Who's gonna drive you home?

My mother hates to drive through central Portland. It's too confusing she says. I think the real reason is that my mother likes the "story of cars" that we told for the last half-century. Cars are the ultimate space/time annihilation device, and we should build roads the maximize that capability. The problem, i think, that my mother really has with central Portland is it does not tell that story to itself.

 Cars still dominate, yes, but walking and bicycling are much closer to parity in terms of what is deemed "important." After living here 8 years I am much more like to walk a few blocks and kickbike a few more than I am to grab a car and go. So much so that I actually sold my car after a couple years of light use because it didn't seem worth the cost right now. Central Portland is still not my ideal transportation environment, but it's much closer than most any other western city in the U.S. where cars and the cultural and philosophical assumptions that come with them absolutely dominate.

For instance in Boise, where my mother is from, the lanes are wide and the speed limits are high. This used to be largely because point A to point B usually had nothing but safely fenced farm animals on the side of the road. Over the last 20 years, every farm I used to drive by between church school and anywhere else has been slowly converted into suburbs or shopping centers. But the speed limits are, if anything, higher, the roads are even wider, and while there are sidewalks, it's a trek of at least a mile or two to get from the housing communities to stores of any type. But the sidewalks are generally empty. No one is really expected to walk. The mass transit system in Boise is, well, it's not a priority and is generally only useful in the downtown area. Downtown Boise is the historical remnant of a time when the walkable communities were the cultural norm which as long since been cast aside in favor of living in quiet suburbs and spending an hour or two a day in one's car.

Cars prefer to dominate at speed. Less than 45 mph and the car and drive are operating sub-optimally.  Ideally, the car proceeds at the highest velocity in the maximum amount of comfort. This is all my mother wants from a vehicle. The problem being, nature and virtually every other element of civilization move at a much slower pace. This is why freeways exist. Paved lanes built specifically as anti-natural spaces, where time and space can be neatly annihilated with no worry about ecological concerns.

Of course, any animals who wander into these anti-nature zones are quite likely damned. This is because animals don't understand 80 mph. Except maybe for the speedsters that live on african savannas. But in most of the world, 80 mph might as well be witchcraft. An animal that sees a car moving faster than 25 mph, give or take, will not be able to react to it sanely. There's no predator in nature that moves like that. And so they make the wrong choice and are damned. Generally, we don't care how many animals we sacrifice, the need for the speed and dominance of the automobile is so strong. I only say that because we seem to have tried very little to prevent roadkill on our highways. We kill an acceptable number of wild animals in the name of speed and that is as far as we tend to think about it.

This is also why freeways are usually cut separate from the other roads in a city ecosystem. The ideal speed for cars and their occupants is generally hostile to community ecosystems as well. It's hard to work safely or quietly, take a stroll, talk to friends with vehicles moving at speeds greater than 45 mph or so right next to us. Life in a city is built for slower speeds. What is sanity for the driver is insanity for the pedestrian or the bicyclist. Any attempt at parity between them will simply result in bicyclists and other vehicles slowing down to speeds the pedestrian animal can make sense of.

This is not to damn cars as evil things. I just sometimes wonder if the cultural mindsets surrounding them aren't out of balance with equally important things. For instance the survival of wildlife and the health and happiness of people not currently driving.

Teleportation is Murder

My new theory is picard was killed in season 1 when he beamed himself into that cloud. Rest of series he's a replicated clone.

— James Haus (@SoylentHHH) July 28, 2016

My real Star Trek theory is the teleporters actually kill everyone who uses them. They are destroyed at one end, and a perfect clone is recreated at the other. To the outside observer the same person has been transported. But in terms of the individual, their consciousness ceases to be and is then replicated.

And somewhere in the Trek afterlife, soul after soul finds its way to whatever lies beyond, astonished to find yet another almost, but not quite, like them. Hundreds, maybe thousands, over time. And whatever guardian exists in these dark halls watches with increasing vexation as each doomed soul pops into the hereafter, with a look of shocked recognition at the mirrored faces before them. This is not how it's supposed to be. It's not right. The natural order WILL be restored.

Crossed Wires

One of my favorite moments in "America: the Book: the Audio Book" is when Stephen Colbert reads a blurb about himself and ends it with, "He is personally unpleasant." I mean, I shift uncomfortably, but I love it.

