Occupy My Space

Well, it turns out that one of the members of Half People, from my post yesterday, is a friend of a friend. That is what it is like living in such a small community. I'm not sure if being half of Half People qualifies them to be quarters or not. She has another project called Static People. It must get crowded with all of those halves.

If they all did a happy project together they could call it: Cashews.

But they are the cool local punk rockers. Hopefully they have a sense of humor about themselves. If not then no damage can be done, nothing can be hurt, and even less can be helped. This is what my punk sensibilities would tell me.

Well, I had a subject for today's post but now it has slipped my mind.

Oh yeah, we went for a car ride up to see snow last weekend, to the Tahoe area. Rachel had taken Rhys last year and he had a lot of fun, so we figured we'd try it again.

On the way there, heading north up the state we encountered what you generally will when traveling on an interstate. There were lots of Denny's restaurants, gas stations and big semi trucks. At one point in our trip we came upon a specific hillside that had the light brown grass that is famous in the region. It was cut so that a message could be read, for all to see.

"Occupy My Ass"

I thought this was pretty funny and it clearly seemed to be a message from a landowner responding to the nature of the Occupy Movement which had famously made the news in this area only a couple of years before. 

We were just south of Davis, where the incident occurred with the pepper spraying of students.

The image seemed to galvanize the feelings of many when they saw it. There was a very casual misuse of a harmful chemical against students who were being told that we, as a nation, were going to war against those who might engage in the misuse of chemicals. 

That is an oversimplification, of course, but that was a component of what made the image powerful and memorable. The establishment seemed quite blasé about their use of anti-riot tactics as well as their clear overreaction to a peaceful protest. 

First Amendment questions began to float in the air afterwards, once the pepper spray had dispersed. Excessive force had become part of a larger pattern, an accepted larger pattern recognized across many parts of America. 

Now, UC Davis is in the middle of nowhere, yet known for its liberal politics. The police chief of Davis had claimed that the students had the police surrounded and would not let them move. It was practically a case of  kidnapping, from their perspective. The police were clearly in danger and needed to escape. This was claimed even though there were multiple images and videos showing Lt. Pike casually dousing peaceful students.

Many people that I talked to believed this incident to have occurred at UC Berkeley. It seemed to elevate their sense of shock and indignation that this type of thing could happen at the birthplace of the Free Speech Movement. But no, it was far up in the sticks. These students are not smart enough to be at Berkeley. Just look at them get pepper sprayed. What stronger argument could there possibly be for them being at Davis?

Well, it wasn't really my intention to write about the Occupy Movement and its de-centralized goals.

What I thought was funny was the "Occupy My Ass" statement. I doubt that the creator of this stroke of genius gave much thought to its possible alternate implications. 

Or, who knows, maybe they did and thought that was funny also. How, exactly, would one go about occupying somebody's ass? If they had been invited.

I thought that "Occupy My Rifle Scope" was much better and probably embodied the sentiment of the creator more fully, though it also required more effort and space to cut into a hillside. I didn't want to believe that this was a lazy landowner. I had little evidence either way. 

Landowners usually like to steer clear of litigation and prosecution. I mean, most people like to steer clear of prosecution. Some people invite litigation. 

Lawyers.

The officer pictured above, Lt. John Pike, was never charged with a crime. 

Instead, he was awarded $40,000 in workers compensation for the psychological trauma this incident caused him.

Somebody must have occupied his lawyer's office.

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Half Persons, will travel

(Roots, the musical)

I like living in a state in which there are standards, but California is demonic with them. It gives you some insight into the mind of the Californian. Every demand appears at first as a suggestion. They always seem to find a way of using standards against people, not for people. 

The state mottos is "For Your Own Good..."

I'll need to watch Brazil again soon. It is a documentary on the region.

I took the day off from work today. I have a bunch of errands to run; the dull, administrative busy work of owning a car. My tags are expired, the engine light had turned on, it needed a smog check, and the state of California frowned on all of these things, though not equally. 

I tried taking the car to a shop to get the engine light looked at. They informed me that there was something wrong with the cooling system but they weren't able to tell me exactly what was wrong, though they hinted that it would be expensive and demanded that I bring it back to them today. They told me that they were doing me a favor by letting me take the car at all. There are rules.

I drove the car into work and the "check engine" light was off. They must have fixed it, I thought. I had better stop by the smog check place and get the test while my luck holds, I also thought. 

The smog people said that there was nothing wrong with the car but that I needed to drive it for about 50-75 more miles before they could give me a passing certificate, the computer's data banks were blank. The battery must have died, I offered. My wife also drives this car and she has some questionable maintenance practices, I added.

I stopped there, not wanting to draw any additional unneeded suspicion towards myself. Blame the wife. Good idea, I thought. Nobody questions that wisdom. No mechanic anyway.

I drove the car home and got a call from a friend who told me that the "check engine" light was from a faulty oxygen sensor. It is a common problem with Volkswagen Beetle's from around that time. He had access to the internet and wowed me with the details and the facts. Trust the facts. 

The phrase "faulty oxygen sensor" sounded dangerous but it's not as if I was trapped in Apollo 13. I kept the windows down hoping that would keep the "check engine" light off a little while longer.

I'll take care of it today: cooling, smog, oxygen and all.  

All of that and the broken camera, as well.

The guy whom I bought the camera from is a complete asshole. I mean that he is all parts anus, nothing more, nothing lacking in terms of fecal evacuation area. He's just a condescending hole that seems to be intentionally misunderstanding everything that I am writing just so that it gives him a chance to dismiss me and my understanding of the product that I purchased from him. He is a shit-filled flesh tube. The logical end of the process. The rectum, the colon, the sphincter and all.

I am tempted to post it all here just to get a fresh perspective on it. 

