WonderBlog

Next week I will be in HELSINKI!

I am very very excited. I will not be there long, but I want to breathe the air and look at the streets.

I have been reading, and have almost completed, the finnish national legend:
KALEVALA

This story rocks my world. I love these kind of stories, where magic things happen and heros run around doing things.

I am sad to discover how wretchedly the women are treated in this story. But so much of it is so overwhelmingly stupendous that I forgive them.

The story was told. It was told for hundreds of years. Someone finally wrote it down in the middle 1800s. This guy went around finland trying to capture all the pieces of the story, and finally found the last piece in the mouth of a very old storyteller. The old man was really old (did I already say that..?) and the story gatherer was very relieved to get all the last pieces.

Once the guy published the Kalevala, Finland exploded with happiness. They are STILL not over it...In fact, the country started it's own independence because of this awesome book.

It is a deep and wide thing, this story. And I will have the story in my head as I walk the streets of Helsinki. I think the streets might very well be named after the heros in the book.

Posted by Murphy Horner at 05:53 PM | Permalink

It is a constantly running train of thought, but here lately it’s been on my mind—the difference between men and women.

I love men. And I love being a woman. It seems to me that these two, when done right, are very complementary.

I know Chris and I work together very well. We have great love and respect for one another, and we manage to do really well on the various projects and entertainments we take up.

There are other men I have known on the job, who I can really click with, who give me respect and collegial affection. I’ve love working with them and miss them terribly when I’ve had to move on.

What is it that men and women give each other? It’s so much more than just procreation. We are broader than that. What, really, do we need each other for?

Of course, need is relative. Do I NEED to go to the gym and work out in the morning? Not really. NEED is for survival. Food, shelter, air.

But perhaps I am too stoic. Perhaps, for the time being, I can count the survival as a given, and set the bottom standard a little above DEATH.

About 8 years ago, I came to the conclusion that it is best not to need anyone for anything. That I am responsible for myself and myself alone. I wanted to be independent and able to get whatever I needed. I didn’t want to have to wait for someone else to get me what I needed.

It turns out I was very able. I pushed my abilities and pruned my wants appropriate to my circumstances. I learned how to be independent and not need things.

But that opened up other questions.

During our first year, while trying to figure all that out, I asked Chris, “If we don’t need each other, what will keep us together?”

He really didn’t understand the question, but he answered: “We will love each other.”

At the time, it was hard for me to understand how he would stay—how could I be sure?—if he wasn’t dependent on me in some way. He should need me.

I’ve learned a lot from trusting his love.

It turns out that instead of being dependent on someone, you can value them highly. In the same way that you would be unwilling to part with an object of value and beauty, you would be unwilling to part with a person of high value and beauty.
And knowing what I value in him, I can try to foster those same things in myself. When I look at myself honestly, I can see that I am of high value. And I can feel confident that he would want to be with this good stuff that is me.

Okay, that’s the micro. What’s the macro? What do men and women need from each other? What desirable thing is it that we are particularly suited to give to each other?

Earlier this summer, I had that highly annoying conversation with a co-worker. You know the one.

“Men and women cannot be friends, because men only want to sleep with the woman.”

Basically, this argument means that men have no use for any part of a woman except…well, you know what I mean.

He brought it up, because I’d met someone who I thought was interesting but who obviously was attracted to me. I’d hoped that he might get over it and be a friend.

“OH no,” co-worker said. “Let me tell you something about men: they never want to be your friend.”

I brought up examples and hypothetical situations. It was a slow day, and we were getting into it. But he was adamant. Friendship was impossible.

I threw this back at him, “So what you’re saying is, while I want to be friends with a guy, he has no interest in my conversation or friendship. Since I am nothing to him, the only thing I’m going to get out of interactions is whatever entertainment I can create….So I should be the biggest possible bitch so that I can get maximum entertainment value.”

The rest of the guys were laughing, but he wouldn’t back down. “I’m telling you, guys do not want to be friends. Ever.”

Well, that made me depressed for a few days afterwards. Upon reflection, I took away two things:

Guys who have that conversation with females are hoping for something. Note to self: avoid that sort of discussion. It’s just an excuse for guys to talk about sex. I thought I had learned that lesson my first year in college, but I guess I forgot. Or hoped that maturity was more widespread than it is.

Also:
Guys who hold that belief have no clue what to do with the huge amorphous feelings they have about women.
Women are highly desirable, but barely understood. The desire they feel is so scary, they try to cover they metaphorical nakedness with this little insufficient scrap called “sex.”

If they have an answer, they can stop asking the question. It matters little that the answer is wrong (or at the least, insufficient). They can put to rest the discomfort of their ignorance with it.

So that leads to another question. What is it that women give men?

I once knew this guy. He was a friend of my ex. He was the most misogynistic young man (~26) I have ever met. He literally had no interest in anything I had to say. I was a woman, and did not count.

It was kind of stunning to realize this. He was never rude, but he treated me as if I were his friend's cat--simply not a source of intelligence.

He had been dating a 16 year-old (get this, ASIAN). Typical stereo-type. How much more controlling can you be? It was a half-step removed from a mail-order bride. He got married her when she told him he’d gotten her pregnant.

I’d never met her, even though we knew this guy for years while they were dating.

Long story short, after baby boy was almost 2, turned out that wifey had had a boyfriend they whole time and the child was his. She left Mr. Misogynist. He was devastated.

During this bad time, after his wife and erst-while son had left him, he called to talk to my (then) husband. When I told him I was the only one home, he wanted to talk.

I thought he had brought this disaster on himself somewhat, but I felt bad for him. I knew he was hurting.

But the amazing thing is, he wanted to talk to ME.
ME.
The woman he had no use for. The female who might as well have stayed in the kitchen and walked three steps behind for all he cared.

He really wanted to talk to me. He really really wanted to hear words from a kind female. That was all. We talked about small things for maybe 45 minutes.

He needed what I had. He needed womanhood.

I don’t know the boundaries of what masculinity and femininity are. I suspect they are not hard and fast.

But we need each other. And we need each other to be strong and independent in order to receive the good stuff from each other. I think that if we could learn to work together like that, the whole world would change and be beautiful.

Posted by Murphy Horner at 10:49 AM | Permalink

Hmmm...thoughts are floating around in my head today.

On the way in to work, I listened to Instapundit's podcast on Marriage and Caste. Ms. Hymowitz has a lot to say, and talks about how marriage is a very valued institution in America.

She also mentions that in the 50s, people got married even younger than ever before. Younger than now, that's for sure. My best research says ladies got married at age 20, on average.

Now...about the 50s...I spent this week sick at home in my cute house.

That house that I love so much and am renovating to look modern, just like the time period it was built, in 1950.

It is staggering, how much was changing in the 50s. They talk about the 60s being a time of revolution, but that was just the people catching up with...well...everything!

okay, the teens and 20s were wild and crazy and full of ideas and wealth. Yes, the wealth and ideas were churned by the Great War, what we now call world war one. Hopelessness, the Flu that killed almost anyone that was left standing after the trenches were abandoned.

Meaning? God? What did that mean to anyone at those times? Wild and free to be...wild and free.

But then the depression knocked the wind out of everyone. Resources? Invention? Everyone was too busy making sure they could eat.

Well, Hitler came along and saved us all by being as evil as anyone could be. Hooray! Let's fight him. Let's everybody fight him.

And in doing so, the economy got back on it feet. There was fighting to be done. And work to be done at home, Rosie. There are ships to put together, and enough work for even the ladies to have paying jobs.

They worked, and they worked together. Everyone sacrificed for a reason. We won the war, evil was smashed and the world was once again as it should be.

But all the pressure that the century had put on people up to that point exploded into the 50s.

It's hard for me to understand how modern the Modern age of 1950 was. How very very much had changed as how fast.

I was researching paint. They said that there were colors that were invented for the first time, because they had the chemical know-how then. That the pinks and pastels and bright colors finally got to be used.

The war had rationed even colors.

And the depression...well, that was entirely in Black and White. Like Fred and Ginger.

Refrigerators and washing machines. And those incredible cars! Modern and sleek and dreamy.

And what did people want to do with this beautiful new world of promise?

they wanted to get married. and live in little houses with a yard and a garage.

and as soon as possible, thank you very much.

We look back at these stories. Ozzie and Harriet. Leave it to Beaver.

I've always thought of them as traditional. But they were not. They were very very modern.

which is kinda blowing my mind right now.

On the other hand, why not have a cute little family in a safe little house that has every comfort in it? In so many ways, isn't that the pinnacle of what we could wish for?

Not the 60s kids, though. They had to tear it down. They wished for anything but.

maybe because they already had it.

Hmmm......

Posted by Murphy Horner at 10:48 AM | Permalink

a tufa on modernism and marriage

Hmmm...thoughts are floating around in my head today.

On the way in to work, I listened to Instapundit's podcast on Marriage and Caste. Ms. Hymowitz has a lot to say, and talks about how marriage is a very valued institution in America.

She also mentions that in the 50s, people got married even younger than ever before. Younger than now, that's for sure. My best research says ladies got married at age 20, on average.

Now...about the 50s...I spent this week sick at home in my cute house.

That house that I love so much and am renovating to look modern, just like the time period it was built, in 1950.

It is staggering, how much was changing in the 50s. They talk about the 60s being a time of revolution, but that was just the people catching up with...well...everything!

okay, the teens and 20s were wild and crazy and full of ideas and wealth. Yes, the wealth and ideas were churned by the Great War, what we now call world war one. Hopelessness, the Flu that killed almost anyone that was left standing after the trenches were abandoned.

Meaning? God? What did that mean to anyone at those times? Wild and free to be...wild and free.

But then the depression knocked the wind out of everyone. Resources? Invention? Everyone was too busy making sure they could eat.

Well, Hitler came along and saved us all by being as evil as anyone could be. Hooray! Let's fight him. Let's everybody fight him.

And in doing so, the economy got back on it feet. There was fighting to be done. And work to be done at home, Rosie. There are ships to put together, and enough work for even the ladies to have paying jobs.

They worked, and they worked together. Everyone sacrificed for a reason. We won the war, evil was smashed and the world was once again as it should be.

But all the pressure that the century had put on people up to that point exploded into the 50s.

It's hard for me to understand how modern the Modern age of 1950 was. How very very much had changed as how fast.

I was researching paint. They said that there were colors that were invented for the first time, because they had the chemical know-how then. That the pinks and pastels and bright colors finally got to be used.

The war had rationed even colors.

And the depression...well, that was entirely in Black and White. Like Fred and Ginger.

Refrigerators and washing machines. And those incredible cars! Modern and sleek and dreamy.

And what did people want to do with this beautiful new world of promise?

they wanted to get married. and live in little houses with a yard and a garage.

and as soon as possible, thank you very much.

We look back at these stories. Ozzie and Harriet. Leave it to Beaver.

I've always thought of them as traditional. But they were not. They were very very modern.

which is kinda blowing my mind right now.

On the other hand, why not have a cute little family in a safe little house that has every comfort in it? In so many ways, isn't that the pinnacle of what we could wish for?

Not the 60s kids, though. They had to tear it down. They wished for anything but.

maybe because they already had it.

Hmmm......

Posted by Murphy Horner at 09:47 AM | Permalink

Never enough

Not so long ago, I came to the conclusion that I am a deeply unsatisfied person. Almost at any given moment, I am thinking of how that moment could be better. How I could be doing something, being something, or experiencing something higher.

I usually consider it my own fault—that I am not organized enough to be the best self I can be. Or perhaps I am lazy and slothful. And St. Paul’s words echo in my mind: the good that I would I do not: but the evil which I would not, that I do [Romans 7:19]

I never get around to doing what I want to do, but all the shit I say I will stop doing—that’s what I end up being very faithful with.

For these and many other reasons, I figured out that I am just an unsatisfied person. This will not change, and I had better find a way of living with it.

I don’t mean that I don’t have things I enjoy. There are also the exciting and exceptional moments of action that absorb my total attention. Sometimes I get in the zone while writing; very very often when I am dancing I am utterly taken away, and sometimes a project can fill me and satisfy me well.

But those are rare and precious moments. For all the other moments, I am wishing for the higher thing—the greater, the more.

I was trying to explain this to Chris. The explanation went somewhat awry, since he is a sweet and wonderful man who wants me to be happy. For him, it is not a good thing for me to be unsatisfied. It is a problem, and must be fixed.

We are both interested in my happiness—he even more than I. But this new understanding I had about my nature seemed both under and over the stuff of “happiness.” Metaphysical realities are not so susceptible to temporal fixes.

But what was it I had really discovered? What did I mean by all this? Maybe it is really a personal problem, something that pills or prayer would fix.

Maybe it was all in my head.

But then I read this from John Stuart Mill:

It is indisputable that the being whose capacities of enjoyment are low, has the greatest chance of having them fully satisfied; and a highly endowed being will always feel that any happiness which he can look for, as the world is constituted, is imperfect.

But he can learn to bear its imperfections, if they are at all bearable; and they will not make him envy the being who is indeed unconscious of the imperfections, but only because he feels not at all the good which those imperfections qualify.

It is better to be a human being dissatisfied than a pig satisfied; better to be Socrates dissatisfied than a fool satisfied. And if the fool, or the pig, are a different opinion, it is because they only know their own side of the question. The other party to the comparison knows both sides.

Mill, no fool, got it! I discovered my dissatisfaction on my own, but I am not on my own in the feeling.

AND I am a “highly endowed being.” I’ll take that.

Of course, I am also required with my endowments, to bear all the imperfections I so keenly perceive. That brings my mind back to the Bible, this time the red letters of Jesus’s words:
For unto whomsoever much is given, of him shall be much required: and to whom men have committed much, of him they will ask the more. [Luke 12:48]

I guess the Endower of my gifts would have a right to require me to do something with them.

And I would not have it any other way. I want to be and make the best of myself that I can.

I’ll just have to find a way to bear my imperfections.

Posted by Murphy Horner at 09:43 AM | Permalink

I love to cook.

I don't get much of a chance to do it, because I always thought I was the only one who would eat what I ate. Chris is very finicky, to my thinking. He doesn't appreciate the experimental.

But this is Thanksgiving, and officially the time to cook and bake. I've been longing to make a pie for weeks now. A good pie is a glorious thing. In fact, I had expressed my longing for piemaing at work and the we all had talked about favorite pies. Rhubarb was a favorite, and also very tart fruit pies. I told them of my walnut pie, which is a regional innovation.

However, our cupboards were bare, and we had to go shopping.

"We have to stock up. Lots of things will be on sale." I told Chris.

"I think you're wrong. I don't rememer things being on sale for Thanksgiving."

"YOU are wrong. I know for sure that things will be on sale. The will have the buy-one-get-one-free sale on things like sugar and flour."

Chris thought that stocking up on sugar and flour was a bad idea. He hardly ever uses flour.

In the store, I was checking on the sugar and flour prices, but he was scoping out the mixes. He has a thing for Betty Crocker. He likes to look at all the pictures of delcious things and think about eating them. He does the same with the dessert menu at restaurants. But the fact is, he seldom eats them.

There were a lot of mixes on sale. He came back over to the cart with a mix for cinnamon coffee cake.

"Baby, you don't need a mix for coffee cake! That's very easy to make. I could make you one, if you really want one."

"But.." he looked at the picture on the package. "It wouldn't have cinnamon."

He's adorable.

So back at the house, I had some baking projects to do.

To my dismay, I had misplaced my holy cooking book, "The Joy of Cooking." I know it's here somewhere, but I can't find it.

Well, no problem. I have the internet! Coffee cakes should be easy to find.

It turns out that internet recipes for cinnamon coffee cakes favor ingredients like sour cream, buttermilk and apples. Didn't pick those up at the store. They also like nuts, which is anathema for my sweetheart. THIS at least I have learned in our time together.It took me into page three of the search results to find an appropriate recipe.

When I mixed it up, and I make twice as much streusel as they called for, because I love Chris and he loves streusel. I made him watch as I sprinkled the streusel on, so he could appreciate what I was doing.

It came out pretty good.

Of course, while the cake was baking, I began to work on the pie.

Pies are a glorious food. Really and truly. On the whole, they are ridiculously simple to make. Except for the crust. But many people choose to have a premade crust, so that takes care of that.

If you ever want to impress someone with cooking skills you don't think you have, make a pie with a premade crust. Pies are only a half a tick more difficult than instant pudding. I mean, geez! You just mix up about 4 ingredients, pour it into a pie crust and cook it. WAY easy.

But, I am not satisfied with premade crusts. I want a little challenge in all this. I want to master the crust.

The last pie I made was lemon meringue, last december. And the crust was too tough.

I hoped to do better with this iternation. I wanted to use my grandmother's pie crust recipe.

My grandmother died during the holidays of 1995. Mom was called to the hospital before she died, and she asked me to come with her. We were able to be with Grandma in her last few days.

I had not grown up near my grandmother. I just didn't know her that well.

But after she had passed we were eating holiday leftovers at my aunt's house, . I was munching on this key lime cheesecake pie.

I exclaimed: "This crust is really good!"

My cousin, who had always grown up around my grandmother, looked at me incredulously. "Yeah," she said, "That's grandma's pie crust. Didn't you know she was famous for her crust?"

Yes, actually, I had heard that. But, I'd never had a chance to taste it. It was only a posthuous pie that let me know.

So, I looked up grandma's pie crust recipe. It was a very different concept from the recipe of the former failed crust attempt.

I mixed up a walnut pie, using the recipe on the back of the Karo syrup bottle. I made two changes:
1. I used walnuts instead of pecans
2. I splashed in a little brandy. Brandy is very yummy.

Walnut pie was introduced to my family by my sister-in-law Karen. Her grandmother's best friend had a walnut tree in the front yard. As Karen said, "That's a lot of walnuts. You come up with as many ways to use walnuts as you can. Therefore: Walnut pie."

But I like it for it's own sake. Plus, Walnus are cheaper than pecans. And it's unusual, so it makes me feel cool and creative.

Karen always used the half walnuts, but one year I could only find chopped walnuts for sale, and I like how that ended up looking. So now I always use the chopped walnuts.

Here, dear readers, is the resultant pie:

Now, that was not enough. I wanted to make cranberry sauce for the dinner. My brother Mark is an excellent cooker of cranberry sauce. Therefore, I am sad when we must resort to canned cranberry sauce.

HOWEVER. Chris's grandmother has a doctor's injunction against seeds. But, I thought...I can strain out the seeds an make a cranberry jelly, instead of a cranberry sauce.

All I have to do is cook up the cranberries and then strain them through a cloth to get the juice and keep the seeds out.

I love cooking fresh cranberries. The skins POP when they are boiling. It's cool.

Straining the pulp was a bit harder than I thought. Probably because I was impatient and did not wait for the cranberry mush to cool. This is what it looked like when I was done:

That's the strained part, not the jelly part. The jelly part is jelling in the fridge. It may need to be put back on the stove with some cornstarch. We'll see.

But that was what I did all night. I love to cook, but I'm pretty tired after that.

Posted by Murphy Horner at 10:42 AM | Permalink

Every woman has a mirror

Every woman has a magic mirror in her heart. In it, she can see foggy images that others don’t see. She can see her family her friends, and the wider world in that mirror.

She will share her visions with the man in her life. For him, to believe what she sees takes faith.

If he doubts, it infects her and the mirror gets even foggier. And she may need to fight him to find her mirror again.

But if he can find that faith, her vision grows stronger. She can believe and be strong and wise. Both of them will be blessed.

Posted by Murphy Horner at 10:41 AM | Permalink

Ask to the Answer

Okay, i thought of what I want to write about. It's disorganized, but let me see if I can explain it.

"Open-Minded" used to be a popular phrase. I don't hear it as much as I used to, but certainly, "Closed-Minded" is a well-established bad thing.

I am seeing more and more the stance that used to connote open-minded as being a closed minded one.

I met a woman at a social event, and she worked with gangster kids. This caught my interest right away. 'Tell me more about that. I am astonished at the lack of attention given to helping kids stay out of gangs.'

She was surprised at my interest. "What do you want to know?"

I said that I thought we needed to ask until we got an answer. That we should not stop and be satisfied with the bad situation that our children are in.

She was taken with that idea. To ask until you find an answer. But she wasn't sure you could ever find an answer. In any question, really.

She had a good point. What happens when you find the answer? Are there questions with no answers?

I believe no. There are no questions without answers.

But then, like the hitchhiker's guide tells us, are you sure you are asking the right question?

Often, the answer to a question will be another question. And when you reach that the question/answer to the question, have you made progress?

I believe yes. I believe that as we sincerely question, even if our questions result in more questions, the understanding broadens. And when we understand we can do more or better than we have before.

I like people who question. I like it when people ask. But I have noticed there are people who ask, but do not believe in the answer. Not that they think the answer isn't correct, but the deny the premise of an 'answer's existence.

They enjoy questions, but only for their own sake. No answers required, or, indeed, allowed. These clever people can deflect any proposed answer with reasons to deny it.

It is as if they wish only to maintain the integrity of the perfect unanswerability of the question.

They stick tot their question until a new more intrigiung question presents itself. Sometimes, this question is what I would call and ANSWER to the first question. But, they don't think of it that way.

I am interested in asking to the answer. Questions are TOOLS to me, not toys.

Posted by Murphy Horner at 10:38 AM | Permalink

My boring life

The fact is, I find my life mostly unexciting. I do rather ordinary things and I am not very interesting. So, I don’t necessarily talk about what I’m doing, because even I don’t find it interesting.

This is a problem for me. Really it is. Because when it comes time to say something, to give an account of myself when someone poses the questions “How are you?” or even “What’s new?”—I am at a loss.

How am I? About the way I was yesterday, the previous day in my unexciting life. Nothing of any significance is new.

So, I end up saying something inane and leaving the question-poser disappointed. Yes, I know they only ask because their life is also without excitement. They are asking in the hope that I would have something to bring to the table, some appetizer of excitement to share.

Nope. I hate to disappoint, but I got nothin’.

Yesterday was a particularly uneventful day. I came home with very boring ambitions. I wanted to eat dinner, exercise and deposit some checks in the bank. Maybe putter into a little housecleaning. I wanted to be sure to charge up my Ipod since I had neglected to do so the day before.

The mind boggles at such humdrummery.

I wasn’t hungry right away, so I got a jump-start on the puttering. I put the Ipod to charge and began righting the housekeeping wrongs of the weekend.

Order and cleanliness emerged shyly in places they usually were not invited to. Good news! Even better, the Ipod was charging faster than I had hoped, so I got to putter wearing the ‘pod.

I was listening to podcasts. Podcasters are enviable to me—people with cleverness and gumption, with something to say, something worth capturing and distributing. I listened and envied and puttered.

Then mom called. No more podcasts, but I got to tell her about the cool stuff I had been hearing. I told her about my despair of being dull as dirt.

Mom had called, because she herself was doing something uninteresting. She had lots of copying to do at school, and just wanted someone to entertain her. I guess I got to be her live podcast.

Well, she had a lot of copying to do with an uncooperative machine, and I had a lot of things to tell her about my boring life, and the artistic poverty of my blog.

“Oh honey! You are an excellent writer! I love reading what you say on your website!”

This is very nice to hear, and adds considerably to my enjoyment of this phone call. But to be realistic, she is my mother. She has to say that. The compliment has a short half-life.

Nevertheless, I spent too long on the phone to my mother. When I hung up I was very hungry. And I still had to get to the ATM! Not to mention working out.

I was rushing now. Grab the checks. Find my shoes. I’m hungry! I am not in the mood for this!

“The library books are overdue. Can you return them?” Chris asks politely.

I’m in a hurry. I’m hungry and I have things I need to finish. “No.”

“It’s right next to the bank. You can do it.” The needle had moved from polite request into the indignant/whine zone.

“Fine!” I snagged the books, hopped into my shoes, crabbier than ever. I shouldn’t have talked on the phone so long! Did I have a pen? I would need it for the deposit slip.

I get into my car. Well, at least the radio is playing something I like. But it’s dark and I can’t remember exactly where the bank is. It’s somewhere on this street. I’ll find it eventually.

Just past the railroad tracks, the car shrieks.

FWEEE! A picture that looks like an inkwell sprung a leak—a gusher of newfound Texas Tea…Oh crap. Something is wrong with my oil.

I don’t want to deal with this! I am not stopping. I’m going to the bank. I’m going to deposit all this stuff and go home and eat.

Where is that bank anyway? It’s got to be here somewhere. I will figure this out, look up this German symbol of an inkwell with a geyser, but only after I reach the bank.

But then I have to yell at myself. Oh great, so now you are going to ruin your car just because you are pissy and don’t want to return library books. Is a seized engine worth this?

FWEEEEE!!!

I answer myself, I’ll do whatever I please and I don’t feel like talking. Where is that stupid bank? I thought it was here.

There was a bank there, but the wrong one. I pulled in anyway and turned off the car and the radio. At that point, the inkwell geyser blinked off.

WHAT?! The car light had been screaming at me, telling me something is wrong, and then just goes silent, like "never mind, you’re busy, I didn’t mean it...”

Don’t toy with me! Either there is an inkwell oil geyser happening or not. Them’s fighting words round here. I pulled over for you, car, and now you want nothing to do with it? I don’t’ think so!

I turned on the radio again. I’m not losing my good tunes for this passive aggressive car. I got the manual out of the glove compartment.

I’ve been through this before. The alarm documentation is not intuitive. It’s not even in the index under ‘alarm’. After flipping back and forth for a while, enough time for the tunes to segue into commercials, I discover that my windshield wiper fluid is low.

I’m certainly glad I stopped.

I drove around and finally found the right bank. There is a line at the ATM. But maybe that's just as well, because I need to add up the total of the checks. No calculator. Well, I should know how to add and carry.

I wonder what they would do if you got it wrong? I mean, is it no big deal, or do you only get so many chances from your bank? You could get some kind of notice.
“Dear Bank member:
After received your third addition failure we are rescinding your ATM deposit privileges.”

That would be very humiliating.

Or worse, maybe they would think you did it on purpose! I know of a girl who was dating this guy. He would deposit empty envelopes to withdraw money out of his account that wasn’t there. He needed the money because he was a crack head. They broke up, thank god. I should call her.

I triple checked the math on this deposit—I’m pretty sure I got it right. And at least that is done. Now to the library.

It is so dark out; I can’t see any signs. Geez, I’ve lived here almost a year. When will I figure out where I am?

I fall back on my strategy of starting one direction and going somewhere until you are there. It worked, and I found the library. I know the distance from the bank to the library was shorter than the drive I took, but I got there, so who cares and leave me alone.

I found a parking space quick. I jumped out, leaving my door open and my purse inside. I grabbed the library books and my keys in my hand. There’s the drop box. Pull it down; in they go. Be careful not to drop the keys in the drop box!

I wonder what would happen if I had dropped the keys in? I wonder what I would do? Good thing I had left the car door open. I could get to my purse and cell phone to call Chris to come help me.

Would the library people come and open the library to get me my keys? Claremont is small and very Mayberry, but I don’t think they are that Mayberry. I would have to wait for them to open in the morning. Well, afternoon. They open at 1.

But I would be okay, because Chris would come get me and there is a spare key to the car and to my house. I’d be okay. The only key I don’t have spares for are the work keys.

Oh man! That would be terrible. I couldn’t get into work. I would have to call there and say I would not be in because I had dropped my keys in the library drop box. That would be beyond embarrassing.

I could just say I was sick. I would have to lie. Call in with a cough or something. There has been a cold going around. I could make it convincing.

I have never called in sick when I wasn’t sick, but I know people that do. Why do we have to do that? Why are we forced to lie? Why must we come up with some story? Why can’t we just be given respect? I mean, we should just be allowed to say, “I will not be able to come in today” and leave it at that. That would have some dignity.

But my keys were in my hand, so I drove home. I knew my way home from the library.

I made some soup and sat down to talk to Chris. I told him about my boring unexciting life, and about all the enviable podcasters and bloggers who are so far above me in importance and relevance.

He was kind and acted interested.

Dammit. I didn’t get to workout.

Posted by Murphy Horner at 10:37 AM | Permalink

Jesus, Buddha, Cold Mountain, and the suffering and salvation of stories

There are times when thoughts come together like objects, and bump against each other. I want to share this thought-object group with you.

I am finishing Buddha by Karen Armstrong. It's a book on CD.

And I just finished Cold Mountain by Charles frazier, read by the author.

First, I would like to say, both of these books were much easier to take as being read to me. I would have found the book about Buddha not such a page turner, but I did want to hear about the enlightened one, so having it 'pushed' at me suited.

And Cold Mountain...well...First, I have seen the movie, which was a good movie, but it was so sad.

But beggars can't be choosers, when it comes to my little library and it's collection of books on tape. I took it.

The book is a masterpiece. The recording of the author reading his book is a masterpiece. I have high standards for books, and this one exceeded my expectations dramatically.

Wow. And wow again. The words. His phrasing and timing. I didn't know it was the author reading it until I sat down to write this post. I continually thought that the reader was perfect for the work, little did I know how perfect. Authors are not always the best ones to read their work, but this one was.

Now, it would have been an excellent read. I loved his writing.

But remember, I saw the movie. I knew the ending. The book, however, was so much richer than the movie. So very many things happened, and so many ponderances took place. It was a leisurely story.

I forgot about the ending, and was enjoying the journey. I was enjoying the way he said 'of' and the old-fashioned-to-the-point-of-ancient phrases he used. They seemed deeply rooted in the time.

But the end of the book got closer. And I couldn't help remembering the end of the movie.

And I couldn't help but hope it would end different. At times I hit stop. I couldn't face that lilted voice telling me what happened next.

I cried sheets of tears fully through the last two cassettes. I remember thinking again that I was glad to be listening to the story. I wouldn't have been able to read the words through my crying.

What a powerful story.

Next thought-object:

In Buddha Karen Armstrong had talked about Siddartha's journey to enlightenment. Siddartha is Buddha's pre-enlightened name, if you didn't know. I didn't know.

He was born Siddartha, and the Brahmin prophesied that he would achieve enlightenment. Either that or be the King of the Universe. Buddha's Dad prefferred Siddartha to be King of the Universe rather than just a boring old enlightened one.

Siddartha, however, chose the path of enlightenment. And when I say "chose" I mean to say he leaned into it. He didn't just meander along and WHOOPS--fall into enlightenment. He worked really hard at it, and sacrificed a lot to get it.

Ms. Armstrong said something that stuck with me about Buddha's road to enlightenment:

Siddartha was totally and completely sure he would achieve it. He had no doubt, he had utter faith, that enlightenment was a destination that existed and he would get there.

She mused for a little bit about what might have happened if he had given up. No Buddhist monks, no marvelous Buddhist scripture, what a loss, she seemed to say. Buddha knew the end of his story: Enlightenment. It was just a matter keeping going until he got there.

Now, I am not Buddhist. I know very little about Buddhism, but from what I've learned, it does not quite appeal to me. It does not fit the world I see around me, and although I would be pleased to learn more about the philosophies of the Buddha, I am a Christian to my core.

It was interesting to hear that Buddha is not supposed to be a god. Literally, he's "The guy who figured it out"--how to avoid suffering and pain. In his world view, and according to Buddhist thought, there are gods and he is not one of them. He is actually better than a god, because the gods need him to help THEM figure it out.

Now, that's a mind-bender to a mono-theist like me. Whoa. It made me think about the nature of Christ.

Next thought-object:

So, Christ is God. And Christ is Man. That's a mind-blower for anybody.

What knife could separate the God from the Man? According to orthodox philosophy, he totally God and totally Man. Which doesn't answer anything at all, really.

Easter is coming up, you know. It's Passion week for most of America. Passion, also known as suffering. Just the sort of thing that Buddha was trying to avoid.

Jesus did not avoid His suffering. In fact, He walked right into it. The whole story of the crucifixion is how He gunned for the cross.

Which part was doing that? The man part? I have always tended to think that it was the God part that gave Him the character to do it, but the man part was the body that they tortured.

But, comparing the story of Buddha to the story of Christ put it in a new light.

How confident was Jesus that everything would turn out okay? Did He ever wonder if He was nuts-a faltering of confidence? Did he have a little voice in His head saying, " 'Son of God'--give me a break! Who are you kidding?"

What was the nature of Christ's faith? Buddha had faith in his story; he believed he would reach enlightenment.

Did Jesus have such faith? It is human to falter. In my experience, it is the nature of faith to include faltering. Part of the mustard seed that is faith includes the part that doesn't quite believe. The part that doesn't believe but does it anyway.

Was that how Jesus had faith?

While I was listening to the end of Cold Mountain, and crying and wishing-wishing-that it would end differently, I thought about suffering. All the suffering that Inman and Ada has been through, and the whole country suffered in the Civil War. All they had struggled and suffered for...why did the story have to end that way? I wanted so badly for it to end another way.

And I remembered Christ in the garden of Gethsemane. He suffered terror and dread, a suffering before the physical suffering. Sweating blood in his pain, he asked God the Father if there was another way for the story to end. He really wanted a different ending.

O my Father, if it be possible, let this cup pass from me

He knows what's coming. He knows he's going to be tortured and killed. But does he know the rest? Does he have confidence that He will be the saving of all mankind? What if He didn't know? What if all He knew was that God said he had to suffer and die?

Suffering and dying is the state of all humans. Suffering and dying doesn't require godhood. God could require me to sacrifice my life, and I can only hope I would do as he demands. It is possible that He would enable me to do it. It is certain, though, that if I died for some noble purpose it would not result in the redemtion of all creation.

In Jesus's case, though, it did. My life doesn't have the currency of Christ's.

But that doesn't mean He knew that. Perhaps He knew no more than I know. That the bigger story of suffering, pain and death is in God's hands and He works it all to good.

Jesus suffered so much in His death. And every step along the way, He could have stopped it.

I think about that, and how much I wanted to stop the sad suffering end of Cold Mountain.

Jesus didn't stop his end. Because He believed in the story. I don't know how much He knew of the story. I don't know how much _I_ know of the story. But in this case, in this story, I know it works out with perfect justice, symmetry and beauty. It's the story that God is telling, and it's a story about Him.

Me, and my experiences with suffering and beauty, is only a story inside the big story.

The story, not even a real story in the sense of historical fact, of Cold Mountain is an experience of suffering and beauty and justice because it lines up with the big story, the way the world works, the way God works.

God is the original storyteller. It makes me feel humble to put my spun stories inside of His.

Believe in the stories. That is saving faith.

Posted by Murphy Horner at 10:34 AM | Permalink

What just happened, lady?

[All quotes taken from Diving Deep and Surfacing by Carol P. Christ]

Walking through a store, three beautiful ladies shopping. My friends and I stop to admire some boots. One friend says:

"I have fat calves. Boots never fit me right."

"Me too!" I say.

The third woman says quietly, "Boots never fit me right either. But...why do we all assume that we are fat? Why don't we just say they make the boots too small?"

We stare at her, amazed at her wisdom.

Instead of recognizeing their own experiences, giving names to their feelings, and celebrating their perceptions of the world, women have often suppressed and denied them. When the stories a women reads or hears do not validate what she feels or thinks, she is confused. She may wonder if her feelings are wrong. She may even deny to herself that she feels what she feels.

I spend a huge amount of time between the pages of a book. This has been true as long as I could read.

When I was a teenager, I began to write poetry. It occurred to me that nearly all the writers I loved to read were male. The obvious conclusion was that men had greater talent at writing, that females simply were unable to produce strings of beautiful words.

Men were, categorically, better writers than women.

This did not seem in keeping with my assesment of the young men I know. According to the evidence, these boys must be capable of producing poetry and metaphor to an even greater extent than myself.

I watched them, waiting for jewels to drop out of their mouths. But the only thing I heard was re-telling of last night's movie rental, or TV show.

Hmm. No precious nuggets there. Perhaps their poetic talents were private. I approached them straight out, taking a survey of my aquaintances:

"Do you ever write poetry?"

To my surprise, almost all of them said they did. Of course, I didn't ask and they did not offer to share their efforts with me. But I was sure that their poetry must be far superior to my feeble efforts.

Women have lived in the interstices between their own vaguely understood experience and the shaping given to experience by the stories of men. The dialectic between experience and shaping experience through storytelling has not been in women's hands.

