Wednesday, October 31, 2007

I am not immune...

...to infatuation, by the way.

Just in case you were wondering.

But I'm still emotionally unavailable and covered with cat hair, so the point is largely moot.

More non-attachment

One of the best things for me about non-attachment is not having to worry about things so much. Developing non-attachment in regards to a certain area or thing is like marking an item off your 'to-do' list.

(Well, that's an assumption on my part. I practice non-attachment to 'to-do' lists, and was doing so even when I was a Southern Baptist.)

Most of my attachment manifested itself in one of three ways: the desire to 'take care' of someone, i.e., codependence (and not to be confused with compassion); the desire to own something; or pointless worry about something. As I've mentioned before, I think all of these are actually symptoms of some other problem, which is probably just ego (not egomania, or egocentrism, but simply the presence of ego).

I have profoundly simplified my life just by getting rid of attachments, and when I uncover another one, I'm grateful for the opportunity to simplify even further.

I used to wonder how people could stand to live in the relatively primitive conditions of rural communes. Not that I have any intention of doing it, but I can see now why it was attractive.

Tuesday, October 30, 2007

Non-attachment vs reversed attachment

Because I don't know what else to call it.

Let's say, for example (since it's a pet issue for me) someone decided he's going to detach himself from, or practice non-attachment to, material possessions. That's an admirable goal. But what if, instead of reaching non-attachment to material possessions, this person just flips his attachment on its head and he becomes attached to not having anything? That's probably preferable to being attached to possessions, but it's still attachment.

A person has to find that state that is a non-state. But he risks becoming attached to finding the non-state, or becoming attached to being in the non-state.

This is the point at which the sage stretches out, puts his feet up, and asks someone to check on his pancakes.

Monday, October 29, 2007

Monday evening

I saw a guy in the grocery store this evening who had shaved his scalp and had a map of Texas tattooed on the back of his head.

Leopard

Loaded the new version of OS X, called Leopard, onto my home Mac this afternoon, and had huge problems. This won't mean anything to you if you're not a regular Mac user, but the system hung as the Finder was loading. I got the spinning beach ball, and then the mouse and keyboard had only limited function.

Oddly enough, everything worked fine with the Camino and Firefox web browsers, and Safari was mostly functional. Other programs loaded slowly or not at all.

Some Googling on the internets led me to a page suggesting my problem might be caused by a system directory installed by the DivX video codec called DivXNetworks, and that my problem would be solved if I changed the directory name to DivX.

This isn't that easy if you can't boot the computer all the way up.

Eventually I got it into single-user mode (if you're a Windows user, this is somewhat akin to the DOS mode that used to load before Windows loaded on top of it) and made the change there, and sure enough it worked.

An afternoon reality

Certain irrational and essentially useless (at least for me) biological drives run as background processes and interfere with my ability to have a calm, peaceful day.

As I've said before, I'm old, fat and covered with cat hair. Why can't I have a biological drive for cleaning house and picking up cat shit? That would be more constructive.

An afternoon daydream

It goes like this:

I'm living in some village on the Mediterranean or Aegean Sea. I've been here a long time. There are a few other Americans around, but not many. This isn't a tourist destination. Few people know I'm an American, and those who know don't care. Most people around here don't know me at all – I keep pretty much to myself. I don't read the papers: I don't know who's leading in the AFC East, or what the president's approval rating is or whose natural resources we're stealing because Jesus wants us to. I long ago lost contact with the states. People I knew, women I loved (yes, there have been some) and places I went are all like a dream I once had.

I live in a second-floor apartment. I have one room that is a combination living room/library and a smaller room that's the bedroom. There's no kitchen; I usually eat in a small local restaurant downstairs.

It's the middle of the afternoon, and I'm lying on the bed, drifting between sleep and dim wakefulness. The walls of my bedroom are cream-colored. There's the bed and a small desk and chair in the room, all painted white, and no other furniture. There's a glass and a pitcher of water on the desk. A few ice cubes, melted almost completely away, float in the pitcher.

It's about seventy degrees. The bedroom window is open, and a breeze is coming off the sea. Sailboats drift across the small harbor.

This is my day, this is every day, this is my life. At least in the daydream.

Sunday, October 28, 2007

Some other blogs...

...have a link at the bottom of the page that lets you go to previous posts. I don't have that, and I don't know why. Some kind of Blogger code I haven't figured out.

The Evangelical Crackup

Found via The Huffington Post – an interesting article from the NYT Magazine about The Evangelical Crackup and the growing voice of moderation among evangelicals.

