Remembering back before they put up the interstate, we had traffic round here, and visitors, and assorted good times.
No, I'm just procrastinating. I'm really good at that.
Tuesday, December 29, 2009
Sunday, December 27, 2009
Another Day, Another Verbose Exploration of Nothing
Blogs used to be short and spontaneous. Still can be. I need to work on not being so damn serious.
This one's about done. Will expand on that later.
Spent the evening in my neighbor's garage assembling his new ping pong table and drinking beer from the kegerator. Lockdown, home of the Folsom Prison Brews. Pretty good stuff: Dark and heady with a rich nutty taste and just the slightest ale-like kickback. I actually like it better than the standard for local ales, Sierra Nevada, which comes out of Chico and I believe is distributed nationally.
Speakin' o' Chico, my mother was born there, because her parents eloped to there, because her father's family lived there, because her father's father had worked for Mrs. Bidwell and I guess they stuck around awhile after her death. It's through this connection that I'm only six degrees from Abraham Lincoln.
Says at Wikipedia that she knew John Muir. Well, I don't need that, I'm only two degrees from him thanks to my paternal grandfather, so nyah.
It's funny: This blog is now starved of interesting content in part because some of the good stuff gets said at Facebook, or in comments there, or in comments at other blogs, or even (surprisingly enough) in actual conversations with actual people. It's the latter that I wish to do more. Now, offline interaction is totally fair game for online content. Really needn't be mentioned in this context of already-said-can't-say-again. But words are still words, and somewhere along the line I developed an aversion to copying, so if I say something clever to someone, I really don't feel right repeating it here; and this is doubly true if I said it online somewhere. This is one reason why blogs (or mine anyway) are dying. Further, as blogs are to books, so Facebook and Twitter are to blogs. Ultimately, though we are all enabled for a form of self-publishing, in the end very few of us will contribute anything worth a damn. There will just be more words; and thanks to the impermanent nature of digital publication, those words won't last very long either.
The more things change, the more they stay the same, wot.
What blogs do I admire? These two, for starters. Why? Because he simply tells his truth. I stop myself from doing that. Most people do. Most blogs are purposely entertaining, or expand on a narrowly defined aspect of someone's life, or in some way or other obscure the real person underneath. Dr Zen is not obscuring. I am, because I must. I look to a day when I no longer need to. What that will require is yet to be discovered. May never happen. I've a sense that if I wrote truly and honestly about myself, I would create something ugly, and I don't want to create something ugly. So I remain vague like this, poised on the edge of changes that may never come. It's frustrating.
It's also why I keep blogging.
Zen, BTW, does not read this, because (he says) I am "an unrepentant racist". It would be enlightening to discover how this is so, but my breath I am not holding.
This one's about done. Will expand on that later.
Spent the evening in my neighbor's garage assembling his new ping pong table and drinking beer from the kegerator. Lockdown, home of the Folsom Prison Brews. Pretty good stuff: Dark and heady with a rich nutty taste and just the slightest ale-like kickback. I actually like it better than the standard for local ales, Sierra Nevada, which comes out of Chico and I believe is distributed nationally.Speakin' o' Chico, my mother was born there, because her parents eloped to there, because her father's family lived there, because her father's father had worked for Mrs. Bidwell and I guess they stuck around awhile after her death. It's through this connection that I'm only six degrees from Abraham Lincoln.
Says at Wikipedia that she knew John Muir. Well, I don't need that, I'm only two degrees from him thanks to my paternal grandfather, so nyah.
It's funny: This blog is now starved of interesting content in part because some of the good stuff gets said at Facebook, or in comments there, or in comments at other blogs, or even (surprisingly enough) in actual conversations with actual people. It's the latter that I wish to do more. Now, offline interaction is totally fair game for online content. Really needn't be mentioned in this context of already-said-can't-say-again. But words are still words, and somewhere along the line I developed an aversion to copying, so if I say something clever to someone, I really don't feel right repeating it here; and this is doubly true if I said it online somewhere. This is one reason why blogs (or mine anyway) are dying. Further, as blogs are to books, so Facebook and Twitter are to blogs. Ultimately, though we are all enabled for a form of self-publishing, in the end very few of us will contribute anything worth a damn. There will just be more words; and thanks to the impermanent nature of digital publication, those words won't last very long either.
