Why a Blog in the Cyberdesert?

Interesting query: Why does one write a blog when no one reads it?
Vox clamans in deserto, I guess?
The hope to be discovered and revealed to be true, one day, maybe?
Dedication to the cause....

On Liberty, Equality, and Fraternity

Liberty, Equality, Fraternity, three ideals immortalized on all of the French Republic's buildings, stamps, past coins (pre-Euro), etc. Most of the world probably embraces the ideals, or has adopted them from the Great Philosophers of the Enlightenment or the French Revolution, and the Americans themselves would probably, or in fact, do, de facto, subscribe to the notions.
But let's look at them a bit more closely:

--Liberty: the whole world loves the idea, or ideal, but.... it means completely different things to each individual, and it is, anyway, flawed in itself, since my liberty stops where yours begins, and vice versa. So...., great in principle, perfect word to gargle with, everybody votes for it any time anywhere, but impractical and in the end useless or even bull cookies. Can't be applied. Let's get back to it later.

--Fraternity: more or less same problem: perfect buzzword; most religions and socially-oriented philosophies, individuals, political ideals or systems, moral and political leaders, social movements, unions, activists, etc. etc., appropriate the word in one fraction of a second. BUT... can anyone really be my brother? And would that potential brother want me as his brother, too, anyway? Maybe not? (And what about sisters, a majority (51%) in the US, to begin somewhere?)

Which leaves us with one word and spearhead for the whole thing: EQUALITY. That is less loaded, less high-falutin, less-bull-filled, and more practical. I treat everybody the same way and they treat me as one of them. We can talk fiscal, legal/judicial, social, school/classroom, daily interaction, taxation, army, equal opportunity, equal pay (for women, for minorities, for underage, replacement/
temporary, or part-time workers, etc.), environment (treat the planet as your equal, respect a monkey and any other living thing as your equal, etc.) I 'll let everyone extrapolate as he or she wishes, and believe me, you can go ahead on this one, it is solid.

If all are equal, then all will feel like brothers and sisters, all will respect others and each other, and there will probably be liberty, too, because you will feel free, you will be getting equal pay, equal treatment, equal representation, equal taxation, etc. Even if I have this skill and you have another, if you have this type of intelligence and the next person has another; if we recognize it and treat each other equally, you will feel an equal, a brother, free to speak and walk up to me to say what you want to say to me or Billy Bob or to John Newcomb Getty IV.

So, Folks, we can, could, and probably should, or must, go on with this. Vote for, rally behind, practice DAILY, and cast your fate with, EQUALITY. Keep focussed, get rid of the secondary, subsidiary, or dependent buzzwords, and tackle the key one: EQUALITY. PRACTICE IT DAILY. All these ideal words are important, yes, yes, but as George Orwell would say (a la "Animal Farm") this one is MUCH more... equal than others.....


PS: On a side, but related, topic, you may want to check out how Carlin brings down the ten commandments (a double handful, you will admit), to about three of them: same here. Let's keep our eyes on the prize. Simplify, get rid of the BS, and go for the jugular, for what matters...

In Praise of The Nose

The nose is a wonderful piece of human aerodynamism, personality, style, class, living architecture, and, well, yes, I guess: pure sensuality (in a non-lascivious way).

The Modern Cleopatra is Ms. Alison "Tiki" ML, of Virginia; the runner-up is Helen Mirren, oh yes; and the "dauphine", 2nd runner-up, is Nicole M, currently a cross-Atlantic resident, in a totally different style from numbers 1 and 2.

Check someone's nose, you will know who has class, who is unkempt (men especially), who drinks too much, who is sloppy, who has personality or not, etc.

Of course, the eyes still have it, "windows on the soul," yes, they are and remain, and we can or could talk mouth and neck, hands, and various body parts (yeah, yeah, you women do check guys out, don't deny it--those of you who watch soccer for the guys' thighs or drool over Will Smith's abs!), but for true class and brains, I say: check the nose.

(and, Ladies, I'll be nice and give you a tip: you want to find out a truly unclassy guy? Check his ears: fur coming out of everywhere on that Ewok? You got yourselves a bona fide slob!)

This was in praise of the Nose, that un- or under-recognized magnificent piece of biological achievement (and on a related note: Alison: No, thank you, I don't think I need a psychiatrist, and if I were you, I'd pocket my title of "Modern-day Cleopatra", be proud of it, and shut up!)

