women of the past were not big on variety or choices. Men believe this and they still continue to believe this. So, if a woman discovers that she doesn't need a man for these things, and they don't, then they become somewhat of a puzzle for men. How do we impress, woo or screw this woman if she doesn't need us? How do we "get her"? If she doesn't have any doors for me to walk through, then how do I get over to the other side?

Even though women have evolved through the years and have become more independent, men have resisted their evolution. This next statement is going to get me in trouble, but here it goes... Men have never really been forced to accept their part in the evolution nor will they ever because there are always women that will find their way back to the old social standard of depending on men. Yes, it's true. For every ten women that set themselves free and find independence, at least four to six of them will regress to the "dependent" lifestyle belief system. It's sad, I know. And it's because this happens so often, men have learned to wait it out and jump when the woman is exposed and weak. And if that doesn't work, they know that they can let a strong willed woman go and then they can wait for the needy woman to come along. Pick up lines were written to expose the weaker hearted women from the stronger ones. If a strong willed woman is suddenly ga ga for a man that is obviously well below her own set of standards that she set for a worthy man, just because he said she looked good in Blue, then you have just witnessed a regression and seen the true essesence of a pick up line. That's why strong willed women, and men, think pick up lines are so cheesy. We don't need crap to make us feel better. We don't need an empty compliment to feel better about ourselves. AND we are offended by people that do fall for them. That twitch in your spine when you hear a pick up line is disgust. But, again, the great irony here is that no matter how much a woman needs a man, no matter how strong her needs are, they will pale in comparison to the needs that a man has for a woman. Men are much weaker than women, but we have been trained (by women) to believe that we are stronger. It's a vicious cycle. We were told to say nice things, open doors, buy cute little gifts, flowers, remember specific dates and eat pussy and we will be able to win the heart of any woman. It's as simple as that. Women ask for it, men give it to them. That's the way the world works. Men will do anything it takes to get a woman. AND... every woman has a back door.. Every woman. There is always something out there that a man can do to get to any woman. She could be a die hard man hater, but crumble when he does that one thing that just makes her go ga-ga. Every woman.

Back to our girl.

She enjoyed the experience with the woman and has continued to let it play out. Good for her. It doesn't make her a lesbian but it does show that she is strong enough to dispense with the facade of social standards and accept that affection is just affection. I hope she will also realize that the men that would label her "too much to handle" are generally not the type of men that she would want in the first place. Spineless little opportunists that need a woman to make them feel necessary. Now is that really a good catch? Hopefully she will stop looking in the wrong direction and see that the good men, the really good men, are never found in the way that you were raised to find them. They are not found at the end of two hours of make up application and tight jeans. They are not found at the end of a well prepared, candle-lit dinner. They are not found in personal ads or in the opinions of your friends and family. Good men, or good women are found when you just simply turn around and see who has been with you all along. The person that has been through it with you, the person that has put up with your shit without the satisfaction of sexual balance, the person that you can fart in front of. That is where you find the good men and the good women.

one track away from perfection

I am listening to a few cd's that I have not heard in a while. Some of them are such a part of who I am, I can not think of life without access to them. They have survived moves, scratches, break ups, theft, replacement and financial destitution. They are, quite simply, the easiest way to define me. If I needed to describe myself using ten words or less I would probably say, Stevie Ray Vaughnn, Concrete Blonde, Pink Martini and U2, and hopefully the person would let out an, "oooooohhhhhh" and then nod their head in an understanding gesture. "He's one of those types."

Music does help define us and it's easy to see what kind of people strangers can be just by looking at their clothes, their habits, their diction and their swagger. Someone in a cowboy hat, chewing tobacco and saying, "git 'er done" is most likely a George Strait fan. Someone wearing baggy pants, a lot of gaudy jewelry and stagger stepping down the street while swinging one arm is most likely a Tupac Shukur fan. Someone with little or no variation from the rest of the world and seems to wear whatever is in style is most likely an Ashley Simpson fan. So music does do a lot to give an impression of who we are to others.

There are exceptions. I think a lot of people live in a world where they mix their own music. I know a lot of people that listen to a massive cross section of the world's music and there is no telling signs that would indicate as much in their dress. Me, for example. My clothing style is so vague, it would be hard to tell what kind of crowd I might feel comfortable with. I am not a music extremist, but I do know quite a few. Those people like the ones described above, that live and breathe their music and hate all other forms of music and will defend their taste in music as the only "true" form of music in the world.

As I listen to some of the cd's, I am noticing that some of the songs on the cd are not as pleasing to listen too and the more I think about it, the more I realize that I never really liked those songs at all. It makes me wonder if the artist really liked those songs or if they just needed an extra track to make their album complete. I call these the dead tracks and they can kill a mood if you pop in a cd for some background music and find yourself running across the room to hit the fast forward button so you don't have to hear it. I have always defended these bad songs but in truth, I am gravely disappointed. I wish they had never been burned into the cd. I think the Ipod that I use now has spoiled me a bit. I noticed that I have almost the complete album of certain artist save for one song. I remember loading the cd into the computer to transfer to the Ipod and mildly cringing when I didn't check the box for that dead track. I felt like I wasn't a true fan anymore. Of course, now that it's it the Ipod, I could care less and I can enjoy the artist and their album mixed the way I would have released it.

What bothers me immensely is when someone else who is just as big a fan as I am for some band or singer, LOVES the song that I can't stand. We know that we share this passion for this group but when it comes time to sharing the experience together, I am always left twitching a bit when that dead track becomes the one I hear on repeat as their favorite song. I have to figure out new, deep conversations to keep the volume down or turned off completely. Then I feel like shit. What kind of fan am I? I turn my back on one song that I should enjoy but don't. I feel like I should turn in my denim jacket with all the band patches sewn on it.

Recently, I purchased a cd that I used to listen to a lot, I loved it, but when I start to listen to it I found that I can't stand any of the songs on the cd but ONE! One song! I am hoping that it's just a taste issue, but I really enjoyed this cd and can remember listening to it for hours, days and using it to fuel my fire, now - it's worse than muzak.

I wonder if the dead track of each great album affects the personalities of the those die hard zealots? What would have happened to the dead heads if the Grateful dead released a Christmas album and it sounded like Johnny Mathis? Would they be less inclined to wear patchuli or have dreads? What would the Metallica fans do if their favorite band recorded a full album with a live orchestra? Do you think they would cut their hair, get their car an oil change or wear brighter colors?

I am baffled and disturbed. It bothers me to no end that the dead track exists. It's like saying something stupid in front of a lot of witnesses and knowing that you will never be able to take it back, it's just out there for eternity.

If you were waiting for me to tell you the names of the cd's that I bought and found to be a disappointment, you're crazy. I will live with my shame alone and I don't need three hundred emails arguing for or against my choices. Feel free to send in your "dead track" list, but don't ask for mine. I live with this grief and misery until the band gets back together, doesn't suck, records a new album and it's better than their older ones.

I know what it feels like to have a dead track, I have several posts on this site that I consider a blemish. The book, which is coming out, is full of writing that I am looking back on with displeasure. YES, it's coming out as is. But I am not happy about it. I wonder if Pearl Jam feels this way about "Oceans"?

the long yellow mile

The somber clouds of cigarette smoke are billowing out of the holding pen. The clucking, the panic and the pleas have all subsided as the condemned have accepted their fate. A few last minute romps are taking place, there are some tears, some "I love you's" and "It's not fair, but in the next life we will be together's", but mostly there are just chickens anxiously rocking back in forth in place. Their fate - their doom - mere moments away.

It should be painless and, for the most part, humane. Each chicken will be led from their holding cell down a long yellow corridor known as the "yellow mile" to another holding cell which looks strikingly similiar to a bag. There the chicken will be preped for it's final move - into death. Their heads and one of their legs will be shaved and a diaper will be put on under their feathers. A holy man of their chosing will be called to their side and each chicken will be allowed a final confession or prayer. Then there will be a few hours set aside for a family visit and when that time has passed, they will be taken to their last supper - fattening corn.

When their number is called, each chicken will be walked into a "shower room" thinking that they will be deloused... Wait! No, sorry.

When their number is called, each chicken will be asked to stick their hand into a knot hole in the "stump" to test their manhood....No, shit, that's not it either.

When their number is called, each chicken will be carted through an angry crowd of onlookers who will throw rotten veggies at them as they pass by. It's very insulting gesture but it makes a great garnish for later. The chicken will be led up a flight of stairs, a noose put around it's tiny little neck and then... God Damnit!

Okay, number called, yeah, yeah, yeah... Chickens are taken from the bag... A cloaked man with a calloused heart will grab their necks.... a quick TWIST and a CRACK and it's all over. Chicken death. One moment, the literal cock of the walk, then next - cordon bleu on a bed of wild rice.

Yes, that time has arrived. The concentration camp has been erected and the chickens are being rounded up and driven to their doom. But, don't cry for these chickens, as much damage as they have caused around the ponderosa in the course of their short lives, their demise is seen as getting off easy. There is really no love for these chickens, anywhere. The constant crowing, the shiting, the destruction of gardens, flowers and all things left on the ground (such as lumber) and the constant fighting have all contributed to the rapidly and whole heartedly reached conclusion that they need to die.

