tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-291359382024-03-12T22:10:20.967-07:00The Imaginary MenagerieIn real life - whatever the heck that is - I'm not much for keeping track of loose ends, housework, bills, and other details of mundane existence. Although my credit report may suffer - and I believe credit reports deserve to suffer - I insist on living in a chaotic inner existence that never ceases to amaze and delight me.Unknownnoreply@blogger.comBlogger50125tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-29135938.post-31336856662085236722010-12-25T06:06:00.001-08:002010-12-25T08:27:51.038-08:00Happy New YearGot up at 4:15 this morning after tossing about for a while. I decided I'd see where my wakefulness was leading me now and gave myself permission to be tired and cranky later on even though it's Christmas. Also, I get to take a nap later if need be after I make fudge. <br /><br />Around 5:30, I got the urge to go walking, to see what the streets are like so early on Christmas. So quiet. No cars, no lights in people's windows. All the students have gone home for the holidays.<br /><br />Got some pics of lights all blurry, my favorite. It's the way I remember seeing them, like they're in motion.<br /><br /><a onblur="try {parent.deselectBloggerImageGracefully();} catch(e) {}" href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhiWaoLYwggBES9owEf4JaC5bUin7ilAOu4jpIKxNao0uawG7ATghO-OkvF8RTvR6SB3mrWKQ7MczllRXbDXMBeTTI1OqgYxPw48NQ4bOUk_WPm61zxK8_SEgGAkgGKtnKRvGN4yg/s1600/lightssm2.jpg"><img style="display:block; margin:0px auto 10px; text-align:center;cursor:pointer; cursor:hand;width: 266px; height: 320px;" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhiWaoLYwggBES9owEf4JaC5bUin7ilAOu4jpIKxNao0uawG7ATghO-OkvF8RTvR6SB3mrWKQ7MczllRXbDXMBeTTI1OqgYxPw48NQ4bOUk_WPm61zxK8_SEgGAkgGKtnKRvGN4yg/s320/lightssm2.jpg" border="0" alt=""id="BLOGGER_PHOTO_ID_5554621418542708354" /></a><br /><br /><a onblur="try {parent.deselectBloggerImageGracefully();} catch(e) {}" href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgJjEkhLalmTS0-Mh4LYZJMw-0-zPAQo9nFPPrcI5gKiaGuT5Bme3KOO9-_GuwVvPe31mlGfngnOA278Ty0pBZXTI2ZhhEtyBigf_BrXCv632-WIzJvsz1kiRF57qFYz_zrktyPTA/s1600/lightssm1.jpg"><img style="display:block; margin:0px auto 10px; text-align:center;cursor:pointer; cursor:hand;width: 320px; height: 310px;" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgJjEkhLalmTS0-Mh4LYZJMw-0-zPAQo9nFPPrcI5gKiaGuT5Bme3KOO9-_GuwVvPe31mlGfngnOA278Ty0pBZXTI2ZhhEtyBigf_BrXCv632-WIzJvsz1kiRF57qFYz_zrktyPTA/s320/lightssm1.jpg" border="0" alt=""id="BLOGGER_PHOTO_ID_5554621236588666962" /></a><br /><br /><br />Also this shot of the moon. It looks like an old-timey photo. Most people have already forgotten her so soon after her big eclipse show.<br /><br /><a onblur="try {parent.deselectBloggerImageGracefully();} catch(e) {}" href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiZD4Uful36072w5jDT8nnz8giNvmwZfkWZZWHxEhsYdaE5ONIC2o2JR4gClhyNozYEOlcKSuKZxMIkZgCnlaNnz-P5pINBPRNRmQ8uXi0ahScmykVgFFqjmRgB-EBmJIpXmSfeHw/s1600/moonsm1.jpg"><img style="display:block; margin:0px auto 10px; text-align:center;cursor:pointer; cursor:hand;width: 320px; height: 306px;" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiZD4Uful36072w5jDT8nnz8giNvmwZfkWZZWHxEhsYdaE5ONIC2o2JR4gClhyNozYEOlcKSuKZxMIkZgCnlaNnz-P5pINBPRNRmQ8uXi0ahScmykVgFFqjmRgB-EBmJIpXmSfeHw/s320/moonsm1.jpg" border="0" alt=""id="BLOGGER_PHOTO_ID_5554621336716912674" /></a>Unknownnoreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-29135938.post-72661791430189525562010-04-18T10:11:00.000-07:002010-04-19T09:48:13.838-07:00Piano Horn“I can’t believe you bought a <a href="http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=aSriOErk36Y&feature=related" target="imaginary">piano horn</a>.”<br /><br />She has a friend coming to town. They used to play air hockey at the arcade. The phone call is punctuated with laughter, sharp and big that rings through the bus.<br /> <br />“I’m trying to potty train Kamora and it’s a mission. I get her on the pot and she just wants to run around without any pants on! And I finally got her back and she stood in the bowl. Her feet in the bowl! I nearly died laughing!”<br /> <br />She is working two jobs, one as an intake coordinator at St. Vincent de Paul’s.<br /><br />She leans past me and raps sharply on the window to catch the attention of someone standing on the street. She smiles and waves, pushing herself into the spaces of others. Another call, she is arranging a delivery of goods to be picked up for the <a href="http://www.fns.usda.gov/wic/" target="imaginary">WIC</a> program. <br /><br />I look up at one point and she is looking me dead in the eye, daring me to shush her.Unknownnoreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-29135938.post-47064272337249872712010-04-12T16:01:00.000-07:002010-04-12T16:30:26.827-07:00Cool Socks and Writer's BlockFor the last couple of weeks, my novel writing has hit a snag. I cannot think of anything for my characters to do. They are trapped where I left them: approaching the city where the evil sorcerer is taking over the world, waiting for the woman trapped in the aerie to speak, and stumbling through the outskirts of Hell trying to find their way back to the fashion show. I am dutifully doing all the things I’m told to do at times like this, but now I am realizing that the snag is not in my book’s plot, but in my life.<br /><br />When I sit down to write, I am overcome with a feeling of my own life’s paucity of details. Part of this is the result of a lifelong depression. Being depressed changes how we remember things. When you are depressed, you remember trends, moods and gists but details slide off into the abyss. So while I can remember having gone to Europe after college and to Indonesia before the break-up of my marriage, I haven’t been able to commit to memory the specifics that would locate a story I might tell.