Paradise Lost

When we're little, our world is pretty small. As we grow older, we meet more people, see more places, we read the news, and over time we realize there are many bad things out there. And once we realize there is badness out in the world, the innocent ideals and notions we have start to fall away. But for every bad thing we see, we also see good things and people and they reaffirm our beliefs. And we come to terms with the fact that good and bad can sometimes both be present in the same place.

Like the "good Lutheran" that I am, I know that "surely I was sinful from birth, sinful from the time my mother conceived me." But somehow, even though I've always known I am sinful, I still had a lot of ideals and notions. I stood on the sidelines and watched other people's lives, noted the missteps and screw ups, smug in the knowledge that I would never do those things. But as time passes, everything I swore I would never do, becomes just another line item on the "things I didn't intend to-do" list at the end of a long day.

I have hurt the people I love the most. And because I love them and know them well, I know how to do maximum damage. And no, I don't sit around plotting and scheming, but words come out of my mouth, formed somewhere deep inside me and I can't stop them, most of the time I don't even try - justified by the conventional wisdom of our culture that it is good to "share our feelings." I have been impatient and rude. I have been jealous of others' good fortune. I have caused scenes and done things that I thought only crazy people did - and then I did it again. And while I can apologize for these things, I can't take them back once they've been put out in the world.

My loss of innocence came, not with the knowledge that there is evil in the world, but with the awareness of the evil in me. And like the world, I know that the all of the good ideals and notions I used to cling to still exist in me as well. It's just a heavy knowledge and I kind of miss the way things used to be.

For Those About to (Sheet)Rock

On any given day, in any given place, there is a guy with rusty tanned, dusty arms putting up sheet rock. And amongst all of the other standard equipment, there is a radio. It is a dual cassette tape stereo, splattered with paint.

And as long as there is even one guy like this, working in one room of one house - AC/DC will live.




Camaros are probably safe too.

In a city that knows how to keep it's secrets....

I'm trying to find the answers to life's persistent questions. Normal things, you know, the usual ruminations on the bermuda triangle.... how to live a purpose-filled life.... how many other dimensions are there really...... and ultimately the one I keep going back to....

Why does Phil Collins keep popping up on my internet radio station devoted to rap?!

I mean, c'mon Phil, you know where you belong and it's not with Jay Hova and my boy Biggie.

Baby G

I stand in the kitchen
My arms heavy with new life.
He opens one great, unblinking whale eye,
And stares at me without comprehension.

Lead Singer - a series of haiku

He doesn't care that
City Council banned smoking
It's his gah-dam show.

He introduces

The band but when he kneels, prays
Only to himself.

I was going for coral...

I have a mirror. It is a skinny mirror that I inherited when my roommates and I disbanded our apartment in Manhattan. It is sinfully ugly, but it is also a skinny mirror. I repeat, it is a SKINNY mirror. Girls, you know what this means. You step in front of it and viola! your face is slender, your neck is elegant, your collar bones are refined... you're practically wearing toe shoes and a tutu you're so instantly graceful.... but I digress.... the mirror, while being very skinny... is, as I mentioned earlier, ugly. Ugly in the sense of cheap, plastic, fake baroque, greenish gold. But I thought I could fix it. And I thought... maybe a nice coral color would be just the thing.

So I went to JoAnn's Fabrics (it was closer than Hobby Lobby) to pick out some paint. But everything I saw in the vein of coral just looked too orangy. Until I spotted a soft coral color with pink undertones - almost like the inside of a seashell.

"Hmmm," I thought, "This might just work."

It was just simple acrylic, craft paint - for use on any porous surface. And I think that was the first problem. My mirror is not exactly "porous" but I started dabbing it on anyway. At first it looked ok. Then it started to dry. And as it dried it got progressively duller..... and pinker.

But I'd already started and I couldn't really get it wiped off, so I went ahead and painted the entire thing. And so now instead of an ugly gold colored mirror, I have an even uglier pink mirror.

It's hideous.

But it is also skinny.

And for that reason, I keep it.