- I've been giving it a lot of thought lately, well, as much thought as I am capable of, and it is my firm opinion that people innately have six senses. Yes, six. Of course we have the five we're taught: sight, smell, touch, taste, hear. Some people would say that the "sixth sense" would be psychic... stuff. I call those people nuts. The sixth sense I'm referring to is time. I believe that people have a sense of time, but it has to be refined and worked at. It's probably the laziest of our six senses. It's the one that people can ignore easiest, and the one that actually requires work to make it stronger, more accurate, but I believe it's there.
I woke up at 6:30 last Wednesday. My alarm wasn't set to go off until 8, but I am supposed to wake up at 6:30 on school days. I woke up and wondered, "do I have school today?" and thought for a moment before I decided I didn't. But I woke up at the time that I thought I had to. I routinely wake up moments, sometimes seconds, before my alarm goes off. Something inside knows. I know we have this internal clock, but what else can it be but a sense of time? Everyone has this experience and others similar to it.
Throughout my day I routinely, and fairly accurately, often to within 10 minutes, feel how much time has passed. This idea isn't exactly being presented eloquently, but I feel we have a sense of time because it's more nebulous than an "internal clock," as if we truly had internal clocks, there wouldn't be room for error as there are with senses. Things feel rough and hard, but they don't feel "rock" or "wood." It may smell like almonds, but turns out it's gangrene. It feels like it's 1:30, but turns out it's about 1:10.
Time is also something unquantifiable by our other senses. In the same way we can't smell colors or taste textures (unless your a synasthetic... lucky bastard) you can't feel time, hear it, smell it, see it or taste it, but it's something that we're definitely aware of and can track, internally.
Whew. Spent way too much time on that. - I find it difficult, sometimes, being a man when I despise certain aspects of the language of men. In this particular instance I'm referring to such things as "she's a hottie." Few things make me want to plant a rolled up hand of five into some guys teeth than the words hot and hottie. I'm not entirely certain what it is about them that drives me nuts. Naughty is also up there on that list, as a sidenote. I'm not entirely certain what it is about this vernacular that drives me nuts. In fact, for many years (all of highschool and everything before that), I wouldn't even comment on a girl's beauty because of it. I don't have a problem with appreciating beauty in whatever form it may take, but something about those words is nails on a chalkboard to me. Perhaps it's because those words represent a type of shallowness that I find equally repulsive. Perhaps it's labeling that I don't like (though that's unlikely. I label everything. Even labels). But whatever it is, it turns my stomach sour. Pretty, cute, adorable, beautiful; these are words I can live with, associate with, appreciate. Hot and hottie? Um, I'm not even sure what a Webster's definition of hottie would be, and hot is usually something that has to do with temperature. Whatever. This will probably be something that will slightly increase my blood pressure every time I hear it until the end of my days.
This isn't to say that girls are off the hook. I hear the same nonsense coming from the very mouths of girls who complain about this ridiculosity. "I wish guys would grow up. I'm not a piece of meat... that guy is so yummy." That's one that I hear from girls that makes me feel a little sickish. Yummy? Isn't that a word we use to describe the quality of something that we devour? With our mouths? Something that will get utterly annihilated and destroyed by stomach acids? Is that what you want to do? Annihilate this guy with acid? I don't get it. Again, something that will cause me to anyuerism on my bathroom floor when I'm 30. Or have a seizure. With my brain. - I'm certain there was a third. And just so you know, the italics would not come off for the first part of that last sentence. I should know. I retyped it about 9 times. So, I'm certain there was a third thing I wanted to talk about, but these are the kind of things that happen when you're Cuyler. You forget stuff... a lot. Well, goodnight.
Tuesday, January 30, 2007
A Few Quick Hits
Just a few quick points, and then I'm going to bed.
Thursday, January 25, 2007
uninviolable trust
So, there's this cat that hangs around our apartment complex. Big, sleek, beautiful black cat. This cat is no slouch. It's a very muscular cat. Very little fat on his bones. He's a very cool cat. He plays it cool. Often, he will come into our apartment and look around. He does nothing but look around. He investigates, perhaps he'll want to be petted (that word sounds stupid) a little, not too much, but mostly he wants to look around and leave. But he really likes our apartment. He will sit at the front door and meow and scratch, not entirely unlike a dog. This cat has been doing this since I moved in back in May, and has made this a habit for the more than a year prior to me moving in. He just comes in, looks around, makes friendly chitchat, then leaves. A friend that doesn't overstay his welcome.
This was all a setup. A long, elaborate setup for a dark, twisted joke. I can still hear the cat's dark laughter. I hear it with my ears.
