Wednesday, January 31, 2007
"I'm a silly man with silly thoughts and silly concerns."---"Were you a silly boy?"
"Not goofy, funny or queer. -- Inconsequential, insignificant and insubstantial."
---"Light-weight?"
"For as long as I can remember I saw that others--not me--were animated from within by a sense of themselves and energized from without by the knowledge that "me and mine" is a claim they all shared."
---"We are the world."
"I use to think I was afraid to grapple and grab for mine, that I was a coward. I may also be incapable of reading the signs, unable to make out the constellations everyone follows."
---"Starstruck? Moonstruck? . ..Night-blind?...Earthbound?"
"Unmindful of the scrolling sky and unaware of the maps of desire, I may be the silliest man on earth."
Tuesday, January 30, 2007
"To be alive in this great mystery!"---"That's a triple mocha latte with skim soy milk."
Monday, January 29, 2007
"Where would our police, security guards and jailers get a leg-up on their training if America didn't have such a large military establishment?---"Don't leave out pilots, fireworkers, emergency medical personnel and politicians."
"Female politicians don't have to be ex-military do they?"
---"No but I'm sure military service helps women qualify for those other jobs."
"Imagine what America would be like if military service was as expected of women seeking elected office as it is for men?"
---"Too many heroes, too many chiefs--not enough Indians in awe of their leaders' sacrifices?"
"The sacrifices! The sacrifices!"
---"Poe...Cooper?"
"Conrad...Brando."
---"I don't get it."
"You just don't get it man; you never will. You weren't there man! You weren't there!"
---"Deer Hunter?"
Sunday, January 28, 2007
"He's unable to acknowledge the suffering of others. Aborted babies have taken all the available room in his heart."---"Is it their innocence that charms him?"
Friday, January 26, 2007
"When life is easy she complains about being persecuted."---"What happens when life gets difficult?"
"She's a different person; she stops complaining. She functions but there's no way to guage how she's taking it."
---"There's nothing like a dose of reality to put one's mind into an altered state."
..
"Silence as a symptom?"
---"Complaining as a form of prayer...complaints as magical incantations."
"Then her daily prayers are weak magic.
Wednesday, January 24, 2007
"When I'm dead and gone no one's going to build a life from the ruins of mine."---"They'll need a hazmat crew and a lead-lined barrel just to put your carcass safely in the ground."
Tuesday, January 23, 2007
"'There's strong and then there's Army strong. ... It's a strength like none other. It's the strength to get over--and get over yourself'."---"What if behaviorists at the Pentagon learned that certain cognitive functions civilians relied on were crippling today's soldiers? Causing undue stress, injuries and even death?"
"'This taco tastes funny.'?--'Have another: that's an order Soldier.""
---"'There's retarded and then there's Army retarded.'"
Sunday, January 21, 2007
"This week my mantra is 'i'm sorry'."---"Mine is 'oh yeah?' Said just like that."
"My previous gurus never gave me words as mantras. Not English words anyway."
---"Sanskrit?"
"She's totally evolved."
---"For sure."
Saturday, January 20, 2007
"Little boys dream about mastery over giants and big boys dream about giant women."---"Men who dream about little women often have problems in relationships or with the law."
"Girls don't dream about giants. There's no Jill and the Bean Stalk?"
---"Big girls dream about movie stars, rock stars ...basketball players."
"Midgets?"
---"Babies. ... I don't think women's fantasies are as fantastic or as surreal as men's."
"As if. ... Isn't it true most men are emotionally stunted and out of touch with their emotions."
---"Isn't that contradictory?"
"You mean if men were more in touch with their feelings their sexual fantasies wouldn't be as interesting... or as sick?"
---"I don't know what I mean."
"Dude."
Friday, January 19, 2007
"She assumed I had nothing against killing. Executions, war, collateral damage--'They know what they're doing'. --She kept on saying 'it's a job, it's nothing personal' until I wanted to strangle her."---"She pushed your buttons. ... She's never said more than two words to me."
"Are you saying she was sizing me up?"
---"Tough talk can be a turn-on; compassionate convictions never. --Well maybe for the abused, but there's fewer violent fathers every year."
"So that was republican foreplay?"
---"You wimp; you lose."
Thursday, January 18, 2007
"There's something different about him."---"He had his eyes done."
"We just had our kitchen done."
Wednesday, January 17, 2007
"What's the matter with you?"---"I'm grieving for my past."
"That's new."
---"I'm mourning all those years I didn't have a clue."
"And you do now?"
---"How could I've been so stupid?"
"You were young.Why bother? ... Blame your parents. ... What's past has passed."
---"It's a spiritual thing."
"Don't you have credit card debt, outstanding loans and hospital bills? ... Kids, pets, a wandering wife and girlfriend to worry about?"
Tuesday, January 16, 2007
"I wanna get which you."---"Get what?"
"No seriously."
Monday, January 15, 2007
"She can be amused by clumsiness. She can drop something--have it slip from her hands--or watch somone trip and not think about neurological disorders."---"She's too young for him."
"They'll be our new fun couple."
---"Fun?"
