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judy smith Jul 2016
The 9.6 million followers who tune in to watch Miranda Kerr having her hair done on Instagram — for this is how models spend most of their time — were treated to a rather more interesting sight last Thursday: a black and white photograph of a whacking great diamond ring.

Across it was the caption “Marry me!” and a twee animation of the tech mogul Evan Spiegel on bended knee. Underneath Kerr had typed “I said yes!!!” and an explosion of heart emojis.

A spokesman for Spiegel, founder of the Snapchat mobile app, who is 26 to Kerr’s 33 and worth $US 2.1 billion to her $US 42.5 million , revealed “they are very happy”.

At first, the marriage seems an unlikely combination: a man so bright he founded Snapchat while still at Stanford University, becoming one of the world’s youngest self-made billionaires by 22, and a Victoria’s Secret model who was previously married to the Pirates of the Caribbean star Orlando Bloom (she allegedly had a fling with pop brat Justin Bieber, leading Bloom to punch Beebs in a posh Ibiza restaurant).

Perhaps the union indicates that there is more to Kerr than we thought. More likely, it reveals something about Spiegel — and the way the social status of “geeks” has changed.

Since Steve Jobs made computers cool and Millennials started living online, nerds are king. Even coding is **** enough for the model Karlie Kloss, singer will.i.am and actor Ashton Kutcher to learn it. Silicon Valley has become the new Hollywood, as moguls and social media barons take over from film stars and sportsmen not just on rich lists, but as alpha men.

Being a co-founder of a company is this decade’s equivalent to being a rock star or a chef. And, if their attractiveness to models and actresses proves anything, then being a Twag — tech wife or girlfriend — is a “thing”. Sources tell me Twags are also known as “founder-hounders” because they like to date the creators of start-up companies.

Actress Talulah Riley was an early adopter. She started dating the PayPal founder Elon Musk in 2008. Riley, then fresh from starring in the St Trinian’s film, met Musk in London’s Whisky Mist nightclub after he had delivered a lecture at the Royal Aeronautical Society. I interviewed her shortly afterwards and she told me they had spent the evening talking about “quantum physics”. A month later they were engaged. Their on-again-off-again marriage lasted six years before she filed for divorce again in March. Currently Musk, worth an estimated $US 12.7 billion and focused on Tesla cars, is said to be “spending a lot of time” with Johnny Depp’s estranged wife, Amber Heard.

Model Lily Cole dated the Twitter founder Jack Dorsey in 2013. Later she had a son with Kwame Ferreira, founder of the digital innovation agency Kwamecorp. Actress Emma Watson is going out with William Knight, an “adventurer” who has an incredibly boringly sounding job as a senior manager at Medallia, a software company. Allison Williams, Marnie in the HBO television show Girls, is married to Ricky Van Veen, co-founder of College Humor website.

Could it be that these women are onto something? Dating a bro certainly has its appeal. They are innovative: how else would they invent apps that deliver cheese toasties or match singles based on their haircuts? They are risk-takers who must be charismatic enough to inspire investors and attract crowd-funding. They may not be gym-fit, but they are mathletes who can do your tax bill. They are animal lovers: every start-up is dog friendly. And they are fun: who would not want to date somebody with a ball pool in their office?

There is a saying about dating in Silicon Valley: the odds are good but the goods are odd. Nerds are notorious for peculiar chat-up lines and normcore clothes. Still, if geeks can be awkward, that is part of their charm. Keira Knightley, complaining that Silicon Valley was all men in hoodies and Crocs, described how one gave her his card, saying she should get in touch if she wanted to see a spaceship.

One Vogue writer recalled a Silicon Valley man messaging her via a dating app, in which he noted: “In 50 per cent of your photos you’re holding an iPhone. It may interest you to find out that I invented the iPhone. More accurately I was an engineer on the original iPhone . . .”

Most promisingly, some guys are astoundingly rich. It is suggested Kerr’s engagement ring is a 2.5-carat diamond worth around dollars 55,000. She has already moved into Spiegel’s dollars 12m LA pad. Between his money and her Victoria’s Secrets bridesmaids, no wonder sources claim they are planning an “extravagant wedding”.

It might rival even the Napster founder Sean Parker’s $US10m performance-art bash. He married songwriter Alexandra Lenas in a canopy among Big Sur’s redwoods decorated to look like an enchanted forest. Some 350 guests wore Tolkienesque costumes created by The Lord of the Rings costume designer Ngila Dickson. They sat on white fur rugs and were given bunnies to pet. Presumably rabbit babysitters were on hand when the disco started.

