Stray Voltage

Once found a drowned man in a tree after a Mississippi flood.

Once shook hands with both Rosalyn and Amy Carter--neato!

Highly intolerant of the stupid, ignorant, and intolerant, and woefully aware that there are more of them than there are of us.

Big on punctuation and spelling, and pronunciation.

Amazed and awed am I at the apparition of a woman in lingerie. Powerful and wily and incredibly sexy is the woman who has realized and accepted her gift of sexuality, and chooses to display herself in such a manner.

Open to new experiences in all things, but confident enough to state there are some things I just can't stand, like liver and theme park rides that spin.

Closet nerd.

Awed by the mangificence of Jamie Lee Curtis, Sigourney Weaver, Jill St. John, Raquel Welch, and sickened by cookie-cutter blondes who can't seem to get enough to eat.

On the constant lookout for the danger in life created by the stupidly selfish and the selfishly stupid, especially on the road.

Love learning foreign languages, and pretty damn good at it.

Secretly afraid of being eaten alive by an animal.

Like all kinds of music except country/western and opera. Love ska and punk. Love jazz and blues, but not a big fan of hip hop. Love prog rock and nerd rock.

Disappointed by things like ballet, opera, and the Catholic church, examaples of what happens when you niggle and tweak and perfect and codify and categorize and dogmatize every single wretched aspect of an activity until it's a massive rote body of ritual and ceremony, not an expression of self or belief.

I cry each night, the tears welling up immediately when I give in to the emotion, when I tuck my two beautiful kids in, kiss them goodnight and tell them how much I love them.

Love to see monkeys in business suits.

Just love stories, Darwin awards, of idiots killing themselves by being stupid.

Never really understood the appeal of Howard Stern.

Think George W. Bush is an absolute moron (I mean, seriously, just listen to the guy try to talk extemporaneously, on any subject other than pork rinds or baseball), and what's worse, an idiot who thinks he's right, thinks he's doing something positive, and has been conditioned by a cabal of screamingly intelligent and far-thinking advisors (smart, sure, but so very dangerous to our country, its security, its integrity, its interests, and its future) to dismiss any dissent, no matter how small or empirically accurate, as a direct personal attack. His father may have been a wimp--I don't really know--but the guy had brains and integrity, and thought for himself; I'll give him that much.

Would love to have a 1997 BMW 840ci. Absolutely beautiful machines, one of a kind.

Wonder how it is that ultra-rich people can spend $5000 on a shower curtain, $60,000 on a wristwatch, or $1.2 million on a birthday party for a wife (or mistress), and then can look themselves in the mirror each day without vomiting in self-loathing and disgust.

Is it me, or is the call of the red fox something like a feral baby crying in the woods? Spooky.

Read a hand-me-down copy of The Grapes of Wrath in 10th grade English (closing on 25 years ago), and any number of years before something like an entire bottle of Charlie perfume had been dumped into its pages. I catch even the slightest whiff of this stuff anymore, anywhere, and I'm transported instantly back to the Depression and those unfortunate Okies.

Had an Indian (Mumbai) girlfriend after my first marriage. Imprinted me on Indian women forever. Met her via a personal ad. She was the wildest, most wicked, depraved, sexually ravenous thing I've ever encountered. Photo albums of her in all manner of sexy lingerie, bondage, explicit sexual poses, and then some. It was just a couple of weeks, and she was asking me to do things I thought only happened in the editor-penned pages of Forum. In the end, it was an ethical issue that had me walking out the door; she lied to her military Reserve unit commander about being sick so she could stay in bed with me and rut like an animal. Man, how about that for irony, having found this delicious and willing thing, and yet not being able to stand being around her because she was shirking her sworn military duty to stay and get it on with me? In the end, almost to my surprise, I dumped her. Thanks, Dad, for giving me a moral compass, and the scruples to put it to use.

Have never fired a weapon at a person, either intentionally or by accident.

Absolutely love the taste of a lame-ass cream cheese/clam dip I learned how to make from the side of a Snow's clam chowder can back in the mid-80s. Lots of garlic, lots of onions, lots of minced clams; it's nothing like the original recipe.

