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  • Work
    For the most part I suppose I'm one of those cerebral types. More often than not you will find me sitting on my ass reading a book, writing at the computer or talking to someone or a group of someones. It's not that I don't like physical activity, it's more like physical activity is cyclical for me. Maybe everyone is like that but I don't pay as much attention to everyone as I do to myself. Yeah, it's all about me. That may be the one big thing that makes me different from you. Just kidding. That may be the one big thing we have in common. See? That's what I mean. I'm not a practical joker. I'm more of a facetious or sarcastic cerebrum kind of guy where the practical joker is more a cerebellum type. The cerebellum is the part of the brain at the back of the skull in vertebrates, that's us. Its function is to coordinate and regulate muscular activity. My friend of well over twenty years, Rex, is a cerebellum guy. He puts phone books under your mattress while you're in the shower if you're sharing a hotel room with him. If you're married to him, which I'm not, he puts pennies in the freezer and then tosses a handful of them on your side of the bed while you're in the bathroom. If you've ever asked yourself, Who thinks of shit like that? I'm here to tell you. Rex.

    About half a dozen of us were bicycle touring Napa Valley one year, camping out. One night skunks invaded the camp. I've never seen an animal that didn't like Rex. All my dogs have loved him. Alfie was a nut job Dalmatian who got busted twice for biting people. They have a three strikes law here. The third strike they send them to the gas chamber. No appeals. He had one strike left when he died and that was only because his third bite didn't report him or go to the doctor's office. Doctors are mandatory reporters. Rex used to draw a circle around Alfie's eye with a carpenter's crayon. Alfie loved Rex and would let him do anything. Anyway, the skunk went right into Rex' tent and tried to get into the sleeping bag with him. Rex had to shoo him away several times. Finally the skunk left and went to another tent. Rex got his flashlight to see what was going on out there. The skunk was visiting another friend's tent. Steve thinks all animals are either for eating or hunting so he was not fond of the skunk. Probably thought the skunk was an animal totem come to balance his karmic debt with the animal kingdom. Scary. Steve got upset when the light from Rex' flashlight woke him up and he saw the skunk. Rex couln't let it be and told Steve that he made the skunk go over there by shining the light. Who thinks of shit like that? Rex. Steve believed him. Rex doesn't do stuff like that to me. I just tell him I'll shove the flashlight up his ass and he laughs, makes a silly Laurel and Hardy face and stops screwing with me.

    All this to say I've spent about every day the past couple of months working in the yard. Must be the physical work cycle. It didn't really occur to me until Connie and I were out to lunch yesterday. Yesterday was Wednesday here in our part of the world. On Wednesday night I have a class where we're studying the Tao-Te-Ching. It was after noon and I still had to meditate and get back out in the yard and finish a big list of things I wanted to (needed to) do. When Connie told me it was Wednesday I groaned, Oh, man, I've got a class tonight. I don't have time for that crap! Connie and I have been married over twenty-seven years. It's probably the first time she's ever heard me say I didn't have time for a class. My usually soft hands look like I've been juggling broken bottles. It takes me about twenty steps to straighten up when I get up out of a chair. The back of my neck is so toasted I've gone beyond redneck to brown neck and I now take a shower at night instead of in the morning. Last night one of the chapters of the Tao we read was speaking directly to me:

    Keep still.
    Don't work so hard.
    Learn to appreciate everyday life.
    Pay attention to details.
    Start small and work your way up.
    When people give you trouble, let it slide.

    Break everything down to its essentials.
    Get the job done before it becomes a chore.

    With the right preparation,
    difficult tasks can be completed with ease;
    every major project consists of simple steps.

    The Masters don't take on more than they can handle,
    which is why they can do just about anything.

    Don't promise more than you can deliver,
    and don't underestimate the task:
    You'll only make things harder for yourself.

    The Masters are always aware of the difficulties involved,
    which is why they never have to deal with them.

  • Identity
    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*

  • Stalker
    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.

  • Love
    We English speakers have this word, love, that has so many different meanings it's reduced to something akin to a bowl of overcooked oatmeal.
    Because
    words and their meanings are so malleable I find myself less willing to
    use them indiscriminately. The dictionary doesn't agree with me. Señor
    Diccionario says that love is an intense feeling of deep affection. If
    you are of a more carnal bend Señor Diccionario offers this lusty
    alternative: a deep romantic or sexual attachment to someone. Perhaps
    it's understandable as Spanish is one of the romance languages.
    ATTENTION: If you're the sentimental or romantic type you may wish to
    leave now without reading further. You have been duly admonished. In my
    experience the sentimental or romantic types have an extremely thin
    membrane between two small bodies of liquid emotion, their love and
    their hate. This membrane is easily punctured by the least little pin
    prick. Once the membrane is breached the two liquids come together to
    form a third substance that is more corrosive and dangerous than either
    of the ingredients apart. If we continue our intercourse with Señor
    Diccionario he tells us that affection is a gentle feeling of fondness
    or liking     but allows that it may also be a physical expression of these
    feelings.     If we remove the physical aspects associated with love it is
    reduced to more of an idea than a feeling. Most people initially
    confuse sensations with feelings. What would love be if you didn't have
    a physical body?

