Tuesday, February 28, 2006

Personally, I like old dogs

from Mallory's Camera - How Much Is That Doggie In the Porta-Cage Plus the True Face of Love:
"Just because I was an abandoned child myself half a century ago, does not mean I can alleviate the mute suffering of every innocent victim in the world now. But I looked at those poor, helpless doggies with their ridiculous collars, sitting so hopefully in their porta-cages, wagging their tails at the sound of every human voice, and I wanted to die. Two in particular – a Bernese Mountain dog/springer mix and his cage mate, another springer mix, both eleven years old. The Bernese Mountain mix was too depressed to even way his tail and I thought: nobody will ever adopt these dogs, they're too old. And then I thought: what kind of person abandons a dog after eleven years?"

Buddy Lee was eight when I adopted him from the animal shelter, where he had been abandoned with a dislocated hip after an accident. They were going to put him down, but I paid to have him fixed up.

He was a wonderful dog, and we were practically inseperable. He was better behaved and more personable than the neurotic, needy Haley. Haley was also abandoned, and came to me through a friend of a friend. She's about one-and-a-half.

I'm too old and tired myself to parent an adolescent dog. If I was picking and choosing, instead of letting the watercourse way bring animals to me, I would pick an older dog.

Buddy died of pancreatitis a couple of years later. I was grateful to have been able to give him a few more years of life. He deserved them.

The Tao and I

(I originally wrote this on November 27, but saved it unpublished until now.)

I'm not going to say much about the Tao.

"Those who know but little speak the most," Lao-Tzu wrote. "The sage says little, if anything at all."

After I wrote the preceding three sentences, I wrote three more paragraphs, and was working my way toward four and five, and maybe six –– who knows? They were long paragraphs, too. I am still all too happy to share my limited knowledge when I ought to simply say nothing.

If you're interested in the Tao, a good place to start is The Taoist Classics translated by Thomas Cleary. It contains the Tao Te Ching as well as four other major works of Taoist philosophy. You can get it pretty much anywhere, I think. I bought my copy at Borders.

That's it. I'm not sayin' anything more. I'm on my way to sagehood, so I'm staying silent.

Nothing.

Not a peep.

Not from me, nossir. I got nothin' else to say.

Dog II

But I'm not dead yet. I just feel like it. Had to get up again at 4 a.m. to frisbee the dog so she would calm down. That's twice tonight.

She sleeps all day while I'm at work, then I have to entertain her all night. I can't leave her outdoors because she can jump the fence.

I think she needs a better home, like maybe on an acreage or something where the can have more room to roam and play.

Dog

This stuff of rolling out of bed in the middle of the night to entertain the dog is going to kill me.

Monday, February 27, 2006

No Santa Claus, either

Did you know there's actually no such thing as nymphomania?

Real big type

Have you noticed the fonts on this page are kind of big?

That's because I'm old and my eyes aren't so good anymore, and -- because I'm an artist and design person -- I have my own monitors set at 1600x1200.

Most web browsers will let you shrink the type, if you really hate the big font.

The real deal

The English-language version of the Corel Painter IX.5 update is available. I installed it at work, and am downloading now at home. Most of the new features look like things I won't need. They appear to be mostly interface changes that move some deeply nested features closer to the top of the UI.

Lulu the Cat Hater

The previous post put me in mind of Lulu the Cat Hater.

I met Lulu (short for 'Guadalupe') when I was in Texas. We seemed to hit it off right away. But she was a sales rep for one of our vendors, so she was 'off limits.' But then she was abruptly laid off, and I gave her a call at home.

"How did you get my home number?" she asked. "I was a reporter for 25 years," I replied. Actually it was the result of intense Googling and some educated guesswork, but I had picked the right number.

We met at a sports bar near the AMC Gargantuplex at Huebner Oaks. I had a beer, she had iced tea. We talked about work and our houses and stuff – usual first date chitchat. I mentioned my two cats in passing, and she suddenly interrupted me to blurt out, "I don't like cats."

It wasn't just that she said it – she interrupted me to say it.

I don't remember much about the movie except it starred Kevin Bacon and there was a girl's body buried in the wall of a house or something. Great date movie.

We headed back to our cars, with her whipping out her DayRunner to see where she had to be next. She had sort of slotted me in between a sales rep meeting and a trip to the spa, and she was almost sprinting to her car to get to her next appointment.

I never called her again. I'm usually open to a second date just in case the first one was an odd misfire, but not if someone goes out of their way to demonstrate cat hostility.

She told a mutual friend she wanted me to call her, but I never did.

Who knows? Maybe if I had placed that second call, we'd be together today, living in San Antonio. She would have learned to love cats, and we would sit on the porch together, hand in hand, covered in cat hair, watching the sun set.

Or maybe not.

I Googled her name just now, but I couldn't find anything current on her.

Back in the No Drama Zone

No Drama ZoneRJ asked if she was the cause of the 'No Drama Zone' declaration.

No, you aren't.

A lot of it has to do with work, about which I choose not to write.

And a lot of it has to do with life in general. Person A came to me and warned me to watch out for B because B is crazy. Person B warned me to watch out for C because C is a sociopath. I haven't heard from C, yet, so I don't know what to think of D – or even who will be D. There's some D in our midst who is a serial killer or kleptomaniac or cat hater and I don't even know who it is, because C has been holding out on me.