"IF" (a naive poem)

If I were a tree, you'd be my leaves
If I were a wave, you'd be my foam
If I were vegetal, you'd be a rose
If I were mineral, you'd be a diamond
If I were the earth, you'd be a volcano
If I were a stone, you'd be lava in fusion
If I were a bird, you'd be a majestic swan,
a rare duck with majestic plumage
or an immaculate albatross
If I were a cat, you would be the shower of stars in my eyes
or the sensuous silk of my fur
If I were sleep, you'd be my dream
If I were a train, you'd be my locomotive
If I were an artist, you'd be my universal masterpiece

If I am crazy and a poet, it is of you

If life were fair, you'd be here with me

semi-fiction 10: Couples ?

I knew this woman, a beauty queen (a true beauty queen, not a child pageant winner) whose older husband could not comprehend why she was unhappy with boring him when he gave her everything she wanted. When she told him she wanted a separation and then a divorce, he was convinced she had a lover. She didn't. Which galled him even more because she was unhappy just on HIS own merits, so to speak. The gilded cage problem. And he was jealous as hell. He had her followed, never found anything, because there was nothing to find....

Until one day she realized his machismo and ego would never understand her need for independence, freedom, life, etc. And so she told him she did indeed have a lover. While he was stunned, as he had had her followed, tagged, stalked, etc., he just, as a true good (macho) man would, conceded defeat, and granted her a divorce. Because, he could understand losing his prized trophy wife to a younger man, more her age, you know, etc. A kind of fair and square duel which he lost, somehow. Even if she was never able, of course, to tell him who the man was. (She had thought of accusing the gardener --they did have a gardener, yes-- but realized the poor man would at least lose his job if not get roughed up or whatever by way of possible reprisals, as "real men" would inflict upon rivals, especially for their fair and legal better halves...)

On a somewhat related topic, I remember a long time ago being unable to shake off a girlfriend with whom I had, I soon discovered, not much in common, but who was convinced I was the man of her life. And she was a stalker. So, of course, when the "it's not you, it's me" spiel did not work, I moved to the notorious "there is another woman." Which was not true, I was just bored with her and she was not getting the message. Of course, she stalked me. I knew it, anyway. But I did not want a girlfriend, I just wanted some time alone, for myself, and to recover from HER, and her exhausting, cumbersome presence.

So, it did not really bother me that she played the real movie thing, scarf and dark glasses, following me to the grocery store, the movies, work, etc. I became adept at spotting her outside my apartment building, usually in her car (a nice, obvious way to do it, by the way...). And it so happened that one night, probably ten, twelve days into this insane business of following me, I saw that she had fallen asleep in her car down the street from me. I immediately crept out and managed to get a ride to her place since I still had the key (I knew I could safely sleep there, as she'd go look anywhere BUT there...). I got in her bed and slept a few hours (I knew she was tired from all those nights under my windows, and figured she would sleep in her car until daybreak).

I left her a nice note, telling her I was sorry I had missed her and was hereby returning her key ("here is your key"-period). Then I took the first bus back to my place, made sure to bang a trashcan, sang and coughed, as I was approaching her car, and when I saw her stir (it seemed she had not moved for hours), I knocked on her carwindow, and excitedly wished her a glorious morning. She was so disoriented, humiliated at having been found and asleep at that, mad at herself for having fallen asleep and having nothing to show for her hard work. I told her I stopped at her place "on my way back" to return her key. I told her she looked sick and should go see a doctor. She left and that was it. Self-humiliation does it... Sad, but efficient...

Intense life: M de Thoux: another end.

Years later, when it was all over, I met by accident in a restaurant an aged M. de Thoux, half-crippled and slow-moving. He recognized me instantly. I was somewhat uncomfortable but I faced the situation and told him I was so sorry for his loss.
He grabbed my hand with force and looked at me straight and long in my eyes:
-- You'll have to come over, we'll talk about the past and the good old times.

I answered along the same lines: courteous platitudes... We both knew we would never do it. But I had gotten his message: It was all water under the bridge, so be it.

I shook his hand, he shook mine, and we both walked away, never to see each other again. We both knew we had a piece of the puzzle within ourselves, nothing else. We were tied to each other forever in a small way, or maybe not so small.

I heard he had gotten remarried, to a younger woman. Again. Good for him.

Semi Fiction 15: Lips and Eyes

I was walking along the wide street, a bright Spring afternoon, blue sky, relaxed, clear, dry day, New York on a glorious day with its concert of street peddlers, leaflet givers, et al., when a girl caught my attention with her spiel on the end of the world, the need for ecological responsibility, a mix of new religion and typical student idealism. She had reddish-copper hair, very white skin, black leotards, and an orange ski hat, typical kid.

Her lips were not typical, though. She had full lips covered in flaming red gloss, truly striking, and a break from the Goth image and persona, I also noticed her pale green eyes and their intensity. I stopped to listen to her speech.

