A Man, his Dog, the Road

DJ in training

2008-01-26T22:15:00.000-08:00

Sitting In
Just got back from sitting in for the first time with an on-air DJ, "DJ Respect" who with his partner Lisa Luv fills in the afternoons on alternate Saturdays. I got good tips from both of them, as well as from another long-time KMUD DJ, Bob Froehlich. Bob, his wife Barbara, Music Director Kate Klein, myself and a few other volunteers were in the station's library tonight working on the annual cull and re-organization of the thousands of CDs (and some vinyl) that are stored there. KMUD receives about 75 CDs in the mail every week, and processing and labeling those CDs is most of what I've been doing there since October or so.

I was stoked tonight to find buried away in the vinyl collection a Lily Tomlin comedy album that had been in the family when I was growing up, and (despite Bob's advice to limit myself to a single medium, at least for my first show), I'll try to play a skit on my first show that I recall fondly, in which this great comedian extraordinaire simultaneously plays 4 roles: a pissed-off teenager, both her square and very boring parents, and a visiting insurance salesman.

DJ Respect (aka Mark) was awesome, showing me just about all the things that I have to learn, as was Lisa whose show followed his. I saw how to cue up CDs and take phone calls .. Lisa even did an impromptu interview with some hip-hop artists who were going to perform tonight up in Arcata.

Anyway, it's been a long but exciting day, and this DJ-in-training is gonna call it a night. Before signing off, here's a special shout-out to my friend and employer Mike, who is basically subsidizing my growing participation at our community radio station. Muchas, muchas gracias, Miguel!

The Birth of Jack Frybulous

2008-01-24T22:18:00.000-08:00

High-speed 'net access is truly a wonderful thing, esp. when you've been without it for as long as i have. But i've been online tending to other things for about 3 hours now -- it's 10:20 of a Thursday night -- and just wanted to update you a wee bit before doing dishes and heading to bed. (Big day tomorrow.)

Big News

i'm about to go on the air! KMUD, "Redwood Community Radio," where i've been volunteering for the past 3 or 4 months, has just given me the 2-4 pm time-slot, first and third Saturdays; my first show is Feb. 2. i'd love to take call-in's from friends all over, and do hope that you'll be able to tune in via the Internet. Those of you in the area who may not be aware, the Mud is at 91.1 FM in s. Humboldt County; 88.3 FM up north; and 90.3 FM down south. Check out my new blog site for more program-related info. i would LOVE to get suggestions from folks, esp. what music you'd like to hear: i'm going to play a real eclectic mix, and am compiling a list of songs. What would YOU play on YOUR first radio program?

Rain and cold weather, snow at higher elevations. i'm driving up to Eureka tomorrow to stock up on animal feed and such. Pick up a couple bales of straw and alfalfa-grass.

small news

And headed outside shortly to attempt again (the 3rd time in 3 days) to catch a couple of roosters: we have 2 or 3 too many, and i promised Mike i'd .. um .. make a couple disappear before he returns from his trip down south. Night-time is supposed to be a good time to catch 'em, 'cause (ordinarily) they're not easily roused. But these guys know they're being targeted, and so far have taken flight before i've even gotten all that close to them! i pick up hens who have roosted on the railing (to prevent their pooping all over the veranda) all the time without problem, in fact with hardly a squawk (either from them or from me). But boy is it a different story with those cocky cocks.

dougie t. -- with lots of love and Light going out to you all, and best wishes for all good things for you in this new year! -- over 'n' out.

Got a DJ slot!

2008-01-22T20:16:00.000-08:00

Egregious Euphemisms
I don't know how long I lived in SoHum before I realized that the Eel River "Conservation Camp" -- a sign for which you'll notice if you're headed out of Redway going north -- is not a place where kids can go in summer to learn environmental awareness. It's a prison! But no one would ever realize this unless you're about to drive onto the property. Then, a sign next to the road just after the entrance states YOU ARE ENTERING A PRISON.

Now, why can't the sign down by the main road say the same thing?

Hands Off Richardson Grove
One of the things I'd like to use the program for is to galvanize those who are opposed to the widening, and/or straightening of 101 through Richardson Grove. I went to a meeting today at Friends of the Eel River to learn what's going on to defeat Caltrans' plans for the area. According to one participant, the main force behind the program is Ron Arkley (who gave half-a-million dollars to the Bush re-election campaign), who has an agreement with Home Depot to build them a store up north. More on this story as it develops.

A True Revolution of Values

I’m convinced that if we are to get on the right side of the world revolution, we as a nation must undergo a radical revolution of values. … When machines and computers, profit motives and property rights are considered more important than people, the giant triplets of racism, militarism and economic exploitation are incapable of being conquered. A true revolution of values will soon cause us to question the fairness and justice of many of our present policies. … True compassion is more than flinging a coin to a beggar. A true revolution of values will soon look uneasily on the glaring contrast of poverty and wealth with righteous indignation.

-- Martin Luther King, Riverside Church, 04 APR 67.

Arms R Us
The Department of Defense’s planned expenditures for fiscal year 2008 are larger than all other nations’ military budgets combined. The supplementary budget to pay for the current wars in Iraq and Afghanistan, not part of the official defense budget, is itself larger than the combined military budgets of Russia and China. Defense-related spending for fiscal 2008 will exceed $1 trillion for the first time in history. The United States has become the largest single salesman of arms and munitions to other nations on Earth. Leaving out of account President Bush’s two on-going wars, defense spending has doubled since the mid-1990s. The defense budget for fiscal 2008 is the largest since World War II. -- Chalmers Johnson, author of the Blowback trilogy

"Planet Humboldt" It's ... Alive
At long last, rule of the air-waves shall be mine, MWAH ha ha ha ha!

The program manager's coffee-cup was dry when she fell for my carefully crafted tale of ambiguity and disguised intent, and -- heedless as yet of the consequences -- she has assigned me my first radio program, under the previously established rubric Planet Humboldt: 2 to 4 pm, 1st & 3rd Saturdays. We be on the AIR, BABY! First show 02 FEB 08.

Communiques of the most urgent nature are soon to be sent forth, enlisting the aid and comfort of card-carrying lunatics like .. why, like you. And you! And you, and you, and you!

Listing requests for songs from friends, family, farmers, furriers, Frenchmen and Phil the cleaning guy; developing various content items -- music, comedy, news, short interviews, poetry and quotations with wispy New Age music playing softly in the background (or to be alternative about it, dancehall music playing softly in the background), call-ins, pre-recorded stuff, maybe a mock PSA here and there, etc. -- then allocating the blocks of time that might possibly contain all my multitudes; yes, these and many other tasks await the intrepid man or woman [people] who would call himself: D.J. Or who would call HERself: D.J. [Or who would call themselves: D.J.s.]

And so the dumping into this blog of anything that might possibly be useful in filling up FOUR HOURS A MONTH OF AIRTIME has begun. The first item: a letter to Hillary Clinton which might be great fun to read on-air (although i'd appreciate a reality-check)! Here it is:

The Common Dreams news website reported 21 JAN 08 that "Sen. Hillary Rodham Clinton came under fire when she was quoted as saying [that] King's dream of racial equality was realized only when President Lyndon B. Johnson signed the Civil Rights Act of 1964." I decided to drop Hillary a line.

Dear Hillary:

Hillary, I have always recognized you as one of the most intelligent and capable people in politics, much as I might peacefully but vehemently disagree with your unbelievably strident and subservient support for the bellicose bullies and war-mongers in our midst, cravenly cluttering and chattering in the gleaming offices, boardrooms and bomb-proof bunkers of the nation's political, business and military entities, still clinging to mad, race-crazed dazed dreams of glory and conquest, a past in front of their very noses fast vanishing down a whirlpool of history if ever there was one. But I digress.

Your statement -- about how King's dream was realized -- would have been practically unobjectionable if you had simply added that his dream of equality was [at least partially] realized "in law, if not in fact" after Johnson signed the act.

Sincerely,

Jack Frybulous,
Redwood Nation

ps - Sorry to have missed Bill's historic visit to the county seat, Eureka a couple of days ago. Folks still talkin' about it!

pps - Alexander Cockburn in a recent ed. of the Nation describes driving from WA down thru OR and n. CA, seeing hardly anything but stickers for Ron Paul! He added he liked the look of the folks he saw. Huh. What do you make of that?

HaPpY nEw YeAr !!

2008-01-10T22:38:00.000-08:00

HALLO again Faithful Readership!

Sorry for the long delay in posting .. big changes in my life (many of which you have already read about here) are part of the reason, as is the hassle of getting access. But all that is about to change. i have signed up for the high-speed 'net access which has recently been introduced to my little town of Miranda! i look forward to more regular posts (and trust that you are, too)!

i'm down in Berkeley for a short visit with my sister Eileen, who's at a Salesian Center next door to the UC/B campus, where she and about 20 others from around the world are participating in a week-long seminar on spirituality. (We last saw each other in May, when she made her first trip to California and to Heartwood.) We walked around Telegraph Ave. today so i could do a little Christmas (yes, 2007) shopping. She has an early Saturday morning flight back to New Jersey, and i'm contemplating hightailing it back up to Humboldt for Josh's birthday party Friday night. i'd love to be there, but am also enjoying being outside Humboldt for the first time in what seems like a long time.

i'll plug in the computer almost as soon as i get back, and will be posting the Mother of All Posts on the next full moon. Insh'alla.

ps - i lost last month all my contact info .. please email me any updates to your phone, email, or snail-mail adddress that may have changed in the past six months. Thanks.

A new link

2008-01-10T22:09:00.000-08:00

i want to put this link to my Amazon wish-list in the sidebar, and will play some more with exactly how to do that when i get back home. (Any suggestions?)

marathon monkey-wrench

2007-10-10T13:31:00.000-07:00

My marathon-training goal for last Saturday was 21 miles, and it was a beautiful day for a run on the Avenue of the Giants. I'd done 18 miles the previous Saturday (and 15 the one before that), but on Wednesday had missed one of the two six-mile runs i do during the work-week. i wonder if that had much to do with what happened next.

A slight soreness just below my left knee-cap that began around the 10-mile mark would simply not go away, no matter how much loving energy i sent its way. i'd been slowing my pace down more and more, and when i finally stopped just past the 18-mile mark, i was surprised to learn that i was no longer able to put ANY weight on that leg. i eventually flagged down a car whose occupants used a cell-phone to call home. Good buddy from Heartwood Sky Olson was up from San Diego for a 4-day visit, and he immediately jumped in his car and came to rescue me.

i could've used a crutch the day or two following, and am still hobbling about a a bit, but am now a bit worried that at this point, even a half-marathon on the 21st may not be possible. i'll continue to ice it and try not to strain it further, but there is a lot of work around the house to do, and i have been unable to simply lie around and give it rest. Say a few prayers that me knee will heal sufficiently for Race Day, will you?

My visit with Sky was fun. It was initially planned as purely a social call, but with the loss of my co-worker sooner than expected (long story), Sky's visit turned into a sort of working interview. Mike is impressed, and if Sky wants to share the work and the house with me, he is welcome.

Sky'll make up his mind in the next day or two. Some factors in the Nay column: Miranda's relative isolation (which many would crave); and the cold, wet and gray winter which is expected to descend in another couple of months.

On the Aye side of the ledger: Sky loves animals and would love being around them; he has pruned walnut trees before, and can be said to have a green thumb; he would have his own bedroom in a really rad domicile right on the Avenue of the Giants (redwoods abound, eat your hearts out flatlanders and big-city dwellers), and furthermore would get to live and work day after day with your humble correspondent. (Let it be said, there are one or two souls who would argue that this last item belongs in the other column. Pay them no heed, they LIE i tell you!)

i SO gotta get back to work. Plus this update is costing me 10 cents a minute! See ya in a few weeks. Or a couple of days, ya never know.

ps:

EID MUBARAK

Happy end of the holy month of Ramadan

to all my Muslim friends!!

Life after Heartwood

2007-09-22T15:31:00.000-07:00

i'm back! Quickie update for ya, as i'm at an internet cafe in lovely downtown Garberville.

i left Heartwood at the end of August, after a blow-out party with TWO (count 'em!) DJ's: Alex (aka DJ Ananda) making his first public performance, and Travai who has spun more than once at Heartwood parties. It was an awesome night, bunch of people showed up, and a good time was had by almost all, as best as we can recollect. i went to bed at about 5 am, and got up about 10 to find Alex outside, stretched out in the sun after having tidied up the carnage from the night before. Since there was plenty of beverage left, the party recommenced, with folks dropping in for a chat and a boogie.

i decided to postpone the TEFL job search until the new year, and am now living in Miranda, a town of 350 about 12 miles north of Garberville, located right on the AVENUE of the GIANTS! That's where the Humboldt Redwoods Marathon takes place, Oct. 21. i ran 15 miles this morning, although a little more slowly than i'd anticipated, in 3 (instead of 2.5) hours. Oh well, my only goal is to finish without injury, and if i break 4 hours this year, so much the better.

i've gone to work for one of the first folks i met out here, a great guy named Mike, who boarded Sandy on his farm from May to November in oh-five. i'm taking care of 6 dogs, 2 cats, 4 hogs, about a dozen chickens, and a goldfish and some guppies. There are also a few plants which need close attention, and being in possession of a green thumb, am enjoying learning more about what goes into keeping them happy. The pay is good, and i look forward to paying off most or all of my debt by the end of the year. Thinking about spending some vacation time around Christmas either in Mexico or Amsterdam. And then settling down to recommence the English-teaching job search, not sure where i'll do that from.

Right, that's it for this time. Not sure when i'll post again, but if i can get my computer hooked up to the internet at Mike's place, it wouldn't be that long from now. Hope you all are doing well and continue to carry a smile on your face. Much love from your humble correspondent ... xx O xx

Ch- ch- ch- ch- ch- changes

2007-07-22T14:46:00.000-07:00

O Faithful Readership, such a long time we've been apart! And (as you'd expect me to say) SO much has happened.

I currently have about a dozen windows open on my desktop, which i find makes working with a dial-up connection a little bit more manageable. i go to another window while i wait for others to finish downloading, although it does make for a session that's a bit more complicated, trying to keep track of downloads, and searches, and email replies.

My sister Eileen has come and gone, and in lieu of an account of what she did while here, she has written an account of .. well, it's basically about what a great guy i am. So at the risk of seeming overly self-promotional, and because I badgered her to write SOMEthing after she left, and because i sort of implied that i would post whatever she sent without editing, here it is, in all its naked glory:

On 7/18/07, Eileen wrote:

Do you remember the anticipation of the Christmas when you still believed that Santa Claus was going to come down the chimney? Do you remember your first date, and you wanted to be sure that every thing went just right? Do you remember that big reunion you had when you were going to have the chance to see all the people you hadn't seen in years? Well, put all those memories of anticipation into one event and you will scratch the surface of what I was feeling when I went to visit Doug in May.

I teach school and the last few weeks were a real drag. The things that night-mares are made of were happening to me. The ray of sunshine was my trip to northern California. For over 25 years I have not been to the home of my brother Doug. We of course had been able to visit each other over the years, but Doug had always come to see me or the rest of the family. This trip meant a lot to me before I even left Florida. I was going to see Doug where he was. To walk in his shoes. To meet his friends. To breathe his air. The anticipation of that alone was, at times, and still is, overwhelming.

There would be so many things I could write in the form of a diary, but I would rather recount, after 5 weeks of reflection, what meant so much to me, and what has remained with me since I departed.

This may sound like a prejudiced statement, but my brother is really a great man. Look at the people he calls his friends and you will understand what I mean by this. People don't come to care and love because a person has money or good looks. Friendship is based on the intangibles: loyalty, honesty, goodness, up-rightness and other qualities. The qualities that you remember when the memory of events has long disappeared.

Being in my brother's presence again brought back a lot of memories of growing up. It created new memories, of the man he has grown into, and of the woman I have grown into. The places and the events of the trip were the necessary elements, but the power of the events lies in the essence of the person, not the presence of the surroundings.

Doug is a friend and a big brother to me. I look forward to the many more opportunities we will have in the coming years to continue to grow in our love for one another and to discover the depth of our bonds.

I want to thank everyone whom I met for your kindness and hospitality. I really felt like I was part of the family there at Heartwood. Let us remain united through my brother and your friend.

Love,
Eileen, fma
forever.shamrock@juno.com

i will be autographing print-outs of this blog's update at select bookstores and coffeeshops around the nation in the years to come. Be sure to carry yours with you if i should show up in your neighborhood unexpectedly. ;o)

i had also hope to post photos of Eileen's visit today, but i deleted all the photos from my camera before i had saved them on my computer (first time that happened!), but later today i'll see if a retrieval program i downloaded is successful. i'm hopeful, since i have purposefully avoided taking more photos since she left.

Last news for this update: i've decided that it's time to leave Heartwood. It's been 26 months, and lately there has been one disappointment after another: some community-wide, some staff-wide, and some unique to me, having to do with changes in the workplace.

i have decided to pursue teaching English overseas again, with a view toward doing massage on the side once i'm settled. i'm especially interested in positions in the Middle East, and in Japan, Korea, Taiwan and Malaysia. i will of course post news about any developments as soon as things happen.

In the meantime, i would appreciate it if you would keep me in your thoughts and prayers, and assist me in the process of stepping into this next big, bright phase of my Life!

Cheers! and best wishes to you and your loved ones ...

So little time .. !

2007-06-27T22:26:00.000-07:00

Hi everyone,

Eileen has come and gone from her one-week stay here earlier this month, and although i haven't received anything yet, i'm still hopeful that she might be writing an account of her adventures, which will be posted here (un-edited!) as soon as it's received.

i'm just past the middle of a 7-day Thai Massage intensive, so things are kind of busy. But i'm not scheduled to work this weekend, and so will be back here to update then; there is lots to tell!

By the way, for anyone who might've tried to call me recently: my answering-machine is busted, and i'm rarely here, except at night to sleep. But everything is ok, and i look forward to getting back in touch with those of you who haven't heard from me in a while.

Food for thought, Question: Where would you go to work, if you could work anywhere you wanted to, first: in the US? And what about overseas?

I'm gettin' ready to bust out of this place!

STK, 1

2007-05-09T01:45:00.000-07:00

Greetings o Faithful Readers,

Before i go into everything else which follows, BIG SHOUT-OUT to my sister Eileen who comes to visit me for a week at the end of May, her first time in California. On the agenda: at least one night's camping in redwood forests, and the Benbow Summer Arts Festival (first weekend of June), and lots of chillin' at the 'wood, woo-hoo!

Almost a week late to post, sorry. It’s been a very stressful time here at Heartwood. But before i get all wrapped up in Story, let me first point out that something infinitely more important has happened than the story of my stressful last week or month. Darfur has arrived in my heart, and i want you to share it with me. But i’ll back up first, and tell you how i got here.

A lot of the stress which has been in the air lately has revolved around the changing scene at Heartwood. New owners took over in November, and they got around to offering us a new salary and benefits package mid-April. It was abysmal, and all of us were shocked, angry and disappointed by the stingy package we were offered, for starters: 5 days vacation (after the 2nd year of work), instead of the 4 weeks (annual) vacation we currently enjoy.

Heartwood staff has never been very well paid, but some of us had dared to hope that, with billionaire owners, perhaps a small raise would not be out of the question. So imagine how stunned we were to be given a 20% pay cut. The devil’s in the details and i won’t bore you with them. i’ll simply conclude this chapter by saying that, we are now in negotiations with the owners, who have apologized for not checking their numbers more carefully. They had intended, they say, to offer us a bit more. Oops! We staff are waiting for them to make another offer. In the meantime, our pay and benefits remain as they were when they took over.

This is where (i hope) it gets a bit more interesting. Almost a month ago, the evening of Friday, Apr. 13, i had returned from Garberville with a DVD i’d borrowed from the library, and went after dinner to a vacant classroom to watch it with one of the students. A few minutes before popping it in, i realized that this film was just what i needed to put my employment-related woes back into perspective. The movie was Hotel Rwanda.

i don’t know if you’ve seen this movie, or know the story that the movie is based on. In April of 1994, a genocide on the part of the majority Hutus aimed at their Tutsi countrymen began, and when it was over three months later, eight hundred-thousand (some say one MILLION) Rwandans would be dead: some shot, the vast majority hacked to death, by machetes wielded, in many cases, by people they knew: neighbors, co-workers, etc.

There's an amazingly informative overview here, if you're interested in a deeper analysis.

In the movie, Don Cheadle stars as the manager of a hotel in Kigali, Rwanda’s capital, who managed to save from the slaughter that was happening all around them the lives of about 1200 men, women and children.

i had always avoided seeing this movie. i knew the story of the Rwandan genocide, and knew that its depiction would be difficult, if not impossible, to watch. But for even the most sensitive among you, i recommend this film, highly.

The director employs certain techniques that make the learning about this Hell a little more bearable. Hotel Rwanda is not a graphic depiction of the blood-bath that one might expect. The director i think understood very well that to drag viewers down into that pit of horrors – to make a portrayal of those events too realistic – would probably frighten away potential viewers. So he did tone it down for us in ways that i will not go into here.

So why see this? Why should you expose yourself to more evidence of the world’s horrors, when you are perfectly aware of them already? Why give yourself more of what you already know too well? Listen to Don Cheadle:

In 2004 I had a life-changing experience. I starred in a film called Hotel Rwanda, about the courageous story of Paul Rusesabagina, a hotel manager who saved 1,200 refugees in the face of a savage genocide that gripped his country and claimed 800,000 lives. Not since the Rwanda genocide of 1994 has the world seen such a calculated campaign of slaughter, rape, starvation and displacement as is happening right now in Darfur.

After hearing Cheadle remind me of what i already knew (that masses of people are being just as brutally slaughtered now as they were in Rwanda), and then after watching his amazing performance in the film, i realized that i could no longer do nothing; that i could at least help to spread the word, and hope that my own actions in doing so might inspire others to get involved, to help stop the killing first in Darfur, then elsewhere.

i realized what a luxury it was to be able to pop in a DVD of my own choosing. And what a blessing, to have been spared the terrors and horrors which victims of mass-murder endure. And that writing the occasional email to someone with influence, making the occasional speech about Darfur, etc. was not too much for me to do. i hope you'll be willing to play some role, too. Simply out of gratitude that you've been spared. And that if you weren't, you'd want someone else to be doing something on your behalf.

Every blog update will have a new suggestion for an action that you can take to help bring attention to the Killing that is going on. And maybe together, we can bring enough pressure, we can shame the powers that be, into doing something to Stop the Killing.

i'll educate myself more on the topic, and share here with you what i learn. For starters, check out Amnesty International's website, and what it has to say about Darfur.

Labor Day weekend 2006, Los Angeles

2007-04-11T00:14:00.000-07:00

Agents soUrcerer & Creatrix are reunited for the first time since Nov., 2004, when the former departed Amsterdam. Creatrix, aka Hadleigh Averill, was getting ready for his LA-based art exhibit opening.

So why are you posting these photos now, Dougie? Well, one reason is that my proficiency for efficiently uploading photos while muddling along with a dial-up connection is improving.

Another reason is that i've recently been back in touch with another long-lost Friend from me Amsterdam days, an indomitabley dashing, kilt-wearing Scotsman named Adrian Kennedy, to whom i promised in an email earlier today that i would post here some photos from that trip.

Now if i could only figure out how to move the photos around a bit!

The photo above is me and Dee at Marina del Rey beach. Dee is the creative arts director at a production company, and helped Had to get ready for the exhibit opening.

Hadleigh putting the finishing touches on his work, THE NIGHT BEFORE gallery doors are to open (which is when i showed up)!

A new job for Dougie T?

2007-04-09T21:38:00.000-07:00

A week late to post! What can i say. I’m swamped.

I’m applying for the Welcome Center manager position. My current boss, Kristy Hinton, is leaving at the end of this month to pursue a guy she met here who left Apr. 2 for Alaska, and i say more power to her. And to him. To them, whatever. Mark Lyons is a heluva guy, and his mom visited here the weekend before he left and you can see where he gets everything that’s good about him. i gave Jane a Hot Stones massage the day before she left, which she said she loved. She left a big fat tip on the table for me, woo-hoo!

Anyway, Kristy is store manager #5 in the 16 months i’ve worked there, and now that there are new owners, there’s some possibility that the decision to pay managers more than they’ve been paid in the past may have already been made; we’ll find out on Friday when the HR company they’ve hired will come to brief us on our new compensation packages. The upshot: the pay differential needs to make it worth my while to take on the extra responsibility (stress) which of course i don’t really want, but which would allow me to pay off my loans more quickly.

The weekend of Mar. 24-25 was devoted to Heartwood 2017: about 70 people getting together for two days of imagining what we want this place to be ten years from now. It was pretty exciting, and i’ve decided to renew my commitment to the ‘wood for another year! i really like my abode (not to mention life in the mountains), and feel like i’ve got more to learn as well as to contribute, and i admit that it’s exciting to be around a place that i love that’s going through so much change.

Tying up old business! This feels good: some things i left in a friend’s apartment in Amsterdam are finally on their way to me, beginning with 2 of the 4 boxes of books that i’d left there. Another Craig’sList success story. The ad i placed on CL/Amsterdam a few weeks back – for someone to go and get my things out of storage at my friend’s place and ship them from the post office – elicited 2 replies, both of which were good. i ended up going with a young American guy named Stephen who .. oh blah blah blah suffice to say he’s a great guy and he’s sending me my stuff. Hard to believe i left Amsterdam in Nov. 2004. My friend Hans who stored my stuff is an old guy and not in any shape to move stuff like boxes of books around. He is so happy! And i’m having a carpenter friend of mine here, Chris the singer/songwriter dude, to construct some bookshelves for me, hopefully some that would double as a support for my bed (which currently sits on top of concrete blocks).

Well i never started running again as soon as i thought i would following last October’s marathon (my first, in case you’ve just joined us), and am now beginning a six-month period of training for my 2^nd marathon: the Humboldt Redwoods marathon (again)! Mike Morone, how about it, game?!

Oh, update on the love-life: Rosario and i have decided to be Just Friends. (That sounds worse than it really is.) In a nutshell, he wrote to tell me that in spite of how much we’ve enjoyed each other’s company, he doesn’t feel the spark of a long-term lover relationship. Which with me is totally cool: i was thinking maybe there could’ve been something there, but i was well aware of the many things i had in common with his ex-, and that “Zaari” was also in search of someone who looked more like himself. So i replied that i would be more than happy for us to continue to be friends, and that who knew? Maybe he’d be the one to introduce me to Mr. Right!

Having said that, we’ve made plans to hook up twice and he has twice called to cancel (once after canceling, rescheduling, and then re-canceling!), but i’m gonna give the boy one more chance. We’ve talked about those behaviors and is aware of them, and i for my part am well aware of all the craziness he’s got going on in his life, which include a new job with new skills to learn, relocating his mom to another part of the state, and (since his mom sold the building he lives in) looking for a new place to live. Guy’s got his hands full.

My buddy Josh has been hangin' out a lot lately which is fun. He is such a great guy. This is the guy who held my feet when i was sick last month, and which felt so good, that even though i'd just woken up after a long night's sleep, i was able to drift off again, into deep and restful sleep. My good luck: Josh shows up fairly often with his Hungarian puli, Zeke. He's an unusual sort, but the dog's ok, so i let 'em both hang.

This photo was self-shot about a month ago on a gorgeous Saturday morning, when Josh entrusted two years of dreds to me and my scissors. What a guy!

Sister Eileen: you ARE coming to visit next month i trust. Can’t wait. Do let me know as soon as you’ve got an itinerary, and whether or not i should borrow a car to pick you up at the Eureka airport (which technically is in McKinleyville). Btw, Happy Easter! Sorry i didn't have it together to send you a card. In my defense, i did have a Dutch postcard that i was gonna send, but found out in the nick of time that it was actually a Christmas card.

Scott and Kathy: you should get your butts on a train, come out here, get off the train in Eureka, rent a car and drive down (through the redwoods, mind you) and visit me! Or i guess you could drive your camper cross-country and do the same thing. Or you could do the same thing you’ve done every year for the past umpteen years and drive up to Canada. Me, i say: variety is the spice of life. Go for broke and carpe the diem.

Janet and Crystal, dammit what’s a guy gotta do to get an old friend to STAY in touch, not just be in touch like once every seven months.

Did you ever watch the BBC television comedy Are you being served? If so, you may have noticed that the actor John Inman, who played the flamboyant Mr. Humphrey, died at the age of 71 on Mar. 8. i especially enjoyed and appreciated this .. it's not really an obit, more of an appreciation .. and the insight it offered to the role Inman played, and the extent to which .. oh more blah-blah, just go read it.

All right you lot, that oughta hold ya till next time, when i’ll let you know how insubstantial our pay raises actually are. Keep your fingers crossed for me anyway, will ya? i'll leave you with a coupla more photos of Josh and his favorite beast, Zeke [aka Dog Cheenie, which is what's left over after you take the pooch out of Puccini]. A boy and his dog: what could be more precious? i am so in love with these two. A more irie guy you could never hope to meet.

Lights out

2007-03-12T19:41:00.000-07:00

Greetings faithful Readership!

i'm 9 days late with this update, but i've just recovered from a really nasty flu that had me flat on my back for the better part of 4 days last week. And we were without electricity for 3 days the week before, from Feb. 27 - Mar. 2, after a giant snowstorm came in and blanketed the area. We got 8" of snow that Wednesday morning, and another couple of inches that afternoon. It sure made the place even prettier!

Anyway, i'll try to get back here by week's end to fill you in a little more with what's been going down around here, including a recount of my first visit this past weekend to a famous spa about 3 hours south of here, Harbin Hot Springs.

Meet the Master Michael Mastros

2007-02-12T22:54:00.000-08:00

Man, i shoulda posted a photo of this dude ages ago.

Faithful Readership, this is Michael Mastros (outa LA), alas one of the dudes who just graduated (one of Sky's classmates). Mike chose me as one of his 2 regular clients during his last quarter, which meant i got 5 bodywork sessions from him; a Polarity session in January was especially memorable: it made me feel like a million bucks, even a whole day later.

He stuck around after graduation Feb. 1 to take a Cranio-sacral intensive which just finished last Friday, and is storing a few things at my place while he makes the move up to Arcata. So at least he'll still be in "the neighborhood" (couple hours' drive) for a while.

Here are 2 photos of a going-away party i threw at which Michael DJ'd (taken in front of my yurt Hedon's Eden, July '06).

D-Day

2007-02-05T21:14:00.000-08:00

The day of Sky's departure from Heartwood has come and gone, and the photo at left was taken minutes before he began the drive to San Diego, where he plans on setting up a practice with one of his classmates, Lauren (from Wisconsin). His mom and dad were in one car, and he and another one of his classmates Marina, a super gal from Switzerland, were in the other. Ghost was getting used to life from the inside of a fully packed car, prowling about on top of boxes, blankets and pillows.

i'll try be back here later in the week to more fully fill you in on all that's gone down since last time. peace!

Meet Dashiell Hammett

2007-01-21T22:55:00.000-08:00

When you hear the name "Dashiell Hammett," you would not be amiss if you were to think of the guy who wrote The Maltese Falcon, but there is now another Dashiell Hammett you should be aware of (see photo)!

DH is a 4-month-old standard poodle, proudly owned by Marshall and Kellyn, the gals who did 8 sessions of Cranio-Sacral work on me back in March and April of last year; they were on campus this weekend in order to facilitate an in-service workshop for the faculty, and had asked if i could watch over their poochie during the weekend. DH will be returning 1st week in Feb., when M & K return to teach the next Cranio intensive course, which i am considering taking again.

On our big walk together yesterday, i took DH down to the lower dorms, hoping to show him off to Sky and some of the other students. Mike Mastros and Lauren were there, and i was pleased when Ghost showed up. DH bounded around Ghost like the puppy dog that he is, and when we left, Ghost followed us all the way back to my place, about a ten-minute walk through the woods.

WELL, uploading that photo only took me AN ENTIRE EVENING. But i've now read all of the Help that Blogger supplies on the issue of uploading photos, and who knows, maybe clearing my browser's cache and cookies did do some good. i'd try to upload another photo but it's going on 1 am here, and that coffee i had at Christophe's place this afternoon while he, Mike Mastros, Maintenance-Sky and i watched the AFC championship game between the Colts and the Patriots has just about worn off now.

Whew, good thing too, I gotta be to work in 8 hours!

Meet Rosario

2007-01-09T18:03:00.000-08:00

Ai yai yai ... Now is this one macho looking dude or what?? The photo was taken at "a working date farm and hidden garden spot steeped in the past" called China Ranch in Death Valley: looks pretty sweet huh: Rosario holding up a building ...

Got a 3-day weekend coming up, and learned last night that i can catch a ride to Santa Rosa with a 2nd-quarter student named Beth who's going down to SF, coming back Sunday afternoon. So a little more time to spend with this interesting and quite sweet man, oh boy!

Putting one's rocks under the moon

2007-01-02T22:03:00.000-08:00

HaPpY nEw yEaR, eVeRyOnE!

i am quite pleased to be with you again, at least in spirit. The Billies have come and gone from their 18^th annual Heartwood New Year’s gathering, and a wonderful time was had by all, not least by your favorite correspondent. And it pleases me no end to tell you that my love-life may be taking an interesting turn.

i was talking about that guy Sky (at left in a photo from last August just before he left on a bike-camping trip, the same one when he found his kitty-cat Ghost) to a friend in the sauna the other day, explaining a few of the things that make him such an extraordinary individual, and one of those things is his unusual open-mindedness. What an amazing thing it was that we could have a relationship for as long as we did, as special it was, despite the 23-year age difference. And then it hit me: although we have kissed several times, and once did something a bit more than that, our relationship was almost totally non-sexual. And the next thing that hit me was: he was still friends with me, even though he quite obviously wasn’t attracted to me in that way. And i felt flattered, and even greater appreciation for this dude. But i've gone on and on about this guy long enough i guess. Thanks for your patience everyone. You'd understand better what i'm talking about if you got a chance to meet the dude. Body of a 24-year-old with the mind and heart of a much older man .. clearly someone who's lived many, many lifetimes.

Anyway, here’s the interesting turn to which i alluded. i mentioned last month having spent some time during last year’s Billy gathering with a guy named Rosario: he’d spent a night at my place which was quite delightful, and we were looking forward to seeing each other again this year. When i’d asked if he would be staying at my new and improved bachelor pad (Hedon’s Eden), he replied, “at least for one night.” Well, LSS, he ended up staying all four nights, and we both just loved the time we spent together.

Rosario is 39 and works as an occupational therapist in Santa Rosa, about 2½ hours south of here. His family is originally from Goa, in w. India, but he has lived in the US since an early age. He is handsome, and quite a few of the girls on campus were in a swoon when he was around! In fact, Mandy (a chef) was telling me in the store this afternoon how much fun it was when Rosario volunteered to work in the kitchen one day: while they were doing food-prep, he had shown her some dance-steps, and they were both singing along to old Michael Jackson tunes. So it was a nice surprise that when the phone rang just then, who should be on the other end but him!

So he’s tall, dark, handsome: brown eyes and an ever-present smile. Thinks of others. Politically aware. Intelligent, good sense of humor, etc. etc.

