Seasons Collide – The Clogged Gears of the Organizationally Blobby

Posted October 8, 2010 by ManicDdaily
Categories: dog, Stress, Uncategorized
Tags: , , , , , , , , , ,

 

Pearl luckily doesn't mind "C" things.

 

Blog plus job plus dog, and even adding in yoga, can make you feel a bit of a blob sometimes–not a physical blob so much as an organizational blob.  (“S” could probably substitute for the first letter of that last word.)

It’s not a lack of external neatness; it’s what’s behind the external neatness — i.e.  clutter, chaos, catastrophe (looming).  Enough “C” things that your Consciousness begins to feel like a Computer Clogged with Cookies (Commercial); a Closet Clotted with Clothes (Crumpled);  a Cupboard Clustered With Cups (Chipped).

This kind of Clutter becomes especially Complex as seasons Change, and one set of expectations Collides with another.  (All that summer Cotton; all that autumn….um….non-Cotton.)

One approach–don’t Care so much.

But wait–you’ve already tried that one.  And even though you say you don’t Care–so much–you’re getting really tired of looking for that paper, that sweater, that thought–

Alternative approach–Care a little more.  Take the time to make more time.

Do a little less of all the frenetic, what-you-tell-yourself-is-productive, stuff and a little more of the slow, steady, sorting, supportive stuff, i.e. Clear the decks.

P.S. But don’t spend too long setting up systems you’ll maintain.  (I think you know why.)

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Play-Off Season

Posted October 7, 2010 by ManicDdaily
Categories: Baseball
Tags: , , , , ,

 

New Style of Fan?

 

I am remiss with this blog tonight because I went out to dinner (to dinner!), where they had a silent TV tuned to the Yankees game (the Yankees game!), which I really didn’t watch (honestly!), but couldn’t help being drawn to at moments, like when the Yankees seemed to zip the ball around the field and the Twins, looking dejected, trudged out from their dug-out,  and then, of course, when Mariano Rivera was up on the mound, which is a sure “tell” for any Yankees’ fan that good things have been happening.
“Oh, Mariano,” the people at my table said.  “So then they’ve won.”

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More on Writer’s Block, Yoga, Pearl–Weaning Yourself From the Dependence on Acknowledgement i.e. Pats

Posted October 6, 2010 by ManicDdaily
Categories: children's illustration, dog, Uncategorized, writer's block
Tags: , , , , , , , , , , ,

 

Writing Beside Pearl (Only She Usually Maintains A Slightly Bigger Private Space.) (Also, sorry for Apple plug...)

 

Yesterday, thinking about yoga and my dog Pearl, I wrote about blocking writer’s block through finding a seat in your blank page.  Mulling over these issues further made me think about the time, some years ago, when I stopped going to yoga classes.

I practice Astanga yoga and had gone to six or seven classes a week for some years.  Then suddenly, it all got too expensive, and more importantly, too stressful.

It is very easy in a Guru-oriented practice like yoga to fixate on your teacher–to obsess over whether you are pleasing him or her, to (on the inside) constantly beg for approval.  It is easy to fixate on your fellow students too.  (Why are they getting all the assists?  Does my teacher even like me?  Is it the sweat?)

These types of thought patterns can turn one literally into a downward dog, sniffing constantly for a simulated treat.  (Think “spaniel”.)

Now, Pearl, my fifteen-year old dog, is a very different kettle of canine.  She is not averse to pats, but she won’t perform for them.   (It’s cheese or nothing.)   She likes to be quietly near her human; but she doesn’t grovel.  (Except, that is, if there’s cheese, and, perhaps–if you start it–the occasional belly rub.)

 

Perhaps A Belly Rub

 

Doing yoga to score points with a cool teachery type (at least two earrings in one of his ears, one nose stud for the female nostril)  is clearly unyogic, but doing yoga in isolation is also pretty difficult.   Often I feel sluggish and apathetic.  Even so, I generally can make myself go through the motions because of three basic reasons: (i) it is what I do;  (ii) it makes me feel good, and (iii) it is one of my few clear channels to a greater Self.

