in my upstairs bathroom.
It looked terrible,
and beside I had bought the replacement
over two years ago.
and out goes the toilet
as well.
i look for hotels
in Chiang Mai
(Thailand baby!!)
and I delete a number of my former blogs
from the blogosphere.
and so
it flows.
I read a small passel of my poems and recent aphorisms.
I get a rush of applause.
i also read three good poems
I find in a collection of poems
Ode to the Cold War
by Dick Allen.
(I am deciding I will only keep those poetry books
where I can find at least three poems
I would be willing to read to people.
afterward
I go over to Tom's house
to discuss life, love
and his upcoming trip to Beijing.
at night
I have a nice phone conversation
with Ian.
We talk about how my divorce from Peggy
and how we subsequently handled it,
affected him.
(a rambling statement)
I have been writing a daily blog since early 2002.
Today is blog number 2899.
When I first started writing, the Internet was still fresh and somewhat open. It seemed to me to be a place to establish new conventions of honesty and communication. Since I had always railed against the hypocrisy on boredom of my surrounding, the phonies and the mindless small-talk, I thought that on my blog I could casually post my feelings and descriptions of things not talked about, like masturbation, a certain sexual edginess and mine and other people's deeper feelings. And the world would change. :-)
I also wanted fame. Perhaps I would be discovered as an outstanding writer/thinker who could contribute his part to the greater dialog of intellectuals. I would have a following.
This did not happen. Here is what I have found:
I am not all that creative. I am capable of a few good aphorisms and poetry, but I have failed repeatedly trying to create a larger philosophical works or to write a novel.
I did not achieve fame, just some local notoriety. My blog is read primarily by people who know me.
"Build it and they will come." is bullshit! It's all about marketing, cross-linking, selling yourself — all the things I have spent a lifetime successfully fearing and avoiding.
While I seem willing to talk about almost anything, other people have never been comfortable having their feelings talked about on a blog. It has been a thorny issue in my relationships. I should have listened to my own aphorism: If you want to tell the truth, write fiction.
So I have cut back on what I talk about, honoring the feelings of those around me.
I lost my job because of this blog. Twinatya's ex-mother-in-law combed through the thousand of posting, picked out the most extreme comments, and forwarded them to my (ex)boss. He took offense, especially at several remarks I made that criticized his leadership, and saw this as an opportunity to fire me. Sigh. (Still, losing my job has enabled Twinatya and I to move forward together faster and closer.)
Yet I want to blog. I have remarkable staying power on this. I will not/cannot stop blogging. It is something I do not fully understand.
Perhaps I am still too stubborn and stupid. When I was in charge of the Yale Philosophy Library in the Sterling Library in the 1970s, I posted a quote from Donald Bartheleme on the bulletin board, that rung a warning bell, even then:
"Bill will you begin. By telling the court in your own words how you first conceived and then supported this chimera, the illusion of your potential greatness. By means of which you have managed to assume the leadership and retain it, despite tons of evidence of total incompetence, the most recent instance being your hurlment of two six-packs of Miller High Life, in a brown-paper bag, through the windscreen of a blue Volkswagen …"
"I wanted to make, of my life, a powerful statement etc. etc. How this wrinkle was first planted in my sensorium I know not. But I can tell you how it is sustained."
"How."
"I tell myself things."
"What."
"Bill you are the greatest. Bill you did that very nicely. Bill there is something about you. Bill you have style. Bill you are macho."
Snow White
New York: 1967, p. 159
So I move and stumble onwards. My blog is still something that gives me great pleasure, and an education. I never know where it will go.
Just writing this has made me want to rework my blogosphere, clean it up, and maybe try using Twitter as well.
(Sigh.)
knowing that as humans, our understanding is limited and necessarily incomplete?
again.
a busy day
full of chores
and tasks
and kids
before i met her
I would never have thought
I would become drawn to her family scene.
Surprisingly, I am.
is this an
avuncular spirit
rising to the surface,
or have my years working at the school
addicted me to the
directness and simple clarities of the young?
sigh...
Like so many things
about our love,
I do not know.
I learn.
my stairs.
(That only took me four years.)
the accomplishment
at night
I drive over to Hayden
to see the lovely if tired Twiantya
and her family.
a good time
in the happy turbulence.
the kind of relationship
I shouldn't even bother
to hope
to get.
finishing my stairs
and building a new bench
for the front yard.
i have no great thoughts
but the work takes my mind
off that.
neither is it not a feeling.
mood piece
that I am not getting unemployment.
- I was outmaneuvered by the school's lawyers
- it be that I did not legally deserve to get unemployment compensation
- I was confused at the time, and I could have made better choices
- I did nothing wrong
- I was treated in a shabby manner by the District for which I had worked over fifteen years
- I was probably fired because of vindictive Tim did not like me. Perhaps I triggered a vindictive inability to deal with criticism of any kind. Perhaps he did not like my criticisms. Perhaps he wanted to save money.
