My iPhone now has an and application that allows me to post whenever and wherever I want to. I am thinking that this will be a good thing. In addition it has a vocal recognition program. Therefore this is a test. I want to see if I can post easily using that vocal recognition program.
All but the first sentence of this post was done using the vocal recognition software. It took me less than two minutes to dictate and correct this post. Cool beans.
Tuesday, January 24, 2012
Wednesday, January 18, 2012
Mulligan
The following was generated as a response to a question about whether I should of remained single given the challenges I often depict with my children in this blog.
In responding to my post you ask if I would get married again, if I had a mulligan. The real answer is I don’t know. In my life I have made choices, some good but many poor. But they all add up to make me what I am today. Could I improve on who I am, yes I think so. Am I trying to improve on who I am, yes every single day. Would marriage make the difference between being something better and what I am, I doubt it.
The God’s honest truth is that I need a person in my life to balance my excesses out. Without a significant other I would be a raging alcoholic, perhaps a drug fiend. Without children I would have no compassion for those burdened by life. I am not saying my children are a burden, I am saying they make me think outside myself. The dispassionate perspective of another’s needs, of caring for their growth can really show itself in a parenting setting. It can occur in other relationships but for me parenting has been the catalyst.
If I had it to do all over again I would have exercised more intellectual rigor in each and every subject I undertook to study. Hell, I would have exercised more and taken better care of my body. If I had it to do all over again I would have been the archival tech as opposed to the liquor store assistant manager. If I had it to do all over again I would have slept around a great deal more just to have memories of their hearts and passion . If I had it to do all over again I would have lived by the maxim if it ain’t scary you aren’t going fast enough.
Ah if I had a mulligan that is where I would be, living with compassionate open hearted intensity driving fast to the next best future somewhere. Chances are I would be with someone on that journey a wife or a lover but they would be there because they too wanted that particular journey.
You know what where I am is okay, I am comfortable in my skin. It is frustrating, it is challenging, but I am who I am and we don't get mulligans. Be here, be now.
In responding to my post you ask if I would get married again, if I had a mulligan. The real answer is I don’t know. In my life I have made choices, some good but many poor. But they all add up to make me what I am today. Could I improve on who I am, yes I think so. Am I trying to improve on who I am, yes every single day. Would marriage make the difference between being something better and what I am, I doubt it.
The God’s honest truth is that I need a person in my life to balance my excesses out. Without a significant other I would be a raging alcoholic, perhaps a drug fiend. Without children I would have no compassion for those burdened by life. I am not saying my children are a burden, I am saying they make me think outside myself. The dispassionate perspective of another’s needs, of caring for their growth can really show itself in a parenting setting. It can occur in other relationships but for me parenting has been the catalyst.
If I had it to do all over again I would have exercised more intellectual rigor in each and every subject I undertook to study. Hell, I would have exercised more and taken better care of my body. If I had it to do all over again I would have been the archival tech as opposed to the liquor store assistant manager. If I had it to do all over again I would have slept around a great deal more just to have memories of their hearts and passion . If I had it to do all over again I would have lived by the maxim if it ain’t scary you aren’t going fast enough.
Ah if I had a mulligan that is where I would be, living with compassionate open hearted intensity driving fast to the next best future somewhere. Chances are I would be with someone on that journey a wife or a lover but they would be there because they too wanted that particular journey.
You know what where I am is okay, I am comfortable in my skin. It is frustrating, it is challenging, but I am who I am and we don't get mulligans. Be here, be now.
Tuesday, January 17, 2012
Norman Vincent Peale Made it Look Easy
Motivation isn't easy, ever, not when you are trying to be Dale Carnegie to two diametrically different audiences. Motivation is illusive for teen. Motivation plumb eludes an ASD teen. Enthusiasm escapes into the ether for an ADD teen. Their future is thus what?
In trying to suss out this disparate duos hopes and dreams and to maybe get a idea that would spark some impetus toward studying, I played a Dad generated twenty question game. Where do you want to live? What kind of job do you want? Do you have a particular car you favor? What would it take for you to live comfortably?
Primus wants to live in an urban environment but and this is the key without many people. Secundus wants to live a life out on the stage. One never looks inward. One never looks outward. One never sees trauma or turmoil or worries about it. The other is frozen by what ifs and what should be and what should have been.
I posed the question to Primus do you want to ever get married? The answer was unequivocal. No. Why not I inquired? What do you have against marriage? His reply was that it is too boring! You think Mom and I are boring? Oh yeaaaah. Low hanging fruit, I should never have left that one out there.
So I ask the other one do you want to get married. The answer was a little different. “Like I would ever tell you.”
To the ASD child that is Primus I suggested his choice of locale leaves you certain areas of Detroit or the warehouse districts in most cities in which to reside. You will be living among the muggers and ne'er do wells. Shrug.
I continued, “You understand Mom and I will not be letting you live here after you graduate from high school right? We'd like to get back to some of the things in our lives we lost when we had you like camping.” The ASD child asks, “Is that what they call it when they let you visit each other in your separate rooms at the home.” “Will they let you put up tents inside Shady Glen?” he inquires.
