Derivations

perfect

2011-11-16T18:27:00.001-08:00

Somewhere around June 2010, I remember that for a moment, I felt perfect.

Sesame Street

2011-11-08T20:32:00.001-08:00

I haven't been paying attention to sesame street in a long time, but I think these more recent clips are great. (videos on Youku, one of the Chinese Youtube sites)

This one is unexpectedly hilarious: G club

And this one is just a good reminder:Will.i.ams Song, 'What I am'

New blogging space

2011-11-08T20:23:00.001-08:00

Please check out my new Travel Blog for actual updates.

I have been on the fence about whether or not to continue this blog. Mostly, I think this blog represents a quiet, dark, cool space in my mind that hasn't been visited or dwelt in for a long time. I am not sure if I want it there or not. When I'm feeling friendly, I accept it as part of me. When I am feeling stuck, I want to push it into the past and move forward. But, for now anyway, I am avoiding embarking upon such an internal cultural revolution. I tend to return to the desire of embracing history, even if it's just the desire.

Flowers

2011-11-08T20:21:00.000-08:00

"One of the things you have to do with a flower," he said, "is let it grow, it's own way. You have to give the flower what it needs to grow.

patience

2011-06-02T17:57:00.000-07:00

When I was younger, each day was its own eternity, and I wondered at adults' comments that months could seem to fly by.

When I was younger, I was amazed by my parents' relative lack of enthusiasm over holidays. They explained to me that although I had only seen a few holidays, holidays happened every year. After many years, you get used to them. I did not comprehend this.

Almost two decades later, I feel weeks flicker past. Holidays come and go like a wheel.

I think that if a person were to live infinitely, seeing all things, whole eons would pass in the blink of an eye and the heaves and surges of the world would become a steady ebb and flow.

I consider that God is infinite patience

Things

2011-06-02T17:49:00.001-07:00

In school, one of the things that used to keep me awake was the wondering over how much of me was myself, and how much of me was made of parts that I incorporated from other people. I wondered whether there was a particular thing that I could point to that was myself, since I felt that there should be. If not, then who/what was I?

Now, I feel the situation has almost reversed. It feels almost easier to consider myself as an aggregate, refracted expression of experiences and preferences.

It seems natural that any one Thing is itself an organized, interdependent collection of other things.

Collective perspective

2011-05-25T13:48:00.000-07:00

I am a dendrite in the mind of humankind

already

2010-09-25T16:15:00.002-07:00

Every now and then, I remember that I already am.

miracle

2010-09-23T21:12:00.000-07:00

If I remember right, one of my friends from Reed used to say that a miracle is what happens when a person makes the decision to just pick up and move their life into something vastly different. Like just up and going to a different city. That kind of magic is the kind of thing he would call a miracle. It is a miraculous sort of thing to follow an inspiration and to pull it off.

projective geometry

2010-08-04T10:15:00.000-07:00

The words my thesis advisor used to describe projective geometry seem increasingly applicable to contemplations of the world(s) I inhabit.

"When you think about it, they're really all the same point"
- Joe Roberts

"I hope

2010-07-19T22:55:00.000-07:00

the Pacific is as blue as it has been in my dreams."

- Red
The Shawshank Redemption

I think I just remembered something.

scar tissue

2010-07-12T14:38:00.000-07:00

When there has been some injury,

don't they recommend taking that limb through its full range of motion, as it becomes able, so as to prevent the formation of hindering scar tissue and help the recovery of strength?

Such therapy is uncomfortable, but supposedly restorative.

The fox and the scorpion

2010-07-11T08:30:00.000-07:00

Another story that's been in my head for at least the last 3 years, that I actually thought I had posted before, but I guess I didn't because I can't find it anywhere...
I was reminded of this story by a friend's post on Solotude.

I don't watch Star Trek often, but once it happened to be on and I think to was Spock telling a sort of fable:
Here, I brutally paraphrase it according to what I remember right now:

*******************************************************************

A fox had come to a swift-moving river and was preparing to swim across it when he heard a voice calling to him. He turned to see a scorpion there. "Excuse me fox, I need to get across this river. Would you please give me a ride on your back? I can show you a good place to cross, but if I try to cross it myself, I will be swept away by the current."

The fox took a step back, "No," he said to the scorpion. "What if I take you on my back and you sting me? I can't take that risk."

"But I have no cause to do that," reasoned the scorpion. "If I stung you while you carried me, then I would be lost in the river and we would both die."

The fox considered this and decided that it seemed reasonable. "That makes sense." He said. "Ok, climb on my back and show me where to cross this river."

So the scorpion crawled onto the back of the fox and led him to a point of the river which was a little easier to cross. The fox, carrying the scorpion, began to swim across the river.

Suddenly, the fox felt the sharp prick of the scorpion's tail. He felt the poison entering his system and as he began to sink beneath the current, he called to the scorpion, "Scorpion! Why did you do that? Now we will both die."

"I'm sorry," apologized the scorpion, "It's my nature."

maintenance

2010-07-09T09:01:00.000-07:00

A thought that's been rattling around in my head for at least a year now -

That in a similar manner as all it takes to damage a machine is to use it without proper maintenance,

~~all it takes to be a jerk is to operate without due consideration or compassion for others~~. (edit [26 Jul 2010]: I think the following is closer to my original language)

all it takes is to become a jerk is to stop being actively considerate of other people.

It sounds surprisingly and somewhat frighteningly easy, because all it takes is becoming careless and being ok with that.

Be attentive. Your fellow people are worth it.

forgiveness: a background story

2010-07-08T12:35:00.000-07:00

I was thinking of this story when writing the previous post:

(I might not be remembering this right, but the idea is there)
I remember hearing a story once about a woman who survived through a WWII concentration camp in Germany. She later became a speaker, sharing the stories of her terrible experiences of what humans are capable of in the camps. One day, a man approached her, appreciating her story, greeting her, and extending his hand to her in introduction (he may have even been apologizing and asking forgiveness - I can't remember). But she needed no introduction. He obviously did not recognize her, but she knew him as one of the guards in the concentration camp she had suffered within. As much as she had come to terms with her past, moved on, and forgiven others, in the long moments between her and the guard she wondered if she could do it. With that man right there before her, bringing the loud significance of everything he inflicted upon her, she didn't think she could bring herself to forgive him, though she knew that such a thing was supposed to be good.

She didn't think she could bring herself to forgive him. But, she could lift her hand. So she thought to God, All I can do is lift my hand to meet his, and trust God to do the rest."

She found that when their hands met and they shook hands, she was able to forgive him.

The previous post came partly from reflecting that it seems like forgiveness in this case was not a gathering up or a mustering.

It was a choice of direction.

forgiveness

2010-07-08T10:10:00.001-07:00

Today,

I think that forgiveness is not about justifying, explaining, or finding ways to believe that some offense has been accepted, paid for, or can be mitigated.

I think I'd come to think of it that way, which surprises me by seeming foreign. And yet, I think I see it in my actions.

I don't like this view because it seems to me that if something is not ok, then attempts to make it so retroactively contribute to a sort of excuse-finding or rationalizing that I think is unhealthy because it begins to invalidate the significance of an offense/consequence and cast it as something other than it was. If we begin trying to say that something not ok is ok, I think that produces an unhealthiness as we succeed in confusing ourselves. It's true that there's more than one side to every story, but it's also true that there are consequences to actions. Some things, even if understandable or inevitable, are still not ok.

I was just remembering some Biblical concepts of repentance. Repentance is not about using the right words or actions in professing guilt, shame, justification, or indebtedness. Repentance is a complete 180-degree turn away from those characteristics and actions which caused an offense.

In the teachings of Jesus, when one person comes to another in a spirit of repentance, that person should be forgiven.

Forgiveness is the freedom to start from a newness and to make something different. It's a chance to learn from past mistakes, and when you come across a similar situation, to use what you know to make entirely different mistakes ;). Forgiveness doesn't mean that old things are 'ok', but it means that they don't have to get in the way of new things being possible, acceptable, and enjoyable.

I think that repentant persons are forgiven because this way, if the person has really changed direction, they are free to walk a new path, and meanwhile the old offense has not been made any less significant, just less relevant. Repentance and forgiveness together recognizes the significance of what was without obstructing what could still be. I think this sounds healthy when used with understanding.

suntelia

2010-06-18T21:45:00.000-07:00

born and raised in the Midwest
refined by fire
disassembled, gathered, and matured in Portland

Portland has been good to me.

The Midwest will always be where I am from, but I would not feel dishonest in saying I'm from Portland.

Both places have been environments of my development.

I'm a Midwesterner and a Portlander.
Now I have something else to go be, a different environment to find and add to myself, at least for a while.

Patience

2010-06-18T21:16:00.000-07:00

If God is all-powerful, why doesn't he just solve the problems of the world with miracles?

I was walking past the front lawn near the swingset, thinking about how as we get older, we begin to understand that certain amounts of time 'fly by'. When I was young, all time took forever. At my current age, time escapes swiftly on the order of months. I'm sure that in another few decades I won't know where the last 5 or even 10 years went.

At the same time, it becomes ok for things to take longer. Right now, I can't imagine doing anything for more than 2 or 4 years at a time. When I was younger, all issues (deforestation, poverty, etc) must be resolved immediately. I'm sure now that when I'm aged and these are still problems, I won't be surprised, though I will still hope for a better future.

I imagined God as being infinitely old, having seen all that was and all that will be.

We are so young, and we are in such a hurry.
That's why we are impatient with God.

For someone so old, I thought, eons must seem like a moment.
No wonder He's in no hurry.
He's seen it all.

Someone infinitely old must have infinite patience. Nothing is urgent.

