Thursday, July 29, 2010
2001st post
Actually, it's not just the Internet. It's everything. I feel like someone in a theater watching a really mediocre play, and it's only politeness that keeps me from getting up and walking out.
Too much Internet
One of my Facebook friends (actually more of an acquaintance) has decided to give it up. I certainly respect her decision. I've found some useful information on Facebook, and I've been able to reconnect with a lot of long-lost friends, classmates and coworkers. But Facebook can also be a huge timesink. Time isn't a big problem for me at this stage of my life, but I can see where other, busier people would find Facebook an annoying habit that intrudes on their other activities.
My personal problem with Facebook isn't the time I spend with it, but the general pointlessness of what I read, and, frankly, what I post. I've picked up some gems of wisdom, but they've been few and far between. I quit visiting my regular coffee shop in part because I found myself trapped between two or three simultaneous conversations about things that didn't interest me. Facebook produces a similar effect: a lot of what strikes me as conversational noise.
Actually, the whole Internet is starting to wear me down. As you know if you've been reading this blog awhile, I don't own a TV. I can't stand the barrage of commercials, nor the hyperkinetic animations and visuals that seem to be always running, even popping up over programming. I hate the hours of 'information' programming in which the same two dozen pundits and spokespeople yell over each other.
That's television, but the Internet is starting to be the same way. I'm tired of visiting web sites where there are three animated advertisements running at the same time — and they're all for the same thing. I'm tired of the increasingly shrill political bloggers whose alarmist headlines lead to nothing more than a snarky critique of something some other shrill blogger wrote — which may be nothing more than a slam of a third blogger. I'm tired of 'news' about celebrities I've never heard of.
I make my daily round of my regular websites, which include The Huffington Post, Firedoglake, Crooks and Liars, Eschatonblog, Hullaballoo, io9, Slashfilm, Gawker and macsurfer, and after I'm done I just feel like I've littered my mind with the intellectual equivalent of fast food wrappers and cigarette butts. And then there's reddit and Twitter, which dump even more irrelevant junk data between my ears. Why do I keep reading this stuff?! I think it's because I have nothing else to do.
But just as I struggle with clutter in my house, I also have to struggle with clutter in my brain. I've got to find a substitute for this intellectual junk food.
And there's my 2,000th post.
My personal problem with Facebook isn't the time I spend with it, but the general pointlessness of what I read, and, frankly, what I post. I've picked up some gems of wisdom, but they've been few and far between. I quit visiting my regular coffee shop in part because I found myself trapped between two or three simultaneous conversations about things that didn't interest me. Facebook produces a similar effect: a lot of what strikes me as conversational noise.
Actually, the whole Internet is starting to wear me down. As you know if you've been reading this blog awhile, I don't own a TV. I can't stand the barrage of commercials, nor the hyperkinetic animations and visuals that seem to be always running, even popping up over programming. I hate the hours of 'information' programming in which the same two dozen pundits and spokespeople yell over each other.
That's television, but the Internet is starting to be the same way. I'm tired of visiting web sites where there are three animated advertisements running at the same time — and they're all for the same thing. I'm tired of the increasingly shrill political bloggers whose alarmist headlines lead to nothing more than a snarky critique of something some other shrill blogger wrote — which may be nothing more than a slam of a third blogger. I'm tired of 'news' about celebrities I've never heard of.
I make my daily round of my regular websites, which include The Huffington Post, Firedoglake, Crooks and Liars, Eschatonblog, Hullaballoo, io9, Slashfilm, Gawker and macsurfer, and after I'm done I just feel like I've littered my mind with the intellectual equivalent of fast food wrappers and cigarette butts. And then there's reddit and Twitter, which dump even more irrelevant junk data between my ears. Why do I keep reading this stuff?! I think it's because I have nothing else to do.
But just as I struggle with clutter in my house, I also have to struggle with clutter in my brain. I've got to find a substitute for this intellectual junk food.
And there's my 2,000th post.
Wednesday, July 28, 2010
2000
The next post here, whatever it turns out to be, will be my 2,000th post. So, happy fucking 2,000th post to me.
Well, I voted.
But I can't remember an election where I had less enthusiasm for dragging my fat lazy ass to the polling place. I voted for George McGovern when I was 18, and I haven't missed a general or primary election yet - except for 2000, when I had moved to Texas and hadn't been there long enough to qualify.
But this year, it just seemed like a tiresome chore. This state is run by a coalition of creationists, militia enthusiasts, softcore white supremacists and billionaire pro sports hobbyists. Anything that doesn't appeal to at least one of those interest groups isn't going to go anywhere.
The Democratic nominee for U S Senate is, according to someone who knows him, a crazy old coot who lives in a trailer in Midwest City, has bad breath and lives on Chips Ahoy! cookies. Hell, I could have beaten him just relying on residual name recognition from TV days. I wouldn't win the general election, but at least I would have my footnote in Oklahoma history.
But this year, it just seemed like a tiresome chore. This state is run by a coalition of creationists, militia enthusiasts, softcore white supremacists and billionaire pro sports hobbyists. Anything that doesn't appeal to at least one of those interest groups isn't going to go anywhere.
The Democratic nominee for U S Senate is, according to someone who knows him, a crazy old coot who lives in a trailer in Midwest City, has bad breath and lives on Chips Ahoy! cookies. Hell, I could have beaten him just relying on residual name recognition from TV days. I wouldn't win the general election, but at least I would have my footnote in Oklahoma history.
Tuesday, July 27, 2010
Primary Day
Today is political primary day in my state. I will vote, but I have no enthusiasm for it.
Monday, July 26, 2010
Missing a friend
A friend dropped out of my life a few months ago. At the time, I was relieved. We had gotten to the point where we were together almost every day, and we had come to rely on each other for support in ways that were not healthy for either of us.
She was doing tons of stuff for me that I should have been doing for myself, and I was helping her out financially to an extent that was actually beyond my ability. She once said she would like to be my personal assistant. If I were a multimillionaire, I would have been happy to hire her in that position. As it was, I had come to rely on her to sort of keep me energized, so I wouldn't just sit in bed in a dark room all day like I'm doing right now.
Anyway, she moved on, and I have no idea what she's doing now. The parting was a little acrimonious, and I'm sorry it turned out that way.
These things are all temporary. People come and go. Nothing is permanent, and none of it has meaning.
Even so, I find my samsaric self sometimes misses her.
She was doing tons of stuff for me that I should have been doing for myself, and I was helping her out financially to an extent that was actually beyond my ability. She once said she would like to be my personal assistant. If I were a multimillionaire, I would have been happy to hire her in that position. As it was, I had come to rely on her to sort of keep me energized, so I wouldn't just sit in bed in a dark room all day like I'm doing right now.
Anyway, she moved on, and I have no idea what she's doing now. The parting was a little acrimonious, and I'm sorry it turned out that way.
These things are all temporary. People come and go. Nothing is permanent, and none of it has meaning.
Even so, I find my samsaric self sometimes misses her.
Sunday, July 25, 2010
There is no Santa Claus
After having fairly normal and productive days (well, productive by my standard) Friday and Saturday, I fell back into summertime slothfulness today. I didn't get out of bed until 2:30 pm. I took a shower, then went to an Italian place for lunch. Later, in the early evening, NurseK and I went to a Irish pub kind of place for dinner.
Somewhere in the day, I made it by Target to pick up some Q-Tips and a couple of T-shirts. But I spent most of the day in bed.
I was never a person of ambitious, far-reaching goals, but I've come to realize that even the miniscule goals I had for myself were pretty much pointless.
So, some days I don't feel like getting out of bed, nor do I see any reason why I should.
A couple of years ago, I wrote a post about people who are just sitting around, waiting to die.
That phrase was used by a woman I knew who was herself busy every minute of every day. She was a surgeon who, in addition to her medical career, raced cars, rode and maintained a decrepit old motorcycle, raised three pigs and some dogs and cats, and, in what time she had left over, skated in the roller derby. Seriously. I know that sounds like a character in a TV show, but there she was.
I don't begrudge anyone their hobbies and extracurricular activities. But this stuff is, to my mind, staying busy to stay busy. It's keeping ourselves occupied so we don't have to recognize the fundamental non-existence of all the stuff floating around in our heads – illusions which we have chosen to treat as reality.
It's liberating to realize all this stuff is just illusion. But in a way, it's also disappointing. It's like when I learned there wasn't really a Santa Claus. I wouldn't want to have spent my whole life believing there was a Santa Claus when there wasn't, but it was still sort of a letdown to find it out.
Somewhere in the day, I made it by Target to pick up some Q-Tips and a couple of T-shirts. But I spent most of the day in bed.
I was never a person of ambitious, far-reaching goals, but I've come to realize that even the miniscule goals I had for myself were pretty much pointless.
So, some days I don't feel like getting out of bed, nor do I see any reason why I should.
A couple of years ago, I wrote a post about people who are just sitting around, waiting to die.
That phrase was used by a woman I knew who was herself busy every minute of every day. She was a surgeon who, in addition to her medical career, raced cars, rode and maintained a decrepit old motorcycle, raised three pigs and some dogs and cats, and, in what time she had left over, skated in the roller derby. Seriously. I know that sounds like a character in a TV show, but there she was.
I don't begrudge anyone their hobbies and extracurricular activities. But this stuff is, to my mind, staying busy to stay busy. It's keeping ourselves occupied so we don't have to recognize the fundamental non-existence of all the stuff floating around in our heads – illusions which we have chosen to treat as reality.
It's liberating to realize all this stuff is just illusion. But in a way, it's also disappointing. It's like when I learned there wasn't really a Santa Claus. I wouldn't want to have spent my whole life believing there was a Santa Claus when there wasn't, but it was still sort of a letdown to find it out.
Monday, July 19, 2010
Monday
The heat, the light, the colors, the glare, the sounds, the textures — even the smells. Everything out there is too much for me right now. Here in the Very Dark Room, it is quiet, cool, calm, and of course, dark. I'll just stay here for now. I don't even want to leave to eat.
Sunday, July 18, 2010
119 Degrees
Unfortunately, there's no way to put photos on this blog from an iPad. If there were, I'd show you the picture I took of my car's outdoor thermometer yesterday. It was registering 119 degrees in the middle of a big restaurant parking lot. Here's a link to it on Facebook, if you're really interested.
The official high has yet to reach 100. But the humidity has been so high this summer that heat indexes of 102-105 degrees have been daily occurences.
I am doing what I did last summer, which is to retreat to the Very Dark Room, lights usually off, and sitting or lying in the dark most of the day. I'm sleeping a lot. I'm also reading "The Zen Teachings of Bodhidharma", a collection of writings traditionally attributed to the monk who brought Zen to China. Red Pine is the translator.
Like many of the earliest Zen/Chan writings, it's much more straightforward than the stuff that came a thousand or fifteen hundred years later.
The official high has yet to reach 100. But the humidity has been so high this summer that heat indexes of 102-105 degrees have been daily occurences.
I am doing what I did last summer, which is to retreat to the Very Dark Room, lights usually off, and sitting or lying in the dark most of the day. I'm sleeping a lot. I'm also reading "The Zen Teachings of Bodhidharma", a collection of writings traditionally attributed to the monk who brought Zen to China. Red Pine is the translator.
Like many of the earliest Zen/Chan writings, it's much more straightforward than the stuff that came a thousand or fifteen hundred years later.
Tuesday, July 13, 2010
Too much Facebook
Two acquaintances of mine are sort of 'acting out' their romantic breakup on Facebook. It feels unpleasant to witness.
They're being very adult and low-key about it, but even so, I feel uncomfortable reading about it. I don't know either of these people well enough for this to be any of my business.
I'm starting to be over Facebook. I feel as if I'm in too many other people's lives, and too many other people are in mine.
There's not going to be any Facebook in my mountainside hut.
They're being very adult and low-key about it, but even so, I feel uncomfortable reading about it. I don't know either of these people well enough for this to be any of my business.
I'm starting to be over Facebook. I feel as if I'm in too many other people's lives, and too many other people are in mine.
There's not going to be any Facebook in my mountainside hut.
Thursday, July 08, 2010
Back in High School...
...I knew this kind of willowy, gauzy, ethereal hippie chick. This was in 1969-70. Her name was Frances Green, but she was known to her friends as Frannie the Green. (This was 1969, remember.)
I lost track of her after high school. We both moved away from that town. About a year later, I got a letter from her. She wasn't sure I was the right mcarp, but she sent the letter on a hunch. I had no idea how she found me. I don't know why I didn't reply, but I didn't.
But I wondered over the years what had become of her. Starting about 2005, I began scouring the Internet looking for information on her. I posted queries about her on websites where I thought she might have visited.