Writing is very much like that (if you leave out the sweat.)  It is fun to take a writing class; it is fun to write with a buddy–but how do you keep going without the pats of your colleagues; without acknowledgement, and no certainty of an audience.

First, you have to tell yourself that writing is simply what you do.

Secondly, you have to focus on the physical pleasure of writing–the flow of energy through your arms, the dance of your fingertips.  You have to let yourself understand that even writing “tada tada tada” can be a sensual experience.  (Much less the word “sensual.”)  And what about the elation of scribbling off that last sentence?   (Tada!)

Three–you have to let yourself enjoy your greater Self–the mind’s eye that reads what you write before you even get it down.

Finally, find your inner Pearl–that part of you which will not shy from a pat, but won’t perform a trick for it.  This is hard, but recognize that when you just let your self write–the physical pleasure, the verbal company, and the sheer satisfaction of doing what you do–will be enough to carry you forward.

(And, probably, to maintain integrity, you should maintain a safe distance from…cheese.)

 

Cheese!

 

For more on blocking writer’s block, click here or check out the category from the ManicDDaily homepage.

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Blocking Writer’s Block – Find Your Asana (Like Pearl)

Posted October 5, 2010 by ManicDdaily
Categories: writer's block
Tags: , , , , , , , , , , , , , ,

Pearl Precarious.

I’m back to blocking writer’s block today, inspired by two main muses–yoga (my practice) and Pearl (my dog).

The Sanskrit term for a yoga posture is “asana,” meaning seat.  As many yoga teachers will tell you, to get into a posture–even a standing pose–you need to find your seat.  This does not mean to find the spot where you are at ease, but a spot where, over time, you may find ease–that is,  a posture that you steadily maintain for that time.

Pearl, my fifteen-year old dog, is a master of finding such ease even in the most precarious of positions–the edge of a bed, the center of a stack of clothes folded into a suitcase, the bag that we jam her into when we are trying to sneak her into some dog-free zone.

Despite her adaptability, however, Pearl can be quite particular about her chosen “seat.”  If left to her own devices, she will almost always seek out the softest spot–the one place on the bed where she can get down to some high thread-count sheets, the piece of paper or pillow that has  inadvertently dropped onto the floor.

Pearl Left To Her Own Devices

Neither Pearl nor many great yogis suffer much from writer’s block.  Their presence alone tends to be their message, their written words immaterial.   Nonetheless, they offer valuable lessons to the struggling writer: learn to make yourself comfortable wherever and whenever you are.  Your seat is your page.  Settle into it without too much regard to external circumstances–in a subway car, for example, or train;  while waiting in line or for a doctor’s appointment;  whenever you have a moment–even when you are not sure whether you have an idea.

In the midst of your openesss to circumstance, however, be choosey!  Like Pearl, exercise a certain discrimination as to where you and your page physically plant yourself within the parameter of anywhere.  On the subway, for example, if one seat feels better than another–for me, it’s the ones at the ends of the cars–sit in that seat.  If one side of a cafe isn’t working, change to the other.

Up to a point, that is!  The yogi takes his asana slowly, careful of alignment and placement, and then, when all that’s as good as it will get,  the yogi makes, through his breath, space.   (BTW, by his, I mean, her.)

Use your writing as a kind of breath to open up your physical and mental space, as a breath to make your page a place where you can survive.

(If you feel like someone is looking over your shoulder, congratulate yourself on finding a reader.)

In Her Preferred Position

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Calling Robert Pattinson

Posted October 4, 2010 by ManicDdaily
Categories: Robert Pattinson, Uncategorized
Tags: , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , ,

Where Are You RPatz?

Oh where oh where oh where is Robert Pattinson when you need him?

It’s October (possibly only weeks before another Black Tuesday) and I’m desperate for some escapism–mind candy, serial silliness, possibly  believable fantasy.  (This is not the kind of fantasy that imagines that the people of this country will finally join ranks to take positive action over any of the 4 E’s – Education, Energy, the Environment and the Economy – this is something I can sink my teeth into.)

Oh Rob!  What I need is something…  anything… to take my mind away from the facts that winter is icumen in, another office Christmas party almost upon me, and, most mindboggling of all, another year, another decade, is beginning and I still haven’t finished virtually any of the projects that I thought I would surely have finished by the last decade.  (Make that millenium!)

