Working in the Yards

JOURNAL JAR:  Describe your yard as a child-- did you help with the yardwork?

Since we moved around quite a bit when I was a kid, I didn't have just one yard.  But I do remember doing yardwork.

When we lived on Bel Ayre Drive in what was then San Jose but is now Santa Clara, I learned how to mow the lawn.  I was about eight or so, and our neighbor, Johnny Pope, helped teach me how to take care of the yard, along with my dad.

There were two trees in the front yard-- one was a fruitless mulberry tree, with big leaves.  The other one was something different, with lots of small leaves.  I remember raking leaves one time, and being bored with the process of raking into a pile, then putting the piles into bags.  So I raked everything behind one of the bushes along the side of the house-- kind of hid the leaves there.  Got in trouble for that.

Our back yard at Bel Ayre was big-- there were fruit trees and a oval shaped lawn area, along with a space behind the detached garage that my grandpa planted a garden in.  We had peach trees, a lemon tree, and an orange tree that gave the best oranges I've ever had.  So juicy and sweet.

Befor Bel Ayre we lived on Blossom Hill Road.  Our front yard had lawn with a slope towards the sidewalk, so I could get started on my bike easily.  The back yard didn't have much but pea gravel when we first moved in.  But my dad put in a large concrete patio complete with a built-in bbq pit.  And we planted a garden between the houses with our neighbors.

We moved to Lucchesi from Bel Ayre.  Lucchesi was interesting because there was no dirt.  It was all sand.  Even when we dug down and installed our Doughboy pool, it was sand all the way down.  So no lawns and stuff there.  Just some iceplant.  We only lived there a year before we moved to Escalon.

Escalon is where I did my best yard work.  For a while, I had the front yard down to a science.  The back yard is so big that it's still being worked on, as in "installed."  I put in the lawn and sprinklers years ago, but they had to be redone because the renters and lanscapers caused a lot of wear and tear.  I did a nice job of installing the yard, but I never did get a picture of the finished project.  Oh well.

More Random Thoughts About Greece

Not sure if I’ve written about this already—Back in Greece, when we were in the port of Pithagoria or whatever—the place where we stayed at the hotel that was built into the hill, and there were levels, and the pool was near the beach level—where I went manic, or at least started to, for the first time such that I needed to be treated/hospitalized...  Anyway, we would go into “town” to shop and go to bars/restaurants there.  We walked along the pier and there were numerous restaurants and shops along the water’s edge.  Up the street a bit there was a shop that we went into and looked around at various goods that were being offered.  I don’t recall what we bought there, but I talked with someone who I believe was the business owner, and he wrote on my shopping bag in Greek.  I would like to get it translated.  Seems to me that his name was John, and that he had been a winemaker but his occupation had changed as the tourism of the town had become the better business opportunity.  He gave me the impression that he was a sort of artist.  I remember thinking that American Commercialism had influenced his life, and led him down the path that he did.  I sensed that he had been like a farmer or artisan, or some such “undeveloped” craftsman until capitalism had found its way to his town, his island.  I got the feeling that he wasn’t complaining, but that it had been a difficult transition.  At least, I was left with a yearning feeling for a time and place that had been lost.

Would really appreciate if somebody could translate all of this for me.  I think it's Greek, but then it's all Greek to me. (Har har.)

My State of the Union

The state of my union shall be addressed in this entry.

There is the issue of the Journal Jar.  It is openly admitted that the goal of completion was not met by the end of last year.  So a new goal has been set of completion by the end of next month.  You can follow along right here on this blog as I complete the Journal Jar entries.  So stay tuned.

Moving forward, I will actually plan on looking backward into my archives.  I have several journals that I've written in and completely filled all pages, mostly with my scribbled penmanship, but some drawings/sketches/doodles are included as well.  I will be venturing into these journals to elicit nuggets of wisdom from my past.  Some of these journals haven't been opened in almost 20 years.  Should be interesting, so stay tuned, again.