One of them finally produced results. I got an email tonight telling me Frannie died of cancer two years ago.
I should have answered that letter.
I lost track of her after high school. We both moved away from that town. About a year later, I got a letter from her. She wasn't sure I was the right mcarp, but she sent the letter on a hunch. I had no idea how she found me. I don't know why I didn't reply, but I didn't.
But I wondered over the years what had become of her. Starting about 2005, I began scouring the Internet looking for information on her. I posted queries about her on websites where I thought she might have visited.
One of them finally produced results. I got an email tonight telling me Frannie died of cancer two years ago.
I should have answered that letter.
Wednesday, July 07, 2010
Back Projection Reality
Some days – and this was one of them – I feel a strange disconnect from my surroundings. I don't think 'alienated' is the right word, but I don't have a better one.
You know how, in old movies, if a couple of people were traveling in a car, they'd have them in a mocked-up car on a stage and project a movie of a street behind them to make it look as if they were driving down the street? That's how it feels to me.
I can't say I like it or that I don't like it. I simply observe it.
Bulldog Blackie and the Case
of the Mysterious Enigma.
Or something.
You know how, in old movies, if a couple of people were traveling in a car, they'd have them in a mocked-up car on a stage and project a movie of a street behind them to make it look as if they were driving down the street? That's how it feels to me.
I can't say I like it or that I don't like it. I simply observe it.
Sunday, July 04, 2010
Hubble pics
This is why I don't give a damn.
The Hubble pictures underscored for me the unimaginable vastness of the universe, and how small and frankly irrelevant our planet and all our human schemes and plans are in the grand scope of things.
The Hubble pictures don't leave me the least bit motivated to care about the things most people think are important.
But if the engineers, opticians and other experts who built and launched the Hubble had my attitude, the thing would never have been made, and I would never have seen these pictures.
I don't know what to make of that. It doesn't change my point of view.
Thursday, July 01, 2010
Bagworms
Apropos of nothing else, the bagworms are crazy this year. I have a juniper tree about six feet tall in the front yard that had at least a thousand of them. I tried spraying them, to no avail. Now, I'm picking them off by hand, one by one. I've pulled off more than 600 over the past three days, and it looks like I'm at about the halfway point. I hope I got to them in time to save the tree.
Non-attachment redux
A friend offered this item from zenhabits.com about non-attachment.
Letting Go of Attachment, From A to Zen | zenhabits.com
Back in 2006 I wrote a post about non-attachment. I'll post the relevant quote here:
I wrote that more than four years ago. At the time, I thought I was making great progress in removing attachments. And yet it's been only in the past ten days or so that I've been able to scratch the white-out off my rather basic and obvious attachment to stacks and stacks of old books. I've kept some around for twenty-five years or more, even though I rarely read them more than once.
I stayed attached to them because they made me feel erudite and intelligent, and it was important to me to be able to view myself that way. Part of the reason I'm able to let go of the books now is because I previously started divesting of the attachment to feeling erudite and intelligent.
Letting go of that doesn't mean I now view myself as poorly-educated and stupid. It means that I am in the process of outgrowing any opinion or judgment one way or the other.
(By the way, this also doesn't mean I'm going to turn anti-intellectual and start believing in Palinism, fundamentalism, creationism, UFOs, New Age and the like. Magical thinking is also an attachment. I still believe what I believe; I'm just not hanging my personal identity on it.)
In the meantime, there's still a lot of crap in this house.
Letting Go of Attachment, From A to Zen | zenhabits.com
Back in 2006 I wrote a post about non-attachment. I'll post the relevant quote here:
"I went through my list of attachments. This is harder than it sounds, because the stuff you detach from most readily is the stuff to which you're not really attached at all. Babyshit-flavor ice cream, for example. Totally non-attached to that. FOX News... non-attached. 'American Idol'... non-attached. Dan Brown novels... non-attached.
So what's the problem? The stuff to which we are really attached. I mean, we're so attached we won't even admit to ourselves we're attached, so when we're pondering the stuff to which we're attached, this is under the blobs of white-out we've painted there so we won't see it."
I wrote that more than four years ago. At the time, I thought I was making great progress in removing attachments. And yet it's been only in the past ten days or so that I've been able to scratch the white-out off my rather basic and obvious attachment to stacks and stacks of old books. I've kept some around for twenty-five years or more, even though I rarely read them more than once.
I stayed attached to them because they made me feel erudite and intelligent, and it was important to me to be able to view myself that way. Part of the reason I'm able to let go of the books now is because I previously started divesting of the attachment to feeling erudite and intelligent.
Letting go of that doesn't mean I now view myself as poorly-educated and stupid. It means that I am in the process of outgrowing any opinion or judgment one way or the other.
(By the way, this also doesn't mean I'm going to turn anti-intellectual and start believing in Palinism, fundamentalism, creationism, UFOs, New Age and the like. Magical thinking is also an attachment. I still believe what I believe; I'm just not hanging my personal identity on it.)
In the meantime, there's still a lot of crap in this house.
Tuesday, June 29, 2010
Lo, More of This Random Crap
I took a stack of about 30 books to Half Price Books today. That comprises maybe 20 percent of the books I want to get rid of.
I've always hung on to books, rationalizing that books represent knowledge and wisdom. And frankly, you won't find a lot of junk books on my shelves. Among the things I took in today were Schlesinger's two-volume history of the New Deal and DeTocqueville's 'Democracy in America' — books that I had read once, then left unopened on my bookshelves for 20 years.
Maybe now someone else will read them.
Even after I've pared my library down to where I want it, I'll have dozens of books around the house.
I also gave away a bookshelf today.
Saturday, June 26, 2010
My kitchen
The Miracle Worker came over again today and brought a friend. Together, they restored my kitchen to sanity. In fact, it looks amazing. It looks like a normal person lives here.
There are some things missing. When I say missing, I mean I just don't know where they put them — they're here somewhere. The can of WD40 that was on top of the microwave, for example. And the laundry that was in the dish drying rack. And the package of auger bits that was on top of the laundry. I'm sure I'll track all that stuff down.
And now that the kitchen is finally clean, I plan to keep it that way by never setting foot in it again.
There are some things missing. When I say missing, I mean I just don't know where they put them — they're here somewhere. The can of WD40 that was on top of the microwave, for example. And the laundry that was in the dish drying rack. And the package of auger bits that was on top of the laundry. I'm sure I'll track all that stuff down.
And now that the kitchen is finally clean, I plan to keep it that way by never setting foot in it again.
Friday, June 25, 2010
Nag Champa
When you've had as many cats living in your house over the years as I have, Nag Champa is your friend. Maybe your best friend. I'm down to only two cats now, but I still have plenty of incense.
(Now that I've said it's my best friend, I'll find a status update on Facebook: "Nag Champa is in a relationship." And I'll have to switch to patchouli.)
(Now that I've said it's my best friend, I'll find a status update on Facebook: "Nag Champa is in a relationship." And I'll have to switch to patchouli.)
Who would you see?
Another Facebook friend posted this as her status update: "Who would you see if you saw yourself walking your way?"
On the one hand, this is a question that directs your attention back toward yourself. From a Buddhist perspective, that's probably a pointless exercise. On the other hand, many of us wonder what kind of immediate impression we make on other people. This question prompts us to step outside ourselves and imagine how we appear to others.
In trying to answer this question, I decided I probably wouldn't even notice myself walking my way. I'm a pretty generic-looking guy; except for my height, I blend into a crowd pretty well. (My size is one reason my previously-documented Hawaiian shirt fixation is ill-advised. They make me look like a billboard for a florist. Neutral, solid colors are my friends.) I kind of shuffle when I walk, and I'm generally slow-moving.
On the one hand, this is a question that directs your attention back toward yourself. From a Buddhist perspective, that's probably a pointless exercise. On the other hand, many of us wonder what kind of immediate impression we make on other people. This question prompts us to step outside ourselves and imagine how we appear to others.
In trying to answer this question, I decided I probably wouldn't even notice myself walking my way. I'm a pretty generic-looking guy; except for my height, I blend into a crowd pretty well. (My size is one reason my previously-documented Hawaiian shirt fixation is ill-advised. They make me look like a billboard for a florist. Neutral, solid colors are my friends.) I kind of shuffle when I walk, and I'm generally slow-moving.
"__________ is in a relationship."
One of my friends has updated her Facebook status to "in a relationship." While I'm happy for her, I assume this means she won't have as much free time to hang out with her regular friends.
When a friend gets into a relationship, it's sort of like they're moving away to another city.
When a friend gets into a relationship, it's sort of like they're moving away to another city.
Monday, June 21, 2010
More on the random crap
Why do we keep all this random crap? I'll open a drawer and see some dumbass thing that's been around here a million years: "Ah. There's the shoelace organizer I bought in 1987."
And then what? Well, it proves that event happened. I didn't just imagine I bought a shoelace organizer in 1987, because, well, look — here the thing is. I bought it, and this proves I existed in 1987, and I wasn't created by aliens just 15 minutes ago and implanted with a bunch of false memories.
But what if I didn't exist in 1987? What if I don't exist right now? What difference does it make? What fucking difference does it make?
And then what? Well, it proves that event happened. I didn't just imagine I bought a shoelace organizer in 1987, because, well, look — here the thing is. I bought it, and this proves I existed in 1987, and I wasn't created by aliens just 15 minutes ago and implanted with a bunch of false memories.
But what if I didn't exist in 1987? What if I don't exist right now? What difference does it make? What fucking difference does it make?
Return of the Miracle Worker
Four years ago this month, I had the miracle worker come to my house and set things right. I called her the miracle worker then because it seemed to me to be miraculous that she could get done in a day what would have taken me months to accomplish.
There were a few changes this time, however. The most significant was that I had realized, as mentioned previously, that I could not get the house livable by simply throwing out trash and rearranging and organizing what was left. There was simply too much stuff. So even non-trash items had to go.
I made an agreement with her that I would let her throw away things, and I would not challenge her decisions or bring things back in after she had thrown them out.
As for the rest of it, I have no idea what she threw out. The bags went in the trash can without me looking at them.
This represents a change in my view of my personal possessions. I finally realized there isn't a single thing in this house that I 'have' to have. It's all optional.
I realized that I had come to view many of my possessions as components of my identity. I have since learned that a lot of hoarders/clutterers view their identity and individuality through their possessions.
I finally decided that my 'identity' is as disposable as anything else in this house. It doesn't mean a thing to say, "I'm me," and therefore I don't need a bunch of stuff around here to daily prove to myself that it's true. "Me" is just another pointless possession – one that isn't even tangible, like Casper the Friendly Ghost is. 'Me' is just a concept – a thing floating around in what I still think of, for purposes of convenience, as 'my' mind. As is 'I'.
(I could awkwardly recast all these sentences to get rid of the personal pronouns, and they would be more accurate from a Buddhist perspective. But they'd be unreadable, so I'll do what ever other Buddhist does and continue the conceit for the sake of convenience.)
In addition to all the stuff that Kat the Miracle Worker got rid of, I have given away a goodly amount of other stuff. Last year, Ms. HRP helped me get rid of bag after bag of clothes. That included a plastic tub full of more than 200 pair of socks that I had boxed up back in 1999.
Having gotten rid of all those clothes, I was able in recent weeks to give away a chest of drawers that had been parked in the middle of the dining room for about a year. I gave away a coffee table I bought twelve years ago and had not used in ten years. I gave away a bunch of bed linens, never opened, and got rid of the cabinet I had bought to hold them. This weekend, Tall Ed came by and took about a dozen history and current events books that had been on my shelves.
And after all that, the house is still packed with stuff. A lot more needs to go.
Lo, this random crap:
the miracle worker
holds a telephone
made from a Batman-logoed
tennis shoe.
There were a few changes this time, however. The most significant was that I had realized, as mentioned previously, that I could not get the house livable by simply throwing out trash and rearranging and organizing what was left. There was simply too much stuff. So even non-trash items had to go.
I made an agreement with her that I would let her throw away things, and I would not challenge her decisions or bring things back in after she had thrown them out.
The friendliest ghost I know.
As for the rest of it, I have no idea what she threw out. The bags went in the trash can without me looking at them.
This represents a change in my view of my personal possessions. I finally realized there isn't a single thing in this house that I 'have' to have. It's all optional.
I realized that I had come to view many of my possessions as components of my identity. I have since learned that a lot of hoarders/clutterers view their identity and individuality through their possessions.
