Transmogrification

The only way anyone ever gets close to me is through persistence. That’s how it was with my former wife … she just kept trying. Turned out painful, but my life would be even emptier without even that failed marriage. And the very few friends I have, were persistent. One just kept on inviting me to do jiu jitsu at his home. I wouldn't have done it even if my schedule had allowed it, save for the persistence. It may be that I don’t believe anyone really wants to be around me. I know, effed up. I am deeply weird, ruined really. It’s like it was on purpose. Trust is just another word for faith, and it’s because of faith that the whole world is going to hell.

These past few days I have been very productive, creatively. Many many thousands of words pouring out of me, rough draft. No promises that it will go anywhere. I’ve done it before, a number of times. I am reluctant and sheepish to say, a piece of genre fiction, re a very commercial area I have had no meaningful interest in previously.  Done to death.  It’s just the idea is so good. It’s great fun, crafting, but a massively major undertaking, and my genius does not tend to follow through with any final steps, like presenting my work to others. Part of my lifelong depression is the awareness that I have wasted my talent.

What a world, where second rate people push themselves into dominance with no talent other than a self assured baritonale voce. I would be deeply bothered by today's SC ruling re California gay marriage, Prop 8, where its defenders, of actual real non-gay marriage, were found to have no standing, and Eight is out, play-marriage is in. Not depressed though since I seem to have accepted the fact that there is no more America. The reelection of That One affirmed it, and there’s no going back. It’s one thing to be anally raped, and something entirely different to come back for more. America is a stupid perverted whore.  Amerigay.  The incest lobby isn’t yet quite vocal enough to have sibling marriage, but it’s coming. Polygamy is next.


J

Clump

I have written many things here over the past few months. Haven’t posted it, because it’s all the same, variations on a single theme, and after I write it I just don’t want to be nothing but a whiner. I’ve used these pages to vent, but this is perhaps more real, and certainly more immediate, than most of my snarky little disquisitions. I cannot walk up stairs. Well, one foot, then that same foot, and again. The right. Seems like a problem. I can’t run, can’t jump, can’t twist. Now there’s a pain in my heal, like a bone spur or plantar fasciitis or a deep bruise -- there’s a swelling. Sup the hell with that? Sometimes it takes me four or five seconds to take a step. Clump … clump … clump…. Sunday night it took about a minute to go up two steps. Had to get up the nerve. I have to hold on to things, walls and counters, like an old old man. No more jiu jitsu. Distressing. And so it goes. 

Well isn’t that dire. But it isn’t permanent. I have yet another plan. And perhaps all this will teach me gratitude.

Of course it takes an emotional toll. Have I said that I’m thinking about getting life insurance? Or was that something I didn’t post. Something like this, to a physical guy, can undermine the worldview. Pass or fail, it’s a test. That’s a good thing. I’ve spent most of my life using stubbornness as a replacement for strength. Maybe this will make me stronger.

 I have said -- although I no longer remember what I’ve posted and what I’ve merely written -- that I have good friends, but no close friends. I don’t really have the capacity for it, but I do know that to maintain, nurture friendship you need to make an effort. Social stuff, dinners and entertainments and spending non-structured time together. Like, you have to date your wife. Cuz the mundane can get in the way, and seem like what it’s all about. Cherishing her is what it’s about. Takes effort. I’m not an expert, but I’ve consolidated the painful lessons of my failed marriage, and codified my decades of observation. I’m very wise.

I hatched a scheme for Fathers Day, for a family get-together at my brother’s house, with my son and nephews etc, all to entice my own father out there, you know, so he could meet his grandkids after 20 years. The old man said no, though, so nothing. He despises his daughter-in-law. As he does, I think, all women. Well, I don’t care much for her either, but it’s just a chemistry thing. She’s okay, and good for my brother, and that’s what matters. The old man however wants everything his own way, in his fortress of a house, and I just cannot endure the thought of being trapped there with him again, the dead silence and the delusions and the vitriol. Get out of that place, the castle of doom. Thus, my scheme, which failed. So, no get-together. No matter. I’ll manipulate a Fourth of July thing, and have an invitation extended again. And again, in August, for my birthday. See what I’m willing to sacrifice? All this will be rejected. No matter. Labor Day, Halloween, Thanksgiving, Christmas. To get him out of that house, see? Foolish old psycho. It takes persistence, when dealing with crazy people.

More and more I'm forced to confront what an unforgiving person I am.  It's odd.  That's not what I'm like.  But it is.  It isn't so much holding a grudge, although, petty though that is, I think I do -- it's that when you lose my trust you don't get it back.  Logically I think I'm right.  It's just no way to live.

 There are many things to say, re current events. Oh, it would be good. But I seem to be isolating, and I’m unmotivated to continue as I have been. I have a more serious thing about half done, biblical, the sort of observations I made with poor Eli and the Ark a while back. I like that sort of structured writing, working with source material, building a picture with details. Unmotivated though. Dilatory. We shall see.

 This? This is my effort to stay in touch. I manipulated myself out of my castle of solitude, walking amongst the peasants, that they may admire and be edified. You have been told what it costs me. It hurts to walk. But that’s how I am. All noble and shit.


J

Passing

Context is everything.  What may be intolerable hoke, some other time can move you to tears.  Consider Ted Lewis, then.  Oh, you know him.  "Is everybody happy!?!"  Old-time band leader.  Al Jolson era.  Guy Lombardo style -- who finished his days, in his old age, and before you were born -- playing the New Year in.  Dick Clark took over those duties upon Lombardo's passing, and after that, uh, Brian Seacrest?  -- whoever ... pardon my disregard in the matter, usually I pay heed to heritage and lineage, but in our debased culture it's like tracking gangleaders or banana republic Generalissimos.  So, yes, context is everything.

Here, then, is Ted Lewis, 1930, speaking, singing rather, to and from another era, Great Depression, so schmaltzy it's hard to suppose it's not a joke.  But people loved it.  In the era that immediately followed, America faced another enemy -- fighting for civilization, no lie, Victory Gardens and scrap rubber drives.  Suggested national speed limit was 35 miles an hour.  Coffee was rationed, and sugar, and meat. At such a time distraction and encouragement was found where it may be.  So, here, at 19:14, the same song again, from the Fred Allen Show -- Texico Star Theater, 1943. You probably don't understand.  When the audience spontaneously burst into applause, at 20:46, well, I was moved.

