A promise

Mine is "back tomorrow".

Fear of the Fruits of Loathing

If anyone from the DOJ is reading this, I've heard how they've screwed up your investigative powers so that you can't put a stop to terrorism. I'm with you, not against you on this.

An Eclipse of Bread

Yesterday, after the power outage, we needed to restart the bread machine.

On Choice and Sexual Preference

Some of my friends who are gay and lesbian feel the need to defend the idea that as long as something a person does does no harm to anyone else, it is okay to do.

Portrait of an Inner Critic

He looks a lot like me except he doesn't wear a beard.

Space in Portola Hills

Once someone left me a nasty note that I think was intended for someone else.

Hummingbird on Patrol

When my cousin Anne was four, she used to call them "hunting birds".

Confluence Project

I took a look at some of the nearby confluences (oh Lord, I am sounding like a New Age vortex seeker when I say that!) and came to a conclusion that there's an awful lot of middle of nowhere in the world.

Realization
There's no surer way to stop comments than to stand up for yourself and say "excuse me, but not on...

Ammonia

I remember my first whiff of household ammonia.

Thunder and Boomerang Clouds

The atmosphere threw bluish-orange boomerang clouds at the Santa Ana Mountains.

Flag Desecration

I was present at a flag burning, once.

Got a Secret? Willing to Bet On It?

A deliberate flop that could be tied to Clinton is what I have my money on.

Going to Bed

Every night, Lynn goes to bed before I do.

Working in Iraq

What's this? A THREE HOUR WORKDAY? And everything is paid for by the U.S. Government? Why, I think this is an idea whose time has come! Let's bring it to America! What's good enough for the Iraqis is good enough for me!

Smoker Patrol at the Studio

In the Studio Theater, I was the Law. I had power over them.

Make Way for the Real News, Please

In all the anger over Leykis's boorishness, Whited alone has seen that perhaps a good point is to be salvaged: that we're innocent until proven guilty.

The Liberia Trap

Think, Democrats. Think! Don't wimp out on opposing war!

Fishing

I first heard this joke told about General Rios-Montt of Guatemala. It has been adapted for the present day

Albert Schweitzer and Britney Spears?!

But it brings me back to an "overwhelming question" and you don't have to ask "What is it?" because I am going to tell you: in all our cultural criticism of sex sirens, what are we doing focusing on what the women do rather than on what men want?

Beauty without Blue Eyes

Overrun
Lynn is overrun by conservative commentators who don't like her views on same sex marriage, etc. Go help her....

Death Wish

Free for All!

I've often dived off the rocks at Crystal Cove, gone under, and broken the surface hoping that a sea change takes place.

Darwinian Poetry

I have to say that, for the most part, they were nonsensical pieces of alyrical garbage.

Get Ready....

Issa better hope he lives in a safe district because this will be the political emasculation of him once the Democrats are through with him.

Policy for Pax Nortona, etc.
Due to recent conflicts, I have decided to post a policy statement governing behavior at this blog. If you have...

Cough Syrup Abuse

In the absence of signs suggesting abuse, I caution against treating your teen ager as a convict in his own house.

Mercy

To whom do you ask mercy when you are surrounded by unmerciful people, when it is plain that any higher intelligence in this universe is a whirlwind that tells you not to ask why things happen to you though you have striven to be just?

All the Dirt, All the Time

Don't miss the local scandals, including the mysterious murder of Frederico the Goat

If I Die, I Will Miss....

At the Wednesday writing group, I broke the ice with an exercise in which we wrote down those things that we would miss when we were dead.

Principles of Blogging

When I go to other blogs, I strive to observe a few simple rules of decorum.

Quaint Quiz

You know, I bet it was my answer to the last question which won me this.

AC Man

When I saw him dragging himself up the stairs, his skin blown dry like the sandstone ridges that jut out of the hillsides around these parts, I offered him a cold Coke.

Darrell Issa's Criminal Past

"I confronted Issa . . . . I got in his face and threatened to kill him, and magically my car reappeared the next day."

Declaration
I reserve for myself the right to end conversations....

Britney Spears Revisited

I owe Britney Spears an apology for what I said the other day. She did not deserve to be called a whore.

Locker Room Towels

The sweat of a thousand reused socks concentrated in a single off white eighteen inches by three foot piece of stiffish corduroy cloth.

Elephant Mutters

I learned that elephants speak in very low voices, lower than our hearing can discern, but audible to them at distances of up to four miles.

