Crawdads and Delible Tattoos

To prove that I’m well, I went on a little adventure this last weekend. The opportunity for the adventure was opened by my wife’s trip to the East Coast to see relatives. Lest you think awry, I chose to do things that my wife does not enjoy, but that I do. She suffers through my interests like a true martyr, going to spicy food restaurants, gawking at motorcycles and shopping for ties. She is cheerful about it. This weekend, though, I thought I would indulge my interests at a time she would not have to feign delight. To show her and you that I did nothing too awfully naughty I made a photo journal of Saturday (Crawdad Festival) and Sunday (Tattoo Festival.) The tattoo was applied with an airgun and will be dead by Saturday.

Here a couple of the highlights. The full show is on Flickr.

When Good Things Happen to Bad People

I am a bad penitent. The last penance I received in the confessional (my secret) and the last entry in this blog, in which I promised to write as a way to fight my obesity are both unfulfilled. I am damned.

However, my weight is down ten pounds. I have been counting calories rather than letting the spirits move me when I eat. I’m kind of metaphysical and unconsciously see the longings of my appestat as rooted in the mysteries of the unseen and (hey check the name of my blog!) “unknown.”

That is self-delusion – news flash. By counting the calories in what I eat - before I eat - I can picture the absurdity of putting 30 gallons in a 20-gallon tank. It is called – duh! – objectification. It faces in the fly of my beliefs about testing as a way to measure where one is in mastery of life. I am not going to attempt any reconciliation at this time or maybe never. Just leave it as a pair o’ ducks.

My Church and the world of Blog will not go easy on my impenitence. I am, nonetheless, down ten pounds and am doing physical labor daily. The sun shines on sinners. The World of black and white exists not. Malefactors flourish.

Girth Hurdle

I am not making this up. Yesterday’s obituaries listed, among others, the following last names. “Tribble, Dibble, Friddle, Ding and Dong.” Barring a hoax by a bored obit editor, and with sincere respect for the deceased, it has to be a hundred year coincidence. Happily, Kerby was not among the names and would not have made them funnier, especially from my personal point of view.

Doctors have given me a clean bill of health and ceased my meds. I breathe easily and often. I have one last hurdle. The months of idleness have left me with a serious weight problem. I tip 210 pounds avoirdupois on the scales and my height varies between 5’ 3” and 5’6” depending on what forms I’m filling out.

As a penance for this profligacy, I am reviving this blog and making my progress toward a loss of 60 pounds one of the themes. It is embarrassing, but I don’t want to see Kerby, Derby and Furby in the paper.

SURPRISE!!

Well, well, how time’s fly alights, drops a speck, and takes a swat from fate. The cobwebs of Halloween and the extra pounds of Thankturkey Day have come and not gone since my last entry here at Lake Woe-be-blog. This journal subsided just a year after I began it. I have not been able to return to the inspiration of relationships with students and I have not died. I don’t know which is the good and which the bad news of that pair of facts.
I have decided to start posting again. I will need to take off in a new direction since I no longer leave skid marks on the education superhighway. Here are some thoughts. I will accept suggestions from among my vast international readership. Please, fan club presidents speak for your memberships, so my server is not swamped.

Idears

1. Self-indulgent babble about my health, hobbies, and pungent thought-life. No wait, that’s what the blog is now.


2. Maybe discussion starter posts. For example: Dr. Phil, who was on Larry King last night. I’m like the dog on the Simpsons when Dr. Phil talks. He may be stringing words together, but I hear blah blah blah. As much as I can make out, he advocates that dysfunctional relationships be replaced with psychotic self-centeredness. In all kindness, he is a jackass. That huge bald head and tiny little eyes coupled with an accent from the movie Deliverance, gives me the heebie-jeebies.


3. Movie reviews. Since I am condemned to rest, formerly my favorite activity, I see lots of movies. On-demand and Netflix are deductible as medical expenses. So we could compare Ben Stiller to Adam Sandler, Tom Hanks to Jimmy Stewart, Kevin Costner to Scooby-Doo, and Hellboy to Dr. Phil.


4. TV reviews. Especially comedy. I don’t know where the modern writers get off crossing the line between comedy-of-error humor, the essence of sitcoms, to writing about plain icky errors. I can Curb My Enthusiasm big time. Same for Extras and many others. They give me the creeps.


5. Music. I’ve indulged my self with a Rhapsody/mp3 player combo. 6gb. 1500 tracks. I have a thousand now. Six Tom Waits albums and almost as much Peggy Lee. Also Schubert, Chopin. Much blues and jazz. John Williams movie themes, which were written to punch up onscreen adventure and romance. Helps give me courage to face my naps.


