All right... Santa Fe

I am still not in the mood to write this, but I probably never will be. So, I might as well do it now and get it over with.

There was once another MCARP in this town. He was a few months younger than me. I never met him, and became aware of his existence only because he died suddenly, and some acquaintances thought his obituary was actually about me. All this happened about six years ago.

Fast forward to several months ago. I'm going to say late 2009, but it may have been more recent than that. I was killing an evening on Facebook, when I got an email via FB from a woman in Santa Fe asking if I ever lived there.

In the course of our back-and-forth emails, I learned that she was looking for an old boyfriend who had my name, and that the boyfriend was probably the MCARP who had since passed on. I checked with some mutual acquaintances, and reported to her the following night that the MCARP she was looking for was probably dead.

But Joan and I stayed in touch, communicating via email and Facebook. We talked on the phone a couple of times. She invited me out to Santa Fe, and I accepted.

So, off Blogblah! and I went to New Mexico. We had never traveled together before. He made an excellent road companion, and the long drive going and returning was certainly eased by his company.

I had not been to Santa Fe in fifty years. BB had been more recently. I got lost shortly after arriving in town, but Joan found us and led us to Maria's, a popular restaurant.

After dinner, Bb! and I checked into Garrett's Desert Inn in downtown Santa Fe. The rooms there are utilitarian, but clean and comfortable. The staff is great and the prices are extremely good. And it's within walking distance of the plaza and the art gallery row.

Bb! and I split up for much of the weekend, as you've read in his account. Joan and I visited art galleries on Saturday, went up to look at the scenery in the ski basin, and met back up with Bb! for dinner at The Ore House.

On Sunday, Joan and I went up to Taos. I will simply say I was disappointed. It seemed like the Cherokee Trading Post on the interstate outside of my hometown, just a hundred times larger. Lots of T shirts and Minnetonka Moccasins. I doubt I'll ever go back. Bb! and I had dinner at The Pink Adobe that evening.

We returned to Oklahoma City the next day.

I've left a lot of small details out, but you get the idea. I had a good time.

Right Speech vs The Truth

Right Speech: "That's great news, Ms. Willowy & Ethereal! I'm excited that you and your boyfriend have finally bought a home together. I hope this works out great for you, and that you two enjoy many long years together in your new place."

The Truth: You can probably guess.

Now, if I had Right Thought about this, Right Speech and The Truth would be one and the same. But I'm still a selfish SOB.

More 528 Hz Woo

I saw an ad online this week for a toothpaste, called "Liquid Dentist", billed as coming 'with 528 Hz Frequency'. As if it were an ingredient like fluoride, or mint flavoring.

New Age folks talk about frequencies as if they were tangible things. A couple of years ago, I had a conversation with a friend about this. As she put it, "I'm all about healing with frequencies."

"Frequencies of what?" I asked. "Light? Sound? Electricity?"

"Frequencies!" she replied, mildly irritated.

"You understand that a frequency is a unit of measure, right?" I replied. "Saying you heal with frequencies is like saying you heal with inches or pints."

"Well, if you just want to criticize everything..." she said, and let her response trail off.

So, to get back to 'Liquid Dentist', how does a toothpaste get a frequency? Is it vibrating at that frequency? Shouldn't it create a sound if it's doing that?

This stuff is not inexpensive, by the way. I saw it on various web sites selling in the $50 range for a 16 oz. bottle.

The Past Few Days

Almost all I have done since returning from Santa Fe is sleep and eat. It's been cold and gloomy here, more like late fall than early spring, and that has encouraged drowsiness.

I get up in the morning, go somewhere for breakfast, then come home and go back to bed. Later, I'll go to lunch, then return to bed. I'm not sleeping well at night, but then I never do.

I guess some people get genuine joy out of being alive. I'm not one of them, and never have been. I'm not miserable — I'm not even unhappy. I'm not anything. I see myself as a sort of disconnected observer of a quickly eroding society and culture. I guess 'alienated' would be the word. I feel as if I got dropped off here by mistake, but I'm stuck in any event.

