Breakfast of demons

The telephone wakes me in the morning ..it’s Laura asking me if I want to go out for lunch today. I say OK ..stumble out of bed and go downstairs ..where I’m confronted with forces sent to destroy my breakfast ..and thrash my kitchen. While I’m not paying attention, the coffeemaker overflows ..spilling coffee across the counter top, down the cabinets and out over the floor. I stop what I’m doing to mop it up ..and clean the cabinets ..both inside and out. Next, the oatmeal explodes in the microwave ..I stop what I’m doing to remove the mess ..burn my hand on hot sticky oatmeal ..react by swearing and waving my hand in the air to cool ..causing the bowl to crash on the floor ..splattering oatmeal everywhere. I stand and stare ..dumbfounded by the gooey mess I’m in. I breathe deep, wipe everything off and start over again. I’m slicing a mango, wondering if the oatmeal is going to explode again ..when the mango slides out of my hand and the knife cuts into my finger ..sending my composure out of sight. I perform first aid ..wipe the blood and mango juice from the counter top and cabinets ..both inside and out ..scream at whatever demons are screwing with me ..and sit down with a glass of orange juice ..figuring this outta’ hold me till lunch.

Gaze control

Major Lee to Gaze Control ..I’ve become unstuck from gravity ..everything around me is in ‘motion blur’ ..and I think I’m gonna hurl. Gaze Control to Major Lee ..you’ve entered a ‘sensory destabilization’ zone ..try to re-establish visual contact with something in your surroundings ..traffic lights ..street signs ..a bumper sticker ..anything that’ll help you regain visual stability. Major Lee ..I thought that was YOUR JOB ..Gaze Control.Gaze Control ..there's no time for blame ..we’ve lost communication with the reflex that cushions your eyes from the shock of walking upright ..from now on, it’s up to you to make that correction. Major Lee ..my neighborhood doesn’t look familiar anymore ..the pavement is disappearing ..and I’m losing my grip ..tell me, what am I supposed to do..? Gaze Control ..concentrate on keeping your eyes focused and still ..resist the forces pulling them in different directions. Either that or you're going to have to develop a higher tolerance for blur. Major Lee ..Roger that Houston.

Starship log

It was wet and spongy ..the way something looks after it’s sucked up more than it can hold. I put it in my bio-collection pouch and continued scanning the dry riverbed ..looking for whatever else may have spilled from a collision, earlier today, between asteroid X-18004 ..and an intergalactic bio-waste transporter ..just above a wasteland called ‘San Bernardino’ on a backwater planet named ‘Earth’. By the time I got back on board ship ..the specimen had grown noticeably larger ..the Biotech Crew eliminated the possibility that it came from the accident ..and concluded that it must be native to the planet ..we debated what we should do ..incinerate it ..or study it ..after tossing a coin ..we began attaching electrodes to fibers at the receptor sites ..and when we delivered linguistic signals, culled from radio waves native to the area ..it responded!! Resonating ..deliberating ..then sequencing elements found in storage containers scattered throughout the periphery ..a pattern recognition system was quickly deployed and the sequence scanned. It read: “Are we in Tennessee ..Jed ?”

Gray matter

Now, I don’t have an overly ‘mechanistic’ view of the world ..but I am fascinated by what a small clump of tissue in my left frontal lobe can do ~ it acts kind of like a sponge ~ absorbing events arriving from my senses ~ filtering them through a network of obstructing ideas ~ drawn from a pool of corrupted memories ~ producing fragmented sentences that stopped making sense ~ even to me ~ a long, long time ago.

Ideology distorts perception

I’ve been around long enough to see the United States blunder into two civil wars ..the one in Iraq and the other in Vietnam. Both are the result of mis-perceived ideology. In Vietnam, we mistook a civil war for the spread of communist ideology. Yet, when South Vietnam fell ..the ‘dominoes’ didn’t fall very far ..turns out the North Vietnamese were more interested in unifying their country than promoting communism. I see the same thing going on in Iraq right now ..with only slight variation .. we’re mistaking a civil war for the spread of terrorist ideology. Don’t get me wrong ..I think terrorism is a real threat ..however, not from the Iraqis. Looks to me as though they’re more interested in dealing with they’re own internal conflicts. To think they are going to turn the Middle East into a radical Islamic state for launching terrorist attacks is as deluded as the ‘domino theory’ was during the Vietnam era.

Gazing practice

I finished my 'gazing' exercises for the day ..I’m still not very good at it ..it’s not like staring into space ..but, I am getting better. They’re actually pretty simple ..I move my head around while keeping my eyes focused on a picture in front of me. The goal is to reach a ‘zone’ where the picture freezes ..without trailing or blurring. In theory, I’m training my nervous system to build new pathways to keep my vision stable. It’s similar to a technique we use with children who can’t read ..except, instead of training their visual system, we train their auditory system (sound system). In theory, this is supposed to generate pathways for handling ‘phonemes’ ..that didn’t develop while they were growing up. I think I’m getting a better sense of what these kids go through in school ..because, even though I don’t stumble over words while I read .. I am afraid of stumbling and looking foolish when I walk.

Gazing ability

My physical therapist tells me there’s a new term out for what I’ve got when the room starts to spin ..‘gaze instability’. It means I’ve lost the reflex that keeps my vision stable while my head is moving Now, I know that, for the most part, when I move my head ..I want my eyes to look in the same general direction ..however, it happens with even the slightest motion ..like walking for instance ..my head moves up and down ..and so do things I pass on the street. I tell my therapist it reminds me of crazy ‘Dr. Monroe’. Who’s that ..she asks. A college professor who used to walk around campus wearing a video camera on her head ..like a pith helmet ..I explain. Everyone would laugh and say: ‘There goes crazy Monroe’ ..but there was a method to her madness ..you see, what the camera records is different than what the eye sees ..and, since a camera doesn’t have ‘shock absorbers’ ..it’s an awfully bumpy ride ..not smooth the way we ordinarily see things. “That’s a good way to describe it” my therapist tells me. It comes as kind of a surprise though; I always thought ‘gazing’ was one of my better qualities ..at least, that’s what my employers used to say ..along with both parents, all my teachers ..and quite a few relatives.

Ash Friday

The darkest part of the day is around noon ..the sky is a gloomy shade of black and orange ..the colors of Halloween .. heavy metal goth ..or doom ..there’s a fire in the mountains ..and an onshore flow from the ocean ..creating an eerie glow ..ashes fall like snow ..piling up on my shoulders ..and going up my nose ..I choke, spit, bitch and moan ..while Laura looks up ..she was in Mexico City during the earthquake of ’85 ..and says ashes also fell from the sky ..and I’m like ..from what, a volcano ? and she says no, from broken gas lines and burning people ..I cringe ..how ghastly that must have been ..yea, she says ..but not when you stop to consider how we’re always inhaling the molecules of our ancestors ..and I’m thinking ..how metaphysical.

The shower

I’m always in such a hurry ..a shower is something I rush through to get out of the door on time ..clean and without much consciousness. Not today. It was like trying to take a shower from a fire hydrant ..the force knocks me off my feet ...drowns out my screams ..and washes away everything in it’s path .. I open my eyes and I’m kneeling in Nepal ..watching the Ganges fall .. I open my eyes and I’m in Calcutta ..bathing in the river with millions of others ..back home I raise my hands up to the water falling from the indoor plumbing of my shower ..and give thanks. I crawl out on the cold tile of my bathroom floor ..and lift myself up to the sink ..fully awake and ready for whatever comes my way ..if I can just remember to slow down and take things consciously.

Another message from the zen fortune cookie factory.