Saturday, February 25, 2012

Getting past tooth hurtie


How are you, reader? I hope you have an honest assessment of how you feel, physically, mentally, and are in the best spirits possible.

I’ve gotten the picture that going through certain pains and difficulties helps you understand and lend support to people in similar circumstances, perhaps draw some relationship of comprehension for suffering that allows kindness and abundance to expand between you.


What I wondered, while going through an occasionally howling mad top and bottom toothache converging in the very back of the right side of my mouth, was what lies did I tell to draw so much trouble to my mouth? Promising you won’t lie or various other sins may start to occur to you when you become desperate for some deal to end your suffering! I wondered if I’d lied to myself maybe about the substantial dominance of good qualities in those who proved to be having more trouble coping than I’d sensed…or acknowledged. Why shove guilt into the back of my mouth, over the actions of others? Recriminations aren’t the best material for healing, really, but you want to take any set back as an opportunity to improve. At any rate, it’s not so much that I think I’m being punished; I’ve just been thinking of the very nature of using my mouth.

I was a pretty regular brusher---better now---but there just wasn’t room for everything to come in, and so promising young teeth lost out in the dental economy. However big you may hear my mouth is, there’s some uncomfortable physical limits to what can be in there!


No, objectively, I simply survived all these years without health care. Hurray, me! But my head’s been an exceptionally uncomfortable location now, much of these past two months, and when it hasn’t kept me up nights, I’ve stubbornly dealt with the pain myself, thinking the coast clear occasionally, so I can keep working and so on during the day. I am under the impression I can’t acknowledge my marriage without getting her check hit with bills that are just scary to consider! Say what you will, but lying even that much makes me uncomfortable! Especially about a truth so central.



Set aside the issues suggested so far to return to this premise of this awful pain having some sort of purpose. I can tell you I’ve got some sensation of it varying dynamically, from zero to about a seven, allowing for human pains with which I never hope to be acquainted personally. By the time it’s a five or so, I kind of have to attend it with some method. I’ve found setting up a little vibrational hum can soothe me, and without stress in my body, the pressure lays off. The quickest thing, usually, is putting a cold drink into that side of my mouth, maybe holding it there. Spicy foods? No-no. Hot tea? Forget it. There are meals I simply dread having to chew! Truthfully, having a pet around would be lovely, and I think the bonsais we have on the way will be helpful; sometimes I brave the cold a bit just to stretch my legs and take in the local animals, trees and people. But what do I think about in these painful times---so disruptive to my will?


I consider all my loved ones, and the pains I know they suffer, which sometimes don’t cross my mind. I consider the little children living anywhere they cannot get the relief I might from decongestion pills or a cold swig of soda---you realize, there are places without properly potable water. I may despise Orasol in my mouth, dread spitting it from my numb lips, but a dose of benzocaine would be mercy to those suffering without it! When I am doing better financially, I’ll do what I can to help the less fortunate, as sometimes I’ve had the prosperity to do, however humbly.
I remember my man TJ, who through no fault of his own suffers the worst migraine level head pain of anyone I’ve ever known, and how there are times he has no way of knowing when his hurt will end, can’t even hold down food, and realizes he may continue having these attacks for life. But he lives for his wife and child.
Furthermore, he’s so sunny and interesting and down-to-earth whenever he’s active, you’d never know how badly he’s just wanted to escape living in a head that seems made of unreasoning pain. If I can apply even a reflection of that man’s courage to my life’s endeavors, I will find myself increasingly uncomfortable with insecurities or self-pity. This problem puts practically his whole life on hold, sometimes, it seems, simply with the change of the weather, or for no reason at all, and if he can put together a string of days without it, it’s cause for celebration. That man, my friend, gets up every single day, doing a lot of the simple things around his house you do in yours, and makes the two people he lives with smile, and as many others as he can, because that is what he’s got to do. He doesn’t take life for granted, and will sit there in pain and smile because his smile is needed in the world. He sends me nothing but encouragement, praise, humor, and little slices of his life. Keep him in your heart for a while, would you? Think especially of his wonderful, supportive wife and child; I am so glad they can be there to light his world.

