Welcome to Wonderland.

"Why, you're nothing but a pack of cards!"

You just never know what life has in store. One minute you're being lied to and the next the very definitions of lies and truth shift so dramatically you begin to question the presumption that you could once tell one from the other. Before you know it a lie is no longer a lie but one person's "version of truth", and down you go on the slippery slope to Wonderland.

As this seems to be the case no matter the subject, I've decided to stop writing this blog until such time as it again becomes obvious to me that truth in these united states is something discernible. Until then I' ll limit my scribblings to a paper page where no one calls you crazy for assuming that, simply because so much of what you once believed was true turns out to be lies, the next batch of words streaming from the mouths of those in whom one puts one's trust might merit skepticism.

To put it bluntly, a form of expression to which I am no stranger, I'm sick of being a sap. I recall Rhett Butler saying he's off to see if he can't find something of grace and worthiness in the world. Or something like that. That's how i feel. I saw a wonderful program on Netflix, Any Human Heart, reminding me that when one reaches a certain point in life, and the society you live in ceases to be something you can relate to, you simply have to find somewhere to be that doesn't offend your senses, all five of them, or your intelligence on a daily basis. Or at least that does so at a minimum.

When I was in Spain Isabel told me the folks in northern Spain live to work, whereas the folks in southern Spain work to live. It's a lifestyle/values choice, and one you sense in the streets of Seville, a relaxed, palpable joie de vivre. There is time to live. In America we are beyond such pleasures, one exists in a desperate race to Fill the Hole, dousing all manner of hungers as quickly and excessively as possible: eat crappy, boring food that fills the stomach but starves the soul and senses and leaves you longing for something more; escape from facing fear, anomie, betrayal, the longing for something intangible, with the latest prescription cocktail, or booze, or dope, or videogames, or movies, or mechanical toys and multisensual distractions; fill the hole of gnawing debt with possessions; treat repressed fear of our invisible chemical environment with homeopathic scents ; assuage guilt for ruining the planet by spending at Whole Foods, or shopping anywhere for that matter and for things you don't need (made by people whose lives you will never touch more than to support their continued corporate oppression); carry on in our daily denial that any of this matters and whenever reality intrudes too stridently, take another vacation to somewhere idyllic, or hit the highway and pretend it's 1967 and you haven't a care in the world.

The Nation in Denial. I don't know about you, but it's killin me.

I've done my bit. I don't want a car anymore. I don't want to mow an utterly unnecessary lawn, or drive miles to the nearest grocery store wandering aisles of processed, tasteless wares I don't care to eat, or debating big box flooring samples. There must be somewhere the simple joy of living is to be found as a presence. Not the smug safety of suburbia, but a real place with real people who actually talk to one another about real stuff.

Where that might be I have no idea. But it isn't anywhere I've been so far within the Younited Stets (as my Brit friend Ben likes to pronounce it). I'm giving it one last try, staying here probably long past the sell date.

At some point do you just sell everything and disappear? I haven't a clue.

"We shall not cease from exploration,

and the end of our exploring will be

to return to where we started

and know the place for the first time." ts eliot

I started in me mum's womb.

wish me luck..