life on the blue planet

flash

2012-01-31T20:59:00.000-06:00

"Those were the days, my friend. We thought they'd never end."

I was defiant about the hypocrisy in the 50's and early 60's. I had good reason. The world behind closed doors was very different from the life depicted on Leave It to Beaver or Father Knows Best.

But, life was simple and we took a lot for granted, at least we did as kids. Nobody worried about our playing outside in the dark. We ran wildly, our imaginations light years ahead of our small legs and feet. We did prosaic stuff like catch fireflies in glass jars and let them go.

I look at the free-for-all life is now and I'm impressed by how much can go wrong. The array of electronic gadgets, our eyes and ears as they've become ... even our minds seem in danger. (Use your imagination.)

I've hit that figurative wall that signals my imminent collapse. I'm tired. I wish you many dreams! THE END

where there is light

2012-01-05T01:24:00.000-06:00

Optimism

More and more I have come to admire resilience.
Not the simple resistance of a pillow, whose foam
returns over and over to the same shape, but the sinuous
tenacity of a tree: finding the light newly blocked on one side,
it turns in another. A blind intelligence, true.
But out of such persistence arose turtles, rivers,
mitochondria, figs--all this resinous, unretractable earth.

Jane Hirshfield

sleep walking

Today was the sort of day I endured.
To endure a day means to me
a small murder has been committed.
In my self-absorption, I deny I am
more than the sum total of how
I see myself reflected in Their eyes.

Moments are dismissed impatiently,
engaged as I am in a sense of futility
and repressed anger, as if to say,
"Come find me, G-d."

But I will endure until night's hours
can suck my wounds, bleeding brightly
red in its savage passage,
In the wake of dreams,
myself somehow changed.

- sd

For Real?

2012-01-02T18:45:00.001-06:00

Image via Wikipedia

By believing passionately in something that still does not exist, we create it. The nonexistent is whatever we have not sufficiently desired.

Franz Kafka

So, there I was at McDonald's sipping my large tea and reading Night Circus on my Kindle, having prepared for myself a nice little spot of time to be relished for however long I was destined to wait for my husband, the Walmart Greeter. (Take a breath.)

I was thinking of saying that I was minding my own business, don't you know? But, honestly I had undergone one of those out of body states, going way beyond minding anyone's business, much less mine.

Let me explain what all this means: I like to sit by McD's perimeter, separating the establishment from the the Walmartians. If I am not in plain sight, my husband might forget to recall (it is a process) that I am his ride home. Though, I must add, I had repeated more than once, that I would meet him at McDonald's, "Earth to Husband, Earth to Husband!"

Like I was saying, or not (I am so confused), my psyche was drifting off into deep space, when a co-worker of my husband's appeared out of Nowhere. Yikes! (I was so not ready for company!) Getting over my shock, I gave pause for the intruder to commandeer the power of speech, his having been similarly rendered witless by my reaction to his presence.

But, no sweat, I behaved. Having by a quirk of fate survived long enough to become a Senior, I realize that any mischief on my part could be construed as dementia The culmination of the whole business resulted in a down-to-earth realization. He was interested in knowing what I was reading.

We had met before and were acquainted. So, I told him. Then he wanted to know the kind of book Night Circus was. "A fantasy," I replied, once we established he meant the genre. (I can be such a difficult person.) That is when he very nearly jumped out of his skin. Settling back in, he snarled.

He was finishing his last Dean Koontz book and had decided he would never pick up any reading matter that was not set in reality. I took a moment to consider the meaning of reality, as I am not convinced there is such a thing. Having smiled in reply and letting a moment pass, I averted my eyes self-consciously. He was ablaze with indignation.

Fantasy occupies a real place in creative minds and manifesting, results in visions and concepts and ultimately objects, whether they be experienced as the inspiration derived from art or a much appreciated part of our daily existence. We benefit directly from the object's application(s) in both instances.

The joy ride in space and time from the 50's to the Present qualifies me to wonder, if there is anything too fantastical to be ultimately understood or actualized.

so, who cares?

