Rigor Mortis Vs. Vigor Vivus

Man suffers the death.

Death comes on us, after stalking us from the time we're born. That's the death that results from the failure of systems, the hardening of arteries, the clogging of conduits, the wasting away of vital tissues, muscles, sinews, and nerves, not to mention the skeleton.

With death, if you've ever seen it in action, you've got the full complacency of inactivity, a complete cessation of movement and functions. You wouldn't know to look at it that anything was going on. The only thing that is going on, so far as I know, is what would result from gravity or just the natural consequences of liquids and tissues giving way. All of it has to go somewhere.

To the naked eye, though, you're as still as you've ever been. To the observer looking down, you think nothing could be that still. A fan blowing overhead might disturb some loose hair but that's about it. Any other movement is strictly imaginary, unless, again, there's something internal giving way, which I've never witnessed. I have heard of movements, freaky, of course, but very harmless. It's like a neglected house settling. Eventually it all caves in.

Rigor mortis doesn't just happen; it has to get there somehow.

But this isn't a scientific tract on death and the hardening up of what once was soft and supple. I'm thinking instead of the death we have in life, being bunched up, tightened up, wound up, and inactive, shrunk up from the life that's truly within and all around us. Rigor mortis is a good term for it, with the opposite being what I shall call vigor vivus. I suffer and enjoy a little of each, respectively, but I want the balance to tip more toward the vigor vivus side.

Vigor vivus. What would that be? A pun? Actual Latin, maybe pidgin Latin, simply made up, I don't know. I wouldn't worry about it. You can easily see what it implies. You've got rigor and you've got vigor. Mortis is death, literal or otherwise, rigorously present -- nothing is stricter! -- and just to come up with something sort of similar, we're throwing out vivus. Like vivacious, viva, Vivian Vance, viaduct, valor, Vlasic pickles, Vlad the Impaler, etc.

So I can be sitting in a rigor mortis posture, waiting for or mentally hastening on the hardening of my mental, spiritual, psychological, and even physical arteries and channels. Or I can be demonstrating that there's more to me than giving up and falling apart, with vigor vivus. Taking life by the nuts and not letting go. Sending up the flag of life and saluting it. Everyone's got the rights of first refusal if you have any life and sentience at all. So why refuse?

If you haven't got goals, get some! If you're not up and with it, you're dying. Get up, get going! Vivus is for the viving, so vive with all your might! That's the best revenge, to vive vell...

Today, I vill practice vigor vivus!

Bowling With Bricks

Bowling balls are expensive. And the whole thing with drilling holes in them to match your fingers and thumb, it's all too much. You make one little mistake, like a hole too big or small, you're out $400 or less. And since I'm all thumbs, the added drilling costs are very high.

But bricks are not only economical, they're downright cheap. Meaning you'll never see a rich brick maker, unless they make up for the cheapness on volume. Which could very well be, because usually if you need one brick, you need a thousand.

That is, if you're not buying them for bowling. If you're looking for a bowling brick, you really only need one*, if you find just the right one, or you might get a few, like some smaller, more supple bricks if you want to go for a tricky spare.

You might raise the objection that bowling balls roll, and that's what gets them from one end of the lane to the other. You're depending on the circular shape to keep it moving as it seeks a place of stationary rest but never finds it till it meets with an immovable barrier. Sure, those are true points. But anyone can roll a bowling ball, there's no challenge in that. How about heaving a brick down the lane for five or six games. By the time you get through, you'll be sweating, your arm is sore, and your fingers are more or less torn to shreds. (A glove is good, for wimps.)

There's definitely one thing a brick has over the ball, even if it's a matter of storage. And that's this, when you put your ball in your carrying case, if you set it down it'll roll away. But not a brick. You set it down and it stays right there, because the generally square or rectangular shape doesn't have any give. When I had a bowling ball, I'd put the case in the closet, and, guess what, the next time I needed it it may have rolled all the way to the garage, and that's up hill. It was very frustrating to be looking all over the neighborhood for my ball. Now, with a brick, not only does it stay in one spot, it's harder to get to the car, since you can't drag it as easily as a ball.

Of course, if your experience is like mine, it takes some persuading to get the typical bowling alley owner to let you throw a good size concrete block at the pins. It seems they're a little put out, saying the bricks cause damage to the floor, which may be true, although I'd simply say, "Use it or lose it." If you can't offer the service your customers want, you might just go out of business. Then what? You're sitting there with an empty bowling alley, your kids are hungry, and your bills go unpaid.

The first time this happened to me, we were at one of the bowling alleys, and I guess the guy wasn't paying that close of attention to what we were doing. But a bowling alley is about the size of a mall. If you're off at the bar, or by the vending machines, or at the other end polishing lanes, you don't necessarily know what's going on at the other end.

Anyway, we're down there heaving bricks. And sure enough, the floor was taking on some damage. I don't know if it was faulty wood or what. But after only about five games, a big hole started opening up on my lane, and you can guess what happened next. I had to go searching for the manager and asked him to help me: "Could you help me get my brick out of the basement?" He came running and, I must say, he was less than gracious.

*I should add one pointer for any brick newbies out there. Since the bricks don't roll back, it's helpful to have several on hand. And maybe a wheelbarrow to collect them when they've piled up. Or, if you like a bigger challenge, you could replace the wheel with a big concrete block and just push it back on the next lane.

