Susan

Dream:

I am working for a small company in lower management. There is conflict over the direction of the company. I am with the establishment side. The insurgent renegades are without merit: no appreciation of the history, legacy and mission of the organization. I have written up a single page summation of the issues with an eye to rallying the forces of light as well as attracting the undecided against the dark side. I'm not sure I have sufficient standing to be the one to publish and circulate it. I am wondering if I should run it by Myron, who is my senior, for his approval. I am hesitant to do so. Don't want to be squelched arbitrarily. Besides, he will claim it as his own. A young, short blond colleague gets her hands on my manuscript, and likes it.

The business has a gym. Every employee works out on the machine and outdoors track. There's a woman who is in a frenzy. She is acting hysterically. Her face is bloodied (like the woman in Deadwood episode I saw last night). People around her are trying to restrain her from working out. She wants to run on the track, and people are trying to pull her off.

The young blonde comes up to me and we discuss my short treatise on the future of the business. We connect. We embrace. She feels toned & fit. She tells me her name is Susan. We start jogging around the track together. After two laps she stops and says she has to get ready for her weekend. At the beach, I fantasy. We say a warm good-bye. I continue running. I am disappointed.

I wake up.

I'm a Fan

1. Wait for the initial ad to go to the Lawrence O'Donnell "The Last Word". 
2. Use the slider at the bottom of the frame and slide it to 1:40. 
3. Turn up your speakers.

Visit NBCNews.com for breaking news, world news, and news about the economy

I am not a fan of hoops, but I will be rooting for Pat Kelsey's men to go all the way.

A Toast to the Organizers: Especially My Colorado Cuz!

Visit NBCNews.com for breaking news, world news, and news about the economy

Stop This Train! I Want to Get Off!

Recurrent Dream.

I'm riding on a very narrow commuting train, one or two seats wide. It's always through a very hilly urban setting where the streets are also narrow, such that as you cross a street intersection, you have a very short moment to observe the happening in the street. One such moment comes whereby I notice something happening which is out of the normal, which is not legal or appropriate. I give a shout out. I want to stop the train. I want to go back. But I do not want to get off the train. 

Later I am extensively interrogated. The interrogation is extremely invasive, as if I am a perpetrator. What's wrong with me if I was the only one who saw anything extraordinary? Do I have a psychological disorder? What's my agenda? I am subjected to blood tests. I undergo reenactments, back on the same train ride along the same route. And what do I see? I see much more than originally. I see victims of on-going nuclear warfare/radiation experiments. (In this day & age!?) My minders are incredulous! 

How can I be the only one who sees what I see?

Quote of the Day

Courtesy of CC Radio:

"Do what you can, with what you have, where you are." 

Theodore Roosevelt

Man on the Corner

This man down the block, sweeping up leaves under trees in the front yard yard. Who is he? Is he the owner of the property? Is he hired? He is always there, isn't he? Before 8:00 AM. What is his point to start each day with that sidewalk and front walk meticulously free of natural detritus? Is he eradicating the property of all signs of death? Is he the first one to arise every morning, and he has a reason to get outside so that his restlessness not disturb other sleepers inside? Is this physical activity a means to free his mind to contemplate the universe? What does he contemplate? What describes the territories of his consciousness? Is he aware that the Dodgers won last night? That the Syrians are still bleeding to death, with each stroke of his rake? Or is his mind riveted on the prospects of lives under his roof, co-inhabitants within or his children elsewhere?

I recall Saturday mornings decades ago. I would be driving up to the tennis courts about this time. On the corner midway there would be this couple about my (tennis-playing) age sitting on their perfectly manicured lawn, weeding it. What was that about, I would wonder as I sped to my daily competition? Who are these un-adventuresome, under-challenged civilians? Not like the competitive combatants I associate with!

Now that I have come to the years when it's a challenge just getting down to the street level every morning, under-caffeinated, with fully awake Doberwoman -- now I appreciate every activity, every routine undertaken at this hour of the day. These are finite ministrations endowed with infinitive blessings.

New Camera!

Eight Bells For Kevin Connelly

Your watch is over. All is well.

All the gifts you have given us will be retained. Your sails, your wisdom, your humor, your smiles, your laughs, your generosity. Your competitiveness. We are the richer for all of it.