Saturday, October 27, 2007

Speaking of mundane tasks

Today I spent about 90 minutes (or maybe it just seemed like 90 minutes) whacking back a wisteria bush/tree in front of my house. Most of the shrubbery surrounding the house will have to be trimmed in preparation for a paint job coming in early November – the wisteria, which I planted myself, is the biggest item on the list. I only got about a third done today.

I originally planted the wisteria to get some privacy while on the porch, and I certainly got it. The thing grew into a one-plant jungle. I hope it will start growing back in the spring. It will take a couple of summers' growth to reach its former size.

Also today, I went to the mall, planning to quickly pick up a copy of the newest Apple operating system, called OS X Leopard. I can't remember ever seeing the mall that crowded except before Christmas. Perhaps the shopping season has already begun. It was a mess.

Life is Supposed to be Boring, part 2

The comments posted in response to my statement 'life is supposed to be boring' were all on the money.

Again, this was something I picked up during the course of some intensive life reassessment about ten years ago, and was offered to me more as advice for people whose lives are filled with drama and angst, often self-generated in order to relieve boredom.

I often say I hate drama, but that's not quite correct. I'm actually a drama junkie. It's the 'hangover' of personal drama I hate, and I hate it intensely enough that it's worth making an effort to minimize drama in my own life and to stay out of other people's drama.

But getting joy from mundane tasks is something at which I fail miserably. I hate mundane tasks. My brain seems to simply stop functioning when confronted with them. Maybe I could solve my inability to achieve a 'no-mind' meditative state by simply putting the phone bill in front of me when I sit.

Artificial Intelligence Koans

Nina/Christina posted a link to some Buddhist humor sources on Flibbertigibbett! the other day, and I've been perusing them off and on.

One of them, called Artificial Intelligence Koans, contains this story:

"A disciple of another sect once came to Drescher as he was eating his morning meal. 'I would like to give you this personality test,' said the outsider, 'because I want you to be happy.' Drescher took the paper that was offered him and put it into the toaster: 'I wish the toaster to be happy, too.'"

A cabin in the woods

Seen via reddit.com... the mountain cabin of architect Olle Lundberg, built largely from used and recycled materials.

In fact, this whole site is interesting. Some of it is a little cutesy, and some of it a little consumerist/materialist, but there's also a green living section.

And if you're interested in living in less space, there seem to be quite a few useful tips here.

Friday, October 26, 2007

The Senior Pet

Most of you have heard me speak of Beasley, the senior pet. Those of you who know me from The Well may remember when I got Beasley, which was almost ten years ago. I was, strangely enough, depressed at the time, and Beasley came along at a very fortuitous moment, jumping out from under a shrub in a park and grabbing my ankle and refusing to let go.

He was small enough to sit in the palm of my hand at the time – about the same age as these two kittens scampering around the house right now. Today, he is middle-aged, fat and kind of grumpy – the Oscar Madison of cats.

He's also prone to depression. When Beasley gets depressed, he goes and sits in a corner, facing the wall, and refuses to acknowledge me or any other cat. That might go on for three or four days. He will still go eat and use the litter box, but when he's done he returns to his corner.

I mention that because he's been depressed the past few days and I think it's because of the kittens. They want to play, and Beasley wants to sleep.

Beasley occasionally goes outdoors, though not as often as he once did. He doesn't like the cold much, so he'll be staying indoors for the next few months. I think he's ready to retire to full-time indoor cat status again, and that's fine with me.

But when he does go out, he always does the same thing: walk down the driveway, turn left onto the sidewalk, follow it to my neighbor's driveway, then take the neighbor's driveway back to the house. I suppose he's inspecting the grounds, but it fascinates me that he chose that concrete as our 'perimeter.'

Beasley is usually okay with other cats when he's outside. Indoors, it's sometimes a different story. There are a couple of cats he doesn't like, and if, on a warm day when the door's open, they step across the threshhold, he's there in a flash to bounce them. If he's under the car and they follow him there, he's okay with that. Or on the porch, or the backyard deck (although he rarely goes to the back yard.) But once they're actually in the house, boom!

(Butthead, the cat who bit me last fall, was on Beasley's 'pass' list.)

I find it remarkable me that he recognizes the walls of the house as his most personal territory - his sanctum snactorum, if you will. He could just as easily have chosen the house and the porch, or the whole front yard, but he seems to have some concept of being 'indoors' or 'outdoors,' and where the generally accepted boundary is.

I mention all this because cats fascinate me, exactly because of this kind of behavior.

The King of Feral Kitties

That's how I want to be known. You can just call me 'The King' for short.

Thursday, October 25, 2007

Thursday 7:13 am

Something I forgot to mention:

Before I became interested in Buddhism and learned about the concept of dukkha, I spent some time in therapy. One of the things I learned in that experience is that life is supposed to be boring.