I am determined to fix the camera myself and write him an email today as well, instructing him on precisely how to speak down to somebody that is well deserving of it.

I'll wait until that last salvo before relaying any more of it here. I have standards, etc.

I could create a new subsection of this site dedicated to disappointed purchase letters. 

I tried to be nice, truly. It just didn't work. Or, it doesn't work as often as it should. Sometimes I feel as if everybody speaks the Russian taxi driving language: we all get out of our cars with hammers, bats and tire irons while our dashboard cams are rolling, then we settle things peacefully and usually within a few minutes, just as the asteroid explodes in the sky. It is much easier to gain a sudden understanding of one another as reasonably flawed humans when the other option is certain pain and disfigurement, and even further flawing, that of the intentional sort. 

When given those two choices it is quite easy to be sensible. Like, with Russians, for example. What a bunch of affable spudniks.

But they don't know why they are funny, like monkeys on roller skates, or musicians.

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The War on Commission

(The War on Reindeer)

So, I sent the seller of the camera a response last night, explaining that there was a loose piece when I got the camera and that I took a picture of it but there was no way to upload the image as part of the response that I was making.

He wrote back while I was sleeping, explaining that this is a film camera and there is no way to upload anything from it.

Is there no end to the imbecilic confusion.

I wrote back that I understand this to be a film camera, and that is why I bought it, but that still doesn't explain why I can't use it with either iTunes or Instagram. I also complained that it was heavy and bulky compared to all of the other nice cameras they have at the T-Mobile store, that it doesn't even fit in my back pants pocket and gets a terrible cell signal, I could barely hear my girlfriend when I called.

No, I didn't. I should have, but I just want the camera to be fixed. 

A friend informed me that it is very likely the focusing screen. As long as the latch that holds it in place is not damaged then I should be able to fix it myself. I really shouldn't have to and I am tempted to have an expensive repair shop do it just to teach this nincompoop a lesson. Though that would also mean more time out of my precious, evaporating life.

Time that I could be describing my online misadventures here, to you, as part of my ongoing War on Omission. 

 

(The War on Used Camera Shops)

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It is risen!

(The Full California Cold Moon)

Don't listen to what ol' Carne S. Labia has to say about it. He is confused. 

Tonight is the real deal. It becomes full for everybody that matters in about four and a half hours. 

He will believe that it is tomorrow night. He will calculate wrongly again, if at all. 

He will believe all the mistaken people, media types.

I had a little heartbreak tonight. I got a package that I had been waiting for. A Nikon F100. Right away when I pulled it out of the packaging I knew something was wrong. The little piece that converts the reflected light from the mirror through the pentaprism so that it becomes a square image in the diopter was just floating loosely around inside the camera. It is visible in the picture below. I don't know what it's called and I don't feel like doing any research.

Fuck.

So, there goes my dream of having a full-frame camera…. a genuine 35mm film beast. 

Well, I have another one. But this new one, the F100, was much nicer.

Fuck, fuck, fuck. I was very excited to try out my lenses on it. To gain a feel for something different.

For now, anyway.

Nikon Fuckit100.

- I've decided. That's the group that I want to be in: God's mistaken people.

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Bokeh pleases Him

I need this lens. It would increase my artistry.

Everything that I look at now becomes about having a full-frame camera. A crop-frame only has two (mainly one) advantages. You have to want this one quality unwaveringly for it to even be considered an advantage: your lenses always appear to be zoomed in closer to your subject by about 1.5X. They're not actually zoomed in, but they always appear to be. It is only a decreasing of the angle of view, sort of. That you are using more pixels for a smaller area confers other possible advantages, arguably, as the pixels used are also smaller.

The secondary advantage is related to the first: crop-frames can be useful for photographing children from a distance, much like sports photography. I suppose you could also claim that crop-frame cameras are smaller and lighter.

Convenience, we're told. But we are hard working stewards of Christ. Convenience is akin to sin.

These crop-frame cameras are the impoverished version of owning a nice telephoto lens, with no way of zooming back out except by walking backwards, away from your subject.

Not the strongest selling point for me, particularly if I want a wider frame and to take advantage of my lenses as they were designed to function (even with potential issues like vignetting and chromatic aberration).

All of the lenses that I own, except one (which is a very nice lens for what it is), were bought with a full-frame camera in mind, a Nikon.

The image created from the lens shown above would benefit from a full-frame camera (which it was probably taken with) and be reduced by a crop-frame, as the distance from the subject and the blurred edges of the photo (bokeh) add greatly to the quality of the image.

The advantages of a full-frame camera are many. The easy list is this: the intended depth of field for each lens is as it should be, it is the 35mm angle-of-view digital equivalent, larger pixel size spread out over a larger image sensor.

Downside: $2800, approx.


I doubt that anybody that comes to this site to read regularly has even the slightest interest in today's post. Let me see if I can appeal to their Christian sensibilities.


I am not asking for donations. I am demanding them. This site has just become a paid subscription site and I will be expecting back payments. If everybody that had come here had paid only $ 0.01 per page read then that camera could already be mine and I could be using it to glorify God.

Let the guilt of this knowledge settle in right now. Feel it moving through you like the long-tongued serpent of Satan.  Then, get down on your knees while touching your computer screen and write a check out (c/o The Sean Q7" Church of Infinite Soul, Inc.).

Don't think too much about it! Pondering is the devil's position, the Prince of Dark's profession. Don't let Satan creep back into your heart second-by-second.

Instead, why don't you feel the goodness of God's warmth move through you and know deep in your bosom and belly that God's gifts back to you will be increased ten fold in the blessings, monetary and otherwise, that will come into your life. What better insurance could you possibly have against cancer striking someone in your family? With God on your side you can sleep safely, knowing that the evil one can not touch you or your little loved ones with his wicked fingers.