A grieving and battered woman sits with her parents. She is on the cusp of a tragic choice. Weary and toneless, she speaks to her mother and father:

"I have told you how it's been. You know the story. I have tried all I can try. He won't listen. He won't change. I cannot stay with the way things are. I will have to divorce him."

Her father answers, "You are too emotional right now to make that decision."

She lifts her heavy head to stare at him. After a moment, she turns to her mother. "Do I sound emotional to you?"

Hesitantly, the mother replies: "No. But what your father means is..."

In a very real sense, there is no experience without stories... Stories give shape to experience, experience gives rise to stories. At least this is how it is for those who have had the freedom to tell their own stories, to shape their lives in accord with their experience. But this has not usually been the case for women. Indeed, there is a very real sense in which the seeming paradoxical statement "Women have not experienced their own experience" is true.

Posted by Murphy Horner at 10:28 AM | Permalink

Valley of the Shadows

Fight the powers that be! I'm talking about non-conformity!

But I'll tell you the truth I'd like to be an undercover non-conformist. A little conformity is a comforting thing. Enough to get through the door.

'Cause I always think I'm a little off. Not quite like all the other non-conformists. As if I am unaware of the three sheets of toilet paper dragging off my shoe.

Somehow, if I start talking about what's on my mind, people give me a blank stare and say, "Whatever."

But I've got the floor, and you don't, so I'm going to speak my mind.

I got this new job. And I've moved to a new place. Okay, I’ll be honest I bought a house--one that June Cleaver would be proud of, with a lemon tree in the front and roses on the side.

This freaks me out a little. Because I do not want to wear a twin set and eat off the kitchen floor. I want to be that creative artist type that stays up all night drinking and toking with their other creative friends and being REAL.

Isn't that what the L.A. life is all about? Except I don’t' drink much and I don't like drugs. And I get really sleepy around nine thirty, so no one would hang out with me.

I guess that's the life in West L.A. I live on the East East of L.A., and I am just like everyone else here. We get up early and speed to beat the sunrise, speed to the screeching halt of the bumper in front driving 5, 20, 10, stop and then start again with the miles per hour for the hour or the hour and a half that it takes to finally stop at the parking lot and the padded cell walls of the cubicle.

It's not so bad. I like mornings. And maybe this is the real L.A. after all. Maybe you crazies from the West are going to crash and burn back to where you came from while we east enders drop the grains of sand into our 401Ks 'til our time runs out, the mortgage is paid or we retire--whichever happens last.

Maybe this is the real L.A. Los Angeles is full of Valleys, did you know? Any dip between these many hills is a valley.

Quite honestly, I love my commute. I drive a short jaunt on the 10, exit left and downshift my manual transmission down to 3rd so I can power up the crest of the 57. Below me, just at sunrise, the North Horizon is a range of green tree and gray rock mountains, which, when hit by the slant light of dawn, get pink or orange or purple mountain majesties.

This is the San Gabriel Valley. Yes, the Holy Angel Gabriel, the mouthpiece of God. And I hear it every morning, the messenger of God proclaiming that I am redeemed.

But that is the second valley of my daily journey. I had to climb to enter the Angel's valley. I asked around and discovered that I live in Pomona Valley. Pomona is the name chosen for this place when it had few houses and more fruit trees. Pomona is the Goddess of the harvest. I dwell in the Valley of the Goddess. Which is most excellent, because I am the Queen of Pretty Things. It's a long story, but I've been the Queen of Pretty Things for almost seven years now, a position which carries a lot of responsibility. As the Queen, I am pleased to find my dominions in the Valley of the Goddess.

As to be greeted by the Valley of Voice of God, traveling through it every day to the very end. I know it is the very end of the San Gabriel Valley, because my cube window faces a big Rock. The rock is part of a mountain, and where there is a mountain, on the other side is a Valley. This valley is well known: the San Fernando Valley.

Fernando...OOooo Fernando...ABBA? This is the Valley of the Dancing Queen.

I travel there less frequently. I suppose that's just as well.

Posted by Murphy Horner at 10:19 AM | Permalink

Naming Conventions

I met Chris for dinner after I went to the bank about some of our money matters. We were catching up on each other's day:

"The guy at the bank kept calling you my husband. I told him you weren't..."

"Old habits die hard."

"I guess 'significant other' hasn't quite caught on. It's kind of formal, anyway."

"What would you want them to call me?"

I smiled adoringly at him. "You would be my 'old man'."

"Oh right. Then would they call you my 'old lady'?"

"I prefer to be your 'queen'....I guess they could call you my 'prince charming'."

Chris got that funny look on his face, the look that means his funny bone is clicking into place. "...do you think that if a real royal family, and you had a son...?"

"NO!" I said. "That's not allowed."

"Why not? there could be a prince charming the first..."

"No, it's against the rules."

"What rules? If you were King, you could do what you wanted."

"You could not! The same rules that let you be King would dictate what sort of names you could use to name the princes."

"...and then he would grow up to be King Charming..."

My turn now. "Of course if it were an Emperor...maybe in China..."

"The Ming Dynasty?"

"Yeah...Emperor Char Ming."

Posted by Murphy Horner at 10:18 AM | Permalink

Talking and Listening-- The Art of Conversation by Benedetta Craveri, translated from the Italian by Teresa Waugh

There was a time when formal conversation was a highly respected and desirable art. For the rich upper class with nothing better to do than entertain themselves with their own exclusive company, being interesting, inoffensive and, if you can manage it, witty, seemed just about the epitome of human grace.

The period of the salon it was, an era described in The Age of Conversation by Benedetta Craveri, translated from the Italian by Teresa Waugh. My heart squeezes with envy at the thought of those drawing rooms. There is a reason they called that time the age of enlightenment. Conversation is one of the very best ways to learn anything. To be exposed to new ideas and perspectives.

America was born during the enlightenment. Interestingly, the age of conversation and enlightenment was a thing that suggested its own demise. America’s crazy ideas spelled the end of the upper class. The concept of a class who did not need to produce anything but conversation was rejected by the conversations that ensued.

America had work to do. America, and everywhere, had projects to start and research to do and the world to change. They did not have time to merely sit and converse. That has continued forward to this day.

But that didn’t mean the conversations had become unnecessary. Humans need to talk. They need to clear their psychic buffers and build on half conceived ideas. I think it might be nearly as essential as sleep.

It might be time to take a page from those salons again. Craveri writes “talent for listening was more appreciated than one for speaking. Exquisite courtesy restrained vehemence and prevented quarrels.”

I, for one, would like to prevent quarrels. World peace would be a little closer, if we take this idea as true, if listening could have that effect.

There are two people who have been working on this exact issue. I don’t know if they have read Craveri’s book, but Bill and Liz have taken a chunk of their lives to bike around the U.S. and wear a sign that says:

Talk to Me

These guys knock my socks off. I first heard about them on “This American Life”, the “Say Anything” episode. Bill and Liz sat on a busy Manhattan street holding their sign. People just came up and talked to them about anything.

Imagine my shock and delight to actually see with my own eyes these two fabulous people at the Los Angeles Book Fair last year. They sat with their sign and I walked over and talked to them!

I asked them about TAL, what they thought of Ira Glass, and barely restrained myself from asking for their autograph. They did, however, ask for mine, and my email address.

They surprised me with their sweetness. They really seemed sincere and interested in what people had to say. How could people maintain that kind of interest after so long?

I really wanted to get them to talk to me, actually. I thought they were fascinating. When I told them where I lived (Glendale), Liz told me she was part Armenian and had promised to go visit Glendale on their trip(Glendale’s population is more than 50% Armenian). I recommended some busy spots and a bus line to take to get there.

I tore myself away, at last. These guys are so great! I can barely get my mind around what they have chosen to do. I asked them about what was “next”, what they wanted to make of their experiences. They seemed not to have concrete plans.

In some ways, I think that’s good. Commercializing their endeavor could ruin the integrity of it, and they seemed to be so sincere.

I got an email from them. They have circled the lower 48 states on their bikes with their sign. Check out their website: http://www.nyctalktome.com

Ponder this, my friends. What does it mean to really listen?

Posted by Murphy Horner at 10:15 AM | Permalink

Deja Vu

I sleep hard, but sometimes I dream things. Things that haven’t happened yet. Sometimes I remember them, wonder about the dream. Then I go on my way and forget them.

Until they come true. They call it déjà vu. But I know I dreamed it. Stupid, everyday, unimportant things. Like looking for a notebook when someone is walking down a hall towards me. Or holding a conversation, when in the middle I realize I know exactly the next thing I am going to say. I would step into the now that had already happened months ago, years ago, in my dream.

It feels like a spell; I am split in two. The me who dreamed the conversation, or should I say, the me in the dream from the past, was fully engaged in what she was saying.

But the present me, the one living in the event which had already taken place, became distracted by the memory of the present.

How do I dream these future scenes?

How could I possibly see what hadn’t happened yet? What let me see the future? And why such irrelevant ordinary scenes from the future?

This makes me wonder how time works. Am I in time? Like I am in the universe? Or am in time like a fish in water?

A fish can jump out of water. Leap up high and dive back in.

For that matter, am I traveling through my life like a fish through a stream? Where the direction is laid out, only I can't see far enough ahead to know that the biggest choices I have are whether to swim on the left side or the right.

Or maybe I am the stream. Maybe I am flowing for the first time. Perhaps my journey from the heights to the sea is unmarked. I, the water, flow because I must, but minute by second by future moment the way is chosen. Each obstacle changes the whole course. Over that pebble, pool below that hill, rapids here, waterfall there. Something new under the sun.

My dream moments might be telling me something. Who knows which moment is the decisive one? What choice is the fulcrum for an irreversible direction? Is some extra-temporal being trying to draw attention to the unnoticed as the start of some fork in the road?

But if that’s so, what am I supposed to do with this?

When the spell of a dreamed scene comes over me, and I am split between the layers of the dream memory and the identical present, I shift.

If the dream turned right, I go straight.

Who knows what’s at stake? Nothing? Everything?

But illusion, delusion or otherwise, I choose where to plant my feet.

Posted by Murphy Horner at 09:10 AM | Permalink

Where's your pride?

Sticks and stones will break your bones
but names will never hurt you

...that's a crock of bull...Names are extremely painful. All kinds of words can conspire to hit you in the middle and throb.

Each person has a sense of themselves. I am not the only one to have a way that I wish to be seen, a presentation of myself projected to others. I want to be seen as clever, or funny, or good-looking. All three even.

But when others poke a hole in my bubble, when they dash my polished surface... They could show me up as stupid. Or not laugh at my jokes. Or something much more embarrassing.

Something that makes me feel like everything about me is undesirable and even despised.

Uhhll. That's a horrible feeling.

I want to be loved. I want to be accepted and cherished.

That doesn't always happen. There are times when I am very NOT.

It's ironic, because I know that I am not always desirable and lovable. I live with me every day. I know my flaws.

Then again, it is especially painful when I hear from others about a flaw I was unaware of. How withering to learn that they outfit I thought so cute has a big hole in it. Or the speech habit I thought endearing was percieved as condescending.

It's a sick, skin-crawling self-loathing feeling. It's the sort of feeling I want to be rid of as soon as possible, but it lingers.

I remember one particular embarrassing moment. I was in a new town, and had been embraced in a new friendship--possibly romantic!--which was all the more exciting because there was no one else vying for my attention.

He had loaned me his guitar, a great trust, and told me where he lived so I could return it after a while.

It seemed appropriate to me to bring it back after a few weeks. Still warm from his attention, and not wanted the friendship to fade away, I followed the directions he had given me to his apartment, where his lived with his family. I brought the guitar back, hoping for a little visit.

I came to the door and was greeted with a wall of hostility. His sister left me in the hall, and went to get her brother. He took his time. When he finally came out he asked why I had come.

To return the guitar.

He looked down at the guitar and took it from me at last. Then he said I should not have come.

I left as soon as I could. I was mortified. I felt like a bug that narrowly escaped death, only because I would have soiled the shoes it would take to squish me.

I was reeling. I wanted to find some comfort somewhere. But I had no one I could go to. I wanted to have some friend--someone!--tell me, "hey, don't listen to them. You're okay."

But I was new to the town, and I had no way of communicating with any of my old friends. It was all me. And I felt like a pimple on the butt of the world.

That part of me that stays on the side tried to think of something. Some way to comfort myself. I began to realize that the thing that was hurting was my pride.

What is Pride? "... it's not a hand, nor foot, nor arm, nor face, nor any other part belonging to a man..."

And yet it can be hurt. Was it important? or was this pain like the hiccups, something uncomfortable that was not serious and would pass?

Pride...Pride is the original sin. Lucifer was proud and he screwed everything up.

In that case, pride SHOULD be hurt. Pride should be ignored, torn down, attacked. It was a good thing to have my pride damaged. I should be humble, not proud.

And yet...There is another meaning of pride. Pride in opposition to shame. I will not be ashamed. If I am ashamed, it means I have done something wrong. Something shameful.

But if I am proud, I am proud of myself, I am living right. I should strive to be proud of my work. I should preserve my pride.

How can this be? Two things that mean the opposite.

Here is how I have determined the difference:

For the false, destructive pride, the source comes from external things. If I am proud of what I did not create, what I did not work for, then this is false. If I take pride in my appearance, my status or how people regard me, then that's wrong.

But if the source of my pride comes from my own work, and the affirmation comes from myself, then it is good pride. Yes, I should work hard and take pride in my work. I should be careful to be honest and have integrity. I can be proud of that integrity, but my pride can be an internal affirmation. I don't need to broadcast my good deeds, it is enough to know them myself.

A shameful pride would be trumpeted and draw from other peoples' opinion.

But a humble pride would be quiet and only need affirmation from oneself.

That is basically the litmus test. And it places my pride, my self-worth, inside my sphere of control. I don't need anyone else's opinions to know.

I can hold my own with pride.

Posted by Murphy Horner at 09:02 AM | Permalink

It's your Duty to uphold tradition

Once of the things that parents must do when raising their children is give them a sense of right and wrong, and a sense of the values of their culture.

This is important! If kids are not guided and molded, how can society maintain its vital traditions?

Parents, I say to you now, it is your DUTY to take your children trick or treating. Haloween depends upon it.

In years past, there were hordes of costumed waifs parading down the block after dark. It has slowed! It is merely a trickle when once it was a mighty flood.

But we, the childless members of society depend on the children to uphold the tradition. Where would we be if the children abandon Halloween?

Do not go only to the businesses and the malls to gather candy! Fie on you, you parents who deem it convenient or 'safe' to do so!

No, we depend on the children to provide us with a reason to buy large quantities of our favorite candies.

It is your DUTY, parents and children, even if you don't feel like it. Even if you don't like candy or aren't allowed to eat it.

You are the carriers of the torch. If you do not pass it forward, we are lost.

Can you imagine the grim future, the barren and dry future of an America with no more halloween? No sweets, no costumes, no flirting with evil or badness?

Let it not be so! Keep halloween thriving! Dress your children and yourselves!

It is your unhallowed duty.

Posted by Murphy Horner at 08:58 AM | Permalink

a decade

America...since...Gosh, I don't know...But we started to think in decades.

The 50s...the 60s...the 70s...the 80s...

The 80s are coming back, don't you know?

But, what's up with the arbitrary emphasis on the '0'? the 80 to the 90. Or the 1950 to the 1960.

We have an extra zero now, and we hardly know what to do with it. We don't have a cute term for the now...The fifties, the eighties, the nineties...and two thousand five...or worse, two thousand and five.

We're kind of drifting until we get to call it the teens. Then it's back on solid ground, the twenties, the thirties and the forties.

But at this moment, we are half way. 2005.

And for me, that concludes my own personal decade. On October 15, 1995 I flew from the Anchorage airport to Sacramento California.

My first decade of California living has passed.

I have a geeky reason for remembering that it was 1995. That was when it went from Windows 3.11 to Windows 95

A big year, to be sure. And the decade that followed has been justly monumental. I am so happy to be where I am and to have the skills that I have.

Posted by Murphy Horner at 08:56 AM | Permalink

limitations

You know, I have had quite a year. SO MUCH has changed. I quit one job, neary completed writing a book, remodeled my condo, bought a new home, and got a new and better job.

All in the space of six months.

I am in the throes of moving. And I am trying hard to understand the nature of my new job, which is not readily apparent.

And I am frustrated at how slowly the writing of my book and the settling into the new house is going.

But...

I am coming to terms with my own limitations. I think that is something I took away from my last [hideous] job.

It turns out I cannot do everything. At the very least, I cannot do everything AT ONCE.

And there is nothing wrong with that.

I hope I am learning to have a little patience with myself. Some things just take time. There is no way around it.

Posted by Murphy Horner at 01:08 AM | Permalink

How to have an open-minded discussion regarding deeply held convictions

1. Always remember the purpose of the conversation is the exchange of ideas and experiences. The point of the conversation is to hear others' point of view and to share your own.

2. Kindness and respect should be the mental stance throughout. If another person is listening to your convictions, they are doing you a kindness. If they are sharing their own convictions, you are receiving the reflected light of their revealed truth. Respect is appropriate at such times, and indeed, necessary for the exchange to occur.

3. Be secure in your own convictions. Do not be needy, asking for affirmation during the conversation. If what you think it true, no one needs to tell you so. You should not try to convince the other person to agree with you.

4. Ask questions and listen to the answers.

5. If you don't understand something someone is saying, ask them to clarify: "When you said X, I'm not sure what you meant. Can you explain?"

6. Don't press too hard for explanations. New ideas may take some time to get your mind around. By pressing too hard for evidence, you may cause them to feel defensive.

7. Should your conversation partner be persistent in trying to get affirmation from you when you don't feel in agreement, do not answer insincerely. A soft answer, for example "I really need to think about that, I can't answer right now" might help to get past the sticking point

8. If you begin to feel angry, disrespected or cornered during the discussion, try to direct the conversation toward a less sensitive area.

9. If your conversation partner expresses a racist, sexist, or violent idea, SPEAK OUT. If you let such ideas go unchallenged, you are lending support by your silence. Say something like, "I heard what you just said, and I disagree. Every person deserves respect as a part of our shared humanity." If violence is mentioned, say, "It's really not right to hurt anyone. There are better ways to handle the situation."

10. If you feel close to responding in anger or otherwise behaving unkindly, excuse yourself. Try saying "This conversation is bringing up a lot of feelings for me. I really can't keep talking about this. I'm sorry. Excuse me." Abandoning the conversation is much better than hurting someone.

Posted by Murphy Horner at 01:04 AM | Permalink

Not from around here

I need to talk for a little bit about where I come from.

I come from Alaska. I did not live in the absolute wilderness, but then again, the wilderness is never far from anywhere in my motherland. Moose wander through the streets, and the streets are literally ice for many months of the years.

The brand-new subdivision that I lived in as a teenager was virgin forest. I mean to say, a lawn was something of a futile absurdity. It made much more sense to leave the trees and bushes alone, and 99% percent of the homes in our area left their acre+ lots in their natural state.

We had a natural well that gave us water. It was 'hard' water which meant that the minerals coated our bathtub and left a funny taste when we drank it.

We lived outside a munincipality, the only police where the state troopers and they were seldom seen.

There was a lake full of fish a half mile a way, and our front window showed us a forest reserve that stretched for hundreds of miles long. We liked to pick berries and mushrooms there in the summer.

My parents drove to Alaska. They went their twice from their motherland in the golden rolling hills of California. First, in the 60s before Alaska was a state. Then again, for much longer, in 1972. During the new year's party, Mom went into labor and produced me in a now-defunct Anchorage Hospital.

Now I live in the golden rolling hills of California. And only very recently, I realized:

Mom and Dad thought Alaska was exotic.

I never never never thought it was exotic. It was home, with all the boringness and familiarity that means. But for them, it was almost like living in a foreign country. It was exciting and new and unexpected almost every day.

Now, Mom and Dad live in Sacramento. They talk a lot about remembering different places around there. Things are the same for them. Things are a lot like how they left them when they went away. Not exactly, time takes its toll, but enough the same for them to remember.

But me, I feel like California is a very exotic place. With its short snowless mountains and lush vegetation, fruit trees and warm nights, its population density and freeways, California never quite fits. It's always not home.

Not to say I ever want to live in Alaska. I am a permanent ex-patriate.

But I chafe at the expectations. I demand to know "WHY?" and resent every rule or expectation as irrational and irrelevant.

When I bought my condo, as part of the forest's graveyard of paperwork required, I was given the Rules of the Condo Association. Chris read them with me.

"WHAT?! I can't put my bike on the balcony."

"No Pool parties? Who do they think they are?"

"No dog over 40 pounds? Why is that their business? IF I want a dog, it's my problem."

Every rule was an imposition. I was buying the home, I should be able to do whatever wherever I wanted. Every rule made me suspicious.

Chris told me, "That's the price you pay to live in a condo with other people. If you had your own home, you could do what you wanted."

I signed, muttering and rebelling, but I signed.

Now, I am looking to buy a home! HOoray! I can paint the outside, I can have a BIG dog, I can put my bike wherever I like and all the rules are gone.

Chris and I are buying it together, so, he wants to live in his hometown Claremont. A little tiny city that gives me the jeebies. Back to that in a moment.

We've picked a house, made an offer, and are waiting. Chris was telling me what to expect from his home town.

"Claremont does not allow parking in the street overnight. Between 2 am and 6 am, you can't be on the street without a temporary permit."

What is this? WHAT?! THEY ARE PUTTING RULES ON ME AGAIN.

See, I am feeling crowded about this already. This town is full of all kinds of customs and ways of doing things. Where I come from, independence is prized and conformity is despised. There is no set way that everyone should be or do.

And yet, this little city has all sort of rules and permit requirements.

But here's the creepy part that gives me the jeebies:
Everyone from there or associated with that city, thinks that the city is great. They all say what a nice place it is, how wonderful it is for kids and for creative types. It is a college town after all.

And even more than that, everyone I've met from there is excruciatingly nice. I mean it! They are smart, and kind, and usually benignly humorous.

Is anyone else hearing the jeebie music in the background? I'll admit, I'm probably scarred by too many church youth groups. They specialize in niceness, while holding the dagger hidden until your back is exposed.

But I'm uneasily assured of the Claremont niceness. I mean, Chris is more Claremont than anyone, and I've been in daily observation of him for more than 5 years. He remains nice.

I just am afraid I will tresspass on the customs or BBQ the sacred cows of this little town of Trees and PhDs. I know there are all these expectation that I am oblivious to, like being colorblind. And I value my independence. I cherish my non-conformity.

They expect me to wash my car whenever dirt is visible on it. Hey, where I come from, you are ahead of the curve if both headlights are working. What do they expect from me?

They will expect lawn maintenance. Lawns! And if there are weeds, I would have to pull them up. I've never had anything to do with a lawn. I will probably fail at this.

I could offer lots of advice on removing a car after it's high-centered on a snow burm. But that is not useful in my exotic new home.

I recognize, intellectually, that with all these people crowded together on paved streets and highways, some rules are needed. But I don't like it. Rules feel categorically repellent.

It will take some time. I'm not from here.

Posted by Murphy Horner at 11:02 AM | Permalink

what were they thinking?

I remember learning about church history in my protestant church school. The time line went something like this:

God created the earth
God picked Abraham to father the jews and be the chosen people who wrote down what he said
God send Jesus to die and save everybody from the mess humanity had gotten into
The disciples became the apostles, started the church and wrote the new testament
Martin Luther wrote the 95 theses

Sometime after I learned history that didn't come from born-again-authored textbooks, I realized that things had happened in the church between the first century and the 15th.

The protestant revisionist history had the catholic church sort of erased. As if, before the "real" church, the protestant one, there had been this big empty dark spot.

As I learned more I realized, that's not true. There were all kinds of things happening, acts of faith and struggles. There were hundreds of years that the faith was preserved by the faithful. I was kind of surprised to realize that.

Now, from 1917 to 1991, communism was in charge of Russia. It was a totalitarian government, and here in the Democracy-loving west, we saw them as gray and robotic. They produced propaganda, and their biggest newspaper was called TRUTH, and they made it the truth by stamping out any other voices.

But I found this amazing book in a used book store: Writers in Russia: 1917-1978
This book explains what the writers were thinking. It talks about how they were excited and embraced the Revolution. That at first, they were inspired and producted good writing regarding their hopes and dreams for the new order.

And then, well, things got funky. All the intelligentsia revolutionaries had envisioned a utopia, a place where everyone would have everything they needed and be free to create.

As it turned out, people sort of had what they needed but they were less and less free to create.

But creative people will create. Their creativity compels them. And what things were happening behind that iron curtain?

THe official story was lockstep uniformity. But unofficially, the Russian people were as hungry for beautiful culture as ever.

This book tells of a really healthy underground publishing community. They would sent out the stories, the poetry, type up multiple copies and mail them out like chain letters. In this way, one officially unpublished poet was once able to pack out a soccer stadium to hear him read his poems.

PACKED OUT A STADIUM FOR POETRY.

I remember how we would hear of the strength of the first century Christian. HOw they were so vitallly involved with their faith. They went to their death in the jaws of lions.

The lack of something makes it so much more precious. THe lack of freedom makes the desire for it unbearable.

Here, we have so much freedom. And what do we do with it? We hardly know what to do with it. We are dilletantes with our freedom of speech. Toying with it...Childishly experimenting.

And yet, would we have it any other way? Freedom means contempt. I can toss off the most foolish nonsense with my power of speech, because it is free. Free is not important, doesn't require any thought.

The Soviet writers were not automatons. They had truth that tortured them to be told. THey had the highest of formalism to deal with. Leave iambic pentameter aside, try working within the bounds of a capricious and murderous dictator. Stalin was no joke.

And yet, they did it. They worked and crafted and wrote. What an amazing history. It's blowing my mind to get a glimpse of all these creative minds struggling with their surrounding and how to express themselves.

Posted by Murphy Horner at 02:59 AM | Permalink

Psuedo Patrician Non-Humanitarians

I've been really mulling this one over for a while.

Things have come to a pass. I have questions about why certain political choices are being made,and the voices I am hearing from media outlets are almost exclusive liberal voices.

I am trying to follow the tangled thread. Here are some of the things that concern me:

Health Care
Cost of Living
Whether jobs will be available
How much stuff costs
Being fair to everyone
Taking good care of natural resources

These seem really basic to life enjoyment. I have to live, I have to pay for stuff, I have to have a job to pay for said stuff. I think that we have to be fair to everyone, because it's the right thing to do. Plus, if we aren't fair, they will exact revenge.

And we have to take care of natural resources, like the EARTH for a big example, because I have to look at it when I am not working or shopping for stuff. And I like the earth. It's where I keep my stuff (okay, that's a quote from The Tick).

If we take care of the stuff that keeps my list of concerns taken care of, we're doing okay.

Alright. So who pays for Health care to keep me living? In the USA, insurance companies do. That's really really convoluted. I mean, at one point in history, Doctors used to take their knowledge and think of a way to cure the person, and then they would take money or some trade item from the person they were treating. That was the end of that.

Now, getting your tonsils out takes huge statistical charts and indexes to pay for. Whoa. That's strange and weird. But that's really what we are living with.

The people that pay the insurance companies to pay the bills for our medical needs are:
the employers, i.e. Large Corporations

Mostly, that's true. Some individuals can pay the premiums themselves, if they want. The governmentactsd as a safety net, that picks up the slack sometimes for those who don't have an employer to pay.

That's how we do it in the US. In Europe, the government picks up the tab for the whole bill. It's called socialized medicine. And socialized medicine has a whole host of problems, such as lowered quality of care and restaints on compensation for the professionals who are therefore unmotivated to innovate and invent such needed things as new cures.
Socialized medicine is not the best way to do it. But neither is our way. Both of us are figuring out what to do next.

But things being the way they are, Large corporations are the biggest customers of the health insurance companies who control the health care in america.

So, when you are dealing with health care, it's really a lot about large corporate interests.

Large corporate interests = the Republican party

right? well, maybe.

But the democrats are the ones who are always bringing up health care concerns. And they are full of speeches about how new programs can be funded by new taxes that will be paid for by big business or 'the rich.'

But, if the democrats expect to milk the corporate cow, it would seem to require checking that the cow is well fed. If we learned nothing from the stock crash of 2000 it's that businesses are quite apt to fail.

Interestingly, the democrats are for 'equality' too. That is what they seem to talk about a lot. I hear a lot about people being underpriviliged. Or people being minorities or poor. Sometimes, they even talk about people being oppressed.

These are pretty big words. The conservatives tend to say things like "Idiots" and "Morons" about the liberals. Not very helpful, just to oversimplify into name-calling.

But the liberals voices seem to forget where their bread is buttered. I have listened for a long time, and I can see that their basic idea is to take money from rich people and from big business in the form of taxes and redistribute it (through government branches) to 'the less fortunate'.

That bothers me. This country has a high regard for independence, and we seem to be setting up a structure whereby people become dependent on the government, that thing that NO ONE, conservative or liberal, trusts.

It seems to be better to take obtacles out of people's way and let them do what they feel like doing.

I like the idea of compassion that the democrats supposedly espouse. I'd like to be a democrat and help out where help is needed.

But this constant talk of 'the less fortunate' seems to place those speaking on a superior plane than the others. Sure, they may be speaking about compassion, but there are ways of giving help without stripping the recipients of their dignity. But the speechers raise themselves by referring to others in a one-down position. It's as if they are attempting to become patrician by designating all others as plebian. But it is smoke and mirror. We do hold to the truth that all people are created equal.

It is non-humanitarian to create a system of whereby people become dependent for their basic needs. That's infanticizing the 'less fortunate.'

So, I have a bad taste in my mouth for these psuedo patrician non-humanitarian democrats. I know there may be plenty of truly compassionate charitable people who work hard to help the less fortunate, but the loudest voices in the democratic party (at least those around me in liberal LA) are terrible examples.

Posted by Murphy Horner at 08:55 PM | Permalink

Do or Do not. There is no try

When I was about 14, I fell in love with satin pajamas. Actually, I fell in love with the idea of satin pajamas.

I didn't see them anywhere, I just thought about how pretty and nice they would be.

Buying them was not within my reach. You have to understand, we did not place the purchasing of new clothing from stores within our grasp. It was part of how we dealt with being poorl; just don't even entertain the idea of wanting something you can't have. Buying new clothes was outside of what we could do, so why think about it?

This was before I was able to make my own money, so I didn't even think about finding out what it would cost new. If we wanted clothing that didn't appear in the hand-me-down closet that our church kept, we would have to make it.

I found the satin on sale, a beautiful champagne color, and then I found the pattern. I worked hard on it. I'd never made a shirt with a yoke, and many other things.

It took a long time, but time was the only thing I had too much of. In the middle of it, I was talking to an excellent seamstress from our church about the double french seams I was trying to do.

"Don't you think that satin is a very difficult fabric to work with?"

The idea had never once passed through my mind. Difficult? This was the only way to get the pretty pajamas that I wanted. It was not a matter of difficult. It was a matter of possible.

I am very binary that way. Can it be done? Yes or No? Difficult is not on the map. Not for me. And not for most of my family, come to think of it.

Consequently, I tend to bite off a lot. Then drive myself into the ground trying to do it.

Then again, I also manage to do some amazing things.

I am staggering right now under the difficulty of writing the book that I am trying to write. Sure, when I first thought of it, I just thought of the whole. I thought of the finished product, some vague notion of this story.

Now, I am in the details of it. I am staggered with the enormity of the subject. I tell everyone "It's a book contrasting the religious tyranny in America with the political tyranny of Russia, and it tracks how the main character comes away from her tyrannical religious upbringing at the same time that Russia is trying to come out from it's political tyranny."

Honestly, I think even Shakespeare would have been a bit staggered with that subject matter. YES, it's true. It really happened. No way could I write this if I hadn't lived it. It is too big to make up. I believe that it would be a very good book to have in the world, to show up how that kind of thing happens, and that it happens to all of us.

But wow. This is a huge project. And ME, I have to make it the first book I write. No baby steps for me. I have to start with Mt. Everest.

Man on man.

Well, some day, somehow, it will be done. I kind of feel like I am halfway up this mountain, and it's too late to turn back now. But I just realized how hard it is, and that I might not be up to the task.

But someway or another it will have to get done.

HOOO boy

Posted by Murphy Horner at 08:51 PM | Permalink

Apostate to his own intelligence

Apostate:
One who has abandoned one's religious faith, a political party, one's principles, or a cause.

A couple years ago I observed a sort of behavioral tendency in one individual, and it's amazing how the same pattern carries through in many different people I've met.

I call it being apostate to your own intelligence.
Apostate is a word with religious implications, and since I come from a very religious background it seems natural to me. I understand it to mean someone who deliberately turns away from God, knowing and understanding that God is God and still turning away from Him.

Of course the same principle applies to other things. For example, a person could knowingly and with full understanding turn away from the smart thing to do.

Here's where I first saw it:

I met this man , let's call him Joe, through a friend. When I met Joe, he was cleaning carpets to feed his wife and children.

My friend said, "Joe has a degree in industrial engineering."

"Good heavens! Why would he want to be a carpet cleaner if he could be an engineer? What happened?"

A few years prior, there had been an infestation of Multi-level marketing in the area. Ponzi's dream lives on, and it became the dream of Joe. He bought into the product line, bought into the pre-packaged marketing material. He contacted all his friends and spent time trying to recruit them beneath his level on the Ponzi pyramid.

As is easy to guess, this diligent effort did not result in the millions, or at least hundreds of thousands, that the marketing materials implied.

Here comes the point of decision. Joe started this endeavor to make money. He wasn't making money. Logic would indicate that he abandon this method of making money and find a different method that produced the desired result-money.

But Joe did not choose to do this. He decided that there was a reason he wasn't making money. It must be because he had not comitted to the plan. He needed to quit his job and do this new job full-time.

He chose to continue on with his original choice, affirming the first decision with a second one.

Now, he's stepped away from logic and begun to act on faith. Why would he, an engineer, a man of science, choose to act against his own logic? Let's follow him further.

Joe quit his job as an industrial engineer. He began to sell the MLM products full time, on the belief that the products and the system were reliable and the problem lay in his dedication to them. He fully believed that he would be able to support his family on the money he would be certain to recieve with his new commitment to the plan.

It wasn't long before his new plan had consequences. His wife and kids had to leave their home and live with her mother because there was no money to pay the bills.

And here came the second point of decision. Should Joe give up his MLM dreams and go back to work as an engineer? There were definitely jobs available. Or should he pursue his MLM career further?

Yep, ol' Joe believed. He chose to find a supplemental job, one that wouldn't get in the way of his real job, selling the MLM product.

He took up a franchise to start cleaning carpets. It didn't pay enough for his family to leave Grandma's house. As a matter of fact, Joe had to live with friends to get back on his feet.

This is a true story. This man was a fool. He consistenly chose the same stupid decision.

What the hell was he thinking? He must have thought that something other than reason or logic (also known as reality) was more important to him.

What could be more important than reality? And what sorts of things fall outside the boundaries of logic and reality?

I have two answers:
1. Self Image
2. Being percieved as being right

Maybe they are just two aspects of the same thing. When Joe chose to join the MLM program, he had a certain image of himself. Rich, successful, prosperous, admired, whatever. That was who he was going to be.

When he came to his first point of decision, he could abandon that first image and admit that he was wrong. This course of action would have made it possible to find another way to gain the rewards he was looking for.

But he didn't want to admit he was wrong. He didn't want to crack the image he had of himself, the one he thought he was portraying to others, that was so attractive.

He affirmed his first decision, and chose to act against logic. This was only the first real time he acted against logic. It might have worked, that scheme. But once he tried it, he could empirically know that it didn't work.

He chose to ignore the reality of the situation, and embrace his inner vision of himself, and shore up the image he assumed he projected to others. That he was a guy that knew what he was doing.

He didn't see that others were not impressed with him. That he looked a fool.

Just because he had found a way to superimpose his self-image over reality did not mean that anyone else was fooled. It only showed up his foolishness more starkly.

Now, I have seen a number of people decide that they have a story about themselves, they have an image, that is more important than reality. They can take the weight of their supposed position or importance and try to flatten the reality of the situation.

This only shows up the contrast between the truth of the situation and the ridiculous story they are putting forth.

True importance, such that would make a person worth of respect, comes from acting and speaking in accordance with reality.

Which is to say, respect is earned not owed.

