this is the first watercolor i ever did, back in arizona around the mid 80's. i like it, a perfect example of beginner's mind. i did maybe 20 the following year, then dropped it. don't remember any being this good. i had a conscious reason for trying the medium, mainly to get as far away as i could from digital artwork which i was up to my ears with working for intel.

lately i am back to bed at 8 or 9 and up at 5. this is the diurnal rhythm i like best these days, as opposed to 45 years ago when i saw the sun rise every morning because i'd been up all night.

tonight, however, prof. sam may drop by, in which case we'll do the aville gallery crawl. if this works out, it will be the culmination of 20 years trying to make one of these events.

and to top things off, there has been a change in the weather: more than a hint of fall. thank god for cold fronts.

my grandson corbin whose birthday is this coming saturday. i made this morning and am about to go out and mail it. his father doug lost his mother this week i am sorry to say. she was a lady of good humor and a fighter.

today will be a catch-up day i hope. the usual round of daily maintenance with a few fun things like finishing a watercolor on clayboard which i found myself etching with a razor and sanding down last night. clayboard is very different than watercolor paper.

listened to rush limbaugh yesterday while on the road. he's scary but the callers are more scary by an order of magnitude. if the democrats don't quickly learn how to use public language they are going down. already the public is talking about

1) flip-flop
2) results count - and kerry spent 20 or so years in congress without "doing anything"
3) tax and spend liberal.

there are an almost endless supply of these language morphs in the republican arsenal, and they will be used. i still think edwards is the man to field these attacks by sound bytes that are sensible and short. talk straight. for instance redefine "liberal" as an honorable tradition which accomplished etc etc, but whose effectiveness, like all methods or techniques, is no longer what it was, take the best from it and up date the rest.

this picture i was glad to find during great kleenup extravaganza. i drew it in india ink while living with my wife and 4 children at big ridge, jackson county, western NC mountains, around 1975.

at that point i had not picked up a pencil for probably ten years. no drawing or painting, i had completely forgotten there was such a thing. one winter night i got the urge to try it, rounded up what materials i could - if memory serves, i drew it on a shirt cardboard. while monkeying around i noticed a newspaper on the floor. the page i saw had an advertisement for a rug company, and pictured a rug with a design similar to the picture i drew. i stayed up nearly all night doing it, and the next day drew another one. this was the beginning of a long period which has lasted the rest of my life discovering and rediscovering how important it is for me to create "art" with a lower case "a".

seven in the morning. got up at 5 and created the above, i don't know what it is or means.

missed friends meeting yesterday, took a long morning walk and didn't get back until a quarter to ten, when the meeting starts. stayed home until 1:30, doing this and that, tweaking computer and reconstructing the address book i carry around and lost a few weeks ago.

drove out to the reitzle's where bev helped to clean batik i found a few weeks ago. it now looks really great. it's a depiction of buddha that had not been very well treated over the last 39 years since i got it.

this week should be a light one, i plan to stay here most of the week and close out a lot of loose end projects. and rearrange domicile once more, since the big cleanup and throwaway of a few weeks ago, plus the small $66 air conditioner i stuck in small computer room - where it makes the room usable all day, a great improvement - required dismantling shelf full of CD-ROMs, disks, zip disks, and tech manuals.

more and more i am running into folks of my ilk - or maybe i should say cohort - who are engaging in penultimate clean up so as to be ready to leave the scene and not burden their children with the reminants of a messy life. life is messy, right?

been taking time off of reading heavy stuff, now on 2nd mystery book from library. this seems to happen about 3 or 4 times a year.

yesterday... one of those good days when i didn't leave the house except for quick walk in the morning. half-heartedly fooled with a watercolor i screwed up, in general puttered around fixing things. around noon i got into installing walmart $66 air-conditioner in computer room which has gotten so unpleasant to be in this summer during the late afternoon. which meant dismantling rickety wall shelf of tech manuals, disks, CDs and bits and pieces of electronics.

actually it's all coming back to me now, i drove to [shutter] tunnel road mall to buy a cartridge for B&W printer. that was enough.

found a bunch of new silverware in kitchen. either the tooth fairy or ninian must have left it last week. much thanks.

we must be in dog day season now, but for me it has seemed like dog days for at least a month. i remember them from living in the country days where you can't miss them. they always affected me in an odd way and have been doing so lately.

something or another i read lately has me thinking about the presidential campaign. it was to the effect that democracy and politics are two different things, and they are becoming fused together in the minds of the public/citizens/consumers/audience/users we have all become.

anyway moving stuff around to get AC in reinforced feeling that my job at this point in life is to cleanup and throw away. lighten up. streamline.

it happens when you wake up and find yourself surrounded by the flotsom and jetsom of modern life lived in a trance. i have this compulsion to slim it all down to a notebook and pencil. but then i'd need a pocket knife to sharpen pencil, and then a whetstone to sharpen knife and... you get the picture.

then there is the question of enlightment vs realization. the american tradition of self-improvement has, with the help of a clutch of contemporary eastern thought and depth psychology memes, morphed into the ultimate self-improvement, getting off the wheel. i admit i am a pessimist in this regard. i believe that enlightment, god-realization, transcendence, or what have you (what do you have) does not dispense with dukkha but includes it. jesus suffered. meher baba suffered. the buddha suffered. all sentient beings suffer.

at this point in my life i am not looking for something better to change this situation. a spiritual practice to move on from this situation is necessary, but i believe it is necessary not for the improvement of life experience, but for the sake of something else. and that something else is a mystery, unknowable.

one way to think about it is to consider the experience of conscious living as a dream, but not my dream. nor anyone else's dream. the supreme dream, lila, the play of the divine. the cloud of unknowing by the pseudo-areapogite, 5th c., or the modern update, the cloud of knowing.

meister eckhart: "the eye i see god with is the same eye god sees me with". and my eyes, along with the rest of me, are beat up, worse for the wear, stuck in the conditioned world. our suffering is useful to the kosmos for reasons we'll never know.

any of this intelligible? i hope not.

scan of a batik i got in Thailand a couple of epochs ago. it lay on a basement floor in denver where some huge dog was housed for a long time. since then has been god knows where or why. i recently recovered it and will clean it and maybe reback it out of respect. probably hang it on a wall.

today i only have one quick trip in the truck, the rest of the day i am looking forward to cleaning the house, studio, maybe recreate my lost address book. put in a newish air conditioning unit. finish a water color. sleep. take a walk. the last few weeks have been so turbulent i am looking forward to sitting awhile.

ran across this in a mystery i am reading - break from jung - the narrows by michael collins:

"everybody counts or nobody counts."

here's today's metaDoodle. it looks like i'm feeling a little better.

i seem to be tiptoeing up into a new relationship with these things. not only creating them, or to put it more accurately, letting them thru, but living them in an obscure way i can not explain. creativity is the royal road for me, but it is necessary but not sufficient.

saw edwards last nite, thought he did great. what i've seen has been on PBS and i have to say i think the commentary has really missed the point. carter, boxer, the new black guy whose name has not settled into my brain, kerrys wife whose name ditto, and edwards all sailed right over the commentator's heads. as a friend remarked to me, there was some speaking from the heart and they didn't get it. i think all modern peasants might. hope so.

