Read this

Flibbertigibbet!

I'm getting back into television!

New blood tests show my hemoglobin has dropped just since the first test Tuesday or Wednesday or whenever. I'm going in the hospital Monday for tiny cameras down my throat and up my ass.

Guess I need to find that IFB. (Or, interruptible feedback... the initials are used in TV to refer to that little headset you see TV reporters pulling out of their ears while they're talking because jackinapes producers are babbling incoherently at them while they're trying to do their live shots.)

3:03 a.m.

Woke up with a pretty bad headache, but a headache is something I can deal with. The really good news is that the ranitidine seems to have worked: no chest pain, cramps or anything else all night.

I rattle on a lot about renunciation and non-attachment, but what about non-attachment to health?

I've been miserable the past few days: pain, exhaustion, blood pressure up and down... and yet I can right off the top of my head think of two or three people whose health is worse than mine, and they rarely say anything about it.

Shunryu Suzuki-roshi continued giving talks at the San Francisco Zen Center even when he knew he was dying of cancer. Some of those talks have been included in his books.

Thanks again to soartstar who, inspite of having a lot of big things going on in her own life, spent hour after hour taking care of me. I hope I can repay some day.

(Good news! Bucky has been released by the vet to resume his normal dog activities.)

Well... I've taken some aspirin for the headache. Back to bed.

Thursday night

Having tried everything else over-the-counter I could think of, I decided to try a generic brand of ranitidine, which is the active ingredient in Zantac, Pepcid AC and a few others. It seems to be helping.

Anything to get a little relief from the pain, which seems to be more or less constant when I'm lying down and trying to sleep, or whenever I get up and move around.

(In other words, I can sit here and blog and feel okay, then get up and walk to another room and suddenly get hit with the chest pain.)

I downloaded that picture of Edgar Buchanan for nothing

Got a phone call from the doctor's office today... blood work and ultrasound show nothing wrong with my gall bladder at all.

They did find I'm anemic. I don't which TV star that goes with. Wally Cox, maybe.

Anyway, I go back tomorrow for more tests.

Slept a lot today.

Oh, and I forgot to mention...

... the whole lightheadedness thing. Doc suspects a potassium deficiency caused by the barf-o-rama. Eating, oh, twenty-two bananas a day ought to level me right off.

This is just so me

From the University of Pennsylvania Surgery web site

(emphasis mine)

Chronic Cholecystitis (Billary Colic)

The majority of patients with symptoms from their gallstones will suffer from chronic cholecystitis. The attacks are caused by a stone becoming stuck either in the junction of the gallbladder and the bile duct or in the duct itself. The muscle in the wall of both gallbladder and duct contracts in an effort to move the stone and this produces intense pain usually felt under the ribs on the right-hand side of the abdomen. However, the pain may also be felt under the V of the ribs or may extend right across the abdomen and spread around to the back, below the right shoulder blade.

The patient may vomit and is usually restless. After several hours, the stone either falls back into the gallbladder or, by virtue of the muscle contractions, is passed down the bile duct and into the intestine. Some patients suffer from a constant dull ache in the upper abdomen and many complain of discomfort and flatulence after eating a fatty meal.

---

Billie Jo, Bobbie Jo, Betty Jo, I think I got me one o' them gall stones afflictin' me. I gotta get Sam Drucker to send me sumthin' down from the general store. Meanwhile, if I commence t' fartin' 'round the hotel, y'all will know why.

Of course, this whole gall bladder thing skews a really old demo

For some reason, talking about my gall bladder acting up gives me the mental image of Uncle Joe sitting on the porch of Petticoat Junction's Shady Rest Hotel, waiting for the Hooterville Cannonball to arrive with the mail and the latest news from Pixley.

(It occurs to me some of you will have no freakin' idea what I'm talking about, which only reinforces the notion I skew a really old demo.)

