kid job

megan said it before, i think to be rude, but thinking about it today it's really true.
i do have kid jobs.
i mean shit. i spent 6 hrs of my 8-hour fred meyer shift with under 18 year-olds.
then i haul ass on over to the lake city pool where one of the lifeguards is waiting around to teach a swim lesson. yeah. she's 17.
that kid never showed up so we just talked for about 2 hours.
so yeah, that was 3/4 of my work day spent with people who can't vote.

as long as i keep telling myself that i'm just in limbo, waiting for school or a better job, i think i can keep sane for a while longer.

but i do try to find something good out of everything i come in contact with.

firstly. i'm amazed at how much these young kids have their shit together.
much more than i ever did. i'm just barely now getting it together.

the second thing is that i can be an influence in their lives.
many of them are thinking about college, and since i've got a few (or 6) years under my belt, so i kinda know how those things work. i can tell them what they need to know without having to stumble on the answer like i had to.
being a even a mediocre mentor is such a good feeling...
i can kinda see how parenthood can be rewarding.
but this is even better because i don't have to discipline them nor wipe their asses.

praise

i got some acclaim for my 3/24 post.
just a little bit. my sister, leanora, and i ran into keith's parents today, who commented (kinda makes me wish i'd left out the smoking and swearing parts).

i just don't really see the big deal. yeah, i made one situation resemble another, but really, that's not doing much. it's like taking somebody else's work (debacle) and making it your own. the pieces to the story were already there, i just took them and masked them. it doesn't seem like too hard of work.
sure it was clever, but that's about it.

thanks anyway for the praise.

head

thanks to everyone for their headache info.

my headache seems to have parts of each, but don't follow any specific.

like a migraine, its on one side. it increases with intensity throughout the day.
i don't know if it feels better when i sleep cuz i'm always fucking working.

like cluster it's above my eye. at it's worst it is piercing, but i think actually sleep helps it. and my nose has been running like crazy, and when i first got it my left eye (opposite side of the pain) was tearing like a motherfucker. (i thought i was getting allergies.

like tension, it starts in my neck and stretches to my forehead. it also starts dull and progressively gets worse.

fuck if i know.
i'm going with cluster or tension. i'll just go to an O2 bar!

the better news:
i still felt it today, but its almost like its reminants.
like if i do anything extreme it'll flare back up.
i did work at fred meyer today, and i was doing physical activities (pushing carts) but it never got really bad like a few days ago.
...a lingering, kinda dull pain.

its probably my recent bad sleeping patterns:
9 - 12 hr nights Tuesday - Thursday, then 4 - 6 hr nights Friday - Monday.

yeah, 12. i don't know how i do it either...

contagious?

weird coincidence today.
that woman who comes in and swims... the one who knows ASL and told me how the middle finger raised up in arizona means 'cactus'.

yeah. so she comes in, and she puts some paper towels down on my desk.
she tells me she's had 2 bloody noses in the last 16 hrs, so just in case...

then she goes on to tell me how she has a headache at the base of her skull and also something like a sinus headache just above her right eye.
WTF?!? that' me!!
i, in no way, shape, or form led her on or told her about my week-long predicament.
fortunately (i guess) for her, this is only the first day she's had the headache.
she's going to an allergenist tomorrow to see if that's the problem.
but would it really be allergies?
she also threw out a possibility for meningitis, but i told her how nausea, vomiting, and sensitivity to light are usual symptoms. she said she was feeling shitty, but i don't think in that way.

maybe i should go see a doctor. up until today i was thinking that maybe my problem was subluxation: a misalignment of the vertebrae, but after renee's (ASL teacher's) complaining, i'm thinking maybe it's something viral or contagious.
hopefully not meningitis.

i ran into a second person complaining about a headache today at the pool.
i had him describe where it was, and he says it's kinda like a halo area.
so. not really much like what renee and i have.
he's blaming it on an overconsumption of Hg (mercury). he's been eating a lot of tunafish. he sadi this has happened to him before and the headaches last a few days.
i don't think i've had too much fish lately.
wait. todai's sushi. when was that? last wednesday?
that would be about right. if today (thursday) has been a week.
damn. i just thought of that now.
but could that be?
it's not like i've been loading up on fish since then.
i don't think i've had any in the last week.

i took excedrin migraine last night. that worked after a few hrs.
then i took my dad's massager. its this stationary thing with two blunt objects sticking out. kinda like the ends of a baseball bat.
when you turn it on they rotate opposite each other.
(counter-clockwise vs. clockwise)
i did that for about 20 mins.
that seemed to work last night, but today the area that i tried pretty hard to work out is very sensitive to the touch.
if the neck muscles weren't that sore before, they certainly are now.

jebe. what are these 3 types of headaches?

learn by example

let it be known that i smoke the marijuana because president bush has tried it.

i mean shit, i want to be just like the man.

the other day i took some of my fred meyer minions on over to safeway.
we heard they had some new WMDs (Wonderful Merchandise Displays), so we wanted to check it out. ya know, keep up on the competition.

but we got stopped at the door. they wouldn't allow us in to check them out.
why not? we KNOW they're in there!

so we did what any rational mob of rejected employees would do, we stormed their gas station. it was so easy to take over the one-man manned station.
once we had the station, we took the captured safeway employee, put him in a fred meyer uniform to humiliate him and took pictures of us all pointing and laughing at his demise.

so if they were going to be asses about things, so were we. without any previous aforethought, we decided we'd do ourselves and our customers a favor,
we slapped up a "Mission Accomplished" banner
"Fred Meyer Now Sells Gas!"

what a brilliant idea!
we all rejoiced.
we'll show them.

feeling more malicious, we then proceeded to the safeway sign. you know, that big red "S". it was mocking us. so we got some rope, tangled it around that bitch, and heaved it to the ground. damn were we badasses.

little did we realize that word would get out to the main store that shit was going down, and this time we were the ones under attack. yet it seemed so harmless at first.

toilet paper and paper towels were tossed in our general direction.
what, were these safeway guys crazy? what were we going to do with these soft towel rolls, wrap them around our heads and shout incoherent babblings? seems like something those crazed safeway bastards would do.
we tossed them back...

day turned to night. the altercation persisted.
you know what sucks about safeway? it's open 24 hours.
people we didn't even think about started coming out of the wood-work.
the night crew.
and these guys were more vicious.
apparently getting paid jack shit and having nothing better to do makes one willing to do almost anything.

