Sunday, April 30, 2006
The glass is already broken
I used to say –– only half-jokingly –– that when I met an attractive or interesting woman, my imagination immediately fast-forwarded to the point where she told me she couldn't see me anymore because she was getting serious about her other, previously-undisclosed boyfriend, or the scene after the breakup where she's at the bar with her girlfriends telling them all what a bastard I was.
Later, I read a book which quoted the Venerable Ajahn Chah talking about a drinking glass. (This anecdote is told in a slightly different form here.) The gist of Ajahn Chah's comment is, "the glass is already broken."
Literally speaking, the glass isn't broken –– in one version of the anecdote, he's drinking from it. But someday it will be, so why make false assumptions about its permanence? View the glass as if it were already broken, and you have no attachment with which to cope when it actually does break.
Literally speaking, the relationships I visualized weren't over –– they hadn't even begun –– but their eventual end was as inevitable as the broken glass. So why attach to something (or someone) when the end is already in sight?
Nothing is permanent. I own a home for which I paid cash and for which there is no mortgage. I feel fortunate to have that security.
But someday, I'll lose this house. Maybe I'll sell it. Maybe I'll die. Maybe the government will take it from me so a new expressway can be put through. Maybe the taxes will grow so high I won't be able to pay them. Maybe a tornado will demolish it.
In any event, this house is a temporary shelter, not a permanent one. And part of the reason I'm not as obsessive about lawn edging and perfectly rectangular shrubs as my neighbors is that I think it's silly to spend so much of your waking life trying to fastidiously arrange every detail of an existence over which you ultimately have no control.
So the boxwood isn't perfectly square. Is the sun still shining?
My dog ran off. Is the grass still green?
I'm alone. Is the sky still blue?
Later, I read a book which quoted the Venerable Ajahn Chah talking about a drinking glass. (This anecdote is told in a slightly different form here.) The gist of Ajahn Chah's comment is, "the glass is already broken."
Literally speaking, the glass isn't broken –– in one version of the anecdote, he's drinking from it. But someday it will be, so why make false assumptions about its permanence? View the glass as if it were already broken, and you have no attachment with which to cope when it actually does break.
Literally speaking, the relationships I visualized weren't over –– they hadn't even begun –– but their eventual end was as inevitable as the broken glass. So why attach to something (or someone) when the end is already in sight?
Nothing is permanent. I own a home for which I paid cash and for which there is no mortgage. I feel fortunate to have that security.
But someday, I'll lose this house. Maybe I'll sell it. Maybe I'll die. Maybe the government will take it from me so a new expressway can be put through. Maybe the taxes will grow so high I won't be able to pay them. Maybe a tornado will demolish it.
In any event, this house is a temporary shelter, not a permanent one. And part of the reason I'm not as obsessive about lawn edging and perfectly rectangular shrubs as my neighbors is that I think it's silly to spend so much of your waking life trying to fastidiously arrange every detail of an existence over which you ultimately have no control.
So the boxwood isn't perfectly square. Is the sun still shining?
My dog ran off. Is the grass still green?
I'm alone. Is the sky still blue?
Saturday, April 29, 2006
Farewell (I think) to She Who Does Not Sleep
She Who Does Not Sleep jumped the back fence yesterday evening while I was napping and took off for wherever.
She's done this before, and always come home after thirty-forty minutes of running around. But this time she stayed gone.
This afternoon, I saw her down the block, being happily led on a leash by a girl of ten or eleven.
I think that's a good thing for all three of us. I need more sleep, the dog needs more exercise and activity, and the girl probably needs a playmate. So I think I shall let this new arrangement stand.
She's done this before, and always come home after thirty-forty minutes of running around. But this time she stayed gone.
This afternoon, I saw her down the block, being happily led on a leash by a girl of ten or eleven.
I think that's a good thing for all three of us. I need more sleep, the dog needs more exercise and activity, and the girl probably needs a playmate. So I think I shall let this new arrangement stand.
Friday, April 28, 2006
mcarp, book burner
Tonight I accidentally deleted a two-year running topic from a conference I cohost on the Well. For someone who is supposed to be tech-savvy, I can be a major dumbass.
Allergy fest
Today I am paying the price for spending yesterday evening wandering around in clouds of tree pollen.
I went to work but I sneezed and coughed and sniffled all day.
Home tonight just trying to rest.
I went to work but I sneezed and coughed and sniffled all day.
Home tonight just trying to rest.
Arts fest
Guess I can briefly mention that I went to the Arts Festival last night rather than my regular Red Cup hangout. Wandered around with the commenter known as soartstar. Ate a bratwurst and strawberries newport.
My boss's retirement party was also yesterday. I don't write about work, largely because I don't want office gossips and snoops logging in here trying to glean tidbits upon which to speculate and swap conjecture. But I will say that my boss created an environment in which creative people felt free to exercise their creativity. I have worked in environments where creativity, even from people paid to be creative, scared the hell out of some managers, and creative people ended up tiptoeing on eggshells to avoid frightening people.
I hope that our environment continues to foster creativity under our new director, whoever that turns out to be.
My boss's retirement party was also yesterday. I don't write about work, largely because I don't want office gossips and snoops logging in here trying to glean tidbits upon which to speculate and swap conjecture. But I will say that my boss created an environment in which creative people felt free to exercise their creativity. I have worked in environments where creativity, even from people paid to be creative, scared the hell out of some managers, and creative people ended up tiptoeing on eggshells to avoid frightening people.
