Why I Oppose the Death Penalty

Fundamentally, I oppose capital punishment because I believe that no human being is beyond redemption, and I believe that only God has the right to take a life.

My opposition to the death penalty is not based on sympathy for the convicted, nor apathy toward victims of horrific crimes.  However, the belief that killing the convicted criminal will somehow bring "closure" (whatever that means) to the victim's family is dubious due to the lengthy appeal process and the misguided, although natural, notion that somehow revenge will take away emotional pain.  I have no illusions of changing anyone's mind on the subject, but I feel strongly enough about it that I've taken time to study it.

Sister Helen Prejean wrote, "An execution is ugly because the premeditated killing of a human being is ugly. Gassing, hanging, shooting, electrocuting, or lethally injecting a person whose hands and feet are tied is ugly.  And hiding the ugliness from view and rationalizing it numbs our minds to the horror of what we are doing."

There is nothing noble or dignified about putting a person to death, no matter how heinous or reprehensible their crime(s) may have been, no matter how justified we feel in doing so.  Life without the possibility of parole is an effective means of protecting society from violent criminals.  The chance of a convicted murderer escaping to kill again is less than the chance of a wrongful conviction for a capital crime.

To be most effective, justice should be swift and sure.  The death penalty is neither.  According to the National Death Penalty Information Center, a neutral educational website, the time between sentencing and execution has steadily risen since the reinstatement of capital punishment from an average of about 5 years in the late 1970's, to about 15 years today.  Thomas West, the most recent person to be executed in Arizona, was put to death 24 years after the commission of his crime.

The idea that capital punishment serves as a deterrent has been shown to be a myth.  Murder rates have not risen in states that have abolished the death penalty, and they have not fallen in states that have increased executions.

As long as human beings are capable of making mistakes, we will be capable of executing an innocent person.  There have been seven instances of wrongful execution in the U.S., and two exonerations of men on Death Row.  The death penalty is preeminently irreversible.

Two thirds of the world's countries and 16 or the united states have abolished the death penalty altogether. The United States is lumped with an unseemly minority of countries who continue to allow this barbaric practice, nations like China, Iran, Iraq, Afghanistan, Yemen, Somalia, etc.  Countries who no longer permit state-sanctioned, premeditated killing are Spain, Sweden, Switzerland, Finland, France, Germany, the United Kingdom, and even Mexico.

Lastly, the application of the death penalty as practiced in America is random, discriminatory, and capricious at best.  It is not the "worst of the worst" who are ultimately put to death, but rather the unlucky, the under-represented, the poor, those with chemical dependency and mental issues.  Politics plays a huge role in determining who lives and who dies.  No politician wants to appear "soft on crime," and so the least in our society pay the price with their lives.

I am opposed to the death penalty, but I favor justice.  Punish the convicted with confinement and hard labor where appropriate, but do not cast the stone unless you are without sin.

Unnatural death is wrong, no matter who does it. (Antoinette Bosco, whose son and daughter-in-law were murdered, author of the book "Choosing Mercy".)

Triage

     I thought I was, metaphorically speaking, well-dressed with good vision, and wealthy.  People, places, and things keep reminding me that really, biblically speaking, I am naked, blind, and poor.  There is a recurring theme, a thread running through these days that extinguishes my spirit.  It makes me feel crazy.  Angry.  Fearful.
     I'm trying really hard to have a gentle peace as a backdrop to my life.  The words "serenity" and "tranquility" come to mind.  This is day 19, 844 for me.  At various markers along the road, I thought I could manage my life through the right combination of chemical additives, but the body has not evolved for quick fixes.
     People talk about "triggers," things that activate a sort of Rube Goldberg machine of dysfunctional behavior for them.  I'm beginning to see, slowly, painfully, that I'm not a person who handles threats, perceived or real, very well.  A threat makes me angry, and when I am angry I know there is something behind the anger, and it is almost always fear.  I'm afraid I'm going to lose something I have, or not get something I want.  Fear is the polar opposite of faith.  They have an inverse relationship, like voltage and current in an electrical circuit.
     So it starts with a thought, the thought that I've been threatened.  The thought eventually manifests itself in words, because I have a need to talk with another person about how I'm feeling, hopefully someone who has felt like I do.  And sometimes talking about it only reinforces the thought, the sense of being threatened.,  The fear increases, like the proverbial snowball rolling downhill.  The thought has now become words, and with upward spiraling intensity, the words beg for some kind of action.  It's uncomfortable, and it feels like action, any action, will take away the discomfort.  In has been my experience that action born of this kind of thinking and speaking begets a new problem, a kind of guilt/shame cycle.  The original problem can multiply, so that I soon find myself wishing I had only my original "problem" back, because now I am fighting a war on multiple fronts and it is clear I am losing.
     I am learning who to go to for help and who to avoid with certain issues.  Those who have thoughts and words helpful to me are few, they are vital, and they are also people who are busy helping others.  We all have problems, and we all help each other if we are living honestly with an open mind and the willingness to change.  We triage our fellows, sorting the victims and victors of life's drama according to the severity of their need.
     Some days I feel angry, fearful, and resentful and I want attention to my painful condition.  I want those with the right thoughts and words to be mindful of me, because I think I am bleeding profusely and I don't know how long I can hang on.  It is in living through times like these, and coming out the other side, that I realize that God is good.  Nothing explains everything, and no one can "fix" what's really wrong with me.  We can only run from person to person, assessing the need and pointing others toward faith.
     Please, point me toward faith when I'm in fear.  Point me toward faith when I am angry and resentful.  Without you, I am by myself to find God.  He has found me, but I have the most difficult time sometimes  in seeing the obvious, and recognizing Him in my circumstances.

Unfair Fights

   I'm thinking about life.  My life, your life, and the kid on the shore of Lake Atitlan in Guatemala 20 years ago who ran circles around me, singing, "Un quetzal la foto, un quetzal la foto!"  Translation: "Give me a penny and I'll let you take a picture of me!"  It's thinly-disguised begging.
   I used to ride my bicycle on the streets of Phoenix, mostly commuting to work.  Invariably, a vehicle would speed by me at 50 m.p.h., leaving a comfortable (for him) three inch gap between his 4000 lb. vehicle and my 30 lb. bike.  This situation would spin me into an insane and alternate reality, much like I'd imagined "black-outs," described by recovering alcoholic/drug addicts (until I mixed tranquilizers and vodka I'd never experienced that kind of a black-out).  Instead of seeing black, however, my world would go deep red, deep red mixed with black.  Toxic rage would fill my body, livid adrenaline causing my legs to pump the bicycle pedals furiously in an effort to catch up to the offending vehicle (sometimes a city bus), drag the driver out of the vehicle, pummel the life out of him, or die trying.  To describe my condition as angry, would be like describing a tsunami as strong.  When the rage subsided, I felt only fear and disbelief that I was capable of such an intense emotion, and that it could manifest so quickly.
   As I've heard others share their life stories in the rooms of Alcoholics Anonymous, I've realized that life is not a fair fight.  It's not fair for any of us, worse for some than for others, but unfair nevertheless.  Some of us think we've found a weapon to level the playing field in the form of alcohol and other reality-changing substances.  This works for a while, at least in our perception, but it's a cruel deception.  We are only temporarily diverted from the problems life presents us, and in the end our chemical arsenals turn on us, and the battle becomes even more one-sided.  It's like the burglar who takes the baseball bat out of my hands and proceeds to bludgeon me to death, sometimes slowly, sometimes quickly, but the end is the same.
   Across the ages men have found a way to make the unfair fight of life a fair one, and that is to cease fighting.  Acceptance of a power greater than ourselves and submission to life on life's terms are all that's needed to level the playing field, because, in the end, the real battle happens in the space between our ears, and nowhere else.  If I am able to calm and still my spirit and ask for help, the bullies drop their sticks and stones and wander off to find new victims.

