Snow storm photos

A few pics of the snow at my house can be found here in my Facebook album.

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.

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.

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.

Throwing crap away

I threw out some more crap today. Not enough crap, but it's better than no progress at all.

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.

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.”

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.

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.

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.

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.

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.

I don't know. I don't care.

Actual headline on cnn.com this morning:

“Why has Paris Hilton disappeared?”

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.

Tiger Woods update

TMI.

Don't need to see or hear anything more.

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.

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.

Blackout update

The power finally came back on about ninety minutes after my previous post.

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.

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

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.

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.

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.

Silence

I know some people think I don't talk much, but I believe I could stand to talk less.

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.

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.

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.

Correction

Edward Woodward was 79 years old.

That changes everything.

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.

Reality

Reality is silly. And poorly constructed.

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.

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.

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.

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.

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.

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.

November

It's November now.

Buyer's remorse

I'm having a lot of second and third thoughts about the new car.

I had been weighing the decision to buy a new car for about a year. I have a 2000 Chrysler minivan. It has only 86,000 miles on it, but I've taken such poor care of it that it runs as if it had 250,000 miles on it. I didn't feel I could trust it on a long drive.

So, I had been batting around a number of alternatives. One alternative was buying a second, smaller fuel-efficient car to augment the minivan, which I would keep for hauling stuff from Lowe's and The Home Depot and other 'dirty' chores. Among the cars I considered were the Toyota Yaris, the Mini Cooper, the Scion icebox car – whatever that's called, and the VW New Beetle.

Another alternative was unloading the minivan and buying a new one, and continuing to own only one vehicle.

Yet another alternative was just keeping the old minivan and doing nothing.

I had batted these possibilities around for month after month, until finally, last Tuesday, the transmission crapped out on the minivan. Fortunately, the thing was in the driveway when it suddenly went ka-WHUMP and refused to go forward anymore (although it will still back up).

'Enough putting this off,' I thought, and I called a friend to take me to a VW dealership just a couple of miles from my house. My credit union has a branch right across the street. So I told the salesman which car I wanted, went next door and got a cashier's check, and drove off the lot in a new 2009 VW Beetle.

Did I do the right thing? I don't know. It's a lot more fuel efficient than the minivan, but it gets the worst mileage of any of the small cars I considered. I drive less than 10 thousand miles a year, so I don't worry as much about gas mileage as do my friends who drive 30,000-60,000 miles.

The VW is also, from online reviews I've read, probably the most maintenance-intensive of the cars I considered. And there are no cheap fixes: even the water pump, made of plastic, costs about $1400 to replace.

Was this a wise decision? Should I have waited longer? Did I let ego drive me to buy a 'salsa red' Beetle that really stands out compared to my safe, sane white minivan? Will I regret buying a car with the New Beetle's reputation?

This car is a lot of fun to drive. But I feel like I'm just driving my ego around. And the Bedetle, being a Beetle, has that kind of 'toy car' feel its sixties predecessor had. (I drove a beat-up old used beetle in college, and I'm sure that nostalgia also affected my purchasing decision.)

I'm still going to try to get the minivan repaired. I'll try to get an estimate next week.

New car

Bought a VW Beetle today. It's red.

Nothing I need to know

Many months ago, I posted a couple of items about so-called 'celebrity news' cluttering up my brain. I tend to see this stuff as the intellectual equivalent of the junk piled up in my car and house. There must be hundreds of bits of such stuff that I wish I could just wipe from my memory.

It occurred to me recently that there's also a lot of non-celebrity news that I don't need to know or want to know. This is especially true about second-hand news (ie, gossip) about people I barely know or don't know at all.

It's not so much that I'm morally outraged by the stuff as it is that I just don't want more clutter in my brain. It's like getting that damn 'Buyer's Guide' from the newspaper every week. I don't subscribe to the paper, and I never open the guide, but it shows up nonetheless — a regular weekly nuisance. At least I can throw it away unopened; the junk news that I hear around the neighborhood just stays stuck in my brain.

There's not much I need to know anymore. I spend a large part of many days sitting in the backyard watching birds. Now that fall has arrived, I often sit with the fireplace going, watching the flames and listening to music.

I'd be happy to trade about half of my supposed knowledge for an equal amount of wisdom.

Perspective

This video has been making the rounds lately, so maybe you've already seen it. It's about the 10 thousand previously undiscovered galaxies – not stars, but galaxies – found a few years ago by the Hubble Space Telescope.



It's harder for me now to get worked up about stuff happening on our own little pebble in space.

The greedy, megalomaniacal fucks are still running the show, as they have since the dawn of civilization. But as much as they might like to screw up the whole universe for the sake of a great fourth quarter or NBA season tickets, they'll never be able to.

Allergies

September has historically been my worst allergy month. I'm in the middle of allergy foo again right now. This year hasn't been as bad as some years past, though. Although the rain promotes ragweed growth, it helps keep down the dust in the air.

Nevertheless, I have had some mostly sleepless nights because of allergy attacks.

Another update

Now at the Red Cup. There used to be a regular weekend morning gathering here, but all of its participants seem to have moved on. So I'm out here on the patio by myself.

A smart and very laid-back Black Labrador has been hanging around my house for the past three weeks or so. I would guess he's about a year old. He recently acquired a collar, but has no tags. I think he belongs to someone on the street behind me.

He already knows how to play fetch, and I taught him to sit last week. I let him in the back yard to play with Bailey one day last week, and they had a great time chasing each other around the yard.

You may remember last year we had the stray pit bull wandering the neighborhood. I think this dog may be from the same house, although there are different people living there.

Next update

Finished breakfast at Jimmy's Egg. I'm wearing a pair of Dickies painter pants I bought at Westlake Hardware yesterday. I pulled three labels off of them, and thought I had them all. After I left the Egg, a panhandler pointed out I still had a size label stuck to the leg, then hit me up for money. I gave him five bucks.

About the garage... still a work in progress. Certainly won't be done until mid-October, which will be one year after demolition of the old garage.

There was a flurry of activity in the first week of September. The drywall and paneling is up, the windows cased and the plumbing functional (although the shower doors are still uninstalled).

I thought the issues with OG&E had been resolved last spring, but found out a couple of weeks ago they have not been. I assume we will be able to get electricity to the garage, but I don't know specifically how that will happen. Or when.

Sunday morning

I use my iPhone for almost all my computer needs now. It lacks many of the features of my computers, but it makes up for that in convenience.

Right now, I'm sitting in the Jimmy's Egg on Classen Circle, waiting for breakfast. While I'm waiting, I can write this quick post. But posting photos from the phone is difficult, while embedding YouTube links is, as far as I can tell, impossible.

I'm going to try to produce a flurry of brief posts today and perhaps tomorrow to update the blog.

I promise

I am going to update this blog. Someday.

Random updates

Time for some random updates.


Here is the Wu-Wei gate I think I previously mentioned. Designed by me, built by Ron Ferrell, who also provided guidance about what can and cannot be done with welded steel.

The garage has been exterior stained and sealed, and foam insulation sprayed inside.


