Reading Devices

I’m not crazy about the big office supply chain stores, but as they have pretty much put the little stores out of business, what can you do? I have one nice thing to say about Staples, anyway. They have this program where you can take in used printer cartridges for recycling and get store credit (you can return a maximum of 10 cartridges a month for $20 credit—and while most people won’t use that many at home, at the office where I work, we go through enough that my coworker and I can each return 10 a month). So yesterday I was able to take this credit letter they sent me in the mail and get my office supply needs for free. I bought a box of envelopes to mail more of my calendars, and a new notebook, for 2011 (always an exciting thing to find).

When I was about to leave the checkout line, a guy asked a clerk if they had any Kindles left, and the clerk said they were all sold out. That struck me as kind of odd. Can you imagine having to turn down a sale of that size, just because you are out of stock? And why was this guy so keen on getting a Kindle at that moment—presumably too late to be a Christmas gift—was he suddenly keen on reading something that his Kindle would provide him? Does the popularity of the Kindle mean popularity in reading? How much do people read, anyway, and what do they read? Is this an area where statistics are any good at all?

I really don’t know how I feel about these reading devices, or whether I think it reflects on how much people read or what they read. I know that whenever I see someone reading a BOOK it kind of makes me happy, even though it’s usually a Harry Potter book or The Girl with the Dragon Tattoo. I read quite a bit of text on my computer, after all. I guess what it comes down to is when I think about the last book I read, or the last several, or the many books I’ve read over the years, if I imagine reading them on a reading device, a Kindle, or a computer, or a phone, the idea horrifies me. Maybe it isn’t so much what I think the problems with new ways to read are as it why does the book as an object hold so much fascination for me? Is it—again, like so many things—just nostalgia?

New Year's Resolutions

Every year about this time you can find countless articles about how it's a bad idea to make New Year's resolutions. Why?--for a lot of lame excuse reasons like you'll inevitably fail, get depressed, you shouldn't put too much pressure on yourself, you should make resolutions at different times of the year. But I'm here to say: wrong. It's important to make New Year's resolutions, and fun, and inspiring, and helpful. I'm going to keep doing it. I don't care if some expert doesn't like it. Wait-- they're not experts, anyway-- just some schmo trying to write some worthless article on some boring subject when their back hurts too much to sit in the chair-- like me, right now.

The Timeless All White With A Black Hat Look

Blowing Smoke Rings

I read over what I wrote yesterday, or tried to, but it's incomprehensible. My apologies.

On the subway today I read my favorite ever blowing smoke rings passage in a book (2666 by Roberto Bolaño.):

...and he began to blow smoke rings again, in the most unlikely shapes, as if he'd spent his long stay in Mondragón perfecting that peculiar art. How do you do it? asked Lola. With the tongue, and by pursing the lips a certain way, he said. Sometimes by making a kind of fluted shape. Sometimes like someone who's burned himself. Sometimes like sucking a small to medium dick. Sometimes like shooting a Zen arrow with a Zen bow into a Zen pavilion.

Skip This One!

Last weekend I returned to Milwaukee after being gone for three years, to participate in Art vs. Craft (which was fun, successful) and start going thru my stuff stored there (less successful, but still worthwhile), and to visit people. I really should have emailed more people beforehand, but I was so busy with making stuff to sell, and with work, and working on my novel, I didn't get around to it. If I could do the weekend over, I would contact more people, that's for sure. But my job alone was enough to exhaust me. Due to some legal issue, I've had to print emails (of employees and ex-employees). Thousands of them. All day with the mouse, click, prints, move, click, print. I guess it has made me appreciate how my job normally has some variety.

It could be stress or fatigue, or post-traveling depression, but I've been edgy and kind of freaked out for a couple of days. Yesterday evening I heard more sirens than I've ever heard, last night, along with something else I can't remember now. I'm so tired, I'm sitting here trying to write this and falling into dreams while sitting up (supposedly awake) ...making less and less sense as I progress toward my collapse on the bed, too tired to do this. I apologize for the poor writing and not very interesting anything. I'll go thru this later and fix the nonsense. Delete it all. Plus, too, also too...

(untitled)

I've still got that headache. No, I don't. I just read over this last post, and it chilled my blood. I figured that something must have happened to me between then and now. No, nothing happened.

Nothing happened!

Dilution

I took a two hour nap yesterday (Sunday) and woke up with the worst headache, nauseous—leading me to believe I either had a migraine or the flu. Even though I felt like had a fever, I thought is was a migraine, so I took migraine pills, which ended up not helping. In fact, they made me feel worse—which is what they do if it’s not a migraine. I wish it was easier to tell, but it’s not.

