This shit is hard to keep up with. It's nice to imagine that I'd just sit down once a day, and type a few characters into my blog. But the reality is that it's about as easy to sit and type a note to myself as it is to get off the couch and go running. Okay, well, that's an exaggeration, which is why I've written geometrically more entries, than run miles. It makes the consistency of my friend Ian's bloging that much more impressive. (Even if he's tapering off a tiny bit, nudge nudge.)

So, not much to say today. I read in the New York Times yesterday about the likelihood of Al Gore's candidacy in 2004. Having recently blabbed on about Ralph Nader, I'm torn. While I think it would be great to see a democrat with something interesting to say rise up and stomp Boring Gore, it would be nice to have a repeated loser to campaign against. And Ralph Nader would have a blast reaming these two legacy candidates (Bush and Gore, both silver-spoon babies, sons of high-ranking pols). However, as a residual democrat, who still can't seem to kick the habit of believing that having a democrat in office makes a difference, I feel like it would be great to see someone with some personality kick Baby Bush's ass. I don't know shit about the political scene, but as a former Ted Kennedy campaign volunteer, it might be nice to see John Kerry make a move. Who knows, he's probably too smart to get into that mud-slinging bullshit. And maybe he's got too many skeletons in his closet to unearth.

With politicians playing such dirty games, and sucking off their pet corporations and PACs, it's such a shame that a basic human error, like adultery should play any role in a politician's candidacy. It's the perfect American idiom, though. Total disregard for the root of a problem, or the fallacy of a premise, in lieu of attention to issues, and solutions. It's a shame to me that my cynicism has become the dominant emotion in regard to my country.

Yesterday, I was driving along the Schuykill River, and commented to Alicia, "You know, 200 years ago, you'd have been able to drink from that river." Now I wouldn't even want to swim in it, for fear of the pollutants, and disease that I imagine runs in that water. And that brought me to thinking about what we have done to this country. I am wary of romanticizing the former occupants of this country as the perfect people. But I think it's important that we recognize the abuse we have unleashed on our earth in the name of progress. What has progress really gained us? Certainly, our life expectancy has increased, but now we have people who cannot deal with aging. Women inject themselves with Bottulism paralyzing their foreheads so that they do not wrinkle. People, men and women, have the fat literally sucked out of themselves, because of the vanity their extended life demands, and the excesses progress tells us, or allows us, to indulge in. LOGICAL, natural self-preserving instincts are nearly demolished in the majority of Americans, because we have to kill off these instincts to justify our existence. Since many of us no longer struggle to exist and propogate, we must now luxuriate to justify the over-abundance we are able to provide ourselves, even if it's not necessary. And what's more, because we have the audacity to believe that we are in control of nature, and the physical world, we are convinced that there is some way to perpetuate our individual lives forever. All this seems to have done was reinforce our fears of aging and dying. We can't deal with death. In fact, we seem obsessed with cheating death, and live in morbid fear of losing this fruitless battle.

What's so upsetting about death? Certainly, there is an intrinsic sorrow in death, and the younger the passing the sadder. But what isn't sad about a horrible LIFE? What is sad is having to stand at the edge of the water, and look, but not be able to swim in it, or drink deeply from it. How obscene to fear WATER, when rather than struggle to reverse the pollution, we struggle to reverse aging. We work to change what we can never change at the expense of the simple things we actually could change? I'm nauseated, and dissapointed, and frustrated. How do we change what is so intricately woven into our psyche, our existence myths (the fruit of knowledge eaten)? Excuses.

Read Ishmael, it's enlightening. If you can take it. Sometimes I just can't.

It is easy to find out who is reading your blogs if you understand two simple principles. Principle One, if someone is reading what you write, and then you stop, they will email you, asking what has become of you. Principle Two, if no one emails you, no one is reading your blog, and you may continue to write as IF to an audience, but there will be none to receive it, so worry not. As if I was worried.

So, ah, so many things on my mind: the realization of the facts of marriage, the total reliance one can develop on both the paycheck and money as a given, and/or the importance of friends and other people you love that you do not engage in sex with. Like I say, so many things.

Marriage is hard. Did anyone ever tell you that? They told me, and I didn't believe them. But marriage is excellent, too, and that I believed. So here I am, married, for better and for worse, and I am truly in heaven. And it's not so much that heaven is much like I pictured it, because apparently, in heaven, you can still put your foot in your mouth, and feel incredibly guilty, and in heaven you can also misdirect anger and disappointment, but luckily (and this is why I know it's heaven) you find that you are with the most wonderful person available, and with whom you share a common soul and then you can honestly say you are satisfied that no matter what comes your way, you are well-prepared.

Money on the other hand IS everything, if you're used to it. I really do understand why a stock-broker who has lost everything would leap from a very tall building. Because once you have it, it's no fun being without it. There are a lot of industries established to help you spend your money, and many people who are happy to entertain you if you pay them, and they're not all dancers. But if you do not have a lot of money, then you are on your own. And it's not hard to entertain yourself once you become accustomed to spending your money on entertainment. But that's why there's camping. I had almost completely forgotten what it's like to fall asleep to the sound of trees creaking with only the millimeter of canvas (yes, canvas) between you and them. Or to walk miles through forest, and see the wild turkeys scatter from the path as you approach. Or how different the sun looks through oak leaves. Now THAT is entertainment, but you don't often get there if you're happily ensconced in paid-entertainment.

And friends. The simple pleasure of proximity is underestimated. There is nothing like sitting with a person with whom you feel a great affinity, and with whom you enjoy sharing the world with. And even when you are only able to make a momentary connection with that person, your life is immeasurably enhanced. Emails, and phone calls, and even (god forbid) letters are a wonderful pacifier in the whiney baby of friendship, but good old-fashioned eye-to-eye contact is bliss. And I truly mean that. And its absence is sorrow. Friends are irreplaceable, and to any and all of you who have found yourselves without those incredible people who you can really look in the eye and cherish, I say, it's never too late, go find some people amongst the hordes and befriend them, because friends make life liveable.

God bless, or someone bless, please.