logophilia

2006-01-08T13:58:00.000-08:00

Uploading--I think that's the word--to this site some pieces I've prepared in a more private journal, beginning with this:

MY BLUE CHAIR...

I'M GRIEVING during the day, during the day with deliberate, practical purpose in hopes I won’t have to do it at night, wakefully, when I need to sleep; listening to I'll Never Smile Again, and such, by The Ink Spots; letting tears well up some noondays; facing up to how badly I feel now that my lost ex seems lost forever; she moved last Monday from my apartment complex I helped her move into two years ago, returning my blue chair; we spoke briefly; she’s been laid-off; looks like she might have other troubles too; just a sense of that; I gawked, without meaning to, at her lovely brown coloring, still wanting to take in--I now realize--as much of her as I could; damn that I still care though she’s hurt me many times and is probably sleeping with the roommate she’s living with elsewhere; I asked a friend tonight how she, my friend, knew I was in renewed mourning; she said I’d been looking forlorn; oh my...

2005-12-31T17:35:00.000-08:00

Test...

2005-06-21T21:08:00.000-07:00

I read a Counterpunch article today that moved me to respond. It's at this URL:

http://www.counterpunch.org/roberts06212005.html

To which I replied as follows:

To Paul Craig Roberts:

I always look forward to reading your articles in Counterpunch because they always provide me with new insight into the dreadful situation our country now faces. But after your recent speculation concerning lack of reasons for the Iraq war, I am moved to respond. Because I feel I do know the unstated reasons for the Iraq war. One of those reasons is to create exactly the situation we see now: Disintegration of a potentially powerful Arab country and slow but steady degradation of the population’s living conditions, both aimed at forestalling or diminishing the chances of Arab political control over the region’s oil resources. Destabilization of Arab states has been on Israel’s regional agenda almost since its founding, and I’m afraid our neocons have now decided that this strategic goal converges perfectly with the neocon goal of controlling world economic development through control of the Middle East’s and Central Asia’s oil reserves. Additionally, troop levels at far less than the 250,000 recommended by “fired” generals and others guarantee a certain number ofAmerican casualties, enough to stir patriotic feelings and rhetoric about blood and sacrifice—but not enough to touch so many that a strong outcry against the war would result. I hate to have to say so, but I think all this has been carefully calculated, even down to the decision to undersupply troops with body armor and other items so as to ensure that casualties will occur. We are being “warmed up,” softened up, or perhaps “hardened up” for wars yet to come, possibly against Iran. Many decades ago for a short time, I was a graduate student at theYale School of Forestry. I took a course about environmental policy in which the professor went on at some length about what a “policy” really is. He gave as an example Yale University which had a stated goal (in l969) of having a student body 50 per cent or so per cent female, while admittedly falling far short of that goal. So, he asked us, what is Yale’s policy on this issue? We stumbled around until we finally realized that Yale’s policy was to preserve male predominance for as long as possible, just as it was. Did we not believe, he had asked us, that it was within Yale’s power within a few short years to alter the composition of the student body--if that truly was Yale’s “policy?” What you do with your power to achieve outcomes that are seen, THAT’S your “policy,” he maintained. So what are the Bush Administration’s policies and goals for the Iraq war? I submit that we see it before our eyes--everything going according to dreadful, criminal plan.

2005-05-17T19:53:00.000-07:00

WALKING, STROLLING ALMOST, across the Monte Vista bridge and looking down on the green overgrowth on the old Sante Fe Railroad line that may someday bring DART public transportation train service to this neighborhood, looking down and feeling the shiny, morning warmth on my breast, I thought sometimes the beauty of the universe just takes my breath away! Hopefully this is a sign I’ll continue to feel better...

2005-05-15T20:22:00.000-07:00

AT A SUNDAY AFTERNOON jazz thing today, the bass-player I vaguely recognized asked me if I was still blogging; after a few minutes I remembered I chatted with him at the New Amsterdam last year; before my multiple upper respiratory infections of January through March of this year; nice to be back in circulation... FOCUSED, STILL, on rebuilding the stamina I had when the retirement and family crises hit me at about the same time in the year 2000; making progress but not there yet; race-walked three+ miles today in under 42:45 at noon today; good enough for 10.25 points on the Cooper scale, a third of what I need for a week... FEEL GOOD ENOUGH to be experiencing where do I go from here? feelings; but mourning tones still come out of my flute tonight...

2005-03-23T20:08:00.000-08:00

CURIOUSLY MUSICAL today, finally; I mean I’m playing my native American flutes and finally trilling coherent patterns after sort of tunelessly stumbling about for days... SUNSHINE WITH a little chill enabled me to race-walk again, achieving a time marker I hadn’t reached in months; felt so good I took out the little flute always carry with me and played a little at the lake before going home... FAIRLY BUSY day delivering and picking up supplies for flower shop; got four hours; may be busier tomorrow with Easter coming Sunday... IMPROVED from waking in panic to images of being trapped and desolate... BUT MAY SOON be obliged to manifest a degree of strength I simply do not feel I possess at present; may have to back off from it; do not have a good feeling about it; may have decided already:

I linger over
melodies of my own making--
Such a good day!

2005-03-09T20:15:00.000-08:00

A SWITZERLAND...

SITTING IN A COFFEE SHOP--not a Paris coffee shop and not the 1920’s--waiting for my grilled cheese sandwich, I pass the time reading and looking up across the small seating area to a collection of books in a small 2-shelf bookcase; one large volume with ornate black lettering on grey book cover paper suggests gothic, sinister themes—possibly it’s a collection of detective or horror stories; but no; it’s lying on its side and I manage finally to make out the words, AUTOMOTIVE ENCYCLOPEDIA, as vast and sinister a topic to me as perhaps any other I might have imagined; I say I’m passing time reading and staring at these sideways titles, but it’s more than that; I know I’m letting myself be taken on a journey with enough mystery in it to remove me, for a few moments, from the too self-evident horrors of our daily routine and our national life; once there were different times with different kinds of madness; I know that’s true because of the book I turn back to, and I find this oddly comforting; I read from it still, even after the arrival my lunch sandwich; days later, when new counter help is brought in, I will get a sandwich with the bread melted along with the cheese; but today, everything’s OK—bread crisp to the tooth, cheese invitingly warm and viscous, and a companion book to give meaning to my reverie; once, perhaps, there was a refuge Switzerland of genuine, happy-to-see-you greetings and of invigorating Autumns and bold and brilliant Winters presaging hopes in Spring; if such a place exists now, even speaking less geographically, I have never set foot in it long enough to take up residence or even apply for a tourist visa, and I keep losing track of where to look for it; but I keep on reading, even knowing the outcome for the characters I’ve come to care about is unhappy; I know because I’ve been through the book before—and others like it; thus, the well considered journey keeps drawing me in...

2005-02-15T20:19:00.000-08:00

(LOVE LETTERS)

MIRACLE WALK...I took a “miracle" walk, or so it seemed, this past Sunday, enjoying the first real sunshine in many days and the first real warmth of this Texas February, and, by extending the walk to nearly an hour, I additionally risked my continued recovery from the fatigue that is taking so long to let go after my vicious infections of January; but it came out all right, even though—after seeing a couple who were passing me the opposite way and race-walking really moderately—I then also tried race-walking at a moderate pace and kept it up for the last 12 or so minutes of my 58 or so-minute walk; elated and stimulated and stirred, I even made up a tune or two on my small, high-pitched Native American flute, which I seem to take with me nearly everywhere now, sitting in the car and cracking the window a bit to share my suddenly improved spirits, using up some time while my friend looked after a family matter until mid-afternoon, used up time and actually made up a coherent tune; that’s the way the people we call Indians often played and play these flutes they invented, with spontaneous creativity; and my friend, astonishingly to me, finds my playing of my own made-up patterns beautiful; she has more Indian in her than I, though I—notwithstanding my pale face—have some too, and I thought as I looked forward to meeting her at her mother’s that it’s really sweet and fine that we can be together in this way; and in other ways...

2005-02-09T20:30:00.000-08:00

EXHAUSTED, STILL recovering from two infections, but felt ready to take a walk today; stretched it out to 49 minutes, faltering in the final minutes but holding pace steady; will know tomorrow if this was a good idea; then grocery shopped for a few things, but faltered in the final minutes there too; likewise at the library where I ordered a book on Yoga rejuvenation to be sent from downtown to the Lakewood branch; feels tonight that the walk was OK; remembering shadows crossing my path, airy, wintery tree shadows, unlike some other shadows I’ve been brooding about; observed half-tame geese in the parking lot tucking their heads into their side feathers to ward off the wind-chill, wondering perhaps (I imagine) how these idiot humans manage to get by without building a barn; remembering the falling/churning creek on the spillway as I debated if my strength would hold out, and also, even in this cold bright cold, just a few Mockingbirds--yes Mockingbirds--flitting, flitting but not singing, not yet...

2005-01-12T17:07:00.000-08:00

BLOOD FOR OIL—AND BLOOD FOR BLOOD!

EVER SINCE this retired economics professor in my discussion group suggested weeks ago that the main purpose of war in general was depopulation, I have been brooding on this possibility: That the present state of the Iraq War, with large numbers of Iraqi civilian casualties and deaths (actually 100,000 excess deaths, says a medical study, since the 2003 invasion, following 12 years of sanctions that killed 500,000 children)—that these deaths and the instability that causes them were actually intentional, aimed at producing a decline in the Middle East’s Arab population under the cover of war! And further: A certain number of American casualties is also part of the intent—not too many, of course, that would be bad politics, but enough to sanctify this new militarism with American blood; that’s why the USA didn’t go in with 250,000 troops, as some recommended; that would have left Iraq too secure, too stable; the purpose, then, of the Iraq war is to kill many Arabs on a more-or-less continuous basis--and enough American soldiers to sanctify the cause and numb the rest of us into believing these deaths are acceptable and inevitable...

2005-01-04T16:45:00.000-08:00

WEARING SADNESS...

MY GOOD, LOVING friend says I wear my sadness like armor; something to ward off dangerous, risky situations with; having been doing this, I think, for some months now--not years, just months; need to break out of it soon, although that breaking out seems to be happening in moments... DIFFICULT going away “party” last night for jazz musician who, due to draconian immigration laws recently passed by Congress, must return to the country of his origin now that his jazz studies here are complete; a monstrous situation; we tried to have a good time, bidding him farewell, and the jazz was brilliant, but it was hard...

