it’s a heat wave. Not a hundred, but too far up the 90s for comfort, that’s for sure.

Chris is out this weekend doing ship business, and so I thought I would get a lot of things done. I have, but not nearly as many as I thought I would.

The heat drove me to get ice cream. I should not be eating ice cream, because it’s not good for me, and my shorts are tight from previous lack of self-control.

I lay on the couch, bowl of ice cream on my chest, eating as I watched some dumb movie that was on.

Dog sat and stared at me. Not moving, and her face about a foot from my face.

walk she was willing at me. But it was still too hot, and I had this ice cream to finish.

WALK

She was not moving.

I didn’t want to walk. But she did, and it was only me to take her.

I suppose the self-discipline came back when I finished the ice cream. We had an extra-long walk.

This sunday was mother’s day. Chris’s mother and Grandmother live nearby, and we were having them over for dinner.

One of the gifts we wanted to give them was flowers. A few years ago, I suggested to Chris that we give his grandmother (who is notoriously difficult to buy for) a dozen roses. She was delighted, saying she’d never recieved a dozen roses before. Now, it’s a good bet to give flowers.

Chris also has learned to rely on my arranging skills. Florists are basically crooks, in his opinion. He knows I can throw a bouquet together and make it look just as good for a third the price. I love arranging flowers, so that works for me.

So he went to Costco and bought flowers. Roses, lilies and tulips.

I would never have bought those three kinds of flowers together. There is a sort of principle of flower arranging. Some showy flowers, some filler, some small, some large, etc.

These three were all showy.

But that’s what I had.

My instructions were to make three arrangements, One for his mother, one for grandmother and one for me.

As I arranged them, I thought that it was a metaphor for marriage. On my own, I would not have picked these flowers. On his own, Chris would have not gotten flowers at all.

But between us, we created these things of beauty:

They were a hit.

This weekend, I ran into some procreative friends. Their oldest daughter, 7 years now, has finished reading the Harry Potter series.

Yes, little seven-year old genius has finished the magical tomes.

Once I finished wrapping my mind around her feat of literacy, I began to feel concerned for the poor little thing. If I complain that I, with my decades of years behind me, run out of book regularly, poor little precocious princess will have nothing whatever to read by age ten.

Not only that, her parents might be hard-put to find appropriate things for her to read. I personally would hate to have her stumble into Danielle Steele merely because she had read everything else in the library.

I came up with a list for a teenage reader a while back. But for a child-mind, a different list would be appropriate. With the idea of books of a series, I came up with some titles.

It’s fun to remember the books I plowed through before I was ten. For all I know, she finished these off when she was 4. But here they are, some of them anyway:

Andrew Lang’s Colored Fairy Books

Blue Fairy Book (1889)

Red Fairy Book (1890)

Green Fairy Book (1892)

Yellow Fairy Book (1894)

Pink Fairy Book (1897)

Grey Fairy Book (1900)

Violet Fairy Book (1901)

Crimson Fairy Book (1903)

Brown Fairy Book (1904)

Orange Fairy Book (1906)

Olive Fairy Book (1907)

Lilac Fairy Book (1910)

Hugh Lofting Dr. Dolittle Series

The Story of Doctor Dolittle (1920)

The Voyages of Doctor Dolittle (1922)

Doctor Dolittle’s Post Office (1923)

Doctor Dolittle’s Circus (1924)

Doctor Dolittle’s Zoo (1925)

Doctor Dolittle’s Caravan (1926)

Doctor Dolittle’s Garden (1927)

Doctor Dolittle in the Moon (1928)

Doctor Dolittle’s Return (1933)

Doctor Dolittle and the Secret Lake (1948)

Doctor Dolittle and the Green Canary (1950)

Doctor Dolittle’s Puddleby Adventures (1952)

Louisa May Alcott:

Little Women (1868)

An Old Fashioned Girl (1870)

Little Men (1871)

Aunt Jo’s Scrap-Bag (1872-1882)

Eight Cousins; or, The Aunt-Hill (1875)

Rose in Bloom (1876)

Under the Lilacs (1877)

Jack and Jill: A Village Story (1880)

Jo’s Boys and How They Turned Out

A book I found perusing the “c” section of the library. Willa Cather writes about the wild west, pretty much. This book seemed incredibly tame, until I got pretty far into it. It was about civilization, and set in a college town. How could you get more civilized than a university?