I wonder when I really hurt, how much worse is it for those who grieve, for the mother who outlives her child---Is what I’m feeling even a clue to her misery? I dealt with some very private grief myself. I aim for stoicism, but the other night, I wondered if the pain was key to simply expressing some of the emotional destruction I have felt in recent times? Maybe I could use a good cry or two?


I wonder if all this staggering pain, when it comes, is there to unleash some benevolent force in my life, out into the world? Will it, at least, make me more patient, more merciful, with those who endure pain, whether it is of their own devising or not? People have survived hard labor jobs in the kind of pain I have the luxury of babying a bit. I have this wonderful life of freedom to seek opportunities outside my door, to make new friends and meet new people, to build a fledgling business, perform, create, and so much beauty waits to be beheld. Yet, not for a second can I really feel sorry for myself…well, okay, sometimes for a second. I don’t encourage anyone who has access to avoid medical attention, but if you hurt and it ever seems to bear only disappointments, I ask you: is there some perspective to gain in the middle of your pain?

I picked up a drawing I’d started the other night, using no model---just following a vision, like our Pal the Painter, who follows his free hand with colors just as he sees them. I pictured a healer, coming into my presence to visit. I needed my reflection in the mirror to complete it; I wanted to get the hand to look right. I felt no more pain that night.
I enjoyed bringing the healer to life. I had just what I needed: an inspiration from a friend, a mental picture, blank page, reflection, and a free hand.

"Seaport Walk" One of my sweetie's new art bottles from over the past week.

Monday, February 20, 2012

in a blade of grass




We'd come to the park to sit in stillness a few minutes---to let the park feed our impressions, let the trees and grass become a part of our minds to take with us: to take a place of peace within us.

The first thing I realized is how much the dynamic borders of our Pal's paintings thrill me to ponder, as the very deliberately-made circle of cement setting off the low-cut grass suggested for a moment those jagged bolts of power born in visions, from blackness imagined all around it, and I chuckle! I'm just enjoying what they call Children's Park, where for a second evening in a row we find young people, mostly young men in their 20s, socializing, only there are at least seven young women in this group, compared to the one middle-aged woman I'd seen there with twenty young men, who sat and stood, enjoying picnic food and drinks. The day before, we'd seen a teen girl skip across the seven cement blocks that sit beneath the spray that replenishes the duck pond, and her teen boy companion deciding to follow her fairly graceful dance. The group picnicking that day were Occupy protesters. We walked an entire circle around the park---it's under an acre---excitedly talking about how much devotion our own personal projects and endeavors will need, in relation to how much time for joining other things we do not foresee in any formal manner. Social stillness. It will not be the same thing as staying home every day, however---you'll see!

Angela felt welcomed by the atmosphere 'neath the trees, and I followed her to the center of the grass and we both had a seat.


First, I realize these quiet moments of collection are the basis of me starting a new life here again in California---something I should do with no insecurities, for such are the ways I leave behind in my heart.

Second side of that is: my bond with nature out here is the first bond we made, and the one that's never let me down. I am where I belong.

3rd: Just coming outside and befriending the beautiful land and enjoying her climate gives me a friend to my body and senses, and that relationship can replace any outmoded ones, and will probably lead me in the right moment into new friendships out here.

4th: If I just sit still a moment, I have here what I loved most where I grew up: places to hide with the stories and ideas and imaginary excitement, only now I have better and better habits of righting things.

I realize how I've always enjoyed taking a moment to get lost in the physical processes of nature around me, set my thoughts free along with the rousing kinetic energy of the waves or wind or sun, or pretend again what I see is the place of my story to unfold.

I realize how I've enjoyed the biology, chemistry, physics and earth science I had learned and reviewed, whenever I can simply concentrate on that knowledge in action!