Life is filled with mundane tasks like doing laundry, flossing your teeth, cleaning up after kids or pets if you have them, mowing the yard and so on. If your life has none of this, and your day is filled from start to finish with excitement and drama, something's wrong.

Knowing that and living that are two different things.

I'm not only bored by the boring things – I'm bored by the supposedly interesting things. And sometimes I feel almost paralyzed by the ennui.

Thursday 3:01 AM

I am getting close to the 90-day mark on my retirement, and I think restlessness is settling in. But I'm not so restless that I'm actually going to do anything about it.

I've written before about what I have called our 'entertainment economy,' by which I mean that our economy is driven not so much by information, as pundits like to say, as by entertainment, as evidenced by the amount of money we pay athletes and actors and what we pay for entertainment services and appliances. We have a need to constantly be receiving 'junk data,' which is to say data that is trivial enough that we can expose ourselves to it somewhat casually and not worry about missing part or most of it. We just need a steady flow to distract us from the essential emptiness of our lives – white noise and white light to keep us from really hearing and seeing.

One thing I don't do well is sit quietly. I can do fine, and have done fine, without ever seeing Dancing With the Stars or even an episode of The Sopranos or whatever is the current darling of TV critics. The last movie I saw was An Inconvenient Truth. But sitting and killing time with friends and acquaintances is my substitute for spending money on movies and cable TV. As far as just sitting at the wall, my mind clear of discursive thoughts – I actually find that more difficult now than I did when I first started meditation practice. At this point, it would be misleading to say I have a meditation practice at all.

So, coming back to the restlessness: I feel this need, or maybe addiction to having somethin' goin' on. But I don't know what, because almost everything bores me.

Even this fails to capture my attention or imagination.

I got into a heated discussion a few weeks ago about whether it was possible to have parallel universes or whether there can be by definition only one universe, and anything we discovered that we might call a 'parallel universe' would actually be a parallel dimension of that one universe. That's a pretty arcane topic, suitable mostly for quantum physicists and comic book writers, but someone pointed out that it was the first time they'd ever heard me talk about anything with any degree of passion or interest. What made that subject so interesting to me at the time I can't say.

The house is a mess again. I could spend a couple of days cleaning it up, but I can't even get my mind around that – too boring. There are two semi-feral kittens lurking in here. I see them occasionally darting from behind one piece of furniture to underneath another, and that's all. But they're dropping kitten-size turd bombs here and there, and I need to go on catshit safari and track it all down. I may work up enough energy to do that, but I'd rather read or sit at the coffee shop or just sleep.

"How long have the planets been circling the sun? Are they getting anywhere, and do they go faster and faster in order to arrive? How often has the spring returned to the earth? Does it come faster and faster every year, to be sure to be better than last spring and to hurry on its way to the spring that shall outspring all springs?"

~Alan Watts, The Wisdom of Insecurity

Monday, October 22, 2007

More Watts for You

Mark Watts, the son of philosopher Alan Watts, has apparently created a YouTube account where he has posted some of his father's videos.

I say "apparently" because even though these are rare videos, and Watts has a son named Mark, there's no way I can know for sure that this account holder is in fact Watts' son.

Whether he is or not, the videos speak for themselves, so here's the link.

As I've mentioned before, many of Watts' audio recordings from KPFA and other appearances are available as iTunes podcasts, and the Alan Watts web site is permanently linked at right.

Monday

This is a perfect day to wrap myself in the Bathrobe of Perfect Enlightenment and the Comfy House Shoes of Supreme Wisdom and just hang out. And that's what I'm doing.

Sunday, October 21, 2007

Fake News

...and not the Jon Stewart kind.

This link points to an infomercial for some mortgage/credit thing...

...and it really does look as hokey as a real local TV newscast.

Saturday, October 20, 2007

Dweezil Zappa, we just praise your name.

From Fuzzy Quark: I was wondering this same thing, even when I was a fundamentalist.

In fact, if you wanted to praise somebody's name, wouldn't you say something like, "Dude, you have such a cool name!" instead of saying, "We just praise your name"?

Hui-Neng

Here's a straightforward and demystified account of the Sixth Patriarch Ancestor and his contribution to chan/zen.

The Internet Encyclopedia of Philosophy: Hui-Neng

Did you take your fish oil today?

Just checking. We don't want you running around with insufficient Omega 3 fatty acids.

Infatuation

"Being infatuated with sense objects and thereby shutting themselves from their own light, all sentient beings, tormented by outer circumstances and inner vexations, act voluntarily as slaves to their own desires."

