What I Wish For

I wish I were out taking a walk on a bright, cool day. I took this from the Pfluger Pedestrian bridge last Sunday. I was walking back from Zach Scott theater and I was going to meet FFP at the condo and we were going to a party that promised to be wonderful (and was). The "kids" (my 39-year-old niece and her husband and their three-year-old daughter) were still with my dad so I wasn't worried about him as much. Life felt right.

As I type this I'm sitting at my dad's. Just goofing off on the Internet at the moment. We've been sitting here discussing what help he is going to ultimately need when he finishes recovering from this illness and when/if home health is stopped. There were no big duties when I got here today. I got his paper in and that pleased him. "You get addicted to things," he said. He told the OT evaluator yesterday he didn't read much anymore. He doesn't in the way that I don't read much anymore: he reads papers and magazines but hasn't gotten around to any books lately.

My life hasn't been the way I've wanted it lately. Too much hospital and sick room. Too much worry and unknown stuff with Dad. Heck, with myself as well. Not enough exercise, not enough walks (like the one from the picture), not enough tennis. Not even enough cleaning my own apartment and doing other chores there and computer stuff. (I always long to do that stuff when I don't have the time for it.)

I've gotten away to holiday parties and some adventures with FFP in the evenings and it's been good some nights, great even. Other times I was down a little, feeling sorry for dad, angry at dad, angry at myself, feeling like a failure. Mostly, though, it's been delicious getting away, going to parties and out to eat.

I used to have a little writing exercise I did when I felt my life wasn't going my way. I would write down a perfectly imagined future, what I'd do day in/day out and week in/week out. There would be descriptions of exercise, dining, travel, shopping, creating. Then I would ask myself what parts of the life described I could have in spite of my current situation. In other words, I'd try to find time inside the real life limitations of my existence (work, chores, taking care of others, limited resources like money and time) to do things that I'd do if there were no limitations. This made me really realize how much I enjoyed, say, exercise or playing tennis or even some chores. It made me realize that if limitations were cast aside, I'd still love a fine meal and a glass or two of wine or reading the newspaper with a good cup of coffee.

Digging deeper in your desires will make you realize how much you really have already of your 'perfect' life. And it will make you make a few changes, too, because many times what you want is right there. You just have to do the things you love.

What Do You Want?

Right after what was apparently the most significant event of the summer (Michael Jackson's death), I noticed a homemade sign on Austin City Lofts. "Wow," I thought. "Does someone really care that much?"

I have long said that the key to being happy, to 'getting what you want,' is to know what you want. I think I've failed miserably at that.

My horoscope today (the Creators Syndicate one in the Austin American-Statesman) says "If your environment isn't well-organized, you will feel distracted if not distraught. Make it a priority to get things in order." Well, that might have been true in the old house. No, it definitely was true. But I think my work area is just about perfect now. The whole house, really. I always have some cleaning task queued up that needs to be done and I do need to go through some boxes and files and organize the storage space and better organize the kitchen but, really, I can pretty much find things and, well, that isn't the problem. [I don't put much faith in horoscopes or fortune cookies or seer advisers. However, if I'm reading a paper and it isn't today's paper then I want bother to read the horoscope!]

We had dinner and and outing with a creative young friend on Saturday and she said she needed to focus her interests a little bit. (She is into photography, has a film she's editing, does fashion designs and sells 'reclaimed' fashions made from thrift store finds, etc.) She's only twenty-five, though, and she's managed to get a college degree, do some travel and live overseas a while and make a move here and get and hold a job to support herself with only a bike someone gave her for transportation. I'd say there is plenty of time to focus for her. Of course, she is thirty-five years younger than I am!

When I retired (how many times over the last six plus years have I used that phrase?), I thought I would learn and accomplish things.

The learning? It's a slippery slope as illustrated here. I would want to know more about world events and that would stick me with learning, for example, where the countries in Africa even are and then I'd have to take the time to actually read articles in my stacks of papers that I used to skip over. I'd want to learn more about movies. I considered learning to make one, decided it was too hard and gave away some equipment that could have made it possible. I read scripts and bought, and left unread, books about screenwriting. I started going to festivals, became involved in screening movies for a festival, read some books about movies, took the time to watch some classics. The result is that I still can't tell you who's who in the film world or really recognize many style things except for maybe some Woody Allen motifs.

The accomplishments? I wanted to find some volunteer work to do, but since I don't much like interacting with people that has been limited. I wanted to be healthier (exercise, diet, lose weight, ho hum) and maybe I am, maybe not. Not like I envisioned. I wanted to write, get organized, cook more.