The cat comes in today, and it's the usual stuff, "Oh hey kitty! Good to see you kitty!" and the cat takes a special shining to me because animals really dig me, which is kind of neat in a beastmaster kind of way. The cat comes in, my roommate and his friend leave, cat's looking around, and walks underneath the desk on the wall behind me. He starts sniffing at... something. I don't know what. Cat's can smell way better than I can, so I trust the importance of whatever he's smelling. Then I hear him clawing. I turn around and ask, "what delightful kitty thing are you engaged in over there cat?" The light's are off, and I can't see what he's doing, but there's a slight dread building at the back of my head. "Oh hell," I think. "Please no," I think. I teleport <> over to the other side of the room, where I get down on all fours to get a better look at the cat's "shenanigans." A string of vulgarities ranging from the angered to the comical issue forth from my mouth as I realize the dark seeds of this cat's blackened heart are taking root in a cosmic comedy. A joke played at my expense.
The cat's taking a humongous dog-sized crap right on the floor. All the kindness we've shown him. All the hospitality, all the trust and friendship metaphorically shit on in a moment of this cat's feral abandon. The little s.o.b.
I get up and turn the light on so I can see the extent of this beast's selfish damage. He's still going. I get back on all fours, and the smell is terrible. I gag and retch. I pull my shirt over my nose and breathe exclusively with my mouth. The cat stares at me. Its eyes tell me that it knows why I'm angry, yet he's still pretending to not understand what my problem is. He's finished his business, and he wants out of the apartment. Probably before I tear his legs off or something. He bolts out. The apartment smells awful. It smells like old people, which is weird. That bizarre mix of collected scents that produce that extremely bitter mothball "old people" smell. I get a handful of paper towels and pick up the little bastard's mess. This is the part of dog owners, who take their dogs for walks in the park, that I don't understand, and if I ever own a dog, a part I refuse to take part in. The feel of the cat's evil joke sickens me. It takes two paper towel "runs" to get all of it. I run, full on sprint, to the dumpster outside to dispose of it, trying not to gag the whole time. I come back inside, and it still smells like old people. This cannot abide.
I search the cabinets. No airfreshner. Damn. We do have about a gallon of disinfectant, which I use liberally until the thing is virtually gone. The smell is still detectable. This cannot abide.
I make a run to the store for scented candles. The house now has a lovely smell of melons and vanilla cookies. On the way back into the apartment, the cat shows up, meowing at me. Deep pleading black kitty meows. He runs to the door before me, and meows at the door. I look at him and I tell him, "No you little black bastard. You shit on my carpet. People who shit on my carpet don't get to come back."
"MMMMMMRRRRREEEEOOOOOWWW"
"Dammit you little s.o.b, no!" In retrospect, I realize we have "african american" neighbors across the hallway, and directly above me. I hope they a) didn't hear me, or b) realized I was talking to this devil cat.
I open the door, and the cat bolts in. I drop my bag of candles, hurdle the couch, and the amplifier, descend on the cat like a carrion feeder, and scoop him out. The cat meows out this bassy "ah man, c'mon!" kind of meow, and I keep telling him what a bastard he is. I drop him outside, and I can still hear his bass meows.
I guess the moral of the story here, well, there's an obvious one that sounds sort of naughty, but this is a family place! C'mon! The moral of the story that we're going with is, "don't be stuck alone in a house with a crappy kitty."
This was all a setup. A long, elaborate setup for a dark, twisted joke. I can still hear the cat's dark laughter. I hear it with my ears.
The cat comes in today, and it's the usual stuff, "Oh hey kitty! Good to see you kitty!" and the cat takes a special shining to me because animals really dig me, which is kind of neat in a beastmaster kind of way. The cat comes in, my roommate and his friend leave, cat's looking around, and walks underneath the desk on the wall behind me. He starts sniffing at... something. I don't know what. Cat's can smell way better than I can, so I trust the importance of whatever he's smelling. Then I hear him clawing. I turn around and ask, "what delightful kitty thing are you engaged in over there cat?" The light's are off, and I can't see what he's doing, but there's a slight dread building at the back of my head. "Oh hell," I think. "Please no," I think. I teleport <
The cat's taking a humongous dog-sized crap right on the floor. All the kindness we've shown him. All the hospitality, all the trust and friendship metaphorically shit on in a moment of this cat's feral abandon. The little s.o.b.
