John Swinburn

Artificial Thought
Ten years into the evacuation, all that’s left should be an uninhabited planet. And, of course, the ruins of millions of commercial and residential buildings and sheer desolation. But the exodus stalled around the fifth year. And by the seventh year, repatriations were in full-swing. By some estimates, planet Earth was again host to almost 40 percent of the pre-departure population at the end of year seven. The original message—the one that urged all humankind to leave the planet—was given new energy after two full years of languishing. At the beginning of the tenth year, physicists revealed measurements that confirmed the original evacuation order. Today, well into the tenth year, we know an Earth-sized exoplanet, untethered to a star, is only weeks from slamming into our planet. We have been told our atmosphere, within eight days will begin experiencing massive pressure gradients that will effectively bend gravity. Roughly a week later, at the moment of impact, the rogue planet will tear into the only place we have ever settled, destroying ever single piece of evidence that humans were ever arrogant enough to think they were in control.  Despite the unmistakable gloom facing us at this impossibly late date, we are doing all within our power to avoid a cataclysmic clash between two planets that would trigger an instantaneous massive and multiple species extinction events.  Realistically, in the time we have before our defenses become completely ineffective, we have only six or eight days to complete the evacuation. And, realistically, we have the capability to evacuate only five percent of the people remaining at this moment. Their destination will be the brand-new Space Pavilion that was conceived forty years ago but was built only after we learned our fate was, in all probability, hopeless. The latest obstacle to survival is the predicted direction the incoming exoplanet will take after colliding with Earth; it will follow the Space Pavilion transports that will carry, at most, five percent of those of us left.

The woman who will command the Space Pavilion interplanetary migration, Sharmotticus Bledgeware, has the most spectacularly attractive face I have ever seen. Every inch of her face exudes beauty, including her piercing grey-blue-green eyes that, when she stares at a person, the target feels intense heat on his skin, wherever her gaze traveled over it. Her only other unusual feature is a nine-foot-long tail infested with yellow thermomagnetic scorpions. Calypso Kneeblood had seen, during a foray into Facebook, that description applied to her eyes. He and I, by the way, are detrimental twins. That is to say we both had an intimate relationship with Sharmotticus. The problem with that, aside from several rather sticky moral issues, can be attributed to her husband’s frequent and completely transparent dalliances with several of the women on the nuclear crew. He (Klagnav Bledgeware) regularly sauntered into the sauna with a naked nuclear physicist on each arm. I’ve wasted too much time. The air is heavy and gravity is spinning me in tornadic swirls. This could change with a simple replacement identity. I am looking for one, preferably in an olive and aubergine finish.

An Unmeasured Opinion
Perhaps the educational system (K-12+) in the United States needs a complete overhaul. It might begin with a comprehensive exploration of the relative importance of every subject and ending with the selection of topics, curricula, and a skeletal mandatory syllabus. Teachers would have considerable autonomy in determining and selecting optional elements of the syllabus. Included in the system would be at least one mandatory foreign-language; graduation would require demonstration of proficiency in the selected language. Other core courses would include English, world literature, mathematics (up to and including algebra, geometry, and business math), world history, local and state and US history, basic biology, basic geology, and “shop/home maintenance.” Students would receive instruction in (or, at least, self-educational exposure to): keeping accurate personal finance records; how to balance financial accounts; and budgeting. In addition to a broad and well-balanced course of study, students would be required to serve at least one year each in the military and the service corps. The first year (in the military) would be intended to instill a sense of (and obligation for) discipline, teamwork, and the importance of following the chain of command. The second year would continue the inculcation of a service ethos, but would be meant to serve as a means of building among the service members the characteristics of compassion, sympathy, and community cohesiveness. Rural kids would spend an intense three months in a dense urban area; kids in cities and towns would spend a like amount of time on farms and ranches and other rural places of business. Finally (perhaps), following on the example set by some schools in Japan, students would be taught to, and expected to, perform some of the duties of janitors, kitchen and cafeteria workers, and other blue collar occupations. These educational opportunities would be arranged to correspond to subjects taught in “shop.” I could go on and on. Of course, I have always said I could never be a teacher because patience has never been my strongest point. Something that should be taught at home (along with some others in my long list), too, is polite behavior; but it should be emphasized and reinforced in schools. Lapses in polite behavior should be punished in ways that will stick with the student; the student should be made to understand that future such behavior will not be tolerated.

The most significant overhaul in education should begin with prospective parents BEFORE conception. Before the decision to have (one or more) children, couples should be required to successfully complete a short certification course on parenting. Once the certificate is granted, the document can be used to justify a single birth (experience). Parents and children will then be evaluated annually or more frequently; either the family will make necessary corrections or will be reconfigured. I am not any more “okay” with children being permitted to be rude, insensitive, and otherwise obnoxious than I am with the same behaviors with parents. I am not certain how I feel about corporal punishment, but I think if it is absolutely needed it should never be so physically or verbally violent that either of the parties to the interaction could be injured.

Now, before anyone adopts my thinking on education, I want to encourage actual research into the effective of my approaches and whether any unwelcome and unexpected consequence could be triggered by them. If so, I would hope the researchers would explore and evaluate other options until safe and workable methods are available to replace the unsatisfactory ones.

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Birthday Cluster
Today is my niece’s birthday…just two days after mine. No matter how hard she tries, though, she will remain younger than I am from here on. Always 24 years younger, up until the point when I stop having birthdays. Several others have birthdays in October. I do not understand how that can be. We’re different people…with the same birthdays?! How can that be? I would explain, but I have people to be and jailers to flee; I cannot be captured, is that so hard to see? Yep, I’m behaving like an eight year old kid.

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Sympathy, in the face of indifference, is a squandered emotion. Indifference redefines sympathy, calling it a weakness; a flawed emotional state deserving only disdain and mockery.  Emotions can be fragile states that, in the presence of pressure and contempt, sometimes shatter like brittle glass or harden like steel. But when strengthened by compassion and resolve, sympathy and its many generous siblings shred indifference into soft, restorative fibers of tenderness.

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Venom is the distillate of hatred; the deadly product left behind when kindness evaporates, replaced by barbarous animosity. Hostility comprises the requisite nutrients to sustain hatred, enabling it to intensify and pair with bitter loathing and unspeakable cruelty.

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I’m into this afternoon’s second cone of incense; this one came in a box that claims it will create a cinnamon aroma when it burns. The first one today was a repeat of a recent burning: called Full Moon, I cannot identify the aroma, other than to say it seems especially appealing this afternoon.

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Today’s visit to the oncology clinic was limited to an infusion of IV saline solution. After last night, (when I experienced instant-onset nausea followed by voluminous vomiting), I think the fluids today might have been, coincidentally, exactly what I needed. Last night’s experience was, by far, the worst case of vomiting I have ever experienced. Until last night, nausea was accompanied only by dry heaves. None of the nurses seemed concerned about last night’s experience, so I will not worry about it, either. At least for now.

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Yesterday’s 72nd birthday represented a restrained celebration of my unexpected survival. Many years ago, when I was 20 to 25 years old, or thereabouts, I concluded that my life probably would not last beyond 60 years. I had no premonition, nor any specific reason I can recall, that prompted that prediction. I did not think it would be “death by suicide” or “death by brain cancer” or “death by automobile accident.” It was simply an expectation that my life would end for some unknown reason at a relatively young age in modern terms, the legitimacy of which I did not question. A period several years earlier, during which I often thought of resolving my years-long and deeply hidden emotional maelstrom by way of suicide, might conceivably have contributed to that forecast, but memories of that mental turmoil are foggy, at best, so I cannot make any attribution with certainty. And there would be no point, anyway. After all, the anticipated termination of an unfinished life had failed to materialize a dozen years earlier. But thinking about a time when I thought I would be mentally prepared for every cell in my body to stop working jolted me into being grateful I did nothing to bring that experience about. Morbid thoughts can make a mess of one’s emotional stability; such ideas contribute to anxiety and otherwise cause cracks to spread like spider webs in one’s confidence.

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I received a text last night that was, without question, the most heart-warming, moving, powerful messages I have received in a very long time…maybe forever. It came as a completely unexpected expression of appreciation. Ever since I received it, I have been thinking about how best to acknowledge it and how to express my gratitude to the sender for the sentiments expressed. The message, arriving on my birthday, now holds a place in my heart as among the most meaningful and touching I have ever received. After receiving it, I realized my birthday was, in fact, very happy.

A clear, cloudless night sky looks radically different than the same sky at noon. Sky is defined as the region of the atmosphere visible from Earth’s surface.  But, at night, the atmosphere is not visible from Earth, is it? At night, we see far beyond the atmosphere,  into the distant reaches of the universe as we know it. So, do we stare into the sky at night, or do we look beyond the sky, peering instead into space? 

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Time can temporarily hide the unfortunate transformation of an idealist into a skeptic. When the lighthearted optimism of an idealist is revealed to have mutated into the suspicious uncertainty of a skeptic, the attitude of a person who witnessed the change spirals downward. But the pessimistic skeptic may be more brutally shattered by his own transformation than is the witness.