Well i won’t go on too much more, other than to say we are looking forward to seeing each other again, probably Jan. 12-14, when i next have a 3-day weekend. This last Heartwood gathering was his tenth, and he loves this place, so he might very well come back up here. But i don’t know Santa Rosa at all and usually look forward to opportunities to get off the mountain, and so i might very well go down there to visit him. i’ll keep you posted. Please keep me in your prayers, that i remember to take things slowly (i haven’t been very good at this part in the past), and allow things between us to develop organically, if they are meant to.

Another nice thing about the Billies’ visit was that i got in 7 hours of Swedish massage, spread over 4 sessions. At $60/hour, that was a nice little chunk of change i earned to pay down my debt. My first repeat-customer was also my first paying customer: a Billy from last year’s gathering who remembered my work and called a few days before the start of this year’s gathering to make an appointment! Word-of-mouth brought in the rest of the clients.

i had a 45-minute talk with Scott and Kathy yesterday, and i asked if they had made any resolutions. Scott said no, he didn’t make them at New Year’s; if he felt a need to change he could do that at any time of the year. i said that i used to feel the same way: why wait until the new year to make change, but had later realized that i am very much the kind of a person who needs deadlines. i found that i never made resolutions at any time of year! So i’ve gone back to making them at this time of year, even if it is what everyone else is doing! So here are some of mine for 2007:

go to the sauna twice a week
train for Avenue of the Giants marathon May 6
run a marathon with Mike Morone
pay off all debt
save money for trip to wedding on Kauai in August
give one hot stones massage per week
give one Swedish massage every two weeks
get one body-work session per week
make an altar
start reading and this time finish A Course in Miracles
get published in the Sun

Wondering by now what's with the title: putting one's rocks under the moon. Well, that's what i was doing a month or two ago: New Agers like myself believe that the waxing moon discharges a subtle energy which is beneficial in different ways. So some of us doing Hot Stones massage try to remember to put our rocks out a few days before the moon is full, so that our clients can also share in the good energy that the rocks soak up. i had to laugh when i was lugging my rocks out to a spot where they would get maximum exposure: it was such an obvious sign of how much i've changed over the years. If anyone had told me even five years ago that i'd be involved in such an activity, i would've looked at them like they were completely bonkers!

Anyway, that should hold you all till next time. i hope your New Year is filled with everything that your heart desires, and that serves your highest good. Peace!

ps - If you are American, please call your Congressperson THIS WEEK, and demand that they support the impeachment of George W. Bush, Richard Cheney, Condoleeza Rice, Donald Rumsfeld, and Colin Powell.

Politicians thought it was proper to impeach Bill Clinton over a friggin' blowjob in the oval office, so they now should not hesitate to impeach this lot when the consequences are so much graver, for the lies that they have told which have resulted in the deaths of hundreds of thousands of Americans and Iraqis, for starters. The desecration of the Constitution -- legalizing and exporting torture, the cancellation of habeus corpus -- is next on my list for why these five must be brought to justice. Please, do it for the sake of the country you would like to live in. Do it because it's the right thing to do. Do it for your kids and your grandkids. We can make America the kind of country it used to be, but only if we hold the feet of our Congresspeople to the fire. They're not going to be brave enough to do it on their own.

If you're unsure about who represents you in the House of Representatives (who alone have the power of impeachment; the trial would take place in the US Senate), go to Congress.org and put in your zip code. Then call the office and ask them their position on impeachment: if not, why not. You'll probably reach a machine; leave your number and ask them to call you back. Encourage others to do the same, this week and next. We need to put pressure on Congress right now to make it happen.

The Cat that Came Back

2006-12-05T00:03:00.000-08:00

Apologies, dear Readers, for failing to file my November update. (And thanks, i think, to the Anonymous poster, who pestered me by writing only Promises, promises! At least ONE person was waiting to read what i'd been up to!)

Partly i was just busy with stuff, partly i was still adjusting to an unforeseen change in my primary relationship .. i've been a little more depressed than usual -- at times -- over the past month or two, while coming to terms with feelings of having been -- what's the best word? -- supplanted. i won't go into a lot of detail here .. i'll just say that i used to take up a fair amount of the leisure time of the guy who held my heart-strings, and then pretty suddenly, he just wasn't there anymore. i'd felt from the beginning (and told him this:) that my love was as unconditional as i'd ever felt it to be; those feelings have been put to the test during this past couple of months, and i'm happy to report that it is a test that i've passed. Although things did not continue in the way that i'd hoped they might, i have no doubt that we will always be friends. Some people are too good to let go of, and i only hope that the object of my affections feels similarly. But it really doesn't matter, in the end, if he does or not.

Big sigh.

The Hot Stones Massage intensive course was great, and i've given two sessions since then. It fits easily with the Swedish massage that i know and perform so well, and i look forward to offering it as often as i can fit it in with my work schedule. A group of gay guys called the Billies living in rural areas of n. California are returning to Heartwood at the end of this month for their 15th annual Heartwood retreat, and i hope to be able to get a couple of paying clients during their stay.

Speaking of which, i'd emailed a guy named Rosario who was at last year's Billy gathering to ask if he were planning on returning this year, and he called tonight to say that it's about a 75% chance he'll be back. i had my eye on this guy from the git-go last year, and was pleasantly surprised to learn that the attraction was mutual. We got the chance to spend some time together, and i'm really looking forward to hooking up with him again this year. He's Asian Indian, born in Tanzania, but spent most of his 30-some years in the US: really sweet guy, and dark and handsome (just the way i like 'em)!

Here at Heartwood, i learned late last week that the Welcome Center manager, Candice, who's been here like two months, has given her notice, and is planning on leaving to pursue bodywork studies up in Arcata. Heartwood's program is more than she can afford, and her partner begins his studies up there at the same time. So i'll be breaking in ANOTHER new manager within the next month or so, the 4th in about a year. i'm still not interested in doing the job myself. The pay differential is paltry, and besides, it's not what i came here to do. i like the low-stress, low-responsibility aspects of my job, and focus heavily on non-work aspects of life at Heartwood to find contentment and growth.

i haven't yet started running again after finishing the marathon Oct. 15. At first it was because i was doing a 7-day cleanse, then it was because of being busy with the Hot Stones course. Now i'm looking at starting training again after the New Year, with a view toward running the Avenue of the Giants marathon (over the same course) on May 6. On numerous occasions i've asked Mike Morone, that vexatious cock-knocker, if he would in fact be coming out here to run it with me, and still he deigns to ignore my entreaties.

But one of the reasons i remain friends with the dude is because he does things like purchasing 20 ten-dollar bookstore gift certificates and hiding them in the children's book section of the library in the disadvantaged neighborhood where he grew up. Our hometown newspaper even did a story on it. Oy, what a mensch!

Finally, i'd like to mention how wonderful it was to get cranio-sacral work from a couple of fourth-quarter students within the past week: a session from Brian Peterson at 8 pm last Tuesday, which actually didn't produce in me any noticeable changes right away. i went to the sauna afterward, and it wasn't until the next morning that i noticed how really wonderful i felt. People even commented on how great i looked.

Then i got another session yesterday from my friend Shaman, and this time i felt like i was floating immediately afterward. i again went to the sauna afterward before going to sleep, and the happy, peaceful feelings i felt last time are just as intense this time. i really feel that that first session with Brian was instrumental in helping to bring me out of my funk over the relationship stuff. It's experiences like these that compensate so hugely for the low pay staff here take home.

Speaking of which, Heartwood has come out of escrow, and it's offical: Bennett and Delphina (who herself is a former student and staff) are offically the new owners of Heartwood! They were recently married and are living on Hawai'i, but will be visiting here in a couple of weeks to take part in a big party celebrating their acquisition. Those of us here now are very excited to see the big changes in infrastructure, marketing, etc. that are so long overdue. The hot-tub and sauna will be upgraded or replaced, watsu facilities will be installed, the roads will be redone, solar panels will lessen Heartwood's reliance on the energy-grid .. and we will learn about other changes coming our way during their visit. This is a really great time to be here, and depending on what develops, i may extend my time here beyond my original two-year commitment.

Another friend who has been here about three years, Art Brown, has handed in his notice. He worked in the kitchen, but one of his side-jobs was to bring in bands to perform a couple of times a month, and he has asked me to take over this job. i'm happy to do it, if management will allow me a few hours off per week to devote to it, which i think they will. Art lives in a yurt even bigger than mine, with a stove and an oven, but it's way up at the top of a steep hill (about a ten-minute walk from my place), and a little further away from the center of campus than i think i'm willing to be. It'd be a big hassle to decamp and move all my stuff up there, esp. if i'm only planning on being here another six to nine months. i'm pretty happy and cozy here in my 20-foot yurt, so i'm probably gonna stay put.

OK catz and kittenz, that's all fo .. OH MY GOD i forgot to mention: Sky's kitty Ghost was in my care while Sky was away during the last break, and during the first couple of days he was back, she didn't come back after i'd put her out one night! (He wasn't in a big hurry to reclaim her, and i didn't mind having her around a bit longer.) She was on a kitty adventure for TEN DAYS before nonchalantly showing up one night at the Lower Dorms (where Sky lives)! She was as happy and healthy as if she'd just gone out a few minutes before, and i was very happy to call the local radio station and cancel the "lost kitty" ad we'd placed there. We were both dancing in the lodge Thanksgiving night when our friend Brenna waltzed in to tell first him and then me that Ghost had returned! i'd been really close to giving up hope, but was still praying and imagining that Ghost had found temporary refuge with a friendly neighbor. We were all so happy to have this cute little feline angel back amongst us. She really is a frolicsome and friendly little thing.

Oh, there's always one more thing to add, but it's going on midnight, and i'm gonna wrap this sucker. i'll close with warmest holiday greetings to all the Faithful Readership. Those of you with disposable income and the will to donate to the needy/deserving might check back here for my Christmas wish-list .. otherwise, see you all in 2007.

May you and all your loved ones enjoy even more peace of mind, prosperity,
love and joy in the coming days and weeks, and may you never lose sight of the
eternal divine love that suffuses your every molecule.

Damn, that moon came back fast!

2006-11-06T17:25:00.000-08:00

Faithful Readers, i salute you.

And beg your forgiveness at not posting on time. i found out last Thursday that i could take the Hot Stones Massage intensive that i'd requested mid-October (today is the 3rd day of 7), and it is requiring all of my time and attention at this point. It is a really wonderful practice, not to mention highly marketable. i got a 90-minute session in class today, and was told that i was making funny cartoon noises while i slept on the table, completely zonked out. What a wondeful feeling to be oiled and then massaged with smooth hot rocks!

In any event, please do check back here next weekend for a more complete update. See you then!

Marathon Man

2006-10-16T17:31:00.000-07:00

Marathon weekend began with me catching a ride Saturday morning with the first car that came along as i walked down Island Mountain Rd., a woman who was going all the way to Eureka. We stopped in Garberville for gas, where i gave her $10, and i was dropped off about a half-hour later at the Myers Flat exit off 101, 4.4 miles from where i had planned on spending the night: the Burlington Campground inside Humboldt Redwoods State Park.

After a hearty lunch in Myers Flat of a couple of turkey sandwiches and a container of pasta salad, i walked down the road, arriving at my destination around 1 pm. Everything was going just peachily, until i removed the tent that Sky had loaned me, to find that he had neglected to include the poles!

Fortunately it was neither that cold nor wet, and i managed to snuggle up warmly inside my trusty sleeping bag for a pretty good night's sleep (with a tarp Sky provided) that i'd lain on the ground both below and above me to keep dew away. i was pleased to wake up at 7:30 and find that there hadn't been any dew to speak of.

Sky has not yet been properly chastised for this glaring oversight.

The sponsors of the marathon, the Six Rivers Running Club, had set up a stand at a Visitors' Center next door where runners could pick up their race number. There was a really awful slide-show at 4 pm -- slides about 20 years old, all out of focus, no matter how far back they moved the projector -- after which i walked 2 miles down the road to the American Legion Hall in Weott (the Sinkyone name for the Eel River, still not sure what it means, though) for an all-you-can-eat pasta and salad dinner. Loaded up on 3 plates of spaghetti and sauce, a bowl of salad and a cookie before heading back for a good night's sleep.

Caught a ride in the morning with a couple of other runners, and was lined up with about 700 others for the start at 9 am: about 500 for a half-marathon, the rest for the full course.

What a delight to be running among the redwoods. The first half of the course ran next to the Eel River, and the view was breath-taking. i spent a few seconds at a time more than once simply gazing at the view down by the river, or the mountains above it, and most spectacularly, looking straight up at where the tops of the trees disappeared into the sky, some 350 feet above.

The Oct. 9 issue of The New Yorker has a great article -- which i was unable to find online -- called Tall for Its Age about the discovery this summer of three redwoods, all about an hour north of here in Redwoods National Park, and all taller than what had been until then the world's tallest tree, the Stratosphere Giant in Humboldt Redwoods State Park, a true giant looming at 369 feet tall. The new world's tallest tree, nicknamed the Hyperion, is 379 feet tall, about the height of a 40-story skyscraper.

i'd been averaging about 11.5 minutes per mile during training on dirt roads loaded with hills, and had expected to run faster the day of the race, what with the course all on pavement and mostly flat. The big question was: how much faster? i'd calculated that in order to finish in under 4 hours, i'd need to run each mile in an average time of 9:15, although the marathoner/writer Jeff Galloway had advised first-time marathoners to focus simply on finishing without injury, without any thought of time. Still i wondered: was i capable of a sub-4-hour finish time?

I thought that it was a good omen of success that my first mile split was 9:15! But my next thought was: great, now i only have to run 25 more of these. Which i managed to do: throughout the first 2/3 of the race anyway, i was either on pace or 3 or 4 minutes faster. Even with my one-minute walk breaks -- during the first hour, every 8 minutes, and for most of the remainder of the race every ten minutes -- i found myself to be gaining on runners who i repeatedly passed.

But i admit that it was a bit of a let-down that two runners who i'd looked forward to finally leaving behind made a RIGHT turn at the 13.1-mile mark, to finish the half-marathon, while i made a LEFT turn to do the second half of the course, and suddenly found myself quite alone on the road!

The second half was even more inspiring. More giant redwoods, but on a much smaller road, with the trees coming right up to road-side, giving the illusion (?) of greater speed. But it was a bit more lonely. I only came upon one or two other runners during miles 14 and 15.

i could tell that my pace was beginning to falter around mile 21 or so, and that my margin for finishing below 4 hours was shrinking. When i came upon a young guy who was walking, i said, "Dude! Help me to finish in under four hours!" and he said, ok, started running again, and Kenji from Walnut Creek and i ran side-by-side for the rest of the race.

It was great to have someone to talk to, and to have something take our minds off of the pain our legs were feeling. i'm quite sure that running with him probably shaved a good five or ten minutes or so off my time in that last half-hour. i'd stopped taking walk breaks by this time, realizing that every minute was precious. We urged each other onward, but in the end it wasn't quite enough; i finished in 4:02.51, Kenji a couple of seconds behind. i was 5th in my age-group out of 11. i don't recall now my overall place; my time per mile worked out to 9:15. That damn two-tenths! Thank you very much Queen Alexandra!

The original marathon distance had been 25 miles, but for the London Olympics of 1908, the course was extended by 1.2 miles so that her friggin' majesty could watch the start from Buckingham Palace. The new distance became official: 26 miles, 385 yards. (The marathon is one of two sporting events that have taken place in every one of the modern Olympic games. Anyone who can name the other sport gets the opportunity to submit the answer with question to the makers of Trivial Pursuit.)

I hobbled around for a few minutes after the finish before lying down on a Heartwood massge table! This marathon has long been one of the public events that Heartwood students show up at to get in some practice, and i was there last year for just that.

Members of the Faithful Readership will recall that it was my old high school buddy Mike Morone who got me interested in doing a marathon; runners at last year's HRM mentioned Galloway's book to me, after i'd told them i was thinking about doing one.

It was very nice to be on the receiving end of a massage this year. i got one massage from a first-quarter student named Deborah, and then a second one from Michael Smith, a part-time instructor at Heartwood who has been organizing Heartwood's participation in the HRM for several years. My calves were pretty tender, but after the second massage, i was able to walk fairly normally again, although still with some soreness. And still more back to normal this morning.

Headed up to Eureka with 3 first-quarter students -- Brenna, Mike and Jessica -- to celebrate Jessica's 20th birthday, at the Eel River Brewery. A coupla pints of ale and some fish and chips were just what my doctor would've ordered, if i had one.

Now for a few days' rest before deciding which marathon to run next. Mike Morone, take note: the Avenue of the Giants Marathon -- same course, different day -- takes place on May 6, 2007.

IN CLOSING: a special thank-you to you, Mike Morone, without whose inspiration and encouragement i would most likely have never attempted such an endeavor. Training for and actually running a marathon has been an immensely positive, uplifting and huge (!) change in my life-style, and (if i may humbly say so), i am a much better person, in more ways than one, because of it.

ten / five / oh six

2006-10-10T23:27:00.000-07:00

i thought it would liven things up a bit if, instead of giving a run-down of what i thought were the major things that’ve happened since the last full moon (as is my wont), that i would instead describe the events of a single day. And the one i’ve chosen is last Thursday, Oct. 5.

i’d read in an email from Democracy Rising the night before that Oct. 5 was planned to be a day of nationwide protest, over legislation that the US Senate passed the previous Thursday, involving (perhaps you’ve heard) the loss of habeus corpus, increased legalization and codification of torture (i’m still in shock that this is even being debated! As a writer on Common Dreams recently wrote: “What’s next – the pros and cons of child molestation?”

i was really upset about what i read, and started thinking about taking the day off work in order to go up to Arcata, a little town next the Humboldt county seat, and join in protests that were called for noon. After breakfast i went up to the store and told my boss Megan of my plans. It meant the store being closed for the entire day, since Megan was scheduled to be interviewing for her replacement, but i felt strongly that if ever there were a time to skip work in order to devote one’s energy to the bigger picture, this was it.

She only asked that i add to the store-closed sign something about why the store was closed, which i did.

Caught a ride up with my friend and recent graduate Candace, who’d been back at Heartwood to give a talk on eating disorders. Former kitchen manager Art Brown was along for the ride, at least as far as Redway, where he’d heard that a march to Garberville was planned for noon, a distance of about 2 miles. He carried a sign he’d made that said, Bush sucks ass. (!)

After dropping him off, Candace and i arrived about 12:45 on the plaza in Arcata – a block in the center of town with a couple of royal palm trees, some benches, and a statue of a dead white guy – to find about 5 people marching around with signs, and a smaller handful standing on one corner, talking about issues.

One guy let me borrow his sign which i carried around the plaza a couple of times, before deciding that i’d like my own. Got a sheet of carboard from a bookstore, borrowed markers from a “peace and justice center” that was just up the street, and made a sign that said (on one side),

GOT HABEUS CORPUS? (Not anymore you don’t.)

And on the other:

U.S. – Torture R Us.

Candace and i were only gone about 15 minutes, but when we got back the protesters had left, and it wasn’t long after that that the others had left, too. But i’d gone up there to do my thing, and so i walked around the plaza for another couple hours or so, holding up my sign so drivers and pedestrians could see it. One of three teenage guys across the street read my sign and said, “I don’t even know what habeus corpus is!” and so i went and explained it to them. They were cool. Lots of positive feedback, but a few people pretending they didn’t see me. But protesting against government policies in a place like Arcata is a lot like preaching to the choir. It’s a pretty hippified, left-wing-leaning place.

Around 3:30 i walked down the street to grab a burrito, then got my butt onto a 101-South entrance ramp, this one close to Humboldt State Univ., which (i realized) was the ideal place to hitch out of Arcata from. Took about 15 minutes to get a ride into Eureka (about 15 minutes away by car), got a ride from a really handsome dude named Jules, who went out of his way to drop me off in front of the K-Mart at the edge of town, the best place for hitchers headed south.

Stalled out at this point! Waited from 4:30 till 7 pm – rush hour! – till i finally got a ride from an older guy named Bill, headed to Sacramento from Medford, Oregon. This guy has made his money from a process he’s patented involving putting a plastic surface over the concrete flooring at dairy farms. He had two degrees, in Agriculture and another science, i think, and has a patent on a certain kind of fertilizer he’d developed. Said Chemistry was what had made him wealthy. Since i’d mentioned the Redwoods Marathon on Oct. 15, we talked a lot about running – he said he’d run a bunch of five-minute miles when he was in his 20’s. His life has been pretty good, although a 17-year-old nephew who he’d been training to take over his business killed himself not long ago. So it’s not all roses. But he’s happily married, has also made money sailing people’s yachts to them after purchase – his kids grew up on yachts, he said – and some friends and he are doing the figures on whether or not to lease land from the Bureau of Land Management in order to exploit a vein of silver they’d found there. He had a BMW and a Mercedes at home, but liked driving this new VW he had. It was a gorgeous car, really powerful and smooth.

Anyway, got into Garberville by 8:30. Only a few minutes till i got a ride to the top of the hill 8 miles away, and waited there under an almost full moon for a full hour – still 13 miles from Heartwood! – with hardly any traffic: 3 cars passed me during the half-hour i waited. Just as i told my guardian angels that if the next car didn’t stop i was going to start walking – while worrying that they would then think that i didn’t trust them to provide for me the ride i’d requested – a car full of Heartwoodies stopped! Third-quarter student Mike Mastros at the wheel, returning student Hannah Lee, and two staff-dudes in back: “Maintenance Sky” (widely referred to as such in order to distinguish him from "Student Sky;" i just call him “the other Sky”)! They had room for one more, and i was back on campus by 9:30.

A roots-reggae band named Vegitation was performing in the Lodge, and after devouring the dinner that i’d phoned ahead to have set aside for me, i boogied like there was no tomorrow! Man these guys were awesome. The best part was student-Sky showing up about ½ hour before the end of their second set, who also proceeded to shake his student butt in a most professional manner. Man, when he tapped me on the shoulder as i was dancing and i turned around to see who it was, we hugged like we hadn’t seen each other in years! Later that night, i thought about how i wanted to tell him that, although we’d hugged and i’d said something like Hey man!! that what i was feeling inside was the urge, restrained, to KISS him and tell him that his showing up had made me .. "insanely happy" is i think the best way to describe it. Because those two things were exactly what i was feeling at the time. (But i didn’t.)

There were 2 really great messages from dear friends waiting for me on the answering machine when i finally got home around 11:30, that seemed to make a wonderful day even more perfect. i can’t remember the last time i fell into bed with such an overwhelming feeling of gratitude.

Oh, i could go on. i haven’t said a thing about going to Earthdance the weekend of 9/15-17 with Student Sky. My birthday was Sunday, his was Monday, and the whole weekend was a lot of fun.

i’ve revived my own bodywork practice, and have given 5 massages in the past two weeks or so. Feels great, and have gotten some great feedback, too. i’m going to ask permission tomorrow to take a one-week Hot Stones intensive course offered at the beginning of November by an instructor named Erica who was in the sauna tonight with me. She’s running the half-marathon on Sunday, and we’re going on an hour’s run tomorrow morning.

By happy coincidence i ran into her this morning as i was returning to work from a tea-break at the Lodge: she’d left her class looking for a “table-angel” to demonstrate meridian massage to her students, and after clearing it with Megan, i got a really wonderful half-hour massage on my back and butt. (It was a slow day at the Welcome Center.)

Ah such is life at a massage school. My big task over the next few months: bringing clarity and focus to my vision of a transition out of Heartwood, by this time next year.

Too Tired to Think of a Title

2006-09-12T00:54:00.000-07:00

I'm tickled to report that a friend, Alex, of the new Enrollment Director, Joan, who knows a little something about computers stopped by Hedon's Eden to have a look at mine and, well, clearly: i'm back in business, woo-hoo!

A friendly tip to fellow PC-users: go to Start, Programs, Accessories, and System Tools, and do a Disk Clean-up on each drive. (You should be able to figure it out from there; it's basically clicking a button and waiting for an operation to be performed.) Then go back again to the System Tools folder and select Disk Defragmenter. Performing these two operations nursed my computer back to what seems so far to be normal operating conditions. Well, that and Alex discovering that one of the connections inside the cpu was a little loose!

Some observations on Love follow, so stay tuned. No, actually let's start with that.

So around here, when people ask you how it's going, many of us actually stop to ponder that, and to deliver a response that's genuine, and from the heart. Not all the time, but often. So when someone asked me today before lunch how it was going, i started by saying, "You know, it's been going so well for so long .. weeks or months. i don't think that i've ever felt that things were going this well for this long before." And here i hesitated, wondering how much to share with the two guys who were sitting with me in the "smoking temple." And finally i said something like, "But i'm really in love. And sometimes it's hard to have these feelings all the time." i described how it's a kind of love that i've never felt before, almost purely unconditional: not expecting anything in return (believe it or not, you cynic you)!

One of the responses that came back to me was to take it slowly; to sit with it, be with it, watch it, see what comes up. That was excellent advice; in previous relationships i've always had a hard time taking things slowly. i've had some experiences in Life which have re-inforced in me how precious, and how short life is.

But the other really juicy tidbit that Chris, my singer / songwriter friend who works in Maintenance, offered up was something having to do with projection. Sometimes we externalize onto others things that we either like or don't like about ourselves. Or perhaps we see something in another person that we would like to see in ourselves.

That's all. But that last bit hit me big. i'm still playing with what it might mean in my life, and in this relationship, and will meditate on it some. [ps - i bumped into Chris this morning at breakfast. He came up to me, reminded me of the importance of focusing on feeling over thinking, and gave me a huge hug. God i love this place!]

One of the things that made my relationship with my partner in Saudi Arabia so special was that we both focused on the present, while knowing in the backs of our minds that we would probably not be together for the rest of our lives. And i feel called to remind myself of that here. i know already that this man of whom i speak and i will always be Friends. And so it is so much more wonderful, and imperative to squeeze all of the joy that it is to be had with the time that has been given to us here, on this beautiful mountain.

One of my tasks, and i think that i'm quite good at it, is to allow others the opportunity to enjoy quality time with him; he is just too good not to share. And i have recognized for a long time now one of the central paradoxes around Love: that it is in no way diminished in being shared. On the contrary, the more it is shared, the more it grows. So i don't sit next to him at every meal (although i'd like to), and i don't drop in at his place every time i go down to the Lower Dorms (well, i might skip his place 5% of the time .. it's quite a hike to go all the way down there and not say hello)!

All right, all right, enough about this guy, right? There are other things going on, so let me get to some of them. Hmmm, maybe some bullets are needed here.

marathon training

i ran 16 miles for the first time in my life yesterday, having done the 4.1-mile loop road around Heartwood four times. As you know, Heartwood sits on 200 acres on the side of a mountain, so there was quite a bit of uphill coming and going. And it's a dirt road, so i had to watch out for holes and rocks. But both my knees were a little stiff afterwards and today, too, so i probably won't do that again. Goal is to get two twenty-mile runs in before marathon day, Oct. 15.

morone out of the running

Hugest bummer around these parts lately is that Best Buddy Mike Morone is laid up. Poor guy was out running about ten days ago, and heard a POP in one of his knees. Not too much pain, he said, but he could not put any weight on it at all. {Sky heard a description of what happened, and said he thought it sounded like a torn ligament.} Mike was scheduled for an MRI a few days ago, but i have not been in touch with him since to find out how it went, and will be calling him tomorrow. It is however looking very unlikely that he will be coming out to run the Redwoods Marathon with me. This is where i would insert a frowny face if i were that kind of a guy. Fortunately for you and for me, i am most decidedly NOT ;o)

post vacation: Roch to SF

A wake-up call at like 4:45 am from the cabbie trying to find Kathy's cottage was how i began the morning that i left two weeks' vacation in Rochester to return to the west coast, on Aug. 9. Made my flight and arrived on a gloriously sunny Wednesday morning in SF. i had to laugh at the large number of men who also got off at the Castro St. subway station: like, 25 guys (and 3 women, who were probably lost)! Stayed in a hostel called Elements in the Mission District which has a to-die-for view of the SF skyline from its rooftop terrace bar/restaurant. The view and the fab Arabian cuisine attract a great mix of globe-trotting backpackers, an after-work crowd, and the coming-to-dine-and-be-seen set.

SF north and the R.T.W.

Caught a train to Embarcadero and an 8:15 am Amtrak bus across the East Bay to a train in Emeryville which took me to Martinez and another Amtrak bus going further north. Got off about an hour late in Ukiah, where according to meticulously laid plans i was met by my old friend and Saudi Aramco colleague Carlos Maeztu.

Carlos has retired and lives in Gainesville, FL but still maintains a killer travel schedule, a couple of weeks monthly, he says. August was set aside for n. California, and i managed to snag a couple of days' time from this very amazing guy. It's awkward to be frank about how much you admire someone who occasionally tunes in to the blog, so i won't embarrass either of us. Suffice to say that we had a very pleasant lunch at a soup-and-sandwich shop called Schatje (Dutch for sweetie) in Ukiah, then hit the road for the really beautiful 2-hour drive through mountains and forest to Garberville, with a stop to unload Carlos' bags at the historic Benbow Inn, and a tip a drink on the sun-dappled terrace just off the bar.

A ride at night up the road to Heartwood to drop me off, before hooking up again Saturday morning for a drive out to the ocean at Shelter Cove, and a walk on the black-sands beach there, and then a final drive out to Heartwood in time for me to officially end my lovely vacation, and Return To Work, JUST IN TIME, at 1:30 pm! i had a great time listening to Carlos recount stories of lots of the guys we had both worked with, and of his travels near and far over the years. This guy has a memory for names of people and places like no one you've ever met: trust me.

Well my return to Heartwood coincided with the second week of a two-week break for the students, and i wasn't really expecting to see that scalawag Sky until the end of the week. But a joyful reunion ensued (sweeter still because totally unexpected) when he strode through the doors of the Welcome Center Monday afternoon! And plans were soon laid for two-man camping the next weekend. We spent the next couple of nights together, watching a really great movie the first night called Happy Endings, which i actually had to watch again the following night, with a guy from Spokane named Adrian, who works in the Enrollment Office. Sky took off the next day to do some bicycle camping in the area, but returned a day earlier than expected when a cute little kitten, not more than a month old, found him in the woods. So Sky is now the proud papa of one cute cat who has been named Ghost.

{i could insert an observation here about the .. um, radically different styles that Sky and i employ to tell a story, but i won't. Well, ok, but just an abridged version, really: Basically, Sky's telling of what happened the morning he thought Ghost had gotten eaten by raccoons during the night took all of 11 seconds, which is fine if your listener has a train to catch. But if Joan hadn't told me the whole story at breakfast, i never would've learned about the falling to his knees in prayer! And how near to tears he was, even. Anyway, i digress.}

We left on Saturday for Bear Harbor, part of the Sinkyone Wilderness, which comprises the s. portion of the Lost Coast, due west of here. i'd heard a few people rave about how beautiful this place was, and i was excited to finally get to see it myself. The road into the park was all unpaved for the last five miles or so, winding dirt road on the side of a mountain, occasional glimpses of the ocean far below. A herd of Roosevelt elk roam this park, although we didn't see any during our short stay there. We pitched a tent, had a dinner of andouille sausages on hotdog buns, baked beans and potato salad, splitting a couple bottles of wine and enjoying sitting around the camp fire and talking. What a delight to go to sleep with the dull roar of ocean waves on a beach just 30 yards away.

i still haven't figured out why i can't share photos, either through uploading them to Blogger, attaching them to Hotmails, or sending them via Outlook. (The last one i can accept, because i never went through the process of configuring Outlook to send and receive mail; this being just a bit beyond me what with needing to know about pop-mail and stuff.) But i will upload photos i've taken of that weekend as soon as i can figure out the problem.

Judgement Day

My trials with the judicial system are over. Long story short: the public defender advised me to accept the district attorney's offer of a reduced charge -- disturbing the peace! -- in exchange for a guilty plea and paying a fine. On Aug. 25 i did just that, and i now owe $146 at the end of this month. It's only a citation, and nothing goes on my record. i just wanted the whole thing to go away, and although i didn't feel i had done anything so terribly wrong, there was the possibility of the case going to jury, who might conceivably have found the cop's version of events more believable than my own. Although this would seem unlikely in Humboldt County, where a large portion of the population holds a healthy aversion to the dangers of the police-state. i did say to the judge, "Your honor, the public defender has advised me to accept this bargain, and has said that it's a good deal for me. But i don't understand why i'm being charged with 'disturbing the peace' when i was in fact not disturbing the peace." He didn't know either, or he couldn't explain it to me simply, and i realized it was better to just go along with the flow for once and to get out while the getting was good. [Block that metaphor!]

LA-LA Land for Labor Day

That dear boy Hadleigh Averill, a good friend from my daze in Amsterdam, has been toiling away at his artwork on the west coast this past six months, and had what i believe was his first LA art-exhibit opening, this past Sept. 2. Check out the photos and stuff at the gallery [RaidProjects.com] where he lived, worked and exhibited.

i was really lucky to make it down, since i am not only flat-broke but in debt to several people and institutions. And one government. But anyway, CraigsList came through again, and a phone call the night before leaving from a gal up in Arcata was my ticket down. Lisa picked me and a couple other people up along the way, and a guy Eddie (a cute 20-year-old student who is a dead-ringer for our friend from Amsterdam Matt Minkin!) we picked up in Santa Rosa was going to the same part of LA i was, which was a big help both coming and going. Twelve-hour trip in both directions, and Lisa only got one speeding ticket. There's more to that part of the story that i'll tell to almost anyone who asks, but it's just too much to go into here. (Dude, it's 2200 words just up to this point, and i haven't even begun my conclusion!)

Anyway, i really enjoyed seeing and spending time with this amazing guy. Arrived at 4 am, the day OF the opening, big hugs and warm greetings after not having seen each other since Nov., 2004, when i left Amsterdam. Hadleigh was of course still hard at work, doing what i supposed were finishing touches, so i let him get back to it while i lit up a Marlboro (horrors!) and strolled around and put my stuff away. Took a bunch of photos the whole weekend. i can't tell you how aghast i was when Hadleigh started painting over huge sections of text he'd laboriously painted at different parts of different pieces, after he realized that i had been mistaken about who wrote the text. But he re-assured me that .. hmm, that destroying some of one's work was also a part of the creative process? Something like that. Yikes!

i was coming out of the bathroom the next morning when this British guy named Max goes, "'ere! Oo are you?!" Max is the gallery director, and when i told him he proceeded to make me a cup of tea and give me like an hour-long expose on the art-world and the big changes that have happened in it over the past five years (fuck, i was going to explain it, but it's going on 1:30 am and i'm still editing and adding frigging hyperlinks to this unwieldy beast)! Great guy, and very cool girlfriend Carey. And Colton, and Max #2, and Tracey .. i actually went out with all these people, friends of Hadleigh's, Sat. night to a restaurant and a bar which was a good laugh.

i thought the opening was great: a lot of people, a lot of good reaction (from what i could judge), but Had himself was a little down. He'd hoped for a greater turn-out, and was also keen on selling some pieces since the grant (€35K!) the Dutch Ministry of Culture had given him was pretty much spent.

But today is his birthday and the reply he sent to my e-card says that a second opening he had this past Friday night at another gallery, in conjunction with a bunch of other artists, went much better. A friend of his named Dee who helped a lot to get the first exhibit ready has possibly lined up a couple of people who are interested in one or two of his pieces, which would bring in a few thousand dollars. He is smart enough to realize though that it's just money, and isn't too worried about his situation. This is a guy who no matter what will always land on his feet. Take a few moments to send some positive vibes in the direction of this most extraordinary guy. And be sure to check out his website.

