I Dream a Happy Family

(Lines from women's ads on an online dating service)

If your goal in life is a short, skinny wife, then this ad just isn't for you.

I have a huge heart, to big for my own good sometimes.
Tall, white, and sweet with a lotta love to give.
I take great pride in my daily appearence and I have a curvaceous body, I tend to wear my hair different daily.
I am a plus size beautiful girl and curves in all the right places.
Is love real? Show me.
If you have baby mama's drama then I don't want any parts of it.
I have a ton of energy.
You wont find grass growing under my feet. I like to get things done in a timely manner.
I am so down to earth.
I'm stable, financially secure, emotional sane and completely ready to chill.
I'm an easy going, hard working normal person that happens to have a high sex drive.
I'm a hopeless romantic. I love to camp and fish.
Well I am very friendly, love people (who don't annoy me)
I'm a lucky person in every way except my former marriage.
I'm also a very good house wife, like to make room tidy and beautiful.
Is there still faithfulness and devotion still around?
I had missed my best time to find my true love.
I have a void in my life and am looking for "the one" to fill it.
I have a spirit that just makes you smile.
I know that everything happens for reason and my reason just hasn’t happened yet.
I dream a happy family.

I've noticed that good looking people often hang out together, and the same applies to ugly looking people.

I'e always loved this part of Wordsworth's pome, Ode: Intimations of Immortality from Recollections of Early Childhood, which is the 7th stanza:

Behold the Child among his new-born blisses,
A six years' darling of a pigmy size!
See, where 'mid work of his own hand he lies,
Fretted by sallies of his mother's kisses,
With light upon him from his father's eyes!
See, at his feet, some little plan or chart,
Some fragment from his dream of human life,
Shaped by himself with newly-learnèd art;
A wedding or a festival,
A mourning or a funeral;
And this hath now his heart,
And unto this he frames his song:
Then will he fit his tongue
To dialogues of business, love, or strife;
But it will not be long
Ere this be thrown aside,
And with new joy and pride
The little actor cons another part;
Filling from time to time his 'humorous stage'
With all the Persons, down to palsied Age,
That Life brings with her in her equipage;
As if his whole vocation
Were endless imitation.

Now if that ain't a picture of childhood. Just what is that little plan or chart at his feet? Is it Fate?

I love the last two lines, about his vocation being endless imitation. I have often felt, as I study my own human behavior, the line between what is imitation and what is original is blurry. In fact, I wonder if anything I have done does not bear the mark, the imprint of my parents, my siblings, or some Other. I would like to think that everything I do is Original Me, Pat, OG ME, but actually it's an imitation of someone or something else. At least I can say I imitate very well.

Apparently the makes the of Bumfights videos got arrested. Yes, there is a God, there is cosmic justice.

I was getting a haircut one day in a barbershop, and you know how barbershops are pretty masculine, pretty macho, and they were showing this video, which is a series of rough cut video clips of them paying bums and crack heads to fight for the camera. And, they also show fights from people who sent in video clips. People smashing each other, men smacking women to a pulp, big guys pummeling little guys, blood, heads rammed into trucks, teeth knocked out, faces slammed into cement, the whole works. Juicy, top notch work. And to top it off, they have random clips of this hot model taking her clothes off in betwen the violence. Such brilliant intercutting of flesh with flesh.

Are we not men? We are DEVO, D-E-V-O.
(De-evolution, baby, better get used to it. Do not underestimate man's pleasure and desire to destroy, particulary other humans. Heck, you don't even need a God to justify that. It just needs to be cool.)

Barber:
"Huh huh huh, it's so cool dude, check it out, those are real bums fighting. Real fights, cool. There's like, a lot of blood and shit."

Clients sitting waiting for a hair cut:
"Yeah, huh huh, cool, dude, shit, check that out."

Mood for the day summed up best by Robinson Jeffers

"...be in nothing so moderate as in love of man, a clever servant, insufferable master.
There is the trap that catches the noblest spirits, that caught - they say - God, when he walked on earth."

Nothing like a little Jeffers to brighten up the morning. Hoo! Pardoo!

Humanism
I hear this term a lot, and I belive it's one of those words which have a lot of different meanings, so many in fact, that when someone uses it, you don't quite know what they mean.

Columbia Encyclopedia says humanism is:

A philosophical and literary movement in which man and his capabilities are the central concern. The term was originally restricted to a point of view prevalent among thinkers in the Renaissance. The distinctive characteristics of Renaissance humanism were its emphasis on classical studies, or the humanities, and a conscious return to classical ideals and forms. The movement led to a restudy of the Scriptures and gave impetus to the Reformation. The term humanist is applied to such diverse men as Giovanni Boccaccio, Petrarch, Lorenzo Valla, Lorenzo de’ Medici, Erasmus, and Thomas More. In the 20th cent., F. C. S. Schiller and Irving Babbitt applied the term to their own thought. Modern usage of the term has had diverse meanings, but some contemporary emphases are on lasting human values, cultivation of the classics, and respect for scientific knowledge.