"politics and democracy are entirely different things."
from This Modern World

thanks to jim for pointing this link out. i guess it's the most cogent of all the convention blogs, but then what else would you expect from mr. tomorrow.

well this picture popped out of my head recently, sometimes ugliness is helpful. apparently my unconcious is busy with some unpleasant but helpful tasks. hope it knows what it's doing. i don't.

another new meta-doodle, fresh from the fevered mind of mine. this was done with water soluble colored pencils and probably some other stuff i don't quite recall.

so now that that is done i can start my "real" day which will be a lot of shopping. i'll grit my teeth and sail into the commercial zones. this is one activity where my non-contemporary slowness really disappears, i'm in and out of the stores real fast. holding my nose and breath as long as i can.

saw jimmy carters speech last night and loved it. i think he gave the dems all the memes they need to win. to fight a war you need to fight the enemy, not the object of a personal vendetta or a with a theoretical plan made years before the enemy attacked.

it appears my 12 year old 17" monitor is beginning its slide towards heat death. getting pronounced waver the first 20 minutes or so i turn it on.

on another subject entirely, the more i find out about the woman i was entangled with awhile back the more the itch for revenge rears its ugly head. i absolutely will not scratch it, but it's a new feeling for me so i am experiencing what a lack of compassion and empathy can do to a person. just a personal blip. i am blessed with no desire to spend any time with it since i am at least half a holy fool who can be fooled some but not all of the time.

umm...the above paragraph shows a little spiritual hubris. to better express what i mean maybe i should simply say it ain't my way.

an exhausting day and week. too many distorted paradigms and ripples in the psychic atmosphere. the scenery is being dismantled. words are up for grabs, and the Word - note that i'm not talking exclusively christian here folks - is feeling dizzy. vertigo of the verbal and transuded deluge sweeping past our front door. sleepy civilians rioting at the oceans edge. seashell currencies disappearing like bad examples.

the hidden cost of life: Life.

sunday morning, missed Friends Meeting. friend ninian dropped by around 9, we stayed up talking. tossed turned, and listened to AM talk show all night. couldn't tell you what it was about.

today is the last day of bele chere, asheville's summer street extravaganza. usually too hot, too crowded, and too much pavement for me. may drift down late afternoon.

the picture above is watercolor i did in ashe county. started a second on clayboard which will be fun to finish.

it feels like august will be a retreat for me, i'll stay put and indoors, really need to tie up some loose ends - almost said entities - and maybe modify my ongoing attempt to re-socialize. back to the bunker, my back to the wall. but i will maintain contact with some of the good folks i have met over the last year.

well i'm back. my friend jim c. opined in an email that maybe on the bed and under the covers might work better, but it never has for me.

ashe county was cool, altho around 4 it could turn into that steamy charlston weather the whole south seems to be reverting to. b and a were doing their retreat in the morning, i painted, as the day progressed a's meds would catch up with her and she was asleep by 7. so i didn't see much of her. anyway 2 women who go back many years were too much for a simpleton like me, i don't catch the nuances and frankly don't care.

back here at the ranch a number of voice-mails. apparently my old projection mona is loose and on the street. lotta talk i won't go into, but my opinion is she is hanging out in the 7th nether ring and devising a new and improved method to live a few rungs lower in hell. i suppose she thinks it's all a tragedy - caused by someone else. but it's not, it fits like a glove. i've seen other people go down, but they maintained the grace to accept their destiny and not shotgun blame all over anyone in their life. but hey, i don't know anything about it, or much else. last week i went to a salon of conversation 'bout this and that. my friend janice told me driving back that i had fit in nicely, joining in to the flow of discourse. i told her it was easy because i didn't know anything about anything.

i'll say it one more time: being crazy does not justify or explain criminal hurtful behavior. neither does being abused as a child. neither does being a junky. i've know folks in all of these categories who were beneficent, meant no harm, and by grace and courage had the guts to turn themselves around.

meanwhile none of it is part of my life. what is part of it is the crazed dark insane feminine within, without whose acquaintance i would never have been attracted or recognized the beautiful departed soul that left nothing but trash behind her.

redemption, salvation, enlightenment, the cloud of unknowing, an innermost turning of the heart: none of it will happen. what an education i'm getting.

yipee.

meanwhile check this out - the clearest description of the present state of mediated discoure available. thanks jim:
This Modern World

i admit it, i have a small addiction problem: every day i have to do a picture and put it up before i can start the rest of the day. it may be a little like a psychic journal, you know, when words fail. a few too many loose entities bouncing around in my head lately. i guess i can live with it. mr. rorshach.

meanwhile i'll be doing my least favorite thing, organizing "stuff". objects. gear. lost my address book, anyone out there that was in it give me a call.

ok: get ready day here i come.

this mornings inarticulate doodle. fifteen minutes of unmitigated fun.

got a call last night around 2 am. the news is that the spainish harlem mona lisa is loose again and going down fast. slow motion suicide. maybe not so slow at this point. it is truly a living nightmare to encounter that much self-hatred. you can't read about it and appreciate what it means. you have to experience it to realize it even exists.

i'm about finished packing for trip to ashe county. going tonight with friend janice to the gray eagle to hear freeplanetradio. don't know much about them except middle eastern percussion, world music, 3 members in the band. oh yeah, it's a CD release gathering.

was going to leave in the morning, but i'm going at 5 to a "salon" with janice, chance to meet some folks, wet my finger and put it in the air, always interested in what people are doing, feeling and thinking of in this very convoluted cage we have transformed the culture into.

this mornings postcard from nowhere. i do'em from scratch, y'know, or at least i did this morning.

got up at 5, got a lot of color print research, walked up the mountain at 7.

yesterday on the radio i heard twice mention of postponing the coming election should something unusual happen, like taking out las angeles or perhaps some "chatter" overheard indicating a possible problem.

remember you heard it here first. i raised this hypothetical some months back.

so what else is new? what isn't? it's no surprise that each instant is a surprise.

reading jung again i am realizing how difficult it is to be an INFP, that's Introverted Intuitive Feeling Perception type, but those words mean nothing without studying jung, and maybe even then they don't. anyway the difficulty is not intuition, it works fine, it is the jungian compliment of intuition, sensation. in his typology i think i function in the sensation world as an unconscious, childish manner. and since the only way one can "see" the unconscious is projection, that's what i am dealing with. glad to get that figured out.