-- "Time to repent and pay for our mistakes, we can't go on like this. Do you have a life? Are you alive? We are destroying the earth. It is time to change, and YOU must do something about it. TODAY! Do your care or know that you are killing everyone and everything? Wars are on the way, famines are on the way, we must change, we need it practically and morally, it is our duty, it is YOUR duty, ...."

Someone asked her if she even voted. She immediately answered it would not change a thing, because of the collusion of all candidates, all parties, the machinery, the system...

I agreed with her on that one.

She was vivacious, quick-witted, and cute, as a kid can be, and she could be my kid. After a while, she noticed I was still there while most people were passing by, and she asked me why I was staying. I answered that I mostly agreed with her but was essentially amused, maybe cynical. And then I added, on an impulse:
-- Tell you what, I'll do my share to support your cause. How about I buy you lunch?
-- Are you picking me up? (Sarcastic piercing look of the green eyes)
-- Ah, come on, you could be my daughter. For that matter, my daughter might be doing this exact same thing somewhere else... It's more that you remind me of myself some time back.
-- Ah, a date with your past?
-- A date??? Come on, kid! Have a bite on me, we'll talk. Just for fun!

We found a hole in the wall. She ate voraciously while explaining she lived with her grandparents in Brooklyn, did not have much to do, shared the upper floor of the grandparents' house with three friends, was not sure what she was going to do, more college maybe, go somewhere West, would like to write, all the usual twenty-year old's hopes, potential, fears, indecision, and unbridled gutsiness. Grandpa and grandma did not mind having them there, for the company, and they did a few chores, it was like a commune in a way, but it could not go on forever.

She kept pursing her lips, talking, looking at me quizzically once in a while, wondering why I cared or listened to her, but also a bit insecure and so she kept on talking.
She had spunk, talked well, cute, smart kid, idealistic of course, (thank God!.. There is nothing worse than those twenty-year olds who already know ALL they are going to do, all planned and set, and they can even tell you who or what type they'll marry, how many kids they'll have, buh...). Her eyes and lips kept mesmerizing me. They exceeded her small frame and made her appear to plunge into you. After a half-hour, I could not see anything else. I told her so.

She surprised me.

-- You a dirty old man?
-- What? I... We just talked, I guarantee you I...
-- Yeah, yeah, but you know, the basis of all social interaction remains sexual.
-- You sound pretty advanced and pretty jaded for a kid...
-- One, I am not a kid, I am an adult, Sir! And two, I may not be as old as you are, but I know a thing or two, and I can tell you are attracted to me.
-- Wow!... You got guts, kid! OK, so, if attraction is the basis for all interaction, then, you too are attracted to me? And anyone we talk to is a potential... what? Mate?
-- YES! Exactly. People just need to recognize it. There is nothing wrong with it.
And don't tell me I remind you of your daughter.
-- Well, right now, you don't, no doubt. At least.... I hope...
-- Wanna come see my place?
-- With grandpa and grandma, you must be kidding!
-- See, you fell in the trap. It's only because of the grandparents and that they might see you and judge you. You implicitly confessed you'd follow me home, otherwise! You're a dirty old man!
-- Nah, I just think you're cute, bright, and amusing. And alive! You're good, young lady!
-- You stopped calling me a kid, good! You're learning!
She got up, I had no idea what she was doing but it had been a nice enough lunch, entertaining and so, so be it! I guess that was it! Time to move on.

I left money on the table, and followed her out, she was waiting outside by the door.
I put my hand out to shake hers.
-- OK, young lady, I wish you good luck. You got what it takes. And you know what? Keep the red lipstick, it's classy and it is really you.

I turned to walk away.
-- Hey, Mister. You know what? You are OK, come here!

As I turned again to face her, she was smiling, green eyes flashing, red lips flaming, she grabbed my elbow, put her arm through mine, and led me down the street.
-- How about spending the day with a little young lady, walking, having coffee again later, enjoying life a bit, hum? What's your name, first?

And so, we did all that walking and that was delightful. She made me laugh, I showed her stuff, we talked all day about history, culture, stupidities, facts of life, friends, music, etc..
I'll have to do that with my daughter one of these days: it's not fair that a stranger could have me a whole day like this, and my own flesh and blood does not. Except that of course, my daughter does not have those eyes and lips, or that social maturity... I ... think... and maybe hope...!

May again

It's May again. Hot, humid, the gnats are coming out; everything is blinding, blinded, muffled, steamy, white, hot, soon unbearable, the unbearable whiteness of being, hurricanes possible (as every year, every summer), welcome to hibernation in the summer (thank you for the A/C), it's another southern Atlantic coast summer, Yipee ayay! yeah...

insanity diary

And so it starts with migraines, an ophthalmic problem (you lose half your sight in both your eyes), you start sweating and then in 10 to 30 minutes, the real migraine, the killing headache, disorientation, nausea, at times vomiting (dry heave often), and you are out for the day, maybe the next day too, at times another day after that.

