Whew! All caught up now, with four new photos, after a bout of high geekery and pig-headedness nearly put me out of business for a while. More on that later. For now, enjoy.
Man. Some days this place just blows me away.
Articles in category 'Announcements'
Blogging will resume shortly. I installed a new hard drive in the MacBook and upgraded to Leopard. LOTS of little things to take care of along the way.
Soon!
I love this too. Go get ‘em! They’re only claiming government land, by the way, and private property owners will be allowed to stay.
More of this, please
Bounded by rivers, you notice. Nice. Good color on the map, too. And about damn time…
For those of you who don’t know, I have an actual quasi- (very quasi!) journalistic background writing for Mac sites, and I maintain an active relationship with one of the best, MyMac.com. There are other sites with better tech info, perhaps, but for reviews and human content, it’s a great group effort.
Next week is the biggest annual event for Mac fans and all things Apple, MacWorld Expo 2008 in San Francisco. I’ll be scanning the news from here in Taos and blogging and reporting off and on all week (look for the Blogs column). A large delegation of MyMac writers will be in attendance, too, and they’ll be cranking out articles, videos, and podcasts direct from Moscone Hall. If you’re the least bit interested, stop by and have a look. (It’s a great time to be a Mac user.)
Man, I didn’t revise it, I CONDENSED it! See?
If I’m doing what I really want to do, everything else falls to an appropriately lower level of concern.
* * *
You really don’t have to read any further, that says it all. However, I did write some more in the original post. Not exactly resolutions, but they are timely:
1. For anyone following my crazed flailings re blog addiction, etc., know that I’ve rebuilt my “Blogs” bookmarks folder with the same political blogs I’ve deleted and reinstated at least four times already since last summer. This is a very dangerous thing, as just a single click on the Safari bookmarks bar folder opens them all at once, allowing near-instant scanning of all the nasty bits. However, I was cheating — I am an addict — so why pretend?
The issue isn’t the blogs per se but my own self-awareness, or lack of it. In the short term, draconian measures always seem to work, but lasting change requires a lot more attention to living in the present moment.
2. I want to write. LOTS. Music and podcasts, too. There’s a lot of creative energy in the air.
3. I feel good about 2008. I think it will be chaotic and desperate for many, maybe even for me, but I welcome the opportunity to change the way I’ve been living for the better. All you sweet young things should know (but you won’t, and it doesn’t matter) that the unfolding never stops, the potential never ends, and neither does the struggle. I know, because I’m still here, when by rights I should have been dead or incarcerated long ago, straight A’s or no straight A’s. Why? I was raised to be afraid, to shoot low, to always expect criticism, and to try to play it safe. WHAT A CROCK! — and not a destiny to savor. Does a chipmunk ever feel fear? Of course, in the presence of actual danger. We’re so evolved, we learn to cringe at phantoms. Bah!
4. A very transformational thing occurred over New Year’s: I listened to Patti Smith and her band play a live gig at the Bowery Ballroom in NYC on Sirius satellite radio, at THUNDEROUS VOLUME, for a whole 2.5 hours. It was absolutely glorious and stupendous, beginning with a long performance of a poem about “art rats” (this is the Year of the Rat, remember) and moving on to exciting rock and roll. Patti was brilliant and fearless. That was the theme of the evening, NO FEAR, just do the right thing and feel good about it. As for the patriarchy and its stupid fear of Dionysian release, I FUCKING QUIT! Patti knows from release. Great music!
• I’ve been reading the financial blogs. Basically, the patient died some time ago, and we have him propped up behind his desk to fool the photographers. Everything is gonna be cool, though. Stay loose, we have all kinds of choices. Give land away, let everybody have a little bungalow and garden. Tan your naked body in the sun among the cantalopes, it doesn’t cost a cent.
Onward!
I add interesting sites to the sidebar all the time, usually without saying anything. (That isn’t a blogroll, BTW, although there are a few blogs included.) Today’s addition, however (Photo Activists for Peace), includes some fascinating galleries (full list here) of life in Iran. The following are especially notable, but all of them are good:
Beautiful country, beautiful people. Pass those links around.
