Wester Tales

Wester Wolf was weary of war. He heard of his haven harbouring hooligans. How long had his host had a havoc hunger? When would his worthy words woo his wing of workers? How helpless he hunched, hidden in hollows, his hay house hither? Waiting, wet and worried, Wester wolf wondered which world would win?

 Souther snake spawned several sordid schemes seemingly simultaneously. Taking time to taunt a turtle, Tommy-Two-Toes, twisting terms til Tommy turned tail in total turmoil. Souther slithered swiftly sowing sour seeds spoiling sunny siestas, cicadas songs, and summer circuses. To torture tiny termites, twas too tantalizing to top, 'cept for stealing scrumptious squirrel stores and splendid spider spindles: Souther squandered such savouries of so scrupulous savers, sucking a smile.

Norther Nightingale nudged neighbour Neelix knowing nodding newts need no naps. Poetic pieces poised peeking, prancing, popping and percolating on pinions and plumage. Norther never nervous, nestled nubile notes into nuanced narrative. Picking, prodding, pondering, picturing perchance...perfection.

Easter Bunny ever ending each earthly evening entirely earnest. Bounding, bouncing, bursting betwixt berry bushes bearing bounties beyond beholding. Eagerly eyeing every elaborate egg, Easter enjoyed experiencing its illusive etching before burrowing it beneath bendy branches, behind brambles, before babbling brooks.

Departmental Disclosures

That time had come again. I hated it worse than my father's disapproving eyes when I talked of my work. No matter of my station, I could not avoid these meetings. Such is the price of power. The best I could hope was to limit the length of my suffering to a bare minimum but it would be a battle.

 I had wild thoughts that I could barely keep at bay. I imagined myself standing and declaring, "this meeting is adjourned." Instead of rising, I grabbed my glass of water and focused on its liquids' surface tension. If only I could dive into the water, float on the surface and let the water draw the aches from my back. I took a sip, letting the fluid seep into my tongue as if this token gesture of relaxation might be conveyed to my back. The peristaltic wave brought some relief down my spine but I hid my momentary pleasure by burying my eyes in my notes.

 I scanned the three men before me. Each met my gaze and wordlessly gave off a calm confidence which said, "I'm ready, when you are". These men were well trained in word-to-word combat, discoursive tactics, and parasocial behaviour. Their non-aggressive posture appeared as natural as their practiced comradarie--nothing could have been further from reality. These men were the government's best of the best. I needed to be on my toes not struggling to control my thoughts. My hope was that they had misjudged my slight lapse as a feign of weakness to provoke one of them to attack and be ambushed. At least for now, these wolves were at a distance.  

 "Let us begin with the report from the department of dismission & distraction." With that, I played the opening move of the game.

A lithe exacting man stood. His name was Eliot Eversite. With confidence and grace, he made the most of dispelling the worries that his department's budget was completely out of proportion with it's impact steering the public. In fact, he demonstrated that at most 2.5% of the population even believed that his department existed. His charts and formulas were seamlessly integrated into his melodic recount of the months activities.  All of the relevant details were present but artfully occluded with dazzling and intriguing anecdotes.  

 I decided to try a double feign of interested-apathy. But he countered with empathetic-disengagement. That confirmed my suspicion that he was fishing for a budget increase.  It was shaping up to be a perilous disclosure. 

I side-stepped his disengagement with thoughtful-neglect and opened up a faux-dialectic with the others about Dismission & Distraction's report. It was a good stop-gap but it micro-elevated the other's positions. I was gambling that Dismission & Distraction's endgame would be marginally more effective than the others. It was a risk I needed to take after my disastrous opening.

After a few superficially polite inquiries, Dismission & Distraction sat with oppressive appeasement. Twisting my glass of water in musing manner, I elected to hear from the department of Discouragement & Derision next.

Discouragement & Derision was the often thought to be the most powerful of our departments because it was the most conspicuous. But this made it our least respected arm of government. My selection of his department second was a show of strength or second-order guile; my underlings would be processing and probing to unravel that for a while. We were well trained in articulated ambiguity so I needed to keep this meeting rolling so that they would be too occupied scoring political points to see through to my objectives.

The stalwart head of this department, Steve Steader, drew up his imposing height.  Impassively he recounted each of his ongoing projects and initiatives to impede political thoughts or endeavours by all potentially disruptive factions. The bait & expose initiative that had numerous fake semi-political groups that attracted would-be political activists and then publicly destroy all credibility of those ensnared. The idiot-of-the-day blog although simplistic still was an effective deterrent to many who thought about discussing or contemplating politics.