I often wish I had telekinetic powers to use for creative yet highly vindictive purposes, especially when I'm driving home.

Lost my virginity at age 18 as Santana' "Europa" played on my lame-ass Sanyo stereo. I'm still powerfully affected by that song, despite the less than powerfully evocative resonance of the encounter itself, other than to serve as instruction for future actions.

I'm not into ballet or modern dance in any way and generally consider it to be so stylized and grossly overdeveloped to the point of absurdity, but being forced to watch Baryshnikov and Hines in "White Nights" back in 1985 gave me considerable appreciation for the athleticism and power of these guys.

Never really liked Chevy Chase, especially after he left SNL.

Spent the majority of my adolescent formative years in Europe, specifically central Germany. I therefore have a considerable sexual hang-up for women with furry armpits. I don't dig hairy legs or the matted, aromatic tangle of a hirsute hippie triangle, but furry armpits get me every time.

Once voluntarily took a D- in 12th grade Honors English rather than finish and write a paper on The Scarlet Letter. I still despise that turgid glop. The teacher was a good shit about it, actually giving me a still-remembered pep talk on the importance of standing on principle (me refusing to read the book, and openly stating so to him), but still standing on his own principle to slam me on the grade (which I deserved and earned, of course).

My wife has some of the most beautiful lips I've ever seen on a woman, anywhere, anytime. Absolutely stunning. Put on a little bit of lipstick, and I'm in another dimension. My daughter has inherited these as well, the wondrously beautiful little thing.

I don't understand that in my neighborhood, where simple single-family homes sell for $900k and more, the goddamn people can't cough up $20 per family for the college students who coach their kids in swim. Over 100 kids on the swim team, and tonight the total collected was just over $50. It should've been more like $500. Fucking thoughtless hypocrites.

I cherish the opportunities to work late at night at the computer, dark outside, clear music streaming straight into my head through my beloved Sennheiser HD 570s.

So many stupid people out there, the stupidly selfish and the selfishly stupid. Able only to think of themselves, never about others, never thinking past the end of their cell phone, the end of their bumper, the end of their oblivious noses. They're dangerous because they can't think outward, and act on their single-minded purposes. Watch out for them, because they make the world dangerous for the rest of us.

I often wonder what the defintion of being a man is. Is it conferred by the opinion of others? Or is it something you simply are, communicated by your own pace, actions, and attitudes? Are there gates to pass through, tests to undertake to become a man? It's more than just turning 18, that's for sure. Read James Dickey's mangificent Deliverance for a riveting study.

The wife is just covered with poison ivy, looking like some kind of Caucasian Hiroshima survivor, but she still looked fantastic tonight in her tan shorts and white blouse, sexy and delightful.

I get one speeding ticket for the first time in 13 years, and fucking USAA raises the insurance rates. Time to look for a new company.

Dreamtime

It was a college campus I'd been on before, probably an alma mater, although I couldn't remember. I was very familiar with the campus, but it had been a great while since I'd been there. There'd been lots of construction, more buildings jammed into the small and limited urban campus.

Lots of massive trees, desiduous, soaring.

So where the hell was the Union? I went to the hillside where I remembered it was located, a clear memory of a graceful building hugging a wooded slope, but instead there was a massive new thing, local pink granite, soaring up five stories. I entered, and found the most amazing thing, the outside new building being an exceedingly clever shell around the old Union. Students everywhere, on walkways, catwalks, transparent suspended stairways, all moving, lots of commotion. Everyone knew where they were headed but me. I knew where I wanted to go in the Union, but couldn't seeme to get to the floor or the right portion of the Union building, inside the space of the massive new shell they'd built around it. I had the feelign that everyone was paying attention to my lack of navigation skills inside the new building. I felt very conspicuous, needing to move to keep folks from wondering about me.

But suddenly it wasn't the Union or its new shell, it was a strange and fascinating descent on a tight, coiled stairway made of closely spaced rebar. A completely see through stair, with the red-brown bars about 2 inches apart. Inside some kind of structure, apparently.

