Redefining moments

It's been an interesting two weeks since I wrote about Shaharazade's being up for sale. A handful of days in Florida for a work-related software convention gave me the opportunity to visit family and talk to my parents about the situation. They were very encourgaging and proved to be a good sounding board off of which to bounce my thoughts. I came away with an extensive list of questions to ask the current owners, and a feeling of confidence that I might actually be able to handle such a potentially crazy enterprise. At this point, it all hinges on the question at the top of that list I've put together: What was the current owner's personal income from the restaurant last year? If it's an amount I could comfortably live on, then I'm going to begin the process of pursuing this. Trouble is, these people are hard to get ahold of. Messages to the e-mail address at the shop's website have all bounced back and phone messages left with staff have been slow to be passed on. Through a few conversations this morning, though, I learned the following:

-- The owners apparently don't spend much time in the shop, as their daughter runs it for them. I know that the husband/owner usually stops in on Sunday mornings, so I planned to have breakfast there today. Of course, I just missed him and his daughter wasn't working, but I was told that my phone messages had been passed on.
-- The owner of a store down the street gave me the low-down on the restaurant's kitchen-- It's supposedly so tiny that they have propane-powered heating elements instead of a stove. Considering the quality of their food, that knowledge (if it's accurate) gives me profound admiration for the kitchen staff. It also tipped me off to what's probably one of the greatest challenges of running the place.
-- Another shop owner, of the awesomely funky Lost Dog coffee shop (my second favorite place in Shepherdstown), informed me that the husband/owner of Shaharazade's is also the town mayor, which gives me another possible avenue of contact.

I also made sure to walk past the realty office that's advertising the restaurant and get their phone number. So, I'm hopeful of talking to someone this week. With my luck, I'll find out that they've already accepted another offer, but at this point even that would be a relief. See, I'm following my typical pattern on this: Once I get an idea or a desire in my head, I grasp it tenaciously and become obsessed and impatient to see it through to fruition. And if that impatience goes on too long, I either become excited and slip into irrationality, or discouraged and blow the whole thing off. Since talking to my parents, it's been more of the former than the latter. I've been allowing myself to visualize life as the owner of Shaharazade's, and to wonder about such things as where I'd end up living if this comes to pass (and yes, I've already googled rental properties in the area). At the moment, I can feel the physical manifestation of that anxious excitement-- an intermittent tightness in my chest as if a fist were wrapped around my sternum and trying to yank it out from between my ribs. It's unsettling, to say the least. No wonder I have such issues with dukkha. But I'm trying my damndest to squelch the grasping and remain calm until I can get enough information to rationally decide whether to move forward or just let go.

In the meantime, I've been exploring that feeling of confidence that began in Florida, as well as just where I am at this point in my life. It's not that I'm generally lacking in confidence (I've been known to occasionally border on arrogance. Yes, me. Really!), but the growing realization that I'm at a crossroads and that I need to step out of complacency into something unknown has led me to a questioning state of soul-searching that challenges my self-assurance. I'm a slave to stability. I've had only three full-time jobs in my life. I spent 7 years at the first and only left because the company went bankrupt. After 9 years at the second job, I faced a situation similar to what I'm experiencing now, except that I ended up completely despising that job and crying in the car during morning commutes until I found my current position. In September I'll have been at this job for 9 years, so I'm apparently coming up on my version of the "Seven (or so) Year Itch". That's apparently my life-change cycle. Roughly every seven to nine years, I go through the same round of questions: What and how much can I handle? What and how much am I willing to handle? Is this [idea that I'm pursuing] the right direction for me? If I decide that it's not, or if it just doesn't work out, what else do I want to/am able to do? Will this choice drag me to the depths, or will it bring out latent strengths buried by complacency? Just how do I want to re-define myself?



Redefine

Imagine your brain as a canister filled with ink,
now think of your body as the pen where the ink resides.
Fuse the two, KAPOW! What are you now?
You're the human magic marker, won't you please surprise my eyes?
It's in your nature, you can paint whatever picture you like,
no matter what Ted Koppel says on channel 4 tonight.
So modify this third rock from the sun,
by painting myriads of pictures with the colors of the one.

I'm sick of painting in black and white
My pen is dry and I'm all uptight
So sick of limiting myself to fit your definition

Picture the scene, where whatever you thought
would, in the blink of an eye, manifest and become illustrated.
You'd be sure, man, that every line drawn reflected a life that you loved
not an existence that you hated.
So, must we demonstrate that we can't get it straight?
We've painted a picture, now we're drowning in the paint.
Figure out what the fuck it's about,
before the picture we painted chews us up and spits us out.

I'm sick of painting in black and white
My pen is dry and I'm all uptight
So sick of limiting myself to fit your definition
Redefine

All of this has put my head in a whirl and created a hell of a distraction, which is obvious by the way I've just been babbling. And of course, it's affecting me at work. It was very hard to focus at the convention in Florida. There were moments when I was seriously interested in what I was learning and how I could apply it at work, but just as many others when I was day-dreaming and thinking of questions to ask the owners of Shaharazade's.

