14 posts from February 2008

I couldn't resist.

Rules as I learned them from Crimsonsilk
1. Pick up the nearest book (of at least 123 pages).
2. Open the book to page 123.
3. Find the fifth sentence.
4. Post the next 3 sentences.

1. White Night by Jim Butcher
4. There was a sound like a human yawn, and then the skull turned slightly toward me and asked, "What's up, boss?"
"Evil's afoot."
"Well, sure," Bob said, "because it refuses to learn the metric system."

What inspires you to blog?

This is my third attempt at having a blog. I can vouch for that cliche now. Like many of us I blog for a number of reasons. 

1. I'm an out-of-practice writer, still victim to the call of the craft. For all that any individual entry might lack in arc, characterization or literary form, it's still practice stringing words together with intent and (sometimes) style.

2. A friend of mine who is a very good (and increasingly published) author has a blog (see the scratchfiction link in links). Longing desperately to reach the same level of confidence, specific style, focus and word precision that he has, I do everything he does. The sincerest form of flattery, right?

3. Vox is kind of cozy. I've had more readership here than with any other host. The feeling of community is genuine and satisfying.

4. Sometimes what's rattling around in my head gets so jumbled I can't see what's true anymore. Having to tell something in clear, ringing text makes me search for the soul of whatever I'm thinking about and strive to present the truth, the whole truth, and nothing but the truth, so help me someone, in the simplest, sexiest language I can generate.

5. It makes the world feel smaller.

6. It's habit forming.

7. It's leagues cheaper than therapy.

I have spent most of my life waiting for that unspecific moment in the indeterminate future when 'everything' is going to be 'all right'. By 'all right' I mean 100 percent to my liking, not morally improved. And by 'everything' I mean having enough money, enough friends, and my dream house. I have devoted all of my energy to exploring every avenue I could imagine might raise my life to such heights. I have fallen spectacularly short. But just yesterday I stumbled on a very liberating realization. 'Everything' is never going to be all right. I don't say that with any maudlin or angry or self-pitying nihilism. It's just the truth. Planet earth, people. 2008. 'Everything' will be what and however it is. Now. I can face, enjoy, curse, experience, delight, despair, abhor, feed off, grow from, etc. what is now. Or I can keep my gaze calmly on the ever potential horizon and always be dissatisfied with both my current circumstances and the failure of the idealized future to arrive. I am, for the first time in my life, ready to embrace that former approach. Everything in my life is all right. Because it is what I have right now, and in this moment I cannot make very much different. But if I keep working on them certain things will probably change. And that has to be success enough. Because the outcome is not guaranteed. Only my efforts are. I celebrate this realization because it is helping me to focus. I want a lot of things from moment to moment and I indulge those whims sometimes. But I often lose sight of the big picture. Instead of running around balming the twin disappointments of not having what I want now nor having any promise that it is coming. I want to take a longer view. What does it take for me to enjoy now? What can I do to make later different in the ways I most desire? I have to answer the questions I asked this morning. What do I want? What are my values? How am I going to stand up for them and create the life I want? Those are fun questions to answer : D

What's the best thing about today?

Thanks VOX! I wanted to do a positive 'sunny day' post and here it is, your QotD. Yahoo!

I woke up this morning and the sun was shining brilliantly. There's still some snow on the ground from a recent storm and the land in every direction is glittering. The sky is cloudless and a shade of blue that makes me confident that summer will come. This year's 4 month bout with Seasonal Affective Disorder is over. We have passed the daylight threshold that seems to drop the wet blanket on my soul (where it freezes in these northern climes). It is no longer a challenge to be positive, and look at the bright side, and believe in the best outcome, and go with the program. Happy days are here again. Every little thing is gonna be alright. Fill your heart with joy. Laugh and sing. This day is a celebration because it came and ended the dark cold night. I cannot wish for another day. I am too busy rejoicing in this one I've been given.

Please smile and pass it along today.

