Hot Fun

When Donna and I lived in Virginia Beach we used to take walks along the Bay on the beach. It was pretty laid back in those days; dogs and kids were everywhere. There were some beautiful homes along the beach, but no private sand. All the houses had backyards which were dunes and high grass, then sloped down to the beach. The beach was public property, so for those like us who lived across the street, it was pretty close to having our own beachfront.

I remember a Black Lab who probably lived in one of the waterfront houses who would follow people strolling on the beach, smiling and offering a stick to throw. We found this delightful, such a friendly dog, and would toss the stick for him to fetch until we got bored with the game. When we stopped throwing, the dog would take the stick in his mouth, look at us for a while, then trot off to find another playmate to throw it for him.

Now I have 2Spot, an 11 month old Black Lab. When I wake up in the morning he is delighted and excited, partly because I feed him as soon as I get up, and partly in the hope that I will throw a toy for him to fetch. As soon as my feet are on the floor he brings me something to throw: he's ready for the day to begin. If I was willing, we could play fetch all day, he's that single minded. Easy to see why people train these dogs to hunt. It's all they want to do: bring you things.

Yesterday, finally, Kenny started moving stuff from the office here in the house to his newly completed office in the back of the garage. I had a pile of boxes in the yard, from the new TV and other things, along with a bunch of construction debris from the new office. While Kenny and Julie moved furniture, I piled the trash in the yard into the fire pit and lit it up. It went well in spite of the recent rain, mainly because there was a bunch of tar paper in the pile, which makes excellent kindling, even when wet.

Soon the fire was blazing away, and I nurtured it carefully, putting wet cardboard on the sides and slowly moving it into the center as it dried. As Kenny cleaned out the office he left more and more stuff to go on the fire: audio and video cassettes, a plastic audio cassette cabinet, old vacuum cleaner parts, papers and boxes. The plastic burned long and very hot, allowing me to put practically anything on the fire with the assurance that the burning plastic would dry it out and it would eventually burn.

In the office there was a frame, about 8'x8', made of 2x6 pine and covered with plywood, once destined to become a Murphy bed but never completed. Kenny and I carried that out and put it on the fire as well. At Kenny's suggestion, we took the old Mitsubishi rear-projection TV, which I had rolled into the office when it ceased to work, out the door and onto the fire. The TV was big, about 5' high, 5' wide, and 18" deep.

It went on top of the Murphy bed frame, and when it caught fire burned with an intensity that made us both a little nervous. We hauled out the garden hose and beat the flames down a bit. I hosed off a trailer on the other side of the fence to keep it from combusting; the trailer steamed as I played water on it.

The Mitsubishi, the Murphy bed, some fiberglass insulation, carpet scraps, audio and video cassettes, assorted other household trash, things one would normally not think to burn, were reduced to a pile of smoldering ash. It was Brightwood fun at its best.

Today I put a coat of Kilz primer on the ceiling in the office, which will now become my studio/den. With all that office junk out of there I now see what a nice (and big) room it is, with a great picture window and sliding doors overlooking the creek. The wood stove is in there too, and I look forward to cozy days and nights this winter with a wood fire, wine, and a good Kindle book to read.

As Kenny and I watched the Mitsubishi fire he said he likes to burn just about everything he can get his hands on, and how useless old photos were and that they should be burned. "All the people in them are dead; nobody cares about that shit." At that point it would not have surprised me if he started throwing books on the fire. Just a little more insight into Kenny's personality, or lack thereof.

I was slightly uncomfortable in his presence, not because he intimidates me, as he does some people, but because of a sad feeling of emptiness which seems to surround him. He presents himself as unsentimental, cold and self-serving. I don't think it's an act.

He hates the mountain. He left here when he was old enough and never came back. If it wasn't for his interest in the Tavern he would not come up here at all. It's no wonder few people seem to actually like the guy, even his own brother Ron, who is his polar opposite, a down-to-earth nice guy who likes it here and is a friend to all.

Something to Say

“Keep a quiet heart, sit like a tortoise, walk sprightly like a pigeon and sleep like a dog.” These were the words of advice Li gave to Wu Pei-fu, the warlord, who took Li into his house to learn the secret of extremely long life.