I did have one moment of peace, though. The convention takes place at a resort/convention center in St. Pete Beach, which is not a bad spot considering that it's Florida. It's right on the beach (and I lucked into a room with a view) about a mile and a half up from the somewhat fabulous Don Cesar hotel. Tradition at this convention includes an after-dinner stroll down the beach for drinks at the Don's swanky bar. Up till this year I'd resisted that tradition, but this time around I decided that I should finally see the place. If you're into 100 year old cognac and expensive cigars, it's your kinda place. Me, I had two ginger ales, said my goodnights to the group, and headed out to the beach to stroll back to the resort alone.

After the chaos of three days with family, a whirlwind of software seminars, and the Big Issue I've been pondering, that solitary night-time walk along the Gulf of Mexico was wonderfully refreshing. I passed a few other people, but none walked as close to the water as I chose to. About halfway along, I caught up with a group of sandpipers scuttling along the edge of the surf. I followed them for a while, losing sight of them against the water in the dim light, then glimpsing them again as they ran from the tide flowing up the beach. Farther along, just before the spot where I needed to turn away and head up to the resort, was a heron stalking along through the breakers. He was engrossed in hunting and ignored me as I squatted on the sand to watch him. How he was able to see anything in that dark water is beyond me. To me, he was barely more than a long, pale silhouette against the grey and black gradients of flat sea, horizon, and midnight sky above. But observing his focus and determination served to center me, however briefly, and I hope to hold on to the image when I feel that damned fist closing around my sternum.

Synchronicity, or just a pipe dream?

Main Entry: pipe dream
Function: noun
Etymology: 1896, from the fantasies brought about by the smoking of opium
Definition: an illusory or fantastic plan, hope, or story

So, a few weeks ago I followed one of my favorite routines of cruising up to Shepherdstown, WV, for tea and breakfast at Shaharazade's. Afterwards, I went for a stroll through town. Shep'town appears at first glance to be just one more tiny little historic country town, with a tiny little main street of slightly crumbling historic buildings. But a closer look reveals that the street-level of those buildings is full of some pretty chi-chi shops and restaurants, and at least three of those store-fronts are home to realty offices that plaster their windows with very expensive listings, which I normally ignore because I think it's disgusting that housing should cost that much, even if it is historic. I have the impression that much of the staff of Shepherd University (after which the town is named) and the visiting parents of many of the students apparently have significant disposable income, and the town seems happy to oblige them.

So, anyway, after breakfast on that particular day a few weeks ago, one of those listings jumped out and grabbed my attention as I was walking by. Being offered for a mere (relatively speaking) $75,000 was my beloved Shaharazade's! In the following weeks, I inquired of the staff when I was there and left phone messages for the owners, but got no information. This morning, though, I was there again and one of the owners came in just as I was finishing my meal. I had been hoping for just such an opportunity and chatted with him for a bit. It seems that, even though the business is doing just fine, there are too many other issues going on in his and his wife's lives and something had to give. They're apparently semi-retired and decided to take away the "semi-" part in order to have time to deal with things.

I've been thinking about this a lot. I probably wouldn't be if I weren't going through this phase of being dissatisfied with both my job and where I live, but I am fed up with both and so very ready for a change. But...

1) I'd have to sell my condo to have the money to do this. I could probably, possibly, find a place to rent for a decent price out thataways (an hour or so farther west of DC), but to get a decent price for my condo I'd have to throw several thousand dollars into fixing it up. Even then, the current housing market situation means that I wouldn't get anywhere near what I could have a few years ago, or what I might if I waited for this economic slump to end. I'm guessing, in it's current state, I could get more than double the price of the restaurant, but less than triple. Would that be enough to buy the business, find a place to live, and make the venture successful? And then there's the timing of it all to consider. Who knows how long my condo would take to sell? Would the owners of Shaharazade's wait that long? Or would I have to take out a loan and then pray that the condo sold quickly? Could I even take out a loan for that amount before selling the condo?

2) Even more importantly, I know jack-shit about the restaurant industry. I've got a quarter-century in luxury retailing under my belt, including sales, management and administration, and I'm sure some portion of that knowledge and experience would translate into running a restaurant. But what about the rest? There's so much I don't know, and that's the part that scares the bejeezus out of me. The place comes with all equipment, inventory, staff, etc, and the current owner is willing to assist whomever takes over. But I have no idea how long the learning curve would be. I've read Anthony Bourdain's books, and I've heard the horror stories from that industry. What if I were to take this plunge and have it fail in less than a year? What the hell would I do then?

Not to mention the fact that Shaharazade's is my sanctuary, the place that I've run to these many months when I've needed a serene, comfortable place to read, write, think, and escape. If I were to take over the business, how long would it take for it to turn from calm sanctuary to stressful nightmare?

So I've spent the past couple of weeks wondering whether this is one of those synchronous opportunities I wrote about so recently, or just a crazy, unrealistic, impractical pipe dream. How the hell to tell? There are just too many questions. Could someone out there please tell me whether or not I'm a lunatic to consider this with any degree of seriousness? Or could I actually make this work? Is this a leap I should take, or would I just end up screwing myself?

Where's a fucking Magic 8-Ball when I need it?

While I'm stuck here driving myself to distraction over this little fantasy of mine, here's some Incubus for y'all to chew on:

Pendulous Threads

Mend this careless thread, it’s gone askew.
(Thread on my sweater is pendulous, step back & pull it.
Watch it unravel faster than a speeding bullet.)
Or pull & see how much we can undo.
(Thread on my sweater is pendulous, step back & pull it.
Watch it unravel faster than a speeding bullet.)

