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.