As you know, we buried your ashes in waters where we sail the most, on the start/finish line. So we can keep you close.

Can't think of any more to say that hasn't been already said amongst 400 people at the Club this afternoon. Or in Sailing Anarchy, here and here.

Except to say, thanks for meeting-up with Trophy Wife before I knew either of you and changing her fear of sailing into excitement. What a set-up for us!

A man is no sailor if he cannot turn out when he's called and sleep when he turns in.

Richard Henry Dana, Two Years Before the Mast

Saturday

Gratitude for this beautiful day. In front of the camera lens, this beautiful paradise, which includes identified friends on these waters. Behind the photographer? Two sons, two daughters-in-law, two sets of granddaughters, two sets of friends encountered on this walk. And two wonderful meals. Not the least, by far, is Trophy Wife: always at my side. Did I mention Doberwoman? 

The wind is 12-15 today. What will be offered us tomorrow, when we are contending in Das Boot?

Doesn't matter. This day was good enough!

TRB

I was a happier man getting up this morning. For one thing, at dawn, it dawned on me that I had been in compliance with my mission for the last 24 hours: I showed up. Not sweating the minor stuff, I manned-up for the heavier loads. How much did TRB's memorial service count in this July 1st? Well his most telling message to me way back in the days was a life vs. death coda:

"The time has come for you to decide: either shit or get off the pot."

All of his hours and my money we went through and that was the only definitive outcome? Looking back, knowing what I know now, I feel very ashamed that I was so stupid not to have been able to think my way out of the paper bag confining me. But of course, I did the best I could, knowing what I knew then. Now that I know better -- thanks in part to TRB --  I can do better today.

That's what made yesterday so difficult. Tom and I were unfinished. I craved his support & feedback after moving out of Purgatory CA. But I did not seek it. I resented the fact that he was such an old-school antediluvian. Not only could he not Google, he couldn't even email. What a retrogressive! That's what I told myself. WTF! Why bother with such a jerk? Even if he possibly had known me longer and better than any other living Man whose name I can now remember.

There was something about TRB. His silent dead pan look with those penetrating eyes. Friendly eyes. But they were always knowing eyes. Like he knew more than he was sharing and that he knew he didn't have to share. He was waiting for me to do the work. Well I resented that trait in him. He expected to keep the playing field slanted in his favor. I resented that. And so was it with me? I wanted him to meet me in the blogosphere, which was adverse for him?

I guess that was it. Back in the days, he was inaccessible to me (my choice?); and as the decades crept on between us, I became inaccessible to him (his choice?). Perhaps a stupid deadlock.

Talking with friends and relatives yesterday, there's a possibility that this PhD never learned how to QWERTY; and that his handwriting was illegible. That's the hint I got. So any postal exchange I might have initiated, would have proven unsatisfactory and un-rewarding. Under any circumstances, he and I might never have been able to connect long distance any better than we had connected sitting across his coffee table.

So, Tom, here's what I feel, Goddammit. (I am finally telling you.) I have regrets: that I didn't get up out of that recliner, shake hands, and close that door permanently behind me earlier than I did. I regret not writing you, once, twice or thrice in the intervening decades; that we have been mutually reclusive. But perhaps not forever. Maybe we can meet up again on some bridge, where we can finally share as equals. And then I hope I can tell you that my life has been almost as satisfying and complete as you apparently felt about yours. This would be a talk to which I could look forward.

Every Morning

Rumi, the Persian poet, wrote in the thirteenth century. The 16 lines above reflect my reality in my first 30 minutes of writing and my first cup of java every morning. 

P-337

I admire the wild beast in Penguin 337, who escaped from a Tokyo zoo and was on the loose for 82 (!) days. 

Penguin 337 is so named because he/she is still so young that vets cannot determine gender. Penguin 337 scaled a rock wall 13ft high and squeezed through a barbed wire fence to escape its harbor side aquarium in March. Keepers' theory is that P-337 made its break for freedom after being startled into climbing over a rock twice its size, leaving 134 fellow penguins behind. P-337 was captured in perfect health, apparently having thrived of the fish life in Tokyo Bay. 

I have to ask myself, what's it going to take to startle me out of my self-constructed zoo and get me to scale my walls?

