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I woke yesterday and found not blue skies as I was used to but something much more sinister and disgusting. It was like the whole world was in a sepia filter and it had a strange color wash - we were in a brown world. The sky was being choked out by the dust in the air and I could stare directly at the sun at 4PM without it hurting my eyes - well, I could have stared at it if I could have found it. I took a few photos of the day and put them all together - notice how everything blends?

(you can click on the image for the high quality version)

The sky blends into the dirt, into the concrete, into my boots, into the buildings. The item that was the least brown was my shirt which is supposedly “sand” colored. Sand isn’t a color, brown is - you’re authorized to call things light brown and dark brown but there is no sand. If the color isn’t one of the 16 in the crayon box it doesn’t exist - its only a variation of a real color. Somebody had fun making up stupid names.

Its now the next day and I am still coughing and wheezing because lungs don’t react well to dust in that concentration. Why the hell would anyone want to live in Iraq when its such a brown place? The ground has got to be green where I live and the sky needs to be blue.

When you get to a place like this one is forced to wonder how it could possibly get any worse. I know at least two ways to make the experience less than enjoyable - add mud and rain.

The military has had a hard time dealing with the extremely fine dirt that gets into all sorts of machinery. Its found a way to clog things that shouldn’t be clogged. Unfortunately, this dirt also makes the worst brand of mud imaginable. Its not like there is a little mud, this stuff really likes to cake onto itself. We have gravel spread almost everywhere but there is little you can do to avoid some patches of the crap. If you’re not careful your boots will weigh an extra pound with each additional step in the mud.

The conditions aren’t terrible but we’re bored more than anything else - something like this can ruin your day. Sure, its a small annoyance but its the one thats on the top of your mind so its bound to drive you crazy.

I, like many others across our nation, spent a large portion of the 4th out in the sun. As a result, I’m a bit more brown and red but its all good. During the evening I lit explosive items on fire… it was fun. I almost injured myself on a few different occasions but thats about how it works… I’m the most dangerous explosives guy that you’ll ever meet.

It sucks that there are so many of our boys overseas in the land of the dirt and bullets. I can only hope that they get home quickly and safely.

Every day I ride an elevator and depending on my luck I get inside the smaller, cleaner elevator, or the larger, dirtier elevator. Both are unique in their own rights. Both elevators are slightly lethargic; they’ll take you to the floor of your choice but they open doors slower than an 80 year old with arthritis. The smaller elevator can carry fewer over sized items but it has a much nicer appearance. It comes with its own special smell on every ride. Today I sampled bleach, clean laundry, dirty laundry, tobacco, stale beer, Chinese food, and pizza. Once in a while I encounter another person that wants a ride from one floor to the next. More often than not, they aren’t traveling one floor, they are traveling from top to bottom (or vice versa). The larger elevator has the same footprint but has an unfinished ceiling giving it a maximum height of about 9 feet. The paint is fading and chipped in many places from the large articles that have been crammed in it at one time or another. Each elevator is unique. Each elevator takes me to where I need to go.

Is this post a metaphor relating to something else?

No, I just wanted to write about elevators

Over the weekend I was in Cambridge enjoying the rediculously nice weather; yes, I said the weather was nice… there is no sarcasm, it was an amazing day. So, after going punting for an hour or so we went over to get a some beverages. If you’re not from the Fens (the Fenlands) you probably have no idea what punting is. If you’ve seen the gondolas that travel venice imagine a much smaller version that is pushed up and down the river on a long pole that is used to push against the river bottom. It was a fairly cool trip and there was tons of info so if you’re not the type for that crap, well, you’ve probably already given up reading what I’ve written here today. So, as I was saying, we were in a McDonalds getting a beverage… why McDonalds? We couldn’t find a corner shop that sold soda and we knew where a McD’s was so we headed that way. Old girl was standing behind me in line and got up close and sniffed my shirt. She said that I didn’t smell like I normally do as I guess (according to what she says) I have a very distinctive smell. I said I guess I smell like punt. I didn’t put less emphasis on the “p” of the word so it kinda sounded like another word that rhymes with punt. Needless to say, I got some laughs and a few weird looks from others that heard it.

