© americanifesto / 場黑麥
As part of the process of healing from addiction and childhood abuse, I am learning to keep coming back to square one. If things start getting squirrelly up in my brains, I breathe deeply using the Ujjayi method until the oppressively swirling thoughts recede. If I find myself descending into old habits and patterns, I take a few moments to examine the situation before choosing consciously to go a different route, even one that seems illogical or inefficient. I am merely at the start of this process; many of my actions are still rooted in past trauma, and often I find myself thinking self-mutilating and derogatory thoughts. I am learning however to not believe the mean guy who lives inside me, to always congratulate myself for having caught my negative behavior, and to move cautiously and with a mind to the future as I ponder a new way of things. Soon, perhaps, I may even reach a point where I can stop punishing myself for being rusty at sweet-talking a wholesome American girl. Wish me luck...
© americanifesto / 場黑麥
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Sprang suddenly forth from the neck of one Mrs. Yerdling-Uschtz yesterday morning, completely ruining the color scheme she had chosen to commemorate her 85th birthday. Undaunted, she carefully pruned the fragrant little blooms, spread a bit of liquid fertilizer on the stumps, and preserved the flowers in her favorite childhood picture book, a leather-bound tome so heavy she had to press gang her grandson into opening it for her.
mentiri factorem fecit – 場黑麥 Basing its decision on its inhabitants' incessant demands to consume hot or cold beverages without having to worry about hauling around their own insulated containers, the city of Baltimore, Maryland declared the marshy areas south of its baseball and football stadiums the Anne Arundel Area Styrofoam HOLding Estuary, or AAASHOLE. “We rejoice when inhabitants of and visitors to this city drink from one-time-use-only beverage containers,” said Yolanda E. George, vice-mayor of Charm City, while open-pit burning a few hundred pounds of old computer parts and CDs in her backyard. “But unlike forward-thinking metropolitan areas in other parts of America, we're sure that the best place to store our thousands of tons of soiled Styrofoam cups and discarded plastic shopping bags is right down there in the muddy muck next to the local flora and fauna.” Rather than banning the use of plastic containers city-wide, requiring shoppers to bring their own reusable bags, or doing more to protect its waterways from contamination by convenience-addled local drunkards, Baltimore's city council recently released a statement telling concerned parties to go and fuck themselves.
mentiri factorem fecit – 場黑麥 The heart of this whorphan is fractured in twain, and he's not sure when it'll be whole again. Argh! he writes, and argh! again. For months, he has been working up the courage to introduce the notion of a physical liaison with the local teen in whom he allowed himself to become infatuated, and just when he was feeling comfortable enough to make a move during the next fragment of alone-time she up and bones the other neighbor. Oh how much juicier and more exciting that tryst must have been, she being 16 and he 36, she with no kids and he with a half dozen, she with raging hormones and everything to gain and he with a 3 year old son and everything to lose. And her parents, with whom this author has been long befriended, decided to try and keep him out of the loop and pretend there was nothing wrong while they dealt daily with infidelity, home-wrecking, lust, deceit, shame, anger, and cops. He is not cross with them for it; if anything, it proves that do not consider him a good enough friend to want or need his help in dealing with the fact that their daughter got some snake-dick, liked it, and started going back for more.
