Culture note one

I went to lunch the other day with some people, and the conversation centered for a few moments on how could I possibly live in Italy and be so ignorant of, or not doggedly interested in, what is going on around me, including Italy's rich language, culture, etc. (I have to point out I am doggedly interested in the national religion, Food, and its faithful practice, Eating.) 

By extension, how could I write things and post to this blog and not know what is really going on in Benano? After all and reportedly, the center of the world.

I have wrestled with these questions before, living superficially as I do, once I am sure in a poem a few years ago. Anyway, here goes, again. Call it in the interest of knowing about and accepting more and different perspectives on the varieties of living-experience.

First and fundamental. Interests--what characterizes and drives people--center around questions, or quests.

For one of my acquaintances, an emigre from somewhere else in Europe and now an Italian citizen, characterizing the quest goes something like this. "How can I understand and appreciate deeply the language and culture in which I live with an emphasis on history and art?"

His answer is to focus on just those things--Italian language, Italian culture (and Culture), Italian history, and Italian art. Necessarily these interests take my acquaintance into artifacts, whether physical or recorded, as well as social interaction and self expression. One purpose of pursuing what this person does has to do with immersing himself into where he lives, especially appreciating its richness--in its details. His self expression is art, natch'ly, as well as showing and selling his works (iron sculptures). His world is in large measure place-people specific, Italy and the Orvieto area, and the integration of same into his work.

For whatever reasons, and they are I assume complex, beyond a sense of belonging, this person tenaciously holds onto the country he has adopted and which fortunately seems to have adopted, or largely accepted, him.

It is also clear, his world is more than the most obvious interests I can see and hear, those I have highlighted here. How could I possibly know more, or the Truth? We always hold partial realities.

For my part my question/quest goes something like this.

Can I increase my general and specific knowledge in the areas of science and epistemology, phenomenology's relation to absolutely accurate understandings of selected things, including the person-as-subject, and writing's role in all of these?

These interests/quests take me into an inner world and personal or private study, often observations, of the realities of self and others as expressed in words meant to be heard or read. Thus the central aspect of my studies is expression; however, my expression, my words, are for "no audience." They are not other-directed. I invite no one to view my personal evolutions unless for some reason they show an interest, or I carry on temporary and relatively singular relationships for specific purposes--like this one here, just now!

Life is more than such serious stuff . . . but having said that, the reason for pursuing what I do is greater and greater understanding of the depths of human and spiritual potential. My world is not place specific, unless place provides the impetus for subjects to be looked at oh-so-carefully. This explains why I can reside, as I have, in my own and other cultures without getting too close to or too deep into them.

Living in different places affords me a buffet of delicacies I can taste and experience, to delight in and entertain myself with when not doggedly pursuing my callings, and the obligatory visit to the great mosque of Food (home) for the daily ritual and high celebration (lunch).

With the exception of the above characterization, the one before my own, I am not confident, or presumptuous enough, to attempt definitive articulations about stuff and other people, although it is tempting at times. For fear of getting it miserably wrong, I refrain, or restrain, and internalize. After some fermentation, I can employ the insights I gain, and I hope greater understandings, in getting along in the world and its different localities. The world and each of its corners are other--foreign, alien, to be coped with. The premise is that this is so whether one is born-bred in a given place or not. Landing here and the fact of being equalizes us.

The conclusion to all this is, whether found in a poem or prose or just a randomly uttered thought or a casual something one notices and comments on: People are different and they get about different stuff.

And that different stuff on the one hand makes for a rich stew--life is beautifully messy. On the other hand stuff divides us one from the other fundamentally, sometimes tragically.

Will I ever be Italian, or more Italian or German or French or whatever than I am right now? The question is improperly framed, and irrelevant.

So cultural note one ends with what each of us does to make life just uniquely so, or to thrive pursuing his or her own.

I'm game

[Is this part one of a two-part piece having to do with how first meetings determine or reflect the nature and boundaries of that which comes next? Can we find here the seeds of the relationship as it is/will be later in time, perhaps even years from now?
But this dialogue is imagined, not a transcript of an actual first meeting. That is a weakness in "proving" a suspected phenomenon currently without  a name.]

GIRL: Got a sure-fire pickup line for me?

BOY: I'm sorry?

GIRL: That won't do. OK. I said, do you have something you want to say to get my attention? You know, to get me to talk to you, like pick me up or something.

BOY: Oh, um. Well, you're talking to me already.

GIRL: Want to play the game or should I go?

BOY: I would like to taste the flavor of that gum in your mouth.

GIRL: Good. Good. But not good enough. Try again.

BOY: You don't look your age.

GIRL: And? Something else?

_Pause_

How am I supposed to take that?

BOY: You're wearing bobby sox. Makes you look young.

GIRL: Wait a minute. Wait. So you're telling me I look older because my socks make me look younger? What kind of a line is that?

BOY: No good, huh?

GIRL: That's not the game. You are supposed to flatter me or something.

BOY: Who said anything about rules? The object of the game, according to you is . . .

GIRL: Yea I know. But this is not how it is supposed to go.

BOY: You started it.

GIRL: And I can finish it.

BOY: I like it when big girls threaten us shorter men.

GIRL: You're not short, are you?

BOY: I'm sitting on a bar stool and you are standing over me, a bit close I might add. But I like that. Wanna play dominatrix . . . kid?

GIRL: This really isn't going . . .

BOY: OK. Start over.

GIRL: Got any clever words for a girl who really wants to talk to you but is really, really shy?

_Pause_

What's the matter? Now you say something.

BOY: I'm thinking.

GIRL: Hey you could lose this one. Anything. Out with it. This is supposed to be fast, spontaneous, funnnn.

BOY: OK. OK. Wait a minute. Naughty?

GIRL: Naughty is fine.

BOY: I would like to kiss your left nipple right here, right now.

GIRL: I don't have one.

BOY: That was good.

GIRL: No, really. I don't have one.

BOY: Show me.

GIRL: Game over.

BOY: It was just getting good.

GIRL: No. You were too naughty.

BOY: I give up. You keep coming up with rules, rules after I break them.

GIRL: Don't give up. That game is over, so we can start a new one. What's your sign?

BOY: My name is Brad.

GIRL: I said sign, dummy.

BRAD: Just cutting to the chase. What's your real name?

GIRL: Alice, and I'm a virgo.

BRAD: Really?

ALICE: You really are naughty. Do you treat all your girlfriends this way?

BRAD: Now we're making progress.

ALICE: I meant are you always so difficult?

BRAD: This sounds like the beginning of our first argument. First we meet, have a little chat, exchange names, jump into a relationship and now this. What do you think?

ALICE: Naughty and quick. You could have fooled me from over there. But now I think you should buy me a drink or something.

BRAD: Your place or mine?

ALICE: Brad, I'm thirsty. I'll have the same as you. And that drink had better be here by the time I get back or this game really will be over. I have to visit a mirror.

BRAD: Is that a threat or a promise.

ALICE: Promise. A promise sounds nicer. But be careful. You don't know if I'm nice or nasty--yet.

BRAD: I'm betting nice. All my friends are nice.

ALICE: How many friends?

_Interlude_

ALICE: I was thinking. A girl kind of wants to be romanced a little before you get to the body stuff. Your lines are clever but not very romantic.

BRAD: I'm a guy. Guys think about stuff like that. If you ask for an off-the-top response, that is what you'll probably get.

ALICE: I know.

BRAD: So, is there a problem?

ALICE: No. I'm back, aren't I? Where's my drink?

BRAD: I ordered it, but it's not my fault it isn't here. You will have to threaten the bartender this time, not me.

ALICE: I am not really serious about threatening anyone. It was just part of the game.

BRAD: So are we still in a game?

ALICE: Doesn't feel like it. Would you like another? game I mean?

BRAD: No, not right now. I like to take things a bit slower. You? another game?

ALICE: How many girlfriends do you have?

BRAD: Only you.

ALICE: Game. Game?

BRAD: No, a dance. Dancing is more like the truth. Games are somehow not real. Fun, but not real.

ALICE: OK. How many girlfriends?

BRAD: I said only you, but that really isn't true, is it? We just met.

ALICE: Yea. You're right. I hate it when someone else is right. And I guess I started it. Almost turned into a fight. But I only left for a little while, to check the, um, mirror.

BRAD: And what did you see?

ALICE: I think you are attractive, Brad. I think I saw a girl with a chance. A chance for something. Something more than I have had, something more than I am used to. So I took a chance. Am I wrong?

BRAD: But you don't know anything about me.

ALICE: So tell me.

BRAD: Well, for a start, I have a lot of girl friends, but no girlfriends. And I'm a geek. A computer programmer. I come here to get away from work. It is all-consuming, and if I don't get away, my diet goes to hell.

ALICE: A man with order and discipline.

BRAD: Yes, and I'm OK with that. Not for everybody, but I like what I do. So what do you do?

ALICE: I come to places like this and try to meet guys like you.

BRAD: I don't try to meet guys.

ALICE: Oh, a grammarian also. Figures.

BRAD: Comes with the calling. Strict rules for working; same for life.

ALICE: Sounds boring. What about spontaneity?

BRAD: Well, you saw what comes out when you ask me about spontaneous.

ALICE: I see your point.

BRAD: Your job, really.

ALICE: I work for a magazine. A proofreader no less, and no more, unfortunately. But I don't always talk correctly.

BRAD: Do you usually say what you mean?

ALICE: Sure. Except when I try to . . .

BRAD: Pick on guys like me.

ALICE: No no. Pick up guys like you.

BRAD: And this is really how you spend your time? other than sleeping, eating and editing?

ALICE: No. Not editing. I wish. That's what I meant about nothing more . . .

BRAD: OK, I told you about me. Tell me more about you. Career ceilings and all of that.

ALICE: Let's dance. This is nice music. You like music?

BRAD: No.

ALICE: But you can dance?!

BRAD: Teach me. Guys, they like sexy teachers.

ALICE: OK, Guy. Come on.

