Fat and slow

My day has concluded.

4:38 am

Nothing. Go back to sleep.

The things I care about

I was scrolling through a local chat board about city events and news this evening. I couldn't find a thing there I wanted to read about. I went to the Huffington Post and found only a couple of things I was interested in. I checked Americablog, another progressive blog, and found next to nothing there.

I'm finding it harder and harder to find anything worth attention.

There is stuff going on in the world that I feel like I ought to care about, but I can't seem to generate any enthusiasm, indignation or even amusement about them. I think I'm turning into a genuine misanthrope.

Lose the gut and speed up!

"Lose the gut and speed up!" was the advice I was given Thursday evening. But I don't remember what it was in relation to.

I've mentioned before I would benefit from losing weight, and perhaps I will.

This 'speed up' thing has been hanging around my neck almost all my life. I remember in second grade I was scolded for being too kinetic, and that was the last time that happened.

By third grade I needed to 'show more enthusiasm', and I was in my forties before I figured out that meant I should do pretty much the same thing I was already doing, only with more animated facial expressions and body language. And even that wasn't because it would make me more productive - it was just to increase the comfort level of those around me who had grown up in families where everyone rolled their eyes and gasped and exclaimed and enthused and thrust their heads forward and nodded emphatically and carried on about everything like you see them do at Junior League events and the Evil Empire Starbuck's.

When I was in TV, they told me I needed to 'look urgent.' That meant look as if I was saying something really really interesting and important, even if it was actually horse shit, which most of the time it was.

My idea of 'looking urgent' was the expression on the faces of guys lined up outside the rest room at a bar, but that was not the look my bosses were after.

Now we come to the thing about how slow I walk. Some people, I am told, are 'offended' by how slow I walk - people who have invested a lifetime in purposeful striding. I don't anticipate this will change, so if my slow walking offends you, perhaps you should just cover your eyes or look the other way when I'm walking. I wouldn't want to outrage your brisk, perky sensibilties.

Wednesday evening

I have nothing to report.

The lights are still on

Two days of sleet, snow and freezing rain, and I still have electricity... for which I am grateful.

Danielle Ate the Sandwich

Discovered via BoingBoing:



I wonder what makes this video so charming to me. Is it the open refrigerator door? The corny old Mamas & Papas arrangement of the tune? The eyeglasses? The ukelele?

Her YouTube channel is called Danielle Ate the Sandwich

Tuesday evening: I'll be your huckleberry

Another day of hacking and wheezing. I don't feel bad at all, but the cough sounds terrible. I spent part of the afternoon at the Red Cup, but I gave up an went home because the coughing was driving me crazy and, I suspect, annoying others. I was carrying on like Doc Holliday in the last reel of 'Tombstone.'

But this will clear up, eventually.

Monday morning

Blah. Urgflbtz. Shit.

48 hours

I'm coming up on 48 hours with this cough. This is not unheard of for me during the winter - I've had coughs like this last for weeks.

But my throat is raw from all the hacking, and the reflex muscles in my chest are sore.

And here's Saturday

I didn't sleep very well last night, which isn't surprising. I went to Jimmy's Egg with Nurse K and ate about half of a breakfast, and had a bowl of black bean soup at the RC later in the day. Other than that, I've mostly been in bed. The sinus pressure had eased, and I'm not having chills anymore, but I'm still coughing a lot.

All in all, nothing I can't deal with.

That's my Friday

I ate a bowlful of sliced fruit for brunch (I hate that word!) and other than that, haven't had a thing to eat today. I've been in bed most of the day.

I had the chills for a couple of hours, and supplemented the big fuzzy red blanket with a second one. Now the chills seem to have passed, but my sinuses hurt, the joints in my legs ache and my mouth feels hot and dry.

That's my Friday.

This is for all the single people, thinking that love has left them dry

From The Press Association:

A man accused of breaking into a adult shop to have sex with blow-up dolls has been arrested by police in Australia. The 23-year-old broke into the shop in the northern city of Cairns several times, having sex with a doll named "Jungle Jane," the Cairns Post newspaper reported.

More here.

Awake again

Fell asleep about ten, then woke up about midnight. Fell asleep again about 4 am, almost immediately had another creepy TV news dream and woke up again. Still coughing and hacking, plus discomfort from sinus pressure.

I'll apologize right now

My winter cough has returned.