My social interactions feel off to me. Promising friendships seem to evaporate because of the signals I send, I think, and I'm not sure what signals I'm sending exactly. Some days I don't have "social energy" and I'm mostly matter-of-fact with people. But it doesn't mean I don't like them, it means I don't have the energy to throw up a friendly smile and engage the chit-chat subroutines about how their day is going. I don't know if that' undiagnosed autism or insufficient finishing school training on basic politeness coupled with a disciplined "polite is what are you are even when you don't feel friendly," kind of thing. In other words, maybe I'm just poorly socialized and my skills are rusty.

I don't know, maybe I'm just personally unpleasant.

#1 Crushed

So, a week or two ago I read probably the only good profile I've ever ready on Scruff of all places. It let me to this dude's blog. And friends, I have not crushed this hard in quite some time. In a fit of madness, forgetting that am currently a stubborn train wreck, I messaged him. He didn't seem too interested, which is fine, I'm not too interested in me currently either, but still.  *CRUSH*

The intensity of "the crush" has floated back down to earth (he's great and not interested and I have to clean up this fucking train wreck anyway ...), but it was such a long-lost and powerful feeling that it all feels notable somehow.

Things I thought I had forgotten:

•  The kind of person i want is out there. It may not be this guy, but it will be someone very much like this guy. I complain that people don't want me, but this isn't really the problem. I get a few messages a week on Scruff that I largely ignore because their approach is too sexual or just plain wrong. And the issue is partly self-worth/confidence/existential crisis but also largely they just don't seem to be what I want. I think I don't give myself enough credit for knowing what I want. I do. I just don't meet someone who embodies it very often. I am holding out for great chemistry and someone I am genuinely excited about and that's okay. 
• Related to above, the kind of person I want EXISTS. I admit, I was losing faith in expecting a sense of resonance with anyone in particular. It has been a long, lonely year for me in Portland, partly because I just don't seem to be meeting a lot of people who I grok or who grok me at all. It is incentive to keep searching, and maybe leave the house. I rarely read a sense of humor that is exactly mine and it is exciting to know that exists. Maybe the key is not flopping over and giving up.
• I am both happy that I now have motivation to get my shit together and irritated that it once again took an attractive, funny guy to get me motivated. I want to figure it out independently of someone else dammit. How will it mean anything otherwise? Of course, this is just motivation to get myself cleaned up enough to be appealing to someone very much like this guy? Is that a vague enough desire? That may be okay. I've learned several times over now that bettering oneself for someone else specifically is a fool's errand, because the motivation all goes to shit when it inevitably doesn't work out.
• I am still capable of reason-destroying crushes. Warning! Danger!
• I miss my sense of humor. I miss being able to make people laugh with one self-deprecating joke after another. I miss laughing until my stomach hurts. I miss me. Come back me. To I.
• I'm as attracted to a pretty face as much as the next guy, but I don't really operate on a "must get sex with randos!" level. I wish I did. Might be fun. I imagine the people who can chat people up and into bed (*coughs* like the ex) live careless and joyfully orgasmic lives, but idk really. It's not something I've ever really experienced. But my sex drive doesn't really kick in until the crushening starts, and the crushening usually starts with words and a good sense of humor. That's okay. Apparently I'm not the only one! It's easy to forget in a world of dating apps, that not everyone is looking for the quick hook-up. Again: the kind of people I want are out there, I just need to keep looking. I just need to find a way to look that works for me. And maybe work on my scruff chatting skills, for those fits of crush madness.

I guess that's it. I had forgotten I could crush this hard. I have saved a drop of this feeling in a crystal vial near where my heart used to be. It seems important to remember the possibility of feeling this way again in the future. 

Out of the Darkness, into the Weird

And now for something completely different ...

It's been occurring to me recently that one can be closeted about anything. Sexual orientation is certainly common. But a person will basically "closet" any personal information they don't feel will be accepted/understood by their peers. In this case of sexual orientation, this is damaging, as feeling free to pursue a meaningful sex life is an important life. Actually choosing to pursue a meaningful sex life is another matter entirely (ahem).

One of the closets I've been hiding in concerns my interest in the paranormal. I feel like I somehow have to defend the fact that I like to read about UFOs and ghost stories, even though the vast majority of our pop culture entertainment is based on related topics. I like to read about UFO sightings, and ghost sightings and near death experiences. I don't think considering the possibility that there may be more to those things than mass delusion is completely unreasonable. And even so, these various phenomenons are interesting purely as a social psychology topic, if one must insist that nothing one has not personally experienced could ever possibly be real.

