flash gordon's got nuttin on me

Here I am flying to Texas and using wi-fi..in a few years this will seem so yesterday but today I am a little mindbent. chatting, blogging, studying in my course, even looking up research..everything works but skype. so why can't we find a cure for AIDS or a vaccine for HIV...why can't we get rid of the continent of plastic in the middle of the ocean? are we truly entering a modern time even as we step backwards in time in our political world. what happens in a world in which technology goes so quickly that colleges can't get professors who know as much about it as 15 year olds? and at the same time Haiti and Pakistan flounder in cholera and misery from their floods? i'm looking around the airport in Atlanta, a city with a very high proportion of minority residents and yet I see a sea of white and nearly white faces. is this because the haves and have nots are becoming further and further stratified along color lines? thoroughly modern are we as the things that truly matter recede into the dark ages and silly blogs go shooting across the universe at the speed of...what?

insomnia

starts with a dream, building pressure, speed, strangeness, peaks like a bubble bursting and I wake up. 30 minutes figuring out what the dream was..one song playing over and over and over, pictures swirling like confetti of images round my brain like McIrney's peruvian footsoldiers stomping round and round. then the snoring next to me kicks in and 30 minutes trying to shove earplugs in tighter, turning away, poking him finally a break in the snores and quick now try to sleep and the cat takes a crap in the next room and I can't block out the stink so head under the covers, crick in my neck turns into pain down my arm now it's 30 minutes later and I wander upstairs to sleep on the couch but now it's 30 minutes later and I have to get up in a few 30 minuteses and I give up and look at the pictures on my phone. so I turn off the alarm that never had a chance to ring and go see if anyone is on skype...or facebook..and fall into my blog. so now you know.

RIP Paul

A boy died this week. no he didn't just die, he killed himself. he hung himself from a tree. I had him in my art therapy class a couple of years ago and saw his drawings and long stories he wrote to go with them in his journal. he was very quiet but you could tell how smart and creative he was. and also you could see how sad he was. and very cute with his amerasian face smooth and golden and his beret and ruffled shirt. was he questioning or was he a trend setter or was he much more than either. he did not want to talk about his father or about home but he would talk about his goal to go to college. he was taking a community college class but he wanted to really go to college. and he did. he got into suffolk and moved into a dorm. he said he wanted to even join a club in college. but then he died. we don't know what went wrong. maybe he was sad all the time even when he was looking to all of us like such a success. how can we know what to look for when our young people seem to be succeeding but are really hiding sad sad inner lives. there may not have been any way of knowing paul would kill himself. but there may have been someone who guessed. I wonder what needs to happen so that when you guess, when you have a feeling someone might hurt themselves you, we can jump and help in some way. tell others. raise a red flag. hide all the rope and guns and pills and bridges and tall buildings and cars and knives and keep the children alive. please let me know. please let everyone who knows people who might be sad know what to do and how to know. I sure don't know, no know no.

fuzzy head, quiet night, the UD

Munir Bashir's Art of the Ud plays softly my head winds down.
study, stress at job, eyes straining at the little screen, twitching eyelids.
all can drift a tiny bit for a few hours now.
the sweetest time is night when
work is done
a wonderful book awaits
all is quiet
I can lie down and let it drift
for a short time.
right now no responsibilities find me
right now there is no job
there is no class
no assignment
right now only the ud
and i
slowly
softly
wind
down

post brain burn

what is a headache anyway? it wants to rule your day, infect everything in it and color it lime green and grey. So why can you meditate it away but one edgy sound and it comes screaming back? i thing it starts with a pinch, then travels up a snag and settles in where there's a cramped hollow. You have to be very careful to keep everything perfectly even and alligned with no rough edges. everything in soft focus peach with rounded sides. no sharp corners. maybe with warm water poured all over. slowly slooshing back and forth with low slidey melody slooshysliding back and forth over the eyes and the back of the head and around and up again. or ice pushing at the pulse points and numbing the eyes and neck and cooling down all the thoughts and feeling until numbbbbbbbbbbbbbb and all better. until the next snag and pinch and sharp scuttle.

letting go

rather than fix, release. rather than manage, let go. I am not able to change others' behavior so i have to change my reaction. backing up, letting go, releasing. observe rather than judge. allowing the natural interaction to solve itself and set itself right may work for today. releasing power will give power to all.

going away

tim in santa fe max going to burning man molly in Philly I'm taking off and driving to PennYan. where? Penn Yan. my home town for 9 formative years. to swim in the lake, talk with old old friends, remember the country side that is so familiar it feels like breathing. the rolling hills and vineyards. the people who never left. the ones who work in the salt mine. the president of the class working in the salt mine. everything the same but nothing the same. I'll drive all alone with my audiobooks for 7 hours, wonderful way to go on a long drive. hope my hip doesn't hurt.
use this time to relax and forget the nagging annoyances of everyday .things that seem so important until you leave. get things in perspective. it is not important. going where the air quality is always good. even in august.

I'm running away from chocolate..wherever I go it's there lurking..up a pound, down an ounce. really good intentions, best of intentions..it lasts until the least tiny weeny thing makes me tense and I HAVE TO HAVE CHOCOLATE....wait 15 minutes. how bad is 12 mini Hershey bars? really. just skip a meal right? eliminate everything except chocolate..and a smoothie in the morning. would that not be healthy? nah myoho renge kyo. yumyumyum

so tired. wrangling with numbers and fitting them into acceptable categories until the fed lady says ok you're fine. fries my brain. a client came back after a year. life falling apart. sad and glad to see her sad about the life. meet them where they are. that means everyone. even if irritation and frustration are blocking the door. keep the impatience from short circuiting communication. but new roses, cat mint, a tree..something asian, and black eyed susans cleared the clouds away and set things right again. then thai broccoli and brown rice settles it down. trashy book to clear out any heavy thoughts and pretty soon I can go to sleep and then start all over again. better than the alternative.

thinking over the tea bag simile maybe mud comes closer. swimming through mud. trying to understand each other.

what is?

perception of reality, we all have this in our heads like a wet dense tea bag filtering everything we hear. we can't hear any other way but through the combined knowledge that is our history of experience. so if I say blue you picture your blue. my blue is different. if I say you look rested. you hear, was I looking stressed? the only solution is to listen real hard and then ask questions. what did you hear me say?it is so much work to sort out all the muck we wade through just to hear each other. i want to start over clean and fresh. morning yoga cleans the mind for a few minutes but by the time I drive to work and walk in the door I am back to hearing through my old wet tea bag.
once in a while we can really hear each other. I don't know why this happens, maybe when I am really relaxed, let down all my defenses and just listen. nothing to gain or lose. just be. very hard to do.