I am urinating in your stream of consciousness presently

Cheese gets everywhere in your mouth if you have bad teeth. I hate deserving anything because to deserve something means you don't have it. I'm sick of deserving things. I want to be unjust. I want to own things that I shouldn't. I want to be able to live outside my means, to not do without.

In Memoriam to the Unknown Intellectual

I have heard you, learn'd astronomer;
But other astronomers have taught me
the placement of the Pleades,
the memorandums of Messier,
and the construction of the cosmos.

Of all the lessons I have learned,
for all the knowledge that I've yearned
One fact has brought me comfort
That all intelligence and effort
is irrelevant to my class.

I have heard you, learn'd astronomer.
But remember when you wear your robes
that the fabric of your clothes
is the mere astrology of Yale.

Dark Days Stormy Nights

For various reasons I had to spend the day away from my normal work at home environment and perform work at work. Paradoxically there are far more distractions for me at work, simply because I am such a people person in a comfortable environment. In general, however, it seems like I just don't get as much done in a day as a man ought. Ah well, as they like to say, tomorrow is another chance [to stop being terrible.]

My smoking continues unabated. I requested my leave for July, which was approved. Now I just have to get things -- Under Control --

Something Completely Different

Walking home, it occurred to me:

I loved her when I loved her,
I hated her when I hated her,
But now we're just friends
so we don't talk much.

My greatest challenge, lately, is dealing with my wholesale consumption of tobacco. The addiction costs me an enormous amount of money and time. (If you imagine that I spend as little as five minutes per day smoking cigarettes, a pack a day costs me an hour and 40 minutes of my life merely in the time it takes to smoke the cigarettes, an enormous portion of the time I spend awake.)

I suspect that I will begin keeping a log of my cigarette consumption here, and my attempts, however half-hearted, to curb it. In doing so I hope to provide some measure of entertainment, rather than just a bleak log of coffin nails and construction equipment.

Today was a day like any other day, at least in terms of smoking. I had roughly twenty cigarettes and needed more after the fact, leading me to visit the convenience store at eleven o'clock. Of course, this was aided by the rain. Whenever it rains, I cannot help the sense that smoking, the lighting of an ember set against the gentle mist coursing off of the roadway, is possessed of an inherent correctness. Nature itself, on these days, somehow created this particular setting so that men may smoke cigarettes.

The Nature of America

To be American is, for the most part, a legal and self-appointed property. When demagogues or cultural critics attempt to identify some particular demographic or group as members of the "real America" it is difficult not to scoff. Nevertheless I am pondering the probability that being American is something of an attitude rather than the legal identity of citizenship.

This attitude entails, as foreigners are often quick to point out, a sort of arrogance. Being American entails a belief that you are or are a part of something greater than anything else in existence. As bad attitudes go, it's a pretty healthy one. I suspect that my observation will shock no one in this particular instance.

I believe that this attitude also involves a gigantic capacity for risk, which often runs afoul of the Christian portion of the dual identity of many Americans. If there is one thing that I personally cannot stand the notion of losing, it is my ability to take a risk, whether that is in taking on massive debts, starting a new business, or playing the lottery, I find the notion that I could take a risk comforting, even if the particular risk is not one I would be comfortable taking.

Our identity as rugged individualists or as independents only seems to run this deep; I suspect that we are at heart a very communal people despite our propensity for the availability of risk.