joe.

Today, an article titled, “Why Saddam Hussein lied about Iraq’s weapons of mass destruction” appeared on the Christian Science Monitor’s Global News Blog. I immediately smelled a rat. The smell got especially strong when I read the part about how Hussein believed Iran “will be a greater threat” in the future. How nice of the doomed head of state to play into the hands of his murderers so neatly.

Hussein may have been a monster, but he was the head of state of a sovereign nation which we illegally invaded, and no one in Iraq is better off now than they were under Hussein. Arguable most Iragis are worse off. Frankly I don’t see a lot of distinction between Hussein and George W. Bush. Except Hussein is dead.

Back to the article. The only good rats are dead rats, and the rat I smelled is not dead; it is the NSA, the National Security Administration. I am sure they will read this before anyone else, because no one else reads what I write here. (Jeesh, the things you have to do for readership!)

I left a comment there, at the Monitor’s blog site:

Not that I would ever be suspicious of a project called the National Security Archive (smirk), but isn’t the real issue the unconscionable manufacture by the US of disinformation, codified as ‘intelligence’, with the treasonable intent of justifying a criminal war?

The story of Hussein’s handling while in US custody is undoubtedly an interesting one. Unfortunately the custodians of that information are cold-blooded liars. The Monitor would do well to keep that in mind when reporting information obtained from them.

They post comments only after review. We shall see if it gets posted. (It probably will.)

This is the most egregious example, that I can imagine, of the axiom, “the winner gets to write the history.” To the careful observer it is a cautionary tale. The rats intend to overthrow Iran as well.

Since my paranoia-addled mind is convinced that they will find a reason to lock me up, is there anyone out there I can rely on to uphold the truth? Is this why desperate people, feeling truth has forsaken the world, appeal to something other-worldly for aid; God help us? Isn’t there someone here who can help us?

Isn’t it us?

Maybe my paranoia is not a delusion.

There is a woman sitting in the doorway at the back of the house directly opposite my kitchen window. She caught me staring through half opened blinds at her. It is after 6:00 PM, and I still had not changed from my bedclothes. Slowly, I closed the blinds.

Maybe someday I’ll know that this isolation is unhealthy. No. I know that already. Maybe someday I’ll know better than to accommodate this loneliness, maybe I’ll flee from this urge to isolate every time it returns, having learned, by then, where it inevitably leads. Assuming, that is, that I survive.

Yesterday, at 1:45 AM EDT (or 6:45 AM UTC) the Earth reached the point in its orbit where the inclination of the North Pole toward the Sun is most extreme. From an Earth-centric perspective, the Sun has moved as far north as it will this year. Today the Sun begins its long journey south, and the days in the northern hemisphere begin to shorten. Likewise, today is the shortest day of the year in the Southern Hemisphere with days steadily lengthening until midsummer returns there.

I find it curious that the Summer Solstice here is the Winter Solstice in the Southern Hemisphere. Or that the Summer Solstice occurs twice every year—once in the north, and once in the south.

Everything is meaningless. Everything is an aching endless agony of unfulfilled desire.

Not much time. The chemical restraints are tightening, the floors and walls are doing a slo-mo undulation. Light and dark are trading costumes. And everybody’s cool. There’s a tiny Philharmonic Orchestra playing just under the hum and whoosh of the A/C and the computer fans. You can’t hear it unless you listen carefully, and focus on it.

The roses, a few, are in full bloom; several hanging very near the ground, and an occasional one about midway on the bush. None on the tops of the bushes are blooming, but everywhere are dozens of splitting buds. Nearby, the rhododendron stands embarrassed by the youth of the roses, its own lacy pink garments lying torn and soiled on the ground beneath it, like delicate silk panties at a rape scene.

I have to get up early to start capturing these once-a-year beauties which will only bloom this week, and then they’ll be gone.

When I start to brood over what to write here, I never get started. Saying so gets me started.

I never read. My ever-soothing friend Lynne says, “That’s OK,” and then says (I can’t really remember) something about how most people don’t, or how it is not really necessary, or something just generally soothing. But I still think I should. Read.

I buy books. Usually something fad-y; a physical health or emotional health book, an obscure book related to an unusual incident, or several books on the revision of prehistory. But I never read them. I can’t find any classics in my house, and only a few by writers I like—Mailer, Capote, and maybe one other. Those I have read.

