It's an interesting word. All at the same time the word is scary, sexy, ugly and funny. If I were to think more about it I'm confident more descriptors would bubble up from wherever these musing come. The first thing about the word is the I part. This could be the most used word in our language. Certainly it's the most used word in our internal dialogue. *digression mode on* Why does the spell checker built into xanga want to underline dialogue in red? Is it too much for it's limited little brain to process? Are real words and their proper spelling no longer necessary in the New Xangadu? Is this just an oversight or is it a divine message from the beings atop Mount Xangus? You there! You who write using the archaic English of yesteryear. Why are you screwing with our New Xanga? Halt! Before I digress further I will share the secret of this essay with you, dear reader. Notice please that I use the singular, reader, because I am not using the collective you. There is only one reader. I am he at the moment. Perhaps you will be the reader but I don't know if anyone will read this far here in the New Xanga. *digression mode off* Internally the word I is so familiar that we don't notice it anymore, like our sight or hearing or some other faculty we take for granted. It's always been there. It will always be there. It has faded into the background of life. It's place to be taken by whatever thought, feeling or event has captured our attention for the moment. I is a scary word because we use it so unconsciously. With the word we allow our feeling of self to enter into things. I feel, I think, I want. What I? It's like the king's ring with which we seal our own fate and bind ourselves to some passing feeling, thought or fleeting desire. The ring falls into the hands of the court jester or some other I in us and they do with it as seems best to them in the moment. Then it's snatched away from that one by another where he or it becomes king for the moment. Once we have said I to it we are duty bound to defend it, protect it and ward off all opposition to it because it bears the king's seal.

The next bit in identity is dent. A dent is a slight hollow in a hard, even surface made by a blow or by the exertion of pressure. As a verb, dent can mean, have an adverse effect on; diminish. Hmmm, when we say I to some passing thought, feeling or desire are we diminishing ourselves by attaching some invisible part of ourselves to the impermanent form? What self? Walt Whitman said, Do I contradict myself? Very well, then I contradict myself, I am large, I contain multitudes. Is the king diminished by the misuse of his ring? Perhaps not directly but his reputation may be damaged. It might be disastorous to fall on a word like identity. It has sharp points like a picket fence. Perhaps when we use the word I and connect ourselves to something, idea or feeling it is like falling on one's own sword. Something to consider. We won't though, not for any amount of time. Not because we don't wish to do so but because we are so feeble and distracted, so weak in whatever faculty may be involved with concentration. I do not mean having our attention captured by something outside ourselves but rather the ability to direct and hold our attention on something, either within or in the outer world. We imagine we can direct our attention. That's all can be said about that because it's something we must discover for ourselves. It's difficult to discover this when we are certain we direct our attention and it's rarely out of our direct control.

The Old Xanga was much different from the New Xanga. It was a frontier town back in 1999. The New Xanga has moved far beyond the Jetsons now into some strange science fiction world where the inhabitants, their customs and language are different. Its identity has shifted with its population. This is not a lament. Everything changes, nothing remains the same for long. As with most other things they are either in the process of being constructed or destructed. From one perspective the New Xanga may not be an improvement. To know its purpose would help us to know if it was fulfilling its design. Before we, the Old Xangans, knew of its true aim we had a purpose for it. It was a community of people who wished to write and share what they wrote with others and get feedback from those others. We wanted to read what others wrote and share our input with them as well. The beings atop Mount Xangus had another design and purpose for Xanga that slowly emerged over the years. To make money. It was an idea in which people were willing to invest their time and money to get back a financial increase. Nothing wrong with that. The idealistic writers who came to Xanga to practice their passion took little thought of it financially because it was free. Another of those misleading words. There were those who were more practical and began discussing the possibility of a different goal than the one we assumed even before there was advertising and paid-for-features. In the beginning it was a level playing field where your personality and ability to ply it were all that caused you to stand apart from the masses. Jason writes that he's considering jumping back into this Xanga game. It's a whole new game and most of the old players have either retired or moved to other teams. Those of us who may remain are much less visible and active than we were in the old game. Jason would be a welcome addition to my little xanga.

