stumbling my way through a digital life
so today is raymi’s birthday and you should care because back in 2000 she started blogging and helped the internet figure out what a blog was and should be.
in fact, i would estimate that 90% of all bloggers learned how to blog either directly or indirectly from her influence.
if for no other reason than these, you should celebrate her bitches.
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2am,
thank you for your response.
while i read your blog, i tend to disagree w/ you on a number of points. however, i would argue that my dissent is not at all “wasted energy“.
after all, we are all in this fight together and i would trust that you appreciate those who contend w/ your posts as much as those who swallow it whole.
reading your post (in response to my comment) i would strongly disagree with the analogy that i was “berating a mystery novel for lacking a decent explanation of elliptic curve cryptography“. in fact, the contentions i was raising were evident and devoid of the abstract. my language was straightforward and simple.
i could not agree more w/ your comparison of blogs as a newsstand. as a fact, individuals more educated than you or I have made similar assertions and I believe them to be correct. to say that i stumbled upon your blog of “self-realiazation” while hoping for more relevant content is simply erroneous. upon being referred to your site, i had preconceived notions of what i would find. unfortunately, you did little to break out of the box that is your stereotype.
while i respect and honor your contributions to the greater good, i contend that my comment was not directed at your personal life, but rather, the content that you and your patrons prefer to indulge yourselves in.
you’re audience isn’t looking for your global contribution; instead they are looking for someone to validate their own study of self. this is where we part ways, 2am.
i’m glad that while looking at my blog, you chose to highlight the post entitled, “the ocean is full because everyone is crying“. as a point to fact, i would have never been able to share such intimate words w/ the world had it not been for the caring skill of a talented therapist. i hold fast that my blog entertains thought outside of the norm and perhaps that is why some find it so confrontational. i would hope that the words of this short and sweet post would find their way to the reader and encourage them to think beyond self. nonetheless, it’s good to know that those who consider themselves “educated” point to it with malcontention.
the fact that you quoted lennon/mccartney makes my heart feel better and i would argue that it did more for me than you could know. thank you for that.
in closing, the worth of any blog/writing/post is in it’s reaction. the fact that your readers were your cheerleaders was of no surprise—yet still such a great dissapointment. “m is for maiden” is a classic example: she possess the skill to sum up a person in a few words: “he is hurting. but the only way he knows how to deal with his hurt is to try and hurt others.”
fucking brilliant.
is this the state of your field? the state of your ’science’? anyone can make a judgement about me w/o any reference besides words that i post on the internet.
shame on you.
the world finds itself in need of compassion and love.
hoping that you and I find a way to focus our energies on those goals.
peace and love….but especially peace,
so tonight the internet is full of hate; and visitors from 2amsomewhere are angry at me for adding to their discussion.
this is unfortunate, because we are all brothers and sisters in this whole mess called life.
despite previous reports, i’m not a devil and we are all actively searching for the same thing.
tonight’s music is “soon forget” and it’s dedicated to those who write off descending views.
shame on you.
peace and love, but especially peace.
last night i wrote this great post about buster and a run in w/ the my jackass neighbors across the way. it was a great post and included lots of colorful adjectives and perfect grammar. in fact, i dont think i used the f-word once!
so everything was going great and then BAM my web server decided to crash, taking my unsaved literary work of art with it. i swear i’m never authoring a post on a server-side form again.
luckily, development has started up again on MarsEdit and now that I’ve purchased a license, you’ll never have to worry about missing out on a buster story ever again.
i know…huge relief.
besides missing eTech, i had an invitation to see “the dave matthews tribute band” play tonight in san diego.
i didnt go.
as i write this, they’re playing at 4th & B and I’ll be goddamned if i’m not sitting on my ass in redlands.
and for the record i also sat on tickets to see the “real” dmb play in vegas w/ the frey this past saturday night.
i didnt go.
when it rains it pours, fuckers.