<br /><br />Now, I am convinced that the human will gives us the wiggle room to change our brains and thus our lives. So, I’ve been working on focusing on the details. I figure that if the depressed mind doesn’t focus on details, then choosing to do so will help my brain to develop into a non-depressed one. And what I’ve realized is I’ve created a life that is, in fact, deprived of interesting details. Makes sense! I have a tendency to not remember details, so I don’t notice my life is bland and devoid of detail. (It’s not devoid of detail; I’m seeing loads of details now that I’m looking for them. I’m just incredibly bored with them. Do you really want to know the details of how I had to change my bus commute when the local bus system changed their lines? This was a serious issue! I’ve had to change my writing schedule! And add 20 minutes of walking to my day! Trader Joe’s is still accessible after work, but the produce market requires an additional walk of three blocks! So many details!)<br /><br />And the most boring part of my detail filled day is my job. After six years of non-employment, I took the first decent job I was offered. And it’s really decent! Good benefits, easy commute (despite aforementioned bus change <del>catastrophe</del> opportunity) and the work is easy. Too easy. Bang-head-on-desk easy. And I have to hide myself because I’m a Berkeley person working for Republicans who “don’t’ believe in gay rights” and talk about Christianity all the fracking time. Which actually wouldn’t be so bad because they are still nice people in their own way (if you don’t tell them you’re gay), but I am really, really bored all day long because I am not doing what I’m supposed to be doing, which is writing the novel that won’t go anywhere.<br /><br />Back when I was getting ready to look for my first job in six years (the word “girding” comes to mind) a dear friend of mine helped me to gain the right mindset. He reminded me that David Sedaris’ best work is about the weird ass jobs he’s held. I loved that! Of course! I could just take jobs that are weird and interesting and give me material to write about! This revisioning of the job search radicalized me and I sent out queries to all sorts of places I wouldn’t have otherwise. I still wish I’d been able to take the job of crowd photographer for the Oakland A’s, but by the time they called I already had a 40 hour, full bennies, corporate-wear administration job where I sit on my ass all day surfing the internet and looking busy.<br /><br />Now with the Great Recession and the fact that I’m old enough I require health care, I don’t know if I can afford to take a bunch of weird part time gigs until I can figure out if health care reform really does allow me to be eligible for health care on my own. But I can try for a job where I can wear <a href="http://www.littlemissmatched.com/" target="imaginary">cool socks </a>and not dye my hair while I occasionaly mention my ex-wife without having to call her a "friend".<br /><br />And this is all a part of living the life of someone devoted to creating. Artists, writers, musicians, all people who create, must be sensitive to the world. We must create ourselves as beings who can receive the world as much as we can bear. Depression is so much a defense against too much world too soon with no safety in which to experience. It's a buffer against overwhelm. But to create, we must allow the world in.Unknownnoreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-29135938.post-78232937031945687112010-01-20T13:01:00.000-08:002010-01-20T13:08:41.327-08:00Galoshes and DaisiesEven more rainy today. And windy. I was panicked through the early morning with images of wet feet and my favorite black shoes ruined. Yes, this is the kind of fear my brain will wake me up for at 3 in the frickin’ morning! And I had to go through the whole song and dance to talk the terrified brain down to a point where it could get back to dreaming: <br /><br />"Our shoes! They're gonna get ruined! We'll be standing at the bus and all the water will wash over our shoes and soak into the leather and it'll dry out and crack and they won't be pretty anymore! We gotta do something!"<br /><br />“Now that’s a good point brain, but we can’t do anything about it now.”<br /><br />“But I love those shoes.”<br /><br />“The best thing we can do now is get the most sleep we can so we can make <strong>good </strong>decisions tomorrow.”<br /><br />“But I should have gotten galoshes… I wanted to get galoshes… to wear to work, ones with daisies or stripes, not the polka dots, and I didn’t get them and now my favorite work shoes are going to be ruined, I should have gotten galoshes!...”<br /><br />“Okay, take a breath, brain. It’s okay. We aren’t going to let that happen. We’ll wear the brown shoes.”<br /><br />“They’re a little tight. And I don’t want them ruined either.”<br /><br />“Then we’ll wear our casual shoes.”<br /><br />“NOOO! I really like them.”<br /><br />“How about the waterproof duck shoes.”<br /><br />“Oh, that’s a great idea! We’ll wear the duck shoes and they will look funny with the penstripe slacks and we won’t jump in puddles but we could.”<br /><br />“Okay, then. Ready to go back to sleep?”<br /><br />“Yeah, I guess… But what about our lunch bag?! That’s going to get drenched and we have to carry the work shoes in it and then they'll be inside and get ruined!"<br /><br />And so it goes for about an hour until negotiations conclude with an outfit of duck shoes and the new plastic grocery bag I got in Japantown (daisies!)along with a round of praise for the brain that is always looking out for me (and my shoes, apparently) especially at 3 in the morning.Unknownnoreply@blogger.com2tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-29135938.post-51870355587299140402009-12-15T16:06:00.000-08:002009-12-15T16:09:07.448-08:00In Your Face, PortlandThese last few days have been pretty heady for me. You see, I was born in Houston, Texas. Most folks who know me are quite flummoxed to learn that my natal city is in that great state. To them I say that this is the state of Molly Ivins and Ann Richards so you don’t have to act all surprised. I do not usually call myself a Texan having moved to the Great Left Coast when I was a mere kindergartener, but many Texans have assured me that I have well maintained my citizenship due to the fact that not only did I spend one month a year throughout my childhood in Texas, that one month was August. Also, my daddy taught me to make chili.