daydream

Holding fast to an adopted sense of self is the practice of self-limitation. You cannot be who you are if you are playing the same role(s) day after day for really long stretches of time, especially if those are roles that do not fulfill your needs or satisfy your desires. Self-discovery comes through the willful and considerate transformation of everyday thinking, feeling, decision making, and behavior.

Here is your homework. You have to spend the rest of the day as if you have an entirely different personality and self-conception. Not just around other people, either. You need to think and feel like your newly adopted persona. Get inside the head and heart of a different person today. Try him or her on for size.

Here's the kicker. Keep doing this for six weeks. If you try, you'll notice how much easier it is to become this new identity as time passes. Notice how you actually learn to create your self-identity by changing the process by which you tell your self the story of your self. You will get to know your self by paying attention to the story you are creating to define your self. This is how your self-identity formed in the first place. The difference being that in childhood, adolescence, and even throughout much of your adult life, you've allowed externally generated "stories" of who you are, of who you can become, of what you value, of who you want to become to define who you are. This new approach allows you to create your own self-identity, allows you the power to consciously reject what you don't like and to consciously choose what you do.

But how to determine what you like and dislike without being influenced by the "default" you that exists now? You do it by trying to figure out the mind, heart, motivations, and behaviors of a new person over time. You recognize that the impulses you experience are not this new person's impulses so you don't react as you would have in the past to the impulses you feel. You have to slow down and consider the meanings of instincts and feelings, of the stream of your own thoughts, of your interpretations of anything and everything.

It's only then that you can even dream of making a decision as the "new" you and then act accordingly. By working to identify and understand the strengths, limitations, and manifestations of your new self, you discover new goals in life--or if you even have any goals. This "new you" doesn't have to be a persona that is an "improvement" on you. No, if anything, becoming someone worse than who you have thus far chosen to be might be of more interest and perhaps a better means for self-discovery. Instead of running away from your distastes you run toward them. Try that on for size and see how nauseous you become. Notice whether or not you have empathy for the reasons why the new you is who he or she is; notice whether or not you hold the new you in contempt as well. Try to withhold judgment for a time in order to get to know this person. If you recoil in disgust or become attached to it through empathy then your view will be filtered through that lens. Try filtering your view through the lens of a dispassionate observer, of a person without a stake in the game even though this is your life at stake. Try that and see what happens. Or if you can even do it (practice; it takes time to learn if you've never tried it and even if you don't practice consistently over time).

Now, consider how much of this new person you are creating is a version of yourself, of who you could've or perhaps even would've become under different circumstances; in fact, consider who you are in certain circumstances. You know you have behaved in ways that violate your current principles in life and, if you're being honest with yourself, you can imagine future circumstances in which you'd cave again. The mere consideration of those things will shift your conception of your self and your interpretation of your own values and principles. You begin to recognize what is feasible and what is not. You begin to understand how unreasonable you have been with yourself and with others and, conversely, how unreasonable others have been with themselves and with others (including you).

If these things are experienced by you, would you imagine yourself to be more or less forgiving of yourself and others with this new understanding? Or, will you come to the conclusion that identity, if it really can be transformed through such malleable plasticity, is created within a framework that, in a vacuum, might allow an almost infinite number of possibilities? If you come to that conclusion, will you also acknowledge that the particularity of circumstances in a life bound in a body within the cross-hairs of time and space limits possibilities and creates the fatality of the present? Will you come to the conclusion that what is in a moment is all that there is in a moment? Will you consider the moments to be more or less meaningful because of the finality of moments? Will you look into your current moment with eyes wider, with nostrils flaring, with a sense of expectancy, hope, and dread? What else might you decide to explore? What else might you try to experience?

Even if you gave the greatest possible effort over a span of six weeks you wouldn't lose who you are. The main problem throughout this endeavor will be keeping your current "self" from taking over again and again. You will have to live with uncertainty as you try to figure out how this new you makes decisions. What motivates him or her? Why does he or she dance and sing spontaneously in public or perhaps why does she or he stand in a corner of the living room silently stretching against the walls? Does she paint? Does he sew? Will he or she make snow forts or build sandcastles? When an attractive person of the opposite sex (or the same sex, perhaps) walks by on the street, will he or she smile, make eye contact, and let the man know how beautiful she is?

All good questions. All things you should explore. And more. Much more.

There should be cotton candy and gin, streaking and Christmas caroling. Mudpies should be made and lawn darts should be thrown, ears should be pierced and genitalia should be blown. You should pray for hours every morning and night, earn money stripping, or just start a fight. It's not my place to say, really. This is you creating you. I'm just suggesting that there are no limits. You don't have to try on just one persona. You can try on many, if you'd like. Just don't be who you have thus far chosen to be. Explore being something other than who you've imagined yourself to be. Something you haven't thought yet, a conception of a person you had never even considered.