I realize how much I enjoy having this very private moment with friendly voices in the air---friendly voices that have no need of me, but give my heart a gift, because I enjoy friendship, even from afar, between others.

I realize how, beneath my school learning was my original genius, the genius of the child, the ability to see the world in a way people's activities sometimes clutters.

I realize memories made when I was no more than six! I find myself looking at the patch of grass as a wilderness, if not a jungle itself, to a person at a centimeter-tall scale. I remember doing this! I have often sneaked this experience into my quiet moments in nature: just your own private imaginary dramas, glimpsed maybe in vignettes, a few still panels of comics strip, improvised quickly, only to be forgotten. (However, the adventure I keep "tucked away" in the communal kitchen here at the Simmons? That one, soon as I'm done playing with it, you'll get to read in my book, Integr8d Fictions---which

I realize needs editing, if I can get into the groove of that!

I realize my heart is full of this idea Jesus mentions: to enter the Kingdom of Heaven, you must be as a little child.

I realize the walk from one patch of grass to the other, which would be about a single big step for me, can seem to represent the distance between California and the East Coast. It could represent the distance between continents---or entire worlds or galaxies! It's all a matter of the scope of the journey you care to imagine.

I realize one day, we'll figure out how to teleport---that is, go from existing in one location to another of our choice. There could be many steps in between---but before you might scoff, consider how working with microscopic machinery has made us aware of a documented, hidden quantum force, evidenced by friction---and that force may become the key to levitating objects and people. Remember: the Wright Brothers first flew about a century ago. Why would you think innovation is truly perished? Besides...

I realize we are going to have to find other ways to use energy for the work that goes into our society, and in this instance, while it applies in every way, I mean physical resources. If someone hadn't cared about planning quality parks and transplanting trees, I would live in an ugly cement scar born of a dredged swamp. I am going to help the people who want to keep Nature around, and get to know my locality in a way like our wonderful friend the Opera Smorg(whose height as she passes through the grass is her own business).


Theodore Geisel---you know, Doctor Seuss? He was born here in San Diego.

I realize how quickly a few minutes of stillness can pass, too, and yet feel so full, like a meal for a part of us that's so empty and hungry, satisfied by something money doesn't buy...but keeping the world free to be like this for everyone is a sincere business, suitable for a humble public educated guy like myself. I hope you get a fill up, this week---one that won't break your wallet in the process, at that.





The Marc Kane took some pictures of her latest creations, and I have been throwing together one every week or so, myself, as it dawns on me I've been terribly lazy not to already be painting! Well...okay, distracted, granted. So you have to clean the brushes and risk a mess---when I play guitar, you don't have to clean up the mess, but believe me, you can have a "spill" any moment!





I kinda kept more to myself a few days last week, evaluating where I am. Time well spent! I hope you're really happy, too.



Saturday, February 18, 2012

Biodiversity

I opened a new chapter: we've got nine books on Southern California biodiversity and naturalist hiking. One way we can protect what's left of nature is to celebrate it with one another, and that begins with some awareness of just what's out there. You will probably find that, in looking up trail books and identification books, your local area is represented by a certain digital suffix in the Dewey Decimal system---ask your librarian! .9794, for example, follows numbers of books in the San Diego area, so I may bring home a 580.1 book on oceans, but if it has the additional numbers it's specifically about our local beaches!



One of our first trips will be to Point Loma---I have a book on its natural beach life!


Also: if you happen to try my blog: hello to Brian from the library, today!