<br /><br />While being Texan used to carry a certain heady power over Europeans until George Bush screwed everything up - when I went to Europe in the 80’s, Americans were just as hated as they are now, but if you said you were from Texas, all doors opened for the small price of having to tell a few cowboy and injun stories… now, they will shoot you – being from Houston was always anti-climatic. Houston didn’t have the pop icon stature of Dallas or San Antonio, nor the hipster vibe of Austin. And although it has its megachurches, it lacks any FLDS ranches or Waco-cult style crazy. Say you’re from Texas and people ask if you own an oil rig. Say you’re from Houston and people just look at you funny.<br /><br />But now, thanks to the election of Annise Parker, the first (openly) gay mayor of a top-ten city, I can finally get something other than vaguely pitying looks when I say where I’m from. I don’t have to describe the allure of 2.4 million square feet of blessedly air-conditioned shopping mall. Nor do I have to explain how Houston’s lack of zoning laws has enabled the city to have more than one skyline. And I don’t have to explain what an empanada is (although I still have to settle for just yearning for one.)<br /><br />All I have to say is: In your face Portland. We are totally more major than you are.Unknownnoreply@blogger.com1tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-29135938.post-59042952230409187382009-12-02T11:46:00.000-08:002009-12-02T12:26:26.512-08:00Total TransformationI instigated a total transformation over my Thanksgiving weekend. It started out simply with an idea to move some furniture in my apartment. I had one room that had lost all function and another that had taken on too many functions – so I ended up never do anything in it. I thought that if I switched a sofa and a big overstuffed chair – moving each to the room it currently wasn’t in - I could make the non-room into a living room and create more space in the other room for meditation, exercise and art. Seemed simple enough.<br /><br />And my stepfather was kind enough to help out. The fact that I’d asked him for help was a miracle and a huge step for me. My stepfather is a generous, kind man who was more than happy to oblige, but I am nervous about putting my needs out there, always sure they will look ridiculous and unimportant once I give voice to them and this seemed so frivolous. Starving children, war, greed, and I want to redecorate. <br /><br />But I am learning how to deal with those silly thoughts and carry on. Bits of me jump up and down saying, “Don’t ask, they’ll laugh! They won’t like you for bothering them.” And I say, “Shhhh, if they laugh, we’ll laugh too, then ask someone else.” <br /><br />My silly bits say, “This won’t do any good. It’s such a little change.” And I say, “Shhh, if it’s a small change, it’ll be easy and if it doesn’t change anything, nothing is lost.” <br /><br />They whisper, “It’ll hurt.” <br /><br />And I take all my silly bits in my arms and say, “Shhhh, little silly bits, life hurts and life is wonderful. We will get through it all together.”<br /><br />***<br /><br />I used to think of goals as something to achieve. You decided what you wanted and then broke down the necessary steps, did them in order and voila! you achieved your goal. But that’s not how the cool goals work. The cool goals are goals you can’t imagine. I want to love living. But I don’t know what that’s like. I’ve never particularly wanted to live. But when things get bad, I pull myself up out of the muck with the determination to figure this puzzle out. How does one love to live? I can’t break down the steps to this goal. I can just keep remembering this is what I want and keep choosing to do things that have a chance in hell of moving me towards this thing I cannot yet comprehend. The cool goals like this are dreams.<br /><br />So we moved the furniture. The big chair, which I thought would be the problem, moved so easily we got cocky. Now all we had was the sofa and that had gotten into the room, so we could get it back out, right? We pushed and turned, tried it this way, turned it over and tried again. Maybe this way, push it up and then to the left. Take the casters off, now the closet door. And don’t worry about the wall. I have to patch the hole made when we moved the sofa into the room… Oh yeah, it was rather difficult to do that, wasn’t it? Funny how you don’t remember those things years later. <br /><br />I spent Sunday moving about the furniture I had left, the stuff I could move on my own. I tried this arrangement and that. I finally admitted I just had to get rid of the old, huge, color t.v. and the too low coffee table that was really a leftover from an old, cheaply made futon set. I discovered that the drop-leaf table worked better on the other side of the room than where I’d planned because now I can sit at my easel or turn a few degrees and have a large flat space. I discovered that the side tables from my grandmother’s bedroom set make perfect little altars with drawers for holding replacement candles, incense, matches. And I learned that my teak standing screen looks amazing with my dracaena and big chair in front of it. I mean like really amazing, like I’m going to take a picture and submit it to a design blog ‘cause this can’t be my house can it?<br /><br />If you had told me last week, “Just switch the sofa and the big chair and you will create a space of beauty that can serve your quest for a life well loved,” I would have said, “Well, it’s something to do anyway,” but I would not have believed you.