Month: August 2016

In Context

First, the preamble.

I was going to call this post, “The Cleanse”. But that has so many possible meanings. Some aren’t good. It depends on the context. For example, someone shouts, “I just got fucked.” The statement has multiple meanings, even, or especially in these days. If they amend it to, “I literally just got fucked,” we still don’t know if someone humped them or they suffered grievous injuries (emotional, mental or physical) from someone else’s actions.

Kind of surprising, context counts also for recognizing people. I said hello to my wife’s friend at the coffee shop, and she responded, “And who are you again?” She later told my wife she was embarrassed that she didn’t recognize me, but that I was “out of context.” Our assumption is that she only knows me in context, when I’m with my wife.

Okay, the importance of context sown, I’m working on a cleanse. No one is being harmed, as it’s a 10 day green smoothie cleanse, with recipes and process based on JJ Smith’s book, “The 10 Day Green Smoothie Cleanse.” My wife been on it, first completing 44 days, and then returning to begin another 10 day cleanse. Her cleansing is to help with her RA.

It has helped. All her test results show tremendous improvements, and she’s sleeping, moving and thinking better. Kudos to her.

Her results so pleased her, she hectored me to join her.

I was reluctant. My primary issues are number one, coffee, number two, beer, and number three, food. In conjunction with them, I like coffee, and my writing practice is anchored in hiding in a coffee shop with coffee and writing. As for the beer, I like beer. I usually drink it only once or twice a week. I’m more prone to have a glass of red wine in the evening, but giving that up little bothered me. The third issue, food, is that I like food. I take comfort in its taste and enjoy eating. I like eating sandwiches, pizza, pie, ice cream, cobb salads, avocado and arugula salads, potato salad (especially, my mother’s, which is the world’s best), pasta, veggie cheeseburgers, steaks, pancakes, bacon and eggs with hashbrowns or home fries, Chinese food, quesadilla, burritos —

I could go on, but I think the list has established my food attraction. The smoothie fast would negate eating, except for nuts, celery, and other crunchy green vegetables.

We finally agreed on a modified approach. I would continue with my coffee habits so my writing process isn’t interrupted, because it’s taken me years to develop this habit, and writing is my escape, but would otherwise follow the green smoothie cleanse. I’d try it for three days to gather impressions.

Today is day three.

###

So I have impressions gathered. One, it isn’t bad.

Smith’s book is well-organized, with a smoothie recipe a day for ten days. Smith also provides a nicely consolidated shopping list. We made a copy of it and off we went. I used pears instead of apples and most of my smoothies had slight pear overtures. One big smoothie is made each morning. The smoothie is then consumed as breakfast, lunch and dinner. Preparing it takes me about ten minutes, and clean up is easy.

How do I feel, you ask? Hungry, but otherwise GREAT.

It’s actually astonished by how much better, and how different I feel. I consider myself in good health, based on my lack of complaints, ability to bend, walk and lift without issues, and the lack of medications in my life. I’ve wanted to lose weight and was aware of that weighing on me (sorry) but also deal with a mild wheat allergy issue. Nothing major plagues me.

Yet, I’m impressed by how much better I’m feeling and sleeping in just two days, and my increased energy. I think the best analogy for illustration is that while I normally feel good overall, I had moments when it felt like my sixty year old ass was dragging an additional twenty pounds. Besides that, after walking three or four miles, my feet would hurt when I got home, and after hours clicking and typing on the computer, I felt it in my right wrist and fingers. Anyone dealing with computers who is sixty can probably relate. This ninety  to one hundred degree weather also often leeched huge volumes of energy out. I wasn’t used to that impact.

Now, after two complete days of the green smoothie cleanse, I have no pains. Seriously, and literally, in the traditional sense, NONE. To which, I’m like, WOW.