I get up and turn the light on so I can see the extent of this beast's selfish damage. He's still going. I get back on all fours, and the smell is terrible. I gag and retch. I pull my shirt over my nose and breathe exclusively with my mouth. The cat stares at me. Its eyes tell me that it knows why I'm angry, yet he's still pretending to not understand what my problem is. He's finished his business, and he wants out of the apartment. Probably before I tear his legs off or something. He bolts out. The apartment smells awful. It smells like old people, which is weird. That bizarre mix of collected scents that produce that extremely bitter mothball "old people" smell. I get a handful of paper towels and pick up the little bastard's mess. This is the part of dog owners, who take their dogs for walks in the park, that I don't understand, and if I ever own a dog, a part I refuse to take part in. The feel of the cat's evil joke sickens me. It takes two paper towel "runs" to get all of it. I run, full on sprint, to the dumpster outside to dispose of it, trying not to gag the whole time. I come back inside, and it still smells like old people. This cannot abide.
I search the cabinets. No airfreshner. Damn. We do have about a gallon of disinfectant, which I use liberally until the thing is virtually gone. The smell is still detectable. This cannot abide.
I make a run to the store for scented candles. The house now has a lovely smell of melons and vanilla cookies. On the way back into the apartment, the cat shows up, meowing at me. Deep pleading black kitty meows. He runs to the door before me, and meows at the door. I look at him and I tell him, "No you little black bastard. You shit on my carpet. People who shit on my carpet don't get to come back."
"MMMMMMRRRRREEEEOOOOOWWW"
"Dammit you little s.o.b, no!" In retrospect, I realize we have "african american" neighbors across the hallway, and directly above me. I hope they a) didn't hear me, or b) realized I was talking to this devil cat.
I open the door, and the cat bolts in. I drop my bag of candles, hurdle the couch, and the amplifier, descend on the cat like a carrion feeder, and scoop him out. The cat meows out this bassy "ah man, c'mon!" kind of meow, and I keep telling him what a bastard he is. I drop him outside, and I can still hear his bass meows.
I guess the moral of the story here, well, there's an obvious one that sounds sort of naughty, but this is a family place! C'mon! The moral of the story that we're going with is, "don't be stuck alone in a house with a crappy kitty."
Thursday, January 18, 2007
Class Today
I thought about sticking this in my religion and philosophy section, but decided this doesn't count as i'm neither speculating or philosophizing.
In my history class today, my teacher was talking about the Christian model of belief, and like a good (cliche) college professor, it's both inadequately and improperly represented. What do I do, though? I so wanted to say, "Um, actually, the Bible, if it's in fact read, says that the race of man fell, in the garden, not because of the deceit of Eve, not that she was even deceitful, that was Adam's own deception, but because Adam ate of the fruit. It says that. I promise you." There were other things she said too, but this one exceptionally stood out to me.
I remember. It's the bizarre assumption (that mostly comes from a couple of hundred of years of scripture abuse and ignoring facts) that somehow Christianity is a religion that doesn't bother to use our intellect, despite the fact that many of the advances in many different fields of, well, everything, were performed by Christian men and women, or at the very least, people who had belief in a monotheist faith or deity. Several times she talked about the world "organizing itself into the more rational secular model." These comments make no sense, and I really wanted to say something. I still feel guilty, like I didn't stick up for a friend who was being humiliated, but ultimately, I think I might have come off as a knowitall, when she doesn't even yet know or understand me or my nature. I might have seemed combative. Perhaps comments and argumentation will come later, but right now I think I need the teacher to see that I'm a dedicated student that wants to learn about history in addition to being a dedicated Christian that believes in the ethics and teachings of Jesus as rooted in the Judaic tradition.
In other news, I hate poetry (as a general rule of thumb. Sometimes I'm surprised.), but I do enjoy T.S. Eliot. He underscores the philosophy I hold that, in writing, people who rock go by their initials, which is why I have taken up this practice. We Got T.S. Eliot, J.R.R. Tolkien, C.S. Lewis, J.K. Chesterton, and others. I like Eliot because he writes, essentially, really introspective short stories that seem to, by chance or design, or both, the poetic structure. I'm currently reading two collections of his stuff via dailylit.com. Unfortunately, I don't think they offer "The Hollow Men," which is, of course, his best poem. Fortunately it's public domain, which means I can find a copy of it no problem.
<>
In my history class today, my teacher was talking about the Christian model of belief, and like a good (cliche) college professor, it's both inadequately and improperly represented. What do I do, though? I so wanted to say, "Um, actually, the Bible, if it's in fact read, says that the race of man fell, in the garden, not because of the deceit of Eve, not that she was even deceitful, that was Adam's own deception, but because Adam ate of the fruit. It says that. I promise you." There were other things she said too, but this one exceptionally stood out to me.
