Check out this saguaro doing yoga.
(photo by Keir)

Take a Vista at your stupid innards, Windows.

Operating systems are such a mess, especially ones which have been cobbled together without any forethought like Windows. In constructing an operating system from scratch, one needs to invent and adhere to certain logical conventions. Of course, there is a line between some abstract academic perfection and a usable, user-friendly piece of software, but Windows has neither. To make Windows an efficient, extensible, flexible, and robust system, the design team would have to solve the following.

The resolution mess (bitmaps/vectors, monitor size and aspect ratio)
The install/uninstall mess (make it consistent and clean)
The registry mess (why is there a registry and then still hidden local values)
The icon mess (this isn't 1988 anymore, go to an Apple Store and peep game)
The font mess (why isn't management a lot easier? why is this so mysterious?)
The filetype mess (see the previous comment)
The control panel mess (make it consistent and logical)
The ease of use/functionality mess (kill help balloons, for one)
The modularity mess (how many things should each app or service do?)
The file organization mess (why is My Documents buried so deep?)
The desktop metaphor mess (why is the Desktop inside itself?)
The local vs network mess (not enough room to talk about here)
The compression mess (ZIP, RAR, ACE, JPG, GIF, PNG, CAB...)
The storage mess (flash drives, hard drives, internet drives, sex drives)
The hardware mess (plug and play is broken)
The UI mess (make it consistent and not dumbed down, please)
The WINDOWS folder itself (just take a peek inside it)

And on and on and on. These are just things the end user battles with. What about DLLs, the GDI model, DirectX and other APIs, system "hooks," security, customization, services, codecs, DRM, legacy support code bloat, monopolistic app integration, nondisclosure of privacy issues, fragile shortcuts, Steve Ballmer, command line parameters, Winsock, UPnP, hard locks, no WinFS, bootstrapping via BIOS, activation, proprietary Java and C, .NET Framework........

I'm not saying designing a modern OS is an easy thing, especially when you're not in control of other aspects of the machine, and have to ensure interoperability with such. I'm just saying someone could do a lot, lot better than Microsoft has. Oh wait a minute, someone has. Everyone else. Why has this heap of steaming excrement dominated them all then? Oh wait a minute, they're ruthless and unethical. Well, there goes my faith in the world.

HAPPY BIRTHDAY, SUSANNAH.

I would like to wish a wonderful 17th birthday to my daughter Susannah. Sue, I had all your gifts ready in time and hope you will get them today on your birthday. It's been difficult for me to find cooperation in getting things to you.

I love you so much and that will never change. It's like the mountains and the oceans and the planets. They aren't going anywhere, and neither am I nor my love for you. The world can be tough, and I wish I could protect you from it all. But, Happy Birthday will have to do.





















I love you.

It's hard to know what to think these days, even from minute to minute inside a given day. I have so many mixed emotions. I want to forgive people, come together again. I want to destroy people, make them pay for their arrogance and outright cruelty. I want to ask for forgiveness, unsure that how I've lived has been right.

I vacillate between all these states, feeling persecuted, apathetic, compassionate, angry, and regretful. I don't know whether I'm an angel of heaven or hell. Probably I'm just an ordinary person, but maybe one who experiences emotions with an extraordinary sensitivity, and has been cursed with the power of self-analysis.

I wish I was a giant saguaro with nothing much to say, and nothing to fear. I wish I was a stone in the middle of Joshua Tree National Forest, or a flake of snow falling with only moments to have to be brave. The middle child - seed of malcontent; too aware, too long for this short time.