- Terry should have done better by me
to spend a lovely afternoon
with my woman
and a lovely evening with her family.
Our weekend trip
(growing more amazing in hindsight)
has drawn us even closer.
i have been surprised
by the things in our relationship
I did not think I would want
but which I find I do want:
Her family
in all its tender complexity.
And sitting next to her on the couch
watching the movie Cars
(which I saw for the first time last night).
Short of changing human nature, what might an all-powerful god do to create peace among all the peoples on earth, who have been fighting among themselves throughout history? After all, of we go with the concept, we have an all-powerful Go now, and his words and deed have failed to create universal peace. [ MORE... ]
by an arms race
— with nobody
(or with everyone in the world.)
(Everyone except yourself of course; you are always a victim.)
I wish they would show an equal enthusiasm for the right to bear brains.
abstraction
I keep working on projects
and mulling over my failure to get unemployment.
before i worked in public schools
I was a big supporter of public schools.
Now I don't know what to think.
I am not so much for No Child Left Behind
as I am for No Child Held Back.
I honor any school that can do that.
mood piece
Working is a good way of not thinking.
I need to let my loss of unemployment payments
percolate through me.
i need to work towards
a new financial accommodation
as hope of a windfall evaporates.
luckily i can also escape
into Richard Russo's wonderful novel, Nobody's Fool.
and
I get a lot of work done on
on my list of house projects.
"It's the trouble with getting old and sick," he said. . . "There isn't much to do but think."
... Peter couldn't make his mother happy or content anymore than Sully had been able to all those years ago. Still, it now seemed cowardly that Sully had not tried harder, endured more. It was one thing to realize you were shoveling shit against the tide, another to give up the enterprise before you got soiled. Especially when, in other respects, you intended to keep shoveling shit against other tides.
Richard Russo
Nobody's Fool (1993)
There is no way we can know what has happened to people, so we create an abstraction, reduces history to a simple scenario and call that the truth.
(Still, some simplification better than other ones.)
I have time to feel
- what a wonderful mother Twiantya is, and
- a sadness that our magic weekend is coming to an end.
constantly, effortlessly between
- love
- family
- spirituality
- music
- practicalities
- appreciation.
attend church in Pullman,
where her son plays (a sweet guitar) in the Worship Team.
although often criticize
churches for being afraid of others people
with diverging views
I realize I myself am guilty of precisely that
finding myself here in a modern fundamentalist church.
So I open my heart
to accept all the goodness
and the high ideals
that draw people to church in the first place.
the first thing
is to stop seeing if every statement
is true or false.
Instead take it in the way it can be true
(enough) for me,
or even as a song.
when we come home
after a wonderfilled four-days
there is a letter waiting for me
telling me I lost my unemployment appeal.
I will not be getting any unemployment.
who can sit with me
insode my happiness?
Twiantya can!
mood piece
of musical immersion.
i come to the conclusion
that these are the best musicians in the world
in terms of dexterity, knowledge of their instrument and creative inventiveness.
nice day
we bathe in the musical experiences open to us
at the festival.
the night concert
is amazing.
The theme is the roots of jazz in spirituality.
Cyrus Chestnut plays music based in gospel music
but as he shared in the afternoon
he has been listening to Beethoven an Chopin
on his iPod,
and that shows up in his music as well.
he is followed
by Dee Daniels
leading a 100 person gospel choir
in an amazing experience,
unique in my lifetime.
after the break
Taj Mahal begins a sweet set
but my mind protests
this is not jazz!
My mind misses the complexity.
After a few songs I resign myself to enjoying the enjoyable
and complete a lovely day.
mood piece
for our first day
of morning-to-night music.
we talk
and love incessantly
and share the appreciation.
the night concert is
the Clayton Brothers Quintet
and The Pizzarelli Family with
John and Bucky Pizzarelli.
photo
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I have my unemployment appeal hearing.
Within a week
I will know
one way or the other
and leave this behind me.
the phone-meeting
is at two P.M.
I was hoping the school would not show up
and I would win by default
no such luck!!
they show up with a lawyer, the superintendent
and two other witnesses.
they probably pay more
for this defense than they would have had to pay
for their share of my unemployment payments.
This seems uncharitable.
the process takes a hour
Their case is that I resigned (or was fired)
for cause.
My case is that I resigned in lieu of being fired
for a comments I made on my private blog
that disturbed my superintendent.
i think i made my case
but the process is intense.
I cannot stop thinking about it.
Reflecting on how I could have stated my case more forcefully.
in the late afternoon
Twiantya and I drive down
to the Lionel Hampton Jazz Festival
in Moscow, Idaho
for four days and nights
of always-incredible jazz music.
tonight I am blown away by:
the Gerald Clayton Trio.
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