_Interlude_

FRIEND: So what's he like?

ALICE: I can't tell.

FRIEND: He can't dance, can he?

ALICE: No, but that's not everything. He's cute. He also has one thing on his mind.

FRIEND: I don't have to guess.

ALICE: Right.

FRIEND: So you'll be here when he gets back from the loo.

ALICE: Sure. I still have this drink that he's going to pay for.

FRIEND: Mercenary.

ALICE: All's fair!

FRIEND: You sound like a hardened, fast-dating predator.

ALICE: Do I? I don't think I'm a predator exactly.

FRIEND: Eat or get eaten.

ALICE: Janie!

JANIE: Just having a little fun. Girls night out ya know.,

ALICE: I kind of like him. I don't know why.

JANIE: Time to find out. Here he comes.

ALICE: Stay here for a moment.

JANIE: Give me a signal if you want to be alone.

ALICE: It's not like that, yet.

JANIE: He's more than cute. But can he read and write?

ALICE: Talking is enough to start with.

JANIE: I could think of . . .

ALICE: Shh.

BRAD: Hello.

JANIE: Hi.

BRAD: Two pretty girls.

ALICE: Janie was just going.

JANIE: But you said . . .

ALICE: I changed my mind.

BRAD: Janie. That's a nice name.

JANIE: Thanks. You're Brad. Alice was just telling me . . .

ALICE: Nothing. Nothing!

BRAD: Telling you?

ALICE: Janie has a very jealous boyfriend right over there. If he sees you talking to Brad much longer, he's gonna come over here and punch somebody's lights out.

BRAD: I've done nothing.

JANIE: Neither have I, and besides, my beau needs to learn to lighten up.

ALICE: I give.

BRAD: So how do you know . . .

ALICE: We work together. At the date-rape crisis center. Right, Janie?

JANIE: Er, yea, right. We see a lot of that stuff around here.

BRAD: Date-rape crisis center? I didn't know there was such a thing.

ALICE: Yes. Well, we just got going. We got a grant . . . from, er, the Footsie Foundation. Yea. I mean yeah!

BRAD: And how did you guys get involved in something like that? I hope not personal experience, as victims, I mean. Could be pretty traumatic. I knew a guy who says he got raped at a party.

JANIE: Really? How does that work? I mean you usually don't think . . .

ALICE: Yea. We don't see that much of that. In fact, I don't think we ever . . .

JANIE: Yea, but we just started. We just got the grant. Getting the office and crisis line going and stuff.

BRAD: What's the number?

ALICE: Um. 867-5948. 800 867-5948. Want to write it down?

JANIE: No one will answer now. There's nobody there. We're not really active yet.

_Whispers_

That's your number, stupid.

ALICE: Not so stupid. He won't remember.

BRAD: Yes I will. I've got an uncanny memory for numbers. For example, 867-5948.

ALICE: But you won't need it. Victims call. And girls who are a bit bewildered about what might have happened to them.

BRAD: Right. Well, I guess I won't be needing your number either.

JANIE: Want mine?

ALICE: Look sharp. Your boyfriend is headed over here. Bye.

JANIE: I guess Miss Wants-You-Exclusively here has decided I have served my social function, as it were. Nice to meet you Brad. Maybe We will see you again?

BRAD: Should I call the hotline to get hold of you?

ALICE: Stop it. Good-bye, Jane.

JANIE: Bye Alice. See you at the, ahem, office.

BRAD: Nice girl.

ALICE: Yes, very. Now as I was saying . . .

BRAD: Yes, what were you saying? I had popped off to the men's room. No, we had just finished dancing. Well, I finished before I started. You're pretty good on your feet. I guess running away if there is danger would be pretty easy for you. You know, date rape and all kinds of weird stuff these days. Stalkers, for example. Going to some island somewhere and never coming back . . .

ALICE: Do you think about these things much?

BRAD: No. You? Like the date-rape crisis center and all that.

ALICE: No. We don't work there, if there is such a thing.

BRAD: I figured.

ALICE: But the number is good. Remember it?

BRAD: Sure. 800 867-5948.

ALICE: There is no 800.

BRAD: Darn. I was figuring on free calls, if I decided I needed your help.

ALICE: Do you think you might need my help? for something?

BRAD: I would like some help with a little project I'm doing right now. My fig pig.

ALICE: Say what?

BRAD: I am making a pig out of fig sticks and grape vine cuttings. I need someone to hold parts together now and then while I tie them together with string. I am all thumbs sometimes.

ALICE: Why? I mean why are you making this pig? Is it like a sculpture, or something for school or a competition?

BRAD: No. Just wanted to do something with my hands. Most of my time is spent doing head work. You know, in front of a computer. It is a nice change. To do something physical, where you can see and touch results.

ALICE: Oh. A pig, then. I see.

BRAD: Yes. Kind of a conversation stopper, isn't it?

ALICE: Nooo. But . . .

BRAD: But you don't know what to say, right? I know it is weird. People have their weird sides. What's yours?

ALICE: I'm not making any pigs right now, or anything. I'm. I'm . . . talking with you. That is my project right now. And it seems to be going . . . well, going. What else do you do when you are not doing your job? Are you into music. No, you told me you weren't. So, tell me what.

BRAD: It sounds like you are interviewing me for some position. Are you interviewing me for some position?

ALICE: No. I'm sorry.

--Pause--

Perhaps I better go.

BRAD: You just went.

ALICE: I didn't mean that. I meant . . .

BRAD: Time for you to talk. Tell me about you. I'm interviewing you now. I am looking for a non-profit, altruistic, shy do-gooder. Are you that kind of person? Or . . . talk to me.

ALICE: I like it when you do the talking.

BRAD: You're a follower not a leader? I don't believe it. You came over here trying to pick me up.

ALICE: I was not.

BRAD: Yes you were.

ALICE: Wasn't.

BRAD: Was.

ALICE: OK. I was. How am I doing so far?

BRAD: You like to play games. I know that . . .

ALICE: You're pretty sharp, for a jock.

BRAD: I'm not a jock. And you can't get me with that diversion. Back to you. What sports, for example, do you like to do.

ALICE: Geesh. You're tough. Where's Janie?

BRAD: Over there. Now, you were saying.

ALICE: I do aerobics. That's not exactly a sport. At least I don't think so. And I walk a lot. I love walking actually. Probably doesn't count. Let me see. I like to watch some sports.

BRAD: How about we take a walk sometime?

ALICE: Yes, that would be nice. But won't your girlfriends mind?

BRAD: They won't mind.

ALICE: How many did you say you had?

BRAD: I didn't say.

ALICE: Well?

BRAD: Jealous already? We just met.

ALICE: Right. Right you are. So what's your number?

BRAD: I have yours.

ALICE: Yes. Right. OK, then . . . good enough.

BRAD: Drink up. Our first walk starts now.

ALICE: Now? But I don't even know you.

BRAD: I don't know you either, but I have an emergency number you can call in case anything happens.

ALICE: Funny guy. Funny guy.

BRAD: Ready?

ALICE: Why not?

BRAD: I guess that wasn't so hard.

ALICE: What?

BRAD: Nothing. Let's go outside. We have some decisions to make.

ALICE: I'm game.

High School Basketball*

Basketball's a curious sport.
Seen with its stands and roomy arena,
It's no wonder we witness many hyena.
There should be drama, action in this court,
But what we see is civil tort!

Fans

Basketball's a curious game.
'Cause when we see one,
We're not the same.
While players are gentle men,
Or ladies on the floor,
We allow the fans to leave
Their angelic frocks at the door.
The nicest kid on the other side,
We want to tan his lousy hide.
Or some hot shot kid we don't know
Becomes the enemy:
His skill--he's not supposed to show!
And if he does
And gives our team a bath
All he gets is thankless wrath.

Refs

And I think the refs are curious folk.
They run, sweat, soak and get excited.
You'd think that they' been invited.
Why do they come every Saturday eve?
Our praises for them never get old.
You'd think them some tickets we'd readily sold!
In service they call all the calls the same.
And we repeat so religiously
What they've always been told:
"Hey, ref, yer missin' a good game."

Basketball's a sport that's tough,
Not for sissies afraid of ruff.
But how hard you fight
With all your gristle
Will ne'er change the open mind
Of the man with the whistle.

Coaches

Basketball is finesse and grace,
Executed as battle,
Not a pretty face.
A shot or position so well taken,
'Times you'd think he'd stole the bacon.
But some coach pops--
He always does--with stern grimace,
"Hey, pick up your socks.
Get in his face!"

Players

And you on defense,
In earnest you get set.
Innocent you look
Without a growl.
The offense runs you over with insistence:
And all you hear up in the distance:
"How many steps does he get
Before you call a foul?"

And amid a growing sob,
Not for you but the call,
Another standside coach yells,
"Hey ref, get a job!"

And amid the win and loss
And all that holler,
It's up to you to care
And to bother
About how much you score
And whether it counts
and more.

Remember, the game's for you,
Those who play it.
But like life and the world,
It ain't perfect.
Do your best each and together,
Feel the spirit, fun and flair,
And hope the ref--he hasn't lied.
Hope his call's on your side.
Hope for you sake he's more than fair.

The Game

Basketball--win or losses--
It's the same frustration.
Like life all 'round you,
There are jackasses.
And smart ones, too,
In consternation:
"Hey, ref, wanna borrow my eye glasses?"

And when all is said and done,
The game decides,
The final gun,
Remember, players, of both sides:
You or they are not to blame.
It takes at least two to play the game.

___
*Composed in the mid '80s.

January 1984

It may be early yet,
But the winter's light is changing;
And thoughts generous of the immediate
And the past past
Well up and bring me to:

Whether near or far,
Let not geography
Nor time mar
The memories we share.

May the closeness now we feel
N'er diminish from what we felt
When last we were together.

(There are no endings.)

Health and happiness the new year bring
To those at peace and those who sing,
From winter's dark to next it falls,
As well and fresh through summer's promise,

Spring.

Babu's folder

Gabriella.