I shall not be a part of the actual death. I will, however, be a part of the she-loves-me-she-loves-me-not plucking process. After that, I am not sure what to do as I have never killed birds without using my car before. It would seem that it might be easier to just use the car when you consider how affective that method really is. Neck twisting has been voted as the best course of action and the bloody masacre known as "The Red Dawn" will be remembered for years to come.

These are animals that will taste good and I am looking forward to the first corpse dipped into hot grease covered in batter. As for those that will live to see another day, I'm sure the imagery of their former friends dying will keep them in line. It's either produce eggs or take that walk down the yellow mile. Soon after the demise of well over half the flock, twenty-five more chicks are scheduled to arrive. With any luck, the surviving chickens will keep the young ones in line and tell them the horror stories of what happens to bad little chicks if they crow too much or destroy too much flora and fauna. Wild stories of "The Red Dawn" will be whispered in the coop every night and the chickens will walk that straight and narrow line or find themselves walking another line. A long yellow one.

Life in a coop can't be all that stimulating and for those chickens that do make the cut and get to live on, life inside a pen will be worse than death. To know freedom and then have it taken away so violently. Which is worse; a neck twisting or a life in a twelve by twelve cell squeezing out eggs every day to insure that you don't get shanked in the shower or bum rushed by the "hard ladies" of layer block two? I am not sure that the life we provide for these chickens is ideal, but I sure do appreciate them when they are BBQ'ed, so I guess I can't show heart for something that I am just going to use for food eventually.

"Sometimes, dead is better."

where do you put them

You don't see it on the news all that much, but the relocation of New Orleanians is everywhere. Online, there are thousands of stories about small towns all across America that are opening their empty doors to their ration of refugees. Everyone is so lovely about it. The living arrangements are full of food, furniture, clothes and hope. (aaaahhhhhh) The faces of the refugees is pretty much the same as they have gotten used to this game by now, they smile, they cry a little bit, they thank god a lot, hug everyone they can find and then look around blankly at their new digs. You would think that they would be looking at the new digs and really appreciating the space, but most of them, I think, are looking around thinking, "there is no way I am going to stay here".

We did not put these people in new homes. We put these people in storage. We took empty space, which could have been used for the homeless that were in those areas in the first place, and used them for selfish gains. People love to look like they care even when, deep down, they don't. Do you think that small town, white America really wanted to invite a black couple to live next door to them? Hasn't it been the practice of white America to run away from cities and black people and black people in cities? Hasn't it been the number one complaint of white America that they don't want to pay taxes so "poor" America can have babies and do nothing? Poor being the political way of saying black or Hispanic.

I am curious to see how many of the relocated will actually stay and to see how long they are actually allowed to stay. I wonder how long the "refugee" title will work before the true color of the charity starts to show through. I wonder how many people today would feed a fireman for free like they did right after 9/11? At what point does charity cease to be a fantasy and become a reality?

If your heart is truly pure and full of love for your fellow man, prove it to yourself today. Charity is not giving a bum a dollar and it's not working a telethon to raise money, charity is finding someone that needs help and helping them without them knowing that your efforts are charity. It's not taking time or giving time. Time isn't something that you have control over in this occasion. Help someone by using energy that you have that they don't. They have all the time in the world and they don't need any of yours. What they don't have are all the options that you do, try sharing one or two of those. They don't need you raising money on a phone, especially when we all know that that money is lost in the wind for things that rarely benefit those that need it.

Don't showcase your charity by giving a living space full of life's necessities to someone outside of your community, give it to someone that was already there.

I wonder if those refugees would be willing to work for their new storage containers. Is that a requirement for all the charity that the world is showing them? Do they have to work for it? I wonder if they get to pick where they go OR can you go pick a family out of a book the same way you pick a pet at the pound or a tattoo from some flash on a wall? What are they not telling us about this new found charity that is sweeping the nation? Is there money... nooooooo... They wouldn't be getting a subsidy from the feds for helping these people, that would be unthinkable. People don't need to be paid for their charity efforts, I'm sure their efforts are pure and they wouldn't be thinking of the free cash flow. Naw, no way, no how! How awful to think that charity would be.... Tax deductible????

I hope that the families find their way home. I don't care where they go or what they do, just as long as they feel like they have truly found a place to call home that doesn't come with a price that they can't pay. I hope they hear the siren's song and return home to the land that they love and I wish that for all of us.

feckless

With the recent spike in gas prices, I have noticed that the "see I told you so" crowd of Honda Hybrid drivers are really looking like they were right. Of course, there is nothing we like to do more than to talk about saving our planet and our future by discovering new forms of fuel. But that is all we are, talk. It's easy to have a fair or a PBS special on solar energy and talk about how useful it is, but at the end of the day, we are still using coal, oil and radiation. I don't think we will ever see alternate fuels make their mark, it's just not American to do it the right way.

Thinking of different ways to fuel the world got me to thinking about different ways we fuel our own bodies and I don't mean with food. It has come to my attention in the past few weeks that I might have been going about my life all wrong and that kind of stressed me out a bit. (if you follow this blog with any regularity you might have noticed a dip in the number of posts and now you know why) I thought that my presence in the forgottens had some merit and that I was actually serving a greater good by staying. Sure, I have taken the occasional criticism for my efforts and many of my close friends question why I am still here, but it wasn't until this past week that my straw was located and then thrown upon the proverbial camel's back.

Being useful is just another way of saying necessary. Not feeling so, will cause a lot of undue stress which is detrimental to our overall health... Or so I thought. I think that stress might be a good source of alternate fuel. When I really think about it, stress is one of the main cornerstones of our lives. We create it everyday or we work to avoid it. We exercise to relieve it and we sleep to recover from it. Stress is a major workhorse for us and I have completely overlooked it. I feel ashamed.

When I think of all that I do in a day, I realize that stress can be found or formed in every turn or every moment. If I work out, I feel better. If I don't work out, I can stress out. If major plans work need to work out just right, I stress out about it, if they don't work out or if they are coming up, I stress out. And when I say I stress out, I don't mean lose-control-need-medication-hit-someone-in-the-throat-and-then-get-drunk kind of stressed out. My life has stress, but my life has also taught me how to cope with it in a functional way. Certainly in a family that doesn't know how to handle stress at all, this is saying a lot. The tumor in my adrenal gland which caused all of my medical problems when I was a teenager was the same type of tumor that was only last seen in American GI's during Vietnam. Stress, it would seem, tried to take me out. Having survived, I have learned that everything before that tumor was much more stressful than everything after. I have learned... oooommmmmmm. ooommmmm...

I think we like stress. There isn't one person on the planet that doesn't have it. The rich and famous, whom you would think would be pretty stress free, lives in a world of stress that we, the lowly and poor, will never know. I can't imagine what it must feel like for people to go through my trash and have other people follow me around with a camera taking pictures of everything I do. I don't even want that kind of stress. Of course, the groups that see the most stress will never be known. I'm sure that the luxury animal owners will say that the luxury boat owners don't know anything, and I am sure that the small cover band member will say that the community theater director doesn't know anything. Small business owners laugh at elementary school teachers much the same way front line soldiers laugh at a mother of nine. Who has the most stress.... Samoan Kings.

Samoa is a small corner of the world and Samoans are huge people. They take up a lot of space. It doesn't help their cause that they run around in arousing grass bras and skirts all day, I'm sure it's a miracle that there are not sixty million Samoans running around. How do you feed all of these people on such a small island? That is stress.

Even the peace loving leaders of the world have known stress. Ghandi had to convince two rival religions to get along and that he had the plan to make it all work out, and he had to do this while drinking his own pee. It's hard to convince people that you have a great plan when you are sipping urine on the rocks during your sermon. Jesus, as we all know, had to save billions of people, most of whom had never been born yet, and he only had twelve people working for him then, some of whom would turn against him which would ultimately lead to his death. That kind of slight today would get you capped.

Stress is all around us and I think it's the greatest source of alternate energy. For me, I think it's time to discover a new form of stress and let this portion of my life story go. It's one thing to stress about your own world, but to allow stress to grow inside you for a world that you are not needed in, well... That's just too much stress and that can lead to a stress OD. You have to manage your stress levels just right. Not so much that you are stress free, that would be a dull life and a life where you would not appreciate anything, and not too much stress that they have to medicate you or institutionalize you, no, you need a Goldilocks dose of stress. Just enough to keep life entertaining and remind you to wake up and get shit done. Just enough to lift your legs and keep your heart beating.

repeat after me, "mantra"

I move at the speed of (insert your name here).
I control the velocity.
I control the direction.
There is nothing that can get in the way.