I know about The Lord of the Flies, and even handled a copy in high school, and actually started reading it but never stayed focussed long enough to finish. I did read The Hobbit, and J. R. R. Tolkien’s subsequent trilogy, Lord of the Rings, long before those novels became a novelty. No Shakespeare, no poetry–though I do have two ancient books of poetry of unknown provenance into which I have fallen entranced once or twice. And magazines, like books, I buy but don’t read. Though I was getting—and reading—National Geographic for a couple years. I’m almost ashamed to admit that.

Which, as always, brings me to now. I am semi-stupefied from having taken an Ativan last night. Likely the reason I was so slow getting started up at the top there. Ativan, the insidious chemical soother. It makes going gently into that good night as easy as pie. Just another reason to both love and hate it.

There is a precious discontent, an anxiety about all things—whether it be not reading while one has time, or not socializing when one has the chance, or anything to do with living for that matter—that is both ally, and enemy. I have an anxiety disorder but I think that is a misnomer, as it really is a resistance to anxiety that is the problem. If one sits in the street, one feels anxious at the approach of traffic. One focuses on only the anxiety and wishes for it to go away. Failing relief by death, since traffic stopped, one now becomes the object of the great consternation of many who have been inconvenienced. One focuses on the resulting anxiety and wishes for it to go away. Police come. They yell loudly. One’s anxiety increases even more, and one wishes it would all go away. One covers one’s face and curls into a fetal position. One is picked up by the police and removed to jail. One’s anxiety increases.

A patterned response to anxiety develops in which anxiety initiates a paralyzing fear which, in our little vignette, worsens the situation, increases the anxiety, and perpetuates the cycle. Without modification, such a patterned response can only end when one dies, though it will probably not cause that death. But when the anxious one dies, who will know? And will not the end of his agony be a relief not only to himself, but to the whole world as well?

Anything is possible. But what is likely? A fly stuck in a glass of milk swims around, claws at the glass wall, might get a wing free of the sucking surface tension. He might even, miraculously, fly free of his doom. But most likely he will die, drowned in a sea of nourishment.

That post yesterday was not about what I wrote, exactly. It was about the ecstasy of walking onto the beach, after the ordeal, not dead. I had responded effectively and intelligently–cleverly, even–to the anxiety of my near-drowning. What an exhilarating joy, not only to have survived, but to have joined in intimate battle with anxiety, my perpetual abuser, and won.

I have spent my entire life avoiding conflict, hiding, isolating, and letting anxieties dictate my inaction. Unfortunately, it is not a life and death kind of conflict, for if it were, I would have handled it promptly and without hesitation. Instead I am this; inactive, avoidant, and un-actualized. Something is lacking, and I don’t think I need to be in a perpetually life-threatening situation to be cured. Indeed, the cure is to find a cause for action that is something less than life-threatening.

Still looking.

So much for writing a little every day.

I have been intractably depressed for ten days. I am not managing life very well–and have not been, for many years.

I picture a surfer on a medium-sized wave, his movement is swift, but not heart-stopping. He has control; he seems happy. I see myself floundering in the froth of a breaking wave, not far from the competent surfer, not moving any faster than him, but flailing about, and headed for the rocks.

I got caught in an undertow once at Hampton Beach. The livid panic was amazing. The beach there at low tide is shallow for quite a distance. I was easily a hundred yards from shore, but even at that distance, the water was only just up to my neck. I had been hoping to body surf in some of the waves, which were considerable that day, and were breaking at about that distance from the shore. The first wave I chose to ride tossed me up–which is the joy of body surfing–but then under when it broke. I was swept away, literally, by the massive flow of water near the seabed and caught in the churning caused by the inbound breaking wave and the outbound receding flow. In the moment of hesitation between the two conflicting flows, I was barely able to get a breath before I was flipped under and tumbled by the next wave.

The first time this happened, I am sure I thought my desperation was embarrassing, but that I should probably move a bit closer to shore. By about the fifth time I was sucked under, my desperation was in earnest, and it was clear I was moving much further out, into deeper water. If I had the breath to call for help, I would have. But I was being so frequently overwhelmed that survival lay in being seen from shore, or saving myself. Since rescue was not assured, I resolved to save myself.

