better version of me

I'm not sure how or why this is, but officially, according to the Potter Boy, aka my computer, I have no internet connection at the moment.

Any yet, here I am.

This is a cheat post. It's a dirty cheat post, and a damn dirty lying cheat post at that. It's not written when it's said it's written, and I'll admit to that right up front. I'll admit to it and move on. I'll admit to backposting because I haven't had much luck with the world wide web recently, and didn't have the chance to write my annual year end post at, you know, the end of the year. So I do it later, I admit to it, and then I move on.

Moving on, I've been hating the internet lately. I've been hating it's oodles and oodles of useless knowledge and my inability to get at it. My inability to pick a simple wireless signal. My inability to use any computer other than the Potter Boy to access Al Gore's beautiful invention we call cyberspace.

Cyberspace is such a weird word.

And the internet is stupid lame.

What I really want is a photocopier and some sort of artistic ability. And to be living in 1983. Because if I had all those things (plus paper) I would put out this awesome little 'zine called Wasteland or Argyle Veritas or Tootsie for Golfers. And I would send it out to all 27 people on my mailing list. And then do it again three months later.

Back to the present. And real life. Sort of. I've been reading comic books lately. And maybe, some day, I'll write about why. For now, let me just say that there is something intrinsically noble about the idea of heroes with awesome powers, who, though they have every ability to rob banks and overpower small countries, use what they've been given to help out everyday Joe's and Jane's. I want to believe in a world where normal people with abnormal powers do great things. I want to live there and work there and drink it's water every day.

In the end, it's all fantasy. These things I love are fantasy. Comic books and Star Wars -- The West Wing and Punch Drunk Love. But not in the escape-from-reality because-I- can't-deal-with-it sort of way. But fantasy in that sense which gives us a glimpse into what life could be like if we only let it. A life where we fly to other planets on rickety star ships, and elect presidents whom we trust, and follow the women we love across oceans in distinctive blue suits.

I talked a lot about what I wanted life to be like in my last post. But maybe it's time to stop yearning for what's not there and just simply find it instead. And while Paco's right that I am a big baby-whiner-pants, I don't really want to do big things. I dream of them, sure. But in reality, I just want to live simply -- read books and watch stars -- cancel my cable and cook my dinner. I dream big, but to stay sane, I take very, very small steps. Saving people from speeding trains sure seems nice, but if I had to do it all the time, I'd probably go nuts.

(And strapping the world's problems to giant-huge boulders is probably a lot easier than actually having to deal with each problem individually. Unfortunately, it's not very feasible. For starters, I don't even know where to buy boulder-straps. Menards, maybe?)

I really don't know what I want to do it all these days. Which makes it all the more easier to wish I lived in a time where I had less choices and more responsibility to my extended family of maize and/or soy bean farmers. Waking up to milk the cows at four every morning doesn't sound ideal, but neither does living with the paralyzing fear that every time I buy gas I'm funding terrorist attacks in Iraq. You can see my predicament.

So over the past year I've lived in Wisconsin, wished I lived 1885, and moved to 21st century Chicago instead. My heart is freakin' all over the place, from Iceland to Oregon to Wright Hall. This is the year I officially graduated from college, and the year I officially became an urbanite. I'm another year older, one year less a lover of all things city-like, one year more a lover of things like witches and lunar calendars. One year of struggling to find God in the concrete, and wondering if globalization scares Him as much as it scares me.

In the end, I'm more confused about the world than ever.

All that to say, this is the last day of 2005. The first day of new things. My name is Jonny Rice, I live in Illinois, I want to be happy, I need to be content.