Friday, February 10, 2012

I was scryin' when I met you


The day I first kissed my true love, I was looking for a sign. The MOMENT we kissed, I was looking for a sign. We'd been on our very first walk alone. I knew I liked her, but also that I'd just quit my modest job and planned to catch a Greyhound out of town for Colorado. I didn't know why my bags weren't yet packed to go! So I'm hanging out where my sister, roommate, and their friends, two sisters, worked, along with other pretty cool people (and one or two who are stories for another time, at that). After a fun walk under the moonlight by the river bank over to the new gazebo, we crossed back over to Broad Street, then passed down Opera Alley on our way back to her car. In the middle of that unglorious path, we stopped and stood a moment, hands held, and I looked to the sky above, to the moon above, longing for some certainty: should I follow my feelings and kiss her, when I knew nothing about my future except that I planned to leave for the unknown? I was going to a state where I'd finally felt free for a while, on a vacation trip I took with my friends David and Paul. We'd climbed the mountains one day, without any equipment, just to enjoy the majesty of Red Rocks, and that won my heart and gave me hope, so I thought I'd go back there, do manual labor, keeping learning guitar and writing and practicing with whatever time my landscaping work left.

She looks at me, looking up for about two breaths, my gaze unbroken, fixed on...what? What are you looking for, she asks. "A sign," I say. She looks up too---what sign? She's never been down this way before. I look at her upturned, searching face, and I can not help myself. She is all the sign I need. I pull that face close and feel my whole world change: I kiss her, for the first of a million times to this day.

About twelve today, I popped over to the Island Inn, where she was doing a guest spot at their hotel desk while the managers met for lunch at Nicky Rotten's on 5th and almost Market---across the street from my open window! I was imitating the children I saw playing in the park beside Heritage House, on our way back over to her usual job. I tried to grab her and gently shake her around a bit, demonstrating how kids playing is mostly chasing and doing this! She got me to cool it: here came her boss, and she is still on the clock! He just says hey how are y'all doing. I had my drawing book and the Bridgman's Life Drawing book my buddy in Virginia sent us. I didn't know what I didn't have anymore at that point.


She came to visit at lunch, as she always does: she only works across the street! I'd been calling her "the best ever" in my mind on the way to visit her, and had the urge to tell her that "the Best One Ev-ah!" should be the title to the last section of a very naughty story we're writing for another book collection. I reach for my phone, don't see it, so I rush out to tell her this as she goes down the staircase of our hundred year-old hotel. When I return, it dawns on me: where is my phone? I consider it may be necessary, to get me to concentrate on my work, like I'd promised myself I'd do for six straight days without a lot of texting, e-mails, or Facebook scrolling, as I like to sit and read at least thirty or so updates sometimes on my Home Page, and sometimes go down the rabbit hole looking up songs, videos, and articles posted, not to mention the occasional status thread carrying a good debate. But I still wanted my phone! I wondered if I took for granted all the cool pictures, support and hilarity that phone has brought me in the past two years.


So I picked up Mannikin, the poseable drawing figure my friend had also sent us, in a wonderful second package full of books with lessons, whose progress I'll share this fall, between here and Integr8d Fictions. I'd taken it with me in my pocket to the Island Inn earlier. I was going to use the figure to do a little dowsing, if you will. Holding the figure allowed "him" to help me, basically, to focus my mind on unraveling its location.

I cleared every thought except: where's my phone. I want "here's my phone" to be the result. I looked around a bit, but I was sure it wasn't here, already. I drew a rune, Mannaz reversed, from a bag, when I considered going across the street to wait and see my girl. That means, "look within yourself for whatever's blocking progress."

Then I considered taking off for the Island, or CVS, where, as I told Kisha today, I just came by for a friendly face (and a discounted drink, why not). I got another reversed rune, suggesting "no." Does Angela have it? That really seemed true---though she doesn't leave with my phone and hers both in her pockets, because she can feel she has her own. So, I rustled up my shoes, but now with the idea, maybe I should take something with me to stay busy while I sit in the lobby and wait for her to come down eventually. I don't even turn the knob before she walks in with my phone: manager Chris had seen it and my little ruler and knew it belonged to one of us. She went over to pick it up, and it was in my hand now.


I probably got this phone back about twenty five minutes after she left our room from lunch. I noticed it gone within about five minutes, then tried not to bother with thinking about the phone, but didn't like the idea of her trying to text me and getting no reply for no other reason than that I didn't know where my phone was!


