Halloween

My neighbor Dez is a singer in a Goth rock band. He's very popular ..performs at all the Oz fest concerts. At home though, he is a family man ..with a wife and two kids ..they’re the sweetest neighbors. This is the first Halloween that I've been home since they moved in. Turns out Halloween is the biggest holiday of the year for them ..kind of like Christmas. They put up outdoor lights ..make you walk through a cemetery with tombstones and great big ghoulish-looking pumpkins. When you get to the porch, holographic ghosts whirl around ..projected on vapor ..and reeeal strange noises come from inside – muhwahahahahahaha.

Repose

Oh wow, deck time ..it’s been awhile. Feels good ..I got my laptop ..I'm listening to Patrick O’Hearn ..and I'm sipping Jamaican rum ..facilitates the writing process. Another weekly cycle is complete ..and I’m restoring myself for the next one. There are other cycles out there as well ..I'm not travelling in a straight line. Seasons come in cycles ..the tide comes in cycles ..waves hit the beach in cycles ..and nerve impulses reach my brain in cycles. I recently added more cycles by enrolling in college courses. Now I have classroom cycles ..and a lot of little ‘computer lab’ cycles in inside of those. They’re starting to interfere with my journal writing and sleep-wake cycle.

Licorice buzz

I’ve discovered a new taste sensation ..black licorice and chocolate. Trader Joe sells gooey licorice from Australia ..along with chocolate butter biscuits. I recently put the two together and went orbital. This is an entirely new level of decadence. It's given me an idea for a new product. What I want to do is put a smidgen of chocolate and crunchy biscuit inside the licorice. Now, I know there's a lot of licorice candy already out there ..so what I’m thinking of doing is adding a pinch of hashish from Afghanistan .. the taste alone gives you a buzz ..combine that with the sugar high you get ..and I bet you I'll make a million bucks ..I’ll call them tar balls ..they’ll help rebuild Afghanistan's economy.

Booted

It’s 3:00 AM and I’m wide-awake ..someone actually threw me out of my dream ..and I’m pissed. Doesn’t look like I’ll be getting back to sleep anytime soon ..feel too unsettled. So, I lay here and wonder what it means ..unresolved conflict ? Fear of banishment ? A sense of urgency ? Foreboding ? Torment by some inner demon ? Imbalance in the flow of my qi ? Sugar kicking-in from the starchy white rice I had with Japanese dinner ? I wonder if there is any sake left ?

Chainsaw

A man with a chainsaw woke me up this morning ..he wasn’t actually standing by my bed ..he was pounding on the door ..and I answered it before I was awake. The people in my dream hadn’t disappeared yet ..and I wasn’t sure who he was. I asked if he wanted my wallet or my limbs ..he said my car ..and I said, what? and then ..oh yeah ..you’re from the tree service ..I’ll go move my car ..just need a moment for this dream to end.

Noodles

Instant Raman noodles are becoming a bigger part of my diet ..sometimes they’re dinner. I’m talking about the kind that comes in a disposable cup. It starts out as a clump. I add boiling water and suck them up. Should I be worried ..? They’re replacing my diet of rice and beans from Taco Bell.

Alejandro

Alejandro (pronounced Alee~hand~ro) used to sell jewelry on the beach in Acapulco. He learned English from the American tourists ..and French from the Canadian tourists. His English is good ..and so is his French. He’s studying accounting and is an expert with QuickBooks. He’s sharp and quick-witted. I’m sure the local business community would love to hire him when he’s through. It’s going to take awhile though ..he’s enrolled as an international student and pays exorbitant tuition ..which means he can only take one or two classes a semester. In addition, he works manual labor jobs whenever he can. This is the hard way. If it were me ..I would have probably given up by now. He is very industrious though ..I see him in the lab almost every time I go.

