Goings on

census, the house police

Yes, a neighbor said that to me. What are you, the house police?

Yesterday was the last day of my census work (only areas of Spanish speakers are left to do in my neighborhood, and I, alas, not because I haven’t tried, am mono-lingual). I am sad (it’s no longer a source of income) and glad (I don’t have to play big brother anymore.) Sure, we need the numbers for our representation in congress, as well as the money for our roads and hospitals. But how do you answer someone who asks why the government needs birthdays and race demographics? Why do THEY want my NAME and PHONE NUMBER? They want to know — does sound sort of creepy.

To find out how many people need age-related benefits. To figure out the number of school children, people that need social security, what have you. Yes, but how does that information help someone who is 35 and why should they care? I have more questions than I have answers.

After the usual pat questions and responses, one anonymous young man said, hey, that’s really not that important. I said, ok, then, so you don’t agree. Have mercy on me, then. They will fire me if i don’t collect the information.

He looked at me, point blank, don’t give me those big sad eyes, he said.

I looked at his nose ring and his stretched ear lobes with the big holes, and realized I wasn’t going anywhere with him, but to my next stop.

I backed off. ok, I said. thanks, anyway. He backed off, too. We had disconnected, from one person to another, neighbors, to people from other planets.

And to think we are all in this together, traveling in the same boat. Going upriver, without a paddle. Silent, with no real way to talk about it.

Goings on

Meet my youngest

nick-small

He’s 23. He hates me.

Goings on

Dried up

I am looking for refreshment. Can’t come up with any ideas. Feels impossible. The empty well feels rather like a bottomless pit. Remember trying to create a mote around the sand castle, and how that sand just kept sucking it up?

What works for you? Let me know (Just don’t suggest a stiff drink or wrinkle cream). Even my coffee pot has a hole in it, and i don’t know how it got there…

Goings on

Going to Yale, well twice anyway

Game Theory class at Yale. Look here.

Getting ducks in a row... freedigitalphotos

By end of class 1, here was the game:

“Without showing your neighbor what you’re doing, put in the box below a whole number between 1 and a 100 [whole number between 1 and 100–integer.] We will calculate the average number chosen in the class. The winner in this game is the person whose number is closest to two-thirds times the average in the class.” [Again: the winner is the person whose number is closest to two-thirds times the average number in the class.] The winner will win $5 minus the difference in pennies between her choice and that two-thirds of the average.”

Rules are:

(from the class transcript:)

“Before you go I want five things from you. I want to know the five lessons from this class. Tell me what you learnt? What were the five lessons? Without looking at your notes, what were the five lessons? Anybody, shout out one of the lessons, yes madam.

Student: Don’t play a strictly dominated strategy.

Professor Ben Polak: Don’t play a strictly dominated strategy, anything else? Yes sir.

Student: Yale students are evil.

Professor Ben Polak: Yale students are evil. Two lessons down, three to go. The guy over here.

Student: Rational choices can lead to bad outcomes.

Professor Ben Polak: Rational choices can lead to bad outcomes. We put it more graphically before but that’s fine. Two more outcomes.

Student: Put yourself in other people’s shoes.

Professor Ben Polak: Put yourself in other people’s shoes and I’m missing one, I can’t recall which one I’m missing now.

You could but it’s a good idea to figure out what you want before you try and get what you want.

The basic game plan:

1. Figure out a strategy that is going to bring you out on top

2. In this particular classroom, know that everyone else is coming from that position.

3. Rational choices can lead to bad outcomes (when everyone is being rational, it’s harder to win)

4. Think about what your opponent is thinking, knowing he/she is rational, too.

5. Figure out what you want before you try to get what you want

Goings on

Sono, an unpublished dream

los venduros puodo the vendor I

In my dream, I was trying to learn Spanish, and I was the only one not getting it. There was a book, but I couldn’t read it. I didn’t even know what page the words were on, and no one would tell me. Everyone was impatient because I could not learn.

I could not hear the words. I could not see the words. I tried to write them down, but I didn’t have them right, and in a dream, it’s hard to make them stay on the page.

And, even when I am awake, I can’t read my handwriting, anyway.

Everyone else was learning organically. I could not. I do not learn by immersion. I learn by seeing, hearing, reading. But wait a minute. Isn’t that immersion?

So, what do I need?

A book.

I need to know what page the words are on.

I need to see the sentence of Spanish words.

I need to know the translation.

Give me a book. Tell me where in the book we are reading. Where is the sentence? And I can see it. Read it. Force myself to remember it.

Next morning, I don’t remember the exact words in my dream. There were two sentences. I looked up the words I recall and they are not words.

Aquí está la ropa. que estén limpias. Here are the clothes. They are clean.

Goings on

It gets stranger

Last night’s Nightmare.

I was in bed, flipping inattentively through a catalogue. I put it down. “Hey,” I heard a little voice say.

It was coming from the catalogue. I glanced over. “Now that I have your attention, I can continue…” the little voice said.

Amused, I watched as the catalogue’s pages turned.

