I love the "Around the Sun" blog. It radiates goodwill and a gentle kindness that I quite admire.
Lots of stuff listed there now for fun To-Do's tonight! Will you be there?
Friday, November 23, 2007
Have you Read "Around the Sun" today?
Thursday, November 22, 2007
Full Circle
Went on a day trip today. More about that later but it's amazing how much learning one can do in one day/behind the wheel.
Drove back into beautiful, glistening downtown PDX and as was promised me, the deer in the "Made in Oregon" sign now has a shiny red nose. Goes with my fluffy flannel sheets on my bed.
It's so great here. Bring on the holidays!! I'm so ready for a palm tree-free Christmas.
II. Update
Yesterday, I drove several hundred miles in traffic, only to find my destination was back at my starting point. Here's what I learned:
An "Invitation" tells someone of an event in a manner designed to have that person's presence at the event. Its chief feature is that it contains the time, date and place of the event.
A "Statement" --Wikipedia says that "a statement can be true or false"
I was presented with, "We'd love to have you for Thanksgiving." The address was missing, making this a Statement, not an Invitation. All parties (including me!) acted as though it was an Invitation. The issuer kept promising to give me the address and directions "later." I got so caught up in the sentiments being expressed that I didn't/ couldn't do my normal first step- Googling the address to get directions. I was "trusting" the speaker to take care of me, and to tell me how to get to the destination. I'm still working out in my head if that was their job. I'm pretty sure Miss Manners would say it was. But I wonder if I did indeed abdicate my role in taking care of myself, because I packed, gassed up the car and left, not knowing the destination or the address.
Oof.
Seeing that written out is illustration to me that this action was not logical. I got drunk on the, "Oh we can't wait to see you" and other things of that type. My repeated request for the address kept getting mixed in with other chat. Once I had fixed on this premise of being taken care of, I seem to have shut off my own thinking. When I'd ask for the address, the other person was saying "I'll get you the directions, just start up here."
I actually got as far as Seattle using this insanity as logic. By now I'm far from my laptop and Google. Without any other maps of the area, it's dawning on me that I'm helpless. On the phone, the other person was still saying she was going to get me the directions! Now I'm angry, but I'm trying to disguise it with a social veneer, "laughing" and saying will you give me the goddamn address already? I finally got the address, far too late to put into Google, make a map and save myself.
A vapid- sounding teen took the phone and gave me what sounded like directions. I thought I found the freeway exit but at its base I was presented with a "Y" instead of the "it only goes one way" that I was told. I called and they said, "What? Where are you? Drive toward town." That's not an instruction, when "town" is not visible, nor its direction known. It's conversation. This can't be parsed.
The weird thing was, no one I talked to could understand that I could only work with what was in front of me- "I'm on __ street at __street. Do I turn Right or Left?" And they'd say, "towards town." My voice is rising with my internal pressure. The setting sun is right at eye level as I'm trying to drive, talk on the cell, and look for street signs. I've been driving in heavy traffic since 11, and it's now 3PM. I kept trying to communicate to them. "I'm in front of __". Do I turn right or left? "Oh, I know right where you are. You're really close! Just come towards town, now." I reply "I don't know where Town is!" "Just keep coming down the road!" I drive for a bit and see none of the street numbers they tell me.
I've come to understand that what I think are normal questions are not going to get me answers and I'm desperate now, grasping for things they'll respond to. "Do I go towards the mountain or away from it?" "Toward!" I do so and the grid of streets disappear. "Wow, where are you? I don't even know where that is. You must be really lost." A man offered to come get me. I said, "If you can come get me, why can't you tell me how to get there?"
This insanity went on even longer until something horrible began to happen to me. I felt it starting to tear at my mind. My chest is heaving. My voice breaks as I beg some stranger on the phone for directions. It's literally torture.
I start to sob, and it's only now that I see myself, falling like a leaf. No. Suddenly I see that this is toxic. That stops it. I take care of myself. That's my first priority.
I shut off my phone and drive back to Seattle, where I once lived for several years and know my way around. I rest. I walk around Greenlake as the sun flops behind the trees. A man smiles warmly at me and my pretty outfit. I eat at a Capital Hill Asian noodle house, drive to look at the Space Needle from Queen Anne, do some thinking.
Instead of pleasantly joining a gathering as an adult and an equal, I'll stumble in as the overwrought, pathetic loser, the brunt of all the jokes. Even the children will lisp out some cutting remark. Or worse, I'll be pitied. Way too much of the wrong attention. I felt betrayed. A furious anger and despair washed me in waves. I was exhausted. The last thing I want to do is be in a room with this group.