The more things change, the more they stay the same, wot.
What blogs do I admire? These two, for starters. Why? Because he simply tells his truth. I stop myself from doing that. Most people do. Most blogs are purposely entertaining, or expand on a narrowly defined aspect of someone's life, or in some way or other obscure the real person underneath. Dr Zen is not obscuring. I am, because I must. I look to a day when I no longer need to. What that will require is yet to be discovered. May never happen. I've a sense that if I wrote truly and honestly about myself, I would create something ugly, and I don't want to create something ugly. So I remain vague like this, poised on the edge of changes that may never come. It's frustrating.
It's also why I keep blogging.
Zen, BTW, does not read this, because (he says) I am "an unrepentant racist". It would be enlightening to discover how this is so, but my breath I am not holding.
Saturday, December 26, 2009
Xmas Past
Just past midnight already, so this will be short.
I dread Christmas, then get cranky about it as the internal pressure mounts ... Then it's here and by the end of the day I'm happy with it, content with it, so deep inside it I have a hard time imagining the world outside it.
That'll pass. But right now I'm all alone in a house quiet but for Anonymous 4 singing On Yoolis Night (and of course the buzzing in my ears), my chair an island in a sea of wrapping paper and piled boxes and indescribably multivarious objects. The tree glows, I'm getting cold (we didn't have a fire), I'm fading out ... So, what was Christmas?
Christmas was weeks of fretting over what to get for whom and when to go shopping. Shopping requires a mood, and long work days and evening meetings and the never-ending identity crisis were not conducive. But it always comes together in the final few days. Partly because I get ruthless and suddenly can't give a shit about my job. Partly because close deadlines wonderfully focus my attention. Partly because the spirit finally penetrates and I loosen up and find myself surprisingly able.
Until that time, I'm angry. Maybe that's not the right word, but it seems close enough. I'm made cranky and even more self-loathing than usual by the annual avalanche of realization that I buy things to show my love because I feel inadequate at showing it in other ways. I really don't think I'm inadequate like that, but there are pieces missing, instincts that are weak, parts of our various relationships in which I cannot show leadership and am more or less missing in action, and filling Christmas with the sort of cheer that attends wrapping paper and getting new things that reflect some thought and familiarity is at least something concrete that I can do. So the season progresses with me being cranky over that.
And then it starts to come together, and I find a thing here and a thing there that I know he or she will like and my heart suddenly fills with a weird joy that almost makes me cry and I think I must be emotionally unbalanced or something. But it passes and come Christmas Eve, all is well, and I am just happy.
Christmas was hours spent talking to Dell Computer and FedEx to prevent my wife's purple new laptop showing up at the door while she was home only to have it get delivered at the house anyway, and she even signed for it, and I felt like a total schmuck, and today she was pleased and surprised and had no idea and thought she was signing for our kid's new printer or something. So she said. I'm not so sure, because of an unguarded late-night comment a week ago, but such things can be forgotten, and no matter.
Christmas (Eve) was dinner at Mikuni and a stroll in sub-freezing temps down an over-decorated street and Lessons & Carols at Folsom's 150-year-old Episcopal church, where the comforting rituals of my childhood were somewhat informally replayed and my boys got a refresher glimpse of the church thing and my mother got to sit and sing with me and my family and I was happy to slow down and ponder the meaning of this mixed festival and holy day from within the thumping rhythm of old Anglican hymns, Venite adoremus Dominum.
Christmas was sleeping in and wondering at the phenomenon of everyone else sleeping in too, having presents at eleven or so, a late post-noon breakfast of eggs and ham, too much random food throughout the day, a new board game played, a new DVD watched, lots of drive-by huggings, homemade lasagna, self-absorbed playing with something new, shopping adventures recounted, and finally, while I'm trying to be quiet and focus, my mother carefully and not very quietly folding the colored tissue paper for next year.
