DigitalisVitae

The smoking ban in bars has me irked on far more than a superficial level.

As a smoker there's a slight annoyance about having to be outside to kill myself with two drugs at once, but I digress.

Really, what's bothering me is the disinfection and homogonization of enitre culture. We are encouraged to excersize, engage is macrobiotic diets, clean up our homes, our lives ourselves. Antibacterial wipes for our homes; which actually contribute to illness because after you leave the sterile environs which you have created in order to work, play, or otherwise exist, you become exposed to those very germs you have tried to eradicate, and become ill as a consequence.

Physical fitness in itself is not an issue. What becomes frightening is the obsessiveness to which we now hold 'being healthy', stemming mostly from the oustide pressure to conform to some media ideal of a body. I seriously doubt that the majority of people running themselves to exhaustion and choking down diet energy bars are that concerned with internal well being.

The most frightening is how we wish to sanitize our minds and emotions. Find something offesnsive? Rant and rave until someone in power sensors whatever it is that is bothering your pretty little innocent head. Sex, violence, drugs - in fact, let's sensor news and politics, so nothing disturbing ever crosses our vision. If we stick our heads far enough into the ground, everything bad will just go away. Feeling down? Up? Sideways? Take a pill. It's great how all these drugs to placate the populace are legal and encouraged. Don't think for yourself, don't act, and most importantly, don't read. Ideas are bad. Sit. Relax. Have a vitamin water and a mind numbing pill prescribed by your favorite physician. Watch some nice, safe tv with all of the offensive channels blocked out. You only have the choice of Disney and snow, but the snow is relaxing.

Which brings me back to the bar, the oldest numbing agent in the world. Alcohol is poision, that's why it makes you feel fuzzy. Now why would one of these upstanding, exersizing, pill popping automatons want to engage in a practice that poisions them in the first place?

A clean, happy bar full of shiny people offends my sensibilities on a deeply visceral level. A bar should be dark. Not filthy, but not spotless either. Smokey. Rich tobacco haze should obscure the face of your nearest neigbor. Jazz, a singer or piano, is totally acceptable. I should be able to sit in a corner of hazy miasma with a cigarette, preferrably with holder, in one hand, a tumbler of decent scotch in the other, listening to strains of faint music, while the cloud of smoke renders each occupant indistinct. I should have the option of remaining anonymous or engaging a few people in intimate conversation under said music. I should NOT have to listen to a bunch of giggling idiots talk about how cool they are, or fend off an undending stream of polished frat fucks who KNOW that I want to go home with them, if they can just convince me. Now, I can't even blow an offensive stream of smoke in thier cherubic faces to ward them off.

The world is a dirty, diseased, dangerous place. Burying our heads in the sand and making silly laws will not change that. The more people try to sanitize the world, the more dangerous it becomes, because people are unprepared for it. Let the masses know everything is not Disney and the Gap, and they will be better for it. Sweep everything under the carpet, and these ignorant children will find themselves in a dark alley where your clean little rules don't apply, and thier souls will be consumed in dark fire, even as they cry out in indignation and disbelief, not realizing the horrors that surround them are not new, have always been, and thier lack of knowledge is not protection, but a death sentence.

While staring at a blank document in word, waiting for it to magically turn into a treatment, my mind wandered as it often does, onto sex.

Am I depraved, addicted, crazed sex fiend? Probably. With the right person, it's the most fun you can have while only breaking laws no one cares about.

Anyhow, the whole point of this particular rambling is that I have come to the conclusion that a penis suggests the existence of a higher being. And one with a wicked sense of humor to boot.

Firstly, this has got to be the silliest looking biological contraption ever concieved (of course, pun intended - I'm just that lame). A length of HVAC piping mated somewhat unsucessfully with a mushroom, then decided to toddle off and have relations with an oversized tapioca pudding that had been left out all afternoon, thus gaining a thin layer of skin.

Now, not only is this silly item positioned front and center, prime for ridicule - it is made intensely sensitive and easily embarassed. To add further insult, this positioning places the poor little thing right between two pistons of locomotion to be jostled about every time the creature to which it is attached feels the need to move. Even worse, the most sensitive part of this whole arrangement is aligned in such a manner that care must be taken even when in repose. (You've never lived until you've seen some poor slob sit on his balls.)

Most other carbon based lifeforms are in posession of a retractable unit, which sensibly appears only when needed, and then retreats until summoned again. Not so with humans. Here, the apparatus is left swinging in the breeze at all times to be poked, prodded, squished, and otherwise humiliated at a moment's notice. Arguably, it's amazing that we are this prolific considering all of the daily dangers such as zippers that it comes in contact with.

Face it - for every work of genius that gets looked over, there are five million that DESERVE the slush pile.

If I am not your friend, do not inundate my spaces with miserable 'poetry', 'rants', or any other scum deluging from your unpracticed fingers.

I am so sick of 'aspiring writers' who have not taken the time to study the craft.  That firmly believe every slimy bit of doggerel they put on paper is a work of misunderstood genius.

Yes I am published. No, I never had to pay for it. Yes I get paid for it.  Not enough to change careers; but then again I don't want to.

If something doesn't 'click' for me, is it crap? Not indescriminately.  But I've been getting so much that is total garbage to make my head spin.  If it's honest to goodness crap, I will say so(usually in a more pleasant manner). Do not write me back to say that I just don't understand because I've never been there.  It's your job to put me there. *pant pant* And you have no idea what my life has been like anyway.

Please spellcheck your stories.  I don't spellcheck blogs, that is part of the beauty of a blog. Learn some words. Read the damn dictionary if you must. Learn how to USE the words you know.  Please know the basics of the area you're writing about.  The empire state building is not in Albany.  Nor is the Egg in NYC.  These are major landmarks, and people DO care.  There is not much skiing going on in Virginia in June.