Now, are you going to let your own love of money keep you from entering the Kingdom of Heaven? That money's not going to do you any good burning in the eternal lake of fire. You're telling me that you'll stand in front of God on judgement day and have him ask you why you didn't give when you had the chance, when he spoke his message directly to your heart…?



A friend suggested preaching. I'm just practicing to see how it feels. It's spooky how easy it is. I'm a natural-

Trust in the Lord, LLC, etc.

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An exercise in inner voice

(carrying, while I still can)

I have to get out of my head. I am spending far too much time there. It rarely works out to my advantage. When it does it is still quite a danger, perhaps then most of all.

I've started a few paragraphs already this morning and the above is the only one that remains. It seems that I can not delete my thoughts fast enough. They keep appearing in front of me. I can't take many of them any more. I have too much going on inside and no adequate way to get it all out. Reading out loud what I have written is embarrassing, on any day, but today especially. 

Talking about myself doesn't help. It only seems to deepen the laceration, to tear open the wound, then in pours the concrete. I am just openly picking at a few scabs here, to verify that the healing process continues, to make sure that it is still happening just under the surface. 

Oh my, underneath, look how it recovers anew. 

Victory from the inside.

But fuck... I had the temerity to use the word "exile" to self-describe yesterday morning. What gall, when considered up against almost anything, like: the rest of the globe.

But what else are we to do? One can not always read the news just to feel better. And I am not too far off from living in a tent, a one man refugee camp.

It's because I am only talking to myself here that I feel that I am alone. You need the voices of others to carry with you. I do need other voices.

Life can be miserable, get used to it, I say. Not the misery but the strong possibility of it, its ever close proximity. Life doesn't have to be wretched, I remind myself.  It's not a requirement, but it can be. 

The best preparation for misery is by being happy. If you can swing it then it is a pretty good weapon against approaching darkness. It is easiest to get back to a place that you know exists. Having some direction helps.

But my happiness is too much dependent upon others. I see that now. I am often only begging to borrow it. Its expected return arrives unannounced. Just like Jesus, a thief in the night. Living in debt is quite easy. We're all used to it.

It is so easy to be forgetful, impossible to forget.

If you want to feel silly just like me then read this post aloud, you'll see.

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… or choking

(new dawn treatment center)

It is oftenest when I am near others that my strangeness becomes impossible to conceal.

Little things. It is just the stuff that I say, my reaction to the talk of others. I can't seem to let an obscure reference remain that way. Everything I say seems to somehow be rooted in a time that is decades previous to everyone else's frame of reference. I am caught oddly trying to cast strands to draw the past into the present. Surprised at confusion.

There is that, and my sleeping patterns. 

I went to a company off-site event, with all of the new people that I will be working with. They are not actually "new" to me. I have worked with all of them for some time, though not on this "team."

We all went to a great seafood dinner last night where we ate crab and ceviche and mahi mahi and Portuguese fish stew, and lots of fried stuff from the depths. When we came home after dinner everybody gathered around in the living room to watch a movie. The original Friday the 13th was on and it seemed to appeal in a general, almost kitsch, way. At least in terms of irony and poor taste. 

I tried.

After about 15 minutes of watching Kevin Bacon conduct his unique version of acting I went to sleep. I felt like I was being tortured being kept up so late, out of a sense of obligation. It was probably only 10pm. I slept in until the luxurious hour of 4am.

Two mornings in a row now I have woken up and felt as if I've had a hangover. It's just been the sudden change in sleeping patterns, the disruption of the shifting of the circadian rhythms, but fuck…. I don't miss feeling bad like that, at all. 

I havent drank anything in two and a half months now, alcohol that is. I've had lots and lots of coffee and the occasional glass of water. The first month I felt great. Now that feeling has worn off and I am starting to notice how boring life can be. Time drags on. You have to learn to face emotions other than remorse, and there seem to be a fair amount of them in waiting.

It's exhausting.

Remorse is too strong of a word. I suppose it is more of a low-level guilt. It is mild and usually non-specific. Though sometimes sharp memories will find their way through, bursting the milky membranes that exist between daily drinking, sleeping, and then morning consciousness. Their sharp edges announcing themselves in flashes of regretful memory, pangs from the recent past.

That feeling. 

You spend so much time contending with your own questionable behavior that you don't have much spare time to experience any other internal sensations. When those perfectly normal emotions finally do arrive they are awkward and ill-fitting. They seem so odd, unnecessary, and large. That others possess them as being fully developed and functioning attributes only make them seem that much less desirable.

That's what I'm calling boredom now. That sickening normalcy known as health. The tedium of rediscovery and reinvention, an unfamiliar world in which I can no longer rely on mistakes made in perpetuity as the sole basis for personality. It is the developmental equivalent of learning to want to go to the mall, and being happy about it. It's supposed to be like a lobotomy that works, a process that we can all be proud of.

Though, the other night a friend noted my increased capacity for empathy.

Jesus man, keep your voice down... You'll ruin me with talk like that. 

He went on to describe the unwelcome drinking habits of others. I was riveted. I had to admit that it did sound like a familiar pattern of reprehensible behavior, but it didn't make me want to drink any less. Not that I need any props or encouragement. I do not have cravings. I simply get bored. Time moves much slower in the abstemious mind, it becomes noticeably more difficult to tolerate certain others. Though counter-intuitively those "others" were only recently your favorite people. 

Your new friends are miserable, often using phrases like "my recovery" and "be careful…."

In short, sustained or attempted sobriety makes one a sanctimonious, meddling bore. It is the default tone of that struggle.