Doesn't exactly help create that hip/edgy/interesting/hyperanimated-facial-expression image a designer should have. Here I was all set to get some skinny eyeglasses and start scrunching my hair up into a dorsal fin in the middle of my scalp, and then muh goldurn gall bladder starts a-actin' up on me.

When gall bladders attack

It's been a bumpy couple of days.

The doc thinks there's something wrong with my gall bladder. He was alarmed when I told him how much I'd thrown up during that first 48 hours. The good news: my BP was 122 over soemthing-or-other, which he said was the best reading he'd ever gotten off of me. I remain suspicious, though, that the BP medication is somehow contributing to this... not causing it, but making it worse.

Yesterday was miserable. I worked about two hours and left. I still have an intermittent sharp pain in my chest just below my sternum. Yesterday it was so bad I couldn't stand up, couldn't lie down at times, and was breaking out in a cold sweat.

It has eased up today, replaced by a headache that's hovering in my left eye socket.

I went to the radiology clinic this morning for an ultrasound of my abdominal area, including my gall bladder.

So I continue to wait for answers.

---

I have to wonder, of course, how ol' Cold Mountain would have dealt with this -- lying there alone, flat on his back, barfing and groaning in his mountain cave. Would he have written a poem about it? Would he have just laid there and died?

Of course, this could be all stress-related, in which case it wouldn't have happened to CM in any event.

---

While this spell has been worse than the previous ones, it's not the first one. I'm thinking my first extended barf-o-rama was when I was 13. I remember that clearly because my mother was livid because I threw up on the floor. She was not the nurturing type at all. The fact that I was sick wasn't on her radar at all -- she was just furious that I was inconveniencing the diva of the Shreveport bar scene.

I've had barf spells like this about once a year ever since. And unfortunately, they always remind me what a distant and aloof person my mother was. Don't get me wrong: she was very popular. Other alcoholics loved her.

The Devil and Hugo Chavez

There was an uproar last week about Venezuelan president Hugo Chavez referring to President Bush as 'the devil' in a speech to the United Nations.

"Yesterday, the devil came here. Right here," The Los Angeles Times quoted him as saying. He crossed himself. "Right here. And it smells of sulfur still today."

This got a big laugh from the General Assembly, and of couse, the right-wing commentariat was outraged.

But it was funny, which is obvious from the reaction it got.

What makes it funny?

First of all, it's funny because Chavez is a little like the mouse making the 'last grand gesture of defiance' to the cat. A lot has been written about Chavez's potential to be a spoiler in corporate America's plans for Central America, but regardless of what his actual power and influence is or may become, he's still the leader of a small nation sticking it to the leader of the most powerful nation on earth.

Secondly, it's funny because while President Bush tries to portray himself as a no-nonsense, two-fisted, plain-talkin' kind of guy, he's actually an obviously snippish, peevish, thin-skinned but ineffective oligarch posing for silly photo ops and in front of increasingly silly-looking prefab "Gotta Love Me Gotta Love Me Gotta Love Me Gotta Love Me" backdrops.

The mainstream media in this country still try to put the best face they can on the president, not because they like him or respect him, I suspect, but because of what he represents: the tippy-top of the economic pyramid wherein reside, among others, the corporate media execs whose signatures appear on six-figure monthly paychecks written to network correspondents and widely-read pundits.

But Chavez says it like it is, and many General Assembly members laughed in appreciation. Not that Bush is truly 'the devil,' because Chavez mocks his own melodramatic statement by crossing himself and referring to smelling sulfur, but that Bush is simply a dangerous man to have leading a nation as powerful as the U.S., and Chavez, at least, is willing to defy the strained, overwrought reverential tone the U.S. government and media still try force on the rest of us regarding the president.

And thirdly: the fact that Chavez can mock his own accusation displays at least one attribute Bush lacks: a sense of humor about himself.


iTunes: Gauri Manjari, Ustad Ali Akbar Khan

Okie Blog Awards

This blog was voted "Best Unusual Blog of 2006" as announced at the Okie Blog Awards last night. Thanks to all who voted for it.
A list of all the winners can be found here. And a list of all the nominees can be found here.

