Vicious Circles

Tilting at Windmills

2011-04-20T07:59:00.000-07:00

I have always been drawn to the melancholy. The stark scenes from the westerns where the hero rides slowly against the empty and barren landscape. The warrior poets who understand that their lot in life is not one for enjoyment, but to withstand through sheer force of character. But deep down they know what they are missing and have consciously chosen the harder road simply because they are built that way. And someone must bear the burden.

I wonder at times what happens when they realize that they have borne these struggles wrongly. That their raison d'etre was misguided or just plain wrong. In the movies there is good and there is evil and they rarely mix. Perhaps once in a great while will the good guy turn out to be bad, or more often the bad guy will turn out to be good. These are themes that we are all familiar with. But rarely do we understand the good AND bad in a single character.

For it is within us all. The gray mixture of lust and honor. Or anger and pity. Of self indulgence and empathy. Beyond the walls of fiction is the constant moral wave that ebbs and flows inside of us. These are the what-ifs... what would I do IF. Would you kill to protect your children? Would you give up your morals for a million dollars? Ten million? Would you risk alienating friends and family for an bacchanalian evening?

But the what if moments are rare. More often the lines are not hard and fast but blurry patches when empathy gets lost, and our own needs or frustrations get in the way.

I was born with a hard wired empathy gene. My default is to attempt to understand the needs of others, sometimes to the detriment of my own. When I was young this seemed an honorable way to live and I felt that I made a difference in the lives of those around me. As I have aged, the chronic skepticism has grown like moss on me and made me doubt that anything makes too profound of a difference. And that I kid myself with my own abilities to influence. It is ego speaking, I tell myself. Perhaps this is a thing learned as we age. That we can't fix the world.

And so we stop trying.

And then what is life for if we have stopped trying. And when does the fixer get fixed?

Perhaps the archetypes or imagery that draw me in is simply a reflection... the mirror of a life spent tilting at windmills. And that feeling I have is just the sudden and daunting realization that these structures are not evil knights for us to vanquish, but simply harmless wooden buildings.

Or perhaps, like Don Quixote, I'm just near sighted.

Acceptance

2011-04-15T07:13:00.000-07:00

My friend Buddha Mama has been preaching the gospel of “right speak” recently in her blog. I have been thinking about right speak’s cousin “acceptance” a great deal of late. This is mostly because I find myself trapped in a world of whiners who battle to come up with the best whine of the day.

“I’m so busy.” And then they proceed to prove to you how busy they are and stew about it.

“The kids are slobs.” And then they proceed to stew over cleaning up after them.

“I never get any time for myself” And then they proceed to stew over the lack of me time.

We are a culture that emphasizes stewing. Of being unhappy with where we are because everyone else is someplace better.

“I hate my job.” “I hate my house.” “I hate my neighbors”. We all have something that we don’t like. “I hate my weight.” “I hate my school.”

We throw the word “hate” around like nobody’s business. Which is where the right speak thing comes into play. And even if you aren’t feeling it, there is the theory that right speaking will help you pretend until it becomes habit. The old, fake it, ‘til you make it theory.

But the thing that I face every time I read something along the right speaking path is that I off-load. I deflect. I think to myself… my god… if only so and so would read this and start thinking that way. Now, I believe that I am fairly self aware and I am certainly aware of my flaws. But it is a natural tendency to deflect. To see the specks in the eyes around you while missing the log in your own eye.

But the disease that lies beneath our way of speaking or stewing is bred from a world where we deserve more. We are angry with our lot in life because we were meant for great things. Not this absurd life of fighting for promotions, or fighting to raise our kids the right way, or fighting to keep the house from falling down around us. It is all so banal. So common. And we were meant for greater things. And thus the root of all mid-life crises.

I have… of late… been trying to combat this in my own life by doing everything that I need to do, but with a more positive attitude. An internal version of “right-speak” if you will. I try not to hate my kids as I drive them from place to place. I try not to judge my neighbor when they do their best to annoy me. I try not to hate my job because I travel constantly. I try not to think of the what-ifs and stay focused on the what is.

The danger of acceptance is always in settling for something without striving for more. This can lead to awful problems. The difference in what I am advocating is striving to do more and be better every day, but not stewing over how things are now. For there will always be things to strive for. More things than there are days. And happiness can only be found if we make peace with a road that does not end, and enjoy the view on the walk without worry about the destination.

Silence

2011-03-28T08:26:00.000-07:00

There is a beauty in silence. A profound tranquility that comes upon us as we sit out among nature, or hide away in our secret cloister. This silence is one that must be sought after. Striven for. Found. It does not come to us unbidden any longer. There is too much noise. Too much clutter. Too many competing points of view bidding for our time.

News. Music. Emails. Texts. Calls. I can see the Grinch in my head with drum sticks beating on each side, and “Noise, noise, noise, noise…” ringing in my own eardrums. But the reality is that we can’t stand the silence and we augment our world to fill in the gaps in sound, perhaps afraid of that awkward pause in conversation.

The profound truth is that no matter how much noise I can take in… none of it helps me connect. Connection can only happen in the quiet moments. Connecting with one’s self or connecting with a loved one. All attempts to use the tools of “connection” are merely hollow copies of the real thing, much the way watching a travel log of the Alps can not replace actually traveling to the Alps.

More and more we subjugate our relations to electronic go-betweens. And more and more those relationships lose their color and fade. I am complicit in this subjugation, however. Do not get me wrong. I do not seek to pass the blame. I find it easy to relate via email. My own discomfort with my own skin makes the electronic barrier an easier means with which to relate.

It avoids all that bloody and messy reality of looking someone in the eye and knowing, with absolute fact, that you are wrong. Or right. Or just profoundly different in the way that you think. Because this difference is what causes us to feel like we are the only people on Earth that think the way we do. And that thought is a lonely one.

But this way of living also avoids that deep and knowing connection that is only possible in person, whether it be a secret moment of divine bliss with a lover, or a moment of existential connectivity on a deep thought.

But too often we give up the beauty of reality for a misguided attempt to water down the pain of being separate. And we fill our lives with noise so we can avoid that utter sense of loneliness which is often found in the silence.

And the joke is thus complete, because only in the silence can we find ourselves… and in so finding ourselves can we find the connection to others.

Choice

2010-12-08T08:55:00.000-08:00

Building or destroying is a matter of choice.
Patience or anger is a matter of choice.
Understanding or intolerance is a matter of choice.
Being loved or being despised is a matter of choice.

Selfishness and selflessness is a matter of choice.
Noise or quiet is a matter of choice.
Violence or peace is a matter of choice.
Holding a grudge or offering grace is a matter of choice.

Now... Choose.

Nostalgia

2010-11-18T21:11:00.000-08:00

Oh whisper me words in the shape of a bay… Shelter my love from the wind and the waves…

My daughter’s Facebook status quietly switched from “single” to “in a relationship” one day. That is the way of things now. The way that these things are announced. It is puppy love, filled with youth and dreams.

“He listens to me… and he doesn’t try to fix me…” she said one day. And I smile. Remembering.

I walked in earlier and she was talking to him. I could tell just by watching her body language. There was an electricity that is alive there… it is almost visible. And it reminded me of those times so long past.

She is metal ore… valuable but unformed. She and her beau could take any shape that her imagination drives her toward.

But my relationship was beaten into shape long ago. Tempered through heat and quenched in cooling waters. It has been hammered and curved, and then hammered again until it formed a definitive and beautiful shape of our making. It has been polished, bright… and then, as is often the case, it grew tarnished through neglect. Not purposefully… but because there are so many other things that needed tending. It gets an occasional buffing, brightening it for a moment or two. But it is an artifact now.

Hanging in the galleries of the world are thousands of similar works of art, admired for their technique and their skill. But lost in all of these works is that moment when the artist sat in front of the canvas, blank and white. Before the brush made its first stroke. When all was potential. That moment when the electricity was palpable. All that remains is the artifact which attempted to capture the immense beauty in their inner vision.

The artifact that is mine is beautiful… there can be no doubt. It means the world to me. It created a world that I inhabit and breathed life into three souls that have changed forever my place in the world. And time and oxygen might conspire to makes its surfaces less shiny, but the beauty is still visible, even if faded.

But I can’t help but feel that bite of nostalgia when I see the crease of a smile and excitement cross her lips as she talks to him. She is an artist in front of her blank canvas… and I wonder if the vision she will paint will truly match what is in her mind’s eye now. Or if that is even possible.

Hydroplaning

2010-10-29T07:42:00.000-07:00

It is easy to take things like traction for granted. We travel thousands of miles and things work as they should, with the laws of gravity working. Our feet or tires or whatever remain firmly attached to the ground. Then something little happens and throws us into a panic and we realize how close to the border of chaos we all walk on a daily basis.

It was raining the other night. Not the normal sprinkle, but a good, hard downpour. I was traveling on the yon side of hither and yon... heading home in the dark. I hit the puddle on the side of the road going about 60. And suddenly I wasn't attached to gravity any longer. I was airborne... riding a wave a fraction of an inch thick, no longer in control... but subject, instead, to the whims of momentum. I have hit puddles many times before. A few feet of water that tugs the wheel hard for a moment. I have driven on highways where a car beside me has sprayed me with a coating of water so deep that I was blinded for moments. But nothing quite like this. The puddle must have been 50 feet or more.

They say war is hours of boredom punctuated by moments of sheer terror. I think this is true of many things in life. We grow comfortable and complacent in the sameness and only when things upset our carefully organized world does that panic rise, like bile, and overtake us. With age comes the knowledge that an instant can change everything. With age the knowledge of consequence. And a knowledge that we are only mortal.

But with age comes patience. The understanding that ups are followed by downs... and downs are followed by ups. And that if you fight your body's natural panic reflex and stay relaxed... sanity will be restored.

Eventually.

In this case it probably only took a few seconds... a few seconds where I was driving a missile and fighting to edge it in the right direction despite its desire to pull me off the embankment into the dark. Sometimes it takes much longer for sanity to be restored. But panic only makes us pull the wheel harder and lose control before sanity can regain that control.

Chaos is always a few feet to the right... down an embankment. It is easier to just ignore it and follow the lights down the road... between the white lines where all makes sense. But we can only maintain the road if we override the panic with calm.

SBT: Trust

2010-09-16T09:39:00.001-07:00

Beyond the last last line of defense... past the places that you hold sacred... and at the edge of reason, lies a boundary which you dare me to cross. You entice, and cajole, and plead with me to step over that line. And yet you say nothing. It is all unwritten except on your heart, and deep in your eyes. Away from public consumption. But the signs are there for one who knows that path.

It is well worn with only my steps. And yet each trip I take there is unique. Each journey requires its own dance, with steps that are similar, but not quite the same from the last. At the heart of the matter is a emotion that is simple and pure. Trust. It is a simple helix with infinite variety. A genetic code all its own that wraps its way forward and back in time... pulling history and mingling it with possibility into something that is new. It is an emotion that is as solid as smoke, difficult to grasp, and impossible to regain once it has dissipated.

But once there... once the invasion has begun... it devolves into naked fury, hand to hand combat, where both sides sweat, and both sides struggle, and both sides die a little death.

And once the battle is over... and we lay there, spent... the lines resolve again into north and south, and we stare at each across the parallel and await the next battle.

Closer to Fine

2010-09-15T07:16:00.000-07:00

Socrates said that "A life unexamined is a life not worth living." And while Socrates was undoubtedly a smart guy, he doesn't give a whole lot of guidance on how much examining we should be doing. Does this mean I should be examining your life? Or mine? How closely? Is a financial statement enough? Or do I need the full Monty, complete with sleazy investigator pics of your vibrator collection. See what I did there? Cleverly employing some Socratic irony... and vibrators.

I'm thinking he was talking more about self examination... and not the monthly kind for lumps. But the internal wrangling with who we are... and what we are... and why we are.

For most writers... the written word is a formalized wrangling. Regardless of the topic, it is impossible not to inject some of your own soul searching between the lines. Writers of history are not, as a general rule, a happy lot. Oh, I'm sure that there have been some painfully happy writers. Just not very successful ones. The process of laying oneself bare in the form of the characters that we create can be very taxing. Blogs are no exception and in fact they can be even more so... since the character generally has little in the way of fiction. Comedy or tragedy. They really are two faces of the same internal dialogue.

I've been writing less of late. Both here and elsewhere. I suppose it is a natural flow where we are driven to write and then just as quickly emptied out. Writers are typically "a little bit bipolar" as my mother terms it. She should know. She's been treating them for years. Driving around my home town with her is like a mobile PDR of diagnoses. "Oh, there's Bob! He's a little bipolar." I think we all have a bit of the manic depressive cycle within us. We are more prolific at times than others. But at the heart of the matter is our own soul searching. Is a life unexamined really not worth living? Do we really need to dig into the knotty problems of our jobs, and our loves, and our mistakes, and our mid-life crises on a daily basis to be "worth living?" Or can we just check in from time to time to see if we have any new lumps.

There are more days than not when I don't really feel like writing. Does this mean that I am not feeling as deeply as I do on days when I do write? Am I more in touch with me when others can read and connect? Or am I just repeating the same words time and again?

None of these questions really have answers. Your answers will be different than mine... and my answers today will be different than they will be tomorrow. And this lack of clarity is the thing that has kept real philosophers and amateur ones tied in knots for eons. But I wonder if Socrates is a little off some days... and if there were days where he just laid in bed and watched the tube and didn't really do any thinking at all.

Personally, I've begun to prefer the philosophy of the Indigo Girls: The less I seek my source for some definitive, The closer I am to fine.

Off to watch some mindless television.

The Ties that Bind

2010-09-09T19:55:00.000-07:00

My youngest has started her own business. It isn't much of a business since she doesn't charge for her wares. She does it for love. And because she is a busy body. Somewhere along the line someone taught her how to make bracelets from multi-colored string. Now she can't stop making them. And she takes orders from friends, family, strangers who dare to ask her what she is doing. Her little fingers flying as she weaves the thin string into multi-colored bands.

On the surface of it... it is a childish hobby. On a deeper level there is much that is symbolic about it. It is her way of making her mark in the world. Of staking her claim on the people that she loves. Public displays of affection, if you will.

Love can be like that. It is our deep, unspoken desire is to make our mark on other people. To bind them to us in ways where they can't escape. In some cases this is sweet and lovely and happily ever after... but in other cases it can be stifling and limiting and troublesome. My dog has a way of binding us with his love. He sits on us. It isn't really comfortable for either party. But there is a territorial protective part of his behavior that is funny. But it is also hot, smelly and uncomfortable when he steps on areas of you not made for stepping. But the concepts are the same.

We are surrounded with symbols of owning and being owned. Wedding rings are only a hop, skip and jump into metal from the string colored bracelets of my daughter. There is desire to own... but a reluctance to be owned. But owning someone when it means we have to sit on them to keep them where we want them isn't very satisfying. Being our own people by running away from any possibility of being owned isn't very satisfying either.

Of course, love isn't really about owning... or being owned. It is about willing giving oneself over to another. Choosing to stay. And letting the other person decide whether to come or go. That can be joyful. That can be heartbreaking. But it is a lesson that comes to us all at some point. I hope for my daughter the heartbreak is minor and the joy overflowing. But those lessons are far away from now. A now where a piece of string is all it takes to say "I love you".

And so... for the time being at least... there is a middle age man walking around with some woven colored thread on his wrist. She owns a piece of me. I accept that and embrace it. And I love her back, even though that means that I can't tie her down and keep her with me forever. I will let her fly away when she is old enough to fly. Perhaps she will return or perhaps not. That is the risk we take whenever we give a piece of ourselves away with no strings attached.

Cause and Effect

2010-08-31T20:34:00.001-07:00

The older I get the less the question "why" really matters. As a child it was the only question and it is asked with annoying frequency in my house now. There is an innate desire in humans to unravel the mysteries of cause and effect. It is bred into us and ingrained into us by our elders. It is soaked into the fabric of our culture... just flip to any channel incessantly playing Law and Order re-runs... and there it is. Justifiable cause that our fearless sleuths unravel and our prosecutors prosecute. We NEED our answers wrapped up neatly in sixty minutes. The tragedies that we can't wrap our brains around those where there is no cause... just fateful timing. Being in the wrong place at the wrong time. Our culture lacks the patience for the Greek myth of the Fates and so we seek black and white answers. Even our religion steeps us in this concept... predestination, karma, purgatory... all cause and effect in their own ways.

We want the world to be a place where goodness is rewarded and evil punished. We want to know that if we act well to our neighbors, they will, in turn, treat us well. But it doesn't always work out that way. Sometimes the bad guys win, and sometimes the goodness results in nothing more than heartbreak. There are supposedly (and according to a writing teacher of mine once) only a handful of plot lines for fiction. These plot lines are repeated all around us every day. The good guy gets the girl and lives happily ever after. The bad guy kills the good guy right at the point of success. The girl turns out to be the good guy... or the bad guy... or just not that into guys in general... etc. But they are rhythms that we are all very used to. Comedy. Tragedy. Two sides of the same face.

