Everybody's on my ass

Now it's that "I walk slow."

What does that mean? How slow is 'slow'?

Is there some place I need to be? Do I have an important meeting somewhere?

No.

So I'm walking as fast as I need to walk.

Correction

I didn't mean to suggest that someone would take a Brittany Spaniel to the groomers twice a week. I meant to say every other week.

Time flies

I notice that yesterday I entitled a post "It's Monday," when in fact it was Tuesday.

The passing of days really has become sort of an inconsequential blur to me.

There was a time several years ago when I worried about how fast time was slipping away. I was getting older. My career wasn't where I wanted it to be. I was alone. I wasn't wealthy. I didn't have any social stature.

Somehow, I got over all that. It wasn't so much because of Buddhism, I think, as because I just got older, at least a little wiser and got more perspective.

I don't have any survey results to back it up, but I think most Americans feel the way I used to feel. I think this in large part the result of letting advertisers, marketers and media set our personal agendas and goals instead of setting them ourselves.

I remember several years ago there was a TV ad for some retirement fund. It must have run during golf tournaments on weekends and I probably saw it while at work in the newsroom. The ad showed a very affluent-looking retired couple.

"How are the Klabotniks doing since they retired, dear?" she asked.

"I don't know," he replied, "but they don't look like they're living as well as they used to."

The point of the ad was to encourage people to buy into this fund, of course, but there were a couple of interesting subtexts as well. One was that the viewer was not supposed to identify with the couple having the conversation, but with the unseen Klabotniks, who were unknowingly enduring the shame of being discussed by their presumably wealthier neighbors. How embarrassing!

The other subtext was that 'living as well' meant nothing more than 'owning stuff'. The Klabotniks didn't seem to own as much stuff – Bobby Jones golfwear or an Escalade, for an example – so they were forced to endure the humiliation of being talked about behind their backs. Poor Klabotniks! Don't let this happen to you!

But for all the affluent retired couple knew, the Klabotniks had simply chucked everything, bought a little cabin on a lake somewhere, and were happily and comfortably whiling away the days not being buried under debt and a pile of junk from the mall.

Or maybe the Klabotniks bought a practical, reliable minivan and drove to some eclectic neighborhood coffee shop every morning to visit friends while the affluent retired couple were still primping and preening for their eventual appearance at the Evil Empire Starbuck's.

Maybe the Klabotniks just hung out with their sleeping, low-maintenance cats while the affluent retired couple loaded up their Brittany Spaniel for its twice-a-week trip to the groomers.

These were all just fictional characters, of course, so such speculation doesn't get you very far.

But maybe the Klabotniks were happy and comfortable, having no concept of either being or not being, while the affluent retired couple were greedy superficial warmongering waterboarding-supporting bastards who voted for the worst president in American history not once but twice, for God's sake.

Today is Wednesday, by the way.

Damn right

From a link forwarded to me by Blogblah!....

"The minivan's job is to haul people and cargo in as comfortable and efficient a manner as possible, and it fulfills that mission admirably. Forget about three-row SUVs. Minivans can carry more people more comfortably than even large SUVs; and with the extraordinary flexibility of seat placement/folding/removal, minivans are unparalleled at virtually everything you'd need it to do."

Read more of this review of the Honda Odyssey – and philosophizing about minivans in general – here.

The dead car

The dead car, as it turned out, had only a minor problem. All is well.

It's Monday

If everything goes according to plan, I won't have any fun.

The dead car

The minivan is sitting in a shopping center parking lot tonight because it threw a belt as soon as I started it there.

This car has less than 70,000 miles on it and this is the third time this has happened. I'm somewhat annoyed.

On the other hand, I was able to call someone and get a ride home. My lifelong rule against asking for help – the product of growing up with self-absorbed, alcoholic parents – is in remission.

The car died on a relatively warm night, and not during our recent spate of sub-freezing highs.

And I have the bicycle to get around on tomorrow.

With a little luck, I'll be able to have a wrecker pick up the car tomorrow and tow it to the garage and have the thing back by the end of the day, and it will cost $300 or so.

Fun

I don't have it.

I don't mean that I'm angry or bitter or that I have a moral or religious objection to having fun – I just don't have fun myself, generally speaking, and I don't much miss it.

Blogblah! speculates that he had more fun at the recent party than I did, and I don't doubt that he did. Because I didn't have any 'fun' per se at all.

