Category: Uncategorized

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's avatarScribe 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…

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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

Zombie in the Mirror

It’s easy to notice holes in my sock. Although I put them on mindlessly, the difference in color, the sock’s small size and the focus I use to put on my socks (even if it’s a recurring practice that I can do in my sleep) help highlight the message to the brain, “Hole.” Then debate commences about whether wearing a sock with a hole in it is acceptable on that day. I usually do, unless I’m going through an airport, visiting someone’s home who require shoes be taken off at the door, or trying shoes on. Other than those times, I’ll keep wearing it unless a toe sticks through it. That physical impression disturbs me.

Most other things about my dress aren’t noticed by me. I barely notice my hair when I brush it. I’ve become more thoughtful about my shaving because I became curious about it, but clothing? Naw. Others must point out the holes in a shirt, a stain, a frayed collar, a tear in my jeans. I’m the zombie in the mirror, practicing life by rote. I like those comfort habits. Comfort clothes. Comfort food. Sandwiches for lunch. Sandwich is a big comfort food.

Unfortunately, as written here before, my body and wheat’s relationship with it is becoming abrasive. I let myself go the other day – hell, the other week – and enjoyed sandwiches, chile relleno pie, zucchini muffins, pizza, even a couple veggie cheeseburgers. On top of that were IPAs and Amber Ales, and blackberry cobbler.

Symptoms of wheat overdose arose. I was eating like a zombie, not thinking about my intake, and following zombie routines about what I ate, where I went, and what I didn’t eat. Bloating began. My waist swelled. Shorts grew tighter. I was phlegmy each morning. I developed a baby bump. Joints started aching. Sleeplessness rose. Energy, focus and concentration dipped. And finally, when the urine was a meager trickle, I recognized what I’d done.

So I vowed it all off. No wheat in any form, I told the zombie in the mirror. “Are you sure?” he asked. “Sandwiches….”

“What’s Michael’s favorite food?” a friend asked my wife.

My wife laughed. “Sandwiches.”

I couldn’t argue, as habits and history supported her. So that’s where I was, giving up sandwiches, pies, beers, for a while, wheat in any form for a while. Was not fun. Most know how it goes: try not to think of something, try not to do something, and it grows like the blob to dominate your brain. Or so it happens in my brain.

But it worked. Sleep and urine returned (not at the same time), pains faded, concentration, energy and focus returned, bloating dissipated and my waistline dropped.

It’s not fun, giving up wheat. It’s not a permanent thing, either. I’ll have beer again, and eventually other things. I can indulge in these things with wheat, in moderation.

I just need to watch out for the zombie that I can be.

 

2

Hey Jude

What was the list? We’d written items on the blackboard. I paused by the rice to visualize the chalk scribblings and compare it to the shopping cart. Sweet pot, broc, car, ban, OM, cil. All secured. Ch. Butt. Brd. Blk b. Lem.

I’ll head for the cheese, get that done – no, the bread is closer. I’ll go through the bread to cross the store to reach the cheese. Then I’ll swing back by the rear aisle for the butter, detour to the canned goods for the black beans and lemonades, and then, off list, perhaps a bit o’ choc.

The store is easily Ashland’s most popular. Shop ‘n Kart has a vibe of peace and food. Lots of organics. Nice selections of fresh produce, cheeses, beers and wines, and green stuff made to help us reduce waste and our foot print. Good location, too, here on the town’s south side, off Ashland where it meets Tolman. Busy, busy place.

Background music plays. It’s usually rock. Sometimes it’s classical. ‘Hey Jude’ came on as I surveyed the bread and found the whole wheat offering desired. I sang along, remembering when I heard and sang along as a child. Shifting gears, I veered past other shoppers, passing as I remembered, pol – for polenta, backtracking to the pasta zone. Others softly sang with the Beatles as I went.

Exiting that aisle, I entered the perpendicular central aisle toward the  dairy cases. ‘Hey Jude’ swelled. So did the store singing. More and more people sang the song, and sang it louder and louder. I don’t know if they knew they sang aloud, or if they were conscious of others singing aloud, but hearing more singing as the French horns flared and Sir McCartney sang, I half-expected the shoppers to begin synchronized dancing.

