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Update 2020-12-16: (True sticky posts banned; click to read.) So, owing to the evolution of the internet, or at least my own approach to it,...

Friday, November 23, 2012

A Special Message for Family and Possibly Others

"Black Friday" seems as good a time as any to say this. For the past few years, I've directed you to the "physical wish list" on the side of this blog in honor of your request for a list of things I'd like as holiday/birthday gifts. Of course, for the past few years, at least one of you has held on to being "tired of buying [me] CDs". This year, though, I don't mind.

It's not that I don't want chocolate; chocolate's always good. It's not that CDs are an obsolete format; they totally have been for years. What I want, right around now, is just simple support. Maybe it can come in a monetary form; maybe it can be some other bare necessity. The thing is, lest you don't realize it yet, I'm looking to start a new life in a new city. I don't yet know where or how; it's a quest in progress. I sent my savings account to the U.S. Department of Education a couple days ago. (Of course, with that bit of monthly payments out of the way, I got hit with a bi-monthly bill for that lovely bit of heartless Western culture known as "insurance".) That leaves me with about $4800 that I can use to "get started", as it were. Time to explore beyond the stagnant cornfields. I ask only for sincere, gentle, helpful guidance (not nagging and yammering). I have no particular use for more physical things; I'm likely to leave most of it here for the while, anyhow.

I'm leaving the wish list here for simple posterity. And maybe a couple of the "tilde" items. You know I'll always accept dessert.

Peace and love.

Sunday, November 11, 2012

Bulging Wanderlust Blues

Somewhere earlier this past week, I met with a guy from the state who invited me to a job-counseling appointment. I gave him many different aspects of my personality and perspective. Pretty much anything I said, he remained with the same recommendation of employer: Meijer. Lest anyone lives where Meijer is as-yet unestablished, it's a supermarket chain based out of Grand Rapids. When I mentioned the idea to my mother later, she expressed a thought more or less the same as mine: I don't belong in a supermarket. I should have something more professional and appropriate for a bachelor of the arts. ("Meijer props dead people up behind the counter", she said.)

I've pretty much reached the conclusion that, if there's a future for me beyond sitting alone and jobless in front of this monitor, it isn't here. Geographically, I mean. These flatlands have nothing to offer me. There's nothing in jobs, and there's nobody that I really connect with on a spiritual level. I need to be in a completely new place. Or Chicago. The city I call "home" likely has good stuff.

I went out on "the town" tonight. I ate alone, and I sipped my cherry soda alone. (Side note: I've remarked in the past that I enjoy ordering a "cherry soda" and hearing the waitperson repeat it translated. This one rather stuttered through a couple varieties before finally asking "cherry Pepsi?".) Everybody in the uptempo downtown bar & grill was indistinct (but not uneasy on the eyes...) and gathered in impenetrable groups. I had neither invitation nor particular desire to mingle with anybody. I wandered through a few other downtown bars — the ones that had no cover charge — plentiful of people but not so much of openness or curiosity.

Eventually, I did find one old friend in one particular chair in one particular bar where he seems to take part-time residence. The old hippie who once taught my high school's CISCO networking class greeted me warmly and took me aside from his group for just a few minutes as we conversed. I explained my feelings of post-grad bitterness. He mentioned his imminent retirement after this final year of teaching, as well as the fact that he'd just come back from the Windy City where he saw Bob Dylan for the forty-seventh time. I laughed and applauded upon hearing that latter; my good man is still rocking as hard as ever. Anyway, he doesn't know where he'll go after his retirement, either. For either of our situations, "it'll be all right", he assured. About the last thing he said was, "My advice is, don't look back."

I stopped briefly in a couple other places before coming back to the house. I stopped there for the simple reason that they had people with guitars playing. They were certainly competent within reason, and they had tip jars. Given my current circumstances, I didn't tip anyone. But I did think about the possibilities of moving to a new city with new people — or at least old cyber-acquaintances that could be new real-life friends.

So, once again, I'm calling out to the great wide world of cybercitizens: Who doesn't live in the middle of the flatlands and is willing to have an angelic 26.5-year-old stay with them a while? If nothing else, I can grab musical gigs with my guitar while I seek something more, um, reliable. Hopefully, some people out there can make a serious offer. Preferably people without dogs, but I won't haggle too much.

Tuesday, November 6, 2012

One Last Round of Facebook Selections (and Why It's the Last)

Lest I still have any readers that don't come here by way of the social networks... Right around the two-year anniversary of my second Facebook account, I decided to wrap it up and find a new outlet for my witticisms. The overwhelming majority of my "friends" there weren't really friends at all. There were simply too many people who never talked to me or so much as gave me a "like", and with whom I didn't otherwise connect at all, even though I'd known most of them for a great many years. Perhaps they were just busy; perhaps they were humoring me by keeping me as a friend while "unsubscribing" from me. I can't tell. A great many of them were married and/or had (or having) kids. I don't much care about the kids, and all the marriages just served to remind me that I'm hopelessly alone in a place where people are bred to shun individualist guys with beards and deep voices. And it sure seems like once people are married, they have to break off all other social contacts, save for a few close friends.

