Mn hpp rtrns

In Red Emma's, about to take a Marc train to D.C. Learning there is a always a revolution occurring, but most are merely invisible.

In other words: http://www.yomiuri.co.jp/dy/features/science/20080722TDY02306.htm

Lol

I'm a fox

Dr. Tourniquet(professor's headshot located here), was absorbed in very important gravitational science late on the morning of November 28, 2007. The professor was interested in whether or not a glass of water would tip over and spill if pawed at repeatedly. His hypothesis was that the laws of physics exist, so the glass would tip over. The scientific instincts his Ph.D. in Pawing and Fluffiness Science gave him yet again did not fail. The glass of water, half full and left on the kitchen table overnight, did eventually topple and spill its contents over the table and, due again to the effects of gravity as Dr. Tourniquet deduced, all over the kitchen floor. Dr. Tourniquet's lab assistant, "Grippy" White, was called in to take care of the mess, as the professor needed to publish his results on Slashdot immediately and respond to any subsequent flames his work received. Dr. Tourniquet will continue his important research in other science and social fields. Cat Tech Press will soon be publishing Dr. Tourniquet's "Fire: Does it burn stuff?" and "The Usefulness of Abstinence-only Education in Public Schools." Reviews of these works are, as always, expected to include generous petting and cooing.

ps. Who signed me up for the L.L. Bean Catalog? I didn't order it, but it came addressed to me at my Santa Fe address, which I think maybe three or four people know.

Part two: Permanent time

When the cats got out a few weeks ago, Greg wasn't worried at all. He calmly stated that the "cats always come back." He was right, the escape was temporary. But I stirred that postulate about cats around in my mind like it was a pasta-late.* I let it cook for a few seconds. Greg's sententiousness ended up sounding like poetry. This happens when I start reading poetry again. I've been going back to the Romantics lately, mixed in with a few old issues of Poetry Magazine. Not to mention it's a significant time in my life right now, so I pay more attention to off-hand statements that can be twisted into something moving. The game's changed, son, as some of my coworkers have told me recently. That's a pretty good statement itself, even if it's clichéd. It packs three ideas into four words. One, that life is a game; two, that said game has changed in some way; and three, that I am your son. It's not the only cliché I overheard at [THE CAT FACTORY] (more on the factory later). One of my overnight coworkers uncapped some canned wisdom that I thought people only said in movies and bumperstickers: "Life's too short to be angry, you know. You just need to have fun with life." I didn't balk. turn my nose up, or squint my eyes and stare down my nose when I heard this. At 12:30am on a Wednesday night, two hours into a night shift, and thinking about all that has happened over the past year, it made sense. It felt nearly poetic: the right words at the right time. I don't totally agree with the optimist's equation of life=fun+good. I still have my east coast cynicism out here in burritoland. But it's nice to keep in mind occasionally. Like when I'm having fun hiking at Tent Rocks, I can say, Oh look, I've discovered life! which is what you can do with dead stones in Go. I've started playing Go with Greg's as my sensei. Learning to play Go well is one of the most challenging things I've done, and I am not done at it. But more on that later. There's a great poetic phrase that captures a prime Go strategy. It also sounds totally awesome. A few games into my training I made some n00b moves, trapping some of my stones. I thought they were done for, going to be captured and taken to Go Gitmo, but Greg told me to "Make life from these dead stones." Seriously he said this, and I laughed. It's a real phrase used in Go books, and it's perfect, I'd say: poignant and charmingly metaphorical. So I've started using it. It's poetry to be used everyday.

There's more poetry. I told a friend about something that had happened to me a while ago and they said their "heart would have broken into a million pieces" if it had happened to them. I felt a little taken back when I visualized that while thinking about what had happened to me. It's not a startling phrase by itself, but at the moment it was said, it felt unusual, like poetry. I had another friend tell me some very important things that I won't repeat here, but it was great to hear that person say it, and it felt like poetry too. Poetry that isn't written down, doesn't last long, and maybe you forget it, but at that moment you hear it, or see it, experience it, whatever sense it comes to you by, it changes you a little.

I used to think of poetry as a permanent thing. It would last for the ages and transcend time. I wanted that permanence myself. Lately though, I've been thinking a spontaneous overflow of powerful emotions isn't always permanent. I think i always knew this too. I went through some old writing of mine and I found something similar in one of my many scribbled manifestos. I'm writing a new one now. One of the tenets is to stop desiring something permanent and enjoy the passing for now, and if something less temporary comes along, like a career, a great city I want to live in for the rest of my life, or, gosh gee even a girlfriend, take it up when that pizza comes to your door. But I'm not seeking anything lasting right now, except some sense of personal growth. This is fallout from my European travels, where nothing was assured. Experiences were had as they came. Those phrases I wrote above, they don't mean so much to me now as they did when I first heard them. But I took them to be something grand when I first heard them, and it felt great to do so. It doesn't really matter if those cats don't come back.