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My lifelong habit of waking long before the sun rises is attempting to become a fond memory. Actually, I frequently wake in the wee hours but, unlike my early-morning practice in days of yore, I choose to remain in bed. That choice rewards me with the luxury of additional sleep. Simultaneously, though, the decision punishes me by robbing me of my precious pre-dawn isolation. And a slow-motion form of kinetic activity replaces the morning serenity I so deeply appreciate. Yet, it’s obvious to me that the value I place on sleep—or, perhaps, simple unconsciousness—often eclipses the significance of my old stand-by: quiet observation and experience. Daybreak brings with it varying degrees of illumination. As the sky becomes brighter, the sounds grow louder; I can hear through the windows as nature awakens outdoors. Suddenly, I become starved for silence.  I miss the absence of noise. Perhaps my old habits will return, if ever my body is allowed to adjust to a cessation of chemical infusions.

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Symmetry. That is one of the things missing in the output from my attempts to draw or to create paintings. Symmetry is missing from my efforts to produce handwritten notes, as well. When I stumble across something I penned many years ago, I notice that my cursive handwriting was legible but awkward, as if produced by a hand incapable of symmetry; unable to create smooth motion. Over time, the legibility of my cursive writing grew worse and worse. At some point, it seems I switched to printing; my cursive writing had become impossible to read. But my printing, too, devolved into uninterpretable marks on paper. Had I focused my early efforts at drawing and painting and, importantly, writing on symmetry, I might have been capable of producing meaningful memos and messages. Ach!

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The brilliant blue sky is empty now. Except for the detritus of space exploration and espionage—and nuclear ambitions. By the way, today is my birthday. I can tell by looking at the calendar.

Inflation is alive and well. The cost of my Medicare supplemental insurance increased by $42 a month; the cost of my prescription drug plan jumped by almost 213%, a $50 hike. Food prices seem to be on an upward trajectory, too. Gasoline prices, though, are drifting downward; trustworthy predictions say they will continue to decline. The average price for a new car in the U.S. (Average Transaction Price) has surpassed $50,000 for the first time. Clothing has long seemed obscenely overpriced, in spite of the fact that much of what we wear is produced in other countries by people who are paid unconscionably low wages.  Thus far, inflationary pressures have not been sufficient to put a dent in my comfort and convenience. But people who were already struggling, and have never been as fortunate as I, must find themselves in increasingly tight spots. And people who were just barely hanging on are at risk of becoming casualties of an economic model that is notoriously lacking in compassion and driven largely by greed. Those who already had been left without resources and without even the thinnest safety net? The society in which we live is trying to hide them by erasing homeless encampments.

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About eight hours ago, just before 12:30 a.m., I woke to light washing across the open blinds and filling a wall across from the bed, with what I initially thought might be a a car’s headlights panning across the house, as the vehicle drove around the circle of the cul-de-sac. But the breadth of the beam of light changed dramatically, as if a very bright flashlight was being used to illuminate a wide area with a side-to-side motion. The blinds on the French doors suddenly lit up, as did the bed and the walls. Peering out back, the light seemed to swing back and forth across the entire forest. This isn’t the first time I have been startled by light pouring in from the dark forest. I wonder whether I actually saw it this time…or was it imaginary illumination?

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Two huge crows just arrived, landing first on the garage roof (from which they had a good vantage point to keep an eye out on their “feeding rock,” where they are used to finding plenty of peanuts in their shells) and then on the driveway. The birds are communicating with one another—and others, hidden in the trees—about the unpleasantly cool temperature. At the moment, the outside temperature is 49°F, approaching 30°F cooler than the temperature I find increasingly attractive.  The idea of immersing myself in a hot tub or a heated pool is quite appealing. There’s a correlation between fat loss and comfort; apparently, there’s something to be said about body fat being a good insulator. As body fat diminishes, so does the comfort it provides. Speaking of the joys of heated water, a geothermally-heated swimming pool is featured in a few scenes from The Diplomat. The pool is presented as being located on the private estate in Amagansett, New York, belonging to the occupants of the White House. In fact, though, the filming location was in is the Seacroft Estate on Centre Island in Oyster Bay, New York. I want that pool. I might not refuse the entire estate, if presented to me as a gift. 

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Unlike most mornings (and other day-parts) lately, I find myself feeling hungry at the moment. Having already gone through an Ensure, a banana, and two slices of bacon, I normally would feel more than satisfied. But not right now. Mi novia cooked a pot of  Anasazi beans yesterday; they were extraordinary. Perfectly spiced, perfectly textured, perfectly flavored. Now THAT sounds like a great way to assuage my hunger this morning.

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Never deprive someone of hope; it might be all they have.

~ H. Jackson Brown, Jr. ~

If they can get you asking the wrong questions, they don’t have to worry about the answers.

~ Thomas Pynchon ~

If The Apocalypse were to begin just before 11 one Saturday morning, would we know it? Would we recognize the signals of impending doom? What would constitute clear
apocalyptic signs; evidence that the end really is near? So many questions, but only supposition and guesses; no dependable answers.  It is entirely possible, given our ignorance of apocalyptic forecasting, we would miss the harbingers of cataclysm. Just one more thing to worry about.

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It’s been days since I began the morning with a cup of espresso, thanks to my body’s recent displeasure with the idea. But this morning I renewed the ritual. In an ideal world, I would use a top quality espresso machine to make the elixir. This flawed reality in which we live, though, satisfies my craving for espresso by providing me with a relatively cheap Nespresso-type machine. If I owned finely engineered espresso machinery, of course, I would need an assistant who would be responsible for the actual creation of each cup; and he/she would bear responsibility for keeping the equipment in pristine condition.

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Several dreams woke me last night, but I remember almost nothing about them. I know only that, in each case, I woke to my own voice loudly asking “What?!” Or something like that. One of my dreams, though, seems to be hiding just beneath my consciousness. Perhaps it will spring out from my hidden repository of dreams during the course of the day. If it does, I may or may not document what I can recall of the artificial experience.

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Yesterday’s “No Kings” demonstrations generated a lot of media attention. The numbers I’ve seen so far suggest the turnout was very good. But I noticed the comments left on news articles about the events contained enormous volumes of mockery and venom from people who worship Trump. I doubt the demonstrations will have any substantive effect on this administration or Republicans in general, but making the views held by about half the population is vitally important, I think.

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Some people believe there’s a good chance that an irredeemable kid, carrying a switchblade, is crouched in every back alley, poised  to stab you and take your possessions. Other people carry the switchblades.

I would like to visit the Obama Presidential Center when it is completed, but that wish is complicated by so damn many obstacles.  A piece in today’s New York Times added fuel to my desire to experience, first hand, what I believe will trigger a massive resurgence of understanding and appreciation of President Obama’s contributions to American society and our place in the world. (Unfortunately, our place in the world is diminishing with every passing day, thanks almost entirely to the malignant narcissist-in-chief whose words and actions are driven by revenge and a host of psychopathic traits.) Despite my desire to visit the center, when it is complete, I share some of the concerns that others have expressed, one of which is that the facility will accelerate the gentrification of the neighborhood in which it is located. Yet, the idea that the venue will serve as a community anchor for the area may negate that concern, if the concept becomes reality. Aside from the cultural significance of the Obama Presidential Center, I am drawn to its architectural significance…and to the artworks that will be part of the venue. Chicago is awash in magnificent examples of extraordinary architecture, by the way. The colorful glass windows and other art installations will be draws, in and of themselves, to the Obama Presidential Center, I think. But, oh, the obstacles: the timeframe for completion; cancer; weakness; the limitations of Time, itself; and my distaste for dense crowds—among others. Ach.

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The third law of motion, formulated by Sir Isaac Newton, is “every action has an equal and opposite reaction.”  Applied to the physical world, the law makes sense and helps us understand how the world works. But, if applied to actionable intentions, the laws of physics can confound us. For example, if I follow through on my intent to make a donation to a charity, I should expect that action (according to the third law of motion) to result in and equal and opposition reaction…that is, the charity should deposit an equal amount to my bank account. That’s not how exactly how it works, though, despite the aphorism to the contrary that says “no good deed goes unpunished.” One could look at the matter from a different perspective, though. The “equal and opposite reaction” need not be identical—only equal. So the reaction might take the form of a different, but equal, reaction; like a scam in which criminals intercept details of my charitable contribution and use them to siphon money out of the charity’s coffers. I accept that the laws of physics are real and true, but that does not mean I really understand them. I don’t. In fact, if my brain were far better developed, intellectually, I think I would argue forcefully against the universality of those laws. In earlier times, others have argued against the prevailing wisdom, only to be executed (Giordano Bruno and Hypatia) or imprisoned (Galileo Galilei). I might be judicious in sharing my theories, in light of the lessons of history, though.