Return of the Air Conditioner

As those who saw the pictures I displayed of my immediate environs know, we've been having light cloud cover.

Talk

Elephants talk, in very low tones, beneath the range of the human ear. That's why they have big ears

Hunting Confirmed?

Living in this world of violence pornography, surrounded by men who love it, can we really say that she is making a fully informed choice?

Humility vs. Belittlement

Where humility aids you in gaining a true sense of yourself, belittlement merely turns you into a tool for others.

The Future....

"I am sick and tired of you imposing your morals on the rest of us. Everyone should have the right to live the lifestyle he or she chooses."

Hunting Women

Civil libertarian that I am, allowing as I do the expression of many bizarre practices as long as they do no harm to those involved, I must scream that willing or not, this harms not only the woman who runs but all women.

Late

"I'm late!" So quoth the White Rabbit.

Temple and Laboratory

What Color is this Mood?

"I'm in a mood."

"A blue funk?"

"No more gray."

Dance of the Assassins

If the loathliest criminal cannot be assured a fair trial instead of a summary execution, then the highest-minded man or woman of conscience is also threatened, as is the most apathetic and law-abiding of citizens.

Joel tells a-- well, -- some

"Where did you meet your wife?" people ask. "At a party that I wasn't planning on going to," I say.

Portola Hills 1

Carol Mosely Braun

So, though there is nothing to gain except the sense that I have done the right thing, I endorse Carol Mosely Braun.

God Bless Who?

"God Bless America" they proclaimed as if our dead suddenly raised us over all the other countries with dead.

Checklist

For everything else

There's the bankrupting flexibility

of credit cards. I travel

therefore, I must be a free man.

Bat in Belfry

Lynn nearly walked into it, a three inch long fur blimp with eight inch wings.

Selections from My Red Cloth Book

Think if Tiffany's made a mosquito, how wonderful we would think it was! -- Brenda Ueland

Getting Out, Getting Better

Stillness, lassitude within the confines of one's house is the great enemy of sanity.

El Toro Road

El Toro Road stretches from a point just beneath me to its intersection with Laguna Canyon Road, some 16 to 20 miles away. I do not see many pedestrians along the route.

Sky High: GeoURL

The aerial photo fairly represents my neighborhood as screaming suburbia, a place of stucco pressed right to the edge of asphalt, where individuality is denied on the exteriors, but fervently expressed inside.

Britney Spears

Would I be the first? they asked themselves. Would I be the first to break Britney open and cause her belly to swell?

Eagle Scout

Every time Troop 38 consecrated an Eagle Scout, I'd tick off the scout virtues and compare them to the candidate.

San Diego Wild Animal Park 1

Thirty Five Percent

35% of those who were abused as children end up in prison for violent crimes.

Dream
A very long and complicated dream of which I can only remember fragments: A neighbor has a room -- more...

Wrong!

When you box, you end up being wrong

Relief

Garnette's Last Visit

We strolled the grounds, allowing Garnette to lead the way because this would be here last time as she is leaving to go to New Orleans in a few weeks. Love beckons.

Not tonight

Not tonight, dear reader

Darkness Visible

T.S. Eliot thought it was pretty lame.

Pig's Ear 2

Its power weakens, however, at feeding times when Boadicea feels obligated to give me several little bites around the knuckles.

Evening July 2003

Away for the afternoon because of the heat

I return to the condominium to find it

reserving all that I missed in my absence

Overheard - For Shelley

Praise the Lord and pass the stiletto heels?

Fucks Up: Yours and Mine

Shelley's remarks mirror my own on this matter. Both of us have been accused of being contentious and irritable.

Muslim-Speaking Troops?

This fumble and the Resident are making Yale's reputation appear overinflated.

Wanted: Poetasters

Oh my mother love

how sweet my dear to my eye

laying out in the coffin woeful

the dog ate mother's toes full

Grrrrrrls vs. Women

Yes, Shelley, I too see the word "SELL-OUT" blazing from that rapturous conclusion.

Darkness Visible

Small contest, prize is glory. Where does the title phrase come from?

An Exercise in Self Deprecation

Thanks to all the people who heckled and belittled me in the last two weeks. You provided great material for this and by the time I was finished writing, I was laughing very hard.

Some Orange poems

I'm mad about orange.

I'm mad at orange.

If the election were held today....

....I would vote for Carol Moseley Braun.

Sock Puppet

For those who don't know what a sock puppet is: it is when you invent an additional identity to create the impression that there is more than one person spouting a point of view.