“You are changing the topic,” I say. I ruminated you don't get to go anywhere if you don't have the grades. You get to be a bagger at a hyper mart. You get to ask Regular or Menthol and let me see your ID as you press down on the button and say "Pump one, your card didn't clear you have to prepay."
Arggh.
If you haven’t guessed it Martin Luther King Day was motivation for finals day for Primus and Secundus. It was the onset of major depression for Dad.
In trying to suss out this disparate duos hopes and dreams and to maybe get a idea that would spark some impetus toward studying, I played a Dad generated twenty question game. Where do you want to live? What kind of job do you want? Do you have a particular car you favor? What would it take for you to live comfortably?
Primus wants to live in an urban environment but and this is the key without many people. Secundus wants to live a life out on the stage. One never looks inward. One never looks outward. One never sees trauma or turmoil or worries about it. The other is frozen by what ifs and what should be and what should have been.
I posed the question to Primus do you want to ever get married? The answer was unequivocal. No. Why not I inquired? What do you have against marriage? His reply was that it is too boring! You think Mom and I are boring? Oh yeaaaah. Low hanging fruit, I should never have left that one out there.
So I ask the other one do you want to get married. The answer was a little different. “Like I would ever tell you.”
To the ASD child that is Primus I suggested his choice of locale leaves you certain areas of Detroit or the warehouse districts in most cities in which to reside. You will be living among the muggers and ne'er do wells. Shrug.
I continued, “You understand Mom and I will not be letting you live here after you graduate from high school right? We'd like to get back to some of the things in our lives we lost when we had you like camping.” The ASD child asks, “Is that what they call it when they let you visit each other in your separate rooms at the home.” “Will they let you put up tents inside Shady Glen?” he inquires.
“You are changing the topic,” I say. I ruminated you don't get to go anywhere if you don't have the grades. You get to be a bagger at a hyper mart. You get to ask Regular or Menthol and let me see your ID as you press down on the button and say "Pump one, your card didn't clear you have to prepay."
Arggh.
If you haven’t guessed it Martin Luther King Day was motivation for finals day for Primus and Secundus. It was the onset of major depression for Dad.
Monday, January 16, 2012
Sunday Morning Just Past
Sunday morning came. White snow lies sleeping outside. Cold air has finally come. Years and years of living with this season of cold and it is still hard to find a way to approach it. Snow seems to have overtaken the world as I look out at it through my bay window. Better brew some coffee.
Sunday morning on this occasion is a midpoint in the weekend. Yes, a long weekend is upon me and all the usual frenzy of Sundays can be stretched out over the daylight hours and even into Monday morning. Maybe this will be a day for sledding on the hill, or shooting pucks at a brick wall in addition to the normal mundane tasks.
Pour the water, grind the beans (today I through in some flakes off a cinnamon stick), hit the orange button and the gurgling sounds begin. Standing barefoot in my kitchen I feel the cold creep under the door to the breezeway. Someone must have taken recycling out to the garage yesterday and the draft doggie is not in place. With my toes I push the long pliable fuzzy fabric cylinder decorated with pine trees and moose back into place. The cold current slows. I turn to another task but soon the coffee is smelling strong and is enticing me to pour a cup. Cream yes, sugar no.
My hope is that someone else will cook breakfast. There is movement around in the house. Taking all the socks I folded last night upstairs I see my wife is checking Facebook. Primus is rumbling about in his room looking for clothes. I put the socks in a drawer.
I pause and look out the window. The sun is bright but the air is cold. I can tell these facts to be true because there is no water dripping off roofs, angles of shingles that are already heating from the sun. I can tell this because there is absolutely no activity at all to be discerned on the street. If it were even a little warmer somebody would be out and emptying a waste bin into the garbage can at the edge of the garage. Somebody else would be walking the far too large dog for this neighborhood. The dog walker would be dressed in some ungodly shade of spandex.
My wife must have taken up the cooking I smell bacon, our once only weekly treat. I smell something else too. It might be pancakes or waffles but there is definitely a third note to the mix of coffee and squealer delight. I had best go get the rest of the folded t-shirts into peoples' drawers now and head downstairs now.
Wednesday, January 11, 2012
What Yesterday Cost My Soul
Each day I listen carefully and try to really hear people as they talk about change in their lives. I really want to know what they have experienced and what is left inside of them afterwards. Often a single being sitting inform of me will recount a specific incident that led them to whatever purported redemption they have found.
Many individuals will detail very precision a specific act like their traumatic failure in providing for the needs of a spouse or a child as the catalyst for their transformation. Sometimes the tale I hear is one oft told on the big screen. You’ll know it I am sure. While lying in a county’s holding cell they sober up to the reality that prison time probably awaits them. Surrounded by concrete and steel the individual inventories what they have done, what they have done wrong and then they balance it against their hopes and aspirations. I do believe some of these tales and there are other tales that I do not find valid.
Sometimes the tale is nothing more than just “Meh, I dunno it just seemed like I should change.” Obviously the last response carries little weight with me. To me meh doesn’t carry a great deal of weight for me as a change catalyst.