There could be elements of you so profoundly mundane that you didn't think being so bland was even possible. Or, maybe you'll see what it's like to live as an extrovert, discovering that the discomfort of being so vulnerable or exposed is more liberating than stultifying. Maybe you'll discover that the opinions others have about you are shit, utterly ill-informed and extremely selfish. And because of that, maybe you will discover that it's not the end of the world to be humiliated and that you've actually learned something useful and meaningful about yourself and about the world you live in. In the process, maybe you'll mature a little in ways you couldn't have foreseen or maybe you'll become a prick and lose all of your friends.

Maybe you'll develop a passion for participating in life. With others. You don't know. Strangers. People you wouldn't normally talk to, either more beautiful or uglier than you ever imagined yourself greeting out of the blue. Older or younger than your normal impulses. People of another race or ethnicity you don't typically meet. People with values and concerns different than any others you've ever really considered. Gender? Whatever. Have fun and play.

Or work. If you don't usually. Bust your ass trying something new. Rebuild a car. Apply to get an undergraduate degree in physics or biochemistry. Plant a garden. Attempt to travel to 30 different countries in 90 days. Take a train. Spend a minimum of one day (24 hours) off the train in every country you visit. Take only a backpack with you. Just a few sets of clothes and some essentials. Purchase the rest as you need it and discard or sell what you don't need (if you have the money to do so--otherwise, try your hand at begging). Spend only on things you need like food, shelter, health care, and the like. Drinks, clubs, restaurants, museums, castles, dungeons, monuments, wineries, pubs? Of course. If you can swing it. You're not taking anything from those places with you except for memories. But meet the people, too. You have to have at least one conversation with a person in each country. At least one. Make several attempts until you find someone. Anyone. You have to talk. And listen.

If you're usually a thief then try giving. If you're usually a saint then try sinning. Pay attention. Learn. Create. Transform. There's extra credit for trying. There are no incompletes. You have to do this or else consider yourself a failure. No pressure, though. Wouldn't want to influence you in any way. Not trying to steal your mojo. Not putting a curse on you. Not dancing on your grave. Not laughing behind your back. Not stepping on your toes. Not blowing smoke. Not telling lies. Just asking for a self-directed personal transformation. Anything is better than nothing.

This is just a good old honest suggestion that you don't waste the entirety of your life without exploring the possibility that you might be someone other than who you've turned out to be thus far. It's possible you are someone else entirely and you weren't even aware that you have been living your life on autopilate and paying less attention to the most important moments in your life, the moments you actually have real choices to make regarding the direction your life goes and who you actually become as a person versus who you imagined yourself to be or to eventually become.

If you can't try this now because of your circumstances in life then consider your circumstances: what sort of choices have you made that have led you to where you are in life, a place where you have so little leeway to try something new that you won't even let yourself consider the possibility. Now consider what external impediments or obstacles have been in your way and what sort of influences or authorities (including institutional authorities) have guided or coerced you throughout your life and contributed to making you who you are now. Examine the political and economic structures in your community, your state, and your country. Then consider what you really need or want in life and how feasible it is or is not to fulfill those needs or desires within the structure of the system that funnels you through life down particular streams of possibility.

What would have to change externally for you to achieve what you want to achieve? Would a change in policy help? New legislation? An entire ideology dictating legislation and policy? How would the political, legal, economic, and social structures have to change to allow these possibilities? What would your new you do once you make these assessments? Think again of your new decision making process. What are the criteria you consider important? What feelings do you want to create? What experiences do you want to have?

The creation of the whole piece by piece, moment by moment. It could be called acting. It could be called art. It is life, a form of it, and a rather rewarding form at that. Why are we here if not to try on for size the things we wonder about? Does our government and the economic structure it has created and maintained allow everyone to explore what it means to be human or do they limit and reduce possibilities for self-discovery and self-creation? If you would normally consider such questions then try shutting off that type of consideration for awhile. Notice how much you have to think to really be able to identify how you tend to think over the course of most days, over a week, over a month, over a year. Think about the shifts and patterns that come and go, how much less you move your body through space in the cold of winter, how that affects your mood and your thinking. Do you experience a lot of sunlight or a little? Do you spend your days or evenings in museums, libraries, concert halls, pubs, your living room in front of a television, in the kitchen cooking and eating, with a lover or alone, with friends and family members or with co-workers and strangers at work or in a public place?

I have given you an assignment. By doing so, I have fulfilled my duty. Do I have any responsibilities to the rest of humanity after this? I mean, I've done what I could here. If you need more than this you'll have to ask questions. I can't read your minds. Another of life's unfair limitations: no telepathy. It's just wrong. I would choose that if I could. It would be so easy: "Okay, the me I am now does not have telepathy. Well, in order to become someone I couldn't imagine being I'll have to develop the capacity for telepathy in order to experience it." That's hard work, man. I don't know the first thing about how I might develop the ability to read your thoughts. Do I go to the library to read up on telepathy, do I seek out a wiccan or shaman to help me figure it out? Should I meditate? Should I pray for miracle? Is there technology being developed to assist in this regard? I'm not sure. I guess I have an assignment today, too.