After I gave a non-negative acceptance of the report without discussion, the others would be on edge. It was a sign of both demotion and support. I had to opt for delayed lightning resolution--the higher stakes may force a late game dodge retreat-thrust. This straight forward mixed messaging would dangle under their chins big gains in prestige.

Disillusionment & Disempowerment selected a wounded smile opener. Philip Fowler always knew a precise way to attack every situation. He never had lost an millimeter in overt valed debates. By leaving him last, he had an huge advantage over the others being able to read every nuance and to know faux thrusts from false feigns. Most of the population was too busy being distracted, dimissed, discouraged, and derided, to get to the stage to require disillusionment or disempowering but this is exactly why so much energy was needed to target this potential dangerous quarter of percentage of the population--they could possibly become very disruptive. Philip seemed to have found incredible methods for finding and subtlely siphoning off the spirit and initiatives of those caught in his web.  Underneath the bewildered-smugness of minister Steader and the fascinated lost-in-thought of minister Eversite, it was clear that they knew it was going to be a tough day to break even.    

The near power vacuum at the end of Disillusionment and Disempowerment's oration left me few options. Instead of the typical reactive storm of minutia or a deluge of decisions deflowering all pregnant conceits, I pulled deep from my improvisational core and followed a hunch--authoritative-abdication.

It was clear none of the ministers had planned for this contingency.  A few failed forays highlighted this unexpected turn of events.  The balancing of the ministers positions had artfully left them in an unplanned meeting of peers rather than faux sensei-senpai jockeying.  Just before they regained their situation sense, I pulled a classic rescue d'etat and adjourned the meeting.

I finished my water thanking the minsters for an informative disclosure. Timing will always be tantamount to every discursive tournament.  I survived another round. Although the political points would still need to be tallied. I appeared to have faired well. But next time, they would be more prepared. They could smell blood.   

Dealing with Traffic

I lost my bank card today. It's not a big deal since I had only used it once and that was just to see if it worked. It certainly wasn't as bad as losing my keys with my security password generator thing which according to a vaguely remembered news byte claimed that this extra security feature was breakable anyway. Then again, I had only used that once too. I'm starting to sound like a scattered loser of things. Perhaps that is true, but the bank card isn't really lost; I know where it is. It's just lost to me. It's a little like my american bank account. It's still there but that bank card expired sometime this summer. But that's a different story.

This bank card is stuck in a ATM in Marina mall. It didn't seem to like that I used the wrong pin number. I guess it's not that great a loss really. But it is a bit disconcerting. It's Eid or at least one of them. The one that follows Ramadan by a month or two. I'm a bad tourist. I should know more about these things. I know that Eid means festival but that's it. Anyway, my local bank won't be open until after Eid. So no local money for me. Probably for the best, really.

I came to the mall to shop for furniture. My place is as spartan as they come. Bugs don't even stick around because it's not welcoming enough. Even though it's mostly empty, my kitchen is well stocked: knives, stainless steal pots, convection-microwave oven, pie plates, rice cooker, fresh vegetables, flour, tins of tomatoes, spices.... I don't have a set of dishes though. I have been making-do. Aside from making pies, the pie plates have been used as my dinner plates. I do have a table and chairs to eat on. I have exactly two forks, two spoons, and two dining knives which forces me to do dishes regularly.

Well, I guess where I'm going with this is that I'm a make-do kind of guy and one who puts off purchases until they're needed concretely. I like to cook so I stocked my kitchen. I like to cook from scratch so I need some things. My gas stove is a bit flaky (perhaps I should have spent more that 50 dirhams on a stove--that's under 15 dollars), so I wanted a more reliable way to make pies--hence the convection-microwave oven.

Perhaps this is not really about being a make-do guy and more about being careless or carefree. It's funny how you know people's intents by their choice of words. Careless says, "shame on you." Carefree says, "aren't you healthily chilled out." Perspective is everything. One take is overly critical, the other is too generous. Maybe their needs more neutral choices that leaves judgement out. Or perhaps it's better to simply not get too attached with connotations and let context fill in the meaning.

What draws us in to judging everything? Was losing my bank card for the best? No. Really that's just a coping mechanism. Realistically, I should have commented simply that it is better to not get caught up in the frenzy of shopping. The best? That's too extreme. Our minds seem hard-wired to polarize. It seems that simplifying everything down to this-or-that, yes-or-no helps us deal with the world. The real world of grays leaves us in a car without streets--our lives would degenerate into a crazed smash-up derby. Everyone wants the constraints of streets so that we can say, "Are you going my way or the opposite way?" The discrete choices define us. Without our streets, our shared directions, with-or-against, we would be amoebas: shapeless adrift in a world beyond understanding.