2004-12-28T20:17:00.000-08:00

DREADFULNESS OF current events continues, as does recovery from deep, personal stress, the magnitude of which I’ve been underestimating; new love Damsela understands this, luckily for me, and also understands that in many ways I’m still getting over old love Aqua--these are code names--Damsela's getting over somebody too...

2004-12-18T21:52:00.000-08:00

MINUTES AND HOURS

THIRTY-FOUR minutes
brisk walking at lake today,
including 4 fast intervals,
race-walking,
for 1 to 2 minutes at a time;
something new I’m trying
to build speed; a good workout...
AND THEN later many hours
(being surprised it’s not there!)
trying to find space in my life
for new love, as she is doing the same;
that’s a good workout too...

2004-12-11T20:34:00.000-08:00

JUST BECAUSE...

DETERMINED not to let more than a week go by without posting a blog entry, here goes; have hesitated because I don’t want the entry about my situation to freeze in place, so to speak, any longer than necessary the particular emotional formation I may be flying in at this time; I’m in a difficult place but it’s getting better, and I don’t want the getting-better to get bogged down, or blogged down, you see... AS I WALKED White Rock Creek-side this sunny morning, after getting re-fingerprinted in order to qualify for a temp job I’m not sure I want to keep doing, I reflected that just because we have to give up on the country doesn’t mean we have to give up on ourselves, taken singly or in community; a hard line to inscribe on this screen, giving up on the country... AND IN CASE you Dallas poets were wondering if you were in the right town or not, here’s some food for thought at---

http://poeticusmundi.blogspot.com/ (the Dec. 11 entry...)

AND SOME MORE food for thought about the stolen election at:

http://www.crisispapers.org/essays/get-over-it.htm

WHEN WE wonder why voters are not massively protesting this electoral atrocity, we have to remember the corruption of the media, which is stealing even the knowledge that any theft occurred and that, as I learned in a certain university, of sorts, in New York in the 70’s, it’s always leadership, never the people, always leadership...

2004-12-04T16:13:00.000-08:00

EXCELLENT DAY Friday catching up with old friend, his giving me tips on his job I’m going to fill in for him on while he’s gone for a few weeks and our later over lunch deconstructing a wide range of international and domestic issues, some really very domestic; left everything in a shambles, the way everything truly is; it was the right thing to do…

2004-12-01T15:53:00.000-08:00

A SEASONAL WISH

COME Winter! Come
such sharpness,
such bitterness of chill wind,
come to hound
this most murderous
warrior passion
against its screaming will
indoors,
crawling, whining
in furious, begging despair
to its very tiniest refuge;
let its belly on paltry,
begrudged nurturance
distend in open mockery
of its upright,
striding blood-gluttony,
now downcast, now outcast,
shriveled, starving,
spirit shrunken,
feeding only on itself
that it may never, never
again contrive its way
to the light of our precious days:
Let this now, now, be
the forever hope
of the season…

2004-11-27T16:26:00.000-08:00

UNSURPRISING NEWS…

WAKING UP to the dreadful realities of Bushmerica: Broken relationships, desperate neighbors, media touting “news” of election fraud in the Ukraine while ignoring compelling evidence of massive vote-stealing here on Nov. 2—with authentic news now that the British Helsinki Human Rights Group (BHHRG) questions the view that Ukraine’s election was seriously flawed:

This preliminary report of the BHHRG's observers on the controversial second round of the Ukrainian presidential elections challenges the widely-disseminated media image of government-sponsored fraud at the expense of an untainted opposition on the basis of first-hand reporting. More at this link:

http://www.bhhrg.org/CountryReport.asp?CountryID=22&ReportID=230

AND THE LINK BELOW, from The Guardian, details how the USA is behind the turmoil in the Ukraine:

http://www.guardian.co.uk/international/story/0,,1360080,00.html

THE BHHRG apparently did not have observers here...

2004-11-24T17:21:00.000-08:00

A MYSTERY…

A FELLOW READER of the underthesamesun political blog, commenting on election fraud in the Ukraine, finds it “a mystery” that our (USA) streets are not likewise jammed with protestors angry about elections results being at variance with exit polls; here is my response to his comment:

What keeps our (USA) streets from being filled is less of a mystery when you consider that nearly all the mainstream (slave) media is blacking out the stolen election story and that much of the progressive, somewhat-more-free media seems to want to move off the subject. We are understandably distracted, of course, by the horrific war crimes being committed in our name in Fallujah and elsewhere, by the apparent murder of Arafat and by other heartbreaking events of this dark age--BUT could it not be that the Fallujah assault was timed with the same kind eye on the USA election, as the slave media insists it was for the balloting in Iraq? Think back to Nov. 2-3: Not only discrepant exit polls in ALL of the swing states, but also Kerry's popular vote total, mysteriously low early in the evening being brought closer and closer, though of course not close enough; and then clear evidence that exit polls themselves were manipulated, with small percentage increases in respondents accounting for mathematically impossible percentage shifts in poll results! And then, as soon as we caught our breaths, a new level of war (crime.) Yet the American people, lied to and terrorized by their own, illegitimate government, nonetheless voted by an undetermined majority to unseat it and then were betrayed by that government's would-be successors and the agencies charged with telling them the truth; this is why we are not in the streets; American voters overcame thousands of obstacles to make the right choice, and then it was stolen from them, along with any pretence of democracy; they do not deserve the bad rap they're getting; many of us are still active; many of us are in Ohio, or sending our money there for the recount pressed for by Greens and Libertarians, in hopes of restoring a semblance of electoral freedom. The USA election is a world catastrophe; and why, some Democrats ask me, are Kerry & Co. so silent about it? The question is easier to answer when it's properly phrased: Why doesn't one war-mongering, empire building wing of the USA ruling elite challenge of the right of the other war-mongering, empire-building wing to steal an election? Must I point out they have too much in common with each other and nothing at all with the people whose votes they both intend to get, by hook or buy crook?

AND HERE are two links to more votergate news; The Shurberg article is really optimistic, I hope not incredibly:

http://www.scoop.co.nz/mason/stories/HL0307/S00065.htm

http://www.opednews.com/shurberg_112004_election.htm

2004-11-23T19:09:00.000-08:00

OTHER SOUNDS

Shaken by newest family disasters,
I take my F-natural flute to bed
to play soft, sleepy tones…
then lie awake—no, actually
sit up awake, for other sounds:
forcing sleep to wait
on crackling, crashing,
blowing-rain-against-brick-wall
intensities
of the deep-night storm…

2004-11-20T21:34:00.000-08:00

AT SOME KIND OF a crossroads about the family crisis to the West, as I google for more insight into the beatitudes, to prepare for the UU discussion group tomorrow, and continue to monitor web sites to see how the stolen election issue is being treated; finding some signs that folks are waking up to this awful electoral catastrophe; here’s a link with interesting stories:

http://www.scoop.co.nz/mason/stories/HL0411/S00124.htm#5

2004-11-19T15:29:00.000-08:00

DER FEEX VAZ EEM!

FOREIGN MEDIA, at least, broke general mainstream media silence today on the stolen Presidential election; Michael Keefer, whose article was referenced a few days ago on this blog, is quoted, among others; a website in Holland featured an article; here’s how part of it reads:

Professors constateren onafhankelijk van elkaar onregelmatigheden

Associate professor of English Michael Keefer merkt een 'mathematische onmogelijkheid' op als hij de cijfers naast elkaar legt van de landelijke exit polls en het aantal respondenten. Dat aantal is nauwlijks toegenomen, maar op het laatste moment is wel 5% extra op Bush gaan stemmen. Oud-Associate Professor of Mathematics David Anick van MIT heeft 'the odds of Bush making an average gain of 4.15 percent among all 16 states included in the media’s 4 p.m. exit polling' becijferd op 1 op de 50,000, ofwel .002 procent.

KEEFER POINTS out that the exit polls themselves were tampered with later in the evening to make them somewhat closer to actual vote tallies; here it is in English:

But how do we know the fix was in? Because the exit poll data also included the total number of respondents. At 9:00 p.m. EST, this number was well over 13,000; by 1:36 a.m. EST on November 3 it had risen by less than 3 percent, to a final total of 13, 531 respondents—but with a corresponding swing of 5 percent from Kerry to Bush in voters’ reports of their choices. Given the increase in respondents, a swing of this size is a mathematical impossibility.

2004-11-17T16:05:00.000-08:00

EPIPHENOMENA…

CONTINUING TO take hard looks at all the heartbreaks of the world, whether it’s family crises to the west, the stolen election or the war—they all need hard looks… MUCH OF the “progressive left” internet seems weary of the stolen election issue; a mistake in my view; astute Rahul at

http://empirenotes.org

has at least touched on the gathering storm he hinted at last week:

The storm gathering on the horizon is already breaking. And it will get a lot worse before it gets better. The agenda on which Bush intends to spend his political capital is not privatization of Social Security or making the tax cut permanent or even reversing Roe v. Wade. Those are mere epiphenomena of the true agenda -- the systematic transformation of American society and culture in a more authoritarian, more fanatical, more overtly imperialist direction, and the consolidation of the right wing in power to the point that it cannot be challenged.

HE SAYS NOTHING so far about the stolen election issue, which surprises me a little; the link below provides more solid evidence of the massive theft; you’ll read the odds of exit polls being so far off in two states, Ohio and Florida, in the same election is 250 million to one! Here’s the link plus an excerpt from the story by Sara S. DeHart:

http://www.scoop.co.nz/mason/stories/HL0411/S00227.htm

Was November 2, 2004, the final act for what began in Florida in 2000, tested in various locales with electronic voting equipment in 2002 and finally played out in a disastrous final act that left the media simpering that this election was about moral issues? That may be true, but they depict the wrong moral issue. The untouchable topic is that election fraud rather than gay marriage turned this election on its ear. The media and politicians would be wise to listen to the voices of dissent and concern.

