Death [being] Forever

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Someone on Trigger's blog mused that she (Norma) doesn't understand the concept of death being forever.

The simple answer to this question is that death is whatever you want it to be.  God is Love and Creation, we are images of God, her realization of himself as experienced through us.  Our Souls decide when we leave the body and what we do in the afterlife; revisit, reincarnate, rejoin with the Oneness, another life another chance to Be.

Death is never forever as there is, on some level, no death.  The body drops away and becomes one with the earth, we are continuous.

On Cold Rails

Today I was carried to work on Cold Rails of steel.

Past dragons breath juice factory Lego snapped into the grid, pill boxes sniping four hundred thousand volts of supple heat we couldn't let go of even if we wanted to, even though it scars us badly, even thoughknowing the end is not enough for the grid; a shot of white lightning belt high. The atmosphere is thick with our vaporous trails into the ether, into the pale blue dawn with light so feeble it barely touches us, a fairy kiss on our turned cheek covered in Turtle Fur© and masked, hatted, covered and gloved, no one swings at this one; duck your head.

But the cars pass we pass them with scant an opening in this chill, a flicker of glimpsed handicapped signs blue wheel chairs winging pulling away that slight and narrow window gaze past a half dreaming dawn into semi warm coffee cup sipped by the conductor's call, "Final Stop! Bahstahn, North Stashahn."

Weave under and past the over pass curves in airplane arcs above my head.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Dodging the rows of rails and passing through the way a road is lit for me and the way is prepared and the arena entered. Today we move in enclosed spaces, weep tears of condensed breath and smell the remnants of past excursions in our muffles see them on our brow. Too little of our time is spent knowing this dim place, understanding the simple path between the cars feeling the freight that lies to be moved for all of us. Rust not and want not that is the motto placed signpost green interstate blue; this way to the Callahan Tunnel.

 

And then we gather steam, improve performance, motor ahead jobless recovery in tow. The power and pointlessness of heating sand and Boston Gravel has seen the rise and fall "First and Foremost."

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

The train knows nothing of this pride of America, cares not where we go when we ride rails straight to the destination we paid for, last stop and last chance waive your flag now before the political announcements begin. The sun shines glory high, if but we knew how to crawl up that conveyor belt and in to her mechanized

heart steaming brightly and sweating mightly we work and row the boat toward the distant shore of piecemeal freedom granted with the passing of a Patriot Act when patriots needed no legislation and wanted no truck to haul that freight dumped on us only when we gave our choices to two, yes two, political parties in a land of three hundred and fifty million divided by two will not stand in the cold air and sing Glory to The Republic I can hear it now.

And the bridge connects us to the place we are from, solid lift over solid water and thump thump crank creeeeek switch track four to ten track switching destination is a semi-final win with cheerleaders running out to great us as we head in to victory station click click last stop, slow halt of forward pressure ... stop.

 

 

 

 

 

 

Wish bone wish and snap still here driven concrete ridged into the the muck of the Charles. I have to leave now and on the way bright bone white day settled through it a parched opening I swallow I wonder where do we head when we go out across America

... I have to stop drinking coffee on the train, it weirds me out.

Bare Hand

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Currently it is

In this weather frostbite starts to appear on exposed skin within ten minutes. In this environment exposing any piece of skin is an act that is something between stupid and irresponsible.

Into this harsh world struts the nicest type of addict I know, the smoker. Oh these people are a piece of work and a tribute to the compulsion of an addiction.

The easiest way to identify these folks is by the bare hand they sport on days like today. Held tightly in the blue skinned white knuckled shaking extremity is a smoking fag, a butt. In an exposition of pure chemical consumption the smoker's paw moves quickly from their side to mouth, a deep quick inhale of the nico-opiate, and then an exhaust belch out, in to the air, in to the surroundings, in to our collective faces.

The distance from the train station to the subway is perhaps twenty five yards and these fiends can take more hits than Dead Heads at the Jerry Garcia Birthday Festival.

Butts blazing brightly these intrepid junkies chug into the morning.

And to those who are fashion conscious and aware I would like to ask where is the perfume "Ode Du Ashtray?" Can I ask that all those persons that I intend to kiss please take the burnt paper and crappy smoke breath mint before we start. And I would like to request my dry cleaner to please put the stale smoke smell into my clothes, pa-lease! Here's the dirty little secret the smoking addicts don't want to face up to; you look stupid and you smell like shit.

On days like today you will see the smoke junkie in front of buildings because they "enjoy" having a smoke, certainly not because they NEED to have one. I wonder what my employer would say if I took an hour or more to have shots of Jack Daniel's in front of the office, hell we could set up a bar with an employee discount!

This post has gotten slightly off on the angry tangent. Let me step back. The smoker is the nicest addict I know. They will pay anything for the drug they need, no matter how high or obscene the tax, they will dutifully stand in line for their fix. And the higher the tax the more smoking becomes a vanity symbol. I was in Montreal back when a pack of cigs cost $6.50. Guys would hand out butts to pretty girls like they were offering hits of coke. No slow down in smoking that I could see. Unfortunately high taxes lead to smuggling and all sorts of Prohibition era types of mobster vices.

