My fingers smell like bleach. My work isn't getting done. My wife wants us to take my daughter to Lakemont Park today. I can't fathom the time commitment. I can't fathom anything.

I'm unabashed here: there are spaces to fill on my little pink-highlightered paper telling me which dates are unwritten. I'm writing some of the dates now, with no pretense that it's going to be anything but filler. There's at least a hint of a motivation here, to check things off (even if that's like a list, and I hate lists, even if lists would allow me to... better, it's not going to, let.s).

I can't fathom anything. I'm not working because i'm doing this, but it's still a Saturday and I've accomplished some things there. I can't fathom driving the 2 hours (or less?) to Lakemont Park today because I feel like I should be working, even if... if.

It's not.

So this is why people give up on these things?

And later, maybe we'll go, maybe we won't. In truth it's as much about the idea of going there, where there's some waterpark that my wife things our daughter will enjoy, that stifles my energy. Hours of sun and the daughter not wanting to let us put sunscreen on her and the tons of people screaming and the headache that will without doubt accompany those things, the driving and the daughter enjoying it for a while but quickly wanting nothing but to go where she shouldn't, to climb whatever's too high and too dangerous, to jump off of things, the short tempers and the sun that'll keep on burning, and the headache that will keep on burning, and the screaming others and no where to go no way to get out no "let's sit down for a while," just a day of unrelenting.

I love them and I love doing things with them. Sometimes my wife over-estimates the amount of patience our daughter has. We took her to a local, very small zoo a few weeks back and that was perfect. That was not a day long commitment. By the time we were finished seeing the animals she was struggling to run off and obviously done doing the structured thing. That kind of thing works well for me, and I would do something like that in a heartbeat. I am struggling though to decide about this amusement park thing. I hate waterparks, my wife likes them. This could be as much for her as for our daughter.

Decisions shouldn't be so hard to make. Spontaneity doesn't seem to work anymore. Spontaneity with children can quickly crash into a guardrail. And try to climb on it. And jump off. And want a pop. Pop. Pop. Pop. POP!!! POP!!!!! POP!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

Dear Past,

YOU THOUGHT YOU HAD ME FOOLED, DIDN'T YOU? You skipped a day and thought I'd miss it because it's a holiday.

THINK AGAIN, CORN NUT.

- Present

P.S. You did a terrible job of managing this thing.

Dear Future:

Send money.

- Present

out there
they make everything brilliant
all chrome and sparkling metalic
unscathed and unscented
except that fragrant oil,
that pleasant lubrication
just enough to silence the joints.

in here
things are tiny and falling apart
the components crowd in
all fighting for space
there's insufficient area
and the whole product suffers.

Out there
space expands to make room
for improvement and enhancement
engineering advances move
at exponentially increasing speeds
everything just works
and it's always something you need.

I know what you need
I have it right here
you'll understand that you need it
after we've talked
you'll wonder how you did without
up until now

Out there
beautiful waves lap starlight
moon silver grace envelopes dreams
that happen even while awake
as collisions create light
and explosions bring life
order succumbs to order
magnified, magnified

in here
the light is too dim
the bulb flickers irregularly
just every few minutes or so.
around the temples there are
buzzing flies or black noises
just above inaudible
a rumbling static hiss
the support rods snap.

Out there
time settles and slows, ebbs and flows,
exactly as it is needed.
The pull of gravity massages,
while the brilliant sparkles,
the reflective surfaces,
the contemplative moves,
and our prison is lost and gone.

I know what you need
you'll never be the same
It's a skill I have
to identify these things in people
and I've got you figured out
you'll be amazed and wonder
how you did without
up until now.

Out there
space drifts wider apart,
ever falling backward
the shadow branches over moonlight
with purple twilight sighs
our heavenward trajectory
our hands splayed and refactoring.

In here
the bulbs shatter
as too many things are packed
too tightly
just to get out of the door
or out of a window
just to get beyond the blight
into a light of another kind
just to reach
but in here it's all locks
and the roof crushes
our spirits deformed
in here dried up mildewed soaked murky life.

I'm having trouble. Still. No matter how pointless, interminable, unable to focus because I'm at the office, whatever, however, I'm going to fill a chunk of time with posts that I didn't write when they appear and nobody's going to know why because there isn't a why. I guess there has to be a why.

Why?

Now that we've used up all the oil, and have to power our cars with rain collected without our intervention through a funnel on the hood, what's going to happen to all the fuel pumps in front of the gas stations and convenience stores? Are we just going to leave them there to hold the windshield cleaner stuff and the squeegees?

I was hoping an entry from the future would show up here today.

Dammit.

"Hello."

"Who are you?"

"An Angel."

"What's your name?"

"Satan."



A brief clip from a 1985 movie called The Adventures of Mark Twain. I stumbled on this by accident. For whatever reason I really, really dig it. I don't know anything about the rest of the movie, but I'm sort of interested in finding out now.

Wow. Very quickly now the date approaches where the holes in the future meet the present. I'm only five days out now, which basically defeats half of the purpose. Or all of it. I'm not sure I can quantify the purpose that way. I'm not sure I ever figured out the purpose.

I think my only two "Musimemberings" posted over the weekend. I meant to do a series! Two! What a series. I guess I had one half done that I ended up giving the green light, too. That one will probably show up after I've given this thing up for dead.

Hope you aren't time. Poor, poor time. Or, pour time. If you can stomach it.

Today (not today as you read this, as I'm in that timewarp again,) I had but 6 bucks to my name. The nation's floundering economy probably has nothing to do with the fact that we're broke lately. Or, I mean to say that the fact that we're broke probably has nothing to do with the economy. It's got more to do with my wife's changed employment situation and our utter inability to think rationally about spending.

I had six bucks and I was hungry. There's no good food in the house, so I decided to drive to Taco Bell. That's where you get crappy food cheap. Or where I get that. The combo (#3, I think,) that I decided on was the 3 taco supreme thing. Came up just shy of 6 bucks. While ordering it I thought, "Cripes, that can't be right. Isn't Taco Bell cheaper than that? Someone should plot a graph of Taco Bell's combo #3 prices over time. I bet it'd say a lot about the economy."

"Hello? What do you want to drink with that? Hello? Hello?" the tinny speaker was saying as I pictured stupid bar graphs in my head.

Cut to: Later. I'm sitting here trying to work. One of my Firefox tabs says "taco bell pisses all over time."

I googled it. Except that's not what I googled, so of course that's not what it says. But that SHOULD BE what it says, cuz that'd be better.

I had hoped I'd be able to make an entry out of something in here. Looks like I wasn't able. Ah, well.