He said to me that he couldn't believe in a God-less universe.
The idea that we were random chemical reactions didn't sit too well with him.
I looked around at the other people in the bar and had to agree. What were we to do in our lives, now that most of our physical needs were addressed?
II.
We put the remote control device to our heads. We were on our
third or fourth country, expecting new dimensions to grow in our lives out of
the cultural disorientation. It just made the silences between moments louder
for me.
III.
Even in climax there's that dead space you know, what do you
think of then?
Emptiness. I feel my body crunch and shrivel like the paper wrapper of an ice cream bar. The emptiness has a completeness, with or without another person involved.
IV.
Working in the mausoleum in the late 90s. I tried to balance
the death equation with some sperm donation work at the human fertility clinic.
I would get up most mornings at 6am, put on the bicycle tights
and fit my clothes into the back pack, then pedal up the tight winding hill
to Oregon Health and Sciences University. The tights helped, I think. I had
a key to the office and the drawer filled with Playboys and Penthouses. I milked
myself, then continued on to a day of painting crypts and working the hand-hoist
on the fifth-level entombments down the street. The stillness of the Mausoleum
felt perfect at times.
V.
She said that she had never had a spiritual moment in her life.
It didn't seem to present a problem, but did put a lid on our box, somehow.
VI.
"The fact it (cloning) can be done begins to move us away from
some of the mysteries surrounding human beings; things like the existence of
a soul, which frankly is pure imagination," he told the BBC News website.
Somehow the idea of a soul being composed of pure imagination
sounds closer to the truth to me. I like the way doubting, rational scientists
are always having their minds blown up in H.P. Lovecraft short stories.
VII.
The two Jesus lovers I dated both wound up getting pregnant by
guys that weren't me while we were dating. I felt that Jesus was trying to tell
me something with this.
VIII.
The most beautiful women in Portland are the Ukrainian daughters
of the newly-arrived devout in their high heels and make-up and tight skirts,
worshipping in suburban Portland five days a week. They make conversion seem
like such a low price to pay, particularly with their techno-based songs of
worship.
IX.
Being surrounded by happy dancing natives who have signs saying,
"God is Faith" over the entrance of their pharmacies feels better than being
on a train car full of depressed commuters in a city built with gray legos that
feature pharmacies with ceramic cats greeting you with a paw up in a sign for
"money".
X.
She was forced to go to church for most of her childhood. Her
mother didn't approve of many of her career choices. She showed me the pamphlet
her mother sent her describing the cemetery plot she had bought for her. I took
her to the Mausoleum and we screwed in an open coffin. We both felt better.
Robert Gaulke moved to Yokohama, Japan, or some goddamned
place. He used to live in Portland, I know that. Anyway, he has a book out with
Future Tense Press. It's called
The Nervous
Tourist. You'd better buy
it (it's third from the top on the link), since we're certainly not going
to pay him, and it's hard to imagine him earning an honest living.