Repeat this over and over to yourself until you believe it. There will be a lot of fuss over if it's true, but when you think about it and go over the math, you will see that it is true.

thorny weather

The seasons are designed to motivate and stimulate you in certain ways that will accommodate the world in it's turn. For summer, the weather is hot, sticky and forces the clothes and modesty right off of you. In the winter, the weather is bone-chillingly cold and it forces layer upon layer of warmer materials on to your body. Those seasons are pretty easy to figure out and we no longer question our behavior or the goodness of the creators when we think of them. The seasons that require some patience are the spring and the fall. With the temperature jumping from one extreme to another and your wardrobe never fully able to accommodate the dramatic hourly shifts in temperature, you feel uneasy with every wardrobe decision you make. You can start the day in a flannel and heavy jeans, only to have to shift to no shirt and shorts by two in the afternoon and then back to flannel and heavy jeans four hours later. It's troubling. The largest curse of weather is the sex appeal factor. In the summer, when the bodies are on display and well groomed and golden brown, the temperature is too hot for two bodies that are 100 degrees to grapple, however in the winter, when our chilled little bodies are ready to stick together, we are under-groomed and fairly unattractive to look at. Is there a season that is working with us?

Having stored away all of my summer clothes, I am taking a huge gamble on my wardrobe. All of the warm weather gear is packed away and all I have is long sleeves and woolly socks. For the past three weeks my gamble has paid off, then Saturday came and I started losing my shirt, figuratively and literally. The day starts in the 40's and ends in the 40's, but climbs into the 80's for a few hours and when you are working outside, the temperature seems more like it's 110.

There is a great deal to do outside these days. The rest of the round corral has arrived and the chicken coop is looking at it's completion date in the near future. Added to the mix is a need for the garden to be turned for the fall and the firewood to be stacked to insure many a warm night sweating to death in my bed.

In a lot of ways, I envy Heidi and her constant wardrobe. The thick black coat of hair that she wears summer, fall, winter and spring. It's a fashion choice that I wouldn't have gone with, but she seems to like it. As she ages, some of her hair is turning white and her with her joints constantly bothering her and her chewing on them, she has exposed some bare dog skin that can't be comfortable.

I wonder what life would have been like had humans never decided to wear the skins of dead animals. I wonder if we would have been covered with a thick coat of black hair (or red or blonde for those of you genetically inferior). I wonder what that would have done to our modesty issues and if it would have affected how we "size" people up. I'm sure there are those out there that wouldn't know what to do without their wardrobe which is designed to hide their bodies shape. I wonder if the loss of a facade would help them embrace who they are and not hide from it. Do you think that would make them more colorful or would it make them more reclusive?

Perhaps the seasons change to remind us that we are not supposed to get to complacent. Perhaps the seasons make us rethink our comfort levels and force us to add variety to our daily lives. If this is the case, then we should thank mother nature for her patience and guidance. Without her we would all be wearing Bermuda shorts, flip flops and floral pattern short-sleeved shirts everyday. Now how unsexy would that be?

every bike ride is uphill

Riding into town on a foot powered bicycle is a great deal of fun and something I wish I had done more of this year. The first year I was here, I rode into town twice or even three times a day and I got it down to a five minute ride, one way. Of course, that is going into town. The ride home is an evil journey that is riddled with invisible inclines and harsh head winds. The pedals seem like they need oiling and the bike seems to have taken on some weight. It's laborious, but you have no choice. The real test of your resolve comes at the end of trip three, not only does your body not like you, but you start to question your own decision making.

I take for granted the gradient of the world's roads as I drive across them. I see open road, I see curves to the left and the right, I see hills that go up and I see hills that go down. That's all there is when I am in a car. It's just a pathway that I can travel on. When you are forced to walk down those same roads say, because you ran out of gas, those roads become a whole new world. Each step you feel the rise and fall of the landscape and you see the twisting and bending of the asphalt that was built into the road to keep your car from flying off into the ditch. It never feels like a great time when you are forced to walk it, especially under those circumstances, but if you just walk it for you, then you can really kind of enjoy the trek.

Bike riding is something that seemed so daunting to me as a child. I can remember being completely fascinated by my older brother's ability to ride a bike and feeling that I would never be able to accomplish such a feat myself. Of course, years later, I can't imagine life without bike riding in it. I can not name one person that has never ridden a bike. (okay, handicap people don't count here.. And some of them have) Bike riding is a glorious way to enjoy the world. It's not as fast as a car, and there is little to no noise to interrupt the joy. It's faster than walking which satisfies the need that the mind has for making progress (walking, crawling and running seem to lag on for hours and never really quench your desire for accomplishment)

What I truly enjoy about bike riding is exactly what I hate about it the most, the wind. Wind in your hair, wind on your face and wind slowing you down. I am the man that likes to travel the path of least resistance. I have tried to live a complete life free of nature's challenges. Sadly, I can not escape the wind. I'm sure if I was on a sailboat and it was a long way to shore, I would love the wind. I'm sure if I was flying a kite I would appreciate some assistance. However, when I am riding down a road, trying to enjoy the world around me and the path ahead seems to be an endless incline, I don't need the wind to blow against my face. I don't need the dirt in my eyes and I don't need the breeze to cool my body. I need that fucking wind behind me getting me where I need to go!

Before the endless cold of winter has taken hold, I suggest you get out and give your bike riding skills a try. Notice the rust in your movements which indicate the weathering of your body. Notice the lack of balance that you used to have in abdundance. Again, a sign of the wear and tear. Get out and let the pedals fly. Get some grease on you and let the wind blow it off.

cube not square

The average American home is 2000 square feet. It's actually one of the first things that a real estate agent will tell you when you are looking for a new home. They start with the square footage then move on to things like distance from shops, parks, schools, etc. They have a list of things that they will tell you about none of which is really important.

When shopping for a home, you would think that the first thing you want to know isn't how many square feet are in it but what the house is made of. What kind of construction. The reason this is important is that no house built in mass, since 1970 is worth a shit. They are cheaply made of crap materials and are painted pretty to make you think it's glorious. The great irony to most homes is that they look great empty but serve little purpose when filled with your stuff. This happens because the actual footage of the house should not be listed in squares but in cubes. For example; If I told you a home had 5000 square feet of space you would think it was enormous, but if you actually saw the house and noticed that the ceilings were two feet from the floor, what good would the 5000 "square" feet actually be?

If your house is 2000 square feet, you have to take into consideration all the things that you own and how they fit together in the space allotted. A three square foot dresser actually uses up more space when you take into consideration the pull out drawers, any doors and the ability to maneuver around it. So three square feet is now 7 or 8 square feet.

Cubic feet. Why do we need so much space inside a house? We don't really use that much of it anyway. If you really think about what you need in a home, you will find that your list is short. You need a place to sleep (15 square feet) a toilet(less than two square feet), a way to store and cook food (10 square feet) and that's it. The rest of the house is storage. A place for all the stuff you want, but don't really need like children. If you ever buy a house and get an extra bedroom with the idea that it would make a good office, hobby room, quilt room or guest bedroom, you're really just giving a large indoor storage shed a pretty name.

In New Orleans, most of the people that were made homeless didn't own their homes. Those houses were rentals and they were old and built to last. They had withstood previous hurricanes, floods, rot, infestations and all other kinds of manmade abuse and still they were standing. Hell, Katrina didn't knock them down. But the feds have decided that these homes are now worthless and are going to rip them down and rebuild new homes for the displaced. With all the money the homeless are going to get (a la 9/11 families) they will be able to afford these new homes where before they were only renting and sadly the new homes will be made like the new shitty homes that the rest of suburban America has. The next storm that comes through and the new homes will wash away as fast as the cum smell that dominates the French Quarter.

I live in a house that is over 100 years old. It's floors are sagging and the walls creak in a strong wind, but it's still standing. Most of the space inside is taken up with stuff that my family does not need or use and it's hard to get in and out of it sometimes. Our cubic feet of storage isn't enough to accommodate the cubic space of all our shit. This week I started the transition from summer clothes into winter clothes and I decided that most of the stained, smelly summer clothes should probably be retired and new things purchased. This is hard for me to do as I am not one to own things and that which I do own, I like to hold on to to the bitter end. Some of these things have lived past bitter and are onto something indescribable so perhaps it's a good choice.

I hope that you notice that you are carrying around a lot of needless cubic space in your home and I hope that you lighten your load. I'm sure you would like to think that one day you will fix that handy ten year old walkman that you never use and don't own any tapes for and I know you would like to think that you are going to fix that camera that has not taken a picture since 1981 and I am sure that you would like to think that the missing earring will finally reappear and you will have a match set, but be honest with yourself and let it go. If one thing that Katrina has taught us is that what you really lose when your home is washed away isn't as important as you thought it was. What you really need is just some basics and you can survive.

tastes like shit

Feeling sexy and desirable is a great feeling. You will never feel more desirable than when someone that you find attractive finds you equally attractive or more. The way they look at you, the way they respond to your body and the way they do the little things to show their affection, it really makes you feel good.

At some point in the relationship, your lover will show their taste in others and this moment can make or break your self-esteem depending on whether or not you agree with their particular flavor. For example; If they say that they find George Clooney sexy and you can agree, then you don't feel that their feelings for you are baseless. However, if their taste includes Bob Sagat, then your self worth plummets. How could Bob Sagat and I be in the same boat? What similar qualities do we share?

