John Swinburn

I’m not paranoid, just observant. The jobless rate is the “lowest in 50 years.” For some reason, ads encouraging people to join the military have increased exponentially. Investigations into the many accusers of Brett Kavanaugh have been stymied. It’s all coincidental. Bullshit.

Mark my words, the spin designed to convince the uninformed has long been in operation. Jobless rate “lowest in 50 years?” Either “bullshit” or “let’s take Obama’s successes and morph them into our own.”

I want to believe the USA is resistant to authoritarianism, but it’s obviously not. I am in favor of opposing this bullshit. You?

What would it take to convince you that I truly believe we’re at a dangerous crossroads in our country? If I were to slit my own throat on national television, would that do it? Put me in touch with the producers.

If I could do it without waking my wife and angering my neighbors, I would assemble the necessary tools and materials, along with bright lights to enable me to see what I’m doing, and go outside and continue scraping my deck this morning. I got a lot done yesterday, but not enough. Today will be lost to the effort because of a brunch honoring a friend, followed by a meeting at church. I could get a lot done in the wee hours if I didn’t have to worry about annoying people with the noise and hubbub. And, of course, if I could successfully summon the sun to light my workspace. I suppose large halogen lights would do, but I’d have to deal with a tangle of electric cords. The sun would provide better light, anyway. But I’m afraid I don’t control the sun, one of many aspects of life on this planet and beyond that are outside my control.

In the long hours today of darkness after waking and before dawn, it occurs to me that there are more aspects to life over which I have no control than aspects over which I do. That’s not new information, of course, but it bears an occasional reminder. I don’t control the universe any more than the universe dictates how I spend every waking second, though the second point is arguable, I suppose. Perhaps a better perspective is this: I can’t control everything, but I can control something. That’s suspiciously close to the concept that I can’t do everything, but I can do something. That is, I can make a difference in some aspects of life, though not in every aspect. Still, the fact that I can’t control the sun is disappointing in the extreme.

Turning to a less whimsical theme, here’s some fiction I wrote last night:

Carrigan Smithers paced back and forth across the room, pausing on occasion to glance out the window to see whether the lights were on in his neighbors’ houses. He spoke into the microphone in his left hand, explaining to someone who might hear his recorded words later what he was thinking:

“I can no longer promise civility. I can no longer promise non-violence. I can no longer promise I will engage in debate. Instead, I can promise the possibility of incivility. I can promise the possibility of raging violence. I can promise the possibility I will slit the throats of people who would lie to protect their power. There comes a time at which even men who are too gentle to live among wolves must gird their loins and prepare to use their teeth and claws  to shred the flesh of those who would enslave them. That time has come. At the first sign freedoms are usurped, blood will follow in wave upon wave upon wave. Those who would steal our freedom will suffer the unflinching rage of people who won’t tolerate that theft. There will be hell to pay, far beyond any definition of hell anyone has seen heretofore.

Sharpen your machetes, make sure your axes are like razors, turn your knives into instruments of freedom. If you have guns, make sure they are at the ready. We must be ready for a civil explosion unlike any we have seen before. And we must be willing to engage. The lives of children and grandchildren and great grandchildren depend on it.

The reality, of course, is that our freedoms already have been usurped. So, if my words were to have any meaning, I’d already be in the midst of shedding the blood of those who enslave us. Nonetheless, I am angry. And I do think the time may be near for good people to abandon civility and its relatives in favor of freedom and decency. Granted, decency generally requires civility and non-violence, but that’s true only in “normal” times. These are not normal times. We have been played like a stringed instrument. A significant segment of our people have become pawns to a small group of elderly white men who are desperately afraid of losing their control over their wealth and power. Those old white men must be excised like the cancerous cyst they have become. My preference would be to do it the simplest way possible: vote them out. But they have followed a not-so-secret directive by “rigging the system.” Voting is no longer the simple process it once was. It requires, in many places, extensive efforts to prove one’s “legitimacy.” That is, one essentially must prove one’s Old White Republican Conservative Credentials in order to cast a ballot. When they take away my right to vote, they take away their right to live. That’s my sense of it.”

Carrigan listened to what he had said, then deleted the file. “That’s not the way I want to leave it,” he said, then continued to pace.

He looked at the photograph on the dresser, taken on his wedding day twenty years earlier, and sighed. “She wouldn’t have wanted me to be involved in the revolution, but she would have been proud of me when I joined it.”

So there you have it. Bad writing and a bad mood, coupled with an absolute inability to control sunlight. Hell, if I could control the sun, I’d probably also be able to resurface my deck without much effort. I think I live in a fantasy land, a place in my head that’s populated with a cast of characters than number in the millions and whose characteristics, attributes, flaws, and foibles are nearly as numerous as the characters. They all have untold stories that, taken individually, are incomplete and boring. But if I could consolidate them into one larger-than-life story, I could write a book. But by the time I get to writing it, my interests will have shifted to blacksmithing or roller-blading or developing an expertise in kangaroos. I think perhaps my inability to focus is a symptom of fear; fear that, even if I give something my best effort, I’ll never be very good at it. I’ve never admitted that to myself before, but I think that could be it.

It’s approaching 5:30. The sun won’t be up for quite some time and I think I need more coffee and less introspection.

There will be a time when the immigrant children detained by the United States of America will write of their experiences. They will write of the pain and anger and fear they experienced at the hands of the mightiest country on earth. They will expose the underbelly of a nation conceived in liberty but dedicated to the proposition that it should control every nation on earth and shape them all in its own self-image, an effigy of an ex cathedra, benevolent god whose commands must be obeyed else insubordinates suffer the consequences.