    I don’t know what love is. I know the ancient Greeks had three words
    for love. Many other languages have more than one word for love.
    English used to have different words for the pronoun, you, much as
    Spanish still has. Thou, at one time, was the singular subjective case.
    The forms you and ye were once reserved for plural uses. Today, thou,
    thee, thy and thine are either religious or archaic. Perhaps the word
    love suffered the same kind of fate. When we’re children we love ice
    cream and we love Mom. As we mature our perception of love expands and
    contracts at the same time. Because it expands we find that we must use
    the word differently or modify it with other words. There are love
    beads, love apples, love children, love feasts, love handles, love-ins,
    love affairs, love bites and love interests. You can have a love match,
    love nest, love seat and a love life. There are love birds, lovers and
    lovesickness. So many ways to modify the word love and we still don’t
    know what it means. The people for whom we may feel pity are those who
    know what love is. Once we’ve found something we usually stop looking
    for it. I don’t mean looking for someone who will love us the way we
    think we want to be loved. We’re not talking about looking for love in
    all the wrong places.

    It’s a matter of keeping an open mind about love. That’s difficult
    because we know that love hurts and we don’t like to hurt. We protect
    ourselves from being hurt when we can. We protect parts that have been
    wounded in the past. Who hasn’t been wounded while trying to learn what
    love is, what it means, how it may be manifested in life without all
    the pain, the wounds and the upsets? It takes a courageous soul to keep
    looking, keep expanding, keep trying. I confess to not being very
    courageous in this area for much of my life. As it draws to a close
    however, I find myself again willing to suffer for a greater
    understanding of the idea of love and whatever may lie behind it.
    Perhaps I’ll be able to risk a little more today than I could
    yesterday. Perhaps as age creeps up from behind some parts of our
    protective memory will thin or be diminished in some way, freeing us to
    dig deeper, see more and expand our idea of what love, real love might
    be. Have a lovely day.

  • Arrogance
    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
    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.

  • Wonderful
    Some time ago I mentioned I'd been haunting the library to borrow books to read. I'm still doing that but I've found that our library and I don't agree on what books are valuable. Either that or the recent and current financial embarrassment of the state of California is affecting the library system's ability to buy more than one copy of certain books that someone else in San Diego County wishes to read at about the same time and in the same order as those that have fired my imagination. Being a rather dull person, or so I thought, I've had trouble finding books in the library that I wished to read. Because one thing leads to another I got an email from Amazon.com telling me their new Kindle II was now available. The concept of having a library of your own choosing in your hand that you could peruse at your leisure was vague to me having never experienced such a thing. After a little research I found that there were thousands upon thousands of books that were formatted for the Kindle that could be downloaded without cost from various organizations, such as Gutenberg, Feedbooks and ManyBooks. Even Amazon has a modest selection of books that may be downloaded to the Kindle II without a fee. To my great delight I also discovered that I could take any text file and load it into the Kindle II. It's also possible to download public domain books directly to the device over the internet because the Kindle II also comes with a built in connection to a 3G network. Being a picky reader I've only about fifty or sixty books loaded into the Kindle now and I'm happily reading here and there as the mood or desire strikes me.

    Spring is my time of year! My friends got together to kick in the money to buy me the Kindle II as a birthday gift. It's got to be one of the all time greatest gifts I've ever received in my life. In the event I don't live long enough to celebrate my upcoming birthday I got the gift a month in advance. I'm sitting here listening to the now deceased Israel "IZ" Kamakawiwo'ole sweetly croon Over The Rainbow/What A Wonderful World with the moist eyes of a tenderized heart full of gratitude for the richness and beauty of my life. It's not all peachy keen all the time but overall I'm satisfied with the path I've chosen to stumble along. The malaise of last month turned into something else, as all things must do eventually. Rather than the expected flash of something wonderful it was more like the rising of a tide that lifted everything in my life to a new level that has been much more easily sustained. I'll take this over that every time if I've any choice about it henceforth. A tenderized heart may sound sweet but it really is a painful predicament in a world such as the one of which we are a part. Not everyone is full of peace and love for sentient life. If the truth were to be told we'd have to say only a very few approach such a state of consciousness. Though it couldn't possibly be any other way it's still rather sad to see so many squander so much for so little.