No, really. God spoke to me on Interstate 8.

   I sometimes hear people say that God literally spoke to them.  As in, audibly.  As in, they, with their ears, heard God, with his voice, say something, usually something directly intended for them.   I, personally, have never been the recipient/participant of a God monologue/dialogue.  It's only my opinion, but I think if you think you actually hear God's voice in an audible way, you're covered under the DSM-IV definition of schizophrenia.
   Forgive me if my tone is a bit skeptical.  I have difficulty wrapping my mind around an unverifiable and, invariably, beneficial experience of another.  I dunno.  Maybe I'm just jealous.  I do know that I'm not always cheered by the good fortune of my fellows, and my happiness for them seems inversely proportionate to the size of their prize. For example, if you get a modest tax refund, I'll smile, congratulate you, and pat you on the back without further thought. However, if you win the lottery and become several million dollars wealthier, I can force myself to smile, congratulate you, and pat you on the back with the singular motive of sharing in your newfound wealth. At the precise moment it becomes clear to me that you have no intention of sharing your money, I will become bitter, indignant, and unkind toward you. It's not pretty, but I think it's the truth.
   Now back to the God-speaking thing.  This morning, my domestic partner and I were cheerfully motoring through the Flintstone-esque mountains of eastern San Diego County at, apparently, 85 miles per hour, when a certain California state employee with radar and a black-and-white car fulfilled his duty to his employer by personally and punitively suggesting I slow down a bit.  "Officer Friendly" was polite, professional,  and efficient, asking for my driver's license and proof of insurance.  In less than five minutes, I was invited to sign my speeding ticket and encouraged to use caution as I returned to the flow of the interstate highway.
   But I noticed something different from this situation, compared to similar situations in which I've found myself in the past.  For starters, my heart and mind weren't racing.  I didn't feel nervous, shamed, defensive or angry.  I thought, "Hmm.  I was speeding and I got caught.  I guess this makes up for all the times I've broken the law and didn't get caught.  I guess there is justice after all."
   As we continued on our way to the beach, I asked the God of my understanding, the one who's never spoken to me audibly, if perhaps I might glean a larger lesson from the incident.  I think I received an answer to that question.  I think God was speaking to me through the California Highway Patrol.  I thought about other aspects of my life.  I think the message was: "slow down."
   Fair enough.

Marking the Time

   Thirty years ago tomorrow I got married.  I was 24, she was 19.  It was 115 degrees outside and my best man was sick with a fever of 104.  We were in three-piece suits.

   The following day, Tuesday, will mark 33 years that I've been employed by the Salt River Project.

   I've lived in Phoenix for 54 years and 95 days.  If the sun comes up tomorrow, I will be grateful to have another day to try and do the best I can to love other people and think less about myself.

   It's good to enjoy whatever my hands find to do while I am still able to do things.  Who knows what things may be in store for me or for others?  We just don't know the future...

Um, I dunno.

Something's different.

I took today and tomorrow off work.  Today started like every other day.  Up with the sun, walk a couple miles with the dogs, come home and feed them, eat a bowl of oatmeal.  But since I didn't have to go work, and I ostensibly took the time off to "art it up," I got that old mental monster telling me I'd better have something to show for this paid day off when the sun goes down or...  Or what?  What is it that makes me feel like I either need to be working or being productive?

I finished my oatmeal and went back to bed.  I smiled as I took my shoes off and pulled the sheet over me.  Screw productivity, personal or otherwise.  As I closed my eyes, I thought about the people I've heard talking about meditation lately.  Historically, every time I've tried to meditate, my thoughts race or else I fall asleep.  I know that being still is part of just about every religious belief system, but the whole meditation thing eludes me.  I may understand it someday (several have tried to explain it to me), but so far, no cigar.

So I woke up from my nap about 9 a.m. and went out into the back yard, where I lied down in the grass and felt the sun's energy.  The dogs like being outside lying in the sun, too.  Then I mixed paint, took my experimental fountain out of the fireplace, then painted the inside of the fireplace blue.  I ate a grilled cheese sandwich and nursed a 12 oz. Coke for three hours.  I went to a meeting and introduced myself to a newcomer, then gave him a ride home.  He wants to come back tomorrow, so I told him I'd pick him up at five.  I went home, ate dinner, then to Lotions and Potions on Mill Avenue to use a $20 Groupon that expires today.

As soon as I walked through the door of Lotions and Potions, I knew I didn't want to be there.  I failed immediately by opening my mouth and proclaiming out loud, "I don't know what possessed me to buy a Groupon to this place.  Someone seriously needs to smoke a cigar in here."  The place reminded me of one of those cars with bumper stickers that say "World Peace" and "I don't eat anything with a face" and are driven by the most discourteous and mean-spirited people on the planet, not to mention they all seem to have the driving etiquette of the average 16 year old male.  My senses sere assaulted and insulted.  I'd describe it  like standing in the middle of a multi-screen drive-in movie theatre, all screens playing chick flicks with Smell-O-Matic speakers and soundtracks by the Bangles and The Go-Gos.  I could feel everything male leaving my body.  I gave the Groupon to Jeannie,  and I went to Candy Addict a few doors down.  Any store with the words "candy" and "addict" in the title can't be all bad.

Something's different with me today.  I'm kind of peaceful and happy.  Kind of an unremarkable day off, but I'm okay with it.

Tomorrow's another day.

Some Things Never Change

I can remember losing almost every jacket I ever had in elementary school.  Okay, high school too.  My mother would ask, "Where's your jacket?" and I remember thinking two things simultaneously - "Uh-oh" and "Who cares?"  Because, "I'm in trouble" and "It's not cold out anymore" were the thoughts behind those thoughts.

Yesterday I took my 11 month old pal, SuperBub, to play on the grass at our favorite public area,  an upscale outdoor shopping mall with a large grassy area and a big fountain.  Apparently, the outfit he had on when he was put in my charge earlier that day was missing at the end of our time together several hours later.  My first thought was, "Hell, I don't know.  He travels with a whole diaper bag full of God-knows-what.  What mortal being could expected to keep track of all that stuff?

Then I remembered a friend talking about how he's 48 years old and it bothers him that he's still not very responsible.  I thought to  myself, "Well, that's easy.  You just have to take responsibility for things.  You know, man up and bite the bullet, swallow hard and do those things you don't feel like doing or are too lazy to do.  After all, procrastination is just sloth in five syllables."

As always, whenever I say or think something the least bit judgmental about someone else, something soon happens that highlights my own character defect in that area.

I feel bad about being irresponsible with regard to SuperBub's outfit.  But feeling bad neither improves my carelessness nor replaces the items I lose on a fairly regular basis.  It's been my experience that I only care when it costs me something, and even then the cost has to be such that I feel pain, financial or otherwise.

I don't want to be irresponsible any more.  Last week I thought I'd lost a pair of sunglasses while SuperBub and I were out, but I found them in the diaper bag this week.  I lose glasses and sunglasses all the time, but they're always ones I've found or obtained cheaply or for free.