Some of you will recall winters past when I developed the dry, croupy cough that sounded like I might send a lung flying across the room.

I suppose that once again, the cough will drag on into March. I apologize in advance for the annoyance.

A forecast high of 72

I've been feeding the birds all through the fall and winter, but today is the first day in weeks I've spent the afternoon in the back yard watching them

The wrens are still around, but the jays and my one red-headed woodpecker seem to have moved on. I still have some doves, but not as many as were here in September and October.

I saw one male cardinal, and there are a couple of grackels out here.

I've seen one squirrel, sitting on the roof of the garage for the house behind mine.

I wish I could go back to sleep

I've been up killing some time this morning. I worked on an art project, did a quick cat shit safari, and then surfed the web for awhile. I wish I could go back to sleep.

Yoga update

Well, the yoga thing didn't happen, after all. Maybe Friday.

But I got plenty of exercise hauling shelving out of the house today.

Exhaustion

This just about wore me out. Stretching, straining, twisting muscles long unused. I feel drained.

And that's just cleaning out the back bedroom. I still have yoga later this evening.

I have to go now. Ms. HRP is calling me to move another box of old computer parts.

Yoga: Change We Can Believe In

Yoga classes begin tomorrow evening - a two-week trial. These are the classes Ms. HRP persuaded me to undertake.

We'll see how it goes.

Inauguration Day

I watched the inauguration on MSNBC at Galileo. I feel a tremendous sense of relief that the crazy people are gone, and sanity will - I hope - prevail in Washington.

Oh, but my massive popularity is no accident

As I mentioned in a previous post, I am an introvert. I scored higher as an "I" on the Meyers-Briggs test than on any other personality trait, and almost as strong an "I" as it's possible to be.

So here's a little bit more from around the web on what it means to be an introvert.

Introverts process their emotions, thoughts, and observations internally. They can be social people, but reveal less about themselves than extroverts do. Introverts are more private, and less public. Introverts need time to think before responding to a situation, and develop their ideas by reflecting privately. Introverts' personality traits can be passionate, but not usually aggressive.

More here.

Introverts:
Enjoy time alone
Consider only deep relationships as friends
Feel drained after outside activities, even if they were fun
Good listener
Appear calm and self-contained
Think then speak or act

More here. This site is too cute by quite a bit more than half ("Hi! I'm Teddi Turtle!"), but the information is valid.

When introverts want to be alone, it is not, by itself, a sign of depression. It means that they either need to regain their energy from being around people or that they simply want the time to be with their own thoughts. Being with people, even people they like and are comfortable with, can prevent them from their desire to be quietly introspective.

More here.

Most introverts don't like me, but I don't need them anyway. I have enough people desperately seeking my attention. Oh, but my massive popularity is no accident. I studied social psychology and human behavior for years to alter my personality and become a master of social manipulation and human interaction.

More here. Maybe this is a joke, but I don't think so.

One of the great things about being retired is that I'm able to almost completely manage the amount of time I spend around other people. No more networking for me, folks... have a good time at Toastmasters.

Life is filled with suffering

The Buddha is often quoted as saying, "Life is filled with suffering." But the word the Buddha used, dukkha, means much more - and at the same time, a little less - than suffering.

Here's an explanation of it.

And here's another.

Monday

I got up about 7:30 to go to the Red Cup, realized I was not up to social contact today, and went back to bed.

Maybe I can do it later.

The introvert's view

I am by nature an introvert. Groups of people emotionally and mentally drain me.

I'm OK with very large groups, such as I might encounter in a shopping mall (although I dislike malls for other reasons). But groups of ten to fourteen people, where I'm expected to simultaneously follow two or three conversations and contribute to each, overload me to the extent that I often find myself falling asleep as my mind tries to protect itself.

And this may be evidence of some fundamental arrogance and elitism, but I often find myself listening to conversations and thinking, "How can you even waste time and energy talking about that? You'd be better off saying nothing at all - and so would we." Even when I was a fairly heavy drinker in my twenties, I don't think I considered being drunk to be such a grand adventure that I had to talk about it as if it were a trip abroad.

I suspect the early Taoist masters were introverts. The frequent advice to remove oneself from political and social intrigues, to stay close to nature and to speak infrequently reflect the introvert's basic nature.

I'd be happy to find a small community of like-minded individuals. But I guess it's our basic nature to not form communities.