Sunday AM update

I have not had much to write about, and when I do, I'm too worn out to write it.

After a very good Thursday health-wise, Friday was so crappy I went home at noon and dragged around the rest of the day and into Saturday. Felt well enough to go to the grocery store Saturday with Suzanne, but the bottom fell out while I was there and I ended up leaning on the checkout stand, apparently groaning loud enough to alarm the cashier. (I say 'apparently' because I wasn't even aware I was groaning. But Suzanne says I make groaning and muttering noises all the time, like an old retriever getting comfortable on the porch.)

Without going into a whole lot of detail, I am now very persuaded that this is caused by my blood pessure medication, which seems to be working too well the past couple of weeks. I've lost some weight this summer and I'm getting a little more exercise, so maybe I need something not so strong.

I have a doctor's appointment Monday, and then I'll know for sure.

---

I'm wearing a T-shirt Suzanne loaned me that says "Aid and Comfort" on the front. I mention this because Suzanne has been a source of immense aid and comfort during all this. As I've blogged before, the brooding loner gig isn't all that much fun when you're really ill. She's fed me, come and picked me up when I've been too wasted to drive myself, and generally just been there for me when I wondered if it was really safe for me to be by myself.

iTunes: Wild Geese Descend on the Smooth Sand, Lui Pui-yuen

Friday AM update

Thursday was a really big day in terms of recuperation. I seem to have shaken the dizzy spells and lightheadedness. So maybe I won't die or become a permanent semi-invalid after all, and I'll have to go back to blogging about cat barf.

Wednesday update

Called to refill my blood pressure scrip this morning, and was told I'd run out of refills. That's my cue for my annual checkup, which I thought I'd had in the spring, but whatever. I'm seeing the doc Monday, assuming I don't merge back into the watercourse way before then.

I checked my BP at the grocery store, which I've never done before. It's a grocery store machine, so consider the source, but it was 174 over something that was really low. I want to say 57. That would be a good number for someone half my age.

Eating Life cereal and Tums right now. Part of this nuritious breakfast. I think I'm going to skip the Galileo round table tonight. No energy.

Tuesday update

I am still not 100 percent, and the lightheadedness stuff is starting to worry me.

If I drink at a water fountain and stand up suddenly, whoosh. If I climb a flight of stairs, just up one floor, whoosh.

I never used the elevator at work. Since this illness weekend before last, I have to.

The lightheadedness I'm talking about lasts 8 or 10 seconds. I've referred to it as dizziness, but it's not dizziness in the sense of the room seeming to spin around or anything like that. Rather I feel much the way I do when I wake up in the morning and in the time between sleep and full wakefulness, I'm not here and I'm not asleep.

A quick Google search suggested this is a symptom of permanent heart damage. Maybe I should see a doctor. But there are usually several other symptoms present at the same time, such as swelling of the ankles, and I don't have any of the other symptoms.

An interesting point: during those eight or ten second spells, everything is there. Everything looks the same. Nothing is stretching into odd shapes like you see in movies, or changing colors, or turning monochrome. But my surroundings don't look... well, real. The effect is much like waking from a dream, except that when the blood eventually catches up to the brain, I don't 'awaken'... I just settle back into the 'dream'.

I'm not seeking to recreate the experience, because it's pretty damn scary. But when it happens, it's like I'm right on the brink of losing my illusions about the existence of objects, only to be brought back to this world.

I came home this evening, ate two peanut butter and banana sandwiches, a bowl of microwave vegetarian vegetable soup, and a handful of chips. Went to sleep by 6:30 and am only now waking up.

You know what I need to do? I mean, besides see a doctor? Make a will.

Monday update

One of the kittens died overnight. I don't know what happened. She was right by her food dish. She had exhibited no signs of illness or listlessness.