So let's thank the Junkie, the smoker, hold them on high! They will pay for our health care, they will pay for our schools, and they have no choice whatsoever. If you think they have a choice go hold your bare hand outside today for about ten minutes and tell me that is fun and enjoyable; what choice do they really have?

Zero Degrees Fahrenheit

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It is the number zero that seems to make a difference.  It signifies Nothing.  A lack of anything, nada, neyt, zippo.  When you step outside and that first blast hits, even in the calm still of dawn with no wind at all and the blast is more felt than an actual physical force  you realize you are feeling not the lack of warmth but an absence of heat; a vacuum for your inner core.  It hurts to breathe.

It is days like today that I find it tough to keep the home fires stoked; my inner light feels pale and dim in this unrelenting sucking at my flames. 

On the way to work my eye spots the pale blue horizon and I instantly have 20 x 400 vison.  Everything is clearer in the cold air, clear and concise, a perspective of impossible clarity and infinite depth; warmth is felt as a relationship to something (someone) else.  You can feel warm and content in these environs when you realize the relative point from which you are viewing the world.  Gods eye must be like this; impossibly cold because it is impossibly warmth; absolute 0 Kelvin, absolute everything.

The day gets better when you can differentiate between the cold and the living and what that really means.

The Peanut Butter Jar

The Peanut Butter jar laid on its side split open around its rim, it top missing in action.

I was walking to the Post Office to mail some CDs, hat on tight, head down as if the cold only picked off the unwary who looked out of the warmth of their muffled collars; keeping your head down was just a way to delay the sucker punch of the artic winter air.

The peanut butter jar was one of those huge plastic ones, clear, a container that should have held a gallon of juice or some other foodstuff  less dense and more pallatible. 

When the jar hit it had split and spit its contents forth, about a third of the way out of the jar, where it had frozen solid.  Here, like a light brown toothpaste tube squeezed by gravities hand, was a cylinder of oozed peanut butter half out of the jar but not hitting the ground arcing toward the sidewalk inches above it not reaching it as it frooze.

Who Was Farenheit Anyway?

From Science Trek we see his profile

Gabriel Fahrenheit (1686-1736)

Gabriel Fahrenheit was a German physicist born in Danzig, Poland. He lived in Holland for most of his life and was involved in the manufacture of meteorological instruments. In 1714 he created the first thermometer to use mercury instead of alcohol. He devised the Fahrenheit scale of temperature recording, which is used today throughout the United States. The freezing point of water on this scale is 32 degrees and the boiling point of water is 212 degrees. He also invented a hygrometer to measure relative humidity and experimented with other liquids discovering that each liquid had a different boiling point that would change with atmospheric pressure.

Googling "Farenheit" sends us off to the The Farenhit, San Diego's Independent Newspaper.  And we can't let this pass without Formal scales and definitions from NASA

Baby Its Cold Outside!!!

Where Did We All Go?

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Where did we all go this Christmas?  Posters and Bloggers all, we seemed to go away
to travel back to the place whence we came.  For some of us this was a good place,
for others, myself included, not the space of childhood dreams but the cold reality
of dysfunctional families, the harsh words and bitter candy of parents with failing health
and failed relationships.

Where did we all go this Christmas?  It seems the subscriptions I read are all over the
place on this.  This is good!  We would be a weaker community this land of Xanga
if all of us shared the same familial pool; inbreeding of the literary bloggedy sort. 
I would wonder about myself as well if I only choose to read angry or frustrated Xangans.

Where did we all go this Christmas, well the distance depends on the how far we
fled from the nest, if we fled at all.  Some had the family close and comfortable,
the kids whether young or old giving and receiving and showing the spirit of the
season.  These bloggers let us know about their thankfulness.  Then there were
the others, many bitter and even depressed at what should be a joyous season.

Where did we all go this Christmas?  We mostly went to Ambivalence-ville.  That
private place where we just don't give a damn and don't hide that fact very well.
What are we doing?  What am I doing?  I have seen the light in the warmth and
glow and unabashed joy of families, friends, colleagues and what they can do for
your soul at this time of year.  I have also seen the mind numbing spirit crushing
depression that settles over some people making this time of year the peak for
suicides.  Rant after rant and rave after rave fills the pages of blogs; and yet they
soldier on!  Why???  No one makes you more miserable than yourself, get
out of it, get off of it, just enjoy yourself.

I'm living in between these worlds; I have the wonderful light of my girlfriends family,
my good friends, my esteemed colleagues.  I have the memory and reality of my own
family's depression and burdens.

I choose the light.  Ha, maybe it's a Christmas Light!

Happy New Year.

A Walk in the Fells

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In a wood quite near the highway is the Fells.  I don't know why it's called that, some quaint New England thing I'm sure, but into the fells we went.

The tongue of ice licked the roots of the trees.  Lingering frozen in its delight at the taste.

The old Fells Bell Tower.  No longer ringing, the view the only sound it makes.

We climbed the stairs and at the top looked at where we had been; Nautalus shaped iron and steel tread;  We swirled into a dream ...

And fell into the hill there

Gray and wet pieces of a dream.