Of course this was not the Greatest Generation.  Look at what bad parents they were, to produce the trash of the 60s and the vapidity of the 70s.  They did their duty.  That does not make them great.  It is merely what is expected, and demanded, and required.  They were stewards of the past, but not of the future.  They fought a delaying action.  This is the generation that tollerated the normalization of abortionism.  What greater evil could they have opposed?

If only there were easy answers.  If only sentiment could also be profound.  But we have to breathe, and that means staying on the surface, mostly.


J

SLIP

 I told her

     with firm conviction, secure,

     with confident tenderness,

that she was mine.

Had any woman ever said such a thing to me

I would have pulled her into my arms and kissed her

     with manifest sexual desire.  

I would have loved her even more,

for such words.

To be loved,

     asserted as an observation

     of adamant fact --

how comforting.

She
however

was offended.


J

Milk Cows

This is a long story. Eli was High Priest of Israel, at Shiloh where the Ark of the Covenant dwelt.  He had become Israel's judge when Samson died, in the same year that Samuel was born.  Eli had two sons, powerful priests, who by force took for themselves the meat offerings brought for the Lord, and disported themselves with many women who came to the Tabernacle. So it was with the nations and their temples, where all women were made to be prostitutes. Eli knew all this, and used only words to rebuke his sons, of which they took no notice, for the Lord desired to kill them.    

A prophet came to him and said that more than God, Eli honored his sons, making themselves fat with the best of the offerings. “Therefore the Lord God of Israel says: ‘I said indeed that your house would walk before me forever.’ But now the Lord says: ‘Far be it from me, for those who honor me shall I honor, and those who despise me shall be lightly esteemed.’” It is good to notice that hardly any promises are without conditions. “Behold the days are coming when I will cut off your arm, so that there will not be an old man in your house, forever.”

 And to the child Samuel, last of Israel’s judges, came the words in the night, loud enough to wake him by the calling of his name, that Eli’s house would be judged forever, not atoned for nor forgiven, forever. When Eli at his own command heard this from the child, he answered, “It is the Lord. Let him do what seems good to him.” It is good to accept the will of God. But had not Eli already been told that God can change his mind? It is hard to know when to be strong, and when to be weak. Curses, too, must have conditions.

 At this time, when revelation from the Lord was rare, Israel went out to war with Philistia, and the Philistines prevailed, killing 4000 men. The elders of Israel called for the Ark to come down from Shiloh, to save them from the enemy. When it arrived a great cry rose up in the camp, the men shouting so that the earth moved. Perhaps some of them thought of Jericho. Perhaps the leaders preached on it: “We shall prevail with the Lord going before us! The Ark and our great cry and the moving of the earth!”

 The Philistine army heard and learned the meaning of the noise, and they were very afraid. “God has come among them! Never has such a thing happened before! Who will deliver us from the hands of these mighty gods? These are the gods who struck the Egyptians with plagues!” Idolaters would not be clear on the details, on the history of Israel, on the theology of monotheism, but even as legend the curses upon Pharaoh were known. God had not ceased, between these times, to harden the hearts of those whom he would destroy. Free will is a matter of timing, after which it is too late.

 But God was on the side of the idolaters, who conducted themselves like men, and Israel lost the battle, 30000 killed. Among the dead were the wicked sons of Eli. The Philistines captured the Ark and removed it to Ashdod. When God has forsaken a cause, victory is the difference between weapons of iron and weapons of bronze. And the Philistines acted like men, while Israel fled, every man, to his tent. A messenger raced straight from the battle to bring the news, and the men of Shiloh wailed. Eli, blind with age, seated by the wayside, heard the cry with dread. The messenger came and told him, “There has been a great slaughter. Your sons are dead. The ark has been captured.”

 And Eli must have thought: a slaughter, but Israel will survive. And he must have thought: my sons, dead, but I have known it would come. But when he heard the Ark was taken it was too much too bear. He was a priest to whom God would not come, but he served God, and was forsaken. Eli fell backwards out of his seat, his arms flailing uselessly. He was a very fat man, and his neck broke, and he died. He was ninety eight years old, and had judged Israel for forty years.

 The victorious Philistines placed the Ark in the Temple of Dagon at Ashdod, next to the idol itself. When the priests came into the temple early the next morning, the Idol was toppled onto its face before the Ark. The priests set it in its place again.

 The Lord God does not push idols over. He does not knock down city walls, nor kill firstborn, nor bring boils and frogs. His angels do such things. There is a great war ongoing in the heavenlies, sometimes hot and violent, sometimes watchful and crafty. Lucifer, called Satan, is the leader of the rebellion, and his army is half that of the Lords. But much or most of the Lord’s army, is hard and ever at work sustaining the world, the turning of the spheres, the light of the stars, the heat of fire, the changing of tides, seasons, the growth of seed and the song of birds and the mind of bees. These things do not tend themselves. Dust is not alive and there is no intelligence in the wind by itself.

 It was the proud and least wise, but powerful, angels who rebelled -- those who by nature could be warlike. What adversary, in the earliest days, was there to contend against? The universe had been built. It was inevitable, part of the plan, that there be a rebellion. Each being has its nature for a reason, that it may be expressed.

 So the celestial and fallen army of Lucifer is more vast. The days of creation are over, and the Lord sees fit not to enhance the number of his host. He recruits soldiers from humanity, a different order than the angels, brief and frail, but God will prevail, and not because his army is larger, and not because he himself intervenes. What is it then that tips the scale? The dead are resting. Only the living can fight.

Dagon, not just an idol but an entity, the angelic Prince of Ashdod, assembled with the gods of the Philistines, all were celebrating the humiliation and devastation of Israel. They would not have expected so soon and sudden an attack. But some great angel of the lord came in the deep night, descended like lightening upon the temple and blasted the idol from its platform. Perhaps a winged cherubim, or perhaps in the form of a man, wingless of course, armored in radiance, terrible in countenance, enraged with righteousness at the affront to God’s symbol and abode on earth. Michael is the Prince of Israel, who battles the gods of the nations -- striding into the House of Dagon, sudden and unopposed, shocking and terrifying, this unvanquished force, and unopposed imposed upon Dagon his humiliation. Bow before the Lord.