Yes, I’m hungry sometimes. It’s not a sharp hunger but a dull, slightly removed ache. Most intriguing, the smoothie awakened me to some zombie eating habits I’d developed. Like, I’m going to sit down and read a book, but first I’ll get some cheese and crackers, or some fruit. Or, I’m hungry, what time is it, what is there to eat? Or, let’s turn on the telly and watch “QI” or “The Night Of”  (since “Happy Valley” ended, and “Orphan Black”, “The Americans”, “Stranger Things,” “Dark Matters” and GOT are all on one sort of hiatus or another). While we’re at it, what do we have to nosh? Or, out walking and smelling food grilling, the impulse surges to act on an impulse to go have a bite and a beer. Likewise, on a hot day, ah, let’s have a cold one. But, no, the cold one must be a green smoothie.

So, it’s cool. I’m enjoying the cleanse. Yes, it’s modified, or I’m cheating, whichever way you prefer to address it, because I still enjoy coffee, but now, on the third day, I plan to continue for ten days, because the results impress me and I want to see what it’s like after ten days.

Now, time to have coffee and write like crazy, at least one more time.

 

 

0

Drop That Now

Ready? Here we go.

Up worried about a sick cat. Naturally, that led me to think about time, space and reality.

I was thinking about Now. Now equals Reality for us.

But, I thought, Now does not equal Present. Now is a subset of the Present * Past * Future formula created by common agreement, which forms Reality.

Weirdly, though, as a group (referring only to the subset called humans, and only those ‘presently’ ‘alive’, to keep this simple), we approach Reality in accordance with Zeno’s paradox. Essentially, we’re all traveling toward the same moment, at the same speed (in theory), but we’re coming at it from different distances, because Now = Present * Past * Future. Which means, Now is constantly being reshaped by us as individuals, because we’re always shaping the Present, Past and Future.

Here’s an example for clarification.

You have a friend who is close to you. In a moment of Now, you remember the Past and create a Present by fantasizing a different Future for the two of you, one in which something changed. Perhaps you were close friends and in your fantasy, you’re now lovers. Maybe you were lovers but that ended badly so in your fantasy, you remain close friends and never ruined it by become sexually entangled.

That fantasy, of thinking of a different Past and imagining a different resulting Future, created a new Present. That Present spun off onto its own, to create another Now.

But –

Yeah, there’s always a but. The but here is that a new you exist in that new Now. Yet that new you is also your current, past, present and future you. You are all yous.

In that new Now, you think of your Present circumstances (the moment of Now), and the Past (that you created) to imagine a new Future, which becomes another Present, establishing another New. The ability to ‘hold it together’ mentally is keeping true to one Now, or being adept enough to juggle Nows so that their changing doesn’t disturb you. Most of us struggle with it, because it causes us imbalances from the “That’s not how I remember it,” syndrome, and the unglueing that springs up thinking of all of us Now. You’re remembering different Presents that happen to intersect into one Now, but the Now wasn’t exactly the same for everyone, because of Zeno’s Paradox.

As a fun exercise, imagine Now = Pr (Present) * Pa (Past) * Fu (Future). But Now creates a new Pr. Which means, by our formula, Now has changed, also changing Pa and Fu, establishing a new Pr and a new Now. And essentially, each of these Now is a string connecting us. Conceive of all the strings together and we grasp what it means to be the universe. But that’s only from the current, living aspect of humans, because, since we can imagine and re-imagine new existences, death isn’t a permanent state at all, but only a ‘natural extension’ of one Now.

Yeah, this is all old, the multiverse concepts of ‘everything that can happen, has happened’, with the added dimension that everything that can be remembered (or mis-remembered) can be re-imagined to add to more universes.

Of course, the other kicker is that true constants don’t exist. Time travels only in one direction in our Now, even though we act on it on another level to create other Nows (see above) and the Past is considered immutable (in our Now). Physical dimensions such as agreement on Length and Width also vary by Now, which, of course, are defined by Past * Present * Future. So, too, are constants such as the speed of Light (c) and the Theory of Relativity. They are not constants but agreed upon acceptances of what is Now, for this system of mass and energy which is Now. Quantum Mechanics are actually glimpses into the real state of being, where we begin to see how time, light and gravity act in ways counter to our Now. It is, actually, much more relative than we realize. I’m sure there are brilliant physicists out there that an explain it all a hell of a lot better, and probably have.