I used to get very distraught about kittens dying. I think, as I have probably blogged before, that dogs and cats deserve a better shot at life than a lot of humans do.

Now I tend to view life and death as a sort of a temporary coming followed by a temporary going. I'm undecided about reincarnation, but I accept the notion, as Tich Nhat Hanh writes, that living things are like waves that appear in the ocean. Yes, we have a certain illusion of separateness and individuality, but in reality, we're all partt of the same ocean and can't exist apart from it.

---

Not much else to report since Friday. The weekend was uneventful - felt well enough to mow the front yard Sunday morning, and spent most of the rest of the time at the Red Cup or at Suzanne's.

Physically, I am back at almost full strength and worked all day yesterday.

I still have a little muscle soreness, and I had a sudden dizzy spell yesterday. Several people saw it, and I guess I was wobbling pretty badly.

But I'm still inching my way back to normalcy.

I lost some weight over the summer, mostly due to cutting a lot of fast food out of my diet, and some old clothes fit again. I wore a shirt to work yesterday that's probably twenty years old.

One thing I will say about my '80s-'90s fascination with fashion: I rarely bought crap, and always chose quality over flashiness. So I have lots of stuff hanging in the closet today that, while no longer stylish, looks about like it did when I bought it.

Friday evening

I spent four hours at work today, so I'm gradually returning to normal strength. I ought to be back to normal by Monday.

Ate a small amount of soup at Lido tonight.

After that, Suzanne and I went back to the Paseo, and sat on a ledge outside the darkened Paseo Pottery and talked. The Paseo was busy: a crowd at Galileo, a crowd at the new and apparently very popular Paseo Grill, and a drum circle playing outside the Woodchuck Chop.

As I write this, my agents in the field tell me Blogblah! is home eating beans and cornbread. Tall Ed is probably talking on the phone with his daughter about the Flaming Lips concert. Suzanne is at home with her still-recuperating-from-eye-surgery dog. Some of my other friends are probably at the Red Cup.

The sky is clear tonight, and there's a gentle breeze out of the south.

As I left the Paseo, I passed the drum circle and saw a middle-aged woman dancing with abandon as others played, and more stood and listened. Further south on 23rd street, I saw a group of about four kids walking in front of a vacant store front, hanging out on Saturday night with no place to go.

Not all good, not all bad. Just things as they are. I had the sudden sense that in at least those few moments, there was not a thing I could do that could possibly be the 'wrong' thing.

I'm sad about the state of the world, and by the amount of grief caused by the arrogance and hubris of my own nation. But tonight, for a change, I feel no bitterness or angerness about it, and the absence of those feelings is a welcome change. I want to speak no harsh or unkind word again in my life.

Everything is the way it is -- the suchness, I suppose, that Buddhists are supposed to intuitively see and understand. I feel like I'm on the threshhold of something in my life, but I don't know what.

I wish blessings upon each and every one of you who read this.

The 501st post

With that out of the way, a quick recap of Thursday.

It was a lot like Wednesday: I went to work, lasted about two hours, couldn't stay on my feet anymore and went home. Suffered a fairly serious dizzy spell in front of my boss, who noticed me walking like someone who's about to flunk a field a sobriety test at 1:40 a.m.

I went home and slept, felt fine a couple of hours later, then started to fade as soon as I began moving around. When I say 'felt fine,' I mean I felt fine. No aches, no tiredness, no discomfort. But the battery had only about a 30-minute charge on it.

Rested more, and later, when I felt briefly recharged again, Suzanne and I went to Boulevard Cafeteria for dinner. This was done very carfeully, with allowances for the possibility I might have to be taken home early on.

But I hung on and made it.

That was the first full meal I'd had since Friday. I had nibbled at stuff during the five days in between, but I didn't have the energy or appetite to eat anything significant. So maybe getting a full stomach will help me get back on track.

Suzanne has been an absolute blessing to me during this. God knows what would have happened to me if she hadn't helped me out when she did.