Last Friday night I celebrated the winter solstice. There was a lot more to it than I put down in words, but there’s nothing wrong with that. My wife was thoroughly supportive and made sure I could do whatever I wanted. Today the tables turned, and i almost blew it.
What we did was go to the storage unit to exchange some of my wife’s warm weather clothes for heavy winter coats, and to extract the Christmas boxes. I was fine with that, although I felt a foreshadowing of confrontation. I’d actually already done some decorating, putting up a few Christmas lights in places around the house in my odd little way, arranging Guadalupana candles on the mantel, hanging up some Mexican Christmas party flags, that kind of thing. I even bought a few presents. But when we got home with the box, and things started coming out, I had to get a grip on myself and watch out.
For one thing, I’d just busted my ass deep-cleaning most of the house right back to the bare walls, and I had an immediate reaction to the clutter. I kept that to myself, though, and then she pulled out the Christmas stockings. Someone had sewn them for us years ago, and she usually got them out each year, although we never stuck presents in them. This time, however, they bugged me, and I opined how I wouldn’t really mind if we didn’t hang them this year.
“I love them. They remind me of H___ and B_____,” she said.
As I have been reborn, I did not reply, “Exactly!” Moreover, I told her she could hang them wherever she wanted, and while she was making herself a cup of tea in the kitchen, I put them up myself.
“Perfect!” she exclaimed.
Yes, but I also get to do this!
Not that I necessarily mind being reminded of H___ and B____, but I probably wouldn’t choose to be. They’re dear old friends who’ve gone through raging ups and downs with love, health, money, and all the rest, meaning they’ve grown and changed at least as much as we have since the last time we met, and how much would we have in common after 20 years (I’m so stupid — maybe a LOT, how would I know without trying)? It’s the “me” of 20-25 years ago I don’t want to be reminded of, of course. But be that as it may, I hung the stockings, and God bless H___ and B____. We did have some awfully good times, including some maximum high craziness I’ll never forget. Jesus! (Okay, fine, put up the stockings. Oh right, I did.)
But more memory-soaked pieces soon emerged from the cardboard cartons, arghh. It felt like Christmas were pulling me down, crushing the life out of me. I kept quiet, but she noticed and wondered if I was turning dangerous. She was right, so of course I said I was fine. I also kept recklessly going and committed the truth.
“You know,” I averred, “sometimes I wouldn’t mind if these boxes all burned up, so we could get NEW stuff of our own!”
Unaccountably, this came out lightly, without rancor, and no offense was taken. How did I manage that?!? Then she said we could get new things and add them to the collection. Uh-oh. This had skull and crossbones ALL over it, and I changed the subject. But I’d gotten away with being myself. Somehow I’d told the truth without pushing any buttons. Cool! I felt better. Calmer.
Full moon through the bedroom window
I thought about the collective Christmas monster and wondered why the hell this was such a big stupid issue with me. I felt hounded by zealots and the culture itself. GET OFF ME! How do you get unstuck from a culture? I was already off the reservation, so what was the problem? Exactly: WHAT WAS THE PROBLEM? Egad! All of a sudden, it hit me: there wasn’t any. I’d celebrated the solstice. I realized I was a pagan and didn’t have to hide it any more. That was the real me, and I’d always been that way: it could no more be rubbed out than the nose on my face. What’s more, my wife encouraged me in my orientation and had handled it with love and respect — all I had to do was the same.
If I had guests from Tibet who rang gongs and chanted all night, or if I were hosting a voodoo delegation and someone needed to kill a chicken, would I object? Well, sure, but in a perfect world, no.
So here I am in a house festooned with Christmas doodads. It’s a celebration that means a lot to my sweetie, so let it roll. I will revel in her self-expression and join in where appropriate. That last CD didn’t sound half bad, either, 16th century carols with reed instruments that sounded like duck calls. There were lots of drums, too, and a primitive bagpipe. It made me want to march around the room.