You Left Your Father's House

Did you leave your father's house? Shame on you. But birds gotta fly, and if you left perhaps it was for the best.

It's a matter of outcomes, which we can't always foresee, and circumstances. Was he left alone with no one for company, no one for errands, no one for tasks he couldn't do around the house? For that it seems like condemnation is the appropriate judgment. But was he surrounded by neighbors, other family, friends, a doctor or nurse? And did he have a substantial nest egg so he would want for nothing, fitting in a periodic vacation, maybe a trip around the world? In those cases, the judgment would have to be a little more lenient. More power to you.

Judging those who've left their father's house is a job for an old greybeard prophet, one who would walk the perimeter of the town, staring at the sun and hearing the still small voice from above. It's not hard for me to picture him going about his work, with the people of the town gathered on the wall, waiting for his infallible verdict. "Did I betray my father?" ... "Am I a shame to my family, to mankind?" ... Or, "Was my father left wanting for nothing, thereby thankfully letting me off the hook?" ... Or, let's say your father died and you provided for him, "Did I pay the bill for the nurse or doctor?" ... But what if he died in shameful circumstances, crawling the streets, calling out for you. In that case your question should be, "Shall I submit to my judgment and bow before the old prophet?"

The old prophet walks with an old gnarly stick, sometimes losing the top end of it in the face of the sun. It's quite a sight, it curls my hair. He's able to gauge things by instinct, seeing right to the heart of guilt or your plausible defense. "Father, O father, unlock the door and let me back in! Let me make things right!" Your howls go unheeded, and there's nothing more stark than that, a guilty man howling into the void, his pulse throbbing in time to the heat. "Boom chicka boom," like that...

You think back to the days before it was too late. You think of the old home place, a modest little house, never enough for you. You fought your father tooth and nail everyday, trying to make your own way. The walls were assaulted by the filthy language that streamed from your mouth, when you spoke to his face and broke his heart (1), and (2) when you were alone in your room, still seething, your mouth vomiting forth a stream of invective as big as Bunyan's ox and twice as blue. Shameful.

You think the ways your father did things, how he might pause and stutter, then accomplish his task. It was never good enough for you. Not you, who knew it all at 13, but now, looking back, you break down and realize, pausing and stuttering was just another way of thinking, cogitating, gathering up and arranging the steps of the task in a particular sequence, the kind of planning that makes something easier. But you didn't think of that at the time. All you knew was your father was a foolish old man, someone who didn't know his way in the world, a man of folly. What would you give to take it all back, now that it's too late? What would you give?

You think of the hopes he had for you. And they were huge. I'll turn my head while you think on your own. Pitiful.

Maybe you had a problem of Dad versus Mom, the old pair of opposites known as the rational side versus the emotional side. Mom was easier to deal with, but is easy always best? You tipped the balance to the emotional side, when the proper course would've been to keep it in equilibrium. If anything, you should've tipped the balance to the rational side, because Dad was right, Dad was so right.

I can imagine how it must have been, him sitting in his chair waiting for his wayward child to return, as the child sowed his or her wild oats, wasting the last bit of vigor and substance. It's a sad picture. Then finally you buckled down, got a job, got your own place, then had kids.

But somewhere, here or in glory, there's an old man in an easy chair, deep in thought, wondering, "Will the old prophet carry my message to my children. At long last, will they hear?"

The Will Of The Flesh

Church was good today. You might remember -- I've written about him before -- my minister is Pastor Wadd. Think back to January when we had the emphasis on delaying deliveries of beds from bed stores and even trying to outlaw beds all together. Because Pastor Wadd's specialty is addressing sexual addictions, both in counseling sessions and in church itself.

Way back when, when I first heard of this church, I read a little about it on the internet. Right away I noticed it featured Pastor's sexual addiction counseling and said this was the cutting edge in ministry today, mostly thanks (or no thanks) to internet porn. It seems a lot of guys (and women) wouldn't be caught dead in an actual adult bookstore, but they don't mind surfing it at home. Then they start lingering, ordering, and next thing you know, they're sexually active.

So I was leery at first, since I figured the Pastor would always be fishing around in our personal business, and, what would be especially bad for me in particular, trying to make us feel guilty. Indeed, he does all that and more, but he does it with a lot of affection, like he's very interested in what we're up to so he can help us through it. This isn't to say I'm actually guilty of anything; I'm actually not; I'm pure as the hoar frost that God scatters (Psalm 147:16). But I have a very guilty look when I know people are looking for guilt.

Anyway, in church today, Pastor got on the subject of "The Will of the Flesh." That was his sermon title and also the subject for testimony time. He called for some outright confessions of the will of flesh, how it's been going, the aim being to get it out in the open so it could be dealt with by the community.

Little Johnny -- he's not so little anymore, being now about 15, but we've been calling him Little Johnny for years -- said he saw some cleavage at Little Caesar's, but he immediately looked away after about 5 minutes. Everyone chuckled, kind of a nervous chuckle, including Pastor. Pastor said, "That's something for you to work on, cutting it down." I was sitting there wondering what it looked like, but who hasn't seen cleavage? But 5 minutes, that's an assault.

There was a woman, around 30, Lori, who said she's been able to cut her shower down to about 3 minutes. "Did you catch a glimpse of yourself?" she was asked. She immediately said no, then said she caught a small glimpse when drying. Pastor advised her to cut her shower to 2½ minutes, the quicker the better, in and out. And maybe invest in some dark glasses.

