proteanme

San Francisco is not my town. Not that I thought it really was, but the first few hours I walked around I kept saying to myself wow, this is great. It rocks here. And then the buzz wore off and I got that old familiar feeling of being out of place.  I marveled a little at how I keep thinking some where besides Indiana is going to sound the bell that I’m home. So far, I’m striking out.

There is something amazing about SF though, the way so many folks can live together so closely. The unconscious and inadvertent collaboration that occurs just to move down the street and get in and out of BART. Cities remind me that people do have the capacity to cooperate with each other. I think part of it is getting people out of their cars. Getting people in each other’s proximities, even if they avoid the face to face contact. I’d like to believe all those folks walking around and chatting into cell phones that seem attached to their ears are at some level aware of the mass of humanity around them. That it seeps in down through their skin or maybe up through the soles of their shoes and unbeknown to them it changes something inside.

I know I’m likely just talking exposure here, but we’ve got to start some place, right. For me it is impossible to be in a city like SF and not be reminded of suffering. Maybe if I saw it every day I’d feel helpless or defensive and that would give rise to the indifference thats stand between me and making meaning of my life. I dunno.  I had a job for thirteen years that was all about suffering and meaning. I’ve tried to carry that forward in my familiar and intimate connections working at being able truly to care about other people and to sacrifice for them over and over in myriad petty, unsexy ways every day. It is messy endeavor.  And I imperfect in my practice.

This weekend in SF I was outside the ferry building and checking my messages.  I was sitting on the ground, leaning up against a column. I had my head in my hands and my phone pressed against my ear when a hand reached down. I tried to shake the hand off, but the holder just extended his or her hand closer. I looked up, but because it was sunny I never saw the face. Just heard the voice.  A guy saying, oh, you’re ok. You’re just on the phone. It’s a cheesy analogy, I know, but we can all put a hand out there, like that guy, or this guy John Records who works with the homeless in Petaluma, CA.

Give to COTS and take action to end poverty.

I am some where new or not really new,  more like I lost sight of myself for a long, long time and I finally got myself back in view.  I will try to explain this later.  I went to SF this weekend and am glad to have gone, but not for all the reasons I thought I would be, which is a funny commentary on expectations. Speaking of which, it is a curious place to be, letting go of some expectations, which I seem to be doing around various things, like when I might get to see my girl in Western Mass. I keep purging stuff at my house and spending hours on end trying to write a little bit of a story I think I’d like to read.And I feel like very slowly I’m conscious about how I spend my time.

My fingers are corssed so tight that Obama can pull off a win here come November that I swear my knuckles are gonna break. McCain and Palin are sinking to new and dangerous lows and I can’t help but think of them as anything but mean little fuckers.

News for my friend with breast cancer is not as good as we had all hoped. It’s fucking weird.

A post of mostly links because last week I found out a good friend has stage 1 breast cancer and today I heard news that another person I’m friendly with has lung cancer and has been undergoing chemo since June. Fuck.

I ran across a couple images today that made me think of how I manufactured a boyhood from spare parts, some of which were the goods I coveted and some the goods I liked.

Stunning photos of the Earth from Above.

Biden did a good job last night. And I agree Pep, maybe we’ll pull this one out. My fingers are crossed for sure. I gave some money today. My god, I just can’t imagine the alternative to Obama/Biden becasue because we’re already in such a fucking shit storm. I don’t even wanna say the other ticket’s names because living under their administration is utterly unthinkable.

Oh man, I wish I could articulate all that I’ve come to understand about myself lately, but every time I try it ends up coming out kinda fucked up because the language I have to describe my human condition is so loaded.  If I say something in me is broken, everyone except my therapist responds with a kind and loving version of “but you don’t know, you might change; you might fix it”, which is sweet. But I wanna figure out how to to adapt, how to to work with what got fucked up (for lack of better words).  I don’t wanna be the super disabled dude who climbs a mountain; I’m fine being the guy with a ramp to get his chair up into his house. Dunno if this analogy is working. For some reason I’m thinking about how I’ve always loved playing rhythm guitar, never been a lead kinda guy. Anyway, what’s so wrong with figuring out one’s limits, one’s capacity, the boundaries of tolerance for things like being vulnerable and open. So what if I’m not quite as capable in some areas as others, does that make me incapable? Even now I’m not sure I’m getting at this the with the right words or ideas, but I thought I’d give it a try. Among other things I grew up with a lot of dissonance and darkness, as well a kind of understated danger about wanting or needing someone. I lost something along the way and even if I don’t get it back, it doesn’t mean I can’t figure out how to move forward on the things I want in my life and make adjustments.  Like, if the way I love large, looks faint, then I need to find a girl, to whom it looks obvious.

I’ve been listening to this Johnny Cash version of Wichita Lineman. It’s a great cover.  Just great. I love that Rolling Stone called it the first the first existential country song, because it resonates with this lone and longing cowboy motif I’ve been exploring in therapy.