And to turn away from Truth towards self-gratification (also known as fear) will only hasten what you fear.

Posted by Murphy Horner at 12:38 AM | Permalink

Bobo the Clown

I spent this Christmas in the Inland Empire. I've spent a lot of time there, because Chris's mom lives in Upland. Most of the time I've spent there, the entertainment options have pretty much been going to malls.

But isn't that what L.A. is supposed to be about? Not the best feature in my opinion, but when in Rome...

In the spirit of the season, on the 26th, I woke up early and bought a paper so we could scope the ads and see what was on sale. I knew we would go shopping because Chris's family tradition is to return most of the presents recieved the day before.

But I saw the Book Review section, so I had to look. On the last page there was a review: Bohemian Manifesto by Laren Stover. The reviewer tells us, "She wore a 'yellow thrift-ship hat and a fuchsia jacket I found in a trash can on Christopher Street" to her first job interview."
It goes on," 'Bohmians...create new work and change paradigms.' When Starbucks and the Gap move into the neighborhood, 'Bohemians move out.'"

Oh, yeah. Thrift store shopping and treasures from the trash. That's my background. I write a lot about growing up in Alaska, because Alaska is so weird. But the truth is, we were wierd even for Alaskans. It finally clicked for me. That's why this guy at work jokes about me being engulfed in clouds of Patchouli (a scent I enjoy, but do not own). It's the idea of patchouli that surrounds my way of life. Mom and Dad were definitely Bohemians.

I talked this over with Chris. He said, "What does Bohemian mean anyway?"

It's a way of life. It's being dedicated to the meaning of things, of ideas as more important than the moment. That the idea, of art, of social activism, or something, is more important than living the life of a philistine.

In fact, avoiding the life of the cushy bourgeouis philistine type of life is quite possibly the idea that a boho is trying to follow. Being open-minded and ready for new experiences that life has to offer...That's basic bohemianism.

Chris; "What's wrong with a middle class life?"

Me; "Chris, I've told you this before. It's exactly that kind of question that almost make me leave you when we were first getting to know each other."

Chris walked into my life, with his wonderbread dedication to name brand foods-it must be Coke, it must be Nabisco, it must be Kraft, or it is unacceptable.

He loves Disney.
He loves beef.

He will not eat at a Thai food restaurant, an Indian restaurant or any other type of ethnic food. When we eat out, it's three choices: Italian, Mexican, or American cuisine.

All of which are basically American foods.

He wanted to go to Hawaii, not Europe.

These are against the grain of my bohemian lifestyle, my upbringing. My father and I used to peruse the foreign food section at the grocery store, marvelling at all the interesting foods and languages written on the packages.

I have never aspired to go to Hawaii. Hawaii is not old enough.

"Don't you want to see architecture and art and history in Europe? I've never wanted to go to Hawaii."

He answered: "But it's pretty. You will like the flowers."

And you know what? he was right. It was pretty.

But having to buy BRAND NAMES for him still rubs me the wrong way. Corporate clones! I don't want to have anything to do with that!

It was a huge struggle. I seriously considered that we might have nothing in common. If our very philosophical basis was opposed, then we were doomed.

He challenged me: "Why are we so different?"

Saying that he liked Kraft and Nabisco seemed not enough of a reason.

I wrestled. Would I be giving up my ideals to be with this man? What kind of open minded student of life would I be if I were tied to bourgeous boychik?

My ideals. I had to be open minded.

And that was the point. I had to be open-minded. Was I really living my philosophy if I was judging Chris based on outward appearances and not on his heart?

Chris liked Coke because much of his grandmother's retirement fund was Coke stock. He always thought of his grandfather and his grandmother when he bought the 24-pack of Coke.

And he loves his family, and he loves me. He doesn't worry so much about my philosophy (which is admittedly a little vague), he is deeply concerned with whether or not I am happy.

True, he does not enjoy my open mike poetry readings. He doesn't want to go to the parties with my artsy friends. But he meets me when I come back with a kiss, and often makes me a cup of tea while I tell him all about it.

No, he is not open-minded about trying the new sushi bar. But he was more open-minded about my hippy-dippy ways than I was being about his white-bread background.

And, as it happens, he makes me very happy. So...Different cultures, even when they live next door to each other, have things to teach one another.

Posted by Murphy Horner at 02:19 PM | Permalink

"In the Beginning was the Word, and the Word was God"

Great quote for writers to remember, huh? Gives us delusions of grandeur.

But there is great power in words-even in just one work. In his book Creativity, author Mihaly Csikszentmihalyi talks about how just asking the question is incredibly useful. HitchHiker's Guide taught us that. "Are you sure you're asking the right question?" Finding a new way of looking at a problem can get you a lot closer to solving it.

And this morning I found a word I'd been looking for:
Tyranny

This is a twisted and long thread of thought. Bear with me.

Funny I didn't think of it earlier. This is the presidential election season, after all. Kerry is busy talking about how he has a plan, and President Bush is talking about how people in the Middle East are now free and not under tyranny.

Tyranny is a nicely flexible word. It can refer to a whole country, or it can refer to just one person.

You know, my professor of classical literature told us that the original meaning for tyranny was just a King. It is a Greek word, and it was the real name for Oedipus Rex (Rex being pushed in later, because Tyrant had a bad name). I've written about Oedipus before, actually. This just adds to the soup of what I've been thinking about.

The Founding Fathers, those instigators, knew that Tyranny was a cooperative endeavor. 'Tax our tea, will ya? I don't THINK so...'
Over the side it goes, and those new world colonists showed they were not going to cooperate with the percieved tyranny of England's taxes. The American Revolutionaries pulled in their powers and refused to cooperate with tyranny.

It's kind of funny, because the things they were complaining about seem so insignificant when we take a look around at the sorts of tyranny we've become used to now. Too much taxes! Give me a break! How does that even get on the same page as getting stoned to death on the streets for flashing an elbow?

And yet, these things start small.

That's the problem. They start small. Some leader, some person given the power to rule over people, makes a small move that's not right, and people accomodate.

Cooperate.

They go along to get along. I mean really, you can't argue over everything. What's a little tax? What's a little religious zealousness? It's for the greater good.

Until it takes over. And then you have tyranny.

The founding fathers were big readers. They were into the whole enlightenment, Thomas Paine, Plato's Republic, humanism and all that.

They came to an understanding of how politics work. They were attuned to it, so that they weren't letting the ol' monarch get away with anything. Nope, not even a little tax. And they thought and conversed and read and argued and came up with a GENIUS bunch of documents that were meant to protect our freedom.

And the big basis of this protection was that the power was distributed. They wanted people to be able to hold on to their power and not be compelled to cooperate with tyranny. The message was, 'if you fall into tyranny, it's your own fault! The keys to your freedom are in your own hands.'

And this is so much a part of who americans are, that we don't even think about it. We have had this policy, don't get involved in other people's business. Other countries can hold a revolution if they want change. We did. The keys to their freedom are in their own hands.

Sometimes we get impatience, and the CIA plays dirty. They 'assist' the revolutionaries of a country with overthrowing a government they don't like. But we do believe that it's up to the people to take the reins for their own government.

That's why we like democratic governments. Democracy for everyone!

But not everyone comes to democracy from the same angle.

Let's go back to a more recent revolution. The Russian one, less than one hundred years ago, had a whole different philosophy. Communism, which I've also written about before.

The communists, of whom the US of A became terrified , had a desire for democracy and a very strong emphasis on being 'for the people'. But they took it another way.

There were a set of smarty-pants, well-read, rich, idealistic and politically active men who started the whole thing and foisted it upon everyone else. Just like America so far.

But they really clung to the ideology. It was all about the ideology. This particular political philosophy happened after the advent of psychology. It was kind of an organized "power of positive thinking" in some ways.

Their idea was that if they could just educate the masses in the principles of this great ideology of equality and wonderfulness.

And maybe that's where it went wrong. It got kind of messy when people tried to guide...FORCE...other people into actions for their own good.

The 20th century was a lot about that. A lot about ideological movements. There was the Russian revolution. Early in the 20th century. That happened during world war 1, which had it's own sets of ideological movements on all sides. I have been thinking about that one a lot, too.

Then world war 2 happened. There was the National Socialist movement...Also known as the Nazis...Boy, they were a set of idealists. Scary scary. And ever after, we use them as examples of the ultimate bad dudes. But it was ideas that gave them power. All those people in the concentration camps were there because of a large cooperation of tyranny. The force of all the collective people going along to get along, going along because of the greater good was crushing.

Did the word holocaust exists before world war two? Maybe it had a meaning like Tyrant had during Oedipus's time. No real meaning. The Nazis filled out the word like no one else.

Alright. But the Nazis burned out, basically. After world war 2, we were left with only the communists to fear. The communists, starting their political will to power in Russia...Which oozed over into places that had not been Russia...The Ukraine, Belarus, Estonia, Roumania. They were not Russia, but they were assimilated into the blank sweep of map known as the USSR.

And the communists were not done. There was Eastern Europe. They began licking their lips and swallowing chunks of Europe like cake. Germany, Poland, Chekoslovakia.

It was scary scary. I could go on with all kinds of examples, but history is not my forte, and I'll probably be inaccurate.

The thing I am remembering, thinking about now is Milan Kundera. He wrote the Unbearable Lightness of Being, which I've talked about before.

I just recently finished another of his books, The Book of Laughter and Forgetting. This blows me up, just like the last one.

He's talking about how his country was taken over by the Communists. He's talkign about Czechoslovakia, and what people choose to remember. How political powers, whichever one was in power, would revise the history, erase people from photos and memories.

I remember another book that was about American revisionist history. I don't know if anyone else would see it that way, but I did. It deals with America's bugaboos, race, slavery and class status. And all the people in the story seem to remember things differently. The hero is left trying to sort out what 'really' happened.

What the heck happened? That's the question Kundera was dealing with. What the heck happened to my beautiful ideas? what the heck happened to my beautiful country? When did this tyranny take over? How did we allow it?

And wasn't Oedipus also thinking this? What the heck happened? How did this horror come to pass?

We never meant for this. And at last we get to the heart of this:

I also walk with my head in my hands. What the heck happened here?

I am trying to write a memoir. It is the story of how my life was when I was 18 and 19. It is a story of

Tyranny

Religious tyranny. It's a story of how certain people were given power and control, and how other people cooperated. It's a story of how I struggled to break free.

It's also a story of how I went to Russia, landing in Yakutsk, on the same day that the Soviet Union dissolved.

So, these are two parallel stories. Me, breaking free of American religious tyranny, and Russia, breaking free of Communist Soviet tyranny.

Now that I have the word, tyranny, I feel like I can better express the story.

I understand Kundera, with his grief and his confusion, 'What happened?' He struggled with his country, he struggled with the fate of his country. I struggle too. I have spent my life wondering 'What happened? How did my family, my church, come to this?'

It is not simple. It is not normal. Tyranny is not a phase of life. There were things that happened that should not have happened. And I, as a teenager, was left grasping at straws and struggling with the why.

I looked high and low for something to explain what happened. Why did my parents make the choices they did? Why did the pastor do the things he did?

How did my brother come to the conclusion that he was could no longer make his own decisions, but always had to go to the pastor for direction in everything?

What was that about?

My first word for it was "spiritual abuse" This made sense.

But it was bigger than that. I kept looking. After time I found another word:
Mind Control

More and more, the behaviors I had seen were coming into focus. And researching mind control led directly into a new field:
Cults

And that word, cult, has satisfied me for a very long time. As I thought about it, sifting through my experiences and memories, it fits.

And as I gained courage to talk more about it with others, I began to see that these methods, these patterns, were far more universal than I thought.

And eventually, I looked over to my right and saw some nasty methods and patterns coming from the man I was married to.

It's not that uncommon, I guess. I hate to think of myself as a victim demographic, but it's common for abuse to go on and not be identified by the person recieving it.

It's little things. 'He couldn't have meant to do that.' But nothing wins an argument like slamming your opponent against the wall. And he probably felt a lot more in control, a lot smarter when he told me that I didn't know anything.

It wasn't until I began to understand how spiritual abuse, mind control and cults work that I could at last recognize what was happening at home, and be empowered to leave. Boy, it was not easy, let me tell you that!

But those three words didn't cover what was happening in my home. They call it wife beating, emotional abuse. But it was so much of a piece with all the others.

And none of those words covered what was happening in Russia, under the communists. I thought of Totalitarianism. Yeah...

And then came the taliban, who chilled my bones. That's back to spiritual abuse and totalitarianism.

Until today, when I finally found the word, the oldest word of them all.

Tyranny. That covers all the bases. It even covers things not in my listed experiences. It doesn't take two to do this tango. There are ways that one person can be a tyrant to themself.

We already know that tyranny requires cooperation.

I do not have many answers. I'm thrilled today, just to have a question. Here's the question:
What does it take to resist tyranny? How do we not cooperate with the forces of evil (cue George W. here) or the forces of misguided good intentions that push us into the arms of tyranny?

I don't know exactly how. I think that having a strong sense of right and wrong, and an attitude of mercy is the only place I know to start.

Tyranny is bad anywhere you find it. It must be resisted.

And I still don't have full answers. But I have to keep trying.

Posted by Murphy Horner at 04:45 AM | Permalink

So, I am thinking about this attitude I am seeing among the political parties. Republicans are the traditionally conservatives. Democrats are the compassionate liberals.

So they say.

I feel compassionate. I feel liberal. But why don't I feel very much affinity for the Democrats? I feel like I should like them more than I do.

Democrats are against war, right? So am I. But I still feel there are times when it is necessary. Those times should be determined with careful consideration. I think force is justified in certain thoughtful circumstances. Yet, I am not hearing as much thought from the anti-war protestors as I need to be intellectually satisfied.

And even more than war, which is a once in a while activity, I am concerned about people who are oppressed. People who may not have had the opportunities that everyone deserves. The litany: women, minorities, etc.

And the democrats are the ones supposedly for the underdog. The party for women, the party for the minorities, that's what they think they are.

And yet, something about it is sounding funny to me. It's a little too canned. Political correctness is getting stale. Affirmative action, women's rights, all those things may or may not be sincere. The question is, are they working?

This is feeling wrong to me. Is the goal truly to have an equal playing field or not? What is the exit strategy to the war on civil rights? Is there a reason why we want to have a set of underpriviledged people to help?

Okay. It's hard for me to understand. I just don't get it. Where I grew up...I don't know. Maybe everyone was underpriviledged. It just felt very equal.

So here's the thing that gets me thinking. I look around at the neighborhoods here in Los Angeles. I started thing when I wanted to become a home owner. Which areas have good schools? Which ones will keep their value?

Chris grew up in Claremont. Claremont is one of the snootiest ordinary places I have ever seen. These people have a sense of how superior they are. I didn't get it. They talk about the surrounding areas, Laverne and San Dimas and Upland and Rancho Cucamunga and Pomona.

The voice changes. When they talk about the different cities. But it's not just the people from Claremont. Everyone who is from LA talks about cities with different tones of voice. And the tone of voice depends on the person talking. Baldwin Park is not a scary place to a brown person. And Long Beach and Inglewood is comfortable to an African American.

But to a jewish friend, Silver Lake can be scary, depending on where you get out of the car. But then, maybe she worries too much.

I find this confusing, and I am not really sure what to thing of these different tones of voices. What are all these people talking about? Are they just being prejudiced?

I found a website talks about it. What are we really talking about, when the tone of voice changes? Bottom line is crime.

Chris grew up in Claremont. In 2002, Claremont had no homicides. Next door, the city over, San Dimas, had 0 homicides. One city over from there, Pomona, had 18 people killed.

What the hell just happened here? Why does Pomona kill people? Why does San Dimas live peacefully and Pomona not?

Chris told me that there were a lot of Hispanic gangs in Pomona. THe houses are a lot cheaper in Pomona. Pomona had 448 incidents of robberies and 805 incidents of aggravated assaults. What is going on?

I do not think that Hispanic people are more inclined to violence and killing. I think that people do the things that make sense to them.

Somehow, San Dimas and Claremont have a society where killing people does not make sense. Why does killing people make sense to the people in Pomona?

Have the police come to expect that assault and robbery and murder happen in Pomona and not in San Dimas? What the heck are the police doing over there?

And Pomona is not the worst. Long Beach had 67 homicides, and Compton had 52. What the heck are the police doing?

Why is this an accepted thing? Why does Compton kill people? Why does Pomona kill people?

I can't tell you. I don't know. But I do not believe it has anything to do with a person's ethnicity. I know it has to do with what those residents believe, the story they tell themselves about what is necessary to get through life.

And what story are the liberal types telling?
"You're going to need help. You're pathetic."

I reject that condescion. I don't believe in liberality that disempowers.

You know what I think? I think that this whole thing is a lot more about economics than almost anything else. Having money is having independence, it's having choices.

But money comes from hard work. Protestant work ethic, "he who shall not work shall not eat."

Handing out money for disempowered people does not empower them. Getting anything for free does not make a person better on the inside. Hard work and challenges are what make people grow, you grow to meet the challenges you face.

So, I am not impressed with the flavor of compassion I am hearing from liberals. If a helping hand is required, and I do not reject the idea of a helping hand, let's give one that allows for decency. Let's find ways of letting people exercise their own power, their own dignity growing.

THe problem is large, but so are most that are worth solving. I can't help thinking, what does San Dimas know that Pomona doesn't?

Posted by Murphy Horner at 03:36 AM | Permalink

"Equal Pay for Equal Work"

Listening to the debates tonight, I heard Kerry say, "women are earning 76 cents on the dollar compared to men." This is shocking! I wasn't sure it was true.

Wireless to the rescue. I looked it up. I don't see women so much in that role. Unless the guys were making way more money than I thought, I figured it was not quite the story.

But I looked it up. It seems to have some figures behind it. Man, I was hoping that we'd gotten a little further than that.

But this story puts a little thought into the figures. According to her, when you take some important factors into consideration, the wage gap is more like 98%.

Whoo hoo! and Ms. McElroy makes some very good points. I've thought about this, in these terms, for quite some time. Leaving aside the prejudicial and sexism stereotypes, what is the major difference between a man and a woman? A woman is the one who bears the children. It takes nine months for gestation. And it takes some time to get over the process of shoving this little person out of your body.

After that, mothers may want to take time out of their career to spend time with the child. A choice that she can make. That is, the lucky ones who have the economic room to not work, or work less for a while. Many women make the choice to have less responsibilities in their career, so that they can be available to pay attention to their child.

This does not diminish a woman's capacity to perform any of the duties her career may have demanded. The fact is, a choice like that, one that takes a woman out of the running, off the rat race and into the baby track, has wage consequences.

If a man took several months or years out of the prime career growth time of his life to do another project, it is fully expected that he would not be able to walk away with no ground lost. It doesn't work like that.

And a women should not expect that she can hit pause and step right back in where she left off. That wouldn't be fair.

If we were to embrace the capacity that women bring to the table, it would be wise to find ways to change the culture of the workplace. Why do we have to work 24-7? Geez.

It would be good to have a jobs that allow for a balance and a challenge. We need that, so that the children don't get left behind.

But it seems like women are not being left behind so much anymore, and for that I rejoice.

Posted by Murphy Horner at 11:32 PM | Permalink

From Earth to the MOon

So, I got to watch some TV this weekend. THey were showing this miniseries about how we got to the moon.

It was eerie. All these suited men with glasses going, "I don't know if this is possible. It might not be possible...But we have to do it."

And they proceeded to screw it up for the rest of us forever.

HOW many times have I faced that same dillemma in my IT jobs?

Management "we want this"
Me "I don't think we can do that. I dont' think it's possible."
Managment "Have it ready by next tuesday"

Impossible doesn't mean impossible anymore. Not for americans.

Of course, we wouldn't have all these cool toys and stuff to have the jobs we do if it weren't for NASA. I, of course, worked at NASA for a year intership to learn to do what I do.

So I should be grateful.

But man...we just can't give no for an answer anymore. Not since we've sent a person to the moon.

Posted by Murphy Horner at 01:30 PM | Permalink

fools!

How many fools does it take to screw in a lightbulb?

Fools always travel in ships.

There are the fools of Gotham.
There are Shakesperean fools.

There are people who are surrounded by fools.
Imbeciles.
Idiots.
Nincompoops.
Morons.
Incompetents.

Fool me once, shame on you. Fool me twice, shame on me.

Foolishness!

Today, I have the phrase for me:

I am a sad fool.

I cannot escape my own ignorance. I can choose many actions, and all of them seem foolish to me. No choice appears to be a wise one. There are times when this is so, situations when you cannot come out like a hero.

Not everyone is the hero. The rest of us are Rosencrantz and Gildenstern, bit parts, left confused and out of the major action.

I love that play, "Rosencrantz and Gildenstern are dead." It brings up all kind of questions about what the HECK we are trying to accomplish in this big wide world that has big important things happening that WE CANNOT AFFECT very much.

Then there's Billy Joel's song "We didn't Start the Fire." We are left with the result of a history which, through hindsight, we would not have chosen.

And it doesn't matter. Remember the Jeff Goldblum character in Jurrasic Park? Chaos theory...Just one drop of water can move across a person's skin in different ways, moved by invisible, imperceptible pulls and tugs.

Choice is so powerful! That's what Tony Robbins says! That's what Viktor Frankl says.

And it is still not quite powerful enough. It is certainly not all-powerful.

So I, like King Lear, can rage against the storm and affirm the choices I have made. But that doesn't mean they were right. And it doesn't mean they affect as much as I want them to.

But that doesn't excuse me from trying and trying. And trying and trying.

And that is what makes me a sad fool. Sad, as in pathetic. What hope, what importance have I, in the scheme of human history?

Just as much as anyone else. Maybe. And that isn't very much.

But at the same time, it's everything.

Every day is the day to get up, in spite of what seems to be futility. That drop of water might be affected by my striving, by my will.

And yet, it's good for me to know that my choices are not that powerful. That I should be humble, knowing that I am a pathetic slob trying to make something of myself and leave a little scratch on the planet that makes it better, not worse.

And it's good for me to know that I am a fool, so I can laugh at my foolishness, and have patience with the pitiful effects of my scratching.

For we know, from the beginning, what good does pride do anyone? never has. So, I'll be the hopelessly hopeful. I'll be the optimistic pessimist. And I'll laugh and my sad foolishness, and in laughing, I'll find the strength to keep on.

Posted by Murphy Horner at 11:28 AM | Permalink

children of the firm

I'm beat. Work made me work really hard, and I spent the week away from home. I am done now, and I am even taking monday off.

It took three trips to this location to finish. The first time, I stayed with friends. The second, I picked the cheaper hotel, and I rejected it. Too much graffitti nearby. It was a barely revitalized motel.

This time, third time, I got to stay with the top dogs in the nice hotel. I even snuck out to the hot tub at the end of the day, and it was wonderful. I sat there in luxury, staring at the beautiful stars. I was a little bit grateful to the firm for giving me a chance to stay at this pretty hotel. I would never have paid that much on my own.

And then I thought about how i had rejected the other motel. It was more expensive than I would have chosen to pay, too. I wondered if the top dogs would have stayed at the motel. They might have found it objectionable. We find a lot of reasons to complain about what our firms provide for us.

If I don't have to pay for it, I might as well insist on the best. It costs me nothing.

I wondered if the top dogs would have chosen less luxurious surroundings. I thought, maybe not. They do make more money than me. I wondered if they also felt that they could insist on the best from the firm, and if they also felt like it costs them nothing.

Because it does cost everybody something. The money to pay the bill comes from somewhere. It just seems so removed and far away that it feels free. At least it does to me.

But for the top dogs, the partners, they have a share in what happens. They own the firm. It's their money going away to put an expensive pillow under my head. Do they realize that? Or do they also feel very removed from the costs of doing business?

The movie "The Corporation" talked about corporations making the businesses that we do gets to be further and further away from consequences. That leads to irresponsibility.

And that made me think that all of us, all of the people from our firm were maybe, behaving like children. Someone else, we don't know who, would get the consequences of our choices and actions.

Someone else will handle the bill.

That can't be good for business.

Posted by Murphy Horner at 07:24 PM | Permalink

Write On

I've been working steadily on writing a book. It is not a novel, which is what everyone assumes. It is a memoir. I'm trying to write about what it was like to be with my family and go over to Russia to teach English in a private school with a Christian curriculum in 1991-1993.

I started out, and in January, I had about 100 pages written. THen I realized that I had to stop TELLING the story and I had to start writing the experiences. What I had been doing with the first 100 pages was being my current self, the ironic cosmopolitan with PERSPECTIVE on what happened back then.

Absolutely NOT the way to tell a real story. If I distance myself from my own story, how can I expect to draw in a reader? But the fact is, I didn't want to dive in. To call these memories painful would only be the tip of the iceberg. Nothing is just as simple as pain. Pain is such a flat word. I needed to dive right back in to THEN and write what it was like to live it.

It is not easy to do that. I've now re-written to the point of having 140 pages.

AND WE STILL HAVEN'T GOTTEN ON THE PLANE.

My mind panics when I think about (think about writing about) going to Russia. And that is exactly how I felt during the time I was getting ready to go. That is the time I am writing about, that getting-ready period.

Right now, I am filled with those feelings I had then. And I am missing those people I knew then. I am SO missing them.

I had to do a little cyber-stalking. God bless Google. What's Dean up to? What about Alex? Tommy Piper?

They say you can never go home again. I say, you can never go anywhere again. Some things never change, but I am not some things. It's very sad to me, to realize that I can't ever recapture the closeness of a friendship. Or realize the closeness that I once wanted.

People change. I change. It makes me sad.

Not that I would have it any other way. You couldn't pay me enough to stay the way I was back then.

Anyway, I am surprised at how real these people are to me. It is like they just walked out of the room. I've had to struggle to remember their personalities and their speech patterns. I have to try to create dialogue with them...I say create...But it is more like remembering...And I remember up scraps of things I've done and said with them...And there they are. Like I could reach out and touch them. Like I could give them one more hug goodbye.

And I wish I could.

Posted by Murphy Horner at 01:16 PM | Permalink

Some people just stay there

I met with a colleague who works across the street from me. It's hard to find people who do what we do, so it's pretty exciting when we can meet.

How funny is that? Don't all multi-national companies do conferencing? Video conferencing is part of a lot of businesses. But we still don't get noticed. None of the job sites have "Video Conference Adiministrator" as a possible job category.

Stealth Career.

So one of the things my neighbor wanted to talk about was how to get Mo' Money. An extremely worthy topic. He wanted to triangulate, find out what we video people are worth. He has a certificate...I've been thinking about getting one. And we chatted about possibilities.

He kept saying, "don't get the wrong idea..." when I was being very honest about my strong desire to make as much money as possible.

I am making less than I have, that's for sure. What do I come to work for, if not to make as much money as I can with my time? Sure, the free coffee is nice, but it's really about the paycheck. Let's not kid ourselves.

Dude had been working at that same firm for 10 years.

TEN YEARS. Holy Crap. That's crazy. My dream is to keep a car for ten years. Not to work in the same compeny.

He was surprised to hear that I had moved around in my career as video guru. I told him, that is the only way to get the big pay increase.

TEN YEARS.

I'm a little too restless. I have "grass is greener" syndrome. And it's not just the money, although money is very important. It is also the challenges. I want new projects, I have to have stimulation. Repetitive think injuries can happen. Do the same thought process, with no changes, you atrophy.

Or in my case, get cranky.

That being said, staying in one company has a few advantages. Companies have figured out that it's cheaper to underpay people for years and years.

Dude had 5 weeks vacation. WOW! I would love that.

And I bet he didn't worry about being let go.

I don't ever trust an employer. I've participated in too many layoffs. why not me? It's a possibility.

So I'm always on the lookout.

But some people just stay. I hardly know what to think about that.

Posted by Murphy Horner at 09:03 AM | Permalink

The american dream

About a million years ago, I took a few martial arts classes. It was fun; I wouldn't mind doing it again. I just have to find the time...

Anyway, one time, the teacher, while dismissing us, brought one new guy forward. Turns out he wasn't new:

"Jeff...Come up here jeff! I need to take a moment. Everyone, you should congratulate Jeff. You used to be a lot bigger...How much weight have you lost?"

Jeff was a little shy. "About Sixty Pounds." He was proud, though.

"THis is an accomplishment!" the Teacher praised him. "This is a big deal! I had to take some time and give you kudos."

At that time, I was in sore need of some weight loss myself. I was amazed at the big deal made over this guy. 60 pounds, that is an accomplishment.

How much time do we spend thinking about losing weight? here in america, I think it is always on our minds. The American Dream. Just to lose that 10..15...50...150 pounds we need to lose.

My older brother Mark has been on a diet. He's inspiring. I don't know how much weight he's lost exactly, but he came down from looking sort of substantial to looking how I always remember him.

He'd always been fairly slim. I think it was because he had been a perpetual student for so long. One of his remarkable achievements was living off a 25 pound bag of dried pinto beans for a year.

He'd been given the bag from my oldest brother. Like a great number of people, Bryan had been attracted to foodstores. For emergencies...the end of the world that was supposed to happen on y2k, or some natural disaster or the tribulation that comes right before the second coming of Christ...You have to be prepared!

Except he also had to move. And all those food stores didn't fit neatly into the Uhaul. Which is how Mark got the sack, and was able to afford the fulfillment of another american dream: a college education.

My brother Bryan is not alone in his gut need for self-sufficiency. All those bags of beans...where they really belong is in a cabin in the woods, you know?

Chris took me to see Hearst Castle this friday. As I was driving with Chris up the highway one, through all these lovely remote places, I was seized with a desire for a cabin in the woods.

"Chris, wouldn't you like a little cabin somewhere? A getaway sort of place?"

"Like at Whitney Portal?"

He and I like hiking in mountainey places. So we dreamed a bit.

"Wouldn't you like to build a log cabin? If we bought a piece of land without any building on it, it would be cheap!"

"What about electricity?"

"Psh! We dont' need electricity! We can get a generator! Solar power!"

He kept driving. I thought about all the things we can get away without.

"Except we HAVE to have water. That's important." I knew someone who built a whole gorgeous house on a patch of land that didn't have a well. Water is key. "Maybe we should get it on a lake, or a river or something."

That's another American Dream. Your own land. Self-suffieciently. The shotgun and the "NO TRESPASSING" sign.

Well, maybe not the sign. I would like a cozy place where people would not be easily able to find it. Needley trees cushioning the space around small walls.

Mark, newly skinny, was telling us more about his self-evaluations. He was working the Color your Parachute book. He was trying to find the right sort of career for his talents.

Another dream-the career dream. Chris is an entrepenuer. Just enough to make me freak out. Work for the man? Get a pension? Not for my man.

I am nervous to be self-sufficient in that way. But Chris makes it happen. God bless him. His American Dream is his own business.

Folks at work here are constantly making pools for Lotto. Buy 100 dollars worth of tickets and split it if any of them win.

I ask them, "What would you do if you won?"

They seldom get past the first month...A big party, a big trip.

But what then? Life is long...How do you fill the hours without a dream? And if you make your dream come true too soon, where are you?

Mostly, they say, "If I won, you wouldn't see me around HERE anymore."

I remember there were people who won the dot com lottery. 20 something millionaires. And they showed up to work. What else would they do with their time? They liked their jobs. Some of them, anyway...

Hmm...I wonder. I know for sure what I would do with a lottery windfall. Go back to school. But you know, that might only be the first few years. What would the dream be then?

William Hearst had the windfall. Well, theoretically, he worked very hard for it. He had a lot of businesses. But he had all the money anyone would want.

He spend his free time shopping. And throwing parties.

The American Dream. Is that what we're about?

Posted by Murphy Horner at 09:01 AM | Permalink

independence and intimacy

So Chris and I have been together for coming up on Five Years. It is time to take this whole thing seriously. So we're going to take it to the next level.

RELATIONSHIPS!

None of us would be such relationship chickens if we hadn't have those bad experiences. Now that I'm "taking it to the next level" that fire alarm that was comfortably damped...You know that alarm bell? The one that starts ringing DANGER! DANGER! DANGER! when you allow another person to become too important to you?

There are trip wires over certain parts of the heart that set the alarm off. When that certain cologne sets the back of your neck prickling. When you lean in. When your knees buckle thinking about him the next day.

The risk of wanting. The risk of denial.

But I had damped that alarm. It's been practically five years, I had lulled it. Comfortable, known. When I lean in, he meets me there. He doesn't let me fall.

But now I'm Leaning Further. More is at risk. Maybe I'm too heavy for him to catch. Maybe he's not willing to lean in too.

DRDRDRDRDRDRDRDRDRDRDRDRDR!!!!

Take a deep breath. Those years count for something. I think they do. I hope they do. If they don't count, nothing does.

So I take a look and see where there might be weak spots in our RELATIONSHIP.

I don't particularly like talking about relationships. Actually, I like talking about The Relationship too much. I feel like if we just have a good hour or two of conversation then we can settle everything....And I know I'm wrong about that. Having endless talks about The Relationship does not make as much of a difference as I feel like it does. Basically, we can talk about how we do things, but if we don't get out and do them, we don't have a chance to make the little improvements that would change the situation.

So, talking about it is not as helpful as I feel like it should be...It only feels good if the talks are basically insincere. It only feels good if he tells me what I want to hear.

Chris is very much a sincere person, so he won't play that game.

I went to the library and got some books on communication. The ideas of power in a relationship are very important.

I weigh myself every day. I weigh my power relationsips every day. I can feel a very slight tip. I don't always know what to do about it, but I know when I'm giving too much.

I was raised on very traditional female roles, so i always felt like I was required to give more. Because women were supposed to be subservient, that the man was supposed to support mom & kids (I don't have kids, but that was supposed to change) and mom was supposed to do everything else. Including put up with the Man.

I tried to recreate that. When I was married, and I started to support my husband in school, I felt that this was an aberration. This is not how things were supposed to be. He was supposed to support me. He was going to graduate and then support me.

But that didn't work out. He flunked out. So then we left college behind, and I got the first job I could, and started working very hard. He spent a lot of time trying to find the Perfect Job.

I ripped through three imperfect jobs, and then he finally found his perfect job.

Well! Thank god! I could now relax into the pose of subservient. I quit, because I wanted a break.

But I should have just taken a two week vacation. It was deep blackness, man, I don't like not working.

But then I found a less important job than the Husband. I was a little intern. He was the important one. So I could maintain the right position.

I was very sad, without his company. I liked being with him. At least I remembered liking being with him. I wanted to spend time with him, but he always came home very late. It seemed like he did it on purpose! why would he stay away from me?

Finally, after weeks of crying at home and waiting for him, yelling at him when he came home because I was waiting so long, I said, No More.

If he wasn't going to be there in the evenings, I would find someone else to play with. If I was crying at home, it was my responsibility to fix it. I thought I would just go out.

I told him, "i want to do this." He thought it was a great idea, he told me I shouldn't be lonely, I should go out and have fun. Go out with your girlfriends!

But then...I said, "This will change us. We won't be as close anymore."

He didn't get it.

But I watched it happen.

I went out, I played with other people. Other people who thought I was interesting and smart and funny. Who didn't play games and shelf me, and ignore me and break promises and let me down.

These other people listened to me. They TALKED with me. I thougth I was going to explode with happiness, to think that I had people listen to me.

And I gained independence. I knew who I was.

But I lost intimacy. That man, who I had been so desperately in love with, who I thought I would die without, had to go. It was a choice between me and him. He left no options.

There was the subservient role he offered, and then there was me.

I couldnt' even fit in the role anymore. It was like pants that were too tight.
If I had tried, it would have resulted in escalating violence. I was scared of him

no more. I couldn't go back. But I didn't know where forward led.

More independence.

Yes, that particular choice was very obvious. My independence led me away from intimacy.

But then I started thinking....

How many women refuse to know things, because it will lead away from intimacy? It's a standard thing (I hear) for girls to not do TOO well on their grades because they don't want to be separated from their peers in high school.

I work in a highly technical field. I get lonely, because very few people know enough about what i do to talk about it. My independence made me give up the intimacy.

I bet that the women who work at beauty salons have a lot of things to talk about and share with each other.

I have felt like it's a sacrifice, to learn things. Yes, it's a benefit too, but it's a sacrifice.

Intimacy is so important to me. That's what Chris gives in abundance. He is always there for me.