The sanctimony is not a required component, per se. It creeps in to replace the omission, filling the vacuum of behavior created by the absence of intoxication. It pours in as sands from the hourglass, bringing with it its coarse language of betterment, improvement, and the new self. 

You find yourself unexpectedly talking about things in a way that only abstainers do. You adopt their phrasings for certain moments and situations and it is all quite off-putting, but you can hardly stop yourself. It is your new, fresh shame and burden to bear.

Jesus knocks louder than ever at the door and you're just trying to talk over the racket. 

You keep thinking, Maybe it's not Jesus. What if it's Keith Richards out there instead? 

Fuck! 

You can hear the vague tones of denial and disapproval inserting themselves into unwanted moments. If it were only dismissiveness then it would be fine, but it is also the voice of specific longing, which only hints at the deep inner hypocrisy, a tone that no one enjoys or endures for long. 

You just love to parachute, but you also love the earth. Nobody who likes to drink really wants to stop drinking, they only want drinking to stop being such an issue, a problem. They always want earth beneath them when they jump from a plane, even if they can't see it, they want to know that it is there, and in which direction. They don't want to have to think of these things, they want the world to work the way that it is supposed to. Few jump from a plane genuinely wanting only endless clouds and sky, and directionless falling. 

The teetotaler must find things in their new life that they can hold up and then overvalue for others, to try to convince themselves of the worth of their alternatives. To insist upon them. 

It's all true, of course. It's just not very convincing. There is nothing seductive about abstinence. I feel like I am walking through life wearing a condom that I can't stop talking about. 

But the stories of others' skydiving adventures are almost as boring as the telling of their dreams, which is almost what I'm doing here. 

That is what listening to abstainers is like: like hearing about the experience of surviving a jump, of being proud of still living.

Or, telling the story of going to the store to buy lottery tickets.

Hold on now.... You jumped from the plane, and then fell for a while, and then landed? But you're okay now, right? Oh good, lucky that, then. It must have been the parachute that saved you.

But wait, you say you went right back up and did it again? Only to survive to tell us about it now?

That's really something. You are one crazy mother-fucker…

It is true torture for one who prides themselves in ostracizing those types of people. You have become the rigid phony in the room, the one that you used to sniff out as passing game, the sublunary story teller… you exist without the use of your self-deprecation mechanisms in place to save you, to astonish yourself and others with inner subversions. You have the head of a familiar fool and the body of a naked midget. 

Self-deprecation works quite well with mild self-abuse. One art of life concerns the balancing of your abuses. Conflict resolution need not always involve others, etc. If you try to convert the quality of self-deprecation to abstaining, and rely on it as a social device, then you just make people uncomfortable, or worse. It's like asking people you barely know to openly feel sorry for you. It removes all humor from the joke.

But the increased capacity for empathy also - perhaps mainly- applies to self, it seems to be sourced there.

So, there is that: the compensatory qualities of the exile. The silence that follows the laughter that follows the witticism, or jest, or joke, or joking. 

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Black Coffee and BBQ Potato Chips

Test, test. 

Testing 1,2

1,2

Rock and Roll and then House Music, all night long.... 

They worked in concert together to try and destroy my will last night. They nearly won. 

After being awake for 24 hours straight and starting in my new position at work today, I finally caved. 

I collapsed, slept for four straight hours. Luckily not in the DJ booth. 

Tomorrow: surfing in Cali

Sunday: Tahoe

Monday: well, we all know what Monday means....

Don't we?

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"Hello, I'd like to dispute a charge on my card."

Fuck. I've been up for an hour, can't go back to sleep, will be up for the next 48 hours. A friend is in town, dj'ing. This will mean ongoing tests of willpower for me. I will be greatly tempted to go home and go to sleep. I start my first day in my new position tomorrow, so the timing works out perfectly, as it usually does. Oh, did I forget to mention that I'm also going to a rock concert tonight before the all-night dance party…. Jeff Tweedy, from Wilco.

All-night dance party, that's exactly how it was advertised, also. We are big party makers.

I should just pack my bags and go, face my destiny. Drink coffee like there is a tomorrow.

I am going south on Friday to strange places down the peninsula, on the coast. Pacifica. It is a company event, a gathering of the tech-nerds.... There will be surfing lessons on Saturday morning, an insult to a Floridian, of course. I have packed up my Nikon D7000 and a 28-200mm zoom lens, in preparation to capture the sports of it. 

Jesus, I may as well bring a metal detector. 

I have no money, but I have been looking online at things: This and this and this...

It is all foolish and I should not be wasting my time and imaginary money. But alas, what is life for if not some dreaming, some thing to coerce the time with.

I will need my hobbies soon, to keep me out of trouble. Trouble is expensive. The entrance fee is nominal but then they won't let you exit through the entrance. The exit is in the rear, just through those two doors and down that long, dark hallway.

There's no point in disputing it on your bill. The charges were quite itemized. 

For those who come here for updates on Rhys: he is still a genuine marvel. He has started to say "dang it!" when he drops something. I spent the day with him yesterday and then put him sleepy to bed. We had a great ol' time. We drove to the market in the car and had a little mini-conversation. He's is gaining on language just as he is on jumping and running and getting into all manner of trouble. 

We are slowly weening him from his binky (the "bebe"). We convince him that he's better off without it because we can better understand what he's saying, and we can. So, he likes talking to us... and the binky will soon be going the way of the crib. 

It is so easy to feel a premature sense of longing for what will soon pass. 

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… to enjoy the world

"If the world were merely seductive, that would be easy. If it were merely challenging, that would be no problem. But I arise in the morning torn between a desire to improve the world and a desire to enjoy the world. This makes it hard to plan the day." 