On a burning bridge, your options are minimal at best.
Depending on where you’re standing
& how much breath is in your chest.
If it came down to it
would you high-tail home & hide?
Or dance on fire & enjoy the ride?

Mend this careless thread, it’s gone askew.
(Thread on my sweater is pendulous, step back & pull it.
Watch it unravel faster than a speeding bullet!)
Or pull & see how much we can undo.
(Thread on my sweater is pendulous, step back & pull it.
Watch it unravel faster than a speeding bullet!)

At the heart of it all,
that innermost, your fiery core,
there’s an amassing armor
& it’s building you into a bore.
Life’s a match in a gas tank,
don’t ever mourn the ebbing tide,
just dance on fire & enjoy the ride!
Hey!

(Chorus)

On Smile Lines and loving-kindness

A few mental ramblings that came to me while wandering through the woods today. As is so often the case, it began with a song...



Smile Lines or, High School Never Ends

Met my match today
Felt the blood rushing and mingling
A curious and enigmatic thing
Now spiders in my dreams...
Synchronicity weaves like a web when
You were meant to be a meal!

I want you bad!
I want you bad!
I understand why they say,
"High school never ends"

I'll never act my age
But you can tell by the lines in my smile
That I have been around for awhile
So, insecurities
Are about as useful as trying
To put the pin back in the grenade

I want you bad!
I want you bad!
I understand why they say,
"High school never ends"

This isn't coincidence
There's no such thing
This isn't coincidence, no
This isn't coincidence
It's no such thing.
This isn't, no...

I want you bad!
I want you bad!
I understand why they say,
"High school never ends"

My interpretation of these lyrics is that Brandon's speaking to some woman he's met and to whom he's intensely attracted. And that's fine. As such, it's a perfectly respectable boy-meets-girl type of rock song, with the typical Boyd-esque twist that Incubus fans know and love. But disregard the chorus and there's so much more to it. Looking between the lines of lust to those references to synchronicity and insecurity is a great jumping off point for mental meanderings.

I've discussed synchronicity a bit recently with various friends, and it's something that I wonder about often. But what exactly is it?

Synchronicity, since Jung's introduction of the concept in 1951, has remained among the most original and controversial ideas in analytical psychology and, at times, one of the most difficult to grasp. The title of Jung's work on the subject, Synchronicity: An Acausal Connecting Principle, provides the term's definition: Synchronicity is a principle that links events acausally, that is, in terms of the subjective meaningfulness of the coincidence, rather than by cause and effect. Thus, understanding synchronicity and synchronistic events requires a way of thinking almost entirely foreign to Western culture, a way of thinking that does not separate the physical world from interior psychic events. The phrase that often occurs with regard to Jung's concept of synchronicity is unus mundus, Latin for "one world". Synchronicity requires that one consider the world a unified field in which subject and object are fundamentally one, two different manifestations of the same reality.
(A Guided Tour of the Collected Works of C.G. Jung, Robert H. Hopcke)

So, where do we draw the line between coincidence and synchronicity? How do we know when something's truly synchronous and when it's just chance? Is it ever really just chance? I've come to the conclusion that coincidences are what's left of those "curious and enigmatic" moments that we notice yet do nothing with. If we take something from it, if we use the moment as a springboard of some kind, then it's synchronicity. You just have to be aware enough to realise it.

Did you ever observe to whom the accidents happen? Chance favors only the prepared mind. -- Louis Pasteur

"I'll never act my age..." Every now and again, I stop to think about the fact that I'm addicted to a band made up of people significantly younger than me, the majority of whose fanbase is even younger than them, and I wonder whether I should feel weird about that. There are times when it does feel curious to be so inspired by the wisdom of someone younger. Aren't I supposed to be the wiser? And I often feel a definite generation gap when reading posts at the Incubus forum. I frequently sense that many of the people who post there are going through that "I'm cooler than thou (and I'm working so hard to maintain that cool!)" phase that I know I went through in my 20's. At this point, I just don't worry anymore about being cool or accepted. "Insecurities are about as useful as trying / to put the pin back in the grenade" If I post something there that brands me as a dork, if I'm too eager in expressing my appreciation for the band, so what? "You can tell by the lines in my smile / that I have been around for a while" and I've earned the right to be a doofus when I wanna be. I'd like to think that I'm too busy watching out for synchronous events to bother with trying to be cool.

While sitting in the woods scribbling my thoughts on the song above, I found some notes for another blog I'd planned to post a while back that never came to fruition. But now's as good a time as any. On another rambling day, I did post that I'd begun reading Brad Warner's book Sit Down and Shut Up and that I couldn't wait to find out his take on the Buddhist concept of metta, or loving-kindness. Most of the descriptions of metta that I've read have given me serious pause. This one particular concept has been the hardest thing for me to grasp about Buddhism. The traditional Western translation, "loving-kindness" is the stumbling block. It reminds me of that bumper sticker that reads "Practice random kindness and senseless acts of beauty." I think of folks with that bumper sticker as 'random senseless' people, and I don't really wanna be one of them. I want to be able to maintain my off-beat, sometimes cynical, sense of humor and my curmudgeonliness. I also, though, want to be able to treat other people with respect, occasionally even graciousness. So, when I got to the chapter in SD/SU in which Brad addresses metta, he blew me away.