they started in with the produce.
tomatoes whizzing by our heads, it turned into a messy affair.
then came the apples. ouch. those sting. i can see oranges, but apples?
cantaloupes they tried to get to us, but they just didn't have the technology.
they were too far away to reach us.
maybe if they were the "one-stop shop" then they would have had the necessary weaponry to pummel us. but they aren't. HA!

so using what they had, they went for the spaghetti-o's.
oh, those bastards! that's definitely not playing fair.
what a bloody mess. thick, red, pasty ooze splattered all over our newly conquered station.
a horrific sight, i tell you. i don't wish that image on my worst enemy.

morning came and the canned goods were no longer being lobbed.
they must be out. thank god.
the safeway employees were tired. my fred meyer crew was tired and we had to rush off to work in about a half hour, so we came to an agreement:

how bout we give you your gas station back, but we get to buy the gas for even cheaper than you're selling it now, but just us fred meyer employees, ok?

deal.
well. actually it didn't go down that easily. we had to extricate the store director and replace him with one who was a bit more understanding to our needs and wishes.

but now fred meyer employees get gas for cheap.
thanks george bush for paving the way.
if i didn't follow your lead like i did with the marijuana smoking,
the fred meyer gang would still be paying full price for its gas.
so on behalf of our company, we'd like to thank you.

but wait. wasn't it WMDs we started fighting for?
oh well. everyone's happy now right?
that's all that matters.

wait again!
what does this story have to do with bush?

nothing

effectively did nothing today.
sat around on the computer. ate a fatty dinner.
that's about it.
it almost seemed like a weekend.
a day off is good. imagine if i got two in a row!
oh damn, i wouldn't know what to do with myself!
maybe i'd go out.
yeah. that would probably be the better thing to do than sit on my ass all day.
i still wouldn't know what to do out there.
enjoy the sun, i guess.

awaiting my refurbished scuba gear..........

headache

is this day 6 now?
we'll call it six.
headache a-persistin'.
feels like my head ain't on right.
i described its presence in a previous post.
base of the skull on forward to just above the right eye.
i was telling my parents about it.

my mom wants me to go get it checked out cuz she thinks there's a possibility that it could be meningitis.
then i told my dad. he's like. 'aw, crap. i was hoping you wouldn't get those.'
i told him where it was. he was like, 'yeah. i had one of those for 21 days once.
migraines.'
rad.

so that might be the likely suspect, but the other day. i think it was day 4, i woke up and it felt like a sinus headache. so there's a chance it could also be that.
my dad said his migraines started when he was in high school, so i'm somewhat lucky if mine are just starting now. although when i was little i had headaches all the time, but that was probably from the sun and lack of eating (my parents refused to make or pay for school lunches and so did i).

so yeah. maybe that's the culprit. if it persists i may look into migraine cures. my dad mentioned magnesium. and also some herbal medicine that i forget the name of.

but right now i can't really go to the doctor and not expect to pay griploads of money. fucking shitty ass jobs that don't give benefits. i work just as hard as the next person who puts in 40 hrs a week...

enslaved

geneaology's rad.
my sister just got done telling me this:

my mom's mom's dad's mom was Claudia Gore.
5 dad's back from her was Michael Gore.

Michael Gore (1710, England-Mar 1793, Baltimore County, MD) married
Sybil Christian (1719, Baltimore County, MD-1805, Baltimore County, MD).

anyway. his will dictates:

"I give and bequeath unto my beloved wife Sibbel Gore my dwelling plantation being part of a Tract of Land calld^ Murrays Plains together with all my household furniture plantation utensils, horses Cattle Sheep and Swine and my Negro Girl Poll to hold and Enjoy the aforesaid Property during her life."

Negro Girl. sweet!
i guess they had more than just the one:

"my will and desire is that my negro boy Greenbury be free at the age of Twenty One Years and my negro Girl Rachel be free at the age of Eighteen Years
and I do declare them to be free at the time mentioned and that they are to be the property of my two Sons George and Philip until they shall be free and then discharge them well Cloathed and I do further Direct that my two Sons George and Philip shall have my negro man Sam and negro woman Ruth."

well. at least some got to go free, so i aint paying no reparations!

but shouldn't i be getting some kickback from the discoverer of the internet?

past

read some of my archives tonight.
damn, i used to post a lot!

all about the same shit.
from 3/02:
it was all about a shitty sleep cycle, school, getting fired, and scuba.
i guess nothing much has changed except that i now have a job or two.
but shit. fred meyer is still involved.

i'm still reading A Tale of Two Cities. not too intriguing, but i'm still working on it. the writing style is very outdated. but the one thing i did learn is what o'clock is a contraction of.
i probably could have guessed if i tried, but i always just took it as a single word without being a contraction at all.
anyway. it's short for 'of the clock'. its 2:11 of the clock, bitches.

sunny days

i need to work on my sleep schedule.
it's not that i don't get enough sleep, it's just that i sleep at times where i might be better off awake.

lately, unless working early at fred's, i've been going to bed around 5 am.
now, to get a full "night's" rest out of that, i need to get up at 1 pm. which i will easily do, unless i decide to push for another hour of sleeping goodness.

but when i have to work at 3:30 pm, that doesn't leave much time to enjoy the day. during winter i could have cared less. when it's downright poopy, i have no interest in being up before noon, but now that the sun is shining bright with the clouds making way for all its glory, i actually feel like i'm wasting the day.

so last night i bumped back going to bed around 3:30 am. but my lazy ass still couldn't roll outta bed til about 1 pm. that's what i get when i don't set an alarm.

but once i get my scuba shit back from getting checked out in the shop, i might have more of an incentive to roll outta bed. i wouldn't feel so bad (actually i'd be excited to) setting my alarm for somewhat of an early hour.

so c'mon scuba shit, and Weather, please stick around for a while. Bush keeps pumping out those CO2's, so i guess i should be ok. don't even need to bother praying for it. HA!

anyway. in my defense, there is a reason i stay up so late. after a day's (night's) work, i don't feel like crashing. i'm all wound up and just want to chill for a while. i mean anyone who comes home around 6 or 7 pm isn't considered crazy when they go to bed 6 or so hours after working... around midnight.
i just take time to chill. the shitty part is that there's never really anyone to do anything with other than the ol' computer.

