"Don't you want to be loved?"

When I was having this conversation a few days ago about sleeping in the dining room, my friend asked me, "Don't you want to be loved? Don't you want to be cared about?"

There was a time in my life when that was all I wanted. I was alone at the time, and I felt like my life was pointless because at that time, literally no one cared if I lived or died.

So then I got into some of the 'We're all worthy of love stuff' that people encourage adult children of alcoholics to embrace. That was a good thing for me at the time.

But today? Today, I don't think of a concept of being 'worthy' or 'not worthy' of love. It's like debating whether one is 'worthy' or 'not worthy' of having blonde hair or big feet. There's no 'worthiness' attached to it. You may be loved, or you may not be. Either way, it's no reflection on you as a person.

I have loved and have been loved — not always at the same time, which would have been preferable, but I've had the experiences. They had their pluses and minuses.

All of what we would generally call 'me' is here right now. All of me lives in a messy house. All of me sleeps in the dining room. All of me has a cat in his lap as he writes this. All of me comes and goes as he pleases. All of me takes a nap after lunch. There is not some chunk of me missing because I don't have a love in my life. I am who I am, and all of me is here.

During this time of illness/seclusion/whatever, I've received phone calls and emails from concerned friends. It's wonderful to have people around who care about you. It's a much greater blessing than having a lover.

(Incidentally, if you've called and I haven't called back, don't take it personally. I'm having a hard time with direct personal communication right now. My therapist once told me that I am basically a pretty solitary person and that I needed what he called 'turtle time' occasionally to decompress. I guess that's part of what I'm doing now.)

What day is this?

Wednesday already. I went to Jimmy's Egg to get something to eat and there was the Gazette already. I thought I had slipped into a parallel dimension or something, but no, time just got away from me.

Don't let my jaunty online demeanor deceive you — I'm still depressed.

I've got four more of these antibiotic pills to take.

In the meantime, back to bed.

3:40 AM

I've taken my antibiotic and I'm in that window where I can't go back to bed for thirty minutes. So I've been surfing the news and tech sites, and tell you what: people are just fucked up and my level of interest and compassion is at a very low level.

Everywhere I look I see people suffering with shit of their own making, or sometimes shit someone else made. But it's 99 percent manmade shit. No one caused yesterday's LA earthquake (I don't suppose) but everything else seems to be the result of someone somewhere not being able to resist the temptation to stir up shit.

Depressed

I guess I'm depressed — I don't know.

I'm not depressed about anything, any more than one gets a cold 'about' something.

I'm still on the antibiotic for a couple of more days, and while the tick bite inflammation is looking better, it's far from gone.

I felt a little better Tuesday evening, in terms of energy and appetite. But I'm still not my old perky, cheery self.

I love my futon. And as Nurse Kathryn pointed out, if I'm sleeping in the dining room, it's not really the dining room, is it?

Someone else brings me food!

Thank you, Nurse Kathryn, for delivering the fish and chips and Gatorade. I feel like a new person.

(I took a picture of the blessed event, but it didn't come out.)

If you'd like to bring me food, just leave a note in the comments below. I still have plenty of times and dates open.

Why leave the house?

Everything I need is right here: cats, a computer and shredded wheat.

Tuesday AM

It is Tuesday, isn't it? Still a little groggy.

There's a big bag of cold french fries on the table beside me. A storm is flashing lightning outside. I shuffled out and rolled up the car windows before it rained. It's raining pretty steadily right now, in fact. Ought to be a real steam bath after sunup.

Back to bed.

Monday PM

I don't feel physically ill — no fever, runny nose, body aches or anything like that — but it just exhausts me to get up and walk across the house.

RJ suggests it might be the antibiotic itself doing this, and I suppose that's possible.

It's Lyme disease, isn't it?

Don't you think?

I'm still cooped up in the house. Look for me when you see me coming.

The most beautiful sight on earth

...is a woman walking toward you, carrying food.

Thank you, Ms. Landscape Person.

Goo goo eyes

It's about time to go back to bed. I just checked my myspace mail. There was another in those endless fake voyeuristic videos of young women making goo goo eyes at their computer monitors.

Nina or someone, fill me in... when you log on to myspace, do you get videos of hot young dudes ogling their computer screens, or is it just women for everyone?

