KSTS, c’est la nouveau KISS!

I’m no life coach nor some high priest of motivation so I chart my own course of simplicity. Moderation is boring but usually the key ingredient when mixing the day up. It’s we who are the emotional swizzle sticks, not the workplace, media or our favorite mind-distracting tube shows. Can you tell I have little empathy with those who blame everything but themselves for their problems? So maybe a foray into life coaching is OK after all?

If so, KSTS is where it’s at. Keep Simple Things Simple. Can it be easier or so much damned harder than that? It would be easier if I were some Horse with No Name, wandering across Heather’s craggy southwestern plains, a milieu painted with barren beauty and endless hours of down time. That kind of simplicity, live free/live smart or die, would be interesting here in our nation’s hub. The none of us would prosper since too many cogs turn too many others. [argh] [TMM swoons, brainwaves flat-line as the Borg collective reins his free spirit back in … he blankly smiles while creating a new policy]

But, “in the evening, when the day is done, I got to have your love.” More shameless paraphrasing from the band of the week, of the millennium, Led Zep, and words that ring so true. Because, I think, all work sooner or later fades into the noise of the workplace collective, if you will. The simple things at home, live/love/happiness, are what resonate in my psyche as dancing daytime thoughts fall into place late at night.

Now if I could convince the happy pets that I get dibs on my own part of the bed…

Barnyard Sabbatical

Holy Moquination! I got to thinking about the topic of career advancement and the Race to the Top the other night whilst talking to mi amigo Ken M. If you think I’m WHACKED, well, meet Ken. However, a truer and more insightful person you’re not likely to meet too soon.

When asked why I wasn’t a GS-15 yet, the express train question that often seems to rip through conversations with old friends, I smile ruefully to myself. I then explain all that glitters surely/obviously/definitely is not gold (no, not in those terms), and tell them I’m the Peter Principle Incarnate! He who can do much techie stuff, a bit of thoughtful analysis here and there, and certainly am drawn to the bright bulb of creativity. Management, in the Federal govvie sense, doesn’t allow much time for these strengths and supervisory duties aren’t rewarded in any many ways interesting to me. But I so respect people who made that leap into the nurturing of our careers, development plans and aspirations. They deserve thanks, so y’all get on that today, will you?

Regular working hours are also a binnie, eh? Maybe not for all of you – it might bore the heck out of some folks. I make up for it with the volunteer work I can do leisurely or sometimes just squeeze in. I guess that’s bittersweet yet fulfilling part of the daily tedium, but man, I’m so happy to have a job; are you also happy too (Arkansawyer, it’s rude to LOL at work!)?

Hmm, would you rather get up in the morning and deal with the barn, feed the animals and take a walk? Not a bad idea and I wish we all could take barnyard sabbaticals each year. Bet we’d be fresher at work! Though I doubt all of you would revel in farm life, I bet there’s some diversion you could find for a month. Here’s another something that just came to me. The same home clarion in my head rang, the raison d’être I preserver through my daily rounds in DC’dom:

When you tire of

All the bright light

Pace that’s killing

And you’re willing

To stay home at night

Look for me, I’ll be around.

‘I’ll be around’

Neko Case

Jose and his Strange Sensation

Oh, to be a rock band! Being one in my head will have to do for now. You see, I was watching Robert Plant and the Strange Sensation last night and that’s one tight band! When one of the lead guitarists wants a change of pace, he down goes the guitar and back he comes with a bongo drum sorta thing. I can’t wait to replay the DVR recording because it proves Led Zeppelin’s music can be dramatically rearranged with non-Western instrumentation and truly sound livelier than the original scores.

“Purgatory for you, old man. Ye speaketh in vile tongues. Led Zep is da bomb! Off with ye to the Disco Dungeon.”