<br /><br />On Monday, I sat in my new beautiful room, candles lit, checking in with myself, whispering to my old gods and holding my desire in my hand like a precious gem. I could not imagine when I started this little project that I would end up with this room. I realized that this is the small favor I asked of my stepdad. This was the plan that seemed so unformed, frivolous, and potentially disastrous. I could not have imagined this room, could not have set this room as a goal. In a million years or randomly setting and achieving goals I would sooner write a King Lear than aim for this room. And yet, here I am in a place of my own making, one step closer to my dream.Unknownnoreply@blogger.com4tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-29135938.post-24481867362412866022009-12-02T09:53:00.000-08:002009-12-02T15:32:40.429-08:00Winter Wishes[The story behind the wish can be <a href="http://imagemenage.blogspot.com/2009/12/total-transformation.html">found here</a>. Be warned. It'll take you *ages* to read because I write <strike>too much</strike> awesome.]<br /><br />In the latest installment of <a href="http://jamieridlerstudios.ca/wishcasting-wednesday-december-2" target="menagerie">Wishcasting Wednesday, Jaime Ridler</a> asks, "What is your winter wish?"<br /><br /><br />I wish to keep dreaming.<br /></strike><strike></strike>Unknownnoreply@blogger.com8tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-29135938.post-48030233004276991592009-11-08T09:26:00.000-08:002009-11-08T09:37:14.720-08:00The Worst MomentThe worst moment for the caterpillar is when it's still munching leaves and is beginning to think, "Is this all there is? Do I really just want to crawl around all my life munching leaves? This sucks! This is a horrible life. I could be doing something else. I feel like I was meant for so much more than just this. But damnit! I can't imagine what I'd be. You know what? Frack this! I'm going to cocoon myself up and not have anything to do with <a href="http://carbuncleofthesun.blogspot.com/2009/06/dissolution-and-augmentation.html" target="carbuncle">this stinkin' world...</a>"Unknownnoreply@blogger.com1tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-29135938.post-69755426884951613822009-10-27T09:39:00.001-07:002009-10-27T20:42:07.235-07:00Bad Sleep.Woke up at 2:30 – checked the clock because I suddenly needed to know how long I’d been sleeping. I’d heard something, a beep, a rustle, a collection of sounds that tried to wedge sense into my sleeping brain. And my brain - my ridiculous, anxiety-ridden brain - decided this situation required my immediate and conscious attention.<br /><br />Running water? Outside? Someone running the garden tap at 2am. A homeless person has snuck into my yard to steal a bath. And he’d forgotten to charge his phone obviously because it kept beeping. He should use the patio outlet. He might need to make a call.<br /><br />But I really couldn’t be woken up every night with this. I’ll have to install a lock on that gate. And then I’ll have to build up my fences because I could see the homeless people leaping over the fence to steal baths and have tea on my patio where they would play folk tunes on their guitars and laugh right outside my window. <br /><br />All this work and distrust of humanity, and the horrible feeling that they would never let me sleep, only ridicule me for crashing their party. I’d fling open the window and yell obscenities in my half state of dreaming and all the homeless people would think I was such an asshole.<br /><br />Then slowly, the sound of water rushing is resolved to be the wind in the trees. Just the wind. And the beeping becomes the random, rusty creak of something, like a hinge… I would figure out what it is, but the relief that I do not have to shame myself or go to the hardware store washes over me. All I need do now is fall back asleep.Unknownnoreply@blogger.com2tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-29135938.post-46343406132087271852009-10-24T17:02:00.000-07:002009-10-24T17:19:46.419-07:00Spider MobileOkay, so I don't wash my car a lot. I like it that way. I like that a spider of some kind has chosen my passenger side mirror as a home. I take care of my car, giving it the oil changes and decent gas that it likes. I make sure it runs well, but I don't care if it's a little sticky with tree juice. (I'm lookin' at you Ulnus glabra.) I feel my car makes a statement about how we need to worry about what's on the inside and less about appearances.<br /><br />And did I mention the spider who has chosen my mirror as a home? I love that. I don't drive much so mostly it eats bugs around my house, but occasionally I take it out to eat.<br /><br />Anyway, today I came out to find another spider had taken up residence. This one was an orbweaver, Arcaneus diadematus, otherwise known as the common garden spider. These guys are amazing. They build the really beautiful webs and eat annoying bugs all day. They are better than raid. I've run comparison tests. They don't bite and anyway, you always know where they are because they hang out in the very center of their enormous webs.<br /><br /><a onblur="try {parent.deselectBloggerImageGracefully();} catch(e) {}" href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhvjYIP80am1NciIrW_CCB8Xp6rNXzYX0vmZ229SqA6JXkdArQY7sVDOmwPF9nWsshPV5sj6aQdJQqKWPxXr4JYotG17F7ZYyNyuonG6SX74-h1-cU1cLZVpLF5GBiFxo-J34uLTQ/s1600-h/orbweaver.jpg"><img style="margin: 0px auto 10px; display: block; text-align: center; cursor: pointer; width: 320px; height: 240px;" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhvjYIP80am1NciIrW_CCB8Xp6rNXzYX0vmZ229SqA6JXkdArQY7sVDOmwPF9nWsshPV5sj6aQdJQqKWPxXr4JYotG17F7ZYyNyuonG6SX74-h1-cU1cLZVpLF5GBiFxo-J34uLTQ/s320/orbweaver.jpg" alt="" id="BLOGGER_PHOTO_ID_5396324523717896210" border="0" /></a><br /><br />To make this web, the spider had to drop three anchor lines from the phone cable about 30 feet up. The rest of the anchor lines were on my car. Before I left my house, I carefully detached the web and moved it to a nearby camelia bush. <br /><br /><br /><a onblur="try {parent.deselectBloggerImageGracefully();} catch(e) {}" href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjOsEPrW7Y9B52j6mAHH3zhte-x1u2NzTc_KoTujGM0k7ByUdjYF6rY-r909VH1rvXumX-VIRQiGmKpoDIwvpLYONIBt_QOeKskM0Diqz4harHMVNiOwtM_L3XfTlkyGrY0JAMVmw/s1600-h/orbweaver1.jpg"><img