Next issue: health.  I am in need of exercise and better eating habits.  To that extent, I am making some changes, led by my energetic and positively influential wife, to include daily exercise and monitor what goes in when I eat.  Slowly but surely, change will manifest.  I had a dream about attending my high school reunion, and I was much healthier feeling and looking in it.  I plan on making the dream a reality.  I look forward to reaquainting with my Weight Watcher ways, and with my WW buddies.

I suppose I must also talk about employment.  I spoke this morning with Momentum, an organization that will help me find work.  They help folks like me with diagnoses like bipolar and schizophrenia to find jobs that work for all parties involved.  I have an appointment where I will be on stand-by, ready in case somebody cancels, on February 7th.  Otherwise I have an appointment on March 20th.  I hope to be employed doing something sooner than March.  But we'll just have to see what the market does for me.

On other fronts... I am fully anticipating correspondence from PERS very soon, though I don't have an indication of really when I should hear from them.  I am nonetheless hopeful to hear, today even, about the retirement possibilities we've investigated.  My mom thinks that they will be accommodating me, since they have gone so long without saying no already.  I hope she is correct.

Relay season is kicking off, and we should have a great (and busy) year again this year.  New wrinkles in that we have a new location.  We'll be at Cupertino High School, as DeAnza is renovating their track and field.  So things will be different, such that we won't be allowed to camp on the track/football field.  So the track and encampment areas will be separate.  This provides challenges, but we're working on being creative about how to make the party happen.  Team sponsored activity laps are one way to get everybody out there in the same place, doing things together.

And I am soon to start attending a new group that focuses on writing through mental illness, or writing for therapy.  Haven't attended yet, but it meets on Mondays and I am excited to see where it will take me and I have hopes that it will guide me in writing my book about my Greece manic episode experiences.  So I can develop even further than I have here already, with blog entries like Greased Mania and Greece: Theatre of the Mind, not to mention Greece: Blessing Ceremony and Greece: BBQ Bliss.

So if I can just keep finding ways to keep the debtors from suffocating us, I think things are going to be just fine.  But I'll keep you posted.

Hire Me, Please

When I say that I want to be a writer... what does that really mean?  I want to write books and sell them and live that book-signing, interviewing, analyzing kind of life?  No thanks.  I just want to write.  Not to make money, but to make art.  To find things that I'm searching for.  To uncover the hidden truths and discover "The Way."  Writing is my practice that leads me to all other things.

When I write, I am searching for meaning, for connections.  For things that a part of me feels and knows that they exist, but can't quite fit the words together for explaining them.  I write and I pull up images and feelings and thoughts and I put sticky notes on them, one by one, trying to identify and bring forth the creation.  What color is that feeling?  How deep does it go?

I do enjoy writing.  But it is work.  Just like digging a trench.  You gotta get to it and stick at it for a while before you see any progress.  It's a process that you have to develop, so you don't dig crookedly or throw out your back.  You have to be kinda systematic about it.  You have to do it, and keep doing it, even though you don't want to or you feel like you're not doing it "right."  So go left, go center.  Just keep going.  The meaning is something that happens in hindsight anyway.  The creation is in the moment.

Every swing of the hammer brings it down, slamming into the purpose.  Your focus has to be in the moment, on the nail.  You must hit the nail on the head.

I have conflicting objectives right now.  I need to do the work and find the way to find work again.  I need to pay my bills.  But I also need to stay true to myslef, to not undervalue myself.  To make use of my time and manage my money.  I need a job that will pay me more than minumum wage.  I need something that will allow me some flexibility because of my illness.  I need to find my way in this world.  I need to find what it means to be a writer and still be able to live my life, feed myself, keep my house.  I need to find my routine that maximizes my strengths.  I need a job to find me.  I need income to find me.

My efforts so far haven't uncovered any opportunities.  There are jobs out there, I just know it.  But finding my way into them hasn't proved easy.  I wish I could just put a "For Hire" sign in my yard and have a bevy of offers.  I hate having to market myself.  I hate marketing, period.