No matter what is said, what particular story is told there is an emotional cost I experience listening to each and ever story. It is like I have to give up a thousandth of a per cent of my soul each time I weigh the claims of redemption against the record of failures. Over time that erosion of my moral being adds up. Without a doubt I pay a price and my family pays a price for the bit of heart inside of me that disappears or grows hard and cynical.
Last night in my role as a school official I had to sit in judgment of a case involving sexual impropriety amongst high school students. I had to read police reports, affidavits, and narrative statements. Then I in conjunction with my fellow officials had to listen to testimony. For 3 ½ hours my colleagues and I debated about what the actual nature of the offense was and what sanction if any should be involved.
Our debate was heated and tinged with issues of race, the role of authority, questions as to what constitutes acquiescence or consent, the reliability of the depictions, the internal consistency of statements made at the time of the incident versus statements made at the hearing.
Ultimately I cannot hint as to what the outcome was or why. I cannot divulge to you or my wife or my closest confidants anything that would unburden me except to talk about the experience in the most general of terms as I am doing now. My obligation is one of confidentiality and that obligation is as sacrosanct as the confidentiality mandate imposed on my in my status as a lawyer.
What I can tell you is that I believe as I have believed since I was at university that sexual crime against women or sexual crime against any non consenting person is one of the most heinous behaviors a person can engage in. I can tell you also that while we can argue about the meaning of gestures and the ambiguity of words in the context of a sexual encounter in the end the fact that any ambiguity remains speaks volumes about the lack of respect we as a society have for the integrity of a person. In the end the decision I made last night was right, and just. However may soul has lost forever a bit more of it essence than a normal day costs me.
Many individuals will detail very precision a specific act like their traumatic failure in providing for the needs of a spouse or a child as the catalyst for their transformation. Sometimes the tale I hear is one oft told on the big screen. You’ll know it I am sure. While lying in a county’s holding cell they sober up to the reality that prison time probably awaits them. Surrounded by concrete and steel the individual inventories what they have done, what they have done wrong and then they balance it against their hopes and aspirations. I do believe some of these tales and there are other tales that I do not find valid.
Sometimes the tale is nothing more than just “Meh, I dunno it just seemed like I should change.” Obviously the last response carries little weight with me. To me meh doesn’t carry a great deal of weight for me as a change catalyst.
No matter what is said, what particular story is told there is an emotional cost I experience listening to each and ever story. It is like I have to give up a thousandth of a per cent of my soul each time I weigh the claims of redemption against the record of failures. Over time that erosion of my moral being adds up. Without a doubt I pay a price and my family pays a price for the bit of heart inside of me that disappears or grows hard and cynical.
Last night in my role as a school official I had to sit in judgment of a case involving sexual impropriety amongst high school students. I had to read police reports, affidavits, and narrative statements. Then I in conjunction with my fellow officials had to listen to testimony. For 3 ½ hours my colleagues and I debated about what the actual nature of the offense was and what sanction if any should be involved.
Our debate was heated and tinged with issues of race, the role of authority, questions as to what constitutes acquiescence or consent, the reliability of the depictions, the internal consistency of statements made at the time of the incident versus statements made at the hearing.
Ultimately I cannot hint as to what the outcome was or why. I cannot divulge to you or my wife or my closest confidants anything that would unburden me except to talk about the experience in the most general of terms as I am doing now. My obligation is one of confidentiality and that obligation is as sacrosanct as the confidentiality mandate imposed on my in my status as a lawyer.
What I can tell you is that I believe as I have believed since I was at university that sexual crime against women or sexual crime against any non consenting person is one of the most heinous behaviors a person can engage in. I can tell you also that while we can argue about the meaning of gestures and the ambiguity of words in the context of a sexual encounter in the end the fact that any ambiguity remains speaks volumes about the lack of respect we as a society have for the integrity of a person. In the end the decision I made last night was right, and just. However may soul has lost forever a bit more of it essence than a normal day costs me.
Tuesday, January 10, 2012
Out of the Mud
The fact that life is change has been noted by so many writers, poets and singers over the years that the concept of transformation and alteration has become wallpaper to our reality. Such a state of affairs is very, very dangerous. The reality of change becoming merely background noise in a popular series of couplets deludes us into thinking there will be another time, another opportunity to say hello or goodbye, to act to ameliorate a hurt or to give a helping hand. But today or maybe even this moment might in actuality be the only chance or the last chance or even the last best chance for the action contemplated.
As I sat in my governmental meeting last night amongst those with agendas so divergent as to make our discourse seem like a John Cage piece, I thought of acts I left undone or things I have left unsaid over the years. I cannot make any difference on the vast majority of things I cataloged as I watched the political theatre play out before me. However I can again make a promise to myself this day to do the thing that needs to be done in a timely way. If only one thing is improved so long as nothing is made worse I will have made the world a better place.
Kurt Vonnegut said and I am paraphrasing here is the thing that makes us different is that we made a choice to get up out of the mud and to do something. Makes sense to me. My hope is that the something we do will be moral and good.
