A half-second behind

You ever have that feeling that reality is about a second ahead of your consciousness, and that even the words you speak or type are a bit of a surprise to hear coming out of your mouth, since you've not yet had a chance to put voice to those words? When I'm really paying attention, it's like my limbic system and everything external is already decided half a second ahead of my actual consciousness--like, by the time I've consciously decided to put that double-em-dash earlier in this sentence, I've already heard the sound of my fingers hitting the keys. it's like how your hand will drop the hot potato before your fingers even make the report to mister Brain - hey, this shit is fuckin' HOT! So, what's the point of making decisions, if they're already made?

Again, maybe instead, I'm just nuts.

Ebb and Flow

I've had this weird feeling lately. Like, wistfulness, but not for the past. You know how retro fashion has cycled through - back in the early 90's, Weedstock and a lot of psychedelia were fashionable Alice in Chains was nothing if not a metalled-up psych-rock band), then That 70's Show had everyone wearing a lot of brown, then a couple years ago we were already seeing a resurgence of pleather pants a la' the Reagan 80's? Now fashion is all over the map, since there's no "retro" to mine for ideas. I feel the same way with regards to the cultural zeitgeist - I pine not for any past (real or idealized) but rather the very present I'm experiencing. It's like, I can't really connect to what's actually going on around me, but I can still mourn and long for the imagined place I have in the mix.

Sometimes I'm not entirely sure that I'm not the idiot and those who I assume are idiots aren't the grand masters.

Malaise

The word to describe my generation is ennui. A buddy and I used to discuss it to death over drinks and pizza. The problem lies in that the easiest way to attenuate the ennui is to bitch about it to other people who are in the same boat - and you find those people in bars. Of course, bars can be depressing places, which only serves to maintain the personal level of ennui.

The short-term solution is to do a little whitewashing - everything's ok, or good enough to manage. That positive attitude gives you the breathing room to get your mind in a place where you actually are ok with things. It's not a true flavor of, but a sort of postmodern, nirvana. You focus on the good stuff, and kinda shrug off the bad stuff as something you work on, but you don't let work you into fits. Life is hell, as Matt Groening used to say, but you have to keep a sort of zen attitude. Instead of assuming things will be fine at some future point, you assume that things are messy horseshit and then you amuse yourself at the myriad ways the fractal mess (same sort of mess at both large and fine scales) of modern life presents itself.


Then again, perhaps it's my own personal form of mental illness.

iRant

I run with my iTunes and Nike+, but do not ride. I might consider tunes on the bike, if I had perfect hearing, but i don't, so i don't. Really, all the ignorant pricks who have their tunes on and then veg out deserve to have their Achilles tendons snipped. I see people all the time, walking two or three abreast, headphones blaring - if you're not talking to those people, why do you have to be alongside them? Esp. when you can't hear me bellowing that I'm coming around, and esp when you don't even get out of the way of *oncoming* path traffic. I swear, if I ever go all "falling down" it's going to be either *in* forest park, or on Oakland at Hampton, where I sat for 20 minutes yesterday while cars getting off 40 on to Hampton would block Oakland traffic through an entire light cycle. Swear to god I want to put up a gate at that offramp and put a ten ton hood-smasher on it. You get in the way of me taking a nap, i kill your car.

There's one conspiracy theory to which i'll subscribe: the stupidification of the American public. We're sold a bill of goods that boils down to buying goods. Fuck plastics, *marketing* is where it's at. Kids aren't stupid, but the public is fed the notion that we have to have TV's with DVD players on the back of every captain's chair in our SUV's, just to placate those kids with sugar-coated advertisements disguised as entertainment; or sit them down in front of the boob tube instead of playing in the yard, because the yard is full of DIRT (which can only be truly removed by antibacterial soap!) I see my friends with kids simultaneously think their kids' every turd is a work of genius while they keep the kids coddled in cocoons like intellectual bubble-boys who are allergic to the slightest threat to their delicate minds. The worst part is that most of these parents know the truth, but are too worn down by trying to pay off their second mortgage and credit cards that they can't lift a mental finger and fight it!

Even those of use who tell ourselves to resist mainstream marketing are pandered to in a different way - whole foods, electric SUV's, outdoor adventure that's as safe as a walk around the block. And then, as we recognize *that*, we're marketed to in even more insiduous ways. It's recursive, and maddening.

Fuck.

To all those that said they'd leave if the election didn't go their way, get out. From both sides. Just go.

I guess the October Surprise we all expected was nothing. Exactly nothing; a ruse, while the Christian Coalition got out the vote quietly. The ABB strategy (predictably, with hindsight that qualifies us for flight school) didn't work. Never mind that abortion rates have risen the past four years after a stead decline of ~1.6% per year since 1976. Never mind that the "moral values" guy doesn't go to church (unlike his predecessor) and has an administration that makes U.S. Grant look like Woodrow Wilson by comparison. Never mind the retarded war on nonexistent premises. The outsourcing. The cloven tax stratification. The bullheaded non-observance of facts by a guy who has never kept a company he helmed afloat and thinks that evolution being a "theory" means it's on the same grounds as an X-files episode.

A lot of people are scared of catching the gay, and are willing to make second-class citizens out of certain neighbors and co-workers. And these people vote.

Cobbled together musings

A married couple who I'm longtime friends with has a problem. They're having a baby in a couple months, but his parents won't even talk to them because they're not voting for Bush. They asked me how I deal with my own very conservative parents.

My dad handles it by being passive-aggressive. Well, he's like that all the way 'round, anymore, but specifically, when he comes over to help paint, he either does nothing, or does such a poor job I can't but think it's intentional. My mom, when I feed her data (as in, the Latin American countries in which abortion is legal have lower abortion rates than those where it's illegal, or, that the abortion rate was steadily declining 1.7%/year from 1976 to 2000, then has been going UP 3.5% since GWB came to power), does the rhetorical equivalent of plugging her ears with her fingers and braying, "LALALALALA".
When my dad made the claim that "the liberals have brainwashed" me, I countered with a two-pronged approach. First, that the single biggest factor in my exploring new viewpoints (Actually, I think I phrased it "the person who made me a liberal") was GWB. (not to mention that Republican chicks are SCAY-REE). The other tine of my rhetorical fork was a twisted compliment: that I don't follow my parents' political leanings in lockstep means that they did a good job raising me as an independent thinker.
One thing's for sure: if Bush wins, I expect every fucking Dem senator to remind the CNN viewers as much as possible that Bush does not have a mandate, and should not act as though he does.
When the court jester of rhetorical response (i.e. me) can immediately punch USS Cole-sized holes in every one of the administration's arguments without even trying, I can easily see why the rest of the world thinks we're a bunch of fucking cowboys who've gone off the Prozac.
In other news, I've given up on dating...I make comments loudly in the bar about whatever comes to mind- that girl's got nice eyes but no butt, etc. It's not worth it. I mean, it's been a year since my last real g/f broke up with me, and I no longer talk to her, but I still get a chubby when I see a girl with her bodytype. I don't like what a fucking obsessive I've become, although the rest of who I've become I'm pretty proud of. Dating, it seems, is just a modern-day psy-ops ballet which costs a lot to get into the game, and to keep playing. No thanks, jacking off takes 15 minutes and kills my libido for the rest of the day.