Fog blog

It’s c~c~cold out here. The fog is low and spreading out over the shore. I plunge into the ocean anyway. After that, it feels like a warm day. The sun occasionally burns a hole through the mist. I drive up the mountain and get above it. Nothing but blue sky up here. Below me ..a soft white blanket covers the coast and fills the canyons. I take refuge at the Vedanta temple. I thrive on being in the elements though ..reminds me that I live on a planet.

Huyen

Sara, the head lab tech, suggests that I take more continuing education courses in computer science ..I tell her that I plan to ..but, I’m really thinking about taking courses in something else ..like literature or creative writing. I see Huyen and give her the wetsuit and fins that I promised her. I don’t expect anything in return. I’m working on being less selfish ..trying to break the cycle of always asking what’s in it for me ..me ..me. Anyway, Huyen (pronounced Winn) was delighted. She loves the ocean, even though she can barely swim ..I hope the fins help. She was born in Vietnam the same year the war ended –1975. It’s not clear to me how she got here. I'm sure there's a story behind it. She studies accounting and hopes to become a CPA someday ..she is so diligent I think she'll make it.

Online ads

Google and Microft are bidding for all the eyeballs stuck on AOL. They're worth billions of dollars in advertising. Eventually, Web sites are going to look like racecars ..covered in hundreds of logos.

Night sky

It’s a warm night ..I’m outside looking at a full moon that is so bright ..it’s like a hole was punched in the night and a phosphorous glow is pouring through from the other side ..illuminating everything in it’s path. I swear there’s something else out here. A mystical presence that's hard to describe. The night sky is alive ..like a bell ringing in the meditation hall ..sending waves of starlight and space that bathe my skin and senses with energy and rhythm. So, I go put on the Moody Blues, turn them up loud ..take off my clothes and go back outside and dance in the moonlight. Thank you night sky ..whoever you are.

Hiking trail

I’m practicing meditation of the trail ..hiking along with my eyes to the ground ..watching the earth pass beneath my feet ..also sensing what’s in my periphery ..rocks and trees curve around me ..the stones on the trail feel loose and brittle ..I can hear them pinging ..better take my hand ..it feels like an avalanche ..the trail branches and becomes a riddle ..each destination invisible ..we get together and decide ..we arrive at a lake reflecting the surrounding mountainside ..emerald green ..suddenly flocks of wild geese take off –woooosh! We meet a man with a boat and float downstream like a leaf ..the circumstance of existence becoming more extraordinary with each passing instance.

Josie's eyes

Josie’s eyes are slow to adjust to a textbook after she’s been watching the teacher. Teacher looks ok ..book looks ok ..the problem is in the transition ..that short period of time when the eyes need to re-focus. She doesn’t have a reading problem. I don't even think she has a vision problem. She’s just a kid whose eyes are adjusting to the classroom environment ..not what they were originally programmed for. They gave her bifocals anyway and told her she has to wear them all the time. Now she has difficulty walking ..the ground looks like a staircase and the periphery is blurry. She has to quickly turn her head towards whatever she needs to see. It's all messed up ..she says. I recommend to her parents that she keep the glasses in the case and use them only during class. I don’t want her to get hurt ..nor do I want her to get accustomed to seeing things this way.

Indian summer v.3

Someone yelled “..I mock you with my monkey pants”. I had no idea what that meant ..so I yelled back: “I hunt you with my safari shirt.” The light changed and I drove on ..there’s no telling where that conversation was going ..that's ok ..it was a very hot day. I went to the lab ..saw Huyen .. but she was too busy to talk. I have a wetsuit and a pair of fins waiting for her in the car ..because I know she loves the ocean ..but she’s so small and frail I’m afraid she might disappear someday. Later on I plunged into the ocean myself ..ideal conditions ..glassy surface ..not too cold ..Indian summer ..offshore flow. Afterwards I put the top down ..and drove up into the mountains ..where I sat for meditation at the Vedanta temple ..which is kind of a neat trick, just getting out of the water and everything ..even saw the sunset from there.