today's found doodle worked over a little. i did this back when i first started drawing - again - after maybe ten years layoff. living at big ridge, hard times, beautiful times.

going to get to see a lot of political ads because i guess north carolina is politically now "in play".

last night on leher news, i saw speech by bush, and then by kerry.

bush looked good, in control. both his speech and his ad pounded kerry for voting for war and then against supporting the troops. the ad ended with clip of kerry saying "i did vote for the war before i voted against it."

kerry's speech was from the day before where he spoke of the things the prez was responding too, namely that by the second vote it was clear the war was out of control and his vote "against" supporting the troops was part of a larger effort to stop the madness and reevaluate.

now this is where edwards comes in: his daily soundbite should make mincemeat out of this sophistry.

testing, testing... i think bellsouth has changed something...if you don't see this they have & i don't have the tiiiiime to fix it.

ok they haven't. but i can't seem to put up today's picture. one more time - here goes:

ok it worked. doing this stuff on a computer gets real old sometimes...but i don't think it is too unique in that respect.

it's just that the waste of time that "staying busy" entails is sometimes more obvious working a pc than, say, building a sand castle before the waves rush in.

the poem dylan reads for woody on bootleg series vols 1-3 is the best description of what it was like to grow up in the 50's, for me anyway, that i have ever heard.
Bob Dylan: Last Thoughts on Woody Guthrie

above from a doodle i found. i think i must have done it at interminal meeting when i worked at intel.

another drawing of cabin in chatham county.

talked to steve late friday while slaving over a hot computer. he told me doug had been in town on was en route to yancy county spread, and was meeting sam there. 20 minutes later i was on my way. hadn't realized how much i needed to get out of town.

spent the night in the cool, camped out in my truck yurt. pleasant evening, pleasant morning.

when i got back yestyerday i had a few phone messages, one of which mentioned that yesterday was silence day for the Baba lovers. so i shut everything down and shut up. watched my favorite TV show later, cops.

fridays quote from psychological types was pretty ho-hum. here's another one (as always picked at random):

"...the world of inner images is never a moral problem for the intuitive. for [extraverted and introverted intuitives] it is an aesthetic problem, a matter of perception, a "sensation". because of this the introverted intuitive has little conciousness of his own bodily existence or its effects on others....the perception of the images of the unconcious, produced in such inexhaustible abundance by the creative energy of life, is of course fruitless from the standpoint of immediate utility. but since these images represent possible views of the world which may give life a new potential, this function, which to the outside world is strangest of all, is as indispensable to the total psychic economy as is the corresponding type to the psychic life of a people. had this type not existed, there would have been no prophets in israel."

another pencil drawing found by me during the recent "clean it up & throw it all out" binge.

it's the upper room of the chatham county double slave cabin i and others lived in around 65-68 (?).

reading psychological types by jung. let's see if i can find something in it that is close to the bone:

"[heraclitus] himself says:

"it is the opposite which is good for us.

"for souls it is death to become water, for water death to become earth. but from earth comes water, and from water soul.

"the way up and the way down are the same."

makes me think of involution evolution and also mr dylan's line
"the people you meet on the way up
you meet again on the way down."

we sure get around.

combination of very old ink drawing and too much time on someone's hands.

lately i've been thinking about intimicy: it can exist only between two people who both respect themselves and the truth.

another pix from the past i found in the great clean-up extravaganza. must have been done in my outside the zone period.

been puttering with book of mixed poetry and illustration. i'll put up a page or two as it develops.

i got some encouragement from george yesterday when i went into consensus opinion that it is not good to mix text and pix.

a few have gotten away with it: Blake, Patchin, Reps, the very talented guy who did the illustrated rumi.

but with the mixture - or mix up - of the genres today, why not? besides, you gotta do what you gotta do.

or someone does.

man i've adapted so many lifestyles lately - not to mention so far - it's an attempt i think to deal with the weather which is truly becoming s0mething differant, maybe like a combination of charlston, sc and bangkok.

today's picture is from a doodle i made during a meeting at the last place i worked.

i'm waiting for mr. kerry to thank me for my vice-presidential advice. maybe he's busy.

here's another old picture i found during the great clean-up of the last few days. it is the interior of a stone room that connected two slave cabins i - and a lot of others - lived in during the (shudder) 60's.

i'll probably be putting up versions of a lot of ancient drawings for awhile. they certainly bring back memories to me that i'd forgotten i remembered.

the psychic wear and tear of sorting through so much stuff from another, earlier life and world is amazing.

and i still can't remember what i did last week.

the world of "stuff" is a relatively new one for humans. seven hundred years ago the majority of people in the world just knocked down the yurt and moved on. if you divided the gross tonnage of stuff and divided it by the world population today and did the same thing for the world of 2,000 years ago, the difference would be mind-boggling.

the colossal clean-up i have been doing this week reached fever pitch yesterday. an exercise in confusion. way too much.

richard and debbie called and we went downtown to "shindig on the green" plus ate dinner at rosetta's, a place that has to be experienced to be believed. it was a most welcome break from wading thru disks, CDs, old papers, paintings that i had forgotten, and various large and small objects that have accumulated around me. philip k. dick called this stuff "dottle". it is a new phenomena belonging to life today, something our ancestors would not have understood.

picture above is an example of the things i found - and simply cannot throw out. my friend jim did it back in the bad good old days, somewhere in mexico. i remember the night he left better than i remember last week.

saturday AM. tossed and turned and returned all night.

going thru the house throwing stuff away. i've found lots of forgotten art work.

here's one: a picture of my ex-wife sally. taken in one of those photo booths - 4 small pictures for a quarter - in manitou springs, maybe 1969. she was beautiful.

so today is dedicated to creating a huge pile of forgotten fragments of my life to give to some homeless shelter.

listening to a lot of dylan. it's amazing how he reads my mind. maybe because he's a poet, an artist, a prophet. check this out:

MAMA, YOU BEEN ON MY MIND:
"I don't mean trouble, please don't put me down or get upset,
I am not pleadin' or sayin', 'I can't forget.'
I do not walk the floor bowed down an' bent, but yet,
Mama, you been on my mind.

Even though my mind is hazy an' my thoughts they might be narrow,
Where you been don't bother me nor bring me down in sorrow.
It don't even matter to me where you're wakin' up tomorrow,
But mama, you're just on my mind."

[later] server was down so i didn't post this morning. am now knee deep in a combination of junk and a few priceless items. was thinking of going to shindig on the green this evening but it's pretty muggy outside.

good day to stay put.

