Tuckerus Maximus Dorkus' Blurty

Time:

12:44 pm.

wicked fast week. wicked fast weekend. i'm in NYC now staying with anders. i came down on friday, deciding to take one of the chinatown-chinatown buses. i mananged to get the last seat on the 12pm bus, and arrived on Canal St. 6.5 hours later. normally this ride is 4 hours. if i drive, it's closer to 3 hours. but the traffic going into the city was horrible, and pychologically abusive.

coming down through the bronx, i realized it would have been faster for all of us to get off the bus and find a train to take us the rest of the way. the bus guy, of course, wouldn't let this happen. he won't stop the bus early even if it turns out that the route home goes right by your house. instead, it's his policy to drive past that convenient access point and not stop until the final destination gets rolled on by his big wheels.

i wonder at what point he would stop and reconsider his rule. what if we were one block away from the officially bus stop, but there was an accident in front of us and bus couldn't go forward or backward because of traffic. would he let us off to meet our loved ones, friends, dogs, etc. on foot? a mere 2 minute stroll down the road? probably not. he'd rather make us sit, and swelter and be angry.

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Time:

4:57 pm.

just home from one of the best weekends i've had in a long time.

on Friday afternoon i drove up to Gorham, Maine, to catch up with Bill, my father-figure adventure pal, who is also one of the greatest living fly fishermen in the country. at 64, he's getting on a bit, but it doesn't show. he still carries a canoe over head as if it was made of Styrofoam. Gorham is home to Bill's sister-in-law, an artist, and the person responsible for most of those large, fabric, hanging, sail-like-things found strung up in the large empty spaces in malls, office buildings and museums. we met up with her, Bill's wife, Bill's totally amazing adventure daughter (who lives in New York, works for the Smithsonian, and, after discussing it a bit, is my new sister). she's 38 but looks about 25. in three weeks she's going bear stalking in Yellowstone for 14 days alone. we were also joined by Bill's wicked hot daughter-in-law from Denver, and son-in-law from the Florida keys. we all congregated in his sister-in-law's art studio and had japanese food and drank sake. i tried to be sociable, and, while most likely failing, had a pleasant time being around Bill again.

people took off and i slept on the studio floor where i was crawled on and poked at by various insects until morning. i tried to keep images such as my recently downloaded series of a brown recluse spider bite out of my head. i awoke to a teething, ferrity noise coming from outside. scratched my eyes, sat up and looked outside the studio window to see what would be the oddest animal i've ever witnessed outside of zoo. i didn't know what it was. it was dog-sized, slightly orange, big tailed, and slinked across the yard and into the woods. i left the studio and walked over the main house and found Bill and Deb chatting away on the porch with disturbingly huge mugs of coffee.
"Did you see that animal?"
"What animal?" Bill asked, sipping.
"That big, orange.... tail .... furry animal? I just saw it run across the yard." Deb looked at me with excitement and concern and hurried off the porch and down into the yard. i followed her to point out where the visitor had been. we found no tracks.
"Did it look like big cat?" Deb asked.
"No, it was much larger than a cat, and wild looking. i couldn't see the face clearly because it was running away from my point of view, but it was definitely wild. thick coat, low to the ground... big."

no one knew what it was, until Bill, not looking interested in anything other than his mug of coffee said, "Sounds a little like a Fisher." i didn't know what that was. but, in this group of mountain men and women, i nodded. "Yes", i said, "it could have been, i suppose."

the search stopped there until just now, as i searched around on the web. there are very little resources on Fishers. i found many pages giving overviews, but most of the pictures, both drawn or photographed, didn't look like the animal i saw in Gorham. the pictures showed a weasel-type thing with a slender body. what i saw was more husky looking, more massive. i was beginning to doubt the image in my mind until i found a page showing a picture of exactly the fellow i saw. it's here, and that's it, and i like it. here they call him a "Fisher Cat" and i haven't found out if that's a different animal than just a "Fisher', which is also called a "Marten".

apparently, it's very rare to see these things, so, obviously, this is my spirit animal.

