Anonymous Losers Meeting For One:

My name is Randall and I'm a loser. My life is unmanageable due to the time wasted in online fantasies.

Why I Love Whiskey

Someone posted in a blog that they didn't understand why Whiskey is "lauded as a hero of sorts." Let me see if I can explain.

Whiskey is intriguing. She lived for a time on a California commune as a child. How fascinating! I would like to live on a commune or at visit one. She's so articulate and widely read, quoting my favorite writers. If Whiskey's life was a story, she would certainly be the heroine.

So she harbors resentment for her mother, has issues with her sister, and makes incredibly beautiful photographs? Is she a living, breathing version of Jilly Coppercorn from de Lint's Onion Girl? You know, the girl that took a whole lot of bad and made something good from it?

I would like to chat with Whiskey but she is to me as Fante was to Bukowksi, a kind of god and the gods should be left alone. I'll just have to keep reading her blog, because I really want to see what happens next.

However, it's not a story. Whiskey doesn't know what will happen and if she can get through it. If she's a god, she's just like the rest of us.

Hang in there Whiskey. Even god needs love.

A Tragedy of Mind

Anger and depression has pervaded my thoughts because the world isn't the way that I thought it should be. It's a ridiculous and absurd attitude. It's like being mad at water for being too wet or angry with rocks for being too hard. The world is the way it is.

Really, should it be easy to find a job that pays well? Should houses be cheaper? Should we be able to go through life without worry or struggle?

If you knew the answer to every story, wouldn't the stories be boring? Do you really want to know how your story ends? Perhaps that's why the gods throw up some obstacles, to keep you guessing about the ending.

Date a Girl Who Reads:

Date a girl who reads because you deserve it. You deserve a girl who can give you the most colorful life imaginable. If you can only give her monotony, and stale hours and half-baked proposals, then you’re better off alone. If you want the world and the worlds beyond it, date a girl who reads.

Or better yet, date a girl who writes.

-Rosemarie Urquico

Sitting

Every once in a while a human being has this need to just sit and quietly hurt. Sometimes, for a really long time.

Faith

George prayed every day for three years to win the lottery, but never heard from God or hit the jackpot.

Finally, God woke him up in the middle of the night. "George, is that you who's been praying so hard to win the lottery?" the Supreme Being boomed.

"Yes, Lord, desperately!"

God paused for a moment, then said thoughtfully, "George, I'll tell you what. I want you to meet me halfway. Buy a ticket, OK?"

-Rob Brezny

Believe

"How is it that I am looking at myself," I asked.

He replied, "I'm you from an alternate universe."

"How did you get here?"

"It's a matter of belief."

I asked skeptically, "you just believe it strongly enough and you can cross over?"

He stared at me and said slowly "for decades, humans attempted to run a sub-four minute mile. When it was finally accomplished in 1954, another runner managed to do it a mere 56 days later. Within three years, 16 other runners accomplished the feat."

"What happened," he said "was that they gave up a belief about something being impossible. Impossible is not always fact. Sometimes it's opinion disguised as fact."

"Now" he inquired, "would you like to reconsider your belief about the existence of an alternate universe? I've been there and it's amazing..."

Suffering is a Gift

For a long time I've thought that suffering might be a gift from the gods. Think about really great art. Oftentimes art is great because you feel the creator's suffering. Bukowski's life up until the age of fifty was one great big wound. His writing radiates waves of pain, especially when he describes his childhood.

Rumi wrote that “the wound is the place where the Light enters you.” Perhaps that's why Bukowski wrote such beautiful poetry. He was filled with light and when he wrote you could see it.

My favorite story of good coming from suffering was related by Dr. Rachel Remen. It was a published in Chicken Soup for the Surviving Soul: 101 Stories of Courage and Inspiration from Those who Have Survived Cancer.

The story is entitled "The Container" and is about an angry young man that lost his right leg due to cancer. In therapy he is asked to draw a picture of his body to express his feelings. He drew a picture of a vase with a large crack running through the center of it. He drew the lines forming the crack so deeply that he tore the paper.

In time he made his peace with the loss. He developed a sort of ministry helping others who had suffered amputations due to cancer or tragedies. Two years later at his final counseling session, Dr. Remen showed him his drawing of the vase and asked if he remembered it.

He replied that he did, but that the drawing was incomplete. He took the drawing and added rays of yellow projecting from the crack. He pointed to the crack and said "this is where the light comes through."

In my mind, we've all been born into the wrong universe. The wounds and cracks in our lives let the light from another universe shine through.

Be The Hero

God is a producer.
The angels are writers.
Our universe is one of many projects.
You're a character in a story.
Be the hero.

Notes of a Dirty Old Man

Only the poor knew the meaning of life; the rich and the safe had to guess.
-Bukowksi

Career Trouble

I need a new occupation.

Resignation

It is possible for a man to live a whole life of constant error in a kind of numb and terrorized state. You've seen the faces. I've seen my own.
-Bukowski

New Home

View from my new home. However, I temporarily deleted the house, and replaced it with just an old wooden dock .

He was an old man who fished alone in a skiff in the Gulf Stream and he had gone eighty-four days now without taking a fish.
-Hemmingway, The Old Man and The Sea, first line

No Fish Again

Life Story

Find job.
Hate job.
Lose job.
Repeat.
-H. MacLeod

She laughed in my face, told me good-bye
Said "don't think about it, you can go crazy
Any thing can happen, anything can end
Don't try to fight it, don't try to save me"
    -Tom Petty

The Universe

God is a DJ.
Life is a dance floor.
Love is the Rhythm.
You are the music.
-Pink

New Home

New home for the shop. An acquaintance suggested moving because my old place was holding me back. I had to listen because he wasn't just talking about my shop. He was talking about my second life.