And yet, he never gets in my way. That's what helps me to feel comfortable with him. I HATE it when someone gets in my way.

And yet, I really wish I could be closer to people. Its a constant tug.

Posted by Murphy Horner at 08:52 AM | Permalink

Then and Now

There's a new movie coming out, Vanity Fair, based on the book. It inspired me to read the book, which I started long ago and didn't quite finish.

One of the things that is so interesting about Victorian novels, and which makes them so enduring for today's readers is the struggle for POSITION. These girls who are trying to marry a man with money, so blatantly struggling to bag a husband with 5 thousand a year, or 80 thousand a year, or with a hundred a year and a title, they are struggling so hard to attain status in their "society."

The victorian era was all about the rise of the middle class. The Middle class, the newly rich capitalists, rich off trade and business rather than inherited estates were struggling in their world to be what they felt they had a right to be. They wanted into the higher eschelons of "society" and it was a constant struggle to fit in.

The Victorian prudery and extreme care for the chastity and reputation of the ladies was a huge part of that. The lower classes were the only ones that were supposed to engage in imorality. Or, I should say, the lower class WOMEN were the only ones supposed to engage in immorality.

A new standard for women had been introduced, that the unmarried women had to be pure as the driven snow or she could be rejected by that man of X thousand a year.

Why? Because women did not have earning power. They did not have economic rights to the same degree as men did, so their earning power was their marriageability, for the most part.

But that's really a side note.

What struck me in this novel was again, as I have seen so many times in other novels, was the the focus on CREDIT. Apparently, a young man of nice clothes could ring up bills and bills and bills and no one thought anything of it.

This is so completely contemporary that it makes me wonder.

We've got all kinds of new formality in place, that allows a much more egalitarian debt system. You don't have to "cut a fine figure" as those novelists say. You just have to fill out a mean form.

Bill collectors coming after you? Like they did to Captain Crawley and Rebecca (the Heros of my novel)? Rebecca was praised for her ability to persuade them away.

The 21st century way of dealing with it was to consolidate the debt, transfer some funds and get back on the road.

Here's the next snapshot in my train of thought:

I saw another ad for a different movie. This one is called "The Corporation"

It's a documentary. I really want to see it.

I've previously complained about my life in elevators. That's one way I describe the life of a corporate corpse. But I also admit that it can be exciting to work in a large structure.

I get to point at my corporate logo, and the corporate logo on the many tall buildings and in the marble lobbies with the huge expensive flower arrangments and say, "I am a part of this. This is the glory I contribute to."

And I get to build a little home from the blue paychecks.

Do you remember the story of Babel? The tower of babel? They wanted to build a tower to the heavens. They said, 'We don't need God anymore! We will climb to heaven ourselves!"

And God looked down from heaven to the people he had created and said, 'oh shit! They can do it, too!" okay, he actually said, ""If as one people speaking the same language they have begun to do this, then nothing they plan to do will be impossible for them."

Then he made all the humans who were working together on this tower speak different languages from one another. Suddenly, they couldn't work together any more. The tower faltered, and was abandoned.

What's happened since then? A couple more towers have sprung up. A few more very tall buildings have come into existence. Is this a deferred dream we are realizing or a nightmare once averted and now awakened?

The documentary about Corporations seems to be showing how corporations are bad, and how insidious they are to our culture. Granted, take everything I say with a grain of salt because I haven't seen the movie.

BUT, i've seen some other things. I've heard the cries for "back to the land!"

You know that commercial where the alternative-hippie-looking kids are hitchiking and talking about majoring in ceramics? But they they see a cool SUV and decide to minor in ceramics so they can afford this shiny car?

THAT"S what I'm talking about. Yes, we know about our desire to be close to the land and the rhythms of the earth. To have our hands in up to the elbows in the act of creation and the practicing of our art.

And we..the american culture...still want the SUV. Which is it?

I wonder. Which half of that equation is the most hypocritical? The pat answer is the side that wants the SUV. I'm not so sure.

I am not in love with corporations. But let us assess.

Did you know that during the victorian period, that marvelous rising of the middle class, there was a huge "back to the earth" movement too? Back to nature?

Only then it was THEIR version of nostalgia. It was for peasant hood (Carlyle is who I am thinking of). 'Go back to being a peasant! You wil wake with the sun and grow your own food, and live life in the ebb of the earth's seasonal pageantry! Give up this pursuit of life in the city and ...

CAPITALISM

oh yeah...capitalism...That famous economic tome"Das Kapital" by Karl Marx is from the Victorian age. The Communist manifesto came out of that time too. Remember?

...Communism vs. Capitalism...

The words are still used today. Even though communism is widely described as dead, and capitalism has changed so much that Marx's theories no longer apply.

What are we up to? We want all the good things, we want all we can get. Then as now. Vanity Fair was the description of London society. Couldn't it just as well be a description of New York society? Or Beverly Hills?

We have built some pretty big towers. And if we didn't want them, why did we bother?

What it all a big misunderstanding? Did we really want to live close to the ground, but the architect looked at the plans sideways? Did we have a meeting and someone scrawled the minutes so they build a 105 stories instead of 105 foot garden?

Maybe we don't recognize this world because after the vision came the revisions.

Did we all get caught in the close at hand and forget the future results? Did our parents and grandparents look only at that weekly paycheck and not know what would happen when all their toil piled up into accomplishments?

I can't believe that we didn't know. I think many many of us learned to put aside our different ways of talking and worked together very very hard to get the world that we live in now.

But this final version, this present version of life2004 (brought to you by Microsoft~!) or Reality or however you want to see it contains ALL.
The conversions, reversions, subversions and perversions are all a part of the final version.

This version keeps all that. no pebble turns without reshaping the universe.

Maybe we are amazed at our small selves affecting so much change.

The monuments we've constructed changed the warp of gravity. We've altered the universe slightly and our environment mightily. We are what we have worked diligently to become.

And that bring it all back to Hitchhiker's guide to the galaxy..."Are you sure you asked the right question?"

Are we sure we worked toward the right goal?

Let us deal with what is here and now. You cannot begin your journey in a different place than the one you are in.

Posted by Murphy Horner at 08:46 AM | Permalink

'Do you work outside the home?"

That's what the guy in the shuttle to the airport asked me. It was sort of stunning. He OBVIOUSLY worked outside the home, because he was there in his briefcase, starched white shirt and tie.

And I was there in my corporate casual, with my laptop bag embroidered with the corporate logo.

When he asked me that question, a big ol' whiff of Promise Keepers came out of his mouth. Now, I realize that SOME women, those that do work inside the home with children and things, might find it consoling to hear that question. They would appreciate that he did not assume that the only work that counts is the kind that you have to drive to.

But to me, it sounded a lot like "You should be at home, but you're not. So why are you here? Account for yourself."

In support of this impression, as soon as I told him I managed the conferencing services for a global company he lost interest in talking to me and began to call people on his cell phone.

Now, since his expectations of females seemed to be the barefoot-and-pregnant variety, he may have found a reason not to talk to this inferior human (me!) anyway.

But the other guys in the shuttle were quite interesting and talkative.

I still feel the slight from Mr. "Traditional Roles"

I personally have learned not to assume that people work outside the home. But it has nothing to do with gender. Most of the people I know who work at home do so because they have found a way of generating income in their own home. I SO wish I could do that too.

At the same time, I have respect for mothers (and fathers) who work on family and home things without generating income. They have found a way to team with their partners and keep their lives in balance with what they think is most important.

But I don't ask that condescending 80's question. I say, "What do you do with your time?"

A radio host, from the show "What do you know?' asks "what do you do in life?" That's a good one too.

Come on now, dude! Try not to let your stereotypes spill out all ugly like that.

Posted by Murphy Horner at 08:40 AM | Permalink

Thoughts on Candide and the workplace

I read Candide by Voltaire long ago. I thought it was incredibly funny, and it was hard to believe it was meant to be philosophy. It was so funny! All these crazy things happening to these people. One good thing then all of a sudden all these bad things.

It was for a class, of course. We were trying to figure out what made this philosophical. The teacher said, "Someone suggested that the actual number of bad things that happen to the characters is exactly equal to the number of good things...I havne't counted, though."

And that makes me think. Still makes me think. How many good things does it take to be equal to a bad thing? Really...Equivalency is what I'm talking about.

If someone says, "You have a nice smile"
is that an equivalent counter-balance to someone else saying, "Your breath really stinks"

Those are kind of equivalent, maybe. Depending on who says it and when.

But how many, "you did a good job"s does it take to make up for "We're very disappointed in you"

It may depend on the person.

Here's another one. People who do customer service get this all the time. Teachers too. When you have that customer, that person you are assisting, or student go ballistic on you. When they threaten to call your manager, tell you exactly how you are failing them, accuse you of some mishandling of a task....

And you have to stand there, take it, and speak in a calm voice explaining the situation and getting some necessary response/information from them until you are at last released from their tractor beam of displeasure

you are released. You kept your cool, you handled the crisis.

How long does it take to recover?

It takes me a while. It leaves me shaky and vulnerable.

It makes it harder to help that person. Why go back to the source of pain?

How many good nights sleep does it take to get over the adrenaline rush of someone's accusation?

What's the equivalent?

i try to find satisfaction in a job well done. My reward is in recognizing that I did a damn good job.

I'd rather not take the bullets. I'm tired of being the target practice.

Posted by Murphy Horner at 08:34 AM | Permalink

Social circles

This weekend was really busy. I had a birthday party on Saturday night, but that afternoon I had to go shopping for a function later in the month.

Then I had my writing group, which met on Sunday, and a coffee shop thing in the evening.

Busy busy.

Which is QUITE unusual for me. I have been here a year and a half, a littl more even, and I have been having trouble making friends. THis is not new. I am understanding the rhythm of friend-making after a move.

You know, friends are a tricky business. I think army brats, the ones that have to move every two to four years understand this. When you go to a new place, you have to find a way to connect with the people there.

Data, on Next Generation Star Trek, once had a line that said something to the effect that Frienship had much more to do with just being around each other than emotion.

I think there is a lot of truth to that. And I think that sometimes people you spend a lot of time with, such as co-workers or bar friends, can feel like friends when in actuality, they are merely co-existing in the same space.

A friend is someone who will make an effort to come see you or have you see them. Because they want to. That means taking time to talk on the phone or go do an activity or something. Something that is personally for you.

That personally bit is the part I've been missing. I haven't done very many one-on-one things since I've been here. Very, very few.

I have book club, I have writing group, I have movie club. I have church, I have open mic night at the coffee shop. I have work, and I have my sweet boyfriend.

I am actually very busy and very seldom completely alone. And yet...I haven't had the personal time with a friend very often.

It's a tough leap, that from being a member of a group to being an individual personal friend. How do you really manage it? How do you know it's okay to make a move.

I find it much more difficult than a date. Maybe I'm pretty good at dating. But just getting someone to go out and play...

I admit, I'm kind of shy. If someone is not willing to email me, it's hard. Phones are a little scary to me. I don't know exactly why. I get shy about calling someone on the phone.

So that's probably a handicap on my part.

And then, I get very tired after work. I just want to sleep. So that makes me not want to get up and do things with friends that I feel nervous about calling.

But to make friends with someone, you have to be around them a certain amount of time. You have to make contact, and keep up the contact for a period of time so that you get to know each other's lives. If you don't do that, it falls flat.

It's a little complicated.

Posted by Murphy Horner at 08:31 AM | Permalink

Decisions

Valentine's day and President's day are very close to one another.

Chris was saying, "I wish they had left the President's days separate."

"You don't like it being so generic? You mean we should not celebrate all Presidents?"

"Well! It doesn't seem fair that the guy who caught the flu on his inauguration day and died two weeks in office should be celebrated as much as the other presidents"

Being president is something Americans are all supposed to be able to aspire to. How many American babies are cooed over in their cribs, and hear the pronouncement, "maybe this one will grow up to be president."

Yes, This is america, the place where you can carve your own destiny. ANYONE can grow up to be president.

I wonder how many presidents aspired to the office? If they are like most people I know, the choice of becoming president was not really their own. They may have started along a political path and just sort of pushed, bumped, promoted along until they got to the White House.

Huge life decisions are not made that way. Decisions are made before you know you've made them. Swerve one way or the other, and your feet have changed paths.

The decision comes later. When it comes, it is less of a "will I go?" question, and more of a "Will I stop going?" question.

I think love is the same way. The small decisions are often unseen. Will you be my valentine? How often is that question asked when the answer is not known?

I think most decisions come after the fact. The momentous changes in direction are never recognized until they are past.

Posted by Murphy Horner at 10:05 AM | Permalink

February rode in on an ambulance
I've been sick all week. Actually, I've been sick even last week.
I was feeling woozy, and extra tired. The bus ride made me especially ill, and then it seemed to last all day. Friday, I was feeling motion sick all day long. By the time I was ready to go home, I began to think, "something is not right. There is something wrong going on."
I almost asked Chris to pick my up from work. But I hate to do that. Then i almost took a cab home.
Then I thought, "Maybe I'm jsut really hungry."
So I ate something, and that made me feel better enough to take the bus home.
But saturday, I was supposed to go to Palm Springs. I just didn't feel up to it. I felt like lying around and resting.
Sunday, I took myself to the doctor and got a prescription for antibiotics to cure a supposed sinus infection that was messing with my sense of equilibrium, and hence making me feel woozy, motion sick, all the time. I called in sick for Monday.l
But Monday, I dreamed that I had collapsed at the bus stop. I woke, and had to throw up. But while crawling to the toilet, I realized that I had no sense of balance whatsoever and that i was completely sick. The world would NOT stop spinning., The walls reached out and smacked me when I tried to move, because i didn't know how to stay upright, even while crawling.
The sweat poured off me as I retched intot the toilet. I had to do something. This was bad. I needed help. But I couldn't move! How would I get help?
I concentrated as hard as I knew how on believing that te world was not spinning. I closed my eyes and breathed very hard, pressing my head against something solid and immobile. "You are STILL, STILL, you are STILL"
Finally, I could gather my thoughts enough...i needed to get someone to help me. But I couldnn't move at all without vomiting...
I made my plan. I would launch myself back to my bed, where my cordless phone was, and on the way I would grab the trash can to barf into. I would either call Chris or 911.

But I really wanted Chris. I would call Chris. He would help me.
I made it, with my eyes shut to keep the room from spinning. After throwing up for a while, I contemplated how to dial the phone with my eyes shut. I didn't figure out a way, So I had to open them for a few moments.
I got Chris's answering machine, like I knew I would. "Chris! Chris! Help! I need you help!"
He picked up right away. "Murphy!"
"Chris! I need you! Come help me!"
"I'll be right there!"
"okay"
and then I sat there, dripping sweat and vomiting some more. But I was thinking. I had put the chain lock in place. Would chris be able to get in without my help? Is there a way to unlock a chain from the outside?
I decided that i had to go unlock it.
February rode in on an ambulance- CONTINUED
sorry everyone...I am having to tell this story in pieces, because I am remarkably weak still.
So I gathered all the strength I had, and propelled myself to the front door, dragging my trashcan behind me. I thought I was going straight down the hallways, but the wall came right at me again. I used all my strength to get to the door and flip out the chain lock.
Then I sat in spinning, sweat-soaking misery until Chris arrived. I was getting cold because I was so wet.
It wasn't very long, but every moment took a lot of concentration. When I heard chris turning the lock I called out, "Watch out, I'm right here."
I didn't want him to hit me with the door. I needed to maitain my sense of space in order not to spin out again.
He stopped entirely. "It's okay," I said. "Just don't hit me with the door."
He came in carefully and leaned down over me. I tried to open my eyes. I really wanted to see his face; but the room started spinning again and i had to shut them again.
"What's wrong?" he asked. He had no idea.
"Everything is spinning! It's spinning and it won't stop. It's making me sick."
"What do you want me to do?"
"Umm..." It was hard for me to think. "I need to see a doctor. I need your help."
"Yes, you need to see a doctor."
I was shaking from cold and sickness at this point. He looked at me and said, "You need to get to bed."
"I have to go to the bathroom." It was true. I had had to go since I first woke up. But it didn't seem possible. At the different stations of the apartment i had ended up in, I had contemplated this situation among the other dilemmas before me. How could I possibly take care of this? While vomiting, it's hard to remain in control of my bodily functions. I contemplated going in my pants, but thought I should save that for a last resort.
Good thing. Chris helped me to the bathroom. He got me on my feet. At first I lurched way over to the side, but he got a firm hold on me, and helped me to the toilet. I pulled my pants down, sat down and vomited into my faithful trash can some more.
There is a lot of vomit in this story. I am sure it is not that much fun to read about but it was less fun to be the protagonist.
You can, in fact, relieve yourself and vomit at the same time. I gave myself fully over to being sick, but the other just sort of took care of itself. Then I breathed for a while. Breathing was a very deliberate activity.
Wiping myself seemed impossible. But I thought about it, and decided that I must. I could move my hand and feet slowly without disturbing the stillness. But my head couldn't be moved. Raising myself up to complete this task took some courage. But in the end I leaned into the can again and simultaneously took care of my needs.
But puling my pants up again was realy beyond. As soon as I could talk, when the sickness subsided, I called for Chris. He helped me to my bed, although I collapsed half in and half out. I was shivering, and he immediately covered my with an extra blanket.
That bed felt so good, but I was cold. Chris was trying to call Kaiser, and was on hold for quite a while. He said I had to get under the blankets in bed, because I had to get warm. He helped push me in.
Even while I was being sick, the bed felt so good I never wanted to move again. The pillow was heaven, the blankets felt so good and warm. Still on hold, Chris stuck a thermometer in my mouth. "that can't be right...."
He took my temp again..."94.7..This must be malfunctioning..."
I said, "I'm cold."
He could see I was shivering.
He finally got through to the doctor. "Baby?" he said. "I've got an appointment for 45 minutes from now. Do you think you can make it if I drive you to the doctor's in my car?"
There was a challenge. I didn't know. This pillow felt very nice."I don't know."
"What should I do baby?"
"I don't know." I thought some more. Maybe..."Go get the car ready, and I will see."
I concentrated very hard. I had made it to the phone because I had to. I'd gotten to the chain lock because i had to. What would this involve? I would simply be sick the whole way. Could I throw up for the 15 mintes it would take to drive there? But what about in the waiting room? Doctors always made you wait. Did they give precedence to vomiting patients? i suspected not. How long would they make me wait?
Oh this pillow felt good.
I envisioned the path to the car. I would have to ride in the elevator. How would I do that? If I had to concentrate so hard on keeping a still room from moving, how would I do in a room that actually was moving?
It seemed unlikely that I would actually be able to do this.
Chris came back. He saw me with my eyes screwed shut, shaking with chills. "I don't think you can make it in the car."
"I think you're right."
"I'm gonna call 911. After all, they did say that I should do that if this was an emergency."
He went into the other room to call 911. I lay there and imagined being magically whisked off to someplace that would make me feel better. I pictured a helicopter, with me being strapped into a bed and swaying at the end of a rope.
Swaying made me start to feel spinny again, so I concentrated on feeling still. No, there would not be a helicopter. There would be an ambulance, and a gurney. They would lift me onto the gurney.
Oooh...Moving. That would be bad. Riding in a car. Maybe they would give me morphine or something. What did they do, anyway?
Just breathe. THink of peace. Peace. Still. Still.
I heard the sirens. "Hear that baby? They are coming for you." Chris was taking good care of me.
They were coming.

Posted by Murphy Horner at 10:03 AM | Permalink

love talk

Chris came by to see me yesterday. I was having a rough day, and he was worried about me.

It wasn't particularly difficult, I had just lost my sense of humor. You HAVE to have a sense of humor over here, or you grind out.

So, he helped me feel better, just by being there. As I was getting sleepy, we had this conversation:

"I have to be up very early in the morning. Tell me something."

"What do you want me to tell you?"

"Sleepy things. Tell me a story."

"I don't know any stories."

"Well, tell me what happened in the world today."

"Let's see....Do you know about Skull and Bones?"

"...other than their literal meaning, I couldn't tell you. What are Skull and Bones?"

"I was listening to the radio today, and this talk show guy was talking about Skull and Bones. They are a secret society at Yale; this guy claimed they controlled everything."

"Oh yeah...I remember hearing about them. They control everything?"

"That's what this guy said..."

"If they control everything, I want to talk with them. There are a few things that need some improvement. How do we get a hold of these people?"

"This guy was claiming that they orchestrated the Kennedy assasination, and the Mars landing."

"We need to find these guys and put them to better use. If there is somebody controlling everything, I say good. Too many things are out of control."

Pause

"Chris..You're going to become that guy, aren't you?"

"what guy?"

"That guy who works from his home and listens to talk radio all day and turns weird."

"I do NOT listen to talk radio all day! I only listen to it in my car."

"WHATever. Next thing you know, you'll be staying up late listening to that one talk guy."

"Oh...Yeah...that guy...But he's not on anymore. You mean Art Bell. They have another guy doing his show now. He only comes on for special occasions."

"See? This is what I'm talking about. You already know all this stuff. You are gonna be that weird extremist right-wing guy."

"I am not. What about you? you listen to NPR all day. Are you gonna be a left-wing extremist?"

"NPR is not extremist anything. They are all about the money. Do you know they play different songs depending on how the market is doing?"

"They do?"

"Yeah. If the market is up they play, 'da da dedada'."

"'We're in the money'..."

"Yeah. I don't remember what song they play if it's down. I don't pay attention to stocks."

"Yes, you put your money into your condo."

"Right. But that just shows how NPR is all about the money. Whenever they do bring up some social cause, it's so far away you could never do anything about it, so you don't have to be distracted from worrying about your stocks."

"Well...What's the left-wing equivalent of the talk shows?"

"Pacifica radio. They are the ones who incite the peace marchers."

"oh yeah. They're weird."

"I don't listen to them very often."

-----

I had a very good night's sleep

Posted by Murphy Horner at 06:54 PM | Permalink

Reaching Out

Those of you, and I am so grateful for you, who read my blog on a regular basis would be aware that I haven't written very regularly this month.

Perhaps I have been extraordinarily busy with work.

But also, at the beginning of the month, I had my piano tuned. It's needed it for some time. I just hadn't gotten around to it. I was feeling a vague sense of guilt that I never play it, and then I realized that I didn't like the way it sounded, all out of tune. So, I had it tuned.

I've been playing it madly ever since. I pass it, on the way to get something from the kitchen, and I can't resist playing some tricky part of a song, some trilly part that's hard to get right.

And I'm learning to play new songs. I was getting tired of all the old ones I knew. I have been trying to learn some old irish ballads, and some old jazz songs.

Ballads are so pretty; they tear my heart out. I will often cry as I play and sing them.

But jazz is another animal entirely. They seem so simple when you hear them, and somehow, they slip away. You try to sing them, and then find you can't remember the words. What was that again? It just slips out of your mind.

It was surprising to me to realize that most of them were just two or three very simple verses. Why is that so hard to remember?

So when I sit down to play these simple songs, I also find they are not so simple to play. I learned to play piano by teaching myself. I learned to play melodies on my own, and then I pestered other people and read things until I got an understanding of how music works. For any song, there is a structure, a musical structure. It's like a grid that you can place down over any song, and know how you can place the parts of the song in relation to itself and in relation to music as a concept.

Jazz does not fit the grid very well.

If you read about jazz, read what they said about it at the time, the people were freaking out at how innovative and weird and NEW it was. "Jungle music" they called it, among other things. Some people couldn't get enough of it.

Since I've been so fascinated with my newly tuned piano, music has been on my mind, I found my harmonica, and I was trying to play some of the same songs on it as I was walking to the bus stop.

"Danny Boy" worked pretty well, but "Pennies from Heaven" was hopeless. I realized that the harmonica does not have all the notes that a piano has. There simply was nowhere to go, nowhere to reach for the notes I needed.

And it clicked with me. That is why Jazz was so exciting to these people when it was new. They had their minds in the grid. And when the jazz musicians reached out for a note that wasn't in the grid, it was practicially like reaching into a fourth dimension. It was blowing their minds!

I am thinking of the novel by Sinclair Lewis, Flatland. New things are so hard for us to come to terms with.

So why does the piano keep me from writing? I don't know. My mother raised me on theories of right-brain and left-brain functions. I will say that when I play the piano, my mind does not think in words very well. I don't know why, but even the words in songs do not interrupt the flow of concentration created by my hands on the keys of the black and whites.

I am disappointed, because I do not play as well as I used to.

But even when I was as I used to be, I was not as good as I wanted to be. I feel a push to do more than I can, more than I even know how to do.

I am not writing as well as I wish, or as much as I wish. And I am not playing as well as I want.

I have been feeling a hunger for a sewing machine, lately. I want to make something, create something that has not been done before.

I haunt the craft shop, and I tell myself, "you can't find the time to write, you can't find the time to practice your piano enough, how are you going to have time to sew?"

But I can't leave.

I feel the urge to reach out in a direction that has not been traveled before, or even discovered. And I fight myself all the time about it. I don't know the way to start, or to find what I am looking for. What use would it be if I did? What would it matter? Who would care? How could I possibly succeed? What would good would it do if I even did?

But still I am haunting the craft stores, feeling the materials, and fantasizing about vagues shapes and colors and textures.

Posted by Murphy Horner at 02:50 PM | Permalink

WORK

You know, I've been re-evaluating my life somewhat. I don't know why I call it RE-evaluating. I seem to do it without pause, really.

I am increasingly tired of what I do to make money. I feel like I have a lot of other things I would prefer to spend my time on. For example, I recently got my piano tuned. I am really enjoying learning new songs, and playing old ones.

What is this job thing for, anyway? Yes, I have to have food, shelter and clothing. And don't forget the mathoms, all the pretty little useless items that catch my fancy, that I just have to have.

or maybe I don't. Maybe I can get along with a heck of a lot less than I think. I went out to a restaurant last night, because I was too tired to cook and I didn't have much in the fridge anyway.

If I hadn't been to busy to shop or too tired to cook, I could have saved a lot of money.

Maybe.

As I was driving back with Chris from Marie Callendar's, he asked me about Christmas music. "What kinds of music means Christmas to you?" He was thinking of buying Christmas CDs.

Thinking about it, my family did not buy Christmas CDs. But every Christmas had music! We just made it ourselves. Either we had an instrument to accompany us or we didn't, but we always sang together.

What a beautiful thing! Think about music, just for a minute, as a beautiful thing to collect. It doesn't take up space, it doesnt' cost money. All you have to do is remember to sing.

And it lasts! It's not something you regret, like a too-rich dessert. But it makes you feel good for longer than it takes just to sing.

What else is like that? Maybe playing a game, and I mean a real game that you make up, like peekaboo, with a child or a friend. Doesn't cost a thing, doesn't take up space or clutter your life.

Spending some time giving love...kisses and hugs, the best things in life, really, are just the same.

I wonder if I could tip the balance, make my life full of the non-cluttery things, so full that I don't have time or space for the physical things. That might eliminate the necessity for this daily pay for daily work stuff.

Maybe.

Posted by Murphy Horner at 04:47 AM | Permalink

I Drather

It is getting dark, and I am still at work.

I woke up this morning to the sound of my cell phone ringing in the wee morning. Someone in a different time zone needed my help. I sprang out of bed to answer it, heading out of the bedroom and into more cell-friendly areas of the house.

But I immediately hit my head on the door.

I didn't know I'd closed it.

And the man in Uraguay is telling me that he can't make a connection because no one is there, and I am trying to ask him how he knows that no one is there if he hasn't made the connection.

And I can't seem to figure out how to open the door. Is it locked? I lock and unlock it several times before I realize that I can't open it because I'm leaning against it.

But at that point, the cell reception fades entirely and the phone connection is lost.

I sit down on the couch and call the other person whose time zone it is and tell him what he needs to do to take care of Uruguay's problem. Problem solved.

And I'm awake. And my head hurts a little. Might as well get over to the office.

I've got to find a better way to make a living.

Posted by Murphy Horner at 04:44 AM | Permalink

creative

I am feeling the urge to spend most of my life energy on being creative. Most of my life energy right now is spent on my job, which is no longer creative.

I know that I should be practical, but I would rather be doing those things that burn in my breast. I am not excited by anything I do at work anymore. Challenged, just a little. It's good to use the ol' brain muscle every once in a while.

But there is a better use of my head than what these attorneys are using it for. I have my own ideas of how to use my head.

There are a number of creative types here. We all share that look-down-at-the-floor-and-raise-your-eyebrows-while-you-sigh realization that the bills come every month regardless of the burning in your bosom.

One guy is an actor, really with parts in things and stuff. He works early mornings and weekends. He has a SHIFT and does not have to stay beyond it.

One other guy is a musician. He was working and working so hard he finally put his foot down. He said, "I cannot work these hours. Change it or I'm leaving."

He left.

But they negotiated, and he came back, part-time and paid hourly. But the hours are more and more not-so-part-time.

I am thinking of something like that too. Yes, lucky me, I am paid hourly. At least I am paid for every minute this job takes me away from myself.

But the hours are getting too long for doing something I don't care about. 50+ hours a week. And with the bus strike, I am having to DRIVE to work. There is not enough head space to let my creativity reach critical mass and release itself.

It seems like I am gonna have to start getting creative about finding a way to get creative.

Posted by Murphy Horner at 02:41 PM | Permalink

day two AWOL

So, there's this new guy. He was hired a couple weeks ago and seems nice enough.

But he didn't come in last friday. And he didn't call to say why. And he's not here today either and he hasn't called.

Here's a situation. What should we do?

It happens the boss was out last friday. He's in today, and I'm the one that called attention to the absence. Boss knew nothing about it.

He starts asking everyone if they had heard anything.

Here's the funny bit: The guys all start backpedalling and trying to cover for the new guy..."Oh he said he might not come in on friday"

funny. So the boss calls the home number.
"Oh, this is not really where he lives, I will try to find out a better number for you."

wow. This is new.

Now, I hope nothing is wrong. I suspect nothing is wrong.

But if nothing indeed is wrong, then what's up with all this helping the guy cover up?

My upbringing was NEVER lie, NEVER try to get away with anything, and NEVER help anyone who was doing the above.

Good little Christian school children are taught that if they do anything, even the SMALLEST thing wrong they are sinning and deserve to go to hell, in fact they WILL go to hell if they don't repent and have Jesus in their heart.

And if you cover up for your friend, you are not being a true friend because you are just helping them GO TO HELL!

So pretty much, there was a mad dash to tell on anyone that did anything wrong.

This is yet another example of how Christian schools do not prepare you for the real world.

In this real world that I now inhabit, it seems that there is an unspoken understanding that you cover for the guy. I didn't know that you could get people to cover for you under these kinds of circumstances. This means that I can be a lot more cavalier about my duties, should I ever decide to be cavalier.

But I wonder why people cover for other people? is it in the hope that they will in turn be covered?

I guess. You never know when you will screw up or slack off somehow and need people to help you out. I screw unintentionally sometimes, no way around it. But to intentionally screw up. Wow.

I have never trusted people to help me out. I always assumed there would be the mad dash to tell on me.

That's what I was raised with.

Interesting.

Posted by Murphy Horner at 02:38 PM | Permalink

Ideology and fires

You know, way back when Darwin first came up with the idea of survival of the fittest, he categorized humans as an animal like all the other animals. Bears, pigs, monkeys and humans. We all eat, breathe, sleep, defecate and scratch where we itch.

The idea was hugely controversial. The church of the time wanted to believe that man was only a little lower than the angels, that animals were completely different from us altogether.

Now, we say that man is an animal without thinking about it. Yes: primate, vertebrate, whatever you call it, that is us.

And this classification brings us into greater relationship with our surroundings, our environment. Like cows, we eat grain. Like tigers, we eat meat. At least some of us do. And we grow grain and meat, using our environment to create food and do all the things we do.

As the smoke builds up in my city, we are saddened by the destruction of our environment. For some people, it is their whole environment, their home, that is destroyed. For some, like me, it is the beautiful outdoors, the natural environment that has been destroyed.

The fire was set by human means, there was arson which involved matches, and also a flare set by a lost hunter.

But the reason the fire became so huge is because of some bark beetles that killed the trees. They were standing timber, just waiting to be ignited. And we knew about this, we knew this would happen when the beetles first infected the trees.

This fire was inevitable. Perhaps the vast destruction was not inevitable, but a fire had to happen. Nature was doing what it does.

And we as humans, were decided what we wanted to do about that nature. Mostly, the idea that we should leave it entirely alone was the prevailing ideology.

For many years, most of which are in living memory, America with it's democratic capitalism fought a war of ideology with Communist Russia. This war was called the Cold War, but it was only cold inside the two countries. It was hot as hellfire in some places.

Because we were using our ideologies to justify various actions in different parts of the world. Like one side or the other would prove themselves more RIGHT by having more little countries pick their ideology to govern with.

Lots of countries got caught in the middle. Remember Vietnam? Cuba? Zimbabwe? Tanzania?

Well, not all Americans are capitalists. There were and are a lot of lefty-type americans who were rooting for the communists, or at least socialism abroad. They, and socialists from other countries, were happy to see the so-called 3rd world countries embrace socialism.

Alright. I would now like to present Tanzania. Tanzania tried socialism. It tried it really hard. Socialism didn't work in Tanzania. Nyerere, the president of Tanzania, and seemingly a very nice guy, admitted that it did not work and that Tanzania was pretty much impoverished by the experiment.

Tanzania was trying something out. It didn't work, so maybe they ought to try something different.

Russia, the motherland of communism, is also trying this 'something different' themselves. Smart. If it's broken, fix it.

NOW,
back to the fires in Los Angeles.

These fires, as I said, were naturally ocurring. We kinda knew they were coming. Fires come every year.

There is an ideology of conservationism that says, "Don't touch it! We have to pretend like we don't exist! Humans should not touch nature, we'll screw it up!"

Alright, I think the experiment of pretending that we are angels who float above the surface of the planet and don't make any marks has come to a failed conclusion.

If we are indeed part of the ecological system that we inhabit, it is impossible not to interact with it. Denial is more than a river in Egypt. The time has come for the conservationists to realize that we should direct our interaction with the planet in a useful way.

Let's use this human intelligence to choose wisely. Let's cut down and use controlled fires to protect the environment, WHICH INCLUDES OURSELVES, from these kinds of uncontrolled acts of nature.

Let's be wise and careful, and let's use our smarts to protect the environment. This whole "Don't touch it!" ideology has hurt my state.

It also hurt my home state Alaska, with people who want to treat the beautiful interior of Alaska as some kind of pinned-down insect. It's not a dead, static thing. It's a living place, and getting some people up there to get the oil out and spend a little attention on preservation will do a lot more to help the area than leaving it alone.

It's time to change when we've been proven wrong. Don't cling to outmoded ideas.

Posted by Murphy Horner at 02:35 PM | Permalink

*I've since been to Canter's, Hollywood Bowl, but not Pink's or the Beach yet.
------------------------------------------------
So I've been here more than a year now. I still feel like I have no idea what's going on. But the truth is, I 've seen through a glass darkly what it is I have no idea about. I know more about what I don't know about.

As I was walking to work today (yes, you read that right. SATURDAY. This is why I haven't had time to explore my new city..bloody attorneys), I saw a "Best of 03" publication in the LA Weekly newpaper dispenser. I snagged it.

Thing's the size of a phone book! Holey Moley! I'm keeping it, it is giving me all kinds of ideas of things to check out.

And it's inspiring me to make my own list of random stuff. Here goes:

BEST HYPED PLACES IN LA THAT EVERYBODY HAS BEEN TO BUT ME:

Pink's Hot Dogs
Canter's Deli
The Beach (aka Surfing)
Hollywood Bowl

BEST HYPED PLACES THAT EVERYONE TALKS ABOUT BUT DOESN'T ACTUALLY GO TO, THAT I HAVE BEEN TO:

Getty Museum
Free Shakespeare in the Park
Norton Simon Museum
Central Library
The Symphony (including the new Disney Hall)
Swing Dance lessons at the Derby
Museum of Contemporary Art (Twice!)
a bus
A night class at UCLA

BEST COOL THINGS THAT EVERYBODY DOES THAT I'VE DONE TOO:
Farmer's Market
Concerts at the Greek Theater
had an extensive conversation with a dicey used merchandise store owner about said merchandise
the Soda Pop Fountain (mulholland fountain on Los Feliz Blvd by the 5)
Bought FOR PROMOTIONAL USE ONLY cd's and movies from used cd stores
Bought vintage and obscure designer clothes from vintage and obscure shops
joined a book club
Celebrity sightings
done open mike performances
Had highly abstract conversations with just-met strangers about pursuing creativity and staying centered
Seen a Laker's Game (Go Fisher!)

