Nothing makes sense like sleep.
If you dream, the girl will come
and lie by you, as she was
at twenty, voice like a bird
just below the salt line
of the cognitive. In a yellow
pavilion on a field of deep grass.


Kyle Kimberlin
1/17/2007

A healthy (and inspiring) goal for 2007: Embrace daydreaming. Harnessing the power of visual imagination is an efficient and enjoyable way to activate the relaxation response. Try picturing a place from your past, where you felt happy, secure, and peaceful.  Then imagine yourself there, making all the sensory impressions – smells, sounds, sights – as sharp as possible. Daydreaming is a simple, cost-effective way to feel happier and calmer in no time!

— Dr. Weil  [Link]

One man’s fight against creeping bureaucracy.

It didn't show up, did it? Were you looking forward to a good Tsunami, to clear the flotsam and snowbirds off the beach? Shame on you. There are better ways to get the Winnebagos out of town, you know. And while I would be high and dry here on my hill above the town, several of my favorite hang-outs, including my favorite coffeehouse, might be in Davy Jones locker. Not good.

This isn't the first time our stretch of coast has been warned of a big splash that didn't arrive. The last time was about 10 years ago, and I wrote a poem about it.

THE DAY OF THE TIDAL WAVE

A cat, resting on my warm tar roof
on a Summer night, is surprised
by thunder.  My dog is barking.
I wake, thinking of someone.
But this is not about her.

The sun arrives with a garbage truck,
my room becomes light.
A radio comes on, and today
there will be a tidal wave
from Japan.
I should shave and wear a tie.
Afflicted by the mirror, I confess
this pain is all my fault.
But this is not about her.

The day goes by like yesterday
except for the tidal wave
which never comes, and the rain.
A little comes, but not for me.
I stay dry at my desk
thinking about new snow
and the absolute silence of it.
A young deer watching me
turning away into the trees.
But this is not about her.

It’s nice and toasty in my condo now, but a little while ago it was an icebox. It has to be the coldest day and night in clear memory, and I had to have the doors open for two hours at dusk. The local plumber was here, changing out my hot water heater. It’s dead and gone.

I’ve known for a while that it wasn’t working well. I would run out of hot water in about 8 minutes when showering. But I was really hoping that it was just a fouled up heating element — something that my Dad, with his electrical skills, could fix. But when my shower lasted only about 3 minutes this morning, I knew the old can was critical.

Depending on who you ask, a water heater can be expected to last, on average 6-10 years. The plumber said I should plan on replacing this new one in 7 years. But that was right after he hauled out an old one was that was installed in 1985. I kid you not; 3 times the expected lifespan. Of course, it was rusty and crusty and ready to give out and flood the whole place. Seriously, I think I dodged a bullet on this deal.

This post had a point – besides simply yammering about my overheated evening in my house in the big deep freeze – but I’ve lost track of it. Sorry. Maybe something about running hot and cold. Y’all keep bundled up out there.

Continuing the Mark Twain theme, there’s this:

Man is the religious animal. He is the only religious animal that has the true religion — several of them. He is the only animal that loves his neighbor as himself and cuts his throat if his theology isn’t straight.

-Mark Twain

I put it off as long as I could, but I’m not the kind of guy who leaves his Christmas lights up all year. Fortunately, I’m Russian Orthodox, and on the Eastern calendar today, Monday, is December 26, 2006. I’ll just let you Google that for yourownself, but it’s true. And that means I get to have Christmas twice, and leave my lights up longer than some of you guys. So there.

It’s strange. It seems darker now, even inside at my desk. I can relate to the pagan bonfire rituals that started the tradition of lights at winter solstice. They were afraid that the shortening days and incipient cold meant the sun was drifting away, leaving them in darkness forever. So they built bonfires to entice the sun to stay. And in a few months, they saw it worked.

In my case, it was a comfort – a consolation in bleak evenings – to see my little string of lights winding and twinkling amidst the balcony irons. The world seemed a bit less obscure, just knowing they were out there, signaling the dim hope of lengthening days.

Of course to a Christian like me the humble act of lighting the darkness means infinitely more. But you don’t have to witness Jesus Christ to appreciate the symbolism. So I ask you, what ritual of mind and heart will you attend, to light the way to Spring?

Goodbye Christmas, my old friend.
I’ll say a prayer you’ll come again.

*More light. Reportedly the last words of Johann Wolfgang von Goethe.

The difference between the right word and the almost right word is the difference between lightning and a lightning bug.

— Mark Twain

Great writer, old Sam Clemmons. His granddaughter was one of my teachers in grade school, and her kids were classmates and friends. Nice people.

“The only reality which a poet can ever surely know is that self he cannot help being. … If he pretties it up, if he changes its meaning, if he gives it the voice of any borrowed authority, if in short he rejects this reality, his mind will be less than alive. So will his words.”

– W.D. Snodgrass

Our own fearsome leader is finally showing the inevitable signs of the stress of his office.

It’s a phenomenon that I’ve been noting with interest for many years, that the presidency takes a heavy toll, and makes a man look older. The only president in my lifetime that didn’t look a little thrashed by the pressure of being The Decider was John Kennedy, only because he was assassinated while he was still pretty young. And even so, he had severe back pain, having been injured in WWII.

Mr. Bush has been the exception until recently; he’s been so healthy and physically unfazed by the rigors of power that it was a little twisted. He doesn’t look like a mountain biker now though, does he? So all of you who feel the nation, perhaps the world, have been royally hosed by this man’s poor judgment can take a bit of solace, knowing that maybe he’s not just steeped in ignorant bliss. Perhaps it’s dawning on his subconscious that his legacy is going to hell on horseback.

Well, Hussein is dead, according to reports. In the book Heart of Darkness, to which the title of this post alludes, the death of the madman Kurtz is a turning point, at which the boat of the story turns back toward civilization. Maybe that’s a metaphor for Iraq. But it illuminates the irrelevance of Hussein’s death to us in America. The boat of our story – of the western world – is apt to make no such turning toward sanity. We go on into darkness because Hussein was not the madman we go upriver, at our manifest peril, to find.