I hope we'll have drywall and electrical outlets installed soon.

I had the gas meter moved a couple of weeks ago so it's no longer in the middle of the back yard.

Meanwhile, I have designated my master bedroom the Very Dark Room and have made it largely lightproof with a combination of drapes, blinds and brown builders paper. During broad daylight, this room is about as dark as a movie theater. I now spend most of the day here. I may turn on a lamp and read, but mostly I sit in the dark and listen to music (as shown at right).

I spend a lot of time on Facebook these days, which fulfills my limited need for social contact.

That's about it. When I'm hungry I eat, and when I'm tired I sleep. I'm a man who has no more business.

Wednesday, I guess

It's getting harder and harder to think, to organize, to make plans. I don't know if it's retirement that's dulled my wits or old age.

All bowls, all the time

I put together an iTunes playlist consisting of eleven hours of Tibetan singing bowl music. Makes for a very cosmic experience.

It's not just the blog

I know this blog has slowed down a lot over the past several months. And it's not the only thing.

I don't get out as much as I used to. I used to go to the coffee shop every day, and be there for hours, visiting with all the folks who'd come and go. Now, I go two or three days a week, and usually stay less than an hour.

I still eat most of my meals out, but I often eat alone. If I'm with someone, it's probably my friend Kathryn or Ms. HRP, or sometimes DianeC.

The group still meets for dinner on Wednesdays and Fridays, as it did for a decade or more before I showed up. But I drop by for that about once a month now.

There are some friends I used to see daily that I now see rarely. We didn't have a falling out; it's just the natural ebb and flow of relationships.

I don't even check my email much anymore.

I spend a lot more time at home. I sleep a lot. There are a lot of routine household things I could be doing, but I really lack self-discipline for chores.

A modern Cold Mountain

The man who lives without money

This link was passed along to me on Facebook yesterday from men.style.com.

Several months ago, I was waxing prosaic about Cold Mountain, the Chinese philosopher/poet who lived an isolated life under a cliff.

Here's a story about a guy doing much the same thing today. As you'll see, a lot of the romanticism is stripped away.

I don't think I ever seriously considered living in a cave. I was thinking more along the lines of Walden: isolated, but not completely cut off. And with running water. And heat and air. And broadband Internet.

Losing ground

The house looks worse every day. Even the Very Dark Room, which I had pledged to myself to keep tidy, is starting to get cluttered. I care, but I don't care enough to devote a day to house cleaning, which I hate worse than anything. Except the dentist.

Sunday or Monday, I guess

I have nothing to report.

Take away the nothing

Imagine that the whole universe is a single empty room with white walls. Now, take away the white. Subtract any concept of color.

Next, take away the walls. In fact, take away the whole room. What's left is nothing.

Now, take away the nothing. And what's left is what I think the universe really is. Or maybe it's what I want the universe to be. But if I take away the 'I,' then who or what wants it?

Fortunately, thinking about this stuff is optional.

Michael Jackson

I try to not get caught up in pop culture stuff, but the dynamics of the Michael Jackson coverage interest me.

My own perception of Jackson at the time of his death was that he'd been incredibly big about twenty-five years ago, and since then had just been fodder for late-night comedians and supermarket tabloids.

Suddenly now (or so it seems to me), he's been elevated to a stature loftier than he ever held in life, and even people who weren't born when 'Thriller' came out are buying in to the Elvisization of Jackson.

My suspicion is that they are simply taking cues from the media coverage rather than thinking on their own. I almost think they'd have the same reaction if Al Yankovich died, assuming the media afforded him the same hysterical, overwrought coverage.

Random notes

When I was in my twenties, I didn't care about having plants or pets. I didn't want the hassle of caring for either one. Even now, weed-pulling and vet visits are chores I'd rather avoid. But I do enjoy having some animals around, and the collection of plants in my yard makes it seem more tranquil.

My goal is to make my yard - especially my back yard - a sort of sanctuary where I can spend my time. I feel old and tired, and I just want a place where I can sit quietly and have no stress.

It looks like I'm just a few weeks away from having it all finished. The plumbing on the garage has been inspected and approved, so we're clear to install the shower and toilet. The electrical has hit a snag with the city, which I hope will be resolved next week. They'll be putting exterior sealant on the siding this week, and if the electrical issues are resolved, spraying in insulation as well.

There's a small pond in the back that still needs a pump installed. Before we run electricity for that, I'm trying to get some info on moving the gas meter, which sits right in the middle of the back yard. I hope to have that resolved by week's end as well.

I'm having a new section of fence put in between the house and the garage, and that is also dependent on the electrical inspection, since there's a trench for the electric service right where the fence will be, and it can't be filled in until the inspection is complete.

The landscaping has been going on for about a year now, and the garage about ten months. I am ready for things to get back to normal around this place.

I had planned to do some work inside the house as well, and even started part of it, but I'm not going any further with it. I need to conserve my financial resources, and I need to have peace and quiet around here.

Nothing to report

I have a few random notes to post, but not right now.

The end of the world - again.

I watched the online trailer for the upcoming Roland Emmerich film '2012' the other day. I guess this same trailer is showing in theaters. If you haven't seen it, the gist is that the so-called 'Mayan 2012 prophecy' comes true, and civilization collapses. The Yellowstone caldera erupts. The giant Christ the Redeemer statue crumbles and falls as Rio de Janeiro burns below. St. Peter's Basilica collapses, sending its dome rolling out into Vatican Square. A city which I assume is Los Angeles slides into the sea. Oliver Platt hisses about ensuring 'the continuation of our thpeeeeetheeeees.' Air Force One is swallowed up by a tidal wave. A Buddhist monastery in the Himalayas is washed away by the crashing waves.

And this is just the trailer - which concludes with a tsunami coming up the Potomac River and dropping an aircraft carrier on the White House.

It's a phenomenal trailer, with only a couple of shots that are obviously CG effects.

But, boy am I worn out with these disaster films that are strings of shots of landmarks being destroyed by tidal waves, meteors, aliens, giant mutants, global warming, global cooling, dinosaurs, whatever.

It seems to me we've reached a point where these movies are just a kind of 'disaster porn,' with each movie trying to top the one before it. Millions die, and it's good for a five second shot before we go to the next shot, where millions more die. There's so much death and destruction it becomes impossible to assimilate. On the one hand, I'm fascinated by the awful spectacle of it, but on the other hand, I can't bring myself to actually care about it.

And I don't think I'll spend time and money on something that depressing.

Sartorial error

I trimmed my beard back to a very small goatee this week. It's The least amount of beard I've had, short of being clean shaven.

Big mistake.

Sometime during the 11 years I've had a beard, my chin and neck lost their battle with my jowls. My face now looks like a huge thumb sticking out of my shirt collar.

Monday

Nothing to report.

Update

Pleased to report that the thing with my jaw has improved a lot. It hasn't gone away completely, but it's much better than it was Friday and Saturday.

What's wrong now?!

I've been having this weird thing going on with my right jaw the past few days. It hurts when I open or close my mouth, and I can feel a kind of popping. But this discomfort subsides.

