It's important, so do it.

Quick, note the day and time:  I'm having a productive day.  Two loads of laundry, the weekly refilling of the med box, several psychological evaluations of the Feline Triumvirate, orientation of several new Marlinspike Hall Manor Gift Shoppe volunteers, coffee -- perfectly strong and I did not pour boiling water in my lap in its making!

Sure, there were errors, flukes, lots of pills on the floor, and the Gift Shoppe may be in retail peril, but there is an abundance of clean covers, ranging from light and kind to tender skin to heavy and cold repellent. None of the cats aberrant behaviors have improved but we have lowered alert levels to DefCon 2, hoping that we can continue to deescalate tensions and avoid Buddy killing Marmy, or Marmy shifting from clawing defense mode to slashing aggression.  Most of all, we would like Dobby to retain some fur, as when the little guy is stressed, he releases all of his hairy hairs, usually on my clean clothes.  And, if we put all our desires out there, well, we'd like him to shut up, as well. He's the Town Crier of our world and, honest to God, it sounds like a nonstop tirade of a lisped "Oyez, Oyez, Oyez!"

Ahem.  Yes, I'm having a day!

My right foot is probably as small as it's ever been in the past 12 years. If you ignore its purple and frigid state, well, hell, it almost looks like a doggone foot!

The claw phenomenon is, indeed, spreading to two fingers on my left hand, but rather than cry over that (we now cry for an hour when the lights go out at day's end), I am forcing that hand to do extra duties.  I suppose someone without CRPS would call the doctor.  I have been taught not to, trained better than a seal.  Oh, how to stave off the urge to balance a beach ball on my nose?

I am daring to see another Kaiser Permanente neurologist next Thursday.  Yesterday, if you had dared to ask, I'd have told you it was a hoop to be leaped through, or thrown through (by the neurologist, or Fred, perhaps... maybe even Lumpy, if he could work up the strength).  Today, I've decided to focus on researching these sudden and completely un-freaking-expected changes in my upper extremities.  Research as only I can.  I have awesome research powers, friends, and they, coupled with unerring insight, rarely lose me in a corn field.

Don't know where that came from, that whole "lose me in a corn field" thing, but I like it. So it stays.

So next Thursday, yes, we slough off the history of Kaiser Permanente's abysmal neurology department (though I hear that EAST of the Lone Alp, they have better staffing) and we politely make the focus saving my hand function.  The OT kept concentrating on the pain of it, not hearing my oft-repeated: "I can handle the pain... what I cannot handle is losing the use of my hands."

It's easier to focus on the amorphous and try to score points for ass-kissing empathy, sympathy, compassion rather than brainstorm with me how I am going to toilet myself, wash, and manipulate forks, knives, knobs, buttons, cats, Fred, paperwork, pens, computers, car doors, seat belts, coffee cups, telephones, and pills, pills, pills!

Much better to wheedle: "It must hurt a lot.  Does it hurt a lot?"

Button my shirt, bitch!
Dice the Holy Trinity of onion, bell pepper, and celery.  Or the required base to a magnificent, fragrant stir fry:  ginger, garlic, and several optional thirds -- onion, chilies... none of that to be confused with the saucing options.  Don't get excited, Therapist, about a perceived ease to the saucing, because the saucing involves mixing, and the opening of many tiny bottles, and the outpouring -- precise outpouring -- of fish sauce and sesame oil and the many variants of soy and chili and sweet/sour viscous liquids.
I had trouble washing my face last night and dropped my toothbrush in the toilet.

But that was last night, and the OT was Tuesday, and won't be seen again until a few hours after the neurologist next week!

I've a firm grip on this day, still.

Part of that vise-like hold has been enabled by merely turning off all the phones and watching a few episodes of what I call a soap opera, but Fred insists is a "drama series." Yay for solutions, because they're solutions!

Clearly, giving my brain, such as it is, and these hands, such as they are, access to a keyboard has not been conducive to what pop stars like Dr. Phil might call "self talk." Dr. Phil is a marketing genius and a professional fraud.  I know the difference between what I type and what I actually feel.

Harrumph.

Time to finish my chores, turn the phones back on, be an encouragement to Fred and the hulking, skulking cats.  The genetically indentured Domestic Staff Executive Committee has requested a meeting with the Haddock Labor Relations Board, and judging by the steely glint in a few eyes, there are more issues than territorial disputes and genetic engineering snafus on the table. I think, I am guessing, I assume... that they want a bump in salary, an expansion of benefits, and some minimization of their essential serfdom.

I could be wrong.

Last night, when I turned off the lamp beside this godawful hospital bed, after I threw the stupid washcloth gripped by my right claw all of three feet (after a full wind-up and high kick), before I picked the 90-minute "sleep" music option (which started with dear Simone's "Go to Hell"), I spent an hour crying.  I didn't time it, the hour is a guess.

All I could see was Lumpy's sweet face, his eyes gone deeper than deep seems possible, and dark, much darker than seems fair.  I don't see the two lumps he says are there -- in his skull, one on the left hairline and the other at the base of his jaw.  Granted the jaw is disfigured and I can actually see it, but I like to pretend that I don't, and that his well-trimmed beard just has an inexplicable scruffy area.

To me, he is beautiful, handsome.  And, damn it, other worldly.

Can I convince you, you who are as mortal as he is, that he does not deserve death, that the world needs him, that nothing will ever be the same when he dies?  That a whole generation of mediocre writers will not have the touchstone of his classroom f-bombs and hilarious illustrations of rhetorical fallacies by the citation of the authority of South Park and The Simpsons?  They won't learn the crucial life lesson, the crucible of working life, that he models when explaining, over and over: "I grade what you put in front of me."

