Ordinary People, Extradordinary Circumstances (Trademarked)

Gaze upon the serene, Buddha-like visage of Allison Janney for a minute, if you will.

I dunno: if indeed we can meditate on anything, and the Buddha-nature exists in all things, I'm 'a gonna have to get me one of those room-sized wallpaper reproductions of this here face. Just cools my ass down, can't really tell you why. She does, also, sort of look like she has a secret. Like the Mona Lisa.

I foiled a robbery attempt yesterday. Sitting in front of the Troika, as I often do, I espy a fellow who is walking out quickly but casually, with a big smile on his face. Despite the fact that he is mounting his bike, he is also carrying a yellow teapot that has large letters on the side reading, "TIPS".
So I sort of go and stand right next to him for a minute, momentarily unsure of what to do. He knows exactly what he should do though, and attempts to ride off. I grab the backpack that he, stupidly, is wearing, and we engage in this tug o' war for half a block.
What you should yell in these circumstances depends on who you are, I suppose. 'Stop, thief!' is traditional, but what my mind came up with was, "I NEED THAT BACK!". He was saying, 'fuck off!', or 'mine!', or something. I couldn't tell.
At this point I remembered that when you're on a bike, you and balance are sort of in an unstable relationship. I twisted my grip on his backpack one way, then I twisted it another, causing him to hit asphalt. Still holding on, I followed him down to the pavement. This caused the teapot and its contents to go all over the damn sidewalk, retrieved quickly by Gringa Alta Prima, who by this time was right behind me.
So, somewhere in here I'd lost that precious grip on the backpack, and he'd lost the money he'd stolen. It would seem, sir, that we are at an impasse...Yes, but what now? Try to restrain him? Get in a real fight over ten dollars?
(but no: that wasn't really ten bucks I was chasing him down over...It was that Those Girls Work Hard for their Shitty Tip Percentage, and, Dammit...It's the principle of the thing...)
He stood up quickly, and so did I, him swinging his bike at me, and taking off. I returned the tip jar to the coffeeshop, all scraped up, but the conquering hero of the week, in any case.
About two hours later, the police asked me some questions about the whole thing, and for one I mostly remember what his backpack looked like (black, no defining marks, buttons or stickers), not what the man looked like, (white guy; they all look alike to me).

I have a Friendster account, but I never use it. Furthermore, if you go looking for me there (as I note with horror, some people have done), it would appear that I have No Friends. It interested me to note some of my answers to the standardized profile questions.
Under 'Hobbies and Interests':
ridin' my bike, being unpaid shrink and private chef to many; mayhem

Under 'Favorite Books':
How to Seize Friends and Incriminate Others, I believe it's called...

'About Me (Describe Yourself)':
Pretty much the boss around here, a man of wealth and taste, Our Subject can often be seen consuming things of an afternoon, in places he enjoys. He recently decided that work is for suckers, and has since devoted himself to the purer pleasure that Is the pursuit of pleasure. So-mental health: Sorted! Now I just need to find a goddamn job. I'm nice.

Under 'Favorite Movies':
"Are You Popular?" (Coronet Educational films, 1947)

And here, my friends, buried in a largely ignored area of cyberspace, is the origins of the baccalore ricardo. These days, I'm working, and for that matter, have cut out the boozing altogether for the time being.
How's that working out for you? Well, I finally got the insomnia last night, resulting in perhaps five hours of sleep, with interesting dreams (trying to find a place to piss on the campus of some state capitol, wandering around the grounds of an adjacent university, quiet for summer). Melatonin takes care of that one pretty well, generally. St. John's Wort for the depression, viamin supplements in general.
The thing is, I have always been a person fascinated by and constantly seeking consciousness alteration. The little kid that spins in circles until he falls over, laughing. The little self-destructive weirdo who holds his breath until he passes out, then does it again. I just wanna get high, although not just on anything. I'm not one of those assholes who sniffs carb cleaner, airplane glue, paint thinner (oh, I could go on) or something just because his drug of choice is unavailable. I don't want to check out, I want to see the world through different eyes.

Yes, and if those eyes are just angry, sad and sleepy all the time, then it's time for a damn change.

But before that, I decided to have one more hoot. Appropriately, it was down to the coast to do so.
Y'know, what is that beautiful but sad Led Zeppelin song "Down by the Seaside" saying about it? Oh yes:
"Sing loud for the sunshine, pray hard for the rain
And show your love for Lady Nature. And she will come back again. The people turned away
The people turned away"
Yup. That 'Dead Zone' off the Oregon Coast is probably getting bigger. That's where no sea life can live, due to being choked off by organisms native to warmer waters. Everything down to the damn plankton, dead dead dead.
Now, mind you, global warming is a myth devised by people who don't like President Bush, so therefore this collapse of the food chain, the fishing industry and the source of all life on Earth should be blamed on...Uh...
The ocean, despite the habitations beside it being so cheerful and touristy, has always been about Death to me. Or more to the point, the ocean is the universe in microcosm, so it is death and birth and life and...Everything. To avoid it is to avoid life; walkin' down the street with your face covered, eyes down.
Our third day out there, th' Gringa, th' Provost and I went for a nice long splash in the water, and up to the caves and coves north of Bachelor Pad West. We were just sort of getting our feet wet, and she said to the two of us, "Wanna go in the water?"
I said, "God, I'm confused. I dunno; do I?"
Then we all laughed and ran into the surf.

**For an added treat, look at the post right below 'Sympathy for the Entertainment Industry'. Blogger's software being its usual entertaining self, the fact that I started writing said post a while ago means it looks like I finished it several months ago, and that's why it's down there. It's called 'Incident on Bass Lane', and is a classic. Let the kids read it.**