style="margin: 0px auto 10px; display: block; text-align: center; cursor: pointer; width: 320px; height: 240px;" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjOsEPrW7Y9B52j6mAHH3zhte-x1u2NzTc_KoTujGM0k7ByUdjYF6rY-r909VH1rvXumX-VIRQiGmKpoDIwvpLYONIBt_QOeKskM0Diqz4harHMVNiOwtM_L3XfTlkyGrY0JAMVmw/s320/orbweaver1.jpg" alt="" id="BLOGGER_PHOTO_ID_5396324787618629378" border="0" /></a>Unknownnoreply@blogger.com2tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-29135938.post-15907044229415601062009-10-21T09:10:00.001-07:002009-10-21T09:21:56.514-07:00Wishing in the House of YesFor this week, <a href="http://jamieridlerstudios.ca/wishcasting-wednesday-october-21" target="menagerie" >Jaimie Ridler's Wishcasting Wednesday</a> is all about the Yes. What am I saying yes to? Is it something I want? Am I saying yes out of a habit of pleasing other people? Or am I getting to what I really, truly want?<br /><br /><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgbAOYSTNQa4vDzZixoyl6wVO0Y4TPmsu5pkahHqBYVBvD3QEDGY35OvDFwrKOfw7wF92EYNd71eKwCt9TLo67H1aW3oJGF7-VvnO1bGdJNfRFzpGfnQK9DAoZjdk7LUidvd4wStA/s1600-h/wishcasting-150.jpg"><img style="display:block; margin:0px auto 10px; text-align:center;cursor:pointer; cursor:hand;width: 150px; height: 182px;" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgbAOYSTNQa4vDzZixoyl6wVO0Y4TPmsu5pkahHqBYVBvD3QEDGY35OvDFwrKOfw7wF92EYNd71eKwCt9TLo67H1aW3oJGF7-VvnO1bGdJNfRFzpGfnQK9DAoZjdk7LUidvd4wStA/s320/wishcasting-150.jpg" border="0" alt=""id="BLOGGER_PHOTO_ID_5395089245697735410" /></a><br /><br />I've started working with an amazing writing coach, <a href="http://www.writershomecompanion.com/" target="menagerie">Jane Anne Staw</a>, and am finally saying yes to feeling good as I write. No more waiting to feel good if I get a good response! No more waiting to feel good once I master some trick of the craft! No more waiting to feel good! <br /><br />Sorry cats! The door stays closed even with all the pathetic scratching. (Poor neglected babies, you'll have to wait to get your fancy treats and head rubs, oh dear!) The phone? Off. Email? Off. FB? Off. Any tweets I hear will be from actual, living birdies. <br /><br />So a big, sloppy Yes! to writing as play!Unknownnoreply@blogger.com18tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-29135938.post-44368732466175925042009-09-24T09:12:00.001-07:002009-09-24T09:17:13.529-07:00Luxurious<a href="http://jamieridlerstudios.ca/wishcasting-wednesday-september-23" target="menagerie"><img id="BLOGGER_PHOTO_ID_5385067843169161234" style="DISPLAY: block; MARGIN: 0px auto 10px; WIDTH: 202px; CURSOR: hand; HEIGHT: 320px; TEXT-ALIGN: center" alt="" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhAsdQ2VcTjMAY1gsaiq-D08KT4gcamOpihDSl6F3cm3svabZFpyeyI3FHwndYEHlh4Un7Apw63D6P6UnV3J6_yvAsdSEZm3YI7hYY5YUF3CWlpkeG1WbMixjPN60wOOo0Qnux2Ow/s320/luxury.jpg" border="0" /></a><br /><br />What the heck is Luxury anyway?<br /><br />One of the issues I deal with as I continue to <del>kick depression in the teeth</del> grow into the wholeness of my being is reward. In depression, nothing is rewarding. Neurologically, nothing produces a nice shot of dopamine. Nothing resets the parasympathetic nervous system to healing mode. Nothing feels good. You keep aiming for your North Star but every achievement feels just as shitty as failure so why bother going to all the effort to keep steering when you can get the same mediocre buzz from a decent episode of True Blood?<br /><br />I have to teach myself how to feel reward. I’m only just realizing how bad I am at rewarding myself. One of the reasons I don’t recognize reward is that I immediately describe it as a failure of my own moral fiber. The feeling of luxury becomes the feeling of selfish indulgence. I could be bettering myself! I could be achieving my goals! But instead I’m doing something that, gasp, just feels nice!<br /><br />This has to stop. We need down time. We need to exhale in order to inhale. We need rest in order to thrive. Recently, I caught myself framing my experience negatively and chose to reframe it as reward. I just wanted to see what this might be like. The result was pretty cool.<br /><br />Which would you rather live?<br /><br />I haven’t been taking care of myself. Since I got back from Michigan, I haven’t cooked the food I know makes me feel better. I keep trying to write, but end up watching bad television on Hulu while constantly looking at Facebook and Twitter, checking email. And then last weekend, despite all my intentions to write, I ended up spending Sunday reading a fantasy novel.<br /><br />-or-<br /><br />I have been taking care of myself despite being under the weather since returning from Michigan. I haven’t been hungry at all, some kind of bug?, and this has presented certain challenges to getting enough protein. I haven’t been up to cooking hot meals, so instead I’ve worked to eat healthy snacks. I realized that after a week in Michigan, I’d jumped right back into work. No time off to reflect or recover, no time to adjust for jet-lag. This weekend was the first opportunity I have had to do nothing. Or mostly nothing. I still managed two loads of laundry, and I took out all the trash. But for the most part, all I did was blissfully read a fun novel, the first time I’ve done that in three years thanks to the reading glasses I bought in Michigan. How wonderful to have a beautiful Sunday afternoon just to read. Luxury.Unknownnoreply@blogger.com6tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-29135938.post-49173630088487704382009-09-16T08:19:00.000-07:002009-09-16T10:35:52.115-07:00Wishing to Stretch<a href="http://jamieridlerstudios.ca/wishcasting-wednesday-sept-16" target="menagerie"><img style="display:block; margin:0px auto 10px; text-align:center;cursor:pointer; cursor:hand;width: 320px; height: 294px;" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhg6Q1yO6ob-Utd6LWWLNtVcMh0_EjkYnsxe2z8H2ekUrULcX4je6bWzuGrAla3JQl7qtxnkszKWnpxHGXgGlfysgY5-_Q3M6Tz-Ar1G4cKVidJUp_j7wXb5yad3NBENZzBGNNsMA/s320/stretch.jpg" border="0" alt=""id="BLOGGER_PHOTO_ID_5382120101891844530" /></a><br /><br /><br /><div><a href="http://jamieridlerstudios.ca/wishcasting-wednesday-sept-16" target="menagerie">Jaime Ridler's</a> Wishcasting Wednesday for this week is: What do you wish to stretch?