Words

Words have always excited me!!! Especially when the writer puts them together in a manner that manages to paint a visual image for me. If it's happens that it's an abstract image, that's fine.

I used to have three or four times the number of books that I have now. Several years ago, in a moment of maniacal downsizing and moving to a new home, I donated most to a local charity. But I kept what seemed essential to my world. I kept all the Poetry books.

I had an teacher in college once write to me in a letter that I knew what was good writing. I don't know how true that is. Hopefully it's right on! (Please don't mistake this for me claiming to be a good writer, though I do enjoy trying.) I read a few lines and if I "feel" it speaking to me, it's a keeper. There's not much else involved in the process. That's my poetry collection .... stuff that speaks or even shouts to me. Words that somehow touch some inner part of me that few people suspect exists. Is that the soul??

Funny but I don't feel comfortable with vocalizing that word .... "Soul." It must be some macho part of me that refuses to openly admit sensitivity. Yet it's there, wanting to be shared. Sometimes crying, silently but loudly. Words possibly exist to help keep it alive and functioning. Assisting in keeping me moving forward. I think of it as being comparable to changing the oil in your car.

I'm very selective with the words that I choose to hold onto. It seems difficult to meet my established but undefinable criteria. One just knows!! .... you know? I visualize combinations of words just floating freely in the air until someone discovers or often stumbles upon their existence. I see it as a type of magic! The words may have been there for centuries until suddenly outed! I wonder if there are other forms of expression still waiting to be discovered? Something beyond writing or painting or song and dance?

Strange Condition

A strange experience this evening. Driving along streets traveled daily in 40 years of driving a car and it suddenly looked and felt like another place. Or like I was in another town. Everything seemed larger and wider. Things appeared hazy. Landmarks that I knew to be just ahead suddenly felt like they were a greater distance away. I even thought to myself jokingly that, "Hey maybe there's a record store along the road somewhere." This wierd sense went on for three or four miles despite attempts to shake out of the haze. It wasn't until I arrived home that my surroundings returned to a normal feel.

I've had this experience three or four times in the last five years but never this long lasting. As much as I can recall, it has always occured at night. It almost seemed as if I had traveled to either the future or the past. I didn't feel a sense of fright or danger, maybe more like I was floating in some way.

I Don't Enjoy Telling You This But .....

I go through an alternate version of hell at work when I have to inform people that: Sorry we don't have enough going on tonight. I need you to go work for this other person instead. It usually involves a demotion of some sort and I fuss and fret heavily prior to and while delivering the news. Though I have to admit to the occasional occasion where I do actually enjoy the moment. Usually that involves someone who's managed to make their way to the depths of my shit list, which is actually in most cases, difficult to achieve. But there are one or two people who seem to annually occupy a semi-permanent spot there.

I'm not a person who holds grudges or feels a need for revenge but I also don't care for being taken advantage of. All I ever really ask is that people give an honest effort. I've actually told people that if it ever appears or is abvious that I'm upset with them over a mistake, to just ignore me. That it means nothing. That I'll be better in a moment. That we'll get it right next time.

People Watching

Things you see at work and being around others in a situation where there are not a lot of highly educated or highly motivated people seeking further advancement. Or people possessing just a narrow window of vision and ability to cope. (Hell, I can't even adequately explain what I'm trying to express here.) Some just refuse to expand beyond their personal comfort zone. They don't want to make actual decisions that stray from the usual. They don't want to have to think about things and vary their routine with what the situation is calling for yet they still want the perceived advantages of being in a certain job. They seem to refuse change even when given direct instructions to and you begin to realize that it's not so much an issue of their not wanting to attempt what's being asked of them but more an issue of their limitations in their own minds. Their preset attitudes and inner fears and a lack of desire to view things from a different perspective.

And I don't know ,,,, Maybe I'm one of those persons? Maybe there's someone viewing me in the same way?

Wednesday Notes

You know those commercials on radio and television where they repeat the phone number to call for more information? ..... Well they must have done extensive research that tells them how many times is best to repeat a number so that people will remember it but I can 100% without a doubt tell you that it's on the third rapid fire mention of the phone number where I'm shouting: "Shut the hell up!!!"

This is something bouncing through my head almost daily these days. Always thinking: "What Heppened here? I was young just recently wasn't I?" After age thirty or forty, time just seems to accelerate. It feels like you've lost control. Before you know it you're 50 and you close your eyes for a second and when you open them, 60 is right in front of you. And you wish that you would have better understood, twenty or thirty years ago, how the pace of passing time picks up. You think of a favorite record album and can't believe that it was thirty years ago when it was released. But the date stamped on the back of the record cover says 1986 and you do the math .... and still think: "What the hell!!"




Took the facebook music snob test and scored "major music nerd," ..... even though I only admitted to 31 of the 100 nerd talking points. Much of what I failed to claim didn't really apply to my age group or current tech geek status. Though I prefer to think of myself as sophisticated or eclectic as opposed to a verifiable nerd, I'll accept the nerd or geek label as well.