I think it all boiled down to wanting to become an expert at something enough to help myself or others. I think maybe that's what missing from my life. It would probably take focus, though, and I think I'm destined to dabble. And to feel a little bad about it. Some people are thrust into situations where they have to focus and form strong opinions and do something about them. That hasn't really happened to me. In my career, there was some specialization forced from the outside and, I have to say, it allowed me to occasionally seem to accomplish something. (Although not as often as you might think.) Truthfully, accomplishment of anything needs to be forced on me. And I'm very resistant to intrusions in my retirement so it's hard for those situations to develop. I guess if I can force myself to write about the dilemma, though (fulfilling the 'pretending to write but really just blogging' destiny that's been my mantra of late) then I can maybe exert a little influence on myself to force myself to figure out what I want and accomplish it. You think? Honestly, I doubt it.

Schadenfreude

Does it make you feel better if some smirking (once) rich guy gets 150 years in prison? Does it make you feel better if someone who has made you feel small, called you names or dismissed you has some grief? Does it make you feel better to see oppressors jailed or killed?

The word schadenfreude is from the German. It means damage joy. If you are flying high and people you think are a??holes are underwater, can that bring you joy? Even if you are just rocking along just the same does a bit of trouble coming the way of a perceived tormentor do your heart good?

I'm pretty sure I'm hiding and watching a number of people to see if they 'get what they deserve.' Or what I think they deserve. Sort of in the manner of those town folk in "The Magnificent Ambersons" waiting around to see if the obnoxious Georgy gets his 'comeuppance.'

But you know what? It doesn't give me joy to see the descent. It's more that instead of feeling bad for them I'm just not cheering them on. Mostly I get my pleasure from a casual indifference to their success or failure. A few less people on the planet I have to feel bad for if things don't go their way.

I just wish people wouldn't have given me a reason to not wish them well. That things had been different, that they had been honest and generous. That they had not placed themselves above me and others. That they had not set themselves up for the fall. I'd just rather folks all made me want to see them do well. But it would be exhausting, too.

Everyone will reach a nadir even if it is just the final extinguishing of life, that moment when we can no longer cling to this realm. (If you are going to some heaven, well, yeah that's the last revenge from my unkind thoughts I suppose if you've offended me.) How horrible to have people smiling at our inevitable defeat. I think there are probably a few people who will feel my ultimate demise will be a victory and who will take joy in dips in my life. Certainly there are people out there wishing me ill or, at least, not hoping for the best for me. But I don't think there are many. Most of us are indifferent to most of the rest of us. The Madoffs managed to alienate a lot of people in a big way but, yeah, they had to really work at it.

Anyway, much as I like the word, I don't think I have much use for damage joy. Like those that awaited George Amberson's comeuppance, it's all too easy to simply forget all about it. And find what joy we can make of our own existence.

[Photo today is a shop window reflection from New York City.]

Depressed? Happy?

I realized earlier in the month as I was doing some movie screening that movies can depress me in a lot of ways. Depressing content. Bad movies make me feel queasy at the (to me) wasted money and the time I'm wasting watching them.

Gadgets depress me. Ones I have even when they work, but mostly when they start to fail. It wears me out upgrading programs on computers. Gadgets I've thought of getting but haven't depress me because of the confusion of thinking about them: smart phones, GPS devices, a new laptop, a new digital camera. Do I even need the last ones if I get a smart enough first one? When gadgets start to have glitches in behavior or their batteries quit holding a charge? That's depressing.

Cleaning depresses me because you have to do it over and over. Ditto cooking. (You have to cook then you made a mess you have to clean, then you get hungry again.)

The newspapers depress me with news of violence and hate and economic distress. They depress me when I pay for them and they pile up, unread.

And yet. I love newspapers. I like sitting down, folding one over and reading entire articles. Newspapers make me happy in a way nothing else does. Reading news and blogs online? I like it but it makes me nervous in a way and may depress me more and it is so hard to fall asleep at the keyboard. But in your chair with a newspaper? Yeah! Yep, a newspaper, a cup of coffee. Heaven. Add a notebook and pen and some interesting surroundings. Very cool.

I like walking around and taking pictures. I get depressed about organizing all my photos or finding something fresh for Austin, Texas Daily Photo after almost 800 posts. Plus tomorrow is a theme day. The theme? Empty? I'm kind of empty of ideas for it, too. I love my shop window pictures. They make me happy in a way that isn't even sensible.

It makes me happy to watch Wimbledon on my big plasma TV in an air-conditioned room. But a little depressed that I didn't get to play myself today (rain). But I'm happy it rained. We are in a long, long drought. That's a little depressing. When temps soar over a hundred? That depressing, too. Today the high was supposed to be 93. Depressing to think that it "doesn't sound too bad." And it actually, um, felt kind of cool when we walked to a restaurant to meet friends.