*Good one bro!

PS: i'm going to be updating again this week,! I have a backlog of posts, mostly better written and clearer then this one! But did you see that pasta-late joke? Classico! You can have it if you want. Bust it out at Italian math parties, right after you make a Fibbonachi sequence sex joke. All the mathematicians will love you and feed you extra cannoli, I guarantee it. And Shazam! there are now cats in my room, and one is playing imaginary whack-a-mole with his paws and the other thinks my bed is a fierce enemy. Well, the cat's right, the bed has been attacking my back relentlessly for weeks now. But this is my war, cat, so step down.

Part one: Pocket time

I've taken to keeping dice in my pocket.
Not yet, actually: I've taken to thinking about keeping dice in my pocket. I've stopped keeping my hands in them, except on those cold days I make the fatal decision to forget my gloves, so now I can fit other things in besides my hands. So I don't have this pair of dice yet, but I'm going to get some from someplace sometime before I head off to the great somewhere out west. I forget where and when I had the idea. It was probably when I had a hot head and went off driving somewhere toward the mountains. I remember one reason for carrying dice: you can always play a game with someone, or if you're alone, entertain yourself with a friendly guessing game. And you can make bets against yourself if you're really clever.
I think what got me thinking about carrying dice is that they are permanently optimistic. If you roll a die, you are mathematically certain to have a 100% chance of not getting a zero. This is with your typical six-sided die, of course, if you have nerd dice it is a different story, probably one with dragons and hot dark elves. That's fine, I like all kinds of dice, but never getting a zero is a friendly idea. No matter what you roll, even if it's not the number you wanted, you still have something, numerically speaking. Sure, you might lose all your money and maybe your toes if you're in deep trouble, but if you're in an alley trying to roll an 8 and you get a 4, you can always console yourself by thinking "At least I didn't lose my child's college fund by rolling a nothing at all! I have a four! That's a nice number! Maybe I'll call it my lucky number!" And your life would change slightly for the better: now you have a lucky number! Think of all the things you can do with a lucky number! Silver lining, guys. Only chumps and snotty mathematicians would call zero their favorite number. You have big-nose four, and no money. You better fucking hold onto that number.
I'd say dice are nice. Knowing no matter what you'll never end up with nothing is incredibly positive. Maybe not to Zen Buddhists, but for people like me who like things, it's nice to always know you have a positive integer on your side. I'm rolling dice right now, dice as big as a Chevy S-10 going across the cornopolis of the midwest. I'm moving to Santa Fe, and I don't know what I'm going to get, but I know it's not going to be a zero.
--------

I wrote this a few weeks ago. Now I'm in Santa Fe, with no dice, but I do have two axolotls, two cats, a farfisa organ, two friends, a couple of mountains, and no job yet. I don't have sweet zero out here, and I still have plenty in Maryland. And tonight, we eat pizza. It's pizza night at the yet-to-be-named house of Anne and Greg and Scott. We're starting traditions already.

A poem

In German,
laundromats are called
Wascherei
and they are
hard to find
in Berlin.

It's almost
as hard
to find a
Wascherei
as it is
to find
a reason that
anything should be anywhere
in particular,
while it's not
as hard
to find smelly clothes
in my backpack.

Five Hours in Berlin

And I've already seen a poster advertising a Depeche Mode Party. I took a photograph. I had a sleepless night on two airplanes, and a five hour layover in the Madrid Airport, which is the worst major airport in the world. It feels like an elementary school that was built in 1956, but then someone decided to put people conveyer belts in maybe in February of 1986. The tiles on the floor are an ugly fake mica, and most are cracked. The entire place is dusty and dark. As far as hubs of mass transportation in Spain go, however, it's average. The Barcelona train station was just as bad. I barely recall the Madrid train station. But I'm in Berlin now, running on adrenaline and coffee, staying in the Green Eggs and Ham Hostel, right off Torsstrasse on Novalisstrasse. Tomorrow, I am apparently cat sitting, as Eric has a friend that needs a cat sitter for a convenient few days.

So my European journey begins again. I felt vigorous when I stepped out of the Berlin-Schoenfield Airport. In the sky were clouds. I hadn't seen clouds in eleven days. The air was refreshingly cold. All the prices for sandwiches were in Euros. There were sandwiches readily available. Berlin has almost too many sandwiches. I need to go eat some right now.