If such fantasies inspire you to become a Twag, the great news is you do not have to be a supermodel to be in with a chance. Such is the dearth of single women in Silicon Valley that one dating site, Dating Ring, crowdfunded a plane to fly single women to Palo Alto from New York.

Be warned, though: guys are single because they are married to the job.

No wonder most meet their partners at college or work — the Facebook chief executive Mark Zuckerberg met his wife, Priscilla Chan, at Harvard.

The Instagram co-founder Kevin Systrom met girlfriend Nicole Schuetz at Stanford. Melinda met Bill Gates when, in 1987, they sat next to each other at an Expo trade-fair dinner. “He was funnier than I expected him to be,” she said.

Kerr began dating Spiegel in 2014 after meeting him at a Louis Vuitton dinner in New York. You can bet he was networking. Shortly after Louis Vuitton showcased their cruise collection in a Snapchat story. Last season Snapchat went on to become the biggest new name at NY fashion week.

If you want to meet tech guys, you might catch them at Silicon Valley parties, which is how the Uber chief executive Travis Kalanick met his partner, Gabi Holzwarth, a violinist hired to play. Or they might be schmoozing clients downtown in a swanky Noe Valley club in San Francisco or a boring Union Square hotel in New York. In London you find them around Old Street, aka Silicon Roundabout, in bars, at hackathons, or start-up meet-ups. In the day they are coding at Google Campus or practising their pitching in a co-working space.

Some tech boys date the old-fashioned way: on Tinder. Airbnb founder Brian Chesky met his girlfriend of three years, Elissa Patel, through the app. When I interviewed Instagram co-founder Systrom he admitted that when he had been single he had signed up.

Dating agency Linx — presumably a play on operating system Linux — is dedicated to making Silicon Valley matches. Amy Andersen set it up in 2003 after moving to Palo Alto and being “flabbergasted” by the number of eligible men. She claims her clients are “extremely dynamic and successful individuals’’: tech founders, tech chief executives, financier founding partners of large institutions and “tons of entrepreneurs”.

Andersen says tech guys make “fabulous partners”. Romantic and chivalrous, they write love letters, plan dates, “even proposing on Snapchat!” If you want to marry a tech billionaire, she says, “you need to bring your A game.” Her clients look “for women who are equally, if not more, dynamic and interesting than he is!”

There are drawbacks to dating tech guys. Before Google buys your amore’s business, he will be living on *** Noodles waiting for the next round of funding — and workaholics are dull.

Kerr says Spiegel is “25, but he acts like he’s 50. He’s not out partying. He goes to work in Venice [Beach], he comes home. We don’t go out. We’d rather be at home and have dinner, go to bed early.” Which might suit Kerr, but is not my idea of a fun.

You had also better be prepared to share your life. When Priscilla Chan miscarried three times, Mark Zuckerberg wrote about it on Facebook, while Chesky used a romantic trip with his girlfriend to promote Airbnb - uploading a picture of her in bed, with a note saying “f* hotels”. Besides all of which is the notorious issue of Silicon Valley sexism.

It has a chief exec-bro culture that puts pick-up artist/comedian Dapper Laughs to shame. Ninety per cent of women working in the Valley say they have witnessed sexist behaviour, 60 per cent have experienced unwanted ****** advances at work, two thirds of them from their boss. Whitney Wolfe, a co-founder of Tinder, took Justin Mateen to court for ****** harassment. Her lawsuit against the company alleged that Mateen, her former partner, sent text messages calling her a “*****”.

Spiegel has tech bro form. He apologised after emails from his days at Stanford emerged: missives about stripper poles, getting black-out drunk, shooting lasers at “fat chicks”, and promising to “roll a blunt for whoever sees the most **** tonight (Sunday)”. After one fraternity Hawaiian luau party, he signed off emails “f*
bitchesgetleid”.

No wonder some women are not inspired to become Twags. Especially when you could be a tech billionaire yourself. Would you not rather be Sheryl Sandberg, chief operating officer of Facebook, than married to the boss?Read more at:http://www.marieaustralia.com/evening-dresses | www.marieaustralia.com/black-formal-dresses
Dona Mayoora Apr 2014
I see two people
so in love with each other
schmoozing numinous dialect,
only a purest of heart can fathom.

I see a kiss I hear it too,
I see eyes pinnacles
lips singing
and heart sinking in love.