Hello. My name is Gabriella Kapplan. Call me Gabe--long a--not Gabby. I am here today . . . excuse me. I'm new at this. Let me start again.

Welcome. We are here today as guests and by invitation. It appears not all who received an invitation chose to come.

My role is a kind of advocate, standing in for a benefactor who wishes to remain anonymous.

First, just to go over things we probably already know. This is the invitation delivered by personal courier. You have each have received a copy and signed for it.

You are hereby invited to spend the weekend of June 10 and 11 at J.K. Place, a boutique hotel on the island of Capri, Italy, all expenses paid except travel to and from.

There is no obligation whatsoever. No one will try to sell you anything, nor will you be presented with anything to buy. Think of it as a random act of kindness for which you are the beneficiary. Perhaps you need just a short break from your usual routine.

On Saturday morning at ten, there will be a short meeting (this one) in the Globe Conference Room (here) to present an offer. The offer involves a monetary gift and the minimum requirements for its receipt.

You may attend this meeting or not. You may accept the offer or not. Perhaps you will think of it as a second act of kindness, or just plain good fortune. Perhaps you will think it is lunacy, and that I am not serious. You would be wrong in this.

A reservation has been made in your name. No other guests will be staying at J.K. Place this weekend. You and other invited guests will have the place to yourselves. Relax and enjoy.

Well, that is it, and here we are. I think everyone is present who registered with the hotel. So we are all on square one, as they say.

She paused for a moment and then said,

The second item on my agenda is to present the above mentioned offer in detail. This is it, all of it. You all received a copy as you entered the room.

A year from now you will be given one million euros as a gift if you adhere to the following conditions.

1. No sleuthing around.
Do not try to discover who I am or why I am doing this.

2. Ssh!
Keep this offer a secret--from everyone.

3. Renounce your culture for one year.
Think of it as a coat you are wearing and just take it off.

Short and sweet? As promised.

You have this offer in writing in the form of a "promissory note," which if you agree, you must sign and date. Like begets like. You keep your promise; you get what has been promised to you.

Oh, quoting exactly from my presentation notes, and on behalf of our benefactor, "Please sign the attached note and give it to my advocate. Then return here next year to receive your deserved gift."

One final information item. Here is an affidavit and account statement for a certificate of deposit showing 100 million euros, the interest it's accruing, and the date all moneys can be withdrawn without penalty. That date is one year from the twentieth of last month, allowing sufficient time next year to distribute the promised amounts. Naturally, certain information has been blocked out.

You may examine this affidavit and statement yourself, if you like. Come to the table here and have a look in this folder I have made to hold the relevant documents. This statement, I assume, is provided to show that this offer is backed sufficiently for, shall we call them, random acts of kindness?

That is all I have.

After you have had time to consider this offer and perhaps meet other beneficiaries, I mean prospective beneficiaries, we can meet and try to answer questions. You can retract any promise you make today, if you like. Not a long but a sufficient waiting period for such an extraordinary offer, I think. Shall we say tomorrow, same time, same place? before your departure? Checkout time is noon. Nine in the morning sharp, then.

As she said these last words, Gabe looked as if she was getting ready to leave. She picked up her pen and dropped it into her briefcase. She shuffled her notes and tapped the stack to even the papers. As she did this, the conference room erupted in a low buzz and it was growing louder when one voice rose above the rest. The loud voice asked, What do you mean by culture? Another asked, how will you know if we meet these conditions?

Gabe looked up and appeared surprised there was any question.

Babu.

Hello. My name is Babu. I am sorry. Miss Kapplan cannot join you today. You met her last year. She sent her best wishes. I am here to keep your benefactor's promise. I am here to confirm you have received your money.

You promised not to question the person who is your benefactor. Promises of a personal and business nature worth so much material gain deserve respect and discretion.

I believe I put that incorrectly. We make promises because of mutual care and honor. I trust you agree, and that you were able to honor your part.

Finally, you set your culture aside for almost a year. I assure you no malice was intended by this, only goodness and joy. Your experience should establish the truth of this.

During this past year you wrote Miss Kapplan the details of your bank account to receive your gift should you fulfill your obligations. As of this moment, the money has been transferred to you.

Thank you for coming today. It is a day of celebration. Don't you agree? I have asked that the hotel place a banquet before you on the terrace overlooking the sea. It is a beautiful day. Let's enjoy it together. You may relax. You may be yourself. There are no more rules or conditions.

Babu left the room, and on the dias there were two folders. He returned a few minutes later to retrieve them. He found just one.

Apropos of right

CANDIDATE: I know some want to ask questions about religion, abortion and so on. I am happy to answer all questions insofar as they relate to the office I seek.

My general position is this: Matters of religion and state should remain separate, as our constitution states. In addition, I support freedom of choice, expression and practice. No one belief system should enjoy privilege or preference over others.

My personal beliefs may in the eyes of some have a bearing on the policies I advocate or enact, or the decisions I make. Where personal beliefs come into conflict with the will and beliefs of others is inevitable. We live in and I embrace a society with multiple perspectives, and this is the standard I set for myself and forms the basis of my candidacy.

For those who wish to inquire into what I believe and practice, for whatever reason, I am happy to answer. But I must limit this to just a few questions, because we need to get to other issues as well, and in my statement here I believe I have answered the substance of any relevant relation between my beliefs and the office I seek.

In short, at the end of the day you vote and I vote. We have our own reasons for the choices we make. Plus as __________, I will champion the will of the people as constitutionally developed, articulated and approved.

So, questions?

QUESTIONER: What is your position on abortion and evolution?

CANDIDATE: This sounds like two questions, or one that would take a non-politician to answer. Let me approach these this way.

Abortion is legal in this country. I support the rule of law and the rights and privileges granted to the people under the law. I also support those who would seek to have this or other laws reconsidered or clarified. If a significant number of voters wanted me to use my office to help bring about a change, I will. In this sense I can be both a representative and servant.

My personal view on the specific question of whether abortion should be legal is irrelevant at this stage. If I took a position, this would place me and the office I seek in the position of advocating a private and therefore particular view. Some relish this idea, to have at the helm a person of like mind and will. But I do not agree that this is the leader's best and most important role.

The most reasonable and helpful view of the __________ is to make sure the wheels of democracy turn without unnecessary or irrelevant friction. When the debate has settled on a course of action, I will, given your vote in the next election, have my part to play, which I will then, as is only reasonable and proper, explain and defend pubically. Government of, by and for the people will not be realized if the government itself pushes and pulls according to the changing and developing positions on the issues of the day. Government, including elected politicians, should move in concert with the people.

Same goes for all the words being spent on evolution and, let's admit it, creationism and science. This government has no business acting as judge or jury in matters of science or religion. Let each of these pursue their highest and greatest goods. Let the people make their recommendations on merit and which public policies are appropriate. Let government stand aside in matters it has no expertise or business in addressing.

What expertise do I or any in the administration have to declare evolution is "just a theory, and not a a very good one"? None. Same goes for intelligent design, or whatever wrapping you want to package that idea in.

But how does evolution and the insights it contributes to the understanding of our world relate to government's role in what is taught in schools? One example: government does support science by establishing national priorities and granting money for science, education and research, because science has a clear relationship to social and economic progress, which is the business of government. And there are concrete measures of knowledge and competence in the work of science and scientists.

Creationism to my knowledge has not yet demonstrated its contributions to society.

QUESTIONER: You are a __________. __________s--they have been responsible for great crimes and tragedies in recent history. Do you have a comment?

CANDIDATE: First, yes I practice __________. But I am not an apologist for this religion or its extremists. "They", by the way, is too vague. Let it be said that whatever the religion, "they" have been responsible for ills past and present. Not just the "they" of __________, but the theys of all the major religions.

If you judge me based on religious preference, I would respectfully point out that discrimination based on religion . . . well, you know the rest. No one is accusing you in particular of anything. But you can see how this concern about my religion or a particular religion could grow into a conflict with the basic principle--should I say freedom--we have agreed to live by in this country.

I fail to see how this concern you have expressed, and I acknowledge that the concern may not be yours but you are just sensing it and voicing it for others . . . I fail to see how it relates to me and my candidacy, unless people wish to focus on irrelevant and vague fears and unfairly judge the substance of me and my candidacy for the office, I should say job, that I seek.

Suffice to say, I am a God-loving American who wants to serve his fellow citizens bringing whatever human and political skills I can to the office.

QUESTIONER: You have taken the wind out of specific questions about religion and policy by focusing on the democratic process rather than what personal beliefs you have that would guide your decisions, actions, initiatives. Can you say what initiatives you would champion that are tied to your religious beliefs?

CANDIDATE: I think I have answered this in general and specifically--abortion review, science and evolution versus creationism, separation of church and state, my personal vote and what I would champion in the public not private arena, socioeconomic progress, education and achievement, social justice in my references to discrimination, the freedoms we enjoy . . . a belief in the constitution and being consistent with what we embrace and how we behave. Fairly comprehensive list of issues I am concerned about for a start, I would say.

If there is one belief that all the major religions agree on it is there is one god. I believe in that God. And if he or she wants anything from us, it is to work together to realize what is true, good and beautiful. I gladly dedicate my private and public life to this God and these aspirations.

QUESTIONER: Faith-based organizations now enjoy public funding for their work in health care, social welfare, education and so on. Will you support the continued use of public funding for private and sectarian organizations?

CANDIDATE: Yes, whether they be faith-based or not. Public funding for public work deserves public support. With these cautions. I do not support using public funds to support private, proprietary or proselytizing work. I do not support public funding for any and all public work carried out best by the government itself. This means I am against distancing ourselves from our missions and mistakes by contracting with, for example, business or industry.

QUESTIONER: Presidents since __________ have punctuated their remarks and addresses to the people by saying something like "God bless", or "God bless America". Presidents in recent times have disturbed the majority of Americans by sometimes omitting this acknowledgement to a higher power. How will you handle this in your public remarks?