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can someone please tell me why the water you get from you kitchen sink is colder than the water you can get from your bathroom sink?
am i alone in this?
i need freezing cold water in the bathroom…not the kitchen!
perhaps this would be a great question for one of the kids at home depot.
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baby steps…
Burger King Shifts Policy on Animals
now if we could just corner that colonel sander’s mother-fucker, we’d be making some progress.
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so tuesday and wednesday, i’m camping out at eTech w/ the cool web 2.0 kids.
when i come back, i’m sure that i’ll know how to provide ultimate web2.0/ajax/cool kid content.
or maybe someone will just show me how to make my blog not suck.
either way, it’s in san diego and if you cant become a better blogger by spending two days in san diego…well then you’re fucked.
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spending a sunday afternoon sleeping in the sunshine is just fine by Buster.
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while i dont consider myself an elvis fan, there’s something about the songs he recorded when he was breaking up w/ his woman that I just dig. i swear that i was at least 12 years old before i knew that elvis wasnt the greatest musician of all time and that gospel music wasnt the most sacred of genres.
this fascination may have something to do w/ the fact that my papa played these tracks over-and-over as we drove back and forth from church. when i was a kid, one of the only things we ever did as a family was go to church—but we did it a LOT.
i remember one wednesday night, we were driving the 30 miles to our cult/church and ’strawberry fields’ came on the classic rock station. all those minor and 7th chords combined in a masterfully harmonious way were something my musically inexperienced ears had never heard. this was NOT elvis and it most definitely wasn’t the C-D-G chord progressions that we played in church.
“dad, can you turn it up?” i asked from the back seat of our chevy blazer. “who sings this song?!” i inquired in a voice that was more desperate than my struggle with puberty had hoped to sound.
“a hippie drug addict, that’s who!” he replied.
my father’s voice was always the most booming sound in the world and once you heard it you would never forget it.
at the time, his proclamation seemed bigger than life. it blew my mind and was beyond anything my father had ever said to me.
for the first time in my life, i was digging something that my parents hated or were afraid of?
so the beatles played across our under-powered car stereo as i fogged up my passenger window with my breath and with my finger wrote, “its a dream”.
my father hated when we “wrote” on the windows. in my dad’s world, sunday morning was as much about washing the family car as it was about going to church and my sister and i knew that wednesday night’s writing would become sunday morning’s conversation.
we drove the last 7 miles on highway 46 to the little farm town where we attended church. (this stretch of highway would fondly become known as the “7 mile stretch” and I’ve traveled it at least 10,000 times in my life.)
later that night, i opened my hymnal and sang along to “softly and tenderly” just as brother hester had directed. even as my mouth formed the words to this familiar hymn, my mind was replaying the song of a strung out hippie.
this was the first time that I contemplated that there could be more to life than a handful of believers waiting for the 2nd coming.
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Erin: i hate your use of the word “fuck” in such an improper manner
Erin: it really drives me nuts
Jeff: dude, my usage of the f-word is very fuck proper
Jeff: how proper?
Jeff: fuck proper
Erin: nevermind
Erin: you’re an idiot
Jeff: you’re a slut
Erin: word
Erin: i have zero inspiration to blog today
b>Jeff: i think that you should start putting snippets of our chat conversations in your posts…like i do w/ stonebraker b/c i say funny things that are deserving of being snipped
Erin: maybe if you wrote something good
Jeff: maybe if you understood my level of humor
Erin: yeah… that’s it
Jeff: you’re the only person i know who can win the “oh yeah…I’m the dumb one” war w/ me
Jeff: i promise that i do read
Erin: if we look at your use of the word “fuck” then I wonder
Jeff: but it’s my “calling card”
Jeff: it’s how you can pick a jeff-post out of the crowd
Erin: eh, doesn’t the fact that you have YOUR name on YOUR blog already do that?
Jeff: you’re such a smartass
Jeff: i mean if we took all of our posts…mixed them in a hat and drew them one-by-one you would know mine
Erin: fine
Jeff: ok i’m going to prove to you that i can use fuck in such a manner
Jeff: an adverb answers the questions: how? when? where? how often?
