No Celestial Reason
Posted on July 12, 2010 in Disappointment
One by one, I’ve found old friends. I discovered most recently that one of these suffers from bipolar disorder like me. Another works as a walk-on in Hollywood. The fate of many others is unknown to me, but I haven’t seen them in the tabloids or the more respectable media.
We don’t seem to have amounted to much. A dullness has circumscribed our lives. The worst thing about it is that I can’t in all honesty say that we were marked for mediocrity as a group or that a personified Fate pulled out our strings and tied knots in them. Each of us came to our tragedies on our own and there is no celestial reason for it.
My mother used to imply that if I didn’t have my life together by age 25, it would never come together. Now at age 52, I have trouble believing that it isn’t over.
From 5.9 to 5.4
Posted on July 11, 2010 in Earthquakes
The USGS errs on the side of excess when it first estimates the power of an [[earthquake]]. At least I have never seen it publish a number and then increase it after reports from all its stations arrive. So it was for its first call on the magnitude of the earthquake that rumbled across Southern California last Wednesday. The first number was 5.9 followed by 5.7 and resting, at last, on 5.4.
In reflection, the way that the USGS comes up with its [[Richter scale]] estimations is the opposite of what psychiatrists do when they start you on a medication. The latter starts you on a low dose, then works you up to a higher one.
In my diary, I made this note:
Moderate earthquake. I heard it, felt the slowed undulations. It segued in, then slipped away. Over in about 20 seconds. The animals didn’t have enough time to panic, though Fiona would not go into the loft until dinner time. (The stomach always wins out.)
This was no Loma Prieta. As soon as it hit, I tweeted “EARTHQUAKE!”. As my API client refreshed, half a dozen or so similar exclamations twittered into existence, each, no doubt, concerned that he or she was the first to publish the fact.
Physical Therapy
Posted on July 10, 2010 in Neurology
My neurologist dispatched me to the physical therapist to see what could be done about my hand. First tests were disheartening. We discovered that my finger did not come back into place when I spread the fingers and drew them together again. It dragged. I also had trouble holding it tight against the ring finger.
I’ve been having trouble getting it to behave when I type. The pinky likes to wander, ignoring the A key and reaching for the cap locks. It’s been bad enough to force me to use a pen tablet when on the laptop and consider switching to the DVORAK keyboard on the other. The A is much too vital to ignore.
The physical therapist has me doing a variety of exercises, beginning with a warmup on the bicycle wheel for hands, then stretches with a large, softish rubber band called a Theraband. Then lessons commence in the many uses of putty to exercise my hand. Squeezing, pulling, and spreading it stimulates the affected digits. Finally the session ends with a stint on the Purdue Peg Board, a devilish exercise that calls on me to put pins in holes. At the end of these tortures, I need ice for a sore wrist and shoulder.
The good news is that I am recovering the motor functions of my hand, though the numbness remains, will always plague me so I am told.
Deneb
Posted on July 10, 2010 in Nature
For the past several nights, I have missed the clear skies of Spring. Last night, though, I went out to see that the clouds had burst asunder, letting in a view of Outer Space.
I noticed an odd phenomenon: pinprick flashes of light that appeared in my peripheral vision but faded to near-nothingness when I looked at them straight on. They were very specific as to their location. Yes, they were actual stars because when I pointed my Droid’s Google Sky Map at them, it named them. So even if Vega and Jupiter were the only fixed lights in the firmament, I had more than faith in these spectres. There at the Zenith, invisible to my focus, but stunning in the fringe, was Deneb.
Engage
Posted on July 4, 2010 in Encounters Folly Watch Thinking
The first person who asks me what I mean can go soak her/his head in a vat of near beer.
I’ve been told by the well-meaning that I “lack social skills”. This may be true, in the usual sense of the word, but I employ a different variety of social skill to get by. I play dumb around strangers and family I seldom see. Talking, you see, brings questions, and when questions come too quickly, the mind loses its place.