Bill and i left a couple hours later to do some dangerous fishing off the rocky coast around Cape Elizabeth and then on up to islands around Morse Beach. for the last 8 years, we've consistently been the only fisherman brave (stupid?) enough to attempt reaching the striped bass with fly rods (and homemade flies) while fishing from a tiny boat, just a little wider and little longer than a canoe, powered only by a 10 HP engine. we cut through swells that are often large enough to capsize boats much larger than ours, but Bill is talented enough at maneuvering this craft to keep us and the gear safe, most of the time. while we are in between the caps of waves, if we look horizontally, all we can see is deep blue water on both sides- a dizzying site as one is used to water being down under the boat. often we can only orientate ourselves to vertical after catching glimpses of the coast for seconds at a time as we dip and slide down swells.

we ended up catching just a couple mackerel, but they were large enough to keep. once the tide went out, we hauled in and drove off to a campsite we were going to stay at that night, along with other family and friends.

first thing up were the tents, then the fire, then the mackerel. if you prepare them right, they can be damn good right off the fire. some wine and fried potatoes later, we were all chatting about everything that came to mind around the fire until the stars came out, the temperature dropped, and we all cimbed into our tents and sleeping bags and fell asleep. while beginning to drift off, i felt like i had just taken some much needed medicine.

Bill and i were first up, so we started the fire and had coffee steaming before even getting dressed. the early morning chat was accompanied by fog that slid in so thickly , i felt like the two of us were floating in null space, looking at the fire in some sort of time-out-of-place like some of the flashbacks Kuai Chang Kaine has of his master in the old Kung Fu show with David Carradine. it was great way to start the day.

we fished off the rocks at Morse that afternoon, and after catching nothing, walked the beach through drizzle and cold, before trucking down to a shoreline lobster joint near Portland. other family met us there and we all chatted and cracked shells until night. because of the Phish show, traffic on the Maine turnpike was terrible so i decided to drive back to the studio in Gorham and slept there for 5-6 hours. when i woke up, i perched out on the porch with a steaming mug, sipping as quietly as possible in hopes that my spirit animal would return. within minutes, despite it being 5am, Bill came out onto the porch and sat with me a while, which no doubt kept my Fisher hidden. once i reached the grains at the bottom of the mug, i realized it was time to leave, and did so.

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Subject:	total captivation
Time:	11:31 pm.

Vacations are great. Time runs differently. The things once considered important are recalibrated and reconsidered.

Vacations allow for long neglected scrutiny of things that have fallen away, outshined by the more consequential events of adult life, like work and attention to survival.

Vacations let me tamper with my physiological patterns without damaging consequence. I can sleep when tired, remain awake when stimulated, eat when hungry. Within this environment of ease, my mind works a little differently than it does in times of more intensity. Without other factors to distract, I can get into the zone of supreme concentration which isn't always easy under normal circumstances.

Today's zone involved The History Channel and a special on ancient Egypt. I was mesmerized by this program. Totally captivated. House could have been on fire, and I still would have been in Egypt.

My perception of Ancient Egypt is affected by a condition I have just named "Forgotten IntrigueThrough Over-Exposure as a Child" (FITOC). Hippos and Native Americans also fall into this category. Basically, because some of the most fascinating things in our world are pushed on us at an age when we can't fully appreciate just how interesting these things are, by the time we have enough other things to compare them too and understand how amazing they are, we've been so accustomed to seeing and hearing about those fascinating things that they no longer draw much attention from us.

We see images like this, and this, and this so often as children that they represent all that is Egypt to us. Say "Egypt" and immediately our mind's eye shows us pyramids and the association ends there. Egypt and its relics and wonders are commonplace to us. But occasionally, if we can force ourselves to forget how many times we've seen certain images and try to see them again for the first time, the FITOCs of our lives can become instantaneously mesmerizing and mystical. During this History Channel program, I don't think I blinked once.

I mean my god. These people actually existed. You couldn't dream up a more visually captivating IDEA for an ancient culture if you tried. We need an Ancient Egypt appreciation day. I mean Pharaohs! And would you please reacquaint yourself with how fucking amazing the Sphinx is? And pyramids and animal-headed people and sarcophaguses and, for the luv a holy hell MUMMIES! Hieroglyphics!