Then again, these streets aren't real. Perhaps our lives need a little off-roading from time to time. Maybe just as much as we need to have the streets of society to function among the teeming hordes, we also need to disengage from society's grid of rules and understandings and just be. Influences, implied restrictions, conventions, projected judgements, and the lot need to be left behind and an open expanse explored and experienced.

Like everything, it's about balance. Living on the boundary, comfortable in either realm, playing hopscotching leaping between society's impositions and community and reality's chaos and freedom. Yin and Yang.

Although I must put off my nesting plans of constructing a bat-cave, where I can hide from the pressures of the unreal rules that people live by. After Eid, I'm sure that Ikea will still have a desk, a chair, and a pseudo-avant garde light fixture that says, "whoa deep." Now, I will just have to sit back and spend my limited, though ample, funds on coffee and watch the hordes feasting and dancing around their consumeristic idols.

As long as I don't lose my keys again, all will be well till my local bank grants me access to my money. I'm sure they will chide me about being more careful with my new card. Soon, I too will join in this dance, plastic in hand. Until then, I remain outside, looking in; sober amidst the drunk; a pedestrian J-walking with cars.

My bat cave

I've been toying with developing a bat cave. My own space where I can do research and work on my stuff. My need for a bat cave has to do with shutting out the world. Should I call it my fortress of solitude, instead? Perhaps since I probably won't be engaging in heroic feats, I need to dump epic theme. Or is it the secret theme that my subconscious is in tune with? Maybe I should dub my space the bat caveat. It sounds more french but caveat is not a small cave, it's a warning. I wonder what kind of warning, though? Your echolocation won't work in here? The belfry is full? I'm bat shit crazy? Or perhaps it would be more apt to tone down this connection. It'll be more of a mouse grotto where thoughts don't take flight and instead of bat shit I'll have mouse turds. Lower highs but higher lows. Mediocrity lives here. Sigh.

I think I'll keep the blindness of the bat and the might of the mouse. I shall dub my den the "mole hole". Hidden from sight, where I can dig at the truth of things blindly. A male mole is a boar. I, too, will be a bore. When I retire to my mole hole, I will dig deeply under the streets and find the forgotten and discarded and bring it to the light of day.

Probably, my mole hole idea needs some time to ferment and then join my atm card in the lost void of "one day..." I'll end up with a pressboard boxy desk, a swivel chair designed to look good but cripple its occupant, and a grey ink jet printer with no ink. Maybe it'll be decorated with a poster of bathroom wall; moldy white tiles--bland dinginess without the associated health issues. Perhaps in a corner there will be an empty water cooler that is still plugged in to the wall. Visitors will look in and say, "I have a home office too". At some point I will have a luke-warm home office warming party. I'll time it so that all the balloon decorations are half deflated and the potato chips are stale and the beer is warm. But the lacklusterest of all will be the wash of fluorescent lights.

Then after the party I can leave it as a shrine devoted to decay and half heartedness; a dilapidated dust bunny ranch that will fool me every other month into sitting down and putting in some work before I remember that the printer is out of ink. I'll write a little stick em' note and just before I put it on the wall, I'll see there is already a few there that say the same thing. The de-motivational message will hit home and I'll close up the ranch for another season of disuse.

Perhaps I'll just on work on the kitchen table.

Another failed dream

Nothing says failed dream like home gym equipment. It's amazing how something that sounds so promising can be so misguided. Imagine staying fit in the comfort of your own home. Let's say you are home and need a bit of a tummy tightening, a quick 5k, or perhaps a 30min cardio break. No problem. You've got your overpriced weird looking contraption that was paid for by 12 easy payments.

Wrong. Don't be a sucker. There are no gimmicks. You can't make staying fit easy. It is not a pill you take that burns off all your worries. Exercise is work. You don't want to make it easy. It'll defeat the purpose. You need to make it hard otherwise there is no benefit. Your muscles need to engage and sweat and get fatigued.

The key is not the device but the reward for the work. It's about the meaning of effort. It should not be too many steps removed from your actions. Otherwise you can short circuit the whole thing. 20 sit-ups for a cup cake? Why not stop at 10 and have 2 cupcakes? I like somewhat more authentic activities where I bike 5 miles for a coffee and a bagel. There's a logic to it that it is too hard to self negotiate with. You can't stop short since you won't be at the coffee place.

