Someday, when I’m phenomenally wealthy, or when I’m omnipotent possibly as a result of being dead, I’m going to do some really fun shit. Such as:

- invest, obviously. I’m sick of reading about people who win Powerball or make millions in Hollywood going broke because they spent all their money on stupid shit and didn’t save any. Dumbasses.

- go to a place like Trader Joe’s or Earth Fare and buy a whole cartload of the kind of stuff that gives hipsters orgasms.

- hire someone to make lists for me. It’ll stimulate the economy plus I’ll be able to pick someone who’s really good at it, unlike myself.

- eye lift, for fuck’s sake. And some of that really expensive cream that shrinks the shit out of your pores. Boob reduction/lift. Lipo/tummy tuck. I’m only human. (This obviously won’t apply if I’m dead. Well, maybe it will. I’m nearly 30 and my time to live fast, die young, and leave a good-looking corpse has passed.)

- some sort of device or implant that would give me the ability to talk in a high, squeaky little-girl voice. Just for comedy. And just temporarily, because that would drive me absolutely bonkers.

- buy a copy of “Steal This Book”. Just for irony.

I may need this explained to me as if I were a particularly stupid five-year-old. But I don’t understand how the appropriate punishment for inadvertently* providing alcohol to a minor is listening to a “Victim Impact Panel” talk about “The True Cost of Drinking and Driving”.

What’s even better is that they charge you a fee for having to sit in a classroom for 2 hours and be guilt-tripped by people you don’t know talk about a loss you had nothing to do with related to a crime you didn’t commit. If that doesn’t speak volumes to the kind of stranglehold MADD unfairly has over alcohol policy in this country, I don’t know what does.

During these little propaganda sessions, you’re supposed to sit straight-faced and silent while all this crap is laid on you, or you don’t get credit for having taken the class (and you definitely don’t get your money back). My biggest challenge would be to refrain from saying “if alcohol is so terrible, why is it still legal?” The lost fee and credit would be worth it if I could get them to admit that they’re working on that.

The thing is, I’m not entirely unsympathetic to their stated cause. If they weren’t a modern-day temperance movement, I wouldn’t have a problem with them. Even their own founder left the group when it got away from the prevention of drunk driving to the prevention of consumption of alcohol. It’s telling that a mother who lost a child could rationally look through her pain and loss and say “this isn’t what I envisioned at all. I’m out.”

That this class has to be considered at all is a symptom of a justice system permeated by laziness, apathy, and greed – whether on the part of Greensboro, Guilford County, or the country as a whole I couldn’t say. You’d think at some point during the proceedings (including two court dates), the accused would be able to speak to a judge and explain that, while the letter of the law may have been broken, the spirit of the law remained intact. But that’s not even possible – a judge won’t even deign to communicate with you if you don’t speak their language. And that thing about “if you cannot afford an attorney, one will be provided for you” is bullshit, too. Court-appointees cost money too – even if you’re unemployed. That bodes well for the poor and minorities who are accused of crimes.

I understand that there is procedure and protocol that must be adhered to, but our legal system is a bloated and broken bureaucracy that in many cases serves only to feed and expand itself. Justice for all, indeed.

Whatever principles it may have been founded on, this country’s system of courts and laws only benefits those who can afford to play its game. It’s rigged against We the People from the beginning.

*You may wonder how you could inadvertently provide alcohol to a minor. In this case, it’s as simple as asking a pal to accompany you to the corner store under a “safety-in-numbers” theory, not realizing this pal was a few months shy of 21, getting stopped on the walk home when said pal is helping you carry your alcohol home, and being carded by cops looking for an easy hit of revenue.

The upside to the way things are going this weekend is that it’s showed me how tenuous my perch upon contentedness is. Of course, there are drawbacks, like realizing how insignificant you are and feeling violated. Given that, I think I’m justified in feeling a little blue.

I’ve been thinking recently how 2009 is shaping up to be one of those years where everything just falls into place. It was prepared to go into the annals as one of my best years, but I see now that ignorance truly is bliss.

I’m not going to get into it because it’s not my place. It just hurts that someone you thought you were close to would rather confide in strangers and keep you in the dark about their problems. And I’m not blaming anyone but myself. It’s my fault for being distant and unreachable. It’s my fault for being self-centered and inattentive.

There’s not a fucking thing I can do about it, but I can listen, dammit. I can care. Or thought I could.