Then comes the time when for the first time you also get the bonus of having your speech get slurred and you can witness yourself, in public no less, unable to mouth out the words you want to say ("amazing, business, impossibility,...") for twenty minutes in a professional context, and then the migraine comes, and you do the same the next day, that time wihtout the public, just in your hotel room.

You feel disoriented, but you also notice that this time it is more serious, you have more than the usual forgetting of an idea, a word or train of thought, you have "absences" when for twenty minutes to two hours, you don't understand, you don't remember, you don't assimilate what you are being told and you roll with the punches, with literally no grasp of what is going on. Fatigue, stress, exhaustion, form a long period of weeks, months in fact, of constant demands on you.
And you already know that deeper, more serious thought or intellectual activity, research, etc.., is gone. You don't have it any more. Age? Something else? A degenerescence, maybe hereditary?

And one doctor hits you with: "I am going to put you on half-time," while the next one two days later asks you how far you are from retirement anyway...
So, it's the heap? Handicapped, retarded, over the hill, too old?

You do some tests, you see more doctors, nothing really wrong, just the usual imperfections, aging, etc.. And so you feel you got over the incident, the attack. And then it comes back again, the stuttering recurs here and there, and worse, you have another "absence", discussing what type of leave they might put you on (irony!), you find yourself again not assimilating anything... Embarrassing,and here you don't even bother calling back,as you did with one of the docs to have the various medicines repeated to you, because you never got it, or even remembered anything, the first time around...

Depressing, or rather .. even more depressing...
And.. I was (yes: WAS) a sharp cookie, a promoter (or "seller") of intelligence, and still lucid at times... This is going to be tough.... (because I can't doubt that it will get worse...) and the younger ones will circle around for the kill

Near here & never there; Love and Death on a slow burner

Some people who love you will be there to help in your time of need, yes.
It is a shame, though, that they can't love you the way you'd want them to or, worse, the way you need them to.
They are the ones who kill you, a little bit more every day, by their neglect, their busi-ness, their way of always putting you second and of showing you they do so, so many times daily.
They affect you so because you love them and they love you. They love you wrong, though.
They are the people you can't live with, regardless of love.
And maybe you can't live without them either.
Either way, you die.
Their very physical presence underlines their emotional absence, and tortures you constantly.

It is a sort of frigidity: they can't respond, they can't feel what you need, they can't feel the way you love them, they can't respond to the way you love them and need them.
And so, they kill love, they kill your love. And they kill you.
Always near, almost there, and, in the end, never there.
It's the wrong kind of love, in the end.
They cook you to death. Slowly. They stew you to death, they kill you in a slow cooker or on a slow burner.

PS: For a long, long time, I thought frigidity was the inability to enjoy sex, until I looked up the definition one day and saw it was the inability to respond, a sort of a-sociability, if you will. Yeap, and it kills life, love, passion, everything.

thoughts of the day 1908

Again, from Barbusse, the French writer, and "Hell" (1908)

--(Medical doctors discussing how similar all men are, as seen from their insides, to which one conludes:) "Men are mostly similar by their vile pretension to be dissimilar and enemies"

--What can we do to get out of slaughter and misery if not hope for it?
-- we can actually WANT it!

--The root cause of all human evil is our subservience to the past, which prevents us from redoing everything or anything the right way, based upon reason and moral sense. The spirit of tradition infects mankind, and its two atrocious manifestations are property and the notion of a motherland."

Note: I assumed he wrote this after World War I (especially because of hisfamous "Fire" masterpiece, journal of a WWI squadron, which shocked the public for its realism); this would seem to be a typical tirade for late WWI, or 1920, and with good old-fashioned idealistic communist overtones. But he wrote this, with striking clairvoyance, the decade before WWI.....

That was the thought of the day...

"Liquid money", cash flow... out!

Why is money (as in "cash" for the pros) called "liquidities"?
Because you can't keep it in your bare hands...
That's probably why we have wallets, purses, satchels, etc...

Say, for example, that you discover your house has a few windows that have rotted out after twenty years. You will soon discover that it is not just the one or two you noticed, but a good half-dozen of them. Then, of course, some of the siding or frame around them also has rotted, so you may repair some but more likely will have to replace them, as you can bet those twenty-year old windows are no longer available or standard (and, by the way, just to reassure you, we trust the repairman, used in the past, used by friends of ours). Then of course, the stuff needs to be repainted (inside and outside, depending on the repairs and replacements). Invariably, some other things appear: a bird has been pecking at your siding, there is a hole, you need to replace more stuff. Not to mention that your house could use some painting on two sides (if you go conservatively, to avoid repainting the whole thing...)