That said, and here is the defensiveness, there is such a thing as taking an interest in the paranormal too far. There are a lot of charlatans looking to sell lies (and associated products based on said lies) to the public that wants to believe a little too much. And there's are certainly people who fixate on these topics and associated conspiracy theories to a completely unhealthy degree. But the fact that charlatans exist does not mean that paranormal things are not "real." They might not be of course, but they might also be real events playing by rules we simply don't understand yet.  My simple theory is anything that seems to have happened, and turns out to have happened, however surprising, will have happened.

In this, as in many things, I do my best to remain agnostic. I don't see a reason to start a UFO cult, but neither do I feel the need to dismiss the huge number of weird encounters as delusions, simply because it's something I haven't experienced. Sometimes it's okay to say, "i don't know, but that's interesting to think about."

For me, I think a large part of the appeal is partly simply scientific curiosity, but also a deep dissatisfaction with modern life that powers a powerful desire for new information that would upset our collective applecart, be that confirmation of alien life or life after death or whatever. When I'm disenchanted by my choices, fanciful alternatives become more appealing. And friends, I am deeply disenchanted by the choices presented in modern life.

So that's all I have to say. I may mention the paranormal from time to time with the above mindset. I might not. Who knows. But I think it's silly to self-censor myself on a topic just because I'm afraid of not seeming rational. That hasn't stopped me otherwise, so why start now?

Bigfoot though, that's just bullshit of course.

The great pruning

So, I just spent a few days going back through my blog and reviewing and removing posts I didn't want to keep attached to this blog anymore. Mostly boring game stuff, crass commercialism or stuff about exes that I don't want to relive too much. Those blog posts about how much I missed my girlfriend while she was on a month-long trip and, as it turned out, cheating on me for instance (the first of many exciting infidelities in my relationships!). Most of the more recent posts made the cut though. There were some things from when I was younger that seemed too unkind that I didn't want to keep either, so those got cut.

It was surprising how much unresolved crap it dredged up though. Maybe one good reason not to burn it all into the internet forever is so you don't have to relive hard times over and over again. But it does really strike me how much I have changed in some ways and how little I've changed in others. There are some posts from deep in the closet that I can't really relate to anymore, but there are other posts about depression and trying to relate to people and find a community and date and keep a reasonable goddamn sleep schedule that are just as true today as they were then. So I'm torn between "Hey, look how far you've come!" and "What ... what are you doing that you haven't budged an inch?"

A worthwhile exercise overall. I think.

Upon receiving revisited

I still like this poem. Still reflects FB for me in too many ways.

8 years later ...

Found another old post about sleep habits. Still true. Could have been written this week.

Is it possible there's just nothing in Portland worth waking up for?

11 years later ....

and this post still accurately reflects my relationship with my sleep schedule, albeit with a touch more sexism than I'm comfortable with today. 

Let's do the Time Warp Again and Again and Again

Currently going back to posts in 2005 on this blog and watching me whine about problems I STILL haven't resolved. That sound you hear is my banging my head on the table.

So many thoughts ...

... so little ability to share them.

I do not have a sound daily practice for reading and writing so once again I have far too many posts queued up in my head that haven't been written. I think we're about to the breaking point so expect some in the near future. I want to tell you they won't be entirely solipsistic but ... I can't promise that. 

Solipsism is the death of writing, I know, and it's probably why my writing is dead. I mean, you can only read about someone whining about how they can't get their shit together before you're just ready for them to get their shit together, or even be on the fucking path to getting their shit together and not wandering off in some field stepping on the same rake over and over and over and over .... 

But I yam what I yam. And someday hope to be less of a yam.

Coming to some conclusions though. Action items are forming. One is: I hate this blog. I hate the solipsism, yes, but also the format and the platform. The platform doesn't deserve to be hated, it functions fine, but none of the themes are quite what I want. They all feel pretty dated at this point. A few blogs I've seen recently (more on THAT later), have convinced me I need to spend some time imagining what I want this blog to be and working on it. Should I finally get that together, I will, of course, put a link here somewhere. I just want to have a website that accurately reflects me. I'm not sure I have that yet.

In the meantime, I may go back and prune some less fortunate posts. Maybe the words of a younger, much stupider me don't need to be burned into the internet forever.