"A vacuum is a hell of a lot better than some of the stuff nature replaces it with"
-Tennessee Williams

I'm coming at this whole business game from the opposite side. I don't really know this for sure, but I suspect the majority of people we consider "successful" in society - whether monetarily or in terms of their achievements (NOT fame, which is a fickle an unpredictable phenomenon) - got that way by doing well in school, proceeding along through university or as a junior member of some business, and had an intuitive knack for taking the right path and the inbuilt or instilled discipline to stay their course. Not that they were mindless machines with only a single interest, but they lived life in such a way that positioned them for success. They kept fairly regular sleeping hours, eating habits, hygiene rituals; they organized the spaces around them and in their mind well enough to keep track of important things (important as relating to their goals), they socialized normally, and so on. They probably didn't freebase a lot of crack, sleep all day and miss work or appointments, let trash pile up around them, sink into debt. They probably also didn't wander the world in search of meaning, or paint themselves into a philosophical corner by delving into life's underlying purpose, debunking all religions, finding flaws in every form of logic or science man has constructed, or read much existentialist literature or write confessional poetry. I'm also guessing they probably didn't listen to the Swans. So at some point an opportunity presented itself, and they were healthy enough physically and mentally and structured enough in their lifestyle to be positioned to seize it. One thing followed the next, and soon our young entrepreneur or author or researcher (or even athlete, if they were blessed with superior genes) has the ball rolling and picks up confidence, contacts, and clarity of purpose and blossoms into their successful old selves. That must be nice.

I feel like I'm approaching a successful end to my life - if there is to be one, and that is by no means certain - the other way, by exhausting all the dead ends and avoiding all the cliffs and bottomless pits and McDonald's combo meals and finally realizing that, while you don't have to sell your soul to the devil, and without sounding like Tony Robbins, you can find success at something, get your body healthy, get your mind right (pleasingly content rather than actively joyous, probably), and live the days you have on earth not endlessly miserable, but proud of your accomplishments, humble enough to put them in the context of the immensely diverse world and not become a snob about them or stop doing what it took to get you there, and occasionally feed your neighbor's pets when they go snowboarding in Tahoe - free of charge. You don't have to be a narrowminded sheep who may or may not have a midlife crisis when suddenly exposed to the absurdity of the universe. You can delve into all that heady, enticing, terrifying stuff first and get it out of the way, forming a personal philosophy no one else can give you that leads you back around to a conventional lifestyle, but one free of excess underlying feelings that "something is wrong; I just bought a new Escalade and beat Sanjay at golf by three strokes and I'm keeping the wife supplied with "surprise" roses and jewelry, and the kids have all three new consoles, but I just don't feel HAPPY. Is this all there is to life?) That is not something everyone goes through (many don't), but enough do that they lose their friends and the support of much of their family and begin to see therapists and psychiatrists about their woes. Best case: they get help and get back to not thinking about stuff that's out of bounds. Worst case: they have to learn to deal with REAL life from scratch, and many aren't up to the challenge at this advanced stage and resort to prescription pills and heavy drinking, their lives fall apart, and something unpleasant happens to them in the latter stages of their lives.

By solving my demons first I feel like, if I do get off that fence and get involved in the world, if I decide to do things that make me happy right then (Buddhist and Cognitive-Behavioral advice), and pay attention to simple things everyday instead of planning for a future that never arrives, I may actually succeed more profoundly than those who did so by default. I will have gained some measure of wisdom, the value of life, money, friends, family, health, responsibility. And I will keep my job or pursuit in perspective, no matter how vigorously I work at it; I will always enclose it in a box and build in time around it for balancing actions. I think ultimately this is the best way to go, but I say that with a huge caveat: I'm still living this life, so I've no true perspective, and I'm not at the moment successful by any means and even though I may be turning the corner, I've thought so before and it's not been the case. So I don't want to come across like Yoda on the subject of life strategy, I just want to convey some thoughts that bubbled up in my brain as I began to imagine myself back in the working world again. Maybe it doesn't have to be so horrible. Maybe you just need to get out of the river's main flow and hang out in an eddy for awhile, and take stock, and then jump back in with a purpose and with safeguards in place. Maybe some of us need to learn to suffer before we can learn to succeed? Or maybe suffering is the point itself. Pretty messed up if that were the case though.

a syllogism.

ONE
Everyone tells you to be yourself, remain true to who you are, don't be fake, don't act different to try to fit in.

TWO
I follow this sage advice and begin to be more assertive, more independent, less afraid to state my opinion or show my personality.

THREE
I gradually lose all my friends and alienate nearly my entire family.

ergo,

FOUR
4. The true me is a wretched creature indeed.

