anamnesis

Just messing around with Exercise #1 from The 3 A.M. Epiphany, trying to wake up from a late night Friday. The exercise is to write from a first person point of view and only use the word I, me or my in reference to yourself twice. --- The Confession The short grumpy officer with his balding head slammed the door as he left the room. I had five minutes to sign the confession or things would get ugly he said. But the words on paper made no sense. "Willful non-compliance with sections 5a, 7b-c, and addendum 9 of inter-galactic non-locality law blah blah blah... violation of the standards of space-time continuum for purposes of criminal mischief and negligent endangerment of consensual contracts with reality." This must be another dream; it was so hard to tell the difference anymore. Was this the dream police? Do such things exist? "Why do you ask?" A gnome in the corner said nonchalantly. Oh god, this really is a dream. Not only can he not exist, but he can read tho...

Did you ever see something that couldn't "technically" exist? I have. This article reminded me of it. Many years ago, in the back-country of the rocky mountains, I was camping with Brighteyes and some friends. It was a pretty remote location with beautiful vistas, a series of lakes that cascaded down into a valley fed by a waterfall that plummeted hundreds of feet from a ridge of the continental divide. We camped there several days and one lazy afternoon I lounged against a warm rock just enjoying the awesome feeling of the elements when I felt a prickly sensation on the back of my neck. You've probably felt this when someone was staring at you ---and this is exactly what it felt like. All my camping buddies were way down at the camp and there were no other people around for miles and miles. When I turned around I saw the most unusual cat I've ever seen. I've seen mountain lions, bobcats, lynxes, cheetahs, tigers, lions and most every type of big cat in eithe...

Many thanks for all the wonderful cards, novelties, calls, serenades and general enspoilment on my birthday! Had a great lunch with Brighteyes, Sonic and Mew the day before and a sumptuous breakfast out with just Brighteyes this morning. I am truly blessed. About every birthday, in particular, I like to explore something new. Mew turned me on to a new music genre called gypsy punk , lol. And I must admit it's pretty catchy. I'm listening to Gogol Bordello at the moment. Have to add this category to The Cardigans as a new find. I also decided to explore yet another genre that I'd been thinking about for a while: the adventure game. These are an interesting hybrid of storytelling and puzzle solving. They unfold like a movie, but one which you play a part in to discover what is going on. The one I picked for my first exploration is called " The Longest Journey. " (Actually, I picked the sequel, Dreamfall , but reading reviews said that you'd really have more fun ...

OK, probably only Skrylar is going to get this, but it actually is kinda funny. And now I'm all caught up with posts for the rest of the week ;-)

Part of working in pseudo-management over the years has been exposure to many different styles of conversation. Not particularly the content per se, but rather the structure. One specific style has been critical to communication across a broad spectrum of people ---some skilled communicators employ it naturally; others have picked up the technique with a few simple pointers and, through a little trial and error, have rapidly found it indispensable. One of my job descriptions in the past has been assisting some pretty hardcore geeks, some of which were actually frightening others on our staff because of their odd ways of interaction, by helping them to communicate more effectively. Most of my "cases" have turned out well, especially when communication was presented to them as a "technology." Some even became scarily skilled once they understood how to "hack" their style. Anyway, I'll talk about the really cool style last but first, here are a few that o...

Math teachers may take issue with this, but I think it shows some pretty innovative thinking :-)

Stratagem #3 from the Secret Art of War. I don't know which is the conspiracy... what we have been told to believe about 9/11 or the many unexplained and disconcerting questions that are unanswered ---and what they may allude to. In any case, some of the questions in this documentary are, I believe, extremely significant, and have not yet been answered. You may want to look at it before it is taken down. Or maybe it's all old news now. Perhaps in our ADD world, all a scandal needs is enough time for the public to lose interest? This certainly gave me pause. How much of it is true? Most everything presented is certainly verifiable. Curious indeed.

That is the title of one of my absolute FAVORITE books as a child. I bought it again as an adult but I haven't worked up the nerve to re-read it. I'm afraid to taint the magic, if that makes any sense. But the ideas of dimensions, especially as fabrics that can be folded or wrinkled, has always resonated with some subtle reality detector deep in my psyche. So imagine how much fun I had with this (turn your speakers on before you click on the image! When you see the menu, click on "Imagining the Ten Dimensions" in the Navigation menu on the left, which will slide out as you mouse over there.) If you are interested in exploring this further, I recommend a very entertaining (and enlightening!) book called Flatland. A Romance of Many Dimensions . Which you can read free at that link. It's about some little critters that live in 2 dimensions and the types of trouble one has when he lifts off to the 3rd dimension and tries explaining it to his friends.

I enjoyed Ger-bean's post on Words of Wisdom . Hope he'll find the time to update his entertaining and informative blog on the road! His and Marbella's post made me think if I had come to any great insights on my journey. At which point I run smack into my non-verbal hemisphere which claims I'll just butcher anything it has to tell me by putting them into words and will probably phrase them in such a way as they will be misinterpreted. So, meh. I'll just try to salvage some around the edges; here are a few thoughts that pop to mind. There are no great truths. Just little truths that it is possible to wrap our minds around. Anytime we think we know the "answer" to anything it is almost certain that a) we don't have all the facts. b) the facts we do have can also be interpreted in ways that support the opposite of what we think is truth. c) what we think we know is usually just where we stopped thinking about something because that's all we wanted to...

In an old martial arts parable, a young student seeks out a master to further his studies. The student, striving to make a good impression, talks about the lessons he has learned from various instructors as the master humbly pours him tea. While the student continues to elaborate on what he has learned, his cup fills up but the master keeps pouring and it starts spilling out on the table. The student jumps up and yells "the cup is already full master, it can't hold anymore!" And the master smiles, setting down the teapot. I've been thinking of Pluto this week. After posting the previous entry it kept tugging at the back of my mind and I knew it had something more to say. So I let it percolate all week and today it finally spit it out; it thought I'd obliterated two subtle points in my broad-stroke overview. The first point Pluto addressed congealed into this: our lives are always full . No matter what stage we are in, our cups are always full. To add or change any...

Ger-bean's post on pancake dips got me thinking. I'll try almost any food once. Sometimes twice, just make sure I really didn't like it. And some foods which I really don't like, I'll keep trying once a year or so just see if I have developed a taste ---because they look like such fun to eat (pickles comes to mind.) But there are a few that I've learned to approach with caution. I'm going to describe one that probably should have a warning label on it, and then offer a cool fast-food-health recipe I've had success with of late. My first experience with Ethiopian food was what Ger-beans technique reminded me of. We took the chilipeppers out for dinner once when they were about 4 and 6 and sat down to a feast at a little family run Ethiopian place painted in Jamaican hues. We were seated on the floor and the meal came out on a low table. You ate everything with your hands and rolled or picked up the courses with pieces of injera, a type of Ethiopian spong...