BEST STUFF I STILL WANT TO DO

see original live theater ( oh wait, I did that...so do it MORE)
Drive to Mexico
go to hear authors and artists talk about their stuff
Drive to Vegas
Go to a dance club on Sunset Strip
Go the the H.O.B. Gospel Breakfast
Take a Yoga class

Just for starters.

I guess I 've done a lot of activities that have a hushed-voice environment...the museums, the symphony...That's due in part to the fact that my honey likes calm, contemplative places of beauty. He doesn't feel like doing the loud and crazy stuff. I do that with other people.

There's a ton of stuff I still want to do here. I suspect that there is no danger of running out of kick-ass fun stuff to do in Los Angeles. One of the biggest differences between LA and everywhere else I've lived is the willingness of the people in LA to do stuff.

The difficulty I've had in trying to start a group to do almost ANYTHING...Lord...Everyone seemed to just want to talk about doing cool stuff, but not actually start it.

HERE, I meet tons of ambitious motivated people who are willing to show up and do it. Maybe this place is the place where people come to make their dreams come true. They arrive with their sleeves already rolled up.

Maybe. I don't know. What I do know is that I LOVE that about this city. You say, "Want to start a writing group?'
YES! and they do it.
"Want to work on a project with me?"
YES!

I love that kind of YES.

So I say YES to this city too. YES, let's go do it!

Posted by Murphy Horner at 02:23 PM | Permalink

You've come a long way, Baby

I'm on a business trip right now. LONG days here at the sattelite office. Last night I was having a rather late dinner, relaxing in the hotel restaurant and enjoying my meal.

Yes, I was alone. I have read older books, references in outdated magazines to a stigma attached to a woman eating alone in a restaurant. Some women used to feel uncomfortable and pathetic to eat alone. Some restaurants would not welcome solitary females.

But I can find a lot of pleasure in a good meal eaten alone. Especially when the meal is really worth savoring, conversation is not missed because I can focus on how delicious the food is.

Last night i had a lovely soup and salad, with interesting textures and flavors. I was delighting in my meal. I took my hair down and rubbed my head a little.

"I like your hair down." The man from a nearby table leaned away from his other companions to tell me this tidbit.

I smiled and said thanks. I was interested in my meal.

Later, he felt the need to call over to me again.

I answered, somewhat amused. Until he said, in reference to his companions, "These guys have no idea, but you and I know what's going to happen later."

I said, "Well, you're going to think whatever is in your head, and I'm going to go to bed."

"That's what I mean," he said with a leer.

When I used to explore the streets in Russia, I remember I had a rule of thumb. I was worried about the safety of walking around, an American in this foreign city. I took note and realized that there were three levels. When I walked in the company of a male, any male, I was invisible. I was safe and no one paid me any attention. If I walked in the company of one other female, I got a little attention. Lots of stares, a few loud comments.

But when I walked alone, it was as if I was the property of everyone. All the men would stare, and anyone that felt like saying anything to me just when right out and said it. "Devushka..Hey girl, where are you going?"

It's true here in America too. One male person, no matter how physically insignificant or bland, stopped all potential harrassment. It was like it never even existed.

I started to call them magic amulets. If me and some girls were gonna go out somewhere, I would ask them "Should we invite a guy to be our amulet?"

It depended on how much hassle we were willing to put up with that evening.

So, I was remembering that with the guy in the restaurant. I hadn't thought about my harrassment formula for a while.

But my god! This was the Four Seasons, not some back-alley Russian construction site. You would think that up-scale establishments would have a clientele with a greater degree of enlightenment.

The men at that table had been talking about how much money they made earlier. It was somewhere around the million-dollar-a-year mark. At least that is what they were telling each other.

In between my delicious bites, I wondered about having that much money. I wondered if they were enjoying their meals more than I did mine. Or if they enjoyed their lives more than I did mine.

I thought about what their wives might be like. As I unerstand, men who make scads of money usually have a stay-at-home wife. It's an agreement, just like the old days: Man makes money, women gives man anything he wants.

That how it had to be, before. Before women had equal (or mostly equal) access to employment and could pay for their own homes and sustenance.

And restaurant meals.

But I can afford my own home, and I have a job that supports me. The job even sends me out on trips and picks up the tab at a nice restaurant for me.

But my troglodyte neighbor hadn't seemed to move into the new feminist reality, a reality that says women belong to themselves. We now have made way for women to live with dignity, and not have to tolerate male rudeness and lewdness to make their way ahead.

Jackass millionaire man had said loudly to his buddies at the table: "Look at that! There is nothing more delightful than watching this young woman here butter her cracker and take a bite with absolute enjoyment."

Perhaps he didn't understand that the bite I took was for MY enjoyment, not his.

I had no need of him. He started out as amusing and moved to annoying.

Feminism had meant the whole world shifted. Women no longer find men necessary.

What does this mean? I remember my mother discussing the Equal Rights amendment when I was a teenager. It was up for vote in our state, whether we would ratify it or not.

She said one important argument against it was that it would give women the same wages as men and then women would no longer be interested in being good wives and mothers. THey would abandon their families.

I told her that the argument in favor of it was that it was fair and made sense.

"It's very complicated, " she replied.

As it happens, she may have been right. How has family fared since the advent of economic feminism? How are marriages and children doing?

We have a high divorce rate. Higher than the 60s. How are children? That's tough to say, but it is true that there are a lot of single parent households.

What does this mean? Should we go Taliban and turn back the clock? I don't think that two wrongs make a right, but we still have a problem here.

How do we keep a relationship intact when niether party needs the other? When they are equally able to survive without the other? It would seem that a lot more effort and desire to make it work is necessary.

That is a huge challenge to our moral character. What kind of determination and will can we bring to the table in a relationship? And also, no matter how much you try, there is always the factor of how much the other one is putting out.

Things are changing. According to Ronald B. Mincy, Columbia U professor of Social Work Policy, there are a couple areas to look at:

... There are three broad factors that are affecting marriage trends: the increasing independence of women and the deterioration in the economic status of men. Women are increasing in terms of their educational attainment. They're increasing in terms of their occupational status and their earnings.

Men, on the other hand, are reducing their college graduation rates. They're also reducing their earnings. The only men who've experienced increases in their earnings since the 1970s are basically men who have gone to graduate school. So you put together improving economic conditions for women, deteriorating economic conditions for men, and then the removal of this moral imperative for marriage, and I don't think that we should be surprised that marriage rates are falling. ...

So what is the imperative? One of my dearest friends said to me:
What about a public commitment of love to one another?

Hmm..In our cynical and self-reliant world, we want to bring up love?

Maybe all we need is love. Maybe that's the whole point. If we take away the "have to" side of it, and focus on the "want to" we are left with love.

I think that may be one of the greatest legacies of feminism. We have yet to realize it. But we have made some progress.

Posted by Murphy Horner at 10:20 AM | Permalink

This one is for Telissa, expecting Tres

What's your name?

You know that club of girls on the cartoon "Recess"? all of them are named "Ashley"?

That is so true! That happens all the time, when somehow a name gets mysteriously popular with EVERYONE for a year or so.

The government has a site about it. Alas, it only goes up to 1990, so those of us over the age of 13 will have to look elsewhere for our birth year.

My (nick) name Murphy does not hit the charts. My REAL name, Elizabeth, is WILDLY and enduringly popular.

No wonder I don't use it.

But something else struck me. The most popular girls names have less incidences (girls named that name) than the most popular boys names. So, there are vastly more, like more than 10 THOUSAND more boys named the most popular boys name of the year than there are girls named the most popular girls name of the year.

The girls names are also substantially weirder. Did any of us see "Madison" becoming the rage? Suddently, it was everywhere.

But for males, Christopher, Michael and Joshua are inescapable. John has dropped off the top ten in the last decade, thank god. But not the top 20.

Anyway, I find it intriguing that males have far more name conformity than females, and their names are far more conservative, less risky. They don't seem to get tricky or different names.

I wonder what implications this has. I wonder what it says about parents' expectations for the roles that their male children and their female children will fill as they grow older.

I thumbed through the top 50 boys names, being struck by how vastly status quo all the names were. That is until I saw 2002 bringing in a new contender:
Angel

at number 46 in popularity.

You think that Buffy had something to do with it?

Posted by Murphy Horner at 09:08 AM | Permalink

Can I get a witness

My new bus route is a little scarier than the old one. It starts out in a nice area (the area where I live..Imagine! me in a nice area!) but then heads off into the hinterlands of silverlake and echo park.

There are more interesting specimens of humanity on this route. Last week, there was a pungent gentleman with a huge growth on his thigh. I'm sorry, but it made me ill. I couldn't even look at him. The thing was, though, he was yakking up a storm with the driver. Hard to ignore.

Yesterday, on the way home, the bus was really full. People were getting on and off, and sometimes people had to stand. There was a beautiful older Asian woman holding onto the rail at one point. I thought, Maybe I should stand up and let her have my seat. But then I realized that the seat next to me was empty anyway. She could sit if she wanted to.

And then she did. She sat right next to me. And she turned to me, trying very hard with all the small bit of English she could muster, asking if I knew Jesus.

I stifled a spasm of laughter, and told her yes, I did.

"Are you go to Heaven when you die?"

"I hope so," I told her.

That was chink enough in my armor! She plunged in with her evangelical message. God Bless her, she was extremely earnest, if rather unintelligible.

Don't you love that evangelical certitude that they are hell-proof? 100% inspected, guaranteed brimstone- and hellfire-free, just sign on the dotted line. Extra credit and jewels in your celestial crown if you can shed a tear or two.

I remember beginning those witnessing classes when I was 14. Evangelism courses at the church on weekday nights, teaching us to be brave and uninhibited about butting in on people. They had pre-fab answers for ALL the possible excuses people gave for not asking Jesus into their hearts.

Each excuse had a folded tract explaining and dismissing it. Things like, "What about all the pygmies in Africa who haven't heard about Jesus? Are they going to hell?" Of course! and here's a tract about it.

Most of the questions in the set of tracts were ones I'd never thought of. I was a little worried about them, for a minute or two. But then I had much bigger things to be worried about-I actually had to approach strangers and wrangle them into saying the Jesus prayer.

Years later, I would run into these "Are you going to Heaven?" roadblocks. I thought I should give them a little thrill. Ever hear of a secret shopper? The random customer that goes to the stores and checks out the customer service? I was the secret sinner!

I'd give these evangelical wannabees a line they shouldn't be able to refuse, "So, if I wanted to become a Christian, what would I have to do?"

They would wig out. "Umm...Um...You should read this..!"

"Well, okay, but can't you just tell me?"

"You should come to our meetings, they could explain it a lot better."

Both these things went along with the same training I'd recieved: push out literature, and get them to come to church. But I was disappointed, why didn't they try to move in for the kill? It was humiliating to know that I was probably as inept a missionary as they were.

I had actually realized this at the time. In the middle of trying to evangelize my hometown, I figured out that this was not the way to do it. Mostly, my efforts were rebuffed, and the very few times I managed to "lead someone to the Lord," we would smile blissfully at one another for a moment afterwards and never see them again. "Hey it was nice to meet ya! See you in Heaven!"

It was so not fair! How did they get off so easy? I had to go to church and give up worldly things all the time. THEY just got off scot free. Happy on their merry way.

I had my doubts about that being all there was. Did it count, if you just said a prayer once, and then lived your life no different?

Besides, it seemed wrong to just walk up to strangers. Shouldn't we be friends with people? Show them love and be involved in their lives? Why should they listen to a total stranger? We lacked credibility, I thought.

The evangelism class instructors admitted that "friendship evangelism" was the most effective kind. But that put me in a bind-I wasn't allowed to know anybody that wasn't a Christian.

Back to the mall with my wallet of tracts. That is, until I gave up on the whole idea as flawed. Tracts weren't in the bible! Knocking on the doors of people's home and staying completely uninvolved with their lives was wrong.

That still didn't mean I was allowed to make friends with them. Because they would drag me down into their sinful ways. One bad apple makes all the rest rotten! Despite my protestations, I was defenseless before the evil lure of the world.

It's been a while since I've been witenessed to. I almost thought it had gone out of style. I asked the woman on the bus where she was from.

"Korea!" she said.

"Where do you go to church?" I asked.

"Presbyterian."

"Which presbyterian?"

It took a while for her to understand what I meant. She at last told me it was a presbyterian church on Wilshire.

After a moment more of her discussing the perils of sin and death, I tried to let her off the hook. I told her I'd known about Jesus for a long time, ever since I was a child.

"You go to church?"

"yes!" I said.

"Presbyterian or Baptist?"

I wonder why she picked those two denominations in particular? I told her Orthodox, which did not satisfy her. She gave me a japanime-looking cartoon tract which spelled out exactly what I needed to do to go to heaven. She had a selection of several languages.

I read it as she sat next to me silently. It was hard not to laugh out loud. The girl and the boy and the talking dog were pretty funny. The dog really was rooting for the boy to go to hell. And the girl wouldn't get "involved" with the boy until he got saved.

I finished it before she got off, and I was thinking I should maybe hand it back to her. But I thought she might be offended.

She handed the bus driver another one as she got off.

Posted by Murphy Horner at 10:06 PM | Permalink

Oedipus's eyes

I like Dr. Phil. He's not as judgemental as Dr. Laura, but they both have this get-it-done attitude. They both say, Why you do what you do may be interesting and important, but How to do what you wish you would do is way more important. So if you can skip the 'why' and go straight to the 'how', you should.

I remember Dr. Phil was giving this one woman advice, I forget about what, but he handed her what I assume to be a well-worn platitude:
You did the best that you knew how to do. When you know better, you do better. Now you know better.

I think he was right. I think the woman was trying to do the right thing.

But at the same time...
"best" is a squishy word. How do you know if you've done your best?

Doing your best...That would be when you stop and carefully think about something, judiciously decide on the correct course of action, and then put forth strong and consistent effort to take that course of action.

Boy, that sure would be doing your best. Gosh, i wish I did that every time I had a goal to accomplish.

But what if you did that--did your best--and you were wrong?

There are all kinds of ways that can happen.

Like, what if you did your best to keep your car in good shape. You noticed that the brakes were soft, you took it in to be checked. The mechanics looked at it, and said it was fixed. What if you drove that car, the brakes failed, and a child died in a car accident?

You did your best!
And the child remains dead.

What if
You choose to become involved in a relationship with someone, and because of what you know of that person, fall in love and get married. You tie your life and your future to that person.
What if that person had lied to you about who they were and misrepresented thier life?
You would remain tied to them.

What about this?
What if you looked at the world around you, saw suffering, injustice and poverty and decided you had to step in and help. What if you thought long and hard, and discussed with your friends, the wisest ones you could find, and read and studied books to find a solution. What if you came upon a plan to stop that suffering injustice and poverty, and you worked hard to put into place that plan. What if you were able to do it?

And then...
What if you were completely wrong? What if your cherished, well-thought-out plan did not end poverty, suffering and injustice? What if, instead, it brought on an inhumane system that was far worse than the previous situation? What if those same wise friends you talked with were persecuted, tortured, and killed? What if discussion were outlawed, and poverty increased?

And your plan, the one you worked hard for, had been the cause of this tragedy.

This is what the character in The Unbearable Lightness of Being contemplates. He is caught in the middle of the communist revolution in Czechoslovakia, as an intellectual, and he sees what was done in the name of communism.

He is shredded by what has happened in his country; and he remembers the story of Oedipus.

I hated the story of Oedipus when I first read it. He killed his father and married his mother. In a nutshell.

But the gripping drama is not in a nutshell. It doesn't tell the story.

The story tells that Oedipus did everything he knew how to do. He really did his best. He didn't want to kill his father; he ran away so that he wouldn't.

but he did kill his father.

And do you remember his response? His wife and mother hung herself. Jocaste figured it out a split second before he did.

Oedipus put his eyes out.

And when I was a teenager, I was so upset by this! What else could he have done? He did the best he could! There was no way out for him, he tried his best.

But the consequences of his actions remained.

And what about the communist activists in Czechoslovakia? They were, perhaps, doing the best they could.

But the consequences remain.

Here is my story:
A married couple, tired of the middle class stifling morality and hypocrisy of suburbia go looking for sincerity and being REAL. They try the usual 60s things, talking, reading and thinking about new ideas. This path eventually takes them to becoming involved in community. They want to help build community in a church. They really join in.
They stop being around their old friends, and some family members. Those folks drink, and the church members don't do that.
The woman gives up her feminist magazines. Church women aren't feminists.
They dive in, work for the church even.
Then, the pastor of that church wants to move on. "God is calling me to leave the pastorate"
So a new pastor comes in. He's dicey, because he is hyper-opinionated and has been insensitive to other people's needs in previous situations.
But the couple wants to preserve the community. They think, we should be a loving and accepting community. Let's work with this new pastor; we want our community to be healthy and intact.
And so they tolerate some things; it's a transition period.
This dicey pastor moves in. He demands respect for his God-given opinion. And they aquiesce.

as time goes by, more and more toleration occurs. This man twists words, and pietizes all his actions. As time goes by, they learn to consult him in any major and many minor decisions, since he claims to have the special ordainment of God.

Their youngest child looks at them and says "Who are you? What do you really think? What is YOUR opinion?"
And her father says: "I sincerely believe what the pastor tells me."

As time goes by, the pastor is not satisfied with his control. He decides to flex futher power. The youngest son, upon reaching adulthood, is instructed to shun his oldest brother. "Your brother is the enemy of Christ" the man says.
and the son says: "my heart is black with sin. I cannot trust my own judgement. I must always consult the pastor before I make a decision."

The family is sick and wounded. The community is betrayed and sincerity is a word without meaning.

But the couple did the best they could.

Thomas, in Unbearable Lightness, was angry with the communist revolutionaries. He wanted them to understand that they had done something wrong.

Like Oedipus.

They were busy crying "We are innocent! In our hearts, we know we did the best we could!"

And what about the consequences? The consequences, the pain caused by their innocent best--what about them?

What about that poor dead child from the bad brake job?
What about that spouse, lied to?
What about the family, the church, the children that were part of the community?

Actions have consequences.

Bad things can come from good motives.

The greeks knew that. LONG ago. We know that still, even though it makes us profoundly uncomfortable.

"The Human Condition"

I heard a guy tell me once, and who knows? He was always spouting crap...
But he said he had done a study of lots of religions, and the difference between Christianity and the rest of them was that Christianity offered forgiveness.

Forgiveness.

Jesus said it: "All have sinned and come short of the glory of God."

Like I said before, I don't always do my best.

But sometimes, even when I do, even when everybody does their best, the consequences accuse.

THomas said, "You are responsible, you czech revolutionaries! This did not come out of nowhere! What intentions you had, good, bad, rose-colored from the past, these heinous consequences remain."

What shall they, what shall we, what shall _I_ do with these consequences?

Oedipus put his eyes out.

I believe that Oedipus was a better human being than I am.

But what shall we do?

That is what haunts me, that is what made me pace up and down when I read The Unbearable Lightness of Being.

Tomas did not want the communists to put their eyes out. He wanted acknowledgement.

Because how do you move on, unless you acknowledge where you are?

I could stand and accuse. I could point my finger. The dicey pastor taught me that.

Or maybe I learned it before.

Or maybe I was born with it.

Or maybe it doesn't make a damn bit of difference when I learned it. Maybe it is important to move on.

To open the hand, and give a hand out to others to move on.

Like Dr. Phil, who says it doesn't matter why, only how to get to where you need to go.

I don't think that covering up pain has to be part of the forgiveness.

Shame, judgement, accusations--guilt or innocence--these are not relevant.

We all have tried and we have all had the best of intentions. And we have all had not so good intentions at times.

That just doesn't matter.

What if we could make forgiveness so much a part of life, that it is a given, just the way that we get by?

Just help each other move on, keep going and keep trying to do better.

Posted by Murphy Horner at 12:30 PM | Permalink

random navel gazing

Maybe I should read books twice. Maybe that would be the thing...Take notes and stuff. Nafisi, the professor in Reading Lolita in Tehran rad books again and again, making notes.

She's a professor. One of those people who get to tell others instead of being told.

Well, maybe she has the right idea.

The thing about books is that they have a beginning a middle and an end. They are contained. They are a system, a closed system.

And a closed system is one that can be experimented on. You know what's there, you can work within the system, and it remains.

Once, a long time ago, I closed a book because I was working too much within a system. I had been a very very very religious [in the meaning of unfalteringly regular, as well as the other meaning] Bible reader.

And I had done this for years. For several reasons, all of which someone or other will fault me, I stopped.

The reason I told myself at the time, and I still believe that it is the main reason, is that if the Bible is true, and I choose to believe that it is, it is a system that is fully integrated with the universe.

And if it is fully integrated with the universe, any understanding I have about ANYTHING [because anything and everything is part of the universe] will enhance my ability to understand and interpret the Bible.

I could feel in my bones, like a draft of wind or a change in air pressure, that I was not interpreting the Bible right.

And I knew without a doubt that I knew less than nothing about the world around me. I was 21. I consider this precocious of me.

So I thought, I need to work on the one part and get back to the other. Because I had a feeling that I was propping up a failing system.

And since I believe that the failing system could not be the Bible's system, the system that was failing was my understanding/intrpretation of it.

So I needed to work on my understanding.

NOW, this is only an anecdote to illustrate my point about books. The Bible is a book, after all.

so, do I need to dig deeper into the books? OR back off the books?

This begs a question. What purpose are the books?

If the books are part of my lifelong quest for enlightenment, then they are important. That takes me back to the conclusion that I need to maximize my reading and the quantity/quality conundrum I mentioned before [previous post].

If the books are just for my amusement, though, then all this is nonsense. I should just read the books in whatever way I like.

If, however, the books are purely for my amusement, I am become a hedonistic pleasure-monster.

Which doesn't make sense, because I seem to only enjoy books that challenge me.

And this leads to ontological and epistomological tail chasing.

It's a moot point. We don't know.

Which could lead back to that book I put aside when I was 21.

Some people do this. They choose a religion, accept it as a closed system, and devote their lives to it. Inside a hermitage or not.

"This" they say "is the source of the answers. I will bend myself to the answers this system provides."

This seems like a good idea. It has the appearance of truth. Perhaps in many many cases it is the truth.

Except it is dangerous. I believe, as I did when I was 21 and even earlier, that true religion cannot be a closed system.

Because, who would be closing it? WHo would say, 'We understand everything now, no more!'

It would have to be people. People who came to the conclusion that they understood everything.

That would be impossible. It's not that I believe everything cannot be understood, I just cannot concieve of a human mind being able to do it.

Therefore, closing the system will result in it's falsehood.

I love truth too much to do that. I will risk a lie, risk being wrong, in an open system. I feel like there is a chance in the open system. But the closed system is a lie from the beginning.

All this, because I am thinking about my reading habits.

I think too much.

Scratch me, and I bleed philosophy. I never stop.

Posted by Murphy Horner at 10:00 PM | Permalink

Spring

It is warm, and the breeze blows fresh sunshine-smells over my face. I dance across the campus pathway, my first college spring at home in Northest America. I hum a spontaneous melody, so full of newness and joy:
Do you ever feel like singing
Right out loud to the sky above?
Is it the same spring? I am feeling that joy in spring.

It is spring, and the seeds of the past are coming back. Those wishes, fears and hopes that fall from me in actions, thoughts, and sacrifices do not cease to be with my forgetting. With seasons come change. I change every year and every day.

The detritus of a squished population surrounds me. There are scraps of clothing, boards and machinery. Buildings need a coat of paint; the melting snow runs tracks through the grime of the old and peeling surface. Water pools in ruts on the ground, forming long ponds across the passageways. No municipal services are left in Yakutia after the death of communism. Pedestrians, and we are all pedestrians, lay long, thin boards over the seasonal moats. We become brave balancing acrobats to get to school and work. It is up to us to find a way through. Look, what is that flattened thing? The freeze-dried carcass of a cat, fatal participant in the sub-arctic changes of season.
Is it that spring? The warning to build my own path is the same.

But the seasons remain the same. I sing the song I began at the beginning. Its refrain returns in the spring of my step and drops with my footfalls. Beginning and end, life and death—spring brings to life and feeds on death.

In a beautiful mansion donated by a man passed on, different people take turns to stand on their feet and read. Such a collection of interesting noses! They read in their own languages of an empty tomb. It is past midnight, the first time I have heard this kind of service. Christos voskres! Christos Anesti! El Messieh kahm! Christ is risen! He has conquered death by death! Joyful faces tell of a stone rolled away and new life brought from dying. The priest, the leader of the church welcomes me to the pre-dawn table. We eat, and he tells me of his faith, drinking wine. I have never seen a pastor drunk before.
Is it the spring once more? The story is the same.

The melted snow water is being soaked into the wakened tree-roots that make up the Alaskan forest of my memory. Barren branches have waited all winter for the sun-sweet nectar to reach them. Hard buds swell and surge into sticky chartreuse baby-wrinkled leaves. They grow a shocking green, almost painful to the eye when the slanted Northern sun shines right through them. After months of landscape in black and white, eyes must grow accustomed. If I forget to look for just one day, I would think it was an explosion. I do not forget to look. I know it happens quickly, but it is still a progression.
Is it spring again? I feel the expectation.

My will-volition swells with the season. I strain against the hull of old boundaries. Tight-packed growth against well-known walls. I am quivering for my freedom.

Quivering with fear. New life means new death. Chances and risks taken are the straightest path to disappointment. Is not my life now entwined, rooted and fed in the sweat, sorrow and tears of all that came before?

Put another ring around this tree. Either die now or die later. It is spring again, every spring that ever was or will be. I am here to take my place in the season. I am the Resurrection and the Life.

Version 3.2 Copyright © 2001-2005 Six Apart. All Rights Reserved.

Posted by Murphy Horner at 09:15 AM | Permalink

this one's for me

As a kid, nothing seemed out of my reach.

There weren't any challenges.
Well, there was one. I wanted to be able to run 5 miles. My legs didn't carry me that far. But I wished they did.

Everything else was not a matter of "Am I able?" but a matter of "Am I allowed?"

So little was allowed. Music was suspect, Movies were suspect. Books were kind of suspect. Education, friends, people I might meet, life goals, all these things were suspect.

They might get in the way of "God's will for my life."

God didn't want me to learn at a secular school. God didn't want me to watch movies that Jesus wouldn't watch. God's will was not for me to saturate myself with "worldly" music or expose myself to the influence of non-christian friends.

Eating, talking on the phone, what clothes i wore and where I visited were all to be weighed in the scale of "What would be the Christian thing to do?"

The christian thing to do seemed to be to always be telling my non-christian friends to become christian.

But, as it happened, I wasn't supposed to have non-christian friends.

This situation left me with a lot of time on my hands.

I read a lot. I had no guidance, really, so I just galloped after whatever caught my interest. Lots of austen, dickens. The entire shelf labeled "Young Adult" at the library. I discovered I liked those best.

But I had no one to talk to about what I read.

There was no challenge, really.

When I moved to Russia, I knew nothing. NO one expected me to know anything. I learned Russian when I was there, but that was the extent of the challenge.

THe trip was an exercise in gathering impressions.

It wasn't until I moved back to the states, and got married that I started to really try to challenge myself.

I finally ran 5 miles. It wasn't that hard. I just kept at it.

Then we moved to California. The bay area.

HERE, at last, the bar was raised.

People knew things. There was a challenge in the air. People my age had jobs, and careers. they had interests and specialties. Intellectual pursuits.

whoa. What the heck is this? I felt incredibly inadequate. My little bits of stuff, my little interests and areas of knowledge were pathetic!

it took me quite a while to rise to the challenge. I felt so frustrated, because I knew that i was capable, I just hadn't actually DONE any of these things yet.

My self-evaluation left me really lacking. I had to compensate.

I started to. I got some stuff happening. I wasn't at the top, but I got in the game. I got some self-respect, I got going.

By the time I left, I felt pretty good about myself. I felt like I was making progress. I had something to show.

Now i live in LA.
I feel back at the bottom. Whoa. There is so much going on here. I have so much I want to be doing, want to have DONE already. There is a rushing torrent of creativity going through this town, I want to be swimming in the middle of it.

I am not there yet. The bar just took a big jump.

I want to be part of it. But I don't want to lose myself, either.

I have to take it slow, but I have some serious ground to cover.

I guess I just have to keep at it. A little every day.

Posted by Murphy Horner at 04:16 PM | Permalink

This morning was the season of my discontent

This morning I was cranky.

And for no good reason.

It was the kind of mood where I would think, "I wish I were listening to my favorite CD right now."

Then I would realize that I already was.

Sometimes I drive myself crazy.

Posted by Murphy Horner at 04:04 PM | Permalink

I have a job, and I am pleased that I have a job.

But there are times in any job that are less than pleasant. Times when you are faced on all sides with a Catch 22.

So today, I had a lot of those.

But the thing that took the cake...My Own Personal Point of Pride...Yesterday, a local deity asked me to write some instructions.

I lay aside the fact that to create these instructions is to create and distribute a sharp pointy stick than is meant for poking me.

It had to be done, and I understood why. A global deity needed appeasement, and it took this sharp pointy stick distribution plan.

Fine.

BUT! When I carefully WROTE the instructions, the local deity carefully took the beautiful succinct clear phrases and instructions and made them longer, more confusing and ugly...hoh..

it is one thing to write something badly, and never get around to finishing making the writing better.

I do that practically every day on this blog.

but to take pretty, crafted words and MAKE THEM WORSE ON PURPOSE!

it wounds me.

It wounds me more that I must send them out as if they were my own. It's like wearing a sign that says "i'm stoopid"

SIGH

Posted by Murphy Horner at 04:01 PM | Permalink

HIGH-PUR-BUH-LEE

Hyperbole:
"A figure of speech in which exaggeration is used for emphasis or effect, as in I could sleep for a year or This book weighs a ton.
"

I finally figured out what's wrong with L.A.

I've been here six months, and I've been having a little trouble making friends. I have gone out and systematically met with people. I take advantage of the opportunities that are out there.

But somehow, it's been falling flat. A lot of people don't really want to get together again, and I'm not that disappointed.

I haven't really met anyone that I made a connection with.

I went swing dancing a few weeks ago for the first time at a place called the Derby. I was worried about going alone, I thought people wouldn't be friendly.

I couldn't have been more wrong! Lots of people were there, lots of nice men asked me to dance. Some people even sat and talked with me.

But I came away feeling a little flat. At the time I was thinking, "L.A. boys are too nice."

Boy that is not something I would imagine myself thinking. I'm not the "bad boy" type. I really enjoy respectful, intelligent well-dressed men.

Something was wrong.

My brother Chris came to visit me yesterday. He just got back from a world tour of Orthodox monasteries.

I was really worried that our conversation would be really heavy.

I did not want to spend the evening being very serious.

So I made a point of poking fun. There is a hell of a lot that is funny about monasteries, once you stop and look at it.

And my brother has a great sense of humor! There were times when I had him cracking up. And he made me laugh, too.

I woke up this morning, and I figured it out.

NO ONE IN L.A. HAS A SENSE OF HUMOR.

That's the "too nice" I've been running up against.

I love to laugh and make fun of things. The aforementioned "Hyperbole" is one of my favorites...To exaggerate something to show how ridiculous it is..I toss those little hyperboles off all the time.

And I've been met with blank stares and nods.

"No! It's funny! I didn't mean it literally!"

You can't explain a joke. Everyone knows that. I couldn't defend myself.

Things that are bust-my-gut funny are taken totally seriously by everyone I've met.

It's starting to make me feel like a crazy person. Stupid little jokes at work, like "Boy, this coffee is so strong I think it just walked out the room and asked the boss for a promotion" don't even illicit a groan or an eye-roll.

When you say outrageous things, and laugh uproariously ALONE, you look imbalanced.

But I suppose it's not a surprise. Being funny is a career in Los Angeles.

Anyone that can crack a half-funny joke is locked in some dungeon somewhere churning out one-liners for That 70s Show or The Simpsons

All we are left with here in the main populace are incredibly earnest and serious peace activists, vegan animal rights people, weight lifters, motivational coaches, yoga instructors and failed actors.

Anyone that wants to laugh has to watch reruns.

Posted by Murphy Horner at 03:59 PM | Permalink

Humans are social animals -pt 1

Humans are social animals, so they say.

I am a very social animal, I think. I like having lots of people around me. That's one of the things I like about California. There are simply more people to be around.

Being a teenager is a time when you are especially concerned with the social aspects of life. Boy, I sure was. I was like a throbbing antenna, aware of every shift in social winds.

When I was forced against my will to be homeschooled, I knew my social status would plummet and never recover. My parents, excited about how great teaching me at home would be, didn't believe me. "You'll be fine!" Mom said.

Thus began my four years of jockeying for a position in the tight cliquey circle of teenagers from the small private school I had left. Any position. I had to make sure not to lag too far behind when the group was lining up to file into rows of chairs at events or in church. I felt humliation and self-loathing as I pushed my way forward in the line so that I did not get stuck on the end of the row. You could not hear anything or be included when you were on the end.

Teenagers can smell self-loathing like wolves smell fear. My insecure position did not go unnoticed.

Since my days were long and empty, the catty comments and cold-shouldering doled out by my "friends" were constantly on my mind. Which were intentional? What did they really think of me? How could I win back favor and be respected?

Once, after a few years of this wore on, an occasion arose. We were going in to a church event. I say "we"; in reality, my group of friends were already lined up with a few new people to make things lively. For some reason, I had been left behind the group. I stood at the door of the auditorium and looked at the girls lined up in the pew. They were already sitting down. I was filled with shame at the thought of squeezing in, unwanted, to be tagged on at the end. I would inevitably spend the time looking at the back of some more fashionable shirt as its wearer turned away from me to talk with the rest of group.

I hated feeling this way. I wanted nothing more than to be included. But experience had taught me that I could only expect humiliation.

Suddenly, I was mad! Those girls had no right to treat me this way. I might not be able to be included in the conversation, but as least I could be excluded with dignity:

I COULD SIT ALONE.

The idea was as revolutionary as the apple falling on Newton's head. Fear and excitement shot through me--my heart was pounding. Did I really dare to be alone? If I sat alone, would the girls then be so relieved to be rid of me that they would forever more exclude me?

But the idea gave me so much more self-respect. I did not have to walk in and take the blows to my feelings. NO! I could be alone.

I marched down the aisle, past the group and sat alone near the front. I felt my back prickle, sure that they were all staring at me. I stayed for the service. I watched everything, finally able to notice what was going on. Once the absorbing distraction of my friends was gone, I realized that a lot of other things were happening.

I felt somewhat exposed, as if I were naked. Like a hermit crab rushing from one discarded shell to a new larger home. At the end of the service, I felt renewed. I learned that there was the option of being alone.

Humans are social animals -pt 2

In November 2000, I had a chance to visit Manhattan. It was for work, and no one else wanted to go. I was thrilled at the chance to spend what amounted to a week in New York City, on the company tab. They put me up in a Madison Avenue hotel, right below Rockefeller Square. While I was there, all the Christmas decorations were put up. The streets were bustling and beautiful.

But I was alone.

I got off the airplane in JFK and made it to the taxi line alone. Me and the cab driver talked as we drove to the hotel, and I checked in alone. My beautiful hotel room was filled with only me.

I found dinner alone, and I walked to the office building where I would be working. The dark streets were lit and the tall mirrored building waited for me.

It's easy to work fast when you work alone. After I did my day's work, I went alone through the subways and stopped to hear the street musicians play. I could stay and listen as long as I wanted.

I went alone to the empire state building and looked out at all those millions of light across the sky.

I went to the U.N. just to see. I went to Central park, and bought a knish, and later a hot dog.

I loved Manhattan. The kinetic thought-energy was electrifying. It helped that I knew my time was limited, and I had so much I wanted to see.

But it was very strange to be so alone in this huge mass of people. I wanted to strike up conversations with strangers, just to hear the sounds of my own voice, and to know that I was still there.

