As I sit here sipping a cappuccino before heading out for the evening, I’m pondering what may be one of my bigger decisions of the last decade; obviously not THE biggest, if you know me, but still – moderately challenging in terms of determining the best course of action.  As is typical with me and my fellow-travelers, Byronesque romantics all, my head and heart are leading me in two different directions for the moment.  Will there be a dramatic last-minute reconciliation between the two?  Will there be a slow arabesque, drawing head and heart closer together until finally they realize that they can coexist and be happy together with the same decision?  Will they remain standoffish, forcing me to choose the happiness of the one at the expense of the other?  Only time will tell.

In the meantime, I Godzilla-wrestled my car into submission tonight, replacing a thornily-placed radiator hose with four connections, a mini-Hydra of rubber and grease and oxidized coolant.  I emerged victorious (naturally – I’m a stud).  However, I’m still picking grit and motor oil out of various crevices in my body, and this is even after I showered and scrubbed like a surgeon with OCD.  I figure after a couple cold beers I won’t mind, and I’ve learned quite a bit about my car’s engine in the last couple days that will serve me will for future explorations under the hood.

I’m going to stop there or else I’ll bore you to fucking tears and nobody likes a bore.

“Proof of Life” was a movie from about ten years ago that starred Meg Ryan as the wife of a kidnap victim and Russell Crowe as the scarred military vet who was brought in to help rescue her husband.  The title refers to the kidnappers’ practice of sending photographs of the kidnap victims, holding a recent newspaper to “prove” that they were still alive.

Every now and then my soul sends me a photograph from the jungle.  It tells me it’s still alive, somewhere, and that I should keep searching, not give up hope, not surrender.

Some days it’s hard.  Some days it hurts; some days you want it to hurt, because to not have it hurt would seem to do an injustice to the importance of whatever is going on around you, within you.  And yet other days…other days the trees part, the sun shines, and stuff that used to seem so hurtful just doesn’t press down like it used to.

When the door closes, look for the window.  It may just be open.

Forgiveness means giving up all hope for a better past.

Lily Tomlin

(h/t Alida McDaniel)

I’m such a retard. I have two awesome books open right now – DeLillo’s Underworld and Amis’ London Fields – and have just decided, for nebulous reasons, to open a third – William Gaddis’ JR. I wound my way through the foreward and was sufficiently interested to dive into the book itself. And it’s a delight. Messy, verbal, confusing, multithreaded – if such a term can be used to describe a book, and not a piece of software – and fantastically courageous.

I’m already a fan.

I’ll of course do a full review once I’ve completed it, which, based on my reading habits of late, should be about 11:00 PM tonight. I jest, of course – I have actual work to do, work work, not the work of disentangling Gaddis’ language of counterfeiting and futures and inheritances and the salvation of art in a world absent all semblance of order.

Speaking of salvation, I’m operating under the assumption (today, at any rate) that salvation comes in small doses, not big advances. The Pacific fleet won the war island-by-island, after all, and by the time the Big One was dropped, it was surely all over anyway. So, measured steps. Lifted eyes. Burdens eased, and recognized, and internal commentary re: same reinforcing the stupendous opportunity I’ve been given (actually, plural: opportunities!). Productivity measured breath-by-breath, beat-by-beat as my Bodyrox station on Pandora goads me ever along.

A beautiful Saturday! I ran this morning, sagging slightly at the start from creaky 38-year old knees, but warmth and purpose warmed up those patellar tendons within a half-mile.

Now comfortably ensconced at a Tully’s coffee, laptop and cappuccino and iPhone all within easy reach, taking those short steps.

Have a wonderful day!

If you want to be happy, set a goal that commands your thoughts, liberates your energy, and inspires your hopes.

Andrew Carnegie

I wonder if one out of three ain’t bad.

I’m bound up, twisted, a Gordian knot of self-imposed burdens. I want to free myself, burst out and up in a delirious, unfettered, unselfconscious explosion of positive emotion, but I can’t. I want to jump on my horse and ride breathless through the long night, lantern in hand, yelling “The British are coming!” to one and all. I want to ride a barrel over Niagara Falls and emerge wet and laughing and yell “let’s do that AGAIN!”