History in the making is hard on those who will write about it one day. But when they write it their words will be written in blood mixed with hate and loathing and dashed hopes and dreams. Their words will be seared into the minds of those who read them, especially those who could have saved those children from the torture of unnecessary detention. We can only hope that justifiable rage does not burn so hot that a nation conceived in liberty isn’t reduced to ashes.

I spent just over a half an hour during the latter part of yesterday afternoon in Hot Springs, visiting with a woman about whose life I have written. I’ve not posted my writing here. Her story is, for now, private. But it may one day become public, depending on factors too numerous and convoluted to get into here. I wasn’t alone with her. I was with someone else, the instigator of the exploration of the woman’s life story.

After our meeting, and after I had dropped the instigator at his house, I felt like the several meetings we’ve had with the woman and the hours I’ve spent writing about her was time spent in pursuit of rainbows. The outcome of our conversations, I suspect, will be nothing. Oh, I’ll finish the story. But it will go nowhere. That saddens me, on the one hand, but relieves me on the other. The woman’s story deserves to be told. My version of it is irrelevant; she is the one with the story, so she is the one to tell it. Not me.

She complimented me on my writing. I thanked her. What I didn’t do was thank her for allowing me to invade her privacy to such an extraordinary extent. I should have.

***

I read a bit about suicide today, suicide by people who don’t seem like “the type” to take their own lives. They are not people who aim to hurt their loved ones, but their pain is so intense that the will do anything to stop it. Even at the expense of their loved  ones. That’s got to be the most horrific pain anyone can possibly feel. Writers who can’t deal with the pain have committed suicide or endured its irreversible consequences. Suicide is irrevocable. Irreversible. Permanent in so horrific a way as to be monstrous.

How the hell did my post abruptly change from life stories to writing to suicide? Crap, I really am ADD or whatever the latest genesis of the experience is called.

***

Food isn’t the same as salvation, but it has the potential to make that logical leap. Yes, I realize that sentence makes about as much sense as a telephone pole in an ice cream store, but it is what it is, as they say. But, food. Food is not always cuisine, but cuisine is always food. At least that’s what I think. This afternoon, if all goes according to plan, I’ll take up yesterday afternoon’s interrupted plan and make some spring rolls. I’ll slip sheets of rice paper in water, one at a time, then put them on a flat surface and place the fillings on them and roll and wrap them. Ingredients like shrimp, napa cabbage, bean sprouts, rice vermicelli, cilantro, and anything else that strikes my fancy. And I’ll make dipping sauce with miso, lime juice, honey, soy sauce, garlic, and sesame oil. I might make some other versions of dipping sauce, too, perhaps using hoisin sauce and wasabi and lime juice. I don’t know for certain; time will tell.

***

I’m conflicted about Brett Kavanaugh. On the one hand, I believe his accuser, Dr. Ford, but on the other, I don’t have all the facts. Apparently no one does. The fact that the FBI didn’t interview either of them doesn’t help. But I can’t automatically assume that, just because Dr. Ford’s testimony seemed believable, Kavanaugh is guilty. He is guilty of being an asshole, which is enough in my view to keep him off the court, but only after a truly thorough investigation could I say with any certainty that he did what she claimed. It bothers me that people who regularly accuse “the right” of ignoring the law when it benefits them do exactly the same thing when it serves their agenda. No, I do not know whether Kavanaugh is guilty as accused. It sure seems that way, especially with the people who have spoken up since their testimony to the Senate Judiciary Committee. But people lie. And, frankly, Dr. Ford’s comments describing her experiences by making reference to her hippocampus seemed contrived and artificial in the context of the rest of her testimony. But Kavanaugh’s testimony seemed utterly combative; he stonewalled every question about drinking, blackout, etc. More data. More information. More interviews. But that’s not what the Republicans want and it’s not what the White House will allow. The fact that tRump selected Kavanaugh is a strike against the man; that, alone, is reason to be deeply, deeply suspicious. tRump surrounds himself with lackeys who reach orgasm by doing his bidding. The Law. It’s becoming a parody of itself.

***

A story is brewing, a story I think will be good for next year’s L’Audible Art. I haven’t written a single line for it, but I’ve been thinking about it quite a lot lately. The way it’s coming together in my head suggests it would be far too long for L’A, but I might be able to shave it down and maintain its core message.

I’ve grazed enough topics for now. Time to face daylight.

How the hell can I interpret what I meant four years ago today when I wrote the following?

Who controls us is a question I cannot fully answer, not with any certainty. But I think how they control us is clear.  We are taught our roles are simply to consume what is provided to us and to accept decisions made for us.  Even when we are asked to make decisions, they are not our decisions; we simply affirm decisions others taught us to make. We are trained to be passive participants in our own lives.  Only by being disobedient, by breaking free of the artificial constraints placed on what and how we think, can we take control of our lives. That is hard to do. Whether it is worth doing, that’s what I aim to find out.

You know what bothers me about what I wrote four years ago? It’s that I don’t know the message I was trying to send to myself. And I don’t think I ever answered myself.

I do know I feel compelled to reject whatever it is that controls us. I reject that control out of hand. But, then, what control do I have? Are we pawns? If so, who controls the moves?

Tonight, I’ve had more thought flood my brain than I’ve had in ages. But still I’m unwilling to share them. Or event to document them. I’m afraid my ideas tonight would be judged dangerous and illegal and seditious. So I must keep them to myself. Until the revolution.

Context influences a person’s experience. A sudden sharp pain in one’s finger makes sense in the context of carelessly slicing a tomato. The same sharp pain would be confusing if experienced while reclining on a sofa, watching television. Seeing a familiar face in a familiar place—a coworker on the job, for example—conforms to my expectations, but seeing that same person’s image, identified as a serial rapist, would confuse me. Thinking about this, I wonder…is it the context that shapes our experience or is it the expectations we hold for experiences in that context? Perhaps it’s both. Expectations and context go hand in hand. Modify context and the experience changes; modify expectations and the experience changes. No, the more I think about it, context more than expectations drives experience. Expectations play a crucial role, but experiences can take place in the absence of expectations about them. Experiences cannot take place, though, in the absence of context.