Do some research.  If the killer is using a tommy gun, it's very unlikely a silencer would be used, nor are the chances of being unnoticed very good. Same goes with a colt 45. Yes these are fun distinctive weapons. No, an assasin would not have them.  Nor would the average person be able to hide a claymore under his jacket. (Claymore is basically gaelic for 'big sword'.)  These things tend to be a minimum of five feet long.

It goes on.  A stiletto is a slim dagger with two or three edges traditionally thought of as personal protection or assasination.  It is not another word for switchblade.  One implies elegance that a street thug probably does not posess.

Upstate New York is neither the suburbs, nor Alaska.  Small towns CAN be intellectual.  Not all city people are vapid hustlers(there's a great contradiction right there).

I'm sure there will be more.

Additionally, thank you to the few people who have send me something worth reading, I will continue to proofread in my spare time.

Every few years I notice my keychain expands to janitorial proportions.  Given enough time and alcohol, I can usually figure out what most of them were for.  Were.

I have keys to offices and warehouses I no longer work at, apartments where I don't live, even a car that was donated to charity some years ago.  Were I a more organized individual, I would sit down and pull these keys from my ring - jangling bits of my past, some to be discarded with relief (the car which would leave me stranded on the same portion of highway at 3 a.m.), others with a hint of sadness(the budding company that could have been something great).  But I don't.  Whether from sentiment or laziness, I tend to pull the keys that I actually need, and toss the remainder into a drawer, probably never to be used again.

Realistically, none will be of further use to me.  Yet, they are reminders of points in my life, doors that I have been granted access to, literally and metaphorically.  People that should be remembered, or signs of advance. (I now have a vehicle that has yet to leave me stuck anywhere, and it's a boost to remind myself occasionally.)

The ones that get me the most though, are the bits of mystery metal.  I can't for the life of me recall how they got there, or what they are actually for.  Some are ponderous, offical looking keys that seem to glare up at me, contemptuous of my lack of recollection.  Tiny keys, glittering and flirting, mocking my memory.

I have this recurring fantasy that one of these keys will open an unimagined door and lead me on a series of amazing adventures.  That they have borne themselves onto my ring for some secret purpose that will reveal itself at the right time.

Jackson "Ace" Tibbs sprawled at the mess table below deck, shuffling his favorite set of marked cards. Threadbare and weatherworn as the man himself, they danced though his fingers like rain, pattering rhythmically with each flick of the wrist. He paid far less attention to his own display of skill than Desiree's dagger, once again flung perilously close to his head.

"D'ya mind?" Ace's beetling brow furrowed even farther, nearly obscuring his vision. "I want ta' keep that."

"Can't figure why." Desiree stomped over to her barrel – target and worked the blade out, leaving another gouge in the wood. "Hasn't done ya any good so far." His eyes followed her every move.

"Damn wind better pick up soon." The cards ticked into perfect piles, despite the cabin's gentle sway. "Even your sour ass is starting to look good."

"Don't even think it, Tibbs, or there'll be more than one woman on this crew." Desiree threw her dagger once more. This time, it struck the barrel pommel first. With a sharp crack, it went clattering off toward the galley. She hesitated, grinding her teeth.

"I wouldna go in there either."

"I'm not scared."

"Then yer an idiot, as well as a lousy throw." Ace chuckled; a low, phlegmy sound, while scratching his beard with one hand. The other continued manipulating cards.
"Justice was a bit, off, when we left port." Desiree tugged at a knot in her greasy hair.

"Five hundred pounds of salted meat led by a walnut is always a bit off." Ace nodded sagely at his own insight.

"More, though." She gazed longingly into the shadows holding her lost dagger. "I think it had to do with that box."

"Box? What box?"

Desiree plopped onto the scarred wooden bench opposite Ace and slapped the cards from his hand. White rectangles fluttered throughout the cabin, lodging themselves behind barrels, rope, and mysterious cargo that needed to ride higher than the leaky hull. He glared at her, untangling his long spider legs from the bench.

"Fifty – two pickup." She grinned. Her smile could have been lovely once; it was now marred by scurvy and lost teeth.
Ace grumbled under his breath and continued retrieving cards. His cartoonish rolling gait and unnaturally long limbs caused him to move as though he were made from spare parts that were never attached properly.

"What box?" He repeated.

"He got something in a hat box. Commission, I think." Desiree shrugged. "Was supposed to be his new cooking hat or somethin'. "

"Did he cook the last one? Thought I tasted hat."

Desiree shook her head, listening to the music of hammered gold disks hanging from her earrings. "Bet you wouldn't say that in front of him."

"I'm an arsehole, not an idiot."

As Ace retrieved the last of his precious cards, the object of conversation made himself known. A massive silhouette framed the galley doorway, backlit ever so slightly from the single oil lamp in the kitchen. Tall as the door and nearly as wide, with a smooth, egg shaped skull, Justice's eyes caught the mess hall light with a feral gleam.

"'Ello, dear heart." Desiree's voice was almost steady. Shy and sweet as the ship's cook actually was, his sheer size and appearance unnerved even the captain. That, and for such a large man, he moved almost silently.

"…mhrmmzzzz…" Justice mumbled back.

"Did you try on your new… whatever it was?"

Justice looked down and kicked at the floor.

"Well, then, let's have a look."

"…gbbbthhhrrrrx…"

"C'mon, we're all atwitter." Ace leaned against the wall in forced relaxation. Everyone was a bit on edge around Justice.

Justice shuffled into the light. He was wearing pink. A pink dress. A pink frilly dress. With a lace apron.

Ace, for the first time in twenty years, dropped his cards.