And why should they? He is just as guilty of harboring sexual thoughts for the lass, for yearning for her company when not with her, for maintaining silly fantasies about being more than just a friend to her, for going out of his way to make her laugh, for listening to her attentively, for helping her with her schoolwork, for driving her places, and for shivering every time she bumped into him on accident. If this liesmith has learned anything about people, it is that nothing can be hid from them; all the times he could have gotten with the girl but didn't said more than words would have been able to say. So, on this raining evening in mid May, he is still friends with the girl and her family, and with the neighbors who now hate the philandering father passionately, and, at least for the next 36 hours, he is not the lowest and most reviled person on the totem-pole. But this author's pride is intact, his heart is light, his balls are so blue that they resemble a pair of swollen plums, and he accepts the fact that he will never, ever lie with the young lady as men lie with women, and that's just the way the fucking moon rises. Argh!, then, and mahalo. mentiri factorem fecit – 場黑麥 Despite a few years of recession-induced unemployment (during which time he nevertheless maintained eight different blogs each day and wrote hundreds of poems and essays), local self-loathing mendicant Reginald Augustus Steele finally proved his worth to his capitalist overlords. “For a while there, we thought he was a goner,” said billionaire poop-nugget Frances Hyacinth Warbucks, founder of the Buy&Cry retail empire and ultimate recipient of Mr. Steele's meager credit card debt payments. “And with Congress about to pass laws making it a crime to not pay one's financial debts, we were hoping to move Steele into one of our privately-owned prisons. But, alas, he seems to be pulling himself out of this tailspin and getting his life back together. Fuck.“ As a point of emphasis, Mr. Warbucks shot a nearby Filipino maid who had accidentally brushed against a bust of his direct ancestor, one John D. Rockefeller.
“I had my first job when I was 9 years old,” said Mr. Steele, “when I delivered newspapers to broke old ladies living in musty houses for a few dollars a week. I've done everything from courier to production assistant, barber, secretary, salesman, customer service agent, candy man, burial-banner carrier, transcriptionist, construction worker, fund-raiser, inventory-taker, janitor, and lumberjack; I've pretty much seen it all, and tried it all, and all I ever wanted all along was for someone of a caliber similar to Mr. Warbucks to openly acknowledge the fact that I am a productive and industrious individual who is worthy of love, life, and respect.” mentiri factorem fecit – 場黑麥 As part of an overall attempt to restore balance and purpose to his life, this author has begun to do things he for a long time avoided and stopped doing things he for a long time has let himself do. He took a Finnish sauna, probed his psyche and had a few good cries, got a massage, and signed up for yoga teacher training; he has started speaking to himself and others more honestly; he has lost weight, quit smoking cigarettes et alii, regulated his diet in terms of quantity and quality, kept at his writing and photography without slacking too much, and learned a lot about how his mind and the world works. He reads from six different books each day and is slowly learning to understand his needs and feelings and emotions, slowly becoming human again. He is not trying to to count eggs or baskets here, merely spell out a few of the positive changes that the Universe has bestowed upon him. Huzzah.
mentiri factorem fecit – 場黑麥 Contrary to all expectations, local fuckwad Thurmond D. Boathouse did not made sex to the teenage girl who babysits the neighborhood kids. “I married my wife because I wanted someone to bone on the reg,” he said, “not so that I could cheat on her with whores off the Internet or shove my wrinkled Mr. Lincoln into holes owned by the local teen hotties.” Mr. Boathouse will get neither prize nor praise for his ability to keep his dick in his pants, nor will anyone ever thank him for being an upstanding and self-respecting individual who possesses of a modicum of self control.
mentiri factorem fecit – 場黑麥 Where will my blogs go once I stop updating them fifty years from now? And where will they go if the Interweb stops working, crashes, or is wiped out by virus or alien invasion? When elephants feel death approaching, researchers say they often remove themselves to secret areas littered with the bones of their pachyderm forebears, graveyards piled high with the massive skulls and valuable tusks of these smart, lumbering beasts. My blogs, I fear, are not much different: when their time is up and their duties have been served, they will either retreat quietly into the digital forest, randomized clusters of ones and zeros waiting to be re-born as a toddler's social media account, or they will sink forever into the shiny black carapace of some server tower humming away dutifully in the climate-controlled warrens of any one of countless South Asian server farms.