I know we are all trying to do the best we can with what we have to work with (hum "What the world needs now, is love, sweet love" to yourself here). I know – because I'm one of them – that people with crazy issues do as much damage to themselves as they do to everyone else, and maybe nore.

I prefer compassion to snarkiness, but I know the default setting for humans in groups is snarkiness.

Two monks got into an argument about some pointless how-many-boddhisatvas-can-dance-on-the-head-of-a-pin issue and asked the Buddha to settle it. The Buddha listened to their positions, then got up, and without saying anything, walked off into the woods.

He stayed gone three weeks.

My own take is that he was not pondering the difficult issue placed before him. He was just totally fed up and needed to get away for awhile. If the Buddha can get contact overload, then certainly so can I.

Wouldn't it be great if we could all be sources of understanding, instead of sources of bleak humor? If we could all see the good in others, instead of the bad? But even the Buddha couldn't do that 24/7. I would be happy to do it maybe 3/2, but even that seems to elude me.

Sunday, February 26, 2006

One thing about depression...

...it's reliable. You never know when your firnedfs will let you down, or even your enemies.

But depression?

Always there.

(Yes, that word up there is supposed to be 'friends,' and my fingers got ahead of my brain or something. But I kind of like 'firnedfs.' It's like found art.)

Ennui

noun

a feeling of listlessness and dissatisfaction arising from a lack of occupation or excitement.


Dude... I am so there!

I guess I should go do something.

I slept in this morning. I've done some housework and need to do some more.

But I think depression is returning. I don't feel like doing anything. Don't want to be around anyone. I could go to Borders for awhile, I guess –– that usually lifts my spirits some.

I'm just tired. Of everything.

No drama zone

I am declaring a "No Drama Zone' existing 15 feet in all directions from my person. No drama is allowed in this area.

Shocking rumor? Step back, please.

Amazing conspiracy theory? Maybe someone over there can help you.

Drama is just another tool we use to reinforce our sense of self.

"It must be important... look how shocked I am!"

"I must be important... look how shocked I am!"

I'm as guilty as anyone else. But I recognize I have a problem and I'm trying to stop.

I've heard there's no drama at all in Nicoma Park. That's why I'm thinking of moving there. It's like living in Tibet.

Saturday, February 25, 2006

The 156th post

Who woulda guessed?

But if there is no "I"...

...who would be living in Nicoma Park?

Who lives there now?

Friday, February 24, 2006

She Who Does Not Sleep

Dog.

I came home tired – dog tired, if you'll forgive the expression. I crashed on the futon, pulled the blanket over my head and tried to sleep.

The dog immediately went apeshit. Climbing on me, pacing around the house, growling and snarfing and belching and all that other dog noise she makes.

I finally got up. She stopped. Now she's resting quietly at my feet.

She just doesn't want me to sleep! Aieeee!

Dog.

I'm tired.

So I stayed in tonight. Humanity can get along without me for an evening.

Or a weekend.

Or the rest of my life.

I should move to Choctaw.

Or Nicoma Park. That's practically like being in Tibet.

Japanese Painter IX.5

Well, I do enjoy a technical challenge from time to time, and making the Japanese version of Painter IX.5 run on my English version Mac has been one.

The menus are in Japanese (or would be if I had kanji menus running; as it is, they're just in Unicode jibberish), so I'm still not sure what's going on. There are two new items in the toolbar: an eraser which seems less versatile than the regular eraser brush, and some other tool I don't understand.

There's a new kind of art pen brush in the Brushes folder. I can't tell how these are different from what we already have.

There is nothing noticeably faster about IX.5, at least in the Mac version.

Do you care?

Thursday, February 23, 2006

Okay

...that was not the smartest thing I've ever done.

I must be 性交 狂気 to do this

I've mentioned what a fan I am of Corel's Painter.

For some reason, they've released a new 9.5 version preview, but only in Japan.

Thanks to Babelfish and a look at some web page source code (HTML code must needs be written in English, no matter where you are) I was able to figure out how to download it, and I've got it running right now. I can't read the menus, of course, but I've been using Painter so long I can pretty much find my way around from memory.

My technique

Sometimes I'll be sitting somewhere minding my own business and some very attractive woman will come up and start to make small talk with me.

I have found that if I sit absolutely still, frozen in terror, not moving at all, eventually they'll go away.

I read somewhere that raccoons do this, and it really works.

Wednesday, February 22, 2006

Tuesday, February 21, 2006

Shoes addendum

I forgot to mention the Bjorn Borg Spectators! I will wear these shoes forever because they'll always be fashionably outré.

Of course, the truly egoless wouldn't care about shoes.

If you see some dude walking down the street in a 15-year-old old pair of Bjorn Borg Spectators, you can probably safely assume he's not a Taoist sage. Taoist sages wear Hush Puppies.

Shoes

I have only about twenty pairs of shoes, some dating back to the eighties. But I found that I was spending almost all my time in my Birkenstock mules.

I decided to buy a couple of pair of Reebok 'shift shoes' to wear to work: very plain-looking black walking oxfords which, while not fashionable, at least didn't look as out of place in the office as my Birks or my late 80s white Reeboks.