This doesn't mean that I was unhappy or found the party – other than the size of the crowd – an unpleasant experience. I just didn't have fun, because I don't have fun.

The things that most people find to be fun usually don't amuse me. I can sit through a movie, but it's been a long time since I got caught up in one. About ten years ago, I went on my first and only roller coaster ride. It was like a short, fast drive on a Logan County back road. It was not fun for me, and I don't understand why it would be fun for anyone.

So anyway, I don't have much fun, and I'm okay with that. As always, I prefer peace and calm to excitement and emotionalism.

The Autumn of Multitasking

Multitasking sucks, as scientists are now starting to prove. Here's an article from the November issue of The Atlantic, which I found only now through reddit:

"Human freedom, as classically defined (to think and act and choose with minimal interference by outside powers), was not a product that firms like Microsoft could offer, but they recast it as something they could provide. A product for which they could raise the demand by refining its features, upping its speed, restyling its appearance, and linking it up with all the other products that promised freedom, too, but had replaced it with three inferior substitutes that they could market in its name:

"Efficiency, convenience, and mobility.

"For proof that these bundled minor virtues don’t amount to freedom but are, instead, a formula for a period of mounting frenzy climaxing with a lapse into fatigue, consider that “Where do you want to go today?” was really manipulative advice, not an open question. “Go somewhere now,” it strongly recommended, then go somewhere else tomorrow, but always go, go, go—and with our help. But did any rebel reply, “Nowhere. I like it fine right here”? Did anyone boldly ask, “What business is it of yours?” Was anyone brave enough to say, “Frankly, I want to go back to bed”?

"Maybe a few of us. Not enough of us. Everyone else was going places, it seemed, and either we started going places, too—especially to those places that weren’t places (another word they’d redefined) but were just pictures or documents or videos or boxes on screens where strangers conversed by typing—or else we’d be nowhere (a location once known as “here”) doing nothing (an activity formerly labeled “living”). What a waste this would be. What a waste of our new freedom.

"Our freedom to stay busy at all hours, at the task—and then the many tasks, and ultimately the multitask—of trying to be free."

Another previous career dream

Just awoke from another dream about my previous career. In the dream, I walk into the newsroom and someone has moved my desk to be able to temporarily put a studio camera where my desk had previously been.

In moving my desk, they've disconnected my computer from the printers and moved – and misplaced – the original tape from the story on which I'm working.

I'm running around in a panic trying to get everything back together, but no one else is concerned.

Then I'm rehearsing my speech for the post-newscast meeting, where I'll say, "You know, I don't need this job. I don't have to work at all."

At about this time the producer and others finally realize my story isn't going to 'make slot,' or even make the newscast, and they're all in a panic, while I have now become relatively serene.

And then I woke up – with one of those tension headaches right between and slightly above my eyebrows that I had all the time when I actually had that job.

I've been out of the business almost nine and a half years, and I'm sure technology has moved to the point stuff like this doesn't happen anymore.

The shape of things to come

From the NYT:

"...rather than bestriding the globe, we are competing — and losing — in a geopolitical marketplace alongside the world’s other superpowers: the European Union and China. This is geopolitics in the 21st century: the new Big Three."

This is a longish book excerpt about the state of the world in the decades ahead, but it's worth reading.

Too many people

I went to a party Saturday night, where I was quickly overwhelmed by the number of people in attendance. Most were strangers, so there was a lot of that "How 'bout this weather, huh?" small talk.

I retreated pretty early on - I may have been the first or second person to leave.

I do okay in groups of four or five, but beyond that I can't handle it.

I went to VZD's with a friend. That was also crowded and a little loud for my preference, but at least we were able to get a table on the balcony away from the crowd.

Dalai Lama: "I am a Marxist monk"

From the Buddhist Channel:

"I am a Marxist monk, a Buddhist Marxist. I belong to the Marxist camp, because unlike capitalism, Marxism is more ethical. Marxism, as an ideology, takes care of the welfare of its employees and believes in distribution of wealth among the people of the state."

Life in the rest of the world

In journalism school, they teach that proximity is one of the elements that makes a story newsworthy.

Our own problems naturally are closer to us than the problems of others, and therefore they may seem larger and more immediate.

It's important, I think, to sometimes step away from our own day-to-day problems which seem so dark and looming and take some time to empathize with the problems of others.