I've had plenty of home time to read, sleep and bond with the cats, and I've been very grateful for the mild weather that has allowed me to sleep on the porch in the afternoons.

The 500th post

Better to remain silent and be thought a fool than to fill one's blog and remove all doubt.

What a drag it is getting old

I went back to work today, thinking I had turned the corner on recuperating from my weekend food poisoning/virus/salmonella/microwave weapon exposure/whatever. I lasted about 2 and a half hours then limped home, stopping to rest once on the two-block walk from my cubicle to the parking garage. I dragged myself up the front steps, laid down on the porch glider and slept for two hours before I ever got in the house.

I used to get sick like this and bounce back in a day. Then it stretched to two. Now it's five or six days. Sunday, I sat up in bed, my feet flat on the floor, my hands resting on my knees, and looked around the room. I was alert, not feeling especially sick or feverish or anything else. But my body would... not... move. The only tricks it was going to do that day were 'lie down' and maybe 'roll over,' so that's what I did. And went back to sleep.

If I was sick on a Saturday morning 1976, I'd just stay in bed, confident that by Saturday evening I'd be well enough to go out and get something to eat and maybe some aspirin or whatever. Now, I have to think in terms of being laid up for several days, and having some kind of first aid kit with Gatorade and Immodium AD and whatever else to tide me over until I'm well enough to move enough around again.

Oh, get this.

Microwave weapons so safe, so easy to use, we'll try 'em out on Americans first.

From AP via CNN - Air Force chief: Test weapons on testy U.S. mobs

Okie Blog Awards

I found out Thursday that this blog has been nominated as Best Unusual Blog in the 2006 Okie Blog Awards.

If you are a blogger living in Oklahoma and would like to cast ballots in this vote, go here. Deadline for ballots is September 20.

Thanks to whoever nominated me.

The meditative aspects of barfing

I am in what I hope are the final hours of a weekend barf-fest that began about 5 a.m. Saturday, stayed in full swing through early Sunday evening, and is only now petering out in a random string of occasional urps, borps, gacks, and whaaagghs.

My eyes are bloodshot and bruised; I'm dehydrated, weak and tired. I have a muscle spasm in my upper chest that occasionally induces even more purging reflex.

I assume I am settling a karmic debt incurred by my mockery of the barf-related suffering of other sentient beings.

But you know what I found out?

Barfing can focus your mind. When you are sprinting to the bathroom with a mouth full of suddenly-upchucked whatever, you're not thinking about your job or your love life or Bush and Cheney or anything except getting your face over the toilet.

And when your face is over the toilet, and you've retched and retched and you don't know whether you're going to retch again –– or whether you want to retch again because it might give you ten minutes' more rest before the next time you sprint to the bathroom with a mouth full of barf, all you are focused on is the present moment. What's that little tickling in my stomach? Am I going to barf again? Or will it just be some insignificant hurrp that yields nothing?

You want to know what your original face was before your parents were born? It's that face hovering over the toilet, wondering if that next upchuck is going to be the nasty stuff or just more saliva.

---

Fortunately, soartstar came to my rescue with a care package of Gatorade, bananas and other barf-mitigating treats.

It's Friday

Back in 2000, when I was in the process of relocating from San Antonio back to Oklahoma City, I passed a community south of Austin called Canyon Lake. It's a small fishing resort with a beautiful lake, condos and a couple of small restauramts.

I thought briefly about stopping right there, buying one of the available (and cheap) condos, and just staying. I had read Walden at that point, and was still excited about the idea of living a solitary and reflective existence, but I was still looking at the world through a conventional American view of success, failure and responsibility.

Now I'm trying to rid myself of concepts entirely. Canyon Lake no longer seems a sensible option, but sometimes I think about the area around Turner Falls and the Arbuckles as a place to which I could retreat and try to keep original mind. (Of course, the notion of retreat itself isd a concept. Best not to overthink the process, okay?)

