Daily life in the world

why ?

2011-11-29T20:09:00.001-08:00

Tell me, O great Lord, if you are responsible for all and everything, why did you give this beautiful three-year old boy an aggressive and advanced kidney cancer? You couldn't find someone not innocent? Someone who deserved it? Justice, fairness are not your considerations?
Well, I can only repeat what Camus already said, I will always reject a creation in which children are tortured, sacrificed, or mistreated. Amen!

Certainly not "yours",

outraged

blame yourself, he says

2011-10-16T07:00:00.000-07:00

Herman Cain says that if you are poor, you can only blame yourself. The man has not encountered discrimination? Doesh e really think all are equal in terms of access to education, to jobs, of hiring, of chances in life, in general? How insensitive, how untrue, how ridiculous!

East and west/all is relative

2009-11-08T15:42:00.000-08:00

I always thought of Cambodia as to the west (because of VietNam). But to the Thais, it is East. All these notions are relative, the Far East and the Far West are products of eurocentrism. To an Asian, the Far East could be Boston and the Far West Brittany, Morocco, Senegal, or Iceland.

No Xmas gift for the Police?

2009-11-08T15:40:00.000-08:00

At a Halloween party last week, things got rowdy and the police was called to limit the noise. One of the organizers of the party got unruly with the police and was arrested. Since he was disguised as Santa Klaus, one can now wonder if the police will be getting anything for Christmas????

reality and fiction

2009-10-26T10:03:00.001-07:00

Reality overtakes fiction (goes beyond it).

Fiction is corrected reality.

I don't get it...

2009-09-11T12:33:00.001-07:00

I don't understand how some people can claim that health reform will end our world, open the door to socialism and communism, as soon as government is "in charge" of our health but they want to keep thigns 'as they are", with Medicare and Medicaid run by the government.... I don't want it but I want it, I want it but I don't want it. God bless us all!...

dreams again

2009-09-11T12:28:00.000-07:00

For years, I did not dream, or maybe I did and never remembered anything. A side effect, or collateral damage, of acute insomnia, probably. Now that I dream again, I find fascinating this mix of real-life and fantasy, the mixing of people who have never met and never will, the mixing of their languages--as in my dreams some people express themselves in a language that is not theirs--, the entire new world that all people usually enjoy. Yes, dreams evaporate and dissipate quickly but I now have some memories of what they were, who was in them, the locale, etc. A whole new world...

Armstrong and the French

2009-07-26T09:42:00.001-07:00

Why is it, you ask, that the French used to not like Armstrong, and now they seem to love him as he returns to the Tourde France?
Well, to begin with, when someone so completely dominates a sport, in this day and age, you are suspicious.
Then, of course, like us, when at 37 he becomes the underdog, they love him -- we do the same...
Plus by now, with age slowing him down, he may or may not make it to the very top (close, though), which adds an element of suspense,
and then of course, with time, the legend begins to set in. Might he not be the Greatest Cyclist ever?....
And, give it to him, it takes guts to requestion yourself and show up again ten years later, just to see how you do with all the young dudes.
And, so, now, they love him...

overheard

2009-07-17T15:11:00.000-07:00

"Better not to do anything and be happy than to do something you don't like." Makes you think, doesn't it?

Upside down world

2009-04-28T14:20:00.000-07:00

As I am getting ready for work today, I hear the news that in Japan the day is already over (and their stock market did whatever). Now, I have nothing against the Japanese who have been working hard as can be and thriving (it is even moral, one could say, that hard work be rewarded), but what is the world coming to, and how do you want me to feel like going to work in this depressed economy, with the budget cuts, the layoffs, etc., if even the Japanese stop working before I have started my day?

Global village, global recession, one would have hoped for a little help from our friends and their staying at work just like we do instead of going home when we are on our way there... Depressing!

And while I am glad that the young Germans don't want to make war any more, I am not as glad to know the Japanese go home when I go to work (even if it is better than going to war, I know). It still is an upside down world, no doubt (and it's not over yet). (and, yes, I also know I should not complain, I still have a job...)

the past & the present

2009-04-10T06:26:00.000-07:00

The past is never just the past, it always is in the present

The Sister's Fancy

2009-04-09T10:22:00.000-07:00

So, that was it, the man her sister liked... OK, a definite charm, not bad looking, and human, tried hard to keep a conversation going, nice. Devoted, attentionate. She could see why her sister had this... "weakness"? for him... She understood, she herself could easily... oh, well....

Thunderbolt II - Dr. Seeze

2009-04-09T10:18:00.000-07:00

I met her, not at all what I had pictured, something clicked, both ways, a thunderbolt of a sort or another. A certain quickness, interest, leanness, directness, the blondness and the blue eyes. Liveliness, professional but human. Maybe fun. Not a beauty, no, but something (charm, probably, yes). A classic type for me, I recognized it but even later it remained unclear. She acknowledged it, though, I could tell...

I tried to look at her legs as she walked away, could not, did not, or I do not remember, thin, yes. A kind of veil or mist, fog, over things, memory included. A surprise, in a way. Unexpected.

Tadzin n'hagar

2009-04-09T10:15:00.000-07:00

Touarem ti n'hagat ashagi podiem t'khar -- tadzin n'hagar.
They who are marked by death rise above all -- death pervades.

Too long to discuss, minimalist philosophy as the basis of all building or rebuilding of moral codes, life philosophy, etc... Probably a touch of existentialism or post-existentialism, at least a la Camus.

women...

2009-03-22T07:50:00.001-07:00

And while I am telling her that I love her, all kinds of words dripping with affection and love, and she just said she was in paradise and losing all sense of time and place, and I wax poetic, I look back at her and.... she is asleep.... Women!

AIG: What can you say?....

2009-03-21T05:56:00.000-07:00

AIG, the guys who had a super-luxury get-together in a luxury resort after their first bailout, who now after a second bailout still give away 1/6 of a trillion dollar in bonus money to the people who sank them,... yes, that congresswoman was right (although she was talking about bankers): "these people are morons, they don't get it."
What can you say? It's staggering in incompetence, in lack of brains, lack of accountability and decency (even just social decency, to avoid mentioning "moral" decency--obviously unknown to those guys), etc., etc.

What happened to ethics in general and to good ole American work ethics??

Naivete and education

2009-03-13T10:43:00.000-07:00

I read in the paper that my state is now in the top ten US states by the rate of graduation from high school, which sounds all fine and dandy until the numbers come in: 72% of teenagers graduate from high school in this "advanced" state... So, more than a quarter of the young people you see around you are not able to function at the level of, or persevere up to, the end of high school? and that is in the top ten of an allegedly advanced nation???
So, how are thigns for the 40th or 50th state? How are thigns in truly poor or deficient nations? Progress, modernity, even decency and brains (as in: making education a priority and a right --and need-- for all) have not yet reached all quarters of the world, and the even base-level educated (end of high school) are still almost a minority?! Sad news indeed; or, in fact, sad reminder -- rather than news.
Let's not be too proud of ranking in the top ten....

Spring

2009-03-09T07:34:00.000-07:00

Spring is here, morphing soon into summer, with its light, its white sun, its warmth (soon: heat and extreme humidity)...
It was quite a winter, in many ways, but the tunnel ran to its end and now rebirth and summer hibernation in the oppressive, blinding heat are coming.
It will be a long summer again, maybe, but it is time for it. Fatalistic and yet there is some freedom in accepting one's fate...

women's seasonal rhythms

2009-02-24T17:57:00.001-08:00

As I looked around, I realized that most of the women I knew had their own seasonal rhythm. Like Mme de Thoux, Mme de Troyes, though much younger and whom I had known when she was almost a kid, was also a Spring animal. Mme de Castres was definitely a late winter person; my own wife was a bit different, being both a summer and a November or late Fall individual. And Mme de Quint...

Which led me to wonder if I had myself a seasonal rhythm... and decided to postpone (probably summer and Fall, hhmmm, close to my wife's, well, why not, in fact? Weirder: I could not decide on my ex's rhythm... There was indeed something about those rhythms...)

Ramble on

2009-02-19T14:28:00.000-08:00

And if I were to say to you
We need to sail on away
You'd look at me and wonder
What it is I am all about
And yet there should be a way for us to go
But I ramble on, oh yes, yes I do
And yet I am not wrong as we are trapped
like rats with no oxygen in a cage

So I just turn around and repeat it
And you again look back at me
Thinking I am a fool, a nut, or weird
But somethign in you stirs and wonders
Yeah, yeah, yeah, could he be right?
Could we really abandon all this wreck of a life?
'Cause we sink, and swim, and sink more
With each new day, and it's endless

And I ramble on, but the question remains
In you, in me, in all of us,
How we got caught in this and how we get out
Of the trap for rats, of the race for naught

So I stop saying anything
And you notice it's just too late, maybe
But who killed the thinking beast
and the hope, and the fun?
Could it be avoided and is it really too late?
Well, it is, and it's just tough luck
And you gotta play with those chips,
Sticky, cracked, worn out, used, coreless

Life goes on, rumble and no ramble
Dribble and no tribulation
Dripped dry and bloodless
Dropped dead and empty

poem to laugh: Hippo Love

2009-02-15T09:16:00.000-08:00

My love for thee
Is bigger than you and me.
If I may say so
It's as big as a hippo,
except it hasn't got the bad breath
That plagues all hippos,
And I'd rather play with YOUR breasts
Than the hippo's

Schizophrenic US TV

2009-02-15T09:04:00.000-08:00

I don't have the right mindset for American TV any more. In the middle of a political talk show, well focussed, etc.. come the commercials, so that we move from an intelligent, informed, important, intellectual (or so), discussion to the need to go visit the new resort in some sunny luxurious location, followed by an ad for reflief from the devastating pain and consequences of fibromyalgia, and on to other orange juice, cars, and miscellaneous advertizing.

Frankly, I have a friend with fibromyalgia, so I am somewhat aware of how debilitating it is or can be. Can one really squeeze it between luxurious resort and oj? I can't.. I need time between these topics to reflect upon this or that one topic before we move on to the next (in a matter of seconds and with abrupt transitions) and then we are back, minutes later (too late?), to our political issues and the topic before all these unrelated, if not contradictory, advertisements..

