Today
As usual I went to the second of those parks. New photo album
(051130) via the link to the right, though nothing particularly noteworthy in my own opinion. Sorry I missed some of you at the park. There was a longer line than expected at
[sandwich shop name withheld until endorsement check arrives] so I was running a bit behind. I was pleased that those of you who waited did so. What fun we had. And to a certain someone, you know who you are, I'm sorry I pushed you in the water. I'm also sorry that I just could not stop laughing. Thank you for not letting the park police actually arrest me, and since I noticed you enjoyed watching them chase, tackle, and handcuff me I figure we're even.
Like they always say:
True love means never pressing charges.In other news: One step forward, two steps back.
• On the way home my car spontaneously died. It's never done that before. I was about 100m from home so I coasted into a nearby parking lot where it would not restart. I locked it up, walked the remaining distance home, and returned 30 minutes later with a pair of vice grips. There's nothing a good pair of vice grips can't fix. Hesitantly, it started again, idled rough for a minute, then smoothed out. Drove it home and parked it. We shall see...
• And then my computer started acting up. Three crashes within a span of a few minutes. A little tender-loving geekiness on it
(well, several hours worth) and it's fine. We shall see...
•
[Ed. Note: "step forward" redacted to avoid inevitable jinx.]
Tomorrow
| I will probably either be here |
 |
| or here |
 |
| I hope you'll come find me. I'd like to take your picture by the water. |
Our Real Home / Awareness
It's like the water of a river. It naturally flows down the gradient, it never flows against it, that's its nature. If a person was to go and stand on a river bank and seeing the water flowing swiftly down its course, foolishly want it to flow back up the gradient, he would suffer. Whatever he was doing his wrong thinking would allow him no peace of mind. He would be unhappy because of his wrong view, thinking against the stream. If he had right view he would see that the water must inevitably flow down the gradient and until he realized and accepted that fact the man would be agitated and upset.
The river that must flow down the gradient is like your body. Having been young your body's become old and now it's meandering towards its death. Don't go wishing it was otherwise, it's not something you have the power to remedy.
-Ajahn Chah
The mind spends most of the time lost in fantasies and illusions, reliving pleasant or unpleasant experiences and anticipating the future with eagerness or fear. While lost in such cravings or aversions, we are unaware of what is happening now, what we are doing now. Yet surely this moment, now, is the most important for us. We cannot live in the past; it is gone. Nor can we live in the future; it is forever beyond our grasp. We can live only in the present.
If we are unaware of our present actions, we are condemned to repeating the mistakes of the past and can never succeed in attaining our dreams for the future.
-S. N. Goenka
I Hope
Some people believe in love at first sight.
I hope that doesn't rule out the other kind.
Time well spent
It's funny how love notes always seem to start with "I know I don't tell you this often enough..."
Today I was reminded how glad I am that I brought you home with me. We did our own separate things for the morning and early afternoon, but as the storm clouds rolled in I knew this would be our time together. I turned off the computer and the television and turned on a little soft music. I dragged the cushion into the sunroom where the temperature had rather suddenly dropped 20 degrees or so
(into the realm of the pleasant) and we curled-up there, together, as the first drops of rain hit the windows. A pleasant smelling candle completes the atmosphere, and will give me something by which to remember this time, every time I catch a whiff of that fragrance.
[Cue the lightning, now the thunder. Yes and yes, that's perfect.] I confess it's awfully hard to concentrate on you when Mother Nature is putting on a good show outside, but warm and dry with you is such a wonderful place to be. I often wonder how it is that you came to be so full of wit, intelligence, serenity, and beauty. I pray that spending time with you will grant me some of that, a bit of you rubbing off on me as I push deeper and deeper into you. I don't have any pretenses that I was your first, I know how things are, but today you were all mine and I yours. Like all good things, it comes to an end seemingly far too soon. It's time to blow out the candle, to close off the sunroom, and to part ways for a while. I'll think about you as I'm cooking dinner or watching television. Thinking about when you'll return to my arms for another rendezvous.
Thanks for this afternoon with you.
Wish-list
The Christmas season is nearly upon us.
What are you asking Santa to bring you?
I want someone nice in stockings.
tinyhands
F.A.Q. - Part II
Inanna wants to know about influence:Boy, that's a really tough question and there are several answers depending upon what aspect of my life you want to talk about as I'm afraid there's no single person. My parents have a great deal of faith and patience with respect to family relationships
(married 38 years). Richard Feynman had a fantastic view of the world, refusing to accept 'conventional wisdom'. Guys like Chuck Yeager refused to let people get in their way. David Sedaris teaches the value of making fun of your family whenever possible. Dennis Miller and Jon Stewart remind how much fun it is to make fun of everyone else. The Dalai Lama and others are helping me come to terms with happiness, vis-à-vis longing.