I finally decided that my 'identity' is as disposable as anything else in this house. It doesn't mean a thing to say, "I'm me," and therefore I don't need a bunch of stuff around here to daily prove to myself that it's true. "Me" is just another pointless possession – one that isn't even tangible, like Casper the Friendly Ghost is. 'Me' is just a concept – a thing floating around in what I still think of, for purposes of convenience, as 'my' mind. As is 'I'.
(I could awkwardly recast all these sentences to get rid of the personal pronouns, and they would be more accurate from a Buddhist perspective. But they'd be unreadable, so I'll do what ever other Buddhist does and continue the conceit for the sake of convenience.)
In addition to all the stuff that Kat the Miracle Worker got rid of, I have given away a goodly amount of other stuff. Last year, Ms. HRP helped me get rid of bag after bag of clothes. That included a plastic tub full of more than 200 pair of socks that I had boxed up back in 1999.
Having gotten rid of all those clothes, I was able in recent weeks to give away a chest of drawers that had been parked in the middle of the dining room for about a year. I gave away a coffee table I bought twelve years ago and had not used in ten years. I gave away a bunch of bed linens, never opened, and got rid of the cabinet I had bought to hold them. This weekend, Tall Ed came by and took about a dozen history and current events books that had been on my shelves.
And after all that, the house is still packed with stuff. A lot more needs to go.
Thursday, June 17, 2010
I bought a book
If you read the WaPo article to which I linked a few days ago, you may recall the mention of a book called Buried In Treasures by Tolin, Frost and Steketee. I bought it the other day and have been browsing through it. I started out reading it closely, but quickly discovered most of the information was stuff I had read in other books or had figured out on my own. After that, I just thumbed through it looking for interesting tidbits.
I come back to my basic decluttering rules:
When you see something interesting in a store or online, you have to program yourself to see that object as something that is going to screw up your life. Possessions are the enemy. They hate you. They want to crush your spirit and snuff out your soul.
The most valuable possession of all is your own peace of mind.
I come back to my basic decluttering rules:
- Stuff has to leave the house and not come back.
- Other new stuff cannot come in.
When you see something interesting in a store or online, you have to program yourself to see that object as something that is going to screw up your life. Possessions are the enemy. They hate you. They want to crush your spirit and snuff out your soul.
The most valuable possession of all is your own peace of mind.
Sunday, June 13, 2010
Lo, This Random Crap
So, I'm doing my One Productive Task for the day, which is going through cardboard boxes in the dining room to see if there's anything in them I need to keep.I found this copy of IBM's OS/2. I think this is the 1993 release. I never installed it.
The house is full of this kind of stuff.
The gulf blowout
I don't write much about current events, but the gulf oil blowout has been on my mind a lot. I wake up in the middle of the night thinking about it.
This will end up being a typical USA deal. By which I mean ten years from now, the gulf will be dead, along with the Caribbean and a large part of the Atlantic. Beaches along the gulf coast will be abandoned. Hurricanes will have carried oil inland, and coastal cities will slowly dwindle in size. Cities from Mobile to Tampa will look like Detroit and New Orleans. There will be occasional news dispatches promising progress soon, and we will have heard the promises so many times by then we won't have the emotional energy left to be outraged by the obvious lies.
It's the environmental equivalent of Afghanistan or Vietnam.
BP will get taxpayer bailouts, change its name, and walk away unscathed.
Part of what disgusts and depresses me about this is knowing that if some manmade disaster happens where I live, the result will be the same. Swarms of personnel will swoop in to make sure no pictures are taken of it. The government will send the perpetrators sternly-worded letters. Michael Bloomberg will urge us to protect our royal CEO class.
And the rest of us will just be fucked.
I'm not getting out of bed today.
This will end up being a typical USA deal. By which I mean ten years from now, the gulf will be dead, along with the Caribbean and a large part of the Atlantic. Beaches along the gulf coast will be abandoned. Hurricanes will have carried oil inland, and coastal cities will slowly dwindle in size. Cities from Mobile to Tampa will look like Detroit and New Orleans. There will be occasional news dispatches promising progress soon, and we will have heard the promises so many times by then we won't have the emotional energy left to be outraged by the obvious lies.
It's the environmental equivalent of Afghanistan or Vietnam.
BP will get taxpayer bailouts, change its name, and walk away unscathed.
Part of what disgusts and depresses me about this is knowing that if some manmade disaster happens where I live, the result will be the same. Swarms of personnel will swoop in to make sure no pictures are taken of it. The government will send the perpetrators sternly-worded letters. Michael Bloomberg will urge us to protect our royal CEO class.
And the rest of us will just be fucked.
I'm not getting out of bed today.
I threw away a TV
Eight years ago, a friend gave me a 21-inch TV. It was broken when he gave it to me — I guess he thought I might figure out how to fix it. I didn't. So the thing sat around here for eight years, taking up space.
Today I finally just dropped the thing in a trash can. A tight fit, but I got it in there. This is the kind of crap that has filled my house. God knows why I didn't throw it away in 2002.
Today I finally just dropped the thing in a trash can. A tight fit, but I got it in there. This is the kind of crap that has filled my house. God knows why I didn't throw it away in 2002.
Saturday, June 12, 2010
One Productive Task
I don't think I've mentioned this before... my new cleanup strategy is what I call the One Productive Task method. I try to do One Productive Task, i.e., some bit of household cleanup, every day. I may do more, but at the minimum, I try to do one.
Today, for example, I threw out a couple of old pillows the dog had slept on, along with a few bits of other debris that had been in the living room and dining room.
It's not much, but it's something, and if I keep doing that every day, I'll have the house shipshape by 2018 or thereabouts.
Washington Post reporter Michael S. Rosenwald has written a story about his own struggle with clutter and hoarding.
I would dispute the use of the word 'slob' in the headline. I doubt that Rosenwald shows up at the Post for work every day in dirty clothes or a three-day growth of beard. But, like me, he has a hard time dealing with the accumulation of material possessions.
And it's not status symbols or rich people's toys that are the problem. I don't own a big screen TV or a home theater system, for example. What I have is a bunch of junk, much of which I have described previously. That includes my huge box of 'wall wart' transformers for various electronic doodads long ago burnt out or broken; dozens of CD-ROMs, many of them blank, that have gotten scratched or cracked from being left out of their cases; old books I'll never read again, and so on.
Rosenwald's story is accompanied by a slide show of photos – a few of them apparently staged – showing the clutter in his home and his car. His car is actually worse than mine, but there have been times when mine was worse than his.
But one picture especially caught my attention. It's a picture of his hands emerging from a pile of books, magazines, newspapers and whatnot. And in the upper left hand corner is a roll of toilet paper. What is a roll of toilet paper doing in his home office or den or wherever this is? The same thing they're doing in my den, dining room, kitchen, and bedroom, I suppose. I need to blow my nose, or wipe up a spill, and I grab a roll of TP out of the bathroom because it's the handiest thing. And then the roll just stays wherever I used it.
It dawned on me that I don't spend more than five minutes a day making this house a mess. And if I could spend, say, seven minutes a day cleaning it up, eventually I ought to get caught up. Hence the One Productive Task. It takes about seven minutes. And I have seen a little progress, but only a little. It's like spending seven minutes shoveling sand out of the Sahara Desert.
Back in 2006, I recruited someone to come in and declutter, and she got more done in a day than I would have gotten done in a couple of months.
I've asked her to come back in a few days, and I hope she'll help me get further ahead in this process.
Addendum: A couple of friends suggested I watch "Hoarders" on A&E. I don't have a TV, so I checked the A&E web site, where full episodes are available for viewing. I was so turned off by the 'dum dum DUMMMM!' music and the grainy "se7en"-style graphics that I didn't watch the show. It's a houseful of crap, not the Zodiac killer.
Today, for example, I threw out a couple of old pillows the dog had slept on, along with a few bits of other debris that had been in the living room and dining room.
It's not much, but it's something, and if I keep doing that every day, I'll have the house shipshape by 2018 or thereabouts.
Washington Post reporter Michael S. Rosenwald has written a story about his own struggle with clutter and hoarding.
The Mess He Made: A Life-long Slob Decides It's Time to Get Organized
I would dispute the use of the word 'slob' in the headline. I doubt that Rosenwald shows up at the Post for work every day in dirty clothes or a three-day growth of beard. But, like me, he has a hard time dealing with the accumulation of material possessions.
And it's not status symbols or rich people's toys that are the problem. I don't own a big screen TV or a home theater system, for example. What I have is a bunch of junk, much of which I have described previously. That includes my huge box of 'wall wart' transformers for various electronic doodads long ago burnt out or broken; dozens of CD-ROMs, many of them blank, that have gotten scratched or cracked from being left out of their cases; old books I'll never read again, and so on.
Rosenwald's story is accompanied by a slide show of photos – a few of them apparently staged – showing the clutter in his home and his car. His car is actually worse than mine, but there have been times when mine was worse than his.
But one picture especially caught my attention. It's a picture of his hands emerging from a pile of books, magazines, newspapers and whatnot. And in the upper left hand corner is a roll of toilet paper. What is a roll of toilet paper doing in his home office or den or wherever this is? The same thing they're doing in my den, dining room, kitchen, and bedroom, I suppose. I need to blow my nose, or wipe up a spill, and I grab a roll of TP out of the bathroom because it's the handiest thing. And then the roll just stays wherever I used it.
It dawned on me that I don't spend more than five minutes a day making this house a mess. And if I could spend, say, seven minutes a day cleaning it up, eventually I ought to get caught up. Hence the One Productive Task. It takes about seven minutes. And I have seen a little progress, but only a little. It's like spending seven minutes shoveling sand out of the Sahara Desert.
Back in 2006, I recruited someone to come in and declutter, and she got more done in a day than I would have gotten done in a couple of months.
I've asked her to come back in a few days, and I hope she'll help me get further ahead in this process.
Addendum: A couple of friends suggested I watch "Hoarders" on A&E. I don't have a TV, so I checked the A&E web site, where full episodes are available for viewing. I was so turned off by the 'dum dum DUMMMM!' music and the grainy "se7en"-style graphics that I didn't watch the show. It's a houseful of crap, not the Zodiac killer.
Friday, June 11, 2010
Freak me out, why don't you?
I have a few female friends and acquaintances with whom I often have lunch or dinner. These are not women I'm dating, but friends I enjoy sharing time with. Nevertheless, a friend suggested a few days ago that I ought to 'get together' with one of them.
I could feel the muscles in my chest and diaphragm tense up as soon as he said it. He might as well have suggested a recreational trip to the dentist, or getting a job.
It's not that I'm not attracted to women. But at this stage in my life, that attraction seems to exist somewhere outside of me, like a cloud of fog surrounding my head. It's not pleasant.
I have friends who enjoy their infatuations, even when the interest is not mutual. "Oh," they tell me, "it makes me feel alive."
I don't call that feeling alive. I call that feeling crazy.
I feel more alive sitting in the back yard, watching the birds and petting the dog. But beyond that, I'm kind of over the whole 'alive/not alive' thing.
I'm not that much different than the big rock out in my back yard. And after I die, I won't be any different at all. So I'm not going to get all cranked up about the 'alive' thing. That will resolve itself soon enough.
I could feel the muscles in my chest and diaphragm tense up as soon as he said it. He might as well have suggested a recreational trip to the dentist, or getting a job.
It's not that I'm not attracted to women. But at this stage in my life, that attraction seems to exist somewhere outside of me, like a cloud of fog surrounding my head. It's not pleasant.
I have friends who enjoy their infatuations, even when the interest is not mutual. "Oh," they tell me, "it makes me feel alive."
I don't call that feeling alive. I call that feeling crazy.
I feel more alive sitting in the back yard, watching the birds and petting the dog. But beyond that, I'm kind of over the whole 'alive/not alive' thing.
I'm not that much different than the big rock out in my back yard. And after I die, I won't be any different at all. So I'm not going to get all cranked up about the 'alive' thing. That will resolve itself soon enough.
Sunday, June 06, 2010
Transmission of Mind
I want to mention a book I read recently. It's called Transmission of Mind, and contains the teachings of Huang Po, a Chinese Chan master of the ninth century CE. It was written by one of his students shortly after his death in 857.
Transmission of Mind predates the 'one hand clapping' era of Zen, and proves Zen can be taught without riddles, brain teasers and intellectual snipe hunts. John Blofeld's translation of this work can be found on Amazon, and I assume elsewhere as well.
Transmission of Mind predates the 'one hand clapping' era of Zen, and proves Zen can be taught without riddles, brain teasers and intellectual snipe hunts. John Blofeld's translation of this work can be found on Amazon, and I assume elsewhere as well.
Saturday, June 05, 2010
Another material possession
I bought an iPad today. It was a spur-of-the-moment thing. I spend a lot of time away from the computer these days, but I frequently want to blog or surf or check Facebook or Twitter. I won't carry this around town with me; it's strictly for use around the house and the back yard.
