inspired by mike jones

I keep pretty consistent tabs on Mike Jones's blog, mainly because its hilarious and all of the entries have that Family Guy quality in which you start with one story, but by the end have spiraled off into a completely different place and are just sitting there scratching your head and thinking "how did we make such a smooth topical transition from jackalopes to the battle of Wounded Knee?"

Anyway, I also like reading his stuff because he has a way of making Columbia fascinating. Like, every time I'm on there he has a new set of photos up or an insane story about something that happened to him or new people/animals he met and had some kind of bizarre experience with. This is a quality that I do not possess, but am going to consciously strive for. Something I've noticed about myself is that within a few months of moving to a new city, I become bored with it. I used to think that it was because I was a child of the world, and so sophisticated that I needed constant new stimuli in order for my exceptional mind to function at its peak. But now I think it's just laziness. I get bored, or sad, or even just go to the same coffee shop one too many times and decide that the city does not have enough to offer so that I may stay entertained. From now on, starting now even, while I'm still in Charleston, I am going to go out and try to make the place in which I reside at any current time interesting and new. Thats my extremely late new years resolution. Maybe I can make it my lent resolution, its only like a week or so late.

In an unrelated topic, I went running in the dark like an idiot the other night and fell and scraped my knee. You know, like you do practically every day when you are a little kid. The difference between me then and me now is that then, I would barely notice it, get dirt all in it, fall again and scrape off the scab, and generally not give a damn. Now, as an adult? Oh my god. It is debilitating. Putting on jeans? Ouch. Taking a shower? Tedious, don't disturb the scab with your loofah. Bending at the knee to retrieve something off the floor? Out of the question. At what age did I become such a pussy? Depressing.

Oh, and I just read about that trainer that got killed by the Orca whale at Sea World. It's sad for her family of course. But when you take a 7 ton alpha predator accustomed to living in thousands of miles of open ocean and force it to live in a swimming pool and do party tricks...the blame just can't be fairly laid on the whale. The KILLER WHALE. That's its actual name for crissakes. This also goes for people who build their homes in the middle of a cougar habitat in the desert and are shocked when their pets and children are eaten. This also goes for people like Steve Irwin. This also goes for Seigfried and Roy. Be reasonable people, we don't even have claws for crying out loud.