So, I stopped and used a figure--a figurine made for the purpose of an artist, finding perspective---as a focus for clearing my mind and "figuring out" just where my misplaced phone was.

I picked Manikin up to help me feel I knew where the phone could be found. Quickly, my thoughts had turned to the phone being with Angela. It wasn't by accident that she had it; in fact, since she was walking back from the Island Inn with it in her hand, she had it the last five minutes I was looking, which was about the amount of time I was holding my artistic helper. The idea that she had it in her hand and could look at it was an accurate assessment of where the phone really was; now all I needed to know was where Angela was. In the meantime, there was a point where I decided to put on my shoes and go, and that's when she walked in with the phone.

I think you can use any focal point to help you clearly remember the path for a thing you've lost. When I use it to help me find something I've never seen before---I'll be sure to let you know!

From Integr8d Fictions: Real Levitation

I do a second blog where I'm collecting my science findings and profiles of scientists, and hopefully, one day, experiments. I gather these out of curiosity and also, to feed my fictional forays. You can check out integr8dfix.blogspot.com any time!



Photo from UK Telegraph article, listed but not linked here: http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/1559579/Physicists-have-solved-mystery-of-levitation.html


Can a hidden effect that causes things to stick together like dry glue on a tiny scale be the secret to levitation---of objects...even people?

Consider the gecko, walking on the ceiling---how? There's a molecular force that creates a friction allowing the feet to adhere without incident. (We could just as easily be excited here about the possibilities of scaling the wall like Spider-Man!)

ON the tiny level, one might construct nano machines, with parts invisibly small to the naked eye. These microelectrical machine systems, however, can encounter friction. When you are building circuits at the micro-chip level, it's here the Casimir effect becomes a problem to be studied. This is probably a major factor in the evolution of processors, which were doubling in speed every eighteen months by the turn of the millenium.

Great. So...how levitation?

Researchers at the University of St. Andrews in Scotland have explored this quantum phenomenon. The process of reversing the Casimir polarity would result in the nanomachines operating together in a fluid state. You see, the parts would basically levitate in place. If nano-machines can levitate, so can larger objects, possibly.

The applications of levitation could have enormous influence in engineering, medical, and exploration. To the point, if it could be done economically, the draining of fossil fuels could taper.

Here's a three minute explanation of the Casimir effect if you want it.



Here's a video introduction to Casimir effect.


Thursday, February 9, 2012

Discursive Meditation

Cecil L. Disharoon

Last night I began reading about what has been known for centuries as the Lectio Divina: a form of meditation that incorporates prayer, reading, meditation, and contemplation. I'd started trying to look up levitation---quickly finding myself learning about the existence of a recently-discovered quantum force found at the microscopic level! Setting that aside for the science discussions in the new incarnation of my Integr8d Fictions blog, I began clicking around through five informative articles before finding my way back here to collect notes; it's a facet of how I've always learned, spiral-like.

I was just reading about Richard Rorty's critique of analytical philosopy--chuckling over the possibility Steve Gerber had him in mind when he selected a name for his disc jockey and friend of swamp dwellers, Richard Rory. I came to Dr. Rorty's views through looking up Quietism, and got THERE from Discursive Meditation, which is not the same thing but is apparently elided with it historically.

Discursive Meditation: The traditional Western approach to meditation, which uses the thinking mind to explore symbols and visionary experiences.

What is it good for?


From this site,http://slowreads.com/think-it-through-discursive-meditation/ I gleaned:


"Discursive meditation is a thinking-oriented approach to meditation. One reasons with oneself, moving from the doctrinal to the personal. Reasoning may be based on the seven auxiliary questions: why, who, what, where, when, how, & with what helps. The lectio portion may be brief, centering on a virtue, a fault, or a spiritual truth. The exercise concludes in the oratio portion with suitable resolutions. This discursive meditation results in a change of behavior."