Dee, Hadleigh and i had a great day my last full day in town at Marina del Rey beach. Caught some great waves which made for fab body-surfing, and i do so adore swimming with flocks of pelicans nearby. Got some great pix, too. It was good medicine for that guy to get out of the gallery and do something in nature too. Dee was great fun to hang out with. On our way to the beach, we stopped by the production company where she works as the creative director to post photos on CraigsList of a 1982 Rabbit that Hadleigh is looking to .. um, unload.

Coming up: Earthdance!

Sky and i have made plans to go to Earthdance 9/15-17, which coincides with my birthday (on the 17th) and almost does with his (on the 18th). $135 gets you in for the three days, including camping, and quite a few Heartwoodies are heading down there with us. Big-name bands will be on hand, while many non-musical activities will also be taking place. A Council of Elders, workshops, theatre, a film festival, etc. and one event i will be sure not to miss, the World Prayer for Peace, taking place simultaneously at 250 other EarthDance concert sites in 50 countries around the world. Pray / sing / chant / meditate with us! Beginning on Saturday, Sep. 16 at 4 pm Pacific time.

OH MAN, i didn't even get around to telling you about the full moon party last Thursday night! But I'm bushed and this is the time of night where i seriously contemplate crawling into bed without flossing. Good night everyone .. and thanks for reading all the way to this period here.

Pssssst! Did you catch the birthday reference? Great! So here are some catchy gift-giving ideas for that special man in your life who has nothing ...

a Mayan calendar, for example, the one at this website. Don't miss the very cool graphic -- above the words "Perfect Periodicity" -- of the moon going around the earth going around the sun.
i had more gift ideas but am too tired to find where i put them. maybe i'll come back here and add stuff later.

Coming soon to a computer near you ...

2006-09-07T16:44:00.000-07:00

i really hate having to do this to those members of the Faithful Readership who are tuning in ON TIME for the soUrcerer's latest update: However, as the hapless owner of a PC, i regret to relate that i have been subject to dreaded Blue Screens of Death (read: near total crashes), and still have not been able to get my computer back to normal operation. i did start this update at work this afternoon, the boss-lady having been called away on business, but a steady stream of phone calls and customers, a visit by the UPS man, etc., etc. has made it difficult to type more than a paragraph or so at a time.

i'm working here at the store this evening, then attending an all-night dance and sleep-over on campus: somewhere downhill in the pine-trees not too far from the maypole, if i'm not mistaken. Student Mike Mastros, who dj'd at my pre-vacation going away party, will again be spinning some trancey tunes, and i'm sure more than a couple dozen denizens of these here parts will be showing up to share shroomily under the magic of another full moon.

As preparation and as per Sky's lunchtime suggestion, i will be headed out of here at 5 sharp for a run in the sun. i'll try to log in and update you with all that's happened since the last full moon within the next three days or so. Thanks for waiting!

Back to the east coast

2006-08-08T11:42:00.000-07:00

Hard to believe that two weeks' vacation is almost finished, but all too true. My sister-in-law Kathy has just dropped me off at the Webster library, and i promised to update the blog in less than an hour.

Had a great party at my place the Saturday before i left Heartwood, a combination yurt-warming party and farewell for the 10 students and couple of staff people who won't be around by the time i return on the 12th. Mike Mastros lugged up a couple of turntables and speakers from his place and provided bomb tunes until about 2 am, with Collin and Rachel taking turns spinning vinyl and CDs. Good little partyin' posse kept things lively following the samba troupe's performance ending about 10:30. The Sky-man arrived fashionably late as promised, bottle of port in hand. Funnily enough, i'd bought a little bottle of Jack Daniel's to re-commemorate our Lost Coast adventure, so there was no lack of beverage options. Home-made mead, bottles of red and white wine, PBRs and Eagle Eye Ale rounded out the selections. i took 2 or 3 photos of the dancing masses, which i'll post to some website somewhere soon. Stay tuned for more info.

Biggest mistake made: forgetting my digital camera's AC-adapter! Had enough battery power left to show Kathy the photos i'd stored on my camera, and take a few snaps. But nothing else to do after like the 4th day of vacation. That's what i get for drinking (and um, smoking) with Sky and Zack the night before i left. i keep telling myself, worse things have happened.

i'd timed my vacation to coincide with my sister Eileen's visit during the first week of August. She met us at Gonandaga, site of a Seneca Indian village where they have a big festival with native american song and dance, artwork, things for sale, etc. She and i really enjoyed staying at Kathy's cottage, but the time was too short. The last time we spent together was at Cobbs Hill Park, very close to where we both grew up, and where i was meeting Mike Morone who'd invited me to run a 5-km race with him that started there. We said good-bye after the race, as she headed back to the house to say good-bye to Scott, and get ready for her drive down to New Jersey the following morning. She is being transferred to Tampa and flies down there this week to begin a new assignment.

Kathy and i hooked up with our partner-in-crime Linda my first Friday night in town to revisit the scene of so many previous incidents, the cute but increasingly expensive little Park Ave. eatery Hogan's Hideout. And our usual tradition of visiting the Parkleigh Pharmacy afterward was also indulged, with Linda treating us to numerous sinfully sweet treats.

i've had a lot of fun spending time with my old high school buddy Mike, who is as funny as he always was. He and his family have moved into a new house out in Chili, where i spent several days and nights. His mom and his mom's husband have their own apartment in the basement, and Dorothy made me breakfast a couple of times. She and John are a lot of fun, and it was great that they came along with us when Mike, his son Charlie, his older brother Bob and a couple of other guys went fishing along the canal out in Palmyra. We all caught carp (not to mention one mean-looking pike), and over the course of a long day probably caught and released about a dozen fish, the heaviest about 10 or 12 pounds.

Mike and i watched the last 2/3 of The Aviator when we got back to his place, and i would've crashed then if i hadn't gone down to say goodnight to John and Dorothy. John was watching The Godfather, Part 2 and not knowing it was a 3 & 1/2 hour movie (without commercials), i also sat down to watch it, making it 2:30 by the time my head finally hit the pillow. A long day, but a great time.

Mike and i also ran another 5-km race the day before, at St. Pius X church in Chili. i finished this one 95th out of 197 runners, in just over 25 minutes, 4 and a-half minutes faster than at Cobb's Hill, which however was a much hillier course. The thing that shocked me the most about this was that they gave out FREE BEER to anyone (adult-looking) who stood in line, and they didn't ask for ID or anything. It seemed HIGHLY un-American to me, and i asked Mike what he made of it. He only went to get another beer. It was a lot of fun, and we enjoyed drinking MORE free beer with a little ticket they'd given us when we registered.

Kathy and i have been having a lot of fun hanging out at the cottage. i've met a lot of the neighbors who seem a friendly lot, esp. her next-door neighbors Dusty and Frank (retired high school science teacher), and Kay, and Rod. Kay is originally from North Carolina, and is about to turn 81 but bustles about the place like a woman half her age; she's got a really good-looking dog named Geisha who is half-Pomeranian and half-Newfoundlander. Rod lives across the way, and drops in every now and then to see what's up: a fifty-something Italian-American guy with a really good sense of humor. It's been great just to hang out day after day, enjoying gorgeous weather and doing just what we want to do.

Wild-life spotted around the cottage: a huge, mostly-white skunk; a possum, kingfishers, snapping turtle, robins, crayfish, deer, ducks, blue and green heron, a hummingbird .. the list is practically endless.

There is plenty more to write about this trip, but i should probably wrap it up here. My flight leaves tomorrow at 6:08 am, landing in SF just before noon. i'll spend a couple of days there attempting to get myself into trouble, then will head up to Ukiah (3 hours north) on Friday to hook up with an Aramco colleague named Carlos (esteemed long-time member of the Faithful Readership), who will drive me the rest of the way up to Heartwood, spending the night in Garberville before continuing travels this month around n. California. This guy travels more than just about anyone i know, but it'll be our first time to get back together since i left the kingdom in 2001, and i'm really looking forward to it.

Then back to work just after lunch on Saturday the 12th. The students will be on break, so it should be pretty quiet around Heartwood. i'll give Vivek a call later today .. he should be back in our hometown following his graduation from Heartwood on the 3rd, and i'd love to see this gentle guy again before returning.

Just bought The Complete Idiot's Guide to Texas Two-Hand Poker so that i can shock the shit out of Sky, Zack and Sky's roommate Keith when i get back to Heartwood. Those three introduced me to the game the week before i left, Sky loaned me the $5 it took to enter and (LSS), Keith and i eventually decided to split the $20 pot. So i repaid Sky and went home with $5 in my pocket! What a nice surprise the boys will have when it s l o w l y dawns on them that Dougie T. has picked up a few things since the last time he played with them! Man do i miss that guy. Those guys. Whatever.

All right, that's 55 minutes i've been online. i'll post this and then go and find Kathy so we can do the shopping we need to prepare my Last Supper. Mike will be coming over, and hopefully Vivek, and Linda, and Rod, and i'm not sure who else. But it's also an absolutely gorgeous day: sunny and warm and breezy without a hint of the humidity that i'd thought would plague my visit, and i can't wait to get back outside.

Thought for the day
Se la strada fosse pavimentata con i cazzi, tua madre camminerebbe con culo.

Translations for the intellectually curious, by request only.

cHaNgE iS pOsSibLe

2006-07-10T17:48:00.000-07:00

SO much going on, one barely knows where to begin.

State of California v. Doug E Fresh. So I intentionally skip my first appointment with judicial history, due to the courtdate’s coinciding with the last day of the Cranio-Sacral intensive I was enrolled in. I’d been informed by staff at the DA’s office in Eureka that sometimes as many as 40% of those called to court didn’t show, and that it wasn’t that big of a deal so long as you called on the first working day following the courtdate to reschedule. Which I did. Only it wasn’t made clear to me that the new date meant that court was in session in the county seat, not in Garberville, which is where I’d shown up at 1:30 on a recent Friday afternoon. Oops.

My sister Eileen wrote in reaction to my last entry asking how I felt when I was handcuffed and put in the back of a police car; she thought she would’ve been in tears.

Answer: I was furious. I couldn’t believe that they were going to cuff me over such a trivial matter, and when I pointed out to them that they were treating me like a criminal, one of them responded, “You are a criminal.” For hitchhiking! I sat with my eyes closed the entire journey, focusing on my breathing and meditating. New courtdate is July 21, this time in Garberville.

I return to Rochester for two weeks of a little R&R July 25. Got a great deal on air-travel: round-trip San Francisco to Rochester with one stopover in each direction, $289 taxes included. Big thanks to my buddy Sky who loaned me the $200 that allowed me to get such a cheap fare before prices went up.

I’ll be chillin’ at the cottage of my sister-in-law Kathy on the shores of Lake Ontario, and am looking forward to backyard BBQ, croquet, tossin’ disc, board games at night, watching the stars, sitting in lawn chairs reading, going swimming in the ocean, etc. Then back here Aug. 9.

I titled this entry "Change is possible" because i've been feeling really happy about how things are going. i feel like i'm making progress on things in my life that have been difficult, like doing things instead of just talking about doing them.

One thing that helped me to realize this was a recent incident involving my frisbee. I had told a bunch of people around here how i was going to paint it in phosphorescent paint so we could play at night, and when i heard myself telling like the 10th person about this wonderful plan, i started getting kind of depressed (that i still hadn't done it). So the last time i mentioned it to someone, i said "that's it. I'm gonna go home and do it right now." Which I did. Just this little incident helped me to re-focus on making my world come true, with a little more doing, and not quite so much talking!

Also in the news: i'm in LOVE! No, that's not quite right. Maybe it is perfectly right but i'm just scared of putting it out there. Being "in love" sounds so heavy, and it shouldn't be. i'm playing with what it feels like to hold feelings of strong fondness and affection for an individual, without expectation. i wrote him that it was as close to an unconditional love as i'd ever come to. Which it is.

God there is just so much to write, and i feel blocked about writing about this here. This is one of the issues i still haven't adequately resolved: my desire to be open and sincere about what's happening in my life while protecting the feelings and possible privacy concerns of those about whom i may write. Part of the solution to this has come from my having started to keep an offline journal, writing about day-to-day events in a notebook.

Let me just say that i'm so happy to be here at the same time as this individual, and am grateful for whatever time we may have to share together, if it's six more days, six weeks, six months, or six years. i have a strong feeling that we have met before, and when i think back to how we met, and the interactions we've had since then .. it's just so obviously not merely random.

Folks it's not the longest entry i've ever written, but hey it's on time. It IS the full moon tonight, and i have re-inaugurated here at Heartwood the Full Moon walk, which leaves the lodge at 10 pm and follows a road that runs around the property in a 4-mile loop. It's 6 pm and dinner is being served down there, then the evening shift at the store for me from 7 till 8:30.

Big book in my life at this time: Path of Empowerment, Pleiadian wisdom for a world in chaos, by Barbara Marciniak. A lot of the text would make great fortune cookie contents, but that's not to diminish the wisdom behind the words. Highly recommended. i'll write more about it in my next entry. Have also just finished In the Hands of the Great Spirit, 20,000 Years of Native American History, which was great.

Yikes, gotta run! See ya soon!

Back from the silence

2006-06-12T21:01:00.000-07:00

By this time anyone still tuning in deserves an explanation. Late February was essentially the last time i posted anything substantial. Why so few posts in such a long time?

This is about the third attempt i've made to explain it, and i'm still finding it difficult. Let me just say that i'm finding it hard to continue, and for now want only to add that 1) i am moving to a monthly publishing schedule [even twice a month is evidently a lot for me to keep up with], and 2) i'm learning some new software programs that will allow me to upload to this site photos that i've been taking with my new digital camera. And this is another project which is taking up more time than i'd anticipated. But enough whining.

Things at Heartwood are essentially pretty good. i had 8 cranio-sacral sessions over a 9-week period beginning March 7, which was wonderful: highly recommended. And i will be taking my first intensive course at Heartwood beginning this Saturday: the week-long Cranio-Sacral course, taught by the women who gave me the sessions: Marshall Amini Peller and her partner Kellyn. They are a pair of extraordinary women, and i feel fortunate to know them. Very sensitive, generous, good senses of humor, knowledgeable about so many things that matter.

A new manager, Megan Costello, has arrived at the Welcome Center, so the pressure's off! i have returned to a 35-hour-a-week schedule, and i can return to focusing on my own bodywork practice.

Which has fallen off quite a bit. i thought by now i'd be back to it, having completed the move to a new residence, a 25-foot (in diameter) yurt, with a bubble-dome in the center of the roof, which has been re-christened "Hedon's Eden." But a skin condition has laid me low, and getting or receiving bodywork is absolutely contraindicated. Ever hear of scabies? Yikes, subcutaneous mites burrowing around in your skin, and the itching (esp. at night) can be intense. It's fairly contagious, but i've taken all the necessary precautions. i have no idea how i might've caught it, and haven't heard of anyone else at Heartwood who has it.

My friend Monica at the Wellness Center here has hooked me up with a homeopathic treatment which seems to be doing the trick. Not having health insurance, i was curious to know what it would cost me to go the traditional mainstream-medical route: it would've been $80 for the consultation with a doctor who would 've most probably simply written a prescription for the topical ointment that's needed, which itself costs like $25. i ordered this from a Canadian pharmacy i found online (the drug, premethrin 5%, is sold over the counter in Canada), and it arrived in today's mail, total cost including shipping: $32.

Having scabies was really getting me down. Many of you know what a touchy-feely guy i am, and not being able to hug people (which is one of the most popular pastimes here; you have NEVER seen so many people giving and getting so many hugs in your life!) was making me feel .. infected! And isolated. And so what happened Saturday night was all the more sweet. i'll explain.

First i have to say that even though i'm kind of self-conscious about having this disgusting skin condition, i've thought that it would be good spiritual practice to be open about it, and so i have told my closest friends here that i've got it.

Saturday night was open-mic night, and i was sitting up front on the floor, resting me head on my arms while sitting beneath an empty bench that was in front of me. My camping buddy Sky had been sitting at a table across the way most of the night, but then at one point got up, came over, sat down behind me, and proceeded to massage my neck, shoulders and back for like a half-hour! Man, this guy sitting behind me, and giving me so much touch, so lovingly, meant so much to me, esp. given this condition i've been struggling through. (He wasn't at any risk .. his hands stayed on my shirt the whole time, except when he did a little neck massage, and scabies rarely goes above the throat. They like to hide out in other parts of the body.)

That Sky, i tell you. And that's all i'm gonna say 'cause i think he still checks the blog every now and then. Although maybe he's given up checking because i haven't made a post in so long. So Sky, you still reading this? Would you tell me if you were?! Anyway, hopefully i'll have some photos of our camping trip on the Lost Coast posted here before too long.

Other news: i'm planning a two-week visit to Rochester for late July, early August. Mike Morone, get out your running shoes! i have been training for the Redwoods Marathon which takes place Oct. 15. The director of Student Affairs Tommie Lou Robinson out of Ft. Collins, CO has been running with me every now and then. Although big bummer, she recently told me that she'll be leaving us at the end of the next quarter, for personal (romantic) reaons. What a big loss her departure will create, she is a really sweet woman, very together. i ran (solo) 8.4 miles the other day in 2 hours, not bad when you consider a lot of it was uphill and down, and on dirt road.

Well, the openness thing, here's another true confession: i was arrested for the first time in my life some time ago, and taken IN HANDCUFFS up to the sheriff's office in Eureka. The charge: hitchhiking on the highway (i was near the end of a deserted entrance-ramp to 101 south). Got a court appearance in Garberville scheduled for later this month which i will attempt to postpone, since it coincides with the last day of the intensive. i'll keep you posted.

We had a wicked lightning and thunderstorm last night, that really went on for a long time, too, not so common in these parts. It started about 3 or 4 in the morning, a couple of hours after i'd gotten back from a huge party up the road that Hank Williams the third played at. He and his band play a lot of his grandfather's country favorites, but then for their second set they broke into the most godawful death-metal music you have ever heard (most of us had been told it would be punk). A fight broke out right in front of me (that was very quickly stopped as well, no one hurt), and the mosh pit in front of the band was not the more easy-going mosh pit that i fondly recall from my days of going to Korsakoff's on the Lijnbaansgracht in Amsterdam.

But it was nice to get away from the 'wood for a while, cut loose a little bit, and enjoy some good live music. A lot of people from here went, the venue was not much more than a couple of miles further up the road, and it's well-known too as the site of Nadine's annual Halloween party, the happingest event in Southern Humboldt's social calendar.

Watched "Motorcycle Diaries" with Sky and Nyra Sunday afternoon, highly recommended: the story of a trip around S. America Che Guevara took when he was 24, and before he'd become a revolutionary hero.

OK cats&kittens, i'm gonna wrap this up and go and spend some time on that friggin digital photo software. (My problem, in case anyone out there can help, is that neither Hotmail nor Blogger will upload my photos, even after this program (called VSO) has resized them for me.) Any suggestions for dealing with this would be greatly appreciated.

THE NEW PUBLISHING SCHEDULE: a new post on the full moon. Next post: July 11. See you then, if not sooner.

YOUR MESSAGE HERE

2006-04-18T21:15:00.000-07:00

Consider this a place-holding post .. any of the Oh SO Faithful Readership checking in today (because it is after all the 3rd Tuesday of the month!): be it known that i have not forgotten you! Man it is just so busy and i've got so many wonderful things to share with you, but i have just finished editing one of Phoenix's essays on jing (which i guess is the same thing as chi, qi: life force, vital essence), and now have a 9:30 pm date in the sauna (11 minutes from now) with Sky and a guy named Rivers who is a Heartwood alumnus and back for a visit of a few days. And i just have not had the time today to get you up to speed.

But check back in a day or two, when i hope to have recounted to a significant degree some of the amazing and wonderful things that have been transpiring around these parts.

love, love, light
soUrcerer

a sorry substitute for a REAL blog entry

2006-03-06T22:45:00.000-08:00

The boys of the Packway Handle Band out of Athens, Georgia have come to play in our little lodge tonight, and HOO-WHEE, what a hoe-down they put on! That place was steamin' in no time, what with the fierce fiddlin' and strummin' of these 4 young guys on banjo, guitar, mandolin ...

WELL those first few lines were written on some random Tuesday night a few weeks back and were as far as I got .. i know it's boring for you to read that i've been busy since the last post on Feb. 21 -- wow, i missed both posting dates in March, sorry -- but do have pity.

Truth is, we had more snow fall here a coupla weeks back than i've seen since i was a wee lad, and when some of it melted and then re-froze, a few trees came down here and there, including a madrone tree that fell on the line that feeds power to the building i live in.

So for a little more than two weeks following that, i was living up in our guest facility, where although i did not have access to my computer and own phone, i DID finally have my own bed big enough for two! i did not unfortunately convince anyone to cuddle with me. (Maybe he thought i wasn't serious about the cuddling part? Or he DID think i was serious, who knows!)

There is a massive amount to convey, and it is not going to happen now. It's after midnight and i must be off to bed. So just a note to (both?) my faithful readers: all is fine here, just very much distracted with so much going on. In addition to having been temporarily thrown out of my home by the loss of power, i have also been made the new manager of the Welcome Center; this has added a lot of responsibility, and hours, to what i do around here.

Ulli, thank you for inquiring -- a long time ago, too! -- where my update is. i guess it's just you and me out here Ulli. Although my buddy Mike did write not long ago to ask if i was going to change the name of the blog now that Sandy's died, so i guess he's checking in every now and then. "A Man, the Road." I'm leaving the name the same for the time being. That girl may be gone physically, but she is very much still in my life in other less obvious ways ...

All for now you two .. much love from the Redwood Curtain ...

MIKE make your travel reservations NOW!
Hadleigh you kiwi pain in my butt, send me your damn phone number already. You leave LA before driving up here i will track you down and hold open flames beneath all of your brushes. And paintings.

Goodnight everybody. i leave you with this:
Religion is for people who believe in hell. Spirituality is for those who've been through it. [author unknown]

acceptance

2006-02-21T00:04:00.000-08:00

In a continuing effort to write more about Feelings and what i'm learning, i asked myself before sitting down to write this week's update, what's the dominant emotion i'm feeling these days? And the thing that popped into my mind was contentment, satisfaction, and acceptance. (i know, i know, you want more tales of lust! But we can't have tales of lust every week, now can we.)

So why Acceptance? Whence this feeling of contentment? It certainly isn't that everything in my life is going just the way i'd like it to. Although overall i'd have to say things are going pretty well: i'm happy with my position in the Welcome Center: it's what allows me to stay at Heartwood, and with it functioning as a sort of a nerve center, i like the interaction that i get to have, not only with all the other departments, staff and students, but with neighbors as well. And being a welcoming kind of a guy, i like being the first point of contact F2F and over the phone with people thinking about coming here.

In addition, i've had a major breakthrough with my plans to inject more physical/athletic activity into my life. Sunday was the first time in years that i went running, an hour-long slog up hills and down, with the visiting twin brother (Erin) of a new guy who's recently started work in the kitchen, Tom Dailey. And i ran again this morning, this time on my own, about 20 minutes out the road to a pond which i chose as a point to turn around, and 20 minutes back. Felt great.

And it looks like this rhythm will lend itself to my getting up early on other mornings to meditate. There's been a controversy brewing on campus as to what constitutes acceptable uses of the Temple, which is a handsome straw-bale structure about 10 years old, and the guy who was responsible for its construction was just here for a few days to lend his voice to the issue.

One of the results was that even the Tai Ji class, which used to meet there 3 mornings a week, will be moved to a classroom, to reserve the Temple space in silence for those who want to meditate. It's a really special place, and i when i worked in Housekeeping, cleaning the temple used to be one of my favorite tasks: beautiful Doug fir floorboards; alcoves facing each direction made from 5 types of precious local woods; columns and beams of redwood; white-washed plastered walls up to 3 feet thick: it's just ideal to lose oneself in the wonder of being aware of simply being. A friend says he may surprise me by knocking on my door early in the morning and getting me out of bed to go and meditate in the Temple with him. May it be so.

Phoenix gave me another shiatsu session this evening, which was great. This one included a nutritional assessment, and i've agreed to experiment with chlorella, silver colloid, aloe vera, flax oil and blueberry juice (not mixed together, mind you)! He thinks i'm yin-deficient, which -- who knows? -- maybe i am. i've been kind of lazy about educating myself on nutritional issues, partly out of the ambivalence that results from so many contradictions. Phoenix's intake form asked a number of highly detailed questions about what i eat, and when i revealed that i liked sprinkling sesame seeds and pine nuts on my food, he said, Oh dude, don't eat those, they're rancid!

Personally, my feeling has been that having almost completely eliminated meat and dairy products from my diet, eating what appeals to me here should be giving my body pretty much everything it needs: there is so much variety. The one thing i could stand to cut back on are the sweets, which i am daily tempted with due to my work at the Welcome Center. Pam, a former Heartwoodie who's lived on the mountain for 13 years, is the resident baker, and has a display case in our little store that she keeps well-stocked with a selection of brownies, cookies, chocolate-dipped macaroons, butterscotch-chocolate chip bars, etc. It's been quite the temptation to overcome.

But getting back to Acceptance: i still have pangs of grief every now and then when i think about Sandy. Certain parts of the property where i used to walk with her, and which i don't get to so often, can, as i walk through them, suddenly make me feel her loss tremendously. But even this is a kind of acceptance. The emotion reminds me of the degree to which i have accepted her not being physically by my side anymore.

And i just realized today: i could make myself happy by staying here a year longer than planned, depending on how things go, and how the sale of Heartwood affects day-to-day life. It's a beautiful place, filled with beautiful intentions of mostly beautiful people who come here. No need to go rushing off to The Next Place just because i'd initially speculated that i would just stay a year past graduation last November. 2006 is a time to give thought to the possibility of my settling in Humboldt or not, and if not, then where next. And i expect lots of interesting things are going to happen this year, if i simply give them the chance to.

tidbits
Amanda you will be glad to hear that i finally spent most of the Amazon gift certificate you sent me at Christmas! i received in today's mail Mind Wide Open, by Steven Johnson, and await The Structure of Magic (published in 1976 by one of the founders of NLP), and Hope in the Dark: Untold Histories, Wild Possibilities. Molto grazie, bellissima! Which reminds me, what do you think of the Blackalicious CD i sent you? Have you been listening to it?

Successfully completed bidding on my first ever Ebay purchase, a mint condition edition of the board game Hugger Mugger! It will surely bring me and others here an uncountable number of hours of fun and mental exercise together! Bidding had begun at $7.99 when i located the item, and about 4 days later i slipped in with a bid just 15 minutes before bidding was due to end, engaging one of the two bidders in a mad bidding war that pushed up the price from where it had been for some time, about $18, to what i ended up paying for it: $41 (plus $5 for shipping)! Hey you'd spend that much on a game in a place where there was no tv, too, i reckon!

Fave websites: this one about the New York Art scene in the 70s and 80s, and this one, full of environmental information, and where to recycle stuff, among other things.

Received in today's mail: a pair of clogs from my sister-in-law's sister! THANK YOU CAROL! i never would've guessed what was in that package, what a great surprise! Both Carol and Kathy were too sweet to send me Valentine's Day cards! Kathy's was handmade, and included a little limerick which goes Email rushes to and fro' Since paper letters seem too slow. But I prefer the status quo: This card was sent with love ... by escargot! Isn't that the cutest?!! ;o)

CONGRATULATIONS to my Kiwi friend Rachel, living in London and having just got engaged to a guy named Fleet. Wedding to be held in the Asia/Pacific region, summer of 2007. Still waiting to hear if that's a n. or a s. hemisphere summer.

APOLOGIES TO MY MUSLIM FRIENDS, for claiming (wrongly) on this blogsite some time ago that the Qu'ran states that dogs are filthy: the holy book of Islam does not say anything at all disparaging about dogs, which was a big surprise to me. I can only say in my defense that i had assumed this after hearing so many Saudis say so often that dogs, like pigs, were unclean. (Thank you Faisal for helping to set the record straight.) This amazing website allowed me to check for myself.

The Hadith (sayings of the Prophet, peace be upon his name) however have more than a few statements that are at least unfriendly to dogs, such as Angels do not enter a house which has either a dog or a picture in it. (vol. 4, book 54, #539 from the Sahih Bukhari) and He who kept a dog, but not meant for hunting or watching the herd, would lose one qirat of reward every day (Book 10, #3287 from the Sahih Muslim). This is one of the reasons i think religion is silly: it focuses people's attention on dogma, instead of helping them to focus on finding and experience of God/Allah/Being/Is-ness in their everyday life.

While talking about things Muslim (it's too late to get into the Danish cartoons brouhaha, and i'm already late posting), apologies to MY SISTER EILEEN, who received in the mail from me a 2006 calendar with the sayings of Hafiz on each page. Her letter dated 2/13 and received here 3 days later said Thanks for the great calendar which I have up in my room. There are two quotes that would raise an eyebrow or two ... and i thought, "What th-?" At first i thought she might have been upset about the page for March, for example, which reads God was full of wine last night, so full that He let slip a great secret: There is no man or woman on this earth who needs a pardon from Me, for there really is no such thing as Sin!

But perhaps a greater jolt came from the page for April, which reads: True love my dear is putting an iron clad grip on the sore swollen balls of a Divine Rogue Elephant, and not having the good fortune to die! Oops! Eileen, my excuse on this one is that i ordered from a catalog without realizing what each page said; so sorry if any offense was caused!

Finally, my thanks for the thanks for the birthday card go out to the one and only Glitter-Girl (below, right) who promises to write a longer email another time. But honey, i ain't holding my breath! Hoo-WHEE how long you gonna make me wait before i get an update on this hunkalicious dude, hmmmm?

Oh, and almost forgot! CONGRATULATIONS to another old buddy from Amsterdam daze, Ken Finnegan, who one year ago quit a corporate job he hated, and this day is working his dream job, as a commercial diver in Australia! WOO-HOO, way to go Ken, you are an inspiration to us all! Check out his unusually-named website here, and tell him Dougie T. sent ya.

Next post: 1st Tuesday of next month: Mar. 7.

Jeddah, the best city in the world

2006-02-11T20:19:00.000-08:00

Sorry i'm 5 days late posting, O ye faithful Readership. Part of the blame can be laid on the virtual shoulders of this website. Addictive and worse yet, no instructions needed. You've been warned.

i'd promised on Dec. 9 to write more about what i'm learning and feeling, and less about what i'm doing day-to-day. Hmmm. i guess it would be most enlightening to write about what has been obsessing me this past few months, and that is a guy here who i simply can't stop thinking about.

He comes into the lodge for a meal and without even looking in his direction i know it's him because i recognize so easily in my peripheral vision how much space he takes up, and how he walks. i wake up and i'm thinking about him. i go to sleep and i'm thinking about him. i've probably dreamt about him, but i have not been recording my dreams lately, mostly due i think to not having a light i can turn on without getting up from bed, and so it seems to me like i may not be dreaming about him, but i guess that's unlikely.

He's funny and does silly imitations. He comes into the Welcome Center making pigeon noises as he heads straight for the bowl of newly-arrived popcorn we've set out for customers to sample. He's constantly practicing his instrument -- oh, who am i kidding? (Anyone at Heartwood who may be reading this will have already recognized who i'm talking about.) He plays the friggin' BANJO ok?! -- and one evening when i came into the lodge after dinner, he saw me, his eyes lit up and he said with a big smile, "Hey Doug, i'm working on that song you wanted me to learn!" -- a long and in places complicated piece by Bach (although he almost consistently performs Celtic and bluegrass). Man, my heart just melt a little bit more that night.

i've given him 3 or 4 massages -- a couple of them more than 2 hours, and all of them purely professional, mind you; not even a hint of anything improper -- which were wonderful i think for both of us. But all i know is Swedish, and only a certain number of movements and techniques at that .. my repertoire is, in my eyes, kind of limited at the moment, and i think he may have gotten bored with my bodywork, as he hasn't agreed to any more appointments. And i miss giving him love in that form.

As you may have guessed, he's oriented more toward the ladies. Truth be told, there aren't any male-oriented males out here, or at least none that i'm aware of. And all of this has gotten me thinking more lately about how unfortunate it is that our society (all cultures, to one degree or another) put so much stock in labeling people, getting everyone to fit into their little boxes. i'm even more tired of the gay/straight/bi-/none-of-the-above options that are set before us, and while still as strongly attracted to men as i've ever been, am more fed up with my self-identification as a gay man.

i rented a French film from Netflix this week called Grand Ecole (2004; there's a nice summary of the film here, and a few stills from the movie of the hot [and nude] young Arab in the film here) and showed it last night to an audience of about 10. It's about six young people: 4 guys and 2 girls, 5 of whom are getting their MBA's at a prestigious French school. The sixth is a French Arab guy who has found work painting one of the school's buildings.

The Arab guy drops a can of paint from the top of his ladder, the foreman gets pissed off, and starts making racist comments about his abilities. Hey, where'd you learn to paint, in the Kasbah? One of the students is passing by with 2 of his buddies at the time, and stands up to the foreman in defense of the Arab, who is shocked at first and then impressed.

So the stage is set for the two of them to become involved, and when the physical attraction of the Arab toward the student becomes clear, the student gets upset (although he has already begun to wrestle with his attraction toward men). He asks the Arab, "how long have you been gay?" and the painter replies, This is not about being gay or straight. This is about what I feel for YOU.

What a beautiful thought.

After the movie, i watched some of the special features, which included the cast and director talking about the making of the film. One of the actresses read some of the director's philosophy about human relationships, about the force with which both political and religious elements attempt to curtail our desires, resulting in the fear we feel to act on so many of them. We are made to think and feel what those in power want us to think and to feel, until finally we cannot even be certain of what our true and authentic feelings really are.

i am not (mainly) interested in getting into my friend's pants: There is a big part of me wondering about the possibilities of expressing affection horizontally that does not involve going all the way. i envision holding this guy in my arms, and perhaps gently kissing the back of his neck, or intertwining my fingers in his and stroking a hand or an arm. But even something as simple and divinely ordained as this scenario would, i fear, be seen as too threatening to this, or to most, so-called straight guy(s).

Especially since seeing the film i have had an even stronger desire to be open with him in some perhaps limited way about what i'm feeling. We are friends on some level, and he has previously expressed [although not to me] a desire to want to be around and to learn things from an older man. But i'm recently paying attention to a perceived need to back off from the object of my desire. The tension between wanting to explore how our friendship might deepen is offset by my own fear of becoming a pest. Perhaps i'm being too harsh on myself; it's hard to tell.

On the nightstand
About to wrap up a book from the local library An Everyday History of Somewhere (1974, about which the author says): Being the true story of Indians, deer, homesteaders, potatoes, loggers, trees, fishermen, salmon, and other living things in the back woods of Northern California. Local history, and great fun to read.

Hitched into town today, where i bumped into a friend who took me a coupla miles down the road to the used-bookstore in Redway. An hour later i found myself walking out with Sacred Contracts by Caroline Myss, and Talking with Angels (Gitta Mallasz, English translation 1988), the story of a Hungarian woman and 3 friends who for 17 months in the early 1940's were visited weekly by an angel who spoke to them every Friday afternoon. (The woman's friends were all Jewish, and eventually perished in the concentration camps.) A quotation at the start of part 1 reads Go your own way. Any other way is straying.

