Tag Archives: Postaday

PAD 4/4/2013 – The Transporter

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Tell us about a sensation — a taste, a smell, a piece of music — that transports you back to childhood.

I’ve written about nostalgia before. The scent of WD-40 enables me to recall my very early life, when I was about five years old. The scent of this product is indelibly linked with my maternal grandfather and every time I catch it’s scent a part of my consciousness returns back to when I was five, sitting in my grandfathers lap playing with his miniature train set that was set up in his root cellar. It’s quite difficult for me to access those memories without WD-40, so it’s become a part of a ritual when I use WD-40. I always find time when I have to use WD-40 to dwell on the unlocked memories and in a way, bring my long passed on grandfather back to me now. In many ways, the people that we loved and lost are always with us, in this limited way. I suppose in one way of considering it, it’s through WD-40 that my grandfather has a rough semblance of immortality, at least in my consciousness.

There are also other strong memories, but they are linked to places and mundane situations by exceptional events. I remember, for example, exactly where I was and what I was feeling and seeing when the Challenger accident occurred as well as when the 9/11/2001 event occurred. They are unremarkable memories only made important because of their bound events keeping them “alive” in my memory. Not really worth writing about, at least not in the context of WD-40 and my grandfather.

PAD 4/16/2013 – Million Dollar Question

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Why do you blog?

I enjoy blogging because it provides me a way to share more, which has become after a manner of speaking, somewhat of a therapy for me. I can express thoughts and feelings and that’s the primary thing, that they are shared actually is quite incidental. If I have readers, then I have readers and if not, that’s just as acceptable to me. I feel like these posts are letters that I write, and the writing itself helps me explore my feelings and in some cases helps me vent my frustrations, and then I leave the open letters just lying around for others to gander at if they so desire. Before the advent of social networking I used to blog on LiveJournal and there was a vibrant community and I had friends there that would comment on my blog posts. Alas, time and conditions change and LiveJournal is no longer appropriate for me nor is it a place that I feel safe to share my thoughts or feelings. WordPress, a much better platform for writing actually wasn’t such a great move because the community on WordPress is absent. I got to wondering why I wasn’t getting anything but spam comments on my WordPress blog and it struck me that people have organically decided to move their commenting to the social networks of Facebook, Twitter, and Google Plus. That’s where all the comments are to my WordPress blog posts. Twitter is dead to me, I pretty much just link dump there. Facebook is only slightly more useful and I haven’t posted on Google Plus without the aid of a “oh yeah, hit the Google Plus option…” in about a year.

It’s actually quite fine because comments actually aren’t why I blog. Over time I came to understand that on some social networking systems the only people who I would find willing to engage with me were people who were trolls – making obtuse obnoxious comments just to get a rise out of me. That’s when I learned that in some situations the best retort to a trollish comment is to not make one at all. So the absence of comments actually became a blessed silence. Trolls ruined it for everyone, and once you go without that sort of engagement, the experience does actually improve.

There are things that I write that aren’t meant for open-letter-on-the-table distribution. Those I put passwords on and only hand that password out to people whom I value enough to trust with everything, the good, the bad, and the ugly. Not to say that if I don’t share the password with someone means I don’t value them as much as the others, it’s just that I write some things that I feel I should protect the people who do not have the password from having to be exposed to. Usually the password protected posts are written in times of distress, and it’s better this way for everyone – those who know and those who do not.

In general the platform on which I blog, which used to be WordPress.com and now is WordPress.org is a tale all to itself. I used to make heavy use of WordPress.com until I ran afoul of one of their well-meaning automatic protection systems that ended up accidentally censoring one of my blogs. It was a misunderstanding and a poorly designed automatic system that led to the falling out, but I no longer trust WordPress.com with my blog. In many ways, the shift to WordPress.org, self-hosted, became more important to me in terms of control and liberty to write what I truly think and feel. I am no longer beholden to a company like Automattic with risking my thoughts and feelings, instead, it’s all on my own recognizance. I thank Automattic for contributing to WordPress.org, and for me it’s the perfect combination of power and liberty.

So in a way, all these posts amount to cheap therapy. One of the added values is that I won’t fall in love with my therapist. In some ways, therapy this way is ideal. I can be brutally honest with an absence of someone than I ever could if there really was someone there playing that role. If nothing more, therapy with an absent therapist is wholly more hygienic and extremely more convenient. As a value added extra, these blog posts also get added to my Day One Journal, so at the end of my life, I won’t have to worry about encroaching Alzheimers or senility robbing me of my memories, all the very best will be written down. For someone who will die childless, this is my bid for some form of immortality.

