Well, here we go again

It is Thursday, Sept 1 and I am sure you are waiting for me to spill my guts, after 2+ years of writing nothing?

No? Well, here I go anyway, even though you have turned away.

It has been a lively and interesting 2 years, hasn't it?!?!?! Always is. You don't suppose I mean to detail every little crumb of my existence, do you? Of course not, and if I did you would probably turn away in sheer boredom, because the parts that have been so interesting are all only interesting to me.

I did go to New Orleans last October. That was super fascinating for me because I had never been to some place so "old"(as far as in America), never seen such rich and distinct culture on display, never heard "that music" in real life, and never tasted such Deep South food before.

Walking through the French Quarter is just so lively, and when in New Orleans, do as the New Orleaneans do(spelling????), so that meant more alcohol consumed in that October wedding weekend then I had drunk the entire 10 months prior to that visit.

On to other things......I enrolled in school, @ 42, after so many years as a gardener. I don't have the slightest clue as to the "what, why, how" of it all. My reasoning simply amounts to "because..........".

Archaeology and Prehistory is a class that is really catching my attention, along with Intercultural Communications. As for Archaeology: I really like the ideas of scientific processing, in as much as I understand them today. The hunt for questions about what is being observed, the periodic lack of absolute answers regarding artifacts found, the never-ending possibilities all conspire to make me want to go deeper.

All in all I much prefer the questions in life to the answers and so Archaeology is bringing to me a plethora of possibility and rich thought.

I am also pretty damned caught up with ethics of Archaeology(who owns the knowledge?), the shocking and more often than not sad history of the native peoples of this landmass before contact through today, and hoping to contribute positively to the on-going and ever-evolving discussions of the shared history.

So, how boring is that?!?!?!?!

"I don't need you!"

I am eating fresh pears and tomatoes from my garden today. The pears are falling by the ton and so I figured it would be okay to eat a few before the whole mess is rotting on the ground. The tomatoes are sadly not getting eaten like I expected, so I am doing the whole Popping Them Into My Mouth and eating them whole. it seems better than letting them drop to the ground and shrivel. A few of them are really kind of dense and mealy but most of them are sweet and juicy. It is a nice thing to have. I am pleased to have this lovely bounty.

Neobenthamia gracilis, Catasetum pileatum and Habenaria rhodocheila are all in bloom right now, with flower spikes possible on my Stanhopea ospinae as well, although it is too new a division to be blooming and having it not be detrimental to the health of the plant. I will probably end up breaking it off if it is not a new growth but rather a flower spike. Imagine getting pregnant right after having long term treatment for a life-threatening illness. It would be uber-devastating to the body to have to carry a baby when the body has been wracked with illness(we are not debating abortion here).

The garden has no need of me, save pulling a few weeds, and I am not riding this month so there is no great adventure to report...........

Once again, with feeling........

" I realized everything I believed true about my life had been a lie and a deception from stories I had created for myself without knowing it. "

Ah yes. The stories. The lies. The "needs" I have created. The misconceptions, the confusion, and from all of it the pain.

Who am I, in that world?

I am not exactly a failure but certainly not a success.
I am not well educated.
I am not young, or I'm too old now.
I am odd and bizarre in enough of a way that no one could possibly love me for it.
I am surrounded by people who tolerate me.
I am incapable.
I am lost.
I am wasting time that could be spent on something more productive.
I am not very productive.
I am smart but it doesn't amount to much.
I am wasting my creativity.
I am ultimately not lovable.
I have nothing to offer or contribute.
I am a burden.
I am living wastefully.
I am overweight.
I am messy and don't contribute.
I am guilty. WOW, That one really hit me hard. I have never noticed that.
I am guilty.
I am to be disregarded.
I am not good for much.
I'm a waste.
I'm a mess.
I'm a fool.
I'm sloppy and have no regard for others.
I am forgetful.
I have no contributions to make.

I really believe these things, more often than not, but in the quiet depths of my subconscious and not out loud in the noises of my thinking. They ooze and seep and cling to me as webbing. It seems that no matter how hard I try, they have an ever-presence and a permanence that is discouraging. The "on again, off again" methodology of these beliefs is taxing and tiring. I am surrounded by people who will tell me how untrue all of this is, but when one believes that one is unattractive, or even ugly, let's say, it is near impossible to hear the offering of good intentions of others. I have no real recourse against these things save a near daily verbal reminder to myself. That's what I have to do: step out of my head by speaking audibly to reassure myself of just how untrue this madness really is. What if all those things were or might be true? No matter what there is just no chance of answering all of that, so I just have to ask myself "Who would you be without that mental baggage, that thought?".......................

Sir, that is very dangerous weapon. Please put it down.