<br /><br />I believe that we don't always know what all we might be. Right now each of us is huge and myriad and strange and wondrous, but we’ve been taught to be finite. We are constantly pressing our infinitely intricate and miraculous existences into a definition. And everything and everyone we meet is also more than we are willing to imagine. This can be a terrifying notion, but it can also be an exhilarating one. It can make us fearful so that we lash out at anything that might tear down the illusion of our certainty, or we can choose to be grateful that we never, ever need to be bored.<br /><br />I wish to stretch my ability to exist joyfully. I wish to stretch my perception of myself and in doing so give others space to stretch their own. I wish to stretch my ability to listen to others that I may better know this crazy, mixed-up universe I call home. </div><br /><br /><a href="http://jamieridlerstudios.ca/wishcasting-wednesday-sept-16" target="menagerie"><img id="BLOGGER_PHOTO_ID_5382085793726941874" style="DISPLAY: block; MARGIN: 0px auto 10px; WIDTH: 150px; CURSOR: hand; HEIGHT: 182px; TEXT-ALIGN: center" alt="" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEh7BOzfmEGrcwwx9gismIHro66ftsU1H0pakqnLmGG1mxIR3J99QYpXSgBCvZtib6pP1_Xz935rqf96FH0cQuzfTtmXLqmN6DEfIsDxt_bla8WGGB5lTuTwLcRK7jzk3GpjO6mpsw/s320/wishcasting-150.jpg" border="0" /></a>Unknownnoreply@blogger.com17tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-29135938.post-28663236814724589512009-09-02T09:25:00.000-07:002009-09-02T09:28:34.031-07:00Wishing to BeginJamie Ridler throws a <a href="http://jamieridlerstudios.ca/wishcasting-wednesday-september-2" target="menagerie">Wishcasting Wednesday</a> every week on her creativity blog. This Wednesday her question for all of us is: What do you wish to begin?<br /><br />Beginnings are such precipitous moments. They are changes of direction carrying all those unexpected thrills and risks. Too often, I zone out right at the beginning of things seeking somehow to escape responsibility for what may happen by pretending I'm "letting the universe decide my course." But abnegating my responsibility for my own life drains me of creativity - you need to own your choices to create - so first and foremost I wish to begin paying attention to beginnings!<br /><br />I wish to begin a regular practice of creating art. In my family, my sister was always the artist and I was the intellectual. Well, I can be intellectual and create art so there! I can even do it at the same time if I wanna. Okay, that was so not an intellectual way to say that. See, I’m already beginning!!! (And just for the record, my sister can be a fabulous artist and an intellectual as well! Screw you, family boxes!)<br /><br />And finally – for now – I wish to begin a journey of transforming the loneliness in my life into love and connection. I save the best for last. I grew up terribly lonely and alone. I used to be angry about this feeling that life and family had let me down. It’s good to be angry for a while about childhood things that scarred, but eventually we gotta move on. So I’ve learned some stuff about loneliness and I can use that knowledge to recognize loneliness in others. And because I have stood up for myself, because I’ve been angry at the way a little girl was left on her own too much with no mentoring or encouragement, I am moved to do what I can to alleviate that need in others. <br /><br />So, what do you wish to begin?Unknownnoreply@blogger.com16tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-29135938.post-35764852635196501912009-08-18T13:00:00.000-07:002009-08-18T13:33:33.391-07:00All Is WellMy Google Reader sometimes tells me "what's hot" in the blogs. I'm sure the blog entries are selected because of "trending" and various other Google determinates of meaning and relevance, but to me it's more a random sample. I often have to struggle to determine the context of the blog, what does it mean to the blogger, what meaning are they attempting to punt across the vastness on the internet to this reader they've never met?<br /><br />One of the blog entries I got today seemed pretty boring at first. Just some blurry pictures of some folks on a hike. Nice view, but no discernable point except the tantalizing phrase "all is well". Why would that be in question for such a hike with friends? <br /><br />But looking over the blog itself and the biography of the blogger, the reason for the blurry photos becomes clear as does the medical gloves covering the arm. The place of the hike is implied as is the reason for the large crowd and the small gesture, and in the end, I found myself touched to realize how happy I am for these people that yes, all is well.<br /><br /><a href="http://nieniedialogues.blogspot.com/2009/08/at-top.html" target="menagerie">Check it out.</a>Unknownnoreply@blogger.com1tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-29135938.post-30018144089662199282009-08-03T16:38:00.000-07:002009-08-03T16:41:57.250-07:00Love for the Sea TurtlesSay what you will about the human species. I know we do horrible things on a scale other species can only dream of.<br /><br />We're also the only species that would think of making a <a href="http://news.nationalgeographic.com/news/2009/08/090803-artificial-turtle-flipper-video-ap.html">prosthetic flipper for a sea turtle</a>.<br /><br />Seriously. This kind of thing makes me feel good about being human.Unknownnoreply@blogger.com3tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-29135938.post-9367568764569238012009-07-29T09:49:00.000-07:002009-07-30T11:45:30.481-07:00Captain Kangaroo vs. RorschachThere's a <a href="http://www.nytimes.com/2009/07/29/technology/internet/29inkblot.html?pagewanted=2&_r=1&hp" target="menagerie">veritible firestorm </a>brewing between psychologists all over the world and Wikipedia. In June, Dr. James Heilman* posted pictures of all 10 original inkblots along with the most common answers given for each. Psychologists are up in arms because they think that one of their beloved tests has been rendered <a href="http://www.scientificamerican.com/article.cfm?id=whats-wrong-with-this-pic-2005-04" target="menagerie">completely useless</a>. Now anyone can just memorize the "right" answers and fake being sane.