“Na, na, nah, na-na-na-na.” Visions of ‘Basketball Jones’ surfaced from my teenage years. I heard someone say, “Now the cashiers,” and the cashiers took up ‘Hey Jude’, then they called for “just the people in the ice cream section,” and they joyfully spun in their Nikes and sandals, kicking their legs up in their jeans, skirts, cargo shorts and capris, raising their eyes and smiling toward an unseen ceiling camera, holding out their purchases as they sang, “Hey Jude, judy, judy, judy, wow.”

The song ended. The singing silenced. Dancing stopped. Shopping resumed. Most of it had been in my head, of course, unlike the shopping list, which was now gone. Where was I going?

‘Nights in White Satin’ began. I heard someone softy singing along, but realized it was only me.

References:

Hey Jude

Basketball Jones

Nights in White Satin

 

0

I’m All Right

Once upon a time, there was a movie, ‘Caddy Shack’. Starring Michael O’Keefe, Bill Murray, Chevy Chase, Ted Knight, Rodney Dangerfield and others, it was released in America in 1980. Not high brow, it had some memorable lines and scenes,  and was fun. Rotten Tomatoes gives it 75%, which seems right to me.

It’s noteworthy that Rotten Tomatoes didn’t start until eighteen years after ‘Caddy Shack’. I always wonder how the mood of an era supports a movie’s reception. The same goes for books, music, politics, and other aspects of pop cultures. Like, did you know American cars of the late 1950s and early 1960s sported huge fins, huge, tremendously useless, fins, as a styling gimmick. The fins were popular, reminding people of jets and flight. Can you imagine, though, those fins on cars now? My rambling’s point is, what would we have rated ‘Caddy Shack’ if we’d had Rotten Tomatoes back in the day? Wonder if that’s been studied?

My favorite part of the movie was about the gopher that Bill Murray is attempting to kill as one of the sub plots. The gopher survives, and begins dancing to a song by Kenny Loggins. Kenny Loggins was good at that kind of music movie, performing  ‘Footloose’ (the original) and ‘Danger Zone’ for the movie, ‘Top Gun’. The ‘Caddy Shack’ song is ‘I’m All Right’. The song gets you moving – or gets me moving. I don’t think Mom and Dad liked it, frowning and saying, “That’s not real music.” Today’s young listeners might be as amused by the song as I am by ‘A Bicycle Built for Two’.

So, talking with the baristas today, I asked these youngsters (ha – love utilizing that expression) if they knew the song or the movie. Both believed they’d heard of both but had never actually seen the movie and couldn’t place my rendition of the song. Not surprising, as both came out twelve years before the oldest barista present was born.

That’s amazing about our technology, that it exists and helps us create a present and past, by extension, influencing our future, and that these youngsters, if they want, can experience some of our collective past quite easily by watching that movie, just as I did when growing up and watching movies on TV.

There are differences. Today’s movies (and television shows) have made a move toward more realism. Two, it’s easier to select what we want to watch. Whatever was presented on one of three channels back in my youth was what we watched, which was beneficial. I saw movies and genres that I would have never otherwise watched. Some of them were terrible, and some of them were made again, like ‘The Fly’.  

Which, to complete this circle, had me wondering, are they planning on a ‘Caddy Shack’ remake? Well, of course. Numerous people have been associated with such a product and in blogs, some refer to it as ‘inevitable’. Which seems true. I mean, have you seen ‘Star Trek’?

Which one?

 

 

3

Jealous of Time

I’m so jealous of my time, possessive of it, reluctantly sharing it with others, and grumpy when I do. Call Mom to tell her I love her and thank her for reading my last book? But that takes times.

Takes time. Steals time. That time can’t be returned.

No, I’m not doing extraordinary things with my time. Changing kitty litter. Playing computer games. Reading. Working on the biz aspect of writing. And that is work. Not fun, trying to squeeze money out of my words. I prefer the – wait, let me look it up.

My wife’s book club’s latest reading was ‘Norwegian by Night’. I love her for the way in which she reads these offerings, makes them her own and seeks information about the writer and the book’s genesis. In this case, she was also puzzled by the book’s title. She never found a good answer.