Ideally, I suppose, I would be able to do this anywhere. But I think that's beyond me. I think there's soemthing to be said for arranging my environment, insofar as possible, to reflect the life I want for myself. Maybe something down in the Arbuckles could be my Cold Mountain someday.

Man, I miss TV news

...not.

Dream

Went back to sleep and dreamt I was wandering around in a large building. I was the only one there. I walked into a corridor and down toward a larger room and realized I was in a large post office. There were big canvas-lined bins on wheels and other postal-type stuff. (I guess they still have that. The last time I was in the back of a post office was probably fifteen years ago.)

I tried to fly, but couldn't... at least not very well. I can frequently fly in my dreams, but this time I was just sort of fluttering.

Then I was outdoors somewhere and it wasn't Oklahoma. I'm not sure where I was. It was autumn, and there were rolling hills and trees starting to turn fall colors. It was a little overcast. I came to a bluff and jumped off it, figuring once I was in the air, I would fly. I did fly enough to break my fall, but I still landed on the ground below with a pretty hard thump.

During all this, I was trying to sing Hotel California, but I couldn't remember the lyrics. I decided the reason I couldn't fly was because I was too focused on trying to remember the words.

Then I woke up.

All I can think about.

Went back to bed and couldn't stop thinking about this.

Corner of 31st and Classen... EMSA is there, they've got the victim in the back but he's not going to make it.

The slow-moving Aztec mummy is at the curb, talking to an officer. He's standing there, leaning forward, one arm extended. He's got a slow-moving vehicle thingie stuck to his ass. "He just came out of nowhere, officer. There was nothing I could do."

Another officer has the wheel-on-a-stick thing and is measuring skid marks out in the middle of Classen. People are watching the scene while pumping gas at the 7-Eleven.

I'm sure that's not how it happened in the movie, but that's my mental picture: killed by a slow-moving Aztec mummy.

If I could keep original mind, maybe I'd be asleep now instead of thinking about this.

Killed by a slow moving Aztec mummy

That's probably how I'll go: killed by a slow-moving Aztec mummy. It would be just my luck.

Journey to Simplicity

Original Mind

...so I'm reading Wanting Enlightenment is a Big Mistake by Seung Sahn, right? This is the guy whose other book I read, didn't get it, didn't get it, didn't get it, didn't get it, bing! got it. So this book I pretty much get.

I used to be a pretty big gossip and rumor fan. I'm talking ten years ago or more. I got to where that stuff seemed more like industrial toxic waste than anything interesting, so I'm much less enthusiastic now.

But: suppose I could keep original mind. Always just a step ahead of the point that any of it has any significance, good or bad, I would be neither interested nor repelled. It would be nothing.

I'd like to be that way about most everything, instead of always obsessing. Just let it all go. I guess someone needs to worry about, for example, the web page for the RFQ to hire the consultant to review the other consultants' findings, but how about if it's someone besides me?

I have 'way less pointless crap in my life than the average American, and I'm still awash in it.

Once you get a little glimpse of that clear state, it's hard to stay motivated about anything else.

Life is too full of script-acting and pointless habitual behavior. Shove a little of it overboard, and you find you want to chuck all of it. And go live on Cold Mountain with some cats.

iTunes: Ragas Sindhu Bhaivari and Gurjari Todi, The RajDhani Quartet

By the way...

Little Miss Sunshine: wildly dysfunctional family enters youngest child in JonBenet-like beauty contest, learns important lesson about life.

No, wait. That's not right... I don't think they learned anything. They sort of come together as a family. Or something.

I'm not sure.

Then they drive off. That's how it ends: they drive off.

Great cast, though. We should see more of Alan Arkin.

Tuesday

Okay... after a busy three-day weekend, I have a shitload of solitary brooding to catch up on, so let's get started.