A dream

I have to stay up a while longer because I just took my tick bite antibiotic, so I'll tell you about a dream I had last night.

First, I dreamt that I was watching someone remodel an apartment in an old inner-city eightplex, ie, one of those buildings where the entrances to the apartments are off a central corridor, four on the ground floor and four upstairs. There wasn't much to that dream.

But later, I dreamt I went back to that same apartment, only I was some sort of mystery man in a slouch hat and cape or coat, sort of like The Shadow or The Spirit. I had a female partner. We were on our way to one of the apartments to carry out a secret mission by dark of night.

We got out of the car and on the way to the apartment, I reached up and felt my face to make sure I had my mystery man mask on. But I couldn't feel it on my face. Did I forget it? Too late, I decided — I would just have to go without it.

We stealthily let ourselves into the apartment. My mystery woman partner was going to search for the McGuffin while I served as lookout.

Almost immediately, a dog and a cat came trotting toward us. They were friendly, though, and went right past us out into the corridor. There was a large ornamental basket of dried flowers in the corridor, and the dog stopped and peed on it as he left.

My mystery woman partner was searching the apartment while I had a quick look around. There were three people asleep in the bedroom. Two were in the bed and the third on the floor. We had already awakened them and they were trying to focus their eyes and look at me.

What was I supposed to do? I pointed my index finger at one of them, drew a small circle clockwise in the air, then jabbed my finger at him. His eyes closed and he fell back asleep.

Well, good! I had some sort of superpower or something. I drew another circle and jabbed my finger at the woman in bed next to him, and she fell back asleep. Once more for the woman on the floor beside them, and all three were once again unconscious.

I had a further look around. I strolled out of the apartment back into the central corridor. I looked through the open front door of a neighboring apartment and saw two scotsmen, dressed in kilts, asleep on the sofa.

I was beginning to get bored and restless. 'If this was a movie script,' I thought to myself, 'this scene would have already gone on too long by half.'

And then I woke up.

Monday early AM

I spent almost all of Sunday in bed. I got up to eat a couple of times, came into the den to surf, then went back to bed. I saw my landscaper through the window; she was in the backyard, cutting and assembling wood into a form for the concrete that will be the base of my backyard water feature. I guess there isn't anything she doesn't know how to do. She should have her own cable show.

I didn't go out to say 'hi,' though. I just went back to bed.

About 6:30 pm, Nurse Kathryn called and asked if I was interested in dinner. I dragged myself out and we went to Zorba's. I felt sort of groggy the whole way over and I became mildly nauseated on the way, but it didn't last long. I had a chicken shish kebab. Then I took NK back to her place, went home and back to bed.

I couldn't sleep for a long time, though. I felt physically tired, but I was wide awake and my mind was zipping around in all directions. I felt bloated and as if I had overeaten, although I didn't have all that much.

I eventually fell asleep, then woke up again about a half hour ago, again mildly nauseated.

I think Monday will be another day in.

Incommunicado

That's me. I'm hiding out.

My favorite place

So, I'm being lectured by another friend about my bohemian lifestyle.

"And you sleep on that... that whatever it is... in your dining room!"

I posted something last November about having moved my sleeping space into the dining room:

I've been sleeping on a futon in the dining room for more than a year now. I have a bedroom with a very nice queen-size bed, but it began to feel alien and unwelcoming to me. I didn't like being in there.

I still love my dining room futon. It's my favorite place in the house. I can lie down there and feel the weight removed from my legs and back. I can stretch my legs out as far as they'll go and feel the muscles move and extend. I let my Japanese flute music and Indian ragas play in the living room, sounding as if they're coming from some other dimension.

I can read a book, talk to a cat or drift off to a place where I'm half-awake, half-asleep, where dreams seem like reality and reality seems like a dream. I can be in a fuzzy, floating place of muted colors and gentle music where others will leave me in peace because they can't bear to separate themselves from their world of Drama! Passion! Action! Sound! Color! Excitement!

I can't imagine a beach in the most beautiful tropical paradise or the suite of a luxury hotel being any more pleasant to me than my futon in the dining room. Eventually, I hope, I'll be able to blog telepathically so I can stay there all the time.