Lab beat

The head lab tech told the dept chair to ‘buzz off’ last night .. actually it was more like: “I have an emergency so, if you don't have a bigger one ..buzz off!” They were at the computer next to me when this occured ..and I swear I could hear the lab techs take a collective breath and hold it ..it sounded like: ssssshhhhhhwwwoop. But the dept chair just laughed and asked “..what's the matter?" She said something about ‘policy rights and directories’ and he went “you win” ..and buzzed off. The room went: Aaaaahhhhhhhhhh. Ten minutes later she turns to me and says: “..what the hell ..am I going crazy?” ..then looks around and says “..where is that drumming noise coming from..?” I froze and tried to listen but couldn’t hear anything. Before I could evade the question ..or lie ..she slams down her stuff ..gets up and walks out of the room. Five minutes later she comes back and says “..can you believe that ? There was a band playing right underneath us ..geeeeshh.” But she put an end to that toot- sweet and I said something like: way to go girl. I never did hear anything tho ..and neither did the guy sitting next to me. Around 9 pm, after the tension lifted ..the lab techs thought it was important to find out who replaced the printer paper ..with colored paper. They were all looking at another lab tech named John, cuz he's a nice guy and would do that for somebody. But he was like “..hey, I haven't been near the printer all night.”

Indian summer v.2

Indian Summer ..! I've rolled up my sleeves and I’m running around like a maniac trying to get everything out of the way ..so I can get on with the business of cramming as much as possible into the rest of the week ..like swimming in the ocean ..hiking to Caliente Springs ..pounding on the computer keyboards (can't get this out of the way fast enough) ..and seeing Anne. I know she wants to go wine tasting at Brander Vineyard sometime this week ..as well as see Kate Rigg at UCSB. She’s an Asian standup comic who does edgy sociocultural satire. Sounds like fun ..my taste in art leans toward edgy. We enjoyed listening to Greg Brown at SoHo last week ..he’s a folk singer with a deep baritone voice ..kinda' sounds like a cross between Lucinda Williams and Barry White.

Indian summer v.1

For the last several days, it has been like eighty degrees outside and absolutely gorgeous. Unusual weather for a beach town where it can be foggy and cold during the months of summer. Today, however, my body is rebelling ..getting back at me for a week full of head-banging hours in the computer lab followed by torturous spells in the ocean (where the water temperature hovers near freezing) ..in addition to strenuous and twisted hiking trails. Consequently, I’m sitting on the deck trying to medicate the last complaining nerve fiber by pouring whiskey and beer over it. Forget painkillers ..I need anti-psychotics to get at the root-cause of this misery ..and find a cure for my misguided drive to max-out Indian Summer.

Hiking trail

We hiked Coldsprings Canyon today. Started out on a goat trailhigh up on the side of the canyon then went down a switchback trail that leads to a place where there's tall trees, boulders and a stream. I knelt down by a pooland watched fish swim through my fingers. Made me laugh. We walked for a while until the canyon walls got so close we could hear our voices bounce off. Jim says that there were Indians living here once and I imagine tribes of people drawing water and carrying fish.

before heaven and earth

lay something nebulous

silent isolated

unchanging and alone

eternal

the mother of all things

i do not know its name

so i will give it a word

and the word is

tao

by Lao Tsu

sixth century B.C.

Copy cats

I watch for developments in biomimicry. Biomimicry is the art of solving problems by looking for similar obstacles in nature ..then seeing how nature acts to overcome them. It’s the way doctors in ancient China discovered medicinal properties of plants. Today, physicians treat stroke victims by using medicine based on the saliva of vampire bats ..it keeps blood from clotting so that bats can drink longer ..and doctors can relieve blocked arteries.

Computer engineers study the inner ear so that robots have better orientation and can pick themselves up after they fall. They also study the way the brain processes information in order to keep robots from crashing into things. Just like us, they have to sort through streaming input, detect obstacles and adjust. Interestingly enough, they also become neurotic ..sometimes they sense ‘phantom obstacles’. That is, they see problems that aren’t really there.