Sister Bertha raised her frail little arm, giving Pastor the opportunity to announce that this is her 100th birthday, and said we'd let her pass this week, which is just as well since she's had nothing to report for the last 30 years, they say.

Deacon Miller, a very victorious fellow -- he does a little bit of everything for the church -- reported he had 10 separate occasions in the past week when he was confronted by the will of the flesh. He was looking at a list so I'm sure it was an accurate count.

That's about it. Church got out and I went to Little Caesar's for pizza.

I Will Provoke You

You scurrilous knave, you dare visit this blog? After I royally dress you down, I bet you won't again. You'll pick up your precious marbles and go home. Which is just fine by me.

There's lots of fish in the sea, as they say. And as for me, I have bigger fish to fry. I doubt I'll miss you all that much, although the way I picture it, you'll be seriously wondering what I might say about you next.

You might be wondering, What happened to his vaunted kindness to visitors, strangers? Yes, that's the attitude I typically show -- fat lot of good it's done me. What I get in return isn't worth having, not even a word of thanks -- it's all taken for granted.

So just slither away with your bad self, it'll be all right with me. Slither back under your lizard rock, burrow slightly in the sand to make room for yourself. Yourself and no one else. You're fundamentally a selfish person. That's your fortune today, my personal word to you. Looking out for Number 1, so typical, so tedious.

I'll still be here, hoping someone worthy of my time and talents visits me. In that rare instance, I'll roll out the red carpet. So rare, it's still rolled up from when I got it. I hope it still looks new. I haven't seen it since the day I got it.

Let's just say I'm pessimistic. There haven't been five visitors to this blog who've measured up to even the least of my standards. What has happened precisely to taint the run of average people, I don't know; it's enough to say they've fallen far from the standard I imagined possible. It's making me yawn.

By now I'm writing for myself alone. I'm the last worthy person in the world. You can leave. I'd prefer it that way. But feel free to class up your piece of s--- computer, that's probably very slow to boot up and so full of viruses, spam, and spyware, you couldn't get a passport for it. I'm not addressing a drawer of the sharpest knives.

OK, I feel a little sorry for you. Most people of your completely worthless character and stock are not themselves entirely to blame. The problems you're dealing with -- the dulled mentality, the slowness to respond, certainly the slowness to initiate anything of value, came before birth. Your parents were idiots, pressed together as first cousins, and already halfwits, in the forbidden bed. Your grandparents were off somewhere eating lead paint chips.

Then they announced your conception. But with the crossed eyes, no one knew precisely who they were talking to, so the whole world listened in. Then the world held its collective breath, knowing about garbage in, garbage out. The prenatal people crossed themselves. What they were expecting is the stuff of some horror movies, or clinical studies, like "The Feeble Minds of Arkansas," a booklet I used to have, until I sold it to some moron on eBay, apparently with a flicker of sense and wanting to examine his own psychological dregs, but guess what, he wasn't even from Arkansas!

Your gestation period was a disaster. Mom's water broke a month before birth, meaning you had a very dry time of it, chafing your hide in the absence of lubrication. They had to double grease her just to finally extract the infestation. By now you looked inhuman. Other children thought you looked like a gorilla. Several laws on infanticide were specifically rescinded by a Congress pressed into emergency session, but when they went to choke the life from you, you bit them and everyone got rabies.

Then you went home, where you've been causing a hideous odor ever since, plus a row a minute. The school wouldn't accept you. They wanted a priest to baptize you, but with one terrified look, he cursed God and died.

And now -- and I've always considered myself blessed, one of the luckiest people in the world, in addition to my treasures of merit -- you've come to my blog, publicly soiled yourself, embarrassed yourself (as though you're actually capable of it,) and offended me. I might have to delete my blog, with its enviable archives, just to destroy any record and shame of your visits -- that's how frantic I am.

You're very existence is a scandal to me. If I weren't afraid of languishing and suffering in prison needlessly, as might happen were I to draw a judge who didn't know your reputation, I might confront you myself with violence. With your dying breath, if the choking process triggered any kind of rationality in you, in the end you'd thank me.

No one gets in trouble when they excise a cancerous tumor. And it's thought praiseworthy to protect your family and society against a marauding bear. But you never can be too sure about our system of justice, since they eventually let out most criminals. Personally, I'd throw away the key and get on my knees and pray that the earth would open up and swallow the building.

"Yeah," you say. "But you ought to be glad someone -- even a scurve like me -- chooses to read your crummy blog. Obviously you're not getting that much traffic." To which I reply, and this is my final word on the subject, "Don't do me any favors, loser. Please don't."

A Man, Not A Mouse

I went by a muscleman gym -- the Pumping Iron Gym -- the other day and started thinking about "The Rocky Horror Picture Show," how Dr. Frank-N-Furter quotes the old Charles Atlas ads about making you a man.

The trick, in my opinion, would be showing up the first time, getting the glances of the other guys pumping iron. But a little reflection tells you, they too were one time a mouse. Then they started lifted weights and soon were kissing their biceps.