The learning curve doesn't appear steep. It works more like an iPhone, of course, than a Mac. But there are differences, and it will take a while to get used to them.
The learning curve doesn't appear steep. It works more like an iPhone, of course, than a Mac. But there are differences, and it will take a while to get used to them.
Thursday, June 03, 2010
Like a Brick Wall
I got a comment on Facebook a few weeks ago suggesting that talking to me was like 'talking to a brick wall.' And I guess that's true much of the time. Other people have commented that I don't participate well in group conversations.
I just don't have a lot to say. The dropoff in frequency of posts here reflects that.
I think that, if anything, I talk too much. Sometimes, at the end of the day, as I look back over what the day has been like, I find myself asking, 'Why did I say that? That was unnecessary.' Or snarky. Or unfair. Or demeaning.
I spent about seven hours Memorial Day hanging out with the former Flibbertigibbet. There were long stretches of time (or at least they seemed long) where neither of us said anything. That is as it should be. I like not feeling compelled to fill every second of airtime with noise, like I'm a Top 40 radio station or something.
Silence really is golden.
I just don't have a lot to say. The dropoff in frequency of posts here reflects that.
I think that, if anything, I talk too much. Sometimes, at the end of the day, as I look back over what the day has been like, I find myself asking, 'Why did I say that? That was unnecessary.' Or snarky. Or unfair. Or demeaning.
I spent about seven hours Memorial Day hanging out with the former Flibbertigibbet. There were long stretches of time (or at least they seemed long) where neither of us said anything. That is as it should be. I like not feeling compelled to fill every second of airtime with noise, like I'm a Top 40 radio station or something.
Silence really is golden.
Tuesday, June 01, 2010
Networked Blogs
There's a new widget on the right side of the screen called Networked Blogs. This is the doodad that somehow interfaces this blog to Facebook. Or something. So if you click on the button that says "Follow This Blog," something happens. I'm not sure what.
Update
Just some random stuff: First of all, I lost the artwork for the blog banner. It's got to be on my computer somewhere, but I can't find it. So, I've tossed up what may be a temporary replacement – or it may be permanent, depending on whether I get around to finding the old one or making a more elaborate new one.
I have tried to link this blog to my Facebook account through a FB app whose setup is a bit difficult for me to follow. Maybe it works. Maybe it doesn't. I guess if you see this from Facebook, it's working.
I have tried to link this blog to my Facebook account through a FB app whose setup is a bit difficult for me to follow. Maybe it works. Maybe it doesn't. I guess if you see this from Facebook, it's working.
Wednesday, May 26, 2010
Clutter
As I'm sure I've mentioned before, I am struggling with clutter. I have always been a cluttered person, except for a very brief period when I was about 13.
I am more serious about decluttering now than I have ever been. I believe it's harder to achieve clear mind when one is surrounded by crap.
After many frustrating years of just moving stuff from one pile to another or from a front closet to a back closet, I finally came to a realization: I had to own less stuff. Stuff needed to go out the door and not come back. More recently, I realized something else: new stuff needed to not come in.
Typically, in the past, I would buy something based on whether I wanted or needed it, and whether I could afford it. I never took into account whether I had room for it. Now, the house is full. There's no room for anything unless something else goes away.
I'm throwing away and giving away lots of stuff. Not just stuff that's junk, but even good stuff. I can't stand it anymore and I want it gone.
I am more serious about decluttering now than I have ever been. I believe it's harder to achieve clear mind when one is surrounded by crap.
After many frustrating years of just moving stuff from one pile to another or from a front closet to a back closet, I finally came to a realization: I had to own less stuff. Stuff needed to go out the door and not come back. More recently, I realized something else: new stuff needed to not come in.
Typically, in the past, I would buy something based on whether I wanted or needed it, and whether I could afford it. I never took into account whether I had room for it. Now, the house is full. There's no room for anything unless something else goes away.
I'm throwing away and giving away lots of stuff. Not just stuff that's junk, but even good stuff. I can't stand it anymore and I want it gone.
Wednesday, May 05, 2010
Whoops
The banner has disappeared from my blog because of a website fu which, at least for the present, I lack the motivation to fix.
Maybe later.
Maybe later.
Sunday, April 04, 2010
Sunday, March 14, 2010
Random notes
It took fifteen months and a change of crews instead of the 90 days originally promised by the first contractor, but my new garage was finally completed a couple of weeks ago.
It has 32 electrical outlets, plus a spare 220 that hasn't been wired with an outlet yet. There's a half-bath with a shower, and a studio space for paint and an easel. If I want to, I can work out there all day without having to go into the house.
It doesn't have air conditioning yet, but that can wait awhile.
What I'm reading
I've been reading The Zen Writings of Stonehouse, translated by Red Pine. Stonehouse was a Chinese Zen (Chan) monk who lived in the fourteenth century CE. He left the monastery and moved to a hut on the side of a mountain, leading a secluded life for the remainder of his years. He wrote numerous poems about his life as a recluse. They are similar to the writings of Cold Mountain, who lived seven hundred years before him. In fact, Stonehouse quotes Cold Mountain in one of his poems.
I go to bed most nights thinking I would be perfectly happy living in some one-room cabin in the woods and seeing almost no human beings anymore. I usually feel differently about it when I wake up the next morning – but not always.
I'm also reading Daoism and Chinese Culture by Livia Kohn.
Friday, March 05, 2010
My kitchen stove
I've lived in this house since 2001. And do you know I've never turned on the oven to see if it works?
Friday Night
You have a meditation
I don't practice it
You have a teaching
I don't follow it
You have a koan
I don't understand it
When I'm hungry I eat
When I'm tired I sleep
You should see the birds
That come to my back yard
I don't practice it
You have a teaching
I don't follow it
You have a koan
I don't understand it
When I'm hungry I eat
When I'm tired I sleep
You should see the birds
That come to my back yard
Friday, February 19, 2010
So, I guess the Olympics are on
I haven't watched any of it. I watched the games in the sixties and seventies. I still remember Jim McKay covering the murders of the Israeli athletes in Munich.
But I can't work up any enthusiasm for the Olympics today. I'd rather plump up the pillows in the Very Dark Room and snooze or read a book, or sit in the back yard with the dog.
The world beyond my own doorstep doesn't interest me much anymore.
But I can't work up any enthusiasm for the Olympics today. I'd rather plump up the pillows in the Very Dark Room and snooze or read a book, or sit in the back yard with the dog.
The world beyond my own doorstep doesn't interest me much anymore.
Sunday, February 14, 2010
Sunday morning
Old and gray
Big and slow
Shuffly and shambly
Came from nowhere
Going nowhere
It all means nothing
What's for lunch?
Big and slow
Shuffly and shambly
Came from nowhere
Going nowhere
It all means nothing
What's for lunch?
Thursday, February 11, 2010
LED Bulbs
I decided to try one of those new LED light bulbs, and I'm pleased with the result.
The bulb I selected cost $59.95, uses 4w of electricity to produce as much light as a 65w incandescent bulb, and burns for 30,000 hours, or a little less than three and a half years.
You can't tell much from the picture, but the color temperature seems to be close to halogen. I half-expected it to have that creepy blue cast that LED Christmas lights have, but the color of the light is just fine.
Tuesday, February 02, 2010
Ceiling fans and light fixtures
Most homeowners want to add ceiling fans if they don't have them, but I'm getting rid of mine.
The ones that are in my house, installed by the previous owner, are simply attached to the eighty-year-old lath and plaster ceilings. There are no mounts or supports connecting them to the joists. Adding supports would be a huge job.
Ms. HRP retextured one of my ceilings just a few months ago, and it already has hairline cracks which I believe are caused by the weight of the ceiling fan.
Moreover, I never use the fans. The one that caused the cracks has not been turned on in the eight or nine years I've lived here. I prefer floor or table fans, and I have three of those.
Plus, the ones that are in here are all-white budget models, and they're frankly tacky-looking.
So I'm taking out all but the one in the den (which I installed myself years ago) and replacing them with ordinary flush-mount light fixtures.
I bought what looked like a pretty nice mission-style fixture over the Internet last week. It arrived today, and what a disappointment it has turned out to be. The fixture is a knockoff of a competitor's much more expensive version, and seeing it up close, it's obvious where corners were cut to bring the price down. Some of the metal parts are the thickness of colored craft paper, and bowed out slightly because they weren't fit together carefully by the maker.
Maybe it will look okay once it's installed, but if it doesn't, I may give it to someone else and buy the crazy expensive one that's the original product.
The ones that are in my house, installed by the previous owner, are simply attached to the eighty-year-old lath and plaster ceilings. There are no mounts or supports connecting them to the joists. Adding supports would be a huge job.
Ms. HRP retextured one of my ceilings just a few months ago, and it already has hairline cracks which I believe are caused by the weight of the ceiling fan.
Moreover, I never use the fans. The one that caused the cracks has not been turned on in the eight or nine years I've lived here. I prefer floor or table fans, and I have three of those.
Plus, the ones that are in here are all-white budget models, and they're frankly tacky-looking.
So I'm taking out all but the one in the den (which I installed myself years ago) and replacing them with ordinary flush-mount light fixtures.
I bought what looked like a pretty nice mission-style fixture over the Internet last week. It arrived today, and what a disappointment it has turned out to be. The fixture is a knockoff of a competitor's much more expensive version, and seeing it up close, it's obvious where corners were cut to bring the price down. Some of the metal parts are the thickness of colored craft paper, and bowed out slightly because they weren't fit together carefully by the maker.
Maybe it will look okay once it's installed, but if it doesn't, I may give it to someone else and buy the crazy expensive one that's the original product.
Wednesday, January 27, 2010
Love and hatred arise uncontrollably
"If you view things through your ego, then love and hatred arise uncontrollably and you cannot avoid indulging feelings. When you indulge feelings, then you are being subjective. When you are subjective, you are ignorant. When you are ignorant, you are mixed up and confused; you are only aware of yourself, not of principle."
— from "The Cultivation of Realization," translated by Thos. Cleary
Monday, January 25, 2010
Monday afternoon
Sitting in the easy chair
With a box of graham crackers.
Long ago I ran out of things to say.
Why am I still talking?
With a box of graham crackers.
Long ago I ran out of things to say.
Why am I still talking?
Saturday, January 23, 2010
Saturday morning
A wise man prepares for a rainy day
But I am only a fool.
Curled up under the covers
I wish I had some Pop-Tarts.
But I am only a fool.
Curled up under the covers
I wish I had some Pop-Tarts.
Friday night
Books surround my bed
wisdom of old masters long dead
the cat is in my lap
I don't know anything.
wisdom of old masters long dead
the cat is in my lap
I don't know anything.
Friday, January 22, 2010
What the 'normals' do
I have a friend whose life has run a track similar, but not identical, to mine.
She's about my age, never married, no kids. She doesn't do relationship stuff well. She suffers from panic and anxiety attacks. She has a clutter problem, and her house is usually a mess.
'If we were normal,' she sometimes says, 'we wouldn't be sitting here in this coffee shop right now. We'd be home with our significant others, sitting in front of the fireplace or TV and drinking a glass of wine.'
Yeah, maybe.
Or maybe we'd be sitting at the kitchen table with our significant others looking at the mortgage coupon, the home equity loan payment, the lease payments due on our SUV's, the kids' orthodontist bills, plus various utility bills and credit card statements, and wondering how we're going to cover them all – or if we'd just walk away from the house and move everyone into some crappy apartment somewhere.
Or maybe we'd be fighting and arguing about it.
Or maybe we'd be stressing out about the latest round of layoffs at our cubicle jobs and comparing notes to figure out which of us would be first to be unemployed.
Or maybe we'd be at some Crown Heights cocktail party surrounded by people we loathed, jabbering about golf and OU football and Martha Stewart, because we had to make and nurture these connections for career or social status purposes.
This is far from a perfect life, but I don't have any illusions about the grass being greener on the other side of Shartel Avenue. It's all just tradeoffs.
She's about my age, never married, no kids. She doesn't do relationship stuff well. She suffers from panic and anxiety attacks. She has a clutter problem, and her house is usually a mess.
'If we were normal,' she sometimes says, 'we wouldn't be sitting here in this coffee shop right now. We'd be home with our significant others, sitting in front of the fireplace or TV and drinking a glass of wine.'
Yeah, maybe.
Or maybe we'd be sitting at the kitchen table with our significant others looking at the mortgage coupon, the home equity loan payment, the lease payments due on our SUV's, the kids' orthodontist bills, plus various utility bills and credit card statements, and wondering how we're going to cover them all – or if we'd just walk away from the house and move everyone into some crappy apartment somewhere.