Yes, we keep bags and tissue (for stuffing) and bows. Ribbons and wrapping paper are for the fireplace, but the rest of it lasts for years and years.
I've been at this for an hour? I'm a slow typist. Time to retire. I hope your Christmas was, like mine, better than expected. And if you don't do Christmas, that's fine, I hope it was a good day, I'm just not going to be unnecessarily polite about it.
I dread Christmas, then get cranky about it as the internal pressure mounts ... Then it's here and by the end of the day I'm happy with it, content with it, so deep inside it I have a hard time imagining the world outside it.
That'll pass. But right now I'm all alone in a house quiet but for Anonymous 4 singing On Yoolis Night (and of course the buzzing in my ears), my chair an island in a sea of wrapping paper and piled boxes and indescribably multivarious objects. The tree glows, I'm getting cold (we didn't have a fire), I'm fading out ... So, what was Christmas?
Christmas was weeks of fretting over what to get for whom and when to go shopping. Shopping requires a mood, and long work days and evening meetings and the never-ending identity crisis were not conducive. But it always comes together in the final few days. Partly because I get ruthless and suddenly can't give a shit about my job. Partly because close deadlines wonderfully focus my attention. Partly because the spirit finally penetrates and I loosen up and find myself surprisingly able.
Until that time, I'm angry. Maybe that's not the right word, but it seems close enough. I'm made cranky and even more self-loathing than usual by the annual avalanche of realization that I buy things to show my love because I feel inadequate at showing it in other ways. I really don't think I'm inadequate like that, but there are pieces missing, instincts that are weak, parts of our various relationships in which I cannot show leadership and am more or less missing in action, and filling Christmas with the sort of cheer that attends wrapping paper and getting new things that reflect some thought and familiarity is at least something concrete that I can do. So the season progresses with me being cranky over that.
And then it starts to come together, and I find a thing here and a thing there that I know he or she will like and my heart suddenly fills with a weird joy that almost makes me cry and I think I must be emotionally unbalanced or something. But it passes and come Christmas Eve, all is well, and I am just happy.
Christmas was hours spent talking to Dell Computer and FedEx to prevent my wife's purple new laptop showing up at the door while she was home only to have it get delivered at the house anyway, and she even signed for it, and I felt like a total schmuck, and today she was pleased and surprised and had no idea and thought she was signing for our kid's new printer or something. So she said. I'm not so sure, because of an unguarded late-night comment a week ago, but such things can be forgotten, and no matter.
Christmas (Eve) was dinner at Mikuni and a stroll in sub-freezing temps down an over-decorated street and Lessons & Carols at Folsom's 150-year-old Episcopal church, where the comforting rituals of my childhood were somewhat informally replayed and my boys got a refresher glimpse of the church thing and my mother got to sit and sing with me and my family and I was happy to slow down and ponder the meaning of this mixed festival and holy day from within the thumping rhythm of old Anglican hymns, Venite adoremus Dominum.
Christmas was sleeping in and wondering at the phenomenon of everyone else sleeping in too, having presents at eleven or so, a late post-noon breakfast of eggs and ham, too much random food throughout the day, a new board game played, a new DVD watched, lots of drive-by huggings, homemade lasagna, self-absorbed playing with something new, shopping adventures recounted, and finally, while I'm trying to be quiet and focus, my mother carefully and not very quietly folding the colored tissue paper for next year.
Yes, we keep bags and tissue (for stuffing) and bows. Ribbons and wrapping paper are for the fireplace, but the rest of it lasts for years and years.
I've been at this for an hour? I'm a slow typist. Time to retire. I hope your Christmas was, like mine, better than expected. And if you don't do Christmas, that's fine, I hope it was a good day, I'm just not going to be unnecessarily polite about it.