Sunday, January 14, 2007
"Do you ever stop to think how unnecessary you are?"---"I was just thinking the same thing about you!"
"No, no. Not you silly--us---our lives, the things we do."
---"Look around there's always somebody nearby more unnecessary then me or you and most everybody we know."
"Funny how it works that way."
...
---"Do you ever wonder "why this town, this Starbucks--those trees there but none over there--these colors, this logo"?
"The mochas are good, the muffins are a little dry. ... I'm not from around here. I'm from Wisconsin."
Saturday, January 13, 2007
"Work with what you're given. Pay attention to what's put in front of you."---"Huh?"
Thursday, January 11, 2007
"The best people close their eyes and turn away from me. The worst people have me under surveillance."---"What are you talking about?"
"Gospel truth."
---Ok then. So in this Manichean world you've found yourself in--you've been cast into?--how do the majority of ordinary, not the best nor the worst people treat you?"
"Everyone takes sides. To reserve judgement is a crime punishable by chemical assaults, banishment then death. And only a very few citizens are free from surveillance and banishment duties."
---(recites)"'If you can't afford to pay for your medication, use our 800 number and call to see if you qualify for help with your prescription.'"
"Don't you understand I'm lucky to be alive. I'm lucky to be here talking to you like this, to be able to talk at all. It's unheard of--it's incredible."
---"You've heard about 'going to the mountain top' or 'the view from on high'? What you're describing is a view from no place on earth, from the bottom of a well."
"...from 'Hollow Earth'. "
---"What possible value is that perspective for the millions of us who freely roam the earth and fly its skies---skies you can barely see and places you'll never know anything about?"
"What if there were more buried alive like me? More then you surface dwellers--duty-bound to keep us in our holes and kill us--can imagine? ... Ever see the movie 'Woman in the Dunes'? This is like that but without the woman."
Wednesday, January 10, 2007
"I'm more than what you see here. I'm more than the sum of my parts."---"Nothing about you adds up. Your hidden or unknown X and Y factors, coordinates or integers, could be negatives."
Monday, January 08, 2007
"Alright shelters for battered women are something and new laws and penalties for old crimes are useful for the police and politicians but where's universal health insurance for our kids? It's not even an issue for the press."---"You're complaining that feminist organizations haven't brokered better deals for America's children?"
"Exactly...brokered."
---"You fight the battles you can win. They've revolutionized the laws on violence and job discrimination towards all women. They've changed centuries old behavior and corporate practices. 'Should and could' don't pay the baby-sitter Buster."
Sunday, January 07, 2007
"He said protecting people and property are the only jobs worth doing."---"Did you ask him who or what are you protecting people and property from?"
"No but I asked, 'whose property, which people are you protecting'? ... He stared at me like I'ld lost my mind. I don't think he likes me anymore."
Saturday, January 06, 2007
"Then she kicked off her expensive shoes and unpinned the veil." ---"Wasn't that just about perfect?"
Friday, January 05, 2007
"Have you found the female warrior inside of you Shar?"---"Have you embraced your inner child, Chad?"
"No but I'm working on my inner ' Stanley Kowalski'."
---"I'm getting in touch with my inner 'Lucretia Borgia'."
Thursday, January 04, 2007
"Hold it. I'm sorry. I can't hear words like oppression, imperialism, hegemony, and patriarchy without being reminded that all the Left has done since the VietNam War was to supply the Right with informants, patsies, sex-slaves and scapegoats."---"Don't forget drugs: killer weed and narco-terrorism."
Wednesday, January 03, 2007
"What was her problem?"---"She gets sullen--cranky--when she's near someone as carelessly dressed as you. ... Are those your L.L. Bean boots? Were you mucking around the fields today? "
"My Grandma would panic when she saw a black person-- an African-American--walking around the neighborhood. My Dad said sometimes Grandpa had to beg her not to call the cops. ... She use to curse outloud when she saw a Mexican."
Tuesday, January 02, 2007
"For most of history most humans didn't live past forty years of age. There were fewer lean years to worry about, to accumulate surplus for, because they were fewer years for everyone."---"There were fewer people. Women were chattel. Infanticide was common. ... The strong took from the weak. ... Winter kills were both dreaded and welcomed. ... What science, what information could those people have that would be of any use to us?"
"They're our ancestors."
---"Except for shared genetic material they'ld be as foreign to us as aliens from another planet."
"But they'ld learn how to live in the here and now."
---"Like today's Muslims? Would you want to teach them? Would they want to learn? Who has that kind of time? You're talking about decades not years. ... We have responsibilities to our own people."
"And the stockholders."
Monday, January 01, 2007
"No kids, no pets... no critters in your life?"---"I get to the track when I can. ... My sister and her kids live in Florida. I see them every Thanksgiving and send Christmas and birthday presents every year like clockwork."
"Do you have any houseplants?"
---"My mother's in a nursing home in Vegas. ... One of my neighbors --who I help out on a regular basis --is always talking about flowers. She's a single mom."
"Do you ever baby-sit for her?"
---"No but I bought them a washer-dryer."
"You do what you can."