I hope that our environment continues to foster creativity under our new director, whoever that turns out to be.
Tuesday, April 25, 2006
Follow-up two
In reply to a previous post 'anonymous' (and I have no idea whatsoever who this might be) wrote:
I don't think much about the great minds of history. Mostly it's people I know.
When I worked in television, I was mostly around, to be honest, people whose goal in life was to be superficial and vapid, and they had succeeded.
I think I avoided artists and creative types in part because I didn't want to be constantly reminded that I had not done what they had done.
Now, in my AARP years, I'm hanging around with people who think more like I do, but everywhere I look, I'm reminded that it was within my reach to do more.
I have about decided there's no such things as laziness – if one wishes to define lazy as lacking effort or care. I think people who seem to show a lack of effort have probably just used up all their effort on stuff others don't see.
It was late in life, for example, when I realized that while I was very good at some things most people found difficult, there were a lot of basic life skills that others took for granted that I found very challenging. I didn't realize they were so much easier for others –– I thought everyone worked as hard at them as I did. I used up, and still use, a lot of personal effort to do small things that the average person does with much less effort.
"You do a great many things on your laptop that required focus and self discipline, including learning photoshop rather well.
Is it possible that you have self discipline and that what you lack is the faith in yourself and belief that you can do well?
"I'll guess that you say to yourself that you're no DiVinci, Einstein, Freud, Marx, Newton, whoever and conclude "why try?".
"Myth.
"Logically insupportable conclusion.
"The world does not need a knockoff DiVinci. The world might well need an original Mike Carpenter.
"An artist is very rarely the best judge of his own work. You cannot be objective about yourself; it is only possible for you to be subjective about Mike Carpenter. Give it up.
"While you may not meet your own standards of perfection, I feel sure you are capable of good, excellent and/or superior."
I don't think much about the great minds of history. Mostly it's people I know.
When I worked in television, I was mostly around, to be honest, people whose goal in life was to be superficial and vapid, and they had succeeded.
I think I avoided artists and creative types in part because I didn't want to be constantly reminded that I had not done what they had done.
Now, in my AARP years, I'm hanging around with people who think more like I do, but everywhere I look, I'm reminded that it was within my reach to do more.
I have about decided there's no such things as laziness – if one wishes to define lazy as lacking effort or care. I think people who seem to show a lack of effort have probably just used up all their effort on stuff others don't see.
It was late in life, for example, when I realized that while I was very good at some things most people found difficult, there were a lot of basic life skills that others took for granted that I found very challenging. I didn't realize they were so much easier for others –– I thought everyone worked as hard at them as I did. I used up, and still use, a lot of personal effort to do small things that the average person does with much less effort.
Monday, April 24, 2006
Follow-up
Okay, Blogger seems to be working again, and I've had a night's sleep.
The key thing I lack as an artist is self-discipline. Actually, the key thing I lack as a human being is self-discipline. There's an upside to that: I haven't spent a whole lot of the waking hours of my life doing stuff I don't enjoy doing. A lot of people have spent more time waxing floors, washing cars, folding laundry and raking leaves than I have. I have had a lot more free time over my life to do whatever I wanted to do, even if what I wanted to do was just pointless doodling or typing.
I have a friend who is an artist – a real artist, not an occasional doodler like me. She told me once that I made her feel inadequate because she thought I was so much better an artist than she. At some level, I replied, that might be true. I might understand color better than her. I might be a better draftsman than her. My understanding of anatomy, perspective and foreshortening may exceed hers.
But over the past ten years or so, she has produced dozens of pieces, some of which you have no doubt seen if you've been around the city art scene during that time. I, on the other hand, have produced not a single finished work, unless you consider a flyer urging people to pick up their dog's shit to be a gallery-quality achievement.
The reason she is an artist and I am not is that she has a measure of self-discipline I lack. And that is as crucial to art, whether it be painting, singing, dance or whatever, as any natural knack for perspective or warm vs cool shading.
So, to get back to the Red Cup festival, I got to watch a lot of people who all have – every single one of them – more self-discipline than I do. And seeing that makes me think about what I've made of my life, which is not much.
This is a dangerous way to think. It doesn't necessarily lead to a burst of resolve that makes a man out of Mac. (Reference for those needing it here.) Comparing oneself to others is pretty much a no-win situation. I am not them, they are not me, I am not you, etc.
But I have regrets – not many, but some – about the way I've lived my life. I see people doing something they clearly enjoy, and which I might have enjoyed doing myself if I'd had the self-discipline to learn how, and I wonder if I didn't really screw up.
This is still not going anywhere, though. I need to think on it some more.
The key thing I lack as an artist is self-discipline. Actually, the key thing I lack as a human being is self-discipline. There's an upside to that: I haven't spent a whole lot of the waking hours of my life doing stuff I don't enjoy doing. A lot of people have spent more time waxing floors, washing cars, folding laundry and raking leaves than I have. I have had a lot more free time over my life to do whatever I wanted to do, even if what I wanted to do was just pointless doodling or typing.
I have a friend who is an artist – a real artist, not an occasional doodler like me. She told me once that I made her feel inadequate because she thought I was so much better an artist than she. At some level, I replied, that might be true. I might understand color better than her. I might be a better draftsman than her. My understanding of anatomy, perspective and foreshortening may exceed hers.
But over the past ten years or so, she has produced dozens of pieces, some of which you have no doubt seen if you've been around the city art scene during that time. I, on the other hand, have produced not a single finished work, unless you consider a flyer urging people to pick up their dog's shit to be a gallery-quality achievement.
