Fishy Fish, You Wish, You Wish, You Wish

What a Drip

Give Me a Weekend!

I woke up this morning to one simple thought. "Friday!"

Oops.

But when you look at the rest of the week, it kinda' makes sense, since I thought yesterday was Thursday and Tuesday was Wendesday. I'm still trying to figure out why I thought that Monday was Saturday. I also wonder what I'll think tomorrow is. Probably, Monday.

But then, how do I know that today wasn't really Friday? How do I know that I didn't sleep for an extra day, along with the whole rest of the world? How do I know that yesterday wasn't really Tuesday some twenty years 'ago'? Other than the fact that I don't really yet need a haircut, that is. Well, that, and that I didn't wake up hungry.

Unless what I think was yesterday did actually occur twenty years ago, and I've just forgotten the rest of it. But that wouldn't explain why the rest of the world thinks the same as I do (that today's Thursday, not Friday).

Of course, I suppose the best way to solve this conundrum is simply to ask Occam. But he's out shaving.

Play Back that Last Line, Please

I know I had something to say, but can't seem to remember what it was. With my memory being the way it is, I'd think that I was getting old, but then I am reminded that I've always had this memory of mine. So either I was born old, or I fear the things that I will no longer be able to remember when I actually begin to forget.

Or maybe I'll start forgetting that I just woke up, and fall right back asleep. Maybe I'll forget that I just /had/ dessert and will take another. Maybe I'll forget the end to several of my movies so I can see them again, for the first time.

Or maybe I'll forget that I've been awake all day and never go to bed again. Or I'll forget that there /is/ dessert, and never have any more. Or forget what movies are and find something more useful to entertain me.

So maybe being forgetful won't be so bad. I suppose someday I'll find out, and then I'll be sure to let everyone know. It could be a breakthrough in the scientific world. "Forgetful People Live Longer, Fuller Lives!" It may even restructure a whole field of work (head-bashers)! So I'll have to be sure to let everyone know how things turn out.

Assuming, of course, I remember.

Three Inches to the Left, Please

Some live in a world full of people. Or at least there's always someone between their camera and what ever's in the background. If they're taking a picture of the Statue of Liberty, they've got to make sure that they have someone they know standing at its base. The Grand Canyon? Someone standing at the edge. The moon?

Well, I don't think that exists in their world.

Some live in a world full of people, and feel the need to document their stay there. They want to be able to remember all of these people they once knew, when they get old and can no longer even remember themselves. Or next week, when they get so busy they forget to eat. And so their pictures are full of people doing the things people do. Generally, of course, this consists of making funny faces and odd hand gestures while ignoring the avalanche that's roaring down the mountainside at them.

And some people just live elsewhere. I live in the world of invisible cloud fairies (that being invisible cloud-fairies, not invisible-cloud fairies). Which is just as well, as I appreciate not seeing their funny faces. Much less their odd hand gestures.

Beware Books Bearing Quotes

Nothing to Fear But Fear Itself
FDR, his First Inaugural Address

People use this quote frequently. People often claim that the only thing worth fearing is fear. If there's one thing that I've learned, it's that people are dumb.

When FDR stated that we have nothing to fear but fear itself, he was talking about a fairly specific set of circumstances. The only thing, he was claiming, that could stop the nation from returning from the brink, that could cease the return from the great depression, was a "nameless, unreasoning, unjustified terror which paralyzes needed efforts to convert retreat into advance". The only thing that could have kept the nation down was to refuse to move forward.

Yes, fear like this is worth avoiding. Fearing to the point that progress cannot be made, fear getting in the way, sometimes that is the only thing impeding. Sometimes the only thing that needs to be worried about is fear, and without fear great things can happen.

But sometimes there's a bus hurtling down the road at a hundred and twenty miles an hour. Or there's a lion loose in the city, or mad axe murderers behind every tree (and you can see their axes).

And sometimes there are people that misuse quotes. Those I fear even more, for the bus or lion or made axe murderer can only harm me once. Passing on 'gems of wisdom' can hurt people for generations, as they try to live their lives in a way 'suggested' by great people. Or rather in a way misunderstood by the mediocre.