Happy Birthday

...to The Red Cup, celebrating thirteen years.

Thank god for cats

...because I am never gonna understand human beings.

The silliest ad I've seen lately

During my recent trip to Arkansas, I had some time to watch TV. I saw a commercial for the American Express® Card which amused me because it was so over-the-top goofy.

The scenario is a business power lunch. The guy hoping to close the deal pulls out his credit card to pay the tab, and the card has a comic book character or something similar on it. His prospective clients are so offended by his unofficious-looking credit card, they get up and leave the table, presumably canceling the impending deal.

Then, after the prospects have left the table, the poor schmuck's humiliated partner pulls out her credit card to pay the tab, because after all, she can't have her lunch linked to a non-professional looking credit card, either.

How often do you suppose this scenario plays itself out in real life?

The return of sweat

This landscaping project has introduced a concept long missing from my life: perspiration.

And bear in mind that I have had only the smallest amount of physical input into this. The lion's share of the work has been done by the landscaper and her sons.

Nonetheless, the landscaping has altered my daily life. I'm wearing bandanas wrapped around my head a large percentage of the time. My collection of Hawaiian and resort-style shirts has been largely put aside for daily wear of white, moisture-wicking, spun polyester golf shirts and T-shirts. I go through two or three of those daily, plus old cotton shorts.

I think I mentioned previously I am on a powerful antibiotic for this tick bite. The antibiotic increases my sensitivity to sunlight, so I'm also wearing sunblock most of the time — the first sunblock I've used in probably ten years.

I wish I had the energy my landscaper has. She's close to my age, so that's not the issue. She isn't overweight like I am, and that certainly has something to do with it.

But even when I was a teenager and thin as a rail, I had a tough time dealing with heat and humidity. I got tired easily, and I was always the first in my school class or among my friends to become exhausted during activities. I also got bored quickly, and even now, it's difficult for me to stick to MNRT's (mind-numbing repetitive tasks) for more than a few minutes at a time.

I was a big kid — not fat but just physically large — so my family hoped I would aspire to the highest level of American achievement, that of the ath-uh-lete. Instead, I hated sports. I didn't enjoy participating, and watching bored the hell out of me. My classmates made fun of me; my folks, especially my father, were somewhat shamed and disappointed.

It didn't occur to me until a couple of years ago that there might have been some physical or medical reason why I tired so easily. But it's water under the bridge now.

But all this weed-pulling and edging and hoeing and rock-moving? I can't stay with it. I'm good for maybe twenty minutes, then I have to go do something else. The landscaper, meanwhile, has been out in the heat working on this for hours almost every morning for about three weeks now.

My friend Soartstar did a similar project in her backyard all by herself. I would never have been able to do this myself.

The back yard

A little bit of (cell phone) camera shake, but you get the idea. We added mulch yesterday evening.

Yes, that's J.P. guarding the chairs.

The beehive of activity

Although it's not much activity by most people's standards, I've had a lot of stuff going on lately, including the trip to Arkansas and the landscaping in the back yard.

I was bitten by a tick in Arkansas. The bite became infected, so I had to make a trip to the doctor yesterday for antibiotics. The day before that, senior pet Beasley got an emergency trip to the vet for his own antibiotics, after a bite from another cat became infected.

(Beasley has been grounded since he got bitten, and is enjoying the return of his most-favored cat status. We're spending a lot of time together, and he seems to have mellowed out because of it.)

There is a family dispute among my semi-relatives in Arkansas into which I have been tangentially drawn. It's not going to affect me in any big way — I have always steered clear of that family drama — but there are some legal papers I've been sent to sign and return.

Friends and acquaintances have been dropping by to see my backyard landscaping project.

On top of all that, I've had a couple of freelance art projects in the pipeline.

I don't multitask well. My ability to concentrate on numerous projects at once is limited, and fading with age. I don't want to deal with such stuff.

I long for peace, quiet and solitude.

Here's a pic from Tuesday morning of my new garden/flower bed...

...this is where I'll be hiding out.

The halfway point

We are at the halfway point, I think, on the backyard makeover. The patio is essentially done, with some additional shoring up of a few stones needed. The landscaper laid out each of these rocks individually with a level, and added sand where needed to keep them from wobbling or shifting. But since I weigh probably 70 percent more than her, some of the stones that seemed solid to her move when I walk on them.