Up until reading SD/SU, I had apparently only been exposed to a small part of the Metta Suttra. There are entire meditation practices devoted to this particular suttra, and the recommended mantra goes along these lines:

"May all beings be happy,
may all beings be secure,
may all beings be happy minded and
may their hearts be wholesome."

But Warner took it one step further. Reading his chapter on metta was the first time I'd ever seen the entire suttra:

This is what should be accomplished by the one who is wise,
who seeks the good and has obtained peace:
Let one be strenuous, upright and sincere, without pride,
easily contented and joyous;
Let one not be submerged by the things of the world;
Let one not take upon oneself the burden of riches;
Let one's senses be controlled;
Let one be wise but not puffed up;
Let one not desire great posessions even for one's family;
Let one do nothing that is mean or that the wise would reprove.
May all beings be happy.
May they be joyous and live in safety.
All living beings, whether weak or strong, in high or middle or low realms of existence, small or great, visible or invisible, near or far, born or to be born, may all beings be happy.
Let no one deceive another, nor despise any being in any state; let none by anger or hatred wish harm to another.
Even as a mother at the risk of her life watches over and protects her only child, so with a boundless mind should one cherish all living things, suffusing love over the entire world, above, below and all around without limit; so let one cultivate an infinite goodwill toward the whole world.
Standing or walking, sitting or lying down, during all one's waking hours let one cherish the thought that this way of living is best in the world.
Abandoning vain discussion, having a clear vision, freed from sense appetites, one who is made perfect will never again know rebirth in the cycle of creation of suffering for ourselves or for others.

Ok, so I can kind of understand why most books and magazine articles don't usually print the entire thing. It's freaking long. But focusing only on the brief wish that "may all beings be happy, etc" leaves out all that great stuff about how you get to the point of being able to wish such a thing for all those beings who, basically, act like assholes much of the time. And Warner uses a different translation for metta:

The word metta is hard to translate and is usually given as "loving-kindness". "Benevolence" may be a better translation, since it's a little less drippy sounding.

Thank you, Brad, oh so much. And, since the book is basically an explanation of the Zen Buddhism taught by the 13th century monk Dogen, he goes on to mention that, in all of Dogen's writing, the Metta Suttra is never mentioned. Apparently, Dogen preferred to teach compassion instead of love, and boiled that practice down to four basic elements: free giving, kind speech, helpful conduct, and cooperation. The trick to following these prescriptions is, of course, to remember that we're all here trying to accomplish the same thing-- a happy life. In that sense, we're all one, as in Jung's unus mundus. Like synchronicity, metta "requires that one consider the world a unified field in which subject and object are fundamentally one, two different manifestations of the same reality".

There's a lot to strive for in living according to the Metta Sutra, but goodwill and benevolence are way easier for me to reach towards than "loving-kindness". So, to anyone who's bothered to read this far: May you be happy, secure, and wholesome (even if you are one of those 'random senseless' goofballs).

I really need to begin reading my spam e-mail more often

Received this today at work:

_____________________________________________________________________________

Primacy is accorded to synchronic linguistics, and diachronic linguistics is defined as the study of successive synchronic stages. Saussure's clear demarcation, however, is now seen to be idealised. In practice, a purely synchronic linguistics is not possible for any period before the invention of the gramophone.

$1000 in Gambling Chips
The findings of historical linguistics are often used as a basis for hypotheses about the groupings and movements of peoples, particularly in the prehistoric period. In practice, however, it is often unclear how to integrate the linguistic evidence with the archaeological or genetic evidence. For example, there are a large number of theories concerning the homeland and early movements of the Proto-Indo-Europeans, each with their own interpretation of the archaeological record.

Get it Here: http://www.magiefeu.info

The sociolinguist William Labov famously recorded the change in pronunciation in a relatively short period in the American resort of Martha’s Vineyard and showed how this was the result of social tensions and processes.[1] Even in the relatively short time that broadcast media have been available, we can observe the difference between the ‘marked’ pronunciation of the newsreaders of the 1940s and the 1950s and the more neutral, ‘unmarked’ pronunciation of today. The greater acceptance and fashionability of regional accents in the media may also reflect a more democratic, less formal society.

________________________________________________________________________________________________

Fascinating stuff, huh?

Entering the Nebula

Over the weekend, I began reading The Artist's Way, A Spiritual Path to Higher Creativity (Julia Cameron). My friend Leo has been telling me about this program for a few months and I couldn't make up my mind whether I was willing to check it out or not. I tend to shy away from anything that could be classified as "New Age" or "self-help". I'm just too much of a cynical pragmatist for most of that stuff. But various things that Leo told me about this really struck a chord. So when I happened to see a copy one day when we were in a nifty used bookstore in Baltimore, the moment spurred and I added the book to my purchase.

Unfortunately, it then sat on my desk for weeks while I went through my recent brain-dead "my job sucks and kittehs turned my brain to mush" period. As much as the idea of it appealed to me, it sounded like work and that made me apprehensive because I am, after all, a natural-born sloth. Over this past weekend, though, I finally dragged the book out to Shaharazade's with me and began reading through it.