While I was at the shoe store, I splurged on my first pair of Doc Martens. I guess these are not 'hot' anymore, but holy cow, are they comfortable. I went back and bought a second pair of slip ons. They are kind of clunky-looking, but after two days' wear, they're as comfortable as house shoes. I love 'em.

Then, last night, I bought a third pair. And since there was a two-for-one sale going on, I grabbed a pair of something called Streetcars.

So now I have six pairs of current shoes, plus the five pair of Mephistos I picked up in San Antonio five years ago for practically nothing. Plus miscellaneous Bass wingtips, Cole-Haan and Alden captoes, and various other 80's era shoes which I will probably never wear again.

Cat Inventory

So how many cats do I have, anyway?

Depends on how you define have.

Beasley is the senior pet. Had him for eight years. He's mostly indoors although he goes out more in the summer.

I've had Smudge about six years. I got her in San Antonio. She's a full-time indoor cat. Doesn't like other cats. Tolerates the dog and me.

Roscoe, who is currently AWOL, was hanging around the house when I moved in. He actually lives somewhere else, and that's where I assume he is now. I haven't seen him in a couple of weeks.

Lark shows up in the spring, drops a litter of kittens under my porch, then wanders off again. She's done that every summer for four years. I'll see her again in late March or early April.

Baxter and Small Fry are from the first litter she left here. They are both mostly outside cats.

Prajna and Satori are from the third litter. Prajna is a mostly indoor cat; Satori is mostly outdoor.

Midget is from the fourth litter. Most of Lark's offspring are unusually small, but Midget is smallest of them all.

Then there are the cats who don't live here but occasionally drop by. Van Gogh is an incredibly decrepit black Persian with one ear. Tim Russert is a grey tabby with a huge head and no neck who was abandoned by tenants who moved out of a house across the street. Gimp is another beat-up old Persian who walks with a limp in one hind leg. Most of these cats won't let me near them, but they will mooch food if I leave it on the front porch. They live off the kindness of myself and other neighborhood cat people.

Frankie belongs to my next door neighbor, but I think he's pretty much quit taking care of him and sent him over to eat at my place.

Given the mix of schedules and lifestyles, it's impossible to count actual cats. Instead, I measure FTCE's (Full Time Cat Equivalencies) and right now, I figure them at about eight.

No, make that seven.

The Ghost Who Walks

"The Vice President is like the phantom. You know, we hear the creak of the door as he passes, but we don't really know what he's up to."

– Maureen Dowd on 'Meet the Press' Sunday

Egolessness part 2

It occurred to me I should explain why I'm even thinking about egolessness.

I don't have a huge ego. It's microscopic by the standards of my former TV news career. (You know those billboards they sometimes put up on the interstate showing the friendly smiling Super Action News Command Team at 10? Look very carefully for the fine print where it says "Heads shown actual size.")

But I have begun to see ego as being like the clutter in my car or the junk piled up in the back bedroom. I'd be better off if I could get rid of it, but it's still lying around, taking up space.

Dog

Just wrapped up another middle-of-the-night disc session with She Who Does Not Sleep.

Small Fry the cat came wandering up so I let her in.

Monday, February 20, 2006

Egolessness

I've wanted to write something about egolessness.

Egolessness is not the opposite of egotism. If we consider humility as the opposite of egotism, then egolessness is something that's standing off to one side beyond the boundaries of either.

Self aggrandizement is clearly not egolessness, but neither is self deprecation. Donald Trump and Woody Allen are equal distances from it.

I strive to be egoless, and right there is a problem. I strive to be egoless? Can't happen. To strive is to fail.

Wen-tzu talked about the Taoist sages who did nothing to draw attention to themselves. That included not obviously seeking to avoid attention. Imagine that there are sages among us today, yet we don't see them because they blend in so well as to be invisible. Maybe you passed one on the street today and didn't notice him. Maybe you saw her just moments ago and you've already forgotten her.

If you made a list of all the people you know, public and private, who might be sages, you'd miss the ones who actually are. They wouldn't occur to you.

Monday early AM

Two dudes trudging down my street – by no means a major thoroughfare – at 2 a.m. One is carrying a small plastic bag. Drizzle is falling and freezing to the crust of ice and snow that already covers everything. I'm wondering, as a homeowner and grumpy middle-aged guy, what these two guys are doing walking down my street at 2 a.m.

The dog is galloping across the yard and leaving no footprints whatsoever in the hard crust on the ground. I realize the morning drive is going to be oh-so-special in a few hours.

Sunday, February 19, 2006

More Sunday

I did get out a little bit, but I'm still suffering from cabin fever after being mostly shut in.

I went to Westlake Hardware and bought two flashlights, among other things. I don't know what the deal is with me and flashlights. There must be twenty of them around the house by now, but I can never find one when I need it.

Thought about going to Target, but couldn't work up enough enthusiasm to actually go. The Target nearest me was expanded into a SuperTarget last year. I was looking forward to it when it was under construction, but once it was done, the place felt a lot more impersonal. That's still where I go for household sundries, but I don't look forward to wandering around like I used to.

Stuck in the house most of the day, I devoted most of my time to eating, sleeping and sitting.

I thought the weather was too bleak to go all the way to 31st and Classen for the Red Cup. But I somehow made it to 23rd & Penn for two McDonald's sausage biscuits, a little west of that same intersection for four Taco Bueno tacos, 36th and May for two bowls of chili from Wendy's, and finally to 40th and Penn for a steak sandwich and chocolate shake from Braum's.