Infatuation epilogue

Whenever I have one of these spells of infatuation or romantic frustration, I feel I should post some sort of epilogue when it concludes.

The stages of these things generally run the same way: initial attraction, a bit of familiarity, infatuation, indecision, action, rejection, disappointment, analysis and self-recrimination, and finally acceptance and a return to my daily life.

If I had to name one thing that stands in the way of peace for me, it would be these occasional forays into emotional turmoil. They rank 'way above whatever comes next.

Zen master Seung Sahn used to say, "just put it down." I don't think he was talking about stuff like this, but the admonition is just as applicable.

But for me, at least, putting it down is still a struggle.

After midnight

Just woke up from a dream in which I'm hiding in a vacant warehouse with some stray animals while outside, some guy having nervous breakdown while flying an A-10 Thunderbolt is firing rounds at random into my building and the ones around it. A dog hiding with me is hit and superficially wounded.

Early to bed

I was in bed by 6:55 this evening. Cold weather and short days make me want to hibernate. I slept about ninety minutes, had some weird dream which I no longer remember, then woke up again.

I'm craving a good book to read.

Friday morning

Awakened a couple of times by strange dreams yet again. Other than that, nothing to report.

Topcoat

Among the artifacts uncovered from the back bedroom this week was a wool topcoat that I bought in about 1984 or '85.

It still sort of fits, oddly enough. The moths have done a pretty extensive job on it, but I'm probably going to keep it and wear it once in awhile. Its general shabbiness sort of reflects my current state of life.

Sleep

I haven't mentioned the trouble I've been having with sleep. It's been worse than usual lately.

I sleep for about two hours, and am then awakened by some crazy dream. I go back to sleep, sleep about two hours, and am awakened by another crazy dream. Sleep two hours, wake up... sleep two hours, wake up.

It's hard to get any rest.

Better days

This blog was a lot more interesting in January of last year.

COBRA

I got a note in the mail today telling me my post-retirement COBRA insurance expires in two weeks.

I got some mixed signals from my former employer last fall and had been most recently left with the impression I had another year of coverage. I probably just misunderstood.

In any event, I've got to move forward pretty quickly on getting some insurance in place.

Music

We uncovered a big pile of music CDs while working in the back bedroom Wednesday. It included a lot of stuff that I'll probably never listen to again, but I also found some classical CDs that I'll put on iTunes.

I bought these CDs ten to twenty years ago.

A good Taoist would probably say, 'What musician creates sounds as fine as those of nature?' But I've gotten used to having music available all the time.

Stiff all over

Ms. HRP and I did some more excavating of the back bedroom today. As usual, she did most of the work and also helped me stay on task, since my attention span for a project like this can be measured in minutes.

I'll be OK in the morning, but right now I'm so stiff I can barely move. I didn't do that much heavy lifting, but it doesn't take much to get me kind of froze up.

We discussed refinishing the floors this afternoon. Lord knows they need it, but it would mean pretty much clearing out the house then moving back in when it was over.

Ms. HRP has suggested we take yoga classes together. I'm trying to imagine me twisting my potato-sack body into even the least challenging positions. I guess it might do me some good - a former colleague from my TV days says yoga preserved his ability to walk.

Rolling Stone

I was once in the Albertson's supermarket with a then-girlfriend picking up groceries for dinner. She went one way and I went another. After I had picked up my list of provisions, I spotted Rolling Stone on the magazine rack. I don't remember who was on the cover, but something prompted me to stop and take a look.

Suddenly my girlfriend's voice interrupted me. "Why are you looking at that?" she demanded.

"Oh, it's just Rolling Stone," I replied. "I haven't looked at one in years."

"Yeah," she said, "I know what kind of man reads Rolling Stone," she said. "Middle-aged men who are going to" - and her voice started rising - "grow ponytails, then LEAVE THEIR WIVES, ABANDON THEIR CHILDREN AND RUN OFF WITH A GRADUATE STUDENT HALF THEIR AGE!!!"

By the time she got to 'run off with a graduate student' she was actually yelling at me (or actually her ex-husband by proxy), and other people in the store were staring at us. Maybe this helps explain why, weeks later, I climbed out a window to get away from her.

But she was exactly the kind of woman my friends thought I was 'supposed' to be with: sturdy and sensible, headed for alcoholism with a boatload of rage.

That was another in my experiments in trying to have a relationship with someone to whom I was not actually attracted, but whom I was 'supposed' to be with.