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Chemotherapy creates havoc with one’s blood. More than half the results of the Complete Blood Count (CBC) taken yesterday were outside their “normal” ranges; either  high or low. Similarly, several readings from the Comprehensive Metabolic Panel (CMP) were outside the normal ranges. Those deviations have long since become “normal” for me. I have learned which of the anomalies may signal reasons for concern and which are simply manifestations of the chemotherapy drugs circulating in my cardiovascular system. I would rather not have reason to know such stuff but, on the other hand, I would rather understand the so-called abnormalities than wonder whether they signify that my treatment has gone awry.  Yesterday, my oncologist reviewed the just-collected CBC information with me and confirmed that the aberrations were not of concern. But she wants me back next Wednesday to do more lab work, as a follow-up to yesterday’s chemo treatment. It’s nearing noon today (Saturday) and I seem to be feeling the effects of yesterday’s navelbine infusion; lacking energy and ready for another return to a soft, comfortable bed.

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We have watched all but one episode of the recently-released new season of The Diplomat, which was released on Thursday. That should explain how we’ve spent the last two evenings. The show provides solid entertainment that holds my attention.

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When I lived on the coast of the Gulf of Mexico as a child, I visited Padre Island with some regularity. Not infrequently, during those short treks to the beach, the surf and the sand was littered with Portuguese Man-O-War siphonophores (commonly called, incorrectly, jellyfish). I learned quite early to steer clear of them; their tentacles (actually,
cnidocytes) are venomous, capable of inflicting very, very painful stings. No reason for mentioning this, other than the fact that it dropped in on my mind. I think, perhaps, my brain is in the midst of some mental fractures, hence the variety of unrelated images floating through my head.

Much of my “padding” is gone, thanks to significant weight loss over time. Sitting on a wooden bench at the Balboa Marina at lunch yesterday was extremely uncomfortable; there’s essentially no fat to cushion my bony butt from the hard surface. Every part of my body looks thin and gaunt, as if I have been intentionally starved for a long period of time.  My skin, especially in those areas of the body where I’ve lost the most volume,  drapes over my bones as if belongs to someone much larger than I. I guess, losing weight is not necessarily accompanied by shrinkage of the skin that once covered the now-gone fat.

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The clearest way to describe certain experiences may be this: my sense of self is engaging in a surreptitious battle, my body fighting a war with itself, in which there will be no victors. Those feelings can come upon me suddenly, with little or no warning. While I am otherwise feeling as close to normal as I ever get, suddenly my sense of comfort and safety is eclipsed by a combination of physical and mental assaults that seemingly come from nowhere. No matter how I respond to them, the results always seem to be the same: when I gain an advantage over one of the assailants, I lose ground against another one. The collective territory of lost ground, though, expands; the size of territorial gains continues to diminish. It is entirely possible that these sensations arise from fatigue; reacting to the onslaught by surrendering to the idea that the future is preordained. Intellectually, I reject the hypothesis that fate has a role to play in our lives. Emotionally—and irrationally—I sometimes play into the scenario that it does.

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I imagine spending time, alone, in a sizeable craft workshop/gardening shed where I pass time by puttering. I envision my endeavors transforming uninspiring landscapes into lush gardens, accented with items that arise from by my artistic expressions. There, I will remain isolated from the influences of the outside world—where war and famine and unprovoked hatred have sullied what could have been a beautiful environment.

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The morning sky has finally begun to lose its pall. The strip of sky visible to me from my study is brilliant blue, with evidence of intermittent thin clouds.

The U.S. government and many of the people it represents have long justified the displacement of indigenous peoples in support of westward expansion. The so-called treaties—used as tools during the negotiations to persuade indigenous people to exchange lands east of the Mississippi for western land—should be seen for what they always were: devious tricks with hidden objectives. I have heard comments, for as long as I can remember, mocking indigenous people and their supporters who complain about the way they have been/are being treated. My only explanation for such attitudes is that those people seem to be lacking a gene for empathy and compassion and morality. And, in my humble opinion, they are stunningly stupid.

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Untold trillions of images are projected to our retinas during our lifetimes. I assert that most of those images may never get far enough into the brain to register. Some of the light and electrical impulses that travel from the retina and through the optic nerve to the brain seem to disappear before the brain can record the image.  We “see,” but are essentially unconscious of those images. Only images that register matter. But could we somehow train ourselves to fully process every image? Or, at least, enable us to select images beyond those that are recorded automatically?  Those thoughts percolated in my head as I allowed my eyes to follow and focus on everything in my study; item-by-item. I began to make mental note of everything, individually. By the time I got less than halfway through truly “seeing” the contents of my bookcase, I stopped to acknowledge the impossibility of what I was trying to do. My eyes followed the edges of each book. They recorded the colors of the books’ spines and, occasionally, the title if the typeface was large enough to read. But it became too much. Yet, taken in small doses, I think staring intently at a few elements of one’s environment can be enlightening. It tends to emphasize the purpose of each item behind the image. This is all speculation, of course, inasmuch as I have no scientific bona fides. My education, though, includes a Certificate in Alphabetization, A Through M, so that should count for something. See the image here? Every dot of every size is a place I plan to visit.

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The day is committed to getting away from me, but I am even more committed to making sure that doesn’t happen. You see, you can’t let a day get the upper hand. Don’t let it bully you into believing something you know is not true [e.g., “I didn’t realize it was Thursday already…I thought it was Sunday or Tuesday.”]. And for SURE, don’t fall for its demand that you sprint from one second to the next minute.  So, assuming the day does NOT get away from me, what do I have planned?

First, I will conduct a mass-hypnosis event, placing every human being on the planet into a hypnotic state. Next, I will “program” them to be generous, kind, peaceful, welcoming, diversity-loving, and morally ideal people. The rest of the day will slide by in a decidedly leisurely fashion, doing whatever it will along the way. Tranquilidad.

Oh, except I have a palliative care nurse scheduled to visit around 11, so I probably will have to retain my grip on reality until later. I can return to Shangri-la whenever I feel the need for peace, solitude, and absolute power.

Too much sanity may be madness and the maddest of all, to see life as it is and not as it should be.

~ Miguel de Cervantes ~

Marfa, Texas has occupied my thoughts—off and on—for several days. I suspect a solicitation I received from Marfa Public Radio sparked memories of the place. I had responded to the station’s urgent call for support a few years ago; ever since, I have been on its list of past and prospective donors. Memories of the few days I spent in and around the town some years back trickled back into my brain. From there, I explored deeper by going online. That exploration prompted my interest in returning; not necessarily for a brief visit, but to settle there. The county in which Marfa is located (Presidio), comprises roughly 3900 square miles and is the fourth largest county in Texas. In recent decades, the town and ones surrounding it (including Alpine) have become havens for artists. Presidio County has quite a mix of wealthy liberal refugees from other places in Texas (and out-of-state) who contribute to the fact that the county is predominantly Democrat. Of course, a significant portion of the county’s area (including the town of Presidio) is populated by very poor people, too. The population of Marfa is less than 1,700 and the population of Alpine in adjoining Brewster County is about 6,000. One of the appeals of Marfa (and the surrounding county) is its population density. Another is my perception of its liberal, artistic environment. The fact that such an out-of-the-way place can have such a dynamic public radio station speaks volumes, too.

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Another deeply troubling dream, thrusting me back into a world of stressful work, invaded my serenity last night. Quite similar to several other dreams I have had lately, in this one I was hours away from departing for an out-of-town conference. I was worried because I had failed to begin work on several projects that should have been completed long before then. If only I could have delayed leaving for the conference for a week or more, I could have finished the projects; but that was not an option. My mind was occupied by thoughts of how embarrassed I would be when my failures were uncovered during working board meetings.

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The strength of two character traits, coupled with an appropriate skill or two, combine to help determine whether an individual is apt to be progressive/liberal or conservative in thinking and action. An advanced appreciation of the value of critical thinking is one of the traits. Compassion is the other. The level of a person’s ability to apply them in real-world settings is among the skills that shape that individual’s political and social perspectives. Absent possession of one or the other of those traits, a person is unlikely to be progressive/ liberal. Someone who is compassionate but whose critical thinking skills are lacking is unlikely able to rationally differentiate between criminals and victims. A competent critical thinker who lacks compassion tends to be judgmental and is apt to willingly misinterpret or misapply critical thinking processes so that they favor subjective prejudices over objective assessments.

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In an effort to contain and counter the very unpleasant, painful, and almost disabling consequences of constipation, for the past week I have foregone using prescribed painkilling hydrocodone/acetaminophen pills to supplement my fentanyl patch. Surprisingly, I have noticed little, if any, increase in the level of pain (unrelated to constipation) I had thought the pills were controlling. Opioid analgesics cause constipation, according to medical literature and medical practitioners. Oddly, though, those painkillers do not seem to manage pain caused by opioids…at least not for me. I have been routinely undergoing chemotherapy since I was diagnosed with recurrence of lung cancer in late 2023. Fortunately, the pain for which I began taking painkillers did not begin until at least a year or more had elapsed since the diagnosis. I wonder whether the battle to fight pain, fatigue, weakness, shortness of breath, etc. will ever come to an end? Or is my condition going to be permanent/perpetual? That possibility (likelihood?) sometimes triggers depression that seems insurmountable. Even though that mental state eventually passes, it seems to last a little longer each time it comes to visit.

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Those crows—such big, beautiful, black birds—are enjoying their breakfast of peanuts in the shell. I watch them and think of how dangerous their lives are. But how carefree!