As any relationship progresses the little things that make that person who they are begin to show themselves to you. Little things that add up to big things for no reason whatsoever. They could love green peppers and you could despise them. The fact that they like green peppers can so offend you that the overall affection you have for that person can wane. Green peppers may not be high on your list, but it is on mine. What is truly fascinating is that some people will have a nothing in common at all and will still drag out the relationship for reasons that they don't fully understand themselves. Sometimes it's because a break up would look bad at a certain time or to certain people, or one part of the couple needs the other for financial reasons or because the sex is so fantastic. (for you ladies out there that wonder why men stick around so long after they have broken up with you, there you go. It's your money)

I know that I have maintained relationships just because I knew I would feel guilty for breaking up with someone over the shape of their toes or because their favorite pair of shoes made me ill. I have subjected myself to long agonizing months of torture because I lacked the courage to call it quits when I knew it was over. The longer these relationships would carry on, the more I would sour on the little item that made me sour in the first place, I would actually develop a huge hatred out of a minor dislike, all because I was a coward. I won't date a woman that likes unicorn art, clown masks, victoria's secret perfume or liver. I can't do it. The memories that live inside of me and the pain that I feel when I think of my cowardice forces me away. This doesn't mean I won't sleep with them, I just can't date them. We can always get it on in the room that doesn't have the clown masks or unicorns in it.

The more you put your self-worth in the hands of others the longer it will take you to ever be happy. The rest of the world has nothing else to do with you and their approval of you doesn't prove anything. If you are truly worried about how much of a catch you are, hang out with blind people. They can only judge you based on what you say and that should give you a good idea of how sexy you really are.

tractor

They are as important to the success of any farm as water, sunshine and patience. A farming life without a tractor is a long, lonely existence and the other farmers will laugh in hushed tones when they hear your name mentioned or when you walk by them in town. It turns out that there are some large tasks that need to be addressed while you live on a piece of property and you are either doing it with a rake and shovel or you can buy a tractor. There are large objects that need moving and you can either learn to live with them where they are, hire someone that has a tractor to move them or you can buy your own tractor and handle your affairs yourself. In essence, be free of other's help and fan the flames of your ever-growing ego. No farm is really a farm without a tractor. What you have is some property with some stuff on it but when you buy a tractor and it becomes legitimate. People respect you, the government gives you money and you can wear overalls and people won't question your musical taste anymore.

For all that a tractor does to legitimize your existence in the country, for all that is does for your mental health and your spiritual health, it does very little for your physical health. You would think that the opposite would be true. If there is two tons of dirt to move, you can do it shovel full after shovel full which will take days and would wear you down to nothing, or you can buy a tractor which can move it in twenty minutes. As I soon found out, those twenty minutes are equivalent to two days of manual labor, your arms are dead, your ass and legs are ruined and your hearing is shot. Tractors weigh six billion pounds and trying to turn them without power steering requires every ounce of strength that you have and some you don't have. It takes the whole body to turn that wheel and that is barely enough to get that damn thing to move, you have to keep turning and turning and turning...

It's with great soreness that I am writing today. My arms have left me and I am not even able to lift my cup of lifeblood coffee to keep my mind going. I am torn up inside over the tractor and I am not sure what to do. I wanted a tractor for a long time, I need help with some larger projects, now it's here and I can get them done and all I wish is that it would break down and become lawn art. I must admit that I look good on that damn thing, which is one of the great follies of man, to feel in control of something large and mechanical all the while being a slave to it. But you feel you are the king of something, that you are in control. When you're on that tractor, you act like a king or the master, you act cool, calm, collected. You try to casually let one arm rest while the other is "steering" or commanding, and you are constantly trying to look down, checking things over to make sure things are running smoothly. Not that you could do anything if it wasn't, but you're checking anyway because it looks cool. You pretend that the wind is blowing through your hair and you are the very embodiment of "free" but, in reality you are roaring ahead at a cool 4 miles an hour and the only wind is coming from you. No matter, you are king and that is king wind you're blowin'.

There is a joy to moving large sections of soil at once. It harkens back to the days of your youth, when you could spend hours in a sand box playing with Tonka tractors, when the tractor was only a foot tall and it was easier to turn. It's the real deal now, and the thrill of moving soil is challenged by the fear of not being able to stop the tractor should something go wrong or control it. Not that a tractor moving at 4 miles an hour could get away from you all that easily and that you wouldn't be able to catch up to it, but it's still a fear. I have images of the tractor plowing into the side of my house and me standing by, helplessly.

I feel like a man because I can drive a tractor. My manhood being defined not because of anything else I can do, just the tractor. If you can figure out a woman, big deal... Give her ten minutes and re-apply your knowledge, see how well you fare. This tractor, I figured it out, and I am pretty sure that I will still be able to run it in ten minutes. If a woman run into my house at 4 miles an hour, I'm pretty sure that I could recover from that.

I am waiting for people to come calling asking for my help using the tractor. That's when you know you have fully arrived. When the neighbors know you have the tractor and know that you know how to use it. Of course, I will have to complain about it a lot and I need to learn what parts of the tractor are supposed to be broken all the time so I can claim that I am waiting for that particular part to come in and can't help them out right now, but I would, normally, if the part had been in. Tractors are part of the farm, not for what they can do to help you physically, but for that they represent. A great excuse for things not being done which require the use of the tractor. They justify your laidback approach to working the land and that, my friends, is a free man.

the caine-murray award

Each studio in Hollywood produces on average, 12 films a year. Of those twelve, three are super-hyped by the studio with a large multimedia ad campaign with the hopes that they can make back their 200 million dollar budget that they spent on the film, it has only happened once. (Titanic, other films have gained their money back in foreign markets and rentals, but those numbers do not count as successful in film terms) If the film fails to produce a large audience buzz, the film will flop after one week and it will rot on the vine along with the cast. (the only exception to this rule has been Ben Affleck, who continues to make money with no talent or hits to his name) Of those that create a buzz, only one out of five will be a success and of those, only one in fifty will be a memorable film that will stand the test of time or reinvent the film medium (Blade Runner, Fatal Attraction) Those are the odds stacked against you as you go to the movies. The studios know that the odds are stacked against them and they were willing to allow distributors to let their film play in a theater with films from competing studios in order to show that they had no doubt that their films were better than the other studios. Such bravado in an industry that is overrun with failure. Sadly, the audiences are made to suffer through forty shit films for every good one they see. If you add up the numbers, that is one good film every three years.

So there you stand. Your head turning from poster to poster, trying to figure out which film you want to spend ten bucks to see. Subconsciously you know that you are going to spend over 200 bucks a year on movies and you hope that one decision will be worth it. The great irony to this image is that the ten bucks you are about to spend is not supposed to be spent on the film, but the evening's entertainment and the overall experience of watching a film on the big screen. That was the way film was original presented to the general public. The studios spent less money on the films and more on the theaters that they played in. They knew that film needed to be an event from the moment you bought the ticket until you left. Nowadays, that entertainment concept is lost on the studios that will spend 250 million on a single film and you get to watch it in a room that only holds 50 people and is shown on a screen no bigger than a garage door. Going to the movies is supposed to be fun and exhilarating and, instead, you burn out before you walk in the door. When movies were three dollars or five dollars, it was easier to go watch a movie and tolerate the theaters and the mess. It didn't seem like that much of a loss if the movie sucked. I think the best part of the movie is walking through the doors of the theater and smelling the popcorn, finding a seat, seeing if it rocks back and forth, seeing if I can put up my feet comfortably, eating all of my M&M's before the trailers are over and waiting for that crackle and the simultaneous dimming of the lights that says, "showtime". The film, I could care less about. The ad that says, "no smoking, no talking and throw away your trash" takes away from my thrill and signals the end of my experience.

At ten bucks, we have become pickier about what we are willing to pay for, when we can buy the movie in a couple of months for less than the ticket price we pay to see it in the theater. We can watch it on cable, rent it or download it on the computer or just wait for regular television to play it without the curse words. (this is how I rank films. Screw stars or thumbs, I want to know when it's best to see a film. Theater, cable, rental, normal television, accidentally because it's in the middle of the night and there is nothing else on). The movie had better be pretty damn good for ten bucks. It had better be worthy of the big screen or otherwise you will opt for another entertainment option like live theater or casinos.

For every film that wows us, there are three or four dozen that make us question or judgment. However, there are some ways to save a lousy film and there are certain names to look in the cast that will guarantee that the film will be good as long as they are in it. These people are what I like to call, The Caine-Murray Award winners. Named after Micheal Caine and Bill Murray, who are both film saviors for hundreds of dead flicks. Micheal Caine saved; Jaws 4, Miss Congeniality, Without a Clue and many others. Bill Murray has saved; Mad Dog and Glory, Rushmore, Tootsie and others. Their very presence in the film made it worth seeing. If only for the few moments in the film that they appear in. This award was almost named the Hackman-Caine Award, but then I saw, The Birdcage and Mr. Hackman received a demerit, which allowed Mr. Murray to take the name.

There are, of course, two dozen or so actors that are Caine-Murray award winners; Willam Defoe, Mickey Rourke, Eugene Levy, Catherine O'hara, Tim Conway, Geoffery Rush, Carrie Fisher, Steve Buscemi just to name a few. I'm sure if you think about it, you will find that most of these people are not on your favorite actors lists, but are people that you thoroughly enjoyed in some movie that you thought was shit. Most of the movies we will buy on DVD or VHS are movies that contain these people in them. As we look over our list of movies, we are shocked that we own so many shitty movies until one day we think of that role that that one actor did in that one film and then we want to watch that shitty film again, just so we can enjoy it again. Tell me that Caddyshack would have been funny with John Belushi in Bill Murray's role. If you think I am kidding watch Caddyshack two, with Dan Akroyrd as Bill Murray's character. I bet you would be willing to buy Caddyshack, but they couldn't pay you enough to watch Caddyshack two.