It makes me happy that we made a trip to NYC. It was so fun. More on that later. It depresses me that due to some watchful waiting on a parent's health and other duties we can't get away for another trip next month. It makes me happy that we might find time to do some of our volunteer work and maybe some Central Texas getaways.

Crossword puzzle and the new Ken-Ken make me happy. The time wasted on them? A little depressed.

I'm happy I'm retired. Depressed that I haven't done more with the time. My motto "Pretending to Write but Really Just Blogging" was funnier when I actually did blog and not just tweet. My tweets don't seem to excite much interest unless I misuse grammar. Typos, grammar errors, misspelled words all depress me. A well-turned sentence makes me happy. Learning a new word or usage makes me happy. The other morning a friend directed me to an NPR deal where you can submit "Three-Minute Fiction." I quickly wrote a story of about the right number of words. I didn't submit it. It was about writer's block and the things we do to displace the writing. I was happy to write it and not submit it. I was depressed to think about all the writing projects I'm not writing.

I'm happy I'm as healthy as I am. Depressed about some injuries and things that are failing. I'm happy I can exercise as much as I do. Depressed that I'm not more diligent. I love to eat. Eating makes me happy. I'm depressed that I don't manage to eat more healthy foods. I'm depressed at what I weigh, but happy I don't weigh twenty pounds more like I used to.

I go back and forth between the happy and the depressed. Everyone does unless their life is uniformly miserable. Even then?

Monsters

We went to a reading and signing yesterday for Rob Rummel-Hudson's book, Schuyler's Monster. I bought the book the other day and I didn't take it or buy another for him to sign. I enjoyed seeing him in person. Driving all this way to speak to a few dozen people is gritty to me. Reminds me why maybe I'll remain a blogger!

We all have monsters, I guess. In Rob's daughter's case, it is a brain malformation. Keeps her from speaking normally and has other manifestations. Rob talked about some of her classmates in a special augmentative speech device class and how their disabilities were both more obvious and overwhelming. Most of us just harbor smaller gremlins, maybe our genetic destiny, maybe something that has happened to threaten our psyche. I looked around at the reading, watched people as they asked questions and wondered: what are their monsters?

The biggest lie we tell ourselves is that we can get things organized, structured, simplified and in better shape. We think diet and exercise can make us better and, while that is true to a point, we are all falling down in this life. Headed to a sure extinction. We think if we get our finances straight (or find the right companions, or, you know, fill in the blank) we can be happy. Some think that if they get on the right side of their God or gods, all will be well.

The truth is that life is a monster who leaves you alone sometimes while it sleeps. What we do in these moments of relative peace is our life.

When I made my morning call to Dad this morning, his voice sounded strong. It could have been my dad, thirty years younger. He hadn't gotten out to see the rain, he felt pretty good, no surgery was scheduled. He is good at existing in those moments of peace. Getting a smile, even a laugh while the monster sleeps. Maybe even laughing at how old age has compromised him, laughing at the monster. He adapts, he accepts. And unlike his child he doesn't even try to make literature out of it.

The Ravages of Time

Well, that's that...2007. Gone. Time changes everything. This is the last of the 'required' Holidailies entries. I suspect the 'every day without fail' Visible Woman will drift away again. Today I'm showing a photo of a shelf in an artist's studio I took in May 2004. As opposed to fireworks or champagne bubbles. I didn't take pictures like that last night because we slipped out of the party circuit at a reasonable hour to sit and watch Dick Clark's special. Uh, yeah, the ravages of time. I guess I hadn't been paying attention to Dick. When did he have that stroke? Anyway, he's fighting back. That's all we can ask of people in the battle you can't win. Life. The battle you can't win. Ha. I'm in a good mood on this first day of 2008, huh?

I always feel bad about time slipping away on the first day of the year. See here from last year.

Well, let's see, I'm not making resolutions. And I'm not doing anything to get a jump start on the year. Maybe I could reprise something I wrote before. Yeah, how about this...I made resolutions for other people a couple of years ago. Yeah, January 2006. I refused to resolve then and preceded to resolve for those near and far from me the following:

• Whatever your political affiliation is, do not act like your party is good and the other is evil. All politicians are evil. In direct proportion to their power. With exceptions of course. But they cross party boundaries. Think independently about people and politics. It would do the country a world of good. It would do the world a country of good. Whatever.
• Don't expect me to jump when you are ready to do something. I'm happy to make plans with people and I reply to social invitations, commit to them and attend if death or serious events don't detain me. Mr. Morris complained about people failing to RSVP and to attend to invitations. I know this isn't going to change. I deal with it with statistical analysis (large events) and frequent reminders (small events). But don't expect me to be on a string for your last minute activities. Sure, call and let's do something. But don't be surprised if I'm not in the mood.
• Take fifty percent of the responsibility for keeping up our friendship (if, you know, we have one...otherwise ignore this or apply it to your own friends). I'm happy to be the instigator some of the time. But if it's always me writing, calling, planning and always you hedging, equivocating, waiting for a better offer then one day I'll get tired. There are exceptions, of course. Some of you I will keep seeing even though I know I'll always be making the call. You know who you are. (Only I don't think any of them read this!) [Ed. Note: Some of the people reading this are the best at holding up half or more of the relationship. You know who you are. Thanks.]
  