Li maintained that inward calm and peace of mind were the secrets to incredible longevity. His diet after all, was mainly based on rice and wine.

And ice cold vodka.
-Nothing sucks more than that moment during an argument when you realize you're wrong.

Life is caught in the tension between order and chaos. If there is too much order, everything becomes the same and there is no room for creativity or anything new. Everything must fit the one pattern. If there is too much chaos nothing can last long enough to create anything useful; everything is just a jumble that destroys everything before it can get started. Between order and chaos is found the Edge of Chaos, the point where there is enough chaos for novelty and creativity, but also enough order for consistency and patterns to endure. This point is a magic point, where new and unimagined properties can emerge.


“Love never dies a natural death. It dies because we don’t know how to replenish its source. It dies of blindness and errors and betrayals. It dies of illness and wounds; it dies of weariness, of witherings, of tarnishing.”
- Anais Nin

Friday, June 12, 2009

A few days ago I had a very disturbing dream, and I want to document it for posterity.

Tuesday afternoon I had read a few pages of “Mind of Clear Light” by the Dalai Lama, in which he says we should be careful not to waste a moment of this precious human life. Also, I have been thinking about the fact that I will be 61 in July, and one year from then I will be eligible to collect Social Security, which I am fairly certailn I will, barring any unforseen windfall of U.S. dollars.

In the dream I was sentenced to 13 months on a work-release program for the crime of having wasted 60 years of Precious Human Life. I did not deny my guilt, I embraced it. My work-release job was to be delivering mail in the city, which appeared to be Leominster, a suburb of a large city. I went out to deliver the mail and was completely lost. Just like my real experience with delivering mail, I felt like I didn’t know where to go, and that I was going to run out of time to complete the route.

A kindly gentleman finally came to me and counselled me as to what I should really be doing for my work release job. I was to be a “medical technician”, something to do with surgical instruments. Donna was there briefly, and dispassionately said I was suited for that kind of work. All the while the crime I had committed, wasting my 60 years of human life, told more and more heavily upon me, and I cried loudly, like a baby with a rash, and woke up crying, fully believing I had, indeed, wasted my life.

Coming Through In Waves

Since my last post in July 2009 I have found employment, almost by accident, as a cook at the Brightwood Tavern. I should have kept a journal of my experiences there, people I have met, the Regulars at the Tavern (I call them "The Usual Suspects."). Someone with a normal imagination, some writing skills, and the energy and will could write a great comic/tragic novel revolving around the Tavern, or at least a pilot for a sitcom.
Someday I will write about it, but for now I am here to write about My Life at this moment.

I have been cooking at the Tavern since mid-July when it finally opened. The job pays minimum wage, but the tips more than make up the shortfall, ranging from $25 to $50 a day, which is substantial. It has allowed me to buy insurance and register my car, buy food, art supplies, clothing, one wedding gift, and a round-trip ticket to Baltimore to attend said wedding, and to finally begin to pay rent for this fine studio in which I live.

As good as this may sound versus poverty and unemployment, over time it has reaffirmed my belief that I was never cut out to work for a living, as generally understood in American society (daily toil for money). My only talent is in the arts, and the only arena in which I feel comfortable is the visual arts. Although I have now been chipping away at becoming an "artist" for the better part of two years, I am just beginning to get a sense of what that really means.

Serendipitously, I am also reaching retirement age in the Social Security sense, and have decided to take that plunge in July, when I will be 62 years old. I will receive from SSA about as much as I now get from Toil at the Tavern, but will have all my time free to pursue my post-retirement career as a visual artist. This feels very much like my last Shot At Redemption. I think this is what I was meant to do to leave something behind besides a legacy of mishandled money and broken hearts.

The other large decision I have made recently is to get a puppy. No shit. A puppy.

I have become friends with a couple at the Tavern whose black Lab bitch pooped out a litter last month. The pups will be ready to go in March and I have committed to taking one. I will meet them this week and pick one out.