se la vie. or however that's spelled.
but come august or september, i'm going to probably look for a better job.
something that doesn't jerk me around, and something that gives me a couple days off now and then.

in other news...
watching john stewart:
i kinda wanna see "constantine", but it looks a lot like "end of days" with a "matrix" twist.
oh. and also, rachel weisz ("mummy" chic) looks like ass with no hair.

alaska

so i'm pretty sure i'm going to alaska this summer for a field school.
the site is called Broken Mammoth and is within an hour of Delta Junction.
i've yet to figure out which direction exactly...

anyway. i've also been looking for websites that aren't too involved and boring.
however, there aren't really many sites about Broken Mammoth anyway, so i'll just give you this one.

it's the last year of the dig, so it seems like they're going to try to go for anything left behind in the older debitage. stuff we find may date back to 10 - 12 thousand years ago. some of the earliest human activities known in the new world.

however, there's always that conundrum involving sites in southern South America that date to roughly the same time.

this should be badass though. i talk to this guy at the pool who lived up in alaska for some 20 or 30-odd years. he griped about the mosquitoes.
that was my main concern, but yesner (the head archaeologist) says they really aren't too much of a problem where we'll be.

awesome!
i guess also during the time in which i'll be there (july 5th - august 5th) there's only a few hours of no sun a day.
rad.
i remember the last time i was in alaska, it was 11:30 at night and the sun was still a-shining. such an eerie feeling...

i'll be tenting for most of the month, with the option to travel around on sundays.
the tenting should be fun. i've never done it for a month (only about 2 or so weeks before), but i've been craving it, so i'll definitely get my fill.

swimming will also be a possibility. with damn near day-long sun, ponds around the site heat up to 70 degrees. that's about the temperature of competitive swimming pools.

i'm stoked.

wank

btw, wank. do you have a website anymore?
the linky i have uptop for you is shat.

head

goddamn.
i've had this headache for going on 4 days now.
before the longest had only been two days. and it just kinda lingered for a bit that second day.
i'm thinking this one may have to do with my nuchal muscles though. maybe i didn't sleep right, maybe i strained myself lifting something. maybe i landed on my head and i didn't realize it. i can't really say.
but this shit's intense. it runs from the base of my skull just to the right of the saggital plane all the way to just above my right eye. for some reason cashiering seems to make it even worse.
so today i was excited when i got to parcel (push carts).
yeah. it's the lowest job on the totem pole, but i enjoyed every minute of it.
i got to be outside in the nice day, and i got some excersize pushing carts around.

the only thing that really pissed me off was one of the cashiers calling me to get them some new pre-made stir fry vegetables. i was outside on the other side of the fucking store (i know you don't know this, but i'm a parcel, half the time or more i'm required to be outside the store) and she wants me to go get these.
is it too hard to call people who work in the produce department to go get these for you? not only are they probably within 20 feet of these veggies, but they also probably know exactly where they are.

this is why i hate some people. some are so damn stupid. i have nothing against the woman who called me, but as a cashier i'd never call a parcel to do that.
parcels are only called to help somebody out with their groceries.

damn. i didn't mean for it to turn into a tirade on how people could more efficiently do their job, but this headache is buggin me out.
the other thing that bothers me is that i can't pinpoint which muscle is hurt (if it is muscular), so it makes me feel like its something more complicated than that.

phew

damn i got lucky.
that last post was supposed to go up around 5 am yesterday,
but as i hit 'post' the internet went down.
luckily i copied it before attempting to post.
my internet was down til this morning.
annoying as hell.
at least all that work wasn't lost.

working 13 hrs tomorrow, i'm going to have to get to bed WAY before 5 am tonight. i'm thinking more like 1 am. but as to how that's going to happen, i'm still not too sure.

the next book i'm reading is A Tale of Two Cities. seems like one of those they'd have you read in high school, but somehow i missed out. getting into it, the vocabulary is really outdated and obsolete; from the way their garb is described to certain ammenities that are no longer necessary, like having everyday life involving horses. i guess i was lucky when i read Don Quixote that i had a copy that was translated from old spanish to old english to normal english.
anywho. i'm following the plot, which is getting kinda interesting, so i guess that's all that matters.

i forgot that this was the book that began:
"It was the best of times, it was the worst of times..."

one and seven

i'm going to attempt to explain why one and seven were used multiple times in Popol Vuh. this may end up being less painful than i had imagined, but we'll see.
i know you all are as riveted as i am.

ok. well first there's some shit to explain.
...some background knowledge that is necessary.
let's see.
the mayan calendar cycles through 13 days. each are numbered.
when you get to thirteen, you start over again from one.
i guess that can somewhat be compared to a week.
then if that's a week, then a month consists of 20 days.
where each day consists of its own name.

so if that didn't make much sense (which it probably didn't since it's not very comparable to weeks and months), i'll spell it out.

it goes a bit like this:

1 Kej
2 Q'anil
3 Toj
4 Tz'i'
5 B'atz'
6 E
7 Aj
8 Ix
9 Tz'ikin
10 Ajmak
11 No'j
12 Tijax
13 Kawuq
1 Junajpu
2 Imox
3 Iq
4 Aq'ab'al
5 K'at
6 Kan
7 Kame

so there. it goes to 13, then the numbering starts over again.
but the names continue til there are 20.
so after 7 Kame, the naming would start over again, but at 8.
so 8 Kej, 9 Q'anil, 10 Toj would follow.

this sequence would continue until 1 Kej comes around again, which would be after 260 days (13 x 20).

theories for why this length of time is picked are:
1) its the length of time after one is truely sure they are pregnant (missed period) and
2) it's the growth cycle of given species of corn.

this cycle interlinks with that of venus' which is a 584-day cycle.
the 20 names repeats 29 times with 4 names left over.
so the venus cycle "will always begin 4 days later than the previous cycle", as explained by the Popol Vuh translator, Dennis Tedlock.
and since 20/4 = 5, then only 5 names will ever begin the venus cycle:
Junajpu, K'at, Q'anil, E, and Ajmak. every fourth name.

damn. getting deep here...
venus does 4 things over its cycle.
it appears as the morning star, disappears as the morning star, appears as the evening star, and disappears as the evening star.