Which is when your wife mentions that the study where we both work could use "some" shelving (on FOUR walls!!!), let's get an estimate, and of course, she wants it done "right" (i.e., get out yet another credit card check in the lowest four digit numbers or better (worse)...)

Which then reminds her that it's been a hell of a year and we definitely should, if not MUST, leave for a week, otherwise we (or for sure: SHE) will blow a fuse, go insane (yes, it's been relentless, thanks for adding to it, I was forgetting as today is Sunday, and I don't have as much aggravation from work, so let's make up for it at home, right! And right now!).
(And what is wrong with our home??? We leave here, but we can't make it a place to spend a week of R 'n' R??? I understand the need for a change of scenery but.. NOW, at this point in economic times??)

And then of course, our son is working for three months in the upper Midwest, maybe we should go see him, poor lonesome son of a gun on his first job.... AND, apparently, it CANNOT be, or cannot be considered, as potentially part of the week of potential vacation... Well, yeah, that would be nice, but see preceding paragraph, and unfortunately, successful parenting means that they'll learn to live without us and not stay here until we die....

And that is when I don't even bother mentioning the Recession (which is, or will be, unlike any we have seen yet, I persist in believing), the price of gas (is going to get much worse soon), our very old cars, college costs, etc, etc, etc. It helps my own sanity (insanity?), too, to look the other way for now. I know the intensity of the desire to go bury my head under my pillows when my wife gets like this while I try to bring reality into the equation. To no avail, except to strengthen her resolve as well as her conviction that she is right anyway (you are with her or against her) and that I am a cheap skate, insensitive, and other variations on that theme...

So, now you understand that money does indeed flow out from between your hands (or from your credit cards, lines of credit, etc.), just like the rushing receding tide on the beach that knocks you out and rolls you upside down, yeap, just like that....

"Liquid money", right! Cash flow... out!

semi-fiction 17 -- Movie: The Station

I was just about to board the train when it happened. Not sure what it was or how. All I know is that I felt like I was in a metal tube, a lot of cold air like a siphon rushing directly around me and projecting me at great speed through the tube. Lots of weird sounds as if I were inside a pinball machine or a computer, beeps, touchtones, etc.. Pain on the outside of my right ankle and heat on the inside of my right calf, I could feel my entire left leg completely normally, then some cold wet stuff across my stomach, especially the left side of it, sticky; my hands were crossed over my chest, and some warm liquid dripped on my left biceps. My eyes were closed but there were soft green lights in both my eyes, different ones, as if each eye was viewing its own lights. I was like sleeping, and then the pain started, bearable at first, on my right ankle.

I could feel things or hands touching me, shaking me. I was sliding, my entire body was smoothly traveling on whatever I was on, all that with the accompanying sound of the hydraulic brake pressure release of trains at rest in a railroad station, this kind of breathing, and yet the tings and bips were still going on at various levels and volumes.

Apparently, it was a bomb or explosive device. Despite these sounds and those few sensations, I did not hear a single human voice, cry, or shout: nothing! It was as if I were alone in the world, carried, lifted, floating around in a metal tube. I smelled an occasional waft of an older woman's perfume, sweet, too much, but only twice or so.

I gathered later that I spent in fact more than an hour in that green tube with dual vision (definitely a brighter, bigger, greener neon tube on the left). Partly blind, partly deaf, no unbearable pain, and those sensations of fluids here and there over me. My head was completely immobilized: I was wearing a helmet??? I could not talk, I think I grunted once or twice, I do not know what to or for...

Suddenly, more light, a couple of voices; I do not understand anything, total disorientation, I am not even sure which way is up or down; I do know right and left, however. Fingers palpate carefully, meticulously, the inside of my right elbow; needles go in once, twice, three times, one of them is wet. I come to, more or less, in a kind of bus, mostly white, a large ambulance. I can't comprehend, hear, understand, anything. I am made to sit up; a nurse is there, she talks, nothing gets through, I do not see anyone else, although a man will soon appear and escort me out. I try to stand up, can't, my legs give up, ankles. They attend to me. Someone turns on the sun, both heat and light, I am blinded, try to protect my eyes. Still no sound to this floating movie.

I don't remember anything. Later, I am home, I remember this. And we have: "Cut"!

Has anyone seen the beginning and the end? How were the reviews? Was I good? Who else was in it? Jennifer Aniston, per chance? When was this? How old was I? Who let me take the train alone when I was under age? (I was a kid, right?) Wait!... Jennifer? When I was a kid? Something is off here...