UPDATE-O: It appears the reason the xanga spell checker underlined dialouge in red was because I was a dork and transposed the u and g misspelling the word. I was so focused on the new spelling of the word (dialog) that I made a boo boo, typo, whatever-o. Do I feel like an ass? No. I feel fortunate to know someone who was clever enough to find it and kindly point it out to me. I have learned something, though as yet I'm not certain what it is, but I sense it's important. *smile*

It's been a long time since I've had a stalker. So long I've forgotten how titillating it can be. Relax ladies. I know it's not funny to have a stalker. I know you hate it when you're being stalked. I know you're afraid and angry and indignant or some combination of the above or perhaps some other combination that I've not even considered. How could I? I'm not a woman. What? Only women can have those feelings about a stalker? I don't think so. Remember that 1971 film with Clint Eastwood and Jessica Walter? Play Misty for Me. I promise you that movie scarred me psychologically. I still shiver when I think about it. Then, of course, there are those who not only are not frightened by the idea of having a stalker, they're upset because they don't have one. I'm not sure if that's because they've never had one so they don't know what it's like or they've never had anyone interested in them in that way so any kind of attention sounds good. It could be that they are stalkers at heart and they'd just like the chance to stalk a stalker and really scare the crap out of him. Whatever. I digress.

Oh, thank xanga for footprints. Now I can track my stalker while my stalker is tracking me. My stalker comes by my site every fifteen minutes day or night, rain or shine, holiday or work day. It doesn't matter. Do you have any idea how important and desired that makes me feel? No? Well, think about it. Not very important because her name is so generic. What kind of stalker goes by the name, notifyBot? Is that Italian, French or Lithuanian? I'll bet notifyBot doesn't shave her legs or armpits. What? I'm sorry. I was born and raised in the United States of America and during the sixties when the hippie chicks who stopped shaving their legs and armpits came around I left. I'm sorry. I'm not that way anymore. You can have an old Greek lady moustache or an elderly Spanish Doña's bigote. I'm okay with that now. It's all the same to me. Who says people don't change. Never mind. I know who says it.

So, you are wondering whether to tell me or not? Perhaps you're considering how to break it to me gently. That's really kind of you. Thank you for your consideration. Really. You're too kind. No, I mean it. Go ahead and tell me. You have a stalker who goes by the same name. It's okay. I don't mind. It was nice to feel special and important even if it was just for a minute or two. I guess that was my fifteen minutes of fame. It really wasn't all it was cracked up to be. I have a feeling a lot of people find that out about fame. What can I say? You didn't like me talking about love either.

My wife asked me this morning if I knew what was going on with the seals and the children in San Diego. Duh, of course not. I rely on the reactions of the people in my life the same way a spider relies on the vibrations in her web to notify her of anything entering it of which she should be aware. My choice is to live in another world where peace of mind reigns. It's taken years of work to insulate myself from the twanging of the spider web in which the world seems to be caught. One of my sisters called me a week ago and told me I was arrogant. Twang! First I've heard from her in a couple of years. Just so we're clear, arrogant is having or revealing an exaggerated sense of one's own importance or abilities. What can I say? Of course I'm arrogant. The difference, as far as I can tell, between my arrogance and most other people's isn't that I have it but that I reveal it. Not to the world. That's mostly a waste of time. I reveal my arrogance to myself, the place where it might do some good to see it and accept it. Yes, I admit it. In the big scheme of things my sense of importance to myself is grossly exaggerated. It takes daily reminders to bring myself into a universal scale where I'm less than a particle of sand on a universal beach so vast that the imagination staggers in the light of it like a drunken San Diego sailor on Saturday night shore leave. How difficult it is for us to see our own arrogance. It stings. Of course it stings in an indirect way if we don't see it and most prefer that. Indirect is so much easier to blame on others. Once removed from cause and effect is nice and twice removed is twice as nice. Unless you wish to be something other than what you are being.

You've got to love the entitled morons of La Jolla who will try to save the whales and then see no contradiction in spending upwards of seven hundred thousands of dollars a year to drive the seals off the beach so the children can have a place of their own. It's just this sort of human arrogance that has driven so many species to extinction. It's our earth and they'd better get the hell off it or we'll be forced to eliminate them. If the seals were trying to have their babies in Chuck E. Cheese's I could see the need for barking dog sounds and water hoses to save the seals. That's not necessary though because seals are smarter than humans when it comes to the environment in which they wish to raise their offspring. Honestly, I don't blame the residents of La Jolla or San Diego. How could I? They are like sheep that have gone astray. The fact is that sheep are stupid and once they get lost they're not as smart as pigeons or dogs who can find their way back home. You've got to go out and round up the poor little wooly headed creatures to save them from themselves. I'm not shepherding in La Jolla so they're going to have to sort this out themselves. Either that or a couple of wolves will show up for dinner.