Being prone to depression under good circumstances, 48 hours of crappy weather can really pull me down. It wouldn't be as bad if the sun appeared for at least a while, but this drawn out icy overcast is a real downer.

Did a smidgen of laundry.

I napped for about an hour as well.

This sucks

Cloudy and 18 degrees.

Just me, the dog and some cats.

No Red Cup today

Or much of anything else, it looks like. There's freezing rain and sleet falling right now, and there's a narrow band of clouds extending from the city all the way southwest into Texas. This could continue all day.

Again, I worry about power lines and tree branches.

Saturday, February 18, 2006

Tulsa, 1981

The Interurban Bar and Grill, Tulsa, 1981.

The news department would decamp to the good side of downtown after the 6, slide some tables together and drink and eat and bitch until 10 or so.

Hardly anyone at the table was from Tulsa originally. I was from OKC, Patrice from Ames, Anita from somewhere in Missouri and Forrest from Wichita. TV news is basically a profession for drifters and rootless people, and no place for anyone who wants a life. Reporters and photographers and producers move from station to station, town to town, two years here, eighteen months there. Working their way up, market to market, hoping for the network or the top ten.

Gerry Rafferty's "Baker Street" was one of the songs on the Interurban's cassette deck.

Winding your way down on Baker Street
Lite in your head, and dead on your feet
Well another crazy day, you drink the night away
And forget about everything

It was easy to adopt that as an anthem. We weren't just listening to it – we were living every line of it.

This city desert makes you feel so cold
It's got so many people but it's got no soul
And it's taken you so long to find out you were wrong
When you thought it held everything

You used to think that it was so easy
You used to say that it was so easy
But you're tryin, you're tryin now
Another year and then you'd be happy
Just one more year and then you'd be happy
But you're cryin', you're cryin now

Forget about "Dirty Laundry." This is the song about the life of a TV reporter.

Way down the street there's a light in his place
You open the door, he's got that look on his face
And he asks you where you've been, you tell him who you've seen
And you talk about anything

He's got this dream about buying some land
He's gonna give up the booze and the one night stands
And then he'll settle down, to a quiet little town
And forget about everything

Forrest and I had this idea that someday we'd find someplace where we could just sit in the evening and talk. Just hold forth. We finally decided places like that just didn't exist anymore.

But you know he'll always keep moving
You know he's never gonna stop moving
Cause he's rolling, he's the rolling stone
And when you wake up it's a new morning
The sun is shining, it's a new morning
And you're going, you're going home

Twenty-five years later, Patrice is in Los Angeles, still doing TV news. Forrest is in Kansas, practicing law. I don't know what became of Anita, to whom I sent many emotionally overwrought letters, but I saw her name listed on a web site among a group of speakers at a 'Prayer Prophecy Conference' in the Missouri Ozarks. (Nothing will put out a long-carried torch faster than that, lemme tell ya.)

And tonight, I'm sitting at the Red Cup. Holly is playing "Misty." Rena is reading a book in the next room. John Long and Lesley are talking next to me. Mikey is downloading a Linux distro onto his laptop. Brian is stretching his legs and watching.

I'm home.

How we got Zen

Stop me if you heard this before:

A Buddhist monk and a Taoist master bump into each other at a street corner.

"Hey!" the Buddhist exclaimed. "You got the Tao into my Buddhism!"

"And you got the Buddha into my Tao!" the Taoist master replied.

And there's yer Zen, right there.

What it is

What is is, right here.

Good afternoon

It's now a toasty 18 degrees. I think I'll put on some bermuda shorts and work in the yard.

Good morning

It's 12 freakin' degrees outside. I'm ready for spring. Better yet, skip spring and go to summer. I hate tornado season.

Friday, February 17, 2006

More clear thinking

Have I mentioned I don't like drama?

If I did, it was an oversimplification. Because I do like drama, but I don't like the post-drama hangover. So, I try to avoid drama. I do a pretty good job of it, and always regret it later when I give in to the temptation and let myself get sucked in.

What's going on? Don't know.

What's my role in it? Don't understand.

And it's okay to not know.

Let me just say this: my life, by most people's standards, is dull, boring and ordinary. If you knew how plain and uneventful my life is, you'd be amazed that I even stay awake. There are obviously some things I don't like about it, especially when the black dog* is hanging around. But by and large, this is the way I want it, and I think most people would be happier if their interesting and dramatic lives were more like mine.

The sky is blue. The grass is green. The dog barks. The bird sings.

Further, your affiant sayeth not.


*Good God, that's an ugly web page.

This weather sucks

I left a half-hour before closing tonight because of the weather. I'm glad I did. I had to stop a few times and scrape the windshield because my heater was malfunctioning. The streets were fine when I left and starting to ice over when I reached home two miles away.

I hope we don't lose power lines tonight. My block was without electricity for eleven days after the 2002 ice storm.

Now I'm thinking clearly

I've more-or-less emerged from my Valentine's Day funk.

Did you know the idea of romantic love is relatively recent? So recent, in fact, that it hasn't even gotten to me yet. (Ba-dump. I'll be here all week.)

