check out these very cool pictures of a waterspout in Russia.

What is it with people who can't resist using a public forum to thrust their political views on a captive audience?
When I'm out trying to have a good time, I really don't want to have you shoving your personal politics down my throat.
I was out at a coffee house Friday night with my friends and one of the performers felt it was necessary to comment on her opinions of the Iraq situation and President Bush's State of the Union address. In answer to her question, yes, I've heard of Dresden. I've also heard of New York. Civilians are civilians. It's one thing for civilians to be harmed during military action. It's quite another to harm civilians intentionally in terrorists attacks. Collateral deaths as the result of proximity to precision bombing are worse than intentionally murdering unsuspecting civilians by ramming airplanes into office buildings or blowing them up in cafes or bus stops? I don't fucking think so. Keep your bleeding heart bullshit opinions to yourself. That way I can keep mine to myself and you won't have to read stuff like this in here.
Saddam is an outright murderer of his own people. He has practiced chemical warfare on his own people. Over 200,000 Iraqi citizens have been murdered in his name. He has strove to "cleanse" his country of the Kurdish section in northern Iraq by using nerve gas on them. He has drained the marshes of northern Iraq by diverting the natural water flow into Lake Saddam, a huge artificial basin created for that sole purpose, causing an entire culture of marsh dwelling Arabs, dependant on those marshes for their life, to move into refuge camps and starve. He sought to take over the oil fields of Kuwait for his own gain. He has set up training camps for various terrorist organizations within his borders. I could go on, but you get the picture.
I don't want a war. I have my own personal reservations about it. That's all you need to know. That's all I derserve to tell you.
If you want to know more, just ask me... or, I guess I could pick up a guitar and that would give me license to spout off in your face... but that's not my style.

My condolences to the family and friends of the crew of the Space Shuttle Columbia, STS-107.

A note to the few of you who bother to read this on a regular basis;
I didn't start this only to amuse you with my razor wit.
I needed a soapbox in a safe zone, where I can occasionally rant and rave without being arrested or
being put upon by an angry mob or having someone set their dog on me.
Someplace where I can spill my guts or practice my particular brand of self pity,
without having to deal with face to face confrontations, which are not really my forte.
I can be real here, I can say what I can't say in other places, to other people.
You have to take the bad with the good, so if you're comfortable with getting to know
that side of me, fine, read on.
If you don't want to know me that well, that's ok, too.
Just don't read any further.



I've kept diaries most of my life. I will occasionally post excerpts from them here.
Some of what I've written is out of dispair.
Some of what I've written is all warm and fuzzy and funny.
What follows is not warm and fuzzy.
.
I don't expect any comment. I don't want any comment.
It's hard enough to put this out there for all the world to read.


I have always had a hard time with love. It has been an elusive, yet addictive quarry.
I have chased it.
I've run from it.
I've built walls to hold it in
and to keep it out.
It has bouyed me.
It has failed me.
It has caused me more grief then you could ever imagine,
yet, I have made it the center of my life.
It is the basis for what and who I am, without guilt or, sadly, reason at times.

The few excerpts that follow are not dated. When they were written really doesn't matter.
I share them for reasons that you don't need to know.



“She didn’t break my heart.
She folded it seven times
and threw it over her shoulder.”


“I would probably make
a good junkie.
I’m sure I could
boil up love and
mainline it.
Oh, dark alley of the heart,
just a push away
from the warm and
wonderful.
Will you be my gimme?”


Love and unloved.

1 .
Love

I have held you in the dark.
You let me play your body
like some yet uninvented
instrument of glass and
fine strings.

You have let me
hold you close to me,
my hands locked together
against the small of your back,
my face buried in your hair.

I have caressed
the curve of your side
as you lay next to me.

You once let me kiss
every inch of your body.

2.
Unloved


You have made me
dig out rocks
with my bare fingers.

You make me
question who and
what I am.

You have hurt my soul.

Our love is like
the last piece of wood
left to put on a fire.
The prospect of heat
is outweighed by the
spectre of dying embers
and old ashes.
When do we start
burning the furniture?

I have come home to a house strangely devoid of fermented or distilled spirits...
hmmmm.....
what to do , what to do.....
there is that bottle of white wine left over from new years...
I mean, the reason it's still sitting on the dining room hearth is that it is white wine...
Oh, well... please don't tell anyone, but...
it's not that bad with an ice cube in it to kill the taste.

just in case you aren't sure about how cold it has been,
check out these photos of the Delaware River in Trenton, NJ.
Brrrrrrrrrrrrr.....

"I am here, and you are my sofa..."
That is a line from the song Sofa No. 2 from the late Frank Zappa's album One Size Fits All.
Isn't that the most romantic thing you've ever heard?
What a great thing to say to someone that you love and loves you.
"I stand before you and you are the most comfortable thing in my life."
wow.

1. can you live in a world that is smaller than you are?

2. can poets lie?

3. seek your gods in small places...

4. where do dreams go when they die?
is there a place like the mythical
elephant's burial ground
full of dead dreams?
piles of forgotten bright ideas,
shining like so many
bleached bones in the sun...
ivory passions, stacked one
upon the other,
promising wealth, but too heavy
to be borne by our mortal selves.
maybe dreams really don't die...
maybe the just run away,
like ignored and abused children.
maybe, one day, we'll see them
on the backs of milk cartons...
"Have you seen this dream?"

5. love is like water

6. knowledge kills wonder

7. in the days of vinyl records,
you would sometimes tape a nickel
to the top of the tone arm
to stop the needle from skipping
in the grooves...
maybe I should tape a nickel to
my back.

oh, yeah... remember, no good deed goes unpunished...

I couldn't have said it better myself...