You don't need to see his identification

Its always a strange thing when a random person starts talking to you in public. Your first reaction is what the fuck is going on, who is this person and why are they talking to me. Then a context is form where be it inquiring about the time, or where something is, or an innane comment about the weather and order is restored. Balance is attained. It is interesting how we as people desire to be with one another and yet take so many measures to isolate ourselves from each other. There was in incident in the news a little while ago about a person who got hit by a car and all these pedestrains walked by and complely ignored them. Just did not want to get involved at all. I says alot about our isolated nature.

Lets just say we'd like to avoid any imperial entanglements

I was thinking about the glorification of war and how it contrasts so strongly with the accounts and experiences of people who have actually experienced war and combat. They seem to be so entirely at odds with each other. War and being in the millitary in general is one of the few contexts in which human beings can actually kill each other without retribution. One of the few mediums where homicide is sanctioned and actually honored. And so it is of little suprise that the people who have come back from this experience are largely scarred by the experience and very much reluctant to commit themselves to such an endeavor again. I was watching the Civil war and it was talking about how one Union veteran remembered a certain battle as 'the most terrible day I have ever lived.' Now I can think of a few bad days I have had over the past years maybe even really horrible days, but the worst day ever, that sucks. Seeing people you have grown accusstomed to and maybe from your home town be blown to shards for hours and hours, that bound to fuck up your day. And mind and how you perceive that world.

If you only knew the power of the dark side

John Wilkes Booth is an fascinating character to me in history. Specifically his intense interest and devotion to the southern cause. He was a successfull actor before and during the war and could have lived out an easy life but he felt a strong hatred for Lincoln and loyalty to the south. I looked up his history online and I found out he had been born in Maryland to British parents an acting family and I still coulden't really ascertain what it was that motivated his sympathy towards the south. In fact one of his brothers Edwin intensely disagreed with his feelings about the whole thing and refused to perform with him during his later years. He spent his last days brooding alone drinking heavily, and pondering ways to at first kidnap and then assassinate the president. Also I find it interesting that Lincoln would have attended the showing of 'Our American cousin' without any kind of guard or protection against possible threats. I guess it had not happened before but Booth just walked in while the president was engrossed in the play and shot him in the back of the head. And a student of history wonders how reconstruction and that whole process would have been different had Abe been at the helm instead of old Andrew Johnson. Probably alot better.

Then i'm off to applebees..

"Wasted", 'shitfaced,' 'hammered', the adjectives used to describe an extreme state of intoxication all sound somewhat unappealing. It seems strange that so many people who actually like to put themselves into a state of conciousness known as 'trashed.' Although this vocabulary is understandable as anyone who has been in said state can readily attest. I prepare for another long day of toil admist a severe deficiancy of sleep. Thats another word I get a kick out of 'toil'. To me it conjures up images of dirty laborer shoveling coal into some kind of furnace or engine faces dirty and covered with sweat. Although the toil I am about to go into is nothing near that sort of physical intensity it is more a mental challenge. Being able to make it through those hours.