I was unsure if we were using the complex and visually confusing lattice of interconnected rebar as a stair, as a serendipitous corridor inside whatever we were in, or it it had been intentional. The rebar was crossing everywhere, the thick steel bars straight, but giving just a little bit as we moved on them. I could feel a slight harmoic thrumming in them as we moved inside the tight space. Everything was more or less see-through, and it was easy to become disoriented if you weren't paying attention to depth and placement. I had to remind myself to step carefully, or I'd go down. Or maybe I'd go up.

I emerged onto what seemed to be an amphitheater stage. I'd just descended inside a stage scenery piece, from some kind of hidden entrance well up and behind the proscenium. Dark foliage behind, going somewhere, where I guess I'd just been. How did it hook into the Union, if I'd ever gotten inside it. I guessed I'd come down the slope the building had been built on, but I couldn't see it above us. Just simple gree forest all around, wonderful shades of original forest green, peaceful, quiet, and slightly cool.

But the mission was new, and different, and pressing. Immediate. All of the charges had been set, and all was ready to go. The team, all four of us, were just about ready to pull out. The mission was suicide from the very beginning, and we were winging it now, all of the original plans dashed, completely washed out by the reality on the ground. The Germans were far more numerous than anyone had anticipated, and it was amazing we'd been able to place our explosives without detection. Guards everywhere, always moving, always checking, always changing their schedules and routes. We'd been inside for quite some time, moving among them quietly and unnoticed--it was unbelievable they hadn't stumbled upon us. I chalked it up to their arrogance. They were good, I would give them that, but apparently we were better, and more dedicated.

It was hot work, and I was down to only a t-shirt. I noticed and took off my t-shirt and put my uniform blouse on instead. Made the team do the same--had to have out markings and rank on if we were captured or they'd shoot us as spies. We were down to only our individual weapons, rifles with just a few magazines each, and a sidearm. We were done for if there were a real fight. We could take a few, but couldn't do a thing in an extended fight.

It was time to get moving, to see if we could make it out. We hunched down along the castle wall, tight to the close grass and the smooth white stone. All along the outside, the twill of our uniforms making the slightest hishing sound as we moved tight against it, and down the steep slope. Then it was the strangely lighted field of newly plowed earth, the ground redolent of decay and primary essence, that unmistakable, basic smell of turned soil. Soft and yielding underfoot, leaving huge footprints behind us, sinking slow, almost comfortably, in the slightly moist soil as we stepped as quickly as we could through it. No time to cover the prints, had to keep moving and get on out, accept that risk.

Another slope, downward toward the guardhouse, right on the brwon, still canal. Had to open the old access door in the outside wall of the guardhouse, crawl in, and just shimmy under the floor with the guards clomping above, across the canal and out the portal on the other side. After that we'd be out and ready to move quickly, out of the area and country and back to freedom.

As I reached for the first locking mechanism to pull the access open, the charges started going, huge crumping sounds that even at our distance were more felt than heard. Huge rolling orange billows into the night sky, throwing moving shadows everywhere, making everything roil and appear in motion. Already the boys had pressed themselves to the deck, and I reached for the access mechanism to get us inside as quickly as possible. I wondered how long the below-floor access had been unused, and worried about insects. I decided to let the lads go first . . . leadership, after all.

Just as I reached the mechanism, the personnel access door opened, and a Teutonic head and shoulders popped out. I had my knife in my hand and was about to swing it up into his throat when I noticed he was looking away from us, up toward the explosions. Two more heads appeared, all focused up the hill, toward the commotion. Absolutely transfixed, no sense of danger, no sense of urgency in their duties as guards, no need to look around in the slightest, to discover us sitting literally right underneath their noses.

Their little wooden door slid shut, and we finished our entry. It was warm and dry inside the crawlspace, and it was surreal to be so close to the enemy soldiers, inches below their shuffling boots, hear their voices as if in the room with them. Our only challenge was to keep our gear quiet as we scuttled below them, and then it was out, to the vehicles, and the quick ride into the dark mountains for our rendezvous.