Mike Morone is the reason i bought Marathon: You can do it! (see 1/23), and since i'm painfully aware of how difficult it is for me to do things i want to do for myself by myself, i am forming a Marathon Club after the quarter begins Feb. 17. The book promises to get anyone ready for their first marathon with six months of preparation. Anyone out there want to come run the Redwoods Marathon with us this Sunday, Oct. 15?

tidbits
Got a couple nice shiatsu sessions recently from Phoenix, and one from one of the 3 Melissa's here, too. Getting a Swedish session after dinner tomorrow night from Nathan aka Said, a Sufi hottie here. Man talk about guys right up my alley: handsome and spiritually striving and just warmth and light to be around. Hmmmmmmm!

Taking care of a cat named Princess Sparklepuss for a bud who's on a well-deserved vay-kay in Hawai'i. Josh called the other day to say he's staying a fourth week and would i mind? Mind! How could i mind minding one of the most personable cats i've ever had the pleasure to mind? She's got Josh's little shack all to herself, poor thing, but i stop by every 3 or 5 days and spend a half-hour or 2 hours, depending. Tomorrow i'll take down one of my new books and some paper, do some leisure reading/writing, and chill with the coolest cat you never met in my lap. In spite of what you may think about the cat's name, Josh himself is not an effeminate man. But he does ooze yin. (Lotsa guys out here very in touch with their feminine sides: very cool.)

Recommended music, and what i'm listening to as i write this: Delhi 9, by Tosca. Thanks Nick Petrucci for burning this most excellent CD for me. Simon B. you'll be tickled to hear that by way of thanks i passed on your Maa Salaama mix for Nick to burn for himself.

i've started reading occasionally from his textbooks and handouts to a blind student here, hip dude from Sacramento named James. i'd started doing it just to give the dude a hand, but he offered to have me paid by the state Dept. of Vocational Rehab at $7/hour, and i said sure why not? Little extra income's always welcome, esp. out here where there aren't as many opportunities for it. i positively love reading aloud: Phoenix tolerated me reading "The Raven" to him the other night, and i selected readings to do at the last two Coffee Houses we've had here.

Another chance to make some cash seems to be heading my way as well: i've already sample-edited the first two pages of a shiatsu textbook one of the instructors wants to have published, and he was happy with my work. He should be returning from the break wanting to negotiate pay, and i've written an old friend who does writing and editing in Monterey to ask her advice about what to charge.

Helped get a sweat-lodge, Native American-style, to happen Feb. 1: Matthew (the shiatsu instructor) has been trained in the Lakota tradition, and was happy to share his knowledge with us about how to do it. Our last lodge in December didn't generate quite the heat that was expected, and me and that Banjo-Playing Dude hauled about 60 fresh rocks to replace the ones that had been used so often in the past. With assistance from Said and a gal named Cornelia (who i'll be training for the marathon with), B.P.D. built the fire, and then he tended it throughout our session which also involved removing the rocks with a pitchfork and bringing them to the door of the lodge when called to. About ten of us sweat. It's great: chanting, praying, singing (as much or as little as one wants), and i look forward to the next one.

On the work front, my new (since Dec.) boss at the Welcome Center, Loree, has given her notice ("just not having fun" is her public reason for quitting) and is leaving at the end of this month. Our Work/Study student quit (for the second time!) and has returned to Virginia, which is why, at the last minute, i was unable to attend the Cranio-Sacral intensive course that was offered 2/4-10: one person is simply inadequate for running the store.

(i did however get my first cranio-sacral session from one of the intensivists, a guy named Raven who used to work here. When he placed his hands on my feet at the beginning, the vibrations that i felt there were unbelievable; i'd almost call it a buzzing. And as i've said, he was just learning it! i'm definitely getting more of this stuff in my life.)

i'm definitely not interested in the manager position, even if the pay were more substantial. (As it is, the manager makes $100/month more than i do.) The job of ordering and dealing with suppliers and salespeople is more Babylon than i want to deal with, esp. in a rural idyll like this one. And staying where i am also means that i'm off the hook when it comes to management-level responsibilities, like attending interminable meetings and interviewing job applicants on your days off. i'll be sorry to see Loree go; we get along great, she has a warm and funny disposition, and is a joy to work with.

So you got all this way, you haven't dozed off yet, and you're still wondering what's up with the title? Well, it was just a little tease for Abdulkarim, who called again Feb. 3 and said, Hey! How come you never mention coming to Jeddah in your blog? There aren't many Jeddawis who love their hometown more than AK! Karimbo, i'll be there when and if Allah wills it! So i will work on the timing and getting a ticket, and you mention my return to the Desert Kingdom next time you're in the mosque, ok?! ;o)

Peace out, all. Next post: 3rd Tuesday of this month: Feb. 21.

Life (Spirit) Calling

2006-01-23T00:09:00.000-08:00

Many thanks for your patience, O Faithful Readership. While i still feel a big hole in my heart and in my life due to Sandy’s passing, i am at the same time feeling more ready to get on with living. She is still such a big part of my thoughts and feelings, and i will continue to burn a candle in the window for her every evening, till the 40^th day following her death, Jan. 30.

i cried every day for the first 8 or 9 days after she disappeared, and quite a few times after that as well. But an experience i had on Tuesday the 10^th helped me to re-shift my perspective toward joy and the present, away from pain and the past.

i had the day off, and set out after breakfast for an adventure on the road, destination Eureka, location of the nearest Border’s, determined to spend there the gift certificate my sister Eileen had given me for Christmas. It was overcast, but i had a rain-poncho as i walked down the dirt-road away from Heartwood.

Two hours later i’d made it to Garberville, and after picking up some cash at an ATM, i made for the entrance-ramp to 101-north. After a half-hour of nothing (and in a light rain), i thought to take my chances down on the highway itself, and so moseyed on past the Pedestrians prohibited sign and again stuck my thumb out. But traffic was really light, and after another half-hour or so, i thought maybe Spirit was sending me a sign that i wasn’t meant to make it to Eureka that day. So i said to myself that if i didn’t have a ride after another 17 cars had passed (17 -- one of my lucky numbers!), i’d take that as a sign, and head back to the ‘wood.

Well, about ten cars and fifteen minutes later, a somebody in an SUV pulled over hard and came literally to a screeching halt. I thought, “hmmm, this might be interesting.” Turns out that this 30-year-old “no-budget filmmaker” named John was on his way back to his home in Eureka after a dental appointment in Laytonville, while learning to drive his girlfriend’s stick-shift! Nice guy, good chat, and an hour later he dropped me off, right in front of where i needed to be: the Bayshore Mall!

Eileen, you’ll be wantin’ to know what i bought with your gift certificate, so here it is: 1) Marathon: You can do it! by Jeff Galloway, and 2) a CD, Outernational Sound, by Thievery Corporation. Hartstikke bedankt susje! (Sincerest thanks little sister!) Always nice to mix a little pleasure (the music) with the pain (marathon training)!

Next stop: the local Footlocker, where i happened to find a $100-pair of running shoes being discontinued and on sale for $30. A haircut ($17 incl. a $3 tip) and a sandwich later and i was ready to start the trip back.

i walked about a mile back down the road to a spot i’d learned previously was good for getting southbound rides out of Eureka. It was going on 4:30 and i knew it’d be dark in about an hour, and so was delighted when after about ten minutes, a woman in an SUV stopped who was going to Redway, about a mile south of Garberville! And because we so totally hit it off, she was more than pleased to take me into the spot in town from where i needed to hitch back to school. Her 19-month-old son Ricky mostly slept while we rode and talked and laughed, and smoked a hand-rolled (tobacco) cigarette. i commented on my good karma in getting picked up in such weather, so late in the day, and she said when she saw me she got a picture in her mind of a monk. (Maybe it was my red poncho!) One of the guys who picked me up on the way to G’ville had also commented on how he’d picked up a good vibe from me, adding that he seldom stopped for hitchers anymore, having been robbed by two over the years.

Anyway, it was dark and raining and the wind was blowing pretty hard when my next ride dropped me off about 3 miles up the hill from G’ville. And i STILL got picked up not long after that, by a young woman named Kelly, who turned out to be an ex-Woodie! She took me past her turn-off another mile or so to the end of the pavement, but was hesitant to take me onto the dirt road in that rain with her car. But right after she let me out, the first kee-YOOT driver of the entire day stopped! i think his name was Byron: he wore a long beard and a cowboy hat, had a great dog in the back of his new black pick-up, and dropped me off in the Heartwood parking lot; i reached the dry, warm comfort of my own room before 8 pm.

When i reflected on how well the entire day had gone, esp. the part about hitching in a single day back and forth to Eureka – which is is about two hours non-stop drive time each way – i couldn’t help but feel grateful for how Spirit had watched out for me and, once again, provided what i needed when i simply trusted that it would come. The whole day -- the things that happened the way they did and the people i met -- acted as a catalyst to gently lift me a bit further out of the pit of despair i’d fallen into after Sandy’s departure.

In other news ...
i succumbed and joined Netflix, and here’s a movie you should not miss (Mike Morone this esp. means you): Story of the Weeping Camel. The little blurb that comes with the movie spoils the ending, so DO NOT READ IT. i’m glad i didn’t; the ending was 1000 times sweeter in that it was totally unexpected. All you'll really need to know is that the movie is basically about a Mongolian family and their camels. Run-time about 90 minutes.

Correspondence Corner
Contact again after many years came with a postcard from Hawai’i from Lisa Vice on vacation, friend from my time in Monterey. What an adjustment: from her former home in small-town Wyoming to Japan!

Out of confinement with Homeland Security after 11 months of wrongful imprisonment, Faisal Ismail – closest friend (next to Falah and not counting of course Abdulkarim) from my time in Saudi Arabia – is back in touch and back on America’s roads driving trucks around the deep south. He’d re-found one of his old address books with Scott’s and Kathy’s phone number, and left messages on their machine saying that he’d continue to call until he got updated contact info for me! He’s living in North Carolina and happily married with an 11-month old son! Can’t wait to hook up with this wonderful guy again, Palestinian born and brought up in the desert kingdom, and in spite of the hell he endured at “confinement centers” around the south, loving life in the USA. Good thing for him (and 5 of his colleagues in confinement) that he taught himself what habeas corpus means, or he’d still be there today.

RIP Martha Laurance who passed from this world Jan. 15, the sweet mother of Monterey Institute classmate and good friend Paddy Laurance. The greatest gift she ever gave me was to make me feel like family every time i visited. Tears came to my eyes as i read the eulogy that Paddy, her sibs and her dad delivered. A sweeter, kinder, gentler, funnier woman you couldn’t hope to meet. She will be remembered in my prayers for some time to come.

Another blast from the past came last Nov. 4, my graduation day, from old Hofstra buddy Todd “Speedo” Kreisler, who also tracked me down by calling at Scott and Kathy's place. Terrorizing the campus from the relative safety of his electric scooter explains his nick-name, but no one has yet arrived at a satisfactory explanation for his sense of humor. He was kind enough to send along some photos; i tried to included a couple here, but Blogger was taking a looooooooooooooong time to upload them, and now that it's the second attempt and 1:30 in the morning, i'm saving the next attempt for another day. Look for them next time you're back here.

Birthday shout-outs
Janet’s sister Anne Starkweather blew out candles on the 6^th! Fellow Heartwoodies Chelsea Rutherford and Candace Wase dug more deeply into 20’s territory on the 13^th and 16^th; and former Heartwoodie and freakin’ fabulous friend from the Farm where Sandy stayed this summer, Lisa Zipperman, celebrated the big three-six, also on the 13^th. Big bad birthday wishes to big bad Heartwood buddy Azad who turns 23 Jan. 24. And the biggest cock-knocker i ever met, Mike Morone, will turn 47 on the 25^th! Whenever i’m feeling a little bit over-the-hill (which has actually never happened), i can always look to my buddy Mike for someone even more over it.

Amanda big thanks for the Amazon Christmas gift certificate .. i'll let YOU know as soon as i've narrowed the selection!

Eileen nice talking to you yesterday before you left for the drive back down to New Jersey. Hope you’ve arrived safely, and can't wait to laze around Kathy’s cottage with you this August!

Next post: 1st Tuesday of next month: Feb. 7.

Death comes calling

2006-01-18T00:49:00.000-08:00

My friends, i can't think of anyone who reads this blog who would not have received the email that i sent out Christmas day announcing the death of my dear Sandy, the half-shepherd half-heeler who came into my life ten years ago this month.

In the event that you have arrived at this page not having heard this news, you will at least now know the reason i have not made the post i'd promised for Dec. 20 .. Sandy had been ill for 3 to 4 days previous, and finally left this world the night of the 21st. She was 14 1/2 years old.

I'm doing better, and hope to re-visit you all here within the week. Thanks for your patience, and for the many kind words of condolence and encouragement i've received from so many of you.

A new home for my old pooch

2005-12-09T21:07:00.000-08:00

Greetings faithful readers,

i realized in re-reading the last posting that i’d mentioned “preparing a petition” without clarifying what it was about exactly. So a little history.

On Oct. 20 i asked the Heartwood Operations Committee if i could bring Sandy to live with me. In spite of the fact that other staff have dogs living here, and that Sandy and i have been together for ten years now, and that she is sweet and gentle (etc., etc.) they said no.

On Nov. 8 i brought her anyway, since i was convinced that she had begun her decline toward death. (She recovered shortly after being re-united with me on a daily basis, which i attribute to separation-depression.)

On Dec. 1, the Ops Cmte re-addressed the issue, and this time said that i would be fired unless Sandy were removed from the property within 3 days.

i went through a lot of emotional turmoil and shed quite a few tears in the days that followed, but the abridged version of the tale (very uncharacteristic of me, isn’t it!) is that i found a suh-WEET home for her, on an adjacent property that is only about a ten-minute walk from my room! It’s a bit of an inconvenience, and i miss going back to my room and not finding Sandy waiting for me.

But forced to choose between my dog and my job/life here, i’m immensely relieved and thankful that Spirit manifested for me this beautiful little cabin, tucked away in the woods on the edge of a pond, inhabited by 3 gals – a German who just graduated with me named Christina; another recent grad named Stephanie, and a current student named Mel – who are all dog-lovers (one who used to work in a pound).

That old saying about having your cake and eating it too {which when you think about it, does NOT make any sense whatsoever, since what good is having a piece of cake if you're not planning on eating it?} certainly applies here.

A couple of times recently i’ve been moved to tears, this time of joy, when i’ve stopped to consider how blessed i am to have had this situation materialize. And it’s helping me to move past the bitterness and anger i’ve felt toward members of the Ops Committee.

A reminder that when Life throws you lemons, you do your best to make lemonade! Look for the lesson(s) to be learned. Allow your emotions (even the so-called “negative” ones like anger, sadness and depression) to express themselves, for a while, but don’t be ruled by them. And always trust that Spirit has your best interests at heart. i believe it's important to believe that however. The abundance of the universe is there for us if we trust that what we need will come to us when we need it. This is what i’ve been reminded of, yet again.

i followed the banning of Sandy from campus with three days of silence, concluded yesterday. i was just so tired of talking about me and my dog, and so tired of fighting what was so obviously an injustice, that it felt good just to communicate with my eyes or eye-brows (hello! what’s up?), or my arms (a hug or a shrug). It wasn’t a pure silence, as there were times i needed to answer the phone, or answer questions that customers posed. And i did speak with Gunner when i went down to his trailer in the evenings; he’s a neighbor a bit further down the hill who took Sandy in from this past Monday morning through Wednesday, when i learned that the girls in the cabin were willing to provide shelter to my Miss Pooch. Christina even went down to pick her up from Gunner's place Wed. afternoon, as i had a full day of work scheduled.

In other news ... Sandy got sprayed by a skunk yesterday, for the first time! She has made friends with a husky named Lupino -- Ital. for little wolf -- [who is owned by Basil, a Kurt Russell-look-alike (who i think i’ve mentioned here previously) who’s now dating Liz (the gal who helped me to overcome a lot of my fear of diving this summer)], who is pretty much checking out what’s going on all over the mountain throughout the day. So Sandy and Lupino were apparently playing together when this skunk ambled along. Christina said that Sandy was only about 2 feet (2/3 meter) away when the skunk let it fly!

The stink was not as bad as i’d feared it would be, and Jim Ruggles in Maintenance let me have a can of tomato paste and some skunk-stink removal product which i ended up not using since the tomato paste was so effective. Sandy’s got a pink collar now since all of the tomato didn’t rinse out in the shower last night, but she’s basically smelling like her old self again.

Hey, you all remember that hunky farm boy from Iowa, Sky? … let's just call him the H.F.B. for short from now on … We’ve been in touch a few times since he left the mountain and he mentioned recently having had a phone interview with a Heartwood enrollment counselor and has been accepted for the Holistic Health Practitioner program beginning in February: woo-hoo!

So yo HFB, if you’re able to surf the ‘net from on-board your boat, you should know that it looks like i’m gonna need your help to improve on my Thai massage skills after all. i’d asked Hope (one of my two remaining Work/Study classmates) if she wanted to work with me, and although she said yes, she still hasn’t followed up with letting me know what times would be good for her to practice. And i’ve kind of felt like i’m doing all the work to make it happen. Anyway, hope you won’t mind being my Thai-massage dummy .. um, sorry: "table-angel" .. oops, no table involved for Thai, so how about "mat angel"? .. for a few practice sessions after you get settled in here.

Blog Bulletin
You may have noticed it's gotten harder for me to keep up with weekly postings. And now that my life seems to be settling down with the onset of a weekly 9-5 routine, i’m not expecting to have as many developments to report. So effective immediately, i will be changing to a twice-monthly posting, on the 1^st and 3^rd Tuesdays, next posting Dec. 20. The new format is meant to remind you of this change in frequency. i expect to write less about things that happened, and more about things i'm feeling and learning. Stay tuned.

Members of the Faithful Readership are encouraged, as always, to reassure the author that he does not post these words for naught, and to share their own tales, tattles, titillations, tribulations, treasures and tidbits of the big and the small things going on in their lives.

Holiday gift-giving question
If you had the money to give friends a subscription to the magazine of your choice, which one would it be, and why? Post your answers as a comment at the end of this blog.

Bye for now, love to you all, lose hope not one bit, my prayers are with you. Peace out, and to all a good night .. big love, doug t.

the path ahead

2005-11-23T15:42:00.000-08:00

Greetings faithful readers (Anyone still out there?!)

So, a big bright new chapter in my life seems to have begun. Graduation is now almost 3 weeks behind me, i’ve been working at the Welcome Center just over a month, i’m living in a new space since Nov. 4 which i’ve grown comfortable in, Sandy has been back at my side exactly two weeks now, and – while i’m marking time – it’s exactly a year to the day since i left Amsterdam.

Some things i’m attempting to focus on at this time in my life while holding down my no-pressure 35-hour-a-week gig at the WC, in no particular order:

· preparing to run the Redwoods Marathon in Oct. 2006 with my old high-school buddy Mike. Am looking to acquire Jeff Galloway’s book on marathon-training, as well as a new pair of running shoes;

· getting my twin-sized bed upgraded to at least full-size, although i haven’t ruled out a king or queen. Life is short but i’m not, and i like to sprawl a bit, and occasionally invite a special someone to spend the night, which is a bit awkward when your bed really only comfortably holds one;

· side-project after getting the mattress is having a loft for the bed constructed, which would leave some nice sprawling space for the pooch, or create room for a love-seat;

· i managed to get the 20^th of 20 movement (yoga or tai-chi) hours required for graduation on Nov. 2! Now i’m going to practice it regularly: from 7 to 8 am, Mondays and Wednesdays.

· it’s crazy to live at a massage school and not get bodywork. Additional goal: get at least one session (Swedish, shiatsu, whatever) a week, and

· in order to remain sharp in my own practice, give at least two sessions per week. Related to that will be brushing up on the little bit of Thai massage we were shown during the last two weeks of the program. i want to be able to put all of the movements together in a single session, which would probably last about two hours;

· re-launch the Activist-in-Residence program at Heartwood, which brings environmental activists on the edge of burn-out here for a free retreat, good meals and massages. With old-growth redwoods being cut as you’re reading this, i feel primed to do whatever i can to help bring this lunacy to an end;

· i also want to look into what it takes to become a tree-sitter. Getting the time from Heartwood to do such a thing would be one thing, but prior to that i would definitely need a lot of training in equipment; i want to learn more specifically too about what’s happening, the recent history of the movement, etc.

Well, that’ll give you a smattering of the kinds of things i’ll be up in the weeks and months ahead.

i’ve already launched a daily meditation practice: 10 minutes as soon as i get up, along with the lesson for the day, taken from A Course in Miracles. Today was lesson 5, which is i am never upset (anxious, afraid, depressed, angry, etc.) for the reason i think. The book fell into my hands some time ago, and the woman who gave it to me, a gal named Shannon from Kansas, is getting a massage from me Friday morning in return. Now that the harvest is over, she and her man Keith are leaving the area shortly to do some traveling. First stop, Ireland.

Sandy has really rebounded since i brought her from the farm Nov. 8, regaining some of her friskiness. She’s obviously so happy that we’re re-united, and i am relishing every moment we have together. As far as Heartwood goes, i’ve prepared a petition and have talked about it to a few students and staff who said they would be happy to sign it. And one of my spiritual practices these days is to not worry about what’s coming down the road. To just enjoy the present moment. Always good advice.

OK, 10:30 Tuesday night, time for this boy to kill the lights and crash. i’ll be up extra early tomorrow to walk Sandy and get cleaned up before making it across campus (no longer up the hill!) for 7-am yoga.

For my American readers i’ll close by wishing you all a blessed turkey day Nov. 24, which reminds me: i sent about a dozen of you a link to a Thanksgiving-related article that appeared Monday on the Common Dreams website. If you haven’t already seen it, you should give it a peek. Good food for thought, from a progressive perspective.

And for my non-American readers, well, you could give thanks that you don’t have George Bush f*cking up your country (unless of course you’re one of the poor souls living in Iraq or Afghanistan). How much longer till the impeachment gets under way, i keep wondering ...

Another new phone number!

2005-11-12T11:07:00.000-08:00

707/923 1432 - home phone, service to be hooked up Monday, Nov. 14 (at the earliest).

Local time is called Pacific Standard Time, and is 3 hours behind US east coast; 8 hours behind London and Greenwich Mean Time; 9 hours behind Paris and Rome; 11 hours behind Saudi Arabia; 17 hours behind Tokyo; and 18 hours behind Saipan.

Graduation and Janet's Visit

2005-11-11T22:24:00.000-08:00

A good chunk of the blame for not updating my blog Nov. 10 as promised can be laid squarely on the shoulders of JANET, my old friend from high school days, who left today after what i hope was a delightful 5 days. (She agreed in advance to assume some portion of the blame.)

However, just for starters, the following factors also played a role: 1) graduation on Nov. 3, which required 2) moving out of the room i occupied while RA, which meant 3) loss of the phone and internet connection to which i’d become accustomed. And you can imagine the kinds of things i was doing prior to graduation which took up a lot of time and energy: striving mightily to avoid incompletes, by learning new movements and techniques in Massage class, preparing a presentation on the benefits of massage for my business class, just to name a few. I also did 7 deep-tissue and 6 Thai massages on the trimmers down on the farm over the final two weekends before graduation.

Before beginning the story of Janet’s visit, i must mention a wonderful young guy named Sky who strolled oh-so-nonchalantly into my life a coupla weeks back.

One afternoon, my instructor Bess sent me out to find a body to practice our Thai massage on, and what a body i found! Sky was free at the time, lounging up in the library, and came along quite willingly. (Most do at a massage school!) Hunky 23-year-old farm-boy from Iowa came with his mom from New Orleans -- where they’d volunteered some time and energy -- to do the Heartwood Massage intensive: learning a lot of what i learned over six months, crammed into a two-week course!

i got to practice on him in class, and then down in my room he helped me pick up some of my new Thai routine a night or two later, the first time an intensive student had visited me down there. What a great guy: very nice energy, easy-going and cooperative; helpful and full of suggestions about what positions might work better.

During their time here i got a 2-hour massage in class from Sylvia (his mom) and not long after a two-hour massage from Sky himself. (I’d given him a nice long massage in my room showing him some of what i’d learned, too.) He also showed me how to walk on his back .. it sounds simple enough, but you need to know where not to step, and how much weight you can exert on which parts of the body.

Sky and i partied together with others the night of my graduation; a number of us went down to the sauna about 1:30 in the morning, and i don’t remember crawling into bed until at least about 3. Former classmate and good friend Laura B. visited, one of Sky’s classmates Shana, Azad, Sara M., Ian maybe? (i don’t know), lavender Man Chris [see below] came and hung out, and others too numerous to mention. [i should say And others whom i’ve forgotten, having smoked too much to remember!]

i was a little .. melancholy i guess is the word .. to say good-bye to Sky on Friday the 4^th. We bonded in a way that’s somehow different from the ways i’ve bonded with others since my arrival here; i can’t quite put my finger on what makes it unique. Just to say that i really enjoyed the short time we spent together, and am looking forward to his return in February as a full-time student.

Janet arrived Sunday the 6^th (my mom’s 85^th birthday) at the airport up in McKinleyville, an hour north of Garberville. My friend Heather went to pick her up, and the two of them arrived at my new room at about 10 pm. Rain continued the following day, but on Tuesday it cleared and warmed up, and Janet and i set out after breakfast to hitchhike into town. The first car to pass us contained a gray-haired older woman named Maria who’d moved out here from New York City 25 years ago. She had some criticisms of Heartwood, mostly of its environmental impact on the mountain, esp. as concerns huge water usage and heavy traffic on the dirt road.

She dropped us off in an area called Old Harris (today’s population of a few hundred there a tenth of what it was a hundred years ago, i’ve been told), and i decided that we postpone hitching a bit and walk a couple of miles so Janet could check out my favorite tree coupla miles up the road.

A few minutes later my friend Matt (the budding rock-n-roll singer i’ve written about here before) and his white pit-bull Moses drove past in his Jeep; he backed up and we had a nice little chat for a few minutes. Nice Janet got to meet him.

About a half-hour later Janet and i were standing in front of my favorite tree (which i’ve also written about here): an old pine tree whose top was wrenched off years ago in either a windstorm or a lightning strike, and which then sent new growth out on both sides, before producing what from the ground look like two full-sized trees. Janet took some photos (evidence: confirmed tree-hugger) and we continued hitching and walking down the road.

About ten minutes later, one of the people it was GREAT Janet got to meet came along, Chris! I don’t think i’ve yet mentioned Chris in these pages, so i’ll introduce him to you now: he’s a farm boy (i’d say early 30’s) originally from Virginia but having lived in Portland and Eugene for some time, working on a lavender farm a few miles down the road. He and i began to hang out a bit over the past coupla months, and .. well, i am simply enthralled. He is a handsome, muscular guy and SO friendly. But he’s also kinda shy, not having made the great friendships here he’s apparently left behind in Eugene.

He’s mentioned ex-girlfriends, which Janet reminded me of when i rambled on to her about my romantic interest in him. i simply focus on the EX- part and will wait to see what life has in store. (He DID after all bring me a bouquet of lavender graduation night! How many people can say that a dark and handsome, muscular dude brought them a bouquet of lavender?!) i want this guy in my life, whether or not in my bed.

ANYway, enough mooning over Chris. Janet insisted on riding in the bed of Chris’ pickup, so i rode shotgun, with Chris’ handsome but shy (hmmm.) 10-year-old mixed lab Zeke riding behind us. We stopped for coffee at a place run by friends of his, where we ran into my friend Jerry and a couple of workers from the Farm where Sandy lives (lived)! Jerry used to work at Heartwood and this summer i introduced him to Mike, who ended up hiring him. We hung out for a while, while Jerry gave Janet a hard time worked for working at the Library of Congress (which makes her a Fed). I said “Hey, i was a fed the 3 years i was a Peace Corps Volunteer, and YOU were a fed during the 20-some years you were in the friggin’ Navy!” He still managed somehow to get the last word in, damn him.

After caffeine and banana-bread, Chris drove us 20 minutes up 101 to Founders’ Grove, where the largest stand of old-growth redwoods are found. Everyone around here quotes to visitors that 2 or 3% of the redwoods that were here a hundred years ago remain, and even these are NOT all protected. i intend on getting involved in actions to help save the trees now that my program is complete. Stay tuned for more details.

Under the giant redwoods, Chris casually amused us with his banter for about a half-hour before continuing his drive north to the county-seat Eureka, and then Janet and i enjoyed a walk of about a half-hour through the trees. It was her first time there, and my third or fourth. If you have not seen these majestic wonders of nature, plan on doing so sometime. We would’ve stayed longer, but wanted to leave enough time for her to meet Sandy, and so walked back out to the 101-south entrance ramp.

About the second car that passed us was driven by a local couple in their early 30’s who were going to Garberville and who picked us up. Interesting opinions about Humboldt County folk. The guy said: My parents moved here in the 70's to escape the materialistic mainstream life-style; their kids absorbed a lot of their progressive values, but now there are 20-somethings who don’t want any part of that. There’s big money to be made growing pot, they don’t care about their parents’ or grandparents’ values, and are only interested in making money and buying the things they see on tv. But he also said there’s a big range of people living here, from rednecks, to pot-growing hippie-types, to ranchers and all types in between. And a lot of people who look and drive like redneck ranchers are growing lots of pot. A lot of free-thinkers here too who don’t want to be told by the government what they can and can’t do.

Bought me some water-proof boots for $60 in town, had some lunch, hit the health-food store (for a chocolate cookie!) and then hiked down the road to where we began hitching for the final leg of Janet's journey to meet Sandy, finally, after all these years.

A few minutes later we were in the comfy big 4-door [we never thought someone driving a car this nice would pick us up!] driven by Bill, the former volunteer fire dept. chief for the Palo Verde area (where Heartwood is located). Spent a year in jail after having been busted for growing some time back, raised a family out here and is now a granddad twice over, he told us. Real nice guy. Dropped us right where we were headed, and Janet and i had a lovely ½-hour walk from the pavement down to the Farm where trimming operations are now winding down.

Janet saw the whole operation, and i’ll leave her to describe for you her impressions of the place. I dj’d for the trimmers while we waited for dinner, and then Janet and i compensated for a really great meal by washing up the dishes.

Big news is that i noticed just since the week before that Sandy seems to be going a bit more quickly down-hill. She used to shake a little in her hind-quarters, but now, sometimes, that shake is a little more all over. She’ll walk slowly and before moving to sit down, will lift one front paw and just hold it there, shaking. It’s kind of sad, but she is now 14 years and 4 months old, and i’ve been emotionally preparing for her death from old age for some time now: something we all hope to go through, after all.

Despite Heartwood’s refusal to grant me permission to bring her on campus, i could not leave the Farm without her. Jerry agreed to take the three of us back, and we left about 10:00, Janet up front holding Jerry’s puppy Mu, me on a fold-down seat behind Jerry and Janet, and Sandy sort of boxed in on the floor in front of me. It was quite a production to 1) locate Sandy, 2) find a flashlight in order to find her [then realizing that she was not in her usual place under the house, then asking someone where she might be, and THEN finding her!], THEN waking her up, which took longer than it ever did before, worryingly, 3) find the turkey legs the dogs get fed, and then 4) find a plastic bag to put a few in.

Poor Janet was exhausted, still jet-lagged, and about to fall asleep standing up, but i still had to laugh when, hurrying as best as i could under the circumstances, the first leg i threw into the bag burst through the other side and out onto the ground, leaving me holding what was now just a loopy piece of plastic. (Janet was not amused.) We made it back safe and sound, in spite of Jerry's and my being mildly stoned while jabbering our heads off.

So Sandy is an un-official Heartwood resident, and i figure it’s only a matter of time before she’s discovered and we’re reported. Not sure what will happen after that. Hopefully i’ll be considered valuable enough to keep around in spite of my transgression. They’ll hopefully see that i’d truthfully described a harmless and loveable creature who won’t cause anyone any kind of a problem.

Janet had a great five days – didn’t you?! Let me know when you get a chance! – although i had to put in a lot of hours here at the store during her last three days here. A walk in the rain up to the airstrip her first morning, a sauna and hot-tub together one night, a massage from me her second night, a shiatsu session from a classmate this morning, meal after meal of really tasty vegetarian: the kitchen staff only get better. I think it was a great re-union, a great one to add to the ones we’ve enjoyed overseas.

Gotta get back to my room to give Sandy some lovin’ attention before crashing for the night. She devoured the 3 turkey legs over the past 3 days i brought from the Farm, and Jim R. in Maintenance gave me some of the dog food he feeds his little 3-legged pooch Tele, until i can get into town to buy some on my next day off, Monday.

SO much more i could write, but must crash. Next time: plans for life after graduation. Man i got a lot of great ideas.

Graduation approaches

2005-10-11T01:06:00.000-07:00

Yikes, it's been 3 weeks since the last time i posted. Sincere apologies to any remaining members of the Faithful Readership. It's been incredibly busy what with graduation fast approaching, and this will definitely be the last blog update until Nov. 10, a date you should mark on your calendar. I believe that at that date i will switch from weekly posts to posting every ten days. But check back on Nov. 10 for the latest on that.

Before getting to a general summary of what's gone down here in the past three weeks, i want to describe for you:

Just This Day
i got up about 7 this morning and again made time for a ten-minute meditation. Showered and dressed and made it up the hill for breakfast in the Lodge by 8, and was walking down the road away from Heartwood by about 8:30. Got picked up by the first car that came along, which happened to be driven by my buddy Matt Reagan -- long-time readers will remember my mention of Matt way back from my first days here, who is still entertaining rock-and-roll dreams which i'm betting are not so far from being realized.

Matt dropped me off in front of my bank, where i withdrew $60 from the atm out front. i then walked about five minutes to the entrance-ramp onto 101-South, and had not been there more than five minutes, UKIAH sign in hand, when an 18-wheeler pulls over to pick me up! A guy about my age named Roy was hauling a rig for Mervyn's to Ukiah, two hours' drive south, and said i was one of three hitchhikers he'd picked up in the past three years, after having been out of work for three years after a long career in printing, eclipsed by the rise of personal computing. Friendly and talkative guy, absolutely loving the tremendous view of this part of the country. He grew up in the Bay Area, his long-time girlfriend has two more years before being able to retire as Postmaster in Oakland, and he's enjoying making runs for Mervyn's five days a week between Redding, Tahoe, Ukiah and San Diego. Makes about $60K, and said that trucking owner-operators could make as much as $110K, but that's in exchange for working about 28 days of every month.

What a great guy. Told me when he dropped me off that if the address i was seeking turned out to be on the other side of town to wait there, and that he'd be back that way in about 20 minutes with a new rig, pick me up and drop me closer to where i was going!

Turned out though that the office of Norcal Healthcare at 527 S. State St. was a ten-minute walk from where i was, and i got there just about noon. They weren't expecting me until 2 -- i'd phoned before leaving Garberville and told them i'd be hitching -- but were able to see me as soon as i'd paid the $125 fee and filled out some paperwork.