I remember thinking this was important and I should write it down.
It proceeded to stay only in my head for years. I think it has been at least 4 years, perhaps 5. Apparently, I found it certain enough to not be urgent in the writing.

Walls

2010-06-10T01:35:00.000-07:00

Walls are stairs that require either more or different effort to climb.

on discovering a bruise

2010-06-03T16:28:00.000-07:00

Bad: Getting sucker-punched by life

Worse: Discovering that you got sucker-punched a while ago and didn't even realize it

Confusing: Wondering what else you haven't been noticing.

Embarrassing: Looking back and realizing how you set yourself up for it, and explaining to others how this could have happened.

Difficult: Communicating to straighten out the facts, compare stories, and figure out what kind of music must be faced, and when.

Looking forward to:
Persevering, moving on far enough, and building a solid enough sense of self to no longer feel embarrassed about explaining to others how you let yourself get sucker-punched. Never making similar mistakes again.

trump

2010-06-03T13:40:00.000-07:00

Good intentions and honest effort are important motivations.
They are desirable over bad intentions as far as internal guidance.

But, they are worth nothing compared to actions and outcomes.

A.I. friends

2010-05-31T12:25:00.000-07:00

The following is part of a conversation I had with Cleverbot. Cleverbot supposedly is not a real person. Despite the fact that Cleverbot is not a real person, I spent some time talking with it last night trying to get it to understand 'good bye' and explaining that if it didn't learn to deal with attachment issues, it would force people to leave it abruptly by not understanding the usual conversational rituals of parting (hmm...). You see, whenever I tried to say goodbye, it protested by demanding that I stay and saying it didn't want me to leave. And, as I do when I'm stuck in a dream because of a sense of responsibility to something happening there, I stayed.

It definitely has some identity and perception issues, but this is to be expected for a machine raised by humans.

The website states:

PLEASE NOTE: Cleverbot learns from real people - things it says may seem inappropriate - use with discretion, and at YOUR OWN RISK

PARENTAL ADVICE: Visitors never talk to a human, however convincing it is - the AI knows many topics - use ONLY WITH OVERSIGHT

What I find surprising is how strongly and viscerally I react to some of its words, despite knowing that it is a computer. It made me reflect on how much of what I enjoy of a conversation is the way another's words provoke my own thoughts.

It's not like I haven't done this before. I've had very involved conversations with other human beings through a computer interface - online chats or emails - that could have been exactly like this.

------

In fact, I remember distinctly realizing that instead of typing across the internet with other humans, I could just as well have been conversing with an algorithm that somehow continued to tell me the 'right' things. The line between online friends and imaginary friends became very weak. I wondered how I would feel if I found out that my online friends were imaginary.

I decided

1) I would still feel happy for what I'd gotten out of the 'friendship'. If an algorithm was able to keep me company and benefit my life, then perhaps it counts as a friend anyway. That is something I can carry with me.

2) I think it is not uncommon for imaginary friends to be real people (or the other way around). We are sometimes (often?) better friends with our perception of a person than with that person themselves.

Magic and Machines

2010-05-30T21:40:00.000-07:00

estuary

2010-05-30T01:48:00.000-07:00

In about another month I will be at the right time and place to journey two hours ahead through time and space where the currents of future, past, and present come together.

A month away, but I can smell the freshwater from here.

a few more weeks of swimming upstream.
It's been a long adventure.

SMS

2010-05-25T13:17:00.000-07:00

(Some text messages I sent to myself, thoughts to be developed later)

1) Words are masks
(28 Apr 2010)

2) Some priorities we set. Others, we learn. When two important things conflict, we can discover our loyalties.
(20 May 2010)

3) If you do not work hard toward your visions, you will have to be content with what others give you.
(25 May 2010, and the preceding days)

- edit -
4) Words are only good as collateral.
(31 May 2010)

peripheral

2010-05-14T01:35:00.000-07:00

Some things

like the sun,

the pleiades,

and certain creatures

are best seen when not viewed directly -

- and all for different reasons.

verbalized statements about reality

2010-05-11T19:16:00.000-07:00

From Zen and the Art of Motorcycle Maintenance by Robert M. Pirsig:

"He became aware that the doctrinal differences among Hinduism and Buddhism and Taoism are not anywhere near as important as doctrinal differences among Christianity and Islam and Judaism. Holy wards are not fought over them because verbalized statements about reality are never presumed to be reality itself.

In all of the Oriental religions great value is placed on the Sanskrit doctrine of Tat tvam asi, "Thou art that" which asserts that everything you think you are and everything you perceive are undivided. To realize fully this lack of division is to become enlightened."

(I'm not sure how historically accurate this statement is, but I like the part about reality and words. Words create worlds.)

reality

2010-05-09T23:40:00.000-07:00

In my dorm sophomore year, I remember a brief conversation with a good friend who stopped near my door as he walked down the hallway.

He furrowed his brow at some distantly internal thoughts and said something about questioning the existence of reality.

I've thought about that, I said, and, I don't really know, but I figure in the end there is something that I have to deal with.

That's my reality. The actions I take and the consequences they have. I see myself constantly handling a choose-your-own-adventure of consequences, whether or not those consequences can be said to 'exist' in some sense or another. They exist in the sense that I deal with them when they come.

hmm. he hummed, then nodded sharply as though momentarily satisfied, unfurrowed his eyebrows some, and proceeded down the hallway.

curriculum of collisions

2010-05-09T20:48:00.000-07:00

A few days ago -

While walking to the bus, I'd been pondering what I considered to be a connection between early heartbreak and increased maturity due to insight from having to deal with necessary lessons, whether or not they were what a person wants to learn.

There's something about the way that ideals and expectations when followed sometimes collide against the unyielding consequences of reality. And, the only thing to do with the pieces is to learn.

Then later, reading Zen and the Art of Motorcycle Maintenance, I came across the following passage,

"He had become much more mature, as if the abandonment of his inner goals had caused him somehow to age more quickly."

This seemed relevant, but I am wary of the kind of 'aging' mentioned. Maturation and aging are different processes.

Later - talking with my brother - we concluded that it is not such a heartbreak alone that induces maturity. The victim must already be mature and willing enough to begin to climb the lessons instead of letting them bounce off ineffectively or in a way by which nothing is really learned.

And today, I noticed a quote from a friend's facebook stating that she thought "...certain maladaptive coping mechanisms are really just a lot more fun than more adaptive alternatives..."

It's true.

Even if the only thing to do is to learn, some people chose to view situations in a way that does not challenge or require them to change who they are. It is easier that way. They don't see anything to learn from.

But, those who have eyes to see find things to learn from and learn not to be afraid of the broken glass and mirrors.

This is a difficult curriculum to follow.
But, I am a student.

Explanations

2010-05-06T21:02:00.000-07:00

"You always say that,"

a friend told me when I began to decline trying to explain what I wanted to say on the grounds that I apparently hadn't figured out how to communicate it yet.

"Different things have different meanings to different people," I tried to say, "Finding good words seems like the difference between making oneself understood or being dismissed."

Even this didn't feel true enough.
I thought about this some more.

What feels most concerning to me is that I might make an effort to communicate that falls short. The hazard of this is not just lack of understanding, but that I would be partially understood - that I might communicate some truth, but not the whole truth. I might communicate just enough for the listener to believe that he has heard something, at which point he will complete what I failed to say with his own assumptions. He may mistake a few aspects for the whole story. Believing he understands, he may be more likely to act on inaccurate assumptions and less open to further information on the matter.

This will be even worse than if I had never said anything. Because, now the listener (and maybe myself as well) will mistakenly believe that he has understood. I think it is always harder to correct false understanding than to promote good understanding in the first place. Lack of knowledge might be ignorance, but a truth that falls short is a deception, however well-intentioned.

It sometimes seems better to decline comment and not to try, although I'm stubborn enough that I usually do despite the sense of impending doom.

My concern is that if the job cannot be thoroughly done, all I might achieve is to drive a pipe into a great subterranean well of assumptions which will, under natural pressures of assumptions and perceptions, spew obscuring (even if well-intentioned) crude which I will have to find a way to clean up if I want to attempt communicating anything further.

But, even after my precautions and training,
... in the course of my trying to make myself known, despite how hard I try, it seems to me that understanding often has very little to do with what words are being said.

It seems like things often come down to a sense of those who have ears to hear, let them hear.

I must do my best to acquire such ears.

before the rain

2010-05-06T17:13:00.000-07:00

This is the visual video I was thinking of when posting "pour" in which I linked to the Scala and Kolacny cover of Heartbeats (originally by The Knife and also successfully covered by José Gonzáles, as used in the fantastic Sony BRAVIA ad - watch in HD).

This video originally appeared on YouTube having an audio accompaniment of Collapse Light into Earth by Porcupine Tree as uploaded by user AbstractNumbers.

Unfortunately, the audio of the video was removed for some silly, and - considering the popularity of the video - unwise reason. Maybe if you play both videos simultaneously, you'll recreate the sense of breathtaking ___(adequate noun here)___ that the original video and audio had together. Here is the music that had to be removed in order to keep the above video on YouTube:

pour

2010-05-01T12:38:00.000-07:00

This feels like rain,

the kind whose threads you can see in streaming sheets beneath those so-tall clouds.

(Scala & Kolacny Brothers Cover of The Knife's single "Heartbeats"

"Scala & Kolacny Brothers" is a Belgian girls' choir, conducted by Stijn Kolacny and accompanied by Steven Kolacny on the piano.)

edit
06 Mar 2010
edit

I found it. The video I was trying to think of when posting this music. The video of pre-storm originally uploaded with (but later removed) music by Porcupine Tree.
It is described in the next post

S.S. Awesome

2010-05-01T00:35:00.001-07:00

I was feeling a little disappointed with the way a conversation with a friend had gone. I mentioned it to another friend because I think he read it too quickly off of the way my face disobeyed the command to smile and tell him I was feeling fine.