Wednesday, December 23, 2009
Friday, December 18, 2009
Thursday, December 17, 2009
Wednesday, December 16, 2009
Tuesday, December 15, 2009
Monday, December 14, 2009
Wednesday, December 09, 2009
By Design
The most brilliantly complex systems come about by accident and evolution. Weather. Biology. Religion.
Our society has transformed Christmas into a festival of excess. Excess materialism, excess food intake, excess expressions of cheer. That's not all bad. Some of it is very good. There are also intense moments of introspection and spirituality and love of family, friends, people. All good.
Also a time of stress and melancholy, anger and suicide, sadness, family strife, and eleventh hour reconciliation. Name your nectar or name your poison, you will get more than you expect over Christmas.
As we've transformed Christmas, so we've transformed New Years. More excess -- but now it's a past-stress blowout. Fun, parties, fireworks (if you live in my neighborhood); or home alone if time and chance put you in that space -- and always the resolutions.
I don't make them usually, but I might this year. I feel it's a brilliant design to place new beginnings and new resolutions a week after the premier festival. So much about Christmas tangles our children and our childhoods and our marriages and our loves and losses, our families and those indescribable relationships, dreams not met and targets just missed, tangles all these and more -- faith lost, edging to restoration, almost there until the candles are blown out -- Christmas tangles all the loose ends into a beautifully lit ball and tosses it into our laps ... And then what do we do with it?
Roll it out onto the floor for a week and start a new year resolved not to do THAT again, or THIS, or SOME OTHER THING, and who knows, maybe this time one of those resolutions will stick.
I don't have any really bad habits beyond staring at a computer too much, but I can think of a thing or two I must resolve to change. So maybe this year, the brilliance of placing a few new bets a few days after reaping a lifetime's harvest of old ones will pay off. Time will tell.
Our society has transformed Christmas into a festival of excess. Excess materialism, excess food intake, excess expressions of cheer. That's not all bad. Some of it is very good. There are also intense moments of introspection and spirituality and love of family, friends, people. All good.
Also a time of stress and melancholy, anger and suicide, sadness, family strife, and eleventh hour reconciliation. Name your nectar or name your poison, you will get more than you expect over Christmas.
As we've transformed Christmas, so we've transformed New Years. More excess -- but now it's a past-stress blowout. Fun, parties, fireworks (if you live in my neighborhood); or home alone if time and chance put you in that space -- and always the resolutions.
I don't make them usually, but I might this year. I feel it's a brilliant design to place new beginnings and new resolutions a week after the premier festival. So much about Christmas tangles our children and our childhoods and our marriages and our loves and losses, our families and those indescribable relationships, dreams not met and targets just missed, tangles all these and more -- faith lost, edging to restoration, almost there until the candles are blown out -- Christmas tangles all the loose ends into a beautifully lit ball and tosses it into our laps ... And then what do we do with it?
Roll it out onto the floor for a week and start a new year resolved not to do THAT again, or THIS, or SOME OTHER THING, and who knows, maybe this time one of those resolutions will stick.
I don't have any really bad habits beyond staring at a computer too much, but I can think of a thing or two I must resolve to change. So maybe this year, the brilliance of placing a few new bets a few days after reaping a lifetime's harvest of old ones will pay off. Time will tell.
Saturday, December 05, 2009
The Tools
I keep forgetting to post these. Put an ad on Craigslist, two nibbles, no resolution as yet, and Annie wants to see the pics again, so here we are.
Of course I forget the d's and here it is midnight, I need to hit the rack. Suffice it to say the table saw and planer / jointer are fifty to sixty years old and run like old tractors (i.e. they'll never quit -- tho' the ripper doesn't rip quite straight anymore). The scroll saw and sander are newer and work fine and I want to toss the old originals in too. Wife's family stuff so she might prefer to get some $$$ for it but we also just want to clear stuff out.
I wrote down the makers / model numbers somewhere but I can't be arsed finding that now. I know the saw is a Power King 280 and a web search found an entire community of old woodworking tool geeks who collect, restore and use these old things. Who knew?
