Category: truth

Buds

A couple of people asked me what the hell this is. It’s a voice inside my head, the loser me, the guy always trying to fit in. The bit about mooching the money is not me. I don’t think. Can I just say it was very strange to write it down? And not a little embarrassing?

Ha ha! It’s fun to be with you guys, I mean, that’s obvious! We’re just like, ‘hey, man’ and ‘what’s going on’ and stuff. Just chillin’. Everybody’s all ‘wha?!’ you know? ha ha! So, what is up? Wanna go to one or your guys’s cribs? Check it out, you know, ‘what’s up?’ Be all ‘sweet crib!’ Yeah, no, we could go to my place but it’s so small, we’d be all over each other, I mean, and we’re buds but not that kind! ha ha! Man, especially, anyone got any brews at home? That’d be sweet! We’d be all ‘wha?!’ Hanging out and shit! Drinking some brewskis! Ha. Hey! Shit. I was gonna ask, I left my wallet at home and if anyone can front me five bucks, that’d be sweet! I’d be paying it right back, I’ll be all, ‘what’s up?’ be like, ‘cash on the barrel head, bitches!’ right? so if anyone can, just let me know. Later’s cool! Ha. So are we going to hang out? That’d be sweet. A bite to eat. That rhymes! ‘that’d be sweet, a bite to eat!’ We’re all like, ‘wha?!’ be hanging out and stuff. Anyone hungry? Grab a little nosh? ‘what’s up?’ ha ha. Not to use a big word, but I’d be remiss if I didn’t invite you guys to my place in the very near future! It’d be sweet, be all, ‘wha’s up? want to par-tay?’ Hell yeah! So where do you guys want to go? There’s some good movies out nowadays. We could get some tix, poppycorn and bevies? ‘what’s up?’ be all, ‘I’ll take the biggest tub you got, homey!’ ha ha. So, movie sound groovy? Ha! I’m a freaking poet! ‘Four score and …’ wait! no! shit! That’s not poetry – it’s the Constitution! Damn! Everybody’s all, ‘wha? make up your mind, dumbshit!’ how many times I’ve heard that – my mom and my dad, that is, when he’s actually home, but, oh, shit! What am I doing? You guys are all like, ‘what about your dad, you loser!’ ha. Anybody got any brothers and sisters and shit? Hey! We gonna head out or what? Not that I don’t love hanging out here in the freezing cold – ha ha – you guys all got real winter gear. This beauty’s a wind breaker and it ain’t breaking any wind! It’s freaking cold out here! Wait a minute, isn’t breaking wind like farting? I mean, doesn’t it mean it? That’s hilarious! Good news, guys, my wind breaker ain’t breaking any wind! But someone here is! You all smell that? Be all, ‘Damn dude! That’s rank!’ and shit. Let’s roll! I mean, get on the road. ha ha it’s cool hanging out with you cats! Ha! Cats! You all be all, ‘you hang out with cats, dork?’ ha ha Then my cat will just disappear one day – poof! from the backyard. Dad didn’t bother to look for her. It was his day off. Ha! Just joshing! Be all, ‘I’m fucking with you!’ If you pardon my French! Ha! Damn. So, if anyone does have five buckaroos, that’d be sweet! I mean, I could probably get by with a little less, but, I mean if no one’s sporting a fiver, I totally understand. But one of you fuckers must be able to spot me! Ha! I’d pay it right back, I’d bring it right to your place – special delivery! So, I need the cash for medications for my mom who’s totally wondering where the heck I am! I’d be all, ‘Put a lid on it, old lady!’ ha. ‘wha?!’ But I should probably skedaddle – anyone able to… Naw, I get it. I’m totally cool with… Where are… Okay! Cool! See you guys! Cats! ha ha. cats.

Change

I read a review of a book by Brad Stulberg called “Master of Change: How to Excel When Everything is Changing – Including You.” It talked about the concept of allostasis, or the idea that “rather than being rigid, our healthy baseline is a moving target.” The idea of impermanence or that everything is always changing and we need to go with the flow – rather than try to push the river. The concept was developed by a neuroscientist and a biologist.

It’s a very old concept, actually, but the two doctors no doubt look much deeper. The only constant is change. We are different people from on second to the next, and on a cellular level, completely different human beings every seven years through cell regeneration. Plus, everything is essentially alive, and changing, through the energy that courses through it and holds it together. We don’t need to move mountains because they are already moving.

But we naturally fight change – it goes back to when everything could be dangerous and so we tended toward the status quo, hoping to be around those we know and what we know. Change, back then, was a tiger wandering into camp.

So, it’s really hard to accept change, for many of us. And the older we get, the more set in our ways we become, and so acceptance can be even more of a challenge. Similar to how the more time we spend alone, the more set in our ways we become. We are used to the same people (very few in this case) and our own stuff and we just don’t want the world to evolve or progress. We like it just how it is. But the reality is there’s ultimately nothing we can do about it. It’s going to change and we can either keep fighting it or work with it.