So, reason for the visit? To obtain form 215. Two-fifteen is the name of the proposition that Californians voted into state law not so long ago, providing for the medical use of marijuana. The Supreme Court in Washington has ruled that California physicians cannot be prosecuted for recommending that their patients use marijuana; posting one on your property allows you to grow as much pot as you can in a space ten feet (about 3 meters) square. If you obtain 215s for others, then you can grow for them as well. Michael has promised a $3000 bonus for all of his workers who obtain one, and i'm only hoping that i haven't obtained mine too late, since he has started harvesting. But even if he denies me the full bonus due to tardiness on my part, no problems. He has done so much for me and for Sandy until now that getting the bonus or not really makes very little difference to me.

i was waiting to be called into the examination room when the receptionist said to a couple who were getting ready to leave how they didn't often get people all the way down from Garberville. I said, "Are you from Garberville? Are you driving back up there?!" And Lee and Honey Rose ended up taking me back up!

Two miniature dachshunds named Tito and Ruby made themselves at home in my lap during the drive back, and Lee and Honey Rose celebrated obtaining their 215s by rolling and lighting up a joint for the drive back.

Some time ago, Honey Rose had had to pay about $350 in a fine and legal fees after having been caught by a traffic cop with a small quantity. The cop had been coming from the opposite direction and had SMELLED the pot as he'd driven past (hot summer day, and the windows down)! But it was a first-time offense.

Anyway they now figured that if they were going to continue to smoke then they should get their 215s. They grow just enough for themselves, and are not terribly interested in selling it to others. They'd moved up from the Big Sur primarily because Monterey County hassles pot-smokers and -growers a lot more than Humboldt County does. They have two sons who studied massage therapy down there at the world-famous Esalen Institute (where i enjoyed late-night saunas more than once while a student at the Monterey Institute), but who are better known in the area for their work in carpentry.

Anyway, it was great fun to share a ride and two tokes of herb (in recognition of obtaining my 215, and in honor of the gods of this sacred herb!) with them. They dropped me off at the vet's clinic, which is conveniently located ON the road leading to Heartwood, and i had not walked more than ten minutes -- incidentally, it was a GORGEOUS warm sunny day, and i never once needed to put on the pullover i'd brought with me -- when my third ride of the day pulled over! Brand new GM pickup, driven by a handsome though pot-bellied guy with a jug of orange juice in his lap. He wasn't feeling very well and was kind of quiet, but was friendly enough, and took me almost all the way to the general store, which was a long way.

I hadn't walked more than 3 or 4 minutes when my last ride of the day picked me up: two young guys in another pickup. They needed to stop at the general store to fill up a big tank with propane, but were headed out to a farm about an hour's drive past Heartwood, and were amazed to hear that i was just returning from having hitched to Ukiah that morning!

Jimmy, the driver, has run his own surf shop down in Cabo, Baja Californiafor the past ten years or so, and has been up in Humboldt for the past month doing .. well, what would your first guess be?! His companion Sean was a student at Heartwood about ten years ago. Nice guys, and good for some massages no doubt, along with whoever's out there working on their operation. He gave me his card, and i will get back in touch with him after i've found a woman who'd be willing to go out to their farm and do some massages. When he asked specifically for a woman i thought i should make sure he understood that the massage we do was strictly non-sexual massage, but he was cool; just stating a preference to be massaged by a woman rather than a man. To be understood, esp. in this culture. i will probably be seeing them again 10/29 at this huge Halloween party that happens not far from here, attended by a couple hundred people who live on the mountain, and which by all accounts is not to be missed.

Jimmy and Sean dropped me at the turnoff to Heartwood, and i walked the last stretch into Heartwood property in ten minutes, and was in my room and curling up for a snooze by 4:30! Not bad for a day's work, but it meant my missing Sandy this week, i think only the second week since having arrived here that i haven't seen her. Which leads to my next big news ...

Got the job!
i was offered the Welcome Center position Sunday evening, since their first choice, my work-study buddy Vanessa, could not give them the commitment they needed. However, we still need to work out where i might be able to live with Sandy. Staff is incredibly anti-pet, i guess having experienced problems in the past. They only made an exception with this new instructor and her TWO dogs because they'd had a hard time filling that position.

In any event, if they continue to insist that Sandy will not be allowed here, i will at least take up the offer made to me by a former Heartwoodie named Lorraine who picked me up while i was hitching about a month back; she lives about a mile or two from here, and esp. with the cold and wet winter approaching, it will at least be a lot easier to see Sandy at Lorraine's place (and more frequently) than it has been up till now. She is an incredibly nice woman with a great reputation, and i'm imagining that her house would be ideal for Sandy. i will do everything i can though to find a way for me to live with my dog again. We both deserve that.

Graduation -- for the three remaining Work/Study students: me, Hope and Vanessa -- and for four students of other (longer) programs: Karen, Laura, Carly and the German gal Christina is Nov. 3. Amanda and Crystal, maybe Tim Diko: you're coming, right?! (Consider this your engraved invitations! I know it's kind of late to get time off and make travel reservations .. i'd really meant to get more notice to you, but will not be overly distraught if you can't make it. i'm not really expecting anyone to be able to come such a distance.) Abdulkarim how about it?!

As far as the rest of classes go, we have finished our study of Swedish, and are getting brief intros to deep-tissue and Thai massage. And workwise, i will probably switch from Househealing to the Welcome Center next week.

Well, that's all for now. i'll be co-hosting with Word the next Coffee House, Oct. 27, and will share with you my material after the fact. And so to close this with a joke i heard recently:

Q: What do Little Miss Muffet and Saddam Hussein have in common?
A: They both have curds (Kurds) in their whey (way).

The Mother of all bike-rides

2005-09-19T23:24:00.000-07:00

Good thing i had a day off today. i realized this weekend that my bank account was nearly depleted, that the cost of new checks was about to be deducted from my account, and that my ten-dollar check for a year’s subscription to Mother Jones was also due to be cashed any day.

Mike owed me a little more than $200, and he said that i could collect this from either Zack or Jerry down at the farm. So about 10:30 -- after a wonderful surprise half-hour phone call from Abdulkarim -- i jumped on “my” bike (God love ya, Ann Federowicz!) and arrived at the farm at 12:40. Not bad for a 46-year-old! (Geez, i still cannot believe i’m 46. Still feeling 30-something.)

Sandy was in her usual place beneath the house, fast asleep, and the poor thing is so totally deaf now that the only way i could waken her was by tossing little pebbles. She woke up after the 3^rd one hit her, and shambled out all groggy to be petted and kissed. (Abdulkarim, you’ll be glad to know that i did deliver your kisses to her just as you’d requested in our phone call this morning! How’s that for fast service?!) Had a long chat with Jerry about the behind-the scenes Heartwood, then got the cash and started back up the hill toward the pavement, a half-hour away.

At 3:00 i was back at the road, and from there it is about 95% down-hill into town. Once there, i made a phone call back to Heartwood to have someone tell the only non-American student at the school, a lovely German gal named Christina, that i would need to postpone my giving her a massage at 4 pm. Then deposited the cash at the bank across the street; went to the bagelry and got a soy-“turkey” bagel sandwich, and biked down to the Eel River for a quick skinny-dip in its cool waters. Utterly refreshing.

At 4:30 i began the slog homeward. i had toyed with the idea of hitchhiking and had even brought along my Heartwood sign for the purpose, but it was such a beautiful day, and aside from studying for Thursday’s exam on THE MUSCLES OF THE HUMAN BODY (!), there was not really anything requiring me to rush back.

Well, what took me 19 minutes to go down took me 1¾ hours to get back up! Total bike time, Garberville to Heartwood: 3¾ hours. Big thanks go out to the handsome blonde-haired muscular guy (who i’ve seen here at dinner once or twice) who stopped when i held aloft and pointed to my nearly empty water-bottle and shared with me the rest of his, just enough to see me through the rest of the way. It was hot and i was sweatin' up a storm. i stopped to pick and eat some blackberries on the way, which were delish.

The only other thing of note about the trip: around sunset, two skunks (count ‘em! TWO!) raised their tails at me! With the first, it was merely an instinctual reaction, and i noticed his tail going flaccid almost as soon as he’d raised it up. But the second, who was about to amble onto the dark dirt road, actually had the nerve to chase after me, and i had to find some more energy to cycle faster! Fortunately skunks are not very fast runners, and he gave up pretty easily.

i swung by the mailroom before heading down to the Lodge for a late dinner, and found a b-day package (postmarked 9/14) from my niece Amanda, containing one VERY cute b-day card (a dog looking at the photog. with its head tucked between someone’s legs) and a book on naughty Italian slang (should come in very handy, thanks sweetie!), and a b-day card from Lance and Norio (postmarked 9/13: 6 days from Japan, not bad.) Thanks boys!

On the big day itself, word had leaked out that it was in fact my birthday after my sister Eileen called at breakfast-time, and passed this news on to Word. So when i walked in some time later, 'Word [Edward] had cued up on the boombox in the kitchen the Beatle's song Birthday, and thoroughly embarrassed me by singing and dancing around while i tried to fill up my cereal bowl and prevent my face from turning another 3 shades of vermilion. To make matters worse, i'd gone to sleep with my hair wet the night before after a massage from my friend and classmate Laura followed by a spell in the sauna, and what with waking up 15 minutes before breakfast ended, there wasn't much time to do anything with what my hair had turned into. Definitely a Funny Hair-day.

A few more things that made my birthday special: a package of Mexican coffee beans from Tim Diko (received on Saturday! great timing buddy!), and the ever-popular Happy Birthday song sung to me Sunday morning from the Bronx by Martin, Dana, Molly and Lucy Carney! (Um, hang on to your day-job Martin ... ) So great to catch up with my oldest friends. Eileen finally caught me on the phone in the Lodge around lunchtime Saturday, and we had a nice, long chat while i finished eating lunch. Email greetings came in from Simon "DJ Puregroove" and our mutal pal Ian "DJ Slice!" And to mark the occasion, i once again accompanied our resident guru Marion Gibson on his monthly full-moon hikes. We leave the Lodge at 10 pm and are usually back about 12:30 or 1 am.

Well, i'm sure there's more from the past week i should be passing on, but it's 11 pm and i'm ready to crash. i'll leave you with my first blog-photo, taken Sept. 8 near Bull Creek Flat in Humboldt Redwoods State Park. Norio, Lance, Sandy and i are in front of a redwood tree that is the height of a 30-odd story building.

Lance and Nori come to town

2005-09-12T23:24:00.000-07:00

Hello you still Faithful members of the Readership,

Been about two whole weeks since i’ve posted, and after promising for so long to post weekly on Tuesdays, it’s high time to get back to doing what i’ve said i’m going to.

A lot has happened since last we met, chief among them being the visit here of Lance and Norio! The boys were on the tail end of a six-week vacation in n. America, and so they were more than content to kick back for a while; they arrived about 7 Tuesday evening (6 sep) following a 4-hour car trip from San Francisco. Chef J had honored my request for a Japanese meal which the boys were just in time for.

The next day was set aside for hanging out: poolside in the afternoon, massages for the boys before dinner, hot tub below the stars before sleep. On Thursday we were off-mountain by about 10 to pick up Sandyat the farm, with a little tour of the lower greenhouse thrown in before leaving. I’d been disappointed to learn a couple of days before that Michael would be out of town during this time, but business called, and it couldn’t be helped. Then the four of us were off to drive up 101 about 20 minutes to a place called Bull Creek Flat, where some of the largest and oldest redwoods still standing are to be found.

A link to a wonderful description (written by the travel-section editor of the SF Examiner) of some of the amazing sights to behold in Humboldt is here, and a photo that will give you some idea of how large these trees can be near their base can be found here.

I say still standing because although you might not be aware of it, logging even in old-growth areas continues unabated, even faster than before. George Bush’s No Tree Left Behind program has given loggers access to areas which were protected under previous administrations. We can only hope that in Katrina’s aftermath, his disdain and disregard for the environment and for the poor have finally become so glaringly obvious to a critical mass of people that impeachment hearings on his ass can begin soon after Sept. 24, when a multitude of Americans will be converging on Washington to demand just that.

Anyway, Lance, Nori and I had a picnic before setting out on a 2.0-mile hike to peep “the giant tree” (once 363 feet, now 354 feet after a storm broke off its top -- this is like the height of a 30-story building!) and the similarly enormous “flatiron tree," so called due to the shape of its cross-section, more obvious after it fell over.

The thing that struck me most from our time in the forest was how much i perceived the trees as individuals, rather than as a forest. Each one had a story to tell which you could read if you watched and waited long enough. This one fallen over, this one burned by fire, this one with another tree growing out of its side, this one only a few years old, those over there hundreds!

One of the most impressive trees i’ve seen recently was on the road as i biked to visit Sandylast week or the week before. i was on an uphill climb and so was going quite slowly, and just happened to turn my head in the proper direction in time to catch a vision of a tree so huge it took my breath away. I looked up, and up, and up, and at the very top i saw that many years ago, a violent storm had ripped off a huge chunk. The tree was still thick and massive where it had been broken, and from either side of this huge gash, branches had grown to the left and to the right, and after a few yards on either side, the tree had again pursued its push to the sky. And those outgrowths had already become massive trees in themselves. It was the most moving testament to the will not just to survive but to thrive that i’d seen in nature in some time, and a potent example of the lessons we can learn if we just look closely enough.

Well, we pushed on to the seaside resort of Shelter Cove, stopping first at Black Sands Beach, where powerfu but frigid waves crashed on .. a black sandy beach! A seal popped his head out of the surf every now and then to see what we were up to .. the only creatures on the beach at that time. The second time i began a sentence with "I'd go swimming if only ... " Lance said, "I"ll hold your clothes," and then there was nothing but to go for it! So i stripped down and ran screaming like a lunatic into the icy surf. But it was so powerful, and signs warning people of this so numerous, that i didn't truly swim. i stood as close to the crashing waves as i dared, and when they come rolling in after the break i sat down, flailed my arms before finally going fully horizontal and went running up the beach screaming like the lunatic i am.

We thought .. listen to me .. I thought that restaurants in Garberville might be open till 10 on a Thursday night: WRONG! Closed at 9, we were lucky to find the supermarket still open, and grabbed sandwiches, which we consumed at the picnic tables of one of several closed eateries.

Strictly against Heartwood policy, i snuck Sandy back to my room. The road down to Michael's place had been hazardous enough in the daylight to the undercarriage of the low-rider Lance had rented, we could not imagine negotiating it in darkness. So we dropped her off Friday morning, and i had a late breakfast with the boys at the Eel River Cafe, and said goodbye about 1 before walking back to Alderpoint Rd. and beginning to hitch back. I had about an hour to make it to work by 3 (and it's a 45-minute drive!) but was relatively lucky with rides, and was only 15 minutes late, no big deal for the shift i had to work that day. All in all, a great time with old friends.

Since it's so late, i'll leave out the whole story of the deep and dark depression i was plunged into shortly thereafter. i only want to say that the shiatsu session i got from a friend here reminded me in a powerful way of the absolutely fundamental connection between mind and body which we ignore at our peril. The change in mood, in emotional state, in willingness to go on living, was so absolute (although not entirely immediate) as to be like the difference between night and day. i strongly advise everyone reading this to go out and arrange to have a good massage, shiatsu if you can find it.Ask if the person offering it is certified, agree on a price and then prepare for the most wonderful attitude adjustment you've had since you-don't-know-when. Trust me.

OK it's 11 pm here and it's a big day tomorrow. Thanks for your patience .. drop me a line.

Comings and Goings
Matt Minkin, i can't BELIEVE i have to hear it through the friggin' grapevine that you are again living in Amsterdam, thou fawning earth-vexing dewberry! and thanks to pangloss.com for that.

Kathy great to get another phone call from you today. Eileen had let me know that you guys were up in Canada, so i hung up when i called you the other day after recalling that you wouldn't be home. But i got another phone card and will surprise you with a call sometime next week. i mentioned getting your letter a few days ago right? Hope you and Scott enjoy the rest of your vacation.

birthday shopping days

2005-08-28T00:50:00.000-07:00

Any members of the Faithful Readership who were scratching their heads over what to get for my birthday which is fast approaching: fret no more! There are now about 21 shopping days until my 46th birthday (!) and to simplify things, i've recently expanded my Wish List at Amazon.

Shameless, am i not?

btw, Their website says any Amazon.com user can locate your list by searching for your name -- type Dougie -- or e-mail address, so get to it. i've listed 50 books which display in order by date added, but you can also re-sort the list in order of price or priority.

This Men of Hawai'i calendar would also be great and is cheap as hell.

So get busy. Or get that postcard ready for snail-mail delivery, you know how i like getting postcards.

Hey it's been a while since i've made any
Birthday Shout-outs!

#1: HAPPY BIRTHDAY AGENT LIVIL! Life-support system from my Amsterdam daze Liv Aanrud turned the big two-six 8/26. We at AM, hD, tR are still waiting for news of how the celebration went down.

#2: Lara Leghetto -- one of a group of sexy Italian chicks i hung out with in the 'dam -- hit the big three-two on 8/14. Buon natale, cara mia! i forgot how to say happy birthday in italiano, so "merry christmas" was the best i could come up with on the spot.

#3: Last of the Amsterdam bunch celebrating a birthday in August, on the 7th: Alex Appierdo! God love ya Al, et bonne chance avec the MBA.

Coming up in September
HAPPY ONE-YEAR ANNIVERSARY Martin and Jennifer, 9/4! Man i wish i coulda made it to your wedding, but who knows where i might pop up next? Um, you guys are still together, right?

Kristoff Ellertz, you've forgotten me you bum, but you're getting a card from me, surprise! This bigtalking Belgian beerdrinking bastard turns 33 on the 9th.

Agent Tastik, founder of the agent-c, rolling back 29 on the 11th. His work is still loved, clearly.

Sharing a birthday with the soUrcerer, Kerstin E.! Fijne verjaardig liefje!

Miranda van Alem van Harmelyn, big birthday kisses on the 19th from across the Atlantic to you my dear. How i would love to jump out of your birthday cake and surprise you!

And on the 21st, Emma slices into the b-day cake herself. Have a happy one, girrrrrrrrrrrrrl.

Rattler Wrangler

2005-08-26T23:04:00.000-07:00

Wow it’s been three whole weeks since the last post; apologies to all of the Faithful Readership. (Ulli, special thanks to you for writing to ask where i was!)

Partly i’ve been busier than usual, and lately i’ve been a little down, mostly due i think to spending too much time in my head, and not enough time just being in my body. i haven’t been doing any yoga or formal meditation, and i realized how disconnected from my body’s needs i was this morning, following a 3-hour bagwa (a kind of tai-chi) session: more exercise i’ve had at one time since i don’t know when, and it felt great! Although i have rug burns above my knees and elbows.

i was also a little bit bummed not to get all the way up to Portland during the four days i had off beginning Aug. 15 (story below), let alone back to Rochester to see my sister Eileen (who had the exact same vacation time), and chill with our sister-in-law Kathy at her newly refurbished cottage on the shores of Lake Ontario.

But i don’t want to focus too much on either what’s past or what’s negative. On with the update, big news first!

Boyz n girlz, i’m a rattlesnake wrangler! Yup, on the first day since my arrival here that i actually saw a rattlesnake, i also ended up catching it, and putting it in a bucket (with a lid)!

i was in the dishwashing room last Saturday 8/20 getting ready to start my shift (about 3 pm) when this snake appeared on the stones outside! It was obviously a rattlesnake, both from its skin and from the shape of its head, so i had my co-worker Heather (WHAT an angel! and with brand-new wings tattooed on her back!) keep an eye on it while i went to find the guy from Maintenance who was on-duty and who would deal with its removal.

LSS, i went to get the snake-catching pole, and captured the critter myself before the Maintenance dude showed up. It wasn’t too difficult, as i went very slowly and carefully so as to keep things mellow. Probably took about 4 minutes until we had it in the bucket. I’d say it was about two-and-a-half feet (75 cm) long. Two much larger rattlesnakes in the act of mating were captured the following day, and a fourth the day after. All captures are taken up to the airstrip above Heartwood (now in disuse) and released. Jim, the maintenance guy, had a camera in his cell-phone and took a picture of me holding the bucket with the snake in it, which i’ll post after he emails it to me. Fun stuff!

As mentioned, i had four days off from both school and work, 8/15 – 18. A trip home was out of the question, so i’d resolved to hitchhike up to Portland to see my German friend Kerstin Binczyk before she returned to the ‘dam from Portland on the 18^th. But i got kind of a late start, and by 6 pm had only made it as far as Arcata, about 2 hours away. After waiting for a lift for two hours on an entrance ramp to 101 north, i finally called it quits for the day about 6 (it was chilly and overcast so near the coast!) and checked in to the Fairview motel right next door, where i watched The Simpsons and back-to-back episodes of one of my all-time fave programs, The West Wing. Spent the next day in Arcata bookstores, buying some books and magazines before deciding to turn back to Heartwood. And what luck! Even though i arrived in Garberville at like 11 of a Tuesday night (deadsville, almost no traffic, esp. going up the road toward Heartwood), one of my co-workers, a gal named Brenna who’s in charge of the kitchen (and who turned 28 today!) was returning with a friend from Eureka. So i arrived back in my room very contented and ready to crash at 12:15 am, and didn't have to sleep under a bush after all.

Wednesday afternoon i biked to work at Mike’s farm and to spend time with Sandy for a couple of days. Had some good QT with the pooch, and also had the opportunity to get in about 8 hours’ work, trimming the undergrowth of the plants and pulling off “water leaves” and dead growth. They’re looking great, although found some fungus on one, and a small infestation of spider-mites on another. My friend from Heartwood Jerry has been brought into the operation as well, which is a win-win-win situation: Jerry finds good-paying steady work, Mike gets a damn-good worker with lots of carpentry experience, and i get the satisfaction of having brought together two really great guys.

Biked back to Heartwood in time for the arrival of new students 8/19, to greet them and show many of them down to their new rooms in the Lower Dorms. (Btw, i shattered – sh’doobie – the previous return-by-bike record by about a half-hour, to 2 hrs, 2 minutes. Part of the faster time is due to my being in better shape, but a lot of it is due simply to knowing the road a lot better: where to watch out for bumps, when an uphill is coming, etc.)

ON THE NIGHTSTAND

Just finished reading two Chomsky titles: Media Control: the spectacular achievements of propaganda, and 9-11. Slim volumes (58 and 118 pp.) but well worth reading, esp. the first.

Jim Ruggles, a new friend who works in Maintenance (not the same Jim who came to take the snake away) insisted on buying any book i wanted from the Heartwood store as a way to say thanks for watching over his pooch Tele during the 3-day weekend he spent at the Reggae on the River concert, first week in August. My selection: the enchanting Long life, honey in the heart: a story of initiation and eloquence from the shores of a Mayan lake. A young American-Indian guy builds a life for himself among traditional Guatemalan villagers. i'm only up to chapter four, but strongly recommend it.

Abdulkarim, thank you for the surprise phone call from Abqaiq! It was such a pleasure to hear your voice again, and for an entire half-hour! Shokran jazilan, yaa habibi! Ashoufak badi shwayuh, insh'alla.

And with that i bid you good night, my friends. It's almost 2 in the morning, and i really must lay by body down to rest. So much more to tell, but maybe some bits to save for the next update. i'd love to hear what's going on in your life, so drop me a line if you can.

peace!

New phone number

2005-08-05T12:29:00.000-07:00

Boyz n girlz, i got a new phone number, direct line!
707/923 4090. I'll be moving in some time this weekend, probably by Saturday afternoon at the latest.

Mind the time-difference! I'm living in Pacific time, which is

3 hours behind east coast US,
9 hours behind Amsterdam and Paris,
10 hours behind Saudi, and
16 hours behind Tokyo.

Heartfelt condolences to my Saudi friends over the death of King Fahad two days ago. May the new King Abdullah lead all of you to better and better days ahead, and make the world a better place for all, regardless of how (or whether) they choose to practice a religion.

Lunch-time, peace out!

Good news!

2005-08-04T22:59:00.000-07:00

Dougie T felt he didn't have enough to do between working 25 hours a week and being in class 9 hours a week, so he thought he'd apply for the Resident Assistant position that was opening up. Found out Tuesday i got it! First day on the job: Aug. 19, when i'll be escorting new students -- 13 gals and 2 guys -- to their rooms.

As part of the celebration surrounding the graduation tonight of about 15 students, a resident dj is pumping tunes out on the deck overlooking the swimming pool just behind the Lodge where i'm typing this. i came inside after thrashing about for about 2 hours to a nice mix of stuff, including mostly house and trance music for the last hour or so. Nice to party hard without any intoxicants except the joy of being alive!

Talked to Lance and Norio who are stateside on an extended vacation from Japan, and who will be visiting here the three days following Labor Day. Glad to be offer them the much larger room that comes with the RA position. We are gonna have some fun, with at least one day-trip -- beach, forest or mountains? -- in the planning stages.

MAILBAG - God love ya Janet Starkweather, who sent a card (i think written almost exactly the same time i was writing you a postcard -- didja get it yet?) with a big fat check enclosed! Talk about outa the blue! i happened to be just coming from the bank in Garberville to deposit $50 that was eating a hole in my wallet, and as i walked out realized i finally had the time to open the card which had arrived the day before. Nice to have another reason for going back into the bank! Mille grazie, carissima ...

Lots more to tell, but having AGAIN missed the weekly Tuesday post, i thought i'd take the opportunity to check in and let y'all know i'm still alive. Marion's just put on Hollywood Swingers, which looks like my cue to depart!

Cheers, love ya!

Kaleidoscope guys

2005-07-29T20:59:00.000-07:00

MAILBAG - Two count 'em 2 packages came on the 25th from the greatest sister-in-law a guy could ask for: more food for times when the munchies lurk, another model-car filled with cologne, and two letters! i hope i'm going to be thanking you in person soon, Kathy [read on]! Janet, did you get the postcard i sent?

i hosted Thursday night (7/28) Heartwood’s quarterly talent show!

It ended up being about 3½ hours long and i think i handled it pretty well. Most of my stuff was scripted, and one of my anecdotes seemed so spur-of-the-moment and was delivered so well that i really had everybody laughing pretty hard for about 10 seconds or so. And better still, i was able to follow it up with a secondary funny line.

A student named Laura from Colorado had just finished playing George Harrison’s Here Comes the Sun on the ukulele, and before introducing the next performer, i’d made a segue into songs by the Beatles from Sergeant Pepper’s Lonely Hearts Club Band, mentioning that if i’d found the need to fill a hole in the program that evening, i’d planned on singing Within You Without You - a capella - which was true. (I didn’t need to, and everyone was spared.)

Then i said something like, “Did you ever think you knew the words to a song and only found out years later that they were something else? How many know the song Lucy in the Sky with Diamonds? [Most did.] Then I said, “Remember this part .. [and sang, quite nicely i might add] picture yourself on a train in a station, a girl with kaleidoscope eyes. Well i thought they were signing a girl with colitis goes by.” This got peals of laughter, which i just soaked up while waiting for the laughter to die down. Then i said, “Yeah, i didn’t know what colitis was, but i knew it was something i didn’t want,” which got still more laughter. i pointed to a random female in the first row and shouted, “Look out! She’s got colitis!”

Another thing that went over well was an adaptation from Pee Wee’s Playhouse, the secret word. Every time someone on the show said the secret word, in response all the other characters on the show and the kids at home would shout crazily for a few seconds. So i had everyone in the audience who was performing stand up, and then when they sat down again, i said “OK, everyone who is not performing, find the performer nearest you and put your hands over their eyes so they don’t see the secret word!” And they did, which is when i pulled out my hitchhiker’s sign, which says “G’ville” on one side, “Heartwood” on the other. And they were all pretty good sports about it, yelling merrily for the rest of the evening whenever someone said Heartwood.

I also shared one of my favorite Pee Wee moments, when it was the birthday of Cowboy Curtis (played by Lawrence Fishburne), and Pee Wee wished from Jambi a pair of cowboy boots in a skit that ended with Pee Wee saying, “Well, you know what they say: Big feet … … big boots!”

I’d told everyone in my introductory monologue that i was going to tell a couple of Saudi jokes, and later in the evening i trotted out my two Zahrani jokes. Abdulkarim would’ve been so proud, especially if i hadn't messed up one of 'em, forgetting to mention a crucial part until after the punchline! The way that joke is supposed to go is like this: [First you explain that the tribal name Zahrani is used in the kingdom to represent mentally-challenged people as a whole.]

The new neighbors in town have built a high wall around their backyard to hide the satellite dish they don’t want anyone else to know they've bought. The neighborhood is dying with curiosity, talk is beginning to spread about what might be going on when one day Zahrani comes walking along. “Yaa Zahrani! We are dying to know what is happening on the other side of our new neighbor’s wall! Climb over and have a peek, will you?” And being a simple soul, Zahrani obliges. He tucks his thobe into his seerwahl [long underwear], climbs up, and disappears over the top, only to come clambering back over a few seconds later, dropping with a thud to his feet, and with a look of fear on his face, hightails it on the road out of the village.

“Ho Zahrani, wait! Tell us what you saw!” And with only the briefest of pauses, Zahrani stops and shouts back, “I didn’t see the dog itself, but the size of its food-bowl was enough for me! See ya!”

If I host the next talent show, i’ll try telling it once more.

i had my first lesson Friday morning with a gal named Liz who is teaching me how to dive! (I put up a sign on the board some time ago which she’d noticed, and last night she asked if anyone else had stepped forward.) I’ve dived a small number of times but never very well, and often have hit my face hard because my body was in the wrong position. Diving is another one of my fears that i’d like to overcome and am doing something about. Liz is a certified swim instructor and has taught lots of adults to swim and to dive. She showed me some basic steps, and all i had to do was let myself fall, in the proper way of course. What a great teacher: very warm and caring presence. Ai yai yai, if i weren’t gay …

Well one reason i was late with this week’s blog is that Monday night, which traditionally has been my time for writing the weekly update, i’d just got back from a bike-ride (first time i did a round-trip in the same day) visiting with Sandy on her 14th birthday! The plan had been to bring Sandy to school that day but a last-minute hitch in my plan to borrow a car meant that i had to postpone the day she gets to meet everyone here. Bess, our massage instructor, has offered to let me use her car, and when she returns from her 3-week vacation hitchhiking around Iceland with an Austrian girlfriend, i’m going to take her up on her kind offer.

I took Sandy down to the swimming hole where i gave her a good bath and a brushing. Then with her parked in the shade beneath a huge rock, i followed the creek down to that deep pool Zack had told me about. You might recall that i’d visited this site once before and couldn’t see a safe way of jumping into it. Well, i figured it out this time, and although it was a bit high and a bit scary, i actually jumped in, and survived! i was a little concerned that if i survived the jump that i’d still have to deal with thorns, spiders, snakes and poison oak (which is all over the place). There was no climbing up the rock walls of this place, and so i felt lucky to find a way back that was not too overgrown or otherwise hazardous.

But man i was beat when i finally got back to Heartwood about 9:30. Thank God temps that day were a bit lower than usual, i’d say in the 70’s, rather than the 80’s to which we are accustomed this time of year, otherwise it would’ve been a lot more tiring than it was.

I also managed to squeeze in 3 hours’ work while there: an hour in one of the greenhouses watering the plants, which are continually groaning under the weight of new growth, and whose branches need to be propped up and/or tied to the trunk, and 2 hours spent doing just that. A tree-sealant is also applied to the place where the branch has pulled away from the trunk, to prevent little creepy-crawlies from moving in, which they are wont to do whenever they happen upon such breaks. So I returned feeling happy about having spent some time with my dog, having had a wonderful work-out on Ann’s bike, and with a little bit of cash (actually, $100) in my pocket. Zack paid me as Mike wasn’t around that day, and I owe Mike two hours’ work.

I put the following sign up two weeks ago on the bulletin board outside the New Harris General Store:

Island Mountain [name of the mountain Heartwood sits on] man seeks same for companionship, biking, hiking and camping adventure, general good times. Age and background not as important as an open heart, willingness to share.

I included my email address and will let you know about any hits i get.

We in the Househealing department have had a schedule change, and i now have only Mondays and Tuesdays off. So no more Friday pilgrimages to visit Miss Pooch. No biggie, but i feel that a regular schedule of visits is important so I will be biking to see her every Monday from now on.

Bigger news still: we’ve been given vacations! A two-week break (Aug. 5 – 21) from classes was always part of the schedule, but there was no break from the work-schedule planned (that we knew about) until yesterday. All 4 of us Work/Study participants have been given five-day breaks, and mine is 8/15 – 19, and i would try to get someone to cover one of my weekends so i could get another 4 days free for a total of like 9. I’m checking airfares from Portland, SFO and Eureka/Arcata to Rochester, but so far nothing even close to what i can afford.

But i might ask to have my vacation schedule modified depending on the news i receive on Monday. Today i had an interview for the position of Resident Assistant with the new Director of Student Affairs (who used to be a colleague of mine in House-healing!) and a woman from the Education Office. The job is opening up due to the graduation on Aug. 6 of the current RA. The interview went pretty well, and i feel fairly confident of getting the position. There’s only one other candidate that i know of, and he has told me himself that he thinks i would be better for the job. (I agreed without feeling the need to mention it.) So if I get it my duties would begin on the day new students arrive, which is Friday, Aug. 19 (first day of classes 8/22).

Advantages of getting the job would be my own room, one about twice as big as other singles, and a phone line paid for by Heartwood. No one from Househealing has ever been an RA at the same time, but I think i would be able to handle the additional responsibilities without too much aggro.

My cranial-sacral and polarity sessions last week went well. I’d have to say that that what i’ve felt afterward is a lot more significant than what i felt during the sessions: i guess the term is “grounded.” I’ve felt a lot more in the flow of whatever’s happening around me, and a lot less perturbable. And a new friend Jana gave me a “somatic cleansing” session on Friday, so it was a triple whammy: three energy sessions in three days! What a place.

Right, that's all he wrote. See y'all back here hopefully on Tuesday with news about the RA position and perhaps news of a trip back to KATHY'S COTTAGE on the beautiful shores of Lake Ontario!

ps - Lance i'm getting a phone card tomorrow and will be calling your ass within a day or two.

Effleurage

2005-07-19T22:38:00.000-07:00

Zowee, i haven’t actually checked, but i think that this is the first time i’ve missed a posting. It has been quite busy around here, and i’ve had to adjust to two major schedule changes lately, as well as to .. hmm, how shall i put this .. well, let’s just say that i’ve been involved in activities consciously and less-consciously whose cumulative effect is to bring my physical body into greater alignment with the All. (Sounds pretty California, doesn’t it?!) i’ll bring you up to speed chronologically.

We’d left off last with my Reiki attunement, and my saying that i hadn’t really felt all that much, which was a bit disappointing esp. in comparison with some of my classmates. A good new friend of mine (i’ll call him Z.) is enrolled in the Asian Healing Arts program; he is a twenty-something guy from Alaska with massively long dreds and cool blue eyes like a wolf’s. This is a guy who’s dreamed of running on four legs with his favorite dog through the woods.

Anyway, three times over the ten days previous to our Reiki class a hummingbird had flown up and hovered in front of his face for like five seconds! Being shamanically inclined – this dude has definitely been re-born at least a dozen times – he was racking his brain trying to figure out what this bird was trying to tell him. Then during the attunement, he said he got an image of his back (which has been repeatedly traumatized from bar brawls and car accidents) as if it were made of plaster suddenly cracking to reveal hummingbird wings, which then unfolded and began beating! An older (in her 50’s, say) woman in the class said that she felt as if her life were beginning all over again, that she had been exposed to the Meaning of it All (words to that effect). She had clearly been deeply moved by a significant spiritual experience.