I want to keep the inner child in me but I don't want to keep the part with an attitude of indifference toward things that matter to someone else.  I'm responsible for ALL of my choices, whether they seem like a big deal or not.

It doesn't make me a bad person because I lose things, but sometimes the good is the enemy of the best.  It's really not about a jacket or a an outfit or a pair of sunglasses.  It's about making progress toward becoming who I want to be before I lie down for my last nap.  Because who knows?  I might come back as a scatterbrained fox who misplaces his tail.

Help and Thank You

   I've never thought prayer had to be complicated.  "Help" and "thank you" pretty much cover it for me.  The sea of life moves me up and down, and while I manage to keep my nose out of the water most of the time, 90% of me will always be below the surface.

   Yesterday was one of those days when I swallowed a little water, panicked, asked for help, and now I'm saying thank you.  A stranger misjudged my motive and criticized my honesty.  Because the comment was neither clear nor direct, I first mistook it as a overture of friendship.  When I began to suspect his words were unkind, I asked him what he was trying to say.  He clarified his opinion a bit, the moment passed, and we parted ways.  I felt indignant and naive.  It took me a while to let it go.  A friend reminded me that it's a broad highway and there is room for all of us, with all of our opinions and character defects.

    Today is a new day.  Thank you for new days.  Help me to pause before I react.  Help me to be patient, kind, and tolerant in the ever-changing sea of life.


  

The World is My Teacher

   There is a gate I have to open fairly regularly for which I do not have a key.  I had an old pair of scissors that lost the rivet and was therefore two halves of a scissors.  Is it a "scissors" or a "scissor" or just "scissors?"  I don't know, but I digress.  Anyway, I take one half of the scissors, which is a flat, thin, curved blade, and I slip it in the latch, release the bolt, and open the gate.  The other day, I had approached the gate without my handy half scissor tool and, rather than walk back to my truck with all the stuff I was carrying, I was trying to open the latch with my pocket knife.  A couple of kids walked up behind me, returning home from school, a boy and a girl I'd say were probably 9 or 10 years old, saw what I was doing, and said, "We just do this."  The boy gave the iron gate a good kick, in and downward, and the it popped open!

   Here I thought I was so smart with my secret "master key," and all the while all I had to do was kick the gate just right.  Sometimes I just don't know what I don't know.

Syllables

   One of my favorite books suggests that procrastination is really just sloth in five syllables.  Syllables seem to matter a great deal in American English lately.  I frequently hear "utilize" in place of "use," "notate" instead of "note," and "stated" for "said."  For example, "She stated that she'd notated you procrastinate rather than utilize your talents," instead of "She said she'd noted you choose to be lazy rather than use your talents."
    Simple is beautiful.  I'm a decent speller with a pretty good vocabulary, but I suck at pronunciation.  If there's a wrong way to pronounce an English word, I'll find it.
   For me, the fewer syllables, the better.

Baby Bunny

   At first, I wasn't sure what it was and I thought it was dead.  Early this morning, not long after sunrise, I happened upon this very young rabbit while recovering my Thermos and fleece I'd left among some low dirt mounds, near the canal where I walk my dogs at sunrise and sunset.  On closer inspection, I realized it wasn't quite dead and that it wasn't a rodent, it was a younger, smaller version of the cottontail rabbits the dogs live to chase (but never catch) in the large empty field adjacent to the canal.
   I don't remember ever seeing such a young bunny.  He's just a tiny version of an adult rabbit, with fur and open eyes.  I removed him from the dirty depression where he lie motionless and cradled him in my hands, handing the other items to Jeannie.  When we got home, she found a shoe box and some soft cloth and made a bed for him.  We let him rest in this safe place away from drafts, temperature extremes and predators while we ate our breakfast.  Later, we tried feeding him some soy milk and some dandelion greens.  He made a little movement and a faint noise, but didn't seem to be interested in the milk.
   I don't know much at all about how to care for rabbits, but Jeannie did some research on the Internet.  Although he's so tiny, it's a good sign that he has fur and that his eyes are open.  We don't know what, if anything, happened to him before we found him.  Did he venture from the nest on his own and fall victim to exhaustion or another creature?  Was he defective and carried from the nest by his mother?  I don't expect him to survive and thrive, but I recently rescued a pigeon from my front yard who'd been stunned or wounded and could only flap a wing and spin in circles.  I didn't expect him to survive either, but the next morning he was better, and he flew away as I released him into the air.  I will do my best for this little rabbit and hope he makes it.
   Some people and animals do not live to be very old.  I don't know why.  I don't know how or why I've lived 54 years.  I don't know how much longer I'll continue to live, but I'm learning to live in each moment and accept it for what it is, not for what I wish it to be.  I'm learning to observe it without judging it as good or bad.
   Baby bunnies are really cute.

Humility, Humiliation, and 40 Years of Wandering in Another Desert

I'm full of hope.  It's taken 40 years, but I've come full circle.

At about age 14, I read the Sermon on the Mount in the book of Matthew, chapters five, six, and seven.  A gift, completely outside my frame of reference, was given me in my adolescence.  Awestruck, excited, I left my bedroom to find my mother in the kitchen preparing dinner.  I felt compelled to share this personal revelation of Jesus Christ as Messiah with the nearest human being, and she was it.  Any reaction short of backward handsprings would have seemed to me inappropriately indifferent to the good news I had to offer, and of course my mother, stirring a pan of something at the stove, merely remarked, "That's nice, honey."  Nice???!!!  That's nice???!!!  Tell me I'm wrong, tell me I'm crazy, but don't say "That's nice."

I'd had a spiritual experience, although I could not have known or described it as such at the time.  The words of the Sermon impressed me as Truth transcending human imagination and wisdom.  I had read and heard the spoken Word, and I'd never be the same, although I'd stumble on the worries of life and various deceitful diversions for the next 40 years, wandering aimlessly in a literal (Sonoran) and figurative (vanity) desert.

There's a world,  you know.  There's a way to go, and the road to the life described by Jesus' words is narrow, but open to all.  It is the way of humility.

At 54, I am a man of modest means and education, with many defects of character and twisted emotions.  I have no special talents, and have no significant accomplishments.  Those things neither confer nor withhold humility, they are only facts, data about my history.  I gain tiny fragments of humility through the painful and ego-smashing process of humiliation.  Humiliation hurts, but it does not kill.  In the end, it is not my opinion of myself nor the opinions of others about me that matters.  It is only the Truth that matters, and the Truth is that I was created in the image of God in order to do his bidding.  Each new day is an opportunity to live inside each moment, and by faith to practice willingness and an open mind.

Striving To Be Average

   It was worth every penny of whatever I spent, to travel thousands of miles to hear someone remark that one of the best pieces of advice they'd ever received was, "Strive to be average."  Incidentally, the advice was not unsolicited, as I believe the axiom that unsolicited advice is usually interpreted as criticism.
 
   Today I will strive to be average.  Not because I exclusively need to ascend or descend to average, but because, as my son, then 11 years old, once told someone who asked him to describe his dad, said, "My dad is like the fan switch in your car.  There may be five positions, but the only ones my dad uses are "off" and "high."

