Wisdom for the day: Make fewer promises and keep them.

The world is full of people wandering around with unfocused energy. Maybe it's a symptom of our age; for as many people who are dedicated to a cause, or a goal, there seem to be just as many who are overwhelmed by the things around them that need their attention that they don't know what to tackle first. It could be personal issues, it could be global issues; in any case, what is the solution? Pop psychology might suggest making lists, but how many people do you know with a stack of lists; how do you prioritize? What is the underlying cause for inaction? Is it fear that you won't be able to make a difference? Is it ego? Is it a lack of helpers? Wondering...

Nice going Florida. Re-electing a guy who misses his daughter's court date on drug charges. Gotta love that overwhelming support for family values. Gotta love how you idiots forgive a family of addicts that are killing our country. I hope the gators feast tonight.

How difficult is it to not be a selfish person? To try to be true to your own needs, while allotting a certain amount of yourself for the needs of others? I worry about the world because it seems like, almost universally, it seems like selfish impulses are what drive people. But isn't it an integral aspect of the term "humanity" to shed some of that self-interest for the greater good? So, as a species, are we simply becoming inhumane? At what point does that create a callousness that leads to the negation of our existence?

Sick. Four days. Lungs ache. (cue Soul Coughing). Sudafed highs/lows. Hazy/sharp mind.

Never underestimate the lengths people will go to to prove that they are right. Always assume that those you trust have a hidden motive. Paranoia is a facet of sanity. Speak in tongues when the mood strikes you; formal language is not capable of rendering sense upon all the chaos in our minds. In a room of multi-coloured walls, what colour would you lean upon? Be consistent when it suits your purposes; throw people for a loop when you get too predictable. Wisdom is a matter of timing. Always test a psychic with a game of rock-paper-scissors. Don't be afraid to warn people that you're in a bad mood. Always find a way to brighten someone's day; you'll never have trouble sleeping again.

It's a gloomy day in the neghborhood, a gloomy day in the neighborhood...

It's time for some new Sesame Street spin-offs. They could go prime time with some of those characters. Base the action around Bert and Ernie's apartment. Tales every week about the wild misadventures amongst their friends. You could do an entire episode about Big Bird being hunted by a poacher for his feathers. Have a guest appearance by Buffy, versus The Count. Or the Swedish Chef's guest appearance on the Martha Stewart show. No real actors, though, all muppet characterizations of famous people. As fake as some people appear to be, you'd hardly notice the difference.

Every nation, religion, culture, and so on down the line, all work toward a legacy. We spend our existence in trying to leave something behind. Most sins are derived in some fashion from the need to leave a legacy; great deeds just the opposite.

I haven't heard the phrase "cult of personality" for a while, but it's just as true as it ever was. The world, the media, is obsessed with the minute details of people who don't really matter; meanwhile, the important things fall by the wayside. I should be proud of my country, my culture, but every day there are more reasons to be despondent and disappointed by the path we are on.

In the sizzle of the frying pan in the chill of the night in the streaky pale of floors that have been stripped of their wax in the waking life nightmare daydream awakened in the cloud obscured retina burning halographic sunlight in the timbre and tone and skin threads of a cat's meow in the geometric patterns of muted amber shellaced and seashell windows in the dusty wax vinyl grooved scratched slightly warped wobbly records in the highlights and lowlights and dark roots of her hair in the sea of green and blue and industrial tan of the rooms in the twilight masked by the haze of good wine and smoke here i am, world, take me somewhere nice...

The siren sings and you are entranced and bring her whatever she desires yet still she has no real use for you and time slides away and you do not age because the moment that passes does not really pass and the rejection that is constant maintains the illusion and the difference, in the end, between reality and the dream of the siren is the void that grows from never knowing what could have been.

(In the clouds in the rain) in this room where you are telling me once again what my faults are, having numbered and diagrammed them so painstakingly as to require a 3 hour visit to Kinko's simply to produce them in a blinding array of colors; in this room once again where the walls are silent and spongelike, absorbing our unkind words, but not like us, not harboring the bad thoughts like so many criminals; in this room that I will soon leave, weighed down by some possessions and the crush of who you once were, and who I once was, and what it was all supposed to mean; in this room I am a stranger.

Do you imagine the stars collapsing in on themselves, the fury of women scorned, the feverish desire of a man rejected, the way the wind howls when it is in heat, the subtlety of a touch that can send earthquakes through every cell in your body. Imagine it now, and know that such sensations do exist.

Still hard at work on my candy classification system. It's not as simple as grouping chocolate with more chocolate; there are shells and fillings and nuts and blends to worry about. Hard candy, soft candy, fruit flavors, powders, and of course, the sweets and sours. Linnaeus was a madman; this could take a lifetime.

All across the land they journeyed to see the miracle. The great stone monolith that had risen out of the ground one morning, etched with a language that nobody understood; the slab was constantly surrounded by worshipers and linguists who would kneel or study, and after a time it became difficult to tell them apart. Eventually, the harsh weather that followed the emergence of the monolith wore away the writing, and the crowds dwindled, until all that was left was a rock and a legend and a small boy who would often climb the rock and perch upon it and daydream of a land that nobody has ever seen yet all will see.

A beautiful day; some sort of balancing out for the delayed springtime. A low self-esteem; some sort of yingyang for the flood of things done. Alliteration, assonance, similes tripping off the tongue like yowls from a cat in heat. Speaking of whom, she sits there, watching the birds, stalking them from the window, waiting to burst through the screen and plummet to the ground, unless she can grab hold of a particularly strong finch who will keep her aloft...

How much TV really is worth watching? How much can we be entertained by other people's lives? And you start to realize; we are the punch-line. And there is no drama more poignant than real life. Even without the laughtrack and the soundtrack and the 30-second tugs at our wallets every 7 minutes or so. What is it that makes us susceptible to television? Or are we simply afraid of having too many moments in life without a script? Have all the thinkers and dreamers and madmen gone away, or are we just too glued to the screen to notice them?

Concepts to sell: Rainbow kleenex (the kids'll love it). Picture frames that allow you to insert a page of text or whatever in the background. Waterproof paper holders for showers, so you can wash and read at the same time (great for last minute studying). I have a wind-up mouse. I want a wind-up squirrel that twitches its tail. How about fan blade art? Looks good just sitting there, and can also be fun to watch when it is spinning. College texts (novels, for instance) with more extra space in the margins for taking notes.

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