2011-12-29T09:47:00.001-06:00

The thing is I care. I care more than I would like to admit to my right wing friends. My position of being neutral politically is feeling more and more inadequate, as though I should be doing something, but what? There is so much to do and I feel financially and therefore, personally inept and impotent (is there a symbolic connection on some level with all the Viagra commercials?), as if I didn't count. Imagine.

The 50's were vapid and facile, but relatively harmless. Compared to the questionable progress as a species we have foisted upon all that is natural on this planet, we were back in the Stone Age then. For sure, news didn't travel as fast. If nothing else, we were blissfully ignorant.

In the 60's we exultantly organized our forces for a new wave of spiritually-centered values until everything was co-opted by the cynical, commercially-oriented market. Come to think of it, the market was only doing what comes naturally. I ought not to attribute human values to what is inanimate, right? Never mind. The point is that a lot went wrong that was outside our control. We were way out. "Way out" has a whole new meaning now. But, then we did grow up in the 50's and were unconscionably clueless.

what is incredulity? (final revision, finally I think)

2011-12-25T23:19:00.001-06:00

All generalizations are false, including this one.

Mark Twain

Part I.  Political Sound Bytes

Regaled by the sound bytes of
bureaucrats, running for office,
galloping toward the poles,

I am inspired to cast my eyes
heaven ward in a gesture
of surrender, "Silence, please!"

Part II  Devoid of Thought

There is no way,
you surely see!
I can be so devoid
of thought as you
believe me to be.

Part III  And Substance

The Facts, as you present them,
be they ever so attenuated,
assume the brilliance of meteorites,
dead bodies streaking
through outer space.

And your Rhetoric, like displaced
cosmic rocks; or better yet
like Vesuvius, spewing
hot air and ashes.

Part IV Who Is The Wizard?

And, even if these celestial
bodies shared with us
their beatific sources?

We must not give up asking,
"Who pulls your strings -
so decisively this way and that
behind the curtain?"

what next?

2011-12-24T13:24:00.002-06:00

Priceless!

Scientists are in the process of making Mars habitable. That is most likely the case, so those deemed worth saving have some place to go, when we have utterly trashed this planet and run out of options.

I don't see our household being in a position to afford the ticket to ride to Mars. Oh, I know, all I think about is me - and the spousal unit, "the furry, unmanageable kids" and assorted odd buddies...the list goes on...

You may get on my case for being negative, but let's think about the proposition of an evacuation to Mars, okay? What would this Noah's Ark, or Arks, look like? The kindly but mentally whacked out homeless guy. Mm-m-m, don't think so! That older couple with insurance premiums, broken down in so many ways, who have worked hard all their lives, put their kid through the university and taught him or her solid values?

You are probably bored by now, saying to yourself, "Yeah, like that is news." Well, am I the only one, who gets a little unraveled by how little we, meaning humankind, have evolved?

How are we different from the animals? At least they started out innocent and remain so. We have been in earnest need of improving ourselves for a really, really, really long time!

I know, enough already.

That Mine Field Beyond My Comfort Zone. Imagine.

2011-12-24T11:59:00.000-06:00

Can you imagine what I would do if I could do all I can? Sun Tzu

Imagine? I can tell you from experience that I understand much better now the limitations I have placed on myself needlessly. I chalk it up to putting on blinders, so I could stay in my comfort zone. So, Young Woman, ignore that Man, who offers you the kind of life you have always imagined possible, that lifeline thrown by hope during tumultuous periods. What would happen, if he is not what he seems or love is an illusion afterall? Then you would lose the dream that has sustained you.

I can tell you from personal experience, that the Young Woman grew up anyway minus the kind of mature love that grows with understanding about what life is and isn't, the riches that abide a step beyond a person's comfort zone.

Not everyone is like me, which is good in so many ways and for the sake of a balanced perspective, not so good in others. I take a while to catch up with the person I am.

Oh, need I say more?

2011-12-12T23:01:00.000-06:00

A word is not a crystal, transparent and unchanged; it is the skin of a living thought and may vary greatly in color and content according to the circumstances and time in which it is used.Oliver Wendell Holmes, Jr.