There's another reference to this stuff that I can think of, a la Rocky Horror, a song by the Bonzo Dog Band, "Mr. Apollo," in which the Bonzos sing, "He's the strongest man the world has ever seen. And if you take his courses he'll make you big and rough, and you can kick the sand right back in their faces." Since in the comics Mac got sand kicked in his face and needed to bulk up so he could destroy the bully. There's one place where the Bonzos say, "I'm two separate gorillas."

Could they turn me into a man, not a mouse? I was already a member of a fitness club and that didn't work out. I haven't got the desire to drive down there everyday and work out on a bunch of germ-ridden equipment. So what makes me think I'd like to show up at the Pumping Iron Gym for the same thing. I'll probably just have to stay a 170 pound weaking.

But say I did go. It'd probably be like the fitness club, where it's interesting, they have the walls over by the weights lined with mirrors. You can see yourself from every angle picking up the weights. And they're definitely watching ... themselves. It's a narcissistic thing, all the staring in the mirrors, but you can't help it. Even on the thing where you pull down the weights, some kind of bench, there's a dozen of you in the mirrors, it's mesmerizing. You scratch your nose and the whole place scratches along.

The Pumping Iron Gym, though, they're not just into fitness. This is for truly hulking out, like getting you ready for the Olympics. If you keep going there, and if you're faithful at the weights, you're going to have your blood vessels bulging out, along with everything else. The only thing that's going to grow tiny, if you're a man, and I don't know how I would know this, since honestly I've never seen a body builder naked, is his you-know-what. Why? I don't know why I think that, but have you ever seen a stalking bulge in a body builder's pants; I haven't either. It's the only part of you that's not getting a workout. The rest of your cells cannibalize it.

The corollary in women is in their breasts, since they lose all evidence that they ever had breasts. You see them on magazine covers at the bookstore. They're hulked out, their bodies, and they need the full length bra for the upper girth, then they replace the original cups with little pieces of flat uncupped material. All they're doing is covering up the little things that stick out that babies need to eat from. But these gals, as far as I know, and I'm sure there have been exceptions, aren't reproducing. Who would they get for a partner? A mouse like me would be turned off, and the musclemen couldn't do it with the little pinky they've got left. It's ridiculous.

It'll never happen to me. I'm just not that driven. I'd like to be driven to get in fairly decent health, with fairly decent exercise. I need to get out and walk, that's for sure. That'd be better than going to their gym. With gears, pulleys, levers, extra weights, and other gizmos. There's someone out there trying to invent even more wicked looking stuff, to give these guys the illusion that any of it's desirable. Then they take supplements that come in plastic jars the size of buckets. They're hooked in that world, a sad thing.

As for me, I'll continue on in my mouse-like frame. And if I sprout a tail, fur, and cute little ears, so be it, but I doubt that's physically possible.

The Human Environmental Scientist -- A Restaurant

The human environmental scientist stops in today to visit a restaurant.

A restaurant is like a kitchen and dining room away from home. Each one serves a little bit of everything, depending on what they think their customers might like. It's all meant to be eaten and drunk.

I went in -- this is a place I've been before, so I'm used to their ways. But I don't think I'm such a regular (even though I've been there at least 25 times) that anyone recognizes me. I never say "the usual," even though that would be much easier if it'd do any good.

Anyway, I'm taking off my strictly dining hat today and putting on my human environmental scientist hat. I think of human environmental science (HES) as a form of anthropology that seems to be overlooked, being present in our everyday environment and examining it with a certain detachment. And I'm the perfect guy for the job, since I seldom feel so at home that I become comfortable. I'm sitting there like there's something wrong with me, aware that a camera might be tracking my every move. So it's like I'm wearing a shock collar, that's how aware and detached from the pleasure of dining I am.

I jotted down a few notes, so I think I'll just quote them and add whatever else comes to mind:

"As a human environmental scientist, I'm at a busy restaurant and it appears no one notices me. I blend right in." -- That's true, and it sets the scene. I'll have a further development of what I mean by no one noticing me in the next quote. As to this present quote, it establishes the fact that I was there consciously as a human environmental scientist, showing that this isn't a later fictional concoction for the sake of looking like a big shot. To me, it's interesting to "blend right in," since I'm all too aware that someone could be alarmed upon my appearance. "Who's that studious creature over there with the notebook and Big Ear scribbling who knows what?"

"That's good. Any observation of me has made note of the clear fact I'm not a dog or a three-headed alien." -- This is important, because it's something I occasionally think, if I were a dog everyone would be looking; it would be most unusual for a dog to be sitting in a chair at a restaurant with a plate of food. The same for three-headed aliens, which would be strange enough to raise a clamor that wouldn't easily abate. The upshot of this note is that I fit right in, so I'm able to made human environmental notes to my heart's content, as long as I'm discreet.

"The smaller people seem to have smaller portions. Makes perfect sense. A bigger guy has it piled high and deep." -- So it's true, just as I figured it'd be, that the size of the eater in part determines the size of their portions. There's a ratio in there somewhere that could be worked out. But your present human environmental scientist isn't good at math. I keep thinking, Why couldn't I be a math prodigy? I probably could've been if I would've applied myself in school. But I didn't, alas. Still, you don't have to be a mathematician to see that big attracts big and small small. And there's a lot more to this one in terms of the restaurant, because, since it's not a buffet, I'm sure they prefer the bigger eater. But if it'd been a buffet, of course they'd slit their wrists if this particular mountain of a man I saw showed up.