   I have to identify and accept the truth about myself, whatever that turns out to be.   I don't have to like what I see, I only have to accept it. The truth is, I travel back and forth, mentally and emotionally, between the extremes of grandiosity and self-loathing, rarely, if ever, pausing at the place of rest called average.  For me, average will be the highway to humility, the subject of my next blog.

 
 

I'm NOT Going to Teach You a Lesson

"It is a spiritual axiom that every time we are disturbed, no matter what the cause, there is something wrong with us. If somebody hurts us and we are sore, we are in the wrong also. But are there no exceptions to this rule? What about “justifiable” anger? If somebody cheats us, aren't we entitled to be mad? Can't we be properly angry with self righteous folk? For us... these are dangerous exceptions.  We have found that justified anger ought to be left to
those better qualified to handle it."

Anonymous, "12 Steps and 12 Traditions" (emphasis added)

   I'm angry about rising taxes today.  I want to start my own tax revolt.  I want to start a revolution, storm the political palaces, demand immediate reform and threaten violence... and then I remember...

"When we speak or act hastily or rashly, the ability to be fair-minded and tolerant
evaporates on the spot. One unkind tirade or one willful snap judgment can ruin our relation with another person for a whole day, or maybe a whole year. Nothing pays off like restraint of tongue and pen. We must avoid quick-tempered criticism and furious, power-driven argument. The same goes for sulking or silent scorn. These are emotional booby traps baited with pride and vengefulness. Our first job is to sidestep the traps. When we are tempted by the bait, we should train ourselves to step back and think." 

Anonymous, "12 Steps and 12 Traditions" 

   The need to sit on my hands and keep my mouth shut arises much more often than I'd like.  In fact, I don't like it at all.  I'd prefer to never practice restraint, and that's at least part of the reason I need to do just that.

   I have no lessons today to teach anyone, but I have a lot to learn.  I've got a lot of growing up to do, in part because I've chosen to avoid the things that might have helped me grow up in the past.  Things like hard work, pain, and yes, patience, tolerance, and kindness.

Don't Kid Yourself

I'm still here.

You're not following me, I'm following you.  I'm out here in cyberspace and I'm watching.  That's how I learn lessons from the fire.  That's how I evolve.

By the way, in my humble and amateur opinion, "evolution" is not a dirty word.  Nor is "sex."  I think those two things are somehow tied together, but I'm still thinking about that.

Brought to you by the guy who thought computers were a fad, sorta like hula hoops and Nehru collars and those little plastic yellow signs that dangled from the rear window of cars and read "Baby on Board."  Oh.  Okay.  I didn't know you had a baby, so now that I know, I'll completely change my driving habits...

On an unrelated note and several thousand years ago, a bunch of bipeds formed societies and decided killing someone else, anyone else, for any reason, is a bad idea.  Oh, some of the societies dabbled in it "for the good of the society," but most of them eventually dropped it completely.  Just seemed hard to justify... saying "don't do this" and then doing it.  Yes, I'm talking about capital punishment.  It's stupid.  Let's quit doing it.  I don't care if it's Vlad the Impaler, Adolf Hitler, or Bernie Madoff.  You don't kill sick people, and these are/were sick people.  Keep them away from everyone else and get on with being kind, patient, and tolerant.

Peace on earth, good will toward men.  Sounds better when Linus says it in the Charlie Brown Christmas movie.  But I still like it.

Happy Valentine's Day: Love Stinks

²¹"I hate, I despise your feast days, and I will not smell in your solemn assemblies."

Amos 5:21, Old Testament of the Bible

    The God of the Old Testament apparently found Israel's professed love for Him, ostensibly demonstrated alternately through partying and piety, to smell like rotting flesh in the summer sun.  Several millennium later, the J. Geils Band may have stumbled upon more truth than humor in the these A.D. 1980 lyrics from a song and album titled "Love Stinks":

You love her
But she loves him
And he loves somebody else
You just can't win
And so it goes
Till the day you die
This thing they call love
It's gonna make you cry
I've had the blues
The reds and the pinks
One thing for sure
(Love stinks)
Love stinks yeah yeah 

     I'm gonna get right to the point this Valentine's Day.  I'm not preaching, I'm passing on a lesson I've learned the hard way, from my mistakes.  I can chase that feeling of lovestruck euphoria until I fall asleep for the last time and I'll never get anywhere near love.  I may get lust, infatuation, obsession, or worse, I may get a lot of people to cosign my bullshit and tell me how well I've chosen.  But I won't get love.

     I'll find love when I make a decision to love another person and follow through with loving actions.  Patience, tolerance, and kindness seem like good places to start.

     Looking for that special someone who thinks like me, someone I connect with, someone with whom I have chemistry, turned out, for me, to be Grade A baloney.           
     Years of sunrises and sunsets, filled with countless opportunities to love, were lost on me.  I would not have, maybe I could not have, recognized love had it fallen on top of me.  The result was a profound disappointment, the disappointment that only unmet expectations can engender.      
     I'm not sure exactly when it happened, but at some point after my fourth decade on this little blue planet I made a conscious decision to let go of my expectations and begin to accept the ones I'd been given to love without any conditions, people I didn't choose in the first place - my mother and father, my sister, then outward in concentric circles... my extended family, my neighbors, coworkers, those who share my city, my state, my country, the world.  Learning involves a daily decision to love through loving thoughts, words, and actions.
     All of my best ideas about how to "get" love proved futile, for just that reason.  I was giving to get.  I still do that sometimes, and guess what?
     No love, just stink.

Happy Valentine's Day

             

I'll Get You, Buck

     One of my favorite memories from 2010 was a Thanksgiving morning brunch at my eldest daughter's home.  There were about eight of us: the food was good, the atmosphere was small and quiet, and the conversation was pleasant.
     After dinner, we stepped out onto the raised wooden front porch of their 1911 home in central Phoenix to enjoy the perfect Fall weather and bright sunshine.  Suddenly we heard a panicky male voice with an east coast accent imploring someone to call the police because he was being attacked.
     The voice belonged to a large, balding man in his 40's.  He was wearing sunglasses with bright white frames, a red polo-type shirt with white pinstripes, and khaki pants held together at the waste by his belt, as the button and zipper had long since broken.  In one hand he carried a rolled-up newspaper and a roll of toilet paper.  In the other he carried a handkerchief with which he kept mopping his sweating forehead, while looking behind him.
     Soon we met the source of the man's angst.  Another man, perhaps a bit younger and definitely a bit dirtier, rode by on a bicycle with those big "ape hanger" type handlebars and sneered, "I'll get you, Buck!" as he cleared his throat and spat in the direction of our hapless new friend in the day-glow sunglasses.
     The man on the bicycle made a quick U-turn after spitting and rode off in the direction from which he came.  The sunglasses man stood bewildered in front of my daughter's home and repeated his request that someone call the cops.  He said he'd been harassed by Bicycle Man for a few years now, that he'd gone to the homeless shelter for the annual Thanksgiving meal and that somehow Bicycle Man was able to spot him out of a crowd of several hundred people and began threatening him.
     My son in law did call the cops, mostly to placate Sunglasses Man, and handed him the phone.  You could tell by his end of the conversation that the police dispatcher was none too excited about sending officers out to investigate the complaint of a "crime" that was now past tense.
     A few weeks later I saw Sunglasses man several miles from my daughter's home in a different part of Phoenix.  
     He wasn't hard to spot.