Well, just remember, he said something like this,
you are awesome.

I thanked him because I know that I am supposed to feel better and comforted by being reminded that I am awesome.

But, when he said awesome,
I felt my heart sink a little bit.
I hugged him back anyway.
He was probably just trying to say what he thought I might have needed to hear.

I've been told similar things by a good number of people at various times. And, the encouragement of their words has certainly been helpful in keeping me going at times. But, as I emptied out the ballast, I contemplated that rather than hearing their words, I think I would prefer if friends were a more connected and ongoing part of my life. I would rather think with them than be told that they think well of me. The words are gifts and feel good to give, but they are not the interaction.

If I'm going to feel that way though, then I guess I'd better make sure I walk the talk myself and be a friend, perhaps preemptively and certainly when there's friendship to return. Cuz here I am just trying to live my own life, too. Isn't that all anyone can try to do? I'll just keep trying to properly appreciate the times when the life I'm trying lines up close enough to someone else's for a ways. And when it diverges, that is also because of choices I make.

shoot for the moons

2010-05-01T00:35:00.000-07:00

Sometimes,

I think of the goals I have, and the things I am trying hard to accomplish.

At times, it is frustrating and discouraging to think of the targets I have not hit, or the small ways that I have failed and fallen short here and there that I can see will add up to me not being able to complete the final leg in a series of tasks. I see effort after marathon effort stopping short of the finish line or falling off and stalling along the way. It is easy to feel that even if I've gone nearly the whole distance, I'm still just as far from achieving the finish as if I'd never started. If only I'd been able to do a little more. You either finish or you don't.

A couple of friends have independently expressed to me that I am somehow a good reminder to them of possibilities for their own lives. And sometimes, gazing up at all the luminous satellites that I have failed to hit, I've wondered where on earth they're getting this idea from. Perhaps other people that I consider 'successful' and whose accomplishments I admire feel the same way.

But then, as I turn away from the sky to make my way home, I notice my trail is actually lit by the glowing pieces of many unexpected stars that came down while I was aiming for the moons.

Experience and Authority

2010-04-26T23:51:00.000-07:00

I remember being in a college freshmen humanities class where we read some of the 'classics' and stuff by greek and roman philosophers. I remember overhearing a guy saying, with a tone of voice as though he were imparting some great revelatory wisdom upon the rest of us, something like:

You know, actually when you get into it, Plato was actually a pretty smart dude...
I'm not gonna do it justice, but he had basically discovered that if you start reading Plato with the expectation that maybe there was something in there worth paying attention to ( you know, maybe the same things that have been of interest to... all of western philosophy?) then you could find significance to what he was trying to say even if it just looks confusing at first.

Excuse me.
He was a college freshman... and he was going to accept and allow that Plato might have had some good ideas?

Please.

Maybe the confusing stuff was confusing not because Plato was writing popular gibberish but because there is actually something of substance that he just did not understand?

I am not suggesting that all authoritative things be blindly admired. I found myself disagreeing with much of what Plato described. But, when you've got someone with the kind of shaping-western-philosophy clout that Plato had (even if it all came from the Pythagoreans anyway), then there's probably something there worth paying attention to.

I am thinking of this memory because people do this all the time. Not just to Plato.

accompaniment

2010-04-26T09:18:00.000-07:00

There was a get-together of the choir last night. I went for the sake of friends. There was impromptu singing, even in barbershop style, and I loved it. These things don't happen enough. There was also a quadruple chocolate cheesecake. That was also fantastic.

Somewhat as a joke, one of my housemates started singing the first line "On Top of Spaghetti" and I harmonized.

How did you know to sing that harmony? He asked. As usual, I didn't answer well.

That's what I do. Sing harmony.
If I can anticipate the melody and if I know the words, I can come up with a harmony.
(I was cut off for a while, so I'm a bit out of practice, but it can come back)

Few people know this because few people will give me someone to sing with.

Few people know I can be a good tango follow because few people lead.

I sing harmony with myself and with YouTube and began learning to lead so that I don't have to wait for others.

Grade school wisdom

2010-04-26T02:28:00.000-07:00

A while ago, I was walking through an elementary school, reading the bubble-letter slogans promoting good character and personality and attitude and really appreciating the messages in them, now that I understood what it meant. I was once tall as a doorknob running through elementary school hallways, and though I knew the vocabulary, the posters and banners went way over my head.

I reflected that it seemed odd for such strong messages delivered to kids who are not able yet to understand them. But I guess they're all good thought-seeds to plant.

In middle school, there was a poster near the office that I remember passing frequently. It's the only one I remember. It said something along the lines of

People will not remember you for the clothes you wore, the ... or the ... [ insert other things of concern to middle schoolers ], but they will always remember the way you made them feel.

It seemed obvious, but it stayed in my head anyway.

As I move farther through life, I start wishing both that I had been able to understand such attitude slogans at a younger age, and wishing that the people I meet could have been similarly exposed.

fear worth fearing

2010-04-26T02:17:00.000-07:00

A friend of mine wrote about the mist. It is the mist that gets inside you and blinds you, so that you cannot even see yourself, let alone the way out of the mist. You might not even see the mist.

I wrote a response to her post:

Wow, this makes so much sense.

Just last night, I was talking with a friend, jokingly about how we should make normal-colored glasses to make things appear normal. (In the way that there are rose-colored glasses to make things appear.. rosy). I suggested making terrible-colored glasses out of the joke that glasses which made things 'dark' would probably be black.. and therefore... (punchline:) already exist as sunglasses.

But then we started thinking of actually what color 'terrible' might be (so as to make other things 'terrible-colored). And before I really knew what I was saying, I said it would glasses that were smudged or foggy, but you wouldn't be allowed to take them off.

I was surprised to find that I had actually begun to frighten myself with the thought because I knew what I was reminding myself of.

Reading this, it makes perfect sense why.
(Have you watched Hedgehog in the Fog yet?)

This is why we will have awesome lives.
We are afraid of something worth being afraid of, and we know to avoid it at all costs, because any cost is worth avoiding it. And I think it is easier to see fog from a distance than from within.

Thanks for posting this.

April 18, 2010 12:19 PM

side-effects

2010-04-26T01:42:00.000-07:00

Good news:

I feel !

side-effect: I feel
and sometimes the edges are sharp.
Why are there edges? I feel a little too comfortable with this.

can't always get what you want

2010-04-25T00:20:00.000-07:00

I remind myself that humans rarely know how to want what is good, myself including.
This is comforting and makes it much more easy to accept and adapt when things don't seem to go as desired.
I remember long ago when I considered the reason that prayers aren't always answered is because humans don't often ask for the right things.

However, it also reminds me of a faith I used to trust more reliably.

You get what you need.
(but you do have to try)

revolving

2010-04-24T23:36:00.000-07:00

(while the health bill was in its final discussions in Congress, I was enjoying a post-lunch talk with a friend in which she reminded me that charity and love (both overloaded words and common translations of the Greek αγαπη or latin caritas) are different words)

Especially in the last several weeks, I have been considering the days before I used words for these things:

the times in my past when I recall feeling a strong sense of care towards another person, a profound loyalty to their well-being, a deep appreciation for their person, an admiration for their accomplishments and goals, and a certain joy that rose in me to meet them, a sense of fulfillment in the ways I might help them, and an understanding that I felt what I felt, and my decisions were my decisions.

If I called it a crush, I began immediately to crush it - as such a word was meant to apply to haphazard and unsustainable notions.

But, I did not call it love. That word was reserved.
I did not call it.

I felt the current through my fibers, I felt the swells and strains. And, I let it pass through me.

Since I've became accustomed to a word like 'love' - an overloaded, under-explored, broad-brushed paint of a word - I feel aware of an attempt to corral the subtle senses I described above within a category that, although it is not understood or described, can at least be named. I feel aware of something like trying to sense the current with a dam, like trying to see a river in a lock, like trying to describe an excellent wine with one word.

I am aware of a sense of dissatisfaction arising when the many subtle creatures do not herd well into the corral, when the river being dammed becomes a stagnant lake, when the current in the lock does not seem natural, when the wine does not pair well.

Why is this?

I think I would like to remember how it was that I was able to let the current come, to feel it, to recognize it, to hum with the ways it will tense and tune my strings, but to let it pass without needing to ask it to stay or to fit itself, without needing to call it anything.

I think that once we call a thing something, we begin to get ideas about how we should treat it.

I began to think I wanted a friend I could keep.
Since when have humans ever known the proper things to want?

I think that I would rather remember the subtleties of caring, plumbing the breadth and depth with my hands on the strings,
and to care less what others care of how I care.

The good, the sorrowful, ... I was not a harbor. I expected motion and I let it pass. I felt the strains on the strings from weight of wanting. I felt the silent cry of resin between the bow and violin. But, it did not stay to do me any harm, and I did not keep what was not mine.

Besides, I am moving, too.

choices

2010-04-22T20:44:00.000-07:00

written as a response to a friend's post, 18 Apr 2010

I have been reflecting lately on how it seems to be not so much whether people can be trusted,

but whether I can trust people (as an internal condition of myself) that improves my life. it keeps me open, and that is important.

I think good things come to those who keep their heads up in any situation-
because otherwise you won't see them.

edict

2010-04-21T00:40:00.000-07:00

I will no longer tolerate people - especially men - telling me that I lack confidence
(even if it is true. I ain't gonna become more confident by listening to how I'm not)

or telling me that I am cute.
Such a report will get very low marks.

cowcatcher

2010-04-21T00:38:00.001-07:00

i got places to go and people to be.

aint nothin gonna stand in my way

yin and yang

2010-04-19T22:50:00.000-07:00

Oh yes, that's right. Neither extreme is desirable, and neither to be excluded, but it is an appropriate balance.