Interesting day yesterday, doc in the morning, Karen at noon, wanted to talk with her about her ideas on a sort of cohousing deal. Saw Janet in the evening, nice walk thru Kenilworth, an area of aville I did not know.

when I got home in the afternoon a bundle was wrapped hanging from the door handle. dylans bootleg series, 3 CDs.

so I sent him this as a thank you:

it's about 2 in the afternoon now, I have spent the whole day dumping piles of paintings, drawings, technical manuals, all kinds of paperwork in the living room.

purpose: throw away, lighten up, streamline. Now I've got to do it or I can't get to the kitchen.

Mozilla, Opera Unite to Standardize Web: "On Tuesday, the U.S. government's Computer Emergency Readiness Team (US-CERT) warned Web users to stop using IE, because of the 'significant vulnerabilities' found in domain/zone security model, DHTML object model, MIME-type determination and ActiveX."

letter sent to the kerry campaign i posted today:

"Today there seems to be a groundswell not so much for Kerry but for anyone but bush. There seems to be a feeling and hope that bush may lose the election.

However many things will happen between now and election day. Many of these things will be orchestrated by the republicans. In my opinion the republicans have in place endless ammunition and PR tricks to confuse, muddle, and otherwise distract Kerry and the public both. The republicans - or more accurately those who have kidnapped the GOP - will not go gracefully. The brouhaha over what exactly Kerry threw over the fence (medals or ribbons) is just a foretaste of the innuendos and sub-rosa characterizations that will be thrown into the campaign.

The problem with this is that Kerry and his people are not prepared for these kinds of attacks. I can imagine meetings, memos, and polls being used to figure out how to respond, and these are too slow plus open up Kerry to the criticism that he dithers.

The nomination of Edwards for vice-president is the best possible antidote for this situation. He is non-alienating to the opposition, carries little baggage, and is a direct, plainspoken speaker. More importantly, he intuitively understands public discourse. As a front man to the coming attacks, instead of becoming tangled up in the tar baby of republican tricks he would be able in short order to clarify what is being said and in short order deflate any sidetracks or time bombs the republicans throw at the Dems.

In addition this would allow Kerry to take the high road, and perhaps be perceived not as a somewhat slow and stogy candidate but as a thoughtful, deep canidate. Increased gravatas.

In view of the coming onslaught of tangled accusations, personal history, and innuendo from the republicans, i am convinced that Edwards can make a critical difference and keep the public discourse on track.

He can make the difference between a win and a loss."

tuesday already all ready. garbage pickup will be the highlight of the day. i've been going thru tape cassettes, clothes, blankets, paperwork, big pile to dump. feels good plus i can walk from room to room without stumbling over objects that i don't even remember being in the house.

heard from mimi, so now i can continue on her website build. keeping my hand in just so i can remember how to do it.

about ready to print miniatures - post cards - on r300. ordering note card blanks today. so it is just possible i may have some out before bell chere.

spending week of july 18 with april and bev in april's mountain cabin in ashe county. if the weather is not boiling hot i'll stay a week. they do a vajryana retreat and then sedately party, we play a lot of music.

many doctor's appointments before this happens.

believe it's time to try another oil painting. i've got a long ways to go w/ this endeavor. drifting back into audio recording. and early morning walks. it's interesting this time of the year that if i walk up the mountain aways the landscape suddenly transforms to the jackson county summers i spent years ago: wet, green, leafy, that green luminescent shade.

wow, it's tomorrow already.

this weather, dark, wet, almost gloomy, damp: i love it. but it puts me into hibernation mode.

i'm happy just to hang around the house and putter. today i puttered the picture above, start to finish.

maybe i'm addicted to video games.

watercolor finished - sort of - this morning.

Well I saw it. Fahrenheit 9/11, that is.

Skipped Friday, opening day, although I was curious about the premier audience, how many commies, hippies, old lefties, young anarchists etc would be in attendance.

So I went with my friend janet sat. afternoon and there was still the longest line I'd ever seen at the fine arts theatre. 30 minutes sweating in the sun on a hot and muggy afternoon. Right before we reached the ticket booth the shade came and it started to cool down, rain on the way.

The film is a must see, even if everyone tells you so. It is well made, sprinkled with humor, has a sedate almost elegant pace, unfolding a story in a very clear manner.

Mr. Moore, who does the voiceover in a quiet, unhysterical style, makes a few appearances. In each he is restrained, subdued - for moore - and serious.

Despite my anticipation of a slapstick fast cut series of cheap shots, there were very few. Just the facts ma'am. (joe Friday does have a cameo appearance.)

The exposition hits heaviest in the beginning with the bin laden - house of bush connection. It's there, it's real, and it's not new. The Carlyle group. It is detailed enough to go beyond the flat statements I have heard from time to time on late night short-wave.

Many revealing statements from the bush oligarchy. The in place plans to invade iraq transformed into the "run up" to not only a misplaced war, but a detour from fighting the real attackers. A lot about money. A lot about the saudi's. the plans for an oil pipeline from the caspian sea - wait a minute, maybe it's to the caspian sea - across afghanistan. The elite bush base.

And the lies. Amazing. Goebble's "big lie" has morphed to the bushies endlessly repeated small fibs. And they change to fit the situation with no referent to former fibs.

Go see it. Pick it apart. It is not objective; it was what once was called a polemic, counter-argument or counter-propaganda.

Counter to what? To the folks who kidnapped the republican party which would piss me off I was a true conservative. Counter to the entire media industry, including the press and TV. and way counter to jefferson. adams, and hamilton. (remember them?)

The conventional wisdom is that it will fire up the opposition to bush but not change anyone's mind. I think it may do a little more than that.

above are some scruffy customers at the annual "knock knock who's there" convention i almost attended a few weeks ago.

a few observations:

i heard, saw, or otherwise absorbed news blip recently to the effect that mr. moore's film is "counter-propaganda". yep, and what are the implications of that opinion?

and the republicans, understandably upset at the spate of "counter-propaganda" films and books coming out want to classify them as political ads, somehow limiting their accessibility, especially during the month before the election.

if they do try this, i suggest the democrats quickly pull in the AM talk radio cabal, tit for tat. could be an interesting discussion.

and speaking of the culture wars, did you notice this by supreme court justice kennedy?:

HoustonChronicle.com - Justice Kennedy backs discretion in sentencing:
"Archer noted Wednesday that the 2.1 million people behind bars in the United States accounted for one-quarter of the world's incarcerated population."

and hers ongoing news that seems endless. is there a connection between a "public" that puts up with country being stolen and "public" that puts up with this knd of nonsense?