But now I’m angry, and I feel like I have to express that anger somehow – not just in some toothless blog post but in the actual world where actual people I’ve actually failed abound. So I’ve decided I’m not going to Greenville at the end of this month. Not only can I ill-afford it, but it’s just not necessary. I’m just not necessary.

Besides, what the fuck’s the point? It’s a birthday party for a one-year-old. It’s already pretty clear to me that my role in her life will be relegated to the odd holiday visit and lame birthday presents. Sad thing is, it’s an improvement on my role in her mother’s life: class-A mooch and shitty sister. An all-around letdown.

Compared to this, having my car broken into isn’t even that upsetting. Especially considering that the culprit took the face plate off the stereo but left it sitting on top of the car, and went through the glove box but didn’t take my credit cards (which are useless, but it’s not like they would have known that).

The really weird part is that my car sits right out on the street. You’d think if anyone’s car would be ransacked, it would be his, as it sits in the back corner of the lot fairly hidden by shade and trees.

Coincidentally, there was a parking ticket on my windshield for the expired parking permit. So I’m pondering the plausibility of two scenarios:

• lowlife sees car covered with dirt and leaves (from not having been driven for 6 months), sees ticket, and from that makes the logical leap that whoever owns the car has either abandoned it or doesn’t care about anything in it so it’s ripe for the picking… yet for some reason doesn’t take anything of value (stereo, credit cards, CD collection).
• parking enforcement officer writes a ticket but knowing the car hasn’t been driven in a pretty long time, decides to come back later with a slim-jim and go through my car. Likely they’re lowlifes themselves (they do work for the police, after all), but because they’re not real cops they do a shitty job of covering their tracks (left the trunk and the driver’s door ajar).

I’m not going to do anything about it, because it’s not worth the effort (and possible retaliation since they know where I live). It’s just kind of unsettling. I am going to have to jump the car to move it from the curb to the gravel lot, and that’s going to be a pain in the ass.

I probably will pay the ticket with a note that says “Breaking into my car was a nice touch. That’ll teach me to let things expire.” Maybe I’ll include some photos of my neighbors’ cars, most of which have expired permits or no permits at all. Perhaps with another note: “Here’s some untapped revenue for you. Also, I bet they have much nicer stuff in their cars to rifle through.”

Or at least explain my slightly nauseated demeanor.

It can’t be the reason I feel like a noob on the bike, though. That’s got to be the weather.

… she looks happy.

I just wanted to record this moment, because who knows when it’ll happen again?

Adultery and theft are against the ten commandments (you know, the moral foundation of Christianity, among other religions) and yet are so often greeted with “feh.” The entire scriptural case against gays is “Leviticus says!” yet Leviticus consists of a bunch of outdated rules that are irrelevant to modern Christianity.

You know, if you think gays are icky, fine. But that’s a doubly weak argument: first because it’s based on the premise that all parties involved are of the same religion (or any religion). You don’t get to impose the rules of your religion on anyone else. Second, it’s the only part of Leviticus you seem to care about (nay, focus on): you’re still gonna eat barbecue and wear cotton-poly slacks. You can do that if you want to, but it makes you look like a hypocrite at best and someone hyperfocused on homosexuality.

Here’s an idea: just admit that you think homosexuality is icky. It’s okay. Maybe you can’t help but imagine people having gay sex – or any sex – all the time. I won’t tell.

I think lima beans are icky. I don’t vote to outlaw lima beans, I leave them to be enjoyed by those who prefer them.

WHY IS THIS SO HARD?

An odd title, perhaps, for the vitriol I’m about to spew all over myself, but I wanted to address this point and get it off my mind before it made me insane.

Why do we call it the milk of human kindness? I mean, I know the origin of the phrase, but it seems odd to me, because milk is so ubiquitous, so readily available, whereas human kindness is, well, not.

We need another fluid that would more accurately represent it. I was thinking honey would be nice, because it doesn’t flow all that freely, it comes at a relatively high price, and isn’t actually manufactured by humans but by bees and then appropriated by us for our own selfish purposes.

I suppose I could have made a comparison to raw sewage, but I’m not sure I really want to get all that into a metaphor like that.

Anyway, the reason we are gathered here today is that I hate myself.

I mean, I’ve hated myself for most of my life, so this isn’t exactly breaking news. I’ve beaten that hatred into submission over the past couple years, but it’s always there, and certain things tend to bring it out. One of those things is having pictures taken of me.

