Let's Have A Fight!

She and I do not have real fights all that often. We are both exceptionally cruel and heartless people when angry, and both very stubborn. We've learned that it is in our best interest to just smile and nod when we disagree, at least for the most part.

That said, we do have these little fights quite often that manifest themselves as a lack of home maintenance on both our parts.

Normally, I will make food, pick up dishes, do garbage, shovel the walk, and occasionally pick up the house when I start to see things moving out of the corners of my eyes all the time. She looks after the cats, cleans up the cat puke, does laundry and will sometimes pick up the house when she realizes I'm not planning to clean up a whole bunch of shit that isn't mine.

When we argue, this division of labour is reduced to her shovelling out the cat shit, and me bringing home enough takeout to feed us for an evening. I don't want to do shit for her when she's being a dick, and she (possibly correctly - who am I to say?) seems to think I do nothing for her even when we aren't fighting, and wants to do nothing for me, especially when we are.

I should take a second here to mention that I don't mean to sound bitter. I think it's personalities, really. I like when people do little things for me like rub my back, or offer to make food after I've worked the job I hate for ten hours, or allow me to come home and just relax and have some quiet time. I feel good when I do these things for others. She, however, doesn't really care about any of that. Honestly, I am less and less sure what she wants out of this. Maybe it's the stability. Anyway, because she doesn't really have any special appreciation for that kind of stuff, she doesn't naturally really do that kind of stuff. I wouldn't call it selfishness, per se, so please, don't get the wrong idea.

Anyway, the result of this stoppage of maintenance is that the house gradually fills up with garbage and cat puke and all this other nasty stuff until one of us breaks down and cleans up.

Usually, this is not me. I lived with six other people for a year and a half. I am happy enough with the house not being constantly destroyed - constantly gross makes little difference to me. I am rarely here anyway, at least when I can help it.

This was going somewhere. Then I saw something funny online and kind of lost the train of thought. Oops. Maybe later.



I just found out this laptop has bass boost. It activated by moving the pipe and buster off the speakers.

"Nothing" is a pretty subjective concept.

Goddamn, I love SweetTarts.

This is one of those restlessly boring nights.

I've beaten all my video games to the point where there is no replay value, and no point in buying new ones because I will beat them and have the same problem.

Movies and TV suck. When was the last time anyone thought a plot through? Name a movie, any movie. I'm willing to bet you that the storyline falls apart under any kind of scrutiny in about three and a half seconds.

Books are great, except that I've read all of the ones I own. I need more books, but have so much junk already that it would probably cause my floor to collapse.

Lisa and the cats are sleeping and I don't want to wake any of them up, so I'm being quiet.

There is just nothing to do, and it's pretty lame. I don't even really feel like blogging.

Maybe I will paint a mural or something on one of my walls, so that when I sit here with nothing to do but smoke and stare into space, I'll have something to look at.


But I have no paint, and don't know where to get some at this hour.


So, something else.


Hey, you know what I think it really is?

It's the honesty of it more than anything else. It's not some forced grace or a supernatural aire that just overwhelms the senses. It's simple and humble and "true-to-yourself" type stuff, and that's what makes it beautiful. It is not so much the effortlessness of it, though I have seen "effortless" and the same applies. I suppose it's fairly hard to explain this concept in writing, so perhaps I will just say that "words fail", and leave the elucidation up to the exceptionally savvy readers, who are likely imaginary in this specific case.

But, maybe you know what I'm talking about.

Maybe there are better words somewhere.

The most beautiful poetry is usually not the most eloquent or the best written - It's the most raw, from the heart sentiments that make a verse have any kind of true impact. I think that, at least in my mind, the principal is the same. Though I don't think it really belongs there at the moment anyway.


So, something else.


I've been thinking about writing the Alanna blog. It should probably happen eventually, but frankly the whole thing makes me feel dirty and I can't really think of any way to write it that makes it at least a little funny and not just strange and horrifying.

I think it's the kind of story that would be awesome or at least interesting to hear if you did not know anyone involved.


So, something else.


Ol' Black Lung here does know smoking is bad for him.

