The Jester's Poisoned Food

I didn't do shit.

I'm serious. I didn't do a fucking thing of any outward value. I sat at my computer and typed away on the keyboard. I also went back to Blurb.com and finished another poetry book. This one is a lot smaller than the first, and since I've already got all of the kinks out of building one of these, it took surprisingly less time. I also have an abundance of photos for the cover and back art, which is my most favorite part of the project.

I think I'm going to make changes to this next one though. I've finished it, but I want to do more. Today, since I'm going to vegetate again in my room, I'm going to make it more spiffier. Send the entire thing back to formula and start from scratch since it is so small when compared to my first one. This one could use some of my offbeat photos and a change in its size and construction. I can do all of this with this program, and the more I use it, the more proficient I become with it.

My goal is to have books of my work by the end of the month. Books in my hand, books in the hands of others. I want to play in the garden of the productive. My desire is to do more. I'm feeding into it once I find opportunity, and this to me is a golden opportunity. Although where one door opens, another door closes. I wonder where this one will be. Not that I am a pessimist, I'm not, but change begets change. Sometimes positive, sometimes negative. As the boy scout motto goes: Always be prepared. So I am in preparation.

Such as by my actions yesterday. Awwright, I was completely selfish, and stayed home and did what I wanted to do. I didn't go to the memorial, and therefore didn't hook up with my fellow poets. I feel bad about that, I do. But I needed to be home more. I needed face to face time with my face. And time online. A guilty pleasure I'm certain. One that I expend a great deal of time on. My addiction, my curse, call it what you will. But I have years of things that I can and want to do online, from re-reading emails, IM's, wepages and blogs to playing games and keeping up with the news. Am I cutting myself off from life? Hell, I've had enough of life. I have a full social calendar, and can cram it jack full if I so desired.

If I so desired. I love my friends, I can honestly say that, but sometimes I need time to ruminate. To stew in the rich and heady sea of information available to me. Remember, for years, I had only my laptop, and emails from my friends, and my blog to keep me going. Everything, and I do mean everything valuable to me came through it. If I was invited to a party or wished a happy birthday, it came through email, or a blog post. My news? Through Yahoo. My information? Through Google. It only stands to reason then that if I want to find my center, I would retreat to this very same sanctuary.

Ahhhh, yes, a sanctuary. Santurary: "any place of refuge". A respite from the raging and troublesome world around me, where things make some sense. Where I can put things in order easily and get on with my life.

I think of this shit as I stand in my drawers with a cup of coffee in my hand and lean out of the window, looking at the brick wall across from me. There is a lot to learn from a brick wall. Every brick is different. The mortar that surrounds it is of differing thickness and strength. Their colors are not the same, sometimes they make a pattern. What am I getting at here? Some of the most difficult lessons can be learned from some of the most simplest of things. And when you are in a room about the size of a jail cell, well, there are a lot of simple things around you. But one difference from a jail cell here is that there is a huge, open tear in the fabric of space and time on one side of it....the Internet. A fucking gaping hole into another universe which I can stare, mesmerized all day and night. Without fail or pause.

Internet junkie.

I don't think so. I'm more addicted to life. I mean, after all, the Internet is not cold and lifeless, contrary to popular belief. It's a medium that interconnects people. Hearts and minds. It brings us all closer, it ties and binds us together. It's like 'The Force' but less intangible. We draw closer to each other, inexorably. Sometimes we do more than schedule parties, and keep up on the current gossip. Sometimes we draw closer as human beings. Sometimes hearts reach out, sometimes hands, sometimes even sex. Everything is passed through the wire. All life, all love, all fears, all doubts, all things, all experience, all through the wire.

Crisscrossing in the myriad stream of unintelligible data, only to reassemble, as if by uncanny magic. It is my sincerest belief that we have uncorked the genie out of it's bottle. That we have finally closed the gap in our humanity. Skull to skull we speak to each other now, regardless of race, sex or religion, we have access and can communicate. We can do so anonymously or with complete revelation of self. We can stand disguised or naked. We now have a formidable tool whose clear impact will not be felt for another twenty years, but we have taken hold of the pillars of life and death here. For the first time, it is my belief that Humankind has done something extraordinary.

You see, you can learn and derive a lot from a brick wall.

Hobobob