As I sat in my governmental meeting last night amongst those with agendas so divergent as to make our discourse seem like a John Cage piece, I thought of acts I left undone or things I have left unsaid over the years. I cannot make any difference on the vast majority of things I cataloged as I watched the political theatre play out before me. However I can again make a promise to myself this day to do the thing that needs to be done in a timely way. If only one thing is improved so long as nothing is made worse I will have made the world a better place.
Kurt Vonnegut said and I am paraphrasing here is the thing that makes us different is that we made a choice to get up out of the mud and to do something. Makes sense to me. My hope is that the something we do will be moral and good.
Monday, January 9, 2012
Tired..
Right now I have arrived back from Alpena, Michigan. It is a small city with no easy was to get there located in the northeastern portion of Michigan’s Lower Peninsula. My eldest son, Primus had a hockey tournament and we went.
My major feeling from the tournament was exhaustion. Four games in less than 36 hours took a toll on players and parents. The team did not prevail but they did become what appears to be a team. Probably the moment I realized this was happening was when they had taken the pool balls and cues and began playing mini golf using pool equipment. It was sight to see six foot tall man children lying upon their bellies lining up shots into an indoor putt-putt hole with a cue stick.
When I find the adapter necessary to put a photo with this entry I will. Right now I have a ton of work and so this entry must be short. I will offer this, our lives are shot and everyone has a story. Listen to those stories, it will tell you a great deal of what the person next to you is made of.
My major feeling from the tournament was exhaustion. Four games in less than 36 hours took a toll on players and parents. The team did not prevail but they did become what appears to be a team. Probably the moment I realized this was happening was when they had taken the pool balls and cues and began playing mini golf using pool equipment. It was sight to see six foot tall man children lying upon their bellies lining up shots into an indoor putt-putt hole with a cue stick.
When I find the adapter necessary to put a photo with this entry I will. Right now I have a ton of work and so this entry must be short. I will offer this, our lives are shot and everyone has a story. Listen to those stories, it will tell you a great deal of what the person next to you is made of.
Friday, January 6, 2012
Weight Watchers, Dharma and the Avoidance of Suffering
Breaking the chains that bind us to suffering
One way to handle the impulses that bind us to suffering is through cognitive intervention. If we’re behind the wheel and another driver cuts us off, leans on his horn, or otherwise drives provocatively, we can construct a narrative to explain his aggressiveness: “He’s late for something, and probably not for the first time. He’s desperate to get there, and you know yourself what that’s like!” The same line of creative speculation works in the face of any form of hostility: “She may have just lost her job,” or “He just had a fight with his wife.” These kinds of stories, even if fanciful, offer us some breathing room, interrupting the reaction chain that binds us to suffering.
- Bodhin Kjolhede, "Pain, Passion, and the Precepts"
Lately I have been dabbling with an American distillation of Buddhism. Input on this comes to me through places like Tricycle Magazine and various English language translations of Buddhist texts. As of yet I am not a Buddhist however I find things in Buddhism that are congruent with my innermost belief system. How is that for a confusedly enigmatic viewpoint?
On a daily basis I get a blurb from Tricycle called The Daily Dharma. A simplified Anglophone definition of dharma would be “the truth about the way things are and will always be in the universe or in nature.” For years I have read Thomas Merton most mornings. Occasionally I will go out to a site run by hard line old school Catholic monks on an island off the Irish coast. Most days of late I have liked The Daily Dharma most of all.
For years I have battled with the American disease of borderline obesity. I am inert, inactive and snack constantly. My metabolism slowed down long ago.
At one time I went to Weight Watchers for a year it was effective. I shed fifty pounds or so. It wasn’t hard going to Weight Watchers for me. I was about the only guy there and well I have never liked really skinny women. (Chuckling would be appropriate not ewwwwhs.) Anyway Weight Watcher eventually stopped working for me. I think what happened is that WW does not do a good job of reinforcing maintenance of a health weight. When you lose weight you get lots of applause. Once you hit your goal weight you tend to slack off going because it just isn’t the same to have the person at the scale say no weight loss as opposed to congrats you are 2 ½ pounds down. There are no hurrahs for stability. I have found a great number of areas of life where there are no hurrahs for stability.
In one version of Weight Watchers (and the programs are always evolving) they were big on 8 Techniques to Address Food Challenges. The two I remember were storyboarding and reframing.
Storyboarding was thinking about food challenges you would be facing in the next day or so and working out mental flow charts of what you would do to avoid the challenges. An example would be if it was a holiday gathering and cousin Bob gave you a plate of meatballs (because he always gives you unhealthy food) while someone else handed you a beer what you would do. One storyboad strategy would be to add healthy things to the plate and just nibble on them. Another would be to put the plate in the kitchen and walk into the living room declining food offers because you already had a plate waiting back in the kitchen (which was out of sight and thus not tempting you). The beer would be set by the plate and you would get some ice water “because I am really thirsty”.
Sometimes reframing worked better. In such a case you would have to work up a story about the meaning of the interaction, diet sabotage or misdirected love on the part of cousin Bob. Using reframing you could construct an inner rationale to abandon the plate. Reframing would leave you with a rationale that would not leave you with cognitive dissonance. Ah cousin Bob loves me but if I give in to this misguided attempt at showing love (in American food is always love) I won’t be around much longer to share the warm familial affection with Bob and others. Be polite but do the right thing. Hey it isn’t the best example but you get my drift.