The reason she is an artist and I am not is that she has a measure of self-discipline I lack. And that is as crucial to art, whether it be painting, singing, dance or whatever, as any natural knack for perspective or warm vs cool shading.
So, to get back to the Red Cup festival, I got to watch a lot of people who all have – every single one of them – more self-discipline than I do. And seeing that makes me think about what I've made of my life, which is not much.
This is a dangerous way to think. It doesn't necessarily lead to a burst of resolve that makes a man out of Mac. (Reference for those needing it here.) Comparing oneself to others is pretty much a no-win situation. I am not them, they are not me, I am not you, etc.
But I have regrets – not many, but some – about the way I've lived my life. I see people doing something they clearly enjoy, and which I might have enjoyed doing myself if I'd had the self-discipline to learn how, and I wonder if I didn't really screw up.
This is still not going anywhere, though. I need to think on it some more.
Sunday, April 23, 2006
Talent/Self discipline
I spent much of Saturday - Earth Day - at the Red Cup folk music show featuring BuffaloFitz, Bridgewater and others.
I had something I wanted to say about talent and self-discipline here, but I can't quite get it to come together. Both are necessary to succeed in the arts. By success, I don't mean fame – just success in terms of being satisfied with one's own level of accomplishment, being good enough at a chosen art that one gets some satisfaction out of it.
But what I wanted to say about that isn't coming together for me right now. I'm ready for bed.
I'll be up again in a few hours. Maybe it will come to me then.
I had something I wanted to say about talent and self-discipline here, but I can't quite get it to come together. Both are necessary to succeed in the arts. By success, I don't mean fame – just success in terms of being satisfied with one's own level of accomplishment, being good enough at a chosen art that one gets some satisfaction out of it.
But what I wanted to say about that isn't coming together for me right now. I'm ready for bed.
I'll be up again in a few hours. Maybe it will come to me then.
The rapture is coming... not.
Being a former fundamentalist myself, I would encourage you to read this Huffington Post article by Tony Hendra.
It's probably too strident to do much good, but Hendra's point is worthwhile, and ought to be considered – prayerfully considered, if you're a red-state Christian: the "rapture," along with most of the other tenets of US fundamentalism, are of relatively recent, manmade origin. The rapture is not biblical and it's not Christian.
It's probably too strident to do much good, but Hendra's point is worthwhile, and ought to be considered – prayerfully considered, if you're a red-state Christian: the "rapture," along with most of the other tenets of US fundamentalism, are of relatively recent, manmade origin. The rapture is not biblical and it's not Christian.
Friday, April 21, 2006
Hey kids! What time is it?
2:52 a.m. where I am.
I'm awake, wish I could sleep.
Constipated thinkers are my bane and my curse and my nemeses and there are so damn many of them. They're everywhere... people who believe that creativity and fresh ideas are a threat and that dull-witted conformity paired with plodding obedience equal safety and security.
I want them all to go away, or for me to go away and live in Tibet or Nicoma Park. A big old house in a semirural area where cats, dogs and anarchists would run free and Promise Keepers would be stopped at the perimeter guard shack and allowed no closer.
You know that saying 'You don't have to be crazy to be here, but it helps?' Wouldn't be good enough. You would actually have to be crazy to be here. I'd require proof. But crazy and smart. Crazy and stupid is no virtue. But if that's you, I hear they're hiring at the White House.
My dad's head. Orson Welles' body.
Ever heard that tape of Welles berating the producer on the frozen peas ad he was voicing? This is all over the Internet now as evidence of Welles' mercurial theater on the air temperament, but to me it sounds like he's the only one who's making any sense. In July? WTF?
3:18 a.m., Coordinated mcarp time. Tick tick tick tick tick tick tick bong bong bong bong BONGGGGG tick tick tick tick tick tick tick tick tick tick.
I'm awake, wish I could sleep.
Constipated thinkers are my bane and my curse and my nemeses and there are so damn many of them. They're everywhere... people who believe that creativity and fresh ideas are a threat and that dull-witted conformity paired with plodding obedience equal safety and security.
I want them all to go away, or for me to go away and live in Tibet or Nicoma Park. A big old house in a semirural area where cats, dogs and anarchists would run free and Promise Keepers would be stopped at the perimeter guard shack and allowed no closer.
You know that saying 'You don't have to be crazy to be here, but it helps?' Wouldn't be good enough. You would actually have to be crazy to be here. I'd require proof. But crazy and smart. Crazy and stupid is no virtue. But if that's you, I hear they're hiring at the White House.
My dad's head. Orson Welles' body.
Ever heard that tape of Welles berating the producer on the frozen peas ad he was voicing? This is all over the Internet now as evidence of Welles' mercurial theater on the air temperament, but to me it sounds like he's the only one who's making any sense. In July? WTF?
3:18 a.m., Coordinated mcarp time. Tick tick tick tick tick tick tick bong bong bong bong BONGGGGG tick tick tick tick tick tick tick tick tick tick.
Thursday, April 20, 2006
Also:
Happy Birthday tooooo yoooouuuuuuuuuu.
Happy Birthday tooooo yoooouuuuuuuuuu.
Happy Birthday soarrrrtstaaarrrrrrrrrrr....
Happy Birthday...
Happy Happy Birthday...
Happy Wild and Crazy Birthday...
tooooooooooooooooooo yooooooooooooouuuuuuuuuuuuuuuu.
Happy Birthday tooooo yoooouuuuuuuuuu.