Back to basics

Brpltz. I just woke up from a nightmare in which I was back in radio.

3:27 AM

It looks like it was entirely in the attic, which makes me think a chimney fire or an electrical short in a ceiling fixture.

This is the second house fire on this block since I moved in here.

3:18 AM

The house across the street is on fire.

Speaking of which...

...does anyone remember when Remington Park was going to 'put us on the map' and elevate us to 'the first tier of cities'?

New casino?

I'm not crazy about the idea of another big casino in the state, or of having one in the city, but boy, am I tired of hearing how we need to 'protect' Remington Park like it's the Statue of Liberty or Mount Rushmore.

Plans, and the lack thereof

From Buddhist in Nebraska:

"I plan at lot. I mean, a lot, a lot. I plan my day, my week, my year, my life. I plan my route to run errands, which aisles in the grocery store to hit and in what order, how to arrange my closet, my bookshelves, my refrigerator, when to study for history and when for math, when to call this person and how to write that email, and what will be for dinner. Yet despite all of this, I am not an ultra-organized person. I space off and miss my turn. I end up going down the same aisle twice because I forgot something. My desk is piled with random papers and books. I rarely cook. You see, I am addicted to planning, but not to the plan."

I am addicted to neither the planning nor the plan. I also occasionally space off and miss my turn. The other day I spaced off and missed my own driveway. I was almost to the end of the block when I realized I had driven past my own house. Needless to say, I was not exactly in the moment when that happened.

Yesterday, I was driving a friend from lunch at 50th & Shartel to the PetSmart and 63rd and May. For those of you who don't live here, I will explain that that while these two locations are about two and half miles apart east to west, you can't drive directly between them because of a complicated expressway/boulevard junction that blocks the route.

So I was driving through a residential neighborhood, looking for a route that would get me across the expressway but finding none. Eventually I found myself driving through a familiar residential neighborhood, drifting south to 39th street, and realized I had taken this same path only a week earlier, with the same passenger, trying to get across the same expressway.

My friend commented that she always seemed to find herself on these wandering neighborhood drives whenever she went anywhere with me, and I remembered that my ex used to say the same thing.

I think the truth is the direct route always bores me. I get in the car and go, seldom having any notion of how I will get to the place I'm going. Sometimes I don't even know where I'm going, but I'm confident that I'll think of something eventually.

I often avoid expressways, which remind me of those long trails of ants you find carrying food back to the anthill from your kitchen countertop. I would rather drive through the neighborhoods, looking at the houses, glancing up at the trees overhead. There are few things more appealing to me than a neighborhood street canopied by tall sycamores or other trees.

Planning is another of those things that makes my brain sort of freeze up. I can be paralyzed by fear just starting a "To Do" list.

I feel that I've been fortunate or maybe blessed to have spent most of my life as a drifting, disorganized, mostly spontaneous cork bobbing on the sea of fate, and to have still ended up being in a mostly secure place in my middle age.

As I look back over my life, the best times were the ones spent more-or-less adrift. Those times when I was trying to be organized I was mostly working to make somebody else rich, and they weren't fun at all.

Three Fort Yam

I wish I'd given more thought to the name of this blog. Threefortyam seemed like a good idea at the time, since I'm usually up and writing in the early hours of the morning.

But I have a hard time explaining to people what the URL for this blog is.

"Do I type '3:40 a.m.'? '3-forty-am'? 'three40am'?"

I usually tell them it's "three fort yam," just all run together. That seems to confuse them even more.

To make things even more complicated, the blog's name in the banner was "3:40 am" while the URL was "threefortyam."

So I've tinkered with the banner a little to make the 'threefortyam' concept, I hope, a little easier to understand.

Nothing is special. Everything is sacred.

From Clear Mind Zen:

"Yet, we human beings go around marking things as special. We invest things with meaning.

"This is why we suffer so: Everything, special or ordinary, dissolves over time and returns to the Source.

"So, on the one hand, we should recognize the sacred is the everyday, and on the other hand, we should not endeavour to hold onto it."

Monday AM

"To the Taoist mentality, the aimless, empty life does not suggest anything depressing. On the contrary, it suggests the freedom of clouds and mountain streams, wandering nowhere, of flowers in impenetrable canyons, beautiful for no one to see, and of the ocean surf forever washing the sand, to no end."

~ Alan Watts, The Way of Zen

On the other hand...

