For those of you who are wondering, this is an ant lion.

These little buggers tunnel down in the sand, making a sand pit and when an ant comes along.....

They begin scraping at the sand so the ant falls towards the bottom so they can eat um up.

They don't have em up hiah' cause it's too cold up hiah' in the noth ist. Only the flatlanda's got em.

-Jeeem-

Time always seems to be of the essence lately. Always in a hurry, rushing here, rushing there, watching the clock.

Once upon a time, when I was around seven, I sat on the side yard for half a day watching ant lions build their concave sand traps.

Half a day.

Six or seven hours.

There were no worries, no pressing thoughts, no appointments, no anxiety.

I wonder if I could do that today. Would I be impatient? Could I just throw caution to the wind and sit for six or seven hours waiting for the chipmunk who lives in my rock wall to appear?

He's a cute little bugger. I think he's worth it.



I'd probably be stiff for a week.

-Jeeem-

I am in love.

This time, with a cartoon anime character.

Cammy & Jeeem...has a nice ring to it doesn't it?

Thanks Shirl!

-Jeeem-

Okay....it's Sunday. Mother's Day, so they tell me.

So I should perhaps reflect on Mother. Good ole Mommy.

Well, not to be a depressive sort again, but I gots to be truthful, right? My "mother" was a freakin' nightmare. Sorta sounds like a title of a movie, doesn't it?

My Mother was a Freakin' Nightmare......

staring:

Jack Nicholson and Kathy Bates

My mommy was five foot, eleven inches tall. She had a temper to go with her strawberry blond hair. Her name was Marie Opal Sharp and so was her personality. Once, when I was around nine years old, she beat me almost to death with a three inch stick. She didn't get away with it cause my teacher, Miss Aires, discovered the welts on my back and called the cops. Later, when I was old enough to understand, I discovered what controlled her moods.

Ever hear that song about "Mother's little helper?" Who sang that? Was it the Rolling Stones? Yep, I think so.....let me do a Google Search.....

Yep! Here it is:

What a drag it is getting old!

"Kids are different today,"
I hear ev'ry mother say
Mother needs something today to calm her down.
And though she's not really ill
There's a little yellow pill
She goes running for the shelter of a mother's little helper
And it helps her on her way, gets her through her busy day.

"Things are different today,"
I hear ev'ry mother say
Cooking fresh food for a husband's just a drag.
So she buys an instant cake
And she burns her frozen steak
And goes running for the shelter of a mother's little helper
And two help her on her way, get her through her busy day.

"Doctor please, some more of these!"
Outside the door, she took four more.

"Men just aren't the same today,"
I hear ev'ry mother say
They just don't appreciate that you get tired.
They're so hard to satisfy,
You can tranquilize your mind
So go running for the shelter of a mother's little helper
And four help you through the night, help to minimize your plight.

"Life's just much too hard today,"
I hear ev'ry mother say
The pursuit of happiness just seems a bore.
And if you take more of those
You will get an overdose
No more running for the shelter of a mother's little helper
They just helped you on your way, through your busy dying day.

-- Mick Jagger and Keith Richards

Cool. So true. My mommy had some of those pills. I used to swipe them. I got to a point where I could take seven of them and still remain standing. Way to go Mommy! These are good! Had to hide it though, cause seven of em made me slur my words somethin awful. Amazing how she could take those babies and escape, escape.....

I liked it when she took those. Mommy wasn't so mean when she ate them and she didn't hit me. Couldn't hit me. Couldn't catch me.

She had other little pills too.

White ones called Miltown. I liked those also.

Miltown. I visited that town many times. Cool town. Pretty laid back. VERY laid back.

Then there were the orange ones.

Pentagon shaped.

Whew! Those made ya get up and GO! Run Jimmy, run! See Jimmy run! Run Jimmy, run! See Jimmy vomit. Vomit Jimmy, vomit! Jimmy should never take Miltowns and the orange pentagon ones. Jimmy learned a valuable lesson. Jimmy doesn't like it when things come up through his nose.

After the police spoke with good ole Mom about hitting Jimmy with a stick, she began taking a new pill. This one was called Nardil. Such a strange name for such a small brown, orangish pill.

Nardil is a neat pill. It made mommy very, very agreeable.

Mommy made a mistake though....she ate something she shouldn't have eaten (my mommy ate a lot) and ended up in the hospital. Seems she wasn't supposed to eat certain things and take the Nardil pill.

Stupid mommy.

Then the doctor made her take a different pill. This one was called Tofranil and it didn't work as well. Mommy never hit Jimmy again but she sure could yell alot.

So, mommy is pushing up daisy's today. I never returned to her gravesite. I don't much believe in that anyway, but then I never really cared for mommy all that much. I think people like mommy shouldn't have children.

Happy mommy's day!

-Jeeem-

It's cold.

My neighbor said it's not cold.

Dumbass.

-Jeeem-

I have added a tag message board called Jeeembord. You will find it at the bottom of my blog template. Just another indicator of my Blogging Brilliance or a shameful copycat act after visiting Peter's site. -Jeeem-

Holy smokes Batman!

I've finally finished Chapter Five of The Naked Novel - A collaborative work of modern fiction.

Hopefully it will be posted by Peter soon. I've given the story a bit of a twist, given the current state of my mind. I really hope that all who are interested fans or bored surfers will love it. It surely has been an adventure.