- E.B. White

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Winter everywhere, elsewhere, and here

(Looking out from my father's house)

Promise me baby you won't let them find us…

Well, I tried to stop writing. My efforts were not a success. I'm like a dog that chases cars, incurable. I will not be convinced otherwise. Each day I wake up and I am something. I have some impulse, and then I don't know what else to do with myself. I am alone and trying to be quiet. Writing allows for that. It is some private strangeness. 

A few days ago CS said something along the lines of: Pleasure leads to obsession and obsession to a dulling of the senses. That's what happened to me, I think. My senses have become dulled. When I look back I see that too many of my pleasures were artificially derived, then they became something else. Too many, too often. Now, I just miss them.

I am searching for new, simple pleasures. Just little things that make me happy. They're out there. I can feel it. But new interests must be developed, just to get to them. It requires time, everything does. I have ordered an old used film camera. We'll see about that.

I spoke about my waning love of music the other day because that was one pleasure that became an obsession, one that I do not believe I can go back to, not in that way. There is no entrance left for me to get back in. The bouncers have sealed me out. Music is a one-way device for turning young people into my generation, or worse. 

I let a friend borrow my Martin guitar because the nerves in my left hand were damaged. I suppose I should get that back from him. The hand has recovered enough and I could probably use something else in life to distract me. There is nothing like playing an acoustic guitar while lying in bed, or sitting peacefully in a chair.

It's a nice guitar, a Martin, and a much better one than I deserve based on my playing ability. But I am middle-aged and can afford things I don't deserve, things that would make a younger person sway with desire. I bought it for myself as a gift, after having gotten a job at Apple, many years ago. I had a dj'ing gig in Mexico and then Rachel and I took all the money from the gig and some of hers down to a big guitar store, one just off of Time's Square, and brought it home on the subway to her place in Greenwich Village. 

I played 'til my fingers were swollen and sore. I could hardly touch her without some pain.

It's been over a year now since I've played the guitar at all, or well. I guess it's time to start again, to re-learn, to wear my fingertips down and build them back with callouses. Little Rhys has fallen in love with my electric guitar, the Fender Stratocaster. He makes me pull it out of its case so that he can try to swallow the pick. I will hold it upright with my left hand in the position of a chord, usually a D or a G. He will run the pick back and forth across the strings, laughing, smiling, and waiting for the sound to come. He sees me do it, then he tries, then he gets bored. He will just start smacking at the strings with his hands, happy to be hitting something, squealing with delight.

I've practiced discipline slowly, little bits here and there over the years. I go to the gym and write every morning… that is something. 

It's funny, hearing some people tell the story of my life, their version of it, how out-of-control I am, or have been. People will think anything they wish or need to, then it becomes a version of the truth. Belief makes it so - just look there at the testament - and that little moment of evidence. All that is required is for the story to seem even partially plausible. The mind fills in the blanks with imaginary concrete and then the structure is complete, it rises. After that, even honesty seems uncertain. It has no place left to assist in the construction. It's part of the beauty, the magic, the terror, and the lie of life. Somebody, somewhere is always casting spells. If not for you, then often about you.

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Oh, Vesta...

Saturday morning I went to a meditation class. I have been trying to engage in activities which make me feel more "centered." 

If I sit perfectly still my own perspective will float away and I will become blind to the outside world, only able to see objects that are moving in front of me as I turn my head from left to right, like a T. Rex.

No, wait... that can't be correct. I'm not sure where I heard that, possibly Jurassic Park.



I chose a spot near the wall, perhaps too close. I did not want to crowd, or be rude, and am not used to defining my own space in this way. I need some practice in that, also. So, I chose a spot close to the wall where I could just barely reach out my arm and not touch it.

The guide introduced herself.

She first had me do some very light stretching while focusing on my breathing. As usual, I could not get any of this right. It requires the least bit of practice at all to perform and yet I am somehow still wanting. I am a challenge even to myself, perhaps mostly.

For the first 20 minutes or so my mind raced and I was not able to harness or bridle it. It was truly free. It seemed as if it was panicked at the idea of having to sit calmly, and still. It bucked and kicked. I could not sustain even an adequate response of "Let that go, shhh, just let that go… do not worry..." for the first half of the class. I was quite spooked by serenity.

She instructed me to change positions from sitting up to lying down. She had me flat on my back - my favorite position - with my knees and head propped up slightly by a pillow underneath, with a special weighted eye pillow pushing gently down, my palms placed on my abdomen. She was taking no chances with me, it seemed. This is a position that invites my body into relaxation. She nearly lost me to sleep.

I'm not sure when it finally happened.

The instructor had this big crystal bowl that she was using to create harmonic tones that had a deeply pacifying and soothing effect, with occasional bell strikes that encouraged a calming of the conscious mind. The strike was present and in the room but would immediately suggest something much further away, a great but friendly distance. There was an earthly singing-ness to it that was delightfully untroubled.

It worked.

Eventually, I achieved some state of mental and physical repose, just shy of slumber. The knowledge of the wall to my left no longer appeared in my mind. I felt it drift off. There was an invisible sense of the exterior disappearing. I was transfixed by a falling away of nervous thought, a shedding of troubles. In time I felt held by a pacifying darkness, the soft weight around my eyes, across the bridge of my nose seemed to extend across and then down my body. I was enveloped, slightly at first, then fully.

That, and the humming of the bowl. I achieved heaviosity. It was not sleep, but I was in a deeply relaxed zone. I ceased thinking of self, what I had to do next, or what had happened before.

I was.

It worked.

I heard her walking around the room but paid it little attention until I could detect that she was crouching down above my head. It was impossible not to give some awareness over to that. She wafted some scents around my face. There was a moistness to them, a richness. She touched my face gently. Then she massaged my head directionally, pulling upwards. It was better than relaxing, it was relieving. I felt something leaving me. I tried not to think of her as a woman but there are limitations when being touched. Her hands were delicate and soothing. I felt compliant.