For example, when I eat, the first few bites are uncomfortable, but after that, it's pretty normal. Then, if I eat something else an hour later, or even yawn, it hurts again.

There doesn't seem to be any swelling anywhere.

I hate this kind of stuff, because I don't like going to doctors or dentists, but I also worry about it being some awful terminal condition.

It's always something with me. This is what I mean about my life being complicated. I'll lie awake all night worrying about this.

Too much

I know that from outward appearances, the biggest issue I face in life is which side of the bed to get up on every morning. But in fact, I have about as many personal things to take care of as I ever did, and although it's not much, it's more than I want to deal with.

Doctor appointments, vet appointments, tax issues all overwhelm me. I can't get myself motivated to take care of them.

I am too lazy and undisciplined to be a monk, but I certainly like the idea of being in that environment. Of course, I'd have to be around a bunch of other monks, and that would make me crazy.

Self and non-self

I'm having some second thoughts about the whole non-self thing, which is a central tenet of Buddhism. Mostly, I'm wondering what difference it makes. It appears to me that people who don't believe in a self live their daily lives about the same way as people who do believe in a self. The non-self still has to eat, sleep, shit and everything else the self has to do.

I've read some of the scientific 'evidence' supporting non-self, and it's about as sketchy as the 'evidence' for creationism.

I'm just not sure what difference it makes.

Another dream

Last night's disaster dream involved a nuclear explosion. I don't remember much about it. I was in a place that was safe from the blast, but I wasn't sure I would survive the fallout. I saw an animal vaporized by the blast... then I woke up.

Current music

I found this widget on last.fm that can show what music I'm listening to in more or less real time. It shows the music playing at the time you're reading the blog.

http://www.last.fm

Dog day off

I suggested to Ms. HRP that we expand the flower bed in the front yard, and presto! it's done. I should post pictures, and maybe I will.

Bailey is at her house tonight, and I am welcoming a peaceful, quiet evening. Bailey, meanwhile, gets to romp in Kelley's spacious back yard with Kelley's dog.

Twice in the past ten days I have had nightmares in which I was threatened by an approaching tornado. I started having these dreams while I was living in Texas. At first they seemed to come whenever I was struggling with an important life decision. But no such decision looms at the moment.

The Very Dark Room

I'm not in the Very Dark Room right now, but I wish I were.

Saturday Morning

It was nice to wake up to overcast skies for Bailey's morning walk. I get depressed if it stays cloudy over several days, but two or three cloudy days a week would always be welcome.

Friday

I spent a large part of Friday watching Ms. HRP turning over earth to expand the front yard flower bed. I continue to be amazed at how much energy she has. The work she did this morning would have taken me at least a weekend.

I am reading some books by the 20th century English philosopher who used the pseudonym Wei Wu Wei. I'm finding it pretty dry going. I'll report back if I find any gems of wisdom.

Thought about doing the Paseo Gallery Walk, but didn't have the energy. I stayed home instead.

You never know what's going to catch my attention

You may recall that Tom Selleck was originally cast as Indiana Jones.

Overwhelmed

The yellow kitten died last night. The good news is that the other two kittens - one black, one black and white - are in very good shape.

I'm starting to get a little overwhelmed again by the number of living things in my life: Ms. HRP, my ex, two kittens and their mom, Rollo and Bailey were all in or around the house yesterday. That's more company than I can handle. Bailey has to be the center of attention or she gets jealous and barks or pees on the floor.

Things will be quieter today.

Wednesday

As I expected after last evening's weedeating adventure, I spent all of last night and pretty much all of today feeling like my head was full of wet mud. I dragged around all day - slow even by my lethargic standard. I got almost no sleep last night, and dozed only a little this morning.

Ms. HRP came by to clean off my front porch and my ex came by to clean the bathroom. For me, watching someone clean is like watching someone dance ballet or perform gymnastics: I understand intellectually what is happening, but I can't duplicate it myself. Ms. HRP moves about in a flurry of activity, and the porch is magically clean. I move about in a flurry of activity, and nothing changes.

The plumbers were here, too, working on the garage. I'm going to move the washer and dryer out there, as I've probably mentioned before, and we're going to get a small 'instant on' hot water tank. I wash almost everything in cold water, so I don't expect the tank to use much energy.

Tuesday

Bailey started barking about 1 am and kept it up for about a half hour. She was in her crate, and I refused to acknowledge her. She eventually calmed down and went to sleep.

We did the morning walk about seven, then I went to the Egg for breakfast. Came home, went back to bed, and slept soundly until 11:30.

Woke up, went to KFC for lunch, then took Bailey for her midday walk and dosed the kittens with antibiotics.

Two of the kittens are doing very well, but the third seems to be failing. She appears to have stopped nursing, so I went to PetsMart and got some powdered kitten formula, and am feeding her myself.

Took an afternoon nap, then went in the back yard and ran the weedeater in a hard-to-mow space between the fence and the house. I'll probably spend the night in allergy hell for that.

The electrician returned to work on the garage today, but there still appears to be a lot left to be done. I didn't realize it would be this complicated.

I still have a touch of cold symptoms, but I'm not as bad as I expected to be.

In other news at this hour...

Up this morning at just a few minutes after 5 am, as her royal highness decreed a walk was necessary. I don't mind getting up that early for her, except that if I go back to bed afterward, she'll want another walk around 7. I never had a dog that needed to go out as often as this one. Her bladder must be the size of a thimble.

More wiring on the garage this morning. Then the plumber arrived and discovered the master panel or whatever it's called has been installed exactly opposite the shower. The shower connection and the wiring would be only a fraction of an inch apart. So they'll have to confer about the propriety of that arrangement.

Ms. HRP came over and weeded the front flower beds. She also pruned back some of the plants - something I would not have been able to do myself - and the front of the house looks much better. She said I seem to have gotten several seasons of growth in just one year, so these beds look like they've been here for years.

She also provides a certain amount of yang to my yin, which is also helpful.

I've been coughing the past couple of days. I had attributed that to allergies, but today I got that ticklish feeling in the roof of my mouth that often presages a cold. And tonight I have some minor body aches that are a little flu-like.

Blogblah!, I will make every effort not to die before we can meet. Of course, I may have infected you this morning. I wasn't feeling ill when we were talking - I didn't know anything was wrong.

I've been up since 5 and I had one snooze of maybe ten minutes, so I'm out for now.

When she said 'retired', I didn't realize she meant 'nuked.'

"Hi, Nina/Christina... it's me, God. Thought I might catch you at home. Just wanted to let you know how disappointed I was to find that you'd wiped your blog, Flibbertigibettibibbitybobbityboo.

"Even though I already knew all the stuff you were writing about - eye on the sparrow, and all - it was still amusing to read your take on it.

"I saw from your final post that you're doing Facebook now. Guess I'll have to look into that... I'm still just on myspace.

"Anyway, give me a call when you get this. Or text me.

"Ciaio."

Chop wood, carry water

Up just before dawn today to walk the dog. Then I planted two black raspberry plants, pulled up a dozen or so ragweeds, then cleaned and refilled all four of my big bird feeders. Added a small platform feeder which immediately attracted jays and cardinals.