Or maybe we'd be fighting and arguing about it.
Or maybe we'd be stressing out about the latest round of layoffs at our cubicle jobs and comparing notes to figure out which of us would be first to be unemployed.
Or maybe we'd be at some Crown Heights cocktail party surrounded by people we loathed, jabbering about golf and OU football and Martha Stewart, because we had to make and nurture these connections for career or social status purposes.
This is far from a perfect life, but I don't have any illusions about the grass being greener on the other side of Shartel Avenue. It's all just tradeoffs.
Attachment
You can read something in a book or have it explained to you, and you may get it intellectually without having the 'a-ha' moment that really makes the truth personal to you.
I had the 'a-ha' moment about attachment years ago (although if you look at the way I live, buried under my umbrellas and computer cables and other junk, you might not believe that I ever really got the concept).
But even though I have already 'personalized' the Buddha's teaching about attachment/craving and suffering/dissatisfaction, I still find myself tangled in that trap.
I was driving down the street, and saw an old friend - well, more than a friend but something less than a girlfriend - standing on the sidewalk. I had not seen her in a long time.
I started to pull over, roll down the window and say hi. Then I thought, 'Well, what comes after "hi"? Will be she glad to see me, annoyed that I bothered her, or completely indifferent? Will I seem needy for having stopped to talk to her? How will I feel if her response to me is negative or unpleasant?'
And all this is going through my mind in the six or seven seconds between the time I first spotted her and the point that my car was even with her on the sidewalk.
I decided to just keep on going.
This is what comes of attachment. I pass people I know on the street almost every day of the week, and I never go through a bunch of mental gymnastics trying to decide whether to say hello. I just wave as I go by. Sometimes they wave back and sometimes they don't. I don't give any special significance to their response one way or the other.
But in this case, here I am driving down the street, paying more attention to the wheels turning in my own head than to the street in front of me, experiencing all those subtle physical reactions people have in stressful situations, over something whose significance exists only in my own mind.
This is the price of attachment. Forget about karma and what will happen in future lives – this is the payback right now. In this case, fortunately, it was just ten seconds of my life – plus whatever time I've spent this morning blogging about it – and not one of those fits of emotional turmoil that lasts for days or weeks.
It's one thing to say, 'Life is filled with dukkha, and tanhā is the source of dukkha,' and another thing to say, 'Y'know, attachment sucks.'
One is a teaching. The other is truth.
A View on Buddhism is a great resource for understanding Buddhist concepts. Well, I think it's a great resource — I suppose your mileage may vary. Anyway, here's the entry for 'attachment.'
Addendum: Here's the Wikipedia entry on tanhā.
I had the 'a-ha' moment about attachment years ago (although if you look at the way I live, buried under my umbrellas and computer cables and other junk, you might not believe that I ever really got the concept).
But even though I have already 'personalized' the Buddha's teaching about attachment/craving and suffering/dissatisfaction, I still find myself tangled in that trap.
I was driving down the street, and saw an old friend - well, more than a friend but something less than a girlfriend - standing on the sidewalk. I had not seen her in a long time.
I started to pull over, roll down the window and say hi. Then I thought, 'Well, what comes after "hi"? Will be she glad to see me, annoyed that I bothered her, or completely indifferent? Will I seem needy for having stopped to talk to her? How will I feel if her response to me is negative or unpleasant?'
And all this is going through my mind in the six or seven seconds between the time I first spotted her and the point that my car was even with her on the sidewalk.
I decided to just keep on going.
This is what comes of attachment. I pass people I know on the street almost every day of the week, and I never go through a bunch of mental gymnastics trying to decide whether to say hello. I just wave as I go by. Sometimes they wave back and sometimes they don't. I don't give any special significance to their response one way or the other.
But in this case, here I am driving down the street, paying more attention to the wheels turning in my own head than to the street in front of me, experiencing all those subtle physical reactions people have in stressful situations, over something whose significance exists only in my own mind.
This is the price of attachment. Forget about karma and what will happen in future lives – this is the payback right now. In this case, fortunately, it was just ten seconds of my life – plus whatever time I've spent this morning blogging about it – and not one of those fits of emotional turmoil that lasts for days or weeks.
It's one thing to say, 'Life is filled with dukkha, and tanhā is the source of dukkha,' and another thing to say, 'Y'know, attachment sucks.'
One is a teaching. The other is truth.
A View on Buddhism is a great resource for understanding Buddhist concepts. Well, I think it's a great resource — I suppose your mileage may vary. Anyway, here's the entry for 'attachment.'
Addendum: Here's the Wikipedia entry on tanhā.
Thursday, January 21, 2010
Have you ever seen me with an umbrella?
Probably not, because I rarely carry one. I figure I might as well get wet as fumble around with an umbrella. It's just water, after all.But I found four umbrellas while cleaning stuff out of the living room – one behind the sofa and two more propped up against a floor lamp. I don't remember where the fourth one was – under the desk, maybe.
But these represent four different instances where I was shopping for something else, saw an umbrella, and thought to myself, "Do I have an umbrella? Do I know where it is? Well, I'll just grab this one since it's here."
So, I'd buy the umbrella, bring it home, and it would soon disappear under or behind furniture or other crap I brought home on impulse.
And now all four of them have turned up. Or maybe there are more I haven't found yet.Also found this afternoon: three sets of Airport Express stereo connection kits. These have the special cable needed to connect an Airport Express to the digital input on a stereo receiver.
They were under the sofa. I knew I had one of them; the other two were a complete surprise to me.
Saturday, January 16, 2010
Emptying the house
As I've written before, I'm in the process – the very slow process – of restoring order to my house.
Here's the hitch: there is so much stuff in this house that restoring order is, at the moment, all but impossible. As a prelude to the actual organizing, therefore, I have to empty the house.
I hate throwing things away. I hate throwing broken, worthless junk away, let alone the things which still work, but for which I have no use.
So, I have to change my frame of mind. I have to look at all this stuff piled up everywhere not as undiscovered or unappreciated treasure, but as an enemy that is cluttering my house and robbing me of my serenity.
It's not easy.
I'm still finding old software manuals and computer books which are too outdated to be of any use. Those are pretty easy to let go of, but they don't give me back much space.
What I really need to lose, I think, is furniture. I have three desks. The cheap, tacky, assemble-yourself desk is the one I regularly use. The one from the antique store is in the living room, functioning as a bookshelf. The small rolltop I bought when I first moved here (and which I had to drag myself from the second floor of Penn Square down to my car) is by far the nicest of the three, but it's small – the top is about big enough to hold a laptop computer and nothing else. It's currently just a repository for junk. I'm not even sure where it is. It's probably in the dining room, behind the extra dresser I'm going to just give away.
My sofa is too big for my living room. I bought it new, and never sit on it. But the cats have shed on it and barfed on it and scratched at it so much, it now needs to be reupholstered.
I have a really nice high-end dining room table and chairs. The table has never had a meal served on it. I could probably sell it and make better use of the dining room space.
My house is just a big storage locker. I can't say I actually live in it, so much as I store myself here, along with all the other stuff.
Here's the hitch: there is so much stuff in this house that restoring order is, at the moment, all but impossible. As a prelude to the actual organizing, therefore, I have to empty the house.
I hate throwing things away. I hate throwing broken, worthless junk away, let alone the things which still work, but for which I have no use.
So, I have to change my frame of mind. I have to look at all this stuff piled up everywhere not as undiscovered or unappreciated treasure, but as an enemy that is cluttering my house and robbing me of my serenity.
It's not easy.
I'm still finding old software manuals and computer books which are too outdated to be of any use. Those are pretty easy to let go of, but they don't give me back much space.
What I really need to lose, I think, is furniture. I have three desks. The cheap, tacky, assemble-yourself desk is the one I regularly use. The one from the antique store is in the living room, functioning as a bookshelf. The small rolltop I bought when I first moved here (and which I had to drag myself from the second floor of Penn Square down to my car) is by far the nicest of the three, but it's small – the top is about big enough to hold a laptop computer and nothing else. It's currently just a repository for junk. I'm not even sure where it is. It's probably in the dining room, behind the extra dresser I'm going to just give away.
My sofa is too big for my living room. I bought it new, and never sit on it. But the cats have shed on it and barfed on it and scratched at it so much, it now needs to be reupholstered.
I have a really nice high-end dining room table and chairs. The table has never had a meal served on it. I could probably sell it and make better use of the dining room space.
My house is just a big storage locker. I can't say I actually live in it, so much as I store myself here, along with all the other stuff.
Monday, January 11, 2010
Not a monk
One of the things Flibbertigibbet (aka Nina) mentioned to me Saturday night was that some of my blog posts made it sound like I wanted to be a monk.
I've never been in a monastery (except for that place that used to be in Forest Park), but from what I've seen and read, the discipline and regimentation is a lot more than I could deal with. I am the least regimented person you'll ever know. I wake up in the morning with no fixed plan and go through day more or less spontaneously.
What I want to be, I think, is not a monastic, but what I am now: something of a recluse. I'm not completely cut off from society, but I can limit my exposure if I so desire. If I want a few days with no contact, I can have that. But if I want some time with other people, I can always find someone to hang out with.
Henry David Thoreau's Walden pond was right on the edge of Concord, not out in the wilderness. He was in town all the time, visiting his mother or his landlord and mentor, Ralph Waldo Emerson. The poet Cold Mountain, of whom I have written frequently in the past, lived in a more remote location than did Thoreau, but he was no hermit, either. He frequently visited with farmers and shepherds in his area, and often visited a Zen monastery a day's ride from his cliff dwelling home. That's how I want to live - not completely alone, but with more seclusion and private time than most people find comfortable.
I suspect that if I were completely honest with myself, I would also say that I am trying to get away from myself as much as I am from other people. Or at least from the person who has left behind the long trail of relationship failures, professional screwups and social gaffes. If I'm alone, I can feel reasonably sure that the only person in the room who knows my checkered past is me.
I've never been in a monastery (except for that place that used to be in Forest Park), but from what I've seen and read, the discipline and regimentation is a lot more than I could deal with. I am the least regimented person you'll ever know. I wake up in the morning with no fixed plan and go through day more or less spontaneously.
What I want to be, I think, is not a monastic, but what I am now: something of a recluse. I'm not completely cut off from society, but I can limit my exposure if I so desire. If I want a few days with no contact, I can have that. But if I want some time with other people, I can always find someone to hang out with.
I suspect that if I were completely honest with myself, I would also say that I am trying to get away from myself as much as I am from other people. Or at least from the person who has left behind the long trail of relationship failures, professional screwups and social gaffes. If I'm alone, I can feel reasonably sure that the only person in the room who knows my checkered past is me.
Historical note
The shopping center that hosts Sean Cummings Restaurant and Pub is on the site of the old Twilight Gardens Drive-In. I don't recall when the Twilight Gardens closed. I know it was around in 1970, and gone by 1980.
Sunday, January 10, 2010
A night at the pub
The blogger formerly known as Flibbertigibbet! and I visited a place called Sean Cummings Restaurant & Pub, outside the bubble north of May and Britton Road.
This is one of Flib's regular hangouts, and I can see why. I've never been in a real Irish pub, so I have no idea how authentic it is, but I would tell you that once inside and settled in a booth, I felt like I could have been somewhere thousands of miles from here.
This is a tiny place - I would guess that it seats 80 customers at the maximum - but the smallness is part of the appeal. It's very cozy and dark.
We listened to a pair of musicians performing Irish and Scottish folk music, and I had fish and chips as good as I've ever eaten.
I don't like getting out of the bubble, of course, but this was worth the trip. I'm astonished that I didn't even know this place existed.
This is one of Flib's regular hangouts, and I can see why. I've never been in a real Irish pub, so I have no idea how authentic it is, but I would tell you that once inside and settled in a booth, I felt like I could have been somewhere thousands of miles from here.This is a tiny place - I would guess that it seats 80 customers at the maximum - but the smallness is part of the appeal. It's very cozy and dark.
I don't like getting out of the bubble, of course, but this was worth the trip. I'm astonished that I didn't even know this place existed.
Thursday, January 07, 2010
Hard Drive Memories
While rummaging around on my pile of old hard drives this week, I came across a couple of photos sent to me by a woman with whom I had a very brief online flirtation a decade back. No, they they are not that kind of photos – just ordinary pics of her life and her work.
We had met on the Well, where I was a daily visitor at the time. To make a long story short, we had several weeks of back-and-forth emails, then made arrangements to meet in a 'neutral' city. Then I did what I often did, which is to 'way overcommit, say some things I shouldn't have said while trying to be charming. Instead, I pretty much scared the bejeebers out of her. We called off the meeting and had no further contact.