All night I had sick dreams, work dreams, and sick work dreams. In the morning, again a bad headache, though was up before 5 A.M. as usual. I tried to work on writing anyway, made a cup of coffee, and took two Tylenols. Within an hour my headache was totally gone. It was so much of a relief to feel better, I felt almost high. I wondered if there was something weird about the Tylenols—like maybe they were actually codeine or something.

The whole day I felt good, energetic, and I was even in a good, positive mood at work. When I got home and came over to my computer I was shocked to see, sitting there, the two Tylenols I thought I took. I hadn’t taken them at all, only gotten them out. But I thought I took them. I wondered if I had invented some new form of homeopathy or something.

About The Most Important Subject There Is: The Weather

My accurate records indicate that it was May 18 when I last wrote anything in this journal, and looking back through my email, I realize that was about the last time I answered a message. All communication seems to have stopped and I can't account for this gap in time. What happened?

I know what it was, actually, it's very simple. It is what most people call "nice weather" and I call a "heatwave." The temperatures were up in the 90s in the midday, and stayed in the 90s at midnight in our apartment—which is a cramped, one-room place with one window facing south and west. The humidity was likewise in the 90s. Every year I threaten to move "out of the South" to somewhere more suited to my disposition, but the question is, where would I go? Somewhere that is high altitude, maybe? But I have no idea where. I keep thinking there is going to be, someday, a new city revealed to me.

So, anyway, in all that heat and humidity, no emails, no journals, no 50 foot high murals secretly mapping out grand schemes. Then in the last few days it has gotten cooler and lovely, really, and the humidity is also really low. It actually feels weird out because it's so low. I was walking around noticing how I was smelling everything differently and noticing details I can't usually see in the mushy haze. But the funny thing is, I felt more out of sorts in this low humidity than I have at any other time. I couldn't escape the feeling that something bad was going to happen at any minute.

Now it's raining, and I'm comfortable with this. Actually, the whole day was dark enough to turn on your headlights. As I was walking down an avenue, I noticed that I could see far into places, restaurants mostly, that were illuminated inside with artificial lights. I had never noticed this before—usually when the sun is bright you notice the facade and windows, and maybe a few feet inside, at best. Back when I had all the money in the world, I would walk by these places, I guess assuming they were just facades constructed by the art department. Now that I have seen the depth of each one, I really want go the these restaurants to each lunch. And now I have no money.

More "Mr. Bojangles"

Just two days after my intense Mr. Bojangles dream, I walked over to Penn Station and went down the stairs to the lower corridor on my way to the Big K-Mart pharmacy to renew my prescription of migraine pills. There was a woman playing guitar and singing at one end of the long hallway, and at first I didn't make out the song, but then I suddenly realized that it was "Mr. Bojangles!"

I didn't stop to listen, though, because it was my lunch break and I had to get that prescription. It turned out that my prescription had expired anyway—so much for that. I had some more dreams that keep almost coming back to me but don't. Just a few minutes ago the significance of all this seemed profound, but now the significance escapes me.

"Mr. Bojangles"

I had a dream where I was videotaping some public street performers, though it wasn't on the street, but some big room, like maybe a train station waiting room that wasn't much bigger than a good-sized apartment. Everyone was standing around, and it was crowded but comfortable. There was someone playing guitar and singing "Mr. Bojangles" and they were pretty good, and I got a little footage. It was okay.

I went back some days later to the same place to get some additional footage, and there was someone ELSE singing "Mr. Bojangles"—also a really nice version. So I got some footage of this person. (I don't remember anything in particular about these performers, now, except that they sang in beautiful, soulful voices.)

I went back another day, kind of haunted by that song and the performances by these public singers. Now there were THREE people singing "Mr. Bojangles!" They were standing in three corners of the room and kind of playing off each other. One person would start the song and another would continue it. Before I was able to set up my camera, they stopped. I noticed that there were SEVERAL people there videotaping, including some professional television crews. Then someone set up a podium and it seemed like something official was to take place. I happened to be directly behind to podium—I had an amazing spot for getting footage of whatever was going to transpire, but nothing ever did. I just filmed from behind the podium, with the podium in the foreground. But there was no longer anyone singing "Mr. Bojangles."

A Ghost Is Not A Monster

So far I have failed to write in this journal like a daily diary as intended, but that doesn’t mean it’s all a loss. I may still get it together as far as that is concerned, as soon as my surgery scar stops hurting and I stop getting sick on a weekly basis, and I kill stress before stress kills me, and I get around to thanking people who sent me stuff on my birthday, and answer emails in general, and do my taxes.