Within the first two pages of the introduction, Cameron snagged me. She begins by discussing how The Artist's Way is a spiritual path to unblocking our natural creativity and this, of course, requires references to that word I have such issue with: "God". She immediately acknowledges, though, that many people might have these issues and encourages an open mind:

Remind yourself that to succeed in this course, no god concept is necessary. In fact, many of our commonly held god concepts get in the way. Do not allow semantics to become one more block for you. (Right there, she spoke directly to me)

When the word God is used in these pages, you may substitute the thought good orderly direction or flow. What we are talking about is a creative engergy. God is useful shorthand for many of us, but so is Goddess, Mind, Universe, Source, and Higher Power... The point is not what you name it. The point is that you try using it. For many of us, thinking of it as a form of spiritual electricity has been a very useful jumping-off place.

Aaahh, I can handle that. Bless her for getting that out of my way right off the bat. From that point on, I had my highlighter out and was dog-earing pages left and right. From there, she moves into describing the tools of the program, the first of which is referred to as morning pages. The idea is to sit down first thing every morning and write three pages of stream-of-consciousness for the purpose of clearing out the mental cobwebs. This writing becomes both a meditation and an opportunity for the right brain (the artistic side) to get a little exercise. The morning pages are a place to confront our internal Censor (our left brain) and come to terms with it, to let the Censor know that, as much as we appreciate it's efforts to protect us from shame and ridicule, we're ready to chance those things for the sake of allowing our artistic side a creative release.

I, of course, have yet to actually do any morning pages, but I'm working up to it. Really, I am.

Also, of course, reading this stuff immediately triggered the Incubus connection. That band has come to represent to me the epitomy of creativity. The five of them seem to continuously be creating some form of art, from Mike Einzinger's orchestral work-in-progress, to Ben Kenney's solo albums and recent tour with bandmate Chris Kilmore, to Jose Pasillas' painting... to Brandon Boyd. What does Brandon not do, artistically? The man sings, obviously, and writes the wonderful poetry that is Incubus' song lyrics. But the guy also plays a mean djembe, as well as a bit of guitar (admittedly badly); paints and draws; snaps great photos; and writes. In addition to creating albums and touring with Incubus, he's participated in at least one art show and has produced two books of artwork and journalistic scribblings. It wouldn't be at all surprising to see him turn next to acting or even something as far-fetched as interpretive dance. I imagine Brandon as a living, breathing conduit just crackling with that creative spiritual electricity that Julia Cameron says courses through all of us. As such (and I've said this before), he's a tremendous inspiration. He embodies for me the full potential of the artistic right brain, and will likely serve as my muse as I progress through the nebula that is The Artist's Way.

Nebula

Do you enjoy your sight inside?

Disconnect and let me drift
Until my upside down is right side in
Society must let the artist go
To wander off into the nebula

Wander off into your nebula, see your nectarine of
Multiplicity cum like orgasmatron on overdrive
Wander off into your nebula, your tangerine of
Electricity is ripe and on the vine, so pick your prize

In little black book do I confide...

Upon return, I conjure what was seen
I let it pulse and boil within my limbs
I lay my pencil to the porous page
And let my lunatic indulge itself

Wander off into your nebula, see your nectarine of
Multiplicity cum like orgasmatron on overdrive
Wander off into your nebula, your tangerine of
Electricity is ripe and on a vine, so pick your prize!

Going nowhere fast

First off, I have to offer sincere apologies to any friends I've been ignoring lately. There are conversations I've let lag, congratulations I should have extended, sympathy and a "virtual shoulder" I haven't offered. But I'm experiencing a terrible sense of deja vu lately that's caused me to backslide and get a little too caught up again in my own narrow little world.

The biggest thing going on is the kittens. On Friday a week ago, I brought home the second of them, Olive (who was really the first, but the timing of all of this has been a bit skewed). Aside from an hour or so that I let her loose so they could check each other out, she had to be confined in the bedroom, as she'd just been spayed and couldn't be running or jumping around until she'd healed, much less tussling with a fellow kitten. So, for the most part, the two of them spent that couple of days poking their paws at each other through the gap under the bedroom door. By Monday, though, little Alec was lethargic and not eating or drinking. He wanted nothing but to remain curled up asleep in his cat bed, and was like a limp dishrag when I picked him up. It was just a little too similar to the goombah's condition when he got ill last fall, so I packed Alec off to the vet that day. That afternoon, the diagnosis was that he had both sinus and urinary tract infections accompanied by a high fever, and they wanted to keep him overnight on fluids and antibiotics. On Tuesday, I was told that he was eating and his fever had reduced enough for him to come home. But he wasn't better. He ate and drank a few times, and in between I used the syringe from his antibiotics to get more water down his throat so he wouldn't become dehyrdrated.

