the secret hat and a boat
I don’t usually remember my dreams, but I woke up on Saturday morning and have had a peculiar dream stuck in my head since then. It’s a little odd when one really sticks with me. The part I remember most vividly was swimming in very deep water that was warm and completely clear, I could see the sand at the bottom, 20 or 30 feet deep. This was towards the end of a dream in which I struggled to find my way to some secret place I really wanted to be.
This amazing and secret place was on the other side of the water. I have no idea why it was amazing, or why it was a secret. To get there, I had to find a certain top hat and trick my way past some suspicious and yet well mannered fellows who were trying to stop me. It seems that I was free to pass if I had the top hat. That wasn’t the only thing about the hat – it also showed me how to get where i wanted to be.
the sound of summer
I love the sound of cicadas. They have, in the time I have lived in Indiana, come to define summer. I don’t feel like summer is really here until the grasses start to dry out and the cicadas sing in the trees. I don’t remember cicadas in NY, but we didn’t have the hot summers like Indiana does.
We have cicadas every summer, but also play host to a 13 year cicada whose emergence is pretty intense. I lived out in the woods last time they turned up and the noise was deafening. They prefer temperatures above 84° and sing the loudest in the hot part of the afternoon. Cicadas are the loudest of insects who make noise, nearly 120dB, so at close range they could cause permanent ear damage. This would really only be a problem if you make it a habit of pretending to be a tree so probably not worth worrying about, but wow – that’s loud.
I will admit that they are a creepy little bug, rather alien looking. (It would make a great movie – giant cicadas from space.) How is it that such a strange little creature has come to define something as significant as a season? There are other things of course. Iced tea made in a jar on your windowsill, fresh tomatoes from the garden, cantaloupe, riesling, fireflies, campfires, gin and tonic, salt water taffy, ferris wheels. . . these are all things that are a part of summer. I’ve picked them up along the way, a collection of memories that shape my idealized summer. Now, we add the cicada to that list.
the strangeness of having a little boy
It is a strange and wonderful thing to have a child. Trying to remember anything about what it is like to be 8 and what the world meant to me, so that I can get this right with him and let him see it through a child’s eyes while making him ready to go out into all. It is stranger that he is a boy, for truly, I know nothing of being a little boy. I can only guess at what I must try to encourage in his life. He is so creative and energetic and I try to find ways to support that but sometimes it is exhausting. For all the things I try to share with him, I have no idea how he will turn out. I guess that is the fascinating part — I say that I try not to get attached to outcomes and I want to raise my son that way.
Bio Needed
I have taken on something new – a project I am excited about – and I get a message today about how they need me to write a bio. I have several that I use but the format of this one requires me to start fresh. So I get out a pen and an actual sheet of paper (analog!) and start making a list of the things I have done and the things that I do. Then I make a list of the things I am interested in. I hate writing bios. I have a hard time understanding what a complete stranger would want to know about me. I spend a lot of time creating something that gives people a vague, fairly useless impression of what I do.
On this particular evening, I amused myself with the cynical version of things:
I schedule like I have 28 hours in the day. My mom recently told me about how when I was in high school, I would forget to eat. I have always been this way. I do not like being idle.
I wake up before 7 am and don’t go to sleep until 1 or 2 am. I have a big list of places to be, people to call, writing I have to finish, meetings to be in, stuff I have to read, websites to build. . . . blah blah blah. I had someone (who wants to add something to my list) say to me today – ‘I know you are really busy but when will you be less busy?’ I very honestly answered, ‘never.’ Read more…
big windows
Sorry, I’m gonna do it. I’m gonna bitch about work and office culture.
We have a boss who gives us a lot of flexibility with regards to when we are in the office. We have a lot of freedom to work weird hours, weekends, and from home when we want to. That said, we have some people who demand they have things their way. They get things like a private office, expensive computers, or an really nice chair and then act like jerks. They want their own office and THEN THEY NEVER SHOW UP. There are a few who show up and complain all the time and are assholes to everyone so I have to wonder if we are better off having the absentee jerk over the one who is within earshot. Either way, all I can think is, really? You’re gonna demand shit and then be a jerk? Read more…
screw Camus
Damn, here I go having feelings again. I hate this crap – deep breath and walk away. This should be easy, right – I’ve figured this shit out, haven’t I? Then why does it suck so much?
‘Life can be magnificent and overwhelming. that is it’s whole tragedy. without beauty, love, or danger it would almost be easy to live.’