Owning Your Own Symbols

Writers are responsible for their symbols. You use a fish in your story, a good deal of your audience will automatically think of Christ. You use an Apple, Garden of Eden, fall of man, tempation, knowledge, beginning of consciousness. You can choose your own symbols, but you have little to no power over a symbol's inherent power to siginify with your audiences. Use them wisely.

Language I Want Eliminated from Everyday Speech

A word you hear TOO much these days is resonate (verb) or resonance (noun). Listen for it on radio and in TV, read it all over the place in print media. Fuck things that resonate, I say: Refuse to resonate! Be original!

Example: If you see a painting that has the words LOVE in it, and someone, some puffy-ass wanna be art critic, says, "I really feel that this piece resonates with the loss of faith in simple, straightforward expressions of sincere emotions in art today," grab the painting off the wall with extreme prejudice, throw it on the ground, stamp on it, and listen to it "resonate" under your feet.

Overused word in the war against terrorism and the new patriotism: "resolve."

I resolve not to ever use that word again for at least ten years.

Slang That Has Infiltrated the Media and is Now Used by Overweight White Journalists Who Do It To Sound Hip
Yo (And I ain't talking about the Spanish first-person subject pronoun, either, ya wise acre)
Old school
Straight up
You da man
Dat's the bomb
Keeping it real
Show some love
Fly
Biatch
Get your "insert noun here" on

Full Guilt Disclosure
I had named my film company KIR, for Keeping It Real Productions, but since have given up the copyright.
New name: RFP, for Roadside Floosies Productions. Not sure how to spell 'floozies' but I know one when I see one.
Woo, hoo, show us some love, floosies, you da bomb fly shit! Get yer freak on. Yo, biatch, keep it real. Straight up.

Don't even THINK about stealing the cool name, jocko! Hey, I may be white, but I ain't puffy!

Sunday Morning Revelation: Of Clean Freaks and Slobs

Both the clean freak and the slob have in common the propensity of controlling their immediate environments: their home, their car, their yard, their hair, the toilet, the kitchen, their cubical or desk at work.

The so-called "clean freak" maintains control over every bit of dirt in the shower, dust, every crumb of bran muffin on the floor and every pretzel molecule on the couch, and this allows the cleaner to feel as though they indeed have an effect on their surroundings. The cleaning is a metaphor for whatever inner disorganization exists internally, and helps give that person a sense of order and structure. In this sense the clean freak exhibits an "extroverted" personality, a personality type characterized by a person who, because they lack a deep ego structure, must seek ways to control their immediate environment, in order to help organize their inner chaos.

The so-called "slob" leaves droppings everywhere, shoes, hair balls, paper, magazines, socks, milk and coffee stains, strands of spaghetti, and this lets the slob know that he or she exists in this environment, these droppings in fact become extensions of that person's sens of themselves, their ego. In this sense, the slob exhibits an "introverted" personality, characterized by a tightly structured inner sense of self, an identity that does not rely upon external input or exertion of external control, to the extent that their immediate external environment is neglected, or left unattended.

Of course, being a clean freak doesn’t necessarily mean you are an extrovert and your sense of self is as stable as hot Jell-O, just as being a slob doesn’t necessarily mean you are an introvert and have such a tight and structured ego that while your house collects dust mites and bubonic plague you are working on new mathematical theorems. Sometimes, a slob is a slob, inside and out, and a clean freak is as controlling inside and out.

Blogging: Boring, Lonely Vanity

Browsing Blogs is interesting, yet depressing. So many of them. Such boring stuff. People talking to themselves. Self conscious chatter, like people on cell phones in the super market, catching you in the corner of their eye to make sure you are listening.

Reading them, you consider suicide: read about womens' trips to buy a bra, and how difficult that is and probably there is some conspiracy behind bras (wrong size, wires, make women suffer). And you read the most boring personal information you would ever want to know. "I don't have cancer." "Grandpa called the other day." "I bought a new video game." "Sunrise today was beautiful and I felt the cool breeze telling me that Autmn was in the air. Ahhhh." The daunting number of these entries is just overwhemling. A lot of people talking to themselves. Blogs are lonely, and are very vain. I want people to read MINE MINE MINE. I have a blog and I am vain. I want people to know my inner thoughts. I am important, I am a special snowflake.

I think I may need therapy: Everytime someone tells me to recycle, I wan't to recycle them.

Me: Throws paper cup into regular garbage.
Goody Goody Do Gooder: Um, excuse me, recycle. Paper cups go in THAT basket.
Me: Picks up Goody Do Gooder, stuffs them into the paper cup recycler.