 The priests came in the following morning. It was an age of earthquake and hailstones, but they did not expect to find their god fallen. A great wailing and flapping of hands, and the idol was remounted. Offerings, of propitiation and purification, of course, all day.

 That night, Michael came again to Dagon’s throne room, wherein remained captive the Ark of the Lord. This time there was a battle. In war, advantages are won and lost. How angels fight we do not know. It may be there are swords, light and fire and fear and rage, and something of spirit. What wounds these beings can sustain is not known. The nature of their power and force is outside our physical understanding. There will be laws to their metabolism. We know that demons and gods are sustained by blood offerings and by the emotions of worship. These must be a replacement of their first sustenance, and necessary after the Fall -- as parasites do not sow or reap, hunt or graze, but merely and always suck.

Michael prevailed again. He broke off the head and hands of the idol and dropped them at the portal of the sanctuary. Had human eyes seen it, it would have seemed an earthquake, the idol spilling down like Eli, forward though, neck snapping, hands unable to break the fall, snapping as well, rolling or bouncing in what seems randomness but with the inevitability of water flowing in a channel, to the threshold. The wounds symbolic on the statue would be manifest upon Dagon himself. We know such things only through symbols, and how Dagon appeared ever afterwards, bearing what wounds, we leave for his worshipers to know. But in history Ashdod of the Philistines never again prevailed.

Nations are judged through their princes. When spiritual princes are judged, the people suffer, and in Ashdod the Philistines were stricken with tumors. What plague, canker or cancer it was remains dark, but the land was infested with rats, so we may surmise. The elders believed the curse was from the Ark, and sent it out of their city, eastward to Gath. The plague grew even worse in that city, a very great destruction, and they sent the Ark to Ekron. “They have brought us the Ark to destroy us!” cried out the people of that city, and already the destruction was great. What to do, what to do. To Ekron were summoned the leaders of the Philistines, who determined to send it back into Israel. The Ark and its plague had been in Philistia for seven months.

 The Ark, so strange and deadly an object, like gravity, like lightning. The man who put out his hand to prevent it from falling to the dirt was struck down instantly, dead. God is not fair. Holy intentions must be matched by proper ritual. To live in portentous times is to be a pawn and a symbol. Because Moses had struck a rock with a stick, 40 years later he was made to die outside the Promised Land. Because Ham saw his father naked, his house was cursed. God uses men like game pieces. It must be what we are made for. That the God of the universe should dwell between the figures of two cherubim in a space two handspans wide, above a wood and golden box, among a tribal people in the hills, is implausible. Those who deny its possibility most likely go to hell.

 The priests and seers of Philistia determined to return the Ark along with trespass offerings. Their theology was narrow, as it must be, but they knew that the gods of Israel were powerful, untrustworthy, severe. Five golden tumors, and five golden rats, were cast and placed upon a newly made cart; the offerings are very logical -- gods have symbols, and the god of the Hebrews has much to do with plague. Two milk cows would pull the cart, their calves left behind in the fields. “Then watch, and if the cart goes up the road to Israel, then God has done us this great evil. But if not, then we shall know that it is not His hand that struck us, it was by chance that it happened to us.” Milk cows will turn back to their calves, unless driven by some force more powerful than instinct. Some lesson about free will, in this.

 The cows went lowing along the highway, followed by princes, straight to the land of Israel at Beth Shemosh. There the Levites sacrificed those same two cows on a large flat stone. But the people of the city had looked into the Ark. It is an understandable temptation, whereas holiness is hard to understand. Because of this, God killed 50,070 men. Plague, again, or earthquake, or fire from heaven. The times were unsettled.

 And that’s the end of the story, almost. The Ark was moved again, to Kirjath Jearim and the house of Abinadab, which the Lord appears to have found sufficient. We are told of no more slaughters.

 The priests of the Philistines knew that life is largely random, and just as the earth is sometimes but rarely upset with quaking, the lives of men are rarely but catastrophically visited by the will of gods, demons and fallen angels, wicked -- or pure, not gods but angels in direct service to God. The pagan priests determined the case of the Ark with an empirical test, the instinct of nursing cows to turn homeward rather than away. Very wise.

 In every instance we have seen, the greatest peace would seem to come from having no contact with divinities. We are not given a choice, though.  To be noticed by gods is almost never a blessing. Consider how many princes there are, and how many slaves.


J

YOU

You didn't know
   when you first loved me
   when you opened my heart
      like soft hands pursuading a fist
that I would turn my love back on you
   like a blast of fire
   like pulling a child out of a well
   like a mirror.

You didn't know that after a long life
bright with grace,
I would die in your arms
   with a smile.

Or maybe you did.


J

Greatquake

One hundred seven years ago today, the good gray city of San Francisco was destroyed, first by a long harsh moment of great shaking, then by three unrelenting days of firestorm. It couldn’t have come as a surprise. Indian legend remembers the actual creation of the Santa Clara Valley, the Salinas River plain, the Russian River, and even of the Golden Gate itself between the Bay and the Pacific. The Spaniards and Mexicans were endlessly rebuilding their missions -- there was more than one año de los temblors. Mark Twain witnessed the quake of 1865, and wrote “The Great Earthquake in San Francisco.” Another quake struck three years later, also Great. As for fire, the city burned six times during the gold rush days -- Christmas Eve of 1849, three times in 1850 (hardly anything left to burn, in that third fire), and twice the following year. Three “Great Fires” and three not-so-great fires, in as many years.

But, again, just over one hundred years ago, San Francisco was destroyed. This is not news. At the time it was the largest city west of the Mississippi, the commercial hub of the west, and its destruction virtually stopped commerce west of the Rockies. But such a thing is unlikely to occur now -- we survived, after all, the economic blow of 9/11. Most of San Francisco’s deaths -- between three- and five thousand -- were caused by the 7.8 quake, and most damage was the result of the firestorm afterward. All this has little relevance today. Our cities are built to code. Our firefighters are more than competent.

Then again, war is war. During WW II, more than sixty-five Japanese cities were utterly destroyed, including Tokyo and Kobe. Blasted from the skies. Not mere bombs -- incendiary bombs. The weapon was not explosives, but fire. Fire. Or rather, firestorm. Oh, and a couple more cities were destroyed with nukes. As much energy can be released in ten minutes of firestorm, as in the bright sheer moment of a Little Boy or a Fat Man.