That’s all for Now.

7

At Night

I usually hear things at night but I didn’t hear things last night. I didn’t hear a window being broken.

I didn’t hear a neighbor screaming for help.

##

The dry day’s burning heat had carried into a hot night. Ninety at nine PM, I kept the windows closed and the A/C humping. My wife retired to read at 10:30, leaving me to finish watching Inspector Lewis (consultant) and Hathaway on my own. A cat joined me, per the Cat Rules. I settled onto the recliner. Tucker curled up on my lap.

Lewis ended. Silence ruled as I considered, “What next?” Then I turned on an old sitcom. They usually knock me out faster than light.

Noise arose outside.

That’s not unusual. Nature abounds, and with it, raccoon skirmishes, deer foraging, cat fights, dogs barking, or an infrequent bear or cougar. Besides them, people often walk up and down the street, talking and laughing loudly. That’s what this kind of noise sounded like.

Tucker jerked his head up to look. I muted the television and listened. “It’s Barb,” someone shouted. “Help.” The voice was outside my window and rising.

Tucker and I leaped up. Someone hammered on my front door. I rushed out, flicking on lights as I went, unlocking the door and throwing it open to Barb, my eighty-eight year old friend and neighbor from across the street. Tears hiding in her eyes’ corners, voice quavering, she said, “A man broke into my house. He showed me his penis. I think he’s chasing me. I think he wants to rape me.”

##

My wife arrived from the bedroom. We hustled Barb in. I grabbed the house phone to call the police and headed outside, thinking, if he’s chasing her —

No one was outside. Dogs often bark well into the night. Nothing tonight. Reaching the police dispatcher, I stood on my front walk and began a dispassionate explanation of who I was and why I was calling, answering questions she injected them. As this transpired, astonishingly, a man left Barb’s house and trotted up the street.

I watched, torn between pursuing him and remaining where I was, deciding on the latter as I told the dispatcher what was happening. Moving out toward the street, I watched him go up into the darkness forty yards up the street. I swiveled back to my house. Our phone is VOIP and needs the Internet and the wireless connections. The dispatcher was telling me, “You’re breaking up, sir,” so I headed back for a better connection.

The streetlight up the street is motion activated. As I repeated where I thought the man went, I was looking in that direction. The streetlight came on. A second later, I heard running foot steps. Watching with amazement, I saw the intruder run back down the street and return to Barb’s house.

WTF?

I told this to the dispatcher. While doing so, the man left the house and trotted back up the street as I watched and relayed the information. He’d just reached the street light as a police car arrived. The dispatcher and I said good-bye.

By my guess about eight minutes had passed. How different it was from television and movies, the writer’s partition of me noted.

##

I told the officer everything and answered his questions. Another police car arrived. Spotlights illuminating the night, the second car headed down the street where I’d seen the runner disappear.

Amazingly, no other neighbors had opened their doors, turned on their lights or looked out. No dogs barked. No cars, runners or walkers passed.

The night remained quiet, save our ongoing drama.

##

The first officer took my statement, clarified information and then inspected Barb’s house, walking around it with a flashlight while I went back to my walk. Knowing the neighborhood configuration and worrying, I went into my backyard, turned on the outside lights and looked around. Finding nothing amiss in the backyard, I left the lights on. Returning inside, I checked our rooms and ensured all the windows were shut and locked. Then I visited with my wife and Barb. Barb was calmly telling her story. I headed back out.

The officer returned to me and asked to speak to Barb. I took him in. Barb gave her statement.

“I was in the bedroom, on my bed, with my check book, when I heard a loud noise. Not sure whether it was the television on or something else, I went out into the hallway.