“What do you mean?” is probably the most vapid, unimaginative and aggressive question you can ask me. It’s the prelude for an attack for some, a perfunctory exercise for most who are like a dog given a cucumber: they haven’t any idea what they are supposed to be doing with it.
So I’m not a big talker when I am with people. I prefer to observe. When gazing upon things or otherwise experiencing the world, I do so with the minimal possible intrusion of language. The machine gun minds want you to do more than this. They want you to layer a hefty meaning on it all ((Ask them “What do you mean by meaning?” sometime. When they balk, insist that they define their terms because without a clear and detailed explanation, how are you going to be able to give them what they want?)) because they are uncomfortable with the perplexing lightness of the world.
If you want to enjoy the world with me, don’t look for shortcuts. If it is one of my pictures, examine it without asking me to say what it is. If it is my writing, remember that I take care to write what I mean — sometimes using metaphors. It’s a waste of my time and yours to step away from what is before you, to demand that I provide you with Cliff Notes for each and every one of my creative acts. Engage.
Patriot Games
Posted on July 4, 2010 in Citizenship Festivals
I like America. But I don’t like Americans who tell me how great it is, as if they themselves made it.
— Andy Rooney
Plenty of people are playing patriot today — the most modest with American flags that they sometimes have let deteriorate to rags or, as I saw yesterday, in the form of banners that cover the sides of whole buildings. Bit like the hypocrites of the Gospel of Matthew who make a spectacle of praying in public.
It turns sadly funny when conversation turns to respect for the flag. Most do not know that the proper way to dispose of a flag is to cremate it. I saw this once as a Boy Scout. You separate the stars from the stripes before the holocaust. Today, you may eat cupcakes decorated with tiny flags that end up in the trash along with plastic bags printed with flags that share the same fate. The people who scream loudest about flag-burning may be the most casual about this.
A true patriot doesn’t put his store in ersatz symbolism. Nor does he boast about his country or limits the concept of service to time spent in the military — often in places where he never sees the glint of an enemy’s rifle. You can’t say “I did my time” as if you were a prisoner. And you must remember that you serve your country every day.
The type of politician you elect shows whether you love it or hate it. The people — not the land — are the nation. You educate them, protect them, feed them if times are bad, look after their health. You must vote as if they are the nation’s most precious resource. It makes for the worst kind of citizen who only votes his pocket-book or out of a blind fear of whatever certain demagogues call “socialism”.
Don’t be a superficial patriot today and a selfish bastard tomorrow. Love your country for what it is and stand to defend it from those who would weaken it from the inside as well as the out.
Flaming Fog and a Red Sports Car
Posted on June 25, 2010 in Anxiety Campaign 2006 Encounters Hiking Loneliness Weather
Yesterday was as momentous as being wedged against a smooth, unshatterable pane of glass: forever in the sight of the world but engaging with none of it. Went out to find the stars using Google Sky Map. For the second night in a row, however, a crazy, burning thatch-roof of orange-tinted fog prevented me from seeing Vega.
The mist had cleared by late afternoon when I took Drake hiking. On our way back from the Point, I saw two men standing in the fire road. They walked down the hill as soon as they saw me, leading me by a couple of hundred yards. They could not get to their red sports car and drive away fast enough. I took stock of a meadow strewm with pale cream Weed’s Mariposa tulips and stop counting the hurts.
Alone in Bad Company
Posted on June 25, 2010 in Depression Journals & Notebooks
The worst diseases are the invisible ones. They are like a drawer that you can’t close and can’t see the reason why it won’t close. You can shove against it with all your might, but the pressure gets you nowhere or makes things worse. The state of my little finger is like this and, when it comes, so is my depression.