CANDIDATE: Let me ask you. Do you think that someone should say something just to please just some in the audience? Do you think someone should say something he or she did not believe in or think appropriate at the time? Was there ever a time in our history--looking back with some wisdom that time and reflection allow us--when was it ever appropriate to boast that God was on our side? Or that our adversaries should dare oppose us.

Arrogance and elitism are the Achilles' heel of would-be imperialists and failed civilizations. They have no place in today's interdependent world.

The formulae you have given as examples have been heard as the concluding words to important addresses. What if the addresses themselves and the person of the public official were to utter such faith and hope in the context of specific challenges and adversities?

Let's grow up. Waiting for your leaders to say exactly what and when others have before him is to rest in the conventional and familiar. I'm not satisfied with that nor do I think that our citizens should be.

Let's wake up. It is time to take bold new steps in the confidence that we are strong and capable and understanding and trusting enough to dare to be the kind of nation and society we say we are. If you like, God bless that, and God bless us.

You want a democratic leader that dares to tell you the truth from time to time about our lack of maturity or wrong-headedness? Good. Let's roll up our sleeves. Get out and vote. I am Ms __________, and I am running for __________.

I shouldn't talk

[In response to http://www.usnews.com/opinion/mzuckerman/articles/2012/01/06/mort-zuckerman-we-must-reignite-americas-can-do-spirit]

Mort is a wordy guy for just this: we need a president who "will try anything consistent with our values that restores our national belief in ourselves". I shouldn't talk about wordiness, but this is an example of an extreme. From the point of view of good writing, he could have supported this conclusion in about half as much, if that. Oh, I recognize that we are not here to talk about writing and style, but for such a lame conclusion about the kind of president(?) we need, he could have wasted less of our time, AND focused more on all those obstructionists and unthinking hubrists in government and society who have taken us off an original, pretty good course. (Contrary to popular practice, we do not need to be supersized in everything from meals to wheels.)

Oh, for the good old days. Fact is back then we had other just as weighty issues to contend with and we somehow muddled through as much because we had to as for some can-do hocus. Invocation of Churchill was the right note, however, to strike, if I may be allowed to mix my metaphors.

Isn't the conclusion really that we need leadership at least at the national level with balls? as well as a citizenry that won't stand for anything less? Yes, embedded in Mort's "evidence" are concrete steps towards building that self confidence or whatever it is we seem to have lost. But I don't think that pessimism or some deficiency in some immeasurable public attitude really is the issue. At issue is America's survival and thrival as a credible and worthy world citizen. For that we have to go back to work--you are right--spend some money, collect some money, tighten our belts, consume less and conserve/preserve more and . . . walk the walk. What are the concrete things to be done to achieve that? Feeling good will follow as will some milktoast can-do trait Mort seems unable to find right now.

Mort, this is a first draft. Go back and give us a more concise thesis and some meaty bullet points to communicate to our candidates. Then let's see what they say and have an election. If they behave like the GOP field has done all these many months so far, we will get Obama again, and we should then sing like Janis Joplin and Nike, nothing left to lose so let's just do it. Can-do by popular default, if Obama doesn't choose otherwise, or have the you know whats. Better than spinning ourselves for another couple of decades until the eventual bump on the head or skinned knees brings us to our new reality.

For a wedding

Yves Saint Laurent said: "The most beautiful make-up of a woman is passion. But cosmetics [or aftershave] are easier to buy."

If you kill passion, you kill all joy and pain, suffering and delight, goodness and evil, beauty . . . and life.

Passion is the source of energy, persistence, creativity, thinking, and of love.

Passion is the power that helps you overcome obstacles and reach your goals.

It is the magic that keeps you together and strong.

It will also keep your feet warm when any chill wind threatens your door.

Never set aside or lose your passion, because you can’t buy, steal, or borrow it. And you also mustn't lend it, or take it for granted.

Treasure and delight in your passion now and always.

Meaningful message, obscured

[See http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/europe/7342071.stm]

The BBC today reported that a "nude photograph of France's first lady, Carla Bruni, has been auctioned for $91,000 (L46,098)--more than 20 times the expected price." If one reads beyond the headline and the first paragraphs, we learn that "Christie's said money from the sale of the photograph will go to Swiss charity Sodis, which provides clean drinking water to developing countries."

It is all too easy to miss the message of this apparent bit of fluff, the universal message. There is so much to obscure our vision to see the meaningful.

Take the nudity of a well-recognized person now made public by an auction and an international news medium. Sex sells news and other things. Is this the message? that the BBC gains readership by reporting this news? It titillates us and tempts us to enter the world of who is doing what with whom and how many times? Too mundane.

Ms. Bruni participated in the occasion of taking the picture. She posed, perhaps was paid, consented implicitly or explicitly to the publication. All pretty straightforward. Are the model and her career and the industry of which she was a part the beneficiaries? and the lessons? Perhaps, but this is hardly noteworthy in the larger scheme of things. There are other models and other nudes in pictures and paint. Significance of who and what again do not seem to be the point.

Money. The root of all that is good and evil. The fact that a photo has sold for such a sum is a commentary on the values and affluence in our societies. Or is it? Surely photographs and photographers and subjects have commanded this and higher sums for fashion or art. And prices are always going up. We can't be surprised if a photo or a gallon or liter costs us more today that it did yesterday. For what purpose--money--does not seem to point to that which is meaningful.

The argument may be that we need gas/petrol more--we use it to get around. We don't use a photo in the normal course of things. Okay, let us make the comparison with a coffee-table book. High-end books to look at in plain view of self and guests are almost like the oeuvre of Carla au natural. Case closed? No lasting smack between the eyes about the meaning of life or some such thing in a book or its use.

Christie's. Do we live better or more meaningful lives knowing that it was Christie's and not the Akron Museum of Modern Art that sold, or bought, Carla's likeness? Fat chance. And is it giving to Sodis, a charity, that we can relate to? Another, with all due respect, charity. We need not proceed further. What can the message be, and is it in any sense universal?

Representing or presenting the female figure throughout history has been seen and understood as that part of us which is always and ever aspiring. We seek beauty. And the effect of giving with whatever motivation to a cause or someone is, unadorned by speculation, interpretation and such, an unselfish, good act. A truth.

THE True, the Beautiful, the Good — through all the ages of man's conscious evolution these words have expressed three great ideals: ideals which have instinctively been recognized as representing the sublime nature and lofty goal of all human endeavour. (From A lecture by Rudolf Steiner, Dornach, January 19, 1923, http://wn.rsarchive.org/Lectures/TruGoo_index.html.)

Take the particulars away. The specific details--BBC, Christie's, Carla, money, charity-giving, etc.--are not the message of the fluff. The universal message without obscured vision is to see ourselves and others and the best that our humanity in all its facets, and foibles, are capable of. That we aspire--and aspire yet again--let there be more nudes and more auctions and more unselfish acts. We can take pride and comfort in the meaningful, and ourselves.

Invented truths?

In an article titled "Texas sect temple 'used for sex'," we read this from the BBC Web site on April 11, 2008.

Members believe a man must marry at least three wives in order to ascend to heaven. Women are taught that their path to heaven depends on being subservient to their husband.

It is 2008. If ever there was an invented truth, this must (still) be it.

Not to cast stones at the sincerity of some character or others, this precept, or "revealed truth" is a prescription for God knows what, and only s/he can know. No man or woman today with a mentality beyond mythical can swallow this. But apparently some have. And they have allegedly included children in the mix, but to date it is unclear how children play a role in the "sect's" marriages and families.

Perhaps it is desperation or some strong sense of "I can beat this death-inevitability thing by sowing my seeds." It is unclear, except again in an omniscient's eye. We cannot know that even by the standards of the most devout, who acknowledge a better and brighter yet unknowable force in and through and all around us. That s/he has spoken audibly on this specific approach to marriage and male-female relations and not on other matters of great import yesterday and today seems highly suspect.

To be accurate, the quote refers to three wives at the same time, polygamy. Otherwise many of us are already guaranteed a place because of three or more legal, lifelong commitments, which may successively have found rocky shores.

The subservient-to-men piece is archaic by anything we can learn from the further reaches of human and social development, developments we can document by advances in knowledge, prosperity and consciousness. How is it that there is great want of awareness in this world of seeming plenty? Perhaps we are too full of ourselves and what we have accomplished, while at the same time losing our vigilance to what is reasonable and good.

Some would argue that the good is relative. In the context of faith, sex with minors and multiple wives (why not husbands?) is sanctioned. But is dominance over and exploitation of the young or naive ever justifiable in the face of what we know causes physical, mental and emotional (let alone spiritual) harm? Call this then stupidity, or more kindly, ignorance. But today, to be possessed of either is both a curse and the self-inflicted disability of religious and non-religious alike. Okay.

Maybe it is about Texas. After all, it is not the first sect to have been uncovered in that state. Perhaps it is in the soil or the water of the place? No, too simplistic. By that my own place could breed as much weirdness, and it does. So the idea of doctrine growing out of location seems fruitless, or it deserves much, much more careful thought and study. What then?

Some would have us see this as a male conspiracy and the brainwashing of women. These then attribute a level of consciousness and premeditation to promulgating the doctrine. Isn't this just a cover for coveting the other for pleasure or dominance, and taking what the ego or the devil says is there for the taking?

Some would claim that women and men in this sect believe. Although that has been dismissed above, perhaps there are some believers. Enticed or enrolled into a polygamous program before the opportunity to see and learn the world apart from one belief's lenses could account for this. If this is the case, do we need to save ourselves from ourselves, thus justifying state intervention?

All of this to say if not strongly suggest: The end of the world is at hand and in the hands of those who would have us believe invented truths and the exploitation of the poorly informed. They are killing us with their words and fervor for their own, not God's, pleasure.

_____
http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/americas/7341077.stm

Step One*

for Maggie

Find a quiet place,
aside the human race.

You will need little care,
just a straight-backed chair.

Settle comfortably in, realizing
Realizing Self is no sin.

Breathe in and out,
and all else rout.