This was Mom’s thing, having pictures taken of us, and I did it to make her happy, since I guess I do owe her one (or several). And I thought I was looking all right, since the last time I had pictures taken of me was about 50 pounds or so ago. I’m not the hottest piece of tail out there, but I figured with the bike riding and the wearing smaller clothes and just generally being a medium-fatass I would look all right. Plus, you know, I looked in the mirror before I left the house, and even in the reflective windows on the side of the bank we were next to.

You know how you’ll go somewhere like Walmart or the county fair (or, say, the North Carolina Apple Festival) and see these disgusting lumbering wads of humanity, the waddling hordes of Americans that you look at and think, “don’t you even look at yourself before you go out in public?”

That’s the thing. I’ll think I look all right in a mirror, and then I’ll see myself through someone else’s eyes (or a camera’s lens), and think “Jesus God almighty, is that what I really look like?!” That’s why it’s especially grating to have someone tell me something like “that’s a nice picture of you!”

No, it isn’t a nice picture of me. If that is attractive comparable to how I usually look, just shoot me in the face. The resultant reconstructive surgery might improve things.

I know two things, now. I’m waaaaay more shallow than I thought I was, and I’m not exactly thrilled about that, but there it is. I’m a lumbering, ugly wad of humanity, a bloated waste of skin and other organs (and the fact that I’m about to start Nature’s Special Time isn’t exactly helping), and this bothers me more than it should, considering how above such concerns I like to consider myself to be. (In summation: I’m a hypocrite, and a goddamned fat and ugly one.)

The second is that I’m not allowed to make fun of other people who are similarly affected.

Let’s consider this the first official entry on my own personal list of shit I’m too old for. I think, given that I’m 1/3 of the way through my life (if I’m lucky), I am entitled to enumerate the things I should have given up with my youth.

I am too old to get all worked up to what basically amounts to a coincidence, and not an all-that-fantastic one at that. I’m not going to faint, I’m not going to puke, I’m not going to stab myself. I keep seeing this dude with long, dark hair and I’ve been getting the strangest tug of déjà vu; today, when he grinned at some piece of goofy, sleep-deprived patter that fell out of my mouth, I figured out who he reminded me of. Someone I used to know. Someone I met in March of 2004.

I don’t think I know that person anymore. And I don’t regret it. And I’m too intelligent, too rational, and yes, just too old to let some unrelated doppelgänger derail me in any way.

I’m making peace with my past. So that’s all the reflection I’m going to give it. Lord knows I’ve spewed far too many meaningless words over much less, anyway.

Music: James Morrison – Please Don’t Stop the Rain

This is a weird thought, and it only occurred because I’m in an altered state.

You can’t avoid the news that Senator Ted Kennedy died today. Talking about it earlier, Andrew mentioned that he wondered if the Obama kids were old enough to grasp the situation. I posited that at least the elder (Malia) is probably at the age where she would understand death and be able to mourn a friend of the family.

From there, I thought how hard it would be for those two girls to go through their adolescence not only as the First Children, but as the First Black Children. I hate to denigrate a birthday buddy, but Chelsea did not have an easy time getting through puberty. (And of course, there was that old Limbaugh crack about the “White House dog”.) The Bush twins, at least, had reached the age of majority by the time their dad futzed his way into the office.

Of course, Chelsea was the daughter of Hillary, who has always been kind of frowsy and sort of goofy-looking, whereas Sasha and Malia are the children of a black woman and a mixed man. And mixed kids tend to be very attractive. It’s not a hard-and-fast rule, but I’ve noticed that when you mix black and white, you get a really attractive shade of gray, with gorgeous hair and creamy skin. So they will have that going for them.

From that, it was only natural for me to wonder why this was so. It may be just a coincidence, or it may be a fluke of evolution. Think about it: what happens in a closed, inbreeding population? Birth defects. Deformities. Freeper Alert. These types of specimens are undesirable and don’t contribute to the overall survival of the species. By procreating across the spectrum of humanity, you decrease the chances of producing a, well, unfit specimen.

So Mother Nature is rewarding those who cross ethnic lines by giving them highly attractive children. I’m not saying she’s shallow, but attractiveness is one factor in how humans choose their mates.

“These are the kind of thoughts that kept me out of the good schools.” – George Carlin