The Cycle of Addiction

1) Ordinary life, mundane existence, being alone with one's self and the difficulty of dealing with boredom leads the addictive person to seek some alteration of consciousness. This is not a desire to escape the ego, but rather reinforce it. Some might think that addiction is an attempt to escape the self, while in fact it is an attempt to escape the "other" - all others that is not the self, and is a retreat or withdraw into the self.

(The every day ego is built up of self consciousness, desire, and a perception of the world as filtered through language - all the thoughts that run around our head all day long that we seem unable to stop or control.)

2) In the attempt to escape the world and hide inside the ego, the addictive person finds a substance or falls into a personality habit by which their consciousness is transformed and they forget, or transcend, the boredom or average ness of their life. This transformation of consciousness isn't always dependent upon a substance, but often is. Habits of behavior can also be a means of escaping boredom and the banality of every day existence; for example, the habit of creating dramatic and conflictive situations and relationships whereby a person's ego (the picture they have of themselves, how they see themselves) is reinforced further by placing it at the center of a dramatic situation. These dramatic situations are usually based upon roles in which the ego character plays a specific part, usually based upon unresolved, irrational, or even violent situations in the person's childhood in which the person was in a situation beyond their control.

Or commonly, the person will find a substance, such as caffeine, or alcohol, or cigarettes, which alter the chemical structure of the brain that causes a significant enough change in consciousness so the person feels elated, with a sense that they have moved beyond the boredom of every day life and into a perceived sense of greater meaning. Usually, this sense includes a feeling of pleasure.


3) The person develops a habit of use of the substance or behavior pattern, and their psyche becomes dependent upon this habit; in order to achieve this minor transformation they need to have more and more and so the body develops tolerance. The body & mind begins to expect/think that this state is normal, and without the substance (or dramatic behavior) they will not be able to manage properly throughout the day. The mind has come to depend upon the substance in order to sustain the heightened state of ego. The body too comes to perceive of this altered state as the norm, and if the substance is not obtained and ingested, then it begins to think something is wrong. The person may get sick, or uneasy, or their immune system can falter.

Three Dead Fish, a Gun and a Stripper

When I was a lot younger, in my early 20's, I wasn't so good at relationships. (Not that I am any good now, but now I don't have relationships.) This weakness of mine is symbolized by dead fish.

Back then, I dated a tall woman named Cindy. She was 6 feet tall and very pretty. So pretty that later I found out she was a stripper, and a very good one. I even went with her a few times to parties as her "bouncer" (even though I had very few muscles). I actually I served more as the guy who drank beer and sat in a room and counted the huge pile the one dollar bills she would come in after her dances and drop on the table in front of me. After, some big beefy guys would come in and buy the ones off me and say, "Thanks, dude. Right on. Pardoo." But that all came later, after the fish incident.

Well before I found out she was a stripper, we dated and got along pretty well. She worked at a video store. She had shoulder length brown hair and a very big, pretty mouth and smile. Her body, despite her height, was phenomenal. We looked good together because I was taller than she was. She liked me so much she bought me fish, three fish in fact, each of which were very ugly bright orange and had huge eyeballs. I guess she thought that they were cute, having the big eyeballs. (In fact, she had kind of big eyeballs, but not that big, not like the fish.) Maybe she bought me the fish to suggest I needed to open my eyes and see the real her, not just her outward beauty. But probably, she just liked fish. I never owned a fish in my life, and back then, as a young guy, I was probably not the best person to give fish to, as a present.

So she gave me these fish, and some of that little flaky fish food you're supposed to sprinkle into the bowl and you never know how much because once you do sprinkle a little in the water, it hardly looks like anything, so you tap a few more helpings in there and think, Right on, dudes. Chow down! Pardoo on those flakes! But they just kept eating, those little bulgy-eyed freaks, no matter how much you give them.

I fed them a few times, but then it was Christmas time and school was out and I went to my parents house for a few weeks. I forgot about the fish. And I know this sounds bad, but I forgot about her, too. Like I said, though, I was not good at relationships, and not very good with fish, either. I should have at least called her. So when I get back, I get a call from her. She's mad, very mad, and wants to know why I haven't called her. I've been out of town for a few weeks, I said. Oh, she said? Tell me, she said, are the fish dead? Yes, I said. I heard a click.

Click HERE to read the rest of the story....

There Will Be No Thanksgiving Dinner
(Or, Prophetic Parental Pronouncements and the Folly of Nihilistic Youth)

When I was in high school and growing up in the Desert, my older brother and I were in a band together, and we used to party so much that it's a wonder we're still alive.

One year, the night before Thanksgiving, school had gotten out early and we went to a drink fest at the drummer in our band's brother's house. We ended up getting so drunk and high we could barely stand up. After partying well into the night and getting sloppier by the minute, we decided it was time to go home. I wanted to drive, so I got behind the wheel and my bro got in beside me. I could barley stay on the road, let alone keep my eyes open. I recall becoming interested in a jackrabbit crossing the road and proceeded to follow it off the road and into a field. Boom, crash, shake, smash.

