081513 #human Wake up. Confused, off, suffused in vague regret, as if you didn't know you'd done it again: the small avoidance, the minute concession, the sucking and chewing, the little death by devouring, Peter don't you know what you have done? Angry at bedtime, you pushed them away again--the kids, your dreams, your lightness--your fear of the ordinary once more has closed you down, sealed you off, surgically attacked the possibility of transcendence. You gave in to saying no. Mornings are made of honesty. You cannot pretend you do not know this. 081313 #human I think I've realized one thing that is troubling me; the rusty nail of why I didn't leave as ebullient as usual, all self-fulfillment aside: It's as if we've set up a dichotomy between "creative" and "concrete," and the teh-dsa part of me is afraid of being un-hypnotized, drawn out of the place where it is safe, told it can't live anymore because it's not practical and doesn't do any work and is basically useless. It's like a kid who can't understand why the adults can't understand why all their calming words about compromise and how it will all be okay if he just doesn't get to do things his way are actually scary and creepy and just zombie-dead wrong! 081913 #human I miss people. No--I miss adults. I miss House with People in It. See, like, Anne's coming for a visit in about a month, and I'm a little apprehensive because I don't know exactly what she wants or expects, and earlier I was going to say that I don't know what I want or expect either, but that's not really true. I do know what I want, and it is not a new (old) wife. I just want to talk, and smile, perhaps even touch, I don't know, we'll see, but I want that to be one piece of a bigger House. I want a man. That doesn't mean I don't want women, but see? I want women as friends, as the spice in the pot, the chagrin of the other men, the laughing, the pointed awareness, the sarcasm, the sublime curviness of dizzying interaction. The mix. The melange. And then I want to go home to my man. 081913 #human And now here it is 606,873,600 seconds later, and she's coming to see me, and we've both been married and had that blow up in various ways, and... 081413 #human funny how calling something into the light repeatedly can have such an effect on how you see it, how you feel it. I think I glimpsed a little something of the avoidance of alcohol tonight. For a moment, I saw a facet of it heretofore hidden. Whereas it had been a highly pleasurable *thing*, I saw it in old-hag-dropped-illusion form, and it looked like a mechanical masturbation machine made of pus-filled roaches. I mean, not exactly, but you get what I'm saying? For a moment there, the "high" appeared spurious. Why? I think it's because I'm getting a better vision of the alternative. The thing I've been avoiding, my own personal godbody, really is better and harder to see from day to day when you've studied the spell of invisibility and seeled the scales on your eyes for so long. And here's the thing: here's why the alcohol (and its equivalents) can be so seductive. The other thing, because it's *real,* comes with no guarantee. Alcohol does. Alcohol therefore represents total power. And only the weak lust after total power. 081113 #human Kind of on a roll. No play on words intended but I just fixed Jayden's bike. Well, mostly. Couldn't get the crappy back brake centered quite all the way, but still. Put the chain back on and oiled it, pulled the wheel back, took the dumb plastic thingy off, got the brakes to at least stop pushing on the rim, put the pegs back on, inflated the tire. I'm feeling so neighborly tonight. 082313 #human thinly the music from their ipad streams in thru the screen; the girls are sleepin under the stars tonight & the moon, finally risen, looks like butter and candle wax and a ship and a song. Maybe I'll never know exactly what these late summer evenings mean to them, will have meant to them. 080913 #human 082913 #human Woke up almost & this phrase floated up fast: "synthesize your intentions." Hmm. 1. (transitive) To combine two or more things to produce a new, more complex product. 082413 #human #conferenceofthecrows I heard on the radio a guy named munakata shiko say, "I do not follow in the footsteps of the great masters. I seek what they sought." I like that. 080413 #human Nevertheless, I still have not ever quite resigned myself to a state of true sacrifice. What does this mean? 080413 #human When we were in Columbia after Shakespeare's, Megan said, "I just want to keep walking and walking." She loves the city life. 082913 #human I'd rather be a 50 year old woman who still knows how to move her hips, than a 24 year old strapping buck who hasn't learned that yet. 082713 #human AND I DO. What if I could express myself that way just by going around everywhere, even in the "normal" world? Who would I be then? I'd be the guy from my dream. That's who. AND I AM. 082413 #human something's just not working tonight. what is it? answer that and you'll have answered that 080013 #human The girls are out back eating pizza, seeing each other, exchanging information at a galloping rate. 082413 #human you belong in a magazine but not the part of the magazine you thought 082413 #human Something depends on knowing at any given moment your deepest fear. 082013 #human Xavier said, "What are you having? Oh, miniature grilled cheeses." 082413 #human So, am I in love? Read over those last few paragraphs again, and you tell me. 082413 #human Do not punish your laboratory for not being a collection of familiar quotations. 082413 #human neon on the inside opaques the outside fog 080913 #human Celi folded socks like a champion today. 080913 #human Cel, do you want me to paint your nails? #millie 080413 #human Meg's pictures... especially of her & her sisters... my children are all so overwhelmingly astonishingly beautiful, I can hardly stand it. The depth of the soul in the expressions, the off-handedness of the bangs brushed aside, the silliness adjacent to the wide-eyed quiet amazement.... 