Now, do not tell me
I’m seeing
a teaching of Venn diagram
on the display board,
and my explanation for
A intersection B is ludicrous!

Please do not tell me
I’m wrong.

It must be poetry
I'm seeing,
and I'm in love with it
more than anything else.

/*Orginal poem published in Mayalayam, translated by poet. */
Set A                             Set B
       _____________        ______________
     /                           \    /                             \
    /                             \  /                                \
   /                               \/                                  \
  /                                /\                                   \
|                              / A\                                  |
|                             |  n |                                  |
|                             |  B |                                 |
  \                             \  /                                  /
   \                             \/                                  /
    \                            /\                                /
     \ ____________/  \_______________/
John F McCullagh Jan 2012
When the Costa Concordia met with a reef,
it was certain some lives would be lost.
As she listed to starboard at eighty degrees,
Her Captain was first to get off.

Captain Schettino was schmoozing some blonde
when his ship began veering to shore.
He was unwilling to go down on his ship,-
The blonde? yes, but hold the encore.

It seems his chief waiter hails from the Isle,
the Isle with the ship eating reef.
They drew close to shore so he’d wave to his wife
an excursion that beggars belief.


The Coast guard responders where shocked and amazed;
They just couldn’t believe what they saw:
The Cruise liner Captain, paddling furiously,
beating women and children to shore.


Unlike Captain Smith, who stood at his post,
hearing “ Nearer my God to thee.”
The tune that Schettino will sing his bambinos
is “Nearer to Shore take me!”

He’ll spend time in jail, but the punishment pales
when compared to the scope of his sin
This sailor has fallen from grace with the sea
in his dreams let their screams never end.
A little Walt Whitman, a little Yukio Mishima  A comic poem with a hard underlay of anger.  The ship is the Costa Concordia
Francie Lynch Jan 2017
My girl has this boyfriend,
I simply just don't trust;
When she brings him by the house
He dotes and makes a fuss,
Schmoozing me relentlessly,
Something's in the works,
Just teetering on the cusp.
I've got my keen eyes sharpened,
He isn't fooling me,
I've known the likes of him before,
When I was young and free.
But that was someone else's daughter,
No relationship to me.
Yes, she was someone else's dauaghter,
And I was young and free.
Jonny Angel Dec 2013
This shady-bar
gave you more ***** than mixer,
cheap spirits & rot gut elixirs flowed,
some did lines of flake on the teak.
By eight, most dates were sloppy drunk,
buzzed, frazzled to the gills,
schmoozing the feline-walk,
talking ****, listening to
Floyd or Skynyrd.
It was a circus of sorts.

Back in those days
we called the cops 'fuzz',
they'd make their rounds
every couple of hours,
it made it look like they were
using tax-dollars wisely,
but we students knew better,
******* establishment.

The parking lot was a mix
of racetrack & boxing ring.
Cars jammed, roared,
cruised, honked
their way
through the fistfights.

Once, I saw two sweet-babes,
real rough-cats scratch and claw
themselves to near death.
The flowered-blouse
on one was ripped clean off,
one of her ***** hung out,
it looked bruised.
Blood streamed down
both of their faces,
ruining their mascara.

When I look back,
it's quite amazing
any of us survived
that freaking place.
Now come to think of it,
the last time
I saw my buddy Marcus
was outside that
nasty-drinking-establishment.
He was ******* amongst
the drunks & excrement.
I really wonder how he survived,
if he made it out of that city
in one piece,
alive.
David Nelson Jul 2010
Gambale

he comes from the land down under
a golden axe is in his hand
creating his centrifugal funk
all across his note drenched land

he completed his Italian job
sending everyone high fives
while schmoozing in the white room
high powered electric jives

Nunzia was by his side
he was his right hand man
except of course when making love
inside Lydia's love van

one of the great explorers
of this final wild frontier
like a crouching jaguar
keeping his mind so clear

the magical slinging weapon
faster than an arrow
the vibrations pierced through the skin
down inside the marrow

the thunder current crashing
this pathfinder with attitude
it was dawn over the Nullarbor
at crusing altitude

conducting naughty business
for all those who seek to hear
Kuranda is the place you'll find
his vision so perfectly clear

for his right of passages
a little charmer flying by
a present for the future
noteworker on a natural high

Gomer LePoet...
Vernon Waring Jul 2015
They preen, they brag, they cluck like hens
Favorite pastime? Schmoozing with friends

They lunch, they party, they go to the races
Wearing Versace and botoxed faces

They worship the sun, the moon, and the stars
And fill up their lives with mansions and cars