Rob!

Last October, you offered solace!  Smoulder! The image of a restrained, caring, wealthy vampire who would do just about anything for an outwardly clumsy and ordinary but secretly gifted and super sweet-smelling Everygirl.  (The kind we all are at heart.)   And, in the glare of you and Kristen and all those paparazzi, I could simply avoid all that work I promised myself I would do.

And now what?

Well, for one thing, you’ve cut your hair.

And, sorry, but now I’ve seen the movies.  (I don’t blame you.  Honestly, it’s the screenwriter, directors, producers–)

So what do I do?

Paul Krugman just doesn’t cut it.  (Seriously.)

I’m allergic to chocolate.

And forget about those silly Swedish books. Salander is sometimes fun,  but Kalle f–ing Blomquist?

I guess I’ll just have to get working.

(Lhude sing goddamn.)

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Obama – New York City Cab Driver

Posted October 3, 2010 by ManicDdaily
Categories: New York City, Obama
Tags: , , , , , , , , , ,

Mid-term Coming

Like many who voted for Obama in 2008, I’ve found the news these days, particularly prophesies of the upcoming elections, very depressing.  I do think O’s in a slump;  he seems to be having a hard time rousing himself, much less others, his conviction and confidence worn as thin as his person.

I find it hard to fault him for this, given that almost everything he says is greeted with knee-jerk misinterpretation, misinformation, distrust.

My personal advice is that he should be himself as fully and unapologetically as he can, even if that means being subject to even more distortion.  Americans, though divided in terms of issues, almost uniformly dislike perceived artifice;  even a super-careful reserve can be interpreted as phoniness.

The fact is that you can’t please everyone.  Better to be rejected for who you actually are than for who you are carefully trying not to be.

That doesn’t read quite right–what I mean is that it is better to fail for your whole, real self, than for a carefully promoted dissection of yourself.

In the midst of my depression, I had an experience that made me feel better both about the situation (and the country)–a New York City cab ride.

I don’t take many cabs these days;  good for my pocketbook, but a loss. I’ve always found New York City cab drivers to provide a wonderful window onto the greater world (if not the smoothest ride).  This guy, for example, who was from Mali, explained that his first language, and one of the main dialects in a country filled with dialects, is Bombara.   (I had never heard of it before.)

The driver also spoke French, which he briefly practiced with me, sweetly tolerant of my linguistic clumsiness.

In Mali, he explained, children learn French for the first seven years of school, and then have a choice of English or German.

I asked if his mother spoke French.  A long-term postal worker, she spoke it very well, he said.  But his father, who had died in 1971, after a trip to Mecca, had only spoken a dialect called Hasani (which seems to be somehow connected to Arabic).

The driver loved the French language, but had less patience for the French people, whom he felt had no sympathy for Africa.  He spoke proudly of his U.S. Green Card, which he described as a real protection for him on a recent visit to France.  He expressed strong feelings of gratitude for the openness of Americans as opposed to the French.

I gingerly mentioned that some Americans were not all that open, that there was sometimes a certain racism here too, but he brushed that aside, beaming that the United States had elected Obama.

I noted that the country was giving Obama an awfully hard time.  He shrugged.  The fact that the United States had elected Obama–had elected Obama–was enough for him.

He turned off the meter then, though we were a couple of blocks from my destination, and even when we reached it, drove somewhat further to get me to what he thought was the best entrance.

I thanked him.

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Pearlmydarling! (Video?–Video!)

Posted October 2, 2010 by ManicDdaily
Categories: dog, Uncategorized
Tags: , , , , , , ,

I sometimes think that if I truly wanted fame and fortune, I would start a blog called “Pearlmydarling,” and focus on my fifteen-year-old dog.

Why do people love dogs so much?  There’s a huge variety of answers probably starting with “because they (dogs) deserve it.”  But the facts are also that (i) we love that that we truly take care of; and (ii) we love that which loves us back.

Pearl is, more or less, a loving-back dog.  I mean, yes, she has, despite an absolute hatred of water, plunged into roaring streams and frigid lakes to catch up to us (when we were canoeing or taking a brief dip).

