She introduced me to someone as a Liberal because I had already explained that’s what I am, and what I always have been. But people won’t leave me alone. That’s what I want. I want to be left the heck alone. You see? We’re always messing with definitions, and it’s rubbish. As a Liberal I believe in freedom for myself and anybody else who wants it. I’d like to get through a day, a week, a year, or a lifetime without really being aware of the existence of the government, just to do my own thing, decide my own destiny, without any help or interference from anybody. That much hasn’t changed. That’s always been what I wanted. I haven’t really changed in that regard, not since a lad. But now, apparently, that makes me a Conservative. OK, it’s a stupid game and I’ll play it for the sake of argument, but I’m just as much a Liberal today as I ever was, if you want to know the truth of it.

 

I think what happened is Liberal became confused with Progressive, and they’re two completely different things. Progressives are interested in only one thing progressing: their own political power. That’s not me, obviously.

 

But we have some interesting allies when we fight for freedom. We don’t bother fighting for freedom unless it’s being threatened, first of all, but then when it is the only things many of us might have in common are the desire to be free and the desire to be left the heck alone. Everything else falls under the “So what?” category at that point. So it is with Clover and me, who are more often in agreement these days, which may just be a sign of the Apocalypse. But we’ve had a good week together – or almost a week. I’m feeling very close to her right now. The truth is I always did.

 

Clover and I have a lot in common. Our ideological differences have always been superficial – sort of overlaying a much deeper connection as clothes cover up the body. But underneath our clothes we’re always nude. Most of us don’t see each other that way, and then after a while we forget the clothes are not the skin. So I guess you could say that Clover and I see each other nude all the time, and as a result we are always aware of how much alike we are. Every time we meet the first thing we do is take our clothes off. What I mean is that we see the world in our way.

 

She’ll say, “Let’s not fight today. We’ll make it rain in Norway.” And I get that.

 

The Squabbler’s way of seeing the world is unique. Clover’s way of seeing the world is unique. In our uniqueness we have much in common; we’re unique together. And it is more than our common synesthesia – hearing colors, seeing sounds, tasting words, and so on. It is very like the two of us are the last remaining survivors of a long-gone planet, and it sure as heck ain’t this one.

 

But, among these things we have in common when we’re nude we both love freedom, and we spent a lot of our time talking sedition.

 

We had a geurilla picnic at one point. That means we tresspassed on private property. The fact that it was her own property may seem a bit confusing, but there was a chain pulled across the drive – some sort of legal thing having to do with estates and such. We share contempt for anything legal. It has a connotation of boring; legal = boring. Do you know what I mean?

 

I left my sunglasses behind at a café where the only entrée seemed to be quiche – the sort of place she would eat in and I would clean. But I did this because a few years ago she had left her obscenely expensive designer sunglasses in a coffee shop and I ended up having to go back to retrieve them. We had been sitting in there arguing, as usual. She was giving me the whole Communist Manifesto. The Che Guevera tattoo on her shoulder blade was still bleeding. (I hope one day she’ll cover him with Milton Friedman – little bald guy with glasses). When I went back a few of the others who had been in the place at the time were still there. I asked them, “Did Simone DeBeauvoir leave her Pradas here?”

 

She got me back by introducing me to somebody as a Liberal. We were in cars which were going in opposite directions, and I didn’t have a chance to rebuke her before the other car pulled away taking the other person out of ear shot.

 

So I had to leave my sunglasses behind, just to balance the cosmos. Somebody gave them to me. They belonged to her husband. He had just died. And the ones I bought today were also free. Some were marked $3.99 and others were marked $6.99. The ones I put in my hair didn’t have a price label. It had fallen off, I suppose. But they were the only pair that felt right. There was no mirror on the display rack at the dollar store. It’s an outrage. This is just another example of the decline of civilization. But then, only after I had paid for everything else did I remember the sunglasses in my hair, and so I said to the cashier, “Oh I’m sorry. I almost walked out with these on my head. They came from that rack. I don’t know if they’re the $3.99 or the $6.99, or the ones that are free because I’m handsome, but you can charge me whatever you like. And by the way, how do they look?”

 

The cashier told me they were the free kind, and they looked “great.”