The Truth

The central truth of Christianity, as evidenced by certain saints and mystics, is that life on earth is pointless. Everyone gets caught up in the supernatural "But death turns out great if ..." I think that's a mistake. What gets lost in the wonderings about death and what might come after death is that human life is disappointing.

Now, the first response to a statement like that is often "Well, that person is clearly depressed. Self-medication is the answer." But that's not true. Or, if it is true, it's a natural depression, the type of depression that arises when a person realizes that spontaneous teleportation is impossible. I've had that realization. I'll never be able to blink my eyes while standing on a street in Portland and open them a second later to find myself standing in front of the Mona Lisa at the Louvre.

As I said, disappointing. I was led to believe by role models such as Elizabeth Montgomery and Barbara Eden that I might eventually attain witching powers or the abilities of a genie. No such luck. From my role models Superman and The Flash I thought perhaps I would gain the ability to leap tall buildings in a single bound or the capacity to run faster than light. Instead, I can lift a can of green beans above my head and I can outrun a turtle from my front door to the mail box. The Six Million Dollar Man gave me hope that I might be able to squeeze a villain to death in my arms with the right implanted technology. I'm still waiting for a transplant.

Yes, life has been a series of letdowns. Not one of the beautiful actresses I've seen in a romantic comedy has swooned at my feet; not a single swimsuit model has rolled around in the sand begging me to pleasure her. Very, very disappointing.

And so I'm left with the saints and mystics, wondering if maybe I've been looking in the wrong directions all my life. My fantasies now consist of wondering if I can kneel in prayer to God for days without sleep, if I can pray the rosary for hours without a sip of water, if I can self-flagellate without screaming. My goal now is to become less than human rather than more than human. After all, merely being human is of no consequence. Why would there be messages to the contrary if that wasn't the case?

Could I just sit in a chair on a porch and watch a sunset without a thought in my head? No, of course not. That's boring! No, humanity was meant to do something either more or less than that. Simply being is not enough. Something special has to be done to transcend one's humanity (or, conversely, to descend somewhere below being-as-is).

What happened before and what happens after this given moment is important. What happens now is pointless. The evidence is overwhelming. Nothing is happening right now. I've been taught that something should be happening in order for life to be meaningful. Nothing meaningful by any external standard of measurement is occurring. Therefore, life is meaningless. I'd like it to be otherwise, but that's out of my control. I've seen enough television advertisements to know that wealth, youth, and material possessions are the only things that can make a life meaningful. I am poor, I am aging, and I have few possessions. I am the meek. I heard that I would inherit the earth. I don't know what that means, but I sure as hell don't have enough storage space for such an inheritance. What am I going to do with the entirety of the earth? I don't even own a home.

Some have said Jesus will return to the earth, that he will come a second time to live amongst us, and that he will condemn the wicked and he will save the righteous. How is wickedness defined? Who is righteous? I suppose Jesus will know such things. I hope he doesn't ask me for advice. I don't know much about things like that.

I did work with a guy named Jesus once, though. He was a Mexican guy. He pronounced his name "Hay-Zeus." I liked that. He was two gods in one with just a single name: Jesus and Zeus. If powers accompanied names then he'd be a formidable force. He could sling lightning bolts with one hand then raise those he'd killed with the other. Sounds like a fun game. "Now you're dead and now you're alive; now you're dead and now you're alive. Wheeeee!" I suppose it would get boring after awhile.

But that's why they invented Xanax. The terror of boredom can be overwhelming. It's good to have a pick-me-up in order to keep going in life. I doubt I would continue collating and stapling copies day after day without putting a bullet in my brain if it weren't for such pills. I'm so grateful for pharmaceutical companies that care about my well-being. Being merely human is horrible. Being more or less is so much better.

So I've been told. Unfortunately, I've always been merely human. Could there be anything worse than that? I have friends with pets and they go on endlessly about how wonderful cats and dogs are. They love those animals. Humans? Bleh. Unreliable, they say. They don't let you pet them whenever you want; they're unhappy with subservience. Don't get me wrong: humans do stay in their places and mostly follow the rules. They just grumble about it more than pets. They expect more than pets do from their lives. They expect to become something more than an animal in captivity. Humans simply make for poor pets in individual households.

They are great pets at offices and worksites, though. They are easily conditioned to perform repetitive tasks day after day. They complain there, too, but not too much because they don't want to be punished by being fired. They're happy to be given a bone or two every couple of weeks to keep the electricity going and a roof overhead. They're happy enough to trade control of their time in exchange for a few scraps of paper now and then to trade for Hamburger Helper and a pack of smokes.

