senses

Sometimes competence registers, to the competent, as a kind of numbness.

trouble brewing

I shouldn't take so easily to William Burrough's writing.  It's too much like seeing the sidewalk littered with broken umbrella handles before the storm.

who

One of the distinctive experiences of being homosexual is detection and managing detectability.  Is he?  Can others tell I am?  I think this aspect is more central and telling than the actual sex.  It is, anyhow, much more frequent.

Putting centrality another way - detection is central to the social experience of being homosexual, and homosexuality is experienced socially.  In bed one doesn't feel homosexual.

This is hardly an original observation - but then it wouldn't be, would it?

polite

A spam email that didn't get caught by my spam filter began thus: "Thank you for continuing to receive our emails."  From there it's just usual spam.  Well - you're not welcome, spammer.

to myself

Persistence is as unglamorous a virtue as could be.  But what could be more needful?  Having decided, absent a clear change contrary, grip tight and hold fast.  And we you do change, turn a square, neat corner, charting a straight course before and after.  Don't wander.

register

Now and then, I toy with whether there are fundamental time units - or at least minimum intervals - of human perception.  I'm sure this is a scientific subject, but I'm more interested in it as a mental toy.

For example, what is the minimum time for facial recognition - for meaningful eye contact - for recognition of danger?

Take meaningful eye contact.  My guess is that you can look at someone and tell that they are returning your glance in about a twentieth of a second.  I wonder whether this time - whatever it is - stays consistent across ordinary humans.  Or does it change with age? Socialization? Genetics.

Well, as you can see, toys turn into subjects rather easily.  Probably I should just go find the answer.  I wonder how long that will take.

sinister out of context

"Above thy deep and dreamless sleep. The silent stars go by."

cohere

This pulley pump, the body, presses and lazes

In measures near equal – not quite

And we tip the balances.

We tilt to ambitions or hopes

And think on ourselves,

Perchance bodily.

And we see a wet machine,

A crime scene in waiting,

A tadpole a mermaid

A Hubble gas cloud.

Left toes pinch a right toe,

And the feeling is so

Down there, so far,

That I am a beam.

Or walking so far

Even my shoulders ache from pacing

And my calves, oh

I am a sirloin.

Or this or that messy wonder,

Fearfully and sloppily made.

But all adheres
Till escapade.

today

One intimacy forgoes another.  Choose well.

movies

Well, you know, it's set in the early 50s, before sexual intercourse was invented.

oh dear

The new blood donation poster is up in the pantry at work.  Looks like the old one but - wait - what's this in the lower corner?  A depiction of a plastic membership card, captioned "Ask about our rewards program: Red Cell Advantage."  I remark on this to the new paralegal pouring herself coffee and she says "Oh yeah, you can get movie tickets."

The mind, it boggles.

scent

I remember more during my highs and my lows than otherwise.  The air, the humidity, the temperature feel a certain way, and I am back camping, or a sophomore, or in the back field, or driving that sorry maroon Cadillac Cimarron.

eyeye

Law usually doesn't - couldn't - attain to the quartz-like perfection of the following provision of the Uniform Commercial Code's section on checks:

Forged checks are valid  - against the forger.

sturdy

Reading and reflection have fostered in me the suspicion that it is unhelpful to visualize one's soul -- one's being -- as located deep within, either in the chest cavity or lodged inside the skull. Instead, one's most essential being is better visualized as seated at the skin, at the interface between one's self and all else. Did I say at? I meant as. It is not that surface is substance, no. More that interface is substance.

This is a visualization, of course, not a spiritual anatomy. And even if it is wrong (might be), or simplistic (surely is), the visualization is still heuristic. One's soul, visualized as an inner dark, safe spot apart, is usually a wildly unhelpful excuse and an opportunity for avoiding the truth that one's outer being is what one is, as much as anything else.

Mind you, if I were helping someone cope with an abusive, torturing or otherwise hellish environment, I would advise retreating within. That is, if the person abused were ordinary and weak like me and you. If a saint, I would have her live the glory of being most herself right at the surface of suffering.

compliments

To have a wide perspective is rather too like standing, tip-toe, on a swivel chair.

From the New York Times

"The format of chess boxing is simple: rounds of boxing alternating with rounds of chess, until either a knockout or a checkmate."

descent

Boredom - what is it, really?  It feels like the next step after disillusionment.  And like the step prior to confusion.

cadences

One thing I miss about belief is the room it gives for the sincere use of cadences of voice, singing of hymns, and other modes that are so clearly part of the natural and beautiful human tone range.  As they are employed in worship alone, they are lost to me, except as yearnings.

rico

My eyes open as the morning light breaks over our knuckles, like a dawn through the mountain tops.

lately

If relaxing doesn't resolve the fatigue, the problem is position - or constitution.

heroic

But what is a hero, if not a conspicuous devotee of necessity, one who runs to what must be rather than be dragged by it?