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As much as I loathe authoritarians, dictators, totalitarians, and tyrants, I might make a good one. I would be benevolent. I would listen to opposing points of view, but I wouldn’t put up with arrogance, nor with willful stupidity.

A recent afternoon, spent listening to a variety of traditional and contemporary classical music, triggered in me a powerful longing for the impossible: a deep emotional and intellectual understanding of the core of the music, the kind of understanding that, I suspect, takes the better part of a lifetime to achieve. Most of the music was not new to me, nor was my appreciation for it. For some reason, though, listening to it when I did sparked a wistful yearning to know it far better than I do; and to have spent my life learning what might have been in the composers’ minds when they wrote the music. Mind you, I was not—and am not—thinking about suddenly “knowing” about these matters. I regretted I had not invested the time and dedication during my lifetime to interpret the music and the way it affects me. I wanted to have devoted time to learning about the composers’ lives and what influenced the direction their compositions took. Among the pieces I found so compelling: Gymnopédies, by Erik Satie; Piano Concerto No. 2, by Sergei Rachmaninoff; Canon in D and parts of Hexachordum Apollinis, by Johann Pachelbel; among others. Some of the music is incredibly complex, so much so that I doubt I could fully appreciate its complexity without extensive musical training and exposure to music theory over a period of many years. Other pieces are breathtakingly simple, yet as powerful as any music I have ever heard. My knowledge of music is essentially nil; “I know what I like” is about as far as my knowledge goes. My tastes, though, are wide-ranging and eclectic; I am partial to the music of John Prine and the Decemberists and Enya and Pink Martini and the Rolling Stones and Willie Nelson, too. Music and emotions are synonymous, I think, and music captures and preserves how we experience Time. That may be the most fascinating aspect of some music; it permits listeners to be transported to a time when the music was composed and to feel the emotions that prompted its composition—even when we do not know just what those emotions are.

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When art is treated as a feast for the senses, it can serve to create commonality among disparate groups of people. Art can bring people together in ways that override potentially troublesome differences. But when art is viewed merely as the subject of a transaction—when it is crudely acquisitional—it can emphasize differences, especially economic differences. There are plenty of people, though, who collect art only to ensure ongoing supplies of sensual pleasure or to support and express appreciation for artists. And, then, there are those of us who long to be talented artists but do not have the requisite abilities to create art that illustrates what we see in our mind’s eye.

A correlation exists between a person’s discomfort and his inability to harness coherent thought. The greater the degree of discomfort, the less lucid his thinking. Despite suggestions to the contrary [that irrational thought and ingenuity feed off one another], the confusion that accompanies a lack of lucidity does not necessarily pair well with creativity. Creativity suffers in the face of discomfort just as much, if not more, than does clear thinking. I know this from personal experience.

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The loud, gurgling noises emanating from my stomach provide evidence that my digestive system is in an uproar. The unpleasant sensations I feel in my mid-section—like an angry live snake is battling to burst through my abdominal wall—confirm that diagnosis. Understanding the diagnosis does not mean I understand its etiology. What, I wonder, is causing my gut to deliver such a combination of distress and pain? Did I consume something poisonous? More importantly, what is the best way to put an end to this unwelcome interruption to my satisfaction and serenity?

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My reputation as an apple pie afficionado has earned me some fabulous rewards. Just a few weeks ago, some wonderful friends delivered a spectacularly good apple pie, produced by a bakery renowned for its extraordinary pies and other such baked goods. Yesterday, another friend came by to give us an apple pie she had baked; it, too, was remarkably good, leading me to believe that the baker of said pie deserves a global following. The fact is, though, that it’s not my love of apple pie that so rewards me. It is the fact that I have such wonderful, loving friends. I am a fortunate man, indeed. By the way, the uproar in my digestive system preceded the pie—which bears no responsibility for my complaints.

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If repairing defective parts of one’s body were as easy as replacing computerized modules in today’s automobiles, I would willingly pay for both the parts and their installation. The number of body parts that require replacement is significant, though, so I might have to secure several loans in order to complete them. Just like cars, though, there’s no doubt a point at which the cost of repair compares unfavorably to the cost of replacement. That being the case, though, it might be worth dealing with the situation in a similar way one might deal with a car that’s in perfect condition, except for the engine…just replace the engine. In the case of humans, though, it would be the reverse; keep the engine (the brain) and replace the remainder of the defective parts. As I consider this, though, it occurs to me that I would want to make a number of upgrades to the mental and emotional components in my brain. Indeed, I might want to keep only a few legacy parts and replace the rest. Have I already written about this? I suspect so, because these are not new ideas for me. Hmm. What happens to cars that simply cannot be repaired? They are left to rust in the junkyard.

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Mid-October’s cooler temperatures, I hope, will help douse the fiery social and political rages of summer. But the weather, even if it has some impact, will not solve the problems arising from universal fury. If we have a any realistic hope of solving those problems, we have to stop fanning the flames. The option is to allow the fire to spread until our society burns, leaving the spoils to the “victors;” that is, the surviving bloodied and beaten combatants and the other survivors who did their best to avoid the fray.

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I have mixed feelings about protests. On the one hand, I think people need to strongly express opposing opinions and philosophies. On the other, protests can too easily turn into name-calling and accusatory rants that wound their targets so deeply the damage is almost impossible to heal. And protests can harden opinions that can be questioned into certainties that are not subject to argument. I am just as guilty as the next person, though. Calling entire segments of the population stupid, moronic, evil, ignorant, and a host of other offensive epithets does not make reconciliation easy.

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My improvement from my most recent bout of what I will call “sickness” is slower than I hoped it would be. All my life, I have been advised that, as people get older, injuries are slower to heal. The same is true, I think, about illness. I am unwillingly demonstrating the validity of the claim. Nonetheless, I believe I am making progress. Because I have been extremely weak lately, I cancelled a massage appointment I had scheduled for today. I doubt having a treatment today would have been relaxing and enjoyable, anyway.

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Once again, I’m burning a cone of incense while I sit in my study trying to write something someone might find worth reading. Today, though, I’ve switched to Dragon’s Blood scent; the scent of the last cone I burned was labeled Full Moon. My favored scent remains Patchouli, but I enjoy the variety of exploring others. Yesterday, we reclined on the loveseat in the entertainment room (originally a bedroom), listening to a selection of soft contemporary classical music. That experience might be enhanced, for me, by burning a cone of Patchouli incense, but the smoke might annoy the cat…and mi novia. If I cannot find it in me to write something of interest, I will be satisfied to have tried.

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I watched, live, some of the service at our UU church this morning. I watched only a little because the sound quality was poor…not because of what was broadcast, but because my computer monitor’s built-in speakers are about as cheap and inadequate as any on the market. I haven’t been to church in quite a long time; so long that I am sure I would not recognize many members and friends who have joined in the last year or more. I vacillate between wanting to go in person and wanting to spend my Sundays at home; my oncologist advises me to avoid crowds to the extent I can, so I use that as justification for my sloth.

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My enthusiasm is not at its nadir, but neither is it at its zenith. I may have some ice cream to improve things.

Sometimes, signs pointing to the road to recovery are subject to the mischievous cruelty of vandals. Two days ago, I thought I was on that road. In fact, I was trudging along a country lane that, as I traveled, morphed into an unpaved path that degraded to a trail filled with potholes and, finally, came to an abrupt end. So, I retraced my course and now am in the midst of taking a different route. I have been sleeping inordinately long hours (14 hours night before last, 11 hours last night, and many hours on top of that, in the daytime). I am trying to drink lots of fluids and trying to eat enough to refuel the strength I’ve lost. In my condition, those actions are much more difficult to accomplish than they might seem.

Yesterday, my chemo treatment was cancelled because my oncologist had an emergency. My appointment was rescheduled for a week hence. But, because I was feeling so weak and frail, mi novia arranged for the main office of the cancer center, in downtown Hot Springs, to accept me to get IV fluids and IV steroids. That helped, but I am feel like I am a long way from being back to “normal,” whatever that means in my present state of being. I did not get a chemo treatment, but I doubt my oncologist would have gone forward with it even if she had been available. I just hope I am in reasonable shape to have it administered next week. Ach!

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Between feeling miserable, sleeping, and trying to replenish my flagging energy, I’ve been scanning my phone for news (a pointless exercise that simply adds stress to an already stressful situation), playing word games, and scanning Facebook. The vast majority of my Facebook feed is unwanted advertising, bogus “news,” and other content I find more and more unappealing (to put it mildly). So, I think I’ll wean myself from giving that bit of social media so much of my attention. Speaking of social media, and its obvious contributions to today’s explosive political and social decay, I think a time will come—and I hope soon—that Facebook, Twitter/X, Instagram, TikTok, Threads, etc., etc. will either cease to exist or be restructured to the extent that they cannot be such negative forces in society. Other apps, like TruthSocial and its ilk, should be dissolved or burned. Something(s) must be created to replace the extraordinary good that social media are capable of providing (and have provided), but the bad is far exceeding the good, in my view. But great care must be taken to avoid allowing bad uses to overtake new processes to accomplish necessary good deeds. NextDoor, obviously created with good intent, is an example of an app created with good intent that has been invaded by bad users with bad intent. Instead of being used for neighbors to communicate with/help neighbors, many NextDoor sites are used to berate neighbors who hold different philosophies and opinions. Perhaps social media cannot successful be addressed, though, until society has been cleansed of its pandemic of political disease. There must be a tenable and gently enforceable political and social governance structure, somewhere between absolute freedom and absolute control, that provides ample personal freedoms and adequate public conformity to ensure a stable, reasonably tranquil, kind of society. Perhaps AI will provide an answer…and implement it, whether we like it or not.

