Tag Archives: biography

Until the new blog is ready to go…

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Every night I give myself dreams with which to entertain the neural pathways of my brain.

Some mornings, or interrupted moments at night, the dreams doubly entertain me.

And, for many like myself, the dreams become reality.

In other words, I’m happily mad.

My ability to control the environment around me cannot be real.

So, I resort to feeding off my dreams.

With so many people creating physical versions of their crazy dreams, from Disney World to the Third Reich, why do I feel guilty pursuing mine?

Guilt or low self-esteem?

How does a chameleon personality live, or even survive, within self-perpetuated dreams?

Upon what do I feed?

Should I tell you my nightmares?

Every one of them?

Or the insanity that is me, hidden inside this normal-looking body?

I saw the first part of a movie about Gilda Radner and heard her say that when she was a kid, she dreamed of going on stage.

My primal self asks, “Is that a viable dream?  We have to feed and clothe ourselves.  What does standing on a stage acting out silly skits got to do with the reality of basic survival?”

In other words, I felt envious of Gilda’s realisation of her childhood dream.

Me, I just wanted to think and write for as far back as I can remember.

I’ve acted out silly skits on stage, including one that I co-wrote back in junior high school.

I was president of the high school drama club for two years, performing in several stage productions.

I worked the cash register at a fastfood joint.  I cooked the food, making personal decisions about the quality of the food I was passing to the customer.

I’ve given speeches, spoken about business proposals, held conference calls, managed my own employees and coordinated international product development/production.

Forty-four years after the first time I remember thinking for myself (as opposed to simply recording what was going on around me), I am here thinking and writing for myself again.

How much do I value this freedom?

Would I join others who oppose restrictions on my and their similar freedoms?

My parents always thought I’d be a peace marcher if I was born ten years earlier; yet, despite many opportunities, I’ve never created an anti[pick your favourite cause] sign and picketed anything.

Other people’s causes are not my style, although, as a chameleon personality, I have found myself repeating others’ words and phrases in mock protest.

I guess that’s what it is, isn’t it?  I mock myself and others because none of it seems real.

This is all just one big dream to me, from first conscious beginning to last conscious breath.

Otherwise, none of it matters.

Except one desire…

I crave variety in small doses.

Despite my ability to manipulate the environment around me, I don’t need to feed that ability to make me who I am or will be.

Ruling the universe, or just local parts of it, seems absurd.

I am the result of my environment.

An environment full of people climbing over each other to get what they want, to be heard over the din of noises of this planet, this solar system, in order to validate their existence in some way.

For some reason, I can’t take any of it seriously.

My self, especially.

I’m sure there is a “why?” and an appropriate answer for why, but it doesn’t really matter.

I just want to daydream, and if my daydreams cross your paths, then my chameleon personality will reflect you back to yourself and I’ll go on, seeking the variety in my daydreams.

I am the greatest person alive in my daydreams so why should I seek validation of my greatness from you?

I am also the worst person alive, the smartest, the dumbest, the cleverest, the clueless, the thinnest, the fattest, the oldest, the youngest, etc.

A universe of seven billion personalities exists in this body/brain combo.

That’s a large reason why I’m closing this blog down.

Just because I can latch my chameleon personality onto the whole species and reflect what’s going to happen next doesn’t mean I enjoy it.

It’s just what I do to seek a quick burst of variety in my imaginary dream world.

Like a bad drug habit.

Addicted to predicting social/planetary change.

And in the process, accidentally causing the change to happen.

I don’t want to cause change.

I want to keep dreaming my crazy dreams, where violence and peace live next door to each other, taking turns wiping each other out and regenerating like a cat with infinite lives.

Or a tapeworm.

Tragedy and Comedy knocking each other off the stage.

You can see where this is going.

Your reality IS my dream world.

Crazy, huh?

There’s no escaping dreams or reality.

It’s all the same.

Insanity is sanity, or the other way around.

One can be an Eagle Boy Scout and a scoundrel at the same time.

One can see suburban life as paradise or suburgatory.

If I have to seek a thought that tells me, “Well, now, suburban life is just fine.  Have you ever seen the shanty towns of Mexico City or Rio?  Or the hundreds of thousands of starving children in Africa, India or China?  Doesn’t the thought of those places make you feel so much more secure and happy with your easy, suburban life?,” then I have coated over the shack of my thoughts with overpriced, opulent wallpaper.

And yet, here I am.

Sitting in middle of suburbia, relatively crime-free (except the aforesaid scoundrels like my former youthful self wandering the neighbourhoods as preteens looking for mischief because our parents could only afford to pay for a few after-school indoctrination/training lessons, giving us freedom to explore the woods, honing our new scouting skills, or break into abandoned homes, repeating what we’d seen on television and in films, playing spies and stealing little items for our “secret agent” clubhouse).