...I found some interesting music CDs on amazon.com:

"Tabla Tarang: Melody on Drums"
Kamalesh Maitra

"Komuso: The Healing Art of Zen"
Ronnie Nyogetsu Seldon

"Eastwind: Japanese Shakuhachi Music"
Masayuki Koga

"Music for Zen Meditation"
Tony Scott

"Masters of Zen (Koto Shakuhachi)"
Various Artists

"Dancing Dakini"
Choying Drolma

I left the bookstore empty-handed

When I was a child, and later an adolescent, I read a lot of stuff that I would later lose interest in. I read magazines about how to build highly-detailed model cars. I read Famous Monsters of Filmland. I read Archie Comics. I read MAD, Cracked and even Sick. But as I got older, I lost interest in those things.

I was in the bookstore this evening browsing the magazine rack. I couldn't find a thing that interested me. Even the Buddhist magazines didn't interest me. I felt the same way I felt 40 years ago when I saw a new copy of MAD and realized I no longer cared about Spy vs. Spy or the back page fold-in.

They say one of the signs of depression is when you lose interest in the things that once held your attention. I would say that if the same things hold your interest forever, there's something else wrong. I don't know any adults who still read first-grade "Dick and Jane" books. Everyone grows and changes.

Know when to walk away, and know when to run

(note: This post has been updated slightly to reflect a correction from Lazy Buddhist)

I've just finished reading a series of posts on Lazy Buddhist entitled "You Gotta Have Faith?" (Here's the complete series, but it's in reverse order. Start at the bottom and work your way up.)

As some of you know, I was a fundamentalist Christian for a brief time in the early seventies – a period of my life which, from a spiritual perspective, I wish had never happened.

Much of what Lazy Buddhist posts in her series reminds me of that experience. Hers was in a Buddhist group, mine in a Christian group, but some of the basic dynamics are the same. I think this stuff happens in every organized belief system. It even happens in multi-level marketing operations (which, I suppose, are also organized belief systems).

There is a lot to be said for following your instincts. As I understand this, Lazy Buddhist's instincts were on the right track, and taking her in a direction that her less awake friends couldn't understand.

I think any time you encounter a group where a teacher, pastor or leader is held up as a focal point of the practice, there's a problem. There's an old Zen saying - "If you meet the Buddha on the road, kill him." If we are warned not to make the Buddha himself a focal point of practice, how much more so is that true for a teacher, meditation leader or 'Archbishop' Earl Paulk?

I'm also leery of any group that wants to start off its gatherings with chants, hymns, cheers, fellowship songs, or any other behavior that is intended to simply put you in a certain frame of mind – to make you more susceptible to groupthink and less willing to question what you see and hear next.

And if what you experience seems so creepy that you're reduced to tears by it, run.

As my friend JohnX sometimes says, "A guru is just an asshole looking for a body to attach itself to."

By the way, I'm not sure it's true "You Gotta Have Faith." I'm not so big on faith. I think faith is another of those filters that gets in the way of seeing things as they are.

Deep thoughts

I had a very deep profound thought last night (or early this morning, actually) as I was drifting off to sleep. I thought about getting up to write it down, but I didn't, and now I've forgotten it.

The disappearing post

I've 'disappeared' a post here because it peripherally involved someone, not identified by name, who had no idea anything she said or did would be the subject of discussion here.

Her involvement in the story, rest assured, was rather trivial – after all, I was writing about the subject which interests me most, which is me.

New Links

Following links on All Things Stone, I came across a wealth of Buddhist blogs, some of which are newly-linked at right.

There's the Renegade Buddha, the Cranky Buddhist, the Lazy Buddhist and the Buddhist in Nebraska, among others. Some had already linked to this blog, unbeknownst to me.

I especially want to recommend Clear Mind Zen.

I'll be adding more newly-found links in the future.

All Things Stone

You may have noticed a comment attached to a previous post from Jordan Clary, whose blog is called "All Things Stone." The comment was:

Greetings! I've tagged you--memed you for a Powerful Words award. Okay, so it's a blog post but it's a way to know you're being read out here in blog land. To take the next steps, see your link, choose 3 more blogs, you can read my post: http://www.allthingsstone.jordanclary.com/

I think I can come up with three writing tips, lifting them from stuff I learned as a reporter.

But I'll have to think a bit about who my three nominees will be. Two of my favorite well-written blogs are private, so general readers can't see them.