While the stories recounted in previous days are all true, they also represent a sample of the stories and scripts I've replayed in my mind dozens and even hundreds of times in previous years. I would go over and over the things that happened to me, thinking that maybe, on the forty-third or sixty-fourth or one hundred and tenth retelling, I would see some new angle, discover some new truth or see it in a different way.

It was akin to watching the same old Star Trek episode again because maybe this time, the new guy in the red shirt would survive his injuries and go on to have a successful and brilliant career in StarFleet.

Somewhere along the line I came across the concept of not thinking/not knowing. This is a Buddhist concept and may go back even further than that. Zen Master Seung Sahn described it this way:

"You don't understand where your true self is coming from. Don't know. This don't-know mind is very important. What am I? Don't know. Where are you coming from? Don't understand. An eminent teacher said: 'Coming empty-handed, going empty-handed, that is human. When you are born, where do you come from? When you die, where do you go?' Don't understand. Don't know. 'Life is like a floating cloud which appears; death is like a floating cloud which disappears. The floating cloud originally does not exist. Coming, going, death and life are also like that. But there is one thing which always remains clear and pure, not dependent on life and death. What is the one pure and clear thing?'

"Your body is like your car. This one thing controls your body; it is not dependent on life and death. Your body has life and death, but your true self, this one thing, is not dependent on life and death. But what is the one clear and pure thing? You don't understand? So, this don't understand, don't-know mind is very important. What am I? Don't know. Okay?"

This, like a lot of other Zen concepts, didn't make a lot of sense to me at first. Some of them still don't. But sometimes, at least for me, Zen works like this: you see or hear the thought or concept, and it doesn't make sense. You struggle with it. You think about it. You've got a tight grip on it. You twist it and turn it like a Rubik's cube. It still doesn't make sense. Finally, you give up and let go of it. And just as you're relaxing your grip and holding the Rubik's cube loosely in your hand instead of trapping it in a white-knuckled grip... a-ha. Suddenly all the colors line up.

So although I can't exactly explain what Seung Shan was saying, I think I get it.

So now, let's take that 'don't-know mind' concept and apply it to the issue at hand. I don't know how to 'fix' my problem with romance. But I don't have to know. I don't need to know. It's okay to not know.

"But doesn't that mean you'll never figure it out?"

Does it? I don't know.

"Are you going to spend the rest of your life alone?"

Am I? I don't know.

And it's okay to not know.

"Well, dude, maybe it's okay for you to not know, but if it were me, I think I'd be trying to figure that thing out."

I tried for years. I know slightly more now than I did when I started. Not as much, probably, as any of the people who have written the two dozen or so relationship books (Mars and Venus Try to Get Their Shit Together) you can find in any B&N or Borders.

It's okay to not know.

More about Zen and don't-know mind

Kwan Um Zen

Thursday, February 16, 2006

Up again with dog who never sleeps

I've been out disc-throwing with She Who Does Not Sleep. At least the weather's nice.

More Valentine's Day aftermath

Now I'm really thinking clearly.

No, seriously. I am.

I was in my mid-forties before I found out that sometimes, although a woman might not be interested in me, she would be interested in me being interested in her.

My therapist explained that to me, after I told him yet another sad story of heartbreak and confusion and mixed messages. I wasn't quite sure I understood what he was saying. These women wanted attention from me, even though they actually didn't especially like me?

"Okay," I said. "I understand that some women (some men, too, I suppose) just have to have the attention. I know women who flirt with every guy they meet. But these women don't. It's just me. Why would they do that if they aren't really interested?"

Now, this has been about eight years ago. And I still remember it like it was a week ago Tuesday. He looked at me and said in a perfectly dead-pan voice:

"Because you're gullible and naive. You're an easy mark."

That was like Isaac Newton seeing the apple fall from the tree. Except Newton figured out gravity for himself. He didn't have to go to his therapist and say, "Well, things have been pretty good this week. I feel like I've stayed pretty centered, and I've stayed on my antidepressant. Except... except... there was this apple, and I know this sounds really weird and all, but it fell from a tree? And it just like totally freaked me out. Like my inner child was really confused by this, and I've been trying to get in touch with it all week. Maybe an apple hit me on the head when I just a baby or something, and I've suppressed the memory. So, anyway, there's that, plus I'm still trying to figure out if I can make some kind of sugary snack out of all these figs."

Armed with my newfound awareness, I decided I would never have my chain yanked again. If I went to a bar or a party and some woman made eye contact and smiled, I just gave her my knowing 'I'm on to your evil blood-sucking ego-crushing spirit-killing shit' smile and turned away. And the nicer they were to me, the higher a wall I built.

I still do that.

I realize I may not be Nick (Woot! Has broken up with Miss Kentucky! More shit put in my brain!), but that doesn't mean I'm obliged to be a crash test dummy for anyone else.

Except, of course, I wonder sometimes if I have pushed away someone who genuinely liked me and was interested in me.

Like those times Isacc Newton saw the apple break loose from the tree and float in mid-air.

Wednesday, February 15, 2006

"The cats shit on your bed – what did I do that was so wrong?"

I think now that I probably wasn't thinking clearly when I posted all that stuff yesterday. I know I said I was thinking clearly, and yesterday, I thought I was thinking clearly. But now I'm not clear on that.

I dated a woman for a while who seemed to genuinely care about me. She was smart, cute, fun to be with, in 'way better shape than me even though she was a few years older, and we seemed to have a lot in common.