2004-11-16T22:09:00.000-08:00

TOO DOGGED TO BLOG…

LOTS OF PEOPLE, EXCEPT Democratic Party leaders it seems, are waking up to the significance of the stolen 2004 election; including the Green Party which is seeking a recount in Ohio, though it has no chance of taking the state, and is asking for contributions; more at

http://votecobb.org

PERSONAL issues, which always have political overtones, left me too dogged to blog Monday, and nearly so today; stepping back and taking a hard look at multiple, heart-breaking difficulties out West…

2004-11-14T23:20:00.000-08:00

MEAN THINGS--PLUS

http://globalresearch.ca/articles/KEE411A.html This link should get you directly to what I consider the most convincing story on the massive, “new level” election heist…

http://www.projectcensored.org/publications/2005/24.html And this one is about mechanisms put in place to begin a military draft by June 15 of 2005…

TODAY, in possession of a 50% off coupon for any one item in a book store, I strode in, intending to buy a gift for a friend but was unaccountably drawn to the Buddhism section; I picked out a book by a Japanese Zen Buddhist monk who wrote poetry and strove for centering in his soul during a time of imperial madness in the country of his birth; I had to have it of course, so I used the coupon to get half off a CD by a Canadian jazz musician descended from African American slaves who escaped across the border nearly two centuries ago, a gift for my friend herself descended from slaves who luckily for me did not make that journey; and then I stretched my budget to get the Zen Buddhist book as a gift to myself…

2004-11-13T22:21:00.000-08:00

TOO TIRED, almost, to post; difficulties out west, but it could be worse, at least I think and hope so… LIGHT weightlifting, my usual indoor workout, felt good tonight, as did earlier gracious time with friend Damsela, a beacon of light in my shadowy existence; these are all political acts, looking after our own… CONVINCED one more Democrat that the election was stolen and that her leaders are rolling over for it; here’s an article with good talking points:

http://globalresearch.ca/articles/KEE411A.htm

2004-11-12T16:17:00.000-08:00

MISTAKES ON PURPOSE!

http://underthesamesun.org/ has posted a photo, from The Los Angeles Times, showing US troops lounging, fully armed and wearing combat boots, standing at ease or sitting on “plush red carpets” in a Fallujah mosque; the carpets are actually prayer rugs on which devout Muslims bow their heads while kneeling for extended prayer, having removed their shoes before entering the mosque; underthesamesun is astonished at the stupidity/insanity of the USA military allowing this to take place: “Seriously, this is either the most arrogant, incompetent, ignorant occupation, ever, or the most clever, insidious, skillful effort towards bringing about an apocalyptic world war. Are they asleep at the wheel, drowning under their own ignorance, or simply want to end life on earth as we know it?” She invites comments, so I responded as follows: Wonderfully provocative post; I've long believed such actions are not stupid but willful and deliberately challenging, schoolyard bullying type stuff elevated to a geopolitical, potentially world-destroying scale by elements of the USA elite who do not necessarily see world war as undesirable; they keep contriving, you may notice, to MAINTAIN the chaos in Iraq, under guise of seeking stability; the war itself and the low troop level are part of a design to expose mounting numbers of Arabs to death and debilitation (payback for 911?) and to shed American blood as a way to sanctify and continue wars for world domination. This began in Afghanistan when some USA troops were sent into mountainous regions with woefully inadequate fire cover and sustained many casualties, the first real battle deaths of the war on our side; a "mistake," said my ex-Army buddies. "A mistake on purpose," said I, but it was a hard sell. Keep up the good work.

2004-11-11T23:10:00.000-08:00

STOLEN FUTURES

THIS HEADING occurred to me primarily because I’m reading the novel, A Stolen Past by John Knowles, but it describes the feeling I have about the recent election; the biggest vote fraud, election heist in history, as proven by the exit polls; stolen democracy, stolen future for all of us; disheartened by how much of the nation is in denial about it, including those who should know better; here’s a link if you’d like to sign a petition calling for an investigation: http://www.petitiononline.com/uselect/petition.html

2004-11-10T21:08:00.000-08:00

GATHERING STORM?

DEPRESSED about the media’s continuing blackout of the stolen election and its business-as-usual approach to the news… AND DISMAYED AND DISHEARTENED by the so-called progressive left’s seeming to want to move on to other issues; it’s like they’re reading from old scripts, some of them anyway… “AMAZED” that Democrats are talking about who to run in 2008, Rajhul Mahajan at

http://empirenotes.org/

sees a historically transformative storm gathering well before that time and promises to blog about it next week… MYSELF, I continue to work on maintaining and building my conditioning base at a slow, deliberate race-walking pace, 15:46 outgoing by restless lake waters today under rain clouds and 14:53 back after the turnaround; light weight-lifting, circuit style, while waiting for lunch rice and veggies to cook; must be ready for anything, or at least try…

2004-11-09T16:01:00.000-08:00

BASE-BUILDING, 50-50 TIE IN TEXAS!

ABRASIVE SOCIO-political, personal and geopolitical relations continue as the Fallujah, Iraq, assault mows down innocent civilians, according to a clinic set up when the USA military took over the main hospital; assault seems timed to distract from mounting evidence of massive VOTE FRAUD perpetrated by Bush backers in key swing states; the last link below reports a CBS exit poll showing a 50-50 tie in Texas, of all places, indicating that the Republicans must have done enough pre-election polling to show that the state was in play so they could calculate how much to steal… THIS AS I worked out at a “base-building” pace today, with nearly even splits at 15:32 out and 14:57 back; held the race-walking form throughout; felt appropriate to my conditioning right now; here are the vote fraud links:

http://globalresearch.ca/articles/KEE411A.html http://globalresearch.ca/articles/KEE411A.html

http://www.ultimatetaxi.com/board/messages/478.html
http://www.whatreallyhappened.com/2004votefraud.html

2004-11-08T15:47:00.000-08:00

CRANBERRY SAUCE

DECADENT, LATE capitalism has unaccountably provided me with the opportunity—for who knows how long--to rebuild the health it’s been kicking in the teeth for the past five years, so I plan to continue the project; today, at least temporarily, got rid of some lingering post-election shakes race-walking 2.5 miles, starting slow, willfully slow, at a 15:12 per mile pace outgoing and then 13:59 on the return… SUMMING THIS UP as a major war crime, among many such, is proceeding in Fallujah, Iraq; the USA military and a few Iraqi assistants have captured a hospital, believe it, boasting, believe it, that now they, the USA military, will control the flow of information about civilian casualties; the hospital’s previous reports were confirmed by independent sources. “The hospital was shut down because doctors told people how many innocents were killed by the American assault, thus making it a military target. Any pretence of civilization is now gone,” writes Rahul Mahajan at http://empirenotes.org/ ON MY WAY to the lake earlier I dared to turn on the radio for a few moments and found, during the second hour of the only national news/talk show available on national Public Radio in Dallas, multiple references to cranberry sauce; this as our nation commits major war crimes following perhaps the biggest heist of an election in history; truly a time for dismay…

2004-11-07T19:11:00.000-08:00

A WEEK END OF MORE JAZZ, more baby steps in a possibly developing relationship, more grieving and puzzling over the stolen election, more monitoring of how the rest of the progressive left is reacting, and coming across another quote I want to leave you with; by Thom Hartmann at http://commondreams.org Election night, I'd been doing live election coverage for WDEV, one of the radio stations that carries my syndicated show, and, just after midnight, during the 12:20 a.m. Associated Press Radio News feed, I was startled to hear the reporter detail how Karen Hughes had earlier sat George W. Bush down to inform him that he'd lost the election. The exit polls were clear: Kerry was winning in a landslide. "Bush took the news stoically," noted the AP report.

2004-11-06T14:37:00.000-08:00

ELECTIONS OF MASS DESTRUCTION

THIS HEADING occurred to me today while race-walking, yet I still lack the sure analysis to do it justice; try this link:

http://onlinejournal.com/evoting/110504Chin/110504chin.html

SORRY BUT I’ve lost the note that tells me how to link it directly; you’ll have to type it in; well worth reading… GOT MY 2.5 miles again today, starting slow at a 15:32 per mile outgoing and 13:44 incoming; felt good; after effects just as good; getting these workouts right seems vital, essential…

SO IT APPEARS, by trial and error, I have rediscovered the way to give readers a direct link; enjoy the read and the ease of clicking...

2004-11-05T15:17:00.000-08:00

WONDERFUL POEM by Zen Mantra at her cause its better this way website, see right; always great to hear her poetic voice which resounds even when doesn’t think she’s making poetry; STARTED SLOW enough race-walking today to do my 2.5 mile workout, 15:23 per mile pace going out and 13:36 coming back; may be getting close to where I want to be; AND THE ELECTION….disaster is upon us, and so few realize it, at least right now…

2004-11-04T22:55:00.000-08:00

"A TIME TO WALLOW IN THE DEFEAT"

STILL RECOVERING from debilitating and sickening (quite literally for about 3 hours Wednesday) election results; keeping the news off mostly except to find out that Arafat is still hanging on; poisoned, I think, even though his aides say no; listening to native American flute music a lot; my favorite political blogger at empirenotes.org, Rahul Mahajan, writes today as follows:

This is a time to wallow in the defeat. Let's not shrug it off too quickly. Let's acknowledge what it means in a world that is in the process of being torn apart by a new crusade. When we move on to try to find hope, let's start with a rational core, not one built out of wishful thinking, fantasies about how the world works, and self-congratulation.

I'm naturally perverse. In times of hope, I look for sources of despair; now, I'm looking for signs of hope. Will report when I find them.

2004-11-03T23:09:00.000-08:00

THEY STOLE IT!

VERY DISTURBING election news, not just the outcome; exit polls, the device used to indicate election fraud in 3d world countries to which the U.S. and others magnanimously send monitors, showed Kerry in the lead to such an extent that the stock market lost more than 100 points in the closing 90 minutes Tuesday, reports the Kansas City Star; exit polls, says NPR, favored Kerry in all swing states, including Florida and Ohio, all through the evening; discrepancies between outcomes and exit polling is considered by international election monitors to be a reliable indicator of fraud; a cursory Google search suggests a margin of error of 3%; the shift from Kerry to Bush in Florida and Ohio seems to exceed that; both states use machines and machines can be rigged; a long-time friend of Bill Moyers in Austin voted straight Dem and then on a whim asked to check her ballot, which showed votes for all Dem candidates EXCEPT at the top which showed Bush-Cheney; a friend sent me this info under the heading, “Watch Out!” NPR (Nationalistic Propaganda Radio) tried to explain away the exit poll results, but it certainly sounded lame; underthesamesun has cogent comments on the election at her blog of the same name; capitalism marches on, as election fraud moves from the implicit to the explicit phase; just think if this were Venezuela…Haiti…

2004-11-02T14:21:00.000-08:00

A MOMENTOUS DAY in history, today, a fearfully momentous day, regardless of the outcome; this is the only way I can think of it…

2004-11-01T01:55:00.000-08:00

ELECTION ANXIETY is relentless; feel it is critically important to the world that Bush go down in history as a President who was never elected; this as shameful military operations continue in the Middle East and will likely continue even if Bush loses... PERSONAL ISSUES too complex to blog briefly about; all is not entirely bad; perhaps even better than that...