Not that it matters in the context of this discussion with myself, but I just looked up the definition of context. Third in list of meanings was one with which I was not familiar:

Mycology. the fleshy fibrous body of the pileus in mushrooms.

I love being surprised in innocuous ways. But not in the sense of the third definition of innocuous:

not interesting, stimulating, or significant; pallid; insipid

Context matters. Even in language. Especially in language. Context helps us understand the world around us. Perhaps I should rephrase that: Context is the world around us; understanding it helps us understand our experiences.

I could spend hours (and have done so) wandering aimlessly through the dictionary. Online dictionaries, which tend to be in database form instead of endless alphabetical lists, are easy to use, but massive twenty volume hardback sets that require dedicated pieces of furniture to accommodate their weight and bulk please me even more. The second edition, published in 1989, contained almost 22,000 pages in those twenty volumes. I could be entertained for years, just reading through the entries. But perhaps I’ll wait for the third edition, which was begun in 2000 and is said to be half complete. Perhaps I’ll buy a set as a birthday present to myself on my eighty-third birthday.

Before reaching this paragraph in this post, I allowed myself to scramble down the rabbit hole of definitions. One word that struck me with interest is “indefatigable,” meaning: incapable of being tired out; not yielding to fatigue; untiring. Oddly enough, there is no  definition online of defatigable, but there is a listing, but no definition, for infatigable. Somewhere in our language’s storied past we seem to have chosen to keep or to create words that felt more comfortable on our tongue, paying little regard to logic regarding their roots. I should have studied linguistics, English linguistics. I could have become an expert on aspects of the English language. I could have been a contender! I could have been somebody! Instead, I have no expertise.

Yesterday, we attended the Hot Springs AKC Kennel Club dog show. Just because it was being held, admission was free, and…dogs. So we went. And I watched closely as judges examined the ways dogs carried themselves, presented certain aspects of their pedigree, and handled themselves in crowds. I noted there were ribbons given for obedience, among other behavioral matters. The people doing the judging are experts in their field. I don’t know if the judges are limited to judging only toy breeds, working dogs, hounds, or what have you or whether their expertise crosses breeds and types of dogs. But they are judges. They are experts. That know things I don’t know and never will. I could, I know. But I won’t because my interest is superficial and fleeting. Just like my interest in everything else. Wide and shallow. One does not become an expert in anything when one’s interests are wide and shallow. Out of moderate curiosity, I inquired of Mother Google this morning: What is the opposite of a Renaissance Man? She answered with a flood of possibilities, but the arrows whose wounds hurt the most were “simpleton” and “hotshot.”

I have not showered nor shaved this morning, so I must move along. Today at church we have none of the usual churchy stuff; instead, it’s jazz music. I must be clean and clean-shaven to experience it. Otherwise, the context would not be right.

I could write about anything I choose this morning, but I can’t seem to motivate myself to make a choice. I feel like my decision-making tool is covered with a crust of cynicism and anger, over which a hard shell of raw hopelessness has been affixed. That’s what watching a bunch of hack politicians “question” a sexual assailant play-acting in the hope of getting on the Supreme Court will do. I watched damn near the entire hearing yesterday, cutting it off near the end as we left to attempt to enjoy last night’s World of Wine. I believed Dr. Ford. I did not believe Brett Kavanaugh. Let me rephrase that. I think Kavanaugh may not remember his sexual assault of Ford, but I believe he assaulted her. And I believe the anger Kavanaugh demonstrated was real. But I believe his performance was staged. I believe he was coached to show righteous anger. I believe his behavior, utterly at odds with the behavior one would expect from a Supreme Court Justice, was responsive to the demands of his handlers. A Supreme Court Justice should exhibit stolidity, not rage. I believe Pablo Escobar would be a better choice for Supreme Court Justice than Kavanaugh. Enough of that.

Depression must feel like hopelessness. The latter, I know, is dark and ugly and debilitating. But it does permit anger to bubble to the surface, tearing through cracks in the cold stone shell beneath which hopelessness resides. Anger is too gentle a term. Rage is better. Volcanic rage is an even more accurate descriptor. Yesterday, I wrote that the idea of ascribing anthropormorphic motives to the actions of natural phenomena was absurd. But it’s not. The universe is a living being. We’re just microscopic components of a gigantic organism. The universe thinks, thanks in part to the work of tiny cells within it. The microscopic cells within our bodies contribute to our functioning; like them, we are the cells that contribute to the functioning of the universe. Without us, would the universe still exist? Of course, but it wouldn’t be the same, would it? It would be a more peaceful universe, to be sure, though that peace would occasionally be punctuated by violent warfare between stars and planets and asteroids and other such things about which we know nothing.

Hopelessness is akin to the sense that our Sun will eventually burn all its fuel and will become a cold, inactive clump of nuclear ashes. The inevitability of that distant reality is certain. There is nothing we can do to change it. It is destined to be. That’s like hopelessness. It is destined to be. Nothing we can do will change it. Resistance is futile. That sounds a bit like bad sci-fi dialogue. But sci-fi has a track record of accurately predicting the future.

I read a post on another blog recently in which the writer described his transition from an overweight alcohol-fueled loser of sorts into a fit, active, slim ex-drinker. If he had allowed hopelessness and its inevitability to control his life, he might have been dead by now. But he didn’t. He said his “secret” was to pay attention to everything he put in his body. He paid close attention. And he walked. With a sense of a man on a mission. Because he was. I wonder whether paying attention to everything we allow into our minds can overtake and overpower hopelessness. Would our own form of mind control work to change the future? Could my intellect somehow ensure Kavanaugh’s tenure on the Supreme Court is short, if he is confirmed? Would that it were so.