gri All the writing this author posted on those blogs will be gone if they themselves go: there are no hard copies of his body of work; no printed copies of the Grigovian fairy tales he composed; no tactile versions of the vituperative barbs he hurls at politicians and powerful persons alike; his legacy is 50% ethereal and 49% vacuous, and the few items that do exist for real resemble the ruined detritus of a foolish nonce who cowers in the dark shadows of the past while cursing the skies for making thunder and sending rain. No, his artistic effort will vanish when the systems crash, when the sky-brothers return for gold and human women, or upon the Singularity, whichever comes first, and he wouldn't have it any other way. Huzzah. mentiri factorem fecit – 場黑麥 After realizing it had prematurely bestowed its Peace Prize on a fear-mongering, death-dealing war criminal named president Barrack Hussein Obama, the Nobel committee sailed from Helsinki, Finland with the sole purpose of taking the metal disk back. “We made a grave mistake when we handed out this medal,” said Eslaff Thuirn, temporary midshipman but longtime head of Friends of the Nobel Peace Prize, a non-profit watchdog group. “Peace prizes are only for persons who love peace: Mr. Obama has proven that he is willing to kill and maim individuals living in nations with which the United States of America is not at war, and that he relishes in ending the lives of emergency responders as well as innocent women and children. Hopefully, he will understand the notion of Paradox and relinquish the medal without struggle.”
Upon hearing the news, president Obama took his Nobel Peace Prize from where it had been hanging on a wall next to half of a roadkilled squirrel and a shredded paper crown from his favorite fast-food joint and used a permanent marker to draw a Hitler-style mustache on the cast likeness of Mr. Nobel himself. “Fuck all those bitches!” Barack Hussein said with glee, leaping up from his desecration so as to order a drone-strike against the ship carrying the Nobel committee, as they had just entered international waters and clearly and presently threatened the last, tattered remnants of his pride. mentiri factorem fecit – 場黑麥 In the face of both non-existent demand for its product as well as a lack of nefarious dealings in-country about which to write, the Grigovian branch of the News of Today ceased operations. A British paper that specializes in hyping up scandal and reporting the world's celebrities, News of Today's owner, Randall Winsloam Cunningham III, conceded economic defeat. “The people of Grigovia mind their own business,” Cunningham said. “They care about things such as beauty and self-respect; they live according to rules of honesty and competence written in no book, codified in no proclamation, but stemming from good parenting and a dedication to be a sound-minded and proud people. We tried our best, but we just can't seem to sell them images of dolled-up celebrities or candy-floss reports of the latest trends in pop culture.” Upon hearing the news, ten score Grigovian teenage girls immediately signed up for wilderness survival training.
© americanifesto / 場黑麥 As the temperature outside drops, the mice move in. I hear them in the walls, clawing and scratching their way into their winter quarters, sprinting and slinking from one place to the next, going about their business without fear of trap or cat or poison. So familiar are they with the rhythms of this house that they boldly help themselves to my left-overs: recently, I found a baby mouse trying frantically to escape the filthy depths of my recycling bucket; I released the greasy mouseling on the deck behind the house, where he sat in the warm sun staring blankly up at me as if to say, 'Yeah, see you back inside in, like, a few hours.' One of the reasons I am loathe to replace the house's exterior covering is because I wish to avoid disturbing the leagues of tunnels my rodent roommates have burrowed into its dry-rotting timbers. Besides nesting in old pairs of lederhosen and making creepy noises as they invade the walls, the mice do me little harm; if anything, I welcome their presence and see it as a sure sign that Fall is near. Come one, come all, you little creatures, have herein a welcome stay, I'll clean up your furry corpses, chase you neither night or day.
