New Projects?

The price of gas is climbing in an inverse ratio to my ability to get to Labrador. How would I describe that in an equation?

Labrador/Ga$oline=Wolves teeth - bleeding hemorrhoids. SO I add hemorrhoids to both sides and then multiply wolves teeth by gasoline....or was it divide Labrador by wolves teeth? I forget. Can any math freaks help?

It all adds up to the reality that I must ride my single cylinder 1974 Vespa Ciao to Labrador. I don't see any other option. I will convert it to biofuel and distill my own fuel from hemp.

I know I'm going to let people down by selling out like this but it has to be done. I've been trying to get to Labrador for 2 years. My van will probably be sold for scrap. I'm pulling my hair out. This is the year I make a difference.

Really, I've been reading some other blogs, or as one person called them, "Blaaaaahhhhgs." And one in particular Sarcasm Alley
is so similar to mine that I'm annoyed. Am I that predictably contrary and sardonic? I hope I'm a little more entertaining, but the general slant of both our content adds up to absolute diarrhea of the fingers. It's so easy to pick apart foreign policy and cultural trends and politics and "the state of the world". SO EASY. For me, it's like water flowing over a cliff. Very easy. I do some spell checking and add a few quips but mostly these blaaaaahhhhgs just roll out of my fingers in one shot. And as much as I want to be reflective and humble a close examination of my shallow pundit lifestyle isn't very becoming. I don't want to list my failures so far in life but they add up to quite a mountain. And while picking apart current events is a pleasing activity that I'm barely invested in, it isn't much to be proud of. It's just creative criticism. So what? Mark Twain was a damn fine critic but did he change public opinion? Hard to say. From what I can see his entire life was as a social critic. All his investments were failures. He declared bankruptcy. 3 of 4 kids died before him. An oil baron had to bail him out. Yet, we admire him. For clever criticism and wit. Is it enough? I read the Sarcasm Alley blog and am impressed but I don't admire the writer. It takes work to write that much content that will change nothing. And it is empty. I feel it is empty effort. Maybe not wasted, but empty, like an episode of All in the Family. Archie Bunker sitting on his throne tossing out conservative slander. What the hell good did it do? Have I become Archie Bunker's political reflection?

I'd like to be moving again, learning about the tundra, meeting Canadian oat farmers. Etc. I'd like to repair tractors and threshing machines and wash carrots. I might even feed cats in the forest or be a mentor to a high school student. I don't know. Something that adds up to more than this contrarian babble. Other people are doing the same thing and I don't believe in being redundant. I want to write the Santa Cruz fable but the timing never feels right.

A statement the mayor says to Oggy in it keeps ringing in my head, "An unhappy person will always blame the time he lives in for his unhappiness. It's an easy target. Yes, Times are bad and some of us have to risk making them worse."

When I write something I don't expect then I know I've got something original. Oggy does blame the times he lives in but he also doesn't dare make them worse...which is a possibility if anything is going to change. But in the time it takes to ponder every angle it has all changed again and he has to start over. It's an endless cycle. He's observing the world so he can make a decision but the world is filled with frantic crack addicts so it's impossible to keep up with the changes. Eventually, action must be taken without pondering and of course it leads to his ultimate collapse and despair. But he doesn't see how his actions ripple across the landscape and do change things. The reader sees that but Oggy is institutionalized and sedated and mumbling for more mashed peas.

My attitude is drowning in critical/political masturbation. You get good at what you do and this commentary isn't what I want to be good at. Other writers say the same thing. The Army corp of engineers don't sit around debating greenhouse gasses when the river is an inch from flooding. Things have to get done. At some point in the next decade or two every house in America will need a roof top solar water heater. IS that going to happen with me farting around about Royal Weddings? Blah blah blah blahg. Oh, how is anything accomplished in these terrible times?

Anyone want to go to Guatemala and open a scooter repair shop? That's a good project. I'm open to suggestions. Or an arctic wolf sighting expedition.