She moved on and I tried not to miss her, tried not to think about her at all. I succeeded, until just now.

She kept talking and ringing the bell, rubbing it with some sort of crystal wand. I could hear the approaching and receding of the circular tones, then there were the soft strikes.

Om, I thought Om...

I had lost some sense of time. She instructed me to roll to one side and so I did. I rolled towards the morning sun and the eye pillow fell away. The sunlight came through my eyelids and seemed unusually rich and golden and good. It was as if I was being filled with light, the whole empty cavern of my body taking it all in. It only lasted a few moments which was all that was needed. I felt full, complete.

I opened my eyes and it was almost over. I was back in the room. The wall to my left had returned.

I sat up, enjoyed the sensation of it. The returning.

She held out a deck of cards for me to choose from. My right hand reached up, selected, and drew. I flipped the card over and read from it, smiling to myself at the luck of it. Home, I thought, home. The chance, the words that sprang to mind: the temple of hearth, the offer of fire, the promise of it, the full-time priesthood of virgins…. oh, promises, vestal promises...

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The Number of the East

(Mickey and the Donald pond)

I have somebody reading through old posts on the weekends again. Normally my numbers drop on Saturday and Sunday but I've had a jump, which has inspired me to sit down and write one more post. 

This one's a freebie. I have nothing to relay, so don't expect much.

What sort of a person writes posts as a response to a little increase in numbers? Tell me how lonely would you have to be, on a scale of one to ten, or eleven? I am a slut.

Well, I'm as lonely as a slut. It's because I wake up very early and am by myself far too much, then I put-out. I know this, but yet I like it. But then I behave in occasionally dangerous ways to avoid being alone too much. Is there no end to the mystery?

It was good that I finally moved out of that apartment in NYC. Ah, but what I wouldn't give to have it back now... to have a little space that was my own, with locks on the doors, books to read, and a warm bed in which to retreat, or lure. 

It is all that a person needs to make them feel possible, some time away. Is that healthy? I sit here listening to Brian Eno's Apollo - Atmospheres & Soundtracks. What could I possibly know about health?

I love music less than I used to; something has happened, something has changed. I am afraid to admit it to myself. But I am less critical of music than I used to be, less involved with it, even from a listener's perspective. 

Don't get me wrong, I can still be transported by its odd powers, but I seek it out much less than I used to. I have reached a sort of musical satiation point. Now I am just content to listen to whatever is playing. 

Give it a few months. I will discover a new artist (to me) and be singing their praises from the rooftop of this site soon. You will find me up there, naked and wailing about the virtues of this band, or that. The more I think about it, the more I start to like music again. Perhaps that is all that it is: that I don't have the capacity or the leisure for sustained thought any more. 

Speaking of, I am 350 pages into Steinbeck's East of Eden and I am nearly bored. If this is his masterpiece - which he believed it to be - then he was not a great writer, though he was certainly capable of great passages. There have been sections in which I am almost embarrassed for him. The plot is dull and obvious at times, forced to adhere to an ideology that one gets the feeling that Steinbeck hardly believed. He is using the Cain-Abel duality as a device, a labored mechanism, an increasingly tired one at that.

I have just suffered the emergence of yet two more character pairings whose names begin with "C and A." I believe this is the 3rd or 4th. They are children now, but I hardly care about them because he has cast them as a recurring type. I suppose he wanted to tell the "epic" story of a family, with their reachable history included. I can almost see the poster board that he used to draw this novel out before he started writing. Its inspiration was accidentally an Exodus rather than the Genesis that he may have hoped for and is now forcing.

But then there are some passages... Oh my, he can certainly write, when he is tasked with describing. Even some of his insights into mankind are very good. A hundred pages back I was disappointed that I had not been underlining as I went. Now, I just wish it was an audio book that I could put on in the background.

Shit! I forgot to write about the meditation class that I went to yesterday morning. Ah well, it will have to wait. I have bored myself blind here already, for the day.

I want a big breakfast, bacon and eggs and other stuff with jelly on it. It's unlikely that I'll get it. I have things to do this morning. 

Eno's "Apollo" album is over and I have moved on to Before And After Science. I am starting to really like this music stuff again. All that it takes is some time, and a willingness to listen.

I hope it lasts.

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Quell my qualms

(my carbon contribution)

I have just read the wikipedia page on "global warming"… I don't recommend this, particularly if you have a child, and you're trying to go back to sleep, which is what I was trying to do. 

Everything becomes about time. Rhys is 23 months old today, now we will count his age in years.

It is easy to worry, the mind is built for it. It is more difficult to relax, which requires practice. For me, it is an ordering of the mind, a subtle regimen helps. Later this morning I will go to a meditation class, to try to practice something lost along the way.

I try not to worry too much about things that are well out of my control, like global warming, but fuck…. read the wikipedia page linked above. Let me know if you can sleep afterwards.

I should do something about it, like take a Xanax rather than just lying here, wallowing in my misgivings.

But if I'm too lazy to wake up and take my medicine then how can I be expected to resolve the world's carbon problems.

I started looking around wikipedia tonight, out of boredom. I never noticed that you can export each page as a .pdf file. I put the page on global warming on my phone, so that I can worry about it anytime I wish to. I might not be smart enough to relax but I know how to store something about which to fret. 

Portable trifles, etc.

My life is filled with worries. I am too concerned with things. It has reduced my effectiveness, my pleasures.

This site was an effort to document something, and I believe it did, in some ways. Recently, I went back to the post in which I first announced Rachel's pregnancy. It's hard to believe how much our lives have changed since then. It seems impossible. There was no time whatsoever between the public announcing of Rachel's pregnancy and our move to California. None. 