So I spend a big chunk of my day writing code, specifically CSS and XHTML.  And I amuse myself immensely via the power of nomenclature — giving names to ids and classes in my CSS. Such as calling some generic classes for floats “rightwing” and “leftwing” or calling an image container “pictureThis”.  It’s similar to the same fun you can have when you’re naming vars and functions in Javascript or PHP.  What else are you gonna do? You might as well have fun with this shit. PLus you’re mkaing it intuitive at the same time.  Last week I had to wrap a div around a bunch of other divs just to accomplish some superfulous designy element.  I almost called it dumbAssDesignContainer.

Mostly, things are ok and I’m very lucky that way. I realized the other day how ‘ok’ can be such a luxury. So I try to be grateful for it cause I’m not entitled to it. Lately I’ve been thinking about all the people I know. So many are so kind and generous.  So many are so nice and sweet.  And everyone puts up my with horrible typing. Everyday shit happens that distracts me from the truth of all that. But then I’ll have a nice phone call like I did tonight or another friend who never emails me sends me a message and I remember that I’m a lucky guy.

A little taste of what it looks like to bike in Portland.

I uploaded some photos from the rest of the summer and short backpack trip up to Indian heaven.

All these disparate things I’ve been mulling over this year are coming together, which is amazing, but overwhelming. I’m at this interesting place of not wanting to romanticize or pathologize what makes me tick, so to speak, and I hope I can stay in this place for a while. There is huge potential for learning. There is the real possibility of adaptation. And now I’m thinking of the tragedy of the Sandman. I know none of this sounds very concrete, but it’s complex and would require so many blog entries and footnotes that I would become sick of myself.

I’m still thinking about David Foster Wallace.  I’ve listened to some audio and watched this interview with Charlie Rose. I wish I would have seen him read. I actually wish I could talk to him, silly as that sounds.

I hope Obama kicks McCain’s ass tonight. I’m soooo sick of this. Seriously, the idea that John McCain and Sarah Palin could be running our country. What a fucking nightmare. What’s the difference between Sarah Palin and a moron? Lipstick, right.  Except hot morons where lipstick and Palin’s not really that hot, at least not to me. And the moron math gets all screwy when you think that Sarah Palin actually said this in an interview with CNBC’s Kudlow & Co. As for that VP talk all the time, I’ll tell you, I still can’t answer that question until somebody answers for me what is it exactly that the VP does every day?

I know I’ve been quiet here lately.  Frankly, I’m overwhelmed.  First off, the financial crisis and the proposed bail out staggers my mind. Literally.  Thank you Amos for doing such a nice job of commenting on it. And second, I can’t believe the election is right around the corner. Tanque has been has been keeping the blog flame lit the last couple weeks with lots of election related posts, which has rocked.  Including his endorsement of the Obama/Biden ticket. I think there was mention of my name in some comment about being inspired or hopeful about Obama. And I wanna clear things up and say I don’t feel either of those. The fact is I don’t look to a presidential candidate for hope or inspiration.  But I am inspired by the those folks who feel inspired by Obama. I think it’s a good ticket. They’ve got my vote. I think there’s a chance with Obama/Biden we can get things done that need doing. I want the conversation to change on a national level and Dems can do that. But c’mon these are politicians, man. And you don’t stay clean in such a fucking dirty business. Saints don’t run for president.

I feel like lots is going on in my life, but when you look at the shape of my days, you wouldn’t know it. I still find great joy in a sharp chef’s nice and fully inflated bike tires, the company of friends and the long stretches of quiet and time alone in between. I’m still purging and spent last weekend helping RU clean out our old basement. Whew! I did like that it was all very butch in a very classical butch kinda way, like driving a big pick up truck full of crap, most of which I’d hauled and lifted into the bed myself. RU has a fucked up back. The purge was a not the first choice for how I wanted to spend my weekend, but it bubbled up to the top after a failed attempt at camping in Indian Heaven on Mt Adams. It was just too dang foggy up there. And out here fog will kill your ass. I’m serious.

Mostly I’ve been trying to pay attention to the everyday details in my life and how I spend my time. The intention is to better align the external with the internal. It’s tricky, cause it doesn’t always add up. But it’s a good practice and hopefully it will become habit. To that end I’ve been having some kind of intense exchanges with my girl in western Mass and there are no conclusions to draw there except abstract ones, like a deeper understanding of the equation of capacity. If that sounds poetic, well it kinda is. Not that it doesn’t have very real implications. These things aren’t mutually exclusive.

I wanna a put plug in here to try and get as many of you all as I can to try green cleaning. Better for you, the environment and if you make your own solutions better for your wallet.

Thinking of Palin using a yahoo account to conduct state business — it’s just wrong on so many levels.  And all of the sudden I’m worried that the great mass of morons will want to elect another moron into office. I’m never been convinced that the popular vote is a good thing when running a government and this just adds fuel to the fire on that note.