I saw a Homeland Security automobile drive into a gas station yesterday. Nothing terribly interesting — white van, words “Police” and “Department of Homeland Security” on the side, complete with a logo or other, easily found with a google search.

But there was this hard to notice bumper sticker, actually pretty near the bumper. I’d wager that out of 20 random people, 19 would not notice it. Fewer still would be able to read it. The sticker was split into two sides, two colors with words in white on them — and I never caught the left side. But the right side of the sticker read…

“9/11 Was an Inside Job.”

It did not quite compute at first, and I had that sort of “Wait a minute” moment — a delayed double take, and I confirmed that as the van drove away from my line of vision. I suppose I should have taken the effort to see if the left side somehow negates the right side of the sticker, re-aligning my sense of balance back to where it should be.

(A quick look around here, and my best guess is a slight variation on the seventh box down on the left. Go figure!)

I saw a bumper sticker.  It read “Question Gender.”

I decided to heed the message.  So I grabbed my crotch.  Yep!  I’m a man.  Just as I thought.

A representative with a clip board asks:

“Are you a fan of the Polar Bears?”

The proper question for such a question:  What city do they play in?

Somewhat inexplicably, I found myself baby-sitting a 3 year old (I believe that was his age) yesterday for about two hours. I laid out a rather loose ship for him to run around with, reigning him only when he had the desire to run into traffic and throw grass at passing cars. It wasn’t the tossing grass that that was the problem, even if that was an escalation of events that I did not really foresee.

I suppose aiming sticks at each other and going “Bang” was a frivolous enough activity. Which roughly explained my role in the scheme of things: shepherd his destruction to benevolence and away from self-destructive tendencies — he is destroying imaginary or lifeless objects as opposed to himself or others, if you will. I gather that is the m.o. such a boy.

Charming was his creation of “trees”. And somewhere after saying “I made a tree” and before saying “I made a tree” there was the “I made a potty”. Which his father will have to deal with shortly, naturally.

It has been a while since I’ve seen, placed in a “free newspaper” box of one variety or the other, what I’ve called the “Schizo Times”.  It’s pieces of notebook paper written with one woman’s sprawlings.  After an absense, probably more on my part than hers (Just not in the area as often), three popped out at me:

IF YOU HAVE MONEY OR SCHOLORSHIP FROM SPECIAL INTEREST GROUPS YOU CAN GO TO HARVARD UNIVERSITY BUT YOU NEED (BRAINS) TO GO TO M.I.T.  THE BEST CHAIRS CHESS PLAYERS!

Or, her take on the Palestinian issue:

PALESTINE WAS UNDER OTTOMAN TURKS AT LEAST THEY WERE ALL MUSLIMS!
ENGLAND USED LAWRENCE OF ARABIA (Comprendevous? do you understand?) TO TALK PALESTINIANS INTO FIGHTING THE OTTOMAN EMPIRE.  Ottoman Turks were muslims england separated Turks from Palestinians

THE TURKS WERE DRIVEN OUT BY ENVLAND AND Lawrence of Arabia became a Muslim The PALESTINIANS THEN THE PROMISES THAT ENGLAND MADE TO THE PALESTINIANS WERE (NOT) KEPT!  PLAIN AND DIRECT!  ENGLAND LIED TO THE PALESTINIANS!

GOD BLESS PALESTINE!  WHEN WILL THE PALESTINIANS LEARN THAT UNITED YOU STAND DIVIDED YOU FALL!
USA IS UNITED AND PERSONALLY I WAS MOLESTED WHEN I WAS 8 …

… at that point the whole dark undertone of a schizophrenic woman plastering her writings into these things becomes evident and I feel a little bad for undertaking this “FOUND” exhibition.  As is always the case for these things.

 

There are a handful of different 9/11 conspiracy websites being chalked onto downtown sidewalks, one chalked all over the place at any given time.

I suspect that the sites all go back to the same server, but nonetheless I cannot help but wonder and amuse myself with the possibility of a sort of raging Turf Battle.

So I am walking by and someone walks up to me and say…

“I know I’m black, but could you spare a quarter?”

“No, sorry.” Somehow we wind back to him being able to able to ask again.

“Now, look. I know I’m black, but could you spare a dollar?”

Two things. #1: Please don’t use the “race card” in such a situation — it is pretty tacky. #2: How can you move upward in your request like that.

Actually the third thing is that once upon a time, in slightly worse straits money-wise than currently I am, I was counting my change out in public, seeing if I could buy a can of chilli over a couple bags of Ramen. Someone asks for some spare change. I say no. He then says “What about those coins?” I reply, “I have to spend it on myself.” Good answer, no? (He looked at me with horror.)

I was walking behind a schizophrenic-sounding and very ruffled-looking man as he was talking to himself incohrently. As he opened the garbage can lid and rumbled around for food, it occurred to me that his speaking was in the exact same style as a lot of auto – spam messages, which shuffle words around into familiar sentence structures but with disjointed topics.

I do not know where to go with that. I cannot quite make the conceptual leap to comparing the purposes and processes by which your schizophrenic street person and your schizophrenic spam message** are formulated. If I absolutely had to, I am pretty sure I could, though it would probably be a little forced and untrue — an act of fudging to get two unrelated items to relate to each other.

———————–

** Which reminds me: In my spam comment box, checked because occasionally some non-spam finds its way into the section, I had to do a double – take when I came to a message “This is exactly what I was looking for when I saw the headline ’21st Century Science and Technology”. I deleted it, because it was obviously spam, because really — I don’t believe anyone is looking for under the headline “21st Century Science and Technology” the evolution of a Larouche cult periodical to a forum for 20-something year olds to crucify their parents. Call me crazy.

“I was in 6th grade when Titanic came out.”

“God, I feel old.”

“I was a Sophomore in High School.”

“Now I feel really old.”

“Wait.  How is it that you feel old when someone dates themselves to that young age, and ‘really old’ when they date themselves a few years more?”
No answer.  I suppose it’s just one of those… things.

……………………

It strikes me that with each passing year, I move one year further from the bottom baseline of adulthood.

(on public trasnsportation)

“… friends with benefits, you know.  Won’t handle anything more right now.”
“Tough life with mistakes made during my 36 years.  But I kicked my habit.  The Penitentary helped with that.”
“Laying low.  My job opportunities are improving slightly.”
“Oh man.  I’ve been seeing my 16 year old a bit lately.  He’s been making some of the same mistakes I had.  It just doesn’t make sense.”
“I’m going to have to get a Paternity Test for that one.  He sure looks like me, but I need to make sure, y’know?”
“Yeah.  I’ll go see her.  I’ll call back later tonight for a Booty Call.  Got that?”

And then he got off the Max.