This was in West Virginia. It's a lie. I can't hack myself out of a paper bag. I don't use bags; I use cloth sacks. [HAHAHA! I'm a CLOTH SACK and you're a CLOTH SACK! I'll get you!] My ecological footprint is relatively small. But this seemed k:1> apropos hack one way or another. My medical tests so far have been caught up in bureaucracy. I had an echocardiogram today as well as extended bloodtests. I still need an EEG, MRA, and MRI. Don't take my word for it, but medical care in the US is lousy. I'm with something called HIP. THEY decide what tests I'm going to have - not the doctors. It's in their interest not to have the tests, the drugs, the cures. Their income increases accordingly. Health is not in their interest - or rather only to the extent that if I die, they no longer collect. But then they don't have to pay out anything at that point. Is it possible to self-medicate? Self-operate? Like many in this country, I look for drugs outside the medical establishment. Everyone has extra pills, salves, lying around. [LOOK AT my MOM!] Even machines. You can adapt quickly to this. The Internet helps a lot. If I didn't know better, I'd say the Internet is one of my best friends. It gives me all sorts of knowledge I would not have had otherwise. I have to work on the Alpine zither again. I'm also looking into Noh and Buyo one more. I think I could work out of them! They're exciting! They turn me back towards Brecht for one thing. I do a lot of reading in my spare time. [Oh this is silly! I'm rereading this and I think, what would my friend Bunny say?! She's already thinking I'm a dork! I think she'll think I'm REALLY a dork now! But I'm having fun and that's the important thing!] Then I was thinking, what about being an American? I didn't ask to be born here. I don't feel any particular allegiance to this country. It's all happenstance like gender or religion. Dasein, existentialism, that sort of thing. They're related panoptically. In any case I don't have loyalty to anything or anyone outside of choice. I have loyalty to my partner, my pet. Sometimes I think I'm loyal to myself. When this government somehow recreates a standard of living for everyone, I'd be loyal here as well. Am I a spy? Of course not! Without belief, what could one possibly spy on? [Oh dear, I should have listened in school today! We were talking about President Bush and how you have to be loyal because he is an American and Our President. And when I objected, Mr. Bendall said, it's just like God, you didn't ask for him did you? And I had to say no. So I think I lost the point again. But it was a good class. We're reading Thomas Paine who is a real bore.] And where would one get the knowledge? And who would want it anyway - Alpine zither tunings, how to grow Japanese Maple indoors, the phenomenology of short-wave listening.... So say hello and be my friend and read on! [I bet I'm the only REPUBLICAN who plays an Alpine zither!]
- Alan (yes, it's me in the picture, really!) [REALLY!]