I've just started reading The Sickness Unto Death for the second time. Surpisingly I find my old markings in the text somewhat helpful . . . but that's not what I want to write about. No, reading Kierkegaard again--especially this book, which I just happened to pick blindly out of the boxes of book in my trunk--has made me face myself. This is something I have been avoiding for quite some time. Kiekegaard talks about the self being a synthesis of the finite and the infinite, and this is what lends to the possibility of despair. The language seems a little anasthetic, but the way he writes makes one personalize the concepts and ideas. Despair is the misrelation to oneself--what I take as the attempt to deny or run from the infinite portion of oneself, which I guess is both running from oneself and running from God. I can point a finger to a number of choices in my life that I continue to make (or not make) that lead to my despair--a very real tension that I am unable (although I try my damndest) to push away out of my consciousness. Many excuses come to mind, but Kiekegaard is quick to say that despair is always something that one brings upon oneself. And I find myself in my own freedom, choosing despair, wallowing in it even. Not as if I'm a depressed person, because I'm not. No, Despair is something more eternal (I was meaning to write internal, but my finger went to the e--perhaps a holy mistake). Huuuuuuuh (big sigh) I don't know. I don't fucking know.

It's a little scary driving through the mountains of Tennessee at night in the rain going as fast as you can because it's 6:00 p.m., you've been driving since 9:00 a.m., and you still have 5 hours to go. Scary, but not scary enough to slow down.

Yeah, it took me 14 hours to get back to North Carolina from Chicago. I think it might have been shorter if I would've taken an alternate route. But I didn't.

I realized again what awesome friends I have. The Thanksgiving gathering turned out great--complete with turkey, a poetry reading, and the Miller Girls. Wouldn't you know it that the only Bears game I've been able to see all year they get slaughtered. I got a nice pint glass from the bar though.

Going back to work really sucks after being on vacation. Especially if you drove 14 hours the night before. In general, going to work just sucks.

I have dreams of being a hobo but my sense of responsiblity keeps getting in the way.

As you can see, off the the right I have a nice title for my links section. However I can't figure out how to get the links in there. When I first started doing blogger, there was already a links section, so all you had to do was cut and paste. Now it's not that easy. I'm sure there's some website that would help me with this, or perhaps the help section in Blogger. Or maybe some nice person will tell me.

gotta go gotta go gotta go right now.

chiefjason

Hey Adam. You may just want to get yourself a Holmes Convertible Tower Heater Fan or it's gonna be a cold month . . . sucker.

Back to Technology

Some technological breakthrough (I think it may have been electricity) resulted in the creation of the Oscilating Convertible Tower Heater Fan made by Holmes that sits in my bedroom. Rated at a whopping 120 volts AC, 12.5 Amps, 60 hz, with high, low and auto mode, the Holmes Oscilating Convertible Tower Heater Fan is truly ahead of it's time. This Oscilating Convertible Tower Heater Fan serves at least two purposes. First of all, it keeps my bedroom heated to a temperature of about 65 degrees (I would specify Celsius of Fahrenheit, but I can never remember the difference. I know it's not Kelvin). The second purpose is that it keeps my recently bottled nut brown ale (I think I'll call it Hason's Brun Ale) beer at a more ideal temperature to complete it's fermentation process. Granted, it is supposed to be at 70 degrees, but, hell, I'm a cheap skate.

Which brings me to another reason why the Holmes (not Jason) Oscilating Convertible Tower Heater Fan sits in my room. My house is "heated" by "oil." For a 50 gallon tank of said oil, I must pay Landlady Ruth the sum of one hundred and fifty U.S. dollars. According to her--and she knows my frugal ways--this 50 gallon tank of "oil" would last me about a month or so. A month? Fuck that shit. My electric bill won't be that much.

I figure I'll dole out the hundred and fifty bones to at least make sure my pipes don't freeze on those real cold days. But until then, I can stand walking through my cold living room and into my cold kitchen to poor myself a cold beer and return to my warm room to drink it.

Here's to technology . . . . gulp gulp, ahhhhh.

To roll or not to roll

I've been thinking about creating a blogroll, but I'm not sure if I should. I mean, the people I would blogroll already have me blogrolled and I figure anybody visiting my blog probably visited their's first. Furthermore, I can't even remember how to do that shit with the template and the HTML or whatever the fuck. Maybe I'll branch out and find my own blogs to roll that aren't just other blogs rolled on the blogs that blogroll my blog. And again, do you require yeast to make a blogroll? And something about not having a blogroll makes me enjoy killing Adam Kotsko.

Please, I require advice.