Looking at the dharma today it seems to me that the piece is urging a regular use of reframing of situations where we could allow negative emotions and impulses overcome us. I liked the thought that a story even if fanciful might be enough to avoid negative emotions that would bind us to suffering, especially in situations where there is no need to know the whole back-story of events. The clearly negative grunt of another coworker in response to your morning greeting can be cast in an understanding light based on assumptions that their ride in today was unduly rough. You don’t really need to know what the cause is; you just have to be able to avoid being sucked in to the negative emotion they have shared that if you internalize will lead you to suffering.
Yeah reframing moments consciously knowing that reframing is what you are doing, can give personal spiritual growth some breathing room. It can allow your spirit access to a space where it will not be overwhelmed by unneeded and unnecessary suffering.
One way to handle the impulses that bind us to suffering is through cognitive intervention. If we’re behind the wheel and another driver cuts us off, leans on his horn, or otherwise drives provocatively, we can construct a narrative to explain his aggressiveness: “He’s late for something, and probably not for the first time. He’s desperate to get there, and you know yourself what that’s like!” The same line of creative speculation works in the face of any form of hostility: “She may have just lost her job,” or “He just had a fight with his wife.” These kinds of stories, even if fanciful, offer us some breathing room, interrupting the reaction chain that binds us to suffering.
- Bodhin Kjolhede, "Pain, Passion, and the Precepts"
Lately I have been dabbling with an American distillation of Buddhism. Input on this comes to me through places like Tricycle Magazine and various English language translations of Buddhist texts. As of yet I am not a Buddhist however I find things in Buddhism that are congruent with my innermost belief system. How is that for a confusedly enigmatic viewpoint?
On a daily basis I get a blurb from Tricycle called The Daily Dharma. A simplified Anglophone definition of dharma would be “the truth about the way things are and will always be in the universe or in nature.” For years I have read Thomas Merton most mornings. Occasionally I will go out to a site run by hard line old school Catholic monks on an island off the Irish coast. Most days of late I have liked The Daily Dharma most of all.
For years I have battled with the American disease of borderline obesity. I am inert, inactive and snack constantly. My metabolism slowed down long ago.
At one time I went to Weight Watchers for a year it was effective. I shed fifty pounds or so. It wasn’t hard going to Weight Watchers for me. I was about the only guy there and well I have never liked really skinny women. (Chuckling would be appropriate not ewwwwhs.) Anyway Weight Watcher eventually stopped working for me. I think what happened is that WW does not do a good job of reinforcing maintenance of a health weight. When you lose weight you get lots of applause. Once you hit your goal weight you tend to slack off going because it just isn’t the same to have the person at the scale say no weight loss as opposed to congrats you are 2 ½ pounds down. There are no hurrahs for stability. I have found a great number of areas of life where there are no hurrahs for stability.
In one version of Weight Watchers (and the programs are always evolving) they were big on 8 Techniques to Address Food Challenges. The two I remember were storyboarding and reframing.
Storyboarding was thinking about food challenges you would be facing in the next day or so and working out mental flow charts of what you would do to avoid the challenges. An example would be if it was a holiday gathering and cousin Bob gave you a plate of meatballs (because he always gives you unhealthy food) while someone else handed you a beer what you would do. One storyboad strategy would be to add healthy things to the plate and just nibble on them. Another would be to put the plate in the kitchen and walk into the living room declining food offers because you already had a plate waiting back in the kitchen (which was out of sight and thus not tempting you). The beer would be set by the plate and you would get some ice water “because I am really thirsty”.
Sometimes reframing worked better. In such a case you would have to work up a story about the meaning of the interaction, diet sabotage or misdirected love on the part of cousin Bob. Using reframing you could construct an inner rationale to abandon the plate. Reframing would leave you with a rationale that would not leave you with cognitive dissonance. Ah cousin Bob loves me but if I give in to this misguided attempt at showing love (in American food is always love) I won’t be around much longer to share the warm familial affection with Bob and others. Be polite but do the right thing. Hey it isn’t the best example but you get my drift.
Looking at the dharma today it seems to me that the piece is urging a regular use of reframing of situations where we could allow negative emotions and impulses overcome us. I liked the thought that a story even if fanciful might be enough to avoid negative emotions that would bind us to suffering, especially in situations where there is no need to know the whole back-story of events. The clearly negative grunt of another coworker in response to your morning greeting can be cast in an understanding light based on assumptions that their ride in today was unduly rough. You don’t really need to know what the cause is; you just have to be able to avoid being sucked in to the negative emotion they have shared that if you internalize will lead you to suffering.
Yeah reframing moments consciously knowing that reframing is what you are doing, can give personal spiritual growth some breathing room. It can allow your spirit access to a space where it will not be overwhelmed by unneeded and unnecessary suffering.
