Letter Never Sent

I made the mistake of lingering too long on FoxNews to hear O’Reilly harangue about the ACLU and how they support pedophiles. This guy, this guy….I want to fight him so bad. He argues like someone’s asshole Uncle. “The ACLU is free to support pedophilia if that’s what they want to do. It’s sick, but this is a free country.” [heavily paraphrasing here] The thing is I didn’t really catch his evidence regarding this. Invariably, he starts off with something about how he used to support the ACLU because he thought they championed freedom, but eventually he wised up. The implication is that you should wise up too. This reminds me of so many arguments I’ve had with egotistical knotheads. They are basically saying to you that they have you all figured out and understand completely where you’re coming from because they were just like you….until they wised-up, grew up, or evolved. It’s smug, presumptuous and insulting. When I was growing up going to church (Southern Baptist) they often tried the same tack with skeptics. Some fatherly figure would take you aside and relate his own rebellious youth where he questioned the authority of the church and the dogma of our southern Puritanism. Apparently, he too was once rebellious, skeptical, questing, proud, incredulous just like me….until he grew up.

Christianity was from the beginning, essentially and fundamentally, life’s nausea and disgust with life, merely concealed behind, masked by, dressed up as, faith in “another” or “better” life. — Friedrich Nietzsche

Okay, so it’s obvious by now that I keep odd hours. I have this thing about going to sleep. I don’t like it. Once I’m asleep I like to remain asleep, but I hate the act of going to bed. I call it inertia, but maybe it’s just some sort of restlessness. Usually now when I go to sleep I have to distract myself by reading until I’m sleepy or I’ll just lie awake thinking morbid thoughts. I’ve been doing this more since I’ve been living on my own. Anyway, tonight I was watching something on the History Channel and I hear a scraping noise that sounded like it was coming from the kitchen cabinets. The noise stopped and I opened all the cabinets but didn’t see anything obvious. I stood there silently for a few minutes with my ears turned up to maximum sensitivity and didn’t hear anything else for a long time. Then I heard that phantom scraping noise coming from what sounded like inside the walls behind my cabinets near the ceiling. I think there is something inside the walls. Judging from my recent experience I’m guessing it’s mice or rats or whatever it was Sarah and I killed last night. Something that makes scraping noises inside walls at three in the morning.

The only thing I can figure is that maybe the cold, wet weather and the new construction on the once vacant lot next door has driven the rats out of Nimh and into my apartment complex. I imagine I’m not the only person who has them in such close proximity but maybe my neighbors haven’t noticed them since they’re not awake in the dead of night and don’t have cats. I guess I’ll mention this to the apartment people when I drop off my rent tomorrow. It’s a good thing I’m moving soon. I don’t know how much longer I can sleep with all the lights on, fully dressed, with my hand on a rodent-death-dealing instrument.

So there I was lying in bed reading a few chapters of Proverbs since I couldn’t sleep and all of the sudden I hear this crazy racket coming from the kitchen. Stuff clanking together, something squealing. There’s really only a few things it could be when you hear squealing, some sort of animal. Of course, I’m completely unprepared having just gone to bed. As I was equipped only with boxer shorts I threw on my Doc Marten’s (sans socks) and peaked out my door into the darkness of the main living area and kitchen. I didn’t hear anything
else, so I jumped to the kitchen lightswitch and turned it on. Sarah was sitting over looking intently at the vacuum cleaner roaming back and forth around it (I keep it in the kitchen). I see a long tail sticking out from under the vaccuum….a rat tail.

I don’t know how big this thing is since all I can see is its tail and I have no idea how injured it is or if it is injured. The last thing I want is a pissed off rat climbing up my leg so I grab the broom and push the vacuum cleaner while Sarah prepares to jump on our unwanted visitor. So it comes out and Sarah starts swatting it and KOing it with her paws while I egg her on. And meanwhile I’m trying to keep it from running under the fridge and thinking what I should do. Now this thing is bleeding and I’m not about to nurse it back to health or release it into the wild so it can come back with some friends. Not to mention it has violated my rule about roaches or vermin in the house so I decide I will either have to catch it and throw it outside or kill it. I tried to sweep it up into a dustpan and then into a plastic bag but it wasn’t going. It kept trying to jump out of the dustpan or run away. I did feel bad for it on one hand, but on the other hand I was horrified that something like that would be in my apartment. Anyway, so finally Sarah bites it and picks it up and tries to take it somewhere to torture further or to snack on. I manage to scoop it up into the dustpan and I run outside in my boxers and boots and toss it into the bushes. So now, I’m suitably freaked out and glad to have my cat around.

I just registered Aramchek.org. I had been in contact with the previous owner about buying it from him since he owns Aramchek.com and Aramchek.net and just recently he emailed me and told me he would let it lapse and I should pick it up. Well, so what does ‘aramchek’ mean and why should you care? Good question. I’m planning on starting a little artistic/political endeavor at that location. Aramchek is a reference to an idea in a Philip K. Dick novel. I wrote about that here.

Here’s to all you out there in the ether. Happy New Year! You made it through another one.

I was reading the news at the Washington Post site and read that Joe Strummer died of a heart attack at the young age of 50. There is something wrong with that. Completely unexpected bummer.

From the spring of 1994 to the spring of 1995 two of my good friends and I put together a little zine/comic/magazine which we would try to sell at record stores and through the mail. The only real reason we charged was to keep people from running off with a whole stack of them if they were free. I think we sold them for around fifty cents. It was a fun experience. I finally started scanning some of them in. Here’s the first one I grabbed, Incredible Flaming Mechanism #6.

I should mention that at the time we all used pseudonyms, so anything done by Jasper Albeeny is actually my work. Or rather, we are one and the same.

Yea, my mom and stepdad are selling pecans. So, if you want some good ones call them up or email. Guess who designed their site? It’s not that impressive, but I can change it later if need be.