Strange Dreams

They don't happen as frequently as they used to, but I am still occasionally afflicted by strange dreams and/or nightmares about a career I haven't pursued in 13 years. I wish I could get my subconscious to let go of it.

Santa Fe

Not yet. But you can read Blogblah!'s version of the trip here.

Alert! Alert!

In a previous post, I referred to the 527 hz 'sound of love'. Actually, the 'sound of love' is 528 hz.

527 hz is the sound of something else. Constipation, maybe – they didn't say.

We regret the error.

Depression

I've hit a little dip in my ongoing depression struggle. May have started after returning from Santa Fe. As always, I'll just ride it out.

Santa Fe

Eventually I will have the energy to write about this, but not now.

My New Dog

Boy, this is one energetic pup. He is just crazed. I thought Bailey was tightly wrapped, but Cooper is in a realm of his own.

Do dogs have chakras? What about birds? Lizards? Earthworms? Bacteria?

New Agers Make My Brain Hurt

I am surrounded on all sides these days by new agers.

You can't have a conversation with a new ager, any more than you can have a conversation with a 9/11 truther or an Obama birther. Lately, largely thanks to that halfwit book The Secret, new agers believe reality is whatever they perceive it to be. Their perception can't be wrong, they believe, because it is their perception that literally creates reality.

(If you're thinking that you're going to correct me by telling me that halfwit book The Secret doesn't actually say that, save your typing. Their perception is that it says that, and therefore, that's what it says.)

Are there any new agers who have not cured cancer with crystals, colored lights, homeopathy or the mystical 527 528 hz 'sound of love'? Why does cancer even exist anymore? Apparently it's easier to fix than a hangnail. A rhetorical question, of course. Cancer exists because of a conspiracy by Big Pharma and the Defense Department and/or the CIA to keep it going. This conspiracy exists because new agers believe it exists.

For the past two or three months, I have been beseiged by a friend who, after years of personal new age beliefs, has decided to become evangelical about it, and equally determined to convert me. I assume she has willed me to believe it, and since I still don't, she must think her will power has somehow been tainted — perhaps by misaligned chakras or unfocused kundalini energy. And if she thinks it has become tainted, well, that makes it so.

Some of my new age friends assume that because I lean toward Buddhism, I must also be a new age believer. Lord, no. I don't know how a person even functions when he or she believes all their thought processes are closed feedback loops altering the reality around them second by second.

Santa Fe

Blogblah! and I went to Santa Fe this past weekend. I'll write more about that later.

The End of A Recent Story

A few weeks back, I wrote about having lunch with a woman I found attractive in spite of what most people would say was a considerable difference in our ages. A few days after that, we went out to a lakeside park and spent the afternoon talking and watching aquatic birds on the water. A few days after that, I got the friend-o-gram from her via email. And that was the end of that.

More to come on other topics, though.

Addendum: I have friends who would tell me that going to the lake and watching birds does not constitute a 'real date', and I would agree. I understand that a 'real date', as defined by local culture, is dinner at one of the recently-opened urban steak joints, followed by an NBA game, and wrapping up with chocolatinis or mintinis or breadpuddingtinis or bananacarameltinis at one of our warehouse district bars.

This is why I don't date. I'd rather sit at the lake and watch birds.

Meditation Practice

...is completely shot. I don't know when I'll be back on track.

More to come.

Cooper the Co-dog

Here's a pic of the new co-dog, Cooper, with senior dog Bailey.

I have a lot of stuff to get caught up on, blog-wise, and I will try to do that in the next couple of days.

The Co-dog

It's taken about a year, but I have finally found a co-dog for my pup, Bailey. The new dog is an 18-month-old black lab named Cooper. Cooper was found wandering near Weatherford, severely malnourished. Even now, after six weeks of care and regular feeding, he is still just skin and bones — the skinniest black lab I have ever seen.