2004-10-31T14:18:00.000-08:00

SCRAMBLING to get to work on time and fit in a blog; called to work 2d shift; important, though retired, to stay linked to the world of work, preferably loosely… FEELING OF being on the cusp of significant events, world events-wise; not comforting; another at the discussion group has the same feeling; chatted briefly about it…

2004-10-30T17:00:00.000-07:00

CONTINUING TO BENEFIT from new health measures, low-salt, much less caffeine and modified yoga, modified for safety… IRAQ WAR, despite efforts at distraction, continues to expose the genocidal, bloodthirsty policy/methodology that created and underpins the U.S. elite’s obscene wealth and continental, hemispheric and now global dominance; as the two death-dedicated candidates for President vie for who can be the more murderous, eight more Marines are killed this day fighting an unnecessary war based on lies and plans are made for further U.S. assaults on Iraqi civilians, plans that the election is not likely to change…

2004-10-29T20:19:00.000-07:00

END OF restful, interesting week; successfully implemented modified yoga plan; got two more letters off to the West, hoping for the best; health markers about where they should be; cold getting better; good friend is getting interested in being something more; hmmmmmm; a few issues to be gone into… NEGATIVE MILE splits again today on 2.5-mile race-walk, 14:45 and 13:35, just a hint of speed-work near the end; a little muscle weary tonight; tomorrow? Shall discern…

2004-10-28T21:57:00.000-07:00

STILL RESPONDING to Western crisis in fear and trembling; definitely not good for immune system, but I think I’m warding off some of the worst of it… GOOD PART OF day is my race-walk workout; extended, slower workout working better than expected; negative mile-splits today, 14:49 and 13:40; less caffeine and more yoga, yoga modified for safety, both seem to be helping… REUTERS reports an authoritative study showing Iraq has suffered 100,000 “excess deaths” since the war began, primarily civilians, many of them children, nearly all the result of U.S. warplane attacks; all for an unnecessary war based on lies; hard to get away from this story…

2004-10-27T21:51:00.000-07:00

BOWLED OVER tonight by news of a personal nature from two different sources, hope and sadness intermixed; must reflect and ruminate before responding; part of the “finding better ways to take care of myself” phase I seem to be in right now, seem to be thrust into right now; could be good…

2004-10-26T22:18:00.000-07:00

GLAD TO HEAR friend Zen will not abandon her site, better this way, see right to click on; its hard to for me to let a day go by without putting something on, however trivial or seemingly trivial; actually nothing’s trivial… MOOD SLIGHTLY improved today but physically down, somewhat, with a developing cold I’m trying to nip in the bud with astragalus, extra C and extra rest; actually colds should more accurately be called stresses; my throat is stress-infected… INSIDE THE GATES of hell, Iraq, a few hundred disabled Iraqis who’d been helped by captive Margaret Hassan, threatened with beheading, held a demonstration calling on the kidnappers to spare her life and release her; pictures at underthesamesun.org; you can click on it at the right…

2004-10-25T20:39:00.000-07:00

DID HE SAY: “LANDSLIDE?????”

GOT IN A GOOD WORKOUT, race-walking, before the rain today; three miles, perhaps, along west side of lake, in 43 minutes; 2d wind and then a 3d wind, so to speak, about half-way through… IN THE THROES of deciding what phase of my life I need to be in now; recovery from activist wars, possibly; at least, it’s a good start; still ragged out from last week’s stress, but today was better than yesterday… EARLY-VOTED today, stood in line for 20 minutes at 11 a.m. on a Monday, stood in line early voting for the first time ever and suddenly started giving more credence to rumors I’ve heard in the past three weeks, rumors that certain polls predict Kerry will win the election by a landslide; talked to some Dallas County Democratic medium wheels who discount this, don’t feel it’s in the bag yet at all; but the turnout in this East Dallas working class neighborhood seemed unprecedented…

2004-10-24T23:21:00.000-07:00

CONTINUE TO pull out of severe emotional shake-up engendered by western crisis; hesitate to be more specific; turning to less caffeine and more yoga, tentatively on the yoga because in the past it has put undue stress on some bone-muscle groups; yet the benefits are almost immediate, so I will proceed but with caution… TREASURED the way leaves at varying distances were arranged in dusky patterns against the storm sky this evening, as I meditated; as I meditated, seeking to touch some inner healing…

2004-10-23T20:01:00.000-07:00

“…THE GATES OF HELL!”

I KEEP THINKING about this quote as I keep up, if I keep up with anything at all, with the dreadful news from Iraq; currently the highly popular and well regarded Margaret Hassan, director of the CARE agency in Baghdad, is captured and threatened with beheading if British troops are not pulled out; just who is behind these atrocious kidnappings is not nearly as obvious, I believe, as U.S. war defenders would like us to believe; who profits, it must be asked, from these terrible acts? Surely not the Iraqi insurgency which must realize it needs to win over some segment of world opinion if it hopes to succeed; profit only accrues, it seems to me, to those who favor the continued, indefinite presence of the U. S. military in this region so rich with oil the world’s desperate mega-capitalists have already shown they will stop at nothing, however criminal and despicable, to control this resource that will, in turn, enable them to control world economic development… THIS WASN’T exactly where I was going when I first thought of this quote, from Arab league Secretary General Amr Moussa’s 2003 warning that a U.S. war on Iraq would “open the gates of hell” in the Middle East, though he was clearly prescient; my fearful, intuitive premonition is that the war, sooner rather than later, “will open the gates of hell” in our own country and that the upcoming election is a prelude…

2004-10-22T22:17:00.000-07:00

RECOVERING FROM the most stressful, exhausting week I've had in a while; no late hours for me for next few days; much to learn, and some decisions to make... TENTATIVE workout today, but got better; followed same route as Thursday; splits were 7:23 and 6:47; stayed closer to 2 miles than to 3; not sure about tomorrow; mapped out some new routes measured by odometer just in case...

2004-10-21T15:14:00.000-07:00

“HOW DID THAT YOUNG MAN DIE?”

SOLID WORKOUT TODAY, 39 minutes at an estimated 13:16 pace measured by car odometer; race-walked along sparingly used roadway at White Rock Lake; vehicular speed limit is 20; actually more danger from careless cyclists, but there were few of these today; measurements made me suspect accuracy of mile and half-mile markers on off-road trails; got “2d wind” at 10 minutes and a “3d wind” sort of during last 12 minutes or so; felt good but some general leg aches this afternoon; this may be due to… WEARINESS FROM stressful week of worry and decision-making about crisis in the west; better news today but I know better than to think this will be the last time I have to go through something like this… AS ELECTION DAY nears, here is Zeynep Toufe, recalling John Kerry’s eloquent anti-Vietnam War testimony before Congress three decades ago and comparing it with what he says and does now: “Just how did that young man die, and who is this opportunist, war-mongering, death-celebrating politician I can't bear to listen to, masquerading around in the remnants of that man's shell? I really recommend reading his testimony in full, and reading it often. Then he spoke a deep truth -- now he talks about "Iraqification" the same way politicians of his day spoke of Vietnamization, which that Kerry understood perfectly well…” Check her site at the right, underthesamesun.org; plenty of disturbing reading…

2004-10-20T16:28:00.000-07:00

SPLENDID, UNEXPECTED workout race-walking today; went 43 minutes at a slow, willfully slow pace, 15:21 per mile at the beginning, perhaps as bit faster toward the end, but what was really significant was getting a second wind the last eight minutes or so; no aches or pains so far; have been experimenting with nearly doubling the workout time for 3 days now; paying attention to insole style to achieve the most comfortable impact… HEART-BREAKING emotional distance to the West continues; consultation today yielded an unsatisfying approach, but at least an approach…

2004-10-19T03:47:00.000-07:00

CALLED IN TO WORK 2D shift Monday, 4 to 12; jumped at it; went OK; better than days, as late shifts always were, and in this case it’s not forever, so it’s gravy, sort of; nice chat with an attractive worker I’ve been wanting to talk to; neat person; asked to sit at my table; will work Tuesday as well, 4 to 12… RACE-WALKED 40 minutes real slow and easy today; went well, surprisingly, real slow, for 2.5+ miles; maybe I’ll do more that way…

2004-10-17T19:34:00.000-07:00

IN THE THROES OF AN emotionally charged situation in which all options seem unacceptably bad; trying to hold fast to the least unacceptable; writing another letter; will seek further advice… OK WORKOUT but without a rest break this afternoon; negative half-mile splits, race-walking, 7:09 and 6:56…

2004-10-16T09:16:00.000-07:00

RAHUL MAHAJAN’S LINK, empirenotes.org, at the right, features a brilliant analysis of the anti-Semitic racism explicit in Moore’s Fahrenheit 911 and a revealing discussion of the Saudi oil problem; the article is immediately below the piece on the mutiny, also worth reading… PLANNING TO WALK long today to deal with health and other issues; feel myself to be at several crossroads; or at crossroads on many issues…

2004-10-15T23:36:00.000-07:00

OMINOUS, even weird, scarcely credible news from the west; difficult to know what to do; suspect sinister influences; important not to trivialize, but disappointed that results were not healthier; can’t give up yet… ARDUOUS WORKDAY but it’s over; and spent a nice evening with Damsela who had some good news to share, work-related, over jazz, eats, and coffee… NEGATIVE half-mile splits again in late, difficult workout at lake, straining against fatigue of day’s stressors; 7:38 (!) and then a surprising 7:09 up the hill… PLAYING SADNESS and sense of loss in flute riffs; Damsela felt it when I did a couple for her…