Last week, I felt especially out of sorts in my mood. I wrote:
I’m at that point in life where no one sees the promise in me anymore. Those accolades faded as I grew older and was derailed by my illness. I can’t see my future amounting to what it could have been. There’s the old, damaged dream of not being a millionaire by age 30 and then there is the loss of a vocation — the sense of a career stalled by madness. Those who might have been your respectful peers ignore you. You become the embarassing relative, the odd man married to the friend of the family.
Among others who don’t and won’t understand, you retreat into corners to look at magazines or take your place on the couch watching a game to which you give no attention when you are alone. In your own time and space, you sit with demons skilled in mockery. Between doctor’s appointments, you count emptinesses.
[[Ambrose Bierce]] defined alone as “in bad company.” This is you.
But only as long as the dread-fall lasts.
The Demons Visit
Posted on June 19, 2010 in Anxiety Guilt PTSD Reflections
Tonight, my demons have come to visit. These are the people who saw that I wasn’t as smart as I pretended to be. I lay out service in the chasm that is my mind, invite them to sit down, ask them to tell me why they are here, but they won’t talk to me.
A Brief Comment on the Oval Office Speech
Posted on June 16, 2010 in Civic Responsibility Environment
Because I want to counter the persistently unbalanced criticism of Obama’s acts as president, it is easy for me not to speak my true mind: the course the president is following is sound. I have confidence in that. However, when he said we need to pray about the oil spill, I felt his talk last night failed. He needs us to get on the phone, call our representatives in Congress, and restore the president’s power to regulate the oil industry and to curb corporate power in America. We need to change our lives in the way we use oil products and reach out for alternative energy sources. The fire of his election campaign was missing.
Bring it back, Mr. President.
Plugged in, Tuned Out
Posted on June 16, 2010 in Encounters Hiking
What’s the point of getting out in nature if you are going to build a coccoon around yourself? This season, I have been hiking the Harding Truck Trail, a wide fire road winding upwards in the Santa Ana Mountains about two miles as the crow flies from my home. That requires a leap over the steep ridge where the Santiago Trail passes. Its steep country: on the north side of the ridge fall plump, rounded cliffs of conglomerate that were once nesting grounds favored by condors. Beyond that are the slightest less steep grassy slopes that the Harding Trail ascends. I walk it three times a week to a picnic table next to a burnt eucalyptus tree.
While Drake and I climb the brutal switchbacks to my favorite overlook, I run into hikers and bikers grinding upwards or rushing down. I always greet these. Sometimes, though, the plugs come out of the ears and the first word out of their mouth is “Eh?”
“Hello,” I repeat.
“Oh, hello.”
“The dog’s friendly.”
“Oh yeah. He looks like a nice dog.” Then the earpieces go back in and they go back into the world they brought with them from the valley.
For me, there’a grand world that must be sensed in every possible way. Flycatchers whistle, sparrows chirp, quail churr, and, in the canyon below, dogs bark. I stop to take in these things along with the view. Oh, they are enjoying the trail in a valid way, some say to me, but is it? Few people stop to take in the view at the burnt tree or to rest at the picnic table. They probably don’t admire the tall sycamores dwarfed by the canyon walls or listen to the hounds calling to each other. They have no clue that this is the season when the scarlet Mexican pinks sneak out of the rocky slopes or look close to see that the white patches on the slopes are meadows of Matilija poppies. They aren’t listening and they probably aren’t looking, either. Are they on the trail or are they just using it as a treadmill?
Dream
Posted on June 15, 2010 in Dreams
I’m staying at a tall, glass-tower hotel. Something wicked is happening here. The black glass part of the hotel rests upon a stained, white concrete base that is maybe five stories high. By getting into the wrong elevator, I learn that there are secret doings here. A hotel worker smiles at me as he comes in. There’s a pit there where they put guests to draw their energy out and do the laundry by kicking their feet. I rush around the hotel, doing my best to save people but the hotel staff will not help because they have immunity. I find myself huddled in a guest room with other guests and a frightened staffer who fears he will be taken. The harvesters come down the hallway, culling those they want to serve in their lake of clear goo.
