Cuties

First you infantilize them. Then you sexualize them. That's why it's so gross, when you're forced to think about it. Girls. No, it's women now. And sometimes, ladies, that's sometimes acceptable. Ladies. And why not? It's not like I was ever comfortable with girls, the word or the beings. I liked to think up names for my imaginary daughter, that's all. Could never even draw them, in line art or descriptive prose. Maybe once or twice in poetry but it still seems gross to me, strained through a filthy shopvac filter, crusted with lust and loneliness, my own gastrointestinal version that my words conform to.

It's women and the goddess now, praying for matriarchy and the white race to be placidly dissipated in soft pumpkin genetic homogeny. Lord make me an instrument of thy peace. Yes, I can get behind that arcane sounding and humble request, even if I want to purge the thys and thous and arts and haths from my prayers because of the false feeling that language gives me, the way I feel pretentious when I parrot that dialect instead of speaking the way people of this age speak, whatever the lingual guilt by association. But yeah, Howard be thy name, so, your will be done, or rather, help me be useful to others, see, I'm praying to be a better person, so I can contribute to the good, not for a bunch of stuff for me - save for meaning and purpose and the purest bliss of virtue, iow, circumventing the material goods that briefly feed and then stymie happiness and hooking up directly to the overarching good feeling of being in harmony with my fellow humans and maybe nature, thus, a more efficient selfishness.

I think I have a good heart, it's in the right place, but clogged with the sticky tar this sickly society runs on. It would be a fitting end for my world if my heart failed. But my blood pressure's so low. More likely, I'll find a balance between euthanasia and euphoria and push the plunger on that when the time comes.

Contribute to the good, what a nice idea, how nice of me for coming up with it, I'm so proud of myself. A shame though that it all goes out the window the instant I'm called upon to act on it, the thousand little ways I'm tested each day at work, the opportunities I could take to practice this principle, like I used to practice piano. I struggled mightily with that form of practice too, and eventually gave up. And I had passion for the piano. Maybe I have passion for being good and making the world better, it may be trending that way, anyway. But more likely, it's a random walk, like this blog. Which is not to say there isn't sense in the pre-apocalyptic Melbourne drunk's tuesday night stagger trending toward the ditch, and statistically likely to end up there.

prelude to epileptic fit

silly idiot, jumping at the imagined sound of a text message - the romantic context is like an eerie jamais-vu

there will be a cafe, where early deaths are encouraged - maybe i'll live to see it, haha - by then, i'll be a prime candidate, if not now

the repetitions of my job are increasingly insanely absurd - the "thank you"s, the "i don't think there's much in there," comments, the nano-scale smalltalk, the roteness, the gaps in between where i contrive things to do, or not do - but it's far better than a lot of other jobs i've had - i feel sorrier for the people that work behind the counter of the tim horton's where i go for my coffee and lunch breaks, than i do for myself - i absorb their hostility to me with acceptance and understanding

lines creep under my eyes - a perpetual sleep mask, anvils on the lids, iron chains on the limbs - but i still feel young and stupid - is this what anti-depressants and caffeine are doing for me? why am i still on this shit? maybe cause although it sounds like such a good idea, to get baseline pure in brain chemistry, i got a sneaking feeling i'd still be feeling whatever it is i'm feeling, whether on or off meds -  and i'm scared to go completely off the meds, what if i begin to go on hysterical crying jags? i have a feeling that could happen - maybe it should happen, maybe it's part of some long-term process i haven't dredged up the nerve to begin yet - so, i guess that means get off the meds, cause at least some side effects would be eliminated from the equation, and i wouldn't feel obliged to gag down vile coffee that i hate 59 times out of 60, or swallow pills, so many pills, i've learned to swallow pills, but it hasn't gotten much easier, i just tolerate that disgusting routine

I haven't wanted to admit that I'm purposeless. But I'm coming to the point of needing to do that, and asking the necessary question of where do I go from here, and admitting that digital information isn't enough. I can't really be happy in a cave of my own making. Maybe I could in another reality where I wasn't sitting idle, by being in that cave, during a high speed collision course with global catastrophe.

