Telegram

Advent

For the most part, I abstained from telling people it was my birthday. It doesn't make the day any less crappy, but it makes me look less pathetic, at least to myself. High points: the card from Pat, the baby that was baptized, Eleanor Taylor, eye contact with D, talking rummage with Bill and Rol. Low points: the exploding pumpkin, the top-secret funeral, going home at one-thirty with nothing in particular to look forward to. But joy doesn't come on schedule, and I know there will be some for me; maybe tomorrow.
David on 11.30.03 @ 07:53 PM CST [link]

Restless

The trees are restless, swaying back and forth in near-unison, like child dancers, desperately trying to catch up wit one another. It is a vivid, mournful, extravagant, sublime, and awful display. The trees are made of earth, they aspire to the sky as fire does when the air bids them come out to play. It's my Dad's birthday, and later I'll go out with him and get away from the dance of the wooden soldiers. I'm slipping into obcurity again, and I'll have to remember to wite plainer tomorrow.
David on 11.29.03 @ 02:54 PM CST [link]

11

It is about the most Novemberish day we've had all month, and my mood is as Novemberish as it's been in a while, too. It is damp and dreary, with the promise of worse; I am enervated and jumpy, scattered and directionless. Thanksgiving was full of good, bad and indifferent input, and it's all swirled together in an undigested mess inside of me. Just like the meal. I have no insights -- November's days are thirty. Can't remember the rest.
David on 11.28.03 @ 04:31 PM CST [link]

Thanksgiving

I am thankful. And, I can enumerate many specific things for which I am thankful. But I wonder: am i thankful for the right things, in he degree appropriate to the magnitude of my indebtedness? Probably not; and in fact, I am probably most indebted to the things I am least aware of, and therefore least thankful for. So my thanksgiving prayer is: Let me give thanks for everything I should have given thanks for, and forgot.
David on 11.27.03 @ 09:02 PM CST [link]

Fragment

The natural condition of things; however long they deviate from it, they will return.
David on 11.26.03 @ 04:50 PM CST [link]

Brief Description

music: Good at Secrets, Kim Richey

Brown and gray hair, bald in front. Beard. A little below medium height, slender, good teeth. Eyeglasses (gold wire frames). Brown eyes, magnified. Band-aid on left thumb. Signet ring on middle finger (left hand); initials of grandfather: EGL. unexceptional physique. Full complement of internal organs. Toe nails need trimming. Tans in the sun, out in it too often. Slow to speak, slow to anger, under most circumstances. Bookish. Clever hands, slender fingers. Lamp under a bushel. Size ten foot. Itchy, dry skin. No prominent scars. Non-smoker, moderate drinker. Stays in most nights. Left-handed. Heterosexual but shy (single). Not much of a traveler. Hot and cold running imagination. Untidy housekeeper. Unblemished driving record. Arp, Schwitters, Braque. White socks. Red Sox (inactive). Early to bed, early to rise.
David on 11.25.03 @ 05:41 PM CST [link]

Companion

You were always with me. I saw you when I got up in the morning, in my little footie pajamas; I have fallen asleep with you. When I was sick my mother would let me see you; when something terrible or wonderful happened I rushed into your presence. The president was buried forty years ago and my memory is of you. My mother breathed her last six years ago: you were keeping vigil with my brothers and me as she slipped from this world. It seems strange, that I once went away and you weren't there: those vacations when I was a child, the times in college when I went so long without seeing you and then resumed our relationship without a pause. You have both emptied the hours I spent with you, and filled them. Sometimes I've loathed you, sneered at you, or looked on you with contempt; but I've always had room for you in my life. I'll watch you tonight, even if you have nothing on.
David on 11.24.03 @ 06:47 PM CST [link]

All men are liable to error, and most men are, in many points, by passion or interest, under temptation to it.
-- John Locke
David on 11.23.03 @ 05:47 PM CST [link]

Cynocracy

music: Deaf Shepherd

How do dogs elect their leaders? They seem pretty contented, most of the time, not overburdened with taxes, happy with the services they get... But, wait a minute, they're just unpatriotic loafers, not paying their share, not worrying over the debates and the issues, not even voting. They're just accepting hand-outs, indifferent to the plight of the nation. Or are they a fifth column, waiting, watching, eroding our society from within, looking at us with contempt as they ride thegravy train, secretly mocking our way of life until the time comes when they can take over, a coup de paw, and force us urinate on demand.
David on 11.22.03 @ 05:33 PM CST [link]

Overheard

music: brandenburg Concerto #4

She likes the harmonica; she likes the toilet: so she put the harmonica in the toilet. I have never heard of anything that makes so much sense. Thanks for the water-music!
David on 11.21.03 @ 06:21 PM CST [link]

