So I'll use someone else's words...
Leonard Pitts of the Miami Herald has written an accurate summation of my feelings and, I suspect, those of others as well:
So I ask again: What was it you hoped to teach us? It occurs to me that maybe you just wanted us to know the depths of your hatred. If that's the case, consider the message received. And take this message in exchange: You don't know my people. You don't know what we're capable of. You don't know what you just started.
But you're about to learn.
[ full text available at the Miami Herald ]
Uploaded on Thursday, September 13, 2001
Words escape me
Immediate friends and family are safe, but as the stories start streaming through the ether it seems no one was untouched.
Nothing will ever set this right.
Uploaded on Wednesday, September 12, 2001
My shoes are still squishy
I have found the ultimate cure for the hangover, and it is called Busch Gardens. Saturday, the gang and I made a quick roadtrip down to Williamsburg and partook of the amusement park amusements. I can’t remember the last time I had so much fun (though I believe I use that phrase every time I have a great deal of fun).
The highlight was of course Apollo’s Chariot, a roller coaster I think was designed by Satan himself (or, in keeping with the theme, Hades himself -- er, or would that be Pluto himself...I sometimes get my pantheons mixed up...ah, crap).
Where was I?
Ah, yes, Apollo’s Chariot, in which one is hurled down steel tracks from 0 to 73mph in a matter of seconds, then twisted and turned, and spun around like so much Neapolitan pizza dough. I can report without a trace of hyperbole, that after plummeting toward the ground at ungodly speeds, thinking something along the lines of “weeeeeeeaaaaaaaaaaaaaaa!” I have a newfound appreciation for life and for walking on solid ground. And, as the man once said “afterwards, sex seems trite.”
The rest of the day was spent drying off after a trip down the Roman Rapids (note: no matter how hard you try, you will not escape the waterfall! I was still a little soggy by the time we got home, six hours later). The only ride that matched the Chariot in sheer level of excitement (keeping in mind I refused to go on rides that would flip me upside down) was Corkscrew Hill (an “amazing 3-D action adventure experience” according to the brochure). I won’t give away the details, in case you plan on going, but suffice to say, it rocked. Hee hee. A few others in our crowd weren’t as thrilled as I was with it, but I thought it was pretty damn amazing.
‘Nuff said.
Uploaded on Monday, September 10, 2001
Be part of the largest study into humour ever
No, really. (And don't mind the unneccessary u's. We're dealing with Brits.)
Take part in a huge experiment to find the world's funniest joke!
We want you to submit your favourite jokes and judge how funny other people's jokes are by using our special "Laughometer" .
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Uploaded on Friday, September 07, 2001
Ten steps to making your Metro ride more enjoyable
- When purchasing a fare card, use large bills. Then bring your fare down to $1.10, and start yelling “Jackpot” when the coins start dropping.
- Strangers love to be stared at. Make plenty of eye contact while onboard Metrorail.
- Always stand in front of the doors, even if your destination is another five or six stops away. For fun, make sure you’re always on the opening door side. Bonus points for not being crushed at Metro Center.
- Wave madly at people outside your car when the train begins to depart.
- Never stand in the middle of the car.
- When someone tries running for the door after the closing chimes sound, applaud if they make it.
- Point and laugh if they don’t.
- Ask the station managers since when did Metrorail start calling riders “customers” instead of “passengers”.
- Try going through the exit gates without enough fare on your card. Look confused when the machine spits your card back out at you. Don’t step out of the way.
- Sing. Loudly.
Uploaded on Thursday, September 06, 2001
Movie recommendation
The Family Man. Rented it this weekend. Loved it. Nuff said.
Uploaded on Tuesday, September 04, 2001
If this isn’t nice, what is?
If this isn’t nice, what is?
If this bed isn’t nice, what is?
If waking up next to you isn’t nice, what is?
If your hand clenching mine isn’t nice, what is?
If your fluttering heart, each beat visible
in the elegant turn of your neck, marking time
toward the relentless, unavoidable end doesn’t make me wish
for more than twenty-four hours in a day, what will?