I haven't wanted to admit that I'm purposeless and discontent with the cabin fever because I liked the idea that i perversely appreciated the loneliness and isolation and delirium of it all, and I could "get away" with it, and that would be a fuck you to the society I scorn and still scorn. But in truth, it's not enough for me. It's taking a toll. I'm not right with myself, haven't been in a long time.

But I wanted to pretend that I stomached the sickness and held it in, and described it and that was a grungy artform with its own acquired aesthetic. Thus, the reluctance to admit outright how spiritually, morally, and purposefully bankrupt I am, and the implications of that, and the change it requires. Even as I'm writing a daily deluge of prose that screams emptiness and aimlessness. But intrinsic to that was a kind of anesthetic from the ache of the emptiness through wallowing in it, indulging it to poetic extremes and then being afforded the luxury of standing back and beholding My Emptiness from the vantage of a carnival freakshow spectator or the sophist who derives her sense of individuality through regarding a snuff video from an oddly artistic angle. And besides, I would sometimes arrogantly extend this emptiness to the world, and say that everyone must necessarily be hollow, whether they knew it or not.

I can see more and more how drugs and that way of life took a toll, especially the uppers, and how even years later, I'm dealing with the radioactive waste from that time, the stunted growth, and the frayed wiring.

It's a good thing I'm in the program of AA, I can't do any good unless I stay sober first and it works beautifully as a metaphor for the macro scale problems we face collectively. My sobriety will synergize with my participation in creating a better future and my participation in that will strengthen my sobriety.

So, I've suddenly become a political blogger? No, I have about zero faith in political solutions. Who to vote for? Is there a "sustainability party"? The Green Party I guess, maybe I should have a closer look at their platform. But the phrase green has been around too long, I now associate it with little bandaids like bicycle paths, and the local organic grocery co-op, not the kind of radical shifts that are now urgently needed. Maybe they should change their name to the Sustainability Party. Or maybe people like me have got to become more comfortable with a certain language.

I have the feeling that whoever ends up in charge of the apparatus of any state, no matter what their intentions, will succumb to moneyed interests and endemic corruption. So the system needs to change. Maybe electoral reform will be enough. The major parties have to go away. They've failed. They're hopeless. The democrats republicans liberals conservatives labour tories maybe even ndp. All the aspiring power brokers have got to fuck off or be fucking shoved out of the way. There will have to be some violence, I'm pretty sure. I just hope it won't have to be too much.

i played "panicky idiot no. 2" in The Poseidon Adventure

how did i get so distracted again today? how did i forget that

THERE'S NO FUCKING FUTURE, THERE'S NO FUCKING VISION

wake up! to what? nevermind, you don't wanna know... go back to sleep

it's really hitting home to me how aimless we are - "this is what it's like in the moment before a civilization departs for the stars", mckenna said the mushroom said - that's a nice idea, and there was a space program, that seemed promising, but it's petering out as we speak, no longer a way out, cause there's not enough time

nuclear's clean enough for me, i'll say, but it takes ten years to build a nuclear plant - it takes massive interdependent energy and resource expenditure to build hydro-electric, solar and wind plants - everything is made possible by cheap oil - it's not a fucking "engineering problem" - it's a little goddamn deeper than that

now there's proven reserves to keep oil cheap for maybe another 40, 50 years, so it can be burned fast enough to keep this car we're in barreling toward the edge of the cliff - all that burning's gonna exacerbate global warming, of course - when it gets dire enough, they're gonna burn all the coal, cause we'll sacrifice air quality to keep the lights and heat on, because it's the fucking LIGHTS and HEAT!