– The Platform Sutra of Hui-Neng


I'm going out on a limb with this, because we're talking about English translation, and there are a lot of different ways to translate certain Chinese words (or so I've read – I'm no expert).

But I'm interested in the use of the word 'infatuated' here. The way we generally use this word, you'd think it has something to do with sexual attraction, obsession, lust, or desire.

But the Latin root "infatuat-" means 'made foolish.' Infatuation doesn't mean, literally speaking, 'having a crush' – it means being made foolish.

And that's what happens, isn't it? Well, that's what happens to me. Your mileage may vary.

We most commonly talk about being infatuated as an extreme, brief sexual or physical attraction, but in this context, the Sixth Zen Patriarch (or his translator) is talking about being infatuated with all kinds of things that are seen, heard, smelled, tasted and physically felt. And we could add to that intangible things that are sensed only in our minds – fame (or infamy, which is sometimes just as agreeable), joy, sadness, anger, resentment – even the pursuit of enlightenment.

I often paraphrase Thoreau who said (paraphrasing), 'You don't own your possessions - your possessions own you.' I think this is also true of these infatuations – they end up controlling our lives, telling us how we will act or behave rather than us making our own choices.

And then we are made foolish.

The usual disclaimer applies.

Omega 3 factoid

I guess the actual deal is that Omega 3 fatty acids can reduce the chance of stroke while simultaneously increasing the risk of bleeding, thus increasing the chance of stroke in some people. Or something.

Friday, October 19, 2007

LOOK OUT! I'M HIGH ON FISH OIL!!!

Based on advice from friends, I bought some fish oil supplement today, and tonight I'm fairly exploding with Omega 3 fatty acids.

This is going to affect my depression, reduce my risk of heart disease, help me lose weight, and possibly cause a stroke. But three out of four ain't bad.

More on Omega 3 fatty acids from the University of Maryland Medical Center and the American Heart Association.

More buttons pushed

I find myself unable to discuss the war in Iraq rationally with anyone who supports it, so it's time to just stop. I'm not changing anyone's mind, anyway.

Thursday, October 18, 2007

Do I care about facebook?

I rarely use my myspace account. My friends are mostly people I see every day. Their friends appear to be mostly people they see every day.

Myspace always struck me as mostly warmed-over America Online. Hard to believe now that seven or eight years ago AOL was supposed to be the hottest thing on the planet and it briefly had so much money it was able to buy Time Warner. In 2015 I think they'll be talking about myspace the way they talk about AOL today – which is to say barely at all.

So now here's facebook and it certainly looks saner, for lack of a better word, than myspace, but I'm not sure I see that it has any value for me. I'll be happy to entertain other opinions, though.

Thursday evening

I think what happened this week is that a few things pushed some old buttons for me. None of them were done on purpose, or with the intent of pushing my buttons – they were just a confluence of random events that simultaneously tapped into some old issues that haven't come up for me in a long time.

I've kind of gotten around the corner on this, I think, but I still need some more time to myself.

A lot of people think I'm rather reclusive now, but I was much more so for most of my life. The past couple of years have been unusually busy for me in terms of social contact, and that has intensified even more since leaving work. So now I've got a bit of contact overload, and I need to get into a quieter mode of living for awhile.

More dreams

The scariest dream yet: I dreamt I was sitting at a PC running Windows 98. I was trying to make it do something, but instead of doing what I wanted it to do, the computer started redrawing the screen verrrrry ssslooowwwllly. When it finished, I saw that all the desktop icons – even 'My Computer' – were gone from the desktop. All I had was blank wallpaper.

Then the computer spontaneously rebooted, came up in text-only mode, and offered to let me continue rebooting in 'safe mode' to troubleshoot the problem.

Then I woke up.

I went back to sleep, and dreamt I was riding around outside a TV station on a toy Jeep®. At some points it was battery-powered and at other points I was pedaling it like a tricycle. I rode through a construction zone and all the construction workers were looking at me while I zipped through mud puddles and over big rocks.

Then I woke up.

Another quote

"For several months I decided not to speak about any third person; I would not speak to somebody about somebody else. No gossip. Ninety percent of my speech was eliminated. Before I did that I had no idea that I had spent so much time and energy engaged in that kind of talking. It is not that my speech had been particularly malicious, but for the most part it had been useless.

...

"By stopping such speech for a while, my mind became less judgmental, not only of others, but also of myself, and it was a great relief."

– Joseph Goldstein, from Everyday Mind by Jean Smith


I tried this same thing once. I think I made it about six hours.

The usual disclaimer applies

I may be on to something, but then again I may be completely wrong. I am no expert.