Standing on the seabed is what got me into trouble, with an inbound flow near the surface and a ferociously outbound flow deeper down. And since I didn’t know how to swim any other way, I got into a position of floating on my back, and using a modified backstroke, started splashing away from death, vaguely toward the shore.

In the dynamics of the undertow at Hampton Beach, which sent three victims to the hospital that day, my rescue was realized by simply staying near the surface. My feeble swimming efforts helped, but honestly, swimming was just something to do while I stayed out of trouble, which was deeper down.

I took a picture of my belly.

Now I have thought—for the longest time, it seems—that my fattness is a recent development.  You know, one of those vague assumptions you make about reality that is far from it.  Like the mildly hot (and significantly younger) coworker who you think might be interested in you.  Not reality.  Or the jeans you order online that you were sure would fit…

Although, from wearing pants with less than adequate waist accomodations, I have developed a figure similar to that of a black ant.  Like an ‘8′ with arms legs and a head.

Anyway, back to this picture.  Reality is neither cruel nor kind.  Ditto for Time.  They are both abstractions, in a way-out-there sense.  I’m not being facetious.  What we call Reality is really the sum of our perceptions; same for Time.  So, pictures, in the way they link a particular image with a moment in time, are neat little documents of perception.  This picture of my belly I thought was recent.  Since I took it, it has been hovering in the back of my mind, untethered from time, as if I was trim not long ago.

Thinking about it requires that you insert huge amounts of time which you hadn’t acknowledged were there.  Like, I obviously didn’t gain that weight overnight.  So, there was a while that I was fat even before the picture was taken.  And the picture, so recent in my mind, is over 17 months old.

Everybody sees me, except me.

Why?

I am considering taking a photo of everything I eat. Kind of a phood-o-log. Maybe it will embarass me into dieting, or maybe it will escalate my self-contempt to a satisfying crescendo.

What else would I do? I’m a ‘rich’ American. Clean water everywhere. Lots of food, so much food, we call it junk. Lots of safe shelter, personal space at home; so much space that I fill it with junk.

We can do anything artificially. It’s being genuine that is the challenge. We are like rare and finely crafted musical instruments, once in perfect tune. Now, padded and put away, to be ’safe’ (or something) our opiated haze (whether or not due to actual opiates) leaves us blazé, out of tune, and out of play.

Or, to switch metaphors, we float in quiet pools of water, perfectly neutral in temperature, under a sun neither hot nor dim, caressed by whispy breezes that are exactly as warm as our skin, and we have some pleasurable diversion nearby to relieve us of any effort whatsoever—in my case a silken-skinned pool-boy to fetch drinks and swat flies. And smile at me.

How about a little genuine desperation? Or some effort at least?

I like to dream. It is when I wake up that anxiety starts. I suspect anxiety is merely a symptom of un-exerted capacity, the result of a neglected effort, the natural effect of artificial living. The remedy which springs to mind is physical exertion, like chopping wood, or climbing mountains. But that is not all that is missing. We are not that simple. We have minds and intelligence, and awareness of ourselves and the world: I am fat; the US is a terrorist state; I don’t need all these toys; oil is running out; my life is limited. And so on. These perceptions suggest to me—and sometimes demand—certain actions on my part. These perceptions are not always clear about what it is I need to do, but they are insistent that I need to do something. What to do exactly is for me to decide. Sigh.

I find that something sweet usually makes the feeling go away.

There. I wrote a little. Maybe, if I keep this up, I will eventually get sick of this babbling and finally write something meaningful.

California Supreme Court upholds Prop 8

I don’t know what to say, it’s all too painful to talk about. Besides, Keith Olbermann said it better than I could back in November.

Thank you, California, and your people, your court, your government and your churches. Without you I could have forgotten that nothing guarantees justice. Nothing. Neither courts nor constitutions, not promises or even laws can ever assure us that justice will prevail. Unless we are ever vigilant, and unfailing in our efforts to make it happen, then justice will fail. It’s opponents are legion, and never before have I seen them so clearly as in the breathtaking victory they won on behalf of narrow-mindedness and fear.