“A man was walking down the hall toward me. He had his penis in his hand. I gave a little shriek. He said, ‘How would you like me to give you some of this?’ He waved his penis around. I looked him in the eye and said, ‘No, thank you. I don’t believe I would. I was married and my husband took very good care of that.’

“The intruder said, ‘Well, how about if you suck it for me?'” Barb said she replied, “I don’t want to do that, either.”

She said he then turned. Thinking he was leaving, she rushed about, locking doors. Then she heard a loud noise and realized he’d returned. Now feeling frantic and scared, she ran out the front door and across the street to my house.

##

They didn’t find the man. I guessed he was slender, wearing black shorts, white, with short dark hair, about five foot nine inches tall. I guessed he was in his twenties. Barb agreed.

While I stayed at home, the police, my wife and Barb returned to Barb’s house to determine if anything had been taken. Later reports said nothing was missing. A great deal of blood and broken glass was in the living room. He’d thrown a ceramic planter through a window and climbed through, cutting himself. Bloody palm and fingerprints were on several walls and surfaces.

The police recovered a cell phone from Barb’s backyard. Our theory is that the intruder left, realized he’d lost his phone, and returned to find it, but didn’t, fleeing again as the police arrived.

I’d called Barb’s daughter and told her what happened. She arrived about 11:10, about thirty-five minutes after it seemed to begin.

##

Barb accepted an invitation to stay the night in our guest room, and was shown to her room at midnight. This morning, talking over coffee at seven thirty, she was remarkably calm, cheerful and graceful.

It was all sobering, frightening, thought provoking. Barb realized she’d left her patio door unlocked, and that’s how the man entered. He’d later broken the window attempting to re-enter the house.

A lot of lessons were reinforced. Never let your vigilance lapse.

Never.

1

Reminding Me of You

A white Jeep flipped a bitch, your expression, and it came to me because that of that time you were pulling out and that Jeep did a U turn and hit you, and then tried blaming you. That’s how it was going for you, then. Your poor grey Bimmer was totaled when it flipped on 101 on the home commute after hitting a piece of wood in the lane, but the insurance company didn’t believe you. But they couldn’t explain why your car flipped, either.

‘Round and Round’ came on, and I thought of you, your face lighting up as you lunged for the boom box and cranked it up as you said, “Oh, my God, that’s my tune.” Then you played air guitar and sang.

I think of you whenever I see an Atlanta Braves uniform or hat. You’re gone and the players you cheered have retired but you bled the colors. And you’re there when the Packers play, even though Favre moved on to the other teams and the HoF.

Every time I stop to look at a new program, I think of you, because you were the first one to ever point out to me all the little things, encouraging me to not be afraid and just click on things to see what happens. You come to me in a whiff of Pall Malls and Marlboros, in a sweaty white Miller can, and in the taste of bad, burnt black coffee in small paper cups. I see you when I cut open a watermelon and gaze at the rows of black seeds in the glistening sweet flesh and when I hear a fighter jet split the overhead air. You emerge when someone speeds by, talking on their cell phone, because I can hear you spit, “Slow down, fucker, and get off your phone and drive.”

Van Halen’s ‘Jamie’s Crying’ comes on, and you pop out, because you were dating that young woman, Jamie, and ended up marrying her. We were all at the club one night and started singing it to her, and she started crying, asking us, “Why are you doing that?” She was drunk, we all were, and you and she went into the dark corner and talked and kissed. You’re in the taste of a well grilled cheeseburger because nobody made them like you, no one ever in my life, and you’re there when I think about making pancakes or get out of the car and stretch and look around at a highway rest stop. You’re there in the blue sky over the ocean and in the whispering, salty sea breeze, brushing your hair from your face and urging me to move over so you can take a picture.

You all come to me, individuals caught in the wad of bubblegum that is me, individuals contributing to my sum total, from your moments and points, trying to stretch away but always mired in the pink strain of memories.

1

Oh, The Heat

It’s hot and I am compelled by Internet Law to write about this heat.