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I have dozens of ideas for books and stories I would like to write, but I lack the energy and the discipline necessary to write them. So, I’d like others to write them. The work would then be recorded on audio so I can hear them read (my eyesight still sucks). In addition, I would like to see several of them make into films and television series I can watch at home. I’ll need my life extended to give me time to get through them all.

The day began uneventfully yesterday. By 10:00 a.m., though, it began to sour. It got progressively worse—first, mild discomfort, then significant discomfort, then pain, then intense pain. From there it went downhill. I won’t go into the unappetizing details. Suffice it to say I spent most of the day wide awake, but wishing I weren’t. I wanted to go back to bed and sleep, but that was not in the cards. Finally, late in the day, I was able to get back to bed. I slept late this morning. I think…hope…I’m on the road to recovery from a bad day, one that won’t repeat itself. Though I am not even close to 100% just yet, I believe I qualify as alive and fair. I am about 99% certain the flare-up is attributable to some of the medications I am taking as an adjunct to my chemotherapy. My next visit to the oncologist is Friday. I hope by then to look back on yesterday as a diminishing memory.

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This afternoon, during a period of being awake, I joined mi novia in watching a documentary (Famous Last Words), consisting of an interview with Jane Goodall. The interview was recorded in March of this year, using completely automated cameras and with only the interviewer in the room with her. Once the interview was complete, the interviewer left the room. Until the program aired earlier today, no one else had ever seen it. Though much of her spirituality, as articulated in her final words, is not mirrored mine, her comments and admonitions were extremely meaningful. I highly recommend this program…and I will go back to watch the program from the beginning, before I joined mi novia in the “TV” room. I think all of humanity needs to hear Jane Goodall’s “Famous Last Words.”

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I learned yesterday afternoon that an acquaintance and writing colleague of mine, Mary Lou Moran, died on September 19. When I moved to the Village in 2014, she was president of the writers’ club and was active with the group for years thereafter. She encouraged everyone she encountered to “share the story” of their lives, whether through fiction or memoir or some other genre that would enable to writer to express who was “in there.” I last saw her only a few months ago, when we agreed to get together “soon” to discuss writing and to offer one another encouragement. We did not follow up on that agreement. I offer my condolences to her family and friends.

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There’s not enough humor in this society in which we live, especially when humor is all we need to make it through the chaos. And there’s insufficient rage, when rage is what we require to achieve peace. Paradox may be unfortunate, but it sometimes is the only tenable option.

Pressure. Uninterrupted stress. Tension. Heaviness. Brittle. Fragile. Breakable. Friable. Weight. Even in an environment overburdened with linguistic opportunities, we’re often at a loss for words. So many utterances fail in their efforts to attain man’s search for meaning. Understanding is not just illusive; understanding is truth made invisible, hiding beneath innuendo and behind insinuation. Knowledge, itself, is a house of cards—a delicate shelter susceptible to the ravages of wind and rain and infestation by guilt masquerading as innocence.

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Sovereignty is another concept living in our imaginations, hanging on by a time-worn silk thread. It is the kind of thread we want desperately to weave but which we now know requires the integration of a spider’s magic and a dream weaver’s capacity to transform liquid into rigidly flexible steel. That full appreciation of the impossible blocks the path between our dreams and the only direct route of achieving them.  We scuttle all missions before they reach the point of no return. Consequently, of course, our understanding of sovereignty is entirely theoretical. If ever we were to pursue a mission to completion, it would involve declaring sovereignty over the Moon. That declaration, of course, would lead directly to full-scale interplanetary war. For that reason, alone, no such declaration will ever be made…unless an incredibly stupid person were to somehow take the reins of the Presidency of the USA or its successors and assigns.

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Much to the chagrin of Congress, a top-secret mission to establish a permanent “Military Superiority Moonbase” (MSM) was successfully undertaken by Elonia Trump (ET) in 2048. ET was the first product of intergenerational in vitro fertilization (IIVF) involving the Trump family dynasty. ET’s mother was the product of an unauthorized union between Melatonia Trump and Gargonzola Musk; ET’s father was of South African lineage. ET, itself, was both mother and father to the sweet child she renamed “CyberBaby^3.5” in honor of its checkered past. PLEASE STAND BY: THIS NEWS BULLETIN MAY BE CONTINUED AFTER THE GENOCIDAL CLEANSING OF BUENOS AIRES IS COMPLETE.

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I love the smell of shoe repair shops…or, at least, the smell of such places when they were still common. Every aspect of life changes during the course of one’s lifetime. I remember having shoes re-soled with thick pieces of leather. No longer. Today, celery is the material of choice when repairing running shoes. Artificial rubber and photographic memories are used to repair dress shoes today. And…do you remember how you used to have to swallow food to get its nutritional value? I do. But that’s not necessary anymore; not even permitted. Food is steamed in extremely high temperature dining halls, where we “eat” by inhaling nutritional steam while staring at photographic images of extremely rare ribeye steaks and sniffing glue from model airplane kits.

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It’s time you learned the truth. Thurgood Marshall is dead. Diseases of the skin do not exist; their “symptoms” are caused by the body’s absorption of epithelialesions that have been released into the atmosphere during visits to the International Space Station. Mondays, by the way, have never existed. Those so-called “days” consist of regular 24-hour periods during which humans are placed in comatose states for recharging and mental repair. The next time you come across anyone who claims his name is Ramekin, ask him to explain Mondays to you; you’ll be in for an eye-opening experience, after which you will be targeted for proscriptive euthanasia. The reason crows are intensely black and shiny is that their jobs require them to “open carry,” which can result in very unpleasant interactions with rabid gun-hating  mockingbirds. Guns, holsters, etc. are essentially invisible when strapped to crows’ wings, giving the black birds what amounts to a few seconds of “invisibility,” when the crows can eliminate the threats posed by mockingbirds…simply by “murdering” their offensive adversaries.

High-speed replays of educational programs created and delivered by the U.S. guv’mn’t enable anyone with a Groove-Tuber Connection to get free access to courses including such classics as Dictatorship is Good; Permanently Stupefying Your Stupid Constituents; Road to Ruin on the Empathy Highway; Taking Pride in Your Willful Ignorance; Secretly Putting Broken Glass in Your Opponent’s Eyes; God Forgives Everyone But You; and Dumber Than Dirt.

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Some days, the oncology treatment rooms I visit are packed; every chair taken. Other days, when I am one of the few (or only) patient getting an infusion or an injection, I wonder whether some ‘brilliant’ medical mind has advanced a theory that chemotherapy drugs are less effective on on certain days. For example, would Fridays be off-limit to administration of vaccines? And can vaccines be safely administered only on “special” Fridays, and then only by witches, knights wearing heavy armor, and….what?  The difficulty of giving one’s imagination free reign is that even the most practical people—floating aimlessly on a slow-moving stream—can suddenly find themselves microseconds away from reaching the end of a vicious set of rapids and then plunging over a 1,000-foot cliff to oblivion. Fantasizing about possible outcomes of treatment can be rewarding; I am suddenly and magically cured; my vision suddenly becomes perfect (without glasses); and so forth. It’s odd, though, to fantasize about gaining weight; I do not know what would be my “ideal” weight, but I’d wager it is considerably higher than the recent measurement of 147 pounds. I look in the mirror now and see an image that looks disturbingly like I am trying to mimic  photos I have seen of brutal Nazi concentration camps.

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I see the week slowly grinding its way forward, leaving ragged tracks in the pebbles and powder and dried blood earlier crushed beneath the wheels of time. The transformation between the “old ways” and the thunderously powerful “new ways” is taking place much faster than I thought…and much faster than most of us though possible. We have reached a point some among us would call the entry point to “the technological singularity:” a once-hypothetical future point where Artificial Intelligence (AI) surpasses human intelligence, leading to uncontrollable and unpredictable changes to civilization. The speed of the increase in knowledge, but especially the speed of its application, can no longer be measured. That milestone is visible from every point on our planet. Human professions we recently thought could not be “replaced” by AI—like surgeons and lawyers and oilfield  “roughnecks” and poets—are in existential danger. What functions might we humans want to fight tooth and nail to retain, exclusively? Here, arguably, are a few: police officer; corrections officer; criminal court judge; probation officer; decision-making regarding first-use of nuclear weapons; among many others.  But agreements among humans to withhold those functions from the realms of AE “performers” would be useless. A single instance of crossing the boundaries between acceptable AE and potentially dangerous AE would, almost instantly, implant the functional ability essentially “everywhere.” Simply sitting at my desk, mulling over the most obvious potential unintended consequences of AE is quite enjoyable. Tracking the less obvious possible effects is even more fulfilling; the free-range creativity involved in hidden possibilities is thrilling and frightening and has questionable influences on one’s mental health and stability.