My brother got behind the wheel.

After he started driving, I passed out apparently. The next thing I remember was hearing someone tapping the window of my brother's car. It was my friend who lived across the street from us. My brother was draped over the steering wheel out cold, and I was laying back against the seat. We both woke up to find ourselves embedded in the side of the raod in the dirt, having just gone through a stop sign which crossed a usually busy road which cars sped down. My friend said he thought we were dead. We quickly got out of the car and tried to free it from the embankment, but with no luck. We were only a block from our house, and so we walked home.

My Dad was there waiting for us, and yelled at us to stay out side. "You will not come into this house. You will do yardwork all day long," he yelled. There was shouting through the open windows, and I could see the blurry figures of our parents through the dirty screens. My mom shouting, "But Honey, what about Thanksgiving?" (The turkey was in the oven, I believe.)

My father lowered his voice and said.

"There will be no Thanksgiving dinner."

I was in shock. We had instantly become responsible for cancelling an entire holiday.

We went to the side of the yard where the weeds were, laid down in the dirt with our "hula ho's" (an inventive weeding device which made weeding a lot easier), and tried to keep from puking as we stared at the sea-sick patterns of weeds and leaves in the dirt. It would prove to be a long day, and even longer "holiday" weekend.

Before Hitting Rock Bottom
Once, when my life seemed more pathetic than usual, I had the notion that I would buy a drum, a bongo, a conga, something, and join a drum circle. Riding my bike around downtown San Jose in search of these drum circles, I saw the kinds of scrappy, dirty losers who bang in these drum circles, and I thought, 'what was I thinking'? I was an even bigger loser for wanting to join them to make my life less pathetic. It was that point I realized my life didn't seem pathetic, it WAS pathetic.

Rejecting Desire and the Power of "Love" Destruction

It's difficult to describe the kind of power and self control you can get from rejecting desire, not having the thing you want, when you don't give in to what you wish you could have. There's something immensely powerful in saying 'No, I will NOT take that cup of coffee, that beer, have sex with someone, or turn on the TV, or call up that porn site.'

Even bringing that thing close to you, having it near you, cherishing it, wanting it, loving it, then destroying it, throwing it away -- you can feel the power fill your body. Before hand, it seems not only stupid but maybe impossible. But once you do it, all that energy you would have placated, that desire you would have satisfied, becomes yours: you own the energy that was being drained in your desire, the energy that would have been lost and spent in fulfilling that desire. You get it back. You puncture a hole in the veil of illusion and you wake up and find out you are alive.

There is a great release and liberation you can find by destroying, throwing away, objects you like or love. Or, not even something you love but think you need or just like. Like, a pair of shoes you have, or a poster, or a CD, a pair of sunglasses. Drive down the highway and throw it out the window (and if you hear a voice in your head saying, "oh, you shouldn't litter, say Fuck You! little voice). The bond of attachment to these objects is broken when you no longer possess them, and you realize they no longer possess you. (Cf. Fight Club.)

It's a religious rite, the making sacred through sacrifice (which means literally "to make sacred"), by investing an object (or substance) with value, desiring it, attaching yourself to it, then destroying it. This is a fundamental structure you find in many religious, mythological ceremonies. (Cf. the Catholic mass.)

Aside:
The intentional destruction of objects you like or want also applies to greenbacks; yes, money, much to Rachel O's irritation, during that night of the HMB bonfire, when suddenly, it seemed completely rational, it not essential, the take those dollars and fives out of the wallet and watch them burn into little crispy black piles of ashes. Ian, Uncle Vanya (Ilya), the dog, Patron Silver. It felt good, and I don't think it was completely a macho competition. Of course, being drunk, we probably weren't too far from running to the ATM machines. Even though a dollar felt good, a five felt magical, and a ten was borderline religious. What about a $20??

Best Laid Plans

Well, it just goes to show ya: the more you plan something, the more you better be ready for those plans to fall all to hell.

Today's run was great:
+ 21 Miles
+ 2500~ Feet climb
Saratoga Gap - Waterman Gap - Turnaround - Saratoga Toll Road - Turnaround to Saratoga Gap

Weird day:
Tom is sick when I show up at Saratoga HS, says he has to go home.
GIl shows up late as I'm almost pulling out.
Get to Big Basin and the Park is essentially closed for a Centennial Celebration.
Go back to Saratoga Gap, do a run to Waterman Gap and back run into Arturo on the trail, the only person we see the whole trip!
But we ended up getting a good 21 miles in, and man, coming back up from Waterman Gap to the Saratoga Gap is a bitch from hell. Very deceptive. Looks mellow but it is relentless climbing!

Masculine Anxiety Around Women: Fear of Being a Non-Necessity

One of the big fears men have about, around women, STRICTLY biologically-Darwinisticaly speaking, is that they are not really needed, other than their little swimmers. (Hell that doesnt' even take an erection. Thus, men cannot even be reduced to their phalluses.) Beyond providing fertile sperm, men fear--on a pure reptilian brain level--that women could make do just fine without them. True, in the past, we men were needed to bonk those unruly Mastadons and Sabre-Toothed tigers in the noggin and save the clan, but these days, there are no such dangers.