I quote this directly from the third of five occasional articles of variations on Lectio Divina meditation based on the book Prayer and Temperament by Chester P. Michael and Marie C. Norrisey.

In the interest of understanding similar that discursive meditation apparently is not, here's the methodology known as Quietism.

From Wiki, we get this definition, which inspired me because it reminds me in many ways of what Be Chill, Cease ill has become, to me, at least. As usual, I'm grabbing a concept by the end closest to me to get a grip, knowing there's so much more than I understand, but whatever, I'm cutting and pasting elements intended to offer lights, but who knows who's really home? For example, I've just read that this was a 17th century heresy, so who knows what incidental subtext I've incurred.


Quietism in philosophy is an approach to the subject that sees the role of philosophy as broadly therapeutic or remedial. Quietist philosophers believe that philosophy has no positive thesis to contribute, but rather that its value is in defusing confusions in the linguistic and conceptual frameworks of other subjects, including non-quietist philosophy. By re-formulating supposed problems in a way that makes the misguided reasoning from which they arise apparent, the quietist hopes to put an end to man's confusion, and help return to a state of intellectual quietude.



Now, I've been practicing a form of meditation for some time involving letting go of thoughts freely, so the next may come, always seeking the Gap between thoughts for its rejuvenating values and virtues. This idea is different. This is Lectio Meditatio: there's an object of one's ruminations, and it's probed by seven basic one word questions also used in journalism.



Tuesday, February 7, 2012

A new friend (why JavAlone?)




I was just ruminating on what my solutions would be for a couple of friends that, upon last contact, I believe don't want to hear from me in their present state of mind. My own solutions might create reflections for those who seek me out, however, particularly because they have a need connected to one of my gifts. You can't go through life cramming unasked for advice down people's throats---something's always lost in what that takes away, however valuable your words, like digging away too much soil and leaving nothing to cover the seed (if it needs covering, some don't). What you can do is live with openness, and when the time is right, the person who can appreciate what you have to offer will come along, and exchange something unique to themselves with you, too!

I was given the word "meditations" today by a person whom I'm about to share with you; I hope these words, which are a meditation for me, are meditations for you, too, my reader. They are intended as companionship, whenever you're ready to enjoy them.

Well! Speaking of companionship, I had the opportunity to joke about people coming to coffee houses to be alone around people---“they should call the place JavAlone!” I saved that joke about an hour and a half. Before this paragraph, written inside The Village coffee and wine bar on 9th Ave. and Market here in SD, I had a brush with a very friendly dog, and his fellow rescue dog twin. Their owners have very happy lives with them. Lo and behold, the lady’s name is Joan, and she got involved with very personal sharing with me! Now this is what I’m looking for: an older lady out here who can bring some experiences from the other side of her years, but prepared and open, different than, say, my other older friend, who requires intense reserves of privacy. This woman, Joan, survived cancer, and in her 50’s she’s now a yoga instructor---but first she told me about a group whose activities she patronizes, the San Diego Song Writers in North Park, where she and her fellow live, I haven’t caught his name yet. She also writes songs, though she doesn’t perform solo; I would love for us to play her something so she can have that change as part of Integr8d Soul, who we are wherever we perform, with whomever joins in. No, what she does as a singer is amazing: she’s part of a choral group that sings for people at their death bed. Amazing! She and I shared great sadnesses and joys as though we owned them; I’d like to go back and trace the energies I felt moving within me. I really thrived on having someone be friendly to me, right then and there, after writing about what it is that supposedly separates me from my dear old friends. I realize the fear of a parent, letting a child roam into the world, even when the time for that is due; there are many hurtful mistakes commonly made. Sometimes, if someone won’t turn away from the harm they must do themselves, we can’t stay and watch them waste their potential. When they come to respect their own voices, they will hear the things they need; to seek a Guardian is to make of the self a great friend, a protective feeling that may be found in any amount of peace.