And Thoth is the coolest god name ever.

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Subject:	godratsstardog
Time:	8:59 pm.

Had to take Supreme Master General Star Dog to the vet today to get checked out. She's been looking slightly down-and-out, a little less excited to be alive than she used to be- and she yacked some rawhide chews in such an upsettingly LOUD manner that I damn near panicked. I was upstairs, home alone, and I heard an old man screaming through his trachea-tube at full wheeze before he just yelled "the hell with it!" to himself, ripped his throat out and proceeded to blow through his wrinkly voice box, now in his hands, until he blew all the chordal fibers out, at which point he belched a belch that started so deep it couldn't escape and ended up blowing a hole in his esophagus.

and it got all over the floor.

so I sprinted downstairs and found Mrs. Pukey sitting, almost proudly, behind a fairly massive puddle of spewdom. Stinky. I made an appointment the next day.

Dr. Divinie's office is near my house. He's a cool, smart guy. When my first girlfriend was studying veterinary medicine at Tufts, she had to do some observation time in vet clinics, and one of them was Dr. Divinie's office. I tagged along. It was awesome. Someone brought this huge Black Lab in because he had a growth on his back. Dr. Divinie made us feel it. Then he knocked the dog out with gas, and cut the thing out. So there it was, this growth, kind of purpley, about the size of a big marble, sitting on this steel tray. We all just kind of looked at it.
"Let's cut it open and see what's inside" Dr. Divinie said.
"Yes." I said. I looked over at the girlfriend and noticed she was pale and wide-eyed.
"Why don't you go have some candy" the Dr. told my chick, "it will make you feel better. There's some out in the lounge". She left. We cut. It was pure, pristine whiteness on the inside. Semi-solid. Like a gel. Totally rad.
'Well that's good. It's not cancer" the doc said. I nodded.

It was that same office I took Mrs. Pukey to today, but Dr. Divinie wasn't there. Instead the doctor was some big, fat woman. She was frightening and loud and when she motioned to take my dog's leash, I insisted that I remain in control of it. Dog looked assured.

I lifted her up on the scale. 46 whopping pounds of flesh-tearing terror. That's my dog. They anally probed her to get a temperature. 102 degrees- perfect. Fat lady examined all teeth and was pleased. Strong and white and healthy. Fur good. Ears good. Eyes- a bit of cataract, but for an 11 year old dog, they were good. They drew blood and tested for heartworm- negatory. They're sending the blood to a lab for tests and I should get a report on Monday. And that was it.

$190!!! I didn't know these sorts of visits were so expensive. I mean, it's worth it, but that really surprised me. Maybe I should look into pet insurance.

Dog came home. And now she's drooling on my toes. I like it when things are normal around here.

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Subject:	crinkly fold
Time:	12:40 am.
Mood:	nostalgic.

I’m in a blissful state at present. A gentle breeze is swirling through my room, coming in the northeast window, reminding all the dusty corners that they still exist, and then continuing out my door and down the second-floor hallway. In my absence through the years things have been shifted and reorganized in this room. But my collection of trinkets and the memories attached to them are all still here. Old, hand-me-down Playboy magazines are still preserved under my mattress, although the thought of the feathered hair and style of Hef’s 1982 Bunnies keeps me from revisiting the contents. The “Tower of Time” poster given me by my sixth grade science teacher is still taped on my wall, and the Marvel universe remains neatly stacked on a shelf. My first pocket knife still smells like fish guts and opens with the sound of the sandy grit it acquired through years of boyish misuse. Back then cutting the ground seemed like a useful pastime. The instructions from the uncle who gave me the knife: “it’s not for chopping, so don’t chop”, left digging as an attractive option.

I’m in a memorable chair, wearing memorable clothes, drinking sharp, bold coffee through a memorable mug. The bright whiteness of this ibook LCD screen is an excellent contrast to the dark walls and slightly yellow glow from my old and favorite brushed steel desk lamp. The sky is wispy with a hint of gloom, and the area outside and around the house is silent except for occasional cheeping from trees and shhhh-ing from the rainy breeze. The fact that my mug is still mostly full and steaming leaves practically nothing to be desired. I wonder how long this will last.

