truck driver remains positive in unfortunate circumstances

This is what toys left outside, in a tub, in the rain, look like when that rain water freezes and then there is a light snow in the morning. My spirits are lifted by the "thumbs-up" attitude of the little feller driving the truck - hang in there buddy, you are in all our prayers and i know you will be rescued, and until that day, i promise not to let the dog pee on you, again.

my wish

when i have the occasion to make a culturally acceptable wish (birthday candle blowout, penny in the fountain, first star i see tonight, etc.), the wish i wish, is to be able to prove that all the negative and mean things i think people say and think about me, are actually being said and thought. i waste too much time worrying about it. let's just get it out in the open, and over with, so i can move on. but i won't move on will i? i will obsess on why you don't like me and how i can be better. my head hurts so much. it's not going to help, is it? i wish my head didn't hurt. now that wish makes more sense - today, anyway; but tomorrow i know i'll be wondering why you don't like me, why you think i'm stupid, and wondering why you won't be honest with me, and yet praying you don't say aloud all of the things i think you might say aloud, because, really, i am pretty scared that they are true. and i don't wish to prove it.

a fool's smile

nobody likes to be the fool
and i have been the fool
i should be grateful for the blissful smile i wore
when, in that time, i was the pitiable joke
the way this story ends is with another day
of just being okay
always the fooler becomes the fooled
and the serpent swallows its own tail
i wish this didn't hurt
it's probably better to smile, a blissful smile.

lemon cheetos - come on people

OK jerk-offs at cheeto company inc., here is a print ad for you, if you want me to write the g-d copy, i'll do that too. I even had someone tell me they worked for the company with a quaker in the logo, and they knew how to extrude stuff to puff it, or something like that (i'm not good with technical details)...so, how about you get your sheet together and do this before somebody who might add melamine to the ingredient list gets ahold of this gem...lemon g-d, f-ing cheetos. suck one and let's make it happen.

the sun's vast potential

I had a vision that the sun was shooting out money toward Earth in all denominations and currencies; coins, greenbacks, pesos, pennies, euros, francs, pounds, etc. I took this vision to mean: buy protective gear, helmets and the like - immediately.
I told this, and explained my reasoning, to someone smarter than i, and she said, "no jimmy, this is not an apocalyptic vision of the destruction to be wrought by an angry god who has become irreversibly disgusted by our greed and corruption...no jimmy," she went on to explain, "this is a hopeful vision of the wealth and well-being potential of solar energy. Invest now, with your heart and your wallet."
"Cool, thanks." i said, desperately trying to not scratch my head until after she got up and walked away.
I guess we'll see, or not, but I'm keeping the helmet.

shadows and spears

a bit of my stand-up routine: when I was growing up, my father was rarely amused or entertained by my shenanigans. When i announced with pride and indignation that i was going to run away from home - he told me I should walk away from home- i'd get farther before getting tired, and it would look more dignified. I don't really have a stand-up act, but my family does have a history of liquid cold medicine abuse..."shadows and spears, that is what there are, you must beware shadows and spears" - that is the motto on our family crest, no one knows what it means, and we are pretty sure it doesn't mean anything and that it was both said and transcribed in a codeine influenced haze; however, we do hold out hope that maybe its meaning will be revealed to us as our epiphanic rescue in a moment of Apocryphal cataclysm - what else do we have?

checking out the rope swing on a winter day

I think that before any children use this rope to enjoy a carefree summer swing under the mighty oak tree, I should test it myself. I should sit on the swing and let my accumulated weight of adulthood's internalized pain, depression, failure, and unsatisfied yearnings pull down on the tree branch and stress the rope. On second thought, i think i'll get a ladder and put up a new rope, i don't need the substantiation of letdown.

lucky

Someone i am lucky enough to love made this with material, scissors, glue, spare eyes, and fun. It makes me happy to look at it. I am lucky.