One of the pages tore.

“You are going too fast,” I said. “Slow down.”

A page ripped out. “Turn over,” I said.

When I went to reach for the catalogue, wanting to take a closer look at its intriguing items and clothing, a woman approached me with a catalogue in her hand. “Here, give me that one and take this one,” she said.

“No. I want this one,” I told her, holding the catalogue against me.

“All the items are the same,” she insisted, grabbing me. “Don’t make me do this!”

“Young woman,” I said. “Take your hands off me.”

I was becoming fearful, but resolute. All I had to do was wake up to win this battle.

Which I did.

In the corner of my bedroom, on the ceiling, was a small box about five inches by three inches.

Coming from the box was a tube that extended within inches of my head. As I watched the tube retracted, telescoping back into the box, then the box slipped through the wall. Of course, I no longer had the catalogue. Who won?

Goings on

What goes around comes around

Who is Win Wenger? I found him by accident last night — in one of those emails I have subscribed to and usually don’t read anymore (this one was from Mark Joyner and the subject line read “Awaken your brain in 30 seconds.”

Ok, I thought. Let’s see what he’s up to.

Here’s part of what was in the email:

“Now, if you’re looking for a quick fix, here’s what
you do.

“This is a technique taught by Win Wenger …

“It’s simple: close your eyes and visualize in your mind that your head is about one inch bigger all around than it is.

“Actually *see* this in your mind’s eye.

“If you hold this image in your head for about 30 seconds straight it sends your nervous system a signal to pump more oxygen to your brain.

“It’s a bizarre “brain hack,” but it’s actually measurable via CT scan.

“People who try it usually experience a sense of heightened alertness on the first try. (if it didn’t work – try a few times – really *see* your head as
being larger in your mind’s eye).

“Wow! Remind me not to do this again before bedtime!

This morning, after a truly strange “sleep,” I reread the email and saw that Mark attributed this to Win Wenger. I looked him up and see that he is working on something that he calls “Project Renaissance.” There are even job openings for writers. I skip around, and come to his bio. At the end I come to “…Win Wenger and his wife, Susan — herself the author of The Better Baby Book…”

Yikes, I remember her. I took her course and did her flash cards for Aimee 28 years ago! The math series contained cards with red dots up to 100, I think. You say a number, and your 8-month-old (or younger) crawls over and picks up the right card. Aimee was pretty good at it — and she’s still good at math!

Goings on

Tell me your story and I’ll tell you mine

You know, there’s a reason why they called them magic carpets. I look at the one by my bed. My grandfather brought it with him from Armenia, I was told.

This one is not a floral. Geometric bands in gold, camel, brown and blue march around this little rug. Touches of coral – was it a deep red at one time? – intermingle and weave in life’s blood and fire.

What do we have here? Checkerboards of color, I see. Are they flowers or crosses? And next, a row of crosses for sure. Coming in another level, closer to its soul, is another band in lighter tones. The centers of each repeat create an intricate pattern that is hardly decipherable. I can read it, though. The cross is held within a diamond – protection from the evil eye, and interspersed north, east, south and west is the dot within a circle, an ode to fertility. Oh how lovely to have this charming magic carpet inches from me while I sleep!

Next come two more bands that echo the edges of this small world, and then I get to the heart of the matter. On a field of the deepest blue, there bursts an orgy of symbols. Birds appear amid flower blossoms, dragons, I think, ram’s horns, swords and crowns.

Pagan Celts, horse whisperers to my left. Near-Eastern Christians to my right, silk weavers with secrets of their own. They speak back and forth, compare notes. Eventually, I hope, they will make sense and who they are and what they mean will leap off their fields of midnight blue and earthy brown.

Goings on

Enough, not enough, too much

I don’t know how to be funny to save myself. Feel too heavy to be funny. Or even intelligent, for that matter.

Can’t get enough.

Time for miracles.

At this hourly rate, I would do well to move to India – and I can speak English without an accent.

What am I waiting for? I feel like a girl waiting for that guy to call. I am too tired to do much of anything else.

I’m still clearing my throat because my head is aching and my ears are ringing, so why not? At least I have something to say. Even if comes out all wrong. Even backwards.

Oh my, it’s the “cream-soup-to-consume” theory. The opposite of making mayonnaise, the undoing. Perhaps that’s something for me to think about. I think I will unthink. I don’t think, so I am not.

I’m amming not, and holding my head, and I don’t know that person.

She’s a little nutty, but when did that ever stop anybody? That’s a good place to be, actually.

A little nutty. Protein and the good fat.

And vegetarian, so to speak. If I’m speaking, which I amming not.

And if you don’t like it, you can go, there’s the door. I’m tired of being nice, and that might be dangerous. I did that about half my life ago, and lived to regret it. Being nice is a fate worse than death. Martha said so. “I am not nice.”

My not name Nannette, my sister said.

My not, neither.

And as things lighten up, who cares whether the work gets done, as long as it’s light, lively, and invigorating. What else could be right with the world? Or wrong?