I don’t know what to write. I have no idea. I don’t even know that I want to write. Perhaps I should try acting. Let someone else do the hard work; I could just transform their words into a visual expression of their thoughts. But I’d have to memorize lines; I’m no good at that. Perhaps I should become a hunter. Give me a rifle and a target. Yes, I could work off my ennui by gunning down an innocent deer.

Back to reality. I’d better go wash the dishes.

This afternoon brought unexpected enjoyment. I wasn’t planning on attending the Leisure Learning Institute (LLI) free screening of documentary films because I expected to be otherwise engaged (a History Committee meeting was scheduled). But, thanks to the meeting’s cancellation, I joined my favorite wife to watch four short documentaries. I am delighted I did. In less than an hour and a half, I felt myself relax and disengage from the Medicare search stresses that gripped me in recent days. And, as I watched the four short documentaries, I felt a kinship to humanity that has, of late, slipped away a bit. I wouldn’t call my afternoon life-changing, but it was most certainly mood-changing.

We started with what I’ve decided was my favorite. “The Shining Star of Losers Everywhere” presented the story of a race horse, Haru Urara, that never won a race but saved a Japanese racetrack from failure. Who knew such a story could be a tearjerker? Well, I should have known; I can spill tears over spilled milk. But this was far, far better than spilled milk. I highly recommend it. I offer a link to the full documentary, less than nineteen minutes long, below.

The second film, “Joe’s Violin” (also a tear-jerker), told the story of a man, a survivor of the Holocaust, who donated his violin to a girl’s school in the Bronx (the school is for girls from difficult backgrounds). The man’s (and his violin’s) story is told, along with the story of the pre-teen girl selected to play the donated instrument until her graduation. Tissues are required. Just over twenty-four minutes.

“Welcome to the Last Bookstore” is another moving film. It focuses on a young man, crippled in a scooter accident, who reconstructs his life by building an independent bookstore that caters to book lovers and which attracts used books like magnets. Just eleven and a half minutes.

Finally, “Showfolk” is an intriguing look at a nursing home/assisted living facility that catera mostly (entirely?) to people in the film industry. The film shows how these people, many of whom were famous for their role in or supporting film, happily adapt to their lives as old folks whose relationships with other folks from their career days sustain them. I could only find a trailer for this one.

• The Shining Star of Losers Everywhere (18:38)
• Joe’s Violin (24:18)
• The Last Bookstore (11:30)
• Showfolk (1:20, trailer only)

On an utterly unrelated note, I now have (or will have, as of October 1) Medicare supplemental insurance. I have entered Geezerhood, formally! All I have left to do is to select my Part D drug coverage, which I guess I’ll do tomorrow…after my quarterly dental appointment to have my teeth cleaned and made to sparkle (though they’ve never been sparkling white). The day after, if I can remember, I will leave the house early to go to Hot Springs to renew my driver’s license, dragging my passport, birth certificate, utility bills, etc., etc., along with me, so I can get an “enhanced” driver’s license. You know, the kind that will enable me to board planes and leave the country on short notice in the event the country falls into dictatorial hell, courtesy of the GOP and the mind-numbingly stupid and dangerous narcissist in the White House. Can you guess who I’m writing about?

I miss Lana and Mel. You may not know, but they were the ones who visited us over the weekend.

We had house guests this weekend, friends we’ve known since before we were married. I guess that means we’ve known them for around forty years, maybe longer. That stuns me. How could we have been friends for forty years, when I’m only twenty-eight? Well, I feel twenty-eight, emotionally. Physically, I guess the scars of living, coupled with ignoring healthy lifestyle habits, reveal my true age. But among those scars are keepsakes, quiet secrets one gathers up in the recesses of one’s brain to treasure in the privacy of reflective thought. Like a friendship of forty years.

Our friends arrived on Friday afternoon. Between Friday afternoon and their departure on Sunday morning, we ate pizza twice. And we drank wine as if we might be able to transform all known vineyards into deserts. (A couple of us also explored the beers of Hot Springs.) I attempted to satisfy hunger with bacon and eggs one morning and a Japanese-inspired breakfast the next; my attempt at Japanese was less than stellar. But we made up for all my food failings by eating homemade coffee ice cream brought all the way from Fort Smith. And we wandered the Village and Hot Springs and environs. But mostly we enjoyed the company of friends.

We talked about the possibility that our friends might consider moving to the Village. When that possibility surfaced, my heartbeat quickened. But they’re also considering buying an RV and wandering the country. Hmm. Maybe if they get one big enough we can come along for the ride. I daydream a lot. My imagination takes me places that don’t exist, places between reality and fantasy, tempered with wishes and dreams against a backdrop of the real world. But that’s not what this paragraph is about, is it? No, it is not. It is about the possibility, however, remote, that our friends could conceivably live nearby at some point. And we’d be able to see them much more frequently than a once-or-twice-a-year visit in one anothers’ homes. So, I’ll begin the hunt. I’ll periodically scan Zillow for possibilities nearby. And I’ll drop hints, complete with URL links to houses on the market and events of interest. And, of course, mentions of ethnic food festivals and the like will play a part in my suggestive communications.

But all of that will have to wait. This morning, I go for my annual physical, where I’ll report to the doctor that my cough has not disappeared. And then I’ll attend the Writers’ Club meeting. And then  I’ll tell the insurance broker than I’m not sure about the Medicare supplements and I want to know more about coverage, comparing one company to the next. Ach! Such a troublesome interference with the enjoyment of retirement!