I had forgotten about her until I found these photos.
It was another in a long line of instances of me fumbling around with my substandard social skills and alienating people instead of building friendships and relationships.
After my last 'woe is me' rant, I made myself a promise that I was going to go a year on this blog without writing any more self-examining or self-pitying relationship stuff. That was 51 weeks ago, so I've come up a little short.
Well, it's all in the past now. But I think it's useful for me to be reminded what a mess I was making of my life year after year, and why I live the life I do now.
We had met on the Well, where I was a daily visitor at the time. To make a long story short, we had several weeks of back-and-forth emails, then made arrangements to meet in a 'neutral' city. Then I did what I often did, which is to 'way overcommit, say some things I shouldn't have said while trying to be charming. Instead, I pretty much scared the bejeebers out of her. We called off the meeting and had no further contact.
I had forgotten about her until I found these photos.
It was another in a long line of instances of me fumbling around with my substandard social skills and alienating people instead of building friendships and relationships.
After my last 'woe is me' rant, I made myself a promise that I was going to go a year on this blog without writing any more self-examining or self-pitying relationship stuff. That was 51 weeks ago, so I've come up a little short.
Well, it's all in the past now. But I think it's useful for me to be reminded what a mess I was making of my life year after year, and why I live the life I do now.
Monday, January 04, 2010
Stuff off old hard drives
I have several old computers around the house. And by 'old,' I mean anywhere from seven to ten years old. I've decided to get rid of them, so I started firing them up yesterday to see if there was anything I wanted to keep on them. Most of these computers hadn't been turned on in anywhere from three to seven years, and I wasn't sure what I would find on them.
Most of the computers were not fully functional, and it took some creativity to get files off of them. And after all the work, I didn't find much that I wanted.
The item above was done in 2002. I think it was for some city project, but it never got off the ground. This is the first time this sketch has seen the light of day.
I did this, I think, while I was still living in Texas. That picture is from my apartment there; and that's my Texas haircut. I don't remember why I did this... probably just goofing around.
There's quite a bit of stuff like this on these old computers, although these are the most interesting two things I found.
Most of the computers were not fully functional, and it took some creativity to get files off of them. And after all the work, I didn't find much that I wanted.
The item above was done in 2002. I think it was for some city project, but it never got off the ground. This is the first time this sketch has seen the light of day.
There's quite a bit of stuff like this on these old computers, although these are the most interesting two things I found.
The holidays come and go
Well, here we are starting a new year. The new century doesn't feel new, anymore – we are well into the 21st century and it's old hat now. A child born in 2001 would be in the third grade now, right?
New Year's, and Christmas (and my recent birthday) all went by uneventfully. The holidays were just ordinary days of the week for me, which is how I prefer them. There is still a lot of snow on the ground from the Christmas Eve blizzard, and I haven't felt much like getting out and struggling with it. Temperatures are supposed to be even colder this week, so I expect I'll be housebound at least a few more days.
I played host to Nurse K's dog, Frank, for a couple of days. He has a reputation for being cranky, but he was the perfect guest while he was here. Bailey and he get along fine. The cats ignored him and he ignored the cats. He's an old dog – ten or twelve, by the looks of him – and he's not much into romping around or creating havoc like Bailey is.
I finally met the author of the late, lamented 'Flibbertigibbet!' blog last week. Remind me to post more about that later.
New Year's, and Christmas (and my recent birthday) all went by uneventfully. The holidays were just ordinary days of the week for me, which is how I prefer them. There is still a lot of snow on the ground from the Christmas Eve blizzard, and I haven't felt much like getting out and struggling with it. Temperatures are supposed to be even colder this week, so I expect I'll be housebound at least a few more days.
I played host to Nurse K's dog, Frank, for a couple of days. He has a reputation for being cranky, but he was the perfect guest while he was here. Bailey and he get along fine. The cats ignored him and he ignored the cats. He's an old dog – ten or twelve, by the looks of him – and he's not much into romping around or creating havoc like Bailey is.
I finally met the author of the late, lamented 'Flibbertigibbet!' blog last week. Remind me to post more about that later.
Friday, December 25, 2009
Thursday, December 24, 2009
Weather
If you've been watching the news, you know we had a blizzard here today, with record one-day snowfall for the city and wind gusts up to fifty-plus miles an hour.
I'm trying to follow it via the web, but from my little house in the center of town it looks like a typical snowy day. I got out about 9:30 am and had breakfast, and all seemed pretty well. The ice storms of 2007 and 2002 affected me much more than this blizzard has.
But from what I hear, it turned to absolute pandemonium everywhere else by about 1 pm. There are reports of people who have been stranded on the interstates, turnpikes and in shopping mall parking lots for six hours or more. Traffic got so jammed up that the plows couldn't get through to clear the snow drifts off the streets.
My little cat Frannie got out Tuesday night and hasn't been seen since. I'm hoping she holed up under the neighbor's house or some other location, and I'll see her when the wind dies down.
I'm trying to follow it via the web, but from my little house in the center of town it looks like a typical snowy day. I got out about 9:30 am and had breakfast, and all seemed pretty well. The ice storms of 2007 and 2002 affected me much more than this blizzard has.
But from what I hear, it turned to absolute pandemonium everywhere else by about 1 pm. There are reports of people who have been stranded on the interstates, turnpikes and in shopping mall parking lots for six hours or more. Traffic got so jammed up that the plows couldn't get through to clear the snow drifts off the streets.
My little cat Frannie got out Tuesday night and hasn't been seen since. I'm hoping she holed up under the neighbor's house or some other location, and I'll see her when the wind dies down.
Wednesday, December 23, 2009
Crap disposal update: I'm hoarding wall warts
I've filled two city-issued trash bins – 70 gallons each, I think – with crap I'm deleting from my house. Most of it has come from one room, that being the den. The recycling bin is also full.
I am now looking at a pile of 'wall warts' – those little black transformers that plug into a wall outlet to step down house current for USB hubs, CD burners, external hard drives and the like. Over the years, I have pitched out fried hard drives, CD burners that were too slow, USB v1 hubs and all sorts of other electronic detritus. But I have always kept the wall warts, and now I have perhaps fifteen of them that don't go to anything I currently own.
Years ago, I had one burn out, and I was able to replace it with one of matching wattage and amperage in my pile of leftovers. Since then, I've hung on to all of them, just in case I need to replace one again.
This is the kind of thinking that eventually led to me being knee deep in crap.
I am now looking at a pile of 'wall warts' – those little black transformers that plug into a wall outlet to step down house current for USB hubs, CD burners, external hard drives and the like. Over the years, I have pitched out fried hard drives, CD burners that were too slow, USB v1 hubs and all sorts of other electronic detritus. But I have always kept the wall warts, and now I have perhaps fifteen of them that don't go to anything I currently own.
Years ago, I had one burn out, and I was able to replace it with one of matching wattage and amperage in my pile of leftovers. Since then, I've hung on to all of them, just in case I need to replace one again.
This is the kind of thinking that eventually led to me being knee deep in crap.
Monday, December 21, 2009
More crap goes away
Pitched a bunch more crap today, including old software manuals and dozens of CD-ROMS containing old software. (One was a copy of Windows 98.) I have a CD-ROM cabinet that was full this morning and is more than half empty tonight.
I still have a long way to go.
JohnX, I found another package of CD-ROM blanks, 16x write speed — it's never been opened. I put it in my car and I'll give it to you next time I see you.
I still have a long way to go.
JohnX, I found another package of CD-ROM blanks, 16x write speed — it's never been opened. I put it in my car and I'll give it to you next time I see you.
Thursday, December 17, 2009
Throwing crap away
I threw out some more crap today. Not enough crap, but it's better than no progress at all.
Tuesday, December 15, 2009
Random stuff
I'm actually a philosophical illiterate. I've never read any of the 'great' philosophers.
So I set about this week to read "Being and Nothingness" by Sartre.
I figured with a title like that, it would be right up my alley, but damn, it is slow going.
The truth is, I am just intellectually lazy. I'm not willing to make the effort required to satisfy my own curiosity.
I'm also reluctant to make the effort to clean up my own house. But I've had a burst of house-cleaning energy the past couple of days. I'd have to sustain this for a month or six weeks to get the house clean, and I probably won't last that long. But I have made progress in throwing some stuff away.
I have a tough time throwing away things that are still functioning, but that I no longer need. Today, for example, I threw away about eighty blank CD-ROMs. Some of them were seven or eight years old - 4x and 8x types. I used to buy huge packages of blanks, but I never burned enough CD-ROMs. I'd actually get rid of computers and CD-ROM drives before I'd use up all the blanks. So now I have CD burners that can use – I don't know, 56x, I think – but I had stacks and stacks of these ancient blank CD-ROMs. So, I threw them all out.
I also pitched four or five PC keyboards. I kept the best one I had, even though I no longer have any functioning PCs.
I have a chest of drawers I'm going to give away. I don't remember what I paid for it. I got it at Pier 1 several years ago, just to hold my overflow of clothes. It took up space I didn't actually have. I've decided now to cut back on the clothes and get rid of the dresser.
I'll mention briefly that the garage is still unfinished, 13 months after work began on it. I hope it will get done in January, but frankly I doubt that it will.
So I set about this week to read "Being and Nothingness" by Sartre.
I figured with a title like that, it would be right up my alley, but damn, it is slow going.
The truth is, I am just intellectually lazy. I'm not willing to make the effort required to satisfy my own curiosity.
I'm also reluctant to make the effort to clean up my own house. But I've had a burst of house-cleaning energy the past couple of days. I'd have to sustain this for a month or six weeks to get the house clean, and I probably won't last that long. But I have made progress in throwing some stuff away.
I have a tough time throwing away things that are still functioning, but that I no longer need. Today, for example, I threw away about eighty blank CD-ROMs. Some of them were seven or eight years old - 4x and 8x types. I used to buy huge packages of blanks, but I never burned enough CD-ROMs. I'd actually get rid of computers and CD-ROM drives before I'd use up all the blanks. So now I have CD burners that can use – I don't know, 56x, I think – but I had stacks and stacks of these ancient blank CD-ROMs. So, I threw them all out.
I also pitched four or five PC keyboards. I kept the best one I had, even though I no longer have any functioning PCs.
I have a chest of drawers I'm going to give away. I don't remember what I paid for it. I got it at Pier 1 several years ago, just to hold my overflow of clothes. It took up space I didn't actually have. I've decided now to cut back on the clothes and get rid of the dresser.
I'll mention briefly that the garage is still unfinished, 13 months after work began on it. I hope it will get done in January, but frankly I doubt that it will.
Sunday, December 13, 2009
What do you do when you’re branded?
Not only am I tired of hearing about Tiger Woods, I'm tired of hearing about Tiger Woods' “brand.”
In fact, I’m tired of hearing about anyone's “brand.”
That meme has had ten years to run its course. Just let it go.
Also: I’m tired of hearing about “memes.”
In fact, I’m tired of hearing about anyone's “brand.”
That meme has had ten years to run its course. Just let it go.
Also: I’m tired of hearing about “memes.”
Enthusiasm — I hate it
I'm not enthusiastic about much of anything. Moreover, enthusiasm in others frequently creeps me out. I have a friend who's enthusiastic about helping orphans in Africa, which has the virtue of doing some good in the world. The same is true of another friend whose enthusiasm is directed toward his vegetable garden and sustainable living.
But those two are overwhelmingly outnumbered by people who are enthusiastic about the NFL, American Idol or getting a Whole Foods here.
What the hell difference does any of that make?
I'd like this town a lot better if more people were like me — grumpy and apathetic.
But everybody wants to stay cranked up about all kinds of pointless crap. Anything to keep the adrenalin going.
But those two are overwhelmingly outnumbered by people who are enthusiastic about the NFL, American Idol or getting a Whole Foods here.
What the hell difference does any of that make?
I'd like this town a lot better if more people were like me — grumpy and apathetic.
But everybody wants to stay cranked up about all kinds of pointless crap. Anything to keep the adrenalin going.
Wednesday, December 09, 2009
Four cats and a dog
I've got four cats and a dog in the house. It's 19 degrees outside. Rollo is here, sedated by pheromones, along with the kittens, Frannie and Gastón, and their mother, Evil Kitty.
Evil Kitty doesn't even qualify as tame, but she always comes in the house when the weather turns cold and camps in the dining room.
I wish I knew where Grey is. I haven't seen him in several days. I hope the cat lady across the street has taken him in.