I have been thinking about getting a dog for a while, since it's an easy way to get a friend and constant companion, which I need. I was going to adopt an old dog from a shelter but decided a puppy will be better. Hopefully he and I (it will be a male) will bond like I did with ol' Spike so many years ago. Spike was a most unruly dog, mainly because I did everything wrong in raising him, but he loved me a lot and I loved him right back. He was My Dog. I want to do that again, but this time do it right, as far as neutering (Spike was never neutered, probably the main reason he was such a wild man), housebreaking, training, etc. I want the dog to grow old with me, rather than get an old dog that I might outlive. I don't need anymore heartbreak, thank you very much, so safety will be a big concern, and that goes right back to training, and getting a good-tempered pup to begin with. I know I have several years in purgatory coming for what I did to Burt, the sweetest dog I ever met. It's my fault he died so young; I won't ever get over that but maybe I can make it up to the cosmos in some way by getting it right with this puppy. I hope so.

So I feel energized for the time being with what's coming: dog, retirement, post-retirement career. Stand by for future posts here about how this all turns out.
For now, Comfortably Numb, Namaste.

The Joys of Living Single

More accurately, "The Joys of Living as a Single Old Guy."

Umm...let's see...

It mostly has to do with input and timing. What I eat; when I eat; what movies or TV I watch; when to go to bed, that kind of shit.

Personal hygiene. Still important, but on my schedule, which is very flexible.

Lots of time to ruminate, get ideas and think them through without interruption.
In fact, if I don't seek out interruptions there are none at all. This can be good or bad.
We've all heard the stories of old people who lived alone and were found dead days or weeks after they checked out. "There was a weird smell coming from down the hall, and we finally got the police to check it out. We forgot there was an old guy living there."

This solitude can be inspirational or one can go over the opposite edge and just stare into space for long periods of time, with no particular thought or aim, just sit and stare. That's when a strong cup of coffee is warranted, or maybe some calories, food.

These are things solitary people must be aware of, since there's no one there to say, "I'm hungry; you wanna get something to eat?", or, "Wanna get a few beers?"

Dehydration is a serious concern. So the solitary must maintain an awareness of these things. A few strategically placed mirrors can help. A chance glance at oneself can be a shocking reminder that it's time to eat, or bathe, or get some food. Other bodily functions remind us from the inside out, so usually not a problem, as long as all systems work properly. And remembering to eat, sleep, drink, bathe, helps keep the internals in good working order.

I was a solitary child. Alone, not lonely. I lived in my imagination, but it wasn't wild or far out.
Just alone. I never wanted to deal with the world much, saw little use in the pursuits of sports, competition, participation.

I used to dream of living alone in a cabin in the mountains. I decided all I needed was books to read; television; music; and food (potato chips and milk, mostly). I would be perfectly content with these simple things and no people.

I guess this is as close as I'll come to realizing that dream, and it's really close to what I expected. The major drawback is the trail of lives I attempted to interact with over the years, and the possible damage I did to them.

There was some real damage done, to the Others and to Me, but there was also a substantial exchange of joy and happiness, good feelings and thoughts. Some of those linger, and that's good, that's a good thing. If I had come here to live like this when I was eight or nine it would probably not have worked. I needed to be in the world for a good long time to become equipped to not only deal with isolation, but, in many respects, to embrace it.

This is a phase in my life cycle. It may be the final phase, but there's no way to tell. Any time of any life could be the final phase, that's the mystery of it all.

I don't think this is my ending place or time. I feel somewhere deep inside there's more to come, and the next stop will be as unpredictable and amazing as this has been, and as all the previous phases have been.

Life...goes on...in spite...of...everything...

Slouching Toward Portland

It is hard to look yourself in the eye and realize you are not reinvented, just recycled. Things I’m doing now, decisions I am making, are more or less the same as those I made 35 or 40 years ago. The difference is I now have psychotropic drugs to rationalize with, to make myself feel bold and smart and in control. Take away the drugs and I would become the same unsure quivering mass I was back then, torturing myself over each and every move. Someone asked me not long ago if I could think of one turning point in my life, one moment in which I made a decision or something happened that altered the direction in which I was going. I answered no, but have since decided the correct answer is yes: September 11, 1975, between 1 and 1:30 p.m., EST.

