Please Wait, Processing lol

I remember when home computers were new and every so often you would get a prompt pop up saying "Please Wait, Processing". That is what I am doing. I should have something worth sharing with the blogasphere in a couple of days.

Big Ideas Coming in Steadily from The Eastern Front.

I so so happy last month to find out a name for the messages in my head that keep me from fully realizing the moment. Memes to simplify the meaning, are messages that were imprinted on our brains as children that taunt us and cause the meme infected person to replay the coaching prompting messages/memes to spread and sabotage being successful at being present.

I was driving this morning and had one of those little shifts in thought and consciousness when I saw the importantance of not letting fear fill so much space up in both my mind and spirit. For new stuff to be installed you have to let go of the crap that is filling up that space now. An Eastern truth I read is that a bowl is only useful when it is empty and can be filled.

It wasn't talking about one thorough emptying and filling but constantly making room for more life to fill me.

I saw this cactus picture of just a regular prickly cactus covered in fantastical blossoms. It is in the desert and no one tends it and it is existing just as it should because I don't think it thinks or has memes or "tapes" to cause it to question itself about it's ability to push those delicate flowers out of itself. It's atoms just bounce around unobstructed and fullfills the preset function of operation.

This is what can happen if we clean out the memes and other peoples ideas of what our 70 years are suppose to be like here on "The Big Blue"

As soon as I finish here I am going to email a friend and seek like me to thank him for presenting the first alternative that felt right that started to chip away at someone elses idea of spirituality that had been imprinted on me. The book was by Betty J. Eadie and it wasn't so much what it contained word wise, but it gave me my real first taste of "they might be wrong", and that possibility probably saved me from dying from religion.

Another one bites the dust.

I've had a friend for about 13 years who lives not too far from. He is really my only telephone buddy especially late night. A year and a half ago he lost his must beloved mother then later his only sister. In such a short time I have seen him move people in that he wouldn't have spoken to if they were on the street. He is such a snob but his pain and him not knowing what to do with it has cost him everything. One of the hustlers introduced him to the joys of crack cocaine and he has spent thousands and thousands on street trash and crack.

I made him promise if he didn't have food to let me know. He called and I brought him some food and I was shocked and devasted at his appearance. I didn't know a living human could turn that color of dark moss green and he has lost so much weight I seriously would not have recognized him out in the store or somewhere other than his apt. I didn't stay but a moment he had a "guest" in his bedroom and I just wanted to get the hell out of there. Yesterday him phone was cut off.

He is the fourth friend, who in the 50's found the time to become a crack addict. All four of them also thought they were "in love" with the 20 something that brought the crack into their world.

I can safely say it will never be me because I don't like any stimulant. I won't even take the daytime cold stuff because i hate the amped up feeling. Now, I totally could see me getting hooked on some heavy downer at that age, but I love to sleep now.

The common thread among my friends is that they were so desperately lonely they lowered their standards to find someone anyone to love them.

The friend that lives close to me is the most tender hearted person I ever met though his acid tounge would lead you to believe differently. We all find ways to cover our vulnerability though.

I don't have any nice little wrap up for this post except for it hurts to love a trainweck and that damaged people damage other people, whether they mean to or not.

YOU ARE HERE.

When I was little I was fascinated with the maps that Six Flags and Malls displayed behind glass that had big arrows saying "YOU ARE HERE!" In some ways I guess it was comforting to be able to tell where I was fitting in on the broad canvas representing a location that was large enough to get lost in.

In my adulthood, or later adulthood, I still like to have those moments when I realize, "I am here!" I have many different things that can do that for me that I would call my "go to" touchtones. Things that get me out of my head and off the hamster wheel of thought can let me restart an entire day as far as I how I feel. I can interact with my dog and it brings me back to center. It is completely my choice if I let the chatter start back up afterwards. Sometimes it doesn't stick on the first try. I have read that some people will smell their kids heads to bring themselves into reality and let them stop fighting the monsters of fear, guilt or anger in their heads. The catch is you have to be willing to make the switch.

I read a figure this morning that the average human life has 25,000 mornings. That is 25,000 chances to start all over again if we can let yesterday be yesterday and tomorrow be tomorrow.