So, we stopped at the bookstore after getting some coffee. Yes, I’ve been drinking dirty bean water recently… its odd, as soon as you get me started drinking that stuff I’m amicable to drink it more often. Its like you’re opening the floodgates or something like that. I won’t go out on my own and get it but if you get some I will as well. So, we old girl wants to stop by a Borders and we do. We take a few steps in the door and she is off checking out the new releases, I tell her that if we don’t leave soon I’m going to be off to the races… and I was. I’m a huge fan of instant gratification and I hate to wait so I walked out of there with 5 books that I’ve wanted to read. I was like a kid in a freakin candy store… my parents never took me into one of those and it was probably a smart choice as I don’t need sugar and I sure as shit don’t need any caffeine I don’t like to be ignorant, I want to know as much as I can. I got a great quote along that line today… check this out

“ignorance is not a simple and passive lack of knowledge, but is an active stance; it is a refusal to accept knowledge, a reluctance to possess it; it is its rejection”

I agree with that statement, I don’t like it when others around me stagnate and stop looking for more in life and in the world. I guess thats why I get so mad when people tell me that they are reading. I ask what and they give dubiously tell me “Harry Potter” I immediately ridicule them for reading a book written for children. They are reading antiknowledge.

Oh yeah, found a cool russian saying Vsievo mira nie piereyebiosh! … You cannot fuck the whole world! But, if you’re me you’re sure as shit going to try.

Crawling under and over my skin is a feeling that makes me want to be out of my skin. I feel as if there is something wrong and I have to get as far away from here as possible. I can wear myself out and be happy but I feel so restless and I am unsure of where I should go. I guess I really need to take a few days and get the heck out of here. I’m going to Amsterdam in a few weeks so that should hopefully suffice. The last time I felt like this I took a trip to the other side of the planet. From this point on, I’m using my tax refund to go on vacation. I’m thinking about going to Laos or something like that because the most expensive part is going to be the airfare, the accomodations and the food are going to be dirt cheap. The fact is that I’ve got to leave… I need to go and I need to do so soon.

Things have felt a bit off since I have returned to this country. For the first few weeks, as I eased back into the life I live here, things were fine and I had very few problems. As I’ve spent more time here I’ve begun to loose interest in almost everything around me. I’ve been unable to find ways to occupy my time and keep my mind stimulated. I normally sit around and wait for the next day to come so I can repeat it all over again. I can only hope that this type of existence will be fleeting and that something better will come around the corner and do so soon.

My house has decended into absolute chaos. I really don’t care how it looks and I cannot be bothered to do anything about it, if it went a little further it might be considered squalor. I make sure that the trash goes out and the dishes get rinsed off but I can scarcely find the time to actually cook something real. I find myself taking shortcuts so I can get some quick food that I can eat, I used to care about eating something that tasted good but I’m all about what I get out of the food. I wish that I could find some food that I could eat for the joy of it rather than just for what nutrients it might provide.

Some might think that this missive is written while deep in the throes of depression but I don’t believe that that could be the exact case. More likely, I’m writing this note while in the deep throes of boredom. I was told that this could be expected and I’m looking for something else out there that I didn’t have before. I’ve been looking for a long time but I haven’t been able to find anything. I wonder if I am looking with enough vigour or if I am just putting on a show as a giant act.

I have been unable to figure myself out as of late, when I do something I question why the heck it happened as if I am sitting in the back seat while another person is driving the car. I can try to be a backseat driver but there is only so much I can do. I wonder how many more metaphores I can use as I write this?

I am Lokor, the gatekeeper of despair and destruction… that what I thought of as I was heading to the gym today. It’s a throwback to a SNL bit that they used to (probably still do) called Goth talk. It involved people that wished they were dead and…. well… goth. I laughed about it all but its odd how I thought it might somehow involve me. Life should be vibrant and worth living but I’m struggling to see out the dirty window into the clouded gloom of each day.

In the past, all of this would have made me feel a little depressed but more than anything else I’m confused. I’m really not sure to go with my energy and what to do with it all. I’m not sure if I am heading down the right path but I can only forge ahead and see what might occur.