Let your body go.
So there you are . . . just so.

Close now your eyes not to see.
NOW--ready? Just be.

Recite your words
till they end.
Ever, so, slow.
Then again. Go.

No one's perfect.
Ego's mind will wander.
Stay awake for best effect.
Work is hard there--beyond yonder.

Demons may appear.
Watch them, do not fear.
Let them also go.

Slow. Again.
For twenty min!

(You can afford the time.
Where you're going--
No need for silly rhymes!)

There you did it.
And on the morrow,
You will come and sit.
Same time and place,
to let ego go a pace.
Not self but Self,
the safest, treasured space.

Rewards aplenty,
those minutes twenty.
Peace and One--
The goal that is no goal.
What better spent to awaken?
yours and my and our immortal soul.

_____
* Refer to the works of Eknath Easwaran.

[Not so obvious. You have to experience it, not read or talk about it. Or bother yourself with silly rhymes like this one. What you are after but not after (the goal that is no goal) is more important and powerful than words can express. The ineffable.]

Secret no secret andThis blip aside

[Only occasionally do I post comments elsewhere . . . usually out of irritation or outrage, sometimes awe and respect. I did so out of both of these. Here are the words slightly dressed up, which support the analysis and commentary I had just read: "The Secret": A Critique by Carolyn Baker, http://jwlsweblog.blogspot.com/.]

I saw The Secret once about two years ago, maybe a little more. Slick production, thus lots of money behind it--why? to sell books, DVDs, etc., I guess. As to the message, it is very, very old. And it is combined with other truisms that are also not in the category of secrets. One need only go back to Napoleon Hill with his Think and Grow Rich, which is far back enough, the early part of the 20th century.

You need to have a clue (thought) before you can realize (manifest) in physical reality. A lot of stuff just does not happen without some sense of "this is what I want" plus "now I will have or do it." The result is something. If you keep the idea, now purpose, in mind, you will approximate what you set out to make real.

No big secret. And it does not have to do with a law of the universe. The secret's law is just the "magic" someone "sees" when something roughly or even precisely anticipated happens as a result of their intentions and what they do. There is not some cosmic attraction behind this, or show me where or how?

The other side of the so-called secret is accounting for attracting all the bad stuff. A poor person somewhere on the street is not, I would surmise in most cases, saying I want to attract poverty and homelessness. Rather, their thoughts and actions, to the limits of luck and chance and forces much, much larger than him or her are acting to keep 'em there or help 'em, or not, move beyond to better. You can say, they are trapped and no law of attraction as such operates for such tragic conditions as this.

I still maintain that it is the entitled (read Baby Boomer) preaching pseudo cosmology, effectively their selfishness/schtick to the people who would make them rich by buying that c$%p. Is that too harsh or pessimistic? Naw!

[Since I posted this, another response to what I was responding to was posted by Richard Kent Matthews. I couldn't resist. See https://www.blogger.com/comment.g?blogID=20048226&postID=2603336406552529867.]

A blip aside

I still believe we create our own experience of reality. If we don't then there really is no hope.

You'll think I'm wrong. So sue me.

I believe you have side-stepped the point a bit about all this Secret stuff. Can't let you off that easy after such confrontational words, but I won't go so far as to sue you.

First, I think what you have said is partially right. You are not wrong. You don't need to take it personally.

Next, no one is going to sue you. Your inviting suit must mean you feel so strongly about being right that winning would produce some gain. Strong words. Empty by The Secret's own precept.

Consider. In a suit for gain, who wins? Both parties have the future reality of winning in mind. They each are magnets. But we know that magnets have opposing poles. If you or someone opposing you loses, does that mean that their practice of The Secret was somehow flawed? or not as pure? or that it was not in keeping with the highest and best good for all as determined by the universe? But that means I can't have everything I ever wanted. What kind of belief system is that which promises this but has such obvious exceptions?

In the spirit of partially right, I will agree with the point about creating one's own experience of reality--if we don't there really is not hope, but no consciousness at all! There is no secret to this.

Now, this is the side-step. The Secret is not so much about creating our own experience of reality as much as it is about creating observable realities in a proven, cause-effect manner.

You are a magnet attracting to you all things, via the signal you are emitting through your thoughts and feelings.

I am a money magnet and money comes to me effortlessly and easily.
http://www.thesecret.tv/top-secret-summary-of-teachings.html

In the case of the impoverished sweat shop worker, or anyone less fortunate, s/he creates a personal, private experience of reality AND there are conditions and circumstances much larger than him- or herself placing challenges in the paths to wealth and abundance. That this worker experiences the life s/he does is undeniable, and again no secret. We assume consciousness/awareness of what is happening with most people. We can assume this with our sweat shop worker. That s/he also might benefit from a change in magnetic forces is also undeniable. As I said, and The Secret creates a false mystique around,

You need to have a clue (thought) before you can realize (manifest) in physical reality. A lot of stuff just does not happen without some sense of "this is what I want" plus "now I will have or do it." The result is something. If you keep the idea, now purpose, in mind, you will approximate what you set out to make real.

But that does not mean that the sweat shop worker will rise out of poverty, or that I will become president of IBM, or the world. That this worker can change the conditions and circumstances with which s/he must cope is quite something else. That I can change the world by changing myself, you must grant me as I do for myself. If I see it differently, it is different, for me. That I can change the situation in sweat shops around the world is quite something else.

As you dismissed a number of the mainstream religious and spiritual traditions, you called on your readers to mind what the Buddha was purportedly to have said. "Whatever resonates with your sense of reason, accept it and reject the rest." I guess Buddha holds some truth even though you have also said, "No one knows the truth of anything really." This blip aside, and again focusing on what was said, what does your sense of reason tell you about what we should believe about The Secret, or any necessary palliative to death's inevitability?

May a fellow preacher suggest to another: "The one [at life's end] with the most toys wins" is an empty philosophy or religion--because it only lets us temporarily, if that, set aside contemplating why we are here and what will, for sure, happen one day. This is your alternative, which leads to compassionate action, and it is surely not nihilism, or worse--The Secret's materialism.

Disculpa plantilla?

[Over the past few years, long lost friends and flames have contacted me. We have reached that age and stage. The "existential angst" I have felt with not knowing how to respond to these messages from the deep blue past gave birth to this template. I confess I have not actually used it.]

I am not very good at this--connecting or re-connecting with people. Some character flaw, I guess. Plus, I have become more of a loner and recluse these past fifteen years. Life's buffet has not served up the right choices, or I have chosen poorly.

Suffice to say, I am indeed still kicking and intend to for as long as possible. I appreciate and have made a religion of truth, beauty, and goodness. I use my talents and energies to discern and understand "what is." I am in good company, but certainly not special--neither a leader-to-follow nor exemplary parishioner. But I do my best to enjoy the moments and the visual and other candy that I discover each time I open my eyes, or close them.

I am happy to know you are here, too. I have strong and weak memories, some surely repressed, of the times we were together. It would be nice to sit and go through these. Who knows what would surface? I am sure there would be discoveries to delight, or perhaps dismay us. Regardless, it would be worth the effort. And it would allow us to share again a relationship-love that brought us together in the first place, caused by fate or fashion. And that surely has joy, sometimes laughter, associated with it.

Unfortunately for now, I am one of those who is limited. Call it economically challenged. I will travel to Mexico in a few days and try not to disappear (France would have been preferable). I have had to swallow hard and work on digesting the latest necessary corrections in the course of a life. I am not sure where my one-way ticket will finally take me. At least I can work on languages and cultures still, perhaps find a caretaking or other low profile job.

As you can see, it is difficult for me to get close. I use language and other defenses. My intent is not to do this, but for now I still find it necessary to cover the sadness and pain that otherwise can overwhelm me. In person I am still presentable. I am fit and healthy, handsome in a grayish sort of way, positive, and whatever else. I am not embarrassing to be with in public or one-on-one. Normal in everyday life, if that is descriptive of anyone--I doubt it is. I evade groups.

I cannot account for what has happened over the years. That is a kind of writing I was never good at and have decided not to try anymore. Suffice to say I am here now and glad to be able to say hello. If this is not the strangest message you have received from a distant someone, I would be happy to hear from you again. I will do my best to respond, but it may take some time. As I said, communicating and connecting are challenges for me, and I am flying below the radar, not entirely by choice.

End of August, 2007

At your convenience*

A trip back to the mother country awakens one's ears to changes in the mother tongue. I recently visited the US. Not surprisingly, I found my native language changing. The following sound bite surprised me. But I hope it is an aberration, not a development.

"Hello, this is So-and-So. I am not available to take your call right now, but if you leave a message, I will get back to you at my earliest convenience."

Several people I telephoned in the US had this recorded on their answering machines inviting callers to leave a message. For those interested in native speech, this sounds like a good sample of American English to consider, or not.

The phrase "at [one's] earliest convenience" has been used to leave an urgent message, or make an important request. The caller or writer says, "Please get back to me at your earliest convenience." Translation: "I need you to do something ASAP [as soon as possible]. In fact, and quite probably, I will be very worried or upset if you don't!"

Here is the translation of the variant of that phrase given by the answering machine.

"I will get back to you when I choose to. But it will be on my terms, if I have time today, perhaps after working out, having lunch with friends, checking my e-mail, and watching the latest installment of "Desperate Housewives" on TV. If tomorrow or later, well, I will just have to see if I can fit calling you into my busy schedule."

Yes, I may be overstating a bit. I acknowledge one might let this kind of thing pass coming from an answering machine. But aren't the incoming and outgoing voices on answering machines those of people? Face-to-face, the "at my convenience" would be rare unless the speaker really wanted social boundaries and difference in status in bold, italics, and underlined. "What is important and urgent for you is not necessarily so for me. In fact, it's not."

I was surprised at hearing these outgoing messages because "at your earliest convenience" has had a limited situation or context. It was for when you really needed an answer from someone, or to have something done. Not often was it used for saying, "I am more important than you, or whatever it is you want."