When we say the Great San Francisco Earthquake, we mean the Great Earthquake and Firestorm. The Great London Firestorm. The Great Chicago Firestorm. And then all those deliberate firestorms of war -- the calculated destruction of, say, Hamburg (the fire reached a height of 2000 meters), or Dresden (over 200,000 Germans killed in that one). Not an unknown phenomenon, then.

The flames leap from block to block, isolated fires joining like streams into rivers. Temperatures get hot enough to melt glass -- to melt iron. Canals catch fire. Fleeing people sink into boiling asphalt like sloths into tar pits. Winds grow to hurricane forces as cool air is dragged in along the ground to replace the air blasting up with the heat -- trees are knocked over like reeds. Roofs are torn from their joists and combust in midair, to rain down as flaming ash, spreading more havoc. Fire climbs stone walls, crosses tile roofs and pours down chimneys like kerosene down a gopher hole. Most casualties come not from the flames, but from poisonous gases, from asphyxiation, from distant heat.

One obvious conclusion is that there isn’t a city in the world that the US couldn’t utterly destroy at will. Without any recourse to nukes. And with much less political fallout. The precedent is there, after all. Fire is natural, after all. And after all, the really evil thing about nukes is the radiation -- not a problem, with firestorm. Even total warfare need not be nuclear. This should be a comfort to all of us.

As for accidental carnage and its aftermath -- not the war-kind, which is, excuses aside, deliberate, but the Great Earthquake and Firestorm kind -- well, there are no accidents, and everything is politics. Cities change, but people don’t. Institutions change, but human nature is a constant. The fine old institution of vigilantism played its role during the San Fransisco crisis -- looters were hanged from lamp posts -- but all such charges were denied by the authorities. A sort of coup was staged, where the moneyed interests took over government from the elected, graft-driven politicos. Well, is this a bad thing? Greed is less contemptible than corruption.

After, the city boosters downplayed every aspect of the earthquake, and focused on the controllable, the predictable element of fire. Fire was, after all, covered by insurance companies. Earthquake was not. And every effort was made to frame the fire in, um, a good light, somehow. What, a great fire? Well, yes, but we’ve had great fires before. Indeed, the Great Fire of 1868 was claimed at the time to be, uh, greatly “exaggerated,” per the close harmony of SF newspapers -- insurance, don’t you know, even then … and investors. A city report on the ’68 fire was, um, “lost” … just as well -- who needs that kind of publicity?

A propaganda campaign was launched, as before, in 1906. Nothing to see here, folks. Casualties were underreported. Fault lines were no longer represented on new printings of state maps. No history of the quake was published -- a pattern, then. The city grew up again with breathtaking speed, and with virtually no regard to safety standards. Would have slowed things down, don’t you know. Bad for business.

Hm. Well, all this was such a long time ago. Hardly a man is now alive who remembers that famous day and year -- famous the way 1666 is famous, or 1871. It can have no relevance, or only a little, for today, right? After all, ninety percent of the structures of San Francisco were constructed of wood. Wood, for crumb’s sake, like what you make bonfires with -- might as well have been grass huts. And it’s not as if we’re building on sand, or landfill, anymore. Right? All things continue as they were from the beginning. Right? We're safe.

But it is a good thing, to own a raincoat. Because storms come.


J

Bomb Control

Well, no, I suppose there was a reason.  What, another, yet another atrocity?  Some asshole expressing himself via  exothermic physics and the permeability of human flesh?  Happens everyday.  Am I wrong?  7 billion people, gotta expect a few hundred million, at least, to be monsters.  American victims, celebratory and reverencing human excellence.  What better place then such, for monsters to manifest.

As for which particular monster, it hardly matters.  The more specific targeting, via firearms, of little children, or the randomish selection of athletes and spectators -- we are outraged if we let it below the surface.  As we do not let such things enter us, when the victims are African or Asian or somesuch.  Thus do we stay sane, insofar as we are sane.

Didn't I already write something in these pages, called Bomb Control?  No matter.  I await Obama to call for background checks on the purchase of pressure cookers, but that's the extent of it.  Fewer things we can buy.  That's what government is for.  It is the solution.  Freedom is the problem.  Backpack control, that's the ticket.  Nylon bag control.

Yes, I too am, well, rather inhuman.  God is inhuman angels are inhuman, animals, turns out not too many things are human, relatively speaking.  Because I have been, well, not suicidal, but closer to flat than ever before, It's hard to summon up any intensity of emotion.  I'm thinking of getting life insurance.  Must provide for my foolish aged mother, in the event that something untoward should befall me.  I hold this truth to be self-evident, that nothing is promised, or secure, or sure.  You think you are safe.  I've taunted you with this delusion on previous occasions.  But there is no safe place, thing or situation.  She can stop loving you.  They can be snatched away, accident, malice, monster, you just don't know.  Go out to see a display of human fortitude, discipline and excellence, and wake up with a leg amputated.

This is why I write so rarely, here, now.  Every day is a Boston Massacre.  I don't see the point of any of it.  Now you, dear and faithful reader, need not fret over my well-being.  Duty has kept me going, and that's a promise, for sure.  So what if or that I am utterly defeated.  It is my own doing.

Pray?  I simply don't get it, now.  Jesus no longer presents his wounds, to probing fingers.  We must find God, and purpose, and meaning, in the wounds of other victims, less holy, less innocent, but still valuable and loved and capable of raising a great cry of anguish upon their violation.

All night long, last night, I thought about the song, Ding Dong the Witch is Dead.  Mark Steyn wrote about it, as the Lefties were celebrating the death of Margaret Thatcher.  Gone where the goblins go, below, below.  Brilliant.  Let us celebrate the deaths of wicked monsters.  Trap them, kill them, have moral clarity about it.  For my part, I should hope somehow to find joy not just in grim and belated justice, but in friendship and love and goodfellowship.  Except I've been mutilated in a few explosions, and am no longer recognizable as human.

Self-centered? Yes.


J

li

im tired of loving you

ive waited for you
wait for
awaited your

touch
understanding
somewhere theres the word

smile

more gentle than touch more
precious
than loyalty

your love

my patience though
my strength hope
sand has run out

id rather no
yes
no
i see no
fast
slow

I don't even want to breathe.
It hurts to move.