Not Much

     I had a "less than" attack yesterday.  "Less than" attacks are kind of like anxiety attacks, except I don't feel anxious, I feel inferior to some standard (artificial or otherwise) I think I should have attained as a person.  It happened, of course, after I began comparing what I know about myself to what I know about someone I don't really know.  Almost everyone I know, including friends and relatives, falls into that category of people I don't really know.  Hell, it's hard enough to "know thyself" as the ancient Greek aphorism exhorts.  How the freak am I supposed to know you?
     So, great.  I've survived 53 estival months in the Sonoran Desert and still haven't learned to tell that lying moron that lives inside me to go pound dirt when he starts accusing me of being a slacker, of not being successful enough, of doing the things I shouldn't have done and neglecting the things I should have done.  Makes it hard to keep an inflated ego alive with that little bastard screaming in my ear.
     Fortunately, I've learned that these "less than" attacks are temporary, they are feelings and they will pass.  I've learned that it's okay to feel inferior for a little while, but I can minimize those feelings as they try to work their way into my behavior, as they inevitably do.
     Perhaps the best antidote for "less than" attacks lies in the old axiom that the best defense is a good offense.  I can take the offensive and look for someone to help, to do something for someone without looking for compensation of any sort.  Magically, my feelings of inferiority evaporate when I love another person in a practical way.
     Much of my energy in the past 17,000 or so hours  has been spent in various efforts to enhance or protect what I thought other people thought of me.  Many, if not most of these people didn't think much of me to begin with, but that truth was unknown to me and besides, it would've been too painful to accept had I known it.
     There are things I like about being middle-aged.  When I start to worry about what others think of me, I remember they don't, at least not very often.  Most of my illusion of physical attractiveness has dissipated as parts per million in a sea of younger people who look at me like I have a third eye in the middle of my forehead.
     Am I different from you?  Well, yes and no.  I don't believe all people spend so much time in amateur self-analysis or delusional introspection.  But I think many others do, and so there are those with whom I connect on that level.
     Today I'm going to spend some more time in my back yard, like I did yesterday, with the bright sun and brilliant blue sky.  The dogs play and sniff and lie in the sunshine.  I trim trees, pick up the cuttings and leaves, and try to make the yard look a little better than when I began.  That it what I will do for today, because today is all I have.

    

There Are No Scared Cows at a Picnic with Hitler

     Wait a tick.  Didn't you mean "sacred cows?"
     No.  I meant cattle who are afraid.  You know, terrified bovines.  I've seen fearful canines, felines, even equines, but there are no scared cows, even in the company of the Duke of Depravity.
     One morning, several sunrises ago, I awoke with bits and pieces of a dream I'd been having, involving a social function where people were milling about the grounds of a large edifice, some institution with lots of columns and porticoes - like a school or a church - and vast open lawns.
     I, too, was strolling about with a group of five or six people, engaged in easy conversation, enjoying the perfect weather and fading sunlight.  Among us was one Mr. Adolf Hitler - yes, THAT Adolf Hitler, complete with goofy little cookie-duster mustache and Nazi garb - and we seemed to be giving him a tour of the grounds.  In the dream, I kept wondering why no one was addressing the "elephant in the room." so to speak.  Aware of a bit of history, I kept thinking, "C'mon, people, this is Adolf Hitler, the fascist responsible for murdering millions of innocents, the genocidal sociopath with ambitions of world conquest, remember?
     When I finally gathered the courage to whisper my concerns privately to individual members of the group, the responses were surprisingly uniform.  "Ah, lighten up, man, that was more than six decades ago, a different century.  Give the guy a break.  I'm sure he's sorry and he's moved on, probably did some work and got in touch with his character defects.  We all make mistakes.  We just have to move forward and get on with our lives."
     I didn't know what to think.  Now we were spreading out a blanket and commencing to break bread with the Fuhrer, the master of malevolence.  A pariah picnic?  I mean, where's Vlad the Impaler, Nero, Pol Pot, Joseph Stalin?
    Fortunately, I woke up.  Dreams are weird.

Ego

     I can talk, but I can't speak very well.  I can type, but my writing is mediocre.  I can listen, but I don't often make listening my intention.  I can read, but I choose to do many other things that, in comparison, are a complete waste of time.
     Talking, listening, reading, writing.  Two active and two passive activities.
     For as long as I can remember, I've wondered about my place in the world.  Who am I?  What's important?
     I grew up with a great deal of exposure to the Bible, and I was thinking of how impossible it seems to escape ego, to think and act in any way that doesn't somehow promote self-interest.  Yesterday, I thought about the Ecclesiastical conclusion that "all is vanity."  Although at the time it was written, vanity was probably synonymous with futility rather than ego, I feel pretty sure the two concepts are closely related.
     Distill life down to its simplest form.  Imagine all of the vanity being boiled away, and only the essence of life dripping into a bowl.  What remains in the bowl is survival.
     I watched the President's state of the union address last night with my son.  A gathering of human beings, but I could not see the iceberg.  I could only see the tip above the water.  The words, the faces, the expressions and actions of the participants were visible, but the innumerable thoughts were not.
     I hope the men and women who lead the United States of America have found a way to escape ego, and that their efforts do not, in the end, result in futility.  I have hope that with each successive generation, like the Colorado River carving the Grand Canyon, we survive, and our children imagine and create a new world, a world of patience, tolerance, and above all, kindness.
     Let's strive to find a way to beat our swords into plowshares.