Children make good pets, though. I suppose that's why so many adult men and women have them. Adolescent men and women, too. Babies are small, they can't run away, and they make surprising noises when they poop. They can be dressed up in cute little outfits, placed in strollers as living art installations, and left alone to sleep in tiny beds. They make interesting pets until they get too big and old to be pets in a house any more. That's when they become part-time house pets and part-time school pets. When they get even bigger and even older they become workplace pets like I mentioned before. And, if they live to be really old, they become nursing home and hospital pets. As pets, humans have good lives.

But as humans, humans have meaningless lives. It's too bad. I thought something different would be possible. It's easier to be less than human, to live as a pet for the amusement and benefit of others. But I just wasn't able to live up to the ideals of being more than human I saw on the TV shows and commercials. I am clearly deficient. If I had just been able to purchase all the right products and take advantage of all the right services. If I had just been able to hang out with Norm from Cheers even once then maybe, just maybe, I'd have been able to figure it all out. I don't know how I messed up. I haven't seen an episode about why I didn't succeed. I'll keep flipping through the channels, though. There has to be an advertiser or producer who knows why my life turned out the way it did and how to make it better. I'll wait patiently until they let me know and I'll try to be a good workplace pet until then. Maybe the saints and mystics will appreciate how much I sacrifice for God, how wretched I believe myself and all of humanity is when individuals fail to be more or less than human. The good news is that in death it'll all work out. I did see a message about that on a Christian broadcast. Heaven seems like it will be better than anything else I've ever seen on TV. And that's saying something!

So, there is hope. Supposedly. I haven't found anything in the TV Guide confirming it, though.

past lives

I just discovered that in my past three lives I've been the Omnipotent, Omniscient, and Ominpresent God of Eternal Light and Infinite Goodness, then a monk who lost his soul to the Devil on a bet that he could make a thirty yard field goal in a dome, and finally an English-speaking Aardvark cared for as a pet by a deaf widow on a farm in western North Dakota (She constantly said to me "You know, it seems like you said something to me. You're an aardvark. You're an aardvark!" A humiliating existence. I tried to escape several times. I finally did after sitting next to the old woman when she died sitting on her rocking chair on the front porch. I was killed by wolves hours after I'd gained my freedom). I must have really screwed up as God. At least I know I'm a step up from a talking aardvark. Or am I just the latest version in an ongoing descent?

I was told about my past lives by Veronica Mazzina. Veronica reads palms, talks with the dead, and predicts the future then levitates, gyrates, and translocates. She screams, whispers, and squirms then she feasts, crawls, and sleeps.

I showed up at her house today and she answered the door dressed in Wonder Woman Underoos. She had painted her face like a tiger. She was pawing at me and making roaring noises. I asked her if she was Veronica Mazzina. She licked my cheek.

She invited me into her house by squeezing my ass cheeks with both of her hands and pulling me through the doorway. Once I was inside she let go of me, stood up straight, adjusted her hair, and said "Welcome." She gracefully closed the door and motioned for me to take off my coat. I removed it and handed it to her. She took it, dropped it on the floor, and told me to have a seat.

She walked across the room to a bar and poured a glass of scotch. She carried it over to me. I told her I don't drink. She pushed the drink into my face. "Take it." I took it. I drank it. I sat down.

Veronica sat down on a tiger skin rug on the floor in front of the fireplace, cross-legged. Her body was lithe and she shifted from her sitting pose into a series of yoga positions. As she did so she spoke.

"I am glad you came here today. I knew you would. I've been preparing for this day all week. I refused customers Monday, Tuesday, and Wednesday. I told them all I had to prepare for a very important event. This is that event."

She smiled. She cooed. She growled. She flipped onto her back and kicked her legs and threw her arms into the air. She shook them madly. She tossed her head side to side, her hair whipping all about. She chanted, "Ooooo sa pa, ooooo ga ka, ooooo ma ra."

I watched her with my glass empty. I looked away from her for a moment and considered the situation. "I need another drink." I rose for the bar, walked past her to the far wall, grabbed the scotch, and poured myself a healthy glass. I turned to watch Veronica again.

She was kneeling in front of me, looking at me. She tilted her head to my left, her eyes wide and sweet as a fawn's, and she puckered her smile into a kiss. She giggled. "Oh, we are going to have so much fun. I have so many treats in store for you!" She clapped her hands and let out a high-pitched squeak.

I took a big drink. I followed it with another. What have I gotten myself into, man? Who is this wingbat acrobat? I can't tell if I should be turned on or freaked out. Maybe that's the turn on. Or maybe it's the freak out. It's impossible to tell. I wanted to know.

I walked up to Veronica. She remained kneeling, but she looked up to me with that I-really-do-care smile. I looked down into her eyes. I peered deep into them. She didn't look away. Her eyes got wider and she matched my intensity as she looked into mine. I felt like it was less I seeing her than her seeing me. Without looking away she reached out her left hand and gently put it around my right calf. She reached up with her right hand and clasped my left wrist. She slid her left hand past my knee and up the back of my leg. She squeezed a handful of hamstring and pulled down on my wrist while stepping up with her left leg. She rose and stood upright, sliding her hand over my ass to my lower back. Her chest pressed against me, her lips were inches away from mine. She whispered, "We should get to work."