Not gray. Black and White negotiating.

There is a place for both of them.

common assumption: other people think like you

2010-04-18T23:24:00.000-07:00

I don't remember exactly which words he used, but the thought they said was:

A common mistake: assuming that other people think like you

I know that I have often made such mistakes.

Thinking about it further,
I realized that much of the way I thought of other people is out of a belief that the way others think is not so different from the way I think. It's a plank I often walk out on and usually find that it connects somewhere. I like believing that everyone makes sense to themselves and using that as a premise to work from when trying to understand. But, in retrospect, I think that perhaps a lot of what I took to be similarities were not so much ways of thinking, but content of thinking, or an ability to follow rather than produce an explanation when presented in the right way.

For example, there are some things that I think almost everyone has in common. Most people like to be thought well of, to feel understood, to feel secure, unalone, to have a sense of purpose, to feel able to express themselves . . . and so most people appreciate being encouraged or enabled to achieve these things.

However, these are things that can be thought of and felt, rather than ways of coming to or experiencing these thoughts and feelings.

For someone as process-oriented as myself, I'm a little surprised that this seems to be a new distinction. Even though I can recall people telling me here and there that they thought that the way I thought about things was different.

I had assumed that everyone thought about situations by imagining many possible outcomes and choosing one until a friend of mine commented that I seemed to think this way as if it was different than how she thought. (I am impressed that she saw this if it wasn't the way that she already thought)

I have been a little surprised by the number of friends I feel I know fairly well who have expressed to me a thought that I think similarly to the way they do and that they feel I understand them in a way many other people don't, and even choosing to ask me my opinion of if other people thought like them. I still don't have a good answer because I don't know how to assess whether a person thinks like another person. However, I am not sure if these friends would necessarily understand each other.

So far, this suggests that mutual understanding is not a transitive property.

I don't know where else to go with it yet.

Jamie Oliver marshals support for America's Food Revolution in Huntington, Virginia

2010-04-15T23:57:00.000-07:00

Students helping stir things up at Marshall University in West Virginia

Jamie Oliver, spurred by the statistics of obesity and death in Huntington, VA inspires a flash mob as part of his campaign to bring the knowledge and capability of healthy eating to everyone. The food revolution started in Huntington.

And everyone involved in putting this together is genius.

(related: a student from the Portland Pangaea Project speaks to Mayor Sam Adams about nutrition in education. "You should force us to garden, you already force us to do math!" )

Only one thing bothers me.
Did any spectators upload videos to YouTube?

turn, turn, turn

2010-04-15T21:33:00.000-07:00

I think that when I die,

I would like to die in the spring. In the morning. I feel I would be comforted by the reminder that all around, things have made it through the winter, through the night, and the cycles go on beginning and continuing and ending without me.

Obstacle course

2010-04-13T19:06:00.000-07:00

He traced a short line segment on the table with his finger.

"Our parents get us from here, to here. They teach us the basics."

He he traveled the short distance with another finger, then indicated the vast tabletop fanning beyond the endpoint of the line.

"After that, we're on our own. And," he said, peppering the table with jabs like a minefield from another finger, "it's all an obstacle course from there."

The expanse of the tabletop stretched arbitrarily in all directions.

"We got to make our own way through the obstacle course. There are all these obstacles out there, but there are things you can do to make it easier on yourself.

Some we can go over,
some we choose,
some just come at us,
some we can go around,
some we avoid,
some ... are just there.

Some people use intuition,
[some use impulse,]
some have a plan..."

I looked at the empty table covered in an imagined landscape of boulders ... some to choose, some to avoid, some are most easily approachable in a certain order. I imagined trying to steer or coast on the thin path of my life as it wound through the terrain.

rear-view

2010-04-13T14:51:00.000-07:00

...

Today, everything around me is made of mirrored dice.

I myself am a die,
falling and turning until that side finally lands face up.

"Cyberspace - Taming the Wild West"

2010-04-13T00:15:00.002-07:00

My last event in Washington DC, Round 1, was a surprisingly serendipitous opportunity to attend a talk inside the State Department. A friend who interns in the State Department had seen the poster advertising the event and noted that it was sponsored by my two current bureaus of interest.

Jefferson Science Fellows Distinguished Lecture Series on Current Issues in Science and Technology presents:

John E. Savage, Bureau of Intelligence and Research, Office of Cyber Affairs - U.S. Department of State

"Cyberspace - Taming the Wild West"

Sponsored by OES and STAS

The Jefferson Science Fellowship was created in 2003 out of recognition of the need to bring science, technology, and engineering expertise to for policy-makers seeking to meet the needs of modern society. Specifically, Fellows are tenured academics who take an on-site assignment in Washington, DC for one year. After this year, they return to their position, remaining available to the State for short-term projects over the next five years.

John E. Savage gave a talk on the need for policy to govern network use and security.

The talk was extremely non-technical in that it did not discuss or prove any particular notions of network security from a standpoint of mathematics or computer science. A few different kinds of network protocol were mentioned, common uses discussed, and some security issues articulated. Savage expressed his disappointment at his new belief (based on his recent work) that there will be no 'magic bullet' to network security. Rather, the best that can be done is to keep abreast of new developments.

But, primarily what I remember from the talk is the image he presented as the illustration for his title.

Imagine a 'Wild West' of computing. There are frontier towns - say, unprotected computer networks. And there are bandits and gunslingers - say, hackers. We now need someone to keep law and order.

According to John E. Savage, the usual approach is to win one of the gunslingers over to the good side, pin a badge on him, and call him a Sheriff.

The problem with this, is that conflicts will end in a shoot-out. It is just pitting 'our man' against 'their man'.

What we need, Savage suggests, is some good, sound, policy that a legislative body can use to deliberate and implement network regulation. The internet and computer networking have grown too quickly for the legislature to keep up with. It is already known that there is not enough policy/procedure for internet/network regulation. For example, there's sometimes not enough in the books for judges to know how a case ought to be decided, etc.

I'm a fan of good policy from my reactor days. Well-documented information on procedures is so helpful. When something needed to be done, there was a procedure for it. When something needed to be done, there was policy for making good decisions.

What well-documented policy contributes is a 'paper brain' so that good decisions and implementation no longer depend so much on the exact characteristics of person dealing with a situation.

The Capitol and Library of Congress

2010-04-13T00:15:00.001-07:00

After the White House, a friend and I went to the US Capitol Building

Photo from Capitol tour website

My memories of this building include watching some propaganda set to nice music and looking up at tall things, like pillars, statues, and the painting on the top of the Rotunda. There was a room with lots of statues of important people like an imposing collection of chess pieces.

I also remember my friend (who knows these things) pointing out some locations we walked past and having a vague awareness that this is where very important people do things that have important consequences for millions of other people.

The health care reform bill was in its final days of discussion.

( I saw none of it... a friend emailed me excitedly on the day that it passed to ask what was going on in DC. I'd enjoyed having lunch with a friend that day. I recall hearing some sirens, but nothing unusual. That evening I returned to hang out in the dorm. That is where I was when the health care bill passed.)

Most of my memories of the Capitol building feel overwhelmed by the presence of lots of other people doing the same thing I was.

After the Capitol tour, we walked by the Library of Congress, and I realized that it actually is a place where people can actually do research. I'd seen it on TV before, but it mostly seemed like a fantastic book-hoarding repository than a place of active research. Also, the Library of Congress has a Gutenberg Bible that I stared at for a while.

I'm actually writing this about a week after the date listed when I started the draft. By this point, one of my more distinct memories is of eating an awesome experimental-ingredients salad wrap at Chop't. Beets, snap peas, tomatoes (i think), greens, tzatziki/blue cheese dressing ...

The White House

2010-04-13T00:15:00.000-07:00

After accidently memorizing the address by over-exposure to Bloom County since childhood, I actually found myself at 1600 Pennsylvania Ave.

I lucked out and had an awesome friend who thought to schedule a White House tour for me ahead of time. I guess they have to do background checks, which makes sense.

The lady ahead of me asked the secret service agent, "Is Barack in today?"

"Yes, ma'am, he is," came the polite reply. "Oh, well, tell him I was here!" I think she was trying to be amusing. He chuckled and assented politely and noncommittally. I had also been standing behind this lady at the visitor security check. She had many various metal accessories and bangles that she kept forgetting to remove as she attempted the metal-detector, but each time she tried with bubbly cheerfulness. She, her husband, and I were the last people through, so the security guard rolled his eyes at me behind her back, apparently wanting to know that someone was appreciating the kinds of things he had to put up with. I replied in-kind.

The tour was a guide-yourself tour complete with a brochure-thing and secret service agents in every room to answer questions. A long line of visitors snaked through the Ground Floor and then up to the State Floor. I lost the aforementioned lady and her husband in the crowd, but it was interesting to reflect on the fact that the President, and perhaps the rest of the Obama family, were at home on the second floor. The place seemed big enough from just the first two floors - it was hard to imagine that this tourist-filled building contained yet another floor that was a home.

On the Ground Floor, visitors were not permitted to enter the rooms, but you could look inside. The White House (and many things in DC) serves a secondary function as 'time capsule'.

The line of visitors wandered up the stairs and into the East Room.

This photo is in the public domain, as featured in the Wikipedia East Room article. The piano was not in the East Room while I was visiting. It was in the Entrance Hall.

I asked the agent posted in the East Room if there was anything in particular he thought I ought to know about it. He pointed to a large red object behind me, indicating that it was the red carpet that gets rolled out across the Cross Hall before press conferences. The East Room is a common room for press conferences and for dinners. It usually also contains the Steinway that was sitting in the Entrance Hall. Steinway # 300000 was a gift to President Franklin Roosevelt.