Temperatures are forecast to rise to the low eighties today, a harsh reminder that the highs in the sixties over the weekend were simply teasers. Fall is not here, not really. Bah! I want a different climate. On to my second cup of coffee and preparations for the day.

This morning, I woke later than normal—almost 6:30—slipped on a pair of shorts, a shirt, and flip-flops, and headed to the only nearby grocery store open at that hour, Walmart. There, I bought Jimmie Dean hot pork breakfast sausage, blackberries, and a bag of trimmed radishes. This was a spontaneous excursion, not the sort of thing I’m wont to do with any frequency. But the fact that we’ve been out of Canadian bacon and Kroger’s bagged radishes for days made the foray imperative. I couldn’t face the day without radishes. Actually, I think it was the desire for sausage that drove me to the store, though I justified the trip by claiming it was the radishes. The blackberries were an afterthought of sorts. I often want just a touch of fruit with breakfast; that desire triggered the purchase when I passed by the display. It was either that or blueberries, which were far more expensive. Strawberries would have been an option, except for horrible experiences of late in Australia, in which people have found needles in the strawberries they bought. I think I recall reading that there have been more than a hundred cases of this insane criminal behavior. It’s not just the U.S. that’s gone mad.

It’s now almost 8:00 and I’m finally sipping my first cup of coffee of the day. Well, an occasional sip between paragraphs. The coffee needs something. Either to be reheated because it’s cooled too much or to be poured into a glass with ice because it’s not nearly cold enough as is. Choices can be debilitating. I sometimes have a hard time deciding whether my desire to drive to New Mexico is greater than my desire to drive to Ohio. When I can’t reach a decision, I stay home. I heard something on the radio yesterday about product choices facing us in grocery stores. The speaker said he remembers a time not long ago when he had to choose between two brands of pasta sauce in jars in the grocery store; now, there are dozens. Perhaps we have too many choices? Not just in food, but in the way we live our lives. Those choices seem to be driven in large part by access to money and the ways in which society teaches us that more is better, luxury is better, “stuff” is an antidote to solitude, etc.

If I were to engage in a conversation with someone who speaks the way I write, I think I’d have to disengage and run. Who thinks like this? On the other hand, perhaps someone who thinks the way I write would offer an intriguing look into my own psyche, a detached, distant way of examining the thought processes that ricochet off ideas like bullets off hard surfaces. I just realized I used the word “ricochet” just a few days ago. That made me wonder whether I have an unusual affinity for the word, so I searched my blog for past usage. Today’s post marks the seventh time I’ve used the word since I started this blog in August 2012. That averages to just a shade over once a year. I think I’m entitled to that much usage. That frequency does not paint me in an unfavorable light. At least not in my mind. Although, with this post, four of those uses occurred in 2018. So, perhaps it’s something that needs to be examined in the soothing confines of a psychiatrist’s lair.

If I’m going to get anything done on the deck today, I’d better get into my work clothes, which I last wore day before yesterday. I left them hanging for the sweat to dry and they’ve been hanging ever since. I suspect both the shirt and the shorts, with the crotch ripped open from stem to stern, will be crisp with dried sweat and sawdust and dust from the electric sander. Oh, the socks, too, will be a delight to put on. Well, all I’m doing by writing about my distaste for the clothes is delaying the inevitable. So, I’m off to tackle the job that will be complete no later than my eightieth birthday.

Today sprinted through the calendar like a gazelle accelerating across the savanna, attempting to outrun hungry cheetahs. The day was a blur, though in occasional stop-action or slow motion. My intent (always good) was to spend the morning on the deck, scraping and sanding and shaping boards in preparation for what will one day be a painted beauty. Instead, I sensed from early on that my wife was in no mood to drive, alone, to Little Rock for an appointment to have periodic maintenance done on the Subaru. So, I offered to go along with her. I really would have preferred to work, but now that the day is almost over, I’m glad I spent it with her, instead. It sometimes works out that way.

After our brief car maintenance appointment, we visited an Asian market on University Avenue, where we bought miso paste and a monstrous piece of ginger root. And more, I suspect, but can’t recall. Then, we went to lunch at Kimchi Restaurant, a tiny and remarkably hidden Korean restaurant whose outward appearance suggested, in capital letters, DIVE. And it was, I suppose. But we liked it. My wife had bulgogi, which was excellent. I had what the place called Kimchi Stewpot, which was an interesting assortment of veggies, meats, and literally boiling liquid presented in a bowl. The bowl, which I think was ceramic only recently removed from a 500-degree oven, sat atop a molded stand. It bubbled and bubbled and bubbled for a good five minutes before it settled down. Our meals were delivered with what I thought were side dishes for my meal; a later review online suggested they were meant to accompany my wife’s bulgogi. No matter. I loved every one of the side dishes; my wife tolerated all of them, but liked none of them. And she wasn’t fond of the flavor of my stewpot. But I was. Thus both of us were happy with our meals. Our waiter, who we figured was the son of owners, was extremely polite and competent. We were happy with that.

From there, we visited Colonial Liquors. Again. We bought wine, including a couple of bottles of red wine our neighbors like and which, based on a friend’s comments about wine, we think she might like. But we bought other wine, too. A cabernet sauvignon and, perhaps, a sauvignon blanc. Did we buy the latter? I don’t know. Within the morass of mass and data that forms our universe, it doesn’t matter. But we did buy some Scotch. I haven’t bought Scotch since I was younger by at least a year, perhaps three. Tonight, I have a couple of sniggles of Scotch. If you don’t know sniggle, it’s about as much as I drank tonight, divided by two.