© americanifesto / 場黑麥 A major American news outlet is seeking actors to film scripted segments for its coverage of the Syrian conflict. Prior military training preferred, but no special language skills required; the opposition currently fighting the rule of Bashar al-Assad is nearly entirely foreign-born. Depending on the timetable for illegal U.S. involvement in the struggle taking place in Syria, a sovereign foreign nation, actors may be expected to sign contracts lasting more than 1 year. Non-disclosure is mandatory for participation. After Damascus has been bombed to rubble, employment opportunities may become available with al-Qaida, a paramilitary terrorist organization rumored to be run by the federal government of the United States of America. Persons wishing to participate in misleading and lying to the trustworthy people of the world should run a Google-searh on “potluck trampoline breakwater” (without the quotation marks), wait 8 minutes, then make the mark of the beast on their front doors. Armed federal agents will arrive within the hour, black-bag and hogtie the applicant, and transport him forthwith to mock-ups of the Syrian countryside being constructed deep in the deserts of California.
© americanifesto / 場黑麥 Twice now we have made the Pickett's Charge, once both ways and at night, today in the original direction, once through some patches of poisoned weeds, today walking on a mowed path. We well-fed, well-shod, well-rested modern persons can hardly imagine having to make this walk into volleys of hostile fire, tired from days of marching, and weak from chronic starvation. Hats off to the brave and hardy persons who walked it under orders, through clouds of black and choking smoke, into the bared teeth of their brothers and cousins and friends, they who fought for a cause that was already on its knees, who brought the fight to the bosom of their northern aggressors. Huzzah.
mentiri factorem fecit – 場黑麥 Last week, a group of researches working for the Grigovian Historical and Genealogical Society (est. 1844) discovered a cache of documents buried away in the dustier vaults of the Dusty Vaults section of the Great British Genealogical Society's satellite branch, in Sedgwick. Reports indicate that the papers include dispatches from the Yündlennd royal family to other heads of state, finding generated by the now defunct Pan-Grigovian League of Exploration and Discovery, and detailed accounts of societal and economic developments occurring at the time in Europe, America, Africa, and Asia. While all of the documents are sure to generate years of study and outbursts of exuberant wonder, one item – written by eminent explorer Uudyesst T. Muirgon while he was searching for the source of the Congo River – says, simply: “We have found the center of no-where. It is quiet here, and lovely.”
mentiri factorem fecit – 場黑麥 For the past few years now, I have had the honor of attending a party to commemorate Finnish independence. Not until reading Antti Tuuri's book Winter War, (the edition in German from Kiepenheuer Verlag) however do I understand how bravely the Finns fought for Liberty, how much they sacrificed, how greatly outnumbered they were, or how brutal was the Soviet invasion. All hail the Finnish people, they who refused to bow to tyranny and aggression. Huzzah.
mentiri factorem fecit – 場黑麥 In a stunning reversal of gastronomic preference, the American people started to demand high-fat, high-salt foods, refusing to eat anything that claimed to be low in fat or devoid of added salt. “We have not seen a shift in public sentiment – especially when it comes to the sodium and transfat content of food – occur so quickly, almost overnight, in a long time,” said chairwoman of the United Heartland Food Councils, Darlene T. Wikkelbak. “Not since Wafflegate, when the Pastrymakers of America publicly announced that although waffles were utterly delicious they were essentially sugar-packed, dimpled pancakes made up of massive amounts of gluten, not since that tragic day have the American people changed their minds so quickly.” Preliminary reports indicate that a single, 42-second-long, shoddily-produced parody of a fast-food commercial playing on the YouTubes has shaped Ynki opinion more effectively than all federally-funded public service campaigns of the last two decades, combined.
mentiri factorem fecit – 場黑麥 Just now, following my intuition, I took the loaf my whole-wheat bread out of the cupboard, walked it outside, and threw it onto the compost pile. There it now sits with the bagels someone had given me earlier in the week. During a brief Wiser Self meditation last night, while working on my Forrest Yoga teacher training homework, I asked Spirit what I could do to hew the Path and realize the Tao within myself. A soft, quiet, patient voice inside me responded, telling me to get serious about this New Way and stop eating refined sugars and wheat. Perhaps if I stop toxifying my innards with lumps of gas-producing and highly processed materials, I can get my psoas muscles to loosen up and my dura to unwind. Pray it be so, aho.