The poor (literally) city of San Diego is going to have to pay the bill to try to appease the few entitled morons who want their beach back. Never mind that the seals were there first. Might makes right when you're arrogant. I admire the city's approach. Barking dog sounds broadcast on the beach from six a.m. to sunset seven days a week would certainly convince me to stay away from the beach. The city will probably be sued to provide ear plugs for the children of the rich and infamous. There's no such thing as a frivolous law suit when we value ourselves as highly as we do. Let all the universe bend the knee and worship our right to do what is in our own short-sighted self-interest. It's part of the human condition that can't be cured by the effects of our insanity. We'll either continue our march toward extinction or we'll begin to see ourselves for what we really are. Pompous, arrogant children playing Russian roulette with a universal revolver. This will be a fight to the death and we don't seem to mind dying as long as we're the last species to do it. Silly when you think about it. The rats and cockroaches are the real survivors.

Update:
A San Diego judge today decided the seals must go according to the law. The legal wrangling will continue for months and months to come while a new state law is passed that will put an end to the arrogance of entitlement. Barking dog sounds and water guns! Sweet Jesus. What will we think of next?

Chess is not fun. Not for me anyway. Would it be too much to say that no board game I've ever played has been fun? It's sounds final but I honestly can't remember ever having anything that approached consistent fun while playing a board game of any kind. Chess, checkers, Chinese checkers, backgammon, stratego, monopoly. There are probably more but I've blotted them out so I don't have to think about them. If I don't think about them I don't have to feel stupid. I don't like feeling stupid. Not that anyone does. What's really stupid is that I don't give up for long. I can't count the number of books I've read about chess strategies, games, moves, history and whatever else. If I can't win it's not fun and the only one who lets me win is Buddy Love because he loves me and that's all the fun he cares about. On the other hand he's not a very attentive player so winning isn't really fun with him either. It's not like I want to crush another person in a game. I just want to be able to win and know how I won. If I ever win at chess it's almost an accident most of the time. The rest of the time it was because the person I was playing was less able to handle the concept than I. Trust me, there haven't been very many of those. Even though I feel stupid when I play chess I have this thought that I'm not really stupid. At least not at everything. Some things I do very well. Not genius in anything I've ever found, well, except maybe talking. Sometimes when I edit a Podcast I've made I marvel at what the guy talking said. It seems brilliant because I never thought to say that. Hell, I didn't even know I knew that until I heard myself say it. Then it seems very clear. I'm probably not the only one who thinks that because I get emails from people around the world who seem to agree.

Is it possible to be stupid and still be able to do something well? What's an idiot savant? That's really a rude label but it's all I know. What the French really were saying was learned idiot. According to the dictionary an idiot is a stupid person. So, an idiot savant is a stupid person who displays brilliance in a specific area, especially one involving memory. When I think about it I don't really mind being stupid because I like me better than I ever have. Even if I am stupid I'm a lot more kind than ever I've been. Consistently. It takes a lot of brilliance to be consistently kind. At least it does for me. Perhaps some people are born kinder than others just like some people seem to be born with a better chess mind than others. Chess reminds me of math. I always felt stupid about math too. When I was in Guatemala learning to speak Spanish I felt stupid almost all the time. Every time a child spoke Spanish better than I did I'd mentally abuse myself. Well, some voice in my head verbally abused me. It wasn't me. How do I know that? It kept calling me you. You idiot! You're so stupid. You'll never get it. What's wrong with you? Your father was right about you. It might just as easily have been some teacher's name from school instead of your father.

My strategy is to not sweat being stupid because smart isn't really all that great when it comes to the things that really matter in life. I've known some very smart people. Unfortunately, for one reason or another, they weren't very nice. Some of them were, but they were the minority by a wide margin. Think Enron and the smartest guys in the room. Those guys were not nice people. Politicians are smart (ick), or so they say. My dog is stupid. He's probably the dumbest dog I've ever known but I love him more than any dog I can remember because he's got a good heart. He doesn't seem to mind being stupid as long as he can love and loving seems to make him happy. He loves everybody. If a stranger came around and invited him to go on a walk he'd go, wagging his tail the whole time. He doesn't know about how people can be. He just loves them unconditionally. When I grow up I want to be like my dog.