Russian server blamed for latest Web virus / Source of infection, which may have been aimed at stealing financial data, shut down: "The virus does not affect Macintosh versions of Internet Explorer, nor does it spread through non-Microsoft browsers such as Mozilla and Opera."

whoa, it's friday already. what has happened since my last post wed. is that i've been booted into another phase.

taking care of the genz's dogs, painting, making "stuff".

and getting ready to go to spend a week in ashe county with my friends april, bev, and more friends.

right now i'm waiting for this out of rob brezny's astrology column for this week:

oops. didn't kleen house. or anything else. missed k. wilber gathering, went to bed at 7, got up at 12 & watched charlie rose. then back to sleep. up at 5:30, got some computer work done, two hour stroll from 7 to 9.

then back to sleep until 11. been pretty busy since then, i am making some headway on house and color prints.

woke richard up at his house around 7:30. i bet he's never been woke up that early by two scruffy beings on foot way up on the mountain.

what else? zip. did pick up some summer reading yesterday, can't do much with the heavy stuff altho i am up to the notes sectin of wilber's integral psychology.

truck goes in shop tomorrow i hope. drove it yesterday and it only hiccoughed once.

[later:nite] actually got a lot accomplished today. maybe i'll even wash the dishes.

don't know if you will be able to read these lyrics but they are great.

memories, memories... from sam philips, cd is a boot and a shoe

zowee. this dip in energy has lasted 4 or 5 days. i guess it's needed downtime but i'd rather be busy, even if nothing comes of it.

skipped walk this morning. taking truck out to get groceries, paper for B&W printer, archival sleeves for color prints. an adventure because faulty ignition switch turns the engine off at the damnest times. truck goes in for repairs as soon as expensive ignition switch arrives at truck hospital.

biggest job: kleen house. today. right now.

slow day. gray. 2 hour walk in the morning, then back to sleep.

you might want to read this speech by bill moyers. whatcha gonna do about it?

This is the Fight of Our Lives:

excerpt:

"Here's something else to get mad about. Two weeks ago, the House of Representatives, the body of Congress owned and operated by the corporate, political, and religious right, approved new tax credits for children. Not for poor children, mind you. But for families earning as much as $309,000 a year -- families that already enjoy significant benefits from earlier tax cuts. The editorial page of The Washington Post called this 'bad social policy, bad tax policy, and bad fiscal policy. You'd think they'd be embarrassed,' said the Post, 'but they're not.'"

Apparently father's day and the solstice were way too much for me. had a nasty insulin reaction last night. totally drained today.

spent most of the day on my back. blew an appointment i had at one o'clock.

did manage to calibrate printer a little and dabble with a new watercolor. watched a lot of TV. Dad seemed to like the picture i sent him which is posted somewhere below.

today is a sloooow day off. resting. almost bored. too hot to go out.

played with color prints this morning, about have monitor and printer matched.

culture wars: have you noticed that a few films are coming out with anti-bush slant, and of course AM radio has had a lock on the neo-con world for some time.

nothing to do with mcluhin; technology has made it possible to bypass the nrmal expensive production costs of cinema. and folks are so hungry for "the real rest of the story" that distribution stranglehold is loosening.

i may start a novel. i may fall in love. i may wonder off to the top of the "right" mountain.

then again i may sit somewhere and stare beyond the wall.

a quickie i did yesterday on mac. i kind of like it.

here's a place to go to find out your spiritual "type". Belief-O-Matic. i was diagnosed as a christian scientist(!).

ABC news came through as the only news i encountered yesterday that fleshed out bush's response to the "no connection between al-quiada and saddam" criticism.

he of course said that he said that he said that he said "we never said saddam was part of the al-quiadia attack". ABC followed this clip with one from a year ago in which the same guy says "al-quiada and saddam are allies."

the news media or at least the democrats should line up all sound bytes from 3 years of bush. anytime he says something, follow it up with what he said before. might give us people a little help in remembering.

found this ink drawing on a very small piece of paper, ran it thru photoshop. one thing i think jung was right about is that images are endless.

saw "eternal sunshine of the spotless mind" yesterday. best movie i've seen in years, have to put it right up there with "the flower thief" by ron rice, "koyanasquatsii" by ricci and "eclipse" by antonioni.

to cut to the chase, the movie was a lot about me. probably you too. no answers, except as ram dass said, you must live with a broken heart. only the movie adds and enjoy it.

got an easy catch up day today. but... catch up with what?

ooooh...ugly. my german abstract expressionist mode perkulating to the surface. i'll reduce size when i get time.

been finding more old poems. here's one i think i'll put in book:

[note: ancient history]

prepare for departure
that's what the man said
rolling down the runway
feeling half past dead.

i can't shake the feeling
of the woman i lost.
i had to move on,
past her last double-cross.

i still miss her touch
and the look in her eyes
the few times she saw me
and told me no lies.

all my life
i waited for her show
and when she finally did
it was a woman i did not know.

i lost myself inside her
but she reserved the right
to take her body anywhere
man or woman share the night.

her thoughts were a mystery to me
she'd share her body but not her mind.
right on time i realized
loving her meant staying blind.

so here i am on a plane
talking to a ghost
a woman designed to kill
the love she needs the most.

finished above yesterday. oil pastel. i'm on a roll with images, they can't see the light of day fast enough.

rainy morning. going out in it for a long walk, then pick up truck from garage. the rest of the day? let's just say i'll be busy with nefarious projects. simultaneously daydreaming. what a treat.

up early, dropped off truck for starter/ignition switch fix.

getting some nice prints from epson r300. above i did this morning to send to my father. it's looking out one of his windows, called "indian peak".

big cleanup: a lot of photos and cassette tapes going. clothes and blankets too.

working on poetry book. i can print it here if i use 5.5" x 8.5" page size.

if i get truck back today will aim myself towards monday night drumming instruction.

"The deepest definition of youth is life as yet untouched by tragedy."
Alfred North Whitehead (1861 - 1947)

pencil, drew it in arizona. piece of the feminine puzzle i suppose.

talked to mona, may, and june on the telephone, three very different women. there seems to be a great concern that i will fall back into the clutches of mona.

i don't think so. but i would like to talk with her someday, somewhere, share truth.

slept all afternoon. started difficult watercolor, trying something new.

now for a walk in the gray mists of morning.