Wednesday, October 17, 2007

Wednesday PM

"The real reason why human life can be so utterly exasperating and frustrating is not because there are facts called death, pain, fear, or hunger. The madness of the thing is that when such facts are present, we circle, buzz, writhe, and whirl, trying to get the "I" out of the experience."
– Alan Watts, The Wisdom of Insecurity

The flame in your hand

All the violence, fear and suffering
That exists in this world
Comes from grasping at self.
What is the use of this great monster for you?
If you do not let the self go,
There will be no end to your suffering;
Just as if you do not release a flame from your hand,
You can't stop it burning your hand.

– Shantideva



This was in today's Dharma for Today email. It arrived at a very fortuitous moment, don't you think?

Another dream and more restlessness

...and this dream was really scary.

I dreamt I had gone back to work.

In the dream, I was working for the state, doing something similar to what I had done in my most recent job. I was in an art supplies store, buying those glass bottles that attach to hobby-grade airbrushes. A guy walks in – someone whom, in real life, I went to college with and worked with maybe twenty years ago. In the dream, he has taken my old job and we're comparing notes.

The big picture, I think, is this: something is going on sort of under the surface with me, causing some stress, anxiety and so on. In addition to the dream with the tornado the other night – a sure sign that I have some unresolved issues in waking life – I've had a touch of depression, a general restlessness, and yesterday, a pretty seriously upset stomach.

I go back to what the Buddha taught, and can see that the source of this below-the-surface turmoil is attachment. All I have to do is figure out what the object of attachment is. I think I know the source, but I'm not sure.

Attachment obviously doesn't have to be to a physical object, of course. In fact, I wonder if we actually get attached to physical objects. I can say I'm attached to some item, but perhaps in reality I'm attached to something that object represents in my mind. One common case is that in which an item represents social status. But then one can look further and say, 'Am I attached to social status, or am I attached to something else social status brings?'

So you follow the attachment trail back to its source, which I suspect always ends up being something out of Maslow's heirarchy.

Well, here I am with an attachment which is causing me some inner disturbance, both psychological and physical. And although this dream might seem to point toward retirement as the source, I don't think that's it. Retirement may be giving me more time and freedom to be under the sway of attachment, but it's not the attachment itself.

And I think I know what the attachment is, but I have to emphasize think, because I'm not sure.

This is sort of like a detective story.

Tuesday, October 16, 2007

Tuesday evening

I went out driving around for awhile tonight... well outside the bubble. I used to go driving all the time, and the old restlessness is back after a two-year absence. Cooler weather and early sunsets have something to do with it.

If I had that fireplace I was talking about, I would be in front of it right now.

I'm reading Mystics and Zen Masters by Thomas Merton. I think I'll go spend some time with that now.

I'm trying to imagine what it would take...

...to get me to sit through a Christian rock concert with someone.

























Actual art by actual artists

Line Gallery "Mixed Bag of Nuts Show"

4623 N Portland Ave (Southwest Corner of 46th & Portland)
Featuring Works by Matt Goad, Geoff Krawzcyk & Joe Slack

The outdoor sculpture Garden will feature new works by Ron Ferrell,
Larry Pickering, Klint Schor & Joe Slack

Opening Reception Saturday October 20th from 6-9 pm.
Complimentary Food & Drink

Call 405-812-7175 or http://www.joeslack.com/linegallery.html for more info.

Monday, October 15, 2007

It's autumn

The sun was down by eight. I like fall. We had a rather mild summer, but I still like it when the sun is down early. My one regret about my house is that it lacks a fireplace.

I went to Old Navy this evening and bought a sweatshirt which I am wearing right now, tags still attached. I also bought two pair of cargo pants. I had dinner at Chili's and a couple of scoops of strawberry ice cream from Braum's.

This is why I'm getting so rotund.

Monday afternoon

Breakfast at Jimmy's Egg. Iced tea at the Red Cup. Home. Haven't made it to Yukon yet.

Also, some cat shit in the hallway between the kitchen and the dining room. Twice.

Monday morning: still disgruntled

Just saying.

I wonder what's going on in Yukon today.

Sunday, October 14, 2007

U Srinivas

Debashish Bhattacharya

More of what I actually listen to at home. Former jazz guitarist plays classical Indian music on three slide guitars of his own design:

For JohnX

Sunday

Got up about 10:30 and went to Jimmy's Egg for breakfast. Came home and napped until about 3:30. Got up and went to Galileo and killed some time with Terry L and Kelley O and another guy.

Went to Subway and got a roast beef sandwich. Stopped at 7-Eleven on the way home and picked up a bag of Alley Cat. I wish I could summon the initiative to go to PetsMart, but it's out there at 63rd and May.

