Archive for December, 2009
The last day…
Here it is. I’m leaving town for a couple of days, and all the preparation has somehow left me unable to wrap my head around the end of the year/decade/etc.
Let me just wish you the very best. It feels like so many of us have been crawling over the roughest of terrain. I pray that our way may be made smooth in the coming year. Let’s remember those that didn’t make it this far and give sustenance to those still with us.
Tags: friends, New Years EveRelated posts
Not with a bang…
Got to work today to be greeted by a cordoned off Times Square, due to a mysterious van that had been parked there for a couple of days. Police were ushering people away, but providing no information. It was only hours later that I found out through CNN what had happened.
I also found out today that one of my favorite artists, David Levine has died. I had a book of his caricatures early on in the seventies, and remember drawing a self portrait in what I thought was his style when I was 14 or so. He wielded a crowquill like nobody else, and was a devoted Brooklynite to the end.
Yesterday also brought two conversations where I was encouraged to think of myself in new ways. In both of them I came up against the idea that no one believes my self-deprecating patter as much as I do.After many years of working on it, I’m still ready to pick out the worst of myself as the only truth. It feels like the pointlessness of this behavior is being pressed on me by circumstances so that I can finally do something to break free of it.
So often work blockages come as a way of avoiding a confrontation with one’s real power. I’m seeing the way that organizations can stay stuck in talking about problems that they have in essence grown past becuase that allows them the comfort of the known. The same is true for me.
Tags: daily photo, death, new york in black and white, self examinationRelated posts
Whither Whether Wither Weather…
Buzzing distractions once again. And it’s gone back to cold, which tends to make me pensive.
I did have a lovely Monday shopping trip with Lolita, after an initial communication breakdown. Twitter saved us from missing each other entirely.
I’ve been making my way through Thomas Mallon’s A Book of One’s Own, which offers the pleasures of Mallon’s commentary alongside a choice selection of morsels from dozens of diaries. Over and over again it gives me good reasons for writing here, even as I’ve been neglecting it. I wish I could say that it was because I was doing all this other writing some where else, but the truth is that my output is all of a bundle: either I’m in making mode or I’m shut down utterly.
This is as close as I’m going to come to a New Year’s resolution: Going forward, I’d like a steadier, more sustained (and sustaining) flow.
Now I’m off to the second of two unexpected meetings of the day.
Tags: blogging, daily photo, readingRelated posts
Dan
Just received the news of Dan Simmonds’ (danbearnyc) unexpected death this morning.
People have already begun to testify to his great capacity for friendship and humor. I loved that he was also the guardian of the sort of glorious fey erudition that few attempt any more. He could be overwhelming, but never small minded.
In recent years he had made great strides with his health, which makes this even the sadder.
And he loved that damn bee.
Tags: death, friendsRelated posts
Just before the Roast Beast…
We were a cozy quartet for Christmas feast this year. My sister did an amazing job with the cooking. The present exchange was modest, and while we didn’t get much, we got things we wanted.
It feels wonderful to have connected with family and friends, as well as to have the largest expectations and pressures of the holiday season behind me.
And now I’m warm at home with Lehigh curled beside me, watching The Untouchables, and finally able to post here again.
Tags: daily photo, family, happiness, holidaysRelated posts
Holiday blab…
And I could use some serious decompression. I need to crawl into a bed and spend a couple of days there, soup inclusive.
MMMMmmmm soup.
I took a quick jaunt over to Chelsea today to make sure I caught a couple of shows before they closed. Now to finish up a couple of things in the office and then to go out to see some more things.
And then there’s work to be made, presents to be finished and even more celebrating to go on. It’s so often like this: I do holiday things but not with a holiday spirit or mind frame. The rush to get everything done leaves me frayed and snappish.
Going to try to correct some of that.
Tags: daily photo, emotions, holidaysRelated posts
Polybloggering, or an open letter to my livejournal account…
LiveJournal, it’s time for me to come clean: I’ve been cheating on you.
Well not exactly cheating, but I have been seeing other sites. You know I’ve got a wandering eye, and just like it was with AOL chatrooms, and Yahoo! groups, and my Earthlink homepage, it couldn’t be just you and me for ever and ever. But I feel you should know everything I’ve been up to.