He goes on: “Adopting an allostatic outlook acknowledges that the goal of mature adulthood is not to avoid, fight or try to control change, but rather to skillfully engage with it. … you come to view change and disorder not as something that happens to you but as something that you are working with.”

I remember a friend who knew some Kung Fu introduced me to the concept of using your opponents aggression against them. So, if you attack me, rather than push back, I move with you in the direction you’re going, gain control, and Kung Fu your butt. That’s the same concept in a way – going with the flow.

Mr. Stulberg writes: “To be flexible is to consciously respond to altered circumstances or conditions, to adapt and bend easily without breaking, to evolve grow and even change your mind.” Ain’t that the truth?

Eddie Izzard

The first trans person I ever met was in about 1976 at Thomas Beach on Lake Calhoun in Minneapolis. This was all very new to me at 13. I was sitting on the curb waiting for my friend, Ben, to come back from wherever the hell he was. Up walked this very tall woman in a bikini but covered with a beach jacket of sorts. She sat down on a picnic table and looked out over the lake. Then she looked over at me, staring right back at her. She smiled.

Lovely day, she said.

It’s hot.

One day you’ll grow up into something hot, son.

I’m sure I blushed, but it was summer in 1976 and I spent every waking hour outside, sans sunscreen, but soaked in Coppertone oil, so I was already some dark shade of reddish brown that probably hid said blushing. Someone shouted and she stood up and waved. Enjoy the beach, she said and ran toward the person. I’d heard about “cross dressing” and some talk of people transitioning through surgery and hormones. I believe they had to go to The Netherlands or somewhere to get it done. But now I saw one and talked to one. That blew my mind.

Somewhat related, I was reading an article yesterday about Eddie Izzard and remembering when Ms. Izzard was in the news for coming out as transgender way back in the mid-eighties. She’s been busy, real busy over the last 40+ years as a comedian, stage and screen actor, pilot, very active in LGBTQ issues, and is now again running for Parliament in the UK. She’s also a crack athlete and has run hundreds of marathons (more than a hundred for charities). Here’s what really blew me away:

“It’s not just the sheer number of marathons that Izzard has run that’s impressive: it’s that she runs them one after another. In 2009, she ran 43 marathons in 51 days. In 2016, she ran 27 in 27 days. And in 2021, she ran 32 in 31 days.”

Got that? She ran 32 marathons in 31 days. Damn.

#eddieizzard

Here’s a (Maybe Dumb) Idea

This would be a program designed to bring families out of poverty, enhance and fill in their education, and set them on a path to a new life. And I just made it up so it might not work, or the numbers are wrong, or just an all-around bad idea, but here goes:

Create a gated community outside the city, with 25-50 1,000 – 2,000 square foot homes, outfitted with quality furniture and appliances, all very simple and very clean. The gate, by the way, is serious, for a host of reasons. There would be lots of trees and green spaces, a main hall to meet, play games and celebrate, an office for administration and a pole barn/garage for groundskeeper/gardener and for training residents to work on the grounds and garden.

Other employees would include a caseworker for every ten homes (5), a part-time bookkeeper, banker or accountant to work with families on financial literacy, 3-5 admin positions, security (2), said groundskeeper, and a professional childcare worker and residents working as child-care employees.

Buses would run from community to city and back every two hours from 8a to 10p, with some small number of stops (close to or at mass transit pick-ups). Residents would be required to work from the age of 16 and over. High schoolers 16 – 18 could get out of work requirements when playing a sport or doing other school-related activities. Residents would also be required to sign in and out when they come and go. Allow each family to bring in enough of their own stuff to fill a 10 x 10 shed in the back. 

We assume although are not certain that this venture should bring in lots of willing support through donations and in many other ways, doctors, psychologists, nurses, dentists, chefs/nutritionists and others might donate their time, etc. Bring in artists, musicians, athletes and actors to entertain and to teach art, music, athletics and acting. 

Illegal drugs and drunkenness would be prohibited. 

$4,000,000 to $5,000,000 for land, to build and other start up costs
$1,200,000 for yearly salaries 
$200,000 per year for general upkeep
1,500,000 / 50 = $30,000 per family, per year
2,000,000 / 50 = $40,000 per family, per year

As residents work, they pay some sort of rent out of their paycheck; it would be low, but something to keep them in the paying for things mindset, that would be true of utilities as well. They would be expected to buy their own groceries and everything else once they get settled in and working. Families would be parent(s) and one to four kids. Once the kids are 19, they must move out. Parents move out when kids are out, or before if they desire it, or if it is felt that they’re ready to do so, which we would hope would happen the most often. 

Just thinking out loud here…

Numbers

I find it fascinating how numbers are portrayed in the media, mostly news media. I’ve thought about it myself as I was writing, like, should I write “two hundred million”, or “200,000,000”? Each will have a different effect on the reader. Sometimes I think that the full nine-digit number will seem larger than the written number. I guess I’m not sure. Different for everyone, I suppose.

I was reading an article in the newspaper about Oakland and their struggles as a city. Toward the end they wrote, “The city has lost 15,000 residents since the pandemic began…” That’s a very small city or large town, depending on your point of view, that up and moved out of Oakland since the pandemic. Then, I looked back to the front of the article and reread, “…Oakland, a city of 420,000…” and wondered what percentage it was and what it would look like if that had been presented as such. %.035. So, “The city has lost about %.035 of residents since the pandemic began…” Different. But the same.

Cut and Paste

“Leaves are staying on the trees of northwestern Ohio a month longer than they did a century ago.”

And

“The number of stars visible in the sky will fall by 60 percent in the next eighteen years.”

And

“…and windy outdoor conditions were worsening bacterial contamination on chicken farms in the America West.”

And

“Five-year-olds will believe a trustworthy robot over an unreliable human, even if the robot is shaped like a truck.”

Too many Americans continue to believe in the trucks long past five years old.

From Harpers Magazine, “Findings”, June 2023.

A Biblical March and Two Babies Switched at Birth

Two fascinating articles from the New York Times yesterday, both of which stopped me in my tracks. The first is about the protests in Israel and how one woman – a particle physicist – has become the “face” of the protests. This paragraph is what surprised me:

“Dr. Bressler sealed her status as a symbol of the protest movement last month when she led a miles-long column of demonstrators on a multiday march to the hills of Jerusalem from coastal Tel Aviv. It evoked a biblical pilgrimage, and they picked up tens of thousands of supporters during the journey.”

If you look at the accompanying image (below), you cannot not be struck by how that is exactly what it looks like – a pilgrimage (with lots of flags), and what Jewish communities have been doing for millennia – walking, marching, traveling, in this case, to the capital city, to stand up to those intent on suppressing them and their freedoms.

The next story is two babies accidentally switched at birth. One baby was born of a French Canadian father and a mother who was Cree and French Canadian, a Métis. He was given the name Richard Beauvais. The other’s parents were the children of Ukrainian immigrants. They were prosperous farmers and also had a general store and post office in a town. That baby was named Eddie Ambrose.

So, the kid with Ukrainian ancestry was taken home with the Cree and French Canadian mother, and ended up on the reservation after the death of the other baby’s father. The child of the Metis mother ended up with the well-off Ukranian parents. They both came to figure this out recently after family members convinced them to do DNA testing while researching their respective family’s history.

It’s an amazing story all-around and destined for a movie, I would think, but I found it absolutely fascinating what the Ukrainian boy endured along with his family as a child and at the hands of the Canadian government. The article states:

Then, when he was 8 or 9, came what he called “the worst day” of his life. Government workers swooped into the log house to take custody of the children, who had been left by themselves.

Mr. Beauvais remembers hitting and kicking a worker who had slapped a sister, who was crying, then being thrown off a low roof. The children were eventually taken to a room with pink walls where, he said, they were picked “like puppies” by foster parents and he “was the last one to go.”

“There was no compassion,” Mr. Beauvais said. “If you were Native, the government workers didn’t care.”

But he was not Native, right? Or is he, for all intents, purposes and a lifetime of living, and being treated, as a Native? Fascinating! I won’t comment any more and allow you to read the stories, if you’re interested.

Cats are weird, but you can still learn from them

Cats are creatures of habit. Some years ago my schedule changed a bit and I was always sitting in this upstairs room from about 10 to 12 AM. And one night both cats came up and I petted them for a really long time. The next night they came back up and the next night and the next night, and the next night, always at the same time. Which became frustrating. Because not every night I wanted to pet them.

And sometimes I would quit for a while and not go up there at all, so it would all stop and then I would go back up there, for whatever reason, and they would come back and I would pet them, and they would come back every night again at that same time for more petting.

Well, it’s happened again, but this time I realized that rather than getting mad at them because they’re sitting there, staring at me and waiting for me to put down the ukulele and pet them, I quickly put down the ukulele and pet them, and off they went. Just like that. And then I picked up my ukulele again. Isn’t that just the way life works? You gotta work with it.

🌎🌕☀️

Hyperbole

“There is no better place to hide than hyperbole.”

I don’t remember where I saw that written but wrote it down because I love it. How true is that! Exaggerate! Oversell! Just keep talking and you’ll never have to reveal a thing. It’s really the perfect hiding place.

Everything that’s been written about Donald Trump and we really have no idea what he thinks. We know he lies constantly and makes shit up and screams it at his base and they love it and eat it up, but none of them has any idea what Trump actually thinks either. When he talks – or shouts – he hides, he reveals nothing. Can you even imagine a mellow Charlie Rose-type interview with Donald Trump, talking about things, slowly, quietly, focused? Nope. You can’t.