PAD 3/21/2013 – Bedtime Stories

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What was your favorite book as a child? Did it influence the person you are now?

I can't really remember which book was my favorite when I was growing up, but when I first saw this PAD and started trying to remember, the book that came to mind was this one: Mr. Chatterbox

So, I'll just leave this PAD here, and let people who know me bask in the perfection of my choice from my past. As for whether or not it influenced me as an adult, again, just going to leave it here. LOL

PAD March 14th 2013 – 180

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Tell us about a time you did a 180 — changed your views on something, reversed a decision, or acted in a way you ordinarily don’t.

That sort of altering of viewpoint, after a long time considering if something like that had actually happened to me and coming up blank initially makes me think that I’ve never done that sort of thing. My beliefs are quite entrenched, I’m quite certain of my positions and my opinions. Anyone who knows me knows that of what I speak passionately about I am determined in and if I am not, I rarely speak of it. It’s better to listen if you aren’t sure than to speak out of a position of personal doubt. There just isn’t any passion in doubt. If you aren’t sure about what you think then how can you put any energy behind it? Passionate thinking goes hand in hand with what I consider to be critical thinking. Can it truly be said to be critical if you can’t be passionate about it? I suppose I am too much my Mothers son, I think I learned my views on passionate discourse from her as a role-model for not bandying around the bush. If you feel something, then be out with it, don’t let it just fester in the dark.

Often times at work I get the phrase “Oh Andy, tell us how you really feel!” thrown at me. I knock those lobbed bastards right out of the park with a home-run whack with my bat. Damn right I’m going to tell you how I really feel! Anything else would be dissembling, tantamount to a lie and do a disservice to whomever I’m speaking with as well as to my very own self. As such, I am functionally retarded when it comes to flirting, subtext, and innuendo. I accept a life of blunt honesty over the dubious sea of gray foam that is subtext, subtlety, and innuendo. Don’t try to play hinting games with me, walk up and say what you think and how you feel. Be honest, be direct, be blunt. Time is precious, don’t be a foolish putz.

So there.

PAD 4/17/2013 – Unknown Caller

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You receive a call from someone an unexpected person. Who is it, and what is the conversation about? Go!

This happens to me more frequently than I care for. My work number is identical, if you transpose two numbers in the exchange part of the number with the city jail. I get at least two calls a week from random citizens of Kalamazoo asking about hours, or the status of someone in detention. I always take the high road and tell them that they have misdialed and reached Western.

I want to, I won't, but I want to pull a horrible prank on these wrong callers. “Yes, when is John Doe getting out of jail?” and my response should be “Oh, John Doe you say? We're going to hang him in Bronson Park at Noon today. Thanks!” and hang up.

Much like Johnny unplugging the landing strip lights in Airplane! or pulling the fire alarm paddle at work, it's something you secretly want to do but never will because you just aren't that bad 🙂

Lesson here? Be careful how you dial the damned telephone! 🙂

PAD 3/25/2013 – Idyllic

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What does your ideal community look like? How is it organized, and how is community life structured? What values does the community share?

I love impossibilities. The mythical arrangement of Atlantis has always appealed to me. The way I’ve seen possible renditions of that city is a circular arrangement where the different rings were devoted to different zones, like farmland, dairyland, commerce, and residential areas. I also imagine that it was served by super-science and technology served the population in all of it’s needs. No pollution, no noise, no glaring lights blotting out the beautiful night sky. I also imagine people enlightened to the point where crime just doesn’t happen, there aren’t any reasons to cry and the only killer of man is old age. Alas, this is Utopia, otherwise known as “Nowhere” and it’s just a fantasyland. A lovely little ideal that keeps you comfortable when faced with how things really are: Rotting stinking cities packed with wretched awful people.

I really don’t think that humanity can achieve an Atlantean level of sophistication or enlightenment, but that doesn’t mean you just throw away the ideal. There has to be something, even if it’s imaginary that you can grab ahold of and buoy yourself on when faced with just how bleak and awful life really is all around you. So in that, Atlantis will be as real as any of us need it to be, to put all that suffering and wretchedness into context and by doing so, make it appear not as awful as it otherwise would be. In many ways, Atlantis is Hope. Hope is a silly thing, but it’s also a needful thing. Logically then, Atlantis is a needful thing.

PAD 3/28/2013 – Happy Happy Joy Joy

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We cry for lots of reasons: sadness, pain, fear . . . and happiness. When was the last time you shed tears of joy?