And at the apex of the maturity level in terms of plot devices is what is called "no plot"... popular among the Coen Brothers and others of their ilk. The hero is not that heroic and manages barely any change through the story. The plot points are vague and fuzzy. The message is in the background and at the end of it we are left scratching our heads or demanding our money back.

But perhaps that is life. We are the heroes of our story. And in one storyline I can be the hero... and in another storyline I can be the goat... and yet another the bad guy. But my life is all of these things together. And all that really matters is the perspective of the person delivering the judgment of who belongs in which category.

So it isn't why that matters anymore for me... all that matters is perspective.

Tiny Dancer

2010-06-12T20:29:00.000-07:00

For over a decade now, the summer has started with a night of dance. Two nights, actually, if you count the dress rehearsal. The bitter cold auditorium filled to capacity to watch the multitude of dresses and music and choreography. But no matter how many people are on stage... I only have eyes for you.

Over the years, it has become increasingly difficult to find you among all the other tall, thin girls with their hair pulled up. The groups have grown from a few in a static row, laughably attempting to remember the steps while craning their necks from side to side to watch their neighbors... to your groups now. Dozens of girls whipping around in long lines. First you are there. Then you are suddenly there. Popping in and out of vision. Your smile fixed firmly in place. Your timing always perfect. No longer is it just enough to remember your part, but now you must fit in seamlessly to all the others, forming a single unified unit devoid of individualism.

You have already grown out of believing me when I tell you that you are the best thing on the stage. The only one that knows their part. The one with the best smile. You know that it is only my job to tell you such things. You chide me for focusing the camera on you, instead of on all the girls together. For you, the interest is in the whole dance. For me... I can only see the tree and not the forest. The forest overwhelms. But I remember the tree when it just a sapling, and I remember the endless nights and days of care that we lavished on you so that you would bloom.

When you watch the video, you make fun of yourself for all of your mistakes. Hypercritical to the end. An unflattering trait that comes genetically, I'm afraid. You roll your eyes at my attempts to deflect your criticism of yourself, because you know so much more than I do. And that I am not really observant because my eyes are blinded by love.

And perhaps you are right. But I notice one thing. In the ballet number, right toward the end... you stand in the back, in the center of the stage against a giant blue scrim. I watch the graceful lines you make in silhouette. And just for a moment, your fingers splay slightly in a break of form. Then all the other girls leave you alone on the stage before you finally make your way off... the last girl among all the other trees in the forest of girls.

There is a tear in my eye. Because I noticed the splayed fingers. And it reminds me, viscerally, of the way you were ten years ago. I remember those sames hands... smaller and more childlike... splayed in the same unique way, which made you.... you.

And I love you all the more for it.

Rear View Mirror

2010-06-03T06:10:00.000-07:00

I lay in my bed this morning enjoying just laying in my bed. The sheets were fresh. The pillow was mine. The air was damp and muted and all was quiet.

Then came a horrific crash which sounded like thunder, but in my room. I threw on some shorts and ran down the hall to find my youngest still abed covered with her covers. Then I ran to the next room and my son was making his bed... so everyone was alright. "What was that?" I asked. My daughter pointed to the foot of her bed where she had stretched so hard that she kicked over her toy bin. I had obviously missed this fact when checking to make sure that a tree hadn't come through the roof. Toys were everywhere and she was smiling.

Good morning.

I wonder about those moments. Those moments just before the crash. Those moments right before impact when all is well and all is quiet. How easy it is for us to take those moments for granted and assume that they will keep coming and coming.

Last week I got an email telling me of an accident. A boy that we knew was in a crash. This boy is one of the most talented athletes his age... and at age 11 he was know already across the country for his skill. But last weekend he and his father ran in to each other on motorcycles and for a while it looked like the boy wouldn't even survive... let along play hockey again. I couldn't help but ponder the events right before the crash. A beautiful, sunny day... perfect for play, full of happiness and joy... moments that we wish would last forever. But life doesn't play that way.

There is a balance, I suppose. I know many parents who refuse to let their kids live because they are so consumed by fear that something might happen to them that they cloister them away from everything. But this approach, perhaps, ultimately does more long term damage than the scars of all but the worst accidents. Fear consumes us so that we can no longer lay in bed and enjoy the moments of quiet because we just know that a crash is waiting around the corner.

We are merely mortal, regardless of how godlike we feel in certain moments. We are flesh and blood. It reminds me of the end of the movie Patton... when Patton is walking off into the sunset of the movie, having won the war... and a few months before his own crash and demise would come. He related a story as follows:

"For over a thousand years, Roman conquerors returning from the wars enjoyed the honor of a triumph, a tumultuous parade. In the procession came trumpeters and musicians and strange animals from the conquered territories together with carts laden with treasure and captured armaments. The conqueror rode in a triumphal chariot the dazed prisoners walking in chains before him.Sometimes, his children, robed in white... stood with him in the chariot, or rode the trace horses. A slave stood behind the conqueror holding a golden crown and whispering in his ear a warning... that all glory... is fleeting."

I think all we can do with the lives that we have is to enjoy the parade... or the quiet bed... or the moments of joy and sunshine in the moments that we are given. Maturity brings the knowledge that crashes will come... and we must be prepared to pick up the spilled toys... or deal with the more serious consequences. But there can be no greater regret in life than looking in the rear view mirror and realizing that we missed those moments because we were too busy worrying about those crashes to come.

Storylines

2010-05-24T22:59:00.000-07:00

I've slept in my bed once in the last two weeks. As I write this, I am sitting in an airport somewhere around the Rockie Mountains waiting for another plane to take off to another place. I'm told travel is supposed to be exciting. Mostly by people who don't have to do it very much. They are stuck in their time zones and want nothing more than to escape. I understand this.

This is "It's a Wonderful Life", where George is jealous of everyone who gets to go someplace other than Bedford Falls. His brother is off at war and it seems exotic and cool. But if the hero of the story was Harry and not George, the story line would be a lot different and I'm sure Harry would rather be back home than he would going up in a plane everyday and trying to kill people before they killed him. Both story lines are understandable to us. The desire to escape. The desire to return. The Lord of the Rings is all about that... the urgent need to leave the Shire, followed by two books of wishing they could be back in the Shire. And no, Mandy, it doesn't make be a geek because I referenced Lord of the Rings in a blog. Ok... maybe just a little.

My wife described her week ahead to me. "Drive here, do this, do that..." on and on. And she didn't sound very happy about it. It is a lot of moving from point A to point B, all in the service of someone else's schedule. There is cooking and cleaning and laundry and work and concerts and a large variety of other things that go on in the Shire that are the same as every other week. Her storyline has her trapped in this time frame forever... like Groundhog Day. "It will never change!" she wails. But it will, and then she might even miss it.

I know this travel stuff will change eventually. But for now it is my storyline. It is a little like the middle section of War and Peace. So I keep telling myself. If I slog through the doldrums for long enough I will get to the end of the book and it will feel worthwhile. It gets to a point where the place and the time are all relative. I'm not sure if I'm two time zones ahead? Or one behind. Or if I'm supposed to be eating lunch or dinner. You get up when the sun rises and work until it is long gone. And the beautiful and exotic things that surround me remain hidden as I never escape the terminal. There is a purgatory aspect to this sort of life. A myriad of faces, none of them known. None of them familiar. And so this hero in this story at this moment wishes for nothing more than familiarity and my own pillow.

They changed my gate again. Off to track down my next leg.

Over and out.

Invisible Fences Make Good Neighbors

2010-04-22T07:51:00.000-07:00

My dog has an Invisible Fence... a wire that runs around my property and is buried under the ground. He wears a collar and if he gets too close to the line it beeps, and if he ignores the beep... it gives him a shock. This sounds cruel, but I live on a busy street and with three kids running in and out, there was a good chance of him getting out and getting hit. Once we had the fence installed, he did get shocked a few times. But only a very few. They put flags up to warn him where the border was and he learned in a day where his territory was. It has gotten to the point where he doesn't even wear his collar much anymore. He just assumes that his border is what it is... and he is content in his box. And he runs madly around in that box to the point of wearing a path through my front yard... right where the line is.

Having spent much of the last year watching the unfolding drama of various celebrities... John Edwards, Tiger Woods, Jesse James, and Tiki Barber... to name the obvious... I am struck by a sea change of the male/female dynamic. I am not naive enough to think that these men are a new phenomenon. The sea change is, however, in how these men are portrayed in the press, and by the public in general. In many cases prior, much of the blame was wrongly placed on the woman... the succubus who come for seduction and are completely irresistible to even the strongest of men, willing them away from their chosen mates. But the sea change is that in these latest cases the men are portrayed as the offenders and the women, as innocent victims of the man's sexual appetites. I don't really know what went on in any of these cases... and neither do you... as much as you think you might. In all likelihood there is guilt on both sides of the aisle. But that doesn't make for as good of a story.

But how does this relate to Invisible fences... you ask.

Well, if I didn't buy my dog an Invisible Fence... he would undoubtedly be running around the neighborhood in a bacchanalian frenzy, screwing everything in sight... girl dogs, boy dogs, children, legs, trees, fire hydrants... etc. There are many dogs in my neighborhood... and many real fences... and some of the dogs ignore their borders and dig under the fences and bound around, breaking out of their boxes and breaking the rules. It isn't until they get hit by the car that they realize that this probably wasn't a good idea. However, those with fences that shock provide some pain beforehand to deter the inevitable frenzy to occurs. I wonder how many of the above mentioned men would have strayed if they were given the painful shock of embarrassment and family ruination that comes after the fact.

It is easy to sit on the sidelines and judge others... and I realize that none of us are completely to blame... nor completely innocent. My dog follows his nature. His nature is to sow his seed far and wide. As more evolved... we humans are supposed to live by a code which uses rules and morals to provide the Invisible Fences around us. Our big brains allow us to think into the future and to see the destruction our actions will cause... both to ourselves and to those around us. Yet the big brain is often overridden by the little brain of our libido.

Perhaps we all just need to wear collars that provide us a jolt of electricity when we begin to get too close to the line.

Touch

2010-04-12T19:49:00.000-07:00

The fire has died down to embers. The quiet descends as a shroud, covering us in a canopy of muted and tranquil depth. Shadows cover shadows until the eyes strain to uncover the deep grays from the deeper blacks in a futile attempt to divide and parse the world with the weakest of the senses. But while one sense fades, others rush to take its place. The burning wood stings the nose, overpowering the musky pine and loam. But not the fragrance of your hair... so close. The last crackle of the wood spikes the hearing, until the deep rumble of a train, miles away, returns to prominence. Thump, thump, thump.

The moon is full behind the swiftly moving blanket of clouds, and through the trees, the blanket thins for a brief moment and shadows chase themselves until the darkness envelopes us once again.

Your body shifts against me. It is solid and real and full of substance. For a moment, I had forgotten that we were two, but your subtle movement in the crook of my arm is a gentle reminder of our separateness. I can feel your breath against my neck, your hand tightening slightly over mine. The touch is casual. Familiar. Should all other senses fail me, it is touch that will buoy me and keep me afloat on the vast ocean of nothingness. It is touch that connects and combines those things that are unique and separate. It is filled with the raw emotions... the violence of anger... the trembling of fear... the gentleness of love. But the easy manner in which your hand finds mine and gently strokes the hair on my arm speaks volumes more to me than the obviousness of the others.

It is music to me, a melancholy air played on the strings of the heart. The impermanence of now. The moments and touches and feelings and emotions that co-mingle into the sense of being alive. The sense that can be raucous and jovial... tearful and heartbreaking... or, like now... calming and infinite.

I know not what goes through your head... or your heart... but only that you are here. Because I can feel you.

An Analog Boy in a Digital World

2010-04-08T07:40:00.000-07:00

I was in film school at the dawn of the digital revolution. The talk then was all about the difference between film and video... how to shoot it, light it... This was in the years when if you turned a video camera and pointed it directly at a light you could burn out the tubes inside and ruin the camera for good... and these weren't the cheap cameras... they usually ran about $40K. So we were all very careful. My area of interest was as a cameraman, and I was rankled to have to fit my "art" into the confines defined by a video engineer. I was hardly alone in this and because of it, the look of video has never really taken off for professional projects. And except for a few "video" classes everything I shot was shot in film.

Even today a majority of television shows are still recorded on film. Editing was a different story... the digital revolution was massive for film editors. The silly practice of physically splicing film together was replaced quickly and nearly universally by digital editors. But except for some advances in true digital photography, film for shooting still rules as a recording mechanism in movies and TV.

Why this remains so is hard to describe to most people. But I guarantee that if you saw the results side by side, you would be able to tell. Even the best digital camera has a different way of light capture than a regular film camera. But things are changing quickly as we become more and more accustomed to the "look" of digital. HD TVs are so ubiquitous as to make "regular" TVs seem like dinosaurs. And digital still cameras have made film SLRs seems ancient for home use, and increasingly for professional use.

I've been thinking about all of this of late because I got a Kindle for my birthday. I had been oohing and aahing over a few friends who had gotten one for Christmas, so one magically showed up from Amazon for my birthday a few months later. As a man, I like me some gadgets. But as a well known bibliophile, I also love the feel and smell and touch of books. As with film, it is hard to explain to a non-believer why one would miss the feel of a book. But you do.

The logical part of my brain, which thinks about things like sustainability, knows that it is wasteful to cut down trees to continually make new books and magazines and newspapers, when it is faster and cheaper to deliver words digitally. And I have to say, it is pretty f-ing cool to be on a phone call with someone listening to them rave about a book and download it and start reading it before the call ends. I've done that twice already in my two months of Kindling. It is also cool to have 50 or a 100 or a 1000 books in my backpack without walking around like Igor.

Likewise, shooting family stills has gone by the wayside in a digital world. The photo chemical industry is in the toilet. Which is not a bad thing unless you are in the photo chemical business. Our kids will no doubt be so used to the look of digital that films and TV will eventually go that way too. And it is just a matter of time until e-book readers become so universal as to make hard copy production obsolete. The nay-sayers may say "NEVER"... but the writing is already there, and like all such sea changes, we end up looking like dinosaur hold overs from a different age... laughed at and mocked by the new generation.

And despite logic to the contrary, I will remain nostalgic for the analog world. I will remember the many hours spent changing film with my hands deep inside a light-bag, my hands touching the reels, and carefully and blindly feeding them through the camera. I will remain nostalgic for the look of grain in a world of discrete pixels... of lighting with your gut, and knowing that it was, at the very best, a guess... instead of a sure thing. And I will remain nostalgic for the book stores and libraries that will fade away by the time I die... and the feeling of being surrounded by the works of generations... a feeling I don't get when I hold the thin Kindle in my hand... even though it holds a whole shelf of books already.

Logic does not play well with nostalgia. Nostalgia is smells, and touches... heartbeats and fragments of memories. It is the emotion that we turn to when the antiseptic cleanliness of logic fails to move us. And after all, living is about being moved. And even while they laugh at me now for my nostalgia, the next generation will have their own list of things which will make them nostalgic, I'm sure. At least, I hope.

Waiting for My Real Life to Begin

2010-03-25T11:53:00.000-07:00

Any minute now my ship is coming in...I'll keep checking the horizon, and I'll stand in the bow.

It is dark and the lights below rise to meet me. When the door opens, I repeat the steps that I've repeated over and over. I move because moving is expected. I walk fast because walking fast make me appear to have purpose, and it is important to keep up appearances. Even if there is really no one watching. The stores are all closed for the day, the gates pulled down, and the place is mostly empty. But still I walk fast.

And I'll check my machine, There's sure to be that call, It's gonna happen soon, soon, oh so very soon... It's just that times are lean.

While I walk, I try to remember how it is I got... here. Not necessarily the physical here... but the timeline here. I retrace my footsteps in my head, and visually connect the moments. But it is like a morning dream. An amalgam of dreams of the whole night. Disjointed snippets and images which, combined, make no sense. We make due and weave our stories together in ways that tell a narrative. But often the writing isn't as good as we hoped.

And you said,"Be still, my love. Open up your heart. Let the light shine in"

I think it is inevitable that the cheerleaders in our lives grow out of the uniforms eventually. The skirts and pom-poms that once looked so fetching, now look absurd. That is the definition, I suppose, of the end of love. When the new stories in our lives sound so much like the old stories in our lives that those that once believed, can no longer rouse themselves off the couch for long enough to feign interest. I wish for that voice to say... "Be still." But all I hear is the echoes from long ago.

Don't you understand? I already have a plan. I'm waiting for my real life to begin.

First it was film. Then writing. I could go through a whole laundry list of them. Something... anything creative that allows the world not to view me as just another poor sot. Anything but the corporate hustle to make other people money. But we put our energies where they need to be to stay employed. The helpful adages of "do what you love" become replaced by the realism of "do what pays the bills". And find those things that keep you going in other places. And instead of waiting for others to cheer... cheer yourself instead.

And so I move. Walking fast, and waiting for my real life to begin.