I don't like having this many cats in the house at once. They don't all get along, and the litter boxes fill up pretty fast. But I couldn't put any of them out to fend for themselves in this cold.
Evil Kitty doesn't even qualify as tame, but she always comes in the house when the weather turns cold and camps in the dining room.
I wish I knew where Grey is. I haven't seen him in several days. I hope the cat lady across the street has taken him in.
I don't like having this many cats in the house at once. They don't all get along, and the litter boxes fill up pretty fast. But I couldn't put any of them out to fend for themselves in this cold.
Tuesday, December 08, 2009
Rollo update — something that seemed to work
The pheromone collar seems to have really helped. Rollo is mostly back to his old self. He about bit Frannie's head off when she started pestering him, but other than that, he seems a lot calmer. He purred when I picked him up, which he sure as hell wasn't doing last night.
Monday, December 07, 2009
Rollo update
I saw my cat, Rollo, wandering down the street this afternoon. I ran out and grabbed him and brought him in, and boy, did he not like that.
He hissed and spit and growled at me, at the other cats, even the dog. He's never liked the kittens, but he never hissed or growled at me, and he used to curl up and sleep with the dog.
Rollo had a small 'hot spot' rash on his stomach which has grown and shrunk the whole time I've had him. I assumed he kept licking at it partly out of stress.
That rash is now completely gone for the first time ever. I assume that's due to a combination of cooler weather and what he perceives as a less stressful environment outdoors.
I went to the pet store and got him one of those pheromone collars, plus some cat treats. He growled and hissed while I put the collar on him, but he didn't try to fight me. The collar seemed to calm him down a bit, and he calmed down even more after I hand-fed him some treats.
We have a chance for some winter storm weather tonight, so I'm keeping him in. But I guess if it's going to completely stress him out to be inside, I'll have to let him stay out.
He hissed and spit and growled at me, at the other cats, even the dog. He's never liked the kittens, but he never hissed or growled at me, and he used to curl up and sleep with the dog.
Rollo had a small 'hot spot' rash on his stomach which has grown and shrunk the whole time I've had him. I assumed he kept licking at it partly out of stress.
That rash is now completely gone for the first time ever. I assume that's due to a combination of cooler weather and what he perceives as a less stressful environment outdoors.
I went to the pet store and got him one of those pheromone collars, plus some cat treats. He growled and hissed while I put the collar on him, but he didn't try to fight me. The collar seemed to calm him down a bit, and he calmed down even more after I hand-fed him some treats.
We have a chance for some winter storm weather tonight, so I'm keeping him in. But I guess if it's going to completely stress him out to be inside, I'll have to let him stay out.
Transitions
Thinking about my artist friend whom I haven't seen in many months reminded me of some other transitions in my life and surroundings.
Dave, who I never wrote about here but who I saw almost every day for years, moved out of town months ago.
dzaster, who posted here regularly, left the state and was gone a couple of months before I knew she had left.
Ms. HRP finished my back yard and has moved on to other projects.
Rollo the cat has abandoned me. Sometimes I'll see him on a neighbor's porch or walking across a lawn across the street. If I pick him up and try to bring him back to the house, he growls and spits and hisses. He won't even come up on the porch.
I used to hang out every day at the Red Cup, but started going there less frequently this past summer. I haven't been there at all since mid-October.
Everything is temporary. Everything is changing. Nothing is permanent.
And there's no point or purpose to any of it.
Dave, who I never wrote about here but who I saw almost every day for years, moved out of town months ago.
dzaster, who posted here regularly, left the state and was gone a couple of months before I knew she had left.
Ms. HRP finished my back yard and has moved on to other projects.
Rollo the cat has abandoned me. Sometimes I'll see him on a neighbor's porch or walking across a lawn across the street. If I pick him up and try to bring him back to the house, he growls and spits and hisses. He won't even come up on the porch.
I used to hang out every day at the Red Cup, but started going there less frequently this past summer. I haven't been there at all since mid-October.
Everything is temporary. Everything is changing. Nothing is permanent.
And there's no point or purpose to any of it.
I don't know. I don't care.
Actual headline on cnn.com this morning:
“Why has Paris Hilton disappeared?”
“Why has Paris Hilton disappeared?”
Sunday, December 06, 2009
More pointlessness
Several years ago I had an artist friend who abruptly quit doing art, cut herself off from most of her friends and acquaintances, and occasionally talked of ending her life. Obviously she was depressed, but I think she had also reached a stage in her personal life philosophy that was similar to where I am now: pondering the pointlessness of the universe, and especially the pointlessness of the bustling human activity we are trained from childhood to revere.
I get a certain amount of satisfaction in thinking about the machinery of the cosmos being there just because it's there, and not there to comply with a party platform or an employee handbook or a story in the Old Testament.
But it makes it difficult to be motivated about anything.
I've lost touch with my artist friend, but I wonder what she thinks about this today.
I get a certain amount of satisfaction in thinking about the machinery of the cosmos being there just because it's there, and not there to comply with a party platform or an employee handbook or a story in the Old Testament.
But it makes it difficult to be motivated about anything.
I've lost touch with my artist friend, but I wonder what she thinks about this today.
Saturday, December 05, 2009
Christmas music
The Christmas music now seems to be in full swing in restaurants and other public places. Time for me to go underground until New Year's Day.
Tiger Woods
I normally am not interested in 'celebrity news,' but I have to admit the stories developing about golfer Tiger Woods have caught my attention.
(Caveat: I don't know how much of this you or I should believe, since most of the info is coming from the tabloid press.)
First of all, I guess I just assumed that Woods had a pretty casual, 'nice guy' attitude toward women. The high school flavor of this stuff surprised me.
But what really caught my attention is the barrage of emails, text messages and answering machine messages that have become public. Did every one of these women collect documentation to eventually sell to the tabloids? Or to use to shake him down for money?
According to one story I read, even his wife demanded and got a $5 million payment.
I thought I was rather cynical about this stuff, but now I'm wondering if I was naive.
(Caveat: I don't know how much of this you or I should believe, since most of the info is coming from the tabloid press.)
First of all, I guess I just assumed that Woods had a pretty casual, 'nice guy' attitude toward women. The high school flavor of this stuff surprised me.
But what really caught my attention is the barrage of emails, text messages and answering machine messages that have become public. Did every one of these women collect documentation to eventually sell to the tabloids? Or to use to shake him down for money?
According to one story I read, even his wife demanded and got a $5 million payment.
I thought I was rather cynical about this stuff, but now I'm wondering if I was naive.
Thursday, December 03, 2009
Two and a half years
I've spent about two and a half years now basically eating, sleeping and hanging out in coffee shops. And/or my back yard.
I'm wondering if there's something else I should be doing.
Probably not.
I'm wondering if there's something else I should be doing.
Probably not.
Wednesday, December 02, 2009
Tuesday, December 01, 2009
Blackout
The power has been out on my block and the block to the east for about an hour. The utility company hasn't even shown up yet.
Monday, November 30, 2009
Attachment
I actually posted this link a few years ago. I had forgotten about it, and rediscovered it last night. It's so good I'm posting it again.
viewonbuddhism.org: attachment
viewonbuddhism.org: attachment
Sunday, November 29, 2009
Blacking out
I posted an item November 10 about blacking out in my backyard. I want to revisit that for a moment.
As I wrote then, I heard this loud thump, which was actually me falling and hitting the wall of the garage. But I didn't have any sense of falling, nor did I realize I'd hit anything. The thump sounded as if it were coming from somewhere nearby, but not as if I was the cause of it.
Then I had this brief sense of warmth, calm, security and serenity. I remember having the vague thought, "everything's OK." That must have been happening as I was sort of sliding down the wall of the garage to the ground. I keep wondering what that sensation was about. It was probably just a natural physical sensation, but it felt like more.
As I wrote then, I heard this loud thump, which was actually me falling and hitting the wall of the garage. But I didn't have any sense of falling, nor did I realize I'd hit anything. The thump sounded as if it were coming from somewhere nearby, but not as if I was the cause of it.
Then I had this brief sense of warmth, calm, security and serenity. I remember having the vague thought, "everything's OK." That must have been happening as I was sort of sliding down the wall of the garage to the ground. I keep wondering what that sensation was about. It was probably just a natural physical sensation, but it felt like more.
Pointlessness
I've been reading this week about the Buddhist principle of 'emptiness of phenomena,' or śūnyatā. I've had some difficulty getting my mind around this concept, mostly because it has nothing to do with anything I would personally call 'emptiness.'
I tend to equate emptiness with 'pointlessness,' which is not what śūnyatā is about.
But in addition to thinking about the emptiness of phenomena, I find myself thinking about the pointlessness of, well, almost everything. At this very moment, for example, I'm thinking in the back of my mind about the pointlessness of posting this. Will it change anything? Will it inform or enlighten someone? Will it help inform or enlighten me? Probably not. It just gives me something to do at 4 in the morning.
People talk about what's happening in their lives, and I think, 'what's the point?' I look at what's happening in my own life, and think, 'what's the point?'
I guess I've become an existential nihilist.
I tend to equate emptiness with 'pointlessness,' which is not what śūnyatā is about.
But in addition to thinking about the emptiness of phenomena, I find myself thinking about the pointlessness of, well, almost everything. At this very moment, for example, I'm thinking in the back of my mind about the pointlessness of posting this. Will it change anything? Will it inform or enlighten someone? Will it help inform or enlighten me? Probably not. It just gives me something to do at 4 in the morning.
People talk about what's happening in their lives, and I think, 'what's the point?' I look at what's happening in my own life, and think, 'what's the point?'
I guess I've become an existential nihilist.
Saturday, November 28, 2009
Gadget news
I don't write much about gadget stuff. I'm too much of a gadget head, and I'm trying to unplug myself from all the doodah crap I've accumulated in favor of a slightly more austere lifestyle.
But I bought something this evening that I have to write about. It's a software app called Airfoil. It's from a company called RogueAmoeba. They are pretty much the experts on intercepting and redirecting Macintosh audio in ways OS X doesn't allow on its own.
I think I have written before about my AirTunes network. I have a batch of the Apple Airport Express units spread out around the house. Three of them have stereo receivers or amplifiers attached, with fairly decent speakers.
iTunes has a feature which allows me to select any or all of the speakers and transmit audio to them. But that only works with iTunes, and it won't let me send audio to another computer on the network.
Airfoil gets around these limitations. It can send audio to any of the Airport Express units with the receivers attached. It also allows me to set individual audio levels for each unit, rather than the one universal level offered by iTunes.
It also allows me to send sound to my work Mac in the den so I can play the same music through its Monsoon computer speakers. It even allows to me send audio to my iPhone.
This program only costs $25, and I'd say it's a heck of a bargain.
But I bought something this evening that I have to write about. It's a software app called Airfoil. It's from a company called RogueAmoeba. They are pretty much the experts on intercepting and redirecting Macintosh audio in ways OS X doesn't allow on its own.
I think I have written before about my AirTunes network. I have a batch of the Apple Airport Express units spread out around the house. Three of them have stereo receivers or amplifiers attached, with fairly decent speakers.
iTunes has a feature which allows me to select any or all of the speakers and transmit audio to them. But that only works with iTunes, and it won't let me send audio to another computer on the network.
Airfoil gets around these limitations. It can send audio to any of the Airport Express units with the receivers attached. It also allows me to set individual audio levels for each unit, rather than the one universal level offered by iTunes.
It also allows me to send sound to my work Mac in the den so I can play the same music through its Monsoon computer speakers. It even allows to me send audio to my iPhone.
This program only costs $25, and I'd say it's a heck of a bargain.
Sunday, November 22, 2009
Friday, November 20, 2009
Addendum II
These dreams make me feel like I am chained to my past. I wish today I had never set foot in a goddamn TV newsroom 30-odd years ago. It's like some virus that got into my system and can never be completely purged.
Dream addendum
One of the things I find interesting about my dreams is that they often include people I have never known in real life, with names my subconscious seems to make up on the fly. In this case, it was a news photographer named 'Bob Kosovar.'
Another nightmare
Just awakened by another creepy TV news dream. I had not had one of these in quite awhile — I thought maybe I was done with them.
Wednesday, November 18, 2009
That damn book
I'm going to maintain Internet silence until this Sarah Palin book has passed out of range. I don't want to see another word about it.
Tuesday, November 17, 2009
Fireplace
I'm sitting outside this evening enjoying my outdoor fireplace, and wondering what it would take to build one in my living room.
My house, built in 1930, has a false drywall mantle that once housed a gas stove. But there's no chimney at all. I'd have to cut a hole in the wall to make a place for one. It's probably more expensive than I would want to spend.
32 more years?! I'd rather not.