As far as money goes I have to keep working in the job I’m working in, or find a better paying one—but anyway, I can’t stop working, or even look for a part-time job. I am making pretty much exactly enough money to get by. While my job is stressful and annoying, and often makes me tired—and like today, on a Saturday morning, ache all over, and possibly be beginning a daylong migraine ordeal—I actually like it in a way. It’s not boring, and I like the people I work with pretty much. Stress is as much of a two-way street as anything—meaning it’s not just the job that’s stressful, it’s my reaction to stress—which is, of course, something that’s possible, though not easy, to change.

Sometimes I wish that I was 20 feet tall and weighed 500 pounds and I could walk down the street crushing everyone who walks too slow, doesn’t watch where they’re going, and “multitasks” while walking. Half the subway car would clear out to accommodate me, and I would have a miner’s hat with a light on top for reading. But would I, then—would I be just another monster? Really, that’s not what I want at all. I want to be ghost, to go here and there unseen, entering through the most minute cracks and exiting without saying good-bye. Able to read in the twilight, unaffected by my surroundings, and without any need to tell the world about what I’m reading.

Time Management

I've just been tired lately. I have been writing posts on this exclusive version of facebook that is just for complaining and saying negative things-- don't look for it, it's exclusive-- it's by invitation only for members of the complainer's hall of fame and museum. The other complainers come up with a lot of solutions to your problems, and here is a list of the solutions I have been awarded with:

1. Find a spiritual life; join a church; serve a higher power; embrace a spiritual calling.
2. Exercise; join a gym; swim; ride bike; do yoga; walk an hour a day; stretch; try pilates.
3. Simplify your life; throw everything away; eliminate the clutter; un-join facebook.
4. Work on you novel and NOTHING else. Focus. Don't email, don't get sidetracked.
5. Cultivate an active social life because, in the end, it's ALL ABOUT PEOPLE.
6. Go on antidepressants. There are a lot out there-- try them all until one works.
7. Go to therapy. Find a good expensive therapist or a free so-so therapist-- maybe both!
8. Go to AA; go to AA every day; find a sponsor; become a sponsor.
9. Find a new job that isn't so demanding and pays more and is fulfilling.
10. Cut down on coffee; drink more green tea; cut out caffeine altogether.
11. Stop reading message boards, especially those about sports.
12. Maybe try cocaine? It seemed to work for those guys in the 1970s.

There are more, but I'm a firm believer in ending lists at or before twelve items. No exceptions. Anyway, all of these are great suggestions, but when I considered them, I realized that they could be divided between “Things That Free Up Time” and “Things That Take Up More Time.” Maybe time management is the answer I'm looking for. It's no secret-- though they don't exactly write this on your bank statements-- that money doesn't actually exist, but is really only a placeholder for time. This recalls the character of Calico Jack in my six hour Portland epic, "Seafood"-- who is a time broker, essentially. And also this character, Adrian Prussia in this book I just read, "Inherent Vice" -- a loan shark with an idea about time like Calico Jack; if you want to make an "impression" on someone, you take away some of their time. Breaking someone's kneecap is more about the time-sucking inconvenience than it is about pain.

I got this mass email from my aunt who forwards everything, the good, the bad, and the ugly. I liked this one-- it described really well this particular idea:

"Times are tough, everybody is in debt, and living on credit. On this particular day a rich tourist from up north is driving through town. He stops at the motel and lays a $100 bill on the desk as a deposit saying he wants to inspect the rooms in order to pick one to spend the night. As soon as the man walks out, the owner grabs the bill and runs next door to pay his debt to the butcher. The butcher takes the $100 and runs down the street to retire his debt to the pig farmer. The pig farmer takes the $100 and heads off to pay his bill at the feed store. The guy at the Farmer's Co-op takes the $100 and runs to pay his debt to the local prostitute, who has also been facing hard times and has had to offer her "services" on credit. The hooker rushes to the hotel and pays off her room bill with the hotel owner. The hotel proprietor then places the $100 back on the counter so the rich traveler won't suspect anything. At that moment the traveler comes back into the office, picks up the $100 bill, states that the rooms aren't satisfactory, pockets the money, and leaves town. No one produced anything. No one earned anything. However, the whole town is now out of debt and looks to the future with a lot more optimism. And that, ladies and gentlemen, is how the United States Government is conducting business today!"