trees, me, and free will

i (jimmy) am a tree without roots.
i am a tree without leaves, or branches, or bark.
i am not a tree at all.
I like trees, but they can be really scary at night, and really scary when knots - or the pecking and digging of animals - have created "faces" in the bark, usually with what appears, at a distance, to be eyes and a mouth - and usually a mouth open, screaming, tortured, and eyes that are both watching and vacant - all so they can watch your every move and report your whereabouts to woodland demons for their soul-snatching operations. They watch, they wait and watch, and wait for dark, and for you, alone. I am really not sure what use a soul would be to anyone other than the owner. Really, in my opinion, my soul has very little value unless you get the super-sexy buttocks that came with the current package, i mean, then you have something worth something. As said by David Hume to me in a dream, "what use, free will, without buttocks as fine as thine?"

i smell toast

on my way to work, i was driving my car and smelled toast. odd. i continued on to work, and the rest of my day was downhill from there. in retrospect, i'm glad i was not aware at the time that a phantom whiff of toast would turn out to be the highlight of my day.

flashlight on bicycle - evening

When you are a child and you get the surprise of a nice spring-like day breaking up a long winter of being stuck indoors - or bundled-up outdoors - you get on your bicycle, strap a flashlight to your handlebars, and ride in your driveway until your parents call you in for the evening. And still you beg for just a little more time..."pleeease can I stay out a little bit longer?". This night feels okay to me, feels alive, feels pure, and it feels like the happiness you can only experience as a child, and remember fondly as an adult. This photo, from that evening, is a 4 second exposure of what a flashlight strapped to a bicycle being ridden by a kid who didn't want to come inside looked like to a camera.

distracted - edit

I am easily distracted. There is no quiet, for the easily distracted.

distracted

i am easily distracted, which makes writing - the act of sitting down and putting words to page - somewhat difficult. Distraction can, though, provide inspiration for a wide variety of topics...unless the distraction is a high-pitched, siren-like but just barely audible whining that is being emitted by a Samsung Syncmaster 204b monitor in sleep mode, weeee-oooooo, weeee-oooooo, pulsing in synchronization with the power button LED lighting up and off, up and off, weeee-oooooo. If that is the distraction, then it is overwhelming and the only writing possible is writing related to the noise, that is now all-consuming. Press and hold the power button, that is what i told her, until it shuts down, that's what she did to me. Ahhhh, the sweet relief of powerdown, the natural harmony of quiet...and the inevitable countdown to boredom. There is no quiet, for the easily distracted.

Toujours tous les deux! (please reference yesterday's post)

French language phrases which have become part of the english idiom normally lend an air of importance, subtle urgency and an eternal spirit of superiority to their proclamation - but this particular phrase (Toujours tous les deux!) is also important historically due to its unique use as being gender based, yet gender equalized. Some say - in a wikiictionary entry that was promptly removed - this phrase was the seed that grew the international women's suffrage movement in the fertile soil of truth. The sexually liberated and progressive 18th century Parisian artists were fond of exclaiming "toujours tous les deux!" (english translation - "always both!") in bold reference to both of the male testicles and both of the female breasts; less than both - for either men or women - was not optimal. The Parisians let it be known through the poetry of language that, for both men and women, both was best, and both was the only acceptable equality...soon afterward, women could vote.

thermometer

Liquid or solid, I just can't decide; but, I am leaning slightly toward liquid. Regardless, this is a fine photograph of a thermometer, and I think this is a photographic niche I am ready to use as a launching pad to explore clocks, maybe street signs, maybe both. Restricting my tedious explorations of the mundane would be profane, so both it is. Toujours tous les deux!

male cardinal - "illinois sucks"

"This open-landfill of a state has NO women, it's colder than a turd orbiting Pluto, and some a-hole is always taking your picture...Illinois sucks" Cardinal was quoted this morning during a long winded, mostly angry - sometimes incomprehensible - rant regarding his regretful early departure from Key West last week (see earlier cardinal blog post).

