Monthly Archives: February 2010

I was going to post a picture of lint rather than Lent, but the random photos of people’s disgusting belly buttons grossed me out to the extent that now I need the calm blankness of nothing. Still, tomorrow begins Lent, which is the reason for Mardi Gras in the first place. You indulge to sacrifice. You feast to go without. That is what I was taught about Mardi Gras. Somewhere along the way it became Spring Break in New Orleans, a time and a place where vomit is welcome everywhere and if you don’t get your identity stolen or date-raped than you just aren’t putting your back into it.

I long to be a person in the know, who attends Mardi Gras in the company of the local and the privileged. Bead thrower, rather than groveler.

Let’s talk about Lent though. Is it supposed to be capitalized? I’m not sure about that and while the Internet rests literally beneath my fingertips I prefer to learn some things from you all, my dear readers.

I am not a Catholic, or do you drop the article and just say, “Im not Catholic?” Once again with the question of capitalization. catholic? I doubt it. The seasons are not capitalized, and they seem so much more powerful than religion. It seems weird. Spring I understand, even if it is not correct.

Will you give anything up? Me? I’m thinking I will give up everything. All will and determination, all excesses and crutches, all beliefs and principles. For lent I will float and shuffle like a corn husk- cast from a tamale and discarded under a Mexican sun. mexican? For 40 days I will have no opinion, no favorite song, no particular bedtime. I might drink coffee. I might drink tea. There’s no way to tell.

For Lent, we are going to let the Great Magnet decide all things. great magnet?

-Juancho

12 hours is a long time to sleep. I feel good. I might even ride my bike today, but I doubt it. I heard some words of wisdom from one of the Bikechain droids, the one they call “Dan.” He said one day he drew a line in the frost and declared he wasn’t going to ride if the temperature was below 60 degrees. He didn’t even act ashamed, that brother just stated it like a fact of nature. Like…fish don’t fry in the kitchen, beans don’t burn on the grill, and Dan don’t ride if it’s colder than 60 degrees. That kind of obstinance has its appeal. I don’t know what’s going in in the rest of the country, but it’s cold in T-town.

Juancho.

So I am over at Tommy’s house the other night enjoying the company of what I thought were old friends. A bowl of gumbo, a delicious beet salad, a couple of High Lifes- the world felt right as rain.

Then- after dinner, but before the andouille could find a place to settle, Tommy suggests we play some video games, Skateboarding on the Nintendo Wii to be specific. “Sure” I say, trying to be a good sport even though I find video games tedious. It’s all about enjoying the company of friends really.

Tommy directs me to the center of the living room and instructs me to stand on a platform, “the Wii balance board,” he calls it. I mount the platform with the slightest sense of unease creeping up on me. I would rather play a sitting down video game I think to myself. Still, I am comfortable with board sports and assume I will be carving the halfpipe in no time.

I did not carve the halfpipe in no time. That is because the Nintendo Wii is not a video game at all, but a lifestyle modification device designed to destroy your self-esteem and rebuild you in the preferred image of its makers.

The Wii evaluates your BMI (body mass index) based on the standards of the average small asian people where it was designed. The Wii knows nothing of the Viking.
So- after evaluating my height, weight, balance, and posture post gumbo; the Wii adjusts the physical form of my avatar until I look like fat Charlie Brown. The Wii suggests my healthy target weight is 145 lbs. I used to wrestle at 145 lbs actually. I was in the seventh grade. So now I am 60 lbs away from the perfect me? And here I thought it was 10 lbs away, where it has always been.

Now I am allowed to skateboard, which believe me, I have lost interest in doing. After attempting to master the nuances of pretend skateboarding in the living room, the Wii assigns me a “fitness age.” My fitness age you ask? 55. My actual age? 39.

Now completely shaken and demoralized, I seek nothing but a toilet in which I can deposit the gumbo. Is the Wii done with me? No it is not. It asks if I would like to set some fitness goal for our next “play session.” I decline. It then asks if I will make a commitment to at least “not lose any ground.”

I would have answered “too late” but that was not an option.

Juancho

I am avoiding the bigringcircus right now. I keep circling the keyboard then sitting on my hands or walking away. It is too dangerous. The only thing I am compelled to discuss is those evangelical kidnappers in Haiti. I realy shouldn’t go there. It will only become a boring rant, and around here we like to save our ranting for the first ten and last ten miles of a twenty mile bike ride.

Let’s just say though, for the sake of it, that a group of Haitians, driven by their Voodou beliefs, came to New Orleans after Hurricane Katrina and scooped a bunch of American kids off the street to take them to a resort hotel in Mexico before giving them a better life in Haiti. How would that be received?

Damn. I knew I shouldn’t have logged on.

Juancho