 

But, after I got into the car and looked at them in the mirror I was mortified that I had actually walked all the way across the parking lot wearing them. They were horrible, horrible, horrible.

 

Worth every penny.

 

Clover’s husband got back this morning. He’s also a friend. I’ll catch up with him in a few days, borrow a ladder so I can paint my new house, and so on. We’re both big fans of high fidelity components and we have planned to make a pigrimage together to an audiophile paradise down in Binghampton. But – to make a long story short – this is the first day I have been deprived of the pleasure of Clover’s company since Saturday.

 

Blessed relief… I’m going to listen to some King Crimson and go to sleep.

May 21, 2007

I must call a person this week who I know as "The White Tornado." She is 4 foot 10 and weighs all of 90 pounds soaking wet, but she does miraculous things to bathrooms. I have never watched - there being some things best kept mysterious in this life - but I have a theory she wraps herself entirely in cleaning product and rubs her body against walls and fixtures at amazing speed. She once told me her mother taught her that you can't see dirt from the end of a mop - even at her stature - and proceeded to accomplish on hands and knees what might have taken just as long to do in a more dignified but less efficient position. Well, I was impressed.

Comes from the hills, she does. They are alive with the sound of music, I think.

I must light a fire so her people will know I wish to contact her. Summer is coming, and I am thinking of how it will be. But the future is not the best place for me. I don't belong there. It's enemy territory. So, I don't stay there very long. Besides, a fellow I know invented a time machine and decided to see a future he no longer existed in, and - as you can imagine - he no longer exists. I once thought my studfinder had located him in one of my walls when I was hanging a picture, but it turned out to be somebody else. I don't remember his name. I will, some day.

 

May 20, 2007

I was looking into the fireplace, the dark Endless that lives in there, the endless dark of unanswerable sorrows. At certain times there is no back, no bottom - just an eternal rabbit hole leading who-knows-where, my special White Lodge fireplace.

May 29, 2007

I see some things that other people are unable to see. I admit it. And I know certain other people see things I don't see. I'm not crazy. I just have a different way of looking at things. Where one may see a tree I see its shadow. Where one may see sailing ships I see large, floating women in purple dresses eating chocolate chip cookies. I also see sailing ships, but I like my version better because it's just so daffy.

June 16, 2007

Collective action frightens the crap out of me.

June 19, 2007

Last night the darkness was too busy to let me see, but I could overlay the darkness with a vision of that valley from my memory. In that sunken bowl of darkness were fireflies in their thousands. They filled the bowl, and then, as if held by surface tension, they came no higher than the rim upon which I was standing.

June 28, 2007

Well, since I was actually the sole member of a comparative religion I knew more about God than anyone else in the room. In other words, I knew absolutely nothing. And to know absolutely nothing is the same as knowing less than nothing. I had a whole lot of less than nothing in my mind, and that's why I lost it. And that's why a piece of wood does a better job than my mind did.

July 2, 2007

The stories I have told myself are lies.

July 8, 2007

Screw the laws. Screw the legislators who name new laws after dead children, who pass new laws about what we can or cannot eat, can or cannot say, or think. Or how much money we can or cannot make.

Screw the laws in their multitude that dehumanize people, turn people into sheople - afraid of living, afraid of cancer, afraid of the sun, afraid of killers, afraid of thieves, afraid of death, of injury, of lawsuits, of bunnies, of sex - afraid of Public Service Announcements:

"The National Department of Mass Castration reminds you to not lock your infant baby in the trunk of your vehicle in really hot weather!"

You can't listen to radio, you can't watch the TV, unless you are OK with the fact that you will never stop throwing up.

July 27, 2007

It's actually quite offensive and insulting to watch TV News. Especially anything presented by National Public Broadcasting. What I am seeing is untrue, and to a great extent unintentionally funny. The fact that there are people who believe Man controls the weather is depressing, or enormously amusing - depending on my mood at the time. Hearing the speeches of political candidates is a rather suicide-inspiring exercise. I think: They cannot be that stupid. But they really are. That's scary. That's terrifying. That's funny. That's reedikoolous.

July 30, 2007

It is human nature to accuse others of your own faults.

