Walking out of the shadow

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Elise

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Junk

I feel a cool breeze on my face ..it makes the candles flicker ..the chimes ring ..and my mind wander. A thousand and one things rattling around up there ..not one worth writing about. Why don't I feel like there's anything worth writing about ? Nothing entertaining enough ..clever enough ..or interesting enough. It all seems like a bunch of boring crap you'd find in a junk drawer ..images of someone I haven't seen since 2001 ..remnants of a failed relationship I'm still trying to fix. I'm even trying to improve a conversation that I had the night before. I wonder why I do that ? Maybe if I rummage around long enough I'll find something interesting ..a key to a door I haven't opened in a long time. You know, I'd even settle for a junk drawer ..because it's becoming a real strain trying to keep my thoughts in order ..I'm always afraid of miscalculating ..taking the wrong step ..saying the wrong thing and making myself look like an idiot. In fact, I think I'm more afraid of that than I am falling off a cliff ..it's true ..as crazy as that sounds.

Peninsula

I’m not a mountaintop ..nor am I an island or a rock ..I think I’m more like a peninsula ..that’s what I identify with most ..a peninsula ..where a tiny sliver of sand connects me to the mainland ..or mainstream society ..and, from time to time ..dissolves under water ..like driftwood you see one day and not the next ..commitments erode ..contacts are broken ..mortgages foreclose ..and people drift away ..but, I think the main reason people pass so regularly is because I’m a real son-of-a-bitch to get along with ..I get hostile and drive people away ..which probably means I prefer it that way ..a peninsula is not such a bad thing to be .. waves break on both sides ..and no matter which way the wind blows, it’s always a soothing ocean breeze ..and when things get really rough, I break away ..find sanctuary from the people that hurt or disturb me ..only problem is, I can’t seem to break away from the thoughts in my head that hurt or disturb me.

Psychotic episode

At 3:00 o’clock in the afternoon, my thoughts become disordered ..Ron is talking, but his words are all out of sequence ..like a movie soundtrack playing backwards. "I have no idea what you're talking about" I shout ..when suddenly he turns into a movie character ..which makes me laugh hysterically. I tell him he looks like ‘Vincent D’Onofrio’ ..but he looks at me quizzically like he doesn’t know what I’m talking about ..then he morphs into an alien from another planet ..and I freak. “Who the fuck are you ..!?” I scream ..and watch a succession of bewildered expressions cross his face .. each one too exaggerated to be real ..just what I’d expect from someone who’s not what they seem. His eyes shift nervously from side to side ..and I detect a hint of urgency in his voice. He says he’s concerned for my well-being ..but it sounds insincere. A wave of paranoia washes over me and I feel compelled to cut off this conversation with whatever‘s become of Ron. I hand him a case of wine ..and ask if he wouldn’t mind putting it in the wine cellar ..then I bolt out the front door before he remembers that I don’t have a wine cellar. Outside, daylight arrives in hues of green and blue ..which is comforting compared to the anxiety I was feeling inside. Cars whoosh by ..and vanish out of sight. One by one, the houses on the street begin to disappear .. revealing family rituals that I no longer comprehend. In case they‘re not aware, I stop and shout: “Hey, you’re not behind closed doors anymore ..ya’ know ..!” In return, I get a bunch of mixed messages ..some going: “come here, come here” ..and others saying: “go away ..and mind your own fucking business”. Not knowing what to do ..I go back home where I’m relieved to find that Ron is his usual self again ..and drinking my wine. He pours a glass for me and says he couldn’t find anymore room in the wine cellar.

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.

Ordinary instant

I close my eyes ..and hear the sound of water splashing somewhere ..as well as the sound of someone yelling into a cellphone ..I mean, I don’t know for sure that it’s a cellphone ..but there’s an unmistakable quality to a cellphone conversation. Next, my brain puts the person on the cellphone into a shower (the splashing water) ..and, to make it more convincing ..puts the cellphone into a waterproof yellow case similar to my underwater camera. However, there's one thing it forgot ..the sounds of a real shower never reach the place where I’m sitting. I caught my brain in an outright fabrication. Now I feel the satisfaction of outwitting my own brain ..but I begin wondering how many other fabrications have slipped by me in the past ..and created a data base of misconceptions ..then I remember the reason why I started this journal in the first place ..to try and capture the ‘vagaries’ of ordinary thought. Somewhere I lost track ..the original purpose got obscured ..I took a wrong turn ..and followed the overriding concerns of egotistical thoughts ..which always seem to beat out my ordinary thoughts.

Fairie Glen

Out of darkness comes light ..