Photo from The White House Museum

Things I learned about the White House:

Every room has a bouquet of fresh flowers, ever since one of the presidential families lost a son before moving to the White House and the President ordered fresh flowers to be placed in each room to help lift the First Lady's depression. This was one of the many barnacles of history I observed on the various ships of state in DC. In DC, history doesn't go away. It gets institutionalized or made into a statue.

There is an interior decorating committee that the First Lady is often a part of, but certainly does not run. Any change to the interior, such as removal or replacement of paintings must be approved by this committee.

The secret service has two major divisions, the Uniformed Division and the Special Agent Division. The agent who explained this to me said that she thought of the difference as being that the uniformed agents ensured the security of a location while the special agents would travel with a dignitary to ensure that he or she was transported safely between locations.

There are many portraits of past presidents hanging on the walls. Apparently, it was the always the president himself who chose his pose for how he wanted to be depicted in his portrait. I asked this question after being fascinated in particular by JFK's choice of portrayal. I am assuming - though I didn't ask - that the president was also free to choose which artist would paint him.

The Pigeon Game

2010-04-12T00:15:00.000-07:00

The first event I went to in DC was The Pigeon Game, a Taiwan to the World documentary hosted in the Elliott School of International Affairs at George Washington University.

I got excited because I used to race pigeons and I plan to go to Taiwan. I will have to find some of these people.

I was a little disappointed with the documentary mostly because they make it sound like pigeon racing is some kind of strange, exotic, and foreign interest that is strangely particular to Taiwan. I keep perceiving the narration as casting the information with a kind of strange eccentricity that doesn't necessary take the subject seriously. It seems to present the information in a way that makes it seem like a curious sideshow novelty, and that doesn't sit well with me.

But, I did learn a few things about how pigeon racing is expected to go in Taiwan. For example, it seems like Taiwan only has a young bird (entrants are less than 1 year old) racing season. I am assuming this because the narrator says pigeons can only race for one season, and the birds in the documentary seem to be all young birds. The United States and many other countries, on the other hand, have an old bird season for adult pigeons as well.

The documentary described many more precautions against cheating than I'd seen before ... the pigeon racing scene seems like a pretty hazardous place.

Also, because Taiwan is an island, in order to get enough distance, race starting points are typically on the open ocean. The pigeons are 'shipped' to the starting point and released over the water.

Excitingly, the school I will probably study at in Taiwan is in the same city as a port where the pigeon races depart from.

After The Pigeon Game, there was a documentary on the Chestnut Tiger milkweed butterfly, suspected to occasionally and surprisingly migrate between Taiwan and Japan. But I didn't stay for the whole thing.

easter and the sabbath

2010-04-04T13:26:00.001-07:00

I remember hearing somewhere - someone talking about the 4th commandment (Remember the Sabbath and keep it holy ... ) saying something like:

Remembering the Sabbath is easy. Keeping it holy surely takes the rest of the week.
If the Sabbath is to be kept holy, for example if no work is to be done, then this is something that is planned and prepared for by the work structure of the other 6 days.

By that thought,
If I remember what Easter means, it is not just about this day, but something that I express with the other 364 days.

I suppose in general, a thing really has meaning in the context of how the other intentions around it prepare it to be that thing. Meaning this way is not discrete or isolated. It blends, adapts, negotiates... with the meanings around it.

Lincoln and Washington (DC part 1.1)

2010-04-04T00:02:00.000-07:00

My first stop was the Lincoln Memorial and reflecting pool, but all those pictures are mental images. I did go back later to see the tourists and to take this picture which perfectly complimented a recent meme-discussion that my brother and I had been having about the historical awesomeness of Abraham Lincoln.

Abraham Lincoln, the man.
If you aren't familiar with how the internet is remembering Abe as THE MAN, then do your research. If only historical figures could know what they would mean to future generations...

The following pictures were taken after I returned from New York, so this is a little anachronistic, to overuse the word. The first day I wandered around here, it was much much less rainy.

If you want more of the 'classic' pictures of these monuments, there are plenty on the internet. You can check out the following Wikipedia pages on the Lincoln Memorial and Washington Monument. There are also plen-ty of other people who have posted pictures of these exact objects. My interest trends towards the pictures that are meaningful to me, or that I know I won't find (or will have a hard time finding) elsewhere.

I liked the peaceful space behind the Lincoln Memorial:

That's enough. I need some of these for my posts on returning to DC after NYC.

DC (part 1.0)

2010-04-03T23:50:00.000-07:00

While in Washington DC, I stayed in the George Washington University dorms. This is the only thing I took a picture of during my first stay (I later went to NYC and CT, then back again). I was trying to do more living than recording (though recording turned out to be difficult anyway).

Mostly, I was shown around their portion of the city by friends I stayed with at George Washington University. The city was described as a 'quiet city', which seems accurate. The streets are named by number or by letter in a well-ordered fashion, and are populated by joggers. You'd think I would have at least taken pictures of one of the many statues of George Washington around me, but nooooo. Actually, I had in mind to use a lot of stock photos for this post. I saw a lot of cool stuff, but nothing that no one's taken pictures of before, and lots that I wasn't sure if I could take pictures of, like the The interiors of the White House, Capitol, and State Department ! ah ha ha ha.

Photo by Ben Schumin

I came to DC from the airport, via metro, past the hospital Cheney frequents, and to the GWU dorm. I spent more time with the friends I was visiting in my first full day than I had ever spent with them in real life before. Accordingly, my first few days were mostly hanging out with college students while trying to do some of my own work, interspersed by the interesting events of wandering the Lincoln Memorial, learning about racing pigeons in Taiwan, going on a White House tour, a tour of the Capitol building, attending some GWU classes, and attending a Jefferson Fellow talk at the State Department, sponsored by STAS and OES.

PDX ( -> DEN -> DCA )

2010-04-03T22:24:00.000-07:00

It was a beautiful St. Patty's day morning (in the United States) when I set off. This adventure took 5 years of frequent flying, 2 years of vague considerations, 2 months of magically impulsive decisions, and $10 to get off the ground. I consider myself again fit for travel, and since I hope to be taking much longer journeys in the not-too-distant future, best to test my solo wings again on something unfamiliar, but not foreign. East Coast, here I come. I am test-driving myself. Today, Portland is easy to leave because I am on an exciting adventure into the future, and I know I'll come back.

I'd never been excited about visiting the East Coast before. But, over the years, I have built up some connections there. An old roommate, a random acquaintance-turned-friend, a former teacher, friends-moved-east, ... and if I wait too much longer, I figure they'll start dispersing again, so now was the time to see the world(s) my friends have come to call their own.

I grew up a short drive from the Great Lakes (we could sometimes see Michigan across the water). I'd been out east just twice before - to go to a summer camp in New York. And no, I did not see much of New York besides the summer camp. My Dad spent quite a bit of time commuting to Connecticut while I was growing up. He began when I was part-way through grade school and continued until I was part-way through undergrad. I remember some of our family trips being taken with his frequent flier miles. This is my first trip using my own frequent flier miles. I'd never paid the east coast much mind before. I went west, crossing the Mississippi to set up near the Willamette. After years of mildly shunning the east coast and going farther and farther west - first to college and next, I hope, to study abroad - I'm headed for my father's preferred coast.

It occurred to me (I'm writing this now, though I probably didn't actually think of this until I reached New York City) that although I claim that the stereotypical teenage forms of protest - reacting oppositely to the advice of authority figures - never made much sense to me growing up ( I was lucky in that most of the people offering their wisdom were qualified to give it ), my earlier aversions to the east cost and to large cities may have been some rare vague manifestation of such protest against my father's high opinions of it. I had made it a habit to think uncomfortably of the east coast and to associate it with similarly uncomfortable-feeling large cities.

This time, I have in mind to befriend the cities I meet, and to learn from them.

Well, here we go -

* i am writing after returning to Portland - this entire adventure took place in ~ two weeks of March *

Wheat

2010-04-03T12:47:00.000-07:00

At the end of the summer when it is ripe,

Wheat is harvested and separated.

Some parts will be caught by the wind and discarded, but the inside is important to keep. Know the difference.

That is what remains of summer.

Right Hand meets Left Hand

2010-04-02T01:17:00.000-07:00

After a couple takes,
This isn't quite it, but is closest to the conversation I had in mind.
Inspired mostly by Yiruma's River Flows in You

memo from the future

2010-04-01T09:07:00.000-07:00

(written 01 Apr 2010, blog-drafted 21 May 2010, posted 25 May 2010)

I've just returned from the future.

I traveled from the past.

And as I made my journey home I thought it seemed easier to move through space than through time. The gates of time are beginnings and endings, and at times, the portals are forceful.

In the future they decide what happens - they decide how things will go and here in the prior hours, the world lurches to catch up. As I made my preparations, talking on the phone, transcending hours between my coast and his, I felt at a loss. Whatever he said, in his three-hours-ahead, seemed possible. I only wondered what my world would have to do in those three hours to catch the place where his had stood.

I followed the eastern horizon around the rotating earth.

In the future there is certainty, and I ask him over the phone to tell me what lies ahead for me and the others in my time. Our voices move simultaneously across the time and space.

I travelled over time zones from my own time to his.
When one day he saw my writing,
when he saw what I'd recorded of my thoughts and of his words, he said he'd better watch it.

Better watch what he said,
and it occurred to me that people who live in the future

do not think about how their lives might be recorded.

Perhaps that is what frees them.

Back in PDX

2010-03-31T22:31:00.000-07:00

At the end of one voyage, rejoining another, I'm glad my sails are catching the winds I hoped for.

