Category Archives: Friends

Long time gone

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[This post title is, for me, multi-meta in that it refers to several things.]

It has been a long time since I’ve been here. Part of me is sad about this fact and part of me thinks that is just fine.

A lot has happened since I last wrote here:

I quit my job as a serials cataloger at the University of Illinois so I could concentrate on (then) upcoming weddings and our move.

Sara and I were married in late May in a small but wonderful ceremony amongst family and friends in a cabin on the banks of the Sangamon River.

At the very beginning of June I started prepping for our move to Sioux City, Iowa.

A couple of weeks later, my daughter got married in Oberlin, Ohio in an even simpler, but absolutely lovely and moving, ceremony to a wonderful young man that I couldn’t be prouder to be related to.

On the evening of 3 July we left Urbana, IL and headed for Sioux City. As of 4 July we are residents of Sioux City. This is a vastly different place  than Urbana-Champaign, in so many ways. We are still getting it sorted out but we will.

We had a good week and a half before Sara had to start her job and we made good use of it. Sara worked for 3 days and then we took a vacation to the Black Hills of South Dakota to spend some time in a couple of cabins with some friends of Sara’s from high school and their respective significant others and children. On the way home we drove through the Badlands. I have a couple of pictures up but I have 100s more to be tagged, labeled, decided upon and uploaded. Suffice it to say that it was beautiful! And being the against much of pop culture fiend that I am, we skipped Wall Drug (unfortunately not the signs though), Mount Rushmore and Crazy Horse.

Once back Sara got back to work and is enjoying learning the ropes of this vastly different, and vastly smaller, university. I got back to work on organizing the house, merging two large book collections, much of which was in storage, along with merging two large CD collections, of which all of hers were in storage. There is still a bit to do on all the house organizing fronts but it is definitely getting there.

Shortly after we got here we bought ourselves a 32″ LG HDTV with built-in netflix streaming so we’ve been watching Buffy the Vampire Slayer and some other things.

We’ve been taking an online class on HTML5 via SitePoint and in a few weeks will take one on CSS3. They were $9.95 each! So the last 2 weeks that is what we’ve been doing in the evenings when Sara gets home from work. (And, yes, I know the CSS3 course says it is $14.95 but by signing up for both at the same time we got a $5 discount!) I think that for the price they are quite good. As with any class it is (mostly) about what you put in to it.

Speaking of courses, Briar Cliff University has a 100% tuition remission policy for spouses so I’ll be taking a 1 credit class this fall called Madwomen Poets. About all I know about it is that it includes Sexton and Plath. But who cares what, if anything, else it might be? Who could ignore a class entitled Madwomen poets?

I know. I know. I’m supposed to be doing other things, “more important” things. And I am. But it is 50 minutes, 1 day/week. I figure it’ll help keep my mental chops in order. And at this point I still don’t know if I’ll be taking it for a grade or auditing.

As to that more  important stuff … I am ramping back up the work on my CAS thesis via several angles of attack. I am working on the paper proper and I am also working on a journal article, which will be highly related (as in with a little reworking can become a chapter), and I am thinking about trying to come up with a presentation for a conference in early December. The conference is “Semantics for Robots: Utopian and Dystopian Visions in the Age of the ‘Language Machine’. ‘The Language Machine’ is one of Roy Harris’ early books, of course.

As for conferences, I am really sad that I will not be able to attend ASIS&T in Pittsburgh this year. But seeing as we gave up about $40k in income with me not working there is little means of justifying the expense of travel and lodging. And, honestly, the registration cost is plain crazy for an unemployed non-student, non-retiree.

Sara and I decided that the Integrationist conference in Chicago in December, along with being far cheaper, is really more where I need to be right now. I need exposure to more Integrationists and Integrational thinking and I will get far more out of a small conference (as I always do) than a bigger one. Whether or not I can get something submitted (and possibly accepted) I am highly looking forward to it. Nonetheless, this will be the 1st ASIS&T I’ve missed since I started going in 2006.

And if any of my Chicago friends are reading this, I’d adore an invite to stay with you for a couple days in early December (2nd-4th, or so), especially if you are near the Univ. of Chicago.