By Friday morning, he was lethargic again. Back to the vet. The news later that day was that the vet had no clue what was causing the fever and that they couldn't control it. They had given ice water enemas to my poor little, 5 month old, 4 lb kitten throughout the day, but nothing would bring down his temperature. As of yesterday, though, the fever seemed to have broken and he was eating again. The vet wanted to keep him over this weekend, though, for observation and intensive antibiotic treatments. As for the other one, now that her spay stitches are out and she's free from confinement, Olive has had me all to herself. She's been alternately spoiled rotten and cried over a little bit whenever I've thought about how she was supposed to be getting to know her buddy Alec during these past two days. I've become amazingly attached to these two little kittens over the last two weeks, and I think that Alec's going to hold a special place in my heart if he survives this (it gives me a fucking pang to use that 'if').

On top of all this feline drama, work is sucking big time again. Or perhaps I'm just not dealing well with the usual suckage because I'm stressed over the kittens. I don't know. What I do know is that I go into work feeling totally un-focused, un-directed and, increasingly, incompetent. The administrative division of the store is currently understaffed and we had a rough holiday season, so there are no plans to add anyone and re-balance the workload. We're also not buying much in the way of merchandise, which makes a portion of my job as inventory manager/assistant buyer a tad obsolete. On top of that, my supervisor is going through a crisis of her own, trying to set up new profit & loss reports while dealing with the responsibilities left open by our staffing situation. The result is that she's both losing touch and micro-managing at the same time. She delegates things to me periodically, but then takes them back. Or, she'll make me responsible for something that I really don't want to be involved in, and then take over a project that's specifically within the scope of my position. What makes it all really unbearable is finding out that the owners of the store don't seem to care. They're focused on the sales and merchant side of the business, and have pretty much washed their hands of our little administrative world. It's confusing, frustrating and demoralizing. Writing my self-review this week is gonna be tons of fun.

So, needless to say, I've gotten stuck back in that "sleeping limb" state I described a few weeks ago. Despite the new friendships I've formed and the great experiences I've had in recent months, I've let myself descend into a rut of physical slothdom, avoiding my usual outdoors pursuits and doing absolutely nothing productive to improve my home, my work situation, or my life in general. I've lost the energy for it. Instead, I've been narcotizing myself by spending my days off cruising my beloved back-country roads and hanging out in my favorite coffee/tea shops. Feels good, but gets me nowhere. I know from experience that all of this is temporary, but for as long as it lasts it'll be a struggle to avoid becoming as self-absorbed and self-pitying as I was this time last year. I probably could (should?) reach out to all those new friends of mine for whatever help they might be inclined to offer, but I'm just not used to doing that. Instead, habit makes me retreat back into seclusion to try and figure it out on my own. At least there's always music to suit the mood...

Nowhere Fast

Will I ever get to where I'm going?
Will I ever follow through with what I had planned?
I guess it's possible that I have been a bit distracted
and the directions for me are a lot less in demand.

Will I ever get to where I'm going?
If I do, will I know when I am there?
If the wind blew me in the right direction
would I even care?
I would.

I take a look around; it's evident the scene has changed.
And there are times when I feel improved upon the past.
Then there are times when I can't seem to understand at all
and yes it seems as though I'm going nowhere...
really fucking fast.

Not Brandon's best bit of poetry, but the passion in his vocals makes the words intensely meaningful.

I haz a kitten...

A kitten has turned my brain to mush. Here's the deal:

A week and a half ago, I wandered into PetSmart just to kinda begin to decide whether maybe I was starting to be ready to perhaps think about adopting another cat. Figured I'd see what sorts of cats were up for adoption. So, there's this beautiful little 5 month old female tortoiseshell named Olive, who seems to have a very sociable, lively, yet sweet personality (i.e., she wasn't a huddled up, quivering bundle of nerves hiding in the back of her cage). Olive and I bonded a bit, and I talked for a while to the woman who's currently fostering her. Then I left and spent the rest of the day thinking about whether I was ready to replace the Goombah.

I called the next day to say I wanted Olive. She hadn't been spayed or gotten all of her shots yet, and I had family visiting from out of town the next weekend, so the plan was that I'd go back to PetSmart on the 26th for an adoption interview (they take this very seriously), then pick her up on Feb. 2nd to bring her home when we were both ready.

So, when I went back to PetSmart on the 26th for my interview, there was another very appealing little one there: A lilac oriental shorthair male named Alec, also 5 months old. He was sleek, mellow and calm, yet still sociable. And he was all ready to go home with just the right sucker, er, someone. So, my adoption interview for one cat suddenly turned into an interview for two, and my out-of-town family's entertainment that day ended up being coming over to my place to play with Alec the kitten. And I'm still picking up Olive on the 2nd to bring her home, as well.

Here I am four days later, totally enamored and unable to find time to blog, or even to think about anything meaningful. I've spent the last few days finding that mellow little Alec is a Jekyll & Hyde demon in disguise. But he's soooooo cuuuute!! To top it all off, a thread over at the Incubus forum led me to this evil place: LOLCATS.COM. So, for a while at least, this will be the most profound blogging I'm capable of---

More impermanence in WV

Went cruising in West Virginia again today and took the road past the burned down trailer. The center of the yard's been cleared, with all the junk ranged about in an assortment of piles. I pulled over to take a closer look and found myself under the nonchalant scrutiny of a handful of feral-appearing cats perched on the nearest scrap pile. And yes, the basketball hoop is still there.

