The Differences Between Friends Cannot But Reinforce Their Friendship
Went out this weekend with my cousin Jennifer and her two boys, Jack and Gavin. Some friends of mine are moving, so I let them borrow my van and the boys got to ride on the subway - or the “underground train” as they call it - for the first time. They were a little scared when the train first came into the station, as its pretty loud, but they liked it once they got inside and kept wanting to ride the “underground train” throughout the day.
So we went downtown, and considering that it’s the iconic opening image from one of our favorite tv shows as kids - Married… with Children - surprisingly, my cousin had never been to Buckingham Fountain before.
Then we went to Millenium Park, and Jennifer and Jack got their feet wet in a fountain there, and they got to see the “Bean” for the first time. I saw it earlier this year, but here is a new picture of me in the Bean:
Then we went to Navy Pier, which none of us had been to before. The Air Show was going on later that day, so a lot of jets were flying over the city, and the boys loved those. I kept thinking of what those jets represented, and what it would be like to constantly hear the roar of those engines and know that death would soon be raining down in their wake…
Navy Pier is such a fucking corporate ad product placement vomitorium that the goddamn Ferris wheel there is plastered with McDonalds logos on each car, among many other places. But the view from the Ferris wheel is pretty nice.
I saw the Ferris wheel at night from the top of the John Hancock Center a couple weeks ago when I was out with some comrades, and it looked pretty amazing. I took a pic of the city from there, but it doesn’t have the Ferris wheel. Eh, this picture isn’t so great, the iPhone sucks at night pics - plus since the 2.0 update I lost the great hacked camera app that is sooo much better than the Apple one on the phone (please update that app for jailbroken 2.x firmware!). But it was a great view.
And I was over in Chinatown a few weeks ago, and took a pic of an amazing looking Nine Dragon Wall.
When I got home, I finally found out that I am going to get financial aid for my college, so that means I’m set for the next semester or two. Still don’t know about the writing job, so I don’t know if I’ll be a writer or a computer nerd this semester - well, primarily one or the other, since I’m always both, and many, many other things. But I’m either taking the writing center class with the job, or the Computer Science class if I don’t get it. So I’ll either be writing prose or code 
I’ll probably do a little of both either way, just focusing more on one or the other.
And I finally got a response from Apple on my iPhone Developer Program application I sent in several months ago when it was first announced. So I’m gonna have to get down to business with writing some apps and actually do some goddamn thing with my corporation and try to make some money to survive. That will actually turn out pretty nicely if I do the Computer Science class, since it will force me to get into some serious coding and software development. I suppose either way I’ll turn out pretty damn well.
Starting my second year of college, might get a writing job, probably will be doing iPhone software development, may get off parole in December, have made a few friends and comrades, and I’m doing a lot of really important revolutionary work. Almost hard to believe that a year and a half ago I was sitting in a segregation cell in Pontiac Correctional Center. Unfortunately that experience forms the majority of my life experience, so there is not really any “forgetting” it, and I’m still struggling to adjust and adapt to life outside of a concrete and steel cage. Plus there’s the whole “Not Having Any Money” thing (otherwise known as being broke as a joke). And the “Human Relationships” thing (otherwise known as the existential conundrum of being alone in a pointless universe and trying to make some meaningful human relationships).
I wish this society was different, that people related to each other as real human beings instead of isolated commodities whose only value is the immediate financial transaction or what you can “get” out of someone. That fucking money was irrelevant, that people didn’t have to sell their labor for meager wages just to survive. That we could spend our time accomplishing important things for humanity instead of producing relatively meaningless throw-away products. I wish the “educational” system existed for really educating people instead of indoctrinating them to fulfill the needs of capitalist corporations. I wish we lived in a world that I would be overjoyed and eager to bring another life into instead of dreading the experience that a child would have in this world. I wish we lived in a world where I actually meant something to society and had some value beyond being labeled a “dangerous criminal” that is devoid of humanity and needs to be locked in a cage for decades to further the agenda of police, prosecutors, judges, and legislators. A world where children were valued and a part of society instead of the property of their parents. A whole different world, a communist world. And that is what I’m struggling for.
Finally make a really cool friend, and now she is leaving… But there is important work to be done. Hopefully the human relationships don’t get forgotten in the process.
“The differences between friends cannot but reinforce their friendship”
- Mao Tsetung