<br /><br /><br /><br /><p><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEitD9vKaJ6bVo6mqNDl1Z4qGgu4RpRjQr6Jg9ohYqAZa3aD5EgZjiyP1vuGM55FpuFS6EfslfVouxsgAXuv626_EzTL5Yj1YgA9ZxyJ6bBUHa3xNr5PLGfFpWPAlpi5Ga6C73-OwA/s1600-h/Rorschach_blot_04.jpg"><img id="BLOGGER_PHOTO_ID_5363925239793681234" style="DISPLAY: block; MARGIN: 0px auto 10px; WIDTH: 320px; CURSOR: hand; HEIGHT: 216px; TEXT-ALIGN: center" alt="" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEitD9vKaJ6bVo6mqNDl1Z4qGgu4RpRjQr6Jg9ohYqAZa3aD5EgZjiyP1vuGM55FpuFS6EfslfVouxsgAXuv626_EzTL5Yj1YgA9ZxyJ6bBUHa3xNr5PLGfFpWPAlpi5Ga6C73-OwA/s320/Rorschach_blot_04.jpg" border="0" /></a></p><p>This is Rorschach Inkblot #4. To me, this looks like a giant mutant kangaroo jumping into battle with guns ablazing. I think he's adorable. His gruff but wisecracking exterior hides the inner pain he still feels from the loss of fellow mercenary, killed in battle saving Captain Kangaroo's life (the children's show was such a whitewash job.) </p><p>And hey! Turns out I am completely sane or at least totally normal because one of the most common responses to this ink blot is "massive animal." Whew. And here I've been worried about my mental health!</p><p>While the images are being kept up at Wikipedia, the inclusion of a list of most common answers is being deleted and re-entered in an edit battle. Here are the most common answers for each ink blot:</p><p>Plate 1 (bat, butterfly, moth)<br />Plate 2 (two humans)<br />Plate 3 (two humans)<br />Plate 4 (animal skin, massive animal)<br />Plate 5 (bat, butterfly, moth)<br />Plate 6 (animal hide, skin, rug)<br />Plate 7 (human heads, faces)<br />Plate 8 (pink: animal)<br />Plate 9 (orange: human)<br />Plate 10 (blue: crab, lobster, spider) </p><p>Now memorize these in case you are ever tested. And don't say I never did anything for you because I just saved you some time in the big house.<br /><br /><br />*Dr. Heilman is from Moose Jaw, Saskatchewan. That's just about the greatest thing about the whole situation. Ah, the power of these glorious tubes, that an emergency room doctor from Moose Jaw could single handedly bring down the greatest comic book <a href="http://www.empireonline.com/50greatestcomiccharacters/default.asp?c=16" target="menagerie"><strike>psycho nutjob</strike> hero </a>of all time.</p><p> </p>Unknownnoreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-29135938.post-49824579215623479862009-07-21T10:23:00.001-07:002009-07-21T10:27:31.044-07:00Creative DistanceIf you want that a-ha moment, where you suddenly see a completely different way of solving a problem, think first about someplace far, far away. It's more than a metaphor, distance can actually help you be more creative. Just thinking about a distant place will change how you think about whatever problems you are dealing with. Try it next time you're stuck.<br /><br />For more, read the Scientific American article <a href="http://www.scientificamerican.com/article.cfm?id=an-easy-way-to-increase-c" target="menagerie">here</a>.Unknownnoreply@blogger.com1tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-29135938.post-53005613408740640292009-07-01T14:02:00.000-07:002009-07-01T15:22:35.538-07:00HOLLAND PREPARES TO YIELD TO ALLIESI was trying to find an article I recently read in the New York Times describing Holland's tax system. I searched the NYT for "Holland" and got 10,000 hits. On page three I find the following article:<br /><br /><blockquote>HOLLAND PREPARES TO YIELD TO ALLIES<br />Holland, on the eve of her shipping being taken over by the United States and Great Britain, has given evidences of a readiness to make a voluntary agreement to that purpose, even agreeing that the ships shall be sent through the war zone.</blockquote><br />I'm like, what the hell? Then I read the date:<br /><br /><blockquote>March 17, 1918</blockquote><br />Did you know you can search the ENTIRE New York Times?Unknownnoreply@blogger.com3tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-29135938.post-8666633951149745642009-06-19T21:13:00.000-07:002009-06-23T21:06:13.492-07:00The Ungainly Woman<div style="text-align: left;">There’s a woman who sometimes waits for the bus at my stop, going home from work. A while back, I watched her be humiliated by two other passengers: an older woman with white hair wearing a pale blue gingham dress, and a woman in her forties who got on a couple of stops after we did.<br /><br />The bus was crowded and the second woman called out over the heads on the intervening passengers.<br /><br />“Good afternoon to you grandmother! How are you getting on today,” said the younger woman. And yes, she spoke in this high falutin’ way, just like that, overly conscious of propriety.<br /><br />“I’m doing fine except this fat ass sat down next to me without even saying excuse me,” said the older woman.<br /><br />Then the younger one turned to the woman I wait with and scolded her in a loud voice. The woman she was sitting next to had been a nurse in a war, or a marine, or something. She deserved respect.<br /><br />“Who do you think you are just sitting down next to her without saying excuse me. You tell her excuse me right now!”<br /><br />And the older one is spewing out a string of “sat her fat ass right down” and “young people rude today”.<br /><br />My bus-stop woman is quiet. She nods her head and tries to look invisible, but too late. They have put their gps on her and will now hound her for the sport of it. So pretty soon, before they have a chance to escalate this much further, she turns to the old lady muttering “fat ass,” and says, “excuse me” in a surprisingly sincere voice, like she really does believe them and thinks she should have been more polite, like she is already beginning to kick herself inside for not being more polite. She is remembering lectures in third grade about knocking other kids down on the playground and feels she should have known the passenger sitting next to her wouldn’t want her there. She should have said excuse me without being told and so she says it a second time just be sure.