[later] friends meeting. back here, stayed burrowed for the rest of the day. talked with marshall.

getting good prints with premium luster paper. do you know any premium lustre folks? me neither.

but there is no way to outline today, and yesterday is already filed somewhere else.

an interesting day so far. bed last night at 8, up at 5:30, maybe 2 hour walk. quick trip to grocery store. lots of this's and that's.

i call picture above "ofeelia".

pencil drawing of daughter nicole's cat, kally. i don't think it is spelled "kali", but you never know these days.

nothing much to say today so why am i typing this? it's a routine i picked up a few years ago and surprises continue to bubble up from time to time.

ray charles died, and ronald reagon died. of the two, ray affected my life waaaay more than ron. i was buying and listening to his early atlantic 45s in the 50's. "sinner's prayer" has always been one of my favorites. i didn't listen to much of his later music, i was already on to jazz and in the 60's electric music for the heart and soul.

what do i listen to nowadays? not much, mostly classical muzak turned down low.

it's good to see thomas friedman coming around:
The New York Times > Opinion > Op-Ed Columnist: Dancing Alone: "'Hey, Friedman, why are you bringing politics into this all of a sudden? You're the guy who always said that producing a decent outcome in Iraq was of such overriding importance to the country that it had to be kept above politics.'
Yes, that's true. I still believe that. My mistake was thinking that the Bush team believed it, too."

well it's 11:30 in the morning and I just finished my morning ablutions which consist of 1) making a picture (above) and 2) putting it up.

I won't even go into if this routine makes any sense. I have no idea.

went to tibetan buddhist sitting and talk last night. It was fun and I learned a little bit about vajrayana - undoubtedly spelled incorrectly.

this makes 4 days in a row that I have been involved in some sort of group practice. Hammy.

now here's my plan for the coming presidential election which I believe bush will win unless:

1. Edwards is the vice presidential nominee. He and an excellent team of emergency respondees field all of the dirty tricks and heavy artillery that are already positioned to overwhelm them. Edwards it seems to me is the best possible point man to handle incoming, quick, alert, experienced at brushing aside bombs in simple straight terms without offending Joe Sisyphus and friends.

2. This allows Kerry to more or less continue on slow methodical path, back off into "thoughtful reflective" mode. Trick here would be to outlast the glitz and glittery static of the republican campaign. There is a good chance that the public - you and me and strangers - are on the cusp of rejecting this mode.

that's it.

6,9.4

picture i did at ken wilber meeting last night. very animated discussion of diamond approach by almass.
Ridhwan Foundation Home Page: "THE DIAMOND APPROACH TO THE WORK"

truck starter went south, i�ll deal with it tomorrow. roll it to start in a minute and make a pick up stuff run, take it in thurday morning.

reading the lost language of plants by buhner. he is in to a lot of interesting facets of the present culture which has turned into a box for so many of us. here�s some of what he has to say about TV:

"...it is intricately bound up with our need to dream...

"...mircea elide comments that...

'[man] - is continually fascinated by the chroicalling of the world, that is, by what happens in his world or in his own soul...�

"...before printing, dreaming was crafted as art through story telling...after printing, story telling followed a new tack and developed as art through written fiction. they all involve our human capacity and need to dream...

"with movies story telling even more closely began to resemble dreaming because dreaming contains such sights and sounds...

"with television, dreaming no longer is an irregular, isolated event like sleep-dreaming, the theater, or a trip to the movies (events set off in time and space as important), but a habit casually undertaken anytime one wishes...and the dreaming process is continually interupted by commercials - a unique shift in our evolutionary history of dreaming...

"as a result, people are continually exposed to dreaming that works withvery shallow and homogenized meanings relective of one particular inustry and way of thinking.because the level of meaning is so shallow people begin to live more and more in a world of less and less access to deep meaning."
one way to describe why bush got elected.

6.8.5

another pencil drawing from arizona messed with this morning.

gray torpid day, a little wet, a little too humid. that feeling that something is hanging in the air.

went for 1 1/2 hour walk with bobby this morning. short health appt this afternoon, while i was out picked up a few items.

when i returned from arizona last week, i totally spaced out on phoning sister and dad to tell them i landed on this side safely. matter of courtesy and respect, routine. i thought i had made the calls, but i didn't. kind of worrysome, chalk it up to the "mind-body" crashing for a short few days.

so here's what i've been wondering about: identity, personal experience, the experience of consciousness right now. or maybe just this week.

about 10 or 15 years ago i felt like the "personality" or personhood in general was changing in the culture, and that what is outside in the culture shapes the outside of the personalities that live within it. there was no way to call this personality that was emerging in the culture "good" or "bad", it was just different than the one i had. although from time to time i did wonder:

whether it was a neo-darwinian case of adapting to the actual and was not totally obsolete

OR

if it was a change that lost something, i.e. lost the type of personality that existed when i was living youth.

in the first instance i am old and in the way, in the second maybe something is being called from me.

today it seems like the question has escalated: all over the culture there is a question not only of how "I" exist in the culture, whether the possibility of change exists in this realm today, but whether the whole phenomenon of identity has outlived it's usefulness. always with the contrary, the compliment, that the experience of life in the world of 10,000 things can be lived in a way that both needs and doesn't, us "identities" milling around.

glad i got that off my chest.

6.7.4

another picture done in az - pencil - and messed with here.

this is an interesting item, leads to thoughts of movie wars, the fusion of entertainment and politics:
Pumping Kerry

otherwise business as usual, have fallen back into old habits of puttering around the house everday, talking to the muse and staying amused.

6.8.4

woke up at 7, thought about getting ready for hike.

i think i was still thinking about it when i lay down and woke back up at 10. so no sycamore cove trek for me today. the place i inhabit is an ADD disaster so i'll clean and organize. who knows what i'll find.

this is what i found, an old & forgotten doodle.

tried to email richard and debbie in the ukraine last night, it bounced back this morning. richard and debbie, if you're out there, email home.

loaded up on CD's and mysteries from the library yesterday. got an 87th precinct book by Ed McBain. that's good because i'm experiencing difficulty getting into any book these days, and this series i've always been able to read no matter what the state of my psyche.

greg brown tonight. i worked with a friend years ago who tried to get me to give a listen to him, but was stopped cold at the time by some sort of preconception that he was a member of the lake wobegone crew, which even back then i couldn't tolerate.

but recently i have heard a few CDs and get the idea that he is a rough and tumble redneck with a definite streak of noir, right up my alley. so we'll see.

[...later] the usual obscure run-arounds to get this posted.

now that (some) of archives are (sort of) accesable, i've been browsing through them. found a number of poems i think i will add to the book i'm working on. here's one:

someday maybe i'll feel new
but these days those days are mighty few
the sky leaves clouds like a clue
hangs question marks in the blue

atmospheric ice-crystals are cold
artificial memories i've been told
pathways lost in wars so old
storms of life bought and sold

for the last 2 days i've been back to my old sub-normal. lot of catch-up to do, and i've been busy briquologing.

got a good walk in today before the heat. dr. r. stopped by for a visit. going to see cold mountain tonight. heard talk of "preemptive joy" today at friends meeting.

picture above started at my dads house.

[a little later] saw cold moutain and kind of liked it. i thought the female lead was pretty inappropriate lokking, but by the end of the movie wasn' thinking about it. seemed more like exclusively romance that i remember the book being.

then there is this hameed ali thing that keeps circling around: "the diamond approach". don't know why but i feel better just having read a little of him.

is similar to dissapearing through the skylight. both are about the waning of the personality and identity.