I see where Edward Woodward, star of 'Breaker Morant' and the TV series 'The Equalizer' has died. He was 89.
89! That would be 32 more years for me, and I can not imagine spending 32 more years on this world. 89 years on planet earth — good lord.
And god knows what this world will be like in 32 years. I'm not optimistic. 50 bank executives will be trillionaires and the rest of us will be living in tarpaper shacks. And it will be 120 in the shade in August.
When I had my blackout in the back yard the other day, my nurse friend Kathryn came over to check on me and lecture me about seeing a doctor and taking better care of myself. "You could have died," she admonished me. "You may have had a heart attack."
I guess she expected more of a response from me to the words 'heart attack,' because she narrowed her eyes, pushed her face a little closer to mine, and asked, "Do you care?"
"No," I replied frankly. The thought of being crippled by a stroke and warehoused in a nursing home for 20 years scares the shit out of me, but if I had hit the ground dead the other day rather than merely unconscious, well, what would have been the harm in that?
There are people who have lived rougher lives than mine and persevered. Stephen Hawking is ten times the man I'll ever be, and I salute him for his achievements.
But I'm an ordinary guy living an ordinary life, with some ups and some downs, and there's nothing so special about it that I feel like I need to have it drag on another thirty years.
89! That would be 32 more years for me, and I can not imagine spending 32 more years on this world. 89 years on planet earth — good lord.
And god knows what this world will be like in 32 years. I'm not optimistic. 50 bank executives will be trillionaires and the rest of us will be living in tarpaper shacks. And it will be 120 in the shade in August.
When I had my blackout in the back yard the other day, my nurse friend Kathryn came over to check on me and lecture me about seeing a doctor and taking better care of myself. "You could have died," she admonished me. "You may have had a heart attack."
I guess she expected more of a response from me to the words 'heart attack,' because she narrowed her eyes, pushed her face a little closer to mine, and asked, "Do you care?"
"No," I replied frankly. The thought of being crippled by a stroke and warehoused in a nursing home for 20 years scares the shit out of me, but if I had hit the ground dead the other day rather than merely unconscious, well, what would have been the harm in that?
There are people who have lived rougher lives than mine and persevered. Stephen Hawking is ten times the man I'll ever be, and I salute him for his achievements.
But I'm an ordinary guy living an ordinary life, with some ups and some downs, and there's nothing so special about it that I feel like I need to have it drag on another thirty years.
Monday, November 16, 2009
Food
One of the things that surprised and disappointed me on my trip was the difficulty I had in finding local restaurants. In many of the towns through which I passed, franchise restaurants appeared to have completely supplanted local dining places. I would consult the UrbanSpoon app on my iPhone and get nothing back but franchises like Shoney's, IHOP and O'Casey's. In White Pine, the only restaurant I found was a Sonic.
We're fortunate here in the bubble to have so many good family-owned restaurants.
We're fortunate here in the bubble to have so many good family-owned restaurants.
Sunday, November 15, 2009
Year Five
This blog begins its fifth year in a couple of weeks. I will have forgotten about the anniversary by then, so I'll say something about it now.
I obviously am not as 'productive' at blogging as I once was. I have to less to say than I used to, and I suppose if I ever reach a state of ultimate enlightenment I'll quit blogging altogether. I feel as though the further along I go, the less important it seems to for me to say anything. And the things I see around me are less important.
I posted some drawings here a few years back, and the art of the barfing cats was by far the most popular thing I ever did. That was the year I won an OkieBlog award. But I don't draw much anymore. That's another thing that doesn't seem especially interesting or important now.
My passion for politics has waned. My concern about the issues facing my community has all but vanished. The stuff just doesn't affect me, except to the extent I have to pay taxes for some of it. Developments on the national level disturb me, but I don't know what I can do about it. I vote and I give money to candidates who I think will support my positions, but my current thinking is that Wall Street runs the show, and I'm wasting my energy trying to change that.
I have a Facebook account, and it turned into a huge time sink for awhile. If you saw my wall, you'd see lots of pictures of me with my feet propped up, a fire going in the fireplace, and maybe the dog or a cat hanging around nearby. That is how I spend most of my days now, and I'd be out there right this minute except that it's been raining.
I obviously am not as 'productive' at blogging as I once was. I have to less to say than I used to, and I suppose if I ever reach a state of ultimate enlightenment I'll quit blogging altogether. I feel as though the further along I go, the less important it seems to for me to say anything. And the things I see around me are less important.
I posted some drawings here a few years back, and the art of the barfing cats was by far the most popular thing I ever did. That was the year I won an OkieBlog award. But I don't draw much anymore. That's another thing that doesn't seem especially interesting or important now.
My passion for politics has waned. My concern about the issues facing my community has all but vanished. The stuff just doesn't affect me, except to the extent I have to pay taxes for some of it. Developments on the national level disturb me, but I don't know what I can do about it. I vote and I give money to candidates who I think will support my positions, but my current thinking is that Wall Street runs the show, and I'm wasting my energy trying to change that.
Saturday, November 14, 2009
Garage update
It was about this time a year ago that they were demolishing my old garage to build a new one. The new one is almost, but not quite, finished.
Electricians installed the carriage lights on the front and side this week. These are more decorative than utilitarian, but getting them put in was sort of a milestone for me.
There is still no electricity to the garage. According to my general contractor, we're waiting on the power company to make the next move.
I hope this garage is going to be done before the first of the year, but I'm not sure it will be.
Electricians installed the carriage lights on the front and side this week. These are more decorative than utilitarian, but getting them put in was sort of a milestone for me.
There is still no electricity to the garage. According to my general contractor, we're waiting on the power company to make the next move.
I hope this garage is going to be done before the first of the year, but I'm not sure it will be.
More on the trip
I was surprised at how homogenized cities and towns have become. I guess it's been this way for decades, but I never really noticed it until I took this trip. Drive from town to town on the interstate highway system, and you see the same malls, the same big box retailers and the same franchise restaurants. The city you're arriving in looks just like the one you just departed.
Fortunately, I spent some time off I40 and drove through a few small towns where there was more individuality. I'm grateful for the interstate system, but sometimes it's more pleasant and interesting to fall back on the old US highway system. In Tennessee, at least, these roads are in excellent condition, although they lack the wide shoulders and other safety features of the interstates.
Fortunately, I spent some time off I40 and drove through a few small towns where there was more individuality. I'm grateful for the interstate system, but sometimes it's more pleasant and interesting to fall back on the old US highway system. In Tennessee, at least, these roads are in excellent condition, although they lack the wide shoulders and other safety features of the interstates.
Tuesday, November 10, 2009
Back from the trip
I'm back from my trip. I made the first leg of it successfully, then cut it short and came back.
I drove from here to White Pine in eastern Tennessee. That was my grandfather's birthplace. There is no family presence there at all now – I didn't even find relatives in the two town cemeteries. But at least I can say I saw the place, and I have some vague idea of the environment in which my grandfather grew up more than a hundred years ago.
I got sick while I was there. I decided that rather than try to drive up into Illinois and take Route 66 back home, I'd just come back the way I went, straight through on I-40. By the time I checked into a hotel in Jackson, TN, Wednesday evening, I had a severe sinus headache, fever, chills and a wracking cough. I coughed so hard that all the coughing reflex muscles in my chest and diaphragm ached, and it hurt to cough and even to just roll over in bed. I coughed so hard that sometime during the night I gave myself a nosebleed. When I awoke the next morning, the bed looked like Sweeney Todd had been sleeping in it. I still felt bad and wasn't sure I should try to drive home, but decided to risk it.
As it turned out, I felt much better once I got out of the hotel and under way, which made me wonder if some sort of carpet shampoo or other chemical had made my illness even worse after I checked in. I got home about 6 pm Thursday. I had forgotten to take my blood pressure medicine with me, so I took it as soon as I got home, went straight to bed, and slept through until morning.
I got up Friday, took more bp medication, and then went back to bed for most of the day in bed, still coughing a little and feeling generally listless. Later in the afternoon, I went out in the back yard and did a little cleaning up. I suddenly became immensely tired, and almost collapsed into my favorite chaise lounge. Then I began to feel nauseated. 'Surely I'm not going to barf,' I thought. 'I've eaten almost nothing in the past three days – what am I going throw up?'
But my stomach kept churning, so I pulled myself out of the chaise lounge and headed for the bathroom in the garage. As soon as I was up on my feet, I remember, I thought, 'Wow. I'm feeling really detached from reality right now.' I took a couple of steps toward the garage. I remember thinking, 'I'm still here. I'm still here.' Then I was looking down at the ground and thinking, 'How long I have been standing here?' Then there was a loud THU-WHOMP, and I remember having a brief but definite feeling of calm and peacefulness.
And then I was on my back, looking up at the sky. There was a breeze blowing across my face, scattering fallen elm and crape myrtle leaves around me. Although I had not felt a thing, not even a sensation of falling, I knew the sound I'd heard must have been me hitting the garage, then sliding down the wall to the ground. I had a couple of scrapes on my right arm, but other than that, no bruises or bumps.
I rolled over on my stomach and laid there in the grass awhile. I felt grateful to have had the opportunity to have been brought down face-to-face with the grass and the earth and the fallen leaves, with a warm autumn breeze still blowing. Bailey looked at me from across the yard, and slowly wandered over to see what I was doing. Gaston the cat appeared on my other side, stuck his nose in my face, then went back up on the deck.
I'll need to be more careful about overdoing the blood pressure meds.
I've got more to write about this, but not right now.
I drove from here to White Pine in eastern Tennessee. That was my grandfather's birthplace. There is no family presence there at all now – I didn't even find relatives in the two town cemeteries. But at least I can say I saw the place, and I have some vague idea of the environment in which my grandfather grew up more than a hundred years ago.
I got sick while I was there. I decided that rather than try to drive up into Illinois and take Route 66 back home, I'd just come back the way I went, straight through on I-40. By the time I checked into a hotel in Jackson, TN, Wednesday evening, I had a severe sinus headache, fever, chills and a wracking cough. I coughed so hard that all the coughing reflex muscles in my chest and diaphragm ached, and it hurt to cough and even to just roll over in bed. I coughed so hard that sometime during the night I gave myself a nosebleed. When I awoke the next morning, the bed looked like Sweeney Todd had been sleeping in it. I still felt bad and wasn't sure I should try to drive home, but decided to risk it.
As it turned out, I felt much better once I got out of the hotel and under way, which made me wonder if some sort of carpet shampoo or other chemical had made my illness even worse after I checked in. I got home about 6 pm Thursday. I had forgotten to take my blood pressure medicine with me, so I took it as soon as I got home, went straight to bed, and slept through until morning.
I got up Friday, took more bp medication, and then went back to bed for most of the day in bed, still coughing a little and feeling generally listless. Later in the afternoon, I went out in the back yard and did a little cleaning up. I suddenly became immensely tired, and almost collapsed into my favorite chaise lounge. Then I began to feel nauseated. 'Surely I'm not going to barf,' I thought. 'I've eaten almost nothing in the past three days – what am I going throw up?'
But my stomach kept churning, so I pulled myself out of the chaise lounge and headed for the bathroom in the garage. As soon as I was up on my feet, I remember, I thought, 'Wow. I'm feeling really detached from reality right now.' I took a couple of steps toward the garage. I remember thinking, 'I'm still here. I'm still here.' Then I was looking down at the ground and thinking, 'How long I have been standing here?' Then there was a loud THU-WHOMP, and I remember having a brief but definite feeling of calm and peacefulness.
And then I was on my back, looking up at the sky. There was a breeze blowing across my face, scattering fallen elm and crape myrtle leaves around me. Although I had not felt a thing, not even a sensation of falling, I knew the sound I'd heard must have been me hitting the garage, then sliding down the wall to the ground. I had a couple of scrapes on my right arm, but other than that, no bruises or bumps.
I rolled over on my stomach and laid there in the grass awhile. I felt grateful to have had the opportunity to have been brought down face-to-face with the grass and the earth and the fallen leaves, with a warm autumn breeze still blowing. Bailey looked at me from across the yard, and slowly wandered over to see what I was doing. Gaston the cat appeared on my other side, stuck his nose in my face, then went back up on the deck.
I'll need to be more careful about overdoing the blood pressure meds.
I've got more to write about this, but not right now.
Sunday, November 01, 2009
A trip
I've decided to take a road trip now that I have the new car. My father's side of the family hails from a little town in eastern Tennessee which I have never seen (and neither did he). I'm going to drive out there and have a look at the place. I'm not sure what I'll do after that, but I'm sort of thinking I'll go north through Kentucky up into Illinois, connect with route 66 about halfway between Chicago and Springfield, then drive home from there.
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