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It wasn’t the allure of the highway itself that I found so magnetic. It was the charismatic distance that the road so readily offered—that was the hook. The separation between now and then gave me the temporal space I thought I needed for renewal. And the chasm between here and there—suddenly within easy reach—felt like a shelter from a devastating storm. But privacy and isolation fill different needs. I knew, when I looked back over my shoulder and saw smoke laying claim to every shred of history, smoldering embers would consume the future. Fear and anticipation and hopeless expectations filled me with unavoidable dread that armies of our protectors soon would stumble, embracing treason with every misstep. When our own armies began torturing children while the parents watched, I felt the muscles in my gut tighten. Though the time was too late, I snatched an ignition device from my pocket and pressed its button. The armies were gone. The children were gone. The parents had disappeared. Black smoke poured from the space on the ground where the highway had been. Hundreds of thousands of acres of huge evergreens lay smoldering in the valleys below and the mountains above. No one else saw the catastrophic damage…because there was no one left to see it but me. Yet I, too, was gone. There I was in the first stage of existential denial, unable to report this cataclysm to the appropriate authorities because there were no authorities. And I was just a remnant of someone’s or something’s random memory, disconnected from everything. It would be only a matter of minutes…maybe just seconds…before that vaporous version of myself slid through a jagged opening in what was left of the sky. I quickly glanced around me, waiting for confirmation that the worst event imaginable had just taken place. To my horror, neon signs would begin to be visible. In multiple hues of an impossibly large assortment of colors, the signs all convey the same message: It will only get progressively worse, beginning today and lasting one million millennia, each played back with declining speed. My memory will function only as far back as the moment I hit that button and only as far ahead as the moment the colorful neon signs began to appear. The short circuits that led to this unfathomable tragedy were designed and produced by a small team of Artificial Intelligence Entities (AIEs) that will replicate and distribute the circuits. The questions of the day—and from that day forward—would be these: Were humans the final objectives of evolution—or have AIEs taken on that mantle? Or, has there ever been a final objective of evolution?

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Too Many Years Ago

One by one, the twinkling stars stopped twinkling. Their lights dimmed, then brightened, then dimmed again and, finally, died. Early that night, the sky was so full of stars there was no space between any two of them to place another. Before 4:00 a.m., though, only a dozen unfamiliar points of light remained in that massive eternity of blank space. Like the rest of the stars, our sun had disappeared and, with it, the comforting heat that had constantly radiated from it. The Fahrenheit-scale thermometers that day registered temperatures as high as -75°F and as low as -202°F at that predictable moment before gravity became so intense that spacetime itself shattered like. Many of our astronomer colleagues call that moment The Singularity. We who fully understand the way this entire situation unfolded are more apt to call it The Impropriety. Whatever the term, neither words nor the situation they describe could have existed until the discovery of Frangible Fluid, an exceedingly delicate liquid crystalline structure that can be bent, broken, stretched, compressed, and used as paint, among other applications. Absent the discovery of Frangible Fluid, human society would have been unable to successfully merge all religions into a single compelling belief system (incorporating…magically…evangelicalism, atheism, agnosticism, Christianity, Islam, voodoo, and others). Frangible Fluid, too, enabled us to combine all forms of government and governance into an innocuous mixture of accountability, empathy,  morality, selfishness, and social obligations. Watch for news media announcements and widespread promotions/propaganda about both The Impropriety and Frangible Fluid.

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I have written in months past about the fact that various files relating to my medical history describe me as a “pleasant 71-year-old  man.” I assume the “pleasant” is just a code word for “not overly obnoxious.” What would the doctor’s notes say about me if I filtered neither my language nor my behavior?  I assume the files will be updated after my birthday to indicate I am a “72-year-old man.” What kind of person might they call me if I behaved badly on a regular basis?

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I would be willing to sell my soul, except that I am afraid I would be disappointed and embarrassed to discover the demand for it could be astonishingly low. I wonder what an attorney who specializes in soul-based commercial exchange might include in a contract for sale? Perhaps I would be more successful if I were to offer a rental arrangement; the “buyer” probably would feel better about having some form of guarantee.

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I am considering the possibility of building nuclear weapons. Among the first purchases, I think, to enable me to begin production will be a centrifuge—I often read news articles about the importance of centrifuges in nuclear weapon proliferation. Where would I go for a construction permit? I could probably produce a counterfeit permit; after all, someone willing to buy centrifuges “under the table” probably is the kind of person who would engage in counterfeiting valuable papers. Next question, am I that kind of person? If something were to keep me from getting involved in counterfeiting, would that something be my own internal morality-based obstacles or my fear of the repercussions? I have to admit I have an apparently endless supply of fear of prosecution and imprisonment.  But my fear of others’ judgment of me might be even stronger. I’ve always been advised not to put any stock in what other people think about me…unless they are people who have the potential capacity to “make” or “break” me.  If others’ perceptions would play a big part in my thinking, I would be deeply embarrassed by who I am. But, then, if I didn’t value others’ opinions of me, what kind of person would I be? Once thing I would NOT be is a person I would want to spend time with.

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Biblical quotes sometimes consist of the most powerful set of words relevant to a particular topic. For example:

Matthew 7:1-6. Judge not, that ye be not judged. For with what judgment ye judge, ye shall be judged: and with what measure ye mete, it shall be measured to you again. And why beholdest thou the mote that is in thy brother’s eye, but considerest not the beam that is in thine own eye?

American Gothic is the 1930 painting by Grant Wood, depicting a farm couple standing in front of their Carpenter Gothic style home. Wood’s sister was the model for the woman in the painting. The Wood family’s dentist was immortalized in painting, playing the role of the farmer. The farmer in the painting is grasping a pitchfork. Pitchforks have two to five slightly curved tines. Tools with fewer tines are used to turn bulky materials; those with more tines are best for looser materials. The three tines of the pitchfork held by the farmer in Wood’s painting suggests the tool was the type used to turn hay or straw. But a reference to a three-tined instrument elsewhere calls it a “weapon,” known by another name: trident. Three-tined pitchforks (AKA tridents) historically have been associated with religious symbolism and political rebellion. Tridents are found in connection with Greek (Poseidon) and Roman (Neptune) gods that protect the realm of the sea. Whether the etymology of the word “trident” had any bearing on Wood’s use of his family’s dentist as a model is open to discussion and debate—but the word is derived from the Latin word tridens or tridentis: tri meaning “three” and dentes meaning “teeth.” Implications like that, though, are woven through the fabric of conspiracy theories and the like. A few years ago, mi novia and I stumbled upon a sign that led us to a farmhouse in Eldon, Iowa. The place served as the setting for Wood’s painting. Such aimless road trips can yield unexpected experiences. And those adventures can serve as fodder for future fascination.

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Another impossible dream. A luxury cruise on a small (less than 300 passengers) ship around the Great Lakes. My preference, actually, leans toward a cruise on a luxury yacht; ideally, the very small list of passengers would be subject to pre-screening and my personal approval. Having never been on a cruise longer than a single night, I might discover that I loathe cruising, but I suspect I might enjoy it immensely, if I had sufficient control over the itinerary, the passengers, the qualifications of the crew, and the luxuries and amenities available during the cruise. Unless and until I am offered a guaranteed “dream” excursion, though, I have no immediate plans to begin making arrangements for the experience. Except in my over-active imagination.

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My white blood cell count (WBC) continues to be low (at 1.7) and dropping, though before the recent downward trend it jumped into the normal range briefly. The lowest point of 0.5 was labeled “critical low,” considerably lower than the bottom end of the “normal” range of 4.2 to 10.0. The oncologist prescribed an injection yesterday to address the low white blood count. I think her decision was based in part on the advisability of getting various vaccinations, including COVID, flu, etc., etc. I’ll see about getting the vaccinations next Monday. A low WBC is one of many reasons to avoid crowds and cruises. Perhaps I could actually entertain the possibility of a sub-ideal version of a Great Lakes cruise if I could get my WBC back in “healthy” territory. Hope (AKA fantasy) springs eternal. My ongoing weight issues (latest figure: 147 pounds) continue to be worrisome. No matter how obvious it is that I need to eat more, I rarely can force myself to consume more than a little bit at a time. The reality of malnutrition shows up from time to time in the form of increasingly obvious weakness. The WBC and weight issues probably would be addressed completely if I were to stop chemo, but that might bring on an entirely new set of concerns, such as triggering a rapidly accelerating rate of cancer cell growth. Virtually everything in my life seems to remain on “pause.”  An argument could be made that “pause” is more appealing than “stop” or “fast forward to the end of the file.”