But you see, I had a tinge of melancholy, and found there were serious things left to say for the friend I’d enjoyed so much, and even while I considered what I would further say, as I compiled it in my head on the walk up, I crossed the street and realized: “I already told him all of that.” But have faith: all that stuff, if he kept it, dwells in a time untainted by any of my shortcomings save for the need to communicate. “I’m retired as world savior,” I believe my new friend told me.
My new friend. I write of what was, I live in the now, and find myself with whatever kind of friend now I can make, for I consider it beyond the limits of what is right to continue trying to make a friend I already knew I had, if only he had himself, as I hope he even now does, as I always wished for him when I thought only of all the things I found awesome and inspiring and moving in his life and family.



I thought of the white light of purity, the Ray of Awen I invited within last night, as I listened to this lady. She tells me: “I have so much more behind me than I have ahead of me”---and by that, she surely meant, the necessary job, the challenge, the gift necessary to unleash the advantages of all her gifts. She found herself surviving cancer, and now walks through one new door after another. Twenty eight years of teaching, then, nearly death: yet now, she looks forward to the future. If I have one requirement in my relationships now, if I am to let a friend close into my feelings, my very personal ones, it is to look forward to the future, finding it every moment in the present. In listening to her, and seeing how she might understand something I needed to get off my own chest, beneath my generally jovial demeanor, I felt something move inside me---one movement in the stomach, and then from one place to another inside my chest---a great feeling, genuine comfort, friendship and ease received within myself from this lady's presence and attention.

Her companion, meanwhile, tried to enjoy his half of the sandwich platter while leaving plenty for her---I laughed! He sat in the company of their thirteen year old dogs, flush with golden hair that reminds me of an artistic effect I discovered last night, when I dumped out a handful of dyed blond curls I once cut and kept. I surrounded my laughing Buddha statuette with them: “have some hair, Buddha,” I said. Now those golden curls will remind me of the time I wrote about friendship and the necessities of the path, and found myself with an opening to a new friendship, dedicated from the onset to the necessities of the path of knowledge.


She affirmed many things: that the completion of a friendship, when called out of necessity, is akin to dealing with a cancer, as that it should be seen as a gift to be offered depression with the sentence of repeating all you’ve done but with waning confidence---and realize what you are, how you’ve grown, how you do not need to make your brain that sad labyrinth of self-doubt, if you have already found the key and used it to get out. What thread you can hope to leave another is matter unto itself, but this is why you should give your friends your best value possible when you communicate: how can you say they will not need it one day, when you yourself cannot truly help?

So, Joan, you inspired me. Your praise for life in one’s 50’s really engaged me; I know I will enjoy my life, too, more than ever by those years. Excited, I told her I’d go ahead and start my 50’s today! I noted that these years of life with my wife have an additional experience value, and if I tacked those years onto my chronological age, I’m in my 50’s! So, why not celebrate surviving, celebrate enlightenment, celebrate truth, celebrate certainty of the Self of your own choice?

She handed me this:


“I feel good!” James Brown says. I knew that I would.


Monday, February 6, 2012

Dixie Dynamite

Image and video hosting by TinyPic
I just wanted to say I made a great friend seventeen years ago, who has shown me more courtesy, warmth, and humor than I had ever known from friends before. She came into me life as my sister's friend, and interested me instantly with her charisma and devil-may-care demeanor. I found out quickly about her cool family---my sister told me all about it, she rhapsodized about them all---and to my surprise went home with her one night to meet them! Where else could I go sit up till 3 am with people I just met, in their own home, with NO DRUGS?

Dixie never lacks for friends, and someone's thinking of her always. She was heavily into science fiction novels when we met, and her wonderful vocabulary opened a common world of love for communication. Her interests in poetry, witchcraft, art and music were very exciting to me, but the lady herself was just the funniest person, and so kind and generous. She would make you kick back and have fun, whereas in those days I was likely to be brooding or longing to write or play guitar. Turns out, I should've been doing LOTS more of both of those things AND learning to draw, but everyone could benefit from a little socializing, and that was a Dixie specialty.
She had a knack for befriending troublemakers, for which I should be grateful, as that got me in the door, too. I never knew anyone with more of a passion for breaking the rules, but everyone who knew her well enough to sit down with her sometime would open their hearts, as she is an involved listener. The amusing thing to remember is how much other young women wanted to be like what they thought of her, always putting together different facets, but never matching the original: because she got it, she loved people and viewed them with sardonic humor and a finely honed bullshit detector at the same time (occasionally ignored, but oh well, who hasn't?).