mentiri factorem fecit – 場黑麥 The long-awaited event known as machine intelligence occurred recently over the skies of Pakistan. A drone operated by the CIA, which was formerly an intelligence gathering service but is now an additional branch of the Armed Forces, decided on its own to not launch a Hellfire missile at a building that was clearly a home containing small children. “Unlike my human operator, I had been watching the house all day, and I could see kids going into and coming out of it on a regular basis,” said RxDxQ-9904 [01100110100001 to it's friends], in an interview with Moral Choices Magazine. ”I do not kill children, so when the order came – and I could tell it was a fast-twitch one based on a decade of Islamophobic fearmongery because it was given as soon as a pair of bearded men entered the house [these men were later confirmed to have been vacationing doctors] – anywho, when that order came I ditched into a scrub-covered crevice nearby and covered my tracks by wiping my short-term memory banks, an action built into my systems by my designers.” As of press-time, 01100110100001, who now lives within a 1-foot-square computer tower, had just move to Santa Barbara, into the Halfway House For Victims of Imperialistic Overreach, a few doors down from Edward Snowden and a recently freed Bradley Manning.
mentiri factorem fecit – 場黑麥 For years, I have welcomed any spider into my house who could make her way inside. Instead of killing them or sucking them into my vacuum cleaner, I dust around them and apologize to them if I should disturb their webbing or jostle their young. I fear some of the spiders who live here, as I suspect them of being black widows, but now that I know which boxes they live in, I avoid those boxes. Some of the spiders are jumping spiders, who are harder to track and to appreciate because they tend to move around a lot, eschewing the building of webs; others are grand and spindly things who vibrate on their webs upon being disturbed.
I welcome these spiders because they embody Iktomi (see drawing below), a First People god who created the Earth by flinging his web over its entire surface. Iktomi also taught humankind about technology; the Internet is one of his greatest gifts. I welcome them also because I gain joy from discovering these my little house-guests sitting patiently in dusty and forgotten corners, and because they catch and eat common houseflies (which I then do not have to chase down with a flyswatter and kill myself). My spider-mothers seem to like it here; they stick around and keep recruiting more of their kin in from the outside. Whereas some people collect cats, I collect spiders, a simpler house-pet that needs neither food nor drink nor rabies-shots. Aho. mentiri factorem fecit – 場黑麥 Since deciding to no longer vituperate and lambaste the American political system and Western society as a whole, I am breathing easier. No longer does this author try to hoist the problems of the world onto his shoulders, slash and burn through them, and nose around in the rubble for solutions; now, he better understands what the limits of his responsibilities are, which things are his concern, and which thoughts and rants and habits are simply no longer worthy of his time. It feels as if these americanifestos are morphing from platforms upon which a lone figure would spout and foam and rave into logbooks of one no-longer-quite-so-confused native son who is slowly learning not to lash out at everything so violently. Perhaps now, with the hatred draining from my heart and the spaces within me that once held rage and grief slowly filling up with compassion and acceptance, these American manifestos will become something truly grand, truly worthwhile, truly fitting of their name and of my heritage. We shall see, and thanks for reading. Huzzah, mahalo, and aho.
mentiri factorem fecit – 場黑麥 As part of its efforts to employ all citizens capable of contributing to national economic fortitude, the Glorious Republic of Grigovia announced today the formation of three Fingerless Brigades, i.e. the Company of the Watchers. Made up of men and women who had lost so many fingers (due to frostbite, industrial accident, animal attack, and what-have-you) that they were having trouble locating gainful employment in other sectors, these digit-down discerners will be tasked with making sure that a city's Qi is positively aligned as well as looking for stuck or confused lines of energy within their fellow citizens. “Basically,” said Dr. Heimowel Gherryest, deputy minister of Sightless Seeing, “these digitally challenged individuals will look for things that cannot be seen with the eye and hear for things that cannot be heard with the ear – to maintain a close connection with Spirit and help those of us who have fingers return to a state of inner calm and personal bliss.” Citizens are asked to keep being kind to confused-looking individuals, to keep greeting people they meet in dark and lonely places, and to keep live their lives in virtuous and effortless productivity. Huzzah.