Rocket Science

     I've always wondered what my number is.  You know, that IQ number. 
     One day a few years ago I spent several hours with an intern at a psychologist's office taking a variety of different tests designed to reveal my IQ mystery.  Unfortunately (or fortunately), the intern moved on and so did I before I could prevail upon them to give me my number.  The only feedback I got was from a therapist who told me, "Let's just put it this way, you're too smart for your own good."  I took that as a compliment.  It wasn't.
     I never did particularly well in elementary or high school, but I managed to squeak by with minimal effort.  There would be comments from educators from time to time like, "Gee, Mike, you're really capable, why don't you apply yourself?"  I wasn't even sure what they meant by "apply yourself," but I do remember having a sort of thinly disguised contempt for education in general because I couldn't see any practical use for it.  "Motive" is the force in "loco-motive" that pushes that big, long, heavy train down the train tracks, and this loco student couldn't seem to muster any motive for taking notes or finishing homework.
     College was different.  By the time I got serious about "higher learning" I was in my early thirties, and I had several motives to move my train down the track.  I had a family and an ego to support, and besides, it cost me real money out of my own pocket.  The motivating pain of being hit in the wallet is probably superseded only by being cold or hungry.  I did well in college.  I rarely got anything but an A.
     Now.  Lest you make the mistake of thinking there may be a hidden genius in this story somewhere (I certainly made that mistake), let me paint for you portrait of some of the more "geniusey" things I've done.
     When I was 19 I had a dirt bike, a Husqvarna 250, that I liked to ride in the desert around Phoenix.  As I prepared for a ride one day, I noticed that the chain on my motorcycle was all gummed up with a paste of grease and pulverized dirt, aka dust.  So of course, I began to think of how to remove this impedance to my bike's performance and the solution immediately presented itself.  Gasoline!  Gasoline dissolves grease.  Warm gasoline would surely be preferable to cold gasoline, but how to warm it up?  I know!  I proceeded to fill a large cooking pot, a stock pot, with about two quarts of gasoline, dropped my chain in it, placed it on the natural gas stove top in the kitchen, turned on the burner, and went back out to the carport, about 20 feet away through a side door of the house. 
     Presently I went back in the house and noticed that the pot of gasoline I'd placed on the stove was boiling.  That's probably hot enough, my superior intellect reasoned, so I touched the handle on the pot.  The next thing I remember was a loud noise and mushroom cloud of fire about the size of a Volkswagen Beetle that shot up to the kitchen ceiling, curled back toward me, and in the process removed my eyebrows and arm hair.  This had not been part of my master plan.  Once I realized I hadn't been killed or seriously injured in "a freak gasoline boiling incident," I ran outside, grabbed the garden hose, and extinguished the conflagration that used to be my kitchen.
     While the harm to my body was minimal, the economic consequences, at least to the insurance company, were considerable.  Charred paint hung in long strips from the ceiling, and the cabinets were damaged.  What did I learn from this experience?  Gasoline boils!
     Fast forward to the early '90's.  It's Friday morning and my eldest child, Kelly, and I have come back from breakfast and are looking for something to do before it's time to head off to school and work.  The family trampoline was always good for a few thrills, but this morning I guess I needed a little more than the usual woo-hoo.  "Hey, Kell," I suggested, "Let's move the trampoline over next to the playhouse and jump off the roof of the playhouse and do butt-bounces!"  One tiny detail I neglected to factor in: there were railroad ties (part of our landscaping) under the trampoline.
     We climbed to the top of the playhouse roof, about 12' above the trampoline mat and, not wanting to be a thrill hog, allowed Kell to jump first.  She did, and bounced off the mat, butt first, with an exclamation of glee.  I followed and, as I outweighed my young daughter by about 100 lbs, the laws of physics demanded that my sorry ass depress the trampoline mat considerably further, and my tailbone was introduced to the railroad tie lying in wait beneath the mat.  All I could do was lie on the trampoline and groan in pain and tell Kelly to have Mom call my friend John Rhodes, a physical therapist.  Later that day, X-rays would show a vertebrae had cracked, a chip missing from the corner.  Narcotic pain pills didn't save me from my worst night of agony ever, not from the broken spine, but from the trauma to the abdominal muscles.  What did I learn from this experience?  Choose a heavier partner to go first when leaping from high places!
     These days, I'm content with not knowing my number.  Maybe it's better that way.

Perfect World

    PBS, the Public Broadcasting Service, credits a sponsor, the Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation, with a motto that says "Dedicated to the idea that all people deserve the chance to live a healthy and productive life."
     I listen to NPR because I really hate having my intelligence (see Rocket Science blog) insulted by stupid radio commercials.  Also, I can get titillated from shocking news stories, then share gory details without guilt.  Oh, by the way, did I mention I heard it on NPR?  So you know it's true.  Plus, it's fun to wonder what some of the broadcasters are like in "real" life, that is, life outside the radio personality world.
     The first several times I heard "Dedicated to the idea that all people deserve the chance to live a healthy and productive life.", I didn't hear it.  You know.  I heard it, but I didn't hear it.  I wasn't listening, I was filtering.  It was just white noise, an ad on NPR - which is NPR because it doesn't have ads - it has affiliates, which have annual fund drives, which are sometimes more annoying than ads, because they bust out the guilt hammer to get me to send money to KJZZ, my local station.
     But one day, the devil's advocate in me thought, "Wait a minute.  That's an ideal that sounds so irrefutable, someone needs to refute it."  So I stepped up to the plate: it was my turn at bat.
     To be fair, there is a sort of disclaimer that it's only an "idea" that all people deserve the chance to live a healthy and productive life.  It seems to me a pretty good idea, but apparently nature doesn't think so.  Communism seems like a pretty good idea, too, it just doesn't work.  You know that pie we wanted to cut up into equal sized pieces and distribute to everyone equally?  Half of it just got eaten by some of the distributors, so now our ten-inch pie is a five-inch pie.  And there's the rub.  Human nature, being what it is (that's right, what it is, not what I'd like it to be), won't allow communism to work in practice.  Of course this is a bit of an oversimplification, but but you get the idea.
     Many ideas turn out to be ideals, and it's good to work toward an ideal, which is what I think the Gates Foundation is up to.  But if we think it's going to happen before some river can carve another Grand Canyon, we're setting ourselves up for disappointment.  If Mr. Hitler had gotten his way, and achieved his ideal of racial purity, the world would eventually be populated by a bunch of Aryan mutant freaks, the result of too much inbreeding.
     If you search the Gates' Foundation's website for "Dedicated to the idea that all people deserve the chance to live a healthy and productive life," you won't find it.  Instead, at the top of the page, on the same level as the name of the foundation, the motto ALL LIVES HAVE EQUAL VALUE appears, just like that, in capital letters.  Now there's an idea I find irrefutable.

Help?

     Not much of a blog today.  Spent the last 90 minutes of "blog" time in the midtown Manhattan of the Web sites, airlines/travel.  So easy to get lost.  I think I'd rather do research for a book about the Spanish Civil War.
     Oh well.  When I get frustrated to the point I feel like I need something stronger than Trader Joe's low acid French Roast, I'll ask for help.
     Today's one-liner:  Sometimes you don't know what you don't know.  I do know one thing.  I don't want to be a travel agent.

The World's Tallest Midget at 6'4"

    The title of today's blog was my dad's idea of humor.  I thought it was funny, and it reminds me of the title of a John Prine song titled "The Oldest Baby in the World," about a woman (in this case) who's lost that fleeting quality of physical attractiveness that causes the opposite sex (in this case) to pursue her.  Although, as in most of Prine's songwriting, there is the usual burlesque humor, the main message is not satirical, but a compassionate sketch of the child within the adult, longing for love, but ignorant of the fact that love isn't romance, and romance isn't happiness, and happiness is not a goal but a byproduct of a life well lived.

"She's got the mind of a child
And a body peaking over the hill
Well, she would if she could
And she should, but nobody will
With her nails painted red
And her hair so unnaturally curled
Well I think that she may be
The oldest baby in the world

She's tasted the night life
But it's left her with nothing but hunger
And all the available men
Seem to think that they want something younger

But youth is a costume
And the beauty within lies unfurled
And I think that she may be
The oldest baby in the world

Fast horses win races
And royal flushes beat aces
And everyone's playing to keep
So let's turn out the lights
And rock that old baby to sleep

She loves the sound of the rain
But you know she's still afraid of the thunder
She keeps a head full of hope
And a heart that's so full of wonder

She may look like a woman
But she's still some daddy's little girl
And I think that she may be
The oldest baby in the world

Yes, I think that she may be
The oldest baby in the world."