When i expressed my disappointment at expecting spiritual fireworks and barely getting snap-crackle-pop, the instructor said a couple of things: 1) that i should perhaps consider some cranial-sacral or polarity work, to break up some of the blockages that might prevent more powerful experiences from occurring, and 2) [as the book on Reiki she gave us noted] it usually takes three days for the Reiki energy to cycle through all of the body’s 7 chakras or energy centers.

And then Monday morning (almost exactly three days later!), i had my first ever lucid dream. For those of you who are not familiar, a lucid dream is one in which you wake up inside your dream, to realize that you are in fact dreaming. From here it is frequently possible to gently steer how the dream unfolds, and to even create your own ending to it. It is not terribly difficult to train oneself to do so, and a number of books have been written on the subject. I recorded and titled the dream in my dream-journal; here's the entry for 3:30 a.m. July 12:

A Passover Miracle
i’d borrowed Martin’s and Dana’s station wagon and parked it at St. John Fisher [college in Rochester] one evening and walked off in the rain to do business, horrified upon my return to find it gone! Traffic all around is heavy and i realized that the car has been towed. Fear and sorrow are rising in me as i walk around the parking lot till i find the woman who is in charge, who confirms of course they’re towing, there’s a major sports event, and it will cost $325 to retrieve the car. i begin to sob uncontrollably at this point – i’ve got like loose change to my name, and there’s a hugely important reason i MUST get their car back to them. The woman starts breaking down the fines: $7 for this, $8 for that, which i’m paraphrasing, after she’s asked me if i understand the charges. Finally an opportunity comes up to explain to her why i’m sobbing and … * ! i awake! i realize i’ve been given the chance to create my own ending. My first effort is not terribly creative: “i get the car back” is all i can now recall. But at the * above, i close my eyes and attempt to re-create the dream in my head, going back into the pre-tow part, doing my best to feel what i felt the first time, then working my way through to the sobbing part to create this [excuse]: “My friends asked me to return their library books so they wouldn’t be charged any overdue fines and i said i would, but i’m flat broke .. i’ve barely got loose change .. and now their vacation will be ruined, unless you could see your way clear to make an exception? Could you let me have my friends’ car back?” And the woman says “OK! But you have to come up with a still more practical ending!” And gives me the keys! Scenes of joy as i receive the keys, put them in, toss the woman loose coins as i drive by (she uses magic to make the coins come to her), both of us smiling, and finally “How i Got Them Their Car Back” to an incredulous and smiling Martin and Dana, in their living room.

The part where i “went back into my dream” was also a first-ever for me, and i here give thanks again to author Serge Kahili King, who my friend Ulli first brought to my attention just before i left Amsterdam, by copying for me his book Mastering Your Hidden Self which i've mentioned here before. It's the book that put me on the road to huna, one which i'm sure to tread the rest of my life. i'd put a note on a bulletin board here that i was looking for more books on Huna, and a gal named Brenna some time later stepped forward with 2, one of which was King’s Urban Shaman, which is where i first learned how to re-enter dreams in order to re-create endings more pleasurable and effective. Friends, i cannot recommend this book highly enough. It is full of valuable information about how best to go through life, how to heal yourself, teach yourself, live in harmony with others and with the planet. What more can i say?

My first-ever cranial-sacral session is scheduled to take place tomorrow morning [given by Sarah, the same gal who worked on the guy who said that his session changed his life], and my first-ever polarity session [thanks to a young guy from Kentucky named Nick] takes place under the full moon [very significant, potentially still more powerful] Thursday night. i’m just so ready for whatever blocks that are still inside of me to dissolve and crumble into the rubble of the past. i’m realizing perhaps in a still deeper way what a waste of time and of life it is to remain transfixed in the grip of what’s past: one of the ego’s many little games to convince itself of its importance [not to mention its existence].

The title of this week’s post is Effleurage, partly because i like its sound: EFF-lure-azh (the last syllable azh as in Dr. Zhivago, or the French j as in Jacques). It’s massage-jargon for [hands] gliding [over skin].

One of the two major schedule changes i mentioned at the beginning: My four classmates and i are doing three massages per week from now till the end of the program. We’re practicing one body-part at a time, starting with the back, and are currently working on the butt and the back of the legs.

The other schedule change is of course work-related: due to a staff shortage i have picked up an extra day and am now scheduled for 5 days a week (Mondays and Tuesdays off). No more Friday visits to Sandy in the foreseeable future.

The temp was easily in the 90s when i biked to visit Sandy last Friday (7/15, Happy Bastille Day vous mes amis francais)! Zack’s girlfriend Lacy was visiting from Idaho; fortunately she didn’t bring any dogs with her. i discovered the week before the swimming hole Zack had talked about, which is like 20’ deep, surrounded by boulders, but i didn’t see a way of actually getting down to it – the riverbanks are full of thick brush, grasses and poison oak –and had to content myself with a view of its cool green waters from above. Maybe i can convince him to take me down there and show me himself how he manages to get down there. Better still maybe we’ll hike to the hole through the river, nekkid as jaybirds. My Amsterdam friends know there is no one more skilled at getting guys to strip (well, at least their shirts, and on the dance floor)! And i’m totally a naturalist after having lived so long in California. Have i mentioned the sauna, hot tub and pool at Heartwood are clothing-optional? It's so natural.

But there was no time for a swim this past Friday. i spent the morning with Bess’ nephew Jon who was visiting here with his grandparents [Bess’ folks] who’d taken the train out here from Marion, Indiana for a multi-day visit. After breakfast he came and watched me put a new pair of brakes on Anne’s bike, and then we biked to the cabin where Bess stays, less than a mile away from the school. i was tempted to go with them to the beach, but it wasn’t really possible even with me as an extra passenger in Bess’ Volvo, let alone Sandy. So i regretfully said good-bye to Jon who was scheduled to leave for the train-ride back home on Sunday. Really nice kid (14): down to earth, friendly, easy-going.

i had a great bike ride to Mike’s place, arriving about 2 i’d say. But man was it hot. i put in about four hours work which was fortunate, since that exactly covered the vet’s bill i had to pay when i took Sandy there the following morning! Mike let me borrow his car, and for $82 i got the professional opinion that the little patch around Sandy’s left hind leg where the hair has come out is probably some kind of allergic reaction: she's new in the area and none of the other dogs she hangs with has anything like it. A shot of cortisone for the inflammation and 20 pills of antibiotics were prescribed.

Too bad her hair won’t have grown back in time for her birthday photos. it goes without saying that i don’t love her any less. Sandy’s 14th birthday is Monday July 25, and i will be going to pick her up that day and bring her back here so that everyone here can join in the love-fest. i’ll borrow some money for a sheet-cake after dinner and let her spend the night before running her back in Nile’s car to Michael’s farm Tuesday morning. i somehow don’t think she’ll mind a sleep-over with me here at Heartwood!

Ran into some Heartwoodies during my bike-ride back on Saturday: their car had given out on them, and they'd been stranded about an hour, just hoping for something good to happen. i stopped to say hi and offer comfort, and had been there just a few minutes when .. a tow-truck happened along! On this road that is a rare site. Any vehicle is relatively rare, as we're out in hilly countryside that is lightly populated, and it is simply not a heavily-traveled road. Keith agreed to pay fifty bucks to be taken back to Heartwood, and asked the tow-truck driver if he could ride in the car up top (it was the type of tow where the vehicle gets pulled up by a winch onto a huge platform) like he was in a hovercraft, and the guy said sure. So about a half-hour later when they passed me on the road, i gave a big wave to Keith and Shannon as they cruised by about 15 feet off the road and obviously having the time of their lives! A happy ending: nice.

Btw, Jeremy! Thanks for staying in touch brother! You asked for more info about the operation, and you know of course i’ve been circumspect about giving away too many details, certainly none that would lead anyone to its location. i’m always amazed by how much more the plants have grown every time i show up, most now taller than me and still growing. They get a lot of love and attention. But let me know exactly what you’d like to know and i’ll do my best to comply.

Lance i’ll be emailing you separately about your visit here Sept. 6-8. But if you and Nori and Larry don’t come up from Monterey, then i’ll miss a couple of days from school/work and come down. Can’t wait!

An early BIRTHDAY SHOUT-OUT TO MY FAVORITE SISTER-IN-LAW who is another year young on July 31! i love you tons Kathy! I've almost used up all the little handmade soaps you let me take last time i was there. And i'm using the oil you gave me in class too! A couple of classmates just love it and have asked me what you put in it, but now i can't remember. One of the ingredients must be lavender. And no of course your care package has not yet shown up or i would've mentioned it, silly goose! i'll bet it comes tomorrow.

Linda have i already mentioned that i go to sleep every night with a smile on my face and a thought for you?! i'll never go to sleep again without a buckwheat pillow below my head .. i just love it!

OK, out into the heat and up the hill to get this online. Thanks for being patient Readership! If i’m too discombobulated following my sessions this week to write anything next Tuesday, i’ll at least get online to let you know that, and save a longer write-up for the week after. i’ve also agreed to emcee the quarterly talent show next Thursday (the 28th) preparations for which will keep me a bit more occupied than usual. Anyone [HEADS UP Agent Minkastrani!] got any good filler-material for between acts [jokes, one-liners, etc.] they’d like to share, i will be more than grateful.

Sandy Saga, pt. 2 -- A Room of One's Own

2005-07-08T22:50:00.000-07:00

It’s Friday morning, and you might be thinking, what are you doing typing this when you should be on your way to visiting Sandy?! Good question! i think this is the latest i’ve ever posted, but it’s been a really crazy week. i spent last night moving to my own room, about which more later. But i’m not going to visit Sandy today because i’ve signed up for a one-day Reiki course which begins at 1:30 (till 6, and then after dinner till 8:30).

i mentioned last week how i was waiting to get closure on an unpleasantness that happened Friday night two weeks ago (6/24). If you’re one of the earlier members of the Readership, you might’ve already figured out that Friday night means i might still be at Michael’s place and indeed i was. Here’s what happened there.

First, neither Annie nor Mike were there. It was just Zack, Jeff, Katie and me. i’d spent the first part of the day with Sandy down at the creek near my favorite watering hole. i helped Katie with some weeding in a vegetable patch for about an hour late in the afternoon, and after a simple dinner, we all retired to lawn chairs around a campfire, for a beer or two and a bit o’ smoke. It was very relaxed; nice chit-chat about this n that.

Round about 9:00 or so, after numerous tales of hunting and talk about the wild-life in the vicinity (deer, turkey, mountain lion, boar, etc.), Jeff and Zack convinced each other how much fun it would be to go hunting, and eventually Jeff gets up to go and get a rifle. Katie goes into the house with him, and a minute or two later, Zack and i hear a ka-BLAM from inside the house, followed by silence, as we turned to look at each other with horror on our faces. And then a moment or later, the sound of Katie’s voice as she begins to bitch at Jeff for being so careless.

All right, i won’t go on about how lucky we all were that no one was hurt or killed; that part is pretty obvious. For me, the main part of this – and this is the most difficult part to tell – is where Sandy comes in. AN HOUR LATER, she was still quivering, tale stuck between her legs. She and another dog Clover had both been inside the house when the gun'd gone off, and were both pretty freaked out, but Sandy more than Clover.

The next morning, i asked the others if we could have a little business meeting – “not more than 20 minutes or so” – before i left for Heartwood. They all said of course, and i prepared a little space where we would sit in a little square on folded blankets on the floor. i opened the meeting by saying that we all would have a chance to talk about whatever we thought was important, and i drew up an agenda whose first item was “what happened last night.” We did a Heartwood-style “heart-circle” where everyone holds hands and hopes for a positive outcome; i’d told them that even management’s weekly operations meeting began the same way, and then i introduced them to the concept of the Indian talking-stick, which longstanding members of the Readership will remember i used with great effect with my mom when we were on the train to LA last November.

The meeting went on for over TWO HOURS. Everyone was convinced that Mike would fire Jeff for what had happened, and they all wanted to pretend like nothing had happened. i didn’t see that as a reasonable outcome, given (for one) the hole in Mike’s house, and i also expressed my discomfort at being asked, essentially, to go along with a cover-up. i also brought up how angry i was that my dog had had to go through what she had the night before. That was unacceptable, and i told them how disappointed i was that – after having felt proud and happy for so long that i had manifested for Sandy this little doggie-retirement paradise – i was now thinking for the first time since our arrival there two months previously about removing her from the property.

Jeff finally realized that there was one proper way to deal with the situation, and called up Mike on the phone to tell him what had happened, who surprised everyone by not blowing his top and NOT firing Jeff. He was upset though, and has forbidden Jeff from using his guns.

Now i didn’t mention all this last week because i had my suspicions that Jeff might’ve merely pretended to phone Mike. But when i showed up last Friday (July 1), the first words out of Michael’s mouth were of thanks for handling the situation the way i did, and that i was the only one who was to be paid for the time the meeting took! (He has been so generous and kind ever since we met though: i owe him so much more than i’ll ever be able to pay him for everything he’s done for both me and Sandy, and i declined his kind offer to pay me for organizing the meeting.)

i'd phoned Mike last night and left the message that i wouldn't be coming the next day; he phoned the Lodge this morning and told Nile (who happened to be around when the phone rang!) to tell me that Sandy was running around and was all happy (not to worry)! Gotta work at 2 Saturday as usual, but am thinking about hitchhiking just to be able to spend a little time with the ol' girl.

Nile asked me to go with him up to McKinleyville on Wednesday to pick up a 1959 Ford pickup truck that he’d agreed to pay $1500 for. Our neighbor, a young gal named Nicole, came along for the ride and for the opportunity to window-shop in Arcata, a funky little town that reminded me big-time of Pacific Grove, the first town south of Monterey.

We got the truck, which Nile and Nicole took back to Arcata while i followed in Nile’s ex-girlfriend’s 1985 Volvo station wagon (which he’d paid $340 for)! Nile had bought us all lunch at a great little burrito place, and then we all split up. i hung out in a bookstore for about 3 hours, and broke as i am, couldn’t resist purchasing a book called Learning How to Learn: Psychology and Spirituality in the Sufi Way, by Idries Shah. Finally i realized if i was gonna make it back to Heartwood in time for dinner it was time to split, so at 4:30 i hit the road.

Well i was about a third of the way back and speeding along at the posted 65 mph (104 kph) speed limit when i noticed Nile and Nicole sitting by the side of the road! They’d been looking for me to go past for the past hour, and they’d almost missed me! i went back to pick them up, and heard the sad tale, of how smoke had started pouring into the cab, apparently due to faulty wiring. He’s in negotiations with the previous owners to come to some kind of a more equitable settlement, poor guy.

It’s now Friday evening, and i’ve just come from my 7-hour Reiki 1 class. i’ve had my attunement, and to be honest, i didn’t feel all that much, although a couple of the other 7 participants had some really profound and quite amazing experiences. i’m going to stick with using it in my life though. i’ve had Reiki sessions done on me in Amsterdam. i’d even taken an earlier Reiki 1 course from an American woman in Saudi Arabia, but hadn’t really done anything with it after that. i think i felt like the symbols involved were for me too close to mumbo jumbo.

Anyway i’ll keep you posted on anything interesting that happens with Reiki. The instructor said that some polarity work (i.e., cranial-sacral work) might be helpful, and i’ll be looking to get some of that in the near future. Cranial-sacral work is really interesting by the way. The practitioner holds sits behind your head and holds your skull and other parts of your back in her hands in a very particular way. A guy in the Reiki class tonight named Jim who works in Maintenance told me afterward that his first cranial-sacral session literally changed his life .. he’d been thinking about leaving Heartwood for various reasons, and he felt so different (so much better, more positive, more energized) that he changed his mind and decided to stay. He implied that it was his higher power telling him, “NO, your work at this wonderful place is not yet done!”

Oh, my new room! i just moved down two doors from the room i shared with Nile. He seemed a little bummed to see me go, but with 3 vacant rooms in our ten-room building, it was crazy to live so much on top of each other. i didn’t like the clutter on the floor next to our bunk bed which was all my school books not having any place to go. And most of you know how easily distracted i am .. i’m really looking forward to doing what i want when i want to without having to worry about anyone else being disturbed by it. i chose Room # 7, partly for the number itself, and partly because it was the only room available with no neighbors!

Go figure: street sign
Posted in a McKinleyville neighborhood: “This area is for your enjoyment. Please play carefully and keep clean.”

Don't think of rattlesnakes

2005-06-28T22:15:00.000-07:00

this week's update begins with a

poem ...

Sheepherder Coffee
by Sam Hamill

I used to like sheepherder coffee,
a cup of grounds in my old enameled pot,
then three cups of water and a fire,

and when it’s hot, boiling into froth,
a half cup of cold water
to bring the grounds to the bottom.

It was strong and bitter and good
as I squatted on the riverbank,
under the great redwoods, all those years ago.

Some days, it was nearly all I got.
i was happy with my dog,
and cases of books in my funky truck.

But when I think of that posture now,
i can’t help but think
of Palestinians huddled in their ruins,

the Afghan shepherd with his bleating goats,
the widow weeping, sending off her sons,
the Tibetan monk who can’t go home.

There are fewer names for coffee
than for love. Squatting, they drink,
thinking, waiting for whatever comes.

from The Steelhead Special, Working Class Cultural and Literary Review, issue # 47
PO Box 6816, Eureka CA 95502 / steelie@asis.com

what i'm reading these days ...
Requiem for a People: the Rogue Indians and the Frontiersmen, Stephen Beckham (1971). History of first encounters between settlers [such an innocuous word; invaders is more apt] and the native Americans living in the 1850’s in what is now southwest Oregon. Countless massacres and disease reduced the estimated population at that time from 10,000 to about 2000 in 4 or 5 years. i was intrigued by one story of an Indian raid on a party of soldiers on a beach, who lit a cannon at the very last instant, which killed the headman and 13 others in a single blast. The headman’s body was the only one not claimed by the Indians, and the whites discovered when they went to bury it themselves that it was a blonde-haired and freckled “Indian,” later assumed to have been the survivor of a Russian shipwreck that had occurred a few years earlier. And check this out:

The boom of California in the 1850’s brought a lively trade in produce, mail, and passengers to the Pacific coast. Steamers and sailing ships connected Panama, San Francisco, Portland, and the Hawaiian Islands. By 1851 one of these small steamers, a one-stack vessel named the Sea Gull, was a regular on the San Francisco – Portland route. Captain William Tichenor of the Sea Gull, sailing for miles along the unsettled [by whites!] coasts of n. California and s. Oregon, saw that a shipping port … that would serve as a base for the pack trains to carry supplies to the mining camps on the upper Klamath River, would be a profitable undertaking … [and] hired a crew of nine men in Portland to be the landing party and founders of a town that he hoped to establish at Port Orford.

Tichenor was later the first white man to bring his wife and children to live in the area.

Days of War, Nights of Love: Crimethink for Beginners (2001). Radical manifesto for those who’ve got a suspicion that there might just be a way to go through life more joyfully if one could just figure out how to live without having to sell one’s soul to the oligarchy. An excerpt from the intro webpage at crimethinc.com:

Now Entering Cyberia (Population: Zero) -- A Note on the Medium -- Due to your vague interest in these matters which have been deemed antisocial by the new thought police, you have been exiled to Cyberia. You may believe your visit to be voluntary, but ask yourself: if you could live—in real time, in full color, without a 'net'—the revolt and transformation you fantasize about, would you be here, contemplating and trading in mere representations of such things? The new isolation chambers and interrogation rooms largely need no judicial procedures or law enforcement to fill them—we confine ourselves to these office cubicles, internet cafes, and lonely bedrooms willingly, even believing ourselves to have found access to our dreams and desires here. Not to criticize you, of course—since obviously I am in the same situation as you, similarly self-exiled. But let's use this time in the wilderness as the political prisoners of old did: not to get accustomed to it, not to build new lives around this voluntary amputation, but to educate ourselves, increase our powers and connections, so when we can return to society we will be armed with new tools for dismantling and reconceiving it. Let us take the world itself back, rather than the "information superhighways" upon which we are being herded so quickly away from it, so one day there will be no need for anyone to return here besides misguided historians and other archeologists of the cursed graveyards of the past.

Copies: $8 postage-paid from CrimethInc. HQ, 2965 Rangewood Dr., Atlanta, GA 30345.

Dreams are Wiser than Men (1987), ed. by Richard Russo. A collection of poems and essays on dreams. A number of people recount their dreams, and if you do borrow or purchase a copy of this book, don’t miss Elizabeth Rose Campbell’s 10-page essay, On Dreams, in which she recounts many of the dreams she’s had over the years. In one dream, she is watching as if on a movie screen one of the summer vacations she’d spent as a 4-year-old with her parents and sister, recalling vividly the sound of the crashing surf, the feel of her father’s hand in hers, etc.

My access, as witness dreamer, seems unlimited. I study myself as a four-year-old very carefully, particularly my eyes. She [her 4-year-old self] seems to know I’m there, to strut for me, to become Ms. Mischievous. At the point when I recognize her awareness of me as witness, we merge. My grandparents are sitting on the beach with my parents. All of them are wearing hats; they are laughing and talking. My grandmother calls out to me, “Come here you rascal!” Even then she and I were the rascals, I think to myself as I run to her. I am exploding with comprehensions, standing in my four-year-old body with adult memory intact, the flexibility or non-existence of linear time somehow bound up with the roar of the ocean.

Heady, wonderful stuff. Russo writes [p. 2] Dreams, like all human experience, have intrinsic value apart from any interpretation we may make of them. Instead of asking what dreams can do for us, ask how we may honor the dream.

Every night i read just before going to sleep to encourage myself in the remembering and recording of dreams. Those of us who ignore their dreams are overlooking a potentially valuable source of information, not only about themselves and what's happening around in their lives, but possibly about their future as well. Does it matter to have an opinion or believe in some theory about dreams' significance, or about where they come from? Before attempting an answer to either of those questions, it would be a good idea to have an idea of what one is dreaming about; how many of us these days do?

i wonder how different my life might be if i lived in a society where more people valued dreams, and the first thing one talked about in the morning was what one had dreamt the night before.

The Power of Myth, Joseph Campbell with Bill Moyers (1988). Wow. This is a book i would love to have on my shelves, were i to actually own any (shelves). i skimmed a huge chunk of this fantastic book this afternoon, and came across the Meaning of Life! Here it is. (Got a pen?!) The experience of eternity right here and now, in all things, whether thought of as good or as evil, is the function of life. i also especially enjoyed the tale Campbell told [pp. 62-64] from the Upanishads about the god Indra, who thought himself something special for having slain a monster, and so decides to have a special palace built for himself by the carpenter of the gods.

But every time Indra comes to inspect it, he has bigger ideas about how splendid and grandiose the palace should be. Finally the carpenter says, ‘My god, we are both immortal, and there is no end to his desires. I am caught for eternity.’ So he decides to go to Brahma, the creator god, and complain.

It goes on quite a bit from there, but at this point i chuckled, and was even more completely drawn into the tale. It was better than watching a good movie! Read this book, there i said it.

As you can tell i’ve been reading a lot lately, and for a couple of reasons. One is we’ve got a week-long break from classes, and it feels like a holiday, although we work/study participants still have to report for work, which there is less of, since a fair number of students and teachers have skedaddled.

But i realized this afternoon by the pool that it’s also been an escape from having to think about the possible repercussions of an unpleasantness which occurred this past Friday night, and which i will summarize for you in next week’s update, when i expect to have had some closure. i don’t mean to be mysterious, coy, playful – well, yes i do – but i AM a story-teller, i DO want you hanging on the edge of your seat until next week, and it will be a better story when i’ve got the ending to tell you simultaneously. All right so i’m a tease, whuttaya gonna do about it?

For this week, i would only like to add that i had another eventful bike-trip to visit Sandy, again two-way, again spending the night at Mike’s. Zack was at the house when i arrived and when i asked if there was any work for me he said, “i think you should spend some time with Sandy first!” and i told him that’s just what i was hoping to do, esp. with the heat of the day making work at that time a bit more strenuous.

So i’m about to take Sandy down to the watering hole when Zack says, “Watch out for rattlesnakes today!” And i go, “TODAY? What do you mean today?!” And he explained that due to recent weather conditions, and given the place where we were headed, it was somewhat more likely that we might see one. Or some. “Just keep your eyes open and you’ll be all right,” he attempted to re-assure me.

i was fine, but once we arrived at the spot, i did say a prayer to my guardian angels to protect us, and -- although Jeff and Zack saw a pregnant rattlesnake later in the day on the same stretch of road that Sandy and i’d walked -- Sandy and i never saw a one. And man, i'm telling you, i was really tip-toeing around, and looking all over pretty slowly and carefully! Talk about a Zen-like awareness of one's environment. {Here snakey snakey snakey snakey! sounds SO different from Here kitty kitty kitty kitty!}

After i’d given Sandy a little bath in the cool water, i called Janet at 5:15 her time, and was pleasantly surprised to find her still at work. We had a great little chat, which livened up the rest of my day. It is SO good to get back in touch with and hear the voices of old friends.

s.o.w., an email from Monsieur Lance Savage raises the possibility that that boy and his guy might be comin’ this way for 3 days in the first week of August, to which i can only reply: WOO-HOO! They’re planning on going to Gay Pride in Vancouver 7/31 and have plans to fly to Detroit from Portland 8/10, but i don’t know their plans beyond that. These two will get the royal treatment should they actually be able to make it down here from Portland. One of the world’s premiere annual reggae concerts, Reggae on the River, just happens to take place that weekend. They will definitely be taken through the Avenue of the Redwoods, and i’d be awfully surprised if we didn’t also fit in some camping, i’m thinking along Shelter Cove, or the Lost Coast near Bear Harbor. Haven’t been there yet, but Heartwoodies have already attested to the sublime nature of these places, both not more than an hour’s drive west.

Before i left Mike’s place (i.e., while i still had cell-phone reception) i also called up my brother Scott who Kathy had told me would be celebrating his birthday [a week late] that weekend, and had a nice chat with him for about ten minutes. i now have about 15 minutes of talk-time left, so no worries about not using up any of those units before they expire 8/30! Anyone want to chat, just give a call between 10 am Friday and about noon Saturday, Pacific time of course. 585/298 4447.

OH, one more thing about my visit with Sandy (for now): the bike ride back. i was going really fast down this twisty stretch of shaded road, when all of a sudden i startled these two fawn who were feeding on the side of a steep slope at the side of a road! They took off running, but had nowhere to go except in the same direction i was going, and for a couple of seconds i was terrified that one or both would veer to the left onto the road causing a collision and my wiping-out, potentially fatal at the speed i was going. But they ran to a point where the terrain leveled out, and just as suddenly veered right and disappeared into the forest. THAT was a major WHEW!

Another scare was at the bottom of a steep hill that veers right around a blind curve. Because the road at this point goes steeply uphill again, i was going very fast trying to gain as much inertia as possible to carry me up the upcoming hill. When i noticed the recently filled-in [with sand] pothole, it was too late to bypass it and i had to hit it head-on, which caused my water-bottle to again pop out, the first of 3 times it did this before i’d gotten safely back to Heartwood.

The 5 miles of dirt road that ends at Heartwood has become even more treacherous since they recently regraded it to reduce some of the washboard and potholes (good), and laid down gravel and stone here and there (bad). One of the good side-effects of this is a significant reduction both coming and going of the BQ [boredom-quotient].

All right it’s going on 9 pm Tuesday and i’ve got a global audience wondering where the hell this week’s post is, so it’s off to the Lodge to find an internet connection and put this baby to bed. Jusqu’a la semaine prochaine … [see you next week]

love, the soUrcerer

BI-kin' in the rain .. i'm bi-kin' in the rain ...

2005-06-22T20:20:00.000-07:00

There are SOME who thought that my weekly bike-ride to visit the pooch would be cancelled this past Friday due to the rains which so surprisingly have returned. But having been given a rain-poncho some time ago by a guy here who’d heard that i’d misplaced my umbrella -- which has since turned up -- i’d decided that i was makin’ the trip, come hell or … well, you know.

i left at 9 right after breakfast, but stopped only a few minutes later, to remove my t-shirt. it was cold enough that i wore sweatpants, but too warm under the nylon poncho and with the backpack, and there was no point in getting my t-shirt drenched with sweat. There was a nice breeze in through the sleeves and around my sweating arms and torso that kept a nice balance throughout the trip between warm and cool.

Stopped to check how much more of the boar carcass had decayed: from the road i could see a coupla more holes in its side; i didn’t feel the need to examine more closely for further evidence. Stopped at the General Store for my weekly cuppa coffee, and discovered they have a gift-shop! i got 3 postcards and a chocolate bar to send to a loved one on the way back.

My brakes were wet and squeaking to raise the dead as i descended the dirt road to Mike’s place, and i could hear the dogs barking down below when i was still about a mile up the hill. i stopped once to have a look at the torrent of water rushing through the place where last week Sandy and i had had our little dip, now completely submerged by another foot of roiling bubbling water.

It was with some pride when i stepped through Mike’s door a few minutes later, and found Mike sitting inside with Annie, the two of them relaxed with a day’s work rained out. “All right, show of hands: how many thought i wasn’t coming today?” a question to which Michael replied without hesitation, by sticking his hand in the air. “You bastard!” i laughed. Not having been expected i was even happier at having arrived, and alive.

i didn’t really care if there was work or not .. i just wanted to see and spend time with Sandy. Mike said Sandy stared at the gate last night like she was expecting me, and we figure she’s got the weekly pattern of my visits figured out by now, this having been the fourth in a row. She is after all half German shepherd.

Mike’s got new help, Zack: a kee-YOOT! 22-year-old dude from Idaho who is in town till harvest with his two white rottweilers, Mary and Dane. (A dog named Mary! That was a first for me.) We chatted some while Annie made us tacos, then after eating and a bit more chit-chat everybody took off, Zack to the upper greenhouses where he and his pooches would spend the night in a trailer Mike’s got parked up there, and Mike and Annie to his place in a little town nestled along the Avenue of the Giants. i had the run of Mike’s place the rest of the day and the night, which i spent reading (an anarchist newspaper from 2000, and the first two chapters of In the Spirit of Crazy Horse by Peter Matthiessen, one of my favorite authors).

Zack re-appeared a few hours later .. he’d been on his way down from the upper greenhouses and had stopped to watch a “ball” of six young skunks rolling in the grass. And before he could stop them, Mary and Dane were in the middle of things. Dane killed one of them unfortunately before Zack could rein in them, but in the process both man and dogs got sprayed, and i was glad that none of them were hanging around too long!

i sat in front of the fire and read an anarchist’s newspaper published in 2000 – riveting stuff – and then read the first two chapters of a book Mike had laying around: Legend of Crazy Horse by Peter Matthieson, one of my favorite authors, before lights out about 11. The Swiss mountain beast Heidi insisted on sleeping next to me, which Sandy obviously didn’t mind, since she was comfortably curled up where she wanted to sleep, and the three of us were shortly snoozing.

Coffee, toast and a banana for me in the morning before heading out the door about 11, again in the rain. The hill away from Mike’s place is too steep and long for much riding, so i walked most of it, and even then i was huffing and puffing. But my socks and sneakers had mostly dried out, and i had a nice ride, with the rain tapering off during the second half of the trip back.

i went to a meditation work-group Thursday evening at Lynn’s place. Lynn works in Enrollment and was one of the two women i was talking on the phone with when i was an applicant. She hosts a session structured loosely around The Power of Now, and i’d brought along my dog-eared and well-annotated copy to read from just in case i was asked to read from it, which i was. And i’ve been asked to lead next week’s meditation. i sent a request for any favorite guided-meditations to my old friends from my spiritual work-group in Amsterdam and Ulli has already come through for me and sent a lovely meditation that she copied out of Deepak Chopra’s new book Synchrodestiny.

Well it’s Wednesday morning here, and it must be last night’s coincidence of the full moon with the summer equinox that has made me late in posting this week’s update! i didn’t do the sauna as i’d thought i might after class last night (Tuesdays we get out of class at 9:15 pm), and instead headed down to my room to finish off this blog update. But Nile was feeling kind of down, and he and i had a long chat about stuff over a couple of glasses of red wine, until it was too late (and i was too woozy!) to think about walking all the way back up to the lodge, a ten-minute walk from our room in the “lower dorms.” There’s a week-long break from classes (but not from work) next week, and i hope to get caught up with a few things i’ve let slide for a while, like email, paperwork, and a bit of schoolwork.

But for today it’s off to Garberville. i’m saving my butt for the weekly bike-ride to visit Sandy, so for today it’s Have Thumb Will Travel. i’ve got a check to deposit from a few hours work i did last Wednesday at the home of Heartwood’s founder Bruce Burger -- shoveling stones to fill in potholes along the dirt road to his property, and a couple of hours of weed-whacking (to help with fire safety) – and want to hit the library, buy a toothbrush and shaving cream, explore the town a little bit more. (Btw: the link to Bruce's name includes info about my massage instructor, Bess Donahue.)

Still cyclin' to see the pooch

2005-06-14T21:46:00.000-07:00

Ooh this is gonna be a quickie .. it's already Tuesday night here in California, and there is unfortunately someone waiting to get on.

Anyway, the highlight of the week past was a THIRD bike trip to visit Sandy, this one the first one which i biked both directions, which led me to an amazing discovery: there is significantly more downhill in returning to Heartwood than there is in leaving it! Takes about 2-&-a-half hours going, but about an hour forty to come back.

Significant events of the day: 1) a vulture flew up suddenly from next to and a few yards below the road, and i wondered if it might've been feeding, and so turned around to have a look. Sure enough: a huge boar lying on its side, dead i'd suppose for a few days already, a huge hole having been worked at by the scavanger. A beast i would most certainly not want to encounter on the road, or anywhere for that matter.

2) Arriving on the property to find Sandy once again stretched out in the sun. i gently woke her up and she went into her little oh it's YOU dance. Before i put in a couple of hours work (more scalping, this time around one of the greenhouses to cut down on insect infestations, and watering all the plants in the two greenhouses on top of the hill), Sandy and i walked out the main gate toward the stream that flows under the road, for a dip in the cool pool there. i had a blast, but Sandy couldn't really lie down very comfortably due to all of the rocks, so next time i take her down there i'll bring a shovel and make a space where she can lie down in the shade and chill.

3) On the way back from spending the day there, i was speeding down this one stretch of road thinking i'd passed all the bumps and realized too late that there were more! i hit one of them so hard that my water bottle popped out of its container .. i just caught a glimpse of it skidding across the pavement as i very nervously continued to slowly apply the brakes. Turned around to retrieve the badly-scraped (but still usable) container, and parked my bike right on top of a quarter-dollar! Nice! i'm allowing the condition of the water-bottle to remind myself of what could happen to my BODY if i'm not more careful on the bike.