Love & Dinner

2010-03-16T12:49:00.000-07:00

Taken from the actual dinner conversation at Chez Mobi last evening.

13YO: SOOOOO..... I have NEWS. I have a new boyfriend!

Me: (mid bite) What happened to what's his name?

13YO: He is too much of a girl.

Me: (chewing slowly) He was too much of a girl so you broke up with him?

13YO: Yes... A is much better. And taller. And generally cuter. And smarter.

Me: (swallowing carefully) How did this come about? This whole "being your boyfriend" thing?

13YO: At lunch.

Me: He asked you at lunch?

13YO: No... he sent his wingman... who talked to the girls I sit with.

Me: Wingman? How do you even know what a wingman is? So there was no direct contact. Just brokers?

13YO: Yep.

I chewed some carrots pensively.

8YO: I have news too... C is dating B now.

Me: Dating? What does that mean exactly? Aren't you 8? And didn't C say that he liked you, like, yesterday?

8YO: Yes... but that was yesterday.

Me: Ouch...

8YO: Yes... but I was too good for him anyway.

Me: Double ouch. Remind me to keep close tabs on you when you get older.

11YO: I have news too...

Me: Not more love news...

Now the 11YO has been "with" his girlfriend for two years... an eternity for this family. And while the other people use brokers to parlez, the boy was always very straight forward... sending cards, buying Valentines, going to birthday parties... girl birthday parties. And he never caught cooties. So if this was about his love life.. it was news.

11YO: M is moving to Dubai in a few months.

ALL: WHAT????

11YO: It's in the Middle East.

Me: I know where it is. Why?

11YO: Her father got transferred.

Me: Wow.. that sucks buddy.

11YO: (philosophically) Yeah.

Much quiet chewing for awhile as my hair grayed more.

11YO: Dad?

Me: Yes?

11YO: Can we get Skype?

Since Last We Talked

2010-03-12T07:33:00.001-08:00

I haven't really felt like writing all that much. I've been busy, yes. But that wasn't really it. I just didn't have anything to say. Nothing witty. Nothing profound. I've been waiting. Waiting for my job to close down. I've been fretting about this and that. Mostly things I can't really control anyway. But I managed to shepherd my flock into something in the way of a happy ending, which was definitely better than the alternative which consisted of cliffs and nooses and what not. Anyway...

So now I'm off on the next adventure, which, in the end, is just the same adventure... just with different faces. This adventure entails less control, more stress, and lots more travel... which isn't really that hard since I didn't travel at all before. Chez Mobi is in quite the uphevel dealing with the various ramifications of this.

11YO: I'm glad your traveling... at least you aren't sitting home playing games on the computer anymore.

8YO: Does this mean you can't do my homework anymore?

13YO: You realize this means that Mommy is going to be in a bad mood for the next year?

Travel to all of them is exotic. "OH... you get to see cities!" They don't realize that all the cities look the same when you are in an office all day long. "Oh sure... you get to eat out, while I have to slave away cooking every night." They don't realize that the food all tastes the same in Seatlle as it does in Providence. "OH... you get to stay in cool hotels!" They don't realize that it is harder to sleep alone.

There are people that are built for the road. Who enjoy squishing themselves into an airline seat every Monday and jetting off to someplace new. I can handle it in finite pieces. But it is real drag after awhile.

To them it is either an adventure, where I will get to see new and exotic places... like Detroit. Or more often, it is just an excuse to be away from home duties... like running people to lessons or dance or hockey.

It would be nice just once to have them say... "thank you... I realize what you are giving up."

Geek Olympics

2010-02-17T07:08:00.000-08:00

OK... I will admit it. I'm a Winter Olympic junkie. Not so much the Summer Olympics... only the Winter ones. This dates back to my childhood before coverage was quite so ubiquitous and overwhelming. Back when I was young and formational... not jaded and cynical. "Miracle" is required annual watching in our house. And I'm not beyond explaining the tactics of curling to my less than curious son.

I was watching with my daughter the other night and NBC cut away for one of their story pieces that inevitably involved some disabled sibling of one of the stars and how they pushed them to do better.

My daughter turned to me and said... "This is like a soap opera."

I responded, "Yes!!! But with sports!!!"

She rolled her eyes as she is wont to do. But she understood. And in fact, I understood for the first time. That little interchange was an epiphany of sorts for me. I love sports. I love competition. But I realize that one can spend too much time agonizing about them... cheering victory or rueing defeat. They are a waste of time. An escape. They do not profit my life. Nor do they add to the world.

And yet... they do. They are microcosms of life, cut and dried into one 60 minute game, or one 2 minute downhill run, or one toss of the stone. And NBC has gotten this for a long time. That the competition in a vacuum isn't worth much. But the competition with the background allows us all to grab on and empathize. To grab on to the epic battles that are life. They teach us to appreciate our own battles more fully.

On Sunday, I watched my son in an epic battle of his own. It was our own little Miracle on Ice... albeit on roller blades instead of skates. Our team fought and skated and played better than they have ever played in their life against the perennial champion team that is captained by one of the best young players in the country. My son in goal to challenge this Goliath. Our team got down. They fought back. They got ahead. My son making save after save, and the team entered the third period with a three goal lead. And then Goliath turned it on, picking top shelf shots that my son simply couldn't reach, and slamming slapshots as hard as he could. The defense was exhausted and my son was the last line of defense. And he began to crack. One goal. Then another... and a then a third to tie it. And then the unthinkable and this giant scored a fourth to take the lead. With a minute to go, my son was pulled to add an extra player in a desperate attempt to tie the game. And they somehow did. Sneaking a goal past their goalie. 10-10... and the game was going to overtime. The boys on my son's team were exhausted, having played so hard. And the other team attacked... the Goliath shooting from all sides... blocker save, pad save, stick save...

I watched it in slow motion, my heart hurting for what I knew would come. A pass from our defenseman that was a little too slow. Goliath jumped it... and then it was just he and my son. He faked forehand, and my son laid out trying to poke check it away... but Goliath calmly moved to his backhand and pushed the puck slowly into the goal in the six inch gap that my son left because he is just that much too short. Game over.

It was truly epic. But there are winners and losers. In the locker room he cried and in anguish looked at me and said "I don't want to do this anymore..." I knew the feeling... and I knew he didn't mean it. Because it is life. And more than anything in life sports teaches you that when the puck gets behind you and into the goal... it is truly behind you... and there is nothing you can do to change it. The only thing to do is get up and focus on the next puck coming at you.

And he did... in another hour he played his second game of the day against a different team, and made some of the greatest saves I've ever seen him make.

It is a soap opera... this life... but with sports.

OK.. off to watch me some curling.

10 Things I Remembered This Week

2010-02-10T19:49:00.001-08:00

1) Snow days aren't as much fun as they used to be.

2) Having many options is good. But the weighing them part is very tiring, and doesn't build muscles.

3) Fighting about the same things over and over and over again should be added to the dictionary definition of hell... or at the very least, purgatory.

4) People who claim that snow storms disprove that there is such a thing as global warming should write on their hands "I am stupid" four or five times to make sure they don't forget.

5) Finding yourself lost in a book and being unable to put it down is downright blissful.

6) Cynicism is a black hole from which nothing escapes.

7) Making your kids laugh until their sides hurt is easier than one would think.

8) Trust isn't regained through words. Trust is regained only by acts.

9) It is easy to take things like heat for granted, until they aren't there anymore.

10) Snow days aren't as much fun as they used to be.

The Mysteries of My Past

2010-02-01T11:57:00.000-08:00

I joined a volleyball league last month because, you know, there isn't enough humiliation in my life. It has been two decades since I played competitively. Long before any of my children were alive and kicking, and nothing that happened pre-them really counts.

Anyway, I apparently failed to notify my progeny of my decision to join this league. Until last night, several hours before my first game.

Boy: You are going to play volleyball? (raised eyebrows)

Me: Yes.

(long pause)

Boy: But do you know HOW to play volleyball?

Me: I'm familiar with the game. Yes.

Boy: Are you sure? Because there are a lot of shots that you have to be good at. There's the bump. (demonstrates) There's the set. (demonstrates) And the spike... which I'm too short to do, but you might be able to. You do it like this. (demonstrates).

Me: Thanks. I'll keep that in mind.

Boy: Just remember to keep your thumbs in on the bumps. Do you know how to serve? Because the serves are important.

Me: Yeah... I think I remember.

Boy: I'm pretty good at it... if you want me to practice with you. I can probably help.

Me: Help what?

Boy: Help you not look like an idiot.

Me: I don't think there is much hope of that.

He concurred. The little bastard.

The Fluidity of Life

2010-01-22T07:11:00.000-08:00

Turbulence is a scientific term for the chaotic movement of liquids or gases. It is the messy part of the science known as fluid dynamics. The part that engineers and scientists struggle with because it is predictably unpredictable. Think of a body of water, or the room of air that surrounds you now. It is made up of a whole lot of molecules... for all practical purposes, an infinite number of molecules. Unlike solids, water and air molecules have much less stickiness to their neighbor molecules, which allow us, for instance, to swim or walk through it. With an infinite number of particles... each with a full range of potential motion, we would think that chaos would reign and the molecules would do whatever they damn well pleased.

But that isn't the case.

Air and water behave in specific ways, and even if they have the potential of a free range of motion, they do not take advantage of it. Instead, they follow well determined paths based on the movement of their neighbors. In other words, if one molecule is going in one direction, the nearby molecules are likely to follow.

You can see this dynamic everywhere. In a flock of birds or a school of fish that are flying or swimming together en masse with no apparent leader. Yet the group somehow collectively decides to suddenly turn to the left or right... or up or down.

So too, humanity. Each of us has a full reign of potential motion... the potential to do anything at any time. And yet, we don't. We follow the subtle unseen cues of our neighbors and collectively move en masse, the same way that fish or fowl or molecules of water do. On paths that carry us, and our neighbors onward in shiny boxes to and fro and on paved arteries. We rebel against this idea, especially those of us in a western world that prides itself on uniqueness. But in point of fact, we all choose what we are and what groups we belong to, not because we have full range of motion, but instead, because of the cause and effect of ideas and actions around us. The conformers, or the rebels. The main path of flow of humanity, or the subtle eddy that ripples off to the side. We are all following a path that envelopes those that we choose to associate with.

How then do we escape the predetermined pathways that would seem to take all the unpredictability out of life? That is the role of turbulence. That is the role of change. Turbulence is what occurs when eddies set up feedback loops that create other eddies which then increase the loops which ultimately infuse the flow with chaos. Throwing a seemingly ordered system into disorder. And as much as the scientists would like to write off turbulence... and as much as you and I would like to expunge disorder from our lives... it is the disorder that makes life worth living.

I see these things all around us in the macro and in the micro. It helps me to realize the role of the molecules around me, each quietly bumping me along a path, or off into an eddy of thought. And I watch as the turbulence boils over and turns the fine straight lines into jagged streams of chance. Each has its place... and each is necessary. Order and chaos. We often fight the flow, and fight the chaos. But these thoughts help me sit back and enjoy the ride, and take joy in my own part of bumping others along or instilling a bit of chaos every once in a while.

The World Spins Madly On

2010-01-20T07:50:00.000-08:00

Last Wednesday a lot of people died on a little island. They say maybe 200,000. A number too big to contemplate.

Last Thursday an old woman died in her bed while her wedding soup simmered quietly in her kitchen.

I can't grasp the magnitude of many. But I can grasp the magnitude of one. She was there. And then she wasn't.

I can't really say that I will miss her. She was not the pleasant sort. And her family wasted no time in squabbling over her belongings, discussing it while her body lay in state a few feet away. It was sordid and ugly and... human. We cope by moving on. We must, because there is really no choice.

But as I watched the last week play out, it focused my thoughts again around the concept of now. Living now. And living the way we want to live. I wonder if she would have done anything differently if she would have known that Thursday was the end. Maybe. But maybe not. I wonder too if the 200,000 would have changed anything if they knew. One more hug. One more smile. One more... something.

As I write this, my feet are propped on a table that found its way to my living room from hers. A reminder perhaps, that waiting for one more whatever can't wait.

I thought of you and where you'd gone and the world spins madly on.

The Problem With Being Saviors

2010-01-15T09:01:00.000-08:00

It occurs to me on a daily basis that we have an issue with being humble. All of us want to be saviors... even if the people that need saving don't really agree that they need help.

Take for instance Brit Hume from Fox News. Last week Brit decided to dole out some advice to poor, ailing Tiger Woods. He suggested that Tiger give up his Buddhist ways in favor of Christianity. Now this was much ado about nothing for a few days because a lot of the dolts in America thought to themselves... "Hey, that's some darn good advice!" Now perhaps I should have let sleeping assholes lay, but this is yet another example of the world of AmeriChristian egotism that underlies a whole host of much larger and deeper issues with all that is us (and by us, I mean the white/anglo-saxon/christian us... as if I had to clarify). Not knowing Brit personally, I can't make a judgment call on his level of assholedness. I can assume that Brit really believed that he was giving out good advice to someone who is having a hard time. And that exact point is the problem that I don't hear discussed nearly enough in our culture today. Those who know better simply call him an asshole and move on. Those that agree with him are growing in number simply because there isn't enough discussion to combat his views.

Let's dissect a bit...

Brit believes, it would seem from his remarks, that Tiger stands a better chance of forgiveness under Brit's belief system than he does under his own. In other words... Christianity is better than Buddhism, and Brit is better than Tiger. And to reap the rewards of God, Tiger must become a Fox News contributor, or something like that. Brit, who doesn't seem very well versed in Buddhism to start with, jumps to conclusions about forgiveness without even the hint that Brit's path might not be the only path to enlightenment. The underlying message, for those that read the subtext, is that this is America... and to be a good American, and to get into God's grace... there is but one path. Brit therefore sees himself as the savior of Tiger. And anyone that doesn't think that he is right is either a Nazi or a Communist... or more than likely, both.

The savior complex is deep and profound in this country. It permeates all of us. To take an example from the other extreme, in Avatar, James Cameron's main character sets out to connect with an alien race by literally becoming one of them. He is thus able to understand them and their culture at a much deeper level than a regular white/anglo-saxon/christian would. This would seem to be the antithesis of Brit Hume, who I can't really see trying on yellow robes anytime soon. But even here Cameron's hero is us... and Cameron's hero is the savior. The aliens can not conceivably save themselves without our help. And the only logical alternative is that WE must intervene.

The downfall of the United States of Us will come, not from the success or failure of the liberal agenda, or the right wing egotism... but from forgetting the fact that money and military power don't mean that one's beliefs are therefore more right than anyone else's. Our foreign policy is rife this approach to things. In Iraq. In Afghanistan. In China. Even in Haiti. We run to be the saviors. I would hope that we do it because it is the right thing to do in Haiti (since several of those other problems were our own making). There is no doubt that tragedies like Haiti require help... money and power set forth for a cause to save and rebuild. But I think many do it because, like Brit Hume, we think it makes us somehow superior. And we can't wait to crow about what we did to help. Because, like a tree falling in the woods, no good deed is really a good deed if there aren't people there to brag to about it.

We all want to be superior in some way. Whether it be in the clothes we wear. Or the scores that we get on our tests. Or the wealth we accumulate. Or the religion we practice. All of it, at the heart, differentiates us from others for the purpose of making us feel more worthy than those that think or dress or act differently. The concept of "live and let live" does not play well in that arena. And every day I see a world striving to be saviors, instead of world that understands that "letting live" doesn't entail changing all the others to live just like you.

Orgasmic Cheese

2010-01-11T19:30:00.000-08:00

My family tends to go on food kicks. I suppose this normal for all families. But this holiday season was designated "cheesemas". My MIL likes to overdo things when it comes to food. So I think she bought out the entire cheese counter at the local grocery. There was cheese from around the world. Cheese in blocks. Cheese in wedges. Fat cheese. Skinny cheese. Cheese with bacon in it. Cheese with horseradish in it.

Now, don't get me wrong. I like cheese and all. I like it on my hamburgers and on my ham and cheese sandwiches. I even like the dipping cheese that you get with the enormous pretzels with road salt on them at the hockey games. But the wall o' cheese was absurd in its cheesiness. I tasted a few and made my half hearted raised eye brow grunts.

Until I hit the orgasmic cheese.

Now, despite past blogs to the contrary, I tend to be fairly private about my orgasms. Especially when I'm surrounded by a room full of in-laws. So it was rather embarrassing when I sort of melted into a lump of gooey mess right there on the floor after the first taste of this stuff. "WHAT! was that..." I sighed, when I had regained my breathe. If I had a g-spot, this cheese would have found it and engulfed it in swooney goodness. It was like someone took a tuning fork and hit the resonant center of my universe causing me to lose all control of bodily functions.

It is called Stiltson Mango Ginger cheese. Zing... I'm getting excited just saying its name.

Having described this to one friend already... I got a less than excited reaction. "Mango? In my cheese? No." And I can understand that. For I too never believed in the perfect "O"... and I realize that this cheese might not be your perfect "O".