     Tomorrow my eldest and her husband leave for the Dominican Republic (D.R.) for six months.  Matt is the Executive Director of Peligre Hope Partners and will traverse the island from the D.R. to Haiti to aid and develop Haiti for the Haitians, a people who have suffered too much for too long and who wouldn't know a "safety net" if it fell on them, which, by all indicators, never will.  My middle child, Elizabeth, and her husband Josiah will follow Matt and Kelly to the D.R. later this month.
     As a father, and especially a father who saw his role as provider/protector in the days when they were children, I feel sad and a little bit anxious.  Mostly sad, because I am selfish and I will miss them.  Anxious because I know I can't just pick up the phone and call them (or can I?), or drive ten minutes and have coffee with them.
     More importantly, though, I feel an enormous sense of pride in the lives that my daughters have chosen to live.  Sure, they're taking some risks, but they're not letting fear rule the gift of life they've been given.  I'm not sure going to one of the poorest countries in Western Hemisphere is any riskier than sitting on a bar stool hoping that Mr. or Ms. Right will come along and think that you're wonderful, and that you'll ride off into the sunset together.
     Sure, they're young, and sure, this is an adventure, but not a foolhardy adventure.  You see, my daughters didn't spend their childhoods in gated communities in north Scottsdale, insulated from the mostly self-inflicted, quasi-misery of American poverty.  They've been adults for a few years now, and they've chosen to live in areas where the darker side of human nature is right out front for you to see, not hidden behind the facade of expensive homes and automobiles and manicured lawns.
     They'll be okay in the D.R., and they'll be okay in Haiti.  My significant other reminded me this morning that my girls are street smart, not tourists from New Jersey about to become some Puerto Plata neighborhood thug's next mark.  More importantly, the Power that sees to it that the rest of us are powerless will watch over them.  This Power has assured me that everything is just as it's supposed to be, right now.
     My daughters and sons-in-law are neither more nor less than anyone else who has made different choices.
     Kelly and Elizabeth may look like women, but they're still some daddy's little girls.  And just in case I haven't conveyed it, I love them and am really proud of them.

Broke "THE Rule"

     Ever set out to solve a problem, and before long, you begin to decide that maybe that problem really wasn't so much of a problem as it was an opportunity for "improvement?"   Now, your problem has become two or more problems, and you find yourself wishing you had your original problem back.
     This happens to me less frequently than it used to, but I still occasionally find myself breaking one of the few rules I have for living: "If it works, don't fix it."
     Thursday after work, I decided I'd do what I'd been thinking of doing for a while.  I didn't like the internet modem and wireless router in the northwest corner of the living room with a bunch of other electronic stuff and The Great Tangle of Cords.  There was nothing really wrong with where the internet stuff was, I just thought I could improve upon this "problem."
     Uh-huh.  After splicing cables and drilling holes through the outside and inside walls of the house, my modem fell 18" from where I had placed it on a chair and instantly became a worthless plastic box with a useless circuit board inside it.  In a word: trash.
     First thing the next morning I was spending 60+ dollars for a new modem.  Brought it home, connected it, ran the set-up assistant, and failed to establish an internet connection.  Called the cable company, spent an hour on the phone trying various troubleshooting techniques.  No internet connection.  The phone rep scheduled a repair person to come to the house the following afternoon.
     Did I mention that I like things that work?  As if that wasn't enough, I just noticed that an ember from that fire I'm learning so many lessons from has landed on my keyboard and burned a hole the size of a pencil eraser, half of the hole burned away the top of the Backspace key and half of the hole burned away the bottom of the Pause key.  Lovely.
     Am I the only one that has a love/hate relationship with all things technical?  I'd love to hear your thoughts...

Judging Your Inside by My Outside

    I like humor, but I've come to understand how subjective humor is.  If good humor were a science, we'd have rehab for movie addicts.  Laughing makes me feel good.  If I could figure out a way to laugh every time, all I'd do is do the thing, or watch the thing, that makes me laugh.  Soon I'd be jobless and homeless and I'd hit what's known as "my bottom," and most likely, I wouldn't be laughing anymore.
     Absurd overstatements or subtle (and absurd) understatements are the things that make me laugh.  The movies "Anchorman" and "The Royal Tenenbaums" are examples, respectively, of the kinds of over and understatements that make me laugh.  Ron Burgundy is the protagonist in "Anchorman," a local news anchor so full of himself that he makes me look humble.  We see him primping with a hand mirror in the first few minutes of the movie as he prepares to go live on the evening news, when suddenly he declares, "I look good, I look really good."  Then the absurd part.  He says, "Hey everybody, come see how good I look."
     One of the complex things about humor is that what makes me laugh are things that are absurd but have a faint (or not so faint) ring of truth in them, things I recognize as my own character defects, the twists and distortions of my psyche and personality.
     Be honest.  Which of us has not, at some point, maybe while getting ready to attend a wedding or something, has not looked in the mirror and, instead of the usual indifference, thought to ourselves, "I look good, I look really good."  Thankfully, most of us don't shout out for everyone to come see how good we think we look.  I guess that's impulse control at its most basic form.
     A good friend once suggested that I not judge my own insides, who I really am, by other people's outsides.  That is to say, don't measure my own worth by what I perceive others to be, based on how they look, what they drive, where they live, et al.  I can really fall into that trap, and I do so on a fairly regular basis.  It brings out the old "less than" monster, the feeling that says, "See.  I knew I was a loser.  This is just tangible proof."
     Just being aware that I tend to do that helps quite a bit.  I don't know much of anything about others beyond what I see on the outside.  I have no idea how patient, tolerant, or kind they are.  I mention those three attributes because that's what I aspire to, not because that's what I think everyone else should aspire to.  I realize I'm a long way from being as patient, tolerant, or kind as I someday hope to be.  But I'm definitely not as impatient, intolerant, or unkind as I have been in the past.
     It's a good day.  I'm above ground, and I can practice.  By the way, you look really good.

Work, Sloth, and the Importance of Being Smarter than the Dog

    My dad's father once said, "If you want to train a dog, you have to be smarter than the dog."
     What seems so obvious may have a deeper lesson.  Dogs are consistent when it comes to understanding the relationship between behavior and reward.  I walk, my dogs run.  I ring a small bell, and they come and sit at my feet.  They don't get a dog treat until they're present and sitting.  And of course, if they don't come when I ring the bell, they go without the treat.  You can count on this every time.  You can take it to the bank, as they say.
     Almost 33 years ago, I went to work for a large company, a quasi-municipality.  I was 21 years old.  When I tell people I've worked for the same company since 1978, they normally comment on how unusual it is for someone to stay with one employer for so long, as if it's some kind of mysterious phenomenon.  For me, it's really pretty simple.  They (my employer) keep ringing the bell and I keep showing up for the treat.
     When I go to work, I expect to find something to keep me occupied for the day, and I'm rarely disappointed.  I don't go there to sit in meetings, talk about my personal life, or work on my own agenda, although occasionally those things happen too.
     It's a pretty straightforward deal.  I like to eat and to have shelter, and as long as I keep showing up with the willingness to accomplish my employer's agenda, they keep their end of the bargain and put money in my bank account every couple of weeks.  Work is not always easy, and many times I'd much rather be doing something else.  
     But that's why they call it "work."
    
.

Well, How Do You Do, 2011?