"I notice [*] some are eating with a lot of ostentation, blowing a trumpet before each bite. How vain. [*] My original note said "a lot of people" instead of "some," but I crossed it out. -- The key thing here, though, what is most relevant for HES, is not the negligible difference between "some" and "a lot of people," but the unusual (in my experience) detail of people blowing trumpets between bites. Just in jest, let me say, that'd be messy for the trumpet! Crumbs, mayo, cheese, grease, flecks of lettuce, not to mention all the moisture. I'd want to make sure I cleaned my trumpet really well if I had to get to a concert! That's probably why they even had trumpets, because they're part of a band. Visiting town, hoping to stir up some publicity for the concert. But as far as I'm concerned, it's ostentatious and vain, since the phrase "blowing a trumpet" has at its heart those connotations.

Building A Race Of Supermen ... From Me

I don't remember how old I was when I first realized someone would try to create a race of supermen by using me in the process. I must have been around three or four. It was definitely before I started kindergarten, since this was the subject of the first note my kindergarten teacher sent my mom.

Where I got the idea, it's not as stupid as it sounds, it was thanks to reincarnation and my dad being a devoted direct disciple of a famous Indian guru. Other kids had mobiles over their bed with doggies, cows, cats, etc., but mine had landmarks of the world, like the Eiffel Tower, the Taj Mahal, etc., since my dad was already trying to sound out my prior incarnations. All I wanted was to be normal -- I remember telling the doctor who delivered me. But they wouldn't allow me.

Obviously, it was this doctor who contacted the government and said there was something unusual about me. The government no doubt asked him how he knew and he described for them some of our mature conversations. And the fact that I refused to be in the same room with a bunch of bawling kids. The hospital put a curtain up in my mom's room and brought in a desk so I could work at my studies.

The government dropped out of the picture for a number of years, probably to give me a chance to grow up, to see if I ever amounted to anything. And that's part of the reason I purposely cultivated the disposition of an underachiever, because I just wanted to be happy ... and left alone. But recently, I guess I got cocky and lost my reserve, thanks in large part to this blog and all the other things I write on the internet. I thought, No one reads this stuff, no one takes it seriously.

But it appears the government has agents who don't forget, so guess what, they're on my trail again. I started exploring some of the hits I've been getting on my posts -- they're reading me right now -- and for the most part, it was government computers. They're very devious, having googled my name. From there it was a matter of clicking the links. So they've seen my super intelligence on display, alas, and now they're on to me.

If I drop out of sight and you don't see me here, that's why. But if I can give them the slip, I will. Which could be hard to do. Being the center of the universe isn't easy. Fortunately, I've made some very in depth studies of spirituality, and have perfected the art of consciousness displacement, so I can literally pass for brain-dead, even more than usual. That's one way to fool them, but I have to work extra hard to keep my consciousness hidden in the room so I can come back if they start to embalm me. All you have to do is pop in, sit up, then pop back out, and that gives you a few days leeway while they try to figure out what's going on.

Anyway, if I submit to it, I know that's what's going to happen, they're going to extract scads of my DNA to build this race of supermen. It could be that copies of me will completely take over the world, and I don't want that. Because I think variety is the spice of life, plus I don't want to see myself coming and going. Since I'm very good at finding bargains at garage sales, I don't want to compete with every other me in the world. Plus, I have respect for other people's happiness. If they stop breeding because of me, there's a lot of guys who'll be very frustrated, and they might come lumbering up to my house like horny zombies.

What would a race of supermen made of me actually do for the world? I don't know how to fight, so we'd all be like Gomer Pyle, forever a private in basic training, five or six seasons. I'm not exactly a pacifist, but I'm more a pacifist than a warrior. Maybe that's it. If the whole world became a race of supermen made of me, there wouldn't be any fighting, no war, except fighting over bargains.

The Pink Professor -- The Heavenly Marriage

I've entitled this "The Heavenly Marriage," but that's not to imply that I and the Pink Professor are actually getting married at this time, the sort of everyday legal thing that people do. Quite a few of the states, in fact, would not legally approve our union, for whatever reason, more or less all coming down to bigotry and ignorance. But presently he and I actually have the inside track on that, if we choose to take it. Right now, he and I are thinking of our soul union, the joining together of lovers in a more wonderful sense.

I would guess you only needed a glance at the illustration today to see that something of the highest union is being represented, the guru chakra, the small inner triangle and its smaller surrounding area, and the larger sahasrara chakra, portrayed as an umbrella shape, which I believe is meant as a cutaway/cross-section kind of thing. This graphic is online at this addy, but it's taken (with or without permission) from the book Layayoga -- The Definitive Guide to the Chakras and Kundalini by Shyam Sundar Goswami.

My understanding of the match up of these representations to reality (the way I imagine it) is limited, but Goswami cites many sources that explicitly say these forms, with variations, and this includes the other chakras as well, are seen more or less as pictured in his book. The way I generally take it, at this point anyway, since I myself haven't glimpsed them, and of course I'm far from being the authority, is that they represent something like pulses or congeries of energy, and thus are similar to a roadmap to territory. The energy, again in my way of thinking, could be pictured as small (micro or specific) or large (macro or cosmic), amounting to the same thing in the sense that it can't be pinned down and conclusively defined, but it can still be perceived within our consciousness.

