you rascal

i walked out to my car, got in, turned the key, left the driver's side door open, looked over on the passenger seat for a CD in the pile that i'd like to listen to, and when i looked back there was a large chocolate lab/rott mutt with his paws propped up inside of my car, rapidly sniffing my arm.

i immediately let out an "AH! what the-!" and before i could finish speaking it had climbed across and over me to sit on the passenger seat (on top of my CDs), it's tongue wagging, happy with the mud he tracked all over me and the seats. i laughed and jumped out of the car and ran across the driveway, looking back and calling him. "get out of there, you rascal!", all the while shooing with my arm and laughing. he climbed out and ran off.

it was the funniest thing to happen to me this week. i've never seen that dog before in my life. it made me smile all day. 

:doug @ 7:01 PM

info

1 - when i was a kid i used to take bars of Dove soap and carve them with a tiny screwdriver so they read "Doug"
2 - i loved Outkast long before they were darlings of VH1
3 - i've been wearing the same ring on my right hand ring-finger since 1997; i only take it off to shower, sleep and masturbate
4 - my old tan corduroy coat is a relic of my father's 70's garb
5 - i think strawberry ice cream is entirely under-rated
6 - i've slept with exactly 20 women
7 - the corners of my eyes wrinkle when i smile or laugh
8 - most of my mentors have been strong, determined black men
9 - every two years around may/june i have a total breakdown where i cry like a baby
10 - i've never had a long-term adult relationship
11 - in the 5th grade i had a crush on renee kasson and i used to lip sync the music of the Fine Young Cannibals to her on the bus ride home from school
12 - the ending of Good Will Hunting always pissed me off because he doesn't decide what he wants to do with his life, instead he follows a girl across country
13 - the Shawshank Redemption deserves to be at the top of many best picture lists
14 - despite constantly screwing up, my older brother always comes to my rescue
15 - there have been times when my mother "subsidized my social life"
16 - i really believe in the power of the Internet as the first ever non-broadcast media
17 - foreign girls excite me because they look exotic, but i like white girls because they've got the same pop-culture lexicon as me
18 - i've been a supermarket stockboy
19 - my salsa is good, but my merengue is competitive
20 - i've never felt so in accordance with the universe as when i was dancing
21 - Aaliyah was stupid hot, but now it feels dirty to objectify her
22 - belly chains are trashy, but also hot
23 - i know how many women my dad has slept with
24 - i'd have given homosexuality more consideration if it were 100% acceptable
25 - New Orleans is my favorite city in america
26 - often i'll spend the time at a red-light looking at my blue eyes in my rearview mirror, turn my head until the light catches them perfectly
27 - i am incredibly vain, not that i like what i see when i look at myself, but in that i like looking at myself
28 - Internet crushes are stupid, but i've totally had them before
29 - i think being my friend requires a high level of kicking-ass, they're all fucking awesome people
30 - i'll spend time talking to assholes because they may just sense your ability to kick ass and try and drop their one sacred piece of pure wisdom in order to impress you
31 - i equate making a lot of money with giving up yourself
32 - if i had a dollar for everytime a hot girl called me "cute" (i.e. harmless), i'd be sleeping on a bed of money
33 - we're sure losing out by not having Morphine around anymore
34 - Maker's Mark is the best kentucky straight bourbon ever
35 - we shouldn't have to fuck people to get them to like us, but we do
36 - sooner or later i'm going to do something that makes the heads of thousands of people spin
37 - i really wish i knew what that thing is
38 - married or not, i've considered looking up my 3rd grade teacher Miss Glickman and hollering at her
39 - my computer sits on a huge square coffee table at the end of my bed, but not for the dirty reason you're thinking
40 - people could figure me out a lot quicker if they downloaded and listened to some Crooked Fingers 

:doug @ 10:47 PM

give credit where credit is due

i'd like to take a moment to thank Howard County District Court Judge Hartman for letting me off with Probation Before Judgement and 40 hours of community service rather than slamming down on me with fines and points, that was both incredibly kind and rather astute to not throw the book at a good kid like me. i'd also like to thank the State's Attorney for going Nolle Prosequi on the actual speeding ticket that started this whole nightmarish maelstrom of Justice.

does anyone else think that The Law should have Fear as such a major component in it's workings? cause i sure don't. i was shaking in my boots standing up there, specifically when the judge mentioned 60 days in jail. then again, i guess getting scared to death and feeling that small and helpless can probably be a good thing now and then. 