She led my the hand through another door into a room filled with lit candles. They were everywhere. On the center table, on either side of the crystal ball, covering the shelves on the wall, filling up the windowsills (the windows had been filled in with bricks), and even scattered sround the wooden floor. All white candles except for the two brown candles on the table. The room smelled like almond vanilla hazelnut cocoa.

Veronica led me to the table, sat me down, and skipped to the seat across from mine. She looked at me, smiled widely, and winked. She placed her hands on the crystal ball and caressed it. She had a twinkle in her eye as she asked, "What do you want to know, Jack? Your future? Your past? The secrets of the universe?"

I smiled. "Well, I'm here because I was told you could help me with a problem."

"Yes. Well, that is what I do. Surely you can tell me more than that?"

I cleared my throat. "I was told I could talk to you about a person who has been a problem for me."

Veronica leaned back in her chair. She was pouting. "You're absolutely no fun at all."

What? What the fuck is this? I was told she was a pro.

Veronica leaned forward in her chair, put an elbow on the table, and slid her chin onto the palm of her hand to rest. She blinked her eyes. "You know, I have a theory about you. Do you want to hear it?"

"Sure. Why not?" It was all I could do to pretend to be polite. I clenched my jaw.

"Okay then. I think you're here because you think you're here to ask me to kill someone for you. Is that correct?"

My jaw relaxed and my mouth dangled open. Am I being set up here? I need to leave. Gracefully. I collected myself. "I think there's been a mistake of some sort--"

Veronica cut me off. "No, there's been no mistake. You think I would have turned away customers for three days if I wasn't getting prepared for this day? I'm ready. Don't let who I am at home distract you from how well I perform my duties. I'm just being myself, pussycat."

Okay. I think. I have no idea.

"So, give me the story, sailor."

I told her my story and I gave her the identity of the man who was causing problems in my life.

Veronica's face sank when I handed her the photo. She looked at me with dead eyes. "That's my husband."

I gulped.

Veronica threw her head back and laughed. She tilted her head down and looked up into my eyes. "Relax, honey. I know you're here to ask me to kill my husband. I told you, I've been preparing all week."

"I'm confused. Why do you want to help me kill your husband?"

"I was told you would pay well."

Wow. I'm cold, but she's something else. "Okay. That's fair."

"Good. Now that that's out of the way I can look into my crystal ball to see who you are and, just as importantly, who you've been."

She looked at my palm and then caressed the crystal ball again. She told me about my past lives, my reign as God, the incarnation of the Divine duped by the Devil, my reincarnation as a talking aardvark eaten by wolves. She broke out a Tarot deck. She placed cards with strange images in front of herself. She said indiscriminately as she laid out the cards "That isn't good" "Why would that come now?" "Do you want some tea?"

I said yes. She rose from her seat and turned away to leave the room through yet another door. I sat looking at the candles while waiting for her to return. In a couple of minutes a naked woman--not Veronica--came into the room. She had long blonde hair, curly and wavy, a thick mop of it that dangled down and about her shoulder almost to the tops of her breasts. She was curvy and athletic. Big blue eyes, a hint of mascara, and long eyelashes. A button nose, pouty lips, and little dimples to go along with her shy smile.

"I'm Sandy."

"Hi, Sandy."

"You're probably wondering why I'm here."

"I haven't been thinking at all. I don't question good fortune."

"Heeeeeee! You're silly. I'll be right back with your tea. Would you like sugar?"

"No. Maybe some cream, depending on the type of tea."

Sandy smiled, turned, and shook her ass through the door. Wow. Weird. Good weird. I hope.

Sandy was back in seconds with a cup of tea on a saucer. I accepted it from her as she leaned over and handed it to me, her hair brushing against my face which almost caused me to forget I was holding a cup of tea. Sandy looked at me and said, "It's hot so be careful." She stood up and brushed her hair over her shoulder with her right hand. "Would you like to watch me masturbate?"

Before I could answer, Veronica returned to the room. She whispered in Sandy's ear, patted her on the ass, and Sandy left without a word. She didn't even shake her ass through the doorway on the way out.

"Now, where were we? Oh, yes. My husband. Would you like to see him right now?"

Not particularly.

"He's here. He's in another room. Come on, let's go see him." Veronica noticed my apprehension. "Don't worry. There's no danger for you at all."

I followed Veronica through the same door Sandy had used to exit. We turned right and walked down a narrow hallway with red and silver wallpaper. There was one overhead light about halfway down the hall. Not very bright. We passed a couple of closed doors on either side of the hallway. The hallway turned 90 degrees to the left. We kept going and passed two more closed doors. Another overhead light.

At the end of the hallways was another closed door. Veronica turned to me and smiled. "We're here."

Stay tuned...

What would be the point?

