Day seven

Tea and gruel for breakfast again ..I’ve used up all the usual food ..looks like I’ll be raiding the survival kits up on the top shelf pretty soon. I haven’t seen another person in days ..not since Laura dropped by and left me some homemade soup. A discarded newspaper reports that Baghdad is sliding into chaos ..while we send men with shovels to try and contain the flow of events. I take another sip of tea ..and feel trace amounts of citrus and spice trigger a chain reaction at my taste receptor sites. OK, what do I say next ..what would Buddha say ..what do other people want me to say ..now that’s the million dollar question ..I’ll answer it by saying that I’d like to be called the doktor of space ..known for discovering the forces that explain how the mind keeps the world from blowing apart ..I’ll go up to the microphone and start each speech by saying that the first step was discovering the forces that made me feel as though the world was making my head blow apart ..that’ll satisfy anyone who’s in a riddle-solving frame of mind. A little flame flickers next to me ..they turned off the electricity weeks ago ..but that’s all right ..I like writing by candlelight ..makes me feel like mahatma gandhi ..and the wolves have stopped howling at the door ..they’re in the living room now ..I serve them rodents and tea.

Space cadet

Have you seen the stars tonight ..they remind me that we live on a lunar colony ..and not the oppressed state of some god forsaken planet. The colonies are not safe from tyranny either, I remind her .. the ones on Saturn were once free-states. I know, she says ..that’s why I like it here ..hydroponic gardens and you can practice revelry without persecution ..you know, I don’t even miss home that much. Where’s home ? In the Euripides. Oh yeah, I see what you mean ..I remember the witch hunts of November, 2023 .. are you ever afraid of something like that happening here ? All the time, she says. If it does ..I think I’ll stowaway on a starship to Europa ..I hear they’re much more civilized there ..it’s an incubator of free ideas ..and the mother of all creatures ..they live in the lapis lazuli realm, you know ..not just the temporary worlds of hungry ghosts and empire builders ..the waters of life have been flowing freely on Europa ..since the beginning ..and I think they will keep on flowing free thru eternity.

Roxy

There’s a tattoo, in gothic script, written across Roxy’s left wrist ..the name of someone who gave her a set of Dale Carnegie books as a gift. Roxy promotes late night raves ..drives a delivery truck ..and practices Thai kickboxing at a nearby gym. She dreams of becoming pro someday. I admire her single mindedness ..and believe she might just make it. Her mother was a gypsy ..going wherever circumstances led ..her father was sitting at a bus stop in Arizona one day heading for Hollywood ..Roxy never knew him. She and her mother wound up living in places like Italy, California, Maryland and Colorado. She stopped moving long enough to finish high school ..then college. So she’s articulate as well as well-ripped. Tonight she’s scheduled to fight in an amateur bout at the Upland Indoor Sports Arena. “I understand that it's a performance,” she says. “I consider myself a full-contact actress.” Her trainer Chris Reilly, a former pro kickboxer and marital arts expert tells her that the fight is in her head ..you win by letting your opponent to lose theirs. She tries a flying kick, which doesn’t land. Her opponent, a more experienced boxer, delivers a volley of punches that crumples her ..2:46 minutes into the first round. The fight is over. She’s been knocked out. Doctors rush into the cage ..blood trickles from her temple. I’ve never been around the sport ..I don’t know what to say ..the best I can come up with is: “Hey, once in a while ..I have a bad day at the office.”

Fortune teller

My sister Cindy is a financial whiz ..she can play the numbers and predict the future of global markets the way other people play the ponies. She’s a master numerologist and has been known to make her devotees a ton of money. You could say that she delivers the goods in a clam shell. A natural born explorer, wherever she goes, adventure and intrigue are bound to follow. She knows how to make ‘em smile ..even while kicking their ass on the tennis court. I ought to know ..the ass was frequently my own.

American Wizard

My bother Steve is a genuine inventor and entrepreneur. Where I come from, we call that a ‘master sorcerer.’ He puts light in dark places ..keeps our homes and vehicles secure ..and helps us exercise the right to vote electronically. See ~~> (Jimmi Jammer) for these and other brilliant ideas. He’s been known to put pre-school children behind the wheel of large computers and turn them into photographers and digital artists (KB Gear). He has given apprentice sorcerers a place to conjure up new spells and practice canticles (tablet digitizer). When he’s not testing new ideas ..he can be seen taking us to new heights (in the Austrian Alps) ..and making us laugh till our heads roll off . Well, you get the picture.

Shifty ideas

Everything is falling apart ..or so I tell myself ..but when I stop and look around ..the validity of the message falls apart ..only a few things I own are in need of repair ..my stereo ..my microwave ..my laptop ..everything else is working fine ..my desktop ..my furnace ..my car ..my neuro pathways ..OK, I may have to check those ..it seems to be the nature of my mind to multiply small matters ..and catastrophize minor setbacks ..it’s like I have a panel of judges inside my head that keep me awake at night worrying about some silly little thing going down over nothing ..like what someone said or did not say that day ..revealing their ‘true’ intentions ..threatening intentions ..like malice and betrayal ..when, by the light of day ..I see there is no such conspiracy ..that's when I experience what I call a simple ‘shift in perspective’ ..makes me feel lighter ..less overwhelmed by the misperception that the world is falling apart (at least until I pick up the newspaper) ..or someone is out to get me ..it allows me to go about the day feeling free and unencumbered .. less defensive and more receptive to what other people have to say (although my ex-wife would probably disagree) ..I can always rely on a slight ‘shift in perspective’ to pull me out of a downward spiral ..for some reason, resilience works for me ..I think I was born with it ..and my father nurtured it ..showing me how to focus on the obstacles in front of me instead of the demons of self-defeat inside my head ..I was reading a case study about homelessness earlier today .. when I thought about some of the others that I’ve read ..and some of the people that I’ve met ..I came to the conclusion ..or oversimplification ..that they seem to be the result of two forces ..a less-than-resilient mental disposition encountering a major-life misfortune ..something along the lines of losing a spouse ..a job ..a house ..followed by a lifetime spent ruminating ..blaming ..and self-loathing .. persistent feelings of failure ..not very adaptive ways of responding to temporary setbacks ..I realize how presumptuous this must sound ..especially coming from someone who usually writes such frivolous journal entries ..but I don’t dwell on it much ..and I continue to write all the same ..because someone once told me that the mind is a ‘story-making device’ ..and I believe it.

Crazy Charlie

A message, written in a traveler’s log at a remote Himalayan outpost, says: “Wonderful people ..great food ..spectacular scenery.” It is the last trace anyone has seen of Charlie since he disappeared ten days ago. The websites and blogs, keeping track of the search, say his prospects are growing awfully dim. One catastrophe after another flashes by my computer screen. It could have been a rock fall ..it could have been a stream crossing ..it could have been a snow storm. Another possibility occurs to me though ..he could have found shelter in a nearby monastery (there are several hundred of those scattered throughout the area). So, I decide it’s time to contact my Indian friend, Dakini, who knows this region better than many. She tells me it’s possible that he could have crossed paths with a wrathful deity (there are also hundreds of those patrolling the area) ..or slipped the shackles of gravity on a high mountain pass ..or found a path leading to Nirvana. Hmm, OK ..what are his chances of finding his way back ..I ask. We can only wait and see ..she says. Time goes by and more messages arrive. Finally I receive word that Charlie has been found ..alive and well ..and passed-out in an opium parlour in Kathmandu. I guess that, in some mixed-up sort of way .. Dakini was right.