Now I am starting to recognize the patterns repeating themselves. I am letting my hair grow (where it still grows, that is). I bought an expensive pair of boots because I needed a decent pair of shoes. I paid about the same as I did for my first Frye boots, 35 years ago, actually about $30 less. If I spent the equivalent for a pair of boots today it would be about $800; I spent $114, but expect I will not buy shoes for at least five years, so it’s worth it, justifiable, rationalized.

I am trying hard to think of myself as an artist. I draw a lot, and have completed frameable works in the last six weeks, and destroyed one ambitious landscape in black and white. I tried to fix it, but when a drawing needs fixing that also means it can’t be fixed. It either turns out good, or not. If not, it can’t be fixed, is better off gone, destroyed, which it is, no regrets. You have to allow yourself to make mistakes and not grieve over them if you expect to move forward.

For the last several nights I have gone to sleep about 10 p.m. and awakened between midnight and 2:30 a.m. When I wake up I put on the TV, usually some old movie or the Food Network, set the timer for 45 minutes or an hour and wait while the TV empties my brain, stops my thoughts, and I fall asleep again. I wake up between 7:30 and 8:30 a.m. and start my day. Last night I dreamed about the post office, a ridiculous dream of delivering mail on an unfamiliar route, fucking it up totally. When I woke at 2:30 I watched Alton Brown making fried wontons until I went back to sleep. I woke at 7:30 this morning.

Yesterday I bought two books: “Play It As It Lays” by Joan Didion, a novel, and “The Jungle” by Upton Sinclair. As a teenager I had read some of Upton’s work in the summer before I started high school. I was totally alone that summer. I have no memories of doing anything else except reading, often late at night into the dawn, alone in my room. I had a list of about 25 books from the high school, of which I was tasked to read 10 and show up on the first day of school with 10 book reports.

I don’t know what the rest of my family did that summer; I don’t recall that we went anywhere on vacation. I don’t remember seeing my brother, mother, or father. My only memories are of reading, being completely absorbed in books, and only at night, when everyone else was asleep. I would go to the kitchen in the middle of the night, make a sandwich and bring it back to my room with a large glass of milk, and read until the sun came up. I didn’t see anyone, had no friends. Anyone I had been friendly with during the school year was off doing something, had plans, vacations. I did not make friends easily; I was different: a loner.

Not much different than now: recycled, not reinvented, probably regressing but maybe not. You have to have moved forward in order to regress, and I’m not sure I ever did, especially now that I am recognizing all these old familiar patterns repeating.

Joan Didion was a celebrated new author in the 60s that I heard of at the time, but did not read until now, more than 40 years later. “Play It As It Lays” is an astoundingly good book, and I am going through it quickly. I started it last night, continued this morning, I’m about halfway through it. Now I know why she was so celebrated. Her style reminds me somewhat of Cormack McCarthy with punctuation. Terse, smart, engaging. I remember her from the 60s because of a title, “Slouching Toward Bethlehem”, a collection of essays. The title is from a poem by Yeats:

The Second Coming
W.B Yeats

Turning and turning in the widening gyre
The falcon cannot hear the falconer;
Things fall apart; the centre cannot hold;
Mere anarchy is loosed upon the world,
The blood-dimmed tide is loosed, and everywhere
The ceremony of innocence is drowned;
The best lack all conviction, while the worst
Are full of passionate intensity.
Surely some revelation is at hand;
Surely the Second Coming is at hand.
The Second Coming! Hardly are those words out
When a vast image out of Spritus Mundi
Troubles my sight: somewhere in the sands of the desert.

A shape with lion body and the head of a man,
A gaze blank and pitiless as the sun,
Is moving its slow thighs, while all about it
Reel shadows of the indignant desert birds.
The darkness drops again; but now I know
That twenty centuries of stony sleep
were vexed to nightmare by a rocking cradle,
And what rough beast, its hour come round at last,
Slouches towards Bethlehem to be born?