    Please remember to be kind. Thanks to whoever it was that gifted me with premium a few years ago. I appreciate your generosity.

  • Malaise
    Usually spring is my time of year. Over the past forty years I've kept a journal. It was a good discipline to adopt. Today I can peek back into my personal history and see the cycles of repetition ordinarily hidden from our awareness. Whether that is a good thing or not will depend on what you want. If you want to be more aware of anything you must first be willing to be more aware of yourself. Sounds cool until we start to look under the hood and find we're not quite as wonderful/horrible as we thought. Wonderful/horrible is really the same thing but I'm not going to try to explain that here. Either you get it or you don't. Think about it. It's not easy to become aware of ourselves. The short version is what we call I casts a shadow which makes it difficult to see what we're really like, objectively. After all, we're looking with what we call I and that's not inclined to see things that It doesn't want to see about Itself.

    This spring has been different. Last spring something popped in my consciousness leaving me in an exhilarating state. It was as if I was insulated from life in the most wonderful way. I had the choice to consciously respond to events or to observe the usual patterns of reaction that eat up a lifetime. Being able to observe them in this insulated state made it possible to not do things that I would have normally done and regretted. We know better and act worse. Blah, blah, blah. That's really all it is unless you have the experience. You see, it's all blah, blah, blah to me now because I'm not in that state. I can remember it, talk about it, tell you about it and not be in it. On one level that really sucks. Thus the malaise of which I speak. I'll make it easy for you. Malaise-a general feeling of discomfort, illness, or uneasiness whose exact cause is difficult to identify. I'm healthy, comfortable and at ease in the physical realm. My needs are met, my life is enviably good. If that's all there was to contentment I'd be as happy as a pig in slop on a planet where they didn't eat bacon. For some folks who've never experienced extended periods of physical well being this would be bliss--for a while. There's a hole is us that duct tape won't fix.

    So, what to do when this isn’t it? The answer is accept it but sometimes that's not as easily done as it is said. Why? Obviously because I have expectations of spring, of myself, of the Universe that's supposed to be conspiring to drag me into the Light of Self-awareness. Dum, dum, dum, duuuuummmm. This is it! This is as good as it gets right now! The truth is that if I were willing to accept this right now moment and let it stand alone, apart from my expectations, desires, thoughts and feelings it would be perfect. But noooooo, I'm not going to do that until I've suffered enough. How much is enough? That's easy. Enough is when I say so. Why won't I say so? I must still be working out some of the drama queen history of this life I'm experiencing. You see, I come from Irish roots and we Irish love our drama. At least the Irish family from which I came simmered in high drama. A holiday was not allowed to pass without some high drama involving drinking, fighting, screwing, blood and police. May this be the last cycle of drama withdrawal for me. Ah, there it is! Now I can fly because I've found my happy thought. Already I can feel my soul soar above the mind and its intricate web of sticky thoughts and feelings it uses to ensnare us and keep us repeating our drama based history of ordinary crap. Thank you for reading, or not reading. It worked. I looked at it, told the truth about it, accepted it and watched it drop away. Who rocks?

  • Interesting
    I was wrong. If I hadn't started this topic I might never have found out I was wrong. Some people find it extremely difficult to admit when they are wrong. I've been one of those people most of my life. Today I don't mind so much either being wrong or admitting it. This whole thing was going to be based on the wrong quotation, May you live in interesting times, purported to be an ancient Chinese curse. A speaker I listened to many years ago said it was and I believed him and began quoting it as if I knew. We're funny like that. We believe something to be true and rather than verify its authenticity act as if it is true because we believe it. Can you imagine the amount of B.S. that passes for facts in this infamous age of information? Frightening. The way I always quoted the curse was, May your life be interesting. For some odd reason I decided to look it up. So, I did what most of us do. I Googled it. What did I find? I was wrong. I'm so glad to know I was wrong because now I can stop being wrong and full of balloon juice like so many others who act as if they know something they only believe. Well, about this one thing anyway. I'm still going to act like I know everything else I believe is true. What an idiot!

    Turns out, because I know you didn't click the link I left for you, I'm going to tell you what was there. If you're still reading. Wait! If you're still reading you may already have clicked the link and gotten the information about my wrongness. New title: Your Wrongness. Uses: Yes (No) Your Wrongness. You don't have to address me by my new title but I expect some of you will. Because you're like that. You've got to love the whole idea of the mild Chinese curse and then the stronger curses that follow it.