I'm going to type that again.

It is human nature to accuse others of your own faults.

July 27, 2007

Imagine what it would be like to wake up dead. It's a fruitful exercise because it will happen. Just as the sun will set you will die. There is no question about that, no doubt, no lingering hope that it may not happen.

Don't let anybody tell you we have no idea what happens when we die. That's rubbish. That's just somebody saying Well, I wish it were some other way so I'll just pretend I don't know.

But we know. We're just silly. We're just wing-dingy, looney-tooney, and oofty-bidoofty.

August 2, 2007

You know how I often opine that murder isn't News? Well, that's true. When we read/watch/hear about a murder committed by somebody we have never met and will never meet that's entertainment. I think it is a form of entertainment rather like pornography. One may as well develop a fetish for snuff films. I think the entire offering of our current society's broadcast media in the year 2008 - 7 - whatever year - is pornography. It is like a massive soul-sucking multi-headed hydra made of shit.

Yes, I'm in a fine mood this morning. And you?

Well, Cain slew Abel. In one fell swoop one man killed a quarter of the earth's population - a record that has never, will never, be matched or topped. That's all the News that's fit to print on the matter. People do bad things to each other sometimes. End of story.

August 11, 2007

In fact, the little shop allows you to make your own perfume, she explained. Hers was a blend of patchouli and some other oil, (the name of which escapes me). And then she leaned back to fully expose her neck and shoulders, inviting me to smell her.

Smell me! she said. Smiling.

In so doing she assumed a pose I thought was only possible for collectable figurines, with arms thrown somewhat backwards in an attitude of total trust, and rolling back upon her feet like a mad woman playfully teetering on the high building's ledge with the crowd below gathered in hope and in horror.

August 21, 2007

I have told about how I was seized with an impulse to grab a woman I vaguely know and plant a kiss on her lips on a street corner recently. Although the anecdote may be amusing, especially to those of you who may identify with sudden unreasonable impulses, the event was actually quite terrifying. I mentioned how it is like being suddenly consumed with the desire to shout out "Bring me more butter!" or something equally inappropriate, during solemn occasions. I have excused myself more than once from these situations - weddings, funerals, and so on - for that very reason. Such impulses would make me dizzy with the exertion of resisting them.

August 27, 2007

That reminds me the blog post that was originally canceled for this slot has been preempted. Now, on the matter of Sport...

September 10, 2007

Oh, by the way - I do have another story. Today I accidentally witnessed the White Tornado cleaning a bathroom - something which I had surmised no man had seen - and lived. I survived, but it is - as I believed it would be - indescribable. I'm still in shock.

With music only there’s advertising these days, so I have video. Why is that? A song by Syd Barrett I used to play again and again. Somebody came up with some lyrics. I don’t know how real they are, but it makes a sort of sense. I would never have guessed “It’s true in their tree they cried.”

 

 

“Trip to heave and ho, up down, to and fro'
you have no word

Trip, trip to a dream dragon
hide your wings in a ghost tower
Sails cackling at every plate we break

Cracked by scattered needles
The little minute gong
coughs and clears his throat

Madam you see before you stand
hey ho, never be still
the old original favorite grand

Grasshoppers green Herbarian band
and the tune they play is "In Us Confide"

So trip to heave and ho, up down, to and fro'
you have no word
Please leave us here
close our eyes to the octopus ride!

Isn't it good to be lost in the wood
isn't it bad so quiet there, in the wood
Meant even less to me than I thought
with a honey plough of yellow prickly seeds
Clover honey pots and mystic shining feed...

Well, the madcap laughed at the man on the border
hey ho, huff the Talbot
"Cheat" he cried shouting kangaroo
It's true in their tree they cried

Please leave us here
close our eyes to the octopus ride!

The madcap laughed at the man on the border
hey ho, huff the Talbot
The winds they blew and the leaves did wag
They'll never put me in their bag

The seas will reach and always seep
So high you go, so low you creep

The wind it blows in tropical heat
The drones they throng on mossy seats
The squeaking door will always squeak
Two up, two down we'll never meet
So merrily trip forgo my side

Please leave us here
close our eyes to the octopus ride!”