Happy Birthday soarrrrtstaaarrrrrrrrrrr....
Happy Birthday...
Happy Happy Birthday...
Happy Wild and Crazy Birthday...
tooooooooooooooooooo yooooooooooooouuuuuuuuuuuuuuuu.
The picture Rena took
Rena snapped a pic of me with her new cell phone tonight at the RC.
And when she showed it to me, what I saw was my father's head grafted onto Orson Welles' body.
God, it was bleak.
Seriously, if someone had snapped this picture without my knowledge and had shown it to me, I would have thought it was my father.
How the hell did that happen?
And when?
And when she showed it to me, what I saw was my father's head grafted onto Orson Welles' body.
God, it was bleak.
Seriously, if someone had snapped this picture without my knowledge and had shown it to me, I would have thought it was my father.
How the hell did that happen?
And when?
Love that glider
Spent some more time on the glider last night, after returning from dinner to pee the dog and take care of other household needs. Read for an hour or two. Maybe I'll love this glider enough I can spend all my free time there.
Wednesday, April 19, 2006
I'm the decider
Koo koo kachoo
Huffigton Post
For extra bonus points (especially you, Chase):
Name the other popular culture source cited io this song.
Huffigton Post
For extra bonus points (especially you, Chase):
Name the other popular culture source cited io this song.
Sunday, April 16, 2006
Glider tonight
This evening before dark, I turned the glider around so it faces east, toward the end of the porch, and pushed it back against the west railing which is covered with wisteria.
The porch light and the floor light at the living room window together produce plenty of light for reading. I stretched out sideways on the glider with my feet up and read 'On the Road' for about forty minutes.
I doubt this thing will ever make it to the powder coating place now. It has settled in and is part of the household just the way it is.
Part of me wants things that are fresh- and new-looking. Certainly my neighbors would prefer that (or at least the young couple on the east, who reminded me again this evening how great my yard would look with fescue and fertilizer, neither of which I have any intention of applying).
But part of me likes things that are old and beat up.
This glider has contact paper on it... wood grain contact paper which must have looked ridiculous because someone painted over it with brown paint. I cannot abide contact paper, and that may be the thing that gets the glider off to the paint shop after all.
By the way, those metal tubes in the chair are a large wind chime that had been hanging in the dogwood tree before it fell and cannot be used to construct centrifuges for enriching uranium. I just want to be clear about that, because my young neighbors to the east would really be pissed if I got our neighborhood nuked by Rumsfeld. Or maybe they wouldn't... who knows?
Saturday, April 15, 2006
Glider news
When I first bought my house, I bought an assemble-it-yourself Adirondack chair. I don't know what is involved in making an Adirondack chair excruciatingly uncomfortable, but the designers of this one obviously researched the subject before sitting down with AdirondaCAD or whatever. So, the chair is still there, but I rarely sit in it.
Later, I bought a couple of canvas sling deck chairs. My grandparents had these on their front porch (just about a mile west of where I live now) for many years and when I was a kid, I would sit on the porch with my grandfather, tilted back in the canvas sling. But sling chair technology has evidently declined in the intervening 40 years. Mine, purchased from a well-known national chain, were disappointing, and one was actually defective.
At the Red Cup, from where I am blogging at this very moment, there is a forty-odd year old metal porch glider. After sitting in it a couple of evenings last summer, I knew I had to have one.
This afternoon, I was driving north on Western, just happened to glance to my left, and there it was -- an almost identical glider, sitting in front of an antique store. I immediately executed a Bat-turn, went into the store and bought it. It's got a little rust, and several coats of ugly paint, but it seems sound.
I'll pick it up tomorrow.
Later, I bought a couple of canvas sling deck chairs. My grandparents had these on their front porch (just about a mile west of where I live now) for many years and when I was a kid, I would sit on the porch with my grandfather, tilted back in the canvas sling. But sling chair technology has evidently declined in the intervening 40 years. Mine, purchased from a well-known national chain, were disappointing, and one was actually defective.
At the Red Cup, from where I am blogging at this very moment, there is a forty-odd year old metal porch glider. After sitting in it a couple of evenings last summer, I knew I had to have one.
This afternoon, I was driving north on Western, just happened to glance to my left, and there it was -- an almost identical glider, sitting in front of an antique store. I immediately executed a Bat-turn, went into the store and bought it. It's got a little rust, and several coats of ugly paint, but it seems sound.
I'll pick it up tomorrow.
By the way... it's all about me.
Which ought to be obvious without having to read the whole six months' worth of posts.
Narcissistic? I dunno. Narcissus was stunningly beautiful, according to myth. He fell in love with himself (or, more correctly, became infatuated with himself) when he saw his reflection in a stream, and is still sitting there today.
Someone I read recently -- but I forget who -- suggested that narcissism is the opposite of egolessness, about which I've written previously here and here.
But again, going back to the source, narcissism suggests vanity and self-adoration. It's possible to be overwhelmed with self-doubt, self-criticism and self-loathing, none of which are like narcissism.
So it seems to me that while I may have a big self-involved ass, I am not a narcissistic chump.
Narcissistic? I dunno. Narcissus was stunningly beautiful, according to myth. He fell in love with himself (or, more correctly, became infatuated with himself) when he saw his reflection in a stream, and is still sitting there today.
Someone I read recently -- but I forget who -- suggested that narcissism is the opposite of egolessness, about which I've written previously here and here.
But again, going back to the source, narcissism suggests vanity and self-adoration. It's possible to be overwhelmed with self-doubt, self-criticism and self-loathing, none of which are like narcissism.