Burden, revisited

That one was a little bit obscure. I was carrying some stuff a little too heavy for me, yesterday; there would probably have been too much wear and tear on the ears if I'd asked for help. I figured wear and tear on the body was preferable. But I enjoyed the challenge, the exertion, the chance to take a task and see it through. And then, going up the stairs, the cruciform bracing of two-by-fours on the backs of the flats, and I was Calvary. More that than anything else, I stood as the geography that bore witness to the terrible specificity of the crucifiction. Something Protestants don't usually get terribly specific about.
David on 11.20.03 @ 05:51 PM CST [link]

Burden

Is it possible that one can be uplifted by the weights one carries? The burden is easy, and the yoke is light; but there is a burden and a yoke. It's all in the lifting, the meaning of the exercise, and the laying down. Every object seeks its own natural place; it is an easier task to help it find that place than to try to put it somewhere else.
David on 11.19.03 @ 05:43 PM CST [link]

Hiatus

I like to walk to the store every morning; it's a little luxury I have gotten used to the past few years. After I've had just enough coffee to get me going, I have about an hour to kill before I have to be at work. This is enough time to walk to the store, buy a few things for the day, and get home and put them away. I must have started doing it after mom's death, when I walked a lot anyway, and was released from the necessity of constant proximity. Now it's part of my wake-up routine; the other day I suddenly realized that other people, with families, don't have this quiet time in the morning. But most people won't walk somewhere a mile away, if they can drive. Most people sleep later in the morning so they can stay up later at night. They're missing something, an extended period of detachment from the world, the march as retreat, perhaps; but I'm missing something too -- maybe there's a core of serenity in the turbulence of a life full of family, pets, and activity.
David on 11.18.03 @ 05:59 PM CST [link]

The Book of Ruth
David on 11.17.03 @ 05:45 PM CST [link]

Dear Ruth

You've been gone six years now, and I still miss you very much. It seems like my life has changed a lot since you went away, but I couldn't have done any of it if I hadn't known you and learned all you had to teach me. I try to help others all I can. I love my friedns and am interested in what they do. I wish I were better at keeping in touch with your friends and family, Maybe soon. I got a new car this year. There's a girl I like a lot. She likes me some of the time, but she confuses me, too. I think you would have liked her; maybe, even, better than I do. But one of the most wonderful things that I can think about anyone is, "Mom would have liked this person." Thanks for everything.
David on 11.17.03 @ 05:44 PM CST [link]

Kindred Spirit

I was delighted to see her. There were several of whom I can say that, today, one or two because they delight the eye and thrill the heart, and one because I am so fond of her and I never expected to see her today. She told me her daughter's getting married in January, and I sent my best wishes. She flew off to her next appointment, having made my Sunday a great deal more pleasurable, just by being there.
David on 11.16.03 @ 04:59 PM CST [link]

The Ox and the Butterfly

I put up with a lot, without noticing it too much. The coffee isn't great, most mornings, but it does what I want it to do, it gets me going. The food, nothing special, but it quiets my hunger and keeps me alive. I'll put up with a certain amount of seasonal discomfort when I'm alone; cold and dry in winter, hot and moist in summer. Not the kind of conditions I'd impose on another person. But my mind doesn't mind, and my body endures a variety of conditions in the course of a day: sometimes hungry, sometimes sweaty, sometimes sated or weary. It waits patiently for the conditions to change, as they will do. The mind is much less patient; it asks for constant stimulation and novelty, it never sticks to one course for too long, it never follows a path to its end but veers off every few minutes. The only time it pauses is when it looks at itself in admiration.
David on 11.15.03 @ 05:59 PM CST [link]

Unmade

My friend tells me he is surprised that I have no interest in making art any more. I know the circumstances that led me to stop, but those circumstances no longer exist, so why don't I begin again? I generally say that I'm out of the habit, or more precisely, that I'm into a new habit which doesn't allow for making art, and that I have no strong yearning to go back to it. I've bought supplies, I have a pad and pencil by my chair, I still look at things with an aesthetic eye, but while my mind makes these little preparations , my hand and my will do not move. I don't imagine projects any more, I don't look at art and be tempted to imitate it, or talk back to it, I express my desire to make things in ephemeral tasks: there is beauty in a circle of chairs, calligraphy in the swath cut by a lawnmower, brushwork in the work of piling up brush. The loose arrangement of stuff in the dumpster might be a collage; is it any less so because it hasn't been glued down and authenticated?
David on 11.13.03 @ 04:56 PM CST [link]

Gesundheit!