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Subject:	As expected, Sony draws a new handheld line
Time:	2:35 am.
Mood:	drunk.
Music:	Yuzo Koshiro- Streets of Rage Soundtrack.

Having a year's experience in the wireless communications service industry, I've been right up in front in the rolling wave of new portable wireless technology. Part of my job has been to write about trends and help assess predictions and occasionally make some of my own, based on the report thumbings I do every day. My predictions focus on the implementation of particular technologies in particular locations in Asia, but my exposure to the policies of new tech rollout has also taught me much about the technologies themselves, where the big challenges are, and what the near future will look like. I've long been mentioning my anticipation of Sony's move to begin major player status in the wireless realm. The pairing with Ericsson was a hint, and their amazing array of media labs packed with the world's elite and creative engineers leads us to only wonder where things will go. Their development teams, which consist of younger-than-average, highly motivated professionals, have Sony in a position to really change our mobile and computing world forever.

Sony labs' security rivals those of most nations, and the shit they have prototyped in-house is years ahead of what we see on the market. Because the company spends so much money on new tech development, it also has to focus on their production and implementation strategies to maintain profitability. Part of this strategy, as mentioned, is that their innovation must mostly remain in-house so as not to tip of competitors as it would lay waste to years of costly development. During this time of secrecy is when the company begins to lay the path for that particular new tech or product to reach us. After they create a new system, or technology or configuration of existing technology (miniaturization, etc), they sometimes have to spend years figuring out how to make it economical to mass produce. When we hear rumors of a new gadget being developed, the truth is that the gadget in question has already been created, tested and perfected for a couple of years. What's really being developed is the marketing and business plan for meeting key financials-- the break-even points, time-to-profit and other critical success factors.

Knowing all of this about Sony has led me to view them with a particularly solid approval. I have great faith that their new efforts in the mobile world will be successful. When I read articles like this, not only is their continued push into the mobile industry no surprise, but a very welcomed one.

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Subject:	musication
Time:	3:53 pm.
Mood:	awake.
Music:	Children of Bodom- The Nail.

Children of Bodom rhythm guitarist Alexander "Aku" Kuoppala has parted ways with the band. It is said that he was no longer interested in the touring lifestyle and a replacement will be announced soon.

Amazing guitarist. CoB is a fairly recent discovery for me and I hold them in high acclaim, so this change to the band's lineup is a downer.

Type O Negative's new effort, which I happen to like, is also liked by the masses. "Life is Killing Me" debuted at #39 at Billboard's Top 200 and was #7 on the Hard Rock Chart.

And I just read a review of Hellfest, which I attended a couple weeks ago. The band I was most excited to see and didn't actually get to see for transpo reasons, is being called the highlight set of the entire festival. The band, Dillinger Escape Plan, has a following which is building fast, and rumors about the band are plenty.

Metal Judgment reviewer: "The band brought cataclysm to the stage with them." They had a fire-breather, and a "small arsenal of instruments that were used to create an ocean of sound."

They also did a surprise cover of "Wish" (yes, of the nin variety) and "Raining Blood."

The band is at the top of my must see list.

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Subject:	Let's talk about my ability to cook!
Time:	11:34 pm.

My, my, my did I do a great job tonight. So great was my creation that I thought of sharing. So great was my experience eating more of the stuff just now, even cold and from the fridge, that I know I have to share for the benefit all people cool enough to cook for themselves.

I was starving and drooling with desire for spice, heat and zowiness. I headed to the "Oriental" section of the international foods isle of a mega-supermarket called Hanafords, an ok chain scattered throughout New England. My only complaint with the place is that they have no Dr. Pepper clone, at least not at the one nearest me. The closest they have is some sort of cherry pop, which isn't way far from Dr. Pepper, but definitely more fruity than a Dr. Pepper clone should be. Anyway, I saw lots of things I wanted to try but settled on some ingredients from Thailand.