Jenny and Jade

A little fiendish photoshoppishness ..Jenny and Jade in Gnarly woods

Heidi and Steve

Into the light

Heidi (1961 ~ 2002)
Steve (1953 ~ 2006)

Grad school

People often ask me how I started out in the field of Psychology ..and wound up working in the computer industry. It’s been so long now that I hardly remember ..but I feel like I owe them a better explanation than: “It was easier getting a job in the computer industry.” There's more to the story. I was originally interested in Clinical Psychology and dreamed of becoming a ‘Rich Hollywood Psychologist’. But, my grades weren’t as stellar as they needed to be and my chances of getting into graduate school for clinical training were pretty slim. Then someone suggested that I get ‘research experience’ ..saying that it would improve my chances considerably. So, in September of 1977 ..I entered graduate school in the field of Experimental Psychology and began looking for a ‘killer topic’ for the master’s thesis. I knew I couldn’t just write a paper – it had to be a research project. This meant coming up with a theory and collecting data to support it. Furthermore, it had to be interesting enough to get published in a professional journal. I had no idea what I was going to do but I didn’t have much time. While preparing for a presentation I was giving at a seminar in learning theory, I ran across a study showing how reading scores dramatically improve once children start making ‘inferences’. For instance, when a child reads the sentence “The paratrooper jumped out of the door” it helps if they make the inference “The paratrooper jumped out of the plane”. We weren’t teaching children to make inferences and that was one of the reasons why Japanese students were outscoring American student in reading. That interested me so I made a copy of it for future reference. Later that year at a seminar in linguistics, I listened to one of the presenters describe how inference-making can have undesirable consequences. At the Watergate hearings for instance, when President Nixon said “No one told me John Mitchell was behind the break-in.” People came away with the impression he said, “I did not know John Mitchell was behind the break-in.” I thought, how ironic ..the same process that helps children learn to read can become a source of misunderstanding between adults. It was an intriguing theory but even more important – I had found a ‘killer topic’. After getting my thesis committee to approve, I began running tests measuring adult speech and reading comprehension. What I found is that people really are susceptible to misleading inferences. Over two-thirds of the time, they mistake the inferences they make for something they either heard or read before. After listening to a passage containing the sentence “The karate expert hit the cement block”, they swore what they heard was “The karate expert broke the cement block.” Relying on inferences can actually lower adult reading scores. I thought I was on to something. Inferences are stored in a manner that is indistinguishable from information conveyed by direct assertion. I found examples occurring in courtroom testimony and deceptive advertising. I presented my findings at a conference of the Western Psychological Association in Los Angeles where I managed to get my thesis published [link]. Then, someone approached me and said that my research would be useful in another field .. developing speech recognition systems for the computer. So in 1981, after the Reagan Administration began cutting funds for the kind of research I was doing, I completed the master’s degree and I went to work for the computer industry. I remember my colleagues telling me I was ‘selling-out’. I never lost interest in psychology and always thought I’d come back and complete a doctoral degree.

**Vintage photo of me after a day in the surf ..Laguna Beach 1977

Day eight

Karla arrives here right after school ..we go to IHOP then to the mall for tennis shoes. They don’t have my size so I get a pair of sandals instead ..they don’t have the one’s Karla likes ..so we go looking for a store that carries Adidas without the colored stripes. We find them at a Footlocker store ..but then she remembers that Laura told her not to get them until she sees her grades ..which means I can’t get them without undermining Laura’s authority ..so, we take Andy to the park instead. They wait there while I go to physical therapy ..where I put on a pair of goggles so they can track my eye movements while moving my head around ..to see if my eyes get spastic trying to compensate for problems with my inner ear ..(?) (sense of balance). They say I have problems with ‘gaze stabilization’ ..who’d of thought ..this means I can’t even gaze properly. I thought it was my speciality. Back home, I have a smoothie while Karla has broccoli, avocado and cheese with mayonnaise and soy sauce ..I feel light headed so I lay down for awhile ..later we watch Shrek 2 ..which makes me laugh ..and feel better .. so I make some pasta and stay up to watch Wimbledon highlights ..and Jay Leno. Tonight is Karla’s last night here ..tomorrow Laura arrives home after eight days in Mexico ..untangling immigration/adoption problems. I’ll miss Karla’s company ..she’s good natured and delightful to be with.