People were streaming all around me; passing on sidewalks, sitting on the subway--people seemed to be piled up on one another like iguanas in a pet shop. I breathed the air that millions exhaled, and walked through the space their forms had blocked milliseconds before.

New York is a big city.

Posted by Murphy Horner at 08:49 AM | Permalink

REFLECTIONS OF MYSELF

Looking for something else, I stumbled upon a notebook musing from a few years ago:

I like best to see my face reflected in a window at night. The outline is clear, but the details are less distinct. It's such an accomplished [self-contained] pleasure, admiring my own reflection.

I once asked a man, at the beginning of a new romance, when we were first shyly revealing the traits we found marvelous and fascinating in each other, "Don't you think I see you differently than you see yourself?"

He considered and replied, "It's only natural. I know myself better than you do."

It was so easy for me to admire and cherish him. But he to himself and me to myself--it's not as easy. We know the blemishes.

When I look into a mirror--a clear flat, distinct and well-lit reflection--my eyes seek our all the imperfections. I put my face right close and examine all the planes and crevices. I wonder what I'm looking for? Don't I know my face already? I don't linger over the good features, but I move straight to mottles in my skin, or to my crooked teeth. Are my eyebrows incorrect? And which standard should I choose?

I want to believe I am beautiful. I want it so very badly. Because if I am beautiful, I will be loved. And if I am loved, then I will live in the sunshine and nothing can be wrong.

I don't undersatnd this trap, a slippery slop to never-fulfillment. What if I am loved, but am not beautiful? What if it rains on me and the ones who love me? It must be a flaw in me. When hard times come, it must be because I am not loved enough. But who could love me enough? I am not beautiful enough for that kind of love.

When I see myself in the night-window reflection, I am less distinct. I don't have to see the confusing minutia of my appearance. I can be pleased with the outline. I can love myself, forgive the imperfections. I can have what I so crave and not be indebted to someone else.

Posted by Murphy Horner at 08:34 AM | Permalink

MIDDLES (excerpt)

I wonder why we like to be safely sad about love songs? the Beatles' "Yesterday" is supposed to be wildly popular. I played it for the diners, and I thought again about how sad it is.

Perhaps we believe we are more noble if our hearts are broken.

If your heart is broken, it is easier. You know the end of the story. But if you HAVE love, and are happy, it's much more complicated. You have to keep the love. You have to work on it, and deal with problems or doubt.

Or worse. You have to decide when the love is done, but done in a not-beautiful way.

ending, or beginnings, are so satisfying. But middles...They are not so popular.

Posted by Murphy Horner at 08:22 AM | Permalink

creativity

I’ve blogged before about creativity; I consider creative thought and expression to be of high value and usefulness. It is something I want to foster with my life and habits, and to encourage those I know to pursue their own creative endeavors.

I’ve described creativity very loosely, as any type of artistic expression. Drawing, Music, writing, sewing, dance—all these are easily identifiable as creative expression.

But as I thought about it, I realize that those ART categories are not the only way people are creative. I have known a lot of folks who considered their computer programs as a creative expression, and I can agree with them. Computer science, Mathematics, chemistry, and other sciences can be a framework to express creative minds.

In fact, many of these sciences rely on the creativity of their practitioners to directly improve the products and services used every day.

So, maybe creativity is not what I really mean.

If I use a pattern from Butterick, and create a poodle skirt for a Halloween costume, that is being creative. But I didn’t really create anything new.

And if I play a popular song on my piano, I haven’t really created anything new.

Not really. A little bit, I guess. Because I took an old favorite and made it my own. But I didn’t add much.

But if I sat at my piano and wrote a whole new song, that would be quite creative. That would be original.

I think that originality is the highest pursuit of creativity.

It is SO exciting to come upon an original idea. I know that one of the things I love so much about going to school was encountering new ideas. Even when they are not original, they are new to ME.

I never learned to play it cool in the classroom..I am the girl sitting in the front row that raises her hand and makes the point the teacher was just about to make before he can make it.

The teacher is droning …”And so, this leads to the 2nd law of thermodynamics, which says…”

Me: “You mean everything in the universe is tending towards entropy?”

Pause

Teacher: “Why yes, thank you…”

Sometimes, I would connect the dots long before the teacher got to them. I would have figured out what he was about to teach, maybe a week in advance. I would be all excited, thinking I had understood something in a new way that no one had ever seen before.

But then we would get to that part of the chapter, and I would discover that my incredible new theory about the universe was already fully articulated by the ancient Greeks.

It sort of let the air out of the balloon. I was thinking I was brilliant and original, possibly a hidden genius for my great idea! But everyone else in the world already knew it.

What can you do?

I would often go to talk to my teachers about some idea I had, and they would always say, “Have you read this particular book? The author talks about that theory you are discussing.”

It makes me wonder if I have any original ideas at all. Apparently, all the licenses on original thought are sold.

But it also doesn’t take very much originality to go very very far. If one person comes up with a new idea, a TON of people are right there to copy it in a million different ways.

I mean, look at fashion. The fashions always seem to be regurgitations of the previous fashions from a respectful distance in the past.

Some major designer comes out with his or her expensivoso designs, based on older designs by some previous expensivoso. Then those are instantly snapped up by all the knock-off designers who make clothes for Target and Wal-Mart and K-Mart and all the other places.

There maybe have been, like, 5 grams of creativity in the entire fall clothing lines of the entire United States of America. Do you see what I mean? A little creativity goes a long way.

Also, creativity doesn’t usually happen in large amounts. I don’t know why, maybe it just doesn’t work like that. But most original ideas are simply a rearrangement of ideas already lying around.

The printing press, that boost-us-out-of-the-dark-ages device, was really thrown together out of ideas that had been used for the whole darn dark ages anyway.

But it did open people’s minds. Rearranging what has been there all along, and juxtapositioning things that had never been together before is enlightening.

Kind of like the fashion of the 70’s, which we seem to be reliving…free your mind:
Red and Pink CAN go together!
NOW ANYTHING IS POSSIBLE!

Baby steps, my friends…Our minds open slowly.

Very slowly. We don’t move even incrementally towards new ideas. I think it’s more like fractions of increments towards new ideas.

Some though, have minds set to be open. The really creative ones, they have their minds ajar, as it were.

That’s how I would like to be. Always open to new ideas.

At the same time, there is the fear, a real fear…At what point does the mind’s door become unhinged?

It’s well known that genius is close kin to madness.

Daily life rewards routine and patterns. Step outside of the pattern, and people will be bothered by the asymmetry.

But maybe some, maybe just enough, would be delighted.

Posted by Murphy Horner at 07:55 PM | Permalink

Once, while on a visit to a zoo, I saw a jaguar. This shiny black animal was pacing back and forth in front of his cage, eyes intent on the direction he was headed, muscles rippling with the potential of all the things muscles can do.

I could not stop watching this pent up animal. He was caged, yes, but he also seemed pent inside himself. I wanted to catch his eye to see what he was feeling. Of course, he never looked at me. He was single-minded in his purposeful prowl.

I could not help remembering that magnificent beast when I saw Alanis Morrisette explode onto the stage at the Greek Theatre last Saturday. Her skin-tight black leather pants helped the illusion, but she had the same barely contained pacing that the jaguar had. She loped across the stage in strides that were far longer than most people would take. She stretched her legs, and her voice and her heart out as far as she could.

Her songs have always hit me like a Mack truck. When she sings about love and faith and pain she takes the lid off the things I’ve “kept bubbling under,” and makes me feel the need to move, to act, or to speak.

Her songs, no matter which one, express her spirit. She is not comfortable, she is not complacent. When I saw her relentless pacing onstage, I was not surprised. I feel like pacing too, when I hear her songs.

I am grateful to her, because she grapples with ideas and issues that many people grapple with. Most people, however, give up in exhaustion, willing to believe that answers or even questions are beyond their capacity. Alanis does not give up on them. After seeing her perform in person, I can see that she cannot. The person she is finds it physically impossible to back off.

She engages her experiences and her questions as if in battle. She finds a way to express them, and behind every single song is a harmonic drone, like a bagpipe, of “Why?” She dares to take it on.

And I, along with many others, am very much the richer for it. She’s given a voice to many of us, because she was able to express herself, She did not hold back and say, “that’s too personal, I’d better just be quiet about that.” It’s in the personal, in the subjective, that the universal human experience can be understood.

I appreciate her bravery, and I am so glad I saw her in concert. I really need to buy her latest album.

Posted by Murphy Horner at 11:07 PM | Permalink

SOFT MONEY AND SOFT LIES

All of these horrible occurances with the executives and accounting firms at Enron and WorldCom and Xerox, and I forget who else, have been on the news.

Some people say, We need better government protection!

Well, that a good idea to have. But the problem was not that what these folks did was legal. It was clearly illegal. So we already have government protection. There are all kinds of laws on the books about not lying and not stealing.

But it someone decides to lie and steal, they choose to ignore those laws.

I am concerned about the moral fiber of the people in charge of large corporations.

Isn't it funny that we are so concerned with their dishonesty?

I guess it makes sense, because we have moved away from the system of pensions for retirement to a system of personal investments. 401Ks and investment portfolios are supposed to take the burden of responsibility off the companies and put it on the backs of individual workers.

Well, when that happened, there was a a tremendous explosion of money in the stock market. That's what you DO when you invest, right? That's what all the experts tell you to do anyway.

Well, now that a lot of money is in the hands of a lot of people with very little knowledge, it is easy for the execs to fudge the books. Who's gonna know, right? And they are just trying to build up the stock...

I happened to be reading the Communist manifesto today. Just as a refresher, Marx and Engels defined the Bourgeoisie as those who employ the laborers. Sounds like Enron, WorldCom, etc.

So here are some of his earlier statements:

The bourgeoisie, wherever it has got the upper hand, has...left remaining no other nexus between man and man than naked self-interest, than callous 'cash payment'...It has resolved personal worth into exchange value and in indefeasible chartered freedoms, has set up that single, unconscionable freedom--free trade. In one word...it has substituted naked, shameless, direct, brutal exploitation.

It has converted the physician, the lawyer, the priest, the poet, the man of science, into its paid laborers.

I just had to look it up...indefeasible means "cannot be undone."

Well, I find this remarkably current. Aren't we all complaining about the way the medical system is becoming more commercialized and less concerned with healing sick people? I remember something that that Chris Rock said:

They ain't never gonna find a cure for AIDS! There's no money in a cure. They'll give you a treatment. That's how drug dealers work, they get you on the come back.

Hmm...Yeah.

Well, when Enron, WorldCom and ESPECIALLY arthur anderson took a look at their balance sheets and their desires for profit, all the people who were affected by their deceitful schemes were merely numbers on a page. I suspect that the numbers on the page were more real to them than any person.

Nothing left between man and man than cash payment.

Personal worth reduced to exchange value.

I don't know that much about communism. I decided to read the Communist Manifesto, because I realized that the history of the 20th century has been incredibly affected by communism and I am woefully ignorant about it.

It's not very long, and I haven't gotten very far into it. I may have more to say about it later.

But..My initial response to this is that we ought to give more value to non-tangible commodities. "Soft Money" as they sometimes call it.

I had the same problem when I was working in video conferencing. How do you measure the return on investment for quick communication? Everyone looked at how much it cost to upgrade communications equipment, but few people would believe that if you made it easier to talk and have meetings, that the company would be more efficient and more profitable.

It seems simple.

It also seems simple that relationships between people are of value. That honesty and diligence and dedication result in greater profitability seems basic.

I wonder if Arthur Anderson had an algorithm to track the value of the company's honesty assets?

Posted by Murphy Horner at 10:59 PM | Permalink

the steamroller

Today, i was thinking about how much I don't like not having work. This is hardly new. I have a long-standing fear of the bottom dropping out. That I will be completely destitute. It has not happened yet. I've never been truly hungry or homeless. But I have been very close. I used to think of it as a steamroller coming up on to me, threatening to outdistance me and flatten me.

I do not cherish helplessness. I like being able to do for myself. And a steamroller coming up and flattening me would have the effect of NOT allowing me to take care of myself.

I had quite elaborate images in my head about the nature of the steamroller, and exactly how it would come up and come closer. I felt like I had to have a certain distance between me and disaster, a buffer. I knew that if I didn't have a sufficient head start on the flattener that the smallest stumble would mean the end.

I was young and newly married. With the deadly serious naivete of youth, I felt that a single mistake would be the ruin of my entire future. Besides, i had no resources but my own. My family was not in the country. All of my friends had literally and arbitrarily shown me the door. And while I had an overweening sense of the guillotine-like permanence of any error, my husband seemed to think his life was carved every day anew on an etch-a-sketch: "I care not for the morrow!" Nor did he care for ephemeral things such as paychecks and rent.

So the steamroller was ever-present in my mind.

It occurs to me now to wonder why it was a steamroller.

Now, I think of it as a wolf. The wolf nipping at my heels.

This idea became very realized today. I was thinking about that wolf, I was staring him down in my mind. I thought, well, wolf. I don't have a job, and you are waiting with bared fangs for the moment you can overpower me. But I have fangs of my own now.

And it is true. This time, I have weapons to fight back against destitution and abandonment. I have cunning and a quiver full of skills that I did not have when I was 22, and it was a steamroller I was dealing with. A wolf, you can fight and grapple with. A wolf can injure you, but it does not always kill you. A streamroller, however, is a different story.

A steamroller is a broad impersonal sweep. It has nothing to appeal to. It will flatten inevitably, the only question is whether it will flatten ME.

When I was 22, the forces that granted me employment or a working car seemed unfathomable and decidedly impersonal. I knew nothing about what I had to offer the world. Anything granted me was undeserved largess.

But I have since learned (In only 7 years! Imagine how much I will learn in the next seven!) that the worker is worthy of her hire. I discovered the rules of economics, that my labor and my abilities were a tradable commodity.

I had worth!

I really love feeling that in a job. I love knowing that what I do matters, in a very tangible way showing up on my paycheck. This is perhaps another reason why I find unemployment so decidedly uncomfortable--I long for the affirmation of another to prove my value.

But I also have seen the faces of those who assign worth. I know they are cheaters and liars, quite often.

Perhaps that it why I have left the steamroller back in history and think of disaster as a wolf.

Posted by Murphy Horner at 08:33 AM | Permalink

MEL RAMOS AND THE MEANING OF CORPORATE ART

Although the wonderblog is supposed to be “musings about art and the meaning of life,” I’ve been a little short on the art portion of that. At least, I have never really done a critique of a piece of art yet.

Today, that will change. And I invite comment, please. Isn’t good art supposed to evoke a response?

That’s what they say.

Art should challenge you. Art should change your perspective. Art should make you uncomfortable sometimes.

Right.

But the major patrons of art in the 21st century are corporations. Art for the foyer. Decorative sculpture for the drive up to the main office. Ah yes.

Should lobby art make you uncomfortable? Perhaps the “challenge” of corporate art should have it’s base in challenging the workers (dare I say proletariat?) to do their best work for the company.

My company has been going through some renovations, which included my floor. It was several weeks before the renovation process got around to the part where they hang up pictures. There is a poster by Georgia O’Keefe in the mailroom now. Not her best work—I can say this, since I’ve been to her gallery in Santa Fe—but it is an interesting perspective of the trunk of a tree and some of it’s branches. I appreciate it. There is another work by the elevator; I call it the crayon tree. It’s a sort of white abstract tree trunk on a black background, with brightly colored marks or dabs along the sides. It looks like it’s raining crayons, as I wait for my elevator to arrive. Not sure about that one’s merit, but whatever. It’s cheery.

The one by my buddy’s cube is a sort of college-dorm poster. It’s a poster of a stretch of road going off into the distance, and an enormous moon hangs over it in the twilight blue sky. I think that a college freshman with a desire to travel and/or own a motorcycle would really dig it.

My buddy hates it.

These pictures are all of a bland nature. They are there, they give your eyes a place to rest on, but they are mostly non-intrusive.

The piece that really stopped me was on a different floor. It is a piece called “Candy Bar” by Mel Ramos.

Let me see if I can describe it accurately. It is mostly made out of cardboard, and it looks like a Baby Ruth wrapper. There is an edge of the cardboard with what seems to be instructions posted in the upper left corner. I don’t remember what it says exactly, but it starts out saying, “Cut along the lines.” The candy bar wrapper looks partly opened, and the cardboard cutout of a young blonde 70’s-style knockout is inserted into the wrapper. The edges of the wrapper come right to the right spot on her chest, all you see is a bit of cleavage. But the whole thing is mounted on a mirror, so when you come up to get a closer look, or to read the instructions, you can see that her entire backside is naked. You can even see her tan line, a pale stripe running across her back and another blunt triangle across her naked bottom.

This one is hanging up across from a popular video room, so I get to pass by it a lot. The first time I saw it, I was flabbergasted and I had to take a better look. The idea of a woman being in a candy wrapper was so obviously sexist that it seemed to be almost anti-sexist. And when I got closer, I saw that it was mounted on a mirror, and I saw her little tan lines.

The whole thing is only about a foot tall. Probably not even that. She’s not much bigger than a Barbie.

An apt comparison.

But since I have to pass by this candy bar frequently, I am becoming more and more disturbed. Yes, it is a blatant portrayal of women as consumables for male palates. Or even female. It broadly states the objectification of women, and the role women are expected to play in society. How much the artist is aware of this is unknown. Maybe he is portraying his own attitudes, and they coincidentally are widespread.

It’s witty. It is an exaggerated perspective of an often unspoken reality. In the right mood, it might be profound.

I’m trying to be objective and open about it.

But I don’t think it is the sort of thing that belongs in a company hallway. Yes, women are commonly objectified. But they should not be experiencing that kind of treatment at work! So why should this piece of art (and I think it is more artistic than the crayon tree or the dorm poster) be displayed here?

I don’t think that Japanese Americans would like to have artistic photographs of War scenes from WWII posted in the hallways.

I don’t think African Americans would appreciate having scenes of slavery posted in public rooms.

Corporate art has to be more subtle. More bland, maybe.

Art is not art is not art. That is to say, there is a time and a place for different kinds of art. And some of the most profound and life-changing or life-enriching art must be handled carefully. Like a volatile substance.

I have in the past, a long time ago, made snide comments about the meaninglessness of corporate art. Those strange abstract geometric shapes made out of steel or concrete and rise up tall in the parking lot—“What does that MEAN?” I would say. “That’s not art. It’s just a way to fulfill the government’s requirement to spend x percentage of new construction on ‘art’.”

That was before I started going to work in those buildings.

But here is my dilemma now:

Do I swallow it? Do I just ignore Ms. Candy Bar?

Or do I try to get it removed?

Posted by Murphy Horner at 08:26 AM | Permalink

People, it's April 2007.

In April 2002, right as I was graduating from college, I began this blog.

FIVE YEARS! That makes me a veteran, if unknown, blogger.

To celebrate, I am going to do some re-runs. I'm going to re-post some of my favorite posts from the past.

Enjoy! And thanks for reading.

Posted by Murphy Horner at 08:16 AM | Permalink

I thought I had posted this already, but it looks like I haven't.

So, If it's a rerun, I'm sorry:

Homeschool story

It was a typical day at work, trying to get things done. A salesman was on the phone, and he wanted me to think we were best friends.

"Hello, this is Murphy."

"Hi, how's everything going? I just wanted to call and check in."

Times were tight, and the sales folks were getting desperate for some business. Fine, I guess if he wants to chat me up for a little bit, I can spare some small talk.

"Did you have a nice New Years?" he asked.

Oh yes. New Years is always special for me, because it is my birthday.

"Oh really? Oh man! My birthday is in January too. You must have been just like me, behind everyone else in your class in high school. Last to get your driver's license and everything."

Umm...Not really.

"No? I was always the last one. You weren't? How can that be?"

Why does this happen to me? I should lie. I should just lie and say, "Oh yeah, always behinds the thousands of other kids who were a normal age in my big fat normal high school."

I do not lie well. Note to self: practice lying so I have an out in these situations.
Too late now. That will be another day. I was homeschooled. No other kids in my high school class but me.

"Oh wow. That is so amazing." And out it came. Mr. Salesguy was homeschooling his little precious daughter. He had to tell me all about it. Suddenly, I was dishing out advice on proper education and socialization strategies for this earnest and unsure young parent.

Home schooling means you are in constant need of assurance and support. I thought I was done with that. Lord knows I do not wish to support homeschooling.

You see, the summer I was 13, my parents told me that I was going to have the unique and special blessing of being educated at home.

I wish I had heard of a hunger strike, I would have started one right then if I'd known. But there were no appeals.

My parents had always been interested in alternative education. Their 60s anti-establishment credo meant they were into all kinds of alternative things. I am the last child of four; by the time I remember anything, they had settled into the alternative lifestyle of working in a born-again church in Alaska.

They started church schools—more than one. But apparently, that was not cutting edge anymore. Homeschool was the hot education trend, and my parents wanted a piece of it.

They told me it would be hypocritical for them to lead a homeschool group and not homeschool their school age children. And as the youngest, I had four or five good years left to be an example.

I didn't see it that way at all. But my pubescent persuasive powers were not up to the debate, even though I used them at every opportunity to get out of this solitary confinement. Actuallly, it was worse than solitary confinement. I would be stuck with my dorky older brother.

But the homeschooling parents in the church and the outside community flocked to my parents. They were like pigeons coming the sweet old lady on the park bench. Mom and Dad were swarmed with people who wanted a real teacher—and my parents had been teachers all their lives—to tell them they were doing okay.

There were a lot of people in Alaska choosing to keep their kids at home. The majority had young children, kids just learning to read, first- or maybe second-graders. Mostly there were a few kids in each family, so the mom had to teach several grades at once. And it was always the mom who taught.

But dads were not unaffected by this lifestyle choice. While dad is away at work, the kids and the mom work each other into a frenzy of exasperation fueled by a combination of boredom and the Chinese water torture of unrelenting family togetherness.

No family member went unpunished.

But a collective was being formed! A resource for homeschool families, in the form of support meetings, standardized testing and monthly outings for the kids. Mom and Dad were the fount of wisdom, the experienced ones who could answer questions and generously dole out reassurances and affirmations.

Parents who choose to homeschool quickly realize that teaching your kid one-on-one at home takes a lot less time than the 6- or 7-hour day of the traditional classroom. This gives many of them yet another reason to be scornful of schools. “Why should my child waste 3 or four hours a day just because the other kids in the class aren’t as smart? They don’t need to deal with that!”

What do the schools do with that extra time? Three hours more a day than is really required for the individual children to grasp the necessary subjects.

I will tell you what they teach: how to deal with other people. That’s fifteen hours a week that mainstream kids are spending learning to interact with other kids and the teachers. And fifteen hours a week that homeschooled children are not learning to interact.

It’s no shock to figure out, Homeschool kids are odd. If you’ve ever been around one, you know what I mean. I speak from the inside, as one of the weird ones. It took me a long time to figure stuff out that other kids just seemed to know.

My parents had begun their collective, and the first support group meeting was set. We’d been pressed into service to clean the house. Little snacks and drinks were put out, and we made room for the snacks that others would bring. I couldn’t imagine a more boring evening than sitting around with a bunch of adults talking about educational strategies. I figured I would hide out in my room with a book until it as time for the snacks.

DINGDONG. The Smiths had arrived. Oh, and they brought their two precious daughters. Welcome, come it!

DINGDONG. Oh, it’s the Franklins! And little Franklin jr., come in!

DINGDONG. Oh it’s the Jordans and their children.

DINGDONG. The Mergendorfs and their brood.

DINGDONG. DINGDONG. DINGDONG.

A growing assembly of little kids was pooling.

The adults were greeting one another graciously and congratulated one another on this first support group meeting.

“Oh, I’m so glad we are doing this! We’ve really needed it!” Their children, the darlings of their hearts and focus of their lives, were deposited at the door and forgotten.

They immediately began to swarm to me, an incredibly unwilling Pied Piper. I was the Big Kid, standing out like a pillar in a sea of weird little kids.

“Let’s play! Where are your toys?“

I knew these kids, and I wouldn’t trust any of them near my toys. Besides, I was 13 and I didn’t play with toys anymore.

I needed out of there. “Mom!”

I jolted her out of her deep discussion with the other homeschool ladies. “What? Oh, honey, go watch the kids for a while. The adults really need to talk with one another.”

There was no escape. Without parental backup, I would not be able to fend off these kids. The book that beckoned from my room was far out of reach. No way was I taking even one of these kids into my room, let alone a horde of them.

I led them down to the den. They were easy enough to lead. If the parents were starved for conversation, the kids were even more so. They didn’t get to see one another very often; they began chattering the moment they saw each other. I just grabbed one and led him down the stairs. The rest followed like a dish of paperclips strung together.

My brother was there already. There wasn’t much down there. A table made of railroad ties that we used for school, the bottom half of a bunk bed, and two freezers that held all the salmon and moose meat we could get.

There was a lot of room to roam free. The door was heavy, and once you closed it, you couldn’t really hear what was going on from the outside. The parents asked us to close it right away.

Sealed in a room with more children than I could count. All of the kids, used to the undivided attention of their mom, clamored for the undivided attention of every other person in the room. The pent-up conversation spilled out in a cacophony of sound. And every kid began to exert him or herself to impress everyone else.

Social status was at stake. They only had this one chance. Who knew how long it would be before they saw their friends again/ They had to leave them wanting more.

I found the box of old toys my mom kept around for these occasions. The little monsters dove in. Immediately, matchbox cars were running races on the floor. Architectural structures were raised and exploded. The girls gave stuffed animals names and acted out their fantastic lives, dressing them accordingly.

The kids were on the table, under the table, on the bed and looking in the freezer. “Hey what do you have in your freezer” Anything good?“

“Stay out of there!”

“I’m just looking!”

Some of the kids were more creative than others. The outgoing ones instructed the rest on how the project would be done. How the road would be built, the tower raised, which story to play.

But other outgoing kids had to get the attention back on them. An older kid, 10 years old, decided the hollow steel tube of the bottom bunk bed post was a pedestal.

"Look at me!" he said. He balanced one foot on the bedpost doing an unintentional imitation of the Greek god Mercury, his arms windmilling.

"Otis! Get off of there!" I yelled.

"Why?" he said.

Homeschool kids always ask why. The classroom doesn’t stifle their natural curiosity and it's need for restrictive rules of order.

Otis was especially unstifled. He was one of those that didn't fit in with regular schools. Translation: he couldn't read. He needed extra one-on-one attention.
His mother was always perfectly dressed. I knew very few women like her; her blond hair was always styled and she was accessorized.

Otis wasn't dumb by any stretch; I suspect that he didn't bother learning to read because he was more interested in everything else that was going on. They lived near the woods, like all of us did. He really liked the outdoors.

The first time I realized that Otis was different was when I heard that he ran a trapline. He had worked out a deal with his mom: she bought him the steel jaw animal traps, and he would try to catch enough mink to make a fur coat. He was about a third of the way there when I met him.

My brother Chris got to be friends with Otis. Chris was 15 and Otis was 10, but social beggars can't be choosers. It's a picked-over selection when you are in home school. I was 16 when our home school program put on a Christmas play. I easily got the coveted role of Mary, with all the great singing parts. Of course, I had to pay the price and be escorted in my great-with-child costume by a 5 year-old Joseph. He wore glasses.

But Otis and Chris had some similar interests. Among other things, they liked killing wild animals. Chris had wanted a gun for a long time, but our family wasn’t hunters. Many other families made a big deal about giving a son his first gun. It didn't occur to our parents to do such a thing. Chris had to save his own money and buy a BB gun.

I remember he proudly showed this gun to Otis. Otis was happy to show off his gun collection too. He had a whole array of shotguns and rifles. In fact, he was so nice, he gave my brother a present: A beautiful maple-stock shotgun with the barrel sawed off.

Chris took it home and showed it to me. He was thrilled! It was a beautiful weapon. We looked at it in detail, playing with all the moving parts. All he needed now was ammunition.

He checked out the prices on the shells he needed, but quickly realized that he couldn't afford the quantity he wanted. But he’d heard of a way around the expense: a friend of ours knew how to make his own shells. This man would take shot and gunpowder and other ingredients and presto-chango; there was a shotgun shell ready to shoot!

Chris asked mom if she could ask Paul to teach him this valuable skill. Mom thought this was a great idea, because she also thought Paul might Chris how to use a gun properly. She certainly had no idea how to go about it. Paul was happy to help out.

Chris came back from his ammunition-building lesson a changed man. He had tasted the knowledge of good and evil. In full pride and innocence, he brought his beautiful shotgun to show to Paul.

"That weapon is incredibly, incredibly illegal," Paul told him. "Take it and throw it in the bottom of the lake. Today."

It was a hard truth. "Why is it illegal?" I asked Chris. "Can't you go explain the situation to the police and get some kind of permission?"

Paul must not have mentioned the situation to Mom, because Chris held on to the gun for a few days. Call it a mourning period. I thought he might just keep it anyway, it seemed like he could get away with it. But in the end he did toss the pretty gun in the lake.

Paul was a kind-hearted man, and he gave Chris one of his own legal shotguns after the other one was disposed of. Chris was happy to have it, because he needed it to kill rabbits.

Rabbits.

One of his home school hobbies was breeding, raising, and eating rabbits. I'd started the whole thing, when my friend gave me one of her pet bunny's offspring. My brother got all fascinated, and had to get his own rabbit.
He didn't want a mutt rabbit though. He researched it well and settled on a pedigreed meat-production rabbit breed called the California rabbit. It was a cute breed, all white but with black feet, ears, and spots of black on the nose and eyes.

He began to really be a farmer about it. He had to look at the rabbits and figure out how to breed them to get the qualities he wanted. Rabbits are notoriously cooperative about breeding. He soon had quite a few bunnies.

At this level, the pennies were very important. With so many mouths to feed and all.

So he turned his scientific mind towards feeding the rabbits in the cheapest way possible. He found out the nutritional values of different feeds and got it down to a few cents a pound for feed.

But the rabbit hobby gave Chris yet another opportunity to tan a hide. This time he did not use Sourdough starter, He got some directions, I think from the library, on how to tan rabbit hides.

Apparently, the process involved battery acid. This was delightful! Aside from the wonderfulness of getting to play with battery acid, Chris realized that we had a ready supply of the stuff in our front drive yard!

My father’s habit of never spending more than a thousand dollars for a family car had left our driveway with a few automobile corpses. Battery acid comes from car batteries, so Chris told Mom that he wanted to take one of the batteries out of the old cars and use that for his tanning process.

Mom was quite unreasonable about the whole thing. She absolutely forbid it.
So Chris had to buy new battery acid. He kept it by the side door, the one the family always used. He showed it to me, and warned me. “Be careful,” he said. “This can burn the skin right off you.”

“Really?“ I was impressed. “What do you need it for, then?“

“You have to have it to tan hides.”

I could see the sourdough tanning method had been abandoned. I never thought it would work anyway, so I didn’t bring it up.

He did manage to tan one hide, and brought it in to the fur trader in Anchorage.
“If you don’t know furs, know your furrier. David Green’s—you’ve got a friend in the fur business.” We grew up with these commercials, and Chris went in to sell his fur to David Green’s. He was disappointed to learn that he would only get a dollar for the rabbit hide, tanned or not.

Tanning took a lot of work! And it was fur! Wasn’t it worth more than a dollar? But our friend in the fur business said no—one rabbit hide, one dollar.

So, the battery acid was abandoned in its ominous container by the door. Chris got the same price for dried hides. No more tanning.

But drying the hide was not effortless. A new process had to be created.

Our big house had been made with four split-level floors. The top floor was meant to be the master bedroom, with it’s own bathroom and in-room Jacuzzi tub.

Before we moved in, Mom was so excited about the Jacuzzi. But the third time she used it and discovered that the water jets leaked. Visions of dry rot and decay floated through my parent’s minds, and the Jacuzzi was decommissioned.

Around about the same time, my folks discovered that the master bedroom had no sound inhibiting barrier between it and the floor directly below. That floor had the living room, kitchen and dining room. Given that they enjoyed their marital privacy, they moved to a smaller but more private bedroom. The top floor became our classroom.

A classroom with a big white Jacuzzi tub against the wall. What can you do with a Jacuzzi that no longer jacuzzes? My brother knew. Drying the rabbit hides required soaking in a saline process for a few days.

Fill the Jacuzzi with salt water and soak rabbit hides. A formerly useless item revitalized! Wouldn’t Martha Stewart be proud?

As he discovered, a dollar made a good dent in the feeding costs of his rabbit horde. He diligently processed and sold his hides.

It occurred to him that other rabbit by-products could be profit centers as well. As a matter of fact, underneath the cages he was accumulating a large pile of rabbit by-product.

“This is valuable fertilizer!” he would tell us.

No one disputed that, but no one wanted to pay for it. But Chris was carried away in his own sales pitch. He was convinced that rabbit droppings were a marvelous fertilizer, and set out to prove it by growing things.

He converted a patch of our untamed backyard into tilled land. We had a mightily productive garden, full of the kind of winter crops that grow in Alaska”s summer. Carrots, potatoes, and brussel sprouts so exuberant they were inedible, occupied a decent-sized patch of the otherwise feral vegetation.

But our front yard was untouched. That is, until the government put in the gas line. They had the easement of our front yard, and chopped down a swath of the graceful slow-growing birch trees that had been there for years. My father walked the ground sadly observing the hewn trunks.

My brother saw opportunity.

Remember that one Star Trek Episode with the Fuzzy Tribbles? The little puffballs that eat everything and reproduce like mad? A true Trekkie might also remember that the grain shipment these Tribbles were feeding on was called Quadro Triticale. Quadro Triticale is a fictional kind of grain.

But my dorky Trekkie brother discovered that Triticale was indeed a real kind of grain, and he thought it would grow very well in the newly cleared patch of land in front of our house.

He worked hard; I’ll give him that. He finished clearing the dirt, and tilled it up with a hoe. He found some Triticale seed, and planted it up there. He really hoped it would work, and the rest of us were curious to see what it would look like.

Picture this: a big cedar front home, set back from the road by about 40 feet of virgin birch forest. At the edge of this forest, a little two-foot deep border of goldening grain gently waved in the breeze.

This is the sight the greeted my oldest brother’s girlfriend as he drove her down from the big city Anchorage to meet his folks. Remember? There were four kids in this family, and two of them escaped the homeschool blessing. I think Chris was about to graduate. Bryan, the oldest was in his mid-twenties by then, and terribly pleased with Karen.

As they drove into our driveway, Karen leaned over and asked Bryan, “Is that wheat growing around the front yard?“

He escorted her up to front door. Chris answered the doorbell brandishing a bloody butcher knife. He had on a rubber apron with blood all over it too; he’d been butchering his rabbits.

Mom rushed up the stairs, “Oh Karen, it’s so nice to meet you. Chris,” she said offhandedly, “Go put those rabbits away and get cleaned up.”

Karen barely had much of a chance to say pleased to meet you before the rest of the clan gathered to say hello and give her the tour of the house.

“Well, let’s start at the top,” Mom said, and we trooped up the stairs. “This used to be the master bedroom, but we converted it to a classroom.”

“Oh, Look!” Karen said, “A Jacuz…“ She stopped short as she leaned over and saw the hairy and slightly bloody hides floating inside. “Um…What are those?“

“Oh,” mom laughed her hostess laugh. “Those are just Chris’s rabbit hides. Let go downstairs now.”

You know, which came first? The weird homeschooled kids, or the weird parents who would choose to homeschool kids? I will say this; none of us had any idea of the strange impression we made on outsiders.

Karen did end up becoming my sister-in-law, and she told me her version of this first meeting later. It was very different than how I remembered it.

It’s a long climb from the woods to the desk job. But Mr. Salesguy and his little precious daughter shot me right back to the woods. All I can say is, think very seriously about it sir. You may not like the system that is already in place, but you don’t know the consequences of the system you’re about to try.

Posted by Murphy Horner at 11:12 PM | Permalink | Comments (1)

I want to tell you about something that happened to me. I have never told this to anyone before, because it was so strange and I didn’t think anyone would believe me. Also, it was just so special and close to my heart that I wasn’t sure I wanted to share it with anyone.

But I think it’s time.

I love farmer’s markets. I love to go and see all the interesting things for sale; all the different kinds of fruits and vegetables, ones you never get to see anywhere else. I like to try and talk to the people and ask them about their produce.