If I can’t immortalize emotions in words, carving
life with ink and pressure, sheer desperation
forcing me to balance what is and what is not
within my grasp, who can?
If life isn’t nice, what is?
N.B. In Kurt Vonnegut's novel Timequake, the narrator quotes on numerous occasions his uncle Alex who insists on celebrating the simple occassions in life during which things are going well by saying, "If this isn't nice, what is?"
Uploaded on Thursday, August 30, 2001
Separation
If I could slice the air between us
and label each cell accordingly
with translucent color-coded tabs
I would easily identify at a glance
the layers of intimacy
separating us.
I could pick a slice at random
hold it up to the light and see
patterns of atrophication and growth over time,
the attenuation and accretion of nerve endings,
the amorphous shadows of flesh and bone, and
at any given time know the classification
and degree of our separation.
Then, at least my mind would be at ease. But
the empiric heart remains uneasy swimming in analysis;
it derives what it can touch -- it would rather I run my hands
through the moonlight on your skin for one night
and wander alongside memory thereafter,
constantly questioning what remains between us
instead of attempting divination through science.
Uploaded on Monday, August 20, 2001
Dinner in Lebanon, rewritten
When we departed for dinner in Lebanon
the gladiator was still a general unleashing hell
in Ridley's epic, so we left him behind and feasted
in the light of a campfire underneath the cypress trees,
underneath the stars on the side of a white mountain; hungry
from our journey, we gorged on roasted lamb, on goat's cheese,
on olives and dates and figs, on sweet garlicky hummus,
drowning ourselves in water and wine - the world was full
of nervous anticipation, and we shoveled into the empty pauses
the history and lineage of our families, the bloodlines that tied us
to a lakeside city on the plains where our parents' parents
shared time unlike space.
When we returned separately to our new worlds I found
the gladiator dying face up in the sands of the coliseum,
and there was a kiss hanging between us. I can't recall
how long I burned buoyantly under its pressure...not long
enough, just short of an eternity; but as the gladiator bled
I realized already my mistake witnessing in our kiss
the harbinger of graceful summer when in reality I tasted
winter wrapped in a satin promise. That kiss
was the gladiator's ringed hand, gliding through
the wheatfields of his dream-sequence home, caressing
each stalk in order to know the lay of the land. I should
have given more time to his trials than I did
to our dinner in Lebanon.
Uploaded on Friday, August 17, 2001
Dinner in Lebanon
When we departed for dinner in Lebanon
the gladiator was still the general, unleashing hell
in the forests of Germania. So we left him behind
to eat around a campfire on the side of a white mountain
underneath the cypress trees, underneath the stars.
Hungry from our voyage, we gorged ourselves
on a traveler’s feast of hummus and pita
and olives and cheese and lamb. The world was full
of nervous anticipation, and we shoveled
into the empty pauses the history and lineage
of our families, the bloodlines that tied us
to a lakeside city in the plains where our parents’
parents shared time if not the close space we
occupied for seconds on the mountainside.
When we returned separately to a new world we found
the gladiator dying face up in the sands of the coliseum,
and there was a kiss hanging between us. We can’t recall
how long we burned buoyantly in its pressure...
just short of an eternity, perhaps. One of us mistakenly
witnessed in that kiss the harbinger of a graceful summer,
but in reality we had tasted winter wrapped in satin promise.
Our kiss was the gladiator's ringed hand, gliding through
the unharvested wheat on his dream-sequence farm.
We should have given more time to his trials
then we did to dinner in Lebanon.
Uploaded on Monday, August 13, 2001
Disclosure: I like Amazon.com. If you buy stuff from Amazon.com from a link I have on this site, in theory a tiny percentage goes to a gift certificate for me. Is this what it feels like to sell out? I don't think so. On the other hand, I'm not entirely comfortable with it. Let's delve into that later.
Legalese: Unless otherwise noted, all content ©1999-2001
Jason M. Novak.
Legalunease: Steal from me, I break your legs.