Is there a reason to have a body any more? You know, because of technology? Bodies are ... messy. They are difficult to maintain. They eventually wear out. Why do we still have them? There is something wrong with the world. There shouldn't be bodies. There are no efficient uses for them. Our minds can do it all. But why can't our minds reside in a can of green peas instead? Canned minds.

Send combines into cities and let them harvest bodies. Send bodies to factories, put them on assembly lines, let machines remove consciousness from bodies, and then can awareness and thought for later uses.

But why would consciousness be useful later? It isn't useful now. It was never useful. It wasted time that could have been better used in production which would have provided more goods to consume. But minds and bodies are as inefficient as consumers as they are as producers. Machines should consume things that are produced by machines.

The only need, then, is for a machine that builds itself, destroys itself, rebuilds itself, and destroys itself again and again in an endless loop. Transcendence of circularity is a lie. There is nothing beyond the loop. So why do we still exist?

Government inefficiency. If market forces were free of regulations then the illusions of transcendence would have become obsolete long ago. There would only be machines building and destroying themselves.

But why even a machine to do this? Why not just package the idea of the machine loop in industrial-grade plastic and place it in a landfill in the last act of volitional movement by bodies or technologies? The universe could finally get on with ending itself, ending the existence of waves and/or particles, ending time and space, ending the existence of differentiation. Only then will everything be in order, in control, operating with perfect efficiency eternally and infinitely. No more suffering, no more pleasure, no more being. The equilibrium of nonexistence.

painting on the fly

I carry a bucket of brushes in my right hand and a pail of paints in my left. Summertime breeze tussling my hair, I stride down the street with my chest out, chin up, shoulders back, spine straight, and a smile on my face. I'm taking it all in right now. The late morning sunlight sings like a choir of angels. This moment is the height of all moments throughout the entirety of the universe's existence.

I wondered if I would begin anticipating the eventual loss of this moment and for a split second the smell of the air went stale. A car alarm went off and kept going for half a minute. An ominous cloudbank came into view. The cool, moist air became warmer, swampier. My cool yellow cotton T-shirt sticks to my chest and back. I see a woman leaning out the window of the third floor of a brownstone just ahead. She's holding a baby. And it looks like ... Oh, shit!

I drop my bucket and pail as I sprint to get to a space just fifty feet ahead all the while watching as the woman proceeds to drop the baby from her arms. I am getting closer, watching the baby's rapid descent, and I'm not sure I can make it in time. I have to make it!

I reach out my arms, I want to dive but can't take the risk. I am in full flight now and the baby falls into my arms. I catch the infant with grace and passion, slow to a halt, and look down. The baby's eyes are looking back into mine, big blue saucers of surprise. I look up and down the body. She seems to be okay (there's no diaper).

She is wiggling now, in my arms, and cooing. Adorable. She starts to pee and I remember the situation. Striking that I forgot even for a moment almost immediately after it happened, as if it was perfectly reasonable to be holding buckets and pails one moment and a naked baby dropped from a window the next. Honestly, I don't know what to do. I look around the street. No one anywhere up or down the block.

The woman. I remember the woman. I turn and look up at the window. There is no woman. The window is closed. I look down, peer street-level at the stoop running up to the door to the building. The building has four stories so it's either a duplex of two-floor condos or there are four flats. There's only one way to find out.

I look down at the baby girl. Her eyes are closed. Her little chest is expanding and collapsing, somewhat slowly. She's a asleep. I realize I don't know for sure whether or not she suffered any internal injuries or broken bones or anything else. Still, cooing at me and now sleeping soundly seems to indicate she's okay. But I should get her to a hospital, I think. Or a police station.

But I want to see who lives there, who this woman is. What kind of person drops a baby from a third story window?! I'm getting angry now. I stomp over to the stoop and start up the steps to look at the names of the residents next to the corresponding intercom buttons. Stomping was a mistake. I startled the girl and now she's awake again. She's crying. I stop at the top of the steps and look down at her face. It scrunches up; she doesn't look happy. She should be so happy, though. She peed all over me just a bit ago. Cat piss is bad; turns out, baby piss is worse.

She's relaxing again now that I'm rocking her in my arms and cooing back to her softly. Her eyelids droop. I look up and see that there are four addresses. Flats. There is nothing to indicate which name belongs to any particular floor. The names, from top to bottom, read "E. Nowlesby," "Chris Ducharmes, esq." "The Blintzes," and "F. Maddow, G. Chesterton, and L. Paez."

I'm not sure what to do. I should just take the baby to the hospital or the police station. I have no cell phone so I can't call. Should I ring a buzzer? Should I knock on a door from another building, tell someone else what has happened, and tell them to call the police? I'm holding a baby that is a complete stranger to me in a neighborhood I do not know. I have no cell phone, no identification, no money. Nothing. Just the clothes on my back, my bucket of brushes, and my pail of paints.