So, then, as a big bad macho Hombre, what is my purpose? Giving orgasms? Providing a paycheck? Women are fully capable or finding, providing for themselves on this level. Companionship? Foot massage giver? Joke or story teller?

Internal dialog from a bruiser-lug nut:
"Reckon I oughta subjugate and dominate and strike a little fear in her heart, to keep myself around. Create a dependency where there really isn't one."

Truth in Fiction, Fiction in Memoirs, Writerly Responsibility

I took an online class in memoir writing recently, at writing classes.com, and for one of my works, I used a made up quote, cited by fictional character I made up. The character and quote:

"Every man understands the value of self destruction."
Joshua Quane

Almost everyone who commented on the piece said they liked the quote a lot. Was that so wrong to fool my audience? Does the writer have a reponsibility to be truthful? Or, free license to spin whatever illusions he/she wants? Can/should the writer lie as much and as often as he wants, indeed, is this not his job?

Utero-Relgio Symbolism
(Thoughts upon L-O-V-E and "agnosticons")

As the uterus rejects all spermatozoa but one, so too does the whore reject the man, except for his money. Yet the man, he was hoping for a goddess, deliverance, resurrection through ecstasy. He is fallen, spent. What was hoped for to be a holy (driven by the force of male nature) transaction, the deliverance of the self though the glories or a woman's love and body, was actually only commerce.

This is why perhaps some religious symbolism, at least that in the West Judeao/Christian tradition, is uteral, like the ornate cathedral, entering a dark majestic tunnel in order to find/experience God. Simulacrum of, Da womb.

Yo, congregation best not be worshiping no phallus'. That's not till spring.
Leave your money in the collection basket, PUH-lease.

As we work away on friday, a few lines from ye olde Beowulf:

The world
And its long days full of labor brings good
And evil; All who remain here meet both.

Towards a Cognitive Theory of Character in Fiction

Character in fiction is the rendition a self which is disconnected from itself. A character in fiction, if it is fully round and complex, has created a picture of themselves in their mind which is at odds with the reality of the actual person, or the way the person is perceived or interacts with the world they live in. Two worlds, at odds. The thoughts of a character (which needn't even be stated) are where this picture of the self lives, the internal story (implicit) that informs the larger narrative (explicit) on the page.

In fiction, for the character to change, this picture they have in their heads that propels their behavior must always at odds with reality; the way the person really is is disconnected from the way he thinks he is. The character carries around an incompatible version of himself, which causes the conflict in his quest to achieve his main goal, or whatever he imagines will validate and assure his outdated ego's veracity. The larger the disparity between fictional self and the perceived self (as seen by other characters in the story) the more urgent, stressful, conflictive, and potentially tragic the outcome by the end of the story. A reckoning there must be between selves.

Character arc in fiction is the extent to which the character's delusional self is destroyed. If the actions this self performs leads to tragic consequences, this might be what some of those critics call "tragic consciousness," the tragic epiphany where the hero, too late of course, realizes who he is and yet cannot undo his actions.

All this can be applied to life, too. We see it happen with people we know. Yet art, the art of fiction, renders this process clearly, and shows us that it happens. For many people, they aren't really aware that their lives follow the same pattern, though usually not to tragic effects.

If I hear or read another use of the word "resolve" in another speech about 9/11, I am going to puke. Let's get a new word to describe our solemnity, strength, and innocence as americans., ok?

Watch or listen to any speech today, about the events last year, and I guarantee you'll hear the word. Is that all we got? Resolve? What the hell?

TV the visual cool medium has cheapened the whole situation of commemoration and memorial. I simply cannot look at another teary-faced old guy or a kid with their hand over their heart and a flag pin on their lapel sniffling & looking all serious and proud and tears rolling down this face of "resolve."

Nothing is wrong with the show of respect, patriotism, homage, but it's how TV shows it, and that the TV shows it OVER and OVER in the same way, is what makes it sickening. The medium and the form deflate, de-signify, disempopwer these images of any meaning. You could see the same slick presentation for a bar of soap, a laundry detergent, an order of fries: Slow pan over face (product) as national anthem (musical jingle) plays by military marching band.

This is supposed to move me?

(some ideas I've been hashing around about Cognitive Therapy and Yoga)

Cognitive Therapy and Yoga

Cognitive therapy focuses on cognition, or thought, positing that behind a problem or a conflict in a person's life is often a series of un- or behind the-consciousness of the person experiencing the problem. These thoughts, or complex of ideas, often are irrational, based upon misinformation, or misinterpretation of reality. You may observe irrational, conflictive, or angry behavior - say if someone reacts at a small slight or insult or dis - and it seemingly happens instantaneously. You assume because of the speed at which the reaction happens, that not much thought went into this reaction, that this was a true response-stimulus behavior patterns. You might think the person "wasn't thinking" when they yelled or cried or threw the plate across the room.