Sass wants a visual description:My credit card is 3 3/8" x 2 1/8" x 1/32", rounded corners, light blue with raised black letters & numbers, a hologram of a dove on the front, and a magnetic stripe on the back. Decent credit limit
(for an unemployed bum) and completely paid off at the moment.
(Any chance she meant me? *wink*)I'm 5'9" 165# with short, straight, dark brown hair and green eyes. Last seen walking the neighborhood late at night. I got my hair and hands from mom's side, everything else is dad's. Good thing about the hair too, since it looks like I'll keep it, though it's noticeably greying now.
Jeanette wants to know where I'd vacation:Assuming I could bend the laws of time & space
(and money) to get there quickly, it's a toss-up between Kyoto, Japan and Hana, Maui, Hawaii. I've never felt a connection to a place, just walking the streets, like I did in Kyoto. Hana is the end of the earth as far as I'm concerned, as far away from civilization as I've ever been or ever need to go. Slightly closer to home, I'd probably go to Washington D.C. since I can spend a whole day in the
National Gallery of Art alone.
Zelda wants to know about my social life:I'm tempted to leave this part blank, as it would accurately describe my social life
(0-7 lately), but then I'd be accused of being cryptic, deceptive, and/or evasive again. The truth is that I'm a virtual hermit. I lost my job 2.5 years ago and my wife was awarded custody of 'our' friends in the divorce a year and a half ago. I chose not to go back to work right away
(because I want the right job, not just a job) and now I can't get an interview. So I go to school 3 nights a week and have a little social-interaction there. But since I'm living off my savings without any income, I have to be very strict with my money. Thus, my idea of fun is taking
(free) pictures at the
(free) park. And when I go to Nordstrom's it's to listen to the
(free) pianist, not go shoe-crazy. Will you ever see me again? I'm parked out front...
Zelda also wants to know where I went to high school:Clear Lake High, Houston, TX. Class of 1990.
1L wants to know about the unquestioned answers:How long have I been divorced? 6 1/2 months
(then)Number of sexual partners? 3
When will I get my MBA? Dec '06, I think
(now May '06)ブレベン and Bonnie Heather want to know about their woman thing:Honestly, I'm not very good with the cooter, but if you want me to take a look...sorry, nevermind. If I had to venture a guess, I'd say you're not spending enough time with your gays. It's a well-known
(and scientifically documented) fact that women periodically
(no pun intended) require the prescence of gay men. Something to do with estrogen, I think. But I'm not a doctor, I just play one.
And finally, what's the deal with the Numbers:Apart from the obvious, that they're a cult of man-devouring she-devils
(my sympathies to the spouses) the simplest explanation is kind of like
Charlie Mackenzie's explanation of Scottish cuisine- it's all based on a dare. For several of them, and I won't mention names, there's also the alcohol factor: Take whatever the legal limit is in your jurisdiction and add .1, kind like the way your variable credit card rate is Prime + 3.5%.
(Tinyhands reminds you to drink responsibly and always designate a driver.) No? Ok, they're just friends who drink a lot of
Rockstar.
F.A.Q. - Part I
Something I've come to realize is that THIS is for me, while everything else is for you. There's a chance this will be the last time I write about myself, and I may go to a once-a-week format. But without further ado, me...
Origin of Nicknames: - m0e - This is one of the oldest screennames I ever used, even predating the internet. I used to connect to chat-BBS systems but was too cheap to pay for it. The generic nickname given to freeloaders (who inexplicably thought it k3w1 to use numerals instead of letters) was a m0e but it was a term of endearment for me with the 'regulars'.
- ForlornTexan - The original blogger screenname. I was looking for an adjective to jam onto -Texan and came across a bit of poetry by Oliver Goldsmith (The Hermit) - "For here forlorn and lost I tread / with fainting steps and slow / where wilds, immeasurably spread / seem length'ning as I go." Sometimes an interesting word jumps out at you.
- Tinyhands - Definitely self-deprecating imagery at work here, a foil to all the other men online with nicknames proclaiming their superior genitalia.
Marriage:
Not a terribly exciting story, I'm afraid. We met at University, after I insisted that a dormmate introduce me to every girl he knew. I was instantly attracted to her...roommate. That never panned out, since it wasn't mutual, but a friendship developed and turned to dating. I transferred to a different school and we did the long-distance thing for a while. She graduated and moved closer. I finally graduated and we agreed to work for a couple of years, having money as singles. We didn't live together before marriage, but that was our choice, not a religiously-inspired moral decision. On a trip to Paris, I proposed in the Jardin du Luxembourg. We were married on [REDACTED] after 7 1/2 years of dating.
Divorce:
Again, not terribly exciting. She enjoyed her job (and was handsomely compensated) and I hated mine (though not so handsomely compensated). I turned to escapism in computer games and television, she turned to working. It got to the point where we were just married roommates, she decided that she deserved to be "cherished" on a daily basis, and understandably felt that she wasn't. We tried counselling (and anti-depressants for me) but she was convinced that she wasn't in love with me and never took the counselling seriously. She left, but ultimately got the house while I got lots of cold, hard cash. "Amicable" divorce finalized on [REDACTED]. Yes, I suspect she might have been having an affair, but it really doesn't matter any more and it's none of my business now. We're still friendly, but not friends.