So it seems to me that while I may have a big self-involved ass, I am not a narcissistic chump.
Friday, April 14, 2006
Tuesday, April 11, 2006
I wonder
Do other people spend as much time questioning the validity of their existence as I do?
I get up in the am and feel pretty good. Go to work, usually make it through the day. Muck around in the evening if I don't go out.
Go to bed, lie awake and wonder why I'm alive and how I'm going to make msyelf get out of bed in the morning.
Do other people do this?
I get up in the am and feel pretty good. Go to work, usually make it through the day. Muck around in the evening if I don't go out.
Go to bed, lie awake and wonder why I'm alive and how I'm going to make msyelf get out of bed in the morning.
Do other people do this?
Sunday, April 09, 2006
Dogwood update
I mentioned in a previous post tbe dogwood tree blooming in my front yard.
Last Thursday, high straight winds came through and snapped the half of the tree left by last spring's lightning strike. Today my next door neighbor and I cleared the broken branches away.
But since just last Thursday, new growth has started to appear on a remaining branch. Rather than cut the tree off at ground level, I left three feet of stump and this one remaining branch about five feet long to see if the tree can still come back.
I don't know what sort of odd codependence drives me to try to save this tree. But it's important to me to give it every chance to survive.
Last Thursday, high straight winds came through and snapped the half of the tree left by last spring's lightning strike. Today my next door neighbor and I cleared the broken branches away.
But since just last Thursday, new growth has started to appear on a remaining branch. Rather than cut the tree off at ground level, I left three feet of stump and this one remaining branch about five feet long to see if the tree can still come back.
I don't know what sort of odd codependence drives me to try to save this tree. But it's important to me to give it every chance to survive.
Saturday, April 08, 2006
Friday night
If I hadn't dumped a huge chunk o' change on the recent root canal, I might have bought art last night on the Paseo ArtWalk.
My friends know, because they've heard me say it, that I can't put large pieces in my house. I have only one wall with no doors or windows, and a medium-sized Jennifer Grover print occupies most of the space there.
But I saw many things I liked, and that would have been affordable for me.
My friends know, because they've heard me say it, that I can't put large pieces in my house. I have only one wall with no doors or windows, and a medium-sized Jennifer Grover print occupies most of the space there.
But I saw many things I liked, and that would have been affordable for me.
Shields up, Mr. Sulu
After deleting two more robospam comments this morning, I've turned on the word verification feature.
So now when you add a comment, you'll be asked to demonstrate that you're human. and not a bot, by reading a distorted series of random characters like this:
I'm sure you've encountered these before.
Also, you are no longer required to be a Blogspot subscriber to post. I didn't realize this was optional until just now.
So now when you add a comment, you'll be asked to demonstrate that you're human. and not a bot, by reading a distorted series of random characters like this:
I'm sure you've encountered these before.
Also, you are no longer required to be a Blogspot subscriber to post. I didn't realize this was optional until just now.
Thursday, April 06, 2006
Trouble letting go
I decided a couple of years ago to look Jan up. I had forgotten her last name. All I remembered was 'Jan,' and that she had blonde hair, and that we had hung out together some.
In the first grade.
I never found her.
I think I have written about Googling Anita (that sounds like a John Cusack movie, doesn't it?), and finding one reference to her in a page deleted from a website but still cached in the Google index. I had known her in the early eighties. We worked in the same newsroom.
"You know what your problem is?" she asked. She didn't wait for an answer. "You're moody, temperamental and weird."
So of course I fell in love. I impulsively asked her to go to California with me. She declined. We stayed in touch for a while, but then she dropped out of sight. The web site referred to her, or at least a person sharing her name from the same part of the country, as the guest speaker at a 'prophetic prayer conference.'
Then there was someone who shall remain nameless, since she is still in town and you would recognize the name.
"You know what your problem is?" she asked. "You're dull and you're boring. And you're hooked on Moon Pies."
So of course I fell in love. But she was secretly dating the ne'er-do-well heir to the Fahrquahr Humate fortune and had never told me because it was on the DL, although no one said it that way that back then.
Crushed and humiliated, I didn't eat Moon Pies for four years, and had a small celebration when I finally defiantly bought one and ate it.
You think I'd crumble... you think I'd lay down and die. Oh no, not I. I will survive.
I also still think about my ex a lot. I wish I could make things better for her.
In the first grade.
I never found her.
I think I have written about Googling Anita (that sounds like a John Cusack movie, doesn't it?), and finding one reference to her in a page deleted from a website but still cached in the Google index. I had known her in the early eighties. We worked in the same newsroom.
"You know what your problem is?" she asked. She didn't wait for an answer. "You're moody, temperamental and weird."
So of course I fell in love. I impulsively asked her to go to California with me. She declined. We stayed in touch for a while, but then she dropped out of sight. The web site referred to her, or at least a person sharing her name from the same part of the country, as the guest speaker at a 'prophetic prayer conference.'
Then there was someone who shall remain nameless, since she is still in town and you would recognize the name.
"You know what your problem is?" she asked. "You're dull and you're boring. And you're hooked on Moon Pies."
So of course I fell in love. But she was secretly dating the ne'er-do-well heir to the Fahrquahr Humate fortune and had never told me because it was on the DL, although no one said it that way that back then.
Crushed and humiliated, I didn't eat Moon Pies for four years, and had a small celebration when I finally defiantly bought one and ate it.