The 396-character expository exposition above is to underscore why older isn’t always better. Nor is the original. I’m not crazy in my mind, but realistic that the good ol’ times maybe weren’t always golden. For example, watching my son enjoying the eating of Ramen as a food group takes me back -- but he can go there alone, thank you. I learned how to use a cook book and my waistline grows ever sturdier in appreciation.

[His mind goes blank. Soothing visions of porridge, oatmeal and yoghurt touch his brain. To be erased by a sausage McGriddle sandwich that rampages across the breakfast scene, devouring the bland healthy foods in a satisfyingly carnivorous way.]

I may look the same as yesterday but does that mean some strange sensation won’t hit me. I might act differently and put on the Devo Hat of Bureaucracy, sitting there severely with a green accountant’s eyeshade and a punctilious fresh pencil, drafting policies that make the world a better place. I just might go an hour without smiling or laughing, stopping frequently to square-off everything on the desk so it’s just right. Then I’ll attend a meeting and my mind won’t once wander far afield into elvish woods.

With a shudder, that strange sensation passes. I remain Jose and saunter into my future, knowing I’m still me. Older, maybe better/maybe not, but definitely a tighter act. Let’s all get out there today and I’ll see you on the stage!

On a Grey Horizon, Part Deux

I don’t know that I aspire to be a writer but your collective positive feedback keeps me coming on. I juggle too many life roles to join a writers club, so the blog suffices. [the crowd gives an eclectic shout-out to Andrea P, she who blends words at a prodigious rate every day!] I feel for the guy below as he meanders through post-apocalyptic Nowhere to some unclear Somewhere. The destinations don’t matter to me as much as the feelings, hence why I so respect Fiodor D. and Aleksandr S.

[sigh] Truth be told, as an author I would be an impoverished ragamuffin living out my days in some lonely corner of the coffee shop.

It’s all clear

I was meant to be here.

But why, my dear,

if I can’t recall?

I have so much to care about,

kaleidoscopic memories,

visions in the night,

and the parts of you

that you let me keep.

But can I handle it,

the dangers of “Imagine if…”

when I try to collect pieces of me

lying lonely when you let me go?

His stumbling gait took him along the river, feeling the angry pebbles chattering underfoot, irritated at his early morning passage. Having left the love of his life quietly lifeless on the hillside, he half-heartedly continued his search for the seashore. The radio’s last gasps had promised them food and shelter at misery’s end, that town with that odd name. Would that it were so and that the soft tides of Puget Sound would be a salve for his sadness.

He felt her spirit floating nearby as he made plans for them both, not yet knowing how to breathe alone. Ruefully sighing at the folly of his new life, he plopped down alongside a wizened tree. A lizard skittered on a rock. Funny, he thought, how running into the wind blows away those things you can’t handle.

Drooling, he left behind thoughts of the queen of his nights and instead contemplated lizard fricassee a la carte. Funny too, he thought, how having a warped sense of humor was so important in a time of turbulence, this wintertime of his life.

Things I think I know or Wish were true

Come to think of it, that can be the same thing.

Low-hanging fruit, aka The Easy Ones

· My job is worth your tax dollars / my job is worth this commute / my commute enables this blog (how easy that one was!)

· Genetics cause kids pickiness at mealtime, not the Ogre of a Mother’s parenting style

· There is some type of afterlife, you choose the flavor; for a sentient being, the alternative is depressing

· We all got rhythm and humor, it’s just harder to find/understand/accept in some of us!

· Some certain percentage of people are crappy or intentionally idiotic drivers; cities are worse only because of population density (pseudo-proof: my recent two near-misses in February both were with only the idiots and I within the same mini-ZIP code)

· People still like paper books

· A certain percentage of commuter drivers always will avoid the convenient toll roads just to save a few bucks

· Pulling the government out of the housing mortgage lending market will dramatically alter our country within our lifetime

· The Blues #1: Too much commuter bus careening makes the bathroom’s blue toilet water, that smells Oh So Flowery, slosh around a bit too energetically

· The Blues #2: The Blue Men, one of whom looks suspiciously like Arkansawyer…

Tough nuts, like in the movie Ice Age

· We don’t directly cause global warming but sure do worsen it every day

· People who habitually run red lights don’t live as long

· The people who agonize over the rising price of gasoline often haven’t figured out that skipping one family restaurant meal out per month, say at even $50, more than offsets the price difference (aka, whining). The tougher part/compassionate waiver is for those who already never eat out because they’re already living on the edge.