That said, it seems obvious to me that the precise labels (names of gods, etc.) that are attributed to them in the gurus' explanations are changeable, that a person's culture, spiritual background, and even preference can give different labels to them that would be just as authoritative. (This is a tricky question, what authority is in spiritual matters.) As an example, guru in the chakra in Goswami's book is Brahman (p. 263, Goswami citing another writer.) Guru is looking up, beholding forever the 1000 petal sahasrara chakra and its contents looking down; the chakra has multiple divine labels and powers.

My theory is that, just like Roman and Greek gods having the same qualities yet different names, you can read the various traditions of the world into the same energy forms. Such as Christ (Son of God), the Father, and the Holy Spirit. Or, let's say we had a seemingly less elastic tradition such as Islam, Allah would be uppermost, then -- I don't know -- aspects of Allah's power below, or probably angels and exalted prophets. But Islam isn't one of my specialties, my specialties being writing humorous blog posts and going out to eat.

Anyway, I know it's going to be the rare bird who's read this far, so at this point I could say anything. Having said all that, I also believe the same energy forms (chakras) can be read in lesser ways, although not that much lesser, because I don't want to discount the love I have for the Pink Professor and the love the Pink Professor has for me. Whether he's top dog, the sahasrara, and I'm the guru; or I'm the sahasrara and he's the guru, those are either beside the point or would alternate depending on our moods. Suffice it to say, I'm one of them and he's the other in this little scheme I'm scheming right now.

I know I lost 90% of you, but that's OK, because there needs to be a certain amount of sifting. That's the way it was for my mother, back when they sifted flour. You started with about 20 pounds of flour, but by the time you got done sifting, you had about one pound you could use. I remember many a time going out behind the garage to bury lumpy flour among the furnace cinders. But I digress, unnecessarily, since I know I just lost so many readers than now I have .0001% of what I started out with, which was about 5.

But really, can you see what I'm saying about the Pink Professor and me? Our love, in my not so humble opinion, is the highest love, like that of God and the highest aspects of God. (And lest anyone accuse me of blasphemy, and you happen to be swayed by biblical proof texts, the Apostle compares the ideal love of marriage partners to that of Christ's love for His church, Eph. 5. But, really, blasphemy? Are charges of blasphemy even sustainable these days? You're dead in your sins and blasphemy's all you're worried about? LOL!)

OK, so there we are, Frick and Frack, Top Dog and Top Dog minus some infinitely small number while allowing still for equality, two aspects of energy very much in love [personal tribute to my mother there], George and Gracie, Bogcall and Bacart, Armstrong and Aldrin, Barack and Michelle, Butter and Oleo, Sambo and Tigers, Lennon and McCartney, Lady Gaga and me when I spent the night at her place, Bo and Dacious, Awe and Some, Se and X, Anderson and Erickson, John Paul I and John Paul II, Santorum and Turtles, Benedict XVI and any offending priest, Goodson and Todman, Adolf and Eva, Bismarck and Donuts, Hanna and Barbera, Lieberman and Republicans, and Skunk and Shitheads, not to be too redundant on the last two pairings.

We are joined together -- the Pink Professor and I -- in an eternal love like -- notice I said like -- a heavenly marriage, which I believe is more wonderfully called a hieros gamos. The first word signifies love at first sight, i.e., love from the moment we said "Hi," and gamos refers to the song "Game of Love" by Wayne Fontana and the Mindbenders, which, through some unfortunate oversight, seems to restrict love to male/female pairings. That'd be OK for Adolf and Eva, but what about Goodson and Todman, Bismarck and Donuts, and Rick and the Ninja Turtles?

As to me and the Pink Professor, we're like that, in like Flint. I can smell him coming a mile away, my nose in the air like a dromedary discerning the first hint of water at an oasis. And usually when I see him, his nose is in the air, too, sniffing for me. We love like Rumi and Shams, and I'm willing to be a fool for his love, as in the Rumi verse, "Drink all your passion, / and be a disgrace." (from Coleman Barks, The Essential Rumi, p. 3). We are absorbed in one another's eyes, physically and spiritually pouring over, and frequently making a mess.

Yes! Yes! Yes! Oh, God, to think these are all natural body motions! I'm overwhelmed by every afternoon delight! And being afternoon, afterward we make a few sandwiches and watch Jeopardy.

In Solidarity With The Colorblind And Dogs

Note: I don't know how to make the headline black print, so other than that and whatever else I can't change, my signature line, etc., today's post will be completely black and white.

Today I'm standing in solidarity with anyone who might be colorblind, and also thinking of dogs, who are well known to be colorblind. As for me, I can't imagine how weird it must be to be colorblind, and I'm speaking as a dog owner who's very close to his dog.

Like everyone else, all I have as far as sight goes is my own experience. I can't see the world the same way other people do, although we all assume that people who see red, green, and blue, are seeing them the same way. Certainly if you ask someone if a particular color is red (and it is), they're going to agree to that fact. But someone who's colorblind probably wouldn't be able to agree to it. Unless they're able to make distinctions between the shades of gray through long experience, I don't know. Of course if they see a stop sign, by now they would know they are red by law; it's right on the driving test. The contrast is that dogs can't talk, so there's no agreement there, nor do they take driving tests, although conceivably they could ride along if the examiner happened to be blind.