No wonder ADD is on the rise, along with attention and concentration problems, focussing on what matters, and overall craziness. You need to be schizophrenic (or even afflicted with multiple personalities) to follow American TV...

Long live PBS where the news goes on uninterrupted... Any other channel one can recommend?

Any bill of law to stop the money machine from destroying the public and in favor of working on the concentration powers of the nation? We could use some these days....

Good luck to us all...

Friday the 13th

2009-02-14T11:36:00.000-08:00

Yeap, Friday the 13th it is, a migraine for me, a heart attack (non-fatal) for the husband of a friend, and a dental bill for my son for several thousand dollars (football injury), that should do it.

Bottom line: go to bed early (had to, anyway) and tomorrow is another day... Amen!

Thoux update

2009-02-12T04:34:00.000-08:00

Madame de Thoux being a very organic person (one who is led by her physiology), I expected her to reappear every Spring (which did not always happen). She disappeared for months, a kind of hibernation, I surmised, and then would suddenly contact you, most often just to catch up on news... Hibernation and prairiedogging, in a way...

14 Random things

2009-02-10T07:26:00.000-08:00

1. I had a pet when growing up, a mixed malamute, my canine brother. But have been a cat man since (easier - laziness?)

2. I do want the US to extend the duration of the presidential mandate by another year (5-year terms) but then we could have had the worst president ever for another two years... Yet, 4 years is too short, they get in, settle, have to run again and people just wait out the poor guy (one day, hopefully: the poor gal)...

3. I wonder, often in fact, what has happened to people I have known in all parts and places of my life and whom my various moves have kept out... Yet, I could not stay my whole life in one place, oh no...

4. I never mind going places on my own. In fact, I like it. Be it for a movie, a cup of coffee, or a vacation. Does not happen much, though

5. I was a nerd in mid and high schools and beyond. Late bloomer, socially retarded back then. Now, I am just normally socially retarded BUT I have developed the other persona to be the bright, cheerful person I am supposed to be....

6. A.D.D., you ask? Oh yes, and getting worse with age...

7. I never thought I'd get married and have done it twice (which will suffice...-- the rhyme if for free, enjoy it!)

8. I have a pen fetish, probably have several hundreds, and I also collect paper... Yet my best creative writing is on note pads or composition notebooks...

9. Death has been there in my family and in my life from the beginning: the "nomos alpha" (first law) of the Greeks. I was born to the world when I was 20 years old and one of my best friends died in a car accident. It's been 34 years, it took me over 20 years to be able to speak or write about it as I do now. But I learned a lot from her death, lessons that last to this day.

10. I have been lucky to meet with my two best friends when I was a kid, and I still remember vividly when I met my best friend (what he was wearing, what he said, haircut, how he walked up the three steps, etc..) Freaky!

11. As I get older, I look more and more like my dad and I am not sure I like it. BUT I have my mother's human qualities (thank God!), while my daughter has my personality and energy, and my son is probably closer to being my inheritor.

12. Yes, I have done many stupid and wrong thigns in life. And I discovered that much later. I am better now as an individual, however, despite the bruises and the scars, maybe because of them....But I also realize I never did anything really stupid or wrong.

13. I believe everyone can and does change, and am in part against the death penalty because of this. (And against it for humane and human, non-religious, reasons for the most part, however.)

14. I do my creative writing on impulse (binge writer) and must be inspired by real life...

Blog # 85

2009-02-10T07:21:00.000-08:00

Normal day, daily routine, grey skies but warm, lingering headache, work that is OK and could be better or worse--and at least, I have a job, 11 million people don't in this country alone--weary but the energizer bunny keeps going even if at mid-battery...

Over and out... May all hang in the same, it could be worse (minimalist philosophy...)

Fight routine

2009-02-06T15:13:00.000-08:00

You can't avoid it, somehow after years life settles, brings dust on your belongings and you every day, just a little new layer each morning each evening and you get swallowed, eaten, between the same routine every day, the bills, the worries, the god knows what, and "it all."
"Stop and smell the roses," they say. Yeap. Easier said than done, often, but that's the idea. So, go for that CD, the extra cup of coffee, the super dooper ice cream or cookie, etc., it's the only way you'll ever get a chance to fight back against the routine and the dustburying of your life and yourself.
Fight routine, fight it off harder, enjoy the hell out of your music, your wife or partner (or maybe... out of your wife and out of your partner!!!... ;))
No one ever went away to face death wishing he or she had spent more time at work. So, go for life and whistle, sing, dance, eat it, to it, on it, laugh at it, and survive, one day at a time, one instant at a time..
No other way..... Short of deciding that is not worth it, in which case, no existential worry to have, you have found the solution and farewell...

Cat Strollers??!!!

2009-01-31T08:48:00.001-08:00

I chanced upon a catalogue from a feline product company and discovered, much to my... awe/stupefaction, a whole new world I did not know existed. Extendable cat patio and deck (big metal coils you stretch out on to your yard for your cats to stroll and enjoy grass and the scenery), 8-foot tall cat tower/playground toys (for a mere $ 400), CAT STROLLERS (just like babies but covered and with a mesh window for kitty to enjoy the walk...), and other cat carriers (on your belly, just like for newborns...)

I guess I live a dull life, void of imagination and creativity. I thought my cats with their couches and about seven daily naps (different from night time sleep, of course) had it made in the heat and A/C, if not the proverbial shade, and I now discover I have been depriving them of the benefits of progress, civilization, etc.. In other terms, I have been un-American in the pursuit of feline happiness.

Are your pets (dogs, cats, cockateels, gerbils, ferrets, spiders, what have you)reaping the benefits of the good ol' Uhmurkin know-how and way of life, comfort, and pursuit of happiness? because, while millions of people are losing their jobs, houses, sanity, etc.. as we face the worst economic crisis and overall situation of the last.... 50 or 80 years, you don't want your cat to miss out on a stroller outing, do you? Don't lose your sense of reality, will you?....

Loneliness in Cyberspace

2009-01-18T08:54:00.001-08:00

Still no comment on my blog.... Why does one keep writing? Robinson? Cast away?

Vox in deserto clamans?... sed vox?...

Imagination & Culture

2009-01-18T08:44:00.000-08:00

Imagination is an underrated or mislooked-at quality. It allows you, among other things, to imagine how others live, feel, think, in other terms, it is also a quality of empathy. Just like culture is the bridge between you and others, through a shortening or collapse of time and culture obstacles or differences, imagination allows you to live better in the world. Without imagination, you may well have no real social interaction or integration. This social, intellectual, and affective/sensorial quality is often overlooked, forgotten, unknown, ignored.
Just thought I'd try to set the record straight in this brief "apology" of imagination.
The thought or remark of the day

Shark Fins

2009-01-04T08:23:00.001-08:00

Why the cruelty? While shark fin soup is a delicacy in Asia, we humans kill between 73 and 76 million sharks a year. I know some will say that sharks are purely "organic" animals, surviving on instinct and no brain, no feelings, etc.. BUT they are also immune to cancer, pneumonia, and maybe other diseases and maybe we have thigns to learn from them (and from all of nature, still) before we make them extinct?

And that scene of Asian fishermen, catching a boatload of sharks, some of them young and small, to slice off their fins and then dump the rest of the sharks back into the water... What about the pain to them? Isn't it like getting our fingernails torn off? And can they survive sans fin or do they bleed to death, or rot, or sink, and die? inhumane, and inhuman.
We aren't there yet, folks.

Still nonsense killing and nonsense cruelty to humans, to ourselves, to others. We can do more, we can do better, and we HAVE to do more and do better. Let's start with our own house, our own country where too many are left behind without the basics of medical care, vaccinations, education, food, dignity, human respect, etc..

Welcome to 2009, may it be better than the previous years and tears....

goodbye 08

2008-12-31T11:34:00.000-08:00

Goodbye 08, too many deaths, too much destruction, too much, and every two months a major problem or bad news. Goodbye, let's all try for 09...

bad wording of the day

2008-12-13T03:04:00.000-08:00

As a movie I was watching ended, regular good ol' US tv comes on promoting items from the [X] company that sells "fantastic FEMALE accessories" (my emphasis) -- obviously, they meant "for women", earrings, necklaces, scarves, etc.

However, "female accessories," of course, tickles the imagination!!!!! And i'll leave it at that for now....

line of the day

2008-11-26T03:57:00.000-08:00

-- Did you hear about Morris?
-- What?
-- He kicked the bucket.
-- Oh, wow, how? He slipped? Wait, don't tell me... he did not see it in the dark?
-- Jesus, you idiot, he died!
-- Oh, my God, that too? Talk about bad luck!...
-- Oh, Lord!.... You attack at dawn, don't you?

evening

2008-11-20T17:55:00.000-08:00

Cold evening November
Moist fog swirling
It spreads inside

Some depth, some breadth
and the past comes back
whispering or howling

Fragments, scars, hurts, time past
Faces, bangs, smiles, cries
Episodes, cracks, leftovers
Of lives that roared and passed,
Gone, maybe for ever, tomorrow will tell

Now it is weightiness and dampness
A breath in the thickening fog
The beast is still alive but asleep

discovery

2008-11-16T05:17:00.000-08:00

She looked again at the man her sister had loved for twenty-five years. Indeed, she could see why. And he was so approachable, why did nothing ever developed? He was married but there had been a time between marriages when it could have happened. The age difference, the professional connection, probably...