after 5 cycles of this process, which comes down to eight, 365-day years, and 99 lunations, the names start over, but to repeat the cycle at the beginning, at 1 Junajpu, the 5-period cycle must repeat 13 times.

now you're asking, "why the fuck are you telling me all this?"
well, i'm getting to that.

the 5-period cycle runs through the numbered days 13 times like this:
1, 8, 2, 9, 3, 10, 4, 11, 5, 12, 6, 13, 7.

notice the beginning and ending numbers: 1 and 7!

now you're asking how this ties in to everything.

well. if you sound out Junajpu, the named day that begins the cycle, like it were a spanish word, you'd come up with Hunahpu, the name of one of the twins!

and apparently Death translates as Kame, the last name in the twenty-name system. if you remember One and Seven Death were One and Seven Hunahpu's adversaries, and later on also with their their twin sons, Hunajpu and Xbalanque.

so if you start with a given name at 1, the next time venus will be in that same location will be after those 13 cycles of the 5 venus stages, and end on 7.
so basically 1 and 7 is just an abbreviation for a life cycle.

now this gives a whole new meaning to the story!
its now more symbolic in astronomical terms.

the story itself represents the 4 stages that venus goes through (morning, gone, evening, gone).
the ball game played by One and Seven Hunahpu -- the appearance of the morning star on their day.
their sacrifice by One and Seven Death -- the appearance of the evening star on their day.

when the twins are brought to life through the Blood Maiden who went to the place where Seven Hunahpu's skull was wedged in the tree -- the return of the morning star on the original day, with Hunahpu's name being used again (answering my other question why there were two of those guys).

the five cycles of venus are also represented in the story.
* 5 test houses. (remember? dark, razors, cold, jaguar, bat)
* 5 times Hunahpu's head got cut off. (i don't think i told you about all of them)

if you remember there were other characters with numbers in their name.
One Monkey and One Artisan, these were the older brothers of Hunahpu and Xblanaque. i guess they both can be interchangably translated as the day B'atz'.
in the 780-day cycle of mars (3 x 260), 1 B'atz' seems to be the focal point of the cycle.

in other mayan mythology the brothers of the sun and venus was transformed into a monkey and "becomes and unspecified planet that is probably Mars."
that kinda seems to fit what's going on here. the twins' brothers were turned into monkeys.
maybe Hunahpu and Xblanaque translate to sun and venus.

intriguing shit.
it's amazing to see how well intuned people of the past were with their environment. but i guess if you don't have much but a blanketed sky of stars to entertain you at night, you'll eventually pick up trends. especially when agricultural success is dependent on that knowledge of trends.

btw, if anyone followed this, i applaude you.
i also want to thank Tedlock for adding the comments part of the book.

cry of their hearts

just for the shit of it, i thought i'd throw in a mayan poem that would probably be comparable to the lord's prayer.

And this is the cry of their hearts, here it is:

"Wait! On this blessed day,
thou Hurricane, thou Heart of the Sky-Earth,
thou giver of ripeness and freshness,
and thou giver of daughters and sons,
spread thy stain, spill thy drops
of green and yellow;
give life and beginning
to those I bear and beget,
that they might multiply and grow,
nuturing and providing for thee,
calling to thee along the roads and paths,
on rivers, in canyons,
beneath the trees and bushes;
give them their daughters and sons.

"May there be no blame, obstacle, want, or misery;
let no deceiver come behind of before them,
may they neither be snared nor wounded,
nor seduced, nor burned,
nor diverter below the road nor above it;
may they neither fall over backward nor stumble;
keep them on the Green Road, the Green Path.

"May there be no blame or barrier for them
through any secrets or sorcery of thine;
may thy nuturers and providers be good
before thy mouth and thy face,
thou, Heart of Sky; thou, Heart of Earth;
thou, Bundle of Flames;
and thou, Tohil, Auilix, Hacauitz,
under the sky, on the earth,
the four sides, the four corners;
may there be only light, only continuity within,
before thy mouth and thy face, thou god."


a few things to clarify, since you didn't read the book:

hurricane, sky-earth -- the guy who created life on earth, even though it took a few tries to get humans right

green road/path -- the mayans associated colors with their cardinal directions.
north = white
east = red
south = yellow
west = black
when the twins went to Xibalba, they took the black road, so headed west.
green, i guess is associated with the center.
not only that, but with fertility, vegetation, water, and jade.
so the green path, well. you can figure that out on your own -- why they'd want to take it.

Tohil, Auilix, Hacauitz -- these are three gods that helped out the first sunrise. Tohil gave fire. They each turned to stone when the sun first peaked and they're all allegedly hidden in the mountain bearing their name. offerings and sacrifices are given in their honor.

flyin

round-trip, non-stop airline tickets to anchorage are only $248!
i thought it'd be twice that.
awesome!

sleep

i slept way too crappin' much yesterday.
leanora tried to get me to sleep around 11:30 pm.
bad call. i did fall asleep, but that lasted for maybe an hour.

i got up and read til just before 3 am.
slept til leanora had to get up and leave.
roughly 6:30 am.
i sent her off, talked to my parents for about 15 minutes, grabbed a snack and went back to bed.
i woke up again and looked at the clock: 2:49pm.
holy shit! i had to leave for work in 10 minutes.
i didn't set my alarm cuz i didn't think i'd sleep that damn much!
over 12 hours!!!

so i quickly threw my shorts on and bolted out.
didn't eat.
got to work and realized i didn't have my wallet.
great, no money.
checked the car's ash tray. 27 cents american, $1.12 canadian.
great. 28 cents.
no food for me.
somehow i managed to lift weights.
when i left at 10pm i was damn hungry.
then i remembered when i lent arturo 5 bucks he gave me back 2.
it was in my pocket all along! so i quickly grabbed some J in the C and drove to leanora's.

i think i need to manage my time a bit better.
whatever. i have a shitty work schedule. hopefully that will change within a year.

in other news. i finished the actual translation of Popol Vuh. i went on to read the comments the translator made which were actually quite helpful.
i guess the stories i've been spewing out at you are actually highly symbolic and the twin's story is deeply tied to astronomy. i'll talk about it more later when i shouldn't be sleeping, but the exciting part is that the translator explained why One and Seven are used in people's names.
again, i'll go over that later. it will need some room for explanation and i'll have to do a bit more research.

i better get to bed before 5 so as to get up at a decent hour (noon).

clint

arturo: friend, mentor, kung fu teacher asked for a few bucks to borrow for some tacos.

i graceously obliged but told him i had no cash on me, so he had to wait til i was done working and we both met up at fred meyer.

after i flash the cash, he takes me over to meet someone he's told me about in the deli.
with her trench-coated back turned to the whole store, and with a cowboy hat topped with a black and white feather that concealed all hint of gender, we approached.