Item: A shopowner friend of mine describes the rather rude and cavalier treatment she received from her new landlord, who seems to be planning the purchase and trendy-stripmall-ization of about five miles of one major Oklahoma City street. Eventually, I predict, this will be a long avenue of Starbucks, Chico, Williams Sonoma, Tommy Bahama, Restoration Hardware, The Loft, whatever, you name it. The most downscale thing there will be the Supersonics Souvenir Shop. Otherwise, all quite upscale. Quite affluent. All the best people will shop there –– you simply won't be anybody unless you're seen there. I will drive out of my way to avoid it.

Item: The house smells like cat pee. The source of this, I suspect, is cat pee. Go out and leave cats alone for 72 hours, they're probably gonna pee.

Item: It's cool enough to go out and finish mowing the yard. So I have to come up with a different excuse, even if it's only to rationalize it to myself. The sage acts without effort.

Item: My five-year anniversary on my current job occurs next week. Who woulda thought? I kept one job for 17 years, but I think five is a long time to stay on a job, especially if it's creative.

Item: The great thing about cat pee, if cat pee may be said to have a great thing, is that you get used to it very quickly. Only keep original mind.

Labor Day weekend

Friday: gallery walk, dinner gathering
Saturday: Red Cup breakfast, more goofin' around, dinner gathering
Sunday: Starbuck's breakfast, goofin' around, dinner dathering
Labor Day: Starbuck's AM, lunch, Little Miss Sunshine, pizza at soartstar's house.

This is about six months' worth of social contact for me, yet I don't feel headed toward a meltdown. Everything is okay.

Still not depressed.

Hey.. it's me

Quick update as I dash between social engagments.

Today's Dilbert: "You don't have the image of success." That's very close to what I've been trying to say.

Bought new Birks Saturday. The old mules have retired.

Got Seung Sahn's "Wanting Enlightenment is a Big Mistake" and a couple of albums this morning.

Really glad it's cooled off.

Not depressed, for a change.


Later.

Nina wrote:

Everywhere I go I bring along those 'not enough' voices in my head.

How do you extinguish them?

Not an all-inclusive list, but:

• Turn off the TV. That's the best advice I can give anyone. Turn it off.
  
  TV has one purpose: to sell you stuff. It does that by making you feel inadequate –– not sexy enough, not affluent enough, not smart enough, not exciting enough –– in the hope you'll buy some SUV or living room furniture or ab blaster to compensate for the perceived shortcomings the tube has instilled in you. No one but Bill Gates and Warren Buffett can afford all the stuff, so eventually you're bound to feel inadequate. Television is evil, evil, evil.
  
  (This from someone who watched Red Freakin' Dawn last night.)


• Stay out of shopping malls and Edmond for the same reason.


• Friends don't let friends find fault. Anyone who regularly tells you what you 'need' to do is really trying to give themselves a sense of superiority over you. (But note the word regularly. Don't reject all advice. I, for example, am a fount of profound, insightful wisdom.
  
  And... I'm a bundle of energy, always on the go!)


• Get a bunch of cats, and learn from them.

One of the reasons I'm entertaining this Cold Mountain fantasy (or maybe not a fantasy) is because it would further insulate me and isolate me from the barrage of 'not good enough/buy this' messages to which I'm exposed every day. I'm pretty far removed from what constitutes 'consumer society' already, and I still feel like I'm in a blizzard of marketing crap.

In the early days of Taoism, I guess, politics was the big marketing tool. Government service was the measure for success. The tests for government service included such things as physical attractiveness and skill in poetry, so there was some incentive to conform in word, appearance and deed.

That's part of the reason the Boys Named Tzu urged people to avoid government service. It was just a big con to get one to sacrifice spirituality in favor of commercialism, rumormongering and backbiting. Now we have TV and other mass media for that.

The sages went off and lived in Luther, Jones and Choctaw to get away from the crap.

Friday

It's Friday again, and I've spent another week almost completely away from home. Why have a house if you're never in it?

Not much else to say, for a change.

Watched Red Dawn on cable last night. What a great film.

Wolverines, you muthas! Wolverines!

Monday is Labor Day, isn't it?