Yet, if you slowed the situation down to super duper slow mo and you analyze what the person was thinking (or better, have them analyze their thoughts) you find there is a complex series of thoughts, a path of ill logic, that is disconnected from reality, a distortion of reality. Indeed, you can unearth entire belief systems, thought patterns, systems of rules that, depending upon how accurately they describe external realty (here defined as everything outside the person's range of cognition), can place the person in a battle against their environment. All of these thoughts, rational or not, create the view that the person has of both their interpretation of reality and their picture of themselves in it - their identity in other words.

Whereas in cognitive therapy, the patient analyses their thoughts in order to deflate and untangle the faulty logic which can cause a misinterpretation of reality and consequently possible conflict, in Yoga, one strives to calm the mind and body to the extent that this blooming, buzzing mass of thoughts in the mind can be stilled, and one can ultimately transcend the lower, more automatic (and thus prone to irrationally/negatively influencing the person) forms of thinking. It is in the automatic, language-based realm of thinking wherein resided the ego, and it is this realm where the person experiencing conflict with their environment "has" or experiences most of their thoughts. This would be the realm where a person might mistake their thoughts for reality, and thus cause conflict.

In cognitive therapy, the goal is to analyze your thoughts to find out the misperceptions and misunderstandings in these thought patterns and rule/belief systems so as to achieve a more realistic and harmonious relationship with the world. Thus, the goal is to introspect, and become conscious of the inner so you can better deal with the outer.

In Yoga, the method is similar - become conscious of your thoughts - but with the goal of harmonizing one's thoughts with the body first, so thoughts will not negatively influence the body and cause poor posture, back aches, twisted stomach, ulcers, stress, which can ultimately wear a person down, make them unhealthy, and open the body up to disease. After the person learns good posture and how to control the body (as with Hath Yoga), one learns in the process how to control and still the mind, which is another way of learning how to quiet the constant din of thoughts flowing in our minds day in and day out.

Both Cognitive therapy and Yoga share the goal of becoming aware of one's thoughts, listening to them, understanding them and realizing how much they have in common with reality, and ultimately how to transcend them - i.e., so your thoughts do not own you and control you.

More running related items.
Last four days, 49 miles, and feeling good. Today is a day off and meant for eating and relaxing.
Planning to run 25 in Big Basin with Tom and Gil for Sat.
Considering buying some serious trail running shoes, either from Montrail or Northface.
I've always been wary of trail running shoes, as these are a new hybird in the shoe world. One running store in Santa Clara, the gusy there are track purists, and think trail running shoes are a scam, a marketing ploy. Yet, Gil ran the Marin Headlands 50K, and this was a national event which had the top trail runners in the world competing. He said they all were wearing serious trail shoes. I admit, I am obessessed with shoes. Yet for the runner, shoes are everything. Shoes can make the difference between happiness and utter pain.

Testosterone Diaries, Entry #23

Completed a Monster Run with Tom and Gil yesterday:

25.8 miles
4330 feet elevation gain
10:30 mpm average pace

Dude! If I can do that for Skyline to the Sea 50K (coming up Oct 5th), then I can do the full 30 miles just over 5 hours, which would be great. let's say 5hrs, 30 minutes, because the Skyline to the Sea run has 5880 feet of elevation, and the end of the trail climbs up out of Berry Creek Falls - a run Tom and I experiemented with last weekend and it is a tough 1050 feet up and out.

The Windy to Rancho Run
We met at 5:45 am at Rancho San Antonio park (the gates were open, which was surprising, and some people were already showing up, which was not). We then headed over Windy HIll Open Space preserve. Our ran started in the fog and slight chilly breeze with a mile or so warm up, then a 3 mile hill (yeah!) and then winded around and we plopped out onto skyline, finally awake. From bottom to top, the elevation climb was 1700 feet! It's a gorgeous run, very woodsy and tropical and rain forresty.

Windy Hill Course Map



Then we headed down skyline as big slick trucks and whiny speedbikes whizzed passed us, until we entered into Russian
Ridge OSP. This is the third time I've run this trail, and it is deceptively hilly, even though it looks rather tame. It basiclaly keeps climbing and climbing and rarely lets up until you are past Page Mill road and ready to cross Skyline. The climb on this segment was 1370 feet. You run on these long windy single track trails thatcling to rolling nhills, out in the open. Very pretty. Can be brutal if it's sunny, but we were lucky to have intermittent fog and a breeze.