2004-10-14T16:23:00.000-07:00

BLOGGING BRIEFLY as I prepare for museum jazz and then work at temp job Friday… CONTINUE TO be brought down by “imperial history’s trail of blood and tears,” as writer John Pilger puts it; he writes about the U.S.-U.K. forcible expulsion of the indigenous population of Diego Garcia to convert it into an air base in the 70’s, and I am today thinking about evidence of torture of and deliberate killing of civilians brought out by reporter Seymour Hersch; not a word about this on the debate, of course, from the Anybody-But-Bush candidate; no suggestion that such practices and policies created and create the terrorist threat… EVEN HALF-mile splits yesterday, 7:34 and 7:29 for 23 minutes in all; negative splits today, 7:22 and 6:39; encouraging; 21+ minutes; nice chat with cycling/poet acquaintance at lake…

2004-10-13T23:09:00.000-07:00

HOW GRATIFYING when such maturity and experience as has been granted me proves useful to a friend; makes me feel valuable for whom I’ve turned out to be; doesn’t happen too often; today it involved an emotionally difficult, possibly sticky legal matter; not too sticky as it turned out, but shouldn’t be sticky at all now… CAUGHT UP again in the pseudo-drama of the pseudo-election; heading out to catch last debate with a group of fellow junta-haters; it’s somehow important; because any tiny amount of democracy we have is better than none at all… SUDDENLY RE-READING F. Scott Fitzgerald’s The Great Gatsby after hearing talk by psychologist Robert E. Hemfelt at Dallas Philosophers Forum last night; more about this later… LATER: Hemfelt talked about Flight from the Feminine: Healing the Scars of Western Authoritarian Rationalism, which flight he blames for the mass inhumanities of at least the past 100 years, and in his handout he highlights character Gatsby’s “heroic Grail Quest for the feminine dimension of spirit;” curious; Gatsby’s romantic obsession with a woman, in my view, utterly unworthy of his great crimes and elaborate deceptions seen as a spiritual quest? Actuated and intensified by the woeful, de-feminized state of our civilization? Not a bad theory; and I immediately thought how this state of civilization exacerbates the misery I’ve been trying to touch and heal over my own break-up; it’s somehow mitigating, poignantly enlightening, perhaps, to understand that such matters are at least socio-cultural, even cosmic…

2004-10-12T22:20:00.000-07:00

WORK TODAY was arduous and stressful, but otherwise Ok; was over in 7.75 hours, so I got home in time to prepare for Philosophers Forum deal tonight; sort of wanted an excuse to eat out, but I can save that for another time; played flute; actually composed a song I have no way, right now, to write down; must learn more about notation… BRIMMING OVER (4 hours later) with thoughts engendered by the Forum speaker, but more about this later; exhausted; ready to drop; here I go-o-o-…..

2004-10-11T15:41:00.000-07:00

BLOGGING AT mid-day to leave time for other stuff tonight, meditation circle across town, or half-way across, then flute practice and readying lunch for temp job workday; scheduled for Tuesday, Friday, Sunday and Monday so far; jumpy all day and yesterday as well about it; it’s not just the overbearing, intrusive colleague I’m seeking to avoid contact and conversation with, although that plays a big part; will do the best I can… GLAD TO SEE a person when I went to jazz last night; she was sitting at the bar alone and was glad to share a table with me for a while; have had a crush on her that started while I was still seeing my ex; something in me does handsprings every time we meet, now, yet it’s still too soon after a certain recent event (how circumspect I want to be!) for me to ask her out, as I did months ago the first time my ex broke up with me and I learned she wasn’t available; we had a nice chat, mainly listened to the cool jazz together and split a chocolate cheese cake with strawberries on the side; thinking of this person makes me feel wonderful… AND ALMOST as wonderful were the negative half-mile splits again, 7:06 out and 6:43 back (uphill!) for 21 minutes in all; will add weight-lifting/calisthenics as soon as I post this…

2004-10-10T19:58:00.000-07:00

DISTRESS CALL from West; responded in measured and loving (I hope) manner; this situation tears me up, but I suppose it can’t be helped; touched suffering of all sorts, especially my own inability to make things better right away for myself and for people I love, and touching (of course) my deep desire to make these changes; this after… NEGATIVE HALF-MILE splits during break in rain at White Rock, 7:01 on the downgrade and 6:42 (!) back up; 21 minutes fueled by day off yesterday plus new cutback in sodium; pleasant side effects even now at 4 hours after….

2004-10-09T20:37:00.000-07:00

GREAT POEM on poeticusmundi's blogsite; can't remember how to get you directly there, but if you go to causeitsbetterthisway at the right, you’ll find it under favorite reads on Zen’s site; nice work; I can feel it all happening while I’m reading it…. RE-READING Victory by Joseph Conrad; have been wanting to re-read it for a long time but mood hasn’t been right; first read it just before 911 when certain friends were alive; they perished but not from that attack; now I’m ready again, I think, for Conrad’s take on victory as a fruition of emotional struggle--as, in his words, “the shining and tragic goal of noble effort.” What else is my broken heart but the emblem of my grand passion’s striving? The victory I neither sought nor wanted, but the victory I certainly have; more, perhaps, anon...

2004-10-08T16:23:00.000-07:00

SOAKING UP news as I write; getting caught up in the pseudo-drama of the American election; looking forward to “debate date” tonight with Somebody Interesting who actually suggested we have dinner before; then it’s off to the theater where Dems are sponsoring a debate-watch gathering; politics is partly or even mostly role-playing, or perhaps as Norman Mailer suggested in his Miami And The Siege Of Chicago (1968), “politics is property;” my old extreme left affiliate still importunes, “Don’t vote!” Organize instead, they argue; but I can’t believe they believe that completely; but they do desire to play that role, stake out that property, and they can because the elections do make only a small difference; sometimes small differences make big and the problem with that is you don’t always know when; or how much… NEGATIVE HALF-MILE splits again today, 7:23 and 7:04; another 22-minute workout; glad I can do this; even with the evil of these times still invading my dream-thought...

2004-10-08T16:12:00.000-07:00

test

2004-10-07T17:03:00.000-07:00

UP AND DOWN day; early worrisome, distressing news from the West; wrote back lovingly, wishing the best and suggesting new plans… THEN CUMBERSOMELY slow workout at a 14:53 per mile pace; nonetheless, felt substantially better after the 22+ minutes race-walk; endorphins stayed up for hours afterwards, it seems; negative half-mile splits, 7:31 downhill and 7:11 on the upgrade; 7:22 and 6:54 yesterday; this mile-and-half is still right; in ’98 or ’99 I decided two miles was too much and one not enough; it’s about 2500 meters plus or minus; still seems optimum for training, leaving enough energy for whatever else (!) I want to do…. LATE CALL from temp job to work about six days scattered over next 3 weeks; glad to do it; maybe there’ll be more, she said; and maybe less once we get out there; that’s happened too…

2004-10-06T21:08:00.000-07:00

UTTERLY EXHAUSTED from many stresses, romantic and political heartbreaks combined with 4 trips in 6 days to Funky-town to see dentist about broken front tooth, which I think is now fixed or rather suitably replaced… TOUCHING SUFFERING continues as I meditate; unavoidable at present, measuring love’s depth, love’s extent…

2004-10-05T17:14:00.000-07:00

FRUITED ISLAND

NOTHING BETTER exists than a good friend, of which Zen is the best example I know; in these evil times, friendship’s a fruited island; a fine refuge; “Your tormentors will be purified,” says one of her today’s gifts on page 40… SPEAKING OF tormentors, Webster left a message on my machine today; glad I was out or I would have picked up just to find out who Webster might be; at last I remembered and put the speaker to my ear to verify I had misunderstood Webster’s right name; will not call or write back; Zen says that after what was done to me don’t do it no matter that I think Webster might be Ok; fact is she, Webster, sat complacently during the double tirade against me and uttered not a peep; Zen in her wisdom says its time to let all this go…

2004-10-04T21:52:00.000-07:00

test

2004-10-04T21:29:00.001-07:00

SENSE OF heartbreak pile-up relieved somewhat by Buddhist meditation circle tonight, especially chat with attractive facilitator; that’ll do it every time, right? But building new connections and renewing old ones are what’s called for; lunch with Zen today, and accepted invite to watch VP debate Tuesday with an old friend who won’t romance me because I only go for the natural highs; think I blogged about her before….

2004-10-03T19:18:00.000-07:00

STILL RECOVERING from unwarranted, double-barreled and, I suspect, ageist attack on me at Saturday’s Green Party meeting; it was so bad I could hardly make my way among the flute circlers I met with Saturday night; a little better today; discussion group went Ok; participants seemed willing to hear my views; personal attacks are prohibited at this group, as they supposedly were at Green party meetings; this is an extraordinary disappointment; will have to forego some events I had wanted to take part in…. BUT THESE are evil times, with evil-doers coming in all sorts of guises; going to the end of the Void and holding fast to Nothingness, to Quietness; to the best of my ability; touching my suffering and my healing-loving self…. NEGATIVE HALF-mile splits yesterday after that meeting/ambush; 7:14 and 7:04; even splits today, 7:07 both legs, including the uphill stretch; 22 minutes both days….

2004-10-02T09:13:00.000-07:00

CRANKING UP for a moderately busy day; local Green Party meeting at which I’m supposed to watch vibes; possibly lunch with the group and then flute circle gathering tonight, the Native American flute which I find, gratifyingly, I can make music with even with my disabled right hand… POETRY went Ok last night; experimental approach, slightly prosier approach on some deeply personal/political matters well received; read one of these; will try others next month… GOING to the end of the void and holding fast to quietness, which I also understand as nothingness, still… RAHUL’S web-log at empirenotes.org well-worth clicking on today (see right); assault in Samarra put in the perspective of his experience in Fallujah earlier this year; I know this guy and have confidence in his reports; read why Kerry, from a global peace and justice standpoint, is as scary as Bush…

2004-10-02T01:21:00.000-07:00

UNEXPECTEDLY BAD day at Green Party meeting; got ganged up on by two young members who felt that my cautionary comments on overextending our resources were discouraging their activism; wouldn’t let the point go, would not let go of saying I should self-censor my cautionary concerns, should refrain from saying, in effect, what is truly my concern; so I felt I had to leave early; I have been run out of a Green party meeting, and this may be the result this pair aimed to achieve; thought they were my friends; but I’ve made this kind of mistake before; since it was a concerted attack, I have to conclude that they talked it over beforehand and decided that if it drove me out of the party, they would live with that; I certainly am disappointed to lose this connection; in some way, I feel that it was an age-ist move, since two attackers were well under 30 and I am nearly 70; who needs me, right? Something like this happened with the peace and justice group in town as well; time for me to move on, to where I'm not sure; as long as I'm there, it'll be OK....