I can only joke: I don't dare ask the hard questions....
Did some not make it?
And then, more importantly for the long-run, and to avoid a repetition of it all: Why?

side bar: Thoux sighting

In the paper, at the top local luxury country club, with pics of all in their black tuxedos, the women in chignons, dangling earrings and long side hair curls, evening gowns, etc... Mme de Thoux, one bare shoulder sticking out of a long emerald green satin or silk lame sheath, leaning forward, holding the regulation small black purse (what do they put in there? A handkerchief to dab their brows and a tube of lipstick, period, that must be it, too small for anything else...), regulation smile painted on wide (with the picture taking her profile, to show the nicely cleaned, perfectly lined, and whitened teeth--years of orthodontist's bills from infancy), with a similar couple, to underline how much joy was had by all at the latest stuck-up ball, fund raiser, charity event, or acceptable cultural happening. Classy, yes, but what a show!

Apparently, or rather appropriately, M. de Thoux has been cropped off, probably leaning back, wandering off, or looking the other way, of course!....

Disorientation

Various levels:

-- why the moments/periods when nothing registers, no memory, no comprehension, no "being with it"? It is all "cottony" or cloudy, indistinct, distant....

-- Why the moments or periods when you can't emotionally handle it? when everything feels impossible to tackle or handle, when every little thing feels like one more Everest-size irritant on top of all the others?

-- why then the moments when it all, and I mean "all", feels unnecessary, so far away, too much, not worth it, kick the damn thing away once and for all?

Is there something really brewing below the surface, something really wrong? Is it just aging? Is it madness creeping up? Is it just a phase? Is it some medication? Is is a wrong life and a call for a change? (Thank you, Obama!)

In the meantime, on to med tests and more...

Sartre was right: this IS Nausea (with a capital N), existential, essential, and you can take it literally:
First, really no interest in any food at all, of any type;
and,
Two, it really feels nauseous all the time, any time of day...

Thought of the day

About one hundred years ago, in his novel "Hell" (which is about love and love relations, and has nothing to do with war, unlike his masterpiece, "Fire") French writer Henri Barbusse wrote that if he was "troubled by his contact with love, it was not because of an instinct [i.e., sex] but because of a great idea."

Ah, this is novel... a reminder of the greater layer or depth behind or under the obvious, superficial, instantaneous, first-response level. A "Great Idea" indeed... because great love, great communication, great sex... without any greater idea behind it, ain't nuttin', period.

You can flunk sex and still have great love. But if you want great sex, and if you want to have great love, you have to have the great idea behind it.

That was the thought of the day.

Shameful John

As early as 2004, and since, I have thought, and kept on thinking, that pretty boy John Edwards was positioning himself for a VP spot. Now, don't get me wrong, the man has his place in our politics, and he gave one of the best speeches, still, of the 2008 campaign, the one after Iowa.

But finally endorsing **NOW** a fellow Democrat, once Hills is down on her knees (I know, she's going to tell us she us now roaring to victory after triumph in West Virginia, yeah, yeah, Hils, we know, deja vu...) is really... crass! Talk about Johnny-come-lately!!! And John, yes, the smile is great, yes, the Tom Cruise look is great, but you know, you still are a very rich lawyer playing the populist card (and with a $ 400 haircut, yes, I have heard the media harp on it.. see? I can be crass and petty, too!).

I believed in you, and I am not the only one, but this is really not your moment of glory. All you had to do was remain quiet a few more weeks.... We KNOW you'll take the spot on the ticket if it comes your way, who does not know that? You talked good, you sounded good, you were good, there was genuineness, down-home honesty, sunniness in you; I could have voted for you, but you saw it coming, you bowed out, it was sad for our country, but OK, that was the right move. Now, this. I am really disappointed, I mean, hurt, betrayed.

Climbing on the shoulders of a wounded other at the last minute (OK, next to last minute)... Shame on you, John Edwards!

The Reliability of Exes: A World Well Made

You know there are sure things in this uncertain, changing, scary world. You can be just out of the emergency room, not really sure what really happened, shouldn't be moved this way or that way to make sure the blood flow in your brain is optimal, and yet you can still count on the ex not to have $ 20 to give or even to lend your grown daughter for gas money, even if your daughter has a summer job and can pay back in a matter of two days or so....
Isn't it good to know you can rely on known quantities? That only YOU can lend (or give) the needed $ 20 to your daughter? I know, I know, it is to make me feel needed in my hour of... need, precisely.
The world is so well made, thank you, O Lord, and please do pass the ammo...
From the vantage point of my gurney, already lying down, I think I might have a target in mind to practice on or toward....
My God, it DOES work, I already feel better. Thank you, thank you, I needed this certainty, and I KNOW it was done on purpose, oh, yes, it was!
Thank you for Murphy's Law, the law of the optimal pain in the.... neck, PRECISELY!


