The unconscious is a brilliant bitch wielding a baseball bat and flashpan temper, flaunting persistent short-term memory loss,

Mine is, at least.

I go through life experimenting, trying things and actions and personality habits on like clothing.  I look wonderful in pink, but somehow can’t see the world in pastel shades. Just doesn’t work for me.  I like sanity, enjoy intensity, worship at the altar of clear expression.  Would like my mind to be like a bladed threshing machine, a turbine hall filled with flickering thought, solid memory moving so fast an undeniable worldview is flung out, screaming and efficient and infinitely complex.  I want to know everything. I want to understand paradox.

I want to drive.

Instead I’m left with a mind best approximated by wringing out a sweatcloth after a long day’s hike - lukewarm, muddied by time and contact, unremarkable.

My heart breaks for the things I’ve forgotten.

><

February 2nd, 2010 | Tags: Philosophy | Category: Uncategorized | Leave a comment

Call it Leaves and Rain

I was walking through the middle of my life. Walking down
Divisadero Street wearing old desert combat fatigues,
listening to the antifreeze boil over. I was listening to the
antifreeze boil over in conversations on the street, that
dead end steaming hiss of radiators run a hundred
thousand miles and more. The radiators boiled over in
fatigue while I was walking a hundred thousand miles down
Divisadero Street in Fresno, and it was July, and the
asphalt was speaking its vapor, and I was wearing combat
boots and walking through the middle of my life.

I was listening to WAR. I was listening to WAR on Divisadero
Street and learning how to ride low through the rest of my life,
learning how to walk the blocks in tighter and tighter circles, the
way the lost do. In tighter and tighter circles I was lost to the
WAR on Divisadero Street. I was circling the WAR the way
vapor curls from the steaming hiss of dead radiators in Fresno. I
was circling the lost in Fresno, wearing my combat boots worn
down a hundred thousand miles and counting.

And I was counting. I counted each dying face passing by. I
counted the birds with their exhausted voices. I counted the
sentinel birds perched silent in the eucalyptus trees above. I
circled the eucalyptus birds and listened for their medicine, the
way the lost do in Fresno, wearing combat boots and speaking in
vapor. I was circling through the middle of my life, right there
under the medicine trees, listening to the silence of the sentinel
birds and waiting for them to boil over in steam. But that’s not
what medicine birds do.

Medicine birds break open in orange and red. Medicine birds
have eucalyptus leaves for feathers and bandage the air when
they fly. Medicine birds fly through the windows in the head,
impervious to glass. They are impervious to WAR and hiss and
steam and vapor and combat and the circling lost. Medicine
birds fly through the windows to land in our beds when we’re
dreaming our circling dream of Divisadero and Fresno with its
lost and circling WAR. Medicine birds have eucalyptus wings
and when they fly in our beds they transform themselves into
leaves and rain and lovers. The lovers in our beds are eucalyptus
birds flying medicine through the windows in our heads. The
lovers in our medicine beds fly eucalyptus through the circling
loss. The lovers in our beds bring medicine to our lips and call it
eucalyptus, call it love, call it leaves and rain for our exhausted
souls.

By Brian Turner

October 21st, 2009 | Tags: leaves, new york times, NYT, Poetry, rain | Category: Poetry, Uncategorized | Leave a comment

My mother is here to visit for the weekend, and it’s the strangest experience I’ve had in a long time.  As I get older, as I have more experiences, as I’ve had more time to mature - I start to have the feeling we’re reading each other’s minds, sometimes.  Start to have the feeling I can see our shared genes expressing themselves; the way we lean across a table to explain something important, the kinds of things we notice when we’re out walking, the stretches that are easy/hard/easy in a yoga class.

This isn’t easy. My mother and I go back and forth with whether we’re really, truly, honestly on speaking terms, although the answer is Yes more and more often these days.  Still. Always.

Today we’ve rented a zipcar, will drive highway 1 with the hood down and the music up. We’ll talk of nothing, at least for a little while, see the road unfold beneath us, watch the Pacific come in to dash itself against the coast, again and again and again. I remember being at sea, years ago, standing mesmerized at the side of the ship for hours at a stretch, wind rolling by, sea rolling by. Our tracks fading behind the ship, the only change in water.

September 26th, 2009 | Category: Uncategorized | Leave a comment

Found a hate comment on my professional blog when I woke up this morning, vituperative, personally demeaning, nothing at all about the idea.

And yeah, it stings a little - but even more, it’s confusing.

Why?