Allie (and 1L) wants to know about 11:59pm:
This is simple. It's because I can never remember whether midnight is 12am or 12pm. I can tell you how to find the 'bond equivalent yield' or run a Markowitz optimization on your portfolio, but telling time is beyond my skillset. So I chose 11:59pm and decided that I'd just be a procrastinator, choosing to write at the last possible minute before the end of the day. And I really do write late at night, since I'm a night owl.
Kim wants to know about 10/5/05:
I was chatting
(or emailing, I forget) with someone when the idea entered my mind that until I've actually MET someone they don't exist. For example Kim, you don't exist, we haven't met. Zelda, Jethro, Brighton, Tonia - they all exist. But I had this line in my head, "
wrap my arms around the idea of you," and made up the rest of the post on the fly. There was a specific someone in mind, one whom I had not yet met.
Kim also wants to know about 10/26/05:
This is a tougher one to answer, and it cuts right to the core of my self-censorship. The problem with me saying that there was a specific lie is because, if you read the definition, lies depend on the teller, not the listener. All I can tell you is my perspective, and though I'll greatly simplify the situation, I'm trying to avoid being evasive or cryptic- A girl told me she wasn't interested in a relationship, then told someone else that she was. It's probably all a huge misunderstanding, but over and done with and we've moved on.
Heather wants to know about my underpants:
Usually, briefs (aka tighty-whiteys, butt-huggers, grippers). I've been trying to transition to boxer-briefs though, so I've got a few of those.
Aide wants to know about other blogs I read:
Currently I have 65
(since can't bring myself to delete April First) bookmarked in my favorites, broken down into 3 categories- proven, unproven, and professional. I don't keep a "blogroll" here because I really don't want to offend anyone by forgetting/leaving one off. I'm a creature of habit, and I check all 65 every day.
[Ed. Note: This seems like a good place to pause until 11:59 tomorrow.]
Help Wanted
Whoa, talk about a freaky coincidence. It was November 3rd of last year that I posted an entry entitled
More About Me, and I almost did it again tonight. I want to post an FAQ but I want it to be meaningful this time, as I know there have
got to be questions about me
(beyond, what's wrong with that boy?). And I want to answer the real questions, not those silly meme things
(name your 3 favorite crayon colors-- ooh, deep!). So I'm posting this RFQ, Request For Questions, the opportunity for you to ask me ANYTHING.
I will provide the basics, such as marriage, divorce, origin of nicknames, etc. I also plan on answering once and for all "
What's the deal with the numbers?"
(and believe me, I've finally got it figured out) since I am the official ambassador to the cult of man-devouring she-devils. The rest is up to you.
See, I've been censoring myself lately, not so much
afraid to write what I want to write but too considerate
(at least in my own mind) to write it. I've written a LOT in the last couple of weeks that I've gone back and tried to obscure, then gotten so frustrated that I just deleted the whole thing. I've been reminded that this is my blog, though I've never claimed to do it for me. So rather than just write that I'm going to change, to stop censoring myself
(because at the end of the day, they're just meaningless words if I don't actually change) I'm going to start by challenging myself to answer any and every question, no matter how personal and/or private you come up with. The limitation, and yes, there must be one: I won't post any personally identifiable information such as my real name, address, phone number, SSN, credit card numbers, etc. Nice try.
If you want to ask privately and be kept anonymous, my email address is in my profile.
(If you don't even want me to know who's asking you could try something like anonymous.to.) You've got the weekend to ask. I make no guarantees that the offer will remain valid after that.
The 1777th Wednesday
I nearly got rammed twice in the same intersection.
I left a $3 tip on a $7 lunch.
I walked out of the post office unfulfilled.
I got my hairscut.
I sat & listened to the pianist at Nordstrom's for 45 minutes.I had a diet shake & Zapps for dinner.
I briskly walked 6.25km.
I read a chapter from my book.
Good luck figuring out the highlight.
TV-PG: Parental Guidance Suggested
You may recall a couple months ago I told you about my daytime courtroom reality
show. Well naturally UPN passed as well, their pansy-ass lawyers worried about me always executing everyone. So I've been working on a new series which I'll be pitching to HBO and Showtime as soon as we shoot the pilot.
(Figuratively, that is. There will be no capital punishment in this one.)The new series is a sit-com/rom-com, semi-autobiographical, and is a loose modernization of H.G. Wells' classic The Invisible Man. The working title is currently
The Unfuckable Man, thus the inability to shop it beyond cable. In researching the back story I found a snippet on
Wikipedia about the original - "The Invisible Man of the title is 'Griffin', a scientist who discovers the secret of invisibility but whose mental state becomes unstable as a result." - so clearly I'll be playing the role of Griffin in the new version.