I can feel it killing me.

You want to make most people quit smoking? Tell ya what.

Take some Kleenex or toilet paper. Get a cigarette. Light it. Very important step, that last one. Pull some smoke into your mouth, but don't actually inhale it. Press the tissue firmly to your mouth, and blow out.

That's what goes into your lungs. Yum.

Untill recently, I'd get to inhale that about forty times a day. I have cut back from the two pack minimum now that I have my own house and prefer to smoke outside. It's bad for Lisa and the cats.

I know why I smoke, and I've made peace with it. Adult choices and all.


So, something else.


Netflix has exposed me to more horrible ways of wasting time than anything else I have ever encountered. It's not that I spend a lot of time watching it, it's that everything I watch seems to be immensely stupid.

I got U.S. Netflix in the hopes that they would have some different programming.

I was not disappointed. Now everything is immensely stupid and pirated. What a change.


So, something else.


Like pomegranates. I'd punch a nun for a nice, fresh pomegranate right now. They are refreshing as all fuck and stupidly tasty, and they take a long time to eat properly, time which I find enjoyable because I get to eat this fucking awesome thing that is healthy too and have something to focus on while doing so.

Even the word is awesome. Pom-a-gran-it, spelt like it doesn't sound.

They are even esthetically pleasing.

One of the best parts of being an adult is that I can almost always, always have a fucking pomegranate.

I also like cabbage, because it's crunchy like chips but better for you.

Most fruits and vegetables are pretty good. It would be nice to live somewhere where you could just go pick them out of your back yard.

And much more realistic than living somewhere else with tasty, convenient snacks, like an 7-11.


So, something else.


Blogs are strange. They are like diaries written in the hopes that someone will find them. Or like messages in bottles. Or, as stated previously, sounding boards.


There should probably be nothing else. I ramble.

Speaking of funny things in pictures.

It must kind of suck to look at all the pictures of your wedding party, and have it be glaringly obvious that you are not the prettiest person in them.

I mean, I get that you may not believe me when I say it. But there's some photographic proof for you, if you haven't noticed already.


Me, I'm only inviting ugly people to my wedding.

Do you remember MSN Messenger?

My kids sure won't. Ain't that a trip.


Anyway, that got me thinking

Things sure were easier in those MSN days, eh?

And

I find it funny that it's been a decade, and yet, here I still am, bitching about your shit on my blog.

And

Ten years. We should really, really just stop kidding ourselves about all this stuff, and just fuck, or argue, or stop talking to eachother, or maybe all three at the same time.

As far as I can tell, I truly, truly dislike you with a passion I can really only feel for things that are dear to me. I dislike the choices you've made in your life, and I dislike who you've become. I disliked who you were. I dislike everyone and everything you find appealing and chose to associate with you. I dislike that you are somehow still in my life instead of off fucking the Pope or snorting lines with the spoiled children of famous people or dead behind a dumpster or doing whatever else we both thought you'd be doing right now. Like, what the fuck, dude.

Similarly, I think you dislike me, and who I've become, and what I represent to you. I think you are more than fine being far, far in the past, but think you need to still be around because you are guilty about how things turned out for us and your massive fucking part in that.

So, on the off chance that you can still read minds and can hear me thinking this shit, let me lay out what I think should happen next here:

You need to realize that while I really could not give two fucks about what happened with us anymore, all that has shown me that you are not a friend. You are not a lover. You are nothing but a parasite, who feeds on the stability and happiness around you. I do not resent you, or hate you, but I do dislike you, and pity you, and want nothing to do with whatever fucking mess you're making right now.

You should take your fake, feeble personality, and your equally deplorable life, and keep it from intertwining with mine ever again.

This post easily could have been something else. Oh well. Sometimes all this is is a sounding board.


Anyway

Lindsay,

I cannot reply to your post at this particular moment without kind of being a dick or at least more blunt than required with my opinions. It is the mood I'm in, and as you know, things are usually pretty fucking black and white to me when it comes to other people, even ones who I should not perhaps be giving romance advice to.