Okay, on with the show.
(Quack-quack, boom-boom, ho-ho-ho, and a good night to you all.)
Okay, this is hard.
My sweetie put on one of those Christmas-themed CDs, this one of the alleged “jazz” category. Well, Oscar Peterson was okay, so long as there wasn’t a recognizable melody. (Aieeeee…)
I’m trying, I’m really trying, but I’m afraid I have a visceral reaction against Christmas music. Enmity, even. The weird thing is that the feeling gets stronger every year instead of weaker, like you would think — you know, we get older and wiser, mellow out, etc. Or do we? There was a time in my life when I actually enjoyed singing carols, but I just can’t do it now. My lips won’t allow the words to form. I’m not a believer, and I need to look after my self. It’s like there’s this huge newness and resolve. I can’t ignore that. It wants honoring. I honestly don’t know where this comes from, and I’m having a devil of a time keeping things open and straight with my wife.
My Iowa girl… she’s anything but conventionally religious in her heart — vital, raging, and free — but Christmas means a lot to her. She gets teary for family and distant friends, likes to pull out all the old ornaments, remember who gave us what and when, that kind of thing. Her family Christmases were so wholesome and loving as to be from another planet to me. When we first got together, my emotional baggage and I weren’t such a good fit at those gatherings. There were several times when I should have been taken out and shot, but ultimately, that was just a sideshow, with me as the freak. Infinitely greater than that was the energy and love of the gathering families, and this is what she misses, even now.
It’s not all love and nostalgia, however. She also gets wound up tighter than a busted pocketwatch this time of year, what with hurrying around to buy presents that need to be packed and mailed, and is usually involved with some kind of musical performance as well. It gets busy. Her blood pressure shoots up, she gets exhausted to the point of staggering, and for most of the years we’ve been married (when her parents were still alive), we added a 2,000 mile winter road trip to the mix.
That’s quite a package, obviously, and dealing with it has never been easy. But there’s something demanding deeper awareness now. She feels it, too, and makes adjustments here and there, but a deeper shift is coming. It has to, on her part and mine.
* * *
Possibly related to all of the above is the fact that I find myself focusing on the winter solstice this year more than ever. That’s the beginning of the astronomical year, the true New Year, and I like to feel the change right then, when the sun is reborn. The significance of the solstice is enormous in this hemisphere, and yet so many people simply miss it. Perhaps that’s changing (I’d like to think so). Imagine how strong and solid it would feel if our calendar moved in step with the sun and the moon. That’s how it used to be, and when we lost that, we lost our connection to the cosmos.
The precise moment of the 2007 solstice will be Saturday, 1:08 a.m. EST (06:08 UT). That would be 11:08 p.m. MST Friday night, a few hours after we come home from hearing Bone Orchard at the Taos Inn. I’m not sure whether that has anything to do with it, but it might: my plan is to allow myself to be reborn.
WHAT???
Yes, that’s right: I’ll be relaxed, receptive, and open. If the timing opens up the circuits, fine. Call it my personal “Christmas.” What I give myself is permission to drop the past and start anew. I give myself permission to be new. I’m quite serious, at any rate. That moment (and the days that follow) will be, well, holy for me.
I like that. Why the hell not?
May the magpie that’s on the bird feeder right now peck the eyes right outa my head if I don’t stop leaving comments on political blogs.
I don’t even know who it is who does that. It’s like a disease. One in a hundred times, I say something compassionate or light-hearted, the rest of the time it’s like I have to draw blood. This stuff stays out there forever. Only a pure-bred idiot would persist in this kind of behavior.
Maybe it’s time to have my DNA checked.
Okayyyy… got a little bit behind — very cold (zero!), very intense here — but FotoFeed (”Photos” link at top right) is now updated. In fact, the rollover image above is the current picture. If you’re a FotoFeed fan, you know to use the “Day Before” and “Back” links to work your way back through the photos I just uploaded.