Has my native language evolved with this strain, or is this a culture bite I am hearing? For people to assert how communications will be without first knowing who is calling and for what, well, that is using language for a preemptive strike. Must be a culture thing.

The American preoccupation with rights and what is right has its darker side. Argue with this if you will, but an answering machine's generic outgoing message reveals its owner in his or her new clothes. Among other, not-so-obvious messages is that "at my earliest convenience" assumes callers need to be clear about the rules for live talk. The party calling back will be in charge, including when.

It is as if the one leaving a call-me-back message isn't already clear on these points. The advance warning, or is it admonition, isn't necessary.

Having said this, I prefer not to hear the obvious, and not subject myself to a role I don't help define in relationship. "At my convenience" from an answering machine is rude. I suspect other users sensitive to the feeling-tones in the language would agree. This phrase should be reserved for those demanding few who deserve reminding their language or behavior needs restraint. "At your earliest convenience" can retain its original, useful urgency, as in "Please get back to me on this quickly."

I hope preemptive strikes are not casually creeping into the language. At your earliest convenience, argue with this message if you will. I will get back to you on that.
_____
* Posted originally by Kevin Mactavish, 13 April 2006, on http://jbrooksdann.typepad.com/anecdotal/2006/01/how_convenient.html. Thanks to J. Brooks Dann for starting the conversation.

The greatest sin is

omission, not evitable neglect:
To not do freely what one can and one ought.
Magnitude's measure is deliberation's delay.
Lest thou transgress, waken to never forget.
(No omission without commission.)
That same damned panhandler asks for my money
as he checks his Rolls Rolex up a long sleeve.
It is not easy or safe to juggle and judge.
Can you spare him a dime, his nose all runny?
My life's excuses beget the same guilt.
Plea ignorance or insanity,
it's our dirty all same. To the books then,
or whatever you can, to work through the silt.
Heighten awareness of things surface beyond;
deep or distant, it's an eternal game.
You have no choice nor do I.
Give me a cup then, bring the beggars on.
The double bind me-thou is thou-me.
Subjects and situations more heinous?
Who's to decide the degree, or agree?
Except we're all damned, 'n me most of all.

Mercy's shadow

[I suppose this piece somehow wells up from my dark side. I also know an angry crazy person, impossible to live with, and I have experienced first hand having been driven to extreme frustration, although I have never gone this far unimaginatively. And it puts out an imagined but no less palpable reality, a thing to be witnessed and at some level understood. Good only exists, I'd pontificate, because evil does . . . such is the dualism of every thing.

From the view of imaginative variations to come at what is, this piece offers some interesting possibilities based in part on intentional ambiguities. For example, where would this question lead one: Grounded in what is said and only that, what is the relationship between the speaker and you (mentioned twice)? and the man she lived with for eight (or more) years? Ask further questions like these, and you will get additional tentative realities, I imagine. Leading to . . . an open and comprehensive (integral?) conclusion to bank for future decision/action.]

I've told this before, but I can tell it again if you like. It doesn't matter. It doesn't change anything. If I had it to do over, I would. Even if things was worse than now. This is nothing compared to living with him. I didn't actually live with him. I lived at his mercy. And that finally got me. I mean I realized it. I only lived because he let me. He watched. I was under his thumb. Every minute of every day. My only safe place was the bathroom. He wouldn't come in there, trained he was, like that. But he would bang on the door if I was in there too long, longer than I should, "to take care of normal business," he said. He was like a dog, and angry. Oh, the anger. Anger and meanness. I took it for as long as I could. I think eight years is long enough. After I moved back into the house, it started. I should have left him then when it began to get bad, before even that. My sister warned me. I don't remember the first time, but early on. She finally said, "Bash the bastard in the head. The world'll be better without him." I finally got the message, but bashing seemed so brutal, or something. The word. Cruel, I guess. She said, "Show no mercy." Like him when it comes right down to it. But in the end, I got pretty angry, pretty desperate. Bash. Yes, that is what I did. Skull caved right in. I guess almost anything does with a with a hammer. "Lucky hit for a girl," he'd have said. He always said stuff like that. But this time he didn't. He can't. At that point I didn't care about nothing. Not me, not him, not my sister, not mom, not what would happen, not if he lived like a vegetable from then on or just died right there and then. Nothing. And I'm happy now. I was pretty shocked at first, but now I'm OK. At least sort of peaceful. This place is heaven compared to our old dump. Plus there's heat and TV, and it's clean. I couldn't even tidy up, he had me so scared. Like a mouse or something I was. No, he was this big cat and I felt like this tiny helpless thing. Yes, maybe a mouse. I just wanted to get away from him. Hide in the corner. But I couldn't after I decided to come back. He was always there. Always. Watched me. Talking. Never let up. My sister warned me. I guess I lost days, months. Probably most of those years. I had nothing else but to do what he said and try to avoid those hands when he got riled about something. He'd hold his arms straight down and his hands would begin to make those fists. I'd freeze up, stop whatever I was doing. Something silly. Nothing, really. I lost years, and I don't even remember stuff. It is like a blur to me. I remember when it started and when it ended, but in between? It's all fuzzy. Like his head. Like it was. He deserved it. The judge didn't think so, and his friends, those people who'd come around now and again. But I know. Yes, I know. And my sister. No one would believe me about her. They said she didn't even exist. Imagine. Well, check it out. Check my family tree, or whatever you do. I am sure to this day I know where she is, but no one cares. No one even asked. "Bash," he said. She said, "Bash away," and he did. Took her out the back door and didn't come back for a long time. Told me to stay right there. Last thing I heard for a long time was that screen door bang. I still hear it if I think about it, which I don't. Well, after seeing that, I was so scared. Like frozen I was. I know where she is. In a better place. "But sometimes when you open your mouth, that's what happens." He said life was like that. "No freedom of speech 'round here," he said. I didn't know what he was talking about. But now I do. I can say whatever I want to here. Even talk to you. I don't have to be quiet. I am not a mouse. It is better than living like that. And my sister. I am sure she knows. She is in a better place. I am sorry she's not here, but this place--she wouldn't like it. She with the short happy life. Me, I hope I have a long life. Mostly not happy so far, even before his nap--I couldn't even move, he'd get so angry. Said I was always disturbing him, makin' noise and such. But I was very quiet. Maybe I'll be OK, if this is what I got comin'. Who knows? They're gone and I'm here. And it ain't so bad. Only sometimes, when the others get to yelling and making noise, like they are crazy or angry or something. Or when those friends of his come round. But all the doors keep them away. I am safe. And he's not here to bother me. Mercy. Mercy. That's what there is sometimes in this world. But the good kind, the kind where nobody really bothers you much. Yep, him and my sister gone. Just me. I wonder what Mom thinks of all this. She probably saw it all, and she saw it all comin'. I think in some way she can rest in peace now. In good mercy, I guess you could say.

Still-born

I wouldn't say I can't write one of these stories--a novel, for lack of a more precise term--but it seems after three tries, I should think about my desire to do so. Here is the deal.

The first was about a guy who had a recurrent nightmare of being watched from behind a curtain or darkened doorway. He would have the experience of this in, shall we say, real life, and that would be his last. The voyeur was one who just wanted to study, no kinky or scary or violent stuff involved.

I got to the point that it seemed to me the plot would be boring for anyone to read. Plus, my excursions into the character of the watched teetered--more than teetered--on philosophical exposition, Jungian archetypes, etc., not necessarily interesting for anyone except me, plus it was fun to have the plot turn upon itself. What would it be like to watch? What is it like to be watched? And these would be the central genre of questions that occupied the professional interests of the main character . . . who dies of his own nightmare made concrete by the voyeur.

The story started like this.

As my father instructed from behind me, I held the mirror at arm's length.

"Now," he said, "look at yourself. You at a distance. Can you see yourself as I see you from here, over your shoulder?"

I confessed I could and followed his every word despite not seeing the point.

"Tilt the mirror so you can see me. There. Now you see me. I am a different image. Because I am me, of course. But also because I am not you. Now, move it back so you can see you. It is not you in the mirror. But it looks like you. It is the image of you, but it is something or someone other. Here now, then gone. Get it?"

I confessed I didn't. And so it went like that. He had infinite patience. But I didn't have his gifts, his way of looking at the world out there as some kind of object that he could focus on, or not, and understand, by his way of seeing, that there was both sameness, unity. And there was difference. Other. And that, he contended, helped him in his personal life, which he said was all we had, our personal lives. The roles of father, businessman, friend, all of them, they were just different views of him but not him. It was this divorce from everything that helped his sanity, particularly in the final years when he became less, I would say, acute. And he said it had helped him since his mid-twenties when death, he was certain, stalked him. To keep that specter at bay or in perspective, my father returned to the mirror or some other method he had and the reminders of who he was and was not. He was able to categorize the images and the identities that went with them, he said, and he found peace, mostly, throughout his life. It was a quiet, distant, and sometimes lonely existence, from the outside anyway.

I am afraid the lessons didn't take all that well. But now and again I look out there as if in a mirror to see what it is that is there, or appears to be there. I try to see it separately, distantly, and not as a part of me. But I have not had the peaceful moments my father said he had. I look over my shoulder now, and I know he is there even though I cannot see him in detail anymore. I know he is there. And clinging to that, I suppose, has led me to try and try again to get it, that elusive subject or object or image lesson.

But so what? I stopped about half way through. I called it Followed.

The next project was called Vanishing.

"Don't leave blood, semen, or menstrual discharge behind you as you run."

That's how it started, about a privileged guy who just decided one day to disappear.

Or perhaps this would have been the start. I couldn't decide before I left this one withering in the incubator.

Aside from Percy Ignatius Weasley, who after all is a fictional character, it is inconceivable that just twenty-eight years ago anyone's real parents could have named their son Percival Franklyn and then gone off and died. But happen it did, and therein lies one reason for this someone's disappearance. Who wouldn't want to with a name like Percy? But that is perhaps too simplistic an explanation.