I've already discovered he loves the rawhide chews Bailey doesn't like, doesn't like the treat biscuits Bailey likes, and enjoys running and playing with Bailey. That last part is especially good news, because Bailey spends too much time just snoozing in the back yard. They're both on the back porch asleep right now, and I haven't heard a peep out of them since I put them there. I hope that means they're worn out from play.

Like a Passing Daydream

"What many of us take seriously as our life is like a passing daydream – a succession of thoughts not grounded in what's happening at that moment. And this daydream of how and what we imagine our life to be – it's usually so all-compelling, that we take it as the solace of our life, take it as the solace of our days, we see it as the way we can get through the day. We go home and lay down on the couch and think about what we believe will make us happy."

– Jordan Thorn

Jordan Thorn is a priest and practice leader at the San Francisco Zen Center

Everything Else Is A Complication

One of the joys of being an indolent slacker is that I really can live mostly in the moment. I arise every morning — well, sometimes in the afternoon — with no plan, no schedule, no agenda. No one sets deadlines for me anymore. No one calls me or emails me, wanting to know where such-and-such a project is. My goal each day is to do nothing; my ambition is to be bereft of ambitions.
 
And when I'm not living in the moment, it's usually because of some situation I've created myself. Everything I do obliges me to do something more as well. If I drive to the coffee shop, I'll have to buy gas. If I buy a new gadget, I have to find a place to put it. If another animal moves in with me, I have to get pet food more often.
 
As the Zen master Bankei said, "My miracle is that when I'm hungry I eat, and when I'm tired I sleep." Everything else is a complication.

Brain Freeze

Woke up, as usual, in the wee hours of the morning. I was so restless I decided to do some housecleaning. That occupied my mind for about five minutes. Then my brain froze up. Where does this go? Do I need to keep this? Where can I put this?

So I stopped. I turn this over to my higher power. You know who you are.

All my brain is good for anymore is looking at clouds and leaves and sweetgum balls. Studying sycamore bark. Talking to cats and dogs. Afternoon naps on the front porch.

Everything else is too complicated.

Now where the hell are my car keys?

Too Much Time on My Hands

Ladies and Gentlemen... STYX!

Foolishness

...that's all. Just foolishness.

Meditation Update

My daily meditation time has been on hold for a couple of weeks now. I put in my 25 minutes tonight, but that was the first in four or five days. And only the second time in about ten days. I wish I could say I was getting something from it, but other than some zone-out time, I'm not sure I did.

This Is Where I'm Supposed to Be

Rogue Cat Shitting

I visited some art galleries this evening during the March Paseo Gallery Walk, then went over to the Farmers Market to see the 2011 Momentum Art Show. Then I came home to the aroma of freshly-laid cat shit. Not in the box, of course; it's behind some furniture somewhere.

I have two cats who don't get along, and this rogue shitting seems to be part of some sort of passive-aggressive conflict between them.

Leg Pain

Today is Friday. I tried to get back into meditation Wednesday night. I sat for only twenty minutes, instead of my usual 25, and I was more uncomfortable than usual. When I awoke Thursday morning, my legs ached as if I'd walked ten miles. They still ache now. This isn't the kind of sharp, cramping pain one would associate with a potassium deficiency; it's just a dull ache.

I've had this intermittently my whole adult life, and my father had it before me. It usually manifests itself every 90 days or so. It interferes with my sleep and generally makes me uncomfortable.

Gee Whiz

I don't generally get very 'gee whiz' about technology anymore. But I woke up awhile ago, checked Facebook, and discovered that even as I was lying here in bed, Thich Nhat Hanh was about to deliver a lecture at Plum Village in France, and that it was being streamed live online.

I followed the link, and there was Thay, speaking in French with English translation. And I could watch it as it happened without even getting out of bed.

There's something about watching a glitchy, low-res feed that gives you a sense of 'being there' that you don't get from glossy, hgh-quality broadcast or cable coverage.

I've Written This Only About A Dozen Times...

...'infatuation' literally means 'made foolish.'

So, it's not like I don't already know it.

Meditation Update

Meditation has been non-existent for I-don't-know-how-many days. Just haven't wanted to think about it. I'm going to try to get back on track this evening.