So, I'm kind of bitter. I decided I needed to get away from all these people on whose walls I can only say "~<:-)" (my version of "happy birthday") when it's their birthday because I have nothing personal to say. Time to find a new outlet. And so I came up with...

Twitter.

Feeling bitter? Come to Twitter! Heh. *cough* I'm also transferring the few groovy people from that second 'Book account to my original account. Anyone who's an actual human is welcome to add me there. I'm also set up on Google+, but I very seldom check that desert.

Okay, so now that I've issued my usual cry for attention and appreciation (and no doubt repelled everyone), here's the last batch of my favorite of my own Facebook statuses, as well as the first few "choice chirps" — favorite tweets. Here's to many more.

****

I was always a bit self-absorbed growing up. It turns out a "graphic novel" is not just a regular novel with more detailed descriptions of gore.

Why do we call 'em "The Lower 48" when one of the other two is farther south?

Expressions we ought to have: Shit got had!

Tie-dye shirts are great. If they get "stained", no one knows. It just blends right in.

Toilet roll: A particular type of oddly-shaped bit of bread.

Sight of the night: A vehicle labeled "Luxury Transport" with the tailpipe dragging on the ground.

I've thought it over, and I've decided I'd rather be a pussy than a dick.

I never know quite what to say on or about Memorial Day. Words like "happy" and "celebrate" seem wrong. Best I can think of is, May peace (have) come to our military folks. And I hope that's right.

That's whatever-number-you-just-said more than I've done.

BAD ROAD! BAD!

....oh, sorry, am I not allowed to hit the road anymore?

If food be the music of love, cook on.

someoneelse's(•'e)cards

My family argues to the point where it corrodes your nerves. They're acidic Jews.

Caption in search of an illustration:

CROSSWORD PUZZLE

HAPPYWORD PUZZLE

Is a single piece of ravioli a raviolus? These things eat at me. And vice versa.

It was all right at first, but I gotta tell you, I've gone right off the idea of having a cup of shut the fuck up, or a bowl of bow to my superiority, or whatever container of whatever directive. Please, have a vat of leave me alone.

You are somewhere else.

In wanting to be free, it seems most people are quick to settle for being cheap.

Monkey-descendant see, monkey-descendant consider.

Don't talk with your mouth open. Don't eat with your mouth full.

I ain't out of the cornfields yet.

STREET VIEW VIRTUAL ROAD TRIP!

If you're really interested in privacy, why are you on Facebook in the first place?

I'm getting mighty fucking sick of all these "job openings" that require experience. Is it too much fucking trouble to actually teach someone the simple task of shuffling papers and answering the phone professionally? I know this status jolly well casts the latter in doubt, but I think I could at least try. But if so many of these jobs or would-be employers require experience, how the fuck does anybody get a job in the first place? I'm tired of this shit.

*pant* *pant*

Okay, I'll put my *pant*s back on.

An antimorphous face
not too far from red
concealing worlds and eras forgotten

He's dealt with the space-time anomaly very well
outrunning the ever-encroaching homesickness
but now a rare friend in Wonderland
escorts him to the tarmac
Takeoff is soon

The third tentacle didn't know what the seventh tentacle was doing.

Please.....make Flo the Progressive salescreature go away.

republicunt

democrap

While listening to Chuck Berry's Roll Over Beethoven, I suddenly realize where the phrase "rhythm & blues" comes from. It's standard twelve-bar blues set to a novel, prevalent rhythm. Freaky.

There's another component of the whole college football culture that turns me off: the marching band music. I just don't like it. It all sounds the same, and it doesn't do anything for me. Basically it serves to connote the whole "we rock, they suck" cultural mindframe.

I suppose it's not an accident that I spend most of my time alone, listening to weird stuff.

An idea in search of an illustration: a fat Steal Your Face logo, called Stuff Your Face

If it hasn't been already, I think we should go ahead and redefine "acronym" as any set of initials.

I find it rather interesting that Frankie Valli's whi-yi-yine was actually a smash-hit once upon a time and an oldies staple yet. It's just totally counter-intuitive.

What is this nonsense I've heard about "I'm just like everyone else; I put my pants on one leg at a time"? I don't know about anyone else, but you know what I do? I sit on the edge of the bed, hold the top of the pants open, lift my legs, and FOOMP! Both legs at once. Now, socks! THOSE I gotta put on one at a time!