You haven't seen him mime gold medal winning Olympic ski jumpers.  He's a little over 6' 4" and could launch himself off the icy ramp, and extend his upper body, straight as a rail, over his legs until his slightly Roman nose seemed (and therefore, was) mere inches from his skis.

A Normal Hill specialist, his split leg landings, with arms making delicate ballast adjustments, would be the envy of any world class orchestral conductor.  The arms part, not the leg part. Unless we're talking some sort of weirdly energetic orchestra conductor, or perhaps an afflicted one, suffering from neurological tics, Parkinson's, or Tourette Syndrome aggravated by the brass section, probably the tenor trombones.

So tears turned into giggles in the dark.  And each cat came by, politely following their peculiar rules of Buddy first, Marmy second, and -- everpresent, very somber -- little Dobby.  Dobby never leaves me when I cry, though he may position himself so as to be unseen.  On the top edge of the pillow, perched on the corner of the bedside table, alertly upright between my feet.  He didn't learn the "don't stare" lesson in kittenhood, so he stares, and mewls softly.

Like I said, the hour was just a guess.  I also visited with some other beloveds, before relaxing my mind into the recurring memory of me, seated on Lumpy's shoulders as he walked, slowly, from the shallow end of our swimming pool to the deep end.  Yes, that put him under water for about a third of the journey, but never did he hasten the pace, break the rhythm.  Sometimes the tipsy Happy Hour boozers at poolside noticed, sometimes they did not, but it was something to behold.

Well, I just promised Fred, The Castafiore, Sven and his son, Cabana Boy, a healthy dinner of roasted organic vegetables and some sort of fish.

A chance to wield knives and cavort with a very hot oven!  Now, THAT is what I call Occupational Therapy. No co-pay and a delicious pay off at the task's end.

Readers?  Love the ones you're with, and find ways to transmit, send, convey, and give away the love you have for those not within your wily grasp.  It's important, so do it.








© 2013 L. Ryan

this path of discipline OR "don't burn the mustard seed!"

Exhortation to prayer rankles.  Order me, in reference to most anything, and you'll likely be treated to me, rankled.

So let's take a deep breath, shall we, and enjoy the origins of the verb "to rankle":

Middle English: from Old French rancler, from rancle, draoncle ‘festering sore,’ from an alteration of medieval Latin dracunculus, diminutive of draco ‘serpent.’

And just to make sure that my snarky state is established beyond the realms of smarmy retort and sanctimonious dadaism, contemplate this very short list of synonyms for the good and faithful rankle, as used with a direct object: 

cause resentment to, annoy, upset, anger, irritate, offend, affront, displease, provoke, irk, vex, pique, nettle, gall; informalrile, miff, peeve, aggravate, tick off

There!  Now we're ready for the reproduction of what has thus far not rankled me this evening -- between bouts of interrupted reading, frequent "Yes, dear"s, and one Marmy Fluffy Butt permanently attached to my left pelvis (thereby adding immense heat and a one-half inch layer of long, white hairs).

It all began in a search for my lost mindfulness -- which is the closest I'll get to being your comedic straight-man... ever.  Well, at least, knowingly.  Ha!  See there!  An inadvertent mindfulness joke!

courtesy of The Mindfulness Method

It all began in a search for my lost mindfulness and ended, somehow, right where this catastrophic thinker needed to be.  Reading can be like that, even rudely interrupted reading bouts.  And "right where... needed" was here:

Kisagotami Theri
translated from the Pali by
Thanissaro Bhikkhu

TRANSLATOR'S INTRODUCTION:  Kisa Gotami has two of the most heart-rending stories in the Buddhist tradition associated with her name. The Commentary to this verse tells that when her young child had died, she refused to believe it was dead. After asking many people — in vain — for medicine that would revive the child, she was finally directed to the Buddha. When she told him her story, he offered to provide medicine for the child, but he would need some mustard seed — the cheapest Indian spice — obtained from a family in which no one had died. She went from house to house asking for mustard seed, and no one refused to give it to her. But when she asked if anyone had died in the family, the universal response was always, "Oh, yes, of course." After a while, the message sunk in: Death is universal. On abandoning the child's body to a charnel ground, she returned to the Buddha and asked to be ordained as a nun, and afterwards became an arahant.

The canonical verses associated with Kisa Gotami's name, however, tell a different story, which is identical to the story that the Commentary attributes to Patacara: Pregnant with her second child, she was returning to her parents' home, along with her husband and small firstborn child, to give birth. Along the way, a great storm blew up, and she asked her husband to provide shelter for the family. As he was cutting grass and sticks to build a shelter, a snake bit him and he died of the poison. Unsheltered, and wondering at her husband's long absence, Patacara gave birth and had to spend the night sheltering both her children against the rain and wind with nothing more than her body. The next morning, she found her husband dead. Distraught, she decided to return to her parents' home. However, a river — swollen from the rain of the previous night — ran across her way. Unable to carry both children across the river, she left her first-born on the near bank and waded through the raging current carrying her baby. Placing the baby on the far bank, she turned back to fetch her first-born. A hawk, seeing the baby, took it for a piece of flesh, and swooped down on it. Seeing this, Patacara raised her hands and tried to chase it away, but to no avail: The hawk picked up the baby and carried it off. Meanwhile, her first-born — seeing his mother raising her hands — took it for a signal to cross the river. As he jumped into the raging current, he was carried off to his death. Overwhelmed with grief, Patacara returned to her parents' home, only to learn that it had burned down from a lightning strike in the previous night's storm. Her parents and brother were at that moment being cremated on a single pyre. At this point, she went mad and began wandering around half-naked. Only on coming into the Buddha's presence did she recover her senses. He taught her the Dhamma, and eventually she ordained and became an arahant.