PF's adventures take him around the western US and then on to Europe, finally ending in a new friendship, or relationship, and the revelation of his truer self, not the same as the one from the life that he had been living. Other characters were involved, mostly to try to find him, and they too had their own revelations, including dropping out of the game of hide and seek involving PF. Search of self by self and others, as others discover themselves too, or something like that.

The problem with writing this one was, after less than a third of the way into it, I got bored. Now how is that? My main and other characters bored me! My readers could not have that, I mused, and so the project foundered.

The latest--A Serious Affair, for lack of a better working title--goes like this (ignore the numbers in parentheses):

Hal, charismatic and enigmatic in the prime of life, (1) falls from his horse leaving his wife, Lillith, and his mistress, Jeanne, to carry on. Memories of him and the preparations he made help them with their grief and more.

Each feels her loss differently, but Jeanne's commitment to personal, especially spiritual, development, plus the separate bequests from Hal, show that the women will cope and thrive better by cooperating to achieve what (2) Hal would have wanted.

With Hal's loving guidance, (3) Lillith is already more aware of her power to attract, yet her personal development is still held back by a life of near celibacy and distancing others. Lillith would give up this her private way to wholeness with Hal in favor of avoiding the pain of grief and just living a comfortable life, but for a crush on Jeanne and the money and emotional support Jeanne needs to realize Hal's vision, a small conference center to support leading edge thinking and action.

(4) Jeanne realizes that she has not only received important lessons but also a mandate from Hal when she recalls her memories of their times together. Having to deal with the real property he has left her helps her step beyond her troubled business and up to a higher calling. Although she feels she should Lillith alone and give her space for grieving and not focusing on her husband's other woman, she can't. Her own grief compels her to share intimacies with Lillith. And she needs Lillith's financial help. Jeanne faces new challenges in acting in Hal's stead as model for Lillith and the point person for a near-complete vision.

The eventual opening of Hal's conference center signals a change in Lillith and Jeanne's relationship as it has evolved since Hal's death. They discover a new beginning out of allowing destiny's (title?) passion to work its magic.

It doesn't sound bad, but isn't this also boring? Grieving women find renewal out of a dead loved one's ashes, or some such thing, plus there is this do-good, personal development center now up and operational as conclusion. The triumph of the human spirit--yuck! End of story? What if I spiced it up a bit by taking away the progress. Not everyone progresses, some regress, some have dark sides that sabotage others along the way, etc. Naw, still not worth writing, and not worth reading.

Where does this leave me? Well it is clear I have these three stillborn scribblings. I feel I need better plots, or as a writer friend has told me, "just tell a good story." Well, I like the stories and their possible development as a result of going further with them, but I can't get beyond the outlines and first partial drafts.

John Irving in a recent interview said that if you are not up to revision, you are not a serious writer. Well, what about not having anything to speak of to revise? What am I missing? I mean, what am I missing that these stories do not have enough in them for me to stick with them longer? to get to the point of making revisions?

Recently I have written exercises, each about a thousand words or so, and these have been immensely rewarding to do, to revise, to re-read and find there my own genius, perhaps something only I can appreciate. And I have put out some pretty good, if obscure, poems. They too have satisfied the urge to write, to get what's inside out. But these longer fictional works--conceived in my own head and not based on any biographical reality except perhaps my own knowledge and values, not things that happened to me or somebody I know--they have eluded me.

I have thought of going back to the longer works and writing in thousand-word chunks--dialogues, descriptions, scenes, background materials, streams of consciousness, whatever. Then I could piece them together, either by just dumping them into what I might call a new (for me) form of long fiction, or craft them together somehow during revision. Rather than start with the big picture/story and working it down from beginning to end in a long string of text, properly ordered and complete, I could start from the pieces and work my way up to the magnus opum.

The first work was one which discovered itself as I wrote it. That writing was satisfying until I asked if a reader would ever want to slog through all of that just to have a guy die and another crawl back into his obsequious life. The second had this discovery aspect plus a physical journey to organize the story, mostly the western states. But I sort of got stuck in Reno in a casino in the middle of the night of the first day. The third project never got beyond the core summary, although I had an idea of the first three or so scenes. And I had a sketch of the attractive 29-year-old almost-celibate, as told by a unisexual friend. Yeah, a little weird, but I had a promising draft, rich enough to qualify as a kind of literature, or so I think (this fragment I have posted).

I think I am still back with the problem of story or plot. My characters are interesting, to me. But they don't do anything interesting. Perhaps I am really attempting a character study or two, or should be in order to continue. But is a character study what I want to do?

To qualify what I said above, Followed had a lot of me in it. The two main characters had identifiable aspects of me. PF in Vanishing had less of me, although it could be argued that I have been vanishing, or erasing self in some sense, for years. A Serious Affair has as its main characters two women. I can't say either as currently conceived shares much of me. The progress, if that is what it is from novel ideas one through three, is increasing distance from the autobiographical. Each, however, is imagined, created through a process of thinking and developing as it, each writing project, progressed. Is this a kind of maturation, leading to something? and what?

What did each singularly lack? What made me think they were boring, or would be? First, each character I created was honest and true. They were who they were, and they were not bad, as in evil. In fact, one could say that each was true to him- or herself, and in that sense good, without tragic or lesser flaw. In the Affair project, the two women come off as goody-good! Cooperating on a project to save others, after and as they saved themselves. What is missing? Conflict. A villain. A character tic, or two, or more. Some spite, or maliciousness, an unhappy ending.

For example, what if Lillith caused her husband's death in some way, or she just watched him die instead of going for help? And the revelation of this sometime later in the story would have an effect upon her friend/competitor Jeanne, such as to put the project in jeopardy, or arrest Jeanne's will to complete it, or so forth. Well, this complication would be a development of the story, but for what purpose? To keep the reader from being bored? As the would-be author, this is boring for me. The story becomes like just any other psychological drama or soap. And if it did, that does not seem to be what I want to do. There is nothing wrong with that, but for me to do it, all the writing, organizing, and more, I have to have some stake. Money and fame are not attractive, nor are they realistic outcomes.

Which leads me to think that it is non-fiction that is my interest, rather than fiction. And it is this deep interest in bare and reasoned truths rather than entertainment or stories that try to disguise or cleverly teach bare and reasoned truths that has me writing, or trying to.

In the process of self-effacement, I have come to a point where I do not tell stories. Not about me. And I do not see them or remember them as I go through my days. It could be that the absence of an adequate story for a novel has something to do with my own arrested or blindered development, my own alienation.

I would have to say that it is not the hackneyed problem, writer's block, that I am talking about. I have the story, the plot, the characters, locations, points of view, and all the rest. I just get to a point where writing and completing the plan seems without justification, intrinsic reward. I could go on, but I choose, based on considered reasons, not to proceed down the corridor to the reception room at the end, or whatever the metaphor.

Now for the obligatory turn. It is possible to add additional "reasons" here, but these too are on a never ending path. That path must not be avoidance but punctuated by a stopping point or two along a way toward, toward the next. To pick one of these projects up again, to create a new one having learned the key--I need to be hooked, compelled--I cannot say.

The overall effort here has been putting understandings out there to look at, and for the reader--this writer being one--to take to any next step. This piece does just that; admittedly it does not resolve itself, nor does it report on the fates of the three incomplete stories. These are all stillborn; would that they and this reflection lead to being born again, born still--or just allow us to rest in a fuller sense of what is, what should suffice, for now.

Evolution 101

Zuska had a botfly
living in her leg.
(In truth, I do not lie.)
Came a little egg,
rolled off a 'quito's back,
down the little snout
into the hole its sack.
There twould not come out.
It had a little tube,
where it got its air;
and blew it in a fugue--
raising Zuska's hair!
Came out a worm one day,
color of slick white.
From then we cannot say.
Except when it's night,
a new egg is begot,
waiting for a ride--
plus some of Zuska's lot--
to now in you reside!

There is no other

Imagine a point here and another far and a third to the left of the sun about an inch but distant five light years.

Each and all of these or other points are at the center of an infinite surround ever expanding towards eternity but never getting there where there is no there.

Which means you or other and all are at the center of a universe so timeless and boundless each is inconceivable and minuscule.

Pass the wine and give me a bit of cheese (while I get my head around all of that in my timeless moment at the center of nowhere).

Trite repetitions such as this console us not, we of those documentary children left on our own but recipients of ready made insights and shakable conclusions.

If every point is a center, then there is none and neither bringing rights, lofty expansive descriptions, or morose morsels that need concern us.

Yes, I'll have another, thanks.

No one can leave it like that, insignificant beings in immense seeings. What of the meanings inside and great deeds done in the immediate surround?

They have a measure of difference among like kinds just as galaxies among billions collide and we hardly notice, but they are momentous moments too.

Yes I'll have another, thanks.

Then I'm done here. No one will notice except the humor and my long suffering partner, the star, at the other center of my universe where there is no other.

Come this spring

A windowless wooden door
with hand-hewn lintel, stone,
a window as wide and half as tall,
above, ivy curtained,

the silent portal framed,
a seldom entry
at the end of a gravel path
scrunching each approaching step,

neither discloses nor invites
one to knock or inquire;

the door and window and foliage
impose such as to hide
building or dwelling
of which they are all one.

And I to Italy
to see if 'round the back
a garden needs a tender,
or an olive needs cicadae

to sing it's present there,
or sit-admire fruit awaiting.

Un-i-sex

She stopped by the other day and told me the latest. I have become the listener now in our relationship. It was different before, but now it is this way. And I don't mind. In fact I like it. Listening is a way of relaxing in a conversation, isn't it? And even one's silence and patience have an effect. Or if it is just acknowledgement that you have understood, if you understand that way of listening, that can help too. I mean understand the other person. So I am fine with it. But this is not about me.