~albert camus
I like to think that I can actually enjoy living like this. Read more…
Oblique Strategies
I had forgotten about Brian Eno and Music for Airports. There were several years of my life where I listened to it a lot. I was reminded of it today and that made me think of Oblique Strategies – a deck of cards published in 1975 by Brian Eno and Peter Schmidt. There have been several editions of the deck with version 5 available now.
Each card contains some alternate idea for thinking about and dealing with a situation and although they are not always directly relevant or obvious, it is interesting to contemplate their relationship to whatever creative work you might be doing. The cards say things like:
Figure out what recipes you are using and get rid of them.
Put in earplugs.
Look at the order in which you do things.
Make an exhaustive list of everything you might do and do the last thing on the list.
Accept advice.
Listen to the quiet voice.
It’s sort of like a magic 8 ball except Brian Eno wrote it and so it’s actually much cooler and perhaps useful to use the deck as a way to rethink things when you are stuck. There are a few web pages out there that let you ‘consult the deck online,’ including this one by Josh Harrison. If you prefer shuffling and selecting from the deck, you can buy the 5th edition from the Eno Shop.
miss you.
can we stop having this conversation?
Why do people want to talk about the stuff in my life that no one should talk about?
The best is when they tell me how much they love him or how disappointed they were that things ‘didn’t work out.’ I can’t name all the people who have done this. So many friends who are disappointed that a lying, cheating asshole ‘didn’t work out.’
How about when I am having dinner with friends and someone comes up to my table and starts talking about him. Are they under the impression that digging up painful memories and dragging him out of my dreams and into my waking hours is a good thing? A productive thing? There was one night when I was out drinking and someone approaches me and starts blabbering about how ‘you know – we all thought the two of you would be together forever.’
Did ya’ now.
(fuck you – please die)
Great!
(please die, pretty please)
Thanks for sharing.
(but not really. did I mention the dying thing?)
Clearly everyone is very disappointed. You all loved him. Wanna know something? Right down to the last minute of him being in this town, he has acted like a selfish idiot. I am still angry with him. I don’t forgive his string of fuck-ups. I might get over the anger but I will never trust him. So please don’t wish for a reconciliation.
I am not offended by you wanting to talk about all of this. I don’t think there is any sort of intentional effort to make me feel bad, or that you are acting out of maliciousness. It’s just something that I have no way to understand – especially if you watched me go through everything I did when I was with him.
The truth is that I DON’T WANT TO TALK ABOUT HIM. I loved him in the most irrational way – completely absorbed in this infatuation with the most vibrant, charismatic person I have ever loved. What he did hurt me more than I ever imagined possible. So please, can we stop talking about him because it still makes me cry.
(holy shit! she actually has FEELINGS)
Anyway, this becomes a topic of conversation because he is leaving town and folks speculate about all sorts of things. Some think I am excited to see him go while others think that I am upset about his leaving. There are a few who know that I’m angry with the stupidity of the situation because of all the cities on the planet, he picks one that I love and that I visit and so there is this sense of irony that no matter what I do, he will not go away and stop being connected to my life. This is foolish. I know. Cities are big places and he has picked a big one. . .
big mountains
I have always maintained that I would not find it pleasant to die on the side of a mountain that is covered with snow and ice. Consider that some of the tallest mountains on the planet have footnotes reading something like, “for every four people that try to summit, one dies,” or perhaps you prefer these odds, “of the 258 people who have tried to climb the mountain, 36 have died.”
At first I think that dying in this way might really suck and then I think about it and wonder if someone who is on the side of an +8,000m peak, in the middle of winter, really cares about death? It really is one hell of a way to go. So I’ve decided that I’m going to climb big, cold mountains. And yes, carrying a 50lb pack, up the side of a mountain, while wearing crampons and huffing oxygen is a bit intimidating.
I am yet to figure out why I want to climb a mountain like this. I admit, there is part of me that wants to do it so that I can say I have. I think perhaps that same part of me wants to visit amazing, beautiful, awe inspiring places because I hope that doing so will create something meaningful in my life. I imagine myself standing there, looking out over the world, feeling like I have done something.
What is this insanity that I think I have to climb to the top of a mountain to feel like I have done something? Standing in a place that doesn’t have enough oxygen for me to breathe properly and is so cold that people who make one mistake die, just a name and a memory, one more life claimed by a mountain that is in a place I should not be. I can see how crazy my idea is, but I still want to do it.
I have some work to do. It might take me a while. I better get started.