First of all it was WordPress.com, and mirroring my blog over there because of all the rumors that you would be going away, LJ. I couldn’t bear the thought of losing all the good times we’d had. But once I got the taste of that other interface and I realized that I could install that software on my own domain, I knew that you wouldn’t be my primary anymore. Now, when people want to know what I do online, I send them over there.
But nobody ever talks back on my self hosted site. And we have so many good conversations.
Then there was Facebook, which I finally joined because of the fact that someone I was wondering about intensely, who I had lost touch with, turned up on there. If I wanted to contact her, I had to go Borg, and so I signed up. At first I thought I could do a “friends page” thing like we have, LJ, with just a slightly different set of participants. But that quickly became impossible. Now I just friend anyone who asks me and let the chips fall where they may. I don’t try to keep up with anyone there because there’s just too much, and to tell the truth, while Facebook creeped me out, even before my mom found me there, it does have the advantage of being the Walmart of address books: I can let a lot of people in my life know what’s going on with me all at once.
From Facebook it was a short hop to Twitter, which I pretty much just regard as a big chatroom with some famous people in it. You don’t need to worry about Twitter, LJ. It could never replace you in my heart. It’s just good for a little quick and dirty fun.
Then there’s Feedly. Now don’t take this personally, LJ but there’s some days when your friend page just isn’t enough for me. When too many of the people I know repost their tweets, or I want wider range of news feeds or just to keep up with bloggers who aren’t from here, I have to turn to something else, and that something else is Feedly, which has turned into the massive browsehole in my life, but at the same time has brought me into contact with a much broader idea of blogging and what its role might be in my life. I know you might say to me that your friends page can do everything feedly can and more, but I’m a sucker for a pretty page layout and ease of use.
And that brings me to my latest heart throb, Tumblr. Don’t get offended, LJ but Tumblr and I have been seeing each other for about a month, and I think it’s pretty serious. See, the thing is, Tumblr is phone sex, particularly iPhone sex. Where ever I am I can grab a pic, edit it, and post it, all from the phone. I don’t do much talking there, just picture after picture. And for the first time in a long time I feel free! And while Tumblr has a lousy feedback mechanism, it’s got a cool community of image posters. And I’ve been trying hard to keep up with my picture of the day practice, so every bit of ease helps.
But don’t worry LJ, there may be other services in my life, but I’ll always have a place for you in my affections: you are the only online site where I’ve made new and lasting friends. Every day people pour amazing content into you. You’ve helped me learn so much about so many great people. I’ve remained mercifully untouched by your drama storms, while getting to bask in your contributors’ honesty. I’ll never give all that up, especially since I don’t even know how to engineer an effective flounce.
But if you don’t feel reassured enough by all that, just know that it isn’t you: it’s me.
Tags: blogging, daily photo, facebook, feedly, livejournal, tumblr, twitter, wordpressRelated posts
Still coming down…
Yes It’s snowing here in Brooklyn, and blowing. It’s piling up in the street because plowing doesn’t happen so much in the minor boroughs and certainly even less in our little particular back water. It’s not bad news. I’ve had a good day all in all, sleeping off the bad vibes of a brutal work week this morning until Lehigh licked me awake, and I got started preparing for company. The scattered, clumsy energy I seemed to have around me persisted today, as I kept knocking things over and spilling stuff into the middle of 2009′s last poker and cigar party at my house.
Folks arrived early, and I was at a loss given how utterly filthy the house was, and how I had only just begun to clean the most offensive spots when the bell rang.Luckily my friends quickly tired of my apologies and made me take it easy. After a couple of hours of play I began to unwind. I ended up losing a few bucks but won some good hands early on and had a great time, happily seeing Jeff, Ed, Scotty, Scott, Thor and Mud. Bears, cigars, poker, pizza, what more calming influences are there?
Tags: Cigars, daily photo, friends, poker, thor, weatherRelated posts
Flash your frustration Friday…
Splat…
All a sputter. So much to do. It’sbeen so oddly emotional the past couple of days. I’m being offered chances to think about myself in expanded ways, and the prospects are frightening. So much so that I am neglecting things on the ground. Abandoning habit, turning distraction after distraction loose in my mind.
I know that this will all come right, as long as I can remember to allow it to.
Tags: daily photo, emotions