I remember. It's the bizarre assumption (that mostly comes from a couple of hundred of years of scripture abuse and ignoring facts) that somehow Christianity is a religion that doesn't bother to use our intellect, despite the fact that many of the advances in many different fields of, well, everything, were performed by Christian men and women, or at the very least, people who had belief in a monotheist faith or deity. Several times she talked about the world "organizing itself into the more rational secular model." These comments make no sense, and I really wanted to say something. I still feel guilty, like I didn't stick up for a friend who was being humiliated, but ultimately, I think I might have come off as a knowitall, when she doesn't even yet know or understand me or my nature. I might have seemed combative. Perhaps comments and argumentation will come later, but right now I think I need the teacher to see that I'm a dedicated student that wants to learn about history in addition to being a dedicated Christian that believes in the ethics and teachings of Jesus as rooted in the Judaic tradition.
In other news, I hate poetry (as a general rule of thumb. Sometimes I'm surprised.), but I do enjoy T.S. Eliot. He underscores the philosophy I hold that, in writing, people who rock go by their initials, which is why I have taken up this practice. We Got T.S. Eliot, J.R.R. Tolkien, C.S. Lewis, J.K. Chesterton, and others. I like Eliot because he writes, essentially, really introspective short stories that seem to, by chance or design, or both, the poetic structure. I'm currently reading two collections of his stuff via dailylit.com. Unfortunately, I don't think they offer "The Hollow Men," which is, of course, his best poem. Fortunately it's public domain, which means I can find a copy of it no problem.
<
Thursday, January 11, 2007
Sunday, January 7, 2007
"Burger of the Apocalypse" or "Hell's Beef"
So, I'm not usually given to writing about this sort of thing. Not at all. This is a special occasion. Enter: Odyssey Chicago.
So, I had a burger. It tasted alright, but it's reeking havoc on me. I think something is trying to live in there. Anyways, I had to go. Really really bad. So, I got up to go use the john. The “regular” one, the non-handicapped one, was disgusting to behold. Toilet paper all over the bowl, wet, sticky... used. It was gross. I turn to the handicapped one, and I hear a strange “chunking” sound. I lean in a little, and it's a man, standing up, peeing, and throwing up at the same time. Gross. I turn to leave, and make eye contact with the other guy in the bathroom as we're leaving (men's room etiquette no-no), and he says, “I'll be damned. First time I've seen that.” Indeed.
So, I went back to my table and sat and waited for a few minutes. Dear Lord, I can wait no longer. I think I actually ignored one of my friends as I ran to the john. I get there, and, good, the handicapped one is free, and this man was one of talent, apparently. The bowl is clean. I do my business, and as I leave, I notice little pools of carrot and noodle on the floor. Gross. Apparently his aim is not as good as previously thought.
So, here I am now. This burger is still working its dark magic on me. My stomach feels very hellish, and I, in general, feel very weird. I wonder if I got food poisoning. Maybe I'll get to call in tomorrow and stay home. Wouldn't that be a treat? I mean, a treat with a cost.
Thursday, January 4, 2007
another blog.
filmade.
like limade, except not.
i figure that for the first little bit here, as i keep generating blog categories, these things will be coming quicker than they will later. perhaps a month in things will sort of settled down into a nice pattern? i'm unsure, as i don't even know how many categories i want/need.
like limade, except not.
i figure that for the first little bit here, as i keep generating blog categories, these things will be coming quicker than they will later. perhaps a month in things will sort of settled down into a nice pattern? i'm unsure, as i don't even know how many categories i want/need.
more bloggin'
i have a new blog now. its theme?
dreams.
i figure as i get more blogs under my belt, i will publish li'l announcements here telling ye of them.
dreams.
i figure as i get more blogs under my belt, i will publish li'l announcements here telling ye of them.
Tuesday, January 2, 2007
all things new
this is gonna be the hub for what i want to do.
this is my first step into the direction of real blogging. can you taste the excitement in the air. it's palpable, like mango tangerine.
i chose nuevos rancheros despite the fact that i'm not a farmer, or a ranchero, because i thought it was clever. and since i operate on a level somewhat akin to a 486: simple, but so simple no one dares go there, i whipped up Nuevos Rancherosis. the state of being a new farmer. spanish.
so, i'm not sure what all's gonna go down here, but you can probably count on the fact that it will be "phat," and quite possibly, "funky fresh."
enjoy. or don't. your big kids. you can do what you want... except that.
this is my first step into the direction of real blogging. can you taste the excitement in the air. it's palpable, like mango tangerine.
i chose nuevos rancheros despite the fact that i'm not a farmer, or a ranchero, because i thought it was clever. and since i operate on a level somewhat akin to a 486: simple, but so simple no one dares go there, i whipped up Nuevos Rancherosis. the state of being a new farmer. spanish.
so, i'm not sure what all's gonna go down here, but you can probably count on the fact that it will be "phat," and quite possibly, "funky fresh."
enjoy. or don't. your big kids. you can do what you want... except that.
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