She found herself eager to ask, to make him talk, and she was taking it all in. It did not help that the weather and the scenery were beautiful, exalting in fact... Yes, she could ahve, she would have... she almost could NOW! But let's refocus, too much to do, too much pain, too much fatigue, losing her compass points.
Charming, he was charming, just simply charming. Under other circumstances.... she had to muster her linguistic skills, and talk to him the right way, but the language barrier was a bit much now with the overnight flight, the new country, the fatigue, the awful hurt lingering in her. She was here for her sister, and that sister, the surrogate mother, would be ruthless if there was any interference on her turf, her BIG sister's turf. Let go of it, she told herself. Coffee, shower, rest, God help me! She went back to looking at him, helpful, handsome, attentionate, why aren't more men like this one?... Who was doubly not hers, anwyay. "Wonder what his wife looks like? Is like? Sis said he was not a superficial, appearances type (on top of it all!), his wife is not a looker but hyper-bright, and they are great together, really a team, a real couple, she had said. The way it should be... Yeah, it fits. He's got brains, too."

"OK, recompose, back to the task. God, this is going to be hard. You come to say the ultimate goodbyes, put your big sister to rest forever, and your emotions, your entire being is astir."
She could feel herself slipping. Too tired.

Yeap, it was so, move on. But she understood her sister now.

Fatigue stream

2008-11-16T05:14:00.000-08:00

As the fatigue fogs up everything, the day rises, light timid at first then bright and shiny, hurtful. The mind emerges slowly, the mind fog lifts, the fatigue recedes slightly with coffee, some lucidity and awareness return. Another day to slog and fight through the slop of twenty hours or so. Insomnia's weight, insomnia's long-term burden that crushes eyes, emotions, brains, people, everything and then eed to shake it all off and restart again, and again, and again.

To A friend's blog feeling lost in a foreign country

2008-11-15T03:31:00.000-08:00

This was quite a profound, well-written reflection. We need to tip our hats to N*** for a brilliant, well-thought, well presented, and graceful blog. Preceding you (albeit in the reverse direction) in this dual-/multi-cultural path if emigration/immigration, I can testify that there is an "after." It may be NOW that the hardest times for acculturation and finding "home" (YOUR home) take place. But you will. There are clearly delineated areas where one or the other culture takes over and the overall is a mix, maybe uneven. For example, one might be: socially, politically, an American--linguistically: a mix--poetically: French --in prose either-- professionally: French--for practical/daily life: American....

You are getting there, especially if you are a linguist, to begin with. The hard times will make you stronger, more able to know where you stand and to stand up on top of more tests of/from life.

Hang in there, it is the famous crisis of the 13th year, after that... things are smoother....

Keep fighting the cancer, you WILL survive.

Hugs

laugh of the day

2008-11-08T04:36:00.000-08:00

junk email message in my junk folder:

"Orgasmic love for men: the Jack Rabbit Vials"........

no comments

Medical racket

2008-11-07T02:39:00.000-08:00

I have met a doctor who meets for "medication checks" with his patients, only to check what you need and "how you re doing", 15 mniutes flat and then you are out with a new prescription for prozac, zoloft, and/or what have you. A fully legal, licensed provider. No time, no interest, except for cordial business relations. That's not a doc (although he will listen if I force him to), that's a businessman and a legal dealer, period. Will try to change that (him), but this is a full example of what is wrong with our medical system (one of the things wrong...)

expect gas to go back up for two months now

2008-11-07T02:35:00.000-08:00

Expect the price of gas to go back up for two months now, as our darling oil companies and the execs go for a mad, last rush to make a few more billions before the party is over for four years... Unless... they try to behave to salvage what they can, keep their golden parachutes (which the Europeans are abolishing, by the way), and in the long run, make even more money out of our pockets. Amazing that when the republicans were in trouble in the polls, the cost of gas went down, to... help..
Those people do not stand united with us, folks, We are are their platinum meal ticket is all....

The Plot Thickens: Llama quandary part 2

2008-11-07T02:30:00.000-08:00

So, you don't look a gift horse i nthe mouth, which allows you to discover horses' patootes, OK! Now the Llama, southern hemisphere animal, is known for spitting rather than equine rear end manifestations of the same bad manners. So do they say that you should or should not look a gift llama in the mouth (dangerous) or the in the rear end. Probably the mouth, i.e., "don't look a gift horse in the mouth" (the safe end) and "don't look a gift llama in the derriere" --whcih means that in both cases, you are sent to check out the dangerous end.

One last difference, as mentioned earlier, look at your llama counterclockwise, you could get screwed wrong, otherwise....

Wall Street and the Outrageous U.S. Titanics

2008-10-27T18:23:00.000-07:00

1. TITANIC 1: Disgust: Yeap, while we bail them out and the entire world sinks, they are still setting billions aside for their year-end bonus. We need a law,and we need to jail some of those guys, including those from AIG who partied in California and those who kept their bonus, be it $ 6 or 20 million (or much better, of course, how naive of me).

But the machine is nicely oiled: no presidential candidate is going to announce doing the right thing (see above), and Congress gets its money from those guys (and it is a millionaires' club itself anyway), etc., etc... Shameful

2. TITANIC 2: Racism: "what IF indeed Obama's lead narrowed and McCain came back?" Well, yes, racism is alive and about to vote against the "black guy", who is in fact only half-Black, i.e., what we will all be one day: a mixed blood, or mestizo. And what does it matter? (see New Orleans, passablancs, etc.)
Can the person, male or female, do the job, understand, respect, project a vision and brains? Yes? In that case, no problem. If that vision were the same as previous failure or another 100-years' war, well, then, maybe you'd need another vision...

Now, racism itself: of course they'll come out. 1990, Harvey Gantt proved it against Jesse Helms: you can have a 10 % lead, if you are black, you can still lose the real thing by 5 % or better despite those polls.
The only question is: have we changed? Racially? Maturity- and intelligence- wise?
Stay tuned till late November 4th or early November 5th....

Sad! And potentially terrible if we dash hopes and show we have not matured, changed, or acquired brains... And yet, we are less racist in daily life than others can be (French and Germans against their own 'big minorities,' whom they'd rather not hire, and blatantly try not to hire...

3.Final quizzical quandary:
Gift Llama? They say: "don't look a gift horse in the mouth." Ok, so you look at it at the other end???? But then the llama is trickier: it spits on you and so, being that backwards, probably because it is a southern hemisphere animal, do you look a gift llama in the.... rear end? (because it might spit on you? while a horse would relieve hind fluids instead?)
Anyone ever looked at this... quandary up close?

PS: also, because of the Corialis effect, remember to look a gift llama in the derriere COUNTERclockwise!

October

2008-10-14T01:41:00.001-07:00

October...
One of the three busiest (worst) months of the year.
Warm days, cool (or even cold) nights (80s and then upper 40s). But the humidity disappears.
When fatigue starts gnawing at you and the BS piles up on your back, and you can feel it on your neck.
When you start worrying again about the money, the mortgages, the illnesses (change of seasons), and it is that feeling that it all begins again when you somehow were still free two months earlier (eons ago by now) and yet in seven months it is summer again (but May is always a blur of long-term exhaustion), although summery weather starts in March around here.
The aches, the heartaches, the routine, the passing of time, the aging, "closer to thee, my God," they'd sing....
Only good thing: a lazy weekend morning in bed, half asleep, when it is cold outside....

our self-destruction

2008-10-06T16:05:00.001-07:00

At times you have to wonder if we have not done to ourselves what Bin Laden did not succeed in doing. Greed (even if of a minority but major greed by those--CEOs, etc.), complacency, laziness, tap dancing on the deck of our Titanic, etc., led to our self-destruction by way of banks and the entire economic basis for capitalism. Don't think I am a defeatist, or pro-Osama, or rejoicing, but it's been visible for quite some time (blame also the outrageous advertizing for luxuries and easy credit) and no one did a thing (of course.... With all our millionaires in Congress, did we really expect them to move on to cut the money spigot that kept them there and well fed???? NO!)

That leaves us with re-learning to walk to school, driving as a luxury, and rediscovering the greatness of a beautiful day... Flip side of the debacle, silver lining of the new Great Flood. Welcome to 1929 part II. Only problem: Who will play the Nazis and Hitler now? We have all our polarizing people already busy.... (Osama, Rush Limbaugh, W, 300 million weapons in the US, Russia, Islam, sexism, etc., etc., etc.....

quirks

2008-09-17T17:32:00.000-07:00

Hard times, tough times, rough times
things don't move, you don't move on
you slip and you slide
Back... again..

and it grates and it chafes
and it cuts and it burns
No other way, learn to stay
and suffer

Yet another scar, yet another scare
same old war, same old struggle
It's life, again
Never easier, never easy

Grin and bear it
Smile and fake it
they won't know, they won't care
until the next day comes
and the same day comes back

repeat because necessary
law of nature, law of the world
this life and no living
that life and no other living

might be Murphy's law
Might be another
but it is so, no point arguing
amen!

wrong mixed metaphor of the day

2008-09-12T11:42:00.000-07:00

Having WD-40’d my office door which used to squeak and announce to the entire hallway, main office, and side hallway that I was on the move, I explained to my next door neighbor that my door now “opens as smoothly as a baby’s bottom”…..

How can one vote Republican?

2008-08-28T07:40:00.000-07:00

A semi-literate (at best)president, the worst economy in a generation, double-digit inflation (going back to October or November 07, folks, I have the numbers), old guys who have been around hanging on to power and money (and FOR money) since the Nixon or Ford administrations (Cheney, Rumsfeldt, etc.), complete disregard, arrogance, and ignorance for the world and the world community (United Nations included), a war we started on our own with hidden costs everywhere and thousands of dead and tens of thousands of highly injured, mutilated soldiers (boys, in fact, mostly) to care for for decades (they would be dead in fact in any war before this one), a candidate, older than any other, who promised another 100 years of that war, does not know how many houses he has (and he has seven anyway). Regardless of the respect owed John McCain for his personal strength and experience, John, it's time to go enjoy Cindy's money and let's move on to repairing the damage done in eight years.

And on the other side, a bright, articulate guy who can get rid of a whole lot of that old stuff that got us into our mess (with a stolen election in 2000 to begin with).

But just because he is only half-white, people will come out of the woodwork to vote against him. Even Newsweek estimated that among Hillary's former voting democrats, at least 6% will not vote for a black man.
And we should re-elect another white, Anglo, rich, white guy?