Russian Ridge Course



Russian Ridge - Monte Bello Course



Then we crossed over into Monte Bello OSP. We knew we had one more big climb before we'd hit the Black Montain Summit. But none of us had been on the trail before. It was nice going down, and we saw two runners coming down. Then, we found the hill, and it was a major bitch. Only 770 feet, but it was only within about a mile and a half. It was relentless and brutal, and in the sun. This hill was tough too because we had already around 3K climb under out belt at this time and this is when we were inching close to 17 miles and had been running almost 3 hours.

We finally make Black Mountain summit and see some hikers and bikers. We take a small detour so we can see the valley from the peak. Then, we begin the descent into Rancho San Antonio. We know there's around 8 miles to go, and despite the fact that our legs at this point feel simultaneously like cement and jello, Gil and I start jamming down the 2550 feet of drop. In a way, running a little fast downhill for me was smart, because it loosened me up. But you have to be very relaxed. The jarring and slamming down on the legs can add up and fatigue the joints and muscles. I try to do less bouncing and more of a glide, as iff you were cross country skiing. Also, the pelvis tuck is useful. Once we got to the single track we really started running. Gil, with his new bitchen Nike speedometer/pacer/mileage watch said we averaged 7:20 minutes pace going down. That's good for being past 20 miles.

We finally got down to the Chemise trail and winged it back into the familiar Rancho San Antonio County Park. I felt surprisingly good and definitely felt I could go further. Knowing how close we were to a full marathon, I was toying with the idea of throwing in Rogue Valley trail, but htat would have put us in the 28 mile range. And, we had to make it Jim Tait's funeral.

Rancho Course



All in all, what a great run. I feel great today. That's the most elevation I've ever done in a single run, and I LOVE it! The only pain was my shins were incredibly stiff and tight, but other than that some good Yoga helped. And lots of food and water.

How about some lyrics from Missy Elliot? As featured on Biggie Smalls' song titled "Rapin Tacticts".

Let me clear my throat
Break the Smoke
Missy got to hit some high notes
HEY
Yo! From coast to coast
I burn like toast
So dope I that floats through snow, niggah
You don't want to bow to me the agony
Be like somebody help me please
Fill my pressure
Never could a bitch flow better
in any weather
I biggie bang bangin' ya nigga
I used to be the chick the licked the lollipop
Now I pop thoguh your body parts, Brah! Brah!
You like the way I interact, preceed the smack
Any MC that's whack
Microphone check one two I do you too
Like the freaks run through ya crew
Give it to me
Send it to me
But before I get down
Where's my money?
Let me get down.

Symbolic Behavior

What's interesting to me is less iconic/graphical symbols (though I do think they are cool and important) than behavioral symbolism, or symbolic behavior.

For example, when criticism of another person turns into symbolic behavior, or how this behavior can be symbolic of a personality dynamic, or trait.

E.g., when I email someone and they do not email me back, I get pissed off. If I get mad enough, I may say something, or even confront the person and ask, Why didn't you answer my emails. This is a behavior I disdain, I hate, and just makes me judge that person something to the tune of, "How dare you refuse to even acknowledge my communication, my very existence!"

Yet, I am guilty at times for not to replying an email, or responding to a phone call. So, for me to get angry at someone else for doing this very act, I manage to deflect responsibility for my own behavior and project (yes, that term you always hear in Psych books) or deflect it to someone else. Indeed, the intensity of my anger & judgment of that person relates proportionally to the degree to which I own/disown, or am conscious of this train in me.

Thus, the behavior of lashing out and criticizing another person for not responding to my GOD DAMN email symbolizes my own inability to own my own shit. Or, it symbolizes the internal process of projecting outward personality traits of our own we are unable or unwilling to own up to and admit we have. Behavior symbolizes an internal dynamic.

Here now we begin to deal with symbols: representing the irrational invisible.

My buddy Ian recently began a project to create a symbol for himself, something that would signify himself yet not indicate any brand or logo or corporate interest. Indeed, he set out to display this symbol on his car, as this is the location in our society, the land of personal cars, where people do a good deal of signifying. We have little choice when we drive but to look at the back end (the ass, as it were) of other people's cars.

Here's some symbols I came up with for myself, two little prototypes:



What is a symbol?

American Heritage says this:
1. Something that represents something else by association, resemblance, or convention, especially a material object used to represent something invisible. 2. A printed or written sign used to represent an operation, element, quantity, quality, or relation, as in mathematics or music. 3. Psychology - An object or image that an individual unconsciously uses to represent repressed thoughts, feelings, or impulses.

So, symbols are tools of signification, they represent, signify something, or are meant to. I like the psychological definition, in that object or images come somehow, even unknown to us, to mean feelings inside us that we may not be aware of. For example, if a person engages in behavior, neurotic behavior, excessive cleanliness, or the inverse, slobbiness, or maybe is addicted to coffee or alcohol, or always yells at his dog and kicks it, these behaviors, when irrational or beyond simple logic (even the twisting of one's hair) this all signifies and is suggestive of some inner unresolved problem.