We bought a minivan-load of flowers and shrubs Saturday which will be planted over the next few days.

Still ahead: construction of the extended deck and repairs/improvements to the fence.

I bought an outdoor fireplace which, as it turns out, looks totally out of place. I'm probably going to give it away to someone who will take it and buy a smaller firebowl or chiminea instead.

It's been kind of fun having people around the house, or at least the back yard, but I'm ready for things to return to normal.

Several friends have suggested I have some sort of 'yard warming' party, but it's not likely to happen. The house is still a pig sty (although not so much a flea haven — that's one battle I'm winning), and I really envisioned my back yard as a private retreat for reading and meditation.

Friends with benefits redux

I know men and women who are friends and get along great.

I know men and women who are romantic partners and for the most part they don't get along so great. Their lives are filled with suspicion, turmoil, grasping and controlling, manipulation and intrigue, and certainly materialism and greed. When sex enters the picture, everything gets crazy.

My experience has been that men and women generally get along better with their friends than their lovers.

My thought was — and has been — that lovers ought to get along more like friends, and not so much like characters in soap operas.

Of course, there's a reason that isn't happening, and it's not because there hasn't been some blogger/wannabe philosopher out there to enlighten them. It's because they prefer it that way.

I just happen to have a contrarian point of view.

I followed the link from the Flib! post on this subject — Flib! post here, Ask Men link here — and I guess their view is different than mine. I don't see 'friends with benefits' as being sex with 'no strings attached.' Rather, I see it as sex with all the strings of friendship, rather than the strings of romance, attached. Those would include honesty, compassion and respect, among other things.

What about women?

Someone asked the other night what was going on with me 'and women.' Just women in general, I guess. And I had to stop and think about the answer.

I don't date anymore. I never liked the process, and at this point, I'm about as popular as you might expect an overweight 55-year-old man living in a house full of fleas would be.

But I think it's important for every person to at least have a few members of the opposite sex in their lives. I think this applies even if you're gay. Monastic single-sex living is a part of both the Christian and Buddhist traditions, but I don't think it's a good thing.

This is a notion that's been rolling around in my head awhile. The taoist masters talk about the balance of yin and yang, and this is sometimes characterized metaphorically as male and female. But I believe there's a literal aspect to it as well. We all need some exposure to what my friend Randy calls the 'energy' of the opposite sex.

This doesn't necessarily mean romance and sex — it can just mean the exchange of viewpoints and ideas.

As for dating — well, the question posed to me the other night gave me a flash of realization: I think, and have always thought, the process — at least as practiced by my age/social demographic — is just silly. It's full of manufactured drama, largely patterned on TV soap operas. Which I think is what most people like about it. They like having the chaos and the angst and the rumors swirling and the gossip mills churning.

When I worked in TV, I had a friend whose romantic life was constant chaos and turmoil. She would occasionally sit down beside me, place the back of her hand to her forehead, and sigh, "Gawd, I can't believe they're saying __________ about me." What she actually meant was, "Nobody is saying __________ about me, so I guess I have to start the rumor myself."

You occasionally hear people talking about 'friends with benefits,' usually as if it were something naughty. But the more I think about it, the more I think that is how it ought to be, at least among people who can manage their sexual activities responsibly. That may be a fairly small minority, but among the vast irresponsible majority, the drama-laden conventional method doesn't seem to be working too well, either.

Friday morning

While continuing to ponder the significance of a palm-sized tao (iTao?), I'm also continuing to struggle with the fleas. I'm dousing my ankles with Cutter about three times a day. I don't know what was in the flea bomb I bought, but I might as well have used distilled water.

While I was in El Dorado, I took possession of many of my father's and grandparents' personal possessions. These have no intrinsic value, but have some sentimental value for me. One item, for example, is the razor strop my grandfather used when I was a child. I think he had it when my dad was a kid, too. It's probably 80 years old, and might be a hundred. There's a lot of stuff like that. When I'm gone, there will be no one to inherit it, so I don't know what will become of it then.