Tomorrow night we are, thanks to a surprise from Sara, going to see Jackson Browne and David Lindley and the historic Orpheum Theatre here in Sioux City. I have been listening to (early) Jackson Browne for close to 40 years now. I haven’t really kept up with anything since the mid-80s or so but, nonetheless, I am stoked to finally get to see him live for the first time.

We also have a Super Secret Date night scheduled for Sunday night. Sara had that lined up well before we left Urbana. She offered me the chance to find out what it’ll be last night but I passed. I like the surprises! She’s done so well every time in the past. And it also makes me aware that it is past time for me to step up in the Super Secret Date Night scheduling department.

And in case anyone who cares isn’t aware of it yet, my son is in Afghanistan for his 3rd war zone tour. He left just days after we moved. Grrrr.

I guess I best end this for now. It is getting long and the simple shock of seeing a post from me is probably enough already. With any hope I won’t be gone as long before the next time.

An open letter to the parents of “The Oregon Boys”

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Dear parents of “the Oregon boys”,

You should be extremely proud of the young men that you have raised. As a father of 2 children of my own (29 and 26), I can say that you have exceeded any hopes you might have had for how they might turn out.

These young men are respectful, polite, bright and engaged, inquisitive, and well behaved. They quickly became the darlings of Ebertfest, impressing many people of all ages. They asked insightful and penetrating questions during the Q&As after each film and engaged in in depth conversations with true film lovers, holding their own in every case.

I quickly lost count of all the people—particularly people in the 50-75 year old demographic—who wanted to talk with them, hear their story, congratulate them and their parents (this post is written on behalf of many people and not just myself), hug them and wish them safely home with the express hopes of seeing them again next year.

I know that they have been offered a place to stay next year. If I were you I would not worry; she is a good person. Someone is willing to open their home to four young men that they just recently met for the several days of Ebertfest. People took them out to dinner; more would have if there had been time.

I could go on and on. I truly hope that you are proud of these young men that you helped get to this point. I well remember those days at the end of high school for my boy and I know how tough parent-child relationships at that point can be. But I am here to tell you that you ought be proud of them. I know that I am and that I am proud to call them friends.

Sincerely,

Mark

=============

Ebertfest was last week and on the 1st day we met 4 young men from Coos Bay, OR standing in line right behind us. Mike, Tyler, Bret and Dana had somehow managed to convince their parents to let them come all the way from the Oregon coast to central Illinois. They had saved their own money and paid for the trip themselves. $750 each just for airfare, plus several days in the Hampton Inn, meals, etc. Wow! They truly wanted to be here for Ebertfest!

We got to know them pretty well over the course of the 5 day film festival. Basically high school students/graduates, in love with film, wanting to be an actor and directors. They know film. They are bright and articulate, respectful, charming, and Sara and I are pleased that we got to know them. Hopefully we, too, will make it back for Ebertfest and run into them. And if not, then when they are famous at least we can say we knew them when and took them out to dinner the 1st time they came to Ebertfest.

::hugs:: and best wishes to “the Oregon boys.”

house spouse

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a little “mouse”
grew up; became
a new house spouse.

wrote a little ditty
because he is moving
to Iowa; Sioux City.

I posted that little ditty to facebook and twitter several days ago to announce that I will soon be moving.

In the comments on facebook, I also wrote:

I’m going to Sioux City to be a househusband, scholar [write my CAS paper / defend], poet, part-time student perhaps, enjoying other parts of the country (and, I must admit, the Midwest), photographer of late 19th-century brick industrial buildings and ghost signs and real wildflowers and prairie and ….

I get my soul back.

… But I get my soul back. And maybe, eventually, some of my mind.

My lovely partner, and soon-to-be spouse, has accepted a job as the Reference and Instruction Librarian at Briar Cliff University in Sioux City, Iowa. We will be moving in early July probably; after our wedding and my daughter’s wedding and ALA and ….

We are really looking forward to it. And, yes, I did go with her for her campus visit so I have seen Sioux City. Yes, we will miss many, many wonderful and some taken for granted things here: Krannert Center for the Performing Arts and the Krannert Art Museum and all of the wonderful, often free, programs put on at both, being able to walk (or easily bus, for free) to pretty much everywhere except major shopping, Crane Alley and other favorite eating/drinking haunts, the Arboretum and Japan House, and on and on. Even moreso, we will miss all of the wonderful people.