                                          Merry Christmas

 

This is the time of year when we think back to the very first Christmas, when the Three Wise Men - Gaspar, Balthazar and Herb - went to see the baby Jesus, and, according to the Book of Matthew, "presented unto Him gifts: gold, frankincense, and myrrh."

These are simple words, but if we analyze them carefully, we discover an important, yet often-overlooked, theological fact: There is no mention of wrapping paper. If there had been wrapping paper, Matthew would have said so

 

"And lo, the gifts WERE inside 600 square cubits of paper.

"And the paper WAS festooned with pictures of Frosty the Snowman.
"And Joseph WAS going to throweth it away, but Mary saideth unto him, she saideth, 'Holdeth it! That is nice paper! Saveth it for next year!'
"And Joseph DID rolleth his eyeballs.
"And the baby Jesus WAS more interested in the paper than, for example, the frankincense."

But these words do not appear in the Bible, which means that the very first Christmas gifts were NOT wrapped. This is because the people giving those gifts had two important characteristics

1. They were wise.

2. They were men.

Men are not big gift wrappers. Men do not understand the point of putting paper on a gift just so somebody else can tear it off. This is not just my opinion: This is a scientific fact based on a statistical survey of two guys I know. One is my son, Rob, who said the only time he ever wraps a gift is, quote, "if it's such a poor gift that I don't want to be there when the person opens it." The other is my friend Gene Weingarten, who told me he does wrap gifts, but as a matter of principle never takes more than 15 seconds per gift. "No one ever had to wonder which presents daddy wrapped at Christmas," Gene said. "They were the ones that looked like enormous spitballs."

I also wrap gifts, but because of some defect in my motor skills, I can never COMPLETELY wrap them. I can take a gift the size of a deck of cards and put it the exact center of a piece of wrapping paper the size of a regulation volleyball court, but when I am done folding and taping, you can still see a sector of the gift peeking out. (Sometimes I camouflage this sector with a marking pen.) If I had been an ancient Egyptian in the field of mummies, the lower half of the Pharaoh's body would be covered only by Scotch tape. On the other hand, if you give my wife a 12-inch square of wrapping paper, she can wrap a C-130 cargo plane. My wife, like many women, actually LIKES wrapping things. If she gives you a gift that requires batteries, she wraps the batteries separately, which to me is very close to being a symptom of mental illness. If it were possible, my wife would wrap each individual volt.

My point is that gift-wrapping is one of those skills - like having babies - that come more naturally to women than to men. That is why today I am presenting: GIFT-WRAPPING TIPS FOR MEN. Whenever possible, buy gifts that are already wrapped. If, when the recipient opens the gift, neither one of you recognizes it, you can claim that it's myrrh. The editors of Woman's Day magazine recently ran an item on how to make your own wrapping paper by printing a design on it with an apple sliced in half horizontally and dipped in a mixture of food coloring and liquid starch. They must be smoking crack.  If you're giving a hard-to-wrap gift, skip the wrapping paper! Just put it inside a bag and stick one of those little adhesive bows on it. This creates a festive visual effect that is sure to delight the lucky recipient on Christmas morning 

 

YOUR WIFE: Why is there a Hefty trash bag under the tree?
YOU: It's a gift! See? It has a bow!

YOUR WIFE (peering into the trash bag): It's a leaf blower.
YOU: Gas-powered! Five horsepower!

YOUR WIFE: I want a divorce.

YOU: I also got you some myrrh.

 

In conclusion, remember that the important thing is not what you give or how you wrap it. The important thing, during this very special time of year, is that you save the receipt.

 

View; Commuter Seat

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This is what the daily commute looks like, in B&W. 

Does anyone remember the TV show starring John Laroquette? 
Something about a bus station he managed. 
He had a sign over his desk taken from an Amusement Park;
This is a DARK ride.  Yes, dark indeed!

Got Up Outta Bed, Dragged a Comb Accross My Head 

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Sooooo, how do we suggest to our neighbors that it is in everyone’s interest to clean the snow off of the driveway before backing out and compressing it into a solid sheet of ice, and furthermore can this sentence run on any farther or longer …

Just because it’s funny:

I was just too tired and wet after chopping ice last night to take out the garbage, will do it in the morning … of HELL

·Alarm didn’t go off, got up at 8, the garbage guys had already come and gone.

·Instead of dropping off the truck at the dealers at 7:30AM I dropped it off at 9.

·Next train from Waltham is 10.

·Got to work 11:15.

·Left with group at 11:45 to go to farewell lunch.

·Got back to desk at 1:45.

·Truck will cost over $500 to get out of hock.

·Absolutely NOTHING was accomplished at work.

·Left at 3PM for Company Holiday Party.

·Left party at 4:25 to catch early train so that I can pick up the truck before the dealer closes at 6.

·Caught 4:50 train, outside of Porter Square train dies, just stops.

·Wait 45 minutes for the 5:20 to come along and push us to Belmont.

·Get to Belmont at 6PM, abandoned idea of getting truck.

·Tomorrow will have to be right at the dealer’s at 7:30AM to make it back for the 8:35 train.

… I’m going to bed, it’s safer in there.