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.

On an elven river

Peace

Shopping trip

Today I went Christmas shopping on State Street ..like I do every year. I duck into Morninglory's and get CD’s and DVD’s for everyone (I’m so predictable) ..then over to Chaucer’s, where I pick up a book titled ‘Little Prince’ for Karla. Back out on the street, a woman is passing out business cards that say: ‘Visionary ..Specializing in Seeing Possibilities’ ..I guess that means she’s a ‘Life Coach’. I walk out on the wharf to watch the sunset ..they tell me that the sun is farthest away from the equator these days (I don’t even want to try and remember what that means) ..to me, it looks like a small drop of orange water slowly sinking into the Pacific Ocean.

Mountain view

While Laura and Karla put tile in their kitchen .. Andy (the dog) and I went for a BIG walk. We raced up the stone steps of the hiking trail ..passed Brooks College ..and Franceschi park ..Andy knows the way now. We stopped and greeted each of my friends growing in the botanical garden. Then we swooped around the mountaintop ..got a 360 degree view of the mountains and ocean ..and slipped down the backside trail underneath giant Oak trees ..into a place I like to call ‘Middle Earth’. Sometimes when I go there ..I recite ‘The Jabberwocky’ ..from ‘Alice in Wonderland’ ..as loudly as I can. It helps me relieve the tension of too much rational thinking. The other day I taught Karla, my thirteen year old Goddaughter from Mexico, the words to ‘Fish Cheer’ ..by ‘Country Joe and the Fish’ ..so now we sing that as loudly as we can. Although it’s an anti-war song from another era ..Karla likes it because it sounds goofy. However, the other day while she was reading the Spanish newspaper ‘La Opinion’ ..she looked up at me and said: "They really do send them home in a box".

Karla and Andy

Karla and I made Christmas cards today .. she did the drawings, I did the photomanips ..then she did a remarkable job of putting it all together. Next we cut Andy loose on the athletic fields to chase birds (he never catches any). Karla rides her bike everywhere we go ..she says her favorite subject at school is PE ..and I believe it. This evening, Laura, Karla and I go to Rose’s Cafe for dinner ..and, against Laura’s advice, I order albondigas soup ..it’s not their best dish, but it felt warm. Back at the house, abuelito comes by and drops off another portable basketball net. However, there’s no room for it in the driveway. Not a problem, he says: “When I was a kid, we played in the dirt” ..so we set it up in the back lot.

Sensory synesthesia

Around the end of it’s broadcast day, my brain starts mis-directing information from my senses ..and begins sending sound waves to my visual centers. Suddenly voices around me are glowing like sunshine ..music illuminates the room with shimmering hues of magenta and indigo ..I go outside where I ‘see’ a ‘birdsong’ spin around my head like a twirling dervish ..a dog barks in secret code ..and the swoosh of nearby traffic reaches my deck like waves crashing on the beach.

Note:Sensory synesthesia is a real experience shared by everyone ..it is a necessary part of reading comprehension. If you are interested in seeing another post on the subject, click here ~>Synesthesia

Road test

Whoaaaa ..I’m at the neuro lab where they have been injecting me full of mind-altering substances ..shooting burning rays of light into my eyes ..and recording my brain waves. Then, just when I’m starting to get comfortable, a lab technician, in a long white coat, opens the door, switches on the light and says “we’re through ..you’re free ..bye ..bye..” I stumble out into blinding sunlight ..magnolia blossoms loom up ..giant humming birds zoom by ..and my daydreams get mixed with the daylight. I ignore the doctor’s advice and drive myself home. About a quarter of the way there, the steering wheel swells up like a balloon and moves off-center ..the gearshift turns into licorice and stretches out of shape ..even the knob turns into styrofoam ..outside, white lines and road signs streak by like stars in hyperspace ..up ahead, the road disappears into a tiny black hole.

Eye test

I didn’t pass my eye exam today ..each letter on the chart kept changing like flashcards ..a ‘G’ became a ‘Q’ ..then a ‘C’ ..then a ‘D’ ..and I didn’t know which one to choose. So I decide to blurt out the first letter I see before it turns into another one. The doctor says I should have 20/20 vision in that eye ..something else must be wrong ..then he asks me if I’m trying as hard as I can ..like I’m some kind of test taking slacker. He sends me to the neurologist who tells me I have a ‘transmission gap’ between my eyes and brain where information gets lost ..and only part of the letter makes it through OK. When this happens, my brain has fewer clues to go by so it’s forced to do a more extensive memory search and present me with a larger list of possible candidates ..flashing them one-by-one inside my head. Fortunately this problem is confined to eye charts because, in the real world, I see letters in the context of words ..which gives my brain a lot more information to go by ..narrowing down the search considerably ..and helping me recognize letters fast enough to read fluently ..more or less ..I guess.

