If time had wings, I'd build a cage

I sat down a few hours ago, planning to kill some time before the news came on. The news came and went. My wife went to bed. Next thing I know, I looked up and RER looked completely different. So, here's the latest incarnation of Rapid Eye Reality. If you like it, let me know. If you don't, keep it to yourself. My self esteem hasn't been eating its vegetables. And by the way, thanks to Su for the tools I needed to do the job.

I'm feeling a little detatched from the world. I can't find much to focus on except the past.

Here's something silly though. As it turns out, I was blogging before I even knew what a blog was. I was searching through some old files and found a copy of the "Deep South Update." It was a weekly newsletter I started when I moved to Mississippi from Missouri. It kept me sane while I lived alone in that particular fat roll of America. Here's a snippet from 1997...

---

One More Thing to be Paranoid About

I've never really lived on my own. My entire life it's been my parents, the dorm rats, my roommates, and then of course, Chelle. But now that I have my evenings to spend alone, quietly, lost in thought, things that I never used to think about are starting to worry me. For instance, I noticed a freckle in my belly-button that wasn't there before. I don't know if you can get cancer of the navel, but I can't sleep at night thinking about it.

Another example...my clothes dryer makes a strange ticking noise when it's not running. I haven't received any bomb threts, but you never know. I haven't done much laundry as a result. I stink.

And now, thanks to a recent issue of "Mississippi Geology," I'm a little worried about going to work. Turns out, by some crazy twist of fate, my office is positioned almost directly above the mouth of the only volcano that exists below a major American city. The movie "Volcano" was fiction. This...the so-called "Jackson Volcano" is not.

"...the chances of any of us seeing an erupting volcano on the Gulf Coastal Plain are very small." MISSISSIPPI GEOLOGY, V.18, No.3, September 1997, p.42.

Very small? Very small? For the love of all creatures great and small...how am I supposed to crash-edit a package on the credibility of Mississippi's Governor with the possibility of molten rock being shot up my ass?

---

A little blast from the past for you. I forgot the damned thing even existed. Okay...one more...a short one before I put this thing back where it belongs. It also speaks to living alone...and far away from the lady of my life.

---

Is Salmonella a Sexually Transmitted Disease?

I know I've been away from home for too long. I realize I came home two weeks ago. But I have a problem.

I was tenderizing a couple of chicken breasts a few nights ago and I started getting aroused.

---

Okay...that's really it. Night...