. Spinning .

Yes, I have had mornings in my past where I’ve awakened, looked to my left and said, "ohmygod!"

But with the self-imposed bridle of marriage, thank God, those days are past.  It seems that I can’t break old habits however and have merely transferred my lack of willpower into other areas, and this morning is one of those mornings that I can’t shake the regret of bad behavior.

Now I’m not being tough on myself, I’m being honest–and probably not tough enough because I should have learned when I was given the chance to redeem myself, did the work, then carelessly allowed laziness or enthusiasm in any other area but Statistics to become, yes, a slider.  I easily had an A within my grasp, almost blew it, made it up, then blew it on the final by not putting in the necessary effort; talking myself out of studying by one excuse after another.  Not getting an A because it would have been difficult for me is one thing; throwing it away because of sheer stubbornness to apply myself to the task is another.

This is where I value grades—not because of the status, but because it is a reflection of the effort and thus a reward that is earned through hard work.  If I had tried my damnedest and earned a D, I would still be more proud of myself.

I ain’t proud of myself this morning.  But whatever grade I end up with in the course will be in direct ratio to the grade level of myself I put into it.  Let’s hope it’s a wakeup call.

This is another good thing about weblogging–even if it need be done before an audience–it’s a way of looking at yourself honestly, not dodging around or sticking your head in the sand (which is something I’ve tended to do).  I’m not looking for sympathy, I’ve got what I wanted from this and a few other entries–comprehension.  I look back now at a post I made last week titled "Facing-Up", an obvious play on words, and an obvious coat for the entry that simply stated, "Sometime during the night my head unscrewed.  As I arose, it fell into my lap."

Now I know what I meant, what was coming out in vague, strange words.  The title and two sentences said so much, and I only see it now.  I was well aware of what I was doing but was unwilling at that point to face it and overcome the problem, but chose instead to write a few words in acknowledgement that made me just a little less of a liar to myself.  Why didn’t I just do the obvious; screw my head back on?

Neat to go through the mental process of analyzing yourself.  Must have been that special on Freud last night that was on TV subliminally sorting things out while my main concentration was on a video game. 

In soaking up knowledge, perhaps as a form of narcissism we often tend to use it as a gauge of our own selves.

Patience, tolerance of others; these virtues I have sought to learn through years of living in a world of individuals. But to myself, I still apply the absolutes. To seek how high, I look below to see how far to fall, and often choose instead a different path.

The either/or’s of life are faced in every second of the day—even just by thinking, thus holding back one’s forward step by a second of delay. But all the forward motion—whether giants steps or small, bring all to the same end at some sweet time. I need to see the boundaries, the edges of the world, explore them all with fingers, feet, and eyes. Just a touch, a minute then to linger and move on.

In the movie, The Sliding Doors, we get a chance to watch a follow-through of the great “What if?” A variable, a split second, space or time, and a life splits off in its direction. If we could see them through in our own lives, watch the two trails diverge, would it have been any easier to decide? There are no rules, you know, that disallow another fork further up the road.

That’s the word I’ve been looking for—osmosis. This is the whole of my education. Of course I study; I cram for exams, I write essays surrounded by books and notes, I pay attention in class and take those notes.

But I don’t remember, or consciously remember a darned thing. For example, I learned a term for this particular type of memory in a Psychology course just last year. I don’t remember the proper term at all, nor even the number of types of memory. I never did have good recall; never. But I’m sure it’s gotten worse with age.

So how come some of the elements of writing are starting to infiltrate what I produce? Why is it improving?

Osmosis.

Not just from the classes alone—although they’ve influenced me heavily and with a faster, more forceful impression, even if I couldn’t tell you two months later what I learned. It just was absorbed–maybe bypassing the Records Office of my brain. The same processing happens from reading as well. Sometimes I look back on something I’ve written and can’t believe I wrote it. Obviously, much of my style or voice has been drawn from readings that must have left their mark with twists of phrase or language that comes out of storage cells when I sit down to type.

Edgar’s laughing his fool head off.

Within oneself, I mean.

I aspire to be organized, hate to be out of control, like to roll with the flow while planning ahead.

In truth, I am a free spirit, given to bursts of spontaneity, am inquisitive and open-minded. In honest-to-God-truth, I am a gadabout, slogging through with dragging feet, hate surprises and am a longstanding procrastinator. I do hate to be out of control, though; that part’s true enough.

Although I credit Edgar for my dour tendencies, maybe my failure as a ball of fire ties in somehow with this:

You’re Alice.

Which Alice in Wonderland Character are you?
brought to you by Quizilla

Psychology and Philosophy are twins, I think. Both force the questions, “What is the mind? What is real, and what is not?”

Freud probed the mind to propose (loosely translated) that many lived inside one single mind, and colored how we saw the world depending upon which one of us was watching at the time. He felt that dreams revealed our viewpoint of reality, and people, trees, and countries were turned to symbols in our dreams, thinly hiding what we faced, or often couldn’t face each day.