· So many folks preach how they love their parents and familial elders (uncles & aunts), but I think that’s suspicious because too many older folks live a cold miserable life on a basically bare-subsistence level. If I'm in fact right, it would explain why no one is around to toss them even a hundred bucks a month to put some meat on the table.

Larger than Life

So, who fits the bill? What makes it Large? And what shouldn’t be?

People – that’s tough. Aside from my own parents and wife, there are a few non-family amazing folks today’s Top 5: Mother Teresa, Greg Mortensen, Jimmy Carter, Jon Bon Jovi and JRR Tolkien. Though I’m excluding almost all of you, to be fair, I’ve just got to shout out an honorable mention to my son Chris, The Exigent One, who isn't afraid to tackle most anything from bloody patients to screamer Mustang SVTs!

Things that are larger than life: Potbelly’s Italian sub; in general, subs/grinders/zeppelins on the Food Network; NFL – tho it’s really just a game, updated from the Roman Coliseum; Ted Turner’s ranches; a good rock concert (Kim, Our Effervescent One-what was the best one ever?); the world of Dune with its lessons for humanity and humility; and, Dungeons and Dragons, a world all unto itself and larger than any one hero like me.

For the umpteenth time, we ask ourselves What Is and What Should Never Be (larger, that is): government, something better when nimble and understandable; any of us unless we’re ready to wax in the limelight; money, it taints too much of the soil; retirement, an increasingly fleeting fantasy that can take away from the good we can for a paycheck; and, media – it opens vistas but imperils our rationale by skewing everything through its must-be-biased looking glass.

Now I’m reminded of Alice in Wonderland and how things are not as they appear. Good analogy and time to look askance at the routine things in my life, wondering just why exactly they’re smaller or larger than they first appear. Hey, maybe I’ll sleep better afterward?

Dazed and Confused? Or a Communication Breakdown?

”I (sure don’t) want to hold you in my arms. Yeah, I’m having a nervous breakdown – you want to drive me insane!”

OK, paraphrasing Led Zeppelin doesn’t really cover the scope of my disgust with Congress, but it’s close. And nope, today’s post isn’t about politics because I won’t go there. 1001001001001001001001001 …

Isn’t cyber-correction tape great?! You have no idea how many nasty barbs above were just rewritten AND deleted! So, I will NOT make the mistake a few Facebookers and bloggers make about spewing bad things online, things that never go away. My negative thoughts on our Congress shall remain my own…

Makes me wonder why we in this era still see so many emails that should not have been sent. Guess there are lots to thing sent and not sent that resonate across history, like captured battlefield missives that turned the day or poignant letters unsent that, when unearthed, show you a true depth of feeling, of character.

[whew!] [more Zep plying on Henri the iPod and it’s really dead-on this time] ”I been a workin’ from 7 to 11 every night. It really makes life a drag. I don’t think that’s right, no. I’ve really been the best of fools.”

Snowflakes fall down, we all fall down

Hah! Gotcha! I mean, who wants to read dreary stuff? Life is an interesting flux of Pollyanna-Obi Wan-Eeyore emotions these days but while wildly swinging past the balance, I realize we usually can deal with all this ‘life stuff.’