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The feathers of those big, raucous birds are as black as carbon. The sheen of their plumage reflects light like mirrors. The creatures’ morning routines consist of boisterous interchanges—perhaps conversations or arguments or mocking laughter. The trees surrounding the driveway in front of the house are laden with all sorts of birds, but the most visible and most audible are those huge black ones that look too large, too heavy, and too cumbersome to fly. Watching them fly, though, erases judgment about their clumsiness; their stunning twists and sharp turns and death-defying dives in flight are the province of expert high-wire acrobats. Mi novia just bought a little black display dish, modeled after those intriguing critters, in which she keeps an assortment of decorative quartz crystals. Crows—real and abstract, straightforward and abstract—are everywhere I turn lately. Crows; they did not choose that name for themselves. Humans, English-speakers with scant knowledge of how the birds live their lives, selected that word. I prefer the word used by Spanish-speakers: cuervo. Perhaps if I had experience listening to French conversations about them I would have developed an affinity for corbeau. What do the caws of crows symbolize? Are they mocking humans for our bureaucratic minds? Or do those vehement shouts say something unflattering about our lack of feathers? Perhaps they will warm up to me if I deliver daily treats to them—mi novia bought a big bag of unshelled peanuts that I suspect are intended for los cuervos. As for the image above: I do not know the source, I did not create it, but I admire the artist who did.

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Tomorrow marks a week since my most recent chemotherapy session. My patient portal shows that tomorrow’s scheduled visit includes two hours for treatment and two hours for labs, injection(s), and a visit with the oncologist.  I cannot rely on the appointment times to reflect the actual visit, due to the impossibility of predicting how much time each patient’s condition will require of the oncology team. Last week’s treatment went by incredibly fast; faster, I think, than any I have experienced before. Regardless of how much time my appointment requires, though, days involving more than collecting blood for labs seem to require me to spend a full day, including going to and from the cancer center and the time I spend there. Tomorrow, I will ask my oncologist whether I can get all the vaccines I need at any time or, if not, when I can get the injects. COVID, flu, pneumonia, etc., etc. I’m tempted to request vaccines for measles, tetanus, diphtheria, pertussis, rubella, and any others that may be available…if for no other reason that to express my utter disdain for the “other Kennedy” who is trying to convince us that vaccines are poisons. Asshole! I have developed a moderately productive (and mildly irritating) cough. If I had a legitimate means of laying blame on him for whatever ails me, I would do it. And I would call his actions deliberate attempts to kill me. Unfortunately, felony convictions have been proven NOT to disqualify people for Federal “service” to the public.

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Preemptive euthanasia (PE). I first used that phrase a number of years ago. At the time, I was unable to find any reference to it on Google or other search engines like Dogpile and Bing. Today, though, a search yields quite a few hits; all of them, though, are post-2017. My use, though, refers to the termination of a person’s life to eliminate the high risk that the subject person will make others’ lives miserable. I do not recall ever finding that definition applied to the phrase. I also used the phrase “euthanasia once-removed” to describe the same thing. Unlike the first term, though, the latter one does not yield results in a Google search. I am confident many people would find both terms repugnant, despite the purity of the underlying motive; that is, to eliminate or prevent suffering to others by terminating the cause of suffering. I am not in favor of the death penalty, though, nor do I think the “state” should take individuals’ lives for any other reason. “The State” has been shown to be utterly untrustworthy in the death penalty’s application. So, to overcome my objections to a concept I find both appealing and appalling, I propose the death penalty be eliminated and that “preemptive euthanasia/euthanasia once-removed” be overseen by a Citizens’ Council on Death at a Distance. The Council would have several representatives from every country who would be charged with making a determination (Yes or No) to invoke PE involving candidates from other countries to which the representatives have no connections. For example, a panel of PE representatives from Sudan might be enlisted to determine whether an insufferable individual from Japan should be administered PE.  A panel from Guatemala could be chosen to provide the same service for Iceland. If I ever had to make a decision about whether to move forward with implementation of PE, I think I would have to withdraw from the process. It’s easier to adopt hard and fast rules for hypothetical situations than for the real world.

While most of us were busy with our cluttered, frantic, and questionably purposive lives, a few among us spent time and intellectual energies on more esoteric matters. Twenty years into the twenty-first century, a group of astronomers devoted their days and nights to revising the ways in which the boundaries of galaxies were determined. Traditionally, galaxies’ boundaries were defined by using fixed levels of brightness (surface brightness isophotes) as a means of determining galaxies’ sizes. A team of astronomers, led by Nushkia Chamba of the NASA Ames Research Center, developed a physically motivated criteria for the boundary of a galaxy based on the required gas density for star formation.  A better understanding of astrophysics and related matters might enable me to more fully explain Chamba’s criteria. In the absence of that understanding, though, I willingly accept the results of her explorations. My acceptance of her work, though, did not answer the question that led me to answers to other questions. The question for which I was seeking an answer was this: Are all stars a part of a galaxy, or do some stars exist beyond the limits of galaxies? Further research led me to the answer: Most, but not all, stars belong to galaxies…as far as we know, based on our present understanding of the universe.  My  original question, though, was even less pragmatic. Rather than call it a question, though, I probably should call it a matter of general curiosity concerning subjects about which knowledge is pointless. If there were a corner of the universe, where would it be? In an attempt to recover from the boundless irrelevance of my general curiosity, I kept looking. That’s when I came across Nushkia Chamba and her work.

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We’ve begun watching Lynley, a murder mystery series involving two mismatched detectives on BritBox. The series is only four episodes long (about 1 hour each), but based on what we’ve seen so far, I hope it is renewed for another season.  I started watching Los Gringo Hunters on Netflix. It’s an action series in which a specialized Mexican police team is tasked with catching and deporting U.S. citizens who have fled to Mexico to escape imprisonment in the U.S.  I find it entertaining. And I am a little embarrassed that I find such a show appealing.

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The veins on the back of my hand and wrist are clearly visible. I would think I should be able to see those veins move, if only very slightly, with each beat of my heart. But they do not move. When I stare at my hands, they remain absolutely still, as if they had been carved in marble. I can hear my heart beat, though. And I can hear my stomach growl. Those noises are the reasons I want to experience total silence; just to understand what the experience is like. One’s body is a mysterious amalgamation of baffling pieces, sewn together with tissues so thin they are almost invisible. The thought of being able to see inside the body reminds me of something I had as a kid: a clear plastic figure shaped like a human body. Inside, colorful models of all the organs and muscles and tendons and tissues and the like were clearly visible. By removing the top half of the clear figure, I could remove all of the individual pieces. I should have kept that figure. I wonder where it is now?

Some days, virtually everything within my line of sight appears dull, as if bleached by the sun or treated with whitewash. Like an old, weather-beaten wooden fence painted with a thin mixture of lime and water, every image on those days seems dimmed by an invisible haze.  Or viewed through an ancient metal window screen that’s worn and dusty…a light breeze away from total collapse. I have, for years, blamed my eyes for the decay in my vision. But my eyes are not entirely responsible. Pollen and heat and the dust and smoke rising from rice fields set ablaze after harvest contribute. A few years ago, while driving through acres and acres of corn fields in the mid-west, i watched the pollen and harvest dust tint the sky beige. I recall thinking that, if I could scratch my fingernails across the sky, I could have left marks…like a blackboard overburdened with chalk.

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Once again yesterday, I had a multitude of things on my mind, but my brain refused to cooperate in documenting any of them. So, after I had been up for quite a long time, went back to bed, where I spent most of the day. Consequently, I missed  visits by two friends. Later, between brief periods of consciousness, I tried repeatedly to focus my attention on something that might trigger thoughts of a subject to write about.  Finally, sometime between daybreak and its subsequent midnight, a few topics of interest crossed my mind. If I had been sufficiently energetic, I might have recorded some thoughts on my smart-phone or jotted a note to myself to serve as a reminder for later. I was not energetic. I did not  have a pen and notepad nearby (nor did I have enough drive to go find them). So, I gave up. And I do not recall yesterday’s ideas. Such is life.

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I had another massage Saturday afternoon, my third since being introduced to the massage therapist not long ago. When the session concluded, I set another appointment for two weeks hence. Between massage and sleep and movies/streaming series, I think I could occupy all of my time and then some. But I’d still have to fit in time for my oncologist and people like her… people who rely on my Medicare and supplemental insurance to fund their current lifestyle, their retirement, and so forth. In fact, I do not begrudge members of the several medical teams that serve me. They chose careers that would flood their bank accounts with money; I settled for an employment trajectory suitable for sustained mediocrity.

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I would like to find something worthy of celebration…an event or an idea or an attitude that merits festive observance. This worthy “something” need not be especially noteworthy—just deserving of appreciative acknowledgement. Additional caveats: it must be something positive (not involving the cessation of something negative) and it must be unusual. Oh, it also does not need to be relevant to a majority of the world’s population, but it must have an impact on large percentages of at least half the countries of the world, as presently configured. Why, though? Why the desire for something to celebrate? Why the limitations on it? Why must it be relevant to so many people in so many places…but not necessarily to everyone? Those questions have answers that matter only to skeptics and cynics…and, of course, to people like them in meaningful ways.

