another stripping of personal freedom

Remember the days of yesteryear, when we could dine on coffee AND cigarettes in the same fucking place?! Now, you must understand, I hail from a province where smoking in public used to be far from a crime and, yes, accepted! Believe it. I am telling the truth. But recently in my particular province, smoking has since been banned for the sake of the non-smokers that refuse to dine in non-smoking establishments for health concerns or what the fuck ever because smoking voters found more important things to do than vote. I consider myself lucky if I can smoke in my friends' houses, for cryin' out loud! Fuck me! No more intellectual conversation amongst coffee house ninjas like Kerouac had in the good 'ole beat days. No more late night Denny's excursions consuming unlimited mass amounts of coffee for a dollar (give or take) while, dare I say it, smoking. No more lonely nights where one can wander and find unlimited friends for an evening simply because one has bummed a smoke.

Our poor children will never know what it is like to half-smoke a fag while discussing altruistic and existentialist point of views to no avail. No more tears for for me, my friends. We will survive. In non-smoking restaraunts and malls and coffee shops and anywhere else we might make friends. We are officially outcast. In Neveada of all places. But we still have prostitution.

God bless freedom!

new year's day

Well, once again, ye grande ole' new year has come and gone. Many of us wonder where the last year escaped to. Perhaps some distant island far away from the macabre little existence we admonish only for its right to exist.

I trust we've all made new friends and hope we have not lost touch with the old ones. Resolutions, I'm sure, have already been forgotten. Probably with the hangover you know you endured, as did I, directly following the making of said resolutions.

Me, I make no resolutions for new years. Mostly because I never keep them. I do however carry static resolutions year round. I am much better at those. They aren't so "cold-turkey" and painful. However, I have been considering one. It's only in consideration at this point, but it sounds like a good idea.

I feel I should make a point of not being such a fucking basket case. Hmm. Now that I've said it, it no longer sounds like a good idea.

Alright, fuck it.

Happy Fuckin' New Year Everyone! More alcohol should take care of those hangovers.

a simple quote

A quote worthy of posting: It is up to you what it means.

The sciences, letters, and arts spread garlands of flowers over the iron chains with which mankind is burdened, stifle in them the sense of original liberty for which they seemed to have been born, make them love slavery and turn them into what is called civilized peoples.

A friend of mine sent me this last night, or perhaps the night before. I had to ask him who said it. Rousseau, he told me. I should have known that. It speaks to masses and holds too many truths near to us all. I suppose I said something to him to prompt the gesture, which was very much needed at the time.

We suffer alone and occasionally find some poor soul to pick up the remains after others have had their fun and discarded the beautiful pieces to the vultures for breakfast at dawn. Those are friends to either extreme. And we welcome them not always with open arms, but perhaps a half-cocked smile or a brew or commonalities that which seem too hard to come by.

In different forms we relish this life or detest it or survive it or in too many cases, take it for granted. Time. The one thing we can never retrieve. Once spent is spent forever. One should be careful as to how one spends it before that one becomes road kill on busy highways, scattered amongst the gravel with no regard. If you're big enough to pose a threat, someone might scoop the remnants into a bucket or to the side of the road, the 21-gun salute to faceless creatures who have run out of precious time. Rarely remembered.

Make a mark. Make memories. Make quotes. Make love. Make apologies. Make a song. Make amends. Make a move. Make a statement. Make art. Whatever makes you. Time is running out.