"MARIA!" arturo yelled as we approached.

she didn't turn until we were upon her.
and talk about a weather-worn face. missing teeth, an underbite, wrinkles with wrinkles, a mole with inch-long hair on the cheek. this woman could have easily been casted as a witch in any scary movie.

she started to talk to arturo.
spanish.
i understood it!
damn i'm cool.
arturo introduced me as "su enemigo favorito" (your favorite enemy), hinting at the fact that i was white.

she apparently was from guatemala and at some point in her life made her way up here. now she's living on the street and had all of her belongings in suit case lying on the bottom of a fred meyer shopping cart. in the cart were a few more of her belongings along with a stack of newspaper.

we began to talk. she warmed up to the fact that i had visited guatemala and was interested in the mayan hertiage.
apparently she knows a crapload about the mayan, the aztecs, and the inca. arturo says anything i need to know about that subject, she knows.
i told her that i was reading Popol Vuh and she told me what it was about.
so at least she's not bluffing.

but then comes the sad part.
arturo compares her to Russell Crowe in "A Beautiful Mind". she keeps going on and on about how when she lived in guatemala she had a bunch of documents about all the native cultures. she wasn't too specific about what was in them, because everytime she got deep into it, arturo would mock her. he's probably heard her go on about it a hundred times.

but anyway, these documents of hers were very important. so important that movie star clint eastwood stole them from her. and ever since he stole them from her, he's also been trying to get these mayan, aztec, and incan artifacts all for himself and the people of the united states.

in addition to this (which brings us back to "A Beautiful Mind", she reads the newspapers which, in reading between the lines, she can see how Clint is further exacting his master plan of confiscating all mesoamerican artifacts.

while although this made her seem enormously schizophrenic, her manner of speech and vocabulary proved her to be a very educated woman. she said she was once a teacher, but i don't know if it was in guatemala or here in the U.S.
her english was as good as her spanish, so maybe she was teaching up here.

i kinda want to go back another day and talk with her again without arturo's jesting. he kept asking what the papers were telling her and never really giving her a chance to answer.

arturo thinks she's crazy. and he's probably right.
but i think anybody, no matter how messed up, still has some wisdom in them.
this woman definitely does, even though her outward appearance would signal the exact opposite.

on tuesday, i'll talk to maria.

moluccan

went out to lunch to an irish cajun place in the outskirts of redmond today called celtic bayou.
i didn't really eat but had some of irene's jambalaya. spicy as shit. i guess that's why they call it cajun. they're also known for their local brew.

but anyway. after eating, irene, her husband, joan, and her 4 year-old daughter selena and i made our way two doors down to a bird shop.

irene and her husband are huge fans. i never understood it, cuz birds seem so impersonal, like something to look at more than to interact with.
i mean i had a chicken and all, but not for that long.

after meeting irene's three birds, it reinforced that notion i had. but today at the store i met a moluccan cockatoo.
this guy flew on irene's head and made its way to my shoulder.
after checking me out a bit he just sat back on my shoulder and let me pet him.
he lifted up his wings slightly so i could get underneath to the main part of his body, ribs and back.
very soft.
he hung out with me for about 10 minutes.
when i would rub his sides he would make a soft cooing noise.
not that shrieking shit that i commonly associate with birds.
however, i saw one of his counterparts was easily capable of such auditory audacities.

so i guess i could get attached to a bird. fish... yeah. mine are still alive, but when will they die? the snail did finally bite the dust. where did i put him?
i think i left him on the sink. crap. i wonder what happened to him.

anyway. if you want to know a bit more about that moluccan i found this site that gives a brief rundown. and its also where i got that picture.
but i guess the bugger costs something around $2100, so he'll be sitting pretty in the pet shop for a while...

sid

i had another incident with a different guy at the pool today.
the guy's name was sid.
he's about a head and shoulders shorter than me and about 80 - 90 something.
he looked something like the human version of yoda.
this guy was moving so damn slow.
the twenty-foot walk from the pool to the hottub took him about a minute and a half.
he sat down at the steps of the hottub.
rob, the swim instructor warned me about him. said he'd probably fall trying to get out of the tub.
great.

so i, for once, kept an eye out on him.
after a while i noted what time it was to see how long he'd been chilling in the hottub. usually you only want to be in for about 15 mins max.
after about 10 minutes of me recording his time in the hottub i walked over to see what was up.
he seemed to fidget around a bit, but was calm otherwise.
so in a rare moment, i asked him how he was doing.
i couldn't hear dick.
not only is there a recently loud light fixture that buzzes at such a decibal that loud voices are all that can be heard when standing under it. but ontop of this, sid kept looking down and talking in a voice that must have not used his diaphragm at all.
eventually i detected a hint of want for me to help him up.
i grabbed an arm and eased him up. he was probably getting boiled alive in there!
with the help of his cane, he made his way up the three hottub steps.
i let him be.
but then my conscience got the better of me and i went back to ask if he needed additional assistance.
i usually like to be kind to people's ego, especially old people, cuz a lot of the time they don't want to face the fact that they can't do something on their own.
but sid was as eager as a pallid-faced man could be for a bit of help.
so i grabbed his left hand, and he had his four-legged cane in his right.
his gripped hand pulsated, mimicing his heart beat. don't know what that was all about, but it was quite eerie.
after about thirty seconds we were in (my) arm's length to a chair.
to save myself another half a minute of hand-holding, i reached as far as i could and pulled the chair to sid.
he plopped down, rested his head on his chest and took a little nap.

rob phoned his wife...

when she got there, she had me wake him up.
by now i got used to sid-talk and understood that he wanted my help again.
after the 45 seconds it took to get to the lobby door, his wife began scolding him on how they were late.
(late for what?! his funeral? ok that was evil. but really. what do 90 year-olds have to do in a day?)
i thought she was exceptionally harsh for what he'd just been through.
he murmured something that his wife didn't even understand. so maybe the voice he was using wasn't his usual voice, or else his wife would have probably understood him (like how the wife of the guy with the voicebox understands everything he says).