I really want that! I'm made some progress but there are still things that pop into my head to feel remorse or contempt over. A great piece of powerful advice I was given once is, " Clinton, your are not responsible for the thoughts that pop into your head, but you don't have to pour them a drink and entertain them".

One of the hardest things I have had to learn is to become an observer of what chatter is being broadcast in my head. The second hardest thing for me to learn is how to stop them or jump tracks so I don't give all my energy to them.

A thought has measureable energy. Anything I spend time "thinking" about I am providing the thing real live detectible energy. My doc likes what Oprah said about this phenomenon, "What you focus on expands". So if I focus on fearful things they get bigger, if I focus on anger, it enlarges til it consumes me. I am also pulling into my life things that reflect what I focus on.

The very cool numbers on a human life I found this morning we.

We live an average of 657,000 thousand hours.

We have 25,000 mornings to wake up.

155,000 people die on an average day in the world.

Normally, I don't pay attention to stats or numbers. Maybe if they were sequinned or colored I would care more, but either way you look at the first two sets of numbers, I am half way done.

I really am focusing on what experience I would like to have in my remaining roughly 14,000 hours. The one thing I am deadly sure of is I don't want to spend those hours feeling guilty of stuff that happened so long ago that I am the only one who even remembers it and I don't want to live my life collecting resentment and nursing contempt or anger. I want to live this portion freely and compassionately.

When the day comes to exit to wherever, I just want to know that I have fully researched how great it is to be a human on the blue planet, embracing the spectrum of all the pain and the bliss.

A note from my friend Angela this afternoon

Will You Dance With Me?

READ THIS VERY SLOWLY.... IT'S PRETTY PROFOUND.

Too many people put off something that brings them joy just because they haven't thought about it, don't have it on their schedule, didn't know it was coming or are too rigid to depart from their routine. I got to thinking one day about all those women on the Titanic who passed up dessert at dinner that fateful night in an effort to cut back. From then on, I've tried to be a little more flexible. How many women out there will eat at home because their husband didn't suggest going out to dinner until after something had been thawed? Does the word 'refrigeration' mean nothing to you? How often have your kids dropped in to talk and sat in silence while you watched 'Jeopardy' on television? I cannot count the times I called my sister and said, 'How about going to lunch in a half hour?' She would gas up and stammer, 'I can't. I have clothes on the line. My hair is dirty. I wish I had known yesterday, I had a late breakfast, It looks like rain.' And my personal favorite: 'It's Monday.' She died a few years ago. We never did have lunch together. Because Americans cram so much into their lives, we tend to schedule our headaches. We live on a sparse diet of promises we make to ourselves when all the conditions are perfect! We'll go back and visit the grandparents when we get Steve toilet-trained. We'll entertain when we replace the living- room carpet... We'll go on a second honeymoon when we get two more kids out of college. Life has a way of accelerating as we get older. The days get shorter, and the list of promises to ourselves gets longer. One morning, we awaken, and all we have to show for our lives is a litany of 'I'm going to,' 'I plan on,' and 'Someday, when things are settled down a bit. 'When anyone calls my 'seize the moment' friend, she is open to adventure and available for trips. She keeps an open mind on new ideas. Her enthusiasm for life is contagious. You talk with her for five minutes, and you're ready to trade your bad feet for a pair of Rollerblades and skip an elevator for a bungee cord.. My lips have not touched ice cream in 10 years. I love ice cream. It's just that I might as well apply it directly to my stomach with a spatula and eliminate the digestive process. The other day, I stopped the car and bought a triple-Decker. If my car had hit an iceberg on the way home, I would have died happy. Now...goon and have a nice day. Do something you WANT to......not something on your SHOULD DO list. If you were going to die soon and had only one phone call you could make, who would you call and what would you say? And why are you waiting? Make sure you read this to the end; you will understand why I sent this to you. Have you ever watched kids playing on a merry go round or listened to the rain lapping on the ground? Ever followed a butterfly's erratic flight or gazed at the sun into the fading night? Do you run through each day on the fly? When you ask ' How are you?' Do you hear the reply? When the day is done, do you lie in your bed with the next hundred chores running through your head? Ever told your child, 'We'll do it tomorrow.' And in your haste, not see his sorrow? Ever lost touch? Let a good friendship die? Just call to say 'Hi? When you worry and hurry through your day, it is like an unopened gift....Thrown away..... Life is not a race Take it slower. Hear the music before the song is over. It's National Friendship Week..Show your friends how much you care. Send this to everyone you consider a FRIEND. If it comes back to you, then you'll know you have a circle of friends. To those I have sent this to.. I cherish our friendship and appreciate all you do. 'Life may not be the party we hoped for... but while we are here we might as well dance!