-Jeeem-

(Yawn!)

Thank the good Lord the weekend is here. I voted for more of them (weekends) but nothings happened yet.

Well, it was destined to happen.....Ya can't stay 49-forever Shirts! The inevitable had to happen. So, Shirts has finally slipped (gracefully I might ad) over to The other side.

I was wondering what had happened to her, having not heard from Shirts in quite a while. So, I guess I'll know what to expect when I hit the big 4-9er. I will disappear from my blog for awhile and suddenly appear elsewhere, over the top, heading downward? Meanwhile I'm working on staying 46-forever, but things aren't looking good.

Louie just rolled by, so I know I had better get offline cause he'll be calling soon to roust me up to meet up for breakfast. This is so cool. I feel kinda like an old man, but I feel a true sense of camaraderie too. Sometimes I look back at my "old life" and the chaos of it, diving through windows like a Hollywood stunt man to avoid being shot at, moving three and four states away to avoid someone who was, "Looking for me," and only ending up in more trouble in the new state I had arrived at, feeling the "snap" of handcuffs on my wrists time and time again, picking up baseball bats and crowbars in neighborhood brawls to defend my so-called friends, experimenting with exotic drugs, alcohol and other "organic" sources to find what it was I was looking for and ending up in deadend job after job, doing stuff I wasn't happy doing, just working to make money to get high again. I look back at that and compare my life then, to now, and I smile. It is so, so different and so enjoyable. I am happy.

One never "gets" there though....I think there are many different levels of happiness and always another, better level than the one at which we are at. I tell my client's I work with that we are pleasure seekers. We seek out pleasure constantly in our lives, always pushing the envelope towards better and better pleasure. Oh sure, there are those people who settle for what they've got, but not me.....nosirree. Not this old boy. I'm gonna keep reaching for that brass ring...the one that's just outta my reach.

Never settle.

-Jeeem-

I have determined that stress is a necessary part of my life. I don't necessarily like it either. Well then, that said, I will have another cup of coffee to send my nerves to attention and build my adrenaline reserves to new heights.

I recently sat in the lobby of a mental hospital. No, not as a patient or even a prospective patient. I was there on business.

The person I was there to see was late. I became irritated until I dismissed that feeling, telling myself to chill and just enjoy the moment.

Enjoy the moment? In a mental hospital?

Well, I did. It was very entertaining actually. The clincher was sitting there WONDERING what it would be like to shuffle around all day, seemingly without a care in the world, drool dripping onto my tee-shirt, awaiting my next medication regimen and my next meal. Kinda like One Flew Over the Cuckcoo's Nest in real life. Interestingly enough, I found my self romancing the thought.

I'm going back Friday morning and actually looking forward to it.

-Jeeem-

Got my hair cut yesterday. I must be getting old....I know my hairdresser, her son, her colleage and her colleage's family, and I bring my photo scrapbook of my trip in to the hairdressers. Weird. Well, weird when you look back at my isolative life and how far I've come. Example is, I've gotta get ready in about 20 minutes to go get breakfast with my neighbor, Louie. Never did shit like that in the past. It's kinda neat.

I left work yesterday, feeling a funny feeling. I was feeling so much like a foreigner there. Getting irritated at little comments people were making and just feeling like nobody there REALLY knows me. Funny, I think I have a lot to do with that. I don't ALLOW them to know me. Only a small handful of people really know me and they sure aren't the people I work with. I just had to get out of there and get out of there I did, leaving early, planning to use a little chunk of my annual time to make up for it.

My heart tells me to move on.....to change something in my life. A friend dropped something in my lap last week that tells me it may be sooner than later. People say, "Just let things happen Jim.....don't try to control it." Ha! I say. I gotta crawl behind the steering wheel every time. I'd feel useless if I didn't. Sometimes I just feel so DIFFERENT than others. I often wonder if others feel that way. One of my friends from high school back home in El Paso, Texas, used to call me a rogue:

*An unprincipled, deceitful, and unreliable person; a scoundrel or rascal. One who is playfully mischievous; a scamp. A wandering beggar; a vagrant
*A vicious and solitary animal, especially an elephant that has separated itself from the herd.
*An organism, especially a plant, that shows an undesirable variation from a standard.
*An immoral or licentious person: libertine, seducer, tempter, lecher, satyr, debaucher, profligate, rake, voluptuary, reprobate, roué, sensualist.

Holy crappola batman. Most is true! But that doesn't make me a bad guy, does it? I have lived a different life than most and often I end up compairing myself to others, conscious to where I've been, what I've experienced and what I've done or what has been done to me......and I just feel different. No, not just different-different, but D-I-F-F-E-R-E-N-T. Really different.....no, not ALIEN different or WEIRD different, but DIFFERENT.

So what, you say.....well, this is my blog and I can say anything I want to. Currently, some interesting things are happening in my life and I am trying to listen to my heart. Nobody on the face of this earth, that I have shared the stuff with, is supportive and that's okay. Nobody seems to understand, but then they are not really me, don't REALLY know me, and well.......I guess it really doesn't matter cause ultimately it's all up to me anyway. Isn't that so? I often wonder how much emphasis we place on other people's opinions.

Enough rambling, I shall go take my Thorazine now......

Jeeem (with three e's please)