anyway. i was still attached to sid at the hand and i escorted him into the showers. in there, there were two naked men.
great.
each at either end of the group shower stall.
sid drug me through the tail-end of the guy's shower at the near end of the stall.
fun.
then he made his way across to one of the open showers.
still holding my hand, he uses his right hand to turn on the shower.
he starts to lift his left arm (with mine still attached) and does that whole rubbing under the armpit bit like they always do in shower soap commercials.

so since i'm not about to take a shower with a 90 year-old man, i guide his left hand to the safety bar that lines the showers at about waist-level and i get the FUCK out of there, keeping my line of sight away from all man-wang.

such is the life of a lifeguard...

mummy

there's people of all walks of life at the pool.
i think i've mentioned a few over the past few months.
(can you believe i'll have been there for a year next month?)

anyway. i always say 'hi' to this guy Carlos, but i never have really talked to him until the other day. it came up that i'm into archaeology and primarily mexico/south america.
well, come to find out, he's from peru. awesome!
he proceeds to tell me how when he was younger he'd go out with his friends into the desert along the coast. one of his friends was into metallurgy and created some long metal poles. what they did with these poles was to prod them into the sands of the desert over and over.
why?

well. in the desert, one may happen to come upon and old gravesite. how the people there used to be disposed of was in a pit dug for them. more deep than wide. the body would be placed in the hole and the hole would be covered with bamboo, which would be covered by leaves, then topped off by sand to mimic the rest of the desert. the body would then dessicate over time becoming a mummy.
so these guys would go out a'grave robbin'.
if you stuck one of these graves, you would know it. you could feel the absence of sand.

carlos once found one and took it back to his house. his mother was pissed about having dead people in her house, but he insisted.
he was going to take it to one of the local universities, but they demanded a 50% cut for the university. Carlos denied their proposal since they did jack shit in finding it (although they could have probably told him a bit about the mummy).
he told me that the mummy he found had brass earrings and jewels across its face. nothing much of monetary interest was found.
apparently Carlos said that the culture along the coast, at the time, wasn't a very rich culture, and all the fortune was to be found up in the andes with the inca.

interesting dude...
i'll have to ask him what became of the mummy.

now i want to go to peru.
who's coming with me?

popol wrap up

just to finish it, and i know no one really cares, so i'll run through it.
the twins adventure after naming all the Xibalban leaders continues when the two have to go to the Dark Room where they must return the torch and two cigars to the Xibalbans after the night is over.
this is how their fathers died. they smoked the cigars and counldn't return them the next morning, so they got dead.

anyway. to keep from burning up the torch, the twins use macaw feathers that look like fire to trick the guards. as for the cigars, they used metal that also mimiced fire. so when dawn came, the torch and cigars were whole.

next they played ball and the twins bet 4 bowls of petals if they lost.
after losing 2 of 3, the twins were told to get the flowers, but the Xibalbans guarded their garden. so the twins asked the ants to do the job for them, which they did and baffled the Xibalbans in the morning with the bowls full of flower petals.

the ants did this while the twins were staying the night in the Razor House. normal people would have died, but the twins guaranteed the blades animal flesh, so all the blades pointed themselves downward keeping the twins unharmed.

next was the Cold House, which the twins just shut out, so they didn't die. the cold just dissipated.

Next was the Jaguar House which was full of jaguars that didn't eat the twins because they threw bones at their feet.

next was the House of Fire where the twins were "toasted" and "simmered" but not burned. they survived yet another feat.

Finally they were put in the Bat House. these bats were mean. blade-like noses and shrieks that hurt the ear. the twins managed to pass the night there by hiding in their blowguns. just before dawn, Hunahpu stuck his head out to see if dawn had come. as he did, one of the snatch-bats took his head clean off!
well shit.

his brother Xbalanque ordered all animals to bring their foods to him. so he got a huge assortment of food. the coati brought a squash which Xbalanque attached to Hunahpu's body as a head. and all was good.

then the twins were again challenged to a ball game. however, the ball just happened to be Hunahpu's original head!
so they played for a while until they hit the ball far out of bounds. while they went looking for the ball, Xbalanque replaced Hunahpu's head and put the squash into play. it eventually burst with enough play, and for some reason that was a harsh blow to the Xibalbans.

so after all these trials. the Xibalbans called them back. they wanted to trick them to jump into their oven by jumping over some drinks. but the twins wouldn't be tricked by them and just jumped straight into the fire.
dead.

their bones and ashes were dumped into a river where they were reincarnated as catfish in 5 days. then they came back as people and lived as vagabonds. with this new lease on life they started doing tricks and became renowned for their magic. the Xibalbans summoned the twins, not knowing who they were, to entertain them.

so the twins danced and did some tricks. then they set the Xibalban's house on fire and after a while took away the fire, like nothing had happened.
next they sacrificed the Xibalban's dog and later brought it back to life.

but a dog wasn't enough. they had the twins sacrifice a person. they took out the victim's heart, held it up, showed it around, then replaced it and brought the man back to life.

Next the Xibalbans demanded that one of the twins be sacrificed. so Xbalanque took of Hunahpu's head and let it roll outside, then after the decapitation, he took out the heart and showed it around.
Xbalanque did a little jig. Hunahpu was all that animated... at all.
but Xbalanque eventually told Hunahpu to "get up" which he did, and all was good.

then One and Seven Death, the two head honchos of Xibalba, demanded that the twins sacrifice them. the twins did as they were told. but the victims weren't around to demand their revival, so they remained dead.
and thusly the twins owned Xibalba.
and it was decreed that Xibalba was no longer a major power and their decendants were small in number and were no longer paid homage.
told.

new year

happy chinese new year!
its the year 4703, bitches.
but the even better news:
its the year of the cock!


chicken porn is bound fruitful this year . . . in bed.

skinny little thing

just a few things from Popol Vuh tonight.
the stories of these brothers seem more and more hurculean.
except that most of their feats are simply from cunning and don't require too much strength; well, maybe some skilled blowdarting.

