Biking Blog

Once again, I am supposed to be writing a research paper on Immanuel Kant and I am just monkeying around on this thing. I'm tired, it's a half hour before my bed time and there is no way I'm going to write it now.

I almost fell trying to ride up the bridge at Halsted and Chicago, because it was raining and my tires were slipping and sliding.

I was trying to cross Montrose right after I left my apartment and I was in the oncoming traffic lane. There was this huge semi truck bearing down on me and I had to get in the right lane but there was this car going really slow toward me there. I kept looking back and forth between the truck and the car, trying to figure out what to do, but the car was going at just the right speed so that I couldn't cross safely and I couldn't tell if he was going to let me go, like he was close enough so that I was just waiting for him to go so I could get out of the path of this big truck. I kept looking back and forth, because it didn't look like he was going to let me cross his path but he wasn't speeding up to pass, and then the truck is getting pretty close and I yell at him to go, and as he finally passes in front of me he's waving at me and he's got this big grin on his face, like he was doing it on purpose. I thought maybe he was acting cavalier like that because he was suppressing accountability for putting me in harms way, like he was slightly embarrassed that his indecision was putting me in enough danger that I had to yell at him and this was his way of dealing with it. But I couldn't help but to suspect that he really did do it on purpose and he had just some kind of dickheaded prejudice against bikers, something I catch wind of from other people on the road sometimes. And I'm like so pissed that I try to ride him down and fantasize about breaking off his mirror with my u lock. I mean fuck.

I really just can't believe how disgusting the air is, and nobody else seems to care.

I'm too tired to write any more.

The Dish Ran Away With My Dinner

There was a duck living under my ranch. i waited every day for something like that to break up the tone of the evening conversation, but all I had to go on was a red and black spider torso and a humid kind of mossy smell that made me think of the lake when it's too warm for winter. The frozen bluffs I used to crawl around on probably wouldn't support my weight anymore, and that would be fine except that what I've been trying to do now for the past six months, ever since the city got evacuated and the air raid sirens didn't warn us anymore before the bombs blew right in our faces, is fish a little bit with this old fishing pole I dug out of the back of a plymouth voyager. Annie told me not to get excited when I saw the walgreens across the street wasn't on fire anymore, because all I was going to find in there would be jars and jars and jars of ladyfingers, and those things have like not nutritional value in them whatsoever, like I might as well be bringing toenail clippings back for both of us to eat. Earl said that he had to do that once, eat up all his toenails. He's all scarred up because of this fire, and his eyes are yellow from drinking too much rum. You can see his collar bones, his clavicles right through the Chicago Bears t shirt he always wears. He said he figured that since it was something that grew from his body from eating food that it probably had at least some kind of vitamins or minerals in it. So he'd bit off his fingernails and his toenails, too, whenever he happened to notice that they were bitable, and suck on them for awhile to get them soft so they wouldn't poke at his insides. Then, he said, he'd snuffle some salty snot into his mouth and swallow the whole mixture, down the hatch. "It got specially bad when this one time I caught myself bitin them down even over the skin, and not just waitin. Then's when I knew I'd been forgetting to hustle me up some food." He asked me to buy him a steak with my food stamps and I was like how the heck are you gonna cook it? and he said he could get probably four or five bucks for it. I was in the grocery store for too long and he came in to look for me, and I just gave him four dollars I was going to use to buy a spatula with.

RAAARRR!

"One 12-year veteran fired his weapon 31 times, emptying two full magazines, Kelly said."

Quote of the Week

"People who live in bamboo houses should not throw pandas."

Who else? NINJA

Bad Kitty

Mister Chillynose was mad at me this morning because I locked him in the bathroom because he keeps eating Mouse's food. He waits until he knows I am engrossed in something and then I hear the tinkling of kibble in the bowl and I turn around to see him eating as fast as he can to get as much in the belly as possible before I catch him. He also eats looking up, which is bizarre because if you think about it most cats look pretty happy when they're on the munch, but not if they have to watch out for daddy who's going to lock him in the dank, cold bathroom. As soon as I get up he runs off with food still in his mouth until he finds a place that's hard enough for me to get to that he can drop it on the floor and eat it properly. Even as I drag him away from it he's still chewing. He is, needless to say, a fatass. I read something for the research paper (that I didn't do that was due today for the class I skipped to write a song, don't tell my girlfriend) on Immanuel Kant about disciplining children, and how for example it's useless to punish a child for lying and reward her for insert good deed here because then the kid will grow up making decisions that are designed to bring in personal reward and avoid punishment as opposed to running her life with dignity and self respect, and that one should instead treat the child with contempt and inform her that people are now no longer going to believe her. This is wise advice, and I will remember it for when I have kids, but it doesn't work on cats because they are too stupid to know the why of things, they just know that certain things make you lock them into the bathroom. Anyway, I felt bad about it sort of but I didn't know what else to do. I let him out after awhile and at first he was really mad at me and kept looking at me really pissed and hiding, but then later when I was laying on the couch reading about Erik Larsen in Punk Planet he came and perched on my chest in front of my magazine and kissed me on the nose with his nose, which in case you didn't know is how cats tell you they really love you. And so then I was looking at him and trying to figure out, if I don't like being hard on him, what the heck can I do? and I decided well how about nothing, because he's a cat, and if any being should have a free pass in life it should be a house cat, even if he also rips up all my furniture and pisses on the floor when I don't let him out and eats bits of fried chicken from the neighbor's dumpster when I do.

Quote of the Week

Jim Munroe, DIY zine publisher and author of the novel Flyboy Action Figure Comes With Gas Mask:

"Corporate specialization fragments a project into several pieces and creates lots of cracks for things to disappear into."

Check out his site: http://nomediakings.org/

Fast Food Nation- Loved It

I appreciated that Richard Linklater and Eric Schlosser made a point to show how people deal with having their eyes opened to harsh realities. Too many overtly didactic movies get caught up in the message without portraying an interesting spectrum of reactions. Being presented with Bruce Willis' character's arguments and Patricia Arquette's character's apathy goes a long way in preparing people interested in fixing things for what they are up against should they attempt to enlighten people who are invested in maintaining the status quo. In true Linklater form, Ethan Hawke's character doesn't dissappoint. The central theme, that there is an industrial machine detached from humanity that is gobbling up decency on the planet, is one that was reinforced by the end credit roll in a pretty awesome way. Best line in the movie, from the most interesting character in the movie, played by Chris Christofferson: "The machine doesn't give a shit." Don't go to see it if you want character driven drama- the many separate storylines don't allow the characters to get up to full steam. Do go to see it if you want to see a movie that does a great job trying to get Americans to be honest about their role in the great many problems we are all going to have to face up to sooner or later, from suburban sprawl to teenage pregnancy.

Fog

Okay, so I wonder if we'll see positive changes now that the dems got more power. They don't seem all that different, but it can't be worse than what the Repubs have been up to. What the hell did people think was going to happen? You vote on "values" you get idiots that don't give a shit about you.