Rambling on

Andy chased a deer yesterday ..probably thought it was a really big dog or something ..Karla saw it, I didn’t ..maybe we’ll climb the steps to the top of Francesshi again today ..keep my hiking legs in shape. Laura comes home from work ..talks to clients on the phone ..sees contractors ..consults drawings ..gives instructions ..sends Karla on errands ..then, almost like magic ..dinner is served. Afterwards, while she is making more phone calls ..I browse the Internet ..google lyrics to a song Karla likes ..turns out to be by Akon and Snopp Dogg ..I review Karla’s homework ..her English reader probes for inferences and predictions while she reads ..mental processes they didn’t used to teach ..a technique pioneered by a former colleague, Tom Trabasso, in 1996.

Cold mountain journal

Arctic air blows over my deck ..making my fingers stiff and hard to write with. South of here, by the Mexican border, where it’s warmer, we're building fences. Shouldn't we be building bridges ..? I mean, Eastern philosophers say that connection is more natural than separation ..and I believe it. The wisdom of a group is greater than the sum of the individuals ..when information is free ..collaboration is key ..synergy and integration is what’s called for. My heart is stuck in a sad state these days ..it’ll pass, I know ..I think too many rude shocks and let-downs put it there ..no one really cares ..I know people have worries that are worse than mine. Rooftops, treetops and mountaintops ..math tests, beach walks, sandy feet, and salty air are just some of the things that we share ..I’m not putting fences there. Another blast of cold air ..another frozen stare ..I breath in and smile ..hold it and dissolve ..breath out and let go of the debris ..sit still and start over again. Karla says rock n roll sounds like people screaming ..hip-hop has a smoother flow ..kind of like rhythm n blues ..folk rock tells fairy tales ..fairy tales contain pieces of the heart that rational thought leaves out.

Epilogue

        American Gothic

I love the new Evanescence CD ..! I mentioned this to my neighbor Anastasia the other day and she told me that the reason I like them so much is because they are ‘mainstream’. I figure she ought to know ..her husband is the lead singer for a Goth metal band ..and they are definitely not mainstream .. or commercially successful. Anyway, it confirms my suspicion that the Goth subculture is growing. They are stepping out of their ‘niche market’ and laying siege to the rest of our psyche ..the parts that bring us places like Never Land and the Enchanted Forest. They are no longer content to dwell in the mosh pits or heavy metal shows in places like Sacramento or Modesto ..now they can be found in every major port and industrial city in the world. I remember someone saying: “..I can see the future of rock and roll ..and it is Bruce Springsteen.” Yeah ..? Well, they better look again ..I’m beginning to think it’s Ozzy Osbourne.

Karla’s birthday

I pick Karla up after school for our usual assault on the beach. I’m about to tell her to invite friends ..since it’s her birthday ..when she remembers that she already has an invitation to go to a party. It’s Fernanda’s birthday too. Nellie is going .. however, Nellie’s twin sister, Maggie, isn’t coming because she’d rather go shopping with her mother. So I take Karla and Nellie to the party ..then launch my own assault on the beach with Andy, my dog. I watch him chase birds up and down the shore ..see pelicans dive bomb for fish ..listen to a guy named ‘Tim’ tell me how his girlfriend threw him out of the house because members of their church didn’t like his tattoos. I go for a swim then drive back to Laura’s house. Laura is home from work now so we go pick up Karla ..and get a call from Nellie’s mother asking where Maggie is. Laura tells her that we don’t know because I only drove Nellie to the party ..then tells me she’s probably with her boyfriend. We go have a ‘birthday dinner’ at the Vietnamese restaurant ..pho with shrimp and fish. I listen to Karla explain the message behind the movie ‘Before and After’ ..so now I’m anxious to see it. She also wrote down the plot of a movie called ‘Fairy Tale’ ..in case I wanted to use it for one of my goth fairy stories. How thoughtful she is. She's thirteen today.

Chapter six

        I l l u m i n a t i o n

The Goth Fairy culture inhabits a world much darker than the rest of us ..however, they know how to illuminate these realms from within. For them, the outer world is a passing illusion ..it only seems real when we catch a glimpse of it and freeze the action. Life is never really motionless though ..only the mind makes it seem so. Fairy Goth children learn how to master the inner world before they learn to deal with the outer world. At an early age, they study metaphysics and cosmology. By the time they are ten, they are practicing mental telepathy and mystic transport. Their minds are tuned to waves of energy that children in other cultures have had pruned away. I sat down recently and spoke with the Fairy Goth Princess ..a remarkable young lady, in her teens, who is heiress to the throne. Unlike other children who learn their mystical skills through instruction and books ..she acquired her abilities by direct experience. She explains: “I can still hear the echoes from facing the walls of the abyss for ten years. I learned how to escape those barriers by following a trail that lead directly to my mind ..where I found a portal that allowed me join the other children playing in the fields. Now, when a child is lost or in trouble ..I can hear their pleas for help and telepathically guide them to safety. You see, we are all connected to one another through mental ‘receiving stations’ .. each member immediately shares the experiences of all the other members.” The Fairy Goth Princess explains how books, as good as they may be ..can sometimes get in the way of mystical experience: “Conflicting opinions muddy the water. The only way to see things clearly is by calming the mind and allowing the mud to settle.” She goes on to say: “No matter how much information you get from books ..whatever knowledge or supernatural power you may acquire ..when quarrels arise ..you have lost the way to illumination.”