:doug @ 6:17 PM

the greatest story i've ever heard

His job was to sweep and wash the porch, his sister's job was to do the dishes and clean the kitchen, they did this every single night. One night he finished early and started up the steps towards his room in the attic, his mother stopped him.

"Go help your sister."

"But I've already done my job."

She took him downstairs and gave him the worst beating of his life. That was all it took, he packed his canvas sack with a change of clothes, stuffed his pockets with $17.00 in collections from his paper route, and snuck off in the middle of the night. It was the June in the summer of 1951.

He walked 8 miles from the house in Kensington down to the D.C. line and caught a bus. The bus line ended just south of Richmond, Virginia. When the driver shook him awake, he got out and start walking. He had no idea how many miles or how many hours he walked, all he knew was that his 14 year old feet sure hurt. He say down on his sack and dipped his head into the crook up his arm, one lone thumb help upwad.

The car stopped and the door popped open on the old Ford. The man had a scar from across the right side of his head where he had been hit with a railroad spike and his arm twitched in a twisted claw from the nerve damage, his name was "Scotty", short for Walter Scott. They drove for a while and traded tales.

"So where ya headed?"

"Florida. Got family down there.", the boy had said. He wouldn't tell the scary man that his grandparents actually lived in Georgia, just in case.

"You don't want to go to Florida. You want to join the merchant marines and be a cabin boy."

"I do?"

"Yeah. Open the glovebox there.", and he pointed a trembling finger toward it. The boy did and saw several thousands dollars stacked within. "10,000," the scary man said, "... do you know how to drive?"

"Sure I do.", and they pulled over to switch sides.

The kid drove on towards New Orleans. He almost flipped the car about ten minutes into the next town, Scotty woke and grumbled a warning towards him, then he nodded back off.

Well into the next night they arrived. Scotty took the boy down to the Seaman's hall near the docks and bought him drinks. The boy went somewhere shady and bought a fake birth certificate for an easy ten bucks, one that stated his way actually 18 years old. They looked for ships heading out, but no such luck. They checked into a cheap hotel, and the boy was relieved to find two double beds. Scotty told him not to worry, and he didn't, "I ain't no pederast."

They drove onto Galveston, Texas the night day, but again found no work and ships going out. Scotty found an old whorehouse he liked and they went up the dark stairs on the side of the building til they reached a think iron door with a cliche eye-window. This time was on him, so the boy got a cute young redhead without a name and spent his first night with a woman there, at the tender age of 14.

Las Vegas came next, and after another night at a whorehouse with a lady named Caroline (he remembered because she had her name carved into his wooden headboard), that's where Scotty asked him. "How old are you, kid?"

He wouldn't lie to him, "14."

The boy went home on a train the next day, all the way back to D.C. under the agreement that should Scotty would stop by sometime. And should he not find the kid in school and doing right by his folks, that he would give him the greatest ass-kicking of his life. The kid walked back home to find his mother in the kitchen and asked, "What's for dinner?" His parents were understandably livid in the way that only pure Southern Baptists can be.

But Scotty kept his word, stopping by a year later with presents from around the world for both the kid and his folks, with whom he got along with just fine. 

:doug @ 8:49 AM

an argument for celibacy

women are CRAZY. 

