Tag Archives: chapter excerpt
If David Lynch had been a medical student…
Another uncomfortable subject for personal edification
At this point in my life, I should be more aware of who I am, shouldn’t I?
According to my father, this should be the prime time of my full participation in the social hierarchy of my local subculture, being politically active, socially responsible and philanthropic.
It’s like what a person said — it doesn’t matter how despotic, chaotic or caring you might be or have been — your great-great-great grandchildren aren’t going to know who you were in real life, just that you were around to help conceive at least one of their great-great grandparents.
So it is that I look at my thoughts and my body’s rhythms, sensing the guilt-ridden thoughts and the internal shaking of worry that often racks my body to its core.
I realise the years of guilt I felt when I masturbated about the female figures in my life, raising a wall between us of my guilty self-pleasuring thoughts, objectifying me and them at the same time.
[On the window screen this afternoon is a stick insect, silhouetted against the backdrop of yellowing green leaves in the tree canopy of our front yard.]
For all the joy of freedom and liberty I say and think I believe, my life has been more a prison holding back my sexual desires than it has been sexually liberating.
With a universe to explore, my earthly desires ground me and make me realise I am all too human here in the 13th year of the 21st century.
In times past I have used this blog space to explore my thoughts because I have had no close companion with whom I could talk about these subjects.
Lately, I have stopped holding back my thoughts and started sharing them with my wife, letting her know that I have feelings for other women besides her and frankly, when those feelings are sexual in nature, I no longer desire to dissatisfyingly relieve them through masturbation.
I used to be able to channel those thoughts into sexual action with my wife but that path has become less available as I’ve resigned myself to the fact my wife’s body is settling into the aches-and-pains matronly, grandmotherly shape that is not as conducive to the activities we once frequently enjoyed.
Life is what it is. If you’re not with the one you love, love the one you’re with.
The word “love” is one of those symbols that carries us throughout the day — it should never threaten one person at the expense of another.
For me, love means helping another person — a set of states of energy that is distinguishable from mine.
The act of helping takes many forms.
The person being helped may be a key that opens a lock, may be the last piece of a jigsaw puzzle, may be the catalyst to start a snowballing action to help even more people…
My wife loves me and wants to help me. I love her, too, and want to help her but do I only want to help her help me? No, I’m not completely selfish — I enjoy watching her help others and encourage her to do so.
[What does a stick insect eat? When does it eat?]
Today is one of those days when I’m not able to fall deep enough into a meditative state to contemplate my current conditions and discover within myself a new personality trait to share.
What happens when my love for my wife and my love for others conflict? When the conflict is unresolvable because of financial priorities, then what?
Does love have a price? What are reasonable expectations when one spouse is financially logical and the other is not?
And from these questions, how will the storylines in the other blog(s) progress?
I put off working on my yard art sculpture today to allow these questions to simmer in my thoughts.
Love is not always about sex and I’ve spent decades trying to understand the difference.
I cannot both be a meditative celibate free from sexual desire and a libertine living on the edge of chaos and anarchy.
But I am a person who can contemplate both sets of thoughts at the same time.
This is who I am today and the days to follow: I spend time freeing myself from testosterone-driven thoughts of sexual desire for women in my life who would have no reason to reciprocate those thoughts, while focusing my thoughts on projects and art/ideas that will outlive me.
I ask nothing more or less of myself.
On a side note, I have asked myself out loud several times in front of my wife, should I take her home when she’s tired and return to the dance club to have fun now that I know I can dance with other women and don’t need the false comforting confidence of alcohol which used to lower all of my inhibitions, meaning I can actually enjoy dancing and not worry about taking action I might later regret?
I used to fear growing older but now I don’t because I see that growing older means I’m growing wiser, too, which is really and truly a lot of fun!
Gravity? Who needs gravity at a time like this?
Yard Art Sculpture Update
On today’s agenda:
- Take apart LED camping lantern to determine how to “animate” the LED matrix as eyes for the sculpture.
- Work on adding more “arms” to the sculpture.
- Mentally investigate how to incorporate smoke machine and smokestack into sculpture, giving effect of steam-based mechanised being supplemented with digital operations.