I can't help the kind of person to whom I am attracted. But I would rather be alone than be with someone I am 'supposed' to be with.

Off to New Mexico

Just had a dream in which a news director was going to send a photographer and me to New Mexico on a breaking story. Fortunately, I woke up. I wish it had been that easy in real life.

Here's a little good news

I paid my credit card bills yesterday and was pleasantly surprised to see how small the balances were. They were about half what they had been the previous month. And some of what was on this month's bills was stuff that was actually purchased during the previous billing period, but didn't get processed in time.

I want to cut further, not only to save money, but also because this house is still so full of crap I can't turn around.

Cat overdrive

The cats, incidentally, are in some sort of overdrive this morning. I need some sort of cat sedative.

Cultivating despair

I had lunch Tuesday with a willowy, ethereal, Buddhist kind of hippie artist woman I've known for several years (who may or may not read this).

Any details of our conversation would be a violation of her privacy. Suffice it to say I went directly from lunch to VZD's, where I spent the rest of the afternoon and early evening cultivating despair.

I need to let go of this, and it's part of a larger thing I also need to let go of.

There was a Zen teacher - I forget which one - who talked about this in very plain, almost defeatist language. He didn't sugar coat it with terms like 'non-attachment'; he just said 'give up.'

That runs counter to our American notion of 'try, try again' and 'never give up, never surrender,' but the teacher was right. And he called it what it was without trying to make it lofty or profoundly spiritual. Just give up.

I mentioned something in a previous post about people who refuse to see the world as it is. Here's an example of me not seeing the world as it is. Actually, I do see it, but I've indulged the occasional hope over the years that the relationshiponal equivalent of a faith healing or a UFO landing would happen - and of course, it never has.

When I got home, I found a freshly-laid pile of cat shit in the middle of the den. The cat is trying to enlighten me.

Tuesday (I think) morning

I have nothing to report.

Overthinking

Sometimes I overthink things. As a result, I am tied up in a tangle of speculation, alternate scenarios, and probable and possible outcomes. I become so weighed down by the analysis that I don't do anything at all.

Sometimes this is beneficial. Mental paralysis has prevented me from taking action in situations where no action was necessary, and the best course was to let things be. It would have been easier to have seen from the start no action was required, rather than burying myself in analysis, but the outcome was the same.

Other times, though, I think I've missed opportunities because I pondered while others acted.

In the end, though, the moon has still been exceptionally bright the past couple of nights.

Mundane

Many of my friends believe that because I describe myself as a Buddhist/Taoist, I must believe in almost anything: Mayan calendar, UFO abductions, astrology, telepathy and telekinesis, tarot, homeopathic medicine, Jesus as a space alien - you name it.

In fact, though, I'm fairly skeptical about almost everything. I'm constantly amazed at what people believe, from the John Birch politics and fundamentalism my ex-wife and her family embraced to the Murrah bombing conspiracy theories that still carry some currency in my part of the country to the suck-toxins-out-your-toes machines in which a couple of my friends soak their feet, paying good money to do so.

People just seem to not want to believe that things are as they are. They want to believe, or need to believe, that there is some second reality underlying the one we see.

Personally, I don't think it's there. I think the world is as it appears. If it seems mundane, that doesn't mean there's some hidden reality. It just means it's mundane.

Nap update

I am now iPhoning in from beneath the fuzzy red blanket.

Talk to you later.

Bird feeder update

I finally had to put some fresh seed in the new bird feeders I first filled one week ago. Even then, I had to refill only two of them - the other two look like they'll be good for another two or three days.

This is a big improvement over the feeders I had to refill every day, especially when it's twenty-something degrees outside.

Unattached

I was thinking about the two women whose pictures I found the other day. I recall that I would probably never have asked either of them out left entirely to my own decision-making process. They were both 'set up' by mutual friends who thought they were the kind of women I 'belonged' with. I stayed with both for many months, even though there was frankly no physical attraction on my side. One finally backed me so far into a corner that I literally climbed out a window to get away from her. I've always been a magnet for controlling personalities whose attraction to me is based on their perception I need them in my life to straighten me out.

I've been unattached romantically for about four years now (at least I think it's been four years) and most of the time, I'm OK with that.