I mean, I get it: you don’t like my (admittedly boring) posts about large-scale institutions.  I’m in the midst of definitions, and I’m not talking about current events; I get it. You don’t like it. That’s cool.

But jumping from there to personal attacks - it’s just strange.

><

I was in Sao Paolo (Brazil, 15-20million people) in March, and a bunch of us from the hostel - almost all men - went out to a bar to listen to some music, get a few drinks. And one guy - some American (sadly) got very drunk, came up to me, and started going on and on about how I didn’t deserve the attention I was getting. How real life doesn’t look like this. Unnecessary, unkind, and - frankly, in my experience - untrue. (I went to a tech university and live/work in silicon valley; some 80% of my friends are male).

But it’s striking, because his words were almost identical to this morning’s hate comment.

And again - I get it; it’s no fun to be one of ten guys trying to hit on the same woman.

But here’s the part I don’t get: At what point does it become okay to say unkind, hateful things?

It’s not when you know someone well, or think you’ll see them again, or think they might influence you someday.  It’s  not even (really) anonymity; like I said, last time I experienced this, it was in real life.

So … I think it happens when the other person isn’t real to you - when they’re just playing some bit character in the stage play that is your life.  When you forget that - whether you know the girl or not, she’s still just some woman out for a good time.  When you forget that - whether you like the words or not, there’s a real, live blogger on the other side, someone you’d never be rude to at a party.

They say the human brain can only handle a social set of about 150 people.  After that, we’ve limited time and memory to spare.  With the internet (says Don Tapscot), that expands to 450 or even more.  But our broadcast systems reach millions. And those people have no idea who I am.

I’ve nothing (really) to say here - just venting.

Or maybe it really is anonymity; it’s just anonymity doesn’t mean unseen - means unknown.

Penny Arcade was right all along!

June 17th, 2009 | Tags: anonymity, hate mail, Internet, penny arcade, social size, unknown | Category: Blog Notes, Communication, Privacy | Comments (1)

The Maple

is a system of posture for wood.
A way of not falling down
for twigs that happens
to benefit birds. I don’t know.
I’m staring at a tree,
at yellow leaves
threshed by wind and want you
reading this to be staring
at the same tree. I could
cut it down and laminate it
or ask you to live with me
on the stairs with the window
keeping an eye on the maple
but I think your real life
would miss you. The story
here is that all morning
I’ve thought of the statement
that art is about loneliness
while watching golden leaves
become unhinged.
By ones or in bunches
they tumble and hang
for a moment like a dress
in the dryer.
At the laundromat
you’ve seen the arms
thrown out to catch the shirt
flying the other way.
Just as you’ve stood
at the bottom of a gray sky
in a pile of leaves
trying to lick them
back into place.

Bob Hicok

May 20th, 2009 | Tags: bob hicok, Hicok, maple, Poetry, tree | Category: Poetry | Leave a comment

Never, ever, ever again do I want to be so sick while on vacation.  It was the craziest thing; I thought I was having some weird, depressive episode - I couldn’t get out of bed, then when I got out of bed the mere thought of going downstairs - much less outside! - was enough to make me flip the TV on.  I ate far too much chocolate in the hopes it would make me feel happier, went and exercised, everything - but I didn’t feel sad, just … demotivated.

And then this morning, I woke up and I felt insanely energized.  I had breakfast! I’m writing my blogs again!

So …  I’m back, and badder than ever!!!

Thanks very much, to everyone who sent happy notes, and to those who sent “are you still alive!?!?!” notes as well

…

So even in the midst of the unknown sickness, I did manage to get outside a couple of times.  I’ve posted massive amounts of pictures on Facebook, so I shan’t bore you (too much) here.  A few things really stand out in my mind so far:

1) The scale of this city is fantasmagorical.  Really.  I’d always wondered why bigger cities had bigger plazas - shouldn’t they have smaller plazas connected to more plazas connected to more plazas, all growing organically with the city?

Well, the mystery of the giant plazas continues, but my second hypothesis is confirmed; Sao Paulo has massive plaza connected to massive plaza connected to EVEN MORE MASSIVE plazas, all jammed with people walking, people selling things, people playing American music on loud-yet-tinny speakers.  I got off the subway at Sao Benito yesterday (one stop farther up the blue line than the Praca de Se, with the Notre-Dame looking cathedral), and followed one plaza to another, got lost, found a tourist information center, got found, and FINALLY found the Mercado Municipal.  Which is housed in a building the size of the main Madrid train station, with tall, arching columns, stained glass, escalators, a second floor, and shop after shop after shop, all selling food and food-related-items.

I had an espresso, and wrote in my journal, and wandered about a bit, and then made my way home.