Why this story is attributed to Patacara in the Commentary when it is obviously Kisa Gotami's in the Canon, is hard to tell. Some scholars have suggested that the tales in the Pali commentaries were imported from other Buddhist traditions, such as the Mulasarvastivadin. Thus, the differences between the canonical verses and the commentarial tales stem from the fact that the different traditions attributed particular stories to different elder monks and nuns. For instance, the Pali Canon attributed the story of the woman whose family was destroyed in a single day to Kisa Gotami, while the tradition from which the Commentary drew attributed it to Patacara. If that's the case, it's interesting to note how the commentators who adopted these tales nevertheless remained faithful to their Canon. Instead of trying to change the Pali to fit with the commentarial source on which they drew, they allowed the discrepancies between the two sources to stand: one of many instances in which the discrepancies between the Canon and the commentaries suggest that the monks who handed down the Pali Canon tried to keep it intact even when they didn't agree with it.

Later Theravadin texts have tried to cover over the discrepancies between Kisa Gotami's verses and the Commentary to those verses by insisting that the passage in the verses beginning, "Going along, about to give birth," and ending, "my husband dead, I reached the Deathless," is actually Patacara speaking, but this seems unlikely: Why would one arahant butt in on another one's tale?

At any rate, regardless of which story is Patacara's, and which Kisa Gotami's, both speak to the universality of death, and the power of the path of practice: that in the midst of this human world with all its sorrows, there is still a way to find that which is free from grieving, aging, and illness: the Deathless.


Having admirable friends
has been praised by the Sage
with reference to the world.
Associating with an admirable friend
even a fool
becomes wise.
People of integrity
should be associated with.
In that way discernment grows.
Associating with people of integrity
one would be released from all suffering & stress,
would know stress,
the origination of stress,
cessation & the eightfold path:
the four noble truths.

Stressful, painful, is the woman's state:
so says the tamer of tamable people.
Being a co-wife is painful.
Some, on giving birth once,
slit their throats.
Others, of delicate constitution,
take poison.
In the midst of a breech-birth
both [mother & child] suffer destruction.

Going along, about to give birth,
I saw my husband dead.
Giving birth in the road,
I hadn't reached my own home.
Two children deceased,
my husband dead in the road
— miserable me!
My mother, father, & brother
were burning on a single pyre.

"Your family all gone, miserable,
you've suffered pain without measure.
Your tears have flowed
for many thousands of lives."[1] 

Then I saw,
In the midst of the charnel ground,
the muscles of sons being chewed.
With family killed,
despised by all,
my husband dead,
I reached the Deathless.
I've developed this path,
noble, eightfold,
going to the Deathless.
Having realized Unbinding,
I've gazed in the mirror of Dhamma.
I've cut out the arrow,
put down the burden,
done the task.
I, Kisa Gotami Theri,
my heart well-released,
have said this.


Notes

1.
According to the Commentary, this was the Buddha's message to Kisa Gotami.
-- "Kisagotami Theri" (Thig 10), translated from the Pali by Thanissaro Bhikkhu. Access to Insight (Legacy Edition), 30 November 2013.

If that does not go down well, rest yourself in the Parable of the Mustard Seed.  The mustard seed is an exalted vehicle in almost all "inspired" books of the major religions.  And I know my evening's roundabout journey has come to a good pausing point, because I am COMPELLED by the universe, or my own love of spicy life, to allow the mustard seed expansion beyond Parable Fodder, courtesy of Serious Eats:

Unless they're added to a pickle brine, mustard seeds need to fry and pop in hot oil to release their full potential. In quick stir fries, toss them in oil with finely minced aromatics like ginger and garlic. Just make sure your oil is hot when the seeds go in—if they heat up with the oil, they're likely to overcook and burn without popping. When the seeds start popping, I put on a lid till they down, then add more ingredients to cool down the pan. Don't keep the lid on too long though, as mustard seeds can burn quickly. If this happens to you, don't sweat it, but you may want to clean out your pan and start again. Burnt mustard seeds taste a little like motor oil.

With Indian curry-style dishes, I enjoy mustard seeds in concert with cumin, asafoetida, coriander, fennel, and curry leaf (though not all necessarily at once). You can fry these spices together before adding wet ingredients. Or, if making a lentil dish like daal, you can use mustard seeds as the foundation for a quick tarka. When the soup is just done, fry mustard seeds and some other spices in some hot oil, then spoon the mixture over the soup in bowls. It's like a finishing drizzle of extra virgin olive oil or a fresh pat of soft butter, but pungent and spicy. Don't limit this technique to Indian dishes, though: it's the best soup trick I know, hands-down.

Okay, all you sweet'ums out there, back to parable time for these precious little bits -- the traditional story of Gotami and the Blessèd Mustard Seed, unfettered by commentary (but still... a translation, and a reworking into verse):

Skinny Gotami & the Mustard Seed
by
Andrew Olendzki

After flowing-on for a hundred thousand ages,
she evolved in this Buddha-era among gods and men
in a poor family in Savatthi.
Her name was Gotami-tissa,
but because her body was very skinny
she was called 'Skinny Gotami.'
When she went to her husband's family,
she was scorned [and called] 'daughter of a poor family.'

Then she gave birth to a son,
and with the arrival of the son she was treated with respect.
But that son, running back and forth
and running all around, while playing met his end.
Because of this, sorrow-to-the-point-of-madness arose in her.
She thought: "Before I was one who received only scorn,
but starting from the time of the birth of my son I gained honor.
These [relatives] will now try to take my son,
in order to expose him outside [in the charnel ground]."

Under the influence of her sorrow-to-the-point-of-madness,
she took the dead corpse on her hip and
wandered in the city from the door of one house to another
[pleading]: "Give medicine to me for my son!"
People reviled her, [saying] "What good is medicine?"
She did not grasp what they were saying.