They spray tan each day to enhance their appeal
These housewives are everything...except real
Mateuš Conrad Jan 2017
i always wondered what
je ne sais pas might sound like in german...
   ah, **** it, let's put
this prosthetic limb together,
you never know, a siamese twin
might just pop out to steal the show...
ich      (je ne sais.... ah.. ha ha ha!
i was thinking of je ne sais qua...
ok ok... je ne sais quoi, quo-oh-e...
    e. e. cummings, come ere!
fiddle this violin to a fine tuning
that a deaf man might 'ear)...
and when language does indeed
as diabolical as this, you really should
stop using Poles as antibiotics to
German then Islamic fascism...
or kidding yourself that it's really
just a pardonable dream you're having...
so the prosthetic limb is coming...
  no point schmoozing me with
anything else... oh please please:
just dance the one legged tango a while
longer, i'm working on it... honest...
  look here... je, ich
   ne, nein, nein-stimme... no steam:
bog **** choo choo!
     meaner: neinschtimme -
   kinder dicht... why would i say kid-tight?
well... ballerinas begin their careers
at an early age... maybe that's why...
   otherwise? dunno...
let's feed this alcoholic cold-sweat -
finding the tutti-frutti hyper-delusion,
trying to say much more than the sound
of knocking on a door can ever provide...
that's one way to go about it, for sure...
and every part of me wants to be a serious
novelist, and be sober, and chop wood,
but then every other part of me
wants the poetry, and the drinking,
    and the scarcity of the adventure...
  to feel, having only slaughtered one pig,
that i was able to feed a billion ching chongs
in Beijing...
           china... ching chong...
a focus on the prefix ch, and the suffix cha cha cha?
no? different joke, on a different continent...
   i swear there was this guy from Bethlehem
who also made the same conclusion...
     can't remember his name...
you know, like: two fish three loafs of bread,
you can satiate a coliseum...
   ah! delirium! that's what alcoholics experience
sometimes... i love delirium...
      it just shows you, that if you're really
serious, you can experience many more facets of
alcoholism...
    hidden gems... and if you're really
hot-headed, have enough crassness about
to write about it...
    delirium... when other drugs have the after-effects
of paranoia, alcohol prescribes you delirium...
   in polish slang also called a delirka...
   but i'm not drinking purple denaturat /
ethynol substitute to chanel no. cinq...
    or should i say: çank?  yep, that ship sank
once it gave a smoochie to an ice-berg...
                                 hail Titanic! ave Titanus!
but i really was trying to find
je ne sais quoi (qua... ******* French,
excessive spelling and a gob that later
says much more throng... and that nasal
cavity needs fixing, seriously -
  but they write so beautifully,
and later slobber it with their local...
or should i say: locál! or perhaps: locállé?!
depends how you make do
with a syllable dissection) -
so how would it go? the je ne sais quoi in
Swabian?
   ich tun nicht was kennt...
              well... there are worse things than
mutilating a language...
      you could do worse, like mutilate a body...
   like in that film...
   with colonel sisi... the last king of scotland...
ah, what's his name? that guy
reminding me to never travel to uganda?
    yeah, had a wife, she cheated on him,
so he cut off her legs and arms, and sewed them
back onto her torso so she really ended up
with a confused pair of cranium hemispheres...
    and i'm the mad one...
just because i drink and have a vocabulary
equivalent of diarrhoea...
       but, so it goes...
   i'll never say the correct way of saying
je ne sais quoi in Swabian... because je ne sais quoi
is a complete package... like faux pas is
a complete package, like carpe diem is a complete
package... like coup d'état is a complete
package... like déjà vu is a complete package...
    there's absolutely no way to unravel it
or furthermore: translate it...
      a German once complimented my language
on the cushion-like effect of the word
  kurva...  *****... he loved the trilled -r-
and the waterfall of -va / wa wa... va to english speakers;
and so he did, relieve himself of stress
saying the word... and with such malice as
to no hurt anyone... and what's happening in
english? social-cool, prescriptive dyslexia...
        one step away from really, i mean
really being o.k. with watching **** and all
forms of perversity, and not o.k. with seeing
the correct spelling of the word ****...
      yes... mm... so ******* agonising seeing
a correct spelling...
                                   i better gouge my eyes
out having seen that....
or that case of ultra-proximity...
     kręt                        vs.      skręt...
kręt (a pathological liar, on a building site in
England usually called a Romanian) -
skręt? a rollie... a cigarette, you know the type,
you buy the tobacco, you buy the papers,
you buy the filter... and you actually roll
a cigarette... a variation of the word skew,
i'm sure... kręt does actually mean a meddler...
a swinddler...  and if you having been exposed
to the reality of a construction site in england...
you should see the ******* that's written
in the toilets...
     i really shouldn't have gone to university,
i wasted my degree in chemistry to merely drink...
**** good wine though, home made juice...
   hyper! hyper! hyper-ventilating on the silence
that's gathering around me...
  and if you ever spotted a lightning bolt
and never heard a thunder... you're bound
to be as itchy as me -
and by the way: the karma term for a German
in Poland is: schwab - or szwab...
              of shvab... it's getting dizzy... pfoo...
bilinguals can't be proud polymaths...
         i'm seeing alternative spelling in different
linguistic geo-political zones.
Daniel J Weller Jul 2018
Stern men line a path, to
Doors with plaques stating former occupants:
Chopin, Churchill, Napoleon III.