See ~~> Epilogue

Chapter five

      Pathway to illumination

The Fairy Princess scales the steep canyon walls of the disenchanted forest. Along the way, her boots get wet and soggy and her legs ache. She climbs over obstacles using her hands, feet and fingernails. On the slopes of Mount Breakdown she feels a tingling sensation ..bright lights shimmer in her head ..and clusters of sadness fall away. She looks down and pays tribute to the clouds in the valley below. Members of the Goth Fairy Kingdom have a profound reverence for dark places like gorges, caves and grottos. It’s not just a fashion statement or superstitious behavior ..they actually believe that darkness is the mother of all things ..the womb where life begins. She feels exhausted but in tune with the rhythm. She knows that hard times naturally give way to good times ..like a light that shines in a dark place ..they’re co-relative. One doesn’t exist without the other.  Continue here ~~> Chapter six

Crazy Charlie

Charlie didn’t get any sleep last night. After I went to bed, I could still here him talking to himself in the dining room. This morning there’s a mountain of crumpled paper on the table and Charlie is no where to be found. I uncrumple a few of the pages and see lots of squiggly lines and arrows. I turn them upside down and sideways to see if I can find a thread of rational thought anywhere. Sure enough ..I found one. It seems to suggest a conspiracy: space aliens are in control of the U.S government and setting crude oil prices to ensure supplies for their own planet. I’m afraid that Charlie is in the hyper phase of his bipolar cycle. I drive down to the wharf looking in all the places he usually hangs out. I find him walking down the center of highway 101 ..without any clothes. I pull up beside him and yell: “Hey you crazy Gaijun, wuz happinin ..?” He says he overheated somewhere back on Haley Street. I say: “Yea ..there’s an offshore flow ..mucho caliente ..but hey, kick-ass conditions on the coast.” He gets in and I drive to Arroyo Burro beach where he won’t look so conspicuous (because it’s a nude beach). We get out and I follow his line of crazy hyper-chat down to the water ..and throw him in.

Saint Konstanz

The Vampiress of Konstanz

Halloween

Karla dressed up as ‘Tigger’ from Winnie the Pooh and went door to door trick or treating with friends from school. I had on an Arabic headdress and trench coat ..so, I guess that made me a Sheik. Afterwards, Laura, Karla and I sat on a sidewalk cafe, off State Street, and tossed candy to all the people walking by dressed in funny-looking costumes. We saw lots of people dressed like Jack Sparrow or Captain Morgan ..and heard the sound of many people going 'ahrrrrrrrrgh'. We also saw gypsies ..belly dancers ..witches ..monsters ..aliens ..zombies ..angels ..messengers of death ..skeletons ..household appliances ..marijuana farmers ..transvestites ..some boys ..some girls ..some I don’t know ..I did recognize Hunter S Thompson though ..his buddy said I was the only one who did ..but now I’m not sure that those farmers were wearing costumes.

Flashback

A spider web is finer than silk ..and a hundred times more elastic than a bungee cord. That’s because it's made up of all these interconnections ..so that activity in one part gets transmitted immediately to all the other parts ..like the fleeting connections that exist between thoughts and images ..where one memory activates another ..then another ..then another ..until I’m standing in a parking lot ..that used to be a field ..before the sonic and the walgrens ..and I hear my mother’s voice calling me for dinner ..while I feel the anticipation of swinging at another pitch ..and waiting until I hear the next call ..the one that comes before the angry call ..on another warm summer night down a suburban avenue ..without a care in the world ..when my dad paid all the bills.

Land of the living

My first mistake was preparing for a trip to Big Sur instead of staying in bed. Tuesday felt like hell ..but I took my car in for repairs anyway ..and had breakfast downtown with the idea of doing some last minute shopping. Didn’t take long for me to realize that my plan didn’t stand a chance. I made it as far as the library where I knew there was comfortable furniture to lay down on. After that, I figured walking was out of the question ..so I went by Laura’s work and borrowed her truck ..drove myself home and laid down some more. Later I picked her up and we went to get my car out of the shop. New breaks and a minor tune. Great, now my car is ready for a trip that I’m not going to make. Thursday I cancelled two weeks lodging and workshops at Esalen in a voice that was barely audible. I think they took pity on me because, one ..I sounded so bad, and two ..I was missing a Big Sur retreat. They refunded everything including a deposit which was rightfully theirs to keep. That was sure sweet of someone up there. Today I feel like I’m one step closer to the land of the living.