Fringe Update

I'm halfway through season three, and, um, what the fuck?! Who decided this needed to be a soap opera? My interest is waning rapidly.

Facebook Mystery Friends

I'm going to write at some point about the approximately ten percent of my Facebook friends whom I've never met. Some had legitimate reasons for friending me, but most, like the woman I mentioned in the previous post, seem to have picked me at random and just have some axe to grind, usually pertaining to politics or religion.

Leave Me the Hell Alone

One of the advantages of paying to download TV shows is the absence of commercials. I have become highly sensitized to advertising over the past several years. It sometimes feels like people are surrounding me, screaming at me to buy their products, gadgets, politics, religion, whatever. The only way to escape it seems to be to shut myself in my house with no TV, radio, newspapers or magazines. Even then, advertising reaches me through Facebook and other web sites.

There was an ad in my Facebook sidebar today encouraging me to 'like' a well-known restaurant chain, and its new 'stacked, stuffed and topped' menu items. It reminded me of the 'McFriendly's' storyline in Doonesbury, in which Zonker works for the restaurant chain that is constantly looking for new ways to cram more calories into its customers.

One of my Facebook friends had already 'liked' it. She is a morbidly obese fundamentalist Christian woman whom I don't think I've ever actually met. She apparently friended me to preach Jesus to me.

But, back to the commercials. I don't want any more people yelling at me, or demanding that I buy their stuff, or trying to trick me into thinking that I want to buy their stuff. I want them to just to leave me the hell alone.

Television

I am somewhat embarrassed to admit I have become hooked on the TV series 'Fringe.' I bought all three seasons from iTunes; they've been downloading continuously for four days.

Today is Monday. I spent most of Friday and pretty much all of Saturday and Sunday watching, and got all the way to the end of season two. Season three ought to be completely downloaded by tomorrow evening.

I told friends only half-jokingly that I felt guilty sitting in front of my computer monitor watching TV when I could be using that time to wallow in self-pity. I've gone without a TV for years, and congratulated myself for not being a video zombie glued to the screen every evening.

But I've really gotten tired of pondering the circumstances of my existence, which is what I spent most of my free time doing. I've decided it's probably more therapeutic for me to zone out for awhile in front of the TV (or, in my case, the monitor) than to stay focused on my own solitude and depression.

Heat Wave

The heat wave continues here. Highs are forecast to be at or above 100 all week. I'm grateful to have a cool, comfortable place to hide out. The previous owners put central air in my 80-year-old house. I almost wish, though, I could just cool one or two rooms to save money.

The Very Dark Room

I think I have previously mentioned the Very Dark Room. It is the master bedroom of my house, whose windows have been covered with blackout curtains. It's where I am right now, and where I spend most of my time in the summer.

I am really worn out with the outside world at the moment. It will pass, but for the moment, I need to hide out.

Cologne

I was eating dinner at a restaurant yesterday evening when a guy came in wearing more cologne than I have ever smelled in my life. I don't know how he did it; if I immersed myself in a tank of cologne, I would not emerge reeking as this guy did. He sat alone at the next table, and within two minutes, my eyes were watering and the back of my throat was burning.

New Links

I have added links at right for two sites.

One is for Dharma Cowgirl, who is the former Buddhist in Nebraska. She is no longer in Nebraska, but she is still a Buddhist.

The other is for The Worst Horse, home of the "Dharma Burger". Hard to describe – you'll have to look for yourself.

I Never Got It

I'm 58 years old now, and I barely understand anything about love. My sense of it is that my understanding is much dimmer than that of the average person.

One thing I did realize — when I was about fifty — is that love is less than I had previously imagined it to be, and that part of what threw me off was that I had kept looking for more than was actually there.

I never wanted a romance to be mere entertainment, or a diversion or hobby. Nor did I want it to be a business/commercial proposition. Or a religious exercise. I can't tell you what I did want, but it was something more than that.