Hollywood often speaks of someone having that, "it" quality. This "it" quality is supposed to make you a star, someone that people like to watch and admire. They have given this "it" title to Ben Affleck, Collin Ferrel, Brad Pitt, Tom Cruise, Julia Roberts, Demi Moore and Clara Bow. To their credit, they are all movie stars and adored by thousands AND they are all brilliantly worthless and one dimensional actors. That "it" quality seems to be, "faking it". I think the real "it" quality belongs to the Caine-Murray Award winners and I say that "it" quality is really "save it". As in, the ass of those pretty faced, talentless leads that are destroying the medium for everyone. It's sad that most of these Caine-Murray people don't see more film work or larger rolls in the films that they do work in, you would think that the studios and all their high priced brains would be able to see that the supporting cast makes the movie. (Usual Suspects, My Cousin Vinny) Someday, I hope that studios see that the better the supporting cast is written into the overall story and the better the casting agents does at putting notable personalities in those roles, the better the chances that the film will be a success. Wouldn't it be nice to go to the movies and not know which movie to see, not because it was a lesser of two evils but because they all sound so good that you don't know which one to see first?

A little secret about me; When I am on the road, or if I have a holiday or a whole day to kill, I will go to a large movie house around noon, pay the matinee ticket price and watch movies until the theater closes at 1 in the morning. That way my five bucks went to see four or five full movies and a two or three large chunks from other movies. It's the cheapest way to see everything and I am completely entertained by the naughtiness and scandal of it all. If you are worried, remember this, the people that work at theaters are paid minimum wage, work only four hours and don't remember anyone that comes through. AND, they don't care at all.

I know that you are going to submit your favorite actor names to me, please don't. Make your own list of favorite supporting actors and I would be willing to read that. Anyone that says Tom Cruise, Tom hangs or colony ferrule is their favorite actor, should watch sitcoms and game shows and leave the adults alone. Special attention will be paid to those of you who know that Mickey roars is the best actor in the world and that Tim Conway is the funniest man alive.

terror at the fair

The gateway into our fall can be found in our little county fair. Held each year at this time, and slowly shrinking in size and importance. The fair is supposed to be about the kids and the continuing effort to keep the youth of America interested in Agriculture and Agribusiness. Sadly, kids don't want to take the time to learn about the animals or how things are done. They just want their hot pockets and an X box. If there was ever a valid argument for corporate farms, this is it. Eventually, it will cost too much and there won't be anyone around that knows how to raise the livestock or tend to the fields. But our little fair still hangs on and there are still some kids involved. With all that is lost each year, there are still the animals, the quilts, the cotton candy and the demolition derby. I still enjoy the livestock auction, the art, the produce and... The cheap trill ride.

We don't get the full deal rides. The ONE we get now is not the gaudy light bulb encrusted death machine that is run by those kids from detention. The get the same ride and... I am not sure why we have thrill rides or what kind of sick mind would come up with these things, but I know that I love them so. As a child I would go to Worlds Of Fun, in Kansas City, with my Uncle Billy and we would ride such thrilling rides as the Orient Express, the Zambeezee Zinger, The barrel and The Octopus. All rides that were designed to make you throw up the food that you overpaid for ten minutes ago. They were towering, permanent structures that were as impressive as they were scary. Large towers of wood or steal. I used to think that the rollercoaster looked like a small track with a snake moving along it at the speed of pure terror. As you would approach each ride you would see the people coming off from a walkway about twenty feet away from the entrance. Some would come off, puke on themselves and get back in line to ride it again. That only added to the fear as the smell of vomit followed you all the way to the ride itself. The amount of food ingested and lost would make a bulemic proud but now when I see rollercoaster or any thrill ride, I can smell vomit.

The fear of a thrill ride comes from many different angles depending on your age. When you're young, it's just the unknown and the devilish grin on formerly trustworthy faces that scares you. As you get older, and you hear horror stories of people being flung off rides, some up to a mile and then they landed on spikes, that starts to enter your mind before you get on a ride and that frightens you. In today's media you hear more and more stories about malfunctioning rides and maintainence mishaps killing people like you or stranding them for hours in uncomfortable positions. Then you hear how today's technology is pushing thrill rides to the very edge of terror possibilities. What we are trying to do is die a horrible death with people watching. To add insult to injury, they will take a digital photo of your last moments on earth which you can take home and have framed or displayed next to your casket.

The de-evolution of safety as I have seen it with my own eyes starts with my first rollercoaster which had me strapped in to a car with three other people. A padded metal bar came over my shoulders and locked in between my legs. A few years ago, I rode something that had me wearing a hang gliders outfit, a strap on my back that pulled me 280 feet into the air, backwards and then I had to pull a cord on my chest and I fell straight towards the ground. A few years from now, we are just going to throw people into a pit of hungry lions and make them run for an exit door.

The fear I get from thrill rides only lasts until I am done with the first ride. Then, I am ready to die by being flung over a mile and landing on spikes. Hell, set me on fire and then fling me. Bring it on! I just have to get over that first ride. The thoughts of bolts popping out and large sections of track falling away constantly stirring in my mind as the ride, and my so called friends, tease me to ride. The peer pressure is really bad when you see small children riding it and taunting you. Another reason I don't like kids, you can't hurt them... Legally. The people that design the ride deliberately drag out the terror experience by forming the long lines to get on this death rocket within earshot of the screams of those who are already riding it and dying on the spikes. They make the loading process frightening by hiring children to run things and make sure you are securely in place for the experience. I can't tell you how many times I was sure that I was not properly strapped. I mean, come on, they are teenagers. They are prone to practical jokes and they like to "see what would happen if you... blah, blah, blah". But, I guess if they hired adults to do those jobs, you would feel better and that would take away from the overall terror experience. THEN, they make the beginning of the ride is slow and ominous. They should play the theme to JAWS while they drag it out. You have a few moments of being trapped and to really think about what is happening to you. It's too late and the second guessing is coming fast and furious. Then... Your nuts get a little tickle, you stop breathing for a few seconds, your teeth nearly bite off your tongue and G forces are bruising every exposed part of your body that can slam into something. This continues for five minutes. You get off the ride feeling as if you just came back from a war. "Look how brave I am, I wasn't scared at all! We should ride this thing backwards, without clothes and without safety harnesses!" We are all cool when we get off the ride even though our wind blown hair, our snot encrusted lip, our dried tears and our vomit stained clothes say otherwise.

My little hamlet isn't large enough for a major theme park and we only get this one thrill ride at the fair. You could argue that the food is the fear-laden thrill ride, but that's not where it's at. Our thrill ride is a fifteen foot high, bungee-thing. They strap something around your waist which is attached to two long bungee cords. There is another strap that holds you down and you can tell will launch you a mille onto spikes if it isn't secured properly. After a brief instruction about something which contained, "the ground" and "this cord" (which was swirling through my mind and made me miss the important instructions) the "adult" pulled a lever which flung me fifteen feet into the air and that was it. You bounce up again, not as high and that's all there is to it. And it scared the shit out of me. Instead of enjoying it, I was trying to figure out "this cord" and "the ground".

I am not a well known member of my community, but I am well known enough. I am the only male in town with a blonde streak in my long dark hair, I have tattoos, I am seen writing a lot at the cafe, working out at the gym and I am pretty damn sexy, however, I am one of maybe four smokers in town, which decreases my value. So I am "known". So when I do something it makes people turn their heads and you better hope that whatever it is you do, it's not something that they can remind you of for the next ten years. The fifty people that could turn and watch me fling myself into the air, did so. They were mostly kids and most of them now know that I scream like a girl when I am upside down and heading straight down. This isn't a proud moment for me, but everyone knows a bit more about me than before. I guess that is what makes the ride so terrifying. It's a simple little thing, that can leave you with an emotional scar for years. Which is much worse than landing on spikes.

Yes, the fall has arrived in my little mountain hamlet. For the next 7 months, there will not be a lot of people on the streets or in public, which is good, I will need a reason to stay out of the public eye for a while.

let my people go

Please do not rebuild New Orleans. Please, someone, let's direct our attention to the spigot where the water flows out of and not focus on trying to kink the hose. If we slow down from all of our sappy-feel good attempts at being useful and really look at what needs to be done, we will see that our problem isn't with stopping water from flowing into the city, but removing the city from the water.

It's sad that so many people had to find out the hard way that things in this country aren't as glorious as we like to say they are. We are not the most powerful, we are not the most compassionate, we are not the smartest, strongest or most successful. We are, in fact, just a great fool that has finally been called on it's bullshit. It's no surprise that we can't help those people. We can't help anyone. We put on a great front, we sing, we dance, we light candles. But in the end, our reaction, after the fact, will cost us more than the actual event itself. Buildings were damaged, lives were lost and the landscape changed and nothing can be done about that and it's foolish to think we can. We will raise a ton of money which 60 percent of will go to big business to rebuild their big business. The houses, the roads, the schools, all of that will be replaced because someone makes money there, but jobs will not be replaced, the poor people of that region will not be allowed back in. And when those that were misplaced try to return, they won't find a home for them. Their presence is no longer required. The money we raise will find it's way somewhere else. Somewhere dark.