On a completely different note, I am still going to the gym and lifting 5 days a week and I’m still improving. Much of what I do there is all about intensity and the will to push myself to the next echelon. I reached a new max in squat (insert rude joke here) of 275. I pushed 225 on bench today which was heavy but felt good. I’ve just got to keep plugging away at it so in the future I won’t be the small one in the family. Its odd knowing that I have been the smallest one in the King family for the longest time. I guess I’ll just have to do something about it.

More than any other sense, smell has the ability to transport you back to a time and place from long ago. Today, for some unexplained reason, my nose has been working on overdrive. I’m really not sure what the trigger is but the olfactory sense has been in 5th gear all day long. Then again, it could be that I am taking time to sniff the proverbial roses. For starters, I woke up and took a shower and grabbed a towel out of the back of the closet. This towel has probably been there since I moved in and the last person that used it, as I could tell, was the old lady. Sure, we don’t talk anymore but the smell of her reminded me of the good times we had. After that, I walked outside to my car and got the scent of pine trees. I immediately thought of two separate places that I have spent alot of time in. The first was the backyard at my parents house where I spent many hours climbing in and out of the two pine trees. The second location was the wind break of pine trees that was at my grandparents house. I remembered the time my cousin Jessica was being “brave” (or maybe she was just showing off) when she decided that she could climb higher than the rest of us in the “ladder tree”, so named because the branches were arranged like a ladder. She got higher than the rest of us when her courage ran out and she found that she was afraid and couldn’t get down. I stopped down at the kebab shop for lunch because I ran out of clean dishes and well, there is no better away to avoid a dirty dish than to go grab some takeout. I caught the whiff of peppers, which reminded me of stocking the salad bar when I worked at Godfathers, the smell of cabbage, which reminded me of the cole slaw my dad makes from scratch, and onions, which are used in almost everything my dad cooks.

If you are related to me I’m sure your association with the next one is the same as mine. When you think of fresh baked bread who do you think of? I always think of my grandma King.

Most of the time my house is somewhere in between clean and chaos. I normally clean it every weekend but it disentigrates throughout the week with a few place collecting most of the dirt. The kitchen is always the worst because almost everything has a magnetic attraction to the kitchen table and all sorts of things can be found there. It doesnt help that I wear my shoes in the kitchen tracking in all sorts of dirt and grime that just love that linoleum floor. The bathrooms are next on the list of grimiest places. The hard water makes everything look like hell and this is also the poop deposit room so you can imagine why I say it can get grimy. But, being the person that I am I can get compulsive and clean like there was no tomorrow. In fact, I am cleaning for tommorow as somebody that hasn’t been here is visiting. In time, people that have been here will see the place deteriorate into chaos.. first time visitors get a treat because I can clean like a loon.

So, I’ve got the upstairs done sans the vacuuming and I’ve got most of the downstairs left. Luckily, I’ve only got one load of laundry left so I should be done in another hour or two.

Well, today of all days I have all of these great ideas that I wanted to cover but as each came up I was as far away from a notebook or a place to jot it all down as I could be. So, unlike what happens most of the time I actually remembered headings of the topics even though I might have forgot most of the details. So… today I’ve got a few little tidbits… enjoi!

damn gut-o-mine

This morning I was jolted out of slumber by the loud piercing scream of the alarm. My mind barely functioning, I wandered to the bathroom to “relieve” my body of excess fluids. *WARNING* This could get disgusting *WARNING* So, men know one part of their body better than any other part. Its their best friend, their dick. We know what feels good, bad, when it itches and what direction it shoots when we go to the bathroom. We are normally self conscious of our “manhood” damn those people that tell me theirs is bigger. So, I went to the bathroom and instead of one stream I had two… I barely noticed that I was pissing on the seat and on my foot at the same time. Something, dead skin or who knows what, was blocking the stream and splitting it in two. So, I picked up some dirty laundry, wiped off my leg, and passed out for another twenty minutes before officially starting the day. When I woke again to the minion of satan that sits conveniently telling time and blaring noise, I now noticed my gut felt terrible. It felt like someone had spent much of the night just punching me. I hadn’t done any work on my abs recently so I was aloof as to what the conundrum might be. Later on, at the 0700 you are too stupid to do anything on your own and I’m a micromanaging tool meeting, I noticed that the pain got worse. The source was standing in front of me and I wanted to kill him. By 0727 I was already to assault someone for being an assclown. I was ready to go home for the day. At least everyone there has a unified hate, so in the event of his eventual murder the culprit will not be easy to find, he’s got many enemies. Like Mr. Burns, everyone hates him.