But as I read on, it seemed to be talking about science and striking it rich. That was part of the old west. What is a gold mind but a process using physics?

And what is the railroad all about but science?

Here is a quote, the only one we get from the Professor’s lecture:

“No, Miller, I don’t myself think much of science as a phase of human development. It has given us a lot of ingenious toys; they take our attention away from the real problems, of couse, and since the problems are insoluble, I suppose we ought to be grateful for distraction. But the fact is, the human mind, the individual mind, has always been made more interesting by dwelling on the old riddles, even if it makes nothing of them. Science hasn’t given us any new amazements, except of the superficial kind we get from witnessing dexterity and sleight-of-hand. It hasn’t given us any richer pleasures, as the Renaissance did, nor any new sins–not one! Indeed it takes our old ones away. It’s the laboratory, not the Lamb of God, that taketh away the sins of the world. You’ll agree there is not much thrill about a physiological sin. We were better off when even the prosaic matter of taking nourishment could have the magnificence of a sin. I don’t think you help people by making their conduct of no importance–you impoverish them. As long as every man and woman who crowded into the catherdrals on Easter Sunday was a principal in a gorgeous drama with God, glittering angels on on side and th shadows of evil coming and going on the other, life was a rich thing. The king and the beggar had the same chance at miracle and great temptations and revelations. And that’s what makes men happy, believing in the mystery and importance of their own little individual lives. It makes us happy to surround our creature needs and bodily instincts with as much pomp and circumstance as possible. Art and religion (they are the same thing, in the end, of course) have given man the only happiness he has ever had.

…

The Christian theologians went over the books of the Law, like great artists, getting splendid effects by excision. They reset the stage with more space and mystery…With the theologians came the catherdral-builders; the sculptors and glass-workers and painters. They might, without sacrilege, have change the prayer a little ans said Thy will be done in art, as it is in heaven“

The Professor’s House by Willa Cather

Interesting.

The misty angel has departed. Bonnie died on Monday night.

It was too soon.

I am totally confident that she is in a better place. The sorrow is for those she leaves behind.

Her family is bereft. As am I .

I spoke with her husband Alex, he told me the news. We spoke briefly, he recounting some facts, and both of us saying “too soon” “so hard” “sorry”.

As I was out walking the dog and weeping later that evening, the poverty of what we had to offer each other struck me. There were few and pitiful words to say.  At times like these, we are stripped down to the basics. Like children in the mud.

I might as well have made a mud pie for him…the real kind out of dirt and water. “here..”  Or as if I offered him a pretty rock. “Look, here..it has a stripe in it.”

Sophistication is meaningless for this.  In the face of this loss, earthly things are pointless.

But earth is where we live.

So today I will try to gather up the pieces of my book to fit them together into a first draft.

A complete first draft.

Didn’t I just do that? I did. And now i have lost my thread and must do it again.

I am at the point where I no longer care if the book is good. I just want to finish it.

I wonder sometimes…kind of often…about the discipline of my thoughts. I think they are not terribly disciplined. They zing around in a scattered fashion that doesn’t complete itself. Maybe, I think, if I had spent more time in traditional education (college, for example) I would be better able to formulate some of my ideas into full theories or works of creativity.

On the other hand, I have noticed a difficulty in the opposite direction. If my thoughts are not fully worked out, they would therefore be SHORT, right?

However, when I am talking with people, I begin to say a something that I’ve been thinking about.

INEVITABLY, I am interrupted once…twice…three time…sometimes several days can go by before I finish the train of thought (so simple and direct to my mind) that I was trying to convey to someone else.

IT’S REALLY ANNOYING not to be able to complete what I started to say. Some people are pretty good about letting me finish. Others…and that is the majority…can’t seem to let me get even the introduction out, let alone the POINT I was trying to bring up.

I guess there are a couple things that would cause this.

1. I hang around a lot of rude people who don’t let me finish what I’m trying to say

2. I am a clumsy conversationalist, and shouldn’t be trying to say such long, conversation-dominating things in a conversation

-now really thought…if that were the case…I would just have to give up on conversation altogether. Saying anything LESS interesting would not be worth my time.

Maybe I am in that awkward period where I am a more advanced thinker than the average peoples I encounter, but not quite disciplined enough to move on to the next level…

But here’s the thing…if I am indeed a slightely more honed than average thinker…(and I don’t think I can be that much more) and I am ALREADY having difficulty carrying on a satsifactory conversation…there is a risk that i will lose even the basic conversational interfacing skills that I have now.