Test post from my email

Seeing iff I am even close to figure this out.

Committing without Fear.

Back in the 90's I was obsessed with figure skating. I was a fan before the Kerrigan/Harding kerfuffle but it certainly increased my attention afterwards. I was playing softball with a bunch of other gay men my age and we decided we would take ice skating lessons at the Plaza of The America's. We found enough guys from the team to form our own class so it was just the people I knew on the ice with me.

I had never skated before but I had no doubt at all that I would be "sit spinning" and "triple lutzing" in no time. While the others were hanging on to the rails I was skating along and even figured out how to skate backwards. The tedious instruction of the basic principles board me to death. When the teacher told us to take the ice and practice what we just learned, I saw this as my chance to get going real fast and try a big ole jump. I picked up speed, the cold air rushed across my face. I was Michelle Kwan. I was Scott Hamiliton. I pushed off with my legs and landed like a Roadmast Buick flat on my chest. It completely knocked the air out of my lungs and miraculously I managed to keep my chin from being opened wide up by the hard cold ice.

After that on ice catastrophe I was so filled with the fear of pain on the ice I found myself joining my friends practically still holding the side rails. I started to dread the lesson and I quit.

There have been countless things in my life where I have excelled in before I knew to be afraid.

I have lost 100 pounds twice, 70 lbs twice and 40 pounds more times than I could could. It just never occured to me that is was suppose to freak me out with such a large number to lose. It never occured to me that I couldn't do it. Losing for me is way easy compared to keeping it off.

In most sports, racing and even rodeoing, to pause because of a flash of fear can actually be deadly. My mother will start to pull out on the highway and then stop abruptly many times putting her (and ME!) in danger of being hit.

All these things just drive home the point to me of committing and not second guessing myself into the loonie bend. Ordering anything that I had to choose from a menu was torture, fearing it would not be enough, it wouldn't be as good as the other choices or that I would end up wishing I had ordered what someone else ordered.

Today, after 15 or more years of looking inward and fucking up plenty, I'm learning more and more to commit and let go of the results or make peace with the possible consequence. Commit with out fear. I am flinging myself at life on earth and I will deal with results as they happen because anticipating the worst just puts me out of play for another day.

Today I would ice skate again without crazy fear of falling. BUT BUT BUT, I wouldn't try any crazy jumps because it looked so cool on tv. (Unless I relapsed on alcohol or xanax) But that is another entry for another day.

I have one or two folks in my life who aren't going anywhere, that if I give them opportunity they will let me know why something is a bad idea or how I will fail. I love them and that is just the way they are, but what I think trumps what everyone else things. Start looking and you will see people all around that are succeeding at things just because it never crossed their mind they wouldn't. Toddlers just get up and walk one day, some crawl first and some just get up and get on about it. Because they weren't made aware that failure was a viable option. lol

Seeing Myself

I was on a backroad of sorts. It was a highway but not traveled that often. I passed a run down, rusted out , falling apart home place and there was a puppy about to leave the driveway and get on the highway. Thin would be an uderstatement. He was very clearly a puppy but to old to be counting on mother for food. He was black and filthy. He was the sort of dog that would be given bad odds at the dog shelter because he wasn't "cute".

I felt my heart breaking as I passed. The clear thought when my eyes went back to the road was. "I hope he finds someone to love. I hope he finds someone to love who can feel how good it is to have the unflappable love a dog can offer. Someone to see all the wonder and funny quirks he was born with.

It wasn't my own dog I was seeing on the roadside in my mind. It was myself I saw. It was me, with battle wounds and scars and knowing no stretch of the imagination would I be considered pretty enough to go in the front part of the dog pound.