Ah, the Santa Rosa police have struck again. Yes, the police department rated the second-most needlessly violent in the State of California, just below the Fresno PD (yes, that means worse than the LAPD, Stockton, Oakland, Vallejo, Compton, Long Beach, Inglewood... you get the picture), have shot and killed a boy who had a dull pocketknife (swiss army style). TWO experienced police officers were confronting a 16 year old boy who was in an argument with his younger brother and eventually threatened him with the knife. You'd think these two officers could rush-and-cover, use a taser, talk the threat down, use pepper spray, or at the very most shoot him in the leg if they actually were convinced he was going to get this dull pocketknife into his brother somehow and actually instantly kill him with it, in front of onlookers, instead of talking tough and then backing down, as is always always the case involving testosterone-filled adolescent boys. But no, they shot with deadly force and destroyed a human life needlessly, in an act of "prevention" completely out of line with the threat. I've no doubt this kid was a punk (although it says he was a straight-A student), but that doesn't matter. It's the police force's duty to protect its citizens, not kill them when they have Swiss Army knives and make scared threats when backed into a corner.

We've descended a long ways since the heady days of the 60s. Then you had race riots and (mostly) peaceful war demonstrations, but the average apolitical white person (hah) had nothing to worry about from their neighborhood cop, who they might even know by name. Since Reagan's War On Drugs created an entirely new criminal class, the USA is starting to resemble the dystopic nation of The Wall. Morrissey was 100% right when he said Americans think of themselves as free because we are constantly told so by the press and our politicians, when in reality we live in one of the most fascist, law-obsessed countries in the Western World (note he did not say the third world, where there are many countries with worse human rights situations). He should know, he lived here eight years and has said while he loves the country for many reasons, the oppressive regime and the overzealous religious idiots who vote them and their policies into power has worn him out. Europeans think we are a backward, barbaric culture in the mold of a declining Rome. While cops here are hustling around busting kids for having pot, there is real organized crime and gang activity going on domestically and internationally feeding those end users and paying off the pawns set against them. But that rarely receives headlines.

Police forces are notoriously brutal and corrupt, because they have power. Or maybe they're overworked, or they've been ordered to come down hard to teach us all a good lesson, or maybe it's something bad in the Krispy Kremes. But Bush's global policy of justifying preemptory strikes (acts of war, to call them what they are) on where we think an attack might soon emanate (judgments which are made by the same intelligence agencies who told the President with a straight face there were WMDs in Iraq and which failed miserably to predict 911 or any scenario like it even though Al-Qaeda had planned it for years and had even practiced their logistics by bombing the World Trade Center earlier, then a US embassy and then the USS Cole), seems to have filtered down to its internal law enforcement agencies, where a cop will shoot when he sees someone reach into their pocket, because it "might" be a gun, or an ICBM, or will pop your arm out of its socket making a behind-the-back cuffing no matter how trivial the alleged crime. They take no chances and they take no crap these days. I have first hand experience, I regret to say. I was senselessly abused by a cop who either got off on that kind of power or else righteously thought I was some kind of wife-beater, even though I'm supposed to be presumed innocent and this idiot had no idea what even happened that night. Sure seemed to enjoy kicking and pushing me around though, since it was just he and I and no witnesses, and no one believes a suspect over a cop. But it's ok, I insulted him verbally in so many creative ways that he's probably using my lines now on other people. My legacy is no doubt assured.

I'm not a nice person, but I play one in real life. That's why, for instance, I'm polite, patient, and understanding when talking to people in their presence, making sure to listen well and make plenty of eye contact. Then I go home and blog about how people are such idiots.

For example, people don't know how to drive, generally. For every good driver, all the other ones are bad. I can only remember a couple days in the last month when I found a parking spot at my apartment that was actually completely clear of vehicles or vehicular parts. Some bad seed parks crooked or a foot over the dividing line, and every other lemming does the same thing as you go down the row, so that when you find an "empty" spot, it's not really empty at all but has one or more cars encroaching into its territory. Then you have to decide: Do I want to be a nice guy and park esp close to the guy to my left, since he likely won't be going in through the passenger door and that way I can reset the feng shui of the parking lot starting from that point, or do I want to be an ass and park to the far right of my space, maybe a little over the line, so I can climb out of my side comfortably and screw the poor bastard who comes along next - he'll have to make the same decision I just did.