You can't even
I don't want

im tired of



J

BB

I have good friends, but I don’t have close friends. People with whom there is mutual care, even love, but a superficiality of communication. I’ll take credit for that, because I am so gracious. I can’t say I’m in a crisis, because it’s been going on for a decade. My post-traumatic stress disorder. Self-diagnosed, untreated. It unmotivates me, and so there is no hope. I have called out to God, help, but I must not mean it, and he sees my insincerity. Tough love, then. Help yourself.

I have many good ideas. How about underwear for dudes with big packages? I know there are condoms like that -- the idea that one size fits all is not only ridiculous, but uncomfortable. Same deal with athletic cups -- I don’t even wear one anymore, just too dang distressing. I’d rather take the hit once a year or so, than deal with that daily pain. So my terrific idea about underwear, do you think Hanes or Fruit would be interested? I need an agent or a manager, to help me make these contacts. It’s a great marketing idea. Cuz there’s so much concern, apparently, among so many men about the size of their packages. If you have a woman who’s committed to you, then the only reason to think about your unit’s size is, what other guys think about it. Seems a little immature, not to mention gay. But human nature being what it is, I’d exploit that flaw and make a million -- maybe two. Hane’s Magnum! Watermelon of the Loom. Well, not watermelon -- hyperbole is cheap. Grapes and bananas are obvious. Pear? Guys would buy it for the label, like Gucci, regardless of fit. Yeah, that’s right baby, my unit is huge! Something you shouldn’t lie about, though, to a woman you hope to be intimate with. Be honest, or at least circumspect. I know someone who said he was perfectly proportioned. But who’s to say what that is? I think my proportions are right, but I’ve always thought that whatever I have, that’s the right way to be. Blond, blue eyes, tall, American … optimal. With public attributes we can take averages, but yer unit is like yer IQ -- sort of private. Numbers that tell you your worth. Like income. Well, something has to tell you your worth. What a world.

Do you think such trivial talk is inappropriate? -- all this blather about units? You have failed to discern my meaning. It was illustrative, allusive of my previous point. Please, attempt to follow along. If I have no close friends, no intimates, with whom is it safe to have frivolous, vulnerable conversations? You come to these pages to be edified -- I have never disappointed your diligent efforts. I do not know you, you have no idea as to who I really am -- yet I give you so much, on so many levels. Sometimes, when I dare to think of it, I am frightened by the thought that I might be understood, not fully, but sufficiently. Artfulness, and humor, and misdirection, and multiple meanings -- without which there is only direct contact. Intimacy is vulnerability, and what is childhood for, but to teach us terror. What if, in the end, we are measured, and rejected. What if that happened, already. All of life, then, is post-traumatic stress disorder.

I’ve finally noticed that my left hip is actually inflamed, visibly swollen and sharply painful to the touch. And the right glute thing may be linked to the right spinal erector, which is palpably hard and distended, compared to the left. Clues! I’ve spent this particular life alienate from my flesh, so it takes a long time to notice such things. Made it easy to be vegetarian, though. The stretching seems to be managing the issue, can’t say curing, yet, and I’ve been able to roll a little, bjj. I think aspirin is still necessary. Profoundly troubled by my bjj game. I present no threat. It’s all about not getting submitted. In other words, time-wasting. World’s worst brown belt. World’s best blue belt. And I’ve lost ten pounds. Troubling. I have serious mental issues, that leave me exhausted and vitiated, and it’s hard to workout. I need a coach. Too bad my son is so far away. Who will save me from this body of death.

I have friends, good friends.


J

Oh no, I'm still here.  And I'm writing.  Just wrote something now, that I won't post.   Dark.  Again.  It gets tiresome, and I wish not to be a downer.  

So what is there to say.

J

*Poto and Cabengo

YT

Isn't it hard? Isn't it hard, being human? Having a past? Why can't we be recreated with every wakening? Renewed, reformed, regenerated. Resurrected. Why not? Because the past is gravity, and holds the universe together.

Consider, then, Poto and Cabengo. The world would have known them as Gracie and Ginny, if the world knew them at all. But it didn't, until it was, sadly, too late. Two little girls, identical twins, born in 1970, diagnosed early as retarded. Well, not actually diagnosed. The twins had suffered violent convulsions shortly after being born. A neurosurgeon told the father that it might be years before retardation could be ruled out. The father failed apparently to hear the nuances in this communication. "A man of his standing," he said, "knows what he's talking about." And so the girls, defective, were left to the ministrations of a severe Prussian grandmother who spoke no English. Largely ignored. They were not sent to school. They did not learn to speak English, neither German.

Idioglossia. A unique and private language, rarely but usually developed between twins. We would have to assume, twins who are severely neglected by adults. It is not "twin speech," fairly common with very young twins -- a hash of idioms and slurred common words. Idioglossia goes far beyond that; it is a kind of creole, a unique language, complete with grammar and syntax and neologisms.

The language of Poto and Cabengo was a mishmash of English and German, gleaned from the impersonal and other-directed speaking of highly neglectful parents, and the German grandmother. All of whom had given up on the retarded little girls. Who used prepositions as verbs, and had 30 different ways to say potato; "pintu" (pencil), "nieps" (knife), "ho-ahks" (orange), "toolaymeia" (spaghetti -- o sole mio). The girls were listening, you see. They spoke no English. They spoke only to each other. "Poto" (Grace), "Cabengo" (Virginia).

The fact that they were of at least average intelligence is neither here nor there. The early label determined their fate. Back in the late '70s, after the girls had been "discovered" and "treated," a speech pathologist observed, "It was obvious these kids hadn't had much exposure to anything. They wanted attention." No duh. They had never seen anyone climb a tree -- a picture of this rare phenomenon provoked bafflement. With attention, their IQs moved up 30 points, to 80. Still awfully low. But it was still the 1970s.

After many months of intensive intervention, the girls were asked by a visitor if they still remembered their language. "Yes," one answered quickly. "No, you don't!" corrected the dad from the livingroom couch. "I don't know why you are lying about that! You live in a society, you've got to speak the language," he explained helpfully. "They don't want to be associated as dummies now."