And you can quote me on that.

Beware Gnomes Bearing Books

A friend recently told me some reasons why people stop writing. My reason (having fallen over the edge of the world) was apparently not a popular one. But I also wonder why people write in the first place. Some might say that it's a way for people to express themselves, or a way to communicate. Some probably say it's because the gnomes again told them that they had no real choice, for it was either write or suffer the curse of a thousand warts. This, of course, would be why no frogs have recently made it to the best-seller list.

I, of couse, hold to my own theories. I write because it's easier to read than actually to listen to the voices in my head. They tend to keep talking, but if I let them be preoccupied with the effort of writing all those words down, they're much less distracting giving me time to actually hear myself think. I write to empty my mind, to give myself a clean slate to start writing incredibly complex and obviously incorrect math equations in, so it looks (to all the voices that can see inside my head) as if I've actually been doing work.

I write, because I hope that there is a constant amount of nonsense in the world, and if I were to finish putting it down in some semi-permanent form, people will finally be able to understand at least half of what I say.

So there are many reasons to write, but that of course leads to another more important question. Why does anyone bother to /read/? What do gnomes threaten to cause /that/ to happen?

Friends

It's important to have a friend. Even if they are far enough away to be slightly out of focus. But sometimes you just need some time to yourself.



Especially when everyone else is in a huge pile pretending to sleep. Otherwise, you might end up on the bottom...might as well be playing football!

The Wall of...Everything

I never before really noticed how much jelly fish look like galaxies. It's probably because I'd not managed to download this picture from the last time I hit the aquarium until tonight. The whole incredibly dark room and brightly light jellies and the odd angle and fun with refraction don't hurt my case at all, I'm sure.

But really, who's to say that jelly fish aren't really galaxies in and of themselves? They consist of relatively small bits seperated by vast expanses of nothingness. The small bits themselves are composed of even smaller bits...how do we know that on one of those mesons or quarks or whatever the name of a really tiny bit of a bit of a jelly fish is called, how do we know that there doesn't live in a vast sea on that bit of jelly a creature that the inabitants call a jelly fish?

How do we know that that jelly fish isn't also itself a huge (small?) galaxy traveling through a sea (universe?) in a tiny (huge?) aquarium? But then we would have to consider the possibility that we're really only little bits of a jelly ourselves.

I, however, am not feeling that flexible today and will continue to persist in my belief that I'm really just a piece of a rock. Or at least living inside a cave.

...And I Feel Fine

Civilization is soon to collapse. This has been claimed many times over the last several millenia, I am sure. But signs cannot be ignored any longer. No matter how much I wish they could, for I tire of reading them.

It wouldn't be so bad if the signs were spelled in at least a readable form, if they used actual capitalization and punctuation, if they didn't have more emoticons than actual text. It would be nice if the writers of these signs knew you didn't have to follow a single period by a couple more...or if they realized, that commas, don't, have to, go, everywhere. Unless you're trying to sound like Shatner, just to make a point.

But even then mocking is expected.

I tire of reading these signs and look forward to the day that civilization has collapsed. I look forward to the day when we can begin anew, when we can mold society in a form that not only accepts but also embraces proper usage of the words 'they're', 'their', and 'there'. I eagerly await a world in which I can use 'accept' and 'except' and know that people won't get the two confused.

I eagerly await such a future, until the moment I realize the only reason language will no longer be abused is that lanugage will no longer exist.

And realizing such a future is inevitable, I sigh and return to my work until yet again I can hope for the lack of degredation of language.

As long as nobody minds my litle excentrisitize an misplelings, 4 i no whut im say'n an so shud u.

Like the Sound of Rain Rolling Down a Hot Tin Roof

I was so excited, we were going to see a movie. We didn't go see movies very often. Once or twice a year if we were lucky; dad always complained that they were much too expensive, so we generally ended up waiting until they were shown on TV. If we remembered for that long that we wanted to see the movie anyway.