But now I believe that the perfect "O" exists. I'm heading to the store to buy more now.

**shivers**

La Petite Morte d'Arthur

2010-01-11T11:07:00.000-08:00

(reread this one this morning and thought you might enjoy it too)

I love Arthurian legend. How can anyone not? It is the basis for so much of western culture and Python humor. I remember sitting in Harry Pole's class (that's what we called him anyway... I think his last name was Pollson or something like that)... and learning all about the seedy world of double entendres. So today I give you a brief overview of some of the lesser known interpretations of the legend known as Arthur.

1) They all named their swords. I mean, come on... if you are a big virile knight you can't be running around with wimpy sounding sword, like Rocky, can you? You need manly sword names, like Excalibur.

2) There are two legends about the origins of Excalibur. The first is the well known Sword in the Stone. Uther, who was Arthur's father, stuck it in the stone before his death brought on by a husband he was cuckolding. The wife was chaste and he had to resort to Merlin "magic" to get her to spread her legs. (I could use me some of that Merlin magic) So anyway, Uther gets in a tight spot because of his dick and to preserve his "family heirloom" he sticks his "sword" in a stone... A "stone" is a well known euphemism for "a woman who won't put out"... "She lay their like she was made of stone, for Christ's sake." Anyway... the only one who could get this stone to put out was, of course, young Arthur. And after this, it was obvious that he should be king. I'm thinking he got most of the women voters.

3) The second origin of Excalibur legend is much easier to understand. Arthur gets the sword out of the Lady of Lake. So a wet lady gives him a big sword. This is simple enough that children can understand it.

4) Our hero's best mate is Lancelot. As his name implies, he likes to use his lance a lot. Particularly, as it were, on Arthur's wife.

5) One of the greatest heroes was Gawain, notable for his battle with the Green Knight. Green, as we well know, is the universal color of horniness. And so the story is actually a tale of Gawain's secret desire for men. Gawain cuts off the head of this man (latent homophobia) and the man walks off with his head stating that Gawain must come see him in another year for his own "beheading". When he shows up a year later at the appointed castle he is seduced by the wife of the Green Knight who gives him some green lady's undies to wear to his beheading. Kinky, no doubt. When he shows up, obviously finally accepting his gayness, he is spared.

I could go on like this for hours. But I shall spare you. I won't, for instance, go on with the Holy Grail since the legend has been so defiled by Dan Brown in The DaVinci Code. But I shall end with the death of our hero.

7) Now old and brokenhearted... Arthur is locked in battle with his son Mordred. Mordred's mother is Arthur's sister. Don't ask. Some skeletons should be left lie. But anyway... Arthur is banging away at his son/nephew when he is mortally wounded. And the dying wish of a cuckolded king? To dip his sword once more in the wetness of a lady. And so Excalibur goes back to the Lady of the Lake, put there by Bedivere (which I believe goes above and beyond the call of duty). Anyway... the wet woman takes all three feet of his sword and is so happy that she sends a barge to take Arthur off to the afterlife.

Now that, friends, is the way to go.

New Year's Resolutions: The Blog Variety

2010-01-08T05:29:00.000-08:00

Okay... yes, I know it is 8 days late. But one of my New's Year's Resolutions is "Better Late Than Never"... which includes taking books back to the library and making New Year's Resolution's lists. This is the blog variety of resolutions.

1) Get more than 30 readers. Everyone else has like 100 or 300 readers. I have 26. I know! I know! Quality over quantity. And yes, you all are very quality readers. But I want at least four more of you in the coming year. One new reader per quarter... I think that sounds reasonable. I suppose this means I have to read other people's blogs and comment and generally act like I care. But what the hell... I'm sure that I can find at least one more blog worth the time in a three month period. You may make your suggestions if you feel like pimping.

2) I'm going to get rich. Seeing as how I will have at least 30 readers I think this is a doable goal. I've added the ridiculous AdSense ads to the side of the blog. Originally it was mostly a joke for my blog about my cover letter. But then I got all into seeing what queer things came on my blog based on what I wrote that day. For instance... yesterday's ads were "Want Disciplined Kids? Free Trial" (I clicked just to see if they were giving out kids) followed by "Bahamas Sailing Vacation". I can almost see the smoke coming out of the Google computers as they try to figure me out. So far I've made $2.27, but only because Mandy and I have a reciprocal click pact that goes way back. I encourage you all to click on my ads, even if you don't want a "Bahamas Sailing Vacation with Disciplined Kids". Moby's got to make some coin.

3) I'm going to win one of those awardy things that all the cool blogs have. Even if I have to make one up myself. Like "Most Likely to Blow Up Google Computers" or "Least Talented Lemur Blogger", because awards mean everything to everyone... and I want to impress my four new readers when they stop by (as well as the Google people who are going to stop by to see why they are paying me big bucks every month).

That is all. Modest goals. But things to strive for.

Carry on.

Oh... and PS... 4) I'm going to try blog more than once a month. But only so every blog doesn't have to be some sort of description of where I've been.

Avatar: A Review

2010-01-07T06:08:00.000-08:00

When I was little, one of my favorite books was The Wump World by Bill Peet. I've read it to my own kids dozens of times. And I could not help by think about it as I sat through 2 hours and 40 minutes of Avatar. The Wump World is about a group of blue aliens, called the Pollutians, who come to a peaceful green planet of the wumps, who are small rodent like creatures. The Pollutians have destroyed their own home and now destroy the wump world in the name of progress. In Avatar, the Pollutians are us... and the blue aliens are the wumps. The rest of the story is pretty much the same, except that the wumps didn't have bows and arrows. I've heard many people compare Avatar to Dances with Wolves... and there is something to that too. But The Wump World came out in 1970 and I have yet to hear anyone connect the two. I think the point is that Avatar was predictable from a story perspective, because most of us have seen it before.

Because of this many have already criticized the film, calling it everything from derivative to tripe. And yet the same people that lambaste Avatar are the same ones that look at Greek myth with reverence. We story tellers admire these myths because they form the foundation and roots of our own collective literary knowledge. But they were, themselves, derivative stories of their time. I am not saying that Avatar is in the same category. But the story it is telling is. It is the new mythos that we have seen repeated over and over again for decades... the need to connect to this planet. This idea grew out of James Lovelock's theory of the 1960s that all the world was an interconnected organism. This theory, commonly called the Gaia Theory, informed a generation of storytellers to come... James Cameron included.

Cameron is our PT Barnum. He is a man who is a highly proficient story teller. But he is extraordinary at creating interesting worlds... be it The Abyss, Aliens, Titanic... he has the capacity for drawing an audience into a world with a hyper sense of being there. He is also a showman... like Barnum... who is able to trumpet his own legend and groundbreaking technological expertise while being completely lacking in the humility for those whose shoulders he has stood upon to get there. The 3D effect in Avatar I have seen before... at Disney World among other places. But the 3D in a world that was thought up by Cameron, and filled in with some of the greatest sci-fi and fantasy artists in the business, is spectacular.

I am a fan of cinema. I am a fan of the spectacle of sitting in a darkened theater with a huge image and loud sound and experiencing a movie with others (as long as those fellow watchers are also movie fans... and thus are quiet). For years after I graduated from film school, my friend Dave would call so we could discuss the latest "groundbreaker". Like many of our generation, we got into movies because of George Lucas and the world that he created. But as we have aged, both Dave and I have become a little more jaded by the business... to the storytelling... to the attempts that many make to recreate what Lucas did many years ago. Like Cameron, Lucas was an okay writer with an extraordinary abilty to create a world. And at the time, it was groundbreaking and it was, for Dave and I, the beginning... because for us, it was the moment that started it all, regardless of what came before. There were moments, as I sat alone in the theater watching Avatar, when I felt some of that wonder return. When I talked to Dave later on, our views were the same. We remembered, if for a short time, why we love the movies. It is spectacle on a grand scale. It is the retelling of a story that brings us together... as myth should. It is a movie which will lose much when viewing on a television and thus it was build and should remain in the hallowed and darkened halls of the theater. And while it was not necessarily groundbreaking for me... it will, perhaps, begin a new generation of movie lovers.

To Whom It May Concern:

2009-12-17T03:23:00.000-08:00

I am applying for the position of Chief Marketing poo-bah for your company. In my career, I have successfully closed three companies that have failed to find a niche. However, I blame the techies, since I have been very successful in creating a great deal of excitement for products that failed to live up to the hype. Despite the fact that the job description for this position states that an MBA is "preferred", I submit that my bachelor of FINE arts degree is better than a regular bachelor of arts degree since it is...well... finer.

On the surface, my background might not seem well suited for your company. But let me assure you that my lack of job experience utilizing social networking to market is unreflective of my deep understanding of the social networking phenomenon. I spend a great deal of time on MySpace, Facebook and Twitter endlessly networking with many people who all think I am the bee's knees. I will simply apply this knowledge to your company and in no time, voila, you too can be the bee's knees.

I am an extremely capable communicator and was once recognized as one of the top bloggers of the month on MySpace by someone who wanted me to link to their page. At one point I even cracked into the top 100 blogs of the day, but mostly because I was checking my comments so religiously that I might have spiked the numbers a bit.

I have a thorough understanding of Google Ad Words as should be obvious from the ads to the left over here ----------->
And I don't need to work since I make so much from people clicking on these ads, but I figure, why should I keep all this stuff to myself, right?

I have been the recipient of many awards in my career. I was voted "biggest feet" by my graduating class, in what I now realize was an inside joke at other parts of my anatomy. But really... don't you want someone on your team with big feet? I also won first prize in the Pinewood Derby when I was a Cub Scout, which means that I know how to make things go fast, and win... despite the part about the closing of companies, and the endless complaints from my wife about me being a loser. She is just joking. Mostly.

Combined, I believe my practical knowledge and relative success with companies such as yours makes me the ideal choice for this position. Or perhaps another position, if that floats your boat. I'm really up for anything. And remember the part about the big feet... unless you are a guy... or if you are a guy, and you swing that way... then remember. Otherwise, just forget I mentioned it.

Thank you and I look forward to hearing from you soon.

Since Last We Left Our Intrepid Blogger...

2009-12-16T09:12:00.000-08:00

The last month has blown. In a life of occassionally blowy months. This one has been one of the blowiest. I'm tired of the people that tell me that things will work out... and that at least I have my health... and that there are many people that are worse off than me. No fucking dah. I am accutely aware of how good I have it, during my times of blowiness. And yes... I know it will work out in the long run. Key word being "long". Why do we feel the need to address the whiney trauma-ists in life with these platitudes? Most of us are used to the roller coaster. We've been down. We've been up. We know the score and the game and the best we can come up with is "things will work out"? Of course, we feel bad. And of course, we feel helpless when talking to people in the middle of a down stretch. So we fall back on the easy answers. Because silence just seems silly and embarrassing.

On the flip side of blowiness... are a few people who actually seem to care. This surprises me. Because, at heart, I know that I care. But I'm so jaded at this point that I assume everyone else is just pretending. Why do we do that? Assume that no one else really cares. I mean, I suppose that life teaches us all sorts of lessons regarding this. One is that... no one likes a whiner. But everyone likes a winner. And so we all hide it away and say "everything is GREAT." Which really means "things are so f-ed up that all I have left is this fake smile." And we smile and see all around us the same facades in all the faces we meet.

I met a women once and we had many deep conversations about this and that. Very deep. I was fourteen or fifteen. She was more than twice my age. I'm sure now I had a huge crush on her. But at the time it was all about the deep conversations we had about things. We talked about this exact thing. About the surface platitudes that we share with those around us that we only ever know on a surface level. We made a pact that we would always ask each other how we REALLY were. And we would mean without all the covering crap. I grew up and we moved on and we talk every decade or so now. And when we see each other we ask each other how we REALLY are. And we laugh. And then we provide each other with a load of platitudes.

Because no one really likes a whiner.

Row, Row, Row Your Boat

2009-11-18T05:47:00.000-08:00

Every sailboat is different. Each has its own signature, its own nuance, its best point of sailing. This fact is lost in a crude world of motorboats who plow the oceans and lakes with dogged monotony, in a rush to get from here to there by the straightest line. Sailing is not a game for the hurried. You zig and zag, back and forth, from tack to tack, crawling your way up wind and down. Mastering a ship requires patience and a concert master's ear for the wind in the rigging... tweaking, tightening, loosening, adding sail and taking away sail.

Those who know no better assume the fastest way to travel is directly opposite of the wind with as much sail as possible. But these sailors are barbarians with little sense. The true masters know a ship's best point of sailing is several points off the direct line of the wind... and in strong breezes, more sail can actually slow you down rather than speeding you along. This is true of life as well, where turning yourself directly into the wind will eventually leave your sails fluttering... and it is best to keep your options open by following the direction, but not too closely.

The winds do not obey you or I. They simply blow, or not. We created steamships and motorboats for this very reason. And so we plow forward now on strict time tables on direct lines. We forget the power of patience that are necessary when dealing with the doldrums. The power of listening to the wind in the rigging to hear the subtle changes that we must make to get from A to B. And we forget the white knuckled terror that strikes us when the winds and storms catch us, when all there is to do is pull down the sails, and turn into the waves and hold on.

But it is the doldrums that I think about now. For that is where I am. Sitting and waiting for the gusts to blow on my cheek to tell me that the waiting is over and it is time again to move. But sitting still and waiting is not the only option in sailing. There is a technique called "kedging". In large sailing ships, a small rowboat is sent out carrying the ship's anchor. The men row ahead of the ship and push the anchor overboard. Then the men on the main ship turn a crank to slowly pull the ship forward a few feet. The anchor is then pulled out again and the process is repeated. It is ridiculously hard work. But it keeps us from slipping backward, and keeps us moving forward, however slowly, until the winds pick up again.

Knowing what to do at sea does not come from an owner's manual. Certainly there is training, and basic skills necessary. But at the end of training comes instinct. A finely tuned ability to understand the subtle reactions that a ship takes based on your actions. Being in the doldrums can suck the instinct from you. It can pull you into a lull, addling your brain into contentment. And pulling one self out of this requires a ridiculous amount of labor.

Perhaps it is time to get out the kedge and start rowing.

Lyrical Memories

2009-11-11T06:10:00.000-08:00

Thanks to blog friend Vic I've been singing the theme song from "Up with People" since yesterday.

Up, up with people!
You meet them where ever you go!
Up, up with people!
They're the best kind of folks you know!

That's really all I remember, but that's fine because if I remembered anymore my teeth would fall out. My sister had dreams of touring with them like 30 years ago, and this is the remnent that remains.

My mind is filled with lyrical reminders of times past. For instance... there is the alternative version of The Beverly Hillbillies theme song that I learned from my counselor at church camp that went like this...

Here's a story about a man name Jed
Threw old granny down on the bed.
Down came the zipper, out came the worm.
Out of the worm came a bubbling sperm.

Ah... church camp. My sister, who was also a counselor that year, had a total crush on my surfer dude counselor whose name... at least in my memory... was Jay Gatsby, but now I wonder if memories have blurred. But he was pretty "Great"... at least in teaching us how to avoid "Flat On Back" time and teaching us inappropriate lyrics.

And I am wont to break into song when things are tense. I have an odd munge of show lyrics from long ago, to rock songs, to rap music, to made up lyrics that are spurred by mood and a scrap of conversation. The audience is always my kids. I won't sing for anyone else, so don't ask. But they are safe, and somewhat humored (at least for now) by my musical offerings.

I'm terrible at learning lyrics now. I will listen to a song for years, and still be hazy on the exact lyrics. I'm too busy or not interested enough to concentrate and listen over and over until I have it down verbatim. But songs from years ago are locked in to my brain like my social security number. I wonder what lyrics will form the base of my kids lyrical foundation. I listen as my daughter sings religiously along with the latest pop candy song. Or my son will suddenly start singing along with some old song that I'm listening to in the car that I didn't even think he knew.

I mentioned yesterday that my father was not a big fan of anything past Brahms... which pretty much rules out lyrics. So for him, the rock revolution and the silly songs we sing are pointless. Yet that is a ridiculous notion. The lyrics of life wrap up our collective memories. They provide connective tissue and conversations that last for years and spur memories that would have been long forgotten otherwise. I remember the song that was playing at important events in my life... at the first first kiss (Journey's Open Arms)... wedding... (Aaron and Linda's Don't Know Much)... first kid's birth in the car on the way to the hospital... (REM's The End of the World As We Know It).

Some are cheesy. Some not so much. Some invoke bad memories. Many of them invoke good. But they are tied to times and places forever.

Adventure Wingman

2009-11-10T07:15:00.000-08:00

When I picked up the phone he said... "What are you doing on Friday." Not hello. Just right to the dramatic setup. We are a lot alike he and I. I suppose I derive a lot of my dramatic timing from him. But after 41 years I've learned that it is better just to humor him and bite on the setup.

"Nothing that can't be changed. Why?"

"Want to drive to Ohio with me?"

I could have thought of a few things I would rather have done. Scrubbing the toilet came to mind.