In the beginning...

ThE End

So i thought

2011-11-25T23:04:00.001-06:00

You know what happens next. Oh, yeah! another blog post. I do hope that you recognize, that the blogs posted to Life on the Blue Planet do not represent mental hiccups in an otherwise desolate mental landscape. There are many other thoughts, have been and will be. Amen.

For instance, there are those mundane, might say "pedestrian" thoughts like the ones that engineer the possibility of my walking from Point A to Point B. Cool!

There are those thoughts that are self-pitying, which I know no one wants to know about, given that even I don't want to acknowledge them - the cloying, morbid omens of the ultimate mind drain... the death of anything productive.

...There are time killers and then there are time killers. Let's see, what else?

You must be familiar with your own version of the "oh, they are so me" type thoughts, these are the thoughts I feel compelled to verbalize to the critters (my good friends) and just about any other living entities, including those considered by some to be inanimate, I put in the category of "good listeners." The critters, the trees and the living, humming atmosphere appreciate being acknowledged, no matter how casually.

There is more, but I feel stimulated by so much thought to go for a walk and share with the great outdoors, you know, the trees, the squirrels and whatever else doesn't move fast enough to escape my attention.

R U Crazy?!

2011-11-18T23:02:00.001-06:00

Insanity is often the logic of an accurate mind overtasked.
Oliver Wendell Holmes

Much Madness

Much madness is divinest sense
To a discerning eye;
Much sense the starkest madness.
’T is the majority
In this, as all, prevails.
Assent, and you are sane;
Demur,—you ’re straightway dangerous,
And handled with a chain.

- Emily Dickinson

My path in life has not been one set on the straight and narrow. In my young adulthood, my anthem was "once before I die!" But, with the aid of only brief reflection, I realized how problematic the course I had struck promised to be and decided boundaries were essential, like (a) as long as it does not land me behind bars or (b) lock me into a lifestyle that I am bound to regret and shortens my lifespan, I will pursue it for however long there is reason to believe that I can learn from the experience.

You might imagine that I settled into what must be considered by some conservative types as at the very least an alternative lifestyle - but what was for me only comfortably outside the conventional scheme of things. No one worried about me much, so I was left to my own devices, an enviable position to my way of thinking.

So sad, but ultimately, I considered how silly and cramped my world would seem, if I persevered, once I was expected to grow up that is, a deadline missed repeatedly. My second marriage had dissolved, when I conceded that I wasn't that much of an adventuress.

(I do have some great memories though, a little crazy perhaps, but great nonetheless!)

ThE

.........

End

...........

real life tail

2011-11-16T23:11:00.001-06:00

Oh yeah!

When we remember we are all mad, the mysteries disappear and life stands explained. Mark Twain

I am so tired, I feel delirious and the time piece on the computer indicates it is only 11:30. My husband and I are two and a half fours into a four hour vigil. After the vigil, we are scheduled to wake up four times during the night in order to check on how our patient is faring. If it weren't for the evening's adventure, I would be fast asleep with the objective of waking early to undertake a project before the so-called normal course of an eight-hour day is underway...BUT Fred had to go and eat one of Mike's meds. My man dropped his pill on the floor at dinner and what finds it way to the floor is Fred's, Fred being our imperious chihuahua. Mike is not a big man, but he is a man. On the other hand, Freddy Dearest is a mere ten-pounds.

He does seem to wonder about the odder than usual behavior from his humans and he is not the only one. When we called the poison hotline for animals set up by the ASPCA, we heard intermittent chuckles on the other end of the receiver, doubtlessly resulting from my husband's natural knack for comedy under unfortunate circumstances. For this we enjoyed the privilege of paying a fee we can't afford.

Of course, my husband is asleep at 12:40 a.m. How is Fred? He is awake, keeping a wary eye on me.

the end

Outside the Lines

2011-11-16T13:16:00.001-06:00

Artists are just children who refuse to put down their crayons. Al Hirschfeld

Well, okay, that is a good thing, isn't it? Isn't it right to be unwilling to forfeit that wide-eyed awkwardness accompanied by "the devil may care" attitude, that you don't even know as yet you have, and consequently of course mustn't lose, in the angst filled, self-absorbed process of acquiring substance in the adult world out there and so, take on the questionable attributes of an Adult by default?

