Oregon

Staying at the Orth B n B (grandmas) with Mason and Mandy (also pictured, you might have noticed). I FINALLY got a haicut! No more mullet, which is good because Ive had Wesley Willis hauting me for months. I also spent some of that assholes money and got some new snazy bone earrings. Dad and Roxy bought me a bottle of Druids Fluid when they went wine tasting yesterday. I went to Ashland, which is adorable and shakespeare-y but FULL to the brim with smelly hippies, shoeless carrying cats stoned enough to ask the cop next to me why there was no pot in Ashland. God hates hippies. Roxy always complains about how Salmon is cooked. Me, its fish, Im gonna love it, period. Roxy is downstairs right now preparing Salmon "properly". Im thinking tonight oughta be my first (albeit facetious) attempt at culinary criticism as applied to Fish. cheeky, no?



I believe thats my middle finger as well.

Victory is Mine

Today at approximately 14:00 hrs, I received all my owed wages from the pit of despair known in the common realm as "The Original Burger Diner". This is, however, a given, as was stated by the Dept of Labor (CA) Wage Division. The victory for the little guy, the underdog,..me.., is that I was given pause to enjoy my ex-boss stumble over his mistakes in front of the government. I watched him be scolded for attempting to cover up not paying me, for purging records, and of course, for the non-payment itself. Moreover, after he was show to be clearly in the wrong, he was forced to offer me penalty payments. He tried low, 300 dollars, 400 dollars, but I knew I was in the right and could demand the full amount and go to a hearing in 4 months (which ex-bossman definitely didnt want because it would ruin his precious vacation). I got over 800 dollars, plus wages, plus unpaid overtime that he attempted to cover up!
I tried the system and the system worked. My case officer, when I thanked her, said its her job to protect the little guy. Sometimes the system seems too overwhelming and righteousness such a far cry. Now, if there were a truly just world, there would be a bright sexy man waiting at Cloyne for me additionally. But I can settle for a mostly just world.
satisfied,
Lorien

Κάθαρσις

My room does look quasi-mystical these days.

Brecht often omitted this resolving action in his plays to force his bough-ie audience into dealing with certain concepts outside the theater, much like the effect Fassbinder strove for with his revolutionary cinema. I am given pause then to wonder why the playwright of my tragedy is so pedestrian.
A possible solution that doesnt involve me being the protagonist of a badly written tragedy, is a that according to wikipedia, catharsis predates tragedy:

Catharsis before the sixth-century rise of tragedy is, for us, essentially a historical footnote to the Aristotelian conception. The practice of purification did not yet appear in Homer, as later Greek commentators noted:[4] the Aithiopis, an epic in the Trojan War cycle, narrates the purification of Achilles after his murder of Thersites. Catharsis describes the result of means taken to cleanse away blood-guilt—"blood is purified through blood" (Burkert 1992:56) a process in the development of Hellenic culture in which the oracle of Delphi took a prominent role. The classic example, of Orestes, belongs to tragedy, but the procedure given by Aeschylus is ancent: the blood of a sacrificed piglet is allowed to wash over the blood-polluted man, and running water washes away the blood.[5] The identical ritual is represented, Burkert informs us (1992:57) on a krater found at Canicattini, to cure the daughters of Proetus of their madness, caused by some ritual transgression. To the question of whether the ritual procures atonement or just healing, Burkert answers: "To raise the question is to see the irrelevance of this distinction" (1992:57). The Greek nosos embraces both physical sickness and social ills.


This excerpt came as quite a shock to me, especially concerning my recent interest in Santeria. The Brujah I saw last year did not recommend blood rituals, but perhaps she should have.

The Burn Unit

As I was crafting a delicious St. Patrick's Day meal for Cloyne this afternoon, my giant pot of corned beef and cabbage splashed several liters of boiling water on my stomach. This is the second massive burn I have fallen victim to in the Cloyne Kitchen. Perhaps, Whelp is right and do need to call up the Brujah and have the kitchen 'cleansed'. I think its possible, however, that my new Santeria book has something appropriate- likely something to do with lavender or sage. In fact, those herbs might even help the burn itself. Whether it will have any effect other than making the kitchen smell pleasant is anyone's guess. But think I can be satisfied with aloe and a a sage-smoky kitchen - hey, its a coop isnt it? shouldnt we already have some of that hippie shit burnin?!

somebody's going to emergency, somebody's going to jail

why do I suddenly have the uncontrollable urge to listen to Don Henley? This makes even less sense than what my frenemies are doing. Mad world? (no, no, different guy)... [shakes fist futilely]

A socio-anthropological observation

The above is an adorable diagram for pragmatism I found in an article "Signs, Processes, and Language Games Foundations for Ontology" by John F. Sowa.

It has been interesting to note recently, as I have become a topic of many conversations, which I had no privy to, that the social and cultural practices observable to me, dictate that I may be labeled, my identity re-molded and histories rewritten ( a back-formation if you will) to uphold the new synthetic identity.
It makes one wonder about certain cultural or societal practices and identity...or rather perceived and (purportedly decided by committee) identity. I'm all for the notion that one builds their own identity vis-a-vis 'the other', but this seems the exact opposite. Judith Butler would certainly have something interesting to say about it, but as yet I do not have a wide enough data set to bring such a thesis to her attention. Its slowly amassing, however, alarming and bizzare as it may be.
At first I was appalled by it, but as with most things, I find that the evidence illustrates something that should be investigated further, even though the experiment is less than appetizing, there is a pattern here. I think it may reflect on the mass media situation we have found ourselves living in, in modern America, but maybe this is too snap a judgment - definitely, however, I can see that this pattern would have a peculiar effect on the essential indexical: more thought as the data set evolves.

More Deez

My imaginary readers can't get enough of that adorable squirrel:


He's gone crazy over walnuts, even more fearless. I like having someone (is this a case of prosopopoeia?) around who truly appreciates how amazing the walnut is.
If you will indulge me,

Health benefits of walnuts

Juglans regia walnuts.

A new study published in the Journal of the American College of Cardiology found that eating walnuts after a meal high in unhealthy fats can reduce the damaging effects of such fats on blood vessels. Researchers from Barcelona's Hospital Clinic conducted a study on 24 adult participants, half of whom had normal cholesterol levels, and half of whom had moderately high levels of cholesterol. Each group was fed two high-fat meals of salami and cheese, eaten one week apart. During one meal, the researchers supplemented the food with five teaspoons of olive oil. The researcher added eight shelled walnuts to the other meal, the following week.

Tests after each meal showed that both the olive oil and the walnuts helped reduce the onset of dangerous inflammation and oxidation in the arteries after the meals, which were high in saturated fat. However, unlike the olive oil, the walnuts also helped the arteries maintain their elasticity and flexibility, even in the participants with higher cholesterol.

Lead researcher Dr. Emilio Ros said walnuts' protective effects could be because the nuts are high in antioxidants and ALA, a plant-based omega-3 fatty acid. Walnuts also contain arginine, which is an amino acid that the body uses to produce nitric oxide, necessary for keeping blood vessels flexible.

Source: Journal of the American College of Cardiology - Oct. 17, 2006 edition

Hurray for walnuts and hurray for Deez!

Photos by Micah Jacob. The man with the camera.