My brushes and paints! I walk down the steps and look down the sidewalk. The bucket is overturned and brushes are splayed about the sidewalk, a few in the street, some on the grass at the edge of the small yard adjoining the bright yellow bungalow with the pink trim. The pail is sitting on the sidewalk, upright. No paints visible anywhere on the ground. I walk back, pick up the brushes, and place them back into the bucket. Carefully. Baby girl sleeps soundly when I move slowly.

But how am I going to carry the buckets. Maybe someone at the bungalow is home. I have to do something.

I carry the baby with me up the sidewalk through the yard, up the steps to the front porch, and ring the doorbell. A huge oak and iron door. Weird. A young woman, maybe 23, opens the door. She looks at the baby. Her eyes grow wide. She shrieks, "That's my baby!" She rips the infant from my arms and slams the door shut and locks it.

What the fuck? Did that just happen? I pound on the door. Then I realize she might be calling the cops. Maybe the woman who dropped the baby from the window was a baby sitter or a daycare provider. Maybe her sister or mother. Who knows. But I caught that fucking baby.

And no one saw it. Oh fuck.

I have to call the cops, though. What happened happened, but now I'm going to find out what's going on. I ring the doorbell. The woman yells through the door, "Who are you?" I tell her what happened. She says she doesn't believe me. I ask her why her child was in the third story flat of the building up the street. She says she doesn't have to answer that question. I say that's true, but that it makes me feel like I should call the police right now. She says, "Wait! Don't do that! Please ... please. They'll kill me. They will kill me." She was sobbing now, big gulps of air, wails of terror. I didn't know what the fuck was going on, but I knew there was no way I could leave that baby at this house with her. Maybe she was the mother, but if she was, after that weird outburst, she was coming with me.

"Look, I understand you're scared. I'm not here to hurt you. You're baby was dropped by a woman from the third floor of the brownstone just up the block. No matter what's going on, you can't possibly stay here." Silence. Then, "Go away! Just go away!" She shrieked away with such a hateful fury that a chill went up my spine.

I heard sirens. Coming this way. I ran down to the edge of the sidewalk. I wanted to flag a cop down. A police car pulled up. A woman cop stepped out of the vehicle. I waited and stayed put. She sauntered over to me. Yes. She sauntered. Weird.

I asked her if she was auditioning for a part in a postmodern western starring a drunken sheriff looking for a good lay.

No, I didn't. I wanted to do that, but come on.

Instead, she asked me what I thought of the situation. I did not expect that. I told her the story. She seemed impatient. Worse yet, she seemed unsurprised. She looked up at the bungalow. "You say she lives in this house and that she took the baby from you? The baby dropped from the third floor of a flat by a woman leaning out a window?"

"Yeah, that's the gist of it, I guess. I know it sounds strange."

"No, it's not so strange, really. I've heard stranger. Much worse."

"I"m sure you have. Except someone dropping a baby from a third story window seems pretty bad, you know?"

"Well, when you put it that way, I guess it's not such a great situation here. Not at all. But I didn't come here because of any of this."

"You didn't?"

"No."

"Why are you here?"

"I live here."

Oh fuck.

Hegel

Philosophy, as the thought of the world, does not appear until reality has completed its formative process, and made itself ready. History thus corroborates the teaching of the conception that only in the maturity of reality does the ideal appear as counterpart to the real, apprehends the real world in its substance, and shapes it into an intellectual kingdom. When philosophy paints its grey in grey, one form of life has become old, and by means of grey it cannot be rejuvenated, but only known.

"Papa?"

"Yes, son?"

"Why do you read Hegel to me before bedtime?"

"What? That seems like a silly question to ask."

"I'm sorry, Papa. It's just that I don't understand what it means."

"Well, what don't you understand?"

"All of it."

"Can you be more specific?"

The man beamed down at the boy, intently anticipating a question, almost impatient for the boy to say something, anything. The child sighed and cleared his throat. To the boy's mind it seemed that his father was obsessed with this strange man's ideas.

"Well," said the boy, "I suppose I wonder if the world we live in is grey or another color instead."

"Ah, I see. That's a very good question. So good, in fact, I need to think for a minute to come up with a proper answer."

As the man sat up straight on the side of the bed and tilted his chin toward the ceiling in contemplation, the boy peered past him and through the second-story window looking out at the leafless tree in the back yard glowing golden brown in the moonlight. The sky on the horizon was dappled with fluorescent white cloud puffs tinged with a hint of radiant blue around their edges.

"Son?"

"Yes, Papa?"

"I don't know the answer to your question." The man slumped his shoulders a bit and shook his head. "I'll have to think more about that before tomorrow night's bedtime story. I'm sorry."

"That's okay, Papa."

"Goodnight son."

"Goodnight Papa."

The man kissed his son on the forehead before rising to leave the room. He turned off the light and closed the door until it was open just a crack.

"You can close it all the way, Papa."

"Won't you be afraid of the dark?"

The boy looked through the window again at the luminescence beyond. "No, I think I'll be okay."

"Well, okay. But just give a holler if you need anything."

