Osakatomebaby

Short shorts. Got lost on the way and enjoyed (really) talking to gardeners and police. My first stop in a koban, ever. And ran across a boat dock with people rowing. It's near Kyobashi where I may move, huzzah. Maybe I'll take up rowing again. I'm going to become a professional hobbyist before long.

Watched...lessee...from 12pm to 10:30 pm in 1:40 blocks with 20 minute breaks to inhale ginger ale, cappuccino, some dish with too much chicken...before watching a chicken butchered. Oh dear.

Fortunately not all the films were dark, but shorts and indies do take the cake for extraneous violence at times. I think every punch, jab and stabbing can now be felt in my back if you'd care to step inside my skin for a moment. Awful, awful chairs at the MID Theater.

I would attempt a review, but none of us will ever see these films again. Unless you have IFC in which case you might see the weirdly unsatisfying Sofia Coppola "Maestro Selection" piece about backstabbing middle school girls. Maybe I just can't relate...she and I obviously had different experiences.

That and gosh, all I did was watch movies and I feel like I've just come back from a three-day bender (not that I know what that's like mind you). About halfway through I was enthusiastically emailing people in the break to try and drag them down on Sunday for more. Ah...prolly feel different Sunday but at this precise moment I feel like if I never see another short film or animation it'll be too soon. I want to be in the LIGHT.

Me:"I'm going to act like a grown-up now, for the next two weeks anyway."

Wisdom:"But what for? Are you a masochist?"

Okay, New Horizons is actually just the name of a really irritating New-agey NPR show that used to be on KUT at exactly the wrong moment so I actually sometimes listened to it as I drove out to Buda for Sunday night dinner every week, back in the olden days that is.

Buda is also where my Buddy Ben's in-laws live and that brings us to the point here which is to say Ben has joined the ranks as a contributor to the blog Horizon. Ben's a linguist who poses as a software engineer. I think he's just waiting to get into a liberal thinktank or become a professional homebrewer. Can you do that? Become a professional homebrewer? Hmmm. Anyway he could. Mead's good too. So ALL HAIL BEN who reads my site but never comments anymore. Oh well, I'll take what I can get.

As for his most recent entry on Nerd Camp as we called it, well he went to the Duke program and I went to the little-known Joseph Baldwin and John R. Kirk ones every year in Kirksville, MO. So did that determine my course in life? Well I did discover there are islands of cool people and that I was not the only one. Then I came to UT.

Ben went to Rice. I think Rice must be like Nerd Camp for grown-ups--lots of cool people. It would have been fun. I visited, but I wanted to biggest broadest most proletarian yet decent education I could get. Oh and the free one too (due to a clerical error heh heh). So it goes...

And did the summers of Physics and Chemistry and Chaos theory pay off? Well I can vaguely understand my students when they tell me about Chaotic searches and Associative Memory models, but the Nanotechnology just leaves me in the dust, know what I mean?

Okay, actually it's mostly pictures of Kamakura. Sometimes I turn the camera off and chill out.

I hate it when people ring my doorbell. If I were living here longer I would disconnect the thing. I sometimes even get my hopes up...maybe it's the postman with a present! But no, it's always just some stranger standing there looking purposeful.

This time, I don't know. Maybe a neighbor? But I'm still in my pajamas so I peek out the peep hole and stare and wait for him to go, but he rings the bell again. Fortunately the washing machine is running so I don't think he could hear me sneaking up and then sneaking away. When the washing machine's not running the floor creaks even if you tip-toe so they know you're peering and ignoring them.

I hate sneaking around my own house but I'd feel creepier if I didn't and I can't use the intercom effectively because I mostly wouldn't understand what they want without the requisite hand-waving and I don't want to let strangers know there's a deaf and dumb girl living here alone.

Tangentially Victoria says I quote Kurt Cobain far too often. Apparently I need a new quote: "Just because you're paranoid, don't mean they're not after you."