Then a few things went wrong. I won't go into all of them.

But one night we went to a party for a friend of hers. I had met the guy, but I barely knew him. Seemed like an okay guy. But at this party, a lot of his other friends were there, and they were wheeler-dealers. Big stuff in the pipeline. Leveraging financing packages out of Dallas. Closing that deal on the west side corridor sometime in the third quarter.

They were wearing slacks or ironed jeans. Soft flowing silk shirts. Italian loafers with paper-thin soles. Lots of Macanudos being passed around.

I was dressed like me. I think I had on socks that night. When we got there, I realized everyone else was pretty dressy, so I grabbed a cotton blazer off the floor of the minivan, shook the wrinkles out as best I could and put it on. I brushed off all the cat hair I could see by the street light.

Later, after the party, she told me she was a little disconcerted by my appearance. The cat hair had already been an issue, and my party attire just made it worse.

Well, hell, even I was disconcerted by my appearance – it was like, "which one of these does not belong with the others?" But I couldn't admit it to her or even myself at the time.

So I got pissed off. Pissed off at myself, pissed off at her and just pissed off.

And I broke up with her.

By email.

"If you want someone who dresses like your friends," I wrote, "you should date someone who already does, instead of trying to remodel me to match them." I don't remember what else I wrote, but I told her good-bye.

She seemed genuinely shocked and hurt.

"The cats shit on your bed and you forgive that," she replied. "What did I do that was so wrong?"

That was such a great response that I had to give it another chance. But I couldn't see it through. We broke up but remained friends for a long time afterward.

I don't know. Maybe I did the right thing and maybe I didn't. Was I thinking clearly when I broke up with her? Am I thinking clearly now?

Tuesday, February 14, 2006

Valentine's Day 2006

I am thinking clearly about love and affection for the first time in a while. At least, I think I'm thinking clearly.

Maybe there is no such thing as clear thinking on this subject.

I'm alone, as I usually have been on Valentine's Days past. And yet not alone, since in the more important sense, I'm as connected to the world sitting at my computer as I would be sitting at Lake Hefner watching the sunset with someone with whom I enjoyed being.

In these times when I am neither infatuated with someone nor recovering from rejection by someone, I have a difficult time seeing the value of love – at least that kind of love. Is it okay to ask 'What's the point?' – not as a setup for someone to burst into a Burt Bacharach/Hal David tune, but just as a question to be asked and answered on its own merit?

Oh, man, I shouldn't do this, but...

I once wrote this sort of free verse something-or-other to someone with whom I was very taken.

When you smile, when you laugh,
I am lost in a field of wildflowers and brilliant light.
I stretch out my arms and fall back
And let the tall grass and flowers catch me.

Light in your eyes, corners of your mouth,
tip of your nose, small of your back,
I have had the perfect week.


And she wrote back:

good morning Michael, this is beautiful...........

but, i'm wondering, are you sleeping enough?


And I saved that email, just as a reminder. A reality check.

That message would have been touching had it come from a lot of other men. Coming from me? Well, imagine you're watching a Rod McKuen biopic on Lifetime, and they've cast the Pillsbury Doughboy as McKuen.

And if I had the patience to go fetch them from the discarded hard drives piled up in my back bedroom, I could find other messages to other women, and similar responses from the recipients.

(Whatever else you may think about love, that Cyrano de Bergerac stuff is total crap – at least give me that. What really happened was that the winsome Roxanne discovered who wrote the letters, and then married Kevin Federline, anyway.)

I changed the ending of this. Right here, I had written something else. But it wasn't what I really should have written, and I don't know what I really should have written. After all these years, this stuff is still too complicated for me. I always manage to say the wrong thing or do the wrong thing – things that might be right for someone else, but don't come out right for me.

The safe, sane ground seems to be a place I'm occupying by myself.

Monday, February 13, 2006

Why do I have this urge to shit in a potted plant and then go to sleep?

I wore socks all day. I still have them on now.

I was sitting this afternoon, and my smallest cat, Midget, was batting a toy around the house. I couldn't see her but I could hear her thumping around and the bells in the ball jingling as she swatted it back and forth.

At first it annoyed me, but then I decided to try going with it. No "I", no kitten –– all one thing. All the same blanket, if you saw "I Heart Huckabee's."

And just I was settling into that, Midget and the toy appeared in my field of vision, narrowed down to about two feet by the blanket I was sitting under. She just sort of zipped by, from left to right, there and gone in a flash.

But just for that second, I was there with her, completely sharing the experience and excitement of swatting that ball around.

Saturday, February 11, 2006

Cold feet

It's 30 degrees outside. I'm sitting in the Red Cup and, as usual, not wearing socks. And dammit, my feet are cold. So are my ankles. This is so distracting it is ruining my enjoyment of an otherwise acceptable evening. My right big toe is numb. The sole of my left foot has that sort of tingling feeling that precedes being numb.

Dog update

We went out and played with generic brand flying disc toy by the light of the almost-full moon.

Now maybe I can go back to sleep.

Dog

Hyper dog is up. And now so am I.

Friday, February 10, 2006

Stop putting shit in my brain!

Nick is dating Miss Kentucky now that he's splitsville with Jessica Simpson.