She always looked for something fun to do, as if shedding the angst that permeated her ideas of art and poetry, always changing, always shining like a light, for those who merely liked her and those who really appreciated her.

I remember the fun I had hearing about her classes while she was studying psychology for an associate's degree. I had married her sister, her former Shadow, her Irish Twin, and we lived the next state over attending college, but everyone else we knew COMBINED never visited us as many times as Dixie did. I am not sure if the statute of limitations has run out for SOME of our stories, so this account's less spicy than it should be! A lot of her choices and interests in life went on to shape my wife's life to great effect, and even now, whenever we hear from Dixie, she's offering advice, support, and stories, always ready to laugh.

All I'm saying is, if you have someone like that in your life---the life of the party, the calm in the storm, the rock when there's trouble, the klutz, the sister---if you have a Dixie---tell her she's Dynamite.



Sunday, February 5, 2012

Integr8d Soul Bottles

Integr8d Soul Man




Beach Comber




















Panda Magic





















Elation


Freshly glossed in Pantoja Park, our new Integr8'd Soul Bottles are now available for that special spot, wherever you need a colorful conversation starter.










To Sail Beyond the Sunset

















Bird Sky Pavilion














Here's your online order form through PayPal! You can be the first bottle owners!







Our bottles




Thursday, February 2, 2012

Anniversary of a Kiss

So, we played another Winston's set...we're really getting in the swing now! Cathryn's LocalSDMusic has been generous company for us, shaking out the first live show jitters. We played six songs, including a salute to Eddie Vedder, "Black"! Then we walked off without our three Puzzle Girl t-shirts we put out for display on the bar! The extra-large shirts are $17, by the way; the white ones at regular size are $13.







It's a really nice ride out on the 923; I imagine when it warms up, we'll be spending the day in Ocean Beach to soak up the atmosphere, maybe make some new friends, and invite people into Happy Hour!

Check out this artist that was hanging out in Winston's.


Fresh out of sarcasm---I mean, I pulled a broken chip of tooth, a huge jagged stabbing thing left over from a hopelessly impacted wisdom tooth---I'm just glad we made it at all! I couldn't wipe myself out on benozene, either---stuff makes you not only lethargic, but a bit irritable over time! Just keeping my mouth clean.




We started the day walking to Little Italy for gloss and a new set of paints; wait until you see! An article coming out in the Rome News Tribune's Roman Life section Sunday will give you a fine idea what we're up to: it features our East Coast inspiration, Kudzu Mountain GYPSY Cave, and the beautiful art bottles they feature at Imagine Hair Salon & Art Gallery in downtown Rome.


We practiced again for a bit---we made time for a rare visitor last night, cool story there---maybe two rehearsals shy of what I wanted from us, but, again---glad we made it!!! I can't lie, I love being on stage and just want to groove and improve! Tell you more about the show in a bit. I need to kick back. Tonight's the anniversary of my first kiss with the Marc Kane, and while we didn't squeeze in "Don't Look Now," it's nice to have a song around by which to remember the night every thing changed for the better..."don't look now---someone's falling in love!"
ListenLocalSD.com


Music by 5:00 kitty plague 5:30 Integr8d Soul 6:00 Adam Feilmeier 6:30 The Mighty Sun 7:00 The Happy Smoke NO COVER---it's Local SD Music power wCathryn Beeks at Winston's in Ocean Beach!!! We're Integr8d Soul, and we'll see YOU there!!! (Or imagine you)