What I will not miss is alluded to above. As important as the work is that I have been doing the last couple of years, my job has been killing me. My spirit is completely gone and my soul is being forcibly ripped from my body.

Maybe it is the size of the institution (Library, specifically); maybe it is the myriad and serious problems facing the Library (many of which are not financial).

I really do not want to get into any details because that, as I am told, is unprofessional. Kind of ironic since that is the judgement I make of many here. Do not misunderstand me, please. There are many dedicated professionals in our libraries; professionals at all levels of staffing. Some of the issues derive from our massive size and/or decentralized structure, but by no means all of them do.

I do not intend to look for a job any time soon. But I am also not leaving the profession. There is the important task of writing and defending my CAS paper before May 2011. And I fully intend to do so. That task and being a proper house spouse providing all of the support that I can for Sara to succeed in her new job will be my main occupation.

Other than that, I look forward to writing some articles and conference presentations. I hope to re-engage on my blog; perhaps return to friendfeed. Also high on my list are writing some poetry inspired by the change of scenery, perhaps taking a poetry class [poetry prof was on the search committee and sat next to me at dinner]; learning to photograph the lovely late 19th-century industrial brick buildings that are all over Sioux City, along with the plentiful ghost signs, and real prairie flowers.

By going with Sara on her interview I added 3 states to my visited list; Iowa, Nebraska and South Dakota. I am looking forward to visiting Omaha, Sioux Falls, Ames and Iowa City and many other towns, from the small to the large.

Being so near to the Missouri River valley and bottom lands makes me feel very much at home. I grew up in the north suburbs of St. Louis near the confluence of the Mighty Mo and the Mississippi. In the summers we’d bike out to Missouri Bottom Road (named literally), especially when it was flooded. We also lived about a mile from a park on a big bluff along the Missouri.

It is a big adventure and we’ll be taking a massive pay cut to go on it. Sara is getting a small increase but it still means losing the vast majority of my salary. Thankfully I get a small bit for my Army retirement; wouldn’t be doable otherwise.

Looking forward to this with all of my heart. I truly am.

NaPoWriMo

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As April is National Poetry Month, April is also National Poetry Writing Month (NaPoWriMo) [or see Wikipedia].

We have a good friend who has committed to NaPoWriMo and her email alerting us to this and to the blog she will be using to do so awakened our thoughts. So this morning Sara and I decided to participate in our own NaPoReMo, National Poetry Reading Month. We plan on reading & discussing a poem we like each day. Not sure if that means a poem each each … or a poem … but we’ll figure it out.

I doubt I’ll commit to NaPoWriMo but setting aside a couple of hours each week to devote to writing poetry is on my list of “Important Things.”

I have been reading a fair bit of poetry lately and even started jonesin’ for more Mary Oliver after finishing everything I got for Christmas/birthday. Ordered 3 (2 poetry/1 hdbk) from amazon and about to jump in but reading something else right now. Soon. Like in April. Mary Oliver will supply me lots of poems to love and discuss with Sara. I read lots of Oliver poems to Sara.

As to the writing … well, I’ll be happy if I can start dedicating the couple of hours per week I said I want to commit to it.

Keeping up … with people

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The What

Wednesday afternoon I posted the following to my facebook status:

I have recently instituted a personal goal of trying to catch up with at least 1 interesting person a week (or so) just to see what’s rockin’ their (LIS) world, whether there are any areas of overlapping interest, if we can challenge/cheer each other on in our research endeavors, etc. To do this I am asking people to lunch or coffee … so please don’t get freaky if I ask you. If not interested just say No thanks. :D

Not a perfect message, I agree, but facebook stati do have a character limit and I had hit it. The primary problem with it is that “interesting” word. It means pretty much anything and, thus, nothing. So it is a somewhat lazy but mostly space constrained shorthand for a lot more; including a lot more that I can’t even articulate yet.

The Context

Sometime last week I decided to ask a friend and once fellow student to lunch or coffee to catch up with her. We had taken a couple of classes together and we are both off doing our own CAS stuff now. I do get to see her now and again at the reference desk but if one can imagine how busy the reference desk at the main UIUC Library is then you can imagine that short amounts of small talk is all we can manage.