Bravo, California! I once dreamed of going to you, on a kind of coming-out pilgrimage to the Castro. But now, you make me proud that I live as far from you as possible.

Writing is bad. Doing is good.

I write.

Somebody I know is CouchSurfing, so I visited the site.

You know, there are two things; one is living, and the other is being alive. I do the latter, just being alive. It seems to me that CouchSurfers do the former, more active of the two, living. Or, I should say, Living!

I moved this site recently, and as a result I have been rereading a lot of old pages I have written. All I can say is it is all seems as close to dead as one can get without actually dying. With that as preface, I stumble on to the CouchSurfing site. I visited a bunch of profiles, lurker-style (without becoming a member), and realized what I guess I have always known; there is a world out there, a life worth living, and people, people, people, all beaming and exuberant and generous and alive! And I am deliberately avoiding it all.

I was going to call these CouchSurfers fearless. But that implies that fear exists. For them—and I know because I was like them once—fear is insignificant. It is essentially non-existent in their lives. As I contemplate what I would be like as one of them, I realize that in that transition, fear would go out the window long before anything else, the very first thing, really. It is an essential requirement of the kind of life they live, that fear be given no quarter, because there is too much of everything else. There is no room for fear.

This is not to say they are reckless. Recklessness and fear are not opposites. In fact, if one retains one’s fear, then recklessness is the only alternative to stagnancy. No, CouchSurfers use care and common sense and intelligence in their exploration of the world and new relationships; in fact, CouchSurfing is predicated on an open-mindedness that precludes fear and requires the involvement of the intellect. You don’t just need a couch to CouchSurf. You need to be a whole person. And that is its siren song for me.

In my lurking at couchsurfers.org, I searched for couches in my area. Just to gauge the local involvement in CouchSurfing. No one in Worcester Massachusetts. A few in my hometown of Northborough. Several in Shrewsbury, next door to Worcester. I imagined joining CouchSurfing. And as an introduction for one just emerging from pathological isolation, like me, I imagined making arrangements to surf a nearby couch, like, in Shrewsbury. I fantasized that my CouchSurfing host, probably used to hosting foreign travelers, would be surprized I would be visiting from so near as Worcester, only a few miles away. Of course, for me that would be essential as a first excursion; I could bail-out if necessary and go home. In addition, such a local excursion would almost certainly force me to explain my reasons. When I played out the scene, alone at my desk, I became very choked-up while describing to Wayne (my would-be Shrewsbury host) that I have spent at least a decade going essentially nowhere but the three streets it takes me to go from home to work and back. My voice became a whisper, I became so contracted with emotion. He could hardly hear me over the noise of the restaurant where we met. I described how I stopped driving and let my license expire in 1991, and thus eliminated most opportunities for unplanned travel, and began isolating in earnest. Becoming overweight further limited my physical movement, and eliminated bicycle touring as a viable alternative to having a car. And that was the story up until I discovered the CouchSurfing web site, read about some of the amazing souls there, and the lives they live. As a result, I acknowledged how fear-centered my own existence had become, and I decided to get involved in CouchSurfing. It seemed logical to be a guest first, before trying to be a host, since my isolation mainly involves staying in my house.

It ended well, in my fantasy. He was not offended for being ‘used’ by someone who was not a traveler and did not really need to CouchSurf; at least not for the usual reasons. And he was impressed by my honesty. I didn’t take it much further than just the first meeting. I think actually staying with him might have been superfluous beyond the initial ‘breakthrough’. Maybe not. And I imagined that my role as host would require that I clean out the apartment; first of all getting rid of all the junk I do not need—just to free-up the space—and secondly to make the place hospitable. It doesn’t need to be hospitable if I am living in fear. Since all I need is a hiding place, it doesn’t need to be clean. And with fear, there are no guests.

Writing instead of doing is bad. What next?

Forgive me father (or mother, or brother, or sister, or friend, or would-be lover, or co-worker, or stranger) for I have sinned. It has been twelve lifetimes since my last confession.

Dreaming last night; too much coffee too late. Old jobs, mixed with the current job, and always trying to get from here to there faster than possible on my bike. There were cute boys sprinkled throughout, all of them uncertain of my interest, while I remained implacably coy. And an old boyfriend with me in a group-session/workshop-type setting, and he wanted to have sex, right there. I was interested, but appalled. He was disappointed in my reluctance; I was afraid what the others might think. He masturbated anyway, and everyone noticed. He came; I was ashamed.

