Last night I was driving home on the 10-W when I heard this on 102.7:

"One steeep aaat a tiiiiime...like learning to fly, and falling in love."

Hold on a second. There was a couple of years when I did a lot of napping, but did I sleep too long and somehow miss the part where I was supposed to learn to fly? Did anyone else learn how to fly? Who learned how to fly? Why is there still traffic on the 10-W if people could learn to fly?

For that matter, who learned how to fall in love...one step at a time? From my experience it's more like accidentally tripping over some unseen rock on the street, getting sent tumbling through the air while yelping in protest, landing on concrete with a thump and eventually struggling to get back up with bruises all over. One step at a time, my ass.

Maybe this is just me, though. Maybe everyone else is learning to fly and falling in love one step at a time and I'm just oblivious and still stuck in bumper-to-bumper one inch at a time. Damn pop music.

I checked my email this morning, unsuspecting as usual, and this is what was in my inbox:

---------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
You’ve tried miracle creams, painful injections, and expensive procedures. But nothing helps.

You’re still incredibly ugly.

If you suffer from retina-scarring, child-terrifying hideousness, hope exists. Not in a bottle but in a bag: the Ugly Bag, a revolutionary, instantaneous solution to common repulsiveness. Just slip it over your horribly disfigured head and let your new life begin.

Maria, formerly known to friends as “Vomit Face,” gushes: “The side effects were difficult at first — sure, I miss being able to see stuff — but it’s worth it.” JoAnne, who for years could make a living only as an extra in zombie films, says, “It’s great! I really [words too muffled to understand due to presence of paper bag on head].”

So don’t delay. Because whether you know it or not, your ugliness is probably hurting you.

And it’s definitely killing us.

Available online at mystore.cc.

One of my yoga instructors likes to read us passages while we cool down after a session. Last night, it was something about opening yourself up to the unexpected events of life without judgments, because you cannot know what law is in operation. It is definitely true that I have no idea what law is in operation of the world right now; all I know is that whatever law it is, it's crappily constructed and depressing the shit out of me. But I guess that's in violation of the judgment-free part. This is why I will never achieve zen - deeply embedded judgmentality.

You know things are bad when there is a "Save Our Starbucks" campaign raging across the country. At least when the campaign used to be "Down With Starbucks," everything made sense. Personally, I like Starbucks. I like the predictability, the accessibility, and the free bathrooms. They make great coffee, and I have no problem paying an arm and a leg for something I like and can depend on. And so what if it comes in a paper cup? The paper cup is 16 ounces, as opposed to an 8 oz. ceramic mug that costs $4.95 in a "real" cafe. I admit: I'm a yuppie and stuff like Starbucks is what makes my world go 'round. But it's always been fun to watch the hippies protest all things corporate and massive. Hippie protesting is an ultimate luxury. It's a symbol that the practical (read: financial) side of life is stable enough to be challenged, powerful enough to be blamed, that people have enough excess to say things like "too much money is bad" and actually mean it. When people can afford to give up money to fight for a cause, however futile the fight may be, things aren't that bad.

Now, Starbucks is like a fallen superhero. A dramatic statement, I know, but it is. An easy target for blame and resentment when it's high and mighty, but when it starts falling, people simply don't know what to think or do with themselves. I hear there are petitions by private groups and city official circulating around the country to save Starbuck's "endangered locations." When things like this happen, there is only one thing to do: elbows bent, palms up, and shrug. Wait and see what the law in operation will bring.

You also know things are bad when the lender of your federally funded student loans tells you, a month before disbursements are due, that they have no money and no idea when they will have any money. Overtime, here I come.

I went to see Batman at 11pm on a Sunday night at the Imax. In the words of my friend Henry, "It is ridunculous."

There are moments in life when you have no choice but to be swept away, however stubbornly you might be grasping onto the ground. After a good ten hours of cool-down time, I am still shaken by how, despite all the glitz, drugs, and sheer ruthlessness of the industry, Hollywood can still turn out a product that can really inspire people and leave us breathless. The ability of human beings to create is something that keeps coming back to knock me upside the head.

For a while I had begun to believe that the human race is essentially a more evolved version of the cockroach race, albeit with superior tool-making skills but inferior internal survival skills, but aimlessly crawling the world nevertheless. Obviously, I was crazy and blind. Everyone can't be Batman, at least partially because we don't have the Wayne Family Trust to back us up with insane technology and an infinite number of mysteriously revived Batmobiles, but we're the only creatures on earth that purposefully take our world to a different level with every day that passes by. Nothing on earth can claim this but us humans. Only we have the type of consciousness that can look beyond immediate safety, food and water, lead us to create for the sheer sake of creativity, to act and not just react. Granted, acting means sometimes shooting at each other with bazookas for inarticulable reasons. But, whatever, you have to take the bad with the good. Uncle Ben once told Peter Parker that with great power comes great responsibility. What he forgot to mention is that with great power also comes great stupidity. The unfortunate thing is that the stupidity is not revocable. Even if you take away the power, the stupidity will still be there, numbly staring you in the face. So, you might as well have power to go with it.

On a lighter note, a glimpse into our movie commentary:

[Movie starting...]
Henry: "Are you aroused?"
Me: "Yeah, a little."
[5 seconds pass by.]
Me: "Okay, I lied. A lot."