Isn't there something to be said to their credit for purple people, who radiate rainbow colors outside the lines of their skin and cavort in shocking pink grass? I am in favor of objects taking on outlandish proportions and splayed hands that radiate spoke like in place of ordinary and B-O-R-I-N-G!!! fingers.

Well, you get the picture.

tHe eNd

Express Yourself

2011-11-14T21:27:00.001-06:00

Let us tenderly and kindly cherish, therefore, the means of knowledge. Let us dare to read, think, speak, and write. John Adams

There are two educations. One should teach us how to make a living and the other how to live.
John Adams Second President of the United States (1797–1801)

Finis

2011-11-10T08:19:00.001-06:00

I want to put a ding in the universe.

Steve Jobs

"Oh Wow, Oh Wow, Oh Wow"

http://www.washingtonpost.com/blogs/for-gods-sake/post/steven-jobss-oh-wow-and-other-last-words/2011/11/01/gIQAjST4cM_blog.html

http://blogs.wsj.com/speakeasy/2011/10/31/oh-wow-what-do-steve-jobss-last-words-really-mean/

Once Around, Or Maybe Not

2011-10-29T22:08:00.000-05:00

My hair color is age-appropriate. Indeed, I have earned every last one of those sterling gray hairs. How I have done so is personal. Otherwise, it seems my hair color belongs in the realm of public domain. I am told variously, that I ought to use a color rinse or I mustn't change my hair color. "Keep it natural is the admonition!" Or, "You have a young face. Why settle for gray hair?" Both opinions, contradictory as they are, are expressed with equal emphasis and conviction.

Older women are like aging strudels - the crust may not be so lovely, but the filling has come at last into its own. Robert Farrar Capon

Now you're talking! I love strudel.

Something pretty... that's just the surface. People worry so much about aging, but you look younger if you don't worry about it. Jeanne Moreau

I'm not that philosophical about aging, but I appreciate the thought that I should not bother to worry. I don't have the time or money to be obsessed with what is the biggest Change of Life, Post Middle Age.

Changed in appearance, as I am, the years keep a tally on my physical features and allow me to acquire a certain transparency, to step back from the frantic pace of the human race, to watch the Sport of Life from the crowded bleachers and ultimately, to partake in the End Game, leading at last to our common destiny and the great equalizer, death.

So, let's see if I understand things aright. If we have been on our good behavior, we get to flit around like great while moths beneath the heavenly vault...maybe... does it sound too odd to you, that I am mesmerized by the prospect of my demise?

Don't get me wrong. I do want to suck up all that polluted air and water and all those lovely primordial elements just like the natural being I am, but what is the point in denying the inevitable, all the while backing away from the mosh pit of earth and roots and bugs patiently awaiting us?

The aging process has you firmly in its grasp if you never get the urge to throw a snowball. Doug Larson

Living in the south, snowball becomes mud ball. Same difference, though not exactly. One is a little more picturesque than the other. Maybe, anyway. On second thought, I should give the matter additional consideration. Apply a little imagination.

We are not victims of aging, sickness and death. These are part of scenery, not the seer, who is immune to any form of change. This seer is the spirit, the expression of eternal being. Deepak Chopra

It's an amazing, wonderful experience, having the luck to age. I've known too many who "didn't make the first cut." And, once having adjusted to the stranger in the mirror, I have become the Undead, grasping at the non-material like one who is blind with arms outstretched, reaching for a sense of humor in the unflinching face of reality. How does anyone survive aging, either mentally or emotionally, without growing past everything learned and accepted in the past as being of value?

Hey people, it's still me inside this rumpled heap of flesh! Just kidding...it's not that bad. I hope.

I am the lost child, the once criminally naive youngster with a woman's body, the artist, the hippie, the legal assistant, the accounting clerk and executive assistant, serial monogamist... the list goes on and on, there being as many incarnations as mood and circumstances would allow in one life time, but

I never changed.