6. Food and diet. I’ve taken to “intuitive” Atkins and am dropping weight faster than Bush is losing votes. It may be my invention. I don’t eat on a schedule and don’t prepare meals despite being an accomplished cook. I wait until I can feel the hunger, and then eat some protein until that goes away. Then I don’t think about food until the next attack. During the process I have compared my puny hunger pangs to those of people in the world whose hunger is great enough to produce real physical pain. I’m thinking of making some money with a “Scream-Threshold of Hunger Pain Diet” for which people would send the money saved on food to world relief agencies or me. I’ll rename the blog, “Unknowing How to Eat.”


7. New name. I’ll have to change the name of the blog to reflect the new direction and to attract a different circle of spammers. Maybe “Unthinking How to Think” or “How to Unwatch Dr. Phil. I’ll have to give more unthought to this.
   

Well, here it is, folks. Whichever way this goes, you can bet I will cater to my fans and be posting more often than every six weeks.
Ciao for niow.

From There to Eternity

I spent fifteen years teaching in a middle school. I had wonderful students but it was a true inner city school in a part of town with few privileges. Nonetheless, I had students who excelled – some academically, some in sports, and some in violent crime. I had a student who shot his sleeping father in the back of the head. He got away with it until, a year later, he did the same to his mother. He now resides at the Folsom Prison of Johnny Cash fame. Another was shot in the face during a drug deal. Another of my students, a young lady, witnessed her father shoot her mother, then himself. There are more stories.

One account, however, stands out. The name was Joe. He was a quiet, “A” student. Behavior excellent, which in teacher talk means passive. He lived with his father; his mother was in jail for molesting him and his brothers. He promoted out of my middle school. After he left high school he worked for a private security firm and during most of his career had a good record. One Sunday morning for reasons I have forgotten – if there are “reasons” for violence – he kidnapped and tied up a fellow worker, then throughout the night and into the next day shot and killed four others. By noon he was in his car surrounded by cruisers and SWAT personnel. He told police, “I’m going to be more famous than the Unabomber!” and shot himself in the head.

This occurred on Monday, September 10, 2001. Joe did indeed replace Ted Krazynski in the papers the next morning. As I viewed the pictures in the paper I noticed how Joe resembled his younger brother, who was by then in my class. It was not hard to recall him as the quiet student who sat in Group Five in the back corner of the room. As those bad men flew into the buildings in New York later that morning, Joe’s story flew with them to a back-page paragraph.

The past is not embraceable and the future unpredictable. There is nothing except Aristotle’s “Golden Moment,” the present time. The present moment is indivisible – a fraction of a nanosecond is still just a record of the past. This incalculability resembles how some have used the words eternal and infinite. The mystics, from one of whom I derived the title of this blog, all, from both East and West, meditated on the present.

This has been a bad school year for me. I have taught only four days and they were painful. However my enforced leisure has given me a chance to meditate. Like Joe, I cannot undo the past nor control the future. Everything is Now.

Bumps

This past week was interesting – in a way. Tuesday: saw doctor, blood tests. Wednesday: Doc called. Blood tests indicate blood clots. Thursday: appointment for scan in “nuclear medicine” at 11:30. Showed lungs full blood clots. 12:30 – in ER. 3:00 – on heparin drip. 5:00 – fun ride on gurney across hospital campus to room. They let me go yesterday, after three days of very fine care. Blood thinners for six months to prevent more clotting. No riding Trusty with blood thinned because of bleeding dangers if I fall off.

Upside – I am alive. Possible to get back to work, but not right now. Support from family wonderful. There’s nothing like a little bump with mortality to sort out the important things. Thought-life is diminished. That’s good. Thinking leads to lots of trouble – and too much blogging.

More soon.

Piggily Wiggy

Scottobear just prompted me by email to post. It was a very raggedy week. Another relapse and I’m getting frustrated. I was in class Monday, but didn’t teach because of weak voice and low energy. Subs the rest of the week and the weekend hasn’t been better.

Will see the doc again tomorrow, but strangers will fill in for me again this week. I haven’t been able to do much but sit, surf, and sip. Up for a few tasks, then back down. Been trying computer games, reading and, otherwise doing what I can to not think of the sweet people enrolled in my classes.

Mental state is ebbing. Sitting is not normal. I expect to jump up and get back to work on a momentary basis, but. . . . ? Keep overeating, because the food is there and it helps the ennui, at least momentarily. Without the drama of interaction with students and colleagues, not much to blog about.

Next post will be upbeat and reconnected. – promise.