Before drinking tonight, though, and after we returned home from Little Rock, I went to the post office and the Suddenlink office. You see, when we got home, our phones, internet, and “cable” television were on the fritz. The visit to Suddenlink yielded a promise that we would be visited by a repair person on Monday afternoon. So, when I returned home, we sat and watched the final episodes of The Americans. But during the finale of the final season, a truck zipped into the driveway and the doorbell rang. It was a Suddenlink contractor, here to fix our broken conduit to evening entertainment. After considerable time and testing, the guy got our internet to work and our phone is, off and on, functioning. But still no “cable.” He says the “tap” is broken and he cannot fix it, so someone else will visit us soon, within a day or two, he thinks. I was happy with that.

We finished watching The Americans. I would have given it an Emmy, had I the power. Alas, I have no power in such circles.  Since then, I’ve been Scotching and watching of The Mayans, a follow-on to Sons of Anarchy. Though I’ve watched three episodes of The Mayans, I’m not sure whether I’ll continue. It’s not horrible entertainment, but I keep comparing it to SOA. Not even close. It got to the point this evening that I almost switched to recorded episodes of HGTV real estate shows. But I have never recorded them, so that wasn’t an option.

It occurred to me today, while we were enjoying Korean food and after we had visited an Asian market, that one of the privileges we Americans have is to be given the opportunity to experience other cultures in the comfort of our own. We don’t have to abandon ours in order to experience another culture; they come to us. And do we truly not understand why? Do we not realize we are the culture that others came to see? And we are the culture that came to be when other cultures became too hard to bear. I’m not talking about today; I’m talking about how we became who we are. Our ancestors left other countries behind to pursue possibilities here. A little like today’s immigrants come to our shores.

I am so fortunate that I can experience not only other cultures but their foods and their way of experiencing ours simply by allowing myself to watch, listen, and be compassionate. I am embarrassed when this country shames immigrants, shouting that they are not coming here “the right way.” As if we did? Let’s kill a few aboriginal natives and call it a homeland, shall we?

I hate being so frustrated and angry and utterly despondent at who we are and, at the same time, feeling privileged and happy at my good fortunate. There’s some serious dissonance in that sensation. I hate myself for being as happy as I am at the misfortune of others. I realize it’s not their misfortune that makes me happy, but it contributes to it. So I cannot, should not, feel happiness at my good fortune, knowing that it comes at a steep price someone else pays.

Some days, and today is one, I wonder if my mood swings even within a single post might be symptomatic of madness. I don’t know. Just a thought. How can I be so deliriously happy in one moment, able to rationalize all the good things that have fallen into place for me, and be utterly demoralized the next, knowing my good fortune was bought with human life and suffering? I know, it’s absurdist bullshit. But it’s my absurdist bullshit, the absurdist bullshit that occupies my brain.

And then I find myself beating myself up for allowing myself an hour or two or three in which I can forget my brother’s hospitalization and its impact on his life. It’s not unreasonable to want to forget for just a while. But when I do I feel guilty and utterly inadequate as a brother. But then I realize such a sense is absurdist bullshit and I’m fine. At least for a while.  After over-thinking this stuff for long enough, I don’t fault myself for drinking my pain away sometimes. Too much? Too often? Who knows. I just know I like Scotch. And wine. And beer. And hugs. Hugs are better than beer any time. But being alone is sometime the very best medicine. Now it is, anyway. It’s the only medicine.

My brother was transferred to another hospital yesterday, a facility that specializes in, among other things, wound care. No one with professional medical knowledge seems willing to offer a firm estimate of the length of time he will be there, but he seems to think it may be a month or more. That suggestion of some certainty (at lease from him) gives me at least a small window in which I can commit to start projects that, heretofore, I was unwilling to start for fear of abandoning them in mid-stream so I could return to Houston on his release from the hospital.

So, onward. Back outside to recommence my efforts to strip, repair, and refinish the deck. I expect to complete the project before my eightieth birthday.

“He awoke to the sound of a flood of tears washing away the banks of the river on which he’d drifted aimlessly for a lifetime.”

Salt water produces a loud chorus as it carves new channels in solid ground, unlike the gentle lullaby sung by fresh water. Now that’s a distinction he had never considered before: salt water versus fresh water. Why “fresh?” Why not “unsalted?” If unsalted water is fresh, is salt water stale? But I’ve allowed the thoughts ricocheting around my empty head to take me off track, haven’t I? My intent was to describe the dissolution of the banks of the river…no, it wasn’t. My intent is impossible to discern. The impetus for the words I interrupted so early on cannot be described in words. Only emotions can describe what we call emotional experience, but our only descriptive currency is language, so the effort to put into words an experience that is beyond words is fruitless. Yet tunes, songs, tones, noises, sounds…those things convey emotions as if they were water and strong feelings (my poor descriptor for that state of mind that we call emotion) were almost weightless mental rubble, the detritus of a shipwreck that wouldn’t exist without the fury of the waves.

The sound of salt water might be compared to a gasoline-powered chain saw, while I equate fresh water with the almost silent work of a finely-sharpened steel gouge in the hands of a skilled woodworker.  Again, though, I wonder, why “fresh?” That question will derail my attempts to explore and explain his awakening to the sound of tears eroding the banks of his life. When will I be able to set aside this invasive question long enough to address the water? Madness! That’s what it is. Madness robs us of the ability to differentiate salty tears from the distillate of life’s experiences. A poet with whom I’ve been modestly familiar for almost my entire life once wrote:

Before the beginning of years
There came to the making of man
Time, with a gift of tears;
Grief, with a glass that ran;
Pleasure, with pain for leaven;
Summer, with flowers that fell;
Remembrance fallen from heaven,
And madness risen from hell;
Strength without hands to smite;
Love that endures for a breath;
Night, the shadow of light,
And life, the shadow of death.