"Why?"

"Because I just bought a motor home. I need to pick it up on Friday."

Now, I have to admit... this was not what I had thought he was going to say. I didn't really know what he was going to say, but "I bought a motor home" was not at the top of the list. My father is 77, and while he is in pretty good health generally speaking, he hates to travel. He didn't used to hate to travel but I suppose this is one of those things that begins to fade along with... ahem... other abilities. "It was on my bucket list," was all he really offered by way of explanation. I understood. He was there a few days before when we buried my father in law who was 15 years his junior. My father thinks a lot about the sands that are sliding out of his hourglass, but mostly in the background. Funerals tend to bring those thoughts to the foreground. And in point of fact, this dream of buying a motor home was a dream of a much younger him... one about my age. So really... how could I say no. I took a breath... "Sounds like an adventure."

It was a two hour drive to the place which doesn't seem that bad. But considering that my father and I rarely talk anymore, it could just as well have been a week. My father writes books on being open minded and has spent years cultivating a following around the world of fellow travelers who share his open minded thoughts on a website that I keep up for him. The problem is that his open mindedness is contained to certain topics. Like after death recall, and reincarnation, and the like. Not so much on things like the cultural significance of any music past Brahms... or the concept that other people might have some ability to raise my children better than him. Or... well, I could go on, but those are topics for another day. My sister tries to intervene with us from time to time to clear things up, but even she has grudging come around to the idea that I am right... and it is best to let sleeping fathers lie. He is unlikely to change his ways.

It is better simply to celebrate the things that he still gets excited about. And I had honestly not seen him so excited about anything for a long time. We found the place and went inside. They were waiting for him. Like most things, he overdoes it, and he had been on the phone and talking to them for weeks about every detail of this day. So they all knew him by name.

A man that reminded me of Paul Williams was assigned to tech us out on the new purchase. Paul began by showing us the septic system and proceeded to demonstrate how to clean it out by pulling a hose out of the side and splashing the bilge water all over the ground around us as we attempted to jump out of the way. I raised an eyebrow and my father shrugged. It was part of the adventure. It continued with an hour and half tour where we went over ever pump, gauge, button, flange, and battery on the entire structure. I realize that his purpose for bringing me was twofold... first it was a "guy adventure" of which I am the only significant "guy" left for him. And secondly, because there was a lot of stuff to learn, and he was worried that he wouldn't remember it all. And so I watched him and was happy for him and his crazy impulsive need to live his life. Damn the torpedoes... full speed ahead.

I wonder at times what kind of father I will be to my children later in life. How I will interact with my own son. And when, in the course of things, my quirks will begin to annoy and my open mindedness will close in around certain topics to the exclusion of new thought... if he will still come on an adventure or two... just for old times sake. The lives we live with those that are closest to us are often filled with slights, and hurts, and wounds that fester over time. Despite our best attempts to the contrary, those things can build up like bilge water that we carry around with us in our mobile homes. Those wounds can't really be forgotten... the scar tissue runs too deep. But we can say yes to the adventure when it comes our way. And in the end, it is the adventure... and not the petty bickering... which create the epic poems of our life.

And so he drove out of the parking lot, and I followed behind for the two hour drive home... wingman on what might be his last adventure.

The Stormchaser

2009-11-09T07:58:00.000-08:00

There is a tempest that grows off the shore, spurned by the deep heated wetness. The waves swell, pushed by winds and rains, which turn and turn, gaining momentum, and seeking a foothold on land where its massive potential energy can be unleashed into a howling maelstrom. The wind cycles, cascading over the eye's center, down... down... and then violently back up again. Repeating over and over, growing stronger and faster each time, so fast and so high that the rain flashes to ice in a second before crashing down into the center again.

In the distance, the sirens wail and the flags rigidly point inland, foretelling the inevitable coming. The beaches are quiet, no one to watch the willows bend low in sublimation. There is a relentlessness that is frightening, and yet it is simultaneously exciting and mesmerizing. This wall of energy. This mass of motion. This fury of nature.

Most will flee, hiding behind closed doors and boarded windows. Some will leave completely, moving inland to calmer ports where the rain falls straight down and the wind gusts are caresses. But a few will try to weather the tempest standing before them, longing for its landfall to take them and press its wind and rain and power against them. Some call them brave... others call them foolhardy.

I remember storms like this. Of being the foolhardy one.

But now I live inland.

A Night Off

2009-11-06T07:25:00.000-08:00

My seven year old looked at the calendar this morning before school and asked me what day it was. I told her and she found it and exclaimed "HEY!! Look! We don't have anything scheduled for today." Then to her brother... "There are only a few days where we have nothing... and today is one of them! We don't have to do anything today, which means we can do whatever we want!"

I think that might qualify us as being officially over committed. Despite attempts to the contrary, with three kids... it is hard not to be over committed. Being the ages they are... and the sexes they are, it is hard to double up on events. Thus, even though we limit what they do... those things are always at the same time and in opposite directions. I don't remember it being this way when I was a kid... but maybe I don't remember because I was a kid.

Being a kid involves being completely oblivious to the consequences on other people regarding your decisions. "I want to..." translates into endless trips squeezed into endless other trips. But failing to listen to the "I want to"s makes one a bad parent. WHAT! Your child wants to play piano and you said NO? **Gasp** It is peer pressure that makes high school look like child's play.

Every parent I know complains about this fact. The pressure of running hither and yon. The desire to be a "good" parent... even though that often means letting them stay up until all hours of the night at musical practice when they have a project due tomorrow. And while we complain about being the taxi driver, we just as often worry about what it is doing to our kids... is there too much pressure? Do seven year olds really need to be looking at calendars and being happy when one of the blocks remains empty?

There is... according to many anthropologists... an evolution in process between my generation and the next. A video is being shown to adults and to teens. The video is a split screen with two different things happening on either side of the screen... with one side having people dressed in blue, and one side with people dressed in blue. Both groups are asked to count the number of times the blue side bounces a basketball. When the video is completed both groups gives their answer to the simple question. Then the person running the test asks the group if they saw the gorilla. 90% of the teens saw the gorilla, which comes on to the red side of the frame dressed in a basketball uniform and dribbles the ball. Less than 20% of the adults saw it... and they were completely stunned when the tape was reversed and they saw just how obvious it was. Not only that, the teens reported a much higher accuracy on the correct number of times the blue side bounced the ball... and were also able to report how many times the red side bounced the ball as well.

There is, I believe, a fundamental change happening in the brains of this next generation. One that involves a much higher level of multitasking and the ability to utilize more of our brains to process it. A change in which the parents of today are unequipped to handle because we are not evolved enough to handle it. But our kids are. Which is a long way around to saying that having them take music and dance and art... letting them play sports... letting them be in musicals and plays... and any number of the other activities that are now available... is okay. Because humanity is evolving to help them process what we could not. Change always happens. And my cro magnon brain is good for driving them here and there, even if it can't process all that they process. And that... my friends... is how evolution happens.

This does NOT change the fact, however, that it is still nice to have a night off every once in a while.

Those Moments

2009-10-28T07:27:00.000-07:00

I was sitting with my father watching my son play goalie over the weekend when my father compared the goalie position to that of a pilot using the old joke... "hours and hours of sheer boredom interrupted by moments of sheer terror." It is true in many ways... since a great deal of the time the puck is on the opposite end of the rink and there is absolutely nothing to do. But just when the boredom sets in, the puck changes hands and suddenly, as was the case in this game, here come three opposing players with not a defensemen in sight. My stomach drops every time this happens as I watch from the stands. I can only imagine what it must be like to be in the line of fire.

These moments happen not just in hockey games... or in the cockpit... but every day and all around us. And these "moments of terror" aren't always terrifying. The analogy also works for the special moments in life. Those moments when we are, as Joseph Campbell would call it... "fully engaged". Moments when things fly at you from all angles and your body and mind react instinctively. Moments of joy. Moments of terror. Moments when the story lines that we are writing for ourselves come to climax. It is the continuous perfection of that moment that Buddha sought... the name Buddha itself meaning "awakened". In the Hindu and Christian cultures the concept of god becoming part of the world underlies the idea that our incarnation here is merely a forgetting of the spirit life so that we can experience these moments in this existence. There is something reassuring in this idea... that a supreme being would seek to be a part of this world simply to experience that which we take for granted daily.

This concept has been much on my mind of late. The concept of "moments" of life. My life is indeed vast stretches of boredom... of sameness... punctuated by moments of sheer terror... or joy... moments of sheer emotion. Those moments form together like touchstones of my past, forming a life lived. I remember not the filler moments... those moments... like now... that simply lead to the climax. But I remember the births... the deaths... the coming togethers... the breaking aparts... the moments where mind and body are in perfect accord. Those moments when time slows to a crawl and all of my senses are alive.

The Buddha's search for a place where all moments where "those moments" is noble and telling... for truly every moment CAN be one of those moments if we let ourselves experience it that way. But then again, I wonder if we are capable of appreciating the moments if they are ALL special. And perhaps the ebbs and flows of life have a purpose... to lull us into a place where sheer terror... or sheer joy... are possible. And perhaps my challenge is to except the "in between moments" as necessary parts of the whole. We are impatient these days for things to happen NOW, instead of enjoying the times of quiet for what they are... prelude.

After the game, I asked my son what he does to stay focused when the puck was on the other end of the rink. "I hum." And I nodded... and I smiled.

Love and Death: Storylines of the Week

2009-10-23T07:26:00.000-07:00

My philosophy of life can be summed up as follows: "It pretty much all works out in the end..."

The problem with this philosophy is A) there is no real clear indicator as to when the end will arrive and B) there is no clear indicator that the end will be the happy ending that we imagine.

But inevitably in my life I have found that what I first took to be bad endings are, in fact, better endings than I could have imagined. My short sighted view had me missing the forest for the trees.

You could say that I view my life... and yours... as the storyline of a novel. A novel in which we are the author, actor, and, more often than not, bit player. Because, you see, we are all the stars of our own shows... but we are the bit players in everyone else's story. And since there are more of you than there of me, I am... a great deal of the time... a bit player in other people's stories. I am alright with that role, as I hope you are about being a supporting character in my story. But I find the story lines... mine and yours... fascinating. The twists, the turns... the bad writing and the moments of sheer prize winning brilliance. And the story lines always work out in the end... some tragedies and some triumphs. But they all resolve... eventually.

I was a bit player in two such plot lines that came to the close of a chapter this week... one happy, one sad. One about death. And one about birth. One in which the star meets his end after a life that was not always well lived. And one in which the girl gets the guy... and the family... and lives (hopefully) happily ever after. I had no speaking lines in either plot, but instead served as audience... providing only reaction shots as the drama played out.

As far as "it pretty much works out in the end"... death would seem to be a pretty bad version of "the end"... and yet I don't believe that. In this particular case, it was the right end to this chapter... and since my personal beliefs include a belief in the here-after... it is the end of chapter, not of the book... and the next chapter might well be a lot happier than this one. And the girl? Well... her story is really just starting. It is a sequel to a best seller...and one that will have many more twists and turns, and ups and downs before it is all over.

My own storyline has many plot lines that are in various stages of resolution. Most will end in ways that I really can't fathom. Some happy, some not... but I have lived enough to know that what is certain is they all of those stories will work themselves out in the end.

The trick is to pick a good supporting cast to help you through both the good and the bad.

I'm Swine, How Are You?

2009-10-19T13:16:00.000-07:00

So the swine flu hit Chez Mobius this weekend. 4 out 5 inhabitants are down for the count. I know, I know. I shouldn't call it "Swine Flu" because the Other White Meat people will get all offended. But really, the other name is more like a computer password... neither of which I can remember with any regularity. Before you all run off screaming, I think that you are safe from contamination. Reading my blogs will NOT make you catch swine flu. Or any other flu for that matter.

Being as how I'm neither pregnant, or an infant, I am hacking and wheezing but pretty much not in danger of anything other than a few days of claustro-house-dephobia... fear of being stuck in my house with the entire family and dog getting on my nerves. There are only so many card games you can play with your seven year old... or so many times you can watch Disney Channel reruns... or so many times you can let the dog out... then in... then out... then in... before you begin to lose it.

At any rate... I'm cranky. And hot. And feeling generally porcine. How are you?

The Button Giver

2009-10-15T08:42:00.001-07:00

So since all the cool blogger kids are taking hiatuses... hiati?... I thought I would join in too. So I have left you all for new adventures. But I am back filled with stories to tell you. Okay... one story.

I've been in the woods of late. Not figuratively. Literally. Each year the entire fifth grade at my kid's school heads off into the wilderness to learn about nature for 2.5 days. They bring along a few "chosen" parents... mostly ones without criminal records who can actually PROVE that they have no criminal records. At any rate, Monday found me bouncing along to points north on a yellow bus of 10 year olds. My son had deserted me to sit with friends, so I was sitting with the kid with a lisp that apparently no one else wanted to sit with. He announced each sign that we passed, and then asked exactly how far that was to our destination. Finally after an hour we took the exit ramp which caused him to jump up and announce, "Look kids, we're getting off the interstate." but sounded sort of like Sylvester the Cat "look kidthhthh, we're getting off the interthththate." I wanted to point out to him that the reason that he was sitting with me might have had something to do with his use of the word "interstate"... or his insistence on calling them all "kids". But arrive we did. And after unpacking a bus full of bags, including one Gucci bag that I could had fit my entire wardrobe in, the kids were off to meet their leaders and the chaperones were off to learn how to lead.

At this meeting a parent from each group was given a bag with buttons in them. They were special buttons to give to the kids for "special" things they did.. like paying attention, volunteering, and not jumping off cliffs. I was given the bag for our group of twenty kids because the other dad was too busy trying to find cell reception and coffee. Our duties consisted of escorting the kids here and there... entertaining them during breaks... generally staying out of the way of the guides... and handing out buttons. I figured that the kids would find the buttons patronizing as I did. But the dynamic was interesting. The first few badges garnered little attention and I assumed that they mostly didn't care. There were 16 badges and 20 kids... so I tried to watch each kid for a bit and select some special moments. The other father took a few and handed them out like lifesavers if the kid could answer questions like "what is your name?" and so forth. At dinner... badge winners were asked to stand up, and be recognized before returning their badges for the next day. Mostly they rolled their eyes at having to stand up. But kids are sneaky with what they care about... and by day two there was an undercurrent of needing to be recognized.

On day two of our adventure, some mysterious suited men showed up at lunch. "Suited" as in double breasted suits, with $400 loafers. I asked the student teacher sitting next to me at lunch what was up and she whispered that one of the parents in one of the other groups was "crazy..." and the school administrators came to "check in". This, of course, raised my hackles... because the logical conclusion was that someone had called me crazy again. This fear was confirmed when one of the suits followed my group out into the wilderness after lunch. The 20 ducklings, the student teacher, one environmental leader, and me and Mr. Gucci Shoes. The student teacher caught my eye and conspiratorially told me that I wasn't crazy... but Gucci was following because his daughter was in our group. She pointed the girl out.

She was a tiny pixie and in the first day I never saw her without a smile. But when I looked at her now she looked like steam was coming out of her ears. I have never seen a face more full off anger than on that little pixie face. The student teacher filled me in. "The parents are separated... she doesn't like dad much." They didn't teach us about this part in the chaperone training. We marched along through the forest path with Mr. Gucci Shoes trailing us by about 20 yards. While his daugher pushed her way to the front of the line to be as far away from him as possible. It was heartbreaking. From both sides. I have no clue what had gone down between them. It didn't really matter, I suppose. Her perfect world had been shattered. And he was to blame. Rightly or wrongly. And now here was a public reminder of it dogging her adventure in Italian leather. He stayed back and listened to part of the next session, and then when the kids were getting ready to do their learning, he leaned in for a whispered goodbye. She didn't even look at him and he followed the path back to camp. The pixie was still trying to recover several minutes later. She was listening to the wind in the trees, and the chipmunks chipping, and the wood creaking, and studiously copying down these finding into her current exercise, writing the song of nature. But it was hard to hear with all that steam in her ears. I could tell. I was watching her. And the joy of the place was gone, washed away by hurt feeling from the past.

I went and knelt beside her eventually and asked her to tell me her song. She rattled off the sounds and I asked her if she heard the bird in the distance. We both listened for a bit in silence. And the steam began to fade. And as I got up, I handed her a blue listening button with a smile. And suddenly, her smile was back. She pinned it on and showed her best friend who smiled too.

If only it were that easy. I would give buttons every day to everyone I met. Wouldn't you?

10 Things I Remembered This Week

2009-10-02T08:08:00.000-07:00

1) I am not as dumb or as smart as she thinks I am.

2) I don't like the feeling of having the floor beneath me removed suddenly.

3) Sometimes saying nothing is the right thing to say.

4) Nooners are good.

5) There is nothing better than playing a three part trio of Heart and Soul with your kids.

6) There is nothing worse than listening to a three part trio of Heart and Soul by your kids.

7) Rain is nice... for a little while. Then it gets kind of sucky.