My new place is much nicer. It's on the water. I'll post a photo later at ground level. My main concern is that it's a PG sim. My previous place was in a mature sim. However, as I've taken a vow of abstinence and chastity, the PG rating should not be a problem.

Flight

Have you ever jumped so high that you took flight?

God Makes No Mistakes

I'm beautiful in my way
'Cause God makes no mistakes
I'm on the right track, baby
I was born this way
-Lady Gaga, Born This Way

Heros

Fante was my god.
-Bukowksi

Do some living and get yourself a typewriter.
-Bukowski

Or a blog.
-Ahren

Do It Now

Your way begins on the other side.
Become the sky.
Take an axe to the prison wall.
Escape.
Walk out like someone suddenly born into color.
Do it now.
-Rumi

Laughter

I don't know how to laugh anymore.
-Charles de Lint

Three Years in SL

Today is my third rezz date in SL. I had completely forgotten about it, but a bot sent me a message reminding me of it.If you're not careful, you can fall asleep and miss your second life.

A Haunting Passage

          The teacher came by and stood behind me for a while, watching me work. I'm looking at this memory through the gauze of a lot of years, so I don't remember the real details of my painting, but I guess there was something in it that impressed her.

"You have so much talent," she said. "It wouldn't surprise me if you become an artist when you grow up."

"I love art class," I told her.

"What are these?" she asked, pointing to little globs of yellow paint that were clustered around the tree.

"Faeries," I said. "But they're so small I can only show them like dots."

She ruffled my hair. "Don't ever lose your sense of wonder," she said as she went over to look at another kid's work...

"This what they're teachin' you in that school?" she (mother) demanded. "Paintin' pitchers instead a somethin' useful like keepin' your head outta the damn clouds?"

Then she tore it up. Tore it up, threw the pieces on the floor, and slapped me for crying.

"Now, little missy," she said, "You all just put that in the garbage where it belongs and don't you never be bringin' crap like this home again." 
        -Charles de Lint, The Onion Girl

Yes, the world really needs more accountants, lawyers, and bankers, and less poets, painters, and musicians. Nobody cares about dreams. Life isn’t about happiness, it's about achieving financial success, about money. Only foolish weak people care about a sense of wonder.

<blinks back tears>

The Gods Owe Us Nothing

If you could be either God's worst enemy or nothing, which would you choose?
-Palahniuk

The gods gave you the gift of second life. What you do with your second life is up to you. Unless you are particularly evil, the gods will likely take no notice of you. The gods are too busy with their own affairs to pay much attention to residents.

That was the basis for Tyler Durden's behavior in Palahniuk's Fight Club. Tyler thought getting the attention of the gods for being bad was better than getting no attention. He wanted the gods to know his name because it wasn't "enough to be numbered with the grains of sand on the beach and the stars in the sky."

Tyler forgot to be thankful for the original gift: life.

Perseverance

A professional writer is an amateur who didn't quit.

-Richard Bach

Richard Bach's novel, Jonathan Livingston Seagull, was rejected by 18 publishers before it was finally published in 1970. It was the precursor to what in my opinion was his greatest published work, Illusions - The Adventures of a Reluctant Messiah, published seven years later. 

Unplugged

The photo above was my entry for the Single Frame Story this week. The prompt was the word unplugged. I don't like being unplugged. In my opinion, the Internet was one of humanity's greatest inventions, up there with the printing press. It makes us smarter.

Excuses

To be more creative, I am waiting for:
1. Inspiration.
2. Permission.
3. Reassurance.
4. More time.
5. A significant relationship to happen improve end.
6. The right perfect person.
7. A disaster.
8. The last minute.
9. More money.
10. A job.
11. Until after the election. Someone else to be elected.
12. The wisdom of greater years.
13. Retirement.
14. More confidence.
15. Greater self-esteem.
16. A signal from the gods.
17. Next year.
18. Better living arrangements.
19. Graduation.
20. Until I'm dead and in my grave.

Tales Heard in Second Life

Ever been to the Crossroads? Sometimes I wonder if it means a crossroads in life. A fork in the path where the life you knew and the life ahead of you turn sharply in different directions. And no matter how how much you want it to be the way it was before, it's never the same. A furry told me this story tonight at the Crossroads:

I was in an alternate universe one time and all the crew had found their opposites. In most cases the guys found female versions of themselves and vice versa. Being the opposite of themselves they were quite happy and compatable. I asked my friend were was my opposite? He said down on C-Deck.

As I ran off I heard him say (naturally I was a cat), "I don't think she is going to like her opposite too much." His opposite asked "why?" he replied "it's a dog"

I was considering becoming a furry, but I've decided against it.

Lost Dork

Do you wear loud Hawaiian shirts and polyester pants?
Do you push doors that clearly say pull?
Do you laugh harder when you  try to explain why your laughing?
Do you walk into a room and forget why you went were there?
Do you count on you're fingers?
Do you mix up your and you're?
Do you get lost easily?
Then you might be a lost dork.
Welcome home.

The Morning After New Year's Eve

My throat so dry, my throbbing head.
Every time I burp, I can still taste gin.
Gee what a party it must have been.

My uncle used to recite that. Anyone know where it's from?