Captain’s Logos

1. I have no money right now. I’m not sure how this happened, but somehow I seem to have spent it all. This isn’t typically an issue that I would talk about, as most people regard their personal finances as a private matter, but the last thing I did before typing this paragraph was check my bank statement, so it is still sort of fresh on my mind.

2. There was an evil cat that lived at our house until recently. She was dropped off by a girlfriend of the tenant of the studio apartment beneath our house, and it seems that shortly thereafter she became an ex-girlfriend. The cat, however, stayed and took up residence in the vacant and dilapidated play-castle in our backyard. I was hopeful, at first, that this cat, being aged and salty in her ways, would teach our young kitten how to hunt and survive in the wild, because I want our Catalina to become a huntress. However, all the cat did was growl and snort at our cat, and at that point I realized not only that cats have the capability of snorting, something I was unaware of until then, but that there was no potential for a master/apprentice relationship there. The cat, as best as I can figure, is now dead due to neglect and the elements.

3. There is a TV show that comes on the discovery channel called “Man Vs. Wild” where the main character, Bear Grylls, shows America how to survive just about any situation you can put him up against. He typically parachutes out of a helicopter into a tropical rainforest or an arctic wasteland with nothing but a canteen, a flint and a knife, and has to make his way back to civilization. This, unbelievably, is accomplished in exactly 60 minutes every single time (if you concede that while we are watching commercials he is still hard at it), but you would not believe the things that he does. If he’s in the outback and without water he drinks his own urine. If he’s in a snowstorm in Iceland, he skins a dead Caribou, digs a snow cave and wraps himself up in the still-rotting flesh underneath the ice. His cameraman follows his every step and Bear quite poignantly narrates his journey to us by elaborating on his actions in candid British style: “This snake that just tried to attack me is really intimidating, but I just can’t help but be amazed at what a powerful animal this is.” Chomp chomp. The thing that I enjoy most about this show, though, is thinking about the evenings, when in front of the camera he is in -10 degree weather, rubbing two sticks together to start a fire, wrapping himself up in putrid animal flesh, eating eyeballs; while behind it his cameraman heats up canned soup on a Coleman stove, cinches up his Patagonia fleece and checks his e-mail on the sat-link. Survivalist to be sure, but impractical as well, which is old school.

4. I believe the world is reaching a crisis point. Label me as you will, for every generation has their chicken little’s, but the way I see it, there are two ways to be wrong about this. You either think everything is fine, then the bottom drops out and you find yourself scrounging for food every morning in your refugee camp, or you prepare for the worst, and when it doesn’t happen, throw a ‘the world’s doing fine’ party in your compound. That’s what you call ‘degrees of error’.

5.There is a problem with my corpus callosum. Most people are either left-brained or right-brained, either left-handed or right-handed, I am not one of these people. I am what is called, ‘dual-dominate’, which sounds like a good thing; kind of like knowing the future might sound like a good thing. But ask Ashton Kutcher, it’s not a good thing at all, you end up going crazy! Basically I am in a constant and random flux regarding which hand I do things with and which side of my brain I think with. Small things trigger it such as doing a Soduku puzzle or tightening a nut with a wrench, but I will suddenly find myself ‘switched’ and I have to start learning everything over again, but with the opposite side. And things get all jumbled around; I use the wrong side of my brain for the wrong things. I dream in mathematics sometimes, my analytical thinking is peppered with colorful and creative analogies. Once, after graduating college, I correctly recalled the quadratic equation, which I hadn’t used or thought about since high-school, because I dreamt it. I used to play tennis right-handed. Then I was left-handed. Same with bowling, except other way around. I can say words backwards as easily as forwards. It’s a mess up there.

6. After all these years of skepticism I must say that I believe breakfast truly is the most important meal of the day.

7. Even though I’m 23, I still have to carefully monitor how much candy I eat. If not, unfailingly, I will give myself a ‘tummy-ache’. Now&Later’s are currently at the top of my list.

8. If I were unemployed, I would ideally spend my time gardening and making furniture. These are two things that I have zero frame of reference or experience in doing, but feel I would be apt at. And it would be strictly a vegetable garden, no flowers except for those rare plants that produce both flowers and vegetables. Whether or not that actually occurs, and if it does whether or not it is indeed a rarity, I know not.