8) Despite Axe Hair Crisis Relief advertising to the contrary, no horde of women has popped out of a balloon to give my hair a makeover.

9) Expecting things to work out is different than making things work out.

10) There are always other options.

The Problem With Being Nice

2009-09-30T08:47:00.000-07:00

My new strategy for college saving is drinking lots of Diet Dr. Pepper. They are running some give-away that gets you $1000-a-day to use for tuition. This fits well with my general inability to save money... and my propensity to drink Diet Dr. Pepper all day. I think this is sage on several levels. One... I can continue to spend money now rather than save it for the kids for later. Two... in the unlikely event that I DON'T win... I will have shortened my life considerably through the overdose of all sorts of baaaaadddd chemicals, and therefore my life insurance will kick in to pay for higher education. "Doctor... we tried to draw blood but all we got was this fizzy liquid!" Perfectly logical reasoning.

On an unrelated yet related note... my children are too damn popular. They have been invited to no less than six birthday parties this week alone. My budget for "birthday presents for strangers" is also eating into college savings, not to mention my budget for essential things like food, heat and movies. I've told them to be less friendly. But they don't listen. My 12yo lectured me on niceness yesterday. She said... "Daddy... people always say I'm too nice... because I'm very empathetic. And there are worse things than being nice." I told her that she collected needy friends like stray cats.

Anyway... so the boy gets off the bus at 3:55 yesterday and tells me he has been invited to ANOTHER birthday party. I rolled my eyes and asked when it was... "Today." "TODAY! When today!" "At 4:10". Now, my ability to deal with chaos is pretty high... but since the other half was off at a school meeting, and I was busy cooking the dinner in preparation for dance/clarinet/musical practice/other meetings later on that night... this came as a little bit of a shock.

Boy: Mommy knows about this.
Me: Well... I didn't get the memo. Who's party is this?
Boy: (Name I've never heard)
Me: Who the hell is that?
Boy: That's XXXX's brother.
Me: Wait... you got invited to his BROTHER's party?
Boy: His brother likes me.
Me: I'm sure he does. That's not really the point.

At that moment the cavalry arrived in the form of the other half.

Her: Crap... I forgot. Ok.. plan B. We are taking the gift card I bought for Saturday's party and put it in the card I bought for Sunday's party... there problem solved.

I made the executive decision not to point out that this was a small symptom of an entirely larger problem. But the day was already stress filled enough.

And soon I was off to delivery the boy and his borrowed present to a party for his best friend's brother grumbling to myself about stray cats and college.

What They Draw From You

2009-09-29T12:17:00.000-07:00

Repost... by request.

In a few weeks, my son will be entering his second decade on this planet. This has caused me pause and made me reflect on the boy who is fast changing into something larger and greater. All parents desire for their children to exceed... to move beyond the parent and into a life all their own. And yet all parents rue the passage... even if we don't admit it. His true passage is still years away. But I can see the potential of the man I helped to make. The genetics are a mix... my ears and build... her hair and coloring... but his eyes... they are all his own. That is a good description of children, perhaps. The chaos of mixing genetic materials which follow a form not to stray too far away from the original... but far enough to make the world interesting.

When he lay on the ER table a month back, being stitched up from taking a hockey stick between the eyes in a backyard game, he didn't cry. He joked with the doctor... deflecting fear and pain with humor. I sat beside him, holding his hand. The doctor asked where he had managed to get such a sense of humor... he didn't answer verbally, but his small finger rose so that only I could see it and he pointed at me. And he was right of course. In more ways than one. Humor is a weapon that we both employ with surgical skill from time to time. And we take pleasure in making each other laugh to the point of choking at the dinner table... and yet in his eyes... I see a melancholy. A melancholy that I recognize from my own reflection that passes from time to time. And so he deflects already the questions of sadness, hiding them behind a veil of laughter. There is nothing really to be sad about... but that is just the way that he is wired.

He is smarter than me. Certainly he hasn't walked the miles I have and has not the life experience that I have. But his IQ is above mine by a significant margin, and I'm not really a slouch. I'm fascinated by this. I challenge him constantly and am nearly always amazed by his capacity to absorb and adapt and change. We started playing chess last week. He knows the game and apparently has become the class chess champ. But he needed more of a challenge so he asked me to play. We had played in years past and he frustrated easily because he could not beat me. So he quit. Also a trait from yours truly. But this time it was different. He wanted to learn and have me explain what I was doing and why so he could beat his friends more easily. We dissected the game and he sucked it all in. And we played again, he, armed with new weapons, and me trying to set up chances and opportunities for him to see if he would catch them. He did. All of them. And I found myself losing. It took me years to beat my own father. It was a rite a passage I wasn't about to let go casually. So I played harder and eventually trapped him. But he was smiling this time because he knew that he had done well.

They are all so different. So unique in their own ways. You can group him if you like. Call him the middle child. Call him a result of nature. Or of nurture. Or diagnose the fact that he is the only boy with two sisters... You can see his tendencies and point them back to their origins. His dislike of crowds... or his taste for mustard and pickles... his reflexes... his smile.... his calculating eyes... his hyperactive leg... his fascination with building... his dislike of reading fiction... his yen for a life as a hero... his catlike need to rub his face against you...

But they are his. Not mine. Not hers. Not anyone but his. He is a snowflake. And so are we all.

10 Things I Remembered This Week

2009-09-25T05:40:00.001-07:00

1) "Umlaut" is fun to say over and over.

2) Settling is much different than compromising.

3) You need to let them fall... repeatedly... as hard as it is to watch.

4) Sometimes it is nice to hear the words "it is going to be alright"... even if you are sure it isn't.

5) Sarcasm is not really an effective parenting tool.

6) It is impossible to be a writer without actually writing. Thinking about writing doesn't count.

7) Those goofy shoes she bought you because the look sexxayyy?... wear them... even if you feel goooofyyyy.

8) Wine is gooooood.

9) Sometimes the cover-up is worse than the actual crime.

10) Sometimes when the whole world is upside down and topsy turvey... the only thing to do is to play ping pong.

Random Flotsam

2009-09-22T06:30:00.000-07:00

So the wife bought a new yard tchotchke over the weekend. It is a stone thing that supposedly looks like our dog curled up and sleeping. Our dog, however, is apparently offended by this analogy and barks at it with suspicion every time he passes it. I am in agreement with him. To me it looks more like the pig fetus that I had to dissect in 10th grade biology class. Every time I pass it I get a throwback wiff of formaldehyde and feel like barking at it too.

I finished reading the world's most depressing book the other day. Cormac McCarthy's The Road. I've always loved his prose, and this is the best of his that I've ever read... which apparently the Pulitzer's guys agreed with. They failed to mention however that it is the world's most depressing book. I wish I could have written the lines for the back cover... Mobius says, "Impossible to put down, harder to pick up." or Mobius says "Don't read without a large prescription of Prozac". But thankfully for those of you who don't want to read it, the movie will be out in a few months starring The King... from Lord of the Rings: Return of the King. Oh Boy! Just what we need in these days of depression... the world's most depressing movie!

Weird things are afoot in my town. The free world has come for a visit and brought along their various cadre of detractors. I suppose this is why they picked to do it here... since the world won't shut down if our city does. Literally... shut down. Unless you are head of state... don't try to get to work. My daughter was doing a report on one of the countries coming... she got France... and had to do a history of the country. So I helped her learn about Napoleon... and the guillotine... and trench warfare... and the Maginot line... and the 5th republic. Then I asked if she knew who Nicolas Sarkozy was... so we looked him up. Then I threw in a fun fact... "Did you know he is married to a supermodel?" At 12 she is accomplished Googler... so she Googled her. Oops. Um... Yes... well... the French also like to be topless. A lot.

On Peace...

2009-09-21T07:49:00.001-07:00

We are a world of war. A world where the strong survive and the weak perish. Where those with money and power and influence can fix it so that they get more of the same by taking from those without. It is a world of injustice, where so often "justice" comes in the form of pent up anger which becomes a fist to the face of those who have caused us to suffer. It is a world that encourages conflict... for our entertainment... for our safety and way of life... even, perversely, for our continued peace.

Peace is word that conjures hippies, and radicals... people with rose colored glasses... Gandhi... Martin Luther King, Jr. And look what happened to them. We act as if death is the worst thing that can happen to us. Our most basic desire is, afterall, survival.

Yet, there are lines and shades of gray in all of this. I would not shoot a person in cold blood. But threaten my family... and the gloves come off. Without hesitation. So the power is there... right in my itchy trigger finger, through which blood flows from a supposedly peaceful heart. Situations always override philosophies. And every one of us has that breaking point.

So how do we pursue peace in a world that is so permeated by a need to fight? It is an nearly impossible task. It makes our eyes hurt to consider it. It becomes justification. Thin slicing. Endless scenarios on which writers, filmmakers and news moguls revel.

It is a tiny step at a time. The quotations are there every day.... "The greatest achievement is selflessness." "Love thy neighbor as thyself". "There is never a good war... or a bad peace." "We shall find peace. We shall hear angels. We shall see the sky sparkling with diamonds." "Peace is not only better than war, but infinitely more arduous."

And lastly... from the Dalai Lama: "Responsibility does not only lie with the leaders of our countries or with those who have been appointed or elected to do a particular job. It lies with each of us individually. Peace, for example, starts within each one of us. When we have inner peace, we can be at peace with those around us.

Today is the UN International Day of Peace... spread the word... and spread the peace. One small situation at a time

10 Things I Remembered This Week

2009-09-18T04:52:00.000-07:00

1) You can always get one more squeeze out of the toothpaste tube.

2) The bus comes regardless of your level or readiness.

3) There is a direct correlation between my inability to get comfortable at night and my inability to get uncomfortable in the morning.

4) Colds have little to do with being cold.

5) Waiting an extra second before talking is never, ever, ever a bad thing.

7) The people that quote Leviticus 18:22 are the ones most likely to forget Luke 6:31.

8) No matter how many times I return, a wagging tail makes me smile.

9) I'm not as cool as I was last week... but next week I will be retro.

10) We act like time is infinite and love is finite... when we should do the reverse.

Superhero

2009-09-16T06:32:00.000-07:00

One of my favorite pictures of my son is one from when he was about three or four. He was in a serious Toy Story phase of life and we had bought him a four foot puzzle of Buzz Lightyear. The picture is an overhead shot that I took of him as he lay flat on the floor next to the puzzle pointing to the sky in imitation of his hero. He is wearing his Buzz Lightyear pajamas and a smile of sheer unadulterated joy.

"Unadulterated" is the perfect word. Even though the Latin roots for "adult" and "adulterated" aren't really the same... they are the similar. "Adult" comes from the Latin "adultus"... to grow... where as "adulterated" comes from "adulteratus"... or to change. To "adulterate" something, Webster tells us, is to corrupt, debase or make something impure by the addition of a foreign substance. So to be "unadulterated" is to be pure. And what better way is there to describe the difference between the wide-eyed awe of childhood to the jadedness that many feel as they age.

Most boys (and many girls too) grow up with fantasies of having special powers. Super powers. Be it strength, the ability to fly, laser bolt eyes, invisibility, or just a belt with really cool gadgets on it... all of my friends wanted one. To be able to stand up to the bad guys on the playground. To be looked at as special and super. To have people whisper with awe when you walked into a room. I mean, really... what is cooler than a guy in tights.

Over time it happens to them all... they grow. And the boys become young men and slowly the world of expectations encroaches on their fantasies... diluting them. Adulterating them. The spandex gets hung away in favor of other super suits... in my son's case, hockey goalie pads. Dreams of living in the Super Friend's Headquarters replaced by dreams of playing in the NHL. And while that is a little more realistic, it isn't by much. Don't get me wrong, I won't discourage the dream. But I know the odds... and so does he, really. He knows the pads don't make him invincible. He has won games... but he has also lost enough to know that they good guys don't always win. And each goal that he lets by further distills the purity of that smile in that picture.

The other day he was in the store and I caught him looking at a large display of Toy Story stuff in anticipation of both the original and sequel's re-release in theaters... (and in 3D!) There was a wistful look on his face. A memory of the forgotten past. A smile. I wanted to tell him that he doesn't need a super suit to be special. But me telling him, won't make him believe it. He needs to discover it himself. I pray that he does, before the world encroaches and makes him doubt. That is the wish of every parent.

Positively Insane

2009-09-15T10:39:00.000-07:00

Me: Ok... so we have established that you think that health care reform would be too expensive.

Insane Person: Yes.

Me: But you are small business owner, like me, right?

Insane Person: Yes...

Me: And are your insurance rates ridiculous too?

Insane Person: Oh, they are ridiculous! And they keep going up.

Me: But you don't think that we should address that? You wouldn't like lower rates?

Insane Person: Of course I would... but not if my taxes are going to go up.

Me: No one said they would.

Insane Person: They have to, where else would they get the money.

Me: Now this is where I tell you that it would have been helpful if you were able to watch the speech from the other night where talked about these things.

Insane Person: But I told you.. I don't have to because I just listen to the news afterward.

Me: Fox news.

Insane Person: Yes!

Me: Third Base... right. Well, one of the things he pointed out in his speech was that we all have driver's insurance, right? Why do we have driver's insurance?

Insane Person: Because it is the law.

Me: RIGHT! So if you crash into me... I have some protection. But why shouldn't I have some protection against the 46 million people who get sick and go to the hospital and receive treatment... I mean, why should I have to pay for them getting sick.

Insane Person: Right!

Me: Right! So tell me again why you are against that?

Insane Person: Because I don't want to pay for their insurance.

Me: But... we... just... covered.... that.

Insane Person: Well the government paying for them and taxing us is the same thing, isn't it?

Me: Not even remotely... first the idea of public option gives a low cost health plan to people who can't afford their own plan by themselves. Secondly... they are trying to make it pay for itself.

Insane Person: They will fail.

Me: That's your answer? They will fail? So we should just give up?

Insane Person: Oh... no... I'm a very positive person.

Me: Obviously.

Tea for Two... With Smartphones for One

2009-09-15T06:00:00.000-07:00

Me: So we have established that your opinion counts more than mine, right?

Insane Person: What? I never said that.

Me: You did say that since your candidates didn't win, that you have no representation, correct?

Insane Person: Well... yes. I don't agree with what they are doing.

Me: But do you at least acknowledge that they are your legally elected representatives?

Insane Person: I think that there are questions about how he got into office... like whether he is a citizen or not.

Me: Really? So you think that everyone that has shown proof that he was born in Hawaii is lying?

Insane Person: Well, I still haven't seen proof.

Me: Have you looked for proof?

Insane Person: Well.. no.

Me: (pulls out Phone)... Here.. that's a copy of his birth certificate.

Insane Person: I can't read it.

Me: That's because it is on a Smart Phone. **sigh** OK.. so because you didn't vote for them, then your opinion is the only opinion that counts, correct?

Insane Person: That's not how I would put it.

Me: Ok... how would you put it?

Insane Person: I'm just expressing my opinion that there is no way we can pay for healthcare for the whole country.

Me: Ok... that's fair. I will stop making fun of the name of your ill-named party and your inability to read factual documents, so we can concentrate on the facts at hand. Healthcare. What don't you like about the bill?

Insane Person: Well.. I just don't think that the governent should be interfering with it.

Me: Because it works so well?

Insane Person: No... I think there is a lot that could be fixed.

Me: Ok... so who should do it?

Insane Person: Well, the companies should do it themselves.

Me: Why would they do that? Isn't their job to make their stock holder's money?

Insant Person: Well, yes... but government shouldn't have a place there.

Me: Ok... so we have established that it needs fixed... but you think that the companies should do it themselves. Got it. By the way... did you read the bill? Or actually.. the five bills, since there are currently five... none of which is up for a vote yet.

Insane Person: No.. I'm sure no one reads them.

Me: Actually, I think a lot of people do. Did you listen to the President's speech the other night?

Insane Person: Oh, no... but someone I work with read me a little bit of it.

Me: Hmm... so how do you know you are against it when you don't know what it says?

Insane Person: Because I watch the news.

Me: And the liberal media tells you what to think about it?

Insane Person: I don't listen to the liberal news shows.

Me: I thought all news was liberal.

Insane Person: Most is... but Fox news gets it right.

Me: Except for the parts where they make stuff up?

Insane Person: They don't make things up.

Me: I would show you a long list of things on my smart phone.... but they would just bounce off you.

Whine and Tea

2009-09-14T09:09:00.000-07:00

Me: So why DO they call these things Tea Parties, anyway?

Insane Person: You know... because of the Boston Tea Party.

Me: You mean, the one where they dumped the tea into the harbor to protest British taxes?

Insane Person: Yup...

Me: The one where they were complaining because they were being taxed by the king without representation in Parliament?

Insane Person: Yes...

Me: But you have representation.

Insane Person: No I don't...

Me: You have a congressman, you have two senators, and you have a president, right?

Insane Person: Not ones that I voted for.

Me: But you did vote, yes?