Our lives were already out the door, packed in pods.

I was worried that perhaps we were trying to undertake too many changes at once, that maybe our relationship would suffer from the strain of so much transition. Wasn't I silly. 

I'm not sure how much longer I'll be writing here. I'm not sure how much I wish to document what might come next, the whirlwind of emotions, the inability to be fair about the future - not just my inability. Well, maybe. 

Wow. (I was trying to find that old post about our pregnancy) 

I accidentally did a Google search for seanq6.blogspot.com instead of navigating to the site by typing that into the URL field (I swear). A bunch of sites came up in which I am linked, which explains why I get so much traffic from certain posts (Alfred Hitchcock, Bettie Page, etc.)

Try it. I'm famous!

Well, my fame is only worth about $900 a month in advertising, but soon I'll be able to live off of my wisdom and yearnings alone. 

I can't stop writing now. Such a thing would likely crush me. A heart like mine… always in danger of too much silence, not enough. An innocent amongst the wilds. 

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I blame video games

"If you do not believe that my heart breaks, come back and look with me into this glass!" - Li Po

It is a game, the playful shattering of the heart; years upon years, systematic disruptions, tremors, terminal choices. Terminal pieces, too small to be gathered; lost, scattered. 

Getting involved with things as they are always ending, making sure of it. Love is too often a test to confirm the existence of its own worth, to define its boundaries by the edge of negation. It is a dangerous game, affirming promises through trial, error, destruction, recovery. The spirit following fire, many fresh startings.

The phoenix should not be tested, called upon with its never new love.

It is only an Arabian desert myth, a recurring mirage, a phantom... …and never knew love.

I have only ever fallen in with those who wished to be there, too often accepting the blame. 

… more willing to be more willing to be more willing.

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Think it doesn't happen here?

Well, my experiment in shock-blogging didn't go very well. I was denounced. The worst type of denunciation as well, I was (almost) universally ignored.

I thought I was being moderate. You should have seen the part that I cut. 

It was hideous.

I also removed an entire scene, an interview with the cop:

"What color was it?"

"I'm not sure. I only saw it for a few seconds."

"Was it erect?"

"I think so."

"Are you sure that he knew you were in the room?"

"Oh yes."

"How is that?"

"Well, he was looking at me as if he was doing nothing wrong, as if it was the most natural thing in the world."

"Was he doing anything additionally unnatural?"

"Well, not, not exactly, but it was difficult to focus with him that way. The whole thing was much more furious than I would have thought. His body was stiff from head to toe, like he was having a seizure. The other hand was gripping the bed. He seemed desperate."

"I understand. Did you run?"

"Oh no, we're trained to always walk with hot coffee, safety first and all, and also to complete each transaction. I set his coffee and his banana walnut bread down on the table next to him and told him to enjoy his day. He didn't even slow down..."

Oh well… I only got one email denouncing me, even that was a little disappointing. They found a line in the post to point out my own joke to me: "… like a dumb animal..." They agreed. They're very sub-textual, etc.

Moving on. 

My new life starts today. That's what my horoscope suggests, anyway. The last new moon was in Scorpio. That's me!

Lucky, I guess.

What are we to think of such things?

The poster above can be found on the wall at Starbucks. Frightening stuff. There is nothing more terrifying than a white-girl abduction. You can not convince me that they plan on taking her kidneys. We know what goes on.

Sex slaves are recruited every day in your backyard, boasts the poster. It's not true though. After seeing this I sat out in the backyard for a week and didn't see one sex slave being brought into the fold. It also claims that social media is the point of entry, and how children get recruited. I'm not sure how that happens in my backyard, but these criminals are elusive and organized. They're probably using wi-fi.

The poster claims that the "average age of entry" into forced prostitution is 12-14. I hadn't realized a range could be an average also. I thought that an average was derived from a range. When they have such brilliant local mathematicians dedicated to the cause I'm sure they'll have this whole sex thing whipped in no time. One must wonder about all of the 8 year olds it takes to filter out the 18 year olds, or is it factor in?

If only there were a number somewhere between 12 and 14....

That's math for ya'! The details will be discussed at the soiree. 

There is a Panel Forum (with Q & A) on the "life after the 'life'…" for both victims and abusers. One can only assume there will be some confessions being extracted from the abusers. I hope they have the victims behind a screen, or something. Decorum, and all.

There will be instructions provided on how to protect your grandchildren. Vital information we should all be aware of. Nobody is more capable of protecting children, and with more time to do so, than grandparents. 

There might be a typo or two in the poster, a little white lie. The ends justify, etc.

The image shows a young girl with her feet tied together. I'm certain that can't be accurate. She's probably just a model, not a whore. Though rumor has it that a healthy blonde girl can be traded for an entire case of cigarettes, or even a good camel, in some places.

Oh well, this is not science, this is local sex slavery. Science has no place in the Red and the Black. Why would it. The stated claim that it is the fastest growing criminal industry in the world only confirms that the people dedicated to fighting this terrible blight don't yet have internet access.

Why would they, when its filthy center of operations is apparently in my backyard. 

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This secret garden

(a secret)

It is cold, so I lie in bed longer than I should. I pull the covers up under my chin and close my eyes. I roll over. My back hurts a little from being prone for too long. I toss and turn and then try to give sleep one more chance. I wish there was a Starbucks in my bedroom, or just out in the hall, and I wish that they delivered. I think of all the things that I would eat: muffins, pumpkin loafs, cookies, sweetness. And coffee.