Madness risen from hell. And so answers to unanswerable questions begin to form in the mind. Salt water swallows the banks of the river that once contained it in the same way tears over-top the emotional dams we construct to keep them at bay. There’s another opportunity to pursue a rabbit down a hole: why “keep them at bay” and not “keep them at inlet?” We chip away at dams until they collapse in a violent shudder, turning emotional rivers into oceans.

Some mornings cry out to be renamed mournings. I remember, when I first heard a teacher (or it may have been my mother) speak of O’Neill’s play, Mourning Becomes Electra. It seemed like nonsense to me; I heard “morning” and assumed “morning” turns into Electra. It’s odd that I remember that confusion and, for some reason, anger at the name of the play and I remember little else about it. I know I read it and I may have seen it on stage, though I doubt I saw the entire play on stage. I doubt I would have had the patience to endure it. I tried to plumb my memories of the play just now but failed, so I resorted to Google. I may have seen the film based on the play, but I doubt I saw the original film. I learned from Wikipedia that the original film ran more than three hours. So, it wasn’t any surprise to learn that it did poorly at the box office. It was a surprise, though, to learn that the filmakers edited the three-hour film down to 105 minutes. How could it have made any sense with so much of it torn from the original? I vaguely recalled that the play was a retelling of a Greek tragedy, but nothing beyond that vagueness. Only through this morning’s online education did I come to the recollection or new collection of knowledge that it was based on The Oresteia, by Aeschylus. I can say with definitive certainty (as opposed to doubtful certainty?) that I never read The Oresteia. Perhaps I should, though. Perhaps a reading of Greek tragedies would offer explanations unavailable in my limited experience. And here’s where the renaming comes in: some mornings reveal to me that I’ve lived my entire life without reading things readily available to me but which I judge as requiring more effort than they are worth. I mourn the fact that I did not come to the understanding early in life that humankind’s history offers lessons we would be well-advised to learn and to which we would be well-advised to pay heed.

Anyone who might read this incoherent screed will know that I’m in “random array mode,” that is to say I’m writing for the sake of transferring words from my brain to the screen. My fingers are merely tools controlled by a twelve-cylinder engine that’s running on two and a half cylinders. The excess fuel pumped into my internal combustion engine does not combust. Instead, it simply coats the valves and cylinders and such with oily residue. The residue stains my fingers and dulls my mind even more, resulting in a diatribe that merits only a half-sneer and a glance in the telephone directory at listings for “mental health professionals.”

I believe my pipes needed cleaning this morning, hence this unintelligible mist of frightful madness. Believe it or not, there is a method to my madness. Today’s randomness is not really random. It’s actually not even slightly random. But that is not to say it is cohesive, nor is it coherent to the casual observer. Thankfully, I am no casual observer. On the other hand, would that I were. One day, I may return to this apparent waste of words and spent energy and mine the bits of costume jewelry from the waste bins.

For now, though, it’s almost 7:30 a.m. and I am ready to enjoy eating what could have become baby chickens but didn’t and won’t.

Still, nothing definitive from the doctors and hospital in Houston. While it’s frustrating to me, it must be absolutely maddening to my brother. Today marks day number 17 or 18, I think, since his last admission into the hospital. His original hospital admission for this series of unpleasant experiences was July 24. That was admission number one, for surgery for abdominal aortic aneurysm. Number two was for dehydration and malnutrition, coupled with surgical wound infection, followed by a blood clots that led to thrombectomies. The last admission was for wound infection. That has morphed into a long stay for malnutrition, wound infection, and general failure to thrive. So my frustration about not know a schedule around which I can plan my life is an embarrassment. How utterly unimportant is my schedule, when compared to my brother’s ongoing experience in the hospital. But, still. We all need to be able to plan, with some degree of certainty, our lives. No, we don’t need that. We want it. Want suggests desire. Need suggests urgency.

Yet I still want to have some control over my schedule. My sixty-fifth birthday is approaching, thus the requirement that I make decisions regarding my supplemental Medicare insurance.  My drivers’ license is up for renewal, along with options for upgrading it to make it useful as a “formal” form of governmental ID useful for boarding aircraft. I ought to do something about that. So I do, arguably, need to take care of my own business. But “need” is a weak word in this context. So I shouldn’t use it. I do wish I could snap my fingers and ensure that my brother’s health issues were resolved. But I can’t. So, I need to be prepared to travel back to Houston to help him deal with whatever life throws at him. But, again, I can’t ignore my wife’s expectations, can I? No, nor should I. Life is a viscious bitch. Sometimes I wish I could snuff it out and be done with it. But that would do not one, not the least me, any good. Irrationality is the mistress of madness. Either someone said that and deserves to be quoted or I feel it and deserve to be incarcerated.

Today, in church, the minister’s message hit home for me. He argued, among other things, that the social message to men that they ought never to cry, was an abomination. And then, after the service, we watched a PBS program in which an aging teacher, in her early nineties, sat with former students who essentially worshiped her and talked about life lessons. I couldn’t control my tears. I think I was the only one who couldn’t. I felt like an idiot as my eyes flooded and spilled onto my shirt. I tried to hide my tears, but they were seen. And others were as embarrassed for me as I was embarrassed for myself. Even after we heard a message suggesting that male emotion was “okay,” we realized it’s really not. No, it’s not. At least not to the extent that my emotions overtake me. And I get that. People who cry at the drop of a hat are bothersome. I am bothersome. Why the hell can’t  I control my emotions better? Why do things move me so damn easily? Why can’t I control my tears? I don’t know. I don’t know that I’ll ever know. Maybe one day I’ll tolerate myself more readily than I do today, but probably not. Because sometimes, and today was such a day, I am intolerable. I think back to who I am and things I’ve done and pains I’ve caused and I know I am intolerable and don’t deserve tolerance. But I do wish there were something I could do to earn it back. I just don’t think there is. Not a damn thing.