But I want to write now about how surprised I am when I discover someone whom I don't even know is reading this blog. I recognize that a lot of this material is a little 'inside,' and if you don't know me here in town or from The Well, it makes little or no sense.

It's gratifying to know that other people - people who know nothing about me - can identify with some of the things I blog about.

The Britney obit

You may have seen something on the web today about the Associated Press preparing an obituary for Britney Spears. This 'story' was broken exclusively by Us magazine.

The surprise here is not that the AP is readying a Britney obit, but that the obit hasn't already been in the can for a few years. The AP and most other news organizations have obits ready for every public figure they can think of, ready to go with only a hard lede paragraph or two. That way, if a celebrity dies at an odd hour (Princess Diana, for example, died late on a Sunday evening, US time) when only a skeleton staff is on duty, the news agency can still quickly move a detailed report to its customers, readers or viewers.

So don't read too much into this. It's not an indication that someone at AP has inside information.

Speaking of WTF...

It's Milan Fashion Week.

Here's WTF.

She came from Greece, she had a thirst for knowledge...



Click here for contextual overview of this post.

75 pounds?!

Contrary to what you may have heard, I haven't gained 75 pounds since summer.

Here's what has happened. As I mentioned here at the time, I spent a couple of days in the hospital about 15 months ago. After my release, I made a decision to modify my eating habits. This had nothing to do with why I was hospitalized: it just seemed like an opportune time to make the change.

So I cut out all fast food. There are three fast food places within a few blocks of my house, and I ate fast food dinners at least three times a week, but I stopped. I also eliminated almost all caffeine.

In mid-summer, I retired from what was basically a sedentary desk job. I had been in the habit of grabbing snacks at the convenience store on the way to work, and that ended as a result of retirement.

I began riding a bicycle occasionally.

And since then, my weight has climbed to the highest it's been in my life.

I would like to lose about 40-50 pounds. So now I'm walking about a mile a day. I'm trying to eat less, but in fact, I don't eat a lot. I don't snack between meals. I don't always eat breakfast or lunch.

I am at a point where the extra weight is affecting how I feel - not self-image, but how I physically feel.

I'm trying to view this as an attachment/non-attachment issue. What is it to which I am attached? Eating for recreation or pleasure? Yes. For years, I ate 90% of my meals alone. Today, I hardly ever eat alone, and food has become an element of my social life. I'm just going to have to eat less if I want to lose weight.

Am I attached to the notion that I would be 'better' somehow if I were thinner? Yes. I'm trying to not think about whether I would look better - that's subjective and ego-driven.

But I'm really tired of feeling the way I feel.

(And no, I'm not joining the mayor's Million-Pound March or whatever it is.)

It's Wednesday

Nothing to report.

MacWorld Expo

The MacWorld Expo begins today in San Francisco.

Every year at this event, Steve Jobs delivers the keynote and announces with much fanfare the new products his company has planned for the coming year.

People go crazy over this event, and lose all sense of perspective. There will be at least three or four blogs and web sites providing rough transcripts of his remarks as they are made, and a couple of them will inevitably collapse under the traffic load of fans wanting to learn the latest Apple product news the exact moment it's announced.

They'll even announce the very instant the Apple Store web site goes offline to update its product offering.

Even now, they're delivering breathless 'exclusive' reports on the tarp-covered exhibits in the convention center, complete with photos of the iTarps draped over cubicles. ("It looks like Apple is using a new font on its signage!" I am not making this up.)

I used to follow the 'Stevenote' with the same eagerness others did. I'd have three or four browser windows open at once, constantly clicking the refresh buttons to get the latest dramatic product tidbit.

But you know what? They're just computers and MP3 players.

When the Stevenote is delivered later today, I'll be out for my daily walk. I'll see clouds and leaves that are 'way more interesting than anything coming out of MacWorld.

Nothing to say

I will give myself credit for at least one smidgen of increased wisdom. I have less to say than I used to.

I started to write a post commenting on something I'd read on another blog. Then I thought about it some more and asked myself, "What will be accomplished by this?" The only answer I could come up with was "nothing," so I let it pass.

I almost joined an online discussion today about an upcoming local election on an issue about which I am highly skeptical (imagine that). I thought more about it, and decided I wouldn't change any minds by posting anything, and I moved on.