This heat, what, 105, 107? It’s just ruining things. Look what it’s doing to my electric bill when I run my air-conditioning. And the water bill when I water the lawn and plants. Yikes, you should see, you really should. It’s unbelievable.

It’s too hot to do anything but sit. It even affects my Internet connection, can you believe it? I’m serious, when the heat gets over 97, the Internet connection becomes spotty, don’t ask me why, but it really makes it so hard to post anything or find out who’s doing anything. THANK GOD for my iPhone!

It’s so hot, I can barely move. Even when I don’t move, I’m sweating. Look, I’m sweating now, and this is inside, in the shade. We’ve put up awnings and umbrellas on the porches and patios, and there is the pool for a cool dip but even these reliefs are so momentary because you wouldn’t believe the breeze, it’s like fresh out of a pizza oven. Speaking of which, we wanted to grill pizzas tonight but I told them, it’s just too hot for us to do that. Let’s go to a fun restaurant with air conditioning and spoil ourselves with fine food and drinks.

Otherwise, I’m just going to have to sit inside and read in the air conditioning today, and what fun is that? That’s hardly living. We should go away somewhere until this heat wave ends. Like Vegas! You check for some flights and I’ll look for a room. The Bellagio! I love it there!

Road trip! I am literally so excited. I can’t wait until this heat wave ends.

4

Three Degrees

Three degrees can be a lot, and not much. It can be a shrug or a killer, self-actualization achieved, or another day of determined trying, the perfect puffed pastry crust and advancement to the next round with a handshake from Paul, or dead last, saying good-bye.

Three degrees further north, and you’ve entered another world. That can be huge. North Korea and South Korea. Not the countries’ real names, but their nicknames. You probably recognized them. Three degrees off the tip of southern Florida, and you better be airborne, on a boat or a platform, or you’re in a watery situation.

At 42 degrees north, you can be on the California – Oregon border. Three degrees south and your taxes are much greater, along with the costs of real estate, the average income, and the likelihood that you’re a college graduate and are more liberal. At 120 west, you’re on the California – Nevada border, if you’re north of 39 degrees latitude but still south of 42 degrees, and the differences those two states embody. South of those coordinates, and you’re still in California at 120 degrees west, all the way down to Santa Barbara, where you enter the ocean.

Three degrees of effort, luck and success is sometimes the difference between being average, good, and great – between winning a gold medal and being back in the pack – or average, fair and poor. Same could be in the degree of decorating taste. One person’s stripped zebra rug and red walls is another person’s horror. It’s a matter of degrees.

Three degrees was the difference in the high between Tuesday and Wednesday at my house. Tuesday reached 96. Wednesday, cooler, at 93. What a difference it felt. 93, with a light breeze, offered comfort in the shade. 96’s shade was a brick oven’s shade. Today is forecast to mock them both, at 103 F. We’ll see if that three degrees over 100 is realized, or felt.

Three Degrees is a good but not fabulous Oregon Pinot Noir. Supposed to have won some awards but would not win them from me. Different tastes, and all that.

 

Three Degrees is also a Portland restaurant. They don’t explain where the three degrees come in, but they mention food, drink and people. Or is it because they’re now between six degrees of separation, right in the middle of a chain, between a friend of a friend of a friend?

Three degrees is half of the six degrees of freedom, which is about movement, and not personal freedoms. But if you think about it, we can apply the six degrees of freedom to personal and political freedoms and develop an analogy to six degrees of freedom in mechanical motion.

Or anything else. I’m writing about degrees here, and what differences they do and do not make, and how arbitrary they sometimes seem, and yet what an impact they can have. Your thoughts on it may depend upon your degree of interest.

0

Too Personally

Some days I take it all too personally. Rejection of my writing, my words, my voice – it hurts. It feels like a personal rejection. I say things. A tenth seems understood. Grasped. I write things, more digital information in a digital swamp.