The thing I was eating that I thought was ice cream instead turned out to be "frozen dairy dessert".

Here's something wonderfully stupid: natil gip. Take any word that ends in "ay", remove the "ay", and put the new last letter at the beginning. There's a wonderful w to l a bit of dto to waste.

Sorry, sharing is unavailable at this time. Please try again later.

—Google

Forever Unemployed meme:

FORGETS TO CHECK NEW "PROFESSIONAL" EMAIL ACCOUNT

DOESN'T MATTER

another Forever Unemployed meme:

GETS EMAIL WITH JOB OFFER

MUST BE A PHISHING SCAM

That "said no one ever" comment is really clever!

....guess what goes here.

You may have reached adulthood if you've taken up doing crosswords.

You also may have reached adulthood if you complain to yourself about the horrible clues and certain subjects the crosswords feature. Has it occurred to these people that some of us don't live in New York?!

Passing thought: Is it safe to get in the other lane and pull ahead?

Stream of consciousness
expand out to a river
and to the ocean

Peddle. There's a word that's all but disappeared. All we got now are vendors and salespeople. What happened to the peddlers? Bring back the peddlers!

Also, I sense that there was once a single word "launder" for "do laundry" or "wash clothes" that got hijacked by criminals over the years. I'm too lazy to do laundry; I'd rather launder.

I know Clapton didn't write Cocaine, but those first four notes sound eerily similar to those of his earlier Cream hit, Sunshine of Your Love.

I've never been near the Arctic Circle, but I hear it has a certain aurora to it.

Soup: A clever way to simultaneously quench hunger and thirst.

Apparently there exists out there somewhere a different kind of mouse — one not associated with a computer. It leaves "droppings".

Hot dogs and pickles. How phallic was your dinner?

The frequency with which physics manages to turn my clothes inside-out in the appliances is kind of astounding.

As a writer, I'm trying to learn the fine distinctions between pretty, beautiful, lovely, and gorgeous.

Driving backwards, I
only realize ever
increasing distance

Talking at cross-purposes: vehemently arguing.

I have to question the use of "for good" to mean "forever". In this soulless, corporate age, I rather doubt that these local shops are closing "for good".

I should totally adopt "Is that a euphemism?" as a catchphrase.

A lone ant on the
bathroom wall. Now that's an in-
dividualist

If you can't stand the bark, part ways with the dog.

You know what kind of pet I like? One whose mere access to their equivalent of the bathroom doesn't depend on me.

Open window behind closed blinds

My parents put the "err" in "errand".

With so many windows open, it's a wonder this thing doesn't freeze more often.

I don't even have this car.

All it takes is one small "oops".

Instead of tweeting, I think I'll chirp. Take that, establishment!

Monday, November 5, 2012

And Yet

Concurrently with
all the feminist talk, I
want me some pussy

Friday, November 2, 2012

I'm Cheshire Adams, and I Approve This Message

On the social networks — Facebook, the new Twitter account, and so on — I do not often blatantly promote my political opinions. I happily befriend people who promote theirs, most of them on the left, but I don't do it myself. I don't do it much in face-to-face, real-life conversation or beyond either. No lawn signs, very few vocal discussions/arguments, etc. I think part of the reason for this is that, well, (a) I don't get to interact with people in person much in the first place, but (b) I realize at my deepest instincts that no political expression of mine is likely to sway the opinion of anyone who encounters it. In cyberspace, chances are you're only friends with people who agree with you anyway. And anyone else that you're friends with is either hopelessly apathetic or not going to be your friend much longer. People got fixed mindsets; they believe what they want to believe. Y'know?

So, any political things I have to say go more or less exclusively here, on Lucy in Cyberspace. And, right here and now, I'm going to attempt to summarize my political beliefs. Bear with me, if you dare.

I want peace and civility. I want people to work together and help each other out without discrimination. In other words, I do not want an every-man-for-himself (and every-woman-for-himself, in the words of Mickey Rooney in It's a Mad Mad Mad Mad World) free-for-all without compassion. Of course, guess what we got? And, as I've pointed out on here a couple posts down, guess what clearly ain't going away anytime soon?

So it seems that my beliefs and desires most closely align with the political left. In this country, that translates as "democrat". And please don't bother me with "down with the two-party system!" talk; the fixed mindsets of the general public won't allow for the success of new alternatives. Like it or not, republicans and democrats are what we got. And, like it or not (I fall in the latter category), the whole damn thing is shifted toward the aggressive right. So, from my perspective, our only hope is to vote democratic and see that we, the people, can't gradually influence people to drift back left in time.

Lots and lots of time.

That's about all I had to say for now. I now return you to your pictures of pets with sub-literate captions.