That's all I know. But why do I even know that?

I didn't ask anyone for Nick information. I didn't click on a Nick link on a website. Yet somehow, this pointless factoid got lodged in my brain.

I don't even know Nick's last name. I don't what he does, although I assume he's an actor or musician or something.

For that matter, what does Jessica Simpson do? All I've seen is that "Dukes of Hazzard" trailer where she says, "I thank sumthin' bounced up inta muh unduhcarriage." That is Jessica Simpson, right? And not Gwen Stefani or someone else? Is there some larger, more significant body of work of hers of which I am unaware?

I thought for a long time she was one of Bart's sisters. I was surprised to find out she's an actual person. She and Nick were together. Then they weren't. He was cheating. He made her cry. She got her revenge. They were back together. Then they weren't. Then they were. Then they weren't.

Why do I know this?!

Stop putting shit in my brain!

Thursday, February 09, 2006

The dog is hyper again

The dog woke up about 20 minutes ago and is pacing around the house, snorting and muttering to herself.

But that's okay. It's not like I actually need sleep.

Wednesday, February 08, 2006

Back from Galileo

I went to Galileo tonight for the first time in weeks. I was expecting to find the usual contingent there, but I was either too late or they went somewhere else. So I ate penne pasta and drank one-and-a-half Boulevard Pale Ales (having knocked the first one over). I read the current Gazette and that society mag that always has the same twenty people in it month to month.

So now that I'm a little drunk (because I don't drink much), let me tell you how good my life is.

Seriously.

I want for nothing. Not because I'm rich, but because I am fortunate to have an income sufficient to meet my needs and because years ago, I got off the gotta-buy-it gotta-have-it merry-go-round.

Thoreau said (paraphrasing) 'You don't own your possessions, your possessions own you,' and lemme tell ya, truer words have never been spoken. I managed to give away or throw away about half the shit I owned, and I still have too much. Although Thoreau was a Unitarian, it was probably his 'Walden' that started me on the road to embracing Buddhism and Taoism.

As you may know, there are several schools of Buddhism, including Hinayana, Theravada and Mahayana. My school is the Kindasorta, which is an ancient Sanskrit term meaning 'Southern Baptist.'

But I'm telling you, you need to let go of stuff. Just let go. All this success/failure crap we buy into in America was created by marketing people trying to sell you stuff.

It's a scam and a sham and a sorry flimflam.

Unless you're talking about PowerBooks, in which case, you should get at least a gig of RAM.

And a stylin' shoulder bag. I like the Crumpler bags from Australia because the bags are weird and rarely seen and the web site is totally bizarre.

Back to you in the newsroom.

Yet more Painter® art

These are pieces I did almost a year ago. One is for a community theater presentation of "Dracula" and the other is for "A Funny Thing Happened On the Way to the Forum." For a number of reasons, neither of these were ever used.

They were both on a tight deadline, so I cheated and used some photo reference, which I simply brought into Painter as digital files rather than tracing or redrawing. I used myself as the model for both.

Tuesday, February 07, 2006

Meditation cushion update

Well, I thought this new space-age meditation cushion had that 'memory foam' that memorizes the shape of your ass.

But it forgot my ass as soon as I got up.

Not knowing, not thinking, it returns to its natural state.

I'm supposed to talk about sex.

I will have more readers, I've read, if I talk about sex. Okay, well, here's what's going on with me on that front:



































Oh, and I almost forgot to mention:
























Oh, yeah, baby! I can't get enough of that


















































Now I feel like a cigarette.

Just in!!

My space-age, ass-memorizing, prajna-polymer Zen Mountain Tibetan Meditation Cushion has arrived.

Look out, Dalai Lama!! I'm comin' through!

More Painter® art

Not much here, but that's what I like about it. Just a few lines.

Drawn at the Red Cup, but not actually of the Red Cup.

(I decided if I put the little ® next to "Painter," readers would realize I was talking about software, and not just being redundant when I wrote "Painter artist" or "Painter art."

Monday, February 06, 2006

Red Cup sketches 3

More art from the Red Cup.

There's a scheduled outage for Blogspot coming shortly, so I'll try to upload quickly. This thing about my router kind pisses me off, by the way. The D-Link was easy to get my hands on, but it's no match for the Linksys.

Router woes

Sometime after 3:25 this morning (judging from the last e mail received), my Linksys router croaked. When I found it, all the lights were flashing in sync and the red diag light was on. Resets and reboots did nothing to solve the problem.

I picked up a 70-dollar D-Link at PROMac (yes, I'd like an Airport, but that's another $120 for a dialup modem and print server I'll never use), and have just moments ago gotten the network back.

I need to reset my Airport Express mini-router, but other than that everything seems to be functioning normally.

Sunday, February 05, 2006

Comedian Chris Bliss

Have you ever seen this guy?

Go here and watch the video entitled "Must-see finale." It's amazing.

It's streaming Flash video, by the way. I never thought Flash video would catch on, but it's everywhere.

And thanks to brianstorms for the tip.

Another Painter artist

I don't know Don Seegmiller, but I think he's the best Painter artist I've ever seen.

Take a look at some of his stuff. He's doing this with the same program I'm using, and it just goes to show it's not the tools, it's the talent.

Red Cup sketches 2

Sometimes the person I'm drawing is clear across the room from me, so I can't really see them that well. All I'm drawing is a general impression of body language and likeness.