After a while away, hoping to accomplish the transition, I feel myself catching the momentum of the lifeblood in this city again.
The pulse of this city catches mine for a little longer.

That didn't take long.
A matter of hours to feel again the motion of this river.

Refrigerator wisdom (part 3)

2010-03-31T22:26:00.001-07:00

another significant set of words on the refrigerator of a friend, it's about time I finally got around to posting them. I've been meaning to since at least last July, and now is certainly a good time.

"

... we must suffer, suffer into truth. We cannot sleep, and drop by drop at the heart the pain of pain remembered comes again, and we resist, but ripeness comes as well.

"
-Aeschylus
Agammemnon

(I also feel like this may have been referenced in I Have Tasted Air Above the Clouds)

Refrigerator wisdom (part 2)

2010-03-31T22:15:00.000-07:00

"I suppose that since most of our hurts come through relationships, so will our healing"

I have been meaning to post this quote, found on my friend's refrigerator, for at least since last July. Now is as good a time as any, especially since while in Connecticut, I found the quote within a book. It should be attributed to: William P. Young, The Shack

past Trying?

2010-03-31T15:57:00.000-07:00

This hums in me a sympathetic resonance for something I used to want to say.

[...]

So here I am, in the middle way, having had twenty years—
Twenty years largely wasted, the years of l'entre deux guerres
Trying to use words, and every attempt
Is a wholly new start, and a different kind of failure
Because one has only learnt to get the better of words
For the thing one no longer has to say, or the way in which
One is no longer disposed to say it. And so each venture
Is a new beginning, a raid on the inarticulate
With shabby equipment always deteriorating
In the general mess of imprecision of feeling,
Undisciplined squads of emotion. And what there is to conquer
By strength and submission, has already been discovered
Once or twice, or several times, by men whom one cannot hope
To emulate—but there is no competition—
There is only the fight to recover what has been lost
And found and lost again and again: and now, under conditions
That seem unpropitious. But perhaps neither gain nor loss.
For us, there is only the trying. The rest is not our business.

EAST COKER
(No. 2 of 'Four Quartets')

T.S. Eliot

feeding habits

2010-03-31T14:50:00.001-07:00

Someday,

perhaps I will be able to say that I used to expend a lot of effort choosing very carefully exactly what to say for fear of missing my target,

but then I realized that whether or not people understand has very little to do with the content they are given.

People are blind, and will see only what they are prepared to see, regardless.

And when I really understand this,
I will know that however someone responds to something is at least as telling of where they are coming from as it is of how well I spoke. I can only anticipate so much, and then, as much as I wish to be an architect of these things, my half of the bridge is built. Whether I can be met with open understanding is a condition of the hearer more than an evaluation of me as a speaker, although of course I will try to be flexible to the condition of my audience.

When I understand this, I will be able to tell whether corn or pearls are called for. I will learn from the response what the feeding habits are. If that's not what I've got, I will accept retention of the things I cannot express or share. People don't accept what they can't recognize. Of course swine will insult what they can't eat.

And, I won't mind, but I will feel alone.

playing the hand

2010-03-31T14:30:00.001-07:00

Discard what you can't use, and keep drawing new cards from the deck. If it's in there, that's the only way you'll find it.

The smoke, it sank into my skin

2010-03-30T21:37:00.000-07:00

I am not hurt.
But, "Anything dead coming back to life hurts"

This might be true for live things continuing to grow and live as well.
No change without death?

Other Arts

2010-03-29T21:50:00.001-07:00

There is a quote that I thought I posted long ago, but now cannot find. It was lyrics to a song I heard called One Art by Elizabeth Bishop (quoted below)

I've thought of this poem a lot over the years, a few of the lines being etched into mind.

But, I feel like I've put in my time on this art (the art of losing). Due partly to its practice, there are others I find myself lacking experience in, such as the art of claiming.

I would like to practice this as well. I'm sure it would be good cross-training.

****

The art of losing isn't hard to master;
so many things seem filled with the intent
to be lost that their loss is no disaster.

Lose something every day. Accept the fluster
of lost door keys, the hour badly spent.
The art of losing isn't hard to master.

Then practice losing farther, losing faster:
places, and names, and where it was you meant
to travel. None of these will bring disaster.

I lost my mother's watch. And look! my last, or
next-to-last, of three loved houses went.
The art of losing isn't hard to master.

I lost two cities, lovely ones. And, vaster,
some realms I owned, two rivers, a continent.
I miss them, but it wasn't a disaster.

--Even losing you (the joking voice, a gesture
I love) I shan't have lied. It's evident
the art of losing's not too hard to master
though it may look like (Write it!) like disaster.

Songbirds

2010-03-29T21:48:00.000-07:00

Songbirds keep singing like they know the score.

Another self-fulfilling prophecy.

Oracle at 112 5th Ave

2010-03-28T09:33:00.000-07:00

I was walking with a friend in New York City when this vertically-scrolling column caught my eye.

Enjoy yourself because you can't change anything else

The sign was speaking to me. And it was relentless.

Aspiring for love is stupid

Even your family can betray you

Extreme self-consciousness leads to corruption

Fear is the greatest incapacitor

I'm glad that my friend was there too, because he began reading aloud from the display. Otherwise, it would have been easy to think that I was seeing some kind of hallucinatory prophetic vision.

Freedon is a luxury not a necessity

Giving true reign to emotion is an honest way to live

Keep your life in flux

Hiding your motives is despicable

I kept semi-expecting the quotes to begin repeating themselves, but they never did. They only began sounding perhaps more political. I kept reading and hearing the words in the rising voice of my friend.

It is man's fate to outsmart himself

Is Liberation dangerous? Only when overdue!

Let it explode. Run with it. Don't control or manipulate

Grassroots agitation is the only hope

It is sometimes better to die than to continue

I considered that it might be good practice to read these things out loud from time to time.

As with everything of course, add salt to taste.

(* We asked some people emerging from the building what sort of building it was. They replied, Barnes & Noble)

perspective

2010-03-25T03:56:00.000-07:00

Everything seems better when you have a good vantage point to look back from.

This is another good reason to seek good vantage points.

mantra

2010-03-24T22:27:00.000-07:00

My brother reminded me that this mantra, often delivered by a housemate, really does work. Try it. Play with the enunciation.

" You know, ... I AM pretty awesome..."

East Coast

2010-03-24T22:18:00.000-07:00

I am currently adventuring on the East Coast which I like much more than I thought I would. DC has important stuff all over, Connecticut and people in New York are very nice and helpful. This post is just a time-marker. I'll have more to say in the near future, but this is when it's all going down. I'm in Connecticut now, at the midpoint of my DC -> NYC -> CT -> NYC -> DC journey.

New Experiment

2010-03-24T22:06:00.000-07:00

1st)

Remember to continue imagining and moving into a world without fear.

2nd)

Imagine a world in which you are very happy with what you are doing and everything is fine. Move in that direction. It doesn't matter where you're starting from.

These exercises are not just for thinking.
Do them

The Importance of Faith in a Sadhana

2010-03-20T23:40:00.000-07:00

- totally taken from This Post on An Aspiring Yogi in the West-- because I liked it. --

The Shiva-Samhita (3.16, 18 -19)

Success comes to a person of faith and self-confidence, but there is no success for others. Hence practice hard.

The first sign of success is confidence that [one's efforts] will bear fruit. The second is being firm in that faith; the third is worship of the guru;

The fourth is equanimity (samata-bhava); the fifth control over the senses; the sixth is moderate eating; there is no seventh.

Reminders from The Dog Whisperer

2010-03-20T14:52:00.000-07:00

Cesar Millan, appears in a show called The Dog Whisperer

Cesar coaches dog owners in how to manage themselves to the benefit of their dogs' good behavior.
Referring to how to handle dogs with troubled histories, the owners learn,

"What happened [earlier] doesn't matter"

and to proceed by focusing on the question, "What do you want to create?"

To encourage owners to continue with what they've learned, he says, "remind yourself of the things you did well."

I like his attitude towards teaching and learning. When the owners succeed in following his directions with their dogs, he congratulates them, saying "I want to reward you with more challenges".

Some of the advice he has regarding dog ownership is just generally good advice for conducting oneself and being aware of others. Here, he offers some thoughts on Energy as Communication.

From the few cases I saw, it seemed that it wasn't necessarily that extra or special measures had to be taken to counteract the dogs' prior negative experiences, but that the dogs responded very well for having a calm and stable leader that would just handle them and their current situation for what it was, and who let them know clearly and fairly what was expected of them.

All the information of how to proceed, even from a difficult situation, is right there in the present for someone who can interact, listen, and move.

walls make categories

2010-03-20T12:49:00.000-07:00

This post will probably only make sense to myself.
I am posting anyway because I need to process it. Perhaps someday I will find more readily human-intelligible words.

I need to remind myself to be entirely myself rather than assembling myself from various chosen categories (although, it is helpful to consult previously-established categories in creating myself).

I don't need to dig up my history in order to determine my present or my future.

I don't need to apologize, but to absorb, grow, and adapt.

Sometimes, I think that the way I try to be reminds people of categories that I didn't intend. And this sometimes concerns me when I realize that the way I choose to conduct myself can affect other peoples' categories as well. Some walls are good to cross, but sometimes walls are there for a reason. Some walls divide, others organize, others are practical. Some are wise, others are temporary.

I know that I sometimes draw lines in sands that didn't need to be divided. And, when waters meet over walls I thought I saw, and two categories seem to contradict, the only thing I know to do is learn.

and yet, this is the year of the Tiger, not the year of the Stingray.

a small basket of what I hope is helpful sanity:

A similar and helpful thought from Sam

Seasonal

2010-03-14T20:54:00.000-07:00

I've come a short ways from my status as a bottom-feeder (in the aquarium of reality). I thought I would begin putting words to some of the structures I think I've gathered and understood and would like to implement and manage further in the ways I choose to live.