A conversation

Girl: Mommy, can't we go shopping and save the world?

John Kerry = Bush Lite?

To Kerry and his supporters I say simply this: Dean's wife and family are off limits.

George McGovern is Not Dead Yet

This was the one political campaign in which I didn't feel that I was selling my soul. It was also when I started to realize how full of hot air the press was and how petty the mushy middle could be when it came to small mistakes.

The Heat of Two Suns

The heat of the sky's sun and of my inner sun broiled me thoroughly today.

An Open Letter to Donna

So you have it harder than me and I am sad because all I can do is nod my head and say "Yeah, it hurts."

Living on a Ripple

Suburbs are the ripples of big cities.

Still, Hot

There's no wind blowing from the mountains and this bodes poorly.

Bewildering

Here's the strange part: this person remembers me. And I have been trying for two weeks now to remember who he/she is without success!

Apologies....

I must evacuate the house on both Tuesday and Wednesday so they can complete their work....This is a lousy time for our air conditioner to have failed.

I need a leather jacket with fringes

According to this particular survey, I am an Autonomous Rebel. Or what a college friend of mine labeled "a GDI" (God-Damned Independent). Or what I have more often been called: "A Fucking Pain in the Ass".

Vanilla Flavoring is Not Diversity

....diversity seems to mean that you don't express differences, that you don't declare where you have personally closed your mind.

A Pig's Ear

Bowie is in the teething stage and needs to chew. So is Fiona. The material that does the most to relieve their urge to gnaw, unfortunately, is the skin around our knuckles.

Bastille Day

Viva la France!

Best Intentions

I just looked at the clock.

Lunch Bag Theft

When I did tell the dean, he just sighed and said "You've got to protect your combination better."

Photographing Place

In A Blank Book, Red

I mark passages in the books I read for copying later in a bound red book.

Without Looking (One for the Drawer)

The molecule pattern smashing on tympanum is classed as "purr".

Education for Death

Rightists have become craftier since the fall of Prescott Bush's idol Adolf Hitler, concealing their notions of superior and contempt for the word of Christ by holding out the Bible and saying that they live by it. They still, unabashably, replace the sacrifice of Christ with a sword.

Mews from the Front Room

When we leave the front door open to allow air to blow through the screen door, Bowie sits there, catching the breeze and pouncing at the moths and the June bugs which are attracted to the light. Virginia comes up behind her and gives her a toss.

The Battle of San Pietro

Of San Pietro, it seems, little is written because almost no one lived to tell about it.

On Aging and Hardship

Every one of us would rather not have gone through the experience. I've reexamined a few incidents in my life and I've concluded that they did not make me a better person.

Statistics
Entries: 1372 Comments: 1618...

Realty Talk with An Intercalation
"If you mow the grass frequently it will never go to seed." "Looks nice," all this lush barrenness. "Sells property."...

Scribbles on the Back

I don't mind if you call me a bum. You can even call me a damned-old-bum. I'm asking such a simple thing. Forgive my negleanance. Thank you. No I haven't staked any claims yet, but I have found an untunéd piano with all the accouterments. Write gm 2/c after my name now. It has something to do with a promotion. That's what they tell me, anyhow.

Der Fuerher's Face

Note the similarity of life in the dream sequence to what the Right wants to promote in America today: no more paid overtime, the demand that you have to "love the leader because he is the leader", the emphasis on making bombs and more bombs, "we bring the world new order", etc

Not Endorsements

I make no endorsements at this time. I ask to be pressured to make none.

Heat

The interior of the house radiates inwardly, making it tough to sleep, tough to think.

Pointing Back At Me

I simply said "When I listen to that kind of stuff, I feel the angry well up in me. I don't like living like that."

No Crown

A free man met another man wearing a crown on the road. He reached up and knocked it off.

Beyond the End of the Driveway

In those days, my high school years, my Catholic parents had arranged what amounted to a five day a week divorce.

Poison Tree

Last month when I told my mother about my discovery, she said "Your stupid grandfather ate lots of those berries and they never killed him."

Gay Marriage Photos

Only one thing I can say: "Congratulations, Michael and Robert.

Attacks and Belief in Comments

Those who want to just attack strike me as a species of roach deserving classification or perhaps a variety of sock puppet with nothing but a fist inside of it.

Acrostics

Simple folk

Language

Asshole speech

Nonstandard.

Go fuck yourself.