This is what I like about symbols and psychology - there are feelings, modes of being, psychological states, wherein language (itself an entire system of symbols, very sophisticated) is unable to deal with, express feelings, irrational impulses, violent, sad, angry, and so language comes up short, and yet, signify we must, we must contstru meaning, it is the very nature of consciousness. And so, we grab symbols (or they grab us when we aren't looking) as a means of expressing the "trans-lingual."

We may buy a Raiders hat and start painting our bodies and yelling at their games.

We may buy a Bad Boy sticker and start acting like a tough guy.

We may buy a Jetta and think the symobl is so cool that we start buying products with this symbol on it.

In other words, yes, you guessed it: when we deal with symbols, we are dealing with the irrational.

And you always wondered why you liked Starbucks coffee so much. Ya may as well be snorting crystal meth on your lunch break!

Irony fun fact #54

Irony always has something to with the opposite, or contrary, of what is
+ Intended
+ Expected
+ Represented
+ Communicated

The opposite "meaning" that is communicated can be either intentional or unintentional.

When unintentional, like in a drama with a character who knows NOT what evil he sows or the tragedy that will befall him, we get into the realm of "dramatic" irony.)

Allright? Got it?

Survey:
Should men who are aging gracefully clip their
+ Nosehair
+ Earhair
+ Both
+ Neither

General Guy Rule #24
(Another reason not to hate Alanis Morisette)
Never get mad or angry and especially do not create a hate website about a good looking woman.




Separated at birth?

Didn't win the lottery. Bummer.

Spent a nice weekend with Ian and Rachel and their little place in Montara. The great and majestic Strauss sisters were there, holding court. I & R have a great new back porch/deck/patio that was perfect for chilling, drinking, snacking, and talking.
Ken Koller and Kathleen Sullivan were there, too. Swim in the ocean was nice. I never regret a plunge into the freezing pacific.

When I got home, to where my car was parked at Kathleen's house, there was a note on my car, a name and a phone number. I had no idea who this was or what it was for. Took the note, threw it away. Later the next day, I look at my car and there's a minor dent in the left fron side neat the headlights. I go looking al through the trash for the note, now where to be found.
Is that bad luck, or IRONIC?

Alanis Morrisette gets a lot of shit (this I hate Alanis website from a loser who has no better use for his time than to be wrong) for using that term incorrectly, for fucking up the English language, in her song titled (ironically?) "Ironic."
Sample:
"An old man turned ninety-eight.
He won the lottery, and died the next day.
It's a black fly in your Chardonnay.
It's a death row pardon two minutes too late.
Isn't it ironic...don't you think?"

Why is she getting shit for this? She's using the term correctly, in one ot the term's usages. Read what Bartleby has to say to define this term Ironic. Note the usage numbered 2a.

"2a. Incongruity between what might be expected and what actually occurs. b. An occurrence, result, or circumstance notable for such incongruity.

So there! Alanis' examples illustrate the incongruity between expected and outcome. (Not all the examples, but some. At least the pop star's trying, eh?)

But I'm afraid my experience with my dent is just bad luck. Maybe people use the word irony to describe their bad luck because it sounds literary, important. Bad luck sounds better when you are at the hands of some fateful god of Irony. Just like when losers whose lives are fucked up say, "Well, every thing happens for a reason." Yeah, your misfortune really is part of some grand design, so dont' feel so bad.

Two bands with girl singers I'd probably pay money to see/hear.

Zero Seven

The Be Good Tanyas are a little folky cornbally, but their version of Oh Susanna is pretty chilly.

What is the purpose of a blog, anyway? Is it interactive? Is it meant to unicate or communicate? Who the hell will read it anyway? Am I yelling into a void where no one else exsits or listens. I see myown reflection, read my own words because I am vain, and like to brag. This blog is not me. It is a persona, ok??


Running news: No track tonight. Need to rest, hydrate and eat. Mimi and others will be doing 4X2, four sets of two miles at whatever pace you want to run your marathon in


Gil ("Ultra Man") will join Tom (Tearemup) and me (Mountain Goat) for our 24 miler Saturday. We plan to do a run I've always wanted to run: Windy Hill to Rancho San Antonio.
This course starts in Windy Hill, climbs up to Skyline Blvd, winds through Russian Ridge and Skyline OSPs, heads up through Monte Bello to the Black Mountain summit (water), then all the way down into Rancho to the main parking
lot.


Miles: 24.3
Elevation: 2800 - 3000 (not sure yet)

YEAH! BALLS TO THE WALL BABAY!

First entry. Just trying to get a blog up and running. Do not like this style at all. Need to study these templates, and Ian's, and then make a better one. Also, question: why even blog at all? Isn't this just pure vanity? who in the heck would want to read it? Why not just keep a journal myself? This is a public forum. How different it this from yammering on my cell phone like the countless Yahoos we see in the supermarket calling someone just to describe the newest brand of peanut butter to their wife, or friend. Is the Blog the Internet equivalent of a cell phone?