I want to smile. Holding back my smile makes me sad.

Forgetfulness occasionally looks enticing. Take the blue pill; jump into the time machine; pay a visit to Lacuna. But that’s a dodge and I know it. And besides, there are silver linings all around if I were but to raise my gaze.  Tomorrow the stars could fall out of the sky, circle round my head, and bathe my soul in radiance.  I’m not feeling it, not now (ok, not at all), but it could happen.

You never know who or what will walk through that door.

Of course, it works both ways – stuff can happen that puts you at a further remove from your goals.  Soldier on? Double down?  Abandon hope?  So many things to consider.

One positive thing I’m doing is exercising.  I’ve been on a little mini-streak lately, and I’m going to explicitly go for 30 days in a row.  If that goes well, I may consider a repeat of last summer and go for 100.  Exercise – exhausting, angst-burning, mind-numbing exercise – is good for me, in so many ways.  Getting healthy and fit and trim doesn’t have a lot of downside, save for the time involved, which – let’s face it – can always be found.

So look for me on a road, running, looking up at the stars and wondering when they’ll descend and shine.

Imagine it’s 480 B.C.  You’re Xerxes, the king of the Persian Empire, undisputed, undefeated champion of the world. You’ve just concluded the first day of battle at Thermopylae.  You’re wandering the battlefield at dusk, through endless rows of dead Persians stacked like cordwood, and you’re thinking,

“Huh.  Pretty shitty day.”

Xerxes could hardly have been more surprised at how that day went than I was at the conclusion of this day.  Unlike Xerxes, however, who had to face those pesky Greeks and in particular that hunky Leonidas, the progress by which my day went from sunrise to shitty involved a totally self-determined course.  What use our minds, if not to construct hells of our own imagining?

When I say “hell”, of course I jest, I overreach, I go in for a bit of hyperbole.  Hell is for other people.  One-limbed Rwandan orphans, for example, or English football fans.  See, I begin to reacquire my sense of humor just in the writing of the thing, in the meritorious vomiting on the screen.  Writing is good for me as well as good for you, dear reader.  Maybe I’ll win a Webby!  My five words? I’m not sure, but OF COURSE it would have to be something bland and safe, since I’m a nice guy after all, always eager to do the right thing, to not ruffle feathers, to not press, not expose, not force, not grasp, not reach, not pursue, not render the canvas in bright aggressive colors but prefer instead an inoffensive palette of mauve and taupe, the better for my inoffensive pastoral scene.

Well, fuck it.  Fuck it fuck it fuck it.

I’ve written that want is a terrible affliction – I’m beginning to think that phrase will define the middle third of my life -  and yet I remain a passionate, eager, wanting individual.  The heart wants what it wants, and inoffensiveness chafes.   I sit here with all the advantages the 21st century has to offer – I’m a white American who makes a good living and is smart and nice and reasonably fit and healthy -  and yet I want more.  But every time I get into what I might call a “wanting stage” I find myself in a real existential struggle.  Man vs. Himself, just like in the thin-folio writing manuals.  Perhaps I’m overly devoted to an idea, an obtainable idea, and that letting go is the last final surrender to happiness.  Zen-like.  He writes, chin in hand; be happy with what you have, and do not want.  Let go.  Abandon.

And yet, part of the passion, the eagerness, the sensitivity, shall we say, is to imagine a better world, a better life; one in which dreams do come true, endings do come wrapped in scarlet ribbon, and credits roll with the audience smiling and clapping, exclaiming to each other that it was the best story they’ve ever seen.  No 3-D glasses required; just a big helping of karma, to align the pieces just so.