And then a certain wise man, thinking
"This woman has had her mind deranged by sorrow for her son;
the ten-powered [Buddha] will know the medicine for her,"
said: "Mother, having approached the fully awakened one,
ask about medicine for your son."

She went to the vihara
at the time of the teaching of dhamma and said,
"Blessed One, give medicine to me for my son!"
The master, seeing her situation, said,
"Go, having entered the city,
into whatever house has never before experienced any death,
and take from them a mustard seed."

"Very well, Sir." [she replied],
and glad of mind she entered the city and came to the first house:
"The master has called for a mustard seed
in order to make medicine for my son.
If this house has never before experienced any death,
give me a mustard seed."
"Who is able to count how many have died here?"
"Then keep it. What use is that mustard seed to me?"
And going to a second and a third house,
her madness left her and her right mind was established
 — thanks to the power of the Buddha.

She thought, "This is the way it will be in the entire city.
By means of the Blessed One's compassion for my welfare,
this will be what is seen."
And having gained a sense of spiritual urgency from that,
she went out and covered her son in the charnel ground.

She uttered this verse:
It's not just a truth for one village or town,
Nor is it a truth for a single family.
But for every world settled by gods [and men]
This indeed is what is true — impermanence.

And so saying, she went into the presence of the master.
Then the master said to her,
"Have you obtained, Gotami, the mustard seed?"
"Finished, sir, is the matter of the mustard seed" she said.
"You have indeed restored me."

And the master then uttered this verse:
A person with a mind that clings,
Deranged, to sons or possessions,
Is swept away by death that comes
 — Like mighty flood to sleeping town.

At the conclusion of this verse, confirmed in the fruit of stream-entry,
she asked the master [for permission] to go forth [into the homeless life].
The master allowed her to go forth.
She gave homage to the master by bowing three times,
went to join the community of nuns,
and having gone forth, received her ordination.

It was not long before, through the doing of deeds with careful attention,
she caused her insight to grow... and she became an arahant.

-- "Skinny Gotami & the Mustard Seed" (ThigA 10.1), by Andrew Olendzki. Access to Insight (Legacy Edition), 30 November 2013. .

BRAINPAN Bam ba lam...

I'm easy today.  In a hard way.  In a don't-mess-with-me kind of way.  Were you here, and don't you wish that you were?  Were you here, you'd observe, however, a laughing, Buddha-belly-rubbing me, full of cogent witticisms, and a wild overflow of Acts of Kindness. No, I don't expect that my Acts of Kindness will tip the Scales of My Personal Justice Plasticene Statue, mostly because, Hell, the scales are made of Plasticene.

Which brings this celebration of incomplete sentences and thoughts -- much of that lack done as an Act of Kindness toward vous et envers toi, usted y tú, toward the formal and informal, the plural and the singular, the public and the very private, and the greater sin of needing to throw off, burn, and bury the ashes in a truly leak-proof, environmentally perfect, sealed drum.... of those things that are now fiercely private but in need of the fresh air of a gentle, compassionate revelation.  Which brings this celebration of incomplete sentences, thoughts, and diring [neologism du jour], daring challenges of hidden derring-do to its natural first break, a celebration of the "tangerine skies and marmalade skies" that go so naturally with the "Plasticine porters with looking-glass ties" -- words that have been drumming an old beat in the Very Best of My Beloved Readers' brainpans since today's first paragraph.

* Wikipedia admonishes, in its Plasticine entry:  Not to be confused with Pleistocene or Industrial plasticine ["mainly used by automotive design studios"]

Plasticine, a brand of modelling clay, is a putty-like modelling material made from calcium salts, petroleum jelly and aliphatic acids. The name is a registered trademark of Flair Leisure Products plc. Plasticine is used extensively for children's play, but also as a modelling medium for more formal or permanent structures.

Take a few moments to dance -- horizontally or vertically -- or to sway -- sinuously or to some personal sassified jazzy beat -- with Lucy in the Sky with Diamonds:



[The Beatles, written by John Lennon and Paul McCartney for the group's 1967 
album Sgt. Pepper's Lonely Hearts Club Band.]

Picture yourself in a boat on a river,

With tangerine trees and marmalade skies.

Somebody calls you, you answer quite slowly;

A girl with kaleidoscope eyes.

Cellophane flowers of yellow and green

Towering over your head;

Look for the girl with the sun in her eyes,

And she’s gone.

Lucy in the sky with diamonds!

Lucy in the sky with diamonds!

Lucy in the sky with diamonds!

Ah...

Follow her down to a bridge by a fountain,

Where rocking horse people eat marshmallow pies.

Everyone smiles as you drift past the flowers

That grow so incredible high.

 Newspaper taxis appear on the shore,

Waiting to take you away.

Climb in the back with your head in the clouds,

And you’re gone.

Lucy in the sky with diamonds!

Lucy in the sky with diamonds!

Lucy in the sky with diamonds!

Ah...

Picture yourself on a train in a station,

With plasticine porters with looking-glass ties.

Suddenly, someone is there at the turnstile:

The girl with kaleidoscope eyes.

Lucy in the sky with diamonds!

Lucy in the sky with diamonds!

Lucy in the sky with diamonds!

Ah...

Lucy in the sky with diamonds!

Lucy in the sky with diamonds!

Lucy in the sky with diamonds!

Ah...

Lucy in the sky with diamonds!

Lucy in the sky with diamonds!

Lucy in the sky with diamonds!

To keep things as kaleidoscopic as possible, here are the words that Merriam-Webster's online site lists as rhyming with "brainpan." Take this offering, those of you who do not know the beauty of Lucy sparkling in Botticelli's half-shell of a heaven, those of you who are still, despite this deficit, also Very Dear Readers. If you feel excluded from the Reader Types being celebrated today, rejoice in the knowledge that Google's beloved animation celebration department partied down a few days ago in honor of John Venn's 180th birthday. Familiarity of, and inordinate fondness for, Venn diagramming are prerequisites for any True Reader of This Blog.