Some days I feel like I’m battling alone against bureaucracy, mediocrity, conformity. But I also see myself as those things – bureaucratic, mediocre, conforming. It strikes me that I’m battling myself as well as the world, which isn’t a comfort to realize.

A load crashes down. What am I doing it, and why am I doing it? Why don’t I just stop and live some other life? What is it in my nature that forces me into this hole where I don’t fit?

Some days I feel pitted against the world. The cats desire attention, which is good, isn’t it? But it stops me from advancing my plans – exercising, cleaning, writing. And there is another lost cat out there, crying for food but otherwise healthy, pretty, young and glossy, and well fed. But I take care of it, sneaking it food, telling it to go home, looking for posters advertising someone is searching for it. An hour later, it’s gone.

Even my dreams reflect all this. One out of two, maybe three, days, I experience a mega dream. The mega dream is your summer blockbuster movie, lots of hype. You don’t want to see it but you can’t escape it. Advertising and branding efforts push it on you through your drinks, television, internet, print media, in interviews, commercials, and ads. It cannot be escaped.

That’s a mega dream, too. It can’t be escaped. I awaken and it’s there, crowding out more coherent thinking, vivid, loud and real.

Last night’s mega dream came down to fighting evil. It started at a writing conference, because that’s where evil lurks, right?

Of course not. The writing conference was enormous. It was wrapping up. Hundreds of earnest writers in folding chairs sitting in a semi-darkened hotel cavern, trying to soak up the juice, the energy, the mystique, of one who made it and created a writing career. Got published. Made money. Won awards and recognition. Talks about their writing, their processes, the stories that they’ve published.

And I, in the dream, was in the back row. That’s me in the corner, out of the spotlight, hugging notebooks, a tote bag, and a computer, collecting my pens and writing exercise and handouts. That’s me, listening and frowning, not agreeing, hearing the same thing I’ve heard before, understanding it, yet still failing.

A guest speaker was replacing the guest speaker, and as it was the last day, we were going to socialize, because, as writers, we socialize too little. So let’s all collect our things and go off to the movie theater. We’ll need to brave the night air but it’s just around the corner.

Yes, I know where it is, I’ve been there.  Off I go, alone, as others break up into knots, groups and trios, chattering away in friendly, excited manner, while I, dour as Holden, wander off alone, to first stop and pee. In there is a man in a trenchcoat. Twentyish, of average build, clean shaven with neat short dark hair, about five feet ten, white face, dark eyes, tired looking, endlessly talking. No one I know. He’s following a women. Pestering her. Annoying her. Scaring her.

I tell him to leave her alone. He mocks me but continues after her. So, I push him. He falls off into a pit. He falls silent. We’re done, I think. The woman thanks me. Leaves.

But he arises again. Now, he’s following me. Pestering me. Annoying me. Angering me. So I push him off again, and again, move violently each time. Each time, he arises again. His demeanor doesn’t change. He knows he’s evil. My efforts amuse him. He knows he can’t die. He knows that I’m realizing it. He knows it’s getting to me.

I know it. I run from him. I realize more, like him, very similar, in trench coats, but always white, always male, sometimes taller and skinnier, are emerging, going after others. So I begin warning them. I realize the evil plans to escalate and that we can’t fight it but must escape. So I try warning the others but I won’t be heard. The evil begins pestering others. Annoying them. Scaring them. Panicked noises arise. I try to fight the evil. I explain to the others that they must stay calm. If they can’t escape, they must fight.

But I’m not heard. I remain alone, fighting evil, trying to help others escape, until, at least, the evil is in a restroom stall, and I’m pissing on him from across the room in a strange climax that we both recognize as absurd. I’m just pissing energy away.

Inside my brain of brains, I know others feel the same. I believe this is the stereotype of the lives of quiet desperation and fading dreams, that this blog, and this post, is one of many writing about modern angst, desperation, and frustration. They’re also searching for a way to cope, to explain, to call for help, reinforcements and reassurances.