The girls were born with normal intelligence. As of 2007, Cabengo worked on a supervised assembly line at a job training center; Poto cleaned tables and floors at a fast-food restaurant.

Yes. The past is gravity. It crushes us if we're over-burdened, and it keeps us from flying.

Tomorrow I'll be driving my father to some health-related appointment he has. I haven't seen him in 14 years. Should I shine my shoes? I've had the notes up for Poto and Cabengo for several months. Every time I turned on the computer, there they were. I wonder why I didn't get to it. There are a few other bits and pieces as well. Something on Prohibition. Something on the Depression.


J
moved from 12 12 09

S

Okay, so let me explain it to you yet again.  There's justice, which is an appropriate response; then there's mercy, which is an inadequate response; then there's grace, which is an inappropriate response. Justice is an equal response -- the scales balance, you get what you deserve.  Mercy is an unequal response -- you don't get the bad thing you deserve.  Grace is a non sequitur -- you get the good thing you don't deserve -- it is unjust.

Nowhere in these formulations is the idea of severity, cruelty, vengeance.  So when the Lefties object to capital punishment, it is because they have not yet clarified in their own minds the fact that there are distinctions in such matters.  They never want justice if it's a punishment, they always want mercy, and often want grace. Never/always, that is, so long as their ideologies are in play: being existentially bad, Conservatives always deserve severity.   In the instance of cold blooded murder, a life sentence is mercy, and cable television is grace.  Death is justice.  To draw such distinctions is discrimination, judgmental -- bad things, to the Left.  They must allow the child molester to babysit their children -- were they to be consistent.  But consistency limits emotion, so that's out.

I got some gossip from my former wife a few days ago.  Not from her directly -- I haven't communicated with her for well over a decade -- rather, second hand.  The world is literally going to end shortly ... but that's not gossip.  She was talking about me.  It seems that while we where married in Australia I was extraordinarily jealous, and couldn't stand her being around other men.  I was physically abusive to her. I was the one who wanted the divorce  and it came as a complete surprise to her. The folks she was staying with in America, after we were separated,  had to tell me not to come to their home to visit, because I was so out of control.  I poisoned my ... our son against her by telling him that she had wanted to abort him -- that's why he doesn't call her as often as she wants.  I completely neglected him for a number of years.  I forced him to join the army, deliberately ruining her plans for him to go to Oxford, which she had arranged.  My son is going to have to do "the work" -- expelling all the demons I put into him ... if he doesn't do it now, he'll have to do it when he's 50. I'm sure there's more, but it is of a piece.

What can I say.  It's all true.  Fortunately I have repented in the ensuing decades and am no longer a monster.  All my venom has turned in upon myself, causing me unspeakable and unrelenting anguish.   Justice, then.

Kidding.  My anguish in no way relates to my conduct or relations with my former wife. There is not the slightest bit of truth in any of what she said.  I was utterly without jealousy; this is a problem in me -- like envy from ambition, jealousy is just an unpleasant exaggeration of a healthy emotion.  I could use more ambition.  She hit me, only once, and  I didn't hit her at all.  Because I was conflicted and dilatory, she literally screamed at me, "Where's my divorce!?!"   I was friendly with the folks she lived with.  She never wanted an abortion, unless it was in her secret heart. My son doesn't call her much because she never stops talking, and what she says is profoundly negative and frankly crazy. She complained in those days that he  spent too much time with me.  It was she who took him to the recruiters and signed him up, without even telling me. My son is an admirable man, well-adjusted insofar as a father can know these things.

It must have been Opposite Day.  I heard of her gossip with detached amusement.  Bemused isn't it, because I know how she is, or was.  Well, amused isn't it either, because of the dysfunction.  She seems to be literally delusional.  This is the woman I chose, and loved, and  with whom I had a son.  The pain of that horrible relationship is gone -- regret, and well-wishing, remain.  We both had execratory judgment, in selecting the other.  I was completely unprepared to be a husband.  She feared and distrusted all men.  I don't know that I've gotten much healthier in the passing years -- I'm more mature, but wiser only through a fear of more suffering.  She has gotten worse.

I don't write much, hardly at all, of her in these pages.  Lots of complaint about my blood family, but I didn't chose them so can count myself as a sort of victim.  With her, I wish her well.  Go in peace.  Be warm and filled.  Don't want to see her, or hear from her, but may she prosper and grow.  Were I to be thrust into her presence again, I would seek to avoid it.  Were that unavoidable, I would attempt to suppress my irritation.  I'm not all that gracious, but I no longer actively look for arguments, I'm right and you're wrong ... see how much smarter I am than you.  That old Jack was a delight, for brief moments.  Hard to be married to, I'm sure.

Our marriage was justice.  We got what we created.  Move on, Sylvia.  A little mercy.  A little grace. That's the work. It's good for the soul.

I've redecided that all my pain is not a disc but a stretching issue.  I find I'm sort of lopsided, without a keen kinesthetic sense; when I think I'm facing forward, I really have my right foot two inches in front of my left.  So I'm stretching.  Some of them feel good.  My downward dog is more of an upright begging puppy, and my runner's stretch is a shuffle, but so it goes.   The Frog is what it sounds like, on yer back, heels close to backside, soles touching, knees out. An inelegant pose, and I have to visually align myself or my feet are off midline.  I sight up the line of my soles, my enormous penis, my sternum and my head, and it falls into place.  And man alive, that generic advil does wonders.  The problem is changing, evolving, not getting better yet but these things take time.  It's a process.

So: stretching isn't about doing splits.  It's about not having crippling pain because postural etc muscles have so forgotten they're supposed to be elastic that they've ceased to move at all.  Seems like there's a life-lesson in there.  I'll wait for excruciating agony to motivate me to learn it.


J

It Bothers Me

when my lip tastes salty, when my shirt has a tag on it, when my hair feels heavy, when I have crippling leg pain, when my sleeve is touching my thumb, when there is no Pope, when the inside of my nose has a smell, when Netflix is slow, because America is being destroyed, because it hurts when I try to hold fire, because Lincoln was assassinated, when my sock is on wrong, because a shoe should fit either foot, because the cat won’t let me touch its eyeball, when I have too much food in my mouth, and because I want more fingers.