A Venn diagram or set diagram is a diagram that shows all possible logical relations between a finite collection of sets. Venn diagrams were conceived around 1880 by John Venn. They are used to teach elementary set theory, as well as illustrate simple set relationships in probability, logic, statistics, linguistics and computer science.

Ready, set, rhyme!  BRAINPAN Bam ba lam...

adman, Afghan, aidman, ape-man, Bataan, bedpan, best man, Bhutan, birdman, boardman, boss man, brogan, caftan, caiman, cancan, capstan, captan, caveman, chessman, claypan, clubman, Cohan, cooncan, corban, cowman, Cruzan, C-Span, cyan, deadman, deadpan, deskman, dishpan, divan, doorman, dustpan, fan-tan, Fezzan, fibranne, flight plan, flyman, FORTRAN, freedman, freeman, frogman, gagman, game plan, glucan, G-man, Greenspan, hardpan, headman, he-man, iceman, inspan, Iran, japan, Japan, jazzman, Kazan, kneepan, Koran, Kurgan, leadman, liege man, life span, liftman, loran, madman, main man, Malan, Mandan, man's man, mailman, merman, Milan, milkman, newsman, oilcan, oilman, oil pan, old man, one-man, pavane, pecan, plowman, point man, postman, Poznan, preman, pressman, propman, Queen Anne, ragman, rattan, reedman, reman, rodman, routeman, Saipan, salt pan, sampan, sandman, saucepan, schoolman, sea fan, sedan, sideman, snowman, soundman, soutane, spaceman, Spokane, spray can, stewpan, stickman, stockman, straight man, straw man, strongman, stuntman, Sudan, suntan, T-man, TACAN, taipan, test ban, tin can, tisane, toucan, trainman, trashman, trepan, triptan, Tristan, tube pan, unman, vegan, Walkman, weight man, wingspan, wise man, yardman, yes-man

Why yet another post full of snark?  Well, one thing is that I managed to sync my entire music library into my relatively small, yet disturbingly faithful, mp3 player, which promptly ceased to function, forcing me to recall which songs were a true solace in the night and which were just ear candy.  That I was forced to do this by the criterion of megabytes and the tempering memory of hearing each song through cramping, seizing legs hips hands... and the pure fun of tossing the little music machine in the air every few minutes as proof positive that the memory was no memory at all but a real function of my reality.  Better, Grasshopper, to toss the mp3 player than the hot mug of coffee.  Now snatch the damn pebble from my hand spastic hand.

For that bit of mental evil, I made myself create a batch of lucious baked goods for Fred's Congregation of Mostly Fiery Aging Militant Lesbian Existentialists.  And for the Carteresque sinning in my heart that occurred while soaking the prunes in ancient brown-sugared rum?  I made the Hang-Over Gang coffee, taking individual orders as though they amounted to Divine Dicta -- which, of course, given the circumstances, they did.

I know you, vous, tu, tú, y usted, as well as I know you, you, and you over there hiding behind the Ray Ban Wayfarers and the frail, chipping diamonds on the soles of your old Italian shoes.  I mean, Buongiorno, amico mio, but, really, closed-toed Italian shoes require socks, temperate socks, of the discrete sort, and long, not those screaming fantasmini, intemperate things that women used to call "footies."

But perhaps I stray?

No, I don't.  I am just giving you set-types the chance to make a fun array of Venn diagrams. HiLArious allusions to meld, from many cultural highs and lows.

Synthesize away.

My smiles don't reach my eyes.
My Kind Acts leak the last of their kindness not long after conception.
There are no solutions to some problems that are not the answer of Nature -- not heartless, cruel Nature, but balanced Nature. Just excise my soul.
My tears reach my smiles and sweeten the savory items from my ovens.

I set out to make incredibly healthy muffins at 4:30 am yesterday.  So tired that I rested my head on the hot stove top -- believing the best muffins to be, um, *flash*-baked, I had cranked up the heat.  Even pre-heated my muffin tins and set off two fire alarms.  Which probably saved my forehead from second degree burns. Incredibly, due to the fact that I closed doors and room dividers before taking a cane to the offensive safety devices, the Domestic Staff did not spring into the Bucket Line to save the Manor, but slept on, in peace.

Marlinspike Hall was smoking.

Recipes are not loved when I bake, and even so, I am remarkably successful.  Yesterday, I decided to cook with tea.  Chai tea. I saw a tin, I recalled the smell, I despised the acrid smoke of pre-production, and dumped it into what seemed, anyway, a too wet batter.

They're amazing.
Sustaining.
Prunes, raisins, oats, oat bran, a secret dried ingredient from a pilgrim known to rivers.
Moist. Yogurt. One huge freaking Jumbo Egg. A Szechuan-peppered hint of cream. All overmixed, by design, by inexplicable need.  They were half-cooked by the friction of my mixing, my beating, my scraping and stirring.

They're a blessing, but we're about out, and I woke today... Well, I woke like this post. Un-Venned, running from what I know to be true, hating the blending and compromise, no matter how well it works under reforming fires. I am not excited by what is the same, by what is shared; I long to keep the greater circle intact, impermeable.  Take me before the circles' skins are white-board fodder, collections of sets and hemmed-in relationships. Subsets smother.  Universal sets reek of desperation.

 Drown me in The River.

© 2013 L. Ryan

"I slept in two hootches two stories tall..."

My Dad died last July 3, and I cobbled all of the below together on July 5, and whatever it is, it isn't my usual.  It's a classroom report, something to cut and paste on those posterboard set ups they sell kids who have a presentation to make.  It's pure as gold and it's pure crap, both.  Anyway, it's draft clean-up time again, probably the quickest road to fallen pride, if not humility, that I know.