I have been sneezing. The last few days I started getting the early warning signs: I was vaguely distracted, my sleep patterns changed, I sweated and shivered and went back to normal. Then, today, my face got itchy, my nose threatened to run, and I got the sneezes. I am softspoken, but my sneeze will rattle the windows; I actually enjoy sneezing in the proper venue because the sound resounds so remarkably. I wonder how it is that we come to recognize a person by the qualities of their sneeze. Why should such an involuntary act be so distinctive? And, often, it reflects their personality: the genteel person sneezes genteelly, the slob sneezes sloppily, the inhibited person represses it. Or it reveals hidden depths, as in my case, where the pacific surface is belied by the violent explosion. Anything for attention, I guess.
David on 11.12.03 @ 06:07 PM CST [link]

Out Nights

There is so much in memory which is stored up behind a closed door, until it might as well be forgotten, until the door opens, as if by accident. Someone opened one of those doors for me yesterday, talking about her own ambition to be a victim advocate; I remembered how my mom had volunteered with the hot line for several years. I was a teenager and had very little interest, and she took the confidentiality her task seriously and spoke very little about it. She was out some evenings, how long and how often I no longer remember, and I'm sure I took advantage of the fact to apply myself to some prosaic forbidden fruits. She stopped doing it, and I didn't notice that she had. But, how much of her life escaped my notice in those days! Maybe the help she gave to someone, all those years ago, is still helping. Thirty years later, I'm proud of her for doing it.
David on 11.11.03 @ 05:14 PM CST [link]

Ordination

music: Lene Lovich, Flex

It was Kathy's big day. I had a little hand in making it all go smoothly, but it made for a long day, with a few surprises. Strangest of all was when I ran into Kathy and Peter, from rummage, at the event putting Kathy and Peter, from church, at center stage. Kathy P. had some historic papers to present to us, from some archives she'd been sorting. I introduced her to the president of the trustees and the church historian and she went ahead with her talk. It looks like rummage is going to be part of my life all year long now.
David on 11.10.03 @ 04:47 PM CST [link]

Saturday

It gets very quiet around here. But "quiet" means that the softer noises receive new prominence. How far is that leaf blower I hear humming? A goose passes over; the refrigerator and furnace make their intermittent music; the chair squeaks; the computer makes little belches and clicks. I don't have to say anything and there's no one to talk to. Soon I'll be back in the sound and fury, but for a while I'm on the bay side, listening to the gentle lap of the tiny waves.
David on 11.08.03 @ 04:24 PM CST [link]

Matrices

music: Putney Dandridge

Every machine is a metaphor-in-training; some of them we pounce upon and some we let alone. The mind is a computer, we say; why not a refirgerator? If the mind-body model imagines a ghost in a machine, why is it preferable that the machine be a forklift and not a sump pump? I declare that I am like a bread machine, that the world is an escalator, that human eations aspire to the condition of a hair-dryer.
David on 11.07.03 @ 05:44 PM CST [link]

Virtue knows to a farthing what it has lost by not having been vice.
--Walpole
David on 11.06.03 @ 04:48 PM CST [link]

More Grave Talk

music: In A Mist

If it was peace she sought, today had a little of it. A light mist was coming down, there was a gentle warm breeze, and the cemetery was spread with bright yellow leaves. All the dark suits came down the street and waited for the arrival of the casket. Haas complained, Erica looked at the tree, Bruce scowled, and the rest of them did their funeral tasks in the background. The mourners were mostly young, and shocked; one of the pallbearers wore his team jacket. They went off into the mist, and I blew out the candles and turned off the lights.
David on 11.05.03 @ 05:51 PM CST [link]

Untimely Bier

music: Bix

It took me a while to notice that the two people who died recently were younger than me. I didn't know either of them, and the fact that each had special circumstances (one, death by misadventure in a faraway land, the other, a sorry tale of self neglect...) may have led me to overlook this fact. But we turn away from this kind of truth until it becomes glaringly obvious: when all our kindred and peers are gone, and we find ourselves alone with strange people, leading strange lives, in a strange land. If we get that far.
David on 11.04.03 @ 05:14 PM CST [link]

SHADC Gala

It seems like an unnatural way to get to know somebody; you know the work first, then you meet the person responsible for it. I saw the pictures in the paper all the time, saw her at the public events where she took them, met her, met her again, and now we know each other, kind of. Last night she talked to me for quite a while,so maybe we're friends now.

It was a very confusing night, with various themes from the different areas of my life coming together in a cacophonous fugue, and I need a little distance to sort out the confusion. It takes a while for the
mind to remake a mass of intertwined threads into a seamless fabric, and I guess the way we do that is by discarding some of the threads.

Some of the food was pretty good, and I saw many of people I like a lot, and maybe that's the simple story.
David on 11.03.03 @ 05:58 PM CST [link]

For All The Saints

Church today; I've been ducking his sermons lately, and felt bad enough about it to give it a listen at the second service. They don't do much for me, and I feel I'm on pretty firm ground if I suspect that it's not my fault. They're mostly harmless, though, and I probably find them annoying mostly because I'm a captive audience. Sometimes it looks to me like he thinks "Don't rock the boat" is one of the commandments.
David on 11.02.03 @ 04:17 PM CST [link]

All Saints'

music: Rave On

I spoke mostly to him, but it was her I saw. Father and daughter, out raking leaves and hauling them to the gutter, and I stopped and called out of the car window. She greeeted me, smiled and gave a little wave. I was trying to teach myself not to love her, but I guess I flunked the test.
David on 11.01.03 @ 05:08 PM CST [link]