12.31.2011

Adjective Old Year

Plerase note here that nobody says, "Happy Old Year." On the day of New Year's Eve, I wonder why they give up so easily in considering this ever-scarcer 2011 to be entirely spent. Today, it would be just like saying, "Have a good one," which is hardly outside of the bell curve.

I would suggest that it is nothing short of foolhardy to look only a little bit ahead with such faux-rabidity. Holy crap. Why not just kiss each other now instead of waiting for Dick Clark or Anderson Cooper to administer the go ahead? You can always kiss each other later--you'll be just as special later on.

Gosh, and think even farther ahead to Monday, or whenever people return to work, feeling both wistful and daunted and still dating things with '2011' by accident: is that actually thrilling?

So, all that I'm trying to say is that the future might be exciting, but let's face it: so is THE PRESENT, except the present boasts the additional distinction of being here NOW. But happiness and love to you and yours, in both this old year and the one that is nearly nigh.

12.30.2011

Adjustments: Undue Homework

In "preparation" for twenty twelve (whose name I'd write numerically, were its sequence of numbers not so, you know, counterintuitive, which is to say nearly nothing per the stunted force inside of me believes that unabbreviated living will somehow lead to a life of unfathomable bounty in tender of tremendous importance that is not necessarily negotiable), and amid chronic financial emergency, I have been inspired to review all sorts of "material," shocked to understand at last and at length how very little of it is actually tangible. In a year of precipitous peaks and troughs, I see their collective occurrence as having been dictated and defined by forces and systems of human construction.The weight of this reflection, and the futile hilarity of its implications, feels rather like trying to speak, yet emitting the sound of an activated whoopee cushion in lieu of a voice.

(time elapsed)

It must be stated at this point that I have yet to determine the structure and/or frequency of these posts. It's very clear, during the tumult of the season, that we have to give ourselves over to cleaning; there seems to be little choice by now. I guess that it's sensible to do this, but more significantly, it might keep people from injuring themselves on pernicious obstructions that masqueraded once as "gifts." While it's unfair to inflict attributions of motive upon inanimate things  (as if I know, for instance, that those legos on the floor want to cause pain to my bare feet), I don't think that I care any longer whose interests are at stake.

(time elapsed)

what a fizzlefest cleaning has been! hell if the rooms that i "tidied" are not substantially less navigable than the rooms to which others attended.

certain close associates think that multiple sclerosis has eroded my executive function, and they should be right, but i think that it's more my un(der)developed sense of personal boundaries that has done me in at every turn. it's how come stress acts as a toxin to my body, how come i'm challenged to request compensation for my work, and how come i'm reluctant, despite what most people think, to admit what it is that want. i smell a resolution approaching; i am replete with vague, ominous nausea.

i think that i'll go and prepare for New Year's Eve by ending New Year's Eve Eve.  

12.29.2011

A Day without Denouement

Ack! So, so much happening that I feel compelled not to mention anything except that.

Ivor (2.4 years) is detuning an acoustic guitar as he strums it. Every few minutes, he'll stop and applaud himself, and I love that he knows that which we are always striving to recall in any applicable sphere.

There aren't many sentences to this post, but that must be somewhat okay, given the magnitude of our travel over the last 24 hours. seriously. it was 16 hours or so, although it feels like it was so much more. It also possessed more legs than an arachnid, and its completion engendered a sense of satisfaction in us that was utterly unequivocal, like we'd come home in a conestoga.

12.28.2011

Someone Says

I don't know the source of this truism.

(Gosh, well, that itself is a truism, innit.)

Neither do I know the source of the following truism (although I am quite sure that it's from a Goddard College student):

The perception of time within a finite experience is analogous to the lifespan of a toilet-tissue roll. It seems initially to be boundlessly present, and use (let's say a 1-foot segment) does little visibly to diminish its abundance perceptibly. But then, a threshold of sorts is crossed, and that same 1-foot segment means so much more to the girth of the roll, yet nothing can be done about it. The real-life applications of this axiom are both apt and irritating.

12.27.2011

Spelling and Speaking

As a somewhat-newly minted 13-year-old person, I found myself a part of the callow and alkaline contingent of contestants in the 1991 Frederick County Spelling Bee.