‘Norwegian by Night’ was a debut novel and attracted the fame and fortune that I sometimes fantasize about (okay, I think about it the way I thought about sex in my teen years). Naturally, I hate its author, Derek Miller.

No, ha ha, kidding. Really.

But while she researched, my wife found an interview with him and said, “You’ll like this. Listen. ‘The easy part, by contrast, was the exuberant pleasure that came from having no rules, no masters, no demands for propriety, diplomacy, or even collaboration. And frankly no consequences.'”

Oh, yeah, baby, that’s the stuff. To go back, I prefer the exuberant pleasure that comes from having no rules and master, and no demands, rather than that icky business side.

That’s why I’m jealous of my time, of sharing it. They are demands. I’m being held hostage, forced to conform, socialize, speak coherently and be polite, watch out for zombies, and obey the masters of culture and values, and I resist.

My wife ‘understands’ it to some degree, that is, she accepts the logic of me desiring and wanting to write each day. I think she feels it’s owed to me as well. While in the second half of my military’s twenty year career, I spit frustration daily about having to endure that damn macho stilted, reactionary bureaucracy when I could be writing. But I stayed in to get the pension, which admittedly, now, is worthwhile to have. Then we stayed in the pricey Silicon Valley – SF Bay area, as she was starting a new career, putting off moving to somewhere cheap where I could use my pension to fund my writing. And I put twenty years into jobs there, paying off bills, acquiring useful material goods like computers, and accumulating a ‘retirement nest egg’. Okay, good.

But damn, I wanted to write, and still want to write, and look back on all the energy shunted into other things and wonder what might be different.

Don’t we all, though? Go back and think on something, and wonder what might be different?

I could be more intellectual about this, make up clever quotes, or find brilliant insights into the nature of time and humanity, and metaphors about time and the stages of life, and youth being wasted on the young, but —

That’s not really me. That would be a pretender. I’m bare bones, stream of consciousness, sorry, the filter is broken, sort of writer. I call it organic, but it’s really me being lazy.

Enough of this. I’m wasting time.  I need to go write like crazy. It’s really the only dam I have against insanity.

 

By the way, Book Chewing’s interview with Derek Miller is here. Go read it. You have the time.

3

Rant, Driving Ed.

I’m compelled to rant and ask, to determine if this is something that happens only to me. I tell myself I’m trying to understand, but WTF, this is a rant under the mask of being curious.

Why do some vehicles run stop signs and rush out into traffic, only to slow down? Has this happened to you, or is it Just Me? But here I am, cruising along at the speed limit, 35 MPH, alone in the land for about a quarter mile in either direction, and this white Ford pick up (and how many times is it a truck?) pulls up on the stop sign on a road to the right, slows down to a fivish MPH roll and trundles out in front of me.

So I’m coming up on him, coming up on him, foot off the gas, reaching for the brake, looking ahead, waiting for him to pick it up, but he levels off at twenty-nine.

That’s step one, the person who rushed to get out in front of me only to slow it down. Are they being passive aggressive? Is it being directed at me? But why?

Step number two. We go down the road at twenty-nine on this glorious morning until – wait for it – we reach the next zone, where the speed limit drops down to twenty-five. What does this man driving this white Ford pick up do? Did you guess that he accelerates his vehicle?

As I slow down to match the speed limit, he takes off as though it’s been raised. WTF is going on in his head?

Two traffic lights and less than a quarter mile later, we’re side by side at a red light, awaiting the signal change. We’re still in a 25 MPH zone. I’m curious about what he (for the record, a white middle aged male with short cropped gray hair, yes, wearing a tee shirt) will do. The light changes. Traffic moves forward. I accelerate to twenty-five. And I leave him behind. Traffic backs up behind him.

Maybe there’s a problem with the truck.

Maybe he’s a zombie. I don’t think zombies are very good drivers.

Yeah, I’m trying to be kind. Really. I…am…trying.

Others will ask, who the hell cares? It didn’t matter, you still reached your destination, and he clearly didn’t slow you down, because you passed him. What did it do, add a few seconds to some segment of travel?

Yeah, I know.

2

T&A

Yes, it’s my day’s T&A moment. I’m at the coffee shop. Have my QSM (quad shot mocha for the novices). The computer is back, up and running. Time to write like crazy.