PS: I do not own a gun, and loathe weapons--just to make things clear.
This is just meant as an amusing musing (albeit sarcastic or ironic--wishful just punishment, maybe?) (but.. good luck and godspeed to her, too....!)



Part TWO (24 hours later): Also, the Ex then chooses that time to see if, by any chance, discussing now the replacement of daughter's very old car, might not yield financial positive rewards for her, by talking with me NOW... ("Never know, it could work. Maybe he'd buy his daughter a whole car while semi-comatose and I'd get to keep all my money and avoid my responsibilities? Has to happen to someone, might be me, why not me???? Oh please, please, Santa Claus, come out and play in May..."
--Well, he can't afford it anyway, has said so before, and in writing too, and mom needs to pay, or advance, her fair share of insurance, because he is doing so already for BOTH kids and is now broke...)

Yeap, nothing like a good ol'-fashioned ex to remind you of the sure things in life!!!!
You see a vulture when you are dying, you WILL wake up (even if just temporarily!)! Indeed! Thanks!

Vacation/Friends' boot camp

Have you noticed how some people you know, maybe even some of your family members, feel the need to plan activities from dawn to dusk if you go visit them? It is like they have no life andthen you arrive and suddenly breakfast, mid-morning, lunch, early-afternoon, late-afternoon, evening, dinner, after-dinner, late-night and even early-morning activities and gatherings are planned endlessly, and they call you every hour or hour and a half.... Nuts ! Mental pygmies!

What is it: They don't want you to inspect their house? They don't like their own house? They can't stand each other and/or their kids and need a buffer (you)? They don't want you to have the time to discover their town, their neck of the woods, their streets? Why? They think you'll like it and move in? No chance (literally)! And what gives them the right to regiment my life as if I were in the army and they were the brass, or Commander-in-chief of this base? (And even if I were in the army, maybe then, on vacation in their hometown, maybe I'd want a break?) It's exhausting, insulting, uninteresting, a pain in the derriere, and believe me, I won't come back, they won! And maybe I would not have come back, anyway, even without their running me ragged from dawn to dusk and then some.

Next time I want to visit their neck of the woods, I am not telling them... I may like it more than they do anyway, as they don't spend any time looking at it, obviously, nor do they like their own house and alleged "home", always rushing to some place or another.

If you want or need a vacation, go some place where you know no one, it'll be saner and better!

The Sick person's psychology

It has been said that there is a special psychology, or personality, of the sick individual--most notoriously: Dick Cheney, and his heart attacks., rumored to be more withdrawn, relying upon himself, closed in, etc.... Cancer patients, heart-attack patients, stroke victims, etc.. may all well have their own, specific view of things, people, life, the world... How could they not?

It has been my unfortunate privilege to find myself on the receiving end of what may have been a ministroke (more tests still forthcoming, including very early morning in a few hours...) and it is true that you find yourself cut off, withdrawn, not caring as much as usual (yes, in part because of the problems of communication). Will have to delve more into this later. I am not even supposed to be writing this right now... (and no dentist, no chiropractor, nothing that might interfere with the normal flow of cerebral blood--no keeping your head forced in a reclined, twisted, etc. position for a stretch of time...)

Will let you know, but there might be some truth to it. Dealing with the realities, even as a limited-time sample, and facing the potentially long-term prospect, of no speech and/or of no motor functions, do indeed make you look at things "a tad" differently...

Between Heaven and Hell

If man is between Heaven and Hell, and life is hell (so is war ,and we are indeed at war, not only in Iraq but also in our divided society--economic and social war, to begin there--), then Jean Arp (Swiss surrealist/Dadaist painter) is probably right that art and intellectual life are the only ways to reach Heaven.

That was the thought of the day

semi fiction 12: Open the Door

I was coming home from work one day, 4 pm or so, on a beautiful sunny, warm and crip afternoon, off of the main roads and on a side street when I see in a driveway this SUV with an open door and a fantastically long, perfectly tanned, woman's leg out of an open car door, waiting for her to finish whatever it is she is doing or gathering from the car. The high vehicle put her and this leg as on a pedestal. I slowed down, hypnotized. Silky skin, perfect tone, shaven impeccably, short jean short, off-white classy sweater, short, trimmed, dark hair. I stopped in the middle of that street. She turned around, probably having heard the engine, looked interrogatively at my car, slightly surprised.