I won't tell you what I nearly always do.

Sugar-free, caffeine-free, zero calorie colas. Why?

Sade

"Mum"
(Sade Adu)

these eyes, they are the witnesses
they need no other reasons to cry
and now that they are a river
they will never run dry
they cut you down
now night is endless
and i wait for morning to come
lying there helpless
you saw me lose you mum
and you were the strongest tree
falling
watching me
the cold eyes of hatred showing you no mercy
so in this darkness the place i dwell
in it is the darkest well
and as my arms begin to mend
they only wish
to hold you again.

"I'm Not Sorry"
(morrissey)

On returning
I can't believe this world is still turning.
The pressure's on
Because the pleasure hasn't gone.

And I'm not sorry
For the things I've done,
And I'm not looking for
Just anyone.

On competing
Oh, when will this tired heart stop beating?
It's all a game
Existence is only a game.

And I'm not sorry
For the things I've done,
And I'm not looking for
Just anyone.

I'm
Slipping below the water line.
I'm
Slipping below the water line.

Reach for my hand,
And the race is won.
Reject my hand,
And the damage is done.

I'm
Slipping below the water line.
I'm
Slipping below the water line.

The woman of my dreams,
She never came along.
The woman of my dreams, well...
There never was one.

And I'm not sorry
For the things I've said,
There's a wild man in my head
There's a wilde man in my head.

Random comments.

The movie 300 is badass. Sure it's got some flaws, and the ending could have been better (not that it was bad), but it still kicks all kinds of ass. If you liked Brotherhood of the Wolf and The Thirteenth Warrior, you'll love it. I'm gonna buy that sucker when it comes out (which means I'll download a good quality copy of it). The movie The Host is unique and not easy to categorize, which I like. It's a thrilling creature feature which is at times scary, silly, ironic, wise, suspenseful, and poignant. Crazy ass Koreans. Still want to see Miss Potter, The Painted Veil, Little Children, and maybe a few others. Some (Zodiac, 23) look pretty iffy. Oh yeah, don't see Bridge to Terabithia, it's too sad. I think I said that before though.

The new Evanescence album (not so new anymore) is actually pretty good. Not as catchy as their first, and not as much diversity in the sound (rocker-ballad-rocker, etc), but it's more subtle. Her writing is much better. Ben Moody's musical imagination and guitar playing is missed, but she goes in a bit of a different direction which makes up for it pretty well. They remind me of that Finnish band Nightwish now a bit. Hopefully her next album she does away with all of the buttrock guitar backing and finds a more unique sound, like some of the too-brief tapestries of piano, chimes, choral loops, and whatnot she puts together here and there on this one.

Choirs, chants, chimes, organs... that sort of "unholy church" feeling that is pretty cool and not many bands do anything like that anymore. Enigma wasn't exactly like that either, but the "Gregorian monk chanting to a beat" idea has sort of left the scene and I think someone could have picked it up and done more with it. Then again, I like pitch-dark music, or a contrast of dark and euphoric. Anyways, the best songs on this Evanescence album just have strings and piano, or a weird tempo or something unique. The obvious attempts at in-your-face singles come out sounding generic. Worth downloading or buying for $10 if you liked the first album. This one's a little more grown up than the first but maybe not as iconic. Grown on me though - at first I thought it was completely pants.

New Air album is good, only one listen all the way through so far so I won't say much except... it's Air. You should know what to expect. Also, the new Arcade Fire album sounds really good too. Again, only one listen so far, and I didn't really hear any showstoppers like a couple on the first album, but I was playing Bookworm Adventures and had it on instead of the game music. It constantly sounded good, never annoying. I know that's not much of a review, but until I listen more I can't really say anything other than it's definitely not bad. Same overall sound as their debut, I'd say.