Overhead flags hang early evening shadows
From ornate golden arms
Across the first of nine or ten marble steps.

And up them walk folk with schmoozing faces
From cars with private drivers
And windows tinted black.

White limestone porticos are
Split by solid black adorned with gold,
And expensive gowns in violent colour.

And I notice the eyes
Fixed on my passing
As I slip into familiar grey.
St James' Place / King's Street, London, July 2018

As part of 'View from...', a collection of observational poetic experiments, whereby I allow myself five minutes to finish a poem regarding my surroundings at that time.
Ottar Nov 2013
the peace of the woods would feel empty with out the caw of the crows,
even this piece of the woods would be empty of sound, if trees were to fall in rows,
for there is no one here to hear, they are in their cars, their offices, their homes,
for there is none alone here to hear, they being social on their media, darlings,
scavenging a life or schmoozing but staying distant from the crows and starlings,
they leave a lot of junk behind
for us
it is not in the searching but finding
we fuss,
we feathered ones are eating what they do;
for one day we will be as smart as them or
they will be like us,
no home but a den, a nest, a pit in the ground that they share with one another,
being social without the media, once again,
like it was before



©DWE2013
David R May 2022
Horris:
When I was a lad I started a term
As junior clerk to a consultancy firm
But after four days, could work no more
So when no-one looked, I skipped to the door.

Chorus:
When no-one looked, he skipped to the door.

Horris:
I skipped that day with a step so free
That now I am Head of the Queen's Ministry!

Chorus:
He skipped that day with a step so free
That now he is Head of the Queen's Ministry!

Horris:
Through high connections of my family
I was given the post o' graduate trainee.
I wrote an article inventing a quote
And attributed it in earnest to a historian of note.

Chorus:
He attributed it in earnest to a historian of note.

Horris:
I lied so well, they rewarded me,
That now I am Head of the Queen's Ministry!

Chorus:
He lied so well, they rewarded he,
That now he is the Head of the Queen's Ministry!

Horris:
In being such a *** I made such a name
That a leading writer I soon became;
I wore scuffed collars and a hand-me-down suit
For the pass examination at the Institute.

Chorus:
For the pass examination at the Institute.

Horris:
That pass examination did so well for me,
That now I'm Prime Minister of this country!

Chorus:
That pass examination did so well for he,
That now he is Prime Minister of this country!

Horris:
Of journalism I acquired such a grip
That they took me into the partnership.
I used expletives when i got angry
And was accused of racism 'n bigotry

Chorus:
He was accused of racism 'n bigotry.

Horris:
But that kind of tree so suited me,
That now I am the Head of the Queen's Ministry!

Chorus:
That kind of tree so suited he,
That now he's the Head of the Queen's Ministry!

Horris:
I grew so rich that I was bent
to become a member of Parliament.
I was always schmoozing for my party's call,
And never thought of thinking for myself at all.

Chorus:
He never thought of thinking for himself at all.

Horris:
I thought so little, they rewarded me
By making me Head of the Conservative Party!

Chorus:
He thought so little, they rewarded he
By making him Head of the Conservative Party!

Horris:
Now young and old, whoever you may be,
If you want to rise to the top of the tree,
[If your soul isn't fettered to keeping to the facts,
'N you're prepared to engage in questionable acts,]
If you've got few morals and can always keep your cool.
Be careful to be guided by this golden rule.

Chorus:
Be careful to be guided by this golden rule.