(I will say this in passing: If, back in 1980 or thereabouts, Clay Bennett had decided he wanted to own the world's largest model railroad, we would have been subjected to twenty-eight years of editorials from the Oklahoman and press releases from the Chamber of Commerce extolling the value of hosting the world's largest model railroad, how we would be catapulted into the forefront of the handful of elite cities hosting large model railroads, of the dozens of immeasurable economic benefits of having a large model railroad, of what a tremendous act of enlightened charity Mr. Bennett was performing by bringing us the world's largest model railroad and of how, by God, the world's largest model railroad would put us on the map, and we would no longer have to feel inadequate or inferior to all those other cities with large model railroads.

And it would be our manifest destiny, of course, to spend tax dollars building the home for this model railroad.

Just sayin'. But was I wise to say that, or just mucking around in petty and sordid local politics?)

If a whole month goes by without me posting anything on this blog, you'll know I've finally gotten wisdom.

Or I'm in a coma.

Wisdom, one year later

It was about this time a year ago I was wondering about wisdom.

I don't have much more of it now than I did 50-odd weeks ago.

A year ago, Blogblah! raised the question, "What is wisdom?" I didn't have much of an answer then, and I don't have much of one now.

As I said a year ago, if I had wisdom, I would probably not have the perceived need or desire to be writing about my life on a blog. The rough edges of my life and personality would have been rounded off. I would be quieter, less talkative (yes, I know I'm not very talkative as it is – even so, I talk more than I need to).

If I had wisdom, I think I would be more or less invisible to other people. The contact I have with others would be more driven by compassion and a desire to help, and less by the need to have attention and be validated by others.

I would be more at peace with others and with myself.

I think I would rather have wisdom than anything else.

And yet:

Isn't wisdom just another thing to crave? Another thing to covet and grasp for? Am I not functional the way I am? Am I not sufficient the way I am - eating when I'm hungry, sleeping when I'm tired - even with all the fretting and worrying and sarcasm and cynicism that occurs along the way?

I don't want to think about it anymore - at least for awhile.

Green Designer Homes

From c|net's news.com:

Inside the Green Designer Home

I like the way this house looks, especially from the outside. But at $300 a square foot, I doubt I'll ever own one.

Dieter Rams

Industrial design is an area in which I don't have a lot of knowledge. I'm one of those "I know what I like" guys, and of course I like the design of most Apple products – designed created for the most part by Jonathan Ive.

But the technology web site Gizmodo has drawn some parallels between Ive's designs and those of Dieter Rams, who designed appliances for Braun between 1956 and 1998.

These designs are mostly timeless. They'd look as good in a home or office today as they did when they were created.

Here's Gizmodo's page comparing some of Rams' designs to those of Ive.

D-Day on a budget

This is amazing. Three graphic artists, apparently using themselves as the only actors, recreate the D-Day landing at Normandy, using compositing and other digital effects to turn themselves into both the invading force and the Nazi defenders.

It's Monday

I have very little to report. I've finished a couple of books and started another.

10 Hunter S. Thompson quotes

And you thought I was cynical.

Here they be.

It's Sunday

I have nothing to report.

Dinner in the Deuce

I want to mention the Dinner in the Deuce show at Untitled [ArtSpace] through February 23.

Follow the link to get the details – I shouldn't try to explain it.

I will say the work is just phenomenal in terms of the amount of effort put into each display. Each one is a – now I can't think of the word – cooperative effort by three to six artists.

Collaboration! I can't think anymore...

It's Saturday

I have nothing to report.

It didn't help

Nice router, but it didn't solve my problem.

So it goes.

New router

In hopes of resolving some home networking issues, I retired my Linksys WRT54G today for an Apple Airport Extreme. I already have two of the Airport Express minirouters on the network, and my home computer setup has morphed from a mix of Macs and PCs to an all-Mac environment.

The WRT54G is the Buick Century of routers. It's been around a long time and is very solid, very reliable. I've had three of them.

The Airport Extreme is, well, the Airport Extreme. I don't think it has an automotive equivalent. It costs more than most routers and has fewer features than the Linksys. But I'm hoping it will work with Apple's .mac backtomymac service. This worked fine for me until Apple issued an update to 'fix' it for users who couldn't get it to work. That solved their problems, apparently, but seemed to kill the service for me. I'll find out tomorrow if switching to the Apple router solves the problem.