I'm going to find something to eat, then dose the kittens.

Saturday night

I have nothing to report.

Random stuff of the past couple of days

A couple of nights ago Bailey growled at me when I tried to push her out of the middle of the bed so I could have some room. That's the end of Bailey sleeping in bed with me, and she's adapted quite well. I bought her a dog bed at PetSmart, pointed to it, and she hopped right in. She took to being crated right away, too. She's a pretty smart and good-natured dog, so the growling surprised me.

I went to the Paseo Arts Festival this past weekend, and bought two tall metal candle holders. I forget the artist's name, but he lives in Lexington. These holders are quite heavy, and have a low center of gravity, so they should resist being tipped over by wind. I'm going to use them in the back yard to hold oil lamps rather than candles.

I also bought a fused glass piece by Rick and Tracey Bewley, which will go in the house somewhere.

Almost three weeks ago, I dug up two plants in the back yard which appeared to have died during the winter. I left them lying on the ground, intending to throw them in the trash eventually. Lo and behold, both plants (of the same species) started putting out new leaves this week while just lying on the ground! I've replanted one and will replant the other in the next couple of days.

I'm looking forward to the garage being finished and the yard back to normal.

Another 'previous life' dream

Just woke up from another dream about my 'previous life.' I won't go into details. The main thing for me is that I have these dreams at all. I keep thinking I'm over them, then I have another one.

I once lived next to a retired postal worker who told me he still had nightmares about his job twenty years after he retired.

Monday evening

I am past due for posting pictures of progress on the garage. I will try to get some up this week. The framer got the garage doors pretty much finished, and I hope we'll have them hung by week's end. The electrician is scheduled to start wiring tomorrow.

Work inside the house has stopped, for a number of reasons. I have one really nice room, which is frankly as much as I need. Bailey, Rollo and I share it and seem comfortable. I may go forward with more rooms or I may not. I have little enthusiasm for this part of the project now.

If I can keep just one room clean and pleasant I'll be doing better than I've done in the past. And this room is so dark and so quiet it's just about perfect.

Happy

I am by nature not a cheerful person. I don't do 'happy.'

But there have been moments in my life when I was happy. What those moments had in common was that I was usually alone or with a single female companion (who may have been a romantic partner or a platonic friend); that there were few if any other people around; that we were outdoors; that we and our surroundings were calm and quiet.

We might, for example, have been taking a slow drive down a country road, or sitting on a bench at Lake Hefner. I've had similar happy moments, especially last fall and summer, sitting alone in my own back yard.

You may have other things that make you happy, but these are the things that make me happy, however boring or goofy they may seem. My mother, for example, couldn't begin to grasp the idea that a person could be happy without being drunk and surrounded by other drunks. I've known other people who simply had no personal life apart from OU sports or the Dallas Cowboys.

All of these experiences, including my own, share a common failing: they are all externalities which eventually end. Romances end, and eventually the time for romance passes. Pleasant autumn days give way to gray, cold winter days. Football season comes to an end. Eventually, you have to sober up, at least for awhile. And then your happiness, predicated on external, temporary conditions, fades.

I have not mastered the ability to find happiness within, free from outside influences. I hope someday I do, but I suspect I lack the DNA for happiness.

Which is not to say I'm miserable. Life is pretty good just as it is, and I'm mostly content.

Apropos of the previous post...

From Daily Kos: Two looks at our physical selves

For psychoanalyst Susie Orbach, the human body in the 21st century has become--as it clearly was for Delmore Schwartz when he penned "The Heavy Bear" more than forty years ago--a burden. "Our bodies," she writes, "no longer make things." They "are and have become a form of work. The body is turning from being the means of production to the production itself."

Another bitter, mean-spirited post

I hear people - artists, usually - talk about how the 'human body is beautiful.'

I suppose.

To me, the human body is a large slab of meat whose byproducts include shit, piss, pus, puke, phlegm, snot, sweat, toenails, methane gas and tiny flakes of dead skin. One of the first things a new community does (in modern times, at least) is build an underground infrastructure to carry away all the nasty stuff we produce so we don't have took at it, smell it, or think about it.

Artists talk about how beautiful the body is, but there's a reason Michelangelo didn't sculpt David sitting on the crapper and Botticelli didn't paint Venus changing tampons. If you're aware of any works by the Great Masters portraying someone with acne, let me know.

I understand some people are sexually aroused by shit and piss. To each their own. To my knowledge, though, no one is sexually aroused by pus or tiny flakes of dead skin, so maybe we need to open our minds more. Not that I've Googled those to be sure - nor do I intend to.

As I've said before, if someone could show me a way to detach my consciousness from my physical form and just float across the landscape like a cloud, I'd do it in a minute.

Oh - I forgot that crusty stuff on your eyelids when you wake up in the morning. But that's actually snot, isn't it?

Friday night

This has actually been a fairly eventful week, although some of what has transpired is probably better left unmentioned.

It has been a rough week for my allergies. I have an anti-allergen filter on the return for the AC, and another in the floor register in the bedroom. So the air is filtered going in to the AC, and further filtered coming out. In addition, there's a HEPA air purifier running full time. As a result, I can camp out in the bedroom and stay fairly comfortable.

But when I take Bailey out for her morning walk, I start sneezing. My eyes start to itch and water. And then I just feel like crap off and on for the rest of the day. I want to do even less than usual. This has also had the effect of making me irritable and cranky.

I wonder if the Buddha had allergies. I'm guessing he didn't.

Sunday night

The skylights have been installed in the roof of the garage. We had planned to install nine, but the installation requirements of the skylights themselves limited us to eight.

The carpenter is building the garage doors from scratch. These will be the old-fashioned carriage house-style doors that swing open. I've never been all that jazzed about overhead doors.

The siding is all up and the windows in. Shingles go on the roof starting tomorrow. Then we spray in insulation, install the toilet and shower and do the wiring.

Meanwhile, inside the house, the master bedroom is finished except for molding, and the back bedroom is almost done.

I have been planting and laying down brown builders' paper and mulch in the flower beds. I enjoy having nice flower beds, but I don't enjoy working in them. My sinuses swell up intermittently, and my eyes have been itching continuously for more than a week. They itch right now.

Friday night

Guess we're going to have more weather. Other than that, I have nothing to report.

Drapes

Ms. HRP and Bailey hung drapes in the master bedroom yesterday.

I love my dog...

...and my dog loves me.

The fork on the floor

Someone at the coffee shop brought up the 'fork on the floor' item I posted a few days ago. It appears further elucidation is needed.

What makes a fork a fork? I would say, and I think most would agree, that a fork is characterized by its handle and three or four tines that lift food.

A fork is not characterized by its location. A fork is still a fork whether it's in the silverware drawer, on the floor or up on the roof.

We fetishize eating utensils. I can get a plastic fork at KFC that is perfectly servicable. Or I can get a fork clad in some precious metal, which comes in a velvet-lined wooden box. And both are still fundamentally characterized by their handles and tines.