I need a mystic to guide my recovery. Not an untethered lunatic, but a teacher anchored somewhere more substantial than here. You see, I seem to just stay lost, and I understand how that might be preferable to one like me. But assuming I wanted to get un-lost, how would I do it? The only possibility I can imagine is to find someone on a higher plane who can help me progress through this arabesque maze, toward…

Where the hell am I going, anyway? Teacher? Hello…?

I’ve been rereading. Rereading me. Is that like masturbation? Or is it bad?

• 31 Jul 2004
• 15 Jan 2005
• 04 Apr 2005
• 07 Jul 2005

If I had it all organized better, not just included in my sequential archive (which it isn’t), but randomly accessible somehow…

I need a boyfriend/librarian. An archivist with youth and full lips.

Time for bed.

My last day off. This was an abbreviated vacay, sort of. Someone else would have planned a trip, or arranged a get-together of friends. I isolated, and broke a lens. But it is not the way you think. Isolating appears to arise from a negative motivation. But for me it is exactly what I wanted for these days off—I think. Except for the lens. Inasmuch as one can be sure of any motivation, I am sure that my motivation to isolate was not negative. I wanted the break to be a relief from my anxieties with daily human interaction. But I am beginning to think that I don’t really know what I want. They say that we humans came here to connect with other humans. I don’t want to do that, at least not anymore. So, does that mean I need therapy? Am I supposed to want to connect with others? Is not wanting to connect a problem in itself, apart from failing to connect?

Maybe if my job did not pit me against the worst of human nature, then I would be social-butterflying. As it is, I will be back in the throes of dysfunction tomorrow. Maybe if I were retired—or unemployed and homeless, or disabled and institutionalized—and had nothing but isolation to look forward to, then I would pine for contact. Maybe I truly do not know what I want. Maybe I am, in fact, pining desperately for contact, and am just using work-a-day miseries to divert my attention from the aching void within.

How many ways are there to lose sight? I’ve heard that everything is illusion, that we see what we expect to see, that reality is a figment of our imagination, or lack thereof. Opening our minds to see what we do not want to see, or to believe what we would not have expected in our wildest dreams to be real, that could be the path to awareness. If this is all illusion, then what am I missing? What do I not see? I mean, anything could be real, anything possible. What stories am I missing? What lives could I be living? What worlds without end?

And do I really care? That is the only necessary question. Maybe we did not come here to connect with each other. Maybe we are here to either succumb to the illusion of our own isolation, or to vigorously pursue the elusive reality that we have always been completely connected.

So, what is the way back from this oblivion? Where does one plant the first footstep on the journey to real? The answer to that begins with, and follows from, a fascination with what might be. Simple curiosity can get me started on the road to find out. But I am in love with the illusion, and at the first steep trail, or dark wood, I come back to it. I can’t count how many times I have started that trip. And the leaving and returning happens in such rapid succession that the two are indistinct. There is no clear moment of liberation, nor an awareness of defeat. Just a continuous circular dullness. There appears to be no direction out. But what else might there be?

Pick anything. Anything at all.

Settled in at the new web host. Still not sure about the move. It’s like moving to a new apartment—it forces you to review all the accumulated clutter. Of course, in the decidedly un-methodical way in which I conducted the move, I managed to copy stuff from my local backup that should never be accessible on a web server. But my local backup is the digital landfill where everything from my site (that I cannot bring myself to delete forever and ever) ends up. I also copied the old version of WordPress to the new server. It was a mess, but I am done crying over broken lenses and the frustrations of dis-connectivity.

I’m sure there were other—many other—errors made by me during this transition. By the way does anyone know what that row of little page icons is doing there in my “Add New Post” window? It is probably some misconfiguration the root of which I will not discover until I die.

Just now trying to upload that image, I discovered the new server does not have write access to most of the directories within my site. Every time I do something new on this server, I hit an obstacle. Sigh. It is to be expected during the transition. What I said about thinking things through is truer than ever. But I am halfway down the mountain and going 40, and now is not the time to change my brand of skis.