but one of the stories is almost cinderellan. these two brothers were the "immaculate conception" so their grandmother and older brothers (One Monkey and One Artisan) didn't really care for them. so the twins would always go out and blow dart birds and the older brothers would eat the spoils.
so one day the twins purposely shot some birds and left them in the trees.
they told their older brothers that they could have them if they went up and got them. so they went, but the trees grew insanely large while they were up there.
so One Monkey and One Artisan yelled down for help. the twins told them to wrap their pants around their waist and let it hang off for balance. they did it, and for some reason turned into monkeys. I guess One Monkey had it coming, but One Artisan? the pants hanging off became the tail, and their faces became flat and distorted.
but the funniest shit is how they describe their nakedness now. i guess back in that time the most kosher way to talk about a guy's junk was to call it "the skinny little thing below their bellies." harsh!

they stories also tell how other animals came to be. after the older brothers became monkeys and dissappeared into the forest, the twins gave their hand at gardening. (somewhat related to the cane/able story? gardeners vs. hunters/pastoralists)
but while gardening, they had to fend off the animals that would try to eat their crops. first the deer and rabbits tried their luck, and the two twins almost captured them, but as they grabbed them by their tails, they snapped off.
as for the rats, when they captured one of those guys, they burned its tail and squeezed its neck until its eyes bulged out.
the jaguar, puma, fox, coyote, peccary, and coati made it out unscathed.
lucky bastards. no eye bulging for them.

last thing i wanted to mention.
the reason why these guys seemed hurculean was because they had to go down to Xibalba (hell/Hades) and play ball against those who live there. but first they had to face a few tests.
the first was to cross pus and blood rivers, no problem...
but next they had to recognize and name all of the head Xibalbans.
this was done by the twins sending out a mosquito to bite them all in order.
when they were bitten, the demon/council member sitting next to the one bitten would ask, by name what the matter was.
lucky fuckers.

but anyway. i love these mayan names. i'll list them out here in order of rank in Xibalba:

One Death
Seven Death
Scab Stripper
Blood Gatherer
Demon of Pus
Demon of Jaundice
Bone Scepter
Skull Scepter
Wing
Packstrap
Bloody Teeth
Bloody Claws

some are badass. others random.
but what i don't get is that the twin's mother is Blood Moon, and her father is Blood Gatherer, that 4th dude in the list up there. so either there were multiple Blood Gatherers, like there are John's or Juan's, or these kids are dumbasses and don't recognize their own grandfather.
but i guess he did kinda ostrasize them after believing that they were Blood Moon's bastard sons.
in the stories there have already been more than one Hunahpu. . .

i'm also trying to figure out the relevance of One and Seven before the names.
it seems to be very common. but no other numbers are. . .

kids

i love the ease in which kids offer their friendship.
you'll play for a little while, and when you've played enough to earn their trust or amazement, they'll simply blurt out, "WHAT'S YOUR NAME?" and the deal is sealed.
simple and straight to the point.
tonight i was playing kickball with a new kid. connie, my usual kickball partner pitched to me.
usually i kick them so she can catch them, but now and then i like to test my strength.
so i kicked the crap out of the ball which went flying like a knuckle ball. it headed straight for the sauna, but then caught some air and shot over it hitting the wall. the little kid saw this kick and heard the slam against the back wall to which he responded immediately by turning around and asking my name.
apparently a feat like that diserves his friendship.
i just like how up until then he didn't give a shit, then immediately after the fact he was on with the question. . .

floods

its kinda odd, how i mentioned before about religious similarities.
i noted how a hurricane hit the mayan wood people that destroyed the majority of them.
apparently i was wrong. hurricane was the name of the god who inflicted a flood upon the people.
a tidbit, if you will:

"[Man was] not competent, nor did they speak before the builder and sculptor who made them and brought them forth, and so they were killed, done in by a flood:
There came in a rain of resin from the sky.
There came the one named Gouger of Faces: he gouged out their eyeballs.
There came Crunching Jaguar: he ate their flesh.
There came Tearing Jaguar: he tore them open.
They were pounded down to the bones and tendons, smashed and pulverized even to the bones. Their faces were smashed because they were incompetent before their mother and their father, the Heart of the Sky, named Hurricane.
The earth was blackened because of this; the black rainstorm began, rain all day and rain all night."

so i guess most of that "There came..." stuff wasn't really necessary, but i like how explicit they are. but isn't it weird that it seems like every religion has a storm of biblical proportions (heh) that wipes out those who were immoral and unworthy?
however, in this mayan story, no one was really saved and all the animals and household items turned on their masters.

oh. and on a tangent, they try to explain the wooden people turned monkeys, but i still don't really get it:

"Such a scattering of the human work, the human design. The people were ground down, overthrown. The mouths and faces of all of them were destroyed and crushed. And it used to be said that the monkeys in the forests today are a sign of this. They were left as a sign because wood alone was used for their flesh by the builder and the sculptor.
So this is why monkeys look like people: they are a sign of a previous human work, human design--mere manikins, mere woodcarvings."

yeah... that doesn't help me at all.

anyway. back to similar bible shit. there was this lord named Zipacna who was the first son of Seven Macaw, who pretty much was the badass god that started it all. Zipacna looked like a caiman but was just a boy and stronger than shit.
one day he was helping out Four Hundred Boys (which i guess they make as one entity) who depised Zipacna's abilities, so they plotted to kill him.
they had him dig a fat hole for him. and after doing so, they planned to drop a large log in on top of him and kill him.
but Zipacna suspected something, so he built a side tunnel to hang out in while the log was dropped.
So Four Hundred Boys did their thing, dropped the log in on Zipacna, who let out a yelp to trick them. then Four Hundred Boys made sure they waited THREE days before checking out his status. they thought Zipacna was dead cuz he cut off hair and nails and gave it to ants to take back to their nest.
so after three days, they took out the log, and it looked like Zipacna was no more. so Four Hundred Boys got drunk. and while they were partying in their hut, Zipacna jumped on it and flattened all of Four Hundred Boys.

somewhat of a resurrection story... maybe that's a bit of a stretch.......

now i'm onto a story about the Blood Moon Maiden who went to this tree where one of the twin god's, One Hunahpu's, skull was placed in the crotch of a tree after procuring the wrath of the gods from Xibalba (hell) ("X" in mayan is pronounced as an "SH"). it was only the defleshed skull that remained of this god, but still, somehow, it contained spittle, and spit on the maiden when she went to visit this mystic tree.

i thought this was leading up to an adam/eve-type story, but it ended up that instead of eating the fruit that only grew because of the head, the spittle actually made the maiden pregnant... immaculate conseption!
along with biblical similarities, this is starting to sound a bit more like greek mythology.
at least no one's been emasculated yet.

nothing biblical with these other stories, but they're interesting. a story of how Seven Macaw (the father) meets his demise. those twins (one of whom's skull is in the tree) shot Seven Macaw in the jaw and messed up his teeth. when the twins went to grab him, he tore Hunahpu's arm off.
but later on when Seven Macaw "was yelling his mouth off because of his teeth,"
the twins devised a plan to get their grandparents to pull out his teeth (which were actually jewels) and also his eyes (which were metallic). for some reason, doing this killed him. whatever...

