retired family car

calico ghost drill

the real miracle of the silver mine was that the men who sacrificed their lives returned to work there even after they passed...they had to make some special equipment so that these men could pretend that they were still working on the mine, but no one actually thinks that the ghosts worked in the mines.

calico ghost house

this is built out of a special clay to help keep the ghosts from drifting up through the ceiling or out through the walls while sleeping. this involved extensive lab work, which took even longer because the ghosts were so young and new to their ability to fly through walls and kept getting unruly and flying through walls, and its not as though the scientists could just run through the wall to catch them.

calico ghost town

ummm...if it was rebuilt in the 50s to look like the original town does it still count as a ghost town?

denver international airport. empty because we were the last flight to leave during the 2nd or 5th round of blizzards. i cussed a lot while we waited 4 hours on the runway.

my mom has a bike

this is a bike hanging in a window with a house in the reflection of said window. sorry about your neck if applicable.

talents

i believe that we are all gifted. but i don't think anyone is as gifted as i am when it comes to simultaneously flying a plane inside and taking a photo of myself in the plane from down by the tram.

rapidaging

breaking the dam

thank you (you know who you are) for taking a sledgehammer to my brain today, and knocking me loose. it is nice to just be awake and sober. self-referencing text can be ok as long as it is not just a forum to apologize for possible weaknesses or shortcomings...it is ok for the author to acknowledge that he is aware that he is writing and that someone is reading what he is writing. some environmental ideas for people who don't want to be full-fledged dirty hippies...1)don't idle your car, and 2) don't get a plastic bag big enough for bread, 32 oz. Champagne of Beers and hot dogs (and hot dog buns) IF you only have a pack of gum.

in doing this, 1) can be thought of as entry-level, still normal environmentally conscious guy, and then 2) can be thought of as intermediate-level, still normal environmentally conscious guy because it involves a bit more proactivity to tell the clerk that a bag will not be needed.

if i had to guess, i would say i have saved 8 minutes of unnecessary idle time in my car, and about 63 plastic bags (probably only about 14 paper bags).

but there is something really thrilling about painting your house and then just dumping the extra paint down the storm drain!!! leaded gasoline is for champs not chumps! and yes i wrote and write most everything in the masculine form because him/her takes longer. and meat isn't murder, because animals aren't technically alive (source - encyclopedia brittanica salesman).

the preceding has been a flawless example of multilateralism. compromise and prejudice. democracy. for the people. yes!

mauve

http://www.mauveonline.com/

running lapse around brainse

reverting to some old ways, some comfortable ways that worked for me...the drift again. but its not all bad, its just that i am mortal this time, so there is more to pray for, and more to try to forget. but "the sun's somewhere above that dust" and i sense something always in the works...perhaps this waiting in expectation is all that we really need in order to occupy ourselves long enough to feel like we are doing something during the day which merits relaxation at night.

waking up asking God to let me live through my imagined or real illness, then keys, frozen pizza, microwaved pizza, tea, green tea extract, keys, people, talking, conjugated lineolic acid, and there...

something has to be done, and only i can slice through the rigid track that my wheels have grooved...just remember not to be complacent.

pay credit card, HOA, auto-deduct life insurance, hand a ten to mary sullivan...ok good.

i have done a work that is good and pleasing. what? talk to her? she has pissed herself. she is 83 and drinking at the bus stop. she offers me some. i don't try to convert her. i just try to care about her for long enough to feel good enough about myself to go back to doing what i want. this timeframe, i establish it at 23 minutes. lucky for her, she shares a name, first and last, with my grandmother, or i most likely, honestly, would do a better job ignoring her.

this is what it looks like when you don't dress it up, when the familiar patterns of the brain are not concealed...it is then that i can confess and be healed.