This is precisely the sort of people and situation that cannot be in my life anymore. Look at what framed my world. A broken jigsaw puzzle, my own piece's image obscured by castoff wax and burrs until I couldn't tell where I should fit. Everything I did try was wrong. The relationship has a clear pattern. It is only what it is. But it must be respected. Wishful thinking will not change it.
In my world today, things are factual and knowable. Addresses are parsed by Google into directions; drawn as lines, printed as maps. According to my odometer, the distance from the point I gassed up in Seattle to my destination in Portland is 172 miles. Not "300." Southbound traffic was very light and that trip back took 2 1/2 hours. Northbound, in all the traffic the transit time was about 4 hours. Google says Everett is another 30 miles north of Seattle, not "100". Facts. I like facts. I like maps. 
The genius of Google Maps is it presents one version of potential, and offers that as "what is." When it parses a request, the default reply leaves out the variables. One can find one's way. Things get easy.
It's probably saved a lot of relationships. It would have saved this one.
Wednesday, November 21, 2007
Earthquake Today!
I see there was an earthquake here in Oregon today.
Y'know, I'd really like to have left those damn things behind in So Cal. But the reality is we live in the Ring of Fire, Earthquake Zone.
And Alaska gets their share of the damn things too.
Everybody's got something. And Kodiak had the additional thrill of having a tidal wave, after the big earthquake in '64. I'll take both over a tornado anyday. God those scare me the worst.
One of my parent's friends had a home movie (8 or 16mm film) of the tidal wave coming in over Kodiak, and we got to see it. I remember the harbor's breakwater rocks were just alive with zillions of rats beating it the hell out of there. Then I seem to remember the camera pans to the local mini-mountain, and you could see people running up the side of the mountain. Meanwhile this goof is standing there filming it coming right at him. It wasn't like a big cresting wave, it was just water rising way higher and faster than seemed possible. Left fishing boats sitting in the middle of what had been the downtown area.
Went a-Googling to find a picture for you, since I'm being so tangential, and found Timothy Smith's terrific account of the quake and wave, aka "tsunami."
Tuesday, November 20, 2007
A Holiday Message from Your Entree
And a story
_____
"The Village" a lounge in Kodiak where I worked as a bratty 20-something cocktail waitress, used to close for Thanksgiving Day. The regulars were then invited back as a private party. Everyone dressed up and we'd spend the afternoon smugly yelling, "We're CLOSED!" to the lesser lights who tried the the doors and found them locked. With a potluck buffet and my boss, Ron Ball, graciously hosting the open bar, we lazed away the afternoon indulging our collective curiosity in the "top shelf" boozes. Entrees like Roast Duck made the "potluck" grub way better than what my clan was shredding each other over at home, although the level of drunkeness and resulting arguments were bone-numbingly familiar with both groups.
My family would slur, "I can't believe you'd rather be with those drunks you wait on every day than here at home with us." Hmmm. Clearly a specious argument, as it didn't factor in that the family never tipped me $20 for bringing them a free double Chivas rocks.
Other than waiting on customers with my mouth full, my contribution to the festivities was decor. I extended the event out by drawing smartass Thanksgiving-themed cartoon posters. Each year, I made up completely new jokes.(That's the year "1983" below my signature.) The second year, the patrons honored me by fighting over who had "dibs" on the half-dozen works. After that launch, I then sold the 20x28 posters for, I believe, about 50 bucks a piece.
This may strike a reader as a shrewd bit of salesmanship, but the downside is that "Your Dinner" is the only cartoon that I still own. It's a little beat up and for some reason my cat bit into a corner of the damn thing, but I wanted to share it with you.
A holiday sentiment from mi casa to su casa. May a happy Thanksgiving be yours!
Sunday, November 18, 2007
Whistle While You Work
Desceptively pretty. But it's likely these people don't know they're visible: a new program tracks the IP addresses of people editing Wikipedia pages, showing the title of the page being edited and the geographic location of the editor. Like a Ouija pointer, the Google map quickly moves its focus to any point in the world, showing the posting topic at each location.
-Update- This imagery generated by this program in action looks exactly like electrical activity in the brain. I realized that's exactly what it is; a fractal image, synapse on a global scale.
The loss of privacy is omnious, but to see the world thinking as a collective is a religious experience. We truly are all One.
Love to see your comments on this, especially if you've viewed the program in action.
I See You Around Me
Blogger has a widget that shows just the pictures from bloggers as they are uploaded. It plays like a slideshow. Life, illustrated. It's very beautiful and moving at times.
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