I just ran downstairs to fetch this label because the product is this good: "A Taste of Thai- Peanut Sauce Mix" with excellent web page here. Basically, to make normal Thai peanut sauce (which is great on most edible substances, but especially fettuccini, rice or chicken) you have the peanut side of things and then the coconut side of things. The "Taste of Thai" packet is sized to require 1 can of coconut milk. People, get light coconut milk. After checking the cans out, I was shocked to find that even the light version is almost sickeningly full of saturated fat. I'm no dieter, but sheesh. A can of LIGHT coconut milk, which tastes the same in peanut sauce anyway, at least I think it does, has 28 grams of saturated fat. That's like 5 hotdogs. I don't even want to know what a regular can has.

So, there you are. Mix the peanut-side with the coconut-side and boil it up. Smells great. Makes you feel like a good cook.

Then I added my particulars, which ended up particularly friggin' excellent. While boiling, I added an entire can of stewed tomatoes. It was in the cupboard and I was tired of looking at it, so "plunk" it was plunked. Then, needing to feed my on-the-way-to-invincibility muscles, I added a large, pre-cooked chicken breast that I chopped into bite-sized chunks. Noting the soupiness, I decided to add an entire large-size (6 servings) can of albacore tuna fish. Albacore is the kind that looks a little like chicken; slightly pinkish and almost edible on its own. Almost. Much better for you than the gray sloppy tuna for mercury reasons, which has to do with the size and lifestyle of the species of tuna fish. KERPLUNK! That went in. Simmering now, and stirring. And mushing the large chunks of meat down. Wow it smells good at this point. Wow.

The thing about this "Taste of Thai" brand, in this package anyway, is that it had no spicy heat. So I added some chili sauce. I figured Jalapeno didn't fit the peanut sauciness of this creation. And the chili powder matched the color. But it didn't work- still not hot. So I ended up splattering Tabasco on my servings, which worked very nicely with the other ingredients. Then I added some cleanly cut slivers of ginger- not many. And simmered away which brought things together into thickness.

Once it was stewed and thickened (about 8 minutes on simmering heat) I searched around for something to use as a bed for the sauce and found some fettuccini. It turned out to be the ideal starch here.

After that perfecto first chowing, about 3 hours of sauce refrigeration later, I discovered that when cool, the sauce congeals slightly and is forkable. I forked some into my re-droolified mouth and holy jeez yeah, the stuff was excellent. This will be a regular thing, I can tell.

Yes, it's that good. And yes it is that good.

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Time:	9:45 pm.
Mood:	hungry.
Music:	BBC WORLD NEWS NOW.

Just got back from the Peterborough gym. It's quite the setup considering it's for a small town of alcoholic construction workers. It's small and the floor has hollow spots that bend and BOOM if you stomp on them, but it has just about everything I need to continue my progress towards physical invincibility.

Sometimes I really hate the iron heads who live in this and seemingly all gyms. They wear muscle shirts and baggy pants from the 80's and are prone to chest puffing, like birds, when they walk by. But sometimes it's also entertaining, and a bit mysterious. The best way to describe the scene would be to compare it to a zoo's mating range. It's just Darwinian science at the end of the day, but it never ceases to amaze me how perfect certain members of our species are for illustrating particular principles of natural selection, survival of the fittest, and dumb female attractibility.

Sometimes the chest-puffers are funny. They peek at you to see how much weight you are lifting, even if it's just your warm up, and then quickly look away if they sense you'll see them. The other peekaboo routine occurs while walking past them. As you approach, they scan you over, puff, widen their arm-hang, suck in a little, stomp past, extra bounce from the calf. Maybe a sniff.

Sometimes they can be a bunch of motherfuckers. They talk loud. Leave protein bottles and towels and sweat marks everywhere. The leave weights on the bars so the person who follows will know that someone in the gym can lift huge amounts. They hog equipment. They say they're still using this or that rack when they really aren't. They gawk at women and make them uncomfortable. They try to talk with women and generally bother them. They walk around in constant flexion. They walk around like royalty. Sometimes I fantasize about fighting one of them. It would have to be the leader... the guy who comes in wearing a sleeveless lumberjack shirt and bandana. I bet if I beat him, the others would mellow out, like when you kill the lead Orc or the lead nasty in a Zelda dungeon. The Zelda case would be better because then the follower goons would just vaporize and leave me jewels and money.