Eventually I would show one of the girls at Starbucks my morning hard-on and then afterwards it would be awkward to use the hallway to get to the bathroom. I would feel stupid. They would all glare at me as if I had done something wrong. Yet she is the one who now has richer life experience because of it. I refuse to believe that such a thing is harmful, among adults. At most it is disturbingly comical, yet somehow also very illegal. 

She would first describe it to the police as "his thing," knowing that "cock" isn't the appropriate term to use with them.

The cop would then correct her, "You mean his penis?"

I can understand their attitude about it though. Not the cops, the Starbuck girls. It is an ugly thing, an erection. There's not much that can be done to improve its looks. I have often tried. There is no penis makeover, no television shows dedicated to its betterment. Only mystery improves it. I can't even masturbate if I look at it too much. It's a hideous turn off. I have to put a pillow up between myself and it so that I can hopefully think of other things, and pretend that it is just something that is happening to me, it will all be over soon enough, and not to anger it. It feels as if I am being attacked by a dumb animal with one hand, when it is happening.

Sometimes I wish that it was a pussy instead so that I could masturbate with quiet dignity and not make such a mess. Don't tell anybody that, though.

I just keep repeating, "Oh god, gross, don't touch that! What are you doing? You don't know where it's been. Ewww, the stuff is coming out…. Now there's that all over. Do you see what you've done? You should be ashamed of yourself. Don't just go back to sleep…."

That's what I think. 

When it is all over, I am ashamed, and sleepy. I will sometimes nod about it when asked. It makes me feel dirty. The shame, and the mess, and then all the ice cream.

I am gaining weight again, somehow. It must be the food, all of the delicious food. I have narrowed it down to that. It is not a lot of weight, but the scale is moving in the wrong direction. They have threatened to cancel my contracts. I look to Christina Hendricks for strength. Or in a pinch, Jessica Simpson. 

Kirstie Alley scares children. Why is she legal?

It must be the stress of the new job, the returning weight. Did I mention that here? I must have. I tell you guys almost everything. Almost.

I never wanted a secret life, with secret thoughts. But I sure got one.

Do you want to know a secret now?

The heart is deceitful above all things, and beyond cure; who can possibly understand it?

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The one true palm

- Man, I am getting older, and fast.

The lessons just keep piling up in front of me, and behind. I don't  have time to sort through them any more, to try and understand them all. I am only feeling my way through most of them, intuiting. I am like a blind man in a hall of mirrors, stumbling along. It doesn't matter what anybody else sees, what twisted comical marvels of self appear before them. I am still walking into glass walls, lost and confused. 

In the past few months I have written more unpublished posts than ever before, a new personal record. Almost every day it is the same. I sit down and write a few paragraphs. Then I'll look at them, think about the words, what they're saying... wince, then they get deleted.

The initial purpose of this site was to write open emails to my friends. I might have to revert; start writing people again, friends.

I am trying to be happy, to find happiness within myself. I know that it is there. I can often feel it moving. It is somehow tied up with a sense of self-worth and belonging. I have rediscovered one but the other lingers with the unbaptized infants, the abode of souls in limbo.

I forget who said it, about Milton's Paradise Lost, but it was something along the lines of, "Nobody ever wished it was any longer."

That's how I feel now. I am experiencing tremendous emotions, some wonderful. There is much to be derived from them. But I do not wish to endure any longer than necessary. 

Yet another voice says: ... remain calm and still, this too shall pass.

It may not even be my decision any longer, perhaps it never was. So, why worry?

Given time, our basic nature will always betray us; reveal us, I mean.

That is perhaps the danger of certain delusions, they will tell you that you are something, and then you will relay that something to others, project it to all. In time, you will even believe, making it into a kind of truth. Then, others will believe also. Then again, you are trapped by what you have done, by the delusion of you.

- Beware of false prophets! ... say all prophets. What genius… It's like a palm reader warning against other palm readers; the other ones, around the corner.

Sensible stance, that. Trust is here, not there. There lies darkness.

Iniquities abound. Count on it. Come closer dear readers and I will tell you all about them. Soon.

Though I don't want the future to arrive any sooner than necessary. This time it seems almost inevitable. To what lasting effect I do not yet know. No one does.

It is written, all there in my hand. I look down and no questions remain. Each line's course diverts, or converges, or ends. The tributaries draw back in on themselves, the freshets appear as melted and swollen granite, as the wax of life.

Who am I to question the wisdom.

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"Isn't that a bad thing?"

Another fantastically colorful sunrise this morning.

On describing its multi-hue beauty afterwards, the other morning, one person's response was, "Isn't that a bad thing?"

I suppose for some it is.

I didn't try to capture the moment on my iPhone today, though.  A little lost innocence.

So it goes.


Okay, no time to write.


I went to see the movie Nebraska and had planned on writing about it this morning but life will not let me. Perhaps tomorrow, if I can remember what I thought and felt. If not, then maybe I will think and feel other things, and then we will have to see about those, instead.

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I didn't give up

If you need any additional evidence as to how innocent I can be: I tried to take an iPhone photo of the sunrise yesterday morning, a "Hipstamatic" shot. The faux-polaroid digital marvel is why the clouds look lumpy and radioactive. That, and the fact that sunlight is electromagnetic radioactivity made visible.

It was something. One of the wealthiest light shows, subtle and bold, that I've seen for some time. I stood there and watched it for several minutes, watching it change before my eyes, becoming the day.

It'll likely happen again this morning. I will be there to watch it, if it does.

The picture was taken from the parking lot of the gym. The owner of the gym, Juan, mentioned that he wants to write a brief article about me, a sort of before-and-after thing to help him promote his gym, with pictures. I was, of course, very flattered. I have lost some weight, but now… I am challenged to lose even more, to highlight the differences between "then" and now.

I didn't give up, the innocence. I kept taking pictures throughout the morning. 

Here's another, my favorite:

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