a letter from a future prison blown our way I

shawna,

i am writing you this letter from the future as i sit here locked up in a colombian prison.  it is hard to recall why but it feels like i have been imprisoned for all of my life.  it will be brief because there is no electricity in this particular facility and the only light available is provided by the slow flame of a bacon grease-soaked piece of cloth that i managed to spark with my chains and a cinder block jut on the southern wall.  yes, they serve bacon in prison.  not the kind we are accustomed to in the u.s. but you would not know of this, and still, it is something.  i do not wish to sound ungrateful.  during dish duty i tripped and rubbed my shirt sleeve in a grease puddle to store it for later with this letter in mind.  it is dark and i must hurry.

the purpose of this letter is to express my gratitude for the use of your rei dividend as member #3944778 with which i used to supplement the acquisition of one pair of navy blue merino wool socks.  i can tell you that these socks have lasted thus far and will surely see soil and sea safely outside of this compound once more should that be their destiny.  remember, this letter i write to you is from an undisclosed time in the future but i can assure you that it is at least one calendar year after the purchase of said socks.  they have lasted well.  and i can tell you in good faith that some strands still remain and with them i am conspiring to fashion a rope.  the purpose of this rope has not yet been determined, but it will most-likely be used to make either a noose or some kind of device to repel from the hole in this cell wall to allow me to escape in the jungle. 

at a moment when you have forgotten this letter, something will jog it back into your memory.  perhaps a white bird will fly your way and you will remember.  and later still, a memory will trigger this memory itself and the letter will come to mind.

the cloth has almost been consumed and i must close.  forgive the lack of capital letters in this correspondence.  i can give you a hint to the future and let you know that they have ceased to remain necessary and no longer exist.  thank god they have not gotten our dear punctuation symbols yet!  thank you again for your generosity and even-more-valuable friendship.  the adjacent cell contains an old man who is somewhat of a sage.  he discovered my literacy and asked me to write the following down since he himself does not have the ability.  i have only one piece of paper, so i am including it with this letter, so that it may escape this ever-rainy jungle prison: 

it may seem to us that certain decisions can affect the course of life and change what will be.  we might do a and b happens.  or we might do c and then d will follow.  this is dubious if not false altogether.  what will happen, will happen, and it always does because in this world we occupy, only one result is allowed.  only a can be done and only b will proceed.  c,d, and all else do not exist although a haughty human may hope.  we should make decisions with confidence and live corresponding to present conditions.  can a man make plans concerning his future self when he feels like dying at present moment?  no.  past sensations may seem more vivid and future ones more promising.  but one cannot break the chain of the present and live in any other time.

andrew

Preface

Beep.

Conversation with Mels

Mels (8:58 PM):

Cookout tomorrow after 2 at my house for ben's bday. Byob.

reads the text on my phone.  Giggle.  "Conversation."  Makes me wanna attempt a LOL.  There hasn't been any conversation for months, possibly a over a year.  I don't even want to bother responding because I know I will not go.  I would like to go but there is really no excuse.  If I could show up with a full-grown beard and long hair, or full of tattoos, or scarred from the flames of some fire that was in the papers, or an amputee, or with a new language, it might be ok.  There would be something to account for all of the time I have not responded and not shown up.  But none of those changes exist and there is no way to show them the measure of deterioration that has happened since my gradual wiggle out of society.  There is no measure for them to see, no outward evidence of my time spent.  I look the same as they last saw me.  How do you spend a year and a half unemployed and in almost-isolation without doing anything?

Q: How have you been?  What have you been doing?  Where do you work now?

A: Oh, I've just been withering away, being surpassed by the younger generations.   Attempting amateur aloe propagation and self-transfiguration into a turtle.  Sporatic encounters with the human race very sporatically.  Sporatic sporatic.  Been writing a book but only in segments while on the freeway or when recently-awakened from a nap, without contacts or looking at the actual words

processed.

No.  My mind is withered lettuce and limp asparagus.  Sat in the fridge for four years unused.  Limp like a wet-towel-Asian handshake.  Void of all crisp color and posture.  Gosh, and oh yeah...shrug.  I need to get out of here and resurrect myselvesies.

Intro to my outro; Innie to my outtie; Peace to my homies

Welcome to the Blungle!  You're gonna die.  This is a dirty blog.  For those of you that don't know what a dirty blog is, there is probably a reason, but you might just be too stymied to figure it out.  Because I just made it up.  That still doesn't mean you're not a dummy.  Or was it dummie?  I can't remember because I never paid too much attention to the Writing Dummy Books for Dummies (and Later Selling Them to Dumb-Dumbs So You Can Fund Your Dum-Dum Fund for Fun So You Can Entice Dummies to Buy Your Writing Dummy Books for Dummies) class in college.  To quote a Tool, "I've come around full circle."

Speaking of full circles, I am only gonna make a half circle because I bought a one-way ticket.  Half a circle is diameter for you math minor leaguers.  Anyway, I am moving to Bogota, Cudinamarca, Colombia.  After doing some research, which is an immeasurably useful skill that I picked up at a little somewhat-big place called college, the 1950s version of myself decided that Colombia must be pretty swell.  The main source that would appear on my invisible and hypothetical bibliography would be the youtube.com videos that were uploaded by the user kumquatsta.   They are shady versions of a certain chef-to-be-named-in-the-next-paragraph's television show while he was in the cocaine capital.  But said bibliography doesn't exist, even hypothetically, so...you know...whatevs.

J'adore Bourdain, Anthony.  Sometimes, in the US, I love Anthony Bourdain.  He possesses the three Hs that I admire.  Humility.  Humor.  (Self-)Hate.  Possess possesses the four Ss that are so useful in Scrabble.  But that's another blog entirely.  Words contain letters but I'm not about to drop some linguistic shits on you this early.

Where was we?  Oh yeps: Bourdain got real jiggy with it in Colombia showing all kinds of fun times to be had and I had had it after that.  I was gone and determined to get gone.  Did a little more research (mainly parts 2/3 and 3/3 of kumquatsta's uploads) and Kayaked to a new Orbitz and then back down to Colombia.  I'm not gonna lie; It was really tiring, but two hundred and sixty seven dollars later, I was the proud owner of an electronic ticket to Bogota for May 17th, 2011.

And it's about goddamn time.  Almost two years is long enough.