I've sort of let myself go during that time, and I've reached a point where it's not practical for me to be in search of 'love.' It would take me literally years to get myself back into some sort of appropriate condition - I would be sixty by the time I was ready - and even then, my idea of a good time would still be sitting around at the Red Cup and elsewhere.

I've noticed that the times I most feel the absence of 'love' in my life are when I'm depressed. But I don't think it's loneliness that triggers depression; rather, it's depression that triggers loneliness. It's like having some sort of flu bug that gives you a craving to drink Liquid Plumber as medicine.

Not depressed

I know when I sort of disappear it often means I'm depressed, but not so this time. I've been socializing all day long, and by the time 5 pm rolls around, I'm too worn out to eat out anywhere. I will probably return to my normal schedule next week.

More newsworthy events

When I came home today, there were two kittens on my front porch, following Chilly Mama around. Chill is obviously their mom.

This is the point where I really have to focus on not projecting all my own family issues on the cats.

Let me put it another way...

The most newsworthy event of my day yesterday was finding a kitten sleeping on my front porch.

That is the way I like my life to be.

mcarp-in-the-box

Ms. HRP suggested today that I seem to have deliberately put myself 'in a box' as far as how I live my daily life.

I absolutely agreed.

I've said before that I know some other people perceive me as boring. I am basically OK with that, if the alternative is to turn my life upside-down again. I had all the excitement I needed working in television (about which I had another strange dream night before last).

Blogblah! can probably relate some to what I'm talking about. A reporter's life is filled with sudden and disruptive events. Even if you're just working in humdrum local news, you may find yourself as I once did stuck at a gas station at 4 am in a small town 150 miles away, trying to put together enough material to file a story for a 6 am newscast.

Or you may get tapped twenty minutes before your shift ends to jump in a car and drive at break-neck speed halfway across a neighboring state to follow up what turns out to be an incorrect report by one of your competitors.

A reporter's life is also filled with sudden and disruptive craziness, personal drama and corporate recklessness. You may have a boss call you up at home at 3 am, rip-roaring drunk, and screaming at you incoherently for reasons you can't begin to comprehend, and which your boss won't even remember after he/she sobers up.

Or you may find yourself flying with a copter pilot who is desperately trying to find a safe place to land out in the middle of nowhere after an eager-beaver assignment editor lied to him about weather conditions and tricked him into flying straight into a severe thunderstorm in the hope of 'getting great video.'

Or, if you're like one of my coworkers, you may find yourself permanently disabled after being directly instructed by a supervisor to ignore basic safety precautions at a hazardous live remote.

Or you may work for a boss who, beset by poor ratings and increasing pressure from senior management, starts bringing a shotgun to work every day and leaving it propped up against his desk.

That was pretty much my daily life for 25 years, and even though I've been away from it for a decade, a decade is not enough. I revel in knowing I don't have to venture more than two miles from my home. I'm greatly relieved to be able to just walk away from crazy people, instead of having to work for them.

And I plan on staying in my box for at least a few more years.

A new kitten

There was a kitten about a month old sleeping on my front porch chair when I came home this evening. I don't know where it came from - I suspect Chilly Mama is its mother.

There used to always be a zillion cats hanging around this end of the block, but their numbers have diminished over the past year, and it's rare to see kittens about.

Clarification

I didn't mean to imply my ex-girlfriend had actually persuaded me to register as a Republican. What I was trying to say was that she had a wonderful plan for my life, which included registering as a Republican, as well as moving back to Edmond and marrying her.

Flashback

Also while rummaging around through my old socks, we came across two pictures of former girlfriends, both from about ten years ago.

I almost don't remember what it was like to have a girlfriend. It seems almost inconceivable to me now that I ever had any.

I remember one of the two wanted to marry me - after she had upgraded my wardrobe, gotten me registered as a Republican and moved me back to Edmond. Seeing her picture after all these years made me shudder.

The other would probably have married me as well. Maybe I shouldn't have run from that.

Neither was particularly ethereal or Buddhist/hippie/gypsy, though, and they weren't the least bit gauzy.

They were both the kind of women my friends thought I should be with, not the kind I wanted to be with.

Senator Al Franken and Tom Davis

Is he singing or lip-synching Mick?

My photo

This is the pic I use on my Myspace profile.

Ms. HRP describes it as 'heinous.'

I say it looks like me, and what else matters?

Socks

Ms. HRP and I opened up a big plastic container stuck in my back bedroom today. It was mostly filled with socks. I had boxed these up when I moved to Texas in 1998 and they had been stored away ever since.

I would guess there were at least a hundred pair and maybe more. There were dress socks, casual socks, summer and winter socks. There were wool socks and cotton socks. There were cheap socks from Target, and Polo and Byford socks from Harold's. There were solids and stripes, argyles and patterns. There was a pair of glen plaid socks. There was a pair of socks with pheasants on them. These were all socks I bought back in my TV days. Some of them were twenty years old, but they all looked like new.

All my old silk 'pocket squares' were in there, too, and I gave them to Ms. HRP. I'm going to be interested in seeing what she does with them. She'll turn them into a bedouin tent or a parachute or something.

Now I have to find a place to put all these socks.

Man, I've got a lot of shit.

Software

I still lack decent iPhone software for blogging. I'm making do with what's available, but neither of the two options available is satisfactory.

One of them tends to abruptly wipe the whole post from the screen in mid-word. The other is more stable, but lacks the ability to do italics or bold face.

This looks about right.

The cat is obviously wondering where the space between things came from, and the human just doesn't want to confront the issue.

Update

This is crazy. Reality is crazy.

This makes my head hurt

Where did everything come from?

I know the scientific and religious beliefs, at least from a layman's perspective.

But where did everything come from? Where did atoms come from? Where did subatomic particles come from? Where did energy come from?

Where did space come from? Why is it there? Why is there anything? What if none of it was there? What if there really was just nothing? Then what?

I'm old

It occurred to me today I can't call myself 'middle-aged' anymore.

I'm just old.

Saturday evening

I turned off the Christmas lights this evening. I was the last person on the block to have them on. I'll try to muster the energy tomorrow to take them down.

The cats are all manic tonight. I came home from the RC and found all kinds of stuff knocked down and scattered around. They're all galloping back and forth through the house, including Rollo, who usually doesn't gallop.

Bird feeder upgrade

I think I mentioned how frequently I was having to fill the bird feeders. Those tube feeders - all four of them - had to be filled every day. And if I filled them in the morning, they would be empty by late afternoon.

This week, I found a feeder at Petsmart that I hope will give me a break on the feeder refilling. It's called the Stokes Select Giant Combo Feeder, and it's huge. One of these holds almost as much seed as all four of the feeders I was using previously.

I hung four of them in the back yard; in theory, I shouldn't have to fill these but once every four or five days. Right now the birds are avoiding them, which isn't surprising, since they're unfamiliar. I expect the birds to start feeding from them in a day or two.

Have you ever noticed...

... how when a guy is infatuated by some other woman, women think it's cute and fun, but when a guy is infatuated by them, they think he's a stalker?

I'm a lot calmer now

A friend of mine leaned over to me at the coffee shop the other day and asked, "So, do you take... medication or anything?"

"Well, I take blood pressure medicine," I replied. "But if you mean antidepressants or anything like that" - and he nodded affirmatively - "no, I'm just like this naturally."

Several months ago, someone told me I had the personality of someone who smoked a pound of weed a week.

I take both of these anecdotes as signs of progress. Those of you who knew me ten or twelve years ago, when I threw things and punched holes in walls with my fist, will appreciate the difference.

I'm a lot calmer now.

The Chunky Buddhist

I saw some pictures taken Christmas Day that reinforced what I already knew: I'm huge.

My ideal weight is somewhere around 180-190 lbs. For years, my weight ranged from 220 to 240, although it sometimes was as low as 170. Since I've retired, my weight has gone up to more than 250.

This has sort of surprised me, because I'm about as physically active now as I was when I worked, but I don't eat as much junk food.

On the other hand, most of my social interaction occurs while eating. I eat a large restaurant breakfast almost every day. Some days I'll skip lunch, but I rarely miss dinner.

I don't snack much. I don't keep chips or cookies around the house.

My daily activities center around the coffee shop, eating and napping. I'm still enjoying the calm and solitude that comes from not working, and I really enjoy just being still and quiet. Not to mention asleep.

Nonetheless, I recognize the health detriment that accrues to having the illusion of Orson Welles' self instead of my own.

I don't know how to get motivated to do anything about it.

More crazy dreams

I came home after breakfast and decided to take a nap. I didn't sleep well overnight - I had the creepy flooded car dream I described earlier, and after I went back to sleep, I had a couple of more strange dreams I can't remember now.