Now I get the ominous meaning, full of dread, so fitting in the 60s when she chose it for a title, but I have always just loved the words, and prefer to leave it at that. At any rate this is why I remember Joan Didion, and why I picked up her novel (not her essays) yesterday. After I finish the novel I will probably go back and get the essays.

I memorize snatches of Shakespeare to impress myself and those who listen in extremely rare conversations in which the opportunity presents itself to either recite or identify those few pieces I have committed to memory.

This is from memory:
“Tomorrow, and tomorrow, and tomorrow,
Creeps in this petty pace from day to day,
Until the last syllable of recorded time,
And all our yesterdays have lighted fools the road to dusty death.
Out, out brief candle; life is but a shadow,
A poor player who struts and frets his hour upon the stage,
And then is heard no more.
It is a tale told by an idiot: full of sound and fury, signifying nothing.”

Macbeth

This too:
“Once more unto the breach, dear friends, once more.
In peace there’s nothing so becomes a man as modest stillness and humility.
But when the blast of war rings in our ears,
Then imitate the actions of the tiger:
Stiffen the sinew, conjure up the blood,
Disguise fair nature with hard favoured rage.”

Henry V

I memorized those two passages in high school. A few years later I met a friend who had committed to memory Lewis Carrol’s “Jabberwocky” and would recite it with dramatic flair. I was so impressed that I, too, memorized it, and to this day I can recite it, also with dramatic flair. I did just the other day, on request, after saying I had memorized it. It’s another ploy to look clever and smart. I have no memory of the story of Henry V , only one brief passage.

Now I’m working on Richard III: “Now is the winter of our discontent, made glorious summer by this sun of York…”

Life is challenging when you have only yourself for company. I have numerous things I like to do, but sometimes want company too. The phone doesn’t do it for me. I want the visceral experience of seeing another human across from me, talking, drinking, engaged.

Thursday I will have dinner with my old-friend-by-proxy, Debbie Garafolo-Bucci-Berry. I know her through Donna, and she knows me through Donna. We have never been alone together; this will be the first time in the 35 years I have known her that there won’t be anyone else with us. I’m curious and nervous to see how well (or not) we actually know each other, if my mental image of her is what this essentially first impression will be.

At least I’ll go to Portland and have a good meal.

Rough Transcript of a Dream

I was with someone, Alison, I think. We had a choice of two movies to see, both seemed good. We chose a fantasy adventure. It wasn't really a movie, but an environment which we entered, walking up a trail into some woods. Flying animals zoomed by, firing arrows or something like arrows, lightning bolts maybe. It was all great fun, and stunningly beautiful, because even though we were not watching it on a screen but actually walking through it, we were not in it either, we were not elements in the movie if that makes any sense. We were spectators.

Other vague events lead to our meeting up with Jerry Seinfeld, who took us on the Seinfeld Tour, a series of rooms which were sets/scenes from various episodes of "Seinfeld."

The details were rich: a bureau with Jerry's watch and wallet on it, and a silver bracelet he wore (I don't recall ever seeing him wear one on the show, but it was there); a table and chairs in a dining room, all well appointed and detailed; other rooms, hallways, shops, etc.

Here's the best part: Jerry told us that everything we saw: walls, carpet, furniture, plates, Jerry's watch, kitchen gadgets, even his silver bracelet, EVERYTHING was made of chocolate and we could help ourselves to any of it. I took a bite of his Palm Pilot and it was a delicious chocolate cake with cream filling. I broke off a corner of the table, a piece of thick rich dark chocolate. Sure enough everything was good quality chocolate and we ate what we pleased. Other "Seinfeld" characters drifted in and out as we walked through the rooms.

Disturbing and startling was that it all seemed very vivid and real.

That, and wondering where the hell this stuff came from.

How did all this shit get into my head?

That's it.

Oh, and a few exploding mailboxes, but I have a pretty good idea where that came from.

Life, and so on...

Does lightning ever strike twice in the same place? Of all the things I've ever felt and done, I'm beginning to believe there's only one that can never happen again.
And that is incredibly sad.