i haven't been ignoring you, i sware!

it's just hard to have clear coherent thoughts when you have to be on all the time or when you don't know when your quiet time is going brutally interrupted! it's no excuse, i know, but it's what i've got.

in lieu of silent time and coherent thoughts, i've been reading. a lot. and these are a few chunks of text that have really hit me, courtesy of henry miller. i love henry miller because i know that i only want to read him when i need to. and i love that he's a constant reminder that i'm not completely off my rocker in the way i feel and think about things.


"you will soon tire of being forever mysterious. it is like standing before the mirror all day. i see you from behind the mirror. the mystery is not in what you do but in what you are. when i take you out of this morbid life you will be naked as a statue. now your beauty is all furniture. it has been moved around too much. we must put it back where it belongs - on the rubbish pile. once upon a time, i thought that everything had to be expressed poetically or musically. i did not realize that there was a place and a reason for ugly things. for me the worst was vulgarity. but vulgarity can be honest, even pleasing, as i discovered. we do not need to raise everything to the level of the stars. everything has its foundation of clay. even helen of troy. no one, not even the most beautiful of women should hide behind her own beauty."

AND

"it there is anything which deserves to be called miraculous, is it not love? what other power, what other mysterious force is there which can invest life with such undeniable splendor?
the bible is full of miracles, and they have been accepted by thinking and unthinking individuals alike. but the miracle which everyone is permitted to experience sometime in his life, the miracle which demands no intervention, no intercessor, no supreme exertion of will, the miracle which is open to the fool and the coward as well as the hero and the saint, is love. born of an instant, it lives eternally. if energy is imperishable, how much more so is love! like energy, which is still a complete enigma, love is always there, always on tap. man has never created an ounce of energy, nor did he create love. love and energy have always been, will always be. perhaps in essence they are one in the same. why not? perhaps this mysterious energy which is identified with the life of the universe, which is god in action, as someone has said, perhaps this secret, all-invasive force is but the manifestation of love. what is even more awesome to consider is that, if there be nothing in our universe which is not informed with this unseizable force, then what of love? what happens when love (seemingly) disappears? for the one is no more indestructible than the other. we know that even the deadest particle of matter is capable of yielding explosive energy. and if a corpse has life, as we know it does, so has the spirit which once made it animate. if lazarus was raised from the dead, if jesus rose from his tomb, then whole universes which now cease to exist may be revived, and doubtless will be revived, when the time is ripe. when love, in other words, conquers over wisdom."

the original "tiger beat"

i'm selling all my books to this used book store. and i'm doing it one box at a time because, well, because i fuckin' feel like doing it one box at a time. and it's dangerous because they make you stay in the store while they look through and price what you're selling.
i fell into the trap the first day - i went traipsing about the store looking around and found a used thrush hermit cd!!! they're canadian and you can't get ANY of their shit here!! so i bought it. i made $44.50 on my book sale and spent $6.75 on the cd, netting $37.75. i told the guy that they were going to get it back anyway, i consider it a "rental" fee. this really isn't going to help my reason for doing this.
the second day, i came in with a plan: find a book - preferably something with several copies on the shelf and one that i haven't read before - and sit in one spot and read the book while they price. so i did.

the book: herodotus, "histories".

i'm head-over-heels for the writing style of this book. maybe it's the interpreter. maybe it's how it was originally written, i don't know. but it reads like time's first "tiger beat" magazine. "tiger beat" magazine with greek names.
"atys did this and this and this. and then corseus did that and that and that. and then they sent all this gold to this god's temple. but that was only according to the persians! wait 'til you hear how the greeks told it!" et cetera, et cetera, et cetera (in the king of siam voice).
there are 4 (maybe more) accounts of daughter snatching for wiving in the first 3 pages alone! this is choice reading!
do they really have whole college classes on this book?!!? it's AMAZING. i'm so in love with the ridiculousness of it. love love love.

fuck perez hilton and people magazine - read herodotus!!