If you were here, I think I would give you a book. It's an annotation to a theological textbook called Dancing With Siva, which I picked up the last time I visited the Kauai Aadheenam Hindu monastery in Hawaii. The textbook itself is by the monastic head, but the annotations are by a fellow named Acharya Kumarnathaswami, who is possibly the wisest person I have ever personally had the fortune to talk to. They are good to think on.

Instead, I think maybe I'll just leave you with this little koan, which is from an equally interesting and silly religion:



In olden days in Japan, bamboo and paper lanterns with candles inside them were used as portable light. A blind man, visiting a friend one night, was offered a lantern to carry home with him.

"I do not need a lantern," he said. "Darkness or light is all the same to me."

"I know you do not need a lantern to find your way home," his friend replied, "but if you don't have one, someone else may run into you in the dark. Please, you must take it."

The blind man left for home with the lantern, and before he had gotten very far, someone ran straight into him. "Look where you are going!" he cried to the stranger. "Can't you see this lantern?"

"Your candle has burned out, brother," replied the stranger.




There are no koans about love, because Buddhism is exclusively introspective and aloof, but I feel it says what I'd have to say pretty darn well compared to the other little tales I can clearly remember.


I think I will go sleep. Thinking about this sort of stuff, I just realized that in a month, I cannot go back to the monastery ever again. While I don't think I ever really would have, I've always wanted to be a monk, and this makes me sad.

As another koan puts it:

The Student asked “How does an enligthtened one return to the ordinary world?”
The Master replied, “A broken mirror never reflects again; fallen flowers never go back to the old branches.”

I'm not pro or anti abortion.

I do think, however that if

1. You've chosen to sleep with me
2. You've chosen not to use protection
3. You've then gotten pregnant

that it would appear that all of those things were your choices as well. Why would you punish someone else because you are unhappy with the outcome of those choices? If anything, at least were it to involve me in any way, because obviously this would not apply to rape or things like that, it was your irresponsibility that got you into this mess in the first place, and just getting rid of the problem is the wrong way to fix your mess.

Similarly, sure, it's your body, but any kid in there would be equal parts yours and mine, not to mention "his own" as well. The minute you decided to allow me into your body was the minute you kind of forfeited the right to make decisions for all three of us. Justifying abortion with the "it's my body and I can do what I want" argument is disgusting. If my body is horny and needs a little lovin, is it within my right to force you to have sex with it? Not really, because that's now involving your body. I have no interest in arguing about fetal sentience, but the simple fact is that while it might be IN your body, that freaky little alien thing growing in there is actually someone else and that is "their body", not yours. How is it in your right to singlehandedly decide what to do with that other person's body any more than it's my right to do the same? Everything leading up to getting pregnant can certainly have the "my body" argument applied to it - that's most definitely all your choice. What happens to your kid affects people besides yourself just as greatly, thus, kind of seems like maybe I should have a say in things too.

There's obvious exceptions to all that, of course. If you aren't willingly pregnant (different from accidentally pregnant), then it's probably best for everyone if you abort. If the father has no interest in helping to support you while your pregnant and being there with you while you figure out what you're going to do, then he probably does not deserve much say as to what happens next.

I think there is certainly place for it, and that even abortion for convenience isn't nessecarily morally wrong. I do however think that the majority of the time, though, it's pretty disgusting and irresponsible, because the obvious way to deal with an inconvenient pregnancy would logically be to not place yourself in situations where it's likely you'll get pregnant, and not making a pile of excuses if it does happen. Guys need to realize that this is their job too, as they are equally responsible for any child that results, regardless of what the woman says or the guy would like to think. It is not hard to avoid being pregnant - I don't think I've used a condom everIt is surely a sign of advanced civilization that we are in a position where these choices are even an option, but frankly I'm really, really more and more appalled at the whole "Brave New World" attitude towards this type of thing.

I would not say "don't do it!", but maybe put a little more thought into what your doing and why you are where you are before you do.

I'm glad I will likely never date a girl with whom any of this is an issue with every again.

My first thought when I saw your little facebook blurb was

"If your mom agreed with your views, I can guarantee neither you nor your pile of siblings would be around to interfere with her online gambling."