Blogger Knowledge: "There are as many kinds of blogs as there are kinds of people, but there are only three motivations for keeping one: information sharing, reputation building, and personal expression. And though any one of these may be the primary reason for a blog, no one maintains a blog for any length of time without eventually doing all three."

back in aville, feels like I've been gone for years. Driving up 40 from chapel hill I had a moment when all of the green hit me in the solar plexis. Welcome home.

a lot happened in my heart and head while I was gone, all necessary, it's all good.

what did I learn?

I am equal to the present moment. Always already all ready. No guarantee that I am right or wrong, but if I'm in it I'm part of it.

Picture above from my dad's back yard.

I'll be redoing this blog. slim it down and shape it up soon.

Last day in sunny southwest, fly to NC in the morning. Probably spend a day or two or three visiting children and grandchildren, altho that is always contingent on their schedule and the heat.

the new yorker had a piece listing blogs that are being turned into books, or might be. Here is the list:

http://blogs.booklocker.com/matchmaker/archives/001506.html
instapundit
hit & run
the lack table
dong resin
zulkey
low culture
lindseyism
megnut
maud newton
meme-first
old hag
pressthink
i keep a diary
buzz machine
engadget
eurotrashgawker
the kicker
the minor fall, the major lift

I haven't checked any out.

the new york review of books may 27 has review of ghost wars: the secret history of the CIA, Afhanistan, and bin laden from the soviet invasion to sept. 10, 2001. The review is by ahmed rashid and the book is by steve coll. Buy it, get it at your library, read it and figure out how the contents can be converted to bumper stickers or burma shave signs: it would ensure bush losing the next election. Which people are getting, in my opinion, a little too confidant about.

my sister has a DMS-IV around the house which I took a gander at. Even tho categorizing consciousness in Dewey decimal like format is a crackpot idea, there were some interesting tidbits. Here's one:

"... pervaisive pattern of disregard for, and violation of, the rights of others...referred to as psycopathy, sociopathy, or dyssocial personality. Because deceit and manipulation are central features...It may be especially helpful to integrate...information collected from collateral sources...

"persons with this disorder disregard the wishes, rights, or feelings of others. They are frequently deceitful or manipulative in order to gain personal profit or pleasure (e.g., to obtain money, sex, or power)... They may repeatedly lie, use an alias, con others, or malinger...Display a reckless disregard for the safety of themselves or others... may engage in sexual behavior or substance use that has a high risk for harmful consequences...may neglect or fail to care for a child in a way that puts the child in danger...

"... Show little remorse for the consequence of their acts...Having hurt, mistreated or stolen from someone...[they] may blame the victims for being foolish, helpless, or deserving their fate...

"...Lack empathy, and tend to be callous, cynical, and contemptuous of the feelings of others...have an inflated and arrogant self-appraisal...Excessively opinionated, self assured, or cocky...May display a glib superficial charm and can be quite voluble and verbally facile...Exploitive in their sexual relationships...irresponsible as parents...more likely than general population to die by violence..."

well, we all know the DSM-IV is bogus and in our dull daily rounds we don't bump into people like the above. But if you do, you're fresh meat.

6.1.4

Memorial day in phoenix, went to Cosanti and was fortunate enough to meet paolo soleri. nice gent. otherwise spent the afternoon in a daze from the heat.

reading this and that came across this (and that):

"when we are listening to egocentricity we have the feeling that we know beyond doubt how we should be operating and how life should be.

"our heart doesn't tell us what to do. being at one with our heart means simply being present to and appropriate in the current circumstances.

... it might be helpful to consider:

-as long as you want to be right you'll be wrong.

-when you accept that you'r wrong, you'll be right."

from a 1990 california buddhist tract that which you are seeking is causing you to seek.

5.29.4

In phoenix. Cool spell - very hot. Driving south from Prescott this morning endless gridlock headed north on hwy 17. I've said it before: I will not live in a city ever again. That part of my life is over.

watched TV coverage of WWW memorial dedication. Guess it will give bush a bump in polls.

saying for today:

"...Let there be spaces in your togetherness,
and let the winds of heaven dance between you.

love one another, but make not a bond of love:
let it rather be a moving sea between the shores of your souls."

K. Gibran

5.28.4

leaving for phoenix in am with sister jane. prescott has been most restful, caught up with sleep.

about the (s)news:

if we had attacked mexico after pearl harbor,and if they had played us for suckers, and if our political establishment scooted from photo op to photo op convinced that God had elected them, the USA would have been about where it is today.

except i don't think the public would have put up with it.

Sister Jane arrived today with great salad for lunch. Just took meandering walk down dry willow creek. Very hot but beautiful breeze blowing. About finished with diamond approach.It's a little like a scattered travelogue. Some very interesting pieces and places. Like:

"by now, we are beginning to see which of the different qualities of Essence are generally related to which kind of issues from one's past. These relations between the Essential state, the "hole" or specific sense of emptiness which resulted from the loss of that state, and the emotions and beliefs we create to fill those holes,and finally the conflicts in our lives which arise from the resulting false personality, are all understood."

I picked the above paragraph at random. The weird thing is that it makes as much sense as windoze help files, I mean more sense.

do you dig holes? Or fill them.

it's 5 pm, i'm going to have a glass of wine and go outside and listen to the birds.

Still in Prescott AZ. Very quiet release for me from the self-inflicted eccentric projects at home. I purposely brought only paper and pencils - oops I think I said that a couple of days ago. As luck would have it there is a legacy ppeecee laptop here that I can't quite get my head around. The only reasonable way to fix is zero out disk and start again - like survivors do.

Venus the evening star is still bugging me.

the bird sounds here are incredible.

I think I have enough present moments left to last me the rest of my life.

one of the biggest questions for human beings today: where is intimacy? Without it we are sullen robots. With it? dunno, have not had the pleasure.

I'm alone, but I'm not alone alone if you know what I mean. Some of us might be.

Sunday,took the day off, drew insane doodles. Got the diamond approach from library. Sample:

"for some of us, the longing feels like an ache or a sadness just below the surface of our usual awareness and concerns, a background so common we fail to take notice. For others of us it may feel like a gripping desire to gain and hold on to these qualities, an intense drive in which we set our sights on some distant spiritual paradise. Still others of us may adapt a frustrated resignation in which we devalue these qualities as an impossible or even undesirable fiction...

when we are cut off from our natural strength, our energy and passion are less available. The sense of expansive vitality escapes us, and we feel weak. To make up for this, we push too hard or strain to capture that passion. We try to convince the world that we are not as weak as we feel. Bitterness or hostility flavors our relationships."

been said a million times I guess but that last bit reminds me all too vividly of the strong take charge woman I knew who was a weak and needy rejected little girl. And myself of course.