And that may be part of my problem.

I have skills, I'm capable.  I think I could make a good employee.  But I don't have the keys to that vehicle, just yet.  I'm having trouble finding my way in the door.

So if you know of anything...  advice welcomed.

What If Quantum Mechanics Went On Strike? « NOVA's Physics Blog: The Nature of Reality#?utm_source=Facebook&utm_medium=fanpage&utm_campaign=pbs

What If Quantum Mechanics Went On Strike? « NOVA's Physics Blog: The Nature of Reality#?utm_source=Facebook&utm_medium=fanpage&utm_campaign=pbs


Thistle Penn is in here. He's been down there, so small that you can't see him with the naked eye. He's traveled through that portal. He's had the power to "move, ghostlike, through slim walls." He remembers that. But it takes much too long to explain.

I'll keep trying.

There Was a Little Spark That Gave Birth to Hope

I feel kind of like the Grinch, after he had stolen Christmas and was at the top of the hill, with the sleigh precariously tipping towards ruin.  There was an instant where hope was realized, a single spark that ignited in his heart. 

Something like that happened to me over the weekend.

I am a fan of sports.  I've been a football fan as long as I can remember.  I was brought up in a family that loved the Oakland Raiders.  We didn't like it when they moved to LA, but we welcomed them back, even though the deal they struck with the county sucked.  But that's not what I set out here to talk about.

All my rooting life, I've rooted for the Raiders.  And in turn, I've rooted against the San Francisco 49ers.  They were imposters for me, coming up and being successful at a time when the Raiders had well established themselves as one of the elite few teams in the league.  The Raiders had won two superbowls before the 9ers and Joe Montana started their prestigious run of championships.  I grew up with my dad watching the Raider games, yelling and screaming and rooting our hearts out.  The Raiders were exciting, they did things that were amazing, that just dropped jaws and spun out the drama in leaps and bounds. 

I remember having a bet that the Raiders would win their 4th Super Bowl before the 9ers did.  That didn't go well for me.  In fact, my adult life of rooting for the Raiders and hating the 49ers has been quite the albatross around my neck.  The 49ers have seen a lot more success than the Raiders have in that time (the last thirty years or so).  In fact, the Raiders have lost most, if not all, of their mystique.  They've been the butt of many a joke around the league.  They've been a joke most of the time.

But I still am a Raider fan.  So I know I always will be.  Of that I can be proud.  And I am.

I have seriously curtailed my involvement with NFL Football in the last few years.  We were Raiders season ticket holders for about twelve years (somebody check my math on that).  It's not the game that it once was, for sure, with all of the trash talking and lack of sportsmanship.  But it doesn't mean as much to me anymore anyway.  I guess I've kinda grown away from it.  There are other things that I would rather do with my time nowadays.  Like crochet.  Okay, maybe not.

Anyway.  The Raiders flubbed up their season and missed the playoffs again this year.  So what comes next?  Root against the 9ers.  It's patterned behavior that is like the groove in the record album, and I'm the needle, down in there, going around and around. 

So I did some rational thinking as well, and thought about the matchup, and I really thought that the Saints would do well, maybe even light up the 9ers.  I thought they would win, but I expected to be wrong.

We tuned in to the game as we were working on chores.  Okay, you know the truth.  My wife did all the work.  I supervised and pitched in when able.

As the game started off, and the 9ers started to get the breaks (i.e. turnovers, scores), I found myself getting all worked up and angry.  I began to hate God and his team, that has banished me to this hell of watching them succeed and rub my face in it.

And then the Saints came back.  They fought and fought.  The 9ers held them off, fighting valiantly themselves.  But the Saints would not give up.  They pushed and pushed until finally the 9ers broke.

But not all was lost.  The 9ers found a way to regain the lead and push back.  The tide turned again.

Back and forth it went.  It looked as though the 9ers would win.  Then the Saints took the lead again, and time was running out.  I began to really enjoy football as a game-- this was how it should be, I thought.  And as the 9ers pulled out the win with seconds left on the clock, I had my Grinch moment.  I felt happy for them, for their fans.  Well, some of them. 