I think I’ve written everything I’ve needed to write. There’s nothing new in my brain. Everything I write now (here, I’m referring not to fiction but to “what’s in my head”) is simply a rehash of something I’ve written before, perhaps something about which I’ve written repeatedly.  I’ve known this for some time. But in spite of this knowledge, I continued trying to express my thoughts and emotions in ways that more clearly articulate the way I experience the world. I think it’s a pointless endeavor. I can tolerate only a limited amount of repetitive over thinking before I go stark-raving mad. Which I have done. And that leads me to another subject entirely.

***

I am hungry this morning for three things: breakfast sausage, coffee ice cream, and raisin bread toast, none of which we have in the house. Hunger for those three things, simultaneously, is a symptom of madness. But the real madness arises when I recognize that I simply cannot have those things this morning. Instead, I’ll have the same old same old: Canadian bacon, an egg, and tomato juice. I can’t even have my usual one and a half halves of radishes, inasmuch as we finished them off yesterday and the Kroger we visited yesterday in Benton had no more in stock. This is an outrage, a sin against humankind and nature. It’s the sort of thing that, when coupled with the annoyance of dealing with unruly eyebrow hairs, can cause dislocations in the social order.

***

Have you ever tripped over an especially long, uncooperative strand of hair protruding from the otherwise relatively well-behaved cluster of hair on your brows? Well, I have. It’s an annoying and potentially dangerous experience, especially when it happens during a morning walk on a precarious ridge on a mountaintop during a snowstorm. I don’t expect snowstorms in the coming month, but I didn’t expect to trip over an errant strand of eyebrow hair, either, so perhaps I should buy snow tires now, before there’s a run on them at the snow tire store.

***

Having lived in a cold climate (Chicago) for only four winters, I never got around to buying snow tires for our car. We kept it in the garage most of the time during winter while we lived there and rarely took it out when the streets seemed unwelcoming to year-round tires. Our tires had spent most of their lives in and around the Houston metropolitan area and, therefore, weren’t comfortable in snow. We accommodated them to the extent we could.

***

The thing is, the tires on our current cars are perfectly comfortable rolling on the roads in our area, so I could, if only I knew what time my wife might wake up, drive on said tires before she awakens and visit a store where I could buy breakfast sausage, coffee ice cream, and raisin bread. But my hankering for raisin toast has diminished considerably since I first thought of it. My interest now is in warm flour tortillas awash in refried black beans, jalapeños, and a combination of extra sharp cheddar and blue cheeses. But, I don’t know when my wife will awaken. If I were to sneak in the bedroom to retrieve my “street clothes,” I might awaken her, which could cause crankiness. Or, I might successfully retrieve the clothes and drive away, only to return to a cranky wife who’s wondering why I left without telling her and why I bought things she would rather we not have in the house. What other options do I have? I’m a prisoner in my own home. I can’t even get dressed without concern’s of waking my wife pressing hard on my mind. How do things press hard on one’s mind?

***

I remember a rock, thrown by a boy quite some distance away, pressing hard against my friend Steve’s head, the appendage that carried his mind. It pressed so hard that it drew considerable blood and a combination of cries and whimpers and curses from Steve’s mouth. With that memory of what can happen when something presses hard on one’s mind, I attempt to calm myself. Her crankiness would be elevated to other emotions were my wife to awaken to see me in the kitchen, bleeding profusely from a wound caused by something pressing hard on my mind, especially if I were crying and whimpering and cursing. It is for that reason that I am practicing meditation techniques.

***

I can say without doubt that my attempts to practice meditation has not been perfected. Not even remotely. The realization that practicing meditation has had absolutely no effect on my state of mind causes me to wonder about the wisdom of going to the doctor with a physical ailment. The doctor is practicing medicine, of course, but how do we know that he or she has had only as much success in that endeavor as I have had in practicing meditation? That thought simply exacerbates the problem of something pressing hard on my mind and I’m afraid I will start bleeding profusely at any moment.

***

Physics defines pressure as “force per unit area.” Compare that to one of the definitions of stress: “the action on a body of any system of balanced forces whereby strain or deformation results.” So, my concern is naturally that the force per unit area will cause an action on my body of the system of balanced forces inside and outside my head that will cause strain or deformation. You can see why I am afraid of the prospect of profuse bleeding.

***

Blood is the fluid that circulates in the principal vascular system of human beings consisting of plasma in which the red blood cells, white blood cells, and platelets are suspended. When the force per unit area on a system of balanced forces of the body causes excessive strain or deformation, the result can be the spillage of plasma containing red and white blood cells and platelets. This spillage, bright red and slippery on smooth-surface floors, is an unholy mess. Have you ever cleaned up massive amounts of your own blood, constituting all but an ounce or two remaining in your heart, from the kitchen floor? Well I have. No, that’s not true. I haven’t cleaned up massive amounts of your blood; I don’t even know who you are, so I can’t say I’ve cleaned up your blood. I’m referring to my blood. I just did it in a way that was so utterly confusing that you might have thought I had just attacked you with a meat cleaver and, therefore, were frantically checking yourself for evidence of blood loss and vital signs. That wasn’t it at all. My apologies for the gruesome confusion.

***

Long, bizarre questions beginning with descriptions of a series of strange activities, beginning with “have you ever” and ending with the statement, “Well I have,” tend to be funny. To me, anyway. My wife and I listened to a snippet from a radio program last week that included such stuff. We thought it was funny. So I thought I’d try it here. It works better as original material, I tell you.  My fingers and my mind have grown tired of my ongoing frivolity and mindless blather. So I’ll stop. Now.