Of course, not just "today" but ever since the invention of trade. And the whole thing breaks down pretty easily once the guy at the Farmer's Co-op decides he can't afford the prostitute and turns to the pig farmer instead. But no matter, I think it's a good illustration of the meaningless of money and the value of time, and the magic that can take place when time is managed properly. The trick, of course, is getting that "rich tourist from up north" to take long enough to inspect the rooms that all of these transactions can take place.

Or am I missing the whole point entirely?

13. Stand at the edge of the chasm. Gaze into the chasm. Yell into the chasm. Jump into the chasm.

Not literally, of course, the jumping, or the chasm. I like "pee into the chasm" -- though that's such a male thing-- anyone can piss on "it"-- but the male anatomy is advantageous when pissing into something like a chasm. Do I spend too much time thinking about stuff like this?

Still Recovering

I'm still recovering, not feeling 100 per cent yet. I'd say I feel 83.7 per cent. Of course. What if it was the other way around? It would seem like something was weird.

Anyway, a lot of my resolutions and "new ways" and grand ambitions have been put on hold a bit. I have to finish sending out calendars and writing back to people and cleaning up. I'm still letting myself have the big surgery excuse. But not for long.

Birthday

Note: I wrote this, but forgot to post it, on my birthday, January 19.

I keep trying to write longer and longer stuff on facebook, not to mention twitter, which those formats just aren’t for. Whatever their good points and drawbacks, they don’t work as a diary, for me. So I decided I should work on this journal more...

I woke up with a really vivid and weird dream on Martin Luther King holiday, and thought about the word dream and I was compelled to read the text of his “I had a dream” speech which is of course as good as you remember it but better. Plus, just interesting, and interesting to try to think about what it might have felt living here in 1963.

Of course, I was living in 1963, I was three years old. Today, incidentally is my 50th birthday, which means, I guess, I’ve been here for fifty years now. You could say I’m beginning my sixth decade, if you want to make me feel even older.

But I don’t feel old. Or rather, I’ve felt old for a long, long time now—since I was twelve at least, or maybe 14 anyway. But I don’t feel much older now. I’ve had physical ailments pretty much spaced out all that time, but I’ve recovered pretty well. I feel like I keep learning stuff, but that doesn’t make me think I was a former dumbass or anything. I don’t think that I have to necessarily start acting a different way now, though at any point I might decide to start acting a different way or try to reinvent myself someway—but just because I can, not because it’s expected of me.

I don’t feel like I’m at all satisfied with what I’ve done in my life, but no matter what I do, I don’t ever expect to feel that way. You look at what could be considered some people’s accomplishments and say, holy shit, what must they think when they think about themselves? Do they go, “I’ve sure done a lot! I should just take it easy now.” Most likely those people are people who are never satisfied, and that’s why they do so much. But then, maybe they do get to some point where they say, “I’ve done enough. I’m just going to take walks and smell the smells of the world and live in the moment and relax.” Good for them if they feel that way, no matter what they’ve done or haven’t done—like that stuff can really be measured anyway. Good for me, too, if I ever feel that way.

Surgery

I'm at home right now recovering from hernia surgery. It feels kind of weird to have had this surgery, because the situation wasn't quite dire yet-- I mean it was troublesome and uncomfortable, but not immediately life threatening-- but still I made the decision to allow someone to cut into me with a blade, or scalpel, or Martha Stewart Santoku knife, or whatever they use. I know that some people have surgery ALL THE TIME. I can't imagine it. For me, it's incredibly hard just to have to go a week without walking, to have to take pain pills, and to get out of my regular schedule. Sure, it's nice to not have to go to my job for a few days, and have more time to read. And I'm finding time, obviously, to write THIS. But I would trade in an awful lot-- maybe even my 3-D triple action Pete Rose/Darryl Strawberry/Steve Sax baseball card-- for perfect health and an uninterrupted, creative, writing schedule.

Happy 2010!

I wonder if it is tormenting people to say "happy new year" all the time if there are bad things going on in their lives. I don't know... at least it makes more sense to me than "happy holidays" and "Merry Christmas." At least it is an expression that could be saying, "have a better year this year." Have hope for the future, and since none of us know what is going to happen in the future, why not?

I'm busy making those usual, yearly, soon-to-fail resolutions, and will continue to be throughout the year. I should pretty much be smart enough by now to give up on the idea of ever being organized. What does that even mean, anyway? I'm all for increasing simplicity, but I'm also, always, for increasing complication. I guess the more complication I take on, the more simplicity I also have to take on to keep the complication from becoming overwhelming.

I started this journal to try to write something frequently, in order to make up for the lack of letter writing, emailing, phone calls, and other communication I have a lack of. I guess I'll see if I can put this to use this year.

Happy new year!