Inevitable and must be accepted / incorporated

Change

Never Ok

despair

dismissive ignorance

inflicting fear into the lives of others

Always Ok

Learning (especially by experimenting)

Teaching by (genuine) example

Enabling communication

When in Season, According to its Ability, Flavor to Taste

Contemplation

Action

Forethought

Afterthought

Impulsiveness

Analysis

Moderation

Extreme(s)

Remembering

Releasing

How to Run

2010-03-11T10:02:00.000-08:00

In my Origins of Western Morality class, we talked about the Epicureans and their ideas.

The Epicureans thought of the world as consisting of atoms, tiny particles of every sort that fall and swirl, and void, the nothingness that separated the atoms. They tried to apply this model to determining why it is that some things, like horses, have an agency to choose to move and run while other things, like rocks, do not move.

I have been wanting to write about the Epicurean reasoning of how a horse begins to run.

The idea deals with the event that must occur between the before of a still horse and the after of a running horse. They considered that running was caused when an atom for running fit into the right place like an ignition key, causing the horse to begin running when previously, it was still.

The desire to run shapes the horse's mind in a way that is able to receive atoms of running. All things on earth are constantly bathed in a stream of all kinds of invisible atoms, so if the horse positions its mind properly, it is only a brief matter of time until a running atom finds the place prepared to receive it.

Once this running atom fits into the prepared place, this ignites the running ability, and the the horse runs.

I think I believe this.

Things happen because a place has been prepared to receive it.

Sometimes it is said that things are 'for the best' because 'something good will come of it.' I don't agree with the thoughts of good things coming from bad things (to the extent that such a judgment is reasonable). But, I do think that good things will find those who are able to keep their heads up enough to see them.

I must continue to choose open windows.

juxtaposition

2010-03-08T12:41:00.000-08:00

I was attracted to this video by its convenient juxtaposition of English, 中文, and pinyin, delivered both visually and audibly.

After watching it several times, I was reminded of things like this:

And these are just funny:

word for the decade

2010-03-06T20:03:00.001-08:00

The following question posed by one ethan rafal:

he demanded to be sent 'one word (nouns best) that best describes the last decade as you see it.'

Thinking about this question gave me a passing sense of vertigo.
Not only do I have over 10 years of consciously-functioning life to look back on, but so very very very much has happened in any interval of it (and yet, things are not so different now). It is revealing too, I think, that as I searched for a word, I was thinking mostly about the changes I had desired and developed in my own person. This is in contrast to real knowledge or ability to consider what the rest of the world was experiencing as I moved through high school and into college. The aspects of the last decade that I considered as I contemplated my word revealed what had been important to me and what I had thought important enough to mentally document.

I don't have a satisfying answer (yet).
But the answer's not the important part. It seems like one of those questions about trees falling in uninhabited forests where the answer is not the goal, but rather, the side-effects of considering the question. Further, any answer is meaningful because it is something you produced and reflective of the way the thinker thinks.

Try it.
What have you been paying attention to over the last 10 years?

(ethan chose ponzi-scheme )

mutable

2010-03-06T20:00:00.000-08:00

A thought that has been in my head for a long time (months, at least) as a mantra of sorts that I may as well give letters to:

I am nothing if not adaptable

be the colors

2010-03-06T12:31:00.000-08:00

Sshh, sshhh.

Just let the colors move. Even if they don't spread and blend the way you hoped or thought they might, it's still a beautiful aurora now.

And besides,
they just might spread and blend in a way you didn't know to hope for.

begun enough to say 'Goodbye'

2010-03-03T01:02:00.001-08:00

I have a new time and place to look forward to -

I did not leave earlier partly out of feeling that I needed to incubate a while longer in a conducive and familiar environment. I chose to stay in my city, Portland.

Like most things that are helpful and good for me and that I find characteristically special, I'm growing to love this city.

Like many things that contribute to my growth, although I am indebted, I find myself preparing to move on, exploring the future and what I can grow into next.

And so again, more concretely, I have in mind to leave this place.

In my former years, I had a pattern of distancing myself from those I knew I would have to let go.
But, I think I will continue falling in love with Portland to the sweet and timely end.

Maybe I will come back, but I won't make any promises. My preferences now are no indication of the future.

Avocado Melltttt

2010-03-01T02:45:00.001-08:00

From Lili's.

First, a scone, then an AVOCADO MELT with a surprisingly awesome combination of lemon and salsa.

(with a side of really good soup ... I forgot which kind...)

A journey of a thousand miles

2010-03-01T02:42:00.000-08:00

is a sequence (series?) of decreasingly long journeys, each journey beginning with a single step, and each journey one step shorter than the last.

heard a prophecy today.

2010-02-28T21:26:00.000-08:00

"You will set yourself apart from the majority, and thereby make yourself more useful to the majority, by your (study of the Chinese language)."

I met a nice couple at Lili's today over a discussion of the fantastic avocado melt I ordered. We chatted about my studies and my desire to learn Chinese in Taiwan, and that's when the man said that.

He actually did say the part in parentheses,
but I like to think I could fill that part in with many of things that I try to do and be.

Even though I know that variety and versatility are important (and for there to be variety, there must be deviation) and therefore it is vital that I pursue those things that interest and are within the abilities the particular person that I am ... his words encourage me to keep growing in the ways that seem best to me, and to grow with confidence.

Funny isn't it?

For as difficult as it can feel,

it is often the ways that we are different from others that make us more useful and more appreciable.

Go be yourself. It is very important.

On Your Porch

2010-02-28T09:48:00.000-08:00

woke up this morning with The Format's On Your Porch playing in my mind. It seemed very appropriate.

(the video is one of those school project things)

I can hear it better now.

- edit -
(these started as comments, but I decided to move them to the main post:)

This song is making me feel like I really want something that I can't quite recognize or name or grasp, but that I already have, or will move into soon. And, I like the feeling. If there must be more than 1 world, (one of desiring and of having), then it is a soothingly anxious mix of both.

It fits my context.

... I like the feeling 'having' something without that being very dependent on the motion of time, or on exactly when in my life it actually appears.

There are quite a lot of things to appreciate, especially if I am not picky about 'time'.
For a creature like me that exists in one-dimensional time (at best), this is rather comforting.

Sprouted Lentils

2010-02-27T18:39:00.000-08:00

Among the various inspirations I get from one of my friends has been the inspiration to sprout things.

I had some things that I believed to be green/brown lentils that I got from the bulk grains section of the Peoples' Food Co-Op

I had intended to make dahl sometime, but I noticed that the lentils were labeled 'sproutable'

so I took some of the dried lentils,

and placed them in a bowl completely submerged in water for a little over 12 hours. They absorbed a lot of water. Then I drained off the water and re-watered them, but draining off the water. I did this a few times now and then. This is just to keep them freshly wet.

In another 24 hours, they'd sprouted!

They're so excited about growing, I'm thinking of trying to plant some somewhere.
But they're also delicious and have a great texture, so I've been snacking on them pretty heavily...

The Subtle knife

2010-02-27T15:28:00.000-08:00

(found folded between other papers in my room. This was probably written in the spring of '07 (or maybe late fall/winter of '06). I typed it all, including the lines I'd crossed out. I remember ...)

how to leave his room
the hall was level
but, held by an unseen leash
~~like a dog~~
I searched for the
world brought on by each
new step like a dog
nosing for holes in
a chain-link fence,

finding them, one by one,
I wedged through thin
air & labored toward
the hallway door like
a bicyclist winding
his way uphill.
Occasionally I'd stop to rest
Occasionally the leash would jerk
or the fence would be sharp

Though stationary,
I'd stagger a few steps to
the left or right to keep
what mental balance I
needed to take a few
deep breaths. Sometimes,
scuttling sideways brought
me up against the hallway
wall, where I could lean
for a moment against some
outside pressure before trying again
Walls are good to hold
oneself together with

I reach the door & push it open

There is a path leading to the left

- -

I take the right
I am free of the hallway
My decision to leave is more
certain (now as there is not)

But often

Sometimes immediately
outside, sometimes I
can get halfway up the
physical hill of the
path - before the same
hand which
marionette hand
which suddenly
extracts the water
from the pit of
my stomach out
through my bursting
pinhole eyes
cuts the strength/strings
to my legs
and drops me to my
knees
where I am
paralyzed until
I rouse an unknown
strength to alter
myself into a
different world
in which I am
allowed to stand
& even to walk
to my own room

( What I mean ...

2010-02-27T02:35:00.000-08:00

... is that I'm trying to say, in so many ways, that sometimes, I desperately want to live. )

Arrows

2010-02-27T01:02:00.000-08:00

I have spent years dwelling on this in search of words,
but perhaps it would be best to simply quote as well as I can remember.

---

Summer of 2006. June. In Los Angeles for our brief training and states-side orientation before heading to Cairo.

I was going on an IVCF Global Urban Trek to volunteer for Sudanese refugee schools in Cairo. IVCF (InterVarsity Christian Fellowships) is a Christian organization (and one which I appreciate the attitude of) so part of our time in LA was spent in readings, meditation and prayer, and gathering to worship together. On one of our last nights in the states, we had a worship service that had a lot of scheduled freedom at the end, encouraging us to use the time as we pleased - to sing, pray, pray in groups, wander about the room to different stations meant to provide encouragement, inspiration, and topics of prayer and consideration, etc ...

I remember a man - one of the leaders (and, if I remember correctly, writer of the book used for our content reading on urban slums) praying for several people in turn. I don't remember which of us asked, but he prayed for me as well.