You think I'd crumble... you think I'd lay down and die. Oh no, not I. I will survive.
I also still think about my ex a lot. I wish I could make things better for her.
Come down off the ceiling, sweetie
Not overnight, but the night before (ie, the wee hours of Wednesday morning) I had a dream in which I awakened, looked up, and saw my white cat Smudge hanging from the ceiling from all four paws, looking down at me. I couldn't figure out how she got up there or how she was able to hang that way.
I started to get out of bed. But as soon as I sat up, I realized Smudge wasn't stuck to the ceiling. She was standing on the floor, looking up at me, and I was stuck to the ceiling.
No sooner did I realize this than I came unstuck. There was a second of total disorientation, then I was on the floor, trying to regain my equilibrium.
Then I woke up.
There was also a dream before that one, rather disjointed, in which I was in an apartment or a hotel room somewhere, a plave not my own, and there was a large plate glass window looking out on the street. The street was what I guess I'd call commercial/office. It wasn't a street I recognized or identified, but it looked kind of like Second Street in Edmond west of downtown but before you get to Kelley.
As I sat there looking out the window – and I was sitting on a bed or a chair well back from the window – a black car pulled up in the parking strip outside. The place had that narrow one-car deep parking area like a small business would have. The car was either a Z-28 or a TransAm, and it was dusty. You know how some black cars get that sort of brownish tint when they're dirty or covered with dust? That's how this looked. It was not a well-kept car.
So I'm wondering what this person wants, when he suddenly pulls out again and drives away, heading to my left up the street. I remember feeling relieved that he left.
Then I woke up.
I started to get out of bed. But as soon as I sat up, I realized Smudge wasn't stuck to the ceiling. She was standing on the floor, looking up at me, and I was stuck to the ceiling.
No sooner did I realize this than I came unstuck. There was a second of total disorientation, then I was on the floor, trying to regain my equilibrium.
Then I woke up.
There was also a dream before that one, rather disjointed, in which I was in an apartment or a hotel room somewhere, a plave not my own, and there was a large plate glass window looking out on the street. The street was what I guess I'd call commercial/office. It wasn't a street I recognized or identified, but it looked kind of like Second Street in Edmond west of downtown but before you get to Kelley.
As I sat there looking out the window – and I was sitting on a bed or a chair well back from the window – a black car pulled up in the parking strip outside. The place had that narrow one-car deep parking area like a small business would have. The car was either a Z-28 or a TransAm, and it was dusty. You know how some black cars get that sort of brownish tint when they're dirty or covered with dust? That's how this looked. It was not a well-kept car.
So I'm wondering what this person wants, when he suddenly pulls out again and drives away, heading to my left up the street. I remember feeling relieved that he left.
Then I woke up.
Wednesday, April 05, 2006
Tuesday, April 04, 2006
Politics
I thought when I started this blog I would be writing more about politics.
But my interest level has waned, for which I am grateful, since I was tying myself up in knots emotionally over what had been happening the past six years. And there are many people with better resources than I for political blogging. Some of them are linked at the right.
But with the departure of Tom DeLay (although perhaps no farther than a commentator's job on Fox News) I thought it was worth saying something.
Part of the reason my level of concern has eased up is because I see the Republican leadership going through this slow-motion implosion that was basically inevitable. The national party has been run by crooks since Nixon's era, and every time they're given power, they come to the same end. I have voted for Republicans at the local level in the past (though not lately) but I can't imagine who the Democrats would have to put up as a nominee to get me to vote for a Republican presidential candidate.
People are beginning to understand, I believe, what a sham the national GOP has become: religious crackpots posing as Christians, medieval feudalists posing as free market capitalists and small-town con men like DeLay posing as statesmen. That's a pretty shaky coalition with which to try to lead a country, and it's no surprise to me they haven't been able to do it.
There have been some complaints that the Democrats haven't been assertive enough in putting forward alternatives. Personally, I think they're doing exactly the right thing, and there's a certain Taoist method to their madness.
Observe and learn, grasshopper: if your enemy confronts you, threatens you, intimidates you and then begins frantically beating himself up like Edward Norton in that scene in "Fight Club," why should you act?
And finally, a big shoutout to James Madison and the other dudes at the 1781 constitutional convention. The final product, though dented and scraped, still holds. Karl Rove may be smart, but it looks like these guys were smarter. Thanks for saving our asses here in the 21st century, guys.
But my interest level has waned, for which I am grateful, since I was tying myself up in knots emotionally over what had been happening the past six years. And there are many people with better resources than I for political blogging. Some of them are linked at the right.
But with the departure of Tom DeLay (although perhaps no farther than a commentator's job on Fox News) I thought it was worth saying something.
Part of the reason my level of concern has eased up is because I see the Republican leadership going through this slow-motion implosion that was basically inevitable. The national party has been run by crooks since Nixon's era, and every time they're given power, they come to the same end. I have voted for Republicans at the local level in the past (though not lately) but I can't imagine who the Democrats would have to put up as a nominee to get me to vote for a Republican presidential candidate.
People are beginning to understand, I believe, what a sham the national GOP has become: religious crackpots posing as Christians, medieval feudalists posing as free market capitalists and small-town con men like DeLay posing as statesmen. That's a pretty shaky coalition with which to try to lead a country, and it's no surprise to me they haven't been able to do it.
There have been some complaints that the Democrats haven't been assertive enough in putting forward alternatives. Personally, I think they're doing exactly the right thing, and there's a certain Taoist method to their madness.