Standing in the Prescott library checking email. Quiet peaceful visit so far. My sister and husband got back from Italy last nite. Still fooling with getting dad online.

for entertainment this visit I only brought sketchbook and pencil - well I did sneak a repedigraph in also - I am going to learn how to draw - again.

I have been pondering the emotional mess I left in aville. When to be silent and when to be real is a lifelong learning curve for me. Sometimes anger is justified and necessary, but I sure hate the aftertaste. "be real - or forget about it."

one way to express your "real" self without impinging on others, of course, is to write. I do have a piece in mind that I am thinking of writing, it's creeping up on me and I guess I'll do it, but I have to admit I resent the time it takes to put down all those words. So I'll do it like I do these pages, off the top of my head.

far from home. i'm beginning to think the altitude is slowing me down - mile high - because i got zip for energy. couldn't sleep last night so went outside around midnight. jupitor was very bright and seemed to be staring at me.

continue to tweak laptop for dad. can log on to AOL. unbelievably ugly and braindead.my prediction: it will metamorph into some kind of simple portal only soon.

i can't yet log on to MSN which is what i want to do.

seen a lot of CNN lately. news. it all sucks. so far i have only noticed one person who actually "said" anything. i am using the word "said" in obsolete sense, one that involves soul, not just lips.

but at the moment can't remember who it was.

man,am i whacked out. in addition to jet lag, and generalized meloncholy, i have been working all day w/ windoze ME and AOL. totally bogus, both.
been thinking a lot about who i am talking to. very very few. "heart-to-heart" is the cliche. from the alone to the alone is what plotinus said. and here's what i found this morning scribbled in a notebook:
""i can be separate from you because at a deeper level we are joined in something inseparable. i cannot be alone alone." from breakfast at victory by carse.

Been talking to a good friend this morning about "backbiting".

I may have backed into this mode inadvertently the last couple of weeks, mainly by ruminating on some of the experiences I have been through lately. Maybe I'm naive. I handed my heart over to someone who lied to me repeatedly and when I finally came to I was really pissed at both her and myself.

but I have absolutely no desire to charactorize her or judge her, I wish her well, and have to thank her once again for the wake up call she delivered to me by her actions if not intent.

I wish us all the best. It matters.

ate lunch with yougest son nathan. his common sense and native feeling is seeing him through. he recently washed his hands of a lady who went from being a bautiful saint like woman to methadone, and lost her nurses license and son in the process. he is less naive than i, quicker tosee the futility of being used by a person in that zombie like unfortunate state.

went for a visit to jim's ranch. what a relief to talkwith someone who knows you. we grew up together, i,m not sure there is any other way. the lone wolves i have run across lately are highly overated by themselves.

it takes two to tango, two to talk, two to love, and one to make a problem ouy of a problem.

i'm past rage. any raised voice you here from me is nothing.

what is a sociopath anyway? would you know one if you knew one?
go here to see list of ten traits.

i'll be in deep seclusion for awhile. leave you with this image which is not a pretty picture. it is out of my head, not in it anymore.

Yesterday was a blast from the past.

as some of you may not know, this business of daily posting is a self imposed discipline. I post a little of this, a little of that. I make it up as I go. Do not take anything I write literally. It's all metaphor.

Lately these posts have become a little more personal as I have struggled to extricate myself from a very unhealthy relationship with a lady I thought I knew and whom I trusted all the way.

being a guy whose mind never stops churning, I have gradually over the last year been shifting my attention away from the mental thought-stream to intuition, instinct, the hara, heart, or whatever you might want to call it.

and this is what told me to break off the relationship. I had no facts to indicate she was compulsively unfaithful. No one told me this. It was just an inner voice that told me to "get out anyway you can". even though I was still in love with her. I have learned to trust that voice and follow it; the results are often not what I had in "mind" but that's ok.

So yesterday I got a call from the lady in question. She said she had been to the doctor and had something important to tell me(!). I asked her to do so, but she insisted it had to be face to face. I agreed to meet her in 30 minutes at her house. my mistake. She didn't show. I left a few unanswered phone messages. This is her standard mode of treating people.

I drove over around three for the second time, knocked on the door and opened it to be greeted by her coming down the stairs shouting indignantly at me to knock on the door which I had just finished doing.

Turns out what she had to tell me was the result of a "miscommunication". Apparently someone had told her I had written on this site that she was "diseased". The doctor thing was a trick.

I think we agreed that sociopathic is what I had meant to say, and it was not about her anyway. Just me and my inner life. After telling her why I thought this was a not unreasonable description of how i had been treated bt her, no need to go into details here, there was no denial, just that I must have been talking to "somebody" whose credibility is zero in this town. Now anyone who has told me anything about her she knows about. I have no additional information about her. Just a very bad feeling.

Then she closed the door and said "it doesn't matter". probably the most sincere statement I ever heard from her.

so folks, those of you who are interested in this imaginary melodrama, just remember: nobody told me nothing; nobody had to; when I split with miss multiplex, I knew nothing about her except what she allowed me to see.

That was enough for me to leave - I don't know the details, don't want to know them. My heart tells all I need to know. i'd been used, abused, and confused.

As always, what I am writing here is my experience and feelings. I could of course be totally wrong. She may be the most honest, sincere, compassionate person on the planet. The best friend a body could have. My perceptions might be skewed. Probably are. You make up your own mind.

I have long since forgiven her for being her, and myself for being me.

And I refuse to use this platform to judge her. That is not up to me. I don't know her. Don't want to know her. Don't want anything to do with her world. It may be a delightful place, but I don't like it.

End of story.

Spent yesterday inside, finishing book proof to send to Jeff in myrtle beach, gathering together stuff to take on trip. My old friend bobby D. Will be house sitting with his cat. By end of today I should be already ready.

PBS news with Jim Leher last nite had segment featuring psychologists and other experts opining on
why good kids join army and become bad prison guards. Key question: why were they smiling and beaming when photographed
in sadistic miasma?

I don't know, but it strikes me that we are products of sadistic culture. Jobs and livelihood are fear driven, almost universally. Implicit message is do it or die.

and then there is the sexual pressure on the young, especially the young women. unlike when I was young, many of the women of today accept the role of sexual being, unfortunately all too often taking it over the line to
anything for an orgasm. "what's love got to do with it?"

the thread that broke my infatuation with sociopath Mona was when she sat on her couch lying to me. Her smile gave her away, the smile of a little girl filled with glee to be putting something over on me. Still in love with her, that evil smile woke me up, busted any trust I had in her, and I had to get as far away from her as I could.

there are a lot of different smiles.