My coping mechanism is my writing. I’ve always written for myself, but I always believed, as every writer does, that someday, someone will read what I wrote. Yet I’ve reached a moment when I stand alone and tell myself, that might not be true. Maybe you should stop writing, stop pissing away your energy. Quit fighting evil, bureaucracy, mediocrity and conforming. Eat the fast food and drink the flavored sugar waters and be as happy as the vape heads on tv and in movies, and not give a shit about dying bees, animal abuse, the murders, police brutality, privacy, the state’s power, workers’ rights, minority rights, equality, freedom, greed, global warming, unending war, and of course, zombies. Maybe I am the zombie, acting from some part of my reptilian brain that I don’t understand and can’t control.

Yeah, I take it all too personally.

Of course, I recognize that it’s my dark side arising again, I’m sliding from somewhere on my spectrum, slipping down toward the deep end. While I have an active darkside, it does also get sunny. And writing it all out, explaining it all to the unseen universe, relieves some of my imagined burden. With a deep breath released in a long sigh, I tell myself, “Go on. Get dressed. Clean up. Check the cats and brush your teeth. Time to write like crazy.

“One more time.”

4

Sentimentality and Nostalgia Win in a Landslide

Purging tee shirts today, and shorts. I have many of both, old and frayed and worn, that never escape the drawer. They often no longer fit, because I am no longer that size.

But there is a Pink Floyd tee shirt from the Momentary Lapse of Reason tour. What a party that was. What was it, 1988? While stationed in Germany. We partied with Germans and Czechs. Man, hard to believe it was so long ago. I was a different person then. Well, I’ll keep it, even though its collar has partially separated from the shirt’s body, the colors have lost their luster, and the underarms are holed. I’ll keep it.

Also, the tee shirt celebrating Mark Donohue and the 30th anniversary of the Porsche 917-30, which itself was over a decade ago. That’s in good shape but small, a keeper. Also a keeper is the Australian Grand Prix shirt from 2000. My boss, a good friend, bought it for me. I was supposed to accompany her to Australia. We were doing clinic trials for a new medical device for treating chronic total occlusions, but plans were changed at the last minute and I didn’t go. But she remembered how I’d been going on about racing in general, and the Formula 1 race was going on that weekend, turning the place into a carnival, so she bought the tee shirt for me. It’s never been worn. I haven’t seen Laura in ten years but I remember her brightly as one of the best people I ever worked for and a sensational friend.

Michael Schumacher in a Ferrari in the rain is kept. That was his first year with Ferrari after he won two WDC with Bennetton. A red tee shirt from an Iowa writing conference is kept, and another, from a writing conference in Portland, is kept. My LeMans tee shirt is kept. This tee, although drained of life, celebrates Mario Andretti’s final year of Indy car racing. To the keep pile. The Steeler AFC championship shirt from my brother-in-law must be kept.

The tee shirt from the race course formerly called Laguna Seca is also kept. It has the old configuration on it. We ‘won’ passes from the Marlboro people when they were doing a promotion on Moffett NAS. I phrase it as ‘won’ because they gave us the passes after enjoying our company. That was when? Well, Marlboro sponsored Penske, and Al Unser Jr, Emerson Fittipaldi, and Paul Tracy were the driving line-up. 1994, a year before I retired from the USAF, that was the weekend the late, unique Randy stole a golf cart from a track official and drove it around because he was tired of walking. Blue, the tee doesn’t fit, but it’s the thought that counts.

In the end, the thought counts for a lot. The Goodwill pile is much smaller than the pile to return to the drawers. But these shirts, with their smells and rips, shrunken and frayed, are better than photos. I’ll die someday. An estate sale will be held or my wife or relatives will come through and look at these shirts. Those who know me will know what they’re about, and why I kept them.

The rest will just have to wonder.

5

If Martin Luther had taken some Vitamin C…

Scribedoll reveals her delightful humor in this memory.