But T&A haunt me. Trepidation that I won’t be able to pick up and write either NIP (novel in progress, for the uninitiated – I was a military zombie in a previous thread of this life, and we like acronyms). I’ve been away from them for almost three weeks. Anxiety that writer’s block will strike, that my writing spirit has been consumed by zombie lethargy, is riding me hard. (See, that’s the T&A for those who like more directness – Trepidation & Anxiety.)

So I’m sortofkindaalittlebit putting it off. Sipping mocha. Observing the coffee shop’s fauna and flora. Eavesdropping on loud talkers. Admiring the mountains out the windows. Waiting for magic to scar my forehead and power me into action.

But after a time of it, of walking the forest of what could go wrong, what will go wrong, of facing a fear that opening my writing will reveal a hack — you know, standard writer angst — I take a deep breath and move the mouse.

No matter what’s in there or what happens, there must be a beginning.

Time to begin.

0

Dark Water Zombie

First, let me say, this has everything to do with zombies. I wasn’t attacked by any zombie except for the phantom zombies within me. I can pinpoint it to the zombies that drive my desires to capitulate and eat foods I know I shouldn’t. These zombies are also called ‘habits’. They come out when I demonstrate a weak will.

Follow me two steps back.

The dark waters rose in me yesterday, increasing last night. I could feel them rising and battering me like a storm surge, and witnessed the tangible results in making my plans for today, as well as my reactions to my cats and wife. I didn’t want to do anything. Their neediness and complaints (which were actually requests to be petted and visit with me) exasperated, even infuriated, me.

Then, this morning, my toes were cold in bed. I suffered difficulty swallowing. Rising to feed a cat (it was six AM, after all – time to eat!), I could barely piss. The urine was a feeble dribble. Recognizing these symptoms, I cursed myself for yesterday’s diet, because this is what happens when I eat too much — or the wrong wheat, or wheat prepared in a way that disagrees with me.

I suffer from some wheat or gluten reactions. Its impact varies. I ate food I wasn’t familiar with it but I know it’s loaded with wheat. What sort and how it’s prepared seem to matter. These were baked goods. Baked goods afflict me.

It started with the growers’ market. My wife returned from shopping and having coffee with friends. She offered me the rest of her almond croissant. I accepted and ate it, to be polite, and I didn’t want to be wasteful. I blame my mother for that.

Lunch was Trader Joe’s fat free burritos. Love them but also know that their white flour tortillas cause bloating, swelling and inflammation in me. I suffer phlegm and swallowing issues. But I justified it because my computer had been returned. I was busy with it, very hungry, and the burritos were available and easy to nuke.

My wife had made a blackberry cobbler as a treat, and offered me a piece of that. I had two, to be polite. Mom always encouraged me to be polite.

Dinner, a chile relleno pie that featured a magnificent crust (complemented by a glass of pinot noir), was consumed late, after returning from the Nagasaki-Hiroshima Vigil’s closing ceremonies. I had two wedges, to be polite, followed by a another blackberry cobbler square. It was the kind thing to do.

Meanwhile, my mood was curdling like milk left out in the sun. I felt it, too, yet felt helpless in its face. To continue mixing metaphors and analogies, tides of dark water were rushing in and overwhelming me. I was stressed, irritable, short-tempered, and cranky as a sleepy three year old.

But it was only this morning, when pissing and looking back on the previous day’s eating that I saw the connection between my body, my food intake, and the dark mood. Click — hello. I’d always suspected it, but the mood change and association with food had never been so vividly demonstrated before. And — here is the zombie connection — it was mindless eating,  which is pretty much what zombies do, isn’t it?

I addressed these things with morning meditation for 30 minutes, followed by health visualizations.  Meanwhile I wrote about it in my head. That’s always great therapy for me. I debated about sharing it here. I write so much about me, the bloody blog may as well just be called, Me, Me, Me! But I posted it here anyway, just proving my point that this blog is all about me. But hey, look at its unimaginative name. See?

And zombies. This was also about zombies. Because, when I behave mindlessly, I become a zombie, an angry zombie with some pissing, bloating, and swelling problems, who ate some really good food.

 

2

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