When I’m down on myself I think what kind of idiot believes that shit.  Fairy tales?  Bah.  But I’m genetically and attitudinally made to believe that way.  I’m me.  And if occasionally it means overreaching and then being forced to lunge back, ashamed and blowing on burnt fingertips, having tried to grasp more than I could hold, then that’s the required penalty.  So be it.  Xerxes and I both share an essential world-beating confidence, despite all the evidence stacked around us.  And the occasional blow to the head makes me realize (yet again) what’s really important, what I do have that I should treasure and keep safe and warm, and that’s a comforting feeling once the pain of the blow has subsided.  Focus on your gifts – those you have and those you are given.  That’s a sure path back to happiness.

Speaking of five words for the Webbys: “Want Is A Terrible Affliction”.  That’s original and pointed and timely.  A keeper.

Yes, another made-up-word for a title.  But it’s my fucking blog!  I can make up all the wordles I want to.  Actually that last one, “wordle”, isn’t exactly a made-up word.  It’s related to tag clouds and sounds cute, at any rate.  But I digress.  Pigment – pigment is the topic of the day (evening) – a friend writes and says “what’s up with all that color stuff you posted earlier,” or words to that effect.  I shall explain.  Or attempt to.  I confess I initially feel like Christopher Hitchens trying to explain his alcoholism – a bit indignant, perhaps, at having to explain something that makes so much goddamn sense that words are no longer necessary, when words are a hindrance, a distraction even.  Such are the vicissitudes of language – sometimes words help, and sometimes words betray us in the most pitiful ways.

Color is of course a metaphor, but for what?  And what does lack of color imply?  Let’s start with a mental image – that of the huge jawbreaker, licked through to the center, which is all white, clean, clear, colorless.  Or another image – a crisp white t-shirt, which, after having been tied in knots and dunked in dye, ends up still white – a miracle!  Heads are scratched.  Brows are furrowed.  How can something resist?

Others: the sno-cone that turns the raspberry flavoring clear.  The vanilla ice-cream cone that sloughs off the crisp chocolate covering.  The harvest moon, clear and white in the otherwise red glow of dusk.

The skeptics wag their fingers. Intentionality plays a part, prima facie, they assert.  If so it’s a grim sort of intention, for who intentionally resists the bursts of color that present themselves to us, indeed, are forced on us from time to time?  The sheer joyous oral-expulsive delight in being one with the rainbow, washed with pigment, gasping and fluttering and shrieking in the ROYGBIV-ness of it all.

Others, less skeptical and more insightful, might cluck and point to deeper meanings, teasing apart the language for clues.  Jawbreaker. Colorless. Resistance.  A kremlinology of the heart and mind ensues.  Hair is burnt. Palmists consulted. Chicken bones tossed and tossed again.  Clues – unforthcoming.

Of course one can always ask, but there again I run into a sheepish inability to articulate exactly what I mean.  What DO I mean? I’m not sure.  I’m really not sure.  And I really hesitate to both (a) inquire too deeply or (b) make any bold proclamations.  Instability and uncertainty and a healthy respect for the tides that do not turn beachward inform my thinking.  A plea for simplicity? A considered indifference?  A preparatory stage, a canvas upon which some future story can be drawn?  A mute complaint about the machinations of physics and chemistry?  I don’t know.

Like most associations, there are elements of what is and what was and what may yet be.  The what is is the interesting part for me – because what is is is always partial and subjective and inconclusive – for aren’t all of our world’s own reflections either aspirational or critical?  We see ourselves as either (a) how we would have others see us (aspirational), or as we secretly think they actually DO see us (critical).  There is no reality, just a constant crabwalk among shifting dunes, blown hot or cold by our mind’s own wind.

So – retreat.  Retreat to the invisible, the inconsidered, the simple, the singular, the clean slate, the tabula rasa.  Let the color come back when and where it may, at some future time, in some future place.

Do I start with the “odd” or with the “end”?  Today is a day remarkable for bringing something of a sense of clarity after a short period of intense muddling slogging, made even more remarkable by my near-complete insomnia of the past couple nights.