 

Sunday morning, in limbo. It isn’t even July 4 yet. I keep thinking Summer lasts only a day. It is short – just not that short. Nothing happens until the telephone rings. This little thing I have before my eyes – the computer is in my kitchen now – looks down on me. A still life, apples and strawberries. Why? And all my geraniums want water and songs. The Miracle-Gro I provide. New growth appears on a tree of some kind I had given up for lost. Funny thing is, it’s a plastic tree.

 

Baby-proofing today. I do so many things. Beats working for a living I say. Last night I dreamed of my friend and her cats. But she doesn’t have any cats. There it is. Also, I was cooking and not getting it right. A lost fruit bowl was found. Mom used to make happy fruit. My desire is to one day make fruit happy, and yesterday we spoke of cusps, and of being on them.

 

I perched on the edge of Belief, the land stretched infinitely before me. Yet I would not test my wings for years. Then I did, and things began to change. People say they don’t like certain things because they are the things they have, and people complain of others having certain things because they are the things they are.

 

I don’t need much. A cup may be used for coffee, for water, for juice, for tea. Why have more than one? It makes no sense. Except there is one thing. It is beauty. One cannot have too much. There are two categories of ideas. On the one side, under the one category, there are very few ideas. We call that category Love. Under the other heading, the other category, there are many ideas – so many you cannot count them. I call that other category So What? Between Love and So What? you don’t ever want to be stuck there. But that’s where the whole world is stuck. On the cusp.

OK.

 

I’m very near to moving now. This post may be my last, or I may have another week or two. It depends on how long it takes me to move. Before I do, however, and since I’ve formed a few genuine friendships in the course of writing this wacky blog, I need to tie up a few loose ends in the narrative.

 

I am a retired print shop manager. I work occasionally for extra pocket money – mainly painting, but I also write part time as a freelancer. A few years ago I helped a friend with her cleaning business. I don’t have one of my own. I’ve always wanted to be a writer, but life happened – marriage, children, and so on. I write a regular column for a small newspaper, and every now and then a feature story for a national trade publication. I also write press releases for the GOP. I am also a poet who is often published, writing under other names because it amuses me, and the author of two Gothic Horror novels that were well reviewed but didn’t sell worth a darn. I enjoy teaching High School as a sub on occasion. My name really is John, and I have been able to share thoughts with you here in the fantasy land of The White Lodge – which is merely the inside of my mind – in the complete spiritual freedom of anonymity. This has enabled me to reveal more of myself than I could ever have imagined.

 

It has at times gotten out of control, as the narrative of my actual life has crisscrossed with the life stories of others – friends and people known to me over an ordinary lifetime – but I hoped never to be offensive. I turned people into characters to protect their identities; I combined them, mixed up their stories, and sometimes plugged them into my own experiences, other times plugging myself into theirs. I never intended to deceive, but rather to create, free of identity and therefore free of expectations. Obviously, there is no such person as Clover. There is no such person as Jo, or The Lady, or The White Tornado, et al. Towards the end here – well, a friend of mine died last year and I went a little crazy. I stopped writing in the wacky White Lodge way for a while and tried to write serious stuff, but as you can see… I started to revert a little.

 

I’m sorry, but I just can’t help it.

 

The White Lodge is so much more fun than the world of boring solid things we share. What you need to know – and basically what I’ve been trying to say here in the midst of my mid-life crisis – is that this life is a dream that will end. I am actually Catholic. I have actually thought I was discerning a vocation at one point. I really did have a drinking problem; I really did recover thanks to my Jesus; I really did revert to the faith of my youth as a direct result of that experience. I am quite conservative, politically-speaking. I read constantly. I never misrepresented my views.

 

What I have done, for better or worse, is put them into an entertaining context which I called “non non fiction.” In my real life I have to be here and I have to be there; I have to hold my tongue sometimes; I have to be a social creature, a responsible father, husband, a brother, a son. In The White Lodge I am all of the above – and more. Or less. When you visit The White Lodge you are walking into me – the whole person, not just the appearance, but everything I dream. Every regret is here, and every wild, self-indulgent fantasy. I could not have shown you who I am more sincerely if I had written a straight-arrow blog full of pictures of my dog and kids, my real name, links to other sites, and that sort of thing. You got so much more of me than I could ever have shown you that way.