<br /><br />And I fell in love with her then, just to watch her and understand her, with her ungainly ways, her lumbering walk, and the way her large, honey-colored eyes bulge out and make her look belligerent and about to say mother-fucker, the way her whole face has a slapped together look like it's made out of clay that is beginning to slide off, and how when anyone talks to her, she answers in a rough, low-pitched voice that apologizes and laughs at herself all at once.<br /><br />So today, I left work and saw the bus already coming, and I ran, trying to be careful crossing the two streets at the intersection, all in my new shoes with the tiny heels. And when I got to the stop, there she is. I look back and see a second bus a block further and a distance I wouldn’t have had to run for.<br /><br />I say, “Oh, I run for the bus and there’s two coming! But at least the first one is empty!” and turn to her smiling.<br /><br />She laughs and barks out, “Oh yeah, I hate getting the full ones.”<br /><br />We smile together and find our seats, on either side of the aisle, each with our own little row of space in the otherwise empty bus.</div>Unknownnoreply@blogger.com2tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-29135938.post-65701439968055506762009-06-08T20:04:00.000-07:002009-06-08T20:13:23.811-07:00Xena is still awesomeThe real difference and prop 8:<br /><br /><object width="425" height="344"><param name="movie" value="http://www.youtube.com/v/mHhrkJX1YcI&hl=en&fs=1&rel=0&color1=0x234900&color2=0x4e9e00"></param><param name="allowFullScreen" value="true"></param><param name="allowscriptaccess" value="always"></param><embed src="http://www.youtube.com/v/mHhrkJX1YcI&hl=en&fs=1&rel=0&color1=0x234900&color2=0x4e9e00" type="application/x-shockwave-flash" allowscriptaccess="always" allowfullscreen="true" width="425" height="344"></embed></object>Unknownnoreply@blogger.com1tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-29135938.post-63279967662355665462009-05-22T19:48:00.001-07:002009-05-22T19:49:48.735-07:00Secret Seahorse Wishes<a onblur="try {parent.deselectBloggerImageGracefully();} catch(e) {}" href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhCbaE1n6Dsv0Up_EgzZ7x7FqJiB6Q0u9b_MXcYZT8m0Uor7QhDc7vHUTj5sxODZZkTpS5C8hstuuKfh7yJ2m0RcOhvpKzuctNLKI3yo95FWkpweL1yLvEbJmVFmIjhl-UiGDGCEQ/s1600-h/sea-horses-group.jpg"><img style="margin: 0px auto 10px; display: block; text-align: center; cursor: pointer; width: 320px; height: 240px;" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhCbaE1n6Dsv0Up_EgzZ7x7FqJiB6Q0u9b_MXcYZT8m0Uor7QhDc7vHUTj5sxODZZkTpS5C8hstuuKfh7yJ2m0RcOhvpKzuctNLKI3yo95FWkpweL1yLvEbJmVFmIjhl-UiGDGCEQ/s320/sea-horses-group.jpg" alt="" id="BLOGGER_PHOTO_ID_5338845923235912210" border="0" /></a><br />Seahorses are so strange and wonderful. Personally, I think they look more like dragons than horses. They are best known for the fact that the female deposits her eggs in the male to be gestated, but my favorite thing about them is their eyes, which move independently of each other. Seahorses possess two of my secret desires: the ability to breathe underwater and prehensile tails.Unknownnoreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-29135938.post-63279985484975180522009-05-05T13:06:00.000-07:002009-05-05T13:06:00.546-07:00Musings of a Hard PolytheistWe are like cats to them. <br />Sometimes they euthenize us, <br />sometimes they just pick us up <br />and move us to the next room. <br />If you think a god is likely <br />to do the former, <br />try to escape the apartment <br />and find one that will pet you<br />and feed you the good food. <br />If you pee on their furniture,<br />they will get angry. <br />Don't assume you know <br />what their furniture looks like. <br />If you find a god that really tries <br />to understand things from your <br />limited point of view and helps <br />you be generally happy in this life, <br />love them with all your heart.Unknownnoreply@blogger.com1tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-29135938.post-24529145649573588232009-04-29T20:22:00.000-07:002009-04-29T20:42:52.778-07:00101 Roto MonkeysMarcel Duchamp was a very cool artist. He created these fun "<a href="http://www.marcelduchamp.net/marcelduchamp_multimedia.php" target="menagerie">rotoreliefs</a>" [click on the spinning wheel to see all twelve]. As they spin, the eye sees the images in 3-d.<br /><br /><div style="text-align: center;"><a onblur="try {parent.deselectBloggerImageGracefully();} catch(e) {}" href="http://www.marcelduchamp.net/marcelduchamp_multimedia.php" target="menagerie"><img style="text-align: center; cursor: pointer; width: 140px; height: 140px;" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEj2sXXPgjesShOxE_Rw2V-CPrRwqJMpnU5LnimuNHJOmRXDFdsUdKpis2BhuRvk-6UESipzRfdNTT627JJ_iDPvJ6V-z4jqFKQYHc4yMFkIT4yPNmEuXO5Vqr9yFyfCbj16pJvtXw/s320/disklamp.jpg" alt="" id="BLOGGER_PHOTO_ID_5330323621182897394" border="0" /></a><br /></div><br />There's something hundred monkey about the whole thing because Duchamp discovered this effect through art at the same time that scientists were discovering it using scientific method.Unknownnoreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-29135938.post-44056947007141087792009-04-28T10:53:00.000-07:002009-04-28T11:02:09.699-07:00Penguin Sci-FiIf you love speculative fiction as much as I do, check out <a href="http://www.penguinsciencefiction.org/" target="menagerie">Penguin Books'</a> page on the history of their science fiction publications. The site opens with a wonderful collection of old covers. Click on one for more information about the book. Once inside, you can click on "Contents" to get to the beginning of the narrative.Unknownnoreply@blogger.com0