The classes we had together were all “upper-level” information organization classes and some of the projects she’s been involved in have been in areas like faceted classifications of folktales.

But she’s a reference librarian by bent. And desire. [That is, if I remember correctly from some of those disparate and short snatches of conversation at the reference desk.]

Of course reference librarians can be interested in the geeky, often esoteric intricacies of thesauri, faceted classification systems, indexing, and so on. I wish more were. ;) But, in my own admittedly weak experience [10 12 years now], I have found few reference librarians, much less LIS students, who are interested in these sorts of things to any true depth.

So I wanted to take some quality time to catch up and see where she is in her studies, where she’s heading with her CAS project/paper, and all that stuff in the facebook message above. We were supposed to go to lunch this past Tuesday but she woke up ill so we rescheduled for next week.

Wednesday afternoon I thought of one of our Ph.D. students who I have met in person only once or so but we now follow each other on Twitter and facebook and I find her and what little I know of her work intriguing. So I invited her to lunch or coffee.

That’s when I realized I was onto something and posted the above status to facebook.

1st Lunch Date

We met at Bombay (Indian food) for the buffet and talk. She was already excited because she thinks my idea is a great one. We had a leisurely lunch and talked about my CAS paper and research, about the Library Student Journal, and about her coursework (last semester of) and teaching. We discussed Integrationism, language and communication, Symbolic Interactionism, Erving Goffman, differences between teaching undergrads and LIS students, and several other things. I’d say it was a success; not that I have any specific measures of success in mind.

Feedback in facebook

I got some good feedback shortly after posting the above status, such as several Likes, and a question or two. I found it extremely interesting that the 1st person to Like my status is the next person in my queue. Another Ph.D. student, she has taken some courses in GSLIS but is primarily in Rhetoric and Writing Studies [again, if remembering correctly]. I am going to wait a bit before trying to schedule this one as I still need to catch up with the original person I asked before I thought of this as a more sustained “program.”

One comment I received was whether I was paying or not. I am happy to do so in every case but will leave it up to the other whether we go Dutch or I pay. This is not a request for people to ask me to lunch so I will pay. I intend to still go to lunch with friends and such as I sometimes do. But if you are one of my closest friends here then, well, sorry but you don’t meet my criteria for this. I see you and talk to you anyway; I already have a good idea what you are up to. :D

Purpose, Goals

What am I up to? Do I have a purpose or goals for this. Well, yes, and no. It is a work in progress and I am leaving it wide open and flexible.

First, it is and can be a form of professional development. Normally we talk about keeping up with the literature but isn’t keeping up with fellow professionals also professional development? Especially if one is interacting directly with them, yes?

Second, it is networking.

But even more important to me, it is a way to develop better friendships and deeper acquaintances. It is about broadening my horizons. It will expose me to ongoing work and the interests of others in a relaxed environment. Overlapping areas of interest can be discerned and expanded. Efforts to support and challenge/cheer each other on in our separate research endeavors can be drawn up and implemented.  We can clue each other into conferences, journals, books, people, ideas, and so on that might be of interest and value to each other. And there are, no doubt, other benefits that I will discover.

And, yes, one of my primary goals is to be of equal value to my dates for whatever purposes they have in accepting.

The Future

I have another couple of individuals in mind (one mentioned above, and another GSLIS Ph.D. student) but no one in particular after that. But during our discussions yesterday I realized that there are several newer faculty in GSLIS who I do not know at all. So perhaps that is where I’ll start. There are also several 0% faculty appointments in GSLIS with folks from Communications and other departments; they’d be good candidates.

After that I don’t know. I wish I knew more students and faculty in other departments here at UIUC. At ISU I knew people from all across campus. I have been here at UIUC about the same amount of time I was there but there I was an undergrad and an at-large grad student so I took classes all over. As much as I wanted to wander into other departments here I kept focused on my own department and my LIS education.

Certainly there are plenty of librarians I could get to know better here. And I should.

Wrap-up

I’m not sure what will become of this but I intend to enjoy the company of some interesting people, learn more about the diversity of work and interests within our profession/discipline and in other disciplines.