Jeff: right?
Jeff: i went to erin’s house and it was fuck fun.
Jeff: how fun?
Jeff: A: fuck fun
Jeff: it’s an adverb
Jeff: BAM
Erin: shit
Erin: that’s ridiculous
Erin: fuck is not an adverb
Erin: fuck is a verb
Erin: deal with it!
Jeff: yes, but fuck can also be used as an ADverb
Jeff: she is fuck hot
Erin: you’re ridiculous
Erin: it should be: she is fucking hot
Erin: i would throw you out of my class for being an idiot
Erin: start adding the “ing” or i’m boycotting your blog until you do it the right way.
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so buster figured out that a cool thing to do is to pull up the carpet around my fireplace and excavate all the padding underneath. this activity becomes even more enjoyable if he can carry all the little pieces of padding to every corner of the apartment.
being the smart-guy that i am, i was ready for this w/ a product called Yuck Off that is supposed to deter animals from chewing on things. It’s nothing but water and rosemary and supposedly tastes very bitter—but is otherwise harmless. so i walk over and DRENCH my carpet in this stuff and explain to buster how very sad it makes papa when he destroys our home.
everything was swell until i was taking my stats final exam. as i was sitting there reading my F-Table (yep it’s actually called an F-Table) i started to chew on my fingernail…and nearly gagged. evidently, the Yuck Off had ran down my hands and i had wisely transferred it to my mouth during my final fuck exam.
it also appears that no amount of soap, water, or swallowing can get rid of this taste in my mouth. while my night is ruined, i have learned to never go near the bottle of Yuck Off again.
i swear that buster is doing a much better job of training me than I am of him.
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in retrospect, a trip to san francisco saved me from a lifetime of destruction…
a while ago—it must be two years by now—my friend and i spent a few days in SF and she taught me that there was more waiting for me than a series of bad choices in southern california or a stuffy hotel room in berkley.
in so many ways, she taught me that we were each our own and that i had something special to offer. it was just one example of how she could sit and listen to my stories about life and—in the most unassuming way—remind me that I was beautiful. if you can ask any of the people who are so very proud to call her a friend, you’ll hear the same thing.
her life is passing me by and each day i’m reminded how much i miss her.
it’s been nearly a year since i wrote this about beth and a year without her hasn’t done much to calm that hurt.
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maybe there is a god above, but all she ever taught me was how to hate with all of my heart.
friends, isnt that enough to shut down the business?
at somepoint doesnt the death toll outweigh the benefit of conquest?
when do the losses start to matter?
to everyone out there who believes, tell me how many more must suffer for your benefit?
by no means is this a faceless rant against religion, but an honest plea to my readers.
how do you do it?
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so i played “hallelujah” by jeff buckley over the car stereo and she turned to me and asked, “is this a church song?”
reality greeted me with the kind of aggression reserved for bitter enemies or sweet lovers.
a rap song about bitches and blow followed, but it didn’t matter because the loneliness was all i could hear.
when she asked who he was all i could muster was, “…he was a great musician with a beautiful suicide.”
but by then, the shiny lights had stolen her away.
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so a few weekends ago, buster met up w/ his sweetheart, maddy, at the dog beach for some romping around in the sand. despite 2 hrs of traffic, buster was super jazzed to chase all kinds of tail and splash around in the ocean.
maddy brought erin and mk w/ her and erin was nice enough to take a few shots of buster. but since no one really ever goes to erin’s blog i thought i would post them for the world to see.
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dear american idol,
tonight i watched my first and last episode of the season. the last i tell you!
even if america decided to ruin my life and kill your ratings, i’m confident there could have been something you could have done to keep the dirty-hot-internet-chick on for another week.
(after all, you did give the world clay aiken.)
until next year’s slut controversy,
onelonelysuccess
p.s. i’m going to miss you antonella barba–you jersey slut.
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