For the record I didn't freak out when I lost my hard drive. I mean I tried everything but there were no tears, no self-recrimination (although prolly there should have been). Just me taking photos of my BSOD. I am clueless as to what the secret code stuff meant so I fuzzed it out in case it would somehow grant gremlins or hottentots access to all my important information like say that one party picture of Colin from high school that he doesn't want me to publish.

Hooray for the Brits! They were able to process my friend Paul's international drivers license so we will be cruising at low altitudes to destinations unknown. Perhaps Fuji? All I know is that we will have a car and are going to (foolishly?) try to avoid tolls to the degree that's possible...that in itself may be absurd, there are a lot of v. high tolls.

Will it be a good trip? I hope so. Six days is a long time to travel with anyone (like, say, me for example) and everyone else somehow backed out, but we are both decently seasoned (molly mcbutter) at traveling at this point and not too fussy. Least not me. And we had a very memorable trip to Hiroshima/Miyajima last year with Marni.

He the distinction of having traveled around the US on Greyhound which is no small feat. I've done a few greyhound trips myself, although it's probably a little easier when you're a tallish guy than a shortish...fine short...girl. I always got the Fort Hood guy on leave as my uninvited travel companion--or worse, falling asleep on my shoulder...once anyway. I was fuming, but too wussy to tell him to get lost. Now I'd probably give him the look of death before he even came close. Course I'm not 18 anymore either.

So anyway, that's kind of a nifty thing. And since I am licenseless I will be the navigator, or, as my little sister used to say when she was watching that one movie, (Flight of) the Alligator.

What else I realized today, I'm living like a 20 year old. When it gets to the point that I'm the creepy old woman acting too young for her age someone will someone please tell me? I'm having an extended adolescence. And I still say "dude" but I blame that on Jim.

Da da da da da. Scroll buttons scroll buttons like a heart attack...or something like that. I am back on regular email now...fyi.

Okay I'm in. Me of the lame name...Please note my limited color scheme and tendency toward neutrals.

I do. Taking the day off on the 30th this month to watch short films allllll day including a program of animation and (if Marrrie will come) the French program. If she can't I may take a break then and get some dinner. I have more days I could take but I probably won't and they'll expire at the end of September. It's just kind of a hassle and I don't have any big plans so...

Oh and I am finally going to see Lost in Translation today and then again next week because I'm just not that good at herding cats in general and the cats I hang out with in particular. C'est la vie.

I dare you to try and find shes like these in Tulsa. Really. Kawaiiiiiiiii!

Those who are not of a dualistic mind will understand that form is emptiness and emptiness is form, but to understand we must also discover the meaning of "form is form" and "emptiness is emptiness" by letting the cows of attachment run free in our big mind. To discover big mind it is good to stay up till the wee hours discussing the finer points of sex and French lingerie. Not that I have either. This is the meaning of "big mind".

So then to get to the aforementioned temple you will probably arrive blearily early yet lacking any semblance of actual directions to the one of 32 (or was it 23) sub temples of Daitokuji. You are looking for a single named building within one of these complexes. The monk's instructions on the phone the previous day will erode away till you remember only single syllable from which you will try and locate the sub-temple on a map which is in kanji.

Failing this (quickly) you will take to your heels to the semi-dismay of your companions who wish to proceed rationally, not quite certain of your faith in this concept of "internal GPS", and who express some wariness and when you wave an overconfident hand in the air, clearly expressing your total uncertainty. They will probably ask to see the "map" at this point. The map being a nondescript box with an "X" in it. The map itself could in fact be construed as a work of modern Zen art. You will proceed nevertheless.

Oh all right, you will ask someone--harassing strangers being one of your predilections anyway. Lots of people strolling this early, walking dogs. You must practice maintaining the subtle balance that helps you determine when someone is being reticent because they don't want to tell you they don't know, and when someone is being reticent because they don't want to tell you they do know straight away. This is a fine art better mastered when you are not trying to get to the zendo on time--nevertheless it is another opportunity to practice non-dualism by staying in the moment of the present non-constructive conversation rather than, say, looking at your watch.