Again, if you want to really help, move some people into your house until a new one can be found. That is all we can really do. The damage is permanent and we weaken ourselves further by expressing bravado in the face of mother nature. Rebuilding will surely happen, money will be thrown in there and that money will be lost the next time we see another hurricane.

How long do we have to wait before someone sees that the man at the helm of America Inc., is a failure. He was before he took the reins and he is showing his true colors now. Sadly, in the brief six year period of his term, we have lost more souls, more money, more trust, more options and more friends than in any other TWENTY YEAR span of your existence. Some day, when the people who voted for him have cowered and start denying that they voted for him, start reflecting on their arrogance, greed and fear, they will realize the damage that they left in their wake with their decision and their sheep-like mentality. Sadly the only true victims of this hurricane have yet to be born. Those that have seen the hurricane and lived through it, will suffer in ways that they will never know or acknowledge, their children will only know their pain in the harsh lives they will be forced to live.

Isn't it time we force the CEO to step down and let someone who knows how to run a business take over?

Red cross has enough money, what those people need isn't money, that is what caused the problem in the first place. What those people need is an option. Money is not an option. Show them the way out of the swamp, lead them out of the desolation and show them the rest of the world has room for them. The people of New Cairo.

are you ready to die

If I die today, someone is going to find a lot of really explicit photos, videos and other recordings that will most likely shock those who love me most, to death. Bill Hicks once said that he thought it would be funny if his family found the porno wing of his house after he died. He made light of the situation, but for some people that isn't too far from a reality. In my case, there is no porno wing, but there are things that I have around that probably need to be censored before my end.

Of course, you never know when the end is near and being out of position when the end comes could make things difficult for those who have to sort through your stuff when the time comes. I think of this quite a bit when I am driving in my car, hundreds of miles from home, tired behind the wheel and not sure if I am going to pass out, hit a tree and die. All I think about in that mania is, If I die here, someone is going to find, blah, blah, blah - have a stroke and die on a pile of my secrets. This line of thinking has brought me to today's question... How ready can you ever be to die?

The only true way to know you are ready to die is when the quality of life you are experiencing is decreasing and the future only shows more of the same. If your brain is still with you (and it is always with you - Terry Shaivo can tell you all about that) then the last part to go will be the final question that your brain never asks itself, which is - Now? Most of the time, your brain will hold out, creating or justifying reasons for life. Clinging to remote possibilites and wishful thinking. That is because you are alive and that is what your brain enjoys more than anything - Living. Your brain wants to live. It wants to see, smell, touch, taste, hear and experience all it can. It wants all the variables that life has to offer and is not ready to call it a day until all those options are exhausted. Never being able to exhaust them all is what forces the brain to continue to press on. When you get in a terrible accident and fall in to a coma, your brain fights back and won't let the body go because it feels there are things it still wants to do. It works to heal the body so that it can get back out there and do some more. This is true of people suffering from a long illness as well, they hold on to the belief that they will get better and they will be able to continue to do everything possible. Curiosity keeps us alive. It's harder than you think to end it all. Your brain is full of switches that have to be turned off before it will let you get to that point.

Your brain does know when it's licked. It does know when the quality of life you were living is no longer an option. It sees the future without arms, legs, ears, eyes, taste and functional speech and it tries to justify a happiness in that world. If it finds one, it will fight to keep you alive, if it does not and only feels that life will be less than satisfactory, it will shut down and start taking the long, slow steps toward the end.

We see the end in many different ways. For some, heaven is on the other side and a glorious life without physical joy will be found on clouds. Not the clouds that destroyed New Orleans or the one that hangs heavy over San Francisco in the morning, no these are magic clouds and you can do anything you didn't do on earth.. When you die. Then there are those that feel you come back to life after you die, in another body, but back to life nonetheless. You have things to learn and you were slack on this last attempt. Your soul finds a new baby and, without any memory of what you did in the last body, you start over again, hopefully you will learn what it is you needed to learn and then you will.... You will... I don't know, become a Shepard? My favorite option of what lies beyond death is this... Decomposition. You start to resemble a wilted flower, and then you resemble soil. Then your body becomes a place where flowers can grow. I like that.

You will never be ready to die. Not in war, not in marriage, not in depression, not in happiness, not in church, not in anything. You will live until your brain decides it's time. When that day comes, will you have your things in order? Will you discard your naughty photos before you lose the ability to do so? Did you tell everyone everything you were supposed too? What will become of the mess you leave behind? Who is in charge of cleaning it up? How much of it can we clean up and how much of it do we have to keep? Was there something that you were working on that needs some further attention by someone else? What is to become of your remains? Who knows where to find the information about what to do? Who are you passing the reins of your life too to complete the steps you didn't take? What messages can you share now that you couldn't share before?

I would hate to think that the message I am going to leave is that I enjoyed a lot of couples over the years and for some reason I never was able to hold a camera still when I was on top.

marking your territory

The fencing around the property is incomplete which allows any and all animals the freedom to come and go as they please. The gap in the fencing is wide enough that stampeding wildebeasts wouldn't notice any difference from one wide open space to the next. With the pasture barely producing any edible grass and the alfalfa bonanza that exists just a few feet away from the gap on the other side of the property line, you would think that the horses would casually stroll over and make a day of it. Hell, they could take off and never be heard from again. Beyond that field is the forgottens which is hundreds of square miles of fence-free living. But they don't go. They don't even try.

This isn't the first time that the horses have had the option of running free and turned it down. On several occasions a gate was left open and the horses ran free, but took great care not to leave the property and to eat the flower and vegetable garden. The front gate is wide open and there is twenty acres of yummy eating just a trot away but they never venture over to it. They stay and I love them for it. There is nothing worse than chasing an animal down and forcing it back to the property. In some ways it's a terrible feeling to catch an animal and return it to captivity and in other ways it's aggravating to have to disrupt your day to fix a problem caused by your neglect. The glaring reminder that you have responsibilities that you take for granted until you get lazy and you are then forced to work in uncomfortable circumstances to remedy the matter. You almost want to blame the animal for being stupid and you think they did it to you on purpose. Your blood pressure goes up as you think of ways to hurt the animal in retaliation for it's obvious lack of respect for your demands. You get the animal back, you fume for a bit and then it's over. But you never really forgive them. Instead, you work harder to contain them and then something like a breach is made in the fence line and the animals shock you by not moving a muscle to take advantage and you feel like a shit.

Heidi loves to take walks with me and is fond of running from bush to bush, from tree to tree and smelling the other animals that have taken walks here recently. She loves it. After she sniffs each scent, she leaves her own as if she were leaving her own little reply like one would do in a chat room or on a message board. I walk along and I wonder how she could have that much pee in her body. She loves those walks and I would never deny them to her. The only part I don't like is when someone comes along with their evil dog and I have to leash Heidi, something she doesn't understand, so that Heidi and the demon spawn don't fight. Heidi is not a barking dog and she doesn't understand the aggression found in other dogs. She doesn't need to be restrained and she just stares at the other dog in a "I'm a special needs dog" kind of way. The other dog, meanwhile, is just foaming at the mouth, barking and needing to be restrained by their owner. The typical, "She never does this" and "Oh, she doesn't bite, you have nothing to worry about." is thrown out there and I just shake my head and wonder what that owner is thinking. Of course your dog bites. She's being protective of you. She's not on her territory and she's nervous. MY DOG doesn't bite, unless you're covered with raw meat, or cooked meat and that nibble would be incidental.

Territory is a part of every living things' genetic makeup. Plants fight for space and will try to overpower other plants for sunlight, soil and water. Animals need space for food gathering and to feel comfortable. Humans need space because we're animals. Ironically, as much space as human's say they need, they seem to always try to clump together in areas that don't have a lot of space to offer. Sure, I understand the pack mentality and the safety in numbers argument, but you can not complain about not having enough space and then move into an apartment, in a city, surrounded by two million other people. You want space. America is hundreds of thousands of square miles in area, most of it is wide open and free, but the majority of the population is crammed into an area that is under five thousand square miles. How do you mark your territory in such a cramped environment? With a door and a lock. That's it. Your space is the area you can walk from one wall to another. My space is the area I can walk in a day. I can walk out my door, and keep walking for three days and never see another soul. I may have to cross a road or two, maybe a fence, but I am still free of others.

When animals want to create a space for themselves, they pee around the perimeter. They have to do this every other day otherwise other animals will show up and pee first, which is nature's eviction notice. Fish have the luxury of not needing to mark territory because they know that the world is there. Their boundaries are water temperature and salinity. That's it. Polar bears - Feed me, I'm fine. Horses - Until I see a fence. Dogs - Where ever the pack is. Chickens - Chickens have no brain and even they know to stay close to a comfy roost. They get too far away and they don't have the brain to find their way back to it. It's your area and your area can be as big or as small as you want it to be. For humans, I know that their space is only as big as the air seven inches from their body. They have lowered themselves to that level to accommodate their choice. The only time they feel violated is when they are in an elevator and someone is within five inches of their body.