Day seven

Karla comes home right after school today ..thinking its Friday ..so, she plays with Andy ..cleans Fred’s cage (Aria’s pet rat) ..and I take her skateboarding on the strand. I unhook Andy and let him go running on the beach ..where he runs into Judy and Michael ..who love Andy because they once owned an Airedale too. On our way by the skateboard park, some boys howl at Karla and hide .. she is embarrassed ..she knows them from school and says that they are only doing it because they know it makes her mad. Afterwards, we have Pho and Dover Sole at Little Saigon ..I love the way they prepare the fish ..and I drink fresh coconut out of the shell ..which I haven’t done in a long time ..I don’t know why. I ask a couple of the waiters, who recently emigrated from Vietnam ..if they had problems with Hanoi about coming to the US. They say no ..they are foreign exchange students. I tell Karla that relations between Vietnam and the US must be better. She has no idea what I’m talking about ..or even why I asked the waiters anything. See, she says .. even they say there’s no problem ..and I start thinking: maybe I’m the one who’s out of touch. Later, Karla shows me her interior decorating job ..she corrected a problem with the lighting in the guest bedroom. Now people won’t have to grope in the dark to find a lamp switch. I tell her what an excellent job she did.

Day six

We Drive to Ventura to pick up some more stuff for Karla ..and attend a possible Fourth of July block party ..but there’s no one around ..so we grab the stuff and get out of town. I drive back to Santa Barbara and take a detour through the mountains ..which annoys Karla. Back home, she reads the lyrics while listening to another Grateful Dead CD (Workingman’s Dead ..my favorite). I think she has near perfect pitch ..not because she can follow the Dead ..but because she can match the sound of just about any of the hip-hop singer she hears ..as well as the sound of the blender and coffee grinder. She says she wants to learn the flute ..and play in the high school band. I tell her she’ll be the first hip-hop flute musician. This evening we have soup, broccoli and avocado ..with mayonnaise and soy sauce ..kind of like a California roll without the fish ..afterward, we watch the fireworks from my bedroom window ..even Andy gets up on his hind paws to see. I remind Karla to come home right after summer school on Friday ..so we can have lunch at IHOP ..then go shopping for tennis shoes.

Day five

Summer school and the Boys and Girls club ..Karla is making a pouch for her iPod ..and learning ‘relative clauses’. This evening she reads lyrics while listening to a Jerry Garcia CD called 'Shady Grove' ..which is made up of nineteenth century British and American folk tunes ..sung to guitar and mandolin ..each one tells a story ..some of which she finds funny. I switch to some early Grateful Dead ..and get out a book of lyrics (Box of Rain by Robert Hunter). It’s really not her preference in music ..I know she listens to some pretty classy hip-hop ..people like Chris Brown, Akon and Gwen Stephanie. To her, rock and roll sounds like a party full of loud and obnoxious drunks. That makes me laugh ..but I know what she means. Anyway, she reads along to a few Dead tunes .. says she likes ‘Tennessee Jed’ and ‘Ramblin Rose’ ..and tells me she can hear the similarity between Celtic music and Bluegrass ..and Bluegrass and Grateful Dead (Jerry Garcia started out playing bluegrass in a jug band) ..I feel proud ..we eat leftover chicken and salad for dinner.

Day four

Karla leaves for summer school at 8 am ..from there she goes to the Boys and Girls club until 5 pm ..meanwhile I play with Andy ..discuss the creek situation with Raul ..plan my day ..my week ..and my month (don’t know why, everything after this moment is a crapshoot anyway) ..I catch up on my ‘book-keeping’ ..which means paying bills that are either due ..or past-due ..I pick up Karla ..and we go to the post office ..tri-county produce ..trader joes ..and scolaris ..we stock up on sparkling apple cider ..avocados ..brie cheese ..crackers ..oreos ..ice cream ..cup of noodle soup (I hope Laura isn’t reading this) ..and carrots and broccoli (just in case she is) ..but couldn’t find any fresh papaya or mangoes ..we have baked chicken and one of my masterpiece salads for dinner.

Day three

I sleep late ..Karla has been up since 7 am watching cartoons ..we go for bagels and cream cheese on Milpas ..then skateboarding and walking on the strand with Andy. We swing by the skateboard park ..but Sean isn’t there ..he’s a surfer dude with long blond hair who sits next to Karla in one of her classes ..there is plenty of sunshine though ..and crowds everywhere ..big pelican convention going on in the tide pools ..and tourists galore ..there’s a van in the parking lot drawing a lot of attention ..it’s plastered, inside and out, with every imaginable icon of American culture ..from the fifties to the present ..in pictures ..figurines ..dolls ..and various assundry paraphernalia ..real kitsch. A picture of Timothy Leary immediately pops out at me ..Karla recognizes Sponge Bob .. Justin Timberlake ..John Lennon ..the cast of Star Wars ..Taz ..and Barbie ..or is that Marylyn Monroe ..Karla says it’s Madonna ..we sit and vegetate at the end of the pier for a while ..then go to Nature Cafe for avocado sandwiches and smoothies ..and another humongous So Cal day slips away.