2004-10-01T15:36:00.000-07:00

SCARY THING about last night’s debate: One of these two empire-mongers will be elected; Kerry did a lot better than I thought he would, and Bush’s having utterly no personal grasp of any issues was scary, but not scariest; yet I do believe it is totally important to repudiate the Bush junta…. MANIFOLD/multi-fold apprehensions about poetry reading tonight; not really ready to share what my new stuff discloses…. A DAY FOR going to the end of the Void and holding fast to Quietness—from the Dao De Ching…

2004-09-30T01:11:00.000-07:00

BROKEN TOOTH sending me to my Funky-town dentist later today; no pain but it means some more money spent on dentistry; I’ve been going to this dentist for more than 20 years, and he’s superbly competent at reasonable rates so I’ll make the trip… IN MY FACE, and on purpose maybe, suggested friend Damsela last night, concerning the truckster/visitor parking his vehicle at my front door; “they,” she suggested, meaning truckster and my ex, may be put off, discomfited by my total lack of reaction to developments, primarily not getting her to get her stuff out of my storage closet post haste; since I discovered I don’t really need to do this, I decided to do nothing; and nothing else different either; interesting possibility; “Nothin’,” said Paul Newman as Luke in the movie Cool Hand Luke, “can be a real cool hand.” Daoist, not so?... EASIER TO deal with since finding that Somebody Interesting I met a few weeks ago wants to have coffee with me…. VIGOROUS pre-dental workout, race-walking at a 14:13 pace; 22 minutes; negative half-mile splits, 7:13 and 6:58….

2004-09-29T20:36:00.000-07:00

HAIR-RAISING TURN, a surprising one, taken in the novel I’m reading, early in the action, less than a third of the way; very neat; Our Game, another winner by John le Carre, acute accent over the “e,” whose real name is David Cornwell; won’t reveal what the turn is so as not to spoil it for anyone… FEEL CERTAIN I have underestimated how important ex-romance was to me; her new interest’s vehicle was “in my face” again today, parked just outside the entry of my building; don’t think I would do that if it were me; in fact, I haven’t parked near her building since we broke up for the last time in February…. MEDITATION touched suffering, touched anger, touched healing, a little more healing today as I gazed at ripening twilight outside my long windows… WEARINESS threads through everything today; still recovering from cold, oppressive heartbreak of even brief duty as a potential juror and other stresses; may not be up to jazz in Addison tonight… BENEFICIAL workout today, good for my mood at least; negative half-mile splits, 7:20 and 7:02, for 22 minutes total; second half-mile at 7:02 is the same as the first after a turnaround and actually uphill, slightly….

2004-09-28T17:07:00.000-07:00

JURY DUTY wasn’t fun, but I can’t say there’s been much fun for a while doing anything, except possibly my improving workout times; I wasn’t picked after I told inquiring attorneys, who demanded a definite yes or no answer, that I couldn’t consider sentencing anybody guilty of aggravated robbery to 99 years to life; aggravated robbery involves the use or the threat to use a lethal weapon; the minimum was 5 years and probation was possible if the jury recommended it and the sentence was less than 10; it was to be a strictly punishment phase trial, since the defendant had already pled guilty….AS IT BECAME apparent I would not be picked, the melody to the bluesy ballad If I Should Lose You started going through my head, as played by my friend Marchel, the song that’s been haunting me since before my ex and I broke up almost a year ago; still “touching suffering” and also my healing, loving nature in my meditation; song told me how deeply this runs….

2004-09-27T16:04:00.000-07:00

STUMBLING THROUGH morning chores; took advantage of early waking; pausing to meditate briefly, still “touching suffering” and thereby my inner disposition/need/determination to love; “thuffering thuccotash!”--As the cartoon character Daffy Duck used to say; what got me into this trouble is all I’ve got to get me out….NEGATIVE HALF-mile splits again, 7:13 and 6:52, for 21+ minutes race-walking to make the mile-and-a-half….THINKING of the tune When October Goes, sad song for the season; written by Barry Manilow (!) and Johnny Mercer; got it on a CD, sung by Genie Grant….

2004-09-26T17:52:00.000-07:00

IN THE MAHAYANA Buddhist philosophy that inspires my meditation practice, I am instructed/advised to “touch” my suffering; after some days of meditating with this in mind, I’ve found that “touching my suffering” also involves touching the basic, deep-rooted loving nature of myself, meaning the source of my suffering is also the source of my healing; odd; but perhaps not so odd….NEGATIVE HALF-MILE splits on a late afternoon race-walk workout today, 7:16 and 6:57, for a 14:13 per mile pace over 22 minutes; felt good enough…

2004-09-25T19:54:00.000-07:00

FOUND Jury Duty poem referenced yesterday; I wrote it after a Tarrant County jury experience during, I believe, the winter of 2000-2001; I put in the poetry format I’ve been using more recently, but I may tweak it again:

JURY DUTY

I DID EVERYTHING I could honestly do to get out of it—or so I thought; had I ever been a victim of a crime? Yes, I told the questionnaire: Four crimes, all burglaries, though they were in a distant city decades ago, and I was pretty sure I knew, then, who did it….“IT WASN’T HIM,” I said, pointing to the defendant, when questioned about this answer later; who in the world now living did I most admire? Why, Ralph Nader, Nelson Mandela and Jello Biafra, I wrote; but all to no avail, and I became one of the select….AND AS WE FILED into the courtroom, one of the prosecuting attorneys greeted us with a confident smirk! Was I supposed to be on his side so soon? Already, reasonable doubt was creeping into my mind and not any less as the state presented its case, through the circumstances were gruesome; a victim—the accused’s girlfriend at the time--had been slashed, hospitalized in a knifing in her house amidst a crowd of sinister, unruly visitors; photos were shown and some of us gasped….YET THE DEFENSE effectively challenged the believability of the state’s two main witnesses, producing a love letter in which the girlfriend/victim begged the accused’s “forgiveness,” and then she cast doubt on what really happened and how she’d been hurt; it came out that the accused had been shot by one of the visitors….I HAD TO FIGHT tears as the love letter was read, and I feared ending up as the sole “not guilty” vote and being threatened with who knows what if I didn’t cooperate….BUT THAT WAS not to be; suddenly, we were dismissed for 90 minutes and then sent home and told to come back the next day; and that was not to be either; late that evening. I got a call that we were no longer needed because the accused had “pled out,” accepting a 12-year sentence; next day, I called to find out more; the accused, it seems, was facing two more trials stemming from the same incident; these charges were dropped as part of the plea deal….I WAS SURPRISED all charges weren’t dropped because the defense had shown witnesses could remember few details; “well,” the bailiff said, “it was two years ago”--you forget, in two years, details of how you almost died? But no matter now; the bailiff was going on; she was inviting me to drop by anytime and witness more trials; I declined, and I don’t think I remembered to say thanks anyway; because—and I think I tried to express this--I’ve seen people breaking each other’s hearts my whole life, and I still don’t know what to make of it…

2004-09-24T15:59:00.000-07:00

JURY DUTY Tuesday; will make no attempt to get out of it, though I’m told you can by asking for a different date with possibility that they’ll never get around to recalling you; five a more years ago, I was on a Tarrant County jury; an innocent Vietnamese man, I felt, was being railroaded, and I foresaw fighting the whole system to uphold my views; no need; he pled to lesser charges, and I wrote a not bad poem about it which I’ll find and post sometime; how can I fail to step up to this job when my turn comes around? And look in the mirror? ….SURPRISED again about a relatively strong workout today; conditioning seems to proceed underneath the allergy/congestion/cold or whatever it is I have and provides relief for about 2 hours afterward; joint discomfort and common sense won’t let me work out all day; 14:35 per mile today; 22 minutes; negative half-mile splits, 7:22 and 7:13, plus newly blooming, stalky clusters of wildflowers, with off-white, tiny petals, growing in the marshy water’s edge….

2004-09-23T15:36:00.000-07:00

MISSED EVERYTHING but the movie last night; battling late season infection/cold; had to miss Q&A plus poetry jam downtown plus late jazz in Addison; oh well; felt good to back off….PLANNING TO take Damsela to museum jazz 6 to 8 today; best jazz musician in Dallas, Marchel Ivery, whom I’m happy to know as a friend, is on the bill; Damsela is a good friend of 10 years, especially recently, and a jazz lover, especially of Thelonious Monk, which make’s her my heart-song sister, though she’s not, I regret to say, available for romance….ANOTHER GOOD workout in the sense of positive side-effects today; 23 minutes at a 14:47 pace, practically even half-mile splits, 7:26 and 7:21; infection/cold felt better afterwards; plenty to smile about: Yellow-petaled, black-centered, long-stemmed black-eyed Susans in bloom, gracing early Autumn de-greening….

2004-09-22T15:31:00.000-07:00

BOUND FOR LIBERTY BOUND tonight; glad to have something different to do; it’s a movie, made by a California Green, that critically reviews the Bush junta’s attack on civil liberties since 9-11; it’s free at Brookhaven at 7 and I’m going to table with some Greens I support, and unless toxic people are present will probably miss the poetry jam planned for Deep Ellum tonight; glad I have a fallback outing, though; and I still have late jazz at Django’s….WRITING THIS UP at mid-day; talked off some of my romantic pain with Damsela last night; worked charm on some evil spirits coming from the next building; actually made-up some tunes today and last night on my NAF (Native American Flute) but lack notation-knowledge to write anything down; intend to work on that….NEARLY EVEN HALF-MILE SPLITS on race-walking today, 7:24 and 7:21; remembering some Zen Buddhist writings, found beautiful sights to smile and even laugh out loud about on second half-mile; from my heart; a good sign….