Horris:
Just ride roughshod over all 'n sundry,
And you all may be Heads of the Queen's Tories!

Chorus:
Just ride roughshod over all 'n sundry,
And you all may be Heads of the Queen's Tories!
Based on 'When I Was A Lad' of HMS Pinafore by Gilbert And Sullivan
BLT's Merriam-Webster Word of The Day Challenge
#schmooze
Predicated on his paying obese sense
to Ronald McDonald patron saint
buzzfeeding his pie hole
courtesy "two Big Macs, Fillet-O-Fish
and a chocolate malted,"
he hungrily nabbed the ⁦Tuesday,
November 5, 2024⁩ election
ofttimes series of unfortunate events
found him holed up
in his Mar-a-Lago Donjon club.

After demise of western civilization
linkedin to implementation of Project 2025
courtesy the forty seventh president
of these currently fragmented United States,
left a legacy that rivaled
the fall of the Roman Empire.

Nary a trace of North American grandeur
discerned amidst the bombed out
rubble strewn landscape
after the second Civil War,
triggered global mortal kombat,
which far eclipsed
the first and second world wars
in death and destruction
(courtesy Beatle browed
foo fighting, gun toting rebel rousers,
who fomented revolution)
rent asunder many a complex edifice
symbolizing once cherished
life, liberty and pursuit of happiness.

Feeble hot pockets of resistance
constituting battle weary
tried and true troopers for democracy
outmatched by phalanx
of heavily armed local militia.

No matter wickedly wrought shenanigans
essentially widely accessible
Artificial Intelligence tools
allowed, enabled, and provided users
to synthesize audio in anyone’s voice,
generated photo-realistic images of anybody
doing nearly anything, and power
social media bot accounts
with near human-level conversational abilities —
and rendered on a vast scale and with a reduced
or negligible investment of money and time.

Due to the popularization of chatbots
and the search engines
they quickly became absorbed into,
also disallowed, disabled the first election season
in which large numbers of voters
routinely consumed information
that is not just curated
by Artificial Intelligence
but produced by Artificial Intelligence.

Blatantly unconcerned
about the populace at large,
nor any promises made
while he angrily stormed
across the country
stumping as dictator of the free world
after riling the madding crowds
enthusiastically populating campaign trail,
most of his waking hours spent
schmoozing with other de facto
autocrats while divvying up the *****
of annexed, subjected vassal states,
(a vast swath of territory
mainly comprising the former Soviet
breakaway Baltic states,
and about a dozen republics
under the sway of Russia),
violently yanked back in the fold
of Vladimir Vladimirovich Putin.

Within this brave new webbed, wide world
each man, woman and child
needs to fend for him/herself,
and those people flush
with ample disposable income
will pay (thru the nose,
hence the bigger the schnoz the better)
for security details unless he/she
presents an intimidating mean mien,
possesses black belt
with at least one martial arts,
or a powerful lucky charm
to ward off threatening hooligans.

Essentially lawlessness will run amuck
imagined in one guise as
the phantom of the opera nemesis
multi pronged ferocious buck
accompanied by an outsize
chicken legged stricken man,
who doth bawk and cluck
also enlisting cannibalistic
commander in chief wannabe
tricked out as Donald Duck.

Even prior to any political fracas,
I decry being dependent
(and at the mercy)
to purchase commodities
within consumerist society hierarchy,
yet envy people who live off the grid
fostering an ecologically friendly lifestyle,
versus being linkedin to Market capitalism
(an economic system where private individuals
and corporations own the means of production,

and the government has a limited role)
yet yours truly never aggressively learned how
to become self sufficient ala **** Proenneke
(him of "Alone in the Wilderness" fame -
when he retired at age 50 in 1967  
decided to build his own cabin in the wilderness
at the base of the Aleutian Peninsula,
in what is now Lake Clark National Park)
and certainly never belonged
to an Amish community,

never surviving with some degree
of independent comfort,
cuz the sole son of Harriet and Boyce Harris
overstayed his welcome
by living social under the same roof
as said mother and father,
who ofttimes delivered hollow ultimatums
to shape up or ship out –
meaning intolerance exhibited
toward their singular male offspring,

who struggled securing
and maintaining gainful employment),
hence fantasies throve
somehow magically acquiring
carpentry and farming skills
sturdy accommodations house families
where every timber secured by strong hands,
and stitch of clothing sewn courtesy adroit woman
traditional gender stereotypical roles obeyed
as if ordained by Biblical
credo, fiat, ideology, et cetera.

— The End —