Amen and

The End,

but not THE END

(if you know what I mean.)

On the other hand,

may not be,

I mean to say,

even then -
when all else
is said and done,

THE END!

(after all)

Love Makes the World Go Bump in the Night!

2011-10-22T09:33:00.002-05:00

Someone(s) woke up on the wrong side of the bed!

Before I met my husband, I'd never fallen in love. I'd stepped in it a few times.
Rita Rudner

Gravitation is not responsible for people falling in love.
Albert Einstein

It's useless to hold a person to anything he says while he's in love, drunk, or running for office.
Shirley MacLaine

Love is much nicer to be in than an automobile accident, a tight girdle, a higher tax bracket or a holding pattern over Philadelphia.
Judith Viorst

Love is only a dirty trick played on us to achieve continuation of the species.
W. Somerset Maugham

Love is the triumph of imagination over intelligence.
H. L. Mencken

Love is the self-delusion we manufacture to justify the trouble we take to have sex.
Daniel S. Greenberg

Defining the Chapters in My Love Life

I woke up to brief flashes
of recall,
those death to common sense
tumbles in the sheets

Punctuated
by episodic,
fateful vs faithful? -

almost exclusively...
Indulgences
in serial monogamy,

Accompanied
by prolonged
spells of gut wrenching
delusion
versus dedication,

i.e. the occasional
merely silly,
myopic,
miscalculated,
point
of focus...

Being more
like a smiley face
catching up to
The End
of a painfully
long sentence,

than a meaningful
period of infatuation.

Finis

it's getting late

2011-10-07T23:49:00.001-05:00

It's getting late in life. I'm sixty-five, so I must be grown up, right? I was trolling for quotes about "grown-ups." There weren't too many. Not surprised. Did find this one though. Worth the search:

When we were children, we used to think that when we were grown-up we would no longer be vulnerable. But to grow up is to accept vulnerability... To be alive is to be vulnerable.
Madeleine L'Engle

Time for me to go to sleep, but something different did happen today. When I let my husband off on my way to a meeting, I told him, that in case something happened to me, I had enough life insurance with my employer to pay the burial expenses. I didn't want him to have to worry about that, if he were suddenly left alone.

I've never said anything like that before in my life. Never even thought to. Such a thing would never have occurred to me, much less say!

The END

2011-10-01T06:46:00.000-05:00

I've learned that people will forget what you said, people will forget what you did, but people will never forget how you made them feel.

Maya Angelou

The Lesson

I keep on dying again.

Veins collapse, opening like the

Small fists of sleeping

Children.

Memory of old tombs,

Rotting flesh and worms do

Not convince me against

The challenge. The years

And cold defeat live deep in

Lines along my face.

They dull my eyes, yet

I keep on dying,

Because I love to live.

So Little Money, So Much Stuff?!

2011-09-30T19:57:00.000-05:00

Last Sunday while shopping for groceries, I had one of those sustained moments at the check out in which all the overly familiar sights, justly taken for granted due to too much exposure, popped up like so many Jack-in the Box figures, replicated a hundredfold in the mirrors at a carnival fun house. (Way out!)

Perhaps instead of a time warp brought on by hallucinogens, however, what I experienced were consecutive moments of heightened awareness, which by the way, I have earned - an old-fashioned, flashback summoned forth from my hippy phase. (Whatever! I enjoyed "the trip, man!")

Goes without saying, one thing leading to another, soon I was enlarging on the idea. When the population as a whole had money to spend, then the hoards of hungry merchants had only to sit back and wait for the hoards of equally hungry consumers, who anxiously exchanged a chunk of their leisure time for goods in many forms, conspicuous badges of their personal worth. (Those were the days, my friends.)

Of course, there were set backs. Goes without saying, at some point the cash flow was destined to slow down. It's called entropy. And so, credit became the new money.

Illusions dissipate like the mist at sunrise, even well earned ones and sooner than later, we were in debt and defaulting - let me count the ways, business and goober alike!