Harsh

Watching War Horse Is for Me....

.....Like Beating an old horse half to death and then putting it out of its misery by a single click on my remote. But thanks to Netflix,  Trophy Wife and I watched the whole miserable production last night. It made us late for church. Actually so late we kissed church off this Sunday.

Part of my problem is that World War I has always been conflictual for me. My own father was a veteran in the Rainbow Division, which he has never let me forget. He was in the field artillery. A ceremonial sword of his still graces our fireplace. His colt .45 automatic is still in the most remote recesses of my garage. World War I is a real old story for me.

And last night, Spielberg's rendition of a 1980's children book proved too long and too bloody for us. (Much like the real WW I?) Watching the Oscar's this year, I couldn't understand how a flick that looked so enticing in the teasers didn't fare better in the winners' circle. Now I know.

I'm as pro-horse as they come. (Maybe because I love varsity-sized dogs.) So, on that account, I expected to warm up to this movie. I rented this movie expecting to see it with my horse-loving grandchildren. That would have been a mistake. War Horse is not a horse story, but a war story.

Which is all right of course. As a war story, I can credit Spielberg et. al. for a compelling look at multiple facets of WW I. For one thing, the cinematography was outstanding. Character development? not so much. Suspension of disbelief? The horse, Joey is sold to the British Army to carry its cavalry rendered obsolete by German Machine guns. Miraculously, Joey, survives a disastrous attack only to become a German POW. Whence he is drafted to haul German artillery into position. He eventually escapes and ...... Well, I don't want to spoil the rest of the story, do I? Unneccesarily?

Bottom line: I felt this film was too dismal and emotionally manipulative.

Allen Jones

I had no idea how many people would attend Alan's Memorial Service. Sleepless at 3:45 A.M. this morning, I got up, had a beer and thought a little about Allen and me. It turned out, that there were so many Brothers and Sisters at the service, sharing and covering all his bases, I didn't want to intrude as just a utility player. But this is what I would have said.

Allen was one of the first people I got to know when we joined this Congregation. 

In my early immersion, I had found a seat in the men's group meeting in Starr King. Over time, attendance in that circle proved very erratic. But one thing Allen always did well was to show up. It came to pass that there were many meetings where it would be just the two of us. We had intense personal dialogues. Together, we discovered that we were two warriors in the same foxhole. He was the veteran, I was the raw recruit. Besides our deadly common enemy, we discovered many life experiences and regrets which we also had in common.

Allen still retained his lean athletic frame so it was far easier for me to picture him as a Wet Wednesday sailor and weekend soccer player than perhaps it was possible for him to see me in the same light. (Do you think?)

Allen always spoke with a smile, a soft voice and in run-on sentences. So I learned how to really listen. Allen taught me about my inner resources I was not aware of. Leading softly from behind, Allen encouraged me in a path which ultimately led me to affilate with the Mankind Project. That was Allen's Gift of Gold to me. 

Along the way he also taught me much about courage, optimism, love and living every day. Allen would tell me 'don't look back because you're not going that way.' 

And he would also instruct me to leave nothing on the table. He would often say, "Live life so completely that when death comes to you like a thief in the night, there will be nothing left for him to steal." 

 Well, there is obviously a lot that Allen Jones left for us. 

If he were here and speaking at this service, I imagine Allen would tell us to smile, breath and go slowly... Because for each of us, our time here is different, but when we get there, we will all get there at the same time.

Current Balance

I Am No Longer Blake Hawksworth

Last year I reviewed a case where a Dodger pitcher failed to cover 1st base. In that instance, Pitcher Blake Hawksworth committed a mental error which had game-changing consequences. Watch it. I said I felt Hawksworth's shame because I was making the same errors in same scale of magnitude in the biggest game in my personal life.

This year, I am wearing Josh Lindblom's shoes. I am committed to progress in my personal struggle against weight.

When I can't pitch like Lindblom, or hit like James Loney, the least I can do is to cover first base. Everyday. All the time.

GPS

I recently acquired a new hand-held Garmin. Benefitting from almost an hour of instruction from the my enthusiastic salesman, I conquered my digital anxieties (thick sluggish fingers) and programmed in a dozen or so way points. And then promptly mislaid the unit for the next race. But that doesn't discredit the process.