Thursday, January 5, 2012
Feeling Better Now
A winter most welcome is viewed from this silent sunlit room. So far this season the snows have held back. One day we had six inches of snow fall suddenly and then it was gone. Today the temperature is set to reach 45 F (7 C) in early January. Within the past eleven years we have had 30+ inches (76 cm) on the ground that would remain close to the whole winter through. At my age I do a mental calculation. It runs like this. In some years it has snowed as early as late November and at the latest I remember measureable snow on May 4. I have thus cut my exposure to snow imperiousness by 2/7ths. Yeah.
Last night almost made up for yesterday morning. Secundus came home with a list of homework and did seem to work on it. I will send off a note to several teachers to find out if the work made its way in. He ripped into Empire Falls with a passion. He pointed out literary and historical allusions that I had missed. The allusions were real. His attitude in general seemed improved. Primus worked on his homework too. He was able to identify the work clearly and articulately. Yeah.
I did not get to read much last night. I have a Buddhist work buried in my brief case. Maybe tonight. This morning I forced myself to revisit Merton. Dipping into his thoughts was as always quite refreshing. The monk in talking about the mundane of winter’s cold communicated an emphasis on his joy at just warming by a fire. It wasn’t a cracking wood stove he spoke of but rather the blue flame of an old freestanding propane heater that used to be some common in southern cabins. Sometimes just coming in on a cold sunlit winter day can bring an awareness of the wonder and joy of life.
Last night almost made up for yesterday morning. Secundus came home with a list of homework and did seem to work on it. I will send off a note to several teachers to find out if the work made its way in. He ripped into Empire Falls with a passion. He pointed out literary and historical allusions that I had missed. The allusions were real. His attitude in general seemed improved. Primus worked on his homework too. He was able to identify the work clearly and articulately. Yeah.
I did not get to read much last night. I have a Buddhist work buried in my brief case. Maybe tonight. This morning I forced myself to revisit Merton. Dipping into his thoughts was as always quite refreshing. The monk in talking about the mundane of winter’s cold communicated an emphasis on his joy at just warming by a fire. It wasn’t a cracking wood stove he spoke of but rather the blue flame of an old freestanding propane heater that used to be some common in southern cabins. Sometimes just coming in on a cold sunlit winter day can bring an awareness of the wonder and joy of life.
Wednesday, January 4, 2012
Ah the Morning has Not Lived Up to My Expectations
I blew it this morning. My tinnitus was bothering me and I awoke at 5:30 a.m. about half an hour early. I lay in bed trying to decide whether to get up or not. In the end I just lay there and waited for the radio to come on. Sometimes the only news I get is from the first 3-4 minutes of National Public Radio’s morning edition. No real news today, just more of the same.
When I got home last night I spent the entire evening cleaning. Pine needles in the arch of your foot suck. All the Christmas decorations went to the basement, the floor was swept and the furniture was put back into place. The kitchen was organized. We have shifted to a closer to vegetarian than not diet and I was looking for something, I am not sure what but I could not find it. An hour and half later and the cabinets were organized. After all this and after the first full day back at work I was tired.
Foolish me, later on last night I had made Secundus recount his grades to me. Abysmal would be putting it mildly. A child with immense talent, a child who used to have spark has changed. His sole purpose now it seems is escaping into his computer. He was sent off to read a novel.
Next Secundus came down to assert I was tormenting him because the main character in the novel had no backbone and was filled with vacillation and ambivalence, Secundus’s words. He then accused me of making him read the book to torment him with a character that was his double. I told him I asked him to read simple to show he still possessed that skill and that all of his mental function hadn’t been shifted to allowing his fingers to tap, tap, tap on the arrow keys of his computer not to confront him with a possible future like one of Dickens’s Christmas ghosts. Oh the book is Richard Russo’s Empire Falls.
When he came down for breakfast he didn’t want what was being served so I made him his druthers, toast, jam and egg over easy. But then it became a confrontation over the minor things and that grew into a confrontation over bigger issues.
My cool was lost very quickly. The lunch bag ripped not his fault, nor mine either. Also there is a plumbing problem and due to my external hard drive having died I don’t have my good plumber’s number. Finally both of my kids who had all of Christmas to do some remedial work on their plummeting grades did nothing. This of course resulted in a communication from school yesterday about where some assignments were.
Weekly counseling, constant questions about assignments, nothing seems to bring about a change. Yes I want to be accepting. Yes I want to be compassionate. But dammit there is such a thing as personal responsibility.
Sorry to vent but I am only human. I am one with the universe. I am one with the universe. I guess this means I am the proud parent of teenage boys.
When I got home last night I spent the entire evening cleaning. Pine needles in the arch of your foot suck. All the Christmas decorations went to the basement, the floor was swept and the furniture was put back into place. The kitchen was organized. We have shifted to a closer to vegetarian than not diet and I was looking for something, I am not sure what but I could not find it. An hour and half later and the cabinets were organized. After all this and after the first full day back at work I was tired.
Foolish me, later on last night I had made Secundus recount his grades to me. Abysmal would be putting it mildly. A child with immense talent, a child who used to have spark has changed. His sole purpose now it seems is escaping into his computer. He was sent off to read a novel.