I must admit, I think I may have been a bit hasty with my response to Anthony Smith (although in my defense, it was a hasty reply in response to many hasty replies I have read by mr. smith). I think he is dead accurate when he says "the change needs to be structural." I am assuming that this statement is all-encompassing--referring to the political system, the economy (big business, WTO, etc.), health care, national defense, etc., etc. etc. Well Anthony (should you ever visit my site and read this), I agree. I only question the possiblity of this change ever occuring.

From the days before this country was even formed, in the early days of the colonies, there has been seperation of class and race. The rulers and governors were almost always from the aristocracy, the rich, the land owneres. Indeed, one could not vote if they did not own land. I was wondering on my drive home how many presidents have we had that attended an ivy-league university. Could it be all of them? I don't know, but perhaps some motivated person will do the research. Politics is mired in classism, elitism, racism, ism ism ism. The structural change you seek cannot be earned by political means, nor should it be. Politics in this country has always, in one way or another, been about the people with money, the people with connections, the people with power. It has only been by these people, for these people.

If you are looking for some woman or man in office to change the structure, then you are naive. Change happens where YOU are at . . . where I am at . . . where our feeble attempts are taken and sprinkled with grace. That is why you work at the homeless shelter. That is why I work with at-risk teenagers. And maybe someday if you or I find ourselves in some political office in Nebraska or Georgia or Oregon, then maybe we can start to change something by political means. Until or unless that ever happens, we are where we are, and we have only the tools in our toolbox to use. You keep using the hammer, and I'll keep using the flat-head.

So screw you.

Birthday O2

Since I have yet to respond to a post from another blog, being so "blog-o-centric" as I have been, I think I will speak to the science and technology theme that Gorss addressed at Coney Island. Let's take a moment and consider the oxygen machine. When the body is not getting enough oxygen, say because you are in shock, or because you are old and have emphysema, all you do is hook this mask up to your face, crank a valve, and WA-LA, you are in breathing heaven.

Today is my 28th birthday, and I played basketball with a co-worker and four teenagers today at the Y. While I excel at passing and fouling, and I am just o.k. at shooting, I dribble like a drunken crack addict with one arm. Once I get the ball and start dribbling, all of my insecurities from my elementary school park district basketball team come flooding back. I'm just plain lousy at ball control.

Five minutes into the game, all of my 28 years (and I suppose the 1 or 2 cigarettes/day that I have been smoking for a while now) caught up with me. I was doubled over sucking wind with a sharp pain in my lungs. Soon I was lagging behind on defense (this was 3 on 3) looking for a "fast break." The saliva in my mouth collected in a gel-like mucousness and kept trying to get into my throat. Fifteen minutes into it, I was leaving the game in the middle of play and visiting the drinking fountain. It was not a pretty sight for the old man.

While I DID make around five buckets and my team DID win, I have come to a realization. I will never play basketball again! Leave my lazy life of beer-drinking and cigarettes? Hell NA!

Doctor, can I get the oxygen PLEASE.

Happy birthday to me.

It's 7:39 p.m. and I have not left work yet. I stayed to wait for a parent drive 3 hours to come talk to his only son. His son is part of a program through DJJ (the Department of Juvenile Justice) which says he must be successful at camp or else he will be locked up in training school (Juvi) until he is 18. He is 15 now.

The reason why his dad wanted to come up is because his son has hit two campers in the last week. One in the face, the other in the chest. He has a pattern of threats and violence--throwing logs, breaking doors, kicking things, etc. I personally wanted the kid out of here. But my superiors thought otherwise. My reasoning was that in the 6 months this kid has been at camp, he hasn't done shit, and now he's starting to hit people. There reasoning was that kids have hit other kids in camp before and they haven't been exited. After sitting in tonight's meeting with the kid and his dad, perhaps my judgment was a bit hasty.

Like I said, dad drove 3 hours after work just to come talk to his kid. He used logic, Wal-Mart, Bill Gates, the Bible, and various emotional pleas to try to get through to his son. He talked about a couple of his neighbors who had sons his age. He said he had to hold back the tears as he watched one of these dads take his son out in the car and go through the process of teaching him how to drive. Why did these dads, who don't even serve God get this privilege? And he, a servant of God, has to sit at home wondering when he's going to get the call that his son has been sent to training school for the next three years.

As I sat and listened to him, I felt nothing. I wondered to myself how it must feel to have watched a son grow up before your eyes, to have tried to teach him everything you know what to teach, and then to sit helpless as you watch him make bad choices that might ruin the rest of his life. What love and care, beyond measure, must a father feel toward his son! Never giving up, never without hope, always ready to run with open arms to embrace this wayward youth.

And here I was feeling aggravated because I had to stay at work late.

I don't know much at all.