Sometimes, when I get an extremely strong and moving example of what is capable for us to experience as humans and we don't, it really feels like a punch in the stomach. I have a full body, spirit and mind encounter with humanity about 6 or 7 times a year. They are very profound when they happen. When without trying I can experience the way things are for someone else from their point of view it is really overwhelming. When I see the now/truth without filter it scares me. I've done my best not to let feelings overwhelm me in my life because I thought they made you weak. Feelings give us humanity. I really do like "feeling" like I am part of the human race because for so long I thought I was denied at birth.

Even though I am a dirty, skinny puppy on the side of a backroad in front of a shack, I have had a taste of what is possible and that gives me hope in a seemingly hopeless situation. Sometimes the least likley to leave the pound is the first to get a home. So I stay open, don't make things worse, and look for as many new ideas as possible.

My January goal for 2009 was living bigger. Bigger ideas and bigger possibilities, because trying to stay small and inconspicuous hurt alot and nearly killed me.

ClintonUnplugged.

Don't Pick At IT, You will get it infected.

I'm thinking of wounds this morning for some reason. I had a surgery on my toe recently and I had to go through a process every night to make sure the wound didn't heal on the surface before the underneath did. The doctor said if the top heals first I could have a devil of a time with the unhealed underneath. At one visit he took what I called the tiny silver crochet hook and completely removed the new growth of skin on the top to get air back to the injury, which hurt like I couldn't believe.

For someone that was raised by a family and a peer group that was "all about the surface appearance" the problem of healing on top and ingoring the festering wound just sounded normal, frankly. I always practiced the belief that you "SAVE your face and your ass will follow". I can report here, THAT school of thought is a monstrous failure for me.

I spent a lot of time treating the symptoms of having a terribly wounded spirit. I'm toying with the connection of my toe surgery instructions to resist the appearance of progress/healing on the surface and continue to treat the source injury.

Real healing comes from the inside out not vice versa. The outside stuff comes the easiest because it requires the least amount of effort. It is most uncomfortable once you find some sort of treatment for the deep part of the wound because you just have to acknowledge it, be with it and let it take the time it needs to take in order for it to become complete again.

More than anything, I would love to move through my life on the planet without effects of a dry socketed wound of spirit leaving me to fully engaged in experiencing the experience of being a human for 70 or so years.

That is what I am thinking about at 7:30 in the morning on a Tuesday in Texas, in the body of a 41 year old white male, on the third rock from the sun.

Finding Center

I haven't been myself and I have not been centered. I really missed my self centeredness. Glad I'm back. I have been people watching tonight. It was a small social crowd and I just sat back and observed. I have a good aquaintance that was with us tonight. I say this without really condemning her for it, but she has a hard time being happy for other people. So I took that observation and tried it on myself. I am really glad and very happy that for all the backwards stuff I learned growing 41, that disliking the face that good has come to someone I know isn't one of those backwards things.

I had to let a friendship go with someone recently because he just couldn't be happy for people getting things, even things they earned. I believe there is plenty in the universe, and that's what i see and look for.

A huge red flag for me to check myself is when I can't be peaceful about someone else good fortune. When you start to lose weight some people go by the wayside because they can't bear the fact that you have done something great for yourself because they a haven't themselves.

I rewatched the E! True Story of Lottery Winners last week and all those people lost family and friends and spouses because their friends couldn't be happy for them with getting a piece of it themselves.

Like I said, no condemnation just oberservation. I am holding that mirror up to myself for sure.

I have the impulse where food is concerned that there is not going to be enough for me. So I buy platters that could feed an army just to make sure.

I've never been denied food and the fact I feel this way doesn't make me all that happy. I'm aware of it, which is key. I'm working on it.

The other acquaintence is in so much emotional pain that me the hypersensitive empathic codependant would really like to ask her about it. She is such a lovely person but she is clearly tormented. She engages with me and is so so likeable. I will just continue to send her good thoughts and stay open with regards to letting some of it go.

I was in love once in my life. It ended badly and I had no one to speak about it with because I didn't know anything about opening up. It took me 15 years to get over that break up because I didn't have a soul I could talk it through about without feeling like a bother.

I still have a hard time talking about the inside details but I have some direction with what to do with it now. I have not a problem listening to others go on and on, beating the dead horse of hurt but I'm not there yet taking my turn.

That's why the net is so great. You can practice with strangers.

I really like who I am. I have more cool components that pain in the ass ones. God, if you knew what progress that was you would rethink world peace and might believe it could really happen sooner than later.