Where does a fork belong? And what do we mean by 'belong'? We might say, 'forks belong in the silverware drawer.' But according to what? Newton's law? Custom? Artificial imperatives created by the marketing departments of Martha Stewart Living and Bed, Bath & Beyond?

There's a lot of blind acceptance of the status quo here, folks. Let's not be afraid to challenge our closely-held beliefs. How else can we grow?

I'm kind of a homebody, but I'm not afraid to push the envelope when it's called for.

Friday night

Those Q-Tips were still in the wrapper.

I couldn't relate

An acquaintance of mine got married over the weekend. I didn't go to the wedding, but I looked at photos that friends posted online.

Somehow the emotions displayed in those photos seemed alien to me. Even though I've been married myself, I had difficulty relating to what I was seeing. There was a world there with which I could not identify.

Speaking of things to live for

...today I'm going to live for getting the dog a toy or two or three. She's gotten a little rambunctious now that she's settled in here.

Nothing to live for

About ten years ago, I found myself at a point where I felt I had nothing left for which to live. Looking back on it, I can see I was basically right: I didn't have anything to live for.

The choice I made then, although I didn't have it clearly delineated in my mind, was to simply live, rather than seek to live for something.

If my makeup in 1999 had absolutely required me to live for something - some external goal or cause or person - I guess I would have jumped off a window ledge, because I had absolutely nothing of that sort left. (Well, I had Beasley the cat, and he certainly counted for something.)

If you have to believe life has meaning, what do you do if that meaning is taken away? There's nothing you can have in this world that can't be taken away from you. (Except your delusions, which may help explain why some people cling so tenaciously to creationism and other myths. Maybe they feel like that's all they've got.)

I haven't acheived perfection in this business of simply living. I'm attached to my house and new garage. I always become attached to the animals around the house.

If there's anything in this life you worry about losing, I think you're living for something instead of living.

Two rooms

I've made no secret of the fact I'm a horrible slob as far as my home is concerned - my car, too, most of the time. Except for a brief period when I was about 12 years old, I've been that way all my life.

I think I mentioned this before, but I once dropped a fork on the floor of my den. It lay there literally for months. I must have looked at it a hundred times. But not once did the thought pop into my head, "Huh. What's that fork doing on the floor? I should pick that up and take it back to the kitchen." It wasn't a matter of putting it off; it was a matter of my not being able to see that the fork was out of place on the den floor.

After a half-century of being this way, I don't think it's reasonable to expect that I'm suddenly going to have some transformation that makes me a neatness freak.

Thanks to Ms. HRP, I now have two rooms in my house that are clean: walls freshly plastered and painted, floors newly stained and refinished. The challenge now is to keep these rooms clean, when not a single strand of my DNA inclines me toward tidiness.

I find myself occasionally looking around my bedroom to see if there's anything out of place I haven't noticed before. It's a matter of looking, for example, at the chair and saying, 'All right, what am I seeing here? There's a blanket in the chair, but that's for the dog, so that's OK. There's a sweatshirt hanging on the back. That should not be there; that should be with the laundry.'

I don't think I will be able to keep this up forever.

Just for the record...

I personally am not all that jazzed about nipple clamps. But your mileage may vary.

3:12 am

When I talk about my 'past life,' I mean my television career, not a past life in the reincarnation sense. It's just a euphemism.

Similarly, I use 'hit by an asteroid' as a euphemism for the end of humanity, which could be brought about by any of a number of means, or a combination thereof.

I admit I've been on the fence about the 'life is an illusion' thing. I used to believe life was a meaningless illusion, but lately I've begun to think it's a meaningless reality.

And if there's some meaning of life that is beyond my ability to perceive or even imagine, that might as well be no meaning.

But again, just because life has no meaning doesn't mean you can't enjoy a walk in the park, gourmet cupcakes, a Chopin nocturne or nipple clamps.

4:06 am

Awakened by another dream about my past life. I had not had one of these in weeks, and I thought maybe I was over them.

2:09 am

$%#@! dog.

Responses

To me, the danger of thinking one's own life meaningless is that it tends to make one believe that MY life is also meaningless. That may be, but I'm attached to it in a very un-Buddha-like way.

That definitely is a form of attachment from my point of view. But within Buddhism, there are some 'meanings' or 'purposes' which one may seek. Buddhist teachers warn against becoming attached, for example, to enlightenment as a purpose. There is also the Bodhisattva Oath, in which one pledges to devote one's life and future lives to seeking the enlightenment of all sentient beings. That also become a purpose or meaning.

The question that arises in my own mind about doing good or evil within the framework of a life without meaning is how do we know that what we do is either one. I may mean to be evil but do something that comes out well for other people and I may intend to do a kindness but cause much distress. As you say, do-gooders have brought their share of sadness into the world. We must nevertheless do something, else entropy kills us quickly -- pretty fast if we find it meaningless to get a drink of water every few days.

I deliberately used 'good' and 'evil' in a superficial way in my previous post. From a taoist perspective, and I think this is true in some other eastern value systems, good cannot exist without evil. It's considered an exercise in futility to try to eliminate evil. As for entropy, it's gonna get us one way or another. But I don't think finding life meaningless requires one to ignore basic health and safety.

One last question: why did you confine yourself to a single meaning? Might you have many meanings, the consequences of your acts unknowable by you? OK, that was two questions, but they're asking the same thing.

'Meaning' or 'meanings' - the difference is moot to me. One times zero or twenty times zero - the product is still zero. I could view myself as having a hundred meanings or a hundred purposes, and we'll still get hit by an asteroid.

however... it only makes sense when one chooses..to be alone... chooses unhappiness and has no connect with the past...or future... for mike this is it... nothing more... no love... no family... nothing... i suppose... it would be easier...and more comforting to think...that all life is meaninless...if i felt i was meaningless...
the funny thing is... mike lives life...meaningful.. compassionately... loving and kind... go figure...!!!

My view on this may be formed by my upbringing, but I can't say that for a certainty. Thank you for saying I live life compassionately and with love and kindness. I believe it is possible and even desirable to have those qualities. But a person can live life with love and compassion without saying, 'compassion is my purpose,' or, 'love is the meaning of my life.' These are elements of my life, and I hope I'm succeeding at them, but in the big, big picture, it doesn't matter whether I'm successful or not.

Seems to me that the whole meaning of your life is to convince others that it has no meaning.
I get it! Your life has no meaning. So stop blogging, stop facebooking, stop twittering, and stop telling others that their lives have no meaning because that would mean that you think your life is so meaningful that you have the right to tell someone else how meaningless their life is.
If your life has no meaning, by what authority do you tell others about theirs?

No authority whatsoever. It's just my opinion.

But something I want to make clear is that I don't think that believing life has no meaning requires one to sit absolutely still, doing nothing at all. If a person wants to do that, fine - the end will still come, whether we're active or quiet. But that means it's just as okay to be active as it is to be quiet. For the short term, I think it's better to be a good person than a bad one. We still have to live, however momentarily, with the consequences of our own actions as well as the actions of those around us. But again, in the big, big, picture, the point is moot.