 

I owe the inspiration for this method of self-expression to TR, whose first several comments on my first several posts gave me the idea for doing something out of the ordinary. I established a few rules for myself and immediately broke them.

 

The Squabbler, as you know, is a personification of the books in my extensive and ever-growing library. In 1989 I wrote a graphic novel with an illustrator friend, who has since gone on to work in advertising, called Nafar and Fenrocia. It remains the property of a large comic book publishing company, but it was never printed. I sued to get it back at one point, but I ran out of resources at about the same time I ran out of the desire to pursue it. I have since seen elements of the story line, and a few characters, appear in other graphic novels and even a few movies. That’s why I don’t copyright anything anymore, and that’s why I don’t claim intellectual property, or believe in it. They’re welcome to it. My attitude towards money and material stuff is the same: you can’t take it with you; it isn’t real.

 

But anyway, The Squabbler’s physical appearance, and other aspects of his supernatural nature, are borrowed back from that lamented work, which was a time-tripping adolescent fantasy about a dimension that existed within the mind of a 3,337 year-old person who was being kept alive against his will by its inhabitants (who obviously did not wish to be extinguished along with him.) I tried to approach the story of a man being kept alive by his fictional characters in The Lord God Drops in on Rhubarb Valley, which developed into a play which was performed twice here locally, with interesting and comic results. I still enjoy doing public readings of excerpts from it. You can see how The White Lodge was trying to be the same story, in a way. My characters became more real than real people are. They don’t want me to stop writing them; they want to live – same as you and me.

 

Our parents die before we do because they love us. They love us so much, in fact, that they are willing to die first so that they can show us the way. In this way they imitate Christ. When my time comes I will be afraid, just like everybody else is afraid. But Mom did it first; she went before me to hold the door open. And I know that even though I’m afraid I can do it too. And it’s going to be alright.

 

My characters don’t want to die either. They don’t want me to stop. (They don’t want to be locked up forever in a legal limbo either.) They want the same things we all want, and why not? OK, so they’re just imaginary you might say. So are we. The White Tornado had to die in order to show the others the way. The Squabbler holds the keys to every door in this crumbling old ruin of a place. One by one they come out of the shadows where they have been hiding. Sister Midnight comes next. She is brave. She says to her legs, “Keep… going,” and they take her. The Squabbler holds her door open for her, and bows as she passes through. She looks back once, and then she’s gone. The door shuts.

 

Next comes The Lady.

 

And so on.

 

Do you see?

 

But I'm getting ahead of myself. I'm putting all my books into boxes, getting things sorted out here - at last! Hopefully there will be no more annoying delays and complications. Look - even if it doesn't work out right away, it will work out eventually.

 

 

I spoke with my friend Clover for over an hour by telephone today. As you know I don’t care for telephones, generally, and I’m seriously considering not having one. I used to print material for a local answering service. I was thinking of having my calls go to them, and checking in once a day. But now I think a phone that reminds me of my childhood might be acceptable. I’ve already written this post, two years ago, come to think of it. I think a candlestick phone, like in Andy Griffith’s office in Mayberry, would be entertaining enough. An old pay phone would also be cool. I could only talk for as long as my change lasted. Of course, if it were mine I could always open the little safe, remove the change, and keep using it… One day I hope to have saved enough change to buy a new brain.

 

It was good, though, talking to her. I think we may get married in Heaven. It sure as heck wouldn’t work here, but I’m learning patience. My question is why am I learning patience? I certainly didn’t pray for it. I’m no dummy. So what on earth have I done to deserve learning patience? That is, of course, a rhetorical question.

 

Intuitive thinking.

 

I am told women do it well. That’s certainly possible. I don’t discard old wives’ tales or clichéd generalizations out of hand because I’ve learned there is almost always truth in a cliché. I have also met some rather smart old wives, but those are stories for another time.