They equate maximum squat weight with overall strength, and thus they tend to have enormous, fat, disgusting -albeit muscular- asses. Sadly, they also equate maximum bench press weight with fighting prowess. Ask a boxer what his max bench is. Or better yet, ask a full contact mixed martial arts fighter like Sakuraba, or Tito Ortiz... or even a Navy SEAL. Typically they can't bench 400 lbs, but they can bench pretty heavy weight 400 times (and then start a 7 mile ocean swim, in the case of a SEAL). For the Peterborough Gym goons, moving big weight is an invincibility meter. In the real world, weight lifting strength is only part of someone's overall invincibility.

Actually, using brute strength as a benchmark for invincibility is ok, to a degree. Individuals who can bench over 500 lbs are generally mammoth sized naturally, and the general rule is, avoid fighting people who are freakishly large unless you are freakishly strong or as freakishly large as they are. But the fucktards in my gym only look the part of freakish from their attire and attitude and accessories, right down to the custom chopper lifting belts with "MAD DOG" burnt into them. I'd like to serve them a steaming bowl of creamy justice. But it's pointless.

At the end of the day, let them have the one aspect in their life where they feel superior. If someone's going to enlighten them to their silliness, it's not going to be me.

Besides, I want a ride on one of those choppers. And these guys make great allies in times of need. So, tomorrow, maybe I'll throw a "nice bike" onto the floor in between chest puffs. See what happens.

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Time:	2:03 am.
Mood:	accomplished.
Music:	Kobayashi Hideaki- a song for eternal story.

Aw yeah. Home alone. Can scream blood out of my lungs right now, and no one would hear me.
Wait a minute... this started out being the description of a positive thing. My solitude! My freedom! My... creep out-ed-ness!

Mom went down to Florida for the big 'cousins reunion' from her side of the family. I was invited. I considered it for less time then I would consider not breathing. Nothing shudders me more than the thought of having to repeat my doings of the last 4 years to 60 people whom I don't know, nor particularly want to know. So I volunteered to watch the dog. Fine by me. I've actually been having fun with it. My dog, Sage, a Black-and-Tan Coonhound, and an old one at that, has little fun these days. She can't run like she used to. Nor wrestle the tug-o-war rope I trained her with 10 years ago. So, before this mini-vacation of me as her caretaker began, I tried to think of everything that would make this week one of her best ever (and quite possibly one of her last best-evers). So I did a little shopping.

Walmart has more dog edibles then I would think possible. I don't actually remember the last time I was looking for dog treats as Sage food is a mom job, but heck. Where have I been. Last i remember the dog dreat world consisted of "Snasauges" (coolest name ever, and cool commercials) and a couple other similar type things. Now, I can't say the dog section matched the selection of the cereal isle (although I *almost* can say that), but it certainly matched its luminosity. The marketing machines for dog treats are on high. The cartoony "Dopey Dog" pictures, each portraying a dog looking completely high on top-grade wacky tobbaky, affected me negatively. I don't want to buy the synthetic equivalent of would be "Dog Nip"- especially not after seeing the nuclear-yellow, bacon-smoke flavor "Twisty Chews". Dogs don't eat "Twisty Chews". They eat meat. They use those incisors to tear into felled creatures that they rip and tear as they howl and snarf blood and guts all over their snarling muzzles. "Twisty Chews". What an insult to the beast within all dogs.

Then I saw the plastic wrapped bones. Bones, real bones, wrapped in cellophane and packaged as if it processed; and yes, they too are slapped with a Dopey Dog picture. This time it's Pound Puppy Pussy Dog, eyes closed, licking the bone as if it was a friggin lollipop.

Like hell.

I headed to the butcher area of the store, slapped down some bucks, and purchased me some bloody femur. Yup.

I built up some major anticipation before presenting the "kill" to my elderly Coonhound. "What's in the bag?!?! WHAT"S IN THE BAG?!?!" This sort of taunting gets that tail wagging so fast it's actually broken a window before. No lie. She has a fairly lean tail, but it can really get whippy and snappy (and slappy, and sometimes crappy) when she's excited. Anyway, the Mystery of the Bag got her goin'. Sit her under a drum kit and she could handle all the double-bass work for Fear Factory. She even got me excited about what was in the bag, and I already knew what it was...