Of course I forget the d's and here it is midnight, I need to hit the rack. Suffice it to say the table saw and planer / jointer are fifty to sixty years old and run like old tractors (i.e. they'll never quit -- tho' the ripper doesn't rip quite straight anymore). The scroll saw and sander are newer and work fine and I want to toss the old originals in too. Wife's family stuff so she might prefer to get some $$$ for it but we also just want to clear stuff out.
I wrote down the makers / model numbers somewhere but I can't be arsed finding that now. I know the saw is a Power King 280 and a web search found an entire community of old woodworking tool geeks who collect, restore and use these old things. Who knew?
Friday, December 04, 2009
Friday Fourteen
Sunday after Thanksgiving. South bound. Two hundred miles to the next city. Gas light on. No idea where's the next gas station. Good times.
Monday afternoon, headed home, gas light on again, drove all along Highway 1, nary a fuel stop, I swear Newport Beach must have passed a law against gas stations. Finally solved it by going inland. Going back, Catalina Island out on the Pacific calm and bright, I can see the attraction.
Still find these things around unexpected corners.
I got out for a walk on the beach.
Every time I see this thing it fascinates me. It hulks over Huntington Beach. Still don't know what it is exactly.
The Pier at Huntington Beach as seen while making a right turn onto the PCH from Main St.
The highway goes under LAX. Top was down, camera propped on top of the windshield, yeah, I'm dangerous like that.
Walked about Venice Beach right around sundown.
And went for the freeway, and six hours home again.
Monday afternoon, headed home, gas light on again, drove all along Highway 1, nary a fuel stop, I swear Newport Beach must have passed a law against gas stations. Finally solved it by going inland. Going back, Catalina Island out on the Pacific calm and bright, I can see the attraction.
Still find these things around unexpected corners.
I got out for a walk on the beach.
Every time I see this thing it fascinates me. It hulks over Huntington Beach. Still don't know what it is exactly.
The Pier at Huntington Beach as seen while making a right turn onto the PCH from Main St.
The highway goes under LAX. Top was down, camera propped on top of the windshield, yeah, I'm dangerous like that.
Walked about Venice Beach right around sundown.
And went for the freeway, and six hours home again.
Wednesday, December 02, 2009
Tuesday, December 01, 2009
Roads Taken And Not
My son is doing a paper for an English class and typical of students aiming towards Engineering, finding he doesn't have (or thinks he doesn't have) the right sort of mind to analyze a poem.
"There's really nothing there," he says. "Just the poem, and a bunch of people giving their opinions on it. Nothing definite."
Math and physics are definite. This is what makes them easier to do. But college also teaches us to write about things we will never understand. And so he is writing about Frost's "The Road Not Taken." It's a lovely poem, simple of imagery and rhythm and rhyme, and as a well for pondering, bottomless. I'm reading it so I can better proofread his paper later. I enjoy reading it. Rhyme and rhythm assist the mind in framing concepts. Freeform poetry also has its place, but honestly, a lot of freeform poetry is little more than offhand prose written by a lazy poet.
My simple take? Choices are choices. We always have roads not taken. Once done, our sigh may be of regret or relief, but the choice itself cannot be wrong. It's the choice we make and that makes it right. What we do on the road now chosen, how we seize it and make the most of it, is what makes all the difference.
"There's really nothing there," he says. "Just the poem, and a bunch of people giving their opinions on it. Nothing definite."
Math and physics are definite. This is what makes them easier to do. But college also teaches us to write about things we will never understand. And so he is writing about Frost's "The Road Not Taken." It's a lovely poem, simple of imagery and rhythm and rhyme, and as a well for pondering, bottomless. I'm reading it so I can better proofread his paper later. I enjoy reading it. Rhyme and rhythm assist the mind in framing concepts. Freeform poetry also has its place, but honestly, a lot of freeform poetry is little more than offhand prose written by a lazy poet.
My simple take? Choices are choices. We always have roads not taken. Once done, our sigh may be of regret or relief, but the choice itself cannot be wrong. It's the choice we make and that makes it right. What we do on the road now chosen, how we seize it and make the most of it, is what makes all the difference.