Almost human
A friend asked…
A friend asked me, what does it mean if his wife is eying the women he desires more than he does? Do women look at each other’s assets more than men and, if so, are they harbouring the same thoughts that hetero/bi/poly guys do?
Hey, I wish I had the answer to that question myself.
Some mysteries remain unsolved.
We’re all different — that’s all I know.
I know one woman who makes me jealous every time I see her dance with another man. Growl! Insanely jealous? No. Just jealous like a ravenous beast. Roarrrr!
Time to shake my head clear of those thoughts and return to my yard art sculpture in progress.
One idea for Abi’s Halloween costume — a dress that lights up.
And for the other fantastically fun woman in my life? Well, her creativity will find a way into a costume, I’m sure.
Today’s Arduino lesson
To record my self-education in progress, I’m going to post what I learn as I go along.
Today’s lesson: programming an Arduino to flash LEDs.
There are so many tutorials on the Web (and on the Internet, too, of course) that I’m not here to teach the general reader the art/science of programming.
Instead, I’m going to record how I learn in order to help my future self should I suffer a debilitating mental setback and need information about how my brain used to work in case it assists me in rewiring my mental circuitry.
First of all, I’ll record the recent purchase of equipment from RadioShack (thanks to Tim at the Huntsville Commons location!) I added to my pile of stuff in the study/lab:
- ARDX – the Experimenter’s Guide for Arduino (product number 276-252)
- PIR Motion Sensor by Parallax Inc (product number 276-135)
- RadioShack standard server (product number 2730766)
- RadioShack micro server (product number 2730765)
For today’s lesson, I’ll only use the ARDX.
Since I’ve already played with the Arduino lighting up a single LED, I’m jumping ahead in the ARDX to the second experiment — playing with eight LEDs!
Yes, I know this is too much fun for one person, let alone an Internet full of them!
Anyway, here’s the circuit diagram we’re going to use:
Next order of business — getting the parts bags out so I can be ready to pull parts as needed:
Okay, now’s it the old plug-n-pray that my big fumble fingers and half-blind eyes can see to place the parts in the right holes on the breadboard.
Do a visual double-check (and a triple-check of the double-check) and I’m ready for the software side of things:
It’s off to the Arduino programming environment I go!
I grabbed the code for this experiment off the company’s website, http://ardx.org/CODE02, and pasted it into the Arduino coding section, naming the “sketch” CIRC02:
I verified that the code is functional by compiling it — successful!:
I then plugged the Arduino to my notebook PC via USB cable and let it boot up:
Finally, I uploaded the code from the notebook PC to the Arduino:
And here’s what the code produced.
On to the next task — figuring out what this code can do for my yard art sculpture!
Living in two places — both ends of a multiplexer — at once
While one thought pattern tries to wrap itself around putting servos in the joints of at least one arm of a single-purpose robot waving hello to passing strangers like a street [panto]mime dressed as a trash can automaton…
Hmm…another thought pattern asks me “if the universe is here only to entertain me, why do I walk away from the next adventure?”
Yesterday, as I do everyday, I adopted a role, picked out my costume for the day, and acted the part of a happy-go-lucky grownup boy.
But…
I really should avoid situations that start with “but,” but…
As happened back in 1985, when a fellow student in my CAD class at Walters State Community College, the wonderfully half-Cherokee Sarah, sleek of form and gentle of wit, bestirred the animal in me with an unending voracious sexual appetite, drove me to pull her into my arms, overcoming my subcultural/childhood training to remain a virgin until married, becoming lovers not only with her but also with her best friend, literally pushing me to the brink of madness, watching myself split into two — the loyal, brave, reverent and morally straight Boy Scout; the sex-starved college student — never able to get back my innocence physically…
Sigh…
Why again do I uphold a subculture that often makes no sense?
Yesterday, I was happy to enjoy the day for what it presented to me.
I could be an entity-in-a-box, like a TV character staying in character interacting with characters outside-the-box looking in at me but not actually making real contact.
Do I even understand for myself how lonely that makes me feel?