Insane Person: Of course I did... It is my right. Just like it is my right to go my Tea Party and protest.

Me: Yes.. but shouldn't you be calling it a Whine Party instead of Tea Party?

Insane Person: I don't drink wine.

Me: You might want to rethink that strategy. I'm certainly opening a bottle.

Disposable Thumbs

2009-09-14T08:38:00.000-07:00

I love the overheard conversations among my kids.

7yo: Well you know monkeys have disposable thumbs.

10yo: Ha! You mean OP-posable thumbs. Disposable means "easy to throw out".

7yo: I know that... but it's just easier to say.

So I'm painting my mother in law's house this weekend. The tall peaks and the stuff that no one else can reach. I'm the designated "tall guy". I used to do a lot of painting back in the day. I didn't really mind the high stuff back then. In fact, I can remember jumping off the roof and doing a stunt roll into my back yard... carefully avoid the dog terds. It used to seem so cool. I never broke anything. Somehow. But as I scaled the ladder and felt it go twisty under me as it settled into the rocks, I felt that pit in my stomach. That "oh no I'm going to fall and break my leg" feeling. Having never fallen and broken my leg, I wonder why it is that I worry about this quite so much. I mean, sure... if I had felt that pain before, I would sure as hell want to skip it the next time. But no breaks. I can only conclude that the "older, wiser" me understands the potential more than the "younger stupider" me. But this isn't entirely true. I knew that it was possible that I would break something. But I did it anyway. There was no one ever around so it wasn't like I was showing off. And I knew the risks. But I jumped anyway.

I find this interesting. I wonder if kids who are brought up to decide for themselves are more able, at a later age, to figure out what works and doesn't work... and therefore avoid the stupid things when they get older. Which then also makes me wonder if the overly protective way that most parents today handle their kids is going to lead to a generation of risk takers of adults trying to find their limits. Do risk taker kids = more cautious parents? Or do overprotected kids = risk taking adults.

While I was thinking all of this the 10yo appears below me.

10YO: Can I get on the roof?

You would look at me like I was crazy if I let my little monkeys get on the roof. I know you people. Because I've become one of those people too. Besides... it is a high roof. *Gasp* what was he thinking??

Me: Not today, buddy.

10YO: Why not?

Me: Cause your thumbs or none of the rest of you is "disposable".

10YO: Can I get on the ladder?

**pause**

Me: Ok.. but be CAREFUL.

Coming from the kid that jumped of the roof...

The Treadmill

2009-09-11T08:06:00.000-07:00

I'm tired. I've been on a treadmill seemingly forever. Walking. Always walking. But never getting anywhere. The view doesn't change... I never pass into the shade... or into the sun. But I remain, instead, in the greenish glow of flickering fluorescents. I never get away from what is behind me... and I never seem to reach that next crest. There are no surprises along the path. The walls are the same here as they were an hour ago. Or last week. Or last month.

I don't want to be jaded. Really. I want to be positive. I want to feel that childlike surprise that went missing somewhere around puberty. Is that the way it is? I say this... and I can see you nodding your heads. Because even if you think you have it figured out how to manufacture surprise... it is man-made. It isn't as real as it once was. Maybe at points we catch a glimpse of it... and handful of water that falls through our grasp before we can fully catch it. Maybe that is why we love watching children because we recognize the realness of their awe.

The others on the treadmills all around me don't change either. They react in predictable ways... saying predictable things... at predictable times. There is such disappointment in this. The knowing. When we pass over that point when people we love are able to surprise us. We know before their mouths even open. We cringe and turn away and feel ourselves sink just a little lower. Surprise replaced by disappointment, again.

Your comments will extol me to get off the treadmill and take a walk in the woods. They will tell me just to sit and be quiet. But you know as well as I, that this is easier said than done. And that I'm not really talking about walking anyway.

You fight the sameness by change. But eventually even the change becomes the same. And we become nomads with no real home, and a long trail of pasts that all look the same.

The trick isn't to change, of course... the trick is simply to accept. In the sameness is a comfort that we fail to appreciate while we are busy walking away. We picked to walk on this treadmill surrounded by these people because at one time we liked the place... and we liked the people. The words that disappoint us now, are the same words that once resonated with us.

Accepting is a choice. So is walking away. Neither are easy. Each hold consequences. They say that change is inevitable. I think the biggest change that we have to make is moving from a life of nomad to the life of a farmer. Accepting that we will see the same treeline... plow the same fields... and milk the same cows... for the rest of our time here. Acceptance means letting go of the jadedness. And, perhaps, the biggest surprise in all of this is that the predictable becomes less predicable... less disappointing.

Or so I keep telling myself.

The Falconer and the Falcon

2009-09-09T10:55:00.000-07:00

I've decided to repost a few blogs now and then that I've posted at various other times. For those that have read before apologies... but this is going to be home for awhile, so I'd like to keep them together someplace virtual. To those that haven't read them before... enjoy.

*******************************

Several years ago I was friends with a falconer. He had rescued a red-tail hawk with a bad wing and nursed it back to health. The bird was housed on the campus of SUNY Purchase and we drove there one day together, on a day very much like today. The fireworks were exploding in the fall trees, the sun crystal in the blue sky. I held the hawk on my arm for a moment. He was heavy. Solid muscle. With piercing eyes that cut through you. He was capable. Built and bred for one thing… to hunt. My friend and I walked with the bird up the hill to the start of a forest. He let the hawk fly and it immediately went to the top of a nearby tree. My friend explained that it was very important to let the hawk hunt, to keep its instincts sharp.

What followed was a lesson in instincts. We followed the hawk as it flew from tree to tree. Finally stopping for a long time atop a massive oak. We watched for a long time. Then with a sudden burst, its wings spread slightly... and it dove. It hit the squirrel as it ran along the branch. The squirrel squeaked in terror that could be heard far below. The hawk shoved its talons into the squirrel's back and then let itself go limp. The squirrel clung for dear life onto the bottom of the branch, suddenly supporting not only its own weight, but the entire weight of the hawk too. It was only a matter of time. But they hung there for a few moments, prolonging the inevitable. Finally the tiny claws tired and weakened and finally let go. The two spiraled down quietly and my friend walked over and calmly covered the squirrel just as they hit the ground. He gave the bird a bit of raw meat while he quietly smothered the squirrel himself.

The trick of dependency is to fool the hawk into thinking that it can't hunt without you. To train it to give over its hard won prize of fresh meat for a morsel of dried meat. The hawk needed only to keep flying and find its own way, and yet it chose to stay in the safety of the world it had become accustomed to.

Our instincts tell us to hunt. But our need for comfort keeps us all on the arm of the falconer.

The Lakehouse

2009-09-08T07:04:00.000-07:00

The boy sat eating his cereal before bed. He slurped milk and then looked up at me. "Dad... can we get a lakehouse?"

I had actually been waiting for a question like this. It used to be... "Dad, can we get a pack of Pokemon cards?" But he is aging into an acute awareness of the have and the have nots.

We have several friends of good fortune who like to share. #1 spawn has a friend whose father is chief muckedy muck of something at a company that you would know. Last year they bought a lakehouse an hour north of us. And while #1 spawn has stayed several times, this weekend was our first trip as a family. The place is beautiful, with a big boat that was on a constant rotation of pulling kids around in inter-tubes the whole day. It was a fantastic day. A day that you remember. And as I watched the boy eat his Captain Crunch I could almost read his mind. How cool would it be to be them.

We are, at the very least, predicable. Pleasure seekers. Hardship avoiders. And that scariest of words... entitled.

I joked off the request... but it stuck with me for the rest of the night. We have volunteered before a homeless shelters... but perhaps it was time for a return trip. Just a reminder of what it is that we DO have. Instead of reminders of what we don't. The spawns are pretty well balanced for the most part. They understand the dynamics of the world better than many. But there is always room for reminders. Hell... I need it sometimes too.

There is that razor's edge on which we must all balance. The acknowledgment of what we have... and the blessings that we take so for granted on a daily basis. And the desire to continue to try for betterment. I live in an area and a circle of people whose lives revolve around keeping up with the Jones. And I sometimes like taking jabs at those that go overboard. But for the most part, the people we hang with are those that don't make a big deal of what they have... or what they don't.

It is like climbing a mountain with no summit. We get a handhold and won't let go... scared to death of having to go back down. We get so used to life the way it is right NOW... that we forget what it was like a week ago. And so we don't want change if it means losing what we have. But we desperately want change if it means getting a handhold further up the cliff.

My goal for today is to be satisfied with right now.

How About These Cookies

2009-09-04T10:39:00.000-07:00

So on Mona Lott's recommendation I had General Tso's for lunch. My fortune is as follows:

WTF? "but that's okay.."??

First of all, black blogs of sorrow aside, I am a steely eyed retired super hero. I know you all think I'm all mopey and whiney in real life. But I am a master exaggerator. Or not. But you wouldn't want to play poker with me. I'm that good at holding it deep inside.

So yes... I am annoyed that the cookie is patronizing me. "that's okay..." with a little pat on the head for good luck.

I'm annoyed, but I ain't showing it.

Why don't I get these cookies?

Rocks and Hard Places

2009-09-03T11:04:00.000-07:00

I've have had a pit in my stomach for awhile. It sits there... some days quiet... some days loud and nagging. Today it is yelling in my ear... "J’aurai toujours faim de toi"

It used to be that the decisions to be made were blacker. And whiter. You wrote them down and balanced the pros and the cons and the path suddenly appeared... like a lighted walkway, suddenly appearing in the dark. But perhaps the comic gods of fate have decided to mix things up a bit and make the pros and the cons equally wonderful... or equally horrible. The win wins have been replaced by lose loses.

And when I talk to people, I see them facing their own rock and hard place situations. And my heart hurts. For them. For me. But inevitably I manage to feel optimism for those other people. I know that things will turn for them. That situations that seem unwinnable from this vantage will shift and change and take on a different light when you move down the road a bit. I encourage them to meet their demons. And tell them that it will be alright.

But I can't quite convince myself of the same thing. Why is that? Why is that we are better about helping others over obstacles than we are at climbing them ourselves. I say "we" because I want your company even thought it haunts me. I say "we" because I don't want to admit that I can't get my legs to work just now. Because it is easier to push you ahead and tell you to face your own demons than it is to admit that I am scared.

The fears of childhood... the bogeymen that wait in the closets... are transformed from the imaginary and into full bodied horrors that we call regret. The worst rock and hard place decisions are ones that leave a trail of regret regardless of the decision that you make. Either decision by itself can bring joy. But choosing one over the other causes the color of both to fade. Moving one way... leaves behind the wraith of what could have been which sucks the soul out of the path taken.

I seek no sympathy. Since this is my path. I don't seek advice. Because having dispensed much in my time, I know that words aren't the answer. I can't even wish for company, because it is better simply to find my way alone. But the pit started the day I willed my legs to move. Even though it tore my whole being down the middle. It is grayer now than it was. Both in front of me and behind me. But if I keep moving perhaps, eventually, I will find the sun again.

Check Engine Light

2009-09-01T10:23:00.000-07:00

My car's Check Engine Light has been on for days. This happens periodically and the first time it resulted in the standard reaction of "oh no my car is ready to burn up into a pile of cinder" and a slow painful trip to the mechanic. Roland... my filthy mechanic, who resembles a holocaust survivor but a survivor that knows his way around an engine, chuckled and said in his faux-southern drawl "you didn't tighten the gas cap."

WTF.

Apparently, in Hondas and Toyotas the "Check Engine Light" goes off when the car is burning up and ready to explode, or if you fail to tighten the gas cap sufficiently. I think this might be some sort of Japanese engineering humor.

My internal Check Engine Light goes off every so often too. It is a nagging amber light of doom that sits inside my peripheral vision and tells me that my life is about to explode into a disaster of epic proportion... or that my zipper is down. It is the little light that cried wolf. At first you rush off to have it looked at... and they open you up and diagnose you with all sorts of physical and mental issues. Or worse yet... you skip the mechanic and research the problem on line yourself. That is a sure path to hell. Because literally every symptom is either intestinal gas or a brain tumor. Which only makes it harder to ignore the your Check Engine Light.

"It must be a brain tumor!" You panic and sweat and worry. And then you psych yourself up for the doctor who laughs at you and says... "gas!" and hands you some antacid.

The hardware problems are nothing compared to the software one... those are a real bitch. My heart and the carburetor are easy to diagnose. But my on-board computers and psyche. Well... that is more of an imprecise art. They are finicky and sometimes it is as simple as hitting the reset button. But sometimes only drugs will help.

So I drive on. Pointedly ignoring the light. Hoping that my zipper is down. Ignorance is, after all, bliss. And I'm all about following my bliss.

The Pier Glass

2009-08-30T20:17:00.000-07:00

Over the years, my visage has changed. Grown longer... wider. The hair whiter... coarser. The eyes wiser. Or perhaps more jaded. It is difficult to separate those two things some days. I have fallen and gotten up too many times to count, the scars on my knees hidden by the scabs of my latest debacle. The face that looks back from the glass is no longer quite as full of potential as it once was. The edges are worn off and what remains is tilted with a rueful smile. It was never, what I would call, handsome. But there are moments when the look is pleasing, usually following some triumph where all is right. At other times it is best not to look too carefully, because the lines and creases have begun to deepen and the imperfections are all too... visible. But the physical features matter less as the sand shifts. It is the eyes that matter. At what point did the eyes change? When they look back on me now, the knowledge of the miles they have seen makes it hard for them to be as convincing of the things that are around the next bend.

A pier glass is a large mirror... hung high on a wall often between two windows. Its silver extends and reflects the room upon itself, giving the illusion of large space. It hides nothing and as I stand there looking... it is not the preened self that reflects in the mirror of the bathroom. The one in which I stand up straighter, and lower my jawline, in a futile attempt at vanity. No... the pier glass shows me as I am, unaware of the need for vanity. Stooped and gray and weighted by the years and the worries. I catch the glimpse of this stranger and feel the shock of recognition... as if seeing a long lost mate, suddenly coming in to a focus of memories. They flood through me. The memories.

But the mirror hangs between windows... the windows are not for reflection, but to allow others to see in. All of us... everyone of us... wonders how the world views us. Wonders what they see... and what they miss. The scars are never as noticeable to others as they are to yourself. But I am struck by the dichotomy of these two views... self view... and the view of others. How harsh we are on ourselves. How we learn to focus on the cuts and bruises that we know so well, instead of the beauty that radiates. At a certain point the mirrors become useless. It only reflects the eyes that either lie... or tell too much truth. Neither is fair. Neither is accurate.

But the jaded eyes also know that those looking through the windows allow their views to be colored, skewed by the imperfections of the glass, which perhaps reflects themselves back a bit as they stare through to you. These views are colored by jealousy. Colored by hatred. Colored by bigotry. Colored by desire. Colored by envy. Colored by grief. Colored... it would seem... by their own eye that have walked their own path and thus have formed their own distorted view.

So who to trust? We read often of unconditional love. The skeptic in me wonders if the idea is simply fantasy. The romantic in me wonders if this is the real answer to the question of trust. Unconditional love sees all... the bruises... the scabs... the jaded eyes... and loves anyway without distortion. And what we wish for is that... someone in the pier glass, or someone in the window that can view us that way.

Pieces of Eight (repost)

2009-08-26T10:22:00.000-07:00

From a few years back... something that resonated with me that I had forgotten that I wrote.

The air is still. The world is quiet. It is an odd pause in the bustle of the busy street. The constant flow of jets overhead stops for a moment. The stream of red lights going and white lights coming over the far away hill show that the arterial vessels of civilization still pump. It is just my little world here that has gone quiet.

The dog sniffs the air expectantly. I listen too. Listen to the quiet. Smell the cool air. A bird sings somewhere. The frozen grass crunches underfoot. We are caught in between, it seems. Caught in that waiting. Waiting for the cold to end and the new growth to begin.

There is the temptation in this world to fear the quiet. We grow nervous by the waiting. The expectation. It is worse than bad news. Bad news can be dealt with. Handled. Faced. Worked on. Gotten over. But quiet is harder. In it lurks our worst fears or our greatest wishes... or perhaps even the disappointment that when the quiet is gone again, all will be just the same.

A new sound emerges. Low and distant. Growing louder. The dog and I turn toward it. It comes from the sky. High up. But not the dull constant whine of a jet engine. The jagged honking of an enormous vee of geese. Hundreds of them. They follow the leader, the vee breaking and reforming in an organic, and cosmically mathematically way. They are returning. Coming home. The scales of the quiet are broken and despite the crunching of the grass, and the wispy breath in the cold air... the change is coming.

I have been through these times often enough to know that the quiet isn't to be dreaded any longer. Change comes regardless. And on its own terms. I am merely a passenger. I can look back at my life and see those crossroads that came before me. Some were happy. Some not. But they were all valuable to who I am now.