Lastly, the Lakers suuuck. They need to get KG or J-Kidd or Chris Bosch in the offseason if they're going to contend. If they were healthy right now they'd be one of the better teams instead of the doormat they've been lately, but they still wouldn't beat Dallas in a playoff series. Then again, probably nobody since the MJ Bulls could beat Dallas right now. They have absolutely no flaws. I'm sure it won't happen, but they could well sweep through the playoffs. They're really, really good and everyone else except Phoenix are playing like college teams right now. Where's the talent development in the NBA gone? Lots of young dunksters coming out of college with mad upside, but few seem to improve once they get to the show. Games are sloppy, everyone's shooting 3's or fronting their man hollering for a chance to put someone on a poster. Coaching is at a premium too. Why do you constantly see teams that have to foul at the end of the game run off 10 seconds before they do it?

Just got an idea for a commercial... "Come out and see the new NBA: A backdoor lob dunk every third time down the court! A behind-the-back pass every fifth time! More turnovers than assists! It's FANtastic!"

Ok, I'm done.

Bird dog.

She sat on a rock for comfort
Her dog pawing me for attention
My mind was high in the azure sky
But it was night
And there were hours to go
Business and love to sort out
Before the morning
I peeled an orange
She drank her coffee black
And with booze in her napsack
We gazed into borderless space.

So my friend,
Before you go off into this world alone
And think you can make it all up
As you stumble along
Look to me as a cautionary tale
I laughed at her adjusting her skirt
Even hair and clothes don't matter when
The stars are circling fast
We all die in the end
We're all tired in the end
Bird dog, leave me alone.

Hah. Figures.

What Famous Leader Are You?

What Classic Movie Are You?

INTP - "Architect". Greatest precision in thought and language. Can readily discern contradictions and inconsistencies. The world exists primarily to be understood. 3.3% of total population.

Free Jung Word Test (similar to Myers-Briggs)

I = 88.3%, N = 92.4%, T = 52.1%, P = 79.4%

Hand surgery not needed (probably).

A human bite wound I sustained on December 29th of last year has left my middle left finger still scarred and swollen, with no sensation at the tip and vulnerable to tremendous pain if the finger is squeezed in any manner. The nail is chipped and yellowed and beneath are large blotches of black and purple.

Because it's been two months and the wound didn't seem to be healing very much, my doctor referred me to a hand specialist and put me on a course of an antibiotic, augmentin, which I had already been put on soon after the injury occurred. I hesitated to fill the prescription for augmentin because it didn't "feel" right - I'd been on it before, plus, I was also taking high doses of ibuprofen (then naproxen sodium) to reduce the tendinitis in my knees. My stomach was undergoing enough damage without subjecting it to a yet higher dose of antibiotics, which I feared would give me diarrhea and make nauseated, while not contributing to the healing of my finger.

The hand specialist agreed wholeheartedly and said I did the best thing. We all know our own bodies best. He wasn't sure why augmentin had been prescribed again for the same injury anyway and said if I'd have started taking it he would have had me stop. He doesn't see evidence of an infection but said, obviously, if it starts to get worse or change color or characteristics then we'd have to look at that possibility, but with a different drug.

I'm not angry at those who recommended what they thought was best - I know they were acting out of caring - but it turns out I was right and that just waiting a few more days (after more than two months) to see what the specialist would recommend saved me a $10 copay and an aborted course of another strong medicine. I should have expressed my concerns more clearly, but when two doctors tell you something, sometimes you go against your gut instinct. I'll refund the $10 loaned for the copay and I hope my actions are understandable, given the description of my reasoning and the outcome that justified it.

There is new nail growth, he says, though it's occurring slowly and it may just take time for the inflammation to subside enough where the new nail can push out the old (and the dried up blood beneath it). X-rays showed no bone damage. I am to see him in 10-14 days to see if he can detect growth from a spot he cleverly marked on the nail at the cuticle line, and then will decide if anything besides waiting should be done to help to injury heal. Overall, good news.

reds.

his last days were so full of pain
and spikes of anger
how had he ended up this way
the world a stranger

hold on sylvia
I'm coming to hold you soon
listem to you tell your stories to the moon
and I'll wait for you nicola
maybe I'll be able to paint by then
maybe they'll have made you a saint by then

his last thoughts were far, far away
disconnected
it's not sadness but a final, tired apathy
that defeats our self-protection

hold on john and marvin
I can't wait to close my eyes and hear you sing
spend an eternity drifting
I'll keep a place in line for you, mom and heath
in the minute chance I'm wrong
in my disbelief.