I could use a new, freshly programmed, GPS in my real, off-the-water life. There are a number of way points I have flying around in my head that need to find heart-felt connections and a credible context.

Each of my way points seem to be encapsulated into separate and distinct routes which I call blogs. I have a political blog. (Red meat.) I have a sailing blog. (Love it!) I have this reflective blog. (In which I feel squelched.) And I have my super-secret early morning pages blog. (First cup of coffee.) And I have my autobiographical blog. I resort to various pseudonymous and domain devices to preempt linkage by readers.

I don't overestimate my cleverness. I'm sure many, if not all, of my gate-keeping efforts can be shown up as inept or not worth my effort. They reflect a confused mind. Do I want to be known? Completely or in parts? Do I want readers or not? Do I want comment or not? Discussion? Not sure.

In a sense this lack of integration makes a lot of sense. No one wants to know everything about any one else. Especially not the down and dirty. TMI! Right? Don't most of us want to be fully know by only very few others? Perhaps by only one other? OTOH, most of us want to be known, partially known, by many? That sounds honest to me.

But back to my GPS. It would seem to make sense that I have one site dedicated to my route, my path, my choices, my navigation, my focus. Etc.

As I write this, it comes to me in the way of reflection that my preoccupation with way points is bizarre. I am obsessed with my last way point. I should look into my GPS for my next waypoint(s).

What would those be? Brainstorm. Do not assume they have to be easily within reach. Do not assume to know your own reach.

I already just glimpsed a way point that cries out for inclusion. It's previously been off the chart. I need to chart it.

Main Sheet Girl (1969-2012)

Go, the Catherine!

Her story can be found here, where all comments are directed.

In the Cold...

Kwayzar

You can still do it!

Kwayzar, my man! Your testimony hits me at an opportune interlude in which I am doubting very much if I can still do it. I needed this kick in the butt, Mr. K.! I am so glad and fortunate you and I are still sharing this bus ride together! The day I found my seat next to yours (how long ago was that?) was truly a blessing!

Gratitude

Whitney

Blood Test

What a day. Missed my morning dog run. Doberwoman is aware. Violates my contract and I'm out of Integrity. I wanted to hear a very refined lady sing around 1400 hrs. Now, I'm not so sure I can fit that in. Pulling out of the drive way, I narrowly miss Trophy Wife pulling in. Never saw her. Driving to work, I felt like a million bucks and that I was going to live forever. That comes to me, even as I remember that David's last words were, "What a beautiful day!". I pull in to my parking lot and my perfect space is available. Just as I lock my car door, I recall what is wrong with this picture: I have an appointment to have my blood drawn. For a nano-moment I consider postponing my PSA count until this afternoon. No: leave everything in its allotted space, I decide that. Even if I lose my parking space. Nurse Ratchet pokes her allotted half a dozen holes in my arms before she has enough of my blood. We're having Monday morning on Friday, she tells me. I don't care: it's still a beautiful day. My parking place was taken. but we were able to fit in Doberwoman's run in the afternoon.

Stasis

What's troubling me of late is a sense of stagnation, treading water. I am wasting time at a stage of my life where time is more valuable than it has been ever before. A slow-rising panic engulfed me. As I tuned in my CC-Radio to the BBC last night, an alarm bell went off. I pulled the ear phone plug out in time for Trophy Wife to listen with me to an interview of Bronnie Ware.

Songwriter and former nurse Ware spent years working in palliative care in Australia, looking after patients in the last three to 12 weeks of their lives. She has published a book of reflections on her experience as a care-giver, The Top Five Regrets of the Dying: A Life Transformed by the Dearly Departing.

Bob

I don't want to become Bob.

Bob is a guy I used to crew with on another's boat. I think it was called "Never Enough". Bob stopped sailing about a decade ago. Following that, for the longest time he used to walk his Weimaraner around this beach parking lot, for many laps, off lease. Apparently, this past year he had to put it down. He has a new dog which he also takes around the lot for many laps. Only this dog Bob keeps on a very short leash. Both of these, man and dog, shuffle along, heads bowed and straight ahead, over and over. What the hell is the point in all that? If you have a pooch on a leash, why not go somewhere? E.g., end of the break water & and back? Bob doesn't have much peripheral vision: if I don't stand in his path, I won't be noticed. And, if noticed, my name will not be remembered. I no longer reintroduce myself. I don't get Bob. Maybe if the parking lot were a prison yard, then maybe I might get him.