If anyone has suggestions I am certainly happy to entertain them. If you are here and read my blog but we don’t really know each other and you’d like to change that then feel free to contact me.

Might this idea work for you? Only you can decide that. But I think that on a campus where everyone is busy and many come and go so quickly (Yes, 2-6 years is quickly) this may be a good corrective to that feeling of “I sure wish I could get to know so-and-so” or of “Boy, their research is really interesting; I wish I knew more about it” or any similar wistful desires.

If anyone else implements something similar I’d love to hear about how it is going/went, either here or directly via email, etc. Myself, I have no specific plans to blog about these dates. That will be on a case-by-case basis and only after I have cleared any such blog mentions with the affected party.

So, who have you had coffee with lately?

It Began In An Alley

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Last Tuesday morning my facebook status said:

one year ago tonight. it began in an alley. i love you more than i knew was even possible. ♥

I was sending a personal message as I am wont to do and dropping a hint or two.

Tuesday was S and my pre-anniverary. One year previous she had joined me for my then usual Monday eve at Crane Alley.  We had dinner and drinks and talked. For five and a half hours.

Our official 1st anniversary is today but as that evening was so very important to me I wanted to commemorate it. I began the below poem on the 8th and did a bit more work on it on the 9th or 10th and some final minor tweaking on Tuesday.

We had a “super secret date” scheduled for Tuesday evening although I figured S would surely know what I had planned. Whenever she has asked me to secret dates I have been completely surprised. Yet, she didn’t know. Now I’m not claiming it was much—though it was appropriate—as we simply had dinner and drinks. In an Alley.

It Began In An Alley

a short, long, year ago
on a lovely night in May
a premonition of the future
sat with me for a while
in an Alley.

talking, commiserating, we spent hours
laughing, learning, longing
unknown to both
this was simply a prelude
to the loving.

which began
in an alley.

 

Happy anniversary, my love. May there be many, many more.

Some things about the new year

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Not sure where this blog is going this year. I said some things last year about where I wanted to take it / thought it might go and it got nowhere near any of those places.

I read through all of my posts for 2008 on the 1st and 2nd. Wow! What a year! Talk about ups and downs. The reading went much quicker for the back half of the year seeing as I had but a handful of posts over the last quarter of the year.

I did and still do have some things to say. But for many reasons I chose/choose not to and/or am unable to do so—both good things and not so good things.

Things are really good in my life in some ways as I enter a new year and rapidly reach the half century mark. But I don’t get to say much about those.

I am in love and have the love of an amazingly wonderful woman. ‘Nuff said.

Some things are not so good; but really no worse than for many.

I have a job. For several more months anyway. But better than some, I knew from the start that it would end [on 15 August 2009]. At the time I got it there was a very good chance that it could be extended. With the economy tanked that is highly unlikely, though. So now I truly am on the job market—with many others—in an extremely poor economy.

It was a year of growth—some painful, some pleasant—and recognition of some areas which need improvement. In some cases I have a good idea and plan for how to work on those areas. Some are still too amorphously vague to have a plan; but awareness—or working towards awareness, at least—is the first step.

I have been working on a long post on the books I read this past year and WordPress is giving me fits. Apoplectic fits. Not sure if/when it will get posted anymore. The formatting keeps changing as WP sees fit from moment-to-moment. As soon as I figure out how to work around what it is doing it does something else. And now it is pulling out assorted COinS data. It is all becoming too much. [Hopefully it will be following on the heels of this one. ::fingers crossed::]

Also, one of the things I came across in re-reading my blog posts was my comments on censoring myself in my post “Some things read this week feature is over.” Now, none of those reasons have gone away although I was managing to ignore them as I constructed my Books Read in 2008 post. This morning [Saturday], in a different context, I was reminded that perhaps I am putting too much out there. So now I have to decide what to do with that post on top of trying to fight with WP.

I have no idea what this year will bring. I do have some hopes and desires but it is also a time of great change for S and for me.

I sincerely hope that I can continue to be the man I want to be in this relationship and that I can continue growing as that man.

I hope that I can be better at some things than I was in the past year. There were several issues that I wanted to comment on and had told others that I would that I never got to. Finding a way to discuss these issues in a more positive way is a big desire of mine. Finding a way to discuss them in a way I feel “safe” doing so is a hope.