Next Secundus came down to assert I was tormenting him because the main character in the novel had no backbone and was filled with vacillation and ambivalence, Secundus’s words. He then accused me of making him read the book to torment him with a character that was his double. I told him I asked him to read simple to show he still possessed that skill and that all of his mental function hadn’t been shifted to allowing his fingers to tap, tap, tap on the arrow keys of his computer not to confront him with a possible future like one of Dickens’s Christmas ghosts. Oh the book is Richard Russo’s Empire Falls.
When he came down for breakfast he didn’t want what was being served so I made him his druthers, toast, jam and egg over easy. But then it became a confrontation over the minor things and that grew into a confrontation over bigger issues.
My cool was lost very quickly. The lunch bag ripped not his fault, nor mine either. Also there is a plumbing problem and due to my external hard drive having died I don’t have my good plumber’s number. Finally both of my kids who had all of Christmas to do some remedial work on their plummeting grades did nothing. This of course resulted in a communication from school yesterday about where some assignments were.
Weekly counseling, constant questions about assignments, nothing seems to bring about a change. Yes I want to be accepting. Yes I want to be compassionate. But dammit there is such a thing as personal responsibility.
Sorry to vent but I am only human. I am one with the universe. I am one with the universe. I guess this means I am the proud parent of teenage boys.
Tuesday, January 3, 2012
There Tearing Old Grove Street Down
Sometimes just hearing a song can open up an empty space in your heart. There is not a song on Steely Dan’s Katy Lied that doesn’t bring a little bit of a tear to my eye. Once there was talent and a raw life force that carried us all along onward and upward. I lost track and with the exception of one conversation in a parking lot rushing to or from some meaningless urgency I never saw him again. And then he was gone. This is a memory in song to somebody who changed the course of two lives and probably many more.
Get Slow Today for a Reason
Last night I finished devouring a Sookie Stackhouse mystery. It was called Dead…in Dallas. These books are popcorn reading. Starting at page 1 it took me about four hours to read the entire book.. Sookie Stackhouse stories are soft core porn and almost Harlequin in their very nature. True Blood on HBO is based on these tales. Still a tale of vampires versus shape shifters and the pluck of a frequently naked blond bombshell can be fun. The metaphor focused on today’s political climate using fundamentalists versus the vampires made me chuckle. There is nothing like a nude heroine humping a vampire talking about the politics of the undead to give rise to a good laugh.
Yes I could have been writing a story to post on the blog based on memory, or based on my interactions with my children, but this licentious escape was nice. Sometimes your mind just has to get to a state of emptiness. Giggly emptiness.
Time wise it was January 2nd and a college bowl football game was one; my team versus some other team. But I couldn’t watch it. If I had the Green and White would have lost. It is a superstition I hold most sacred. It can be stated very succinctly. If I care about a team in a sporting event they will lose. This is more that doubly true if I watch the game. With triple overtime involved for a final outcome my eyes on a single play would have doomed them. Better I be immersed in vampire going ons than watch.
Well this brief time before I have to work has elapsed and now to face the proverbial music. I am listening as I am always listening to Gregorian chants as I work. It drowns out the tinnitus. Ah if only I had seen that Iggy Pop, Clash and Who concert. I think that was the one that did it to me.
In the morning I check my non-work e-mail before the clock starts at 8 a.m. This was in my inbox. I liked it so I will share.
The Value of Slowing Down
We can afford to drop our defensiveness and listen to our colleagues; we can afford to be imaginative and open. If we slow down and drop our resistance to work’s unpleasantness, we discover that we are resourceful enough to be daring, free from fear and arrogance. Such confidence enables us to know instinctively which situations need to be confronted, which should be nourished, and which can be disregarded. Mahakala (a Tibetan deity-please use your own source of divinity or spiritual strength here--JTT) reminds us to sharpen up during times of conflict, to be mindful and pay attention. With such alertness we can in fact preserve the sanity of our workplace even during extreme discord.
- Michael Carroll, "Mahakala at Work"
Yes I could have been writing a story to post on the blog based on memory, or based on my interactions with my children, but this licentious escape was nice. Sometimes your mind just has to get to a state of emptiness. Giggly emptiness.
Time wise it was January 2nd and a college bowl football game was one; my team versus some other team. But I couldn’t watch it. If I had the Green and White would have lost. It is a superstition I hold most sacred. It can be stated very succinctly. If I care about a team in a sporting event they will lose. This is more that doubly true if I watch the game. With triple overtime involved for a final outcome my eyes on a single play would have doomed them. Better I be immersed in vampire going ons than watch.
Well this brief time before I have to work has elapsed and now to face the proverbial music. I am listening as I am always listening to Gregorian chants as I work. It drowns out the tinnitus. Ah if only I had seen that Iggy Pop, Clash and Who concert. I think that was the one that did it to me.
In the morning I check my non-work e-mail before the clock starts at 8 a.m. This was in my inbox. I liked it so I will share.