It’s mostly at work, really…Work is where I have to try to talk to people who don’t let me finish. And a few other light social interactions.

When I get to CHOOSE who I talk to…it goes a lot better.

Basically, this is a lot of mewling because I am not finishing this stupid book. “Why am I not done…? Am I just not disciplined enough to finish this big idea of a book? Maybe I am not educated enough…maybe I’m not good enough…”

Meh.

Stupid creative drive…

My career continues to befuddle me.

I am still in the big impersonal corporate environment. There are some good points to such a place.

But the bad points…there are those too.

People will say “There are bad things about any workplace.” This is undeniably so.

Here is an example of how I think about it:

I cannot do scary movies. As a young person, I was scared sleepless by inadvertantly stumbling on the video “Thriller”. Couldn’t sleep for a couple nights.

I learned that I should avoid scary movies. “Lost Boys” was too much for me. Even had to avoid X-Files, cause it freaked me out. Couldn’t go down a dark hallway to pee.

HOWEVER, it wasn’t just the scary. For example, I loved Independence Day and Jurassic Park. Even Jaws, that was fine

Upon consideration, I figured out it had to do with the intent. Was the scary whatever in the movie after the hero personally?

Not in Independence Day. Not Jaws, or Jurassic Park.

It was like the hunter hunted the prey impersonally. It was just what the hunter does. They might have easily chosen another to eat, or kill.

Evil, though…Vampires, they want you, and they want you to harm you in a nasty way. Past the grave, they own you. They have it in for you personally.

Back to large impersonal corporations.

They can harm you, and do things that drive you mad. Most of the time, when “they” are doing it, it is not personal. It is suddenly policy that all pencils must be forfieted at the end of the business day?

Nothing personal. We simply needed to do it.

Is it suddenly policy that 10% of all personnel have to be fired?

Nothing personal. Sorry. You have to go.

But then, there is the totally personal.

In a previous position I held:

A manager had been given my department to manage. He had been reprimanded too often for badly managing his previous crew. They gave him video conferencing, so they didn’t have to demote him.

I didn’t know this.

I did know that he badly managed.

A last meeting for high-level muckity mucks was called. It was last minute. It didn’t start well, but we rescued it.

Manager dude was nowhere to be found, but we rescued it.

Since manager dude knew nothing about how to do this work anyway, it was not a matter of concern to me that he wasn’t around. I would not have expected help from him. But since he was the manager, when I saw him the next day, I gave him a full report.

“You wouldn’t beleive what happened…” I told him all about it.

He ripped me a new one. Why? because I should have known that he was out at a trade show, and I should have called him.

“I did not know you were at a trade show.” I replied. “I looked for you, and didn’t find you.I was mostly concerned with handling the emergency meeting.”

“You knew where I was. I told you!” (He had not told me.)

I stood there to recieve the redundant sphincteration procedure. I knew he was completely in the wrong. I looked at him levelly. When he was done, I repeated what we had done to handle the problem, and how it had ended up fine in the end.

He did some final touches on the new asshole he’d been creating in me. And we parted.

Thing was, he knew and I knew and he knew I knew that he was totally out of line.

Next time he saw me, he said that he wanted to reward (in the abstract) the hard work of my team, and had gotten permission to give us “A Night on the Town.” We should all go out and have a good time and give him the reciepts to be reimbursed.

He was trying to apologize for his previous assholery without acknowleding that it was assholery. He was pretending this was a magnanimous gesture.

I said, “Thank you.”

He got mad again that I was not more grateful, but didn’t blow up. I said “Thanks, That is a nice thing to do.”

Naturally, the reward didn’t happen.

But this is an example of personal evil. It was personal to me.

Impersonal was when that company lied to all the IT people and said their stock and their jobs were safe. At the end of the quarter they laid everyone off and outsourced IT.

A much greater evil. But not personal at anyone.

The personally directed attacks at me, I have to respond to. In the case of bad manager, I had to go to his manager and say, “get him off my back.”

That is when I learned that he had been given the consolation prize of managing my department. But he did leave me alone after that.

The impersonal evil, there is not much you can do about. This is a fallen world.

But, it’s hard to tell the difference sometimes.

Returning phone calls

making sure things get done

Following up

Doing my homework

Hell, even taking a class at all!

These are the sort of things that I do. I think they should be valued more.

