"Leona Helmsley's dog will continue to live an opulent life, and then be buried alongside her in a mausoleum. But two of Helmsley's grandchildren got nothing from the late luxury hotelier and real estate billionaire's estate.  Helmsley left her beloved white Maltese, named Trouble, a $12 million trust fund, according to her will, which was made public Tuesday in surrogate court."  -CNN

This is disgusting.  She was a billionaire and she's leaving only $12 million to her dog?  Beloved my ass.  Her dog was on her million dollar shit list.  I wouldn't at all be surprised if she left a cool billion or two to some yak put up in a Hemsley resort in Peru.  Some yak named Disaster, no doubt.  If I were Trouble, I'd fight the extradition to her side in the mausoleum after I died.  In fact, if I were Trouble, I think I'd go visit that mausoleum right now and lift my leg and pee on it.  Or if I were female Trouble, just squat on it and pee.  Yeah, I'd give her trouble for all the trouble leaving me only $12 million is going to make for me.  I'd take some of the $12 million, establish my own mausoleum in a pet cemetery, and craft a will that would have her exhumed and buried under the steps to my mausoleum after I  died.  Then I'd have my survivors given the rest of my measly millions only if they would visit my mausoleum at least once a year and pee on the steps.  

Our culture is in so many ways just pathetic.  For instance, only a pathetic culture has an erectile dysfunction industry.  A vibrant culture would have no need of such an industry - the vibrations of the culture itself would provide enough additional stimulation to make such dysfunction rarer and certainly not industry-fixatable.  And a truly high-driving, libido-liberating culture might well have an erectile hyperfunction problem.  Imagine a culture with a multi-billion-dollar industry that markets a drug or a treatment to lessen the manly hyperdrive.

I will divulge a secret I've never shared before.  Much of my adult life I have been naturally erectile hyperfunctional.  I was familiar with the term and condition called priapism long before it reached the airwaves on advertisements for Cialis and such.  There were days and days and days when I'd go about constantly sexually ever-excited.  Not merely excitable, but fully excited.  Well, I lived in a truly high-driving, libido-liberating culture, you might say.  Even if that culture was just my own personal mindset, my own idiosyncratic world outlook.  But perhaps it wasn't just merely  a world of my own sexual projections.  I could also speak of erotic psychic undulations and mysterious sexual inundations that ripped a hole for me in our common and consensualized notion of 'reality'.  Preternatural influxes, real enough (that is, distinctly non-imaginary), that hyper-sexualized my life for a long time in this world.  I could.  But I'm still a little too close timewise to that crazy multisensory energy to put it into properly reflecting words.

The good news is that I'm now merely properly and normally functional.  Not hyper, not dys.  Just a normal guy, finally.  It's so great to be normal.  So great.  I can hardly believe that I can now truthfully brag that I'm just a normal guy.  What a relief!

I'm going to have to disappoint the world.

And not succomb.  And not self-destruct.  And not fade-away.  And not lose my soul.  And not not lead the way.

As if, the fate of humanity depended on it.  As if, my decision to disappoint will stave of  Brahma's next birthday (death's earthday).  As if, I ride upon a horse and feel every stretch of every sinew beneath me.

I have broken the code of the intellect.  And the code of base desire, too.  Broken, not as in violate (though surely I'm not exemptable of such charges), but broken as in broken though.  C.G. Jung provided me the game plan.  America, the gameday.  MVP was the slogan "Let Freedom ring."   Done rung the bell.  ding-a-ling.  ding-a-ling.  Gone straight to the heart - where all thoughts are feelings, and all feelings, thoughts.

"Red Rover, Red Rover, let Stephen come over!"

Let, indeed.  But don't try to restrain me.  I've no desire.  Nor intent to either join or hurt you.

In other news...

I am well.  Still a running fool.  Feel like I'm trapped in a twenty-something body.  But I'll get over that.

Work is good.  Overwhelming in quantity but not in scope.  I've the the scope in tow.  So I'm not getting it all done, but what I accomplish is Qual.  If I were the simplest of men, I'd throw myself entirely into my work and be happy ever after.  Such simplicity I yet strive for.

Financially, I'm near ruined.  But I see that as an opportunity to acquire the nickname of 'the Comeback Kid'.

My daughter is more beautiful than ever and is a warrior-princess. 

My wife is a born-again-Christian whose constant mantra is that Satan release his hold on me.

I've lost almost all my friends.  Perhaps, it had to be.  Such a perilous journey have I been.  Too perilous to expect company.  Some say I've driven my friends off.  I've no response to that.  Except to say, if I yet had friends, I'd love them too much to have them stay true to me.  Alas, I am your American Odyssey.

Love is.  Love is all around. Though I am unmoved, may love leap and joy abound.

"Don't be the rider who gallops all night and never sees the horse that is beneath him."
    -Jelaluddin Rumi 

Only the madman fears the end of madness.

Only the addict fears the end of addiction.

Only the covetous fear the end of "things".

"The end of madness?   Impossible."

"The end of addiction?  Impossible."

"The end of  covetous 'things'?  Impossible."

But it is only the lost ones who fear "the impossible".

A mountain man was once asked if he ever got lost.  "No," he answered, "I've never been lost.  But sometimes for a week, a month, or even a longer spell or two, I didn't know how to get where I was going."

The true explorer finds himself not uncomfortably cast into the unknown while seeking bearings.

It is better to embrace a truly glorious destination that sometimes seems impossible to reach than to trudge in the well-trudged ruts of madness, addiction, and "things" that lead the multitudes nowhere with nothing to hope for.

Update:  Ha!  John has truly humbled me by his response to my post below.  I'll provide his response, then you can see the glaring mis-assumptions I made.  Sorry, John.

"Incidentally, DoSomething.org is a non profit devoted to helping young people volunteer and do good in the world. We are donating our time and traffic to their cause, because it seemed like the right thing to do."

- John

John is the corporate CEO-type for Xanga.  In certain past times, I have been both a confidante and friends with him.  And I have also been, at certain past times, his greatest on-Xanga nemesis.  I'm feeling a bit nemesisal now with Xanga.  (yes, nemesisal  is a new word that I just coined and not in any dictionaries.  But you know what I mean.  So who needs dictionaries?!)  And feeling so, I left this comment on a recent John blog: