So, New Year's Eve

When I was younger, I promised myself I would not end up some eccentric old man living alone in a house full of animals. But I made that promise because even as far back as the seventies, I could see the direction I was headed.

The die, I now realize, was already cast then. The opportunity for a 'normal' life presented itself a few times in the intervening years, and I always passed.

And what if I hadn't? I try to visualize myself with a soccer mom wife and two kids, in church on Sunday, going to college football and NBA games, eating at Applebee's or TGIFriday's, still wearing a coat and tie to the cubicle. I'd be in the suburbs with a house whose mortgage I could barely afford, a pickup truck and small SUV in the driveway. We'd have cable TV, and it would be on all the time. Plus a Wii and an Xbox and Blu-ray and god knows what else.

That would be, in a word, hell.

I'm very fond of my cats, somewhat less fond of my crazy dog, and happy to come and go as I please. No TV, no video games, no SUV. I can't tell you the last time I ate in a chain restaurant or even a trendy local place. No coat and tie. No football, no basketball. I like sleeping on the porch.

I'm an eccentric old man living alone in a house full of animals. And that has mostly turned out OK.

But Seriously, Folks

Getting back to the meditation thing:

There are days when I literally do nothing except eat, sleep and web surf. I have a huge amount of free time. There's no reason I can't make 20 minutes available for meditation. I think 20 minutes is a good place to start.

Meditation Supplies

Loori Roshi makes it sound so easy in that YouTube video that I'm going to take another shot at establishing a meditation practice. I'm going to start by buying some cool Buddhist meditation stuff from this website: Still Sitting Meditation Cushions and Meditation Supplies.

I still have the space age Tibetan meditation cushion I bought back in '06. But it seems so... so unenlightened now.

Old Zen Proverb

“When you can do nothing, what can you do?”

Tuesday night

Mu.

A Cloud of Nothingness/Not Nothingness

At the very center — the core, the foundation, whatever you want to call it — there's nothing. Even that's not quite right, because there's not even nothingness. Sometimes I can actually get that in focus for a few minutes. At one point I held it in focus for most of every day over a period of about two months.

When that's in focus, everything else vanishes. It's as if none of it ever existed. All the random crap I write about is gone, never was. No broken bed. No farting dog. No willowy, no ethereal. No mind. Nothing moving.

Eventually, I have to 'zoom the lens' back out, and things, sensations, concepts and other stuff reappear. From where do they come? From what are they made? At the baseline, there is nothing from which they can be formed, so how do they get here? You could say I just imagine them, but then where do I come from? Do I just imagine myself?

From a certain perspective, yes, I do. It's the Buddhist 'thoughts without a thinker' concept. But if the thoughts I perceive are not mine, from where do they come? How do they spring from the nothingness/absence of nothingness which can make no thing?

Once you've gotten a glimpse of that nothingness/not nothingness, it's hard to attach importance to much of anything. It's all a blank, except that even a blank is something, representing an absence of something else.

I was getting ready to go out for the morning, and I stopped to browse the web. When I sat down, the cat jumped in my lap and went to sleep. I realized that's what I wanted to do myself. So now I'm back in bed. Or rather, the cloud of nothingness/not nothingness perceived as 'me' is back on the cloud of nothingness/not nothingness perceived as 'the bed.'

Not Even That

Isan kicked over the pitcher.
For me, not even that.

So, Zazen.

The late John Daido Loori Roshi was the abbot of Zen Mountain Monastery in New York.

Here is his very clear explanation of zazen, the zen meditation practice which I rarely do because I'm lazy and stiff and fat and I don't like discomfort.



The word 'zen', as he points out, literally means 'meditation.' So, if you say you're doing zen but you don't have a meditation practice, it's like saying you're a swimmer but you don't get in the water.

I don't have a meditation practice, so I don't know what I am. Not zen, certainly.

I'm not sure what I would get from a meditation practice. I don't feel like I'm lacking much in that regard. Zen has an answer for this, which goes along the line of, "You don't do it to 'get something from it', you do it because you do it."

Well, that doesn't help me much. Sorry. I could say the same thing about biting my nails or scratching my ass.

My Hands

Happy day after Christmas.

I have kind of a weird thing going on with my hands. It doesn't happen every day, but when it does happen, it seems to be in the evening, just as I'm going to bed. Or maybe I don't notice it until then.

What happens is that the joints in my fingers kind of stiffen up, most noticeably the second joints down from the fingertips. It makes it difficult for me to close my hands into a fist. It feels almost as if there were an invisible pencil lying across my fingers, preventing me from closing them.

The first time I noticed it, I just squeezed really hard until I closed my fingers. That worked for my right hand, but it made my left hand hurt like hell all night and into the next morning. I finally took some acetaminophen (a word I am only now learning how to spell – on my first try, I got every vowel wrong except the first 'a'), and that cleared up the pain.

So what is it? Arthritis? Some kind of repetitive stress injury? Carpal tunnel?

Well, now the heat's on.

It's 11:15 am here, but the temperature is still dropping. Now 29 degrees. Decided I need to turn the heat on, set at 60 degrees, which is pretty comfortable for me.

Plus, the air's gotten extremely dry. My heater has a built-in humidifier, but the air has to be warmer to hold the moisture.

The Enlightened Master

Read another story today about a Zen priest whose life has sort of devolved into a wreck. I always wonder what's up when these enlightened masters have lives that are 'way more fucked up than mine.

Sometimes I wonder if what we call 'enlightenment' these days isn't just some sort of racket, like televangelists, motivational seminars or multi-level marketing.

The Heat Is Still Off

I've had the heat on in the house only two days this fall and winter and then I did it mostly for the dog and cat. It's cold in here right now, and I'm in the coldest room in the house, but I'm under two acrylic fleece blankets and I'm quite comfortable.

When we had the big ice storm in 2002, I lived here for 11 days with no electricity, no heat and overnight lows in the teens and twenties. I slept under a couple of blankets and I was fine.

It seems foolish to try to heat the whole house with gas when all I need to heat is the actual space I occupy, and I can do that by just retaining my own body heat. I've got a furnace that runs at 98.6 degrees 24 hours a day. It's not very efficient, but it's free.

It's 30 outside right now and the wind chill is 18. All my critters are inside safe and warm, but I worry about all the other strays who have no place to stay warm.

Pee-noh Nwah

I have been drinking a little more than I usually do. I'm not getting falling-down slobbery maudlin drunk or anything even near that. But I have been getting a little more relaxed, a little more self-disclosing, a little more chatty than usual.

I don't keep many secrets on this blog, but I try not to barrage people face-to-face with all my baggage. But the wine (A to Z Pinot Noir, which currently seems nearly ubiquitous in local restaurants) loosens my tongue. In vino veritas, but that doesn't mean it's necessarily interesting or entertaining veritas.

It's interesting to me, of course — I used to say, in all sincerity, that I was the most interesting person I knew — but I know not everyone is riveted by my compelling first-person accounts.

And the sage says next to nothing, anyway. As Robert Thurman says, if you're not enlightened, at least try to act like you are. For me, that means, among other things, saying less and listening more.

Christmas Day, 2010

Everybody have a Christmas-y Day, or whatever.

Disappearing Blog

The author of the Clear Mind Zen blog has closed it to all but invited readers. I'll delete it from the permanent links when I get around to it.

Austerity

This is a little bleak for Christmas Eve, but I thought it was important to share anyway: The Three-Phase Austerity Plan for America

And, found via Digby, a related interview with journalist William Greider.

I take some issue with Greider's contention that journalists are over-educated or not doing enough to report what 'ordinary people' are thinking. This is how crazy tea party 'wisdom' finds its way into mainstream news narrative. Just because the 'common folk' are saying it doesn't mean it's right.

At the same time, it's obvious that the reporters and pundits whom Digby first named 'The Villagers' (after the isolated characters in M. Night Shyamalan's movie) report a set of locally-held assumptions as fact, and have become part of the political establishment, rather than watchdogs of it.

I personally don't see how this austerity program can survive without the government disenfranchising about a fourth of the electorate. I wonder how they plan to do it.

Cynicism and Negativity — Right Here

If you've been reading this blog for awhile, you may have detected a certain underlying stratum of negativity and cynicism.

I am, in fact, a fundamentally negative and cynical person. I suppose that is the result of my upbringing. I remember being criticized for my negativity as far back as high school, and I think there were instances of it before that whose specifics I've forgotten.

I have always been on the outside looking in, and mostly a loner. I have seldom been completely friendless, though. There are enough of us out here on the fringe because of our looks, religions, clothes, accents, values or family backgrounds that we can easily find each other.

I live in a city eager to pattern itself after the regional capital of shameless superficiality, Dallas. Even so, I have found an enclave of people who are on the fringe as I am, and I have a broad support group.

But I try to avoid being around people who share my negativity and cynicism. You'd think I would seek those people out, and for a long time I did, but now I find my own dreary personality is enough. When others are as negative as I am, it weighs me down. I need some cautiously optimistic people around me to keep me from sinking into utter black despair.

I have a certain admiration for people who can remain cheerful and motivated in the face of the bleak, utter pointlessness of the whole of human activity and existence.

But my reliance on these people to boost my own mood makes me, as I mentioned to Blogblah! on the phone the other night, an enthusiasm vampire. I draw enthusiasm out of other people because I have none of my own. And sometimes they back away from me because they sense the life force being drained from them.

Cynicism and negativity are the way my mind moves. My samsara. I am not seeking to be more cheerful — that would be just as errant as my current state — but I am trying to be more attitude-free.

Nothing I can say...

...a total eclipse of the moon.

A Christmas Message From Bill Maher

No way to embed this Facebook video. I hope you'll watch it, anyway.

A Christmas Message From Bill Maher

Profile Pic

This is what I look like now.

Sleep

Due to the untimely collapse of my bed (as described in a previous post), I am now back to sleeping on my old futon. This was in the living room or dining room for about eight years, and for four or five years, I slept on it regularly, because my 'real' bed was always covered in laundry and other detritus. (There was also a time it was literally covered wih cat shit, but that's a story for another time.)

During Ms. HRP's abortive remodel of the house, we cleared out the junk-filled back room, and I moved the futon back there. I actually considered ridding myself of it entirely, and now I'm glad I didn't.

While I'm waiting for a new bed frame to arrive, I've been sleeping on the futon here in the back bedroom. There is no stereo back here, and no 24/7 music of Tibetan bowls, sitar music, Japanese flute, etc. I also never allow the pets in here, so there's no cat or dog hair, and no covertly dropped turds behind the furniture.

I notice I am sleeping better. I have had a couple of actually pleasant dreams, as opposed to my usual overnight fare of tornados bearing down on me or TV newsrooms exploding in my face. I am guessing that the quiet, animal-free environment is helping with this.

In addition, I've been drinking two or more cups of rooibos tea in the evening before I retire, and I think that's helping as well.

It Is Your Mind That (Still) Moves

Two monks were arguing about the temple flag waving in the wind. "The flag moves," said one. The other said, "The wind moves." Hui-neng, the Sixth Ancestor, said, "Gentlemen! It is not the flag that moves, nor the wind that moves. It is your mind that moves."

It is your mind that moves.

"Oh, My. It's As Superficial As I Feared"

That's what my friend said when I showed her the pictures of what a relationship should be like. This is the same friend with whom I was discussing relationshiponal phenomena a couple of days ago.

"Well," I explained, "I'm not saying I literally want to date a twenty-something Stevie Nicks. I'm just saying she's sort of an archetype."

"Oh," my friend said. "I bet Joseph Campbell would love to hear that. Even if you did date someone like that, where would she wave all that stuff around? There's no room in your house for it."

"In the back yard, maybe. I don't know. We can work that out when the time comes."

Look, I know this is just fantasy. The time is never going to come. But I don't want or need a relationship that's just plodding along, going to the mall, unclogging the dishwasher, wandering around Lowe's, whatever. I can do that by myself. I would rather be alone.

Also:

Laraine Newman!

Just an archetype, of course.

Bailey

One thing I've learned about basset hounds after having had one for a year is that they are not particularly good indoor dogs. Still, I've grown very attached to Bailey. It seems like she's been here forever.

See?

This is what a relationship is supposed to be like.

Relationshiponal Phenomena

I had this germ of an idea for a post earlier in the week about relationship concepts. I decided against writing it, mainly because I've already said far more than I needed to say on the subject. Then, out of the clear blue, a friend brought up the very thing I decided not to write about.

I was talking about the whole willowy and ethereal thing, and she said, "Well, if you had a relationship with someone like you describe, what would it be like?"

"I guess I would stretch out on the wicker sofa on the porch, and she would just kind of float around me," I replied. "She'd be wearing long, floaty, gauzy stuff — you know, like Stevie Nicks used to wear — and the wind would be gently blowing her hair, like a shampoo commercial. And she'd be chanting mantras or something. 'Om mani padme hum,' or something like that."

"And then what?" my friend asked, laughing.

"I don't know," I said. "I haven't thought through all the details."

I understand that in real life, relationships don't work like that. In real life, you argue about money and whose turn it is to take out the trash. And some people want that, or they've been convinced by peer pressure that they're supposed to want it.

I still think about relationship stuff occasionally, but not as often as I used to. Not nearly as often. I can take out my own trash.

Las Cruces, NM

Sometimes I wake up in the middle of the night with a half-formed, and occasionally half-assed, idea. A couple of nights ago I decided that I could throw a few things in a bag and go to Las Cruces, NM to study Zen with a priest I've read about there. I would stay perhaps three or four months. I'd rent an efficiency apartment, sleep on the floor (which I did as a matter of practice for about ten years) and spend my days learning from this priest.

After all, I've got the time. There's no place else I need to be.

But, on the other hand, I'm not all that into Zen as an 'official' daily practice. I appreciate the concepts, but I don't care much for the process. Days of sitting, staring at the wall, don't appeal to me. (As I think about it, I don't care much for any process. Process bores the shit out of me.)

I asked some Facebook friends if they'd ever been to Las Cruces. It turned out several of them had. Opinions of the place were mixed. One said it was more 'authentic' than Santa Fe, but another — a Santa Fe resident — thought I would enjoy Santa Fe more. Of course, I wasn't looking for a tourist or recreation experience; I was hoping to get a better idea of what it's like to belong to a Zen community and have a flesh-and-blood Zen teacher.

Now that I've had a couple of days to think about it, I am probably not going to go to Las Cruces. I won't be cutting off my arm, like Bodhidharma's student Hui-Ko, to get the attention of a teacher.

But maybe I will go to Santa Fe. I have never met my Facebook friend, Joan, who lives there, and I would like to.

Google Friend Connect

I've added Google Friend Connect because — well, I don't know why. Just because I like gadgets, I guess.

This is not something you want to try with the limited web navigation features of an iPad. I'll clean it up later, when I'm at a real computer.

Proof, by the way, that the iPad is not a substitute for a laptop.

No passion, no story

A friend asked me this evening what my passion was as a child. I told her. (I'm not going to detail it here. It's not weird or especially unusual. I don't want to go off on that tangent, though.)

"Well," she asked, "what is your passion now?"

"I don't have one," I said.

She smiled. "You have to have a passion." She said it as if I were breaking some sort of rule by not having one.

"No, no passion."

"If you don't have a passion, what will be your story from this point on?"

"No story. No passion, no story."

I have learned not to talk much about my empty, passionless life. It tends to upset people.

In fact, I wonder why I keep getting asked about it. My impression is that most people rarely discuss this, if at all.

But: no passion, no story. Unless you count this blog.

Eek the cat bugs out

That was quick. She went back to the house down the street. What a strange cat.

The cat leaving is zen. Me deciding she's strange is samsara.

Eek Comes Home

Eek the cat has come home — if this house can be said to be her home. The last time she was here was in March or April, I think. She had been living at a house about four doors east of here.

I had the doors open Wednesday afternoon, and I assume she crept in then.

I can't tell by looking at her, but I'd guess Eek is pregnant again.

Collapsing Bed Update

The splintered side rail isn't fixable. I looked at some new bed frames online and at Dillard's and saw nothing that really appealed to me. I ended up buying a simple metal frame from Amazon. I may be able to attach the existing headboard and foot board to it.

Collapsing Bed

My wooden bed frame collapsed tonight. I bought this bed about 25 years ago. About three years later, the plank on one side split and the head end of the box spring and mattress fell to the floor. I was able to fix it, but the same plank has just split again, and I'm not sure it's fixable this time. I'll give it a shot with Gorilla Glue and see what happens.

I'm attached to this bed. It's the first piece of furniture I ever bought. As I recall, it cost a lot of money, although I don't remember what I spent. Beyond the sentimental attachment, I'm also averse to buying a new frame. I don't want to buy any more big stuff.

The Zen of the Farting Dog

When the dog farts, that is zen. When I form an opinion of the odor, that is not zen.

Diary of a Daoist Hermit

I have found a blog that I need to put in my permanent links list. (But not right now, OK?)

It's called "Diary of a Daoist Hermit." The author calls himself the Cloudwalking Owl. He writes from the Canadian city of Guelph.

A segment from a recent post:

Being frugal is a constant theme in Daoism. In a sense, Daoists were the first proponents of what we now call "voluntary simplicity". Their stories are full of anecdotes about fellows who were once wealthy and powerful who chucked it all away so they could move to the countryside to live in the equivalent of tar paper shacks and subsist on food from their garden and what they could gather from the forest.

The point wasn't the same as that of St. Francis of Assissi, who saw poverty as being intriniscally groovy and something you "offer up" to God. Instead, it was simply an attempt to cut out all the stuff that makes life annoying in order to hold onto the stuff that makes life worth living. So a Daoist wouldn't take any pleasure in being cold, dirty or hungry---like some Christian saints. But he would be happy to wear straw shoes he wove himself because the hassle involved in doing what you have to do in order to afford expensive leather boots wasn't worth the effort.

'You're a very strange man'

A few weeks ago I was trying to explain something to a friend about freeing oneself from concepts, and experiencing directly without labels, thoughts or opinions. Or maybe I was complaining about the cat shitting behind the furniture — I don't remember. She looked at me and said, "You know, you're a very strange man."

Well, I did know, but it's good to have some independent confirmation.

Melancholy music

I am prone to being depressed by certain pieces of music. This is different from the depression I usually experience. In fact, it may be wrong to call it depression. It comes very quickly, is often much more severe, but lifts quickly — usually in an hour or two.

I recently bought an album by a popular singer of mantras. One of the songs induces this sudden melancholy I'm talking about. That song came up in the iTunes rotation this afternoon, and it hit me this time like a freight train. The lyrics are in Sanskrit or Pali; I have no idea what they mean. It is the melody alone that evokes the reaction. I could have slashed my wrists right then and there, and that's only a mild exaggeration.

I decided to go for a walk to shake off the feeling. It was cloudy, chilly and windy. The walk didn't help much.

Later, I called a friend who sat with me for ninety minutes or so until I recovered.

I have taken the song off my iTunes playlist. I won't listen to it again.

Stuff I quit reading

Stuff I quit reading:

Americablog
Regretsy
Lamebook
People of Wal-Mart
Damn Interesting
Look at this Fucking Hipster
Gizmodo
Engadget

Stuff I'm reading less of:

Firedoglake
Crooks and Liars
BoingBoing

I've just gotten to where I can't take any more.

I'm still reading io9, Slashfilm and Talking Points Memo. I look briefly at HuffPo, picking out news items from amidst all the gossip about 'celebrities' I've never heard of. And, though I'm ashamed to admit it, I read Gawker pretty regularly now.

I am listening to a lot more dharma talk podcasts from iTunes. There are hundreds available. They don't boost my cynicism or my blood pressure. And I feel like I'm getting something with some substance to it, instead of the daily outrage.

How Will It Happen?

I wonder from time to time how I will die. Car wreck? Stroke? Slow, wasting disease? With my history of high blood pressure, stroke is a likely candidate.

Being alive isn't a bad thing. But, as I've written before, it's an exercise in pointlessness. We pop into this world, stir up some shit that doesn't last, maybe do some good that doesn't last, and if we're really important, leave behind a monument that perhaps becomes a tourist attraction, but ultimately doesn't last. The whole history of mankind is nothing but the blink of an eye.

Enjoy it while you can, I guess, but it's no big deal. As I've said before, I feel like I'm stuck in an airline terminal, wandering around between flights. Yawn.

Depression cycle

I think the depression cycle is kicking in again. I'm not sleeping well and am sleeping later in the day. I'm also going to bed earlier. I've stopped walking every day. I'm engaging in behavior I normally avoid (see previous posts). Oh, well... so it goes.

DharmaMatch.com

I decided to explore dharmamatch.com. Although the name implies a Buddhist slant, in my Bible Belt city it seems to be full of wiccans and pagans. One had written her profile in what I suppose she imagined to be Middle English, with lots of random double consonants and superfluous trailing 'e's on words, to make herself sound more wiccan-y: "Alle haille and metes unto thee. I am ane Ordained Highe Priestess of Wicca, authorised to somethinge or othere somethinge or othere unto somethinge or othere. Aye, ande so be it."

Well, fine. I hope that works out for ya, Chaucer.

I'm just going to stay home with Ye Olde Fartinge Dogge.

Things are exactly as they are

I did something a little unusual for me a while back. I invited a female acquaintance to have dinner with me at a future date. It's the first time I've 'asked someone out' in about three years — maybe four. She agreed, and I told her I would email her to arrange a date/time.

A couple of hours later, though, I was asking myself, 'Why did I do that?' And I still don't have an answer. I decided I would just follow through as promised. All I had committed to was dinner, and that would be pleasant and completely harmless.

So, 48 hours later, I emailed her. She never replied. I was simultaneously annoyed and relieved.

There was a time being ignored like that would have completely freaked me out, even though in my dating experience, the 'now I'm interested, now I'm not' thing happened more often than not. I would have spent weeks analyzing it. I still don't understand it, but I barely care anymore. I recognize that it's a part of human nature. And in this case, not all that different from my own ambivalence.

If you understand, the Zen proverb says, things are exactly as they are. And if you don't understand, things are exactly as they are.

My Farting Dog

Sometime in the wee hours of Thanksgiving morning, my dog farted the most noxious, eye-watering fart that has ever been farted by man or beast. I mean, you could taste this thing hovering in the air of the bedroom. If the lights had been on, I might have been able to see it, too.

I thought I was going to have to get up and move to the back bedroom. Nothing like this has ever existed before, I'm sure, and probably never will again. I don't know how she did it.

Art Show

I think I tripped over an installation piece at a gallery the other night. Or it may have just been some loose packing stuff on the floor. Hard to tell.

Air Travel

I have been following — as strictly an observer, thankfully — the controversy over airport body scanners and body searches. I don't know why anyone flies at all. The fear level has been gradually inched upward since the first hijackings of the sixties. It's astonishing to me what passengers put up with. I was especially amused/repelled by the reports of hand searching for weapons in rolls of body fat — the perfect storm of fear and fast food.

Do people not see that this whole process has become insane?

Now we're all supposed to be terrified of 'crotch bombers'. As soon as we get used to that, we'll be subjected to a wave of fear over 'ass bombers', and the airport security industry will be lobbying TSA to buy and use anal probes on everyone.

I haven't been on a commercial airline since about 2000. God willing, I'll never be on another one.

The citizens of an enlightened state, a Taoist master wrote, never leave the borders of their homeland. All of their needs are met right there.

This presumes, of course, that their needs are actually their needs, and not a lot of horseshit cranked up by the advertising and marketing people.

I live in a medium-sized city. Like most medium-sized cities, it's desperate to grow itself into a huge city, so it can get even more marketing-driven horseshit. Personally, I would prefer to live in an even smaller city. I don't care if there is no Anthropologie, Urban Outfitters or whatever. As long as it had plenty of trees and a couple of good coffee shops and restaurants, I could live in BF, Egypt.

And if it didn't have an airport, that would be fine, too.

Happy Birthday

Today is the fifth anniversary of this blog.

Saturday night

"A Buddha is a person who has no more business to do and isn't looking for anything. In doing nothing, in simply stopping, we can live freely and true to ourselves and our liberation will contribute to the liberation of all beings."

— Thich Nhat Hanh

Dog Toys

I occasionally let a friend leave her dog here when she travels. During a visit a couple of months ago, she left a squeaking dog toy here, and my dog Bailey fell in love with it. I mean, it's not the deep level of profound love you'd experience at a meditation retreat, but she's still pretty fond of it. I bought her a toy of her own — a squeaking hedgehog — and she likes it, too.

I have never before had a dog that cared anything about toys.

It Is Your Mind That Moves

There's a famous old zen story about two monks watching a flag blowing in the wind.

"It's the flag that moves," one monk said.

"It's the wind that moves," the other argued.

The abbott came walking by. "It's your mind that moves," he told them.

When I obsess about some woman from years past, it's my mind that moves. When I work myself into a rage over the state of the nation, it's my mind that moves. When I fret about my lack of productivity, it's my mind that moves.

More on Being Productive

what counts as "productive"? do you count all the work you've done improving your house and back yard and garage as unproductive? is blogging unproductive? is cleaning out all the crap from your house unproductive? is reading and improving your understanding of the world around you unproductive? is having friendships you nurture unproductive? I have a problem with the premise, obviously.

Blogblah! raises some valid points in his comment to my 'Boredom' post. I don't consider the work I've done on the house unproductive, but I was thinking in terms of things I've done myself, as opposed to things I've paid to have done.

House cleaning and decluttering is productive, but I think of that as more in the realm of regular maintenance.

But John is correct, I think, in suggesting that my philosophical pursuits have been productive, and that my friendships have been productive. I think I've been a better friend in the past few years than I've been during most of my life.

I have many friends who produce tangible, creative things. Sculptures. Paintings. Textiles. Songs. I was basically lamenting in my previous post that although I also have the ability to produce tangible, creative things, I have no motivation to do it. Over the past few years, my motivation has gone from 'low' to 'zero'.

Boredom

It occurred to me Tuesday that I have not done a single productive thing, other than routine maintenance, in about two-and-a-half years. I guess you could classify last year's Tennessee trip as a productive thing, in the sense that it wasn't just another day of me eating and sleeping around the house, but that's the only thing.

I don't feel guilty about it at all, but I do have this sudden feeling of unease, or something like it.

I don't want to die, but living is boring. I feel like I'm stuck at the airport for a layover, twiddling my thumbs until the next leg of my journey — which probably is death. I know that finding stuff to do, whether it's a hobby or public service or something else, isn't going to change that. One of the frequent themes of this blog has been that most of us find life meaningless and boring, and we anesthetize ourselves to that with an extraordinary array of distractions, from TV and movies to video games to porn to extreme sports. I have seen through that, though, and entertainment generally holds no attraction for me. Obviously some people get all the fulfillment they need from Dancing With the Stars or whatever, but that doesn't get it done for me.

I have a couple of friends who have been trying to persuade me or pressure me to create art again. It's not working.

The deficit

I try to avoid writing about politics, as you know if you've been following this blog awhile.

But I have to ask, does anyone really think we're going to reduce the deficit? I don't. I think that what will happen, if anything, is that we will temporarily reduce the deficit by cutting services to citizens (what are often called 'entitlements'), then find some reason to run it up again in a way that will principally benefit the Masters of the Universe on Wall Street and elsewhere. We'll invade Iran, or Venezuela, or some other place.

I personally believe the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan have dragged on so long because so much money is being made off them by defense contractors.

Taoism is rather anti-political. The ancient masters lived in an era when China was divided into constantly warring kingdoms, and the price of failure at court was often death. The Taoists stayed in small towns and rural areas, and let the Confucianists go to the big cities and get beheaded for their trouble.

To amplify my previous post...

I'm just trying to observe what is happening within these thoughts. Sometimes – not all the time, but just sometimes – I wish I were not alone.

There is no practical, real-world solution to this. It would require some sort of genie who popped out of the bottle when I was feeling lonely, which happens once or twice a week, and then only during certain times of the year, and left me alone the rest of the time.

One of the hangups in my last relationship, several years ago, was that she wanted a lot more of my time than I wanted to give. She wanted me there every day, in fact, and I just couldn't do it.

So I don't see my relationship status changing.

Again, trying to observe the thoughts, regarding them with the same detachment I would have for the sound of a car going by outside.

I do find my thoughts drifting toward Ms. Willowy and Ethereal often. Too often, a couple of my friends have hinted. But this is not the same thing as the loneliness, and I can see that whatever is driving this interest has more to do with ego or some other unresolved personal issue than actual romantic intent. I don't think about either of my two former post-marriage relationships nearly as much as I do Ms. W&E.

An interesting contrast there: in one case, I haven't seen the woman in ten years, and will be perfectly content to never see her again. In the other case, we remained friends after we broke up. I was even a guest at her wedding. Then she abruptly sort of cut me off, for no apparent reason, and I was content to let that happen. So why do I stay so focused on Ms. W&E?

She's kind of like whack-a-mole. She pops up suddenly, stays in contact for a week or ten days, then suddenly disappears again, ignoring emails and phone messages. Then, a month or a year later, she pops up again for a few days, then drops out again. Our mutual friends tell me this has been her behavior for years.

In some respects, I am the same way. I'll report for duty every morning at the coffee shop for a few months. Then I'll suddenly hit my saturation point, and I'll stay away for a few weeks or longer.

Fall

"I think fall is the worst time of year to be alone."

There are at least a couple of man-made concepts there to which one can be attached, if one chooses.

Or if one is unsuccessful in releasing them.

Which I am.

Vipassana Romance

This NYT article about 'Vipassana Romance' has gotten a lot of attention in the Buddhist blogosphere this week.

I've read other articles about 'falling in love' during meditation retreats. There's often some accompanying reader comment about how group meditation 'makes our hearts open to possibilities in the eternal now' and blah and blah.

No one ever seems to notice that this isn't romance — it's just infatuation.

"His wrist peeped out of the sleeve, endearingly bony and frail." I mean, really — Jesus Christ.

Speaking of whom, Southern Baptists do the same thing. They'll quote I Corinthians 13 while banging each other in the back of the choir bus, and reassure themselves it's a profound spiritual experience they're having.

I guess what bugs me most about this is people who get involved with allegedly spiritual pursuits, when actually they're just looking for hookups.

The iPhone-controlled helicopter

I mentioned my iPhone-controlled helicopter in the previous post. Fascinating gadget. It really does fly, and it streams low-res video back to your iPhone as it flies.

It was entertaining for about an hour, but then what?

Tea

During an afternoon of bored wandering at the mall, I was lured into a gourmet tea store by a very pleasant and knowledgeable sales person who was offering free samples at the door. I walked out with about $600 worth of tea pots, tea cups, tea accessories and, of course, tea.

The store has about 200 types of loose-leaf teas, and most look more like potpourri than typical grocery store tea.

Well, the cups and tea pots are great for show, but I ended up ordering an electric water heater from Amazon that's a lot more practical. It keeps a small amount of water tea-steeping hot 24/7, so it's always there when you want it.

And I'm now drinking about four cups of organic low-caffeine or caffeine-free tea a day at home.

I buy a lot of stuff that looks interesting at first glance but turns out to not have much practical use — my iPhone-controlled helicopter, for instance. But the tea and the electric heater look like they'll permanently change my daily routine.

Books

Well, I got bogged down in The Electric Kool-Aid Acid Test. It was too easy to imagine myself being in the midst of the Merry Pranksters, and not liking it one damn bit. Tom Wolfe's graphic description of the first leg of their New York trip, traveling across the hot, humid south in the old bus, almost made me physically nauseated. (The same thing happened with Fear and Loathing in Las Vegas.) I could imagine sitting in that hot, cramped old bus barreling on with a speed freak at the wheel, and wanting desperately to be someplace a lot more sane. If I'd been a sixties acid head, I would certainly have been more of a Mill Brook acid head and less of a 'on the bus' acid head.

I have had some other books recommended to me, one by the Jungian analyst Robert Johnson and one by Rollo May. I'll report back when I've read them.

Saii

We had dinner the other night at a place in the northwest part of the city called Saii. I had eaten there once before, years ago, but it's the kind of place that, for whatever reason, doesn't stick in my memory.

But it's an interesting place. It's one of those very dark, modern Asian fusion/sushi places. I don't know of any other place quite like it here. It reminds you of one of those bars Bill Murray and Scarlett Johanssen visited in Lost in Translation. You feel like you could be somewhere three thousand miles from the Bible belt.

The only drawback is that at the end of the evening, after you've been surrounded by bottom-lit bead curtains, dimly-illuminated statues and soft 'buddha lounge' jazz, you walk out the front door and bam! you're back in a strip mall on North May Avenue.

Out on the town

I went to an art opening last night, and from there went to VZD's, where I ran into a couple of old friends. Had a pretty good time all the way 'round, had a little too much to drink, but was still home by 9:30.

And when I got home, I was exhausted. I wasn't physically tired, but mentally, emotionally and perhaps psychically, I was drained. I found myself thinking I could have stayed home and read a book and would have had just as pleasant an evening.

Green autumn

Blogblah! raises the question, via Twitter, of whether the grass in our city has ever been this green this late in the year. I don't know the answer to that. I do remember that on Christmas Day 1979, the afternoon high here was 71.

I went out to a restaurant on the lake last night with Flibbertigibbet and spent a couple of hours there watching the sun set. It got a bit chilly after sunset.

I thought the East Wharf development was a good idea as originally proposed and was very disappointed with the final product — especially the addition of the office building. I thought the whole thing was overdone. But sitting out there last night, I decided that what's needed now is more development — houseboats, for example. I think there are good reasons why houseboats aren't allowed out there. But it would be cool to sit by the lake at night and watch the boats rocking gently at their moorings on a pier or two.

And pretty cool to live there!

A Dead Cat

One of the neighborhood cats was killed by a car this evening. It was a black shorthair that lived on the next block over. I saw him almost every day on the way to the Red Cup. In fact, I saw him this afternoon, galloping across the street. I don't know most of my neighbors, but I feel like I know their cats.

I'm a little upset by it.

Depression

...chapter 107 or whatever.

Finally broke out of it a couple of weeks ago, after spending the whole summer holed up in the house. But now it's coming back, and I can feel it coming on like a cold.

I'm sleeping a little bit later every day. I'm more acutely aware of past failures and current shortcomings. I'm feeling alone again, but wanting to disengage from people nonetheless.

More reading.

After finishing "The Harvard Psychedelic Club", I decided to bookend that with "The Electric Kool-Aid Acid Test", which I had somehow managed to avoid reading all these years. (I am not nearly as well-read as some people think I am.)

Did you know Ken Kesey wrote "One Flew Over The Cuckoo's Nest" when he was 24 years old?

Still No Teacher

I watched a somewhat unsettling YouTube video the other day pertaining to Zen. In the tape, a young self-styled 'punk' Zen master 'debates' a sock puppet who represents an older, well-established (and apparently quite commercialized) Zen master. The video is followed by dozens of heated comments by supporters of both masters.

Maybe you've seen it. I'm not going into all the details, nor am I going to link to it. I have no desire to spread the antagonism.

I only want to say that this is the kind of thing that reinforces my continuing desire to have no teacher at all.

One of the great disillusions I suffered as a fundamentalist Christian 40-odd years ago was the discovery that many (or most) of the people I looked to as spiritual leaders were not much more than actors. They would have been just as comfortable being siding salesmen, and probably every bit as sincere.

I read about some of the stuff that goes on in Buddhist temples and organizations, and I suspect the same truth applies there.

One of the things I like about the lecturer and philosopher Alan Watts is that he frequently prefaced his presentations with the admonition that he was not a guru and not seeking followers.

"I am not advocating zen buddhism," he once told an audience. "I am not trying to convert anyone to it. I have nothing to sell. I’m an entertainer. That is to say, in the same sense, that when you go to a concert and you listen to someone play Mozart, he has nothing to sell except the sound of the music. He doesn’t want to convert you to anything. He doesn’t want you to join an organization in favor of Mozart’s music as opposed to, say, Beethoven’s."

I am near the conclusion that anyone who wants to set himself up as a leader or authority over other people – even in a democracy like ours – ought to be automatically disqualified from doing it. The very act of seeking the position suggests the person is too much of a narcissist, egomaniac or control freak to be any good at it.

Saturday Update

I guess I'm about ten days back into my normal schedule. I'm up early and usually off to the Red Cup to visit.

I tried drinking coffee again. You may recall I gave up caffeine a few years ago to calm my stomach. I tried limiting myself to one cup in the morning, but I was soon back to stomach cramps and EAS by late afternoon. So it's tap water for me from now on.

After the Red Cup, I generally go somewhere for breakfast. My appetite has unfortunately returned to normal. After breakfast, I often go for a walk.

Then I head back home, and may eat lunch around 1.

I spend a lot of time visiting and hanging out with my friends Diane and Kathryn. And I occasionally make it to Wednesday or Friday group dinner.

I have to say there are some advantages to being depressed.I find that when I'm depressed, I'm less prone to amusing myself by going for shopping for stuff I don't actually need. (And at this stage, 'don't actually need' encompasses pretty much everything. I could get by with never shopping again, except for groceries.)

This probably seems counter-intuitive, but I feel less lonely when I'm depressed. During my depression, I'm content to just stay in bed and sleep all day. It's when the depression has lifted, and I'm in the mood for a road trip or a movie, that I'm most likely to wish I had some sort of significant other with which to share the experience.

Another thing that's counter-intuitive: I'm less likely to drink when I'm depressed.

I'm continuing to immerse myself in the recorded lectures of Alan Watts.

Random Notes

Ordered a book called "The Harvard Psychedelic Club" last week after hearing its author interviewed on public radio's "New Dimensions" last Sunday. The book is a popular history of the psychedelic drug experiments performed by Harvard professors Timothy Leary and Richard Alpert in the early sixties, and what happened to them and their associates after that. It was a fascinating book; I read it in one sitting.

It also led to some other books I am now working my way through. I'll write more on those later.

I'm also listening to a new (to me) collection of Alan Watts lectures released as "You're It: On Hiding, Seeking and Being Found" on the Sounds True label. I don't understand the impact Watts' recorded lectures have on me. I don't have a word to describe it. I would recommend his lectures to anyone suffering stress or anxiety. It's not just the subject matter, which is, of course, what first interested me. Watts could be reading the phone directory aloud and I would still get a sense of ease and relaxation from listening.

Watts, incidentally, was peripherally involved at the outset of the Leary/Alpert experiments at Harvard, at least according to the book. That must have been an interesting time in which to have lived. I was 10 years old when Leary and Alpert left Harvard.

My sleep cycle is now back to normal. I'm going to bed between nine and ten pm, sleeping fitfully, as I have for years. I wake up between 6:30 and 7:30 am. Some days I'll have a midday nap.

I started drinking coffee again recently, but that will have to stop. I didn't drink coffee until I was in my twenties, and I've always taken it black. I first stopped about four years ago. Coffee still screws up my stomach, I've found, so I'm going to swear off again.

Saturday

More to come...

Judge not

A friend told me the other day that I was the most judgemental person she knew.

That may be an exaggeration. But it's true I've often been an overly critical person. I've really struggled with it over the past ten years or so, with only middling results. I did pretty well with it for awhile, but lately I've been worse about it.

October is here

...thank God. Just saw a flock of ducks heading east, for whatever reason.

I seem to have my sleep cycle back to normal. I still wake up at night, but I just roll over and go back to sleep. I don't end up at IHOP or Beverly's.

I've gone walking three days in a row, now that the heat is no longer stifling.

I'm eating breakfast and lunch, but still skipping dinner.

Still adrift

Sleep an hour, up two hours. Sleep three hours, up five hours. Sleep two hours, up three hours. Repeat.

Early Sunday morning. It is Sunday, isn't it?

Not that I care.

I'm sitting in the Classen Blvd IHOP at 2:05 AM. The place is packed. I wonder if it's like this every night or if this is a weekend phenomenon. Either way, the place is a lot busier than Beverly's usually is.

Needless to say, my sleep cycle is still upside down. But over the past few days, I've started to not care. My daily life is about the same if I'm awake during the day or awake during the night.

I've ordered a breakfast T-bone and scrambled eggs. That's about a million calories, but it's probably the only thing I'll eat today. I'm down to eating once a day.

I realized I'm tired of food. Tired of looking at it, tired of smelling it, tired of eating it. I've eaten every kind of food I care to try; I seek no new culinary experience. Now it's just some biomass to shove in my maw to keep my meatbag producing shit, piss, sweat, pus, puke, dandruff, etc.

Damn, this is a big steak.

Man, there are a lot of posts here about sleeping

...and this is another one. I'm not sleeping as much as I was before I quit taking the allergy medicine, and when I'm awake, I'm more like my normal self. But I'm still sleeping strange hours. I went to bed at 9:30ish Sunday night after a fairly normal day. I felt sleepy, and I thought I'd fall asleep right away. But as soon as I got settled into bed, I was wide awake. I had brought Bailey in, and she was restless, too.

I finally got up about 3 AM and went to Beverly's and ate. Then I came home, and finally got to sleep about 5 Monday mornng. I slept soundly until 11:30 AM. I got up and went to lunch with a friend. Sleepy again, I came home and dozed lightly until about 2 in the afternoon.

I went to bed at 10 PM, slept about ninety minutes, then woke up again.

And here I am. I guess Tuesday will be more of the same.

Guess it was the allergy medicine

I skipped my evening dose of Zyrtec last night and felt like a new person today.

Zyrtec is the best thing I've ever taken for allergies. Typically in September, I'm sneezing and coughing all day, every day. Some days, my eyes are swollen almost shut. Zyrtec gave me more relief from the symptoms than anything I've ever used. I've gone through my allergy season this September with almost no symptoms at all.

The down side is that I've been sleeping sometimes 20 hours a day, and when I've been awake, it's been like looking at the world through two inches of glass. I suppose that could be just coincidence, but today was the first 'normal' day I've had in weeks – months, maybe.

The question now is whether I'll have a return of allergy symptoms. If I do, I guess I'll go back to taking Zyrtec on a limited basis. But I'm pretty sure I won't be taking it every day again.

It feels good to be back in what passes for reality.

Yawn

Went back to sleep about 4:30 am. Woke up about 9:30, looked around the Very Dark Room, and decided to go back to sleep. Slept soundly until noon. Woke up, looked around the Very Dark Room, and decided to go back to sleep. Woke up about 4, got out of bed about 6, went to dinner with DianeC, and now I'm back in bed, trying to stay awake long enough to finish this.

I'm wondering now if my allergy medicine is contributing to this.

More on sleeping

Staying awake is still the biggest struggle of my day. I'm getting up at a fairly normal hour now, but I'm often groggy and a bit disoriented. I stay up through lunch, then go home and go back to sleep. I usually sleep very soundly until 2 pm to 3 pm, then get up again. Thursday, I went back to bed at about 10 pm, and woke up again right at midnight. It's early Friday morning as I write this.

I wrote a few months ago about my One Productive Task goal, in which I would simply try to do one prductive task each day. I haven't kept that up for weeks now. On the other hand, since I'm asleep all the time, I don't have much opportunity to mess the place up.

Awake

Well, on Sunday I got up at 3 pm and ate something, then went back to bed and didn't get up again until 7 pm. That's when I was actually 'up'.

Today, though, I was up at 10:30 am — pretty good for me — and actually spent most of the day awake and doing stuff. That's a step forward.

About That Quote

dzaster asks why I posted that quote about priorities and options. I think it sums up a lesson which I learned too late in life to do me much good, but which might be beneficial to others.

It's easy to overcommit. Well, for some of us, anyway. Easy to overcommit in a new romantic relationship, easy to overcommit to a job or an employer. Easy to overcommit in a variety of ways.

When an employer talks about welcoming you to the "Fahrquahr Humate Corporation family," that's usually bullshit. It's not a family, it's a business. They would like for you to think it's a family, and make your job a priority. But unless you can make humate fly out of your ass, you are probably just an option to them. There's an imbalance in the relationship, which will become more clear if there's a sudden glut in the humate market.

I don't think I need to go into the issues of a romantic relationship. Let's just say it happens, sometimes because one partner encourages the other to overcommit, and sometimes because one partner is just prone to overcommitting.

The bottom line is, make sure your relationships are balanced.

A Pleasant Walk

I'm feeling a lot better tonight than I have for most of the summer.

I ate a late lunch with a friend at an Italian restaurant downtown. This restaurant is only about five minutes from my house, but I tend to think of it as outside my 'bubble.' I haven't eaten there in four years or more.

After we ate, I took my friend on a walking tour of downtown. She was planning to see an event in the Kerr Auditorium later in the evening, but she didn't know where it was, so I walked her over there. I suspect most people don't even know we have a Kerr Auditorium; it's part of the old Kerr-McGee complex now owned by Sandridge Energy. I don't think I've been in it since the eighties.

We spent about thirty minutes walking around downtown, and afterward, I felt as close to normal as I've felt in weeks. I guess I really needed to spend some time outdoors.

Somebody's words of wisdom

"Never allow someone to be your priority while you're just their option."

— origin unknown

Another day

Turning and turning in the widening gyre
The falcon cannot hear the falconer;
Things fall apart; the centre cannot hold;
Mere anarchy is loosed upon the world,
The blood-dimmed tide is loosed, and everywhere
The ceremony of innocence is drowned;
The best lack all conviction, while the worst
Are full of passionate intensity.

— Yeats, or Gerry Rafferty, or somebody

Sleep/no sleep

I went to bed about 11 last night, which I thought was a reasonable hour. I was awake again by about 2:30 this morning. I don't know what time I got back to sleep — sometime after 3:29 am, obviously.

I woke up again about 6:45 am. I thought it was too early to get up, so I went back to sleep, thinking I'd be awake again in an hour. Instead, I woke up about noon, too groggy to even think. I went back to sleep, and awakened again at 3:45 pm, feeling rested for the first time.

Now, it's 8:45 pm, and I feel like I could go back to sleep right now.

Needless to say, I'm failing in my effort to get back on a regular sleep cycle. I wonder if this could be caused by something other than depression.

Ring of Fire

Here's a story I meant to post a few days ago. It's from the web site io9.com:

Ring of fire forms around a new supernova

"A 6-trillion-mile-wide ring of gas encircles a supernova in the Large Magellanic Cloud, Supernova 1987A, and the explosions from the supernova are lighting it up like a candle, creating what will become a glowing ring."

Six trillion miles. Another example of how the scale of cosmic events is simply beyond comprehension. And relatively speaking, this is just a tiny thing.

Sleep

The most pressing issue for me right now is getting my internal clock back on a normal schedule — getting up at 7 am, maybe, and going to bed at 10:30 pm. I think my depression is being made worse by my bad sleep habits.

I made myself go to bed at 10:30 last night, and actually fell asleep rather quickly. But I woke up around 2, and didn't get to sleep again until about 5. I woke up again at 7:30, and made myself get up. Drove to the Red Cup, but it was closed for Labor Day, so I went on to Jimmy's Egg and had breakfast.

I felt sleepy by the time I got home, so I decided to lie down for an hour or so. Instead, I slept soundly until almost 1 pm.

And now it's about 11 pm, and I'm about to try again to force myself to go to sleep. I don't know what it's going to take to get my sleeping back to normal.

Calmer today than yesterday

I've been reading dzaster's advice in response to yesterday's early morning most, "Another Cheery Saturday". I don't think I'm giving away too much personal information by saying that dzaster moved from Oklahoma to another sunbelt state a few months ago, and has found the change significantly improved her sense of well-being.

I've considered the same thing, but I won't do it. I have too strong a financial incentive to remain here. And, while I have some sense of the kind of place where I'd like to live, I don't know if such a place actually exists.

Back in the early seventies, when I was a fundamentalist Christian, we were urged to separate ourselves, at least emotionally and philosophically, from the world. Of course, it was mostly bullshit; the church fathers doing the urging were no more separated from the world than any average consumer. It was salutary for everyone else, they insisted, but they were all so spiritually mature they no longer needed to deny themselves. Now we have this so-called 'prosperity gospel', and its New Age equivalent The Secret, and it's actually considered spiritual to wallow in material wealth and consumerism.

Meanwhile, I've drifted closer and closer to being detached from the world. I didn't do it on purpose. I wasn't pulled in this direction by the need for spiritual growth so much as I was pushed in this direction by boredom and frustration. When I was a Bible thumper, I struggled with this — unlike my pastors and Sunday school teachers, I took it seriously. But now it seems to have happened on its own, gradually over the years, with no prodding from the outside. I just looked at one thing after another, and said to myself, "Well, this is crap," and eliminated it from my life. This is my take on planet earth in general. Where would I move that would change this? I'd still be on this same speck of dust surrounded by people stirring up shit for no good reason.

I still have more material possessions than any human being needs. I get pleasure from music I've accumulated, but I think I could do without the rest of it now.

But being where I am doesn't make me feel more spiritual. I don't feel closer to God. I just feel farther away from crazy.

Sunday

What I need is a nanny.

Another Cheery Saturday

I have at least three friends who are suffering depression severe enough to disrupt their lives. One has moments of sadness, and sees herself becoming less organized and motivated. Two others are afflicted with panic and anxiety attacks that disrupt sleep. One of them talks of occasionally being suicidal.

I wonder what the hell is the matter with all of us.

I have had the panic and anxiety attacks, but it's been 25 years ago, and the direct result of working for an absolutely insane company. I've had the suicidal tendencies, but that's been about 12 years ago. At the moment, I don't feel sad, I don't feel anxious or panicked, and I don't feel suicidal. But I feel zero enthusiasm for anything. I just absolutely do not give a shit.

Human beings are, for the most part, greedy, self-serving idiots. And it's the greediest, the most self-serving, and the most idiotic who end up running things. Did you watch that clip of Arizona's Governor Brewer trying to make an opening statement in a debate? Just tell us what you think, Governor. Blank stare for ten seconds. And then something like, "We're proud of what we've did." The Sarah Palin School of Communications. And she's leading by 19 points.

We are doomed, doomed, fucking doomed. We're cretins. But we're also just a bunch of microbes screwing things up on one little speck of dirt in one little galaxy. About the only pleasure I get out of life these days is knowing that the universe is so immense that we'll never be able to pave the whole thing and put strip malls on it. We won't be able to pollute all of it or spill oil all over it. We'll never get to kill the people on other planets who are different colors than us or who don't believe in the same all-powerful invisible beings we do.

And then there's this: Mass Extinction Threat: Earth on Verge of Huge Reset Button?

But if we're publishing news stories with sentences like...

"Looking back in time, the diversity of large taxonomic groups (which include lots of species), such as snails or corals, mostly hovered around a certain equilibrium point that represented a diversity limit of species' numbers."

...then we deserve to die.

Shit.

I wish I felt better.

Autopilot

Went to bed at 8:30 last night. Woke up at 11:30. Met up with Blogblah! at Beverly's from midnight to 2 am, drinking decaf and talking about life. Then, back home and back to bed. Up at ten-ish. Breakfast at the Egg on May. Then back in bed. Slept until three-ish. Got up, joined a couple of friends at Will's, then we went to Diego's for dinner. Came home, rolled trash cans out to the curb. Now back in bed.

My life has been on some sort of autopilot for about three months now.

More shooting

A police officer trying to take in a drunk driver was shot and wounded by the driver's wife and sons last night. This happened about six blocks from where I saw the shots fired last Tuesday. Probably coincidence.

The Latest Update

Well, there's just nothing.

A Little Neighborhood Diversion

Somebody shot at me tonight. Or at least in my general direction.

I was traveling west on a neighborhood street, stopped at a light, waiting to turn north onto a major artery. A car came from the north, had the light, and turned east — toward me.

Then, three shots — BAM, BAM, BAM. I saw the muzzle flash from the third one, coming from the back seat. The car kept on going.

It took a couple of seconds to soak in. I looked around — there were no other cars on the street, nor pedestrians.

Something to break the tedium, I guess.

Two years without even a doodle

It occurred to me over the weekend that I have not done any art — not even random doodling in a notepad — in more than two years. The only exception to that has been two half-hearted attempts at starting paintings last fall.

I have never been productive as an artist. I was at my most prolific in high school and college, but I tapered off after that. I had a burst of output when I was doing it for a living for a few years, but after that, nothing.

This mildly disturbs me. But I'm not so bothered by it that I want to jump up and run to the easel.

Momentarily You

“Matter flows from place to place, and momentarily comes together to be you. Some people find that thought disturbing. I find the reality thrilling.”

— Richard Dawkins

I don't find it thrilling or disturbing. I find it to be... well, this.

The Front Porch

The front porch looks terrible. I have more stuff piled on the porch than some people have in their houses. Almost all of it is stuff that needs to be given away or tossed. Most of it is under a brown tarp that's almost the same color as the house, so it's not too visible from the street.

It's too hot to go out there and mess with it, though.

See ya around, Kos.

After weeks or months of threatening to cut myself off from political blogs, I finally did it this week. 72 hours of not looking at my usual list of left/progressive blogs, and the difference in my attitude is noticeable — at least to me. I don't feel like I'm missing anything, and I'm not making myself angry about the stuff I would be reading.

Frankly, I don't give a damn about what outrageous thing Michele Bachmann or Glenn Beck or Sarah Palin said today. Those folks' stock in trade is asinine statements. The real news would be if they shut up for awhile. Too much of liberal blogging now consists of simply reacting with outrage to some inane remark made by right-wing professional blatherers. Reporting that Palin said something stupid is like reporting "Bozo the Clown's nose was red again today."

Ignorance really is bliss, at least in this context.

I need to update my blog list on the right. Some of those blogs haven't been updated in months. And there are others I've begun reading.

Later and later

I ate dinner at 1:30 a.m. yesterday. Or, more accurately, I ate yesterday's dinner at 1:30 this morning. I'm sleeping later and later, and getting up later and later.

I received a curious email from a friend yesterday. I can only paraphrase it, because I don't have it in front of me. The gist of it was that she didn't think I could go much longer without some sort of challenge, and that everyone seemed to see this but me.

I don't have a craving for any challenges. My challege is to go through every day without any crazy shit happening to me, and without causing any crazy shit myself. I think that's challenge enough.

Rorschach

"What was once called the objective world is a sort of Rorschach ink blot, into which each culture, each system of science and religion, each type of personality, reads a meaning only remotely derived from the shape and color of the blot itself." 

— Lewis Mumford, "Orientation to Life," The Conduct of Life

Poli-blog blackout

Decided I needed a break from political blog surfing. I've gone 48 hours without reading Kos, FDL, C&L, HuffPo or anything else political. I feel better already.

Human Understanding

‎"The human understanding is like a false mirror, which, receiving rays irregularly, distorts and discolors the nature of things by mingling its own nature with it."

— Francis Bacon

Illusion and Reality

"Illusions commend themselves to us because they save us pain and allow us to enjoy pleasure instead.  We must therefore accept it without complaint when they sometimes collide with a bit of reality against which they are dashed to pieces."

— Sigmund Freud

Actually, Not All That Ethereal

I should quit calling the Willowy, Ethereal Buddhist 'ethereal'. Because, actually, she's not. I just projected that onto her because I wanted her to be ethereal. I wanted to think she spends all her free time chanting mantras and lighting incense and wandering through fields of wildflowers or whatever, and not going to movies like "Iron Man".

But actually, I guess, she just does ordinary stuff. I say, 'I guess' because I don't know what the reality is. I have to face the fact that I didn't know her that well. I just knew the person I created in my mind and pretended was her.

I'm Just Putting the Question Out There

If you Google the expression 'anger turned inward', you'll get about 53,000 hits. Almost all of them will be about depression.

I've always lived under the assumption that my depression is biologically-driven. My father had it and so did my grandfather. But now I'm wondering if it isn't partly 'anger turned inward'.

As a kindasorta buddhist, I guess I shouldn't get angry. But I know I do. I'm angry about the state our country is in. Do I direct that inward? I certainly don't blame myself for it. But I don't express that anger outwardly very much, either.

If I got down to the core of that anger, I think I would find it's because I indentify with working class people who have gotten screwed by the realignment of our economy over the past forty years. And the reason I identify with them is because I resent the way I was treated as a worker, and I have some deep-seated anger about that.

Granted, my situation now is modestly comfortable, but that's just dumb luck. It's not because of anything I did. If I look at what I have to show for the work I did, it's not much. So is my depression due in part to unresolved anger about that? I don't know; I'm just putting the question out there.

Another question: am I angry with myself over my shortcomings and failures, whether real or perceived? Again, I don't know; I'm just putting the question out there. Most men my age have a wife, or maybe a second wife, and a family. Maybe there's a house in the suburbs, and an SUV and backyard cookouts. Me? I've been married once, and I do my own my home, again more due to good fortune than any achievement on my part. But I have no family, and I'm pretty much relationship-proof.

I tell myself I'm okay with that, but am I really? Or am I just suppressing, or inwardly directing, anger over not being able to have these things?

I don't know. I'm just putting the question out there.

Random Summer Notes 2

My appetite has been off. This is not necessarily a bad thing, since I am also getting almost no exercise. I assume the heat is largely responsible. I can't tell that this has caused any weight loss, but at least I'm not gaining.

I'm keeping a friend's dog for a month. We're at about the halfway mark on that. I think Bailey, my basset hound, benefits from having a co-dog.

I bought a couple of documentaries from iTunes and watched them on my iPad: "Gonzo", about journalist Hunter S. Thompson, and "Born Into This", about poet Charles Bukowski. I wasn't sure how I would like watching films on the iPad, but it's not bad at all. It's sort of like holding a movie in your hands as if it were a book. I wouldn't want to watch "Lawrence of Arabia" this way, but for documentaries, it seems fine.

The aloha shirts are finally gone. Now I can work on getting the rest of the crap off the porch.

Random summer notes

For about 60 days now, I've been spending most of my time holed up in the Very Dark Room. That's the master bedroom of my house, where I've covered the windows enough that at high noon, the room is about as dimly lit as the inside of a movie theater.

I still eat frequently with the Wednesday/Friday dinner group, but I'm not there all the time. I'm a rare sight at the coffee shop. I never eat at home now, but most of my meals are taken alone, usually at some neighborhood sandwich shop or café. I don't like high-end 'dining concept' places. Sometimes I'll dine with a friend, but most of the time I'm alone. Sometimes, frankly, I tire of the companionship of even my best friends, and I'm sure they sometimes tire of mine.

If you saw "I Heart Huckabee's", you'll remember how the marketing executive Brad Stand (played by Jude Law) constantly repeats a story about his encounter with Shania Twain. I have that in mind constantly when I find myself telling a story to friends, because I guarantee you, any story I tell is one I've told before. I ran out of new material years ago.

The heat continues to be oppressive, and part of the reason I'm staying holed up. My car thermometer registered 123 degrees in a parking lot today. The official high was only about 102, with a heat index of 104, but it gets a lot hotter out on a vast expanse of concrete.

I ran into the willowy ethereal Buddhist a few weeks ago, and we ended up having coffee together one afternoon. It was our first sitdown together in a year and a half.

A couple of weeks later, she called and invited me to a movie that evening. We went to see an old film at the art museum. On the way home, she mentioned she had seen and enjoyed "Iron Man". That's about the last movie on earth I would have expected her to sit through. Which goes to show that yet again, I didn't know a woman as well as I thought I did, and made assumptions based on my own preferences rather than looking at reality. Too bad I didn't learn that lesson thirty or forty years ago, when it might have mattered.

The willowy ethereal Buddhist being who she is, I might hear from her again next week, or it might be another year and a half.

More random notes to come.

Nightmare

Another of those nightmares that jolted me awake, gasping for air with my heart racing.

I have a recurring nightmare in which there's some kind of aircraft crash, and I'm on the ground trying to dodge flying debris. In the dream I just had, I'm driving a van that is absolutely loaded with stuff, balky and top heavy, and a huge helicopter is trying to take off right in front of me.

The copter is out of control, and I'm backing the van full speed across the parking lot, trying to stay from it. But it keeps coming straight at me. When I swerve, it swerves.

Finally it climbs straight up, flips over, and comes crashing down upside down on the roof of a building. I'm still backing up full speed so if a rotor blade or some other part comes flying off, it won't hit me. But I know I'm still too close.

That's when I woke up.

Aloha, Shirts

I went through my rack of aloha shirts and other silk sport shirts and pulled out 30 of them, of which I will now rid myself. A couple of them still have tags, having never been worn.

They're all in a pile in a chair on the front porch. I'm trying to get some of my Facebook friends to come take them, but if no one does, I guess they'll go to Goodwill.

That only puts a dent in my shirt accumulation.

I can't imagine why anyone would need as many shirts as I have.

(I first wrote about my unfortunate aloha shirt predeliction here.)

Insomnia

Or maybe not. Maybe it's not insomnia if I slept until 11 am and now I can't fall asleep.

Nothing to say, but here I am anyway

Sometimes I decide to post something. Then, staring at the blank Blogger text entry window, I think to myself, 'What's the point?' and post nothing at all.

This just happened to me. I woke up, as I often do, suddenly possessed of a desire to say something, only to realize I have nothing to say. Or that I could say something, but it would just be blather. I guess almost all of it is blather.

You and I may both be better off if I say nothing.

KC

During the ten years my ex and I were married, we acquired seven cats and two dogs. I left them all with her. We parted 12 years ago, and over those years, the pets grew old and died, one by one.

The last of them, a cat named KC, died Monday. She was about 19.

My ex has three cats and a dog she acquired after our divorce. Two of the cats came from me, and are descendants of Lark.

But KC, as the oldest of the pets, was special to her. KC had a long, comfortable life, but it makes me sad that she's gone.

I live now

"With the past, I have nothing to do; nor with the future. I live now."

— Ralph Waldo Emerson

Collapsing Empire

I rarely post political or current events stuff. I hope you'll read this salon.com post by Glenn Greenwald, called "What collapsing empire looks like."

"Does anyone doubt that once a society ceases to be able to afford schools, public transit, paved roads, libraries and street lights -- or once it chooses not to be able to afford those things in pursuit of imperial priorities and the maintenance of a vast Surveillance and National Security State -- that a very serious problem has arisen, that things have gone seriously awry, that imperial collapse, by definition, is an imminent inevitability?"

Somtime back during the Nixon administration, the Powers That Be ran the ship of state into an iceberg. What's been happening since then, even during the terms of Democratic presidents, is the luxury class passengers making for the lifeboats while the rest of us are stranded on the lower decks. Now, they're yelling at us to throw down the ship's china and silverware before the gunwale slips below the waves.

Another Blog Post I Like

From Buddhist in Nebraska:

"I have no hope. No hope for heaven, no fear of hell. No hope for a better rebirth and no fear of worse. I know I will die. I seek no reward nor escape from any punishment. This life is all I have. And though I tell myself I could be wrong (what if I’m wrong?) I never seem to find enough faith or reason in such belief to spur action. Nor do I think I should."

Itchy bumps

I pulled weeds in the yard yesterday and now my hands are broken out in itchy bumps. I'm using some generic brand of Benadryl lotion on them, and it's helped a lot. I guess I'm allergic to one of the weeds I handled. Next time, maybe I'll remember to wear gloves.

A Blog I Found

I found a blog I think I like called The Scurrilous Monk.

Here's a post from 2007 entitled "Do Not Seek an Easy Practice"

"We seem to think there is a shortcut...that all we need do is to think the right thoughts, see the right things or even feel the right things......and poof.....so if we read enough books by Thich Nat Hanh or the Dalai Lama then we can be just like them. But Thich Nat Hanh's practice was tempered in a real war zone with grenades and bullets, and the Dalai Lama was driven from his country that he was responsible for and watched those friends under his protection tortured and killed."

Personally, I just have the practice I have. I guess I could have kept on working rather than retiring, but other than that, I didn't seek this out. On the other hand, I've certainly avoided more strenuous practice.

And I certainly wouldn't compare myself to the Dalai Lama or Thich Nhat Hanh. I'm not even sure I'm actually a Buddhist, strictly speaking. Do not use me as a role model or example. If something I've written during the past four and a half years had some use to you, that's great. But there are plenty of people out there in a better position to give advice than I am.

Anyway, it seems like an interesting blog. I'll probably add it to my permanent links at right.

Cats

Another Buddhist cat fancier

I am down to two cats. Gastón, who is the great-great-great-something grandson of Lark, who first appeared at my house in 2002 (I think), and Rollo, originally called Roland, whom I got from the shelter about a year and a half ago.

Gastón's sister Frannie vanished several months ago. His mother, Evil Kitty, aka Eek, hasn't been seen since spring, but she's semi-feral and often disappears for months at a time. The cat Ms. HRP and I called Grey hasn't been around since winter. But he spends long stretches of time at a house across the street. I hope he's there now.

There have been a lot of other cats wander through over the years, most of them only barely tame. At one time I counted thirteen of them.

Having two is better. And Rollo and Gastón are both completely tame, mostly indoor cats, and have all their shots. I hope they'll be around a long time.

I forgot to mention the grass

Last fall, we planted a lot of shade grass in the back yard. By spring, I had a thick green carpet across the yard. Then the elm tree grew leaves, and we had several days of heavy rain. Now, the grass is all dead and even the weeds wom't grow. It's just bare dirt everywhere.

The back yard

I like to go back and look at previous months' blog postings. In August, 2009, I wrote only two posts for the whole month, so this post puts me ahead for August, 2010. In August, 2009,
I posted photos of my new gate and the still-unfinished garage. In August, 2008, I was almost through with the backyard landscaping project, and I posted photos of that.

As I've mentioned before, I can't post pictures here with the iPad, so no photos today. But I'll describe the back yard as it looks now for you. First of all, many of the plants have gotten so big they're now kind of crowded together. Others, meanwhile, have died, so there are some blank spots around. The dwarf blue palmetto I planted in 2008 is now suddenly growing extremely fast, and looks like it will be bigger than I ever thought it would be. I'm wondering if there's a way to divide and spread this plant.

The crape myrtles also need to be pruned back, but I'm not sure whether I should do this now or wait until fall.

A lot of grass — what we used to call 'johnson grass' — has come up in the cracks bewteen the patio flagstones. I've spent some time pulling it up, but it's been extremely hot outside, and my back has not been amenable to the effort. So, there's still a lot out there.

The back yard looks pretty cluttered, especially compared to how neat and orderly it looked two years ago.

Compulsive activity

‎"Western laziness consists of cramming our lives with compulsive activity, so that there is no time at all to confront the real issues."

— Sogyal Rinpoche

Of course, this is what I've been saying all along.

Beginning year four

Today marks the beginning of my fourth year of retirement. It's gone about the way I expected, with a couple of notable exceptions.

I have spent much more money than I intended to. Most of it was spent on improving the house, so I have the hope of getting a lot of it back if I need to. But there's no way I could sell this house for what I've put into it.

I've gained more weight. I expected to lose weight, being removed from the temptation to snack at my desk. But as it turns out, I'm not much more physically active now than I was when I was at a workstation all day.

My television career is so distant it seems almost like it never happened. But my final job, working in a municipal government office, seems like it ended just a year or so ago.

I'm still depressed all the time, or at least not viewing life through the same rose-colored glasses most other people seem to have. But I enjoy my time alone. I have more of that now than I've ever had in my life, and it seems to suit me.

Now, this is more like it.

The best thing I've seen lately.

2001st post

Actually, it's not just the Internet. It's everything. I feel like someone in a theater watching a really mediocre play, and it's only politeness that keeps me from getting up and walking out.

Too much Internet

One of my Facebook friends (actually more of an acquaintance) has decided to give it up. I certainly respect her decision. I've found some useful information on Facebook, and I've been able to reconnect with a lot of long-lost friends, classmates and coworkers. But Facebook can also be a huge timesink. Time isn't a big problem for me at this stage of my life, but I can see where other, busier people would find Facebook an annoying habit that intrudes on their other activities.

My personal problem with Facebook isn't the time I spend with it, but the general pointlessness of what I read, and, frankly, what I post. I've picked up some gems of wisdom, but they've been few and far between. I quit visiting my regular coffee shop in part because I found myself trapped between two or three simultaneous conversations about things that didn't interest me. Facebook produces a similar effect: a lot of what strikes me as conversational noise.

Actually, the whole Internet is starting to wear me down. As you know if you've been reading this blog awhile, I don't own a TV. I can't stand the barrage of commercials, nor the hyperkinetic animations and visuals that seem to be always running, even popping up over programming. I hate the hours of 'information' programming in which the same two dozen pundits and spokespeople yell over each other.

That's television, but the Internet is starting to be the same way. I'm tired of visiting web sites where there are three animated advertisements running at the same time — and they're all for the same thing. I'm tired of the increasingly shrill political bloggers whose alarmist headlines lead to nothing more than a snarky critique of something some other shrill blogger wrote — which may be nothing more than a slam of a third blogger. I'm tired of 'news' about celebrities I've never heard of.

I make my daily round of my regular websites, which include The Huffington Post, Firedoglake, Crooks and Liars, Eschatonblog, Hullaballoo, io9, Slashfilm, Gawker and macsurfer, and after I'm done I just feel like I've littered my mind with the intellectual equivalent of fast food wrappers and cigarette butts. And then there's reddit and Twitter, which dump even more irrelevant junk data between my ears. Why do I keep reading this stuff?! I think it's because I have nothing else to do.

But just as I struggle with clutter in my house, I also have to struggle with clutter in my brain. I've got to find a substitute for this intellectual junk food.

And there's my 2,000th post.

2000

The next post here, whatever it turns out to be, will be my 2,000th post. So, happy fucking 2,000th post to me.

Well, I voted.

But I can't remember an election where I had less enthusiasm for dragging my fat lazy ass to the polling place. I voted for George McGovern when I was 18, and I haven't missed a general or primary election yet - except for 2000, when I had moved to Texas and hadn't been there long enough to qualify.

But this year, it just seemed like a tiresome chore. This state is run by a coalition of creationists, militia enthusiasts, softcore white supremacists and billionaire pro sports hobbyists. Anything that doesn't appeal to at least one of those interest groups isn't going to go anywhere.

The Democratic nominee for U S Senate is, according to someone who knows him, a crazy old coot who lives in a trailer in Midwest City, has bad breath and lives on Chips Ahoy! cookies. Hell, I could have beaten him just relying on residual name recognition from TV days. I wouldn't win the general election, but at least I would have my footnote in Oklahoma history.

Primary Day

Today is political primary day in my state. I will vote, but I have no enthusiasm for it.

Missing a friend

A friend dropped out of my life a few months ago. At the time, I was relieved. We had gotten to the point where we were together almost every day, and we had come to rely on each other for support in ways that were not healthy for either of us.

She was doing tons of stuff for me that I should have been doing for myself, and I was helping her out financially to an extent that was actually beyond my ability. She once said she would like to be my personal assistant. If I were a multimillionaire, I would have been happy to hire her in that position. As it was, I had come to rely on her to sort of keep me energized, so I wouldn't just sit in bed in a dark room all day like I'm doing right now.

Anyway, she moved on, and I have no idea what she's doing now. The parting was a little acrimonious, and I'm sorry it turned out that way.

These things are all temporary. People come and go. Nothing is permanent, and none of it has meaning.

Even so, I find my samsaric self sometimes misses her.

There is no Santa Claus

After having fairly normal and productive days (well, productive by my standard) Friday and Saturday, I fell back into summertime slothfulness today. I didn't get out of bed until 2:30 pm. I took a shower, then went to an Italian place for lunch. Later, in the early evening, NurseK and I went to a Irish pub kind of place for dinner.

Somewhere in the day, I made it by Target to pick up some Q-Tips and a couple of T-shirts. But I spent most of the day in bed.

I was never a person of ambitious, far-reaching goals, but I've come to realize that even the miniscule goals I had for myself were pretty much pointless.

So, some days I don't feel like getting out of bed, nor do I see any reason why I should.

A couple of years ago, I wrote a post about people who are just sitting around, waiting to die.

That phrase was used by a woman I knew who was herself busy every minute of every day. She was a surgeon who, in addition to her medical career, raced cars, rode and maintained a decrepit old motorcycle, raised three pigs and some dogs and cats, and, in what time she had left over, skated in the roller derby. Seriously. I know that sounds like a character in a TV show, but there she was.

I don't begrudge anyone their hobbies and extracurricular activities. But this stuff is, to my mind, staying busy to stay busy. It's keeping ourselves occupied so we don't have to recognize the fundamental non-existence of all the stuff floating around in our heads – illusions which we have chosen to treat as reality.

It's liberating to realize all this stuff is just illusion. But in a way, it's also disappointing. It's like when I learned there wasn't really a Santa Claus. I wouldn't want to have spent my whole life believing there was a Santa Claus when there wasn't, but it was still sort of a letdown to find it out.

Monday

The heat, the light, the colors, the glare, the sounds, the textures — even the smells. Everything out there is too much for me right now. Here in the Very Dark Room, it is quiet, cool, calm, and of course, dark. I'll just stay here for now. I don't even want to leave to eat.

119 Degrees

Unfortunately, there's no way to put photos on this blog from an iPad. If there were, I'd show you the picture I took of my car's outdoor thermometer yesterday. It was registering 119 degrees in the middle of a big restaurant parking lot. Here's a link to it on Facebook, if you're really interested.

The official high has yet to reach 100. But the humidity has been so high this summer that heat indexes of 102-105 degrees have been daily occurences.

I am doing what I did last summer, which is to retreat to the Very Dark Room, lights usually off, and sitting or lying in the dark most of the day. I'm sleeping a lot. I'm also reading "The Zen Teachings of Bodhidharma", a collection of writings traditionally attributed to the monk who brought Zen to China. Red Pine is the translator.

Like many of the earliest Zen/Chan writings, it's much more straightforward than the stuff that came a thousand or fifteen hundred years later.

Too much Facebook

Two acquaintances of mine are sort of 'acting out' their romantic breakup on Facebook. It feels unpleasant to witness.

They're being very adult and low-key about it, but even so, I feel uncomfortable reading about it. I don't know either of these people well enough for this to be any of my business.

I'm starting to be over Facebook. I feel as if I'm in too many other people's lives, and too many other people are in mine.

There's not going to be any Facebook in my mountainside hut.

Lo, this even more random crap

Thirty-two more books went to the used book store today.

Back in High School...

...I knew this kind of willowy, gauzy, ethereal hippie chick. This was in 1969-70. Her name was Frances Green, but she was known to her friends as Frannie the Green. (This was 1969, remember.)

I lost track of her after high school. We both moved away from that town. About a year later, I got a letter from her. She wasn't sure I was the right mcarp, but she sent the letter on a hunch. I had no idea how she found me. I don't know why I didn't reply, but I didn't.

But I wondered over the years what had become of her. Starting about 2005, I began scouring the Internet looking for information on her. I posted queries about her on websites where I thought she might have visited.

One of them finally produced results. I got an email tonight telling me Frannie died of cancer two years ago.

I should have answered that letter.