Knowledge Is So So

I’ve been listening to a lot of old David Bowie records lately, so getting songs stuck in my head. One day last week, almost 40 years after it was released, I was thinking about the album (and song) Aladdin Sane, and I finally got the pun (“A Lad Insane”). It just occurred to me while I was washing the dishes or vacuuming or something. I’m probably the last living person to get that pun. It’s kind of disappointing, actually.

A lot of the 1970s Bowie songs that sounded so exotic to me for so long are starting to, finally, after 40 years, lose their glittery paint and sound a lot closer to Bill Haley and the Comets than extraterrestrial space aliens. Maybe I have always expected too much and listened too gently, but still, it’s kind of sad.

This idea that knowledge is good, knowledge is good, knowledge is good, is something I’d like to challenge. At least for myself. Knowledge is addictive. Knowledge is fun. Knowledge is intoxicating. Knowledge costs money, and takes time, and is deceiving. It can also be disappointing, sad, depressing, devastating, and on and on. So I don’t know about “good.”

Groundhog Day/Hedgehog Day

This is about the movie PRIMER, but I don't want to describe the movie, so if you haven't seen it, stop reading right here, because this will otherwise make no sense.

The movie was supposed to come from Netflix, but was several days late, so I had them send another one, which came promptly. We didn't watch it however, and then, after about a week, the originally shipped one came. So now I've got TWO DVDs of the same movie.

Perfect.

I thought about playing them almost at the same time on two different devices. But I figured that would be overkill. n

January Roundup

I had a pretty good job offer, out of the blue (I won't go into details) around the middle of January. Then an interview, and then waiting. The rest of January turned into waiting. Why do I let myself do that? I guess there are certain situations that just don't come around often enough to learn from, and then you end up making the same mistakes over and over and over.

Another birthday, and now I'm 51. Sometimes that just sounds incredibly young to me.

I'm still working on my novel. When I started it, I was in my 30s. That's the truth.

It snowed a lot this January. Maybe I'll try to put another snow picture here or there.

One More Asshole For The Road

I really don’t like myself when I complain too much, and I really do believe I’m so lucky, just fortunate in so many ways. It seems not only unattractive to complain and whine, but also inappropriate, or just wrong. But some days are a little more rough than others, and sometimes interestingly so, at least enough to write about briefly. Today was just pretty significantly exhausting in more way than one. Another work day at my job I don’t like, and I was thinking how this was the longest week and a half of work I’ve ever experienced. This is not the way to start a year, I was thinking, unless I can somehow insure that it just gets better, which of course I can’t. But in fact, when I think about it for two seconds, I think about how good I do have it, everything, compared to so many people.

Anyway, I’ve been working at this place as a kind of temp (though more permanent and regular than a temp) at the same place for two and a half years. Today they unofficially offered to hire me as a regular employee, which would mean a significant increase in pay. So, as positive as that should be, I felt conflicted, thinking, really, shouldn’t I find a whole different job, a better paying job, a job I like better, and just generally something new? Of course it’s still a really rough time for finding a job, and this is a rough town for finding a job, especially for someone like me who is now officially “older” and who doesn’t have job skills that match up with what a lot of employers consider important. But would saying "yes" be like flashing my ID at the Gates of Hell? So in a way, I felt excited, but conflicted. A little emotional, which, you know, contributes to letting your guard down.

While considering all this, I got yelled at really inappropriately for something that was not my fault, but of course you can never stick up for yourself (considered “crazy” behavior)—it’s like telling them “you’re wrong.” Well, as I often dwell on, I am really not good about getting blamed for something that I shouldn’t be blamed for, ever since that grade school bus driver marched into the back of the bus and beat me over the head with his plastic ball bat, for fighting, which I was not, of course. I know I should just get over that, Dr. Cochrane, but you know, if I haven’t gotten over it in like forty years, it’s not likely to happen any time soon.

Escaping the workplace each day isn’t the end, there is still the subway to deal with, and the grocery store, and generally the population. I think that New York is the most amazing place I’ve ever lived, in that there are so many people at such close quarters, yet such tolerance and really, mellowness, relatively, anyway. But still, some days I just want to get home untouched, un-talked-to, and when I do get home for the evening, it’s such a relief. Due to the day’s mega-stress, I decided to take a hot bath, and in the middle of my bath I heard banging out in the hall, though nothing too alarming, and then Cindy called, just arriving outside, I guess, and said there where fire trucks and an ambulance outside. So I looked out in the hall for smoke, and there was fireman coming down the stairs from the roof. He went by my bike, which is locked to a railing in the hall, hitting it with his fire axe.