PS: As I read my own writing, I feel like I'm usually expressing about nine-tenths of an idea, and there's always something missing. I don't know if that's because I can't articulate my thoughts clearly, or if I've just gotten so intellectually lazy in my advancing age that I can't or don't think things all the way through.

4:18 am

I want to respond to some of the previous comments when I'm back at the computer. Right now I'm in bed with the iPhone, and I just want to mention how much I'm enjoying the dark and the quiet. I'm not sure what's on iTunes, and I can't check without losing this post, but it's a raga played entirely on different sized tabla that play different notes.

Many people rely on drugs to escape reality. My drug is this dark, secluded environment I've created, with the music that removes me from my 'real' surroundings.

That tabla piece has ended and now I've got some classical Chinese erhi piece going.

How are things out in the world?

Life has no meaning

I've covered this ground before, but I've been asked about it lately, so let me mention it again: life has no 'meaning.'

Humanity came into existence however many millennia ago on this dirt spaceship, and will probably cease to exist without having ventured very far beyond it. We've been to the moon, and maybe we'll leave footprints on Mars, and we've lobbed a couple of tin cans out past the edge of out own solar system. But for all intents and purposes, we will live and die as a species on this same rock. And when we're gone, the galaxies will continue to spin and drift as they have for billions of years. A week after the last human has died, it will be like we were never here. Hell, it's like we were never here right now.

We talk casually about billion of years, but in fact, we can't begin to conceptualize how much time that is. Nor can we begin to conceptualize how big this universe is, and how small we are in comparison.

I believe in what Alan Watts called the 'theory of the automatic universe.' "If this is what you believe," he said in one of his talks, "you may as well kill yourself right now."

Well, this is what I believe, but I don't understand why it necessarily follows that I should kill myself. I considered it a relief, not a soul-crushing realization, when I finally came to believe that I had no 'higher purpose.'

I have also been asked, "Well, if life has no purpose or meaning, why not just be an asshole? Why not just steal and kill and rape and plunder?" To which I can only respond, "Huh? If life has no meaning, why not help other people and do good? In the big picture, it won't make a dime's worth of difference, but it's just as easy to do good as it is do harm."

In fact, if you look at history, you'll see that some of the worst shit ever done on this planet was done by people who thought their lives had a purpose and a meaning.

No, my life has no meaning. Please don't think one up for me.

iTunes: Schubert: String Quartet #13, "Rosamunde" - The Brandis Quartet

I'll be inside my own head, if anyone needs to contact me.

iTunes: Boccherini: Cello Concerto in G, Yo-Yo Ma, Ton Koopman and the Amsterdam Baroque Orchestra

Garage update

Work commenced at 7:30 am Saturday... and by 4 pm Saturday it looked like this:

and by 1 pm Sunday, it looked like this:

There's a small bathroom, connections for the washer and dryer and lots of windows. The windows are not just to let light into the garage. I also wanted to break up the space on the west wall so there wouldn't be a big blank wall sort of looming over the back yard.
If you remember pictures of the old garage, it was actually just a shed. I couldn't even get a car into it - it was too shallow from front to back. A VW would have fit, but my minivan - not a large vehicle - stuck out the door when the front bumper was against the back wall. It had no electricity - well, it sort of had electricity, but it was an accident waiting to happen, pulling power from an extension cord run to the back porch.
This garage will have outlets everywhere. All my battery chargers, rechargeable power tools and other similar stuff will go out here, freeing up outlets in the house for appliances. With the washer and dryer out here, I'll be able to use the back porch as a porch again, instead of using it as a cramped utility room.

Lumber arrives

Here's the lumber for the new garage arriving.

Framers start work in the morning.

PS...

iTunes: Weiss: Lute Sonata #27, performed by Robert Barto.

Before I got the queen size bed, I slept on a mattress on the floor for almost ten years.

In a way, I miss my futon.

As mentioned previously, I am back in my bedroom, sleeping on the queen size bed I bought in 1984. I paid a lot of money for it, but it was well-spent: twenty-five years later, the mattress and springs are like new.

But in a way, I miss the ratty futon upon which I had slept for two or three years before abandoning it a few days ago. It was in awful shape, with a torn and shredded cover partially covered by a torn and shredded bedsheet. It was frequently littered with crumbs, used tissues and paperback books. It looked like something you'd expect to find in a Symbionese Liberation Army safe house forty or so years ago.

And it was in the dining room, separated from the living room by a wooden folding screen. I'd wrap up in a blanket, unless it was very very warm. Beasley and Smudge would sleep there with me, when they were still here. (And I think about them every day.)

Now I'm back in my very nice queen-sized bed, in my newly-plastered and freshly-painted bedroom. And there's plenty of room here for Rollo and Bailey.

But part of me misses the futon. Part of me likes the clutter, the crumbs, the worn and ripped fabric. I've had some amateur therapists tell me I surround myself with clutter to keep other people away. I suppose that could be true.

How am I supposed to get any sleep...

...when this dog keeps squirming all the time?

Living arrangements

Basically, I don't need a lot of space in which to live. I need a lot of storage space for the junk I've accumulated, but for me personally, a couple of rooms are adequate.

I've been living, for all intents and purposes, in my den and dining room for two or three years. That's been plenty of space.

But the changes Ms. HRP is making will shift my daily living to the den, front bedroom and back bedroom. I will still rarely, if ever, use the living room.

We've talked about changes to the other, lesser-used rooms. The dining room especially needs work, and she's suggested changes to the living room as well.

But for what I've spent on this house over the past year, including the work outside, I could have almost bought a new house. Nothing I've done is extravagant, but none of it has been done on the cheap, either.

I have to think about costs for the rest of these projects, and I'm not sure if I can afford to do much more.

Ms. HRP has raised the issue of me hosting social gatherings at my home. I have done that twice in my entire life - once in 1998 and once in about 1979. I have no need to plan for an active social life, because I would still be mostly a recluse even if I were a billionaire living in the Nichols mansion.

iTunes: Raga Alahya Bilaval, G S Sachdev

What I want and need is a home that supports one adult male, one cat and one basset hound, with some room for a few hangaround cats. It needs to facilitate some semi-artistic doodling, plus reading, sleep and some not very disciplined meditation.

You are not what society says you are (or must become)

"The rules of communication are not necessarily the rules of the universe, and man is not the role or identity which society thrusts upon him. For when a man no longer confuses himself with the definition of himself that others have given him, he is at once universal and unique."

- Alan Watts, 'Psychotherapy East & West.'

iTunes: Year Tone - OM, Rainer Tillman performing with Tibetan bowls

Another great thing about dogs...

...is that if they pee in the house, they pee right in the middle of the floor, where you can get to it. Cats always pee back in a closet or behind furniture.

iTunes: Jimbo Sanya - Stan Richardson, shakuhachi flute

Saturday morning

I had the notion that I was going to get out and do something last night - either dinner with the Galileo group, or the Amber Wind Society/Skip Largent event at Sauced - but by the time five pm arrived, I was no longer up to it. I had driven around all day buying stuff for the house. I had a mild headache. All I wanted to do was go home, read some, and listen to classical music. And that's what I did. I guess I was in bed by 9:30.

