intelligent, visceral and humorous are the only words i can think of to describe these writers.

other brother darrell
"I am anxious to dream now, to meet the version of the Minotaur prepared for me in the labyrinth of my latent mind, to quest for the Grail, the ring, the fleece, the apple of personal desire. I just hope that in this one I'm wearing pants."

ultrarhino
"For my first Halloween party, at age 5, I dressed in a huge, curly, platinum blonde bouffant wig, white pumps, a feather boa, and a spangly blue dress stuffed down the front with an entire drawer full of my dad's tube socks. My costume?  Dolly Parton."

frejaluna
"I am eight years old.  I am fourteen.  Although I am new cells, new enviroment, living in an adult world, I have not grown up.  And, damn it, I've finally realized that I don't have to."

quidditas
" I'm not a saint but a reformed character. And how these days I'm feeling just a little tempted again."

loishi
"Let me tell you something: rich people love the idea of understanding and appreciating poor people culture. Isn't that fascinating? They love to read books about slums and how hard it is to live when your mom is a druggie, you don't know who your daddy is, and your older brother is trying to pimp you out every chance he can get (and that's because he's barely holding himself back from molesting you). And then you figure out that it doesn't matter what your older brother does, because you're already giving it away for free."

suburban angst
"I hate you, because you made me afraid of things, M.  I love you, because you suffered for me.  I hate you, because you made me cynical, M.  I love you, because of your sacrifice."

site design give away.

since i can't think of a cool contest to have for the "the robots heads are eating your mom!" design layout, i'm going to just give it to a random person. email me if you want to enter to win. the winner will have the banner customized for their xanga user name and installation if they don't want to/don't know how to do it/have suddenly lost all ten digits in a high speed donut box accident.
i'm changing the site layout sometime today or tomorrow, which is why i have the screen shot of the robots layout. the new one is the cultural revulsion

before you get worked up about the site design:
the figures in fact come from maoist propaganda posters. also the title of the skin is a slight play on words - the cultural revulsion/the cultural revolution.
the symbol on the books and the flag is the astrological symbol for saturn.
the font used in the banner and the sidebar images is called electroharmonix, the closest i could find to chinese-similar characters available for free and for macintosh.
if someone can find or email me an english font based on chinese characters, i'll gladly change them. until then...

---

onion rings prohibited.

Titicaca & Hotel Colon Inn Puno Peru

do i even need to say anything?

my. cre. a. tiv. ity. seems. to. be. mov. ing. much. like. the. pro. verb. ial. mol. ass. es. in. dec. em. ber.

i've had a story kicking around in my head the last few days. it's a fiction piece, but mostly falls into the genre of "just really fucked up". i'm at ends with myself whether or not to post it here or to seek publishing/posting elsewhere.
why?
mostly because of its adult nature and at times, graphic nature.
sure, i could say "well, this is my weblog. i'll post what i please, when i please and screw you if you don't like it. first amendment!"
but freedom of speech is not license of speech. with personal freedoms come personal responsibilities and knowing that i have quite a few younger readers....that just makes me wary of posting it here. maybe i'm overly concerned. maybe i'm not.
advice and input would be appreciated. after all, you're the readers.

well. about a week and a half until i find myself on an airplane going to see this woman. i've been alternating between anticipation, anxiety, hesitancy and the urge to jump with both feet and grab on with both hands.
anticipation and anxiety because i want to get there now, get the waiting over with. to be able to talk with her in person and be able to reach over and touch her, or her me. to just be together.
hesitancy because, well, what if it doesn't work? what if it just doesn't happen? this is something we'd both deny vociferously if asked, but i have to be honest and admit there's a little worm of worry there. little bastid. as much as we talk on the phone and with instant messaging (totaling around 4-5 hours per night), there's a lot to be said about being physically near someone. i mean, 70% of all communication is nonverbal.
what if something in my body language or lack there of (i can be exceptionally stoic) completely puts her off?
jumping in with both feet and grabbing on with both hands because, damn! this seems like such a good thing. we get along amazingly well. we relate intellectually and emotionally. we think along the same non-linear leaps and bounds of weirdo intuition. we appreciate the humor in the absurd, the dry, the sarcastic and the smart assed.
sans segue, a few shifts in the paradigm of my thinking have been taking place the last few weeks. the most appropriate one to mention here is that i am not and never will be a monkey.
the second most appropriate one is the concept of taking chances. what life is worth living if you let yourself be bound hand and foot by your fears, doubts and cautions?
in my changed frame of mind, none. without chances, without changes, without acting on the effects of the catalysts that enter your life (or acting on the effects of the catalyst each of us are), we are stagnant pools filling with silt and life-choking mosses.
jump with both feet. grab with both hands. hang on and see where it goes.

"Damn the torpedoes, Full speed ahead!"
Admiral David Glasgow Farragut

skin contest!?

since i seem to be redesigning my site once a month on average, why let the site layouts go to waste?
do something i think is really cool, and you win the design, with installation.
i don't care what it is, a photo, an essay, an email listing reasons why you should have it, whatever.
just be creative.

if this sounds like a good idea, let me know.
if this sounds like a bad idea, let me know.
if flying monkeys have infested your attic and the guano smell is killing off your neighbors.....let someone else know. i don't want to get involved with that.

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UPDATE!
richard_the_jinx: I JUST CAME UP WITH A NAME FOR MY MONKEY
richard_the_jinx: CHUNDER THE WONDER MONKEY
blairgia20: no put him away
blairgia20: LMFAO
blairgia20: chunder the wonder monkey
blairgia20: you are truly a twisted soul

proprioception

the tap and jingle of keys against my thigh.
the crunching of pine needles beaneath my sneakers and the clean, clear whisper of the wind through the pine trees themselves.
i come upon the small sandy clearing that is mine and toss down my watch, sunglasses and keys. always in the same spot. out of the way.
months of my movements have rendered paths, bowls and patterns in the ground and created small drifts of pine needles.
still as a post,

and begin to find

inhaling the universe and exhaling to the horizon. breath condenses the body into iron bars wrapped by cotton wadding.
the shift is subtle; i don't notice until it's already complete. my consciousness becomes interiority. the process of thought unravels and diffuses until i am no longer trapped by my body. rather, i become it.
i become finely tuned spatial awareness. i become muscle fiber. i become respiration. i become lactic acid and anabolic metabolism. and i am nothing.
movements begin and movement becomes movement becomes movementbecomesmovementbecomesmovement until there is no s e p a r a t i o n .

you're much better off reading someone else.
i'm too nervous and excited about seeing her to be of any literary/creative use.