I hope that I will be better at working on my breathing and perhaps find a way into yoga and other forms of exercise. I also hope I take up running again as soon as spring allows.

I hope to have a job after 15 August. And that it be interesting, challenging and with good people in a nice setting (work and non-work) is a desire.

Staying in better touch with assorted, but specific, people is a hope. Toward that end I am now in FriendFeed as it allows for a different kind of conversation than blogs or facebook. That, of course, is not enough and I must truly work harder at this.

I have many other hopes and desires for the new year. Some are concrete and some are still pretty abstract.

Besides hoping that everyone can be the person they desire to be in this year, my biggest hope and desire is that I actively and continuously work at being/becoming the person I want to be.

Tis just a wee fuss for my friend Pikas

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Today is Christina Pikas’ (of Christina’s LIS Rant) birthday.  Seeing as I’ll be seeing her in pretty much exactly a month at ASIS&T and she’ll be able to personally kick me for this, I decided to write her a little birthday ditty.

Tis just a wee fuss for my friend Pikas

I awoke this morning all a twitter,
my friend she is a knitter.

Once a naval officer, always a veteran,
she’s the physicists’ friend and librarian.

Whether slogging her way to a PhD with reliance
or blogging about the intricacies of science,

Her work is very prudent
because she is a student.

Committed as any star ASIST member,
she was born once upon a far September.

Often, though, she may Rant,
steer you wrong she shan’t.

Her name it is Christina,
her mind as sharp as concertina.

Tis the birthday of a Pikas
so let us all make a bit of a wee fuss.

Happy, Happy Birthday, Christina! I couldn’t help myself. ;-)

Writing this reminded me that I had done this once before; that is, wrote a birthday poem and posted it here.  I also see I swore never to post my “poetry” here again. Ah well, not exactly a lie, I guess.

And technically, that previous post includes two poems as did the birthday card in which they originally appeared. The 2nd was called *”On the use of ‘beauty’”.  And, yes, that asterick implies that it was a “footnote.”

Love letter to an ex-girlfriend

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I went back through my posts of the last two months and there isn’t much explicit mention of the best distraction a boy could ask for. I think the first (and one of 2, maybe 3) explicit reference is in the post “Living room talk.” There are certainly several other references that were mostly for her that one or two of you might get a hint from, but not much more.

I also notice I didn’t actually post very often. There were frequently week-long gaps and, I believe, 2 13-day gaps.  Not unheard of for me, but rare.  My previous post addresses this quietude a bit.  Let me just say here that it has not been mostly due to my having a girlfriend.

But wait. I do not have a girfriend.

Today [Friday] would have been our 2-month anniversary. It was to be our full moon anniversary. Sorry, relevant to us, no details for you. On Monday she told me she needs to go back to just being friends.

While this is clearly not my 1st choice of realities—like I or anyone else gets a choice of realities—and it hit pretty hard, I am doing pretty well with this development. [This has been one amazingly interesting and personally productive summer, let me tell you!]

The first day or two I really was just kind of in a state of shock.  I wasn’t doing much active processing of this.  And that, I think, was a very good thing.

Since Monday we’ve been talking and have even seen each other a few times, e.g., watched a free movie at the public library together, shared a bag of popcorn, and had salad together after the movie. Again, not so much on the overt processing.  What I have been doing is listening to a lot of music. But here’s the kicker.  It’s mostly been just a few songs, on repeat, and sometimes repeatedly.

Monday evening and Tuesday both remain kind of hazy in my mind.

Wednesday morning began with Not A Pretty Girl and quickly morphed into multiple replays of “hour follows hour” and “asking too much.”

i just hope it was o.k., i know it wasn’t perfect
i hope in the end we can laugh and say
it was all worth it

…

too much is how i love you
but too well is how i know you
i’ve got nothing to prove this time
just something to show you
i guess i just wanted you to see
that it was all worth it to me

hour follows hour

i want somebody who
sees the pointlessness
and still keeps their purpose in mind
i want somebody who
has a tortured soul some of the time
i want somebody who
will either put out for me
or put me out of my misery
or maybe just put it all to words and make me go
you know, i never heard it put that way
make me go what did you just say!?

asking too much

Wednesday evening I was on my way to Crane Alley and I appropriated Poe’s “Spanish Doll” from Haunted for my own purposes.

