random thoughts

i'm trying to think of a good personal ad: dude, not a lot of personality, barely says anything, gets up at noon, no job, not that young, not that good looking, but in really good shape. Can do thirty pushups.

that would make a lot of sense. i've been doing a lot of random reading recently, mostly about current events, so i can talk politics, and a lot of hanging out at the beanery, slowly reading every article in the Oregonian, and watching the regulars come and go. i've been trying to get out for at least a walk or a little bike ride every day, to at least get a look at the weather. it's not that easy to get up when you don't have a job to go to, and maybe i'm just getting old or something, but i don't feel like going down to the temp agencies and dealing with them and getting the "temp" sort of treatment. after all, i have extensive experience in the washing of dishes. no, seriously, i had a very good record of doing the job as it was supposed to be done, but that's not exactly going to open a lot of doors in this town. some kind of manual labor would be fine with me, but it would have to be something fairly unskilled, because although i'm in good enough shape, i never learned much in the way of carpentry or anything else.

"it's so hard when you wake up in the midafternoon, and realize that another day is gone." I think that's a line from neil young, Chrome Dreams, which i am listening to recently.

it has been very cold out, and i have the heat blasting. thank gosh for my cats. my cats are a lot of fun. Actually, I'm thankful I have this house to live in, and that I can go down to the library and check out a bunch of books, and do the karate that I do do, and today, for example, the twenty forms that I did had the effect of relaxing me. Then I watched "I'll sleep when I'm dead" starring clive owen. Clive Owen always has a kind of movie star type of energy to his expression. He's a neat guy.

it is important to go out each day and notice what the weather is doing. This winter seems to be fairly normal, although it is colder than usual right now. I thought about entering some sort of "william stafford memorial" poetry contest at the library, but then I thought to myself "why would I want to do that?" I mean, william stafford was a pretty good poet. I respect his stuff. But he is not going to be there. Still, I might go check out the reading.

I try to enjoy the simplicity of each passing moment. And yet, the simplicity can move quickly into boredom. some sort of job may be the answer, and indeed, some sort of job is a financial necessity, and yet no job that i have ever had has really been much other than boring for me. The things that I learned in college never were applicable in the least. They didn't teach ten-key in college, or they didn't teach it at uc berkeley anyway, and they didn't teach me how to clean out a large soup pot. i learned all that stuff on my own.

on the cooking side, i made some tomato-curry-rice soup that was actually pretty good, and turmeric is known to be good for you, so it was also fairly healthy, and then some bread that didn't rise enough, but it's okay. reading around in "beard on bread" by james beard, i noticed a lot of good recipes that I should try for various kinds of bread. I'm been stuck on the basic white for a long time, but it would be good to get some kind of whole grain thing that I could actually eat. then also i've been eating a lot of udon, although I'm not sure that's good for you at all, and then also i've been back on a guacamole kick again. the avocados at Fred's seem to be adequate. they can't be coming from california, though, i don't think. and I made some broccoli tofu stir fry, and some dried shrimp and cabbage, and have been eating a lot of poppy-seed muffins, which may actually mess me up if i have to take a drug test for some job, so i may want to cut back on those, come to think of it.

there seem to be more people coming back to the karate class, so maybe they just left for the winter break, because it really looked like we were running out of people. we don't need a lot of people for a good class, and in fact there's not a lot of room for a lot of people in that space anyway, but we do need at least a few people. i should have gotten up this morning and gone to morning practice, but there was no way i could get up that early after staying up until three, so i skipped it. usually, though, getting up and working out is great, because after that i could cruise down to grass roots and get an espresso (they recently closed down the espresso bar, much to my dismay), or head over to the farmers market (although all yuppies get on my nerves), or maybe go to the interzone and get some food, although i can't afford their prices. Instead, i worked out in the afternoon, which "worked out" great.



i imagine myself to be somewhat like bukowski, but without the wine and women, and some would say, without a shred of talent. On the other hand, there is a lot of good stuff out there. Maybe it's just a matter of writing more stuff down. That could be it.


Can you be 53 and be a "brunette"? I don't think so.