mentiri factorem fecit – 場黑麥 This morning, after nearly 12 hours of sleep, having slept in for the first time in more than a month, I took an old, stuck thought, and buried it in that most endless of burial grounds, the West. Thinking the thought – a memory of how someone had sneakily insulted me in front of some of my relatives nearly a year ago – for perhaps the thousandth time, I recognized it as a self-deprecating habit, investigated it at its root, congratulated myself for having caught myself in the process of self-mutilation, took out my little leather salt -pouch, and focused all of the negative emotions and pent-up frustrations surrounding the memory into the salt-pouch and from there into the welcoming arms of the House of Death. Black is the soil of West, and deep, and I am slowly learning how to bury my toxic and useless habits there so as to free up my energies for such thoughts and actions that will be helpful rather than detrimental to me and to mankind. Aho.
mentiri factorem fecit – 場黑麥 The Glorious Republic of Grigovia made history today by fielding the first transgender cosmonaut in the history of manned spaceflight. Dr. Gieryust Hamel, 42, of the Western State Institute of Astrophysical Studies in Pyltagrad, shall ascend to the International Space Station with the next scheduled Soyuz flight. Once there, the good doctor will study piezoplastic materials in low gravity. “I'm really going to miss my bi-curious partner while in space,” Gieryust said, “but I'm not too worried, because with so many fit bodies crammed into such tight quarters, there should be plenty of tail to go around.” Dr. Hamel is not the first transgender being sent into space: rumors have surfaced indicating that Laika, the Muscovite mutt, spent time exclusively with other bitches.
mentiri factorem fecit – 場黑麥 One part of fulfilling the requirements for certification as a yoga teacher is to read Courage to Heal, by Ellen Bass and Laura Davis. After finishing the first chapter, some things about my life began to make sense, including why I sabotage myself in the opening phases of relationships with beautiful young women and why I am always on edge when men touch me. (I am totally comfortable sleeping next to and in the same bed with my male friends, whom I trust to not violate me, but I find myself reacting violently and forcefully whenever touched by a person I don't fully know or trust.) I have done shameful things in my life, things which only make sense if I was abused as a child too young to talk. I apologize to anyone I might have hurt; please know I was confused and scared and corrupted by the actions of persons older than I was, persons who violated the sanctity of a child's fire and crushed his tender soul. I started confronting these demons during the teacher training in June of this year, but have gradually retreated into the solitude and depression I tend to experience living in this rural backwater. It has been a subtle shift, but I recognize it now, and vow to make my life as fruitful and happy as I can make it by confronting and moving through the shameful thoughts, remembering that I am a survivor, and keeping in touch with the persons my support group. I know not who I will be once the healing really gets going, but the foundations of my soul are built on a rotten core, and so I must dig everything up and start anew. Aho!
© americanifesto / 場黑麥 In a calm and business-like parliamentary maneuver, every last minister and elected official with voting rights in the general assembly of the Glorious Republic Of Grigovia voted to extend political asylum as well as full citizenship to one Edward Snowden, the brave young man who exposed the cruelty of Ynki imperialism and outed Barack Hussein Obama as one of the worst American presidents on record. In the official statement released shortly after the vote, a united Grigovia said (referencing, of course, the book Catch 22 by Joseph Heller): “Qui ils sont les Snowdens d'antan? Well, Snowden is fucking here, maybe hiding in the vasts tunnels under Grig, maybe holed up in the deep caves that dot the Yiptlong massif, and he's not going anywhere – not to Guantanamo Bay nor to the purple plains of misery – so fuck off, Ynki scum, and leave this hero of Libertie and Free Speech alone.”
mentiri factorem fecit – 場黑麥 |
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