This place feels so unfamiliar
And yet I know it well
I think I used to belong here
But the only way I can tell
Is that I miss you still
And I cannot find you here
You left me tattered and torn
Just like that Spanish doll

(Sweet Spanish sweet Spanish… doll)

I went down to the alley way
(Sierra la Bonita)
And found that you were gone …

Except for she wasn’t gone and actually joined me there for a couple hours.

Thursday AM began with “imagine that” from reckoning [of revelling/reckoning]. And pretty much stayed there. Later yesterday [Thursday], while at home, Jude’s “I Know,” from the City of Angels soundtrack was on repeat for almost 2.5 hours.

so here i am at my most hungry
and here i am at my most full
here i am waving a red cape
locking eyes with a bull

just imagine that i am onstage
under a watchtower of punishing light
and in the haze is your face bathed in shadow
and what’s beyond you is hidden from sight

imagine that

I know there’s nowhere you can hide it
I know the feeling of alone
Trust me and don’t keep that on the inside
Soon you’ll be locked out on your own

I Know

Interspersed has been an awful lot of Haley Bonar’s new album, Big Star, which I got in the mail last Saturday. Also prominent would be Jackson Browne’s Late for the Sky album. Since the major clarification [for me] on my communications issues there has been a lot of talk, and more thinking, about personal narratives/mythologies, especially mine, and with this … whatever this is … there has been more about hers, too.  And one cannot get in stick throwing distance of my personal narrative without being smacked over the head by that album.

“Late for the Sky,” “Fountain of Sorrow,” “Farther On,” and “The Late Show” are particularly grounding for me.

Fountain of sorrow, fountain of light
You’ve known that hollow sound of your own steps in flight
You’ve had to struggle, you’ve had to fight
To keep understanding and compassion in sight
You could be laughing at me, you’ve got the right
But you go on smiling so clear and so bright

fountain of sorrow

Now the distance leads me farther on
Though the reasons I once had are gone
I keep thinking I’ll find what I’m looking for
In the sand beneath the dawn

But the angels are older
They can see that the sun’s setting fast
They look over my shoulder
At the vision of paradise contained in the light of the past
And they lay down behind me
To sleep beside the road till the morning has come
Where they know they will find me
With my maps and my faith in the distance
Moving farther on

farther on [this one is undergoing some serious questioning]

I saw you through the laughter and the noise
You were talking with the soldiers and the boys
While they scuffled through your weary smiles
I thought of all the empty miles
And the years that I’ve spent looking for your eyes
(looking for your eyes)
And now I’m sitting here wondering what to say
(that you might recognize)
Afraid that all these words might scare you away
(and break through the disguise)
No one ever talks about their feelings anyway
Without dressing them in dreams and laughter
I guess its just too painful otherwise

the late show

Honestly, I do have to admit that a little of Ani’s Dilate snuck in there early on. But then what righteous babe could possibly resist “Done Wrong”, “Going Down” and “Adam & Eve” in this sort of situation?

you can’t get through it
you can’t get over it
you can’t get around

just like in a dream
you’ll open your mouth to scream
and you won’t make a sound

going down

you put a tiny pin prick
in my big red balloon
and as i slowly start to exhale
that’s when you leave the room
i did not design this game
i did not name the stakes
i just happen to like apples
and i am not afraid of snakes

adam and eve

I have also had several good conversations with my friend (she’s not my ex, she’s my friend), and with two other people which were particularly helpful.  One was Tuesday afternoon, just shy of a day, and one this afternoon [Friday].  One in person, one by (crappy) phone. My friend also had a good idea of some of this music since I also provided it to her and/or pointed her at the lyrics.

So, a mostly ‘just let it wash over me’ attitude and some highly specific music has kept me sane this week. Or, more accurately, allowed me to move from completely lost in the world ['tis far more complicated, but is another story] to almost as sane as I ever am and reasonably happy with the situation.