I start with the World Cup.  Yes, that was a segue, a blunt and un-signalled segue.  France is off, sent home in disgrace after forgetting their balls on the pitch in Kynsna last Sunday.  They were in shambles today against South Africa and are perhaps the worst team in the Cup Finals, sinking even lower than the robots from North Korea.  I can’t say I’m too disappointed.  Anelka and Evra are both a disgrace and should be booted from the national team.  Domenech – well, I’m not sure what to make of Domenech.  He led the side to the final match in 2006, but the CW is that the side was *really* led by Zidane, and I can’t say I disagree with that assessment.

At any rate, the drama drops by 50% as soon as the French hit the tarmac for their ignominious flight home.

I stand by my prediction from early June that Holland are favorites, with Uruguay the dark horse.  Forlan has looked good for the Uruguayan national side, and while the Dutch will always hear complaints that their style is not 1970-s era Cruyff, they get the job done and are probably going to win their group with no loss of points.  Other contenders have faltered.  All the major European sides have taken a fall, and the main challengers look to be the two strong South American sides, Brazil and Argentina.

I still think Germany will bounce back from their embarrassing defeat to Serbia, however.

Back to the moment.  I’m trying to think how to describe my state of being right now.  I suppose that I feel drained of color, which, if you know me in real life is a sort of joke, because I am nearly the whitest white guy this side of an Albino.  The sun shines in China and my ass gets sunburnt.  But I feel like no pigment can adhere to me right now, no color; all would wash off, to be left white, or black, or perhaps gray.  Perhaps there is an occluding force in play, blocking the light, the heat.  I’m not sure.

The quickest way to die is to live in uncertainty.  Move fast or perish.  Take chances, reach out, be aggressive and overt and goal-oriented and you’ll be fine.  Take your life into your own hands, because others’ will never do.

Back to football.  Tomorrow England and the U.S.A play their final group games and my prediction is that at least one of the two sides fail to advance.  I’m going to go out on a limb and predict the Americans will fall, drawing to Algeria when a win should be forthcoming.  However – however.  That’s why they play the games, because pundits and pontificators don’t get to establish the results.

Moving forward.

The song “Fidelity” by Regina Spektor has been on my mind a lot lately.  It’s at once hopeful and sad, with an unusual vocal line; it’s attractive and catchy and a song which almost instantly established its own idiom.  To describe a song as “Fidelity-like” is to describe a repetitive syllabic choral signature:

And it breaks my ha ha-ha-ha ha-ha-ha ha-ha-ha-ha-heart…

What breaks my heart: unfulfilled promise.  I listen to this song, scrutinize the lyrics, and watch the video, and know that there is NO way right now I could produce something that creative.  Creativity seems to me to be something that rested people do, something that rested people can tap into, and right now I’m restless, constantly moving, unsettled, and burning fuel.  Simplicity? gone. Subtlety? Light-years away right now.  I am a video of clouds on 8X. I am a wave-pounded beach. I am Broadway and 42nd.  I am an aspirin factory.  I am half-finished sentences and fingers running and re-running through hair and caught breath and repetitive swallowing. I am the cuckoo clock at midnight, all night.

It’s there, somewhere – that creativity, that spark, that slow, assured simplicity of purpose, that depth, that chamber in which the sounds of shaping (no, that’s not a typo) echo, resonant and pure.  I feel it.  I just can’t access it.  It’s like the bump under the duvet – you can tell something is there, and even what it is, without seeing it.

What do I most miss right now?  Writing.  I’ve had a couple periods in the last few months when the words flowed without effort, like water from the head of a glacier.  I’m sort of in a lull right now.  Not writer’s block – not exactly – more like a brief, maddening detour through sludge, a sort of fog, a disequilibrium.  I find it hard to relax.  I can’t NOT multitask, which is death to the creative impulse (at least mine).

Having said all that, I know that these things are cyclic, and my heart will stop breaking and I’ll start creating again, start writing, with more purpose and more thought and more expressiveness than I seem to be able to muster right now.  It’s just a matter of time.

Can’t believe it’s been almost a month since my last photo meme!  Me at Greenlake Zoka, May 21, 2010.  Wild hair!