"Better late than never, though there's nothing much wrong with 'never,' really..."
-- My Family Creed

******************************************************

G'morning, Faithful Readers.  Probably one of the most important, or influential, times of my father's life was as a co-commander of a base in Viet Nam.  We'll call it PRAB because that's what they called it.  I know only a few things about what happened to him and to his men and to his enemies and to the civilians he overflew there, and these memories are filtered through a kid's desperate desire to not understand, so I'm posting, instead, photos from that time and place.

Also, I found a neat archive of a guestbook where USAF personnel stationed at PRAB left a word or two.  It's a place of considerable understatement, which jives with my lifelong experience with The Colonel.  You had but to look in his eyes -- and who could do that for longer than two seconds? -- to see that he would never ever speak to you, or anyone, about what happened to him and to his men and to his enemies and to the civilians he overflew there.  Anyway, I do know that we heard some FUNNY stories about purported antics committed by Our Colonel.  A few were corroborated with photography, some with involontary snorting, and there are a few that I think were just made up.  It's apparent from the entries at the online guestbook that humor was a Saving Grace.


My biggest challenges were getting 
throttle actuators for the J-85s and Type II cleaning
solvent for docks so they could clean the R2800s.
Depot never could get the actuators and they
finally broke the solvent problem by getting it in
Singapore instead of a stateside depot. Also, we
had quite a time getting straight brooms so the
crew chiefs could clean out the cargo bays after
hauling elephants, nauseous native personnel and
leaking diesel fuel bladders. Flashlight
batteries were a problem as were the cargo
rollers. Other than that, a piece of cake.

shop area at PRAB

My first night on base was the night we 
had a mortar, rocket and sapper attack. A bomb 
loaded F-100 was hit below the tower and tower
personnel could be heard on Giant Voice telling
someone to get them out of there. The next
morning at Security Police building, all the
failed sappers were laid out for photographers
to take their pictures. Not a good night for
Charlie. As I remember, a K-9 alerted to the
attack before Charlie could make it to the 

flight line.

Panoramic PRAB

I volunteered to go to Vietnam. I
believed it 

was my duty and the least I could do. 

I met a 

great bunch of guys that loved to drink J.B. I
lived on cans of pineapple slices because I was
always hungry. Worked on the F-100's and the F-
4c's. I loved the Aussie B-47's especially when
they started up with the cartridges. Really cool
looking. I have some old slides of the guys and
the field. Remember hitch hiking and taking the
bus down town and getting some barbequed dog.
Really tasty. lol..

 Movie theater area. Movie Projector shack is
on the left. Movies were projected onto the side wall of the
inflatable warehouse. 

 I was crew chief on F-100D 56-2911. 

Had "Ding How" painted on the nose. It was the 
Sq. C.O. acft "Buzz Sawyer". We lived in tents, moved

into hooches and wooden barracks were being

built just before I left. 

I painted several sleds with 

nose art. Sure 

wish there were pics of them now. 

Often wonder 

where the old aircraft went and 

all the guys that 

crewed them. Its been so long now. 

All the pics 

I had from that era have been lost but sites like

this bring back so many memories....

I retired in 79 and went to the wilds of Maine

where I could enjoy mountains, four seasons,

trees, wildlife and escape the roar of the J-57.

Phan Rang is actually composed of twin towns; Phan Rang and Thap Cham. It is a small town on the coast with its main attraction being Cham historical remnants and towers in the surrounding area. The Cham Empire thrived in and around Phan Rang from around the 8th century its fall in the 17th century. The Phan Rang region is very dry, as it manages to avoid the summer and winter monsoons. It averages only 60cm of rain per year. The immediate area around Phan Rang is very beautiful and is interspersed with grape gardens and is the home of the best dragon fruit in Vietnam.

The main attraction in Phan Rang is a small group of Cham towers which sit by the roadside 7 km on the road to Dalat. These towers were built in the early 14th century as Hindu temples during the Cham Empire. They have been beautifully preserved. The towers were named after the King who invented a system of irrigation used in local villages. As the tourist buses from Nha Trang to Dalat pass through Phan Rang, the Cham towers are seen as a convenient place to take a break along the way. The result of which is that the towers are periodically swarmed by travelers heading north and south. In the center of the largest temple is an ancient linga (phallic symbol) with a human face painted on it. The other towers still retain their beautiful shapes and the carved details are clearly visible.

1000 lb bombs ready for loading

I remember when we were infiltrated in Jan and 

then in Feb 69 by CHARLIE. If I remember

correctly an F-100 and a B-57 were damaged.
The Super-cops shot I think 11 VC and then
displayed them in the parking lot in front of
the BX. One VC was a barber who used to cut my
hair at the barber shop.

"Viet Nam Baby Lift," Wayne Day

I was an aircraft Loadmaster on the 
Bookie Birds. I arrived from Travis AFB, CA where I flew 
on C-141s and after leaving Phan Rang went to
McGuire AFB, NJ, back on C-141s. Went back to
Travis in 73 and retired in 76.
Lot of memories GOOD & BAD. Few scary occasions. 
Always looked for and counted bullet holes upon 
landing back at Phan Rang.

Members of No. 2 Squadron’s Australian Airfield Defence Guard (ADG)
prepare to fire on suspicious movement while on patrol outside the perimeter
of the base at Phan Rang in 1969.