This dog is spoiled rotten, but I enjoy her company.

iTunes: Shostakovich: Symphony #15, Mariss Jansons & The London Philharmonic Orchestra

Friday

Another day in paradise.

An idea

I guess one way to take care of cat pee odor in the laundry would be to smear my clothes with dog shit - which is also in ample supply now.

Random stuff

First, to respond to Sweeney's comment on the previous post: I've been using the enzyme stuff on the floors for awhile and yes, it works. I'm going to try the vinegar in laundry.

Item two: concrete will be poured for the floor of my garage tomorrow-a big step forward in this project that began last October.

Item three: I continue to withdraw from society. I'm eating three-fourths of my meals alone now, and conduct most of my communication via facebook. I'm spending a lot more time at home. Again, this is actually a return to the norm for me, not a new development.

Item four: I'm sleeping in the master bedroom again. Ms. HRP has started work on the back bedroom, which we're turning into a kind of study/meditation room.

There is still too much stuff in this house, even after all the stuff that's been given away and thrown away. I need to cut the remaining possessions by at least half.

Item five: Bailey is up here on the bed with me, sound asleep. When she sleeps, she really sleeps. Rollo will probably be along later. Bailey is whiny and stubborn, but lovable nonetheless. I'm glad she's here.

Item six: I am nowhere near the fires you may have seen on TV. Everything's fine where I am.

The Search for Truth

...has taken me here.

I hope this works.

Wednesday afternoon

I'm a laugh riot.

The 'real' bed

I slept in my 'real' bed overnight (as opposed to the futon in the dining room) for the first time in two or three years. Bailey slept with me, and even Rollo came and got on the bed. Now there's plenty of room for both of them.

The bedroom is in better shape than it's ever been: newly-refinished floor, retextured and repainted walls and ceiling, all provided by Ms. HRP.

There's no furniture in the room except the bed and a small table, and I think I want to keep it that way. I have plenty of art to hang on the walls, but I think I prefer them blank. It's pleasant having a room with almost no visual clutter or stimulus. It's almost like being in a hotel.

Now that I think about it, I realize what I liked about hotel rooms was the absence of clutter.

Sunday evening

What is there?

Sunday morning

I love my dog.

Compassion and crazymakers

Mindovermary reports she has ejected her friend from her home after only four days, rather than the agreed-upon two weeks.

A smart move, I think.

Buddhism exhorts us to be compassionate toward others. I mentioned previously that my idealized, unrealistic perfect female companion would be someone possessing the qualities of Guan Yin, the Chinese representation of the Bodhisattva of Compassion.

Compassion is necessary. But we still have to take care of ourselves - especially, I think, those of us who live alone and who have a limited support network.

Some readers will recognize the story of the fellow who eventually moved out of his own house because a friend he let move in 'temporarily' brought friends and family members to live there, too. That's right... the guy moved out of his own house to get away from the people who took advantage of his considerable compassion.

There are people who are constant psychological and emotional drains. The first time I encountered the term 'crazymakers' was in Julia Cameron's book The Artist's Way. There's a blog dedicated to that book's principles and concepts, with a page about crazymakers here.

Crazymakers are those personalities that scream storm centers. They are often charismatic, frequently charming, highly inventive, and powerfully persuasive.
Crazymakers break deals and destroy schedules.
Crazymakers expect special treatment.
Crazymakers discount your reality.
Crazymakers spend your time and money.
Crazymakers triangulate those they deal with.
Crazymakers are expert blamers.
Crazymakers create dramas but seldom where they belong.
Crazymakers hate schedules except their own.
Crazymakers hate order.

(I notice, of course, that I fit some of those descriptions. I'm adept at discounting other people's realities, and while I wouldn't say I hate order, I don't exactly embrace it, either.)

I personally am big on avoiding crazymakers. I can usually just get up and walk away. Maybe if I were big 'E' Enlightened, I could deal with people like this and raise them to some higher level of awareness. But I am a flawed vessel living in a house full of junk and pet hair; it's too much of a struggle to keep my own sanity without trying to 'fix' crazymakers as well.

As Melvin Udall said in As Good As It Gets, "Go sell crazy someplace else – we're all stocked up here."

(And here's the official web site for The Artist's Way. I think this book and its companion books stay in print pretty much continuously; you could probably find it in any major bookstore, if you're interested.)

Early Tuesday

Bailey is doing a doggie sleepover tonight with Lucy at Ms. HRP's. It's just me and Rollo and whatever hangaround cats come wandering in.

I spent some time with Nurse K and Ms. HRP today, after spending about three days with no contact with anyone (other than cashiers and wait staff). I've been pretty much out of contact with world for most of the past five days, and have found it very relaxing and de-stressing.

I read MindoverMary's post about her friend who has temporarily (heh) moved in with her to escape a crazy, abusive boyfriend. No one has ever asked to move in with me (I wonder why - do you suppose it could be the cat shit?), but this is exactly the kind of drama I don't want to be near, let alone be participating in. I hide from this kind of stuff.

I used to think I was a screwup because I couldn't fit in with the rest of society. Lately, I've begun to think I'm the one who's sane, and everyone else is crazy. Yes, I know I'm surrounded by cats and cat shit and nose spray bottles, but no one gets beaten up at my place, no one passes out drunk in my front yard, nor are the police ever called to my home. I've never been put in jail.

I could list a whole bunch of other things that haven't happened to my dull, boring ass, but other people might recognize themselves or their friends, so I'll spare them the embarrassment.

I truly do not understand how people can live that way, although it seems to go on all around me. The very thought of it unnerves me.

Solitude is a blessing.

iTunes: Schubert: Impromptu in G flat - Martijn Van Den Hoek, piano

Sleep

The cat fidgets all night. The dog barely moves at all.

This dog is like a thirty-pound sack of potatoes.

Sunday am

What is there?

I'll be around

Please, don't anyone else call me. I'm fine. I'll be around.

Speaking of negative emotions...

I'm often a generator of negative emotions, so you may want to read that link in the preceding post for tips on how to deal with me.

Negative emotions

A few weeks ago, Ms. HRP gave me a printout of a web page about how to stop being affected by other people's negative emotions. I lost the printout, of course, but I remembered one phrase: "envelope of white light." So I did a Google search for that phrase plus the word 'emotions,' and the web page I was looking for was at the top of the list.

How To Stop Absorbing Other People’s Negative Emotions

Another day of nothin'

I saw almost nobody today. My garage guy came by to pick up some equipment he'd left. I went to the grocery store and bought some stuff to tide me over in case I'm snowed in tomorrow. Later in the day I went to Smokey's and got barbecue.

I walked the dog a couple of times.

I searched - unsuccessfully - for the remote control for the stereo, which I have already misplaced, and which I hope I didn't accidentally throw in the trash.

I took a nap.

Right now, I'm listening to Shostakovich's Symphony #13.

Dog diet

I gave Bailey a steak bone the other night, and while she was glad to get it, her digestive tract seems the worse for the experience. She hasn't had the runs, exactly, but more like a case of the 'squishies' for about 36 hours. She's also had a couple of accidents in the house during this time.