Several years ago, on the first of June when the world is busy growing things, I saw the most interesting stall at the market. They were selling plants, some of them with flowers and some different types of herbs. I went through them, touching and smelling all the beautiful plants. I’d picked out two kitchen herbs, and then I caught the scent of a new plant. I followed the smell to the plant itself, which was beautiful and lush. I didn’t know what it was for, but the smell was so nice I had to buy it.

The woman selling the plants spoke a language I didn’t understand. I wanted to ask her about the plant, but she didn’t have the words to tell me. In fact, she didn’t want to talk about it. She saw I had the other plants, and through gestures gave me to understand a price for those. But the luscious scented plant was not up for discussion. I couldn’t let it go, and pressed her. Following her as she walked away, I kept on it. She whirled, locked her gaze on mine for a moment.

I felt like staggering back, but I held my ground and kept my eyes right back on her. At last she handed me the plant, indicating no charge.

Ecstatic, I rushed them all home before she could change her mind. I set my plants up outside on my sunny balcony, near the swinging seat so I could enjoy them.

Just as I had settled them into place, my doorbell rang. This guy I’d just met, and was hoping to get to know a lot better, had stopped by to say hello. Of course, I had to show him my new plant.

To my surprise, when we went out to look at my mysterious plant a flower had blossomed. Was it there all along? How had I not noticed it before?

I asked him if he knew anything about plants, and if he’d every seen anything like this before. He bent over to smell the purplypink flower, and he got the strangest look on his face.

I had to smell it too. We both stopped and breathed it in. The feeling that perfume gave me spread through my whole body.

The scent followed us back into the living room, playing with our senses. He turned to me, as if to say something, but when our eyes met the temperature rose.

We walked straight into one another, losing everything but our senses. Breath and skin and warmth and smell and touch became the whole universe. The breeze of his panting breath on my prickling skin and his hair through my fingers and the heat of his skin on mine, my hair rubbing his skin. All the ways our bodies could feel inside and against each other twining and sliding. The world collapsed on the five compass points of our senses then exploded in all directions. There was no stopping. Again and again like nothing I’d even thought of attempting. He was the most interesting object in the world, except for the fascinating thing my body had become.

I didn’t care what he thought. I didn’t care what I thought. He didn’t object but even if he had I could not concern myself with it. I had to have his body for mine.

When dawn came, we at last collapsed satisfied. He left to clean up and let himself out. I didn’t even notice when he left. I was filled utterly and completely by contentment. External things had nothing to do with me. The sun shafting across my bed and over my skin was perfection. I rested, and time slipped away from me.

Maybe I slept a whole day; I couldn’t say for sure. When I got out of bed I tried to put on some jeans but they were uncomfortably tight. I got something stretchy and went to water my garden.

My beautiful flower had dropped off already, but before I could despair I saw a small fruit forming where the flower had been. A purplypink fruit barely begun. It touched my heart, the perfect little fruit.

The sun felt so good, I went to get some honey tea and sat outside. I snoozed on my swing and inhaled the smells of my little garden.

I’ll be honest it felt so good I ignored things I might have otherwise taken very seriously. My new waistline, for example. My jeans, which had been loose before, were nowhere near fitting by the end of the week. Even my sweats had to be pulled down to practically pubic level after the second week. I was quite obviously pregnant, and in some fast-forward kind of way.

Once in a while, searching to find something even looser to fit around my changing body I would consider the consequences in a detached sort of way. Perhaps I ought to do something.

But the way I felt, nothing could be wrong. I lazed in the sun, which had become intoxicating. My hair shone and seemed to grow inches a day. My skin took on a healthy glow that none of the ridiculous products under the bathroom sink had ever achieved. Despite the mushrooming my abdomen was undergoing, the skin was smooth and beautiful, not a single stretch mark to be seen.

I was happy and pleased with everything. I loved my body, and in the thought-free hours, days I spent in my little garden I would stroke myself- my legs, my arms, my breasts and my belly, glorying in the rightness of every part.

I loved that my belly could grow so perfectly huge like a watermelon. I loved the twiney vines of my hair. I loved the ideal function and beautiful art of the skin and flesh that was me. Nothing was needed; everything was exactly as it should be.

I would rub my hands in circles over my belly and sing strange little songs. There was no time but the moment. The sun ruled over the day, and moon ruled over the darkness when I slept.

Of course, the fruit on my plant was growing too. I watched in complete satisfaction as the purplypink fruit grew as I swelled. I had become tight and round and warm in the sun.

It was the 21st of June, the summer solstice when I came outside as I’d been doing for the last three weeks and saw the fruit growing ripe on the plant. I touched it and it fell into my palm. I raised it up to smell it, and surprised myself by taking a bite.

It was indescribably delicious, irresistible to the last scrap, and I licked the juice off my fingers in bliss.

But the moment I had licked the very last lick, a force like a lightning bolt shot through my body. I was splitting in two! With a scream I fell to floor, trying to curl up into a ball. I rocked and moaned, then crawled crying into a corner, trying to move out of my own body. I braced myself in the corner, convulsing and howling from the agony.

There in the dark, I delivered to the world a creature like nothing I had ever seen. On the ground between my legs this tiny perfect beautiful purplypink child had arrived. As the pain subsided my mind cleared, and I stared in amazement. She was so beautiful. I can’t tell you how I knew she was female, but she was. I was afraid that she might be dead, so I reached out and lifted her. As I did so, the cord dropped away.

She was sticky and wrinkled and her eyes were crinkled shut. But when I lay forward into the daylight, her eyes blinked open and she looked straight into my face. Her beautiful green eyes knew me, knew more about me than I did.

In the sunlight, her skin soaked up the stickiness and glowed. I stroked her soft hair and body and told her how beautiful she was, how glad I was she had arrived. That the world was full of sunlight and fresh air. As I told her, she smiled. Her eyes told me that she already knew.

I cried tears of joy for her, and we went to the swing. She was wiser and already growing strong in the few moments she had been in the sun. I fell asleep holding her.

You will probably not be surprised when I tell you I woke up to find her gone. The sun had strengthened her and she didn’t need me. My mysterious plant had also dried up. It was a brown fallen stalk.

I don’t know where my lovely girl-creature is. But I think of her when the sun goes down and especially every solstice. I breathe a prayer for her—or maybe to her.

She did leave me something. Some purplypink seeds were in my hand when I woke up. I haven’t planted them yet. I think I’ll know when it’s time.

Posted by Murphy Horner at 06:02 AM | Permalink | Comments (3)

It is warm, and the breeze blows fresh sunshine-smells over my face. I dance across the campus pathway, my first college spring at home in Northest America. I hum a spontaneous melody, so full of newness and joy:
Do you ever feel like singing
Right out loud to the sky above?
Is it the same spring? I am feeling that joy in spring.

It is spring, and the seeds of the past are coming back. Those wishes, fears and hopes that fall from me in actions, thoughts, and sacrifices do not cease to be with my forgetting. With seasons come change. I change every year and every day.

The detritus of a squished population surrounds me. There are scraps of clothing, boards and machinery. Buildings need a coat of paint; the melting snow runs tracks through the grime of the old and peeling surface. Water pools in ruts on the ground, forming long ponds across the passageways. No municipal services are left in Yakutia after the death of communism. Pedestrians, and we are all pedestrians, lay long, thin boards over the seasonal moats. We become brave balancing acrobats to get to school and work. It is up to us to find a way through. Look, what is that flattened thing? The freeze-dried carcass of a cat, fatal participant in the sub-arctic changes of season.
Is it that spring? The warning to build my own path is the same.

But the seasons remain the same. I sing the song I began at the beginning. Its refrain returns in the spring of my step and drops with my footfalls. Beginning and end, life and death—spring brings to life and feeds on death.

In a beautiful mansion donated by a man passed on, different people take turns to stand on their feet and read. Such a collection of interesting noses! They read in their own languages of an empty tomb. It is past midnight, the first time I have heard this kind of service. Christos voskres! Christos Anesti! El Messieh kahm! Christ is risen! He has conquered death by death! Joyful faces tell of a stone rolled away and new life brought from dying. The priest, the leader of the church welcomes me to the pre-dawn table. We eat, and he tells me of his faith, drinking wine. I have never seen a pastor drunk before.
Is it the spring once more? The story is the same.

The melted snow water is being soaked into the wakened tree-roots that make up the Alaskan forest of my memory. Barren branches have waited all winter for the sun-sweet nectar to reach them. Hard buds swell and surge into sticky chartreuse baby-wrinkled leaves. They grow a shocking green, almost painful to the eye when the slanted Northern sun shines right through them. After months of landscape in black and white, eyes must grow accustomed. If I forget to look for just one day, I would think it was an explosion. I do not forget to look. I know it happens quickly, but it is still a progression.
Is it spring again? I feel the expectation.

My will-volition swells with the season. I strain against the hull of old boundaries. Tight-packed growth against well-known walls. I am quivering for my freedom.

Quivering with fear. New life means new death. Chances and risks taken are the straightest path to disappointment. Is not my life now entwined, rooted and fed in the sweat, sorrow and tears of all that came before?

Put another ring around this tree. Either die now or die later. It is spring again, every spring that ever was or will be. I am here to take my place in the season. I am the Resurrection and the Life.

Posted by Murphy Horner at 12:18 PM | Permalink

I got to looking at all the other blogger types on the web.
My GOD! some of these people are so accomplished. I feel very intimidated. And insignificant.

Whenever I feel that way, I write.

I AM SMALL

I am small
No one needs to notice me at all
I want to use my talents too
But then I see all the others who
Have more to offer than I do
I am small

I am small
My poem belongs on a bathroom wall
I would at least have people read
The flowering of my creative seed
Even if they did it while they peed
I am small

I am small
I should not try to stand up tall
So many others have come before
Creative artists crowd the floor
I'm not even near the door
I am small

I am small
It isn't even far to fall
I should just thank god that I'm employed
I don't have the right to be annoyed
That my job is a soulless void
I am small

I am small
My words an insignificant scrawl
It's not that I am not the best
I hate to think it is a contest
I'll do my small small bit with zest.
Thank you; that is all.

Posted by Murphy Horner at 12:44 PM | Permalink | Comments (1)

When my mother was pregnant with me, she prayed for a baby girl with curly hair that would sit on her daddy's knee.

She says that when I was barely born, I had perfect little ripples of silky down on my head.

Thanks, Mom. That was the first and last time my hair was perfect.

It was easy for her to want curly hair for me. She never had curly hair. Her attempts to manage her own dark straight hair consisted of keeping it cut short and stabbing at it with a curling iron every once in a while.

Her first three children were boys. They didn't want hair-do's. I, however, was a problem she had no answer for. She tried to brush my matted mop in the morning before she sent me to pre-school. As a mother of four, she was always running late, and had to rip the comb through the impossible knots. I would cry because it hurt. Mom cried too.

If only it ended there. I would see all the other girls in their cute little hair-do's. Barettes and bows and pig-tails. Pigtails really were the thing in kindergarten. "Mommy, why can't I have pigtails like all the other girls?"

My mother did not state the obvious, which was: "You need to have hair that obeys the laws of gravity for pigtails. Your hair hovers around your head like a dust cloud." No, mom was going to help her baby girl if she could. She bought me powder blue puffy yarn ties, you know the kind, and took a comb and determination to my head.

The hard-won results were a part dividing the left and right hemispheres of my head and two buoyant spheres anchored by blue yarn bows. When I looked in the mirror, I was astonished at their size and fluffiness. But, like a good hairdresser, mom sold me on the idea that it was supposed to look like that. "You have two puffballs! You look so cute!" She was truly enthusiastic, and complimented and cooed over me. I finally believed her.

But then I had to face my brothers.

When they saw me leave the bathroom-turned-beauty-salon, they stopped dead in their tracks. "What did you do to your hair?"

I raised my chin. "I have pigtails, " I said with imperious 5-year-old pride.

It was a decisive moment. My brother Mark said, "I bet your shadow would look just like Mickey Mouse."

That was a happy prospect. We all went to find a lamp to check. It was true!

Fortified with my family's approval and my mother's delight, I could shrug off the taunts at school.

Children are so tough when they're young. A few years later, my mother's delight was not enough protection.

My hair came from my father's side. He had three sisters, all of them with varying levels of curliness. It was known as The Hair. I had The Hair full-strength. My cousin Claudia had a lighter case. Jane had stick-straight hair. But it was red. We envied her.

When she grew up, she got a perm.

My teenage dream was to grow my hair long. Long and flowing. Flowing, yes. Kinking, no. I envisioned beautiful cascading hair falling down my shoulders and back.

You know that awkward growing-your-hair-out stage? That was my entire childhood and teen years.

The hairdressers were sabotaging my efforts. They kept cutting my hair short, instead of letting it grow long as I asked them to. "Just a trim! I'm trying to grow it out."
“Your hair is damaged, “ they would carp. Yes, by YOUR scisors, bitch!

I remember in jr. high, girls would come up to me and ask, "Did you want your hair to look like that? I mean, do you like your hair?" When I hotly answered yes, they would say "oh..." and slide away.

I had gotten used to the "Stuck your finger in a light socket?" joke. But when I was in high school, absolutely everyone started to give me hair advice. I mean everyone. My mother's friends. My friend's mothers. The librarian. Strangers in the grocery store. People visiting from out of town for the day. They all shared one thing in common: naturally straight hair.

Perhaps I shared my dream for long hair with a little too much pathetic fervor. It was like I was some kind of leukemia child. People could look at my split-ended, heat-fried frizzy head and their hearts cried for pity. "Someone grant her her wish!" was their benevolent impulse.

I can't deny it. I was doing terrible, terrible misdeeds to my hair. With a combination of ignorance and desperation, I attacked my mane with curling irons and the most powerful beauty product I knew: Hairspray.

The tragedy was, neither seemed to have any effect whatsoever. And they were all I had.

The only thing I could do was do it more! Leave that curling iron in longer! Use even more hairspray! MORE HAIRSPRAY!

It wasn't working. I tried to listen to the avalanche of advice that came my way, but it was contradictory. "Cut your hair more often!" "Don't cut it for at least 6 months!" "Leave your hair natural!" "Fix your hair everyday to 'train' it to keep the style!"

It was a heavy burden, my hair. I finally collapsed under the weight.

No more. I gave up. I forget when. Maybe it was my first year of college. I just couldn’t keep up with it. I stopped curling it; it didn’t work anyway. The ozone layer gave a convincing plea, I abandoned the hairspray. I let my hair go free, knowing it looked bad. I was helpless against my fate.

When a few months had passed, I realized that my hair was actually getting some length. Astonishing! It could even be called “medium-length.” I was halfway to heaven!

But true enlightenment was still waiting for me.

I was at a folkdance class, when a girl came up to me and said, “I worship your hair.”

What?! I could barely respond. This girl was younger than me. She was not a pathetic loser. Her hair was golden blonde, thick, and in a ponytail. How could she admire my hair?

The mystery haunted me for days. Could she really mean that she admired my hair? All my previous experience rejected this Acham’s Razor explanation.

Could she really be sincere?

Her simple statement led me on a journey of exploration. In the new world opened to me, I discovered that there were more hair products than hairspray. Curls, under the right circumstances and care, could be shiny and bouncy.

Maybe Frieda, from Charlie Brown’s Peanuts had it right.

I always hated Frieda. Who was she kidding? The world is full of people who want to persecute the curly among us.

The women's version of Dress for Success says that you should contain your hair, that curly hair makes you look out of control. Who could deny it? Curls have a will of their own

I've always felt like my hair was an intelligent evil being that inhabited my head. Wherever I go, it sheds off curly spores. I am sure that it hopes to take over the world somehow.

Perhaps businesses have figured this out. That's the real reason they want compliant, contained hair.

They fear what they do not understand.

I read a book once, about a man in love with a curly-headed woman, Of Such Small Differences by Joanne Greenberg. He said that her hair sprung up out of her, like it was excited to be near her. He could understand that even her hair would be electrified by the amazing woman he was in love with.

Okay. Yeah. I'll be that.

Sexy.

Out of control.

Unmanageable.

Threatening.

Exciting.

Unpredictable.

This is us. We are the ones with The Hair. There is no use fighting it.

Continue reading "Curly Top" »

Posted by Murphy Horner at 05:48 PM | Permalink | Comments (7)

THE STORY STARTS HERE

It happened like this.

Tires are an important part of life in Alaska. With all the snow, ice, gravel, and combinations of the three, traction can be a problem. In the summer, you have to worry about driving on loose gravel roads. In the winter you need to be able to drive on snow and ice.

Here in California, I’ve seen tires advertised as “winter tires.” Okay, whatever. That might help on wet concrete, but icy wet concrete takes something a little stronger. In Alaska, we pay technicians to stud our tires. That means taking hot metal plugs and melting them into the rubber of the tire. The process leaves your tires with a double ring of little metal rods poking out. These studs really grab into the ice snow and keep you straight on the road.

In the summer, those metal studs will tear up the bare pavement. In fact, it’s illegal to drive with studded tires after the snow is gone. You can get a ticket.

Most people solve this problem by having two sets of tires. Houses all around my neighborhood had sets of four tires propped up against the side.

My family, however, did not indulge in this luxury. Most years, we did not indulge in the luxury of studs in the tires. Our parents would drive on mostly bald tires. When we lost control on the roads, us kids would rate the degrees of the turn. “That was a good 180,”we’d yell out. “OOOH! A whole 360 degree turn!” 90 degree fishtails were a disappointment--they got us excited initially, but then didn’t follow through with their potential

The winter I was 15 we did have studded tires. I don’t remember why; perhaps there was a sale. Driving that winter was less exciting. My mom really enjoyed them.

But summer follows winter, and we found ourselves in the position of having illegally studded tires. If we could barely afford to have the tires studded in fall, we definitely could not afford to buy an entire new set in spring. Neither could we afford to pay a ticket for driving studded tires in summer.

“Can we have them taken out?” Mom wondered.

“I guess we can ask.” Dad was doubtful.

My brother Mark had a solution: “We can take them out ourselves!”

No one was sure if that was possible, so we had to go check. Mark armed himself with pliers and got halfway under the trunk to get at the tire. Digging deep into the rubber, he got a grip on the metal rod. Pulling and worrying it back and forth, he ripped out the stud and its coin-shaped base.

He flourished it. “I did it! See?”

Well, what do you know? It could be done.

But now Mark had signed himself up to rip the rest of them out. Chris got another pair of pliers and helped him. They jacked up the car, and took the tires off one at a time. It took bracing and pulling room to do this effectively. They were in hurry, so they didn’t really tighten the lug nuts between changes.

I watched from the front steps. On the hard packed dirt of our driveway, my brothers were performing some kind of dental exercise on rubber wheels. The jacked-up car looked mysterious and interesting.

“Why do you have firewood in front of the wheels on the car?” I asked Mark.

“That’s a block.”

“Oh,” I said without comprehension. He was making huge grimaces as he pulled the pliers back and forth to get the stud. “You guys are nuts,” I said. “It’s gonna take forever to get all those out.”

“No it’s not! Look, I have another one already.” He held up the pliers to show me the plug.

He couldn’t stand the fact that I didn’t have faith in his genius method of de-studding the car. Mark insisted that I pull one out myself. It took some doing. He advised me on technique, and as I pulled back and forth on the metal I could see the hole it left in the rubber. The metal seemed to go deep into the tire.

“Will this make the tire pop?” I asked.

“Huh!” Mark said with surprise. He hadn’t thought of that.

We didn’t know if the tires would pop with the studs removed, but we did not that we would get a ticket with them on. They had to go.

I was just happy that I didn’t have to take them out. I took refuge in being the only daughter. This was a male thing, just like chopping the firewood in winter. I got out of that chore too.

I left them to it, and wandered off to read something.

Mom was really relieved when they were done. Now she didn’t have to worry about being stopped by a state trooper. As soon as they were done, she wanted to go out and run some errands. I wasn’t busy so I came along.

It was a nice sunny day in late June. Mom was singing and tapping the steering wheel. I stared out the window at the leafy trees. Then we heard a weird sound.

What’s that? We listened carefully for a while longer. It seemed like a rattley buzz. It was kind of loud.

“I’d better stop and check this out,” Mom said. She opened the hood. Everything seemed normal. She looked at the tires. They seemed fully inflated. We didn’t know what else to do so we got back in the car and kept going.

The sound was still there, but we didn’t know what to do about it. We continued to muse to each other what it might be, and comment about its tone and musicality. But as we rounded the corner to the store, everything happened.

We were thrown forward as the car skidded to a halt. I heard a huge screeching noise and the car lurch downward on my side. Mom instantly started shouting prayers in tongues. Bracing myself against the dashboard I thought, Why is Mom stopping so fast? Out of the corner of my eye, I saw something bouncing away to my right.

It seemed like a long time before the car came to a complete stop. Mom was making little shrieky noises in between deep panicky breaths. I was staring straight at her, looking for some explanation.

“Oh! OH! Oh my goodness! Are you okay?” she grabbed my arm.

“I’m fine, Mom. What happened?”

As soon as she could gather herself together we got out of the car. Of course, as soon as I got out of the car, I noticed the right front tire was gone.

“Mom! Look at this!”

She came around and looked. “Where’s the tire?” she said, looking around like it had disintegrated.

I suddenly remembered that bouncing object I had seen before. Oh, that must have been the tire leaving the car. I ran off to get it and rolled it back.

I set it next to the car. It was a sight to see. The hood was angled down towards the pavement, and the shiny circle of the brake pad was shaved flat on the bottom.

“Oh no,” Mom said. “This is gonna be expensive.”

“It’s totally flat on the bottom.” I said.

Mom sighed. “This is gonna be really expensive.”

Fortunately, we were on a main road and there was a service station nearby. We walked over there and asked them to come tow our car in and see what needed to be fixed. While they were getting the car, Mom made some calls home to Dad.

Those mechanics were real Alaska gems. They were really nice. I hadn’t been in a service station like that before. Anytime we needed someone to work on our incredibly used cars, we called a friend to help us out. So I was looking at all the places where black grease collects in a service station.

“Hey, this ain’t so bad,” the guys told mom. “You can drive on this. No problem.”

Mom’s relief was visible. Apparently, if we had skidded the brake pad down any further it would have been dangerous, but as it was we were dandy. They sold us some lug nuts, but threw in the tow job for free.

Mom thanked them again and again, and we finally got back to our errands.

Posted by Murphy Horner at 10:10 PM | Permalink

I was born and raised in Alaska, but when I was seven, my family moved down to Humboldt County, California. We were only there four years, and then circumstances brought us back to Alaska.

We didn't have anything. We didn't have much in California, and even that little had to be pared down to fit in the carfor the trip. I think we each were allowed one box for our things. We had left the rest of our things behind, to be shipped up later when we had enough money for it. Dad had gone there ahead of us, to prepare the way.

The dear friends we had left behind, those wonderful church people, helped him out. He found a temporary job working as a shoe salesman. When the rest of the family made it up the Alaska-Canada highway in our 60s VW bus, they took all five of us in. Afterwards, another family rented the finished half of a duplex to us and we had a more permanent place to live.

Before the school year started, we got an excited phone call Pastor Frank. It was the first Moose Kill of the season, and they were giving it to us! All that beautiful moose meat, enough to eat on for months. All we had to do was come butcher it up.

Moose were killed all the time, hit by trucks or cars or on railroad tracks by trains. Moose are big; a half-ton of meat and bone, so the state had developed a roadkill list to salvage the meat. An organization, be it a church or charity or whatever, could sign up to be called when a dead moose became available.

Pastor Frank had been called, and had picked up the moose carcass. It was hanging up in his garage when he called us.

Welcome back to Alaska! Trying their hardest not to look the gift moose in the mouth, mom and dad gathered up their children to receive it.

I was confused about what was going on. "We're going where?"

Mom said, "There's been a moose kill, and we get to have the meat."

This explanation in no way prepared me for the sight of a dead moose hanging on a hook in Pastor Frank's garage. It was bloody and hairy and amazingly intact.

My 11-year-old mind was boggled. What were we supposed to do with this animal?

Pastor Frank knew exactly what to do. He was an avid hunter. I'm sure he enjoyed hunting, but a certain amount of practicality was involved: he had eight children to feed. He got out all the butchering tools that he always used: several kinds of knives, a meat grinder, and a chainsaw.

He told us the first thing to do was to get the hide off the animal, and then cut it into smaller pieces. Then he would come back to tell us what to do next.

Take off the hide? We were at a loss. None of us had done this before, but this was not the time to be fainthearted. Frank had taken a knife to the edge of the moose's abdomen, where it had been opened and gutted, and made some quick cuts, easily separating the skin from the muscle.

After he left, Mom started laughing in amazement and disbelief. She took up one of the knives. "Well, okay..." she said. I was right behind her with my own knife, and stood by trepidatiously as she pulled at the skin.

She bravely pulled the hide back, where Frank had cut. She stuck her knife in there, and made some stabs at it. I watched her, dumbly amazed. After a second or so, she said, "Oh, I see! If you use the knife to cut in the right place, it comes right off."

She moved over so I could get started. I tried to cut in with my skinning knife, but for the first few times, I cut into the skin or the muscle and I couldn't get it. She showed me that I should aim for the soft tissue in between the two. She was right; it was really easy when you cut in the right place.

Moose aren't very clean. The hide was dirty, and when I cut into the muscle accidentally, there was blood. And there was a lot of goo involved with the tissuey parts. I washed my hands as often as I could.

But the blood had only just begun. My father was eyeing the chainsaw. After we got the hide off, we had to cut that beast into manageable pieces. It had to be quartered, which meant cutting it into four sections of one leg apiece. The chainsaw was the tool the pros used.

My dad was not a pro, God bless him, but he fired that chainsaw up, gritted his teeth and set to it. VVVrrrr! He pushed that little chainsaw through the moose's heavy bones as his wife and children stood around him with horrified and awestruck faces. We cheered when he finished, and he smiled at us above his bloody rubber apron.

Now we had manageable pieces to work with. But we didn't know what to do next. None of us had done this before; my father was not a hunter. Any wild game that we'd eaten had been a present from someone else. We'd never gone through the whole process.

Pastor Frank must have heard the chainsaw, because he came back around and solved our dilemma.

"This is great!" he congratulated us. "It's coming along fine." He showed up how to string up the quarters on other hooks in the ceiling, and put containers beneath to catch the blood that dripped out.

He was going to throw away the hide, but my 13-year-old brother had plans for it. Pastor Frank was a cheerful man, and thought that was all right. The hide was set aside for later.

It was amazing that, even though the hide was completely removed, there still seemed to be hair everywhere.

The muscles of the skinned meat were pink and they shined like opals as they dripped blood down to the floor. They hung like nightmare wind chimes in the air. I poked at one. It swung a little.

"Oh, that's right," Pastor Frank said. "We have to be careful of this one leg." He pointed his knife at a certain spot we hadn't noticed. There was a big black blotch on the hindquarter. It looked like a marker had bled its ink. "That's where the moose was hit when it was killed." We were supposed to cut around it and toss the bad parts. When he cut into it to show us, the meat was all black and pus-y.

Oh my.

"Oh, you're really lucky!" he told us. "This one wasn't banged up hardly at all. Sometimes, they are all torn up and you can't get much meat off them. This one has plenty of good meat on it."

He told us that we had to save the moose's lower jaw to give to Fish and Game.

"Why do we have to give them the jaw?" my two brothers and I wanted to know.

"Oh, that's just what they decided. You have to prove you weren't poaching. They probably picked the jaw because it isn't much use."

So we pulled and hacked and got the jaw off the moose head and set it aside. The rest of the moose waited.

There was a lot of moose. Pastor Frank told us about his favorite cuts of meat, and how we should take the meat off the bones in certain ways, depending on how we were going to use it. When we had a family portion size, we had to wrap it in plastic wrap, and then wrap it again in freezer paper. We'd tape that into a neat package, and write on it what kind of cut it was.

Pastor Frank would rattle off different kinds of meat we could have. He kept saying, "It depends on what you like." In our state, we were not up to making aesthetic dining choices. Dad finally asked him what he would do if it were his moose.

"Oh, I like to make it into mooseburger. You can always use mooseburger."

As it turned out, mooseburger involved a few extra steps. You had to grind the meat up, which was not such a problem since there was a meat grinder installed in the garage. But you also had to add fat to the meat. Moose is lean meat, and hamburger is not lean. Apparently, we could go to the store and ask for lard.

Supermarkets in Alaska were prepared for this. I went with my mom to the store, and we asked for lard for mooseburger. They gave us several brown grocery sacks full of cubed fat pieces, charging us a nominal price per pound.

It took a lot of fat chunks to make hamburger. I think the ratio was half and half. After one person had sliced off pieces of meat from the bone, they would give them to the one running the hamburger grinder. The meat and fat chunks were put into the grinder, and had to be pushed down while working the big metal handle in a circle. It took some strength and coordination to make that handle go around and push at he same time. The meat was not always willing to be ground and squished through the holes at the end. We'd have to take the grinder apart and clean it out periodically before it would work again.

Every so often, someone would poke their head in and say hello. The grown children of Pastor Frank, neighbors, and church parishioners came by and chatted with us. Most of them had been through this before, and they told us stories of other moose butchering or hunting expeditions. We were happy to talk with them, even though we were covered in blood and elbows deep in moose meat. At that time, it was hard to think of interesting topics of conversation. Most of my brainpower was concentrated on not paying too much attention to how disgusting this whole process was.

Some of these experienced visitors had advice, which we really needed. One neighbor told us that we could make steaks and roasts out of larger cuts of meat. When we realized that we didn't have to grind all of the meat, there was much rejoicing. Things went a little faster after that.

After the second day of butchering, it felt like quite enough. But we were not finished yet. One of our difficulties was that it was August, still summer. Moose kill in the winter kept better, because it was cold. But our meat would spoil if we did not deal with it quickly.

My poor father still had to go to his shoe salesman job during the day. Mom and us kids would work on the moose while he was at work. When he was done at with the shoes, he came straight over and starting cutting with the rest of us.

The third day was tough. We had seen a lot of meat and blood and muscles and tendons and cartilage and connecting tissue and arteries and moose anatomy. It was hard to go back and do it some more. And Dad had to face all that after a day at work.

That last day we gave up on mooseburger. We made a lot of stew meat in chunks. We cut big roasts. Even some extraordinarily large ones. "It will be our Christmas roast!" we said. I think we had five Christmas roasts by the end of the day.

I was so glad to see the end of that day.

We ate a tremendous amount of moose meat that winter. Moose stew. Moose burger. And everything seemed to have a few brown moose hairs in it. The stray hairs were especially insidious in the stews. They would float away from the meat and rise to the top. When you would bring your spoon to your mouth for a sip of broth, suddenly you would feel a wiry two-inch hair on the roof of your mouth. We all had little collections of discarded hairs next to our plates.

The full moose hide had been saved by my brother, because he wanted to tan it. He was quite excited about it. He had read that you could use Alaskan Sourdough to tan hides. He enthusiastically told everyone that sourdough would do the trick and he was going to be the proud owner of a tanned moose hide.

Mom said, "You can do whatever you want, but make sure you keep it away from the house."

This was something of a disappointment to Chris, since he really wanted to nail the hide to the side of the house. That was how real trappers did it. But he got over it, and tromped off to the woods with a crock of sourdough and the moose hide.

I'd had enough of moose in the raw for a while, so I did not follow him. But a few days later, I thought of it.

"Hey Chris, how's your Moose hide? Did you cover it with sourdough?"

He looked down. Apparently the tanning process is harder than it looked. He said that he had covered it in sourdough and left it hanging over a tree branch. But he went back in a day, and it was covered in maggots. Since it was turning green and festering, he had to give up the project.

I don't know where he put the thing. I think he buried it.

After many months of moose meat and moose burger and moose stew, when Christmas came the Christmas moose roast was less special. But every time one of us went to the freezer to get more meat, we reminded each other that we had a package in there waiting, labeled "CHRISTMAS ROAST." There was no way around it. When Christmas came, we were obligated.

Mom cooked it up really good. She had enough practice with moose meat by now. It was pretty decent.

Posted by Murphy Horner at 06:49 PM | Permalink | Comments (4)

Hey everybody!

My moose story inspired a friend to write another wild-animal Tale (tail?). I wanted to share it with you.

Louie's story

The black ball beside the road ducked just as I drove past it on my way to work. I realized at once what it was and turned around to get it. Two more cars passed it before I got stopped and the small black ball ducked each time. It couldn't have gotten any closer to the side of the road without being on it. I walked across the road and bent down to pick it up and was meet with a cry and a beak that opened so wide, I could see half way down its throat. The baby magpie must have been blown out of its nest the night before by the high winds, and was hungry. I looked around for the mother and was greeted by cries form a treetop a short distance away. I picked the baby up and put him on the other side of the fence, hoping that its mama would feed it still.

I stopped and looked for it after I got off work that day. I didn't see it and hoped that it was being taken care of. I went on home and fixed some supper for myself. I decided to go do some grocery shopping after supper and so I got into my car and drove out to the road. There right by the road, so close it was scary, was my little friend, sitting there like he was waiting for me to come by. I got out and picked him up, once again greeted with the beak open so wide I was amazed by it.

I set him on the seat of the car and he just looked at me with a look that said, " It was about time. I've been waiting for you. " We went back into the house and I mixed up some baby bird food. He let me feed him without too much trouble, as he was very hungry. Then he just sat there on the towel, looking at me as if to say, "What's next?" I looked him over and marveled at the half-inch tail and the perfect baby feathers all over him.

My husband, Dan usually takes care of the baby birds we find but he was gone for the next week. So I was just praying that I could keep the little guy alive for a week till he got home then we could name him together and he could take over its care. Our first week together went well and we got to know each other. The baby was very alert and would sit there and watch me as I went about my housework. When Dan got home, he said lets name him Louie. Dan figured that Louie was about three weeks old when I found him. Now Louie would just sit and watch all that went on around him and he realized that there were birds in the other room. He wasn't able to fly yet but he could hop to anywhere he wanted to go. It wasn't long before he wanted to join in the fun he thought he was missing in the other room. He would sneak in when I would forget and leave the door open and the other birds thought he was just another of the flock. When he learned to fly, he would chase them around the room.

Louie grew to enjoy being with his people. He would stand on the dish drainer and give you kisses. He didn't like you to touch him but he would always come to see what you were doing. If you were very lucky, he would let you scratch the top of his head with one finger.

We tried to teach him about eating what other magpies ate and so we would offer him pieces of meat and cheese. Louie loved cheese and if you left the top off the container of shredded cheese, Louie would help himself. Louie was always hungry when we got home from work and would rush through the door as soon as you opened it. If you didn't give him food right away, he would follow you around till you did. He would eat all he wanted and then hide the rest. Any little nook or crack was a good place to secret away snacks, in his mind. We would find bits of his dinner stuffed away in our checkbook that had been left on the table or tucked under the edge of a magazine. Anything with a hole in it would soon hold his treats and I had to learn to turn things so it didn't have an opening for him to use.

The minute you started to pull into the driveway, Louie would fly to meet you. He would follow you down the drive and wait patiently on the side view mirror while you got out of the car. I would always talk to him and tell him "Hello, Louie". It wasn't long before he would say hello Louie to himself when I would let him out on the morning. He would sit on the post, chattering to himself.

Louie was very friendly when he wanted to be. He went over to meet the neighbor, Bob, one morning. Now Bob wasn't aware that Louie was a pet and so it kind of freaked him out when Louie peered over the edge of the roof at him. However, Bob was used to all our pigeons standing on the roof edge and so he didn't pay too much attention at first. Bob went to sit in his lawn chair, setting his cigarettes and lighter on the ground beside him. Louie flew down to check it out. Now magpies like bright and shiny things and so these really caught his eye. He tried to pick up the cigarettes and Bob grabbed them. He tore off the bright silver paper from the end of the pack and set it in front of Louie. He set the pack back down. Well, Louie must have decided that bigger was better and tried to carry off the whole pack. The pack was bigger than he was used to carrying and had to land a short distance away. Bob retrieved the pack and set it back down by his chair. Louie decided to try extracting a cigarette from the pack and so he picked it up and shook it. Out fell several of them. Louie grabbed one and flew to the top of a low shed. I guess he didn't like the taste because that's where he left it. Louie would go visit Bob and would even come when he called him. Bob soon found that Louie liked treats and would give him food tidbits during the day.