and the people who matter, you'd think, well they're educated, the CEOS and the politicians, so if they're carrying on like it's business as usual, then it demonstrates that the crisis can't be real - but they can't admit that's it's real, can they? cause then it just accelerates the process, wall street crashes, the house of cards falls down - wall street, jesus, cheap oil and a cardhouse economy, does everything depend on wall street? civilization is too big to fail, they say

i'm not trying to score points, i'd love to be proven wrong - i don't want apocalypse - i know, some go-getters, a lot of them, think: worst case scenario, they'll be just fine, cause they got their cabin in the woods to go to, or they took that survival skills course, or whatever - maybe, i'll take any scrap of optimism i can get, and maybe they will be fine, i don't know - and good for them - can i be one of the ones that die off then, without your judgement to boot, about how i'm weak and cowardly? but can you let me tie off before i die off? we gotta let more people into the hospice, make a whole cultural niche into God's waiting room - or the Void's foyer, it's hard to fit a belief in god into the same small universe as a drug-induced exit from the coming shitstorm

maybe i'm hoodwinked, but the things i read seem a lot more credible to me than the crap that's bandied about on mainstream broadcasts, and it scares me in a deep way, cause it feels real, it's feeling more real all the time, even though this is the up and down dipsy wipsy dawning awareness phase, and there's still ample opportunities to forecast an eternal meaningless flux with no trend, nothing to see here folks, go back to bed

i know older people care about their kids - but they can't allow themselves to think this crisis is real, most of them, can they? they have to believe it'll be worked out somehow - it's so easy to latch onto this or that, especially if you have a subscription to discover magazine - there's always hype - and this is hype too - look at me, i'm letting the internet turn me into chicken little - it's facile to just spam links at people that appear to confirm what i suspect... and what do i know anyway? i need to listen more, to all sides - and i'm willing to, i think, i hope, but i got major trust issues with the sources that say it's business as usual, or they'll figure something out, or oh! the one about how it's just that big oil is clamping down on the free energy machine - i can't believe it's all so easy and simple as the evil oil companies are running everything and once their power is broken everything will be fine - sure they're evil, but they're also only symptoms of a sick society

i'm scared that after a crash, it's gonna be religious fanatics that take over, or military strongmen - i'm scared i could even adapt to that paradigm, and follow the leader - i could adapt to changing times, to some extent, but i don't wanna have to learn to be a subsistence farmer - how ironic that i was in a relationship with the person i was in a relationship with for that time, not that long ago, feels like yesterday really, so strange

i think, just maybe, i can handle a steep decline in technology - but what i can't handle, won't handle, is the decline in culture that i hope won't have to come with that - yes, this culture is ill, and not in the way the kids use that term today, and yes, this culture is morally bankrupt and hollow in so many ways, and so much about it would be better gone, but what if all of it went? what if what life i have left thirty years from now is in dutifully joining the pogrom and casting piles of hardcover books and CDs and hard drives into the righteous bonfire to renounce the wicked ways of the evil old ones? i'd happily renounce lots of it, but not all of it, i'm of this age, i'm not as much of a misfit as i might like to think i am, my passions in life are very closely correlated with modern things, modern music, modern ways of expressing and communicating - yeah, i used to go for walks in the woods lots - maybe i could learn to like that more, again - but i just don't see the beautiful bountiful sacred splendiferous majesty of Nature being something i'm gonna retrofit on myself as a raison d'etre halfway through my life - well, i'm sure whatever happens, some of our stupid slang terms will survive, and certain brands of humour will survive, the humour will be blacker than ever, and it will hurt more too, and i'll appreciate that, it will be a buffer, even if ironic distance will be impossible to maintain

i could see the need to become religious after the crash - like i see the function of some concept of a higher power, and how essential it is to living life on life's terms, and i see why my program for addicts is a "spiritual" program, and i can analogize that a spiritual outlook that also embraces the world, and other people, could synergize wonderfully with the epic project of moving from this clusterfuck of a world to something sustainable, and how there could be grand purpose in that, a kind of purpose that would seem so fresh and new to us people in this age, a purpose we've never known, or realized could exist, a kind of purpose that maybe people felt not that long ago, when we canadians liked american presidents, and thought kennedy was king shit for some reason, a purpose that could fill any gaps in consumer product acquisition, and then some... so yeah, the sense of spirit that comes with the moving away from materialism, that could be great, but the way it would go down, i think, would be an over-correction, to religious extremity, where we'd have to "admit" to the jesus-freaks and allah-freaks, that, yeah, okay, you were right, we were infidels and that whole modernity thing was nothing but a depraved lunge to nowhere, and you can go back to telling us what to do, like you used to