I feel that in the creative process, we do the same, with colored words and images. Instead of interpreting dreams to reveal reality, we build a world of words to hide within, but consciously awake, alert and plotting. Often it becomes the more natural way of seeing things, even at first glance.

Everything I’ve written here in the past months has been honest. It is no longer, however, straightforward. We learn to paint an image in Renaissance extremes or sometimes in cubist, modernist, or secretly obvious forms; sometimes, obviously secret as well.

A spark of life, a flash of light from flint and metal. Patience, work, determination. Patience, waiting for the straw to catch. Work, over and over and over again in repetitious moves based on experience and knowledge. Determination, because there is a goal. The fire is not for merely light to see but warmth to breathe as well. Necessary, to stop and try and try and try before you can go on. A glimpse of cold, unmoving in its place moves the seer.

I think it’s caught. I need a breeze to fan the little flame.

“There’s something happening here,
What it is ain’t exactly clear…”

“Stop, hey, what’s that sound
Everybody look what’s going down…”

(For What It’s Worth, Lyrics; Buffalo Springfield)

I feel it, the breaking down of the last stronghold. Writing is in danger of being shadowed by the same cloud that’s been blocking the light from the rest of my reality. It’s a feeling of I can’t think, do I have to, slowly winding down to I don’t want to, I don’t care.

Everything is so overwhelming that it just doesn’t seem possible anymore. But there are gotta-do’s, and that’s what is saving me right now. The gotta do’s are gaining rank in priority, and they’re finally getting done by sheer force of willpower and learned sense of commitment and responsibility.

In the past couple of days I faced the great outdoors. I dressed in cutoffs and oldest tee-shirt to get into gardening mood. The woman staring rather confusedly back at me in my mirror looked like a gardener. She stood there for a moment, wordless, turned her back on me and left me standing there. She went outside, I think, and gardened.

Losing the will to write is the point at which I draw the line at sinking further down. The words have kept me afloat amidst unvacuumed rugs and growing impatient customers.

Maybe this will be my Last Stand, but I am no gallant, unthinking Custer. I have always been an Indian. So I shall write. Forgive me, but I must go on the warpath now.

Wow. Remind me not to take Leadership or Self Esteem quizzes when I’m trying to climb stairs.

From Jerz’s Literacy Log, you’re welcome to try this one out–good luck and hope you do better than I did. Actually, if you get better than half score, I’ll just follow you anywhere, cause you’re a better man/woman than I am.

Haven’t done a Quizzila for a while. This one intrigued me, plus I wanted an image to brighten things up a bit today:

You’re a Spirograph!! You’re pretty tripped out,
even though you’ve been known to be a bit
boring at times. You manage to serve your
purpose in life while expending hardly any
effort (and are probably stoned to the gills
all the while).

What childhood toy from the 80s are you?
brought to you by Quizilla

It has been an absolutely beautiful day outside today. Yet, I didn’t do any of the gardening, nothing at all.

I’ve been in a decent mood the past several days. But I did little to no writing.

There are so many directions I must run to, but I cannot oversee the traffic, and instead of balancing (I used to be able to do two entirely different projects with each hand independently working of the other), I am feeling overwhelmed.

At some point, whatever I have lived with for the past six months is no longer an excuse to slack off the way I have. I’m getting lazy.

And fat. Normally, jeans in sizes anywhere from 1 to 10 may fit me, depending upon where they are made. Countries with small people make the sizes huge right after size 6. Clothes from other countries I might need an 8 or 10. There may be a good fifty pairs of jeans within my closet–no, I am not rich nor spoiled, just frugal and my size and shape are as variable as my mood. These jeans represent thirty plus years of not giving to the Salvation Army. This isn’t odd when you weigh about 100 lbs. and one or two lbs. lost in a few forgotten meals or gained in chocolate are the difference of inches in a waistline. I struggled into a pair of jeans this morning, rearranged my shape by conscious stretch and breathe, zipped and buttoned and buckled on my belt to find that I could hook it four notches in from where I wore it yesterday. But then…

Beautiful early spring days call for spareribs on the grill and potatoe salad (I know about the extra “e”, I just like to spell it that way). Delicious, grilled to perfection by Grillmaster (he makes me call him that all summer, but it saves me a lot of cooking if I acquiesce), the spareribs were rubbed with crushed garlic and Walker’s Woods. The potatoe salad was my usual exquisite, with the special flavor from the juice from the green olive jar.

However, I now feel fat. And that on top of my normal lazy, and disorganized, and singlemindedness, amounts to very little having been accomplished.

There, it’s out, I have admitted my imperfections, well, at least a couple. Maybe now, seeing it in writing I shall be shamed into activity. The night is young.

Uh-oh. I fell off the political wagon, but am having weird religious thoughts this morning, inspired perhaps by a recent spat of religious debate that normally follows crisis. Random then, and rapid-fire:

Sure, religion and a belief in something beyond us both in boundaries of the earth and in our comprehension of death could be the roots and thus a creation of man himself rather than the reverse. Especially now, when the sky and planets are no longer closed to us.