She definitely wants to share our bed.

And dinner.  (She doesn’t mind our germs at all.)

But she’s also very much her own dog.  Meaning that she’ll plunge into frigid streams and all that, but don’t expect her to sit quietly next to you if there’s food happening in the next room.

Pearl is, if not exactly a role model, a survivor.  I won’t go into the mouse poison incident, or the dognapping, or this summer’s semi-paralysis,  but just say that she knows very well how to negotiate her world.  As a puppy, she quickly cottoned onto the fact that she wasn’t going to power her way into treats (not top dog) and developed three alternative tools: (i) cuteness; (ii) persistent cuteness; (iii) persistence without that much cuteness.   (These are, unfortunately, often the tools of creatures in dependent positions.)

I have sometimes thought that she is not super-smart–I’m not sure how well she could figure out a maze, for example, especially in the absence of steak.  She, however, always begs to differ.

PS – I enclose a video of Pearl, which doesn’t do her justice.  I don’t have an actual video camera, and she really is fifteen and nearly blind so I didn’t want to derange her too much.  But–a first try- and I hope, sort of fun.

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Blocking Writer’s Block – Terry Pratchett- Parallel Parking?

Posted October 1, 2010 by ManicDdaily
Categories: Uncategorized, writer's block
Tags: , , , , , , , ,

Parallel Parking?

Sometimes you feel like you need a change.  You want to do a whole U-turn, but that feels as dangerous and illegal in the real i.e. metaphorical sense, as it does on the street.  But you don’t feel you have the time or patience to turn the slow way, the way that, well, parallels parallel parking–that is, the type of turn that involves a lot of backing and twisting and backing and twisting.

I just finished the new novel, I Shall Wear Midnight, by the incomparable Terry Pratchett.  It is not one of Pratchett’s best books;  it has a very complex plot with a great many characters  (long-time denizens of Discworld) who may not resonate with a non-Pratchett afficionado.   But like all of Pratchett’s books, it has wonderful moments of ingenuity, wackiness, and above all, generosity.  Also a lesson:  find out who you are and be it.  Find out what you like to do and do it.

Pratchett, who has now written over 40 books, is someone who found out what he liked to do at a relatively early age and who has done it a lot, even continuing now through early onset Alzheimer’s.

Which brings me to one of my perennially favorite topics–blocking writer’s block.  We can’t all have Pratchett’s prolific elan.  But we can like him, work with what we have.

Easily said, I told myself.  So what about all the projects you want to do?   I thought of, for example, a book on writer’s block, for example?  I’ve already written a fair amount about the topic, but it immediately felt unmanageable.   My mind even filled with illustrations–yet, they too felt impossible.  (For one thing, they didn’t have elephants.)

And then, I got a phone call from a college-age daughter.   She wanted to talk; to get some advice.  So lovely to be sought in that way.  After a while, still listening, I began to draw.

The drawing, below, was not exactly what was in my head.  Still, it was a start.

First "Blocking Writer's Block" Drawing

My lesson:  give yourself the gift of trying.  Make yourself make a start.   Better yet, let yourself make a start.  Even if you have to twist and back into it, slowly working yourself into your chosen spot or direction.

Then, after a while, start again.

Second "Blocking Writer's Block" Drawing

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Continuing Legal Education – First Koala

Posted September 30, 2010 by ManicDdaily
Categories: children's illustration, elephants, Uncategorized
Tags: , , , , , , , ,

Yesterday, I had to take a class in law.  I am a lawyer and New York State requires all lawyers to take a certain number of hours of law classes every couple of years.

Although most lawyers complain about them, the requirements are probably a good thing, at least in principle.  Laws change; people forget; you can’t take everything in law school.

Unfortunately, the classes actually pertain to, you know, law. Which means that they can be–well, not to mitigate it, put too fine a point on it, split hairs, obfuscate the truth… a bit boring.

Although the speakers do try, their topics are…dry.

And usually the lectures are taped, so there’s not even the frisson (okay, let’s not go wild here) the mild distraction (the possibility of tics, throat-clearing, unfamiliar windows) of a live performance.