I am GREAT at these kinds of things.

But it is a very ordinary sort of greatness.

I didn’t expect it.

It’s like that saying, If it’s everyone’s job, and anybody can do it, then nobody does it.

That means it never happens.

So if it happens to everyone, at any time, then it always happens, and the ‘always’ is rendered down to never.

But I got the news that my dear dear friend Bonnie has an incurable disease.

Death has come up to walk beside me. It’s too soon. I want this to be not now.

So, as I move through my days, my days whose numbers are the same they were yesterday, one less only, I think about death.

Bonnie’s days are not the same they were last year. She knows it. I know it.

And that knowledge walks with me. The knowledge, the ineffable, walks beside me.

I have known death before. I have had friends die. But not like this. It was a intersection, a flash and gone.

What?! he is dead? you must be mistaken.

But no. And no. No mistake. Only a huge irrevocable one, And the end.

The end.

And no one was ready. Am I ready?

NO. I have too many things to do. I am not willing to let go.

What must Bonnie be thinking? I think she thought NO too.

I avoid death. We all do. Mostly.

Be careful! Do not cross the danger line. Don’t even get close to the danger line.

Wear a sweater. Drink water. Take your vitamins.

Lots of padding between the now and the end. Don’t sit too close to death. Don’t put yourself in the angel’s path.

As death walked with me, I thought of it. It was coming to stay. To stay as long as Bonnie was here. And then probably a bit longer. There is an afterwards.

Okay. Who is this? Cloaked and patient. Sitting at the table, ready to recieve hospitality. Tea would be nice.

Cloaked. I thought. A skeleton? the grim reaper?

no, Not rattley and bright. That’s not this one. This is misty and cloaked.

Man or woman? I regard the presence as it accompanies me. I look for the masculine, the feminine. It is neither. And yes, that is right because death is an angel and angels are neither male nor female.

I see death, that mist. That cloaking, obscuring mist.

Stay away from me! I have things to do! I have things on this earth I still want

I think of the church prayers. Put away the things of this earth and set your sight on heaven.

right, sure. But not yet.

Not really yet.

Except that I have a choice. Bonnie is coming to the end of earthly choices.

The misty angel is sending misty tendrils around her, and they will eventually surround and obscure her.

Gone. No peeking.

My church also has a very explicit understanding of heaven and the afterlife. At least, more explicit than some.

Pictures of all the people who are there already surround us in our homes and in church.

Look, Mary the mother of Jesus! Look, John the baptist, Jesus’s cousin!

And all the saints from America. And St. George the dragon slayer..And Xenia, the hardworking hod carrier. And my personal one, Elizabeth the martyr of Russia. All these people, like the guest list at a party already there when you are arriving fashionably late.

Things of heaven.

This misty angel walks with me. I am not ready for Bonnie to go. I can only wrap myself in the incontravertible fact that there is not a damn thing I can do about it. That every breath I take is a gift from God anyway, and any time he wants to not grant the next breath he can.

That’s not stopping me from praying for a miracle. And it is not stopping my angry tears against the coming loss of my friend.

I got nothing. I don’t know what I can offer her now. She’s always been the one to help me–the one with the bit of wisdom or the obscure reference book to help me out with a question.

I got nothing. I guess I’ll just do what I can, stumble around and hope that whatever i can give- phone calls, visits, whatever-is helpful to her.

Probably we are all stumbling and incompetent right about now.

Lord have mercy.

A friend invited me back to visit my former workplace.

THAT workplace.

I saw a lot of people there that remembered me and were glad to see me.

The only manager left from when I worked there (the rest had ‘gone’) said “It cost us a million and a half dollars after you left.”

I said “It’s too bad I couldn’t have gotten that million.”

“And,” he said, “It took four people to replace you.”

It was nice of him to say that. He didn’t have to. It was true. I knew it was going to cost them when I left. But that’s why I left–they weren’t listening to me about what needed to be done.

They had to find out the hard way.

But it was nice of him to tell me that. He didn’t gain anything by telling me.

Three years later, and I can walk the halls like a celebrity. A celebrity for being as good as I was. A good worker.

A celebrity because people remember me. And a celebrity because even the people who were hired to replace me heard so much about me that they are excited to meet me personally.

Makes me think about what a former friend said when I was sad that I had to quit:
“Don’t kid yourself. They forget about you as soon as the door shuts.”

Not me. ‘Cause I really am that good.