And we can't even guarantee proper minimal education and vaccination for every child in this country; we do not have even minimal decent medical support or coverage for every American. But we have the greatest number of millionaires in the world (and quite a lot of the billionaires), we use the greatest amount of resources, etc., etc..

This is not the America I knew and chose, this is not the America the world needs, this is not even the America WE OURSELVES need!!!!

French vs. US social security difference

2008-08-28T07:31:00.000-07:00

The French president delivered a speech a couple of days ago announcing a 1% tax on investments and real estate property for the benefit of those in need of economic help (the poor, in short). Even the French left had to acknowledge that this was good move ... as much as they hate that Sarkozy did this before they got their act together...

We won't see this type of action in the US for another generation (easily..) if ever. We'll all be dead before the US ever steps up to really helping its poor by getting to the rich (or the "haves" at large). Get cancer, a major car accident, or really destitute and you can croak in the street here (although your family, if you have one, and they are not completely retarded or broke themselves, should feel some obligation to help). We might have liberty, we aren't there yet on equality, and forget about fraternity (except of course for rich college kids, but it's .."not exactly" the same reality!!!!)

Now the French aren't perfect either, but they seem to be a little bit less imperfect than we are for things like this... There there is a safety net. Here we're on our own...

The Joy of choosing a new book

2008-07-17T07:19:00.000-07:00

Ah, for us, dinosaurs who read, there is the moment when you finished your book and now comes the time to choose the next one.
Shall I read another in my area of professional/intellectual interest (military/colonial wars, in my case)? shall I read something literary instead? Or what about a little summer, lighter, reading?

Thre is the pile of the previous choices (that led to the one I just finished) still waiting, shall I go back to some other pile in the bedroom (the pile that's been waiting longer)?

Will it be a last minute/impulse choice, or will it be a whittling down process from a choice of say... eight, down to three, or five, and then, decision.

Stay tuned.

In Honor of George Carlin: education and jobs

2008-06-27T10:08:00.000-07:00

George Carlin, whose social commentaries will be missed -- for being so often right on target with no gift wrap (BS) in so many areas (as in: in 1996, he noted that airline safety was impossible, "too many people have access"...)-- rightly underlined that the modern world (progress, democracy, etc) prides itself on educating its people and giving them jobs. True. However, no one but George Carlin noted that no one likes going to school or to work....

Death and War: Daily life in perspective

2008-06-14T15:18:00.000-07:00

While Camus posited, correctly, that the only real problem of human existence was suicide (because. one way or the other, you therefore assert values that lead you to justify and question human existence and your own life), I am now considering a variation thereof, or the next level thence (nice word, isn't it?): death--which can be in moral/general terms, or on the individual level--and war--which is more reality-grounded as well as practical and general, and deals with the death of many, not just of the individual or of an individual. (And war leads to poverty, misery, neglect, traumas/psycholgical disorders, economic problems, infrastructure problems, raises questions of education (certainly in human terms, something often neglected/ignored in educational curricula and milieus), etc., etc.)

A fascinating thinking grid there, which, like Camus' suicide interrogation, does indeed throw into relief the basics of human existence (power plays/politics, "values", shock of cultures or civilizations and/or beliefs, etc. (including religions, since so many are still hooked on that medieval, or pre-medieval in fact, system).

The questions of human existence with these two swords of Damocles hanging over our heads does take on some sharp contrasts in this grid. Big, or bigger, picture considerations, to begin with both on a personal or philosophical level, in absolute terms, and then of course on the level of practical and relative terms.

So, I'll leave it at that for now. But once you delve into those two questions, read, and reflect upon war experiences or death (and Tim Russert's is a case in point), think of here and now while bearing in mind that at this very second, someone is probably dying somewhere in the world, and that a war is on, and therefore many are making life-changing and life-threatening decisions, in this very moment, things do look a bit different, don't they? Everything, the here and now, is at least slightly shifted or tweaked, put in perspective, or deeper, once you have these two considerations actively or acutely in mind...

Big Words, No Scare

2008-06-13T15:17:00.001-07:00

Don't let big words scare you. On the results of a medical exam I just had (MRA, i.e., an MRI of the cerebral arteries), I see "slow flow lesion"... So, of course, I stop walking right there to read more and the rest (I'll spare you the filler) says "consistent with a venous angioma", which is basically a vein with an extra thickness, a bit like a birthmark on your skin, and this thing is probably from birth, so we've been together for a long time. (Yes, it could get worse with time, or prolonged stress, or whatever else, but so can anything or body part, even healthy and perfect from birth...)

That's why they let your docs see these reports first before you do. It is a long story as to how I got it before the doc (because the one I saw first is a horse's patoote (businessman, ambulance chaser, probably ready to shave my head and go in to get himself that boat or the newer car he must want to impress the neighbors and colleagues/rivals) and I am seeing another one for a better, trustworthy, or legally: ""second", opinion...)

And anyway, I do speak Greek --er.. ancient Greek-- which allows me to read all those big words and not be scared of them...

It's a bit like when you read on a classy joint's menu "champignons sur canape" everybody knows that "champignons" is mushrooms and "canape" is a couch, the whole thing sounds high class and luxurious, alluding to even eating mushrooms on a couch, probably a la Roman Orgy, etc.. But in culinary terms, "canape" means a bed -- in this case: of bread... You are going to eat mushrooms (in sauce, of course) on a slice of bread. Sounds rather plain, doesn't it? But "champignons sur canape"... ah, that is immediately mouth watering, decadent, rich, opulent, classy, five stars, etc..

"Lesion" means abnormality, even if minor (hey, I got a busy head, OK?), and "angioma" means more or less the same.
Hopefully, these are NOT famous last words....

More later when I see the next expert who hopefully is not desperate for a newer car or bigger boat.....

"Now What?"

2008-06-04T05:12:00.001-07:00

That was the question Robert Kennedy asked his brother John at the Democratic convention back then when LBJ accepted the offer to be VP, an offer all had expected him to refuse. Bobby had been against extending the offer, Jack felt this would smooth LBJ whose support JFK needed... And LBJ took it (could never refuse a chance to move on up...), despite his scorn and disdain for those rich, snotty northeastern brats...

Same question now for Obama: Hillary as VP? Crucial for some constituencies he has not secured, and may never get, and it would heal a little the fractures in the democratic party. Yet, she carries negatives, yes, we know.
But the bigger problem is how much space she would take in an Obama White House, how firm her support would be (although a consumate politician, she is..), and she comes with Bill, whom I used to love but who has shown surprising, repeated ... shall we say: "lacks" and wants during the primaries...

So, I'd say no. BUT I am not a politician and Obama will hopefully choose with the same flair and brains he has displayed, OK. But let's not mess it up either on purely political reasons (or Treasons...). Hillary represents an old-fashioned way of doing politics, with dirty tricks et al, and she has shown it. But she would be a brainy and able president, which is what a VP is chosen for, and that would be a welcome change...

On the other hand, if together, the ticket makes it and sends McCain packing for sure, that is a major consideration. One should never underestimate the capacities of an electorate that elected George W. Bush in 2004... Not to mention those who will come out of the woodwork for sure to vote against the Black man (or the woman)...

Summer is officially here

2008-06-01T04:20:00.001-07:00

Official: Summer is here.

Oreo, my furry paperweight of a cat (sleeps 23h 47 minutes a day and eats, period, end of activities), has moved his hindquarters (can't call them "HEADquarters", he is a very organic and instinctual cat) to the back deck on his (rusty) chaise lounge. So, in case you did not know yet: it is official, it IS Summer with a capital S (88 degrees forecast for today, anyway, and humidity to boot--good for your skin, they say...).

Indoors A/C hibernation begins, with white, blinding sunlight, burning of hands on car door handles, and three t-shirts a day if you do anything outdoors...
Welcome to semi-tropical paradise thirty years later... (Variation on: the Grass is always greener...)

PS: On the other hand, summer is not fully here yet, the ocean is not at 80 degrees and I don't go in if it is not at 80 degrees (rule I broke only three times in twenty some years. By The official date of summer, in three weeks, there will have been enough northern bodies in the ocean to warm it up a few more degrees and make it 80 degrees, I guess....

Why a Blog in the Cyberdesert?

2008-05-28T23:34:00.001-07:00

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

2008-05-28T23:00:00.003-07:00

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

2008-05-28T01:56:00.000-07:00

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)

2008-05-28T01:44:00.001-07:00

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 ?

2008-05-25T10:31:00.000-07:00

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.

2008-05-24T09:45:00.001-07:00

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

2008-05-24T09:31:00.000-07:00

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

2008-05-23T20:41:00.000-07:00

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

2008-05-21T01:10:00.000-07:00

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

2008-05-20T18:15:00.000-07:00

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

2008-05-20T02:49:00.000-07:00

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!

2008-05-18T13:04:00.000-07:00

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

2008-05-16T14:49:00.001-07:00

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

2008-05-16T14:36:00.000-07:00

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

2008-05-16T10:19:00.000-07:00

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

2008-05-16T10:12:00.000-07:00

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

2008-05-14T14:22:00.000-07:00

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

2008-05-13T18:24:00.000-07:00

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

2008-05-12T23:31:00.000-07:00

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

2008-05-12T23:15:00.000-07:00

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

2008-05-06T11:47:00.001-07:00

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

2008-05-06T05:50:00.000-07:00

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

2008-05-05T12:13:00.001-07:00

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

2008-05-04T15:20:00.000-07:00

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?

Intense life: side bars: Big Sister

2008-04-29T02:53:00.000-07:00

--Mme de Thoux, as usual, managed to find me while I was traveling to deliver a talk in her neck of the woods and invited me for a drink in her new house. A marvel of impeccable taste and decoration, magnificent (though a little bare, or barren, and cold, in my opinion, but I am not of the same school of living and daily things...)
You could sense the class, yes, but also the emptiness in the perfect arrangement of things. And while it was a beauty, with flowers everywhere, art, state of the art appliances, and intelligent use of space and surfaces, it only had live when she was in. I did not ask where M. de Thoux was. I had a very nice time, all thanks to her personality and unique warmth, but left two hours later, if that, with a strange feeling that she was very lonely in her palace, and would easily abandon all that for a little life and human warmth, or even... reality?