Historical evidence of a man named Jesus is as trustworthy as much else of history even further back, but not confirmation of His divinity. But heck, it sure sounds like He was someone we could trust, and if He believed so strongly in a God, then maybe He was onto something.

What does it hurt to believe? Crusades and 9/11 and centuries in between have most surely revealed the harm and yet that seems to be a case of extremism, fanaticism, and not the norm for societies but rather for the mobs.

It is only in the past three, maybe four thousand years that man has progressed to a point where he believes himself capable of doing things that formerly were unexplained by science and so more easily given over to a higher power.

Man can imitate, clone, crossbreed and fiddle with life all he wants, and still cannot create a living thing from scratch.

If man created God, then wouldn’t it have made more sense to make Him a bit more lenient and fun-loving?

The Christian faith created a more loving god in Jesus Christ, an obvious need met by former civilizations by naming and worshipping multiple gods and picking and choosing who to please according to current needs. But what if, what if a supreme being is the more demanding God of the Old Testament, or one given to whimsy such as Zeus? We could all be in deep shit then, I guess.

How has a legend such as this, so full of holes and lack of substantiation endured so long?

So-called miracles were a lot more common way back when. But it is time, I think, in this age of growing doubts, for Him to reassert Himself.

Odd, I think, that whereas people used to both blame and give credit to the gods for everything that happened to them in their daily lives from little personal routines to bountiful harvests, while we tend to credit ourselves for our successes now, we point to everyone else but ourselves for our failures.

But what the hell do I know, anyway. Am I not wandering and wondering just like you?

That’s it. I’ll go back to some form of creativity now. Otherwise, as in Lord Byron’s quote that I needed to put up as a permanent fixture on this site, I shall go mad.

I lie in bed and life goes by in slow motion, bits and pieces, good and bad. But guilty memories refuse sometimes to sleep, and turn to guiltless dreaming. Dependent on, perhaps the point at which the restless mind succumbs to weariness, the movie halted at a point of guilty pleasure. And then delicious dreaming can embellish and pretend.

Most often, the strangest dreams begin within a house of many, many, rooms and filled with strangers with but a scattering of familiar faces in the crowd. This night’s is most unusual in that five close to me are there as well, but non-judgmental and I’m free to follow through without conscience as Director of the scene. Dali nights infused with Hemingway.

And no one has to know.

It’s almost 3:00 a.m., and I’m thinking too much.

I blog. A lot. Wonder sometimes if I have a lot to say or lead an exciting life (answered quickly, “no”) or if I’m just throwing things out there that are incredibly boring and better kept to myself. Blogging is vanity in its most flatulent form, acceptable because everyone else is talking about “me” so me can do so too.

A posting was formulating in my head relative to last Friday’s most wonderful visit by a high school best friend. The couple hours spent with her were half used with the present catching up, and half on the just-this-side of legal and hilarious escapades of two teenage girls with dreams. Pat’s younger sister was with her, and as she watched us, she remarked, “You two look exactly the same as you did back then. It’s so good to see you together again.” Well, no; we don’t look exactly the same, although we probably would with facelifts. But the joy was there, the bond that went beyond words, and the love and understanding.

But thinking about the past brings memories both good and bad. Many of the funny stories ready to be typed and shared with you led into dark corners eventually. I’m not one to turn my back on guilt and regret, preferring to accept them as price tags paid for whatever I needed or was seeking at the time, a balance of accounts paid in full. My weblog, however, isn’t a tell-all. It isn’t a memoir, and it isn’t a conscience looking for the little confessional at the back of the church.

Maybe, come the dawn, I’ll have reread the bad parts of the book and stored them back where they live. I’ll take notes of the good parts as they fly by, and bookmark them for sharing.

Just a real quickie post because I have lots more to say, but will have to step back down to reality for a couple hours to get some dumb reality necessary tasks out of the way before I can return to my preferred world.

Pay bills, write e-mails, write up a frame quote, grocery shop, charge a battery, plan a down-to-earth post on my girlfriend’s visit here the other day, and balance emotions between resentment of time required by my first-ever notice of jury duty versus the excitement it can offer.

But this as well, and cover your eyes if my writer’s honesty is offensive, but part of the writing mood is set by familiars or quirks that we may do or need to produce words. While I have not been dependent upon anything lately since I in truth have viewed reality as the intrusion into a seven-month mood, I will admit here that for certain writings I have set a mood in anticipation. Some mornings, I choose thong underwear.

Anyone else out there willing to share your little secrets?

The clouds were couch and pillows to one weary such as I,
So several times, I sat and looked around
and almost, but not long enough, but just before I lived
springing leaks soon rained me back to ground.

Mist holds not the substance nor the permanence, it seems.
The clouds were tantalizing to one hopeful such as I.
But beds are something that I knew, and should know better.
What made me think that I could touch the sky?