2004-09-21T21:19:00.000-07:00

STILL MARVELING at last evening’s Buddhist meditation at the Unitarian-Universalist Church; in meditation for about two years, I’ve felt I’ve had two of the three treasures: The Buddha, the one or the element in each one who helps show us the way to live, and the Dharma, beliefs or practices that lead to understanding and love; what I’ve been missing is a Sangha, defined by Thich Nhat Hanh as “a community that lives in harmony and awareness…” This UU circle may or may not be my Sangha, but it may do for a time; felt the power of collective, silent meditation; have been missing it….VERY ROUGH DAY on ex-romance front; had a different emotional reaction to the same set of circumstances; blog about it so lightly that some friends apparently don’t pick up how much it hurts; it hurts, but I’ve tried to focus on the glass being 15 per cent full instead of—well, you can do the math….DESPITE late summer infection/cold, race-walked under 15 minutes per mile two days in a row, 14:20 Monday and 14:28 today for 22 minutes each day; half-mile negative splits today, 7:24 and 7:04; not bad for 85 per cent empty….

2004-09-20T20:58:00.000-07:00

VENTURING into terrain that is new to me: Internet matchmaking, using Yahoo singles lists; dismal so far; lots of TV watchers, churchgoers and sports fans who want a guy with lots of money; Yahoo suggests tips for narrowing search and I may oblige….RECOVERING from whatever it was that got me slightly ill over the week end; congestion clearing; post-nasal drip easing; salt water treatment suggested by a fellow parade participant yesterday works pretty well….SENSE OF urgency continues about certain personal projects; looking for ways to keep hopelessness at bay….EXCELLENT meditation, sitting and walking, at Unitarian-Universalist Buddhist meditation circle tonight; decided that ex’s new interest may not know what he’s getting into; but he will; I’m thinking of the inevitable verbal bullying and fight-picking disguised as vigorous discussion; find myself smiling (grimly) as I remember it…

2004-09-19T18:05:00.000-07:00

BUSY DAY IN store, in store as in stocked up, ready to come off the shelf but hopefully not to fall off; can science prove God exists? To be taken up in UU Church discussion group, one part of the day I don’t want to miss, and then political obligation parade at noon+ to ?, good cause but I hate parades; then soiree at a friend’s house which I may miss, and then late jazz, also part of the day I don’t want to miss; will need downtime sometime.…SEIZED DOWNTIME by the forelock, backing off from parade because felt overextended; my Green Party co-chair understood which was good….AFOREMENTIONED discussion group provided welcoming remarks from two age-appropriate ladies; wrote down their names so I would remember them at future meetings; will revisit Philosophers Forum which was mentioned; haven’t really been back there for nearly 15 years….STILL REMEMBERING friend Zen’s words the other day—how ruined it feels to be everywhere alone….

2004-09-18T20:52:00.000-07:00

FRIDAY’S BLOG posting more readable than I expected, but I’m making no promises for today; things got raggedy last evening at South Dallas Cultural Center film program and post-midnight jazz jam; music was brilliant, but I needed too much coffee to appreciate it because the evening had gone on too long; so today, I backed off exercise, except for 7-minutes of weight-lifting/calisthenics, picked up awaited Native American flute book from the library and started learning the extended scale; really getting into the flute; must learn or re-learn to read music; maybe there’s something for idiots or dummies….RE-BUNGEED, more safely, the plastic plant I retrieved from dumpsterdom one of the times my ex and I broke up this winter; an important symbol; I keep it on my patio wall; strung brown cord looped at each end through drain hole at the bottom of the wall and around over the basket-pot and then hooked the bungee cord to each loop; safer; more secure; cord less likely to snap loose; winds won’t blow it over; each day I inspect and tweak the position of the stems and leaves so it will look more and more like a perfect imitation; viewed with snickering contempt by people who are into real plants, which of course is one of the reasons I keep doing it…

2004-09-17T17:29:00.000-07:00

SURPRISED AGAIN by improved race-walk pacing, 14:40 per mile, 22 minutes again for 1.5 miles; this instead of the 15+or- I was doing most of last few weeks; training effect is taking its time but it is taking, which is good news; lake park was pretty—spent some extra time walking there...MORE TINKERING with living space: Low curtains both to enhance privacy with more light let in and longer views opened up; it’s a first floor apartment with floor to ceiling, almost, windows; have been working on this project since the spring when I was dealing other issues as well and wrote this:

I settle up my death:
Rattle dread papers, read, sign—
dare I twist old chairs
toward long windows? Open blinds
to such welcoming, winged skies?

2004-09-16T22:04:00.000-07:00

BETTER THAN expected pace today, 14:39 for the mile and 22 minutes in all for 1&1/2; heart rate in the five seconds immediately afterwards multiplied out to 120 per minute, meaning I was using 90 per cent of recommended maximum heart output to achieve the 14:39 pace, meaning I’m doing about the best I can right now… FLED MUSEUM almost-jazz tonight to have coffee with Damsela, codename for a poet friend who makes me forget sometimes how much fun I had with my ex; certain circumstances dictate friendship only for us, though we sometimes wish things were different… TINKERING with my living space is helping me right now; feels right; here’s a verse I’d forgotten about from months back:

These sad, hungry days
find no magic solitudes
in hot gusts, sweet blooms:
Distracted from centered truths,
how I miss being in love!

2004-09-15T16:55:00.000-07:00

“I WAS THINKING…” begins one of Zen’s resonating remarks from her blog Tuesday: “I was thinking about how ruined (italics mine) it feels to do anything alone now…”—Zen writes poetry even if it isn’t broken up that way; I have yet to convince her; her causeitsbetterthisway blog can be caught up with at the right; I am thinking now of how ruined it’s been feeling for me for all of this year, except one week in February… RUIN EASED by lake workout today, 23 minutes at a 15:12 pace; sunny and breezy, though humid; no sprinting at the end; comfortable, steady pacing… STILL HAUNTED but not surprised by news Monday that a U.S. helicopter gunship mowed down 13 civilians, including a Reuters cameraman, among a crowd which was peacefully, says Reuters, assembled around an insurgent-bombed Bradley U.S. armored vehicle; we send our nation’s youth, our kids, to do these things; earlier this year, Bush came to Dallas to raise funds; I and others went to a mid-day protest to shout, among other things, “war profiteers” at his contributors; afterwards, I wrote this:

Few know, many mourn;
spring’s jagged edge murders song—
twisted tyrants rage,
raise funds, torture innocents;
the WAR is over. We—LOST!

THAT WAS after Guantanamo but before Abu Ghraib and before Haifa Street this Sunday in Baghdad…

2004-09-14T21:04:00.000-07:00

GOOD TO BE on the east side of White Rock Lake from Mockingbird to just south of what they call the Big Thicket; not so big and not so thick but definitely shady all hours of the day; paced faster as I proceeded, sprinting a little toward the end, though slow overall for 23 minutes at a 15:05 pace; heart rate was 120/60, meaning right after I stopped, it beat 10 times in 5 seconds and then after one minute five times in 5 seconds; that’s considered a good health marker; some other health markers are good as well… NICE MEDITATION tonight as storm loomed and skies rumbled; as I looked out and past local toxicities at the darkening skies, I found myself smiling—welcoming, perhaps, a narrowing, focused vision… BUDGETED fifteen minutes for cleaning apartment tonight and ended up spending 50; surface barely scratched; a little bit at a time, I hope, will do it… GOOD TO BE, I repeat, on east side of lake today where many months ago this winter I was inspired to write the following:

Wind maddened whitecaps
splattering up bright lake-banks;
storm-maddened life, mine,
breaking, remaking, crushing
again: Beauty—ever new!

NOTING—and I did check—crush is both transitive and intransitive…

2004-09-13T17:55:00.000-07:00

REVISITED LAKE trails today, warm and active workout but slow, 23+ minutes at a 15:28 pace, slow but surely in the comfort-zone, a real challenge since I want to be healthy and conditioned enough to go faster; but I’m not there yet; feel generally OK and other health-markers are good, but this one lags behind; hoping that little by little I’ll get there; stress in my life has taken it’s toll; reaching out on a thing tonight, personally; will report; but this reports my mood at the moment...

It is clear now:

Neither honey nor
the honey bee is
to be mine again

--Sappho, 6th Century B.C., from Sappho, A New Translation by Mary Barnard, University of California Press, l958

2004-09-12T19:38:00.001-07:00

TWO A.M. OR SO reflections: She possibly never knew, never let herself realize how much I loved her; how can I forgive that? Forgive her willful turning away from me and my love—in December and then again in February? How wonderful that I loved her, and how necessary, now, that I turn away; and how necessary, now, that I not forgive her... IN THE MIDDLE OF a life-change crisis in l967, I was browsing in a Connecticut library and came across a poem that became as splendidly useful at the time as Thoreau’s Walden and Jacobson’s You Must Relax; it’s from Naked As The Glass by Jean Burden, October House, 1963, now out-of-print but obtainable in some libraries and possibly elsewhere; one of my all-time favorite books of poetry; here is her poem that helped me change my life:

WHAT PILLAR, WHAT STONE?

If I forgive you
what pillar will bear my weight:
what anger will thicken my skin into a wall
to keep me separate and whole
and straight?

If I forgive you
the wall melts in the spring rain;
the pillar divides in two; the stone is sand.
I am the wind that blows beneath my arch,
I am the sky against my hand--

and in the end, perilously too,
I
am you.

2004-09-11T21:04:00.000-07:00

MOVE-ON DOT WOT…

“EIGHT MONTHS of breaking up...” sighed OC, my lake volunteer clean-up buddy of maybe six years about my situation as we strolled along greenways in the park, picking up tossings of overworked, over-wasting Americans; she was right—eight months is enough; so I started to move on by pointing out I was originally drawn to her because of her extreme attractiveness, and by the way since her boyfriend broke up with her five months ago, where do we stand with each other? She replied that my lifestyle is too ascetic: I won’t get drunk with her and I don’t smoke anything, preferring highs that are natural; relationship with her on those terms impossible; as we left brunch, I called to her that if she ever wanted a natural high…etc…etc…

2004-09-10T21:46:00.000-07:00

“JIHAD…”

“TO COMMAND THE right and forbid the wrong…”—words God supposedly said to Mohammed, as quoted in the Koran, defining the meaning of jihad… AGAINST implications that my ex and I crossing the color line together was any easier for me than it was for her, I know that I fought the holiest, most thoroughgoing possible inner jihad (struggle for right, for truth) against the forces, in her and in me and in our obscene culture that were lined up against us; and I shared every battle she was fighting—she made sure I had to and I have the scars to prove it; crossing is not an issue with her new interest; my car’s in the shop today, making my lake escape more difficult, so after a moderately good workout in the neighborhood, I’m forced occasionally to look on her new interest’s pick-up parked this day just outside my window; the jihad continues…

"SEEKING LOVE..."