-- Much to my surprise, I discovered years later, in fact a whole decade later, that one of my talks, which I had been invited to give a few hundred miles away, had been thoroughly, if unofficially, sponsored by Mme de Thoux all on her own.
Again, I was surprised at the skills, the interest, the tender indifference of this unusual woman. The woman who told me this, very casually and matter-of-factly, has I was doing small talk at a professional gathering about ten years later, told me that in fact, Mme de Thoux had been personally involved and that it took a lot of work. I was clearly surprised, as was that woman when she realized I had no idea that I had an involved benefactor who has pulled all the strings and gotten down to nitty-gritty work on my behalf.

-- As I reflected upon Mme de Thoux's involvement in, and support of, so many parts of my life, her sneaky follow-up and unofficial help in many of my endeavors from behind the scene, I also wondered if she was not just planning her "post-M. de Thoux" life, with me in the role of the chosen heir and next... next what? Next husband? Next companion, official or not?
I certainly was not ready or sure that I wanted that, and it appeared to be a ludicrous thought. But she certainly was one of the toughest, most dynamic (as in "active") pursuers of all her goals I had ever encountered. And her unique mix of money and power, charm, her quiet but powerful, if not irresistible, ways of convincing and motivating people to do what she wanted, was quite a... weapon?
One might say she was calculating, others might see it as do-good volunteer work, a kind of active and personalized philanthropy. But I also knew she was in a way courting me, even if actively supporting cultural and intellectual endeavors, thank you, yes.
I developed an uneasy feeling that I was getting slowly but surely caught, or trapped, in a gilded cage, although I was officially totally free. And yet, anywhere, any time,it seemed I was never free from Mme de Thoux's reach, a kind of benevolent Big Sister... of sorts.
Not that I was always unwilling, but unknowing most of the time, yes I was.
I felt a bit like Candid in the world of politicking and influence trafficking, a pawn, in any case, in the hands of a benevolent witch, or of a good fairy?
An aged boy toy, whose brains (if any), personality, and independence did not matter to the puppet handler...

Bar & Hils revisited

2008-04-29T02:31:00.001-07:00

Not to add more oil to the fire but I had the luck to see and hear Hillary and Barack 12 hours apart or so, back to back, and the reports seem right... She is getting energized and he is getting winded.
While he is lively, likeable, humorous, she is impressive with facts and ideas, impeccable delivery, unfaltering for 45 minutes straight, while he meanders and is (was then) looking for words.
No doubt, everyone gets tired and you could not pay me to have their lives.
But, could the wind be turning, indeed? Experience showing in terms of resiliency and pure physical stamina?
Worrisome.
Especially, as in the meantime, Johnny boy is just whistling Dixie, peacefully waiting for the end of the duel to the death, to take on the survivor. And yet,he looked rather tired and showing his age on the news (I have not seen him in the flesh, true).

If Bar is stumbling now, that is not going to be an easy road to November... And count on the unknown and little spoken fact that some, if not many people, will indeed come out of the woodwork to vote against him for reasons that have nothing to do with talent, brains, abilities, or charisma.
In the North Carolina race for senator between Jesse Helms and Harvey Gantt, with Gantt given as the favorite, he lost to one of the most narrow-minded and most powerful incumbent senators of the twentieth-century, just because in the polls people would not dare state that they'd never vote for the Black man. So, they came out in droves to re-elect Jesse, who belonged to a century that preceded the twentieth. Things may have changed, yes, and Bar has the charisma, yeap, but it will take more than that to win it all, and Hils is a toughie, and a survivor.
Again,she was "impressive", and Bar was not. Shame...

I don't dare say "What a race!" because too much is at stake, and this is not just a soap opera or a boxing match expected to just generate a show and excitement for couch potatoes with their six-packs, and yet, this is America, where we water down, trivialize, and sweat everything!...

Semi-Fiction 11 : Taxing Time for a Classy guy

2008-04-26T15:35:00.000-07:00

I happened to be at a professional conference early Summer in one of those big, busy hotels, and going to the bathroom, I see there a guy I knew back from college days. David.. something, some Italian name, I can't remember for sure, and all the salami and pastrami sure shows on his belly....
He was there for another conference, a tax accountants' gathering. Of course, I nicely comment on how he must he busy as the end of the fiscal year approaches and he tells me the entire half-year has been one big female dog.
-- Well, yeah, I guess, with taxes in April and then fiscal year finishing two months later, I guess you must be swamped, yeah.
-- Well, of course, but that's not what did me in.
-- What? Are you in good health? I hope you..
-- No,no, that's not it. Women, man.
-- What?
-- Well, yeah, my wife's a pain in the ass already, and like an ass, I found myself a nice little girlfriend. As matter of fact, this is kind of funny, I bumped into her at another conference when coming out of the restrooms, just like you and me now. I was just zipping myself up and, boom, ran smack into her...
-- Well, she was not in the men's rooms, was she?
-- No no, but just leaving the men's rooms, I bumped into her, like, like the other side of this door, man. Actually, she was at UKC, too, by the way. Do you remember Jessica M---?
-- No, I don't think so, God, it's been .. what, twenty years?
-- Well, anyway, we talk about the good old days at UKC, one thing leads to another, we have a drink together, then two, then we both skip completely all the conference and go at it for a day and a half. It was great. But then, uh, she kind of hung on, lived only two hours away from me, we managed to get together a few times, and er, I notice she kind of gets sloppy, gets dreamy, talks endlessly on the phone, and how her husband treats her badly, tells her she looks old--and all that stupid BS, man, I tell you... And she calls at my home, hangs up, my wife gets even nastier. I get long e-mails, etc., etc. And then, oh, boy, this is good, her HUSBAND calls me! ANd he is all....

At that point, I am here realizing that this guy is going to tell me everything I don't care to know anyway, about that affair I don't care about, and this woman I do not know, I have not seen this guy for twenty years, trying to remember if he was not already an obnoxious asshole back then, and he is yelling all this in this booming voice in the empty restroom. Not that I care for my conference that much. But I have other ways to entertain myself than listening to this guy telling me how his clients' taxes might be all screwed up because he was screwing around this past Spring... And I am here thinking: who the hell is Jessica M----, anyway? Is that her maiden name or her married name ? (And at this rate, how many husbands ago?)

--... and then she tells me: "you know, he collects guns, by the way. But, don't worry, I hide his ammo..."
-- David, er, I am sorry, I need to get back to my panel here.
-- Oh, yeah, sure, sure. Anyway, all I am saying, man, is, just be careful when you screw around, they are such a pain in the ass.
-- Well, yeah, if one is a pain in the ass, I guess two would be at least double the pain, then.
-- Worse, man, worse, at least three times, ah ah ah. Anyway, if you see Jessica M----, stay away.
-- Sure thing, David. Thanks for the tip. Good luck. It was great seeing you.
-- Same here, Buddy, same here. Actually, just between you and me, in my panel there is a cute little thing I could get interested in.
-- Ask her first if she has a husband with guns, OK?
-- Who cares? I'm not giving her my phone number, and I know she is from Phoenix, won't drive to come see me, Man, ah ah ah. Anyway, never have an affair at tax time, it can't be good.

Now, that, my friends, sure is a classy guy... I'll be looking for his face on national news one of these days, or on Dr. Phil.... maybe under the heading of "Lorena Bobbitt copy cat" happenings.... That will remind me of his last name...

And if I see Jessica M---, no doubt, I'll stay away... Because she does not have great judgment. And I suspect it's not just because of tax time....

PA & Primaries Follies

2008-04-22T14:24:00.000-07:00

If you are betting we have not seen the end of the Democratic primaries drama, you are right on the money (keyword for "democracy" in this country). Hills is riding it all the way to june AND, that way, we can again succeed in doing at least half of Johnny boy's work and we may also yet again snap defeat out of the jaws of victory... AND let's not forget Ralphie the spoiler (and egomaniac) (Darth Nader) (whom I used to like and then he showed us how much he could destroy an entire country by letting the bad guys steal the election, deprive us of democracy, and get us the worst mess this country has ever known (mark my words, I know what a recession is, folks: We got it coming Beeeeg!! My estimate: 11% inflation now (and that I established on last Fall figures and prediction (gas, power bills, food, insurances & medical costs).

So vote Barack and pray, b/c good old politicking a la Hills or W and the steal of the 2000 elections (when AL was elected--W was elected in 2004, con~os!) is not going to get us out of this one. UNLESS we get a whole new player in the big house... And it is going to take electrifying charisma and ideaLs (as well as ideas), not down-home BS political theater, nor backroom deals and realities to get out of this mess.

In God we trust, United we stand, and kiss your derriere goodbye in due time. End of the American Dream, part N, or post-post-scriptum...

Intense Life V; a woman's scorn

2008-04-18T20:54:00.000-07:00

Madame de Thoux could be surprising. I once learned by accident as I was in a florist shop that for two and a half years, she made a point of sending every week, a dozen dead roses to a woman she despised. I suspected, but never knew for sure, that there had been a touch of Mr. de Thoux in the whole thing, that either that woman made a run for him or that he tried something with her, but it may just have been that famous female jealousy, the type that only women can display and push to the hilt towards another woman, the intellectual verison of the infamous cat fight, if you will. There was never any card or any note with the dead flowers, the shopboy told me when he remembered a picture from a newspaper featuring both Mme de Thoux and me talking (of nothing) at some intermission of a concert or play at the local theater.

I was surprised at first but then, in fact, I could see the brilliant touch of Mme de Thoux, no explanation, no elaboration, a la Disraeli ("never explain, never complain") she just had the perfect tool; nothing to pin on her, no insult or language written, but a dozen dead flowers. She had come to set it up thefirst time, epxlained she would send money, in cash, no less every month for then ext four or five deliveries, no questions asked..

And what did it say? "You get the useless, and you get my scorn, I could send you live, beautiful flowers, but the effort and money I spend are to remind you of your littleness, no need to lower myself to sign or say anything, but I am not forgetting, and not forgetting." Only women can be this long, this silently and murderously vicious and vengeful for somethign that apears unrounded...
And you can't sue that...