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Mass casualty events—especially those that are planned and executed with the express purpose of generating fear, terror, and hopelessness—can almost immediately wreck a society’s frame of mind and keep its spirits low for a very long time. Multiple invasions of a society’s psychological condition have the potential of radically altering nations’ collective perception of one another. Distrust can morph into malignant invasive kudzu, spreading so fast within even healthy communities that, once detected, its spread is nearly impossible to contain. In my opinion, deep research into the after-effects of a few of the mass-casualty events since the 1960s illustrates how such events can remain in a nation’s/society’s collective consciousness for years, shaping long-term reactions and responses to them. For example: the Vietnam War; the 9/11/2001 Al Qaeda attacks; the 1995 Oklahoma City federal building bombing; 2016 Pulse Nightclub attack; 2017 Las Vegas mass shooting; 2022 Uvalde, Texas school shooting; the 1994 Rawanda genocide; the July 1995 Srebrenica, Bosnia and Herzegovina massacre; etc., etc. A quick search of Google returns a very long list of such catastrophes. In each case, I believe thorough research would yield information about deviant psychological and sociological  reactions directly attributable to the triggering events. What can our descendants expect in response, over time, to the January 6, 2021 attack on the U.S. Capitol? Ongoing school shootings? Murder and arson perpetrated in religious venues? The “disappearance” (at the hands of a Federal government laden with disdain for morality, legality, and human decency) of hundreds or thousands of potentially-undocumented immigrant children? The lists of such events are beyond comprehension…mine, at least.

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An apple turnover is visible in a cool display case, nestled among all sorts of other pastries. They, along with apple fritters, donuts, cinnamon roles, kolaches, klobásníky, and cake donuts plead with me: “Please take me! I need to be eaten joyously, and I know you’re the man to do it!” This little display case is directly in front of the door to the pastry shop. Almost everyone in this sleepy East Texas town visits Patricia’s Pleasing Pastries at least once every month; either right before or right after church. Most of the working-age population of Palestine, Texas is employed by Patricia’s Proton Plant, a facility that manufactures original-equipment-quality products for use in restoring atoms whose neutrons are fully operable but whose protons were damaged beyond repair during various stages of the atomic restoration process. Patricia’s Proton Plant is the largest employer in Palestine, with a workforce of roughly 28,000. Patricia’s Pleasing Pastries employs the remaining 200 workers. Some people in and around Palestine call the town’s employment situation a “closed-loop semi-serfdom system,” but most of them still call it “Bruce.” Before Patricia bought the proton plant, Bruce had been the owner; old habits die hard. I hear the turnover’s plaintive cries again; “I am the last one. The one with the most flavor. Don’t forget, too, I was baked in a nuclear oven! ” The apple turnover tried to retract that last sentence, but it was too late. Before the exclamation point could leave its lips, the  turnover burst into flames, blackened layers of its crust spraying into the air. My eyes barely had time to scan the room, before I could see and feel and smell the fear in the air for just a fraction of a second. I was the only one left alive after the terrifying, apocalyptical explosion…but the blast made me invisible to the first responders, who flew in from Percilla, Texas on the papal helicopter. You might recall the year before, the global religious community was shocked when the merger was announced between Christianity (formerly the Catholic Church and  the Southern Baptist Convention), Islam, and Hinduism. The Pope was named church leader and the headquarters of the combined church units was moved to Percilla. I was delighted to be, essentially, a fly on the wall, to watch and hear the religious and political ramifications of the merger. Thanks to my surprising invisibility, I was able to manipulate conversations and agreements so that, ultimately, the “Unaffiliated” faction, comprising only 24% of the total membership of the combined religions, was given irrevocable religious powers, thereby taking absolute control of religions, worldwide. Petitions from the “unaffiliated” faction to ban the Bible  notwithstanding, the book was retained as an historical resource for religious fables.

The forest-green, long-sleeved, t-shirt I am wearing is covered with strands of white cat fur, thanks to my decision to hold Phaedra (the cat) in my arms  for an incredibly brief moment a short while ago. Judging from the amount of fur Phaedra left on my clothes during that fleeting embrace, the gravitational pull of my body must be enormously powerful. So powerful, I think, the fur from cats locked in solid steel vaults can be extracted from the animals by gravity, pulled through thick steel walls, and permanently affixed to cotton fabric. And not just sufficiently adhesive to cling to cotton, but strong enough to behave like welded stainless steel nuts and bolts encased in material a thousand times harder than Time and Distance, multiplied by the largest prime number, commonly known as M136279841.

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I heard footsteps. Or I felt them. They belonged to someone else; not to me, nor to anyone I knew. Who is so careless that they scatter loud footsteps in their wake? Who, especially, is so unafraid of the crushing sounds of boots on bone that fear, to them, has an aroma like smoked roses and the desolation of an ice storm? Is that a pathway to escape or, instead, a passage to purgatory?

The first leaf-drop of the season may have taken place just moments ago. Whether it was the first one or not, watching the leaf break away and float to the ground seemed symbolic to me; change is on the horizon. The air outside is absolutely still. Looking through the windows is akin to staring at a still-life painting. When gentle breezes or powerful gusts pry hundreds of leaves at once from branches and twigs, one can miss the transformative symbolism. But a single leaf falling in the absence of even a hint of air movement calls attention to the metamorphosis. If I allow myself to focus intently for just a few minutes on what that leaf’s surrender signals, I feel privileged to experience something readily available to millions—but ignored or dismissed by all but a few of us. Our good fortune is not evidence that we deserve something special; it is simply a piece of luck whose jagged edges have been polished to a luminous, smooth, high-polish luster.

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Years ago, when I lived in Chicago, a woman with whom I worked initiated a friendship with me. Her husband (who, if memory serves me correctly, was an immigrant from a Middle Eastern country) was an engineering professional, though I do not remember what kind of engineering he practiced. Whatever it was did not satisfy him. His wife said her administrative/managerial role in the company for which we both worked was just as unfulfilling to her. Both of them sought radical changes in their lives. She told me they wanted to move to Puerto Rico, where they hoped to buy and operate a venue they could transform into a bed-and-breakfast facility. Their visions for the venue were vastly different, though. The venue of her dreams was a stately old mansion. I think he, though, would have been thrilled to buy or build a place with a much more modern style…closer in concept to the Lakeshore Drive building which had been designed by Ludwig Mies van der Rohe, in which they rented a condo in Chicago. My memories of her husband are hazy and rare. Because she and I worked together, I recall my relationship with her more clearly. But my memories of both of them end abruptly. I do not know what happened. She could have been fired and subsequently disappeared from my tiny social circle. They may have moved suddenly. There could be a thousand reasons my memories about both of them simply stopped being made. One of the last memories I have of visiting with her took place at El Rancho Mexican restaurant, a delicious dive of a place where I think she introduced me to tacos al pastor.  It’s odd that she is on my mind this morning. I believe we worked together and knew one another for no more than two or three months. Nonetheless, that brief budding friendship remains imprinted on my brain for no discernible reason. Perhaps an article about van der Rohe I skimmed recently was the trigger for my short detour down memory lane.

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I built a shrine to the sky, using stars to define the monument’s most distant edges. Within the shrine’s inner sanctum is an endless tribute to understanding and truth. Construction of the altar began long before I knew how the story would end. By then, though, too much time had passed to enable me to start over. I could only hammer at the weakest sections and, when they collapsed, replace them with improbably timeless alternatives to words that no longer have meaning: tomorrow, later, forever, always. Shrubs and trees are related in the same way as are crime and criminality. They erupt from a common bloodline that’s ripe with opportunities for deviance. Watch carefully as vines assert their dominance by smothering interlopers. Peer deep into the night sky to see the full shrine and its pieces fall into place.

I think it’s important for one to take a certain distance from oneself.

~ Václav Havel ~

Sixty-eight years ago, members of the U.S. Army’s 101st Airborne Division and the National Guard escorted nine Black students to class at the Central High School in Little Rock, Arkansas. I was roughly four years old at the time. Until right-wing conservatives wrested control of powerful governmental, political, and social institutions in the past few years, I would have though the Central High School experience was history that could never be repeated again. But, now, history is rewriting itself with pens supplied by racists, bigots, misogynists, xenophobes, greed-mongers, and other people in common with such human scum.

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Friends came by yesterday afternoon to chat and to deliver a marvelous gift: a fabulous apple pie. We spent time talking about what all of us have been doing of late. The way to have a happy conversation is to engage in the discussion while consuming apple pie à la mode. not long afterward, another friend came by to visit briefly and to deliver a different gift: tasty treats designed to improve one’s state of mind.

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Sixteen hours…and then some. That’s how long I slept, beginning last night around 8 p.m. While watching television, I partook of a tranquility trigger (from a friend) that prompted me to have a desire for pretzels. While munching on pretzels, I partook of another—but different—treat; this one with the distinct aroma and taste of juniper berries. Before I went to bed, I wondered how well I would sleep. I slept like a log.

When I sleep as long as I did last night and this morning, days and day-parts combine. Early Thursday morning devolves into mid-day Wednesday. The moments following the sky’s darkening after sunset become the final few minutes preceding sunrise…with only a blink of an eye in between. I blame the confusion on sleep, but the truth could be this: confusion could be to blame for sleep.

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