More on this later, if I feel like writing about it. Right now, the subject is about as interesting to me as room temperature oatmeal.

I Forgot

It seems that about three times a week, I wake up in the middle of the night with an idea for a blog post. But lately, I haven't been as interested in getting up to write it. So, I file it in the back of my brain and go back to sleep. By morning (which is currently about noon by everyone else's schedule), I remember that I had an idea, but no recollection of what it was.

Apparently, I'm Not In Love With Stevie Nicks

...according to this, anyway...

Judith Orloff, MD: The Difference Between Lust and Love

I Want To Be An Ant Again

I used to have the sense of being directly connected to the infrastructure of the cosmos, like a tiny ant crawling along a strut on some huge, complex carnival ride.
 
Lately, though, I've felt like just some shlub holed up in his house on 15th Street. I spend too much time thinking about piddling stuff. Movies... Tom Jones videos... Weiner jokes... some woman who wouldn't return my call. Pfeh.
 
The Tao is so large the universe can't contain it, and so small it will fit in the palm of your hand. Why would I be focused on anything else? But sometimes even the Tao bores me.

This Is Tom Jones

Back in the paleovinyl era, I did not get the whole Tom Jones thing. What's New, Pussycat?, She's a Lady, etc., just left me blank.

But now he's about seventy, and he can still knock down walls with that voice. Here he is with Nina Persson and the Cardigans in a 2008 cover of Talking Heads' Burning Down the House.



And, of course, she's not altogether unwillowy or nonethereal.

Music

Assuming you read this blog on a Flash-enabled browser, you can see my list of currently-playing music at the right of the page.

I have become quite attached to my music collection. I have a huge collection of classical music, and also a small amount of 60s and 70s rock. Neither get much airplay.

But I have become very reliant on the shakuhachi music, the Tibetan bowls and the singng chants to help build an emotional and psychological wall between myself and the rest of the world.

This music collection is one of the great blessings of my retirement.

Freedom From Assumptions

I had the idea that if a woman offered me her phone number unbidden, it probably meant she would like me to call her. Even now, that seems logical, but obviously, it's not always the case. Look how long it took me to see that!

One of the things I've been working hard on for the past few years is not making assumptions. I'm struggling to see things as they are, and separate the thing at hand, whatever it may be, from all my opinions, prejudices, expectations, analyses and so on. To go from overthinking to directly experiencing.

People tend to want to apply this approach only to The Great Matter, whatever they might think that is, but it's practical for everyday life.

On the other hand, maybe I should have followed her out to her car and asked her, "Wanna kickit?"

Hobosexual redux

As I mentioned previously, I exchanged phone numbers with a woman at a restaurant. I called her and left voice mail, which she has not returned.

I am once again simultaneously annoyed and relieved.

But not surprised.

This, after all, is the guy who got her number. If I were a woman, I wouldn't go out with him, either.

Lesson Learned

Personally, there's nothing under my clothes that I would want posted on the Internet. That's why I wear clothes.

Return of the Hobosexual

A woman chatted me up in a restaurant yesterday, and we ended up exchanging phone numbers.

It's the second time in a week that a stranger has approached me at dinner.

I have lately returned to the 'hobosexual' look I wore three or four years ago. Lord knows I looked pretty disheveled in the restaurant. But maybe I look friendlier this way.

Afraid of Oneness

I wrote something here the other day about how I tend to look at the world around me as if I were watching a movie.

"The Buddha taught that there is no difference or boundary between each of us as individuals and everything in the universe that surrounds us. Intellectually, I can accept that, but instinctively, it feels otherwise.

I often feel as if what we perceive as 'reality' is just a movie I'm watching, although on a 360° screen. And that's the way I often want it. I don't need or desire to be immersed in it, interacting with it, having my thoughts, perceptions and emotions shaded or distorted by it."

I listened to an Alan Watts lecture last night that touches on this very matter. He said that people refuse to embrace oneness with the universe because they are 'afraid' of it.