That's the day to this point.

Choying Drolma, Steve Tibbetts and Marc Anderson

This is what I actually listen to at home.


Joe Esposito and other dreams

After I went to bed, I didn't sleep well.

In the first dream I had, I was traveling south on some highway or freeway leading into town. It was night or early evening, and the sky was bluish-gray with drizzle and fog.

The familiar city skyline was ahead of me and to my left. But closer in, and all around me, were the towers and smokestacks of dozens of refineries and factories, belching smoke and steam into the foggy night. Many were illuminated, so the evening sky was divided between the hazy blue of the sky and and harsh yellow of vapor lamps, with the black silhouettes of smokestacks all around. A flash of lightning revealed a tornado approaching from the southwest which would eventually cross the freeway somewhere behind me.

And then I woke up.

I don't remember the second dream at all.

In the third dream, I was looking at some sort of catalog/sales piece for an exclusive golf course-based community somewhere around Guthrie. No such place exists, to my knowledge - the whole thing came out of my imagination. Photos showed residents at some social gathering. The men were wearing suits with Bermuda short-length pants, such as they actually wear in Bermuda, I guess.

There were lots of photos of Joe Esposito, the golf course's founding pro. According to one caption, he came to Guthrie from Chicago to establish the golf course years ago - like maybe in the late fifties - but sadly committed suicide when he was only 27. I saw that in my dream and thought to myself, 'Well, it's odd they would candidly mention that in a sales flyer.' One photo showed Joe amiably chatting with someone at what looked like another clubhouse party. The caption said it was one of the last photos taken of Joe, snapped the evening of his death.

And that was the third dream.

Does anyone ever actually have that comic strip dream where they're lying on the beach and beautiful women are fanning them with palm fronds?

Saturday, October 13, 2007

And now, some cheese

Oh.

(Edited for incorrect use of British slang.)

I'm feeling very antisocial. Not that I'm Mr. Party Animal the rest of the time, but I'm especially antisocial tonight.

First, there's the whole matter of going off the rails on the relationship thing. There is a sanskrit word, dukkha, which is translated variously as 'stress,' 'suffering,' or 'dissatisfaction.' When the Buddha talked about releasing people from suffering, dukkha was the word he used, and it covers more ground than what we typically think of as 'suffering.'

When someone says 'You need to get laid,' what they're really saying is, 'You appear to be caught in dukkha' – for which getting laid is no cure and in my experience may be contraindicated. Emotional entanglements are more likely to create dukkha than reduce or end them.

I spent some time in my life looking for a relationship that would help end my dukkha, only to have it made inevitably worse. I've learned the lesson on that. No matter what Marvin Gaye said, there is no such thing as 'sexual healing.'

I'm not saying relationships are inherently bad; I'm just saying they're not essential and the best circumstance under which to have one is if you utterly do not give a shit whether you have one or not.

So anyway, I got sidetracked on the relationship thing.

A few days ago I sent an old friend an email asking how she was doing, since I had not heard from her in awhile. Four days later - today - I got back a 'form' email sent to me and several other of her friends containing a quote from the Dalai Lama. His Holiness is doing fine, but I wanted to know how she was.

Then this evening, on my way to the Red Cup, I was at about 16th and Indiana in the Plaza District when a trophy-wife type came prancing out from the curb and waved me down. "Are you here for 'the event'?" she asked.

I didn't know what she was talking about, of course, so I said no.

"Well, this street is closed to people who aren't here for 'the event,'" she said.

"No it's not," I replied, gesturing toward the vacant and unobstructed street.

"We have a permit until 11 pm, she replied huffily. If you're not here for 'the event,' you'll have to turn around and go back."

By this time several other cars had gotten backed up on the street behind me, and more trophy wives were out vetting the drivers to see if they were invited to 'the event,' or just some peasant bastards trying to drive on a public street.

I was reminded of a story told me earlier today by a perfectly average-looking middle-aged man who was braced by the rent-a-cops in Heritage Hills this week for simply walking down the sidewalk in the middle of the day – apparently profiled because he wasn't wearing a froufrou designer jogging suit or walking some yippy little terrier on a rhinestone-studded leash. Or maybe there was just something about his demeanor that suggested his home doesn't have true divided-light windows.

I am concerned about this trend of trying to create exclusive, restricted communities in central-city neighborhoods whose infrastructure was built by and is maintained with taxpayer dollars.

Anyway, I turned around and detoured up to 17th street along with all the other riffraff and peons.

By the time I got to the RC I was in no mood to visit and I didn't stay long.