I think humans should mark their territory with pee. I know that the subway system in New York and Chicago smell like they have been marked. It would seem that certain playground equipment in parks has been marked by small children or drug addicts. And it works, people tend to avoid those areas that smell like they have been marked. I think if you pee on a table at a restaurant that no one will want to sit there and the people that are sitting there will undoubtedly leave. If you pee on some seats in a movie theater to save them for your friends, no one is going to ask to sit there. Pee in your car, it won't get stolen. Pee on your favorite clothes, no one will borrow them. Pee on your food and no one will eat it. (or just rub the chocolate on your crotch, that usually works) Pee on someone you want to date and no one will hit on them. It may not win you the girl (or boy) but at least no one else will get them either. I know this sounds like a lot of peeing but if dogs can do it, so can we.

To pee is to be home. The horses didn't leave because this is where they pee and you can only pee where you feel comfortable or safe. A home is where you feel comfortable and safe. To pee is to be home.

the writing process

It's just there. I don't give these entries a lot of thought. The short story is this; Near the end of the day, something will pop in my head and will just stick. I can never tell why one phrase, object or idea catches on and another one doesn't. I would like to be able to write about deeper political issues or something relevant like that, but those ideas rarely stick in my head. Lint screen, that sticks in my head.

I get up in the morning with no idea what I am going to write about. I have some coffee, do some morning chores, then drive into town to use the wireless internet at the cafe. I read emails, some I save, most I delete, then I check some web sites for relevant information that seems to bother me, then I enter this site and print the title of the blog. Most of them start off with the phrase that was stuck in my crow. LINT SCREEN. I start to write about lint screens. It comes pretty fast and I don't stop for spelling, grammar or sentence structure. It usually takes me ten to twenty minutes to post.

The process by which the stories take shape is pretty simple. I start with the item in my crow, start writing and, without fail, I will start writing about something else. The last third of the writing is how I got from point A to point B. That's it. That's all I do.

I use spell check now and I do go back and try to edit as much as I can. It's still not perfect and I know that, but I like it.

I get a lot of emails that ask me about my agenda, my plan, my visions or my goals. There seems to be some belief that what I am doing here has a deeper message. I will admit to writing some posts trying to be cleaver and creating a metaphor or two. However, I always fail to get that message across. Those days that I am trying to be cleaver are the days that someone will email me and tell me some completely different meaning to my writing than the one I had intended. It's pretty shocking sometimes. I would have never seen it that way and it always makes me nervous when someone tells me that they got something different than what was intended.

Some would argue that I am trying to push buttons and make you think and this is correct. However, I do not think that every reader is going to fall in line with my way of thinking, living or believing. I am putting myself out there and I hope that will inspire others to do the same.

It's late and I am posting against the grain of my schedule. 5 tons of hay have been stacked and there is much more to come. I'm hungry and I need to jack off or start cruising the grocery store for lonely housewives. Hey, they have food there!

saving my left overs

It was a cool evening and the wind was calmer than usual for this time of day, that made it easier to sit outside and enjoy the early sunset. Usually after a long day of manual labor, I am not much of person to be. I'm too sore to move, to speak or participate in anything enjoyable, which is terribly sad, because after a long day of hard work, you feel emotionally great. You feel you have done something worthwhile and you want to revel in the glory of your efforts. I'm sure the guy that placed the last stone on top of the great pyramids took a moment for himself and stood on top of it, lit a cigarette and just took in the view for a few minutes. He probably felt as grand as a pharaoh, the champion of some great challenge, and then he was quickly executed for his indignation, perhaps that is where the cigarette before execution came from. That feeling of accomplishment is with me a lot and I can enjoy life the same way that slave did on top of the pyramid but minus the execution. I wandered around the grounds and took some mental notes on what looked good so far and what needs to look good soon.

There are great plans in the air at the moment. Grand schemes by colorful and questionable minds. To hear about them or see them on paper you would think you are witnessing the simultaneous planning of two diametrically opposite battle plans each with their own strengths and weaknesses and both demanding of time, money and labor and both with the best intentions if things work out, but have a huge margin of error and can easily go wrong. People could die. Yes, it's a good time to be alive and dancing. One day you can wake up, read the blueprints and see that a square is the greatest idea every and the only way that happiness can be achieved. It is the way, the life and the plan. The next day you can wake up to see that the square is a foolish idea and that a circle is the only salvation. Being the labor portion of this grand scheme can make for some pretty colorful days and it keeps you in work. I guess if there was one plan and I saw it all the way through, I wouldn't be needed, so here's to the mass confusion on the planning commission.

If you have no engineering experience, no interior or exterior design knowledge, no spacial gifts whatsoever, you should probably think twice about putting together your own little village. It's not as easy as you think. I know people out there who can't plan out a living room. You enter their houses and their television is sitting on the old television which is on a tin cart held up by old phone books. Their planning and design technique is what I like to call, the makeshift look. How much of your house is planned out to accommodate both form and function? City planning is taking a living room and multiplying it by a million. I know that it baffles me when I see two starbucks coffeehouses across the street from each other. Does it make sense to put three grocery stores next to a Wal Mart? Does it make sense to put a sewage treatment plant next to a housing complex? I have seen roads that make odd twists and turns and ultimately put you in the same place you started from. Does it make sense, in my twisted little mind, yes. A lack of common sense, which is the first thing we think of, is never really the cause of these planning errors. What happens is that one plan is put in place and during the early part of the construction of that plan, a new plan or a modification to the original is made and things have to adjust a bit. Periodically, some of the work from the old plan will be abandoned if it can not be fitted into the new one. These live on as a reminder of how stubborn we are to admit a mistake and throw some hard work away. Most people refuse to part with wasted effort and will try and figure out a new use for it. If they can't come up with something right away, they will store it away until they do find a new value for it, which is always never. You die and someone has to come into your house and throw away two tons of magazines that you were saving for a collage or ransom note. How many old toothbrushes have you kept for "cleaning tools" or how many articles of clothing have you kept for "rags"? It's hard to part with a bad decision and admit we are a fool.

So, when you see two starbucks, you have to think that one was the original plan and it was abandoned for another plan which is right across the street. Right? I would like to think that it's possible to plan for two opposing ideas and make them both work. If you adjust your vision just a bit you can see that almost everything in life was created with this kind of conflict planning. What I will now call, "Of course that's what it's for" planning. It's where you prevent war by preparing for one. It's where you spend money to save it. It's where you fuck someone to make some other person like you. It's where you eat all the bacon you want to lose weight. It's where you kill an abortion doctor to further your pro-life views.

I walk among all the dying trees and the chicken shit and I look upon the world with grand ideas for what I can do to it. What it could be. My fantasy has gravel roads, functional chicken runs, healthy fencing, lemon trees, a chocolate fountain, ompa loompas, Kansas slaves, a harem of red haired goth chicks, a dance floor and a bat cave. A little effort on my part and I should be able to get it done before next June. As long there is no war, hurricane or major pandemic.

lint screen gems

For the average person, laundry is a once of week chore that takes up a good two hours of a day off to get done. It's a pain in the ass to collect all the soiled goods, drag them to the car, drive to a rundown Laundromat, find six bucks or more in quarters, and then sit and wait for everything to finish in the most sensory challenging environment in the world next to the waiting room in a county jail. It's a terribly boring two or more hours of your life and you have to do it, at least, once a week. For those of you with laundry facilities in your homes, I guess you can remember the dark days of laundry or you are just spoiled and lazy. I don't hold it against you that you have machines at home, so do I, but it's a good idea to remember what life can be like without the luxury of doing laundry in the nude and only having to wash or dry one piece of clothing and not have to worry about wasting 2 bucks in quarters to do so.

Working on a farm makes for some entertaining washes. It's not the "oh, I wore this once, and it needs to be cleaned" kind of need. This is hard core. Dirt, sweat, hay, shit (animal, not mine) food particles, oil, more dirt, more sweat... Basic nastiness that no run-of-the-mill laundry soap is going to get clean. To be honest, there is nothing that gets it completely clean short of lava or hydrochloric acid, I have been showcasing some of my best stains I have ever made on clothes for the past two years. I refuse to part with these articles of clothing, they are so comfortable for me and I am only going to restain them the next time I wear them. Sadly, these are also my socializing clothes and it's not uncommon for me to show up at a nice restaurant with a pair of pants with paint on them or ground in grass stains on the knees. It's just my way. The only time I will part with an article of clothing is when it begins to smell beyond reason. If two washings can not remove the smell of deodorant neglectfullness, then that piece of clothing is going to goodwill (HEY, they need clothes and they can't be picky... Beside, where do you think I got that shirt in the first place?)

What amazes me with every wash is what is collected in the lint screen. I am not sure where the lint comes from or why it's always blue even when I am drying a load of primarily white clothes - not that they are white very long, but let's pretend. Where does this fleece like material come from? What is this blue material and what does it's presence mean to the quality of my clothes?