So, now what? My suspicion is, that something will have to give. There is no trickle down, certainly as long as the well-healed are crushing money bags against their collective bosoms, like a worn out, threadbare lover hanging on for dear life to innocence gone awry. The magic is gone. The goobers have caught on. They don't enjoy being screwed, now that they are wise to the real cost of cheap thrills.

The End

not allowed in a nutshell

2011-09-28T18:16:00.000-05:00

(amazing, cerebral movie on life)

I was dreaming, when suddenly from nowhere, I heard a voice exclaim, "Life is not allowed in a nutshell!" and BOOM, I was awake. A stage curtain, as it were, fell heavily in a heap, one of those bulky Victorian affairs with brocade and tassels.

Being the sort of person I am, I have puzzled over the meaning and have come to the conclusion, that the warning is a very sensible one. Authority figures, especially, are prone to express themselves in tidy little proclamations about the world experience. Belief systems at large are no exception. What? Let me tip toe around the point lest I pounce on tender psyches here.

Mishigas: Yiddish for craziness/hangups/nonsense - I am researching a project I call "Groundworks" in which I photograph our urban sidewalks, parking lots and other common areas in an effort to trace the remnants left behind by our weekly patterns of social migration.

Groundworks illustrates the trail of said mishigas represented by the digitized shots of crushed cans, discarded bubble gum, the forced cohabitation of nature and artificial material, among other things, along with the to-be-expected wear and tear; and finally, what all this looks like, courtesy of modern technology.

The point? The grand collection of rubbish and cognitive visual dissonance we leave in our wake as we push willfully past the next twenty-four hours is evidence of the artificial thought constructs we erect to raise consciousness; but sadly more often than not, succeed merely in convincing ourselves that we have somehow added to the refinement of the grand primate's enlightenment and evolution.

Shouldn't I be skeptical about any attempt to simplify the mystery of being on this confounding planet, after a life spent discovering how very messy and elusive reality is? Ultimately, isn't that the challenge? to free ourselves of this neural net in which we are trapped?

writing about writing about writing

2011-09-10T08:01:00.003-05:00

Writing is not necessarily something to be ashamed of, but do it in private and wash your hands afterwards.
Robert A. Heinlein

All good writing is swimming under water and holding your breath.
F. Scott Fitzgerald

Good writing is like a windowpane. George Orwell

This is not writing at all. Indeed, I could say that Shakespeare surpasses literature altogether, if I knew what I meant.
Virginia Woolf

Writing, to me, is simply thinking through my fingers.
Isaac Asimov

In my writing I am acting as a map maker, an explorer of psychic areas, a cosmonaut of inner space, and I see no point in exploring areas that have already been thoroughly surveyed.
William S. Burroughs

Nothing matters but the writing. There has been nothing else worthwhile... a stain upon the silence.
Samuel Beckett

Writing has laws of perspective, of light and shade just as painting does, or music. If you are born knowing them, fine. If not, learn them. Then rearrange the rules to suit yourself.
Truman Capote

To me, the greatest pleasure of writing is not what it's about, but the inner music that words make. Truman Capote

Writing fiction has developed in me an abiding respect for the unknown in a human lifetime and a sense of where to look for the threads, how to follow, how to connect, find in the thick of the tangle what clear line persists.
Eudora Welty

Writing a story or a novel is one way of discovering sequence in experience, of stumbling upon cause and effect in the happenings of a writer's own life.
Eudora Welty

And More:

In reading and re-reading these quotes, I was tempted to think, "Wouldn't it be nice, if I were in a position, to meet with these writers to 'pick their brains'?" (Pardon the distasteful image, I've been ingesting too much literature from the zombie genre of late. My bad! Compulsive punning will be the death of me. Help! I can't stop!)

Excuse me, what I mean to say is, that after playing with the notion, i.e. summoning up in my imagination the opportunity to engage with these masterfully creative individuals, I understood at depth (once again), that indeed I didn't care to do any such thing.