But one thing I noticed right away is that certain ad-heavy web sites - such as HuffPo and myspace - seem to load faster with the Apple router. You may already know this, but the content in the ads on those pages come from a different source than the content itself. In fact, ads on a single web page may come from several different sources. I thought the slowness of these ads to load was the result of overloaded servers at the ad suppliers, but now I wonder if it was something in the old router that caused the delay.

Again, this is all perception and not research, so don't throw away a router or buy a new one based on this. I'm just sayin'...

Dreams

It's been awhile since I was awakened in a cold sweat by a TV news dream. The details were about the same as always, except this time it was set in Tulsa, where I briefly worked in the 1980s.

At the end a very dear friend from those days showed up. I haven't seen her, I guess, since the mid-eighties. I put my arms around her and gave her a big hug. "I wish you were really here," I told her. "But you're just a dream." (Sort of like the dream I recently had about my late father.) She nodded sympathetically, and then I woke up.

Breaking news!

I've retired from belly dancing.

This is so not me...

...but I pass it along anyway in case others get some benefit from it.

"Often the most tactical thing to do with yourself is dummy work. And one of the best reasons to get organized is to take advantage of that ...

"Dummy work most definitely needs to be done. For example: process receipts, update calendars, input data into the computer, purge file cabinets, clean drawers. Even processing an in-basket can be dummy work, if you know how to do it."

More at HuffPo.

He's talking about the time I spend neither being nor not being. When am I going to get around to that if I'm cleaning stuff up all the time?

Retreat

I knew the effects of whatever had me pepped up had worn off, but wow, I'm feeling overwhelmed. This isn't anything in my life, actually – just overload from people around me.

The isolated life seems very attractive again.

I don't know anyone whose views on non-attachment and direct experience are parallel to my own. I'm kind of on my own. I know people who are into various kinds of meditation, but no one who is into my particular notion of peeling away perceptions, concepts and filters to get to the truth.

Obviously there are other people who've visited this, because I've gotten almost all of it from books and other outside sources. I just don't know where anybody into it around here.

I've been reading a Taoist text called "Cultivating Stillness." One of the things it encourages people to do is 'every day lie down, look up at the sky and watch the clouds go by.' If you haven't done that since childhood, you should try it – on a partly cloudy day, lie on the ground so you can see no surrounding buildings, telephone poles, or other manmade things. Just look up at the sky as if it were a flat surface and watch it go by.

I don't know if I want a teacher, but sometimes I think I'd like to have a sort of coach – not someone to tell me things, but someone to encourage me to live life the right way. Someone who would remind me to lie on the ground and watch the clouds go by.

Not to turn this into another relationship rant, but that's my idea of a great date, too.

Where have you gone, Cold Mountain?

Boy, am I on contact overload tonight.

I really am not like other people - I'm some kind of isolationist freak.

Exactly so.

From Blogblah:

...if finding simple pleasure in having the wind and the sun in my face, the joie de vivre of whipping in and out of traffic, the feeling of being released from a freezing corner of hades, well, if that’s wrong, as the song goes, I don’t want to be right. At least I was in the moment, dude.

Exactly so (except maybe for the whipping in and out of traffic part, during which time I suspect you were rather insensitive to the driving habits of several honest, decent minivan owners).

I think this is a pretty good example of the 'when I'm hungry, I eat, when I'm tired, I sleep' principle. The alternative would be to be out driving and not even notice the sunshine because you're thinking (if you're me, anyway):

"Why did that woman come up and talk to me last night? Is she interested in me? Or was she just trying to make that guy she was with jealous? Or were they really together? I didn't see them come in together. Maybe they didn't come in together – maybe he was just hanging around her. Okay, that's magical thinking – obviously he was with her. Why do I even care? I may never even run into her again. Maybe she was just wanting to yank my chain a little to see what I'd do. Yeah, that's probably it – just like xxxxxxxx did – shit, was that really twelve years ago? Maybe I need to move on from that. But she really was psycho. Or maybe she wasn't. Maybe if I'd just been a little more aggressive... but she's married now, so it doesn't matter. But she was pretty serious at the time about the Fahrquahr Humate heir, and she dumped him... no, that's more magical thinking. I wonder how her marriage is doing. Jesus Christ, pal! Do you know what a turn signal is? Thanks for the warning! Stupid fuck. So why do I keep thinking about this stuff all the time? I need to practice non-attachment. Of course, if I practice non-attachment, I could become attached to it. Non-attachment. Non-attainment. Sir Richard Attenborough. Richard Burton. The explorer, not the actor. General 'Chinese' Gordon. Killed at Khartoum. That guy just floated that stop sign. Stupid fuck. Twelve years. Twelve fucking years. Shit – I just missed my exit. That guy floating the stop sign totally distracted me."