 I slept in two hootches two stories tall no air conditioning
in a 2 man room. Next moved to new 35 AMS
Sqadron hootch 20 rooms open floor plan 2 people
per cubicle that if you slept in the top bunk and
jumped out of bed you hit the two lockers that
were a part of the room. Where was the air
conditioned 2, 4 and 6 man rooms...hmmm? Dusty
yes NCO club yes, Airmens club was pitiful.
Entry to down town Phan Rang banned so Dodge
City was the primary choice of recreation to the
Airmen. Mayor of Phang Rang was the reason for
banning visiting the city do to Pathet Lao,
Chicom and NVA activity in the area. Someone
asked the question someplace about getting hit
with rockets and mortars. 1969 Phan Rang by
number not volume beat out Da Nang meaning we had
more weapons dropped on us than they did and I
can testify to that in that working graveyard
shift a month didn't go buy where I didn't find
myself in the bunker next to the 35 AMS building.
One last thing the 3rd snack bar was next to the
hanger across the street from the AMS building
had the worst hamburgers in the world. After 6
weeks and Mess Hall food they tasted pretty
good!

When Dad had things he thought were "heavy" to explain, I was always summoned to the Master Bedroom, my stepmom usually intensely, obsessively engaged in the application of moisturizer to her face, neck, arms, and legs.  We were supposed to pretend she was not there. And so we did.

He asked me if I knew the story of Washington crossing the Delaware, and though I did not (I could, however, reference several paintings of that watery passage, with Washington idiotically standing upright in what looked to me like a rowboat) -- I nodded an assent.  Then came the brilliant segue, that to this day leaves me aghast and close to drooling:  "Well, what if no one had volunteered to row the boat?"

That was his way of explaining that he'd been assigned to go to Vietnam.

The emphasis on volunteerism was a nice touch, especially since he certainly owed no service time to that war, having flown in it and around it for many years already.  And especially since he fought his superiors tooth-and-nail in an effort to get them to tally his air time over Vietnam, Cambodia, and Laos and *then* dare to tell him he owed a year "in country."  Didn't flying "hospital" planes, heavy lunky dumpy planes, didn't flying the wounded out to Clark AFB for medical minsitrations count for something -- flying low, flying invisible, in one of the heaviest planes in the world -- so deft a touch, so one with the mission, keeping it light so the nurses would not scare, an Albert Schweitzer of the air -- was that all for naught?


The year and a few months that he was gone were the best years of my fucked-up family's life, and I felt ashamed for every day that I was happy.


The day that he came home, I broke my stepsister's hair dryer, and was so afraid of starting out his return in trouble that I gooped it back together with some inappropriate glue and when it wouldn't stick, I hid it.  When my StepMom drove the car into the driveway, and we all stood there, in a line, waiting, mourning our days of freedom fun, all I could think was "I broke her hair dryer and now I'm going to get in trouble." Look in the eyes, and bullet understatement trouble.


What you don't understand is that I was never forgiven for anything I ever did wrong. Never. Not for a broken hair dryer, for not eating my eggs, or for the most horrible sin you can imagine.  Wrong was wrong, and wrong was not forgiven.


When he got out of the car, he looked like he needed us.


His head was shrunken, all bone, all old. His eyes looked too big for that shriveled face.  And his voice cracked.  "I'm home," he said, his voice cracking, and he cried.

The Contest FAIL

I was "filming" to enter a contest for which there was a $300 prize (I've never entered anything but poetry contests, a few of which I won). I was getting ready to create the movie by "splicing" the vids that were strung together, when it occured to me to read the small print on the contest...

And, of course, it ended last December!

Well, that eliminated the work of cutting up all the separate videos and so I stopped making nice-nice for the competition, and made this version, mostly for Fred and my enjoyment. The music is by Yoga Tribe, "Bombay to Santa Fe."

Please ignore the scratchy sound of my voice... I've been a little under the weather. [insane cackling from the STILL-IN-BLEEPING-WITHDRAWAL moi]

Some observations: 

The cats are -- in age order, descending -- Marmy Fluffy Butt, Dobby the Inimitable, and Buddy the Kitten.  There are times we cave, completely, to Feline Antics.

You might need to pause the oh-so-stellar vid to see that Marmy continues to scare the shit out of Buddy, particularly today, since she tried to kill him just minutes before this chef-d'oeuvre was created.

Dobby is clearly a Feline-to-Human Ambassador (and he's a bit more like his old self -- he has been very depressed since we lost Sammy last July -- me, too);

And, lastly, ummmm... This is clearly not Marlinspike Hall.  It's one of the out-buildings on The Manor Property.  Yeah, that's it!  It's a crowded, cramped, and cramp-inducing, badly constucted renovation of Ye Olde Haddock Barn[e]. [insane cackling from the STILL-IN-BLEEPING-WITHDRAWAL moi]




As all the TV chefs say at some point in their famous lives, "Today I have made for you a lovely marinated bit of fluffy video... Please enjoy!"

The one where reality lives up to expectations...

A short post, and an odd one, but I need to do it.

(Is it terrible to be terrible?)

(Yes.)

Following Sammy's death, an internet troll decided to separate me from the herd, decided to be lioness to my nervous, flighty, incompetent gazelle.

We both visit a certain website dedicated to... well, a fetish. Not a fetish that would cause you to gasp or make milk go up your nose, no... more of a common fixation turned art project, if you will.

A minor, not major, fetish.

And that's minor as in "inferior in importance," not "underage child."

Why, look! I am sweating bullets.

As always happens on sites dedicated to x, y, or a minor fetish, an actual community has evolved midst the serious virtual business of reviewing videos and talking shop. It's not a warm and fuzzy nuclear family; No, it's more of a dysfunctional and fuzzy one.

Holiday gatherings are just a scream.

The gentleman who runs the site established the usual area in the back (behind the stacks of cardboard boxes and piles of mostly empty paint cans and ancient twined-together newspapers), where regulars and irregulars, alike, can vent about almost anything. And so we do.