    1. May you live in interesting times. 
    2. May you come to the attention of those in authority.
    3. May you find what you are looking for.

    It turns out, as with much that is wrong, it may be based in fact but has been warped with time and misuse. The curse may well be based on the Chinese proverb, It's better to be a dog in a peaceful time than be a man in a chaotic period. Whether you agree or not isn't really the point. The point now is that we act as if we know things that we don't know and that makes us a little weird, wonky and untrustworthy. If you go around telling people things that aren't true as if you knew that they are true you're not adding to the truthfulness and reality of our collective life. That's all I want to say now. Thank you.

  • Clubs
    Joining has never appealed to me. Having a library card is a big responsibility. It's as if I've joined a club. It's really not a matter of unwillingness to commit. I used to belong to Sam's Club and the old Price Club, now Costco. It took me years to stop calling it Price Club. Now that I've made the transition and can say to my wife, Do you need anything at Costco?, the perverse business bastards will probably change the name again. I'm not going to think about that now. I'm taking the advice of something I read in a book a long time ago, So do not worry about tomorrow; for tomorrow will care for itself. Each day has enough trouble of its own. Yes, I had a library card before Saturday. The truth is when I went to use it the library computer wouldn't take my number. Can you imagine? I'd been thrown out of the club, purged from the computer data base for lack of participation. Maybe they thought I'd died. It happens with the elderly. Younger people expect it's going to happen any moment to the people who have crossed over the age barrier. Don't rush me, I'll get there soon enough for me, even if not soon enough for you. The woman who tried to scan my card said, I suppose you haven't been here in a while. My reply was simply to smile politely at her understatement. She was one of those frighteningly cheery membership people who say things like, We'll have to get you another one. She meant business too. You'll have to fill out a new application form. This is the very reason I don't like clubs. It's the whole joining process. It wasn't so bad because the fear of rejection was bearable. They accepted my application and gave me a brand new, fancy library card. Honestly though? I did feel a little hurt they wouldn't take my original card and that I had to join again and lose my seniority.

    Peter Pan was a very short book and I finished it yesterday but couldn't take it back until after using it to read parts for the talk I gave this morning. It will be in the next Phat Podcast. Reading Peter Pan was so wonderful that I decided there was another movie I'd seen and loved that came from a book. Well, thought I to myself, if Peter Pan the book was so much more excellent than Peter Pan the movie it is reasonable to think Dune the book will be much better than Dune the movie. Though I am a slow reader I am not a slow learner. I got online and found the library so I could see if the closest branch had the book. They did and I put it on hold. I was rather distressed by the whole process because they said they'd let me know when it came it. I wanted to tell them, You already have it, you silly library people! It seemed prudent not to since I was a new member and that might not look good on my record, if they keep such things. I think they do because they fine you money if you don't bring the book back in the amount of time they give you to read it. The puzzling thing to me is they give you the same amount of time to read Peter Pan, which as we've already said is a short book, as they do Dune which is a big book with much smaller print. Oh, the pressure for an admitted slow reader. What's worse is I went and found the book and brought it to the checkout desk only to have the girl tell me I had one on hold. They have a whole section where you're supposed to go pick up the book you have on hold. I didn't know that. She went and got the book for me and asked which one I wanted. They're the same aren't they? Library people are very smart because all they do is read all day and night. They must not always read the right books though because there are huge holes in their knowledge base.

    She opens both of the books and tells me to examine the print to see with which one I'm more comfortable. Who says things like that? I took the one she'd already checked out for me because I didn't have my reading glasses on and couldn't see the print in either one anyway. Then she tells me when I have to have it back before they start fining me and adds, Depending on how fast a reader you are you can renew it. Since I've already declared to the world, like an alcoholic in an AA meeting, Hello, my name is James and I'm a slow reader., I didn't feel hurt by her insinuation. It's not like I have it tattooed on my forehead. I wonder to myself if people can tell when they look at me that I'm a slow reader? Meh, let them know. I want to get the book home so I can start reading it. As if to even the score when she tells me I can call the number at the bottom of the ticket to renew it I say, Or I can renew it online. I may be slow but I'm not ignorant. She smiles at the old gentleman and acquiesces. I'd like to stay and chat some more about my adventures at Club Library and all the real members who are quick readers, good readers, practiced readers and good club members but I've got the fat book here on the desk in front of me and I really want to get after it. Messiahs make me cry in the most wonderful way because I think humanity needs to be saved from itself.

James

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