It achieved nothing (well, maybe give the impression of Big Sister weighing down on her to that other woman), it just was, period. You don't sue over that, you can't call the cops, and Mme de Thoux, the little shopboy revealed to me in confidence, hadb ene very clear that tehre would be no link to her, clear? He was in awe... If she had asked him to collect and send canine excrement to the mayor or the Pope, he would have done it, enjoying the show, not even realizing he could belegally at fault.

That was Mme de Thoux. Silent, but perseverant, no need to explain but intelligent, matter-of-factly and well-thought.

And I could imagine her, walking in, with the diamonds of her yes planted into that youngman "It shall be so" and completely subjugated, enslaved by her as by a magic wand, he would walk through fire for her, just because.

I smiled, and told him never to reveal this to anyone else, ever, "or else". I walked out smiling widely, knowing he would now think I was in on it, or even threatening. Women!

Women do that

Good (and I mean "GOOD") ol' US of A--and a P-S. !!!

2008-04-18T08:26:00.000-07:00

I lost a cat, my talking, almost-human cat, the 'creature' (I can't say "person" but I should) I have been talking to and with the most for the last eight months (my wife now travels extensively for her work). Anyway, my darling companion goes, by accident, right through the screen of a screened-in porch from his favorite corner. And I discover that two hours too late...

And of course, I can't find him, fliers, neighbors, vets, shelters, you name it. And I still have not found him and have a bad, sad feelign about this. If he is alive, may he have found love and comfort elsewehre, if that is what it has to be... Maybe he will reappear ... one day...

But the part I wish to talk about is how out of this came up a very positive remnant of the "Good Ol' US of A" we all remember so well, and miss all too often in these times of war, mass murders, excesses, debatable cultural icons (Paris, Brit, Lindsay), etc.

When you lose a pet, the local paper runs an ad for free for one week; so does the local ad paper (the Ad-Pak); so do a TV station, a radio station, some places will even xerox and run copies for you (that one may have been due to my own obvious affection for my cat and .. maybe .. personal charm???). But THIS, is the America I knew: the humanitarian, the human and humane, the concerned, the responsive, the "nice" one, the one that said: "the prime real estate in New York City, we will donate for the United Nations," the Peace Corps and aid type, the one that you could count on on to help, do the right thing (yeah, yeah, I know, we also meddled and watched out for ourselves, OK, we are not completely stupid, yes, no one really is, consciously or not, let's be real....)

Anyway, that little piece of "freebie" if you wish to call it so, gave me hope. Thought I would share this little positive discovery...

Now, I'd love to have my feline companion back, the previous one was with me over 21 years (yes, twenty-one, yes, a cat, I know cats, I treat them well, I understand them)- You want people to be nice to you? Treat them well first, then you'll see they'll treat you in kind. Cats are people too....

Burt I guess I have already had my miracle for the year (see the Easter posting), and so, that is how things are, I guess.. sniff..

post-scriptum, 2 days later: Of course, I forgot.... REALITY!!!

The radio station tells you that of course they'll air the spot (the manager even confirms) but the DJ is in charge and he confirms that... they'll air it IF they can, when they can, but "no promises, you know, program needs first, really sorry, we'll try..."

The newspaper "overlooks" the free ad the first day the ad is to be published, apologizes, and then it does not appear either the second day (today) --thanks, that way, the weekend is lost for potential help identifying the lost kitty in someone's backyard or neighborhood and a cat with a kidney problem might burst it by now... If I had been told, I would have paid for the ad and by now maybe (just maybe, who knows? you know...) maybe the ad would be out and I could save the cat's life, thanks! [In the end, the ad did appear, for free, YES, true! And later... so did the cat, on morning number 6, at the exact same time as he disappeared through the screen (He must have eaten a swiss watch on the way out....]

The TV Station in fact does not do it any more, you know, too many lost pets, blablabla.

BUT they all remain on the list and hand out of the shelter, where I am going back this morning, and the shelter will tell you they don't really want to make a stick, reflect reality behind the deceptive advertizing of humanity and caring, and antagonize posislbe sponsors or helpers for their shows and fund-raising events, fairs, etc. in favor of lost pets and so the handout remains andthe false advertizing.....

Yeap, Good Ol' US of A. The surface and the depth... facade and reality... the good, the bad and the ugly (and I know it is an Italian western, that fits: things are not as they appear!!!) Even if the motto of North Carolina, Esse quam videri, is precisely "to be rather than to seem"....

Sad. Thanks, guys, I had my hopes up, you got them up,.. and now down. and shall I come bury the cat in the front lawn of your corporate offices or headquarters ?
IF I ever find the body... Cats die privately, under bushes, etc.. but someone may have found him and already put him in the trashcart...

Or maybe he will show one of those amazing resilencies cats are famous for, kidneys or not...

To all real women; HELEN MIRREN rules.

2008-04-15T16:20:00.000-07:00

To all women (no, I am not paraphrasing Julio and Willie, just women in general.. and I bet, anyway, some of the women Julio and Willie have had before might not be my type...well, who knows???)

If I could choose a woman, I'd choose Helen Mirren..

And I say that... of course, not really thinking to have her as ...my mom (oops, sorry, "have" has... a second connotation here that I did not intend, at least.. not knowingly) but also because, Ladies, I know you worry about our society's emphasis on looks and youth, etc.. but frankly, I'll take Helen Mirren any time over Britney Spears (who is a lost kid, poor girl, what a life already!) or Paris Hilton
(And then we have to talk brains, too....)

Helen Mirren: class and sex appeal, period. Questions and comments, anyone?
What? Susan Sarandon? Ah, yes, ok, but second to Helen.

And guys, don't bother too much with women under thirty-five, they're not done or finished yet. Let ripen, enjoy later, guaranteed recipe. I am not going to say "trust me" because my rule is: "Do not trust any guy who says "trust me" ! "

That is the Helen Mirren rule (pass 35, first)
And I would even say: "Helen Mirren Rules!"

And, apart from Cleopatra (supposedly), and my friend Alison (one L, yes, Brit spelling), no one has a nose like that.

Viva Helen Mirren, Viva real women!

Reality check: Are John McCain and the Pope kidding?

2008-04-15T15:28:00.001-07:00

Two Items from the news of the day:

1. That politicians pander shamelessly (in fact: shamefully) to voters in election years (or in any year) is not new, OK. But offering to give us 18 cents back a gallon until Memorial Day weekend is... ludicrous, if not offensive, and.. low.
Yes, if you look at the total numbers, it is a lot of money but that is the amount of yet another loss for the Fed (i.e., all of us), and we are in need, oh yes.
And we have not yet seen it all, it is just starting (you know what I am talking about, right?... The thing, the word with the R at the beginning); we are on our way down and big time, folks, Do fasten your seat belts for the end of the American century (it was.. last century, the twentieth! We are now in the twenty-FIRST) and we are going to re-enter the cacophonious concert of nation, to be one like the others, with the others, whether we like it or not. Because the people who have been financing us for the last twenty-five years or so are now beginning to tighten the noose around us, because they want or need their share of the goodies (natural resources, to begin with), or they are fed up with our childish ways and worried they won't see their money back.

So, John, (and all others like him), come on, really!!! I fill up and you think the 2 or 3 dollars I will save will make a big difference to me??? How about $ 1 off per gallon? or even $ 2 ??? Or better yet, I have to learn to live within my means, drive less, drive more efficiently (a la grandpa, maybe, too), drive smaller cars.
We are the only nation to drive bigger, heavier, less fuel-efficient cars than in the last twenty years. The rest of the world, since 1990 has downsized, all of them, except the US.
It's been fun, oh, yes! Now.. let's be real. Keep the 18 cents, John, especially if we are going to stay in Iraq for 100 years.

2. And then there is the Pope, always good for another reality check: the Pope has been wishing for a "successful" visit to the US. Well, of course, we all wish that, I do want a "successful" visit, too, any place, any time, not just for me, for you too, for everybody, I am as good as the next guy or gal.

But what IS a "successful" visit? That the US would end up following a lot of what the Pope preaches? There might be some good thigns, there, yes, quite possibly. But there is also a lot of medieval stuff, and I have a feeling women, to begin somewhere, do not like what he preaches -- assuming we do pay attention to what Popes say!..
First of all, no woman can be priest, and I am not sure women are less moral than men or whatever the cause might be for this discrimination -- which has been going on for many centuries and yet the Pope also asks for more equality among people, and rightly so! We should ALL wish for that. So, er, your Popiness, isn't it hard to reconcile equality and discrimination? And I'll stop right here, there is no need to ask you about anything else, you discriminate, and that is not even the law of our land. Not that discrimination does not exist any more just because it is the law. We should wish we were that ...successful, precisely!!

And then, people won't change because you say so, even if you ask nicely (I bet you will admonish and chastise, anyway, I have seen the show before). It does not even work in your own country -- well, OK, The Vatican is not exactly a country and there are no women there, or not many, (or they are not supposed to be there, just like a lot of those boys we heard about), or they aren't exactly your average woman--wait, unless.. you have cleaning ladies?? I bet you do! -- OK, let's use Italy, then: or even all of Western Europe, which you tried to conquer for centuries, by the way: The same news report stated that only 10% (and that's of Catholics only!) go to church. So, why not try to be successful at home? Or, is it why you come here? Relocation? Looking to outsourcing? Better opportunities?

I wonder if you know, or will meet, John McCain? The two of you need to rethink things and get the right vocabulary. He is looking for a VP spot, by the way, you might like it. Plus you are more or less the same age, lots of common memories probably. But you guys might not be able to talk to each other, just because you are of different religions, oh, oh...

In the meantime, we still can't vaccinate every child in this country (not to mention every child in the world), we still can't guarantee decent wages to all, or medical insurance to all, or a decent education (did you see the recent stats on high school dropouts? We are receding!)
And so, your Holiness and John, if you can achieve any of these hereabove goals, that would be successful! But it will take much more than 18 cents a gallon. Would $ 18 (yes, DOLLARS!) a gallon guarantee it? Probably not even.