The big difference between colorblind people and dogs, other than being people and not dogs, is that colorblindness isn't our typical experience as a species, but for dogs, they don't know anything else. Apparently something happened genetically, or if colorblindness came later in life, it might've been from looking at the sun or resulted from an illness or disease. Dogs also have illnesses and disease -- they share that with chickens, at least, and probably other birds and animals -- but colorblindness for them is innate, a given at birth. Just to take it a step further, birds see color, which is why they're so colorful, for mating, protection against predators, etc. The biggest difference between birds and colorblind people is that they (birds) can fly unaided by mechanical means.

Speaking of birds and dogs, I watch my dog a lot when I take her out. And she doesn't take birds seriously. Really! Occasionally she'll make a feint in their direction, but she's learned that birds fly, whereas squirrels, which she loves to chase, do not (leaving out flying squirrels, which we don't have where we live.) And it could be that some of her colorblindness affects her ability to distinguish squirrels from surrounding trees and leaves. The other day she was less than three feet from a squirrel, and as long as it sat still in the leaves it was going to be safe. But as soon as it moved, she noticed it and chased it up a tree. But I, who can see colors very well, noticed it right away. A colorblind person wouldn't be able to say that. Although to be entirely truthful, sometimes I have a hard time finding dog poop in among the leaves, because it's either the same color or a shade off. I can only imagine how hard it is for colorblind people to clean up after their dogs.

Anyway, colorblind people, for all their difficulties, are all right in my book. And the same goes for dogs.

The Pink Professor -- Don't Judge Us

It's been real nice out, so I suggested something different for me and the Pink Professor to do. Why not get out of town, go to a different town, a small town in the area, and spend the day? So that's exactly what we did. Maybe it wasn't the greatest decision.

We stopped in some little Mom and Pop place for breakfast, and I was amazed at the prices. We had stuff like biscuits and gravy, bacon, juice, etc., coffee, and the bill was something like $11 combined. There were some townspeople in and out, and we're sitting there not knowing a soul, but we felt right at home. Till I heard some whispering -- you know sometimes people are hard of hearing, so you can hear them whispering across the room? The quick glances of different ones over their shoulder gave me to think someone was looking down on us. What's the problem, you never saw two guys out for breakfast before? But I didn't really say that.

After breakfast, mid-morning, we were over at a local park. I'm kind of a kid at heart and still can have a lot of fun on playground equipment, in moderation. So we were doing that. There weren't any kids there, so we were swinging. I always like it when you've got someone else swinging, then you're grabbing their feet, tickling them, smacking their butt, etc. It gets the other person riled up, and usually they laugh so hard they finally get sick. Or beg you to stop. Or get off and chase you around the park.

OK, maybe a few of my butt smacks against the Pink Professor's posterior were a bit much, a bit loving, but I figured to the naked eye they'd look merely like slow motion smacks. I turned around and there was a couple of folks looking at us, eyes bugged out, mouths agape. I put my hands in my pocket like I'd been doing something wrong. The Pink Professor quit swinging and we stood there quietly, like we were confined in invisible stocks. The couple shook their heads and walked off.

Then I looked and there was another guy, this guy on a bench, and he quickly looked away. Strangely, he motioned to us to come over. He said, as best as I remember it, "You probably think I was judging you too. I wasn't. I just happened to be looking over there when you looked over here. Then I was looking away already. I didn't want to appear to be judging you for being together. If I was any younger, I might've joined you." I explained that we too were fairly old -- obviously not as old as him. Anyway, I said, it's never too late to do the right thing for yourself. I told him that we met only late last year, 2010, so don't give up on love, it can bloom anytime. His eyes lit up. I felt compassion welling up in me, and went over and gave him a big old hug. One beautiful soul! He explained his name was Lyle.

Then we were out for lunch, a different place than breakfast, but it was the same old story. By now, though, we'd had a busy morning, it was getting hotter, we were perspiring moderately, and no doubt some of that came across like some kind of natural, sexually attractive musk. Plus, after some great physical activity my voice usually sounds a little huskier, and I did have the beautiful spirit of Lyle on my mind, maybe my gregariousness got the best of me. I was looking at the Pink Professor with adoring eyes, and some of the people around spotted that. I saw some judgmental glares, but I was so filled with adoration, this time they had good cause.

Evening came and we thought about checking into the local motel. Here's where we learned that we might have real problems. But the host was nice. I didn't catch his name but he looked like a Slim. Slim had a slow drawl, that kind of voice that if he'd been chewing something he would've had to pause every 15 seconds to spit. He seemed honest. He said, "I don't care so much the kind of people who show up -- just so they pay their bill and don't wreck the furniture. But I know the other boys pretty well... And I'd suggest you park your car 'round back and leave before the cafe opens." That'd be about sunrise.

I looked at the Pink Professor and he looked at me. We thanked Slim for his kindness. I gave him $5 for a tip. Then we got the hell out of that town. I might go back sometime -- incognito -- and look up Lyle, a very beautiful soul.

The Sex Offender's Ashes

He was in prison for various offenses. While there, he was bruised and beaten by the other prisoners, who, no matter how bad their own crimes are, famously always hate anyone who's hurt children.

Later, he got out, then he faced the scorn of the town. No one had forgotten. Because of one of the town's well-meaning ordinances, he was forced from his family home, which had been in the family for a hundred years. All because of its close proximity to a school. Which was built only 80 years before, meaning the family actually had first dibs on the land.