People who know her will probably recognize who this is supposed to be, although if you could look at it up close, you'd see it doesn't resemble her very much.

Dave, on the other hand, was sitting much closer when I drew this.

My eyeglasses are also shot, which is a factor. I'm on a prescription I got in 1998, and it's 'way past due for an update.

Red Cup sketches 1

I bought my PowerBook laptop with the intent that I was going to attempt to draw from life using a Wacom digitizer tablet and Corel Painter.

Painter is about as processor-intensive application as there is, and the digitizer also draws power through the USB port, so battery life has been a problem.

But, using the shore power inside the Red Cup, I've been able to produce a few sketches. And I'm pleased to say that in some cases, the results actually resemble the subjects I was drawing.

Rena, at left, was looking at something on her laptop at the time I drew this.

Just a glass of iced tea and a saucer that had held a slice of strawberry cake.

The great thing about Painter is that it is very forgiving of mistakes. There's no chance you'll erase a hole in your monitor trying to correct a bad drawing.

None of these are very complete. They're more like thumbnails than real art.

Let me explain what I mean by 'zen'

That word gets thrown around a lot, and even I am not using it correctly.

Here's what I was trying to say in my previous post. There are a zillion things a web designer can do with CSS, and there is always a temptation to use too many of them. My previous design had lots of borders and ten or twelve different colors which were in some instances were almost imperceptibly different from each other. The template had colored backgrounds, floating graphics, color borders. There was so much cool stuff it got in the way of the message.

How cool am I that I know how to do all that? Well, there lies the rub. The point is to communicate, not to display my knowledge.

In fact, one could argue that the previous design demonstrated a lack of understanding, if understanding is defined as insight rather than technical expertise.

A blog is by definition an exercise in self-indulgence, so it's rather difficult to take the 'me' out of the text. But I can at least try to take the 'me' out of the design.

In coming days I may try to streamline the layout even further.

New template finished

Tell me this isn't more readable.

It's still not 'zen' enough. But I think it's much cleaner and more readable than it was. I wish I had saved a snapshot of the old layout. I did save the CSS, but not an actual image.

Saturday, February 04, 2006

I neglected to mention...

...all the important crap I got done today. I usually can't get anything done on a Saturday except eat and nap, but today I got the new sticker for my car tag (the old one expired in November), bought dog and cat food and replaced my front door knob so I no longer have to open the door with pliers.

(Okay, that's not true. I was actually opening the door with a pair of pruning shears because I didn't want to walk back to the garage to get pliers. The pruning shears have been on my porch since summer. Maybe I can put them back in the garage next Saturday when I'm rested up.)

We're back.

John Long linked to this blog, and within moments, the entire blogspot empire was brought to its knees.

Coincidence?

But I was also dinking around with the format to brighten it up some. The big crash came while I was previewing changes. I'm not through with them, by the way.

I have been possessed of an unusually sunny outlook this weekend, coupled with a strong sense of compassion for all of humanity. It's got me worried. Somebody needs to cut me off on the interstate to get me back to normal.

Part of this results from experiencing Leslie's grace and warmth at JW's funeral Friday. Not just her reading of Lord Buckley's 'The Nazz,' but her overall warmth and compassion. Leslie rocks. I told her today I would forego the minister... I want her to officiate at my funeral. (There's a spot behind the ivy on the mantle where my ashes would fit. Just leave me at the Red Cup.)

And the rest? Well, I don't know. There isn't anything to know.

The grass is green.

The sky is blue.

The dog barks. The bird sings.

Thursday, February 02, 2006

More meditation

There is a meditation technique in which the sitter allows thoughts to arise and then visualizes them drifting away like wisps of smoke.

I was sitting a couple of nights ago, and a thought of her came up. And I watched it float away, like a wisp of smoke. It was hard to do, but it was done.

If it wasn't for her, I wouldn't even be meditating. She had a profound influence on my life -- changed my attitude about a lot of things.

Something else that makes dogs crazy

When they're trying to tell you that someone is burglarizing your next door neighbor's garage, but you won't get out of bed because you think they're just hyper.

Essential events

Since I can't sleep I might as well blog. I've been eating.

Lots of Power Bars in the morning. Fast food in the evenings. I hate the way I look.

But not enough to do anything about it.

Wednesday, February 01, 2006

Meditation

I sit –– that is, meditate –– every day now.

I'm not sure what changed. Maybe it's because I found a more comfortable location. But meditation has gone from something I did occasionally because thought that I should to something that's as regular and natural as brushing my teeth or going to bed at night. Or surfing the web.

I still can't sit for extended periods of time. I don't time myself, but I'd bet twenty minutes has been my single longest stretch. But however long it is, that space is a terrific place in which to be.

What makes dogs crazy

I had been having this problem with Haley. Occasionally, in the middle of the night, she would get very agitated, pace around the house, bark, pester me to get up. I thought she needed to go out, but that wasn't it.

I finally realized this restlessness occurred when one of a handful of Indian ragas were playing on iTunes. I don't know what the technique is called, but it's a rapid picking done on a sitar (or a Debashish Bhattcharya guitar) sort of like banjo playing. I usually leave the music playing all night.

I can't tell if it annoys her, frightens her or what. Very strange.