Maybe it's my age and prejuidices showing but I just can't get into new music these days. At least the stuff that they still make music videos for. I'll watch a couple hour long video programs on a cable television channel .... And there's NOTHING exciting. It mostly seems inspired by the worst of the previous four or five decades. There's nothing where I can see the people who are producing and recording it, upon completion honestly saying to themselves: "This is classic. They'll be playing this on the radio years from now." It will just be long forgotten.

Andy Pettitte Day

Andy Pettitte had his number retired and a plauqe placed in Monument Park yesterday by the Yankees. There's always two moments that I immediately remember from his career. The 1-0 shutout against Atlanta in the 1996 World Series and specifically a 1-6-3 double play grounder that he manufactured in the late innings where it looked like the Braves were about to break through ..... Then there was a game that he entered in relief in Baltimore, I don't recall the year. He had been hit hard a day or two earlier and removed after getting just one out as I recall. A day or two later, The Yankees fell behind early as the starter again was hit hard. They brought Pettitte in as he hadn't thrown all that many pitches in his prior appearance and he shut down the Orioles and the Yankees came back to win. He was just masterful only a few hours after being so horrible. It amazed me how he could turn things around so quickly. It must be extreme confidence in ones abilities that makes that happen.

Wait Don't Tell Me ..... It'll Come Back To Me Soon

Someone says hello to you. Someone whose name you should know. Someone whose name YOU DO know!! But suddenly you draw a absolute blank. You laugh and pretend that you're having a senior moment but you are legitimately struggling to remember. Finally after 30-45 excruciating and frustrating seconds, it comes back to you. It's a relief of sorts. And the person walked away laughing. But you stand there wondering how such a thing just happened? You write it off to the craziness of work swirling about at that given moment but can't help but wonder if that's the true excuse.

Grapes On Roids

They ought to check these new age grapes for performance enhancing drugs!!

Grocery shopping with a heavy yearning for green grapes but I am not a fan of all these grapes appearing to be on steroids. Why do people continue to think that bigger is better? These monster grapes just didn't look all that appealing. Hasn't that line of thinking already been shot down with Thanksgiving turkeys? So I opted for the smaller, normal looking organic grapes. Hell, it's only money. Someone's probably had the idea to make a 1950's style Sci Fi, B-movie after seeing these big boys in the produce section. You go 59 years with grapes looking one way and just can't easily transition to nuclear grapes.

Shouting In Your Sleep?

Sleeping with the sliding glass door and windows open ..... wondering if I talk in my sleep and especially during dreams. Just awoke from a dream where I was fighting demons of a sort. Hoping that I wasn't vocalizing the battle while I slept, for the neighborhood to listen in? Grunts and groans and primal screams and what not!! I'd surely hate to be awakened by the police knocking at my front door.

One of those dreams where after awakening, you're afraid to go back to sleep in fear of the dream resuming where it left off.

Hours later, I have no memory of the dream except that my brother may have been involved.

Good Music Refuses to Fade Away!!!

What was good in the 1960's is still good today. Unlike mediocre music, some which may have had a few minutes of fame at one time but eventually faded away into obscurity. The great stuff always finds new listeners and creates new fans.

Want an example? The first song that always comes to mind is, "Sitting On The Dock of The Bay" by Otis Redding. It's still very possible to come across it being played on the radio at any given time. And it still sounds as great as the first time that I heard it in the 1960's.

Yankee Game Day Notes

• Geez. Maybe time to visit my eye doctor. I thought that was a deep fly to right field when it left Ellsbury's bat. Turned out to be a little wimpy looping pop up, a few steps behind second base.
• Pitch count, pitch count!! I'm always watching the stinking pitch count. It gets exhausting. The closer it gets to 100 for a Yankee starter, the more angst I feel. All the calculations involved .... "OK if he can get out of this inning in the next couple pitches, maybe he can go two more." Or ..... "If this reliever throws many more pitches, he's going to be shot for the next three days." I used to let the manager worry about all this in the days before they imposed the pitch counts on television screens. 
• Sixth inning, bases loaded and one out. Pitch count at 101. Hopeful for a double play grounder. Got a grand slam instead. Good way to ruin my morning. 40,000-plus Yankee fans in the stadium all agreeing in hindsight that they should have brought in the reliever.
• I was fearful going into this series with Toronto. The Yankees with a four and a half game lead in the standings but Toronto seemingly surging after a couple of big trade deadline changes. It suddenly felt like 1978 and the famed "Boston Massacre" (in reverse for a Yankee fan) where the surging Yankees went into Boston and kicked ass over four games to take control of the division. Well Toronto has won the first two games this weekend and while still two and a half games behind in the standings, it "feels like" they have passed by the Yankees and are in first place. I don't have a good feeling for Sunday.