He lived under the interstate bridge for a while. But he was spotted and driven out by Department of Transportation dicks. Then he camped down near the railroad tracks, until railroad dicks chased him out. Then he planted a tent in the forest quite a ways from town, but someone reported him and forest ranger dicks forced him to pull up stakes.

It got to the point where he couldn't go to the grocery store or even the post office. He became emaciated through the lack of food. And intellectually stunted through the lack of mail, which, though it dumps on us a ton of useless junk mail also occasionally bring us a book that we ordered online.

Finally, he died. Then they found his last request and it was to have his ashes scattered on the old home place. But because it was within 2000 feet of a school, that was going to be a problem. Both sides had an understandable argument. The family thought it was only right to honor his last request and put his ashes near the soil he called home. But the authorities thought there was a problem with it, since it was this guy's ashes. Who knows what he might be up to?

A big controversy ensued, and it ended with the family going ahead and doing it anyway. Now we're looking at a possible ordinance that families will no longer have custody of the ashes of convicted sex offenders. Instead, the authorities will see that they are properly disposed of or flushed.

Someone Broke And Drained My iPad

Someone hacked into my house, probably the famous hacker "Anonymous," took my iPad from my computer shelf, broke its glass, and drained out most of the water. So there it is in its present sad state, one corner like a desert, dried right down to the back, the rest of it helplessly sloshing around every time I pick it up. Of course it's worthless now, another $400 to $600, depending on what they cost, down the drain.

Grandma Slump Is Dead

Note: The interesting news and admissions in this post have nothing to do with April Fool's Day. This is not a joke, no more than if it were April 2, which it will be tomorrow.

Grandma Slump is dead.

I'll stop and let that sink in.

She died. Now here's the interesting part: She died in 1973. How can this be? you may be wondering. Haven't I referred to her several times as though she were alive and still in her bedroom resting? Yes, I have. How I can completely escape the charges of being less than truthful -- a liar -- I don't know. I hope to just beg your pardon and figure that I've received it.

But is it simply the case that I am a liar? I'm not a Republican, so there must be some other explanation. I believe there is. Let's call it not wanting to accept her death, perhaps, then being caught up in an unending downward spiral of grief. I'm still mourning dogs from the late '50s, so it's not completely out of the question. Maybe only now am I ready to face the facts.

One fact still remains, that I'm still living in Grandma and Grandpa's house. You can see it on Google Earth, so that proves it's still here. You can see the half acre, the well, the maple tree, the whole business. I just wish I'd known when they were flying over, I would've gone out and waved.

To keep Grandma's memory alive, I've kept her room just as she left it, minus the personal hygiene receptacles that I did drain and clean shortly after her death. But now that I'm finally ready to accept her passing, I've decided (and already gotten to work on it) to remodel it as an alternate love nest for myself and the Pink Professor. I figure if it was good enough for my grandparents to have sex on the sly and bring forth five children, it's good enough for me.

Some of you have written in, being very close readers of this blog, asking about her. And a few of you have been concerned that I've been neglecting her by spending nights with the Pink Professor at his place. "Is anyone watching your grandmother? Helping her to the bathroom at night? Turning her so she doesn't get bedsores? Making sure she's well-hydrated?" These and other Nervous Nellie questions you've posed to me. I've been tempted to tell you off and to mind your own f)@#!^% business, but of course I don't want the health department knocking at my door, so I said I'd brought in a nurse from the Ratchet nursing service. The simple fact now that she's dead ought to ease your mind.

1973 ... good grief, how long ago was that? 2000 ends in a zero, so I'll leave that year out. It's like -- let's see, '73 up to 2000, then drop the year, start with 1 through 11, which is 11, then add in the first number, scratch scratch scratch ... it's something like over 20 years, drop the zero and that leaves only two years ago? That can't be, I started the blog in 2008 and she was already dead for some time; in 2008 she still had died in 1973. Let's just say she's been dead long enough that she hasn't come back. Like John Brown, a'moldering in her grave, which I've visited a time or two, since it's just across town, on my way to the races.

And here's something you might've forgotten: The picture of her above isn't even really her. Remember that? This is something I mentioned way back in my second post. Playing the part of Grandma Slump is Mother Kendall, which is what it says on the back of the original photograph, which I bought at an antique store in 2008. It was supposed to be $3.00, but somehow it was on sale for 50 cents. So I could've bought six grandmothers for the price of one, but I only needed one at the time.

This business of her being Mother Kendall, sometimes I think of that. Because Mother Kendall likely was someone's actual grandmother. Meaning there's people out there who might show up at this blog and go, "What's my grandmother doing on the internet?!" To those folks, I say, "So what are you doing with your grandmother's pictures in an antique store?" But I'd be nice, because I'd love to get additional pictures of Mother Kendall, since I'm completely attached to her by now.

Finally getting this out in the open is good for me. Because I've been concerned with continuity, and, really, the whole business of turning her, cleaning her up, checking for bedsores, changing her sheets, etc., would be very important. And it makes me feel guilty spending the night with the Pink Professor across town if I think people think I'm neglecting her back at home. See, I'm not. She's passed on, a little over two years ago, in 1973. At the ripe old age of 70, even though I've said she was 104. She was old enough to know better, but too old to die, if I sit here and think of how close I actually am to 70 (I'm still in my upper '50s).

Grandma's dead. I've finally said it. Now if I can only make myself accept it. ... There, I accept it.