Why so? you might ask. Well, okay, since you insist on knowing, I will explain. What I give of myself in experiencing any work of art, be it a book, painting, sculpture, doesn't matter; said work of art attains its own identity and is therefore something apart for me from the artist's personality and consciousness, an infant of the psyche, if you will. By way of an example, when a co-worker tells me, that he can not appreciate Picasso's creations, because he doesn't respect the artist as a person, I am unable to engage him in conversation. Our viewpoints are too disparate.

But, then, I did read a piece about a conversation with Hemingway in Aish.com, that I enjoyed... oh no, so many contradictions, so little time!

Related articles

Finis

Don't Try This at Home Or Anywhere Else

2011-09-07T10:41:00.001-05:00

I'm writing a book. I've got the page numbers done.
Steven Wright

...must mean someting like "It's the thought that counts." I like the idea.

Loosely associated with Mr. Wright's novel (chuckle) approach to writing is a literary rule of thumb I applied in selecting reading matter at the library, when I was a kid. I'd look at the last page first and if what I read piqued my interest, I felt assured the book was worthy of the time spent from pursuits like reading other books that did pass the literary test. I was a nerd.

I should have applied the now abandoned "rule of thumb," when I recently made the commitment to read a certain book, which will remain anonymous, because I am not a literary critic. Said book opened with interesting images, encouraging me to read further; a strong story line developed, convincing me the investment in time and attention was well spent; until (sound effects: screaching halt!) the ending collapsed on itself in a soulless heap, pricked and deflated by its creator. Who else? My sense was that the author had intended to write "X" number of pages and reaching his goal, abruptly lost interest. Kind of like this.

The End

grave secrets

2011-08-27T14:34:00.007-05:00

Miss Lovelorn

"I will take ___ ___ (fill in the blanks) to the grave with me." Sounds much more dramatic, coming from the silver screen, than any personal speech I might be inclined to share in "real life," to what degree real life is real, that is. I have also heard folks say, that a person is only as healthy as their secrets. I'll add, those secrets they have buried alive in their hearts, and minds. Well, that is the idea. I bet that, "I've got the dirt on so-and-so" is likely associated with Grave Secrets.

In that sense, I am much healthier now, than when I was younger and dramatically self-important. I can't think of any secrets worth hiding, probably due to my perspective. In the great soup pot of my cumulative experiences, those precious bits of stuff leftover from my misadventures no longer impact me in the same way.

I am discovering, that the confidants with whom I have shared my deep, dark secrets, are appreciative of being given the chance to reciprocate. They reveal their own treasure trove of stupidity, hopefully valuable lessons learned. Once admitted to the light of day, our bits of personal history seemingly so woeful once upon a time, leave us, as the keepers of this shameful waste of time and energy, feeling clearer.

From infancy on, we are all spies; the shame is not this but that the secrets to be discovered are so paltry and few. John Updike

History keeps her secrets longer than most of us. But she has one secret that I will reveal to you tonight in the greatest confidence. Sometimes there are no winners at all. And sometimes nobody needs to lose. John le Carre

What follows is a little something I wanted to share...mostly I am enchanted with the images and mood Emily Dickinson created.

The Lonely House

I know some lonely houses off the road

A robber 'd like the look of, --

Wooden barred,

And windows hanging low,

Inviting to

A portico,

Where two could creep:

One hand the tools,

The other peep

To make sure all's asleep.

Old-fashioned eyes,

Not easy to surprise!

How orderly the kitchen 'd look by night,

With just a clock, --

But they could gag the tick,

And mice won't bark;

And so the walls don't tell,

None will.

A pair of spectacles ajar just stir --

An almanac's aware.

Was it the mat winked,

Or a nervous star?

The moon slides down the stair

To see who's there.

There's plunder, -- where?

Tankard, or spoon,

Earring, or stone,

A watch, some ancient brooch

To match the grandmamma,

Staid sleeping there.

Day rattles, too,

Stealth's slow;

The sun has got as far

As the third sycamore.

Screams chanticleer,

"Who's there?"

And echoes, trains away,

Sneer -- "Where?"

While the old couple, just astir,

Fancy the sunrise left the door ajar!

- Emily Dickinson

tHe ENd...