You have no need to know what the issue between us is. Truth be told, there is no “issue.” In a sense, it is far more fundamental than that. One reason I am currently avoiding it—as it may still get written about—is that it has occupied quite a bit of my time since Monday evening. And it is as complicated as anything between humans can be. I wrote several pages on it for my friend, but that barely qualifies as a 1st draft; lots more thinking since.  Plus, some clarification from her helped narrow & shift things a bit.

What is love? In how many ways do we use it? And with whom? And what do we mean by it when we use it with a particular person, or class or group of persons?

I love my children, I, in fact, love my ex-wife. I love my mom, sister, niece, …. And I love my friends. I don’t mean the 136 people on Facebook who call me “friend,” of course. I care greatly about every one of them as humans, and even somewhat about them as the individual that they are in the world, but I am not going to say that I love them. Although some of them I do. Somewhere in there a line gets drawn. When? Why? Who?

I love my ex-girlfriend. One. She clearly belongs in my closest friends. We were “friends” before this for a year and a half or so and I always wanted to know her better; to become her friend. We both went into this wanting to protect our (budding) friendship. Two. The things she has enabled me to be, to see, to feel, to dream. Three. Classy way in which she has handled herself in this since Monday and has helped guide me through it. Four. ….

For many reasons, we are entering some serious brave new territory.  The utter absurdity of the messages we get from our culture leave us completely unsure of what we are doing. But we both know that we each care greatly for the other, we each  see great things in and for the other, and I know that the vision of possibility I got from her needs to find a way to only make a slight adjustment and allow me to soar and not go “Poof! Welcome to your old life.” [Not going to go into it in this post but the road I saw open so very, very clearly not only looked exceedingly lovely but also showed me [and some reminders] who I really am and how I might really be who I want to be. These are things I cannot see and can barely dream on my own.]

Certainly, there are some [...]

[Saturday]

The writing of this post got interrupted yesterday evening by a reminder of the Full Moon Drum Circle at the university’s Japan House. I quickly finished what I was doing and rushed over to grab my friend and head over there.

All I am saying is that this was the best non-anniversary I have ever had. The drumming was nice, the moon was exquisite, we met another friend there, and then we came home and took our friendship to even greater heights.

Thus. I want to sum up and say that I love my ex-girlfriend.

That I love my friend even more.

And I plan to always.

Who do you love?

O, most frabjous day

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Things have sort of “settled down” around here; here being the blog. Related things in my daily life got “interesting” and have only progressed. Today was a most enlightening day. [Yes, Christina, that "interesting" was purposefully vague, and for you.  ;-) ]

Wow. What to say, or not say? Been working on this for a while now since …, well, mid-June.  Been doing a lot of thinking and a couple two days ago I started drafting a post, and some drafts of things referenced in the draft post and making a list of “sources.”

Been talking to some folks, in various venues, more face-to-face lately; been trying to talk to a few others, various venues, mostly f-2-f at moment but not entirely [I seriously need to reach out to a couple folks ... once I has plan]; I have a new advisor at school; and also someone I am seriously discussing my perceived communication issues, amongst other things, with.

But today brought a whole new level of interestingness. I really am not about to go into much, yet and if at all, but today I listened to the entire Q&A for the Gorman colloquium and it seems my lived experience as perceived at the time [and some odd coincidences at school] led me to perceive my communication issues vastly differently from what they truly are.

After the very pleasant shock of how I sounded in my comments to Michael Gorman—direct, perhaps blunt, but level-headed and with little emotion—I had a few conversations with a couple of amazing women, some of whom I have already been talking with, that really helped put some things in perspective.

After today I have a much better idea of the issues I face—talking them through with wonderful and intelligent people also really helps.

I am not a failure. I also must remember the impossibly high standards that I set for myself before saying such silly things again. I did fail, momentarily [and in highly specific and narrow ways]. I am not a failure. I know so very much. There is always more to learn.

This little non-event has done some serious work for me. I have a much better idea of who I am and what I am committed to. I have fully embraced the knowledge that this commitment may well impact my earning potential. I will always be “that guy.” When what I want is to be this guy and in many more contexts.

I’m going to stay kind of quiet for a while most likely but know that I am working on some things. And, me? Please know that I am as fine as the wonderful little summer storms we had earlier this evening [yes, I adore them] and that I am Stargazing.

Today was a very affirming, most frabjous, day.