I took all this stuff to the UPS store to have it shipped home, so by volume, 90 percent of what I'm unwrapping is foam peanuts. Getting rid of these is the biggest chore involved in unpacking. I'm going to buy some big trash bags today just to hold the damn peanuts.

I also took possession of my grandfather's paintings and one of my grandmother's drawings — the only one I'm aware of. I don't know where these will go. I will certainly hang one or two, but there are too many for the house.

KelleyO and sons have basically finished the stonework on the new patio. Josh is coming today to start work on the deck extension.

I have been reading Marcus Aurelius's Meditations, but it's been hard to focus. Too much other stuff going on, I think.

Big tao, little tao

I read a quote somewhere that I've pondering for a couple of weeks now. It came from one of the masters, but I can't remember where I saw it, and can only paraphrase it here:

The tao is so big, the universe can't contain it; so small, it can fit in the palm of your hand.

I've mostly been focused on the 'big' tao — the tao that is illustrated for me by those Hubble Telescope photos of the Milky Way and outlying galaxies. It's easy to be overwhelmed by the sheer scale of what's out there — almost impossible, in fact, to not be overwhelmed — and to just throw one's hands up and say, "It's too big. I can't grasp it. I can't relate to it. Why try to do anything?"

But what about the 'little' tao — the one that's in the palm of my hand? That's something I ought to be able to get a handle on. What does it mean that this way — this undefinable, universal something, can fit in the palm of my hand?

I have to think more about this.

Fleas

This has been the summer of insects at my house. First there was the invasion of ants into my attic and porch columns. Then, when I returned from Arkansas, the house was full of fleas.

The cats have been outside full-time (by their own choice) for close to two weeks, so I don't know where the fleas came from. It's been ten years or more since I've seen this many of them, and that was in a different location — when I had no pets at all. I was in an apartment then, and I think they came across from a neighbor's dog.

This time, I suspect that possum that was on my porch the other night is somehow involved. I think I may put out a trap for him and turn him loose out in the country somewhere. I can get a humane trap at the hardware store near my house.

I flea-bombed the house yesterday morning, and when I came home, the fleas were gone. Six hours later, they were starting to reappear. I set off another bomb and left; when I came home, they were gone. But by about eight pm, they had started to reappear yet again.

Last night, I used a technique I found on a web page. I filled a dish with mildly soapy water and put it on the floor. I put a desk lamp over the dish. After I went to bed, when all the other lights were out, fleas were drawn to the light and jumped into the soapy water. I got about forty that way.

I have some other techniques for dealing with fleas I'm going to employ today.

This is a real nuisance.

Wild kingdom

I just found a possum eating the cat food on the front porch. Tried to get a picture, but he took off.

11:10 PM Update: there he is again!

Back in the bubble and other notes.

We returned yesterday from our trip to Arkansas, with stops in El Dorado and Hot Springs. The wheel bearing problem turned out to be minor issue with the newly-installed brake drums. There was a 90-minute wait to get it checked, but it cost us nothing.

All appeared to turn out well, except that we were not able to bring back the canoe that had been the focus of the Hot Springs leg of the journey. So there wasn't much to do except wander around town (above) and hang out at Soartstar's dad's place at Lake Hamilton (below).



Meanwhile, artist/sculptor/photographer/landscaper KelleyO and her son Taylor were busy on my new patio. Kelley posted some her own pics on her MySpace page, a few of which I have appropriated here:







Finally, I should mention the apparent death, and certainly disappearance, of my cat buddy Ooga Ooga. He vanished before I left for Arkansas, and about the middle of last week, I found a cat resembling him dead on the next block over from my house. He was very gregarious and outgoing, and I suppose it's plausible that he wandered that far from home. I've lost two cats in the past six weeks, both basically kittens that were almost full-grown.

Out of the Bubble

As some of you know, I am out of the bubble this weekend. It's going well, Kudos to The Gary, whose charm and graciousness helped ease the potential friction of a family reunion and to Dewayne, who has provided analysis of automotive issues during the longest drive the minivan has had in a decade. (I may be losing a wheel bearing.)

Back Yard

Here's a pic showing what's going on with my back yard. The white shape that looks sort of like a head and shoulders from this angle is where the patio will be. That will be a flagstone that is sort of slate-colored. There'll be a water thing at the far end, and plants on each side of the 'neck.'