Take snowflakes. I like them and sing songs to them while moving them from our cars to their happy place, the ground. We build them into goofy figures and toss them about. Doubt the latter makes them too happy so maybe that’s why some snowballs hurt more than others, angry snow. What winter’s morning is more perfect, when you’re not going anywhere anyway, than a nice cuppa Joe, a piece of German stollen and a boundless field of snow? Oh, you’re right - tossing the cats outside, then giving them a warm bath afterward!

Attraction of blue,

Rumination of browns,

Purring green,

Eternity white.

Sorry, I have no idea where that came from, probably some damaged occipital lobe cells trying to be heard. Hmm, those are the same buggers that chime in when I’m speaking up at meetings. All those electro-shock sessions and this mindless babbling all is I get? Sucks to be me, he without a filter to keep the Inner Voice quiet and Deeper Feeler somnolent. Thinking about the chaos, the daily dramas, that sometime swirl through my life, I wonder if the lack of a reliably good filter is the reason.

The Arctic Cat has reached its station after an Iditarod-like mush along Route 5. I and my warped cranium are nearing work, the nirvana of my morning that substitutes for the perfect day above. [sound of flutes lilt in the background] I have coffee and my morning workout there, so today Obi Wan rules and we saunter along the calm path, the best path. Please disembark safely, and may your own day be a good one, a strong one.

RW’s Last Day

How is it I sit here and feel Rod Stewart’s ‘Country Comforts’ dancing across my brainwaves? That would be hard since Henri the iPod is asleep this morning, so there's no real music playing. Robin’s moving response to the Last Day blog post got me to thinking. As said on , my last day’s thoughts don’t matter as much as yours, so Robin, please take it away…

"I would want to start the day before day break, so that James and I can take pictures of the sunrise together, just like we always talk about doing. Then I'd gather everyone around the breakfast table, so we could enjoy a big meal together. We'd linger over that last cup of coffee, before getting dressed and heading out for the day. I'd want to visit as many of my family that I could, and telephone the ones I couldn't. I'd take my mother out to lunch, with her sister, and tell them both to grow up, and make up. That life is too short to bear grudges, especially when you can't even remember how they got started, or understand why they continue. I'd tell them if they were lucky enough to be given a sister, they should honor that gift, and honor the memory of their parents love, by sharing that love. Hoarding it away just makes you crabby.

I'd want to spend the afternoon with James and the kids, doing whatever they wanted. Painting more ceramics, or tie-dyeing stuff, or lazing around watching movies. Anything to see their happy faces, and have the chance to talk and touch and hug and tease. I'd hold them close, and smell their hair, and tell them that it's never too late...to have a happy childhood, or a happy anything else. Life is precious, and should be savoured.

I'd want to have dinner with my parents...Daddy and Jean...and Aunt Sarah...to talk and laugh and drink too much coffee and eat too much chocolate...to listen to my father tell our families stories, and watch the children take it all in, to turn to Jamie with a smile, and listen to his stories, too. And somewhere in there, I'd want to take off to Arkansas, to see my new family, but I'd probably end up settling for a phone call...

And after dinner, I'd want to spend the rest of the evening with James, sipping a glass of wine, watching the starts, listening to his heart beat, and just BEING....because There is no place like Home... "

Yes, It's me in your Mirror

It’s always – really, always – been clear to me why I love Michele. If words were wings, then dreamers would fly, ride or be able to convince their spouses of that love. It’s funny to know I’m not Icarus and yet still dream my wings (and true love) are real. A startlingly simple revelation after 26 years of Our Journey, one worth celebrating on this Valentine’s Day:

Yes, It's me in your Mirror

For you and me

life is not some dreary routine

but a marvel of humor and spirit

that travels at the speed of love.

For you and me

age is not the defining mood

where we hang on yesterdays -

because our dawns brings hope.

For you and me,

our presence, the whole of us,

a tumultuous togetherness,

carries me away in a storm.

For you and me

some things are self-evident.

But nothing charges me more

than meeting your smile.

My heart goes out to you

anywhere, any crazy time,

as we move along,

as we intertwine.