Bailey is making lots of friends. Almost every time I take her for a walk, someone stops to pet her. She loves people and she loves attention, so that's working out well for everyone.

Snow storm

According to the weather forecasters, we're on the south edge of some ginormous winter storm that's going to cover the northwest half of the state in up to a foot of snow. Blizzard warnings are in effect in the panhandle and northwest. That area's pretty remote - I'd hate to be stuck under a foot of snow out there.

I'm trying to decide if I need to go to the store today and stock up on some sort of supplies.

Link spamming

About three times a week, I have to delete three or four 'link spams' from the blog. These are comments, usually unrelated to the post to which they're attached, that include a link to some quasi-reputable web site. Seeding blogs with these links help boost a site's Google ranking. I assume some so-called 'search engine optimization' company pays people some paltry sum to spend hours a day dropping these linked comments all over blogs.

This has been going on pretty regularly for about six weeks now. I don't want to begin moderating comments, but I may have to, at least temporarily.

What I believe

I've had this idea for awhile that I should 'codify' my beliefs... sort of a "Mcarpene Creed", if you will.

But what would I get from that? Maybe I'll just walk the dog, instead.

Calm

I thought I'd take a moment to post about what a pleasant week I've had. And I've spent it mostly alone and mostly at home. I've been to the coffee shop a few times, and to VZD's once, but for the most part, I've avoided my usual haunts. (I don't consider Jimmy's Egg a 'haunt,' although I eat there pretty often. I tend to be in and out pretty quick.)

I've listened to a huge amount of classical music, including, for the first time, Glenn Gould's "Goldberg Variations" performances. The new stereo makes some of my other CDs sound like completely new works. This is especially true of Ravi Shankar's "Chants of India," in which I hear voices that didn't even show up with my old speakers. Right now I'm listening to Tchaikovsky's 'Marche Slave,' performed by Karajan and the Berlin Philharmonic.

I've done some housecleaning and gotten mostly caught up on laundry. I've walked the dog two or three times a day.

I've been reading some books by Steven Batchelor, Ajahn Chah and DT Suzuki.

I've located some old friends - people I haven't talked to in ten to twenty years - on Facebook.

I've taken naps in the afternoon.

Everything has been very calm and pleasant. I feel like this validates my decision to scale back my busy schedule of public appearances and spend more time with myself.

Sunday evening

Nothing to report

Stereo

I bought a new stereo setup today - the first new one in, oh, 35 years. My ex still has my old one, in fact.

This is a more modest setup than the one I got back in the seventies. It's just a receiver and a pair of speakers. I put all my music on iTunes, so I don't need a CD player.

The receiver is a Yamaha home theater thing with about two hundred features I'll never use. All I really needed was a power amp or maybe an integrated amp; most of the digital signal processing stuff doesn't interest me. But the plain old amps are hard to find (and I didn't limit my search to big box retailers), and tend to cost as much or more.

I had been listening to music on high-end self-powered computer speakers, and the chamber music and Asian flute music were tolerable. But symphonies and other big-orchestra pieces sounded choked. Everything sounds much better now.

When I retired, I set some budget goals for myself. I haven't come close to meeting them, and my cash reserves have shrunk faster than I planned. Austerity will have to be the watchword from here on out. I already own more crap than I can fit in my house - cutting back shouldn't be a problem.

Big news today

They poured the concrete foundation for my new garage today.


This is a big step forward. They'll do the stem wall tomorrow, I'm told, and build the actual garage in a week to ten days.

Tuesday

Nothing to report. Happy St. Patrick's Day.

Culture Warriors Laid Off

from NYT's Frank Rich...

Here, at last, is one piece of good news in our global economic meltdown: Americans have less and less patience for the intrusive and divisive moral scolds who thrived in the bubbles of the Clinton and Bush years.

Sat night/Sun morn

Ms. Dog and I are both under the fuzzy red blanket. We're calm and at peace.

Two strange phenomena

Two strange phenomena occurred here this evening.

The first phenomenon was that I found myself walking down an aisle in Target with no recollection of having gone there. I assumed I had driven there, but I had no memory of having done it. It was almost as if I had come into existence at that exact moment.

I assumed I would find my car in the parking lot, and sure enough, I did. I didn't buy anything.

The second phenomenon was that after I got home, I found the toilet paper on the roller set into the wall. I never put toilet paper on the roller, but there it was, just as if it had always been there. I know some people make a sort of ritual of putting TP on the roller. I assume it helps preserve the illusion they have some control over their lives: "See? I've put the toilet paper in its place on the roller. I'm in charge. I make the decisions."

But, I know that life is lived on the ever-shifting sands of impermanence, so I don't worry about the toilet paper being on the roller. As long as it's within reach, I'm fine. Plus, I avoid that whole over/under thing.

And the shower curtain was hanging outside the bathtub. I'm glad I found that before I took a shower in the morning.

There seems to have been an odd shifting of the fabric of reality around here.

Complications

I know it does not seem to most people like my life is very complicated. But it is to me.

My ability to multitask, never very strong, has diminished to nothing. So has my ability to plan, or even to think clearly. There are posts that have never appeared here because I started to write them, realized I didn't have the energy or motivation to organize my three or four paragraphs of thoughts, and gave up.

And for the most part, I don't care. I don't need to think much anymore, or organize or plan.

I had to take the dog out for a 1:40 am doggie dump. I sort of know I need to start feeding her on a schedule, but the concept seems kind of fuzzy and indistinct. I have to feed her earlier in the day, and at the same time every day. That means I have to keep track of what time it is. That's a complication, looking at a clock all the time. Plus the usual chore of finding the bowl, finding a scoop for the dog food... more complication. Can't think about it.

I'm sort of regressing into a hunter/gatherer. Or really just a gatherer. I can forage, but that's about it.

I went to the coffee shop yesterday. Walked in, sort of vaguely waved at a table where some of my friends were sitting, then left. I wasn't there two minutes. Too many people, too many conversations. Too complicated.

A couple of my friends are infuriated by the way I drive. The way I drive is this: get in the car, start driving, then formulate a plan about how I'm going to get there. This means that many times, by the time I have sorted out where my next turn is, I have already passed it. One time I overshot my own driveway by a block. I don't care; I'll get there eventually. But other people find it maddening. Sometimes I get in the car and start going without knowing where I'll end up. Again, this doesn't bother me; I know I'll end up somewhere. It made my ex-wife crazy.

Drive faster! Don't stop! Turn the heat on! Slow slow, quick quick! Get rid of that cat hair! Move to Edmond! Why aren't you a Republican? Focus! Why are you wearing that? Be more accessible! Look urgent! Don't sit with your arms folded! Why aren't you saved? Why aren't you in Al-Anon? You and your Moon Pies! Acknowledge your coanchor! Study! Have you done your homework? You need to wear your hair like your daddy!

Folks, this is me. This is it. All there is. I'm not deliberately concealing some advanced mutant power that allows me to be more like you.

I don't want to think anymore. I've had enough thinking.