butternut schnapps in the glass first
baileys gently on tom -- er -- top.
(do not mix them)
shoot the lot.

lather, rinse, and repeat 4x.
wait 15 minutes
bling!
do the mystery dance

what does it mean? you can do anything you want, what's that about, i wondered. limitations. the limitations on my horizon are all my own mental constructions. there is no labyrinth aside from the one that we create, that we let our minds create, no obstacles stand in our path aside from the ones that we have permitted, that we acquiese to, that we accept.

what does it mean, you can do anything you want? semantics? are semantic gymnastics necessary for us to consider that the truth, you can do anything you want?

you don't believe me. you want to throw the impossibilities in my face. you have a thousand contradictions that prove me wrong. that's fine, go ahead. you can do anything you want.

they are nothing but excuses. they are lies that you've been spoon-fed and you think you believe them because you've heard them so often. did Thomas Edison believe that he couldn't do anything he wanted? did Frank Lincoln Lloyd Wright? did Pablo Picasso (nobody ever called him an asshole)? did Helen Keller? did Archimedes? did Einstein? the Wright brothers? when Danté sat down with his quill, did he listen to the voice in his head that said, "you can't do it. you suck. somebody else can, somebody with real brains, somebody with real talent, they can do it, but not you." did Abraham Lincoln listen to that voice? did Martin Luther King, Jr.? even Anne Frank, she didn't listen to that voice, even when that voice came dressed in grey shirts with long blue steel guns.

you want to know the truth about those people? they had oatmeal for breakfast. they had to clean their fingernails. they had bad breath when they woke up in the morning. their knees hurt. they got cramps. stuff bugged them. people interrupted them when they were trying to do stuff. their necks got cold and wet when it rained on them.

He turned his head slowly and looked at me. "Actually, I don't know how to put it," he said, "I'm not sure I know the right words."

"Try using the ones you do know," I said, "man this ice tea is delicious."

"Estrangement is what's on my mind," he said to me, "contagious estrangement. expanding estrangement. Emotional, spiritual, physical, even political estrangement... it's like there's no stopping it. It's like once it starts it never seems to stop. Like there are two snowflakes that fall on the top of a mountain," he says, looking back into that middle distance, "and they lie there next to each other for a season, they know each other's contours, they are continuously discovering new facets of each other." He was holding half of his tuna fish sub in the air in front of him. "And then, one day, something happens and one snowflake rolls down one side of the mountain and the other goes down the other side. And there's just nothing they can do."

I just sat there looking at him, waiting.

"I haven't spoken to my father in eight years," he said to me, "did you know that? And he hasn't spoken to me. It just doesn't come up. We're just not in each other's lives." He shook his head. "I don't even know how it happened -- it wasn't a fight, it wasn't a disagreement.." his voice trailed off and he took another bite of tuna. "For all I know he might be dead...and for all he knows..."

He shook his head. "And politically it's the same thing. I keep hearing about free and open debate, what a joke, there's no debate. First of all, to me a debate presumes that the arguments are intended to be persuasive. It seems to me like everyone has their minds made up these days, they play on the blue team or the red team. They're all -- ok, almost all -- adherents," he practically spit the word out, "And we're not really talking to each other about anything... When was the last time you were at a party where there were people from more than one side of any given issue -- who would admit it? We don't talk to each other anymore, we.. turn our backs and walk away. And that hurts all of us." He gestured around the room with the remains of his sandwich. "And sometimes it seems to me like we're those snowflakes, rolled up inside giant snowballs in separate valleys, with a gigantic mountain between us, and no way to get back together, to really reach each other."

"Sam," I said, "believe me, you know the right words." I finished my burger.

We sat there quietly for a couple minutes, Sam chewing his tuna fish in it's soft doughy roll.

"Call me a fool, Sam, but I think that there's a summer coming and the snow is going to melt. And then it will run down in streams, and the streams are going to run together into rivers... and then all the rivers will run down to the sea. All together one day."

I gathered up the stuff from my lunch and put it on my tray and Sam did the same. We stood up. "Good talking to you," he said, "I'm glad you came over to talk."

at some point, the storage unit (or pyramid, as the case may be) is excavated, and the boxes must be moved, up three steps, up seven winding steps, up eighteen steps with three winding steps at the top, and then opened. if the boxes seem heavy with material (what did king tut's sarcophagus weigh?) the emotional baggage they carry is infinitely more massive. I've got boxes in my spare room that outweigh the solar system in emotional terms.

on another subject, one of the gioconda's in my office told me that dreams with black serpents in them are signs of good luck, of all things. i asked her what did it mean if you have dreams with green serpents in them, but she did not know. she also asked me about recurring dreams. do you have a recurring dream? if you do, put it in the comments. if there are ten or more i will post mine.

ambition. yeah, a heavy thing, a chain where every link is the strongest.

it's been a full moon full of delight and when the delight goes away and i'm staring at the darkness it's important to keep my perspective. you know what i mean, i think.

there's a place up here on the moon, an exchange house, where you can exchange sentimental value for cash. so if you have a box of worthless knick-knacks from your grandmother that have a high sentimental value, you can get cash for them at the exchange. it's a practical place, they only give you thirty cents on the dollar, but for some folks that can be a windfall... especially if they're paying real money for a storage unit full of sentimental value. I know one couple who cashed out and took a six-month vacation.