Year: 2007
Tiring
Posted on March 25, 2007 in Equality
All animals are equal but some are more equal than others.
Organizations that try to motivate spirit by telling everyone who the president is, who the past presidents are EVERY SINGLE TIME they get together in a group. It doesn’t matter if the presidents were just people who stepped forward — were never elected, etc. “Wow,” they want us to say. “He’s president. How cool is that?” Elsewhere I have seen it said “Trying to be cool is the very essence of being uncool.” Isn’t this one (call it “[[Toastmasters|Toastmasterism]]”) of the more severe examples of just that?
[tags]Equality, Respect[/tags][dels]Equality, Respect[/dels]
Desert Blues
Posted on March 23, 2007 in Weather
The sky outside has turned to the color of the blood in my veins. Clouds which I greeted have fled eastward and are doubtless causing trouble over the Midwest, giving unto Texas and the South a plague we desperately need falling on us. I enjoyed the clouds’ shoving and pushing across the alluvial plain last Sunday. Tuesday’s rain brightened my spirits until I saw that it was only what had been expected early next week.
Southern California is a desert, my friend Leah insists. No, I disagreed, but it may be becoming one.
[tags]Weather, California[/tags][dels]Weather, Southern California[/dels]
Presenting the Chevron
Posted on March 23, 2007 in Cats
I open the bedroom door and the second of the twisted sisters, Boadicea, is outside, pacing back and forth in the hall, mewing. There’s no explanation for it, so I call her over to the bed and give her a good rubdown. She follows me all over the condo. Whenever I stop she rolls on her back and presents the tabby colored chevron on her chest for scratching. The other cats are nowhere to be seen.
[tags]Cats[/tags]
Friday Anteater Blogging – Poop
Posted on March 23, 2007 in Xenartha
Corrected.
It was going to show up sooner or later. Here’s a classic segment about the Tulsa Zoo’s silky anteater tamandua. Poor fellow tries to tell Dad that he needs to go but….
Who needs cats or squids when anteaters combine the best qualities of both!
[tags]Anteaters[/tags][dels]Anteaters[/dels]
Doused by a Dry Spell
Posted on March 22, 2007 in Hiking Nature Weather
If in past seasons the hills blazed with wildflowers, this is a dim year. When we hiked down the [[Cleveland National Forest|Santiago Trail]] to a place with fossil shells last Sunday, I counted five blooms — three of them Coast Paintbrush, a four inch long branch of yellow blooms, and a single mustard flower. The trailsides were a grim brown, reminiscent of late Autumn rather than March.
On Tuesday it rained. It did not fall all over Orange County. [[Portola Hills]] seemed uniquely favored. The black splashes lingered for a few hours and took with them the promise of showers early next week.
[tags]Wildflowers, Hiking, Nature, Weather, California[/tags]
Fat Cat?
Posted on March 22, 2007 in Cats
Fiona, my once diminuitive Fiona, has grown huge. Imagine the proportions of a [[Maine Coon Cat]] but on spindly legs and with short-hair encapsulating her body. Comparing her with [[Boadicea]] you would not think them sisters. The cat I chose heaves herself into my lap and presses herself against my stomach until I am about to retch from the weight.
I cannot say, for certain, if this is muscle or blubber. She gets around easily enough. When we serve catfood or spread catnip on the scratching box, she arrives in good time for her share. To what end does she grow and will I see her pass before her time? The answer is murmured softly and I cannot make out the consonants for the [[assonance]] of the vowels.
[tags]Cats[/tags]
Two Films
Posted on March 21, 2007 in Film
G. made the most accurate pronouncement when I described the plotline of [[Mr._Jones_(film)|Mr. Jones]] to a group of bipolar friends after a 6 mile hike on Sunday: “It’s every male bipolar’s dream. To have your therapist fall in love with you. Of course she has to be good looking.” And [[Lena Olin]] fit the bill.