Am I in the dream? Am I lingering in some beliefs that are untrue? Frankly I do not feel as though either of these questions are true for me. I am definitely reactionary. I am definitely raw emotionally. There is very little that can be seen as "wrong" and yet I am obssesed with things going badly. It is up and down, up and down and yet I have nothing that is truly a problem. My future-tripping is immense though. I fear what I will not be able to accomplish, from assigned tasks to bike rides to keeping my job. I am winding myself up into a very tight ball and it is going to make me crazy. There is nothing wrong with me, my life, my circumstances, my health, my abilities, my productivity, my garden or greenhouse, my living situation, my cat, my typing, my riding, etc.......I am plagued with fear that something is going to go wrong. I am unable to identify what is the precursor to that fear. I am told that it is from believing a thought or set of thoughts that my discomfort and near-misery arises but I do not see what that thought is. I just know that anything that pops up in my head right now is filtered through the belief of failure, the destiny of destruction. It is so miserable to be in. I just keep sitting back on the couch and looking around me and reminding myself to just be in this room, with its yellow walls, wall hangings, books on a shelf, floor under my feet, windows to the sky, cats lingering in half-sleep near by. What is real are those things as opposed to the circulating fear and loathing that is swirling around inside my head. It must be recognized that I will create some destructive reality "out here" by participating in and believing in the goings-on in this head of mine. But right now I can claim the factual belief that none of that is real, none of the messages are of import. Do not "go into them" and engage the messages and try to "fix it", rather just be here in this room, knowing that what is around me is real and anything else is way beyond my understanding, influence or control and therefore must be abandoned as useless and without merit. it is simple but not easy.................

When the study of criminals becomes personal

Have I told you of the chicken that is nesting(?) under the banana tree in our front yard? She(?) has been in the exact same spot for almost 3 weeks now and I cannot imagine that she is doing anything other than nesting. We'll see what is going on soon enough I guess. right on the immediate other side of that wall is Honey, the pit bull. I don't know if she knows the chicken is less than 2 feet from her or if, perhaps, they have stricken a deal to co-exist out of necessity and in the name of peace in the neighborhood.

These are pictures of the two Cycnoches chlorochilon that have been blooming for me this summer. The top picture is the smaller of the plants that has flowers right this moment. The two pics below are of the one that had flowers in June. To me they have distinctively different sameness, as in the lower pictures are more like the "bird in flight" that so many talk about when referencing the look of these flowers. The upper plant pictured has so much more roundness to the flowers. Either way they are glorious and incredible smelling!!! The lower plant has a newly emerging 2ND flower spike, probably to bloom in September. It has just popped out

The red dahlias are just riveting, spiky cactus dahlias with lots of flowers and sprightly depths. Of course I forgot ALL ABOUT staking them, so over they toppled with the wait of those big puffy rusty Merlot flowers. Quite nice.

So I rode 38.83 miles today, in spite of it being very much later than I usually go out. I left at 5:30 and rolled in at 8 o'clock. Nice ride out to Alameda, Bay Farm Island, Oakland International Airport and down Doolittle Drive into San Leandro. Sunny and warm but west winds killing me at every turn.

When the swimmer splits his suit

It's funny how a single thing washes over me the feelings of regret, even when that regret is misguided, inappropriate, useless, not real. I pursue, at a minimal but pervasive level, a subconscious "slicefest" against myself, deepening as I don't address its violent tendencies and subliminal aggression. It is what makes me want to write. It is what makes me want to open all the windows on my psyche and air the place out. Abandon the aggression and cutting, the judgements and poor treatment. But I have to wake up and see it first. There is always a sour, painful feeling first. I look at it and ask myself "What is that about?" then I begin to unravel the half truths and blatant lies that are the food for my discontent and malice. It is what makes me miserable, what digs at me and suggests that I am no good. It has always been a staple of my life, and not in a good way. My perspective is that I am not that messed up individual, that worthless person that those messages suggest. I just have to be vigilant in this moment to challenge them and deny them the air they need to survive. It is not for the rest of my life that I answer but for right now. Who knows what will happen tomorrow? I may wake up free of the whole mess of it all. Until then, there is right now and I say "NO" to the madness....

When does it become problematics?

It's a day of remembrance, a day of washing-up memories of the simplest things. Funny how listening to a single piece of music, say, Marvin Gaye's 'What's Goin' On' reminds me of the days of working at the flower market at, like, 2 AM and Ginger, my supervisor, always played the local R&B station. Now it's George Michaels' 'Careless Whisper' and how my prom date and I danced(sort of) to it in 1986. Not "happy" nor "sad" memories, but sweet in the remembering. The Eagles 'Lyin' Eyes' was a song from an album that my mother used to put on(when she was feeling "secular") around the house, mostly on Saturdays, to fuel her cleaning frenzies. Funny how I still smell the Pine sol and hear the vacuum just now. And of course her yelling at us to clean our rooms and put stuff away when we are finished with it. She didn't devote tons of time to cleaning, mostly spastic and periodic, which is just how I am today. She's gone now and if I could just get back one Saturday morning cleaning with her, I would scrub the crap out of every surface just to have her in the same room, even if she were yelling at me. I miss her ginger mullet and need to vocally dominate our behavior as her way of trying to ensure that we turned out OK. She was doing her best, no matter how flawed. And when she played Creedance Clearwater Revival she liked to get us to dance together with her in the living room. The negative emotions and upset that we all lived through has washed away and I can sit with what is good from those days. That ridiculous olive green, heavily textured carpet in the living room was actually a good piece of vintage flooring for dancing on. She used to listen to such a wide variety of music that inspired so many different things for her, from country, to gospel to rock and roll, often would put on something unexpected to inspire something which we, as children, couldn't conceive of nor understand but were paramount to the moment for her. I often find myself doing such things too that inspire good feelings, rich and pure and quiet and personal. Things that I can write down, but to speak of these moment-by-moment reminding would be sort of boring, or hard to explain to others. I am awash in good feelings, fueled by coffee with hazelnut and good music. David Sedaris writes like I think. I enjoy reading his missives because I can clearly see the minutiae of the moment and know it is how my mind runs along around small things.