grandpa

I remember when grandpa used to wake me up to watch the sunrise with him. I would always look up into his eyes - and I finally one day gathered the courage to ask, "grandpa, why are we awake so early?", and he answered, "the gift of creation is evidenced in the grace of each and every sunrise; if you cannot see the beauty of sunrise, you cannot appreciate the the gift of creation." I remember not really grasping the wisdom of his words at the time and I responded with a respectful, "hmm", to which grandpa responded with the same rally I heard the countless mornings prior, "Okay, well then Mr. Rockefeller, time for you to start folding the newspapers for your route...they're not gonna fold themselves, are they?" With that, he turned, as he did every other day he woke me, and went to his bedroom, closed the door, and slept all day. I resented that son-of-a-bitch until we buried him. Shortly after which, he died.

spinning

I fear that some day i will come apart, but really it is more that I fear not being held together anymore, i think there is a difference, and i think it is because we are always spinning on this planet and without realizing it we know that if we stop spinning, it all falls apart, spinning holds it all together, that's all we have is spinning, and sometimes i just get tired of spinning, but i can't.

more bulbs

As these outdoor Christmas light bulbs fall off the string (due to a crappy design and/or manufacture) during the course of the winter, they collect at the base of the house until an unseasonably nice day in February when somebody (me) picks them up off the ground, puts them in a plastic bucket, and takes this picture of them. They are kind of pretty aren't they? I hope they can be reassembled for use next year. I just like the way these look, the symbolism is too painful to explore. They are pretty, and that will have to be enough for me. I am looking forward to Spring. Nothing is ever enough. Well, that's a bit dramatic, sometimes a bucket of fallen holiday lightbulbs is not a metaphor for life, or for religion, or for the pancake breakfast great-grandpapa never got to eat.

a better tomorrow

There is a lot I don't know about the future. For instance, assuming an initially gradual yet fully anticipated exponentially increasing decay of something - ergo and i.e., human pain and suffering followed by death - i would predict more people would choose to have trampolines in their backyards. I would think in winter you would want to heat the area around the trampoline. This way you could increase your "likelihood window" for head or spinal cord injury from summer’s brief 6 months to a full 12 months a year. I think the future of family backyard trampoline jumping should be target shooting or hunting while bouncing...it just makes sense, fun + a loaded gun = more fun. Still, despite my obviously keen insight, there is a lot I don't know about the future.

wdgt? - what does god think?

What if God doesn't think i'm cute as he watches me while i sleep?

male cardinal - anticipating spring

As spring approaches, the proud and brightly plumed male Cardinal, fresh from having spent the winter in Florida, stares intently in search of a potential mate - unaware that he has arrived in Illinois too early and will freeze to death before nightfall.

christmas light and gutter

"Blue as a Christmas light bulb." That is how I describe the sky on a clear day. That is why I did not get a good grade in English Composition class. That reason, and that my instructor went to college with Stephen King and she did not end up a world famous author. She took her personal failure, mixed it with her jealousy of Stephen King, and wove her own nightmarish story line for one special little student who just wanted to explore obtuse visual similes. She was mean. I still get happy when Stephen King makes money. If she ever becomes famous, I may be sad, I may get blue, but i will never be so blue as a squirrel with rotted nuts. See what I mean! You just read what I wrote - "blue as a squirrel with rotted nuts". I can’t believe I didn’t get an "A" from that jerk, this stuff I write is golden.

lemon cheetos

lemon cheetos...let the concept caress you. i wish i had the franchise, or the technology to puff-up something non-toxic and then adhere the lemon-chee dust to it, i wouldn't be wasting any more time writing - i'd be growing the little bastards like yesterday, and marketing the bitches like safe tobacco. lemon cheetos...suck one. tag line - written.

fluffy pink dream

My life is a fluffy pink dream. I know a man with an old worn wallet that has been stuffed to now be very bulbously large. He keeps pictures and notes of things he wants in it. Shortly before he dies, he wants to go through his wallet and see how many of the items he had desired, he had acquired. When he explained the plan to me, I thought it was a pointless objective that would likely require some extreme luck in the timing of the review phase. Then I thought about it some more and understood that if I were honest- my own wallet would be as large, my own plan and objective, less so. So I went online and ordered some relatively expensive designer soaps, i think i feel better about myself now, at least for now, at least until it inevitably turns out that "meadow mist lavender" or "patchouli peace rain" do not fill my fluffy pink bottomless hole.