All of this, of course, is the result of attachment. I could have just as easily been utterly unconcerned about being ordered off the street by some upmarried bimbo with her ponytail pulled through the back of her ball cap, utterly indifferent to the almost-utterly indifferent response to my email, utterly phlegmatic about relationships.

In other news, Al Gore has won the Nobel Peace Prize and J-Lo is pregnant, so things aren't all bad.

Also, via Blogblah!: Survey shows New Zealand women, Austrian men most outrageous liars.

Relationship stuff

I don't write about this much because a] there are few 'daily life' subjects about which I remain so fundamentally ignorant, b] there are so many other blogs talking about relationships with more insight than I can ever muster and c] I don't care as much as I used to.

And yet there are times when I wish - well, I don't know what I wish.

I am the last leaf on my branch of the family tree: no kids, no brothers and sisters, no parents. My family support network is non-existent. Sometimes – like maybe twice a year, although it used to be more often – I wake up in the middle of the night and feel completely and totally alone. I feel as if I were perched on the edge of a huge black abyss and about to fall in.

But is that something that can be 'cured' by a relationship? I suspect I would still feel that way sometimes, even if I were involved with someone. And in those times when I've been 'with' someone, there have certainly been occasions where I've stared into the darkness in the general direction of the ceiling and thought to myself, 'What the hell am I doing?'

I get two kinds of feedback from platonic female friends. One is that the rap on me is that I'm too eccentric (ie, too many cats, junky car, etc.) and 'uninteresting' (which I would call too low-drama), and the other is that I'm too emotionally unavailable.

I can tell you that being emotionally unavailable is the aftermath of years of being emotionally too available, and 'unavailable' seems more attractive to women than 'too available'. But the reason I seem emotionally unavailable is that I actually am emotionally unavailable.

Sometimes I meet someone I find interesting. Then I find myself thinking, 'Well, now what?'

And I don't know. I just really don't know. I don't mean the "do I say 'hi'/does my hair look okay/is there cat hair on my shirt" stuff. I mean now what?

I have joked in the past that when I see a woman I find attractive my mind immediately fast-forwards to the scene where the whole thing is over and she's at VZD's with her girlfriends drinking cocktails and dishing about what a pathetic bastard I am. But more accurately, I'm mentally fast-forwarding to the part where her best friend doesn't like my clothes, or she thinks I need a sports car, or her kids are racing around on a sugar high, or I need to take her to some formal art museum soiree or whatever, and Cold Mountain is starting to look good again.

And I find myself thinking as I'm looking at or perhaps talking to this interesting woman, 'Okay, suppose I ask her out? To do what? What do I want to do?'

Well, what I want to do is sit quietly and watch the world go by, which is not a date.

I don't want to go 'on a date.' I don't want some ritualized consumer experience in which we each learn whether we're interested in having further ritualized consumer experiences with each other. I don't want to go to a movie. I don't want to dress up or even put on a sports coat and slacks. I don't want to go hang out on the periphery of a circle of wealthy and influential people (or poseurs). I never went to a Hornets game and can't imagine why I ever would. I don't even watch TV at home.

I don't want any 'Omigawd – omigawd. You won't believe what ___________ did last night' drama.

When I turned fifty, I felt like something needed to change about the way I approached relationships. I wasn't sure what, but something. There needed to be more - well, dignity isn't the right word, but something akin to dignity.

I look around and it seems like hardly anyone I know is doing any better with this than I am.

And I'm old and fat now and covered with cat hair. Well, I've always been covered with cat hair. But cats are pretty low drama, and I like that.

Wednesday, October 10, 2007

Wednesday

So, Hui-Neng, sixth zen patriarch. Here's a Wednesday. I get up when I feel like it, take a shower, ride my bike to the Red Cup. I have some iced tea and a bagel with plum jam. I guess it's plum - no one seems to know for sure. Kurt just calls it the 'red jam.' I sit around there with the usual suspects until 11:30 or so, then bike back home.

I dink around the computer until 12:45-1 p.m., then head out in the van in search of lunch. I end up at the Subway on N. Classen. First franchise food I've eaten in more than a year, but I need a break from pizza and Asian. I read a little of the book Bohemian Amy loaned me, called Time Without Work. After that, I decide to head back home, but when I get outside, I realize it's too nice to be indoors and I head back to the Cup. I sit around with more of the usual suspects until 3:30 p.m.

At 3:30, the Red Cup closes. No more sitting around idly there. So I head to Sauced! and sit around idly there, where I encounter - you guessed it - the usual suspects. I hand off Amy's book to one of them.

At five, it's off to Galileo and the dinner group. We eat at Khazana at Mayfair, with tabla virtuoso Zakir Hussein on the stereo.