What is this chameleon going to blend into next?

Good question.

In the meantime, I’m going to serialise some of the books I’ve written where I realised my crazy dreams on paper.  (Well, not paper, actually.  I guess I could say I realised my dreams on screen.)

Dreams that took into account some of the stories you’ve told me (remember, I’m a chameleon, or leech, as the viewpoint may be), reportedly about your real life, no matter how imaginary it, too, might be.

Enjoy the show!

[This note was written in LibreOffice 3.3.2 Writer under Ubuntu 11.04 on a SanDisk 4 GB SDHC card connected to a Transcend SD card reader attached to a Compaq Presario C501NR Notebook PC]

S p a c e d O u t

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Throw away idea

Diversionary idea du jour

Maybe it’s just me needing a diversion from the emotion-based thoughts of the day while our elder feline is thoroughly examined at the animal hospital this afternoon to assess the save-or-euthanise, cost-benefit, failure mode analysis by Dr. Erin and staff (my wife and I are already $700 in the hole for the analysis, IV fluids, and overnight stay that will accrue by tomorrow morning).

At this moment, Merlin has a mouth full of dental problems that may mean sepsis spread through his body; a heart murmur, rapid heartbeat (200+ bpm) and other problems (thyroid, potentially) may prevent the use of anaesthesia for surgery.

On a limited budget, what is a feline companion worth?

What are any of us worth?

In any case, I examine the Microsoft Paint image above.

“A” is a typical spray bottle configuration in which the suction tube rests just above the last particles of liquid, especially when the bottle is tilted.

“B” and “C” represent a spray bottle with a check valve that rotates based on the bottle’s vertical orientation, such that, when the sprayhead is tilted downward (“B”), the forward portion of T-shaped suction tube draws in the last few precious drops of fluid, and when the sprayhead is tilted upward (“C”), the rearward portion of T-shaped suction tube draws in the last few precious drops of fluid residing in the other end of the bottom of the bottle.

Elegant solution?  Hardly.  Cost-effective?  Unlikely.

Humourous diversion?  Precisely.  Reminds me of a child’s game I played in which we matched cards on which odd contraptions and inventions were printed.

Simple solution?  Pour the last drops into the new, nearly-full bottle.

Returning to the running analysis at hand – comparing and contrasting the lives of Dr. Benjamin Spock, Joseph Campbell and Hermann Hesse, against the backdrop of watching the following films, courtesy of Amazon Prime free rentals:

  • A Clockwork Orange, starring Malcolm McDowell
  • Soylent Green, starring Charlton Heston
  • Zach Galifianakis: Live at the Purple Onion
  • 8 1/2 by Federico Fellini
  • Between the Folds by Vanessa Gould
  • Rosencrantz and Guilderstern Are Dead
  • My Name is Nobody, starring Henry Fonda
  • Objectified, starring Dieter Rams
  • Bukowsi Born Into This, starring Charles Bukowski
  • OSS 117: Lost in Rio, starring Jean Dujardin
  • Noam Chomsky: Rebel Without a Pause, starring Noam Chomsky
  • Ramones: RAW, starring the Ramones
  • Red Skelton: A Royal Command Performance, starring Red Skelton
  • Steppenwolf, starring Max von Sydow
  • My Name Is Bruce, starring Bruce Campbell
  • Barenaked Ladies: Talk To the Hand: Live in Michigan
  • Moog, starring Robert Moog
  • Slipstream, starring Anthony Hopkins
  • Dinosaur, Jr.: Live in the Middle East
  • Foreign Field, starring Lauren Bacall

Then, during and after, examining my own life and wondering more about why I am the way I am in the social system in which I normally operate these states of energy called me.

There’s a joke in here somewhere.  We want our Deity/deities to be serious because death is such a traumatic way to announce the end of a life (more so for us than for the food we eat) but if we were blessed with humour and appear in one form or another of that which we say created us, then can we not also say that our Deity/deities have a sense of humour?

And if you hold no theistic beliefs, were you not created by your parents or by some combination of DNA that must, by definition, hold a sense of humour within its genes?

Erin (the cat, not the veterinarian) and I miss Merlin today.  My wife is beside herself at work with worry.

People are dying by the millions and a little domestic drama at home has all my attention.

This is my life.

I won’t have it any other way.

My derriere, comfortably numb

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Now that I’m quietly alone here, the cats asleep on the bed, Merlin still recovering from something (a poisonous bite, plant or chemical), his mouth less swollen than two days ago, forming a smaller open O shape, his tongue sticking out slightly, I can continue this public private journalising and not concern myself with the opinions of others anymore.

Happiness!

All because my wife is home for a while and there’s no personal concern about losing her on a business trip because of the bad driving habits of others in her proximity.

Of course, here in our adopted hometown, the same calamity could happen.  Somehow, I don’t feel the same way.