     I named my blog Lessons from the Fire because, in the darkness of an early December morning, in my living room, on the couch, by the fireplace, after my walk of at least 9/10 of a mile (don't ask) with the dogs, drinking a Thermos of coffee one tiny Styrofoam cup at a time, staring at a computer screen as if something amazing or astonishing or awe-inspiring or exceptional or extraordinary or phenomenal or rare or uncommon or special or interesting or life-changing were going to suddenly and spontaneously appear this time, I felt really, really disenchanted with technology in general and the "Web" in particular.  I thought, "Why do I do this?  I'm so disappointed with modern life.  I mean, I can Google anything and instantly know more than I wanted to know about it.  I can send and receive messages to and from every corner of the planet.  News, weather, sports - anyone, anywhere, anytime - not a problem.  Shouldn't this make me at least somewhat happy?"
      It does not.  And so I look away from the orderly glow of the computer screen to the chaotic glow of the fire burning in the fireplace.
     I wonder why I'm almost 54 years old and still spend quite a bit of time on cold mornings like this fooling around with the fire when I could be combing the World Wide Web for all its "useless and pointless knowledge," to borrow a 1965 Bob Dylan lyric.  The answer is that fire is more interesting to me, often, than what I end up finding online.  Still, I do my banking, pay some bills, and check my email for that personal invitation to dine with Barack and Michelle on Pennsylvania Avenue.
     I thought I'd explain the title of my blog so that no one would mistake it for some high-minded treatise on the trials and tribulations of my cushy American life and unremarkable past.
     The metaphoric qualities of fire to life are legion, and I won't pretend to be able to list all, or even most of them as an amateur writer.  Besides, I feel pretty sure it would be a bit of reinventing the wheel, as it seems very unlikely that someone else, or a bunch of other someones hasn't already listed them.
     Fire is primal, necessary and dangerous.  It has the power to save life and destroy it.  It can boil water, kill bacteria, save you from freezing or asphyxiate you.  
     Starting a fire can be both easier and harder than you might think.  Fire only wants fuel and oxygen, but it wants them in roughly equal quantities.  Ever watched someone throw a match on a dead Christmas tree?  It virtually explodes because the combination of fuel (dead pine needles) and oxygen (the spaces between the tens of thousands of needles) is optimal.  Loosely packed sawdust can be explosively and spontaneously combustive.  Amateur human fire builders are notorious for misunderstanding the flash point of various materials.  They try to light a large log soaked with lighter fluid using a single match and then wonder why the fire goes out when the lighter fluid burns away.  Start with something small and dry and don't pack it tightly together.  Leave some air space or blow on it.  Gradually build up to larger pieces of combustible material and you'll have a fire.
     I'm no expert about fire, but I do know a little.  Fire is still teaching me.  Like how it's good to respect simple, old things that have stood the test of time.  Do it, but don't over-do it.  And when it goes out, maybe that's a sign that it's time to move on.

Ou

     The title of today's entry is not a typo.  But just as "typo" is short for "typographical error," today "ou" is short for "ouch."
     I'm pretty full of myself most of the time.  Admitting that I'm full of myself doesn't make me less full of myself.  It only means that I'm aware that my ego's normal state is one of over-inflation.
     My mom is 77 today.  She hasn't been to a doctor in well over two decades.  She's been pretty healthy, with only the normal aches and pains that come with having birthdays.  She doesn't want to be told she has high cholesterol or blood pressure because then she'd feel like she'd have to do something about it.
     I understand that kind of thinking.  Ignorance is bliss.  If it works, don't fix it.  What you don't know won't hurt you.  After all, none of us get out of here alive. 
   The other camp, the prevention camp, prefers to try and take a regular inventory based on (hopefully) statistical factors affecting mortality.  They'd call my mom's reasoning denial, something that doesn't bode well for a healthy mind, body, or spirit.
     I never imagined a world without my parents.  Then one day 12 years ago, my sister called to tell me our father had suffered a serious aneurysm and was in intensive care at a hospital in western New York.  We both bought plane tickets, she in L.A. and I in Phoenix, and met in Buffalo, rented a car, and drove to Medina, where he died two weeks later.  I'm grateful that during those two weeks there were times when he was fairly lucid and I got to talk to him a bit.  
     On my 42nd birthday, I kissed his funny old forehead and told him I'd see him in a few weeks.  Two days later, 25 February 1999, I got a call from my aunt, his sister, saying that he was "gone."
     Gone he was.  The forehead I kissed as he lie in the casket was not my dad's forehead.  It was the shell he inhabited while his spirit lived on earth.  He certainly was gone, and as far as I could tell, he'd never be back.  Those things hurt in a way not many other things can.
     I miss my dad.  I've missed him every day since that cold day in February 1999.  My kids miss him.  His wife misses him.  He is no longer here, and we must go on.
     I talked to my mom today and she's going to go to the doctor and get things checked out.  A neighbor helped her find a doctor and is going to go with her.  I felt much better after hearing that, as I began to see how I was becoming a bit over-confident that my mom would always be here.  
     Even at 53, I don't want to be an orphan.  My mom and dad did the best they could with who they were, and I love them.  When it comes time for the next one of us to check out, I want to have been a little more patient, a little more tolerant, and most of all, a little more kind.
     I hate saying goodbye.
    
    

 

I'm an Egomaniac with an Inferiority Complex

     I was musing/smiling about those song lyrics from the Steve Miller song "The Joker" that say "People keep talkin' 'bout me, baby..."  Also, the Lynyrd Skynyrd song "The Breeze," ("Well, now, they call me the Breeze...").
     I was laughing inwardly (as opposed to "lol" or Laughing Out Loud), was because I was thinking of the one-liner my friend Scott gave me... "I used to worry about what other people thought of me, until I realized they don't."  I just thought, popular music is funny sometimes, and it's easier to get away with saying stupid shit than it is in real life.  Like, "People keep talkin' 'bout me, baby..."
     Really?  Does anyone, at any age, believe other people spend a lot of time thinking or talking about them? 
     I know, I know.  I'm probably making way too much of it, but isn't making way too much of not much kind of what blogging is all about?  Pretending like I have something new or important to say, when everyone knows there's nothing new under the sun.  A lot of re-packaged old stuff that seems new, but trust me, it's not.
     It's fun to think that someone else is going to notice the salsa spot half the size of a dime on my shirt sleeve, but no one will.  I'll change shirts in the belief that others are paying attention to me, but they're not.  They're thinking about whether or not they have any spots on their clothing.  At least in my culture that's how it goes.

Learning by Frustration

I like things.  I like things that work.

This is a side-door, sneaky, dishonest way of saying that I hate things that don't work.

I'll get right to the point.  This morning I'm frustrated (again) by computers, specifically the two ancient laptop/notebook/whatever computers I own.  We'll call one the Little White One and the other we'll call The Other One.  They're both PCs, not Macs.

I know the Little White One is about six years old.  I'm not sure how old The Other One is, but I know it's four or more years old, and that's why both of them are ancient.  Not old, ancient.  That's just the way it is in the tech world, right?

I like to wake up about 4:00 a.m., walk a mile, come home, build a fire in the fireplace, find my glasses, and sit down on the couch with a Thermos of coffee and a little white Styrofoam cup that I keep refilling.  I do this because that way I can drink an entire Thermos of coffee one tiny cup at a time and not feel like I had a big ol' cup of coffee.  But mainly I do it because I have a very difficult time finishing things I start (including cups of coffee) and that way, if my coffee sits too long and gets cold, I merely take the top off the Thermos, pour the tepid coffee back in, and voila!  A Thermos of coffee just a little less hot than it was before, but still hot.

Back to the point.  The Little White One connects to our wireless internet connection, but it's really slow.  So all the stuff I said about wanting to be patient, well, I really don't want to be patient when it comes to computers.  I want them to work and I want them to work right now.

The Other One connects to the internet sometimes and sometimes it doesn't and I don't know why.  I do know that it frustrates the hell out of me because I get caught up in this vortex of trying to fix the connection, with just enough little pop-up messages to give me hope, and end up spending an hour or more accomplishing nothing.  Nothing except changing my mood from serene to frustrated and angry.


I have no more time to complain about this this morning, so I'm going to work.  


God bless the slow Little White One.