Letter Never Sent

Since I’ve been posting again to metafilter, a collaborative community weblog, I’ve been reminded of the essential differences in opinion between people. I don’t really identify myself as a liberal or as a conservative, although in many ways because we live in a very conservative country I tend to reject the credulousness and nostalgia that conservatives have for a past that never really existed. A past where everyone was kind, white, and religious. In conservatism’s desire to return to the past or to maintain the status quo I see a fear of change and freedom (especially other people’s freedom) and a desire to believe in leaders. They often seem to feel attacked or besieged or in the minority, very defensive which makes them behave in a reactionary manner. That’s not to say that some liberals and apologists for the state do not possess these same qualities, but people of a conservative frame of mind seem to be very uniform in this feeling. Of course, I’m biased.

I’ve been thinking a lot about drawing lately. I used to do it a lot. You can see some of my drawings here in comic form. Granted back then in early adolescence the only computer my family had was some 286/386 CGA or EGA thing. It was basically useless except for word processing, so I had to amuse myself with other pursuits. Drawing was what I did to kill time, to relax, to express myself, and I was actually not bad at it. I was always surprised when people thought I drew things pretty well.

I guess my parents started me on that path and always encouraged me. I remember sitting through a church service one time and my mother drew some people on the church bulletin, the handout where they list the order of the services and what hymns will be sung. I remember sitting there leaned over her lap (and this is when she was much taller than me sitting) and watching as she drew a boy on the cover of the bulletin. I thought it was silly that his pants seem so high-water and that he had a large belt buckle. I basically thought my mom drew boring things. I always went for aliens (my E.T. phase) and mad scientists.

I can finally access my movable type again. My webhost was having problems.

I don’t expect anyone to get me anything, but I was thinking on my own about ideas for presents (for myself of course). It’s fun!

1. Jumbo playing cards. I like the idea of playing hearts or spades with a giant deck of cards.
2. Coconut cream pie. Yum.
3. Good non-white socks. Mutedly colorful, stripey, cotton, something.
4. Singing Bird Cage. Don’t ask me why, but I really like this.

So, a few things I forgot to mention. Minor things, but noteworthy.

1. I saw Paulie Shore on 6th St. while out with my dear, dear friend and knitting/crochet dynamo Susan. The way she knits/crochets is the similar to the way she writes emails and letters. She’s inexhaustible. Seriously. I’ve been trying to get her to draw some comics for me as she’s also a fantastic artist. I need to do more arm twisting. Anyway, back to the original point, we walked past him and I didn’t even notice him, but Susan got all excited and made sure we chased him so I could get a look. This is like my first celebrity encounter since the Martin Sheen incident of ’95.
2. Well. Someone stole a load of laundry from me. True, I did leave it overnight since I forgot to get it out before the laundromat closed, but it’s still crappy. I just wish I knew what it was that I lost. Luckily, it was a load of whites so I don’t think it was too important, but now I’m down to two pairs of white socks, one of which was left for me in the washing machine. I hope they enjoy my hanes t-shirts. Sigh. I’m going to go off if I see some homeless guy wearing my favorite t-shirt (the one with the brahma bull on it). Apparently from what the cleaning woman told me, some of the homeless in the area will take a garbage back out of the trashcan and just load up. I learned a valuable lesson I’d like to import to all of you without your own washers and dryers. Don’t leave your laundry unattended. You can forget about it and it could get stolen or it could just get stolen.

I’m in the middle of taking at home defensive driving. It’s looking like it’ll put me at 4am by the end of the whole six hour ordeal. Given a choice I’d rather pound nails into my own scrotum. It’s going to be a long night. I’m just glad I have my laptop here, so I can slack.

Ran several errands, installed MovableType and built a website (www.skurt.com) out of thin air for A. (be encouraging to this newcomer and peep my sloppy, mad photoshop skills), and other than that unloading a week’s worth of thoughts and energies.

The man pictured above, in the banner, is Toshiro Mifune. It didn’t occur to me when I changed it that some people wouldn’t recognize who that was. At various times, I have built shrines to great men. Men I admire yet identify with and aspire to. My idols. My pantheon. The embodiment of the qualities I desire for my ideal self. Individuality, depth of emotion, strength, intelligence, intensity, sensitivity, humor, rebelliousness, and beauty. My religion is the worship of humanity in general and the worship of individual men and women.

Here are a sampling just off the top of my head. They should possess all of these qualities in varying degrees:

John Brown, Havelock Ellis, Voltaire, Bruce Lee, Paul Newman, Morrissey, Jesus (my idea of him), Marcus Aurelius, Kurt Vonnegut, Che Guevara, John Lennon, Marlon Brando, Albert Einstein, Toshiro Mifune, Charlie Chaplin, Wilhelm Reich, Jiddu Krishnamurti, Carl Jung, Mark Twain, Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart, Thomas Jefferson, Thomas Paine, Johann Wolfgang von Goethe, Clarence Darrow.

What piece of work is a man
How noble in reason, how infinite in faculties, in form
And moving how express and admirable, in action
How like an angel, in apprehension how like a god :
The beauty of the world, the paragon of animals

Hamlet (Act II, scene 2, 303-307)

Last night after I got home from work and conked out in a brief nap with all my clothes and even my shoes on in the style of Marty McFly at the close of Back to the Future, I went to the Mercury Lounge down on sixth street to attend this open mic thing George had suggested. It was nice to get out and do something I wouldn’t normally do. Much of it was entertaining, but I’m afraid I wasn’t in the highest of spirits. I was simultaneously indulging in and fighting one of those black moods I’m prone to. I got to meet Prentice Riddle, a guy who has one of those nice eclectic blogs I enjoy, but I faltered and unloaded my black mood in the form of a petulant, cynical opinion or two lobbed into a conversation on Afghanistan I had not even been a part of. It’s almost as if I impulsively decided at that moment to externalize my bad feeling and to recklessly violate rules of propriety with people I barely knew. This would have been sufficient to make me feel out of control and shitty, but then it just reminded me of how far I have to go and how I seem to be repeating myself and never learning from past mistakes.

I’m reminded of one of my favorite writers from history, Michel De Montaigne. One of those with the stoic, prudent, and composed attitude I admire and envy. In this essay he captures that feeling, the surprise and familiarity you experience when you behave in those ways you hate yet are prone to.

‘Tis wonderful from how many idle beginnings and frivolous causes such famous impressions commonly, proceed. This it is that obstructs information; for whilst we seek out causes and solid and weighty ends, worthy of so great a name, we lose the true ones; they escape our sight by their littleness. And, in truth, a very prudent, diligent, and subtle inquisition is required in such searches, indifferent, and not prepossessed. To this very hour, all these miracles and strange events have concealed themselves from me: I have never seen greater monster or miracle in the world than myself: one grows familiar with all strange things by time and custom, but the more I frequent and the better I know myself, the more does my own deformity astonish me, the less I understand myself.“

On the way back to my car I argued with someone very close and special to me on the phone, someone I punish for caring about me, only adding more and more and reminding me of my crimes and misdeeds and selfishness and the way I’ve involved unsuspecting people in my problems. The word for the day, for the year, is opprobrium.