And so I did. I began a thread about Sam-I-Am and as time passed and he became so ill, I revived the thread to share the sad news of his final illness. It helped, in a small way, because as diverse a crowd as it is over there, people are dependable. Folks love their pets, and such simple commonalities transcend politics and all our other contrived differences.

(Are you still with me?)

The pointy-nosed skank of a troll just couldn't stand it.

She suggested that I donate Sam-I-Am's body to a vet school, ridiculed my grief for a pet, and asserted her image of me as a dried up old lady prune presiding over dreary afternoon salons.

To her friendly comments, she attached, for my viewing pleasure, a video of a feline necropsy.

Truth be told, my only response was a fairly clean-burning anger and a clarified vision of what she must be like. I have managed to hold that anger in check while "in public." In private, I have longed for a few minutes alone with her, a meeting that she would not leave unscathed. (Okay, so maybe she could beat me to a pulp with just the tip of her long, forked, wicked tongue... On the other hand, I have no compunction about running over her flabby ass with my wheelchair.)

In high school, I dissected a cat, and while I wish there had been a fetal pig option, at least I cannot be shocked by the sight.

I said something terminally witty, something along the lines of how she needed psychiatric help. So original! So scathing! (And yet, so true...)

Then I decided the SheTroll could serve as helpful antidote to the poison of our loss. When my sorrow reaches the Point of Emotional Silliness, I only have to imagine her fetid breath, her previously-referenced flabby ass, and her sociopathy to bring me back to Sufficiently Grounded Reality.

Then, too, I thought to employ some of the maturity and smarts people keep insisting I have on hand, and try to let it go. (No, not "let go and let God..." -- just "let it the hell go...")

It turns out, of course, that people, especially fetishists, are just lovely. Yes, you are right -- I've been tackled by that punchline before and doubtless will again.

When I checked my box at the hoodoo voodoo site yesterday, I was heartened and touched by the expressions of juju sympathy over Sammy's death from the gathered brethren and sistren.

There was universal disdain for the necropsy-nattering troll, and I felt much better about things.
Not about Sammy, about *things*. Fred and I both burst into unexpected tears, mostly as we witness the grief of the remaining cats -- and no, it is not our anthropomorphism in play. All three are greatly altered in their behavior and are clearly bringing forth their curiosity, sadness, and confusion.

Anyway, as to the reason I am writing, and you are reading... THIS? I just opened another bit of mail over at this site, from a member I don't know well, but who has always been very nice, and often funny. She enclosed a link to a 2008 news article published in the UK's Independent, saying that she just wanted to share in the great gulping laughter she experienced when she initially discovered the article -- which features none other than our own beloved troll.

Troll extols herself as an academic, perhaps a researcher, touts having "worked with" Margaret Mead and other tossable names -- most recently, while analyzing moi-même, she pronounced herself a therapist. She's a swirling dervish of an expert in everything.

(Funny, in what proved to be a not-far-off impulse, it went through my mind that she was more likely a Dominatrix for Droopy-Diapered Adult Babies... that seemed both more her speed, and definitely more her crowd.)

It turns out she's a Phone-Sex Operator*, recasting herself as Scheherazade.

Oh, my heart is light, my laugh is gay, and Sammy, somewhere, is chirping himself into a good, long purr.

THE TROLL, PICTURED ABOVE, DESCRIBES HERSELF:
I'm 60 years old, have a BA in cultural anthropology from Columbia University, and I've been married for 25 years. I have a son in his last year of college who lives at home. He's a double major in English Literature and Religion. Men call me for an infinity of reasons – but mostly for what I call 'Executive Stress Relief'. It's not sex; it's a cocktail of testosterone, fuelled by addiction to pornography, loneliness, and the need to hear a woman's voice. I make twice the money I made in the corporate world. I work from home, the money transfers into my bank account daily. I'm Scheherazade: if I don't tell stories that fascinate the Pasha, he will kill me in the morning.

From the news article's introduction by Catherine Townsend:
When I see the late-night ads for premium-rate phone sex lines featuring nubile, tanned young women, I get curious about who is actually on the other end of the phone. Like many people, I sometimes imagine that she's a bored housewife, moaning and calling herself a "naughty girl" while smoking a fag and doing the ironing.

But whether they are working in a packed call centre wearing headsets or from home wearing lingerie, phone-sex operators (or PSOs) are as diverse as the callers. I can definitely see the appeal of wanting to make money from talking dirty, like the Americans pictured here in Phillip Toledano's compelling portraits. But these women (and men, some very successful PSOs have been boys with high-pitched voices!) have to do so much more: they have to morph into a role that is part therapist, part sexual surrogate. They also have to improvise and create multiple personae in order to play the submissive secretary, the naughty nurse, the adult baby, the porn star or the barely legal teen girl.

Our Vaunted Troll was also noticed by some of her fellow Columbia alums, over at the Columbia Bwog (the 24/7 blog incarnation of The Blue and White, Columbia University’s monthly undergraduate magazine). In the comment section after the blog entry entitled, "You, too, could be a phone sex operator," a few salient points were raised, as in: Is there even a major available at Columbia in cultural anthropology? Given the Vaunted Troll's age, might not her Columbia have been GS or Barnard? (I'm sure Barnard collegians everywhere are delighted by the suggestion.)

The most repeated comment, though, was a request for "eye bleach, stat!"


* Some of my best friends are Phone Sex Operators.
** Unfortunately, just a few weeks after this post was written, I had to leave PTZ for good... driven off, not by a skanky PSO, but by something even worse, a skanky moralist -- a woman prone to fits of pique and fixated on "hating" me (her verb choice -- and we honor her verbal decisions because she is a... writer. Mwa ha ha! Snort!). 

The photography that accompanies the article is exceptional, and was published in book form by the artist, Phillip Toledano, in 2009.