The Value of Slowing Down
We can afford to drop our defensiveness and listen to our colleagues; we can afford to be imaginative and open. If we slow down and drop our resistance to work’s unpleasantness, we discover that we are resourceful enough to be daring, free from fear and arrogance. Such confidence enables us to know instinctively which situations need to be confronted, which should be nourished, and which can be disregarded. Mahakala (a Tibetan deity-please use your own source of divinity or spiritual strength here--JTT) reminds us to sharpen up during times of conflict, to be mindful and pay attention. With such alertness we can in fact preserve the sanity of our workplace even during extreme discord.
- Michael Carroll, "Mahakala at Work"
Monday, January 2, 2012
Happy New Year Y'all
No resolutions here, just a goal. My plan is to post on a regular basis, not less than weekly, to A Space True and North. To do this I will have to maintain a focus that has eluded me over the past several months. However I think it is possible to do such a thing. Sit down, put fingers on keys and write. Grab the time early in the day or late an night.
In recent days I have engaged with people from my old home town on Facebook(FB). It has been kind of odd for me to do this. When I left my home I was in full fledged flight. I didn’t want to be there. I didn’t want any thread of my being to be tied to the place. I wanted pure and simple to be gone.
The departure from one’s home is not pure and simple; it is anything but. Every bit of your being is infused with the zeitgeist of the time and the emotions, the rituals, the fears and the hopes of the place you are departing. In my youth I spent 18 years in one house with a stable two parent family. No matter how I have tried to deny it I am made up of their genetic predispositions. Molded by their hopes and their fears based on their life experiences I still opted to go into the world.
When I was younger I really believed in behaviorism. B.F. Skinner was an idol. Everything about a person was environmental. Now that I am a parent I am pretty sure I was as close to totally wrong as I could be on this point. Watching my children from their earliest days they have had familial behavioral traits that I have and that my father and mother before me had. My wife sees behaviors that mimic her family. These behaviors came too early to have been from the environment of living with us. The behaviors came so strongly that they had to be hard wired.
Somewhere I heard that phrase, “No matter where you go, there you are.” I think in reality it is something like no matter where you go there go the genetic patterns you are predisposed to live out. I have digressed.
In approaching my old hometown mates I decided to share one of the seminal experiences in my life. I had posted it on this site a long time ago but that raw form wasn’t right for the hometown audience. In my redraft for the hometown crowd I took out some names, dealt with some nuances that might be hurtful and just generally cleaned up the writing. I took out a bunch of epithets and toned down the drug use. But given the era of the piece the drug use could not go away in any significant manner. When only one word would do I left it in. Sometimes you just have to say fuck or shit. They just work.
I decided providing a link to this site was a bit risky. I mean the Buddhist ramblings, the depraved talk over the years and you lot who make comments, well it just didn’t seem a good match. I am at 300+ posts and some of them are quite tawdry. I actually had to create a new blog just for the hometown FB crowd. But it was fun. However A Space True and North is still my first love when it comes to writing. I promise (to Chris especially) I will try and say something meaningful as this New Year progresses. My love to all of you who read me on this 2nd day of January 2012 in this my 317th post.
In recent days I have engaged with people from my old home town on Facebook(FB). It has been kind of odd for me to do this. When I left my home I was in full fledged flight. I didn’t want to be there. I didn’t want any thread of my being to be tied to the place. I wanted pure and simple to be gone.
The departure from one’s home is not pure and simple; it is anything but. Every bit of your being is infused with the zeitgeist of the time and the emotions, the rituals, the fears and the hopes of the place you are departing. In my youth I spent 18 years in one house with a stable two parent family. No matter how I have tried to deny it I am made up of their genetic predispositions. Molded by their hopes and their fears based on their life experiences I still opted to go into the world.
When I was younger I really believed in behaviorism. B.F. Skinner was an idol. Everything about a person was environmental. Now that I am a parent I am pretty sure I was as close to totally wrong as I could be on this point. Watching my children from their earliest days they have had familial behavioral traits that I have and that my father and mother before me had. My wife sees behaviors that mimic her family. These behaviors came too early to have been from the environment of living with us. The behaviors came so strongly that they had to be hard wired.
Somewhere I heard that phrase, “No matter where you go, there you are.” I think in reality it is something like no matter where you go there go the genetic patterns you are predisposed to live out. I have digressed.
In approaching my old hometown mates I decided to share one of the seminal experiences in my life. I had posted it on this site a long time ago but that raw form wasn’t right for the hometown audience. In my redraft for the hometown crowd I took out some names, dealt with some nuances that might be hurtful and just generally cleaned up the writing. I took out a bunch of epithets and toned down the drug use. But given the era of the piece the drug use could not go away in any significant manner. When only one word would do I left it in. Sometimes you just have to say fuck or shit. They just work.
I decided providing a link to this site was a bit risky. I mean the Buddhist ramblings, the depraved talk over the years and you lot who make comments, well it just didn’t seem a good match. I am at 300+ posts and some of them are quite tawdry. I actually had to create a new blog just for the hometown FB crowd. But it was fun. However A Space True and North is still my first love when it comes to writing. I promise (to Chris especially) I will try and say something meaningful as this New Year progresses. My love to all of you who read me on this 2nd day of January 2012 in this my 317th post.
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