BIRTHDAY SHOUT-OUTS this week to

JANET STARKWEATHER, who celebrates being born on the 16th! Hmm, i'm thinking, she might not appreciate her age being splashed about the 'net. Let's just say that she and i were in the same high school class! ;o) Best wishes girrrrrrrl, you rock! And to
LANCE SAVAGE -- woo hoo! -- who rolls back the big four-four on June 17. Way to go Lance buddy! Dude you are SO loved, you know that right? And to
my brother SCOTT, who hits the big five-two on the 18th. Go Scottie!

i called my sister Eileen on Sunday for her 44th birthday and was very pleased not only to catch her, but to use up the last 20 minutes of my last phone card in a most enjoyable chat. Way to go Eileen! Sorry you can't come out to California this summer, but we'll be hooking up again soon one way or another.

Not much to report otherwise: school's coming along nicely, work is ok. OH, bad news, we've lost one of our work/study buddies, Michelle -- 'Chelle. Her stepson died about a week ago, and we received word today that she was not going to return. Which is a shame. We all admired her sense of self, and her energy. If you're a prayerful type person, you might include her next time you're saying them.

OK, i'm gonna turn this 'puter over to another of my work/study buddies Kimberly who's been patiently waiting for the past 25 minutes! See y'all next week!

ps - Kathy i had no idea that the blog up to this point is 55 pages long (printed out)! What can i say, i like telling stories! Thanks Linda for the print-job and for helping us get caught up!

xxx

Benbow, a second bike trip to see Sandy, & an encounter with a doppelganger

2005-06-08T06:45:00.000-07:00

So it’s Wednesday. i’m in a state of mild shock that the rains have returned: the second day in a row of general coolness and drizzle. At least it’s not cold and wet and windy like it would be if i were still living in Amsterdam, and it was ten after one in the morning, and i was on my way home on my bike not having dressed warmly enough because it was such a warm and sunny day when i’d left home to go out hours and hours ago. THEN it would be wet, and cold and windy.

But it’s one of my days off and i’ve enjoyed doing what i felt like doing all day, hour by hour: up at 6:20 to shave and get ready for yoga at 7; breakfast at 8; reading (The Mystery of the Crystal Skulls) and occasional dozing in the room in the Lodge above the dining room we call the library; lunch at 12:30; some more reading (this time from Confessions of a Kamikaze Cowboy: “a true story of discovery, acting, health, illness, recovery and life”). i’ll get this week’s blog update finished here in my room before heading up the hill to post it online, then a light dinner followed at 7 by my first Swedish massage here, and then over to the sauna for a steam and a soak in the hot tub under the stars.

The big thing that happened in the past week was the annual arts and music festival on the Eel River in the town of Benbow a couple of miles south of Garberville. i’m normally scheduled to work both Saturday and Sunday, but my pleading got the attention i so richly deserve and my supervisor arranged to have the most critical part of my shift covered so that at least attend on Saturday, by a couple, Lynn and Don, who have as a result earned my eternal gratitude. (And yes, i wrote them a little card saying so: dougie t. style.)

But the weekend truly began Friday morning, with my second bike ride to visit Sandy. i’d left here about 9:30, and was pleasantly surprised to see that i’d shaved an entire half-hour off the time it’d taken me the week before. Sandy was stretched out in the sun when i arrived but awoke to claim her rightful share of dougie t. love and affection for minutes on end.

Michael was in the house on the phone when i arrived and after a long chat about operational matters, we threw Sandy and Daisy into a pickup and drove up the hill to greenhouses 2 and 3, where Jeff, Katie and Annie (who i met for the first time) were busy with various tasks. A lot of scalping (removing grass with a spade by severing and turning over in clumps its root-structure), digging a ditch 18” deep and about 20’ long as part of a wall that would become a soil shelf, and filling and dumping several wheelbarrow loads of soil. All good hard work that made me feel even more joyous at inhabiting the marvelous body that i’ve borrowed for my short time in this plane.

i saw my second snake, a long (about 4’) and thin gopher snake, slipping silently through swaying grasses behind the greenhouse. Annie attempted to pick it up, but it successfully eluded her grasp. One day last week, another one had slithered slowly across the stones in front of the lodge when a guy named Sky came and picked it up so we could examine it more closely before releasing it back into the grass. The lodge used to be a hunting lodge (ironic enough when one considers how filled with vegetarians these 200 acres are now), and the deed of sale included a clause that no snakes found on the property would be killed. The occasional rattlesnake is, i’m told, gently removed to some other place.

Anyway, i spent the night at Mike’s, who kindly agreed to drive me and my bike back to Heartwood Saturday morning. i took time for a shower and shave and by 11:45 was walking off the property, not even bothering to wait the half hour till lunch was served! i’d made a little cardboard sign that read BENBOW before i left, and with that and my thumb stuck out, i wasn’t shocked when the first car that passed a few minutes later stopped to pick me up. These two young guys playing Black Sabbath on the car’s tape-player went as far as the New Harris general store, where i walked for about 20 minutes before the first car to pass me on that stretch of beautiful road also stopped to pick me up: an older guy named Jeff with a white pony-tail who was going to Benbow! So in a little over an hour i was at my destination, and in time to see a band called the Non-Prophets perform, which includes one of my new buds here, a guy named Jim (“JR”) who works in Maintenance and plays keyboards and drums. He’s the only person at Heartwood allowed to have a dog: a really affectionate 3-legged black and white mutt named Telly, hangs out on the porch of his little house in the woods. God i wish you all could see this place!

Benbow is a fun, family-oriented weekend festival, heavy on the live music, with main stages at either end of a stretch of lawn next to the Eel River, where people waded, picnicked, and generally enjoyed the intense sun shining down on us that day. The opposite bank of the shallow and cold river is hilly forest, and a more beautiful scene for a little festival like this one would be difficult to imagine. i ate this hot mushroom, pepper and onion “tri-tip” beef sandwich that was juicy and delicious! i must admit that i am after all a weekend carnivore. Oh the glory of a delicious sandwich and an ice-cold beer on such a day, in such a place: filled with gratitude doesn’t quite describe it.

It was about this time that i decided to make a couple of calls on my cell phone. Since i don’t get reception at Heartwood, and i’ve got about 120 units of airtime that will expire at the end of August, i try to remember to take it with me whenever i leave here. i connected with and enjoyed a brief conversation with Scott and Kathy which i think was easier for me; they said i was “breaking up” from time to time. But as i’ve always said, it’s th- th----- th-t ---nts!

In addition to the great live music, a couple of things were especially enjoyable, one of which was a troupe of belly-dancers of all ages. The Turkish, Arab Gulf and western-Middle East electro-fusion music by itself would’ve tickled me, but the sight of so many women belly-dancing in the most beautiful Middle Eastern costumes made it a truly enjoyable and memorable experience, and i kept wondering what my Saudi friends would’ve made of such a delightful spectacle. An older woman with flowing long white hair was especially stunning: a beaming smile marked all of her dances, not the least bit self-conscious of her aged white belly, or the way a little bit of white flab hung over the top edge of her bottoms. i laughed out loud with the joy of the music and such free-spirited movement. (And with a beer or two in me as well!) i never imagined i’d hear so much ululating in this part of the world!

The other thing i enjoyed was watching a guy who was clowning with a friend of his. i’d first noticed these two because they were dancing in front of one of the bands and were both wearing little round red noses. But when they left the dance area and started interacting with the crowd, i was shocked to notice how much of a resemblance the shorter one bore to MATT MINKIN! Matt you’ve got a doppelganger running around the woods of n. California! And it would be one thing to see a Matt Minkin look-alike selling cars or making french-fries, but to see a Matt Minkin look-alike CLOWNING!? Yikes! Too freaky for words. He was waiting to use the portapotty i’d just came out from and i said, “DUDE, you are the physical embodiment of my best friend from Amsterdam MATT MINKIN!” And he made this huge shock face with mouth open wide and eyebrows arching, held up both hands for me to slap (which i did!) and shouted “MATT MINKIN!!” before rushing past me into the portapotty.

My karma shined through as in a mildly incapacitated state around 11 pm i was able to show up near the Heartwood Massage booth just in time to snag the last seat in a big white Cadillac that a Heartwood student was getting ready to drive back. And she’s actually who’s giving me my massage tonight, an hour from now! Just one of the many small benefits of living in a place where so many people are studying massage: they need bodies to practice on! This will make the third time i’ve gotten bodywork since my arrival a month ago.

MAILBAG: Liv got a 2nd Japanese postcard from you on Monday 6/6, this one postmarked 5/31. Wondering about wandering? Why wonder? Wander! And Kerstin B., you will be tickled to hear that TPG forwarded a bunch of mail from my old po box 94555 to me. Thank you again for your efforts to get the Dutch postal service to forward my mail to me. There wasn’t much of interest: another bill from Citibank, a magazine from my first alma mater Hofstra University, the spring newsletter for members of the Hortus Botanicus, an ad for a disco party at some placed called the Kingdom back in February (Jan van Galenstraat 6, MAN that address is SO familiar, any Dutchies or Dutch wanna-be's wanna remind me of exactly where that is? i just looked for my Amsterdam bicyclist’s map but it’s too far underneath my bed for me to easily retrieve!), and 8 pieces of mail addressed to previous box holders!

A HUGE BIRTHDAY SHOUT-OUT to Mr. Simon Branson, who turns the big four-oh this Saturday, June 11. Another bash i will so be at in spirit. And my sister Eileen who rolls back the big four-four on Sunday the 12th. All best wishes for all good things to you both!

MAILBAG and HUGE THANKS

2005-06-01T15:48:00.000-07:00

mailbag
Aside from mail from my bank and the collection agency to whom Citibank has transferred my debt (b*s-T*R-dos!), i've received one big package containing (as you may've already read) Sandy's doggie bed (and a big chocolate bar) and two other letters since my arrival! Thanks again to my sister-in-law Kathy for the package .. and to Carl Savage, whose letter postmarked Detroit 5/18 was received here 5/24 .. dude, how was the airshow at Selfrege field over by Lake St. Clair? And to Liv, whose Japanese postcard postmarked 5/23 in Amherst Junction, Wisconsin was received here 5/27. CONGRATS on the new job, girrrl! Wish i were there to share the summer's joys wit u & the crew.

huge thanks
There are so many people who've helped in so many different ways to make this Heartwood experience become a reality, and i would like to express my thanks to them here. The list is far from complete, and is at best a feeble attempt to acknowledge the goodnesses shown and shared with me over the past few months.

To Enda, Lauren, Matt M., Hadleigh, Simon B., Kerstin B., Rob A. and Janet: thank you for assisting me in the search for a car to drive out to California, by posting ads on my behalf at different Craigslist websites around N. America! And for many other kindnesses too numerous to mention here.

To my sister Eileen, who among many other favors and warm gestures, drove my and Sandy's butts from the NYC metro area up to our hometown of Rochester, in a blinding mid-January snowstorm, and turned around to drive the 6-hour return trip the very next morning!

To AnnaMarie at the Redwood Times: thank you for posting the ad about and later the photo of my dog which led me to finding the home in which she now so happily resides!

To Mike and Kris M., (i promise this is the last time!) thank you for flying my ass down to LaGuardia, facilitating my picking up the car i drove to California and saving me untold hours standing on the sides of lonely highways!

To Linda D., thank you for the buckwheat pillow you gave me just before i left. It's the last thing i think about each night before i drift off to sleep, and so peacefully! i will never again sleep without one.

To Grace M., who gave me a beautiful little black onyx stone just before my departure from Napier & Napier, and to which i ascribe at least some small part of the good fortune i've enjoyed ever since; and to her colleague Ms. Janet J., thanks to you both for initiating me into N.& N. and for making me feel welcome!

To Jim (and Bob) Napier, who took me in when i needed a paycheck, and then gave me a big fat bonu$ on my last day of work at their lawfirm!

To my brother Scott, who put up with me and my pooch weekend after weekend during the four months that i was living again in Rochester, and who threw me a farewell BBQ that will be remembered for years to come!

To Martin and Dana, and Molly and Lucie, who never fail to exude the warmth that has been the hallmark of our friendship since way back; thanks for the impromptu farewell dinner a su casa in the Bronks, and for all the joy in my heart that stems from there!

To Michael, who made the daring decision to open up his home and life which by necessity is usually so private, and who while asking nothing in return is offering a place of sanctuary to my beloved pooch. I could not have imagined anything more perfect. From the bottom of my heart: thank you.

And to my sister-in-law Kathy who freely gave so much of her own: from her pocketbook, from her experience of life, from her very self. i can never express how grateful i am to you for all you have shared with me. (But this nonetheless is a start!)

MUCHAS GRACIAS! ~ MERCI BIEN! ~ HARTSTIKKE BEDANKT!

A bike trip to see Miss Pooch

2005-05-31T08:57:00.000-07:00

First, HAPPY 40th BIRTHDAY to my good friend Tracey Erdmann, currently cavorting with some of our friends on the beaches of Antiparos, Greece! i am so there in spirit.

This week’s post has been delayed due to the absence of an internet connection last night. And Tuesday’s a long day for us. Most of my colleagues in Househealing have to work Tuesday morning; we all have class for four hours in the afternoon, and another two hours in the evening, ending at 9:15. So i’m gonna make this update a little shorter than previous ones.

The highlight of last week was my 2nd trip to visit Sandy, this one by bike on Friday. i was a bit surprised to realize that biking from Heartwood to the paved road was only twice as fast as walking: 45 minutes to cover that hot and hilly 4.8 miles. Part of it was that i just hadn’t gotten used to the 18-speed bike i’d borrowed. When i got out onto the paved road, it was a lot easier to experiment with efficient gear-changes.

i stopped at the New Harris general store – i just realized how that makes it sound like i passed through a town, but the NHgs is just a store that also sells garden stuff, lumber, hardware and piping for irrigation: basically almost everything a grower might buy, including fertilizer. It’s in the middle of a shady stretch of road, and is the only business of any kind for miles. Coffee is not ever served at Heartwood, so i availed myself of the opportunity to sip a cup while i sat out front and watched a coupla people come and go. And i bought 20 doggie biscuits at 15 cents a piece before remounting my trusty bicyclical steed. There were still huge hills to be gotten over.

There was a glorious view of mountain ranges, at least during the long stretches of road that were not covered in the merciful shade of huge trees. (Many of these great wooden giants are evergreen although not redwoods for the most part: madrones, sequoias, Douglas firs, oak.) i counted five ranges at one point, the most distant still wearing little caps of snow on its heads. While huffing and puffing up ridiculously long and steep inclines, i would slowly zig-zag across the road while attempting to enjoy the tremendous view.

it was a pleasure to run into one of my co-workers and new friends on the way, another Matt in my life! i’ve always liked Matts, for some reason! This Matt is a tall and handsome young guy from Alabama who is a part-time staffer also in Househealing, and the guy who showed me how to build the fire for the sauna. Shortly after we’d met i asked him, Matt how many times have you been told you look like Keanu Reeves? and he smiled this huge beautiful smile and after a second’s thought said, thousands!

So Matt is on his way back to Heartwood in his little jeep. He waved and jammed on his brakes, and i was happy to run into someone i knew out on the road. We chatted for a few minutes and when i told him my butt was gettin’ kind of sore, he gave me one of his t-shirts, which i thought was real sweet. You’ll be hearing more about this guy, and i wouldn’t be the least bit surprised if you don’t catch up with him on Idols one day. He’s got rock ‘n roll popstar ambitions, and seems to have the talent and the looks to go with it.

Jeff was at Mike’s place when i arrived at noon, and this time Sandy came a-runnin’! It was SO great to see her again, and Jeff and i took Sandy and the 2 other dogs who were there on a walk to a second greenhouse about a half-mile away up a dirt road on the property. It was pretty hot and the sun was directly overhead, so we took our time and went at Sandy’s pace.

Jeff told me a tale of coming back down once, when Sandy had fallen behind. It’s not just that she’s slowing down; she stops to sniff at something, but then doesn’t always know which way to go to catch up. He’d already gotten quite far ahead when he noticed that Sandy wasn’t with them, and he could see her going back and forth on the road some distance away. (Poor thing!) So he said to Clyde and Clover, “Where’s Sandy?! Go get Sandy!” and the Anatolian shepherd and the chocolate Lab ran up the road to get her, and when Sandy saw them they turned around and all came back together! Isn’t that sweet? i get a big smile just thinking about it!

Anyway, Mike wasn’t around that day, and i ended up doing six hours’ work: washed some dishes outside; uprooted some plants which had budded prematurely (don’t ask me to explain that one, i just do as i’m told!); measured, cut and stapled some chicken wire around the base of the house to keep the dogs out of the greenhouse; fed a bucket of oats to Troy and Diamond (the two horses at the top of the hill); and watched first three and later two dump trucks drive all the way down onto the property to dump their loads of rich, black soil. The plants in pots will be put into the ground, and there’s a bunch of work right there. Lots to be done at this time of year, as you’d suppose.

Yikes, it’s 11 pm and Nile’s gone to bed. I’m gonna get my butt back up the hill to post this, then back down to climb into bed. My day starts at 7 with yoga twice a week, and Qi gong twice a week. And there’s homework these days, some of which last week included reading an intro to human anatomy and physiology, starting with cell and cell function. When was the last time you read the words mitochondria, golgi apparatus or endoplasmic reticulum? And in one section of our massage class we’re learning about the chakras, which i’m totally excited about, never having formally studied them.

NOT ONE MORE WORD, except for
seeya!

Hangin' with Sandy /// Classes Begin

2005-05-24T23:27:00.000-07:00

i’d set the alarm for 6:25 (Tuesday, 17 May), enough time to splash some water on my face and brush my teeth before heading up from my room in the aptly named Lower Dorms, to the Temple, where an hour long Anusara yoga session begins every morning at quarter to seven. It’s a nice workout, and it feels good to be back in the yoga groove. i’m not sure exactly what Anasura implies, but it doesn’t seem that different from the Hatha yoga i was doing in Amsterdam.

It was 9:30 by the time i’d breakfasted and gathered the things i was taking with me on my first visit to see Sandy since a tearful farewell from her new home on Michael’s farm eleven days earlier. it was a gray day and a bit cool but not raining, for which i was thankful. i did have a red compact umbrella with me as i left Heartwood but was wearing nothing waterproof as i began walking down the 4.8-mile twisting, up-and-down dirt road leading to the main (paved) road to Garberville, another 10 or 12 miles distant. It’s a lightly traveled road, and i was counting on what i considered to be my presentable appearance plus a hoped-for neighborliness on the part of the few drivers who might come along to pick me up when they saw my outstretched thumb.

Much of my awareness as i huffed up and strolled down hills was on my breathing, and a simple enjoying of the immense beauty of the land- and skyscape around me: rolling green hills with an occasional house, pond and pickup nestled hither and yon; acres of evergreen blanketing slopes in every direction. Great cumulus clouds blew slowly and silently overhead, while closer to the mountaintops cloudlets drifted and hung like tufts of sheep’s wool stuck on barbed wire.

i saw a deer not far from the side of the road, who watched me until i waved to say hello, at which point it bounded into the bushes. Two dogs next to a house in a valley below me barked from a great distance when they saw me on the road. i stopped to chat with a horse who stood under a shelter in a field with one hind-hoof slightly raised; he cocked his ears this way and that at the sounds of my voice. A couple of quail startled me with the furious flurry of their flapping wings as they flew abruptly out of some roadside bushes just in front of me.

i watched with curiosity to see how a herd of cows would react to my solitary presence along the road, and to the bright red shirt i was wearing. Silly cows! They seemed unnecessarily startled, and then ran ahead of me rather than in the opposite direction so that in a short time we were again closely viewing one another. Some of them bellowed; i bellowed back. There was a mournful moo; i mooed mournfully back.

i found a penny on the road. Later i found a quarter! And later later, i found a dime! i smiled at the small but providential ways in which the abundance of the universe is shared. i focused awareness on how wonderful it was to find money, instead of feeling disappointment that it wasn’t more.

i stopped to watch a trio of bluebirds harass a hawk, who sat on a telephone wire trying his best to adopt a couldn’t-be-bothered attitude. But he was obviously too close to the bluebirds’ nest, because they would not give up their rattling noises, and their jumping closer and closer, and finally flying close over his head. The hawk spread its wings and without barely flapping them, allowed the wind to pick him up and swoop him through the branches of a huge tree not far away, where he re-perched. But only for a minute. The bluebirds were not letting up until he vacated the neighborhood, which eventually he was required to.

All this time, three vehicles (all pickups) passed me buy, and an hour-and-a-half later i found myself at the paved road. It was another couple of miles to the New Harris general store, where i planned on stopping to buy something to take to Michael, maybe a chocolate bar or two, despite tight finances.

Just then i recognized coming toward me the black Beetle belonging to the newly appointed director of Heartwood, with whom i’d shared the sauna the night before. He recognized me just as he passed me, jammed on his brakes and backed up quickly to ask with a bit of concern why i was walking away from Heartwood with such a big pack on my back. (In addition to a backpack, i was carrying an Ikea sack with the sleeping bag i’d borrowed from my roommate Nilo Tranquilo, as well as Sandy’s doggie bed: 4 pieces of foam and a liner.) i smiled and explained that it was the second of three days in a row that i had off from work, that i was going to visit my much-beloved pooch, and would be back the following evening. He wished me well and continued on his way.

Even though i was only a couple hundred meters short of the store where I wanted to buy chocolate, i did stick out my thumb for an approaching vehicle, two guys in a four-door pickup, not realizing that they too were going to the store. They pulled up to park just across from the store. They stopped to look at the asking price on the For Sale sign stuck in the window of a pickup out front. “Forty-eight hundred,” the younger one said to the other. He wore a white cap on top of his head similar in height to the one sported by the Cat in the Hat, partially concealing a huge mass of blonde dreds.

i spent a couple of minutes examining the chocolate section before deciding on three with rainforest ingredients, and one that promised to send proceeds to help save mountain gorillas. Does anyone ever check the claims made by the so-called, self-proclaimed environmentally friendly companies, i wondered again, and walked over to the checkout counter. A man in front of me had a beautiful handmade glass bong in his hand, and was asking what the purpose was of a particular hole in the device. As he placed his lips on it to test the draw, the older guy joked, “You blow on it, you buy it!” Just then his younger companion tipped over a small display of little brown bottles of ginseng juice that had been placed precariously close to the edge, one of which had broken; he offered some cash to the cashier, who i wasn’t sure had noticed the damage.

My three chocolate bars came to just over nine bucks with tax; i handed over a twenty, got my change and was headed out the store just in front of the two from the pickup. By the time i’d got my backpack and Ikea sack back on my back [say THAT three times fast! backpack and Ikea sack back on my back] and stuck my thumb out again, the dudes from the pickup had got in and started up, and pulled right over to pick me up!

The older one jumped out to re-arrange some things in the back, i threw my stuff in and we took off.

After i’d thanked them and told them where i was going, they went back to talking about who’d been in the store; they made some comments about a young girl who was going to load her pickup with chicken feed. After a while we got to talking about the usual things you discuss with strangers you’ve picked up: where they’re from, where they’re going. i told them about Heartwood and how excited i was to be working there while earning a certificate in Swedish massage, and the younger one, Pat, said that he’d gone to school and was still friends with the son of the founder, Bruce Berger. i asked if he was at Heartwood too, and Pat said no, but that he was still “in the neighborhood.”

Now all this time, Pat and John were smoking and passing a joint, and knowing the type of people most pot-smokers are, i knew it would be a matter of time before they offered me a toke, and so I started asking myself the question What would I do when they offered it to me? For such a bloke it was no joke. A habit that’d been difficult to control in Amsterdam was left behind, and the last time i’d had a smoke was my last day there, the morning of Nov. 22. i’d had a few opportunities since then, and had easily and with little hesitation declined them all.

Well, i’ll tell you, there were a things that went through my mind. 1) i’d been walking and hitching with a cumbersome (though not really heavy) load on my back pretty much non-stop for almost two-and-a-half hours, and while immensely enjoying what i perceived to be an adventure, was also immensely relieved and thankful to finally have gotten a ride. 2) While turning down their offer to smoke might not have been considered rude, they might have considered my sharing what they offered to be friendly, and 3) i didn’t have to work the next day. So when the joint appeared between the seats, i took it and simply said thanks. It was of course locally grown; and one puff was more than sufficient.

It did put a much more relaxed and personal spin on things: i told them about how excited i was to be going to see my dog; about the ad i’d placed in the Redwood Times, and the local grower who’d taken a risk in answering and inviting a stranger onto his property. At one point, i’d made an imitation of some animal; i can’t at the moment quite recollect what it was; maybe it was of the cows that I’d passed earlier. But it led Pat to relate a tale of having stayed on beachfront in Maui where whales could be heard at night: moaning and whistling and slapping their huge tales till it sounded like a drum session, at which point he produced the most remarkable imitation of a whale i think i’ve ever heard.

In any event, i soon noticed the sign marking the spot on the road at which i’d descend. Pat pulled over and reached his hand back to say goodbye, as did John. i said, Fellas, you KNOW how many hours of waiting and walking you saved me from, and i’m grateful to you. They said it was no thing at all and just as i got out, my water bottle dropped to the ground. it was a good indication of how stoned they’d gotten me, which reminded me to say, with a little laugh, Hey and thanks for the blow, that was good stuff, first time i smoked any since Nov. 22! And they replied with something along the lines of how good it was for them to have been there with me too. Special occasions call for special decisions, I replied, feeling great gratitude at finally having gotten a ride almost all the way to my destination and still thoroughly enjoying the adventure and the excitement of getting closer to seeing Sandy. They laughed and waved, i closed the door and picked up my stuff as they drove off.

It was 12:00, and i had another hour’s walk this time all down another dirt road on which i was pretty sure i would not get picked up. And before getting started, i had a second laugh when i realized how much I was struggling at getting that Ikea bag restrapped to my back! Slipping an arm through each of two cloth handles had seemed like a pretty straightforward maneuver the last time i'd tried it.

i had been plenty warm enough when walking mostly uphill from Heartwood and in relatively calm and dry conditions. But now at a higher elevation and with a light mist beginning to fall and the wind picking up, i had to stop twice: first to untie my jacket from around my waist, which required the removal first of my water bottle, then the Ikea sack, and finally the backpack. i’d only walked a few more minutes when i had to stop a second time to take out my umbrella, and again remove all that stuff!

i had another laugh when i suddenly spotted a second herd of cows in the distance, already studying me as intently as the first had. Now my red shirt was covered by my blue coat, but i was holding aloft a bright red umbrella that in the green, brown and gray environment could probably be seen for miles! These cows also all began to run at a certain point, and again in front of me. And i was amused to see that they stopped en masse near a gate. Did they think i was bringing food? Or that perhaps i might set them free? Apparently neither, for as i got still closer, they again took off, this time in the other direction. Silly cows.

i realized at this point that when i put down my things to get out the umbrella, i’d left behind the flowers i’d been picking for Michael. i turned around to see how far it was i’d come since then, and seeing the slope of the hill behind me, i turned immediately on my heel with the thought that surely other flowers as fine as those would also be found and picked. Silly me.

It was 1:00 as I approached Michael’s property and saw Sandy gnawing on a bone in the yard. Poor thing: she has grown quite deaf, and she didn’t really notice me coming till I was nearly on top of her! But she was soon a twisting ball of tail-wagging, best as she still could and felt the urge to, but was soon back to her bone as I said hello to Mike and to two workers of his I hadn’t met. I’d spoken to Katie before on the phone and so was glad to be able to put a pretty face with her name. Her boyfriend Jeff was also there, a pleasant, tall, brown-haired guy with a quick smile.

We chatted some, but Katie and Jeff were about to leave to run errands in Garberville before heading back to Michael’s house, in a small town in the middle of the so-called Avenue of the [redwood] Giants, and so they were discussing with Mike things that needed doing while i unpacked Sandy’s bed and attempted to re-assemble it. i didn’t realize till the next day that one of the things that made it more complicated than it needed to be was my forgetting to insert the large oval bottom piece which is useful in holding the liner in place over the two other foam pieces which form the bed’s wall. It really is unnecessary to mention any other factors that may have complicated this simple task.

Fortunately there was more important work to be done: opening and spreading in a greenhouse still being constructed the contents of about 12 50-pound bags of various kinds of soil enrichments: shredded coconut fiber, kelp, seashell, fertilizer, dolomite and 5 bags of guano, about 25 lbs. each, which (i asked) came from a cave somewhere in Arizona. i made pretty, swirling patterns in the rich dark soil as i ran around trying to evenly distribute the contents of each bag, and then spent a good hour or so raking and mixing it in, before going inside and making dinner for Mike and myself.

There’s no electricity or running water at the house yet, so it’s got a really rustic feel to it, like you’ve gone camping. We had pasta and sauce, with garlic, peppers, tomato and onion thrown in. He’s pretty well-stocked. Then it was Mike onto his mattress with a couple of dogs snuggling up next to him, and me into the sleeping bag Nilo had let me borrow, with Sandy curled up not far away, and a wood-fire crackling in the stove to keep the cool California night away.

The next day was some more muscle work: turning over the soil, a spadeful at a time, in order to mix in all of the stuff i’d thrown on it the day before. Did that for a couple of hours before coming in to make us an omelet for breakfast – Mike has been pretty run down with a bad cold for a couple of days, and so was doing his best to take it easy, kind of difficult for a guy who’s used to getting so many different things done in different places – and then, man i was just zonked, and both Mike and i went back to sleep for a late-morning snooze. We were awakened by the sound of Jeff and Katie’s pickup truck pulling up, and an hour or so later, after i gave Sandy a big hug and kisses good-bye, Mike and i took off for the ride back to Heartwood, his first visit there (i was surprised to learn) in five years of living in Humboldt County. i invited him in for dinner, but he was on his way to replace an engine in some kind of a pump somewhere. He put eighty bucks into my hand before i got out for the work i did around his place. What a guy.

i believe i’ve got a bike of my own, a nice multi-speed mountain bike, and i’ll be going back there on occasional Wednesdays or Fridays, the two days during the week when i have neither class nor work.

Today was the first day of classes: Massage from 1:45 to 3:45; Therapeutic and Professional Standards (an ethics class) from 4 to 6; dinner 6 to 7; and then Massage again, from 7:15 till 9:15. Normally the evening session will consist of supervised practice, but for the first few weeks we will be learning all about the chakras, one a week for the next seven weeks, with an overview for tonight’s class. The text we’re using [Principles and Practices of Massage Therapy] cost $59! But we also have a beautiful text for anatomy called Trail Guide to the Body, which i got second-hand at a $15-savings. The ethics class was quite lame, but i'm thrilled with our Massage instructor, a woman named Bess from Minnesota, about whom more later.

During the dinner-break tonight, i took my plate – mixed veggies, rice, marinated tofu and carrot-and-ginger soup – down to the hot-tub behind the lodge and ate there as i soaked in the warm swirling waters and enjoyed the sunny view over the mountains. A couple of small deer nibbled in the tall grass, and a red-headed hummingbird rested near the top of a small bush a few feet away.

Right, it’s 10 pm and i’ve got to walk back up this big hill to the lodge where the one computer for general use is located and post this to the blog before clambering back down and collapsing into bed. It was a full moon last night so i didn’t need my flashlight to find the path, but i think i’ll be taking it with me tonight, just in case. i’m getting up about 7 tomorrow in order to catch breakfast and a ride toward town with a Heartwood staffer who’s said to be leaving for Garberville about 8. The start of classes means a new schedule, and that this time i won’t be able to spend the night at Mike’s, unfortunately. So i’ll be leaving by bike for Heartwood about 5 or so: plenty of time, i figure, to get back before sunset, and plenty of exercise, too.

Heartwood, week 2

2005-05-16T23:26:00.000-07:00

So it's my second week of life at Heartwood, and things are going great.

i arrived Friday May 6 and found my roommate ensconced in a comfy chair set outside of the Enrollment office, waiting for me! Readership, meet Nile (Nilo Tranquilo), a guy born in Minnesota but living a few years in Central America. Drives a cool little Volvo and seemed cool about toodling around with me in it, but what really won me over was the surprise feast he had waiting for me Monday evening.

I had driven Faith's car back down to Stockton, a five-hour trip with rain for most of the first half of the trip. When i arrived at Faith's house at 1:40, she and her dad came running out of the house because (i realized later) they thought the train to Martinez -- where i would catch an Amtrak bus to Garberville -- left at 2. With the way they were running around, i had to ask, Is it really that far to the train station? i felt lucky to be allowed in the house to pee! i finally figured out in the car, as Faith was frantically calling Amtrak to see if the train stopped at some other station, that she had forgotten that my train was scheduled to leave at 2:30, so we actually had plenty of time, and everyone relaxed.

We settled up the finances in the car -- she'd agreed to pay for gas and for my trip back to Heartwood (which cost $26 for the train/bus combo, and $40 for a ride from Garberville out to Heartwood) -- and with a hug and wishes for happiness said good-bye to each other. She was to have departed Stockton two days later for a new life with a South African fiance.

My bus arrived an hour late at 9 pm in "downtown" Garberville, but a young guy named Nahum (name of an Old Testament prophet, as he informed me, one of the ones about whom i could recall nothing, thus the link) was, happily, still waiting for me, and one of the most hair-raising and thankfully short rides of my life began. You've already heard of the "twisty mountain roads" in the 16 miles between here and town. Now add Night. And Fog. Thick, billowing fog. The kind that .. well, you've seen fog, and someone's waiting for the computer.

Well as is obvious we made it back safely. I gave Nahum a nice tip, and walked down to my room. It was only about quarter to ten so Nilo was still up, and .. here's the feast part! .. he had gone to the store and bought all of this not-so-cheap fruit! i'd never had dried blueberries before, OR dried cherries, but they were there and were eaten with relish (figuratively speaking) along with dried mango and carob-covered raisins, and hell i'm forgetting the fifth fruity thing. But he also had bought this coconut - pineapple juice which was YUMMY! And that's when i realized that me and Nilo Tranquilo were going to get along just fine. He's a guy who thinks about others, and will occasionally put the needs or wants of others ahead of his own, especially important when you're living in community. You should meet him, and if you come visit me, you surely will.

Add to all this Nile's driving me through the Avenue of the Redwoods last week (which begins nine miles up the road from here), and you can bet we'll be fast buddies for the duration, if not longer.

Here's a photo of carob, if you're still curious about that. Buy a carob-bar here!

There are 4 other work-study participants: Hope, Kimberly, Vanessa and Michelle, who actually is the one waiting for the computer! She says hello.

Orientation over the weekend was great, and when we finished up about 3 on Sunday, me and Michelle jumped into Nile's 1963 Volvo and .. wait, that was what was SUPPOSED to happen, when it was just Nile and me! But when i asked Michelle to come along, we had to take "my" car, since Nilo's was too small .. to go into town to celebrate the end of orientation. I had three large beers at the only bar in town, and that was plenty considering the twisty mountain road i had to drive over to get us home safely. That was fun.

Five of us got assigned to "Househealing" which is just like housekeeping, except .. actually i'm not sure why our department is called househealing. But it, like, totally fits in with the whole spirit of the place. Vanessa got assigned to the kitchen which she wanted, and having oodles of previous experience, she was a shoo-in. i work four six-hour shifts per week, and it's very low-key. Not a lot of supervision, work at your own pace. i'm outside a lot as i walk from one building to the next, which i LOVE. It is amazingly beautiful countryside: mountainous, mostly covered in trees and shrubs, and i never get tired of gazing at it, or at the clouds. Deer are seen two or three times a day; they've learned that Heartwood is safe for them, since there are no hunters on the 200 acres Heartwood owns. Wild turkeys are also quite common, and one day i watched for a couple of minutes a flock from a short distance away: a male with a huge tail-feather fanning display, and a few juveniles or females in attendance, mostly pretending not to notice, it seemed. There are lots of beautiful flowers and gardens planted around the Lodge (where we eat), making it even more lovely.

