Flashes in the dark

"Existence is not something of which we can significantly say that it lacks or possesses meaning. If life is absurd because one can find no meaning in experience, what are the conditions, actual or imaginable, in which one could find meaning? What would life have to be like in order for us to declare that it is not absurd?" 
~ Sidney Hook

 A fire service OV-10 flew over the other day.  Two guys I was with both gushed that it was a P-38. I said nothing.  They were so pleased to have actually seen, as they believed, a P-38 in flight and it made no difference to me. Why be a buzzkill?

Garrison Keillor could have pinched my butt any time.  Harvey Weinstein would have rued the day he was born had he tried.  Not that there is any world where I would have encountered either one.

I don't like wine. To me, it tastes like somebody poured vinegar into perfectly good grape juice.  If you want to induce me to drink alcohol, you'll have to conceal its horrid taste in something sweet and flavorful.  And don't put in too much or I will start giggling and telling risque jokes, then get dizzy, barf chunks on you and pass out. 

Do black guys have hobbies? Aside from chatting up blondes, I mean. Okay, that was a joke.  I meant aside from shooting up gatherings of other blacks.  Okay, that was ... oh, never mind. Anyway, I don't know any to ask.  I used to, but I never thought about it then. They were solid guys, usually petty officers. Not like.... I know a Mexican guy who collects superhero and video game character dolls -- action figures! he corrects me.  Well, esskyooze me!  I know an English guy who builds working miniature steam locomotives.  From scratch. He also built his own hovercraft to zoom around on. I know a Japanese guy who collects and restores old Marusho motorcycles.  And every regular white guy American I know has some kind of hobby -- building sailboats, collecting old radios, training border collies...something.

As soon as I arrive on the rez I notice semi-feral dogs everywhere.  Gives the place a Third World feel.  No one seems to own them, but they form territorial attachments to certain houses and businesses.  I like dogs and have never had a problem with these. They approach me, sometimes snarling and barking, but stop before reaching me and approach cautiously, sniff, look up at me and wag their tails. Dogs are good people evaluators. If one bites you, it's because he's sensed your essential character and judged it bad.  I've never been bitten but have had my leg humped.  I hesitate to think what that says about my essential character.

Sometimes a big dog has even knocked me down and began humping.  If there is an owner -- perhaps better described as an acquaintance of the dog -- he always shouts out, don't worry, he won't bite you.  But I'm not worried about being bitten, I'm worried about being knotted.

During the shortages, such as they were, the only thing that I bought regularly that was not available was fukujinzuke (福神漬), which I bought from a local Japanese general store.  I love it with Japanese-style curry.  So I learned how to make my own. Dee-lish.  Much better than the store-bought stuff.  When I dropped by the store the other day, I noticed they had fukujinzuke back in stock.  But I didn't buy any and won't ever again.  I wonder how many folks learned during the shortages that making do is making better.

Whenever The Boss of Me and I squabble, it always ends with me getting the Iowa cornfield in spring treatment.  It's a bit awkward when it happens in Safeway.
Do I ever precipitate the squabble anticipating the, um, outcome?

“Lawyer, priest, doctor, politician, newspaperman—these are the quacks who have their fingers on the pulse of the world. A constant atmosphere of calamity. It's marvelous. It's as if the barometer never changes, as if the flag were always at half-mast.”
― Henry Miller 

I know the world's a mess and every day seems to bring ever worse malevolent craziness. I hesitate to even check out the day's news.  But around here you'd never know any of it was happening.  People are pleasant and cooperative with each other, easily striking up conversations with strangers.  We've had plenty of rain this spring and nature is bursting with voluptuous fecundity.  I've never seen so many flowers blooming all at once.  Just this week the rhodies began blooming in gorgeous colors and daisies and foxgloves are popping up everywhere.  The stores are full of goods and produce, I haven't seen anyone wearing a mask for ages, UPS and FedEx trucks trundle along even the remotest byways, loaded with goodies.  The smell of fresh-cut grass fills the lingering evenings, which are now often warm and invite sitting on the west-facing porch watching the lengthening shadows beckon on the night and listening to the lowing cattle.  Just before dinner time a couple of high-school girls ride by on their horses, chatting and laughing, their dogs trotting along beside them, sometimes pausing to sniff something interesting, then racing to catch up.

“The man who is forever disturbed about the condition of humanity either has no problems of his own or has refused to face them.”
― Henry Miller

 I was browsing the blog of an American ex-pat living in the Ukraine who wants the US to intervene to drive out the Russians.  He writes: "If one allows Russia to engulf one country, Ukraine, which resolutely does not want to be Russian, the same logic could be applied to the Baltics, Moldova, Poland and everything west of there."  Oh, noes!  The domino effect!  Where was that used before to justify American intervention in a war that was none of our affair?  Why, Viet Nam!  And how did that work out?  And North Viet Nam didn't have nuclear weapons.  The guy wanting America to intervene is old enough to have served in Viet Nam and he did -- but as a civilian contractor.  He kept his own ass well clear of trouble.  But now he wants Americans, whom he otherwise insults and denigrates, to come and save his sorry ass.  No, damn it!  No!  You're the one who chose to abandon your own country and emigrate to what Yale historian Timothy D. Snyder called the "Bloodlands." He titled one of the most horrifying, depressing books I have ever read by the same name.  Read it and weep. 

To yield to the temptation to find other people inhuman is to take a step toward, not away from, the totalitarian position. To find other people incomprehensible is to abandon the search for understanding, and thus to abandon history.”
― Timothy Snyder

“When meaning is drawn from killing, the risk is that more killing would bring more meaning.”
― Timothy Snyder

The world is too grim to gaze at it for long.  And there is nothing you can do about any of the horror.  Go ahead, shout Stop! into the raging wind smelling of fire, dismembered bodies and explosives, bringing to your ears the sounds of gunfire and screams.  What good does it do?  Better to turn away, focus your gaze on your own life and the lives of those you love, and let the rest of the world go by.  This I know by direct personal experience.  You cannot save the world.  You probably can't even save yourself.  But that, at least, you can try to do with some hope of success.  

A Joke:

 Jack goes to his friend Mike and says "I'm having an affair with the minister's wife. Can you keep him back in church for an hour after service for me?"
Mike doesn't like it, but being a friend, he agrees.
After the service, Mike starts talking to the minister, asking him all sorts of stupid questions, just to keep him occupied. Finally the minister gets annoyed and asks Mike what he's really up to. Mike, feeling guilty, confesses to the minister, "My friend is having sex with your wife right now, so he asked me to keep you occupied."
The minister thinks for a minute, smiles, puts a brotherly hand on Mike's shoulder and says, "You’d better hurry home. I'm not married."

 “Life itself is an exile. The way home is not the way back.”
― Colin Wilson