storms

It was a gusty south-western that blew through the harbor and all the old sailors were sitting on the wharf waiting for it to pass when Bartholomew took the pipe out of his mouth and said, "I remember the storm of '84. It was a purple storm."

One of the younger sailors asked, "What made it purple?"

"I was the first time I experienced purple rain."

Old Lealand jerked up his head, "What blend are you smoking?"

I need a cat

I keep saying I should ask for help and then don’t because when I get attention that was 80% of the problem and the excuse to ask for attention seems so silly when I start to explain it. Seriously? I just discovered my deepest problem? I’m a repressed attention whore!

Implication: to seek attention from only one source is foolish because we have limited capacity to attend. But asking for it costs us. But we need it. Ahhh! So there needs to be a reliable source of attention. Family ought to do it. It doesn’t always, so religion, or clubs, or careers, or gangs take over the natural bands.

God, I need a cat!

How does this relate? We adopt animals because they are simple. We attend to them by feeding and they attend to us by asking for food. Not complicated. Why is it complicated for us? I mean we cut deals. You know, give me what I want and I'll give you what you want, maybe. I'll always want more than you can give. I will demand more than you're willing to part with. Since we are both extremely selfish you will do the same to me. Then we will get pissy at each other.

At least that's how it is with women. Mercifully for men they seem to have some magical stress valve that blows steam for less than a second then they're fine. So many times I wish I had that. Maybe that's a myth. Maybe men don't have said valve. How could I know?

Chill

I was wondering at God, on my way home from the ship tonight, why do people use righteousness as a cloak to mask evil? It does us no good.

I'm full of gratitude. It's been rare for people to praise me. I distrust it anyway. Don't get me wrong it's good to hear because some times I did wonder if I was noticed. I've lived on the edge of notice for a long time. I suppose it was to keep me humble.

As to remaining calm in the storm? How do you think I do that? I'm curious to know.

And the conversation coming to Mother Bear's attention: Well, sometimes you gotta let the little kid touch the fire. I'm mainly concerned for institutional reasons, not personal ones. So the upshot is that I didn't fundamentally change my opinion of the matter but have reassessed my tactics. The nuance is always lost! Oh the pain of art! And the misfortune of humanity that people tend to see attacks where there are none. "The wounds of a friend" as proverbs records, "are better than the kisses of an enemy". So what appears to be an attack is in fact preservation. But we get all self absorbed and are quick to take offense it's the stress level. We just need to chill.

And on that note I'm going to forget about all of this for a few blissful hours.

Influence

Shall I boast of my backward ways?
I walked away from sex and romance
sought a calling instead of a living
left wealth to walk simply in the richness of want
but Lord, you know it’s a hollow boast that wants to claim payment for suffering
forgive my deep arrogance the one that judges on false knowledge
the one that feels owed.

Influence. Secretly we all want power. I know this desire in me shows up as a series of metaphors. I think I am a ninja-pirate-warrior princess-rock star-mystic from some desert. In writing this I laugh at myself.

Yet I recognize that all of this is possible even though I’m not from a literal desert and I will never rob on the high seas. It’s attitude. It’s asking myself what kinds of choices would this character make. It’s acting informed by this knowledge.

I would love to know what other peoples’ metaphors are. It’s the mystic, the wild haired poet prophet in me, that wants to relate on a metaphoric plain.

Oh man! now I want to find some sweet robes and a hood.

Starling

I was digging furiously at the mound that blocked the road in front of me. This was complicated by the fact that I remained fully armed and my sword kept getting in the way. After a bit I'd look to see if there was a way around that I'd missed before but I was always meet with the same rock wall and the abyss.

A bit about this road: it's on a mountain, it's narrow by your standards, subject to landslide(obviously). I'd been stuck here for some time and knew attack was eminent. Hence the sword.

The block itself was an attack but my enemy is also known for harrying and so as I cleared the block bit by bit my ears strained to hear the on coming attack. I sincerely hoped to either find a way around or be met half way by someone clearing out from the other side. I had no idea of the extent of damage on the road.

I'm not alone thought it seems so. My comrades are near enough to hear me if I call and it they listen. Help only comes in the nick of time not before. I have endured may things on this road in the silent hope of help.

The Return

In time everything that is hidden will be revealed.
(Paraphrase, Mat. 4:22 or Luke 8:17)

So, I don’t think you noticed but I’ve gotta tell you that, for the past three weeks or so I’ve been kind of deranged. It’s bad. I’m still deranged but I’m now publicly acknowledging my condition which is the first step to recovery.

What I mean to say is that, the pressures of living in a construction site, running a show, dealing with leaking fluids from my truck, and realizing that I need to get my glasses updated, oh right, and thinking I might need to take classes or something because really I should get a day job; it’s all adding up. Honestly, I’m not handling it the way I “should” partly because I’m disillusioned with the concept of should, or at least I’m more disillusioned than not.

The thing that disturbs me is the anger. The anger is there and I don’t know why anymore.

If I dig down to the root of this disturbance I think I see the old identity crisis that began when I was five and had to define myself to other people for the first time. Things would be so much better if I didn’t have to explain myself and I could do whatever just because it’s the kind of thing I do. Well, at least that’s part A of the crisis.

The other part is my own inexperience. Yeah, I’m kinda socially dumb. So that leads to painful situations for me and other people. I avoided conflict at all cost when I was a kid because it was too much for me to handle. I didn’t have a vocabulary for it. Though I avoided it, the conflicts still happened. People were the primary source of conflict so I stayed away from them. Um, that wasn’t the best solution but what did I know? I couldn’t think of anything better.

Spending a lot of time alone isn’t bad, I guess, but to the extent that I did it wasn’t terribly healthy. The battle in my mind was fierce. Really the thought battles are the most damaging. I thought that if I stayed away from people I would never feel pain not realizing that if I stayed away from people I wouldn’t be comforted either and that is a sort of dull pain. There’s a saying, I think it’s Russian or something, “I hurt, I must be alive.” It tells the truth. When I stop listening to the lie that life should be free of pain and take an, “oh well” attitude toward it I can be very entertaining and that is positive. That lessens the burden of living in this world.

However, being entertaining to mask pain, though a classic coping strategy, doesn’t work forever at some point it becomes annoying. I think that’s why it’s harder to succeed in comedy. The line between hilarious and annoying is extremely thin.

Anyway, I didn’t expect to say so much in this sitting and I sort of forgot the point. So, yeah.