Archive for March 2012
It’s Relative
Let me just point out that, upon reading about Boneless Lean Beef Trimmings (BLBT), also called Finely Textured Beef (FTB), ( article about trying to find ‘pink-slime’-free beef ) which the United States Department of Agriculture says is safe to eat, because it has been sprayed with ammonia gas to kill germs, but which comes mostly from connective tissue, not muscle meat, low-grade trimmings from the parts of the cow most susceptible to contamination, often close to the hide, which is highly exposed to fecal matter, I am pining for the good old days when life was simpler.
I would prefer we gain the technological advances like polio vaccines and penicillin, and knowledge about the hazards of things like lead, mercury, and asbestos, but leave out messing with food production to find ways to process it into less and less recognizable “conveniences.” Much as I love a bowl of cereal and milk for breakfast, I’m thinking a simple apple might be advisable (a nod to a friend there…). What do they do to the corn, oats, wheat, and rice to turn it into the shapes that ultimately end up in my bowl?
On the grand scale of things, I could be concerned about the attention going toward the viral campaign to arrest brutal Ugandan warlord Joseph Kony, or I could become focused on the fact that it is not balanced with more pressing immediate needs of helping refugees. Or, I could fritter away my time, tending to the removal of old wallpaper in my home. Challenges are relative.
On that note, you really should take a look at the wonderful reference of scale provided by htwins.net. Scale of the Universe. It’s all relative.
A Re-re-post
Another poem from the archives. Written in 2003; untitled. I’m guessing I have a fondness for this one, because this happens to be the third time I’ve re-posted it in the 3 years I’ve been doing Relative Something. …I checked.
Since I like finding it again, after time fades it from memory, I’m hoping others might be okay with it, too.
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What if I simply wrote about it
and when you read it you were moved
by its inherent tendency to apply
rendering all your suppositions proved
not like the tacky film of ad campaigns that try
no farther
much farther a way than that
down where involuntary doesn’t even begin to exist
and up into the stratospheres of our existential bliss
where the vibrations of our ever present song
invigorate our reasons to believe
which we do
and have been all along
neither color nor flavor
but both all that and more
where nothing else disturbs
the focal distance from before
the shoelace became frayed
and elastic recoil that happens not
sickly film forming over soup in pan
as simmer faintly fades from hot
beneath the late afternoon’s waning light
revealing brilliant yellow gold
where moments ago there was only white
there’s both new and also something old
already been here already done all that
it’s the same as what already was
as if that’s some bright new found fact
a digression from a fear
accessory after the act
it fascinates and it bores
though mostly alluding every grasp
like a meaning getting briskly stamped
upon our spongy blue-green minds
and we wile away while we can
or is it them or me or you?
flailing away in attempt to understand
both a meaning and intent
focussed solely on the only thing that
hasn’t even happened yet
slippery sliding down a slanted slope
of largely hypothetic tries
to heap ungodly piles of healing balm
on swollen red and tired eyes
and waiting ’til the late of any night
as if waiting makes it all alright
seeking not that phantom wisp of what
it is that starts
and stops
this unattainable freight in flight
which circles round upon
the very path
it paved away from here in desperate fright
a feeling not so bad in fact
except for when it lingers far too long
draining out the last of tact
struggling grip on the flowered teacup
steady enough to avoid
stuttering clatter as you sup
a smile and a worry that have grown together
as if wed years ago
when nothing that has happened
had even begun to happen yet
wonder what
if any
silly significance lies
in the way that some people skew their words
to pronounce the “th” sound
as if it were a “d”
and say with cultivated aplomb
dat dem’s da ones dat up and died.
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Change Happening
I’m contemplating the relativity of fast, and slow. Change feels like it is picking up some momentum around my living quarters lately. At the same time, the process of preparing the house for actually showing to shoppers will take weeks that could turn into months. The process of selling the house could drag on for months. Actually closing on the purchase, when a buyer commits, will likely be another month or two. Who knows how long it might take to find a horse property that wins our hearts and fits our bank account?
Thinking like that helps drive me to get going! If I don’t get some progress in motion right away, those accumulated months will just keep landing farther and farther away.
Regardless, I feel like things are happening fast. I have a meeting at the house this afternoon with a friend whose company can do drywall finishing to finally clean up the holes punched in our ceilings during last fall’s insulating project. We also have some seams that need fixing, and a fair amount of nicks and dings in walls. After all the drywall is fixed, work moves on to the painting. The last step will be carpets, in any rooms where I am unable to convince Cyndie otherwise.
I’ve disassembled our electric piano for Elysa to pick up this weekend. I have removed an old television from the wall-hanger in our bedroom and will be passing that on to someone at work who offered to find it a good home.
Last night I was looking for manuals to put with the piano and television and was amazed to see how many manuals we still have in our files for items that are long gone. I should say, “still had” because they’re in the recycle bin now! It feels especially good to be making progress on de-cluttering.
Took some steps related to a name Cyndie and I are considering using for our new property.
Feels like things are happening fast! Sort of.
Meanwhile, we don’t know if Cyndie will be working in Boston for a short time, or a long time. She is due home for another visit in just a week and a half, so we’ll see if all the changes I accomplish by then have an impact that motivates her in any direction.