The deck in the foreground will extend out to where the patio ends and the grass begins.

Brakes

The car is at the garage for new brakes. They were full when I got there at about 7:30, and they may not get to my car until tomorrow. Which is fine — I have a bike. New brakes are part of the preparation for the trip.

Ironing redux

Now that I've put all this effort into ironing these shirts, I don't want to waste it by wearing them.

Ironing & mopping & landscaping

In addition to all the other stuff I've recently acquired, I've bought an iron and ironing board. I don't know what happened to my old ironing board — the last time I remember seeing it was about 1999. The iron I had then is probably still around, stuck in a box packed for some previous move and never reopened.

I set up the new iron and board this afternoon and ironed ten shirts. These are the first shirts I've ironed since — well, since 1999, I guess. I have sent shirts to the cleaners off and on over the years, but that seems sort of like overkill now that I'm retired.

I don't know why ironing makes my back hurt, but it does. It feels good to accomplish something, though.

I also mopped the kitchen floor this afternoon. A couple of years ago, I bought one of those big commercial size mop buckets — the yellow ones with the heavy duty mop wringer on the side. It worked well enough, but it was so big, clumsy and heavy it was a pain in the ass to use. I'm now using an old 35-lb. cat litter bucket for the mop. I guess it's Tidy Cats — the square yellow container with the red or blue lid. I have to empty it halfway through and refill it because it doesn't hold very much water. But I can snap the lid down to keep it from sloshing when I carry it outside, and it's much easier to maneuver. In fact, I can just carry it instead of having to steer it on wheels like the commercial mop bucket.

Meanwhile, KelleyO has been out in the back yard during the day working on the landscaping. I'll say this much: she's not afraid of hard work, unlike some people I know. Me, for example.

Too much stuff

I read this item from Cranky Buddhist this morning.

"Currently I am slowly moving things out of storage, organizing, examining, giving things away...

"I’m trying to get myself down to one room and my kitchen stuff. I don’t know if this is about lightening up, growing up, or moving up (creating space for new and better things to come into my life). In any case, I am waking up and moving forward."

One room! (Dzaster, of course, did this years ago.)

I've been drifting back in the other direction. The house is filling up with stuff again — especially clothing. Part of this is because I have had the disposable income with which to do it. Part of it is because of the compliments I've gotten on my appearance, which is, frankly, more presentable than it previously was.

But that's how our consumerist system works. A little money in the pocket, a little need for ego gratification, a little flattery and positive reinforcement from others, and presto! — we start substituting material possessions for spiritual wealth.

In the midst of all this acquisition, there have been some bright spots. Like Cranky Buddhist, I've gotten rid of some old stuff by giving it away. Some of it went out to the curb for bulk waste pickup, but scavengers took it away first. That included an old ceiling fan that was on the floor in a closet when I moved in, a non-functioning CRT monitor, an old bathroom sink. I've given away some old clothes, too, as well as a big pile of computer parts.

But at the same time, I've been buying loads of stuff. There's the backyard landscaping, of course, but that doesn't bother me as much as the huge pile of shirts and shoes I've acquired. It's as if the 1980's mcarp has re-emerged. It's almost obsessive/compulsive. And now I'm stressed out about it, which is another part of the old familiar pattern.

I wonder what would happen if I followed the Dzaster/Cranky Buddhist approach — get everything down to one room. It wouldn't have to actually be in one room — just small enough to fit in one room if it had to.

More knotty questions

Do you think I need an earring?

Facing reality

I'm thinking that maybe I'm just lazy.

Birdbath

I neglected to mention I bought a birdbath from Ron Ferrell yesterday for the back yard.

Thursday

Work proceeds apace on the landscaping. We rototilled the area yesterday. I did some of the rototilling myself. I ran a tiller once before when I was about 17, and I remember it being faster and easier than this was. Fortunately my landscape designer (aka KelleyO) is more adept with a rototiller than I am.

But yesterday's experience gave me a new respect for what our pioneer forefathers went through, carving a nation out of the wilderness.

The bid came in for the deck expansion and it was more than I expected. I have no experience upon which to base an expectation, but knowing the bidder, I'm sure the price is fair. It's just more than I had anticipated. I'll have to think about that some.