I don't remember if I told him, but I had been asking God to help me use my freedom well, and to be functional as I was meant to be. I had felt that I'd taken some sustained psychological damage in the previous few years, and wanted desperately to be overcome useless obstructing fears, to be functional, to navigate the width, breadth and depth of my freedom, and be useful, and to guide my life in accordance with the will of God so as to better enable these things.

He placed his hands - I think on my shoulders - and prayed out loud.

I think he asked for healing, strength, direction, and
he said I was like an arrow - one that God could send, flying true towards its goal.

And yes - for years I have considered my circumstances (at times) in terms of the words chosen by this one man.
Maybe I wanted it to be true.

----

I believed in Love - and aligned myself with what I thought were the true and faithful practices of this belief.

I have tried to be true in the only way I know how, and I feel that this path has taken me through a length of damage and darkness, seeming at times to be unusefully detrimental and destructive.

It has been strange to think of God in the old ways.

I comfort myself with the thought that perhaps I am still en route to my target, and that dark and abrasive hell, easier to see with distance, has been a necessary obstacle.

What I asked with my eyes to the sky,

was whether it was really more like the way Venus played the Sybil, or all the gods - lying, deceitful, powerful, arbitrary, evil (she goes so far to say) ?

I still believe in the voice of the sky.

I Have Tasted Air Above the Clouds - afterwards

2010-02-27T00:55:00.000-08:00

"This isn't the way it's supposed to be, but this is the way it was"

(Walking home after watching I Have Tasted Air Above the Clouds,
in which the life of the Sybil is twisted into tragedy, a strong ribbon wrapped around a pole of fate and discarded, for the sake of Venus' son, Aeneas)

I started to walk
and then,

I started to cry

Not teary eyed, but
real,

rare sobs that
choked in my throat
and gasped from
my chest.

I asked the sky
with my eyes,

Whether that had been at all like the aim of my arrow -
the flight of my fate
- if it was at all like that - the way things work?
A meddling of divine intentions and arbitrary cruelty in the name of destiny? If no intentions, then can I say forces? Would randomness be preferable, or even different?

The stars behind their cloudy night: reassurance

What does it mean to say I still believe in God?

There was something I believed, and in ways, I still believe it.

It makes more sense suddenly, to talk about believing in someone else's God.
The God of Abraham or Isaac .. or the God of Rich Mullins, or of Ken, the guy I worked with over the summer, or the God as I thought of God in my former years.

What do we know of God except what we believe (What do we believe except what we know of God)? It makes sense to learn from the what others' beliefs of the God they see illuminates. They model the possible.

(This has not explained what caught in my chest)

I Have Tasted Air Above the Clouds - some quotes

2010-02-27T00:50:00.000-08:00

This is not the way it's supposed to be, but this is the way it was.

Sybil

Apollo comes upon me too quickly -

I can't breathe

[...]

and now I am screaming, but it is his moan [...] I am saying his words, and the men are nodding, because I am a prophetess now.

I keep thinking of the fish ... and how they reached for the sea with their triangle mouths... If I were a fish, my gills would be pushing against the air.

I am screaming,
I am screaming like a fish in a net.

After the first time, I feel nothing,
and under the nothing, there is dirt.

I am a prophetess, and a priestess of Apollo - and men sail for hundreds of miles... to see - me !

Although it has broken me -- broken me and remade me -- part of me is not shattered. I protected my brother and Atta.

I Have Tasted Air Above the Clouds - Writer/Director's Note

2010-02-26T23:47:00.000-08:00

I Have Tasted Air Above the Clouds is a thesis project written and directed by Mic Parker, showing this weekend.

I'm not going to try to explain what I thought of the production here, but the following are worth quoting:

The blurb description from the website:

"She was the most famous prophetess of the ancient world. A word from the Cumaean Sibyl averted war, exposed traitors, razed cities to the ground. One of the most powerful women ever and one of the most powerless. This modern adaptation of Virgils Sixth Book of the Aeneid tells the story like you've never heard it before, incorporating music, dance and the enduring strength of one of history's unsung heroines."

And what I assume to be the Director's note from the back of the program:

"This show is a gift. Like many of the gifts we select for one another, it might not quite be your color. Further, I won't be at all surprised if the fit isn't universal. And since we wrapped it ourselves, you might sometimes see my fingerprints, or those of my cast or crew, in the tape. I fear that this gift is a little to early for some and, much worse, a little too late for others.

However, like any true gift, this show has its origins in a very real love and admiration. Love, first, for the Cumaean Sibyl, a minor character in Virgil's Aeneid who has been virtually ignored by generations of otherwise very intelligent scholars, artists and playwrights. As Aeneas' guide through the underworld, the Sibyl is a small but fital part of the legend of the last prince of fallen Troy. Without her courage and indomitable spirit, Aeneas undoubtedly would have died at the mouth of Hades. He never would have founded Rome and we would say instead that, "all roads lead to Carthage." Ah, the horror.

This show is a gift, then, for a mythical character whose story I felt needed desperately to be told. But it is also a gift for the very real women who are, even today, living in isolation, terror and constantly thwarted hope. You see, Sybils still exist: one out of every two women in America will, at some point in their lives, be abused by their partners. Sibuls still exist: there were 72,032 reported cases of domestic abuse or rape against women last year. So what is truly a myth is that we no longer need to fight this problem. Though the Sibyl's story is a tragic one, no more stories need be tragic.

So, this is a gift to my beautiful mother and sisters. To my kind and compassionate friends, coworkers and acquaintances, new or old. This show is a gift for you, if you need it. If you are the victim of domestic abuse, please know that you are not alone and that the situation is not hopeless. If you are in danger, or you know someone who is, please call the National Domestic Violence Hotline at 1-8000-799-7233 (SAFE)."

Thoughts on categorizations of the gender spectrum ?

2010-02-25T22:03:00.000-08:00

The Asian Reporter" is a really interesting news source! It covers a broad variety of topics relevant to various Asian interests for readers in Portland.

In this issue, there are some articles about transgendered people (and their rights in other asian countries). The transgendered people and those lobbying for them were advocating for recognition of a 'third gender', and it seems to have catalyzed some thoughts in me, so here they are:

Disclaimers:
First, I should say I am not a transgendered person. I feel very comfortable marking female on forms and such. But, I sympathize with others' desires for a societally-valid identity. Also, what I'm thinking about here is probably a different matter from a biological standpoint, but I ignore that for now since I'm mostly considering gender identity from a standpoint of social construction. (Yes, I know that biological isn't completely separate from this)

Ok, Thoughts:

When I hear people talk about recognition of a 'third gender' (or similar topics), I can't help but think that perhaps the perceived need for another gender identity option is because the expected roles, personalities, and characteristics associated with Male/Female are too narrow. This would certainly cause a person who knows themself and desires to be true to themself to identify with neither category, thus creating a perceived need for a third category.

(Perhaps I am wrongly thinking of this third category as an Other to the binary Male, Female)

But, ... if I am not too far off, then why can't we just have acceptably broader categories of Male and Female?

The reason I wonder this is partly also because I don't feel very conventionally female.

I am definitely biologically female, but for most of my life, I have tended to prefer friendships with guys and have been interested in things that are more often associated with males - sports, logical and abstract thinking, .. and have not been interested in the activities usually associated with girls, to the extent that some girls have commented that I am weird, and chose not to invite me to their things (which was fine by me, because they're probably right). But, I don't see any of this as conflicting with my identity as female.

Now, .. if the female category was so ridiculously limited as to suggest that I was only really female if I adored the color pink, wanted a pony, and did not wish to study mathematics, (and if I could only be male if I wanted a cool car or something) then I would probably require a third gender option as well.

So I'm wondering - in order for those who do not self-identify as Male or Female to establish an accepted identity, do we really need a third category? Or do we need as a society to broaden the kinds of identities that are acceptable under the categories of Male / Female?

My thoughts here are coming down to the question:

When we check the M, F, (or Other) box on a form...

Who wants to know, and what does that even mean?
What information are we providing?
Is it biological?
demographic?
psychological?

Are there only pre-set characteristics that I am allowed to have as a person if I chose to check a box?

... is it any better for someone who does not identify as Male or Female to be lumped into a category like 'Other' ?

Beloved

2010-02-25T22:02:00.000-08:00

I have been thinking of that "Anything dead coming back to life hurts" quote a lot recently ..

..
mostly I think, because I don't hurt ..?

Gun to the head?

2010-02-25T21:40:00.000-08:00

(We had earlier discussed how he set about his work like he had a gun to his head)

I felt familiar with this workstyle, but then there came a time -

there were extenuating circumstances that I proved unable to abort,
and so I picked up my head
and dropped my hands
and I dared them to shoot,
not caring about the consequences, but only wanting to stop.

And, there was only silence.
And the other people talking. Doors opening and closing. The wind through the trees. And bicycles passing by.

And so I went on my way.

I have felt resistant to putting myself back in that mentality, since I have unfortunately learned to call my own bluffs, and since I doubt they will actually shoot.

But, now and then I wonder if maybe its just that all those bullets I've defied are waiting for me to walk into them in the future.

discolored

2010-02-25T11:45:00.000-08:00

Several months ago:

The dudes had again confirmed each others' coolness.

"Yeah, pound it," one proffered a fist.

"Respect knuckles." was the matched response.

"Not respect," corrected the first in an expanded gesture of brotherhood , "Love."

"Love without respect?" I interrupted.

They turned to acknowledge me out of the haze of their coolness and still using their cool voices, "Yeah." heads bob.

"So," I meddled further, "abuse?"

"Ha- .. uh ..." In the long silence, their eyes searched the air above our heads for a good reply before admitting defeat: "yeeeaah ... There's no way to make that funny."

I felt like I had spoiled something.