SEEING THINGS anew, Oh Oh

2011-08-25T15:32:00.003-05:00

Got a new way of seeing, uh huh

Could be a new way of being - but wait a minute!

Can't say for sure, that you would be the type to benefit

from what is, when all is said and done, my very own
recipe for bonafide success -

Don't go jumping to conclusions, you hear me?!

Bolting the pasture, making a run for the fence,

Or you might find yourself around the bend,

Now listen closely to me, I've got a way for getting past...

Illusions,

But you want to feel better, you say? And that's all there is to it?!

I can forget any sort of CHANGE from you? You are the stubborn sort.
Well, well, well...you're stuck in the quagmire of an untidy mind, my friend,

Can't see past the end of your nose for all the scary stuff
you have taken so much care to avoid. One of those!
My oh my, poor soul, you have a case of the malaise,
Oh, most assuredly you do!

You say, my solution might be the sort to stir things up? Okay.

Never thought of that; and you might run into Mr. Troubles
on the path and what would become of the fine impression
you've made on everyone? your reputation
for being pig-headed and thick? I sympathize

with your desire

for caution.

Indeed, I do...

Time to leave, NOW -
Got places to be inside my head.

Deep Space to explore...
adventure beckons me,

I know you understand.

The End

Going Mental Or, on a Head Trip and Spaced Out, Man!

2011-08-19T10:08:00.002-05:00

The ability to be in the present moment is a major component of mental wellness.
Abraham Maslow

The amount of eccentricity in a society has generally been proportional to the amount of genius, mental vigor, and moral courage it contained. That so few now dare to be eccentric marks the chief danger of the time.
John Stuart Mill

Living otherwise...

ever get the feeling that you are living "out of step" with yourself, or put another way, that you might be one place, but that You (the one with a capital "y") is someplace else altogether different and wherever, or whatever, that place happens to be, is where you ought to be. So, you might ask yourself, "What am I doing here then!?"

Doubtlessly, you are appropriately sincere in asking the question, but that won't pay the price of admission and get you a peek behind the mystical veil. If you only knew what you were really and actually about, you'd be there, a solid, harmonious whole, now wouldn't you?.

I am feeling very much like Alice in Wonderland, because...well, because none of us has an inkling about what Now really and truly is...what a crazy notion signifying nothing, something like trying to balance those fidgety thoughts of mine on the head of a pin. Such an endeavor is beyond reason, given my physicality (I am eluding to my receding gray matter), as unreasonable as making the heroic effort to lay claim to the idea of an Eternal Now, which is always a moment past where we are, Ever!

Now is ethereal, like grasping those wee air particles we breathe in, sustaining us apparently without substance. Where would we be without the moment? We'd be the Nowhere Man, that's what...our personal histories are a mind boggling series of Now's, gone by before we know what's happened, leaving us in the dustbin of Time the whole while.

So, in summary my quandary is that here I am, very possibly somewhere utterly different from where I Am, not only displaced in space (all those dimensions newly discovered), but out of step in time because of that worrisome notion of Now, among other notions.

"Eccentric" (making reference to the quote from John Stuart Mills about eccentricity in society) is according to a source from Brainy Quotes, "like deviating or departing from the center, or from the line of a circle; as, an eccentric or elliptical orbit" ... WAY OUT! Is that like always tripping, Man!? Are we on some kind of socially induced hallucinogenic altered state of consciousness, unaware of our drugged condition? I have wondered from time to Time.

tHE eNd

life on the blue planet

flash

where there is light

Optimism

For Real?

so, who cares?

what is incredulity? (final revision, finally I think)

what next?

That Mine Field Beyond My Comfort Zone. Imagine.

Oh, need I say more?

So i thought

R U Crazy?!

Much Madness

real life tail

Outside the Lines

Express Yourself

Once Around, Or Maybe Not

Love Makes the World Go Bump in the Night!

it's getting late

So Little Money, So Much Stuff?!

not allowed in a nutshell

the End

(but not forever)

writing about writing about writing

Don't Try This at Home Or Anywhere Else

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