From the JMBzine Vault – August 10, 2001

This post is from the JMBzine Blog Vault, which means it is a very old blog post that I wrote at a very different time of my life. My views on religion (I’m now a Humanistic Jew), politics (today I’m a democratic socialist), and many other subjects (LGBTQ+ inclusion, abortion rights, etc.) have drastically changed over the years, so please bear this in mind when reading this post. – Tags: #Austin #Cannabis 

From the JMBzine Vault – August 10, 2001

1:53 am

Now, I’m listening to a little ditty called Teenage Imigrant Welfare Mothers on Drugs,” played by The Austin Lounge Lizards. Boy howdy! This is funniest politcal comedy I’ve heard in a long time.

This band and Molly Ivins makes me proud to call myself “one of those **** Austin liberals.”

14 more days and I’ll be back to the city I should have been born in. 🙂

Also, while I’m thinking abou itt, listen to the PSA produced by Austin’s own Willie Nelson for the good folks at NORML.

You gotta love Willie.

1:24 am

If you would like to learn more about yourself, and those around you, take a Meiers-Briggs-Keirsey personality test.

The best online version of the test

The Four Question MBTI – obviously not super-accurate, but a useful tool when trying to guess other people’s MBTI

Dmoz.org’s MBTI listing

1:14 am

I found some blogs by fellow Austinites tonight:

Arthurvanderbilt.com – talks a lot about music

Ribbit – mostly news of the wierd type of stuff

Tornadomagnent.com – “And “Free the Kittens!” became a rallying cry, especialy given that I was moving to Austin at the time. This city, as I have noted previously, has no shortage of causes, political and otherwise, to get behind. And it’s not unusual for public displays of homage to take place, and as such, my friends and I sat down to make a list of the kittens who were striving for freedom out from under the unrelenting thumb of The Man.”

Also here’s some wierd news items (links jacked from Ribbit):

Man nabbed for pumping gas naked

Mom arrested after driving drunk to register kid in school

12:37 am

Listening to Pedro the Lion tonight. Music so beautiful it hurts. This song, “Amazing love” oh my.

Love is such a wonderous, painful thing. This song is probably speaking of the love of God to his creation, but maybe I’m thinking of love in every fashion.

Well, I’ll start with love for God. There are moments that I love God so much, like when I get home late at night and look up at the stars and they are so, so… I can’t even describe it. The closest thing I could say (the metaphor really doesn’t do it justice) is of a handful of tiny diamonds strewn across a piece of black velvet cloth.

Yet, most of the time I don’t love God like that. When I see the stars, or some other magnificent part of nature, I love Him. Passionately, I love Him. But most of the time it isn’t like that. It’s there I suppose, but it’s pretty dim.

As far as other loves, I think of the love for my family. Parental love is sometimes too complex to wrap your head around, but the love I have for my brothers (four in all) is… well it’s hard to understand too. Sometimes it’s good, but most of the time there is all of this confusing baggage that makes it hard to know. Sometimes it seems real and reciprocal, other times either I or my brother(s) treat each other like the other one is ****. Why is this? Where does this competive jealous emotionalism come from?

Then, I move to romantic love. An equally perplexing notion. In one sense of the term, I guess I’ve “fallen in love” a few times in my life. Let’s see, I guess really at least four or five times. Sheesh! You would think, that I would learn, but I don’t. AND I DON’T WANT TO! I guess I like being in love, even if the one I love doesn’t love me back.

But, I’m not sure if this rollercoaster experience that I’m addicted to like crack is really “love.” At least not the life-long commitment love. In my romantic state of mind, I would like to think it is, but reality smacks me in the face and says it probably isn’t. Who knows though, maybe one of these days the rollercoaster will turn into “true love” as the character on The Princess Bride would say.

OK, enough talk about love. This stupid emotional Pedro the Lion music is doing it to me. I think I’m going to find me a glass of red wine and drown in my sorrow. (I wish.)

Editor’s Note (2023): Wow! This was a lot of emotion. Today in middle age, it all reads as painfully obvious revelations, but when I wrote it (age 25) it felt very deep — but I was also still living back with my parents when I wrote this, with only two weeks left before I could return to my beloved Austin. I think that definitely heightened the melodrama of it all.