"Life is very long when you're lonely."

Cyst. Bacteria. I Was Right.

It's a basic belief
To reach and be received
Babies cry when it doesn't work that way
Cry because that's all they can say

I've got a lot more words for you
But I'll keep them in my heart
And try to find a civilized way to release them
No one wants a thousand pit bulls loose in their yards.

I don't love you anymore
I don't loathe you anymore
I don't care what happens anymore
I don't need to be the center of attention.

Mary Todd.

When morning dawns for the last time
I will rise without shining
I will neglect to take my pills
The others will have run out
And I will go insane
I will not get desperate
Just the same

I will drive myself to get a coffee
Shaven, showered, and well dressed
Maybe my eye will find a
Cloud on which to dwell
And observe it roll past
But the time for serious contemplation will be over
Just a quick jot home, then a slip beneath the covers.

Life shouldn't have to be a sentence.

(not my photo)

To those closest.

I have something to say, dammit, I cannot be silenced
By line length limitations or truncated attention spans
Or the dumbing down of this fearful generation
Who has less to fear than any who have gone before
And the power grab to control that reprieve sickens me
Like the grief I get from stupid assholes sickens me
I am a product of my parents, of course it's their doing
Whatever Sheila, Heath, and I ended up becoming,
Not consciously on their part, but they should own up to
The role that genetics and parenting foists upon
Each mortal person, who has no idea of grand unification.
I have no ideas of grand unification anymore.
Still I have something to say, and it is not pleasant.
I will take my life the moment I have the chance
If falls within the tolerances I have set for pain
And remains, and other considerations. I contemplate
This thing anew every day, advance plans a bit further
And I'm so jaded it's like I've watched a life-changing
Movie for the hundredth time, about to start over.
I have lots to give to a world interested in listening,
Maybe a Greek world, or someplace which only exists
In our imaginations, like Peter Pan or in Einstein's equations.
The world we live in certainly doesn't want to hear it
They beat me down with reprimanding optimism when I voice it.
I want to say that life is pointless unless you have the
Genes to give you energy and talent, the formula to make
A difference, the recipe to persevere, the stamina.
For talent alone is not enough, I've tried and failed.
Now all I can hope for is to leave that trunk full of sheafs
Of contributory paper, and if something changes and we
Go back to the 19th century stone age, these will be read
And possibly cherished, or at least acknowledged.
As it is, when I die, I don't expect to be remembered
Outside some tight circle of wishy washy people with
Nothing much to say, who have no dynamism or charisma
And to whom I've absolutely nothing to relate, blind
And meaningless as they are; I'll be a fallen star
Unseen or heard in my time, pitied, left for dead by shallow
People who cannot see past the ends of their noses.

"Paul the Murderer" by Cezannne

1989, 2012. Scene is brightly lit.

High school is a really fun time. The day I graduated, one of my classmates driving a convertible ran a red light in celebration and got decapitated by an oncoming truck. The year before that, a friend who used to toss the baseball around with me (he was better, headed somewhere with his athletic skills), got smashed into a dozen pieces when his family's car rounded a bend in the highway north to Ukiah and head-on into a large semi whose driver had swerved into their path. The father, two sons, and daughter were all killed instantly, while the mother lived on life support for weeks and eventually recovered.

An exchange student from Japan who used to make us laugh with his unintelligible antics smoked at lunch in plain view, talking about Japanese culture and all the amazing videogames and consumer electronics they already had there. But he loved California. He said he was going to try to stay and attend UC Santa Cruz, if he could get his grades up. We all thought this was unlikely since he partied every weekend and every day after school until late at night, and really during any break during school if he could. After graduation he slit his wrists and his parents took receipt of their only son in a body bag, his smile gone.

When I was younger and more quiet, I was picked on by those who thought that meant I was weak and awkward. I never got beat up because the bullies weren't bigger or stronger than me, or quicker. And they were afraid. But they talked a lot, and that made the girls go for them instead of me. I tried to understand why I was attracted to girls so vigorously when they exhibited behaviors like that. Then for one or two years I decided to be more aggressive and run my mouth and act like a badass in basketball and around the lockers and at break. I laughed at people who were insecure. A fair number of girls showed interest in me, and I was popular and won an election for treasurer and a bunch of awards from teachers. My last year I was not really even in high school, though physically I still had to be. My mind and heart were elsewhere. I had moved on. I kept to myself or spent time with my clan of exchange students and poets and musicians, and my popularity fell predictably, but no one knew what to make of me outside my circle, so they ignored me. I think I probably got offered weed more often.

Yeah, high school was incomparable. The biology teacher made us do pushups if we missed pop questions, the history teacher challenged male students to freethrow contests after school for money, the typing teacher only helped you with your form if you were an attractive underage female, and my gym teacher, like all gym teachers, talked about work ethic and being responsible for being dressed and ready on time while he watched us do our private business down the long line of urinals and slapped out butts when we made "good outs." My English teacher was the worst; he made me read Catcher in the Rye, The Stranger, Catch-22, Heart of Darkness, Hamlet, and Cat's Cradle all in the same year, and gave me as a going away present "Franny and Zooey" by Salinger.

The school looks a lot different now. People have nicer cars - a lot nicer. The whole place seems to have gone two-storied. The varsity baseball field I never played on looks better taken care of than ever. Dark green grass mowed in perfectly alternating lines, professional chalking of the infield. The parking lot is redone, girls look like they have implants and people are actually dunking on the outdoor hoops. Driving by I got glares from kids half my age who I could literally kill within 10 minutes. I saw an obvious drug transfer complete with ziplock bag and cash just while trying to find a place to park. Most of the quality teachers seemed to have retired or moved on. The guys that made you do push-ups are still there. I didn't see many white kids, and there a lot more Asians than I remember, but that didn't bother me. What bothered me was that they'd painted the entire place army green and orange, demolished the penned-in bike racks (does no one ride to school anymore?), and there was a security guard wandering about who just silently nodded his head to me, a 30-year-old guy with no business being there.

I couldn't gain access to the gym, but the yearbook room was still using Macintoshes and the girls were still unobtainably pretty and the business office was completely redesigned. In fact once I learned the staff consisted of no one I knew, I hastily left since it reminded me too much of the place at which I was working at the time. I forgot to check in on the library, where I spent so many lunches speed-writing essays that were due next period. It was probably full of computers now. The lockers themselves were locked up by a metal fence, and I kept thinking the whole time... well, I guess I just kept thinking "why?" You know, Why. I was older and more removed, and less alive, and I could see what bureaucrats had done to the youth of the country, and it wasn't much different than what happened to me. The difference was I never cared, not truly.

Now I am a very successful person with a post-high-school record that is inpeccable, a wife and two point five kids in a two-storey house with a lab puppy and two cats, one of which adopted us as a stray. Business requires long hours but it's stable, and it's Good People. I have to fly to Phoenix next week to show them our prototype so we can finally get this thing off the whiteboard and into production. I don't miss any of those sublime moments in art class, or the unplanned trips to San Francisco, museums and car hotels and unlikely makeout sessions with beauties from other schools. I don't miss the murmuring stars I used to stare at from the backyard when I couldn't sleep. How could I? I'm too busy taking care of the fam and dreaming about that new powerboat. My stock is going nuts right now, so you never know.

The incomparable Delia Derbyshire

Requiescat In Pace

I'm bleeding like a pig
Skinning myself over and over again
Hog in the ground buried
But not peacefully
I produce ceaselessly
Growing hair
Fingernails
Keep gaining weight
Sweating
Breathing in
And out in huffs
Pissing, crapping
Jerking off
My cells are dying every second
And they keep reproducing themselves
I can hear them grow
There is constant construction work going on
But nothing ever happens
It's leading nowhere
Nowhere.