The quiet spaces are like silver coins in my hand. Some are worn and dirty. Some are small. Some large. But all valuable in their own way. And together they add up to a lifetime. Am I worth more now than I was then? Maybe. Or maybe not. Worth rises and falls on the whims of strangers. And those that count their coins constantly have buried their heads in the past. Trying to control what is uncontrollable. They will not buy future happiness. They are only tokens. Reminders.

And so I pocket the coins. They settle there, a comforting weight. And I tell myself that they are worthless to anyone but me. And I watch the geese coming. I watch the change coming. Without fear. Without expectation. But with a rueful smile.

On Edge

2009-08-24T08:31:00.000-07:00

I am sore today. And tired. And cranky. I feel old. I feel suspended in time. Late August does that. It always feels like the world conspires and all parts of life begin acting alike. Awaiting the shoe to fall. It is a conveyor belt of sameness. Until it isn't. Then it turns shockingly to one side or another. Most people I know are the same. They complain about the sameness. They complain about the sudden changes. We all ride the same rides. We pretend that they are different rides from everyone else. But really they are the same ride. Mine isn't more important than yours. Yours... not more important than mine. But we like to pretend that we are the first to ride this particular ride.

What I really want is a little break from the monotony. But not too much. Something unexpected and good. Not necessarily great. Just good. Definitely not bad. God... even the music that plays on my iPod is repeating itself despite having four weeks of music loaded on it.

This way of living is indicative of our time, I suppose. A media frenzy erupts until they kill the story. Then they are bored because they know we are bored until something else traumatic happens to rouse us all again.

But I'm tired of the roller coaster. I'm tired of writing the same things. I'm tired of reading the same things.

So I'm cranky. That will have to do until something comes along to make me smile.

So go on... entertain me. **fires shots at your feet to make you dance**.

Death Panels? Really? That is the Best They Can Come Up With?

2009-08-21T11:45:00.000-07:00

I ask myself on a daily basis if I am biased. I just can't grasp the nonsensical rants being spewed against the need to change health care in this country. Am I alone?

Don't get me wrong. I have attempted not to dismiss the rants out of hand. I have honestly tried to stop and listen to find out if I missing something that these people have gleaned that I have somehow missed.

From what I understand... these people seem to believe that we are all complicit in a government plan to kill people. I've read the offending passage... which I'm sure many of them haven't. It reads as such.

From the infamous Page 425 of the Health Care Bill
Advance Care Planning Consultation
Subject to paragraphs (3) and (4), the term ‘advance care planning consultation’ means a consultation between the individual and a practitioner described in paragraph (2) regarding advance care planning, if, subject to paragraph (3), the individual involved has not had such a consultation within the last 5 years. Such consultation shall include the following: ‘‘(A) An explanation by the practitioner of advance care planning, including key questions and considerations, important steps, and suggested people to talk to. ‘‘(B) An explanation by the practitioner of advance directives, including living wills and durable powers of attorney, and their uses. ‘‘(C) An explanation by the practitioner of the role and responsibilities of a health care proxy. ‘‘(D) The provision by the practitioner of a list of national and State-specific resources to assist consumers and their families with advance care planning, including the national toll-free hotline, the advance care planning clearinghouses, and State legal service organizations (including those funded through the Older Americans Act of 1965). ‘‘(E) An explanation by the practitioner of the continuum of end-of-life services and supports available, including palliative care and hospice, and benefits for such services and supports that are available under this title.

So... what I can try to see when I scrunch my eyes up tight and pretend to be them is that they see that doctors will be forced to provide consultation every five years in which they will be forced to explain living wills, health care proxies, powers of attorney, such insidious things called "end of life" services... **dramatic music** which include palliative care and hospice.

Could be as simple as that the people ranting don't understand that many doctors and social workers do this today? And that end-of-life services are not death squads? But wonderful and helpful services for the very, very sad fact that we ALL die eventually... some of us in long drawn out and painful ways that make it extremely difficult on those close to us... and so palliative care and hospice comes to help us? Having lived with and around nurses, social workers, and palliative care professionals most of my life... I realize from the stories I hear what happens when you DON'T have living wills and health care proxies designated. You have situations where your loved ones are forced to make decisions on your life or death without your input. And the guilt of making these decisions can last the rest of their lives. So why in the world would I NOT want a doctor helping me to understand this paperwork and my choices while I am still able to understand and help guide those around me with the decisions that most effect me?

And how in God's name do we get from that paragraph above to accusing Obama of being a Nazi? That is absurd. And yet people continue to jump on that bandwagon. "Well... the liberals called Bush a Nazi." This is the excuse I've heard. So that's what this is? Payback? And comparing someone who ordered the unprovoked attack on another country... to someone who is taking on the largest and most powerful example of what is wrong with the free-market system. Fascists were for free market, capitalist societies, as I recall. The ranters can't even get their analogies right. At the least, they should be calling him Stalin.

Where is the reasoned discourse? Where are the pro and con arguments that are what makes this country great? I'm not saying that the bill is perfect... none of them are. But if the best they can come up with is death squads... I fear for our society. Not because the liberals will ruin it. But because the opposition is apparently too stupid to argue the edges off the liberal agenda. And the real danger comes when you get the boat so out of balance that we all sink.

Reverse Adaptation

2009-08-19T09:46:00.000-07:00

I was complaining to a friend of mine about the heat the past few days and he related an anecdote about his brother in the army in Iraq. The brother came home and was constantly cold, despite the mid 80s temperatures. He told him that before he came home, he went out of his bunker to have a smoke with a friend. They commented how beautiful and cool the night was. One of them had a thermometer on their watch. It was 98 degrees out.

The term for this is "acclimatization"... the adaptation of an organism of adjusting to its environment.

I was thinking about this again as I was watching an interview last night on The Daily Show. The author being interviewed had written a book called Born to Run regarding a hidden group of Indians in the canyons of Mexico who can run hundred of miles... in sandals. The tribe is immune to many of the sicknesses that we struggle with... among them cancer and heart disease. They are pacifists and don't know the ways of war. But like Forrest Gump... they simply run. For hundred of miles. One older man profiled in the book had just run a race that would equal about four marathons.

We are fascinated as a culture with adaptability. Our reality television is rife with it... Survivor, Amazing Race, The 1900 House, and of course, I'm a Celebrity, Get Me Out of Here. All of these shows focus on living without the things we take for granted. Darwinism at its best.

When I think of adaptation, I think of adapting to more difficult environments, like my friend's brother who thought that 98 degrees was "cool". I don't often think of the invisible, and possibly more isidious, adaptation that we all are making every day. The adapation of the lazy... of the entitled. We sit on cushioned couches in air-conditioned ease buying food pre-packaged in stores while gathering information from tiny boxes that sit in our laps. We have adapted to a world of ease... as easily as sliding into a hot tub. It feels good. And we collectively say... "ahhhh" when something comes along that makes our world even easier.

You can put positive and negative spins on either side of the coin of course... we are enlightened... and specialized... and working together in a great concert of society. And those that live in the canyons of Mexico are backwards, and ignorant. It is all about perspective, I suppose. What is it that is important right now? For me... getting off this sofa to make myself a sandwich. Tomorrow... I might have to go hunt my own food. But I will cross the Darwin Bridge when I have to. I just hope the toll isn't too high. Because at a certain point I wonder if the entitlement that we all seek has made us the weak that will get weeded out.

Playing the Line

2009-08-17T11:22:00.000-07:00

I've watched my son play sports for five or six years. Soccer... baseball... basketball... football. Whatever sport was seasonal. He is sinewy as a whip, fast in short bursts... but he is twitchy. I don't mean he has a twitch. I mean that the energy bursts from him like a hummingbird which doesn't serve you well in sports where long graceful motions are often necessary. Where the other boys were out gracefully scooping grounders and dancing toward first base, throwing in one smooth flow... my son was bouncing around like he had to pee... diving on balls and whipping them around with questionable accuracy. He hated soccer because it was all running all the time. He can only run in short bursts. We didn't make it past the second practice for basketball because jerky motions don't fit with the smooth jump shots. In football, his jerky motions helped him elude some tackles... but his heart wasn't really in it.

Don't get me wrong... he was never the worst at anything he did. In fact, he had natural ability in nearly everything he tried. Just not enough to make him excel. He was a "second group" kid. You can categorize the kids in three groups... the kids who are naturals... the big, kids, with the right genes whose parents were the stars of their respective sports and push their kids from birth to be good at what the parents think they should be good at, until such time as the kids come to their senses and go off to find there own way in the world. Group two... are the kids that aren't terrible... but aren't great either. These "B" players will luck into making the star play from time to time... but as time and talent separates the level A from the B... the gap becomes apparent to everyone... the kid included, and so they hang up their cleats. Group three... are the kids the have no ability at all. Every team has at least two. The crowds roar for them if they happen to stop the ball with their stomach... or in sheer blind luck the ball finds their bat once during the season. At the beginning they think the cheers are cool, but after a few years, even THEY roll their eyes at themselves and hope that their parents will give up the whole ruse.

For years, my son lobbied us to let him play hockey. My wife and I were both firm with our negative answer. "Too rough... too costly... too much travel..." We had heard it all before. Rolling our eyes at those parents that spent time and money driving hither and yon at all hours of the morning to get their kids to practice. But my resolve weakened one day and we signed him up for a no-checking in-line hockey league. For several practices and several games, I watched him... as I have for all the other sports...twitching away with nervous energy. Except that this twitchyness was on wheels. Unless he was on his back, which he frequently was. He scored a goal or two mostly on lucky rebounds. His twitchy, jerky legs standing in contrast to the better skaters and their long fluid glides. I was ready for the inevitable "group two" status.

Then before game three the coach asked if anyone wanted to play goalie. And my son's little hand shot up like a rocket.

Hockey goalies are a different breed of person, I have found out. They are loners in a team sport. They are a little "off" as one of the coaches said. You have to be, I suppose, to subject yourself to hard pucks coming at your head at speeds up to a hundred miles an hour. They are the last line of defense... the ones that lose the game, not the ones that win them. And never in his short life have I ever seen my son embrace something so whole-heartedly. His quirky little movements and hummingbird motions suddenly gelled... like a fuzzy picture that suddenly snaps into crystal clear focus. When he strapped the pads on and went to "play the line" as they call it... he was at home. He knew the angles, and the motions, and the strategy even though he hadn't had a teacher. They were hard wired into this skeleton. And all I could do was stand behind the boards and hold my breath.

He embraced the "offness" that was expected of him. He began wearing mismatched socks... red and yellow... garrulously contrasting with his blue uniform. His games consisted of long periods of boredom punctuated by moment of flurrying terror. To overcome the boredom, he sings to himself. And his jerky movements have fine tuned themselves into catlike reflexes... with the vision to track and follow a three inch puck in the middle of eight crashing bodies.

In his first game... his team won... in overtime. In his first season... his team made the league finals... only to lose by a goal. In his second season... his team returned to the championship... and this time won by a goal... in overtime. In the stands... we would hear once a game..."Who is that goalie?" When I started coaching, the opposing coaches would seek me out to talk about what I had done to create this prodigy. And I laughed and admitted that I had done absolutely nothing. What else can you do?

The lesson is there. Loud and clear. There are things that all of us are wired for. You are. I am. Often times we get lost in the shuffle of life doing what others expect of us, rather than doing what we are good at. And when you find those things, they pull you in unforeseen directions. It is best to follow that path... for however long it lasts. "Follow your bliss," as the great Joseph Campbell would say.

He might quit next week for all I care. It will take care of itself. And there are many other discoveries ahead of him, I hope. Things that he falls into that are as natural as putting on a glove... a hockey glove. Parenting isn't about working them in to something that you want them to do. It is getting up and driving them places to try new things until something clicks... and then holding your breath while you watch them do it. And maybe... just maybe... learning from them, and taking the risk again to play your own line.

It is never too late.

Clearing the Deck

2009-08-13T09:00:00.000-07:00

My approach to home projects is to think about them for several years and then suddenly burst forth with a flurry of work, seemingly out of no-where. Such is the case with my arch nemesis, my back deck. I think about it... sizing it up... figuring out the scope... the hurdles.. the necessary equipment. And then without warning I stormed the beaches and began ripping the old one apart. "When did you decide to do that?" my daughter asked. "2006" I answered truthfully.

The problem with fix it projects is that they never take the course that you think they will. In my mind, it was a simple process of replacing the decking. A weekend project, at best. Up it comes, down it goes... and voila. A new deck on which to drink my Mojitos.

But when I ripped down the railing.. I realized how bad the wood was. Rotten. The hardware rusted almost throughout. So that would need to be redone as well adding an extra week the timeline.

Then came the footers... which were now in the wrong place to do what I needed to do with the new railing. So now I'm digging three foot holes in my backyard to pull the current cement footers out to be replaced and swearing under my breathe.

The wife comes by to tell me that the backyard looks like "White Trash Ville" and suggests that maybe we should get an old car on blocks back there to complete the set.

All fix it projects are the same. Even self-fix-it programs. You start in one place... with one goal... but as you pull out the roots and memories and past transgressions in one area... you realize that whole other pieces of you are rotten through as well. And so we leave it all well enough alone, knowing that someday it could all collapse, the rotten wood and rusted hardware finally giving up the ghost. It takes enormous effort to undertake any of these projects. They are physically and emotionally wearing. There is a risk that I will get caught in a never ending process of tearing down and rebuilding... and will become a permanent Casa De la Basura Blanca. On the other hand... the reverse is also a risk... leaving well enough alone will result in a shaggier, rotten version of myself that will eventually collapse.

I suppose we all collapse in the end. But the process of taking down and rebuilding better than before is rewarding. Yes... it is exhausting. But the longer you wait the more there is to work on.

For now... I will finish my deck. Then I will sit on it and drink my drinks... and ponder what to work on next. The list of possibilities is endless.

My Dog is David Carradine

2009-08-11T06:12:00.001-07:00

It was so hot outside yesterday the dog threw up. He's not very sage and tends to push the limits. He runs back and forth in the yard chasing cars and people and babies and rabbits and birds and whatever else comes into his line of sight, without a second thought that "gee... I'm wearing a fur coat." I read somewhere recently that the average dog is about as smart as the average two year old. If this is true then it must be one horny two year old. Because my dog thinks about sex. A lot. His walks aren't really walks. They are "dog on a mission" romps through the neighborhood. He leaves pee-mail at every sign, bush, and leg, marking his territory with rabid need for recognition. He smells the responses with equal fierceness, gleaning... I assume... the threats from the male dogs, and the come-ons from the bitches. I can almost read the responses by watching him. Wary and bristling when it is a male. Torqued out of his mind when it is a female. I usually narrate with an X-rated version of Doug, the dog from "Up!".

We bought him a special collar so he wouldn't crush his own larynx during his walks. Regular choker collars have one band the constricts when the dog pulls. The special one was invented by some dog guy near us that has two bands, and thus spreads the choking out over his entire neck, not just his windpipe. But we have the auto-erotic asphyxiation dog from hell. When he is chasing tale, he pulls without letting up until he is literally laying in the middle of the street gasping for air. People give us the "you are a bad person" look, like we are abusing him. I cheerfully wave. They slam their doors and dead bolt them. But I know they have closets hidden away with whips and chains in them.

Having never actually caught up with the bitch that left him the pee-mail... the horny dog turns to other sources of entertainment. My youngest daughter was the easiest target for awhile until he got the message loud and clear from the alpha dog that this was not kosher. Thus he transferred his lust to what we refer to as his "humpy blanket". It is soft and blue and when you play tug of war he gets aroused. "What is that red thing sticking out?" my daughter asked. Much amusement followed. For a few days. Now it just grosses the women of the house out to no end. The men still find it funny, of course.

Dogs are incapable of growing past this phase. They are unapologetic about their boners and sex toys, even if the women find it gross.

And while I realize that many men are equally unapologetic and incapable of growing out of this phase, I am not one of them. I am overly apologetic, if that is possible. But I wonder at times if the reason I like the dog so much is because of that unapologetic attitude. That go for broke until you are left panting and wheezing in the middle of the street chasing after someone. The higher brain tells me that this is gross and base. But there is some part of all of us that recognizes it for what it is. Primal lust. We want to lust. We want to be lusted after. But instead we slam the doors and hide away our needs in closets filled with whips and chains, pretending that it is all some vial practice that is below us.

The Emperor's New Blog

2009-08-07T08:15:00.001-07:00

I’ve lost track of how many blogs I’ve started and stopped. I sort of like the nomadic existence of writing in this way. Reinventing. Being rediscovered by those of you who haven’t grown weary of re-book-marking me. I know. It takes much effort. “bookmark>bookmark this page”. Ow. I’m tired just writing it.

It is like Where’s Waldo, except that I don’t wear striped shirts and hats. Mobius, Julia, Tripping, etc. etc. Wearing stripes everyday is boring.

And besides, I read things almost daily and think, “what a GREAT blog name”. Then I run out and see if it is available. I haven’t changed my haircut since senior high. So I have to change something.

I feel disembodied if I don’t have someplace to post. And yet, there are many days that I have nothing to post. But still it is nice to have someplace to call home.

And so… it begins.

Again.