I pulled up along the grass on her side of the street.
--"Excuse me, Ma'am. Don't get it wrong. But I just wanted to thank you.
--What?
--It's one of those beautiful days, thigns are routine, 250 days like this all year long, and here I am coming back home from work. And I see you, and let me say, again, with all apologies, you have been a flash of beauty and wonder as I was passing. I just wanted to say thank you.

She looked at me, half... wondering if I was a pervert, a bit stunned and not comprehending, maybe also slightly amused, I am not sure. Forty years old or so, money, a professional, dynamic personality I can tell, quick thinking in the movement of her eyes, not a classical beauty, maybe even not a beauty, but good-looking, a well-defined jaw line, must exercize, maybe even tan in a salon, thin, muscular, TONED (that's it, that's the right word)--but could be natural. Pause.

-- Well, thank you, it's very nice of you.. er
-- I apologize, sounds corny, and don't think I am trying to pick you up, I just thought... as we all rush to and fro, I would just take two minutes and thank you for just this, we never take the time to appreciate things, tell people we notice them, regardless of what we notice or why. That's all. Have a good day.

And I turned and walked back to my car.

-Sir!

I turn around towards her, she is in the driveway, her purse, keys, sunglasses in her hand. Not shorts, it is a skirt, nice heavy sweater, coton, linen maybe.

-- You are right, we never take the time. Thanks, it is very nice that you would stop and tell me this. (pause, she is looking at me, I am not sure what is going on, a notion that her house is right here... wakes up and sneaks into my mind...)
and she asks:
-- It was the leg, wasn't it?
-- What?
-- It was my leg that you noticed as you were passing, wasn't it?
-- Er, well.. Yes. Why? I ...
-- People always comment on my legs.
-- Well, er, they are nice. But that's not the only thing and ...
-- Tell you what, how about you pay me a nice drink or coffee at the beach? Go south, I don't want to see a whole bunch of people and cars and have to cross the whole town with all this traffic. Drive!

And she goes around my car and opens the passenger door, moves my stuff to the back seat herself.

And that, my friends, is how I met A---, and had my most relaxing break of the last several months, coffee on the beach, sitting on the sand, me in my shirt, dockers, and leather shoes, she in her sweater and jean mini-skirt (she took off her shoes, just like in the movies)... She had a pink underwear on, as I saw by accident when she sat, and later, stretched of all her length and hair right on the sand (and you know that a woman who will stretch on the sand in her work clothes, especially in a mini-skirt, is a sensual one...)

And nothing happened... We just made it a memorable couple hours of light talk, jokes, silence at times, coffee, enjoying the seagulls and the open space, the beautiful Carolina blue sky and beach, the peace, the light warmth, the complete other world, right there and so often forgotten and neglected. We drove back and that was that.
And when I saw her again a week or two later, again when driving back home after work, I gestured to her that I had to go home (pointed at my watch and then forward), waved to her, she waved back, and that was that. So far...

Life as this is indeed bearable at times. But you have to break the chains of routine. Some other time, I guess we might do this again? Who knows? It does not matter, we got the best part of it yanked off of the daily grind. One for us, none for the bastards.

The Intense Life: dramatic entry & suspense

And then one day, twelve years ago or so, M. de Thoux called me... (yes, him.. the guy with the guns whose wife liked me...)
He basically told me I could have her.
I was so flabbergasted that, to this day, I don't remember what I said.
But he did not renew the offer....
I had not been up to the part, obviously...
That's why it was twelve years ago..
If I had been up to the job, either she'd be with me or I would be well over her by now (and she over me, I... guess...)
Ah, those dramatic moments in life when it is all or nothing and you don't have your cards ready...
Someone on the Titanic must have been in the bathroom when it happened, right?
That would be a guy like me..
The guy who was fixing his shoelace or forgot his invitation to the White House when Marilyn sang Happy Birthday to JFK....

And now, you ask?

Well, I'll save it for next time...

State of things

There is the endless misery of it all; the accidents, the tragedies, the people who can't take it any more and commit suicide, the illnesses and emergencies; and then the state of the land, our 11 to 12% inflation rate (that we know of, and that is.. so far..), and all the daily jazz of work, bosses, house repairs, bills, cat hairballs and bad tricks, insomnia maybe for some, arguments with family, spouses, neighbors, kids, coworkers, etc.. And how do we keep a stiff upper lip in front of the pummeling, bruising, the hurts, the relentlessness and extent of it all? I know many overeat, drink too much, exercise to death (and it is supposed to help, yeah, yeah), and there are hot baths and massages, there is sex, art, and happy hour (to relax, not necessarily to get drunk), but, in the end the question is and remains: are we really more civilized than our ancestors or even just our parents or grand-parents?

There has go to be a way. It's relentless, endless, morbidly depressing...

Any advice?