It was Friday, May 24. The night before, I had gone to the Francis Scott Key Mall with my mother and chosen some new clothing for the event. I was determined to appear as though I had known something at some time, even though the fallacy of that was patently obvious to the bumbling self, accompanied by a bemused wondering why, if others did notice, nobody was saying anything. Like, "You've got a gigantic booger on your face, and it's you." That's what friends do, is it not? They don't want to cast you to the wispily moustachioed, denim-clad ne'er-do-wells on the school bus, do they?

(I'm digressing. It's been a stressful week.)

Already unconvincing, and long-since unconvinced, of my normality at even that juncture, I would sometimes do wacky things with mock-haplessness. In hindsight, I was like this in order to create an ambiguous berth for myself in terms of whomever I would end up being. As such, it surprised no one when I chose to commemorate Bob Dylan's 50th birthday (5/24/91) by speaking a grating approximation of his  vocal style's grating caricature. All schoolday long.

During that day, my 7th-grade class embarked on a field trip to the uncomfortably "casual" Catoctin Mountain Zoo between Frederick and Thurmont. Within the zoo, boundaries were defined rather loosely. You couldn't necessarily tell at points whether it was farm or a zoo into which you had just been thrust. Such was the size of their unregulated petting-zoo area, brimful of arse-ugly and fundamentally absurd emus.

As emus are akin to ostriches, there's not a great deal that you can say to, or share with, them in any mutually satisfying way. But I was undeterred, conjuring my impression of the good Mr. Zimmerman (Dylan) with what I felt was exceptional flair (and more-than-sufficient volume). When it became clear what was happening, the emus attacked. Nothing especially brutal, but lots of impassioned pecking and hurly-burly emu bravado that culminated in my being knocked off of the log on which I had been sitting. Their position had been made clear, and I had little clear choice but to treat it with the respect that it clearly deserved. My Bob Dylan impression was defeated. I consoled myself by remembering not only that Bob Dylan himself was living, but also that I would never make it to the Spelling Bee if there was any additional ruffling of feathers (har, har).

Which brings me to the Spelling Bee. I won it that night, but they were very understated about it, as Frederick County had already made the "executive" decision not to participate in the Maryland State Spelling Bee. This was fine with me, but there was a curious wrinkle to the affair: while my co-contestants were contending with words like "coloratura" and "zootechny," my big, moment-of-truth word was...

"emu. e. m. u. emu."













12.26.2011

subjective observations

FROM EARLY JULY

every time an opportunity--for conviviality, economic stability, right livelihood, whatever-the-eff rambunctious semi-adventure--appears, i have a burst of energy that is, all too often, not commensurate with the opportunity. often, my enthusiasm is utterly unwarranted, and is squandered as a result. it's like electrifying an inanimate object and expecting it to come to life in a unique way, only to see and smell it melting/burning/vaporizing. i become exhausted, and might even feign indignation, but the problem is entirely my own.


you would never really know by the "way" that it all-too-frequently "feels," but it is july. if this current morass of weather no-no-nonsense were in any way retroactive, then stevie wonder's (1st sellout) record "hotter than july" could reasonably bear the title of "room temperature."


Afoot Ahead Ago (Go)

(FROM EARLY APRIL, 2011)


Another indigestible specimen of world-class conundrum?


Appealing a rejected filing for disability. Wanna know why?


In America, at least, to have a disability is to contradict the allegedly robust American spirit, to somehow disrupt the free-market feudalism that has, evidently, "gotten us to where are" while "paving the way to a better tomorrow." So, it's both afoot and ahead. And it's hogwash. Prosperity is as esoteric and subjective a term as you can get.


Stay on topic, Benb.


Okay. Disability. If you've gone to school for years and years, and you fall ill, then it's stated that you're not disabled if you can do any work. Like an erstwhile biochemist isn't disabled if he or she can be a greeter at Wal-Mart. Not that any job for which you're "overqualified" will humor you in the slightest. It has been, and doubtless will be, suggested that there is a body of laws to prevent malfeasance in this department, but I'll generalize here by saying directly that bureaucracies tend toward a lack of trust in terms of things that haven't happened to them empirically or measurably. And it's simply out of cruel, punitive self-interest.


While there is much more to say about this, I am afraid that I'll have to finish later.