Next was the death of Zipacna. Seven Macaw's first born. ok. this one isn't too exciting. he was hungry and wanted food, so those twins trapped a fatty crab inside a mountain. they convinced Zipacna to go in after it. and when he did, he got stuck and turned to stone. apparently Zipacna was dubbed "the maker of mountains", so that was kinda ironic.

Seven Macaw's second son, however, was "the breaker of mountains". his name was Earthquake. again, this guy was hungry so the twins blowdarted some birds and roasted them up good. the one that they cooked for Earthquake they coated with gypsum, "baked earth". for some reason this made Earthquake weak and made him virtually useless. the twins eventually tied Earthquake up and buried him. and that was the end of him...
i guess another irony that earth defeated "the breaker of mountains".

i'll get back to you about the Blood Moon Maiden if anything interesting comes of her story. but i guess none of this is really all that intriguing in as many pieces as i'm giving it in....

ark

the thing i always try to do with religion is find similarities. coincidence or not.
like how i've posted before about the egyptian sun god Ra resembling the Christian/Jewish god in hieroglyphs vs. the old testament.
then another post about isalm closely resembling the jewish faith.

anyway. this is all i got for the maya so far.

four dudes set out to become nobles over their people. they head east on an homage. somehow this trip takes 2 generations (40 years?) on a stone causeway. in traveling east, they cross a lake (also refered to as a 'sea'--was it red?).

These guys also had the "Bundle of Flames" which was a cloth-wrapped ark with mysterious contents as a "sign of his being".
Quetzalcoatl's being, i guess.

that's all i really got. kinda weak.
but when those guys come back, they're the big men. i guess the most honored position is refered to as "Keeper of the Mat".
the next best thing is "Keeper of the Reception House Mat".
hopefully that will make more sense with future reading.
maybe the mat is the throne and the reception house is like the embassy.
who knows.

jaguar and other

there are four progenitors of the mayan people.
3 of them have badass jaguar names and get hitched to some other animal-named woman. the fourth, we'll you'll see. . .

1) Jaguar Quitze - married Red Sea Turtle

2) Jaguar Night - married Prawn House

3) Dark Jaguar - married Macaw House

and the last one:

4) Not Right Now - married Water Hummingbird

--bitch, what's my name?!?

--Not Right Now

--you damn right. now back the fuck off.


other funny business:
when the mayan population grew to create some 23 tribes, conflict was emminent across mexico.
so it came a time where one leader, Nobel Sweatbath set forth to mount an attack on Bearded Place.
cracks my shit up!

ok. if that one didn't get you, this is my last chance.
actually, this one is just weird.
a dude named Plumed Serpent (better known as Quetzalcoatl) reunited the Maya. to keep his rule he would show off his shamanic power to the people.
this included transforming himself into a snake, eagle, jaguar, or a puddle of blood.
that last one might be the easiest, but how undaunting. i guess bloodletting was a big thing to them though.

did i ever tell you about how leaders used to have to make bloodletting sacrifices infront of the people by running a sharkray's tail through their scrotum? then they'd burn it on the cloth it fell on to so it could go up to the heavens.
nice.

popol

the new book i'm reading is Popol Vuh (poe-pole voo). it's basically the mayan bible. i'm reading it cuz rigoberta's book had many quotes pulled from it in the beginning of the chapters.

it tells the creation story. there were 4 gods that set out to create man.
what they wanted out of man was someone who could walk, talk, work, and worship the gods.

unfortunately, the gods blew their first couple of tries.
first off, they made people, but they couldn't really talk. all they could do was squawk, chatter, or howl. this blown creation's progeny came to be all the animals of the land.

second, the gods made people out of mud, but these sloppy motherfuckers couldn't do shit, let alone keep their shape. failed attempt number two.

third, the gods made people out of wood. these people did pretty well. they could walk, talk, and do work. but the woody bastards got lazy and didn't praise their makers, so the gods set a hurricane lose on them, along with a revolt from all their animals. the only survivors from this lot are the monkeys. (don't ask me how monkeys are wooden.)

finally, the gods made people like they are today: walking, talking, hard-working, god ass-kissers. all was good.

now all that was needed was the damn sunrise. but that's a different story. . .

i guess i'll talk again about the two sources i keep commenting on.

first, john stewart on the state of the union address:
"did they just say Boo-ush?" a la Simpsons.

second, NPR:
what's the deal with the damn cow bell? they did a bit on it saying how big it was in the 70's and that it's kinda bouncing back again.
is this solely due to will ferrell's blue oyster cult sketch, or is it just a cow bell revolution?

bushit

i didn't get the chance to listen to the state of the union speech cuz i was working, but i did hear the stupidest shit on NPR.

apparently bush has vowed to cut the national deficit in half by 2009.
great. so really no one has to hold him to it.
he can fuck around all he wants cuz the burden is effectually put on the next chump president.

i haven't followed politics too long.
is this a common trend?
...to hold your successor to something you claim to do to make the people happy, but really having no intent on following through with it?


speaking of stupid shit. i personally did something stupid.
i had some free time today, so i went to the pool and practiced my kung fu.
when i got done with that i went down to the weight room and worked on my chest. but after that, i thought i'd try out my stomach; do some crunches.
something i hadn't done in a long time, cuz i hate the feeling of a sore stomach.
but i did them. i forgot that i have this sore throat and cough to go along with it.

so now every time i cough my stomach hurts like hell.
bad move.