An interesting side note: I haven’t run into any other American tourists so far.  Usually, we’re hard to miss; tall, blond, slightly confused, smiling more than normal, flashing technology left and right (as a rule, if you have the money to come to Brazil, you have the money to have a fancy camera and the associated goodies)… but so far, no one.  Not even in my hotel.  Just a few Europeans.  The tourist bureau was almost empty.  Etc.  I wonder if that’s the general rule, or if it’s the economy.

In general, Sao Paulo doesn’t seem a particularily welcoming city, as far as tourists go.  I always do my best with Portuguese, but mine is rudimentary at best.  In much of the Spanish-speaking world, even in Buenos Aires, if they see you stumbling, they jump in with their English (invariably better than your Spanish).  Here, they just look at you, and wait for you to figure it out. In Portuguese.

Which, by the way, looks like a Romance language, and sounds like something from Vietnam.

… But i digress

In any case, I’ve made contact with a friend of mine here in Sao Paulo, and have made some other connections as well. Now that I’m feeling better, I’m looking forward to doing more than wandering like a ghost through crazily enormous plazas.

Which will always seem large, no matter how high my fever is

March 12th, 2009 | Category: Uncategorized | Leave a comment

… I had to share this.  The story’s interesting - but it’s the comments afterward that are truly priceless; really the national debate on a personal scale.  They don’t get good until 20 or so in…

http://mediamatters.org/discuss/200810280013

October 30th, 2008 | Category: Uncategorized | Comments (1)

Hi everyone.

I’m in the process of revamping the blog and a few other things; I’m putting the blog on hold for a couple months. I’ll be back after the New Year. 

Cheers

-L

October 27th, 2008 | Category: Uncategorized | Leave a comment

I don’t have children, I don’t have a mortgage, I don’t have major health concerns, and I’m not (yet) 55.   If you do (or are), I don’t have the slightest clue what you should do over the next few years.  Read the Motley Fool.  Ask your mother. Move to Mexico.

But if you’re a member of Generation We (under 28, all about the ‘greater good,’ and ‘really jazzed up about the environment and the energy crisis…’), then take out your copy of the HItchhiker’s Guide to the Galaxy, dust off the cover, and repeat after me*:

DON’T PANIC

For those of us who are (or were in the very recent past) passionate, broke, and still trying to decide what we want to be when we grow up  - a financial crisis shouldn’t be that scary, because, let’s face it: we’re still  flexible (i.e., uninvested) enough to deal.  We’d be wandering the world, half-destitute, even if Wall Street were on its way up instead of down.  We’d just be complaining about something else ….

So here’s what I think our reaction should be:

You’ve always wanted to go green?  Now’s the time.  Sell your car. Buy a bike. Take the bus.  Walk.  You’ll look better, you’ll feel better, and your wallet will thank you.  I walk a mile to work and back, every day, and I wouldn’t trade that walk for anything.

On that note, exercise more in general - no, really.  Go to the gym instead of the movies. Find a willing victim and practice your persuasion; it’ll give you something to do (instead of buying the shiniest new ipod), you’ll save money, and you’ll be happier.

Happiness also comes in cup sizes. And it’s more expensive than gasoline, even today’s gasoline.  So… Buy a coffeemaker. Buy a nice travel mug. Use them.  Make food to go with.
Incidentally, I’m looking for a coffee maker that does steamed milk and coffee, and nothing else — if you have any suggestions, I’m all ears . . .

And so as not to be in up to your ears, do add to your savings.  Pay off your credit cards. Don’t pick up any new credit if you can help it.  Set enough money aside to pay off your student loans for the next few months, in case you lose your job.  Standard advice.

On the flip side… If you have money to burn: Invest in the stock market.  …. No, really.  There are some real bargains out there at the moment.  You’ll almost certainly lose money now, in the short term - but if you pick strong companies, you’re almost guaranteed to make money in the long term.  As I read it.  Just don’t plan on getting any of it back in the next five years.

And finally, rethink your priorities.  Invest in your community; they’ll catch you if you fall, and they need you to be there for them, too.  Write your grandmother a letter.  Call your oldest friends.  Go home for Thanksgiving.  For real perspective, volunteer at a homeless shelter.

Oh, and if all else fails, you can always use couchsurfing.com …

–

October 10th, 2008 | Tags: Coffee, don't panic, galaxy, generation we, go green, hitchhiker, hitchhiker's guide to the galaxy, hitchhikers, invest, read, save, savings, stock market | Category: Money, Note To Self, advice | Comments (2)