I asked, “What’s going on?” wondering if I should get dressed and get out of the building, naturally, or what. He just mumbled something unintelligible, then said, “You can’t have your bike in the hall. Get it out of the hall.” Then he proceeded down the stairs. I assumed, at that point, there was not a raging fire, at least. I'm sure firefighters have a stressful job, and more false alarms that you can imagine, and get tired of hearing things like, “Is there a fire?” but hell, from my point of view it wasn’t like this was a real person, or a real even. It was just one more asshole this day was throwing at me before I finally got to relax. But then, I guess you have to add, at least it wasn't a fire.

Museum of Art of the Moment Alright

One of my errands at work today was to go to the DOT (Department of Transportation) and pick up some kind of summons or something. I love errands like this, it makes my job seems bearable, even fun. It’s in an office building way downtown, near Wall Street, that big kind of government building, though only average security, really pretty relaxed. It’s an office you just WISH you could get a job at, things piled around here and there, very homey for an office. The employees seem pretty relaxed and going at their own, human pace.

So I’m waiting in the front of the office in some chairs by the door (there is no receptionist) while the guy takes care of my paperwork. I’m there about 20 minutes, just observing the place. There is an insane amount of Christmas decorations, hanging glittery snowflakes and stars, fake snow everywhere, including a big fake snow blanket draped over a copy machine, with a couple of elves on top of it. No way they’re going to be able to USE that copy machine! And then by the front wall is a whole scene; it’s the North Pole, with a paper igloo taped to the wall and a handmade sign that says: “North Pole”—very well done, actually, with nice lettering and icicles hanging from it. There are a bunch of wire sculpture reindeer standing about, pretty big ones, like major lawn ornament things. There is just a ton of some kind of white powdery stuff, to replicate snow, dumped all over the deep blue carpet in front of the igloo. These are just all-out winter/Christmas decorations!

But while I’m sitting there, admiring the scene, for no apparent reason, the igloo takes this opportunity to free itself from the wall—I guess the tape wore out—and limply plopped over into the snow. The back of it is brown paper, and there are big loops of packing tape which formerly held it to the wall. I’m sitting there in amazement, just staring at the fallen-over igloo. And I was thinking: there are a lot of museums in this town, and galleries, and more art than any one person could take in even if it was their fulltime job. But this little dilapidated winter scene, and the falling-over igloo, this is, without a doubt, the best art in all of New York at this moment.

I am the Nightrider!

I always liked this scene at the beginning of Mad Max (1979), for some reason, where the Nightrider is driving this stolen hotrod with his girlfriend, and they’re both high, or crazy, or both, and the police are after them, but pretty powerless to catch them because they’re just fearless. They’re just tearing along at high speeds while the police keep crashing, and he’s taunting them on a police radio, and he seems pretty indestructible, until finally, of course, Mad Max goes after him.

I guess it just occurred to me that this is how I feel about writing, sometimes, where things are going well and you just feel reckless and good, with no fear—complete confidence. You wish it could always be that way, but you know, deep inside, how that would mean you’re not human, and anything you write would be worthless anyway. I suppose there are people who just are always confident and with no fear, but they’re pretty annoying, aren’t they?

But soon enough, it always happens, no matter how well the writing—or whatever you’re doing—is going, you get to a point where you doubt everything—where you feel like you’ve just lost it. But hopefully you realize that won’t last either. It always goes back and forth, and that’s okay. I guess knowing that is one of the things that makes it bearable.

This still of the Nightrider and his girlfriend is from this scene that illustrates perfectly that moment when total, insane confidence instantly changes to fear. The next time I’m trying to write something—which is pretty much any time I try to write something—and I feel any confidence I’ve had erode to nothing, I’m going to think of this scene. You were going along at 100 mph and there was nothing going to stop you, but just like that, you lose it all—because Mad Max is on your ass.

Happy New Year!

I went headfirst into the first day of the new year confidently believing that the Rose Bowl college football game between Wisconsin and TCU would be on broadcast TV. I’m pretty sure every Rose Bowl of the past, and all the major bowl games, have been on broadcast TV. I’m sure of it, because each year I’m aware of what I can watch and what I can’t—the lesser bowl games being only available on cable. So even though the online TV listings said it was on ESPN, and the football listings said the same—well, I guess because ESPN and ABC are affiliated, and often a game will be scheduled out to the network at the last minute, based on regional interest—I just assumed it would end up on ABC. But no!

I felt like I was going insane. I mean, really, this should not surprise me or be a big deal. There are a lot of bigger things, more important and dire things, that should be a big deal to me. Yet somehow this seems like a really significant milestone. But it seems to have been ignored by the vast public. Maybe it’s just a sign of how out of it I am. I can’t escape the uneasy feeling that sooner than I think I’m going to find myself being held down by vacant eyed device zombies while they implant a chip into my neck or tattoo me with a barcode. Am I just overreacting?

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.