Or pass this along. e.e. cummings wrote in "i thank You God for most this amazing":

i thank You God for most this amazing day:for the leaping greenly spirits of trees and a blue true dream of sky;and for everything which is natural which is infinite which is yes (i who have died am alive again today, and this is the sun's birthday;this is the birth day of life and love and wings:and of the gay great happening illimitably earth)...

[Note: punctuation maintained, scan disrupted, excerpt is first two stanzas]

This past week I took time off from work to help my brother and sister-in-law care for my sick, new nephew. He is healthy now. Hallelujah.

During my time at their house I came to reflect on the incredible devaluation of the American Worker. Businesses are constantly trying to cut costs by cutting, jobs, benefits or hourly wages. Workers are constantly trying to prove their value by putting in more time and getting less and lower quality compensation. For both parties, improving the bottom line is the only, constant and receding goal. For what great end have we let our nation's values come to this? How do we correct it?

I am not versed in Studs Terkel or labor research or labor history. I know I am not having an original thought here nor an eloquent or developed text, but I am having an awakening. As surely as the dollar is worth a pittance compared to it's value a century ago the value of a U.S. worker's labor is also diminishing. And all in the chase of an empty ideal. The 'American Dream' is made of smoke. It dissipates under the stiff breeze of reality.

Ask yourself what you really want in this life. What is it? How much of it do you already have? What more do you really need and what is it worth for you to obtain it?

We all have to take a stand for each other. It is time for a large scale labor movement in this country. It is not simply about rights or a better paycheck, it is about quality of life and value of your time and efforts.

Learn something today about where our labor situation came from. Confirm your values and stand up for them. Shape the way work in this country will be done tomorrow. You're worth it!

List three things you'd buy with your last $20. One practical, one frivolous and one of your choosing.

My last $20 because I'm about to die or my last $20 because I lost my job kind of B-R-O-K-E?

I am assuming the latter. I would buy as much public transportation as I could afford (get to the public library, use all their resources to find a job/shelter) and still have money left over to buy an ice cream cone (comfort food, high in calories). There probably wouldn't be a third item because I would be so freaked out about being out of money!

"Ooh Baby, what I couldn't do. With plenty of money and you. In spite of the worry that money brings, just a little filthy lucre buys a lot of things...It's the root of all evil, of strife and upheaval, but I'm certain honey, that life would be sunny, with plenty of money and you." - Al Dubin and Harry Warren With Plenty of Money and You

I have to earn money. If I didn't, I would...um...I don't really seem to know anymore. I'm tired but I'm having trouble sleeping because I am trying to figure out what comes next in my life. There are only so many bits of it that I can control, but job is a whopper. I can remember very vividly when I was "so excited" about a number of things and now I just look around and feel like most things are "Sure, that'll do." It's not the end of the world. But it is kind of like getting to a restaurant you picked especially for its menu and finding that nothing there really excites your palate. It's  disappointing. Disappointments are my Achilles Heel, Wrist, Toe you name it.

I've been here before. I try to mark this spot on my mental map, navigate away from it but sometimes when I get lost I circle back and there it is. A reminder of the progress I seem to be failing to make. Perhaps a message about some important milestone I need to summit. Familiar, for better or for worse. 

This is month 7 of my transition to Boston. Everything I have done this weekend to make friends and assimilate has caused me pain, physical and emotional. It's February and T.S. Eliot was wrong. I'd take this month over April in a cage wrestling match any day of the week. It's more like February has to make up for the perceived slight.  "Who you callin' short!" he likes to bellow. Then its death by a million rose thorn cuts. Or some new car jumps the platform at the President's Day Clear-Out Clearance Sale. Or it snows then melts then rains and freezes all in one 24 hours period.