No one has ever given me a suitable answer to my lint screen obsession. I have resigned myself to the fact that I and the rest of the world, will never know for sure. What I do know is that it's a great idea and I wish there were more lint screens in the world. If there were only lint screens for bad social engagements that would eliminate certain persons from the experience. One for meals that would make onions and all of their evil ilk, disappear. One for sex that would eliminate the wandering hair from getting in your mouth even when you haven't performed oral sex or put your mouth anywhere near their head. One for conversation that would thin out the dull, languishing dribble that a dullard is droning on and one with.

Lint screens in politics would eliminate election year bullshit and cover up stories and practically everything you see and hear on FOX.

Yes, I want lint screens everywhere. Some place that I can scoop up a bunch of blue fleece, ball it up and give it to the cats.

I just finished stacking three tons of hay and I am covered with sweat, hay, snot and self-pity, tonight's load of laundry will include today's attire and three days of work out clothes. I can't begin to imagine what I am going to pull out in my lint screen, probably a lung.

scruffy do

My hair is getting longer and the blonde streak that graces the left side (my left) of my head seems to have actually turned white. There are no dark roots that I can see sprouting up under the white, which means I am either gray there, permanently genetically altered or seeing things. None of which bodes well for me.

The care of one's hair is something that I do not possess as a passion. I like to cut it, I like to wash, but I hate the manicure process that is required everyday to send off the right signals that I am a certain type of person in society. When I am at home the hair is a jumbled mess. It's flying everywhere, sometimes wrapped up in a bandana or stuck up under some hat of the day. I don't wear hats well due in part to my large noodle. Having a huge head makes for a clown like appearance when hats grace my head. My head is big. Figuratively and literally. Sometimes I am amazed that a hat can be forced down over it.

The hair is a mess and it's time for a cut. I love getting my hair cut. For all of the lack of maintenance, I do appreciate getting my hair reinvented. Hair is one of the few things on your body that you can drastically change about your appearance and it's not permanent so I try to mix it up quite a bit. I have sported some pretty colorful do's in my day. There was the long hair of my youth which was more a result of a barber stabbing my head with scissors and me not wanting to go get my hair cut again than a fashion choice. I have had half my head shaved and the other long. I have had a quasi-mullet, a buzz cut, bald, a shag and some different color combinations to accompany it all. It's been a lot of fun. I'm sure that there have been great opportunities lost due to my do.

Getting you hair cut should be a simple process. It shouldn't cost much and it's a proven fact that you will not see the hair you were daydreaming about as you came in on top of your head as you walk out. That's part of the gamble that makes getting your hair done so special, you never know what you are going to look like or how it will affect the rest of your life. I will admit to having has some bad haircuts and I look back in surprise at how emotionally involved I got in my reaction. I am still alive, months later the hair took on a different look and yet, I live. Besides, the worst hair cut you will ever have will uncover a lot of telling information about you as a person. It shows you how adept you are at hair styling; which products do what, how much to add and when and what works for you and what will never work for you.

Sadly, there are people out there that feel that a perm will look on them. I have never seen one that worked and I think that smell that surrounds them is their dissatifaction. I have seen people cut off three feet of hair (in fact, every woman has this story of her hair being "down to blah, blah, blah... And then I cut it off) and I have seen people add three feet of hair. Meanwhile cancer survivors are walking around in a scarf. I have known people that have kept the same hair cut for decades. Never wavering from the belief that this is their hair and this is what they know how to maintain, are willing to maintain and are pretty sure that this is the best "look" for them.

The hairdresser is really a god. A small god-like human who's job it is to reform your life with a few choice subtractions. It's their job to find what is wrong with your life, wash it, trim it and then add gel. They keep your life on the table and massage your scalp to within an inch of your life, they force commentary, add compliments about your maintenance ability, your genetics and scold you for the other areas of your life where you are deficient. They stand closer to you than you would normally allow a stranger to stand and they do it with sharp objects and the next two months of your life in their hands. They can multi-task with your life in one eye and steely determination and focus in the other. I can't brush my teeth and take a piss without dropping my toothbrush in the toilet, their skills just fascinate me.

I am getting my hair cut by a woman in a near by town who I know is getting close to the end of her life on this planet. Infested with cancer, she chooses to fuck the treatments which would keep her in a bed for the next two years with only death at the end of it, so she can stay in her shop, cutting hair and sharing her passion for luxury cars. She has decided that she would be happier in life if she hangs out with women she call close friends, even though she only sees them for 8 hours a year. She would rather surround herself with barbicide, the sweet smell of a new perm, hair gel and hair spray than be stuck in a truly sterile atmosphere where everything is designed to make you live, but not make you pretty. It's that kind of punk rock attitude toward life that I appreciate in someone. Her hair says it all; tall, colorful, moving in all directions and perfectly textured to scare you away from her shop. If you're timid, stay away. You will get no subtle hair cut here and you are never right and you DO NOT know what you want or what looks best on you. That will be decided by the goddess of Aquanet.

I am thinking that my hair should reflect the season. Something colorful and something that says, "Yeah, So! I have a big head, what of it?"

delicate thorny flowers

The amount of questions that I receive from women who ask why their boyfriend or husband does this or that as prompted me to write this...

As a male, I can tell you that, finding a woman who knows what she wants and is alive in the field of her satisfaction, is one of the most attractive qualities she can possess. The reason is selfish - I don't want a woman who is going to mope around, complaining about life and feeling that everything is pointless and ruined. A woman who has found her voice, her path or her passion and is physically undesirable is worth more than a physically beautiful woman that is a vacuum of personal presence and self-worth. I know that this statement may surprise you as so many men are fleeing more mature women and running off with younger chicks, but that is just a male looking to be relevent and cling on to youth. That and older women pose a great threat to our happiness.

The male isn't strong enough to understand women. Male's want to feel that they are being helpful and they want to help and they want to be effective in their efforts. It's the way we are raised. Where women are raised to believe that a man will take care of them, or that getting married is what is expected of them, a man is raised to believe that he is supposed to take care of a woman and, in turn, she will be happy and all will be well. It's sick really. I hope no one reading this believes this shit, but I know some of you do or used too.

Women figure out pretty quickly that men are pointless. A walking dick with shoes, a spider killer, a pack animal, a bed warmer. If you think that a male has better qualities I ask you to look at the sex toy industry. What is the only part of the male that is recreated for women's pleasure? Could it be that the rest of the male is a waste of space? That's pretty much the only value we have. Men, sadly, never see the light. There is some belief that we have that we make a positive difference or that we are a catalyst for evolution in the right direction. Never ever have been, never ever will be. We are just tricked to believe we will be. But, some men do try to see the light and that healthy pursuit should be cultured but, alas, it isn't and we are not allowed to see anything.

Men are cavemen in every way; physically, mentally, emotionally, you name it. Covered with hair, easily fooled, easily manipulated and quick on the trigger. We eat too much food, make too much noise and add too much smell to the world which women would have smelling of cucumber and lavendar if we weren't around. We never really think things through as it pertains to women because we have no training in that field and we are so confused by their world that we feel we would be better off not knowing how "all that" works. We would just rather think of women as simple creatures, like us. They figure things out the same way we do. Problem=action=solution=no problem. That is what we think the sane mind should think like. As young males, we are told that the only thing we need to do is "be nice to women, be romantic, foreplay, under estimate weight and age, compliment this or that, don't hit on their sister or bestfriend and don't cum too fast" and then you will make them happy and that will solve, or prevent, any problems. That's it. That's all we were told. Many bothans spies died to bring us this information.

Eventually we start to see that this isn't all we need to know and any time we try to figure out what else there is, women shoot us down or other men pull us back from the edge of the great abyssal. Women can sense when a beast is trying to learn and they put a stop to it pretty quickly. Their weapon of choice, confusion and obfuscation. Speaking in tongues and relying heavily on hypocrisy and contradiction which is spread out through a long monologue of incomplete details and dated information. Women are speaking their minds, pretending to be helpful, but secretly knowing that they are short circuiting the male mind and sending them back to the cave. A man's mind is so weak that it's easy to be overwhelmed by all of this information and we quickly lose interest. We just hear the high pitched tone of a woman we used to want sexually and now she's gone and that is left is non-sexiness which has taken over her body . We can't get laid until this speech is over, that is all we are thinking of. Men just need things to be simple and with too much confusion, we fall back on, "It's just easier to do what I was doing before. I have no idea what she is talking about now and I don't want to know. I should just get a hooker" (path of least resistance)

The simple answer to men and what they want; Peace, periodic variety, quiet, space, freedom to screw whatever, whenever without judgment or repercussion, to feel necessary and to not be confused. We are cavemen, a step up from a monkey and we need things pretty simple. Cut and dry. The more complicated the matter, the less likely we are to be interested in it or want to try it. We want to love you. We thought we could. We tried, but you make it hard to figure out who we are in love with.

Women are supposed to be both a graceful and rough character. Sexy and homely. Smart and naive. Stern and gullible. Strong enough to pick a van up off their child and weak enough to flee from a spider in the bathtub. I think women find this balance due in part to their upbringing. Raised against the laws of nature to be little ladies and quiet little wives, they have to dredge through years of unhappiness and failure before the light finally shines on their face. Then, with the balance of power discovered, they become the woman that they wanted to be when they were 5.

Men will always be 5. You women just have pick your model. Keep him quiet and he will do as he is told.