The Apple Green Key

Chris had a key which he didn't know the use for

Aortal: Under the Fire Star

She posts in pictures and in words, both of which strike the mind and make you think about your assumptions about what needs to be in the place where you live.

Another Rogue Thought
Should there be no afterlife, the believer in God will be in for much less of a shock than the...

The Fish and The Crab

I came across the fable -- loosely tied to the larger tradition of the tales told by Scheherezade to the angry Sultan Shanidar -- of the Fish and the Crab.

Thought
God may not exist, but emotions are a real territory....

On Wearing the Crown of Arrogance

Life's a guessing game. "We tell ourselves stories in order to live." Was that Joan Didion or Anais Nin?

Not Tonight, Dear

I'm not in the mood for bashing former girlfriends. I've been pushing the pen and the keys on other subjects anyways.

The Method

They might call this plan "evil": tell them to tell that to Christ, the Buddha, and the rest of the great men and women of spirit.

Ridgeline

In the evenings, rabbits -- Western cottontails -- come out of the coyote brush and dine on the lawn.

Killing Off Our Symbols

The country is in ruins and as some of us strive to reconstruct the beauty and the good of what was, others pull down bricks from the walls of civil gold and smash at our heads.

Burn Baby Burn?

It's the color that I like that matters!

Cut from My Notebooks

I laid out a cross deliberately.

With what fierce thirst for penance I have tried to mortify in myself the throbbing of the flesh, and make myself wholly transparent to the love of Jesus crucified.

Life's greatest danger lies in the fact that men's food consists entirely of souls.

Gratitude and Questions

I've seen myself "linked" on some pages under the category "Pages that have referred to this page within the last twenty four hours". I've been debating whether or not such people deserve a mention when I do these gratitude posts.

This means that I am allergic to myself?
What Is Your Animal Personality? brought to you by Quizilla Achoo! Good thing I shower twice daily. My own...

America Divided into Clerks and Customers

We have turned against our country, lured to treason against our neighbors and friends by sales, everyday low prices, and convenience.

Cry Baby

At the beginning of 4th grade, my mother wondered who my teacher would be. "If it's Sister Annette again," I said, "I'm going to take out a gun and shoot her."

Defining Patiotism

If support for actions is limited to war making, then I am screwed.

An Attack of Gout

My left big toe nixed my plan for going to Barton Flats today. An invisible ring of pain encircles the joint that connects it to the foot.

An Australian

Shane's Australian and I'm sure he talks like all those friends from the brain-shaped continent who I have never met.

Fourth of July

Not talking about the Constitution on the Fourth is like having Christmas without the nativity story or a passover seder without questions from the children.

The Inevitable

The inevitable ceases to be when we cease to be

Bloggers Can Be Sued for Libel

Don't let this man mislead you into thinking that you can get away with what radio stations, television stations, newspapers, novelists, and others who publish can't.

Error Page....

Go to Google. Enter this phrase exactly, quotes and all: "weapons of mass destruction". Click on "I'm feeling lucky".

Embedded Trackback for Chari, etc.
Here is a text version of the embedded trackback code: Download file If any of you mavens improve on it,...

Howard Dean Needs to Broaden His Perspective

. It's the kind of talk that appeals to those white people who live within a hundred or so miles of the Canadian border, the ones who compost and recycle, but sometimes vote Republican. People like the ones in Fargo.

MUSH and a Brainwash

I saw America's future in that MUSH. For all I know George W. Bush played there.

An Original

I point it out, in part, to direct you to C's wisdom on the subject (I thought it cute that she called me an "evangelical agnostic") and in part to the comments where there's an interesting example of a blogger who doesn't seem to understand that winning an argument is not the same as finding the Truth.

Dana Point 5

It Preys On Us(?)

A successful predator of human beings would either trick the senses or be of a substance that our five could not detect.

Trackback for the Masses

Wiggle to the left, wiggle to the right. Pretty cool, huh?

Joel the God?

I rejoice in my limited consciousness. Complete awareness would drive me mad

Special Rights

I'd like to turn the insinuation on its head: heterosexuals who oppose homosexual marriage are demanding special rights on the basis of their sexuality.

Bluing and the Talking Mountain

It's stupid, trite, to sum this up by saying that summer is here, burning us, but there you have it.

Accepting an Apology

It's something to remember and stretch to fit when people come to me saying sorry for things like the way a countryman or a friend acted.

Human Cormorant

Someone throw me a fish, please. Salmon is nice.

Wampum is Back
Mary Beth didn't give up blogging after all. Hooray!...