But I'm not mad about the weather. For once. I'm pained because I am not sure what to do next to earn money. And I know there is a limit (no matter how remote) to my ability to continue to do my current job in my current location. And I feel trapped because I feel like I cannot make my next jump based on passion because I automatically think that something I am passionate about could not possibly earn me enough money.  And I feel broken that I cannot seem to free my imagination to see my passion because of this damn ball and chain of a salary requirement. I live very simply. There are other changes I could make but that's a slippery slope. I am almost less concerned about what the job is than what I will make. Only that's not entirely true either...*sigh*

There are worse problems. One of them is right outside my door. Cold air and heavy rain tonight. I am lucky to have shelter. I am lucky to have the problem that I have. But it is what's keeping me awake tonight. I do not have a long term solution to my job situation. That and my legs. I never imagined I could be so sore. And the fact that our heating makes much more noise than I recall.*sigh again*

This bit is unrelated to this post at all, but I just want to laugh at myself publicly. I took 5 very, very small screws out of my watch today to get at the battery so I could take it with me when I buy the replacement. By the time I had freed the battery I had lost one screw. Somewhere in the course of my grading tonight --moving stacks of papers around, picking my coffee mug up, putting it down-- I have lost 3 more! Now I need a battery and screws. Perhaps it is just time for a new watch. Tempus fugit.

Who or what do you really love?

Humanity - A whole world is available to you in an instant, just by smiling at someone or striking up a conversation. Maybe this new person speaks your language. Maybe they don't. Maybe he is your age. Maybe she isn't. Maybe you have opinions in common. Maybe you don't. But the opportunity is there every second to change, grow, extend, reveal, laugh at, mourn, celebrate, reinvigorate your life just by activating that simple bond we all share, the varying condemnation of flesh.

The human form - In America out perceptions of it are more than a little ridiculous, but the human body is beautiful. The way the pieces fit together. The way the muscles pull the bones. The variety of colors of skin.  The sheen of sweat. The evidence of life on the body: scars, tattoos, tan lines, wrinkles, stretch marks, crooked noses, flattened knuckles. The uniqueness of each form: birthmarks, deformities, the lie of the member, the angle of the nose, the bald spot, the crooked finger, the space between the toes. Each human is a work of art. Often the process of different artists over time, all under the influence of different styles. The body should be nothing less than a celebration. With our senses we can get so much from each moment of life. It is such a sweet delight to savor.

Fantasy and Imagination (I guess I could say the human mind here but I like to leave it open to debate whether or not they are the same thing) - I am glad that I can sit in my living room with sub-zero temperatures outside and imagine a beach in Hawaii and feel a little better. I am grateful that I can make up a character and a conversation and hatch a story. I am glad that I am not limited to the belief that this is the only place, time, history, reality that ever was or ever will be. 

Happy Valentine's Day

I was crying, alone, in my room today
about something I refuse to let matter.
There are not enough hours in the day for that kind of insipid madness.

I could have at the unknowing wench.
Bury a smart six-inch steel between two ribs
while she smirked and chattered,
teeth clamming up and down on the
same words she said in her last breath.

No apology would be necessary then.
And the whole affair would come out neat
like when you actually fold up your clothes after you do your laundry.
There might be a rim
of red
around the blade
that might rise and fall
and quicken
--with the pain--
then slow,
then stutter,
then stop.
Haft still,
blood sticking.
The color change, like the Sandman, creeping upon her narrow, business-suited body
Blue like fucking February dusk, leaching heat like it too.
Eyes quiet, unworried.
Fear of child's perceived failure dimmed in light of current events.
Admission to an Ivy League school not so important now.
Priorities put into perspective?
As suddenly even breath eludes?
Life taken for granted silently steams --useless outside its little hoses--
Spent for things and titles.
As poor as the next man when it is spilled.

My new little nephew is in the hospital with RSV. As I can't do anything to help, I want to hide. Sleep is a favorite cloak. But I didn't work out today. I'm not tired like I am when I do. And I'm worried. Sleep might not be available. So a prayer will do I guess. Wishes on a cold north star.