“There’s that stage, you go through,” A added, “when you fall in love with every female who is nice to you. The waitress fills your coffee cup and you’re in love!” My theory was that the therapist had to fall in love with Mr. Jones because it was [[Richard Gere]] playing the part and Richard Gere never loses the girl.
A different sort of love story is covered by The Science of Sleep, by Eternal Sunshine of the Spotless Mind director [[Michel Gondry]]. In both of the Gondry pieces I have seen I’ve been struck by the resonance his characters have with my own during my brightest depressions and darkest manias. He even named the protagonist of Eternal Sunshine “Joel”. Isn’t that reason enough for proud paranoia? Has this man written his scripts from my emotions?
I’m convinced Gondry is a closet bipolar, either taking his medication in secret or refusing it altogether so he can come up with ever more glorious hallucinogenic cinema for all of us to enjoy.
List your favorite films about bipolars and other mentally ill people. Dibs on Blue Sky.
[tags]Film, Bipolar Disorder[/tags]
Afternoon
Posted on March 20, 2007 in Poems
Silence trolled by soft serge paws into a whisper. Rain.
Dream
Posted on March 19, 2007 in Dreams
I find myself in these odd spaces as I try to wake up. In the dream, I have returned to Duke University to work on a degree in Health Education. This is a theme of recent dreams. I don’t know how I got admitted: the letter announcing my acceptance arrived at my door one day and Lynn agreed to accompany me. We’ve moved into our rooms. I turn to go out the door. Except I doubt that this is the real thing (has anyone else had a dream where s/he believed that the dream was reality?) and start to make my way towards the door. It’s in front of me and opens to a long hall. I know that this isn’t where I am, so I try different doors in different room arrangements. I am struggling towards wakefulness and I am wrapped in several layers of gauze (like I wrap myself in blankets when I sleep), so I start stripping them off — especially from my face. The search for the True Door continues in this passion until I throw my head up and see the door to my bedroom, leading crossways into the hall.
[TAGS]Dreams[/tags]
A Half-Way House Out of Horror
Posted on March 16, 2007 in Reflections
You cannot harm me
You cannot harm me
You cannot harm one who has dreamed a dream like mine.
Lakota War Chant
The last few months have been hard and I haven’t been able to speak forthrightly about who did what. Despite this, I have been able to distill a few lessons for future reference.
- Don’t let someone’s admiration of you push you into ethical gray areas. When things get rough, they will turn on you and blame the whole thing on you. (See [[borderline personality]].)
- Those who have no vision will identify everything you do as a symptom of mental illness.
- Don’t trust those men who have been through mania without any history of abuse by others. They will have no clue when battles start to rage.
- Don’t trust people who say that everyone is mentally ill. They are inclined to think that they are not responsible for their actions and not required to act civilly.
- Use your lawyer. You have a right to her services.
- Just because people hold positions of authority does not mean that they possess competent knowledge of human behavior. Apply the [[Peter Principle]].
- Expect that most people will not help you when an organized effort to defame you is launched.
- Expect that most people will want you to heal overnight even when this is not possible.
- Expect that people will avoid you even if they feel that you have been wronged.
- You can survive a pit.
- Hold your ground when your place in a community of love is threatened.
- Remember again that people have many faces. Those who are nasty to you may be loved by others. People are not round balls, their surface identical throughout the whole. Others do not see it like this and think you must be hallucinating even if the nastiness happened right in front of them.
- Watch for men who have stopped drinking but have not left the bar room.
- “I did my best” is a copout when the best spawns disaster. If you screwed up, you screwed up. Learn to do better when you screw up. Shun people who cannot make amends.
- Talk about things when you are damned good ready to do so. Don’t let anyone — your spouse, your friends, your therapist, etc. — rush you into doing otherwise.
- Like who you like, distrust who you must distrust. Don’t let others make these decisions for you.
- They can harm people who dream. Vision needs that from time to time so that it stays grounded.
[tags]Bipolar Disorder, Borderline Disorder[/tags]
Friday Anteater Blogging – Max
Posted on March 16, 2007 in Xenartha
What a stupid way to waste your fifteen minutes of fame.
