When I was in highschool I had a wannbe member of the Ghastapo for an English Teacher. I had a love- hate relationship with him- he loved to torment me and I hated that he knew every single button to push to get me to start fighting with him. Eventually, I smartened up and learned it was just much better for my piece of mind to just ignore him and would draw or write through class. Really what it was was that he just loved to push his students that he felt were talented. I learned to appreciate him much, much more once I was out of highschool. He was a good teacher in the respect that I didn't realize what I had actually learned until later. Every once in a while, post highschool, a bell would go off and I would go. "Oooh, so that's what he was talking about!"

Mr. Porter came up with some gems, that 12 years later (I can't believe I just wrote that! God, I feel OLD!) I can still recall with alarming rapidity. The L.A. Five- a list of phrases, grammatical gems- if you will, that he said all people from Lackawanna said. I have worked damn hard to virtually eradicate all traces of these from my speech! I am loathe to admit that they do pop in every now and again. And they are:
1. It don't
2. You's guys
3. of seen
4. of took
5. have went

The thing about these little, innocuous phrases is that they are so insidious, they're out of your mouth before you even realize what you've said!

But Mr. Porter's L.A. Five are not why I'm posting today. It was something else that he taught us all, that many of his former students, my brother included, can still recite. At the time, it was just a pain in the ass but once I got past the annoyance of it all, and really listened to what was being said that I understood it.
It was a quote from Confucious.

"If Language is not correct, then what is said is not meant. If what is said is not meant then morals and art deteriorate. If morals and art deteriorate, then justice goes astray. If just goes astray, the people will stand about in helpless confusion. Hence, there must be no doubt about what is said. This matters above everything."

I'm just a big, black box right now. Hmmm... I'm definitely going to have to work on changing that. At first I thought it was funny, and it was SOMETHING, but I'm so technologically inept, especially compared to most e-strippers, that I just said, "Fudge- it", and convinced myself it made me seem like an enigma. Now, I feel that I'm just a black box and what is more boring than that?

Now, for my actual purpose for posting today which is nothing as interesting as Dr. Chlorine's post, that's for certain. Anyway, I've been distracted by reading the above mentioned post as well as an adorable 2 year old who has been running around my bank branch and chatting up a storm. We have no idea what he's saying, but every once in a while we can make out, "It's like- MY God!" in a perfect, two year old's imitation of an exasperated adult, and "Elmo". Oh, never mind. It's gone. The post I had in my head this morning as I drank my tea is gone. Maybe later e-peeps.

I am convinced that Dr. Chlorine is a strange, strange man. Funny, but most definitely strange. Of course, like the rest of us are so "normal". Yeah right!

Okay, today is both brutal honesty day and extreme funny sarcasm day. Of course, one can be hidden inside of the other, but usually I am not combining the two. Today, I have pretty much told my rather psychologically fragile friend precisely what I believe that she needs to do. I could be wrong. I will admit that, but she's been spiralling in the same god-awful whirlwind of mind for so long and no one will tell her like it is for fear of upsetting her or "setting her off". Basically, everyone coddles her, most especially her mother, or they just avoid her because they cannot take her. She is my friend and I love her dearly but I admit that I can only take her in very small doses. I know that she will be mad at me for what I have said to her but would I be any kind of real friend if I didn't tell her the truth, or rather, my perception of the truth? Siccophants and phonies coddle and tell lies. I cannot do that, not to anyone that I really and truly love enough to call him or her my friend. Now, to go and tell someone else precisely what I think... May God help that person!

Just so you know, "Batman Begins" rocks! It has an actual plot and storyline and everything!

Did you have one of those days where for some unknown reason, a song you haven't heard in literally years pops in your head out of no-where. Today, at work, as I sit in my boring cubicle, Olive Oyl's "He Needs Me" from the "Popeye" movie just started going through my head! Fortunately, I like that song, but it's so like "Huh? Where the hell did that come from ?"

I think it was Mike a few weeks back you wrote about how he had gone back and was re-reading all of his old posts and it had reminded him of things he had forgotten and then he urged us all to do the same. The past couple of days, I've sort of been taking his advice. I have always liked re-reading things I've written, whether it be personal or inane or fiction or fact. I enjoy it. I particularly enjoy reading personal things because it reminds me of a state of mind I was in during a particular moment or time of my life. I find old notebooks from highschool and college and smile at what I've written in the margins- song lyrics, quotes, stupid thoughts, doodles- I'm a really big fan of writing in the margins. It just reminds me of things that if they were important enough for me to write down, then they ought not be forgotten. In some cases, it even helps me to not Rose-tint the past, something I think most humans do. Sometimes it's better not to forget what happened and how I felt, in all it's ugly glory.

What also jumps out at me when I read those old posts is all of my spelling errors, usually leaping over words because I'm going so fast. My head said them, but my hands skipped right over them, and that makes me crazy! So, if I have time, I think I would like to back and correct all of those spelling and contextual errors. I guess it's just the teacher in me popping out.

So, as for those goals that I wrote down back in January, those that I was careful to say WERE NOT New Year's Resolutions, which they aren't, I realized that I'm coming along rather nicely on that list. Still working on the weight loss, but that's going to take a long time. Still trying to get Student Loans out of default- I was stupid in my youth, and now I am paying for it. But, I am happy to report that I *AM* actually buying a car! As I will be moving to Colden around the 1st of August, it no longer became a luxury to have a car, but a necessity and so, I bought a Silver Saturn Ion and I will be picking it up tomorrow afternoon! Actually, it seems rather surreal, and I am very glad, but along with that comes with everything else I have been dreading, it's like (God help me for ripping off "Spiderman", but here goes) with Freedom comes great responsibilty. All of the maintanence! But it shall be worth it. At least, it better be! However, I absolutely refuse to complain about the price of gas. In England, it's over $8 to the gallon! They trip you up by selling it in liters so it looks cheaper, but seriously- Eight Dollars! Yay! I finally bought a car!

Evolution doesn't stop, at least from the Anthropological, Historical, and Biological perspectives. We, in our Extreme arrogance, however, have assumed that we are the pinacle, the masterpiece, that humanity in all it's barbarous forms have reached the top and there's no going no further! (Ouch! That sentence just hurt my grammar, but I think you get the point) I think that educated and/or thinking people know that that isn't the truth, but the question becomes how do we truly leap forward when things that in the animal kingdom would have been rooted out just by being able to smell that something wasn't right, or by (dare I say it!) Darwin's Law of Survival of the Most Fit. If an animal couldn't survive, it wouldn't. If it Shouldn't survive, it wouldn't. In many instances, that is how we have outsmarted ourselves and I'm fairly certain slowed down considerably the process of Evolution. Or maybe we've just changed how we evolve, turning more to the cerebral than the physical need. In a few millenia, if we could travel to the future, would we even recognize ourselves?