arty crooks website

new website at http://www.artycrooks.com

the new fog

it was the first time in my life (this morning) that i was able to so clearly see just how foggy everything has become...this constant buzzing...the waiting...the drift. only through a precise recipe of low-fat, high-protein, bottom-shelf liquids, and roll-your-owns could a man be yoyoed from the heights of contentment and back through the crust of the earth into a hell of his own making, even if it was only for fifteen minutes. something must give way in the next twenty-four hours..."why the repression tom?" "don't be bitter, be better julie" "girls don't like to see boys cry gabriel" "i own this company what the hell have you ever done?" i have mentioned before that one must only be semi-honest in order to sufficiently diagnose at least one corner of the human race...we are all indicted by almost any statement of "fact" about how people are, because we (which includes i) have a disgusting capacity to do things, whether real or imagined, that would absolutely destroy our parents. let alone ourselves. which is why, despite our great and grand collective intellect, i find myself, once again, at the foot of the cross, admitting to Christ that i simply cannot possibly create an extravagant enough device full of lust, money and chemically-induced joy without those blasted earthly consequences. "what's the word of the day jack?" "its broken" "the word of the day machine is broken?" "no...the word of the day IS 'broken'"

"what does broken mean?" "well, since not all of us are bilingual (english and evangelispeak), broken is actually one of those profound and seemingly backward aspects of Christianity"...it is when the technical chart of your life is due for a positive stochastic crossover (thats for you joroshinn). it is where a man or woman, despite what the inner circle says, comes to a deep, hollow place where the need for a loving God comes to be listened to rather than ignored.

"opiate of the masses" they cry..."pathetic...figment of your imagination" they announce, with arms folded, snickers in their teeth...cigarette in hand...

"you mean like your 'need' for that cigarette?" i slip into pride, and my vision of Christ is lost. i forget that i smoked somewhere around 32 cigarettes at once, was attacked by a goat and pissed all over myself, bleeding to death in an alley with needles in my skull, surrounded by imaginary creatures...i never even thought it was that bad. wait...it was more like the security feed in the parking garage in fight club, throwing myself into 360 degree convulsions...and all of these analogous relationships to any activity in which any of us unwittingly sabotage our own potential contentment.

but the beauty of it is this (or so the so-called "story" goes, if the loyal army of atheists is right) - either way, the illusions we choose are real in their consequences, and if we happen to pick one that objectively is more than an illusion, then good for us all the more, as we can only simply hope that a good story could possibly be true)...nothing about asking for a clean slate with God requires our perfection moving forward, and we could not possibly be made whole without a measure of grace that seems so completely irrational, that we would call God wrong in our infinite human wisdom. i am too aware of the hourglass to presume any such thing...at least in my head if not in my actions.

swift is fast

and somewhere out there, an imposter refers to himself as swift like fast. but swift moves somewhat slowly. but inside, he really moves quickly, and also when he runs and swims. it is when he speaks that he is slow, for he who is slow to speak is full of wisdom. he also has a good wife and acreage to explore...a trusty dog and knowledge of designing roads. a good man indeed.

believing people who tell the truth

at some point, i decided to learn that risking trust promotes an environment in which fewer things happen that make it hard to trust...but at the same time, i am still aware that there are actually con men out there...

prissy ass positivism gives nice a negative connotation

why call optimism by the name of its nemesis (agent orange) when we can examine it in all its naive splendor, and pretend it to be true, and see what happens next? might as well take a bullet with a smile, and wash it down with a white lie painkiller. but then, lie enough to yourself, and things might actually get better, thus proving your pretense to be true!

preponderating is not really before pondering

it is more like after, alphabetically, but not in the sentence above, and it isn't absent from present-day hysterics, but rather present without punctuality.

briefing up in order to debrief it down

in this case, debrief meaning throw, and briefing up meaning slow and short.

blogs aren't really websites in some senses

just like there are regions of countries that people think are countries themselves. like texas. this also applies to certain jobs out there. and fruit.

inside a black pearl shop, you can see an illustrated picture of yourself from hundreds of feet above... 