Observe and learn, grasshopper: if your enemy confronts you, threatens you, intimidates you and then begins frantically beating himself up like Edward Norton in that scene in "Fight Club," why should you act?
And finally, a big shoutout to James Madison and the other dudes at the 1781 constitutional convention. The final product, though dented and scraped, still holds. Karl Rove may be smart, but it looks like these guys were smarter. Thanks for saving our asses here in the 21st century, guys.
Monday, April 03, 2006
Technology fails to meet basic human needs
We can put a man on the moon but we can't make a necktie that doesn't stay all rumpled-looking after you've pulled it out from under the bed.
I need to go talk to that Sartorialist guy about this.
By the way, one of my Jerry Garcia ties is gone. Vanished. Poof.
I need to go talk to that Sartorialist guy about this.
By the way, one of my Jerry Garcia ties is gone. Vanished. Poof.
Sunday, April 02, 2006
What a great day! Too bad it sucked.
I guess I'm depressed.
Because life looks like crap, but nothing has changed since the last time life looked pretty good.
Depression comes on me like a bad cold. I've learned (as I've probably mentioned before) that it will pass, just like a cold, and I just have to tough it out. But right now it's pretty miserable.
This is also the time when aloneness is the most unpleasant and I'm feeling the neediest.
Because life looks like crap, but nothing has changed since the last time life looked pretty good.
Depression comes on me like a bad cold. I've learned (as I've probably mentioned before) that it will pass, just like a cold, and I just have to tough it out. But right now it's pretty miserable.
This is also the time when aloneness is the most unpleasant and I'm feeling the neediest.
Dream
I dreamt I went to Chicago to meet my mother.
In life, my mother and I parted company when I was 14 and I never saw her again. She was hard partying, hard drinking, never slept with a man she didn't hate and hated every man she met, and died of a heart attack in her early sixties living in a shabby eighties-era frame house in Mountain Home, Arkansas, up in the Ozark foothills. She was dead three days before anyone found her, surrounded by cigarette butts, old newspapers and jigsaw puzzles. (Sorry to drag all that out if you already knew it, but I thought I should set the stage for the dream.)
In the dream, she was living in Chicago, in a small, old but still elegant urban apartment building. She was attractive but not beautiful or glamorous, well-spoken, a little aloof, and looked younger than I did.
She met me at the door and let me in. There was a little tension, but not as much as you might expect between a mother and son who hadn't seen each other in forty-odd years.
She showed me around the apartment. I had Haley with me, and she escaped and went barreling off down the street (second escaping pet dream this week!) Haley had never seen this many people in one place, and she was ecstatic with excitement. She would stop at random passersby and try to jump up on them, and almost yanked a hot dog out of a kid's hand. I finally got her back under control and into the apartment.
A kid came up to my mother's apartment to deliver the mail and a newspaper. He looked like Fat Albert... not the cartoon character Fat Albert, but Fat Albert might have looked like as a real person.
I told my mom about my hearing problem because sometimes I couldn't understand what she was saying.
I actually found myself warming up to her, in spite of my original trepidation at having to meet her. She seemed to be an okay person.
Finally I asked her, "Look, are you happy – no let's not go for happy – are you even comfortable with this situation?"
"Frankly, no," she replied.
I was about to tell her that I had a life of my own in Oklahoma and didn't really need to live with her or have some kind of reconciliation with her, even though my initial reluctance to meet her had gone. I was about to tell her that. But suddenly the scene sort of changed.
I was outside the apartment on the street again, and I levitated, flew or floated (or something) up to where I could see over the building's roof. It had become night, In the distance I could see the skyline – neither Chicago's nor Oklahoma City's nor any other recognized. I turned my head to the right, and there was the same skyline again. I was surprised and confused by seeing it twice, and it subtly shifted some, but not a lot. I looked in another direction and saw the dark structures of an industrial district silhouetted against the sky.
I tried to climb up on the roof, but hadn't gotten enough altitude for that. The roof was at about neck level and I couldn't get a grip to pull myself up. So I let myself float gently back to the ground. I was a little afraid to do that as well – I worried that once I quit consciously floating, I had just fall like a rock back to the ground. But I didn't.
There were some other elements in the dream, but I can't remember the sequence.
There was some furniture that was very restrained and tasteful, nothing like what anyone in my family would have ever owned.
My mother mentioned there was a famous veterinarian on her block who had treated an equally famous chimpanzee or orangutan who was alcoholic and was known in newspaper accounts as 'the drinking chimp.' There was alos a dog psychologist or something similar on the block who was quite well-known. Based on this information, I was able to tell my mother that she lived on the same block and perhaps even in the same apartment as my friend Stacy, who had once mentioned having the alcoholic chimp veterinarian for a neighbor.
(In real life, my friend Stacy has lived in many large cities, including Washington, DC at the moment. But never Chicago, as far as I know.)
And then I woke up and experienced a little cognitive jolt because the dream had seemed so real that I had forgotten or didn't know I was dreaming.
Earlier in the evening, I had two other dreams. In one, there were four glamorous women, all strangers, surrounding me and trying to seduce me.
In the other dream, the first of the three, I was playing Frisbee with Graham Nash from the Hollies/CSNY. We were in a grocery store or someplace like that. He was so far back among the shelves I couldn't actually see him – I'd see only the Frisbee (TM or ® or whatever) come flying out from the aisles. He had a technique where he could the Frisbee to float down almost to the floor then suddenly ascend again. I had trouble catching it.