It was actually a movie that did it to me. The first time, hell, every time I watch “Rise of The Guardians” there is one part of the movie, near the end that gets me all choked up each and every time. It had been so long since a movie was able to get such a pronounced emotional response from me that I did panic just a little when I felt my cheeks peppered with tears. If you haven’t seen the movie, you really should, and if you have, you know exactly what I mean.

PAD 4/3/2013 – Escape!

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Describe your ultimate escape plan (and tell us what you’re escaping from).

Frankly I’ve never really had to escape from anything in my life. I’ve been thinking about that recently. That I kind of grew up in a very protected place. Upstate New York doesn’t really suffer from any real substantive disasters as the rest of the country does. We didn’t really have any earthquakes (very small tremors every 20 years doesn’t count, it just upsets pets and that’s it), no Tornadoes as the surrounding drumlins, hills, and in a roundabout way the foothills to the Adirondack Mountain Chain just tear thunderstorms apart so they can’t really gather up enough oomph to spawn twisters. Hurricanes are also out of the question because if a Hurricane got that far north, it’d be just a really heavy wet rainstorm at that point. The only real risk is snowfall. Come on! When it comes to surviving a natural disaster, snow is not really on the map. Get to shoveling! Not really that scary. So escape was never really in my head anyways, not growing up and not really now. Now, however things are different. A gaggle of years ago I moved to Michigan and I no longer have one of the sentinels of security protecting me. There aren’t any handy mountain chains to tear up passing thunderstorms and so, I happen to live around the area that could be regarded as the northern tip of Tornado Alley. So now I have to consider escaping where I work because of a Tornado, but I don’t really think about it because there really isn’t ever any chance to actually escape. If I’m at work, it’s into the basement we all go, to die under a mess of torn-apart brickwork. So, no, no real escape plan.

PAD 3/26/2013 – Deja Vu

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Have you ever truly felt déjà vu, the sensation that you’ve already had the experience you’re currently having?

It comes in fits and spurts. There are moments that feel like they have happened before. It’s like the experience of the unfolding events align around a pivot. The nagging feeling starts and then you start feeling very strange. At first it’s not clear what the feeling is attached to because you are approaching the pivot and nothing looks like it does, until you’re half-way along and then what you experience rings with your memories, the memories of the future that became crystallized in that one moment. When it strikes me I have to stop what I’m doing and respect and witness the event coming to pass around me. The feeling of Deja Vu is so powerful sometimes that I become almost paralyzed with the novelty of the situation. I don’t know exactly where the memories of the future come from, perhaps I dream them and in that there may be some untapped clairvoyance active within me that I can only access when I’m dreaming. My dreaming world is very rich and I remember many of my dreams and I write them down before they evaporate under the assault of too much consciousness.

Almost always, when I have this feeling of Deja Vu I will stop and I will remark to everyone around me that it’s happening to me. I don’t consider it to be a very private thing and since it paralyzes me with it’s marvelousness I feel it’s important to explain it to others as quickly as possible so they don’t worry that I’m having some sort of stroke or attack.

PAD 3/30/2013 – Five a Day

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You’ve being exiled to a private island, and your captors will only supply you with five foods. What do you pick?

Onions, Pork, Bread, Cheese, Broccoli. I don’t think five is enough as it takes more than these items to maintain a healthy body, but these items are things that I value more than others. Onions are universally useful, you can eat them raw, you can cook them and they can take a lot of heat abuse if your cooking tools are very low-brow. Pork is a good choice because it is an animal protein and has all the amino acids necessary for living, especially the ones we can’t manufacture by ourselves. I’m sure you could swap Quinoa out here, but I love pig parts, so pork is it. Plus pork is leaner than chicken and not as bad as red meat. If there wasn’t pork available I would have to switch out to Ostrich. It’s got a great texture, it’s near pork and chicken for ease of cooking and still helps you avoid the perils of red meat. Bread is a cheat as it’s not a food but rather a constructed food. Water, Flour, Yeast. Bread can keep you alive. It’s not a great life, but it can be done. Technically if bread wasn’t available then I’d have to place flour or oats here and I’d assume I could find some sort of water to make unleavened bread. Cheese is vital, it’s very dense, calorically, it provides calcium and it’s durable and resistant to spoilage. There really isn’t any alternative to cheese, perhaps extra-firm tofu, but it’s not the same. Broccoli is a superfood, a little miracle all on it’s own. It’s dark green and leafy and provides Vitamins A, B, C, Calcium, Potassium, and Fiber. Broccoli, like Onion can be eaten raw and can take a serious amount of thermal abuse before it becomes inedible. It’s durable, like all the other foods and easily carried. I’m sure there are better choices available, but these are the few that occurred to me off the top of my head.