I used to bike to work. It was great. My only other option was to walk so I stayed in shape. This worked for me. Of course, I had to deal with sweat and other issues but it was worth it. Now, my workable fitness plan is dead. I moved to a life-draining desert and my bike was stolen not that it would do much good here--at least not for commuting. My weekly soccer and basketball pickup games dried-up. So now, I'm mooching rides to work and staring at my softening Budha bulge slowly swallow my belly button.

Desperately lethargic, I'm now grasping at a false hope since it is better than having no hope. I understand its pitfalls and its misconceptions. But I'd rather grasp at straws than for a remote. I have a new-to-me broken elliptical machine that is now dominating my apartment. There are many issues that doom this initiative. Without an intrinsic purpose, it'll be like the sit-ups. I wish I could have a dead man switch attached to it so that if I fall short of some desirable rate that sudden the video I'm watching pauses. It wouldn't be that hard to do but it does require a number of things that aren't in place: a sensor for the elliptical, a means of setting a desirable rate, a means of sending a message to a dvd player, and most of all a dvd player that would listen to messages that can be sent in the fashion. I guess a number of these steps can be made simpler by using an iPad and some bluetooth signalling, but still, it's hardly a weekend project.

I guess if I can fix this machine so that it isn't broken, then I will just have to somehow get my willpower on board so that I can save my belly button from its demise. The only other possibility that I have been working on is getting some new blades which apparently means that I will need to work on stopping with out the back break. The only descent blades here don't have back breaks... I guess my best option is to live the dream of never stopping.

Who would have guessed that trying to stay in shape would be such a nightmare of pitfalls?

Ghosts of gatherings past

I was having some thoughts about how sometimes previous gatherings affects current gatherings. For instance, some people manipulate situations to try recreate a previous gathering. In a way, it's like ghosts floating around that only a few people are aware of. These sensitive mystics react to things that aren't there or perhaps can prevent bad outcomes.

This is my proposal for the next challenge: something related to Ghosts of gatherings past. Take it where you want to go.

The portrait

Her hands gently caressed the head and arms of the plush toy laid out at the end of the bed. She paused, for a moment, as if to lift the lifeless being placed in her care. Her eyes, glazed over, instead looked up to see that I had entered the room.

"Hello," I muttered. "How are you feeling today?" I questioned. There was no reply. There had not been a reply for years though it did not matter. I felt the body language was enough to communicate some sort of feeling.

I walked past the antique armoir and stopped at the pictures lined up on the top shelf of the in-laid desk. There were so many; remarkably many people who had come and gone in her life. One picture in particular always caught my eye everytime I paid a visit. A young man, dressed in a World War II uniform, with silent eyes and inauspicious smile. I knew this picture had been taken during the war due to the signature and date written across the bottom left hand corner.

Today the picture left a sense of foreboding. She had often talked about the man in a favourable light. The correspondence during these years was always intriguing to me. Even enlightening. Now, the silent eyes looked back at her in the dim light as her hands reached out in what felt to be the barenness of this seclusion.

I decided at that moment to place the portrait at the back of the shelf. I then walked over to the bed and in customary habit, kissed her ashen, delicate cheek.

Retirement

I knew the day was coming.  It was inevitable.   All that time... round round it went.  It felt like I was going to be breaking up the team.  Then again, it should probably should have happened a long time ago.

It is funny how at the beginning you never really think the end is around the corner. You're too caught up in the moment.  Sure everyone knows that nothing last forever.  It's a process of slow erosion.  Then you start to notice things start to slip. The first few times you can explain it away.  But after a while it becomes all too clear. People help you dance around the truth.  They'll say things like you got a few good miles left. But there is something no one can dance around.  One word that is unavoidable: balding.  A sign of wear and tear, or simply age.

It didn't have to be emotional.  Sure, the first thing on everyone's mind is money.  But I had planned ahead.  By putting a little away each month, I was ready.  It's amazing how quickly it adds up.  There was a bit of knot in my throat when I thought of the money.  Everyone always says you can live with less money.  Maybe it wasn't the money.  Maybe it was more the feeling of loss.

Retirement.  After all those years, I was finally retiring my car.  Too many miles on those original tires.  Probably it was best to think about my tires for what they had given me:  no flats.

Retirement

Due to the recent news of the retirement of my mother-in-law, I decided that the next blog challenge should be dedicated to her. Happy writing!