non-fiction

Why not hug a tree? Why not indeed ¦ ?

Past Event

My opinion of the world today

As any thoughtful person can see, human activity has changed the world forever. Mastadons will never again wander over America; The tiger will never again rule the jungle. Nor are humans likely to give electricity back to the eels and the air back to the birds. Much of this change is for the worse. Instead of ever stampeding toward more powerful technologies, humans should have moved forward over eons, never out of hearing of nature's drumbeat, slowly learning the difficult dance of being both humane and civilized.

"Don't tell me truth hurts, little girl...cause it hurts like hell." David Bowie is so fucking rad in this movie.

"Don't tell me truth hurts, little girl...cause it hurts like hell." David Bowie is so fucking rad in this movie.

It's of great beauty that you said you loved your family...

This is a chronicle of my weekend in Tunnbridge Wells (and an American Collegiate Fottball game), some profane language

I am sitting at the Royal Wells Hotel, streaming the Texas game at 00:25. I am staying at a hotel down the street, but i have convinced the pasty faced girl at the front desk of the RW, to let me sit in their bar and listen to my passion. Dude, Texas is unlikely down 0-7, and I get pretty intense. But we're driving. Shit, 3rd and long. I have been relocated for the weekend. Yeah, VY runs for the first down and more...

I open the remote control curtains, look at the tree outside my window and smile.
God it's good to see a tree.

Just me, and the fireworks.
Exploding with new light.

Before I get off the plane I have decided, I'm going to Findhorn. To my tree. I feel the need for ritual.
For surrender.
For the Findhorn river. Cleansing and Purification.
And to see him once more.
Of course.

Choices.
I don't actually remember making any.
Ever.
Apart from what to eat next.

In Gabrielle Roth's book 'Maps to Ecstasy' she tells the story of a monk who falls in love with a woman. He goes to another monk, tells him then asks
'What should I do?'
The older monk says,
'Follow your ecstasy.'

Obviously, I think he chose to be with the woman he's in love with, no matter what else he had to give up.

I don't understand why he wouldn't.
I don't.

This story uses bad language (arts skills) and my be offensive to Orientals

Second week, Thursday.

In addition to bringing my ass over here to help with this new, sales initiative, my company decides to bring a person from the Eastern office. Her name is Cindy, she is Taiwanese; the real pronunciation of her name can only be heard or spoken by aquaticmammals. She is very nice, if I had to guess, only because i know her work history, I'd say 35. You know how, Asian women can either be 17 or 90, like over 90 you can sort of tell their age, but if they're 65, they might as well be 20. She speaks pretty good English but with a seriously awesome Asian flare. Like she will say "Learry." I'll be like, yeah in the Houston office we always include the industry code on each sales order (gosh, I know, riveting), and she's always like "Learry." Go ahead say it out loud, it helps me. When i was a kid, i used to say "Leyyow" or "Bayyet, " Ls and Ys gave me some trouble (please don't ask, why, as a child, i was constantly saying ballet). Well Cindy is not too good with her Rs and Ls. Keep this in mind for later.

This story is somewhat vulgar and completely without taste.

So it is a Wednesday night and I'm feel'n alright, not normally do i go out looking for adventure during the middle of the week, but the night before I crashed, like a little bitch, at 6:30, from jet lag and exhaustion. So I have heard of this pub that everyone holds in high regard at work and around my hotel (which is also a pub). It is a place called the Wheatchester or Weatherfieldchester or Wefenchester, either way it starts with a W and ends with a chester. I decide I'll find this place, have a few pints and a sandwich. So I go downstairs to ask Deborah, my 50 year old balding friend of a bartender, where this wonderful pub is. Well Deborah was not there, but some guy was sitting at the bar, with a pretty awesome comb-over, i wait for Debby to swing around the edge and come and greet me, before that can happen I hear, "American, are you?" I look over and comb-over is staring at me.

So I slept on my new hotel bed for the second time the other night. I can no longer move my neck to the left. Bottom line I feel like Bob Saget on Full House, i am absolutely rigid. i don't know if it is the undulating spring ridges in the mattress, where I find myself in a dyke or valley when I wake, or whether the bed is so old that is it mad at whoever sleeps on it. You know how sometimes you can smell if something is rusty, like a chain-link fence or a old set of nails, well i use another sense, i can actually hear the rust in this bed. The large steel coils inside the mattress squeak with every subtle movement; as if it is an old woman with hip trouble shuffling down some stairs. My neck is so sore. Someone has just walked in the door however, i can not see them b/c they are to my left side and in order to make that kind of maneuver, i have to physically stand and turn my entire body. Yeah, it is fantastic.

At the end, only the space right at the bottom, near the flames, is free. He dives right inside, feet sticking out above.Baking only takes five minutes or so. A lid is put on the "Torné" and Gia, pouring with sweat and red as a tomato, goes to rinse his head at the washbasin.

(This item was published in "Georgian Times" English edition newspaper)

She spotted him as she was waiting for the lights to change. He was carefree, non-chalant, spirited even, minding in his own business. Suddenly there was movement...a hump appeared on his back for a few seconds, and then he lay flat again. The brave invertibrate seemed to be planning to cross the road too, and the very thought made the girl smile.

As i watched him die i found it hard to remember how he'd lived. I found it hard to think of the twenty years i'd known him as my favourite uncle and thought only of the year he'd been a cancer patient. I could barely recognise him, so swollen because of the steroids, so drugged up he was barely even him. I could have sat at the bedside all night and all day but apparently life went on. I was supposed to continue on as if nothing was happening, as if every second i didn't feel him ebbing slowly away. I thought about him every one of those seconds, even when i pretended i wasn't. I could hardly drag myself out of bed every day that week. I had to be so far away but couldn't concentrate on anything. Nothing was as important as this. I couldn't stay away even though the others didn't think it was good for me to be there. I said goodbye each time i left just incase he wasn't there when i came back the next day.

I lived here all my life,it never used to be like this,I remember when I was young it used to be nice peaceful,quiet.Remembering going to the cinemas with my friends and family,going to the park every weekend to play football,or cricket during the summer months.Going to school was easy,leave home at 8am,get there for 8.10 play 'footie' for 'bout an hour then go to lessons,then I went to college,that was all in 1992,I even got a few qualifications too boot,i didn't think I had the brains for it.