we had to hold on to the pole at the top because in the south pacific you can easily end up falling off of the globe 

disney even has its hand in church design, as well as the tipping plate, jar, bag or bucket. but give anyways because disney only takes 20% of it, which is less than uncle sam would take 

the road to the center of the earth (really) 

this is where the eels swim in moorea...well maybe not THE place 

Hudson Hotel by Nicole, Accommodations Courtesy of Bubblicious

not inconsistent just occassional

have you ever seen kiteboarders? i wanted to make fun of the guy with the bunny teeth until he did a 900 calfgrabwindtuckfunnelflip. it is so much easier to communicate myself when i stop pretending that i am writing for myself...just reminding ourselves not to take the situation with the stamp price increase too seriously is one way that we can win each and every day. i don't know if there is anything that i would get permanently tattooed on my neck. mostly because there is a knob that i am afraid turns out the lights...i can feel it right now. i let wade know just now, but i have really learned that it is important to eat a good breakfast. there is nothing as magnificent as watching a poodle playing with a Christmas squeak toy midway through January. He has no idea that Christmas is over. That is a testament to his supreme intelligence.

the sacred watering hole 

riding bikes 

a gift 

pretending to be in deep thought while keenly aware of the photograph being taken. 

i thought that i could never get sick of swimming in chocolate milk, but after drinking 3 gallons of it, i just wanted to huddle in the corner of the shower and cry. 

the child of ruthless abandon, able to leave his home without thinking about manila folders 

miniature albino dragons are one of the leading causes of blindness on moorea 

" 'I saw the Lord always before me.
Because he is at my right hand,
I will not be shaken.
26Therefore my heart is glad and my tongue rejoices;
my body also will live in hope,
27because you will not abandon me to the grave,
nor will you let your Holy One see decay.
28You have made known to me the paths of life;
you will fill me with joy in your presence.'[e]
 

the great thing about taking a metafiction class once upon a time is that it has allowed me to feel very clever whenever i pull a where's waldo photo with me in it. 

how perilously close he was to landing head-first on the floor.  

i love my wife, not in spite of the popsicle growing out of her head, but partly because of the popsicle growing out of her head. 

yet another case of corona does its work on a group of 3 people...did they kill the demons the night before next to this bridge? i think mercy is appropriate for those of us who have been bound up so tightly by our self-medication. all we have to do is simply ask. 

wickedly beautiful carnivores in need of a good hosing down

we
we are
we are towering and splendid with semi-shiny white teeth
some of us whiter than others
discrete with our racism
referring to that inconvenient demographic
all of us with the same subtle tone
that tinge when i know that i agree with them
that for some reason it seems like if the news is true
then it really is mostly "people of color" who kill each other.
it must have something to do with that statistic about more murders occuring in the summer, like generations of sunlit skin has mutated the brain...
but to say nothing of my responsibility in this vicious cycle as i pretend to care about third world countries by giving back pats to my humanitarian friends and storing up points in heaven each time a friend risks life and limb in kenya...
i quietly accumulate, and pretend that i don't hate the impoverished for all of the nuisances that they throw my way by walking across the street as i am on my way to a restaurant, and they give me that old feeling of compassion, which is quickly replaced with annoyance, guilt, obligation, and finally a resistance to anything that i feel forced to do, like giving that man my shoes...
this is my indictment of myself, and i know from the time i was brainwashed, two years ago this weekend, that i can hit ctrlaltdel and reset, deconstruct that i might be rebuilt, or that i may be recreated for the joy of the living God...
i may actually start remembering those sweet little words...
i might actually remember that all of us men and women eat, piss, love, fear, get sick and die, and i might think again about how that mexican man waiting in the shade to be picked up and paid cash for an honest day's work loves his family, or perhaps he doesn't, but that i am him, and i am the saudi who is terrified that he is going to be lynched by a redneck caravan.
i am the african man crying in his car thinking his future has disintegrated and i am the african man who has conquered and loved. i have also been conquered by some of the slickest carniwhores as i watched them eat my soul and took pleasure in it, only to cry out to God once more, i am broken and asking you to renew me, and i have a budding hope that i have once more, for the 16,789th time, been reborn as a forgiven and cleansed man because i still believe, and i still am worthy to receive my Christ into my temple.