After that, it's off to B&N to pick up some books by Watts, Seung Sahn and S. Suzuki, then home.

I don't know how much longer I can keep up this pace.

Someone else's Wednesday.

Tuesday, October 09, 2007

Tuesday

I have nothing to report.

Friday, October 05, 2007

Things that make you go "Jeeezus"

Oh... here comes one now:


Stuff I didn't do tonight

I didn't go to the art opening at The Elms because, well, it's kind of a dressy place, and I'm not a dressy guy.

I'm frankly so overweight and dumpy-looking these days that dressing me up is like putting a suit on a sack of potatoes.

I have a bunch of dry cleaning - including blazers, sport coats and slacks - out on the front porch that I need to get to the cleaners someday.

101 Zen Stories

New permanent link at right... to 101 Zen Stories.

Thank you, JohnX, for the tip.

Friday evening

Link posted without comment.

What if the Great Pyramid were in Poteau?

The Great Pyramid was 480.9 feet tall when it was finished and was the tallest building on earth for thousands of years. It is regarded as one of the seven wonders of the ancient world.

By comparison, Cavanal Hill near Poteau is said to be 1999 feet above surrounding terrain - the highest 'hill' in the world. Put the Great Pyramid in Poteau, away from the flat surroundings of the desert, and suddenly it's no big deal.

Everyone's heard of the Great Pyramid, but Cavanal Hill is mostly unknown outside of Oklahoma and western Arkansas. I didn't even know it had a name until just now - I always called it 'the big hill in Poteau.'

The difference between them, of course, is that the Great Pyramid was built by human beings, while Cavanal Hill is a product of nature. We give the Great Pyramid 'extra credit' for being man-made.

Nature's hiccups produce more impressive results than man's most monumental works, yet we take them for granted while glorifying our own relatively minor accomplishments.

What have we done that's so special?

Apathy vs Detachment

I spent a lot of time working on a freelance project which, in the end, the client wasn't all that crazy about. I resolved the problem by a) redoing most of the project in a style which was much more conventional (and far less time-consuming) than what I had originally submitted and b) including an amateurishly-produced logo which was sent to me as a low-resolution web graphic.

There are always times when it's appropriate to let go of something, even when you've put a lot of yourself into it.

'Pride of ownership' is highly regarded in our culture, but it's a sucker's bet. In the end, we don't own anything, and there's no guarantee of permanence. I remember reading about some building designed by Frank Lloyd Wright that was torn down only a few years after it was completed. The Pyramids were built to last - eveything else is temporary.

Thursday, October 04, 2007

Your consonants... they're so... HARD!

One other thing I really love about television are these voice-over announcers who crank out promos and news opens all over the country. You may have noticed in the preceding example, the guy is the same one who does opens for a local station.

One of the tricks to sounding 'urgent,' as they like to say (or at least they did when I was in the business) is that you never use the 'm' or 'n' sounds because they sound passive. Instead, you substitute a hard consonant.

If you listen to the intro in the previous post, you'll hear that what the guy actually says is:


"DOWWWW!

News 12 Spoahts

with Pat MBurphy!"


DOWWWW is really big in TV news. TV news is immediate, intense and filled with drama and excitement, and it's all happening DOWWWW. The station wants you to know that it's not covering old, stale news - it's covering news (or dews) that's going on DOWWWW.

I guess you could say they're DOWWWWists....



























...but I wish you wouldn't.



























Wednesday, October 03, 2007

That is not the right tape

Microsoft's version of 'the surge'

Three - count 'em - three new versions of the Zune!

This really changes everything...

Wednesday morning

I'm losing the battle to keep the house clean. Where does all this crap come from?

Also... a pro bono freelance project. It's a poster for which I'm trying to build the main art in a 3d program.



This is a fairly simple project, but the final art has to be huge for print reproduction. It's been rendering all night.

Monday, October 01, 2007

I'm never going back to my old school

...and here's why.

I like to read, but I'd never make it on a 'forced march' through all that.

This, especially, touches on my most recent career experience, and I'm glad I don't have to think about that stuff anymore. No wonder I want to go live on a mountain somewhere!

I like to think I'm a fairly intelligent and well-read guy, but in truth I'm not. I've missed 'way more than I've gotten.

I can't say I care enough to do anything about it.

But while I'm on the subject of reading, let me recommend The Shock Doctrine by Naomi Klein. I haven't read this myself, so I'm endorsing it sight unseen, but I have read some of Klein's magazine articles on Iraq (and have seen her documentary on Argentine factory workers). I think she has come closer than anyone else to exposing the truth about why we're in Iraq.