So, let's find other leaders, OK? Even if both of you are decent guys -- and maybe you are, maybe you are not, but let's face reality, folks. Get out of the millionaires' life and let's get serious about real problems.

How to rid yourself of sadness

2008-04-10T16:40:00.001-07:00

One of my friends is going through a very rough time and posted a blog mulling about sadness and how you get rid of it. She suggested chocolate and some people responded with variations on the theme (white chocolate, booze, music, whatever)

My answer:
You take the sadness/depression into as much of the night as you can, crank up the stereo (probably with headphones, buds, what have you, if you have a family or neighbors) and you WRITE it out, the whole night if needed.
I guarantee you that not only will you discover you are a writer AGAIN, or become one, but by 4 am or daybreak, you will find a new you and let the shtuff behind you. The only problem is... you might find another load of shtuff awaiting you later that second day. Keep writing it out. sooner or later, you will write fantastic stuff from the guts or you'll shake the blues off.

Note/warning: it takes a trainload of nervous energy BUT in the very long run, you'll wrestle that gorilla into the ground. Guaranteed.

Second note/warning: beware of chocolate: there is a low after the high... Been there, done that, I know. (I assume booze or other external ingested "helper" or crutches will do the same: at best, it's temporary and it probably makes it all worse after a while, probably even a short while. If you don't have the way out in you, you don't have a way out.

Now.. someone suggested "confit de canard" (duck in aspic juice or the like)--or any other fav food: might work, I don't know, never drowned my sorrows in confit de canard.. I do confit de connerie(s)--see above! (i.e., my own internal literary BS concoctions, combustions, compulsions, etc...

Good luck...

Easter miracle, true story...

2008-03-22T19:07:00.000-07:00

Two Weeks ago, my best friend of many, many years (ok, will "several decades" do? And no, I did not grow up with Julius Caesar, I just met my best friend when I was a kid), anyway he had massive cardiac arrest (5 ressuscitations) then an infarctus (coronary) when they got him to the hospital.
Now, we are talking: the brother I never had, or rather the brother I chose and who chose me. I know the guy, his kids are basically mine, his wife was my best friend in college, I have known her too for a long, long time, they met through me, it's all almost incestuous, I know.
I know him so well that I still today can picture what he was wearing when I met him, I was six years old, and yet my mind recorded the scene of meeting this kid, as if it KNEW I was going to meet my life's best friend. I don't remember anyone else or anythign else, but if I could paint or sketch, I can reproduce the scene, the clothes, the haircut, how he turned back, climbing two steps then one, to announce the arrival of "a new kid" (me) to the neighborhood school carpool.
Throughout my life, I have always had the luck, the light in the tunnel of knowing that no matter what, I could always count on a best friend (and others, yes, sorry, guys, but that is not the point tonight).
Anyway, massive heart problem in a foreign country while on a business trip. Five days in a coma, finally a sign, a roll of the eye or an attemtped wink that lets everybody know he is not brain dead. His daughter is to go to his bedside, she is the only one who can go, she will.
I then felt that my watch that I had left with my friend a few years back as a kind of keepsafe HAD to go. (Don't ask, I am not a religious man, I am not a fetichist, somehow I left my watch with him (we both like watches, and he had a "mild" heart attack five years ago, so I left my watch with him for him to wear at times).
You don't spend your entire life with friends from your days almost in diapers without some weird connections, leave it at that.
Now his grandmother--whom I do not remember--had "magnetic" powers. Used to have "catalyzers" (magnets?) between her hands, she would get them "recharged" by a man with similar powers, a "magnetizer", and it seems this genetic trait has permeated the daughter who left with my watch on her wrist to take to her dad. The daughter "kills" watches, cell phones, anythign closeto her that runs on batteries in record time, she has a magnetic... "aura"? My watch arrives to my friend, kaputt. He puts it in his toiletry kit, gets it back out when finally back home two continents away, two weeks later. He puts the watch on his wrist: it works again, just like his heart. I KNEW he would be alright if the watch went to his side (I even wrote if before his daughter left to see her dad, I told her so by e-mail).
I can't explain it, it is just that there is what some call a "Soul", a link between people that remains, no matter what, just like nerves trouble amputees who feel pain in a limb they have lost. It is the same thing here. I KNOW, I went through this with another friend who died a long, long time ago.
Weird story, but all true....
Miracle maybe.... Resurrection, no doubt.

race relations & Obama

2008-03-18T18:47:00.000-07:00

When was the last time ANY presidential candidate has been able to talk about race? And do it with brains and experience?
And when was the last time any politician has done it with common sense and conviction?

If anyone still had doubts, now things should be clearer.

Not that we never succeed in shooting ourselves in the foot!

Say "what the hey!" - fiction fragment

2008-03-15T04:23:00.001-07:00

Sometimes, you have to say "what the hey!"
The weather is stunning, crisp, clear, warm but not too much and you still can feel some cool in it.
Somehow the music is playing something deeper with a raspy voice that delivers well-written gems.
On your way to work, it all seems herd-like, boring, bovine, Bovary... Cows going to the slaughterhouse for the day, for another day.
As Camus would say: "All the decors collapse and you ask: "Why?" "

And so, keep on driving, hit the highway, the Interstate, the true American experience, devouring miles, space, infinity, the last vestige of Freedom as it used to be, as it all started in fact in this country--travel, see more and new, leave it all behind...

Call work, "I am sick, on way to see the doc"... Yes, you are, the open road is your doc, fill yourself with space, horizon, and blue sky... (yes, you pollute. Yes, there will be pollen and allergens inhaled..) Call it "a day". Really! "Life is here, simple and tranquil," deeper....

Sometimes you HAVE to say "What the hey!"
This... IS living, the true, the deeper....

"The intense life"1 - condensed draft 2 flat

2008-03-14T18:48:00.000-07:00

Madame de Thoux (pronounce just like "two") was a beauty, a past beauty queen, in fact, child or teenage, I forgot. A muscular, dark-skinned blonde, petite, with a magnetism radiating from her pale, milky eyes that could pierce through you like an ice floe slicing off of a glacier.
She had grace, yes, but maybe not class. She had brains, but knew her power over others, over men especially, and so she never fully cultivated her potential, and never had to use it to its fullest. Older, moneyed, with a light touch that denoted a life of certain ease. Not that she had not suffered, but things had been smoothed over with time.

She never went anywhere without being noticed. I worked with her, briefly. Kept my distance, but did notice the quickness of mind, the mind. She also was, surprisingly, not averse to a risque' comment --she did it on purpose, knowing full well that no one, especially the younger ones, ever expected the classy lady to go earthy or crass.
Her husband was an older man, a kind of stick in the mud, a traditional macho--and, I suspect, could be a mean son of a gun. I met him once, briefly, did not care for him, but did not really pay attention anyway. Not my world, nothing in common, a smooth, good-looking older guy, with a cold streak. Part French,-- hence the name--, the haughty type.

I worked with her on a project, acted as if I did not care about her (in a way, she was not of my world: different values, different wayof living, different upbringing, I was a newfie of sorts, too much of an outlaw,and she was, or they were, old, established types. We did good work together: it came naturally, without effort. Without knowing each other, we found ourselves working smoothly and efficiently together. The project went on, reached its maturity.

One day, she suggested we lunch together. Sure, why not?
She was stunning that day. A clear, spring day. She was dressed in bright,light colors, white pants, a light green sweater broadly open on the shoulders, nice shoulders, small though. Not an lounce of fat on the woman, hyper-exercised, no doubt,but not spastic as so many of those Spandex women are.
She had reserved, it seemed. We ended up at a table at the end of a cavernous secondary or side room, with a few patrons in the front part of it, along the windows-- blinded by the light, I did not really see them--, while we were in the far back, barely visible, I think, for anyone who would not make the effort to approach our table. I sat facing her and the back of the restaurant, she faced me with all the light of the fierce southern high noon splashing her face, in fact illuminating her like a stage actress up for her grand soliloquy.
Her eyes shone like diamonds; her tanned, smooth skin, and blond hair a perfect frame for her face. People had looked at her as we walked to our table. I could see why. Indeed, once a beauty queen, always a beauty queen; atleast, she was.

We ordered, ate this and that. She was lively, talked about our project, how well we worked together, how she enjoyed working--I was tempted to ask if she was working for fun, maybe to get out of the gilded cage her life seemed to be--, when she stopped, leaned forward, planted her eyes in me, rested her head on her hand, somewhat of a theater or almost rehearsed pose, I thought--but I knew it was not: she was a natural. I looked at her with some surprise. She took note of my reaction and started:
-- You are naturally charming. But that is not why.
--why what?
She ignored me. "What I like about you is the way your mind works. You think on a different plane, on different levels at the same time. I have never known anyone with a mind like yours.
-- What is this? Are we playing "The Genius and the Goddess?"
-- What is that?
-- A book by Aldous Huxley, not his best, by the way, by far.
-- I'll have to read that one day. But that is not it. Do you know?
-- Know what?

She paused, reclined back in her chair, away from the table, looked at me, looked around. She had indeed graceful movements. I do not know why I remembered at that point that she was part Mediterranean, part Scandinavavian. It showed, The skin versus the hair and eyes, or maybe, rather: the skin AND the hair and eyes, the South and the North, not a Civil War thing, (althouhg it also worked, she was a Northern transplant--visibly so--in a near-tropical climate) no, it was more a completeness. There was somethign about this woman. Over thirty-five, oh yes, clearly, a real woman, not a kid. Before thirty-five, they are not... "ripe", not finished, yet. A Septentrion girl in Meridion; she had it all.

She looked at me, leaned forward.
--You know I love you, don't you?

I was so stunned I don't remember the end of the meal or how we got back to work. I never responded, and she had, again, correctly anticipated that I would not be able to handle this, anyway. We never talked about it. Never.
But we wrote one another, or rather I wrote and she responded. It all started that way. In a sense, it only started years later, many years later, well after this false start in that restaurant confession, and well after her husband, the gun owner, found our letters (she had asked to have them all, I had known right there and then that that was a mistake).