:doug @ 7:41 AM

an argument for promiscuity

i haunt a couple internet forums, and i've had a recurring debate with some anonymous canadian about the virtues of having a select few sexual partners versus the benefits of throwing it out there like i've done in the past. it's always a heated discussion as one side is vehemently defending their inexperience with righteous indignation while the other (my) side is aggessively persuading others to come join the hedonism.

i really don't think there's anything wrong with tasting all this nonsensical world has to offer - be it food, fun, or fast women. i highly doubt there's any possibility for a person to be completely pious, to not shame themselves in lustful acts really only denies satisfaction to our inner animal. so yeah, i've been "loose", but never irresponsible. and while looking back on that period of my early 20's i shake my head and wonder just how our of control i really was, when i really think about it, i don't think i was all that reckless - i was simply hell-bent on having a good time.

it's safe to say i have serious qualms with the way western religions (judeo-christian) attempt to constrict the natural behavior of human beings. it's also safe to say that in the reading i've done on eastern religions, i've found much less concrete laws on how to conduct myself as a person. while the westies seems to believe that the proper behavior could give birth to a motivation within a person, the easterlings seem to believe that the inner motivation is inherent within and the proper behavior might help accelerate you down your destined path. it's nice really, because you're not being held entirely accountable when you fall off the wagon, and you don't really have to worry about the wrath of the all-powerful father figure above. but i digress... i keep coming back to Siddhartha by Herman Hesse, and remembering how he went and completely submersed himself in Samsara before coming back to the river. he went and he tasted the meaningless delight of the world before finding his way. i think that's more how it should be done too.

but from a social standpoint, i've never been one of those people who weighed all their hopes in the basket of romantic fulfillment. sure, i've felt Love for a woman and desperately wanted it returned, but i never ever ever ever felt that there was one person out there who would bring myself into perfect balance. i'm just not one of them.

and there are a lot of these people out there, the die-hard "romantics" of the world who pine and yearn and cry out in the night for someone to send them a "soulmate." and, while the title of this blog would suggest otherwise, i've always been infinitely more infatuated with the aesthetic of romance. the piercing of streetlamps through tree branches, the long drives home when you detect your scent inter-mingled with someone else's scent, the sad lonely hero on his way to another crowded party as the wind whips his long wool coat around his plodding feet and the click of dress shoes on sidewalk.

that's what fucking a lot of people means to me. it means that i'm satisfying myself on the base animal level so that i can survive long enough to complete myself. then when i'm all together and have found my path through (or place in) the world, then i'll come home to some kind of Love. but, god-dammit, not one second before then. 

:doug @ 8:14 AM

the fear

i really can't remember the first time i felt it, perhaps because i remember being very young. the house i grew up, where i returned a few months ago, sits two houses down from a lutheran church. i can remember being a kid and playing Ghost in the Graveyard behind that church, i can remember shooting hoops with zack at the court in that parking lot (the bad kid down the street), and i can remember the snake we found in the window-well of that same church. my brother later captured that snake and "tamed" it that same day, it sat around his shoulders as we watched a well-worn Star Wars taped off of NBC - but that's another story. i can remember walking to that church and sitting on the steps at night, long after choir practice had come on gone, and crying a lot. looking out at the large, evil farm across the street and then upward for some kind of answer. but i can't remember the first time i caught The Fear, though i just caught it again.

maybe The Fear only makes itself known to indecisive over-thinking people on their front porches and church steps at 3am while they smoke cigarettes, but i don't think so. sometimes it's all too much for the Atheist to shug off, and sooner or later you're going to realize your mortality. not in the re-affirming way that follows the funeral of a friend or relative, but in the all-encompassing terror of the end of your existence. I Am Going To Cease To Be.

it's so very real when it's felt, and minutes later you can feel like a fool for thinking it, but it doesn't make it any less There. maybe it's why we're so quick, why we feel the need to move around, why we insist on being captivated by our own velocity - because what other choice is there? to sit back and smoke cigarettes and stare into the seemingly neverending stillness of night and feel The Fear? no way, man. that's not the way to be.

but yeah, i was young. maybe too young to start thinking like that. it made everything else seem cheap for so long. it robbed me of childhood fun. i hate The Fear. 

:doug @ 3:20 AM