She said that Brad had stopped by her desk at the office and shuffled about. She didn't get--until he had to come right out with it that he wanted to buy her a coffee--that he was really doing that, trying to invite her. She said that she was so dense. I didn't agree. But maybe she is. Anyway, she met Brad, maybe it was Starbuck's. She was all out of sorts. It had been raining by then and she had forgotten her umbrella. She was all wet with her briefcase from the office and some packages she had picked up from Lacey's. They were holding them for her. And she wanted to take them home. New things she said she needed. Some even sexy, although I know she wasn't going to show them to anyone. There was no one in mind, no one current. In fact, there had never been to my knowledge. We have known each other for a long time, and I think I would know. No, there is no one. But this Brad. She said he was nice. They talked about work. And then she left. Just like that. I asked if there was anything else. Something he did or said. She said no, nothing. I asked about whether they would be meeting again, and she said that was a curious question. Of course they would see each other at the office. It was like that with her. She never seemed to wonder about things. I mean men and how they might be interested. She didn't even talk about being attractive for guys, although I know she takes care of herself. She really does. She always looks great. But who am I to talk like this? It's really none of my business. But in a sense I guess it is. I am listening. She tells me these things. Sort of makes it my business. But I don't think it is my place to ask questions. Not questions like that.

So Brad came and went, I guess. Just like so many others. And no word from her about anything more, anything juicy. Anything romantic. Maybe she just doesn't have it in her. No, that is not it. I think she just doesn't pay attention.

I remember John. He was a looker. I saw him once. They shook hands when they parted, although to me he looked a bit awkward about it. She extended her hand first, and he hesitated a moment then took her hand. They shook as business people do. I guessed that that was how she wanted it. I didn't think all these things at the time, just an impression. But now that I am telling you, that is how it seems. When we talked about him, and I said he seemed nice, she said he was, and that was that. Off she went on some other subject. I think it was about a weekend she was planning, a spa weekend, to get away from work "and everything." I never knew what "everything" was. Her life seemed to be work, a bit of shopping, exercising at an aerobics center. Her social life was a kind of mystery. I only heard about stuff when she wanted to talk. And her need to talk--can I call it that?--came and went. So I don't know about everything.

I tried to put together when she needed an ear and when she didn't. My life, after all, was not all that exciting. But hers, well, hers could be, or could have been. Sometimes she was stunningly beautiful in a natural sort of way. She dressed very well. You'd expect that of a businesswoman today. Well, she is not so much a businesswoman as a career girl. Administrative assistant, I think they call it. But she dressed the part and more. Perhaps it was the firm she was with. I mean a dress code, maybe unspoken. I don't know. Anyway she didn't even have to dress that way to look fabulous. So she got lots of attention just because, because she looked the way she does. Her beauty is physical, yes. But there is something else. I guess it is what people mean when they say it comes from the inside. She is definitely beautiful from the inside, and out.

She smiles a lot. She is friendly. She is talkative, but also a listener. And the way she listens, she draws you right in. You become special. But when you act, I mean men, they act on that special feeling they get when they are around her, off she goes, literally. Or changes the subject, about the weather or sports or, you know, she avoids getting personal. It is conscious. But I think sometimes it is not. More like something she's learned, from her childhood or something. She just isn't interested in getting personal, except with me, I guess, and I am sure with members of her family, especially her brother. Her brother seems to be important in this way. Anyway, she is beautiful. And if she feels she has flaws or is in any way less than what she is, she doesn't talk about it, not with me.

Thom was someone she talked a lot about for a while. Then one day she stopped. We were having lunch, and I asked about him. I joked that a Thom could sound like a T or a Th. I preferred the latter, and I asked her which she preferred. We laughed a bit, said the Th sounded better. She said he was interesting but that she would not be seeing him again soon. I asked if he was married. She said no, but that he would be out of town a lot, and "he said he was very busy." This way of saying it caught my attention, but I let it go, for at that point she looked out the window and commented on the approaching clouds. She said she thought it would rain, although the weather-cast had not said so. There was a brief silence. I tried to prolong it by not saying anything. Like making a space for her to say something more, something she really wanted to say. And then she began talking about her brother.

He seems to be in the picture, but I know he lives quite far away. I guess they talk on the phone. No, they do talk now that I remember. I haven't paid much attention, but come to think of it, she mentions him a lot. He is younger and apparently has had some terrible experiences with women. They seem to have dumped him, always dumping him. She never went into details, but it seemed that frequently she was counseling him by phone on how to cope, how to understand what happened, what women were like, all that sort of stuff. I guess he pretty much relies on her and she, from her distance, takes care of him.

One time I asked her what she said to him. What was the advice and stuff. She began by saying you know how women are. And I said I didn't. No one is allowed to generalize in my world, and I think whether man or woman, neither can say how it is with the general other. So I won't venture a comment or opinion even where my own sex is concerned. She said that was interesting, "very intriguing," she put it. And then she gave a couple of examples of what she said to her brother. She said that women were people too and that because one did not choose to continue in a relationship with him did not mean that he caused it, a break that is. Each person has her own issues, like expectations. I liked that. Each person has her own issues. And then she said something like maybe you were doing something that somehow turned the girl off. I thought this interesting also, because it is this awareness of what she does that I don't think she has, I mean in relation particularly with men. But I could be wrong. Obviously I must be, if she is giving that advice to others. Especially to a man, if a brother counts as a man, which I think he must, right?

Well, all this is for nothing. She is a wonderful person with a lot going for her. She is kind of old not to have had a serious relationship, particularly for a person as attractive as she is. Twenty-nine and never been kissed. I don't actually know that, but about the virginity I'm pretty sure.

One time the subject came up. Our conversations are not as freewheeling as I would like, otherwise we would have been clear on this subject long ago. She certainly knows my story on that score, for sure. I guess she holds herself back with me, too. Anyway, she said she just didn't feel like other women she knew. She felt kind of a-sexual, or that she didn't really didn't know what sexy was. She said she had felt something funny, and scary, once with someone she liked a lot. I asked it this person was male or female. She gave me a strange look and didn't answer but continued talking about how she thought she did not fit in that world. When it came to parties, she said she found herself by herself or talking to different people. Sometimes a man would come up and say something cute, but she always brushed it off. She said these lines, she called them "lines," were curious but basically not credible. That was it, she focused on the line as if from another planet and not in any way related to what the other person really was trying to say. I said that was very interesting, what did she think they wanted to say. She said they were probably not going to say, whatever it was. And because of that, she didn't need to respond, except politely and briefly. She said they were hiding themselves, and if that is what they wanted to do, she would respect that. I said that was also interesting, but maybe a man and a woman did not have to spell it all out to each other. At that she said that if the whole business of flirting and sex and anything more was based on this deception, she would prefer not to play. At that I asked her whether or not she had ever kissed a man. She said she hadn't and fell silent. So I put it another way. Had a man ever kissed her? She said yes, and fell silent again. I said "Well?" She said, "That's it. That's all there is to say. I have never had sex with a man."

I take her at her word. And I feel I got pretty close to the truth then. I am no threat to her, and so disclosing to me is pretty safe. She has said as much. And so I don't go off and speculate about what really happened. I think if she wants me to know, she will tell me. And I don't need to know. It is she not me who is, like, leading this relationship, our friendship.

My next question was about other women, because she sometimes talked of people she knew who were, she said, pretty or attractive. I think she used the word pretty. So often did she use this word to describe someone that I had a small voice inside me that said that there was something there. Why would she say someone was pretty and then go on to describe what she looked like, what she was wearing, and so forth. It was like that with Melanie. She talked about Melanie several times over the course of several months. I think it was last year. By Christmas, however, the name disappeared. I asked about her once or twice, like with Thom, but she said something like Melanie no longer had the time of day for her. Same story, I guess. I wondered what that meant, especially when she said that Melanie had a different life and friends and was always busy when she called. Well, I just thought that explained enough. But there was one thing. I think Melanie held a special if temporary place in her life. There was a kind of sadness or bittersweet quality to how she said she no longer had time for her. It was the faintest suggestion, but I thought I saw it in her eyes before they averted mine. Sometimes I stare while listening. I think I must appear pretty intense, or interested. Maybe I unnerved her.

From time to time she would comment ever so briefly about some woman passing by or sitting over there in the coffee shop. We often met there, the one near my work, not hers. She seemed to notice. Not so much clothes as the face, the lips, or her figure. I don't know. It is just a feeling. Don't women talk more about what other women are wearing, not so much about how fit they are or how sensuous their lips are? You tell me.

Anyway, I have nothing much to go on in this department. But my point is that there is a singular lack of any relationship she talks about. It is all about surfaces and he is nice, or pleasant. It never seems to go deeper. She does not seem to be hiding but then again it seems she is. And why would she from me?

From time to time, especially lately, I have thought I should just stop being the listener. Maybe I should talk about me and my sexual fantasies and such. Maybe my problems. But I have yet to change the way we meet and enjoy each other's company. I guess it is more about her, but I enjoy being with her and hearing about how things are going.

Often it is about some thing. Something she is currently interested in. And she has a wide range of interests that have nothing to do with relationships, men and all of that. For example, lions. She went through a lion stage. She researched them, downloaded documentaries, borrowed books from the library about African predators and such. She went on and on sometimes about those lions. The mating also. Sometimes when she talked about that and the role of the lioness, it was like she got some kind of energy. Pent up sexual frustration, my shrink would say. I don't know. But what she had to say was interesting. Then she went off on how big our galaxy is. She sounded like some kind of star-struck kid, one that just could not get enough of how damn big the universe is. She measured stuff in millions and millions of light years and all of that. It was like she was in a constant state of wonder. Sometimes she would catch herself and stop and ask if she was being too adolescent or something. I would say she was, and she would stop. It was like these worlds of things, or animals, were a kind of strong attractor drawing her in by some force greater than herself, maybe outside herself. I don't know. It just seems like a big thing for her sometimes. And I guess she goes off on these subjects with men who strike up conversations with her. I wonder what effect that has. Maybe they would rather have the conversation center around the nothingness of getting eventually into each other's pants or something.

Is she frustrated? Not at all, I guess. Me? That's another story. I hope I haven't said something here I shouldn't have.