In life, my mother and I parted company when I was 14 and I never saw her again. She was hard partying, hard drinking, never slept with a man she didn't hate and hated every man she met, and died of a heart attack in her early sixties living in a shabby eighties-era frame house in Mountain Home, Arkansas, up in the Ozark foothills. She was dead three days before anyone found her, surrounded by cigarette butts, old newspapers and jigsaw puzzles. (Sorry to drag all that out if you already knew it, but I thought I should set the stage for the dream.)
In the dream, she was living in Chicago, in a small, old but still elegant urban apartment building. She was attractive but not beautiful or glamorous, well-spoken, a little aloof, and looked younger than I did.
She met me at the door and let me in. There was a little tension, but not as much as you might expect between a mother and son who hadn't seen each other in forty-odd years.
She showed me around the apartment. I had Haley with me, and she escaped and went barreling off down the street (second escaping pet dream this week!) Haley had never seen this many people in one place, and she was ecstatic with excitement. She would stop at random passersby and try to jump up on them, and almost yanked a hot dog out of a kid's hand. I finally got her back under control and into the apartment.
A kid came up to my mother's apartment to deliver the mail and a newspaper. He looked like Fat Albert... not the cartoon character Fat Albert, but Fat Albert might have looked like as a real person.
I told my mom about my hearing problem because sometimes I couldn't understand what she was saying.
I actually found myself warming up to her, in spite of my original trepidation at having to meet her. She seemed to be an okay person.
Finally I asked her, "Look, are you happy – no let's not go for happy – are you even comfortable with this situation?"
"Frankly, no," she replied.
I was about to tell her that I had a life of my own in Oklahoma and didn't really need to live with her or have some kind of reconciliation with her, even though my initial reluctance to meet her had gone. I was about to tell her that. But suddenly the scene sort of changed.
I was outside the apartment on the street again, and I levitated, flew or floated (or something) up to where I could see over the building's roof. It had become night, In the distance I could see the skyline – neither Chicago's nor Oklahoma City's nor any other recognized. I turned my head to the right, and there was the same skyline again. I was surprised and confused by seeing it twice, and it subtly shifted some, but not a lot. I looked in another direction and saw the dark structures of an industrial district silhouetted against the sky.
I tried to climb up on the roof, but hadn't gotten enough altitude for that. The roof was at about neck level and I couldn't get a grip to pull myself up. So I let myself float gently back to the ground. I was a little afraid to do that as well – I worried that once I quit consciously floating, I had just fall like a rock back to the ground. But I didn't.
There were some other elements in the dream, but I can't remember the sequence.
There was some furniture that was very restrained and tasteful, nothing like what anyone in my family would have ever owned.
My mother mentioned there was a famous veterinarian on her block who had treated an equally famous chimpanzee or orangutan who was alcoholic and was known in newspaper accounts as 'the drinking chimp.' There was alos a dog psychologist or something similar on the block who was quite well-known. Based on this information, I was able to tell my mother that she lived on the same block and perhaps even in the same apartment as my friend Stacy, who had once mentioned having the alcoholic chimp veterinarian for a neighbor.
(In real life, my friend Stacy has lived in many large cities, including Washington, DC at the moment. But never Chicago, as far as I know.)
And then I woke up and experienced a little cognitive jolt because the dream had seemed so real that I had forgotten or didn't know I was dreaming.
Earlier in the evening, I had two other dreams. In one, there were four glamorous women, all strangers, surrounding me and trying to seduce me.
In the other dream, the first of the three, I was playing Frisbee with Graham Nash from the Hollies/CSNY. We were in a grocery store or someplace like that. He was so far back among the shelves I couldn't actually see him – I'd see only the Frisbee (TM or ® or whatever) come flying out from the aisles. He had a technique where he could the Frisbee to float down almost to the floor then suddenly ascend again. I had trouble catching it.
Saturday, April 01, 2006
Fine. Go ahead, laugh.
But when a freakin' meatball the size of Belgium is hurtling out of space heading straight for the neighborhood, don't say I didn't warn you.
Route 66, Arizona, 1947
There's a poster on the wall at the Borders on NW Expressway, back behind the DVD section. It's a photo from Life Magazine by Andreas Feininger called Route 66, Arizona, 1947.
You can see it here.
This poster kind of pulled me back in time the first time I saw it. Or, more accurately, the first time I noticed it, because I probably walked past it 200 times before I actually saw it.
I have a story that goes with this poster.
You can see it here.
This poster kind of pulled me back in time the first time I saw it. Or, more accurately, the first time I noticed it, because I probably walked past it 200 times before I actually saw it.
I have a story that goes with this poster.
You're driving along Route 66, on your way from one place to another – Oklahoma City to Los Angeles, maybe – and you come to this little town, and you realize you don't to go any farther.
You can just stop here. And you do.
There's a 'Help wanted' sign in a little grocery market. You take that job. You had another job, in an office, in a complex, wore a coat and tie every day, on the way up, solid future. You don't even call them to quit.
You don't call your girlfriend or your friends or your relatives, either. It's as if they were a dream you had.
So now you're a grocery clerk. And you find a house for rent, a little house with just one bedroom, close to the highway, maybe just off the right edge of that photo. You walk to work. You're at work early and you're off early, and in the afternoon, you go back to your little house and stretch out on the bed. The window is open and sometimes you hear the wind rustling through the few trees. A dog barks. An occasional car zooms through the highway junction. You drift in and out of sleep.
And this is your life. This is your world. You and the grocery store and your little house and the Texaco station.
Have a Pepsi.
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