I'm not sure 'afraid' is the word I would use, but I think that the general concept is on the money. The more I understand about the world, the less I want to do with it. I see people all around me caught in traps: people stuck in awful jobs to pay for all the expensive things they've bought; people stressed out about personal drama in which they immersed themselves because it seemed at the outset it would be 'fun,' 'sexy,' or 'exciting'; people caught in substance abuse.

I'm like a guy who can't swim who's watching people drown. If I jump in them after them, I'll drown, too. So, I just stay on the shore and try to not fall in the water along with them.

I make no bones about the Bodhisattva Vow. It's beyond me. I might as well vow to win the Boston Marathon, or become President. If I have a next life, maybe I'll be strong enough to work for the enlightenment of all beings. But right now, my goal is to just not screw things up.

It's interesting, though, how a person can feel directly connected to the whole universe, but still not want to leave the bedroom.

"I thought you were drunk."

I walked into Pho Saigon yesterday to get lunch and took my usual table. A stranger two tables away looked over and said, 'Hey, do you need to be alone, or could I join you?' He was thirtyish, kind of hipster-looking, in rumpled gray shirt and jeans. I thought he might be someone I had met at the pizza place or the coffee shop at some point, but had forgotten about. So I invited him over.

I'll call him David. He was, in fact, someone I'd never met. He was about 33, and he had just come back to town after living out of state for a few years. He'd left a wife and a lot possessions behind in Oregon and is trying to start over. He told me he'd been struggling with alcoholism for a couple of years, along with cocaine. I figured at that point he had just chatted me up to get a free meal off me, but that wasn't it.

"Actually," he said, "when you walked in here, I thought you were drunk. That's why I wanted to talk."

"No, I look like this all the time," I said.

I asked him if he'd ever been in the program, and he said he had, on and off. I told him I knew a couple of folks who could help him with that, if he was interested.

David asked me if I'd read 'The Power of Now,' and I told him I had started it, but not finished it, and that I was more into Alan Watts than Tolle. He'd heard the name, but didn't know much about him. I told him the story of Watts' uproarious (I guess that's a word) tenure as Episcopal chaplain at Northwestern University, and how after that, he had retreated to an upstate New York farm to write "The Wisdom of Insecurity."

I used to keep copies of that book around to give to people, but I don't have any at the moment. David said he'd check the used book store for a copy.

We talked some about zen, and seeing reality free of opinions, illusions and delusions.

I ended up buying his lunch, anyway, over his protests. I was grateful for the conversation.

I hope things work out for him.

It's Only A Movie

I woke up in the wee hours of the morning and found myself further contemplating Hangover 2. It literally made me nauseated to think about it.

If it has any redeeming quality at all, it is that it never pulls you in. You are always aware that you are watching a movie. You're in a seat in a theater, and what you're seeing is on a screen at the front of the room.

This is also how I often view so-called 'reality'. The Buddha taught that there is no difference or boundary between each of us as individuals and everything in the universe that surrounds us. Intellectually, I can accept that, but instinctively, it feels otherwise.

I often feel as if what we perceive as 'reality' is just a movie I'm watching, although on a 360° screen. And that's the way I often want it. I don't need or desire to be immersed in it, interacting with it, having my thoughts, perceptions and emotions shaded or distorted by it.

I posted an item the other day about the acquaintance who announced on Facebook that he felt he was in physical danger hanging out in a bar. He was sitting there with a can of pepper spray in his hand, just in case. But he didn't leave, which is what I think any rational person would have done. There's a guy who's really immersed in his 'reality'. He's sort of like Hangover 2 1/2 — another movie I can watch, but I want to feel like I'm just a spectator in the audience, not part of the cast.

Isolating is my way of getting out of the theater of 'reality'. It's actually just a different scene of the big movie, but it's a quiet, dark scene that doesn't cause me sensory overload.