I felt that their victory had been earned.  They won it not by a technicality or a blown call-- they did it the right way.  They went out and they scored the winning touchdown because that is what had to be done. 

So although it was much like the "torture" that the San Francisco Giants put their fans through a season or two ago, there was no argument to be made.  They were the winners of the game-- they had gone out and done what they needed to do to win the game.  They executed when it mattered.  Give the Saints a lot of credit for some incredible fight and grit.  But the 9ers won that game.  They willed it.

So now I guess I'm some sort of bandwagon fan.  Well, you could say that.  But you'd be wrong.  I just enjoyed a great football game.  They're not always like that.  In fact, most of them aren't.  But when it happens-- magic.

Like a spark of hope that ignites in one's heart.

Like my vision of an all-Bay Area Super Bowl.  Not gonna happen this year, I know.  But next year...

In closing, I like the 9ers chances of going all the way.  But it won't be a cakewalk.  They've got a lot of battles yet to win.  The Giants (NY football) are playing well and riding a high, just like the 9ers are.  Should be one helluva game.  I might even have to watch this one. 

Or I could go shopping with my mother-in-law at Bed Bath & Beyond.  But I think she'll wanna watch the game.

Love and Death and the Constance of Life

I want more.  I want to feel right.  I want it to be better.  I want you to help. 
I keep thinking that another drunken bender is all that I need.  Once more around the bar, then home James.  Like I have a driver.  One more time, I will alter my perception, and it will make it right.

All will align.

I had a dream the other morning-- I think it was after I had fallen back asleep after my working wife had made her way dutifully to work that day...  it was so right.  So complete in detail; so confoundingly correct and righteous.  In it, it was all explained.  Everything.  There were no questions to be had.  It all just made sense.  And happily, that felt good.

There was no need for review or rehashing.  It Just Made Sense.  The powerful creator had identified the bugs in the system and was in the process of remedying the problems.  There was nothing to fear, nothing to worry about.  Evil was at bay, a non-factor.  It still existed, but only to move things around a bit.  The battle, the war, was won.  No longer would there be any doubt.

The problem, of course, with such perfection... it doesn't last.  I woke up.  And that was enough to send a mercy cry out to the authorities, making the comeback of evil justifiable and worthy.  I took what I could from the dream and applied it to the actions of my morning...  and some magic occurred.  I found a way through a virtual wall of resistance and made a progressive stride towards the betterment of existence.  But the evil persists.  And work continues to be pervasive.

I need to make some changes.  I can't continue to worry my wife as I do.  I can't continue to tax my body and my mind as I do, with all of these coersive chemicals and nasty processed foodstuffs.  I must eat my vegetables.  I must find a way to exercise my sedentary body.  I must resist the lures of alcohol.  I must repent my sins and love myself.  I must find a way to love myself as I am.

I feel love for myself.  But it is a fleeting, oscillating sort of love.  It is not constant and true.  It does not leap from the fire like the phoenix, yelling, "A-ha!  Still do I love thee!"  It eases itself onto the stage and yelps of an unsure, unconfident being.  "I think I love you," is the sentiment, unsure and unsteady.  But hopeful and true.

There is spirit there, untold amounts.  There is bountiful potential.  And surmounting love.  It does exist.  And it is strong when it really needs to be.

But as the yin, and also the yang, there is curvature.  There is a cresting wave and the reaching towards shore, only to drag back to the sea.  Movement.  We are dynamic, as we are alive.  For when we stop moving, we die.  And yet still, there is movement.  Ashes to ashes, dust to dust.  And from that dust and ash sprouts a seed that brings forth more life. Magically.  Infinitely.

As one is squelched, another is born.  And somehow it is balanced.  Energy is conserved.  It all translates.  There is a plan.  The perpetual motion machine.  Always bringing life forward out of death.  Always planting death in life's garden, to grow again.

Or something like that.