Out clops the bone onto the kitchen floor. She looked at it for a moment. Looked at me. Looked at it, smelled the air a little, gave the bone some ultra-fast, hyper in-out sniffing and then l-i-c-k. LICK. L*I*C*K...... KA-CHOMP!!!!! and she grabbed that femur and tore out of that room like she was 2 years old and disappeared from site for, well, until now (1:46am). almost 7 hours after she started.

It was as good for me as it was for her. She's exhausted now, behind me on the floor, and I feel like a good alpha male. Good hunt today. Already planning her highlight for tomorrow.

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Subject:	the kick off
Time:	7:36 pm.
Mood:	content.
Music:	The Red Chord.

I've been an off-and-on journaler since I was 16. The medium for recording has been a black, hardcover, blank-paged book I got for Christmas in 1994. That same Christmas I received a Moto Tool, which became my favorite toy and I began "Moto-ing" everything I could find. One of the bits that came with the tool was for inscribing metals. The bit had a shaft and an extremely small and round head that was grooved for spiraling away layers of metal or wood at 30,000 RPM. I ended up inscribing designs on my toenails. Girls found it creepy. Guys found it gay. Mom found it odd. I found it brilliant.

I used the tool to slowly inscribe the cover of the black journal. Rather than just a textural or relief change like on metal or wood, it moto'ed the color away to reveal an off-white cardboard material. After starting, I realized I didn’t know what to write. Everything obvious seemed lame- "Journal", "Tucker's Book of Thoughts"- just split second thoughts. I eventually ended up considering “The Stupid” and “Dark Pages” and others along lines fitting for a frustrated, antisocial teenager living in the woods.

During that Christmas break I was reading some book about word origins and came across the word “Faustian” which means "insatiable and damned". Sounded cool at the time. From the book I learned about the “Legend of Faust” and was interested enough by the darkness and supernatural aspects of the story to look for more information. I should say that during that time I was beginning to enjoy subject matter along those lines. Partially because the occult was way more interesting than my reality, and partly because making teachers and other adults around me nervous was an awesome form of entertainment. My mom would always have to explain to my teachers that at home I was a big goofball, and nothing to worry about.

The first major treatment of the legend was a play written by Christopher Marlowe in 1588 called "Dr. Faustus" and the story has survived history having been done and redone as plays, books and operas up through WWII. The main idea revolves around the idea that 'striving' is the central, awful beauty of human life. The "insatiable" meaning comes from Faust (representing humans) having a restless yearning for new experiences, and the "damned" meaning comes from what has been forced on our minds as perilous: mastery over nature through knowledge. As Westerners we’ve been cautioned from birth over mastery of this sort.

I felt connected with the theme, for some reason.
-"...restless yearning for new experiences"
- Striving is the awful beauty of human life.
- Insatiable and damned

The idea has stayed with, and possibly helped define me over the last 9 nine years. “Faustian Slip” was inscribed on the cover of the book that week, and it has been with me since.

I’ve gone as long as 9 months without writing in it. When I was in India, a time when I should have been writing more than ever, only 4 entrees were made over that entire year. Through college, because of various relationships and semesters abroad, I wrote more often. Reading back through those pages now, I've realized that these records are a treasury and an amazing asset to me in figuring out who I am and who I’ve become, for better or worse.

I’ve been really inspired by some friends who keep online journals. A couple of them spill their guts into digital drip that seep into columns of posts and comments. Partially afraid of exposure, for some reason, I rarely comment online. But lately, with the happenings of my insatiable (damned?) self, I’ve decided to start tapping Faustian Slips into the electronic world.

Like the original, I will write here for me. Unlike the original, I’ll be somewhat exposed, for the first time. But, my plan is for most of the writing here to be a news-of-me spot rather than an expose of my deepest yearnings or pains, alhtough i'm sure the content will vary greatly- especially as I'm heading back to China next month for an undetermined amount of time.

I hope my friends will sometimes remember this record exists and will check in with feedback every now and again. Strangers welcome as well.

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Blurty for Tuckerus Maximus Dorkus.

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