Happenstance Recompense
I decided to make some art out of that pile of hardware I pulled out of the walls last weekend. Things I like about this image include the strange variety of screws, nails and hangers; the depth of field that was captured; and the star burst reflection of sunlight that appeared on the edge of that one device. All happenstance, drawn from a moment of snap-shots in the middle of chores. The spontaneous and random actions sometimes produce rewarding results. I find I enjoy them more than times when I intentionally aim to achieve a certain result.
Poem Revisited
Here is a poem from the archives of almost a decade ago. Written December, 2002, it is a bit cryptic, which I think I have been doing less of lately. I rarely titled my creations back then, and this remains untitled.
.
I and then and when and now
an intense sense around all that ow
hardly fits thin shift lacy asterisk
faded glare beamed toward yellowed stare
ruffled by warmish gusts dusty western air
lilting movement up weightless wafting down
outside in and spinning round
it’s been since then you let me down
bright white light of sun on snow
can’t stop a sneeze that wants to show
how near the path a signal swerves
shouting out as if you had the nerve
it matters not you’d thought to cry
seven times less since you couldn’t tell why
be it days or weeks and a wealth of years
it’s a creekbed bone dry while you’re still wet behind ears
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Finally, Progress
One of the things that feeds my hesitation to get underway with projects –like the most prominent one before me right now– is a lack of a clear plan. I don’t like to just jump in and get under way without enough forethought to avoid unnecessary inefficiencies, like moving furniture multiple times, or missing a step that should have occurred earlier in a process.
I don’t have a firm grasp on either the big picture, or the individual details of the process we will be going through to sell our house and move. I have what I would describe as a rudimentary vision of preparing our house for sale, while also shopping for a new property, and figuring out what to do with our belongings if the timing doesn’t seamlessly align.
Most immediately, we intend to spruce up our current living quarters. I’m told we will replace some carpet, remove some wallpaper, and paint some rooms. The first thing I was planning to do was take down everything hanging on our walls. One thing that has delayed my start with that project was my not being able to visualize what to do with everything I take down.
I started to collect some boxes and packing material, but quickly realized it will be unlikely that many of our items will fit into boxes. The items that could fit are going to require a lot more boxes than I have so far. I researched how moving companies suggest preparing framed pictures. We are going to need a LOT of bubble wrap, too.
Yesterday, in order to make some progress, I decided to just stack pictures for the time being. I ended up with multiple stacks in about 5 different rooms.
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Then I went throughout the entire house removing nails and picture hangers from the walls. The person who hangs most of the items on the walls in our family (not me) tends to use a wide variety of nails, screws, and hooks.
Once I got started, I decided to give some of the old wallpaper in our bedroom a little tug. Most of it came free without even needing to get the old glue wet. On one wall, there was older wallpaper underneath, but the other 3 walls had none.
.
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It looks a little crazy, but at least I finally got the first task underway. Unfortunately, I’ve still got a LOT of work to do, protecting all the picture frames I took down. And after I accomplish that, I’ve got to figure out where I’m going to stash them!
I’d sure like to avoid having to move them more times than is absolutely necessary.
Almost Untitled
And suddenly it was my turn to write something that meant something to someone; someone I might not even know who was reading at the time. But what time is that? Right after I write it, or later, even years on down the line? Day after day I lumber after inspiration that will fuel anticipation that fuels acceleration toward some product for presentation to someone I might not even know. The prose that time produces comes with intermittent spruces of ticky tacky spices, frosting each and every reason, some for not my even doing it. The lyrical and the nonsensical mix in intangible and intelligible ways that behoove at least attention toward a morsel of intention for a purpose couched in a greater good. There is laughter which may come later, but the importance of now seems even greater, and it’s hard to really know that the reason may not show even though it’s laid out there plain as day for all to see…
It has been a quiet week in my world, but that doesn’t mean there hasn’t been a lot of activity. I’ve been quite the social butterfly, with something going on each day this entire weekend. The one thing I’ve intended to accomplish continues to get pushed forward, leaving this afternoon a primary target. On my mind is the fact that Cyndie and I have again gone many days without successfully making connection, but I think I’m growing accustomed to it, so I definitely fret less when this happens. I am supposed to be removing all the things hanging on the walls in our home in preparation for restorations needed to properly show the house. In some ways, it appears easy enough to do, but I’m guessing a somewhat more subtle reason contributes to my repeated delays.
What can I say? I’m a much-rehearsed procrastinator. What is it that appeals to me so much in delay? I wonder if it is more, that (the delay), than the simple avoidance of ultimate tasks. I’ll let you know, if I get around to it, and if I somehow discern an answer of any particular clarity.
What do you think the chances are of that?
Thinking
.
creaking
past everything
within reach
waiting
to steal results
from opportunity
asking
for no answer
grasping
after straws
sleeping
rather patiently
in time
that wastes away
faster every day
running
at an idle
thinking
mindless thoughts
distracted
by more thinking
stepping higher
past debris
scattered expertly
by random physics law
forgetting
how sensational
simple
really is
the sense
of what’s important
deserves attention earned
about at least as much
as each small thing
cascading
through our tiny minds
largely uninvited
pretentious and ambitious
falsely held concerns
.
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Relative Something 