Now, for starters, She’s a little nutty. We already established that. She gets up on the wrong side of bed, sets the alarm off first thing, and of course, she can’t remember her password. Thank goodness they give her a second chance. She’s missed her real calling in life.

And then she lets the cat out, and it starts all over again. Maybe she should just go back to sleep?

But the shrill ringing in her ears does not stop, because after all, she’s set off the alarm.

Don’t just sit there, girl. Let the cat out!

Then, once all is calm again, it’s time to shake it up again. Walk around in circles a few times. Start and stop. Puff off. The work will get done eventually.

And the cat looks up with compassion. Or at least attention. Single-minded attention at that, but the cat doesn’t have to multitask to be fed and housed. All it has to do is come when it’s called.

So, she does. Calls the cat. And the cat answers.

What? What? What?

That’s not an answer. That’s a question.

Can we start over?

No, it’s too late for that. You can try that tomorrow, but not today.

So, the music has stopped. On purpose. The end. Get it going again, please. Ok. We’ll try the Alpha Brainwave Series and see if that does it. Who knows? It just might.

Went to dance tonight, but it was called off. Could have been worse I guess. I could have had two glasses of champagne, and danced anyway. Maybe that would be a good thing. Do the dance. Capture it.

To be a dancer. Is it too late? Was it ever on time? Not for me. Not in this lifetime. Or maybe any other. My mother. She didn’t care. I asked her. She said no. What was it about dance? Those beautiful young girls, hair tied up, flowing costumes. Both the men and the women moving beautifully fluidly. No, she said. Dancers have big calves. Like that makes a difference. Like she cares.

So, it was not to be. I wouldn’t be doing it anymore anyway. I love it though. Still. And I’m old.

Have to figure out a way to keep on doing it. Maybe the cat will know. I’ll ask the cat.

One day, I followed a cat out the hidden gate, and into an open field with a rock formation and an oak tree at its center. It was a glorious thing. First, inside the walled garden, blooming and beautiful, then through the vine entangled gate, freed into the open field. I lost sight of the cat of course.

We danced through that gate, the cat and I.

I must do that again someday. Maybe tomorrow.

Many times, though, I feel like that. Something changes in the air. And you know that you are about to enter sacred space, whatever that is.

It’s the place with thin clear air. You know that, the cat says.

Yes. You are right, dear. I do know that.

I look into the fire. I dream. Something feels sad. Broken. Yet, I know that is not so. It’s the fire that’s doing it, and the beauty. But the beauty is so impossibly beautiful that it hurts.

The rhythms are off I think. Someone turned them off. Was it I? I don’t think so, but I was the only one there.

Why did you go? Couldn’t you have stayed? It would have been easier that way, you know. It wouldn’t have hurt so much, and I wouldn’t have gone through the years broken. There’s no healing, you know. They say there is, but they are lying. They know if they tell you the truth, you wouldn’t last the night.

But somehow it doesn’t really matter. I didn’t know that blooming was like waves breaking. It’s the very same thing. Slowly opening, and then closing in upon itself. I never knew that before.

Yes, you did, said the cat. You knew that. You always knew that.

I look at the cat like it has two heads. Not true. I say.

The cat looks away, losing interest, and goes back to screen door. Let me out, it says. Time to go.

Ok. I say. Can I live on cookies, do you think?

The cat shakes its head slowly. You are just wasting time, it says.

I know that, I say. I’ve always known that.

That’s all. Good night.

Goings on

Bought a new t-shirt

Just got back from CA and OR and, can’t help myself, love to shop. Bought a T that reminded me of one I bought 30+ years ago in Mill Valley. In one of the two canyons in Mill Valley, on a one-way street headed back to the village (across from the Mill Valley Market and the fire station), there was an old garage back then that the “gluers” had taken over. They called it the Unknown Museum, and, in it, were funky items that the artists had decorated by glueing stuff on them. There was a car with rows of cupie dolls, bottle caps, sequins, plastic toys, you name it. A chair had been remodeled into a throne, be-speckled with all kinds of everyday objects. There was a Shiva, I believe, sporting do-dads.

Here’s a site that talks about the Unknown Museum.

It quotes Micky McGowan, the museum’s creator, who had his collection of “stuff” there, and now that I think about it, I seem to remember that he was a vegan, who wouldn’t wear leather shoes, and created some kind of funky canvas plastic shoes that he sold at the museum.

Here’s a couple videos on it. the musuem now and the museum then

Anyway, at that time, I was renovating a home on Magee, and, one of the Unknown Museum’s artists, Ron West (I think) was doing some house painting for me. When I’d ask him how I should make out his check, he’d say, Ron East, North, South, West. Take your pick.

Ron was actually an air-brush artist, and I bought (and treasured) one of his shirts. It was a long-sleeve white T on which he had layered his fantastical creatures over swirls of aqua paint, implanting sequins for eyes. I wore that shirt until it was full of holes, and finally threw it out.

So, wherever you are, Ron North, South, East or West. Thank you!