Do I care so little for myself that I would walk through a day as if I’m no more alive than the robot I’m building and programming?
Every moment I’m out there with people — with you, most of all — I look for a sign, a signal, an indication that there is an escape from this godly conformist hell that defines my life, which promises AND delivers me from evil, providing security from danger and [YAWN!] a repetitious ennui of getting up, seeing the world as if I’m not part of it, and going into my dreams which promise and deliver adventures full of danger, nightmares, happy moments of temporary bliss and back into the possibility of dying in my sleep while doing something fun.
And I find many signs because I am so desperate to find a similar person out there looking for the same.
But…
Yes, it’s there again, I know.
But…
When I’m desperate, any sign will do.
I’ll imagine a random stranger I meet can read my thoughts or has read this blog or purchased my books online and knows just what I’m thinking and wishing.
I can hardly imagine that my being my physical self — a decent-looking fellow with a nice personality — would in itself make people wish I could read their thoughts and know just what they’re thinking and wishing.
Yet (or but) is that all there is to life?
Are the conversations I’m having with you simply two people wishing for a “meeting of the minds,” willing to suspend our independence and disbelief to say that two people can think as one?
When I sat there bouncing in the auditorium chair, listening to you perform, watching you remember to remind yourself to smile even in the midst of a forlorn song while you strummed a guitar, I saw a future of just the two of us sitting in a cafe, sharing stories, listening as you amazed me with tales of feeling disconnected from reality that I have felt, wondering why the life of a road warrior can make you wish for a moment like this, having three weeks off to explore life with just one person — me.
It was an intriguing moment because a song or two later you sang “Amelia Earhart’s Last Flight” and made me wish you knew I had been writing a story with a steampunk Amelia Earhart as a main character.
But…
But you is a universal term that in English can be singular or plural.
What about the other “you” that is an amalgam of the other, the not-me?
We are what we are.
You are a dear, sweet gal, recent recipient of the Female Vocalist of the Year, who grew up around here, even if you weren’t born here but how many people in north Alabama were born here?
Was it enough to have bumped into you in the concert hall lobby, me playing the role of the fan fortunate enough to get your autograph on a CD (I don’t know why but holding up a prop is an actor’s favourite pose, I suppose)?
Do we know each other?
Maybe.
Why did I look familiar to you?
Well, we were Facebook friends for a while but I don’t expect a performer on the road is going to take time to check out her friends’ Facebook posts, even if the joker in me made a humorous video of a dancing cicada to the tune of one of your songs, poking fun at one of your band members, Mark Schatz, who danced on a rock formation.
Last night, an adventure called my name but I was too numb from a day of feeling disconnected while looking for signs that were there all along but I was so used to not expecting them I forgot to pay attention when they showed up and planted themselves against my face.
In reality, I had one desire in my thoughts and I wasn’t expecting that side of me to approach you and play the dating game in front of my wife.
Not even a light session of fun flirting.
My voracious appetite consumed me and I didn’t want to say something stupid.
As Abi told me the first day I met her, it’s not always about what’s in my pants.
When my pants are doing the thinking, it’s best to nod and walk away, pretending an autograph was all I wanted.
Some days, being a guy is fun. Other days, it’s tough being a beast of burden locked in a box of self-exile, my animal tendencies kept in check, my blood pressure boiling.
How many signs did I see yesterday? How many signs did I miss? How many signs weren’t there to begin with?
I stand up from this notebook PC, beat my chest like a silverback gorilla and roar!
What I want my childhood subcultural training can’t give me — the denial of the value of monogamy in a childless life!!!!
I walk away from this PC and tell myself the concert you gave, the songs you sang, were for me, while honouring the special needs people in our lives. It will have to suffice for today.
Me and my new girlfriend
Yeah, my wife took the photo — she’s good that way:
I walked up to Claire. She took one look at me and asked, “Don’t I know you from somewhere?” We left together and retired to Waffle House for a two-week affair.
Before that, I returned the picture favour, photographing my wife with tonight’s headliner, Rick Taylor (and his band), who also happens to be my wife’s former coworker, a physicist at SAIC:
treetrunkdings 