• If you read my journal, remember a few things about this means of communication. Don't be smug because you know all this stuff about me. (I wrote it for the whole world after all. Duh.) Don't corner me at a party and act like you are a brilliant researcher who uncovered things about me on the WEB. If you want to talk about something in the journal, admit that you read it in the journal. Don't act like we had a conversation about it. I'm forgetful and it makes me crazy. And if you are my friend and are reading this, remember that you may be getting all you want of me but I may not know what's going on with you. It's a one way street. We aren't really keeping up with each other. And it's kind of spooky in a way. I know all about it because I read journals that others write. I know some of them personally. But I know that I feel way closer to them than I have any real right to feel whether I've met them or not.

Yeah. That still feels good. Not an accomplishment exactly. Just some recycled words. I am feeling a bit of a failure today, but it will pass. And I am inordinately happy with a few things. Like the fact that my health seems good and, unlike last year, my dad's health, while not great, is good enough that I don't have to go over there and take care of him today. And FFP was cleaning out his sock drawer and he didn't want a couple of pairs of socks that I kept and wore the last two days and they are very cool. Being inordinately happy is what it's all about. Maybe that should be my resolution: be happy without reason! Not that we don't have many, many things to be thankful for. Really we just have to embrace the things that are good.

Good News, Bad News

Don't you hate those 'good news, bad news' jokes? Well, my good news is that I did NOT have a root canal. That's also the bad news since that means I'll probably continue to have my symptoms. The other bad news is it cost me some money to get an inconclusive diagnosis. Something is probably going on. Which tooth isn't certain. Wait and see. But the other good news is I now I'm a patient of an endodontist who looks young enough to still be in high school so if I wake up one day with a walloping pain I can get an emergency appointment. And I'm assured that I'm not ignoring something that should be taken care of. I have a baseline X-Ray and exam with the guy and he'll do another in two weeks (for free if they still don't perform a procedure). La. Ti. Da.

It's unreasonable to feel good about this, I suppose.

I guess it was just that I knew I was doing everything I was supposed to do to take care of the problem if it's a problem.

To celebrate not having a root canal we went out and ate dinner really early at Hyde Park Bar and Grill. A couple of Shiner Bocks from the tap and some tasty food made me feel better. I have managed not to take any Advil since the weekend. This morning my mouth is in one of those states where I say "if it felt this good all the time, I wouldn't have complained."

It brought everything into perspective when we came home and, all our Netflix selections in the mail system somewhere, selected to watch a disk we own: Annie Hall. Alvie explains to Annie how everything is divided into the horrible and the miserable concluding "that's very lucky to be miserable."

Fact is I'm not even miserable right now. I was a couple of times over the long holiday weekend. Maybe I'd even disagree with Alvy. There are moments when everything that's wrong stands at bay and let's you have a look at being, if not happy, without immediate palpable misery.

Looking Ahead

There is our condo building rising beyond the tangle of power switching equipment next to the Seaholm plant.

I thought of putting this entry into the Journal of Unintended Consequences. It's sort of the 'appropriate planning' vs. 'looking for happiness in the future and not living in the now' dilemma. It's really been on my mind as I struggle to plan for a significant move and see all these things from my past as I struggle to reduce my 'stuff.'

I've been reading The Unbearable Lightness of Being by Milan Kundera. I was struck by this passage:

"People usually escape from their troubles into the future; they draw an imaginary line across the path of time, a line beyond which their current troubles will cease to exist."

I have done that so many times in my life. Not that I never lived 'right now.' I think I do that better at the moment than I ever have. But I remember so many times thinking that as soon as I (fill in the blank: paid off this bill, moved, changed jobs, retired, etc.) then I would have it sorted and be happy. Or happier. I'm trying hard not to think of the move downtown that way. I'm trying to think of it as just another stage in my life. I'm trying to enjoy my house while I'm still here and I'm trying to embrace sorting all this 'stuff' as a good and fun exercise.

Truthfully, whenever I look into the future these days, I seem to quickly retreat into the present. I'm getting older. Our parents seem perilously old. Then there are terrorists and global warming. Yeah, better enjoy the now.