But "Bob" may be in my future. I'm checking out with fear and anxiety.

Hockey Train

I was dreading the dawning of this day. DCR's invitation to hop a train to L.A. and see the Kings play jolted me out of my routine weekend. I think I have reached that point in my life where routines are indicative of safety, comfort and a sense of well-being. How old is that? Well, my train ticket was stamped "62 or older." Once you get to 62, why bother counting any more?

I did not hesitate more than a nano-second to respond to his invitation. For one thing, it gets me out of a tuxedo event at the yacht club. In truth that was not a factor. Truth is I sensed a need not to become entrapped in routines. Maybe it was a need to face some man-to-man issues with my 50-year old son: it's time I told him what I think of his life. Whether or not he's ready to hear that. Whether or not I'm ready to tell him. Whether or not I'm able to tell him. Am I up to that stretch? I dared myself.

How would I start it out?

[Later]

Run-On Sentence

I'm peacefully avoiding my NYR-4 (New Years Resolution #4) when Trophy Wife surreptitiously slides the following column from the L.A. Times onto my mouse pad. TW is so much an advocate of Old (print) Media that she will save weeks of papers and clippings from papers until such time as she can consume them. Whenever I'm foolish enough to complain, she'll trump me with something irresistible. Consequently, I cannot avoid a glance at what she has left me. And she knows my tastes well enough to expect that I will drop any wasteful pastime because we both know I badly need a slam upside my head.

This time it's Pico Iyer's January 8 apologia for The Point of the Long and Winding Sentence.

Iyer advocates and practices the art of linking dependent and independent clauses together, and sparing terminal punctuation as a way to protests against the urgency of the new media:

Moving Out of Self-Squelch Mode

I sat paralyzed this morning. In the middle of realizing the importance of Resolution 4, that I felt fear and foreboding. I must write because I think. But I am wary of some people availing themselves of my thoughts. Why? What is it that I am afraid of? I'm a fucking septogenarian. Who can have power (of destruction) over me? Well, the usual suspects come to mind. And that is very telling, to realize that. I am not free until I realize Project C. But, in the end, do I not have to share openly my thoughts? Is that not the essence of the community principle? To risk all or to gain nothing.

Surprise Visit!

Allen

Allen is sick. I get it. I respond slowly. He voice-mailed me at work last night and I didn't get it until this morning. He sounded very bad. Couldn't make anything out except that he was in hospital. I am a slow thinker. My first unspoken reaction was, "You sound awful, Allen." He did not want so much a visit, although I see and 'hear' that now, in the afternoon that is what he's getting because he full and away deserves it. What he wanted was for us to throw his name into the fire last night. I look forward to stopping by on the way home to see him, because it's in my newer nature to lean forward and toward intensity. And that is what he represents. Despite his circumlocutory conversational style, he's going to be increasingly intense. He is my teacher.

New Year's Resolutions

My mission is to expand and extend my communities, by working with what is ours, here and now, to have, to do, and to be. I have someone to love, some work to do, and something to look forward to. Regarding the last, I have Project A and Project B. So, let us begin:

1. Accomplish something -- maybe some things -- weekly toward realizing Project A.
2. Accomplish something -- maybe some things -- weekly toward realizing Project B.
3. Prepare for Project C.
4. Write everyday.
5. Read books. Everyday.
6. Reconcile with Charlie. You don't have any brothers but he comes close. Seven years is too long. No forgiveness and no forgetting. Just reconcile. Instigate contact and get a conversation going.
7. Always take hearing aids to all meetings. You paid for them. Use them.
8. Simplify: jettison and discard excess.
9. Lose weight: Chart my progress. Publish chart.
10. Walk Doberwoman every day.
11. Stop eating Haagendazs.
12. Stop eating butter on toast.
13. Floss and brush immediately after dinner. (That prevents late-night raids on the kitchen!)
14. Drink water. Ice water.

That's a start.