 

I had recently been giving some thought to men and women, our differences, specifically when it comes to the apparent contrasts between the male and female soul. That’s a full stop for some of you who may believe that the human soul is like a key blank down at the hardware store which is cut into a unique combination of notches by experience, or even more to the point that this key blank is sexless, and we all begin spiritually the same. I follow what you’re saying there, and I dig it and everything, but the thing is it just doesn’t happen to be true.

 

Our souls are individual, and they are recognizable one from the other just as our bodies and our personalities may be. Perhaps you may then want to say there is a female key blank and a male key blank. OK, I’d be willing to entertain that idea for the sake of argument because we’re at least getting closer to the truth, but the whole truth is that each human soul is created unique, and part of that uniqueness is that we are either male or female.

 

Having said that, men have certain attributes in common which are unique to men and women share certain attributes which are unique to women. We may cross this divide with empathy and understanding in a variety of ways, but eventually we’ll come up against the phrase “and never the twain shall meet.” (Or, at least not without happy consequences). In other words, men and women are different, (thank God.) And we are different at a very deep, fundamental, not superficial, level of our nature.

 

But anyhoo, Clover told me I think more intuitively than most men do. She may be right. Earlier today a customer told me I perceive reality more fully than most people do. He may also be right. But I think it is more likely that I have a gift for describing what I see in such a way that others may also see it, and perhaps identify with it. Does this matter? No, not really. Would to God that He would gie us to see ourselves as others see us, as the poem goes.

 

Self surrender.

 

A few posts back I wrote about women and Alcoholics Anonymous. Recently it occurred to me that 12-Step, in its original unaltered form, was written by men and for men in order to treat a uniquely male problem. Since the book was written we have learned that it is possible for women to also be alcoholic. But we have also learned that the condition manifests itself in a different way in women. That shouldn’t come as a surprise. As I wrote earlier, female alcoholism is very often a secondary rather than primary illness, and it is much more likely to be entwined with drug addiction, eating disorders, and other spiritual dysfunctions.

 

The famous 12 Steps begin with a statement of intent to surrender one’s will to God. The actual surrender cannot occur at that point; just the decision, or desire, to do so. The rest of the Steps are designed, essentially, to help bring it about. Recovery from alcoholism occurs once the ninth step has been done, and the obsession to drink leaves the sufferer. Sometimes the obsession leaves earlier, but one cannot accurately say that he has recovered (in the context of the Steps as they are described in Alcoholics Anonymous) until he has become willing to the amends process in Steps 8 and 9. These Steps work for men every time they are sincerely tried. I have been puzzled for years, however, by the statistically obvious fact that they are not as effective for women.

 

I think now that it may have something to do with the basic differences between men and women in the use of their wills. In other words, I think we use our self wills for different reasons, or to achieve different aims. Whenever I’ve successfully taken a man through the Steps – (or, that is, he is successful and I observe it with the hope that I might have helped) – his willingness to surrender self, which is the keystone of the whole process, is quite effectively traumatic. In my own case, and in every case I’ve closely observed, the concept of surrendering self will to anything – much less God – has been totally alien to us, and more difficult to decide to do than perhaps anything else we have ever done. In order to reach that point of willingness we must usually have a near-death experience, or mortification. (Step One.)

 

It occurs to me that women may not only be more advanced intuitive thinkers, but also more adept at the basic spiritual tool we call self surrender. Perhaps intuition develops, or begins to develop, because of self surrender. I tried “sponsoring” four different women in the six years I’ve been doing this, unsuccessfully in each case. I know it’s a small sample. It will not get larger. Last week I was asked again by a woman, so I’ve been revisiting this matter and writing on it. Of course I said no. But she said something very interesting. She said, “I’ve been surrendering my self will my whole life! What’s one more time, more or less?” Eureka!

 

It’s just a thought…

 

The 12 Step process is based on achieving sainthood. The Steps, in principle, were inspired by ages old spiritual practices devoted to the advancement of holiness. I may therefore be illuminated by a study of Lives of the Saints with this matter in mind – particularly of women saints.

 

My title this morning is from a Don Dixon song. I might also have chosen David Byrne and the Talking Heads’ Girls Want to be with the Girls. (“And the boys say what do you mean?”) As usual, feel free to disregard anything I have said which you cannot reconcile with what you know to be true. And having an open-mind is the best defense against taking offense.