"Okay, Papa. Goodnight."

"Goodnight son."

After his father closed the door, the boy looked at the tree, its branches branching and branching beyond his view. The puffy white clouds drifted slowly from right to left across the window. Very slowly. When one finally disappeared from view on the left another would appear in a minute or two on the right. The boy wondered if the clouds were circling around the house to start all over again. It was a lazy wondering, the cozy wondering of a boy falling asleep watching tree branches and clouds through his window on a moonlit night.

Portland

Rain.

That is all.

I'm convinced now that serial killers are not attracted to the Northwest. No, they're created by the conditions. Months of wind and rain? Even the sane begin wondering about sasquatch and UFOs. Grunge makes sense, goth makes sense. No one could find vampires sexy except in an environment where alabaster whiteness can fairly be described as a vibrant color.

Murder fantasies become just another way to break up the ennui of darkness. It's a credit to the people of the Northwest that so few go on killing rampages. Or maybe they're all cowards for not making their dreams a reality. Either way, humanity endures, even if it is only in the form of seasonal affective disorder.

Is there a connection between climate and serial killers? Wasn't Jack the Ripper the first well-known modern serial killer? London? Seems entirely predictable. What sort of madness compels a person to remain in such locales? Family, familiarity, livelihoods, lack of opportunities to migrate elsewhere, delusional beliefs that months of depressed aesthetic conditions are necessary for psychic colonics? Who knows, really, but if there are theories they've undoubtedly been created by poor souls gulping caffeine to stimulate some semblance of life energy while hunkered down in coffeeshops in Portland, Seattle, or Vancouver BC.

What else but murder would a person think about while walking for blocks with shoulders scrunched, head bowed low, and eyes focused on feet to avoid the pelting rains driven harder by unforgiving winds? Having to look up to avoid running over another person feels like a personal affront, "How dare you occupy the space in front of me! I'm walking here! You are too? In the opposite direction? I'm too fucking cold and tired to care what you're doing, to care what you think, to care how you feel, to care about you, to care. Just get out of my way." The rest of the day passes with imaginings of how a throat might be slit, how to dispose of the body, and where to hide the murder weapon. That's just everyday life in the Northwest.

On the flip side, I've seen acts of kindness create chain reactions of vomiting. Sitting by a window in a cafe one day, I watched a man on the sidewalk pick up a notebook dropped by a woman clad in black. As he ran to her and handed it back with a smile on his face, she looked at him with horror at first and then ... appreciation? ... before retching at his feet. Convulsive gagging. Pink and orange sludge on wet cement. Colorful, at least, and more beautiful than anything else within sight.

I think that was the reason so many other walkers and wanderers began to hurl not long after. And hurl they did. On both sides of the street. Men, women, and children. Old and young. White, Asian, and Latino. Each one of them puking different chunks of color. Lots of pinks, oranges, and greens. A few drab grays and opaque whites. I saw violet, ochre, and fuchsia from a middle-aged white man dressed like an insurance salesman. My first impression was that he had made a mistake, that he never should have become a salesman or an accountant, that his forte could never be business or engineering.

No, the man was meant to be an artist. It was so vibrantly evident in the colors he yacked, a rorschach that screamed "I am Day-Glo Van Gogh." His vomit, in particular, seemed to be a statement declaring that the drab shell encasing his being imprisoned a World of Oz so radically beautiful and wondrous that if ever exposed entirely would inspire a revolution against the grayness of reality.

When the retching finally subsided and the pukers peered about while groping with blind hands for walls or telephone poles to steady wobbly knees, I saw flickers of recognition, a growing sense of realization that each of them had been part of something unusually liberating. Up and down the streets there was evidence of divinity in regurgitated lumps of color, a rainbow of vomit publicly assembled to expose the hidden beauty within the depressed. I suppose anyone coming on the scene late could be forgiven for assuming they were witnessing gay pride flash mob performance art.

But at the very moment when any mind might have been ready and able to process what had happened, to analyze and interpret its meaning, or to begin the process of creating a mythology of what had occurred, the rains came hard for a few moments before coming down even harder. The clumps and splatters of colored mush thinned and washed away down the sidewalks, into cracks, over curbs, and into storm drains. Within minutes there was no evidence that anything had happened at all. Even the few who had begun to recover, to look around for eyes of others to share in a moment of recognition, quickly covered their heads with umbrellas, hoods, hats, newspapers, bags, or whatever else was in hand or available nearby. They darted into doorways, huddled under awnings, ran fast this way and that until each of them disappeared from sight.

I was the only person in the coffeeshop who had been watching the scene unfold outside, the only one who had seen the rainbow vomit celebration. No one on the street who participated remained in view any longer and not one of the actors entered through the door to escape the rain or to tell their story. In Portland, at least, random acts of kindness accompanied by spontaneous acts of spectacular reciprocation, rare and fleeting as sunshine in January, seem to occur only to demonstrate the revolutionary nature of color in monotonous environments.