So I went to the Cup, then to Jimmy's Egg, then came home and tried to take a nap, and had even more more hyper-realistic dreams. In the first one, I stepped out on the front porch to find it stripped bare. My glider, rocker, and rattan lawn chairs were all gone, along with some miscellaneous stuff that's out there. The glider and some of the other stuff had been dragged out into the street in front of the driveway I share with my next door neighbor. I started to walk next door to see if he knew how the stuff had gotten out there when I suddenly woke up.

Then I fell asleep again, and dreamt that I saw a bright green bird like a parakeet sitting in a tree outside my dining room window. I didn't have my glasses on, so the bird was just a blur. I crept forward to get a closer look without scaring it off. As I got closer, I saw Chilly Mama creeping up the tree toward the bird. The bird was looking straight at her, but not moving. 'That's somebody's pet bird,' I thought, 'who doesn't know to be afraid of the cat.'

I rapped on the window to frighten the bird away, but it didn't budge. Chilly Mama suddenly grabbed it. I scrambled for the door to go outside and try to rescue the bird. But I didn't have my glasses on and I couldn't see what I was doing. Then I woke up.

Then the doorbell rang and there was a knock at the door. I jumped up, knocking my glasses to the floor. But that wasn't a dream... that was actually the FedEx man.

It doesn't matter

It doesn't matter by whom I am infatuated.

Infatuation actually involves only one person: the one who is infatuated. The object of infatuation is just a bystander. It may be that the object of the infatuation encourages the infatuation for one reason or another, and it may be that two people are infatuated simultaneously with each other, but infatuation is always a process that occurs in just one person's brain.

In Buddhism they teach about the illusion of self. It's a complex and elaborate illusion - and processes such as infatuation, attachment and aversion help reinforce it.

Infatuation is all about me. In fact, you could say I'm actually infatuated with myself, because what I'm reacting to isn't really some other person, but the chemical process going on in my own brain.

It takes two to tango, but I can make an ass of myself all on my own.

I'll tell you something else, while I'm thinking about it

I'm at the stage in my life where my major contribution to society should be sharing the wisdom I've accumulated from a lifetime of experience.

But like most other Americans, I spent most of my life acquiring crap and credit card debt instead of wisdom, so I've got nothing to share.

Turn off your TV, and throw it away if you can bring yourself to do it. That's all I've got.

A dream

Holy shit.

I just dreamt that I drove the minivan into high water across a road. I couldn't tell exactly how high it was or whether it was too deep for me to back out, so I tried opening the door.

The water wasn't high enough to come in through the door, so I decided I would be OK.

Then I thought to myself, "This can't be right. How did I get here? Am I dreaming or something?"

At that point the water came over the bottom of the door. It was cold and wet, swirling around my ankles, and I thought, "Shit - this is no dream. I don't know how I got here, but I've got to get out while I still can."

I thought for a second about all the stuff in the van that was going to be lost or ruined, and realized I would just have to leave it - I didn't have time to grab any of it.

Then the van started to slowly roll over to the right. I realized I was likely to be trapped in it, and I started scrambling to pull myself up through the driver's side door.

I think I yelled, "Oh, shit" or "Oh, no" out loud and woke myself up.

I was never so glad to find myself in bed. Most of my dreams seem like dreams, but that seemed absolutely real.

Groan - infatuation again

I will mention - without going into a lot of potentially embarrassing detail - that I find myself infatuated again.

Years ago, infatuations led me to think I had found The One. Later, with time and experience, I came to see the objects of my infatuations as women I might enjoy time with on some temporary and limited basis.

Now, as someone transitioning from middle age to senior citizen status, I think of infatuation as being like a cold - if I just hunker down and get plenty of rest, it will clear up on its own. In that respect, I view being infatuated as a lot like being depressed. The two states have a lot in common, and in fact I wonder if they are not linked in my case.

The Buddhist scholar Robert Thurman wrote in one of his books that if we're not enlightened, we should at least act like we are. I'm not sure what is involved in 'acting enlightened,' but I believe these sort of silly attractions are one of the things that get in the way of it for me.

I've forgotten most of the Bible, but I remember the apostle Paul writing something about putting away the things of a child when he became a man. That's sort of how I see infatuation - it's the province of a young man, and something which I should have moved beyond by now.

And as I've posted before, the word infatuation literally means "being made foolish."

I can see past infatuation now - I just can't get there.