this isn't a very dignified or helpful way of talking about this, is it? well, maybe when more people start to appraise the situation honestly, it can give way to more constructive and proactive approaches - things feel bleak to me right now because it's such an unspoken, taboo subject - when it's out in the open, maybe there'll seem to be more options than simple stupid lamenting - cause i'm getting real fucking sick of that

...so far, so good, so what? so yeah, i'm quoting a megadeth album, but it makes sense - yeah, you older people, you remember the '70s, and how it was supposed to be ending just around the corner then too - but this isn't zorp is coming, this is a really bad set of curves - i'm sure if i browsed through enough ted talks i'd find some plucky technocrat to tell me why it's really fine though - and i'm always down on myself, like i'm not informed, and can't work things out, but, well, if that's so, then what gives me confidence in my feeling that things are fucked? good question - i don't have a good answer - but i'm a little freaked out, sometimes a lot freaked out, and omni-nauseous - maybe this anxiety is why my stomach is fucked

i'm sick of waiting around, i want to see a plan, i want to see people in power answering fucking questions about what the fuck they're planning on doing about this shit... they need to be asked directly - i can't draft no plan, i didn't go to engineering school, i can't handle the math - all i can do is evaluate information in my layman way

not that i matter, and not that i can change anything - if anybody matters, and if anybody can change anything, it's people with degrees in the sciences, or even in political science and law and that bullshit which i'd say should be secondary, let's put smart people in charge, if anyone's gonna be, but people who know things, and can solve problems, and sure, even people who brag about being in mensa, cause i suspect i wouldn't do all that great on an IQ test, but sure, mensa people, you can solve this shit - if you need any ditches dug towards the end of solving the energy crisis, well, put me to work, give me something to do

i can write about it, but even my writing is just scavenging off the real writers, they just put ideas in my head, about this peak oil business, and they'll put it in much better poetic prose when the time for that comes - but i have my own voice to add, i guess

maybe i could hit someone with a pie though, like one of the koch brothers, or rupert murdoch, or gregory boyce - not that i'd do any kind of cliched activism, but it might be necessary, fairly soon, for people who care, to actually get out and do things that reverse policy courses beyond voting, which doesn't work because the major parties won't allow electoral reform, certainly not on this continent - so, what will have to happen, before we resort to violence, is getting in people's faces, hounding politicians, making their lives hell short of shooting them - and that will involve being cliche, and stupid chants and slogans and signs that make me cringe, and so many uncool things that are the only things that work - coolness is a luxury we can't afford for much longer, i don't think - i still enjoy the daily show though - but eventually, the ironic distance is just gonna be a stubborn damnfool paralysis - i might have to ally with the real activists, who actually do things, that i congratulate myself for being ironically detached from, who make me uncomfortable with their naked ideology, but if i care, i'm going to have to make common cause with many types of people

i remember i used to care about things when i had that first wave of social consciousness, before i was twenty - then i got massively distracted - by all sorts of minor cultural items, and especially by drugs - what a pathetic tangent, ten years of fucking around and not acknowledging the reality of things, except in a distanced, detached way, where the horror is pretty, from the narcotized bubble - see when you're anesthetized on recreational drugs, the shithole you live in doesn't seem so bad, it's downright comfortable, and people think you're such a whoa... such a hardcase, such a hardened edgy fuck for living in that nightmare, but you're nothing of the kind, you're just anesthetized, burning coke, baking soda, fuel, and brain cells...

i'll go back to suppressing my concern fairly soon, maybe i'll even seem an idiot to myself when it all comes out in the wash - but i didn't want to suppress this particular urge to express just now, even if it is transient, because maybe the bleakness of how i feel most of the time needs to be vented via the vehicle of the potential oil crash