The Featured Post Blog

A collection of the featured posts as they appeared on mo'time

by: mictlantecuhtli

I am alive.

Sorry I'm late.

Rereading my own old posts, it hurts a little. It's pleasant, in some ways, but I've always been powerfully vulnerable to nostalgias for imagined pasts. It reminds me that I used to be made of bone before I was made of smoke.

I'm somebody else now. Smoke and mirrors. I don't talk like I used to. I don't know what to say to you. I'm not sure I know who you are, or if I ever did.

I live somewhere else, not too far away from where I used to live. It's possible I may move again. I look different. I cut my hair short when I lost one woman, and then grew it out again to make love to another. It's just about long enough to tie back now.

She was different. She had hair like mine, and eyes unlike mine, and she liked to bite. It didn't work out, either.

I grew a beard. I wear glasses now. I've learned that I believe in some things less than I thought that I did. I've discovered that, when push comes to shove, the things that I do are a little different from what I might have thought.
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posted by: howard at 17:16 | link | comments |

by: AmericanGirl

You can imagine my annoyance when I got an email from my brother, with a link to the NYC Half Marathon, and a note saying "I signed you up."  Oh, and "You have to raise $1,500."  I sent him back a few choice words, and a suggestion that certainly it was not legal for him to forge my name on a legal agreement, and he of all people should know this.  Then he called, and I grumbled about it some more.  We both decided I was a bitch, and now here I am, training for a half marathon.

I got some new running shoes and woke up early last weekend to start breaking them in.  By the time I got to the end of the second block, I was tired.  My laces were too tight.  But I kept going.  It was windy and cold and unpleasant.  I'm tired of the rain.

I ran past the square in the sidewalk  that some silly homeowner left unsupervised except for a  "Wet Cement" sign, even though his home was right along the main road that takes all the kids to and from school.  That was about 25 years ago, and still, clear  as day, you can read "Pierre The Great" in one corner.  Pierre sat next to me in fifth grade.  I used to let him copy my spelling test for a piece of Bazooka bubble gum.  He was the only Pierre in our whole school, and quite possibly the whole town.  I remember he got called to the principal's office for that.   His mom taught CCD out of her house, and she always gave us Nutter Butters at the end.  She was awesome.

I ran through the school yard and thought about the morning that I was there early, and the janitor was on the roof.  He threw down to me all of the tennis balls that were up there, and it was like I'd won the lottery.  I think I had five tennis balls.  Everyone in my class was so impressed.  I gave one to Pierre.  So I'm thinking, and my lungs are totally burning at this point, that's all it took?   Happiness and joy and excitement used to come so easily.  Now I squelch them all down with a little brown bottle of pills.
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posted by: howard at 10:56 | link | comments (1) |

by: greeneyes

We hear about it, say "Wow, that's horrible," pause for a brief moment, and continue on.  "So what are your plans for the weekend?"

I think it's a defense mechanism.  Some sort of innate survival technique...not necessarily something our ancestors thousands of years ago needed, but something we've developed over the last couple hundred years as a way to make it through the day, and the night, and into the next day.  Because if we don't have that mechanism, if we don't deal with it the way we have been dealing with it, I have a hard time envisioning a humanity that could survive.  And if humanity did survive, what sort of humanity would it be?  I can't help but think it would be one I would not necessarily want to be a part of.

As I started my drive home from work this afternoon, I turned the radio to NPR, as I often do.  Yesterday I learned about a 6-week course for members of the military who want to become (almost) forensic anthropologists to identify causes of death and body parts of those killed overseas.  A while back I heard an interview with an author who said that depression is a natural state of mind, and prescribing so many anti-depressants is actually doing a disservice to everybody because so much good can come from depressed minds, not to mention the fact that you can't fully appreciate the good times without suffering through the bad times (this is hugely oversimplified, but the author has an excellent point).

Today it was about the earthquake in China.
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posted by: howard at 12:58 | link | comments (1) |

by: rustymadgal (again, but this time as a private citizen)

Ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha! I pulled it off somehow. Could be the Mo'jinx, you know how when you mention something in your blog or in the many behind the scenes Momails or chats and it happens in real life?

There I was yesterday posting and wallowing in the Trailer Parks biggest pity party about my inability for the first time ever to get a job and all the shit the man makes you go through just to apply for the privilege of being turned down.

This morning started out no differently. Got up, hiked with Cavedog and emailed a few evil HRs for jobs I had applied for and heard nothing from. At this point I have nothing to lose so I wrote one HR that I saw the position frequently in the classifieds and promised not to be worse than any of the past people he had hired.

I also applied for a few more jobs online like they wanted and took the most insane personality test ever. Those questions can usually try to be tricky and sometimes the choices they give for answers dont fit but one test section made me pick between two choices.

I would rather

have marshmallow fluff stuffed in my ears or w$#k with someone sloppy and lazy

smell something awful or have one task to accomplish all day

be probed by aliens or fall down the stairs

I have no idea what they wanted, maybe that was the drug test.

After that the dark clouds blew in and we had our first rain in over two months. I drove around in my crappy economy car with the dried out wipers smearing pine sap all over the windshield picking up more and more applications.
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posted by: howard at 10:31 | link | comments |