080413 #human Weird time parallels: I just said, "Libby, what are you doing?" and she answered from the bathroom, "Learning how to read a chapter book!" It was almost exactly like when (1994) I said to Scott in Portland, "What are you doing?" and he answered, "Learning how to use your computer!" 082713 #human I like it here on the 15th floor. A whole bunch of squirrels have been moving in a few floors down, and I have been enjoying their chittering and skittering. I just made myself a cup of coffee, looked around at the boards and slanting sunlight of my studio, and realized, I'm happy NOW. 081213 #human It's not as though there's some sort of magic aura that makes you a therapist. But certain kinds of skills, experiences, aptitudes can really make a difference. Peggy for instance, she keeps steering me back to the sexuality question, because she has noticed how and how often I avoid it. 081613 #human #crow Never let it be said I didn't drum face to face and shoulder to shoulder, intense stare to intense stare with an angry Brazilian mestre. Cuz I did. And it was good. 081913 #human #treefrog Okay. Okay. Okay, okay. Okay. I give up. I admit it. I am supposed to be some sort of teacher. Just. HOW? WHERE? WHO? HOW? 082613 #human the bothy is hovering in the corner of my big rectangular eye; i'm puttering and taking care of business at home. The HVAC guy came over to look at the AC (busted; getting a new one tomorrow!), and I am glowing in one more instance of the silver lining: I'm no longer embarrassed to have people come in the house, even the basement! 080913 #human Libby just came in, asked if these berries were edible or should they just pretend, asked what we were having, and, after I said meatloaf, rice, and squash, said Yum! and what kind of rice? and I said brown and she said okay, and if I have to explain how that is perfect and sublime, then I don't know you and you don't know me. 082013 #human i think trying to be an outlaw and a disisident isn't as effective for me as just being myself. --and having the strength to stand when just being myself means being an outlaw and a dissident! 081413 #human I just wanted to say days might become people, and also it's like 3 o'clock in the morning and I'm actually kind of okay with that. I've been doing some interesting work / play. 082313 #human #treefrog I either have to put myself into extreme situations, or recognize the extremity of the situations I am already in. Or both. I need to invent my own serenity prayer. 082813 #human The misery was still there, the haunted haunting was still there, it was all of course still there, but as I look back thru the DAYS, it kinda seems like parts of 2004 were some kind of high point. Before it all slowly started to circle the piss-colored light of the outdoor gas station shitter, before it turned into a killed bug. 080413 #human They've just really gone too far with making "computing" "easy." They've built so many features and assumptions in, it's gone past the point of user-friendly and into the realm of user-condescending. That's why I'd rather drive a truck. 082313 #human Getting rid of the ipad--and specifically not bringing to work any computer device more absorbing than my phone--was one of the best things I've done for my emotional, physical, and probably professional health. 082213 #human #treefrog Okay, it's happening. It's happening RIGHT NOW. I have sat here in the dark lit by the glowing screen and I have been just quiet enough for the creature to approach. The being of avoidance is sitting in my back yard, watching, waiting, and it was awakened and drawn here by my day at the school I worked at today. Someone on the Internet said, "Most schools have at LEAST a few teachers who teach critical thinking, even in the worst inner-city high schools. Critical thinking is a choice," and I said right on, brother, we do manage to sneak in there, and then I thought, wait, *we*? Who the fuck am I? I already quit! And I'm thinking back to my day of discomfort shot through with moments of nobility, and I'm having a drink and eating some chips, and even though I'm also lifting some weights, I have to ask myself, what am I avoiding. What am I feeling like I'm having to soothe myself and recover from. And I have to know at least part of the answer. And the next question is, how do I NOT quit? And do I care or do I not care? Do I care about only my own problems, are they so vast that I can't see around them? Do I expect heartrending sympathy for my struggles, but for everyone else's do I just want to get my check and go home? And if I'm not going to quit (our questions imply their answers), then I think it's getting to be really important *HOW* I'm not going to quit. It has to be challenging yet sustainable, 082013 #human you know, with all the lights off except the computer, and the door almost all the way open with some clothes hanging off the top, this room from out there where i take my clothes off every night looks appealing like a blue garden in the middle of the night. 082013 #human LITTLE THINGS Their teeth collided. 082113 #human Everything was just right, like two marbles clicking together. Like the phone ringing and a strange, good friend saying hello. Like waking from a dream of safe mediocrity long enough to see that yes, this is it, this is the real, cold, wet, aching world, full of music and going somewhere, through shifting constellations and ghost-ridden nebulae to the mystery planet, the place we all left home for aeons ago, the place we forgot we were trying to find as we played cards and smoked and drank mochas in the corrugated corridors and crenellated crannies of our interstellar vessel-- 082313 #human Girls (except Celi who hadda goda bed already cuz she wouldn't clean up her toys) sleeping in tent in back by the commons, without the fly on so they can stare up through the mesh at the stars & planes & planets and moon (tho it hasn't come up yet) and we just saw the ISS go by. Looked it up, and it said it should appear out of the west at 8:47, checked the clock and it was 8:48; two minutes later it disappeared SSE. So yeah, Alexander Misurkin, Pavel Vinogradov, Chris Cassidy, Fyodor Yurchikhin, Karen Nyberg, and Luca Parmitano--hello from Muskego.