Yesterday’s lecturer was particularly  lawyerly.

Yesterday's Lecturer

The great thing about watching a videotaped lecture is that one is free to doodle while listening without actually being rude.

The other good thing is that you can eat a sandwich.   Mine was tuna fish.  I also had a little pasta salad.

Black & White Tuna Sandwich (and a bit of rigatoni)

But how long can you stretch out a tuna fish sandwich?  Or a little pasta?  The guy in front of me had  a reddish ear.  (You’d see it if this were in color.)

Black & White Recreation of Reddish Ear

(This is a re-creation–I actually erased that drawing in case he turned around.)

It was a lecture on business torts–the types of actionable offenses people commit in advertising, for example.   Be very careful about disparagement of competitors.

Elephants jump to hand.   But everyone tells me that there’s no future in elephants–that that territory has been completely explored by Babar.  You’ve got to spread out, they tell me.

Ears… ears… ears… koalas!

First Koala

Okay, the first one is just recognizable, but the second—

It really would be better in color--

One thing I never before realized is that koalas look remarkably like robots.  Also, like the scarecrow in the Wizard of Oz.  Especially if they are not done in color (which would show the variation in their fur.)

This was getting really discouraging and the lecturer had only just started on the Lanham Act.

Note Presence of Dog!

I’m sorry, I can’t help it.  At least there’s a little dog.

Elephant a la Astaire

Okay, so there’s not even the little dog this time.   But he’s tapdancing!  When does Babar ever tapdance?

(What was that about disparagement?)

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The Unseen Eye – Tyler Clementi

Posted September 29, 2010 by ManicDdaily
Categories: news, Uncategorized
Tags: , , , , , , , , , ,

The Unseen Eye

A few years ago, living alone with my tween/teenage daughters in an old apartment building in Greenwich Village, I got a phone call from a man who said he had just moved into the apartment above.  He told me with great concern and even seeming embarrassment that, after moving in, he had discovered a hole in his bathroom floor through which a tiny camera had been inserted.  The hole peered into our own downstairs bathroom.  He’d found a bunch of videos too, he said: in fact, it turned out that the prior tenant had been filming us through this hole for a very long time.

I really am dense.  (“Naive” is too sophisticated a word.)  I let the guy go on for some while, only breaking in to question him about how this was possible, whether my children had been filmed too, all the while staring in terror and disbelief at our intact but cracked=at-the- edges-and-heat pipe bathroom ceiling.  It was only when he started describing activities that took place in our all-female apartment on a monthly basis that I began to understand that this was not a concerned new neighbor.

I hung up in a panic.  Had I heard a chortle at the end?  My shaking fingers called the police.  The officer, with a kind, but knowing, New York accent, explained to me that it was a crank call and that it was almost certain that no one had filmed me or my daughters.

A further examination of my ceiling supported the truth of what the policeman said.   But I just wanted to grab my kids and run.  I felt exposed, terrified, a failure as a mother.  The fact that I knew I was over-reacting only made me feel more stupid, more exposed.

The policeman thought the call was probably random.   Still, I felt watched, not so much by a hidden camera, but by my crank caller.  I tried hopelessly to recreate the conversation.   Was I the one to bring up the fact that I had children?  Had he mentioned the address?  The apartment number?  Nothing felt safe, and I felt myself to be idiotic.

And I was an adult.  Who hadn’t in fact been filmed.  And who had had no actual contact with the caller.

I think back to this now when reading about Tyler Clementi, the young Rutgers University student who recently committed suicide after being secretly and illegally filmed during an intimate encounter.  I think of it especially after reading the readers’ comments concerning the story.  Most are sympathetic to Clementi, though some say that the boy must have had self-esteem issues to begin with.  (Others argue for life sentences for the filmers.)

I know nothing about Clementi, or his tormenters, beyond what’s been reported;  I’m sure the full story will have further complexities, cruelties, stupidities.  But it’s easy enough to imagine a young man, a college freshman, feeling horribly and irretrievably exposed, and plunging into despair.   Easy too to imagine the callow, attention-craving, stupidity of the exposers.

So very sad.

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