My writing has always been an open love letter to my wife, the one person I trust completely (she knows everything about me because I keep no secrets from her, regardless of bogus NDAs or grownup clubhouse secret society stuff that others think are so exclusive until you’ve belonged to or read all the ceremonial hogwash and know they’re all the same).

I trust my wife to keep her secrets from me that she doesn’t want publicised because she knows me and my habit of writing anything that passes through my thoughts.

Some people tell me that I’m actually good at keeping their secrets from public view and who am I to tell them their secrets aren’t interesting enough for me to share here?

If my wife is safely situated in my virtual arms again, why should I keep writing?

Well, she’s at work most of the day and I have no viable means of support to keep me otherwise occupied and away from entertaining myself in writing love letters to my wife all day.

Alex Haley honed his writing with love letters, albeit for other sailors’ wives/girlfriends.

I think Kenny Rogers warned women about dreamers like me.

Did your parents discourage you from being an original, standout personality who doesn’t worry about conforming to an imaginary norm or upsetting the neighbours because that means you aren’t being a good citizen?

I feel like I’m running away from people who’ve tried to squeeze me into the animated character, Pinocchio, for one reason or another (“We mustn’t let Rick hang around with those dangerous boys in the cafeteria at lunch or on the playground,” a teacher once told my mother. “He’s a good boy but subject to bad influence”.)

I am a storyteller, who will, for the right price, tune stories to your liking.  In the world of advertising/marketing, truth and fiction are the same thing.  The world of engineering/science is not far behind.  The liar paradox is not confusing to my world view – “the world is a grand comedy to your sense of humour.”

How can I tell when I’m being influenced by other storytellers in the zeitgeist?  I surf the facebook updates, for one, noticing when more than one person is talking/thinking about the same notions I am, even though I have not spoken/written them down yet.

I’ve tried wearing different public personae.  My list of job titles would give you a few I wore for a while.

I no longer worry about wearing a youthful visage.  I don’t care if I hold you up or let you down – your opinions are yours, not mine, to bear.

I think my sister wished she had someone other than a cleverly cruel, nerdy brother to share her youth with, but I can’t turn back the clock and make my parents’ DNA produce someone other than me as an older sibling and brother for my sister.

I was born without my permission and I long ago forgave my parents for that fact.

The fact that I was no longer the only child is evidenced in the way I tortured my little sister as we grew up.

I apologise, Anne, for my childish behaviour, but again I was a child at the time and unaware of my susceptible sibling rivalry psychological condition while growing up in the same household with you.

We are who we are in large part because of each other, don’t you think?

I developed my dicing/slicing humour and you developed your loving/caring for underprivileged children.

Some call you a bleeding-heart liberal and you’re proud of that fact.

Some call me many things and I’ve grown accustomed to ignoring their ignorant, nonintelligent gibberish.

After all, I have a loving wife who understands me and puts up with my sloppy housekeeping.

I’ve blabbed to her ever since we were 12 and she’s waved off my jabs of humour without batting a teary eye (although I made her cry when I was in my “spread the wild oats” phase while we were dating).

In other words, a pretty normal relationship for two intellectual equals.

We like classical music and enjoy bowling.  We listen to bluegrass and visit art museums.  She’ll go to car races with me and I’ll go shopping with her.  Neither one of us is particularly pious religiously, being good, moderate but not too modern Presbyterians.

We don’t have to have separate lives together.

Interdependence.

Comfort zones.

I no longer plan to go sailing around the Moon.

I don’t expect to manage a network of people who live around you and you don’t know about but maybe suspect are involved in shadowy deals.

I’ve stopped those storylines because I had written them, like I said, as love letters to my wife, but she confessed to me this weekend past she’s never read any of my blog entries.  The only ones she knows about are the ones I’ve read to her.

Therefore, I can return to my simple domestic observations, free of worrying about getting the storylines right to please my wife’s imaginative reading habits.

She can go on reading Jane Austen and Tom Clancy books written for readers like her.

My first short story was an observation of a detective sitting in a lobby of Heartbreak Hotel, written not long after the death of my first girlfriend.

A year later, I was sending letters to my future wife and have been writing to her in one form or another ever since.

All along, I’ve been saying I can die a happy man because I’ve achieved all my dreams and now I believe I was telling myself my writing can die anytime, because I have a wife who loves me and no longer needs love letters from me for me to prove my love to her.

Life is simpler than we writers make us think it is.

Until next time…if there is a next time (or at least until my wife has to travel away from me again, or I away from her, during which time I’ll write to ease my anxiety).

Via de la Via

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Back to my book reading, including four biographies – Dr. Spock, Henry Thoreau, Thomas Mann, and a blind scientist – in order to learn more about myself and my place in the universe as I know it at this point in our species history.