At the upper edge of Harper's Ferry, across the railroad tracks, is a rutted gravel road that runs along the edge of the Potomac River for a mile or two. Just before reaching a small creek that feeds into the river, two abandoned trailers sit along the edge of the road. (Has anyone ever figured out just what it is about WV and trailers?) The spot seems to be popular with local fishermen, as the river is wide and flat at that point, before breaking up into rapids as it flows through the chunks of what used to be Dam 3. Once the road crosses over the creek, it splits. To the left, it becomes paved and turns into Engle Moler Road. To the right is what's left of the upstream end of the old gravel road-- closed off by a wire gate, yet apparently still occasionally traveled somehow. I felt adventurous today, so I parked the car and took a meander along that old section of road. At first the only thing creepy about the walk was the sudden bank of grey clouds that had covered the sun, but I added to the ambience by humming the tune to "Duelling Banjos". The first strange finding was a fire ring perched right smack at the edge of the water, stacked with blackened, still-smoking logs. Granted, those logs may have been smouldering for days, and the river was high from recent rain, but I couldn't help wondering why someone would build a fire right smack on the edge of the water. A bit further on, I spied something white hanging from a tree limb a bit off the path. Now, I've spent a lot of time in the woods, and I'm frequently asked whether I get scared hiking by myself. Actually, I'm much more comfortable and feel more secure in the depth of the woods than I do in some of the neighborhoods near my home. But the sight of something human-related and out of place in a spot like that puts me on edge. Shot gun shells on the ground don't phase me. A white plastic grocery bag hanging from an out of reach tree limb, weighted down by a dark, unidentifiable lump in the bottom of the bag, does. Suddenly, the innocent abandoned road along the river felt a little too "Blair Witch". It was good to be out tramping around and exploring, though, so I pressed on, visions of snotty, frightened teenagers and Ned Beatty in his tighty-whiteys alternating in my head. Another few dozen feet along and there suddenly appeared to be a structure of some sort in the trees ahead. Sure enough, it was the ruins of a once-whitewashed stone house. Near a tree on the other side of the road was a faded stop sign. Beyond that was an old speed limit sign that read 15mph. The area then opened out into what may have been someone's front yard, though the road appeared to continue on the other side. Just off the center of this area was a fountain of sorts. Someone had rigged a pipe from a spring in the rocks uphill from the river, run it down the hill, under the open area, and up from the ground through a hunk of concrete, where another section of pipe was connected to divert the water into an old drainage pan (such as you'd use to change the oil in your car). The pan was set on top of a grating that was balanced across the open top of an old metal barrel, and the water overflowed from the pan and through the grating into the barrel in an eerily artistic way. After circling this jury-rigged fountain, I followed the pipe up a set of crumbling stone stairs and through the foundation of an old building to its source at the base of a small, jumbled cliff. At some point in time, someone had obviously not only installed the piping, but also maintained the source of the spring. Small bits of screen had been installed to protect the water from falling leaves and debris as it flowed down various crevices in the rock. As I turned to head back, I narrowly missed stepping on a big pile of shit. I didn't inspect it carefully enough to identify it as animal or human, but it's placement was puzzling. I mean, what intelligent creature craps so close to a water supply? (Various beer cans scattered nearby might provide a pertinent clue to that question.) I hung around for a bit, peeking into the nooks and crannies of an overgrown garden and then, when I'd had my fill of being creeped out, pointed myself back downstream for an uneventful hike back to the car, leaving the place behind just as others before me had done.






(Note: I hope that anyone reading this got the references to Deliverance. I'd hate for people to think that I normally go around imagining Ned Beatty's tush.)

A good quote

This was on the tab of my Good Earth Sweet & Spicy tea bag this morning and I thought it was worth sharing:

“Fight for your opinions, but do not believe that they contain the whole truth, or the only truth.”

Charles A. Dana

I've read Dana's memoir Reminiscences of the Civil War. I don't recall forming the impression from that, though, that he was so pithy.







On another note: I've realized that I can access Blogger at work, which I can't do with MySpace. This is a potentially hazardous discovery. If I'm lucky, they'll catch me and block it soon.

I haven't felt the way I feel today...

I hadn't intended to write a summation of the old year/intentions for the new year-type blog, but I've been thinking about this Incubus song more and more lately and the time seems apropo to explain its impact on me. I've posted the lyrics before, so apologies to anyone for whom this is repetitive:

"Nice to Know You"

Better than watching Gellar bending silver spoons.
Better than witnessing newborn nebulaes in bloom.
She who sees from 'up high' smiles and surely sings.
Perspective pries your once weighty eyes and it
gives you wings.

I haven't felt the way I feel today
in so long it's hard for me to specify.
I'm beginning to notice how much this feels
like a waking limb... pins and needles,
nice to know you, goodbye!

Deeper than the deepest Cousteau would ever go.
And higher than the heights of what we often think we know.
Blessed She who clearly sees the wood for the trees.
To obtain a 'bird's eye' is to turn a blizzard to a breeze.

I haven't felt the way I feel today
in so long it's hard for me to specify.
I'm beginning to notice how much this
feels like a waking limb... pins and needles,
nice to know you... Goodbye!

So could it be that it has been there all along?

