Soft Liquid Joy

Next time i try to read Ulysses, i need to remember to keep a pencil and highlighter handy so as to take copious notes. i think thats where i went wrong, where i screwed up this post-college independence thing. I quit taking notes all the time and thus stopped thinking as much about books, about movies, about life. Thinking too much about what is noteworthy rather than just taking the damn notes. Don't stop but to clarify the vision in your mind's eye (or something to that effect, thanks Jack).
All this will happen when i magically get my shit together. As if "getting my shit together" is like getting a cheeseburger or wall-shelves or a raise. I'm starting to understand, or face up to the fact that i will never be one of those people who has their shit together, (at least not my perception of those people). i will never know what i'm doing, never know where everything goes and what to do with it or whom. I envision myself all slick and adult with a leather bag and lots of writing utensils (in this fantasy, i'm also tall, thin, and look completely different. oh, and feel comfortable enough to wear girly things without puking) and the leisure to waltz into a coffee shop and sit for hours reading some supersmart author and writing notes in the margins. Learning all sorts of things about writing style, writing movements and symbolism on my own because my education prepared me to do so. This magical, fantasy leisure time comes from having a magical, fantasy writing job where i have the freedom to write from anywhere and the knowledge and experience to use all those things i learn in my supersmart books by Joyce and Pynchon and hell, throw in some Spencer for nostalgia.
Maybe part of growing up is understanding that you will never be the fantasy, and being ok with that. I won't ever write like those guys. I will never be as calculating as Pynchon, as flowing as Joyce or as metaphoric as Spencer. I am ok with that. It's incongruous with my CAHSmic fantasy of myself, but i can't write like that.
I'll probably never own a slick leather bag like for scholars either. Not because i'm cheap, cuz yeah, i am, but because i like military bags and bags from gama-go and bags with other stuff on them more than i like those scholar-bags.
Nor will i ever magically get the confidence to wear girlier clothes. I'll always feel like it needs balancing, like yin/yang or something. I'll always feel like it's over-the-top, whatever it is.
In fact, that woman in the coffee shop reading Joyce is so deeply un-me that once i get down to it, i really don't want to be her much. She's way more mature than i want to be. She'd never fill a room with playpen balls for the hell of it. She'd accept her adulthood as a given, not rage against the dying of the light as i do (though she'd get the reference and lecture me about how it's about DEATH not growing up, to which i'd repond "so?" and go back to playing Fable). Maybe my fantasy is more about the feeling of comfort and accomplishment she has. The feeling of knowledge as a tangible thing, not a vague remembrance as it is now. Her ability to use her education, rather than allow it to get moldy under the desk. The magical job, the togetherness, the height, those are all extras. I guess i need to start trying to see me now in that coffee shop fantasy future.
Eww, sorry, i think this got really cheesy and now i'm talking such fuzzy topics as self-confidence. I promise, this started as a rant about active reading... i think... Eww, yeah, fuck this.

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Atheism - episode 1

There are a lot of reasons why I'm an atheist. They include things like belief in chance, and the random movement of molecules. A strong belief in democracy and a reluctance to think in moral absolutes. A sense of privacy and the knowledge that very little actually matters to normal people, much less a god.
But one argument that baffles me is evolution. How can anyone look at the totally random way some life has evolved and tell me that was a coscious decision on anyone's part? A consciousness would be smarter.
Think of all the dumbest looking animals you can. Platypus. What the fuck? They're wobbly, egg-laying, poisonous, swimming mammals that can detect electric fields generated by muscle movement (wait, what?). Think about why they look goofy. See how they walk, with their belly hanging down, like they ate too much. They'd make more sense with normal teeth like an otter but no, they've got a bill like a duck, so as to dig in river sand and eat things there (i guess). So basically, they could have been a nice water-loving, cold-blooded bird thing, but they had to ride the tree all the way to mammals before they decided, "Hey those birds might have the right idea of things"...
Anyone could see that the poor platypus would be happier if it's legs were longer or if it had bigger teeth so as to maybe hunt fish and frogs. It could avoid attack without poison. Get away or maybe attack back. That would make the platypus a happier animal. A better self-defense system.
Now look at the human reproductive system. This cannot have been a conscious invention. Its too dumb. Your vital reproductive organ rips itself to shreds periodically in order to function properly. How does that make sense? You'd think that lining would be important to have in order for an egg to latch on and grow. A seed needs plenty of dirt, right? Nope. You have to periodically purge the lining in order for there to be little enough to satisfy an egg. But every egg doesnt always latch on. They dont tell you in bio or in sex ed that fertilized eggs sometimes, actually often, never find a place to settle and so never grow. Maybe thats cuz your body's so damn busy purging all that nice spongy egg-growing stuff! This system is moronic. Anyone with half a brain could come up with a more efficient way to reproduce. And dont tell me there's some sort of moral lesson to this because thats just stupid. There's no morality in irony.
Every funcional aspect of an animal is actually an extremely roundabout and inefficient way to function. When something works well, it's a marvel (cockroaches: efficient, strong, resourceful,adaptive and still alive). When humans invent things, usually we think of the most efficient way to achieve our goal before we set out. Evolution's only measure of what works is what creatures aren't dead before reproduction. Any random mutation that works will continue, but you have to wait for the lottery to get it. And then, when the mutation reproduces, you still have a chance of losing it! If there were a consciousness present at any point, it wouldnt be quite so outlandishly absurd, inefficient, and pointless.
I guess unlike most people, the idea that life is pointless is actually a comfort to me. Means if i dont get it, there's nothing to get, and no reason to sweat it. Another reason i'm an atheist.

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Kafe Kerouac

I love Kafe Kerouac and have since I first walked in, reading The Town and the City. I sit in the front window, reading a book and drinking coffee. A perfect ending to any day.
Everyone there is always so friendly. They'll talk to you, or not. Mike, the owner, tends to hire people who already hang out there, so the atmosphere of the place isn't divided between employees and customers. The place is supported by the regulars who are varied and numerous. Interesting, artsy nerds. Grad students of various disciplines and undergrads of indeterminate discipline. Liberals, moderates and socialists. Queers, heteros and transfolks. People who love all kinds of music and all kinds get played.
Books. I have always come here to read. From that first day, when I happened to be a third of the way through Jack's first novel. Reading

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