But that night, we went to the movies. I was expecting a wonderful evening, I was expecting a treat. I even got my choice of foods from the concession stand, I got a box of jawbreakers. The little ones that didn't actuall break your jaw when you gave in to the sugary goodness and actually bit. But of course with such a wonderful time expected, something had to go wrong. Otherwise it would make a boring story, right. `We went to the movies. It was everything I hoped it would be. The end'.

Yes, I hoped for a wonderful evening, but instead it ended up being a traumatic experience. It wasn't due to the blood and gore, I didn't have nightmares about monsters for the next decade. Not due to the movie anyway.

I don't even remember what movie was playing. All I remember is that halfway through the movie, I was out of jawbreakers.

Everyone else in the theater knew too.

If I had gummy bears or a candy bar, or if we hadn't gone to a theater that had the wonderful sloping floor, I may have not been able to eat the rest of my candy. But the sound of several dozen jawbreakers rolling to the front row wouldn't have been so distracting either.

I doubt I'd remember the movie at all then, though. It can't have been that interesting a movie.

Who /You/ Gonna' Call?!

There I was, sitting on the couch minding my own business. Well, mostly minding my own business, but one can't completely mind their own business while a guest is over, right? But anyway, I was minding our business when I was distracted.

Sure, I'm frequently distracted. I'm often distracted by nothing at all. I could have been a cat, if only I were several feet shorter and had a tail. So mid-sentence I look out the window and see a blob.

Not just any blob, though. Not a green oozing mass, thankfully, but a huge white flying-through-the-sky kind of blob.

Admittedly, I frequently see a huge white flying-through-the-sky kind of blob that time of evening. But the moon doesn't seem to come equipped with blinkin lights, so I suspected that unless they'd decided to move the moon, that wasn't it.

Clouds don't come with blinkin lights, UFOs generally aren't large and white. But I'd never seen a blimp other than at a ball game, and certainly not lit up in the sky when it was dark out.

Yes, I was distracted by a blimp, I had to search again to remember what I had been talking about. But that's 'cause the fear removed any other thoughts from my mind. It took a few moments to realize it wasn't the Stay-Puft Marhsmellow Man!

Lost In a Stroller!

Driving down the street, I had to pause my journey as the light in front of me shifted from green to yellow to red. I would have considered thinking about possibly ignoring the light and going on anyway, but it would have required driving through the pedestrian, and that's not healthy, either for the car or for the passenger in the stroller that's being pushed across the street.

So instead, I just watched them. Now for the most part, if you're young enough that you can be pushed around in a stroller you're not that interesting to watch whilst being pushed around in the stroller. But this kid was different, for as he got to the first waiting vehicle, he started waving. And not a little wave, either, a "Lost In Space", "Danger, Will Robinson" arms flailing wildly wave. And it was obviously a wave, for as soon as he got past the car, he stopped. Until he noticed that he was in front of my car and started waving again.

Or at least I think it was a wave. It may have truly been a "Danger Will Robinson" warning, but if he knew enough to let his mother know to watch out for cars, he should at least know to trust his mother more than that.

Either way, that kid was much more interesting than the two-year-old whom stumbled along behind /her/ mother, looking as if she'd lost her best friend. Or a lolly pop. It's hard to tell, with a two-year-old.

Little Raindrop, Why Are You Crying?

The world is a horribly confusing place. Things just plain don't make much sense. Often, being a guy, I have thought that women were probably the most confusing part of the world too. But today I realized that about half of the world thinks that they understand women decently well, so there are things that are more confusing out there. Like why rain falls down.

I asked a friend today, why does rain fall down. And the depth of my question was obviously misunderstood as the answer that I recieved was 'gravity'. So rain falls because things are pulled down. But _why_? What makes rain fall?

And then I realize women and rain falling are actually related. I'm pulled toward them much like the rain (or I guess even I) am pulled toward the world. See, I have decided that nothing wants to be alone. Everything is afraid of that vast emptiness. So we rush headlong toward whatever can save us from that. It isn't really the world that's pulling the rain toward it, but rather the rain is fleeing the sky in terror.

Yup, I've gained insight into the world today. But it has also made me sad, for I also realized...

...the rain never misses.