The pool is not yet open, but i used the sauna for the first time last night (for an hour and a half!), which put me in a great mood for all of today. It was appropriate that i dally in the sauna yesterevening, since i was the one who lit the fire for it. (Three of the four shifts i work are evening, 2:30 till 8:30, so i'll become an expert fire-builder.) And the manzanita wood that is so plentiful around here burns really hot and slow.

Another duty i have 3 times a week is dish-washing, which (some of you will not be surprised to hear this) i actually don't mind. It's a great way to meet everyone who's here, since everyone brings their plates, etc. into the dishwashing area just outside the kitchen, and the community is in constant flux, with the vocational students currently away on vacation, and various kinds of bodyworkers, therapists, and other massage professionals coming in for one- and two-week intensive courses.

Gonna go visit Sandy tomorrow for the first time since i dropped her off on "the farm" 11 days ago, and none too soon as i had a dream last night that i was looking for her and couldn't find her; i was crying. But a phone call to Mike this morning confirmed that she is running with the pack. He uses her name a lot and she comes to him, and although was a little snarly with a couple of the other 5 dogs in the beginning, he teaches them all that there is no need for that kind of communication. He is a great guy, taking care of two horses as well, can't wait to see him.

OK outa here, gotta crash and i told 'Chelle i'd be off here in five minutes like a half-hour ago! See u back here in a week!

ps - Please live me a friggin' comment to let me know a Readership still exists, and i promise not to grovel for them anymore. If you're unsure what to write, simply answer the following question:

What do you think of the new template?

A: Love it, it's so daring, so you! Way to go Dougie T.!

B: Please revert to the previous pea-green one (explain).

C: I could not possibly be bothered spending time answering such a ludicrous question (explain).

My sister Eileen

2005-05-15T09:34:00.000-07:00

There was so much going on in April that i never got around to mentioning the week-long visit of my sister, Sr. Eileen, to Rochester. It was great to re-connect, and i was especially glad we got the opportunity to get out of town together. We drove down to the SUNY campus at Geneseo to hear James Loewen speak, author of Lies My Teacher Told Me, a book i'd read a few years back and which was a great read. Loewen had a packed hall to speak to, and Eileen bought LMTTM at the end. She teaches history, and maybe will excite some of her students to find out the truth beyond what their textbooks tell them!

Now if only i could convince her to cancel her summer hike in Vermont and come camping in California instead!

Phone and Mail Contact Info

2005-05-14T23:25:00.000-07:00

Mailing address:
Doug Tickner
220 Harmony Lane
Garberville, CA 95542

Phone:
707/923 9910. This is a public phone-booth located inside our dining hall, so best time for reaching me is around 8:15 am; 12:45 pm and 6:30 pm [all times Pacific Daylight Time].

Hello (again) California!

2005-05-14T23:17:00.000-07:00

Well, there are 3 wonderfully amazing and momentous events that needed to happen in order for the Heartwood dream to materialize: 1) i needed to get the $1350 that the program costs, which includes tuition, room & board, and a 200-hour certification in Swedish massage; we 6 work/study participants also agree to work 24 hours a week in exchange for this. 2) i needed to arrange cheap (free?) cross-country overland transportation for me and Sandy; and 3) i needed to find a suitable home for my old girl.

My friends, i am quietly elated to report that all 3 of these projects were successfully concluded.

i didn't come close to earning what i needed during my three months in Rochester [i ended up having to rent, and the local economy was moribund], but the love (and financial wherewithal) of an old and trusted friend came through when i simply asked him. He knows who he is and knows already how filled with gratitude (and Relief!) i am.

You might've already read here how the deal i had to drive a Mercedes fell through on a Thursday, just four days before my desired and planned-for date of departure of Monday, Apr. 25. Two days later i saw an ad on Craigslist/NYC from a woman who wanted someone to drive her car -- a 1997 Saturn with 118,000 miles on it -- to California by Apr. 30; it could not have been a more perfect match. I'd planned on hitching down to New York to pick up her car, but a surprise plane-ticket from another old friend and his wife manifested, and i was spared hours waiting with thumb outstretched along miscellaneous roadside. Morones rule!

A Jet-Blue flight Monday morning to LaGuardia via Dulles, a bus to the subway and a short walk and i was at the apartment in Queens of the woman who owned the car. We drove it around the neighborhood, got an oil-change and a wash, she gave me $160 toward the cost of the gas (agreeing to reimburse the rest of the cost on my arrival at her parents' home in Stockton, near Sacramento, about five hours drive south of here) and i hit the road for the Bronx, where i had dinner with BFS1G Martin, Dana, and their seraphim Molly and Lucy, before starting at 9:30 pm the six-hour drive home to Rochester. Spent Tuesday packing, moving out of Jacqui's place, and saying good-bye here and there and Wednesday at 11 am hit the road for California.

It was a serendipitous, fortuitous happenstance that led me to seeing the car-owner's ad, and her choosing me over others who'd also responded to her ad, and i felt like the abundance of the universe had manifested itself on my behalf because i had trusted that it would. Oh, i forgot to mention ... the name of the woman whose car i drove out here was Hinkley. Faith Hinkley!

As wonderful as that development was, the one which i am still more tickled with is Sandy's New Home! Richard, you should by now have received the hard-copy of the April 12 edition of the local newspaper The Redwood Times, with its photo of Sandy featured as pet of the week, and the text accompanying it, which went something like this: New Heartwood student seeks temporary home for his beloved pet, due to no-pets policy at school. i described Sandy and then ended with Weekend visits from heartbroken master ok?

The ONE reply i got was from the people who have provided her the lovely new doggie paradise where Sandy now resides, about ten miles down the road. And believe me, as remote as so many people in Humboldt County are from each other, ten miles is like next-door neighbor out here. Sarah, the woman who emailed me on behalf of her employer Mike, whose decision it was, said he asked her to reply to me because they KNEW no one else would. So many people in Humboldt are (as the county's reputation attests) marijuana growers and as a result are understandably reluctant to get involved with strangers for any reason.

When i finally arrived on the property, far out in the countryside, after passing through five gates (2 with combination locks on them), one of the five dogs Sandy is now running with was standing next to the Saturn as it pulled to a stop, and was looking down at me, the Anatolian shepherd. (Here's another photo of the breed.)

But before I get too far with the story of my arrival in Humboldt, let me back up to relate that cross-country drive!

Day 1: Rochester, NY to Detroit (Livonia), Michigan (376 miles/605 km). Well, Canadian Customs detained me about 40 minutes while they made phone calls to Faith (answering machine) and her parents, suspicious of why I was driving someone else's car. I arrived without further delays at the home of Carl and Marge Savage in Livonia about 5:30, and had a relaxing evening and dinner with them. Carl wanted to take Sandy for a walk in the neighborhood both that night and in the morning, which they both greatly enjoyed. Played the Nepali game of Bagh Chal with Carl, whose tigers slaughtered my goats -- learn how to play here; make your own game here -- and looked at photos of their last vay-kay in Hawai'i with Lance and Norio. Hey Chuck, i saw some photos of you too man! Looo-king goood, brudda! The next morning much to my consternation just as i was getting ready to jump in the car, Marge stuck fifty bucks in my hand and wouldn't hear of my giving it back. What a pair of sweethearts!

Day 2: Livonia, MI to Amherst Junction, Wisconsin (634 miles/1020 km) I arrived about 11:30 pm on the back edge of beyond the beyond [calling where i'd arrived "the sticks" isn't sufficient], and drank a beer or two with Liv and her friend John before collapsing into bed.

Day 3: Amherst Junction. Liv was babysitting the cutest little kid when I woke up the next morning, whose dad came to pick her up about noon-time. Liv and I then went for a walk to check how the Amish boys putting a porch onto her uncle's home were coming along. They were on their lunch break when we walked in, and we were a bit surprised to find them .. listening to a radio! (Obviously members of one of the more modernist Mennonite sects.) We stopped by to visit the gay millionaire on the walk back, but he was on his way somewhere, and so I only got the tour of his fab bach' pad. Walked to Liv's parents' house and got a tour of the house she grew up in, way cool, including readings from her oeuvre from the author herself. Then walking with her dogs to feed carrots to the horses, but Tender Wallace simply could not help himself, and chased the horses to the other end of the field, despite strong protestations from the mistress.

We caught up with them eventually, and a couple of them let us pet them, always a winner for city boys like me). And the highlight -- in a literal way -- of my trip: a climb to the top of their tallest silo, about 85 feet [25.9 meters] high. The view from the top was definitely worth the climb, and served to help me overcome my fear of heights just a little bit more. Closed out the night with a rousing game of Hugger Mugger with Liv and her friend John, but they were both unfairly incapacitated by having drunk too much wine, leaving their butts exposed for a sound thrashing. Um, so to speak.

Day 4: Amherst Jct., WI to Cozad, Nebraska (832 miles/1339 km). Drove down the road from Liv's place early the next morning and had breakfast at the Crystal Garden restaurant, on the main street in Iola, where she and I had had lunch the day before. About 25 guys sat around having breakfast, mostly hunters and farmers near as I could tell, and one or two women. Good food, friendly service. On the road by 9:30; crossed the mighty Mississippi three hours later, the Iowa state capital, Des Moines, at 4; and the Nebraska state line at 6:30. But Nebraska is one LONG state, and by 11 pm I'd only got half-way across, and so stopped to spend the night at a Motel 6 in a place called Cozad.

Day 5: Cozad, NE to Evergreen, Colorado (416 miles/669 km). The Wyoming state line was another 228 miles away, not so bad when you can do 70 mph (the speed limit was actually 75 mph for a while there)! Left Interstate Route 80 for the last time, picking up route 25 to drop down into Colorado, first stop: Ft. Collins, for a quick break at the Bean Cycle, the Brandt family coffee house where I worked for a couple of weeks last December. Leslie was busy behind the counter, Chaz was around but I missed him and Penn had a day off, so after a coffee and a chocolate chip cookie, me and Sandy took off for Denver, another hour and a half down the road, arriving at Crystal's and her brother Chuck's place about 5 pm.

I'd hoped Crystal might continue the tradition of going west with me whenever I leave the east coast to go back to school in California, a fine old tradition dating back to August, 1992, when Crystal jumped into the car I'd driven from DC to Evergreen, a car I'd packed to the gills with stuff (including the oar that I used to paddle down the Oubangui with in 1985!) and finished the drive west to Monterey with me. Grand old times. {Crystal, you'll be pleased to know that I continued another old tradition of ours: stopping to pick sage in the Nevada desert.}

But Crystal started a new job, teaching nursing students, six weeks ago and so was unable to accompany. After dinner, I helped put together a Powerpoint presentation for an upcoming class of hers, but then it was off to bed. Both Crystal and Chuck get up way before dawn, so we said good-bye before crashing, and in the morning it was me and Sandy on the road again. Chaz's dog Kirby had been visiting, and he jumped into the passenger seat just before I was ready to leave! Poor pooch, such a beautiful animal and real friendly, i would've loved to have taken him along, if Sandy wouldn't've been jealous!

Day 6: Evergreen, CO to Ely, Nevada (693 miles/1115 km). On the road by 11 after a big breakfast at Crystal's place and some time online, then gassing up the car after driving around looking for a new Tracfone card to top up my mobile phone. I'd used almost all of the rest of my airtime calling Liv trying to locate exactly where she lived, and the last 3 minutes were used up when my sister-in-law Kathy called to say hello while I was somewhere in Nebraska, i think. i miss you Kathy!

WHAT a drive this was! Interstate 70 through the Rockies, including the famous ski-resort of Vail, and two hours out from Evergreen, Glenwood Canyon, where Ute Indians still live: absolutely gorgeous landscape: rocky canyon with trees all over, a river rushing between two towering cliff faces. We crossed into Utah at 3 pm. A hundred miles later i was in Black Dragon Canyon, part of the San Rafael Swell. A picture says a thousand words, so check out this, and this! This is some of the most impressive landscape i think I've ever seen, and i would highly recommend this stretch of highway to anyone thinking about visiting America, esp. Dutch people. It's a great place for outdoor adventures: camping, hiking, biking, etc. i stopped about 3 times within a half-hour stretch just to gawk in quiet awe at this ancient landscape.

At one point, Sandy and i stood at the edge of a deep canyon, while i hollered into it to hear my voice echo off the rock walls again and again. A little later while taking in another gorgeous view from the roadside, we felt the cold air of an approaching thunderstorm blow over us, and watched lightning bolts dance in the shortening distance.

We left Interstate 70 at Salina, Utah to continue on route 50, and picked up my first and only hitchhiker, a carpenter whose dad's car had broken down and was in the shop, and who was on his way home to Provo. Nice guy, easy on the eyes: tall with brown eyes, brown hair -- a nice break from my mostly one-sided conversations with Sandy. He'd been as far away from home as Indiana, where he'd been offered a 40% share in a contractor's business, but missed his eight-year-old daughter too much to stay, and returned to his native Utah. He got out at Scipio, about 40 miles up the road where 50 meets I-15; he was headed north from there and i had to drop down south a few miles where 50 re-continued its path west, and so i reluctantly dropped this very nice guy off on an entrance-ramp to 15-North. With luck, he'd've been home in a couple of hours.

50 is nicknamed "America's Loneliest Highway." The speed-limit along most of it is 65 mph [104 kph] and it is also a very straight two-lane road. It is indeed short of other people and cars, but not unfortunately of animals, so it's perhaps not surprising that it's where not one but two jackrabbits met their untimely demise. i was quite shaken over the unexpected slaughter and the feeling that i might have not hit them if I'd been going slower, if I'd swerved, if I'd even braked .. it happened that fast. i couldn't bear the thought that the first one might not have been killed and was only wounded, and so i went back to inspect and to confirm that it was indeed dead: it was. i gently removed its carcass from the road and placed it in a little ditch beneath a bush, partly out of respect for the life which i had unintentionally taken, partly out of hope that any creatures coming along to feed on it (fox, crow, buzzard) would not themselves fall victim to oncoming traffic. The second rabbit was struck only about an hour later: same events, fewer tears.

The only other creatures i saw on the road were tiny desert mice, like gerbils, with really long tails. OH! About one hour past Evergreen, i did see two bighorn sheep who'd climbed down from the cliffs to feed on something near the road! That stretch of road reminded me a lot of the Asir region of Saudi Arabia, the drive i did with Falah from Abha to the Red Sea coast, where in the same kind of rocky shrubby cliffs you could see monkeys, singly and in packs, doing their monkey things while you drive past.

The Nevada state line is where Pacific Time begins and i was relieved to see that i was going to have enough gas after all to make it to the next town: Ely (pron. EE-lee), where a Motel 6 awaited us. The odometer read 120,000 as i parked the car for the night. A few minutes later, Sandy and i had each collapsed onto our own queen-sized beds.

Day 7: Ely, NV to Ukiah, California (634 miles/1020 km) i had a nice surprise phone call on my cell phone from my friend, former employer, and ex-classmate Jim Napier while I was sipping coffee in my motel room the next morning. I had to call him back as I'd been describing the trip to my brother Scott (on the room phone) before he went off to work. Nice to be in touch with folk back home as I made my way west.

Had breakfast in a big, glitzy casino and was back on the road by 9:30 after refilling the tank .. gas out here was going for $2.69/gallon [4.79 euros per liter, if my lengthy calculations were correct]. Stopped around 11 am to read a roadside historical marker in the town of Eureka, which was booming in the 1880's as a major center of lead, gold and silver production. I stopped around 3 (not far from Reno) to have lunch and to make phone calls: one to Mike in Humboldt to let him know that I wasn't going to be arriving that night after all, and another to Heartwood just to check in. I was leaving Reno about 5 pm, and 5 minutes later crossed into California, going through the infamous Donner Pass 20 miles later, famous for being the place in the 1840's where about half of the people traveling in 90 wagons perished. They had been trying to cross the Sierra Nevada mountains before winter closed in; some survived only by resorting to cannibalism.

I'd been on Interstate 80 which is 4 to 6 lanes in places, and had wanted to cut across the state on Route 20: ANOTHER NOT-TO-BE-MISSED highway for anyone visiting the USA: WOW! Majestic pine-tree-covered mountains, as far as the eye can see. What a treat to be able to drive through such devastatingly beautiful countryside. Although this was another time when I wished I'd had company: to share the magnificent views, not to mention the driving.

Anyway, I'd come out of this fantastic 2-lane road through woodsy mountain with breathtaking views into "civilization" again and realized after a while that I hadn't seen a route marker in a while. When I finally pulled over to look at the map, I learned that I was in Auburn, a town south of where I'd intended to be. It took a while to remedy that situation, but I picked up 20 again Marysville and drove the rest of the night until I reached the last of the 3 Motel 6's I stayed at, in Ukiah.

Day 8: Ukiah to Garberville (137 miles). More gorgeous scenery: I don't think I have ever been on so many hairpin curves, through such .. [I'm running out of adjectives!] .. PHENOMENALLY stunning scenery: huge pine trees and bushes and mosses and flowers of all kinds on mountains and in valleys, with streams and or waterfalls punctuating the view. Again, California Route 20, don't miss it. It goes to Ft. Bragg, where you then pick up the world-famous Route 1 which hugs this stretch of the California coast, until turning inland and meeting Route 101 at the town of Leggett, where what's left of the redwood forest begins.

I arrived in Garberville at 2 pm, and was relieved to see that it's much prettier than the online photos I'd seen of it. First stop was to introduce myself and Sandy to Annamarie Ahmed at the Redwood Times, and to say thanks to her for running the ad (for free!) that found Sandy her new home. She was tickled to meet us. She returned to me the photos i'd sent, and looking at the envelope i'd sent them in -- marked Urgent and Time-Sensitive on the front, and MATTERS OF GRAVE NATIONAL SECURITY on the back -- i smiled and said, "you must've thought i was some kind of nut, huh!" And she and a co-worker laughed as if to say, "Oh honey, you've got no idea of the loonies who are running around this town!" And i did tell them that one of the first people i'd seen on the sidewalks after i'd gotten out of the car was a guy who was walking along with a few burning pages, i think from a book, in his hand! They smiled and said Mm-hmm.

Further illustration: here's a reprint of my horoscope as it appeared in the Apr. 27 issue of the Humboldt Advocate [written i'm betting with a straight face by a Rob Brezsny]: VIRGO (Aug. 23 - Sept. 22) If I were going to write a fairy tale about the current state of your life, I would say that your stolen treasure is locked away in a heart-shaped metal box at the top of a glass mountain. You have every right to steal it back, but you haven't been able to get to it. The surface of the mountain is too slippery for you to climb. In the next chapter of the fairy tale, you will encounter an elf OR dwarf OR witch who has a pair of special shoes with suction cups that could allow you to scale the peak. But you will have to give him something in return for those shoes. And here's the tricky part: The elf OR dwarf OR witch may not tell you exactly what he or she wants; you might have to guess.

I located the library next and applied for the card which is now in my wallet, and walked around town to check out what else there was: a coupla restaurants, one "saloon", coupla motels, one cinema, misc. shops. Very pretty.

Well, you've already read about Sandy's and my arrival at her new home. Look for an update next Tuesday of my arrival at MY new home: Heartwood. Hard to believe that i've already been here 9 days. Since everyone else is ahead of California time, i'll try to post Monday night, so that you really can read the next update on Tuesday!

Next update comes out on Friday

2005-05-10T22:11:00.000-07:00

Folks and faithful followers of The Readership (thank you Lauren, for letting me know with your latest comment that you're still with me!) -- A new beginning calls at least for a new template for the blog, howdoya like it? And i have also changed the time-zone to reflect my new locale, which is currently 3 hours behind east coast US time; 9 hours behind Amsterdam; 10 hours behind Saudi Arabia, and 14 hours behind Japan.

More importantly though will be the big, bold new update coming this Friday: wacky tales of my cross-continent adventures in a '97 Saturn, to which i managed to add 4546 miles. The owner seemed a little grumpy that i hadn't taken a more direct route. Eat your hearts out, jullie Nederlanders en buitenlanders die wonen daar! But i thought fondly of you as i crossed Utah, and tried to imagine how hungrily your jaded eyes would take in that amazing and achingly empty landscape. And Matt Minkin, how DARE you leave the US for a return trip to the land of our meeting without informing me, either in advance or in retrospect?! And don't miss the exciting description of Sandy the Wonder Dog's NEW HOME!

We are so remote here that my mobile phone gets no reception until we get to a certain hill on the way down into town. Most of us receive phone calls at one of the two pay phones in "the Lodge," the place where we take our meals. Call and say hello!

Best chance of reaching me would involve calling about 15 to 30 minutes after the start of mealtimes, which last for an hour each, and begin at 7:45 (breakfast); 12:15 (lunch); and 6:00 (dinner): 001 (USA country code) + 707/923 9900 [all times Pacific Daylight Time].

See you back here on Friday!
xxx

Unbe-LIV-ably LIV, LIVE

2005-05-01T18:52:00.000-07:00

WOW! I found a new car to drive to California, two days prior to my desired date of departure, which for the past 3 months had been Monday Apr. 25. It's an amazing story, which i will be telling you after i'm settled in.

Left Rochester at 11 am Wednesday, 4/27. Crossed through Canada to get to Michigan from Rochester, and had a bit of a hassle convincing Canadian customs that i had the permission to drive the car i was driving, which added about 45 minutes to the 7-hour travel time.

Hello from Amherst Junction in the Dairy State (Wisconsin), Liv's hometown where i arrived Thursday night. She is baby-sitting the KEE-YOOtest little girl, named Azia who is 18 months old. (i didn't stay online too long .. we had to keep an eye on that precious little bundle)! Spent two nights there, leaving after breakfast at the Crystal Cafe in Iola about 9 am Saturday.

Made it about half-way across Nebraska, spending Sat. night at a Motel 6 in a little town called Cozad. It's Sunday evening and i'm now at Crystal's place in Evergreen, just outside Denver .. two more days (1271 miles, Denver to SF) to California. It was snowing today, and there was a lot of fog in the mountains.

i'm beat .. just wanted to post something for anyone who might be checking in. i'll do a massive update when i've got more energy.

Trip update

2005-04-23T10:47:00.000-07:00

Greetings!

Tim Geen and Dave Marshall, sorry it’s taken me so long to describe the great weekend we had at your place Mar. 25-26. Something happened earlier that Friday which threw me off-balance for a few days thereafter and, truth be told, even made the decision to continue this blog something that was for a while uncertain.

But i’ve weathered that storm, having devoted a considerable amount of time to studying and reflecting on what there was to learn from the incident, and am proud to report to all you remaining hangers-on of The Readership: i’M BACK! As well as: IT’S ALL GOOD!

Dinner at Tim’s and Dave’s was a blast, that salmon in a pastry shell being scrumptious and even now unforgettable. i can't recall the last time i sat around such an elegant table with seven other guys who were so much fun to be with. And what a treat to be able to bring Sandy along -- great that she and your corgies got along with each other! -- and to spend the night! i’m glad too that i got the chance to experience before you move that view from the hilltop over the bay and out onto Lake Ontario, and with so many swans, geese, ducks, and gulls to view and to hear from the veranda .. so very special.

Hey ONE of you guys would’ve told me if you’d won an Emmy, wouldn’t you have, Dave?! If not this time for the pilot episode on flying, maybe next year for your documentary on HIV among migrant farm-workers. It was great to be able to catch a glimpse of it. Keep up the good work, my friend.

FanTAStick to hook up with Mary Starkweather, erstwhile sister of Janet and Anne (et al.) last Tuesday evening. Those of The Readership who hail from Rochester (and who might know Mary) will be tickled to hear that after picking up me and the pooch from my place, we stopped to get a can of Foster's lager for me, and a bottle of wine-cooler for Mary, then drove up to the Cobbs Hill reservoir to sit on the grass looking down on Monroe Ave., and watch the sun set. And to laugh at Sandy trying to look vicious for other dogs who passed nearby, including one cute little puppy dog who was all fluff and tumble. We dropped Sandy back home when it got dark and hit the East end for one more drink before calling it a night. What a great reunion, brief though it was.

Dinner at a Chinese restaurant Wed. evening with Mike Morone's mom Dorothy and her husband John was great. Man, they had like six buffet tables to choose from! I should leave town more often! Mike's mom is a great spirit and even though we haven't seen each other much over the years, she always makes me feel like family. Thanks for being who you are Dot ... Have i already mentioned what a great guy my friend Mike Morone is? Check this out.

Well dear readers, i am mildly disappointed to have to announce a major change in my transportation program to California.

You may have heard that i'd scored a dude’s Mercedes-Benz to drive cross-country, for a guy in LA who’d bought it over Ebay from another guy right here in my home town. Lowell (the buyer and a studio exec for Warner Brothers) had even changed the plan we'd discussed of my driving it to LA (from where he would then drive me and Sandy the ten hours north), to my driving it directly to Heartwood, where he would later pick it up on his way to his second home in Oregon, whose state-line lies just the other side of the next county north from Humboldt, del Norte.

But a phone call from him yesterday (i’m writing this Friday night, 4/22) brought that lovely dream to a screeching halt: the ‘control arm’ -- a device having something to do with the steering column -- that the current owner had brought to the garage was rejected by the mechanic due to its inferior nature, and the search for a new one has begun again. It is now highly unlikely that this sweet chariot will be readied in time for me to drive it west, alas.

Lowell, the auto’s new owner, had contacted me as soon as he’d heard what had happened – “for some reason i feel worse for Sandy!” he candidly, casually confided in me – but i replied that i’d struggled all along not to become overly attached to any outcome, so that although i was of course disappointed, i was not crushed, and went about what was left of the work-day in a decidedly good mood (relatively)!

i had saved all of the emails from the 5 or 6 others who’d contacted me offering rides thinking that i might need them, and sent them an email this morning telling them i was back in the market for a ride/drive west.

It’s not completely impossible that the Merc’ might be repaired in time for me to make use of it for getting to Heartwood – But i have let go of my dream of driving that thing, and am concentrating all my energies on rides with others.

What better opportunity than this to publicly shout out big thanks! to the friends from my days in Saudi Arabia – Enda (who posted an ad on my behalf on Craigslist Ottawa) and Simon (who hit Detroit for me) – as well as my posse from my Amsterdam days – Matt (who posted to Albany and NYC for me), Lauren (Philly), Kerstin (Syracuse), Hadleigh (Boston) and Rob (Baltimore). You guys are the greatest, and your names have been put on the dougie t. list of people who will one day receive at least one free massage from me. (Some of you may indeed receive many free massages from me!)

Sandy has a new home in the Golden State! The one reply i got to the ad-with-photo (“Pet of the Week!”) i placed in the 4/12 issue of the Redwood Times was an email from a woman named Sarah who works for a guy named Mike who’s got property where his 5 dogs run around, ten miles from Heartwood! And in country like this, ten miles is like “next-door neighbor!”

Better still, Mike has granted my wish to spend the last two days there with Sandy, prior to the start of the program (May 6). The dogs (4 females and an alpha-male) get shuttled back and forth between his house and this property where i’ll be staying, and are taken care of by a young woman named Katie, who feeds them organic kibble and meat-scraps / bones from a butcher who sells only Humboldt-county beef. Given Heartwood’s no-pets policy, i couldn’t have hoped for anything better.

Finally finished Power vs. Force by David Hawkins. Anyone else read this? i have not yet personally tested the procedure he describes for ascertaining the truth of any yes/no question, but if what he says is true, then we (the people of the world) must prepare ourselves and our friends for immense and rapid changes in human affairs – politics, commerce, education, science, etc. -- the likes of which have been unseen since .. The Flood, i suppose. After i’ve had a chance to test the procedure myself (you only need one other person!), i’ll report my results here.

Aside from the procedure itself, the book was for the most part excellent, inspirational reading. i’ve photocopied his Map of Consciousness which lists 17 items in each of 6 categories. Most intriguing are the emotions most associated with a particular level of consciousness which in ascending order are: shame, guilt, apathy, grief, fear, desire, anger, pride, courage, neutrality, willingness, acceptance, reason, love, joy, peace, and (finally) enlightenment.

Last day at work today! Jim Napier, God bless him, gave me a huge cash bonus as a good-bye gift! (Would it be tacky of me to divulge the amount?) i genuinely appreciated the way a couple of days ago he'd described my unexpectedly lengthy “temporary” stint at his and his brother Bob’s law practice as "a win-win situation." Big thanks boys and Jim, it was great re-connecting with you .. i'll keep in touch.

Well, the two cups of coffee i had after dinner are beginning to wear off, and now it’s just a wait till the rain stops and i can get the pooch out for her end-of-the-day walk before we both go to bed. My delightful sister-in-law Kathy and her/our lovely friend Linda, both of whom have displayed a generosity of spirit and of pocketbook that is simply astounding, had our last Friday-night dinner at Hogan’s Hideaway on Park Avenue, which had become a really nice weekly tradition of ours over the three months that i’ve been back in my home-town. Shrimp scampi on a bed of pasta with grilled red peppers and artichoke hearts filled me to the gills, and my tummy is still hard at work, although with a smile.

God in spite of that Merc’ deal falling through the way it did yesterday, i am lovin’ life, which in turn is making me think that i must be doin’ somethin’ right. i really feel i’ve come to a point of acceptance of what is, at least more than i ever have before. it feels good. i’ve got so many to thank for having shown me the way.

Now if i could only get this ego out of the way a bit more ...

OH MY GOD! This very well may be the last post before my arrival in California! Or if i get the chance to get online as i go cross-country, you'll get a mid-trip report. Otherwise, don't feel distressed if Tuesday rolls around and there isn't a new posting from yours truly. Gotta run, which means you're done reading this update!

Got a minute or two? Want to postpone a little while longer whatever it is you're supposed to be doing? Post a comment before you go. Bye!

American citizens, take note

2005-04-18T11:53:00.000-07:00

The biggest and most powerful law enforcement agency in the United States has the absolute, non-negotiable power to ignore laws, judges and prosecutors, to keep people out of prison, to make any jury trial come out the way they want it, and to make our government honest. What is this agency?

Click here.

Views of Heartwood

2005-04-18T11:02:00.000-07:00

I discovered this online two minutes ago, and am excited to share it with you: a peek at what awaits prospective Heartwood students! Click here. And check this out! A panoramic view of Heartwood! Here is a page that contains 17 additional photos of Heartwood.

I'll update last week's post .. sometime! I usually go the library Monday nights because it's open late, but have got a dinner with an old friend from my Hofstra U. days who is now a district attorney here, so might not get to it till another time. Martha and I have got QUITE a bit to catch up on!

What a day!

2005-04-11T17:55:00.000-07:00

What a day!
Today’s warm weather gave the definite impression that more snow is an absolute impossibility. i walked to work this morning with my raincoat tied ‘round my waist, and it was even more unnecessary when i left work about 5:15.

When the weather’s like this i want to take Sandy on a walk longer than she usually gets, and i was totally in the mood for exactly one beer, and so figured today might be the day to finally check out the Bachelor’s Forum (and their willingness to allow dogs), a gay bar a few blocks away. When we arrived at the door, i told her to SIT, then went inside to where about 8 or 10 guys sat around a bar. Bartender comes over, and i say “i’d like a beer, but i’ve got this .. real BITCH outside, and i wonder if it’s all right if i bring her in.” He says, “well if she’s gonna cause a problem it might be better if she didn’t come in,” and i said, “oh i don’t think she’s gonna cause a problem!” and went to get her. Well the customers were cool and a couple went to pet her, but the bartender just said, “oh i’ll lose my license if they find a dog in here,” which is pretty much what i expected, and we left. It made me realize what a totally cultural thing it is, where we’re allowed to go with our pets, and where we’re not.

Lots of people were out, walking. Other dog-owners whose dogs wanted to check out Sandy, who seemed mostly oblivious except for that Mohawk flare she does from the back of her neck down her spine to her tail. Young couples with toddlers on their way to the little park down the street. Others just out of work or having just left home to sit with a friend in front of Starry night with a fresh cup of coffee. But i was determined to have my beer, so walked across the street to a corner store (called The Corner Store) and bought myself a big ol’ can (26 oz.!) of Foster’s Lager, $2.53 with the tax. And this being the U.S.ofA. i asked the guy for a paper bag so’s i could drink my beer in the leisurely stroll back to my neck o’ the ‘hood. On the way home, me and Sandy were in the middle of throngs of people who were on their way to the Auditorium theatre for a showing of “Chicago.” A man sitting on a low wall next to the sidewalk out front played an accordion for loose change, singing over and over again a few bars from the theme song. People smiled when they saw me and Sandy; a couple guys tried to pet her as we walked past.

When i got home, i noticed that Dave the movie-star handsome guy next door who’s been moving out the past few days was again moving boxes outside, although this time without accompaniment, so i went to .. ahem, offer my services. You know, ‘cause that’s just the kind of guy i am. He was real pleased to have a little help and some company, and i was real pleased just to be in the company of such a sweet-natured down-to-earth kind of a guy. i guess it was a good thing we didn’t get to know each other that well; it would’ve been more of a bummer to see him go. As it is, we only bumped into each other a couple of times outside, as i was going to walk the pooch.

Here's a couple of quotes i liked from what i'm reading now ...
Although born in France in 1596, Rene Descartes lived in Holland for most of his adult life. He decided to settle there (in 1628 or –29), he claimed, because of the richness and variety of the country’s commerce, the innocence of its inhabitants, and the moderation of its climate. "Where else on earth could you find [he wrote], as easily as you do here, all the conveniences of life and all the curiosities you could hope to see? In what other country could you find such complete freedom, or sleep with less anxiety, or find armies at the ready to protect you, or find fewer poisonings, or acts of treason or slander? …In this large town where I live [Amsterdam, ca. 1631], everyone but myself is engaged in trade, and hence is so attentive to his own profit that I could live all my life without ever being noticed by a soul." Spinoza: a life p.111

Because theology has usually – and not without reason – represented God as a perfect man, it is appropriate in theology to say that God desires something, that he finds sorrow in the acts of the Godless and takes pleasure in those of the pious. But in philosophy we understand clearly that to ascribe to God those “attributes” that make a man perfect is as bad as if one wanted to ascribe to man those that make an elephant or an ass perfect. Therefore, speaking philosophically, we cannot say that God desires something, nor that something is pleasing or a cause of sorrow to him. For those are all human “attributes” which have no place in God. Spinoza, p. 217

Books i’ve read or am reading:
1. Energy Medicine, by Donna Eden
2. Spinoza: a life, by Steven Nadler

Thank you Carolanne for sharing with me this website (free stuff, no strings attached). I'll be making use of that when i get out to California. i'd like to get a bike to see those redwood trees upclose and personal.

Craig's List comes to Rochester! But it's also in Amsterdam!

Tim and Dave i still haven't written up about the great night we had 2 Fridays ago .. it's comin'!

Big thanks to Mike Morone and his nephew Ricky for getting me a free computer! You wanna know what kind of guy my buddy Mike is? Read this.

Somebody remind me to include an intensely intriguing passage dealing with submariners from another book i just finished by this guy Chuck Palahniuk, Stranger than Fiction. Highly recommended collection of short, true stories, although there are a couple you could pass up and you wouldn't be missing anything. His piece on castles for instance.