Common misconceptions

There are a bunch of 'em.

The last .01%

I originally posted this last night, then thought it over and decided to edit it.

It occurred to me there is no last .01% in my quest for the perfect life. The whole concept is bogus, as are most concepts. Perfect? What does that mean? This came from my desire or determination to 'rate' my life on some sort of scale.

Yes, my life is almost exactly the way I want it. But in drawing that conclusion, I am to a large extent simply comparing my life against my remaining attachments and seeing that they don't conflict or cause me discomfort – at least for the present.

It's true that part of the reason I have almost everything I want is because I didn't want much to begin with. That's a good thing, but there are still those remaining attachments, both gratified and ungratified, to which I am partially bound.

Case in point: not working. I can't tell you how much I enjoy not working. I can't tell you how much I enjoy the freedom to come and go as I please, dress as I please and be free from office politics. I know I've blogged about it quite a bit, but I haven't even scratched the surface. I actually started weeping with happiness the other night at the mere thought that I would never have to work again. I wonder at this point if I could ever make myself go back to work. But isn't this an attachment? Am I not attached to being free from responsibility and obligations?

Aversions are also attachments – attachments, you might say, with the polarity reversed. So my aversion to the dreariness of employment is in fact an attachment. It doesn't mean I need to go back to work to 'overcome' my attachment – only that I need to see what's happening and continue my life as it is without indulging the attachment.

Does that make sense? I know what I'm trying to say, but I'm not sure I'm saying it. Let me rephrase it: since I have already retired, there's no value in going back to work just to 'prove' my non-attachment to retirement. On the other hand, I need to clarify my own mind so that while I am content with retirement, I could be just as content with returning to work. Or better yet, be free and clear of any notion of content or discontent.

Also: as much as I hate to admit it, I still find myself thinking about relationships. During my brief seratonin burst in December, I took a couple of tentative steps in that direction, neither of which was productive. I didn't have a tremendous emotional investment in either of them, so there won't be any page-upon-page angst-filled posts.

But I really dislike being pulled in this direction at all. Tied up in it are my aversion to loneliness (which is not the same as solitude, with which I am usually OK); a self-image which ought not to exist in any form, positive or negative; a lingering suspicion of most women which began with my alcoholic mom and continues to the present day; the recently-added reality/nonreality of my past-prime age – and a whole bunch of other baggage ranging from steamer-trunk to overnight case in size.

All the thinking and questioning and doubting and struggling to overcome doubts then struggling to overcome manic enthusiasm - then repeat and repeat and repeat and repeat. It has worn me smooth. These are not obstacles to be overcome or afflictions to be treated; they're a big box of junk that needs to be put out at the curb.

I have an acquaintance - a guy about half my age - who has just had a relationship end on him after only a few weeks. I watch what he's going through and can't help but think, "My god, I never want to go through that myself again." I haven't given him any advice, nor will I, but if I did, it would probably be something like, "This gets less traumatic after about twentieth time it happens. In fact, you eventually reach a point where you don't give a shit going into the relationship, so it's hard to give a shit coming out of it."

So... is this aversion to relationship-related angst another attachment? Sure it is! Both the desire to have a relationship and the desire to avoid one are attachments. Confusing, isn't it? It's easy to see how attachment can wind back around on itself until you have this giant twisting wisteria tree of doubts and doubts of doubt and questions about your questions that becomes so muddled and tangled you can't even figure out what you're thinking.

My advice is to walk away and have some pancakes.

The usual disclaimer applies.

Thursday evening

I have nothing to report.

Of course, there's all that Iowa Caucus stuff going on... read HuffPo for that.

Hungry? Eat. Tired? Sleep.

I had to look up this post again so I could email the quote to a friend.

The more I read it, the more I am convinced this is what it's all about. Let me eat, let me sleep, and you kids go have fun.

Off the wagon

I ate fast food tonight for the first time in more than a year. I just couldn't find anything open.

It wasn't all that good, so I don't think I'll be tempted to do it again.