Louie was under the impression that all creatures were put on this earth for him to play with. As he grew up in the kitchen, he found that the dog was an excellent playmate. I don't think the dog harbored the same thoughts but Louie never took that into consideration. As the dog wandered around the kitchen, Louie thought it was great fun to follow him and pull a couple of hairs on the back of his leg. The dog not realizing this was a game would go hide under the buffet. Louie wanted to play so he would walk under the buffet and chase the dog out and the fun would start again. Louie would follow the dog and whenever the dog wasn't paying him heed, Louie would grab a couple of hairs.

Louie would follow you wherever you went when you were outside. If you headed down the drive to get the mail, he would fly ahead and wait on the mailbox for you. Then he would fly back to a fence post, waiting for you to return. I would sit outside at the patio table and he would come and stand on your feet. If you had shoestrings, they were for Louie to play with. He quickly learned to untie them for you. He would climb up you and sit on your shoulder and give kisses or listen to you talk to him. If you had a snack, you were expected to share.

At dinnertime, Louie would invite himself and would help himself to whatever looked good, dragging his piece off to the edge of the table. After satisfying his hunger, the leftovers were secreted away for late night snacks. One afternoon while I had cookies baking in the oven, Louie followed me in the kitchen door. I took the sheet of cookies out of the oven, turning my back to the ones left to cool on the counter. I was aware of Louie flying back and forth behind me and when I turned to place the warm cookies to cool, discovered that there were several missing from the cooking rack. I grabbed the cookie from Louie's mouth and hunted for the others he had spirited off. I never did find one of them.

Louie was willing to share anything with you, even if it was yours. He would walk across the table to your beer bottle and try to pull it over. He would drink a little beer if you tipped it so he could get his beak into the opening. Then he would strut around the edge of the table as if to say, "Look at me, I'm something special." He would share your soda too, till he discovered he didn't like it.

Magpies are very territorial and Louie took great care to insure that no one invaded his territory. Invaders were not allowed and the meter reader was no exception. I saw her pull into the driveway one day and waited for her to leave. It seemed to be taking a long time for her to do what needed to be done and so I went outside to see what was happening. I found her back by the meter but she had never had a chance to get close enough to read it. Louie was nipping her shoes and flying at her head to keep her away from the house. I tried to let Louie know that it was all right but he wasn't having anything to do with it. She finally got her job done, but I bet she will never forget her encounter with a magpie protector.

Louie didn't react to everyone that came to the house like he did to the meter reader. The vet had to come visit one of the emu's that was feeling under the weather. Louie didn't bother the vet but he thought the vet's truck was a new playground. The vet found Louie riffling through the things on his front seat and just laughed. We were worried about the West Nile virus that was affecting the horses and members of the crow family, and the vet gave us the vaccine to inoculate Louie. The vet still laughs about Louie in his truck.

But some people just shouldn't invade Louie's kingdom, such as the water truck. The driver opened his door and Louie flew straight at him. He scooted across the seat and went out through the other door as Louie decided to check him out. Louie flew straight through the truck, trying to let the driver know he was in hostile territory. Luckily Bob was home and saved the water truck driver from the menace of Louie's protectiveness.

One day, my daughter, Shanna, came for a visit and wanted to see Louie. We were standing by the back door, calling him. He didn't come right away and so I went to look for eggs behind the house. Suddenly I hear Shanna calling me, in a panic or so I it sounded. I got to her as quick as I could and there was Louie standing on her jacket covered arm, talking to her. "Hello Louie. Hahahaha, hello Louie. " She was so excited to see Louie and as he was climbing up and down her arm, told me that she didn't know he could talk. We went into the house and Louie sat with her for an hour before going on to something else.

Louie was a loner for most of the time he was with us, preferring our company to others of his kind but he did make friends with one other magpie and they would spend time together. Louie's friend would land about 30 feet away and watch his interaction with us. A couple of times, Louie wasn't waiting to come in at night and would be out, coming back in the morning to eat. The last time I saw Louie, he had pick up a large piece of hard bird food I had thrown out from the birds' dishes in the house and flew off towards the grove of trees by the creek where the colony of magpies lived.
I don't know if Louie and his friend took up together or if some other fate befell him.

When the wind is blowing, I remember how he didn't like to hear the wind and would sit and shake like a leaf. When I bake cookies, I always wonder where that other cookie is I didn't find. Every time I see a magpie sit on the post and chatter, I hope its Louie. I still find his secret hiding places with his little bits of food. I wonder if he has enough to eat. Wherever he is, we miss him and would love to have him come back to us.

Sheryl Mireles
Sheryl.Mireles@vspan.com

Posted by Murphy Horner at 10:42 PM | Permalink | Comments (1)

The holiday season is almost over, and it’s been wonderful. Presents, decorations, yummy food and all that.

And let us not forget: TIME WITH OUR FAMILY. I love my family so much. My mom and dad, and my brothers are really great people. They are intelligent and exuberant about all kinds of things.

But they still drive me crazy, and in ways that could only work between just us. No one else would be so irritated at that casual remark tossed off about my job, or choice of living arrangement.

I remember that I spent years in my early 20s convinced that my parents were supremely strange and inappropriate. I alone suffered under idiosyncrasies and impossible, illogical standards for behavior.

I’m sure you all can see what’s coming. I began to share my rants with other people, and discovered that this parent difficulty is nearly universal. Everyone is made crazy by their parents.

Some people are more softhearted than I am, and handle it more graciously. God will reward them, I am sure.

But in the meantime, I have a fantasy scenario that will solve the problem.

Let’s all switch! Take one step to the side, and take the parents of someone else.

Since most parents are benign and the irritating things they do only annoy their own children, the substitute children will be unaffected. The arsenal of time-honed barbs will bounce off the hide of the substitute. The oft-repeated jokes will have fresh ears, and become amusing once more. The weekly question about how to work email (yes, the same one) will not have built up into the spluttery incomprehensible answer now doled out on a weekly basis. The new child will simply answer. Perhaps even, from a new mouth, the answer will be retained.

The child-provided needs of the parents will be met much more efficiently and with better good will. I know I would take care of another person’s parents admirably.

As for my own….

Posted by Murphy Horner at 07:34 PM | Permalink

I had a marvelous Christmas with my family!

This Christmas was the one where I got to be the hostess. I had been thinking about what to do, and what to cook, for a long time. My mother told me they were coming over since before Thanksgiving.

Notice, I say she told me they were coming. She did not ask. She told.

But after I got over being volunteered to host everyone I got kind of excited. I went and got a tree and decorated it, with red and white lights and green and red balls.

I thought a lot about what to cook. I have become very involved with cooking since my dad gave me pots for christmas last year.

So often the right tool can make all the difference. I didn't have any pots. Hard to cook without pots. When I got the pots, it was like a dam burst. I could cook!

My sweet boyfriend is not very much fun to cook for. He does not like vegetables, fruit, spices, or anything he has not eaten before. Basically, he likes to eat beef and candy.

I like candy just fine, butI don't like beef very much. In fact, I like to cook things that involve a LOT of spices. Spices are the most fun part! And I love California's fresh vegetables.So basically, I cook for one.

But my family likes to eat! We all love to eat, so I was excited to cook for them.

I fired up the family sourdough. If you don't know about sourdough, you just don't know. God made sourdough, and we are the grateful recipients of this gift.

I made sourdough rolls, small hard hearty knobs of good stick-to-your-ribs-through-a-blizzard bread. Yes! I have NO idea was evil things those folks in San Francisco do to their bread to make it fluffy and light. MY sourdough bread is something that you really chew.

I made a ham. I didn't have pineapples or cloves, so I dumped some canned apples over it, and smeared brown sugar and salt on it. Then I remembered I had some clove oil, so I put some of it in a glass of water and dumped it over the ham.

That washed all the pretty brown sugar off. I was happily envisioning that sugar crusting and carmelizing all pretty. Now it was gone. Oh well.

I also made some Turnips and Mashed potatoes. My new specialty. MmM!

My stuffing was not stuffing. You can't stuff a ham! But neither can you have a holiday dinner without stuffing. I went to THREE stores to shop for everything I wanted for Christmas, but I did not encounter bread cubes. Sheesh. SO I bought my own loaf of bread, toasted it, and left it out to get dry and stale. While it was staling, I sauteed an onion and some celery. I added lots of interesting spices: Basil, Oregano, Thyme, sage and salt and pepper. After it was mostly done, I remembered that I wanted to use some apple in there. I quickly chopped an apple and sauteed that too. MM! Then I chopped up a link of pesto chicken sausage and sauteed that in there, too. I left that in the fridge the night before. The day of the dinner, I took it out and put the bread in with in, and some precooked kasha, to add interest. I tossed it all, with a little water, and put in in a bread pan to cook.

I made a mostly whole-foods version of the green bean casserole. I didn't want to use the french-fried onions. Fried was to be avoided. I did use Cream of Mushroom soup can, a half of one, but the rest was yummy frozen green beans and frozen mushroom, and some milk, and crackers. It turned out quite well, but I might have put some onions in. Onions are so good!

I also made the jello very early. We have a tradition of green jello with grated carrots in it. Nasty! We have vetoed this tradition after we were old enough to realize we could. We've compromised on Green jello with pinapple.

Well, I didn't have any green jello. And I wasn't going to the store AGAIN! Red jello would have to do. I made it and dumped in the pinapple.

Did you know that there is a trick to adding fruit to jello? I read about it right after I dumped the pineapple in. Apparently, you have to let it "set" for a little bit and then stir in the fruit. Otherwise, the fruit will just sit in high concentrations at the bottom.

My red jello had mysterious objects suspended in the bottom when it reached the table. If you looked from the side, you could see the pineapple chunks. But from the top it was murky and somewhat ominous. But my family are heroic eaters! They dove right in!

Well, that was pretty much what we had for dinner.

But the breakfast before was really really yummy. Sourdough pancakes! The taste of my homeland! Alaska sourdough pancakes are quite light and fluffy. Mmmm! Waffles are even better, but I don't have a waffle iron anymore.

I made rhubarb and strawberry syrup, from frozen strawberries and rhubarb. Now, I am not surprised to find frozen strawberries. But rhubarb was quite a find! Rhubarb is also a taste of home. Rhubarb will grow in alaska. So will strawberries. So I cooked them with some sugar in a saucepan, and boiled and boiled it, until they were all melted into a mass of tartly sweet thick liquid. I had to watch it to keep it from boiling over while I flipped the pancakes. I was mostly successful.

The sourdough pancakes were coming along beautifully. I'm glad I made a double batch, because mom, dad and I ate every single one. The recipe calls for the sourdough started to be mixed with oil and eggs, and then you pour in soda. The soda reacts with the sourdough, fizzing it up. The result is an extremely airy and fluffly light pancake.

Oh my goodness! When we sat down with our sweet pancake, and poured the mashy rubarb syrup on it, I took and bite and when to heaven! I knew it was going to be good, but I had undersestimated myself! Screw maple syrup! Rhubarb is the way to go. I'm making that again.

I was full of sourdough and rhubarb-flavored christmas cheer when I set about making the above-described christmas dinner.

There were, of course, cookies as well. I had been avoiding making cookies. I try to be good! but my Aunt Pat had circumvented my good intentions! God bless her! She had sent a little box of goodies with my dad for all of us to share.

SHe had shortbread and some cinnamony mexican shortbread cookies in the shape of logs. There was homemade caramels, and Russian Tea cakes. Pecan sandies which were nice and chewy, and a few things I am forgetting.

But I do not forget the toffee. I love toffee. She had made lovely chunks of rich toffee with almonds in it, and covered in melty dark chocolate that was rolled in walnuts from their own tree.

Know how I know they were walnuts from their own tree? Aunt Pat always sends things with walnuts from their own tree. Walnuts are good! But Aunt Pat's walnuts goodies come with the inevitable bits of shell shrapnel. I learned young to crunch lightly.

Then there is also the traditional shrimp crap. That's what we've called it recently, to my mother's utter horror! "Don't call it ' crap'!"

Of course we say it with fondness! It is a highly favored dish. Basically, you take a large plate and smear cream cheese on it. Then, in a separate dish, you take a bunh of ketchup and a little horseradish and a can of chopped shrimp and stir it all together.

I learned by trying it, it's best to DRAIN the can of shrimp. Word to the wise.

But you stir the drained shrimp and ketchup and horseradish into a red muck. Then you drop in on top of the cream cheese and smear it around.
THen you take ritz crackers, and lay then in an attractive circle around the plate.

YUM! you dip the crackers in the cheese and shrimp and eat away. Sometimes we would have to make it twice.

This year, I was talked into buying jumbo shrimp by a sneaky sample-offering guy at the store.

So I did everything the same, but I didn't put shrimp in the ketchup. I lay the big shrimp around the plate in an attractive pattern, and put the crackers on a bowl nearby.

We didn't finish the plate this year. But maybe that's because half the family was elsewhere, and because everyone was full of rhubarb pancakes. I don't know.

But perhaps next year I will not mess with a winner.

I have not described the Christmas EVE dinner. That has a specific history which deserves it's own place. I will get to that later.

Posted by Murphy Horner at 07:33 PM | Permalink

PORTRAIT OF THE ARTIST AS A VIDEO CONFERENCE ADMINISTRATOR

EPILOGUE

The radio was giving me a report about the stock market, and my eyes blinked awake. I looked at the clock. 4:30 a.m.—right on time. I lay in bed a moment longer, waking up.

My clothes were hanging on my doorknob, chosen the night before. I had showered before I went to bed, so I could slip right into my clean and pressed business casuals.

I fixed my hair and brushed my teeth, looking closely in the mirror at the red capillaries in my eyes. Almost ready.

The laptop and books I meant to read during this long day were packed and ready by the door. My lunch and breakfast were waiting in the fridge; I put them in my backpack. I stopped to pet my cat, who purred instantly when I touched his soft fur. Poor lonely kitty. I should pet him more, he is so grateful lately for it.

Slip on my warm coat, the weather is getting colder. I double-check: cell phone, security badge, bus fare. Yes, they are all exactly where I put them the night before. Grab my keys and walk out the door, ten minutes before the bus is scheduled to arrive.

The bus stop is right in front of my building. There is even a nice bench to rest there, but it is damp from the early morning dew. 5:10 is a misty moist time of day. I stand and wait.

Very few people are on the bus at this time of morning; the driver smiles at me as he answers my “good morning.” He is one of my favorite drivers, because he will remember my stop even when I forget. I would like to ask his name, but he seems bashful and that makes me bashful too. Instead I smile sincerely at him and take my seat.

The bus is dimly lit, so I do not read the book I have brought with me. I choose to watch the road go by. Soon enough we are traveling through Chinatown with its Dragon gate and interesting signs.

The new philharmonic hall is approaching; when we turn there I must stay awake. I will be getting off soon. I am alert enough this time to ring the bell and step off at my stop.

A full-bearded street person holding a shopping cart full of used suitcases watches me as I walk down to my building. “Good Morning Beautiful! How are you today?”

I decide to answer. “Tired,” I say. He responds loudly with sympathetic but undecipherable syllables. I smile to myself.

5:45 and all is in readiness. I stop at my desk to check for any messages. None of any consequence. Up to the 16th floor, where the video bridge operator is already connecting my video conference.

By the time I reach the room, it is connected, and Dave the NY person is in the room already. We set everything up and exchange pleasantries. Dave is a very easy-going guy, and we wait for the people from the other sites to appear. It is still quite early, but they all arrive and we test and check. Then we sit for a while longer, talking sports and making sure everything is stable.

Dave reads us the sports from the newspaper he brought with him. David from San Francisco says that it was very peaceful to walk up the street that early in the morning. Philip in Newport Beach looks so peaceful I think he is trying to fall back to sleep.

But everything is set; everything is working perfectly. Everything continues to work perfectly, so we disperse for the moment.

I set my laptop up at the abandoned receptionist’s desk just outside the conference room. I have my books, and I have my coffee mug. I take my mug and my bran muffin to the coffee room. I get some tea and warm my muffin.

Back in the conference room my manager, back from his trip at last, has stopped in to check things out. Things are perfect, so he has an impromptu staff meeting with all of us. We talk about projects and catch up a little on the different things we’ve been doing.

The rest of the guys from the other rooms come back, and my manager has left. We talk some more and everything is still perfect.

Finally, some participants begin to trickle into NY—all other sites are empty. The NY attorneys are all chitchatting and gossiping about clients and colleagues. At last, the meeting monarch says the three magic words: “Let’s get started.”

No one is present in my location, so I listen in to hear him make an announcement asking people to avoid placing their phones on hold during the conference.

Moments later, a participant arrives in my room. I set him up and tell him I will be around the corner. He is pleasant, polite and appreciative. He wonders, “What happened to the doors?”

“They took them off for refinishing.”

“Oh,” he shrugs. I leave him happily situated.

At my makeshift desk, I start to clean off the hard drive and organize my personal files. I have a book, and I read a little bit.

After I finish my first cup of tea, I get another.

My cell phone is silent. After many hours pass, I use my personal cell phone to call my brother.

I flip through digital photographs on my hard drive.

The conference takes a break, and my conference participant has been joined by another participant. He asks me how to mute and unmute the microphones on the speakerphone.

More hours pass. I have deleted a lot of old files on my computer, and composed messages to old friends that will be sent when I next log in to the Internet.

Right on schedule, the meeting ends. The participants say their goodbyes and leave. My pleasant attorney thanks me.

Even NY is clearing out, so I give the okay to disconnect the video call. I call all the support staff on each location to congratulate them and let them know it’s over. They already knew.

It is finished.

Posted by Murphy Horner at 06:51 PM | Permalink

PORTRAIT OF THE ARTIST AS A VIDEO CONFERENCE ADMINISTRATOR

PORTRAIT OF THE ARTIST AS A VIDEO CONFERENCE ADMINISTRATOR
THE STORY

I was getting requests for a conference happening on the 24th. I had at least three requests for a conference that were all happening at the same time. Since the requests sounded like a continuation of a conversation that I had not heard the beginning nor the end of, I thought: “I bet this is the same conference! I will find out who is really in charge of this one!”

I discover the identity of Miss Organizer, the central person arranging the meeting, and I called her. She seemed very nice, I told her that I was the video conference administrator, and that everything would go fine. She seemed pleased.

In fact, she was so pleased, that she sent out an email to everyone saying that she had talked with me, and that the video conference was in good hands.
I was pleased.

But after the fiasco meeting with the new CEO, he sent out an email to everyone--apparently attorneys like to produce lots of documents--saying that video conferencing was incredibly unreliable, and should not be used for anything important. He mentioned me personally, asking who my manager was, and said that the Chief of Staff should be in charge of making sure this whole video conference idiocy worked, because it probably wouldn’t.

This hurt. Video conferencing should not be used for anything IMPORTANT! Well, I wasn’t forcing anyone to use it, but I always did my very best to make it work for them when they asked for it.

In the meantime, I had found out what was wrong with NY. A major cable, sending network to the whole building, had been damaged. ALL of the network was impaired.

And I had called little miss assistant right after the call and said as politely as I could muster, “WHY THE HELL IN THE NAME OF ALL THAT’S HOLY DID YOU NOT GIVE ME THE 800 NUMBER BEFOREHAND SO THAT I COULD DIAL IN?”

That’s a paraphrase.

She was very apologetic, told me that ten minutes after the start of the call some guy had asked for an 800 number. She had to quickly create one and send it out to all the other people already in the call.

Well. He sounded like a rude, thoughtless, last-minute person. That was typical. What can you do? I let her off the hook, and got back to my business.

But before I can get very far, the Chief of Staff comes steaming around the corner of my cube. “I need to talk to you right now,” she said.

I go to her office, ready to explain. “It’s really unfortunate that this conference went badly.” I told her about the network cable, and about not having the 800 number.

“Well, everyone else had the number!”

My jaw dropped. “I asked the assistant for the number three times!”

“Well, everyone else had it. Maybe you didn’t ask the right questions.”

My jaw hit the floor. What other question would be the right question?!?

“Well this meeting on the 24th had better go perfectly. It has been made clear to me that my continued employment here is on the line. We need to have a meeting about this with everyone tomorrow to talk about what we are going to do.”

“What will we do if NY can’t get its network back online? Do we need some document from the phone company saying the line is damaged?”

“Oh the attorneys won’t look at it. They will just say we are making excuses.”

Making excuses!? What are we supposed to do, go knit them some optical fiber so that they can have their precious video connection?

It was hard to pay attention after the didn’t-ask-the-right-question and the making-excuses arguments. What gall! How unfair! How mean and irrational!

I went back to my cube to prod the NY phone company about fixing the cable, but I was steaming!

Steaming, steaming, all afternoon, all night and all next morning. I do not like to be unfairly accused. I was practically ready to find new employment.

I read Dilbert to make myself feel better, and then I griped to my co-worker. She said, “You don’t have to take that! Don’t let her get away with saying you did something wrong when you didn’t!”

Yeah! I can take back the night! Just say no, stand up for myself etc.

I felt all better and empowered. Hmph! I’m doing the best I can, and better than most.

All right then. Back to the conference of the 24th. Got to get NY working again. That is where the speaker is. After a million phone calls back and forth, the phone company finally gets them online, thank God.

We had the meeting with the Chief of Staff and everyone, deciding on a procedure. In fact, it was a procedure we already had from before I came around.

1. All sites will do an hour-long test run of the call the day before.

2. All sites will do a three hour test run of the call before the conference starts.

3. All sites will set up for the call an hour before the call is supposed to start, and leave it on for the whole call.

4. All sites will have a person waiting outside the conference room on standby.

Wow. That’s quite a strict set up. We had one telecom guy who had been in NY for two weeks already, and the COS asked him to stay another day to babysit the conference. He said okay. My other co-worker was sent to another site. I was going to be here in LA.

The Chief of Staff wanted backup plans and contingencies covered. “We won’t use the sound that is part of the video conference! We should mute all the video conference equipment, and only use the phone for the sound!”

Yes. Okay. Whatever you want. It will look weird and sound bad, but it will probably be more stable. Whatever makes you feel secure.

Every time the Chief of Staff sees me, she says, “You’re gonna help me keep my job, aren’t you?”

She sees me several times a day.

But at least she wasn’t making random and irrational accusations about my competency.

I chose to smile and say, “Everything will work fine.”

But this is making me doubt the sky is blue, already. I am thinking and thinking about every single part of the conference. I started thinking about the phone conference. What did I know about it? What would I do if it went wrong?

They would blame me anyway.

So I had to do some archeological work and find out whom to call about our telephone conference service. We uncovered her number in a Mesozoic stratum of post-it notes and I gave her a call.

What a nice woman! She was so sympathetic and helpful. We talked for forever, really, and she told me all kinds of things. She said, “You know, if you want, you can have a higher level of service on your conference call. You could have an operator assistant on the line to help callers with any problem and improve sound issues, etc.”

Well! That sounded nice. But the conference was only 2 days away, and I wasn’t sure that a change at such a short notice was a good idea. But maybe I should let the meeting organizer decide.

I was supposed to call her anyway. We had determined, in that first friendly phone call, before all the uppity-mucks got involved, that we should speak again 2 days before the conference. I called her at my pre-arranged phone appointment--she wasn’t there. I left a message on her cell phone.

Now the later it got, the harder it would be to make a change. I really needed a confirmation of whether it was a go or not. I figured I should at least schedule the call and get the proper 800 number in case Miss Organizer called back and wanted the number. Just as I was finishing up with the nice conference woman, getting the number, etc, the Chief of Staff appears at my cube.

She is foaming at the mouth and having a seizure. Metaphorically. “I need to speak with you in THE NEXT TEN MINUTES! It’s VERY IMPORTANT!”

I almost have a seizure just looking at her, but before I can say anything (Remember, I’m still on the phone) she tears off to her office.

I quickly hand up with my new conferencing friend, and run to her office.
“Miss Organizer just called me about changing the 800 number! WHAT IS GOING ON!?!?”

Oh. Well, I explained to her very quickly, as calmly as I could, that I had called the conference service to see what could be done to have a good call, they had told me about this higher level of service they could offer. I thought that, in pursuit of her staying employed, I would call Miss Organizer and ask her if she wanted to do this. I understood that it was not desirable to change the 800 number at the late date, so I wanted to talk it over with her.

The COS visibly calms down and begins reassuring me that she is not mad at me. As I watch her in fear and wonder she says, “Don’t worry. I am not angry with you. Believe me, you would know if I were.”

This does not calm my fears.

We called Miss Organizer and have a big conference about what this was all about.

Miss Organizer seemed very calm when she was talking with both of us. “What do you think? What do you think we ought to try and do?” The COS was pretty adamant with her, saying NO forcefully to changing the number.

Miss Organizer brought up something else unrelated. “I think San Francisco might want to join in. But I think they really don’t want to. I think they might just want to go on the phone.”

I said, “Yes, I think they should just join on the phone, especially if they are not certain about being part of the video conference.”

I settled THAT, at least. Taking charge, follow the example of the Chief of Staff. She told me afterwards, “Miss Organizer is a very insecure person. She never wants to make a decision.”

Hmm….

Time is drawing closer, and we are going to have to begin the first of our tests. Miss Organizer has promised to be there to let us know things about where people will be sitting, etc., so we can mike them properly.

I’m sitting in my video room, and our connections are up. All sites have the staff in place, everything is fine. But where is Miss Organizer? It’s been a half hour; she should be here to confirm that everything is how she wants it.

I have to chase her down. She appears finally, 45 minutes late. This time, she seems as shy and uncertain as a 12-year-old meeting her great aunts for the first time. “Oh, this seems nice. Is that how this is going to go? I think it will be okay.”

I ask her some direct questions about where the speaker will be, and where the camera should be, how she wants the room set up. “Umm…I think this is fine. What do you think?”

I refrained from saying what I was thinking: “Who made you in charge?”

An hour into the test, when it should be concluded, she says, “I think we might want to have San Francisco be part of the video call. I mean, I think they said something about it. But maybe they would like to join in.”

Telecom is a black and white environment. Yes or no: “Do you want me to bring San Francisco into the call?”

“Yeah, if you could, I mean…That would probably be a good idea.”

I mute my microphone so she doesn’t hear my exasperation, and I start to “probably” call San Francisco so they can “maybe” join the conference.

Oh. Need I even say it? All participating sites on the West Coast will have to be at work at 6 a.m. to set up for this meeting. Yes, SF is on the West Coast. I’m having to call after business hours to tell staff to be at work 6 a.m. the next day.

Convenience for the staff was never a consideration.

So, we get the very good-natured SF support guy in the room, things are testing fine. He’s gulping back any complaints and saying that he will be there at 6 a.m.

It’s an hour and a half into the test. Miss Organizer says, “Oh, I think SF doesn’t need to be in the call. I think they said they’d rather listen in. Let’s not do them, okay?”

“Okay,” I say, ready to agree to anything. Let’s give them what they want. They can easily come in on the phone conference. We will NOT have SF included in the video call.

But there is one last little thing on Miss Organizer’s mind. “Are we gonna go through with this video conference? I don’t want to take the responsibility of making the final decision.”

Well, no one is shocked by that squirm out of a direct responsibility.

“I will take that responsibility,” I say. “The test went flawlessly, we can go ahead with the call.”

“Okay…” she says, in a trailing voice.

As I am leaving, I notice something. Normally, there are two doors to this conference room. Today, there are two empty doorways. Where are the doors?

I’ll have to find out.

But first, I go down to see the Chief of Staff, because I fear for her blood pressure. I wanted to tell her that everything went well. She’s not in her office, so I go make arrangements for someone else to cover the OTHER video conferences happening the next day. Amazingly, the entire firm did not stop to prostrate themselves in honor of this conference.

On the way back, the Chief of Staff snatches me out of the hall: “Quick!” she says. “I need to know how the test went. Miss Organizer has called me to make the final decision about whether to go ahead with the video conference.”

Didn’t I see this same patch of water go under the bridge earlier?

“The test was flawless, “ I say.

“That’s all I need to know.”

Back at my cube, I remember the missing doors. I call around and discover that they have been removed for refinishing. They will not be back for a week.

I am tired. What should I do? There is nothing to be done, the doors are gone and we can’t bring them back. But I must tell the Chief of Staff, because if it were a problem and I didn’t tell her, who knows what would happen.

I peek around her door with trepidation. She sees me: “What do you need?”

“Um…You know the conference room for the meeting tomorrow?”

She looks expectant.

“The doors are gone. Both of them have been taken to be refinished.”

She just stared at me in shock for a moment. Then she laid her head on the desk and muffled peals of laughter burst out.

“That is really something that I cannot do anything about,” she gasps in between her shrieks. Both of us just laugh. Of all the ridiculous things!

I finally make it to my bus at the end of the day, but my cell phone rings. It’s San Francisco. “Hey, the managing partner really wants to know if he can be part of the video conference. Only, he doesn’t want the other sites to see him. He wants to see them, though. Can we do that?”

“No, we can’t do that.”

No, no no! We can’t do that, and even if we could, we wouldn’t. Because you are rude and you are very tardy in asking, and you are inconsiderate of the people you are asking help from. Also, because we haven’t put your site through the arbitrary and meaningless set of tests that make all the ignorant people who are in charge feel better about it being stable.

NO!

“Are you sure? Because they really want it.”

It was four staticky and desperate phone conversations later, at 8 p.m. in my home that we finally determined San Francisco really wanted to be in the video call, and that we really would let them.

I debated whether I would be remiss by not calling the Chief of Staff and Miss Organizer and letting them know about this change. Then I put it out of my mind. There is a point when enough is enough.

I had to be awake at 4:30 a.m. so I went to bed.

I dreamed that my bus didn’t come, and that I had to drive to work to get to the meeting on time. I got lost, and as I was running in between the skyscrapers, I realized I wasn’t dressed for work, and that I would have to go back to my car to get the right clothes. I was working out in my head how long it would take me to do that, and how I could make it to the office in enough time, but I still wasn’t sure where the building was at, and where I was.

Posted by Murphy Horner at 06:50 PM | Permalink

PORTRAIT OF THE ARTIST AS A VIDEO CONFERENCE ADMINISTRATOR
PROLOGUE
Last week, I had a request for a conference. Everyone told me: “Oh, this one has to go well. The new CEO is in it.”

OH.

I will make sure it goes well. I called the assistant to ask her what this CEO needed for his call.

Will he have a PowerPoint presentation?
Oh no…

Will he have a telephone conference as part of the video conference?
Oh no…

Are you sure? Even if someone can’t make it, and has to call from their hotel room or something?
Well, let me check…No no…No phone call.

Okay. So I have someone on each site, all there a half hour early. Everything is fine, all is perfect, all is well.

But then the participant walks into NY, and his call drops.
Carp.

Try to reconnect, it drops again. Bad news.

I get on the phone to call into NY’s room and tell them to dial into the speakerphone in the room.

Just told them the number, barely hung up, and the speakerphone rings. It is someone else, telling us the CONFERENCE CALL NUMBER THAT HAS SUDDENLY BEEN CREATED BY THE LITTLE MISS WHO SWORE WE WOULDN’T NEED ONE!!!

Carp again. Now NY has to have the number. But wait, it’s okay because suddenly they are dialed in.

Someone else brought them the number.

Okay, good, they are finally set up. I double-check to make sure things are fine, he says yes, and I slink away.

I am met immediately by another, completely different fire that needs me to put it out. I forget and leave my cell phone at my desk for a moment. When I realize it’s gone, I freak out, rush to the phone, and sure enough, there’s a voice mail.

I run up to the conference room, to ask what’s wrong. The whole thing has fallen apart and they are now only on the speakerphone.

Ugh. The new CEO, the Chief of staff (my boss’s boss) and the CIO are all in the meeting looking at me with contempt.

They tell me that it’s too late, that nothing can be done.
I slink away again.

Posted by Murphy Horner at 06:46 PM | Permalink

It's October, and frankly, I don't feel like it.

"Like what?" you might ask.

Anything.

I would like to be effortlessly fabulous. Profound, beautiful, gracious, yet keenly witty.
It's not happening. I am dull, rumpled, cranky and can only grunt.

unh.

Furthermore, I have no motivation to go out and "Make it happen!" so that I could become all those fabulous things I just said.
Richard Simmons would disapprove, I know.

I wish I had had the forethought to pre-record everything I had to do today so that I could press "play" and go back to bed.

Posted by Murphy Horner at 05:45 PM | Permalink

There was a fire across the street from my bus stop this morning.

I noticed it first because of the huge black plume of smoke. Actually, I noticed it before I noticed it. I thought it was foggy outside, and I was worried that the bench would be too wet to sit on. Then I noticed the pillar of smoke.

Since I was still stupefied from being up too early, I didn't realize that the smoke was unusual. I just thought it was from a smokestack. Then I thought, hey, there's no smokestack on that building. Which is when I saw the fire.

It was burning in a grove of trees by the highway. The orange glow flickered through the black outlines of the trees growing between me and the flames. It seemed rather small, especially when compared to the multi-acre fires we've been used to this year. I watched it for a while before I thought, should I call the fire department?

There were a few men in the parking lot across the street, they were closer to the fire. I thought they must have called, since they were obviously watching it. But it was quiet, and time dragged on with no sirens. I became suspicious and wondered if those people were the ones who had set the fire.

There are crazies out there, you know.

If I'd had my phone with me, I would have called. I've never called 911 before, it would be a good thing to know how to do, in case of emergency. But this was an emergency. There was a fire across the street.

I'd had a fire near my house before, at a nasty slummy place I lived in Anchorage. The building over burned down. We all got out on the balconies and watched it. But the trucks were already on the scene.

I was waiting for the bus, and I was concerned because it was late already. I had an important meeting at work I didn't want to be late for. But there was a fire burning. What if no one called 911? In my sleep deprived state, I just watched it burn. I was reminded of how much I love the smell of woodsmoke. It always reminds me of fall in Alaska.

But this wasn't a fire in a woodstove. What if it raged and I ignored it, because I needed to go to work?

That's what's wrong with the world today. People don't care. Maybe I should go inside and call the fire department.

It seemed like an eternity before the trucks appeared. But they did blare up the road, and let me off the hook.

After they fire was put out, wispy flakes of ash began to rain on me.

Posted by Murphy Horner at 05:35 PM | Permalink

In LA, every waitress is supposed to be waiting for her break to be an actress.

My Muzhik novelist from last Sunday was probably not a professional writer, not yet.
I don't know what he did to earn a living.

One of my friends from book club was telling me about her career in Television. "They are grooming me to be a producer. But I just don't know...I REALLY want to write coming-of-age books for children."

The guy that I had coffee with was the director of a very respected news program. "But that's not what I came here to do," he says. "I have more in mind."

And me?
I'm a video conferencing professional, but I just signed up for a journalism class.

Charles Dickens, author of Great Expectations, had his hero in Oliver Twist say it for us:

'Please, sir, I want some more."

Yeah, we all want some more. More from our jobs, more from life, more from ourselves.

And more from our JOBS. That's a critical thing. After the basics are taken care of--food, housing, clothing, etc.--that job takes on a different meaning. The struggle for survival takes so little effort, that we think we can do it with one hand tied behind our back. That leaves us with an extra hand to do all kinds of other things! Maybe we begin to resent the effort it takes to have a job...And we want to get both those hands working together to do what we "really" want to be doing.

A lot of books are written about that. What Color is Your Parachute? and 7 Habits of Highly Effective People are just two well-known examples. These authors write out systems of how to articulate your values and line up your life according to what you believe is most important.

That's great! that's why those books are such bestsellers. Who wouldn't want to achieve perfect balance?

And they continue to be top sellers, because people are not achieving that balance. In large droves, we continue to have difficulty finding the perfect job.

Does it exist?

I remember talking with my friend a long time ago, we were griping about work. I said, "Don't you think that this is your dream job? I mean, when you were a kid, if someone told you that you would get to be a computer programmer at NASA, you would have been thrilled!"

"Yeah," he said. "I remember taking a tour of NASA when I was about 14 and being completely impressed."

"And you worked hard to get the chance to work there. But now, you complain about it! Being an adult sure turns out to be different than what we thought it would be like when we were kids."

Maybe the idea of the perfect job is not for everyone. On This American Life, they ran a show that talks about it. In the last segment the narrator talks about his love of making thi