Scribe Doll

In my final year at University, where I was reading for a degree in French Literature, thanks to a new syllabus tried out by the French Department, I was allowed to specialise by choosing four options.  I was only too happy to drop 19th-century Romantic moaning (as I saw it) and 20th-century anxiety and depression (as I saw it), and throw myself into (again as I saw it) the certainty and serenity of the Middle Ages, 14th, 15th, and 16th centuries.  This covered, among others, a course entitled “Literature of the Reformation”.

Eager to get ahead, I took a walk to the Theology Department, and asked if I might attend the relevant lectures, to gain better knowledge of the historical and religious background of the French literature I was about to study.  Dr F., a specialist in the subject, was thrilled with my enthusiasm.  “Yes, of course, you’re very welcome…

View original post 830 more words

0

178

One seven eight may be my new favorite number. This is a fickle thing so, maybe not. I’ll test it.

Five was my favorite number for the longest time. The problem with five is that it’s a simple prime number, and just one digit. Nothing to add. No other ways of looking at it. I do appreciate and respect that it shows up EVERYWHERE – five toes, five fingers, the Fab Five, five rings, five senses, you can create the list. Five has served me well.

But 178, that’s a number you can play with. First, 1 + 7 = 8. Isn’t that cool? Then 1 + 7 + 8 = 16; 1 + 6 = 7. Neat, right? Or is it just me?

It could be just me. I dreamed of 178 last night, part of a long, rambling dream (like this post, but in color) about delivering a wheeled case for an old man. He was in charge of a place and was wheeling it along, but he was old and the black case was large, and I was there and bored, so I offered to help him. He made some snarky retort and then told me to take it to 178.

Off I went, through a door. I picked up my wife as an assistant, but once through that door, we discovered we were in an airport. Announcements were echoing, people rushing along, as they do in airports during peak travel hours. The place was gray cement and full of ramps, so the sound traveled unabated. White signs with numbers in red were overhead. Where was 178? My wife took off, thinking she knew the way, but I went in a different direction.

Arriving at 178 shortly, essentially an alcove, I found an old white refrigerator. Somehow, I knew I was to unpack the black case. Opening the refrigerator, I found it loaded with cheese. Cheese wheels, sticks, slices. White, yellow, blue. Opening the case to unload it, I discovered more yellow cheese, sliced, in packages. Insufficient room was in the frig for the new cheese, so I re-arranged the cheese to make room and add the new cheese.

“Cheese,” I was telling myself in the dream. “What’s with all the cheese?” I was baffled.

Finishing that and looking around, I realized that I was in someplace from my military career. And somewhere around there had been a locker where I’d kept personal items and military gear. I just needed to find it. It was locker 178.

I walked around, orienting myself and searching, moving through a maze of military green and gray doors and walls, past military members, along cinder block walls with exposed pipes. As I went and remembered, I told myself I was close. It had been locked, I remembered — but I had the key. Yes, the small key remained on my key chain.

It was my real and current key chain, just the house and mail key, but now with the key to to lock to my old storage locker (a locker that never actually existed, except in other dreams).

I finally located where the locker used to be, but guess what? It was gone, replaced by a Base Exchange facility where new uniform clothes were racked. No sign of me or my life there existed.

I looked up 178 this morning, and found that when it’s reduced to 7, it’s a mystical number, the number of cycles, of beginning again.

Yes, I had begun again, a new life, life after the military, life after Silicon Valley start-ups, life after IBM. And I’d been feeling that sense of renewal the last several days, like a song playing through my head, or a lingering perfume after a tight embrace.

I like that, although my explanation for the cheese is rather lame: the cheese represents food for thought.

Yeah.

Don’t know if that’s true. But one good thing I take from it all is that I didn’t wake up a zombie. That has to count for something.

Of course, thinking of that, I immediately begin conceptualizing a story about people who are zombies in their dream – and what happens in their real life.

Time to write like crazy, at least one more time.

2

Blog at WordPress.com.

Up ↑