[CUT]

A short German lesson for the day

2008-03-12T18:48:00.000-07:00

I do not speak German (maybe under torture--but then, I might also speak Chinese, Turkish, and a host of other languages I do not know yet...)

However, I received this line from Albert Einstein (no, not in my sleep, thank you)
and took a shot at translating it as I understand it

----
"Ich habe keine besondere Begabung, sondern bin nur leidenschaftlich neugierig" --Albert Einstein
----

Which I know will seem obscure to many, but that is probably because Einstein is a whole lot brighter than the rest of us:

Here it is, and please remember to live by this wisdom:

"I have no bethundered bugaboo, nor have I been, like, newly leathershafted or neutered" signed: Al

On second thoughts: mightn't there be ein error? maybe it is: " I have no bethundered bed-a-bugs"???? This changes everything, but is equally deep.

Swiss anti-abstention law: right or wrong?

2008-03-12T15:42:00.000-07:00

It used to be that in Switzerland, if you didn't vote once (at the local, regional, or federal/national level), you would receive a warning; the second time you did not vote, you'd get fined; the third time you did not vote, you'd lose your voting rights. What do you think of this? right or wrong?

You canpose the problem as: Can a democracy function with not even half of the voters actually voting?
For example, say that only 50% of eligible voters do vote for one or the other candidate in a presidential election: the winner can just gather 50% of that plus1 vote and become president, i.e., 25% of potential voters. Is this a democratic vote? No, it takes a fraction of voters (here, 1 of 4) to lead us (into... what? temptation? doom? Hell?..)

Another question logically follows: SHOULD a democracy be allowed to function, electing individuals with 50% + 1 vote of say 40% of potential votes? Should we have a quorum? Or will it take a hijacking of our democracy for people to vote?

Scary, isn't it, that we could legally be under the presidential powers of a motivated, well-organized fringe minority?
Check history, it has happened... And it could happen in the Good ol' US of A...

the luxury of pain and grief

2008-03-11T07:44:00.001-07:00

Have you noticed that life goes on while you are in pain, grieving, mourning, or any shade of all this. Aldous Huxley said in 1928 that "privacy is a luxury" (in "Point Counterpoint"), true. But so is pain. You HAVE to keep functioning, going to work, paying your bills, etc..
and even those who mean well torture you by stirring your emotions.
Yeap, privacy is a luxury; so is pain..

kids learn...

2008-03-07T08:14:00.000-08:00

beware, kids assimilate stuff like sponges. I used to drive around peacefully insulting whoever I wanted in the privacy of my own vehicle until one of my kids (then about 14, give or take) decided (in western Canada--thank God, no one I knew--and that may have livened thigns up a bit in that very quiet part of the world...) to open the window and express his views of a bad driver by letting out, in a foreign language, a string of perfectly-pitched insults that would have sent my late mother... well, probably peeing herself with laughter. But I was stunned, scolded him, and he coolly responded: " So what? YOU have been saying this kind of stuff for 15 years, where do you think I learned it??!!"

So now, I warn my friends and others: you may swear in Urdu, French, or English, and never hear a peep from the back seat but they acquire the zingers alright! (After that, I used to fine $ 10 per incident --never had to, after I laid down the law-- and esp. in professional context (meeting my coworkers>> no bad language in any language). And they will love to dish it back out to you atthe perfectly wrong time...

But er,.... now my kids have the ways & means to defend themselves VERBALLY as young adults (thanks, Dad!--thank you, kids!) AND the biggest pain ended up being for ...me... I could not express myself any more while driving... deprived myself of my first amendment rights... (on the other hand,with all the guns in this country--it is now reported to be 270 million guns -- I thought we still were at 200 million,naive me!-- you can't afford any more a little contrary social interaction or difference of opinion... So I would have to roll up my windows to express my views of some drivers (great in the winter only...)

Yeap, file under domestic origins of erosion of basic civil & legal rights!!

Climate glory and injustices

2008-03-05T07:21:00.000-08:00

Dear Bloggers:

It is a gorgeous day in Coastal Carolina, crisp, clear, limpid, as we only get in the Spring (still too humid in the Fall, and right now the bugs are not alive yet, most of them still in gestattion), something akin to what residents of Seattle experience whenever Rainier is visible, but it is much warmer here and not deep down humid (yet--don't worry we pay our dues with dripping hot humidity about 300 days of the year...)

Which reminds me of somethign Albert Camus once noted: the injustice of climate. Born dirt poor in French Algeria, he never knew, he said, the greatest injustice of them all until he went to Paris: the one of climate. I shall paraphrase him (but closely)with a touch of Baudelaire's urban "spleen": "We all were poor, but we all shared the natural beauty and the warmth of the sun. I did not know true despair until I got to see the great metropoles of the North, with their industrial sprawl, and their pervading greyness: people are grey, the pigeons are grey, the skies are hopeless, the human soul imprisoned..."

And so, savor the day when it is as glorious as today in downeast "cawlina"...

Y'all enjoy!

Un-familiar spaces

2008-03-05T05:14:00.001-08:00

Have you noticed how your own space -- bedroom, kitchen, study, what have you -- looks completely different the day you have to clear the room for repairs?
It echoes, looks bigger, probably nicer, and you wonder how this is no longer you, just because all your mess and clutter (possessions, excuse me!) has disappeared. And you also get the benefit of new boxes of old stuff you did not know you have--not to mention that you decide also to throw stuff away, just because you have to (too much stuff, too much dust, too old), only to remember after garbage day that the phone number you threw away with a random handful or armful of old papers, old magazines, and "stuff", the number weirdly scribbled in your own hand writing on an unknown piece of paper was in fact that of a long lost friend who called you out of the blue after 20 years of silence and now.. it is gone again... (Maybe it was meant to remain confined to your past?)

In front of those now defamiliarized, if not totally unfamiliar, spaces, it all takes on a new dimension (Should it be spelled "demention," as it does not resemble anything familiar any more, and the destruction of your routine and familiar surroundings does drive you into dementia?), and maybe you should start anew, with clean and clear space. But you won't. Too much stuff piled up in the corners or in the next room waiting to go back where it was and to dip you right back into your old mess... Ah!.. Home!

Decent Doc

2008-03-03T14:44:00.000-08:00

This was my day to see doctors, nothing special, just routine. I usually bring a book but did not this time, because I was not in the mood to waste time.. well, not TOO much time, I should say, since as we know they do not mind having you wait 2 hours and booking 4 people at the same time slot and seeing you on paper for 15 minutes. Imagine my surprise when at 2:30 on the dot, I am no longer in the common waiting room but in my own private little room (where you can at times spend quite some time, yes, I know, I have taken naps, sacked out on the examination table, I bring a coat for blanket, at tiems I go back out to bring in the snack I prepare, etc.. I even turned off the lights once for my nap--and also left once and they did not charge me (I was clearly not in the mood that day for that either.)

And then after 10 minutes, the doc comes in, to apologize, telling me he is going to need another 5 to 10 minutes with his current patient (a child, I could hear). It's quite alright, doc: you treat me humanly and with consideration, I shall do the same. And please, make sure the little girl is all OK. Imagine that! A doctor with a sense of time and decency. A rarity!

George Carlin, man vs.world, common sense

2008-03-01T05:49:00.000-08:00

Years ago,-- I think in 1996--, George Carlin, whose common sense and straightforwardness people often fail to see because of the jokester persona, posited that airport security was impossible, if not an oxymoron, because too many people have access (technicians, caterers, maintenance personnel, mecanics, etc..--one could also mention that any individual can always be bribed or coerced and a breach of security is therefore always possible).

Likewise, he also stated a bit later (1999? 2000?) that we think too much of ourselves in assuming that we can wreck the planet with our pollution, etc. We are wrecking the planet, there is no doubt, George, but truth be told, you are also right in that when faced with the power of volcanoes, tsunamis, ice age cycles, etc.., we really are ants on the giant mud ball called Earth.

Twenty years after Chernobyl, life returns there (how warped, mutated, damaged, cancer-ridden, etc., all the forms of life are, I do not know). But it is quite possible that we overestimate our power and impact, and that the Earth can self-correct, even from our evil deeds..

Yet, we do have an impact, we use resources faster now than at any rate in this era (I mean over tens of thousands of years), faster and on a grander scale than in the known history of the world. 300 years ago, the United States was in harmony and synergy with the natural production cycle of all forms of life, allowing all resources to replenish while the American representatives of mankind were living off of it, and we have wrecked that very quickly (and it is not over).

So, there is a little bit of this, and a little bit of that; we need to accept flux and reflux, and a state of balance, however unsatisfying to one part or another each swing of the pendulum might be (expect more storms, floods, hurricane, blizzards, epidemics, etc.. as Nature swings back against us now..)
We like stability, one in the hand is always better, we like our certainties and truths -- religions, among other belief systems, are here for that ("you are right, my friend, all others are wrong, come with me/us")--. But we must accept that thigns are always in balance, uncertain, never for sure and written in stone, that the world is in a state of perennial change. We, the US, were on top for the last 50 years or so, and now it changes, as has been the case for every ancestor nation of ours: every European nation has been at one point or another on top of its world ,or even of The World, -- Italy (Rome), Greece, Spain, England, at one point or another was, have been THE top nation in their part of the world or of the world; Egypt, Persia, the mongol Empire, others, too; almost every part of the world has been the top dog at one point or another of our known history. But that was always so before that leading lost its top position and rejoined the ranks of its sister civilizations, cultures, or nations, in the (often cacophonious) concert of nations (and China's turn is coming up (again?).

And so, America's supremacy, airport security, save the world/save the planet, yes, we can, and indeed must, take those as facts, but only as part of a balanced view of the bigger picture. We might be only ants, but smart ants; we might impact the world, but only in part; we might be smart, but not as much as we think; we might save the world, but only in part. And it might save itself, without us (life after humans, part N?)...

That was today's plea for common sense and maturity.