 J

Two Percent

Profoundly depressed for a few days.  At least there's been something to be depressed about.  Understand, when I say depressed, I mean the term clinically.  This injury has been crippling.  I've been crippled before, as with that knee thing some years ago, where I needed a cane for a time -- but that was a thing with a cause.  This has been out of nowhere.  Finally deduced that it was a disc issue, and that felt like an unjust judgment from God.  I did not lift anything carelessly.

This evening I was at 98% though.  Felt very good.  I took half an advil 3 hours prior, so that's a confounding factor, but at least there's cause for optimism.  I can feel good.

Now all I need is an attractive woman who wants to have a lot of sex, and I'll finally have no cause for complaint.


J

Dogs

Lustful thoughts?  Me?  The idea is both ridiculous and offensive.  I am past and beyond all of that, that, well I can't thing of a word to describe how uninterested I am in the entire subject.  Perhaps you think you know otherwise, from the many humorous references I have made in these pages to the copulatory process with its concomitant body parts and fervid emotions.  You have missed, of course, my satirical intent.  God gave us sex that we may know how absurd life is.

That being said, there's a pretty young woman I have a little bit of a crush on.  Not even a fantasy, surely, but it's amusing, how true to form we human males are. But, I mean, the mechanics of it, it's practically impossible to imagine such a thing, not that I would, imagine it.  I'm so much older, and so much bigger than she is.  Like a, uh, Pomeranian

with a Great Dane   

Fyi, my penis is much bigger than the one here depicted, so you begin to apprehend the dilemma.   There are many riveting and engrossing things to be said on the matter, but I will refrain in consideration of our more delicate readers.

I'm too old, frankly, for a young woman, and the older ones are spoken for or, well, they've let themselves go.

The real reason God gave us sex is that we should know how incomplete we are, know the deepest attainable need.  Attainable for some.


J

UJ

Spent the day doing office work.  Moved an office.  Thanks for the help.  Oh, wait.  You didn't help.  How embarrassing for you, the way I accidentally pointed out just now what a let down you are to me.  Fortunately there were a few real men to stand up and give a hand.  Look into it.  It's called "being a stand up guy."

And when I say "moved an office,"  I mean we physically lifted it up and moved it, about 20 feet.  It was nice to have some help.  Went pretty smoothly, all things considered.  I tried to avoid any position of responsibility, but someone has to be in charge.  It would have gone better if I'd used bolts instead of screws, and braced up the open side.  I didn't because of the time factor, and because I didn't really have the tools -- a drill with a dying battery, and I can't find any of the chargers.  I did look.  Used some dollies the roll it along, and had to modify them first.  A bit precarious, but I had anticipated the possible failures and their options.  I'll be fixing and cleaning all day tomorrow.

Met the wife of someone I know today.  I'd known her before, and she came up to me all chatty, and I had this odd moment of having to be friendly with someone I didn't remember and only faintly recognized.  It's not panic, but it's surreal.  Reality is other than we expect it.

I've got a limp, in both legs.  The hip spasms now and again if I step wrong, and the other leg is just weird, and I've got a pretty obnoxious pain in my back in that old place, but it's not the same problem.  Do I seem to complain too much?  Well, I don't really talk about it, so I write it.  Don't think you can make me apologize.  I'm explaining, as a courtesy.

I started the day in a great deal of physical pain, and in a profound depression, both of which wore off. Pretty sociable day.  So here's what I have to say about that.  You just thank your lucky stars, that you're passably normal.  I do have a few friendships, but I have no intimacy, and that is a profound deficit for a human being.

I miss having a family.  I miss the low rumble of kids playing well, with the occasion need for active supervision, arbitration.  I like to be generous, and kind and patient, and I like being firm and patient.  I like being around other people's families -- I'm really not "Uncle Jack" any more, my nephews are all grown up, and this is as close as I'm likely to get ... unless and until my son gets married.  This is what I mean, when I talk about normal.  It seems to be beyond my grasp.


J

My Back

 Sometimes I say things I wish I hadn’t.

The bad news is that I’m certain now the hip problem is a disc.  Compressed, bulged, slipped, herniated, ruptured -- many possibilities, but all in the same place.  L5-S1.  Where the relevant nerve splits off into the legs.  Not so easy to draw all the evidence together, but now that I have an organizing principle, it comes into focus.  Occasionally two numb toes, index and middle, if that’s the terminology. And the foot gets cold.  Only a few times, but icy.  Pain that’s just hard to isolate.  Sharp pain given specific movements, adduction, coughing.  Now I recognize that the instant pain that coughing when lying down causes is not a pulled muscle, it’s a spasm, the nerve contracting the muscle maximally.  I’ve thought of spasms in terms of the throbbing back pain I’ve had at various points in my life -- this is a different kind.  Overall, muscles tighten up and put pressure on an already stressed area, a nerve bundle impinged by a displaced disc.

But this is also the good news.  Now I can do something about it.  Inversion, anti-inflammatories, hyaluronic acid, various stretches and exercises.  Bought a new mattress, after 11 years.  I’ve had just a thin little pad, really.  Fine for me, don’t need luxury, but it’s pressure on the area now, and that doesn’t help the healing.  Memory foam -- feels like decadence.  BJJ is out for a while, and that’s disappointing.  I only get worse.  Maybe I should actually study it, rather than be so random.  In any case I’m out for a while. 

I am very detrained.  So I’m doing tabatas now, intervals of 20 sec work 10 rest, six rounds right now, four movements. I can row, and I’ll try holds, planks, iron cross, L-sit, handstands.  Situps are out.  Can’t really do kipping chin-ups.  But putting together a plan.  Do what you can do.  It’s not ideal, but it’s ideal for what is possible. 

Causation?  It wasn’t any dynamic movement, not big strength training with poor form.  It was, I believe, a combination of generally poor sitting posture, decades of slumping and slouching with a round back, combined with too vigorous running.  The slouching, distortion of the lumbar spine, predisposed the area, and the running over-stressed it.  I could feel the muscle in question, for many months before the onset of the problem, as a twinge of pain -- but as I ran it went away.  Until it didn’t. 

What I should have been doing is stretches, not big splits and toe-touching, although that too -- rather, small and postural muscles along with the prime movers.  It’s not about dramatic flexibility, it’s about general maintenance, and I’ve neglected that.  And I should have been using inversion, boots or table, as a disciplined and regular practice. 