With what harshness
they come blowing
toward me--
the mountain winds
from deep
within
the heart
of one who asks
no lodging.

FROM Unforgotten Dreams, Poems by the Zen Monk Shotetsu, translated and edited by Steven D. Carter

2004-09-09T20:56:00.000-07:00

SING-TEST, instead of talk-test, while working out today; sang what little I know of the lyrics of Gershwin’s Embraceable You while race-walking 23.4 minutes for 1.5 miles at a 15:28 un-racy, downright leisurely pace; felt good, including return walk, for a total of 56 minutes, a little shorter than usual; maybe I’ve been overtraining; whom could I be thinking of?--While singing,

...I love all
the many charms
about you;
above all
I want my arms
about you...

THIS, KNOWING I must for look out the window each day for a while longer at a wreckage of important hopes, even with a beautiful day waiting behind it all…

"REMINISCING" (1433)

All these images
from
a world
of long ago--
of what good are they?
Pine winds come--
please blow away
these unforgotten
dreams.

--FROM: Unforgotten Dreams, Poems By The Zen Monk Shotetsu, edited and translated by Steven D. Carter

2004-09-08T23:13:00.000-07:00

FEELING SELF-PROTECTIVE and vulnerable at the end of this day; steps I need to take to avoid toxic situations risk political friend’s angry disapproval; spent much of the last year and a half being kicked when I was down in a romantic situation, thinking I could fight through it and we both could overcome; no cigar; I was more fearless than I’d ever thought I could be, and it wasn’t enough… ELEVEN CENTURIES-OLD Japanese poem by the monk Sosei has moved me:

Where is the dark seed
that grows the forget-you plant?
Searching, now I see
it grows in the frozen heart
of one who has murdered love.

---Translated by Sam Hamill, from his Japanese Poems Of Love And Longing

2004-09-07T22:02:00.000-07:00

LONG DAY on personal matters; keeping someone in my good thoughts; good news from a doctor; had feared something slightly more serious; treatment immediate, no follow-up necessary... AT LATE JAZZ last night, began scribbling on some napkins about sentiments at the end of yesterday's blog; it's turned out like this:

EVENING MEDITATION...

High cloud, breaths searching
catch the daylight fugitive;
cicadas murmur
briefly; night comes in to night,
unsteadily in to me...

2004-09-06T20:26:00.000-07:00

RAIN-SPLASHED morning, but no late sleeping; comfort-zone race-walked late yesterday for 21 minutes at a 13:58 per mile pace, so feel OK about missing workout this morning… SIDE-STEPPING heart-rending problems of fellow workers around the world to focus on some personal priorities of mine, long in need of attention; mindful that time for doing this is running short… SUN-SPLASHED afternoon got me out for comfort-zone race-walk, comfort-zone meaning I don’t try to push too hard; per mile pace was 14:02, close to yesterday’s, generally better than when I started five weeks ago; did another 1.5 in 21+ minutes, taking plenty of time to walk back, stretch and re-lace, 40+ minutes; good workout… EVIDENCE continues that I need to harden my heart, let myself be creatively angry, at the way I’ve been treated by my ex-flame; I mean, she ought to get her stuff out of my storage closet before she takes up with somebody else, don’t ya think? Don’t answer that! Here’s a tanka-modeled verse I wrote months ago when I first tried to disengage emotionally from this; regular readers may recall it:

So much to walk--OFF:
And--to walk into being?
So much saying...NO!
And to take this harsh turn now?
Ragged by such fierce, dreadful faith?

ANYWAY, I like the way this looks in italics; … PLANNING meditation, supper and then late jazz, straight-ahead stuff at New Amsterdam; blogging early so I can stay late if I feel like it… GOOD meditation and good supper, brown rice lightly seasoned; high clouds in west hung on to some fugitive daylight, cicadas murmured briefly…

2004-09-05T15:14:00.000-07:00

DAY TWO of heart-hardening toward old-flame Aqua (a codename for web-log purposes) who lives in the next building; got my stomach in knots, I think, yet it’s something I must do; having received excellent advice that I should never get involved with a neighbor, I need to clarify that I helped her move in last year when I thought she was the love of my life; though I don’t follow baseball anymore, I’m reminded of the manager who asked a certain player what possessed him to swing at that high, inside fast ball when the count was full; the response: “It seemed like a good idea at the time…” SPLENDID FLUTE JAM at Unitarian-Universalist Church last night led me to try church service and UU discussion group today; discussion was cool; service was theistic, “high” UU: After thinking I was going to try to blend in inconspicuously, I decided to wear my workman’s cap backwards, gangster-style; something just welled up in me to do it; one guy gave me a dirty look; I returned it with a smile; I think it successfully deterred excessive welcoming from would-be greeters; reminds me of my younger poet-friend Zen Mantra wearing her suicide girl T-shirt at a family re-union and noting that some of her family thinks she’s weird… SOMEBODY interesting asked for my web-log site today and I had mentioned that I sometimes put poetry on it; so here is the title poem of my blog, LOGOPHILIA, which I more-or-less translate “love of meaning:” I hadn’t mentioned that my recent poetic direction has been more prosy, experimental; this started out as a blog entry on May 2 this year; I may still be tweaking it…

LOGOPHILIA

Magnificent sky: Blue turning slate and then soft, scarcely notable red toward the horizon as evening deepens; finding themes of loss to develop and also reflections on...(What is it really?)... the broadening of my heart: The enhancement, perhaps, of my passion’s awful, willful seeking—evident (I’ve… decided) in the sense of what unprecedented emptiness ...her... absence has left me! How much more urgency to love and spread my arms I feel as a result of this arduous, failed romance and how eagerly the beauty of the world rushes in! It astounds me, this grand Spring, in many ways like others—but somehow not so…

2004-09-04T21:11:00.000-07:00

NEED FOR decision is at hand: Should I view old-flame Aqua (who lives next building) as a toxic, venomous predator? (Emotionally speaking, of course…) I think now, today, I should; this decision has been developing for weeks, months, and I should make it now; what’s hard is giving up the tenderness I felt for her, hardening my heart towards her, accepting her “passive aggressiveness” for its true, toxic nature; need to mobilize my subconscious intentionality toward this goal; follow practices that aim to this end; and if I fail to do this, harden my heart, I see now I will not be truly emotionally available for another… SPLENDID MUSIC at Native American flute circle tonight; got a good deal on an inexpensive model; I get notes out of it even with my disabled hand; will see how far I go with this…

2004-09-03T22:51:00.000-07:00

SPENT 15 minutes on clean-up chores today, before going out: Perhaps, little by little, the job will get done, the situation improved; but these late summer days just pull me out, I just can’t help it… GOOD COMMENTARY, point-by-point response to Bush speech on empirenotes.org (see right) today; Bush claim that 10 million voters were registered in Afghanistan balanced against previous assertions that there are only 9 million eligible voters (!) in the country… ARDUOUS ORDEAL of a day nearly over; time to get back to poetry and its truths and away from contesting; disfunction still looms on western horizon; must send off another letter; good vibes from valued friend Damsela tonight; she had a long day too…

2004-09-02T21:47:00.000-07:00

SOME OVERDUE chores begun and partially completed today; plan to continue rebuilding my health and take some steps toward acquiring new job skills, at least experience; if only because the threat to SSI by anti-worker political forces is very real… REAL SLOWDOWN in pacing today, race-walked at 15:30 per mile and stopped for one mile at 16; could have stopped sooner and maybe should have, but oddly endorphins (race-walker’s “high”) kicked in at about 12 minutes and actually could have gone longer than 16; was smart and did not; this fatigue occurred after four days of fairly vigorous workouts; a thing to remember, perhaps…

2004-09-01T16:34:00.000-07:00

UNDERNEATH…

MEDITATED FOR nearly 20 minutes after breakfast today, counting breaths 5 down to 1, thinking of nothing, listening to the news (something I usually DON’T do during this practice), getting underneath, so to speak, cacophonous feelings stirred up by observing evidence that old-flame Aqua who lives in the next building may have a new interest, beyond fresh cigarettes and DVD's, an interest who may be driving the shiny new pick-up parked next to her car today; her living so close “is eating you up,” friend Damsela tells me, and she’s right; I should be glad about this new interest, I should be feeling good riddance, but what this meditation experience just now tells me is not about shoulds but about getting underneath it all, anchoring in an underself, so to speak, even being aware that all feelings are still there: All those damned shoulds, a sense of the world’s warm beauty and its dispiriting news as well as Aqua's piercing, cold-blooded rejection of me, with or without new interests, and my own self-disparagement; I now recall I have found this getting underneath metaphor useful, when I can think of it, for nearly 4 decades of sporadically trying various relaxation techniques, including ones that long ago helped me, helped me give up smoking and other humiliating habits; this Zen business is just the latest, and it is pretty good; my car’s in the shop right now for preventative etcetera, or I’d have gone to my beloved lake and raced-off, buried actually, some of these feelings and thereby missed rediscovering this, at least today; I believe it’s an important find; maybe this time I’ll keep track of it.…

FROM BELOVED LAKE, a training blog: Still moving about clumsily from being forced to speculate that my old flame has moved on to another lover, BUT picked up car and got in a good workout at White Rock Lake: 14:00 per mile pace over 21 minutes, negative half-mile splits (a few second faster the second half-mile) like yesterday, 62 minutes, slow-walk-back, maybe 3.4 miles, sunshine feeling a little too hot and then good at the end, not too hot at all; late summer colors made me smile; still a long way from the 11:00 or better per mile pace I was doing in stress–burdened 2000, but it has taken me four years of next to no training at all to figure out finally what was going wrong, too much lite-salt adding up to too much salt; embarrassingly simple, once I stumbled on it, remembering I’d been through nearly the same thing in 1997…