perpetuating bad music

I HATE 98% of british music. The brits do something that astounds me on a daily basis; they sink lower and find more repulsive forms of shit to listen to. There is a epidemic of sweeping proportions in this country to listen to crap. The talk of the minute of these piss ants is “Crazy Frog”. If you don’t know what this abomination is I’ll kindly explain to enlighten my readers. Back in the day… about 98 or so, a swedish guy recorded the sound of a small bike/scooter revving up its engine and the sound alone was kinda funny. Not really funny just a passing humph kind of laugh that lasts for half a second or a slight twinge of a smile. A few months ago somebody put this sound along with an animation of a frog that takes off on an imaginary bike as it makes the “bike” sounds. I wanted to throw a brick at my TV the first time I saw it. Insult is not enough here in the UK, they must bring injury and thus round 2 began. FIGHT! So, like everything else that happens here they take the same crap and REMIX THE SHIT OUT OF IT! They took the song from Beverly Hills Cop (the Axle Foley theme) and added the damned frog making noise. This was only available as a ringtone for a short time until some marketing guru realized this country is populated with mindless simps that will buy anything. They showed these commercials 40-50 times a day on any channel they could buy time on: all of them. So, much to my dismay, they released a CD. It was the #1 album on the british charts last week. So, now that they setup is out of the way I’ll tell you the rest of the story. I was getting my hair cut and one of the barbers mentioned that they were trying to get the album but it was sold out. I almost got out of the chair and stabbed them in the eye with the scissors. I hate this country and anyone perpetuating bad music. They should be shot on site. Its no wonder they don’t have guns in this country, visitors to the isles would destroy the populous because they are RETARDS!

easy is lazy

We’ve all seen the advertising. Easy MAC, Easy OFF, PRE-COOKED RICE (yes, they sell that here). Well, maybe its just me but most of the time I could replace the word easy with the word lazy. I mean, come on, how freakin lazy do you have to be to buy precooked rice. All you do to cook it is add twice as much water as rice and boil. The people in this country should be ran over with massive trucks carrying manure and crushed where they stand. Their children should be neutered to stop the bloodlines.

cruising for a bruising

My mom always told me that I was “cruising for a bruising as a kid”. I often did things that pushed the boundaries and often found myself meeting a large wooden object that flew at my ass at high speed. Lately, I’ve been walking around looking to pick a fight… with anyone that will fight back. Its not that I want to hurt somebody, well I want to hurt stupid british people (they aren’t all stupid but some of them shouldn’t be wasting my air), its just that I want to get some aggression out. (I have backlog of it) So yes, I am cruising for a bruising.

uniforms

AF members recieve a yearly uniform allowance because this stuff wears out and many of us grow obese over the years (I’ve lost my excess weight… others look like they are carrying quintuplets). Andy, one of my friends got a slot for an AF class requiring the wear of blues (a uniform I despise). Luckily I haven’t worn mine in almost 2 years. He didn’t have anything that he was required to maintain so he had to go on a bit of a shopping spree. (his shit was stolen when he was in Turkey) He spent almost $400 and he still doesn’t have all of the required accessories for it. Luckily, now that my pants fit I have almost everything I need… well, my stuff needs dry cleaning and I need a few more ribbons (that I just found I got today) but I’ve only got about $20 to spend to get my stuff in shape. I guess it pays to maintain gradually rather than buy it in one whole chunk.

red dress

This one is quite distant in my memory because it was part of a dream. Sunday, before I was woken by that blasted creation called the telephone, I was having an interesting dream. All I remember was that every woman in the dream was wearing a red dress and the rest of the world was in shades of grey. Yes, I dream in color. Like usual, when things were getting interesting the phone rang. I couldn’t get back to sleep to check out the rest of the story. If there was a way to record dreams verbatim I’d probably have 6-7 of the top grossing movies of all time.

Ok, like I said, I had a few things to talk about… back to listening to Dizzy Gillespie. Now thats some DAMN FINE music and not this brit pop shit!