Word to the wise, son.

The chiropractor helped with the back issue.  It’s gone.  It was a different problem, most likely exacerbated by the way I started to hold myself to compensate for the hip.  Man was I tight.  And it’s nice -- expensive, but nice -- to know I don’t have ebola and cholera and leprosy and bubonic plague and any of those other communicable diseases. 

I’ve even been getting massages, two so far.  Student massages, good price.  Can’t speak to the quality, since I’ve got such limited experience.  So far though, not vigorous enough.  I’m not looking to relax, not looking for pleasure.  I’m looking for therapeutic muscular benefit.  Dig in and wring it out.  I’m told there’s some sort of massage where they stretch you and squeeze you until it’s actually painful.  I want me some of that.  Does it sound like I’m against pleasure and for pain?  Oh sweet child, how wrong you are.  I’m just compartmentalized, goal oriented.  This is where I’d normally make some quip about booty calls, but I’m all alone.  If I want to be touched, to cure my poor pain-wracked flesh, I have to pay.

I took a look at my checking account and was distressed by the drain.  Such is the cost of slouching.  Sit up straight. 

And tuck your shirt in.  You look like a busboy.  

J

My Health

It’s always been virtually perfect, my health, my physical health. Colds once every five years or so, flu back in the early 80s -- nothing else comes to mind. It’s a lifestyle thing, not an amazing constitution. Feed the immune system and it will do its job. No guarantees, just prudence. Floods come, and wipe away whole towns. Not every flood, however, need do that.

 I’ve had a hard few months though. Something exceptional is wrong. I don’t fret, in fact I can be positively bovine in my placidity, but something is wrong. Pain so sharp that my leg gives out under me. Takes a while to stand, sometimes. A pronounced limp. Comes and goes, but staying more and more. So in January I started going to a specialist chiropractor. Good news is that the midback thing appears to be gone. I can feel a tightness, and it makes odd pops and it wants stretching, but the real issue is not recurring, and that’s nice. The right hip is pretty bad, and a few weeks ago there was another new pain in the thigh of the other leg, which is creeping up into the hip tendon. Sup the hell with that?

 It was so bad Friday, both, that I could hardly walk. Then I recalled that the day before the chiropractor had given me some real pain, pushing with his thumb into muscles and tendons, so Friday was a reaction to that -- like a hard workout. Saturday the thigh was better. Complicated? Point is I think it did some good.

 Meantime, although I am not a hypochondriac, I had to think I actually had a disease. I mean, not only not healing, but spreading and getting worse. Sounds like a disease. Went onto WebMD, but that wasn’t at all helpful. I’m not the most responsible person -- irresponsibly neglectful, in fact -- but I went to an MD, and finally, this week, got a whole bunch of tests done.

 They took A LOT of blood. It’s been a few decades since I gave blood, and, well, I wasn’t faint, but I was sweating so much that the lab tech, a Filipino woman of course, had to laugh merrily. I was funny, in my discomfiture. I don’t care much for blood, or needles, and taken together I get pretty queasy. One of the reasons I’m vegetarian. She had a very very very hard time getting through my vein. It was easy to see, easy to find, but she couldn’t get the needle in. I could feel her jabbing and pushing and tugging. Ironic. A little like being raped. Then all that draining. Well, finally done.

 Tested for the more common communicable diseases. Mostly, sadly, STDs. Well, I know, virtually certain, that I don’t have Hep C. But got tested for it. And the last time I had unprotected sex was with my former wife. That’s also the last time I had sex. Understand, I say for clarity’s sake, there is a clintonian precision in my choice of words -- sex is vaginal intercourse -- sexual behavior contrariwise includes a vast panoply of activities. I reserve the right to remain enigmatic as to sexual conduct. I had to ask what some of the tests were -- weird codes or medical jargon. HIV, I don’t know what all. Not only STDs, as I say. Communicables.

 Truth be told, I’ve been preparing to hear that I have AIDS. I woke up not long ago with a rash. Ah, a weakened immune system. And sometimes at night if I breathe deeply I cough. And malaise, unrefreshing sleep, heaviness. Something is wrong. I’d thought the rash was an allergic reaction to some pretty intensive exposure to rubber cement a day or two prior, but eventually I figured out it was related to, uh, athletes foot. A fungus. I had a fungus. Me. Made me feel a little like a syphilitic whore. Point is, my immune system let me down -- didn’t fight it off.

Over $800 worth of tests. I knew perfectly well that I don’t have Hep C. Very expensive test. Ouch. But what am I going to do? Shop around? Operate on hope? Something is wrong.

 So I got a voice mail a few days ago. Knew intuitively that it was the doctor’s office with the results. My understanding from afterschool specials is that they always call you into the office to discuss the results in person. I put off listening to the message until just now. I was wrong. They just came out with it. All tests positive.  So that's good.  Positive is good, right?  Just kidding.  Negative. Negative is the good one.

Not a surprise, not much of a relief. I can prepare for something that I don’t expect to happen. Where would I get HIV? But where would I get any communicable disease. Bumping heads? Stuck with a stray needle? Spittle flying through the air and landing in my eyeball? But I had to rule it out.

 So the hip thing is something else. What disease. Something myalgia. But myalgia is just muscle soreness, and that’s a symptom, not a disease. Given the clear pinched-nerve pain, and an occasional and previously disregarded numbness in two toes of my right foot, I’d have to say it’s a disc impingement.

 So I’ll give the chiropractor one more session, maybe more. Meantime I’ll use the inversion table, and stretch, and I think I’ll have to hold off on any vigorous athleticism -- let any presumed inflammation subside.

This blows. I haven’t spent this much money in my whole life, for sure, on medical specifics. Of course, last time I went to a doctor was in the mid-90s. Makes me very very uncomfortable, blood and needle uncomfortable, spending so much. It’s obamalike. Except it’s my money.

It has prepared me though to be more understanding toward people with real health problems. My body has never failed me before. It’s like being born rich, or with a sane family -- hard to relate to the less fortunate. If it doesn’t get better, I’m crippled. But I’ve looked into how to cure the AIDS I don’t have, so I have a plan on how to fix a disc. I’ve done it before, in fact. We shall see.


J

Time's Up

These things just suggest themselves, somehow.


J