Now I unfortunately have to admit that, sometimes, I'm a bit dense. I didn't totally get this song at first. It's always stirred a strong emotional response in me, but for a long while I wondered just what lyricist Brandon Boyd was saying goodbye to. My instinctive response was to hone in on the euphoria the song made me feel, which is very similar to that inspired by "Wish You Were Here", in which he beautifully describes a moment of serene contentment and the desire to share it. When, in "Nice to Know You", he sings "I haven't felt the way I feel today in so long", I related the words to experiencing a state of joy after being stuck in a long period of doldrums. But if Brandon were singing about a joyous mood, why would that be something to say goodbye to and let go of? So where I grasped the simplicity of "Wish You Were Here" immediately, "Nice to Know You" left me exuberant but puzzled. It turns out that I wasn't totally off-base, but I was missing the connection necessary to get the full meaning of the song. Then I found this old quote from Brandon:

I had a moment in my life about a year ago where I was way too close to everything that was going on and I was blind, I felt like I was asleep. And the clouds parted for kind of a strange reason and I gained perspective. What happened was my hand had fallen asleep on the airplane on the way to Europe and it remained asleep for about 10 days, which was kind of scary. I must have pinched a nerve or something. But as my hand started waking up, the clouds started breaking away from that emotional state as well. The two happened simultaneously, so I created a simple metaphor for it. So it's basically a song about gaining perspective on a situation.

Kapow. Not only does that make more sense than my original interpretation, it also makes the song so much more meaningful.

As a self-proclaimed "student of Buddhism", I've read a fair amount about enlightenment, which is sometimes described as waking up or an awakening. Better people than I have written about this more coherently than I could ever hope to. In fact, according to Brad Warner in Hardcore Zen, the Soto school of Zen Buddhism actually shies away from discussing the idea of enlightenment at all because it's basically ineffable. If it were so easy for our intellects to grasp, it'd be way easier to achieve. But, for the sake of this blog, I'll go ahead and say that my impression of enlightenment is that it's the ultimate state of perspective. It's stepping back from all of our desires and aversions, our assumptions and expectations, and seeing things as they really are. Beyond that, it's not just seeing them that way, but actually experiencing and dealing with true reality as it is. There's way more to it than I could begin to sum up here, but this little nutshell description is sufficient for the topic at hand **

So, while I understand on an intellectual level the idea of dropping delusion and dealing with reality, I've yet to actually grasp and live it any more than any other average schmoe. It's not as if one day the alarm clock goes off, you lift your head off your pillow and swing your legs off the side of the bed and into nirvana. It takes a commitment and then continual effort to strip away all the illusions and delusions and bullshit that we all cling to and swear are "reality". It's really very much like the metaphor Brandon created for "Nice to Know You": We sleep-walk through much of our life, sometimes feeling that the world is ok and things are good, but more often stuck in a state of dukkha, a Buddhist term that's translated in various ways from "suffering" all the way to merely "unsatisfactory experience". Brad Warner takes a different angle on it and describes dukkha as "idealism":

When you look at things from an idealistic viewpoint, everything sucks... Nothing can possibly live up to the ideals and fantasies you've created. So we suffer because things are not the way we think they ought to be. Rather than face what really is, we prefer to retreat and compare what we're living through with the way we think it oughtta be. Suffering comes from the comparison between the two.

So the trick is to shake out that metaphorical limb that's fallen asleep, to wake up and take off those idealistic blinders. What makes that so hard is those damned prickly pins and needles, our desires and aversions. Here's more from Brad:

...the origination of suffering [is] our wish that things be different from what they are when they cannot possibly be. Things can never be other than they are... So the "desire" often spoken of by Buddhist teachers isn't just the fact that we desire that big car or that busty redhead... Everyone has desires. We can't live without them. Nor should we. The problem isn't that we have desires and needs. It's that we have a compulsive (and ultimately stupid!) desire for our lives to be something other than what they actually are... The problem is the way we let our desires stand in the way of our enjoyment of what we already have.

Letting go of our intense attachment to those desires is like the blood trying to re-circulate in that sleeping limb. It hurts like hell, but if we want to get rid of the pins'n'needles we've gotta let it happen. Otherwise, we end up either remaining numb and asleep, or stuck in that prickly, unsatisfactory state.

In my own case, a couple of years of reading about Buddhism did nothing for me but put me through a series of waking limbs: I'd read something that really struck a chord and I'd set the intention to follow the Path, only to have personal issues and my habitual responses to those issues throw me right back into a state of dukkha. 2007 was a particularly chaotic year, what with an increasingly meaningless job, illnesses of my own and those of family members and, finally, having to euthanise my cat the week before Christmas. Over the last couple months of the past year, there've been two things that carried me through and seemed to begin lifting me out of the sleeping state I'd become stuck in-- Incubus' music and Brad Warner's books. Warner's shown me a form of Buddhism that I can fully embrace, and finally grasping the full meaning of "Nice to Know You" has woken me up and helped me to step back from the things I was too close to. As this new year begins, I'd like to say "pins and needles, nice to know you, goodbye!", but I know it's too soon for that. What I can say is this: "I haven't felt the way I feel today in so long, it's hard for me to specify..."


** If you're really interested in a more thorough explanation of Buddhism in general and enlightenment in particular, I highly recommend both of Warner's books: Hardcore Zen and Sit Down and Shut Up. Great stuff, especially if you, like me, are leery of concepts such as "reincarnation" and "loving-kindness".