Somehow, you will magically arrive (GPS) right on time to see the monk in burnt-orange shorts and an undershirt sweeping the walk by hand into a tiny dustpan as though he wanted to make sure to be there extra long in case you did get lost.

Second person narrative gets irritating, no?

So we thought there would be quite a few folks, but no. It was us and one other fellow. The Roshi, after switching to his vestments, told us when to do what all and bow and stand and where not to step, then patiently told us again when we screwed up, which was often.

I also learned something very important: your cells do not die in 25 minutes from lack of blood flow. I always heard that the brain begins to suffer damage after about four minutes lacking oxygen and had extrapolated this to limb, etc. A little neurosis. So when my foot falls asleep I get slightly concerned that perhaps the cells are withering and I may be the first person since Daruma to have my limbs falls off from meditation, but unlike him it will happen my first day rather than after years in a cave. Realizing this is unrealistic I try to concentrate on my breathing.

You're supposed to breath in very...very...very slowly. I suck at breathing. Really, it's like wheeze gasp wheeze. And using the diaphragm, I can do that all right on account of lots of yoga in the old days (before I managed to damage a nerve and lose most of my sense of touch in one leg--it came back a few months later but it put me off yoga for a while).

So then you're supposed to breathe out. Slowly, slowly. Counting a number. You're supposed to do this till you get to the number ten. Then you've succeeded.

Ooooooooooooooooooooone
Twooooooooooooooooooooo
Threeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeee
etc.

I was more like...

Ooooooooooooooooooooone
Huh? Oh yeah...
Ooooooooooooooooooooone
...
...
Oh right, counting...
Ooooooooooooooooooooone

Well my foot was enlightened anyway, it had no desire, no suffering till I started beating some sense back into it.

Then more bowing and we were about to leave but the Roshi invited us to see the other buildings--the library, his room, a room for tea. He gave us tea and biscuits (oh I mean cookies...) and we chatted about his upcoming trip to visit Christian monks and friends in Switzerland and France.

I was thrilled, giddy, and probably asked too many questions. Sometimes when I do stuff like that I have to pretend I'm my mom--she has the awe of everything that just makes everybody love her. Me I tend to err on the show-offy side. Anyway, it was a nice chat.

If only it wasn't so far away! It would be so nice to go more. Nice just to listen to the cicadas and walk amongst the mossy rocks in the morning...sigh. Back to my chrome shoebox. Sometime I'll go back...

Sort of. Not really. I still don't have my regular email but I do have my computer so you can get me at my yahoo address.

So having lost all my music I'm tuning in to KUT and getting a lost-neglected John Aielli fix* and I hear it's Woody Guthrie's birthday which led me to think, there really aren't that many famous people from Oklahoma. A few, including:

Garth Brooks singer, Tulsa
Ralph Ellison writer, Oklahoma City
James Garner actor, Norman
Paul Harvey broadcaster, Tulsa
Van Heflin actor, Walters
Ron Howard actor, director, Duncan
Jeane Kirkpatrick diplomat, Duncan
Mickey Charles Mantle baseball player, Spavinaw
Reba McEntire singer, McAlester
Bill Moyers journalist, Hugo
Daniel Patrick Moynihan N.Y. senator, Tulsa
Patti Page singer, Clarence
Brad Pitt actor Shawnee
Tony Randall actor, Tulsa
Oral Roberts evangelist, Ada
Will Rogers humorist, Oologah
Dan Rowan comedian, Beggs
James Francis Jim Thorpe athlete, Prague
Jeanne Tripplehorn actress, Tulsa
Sam Kinneson, commedian, Tulsa
Sarah Vowell, writer & commentator
Wanda Jackson, singer, OKC
The Flaming Lips, band, somewhere in southern OK

But Woody still tops the list. Bob Dylan's "last hero". I don't really even feel like justifying it. He's Woody Guthrie for the love of...

I had no idea Ron Howard and Brad Pitt were Okies. Of course you can't be famous and actually live in Oklahoma unless you're a country singer or a evangelist. The nature of the business, but just serves to remind me that Woody made a career out of being an Okie. Different times, Will Rogers could do too. Funny, I have quite a little nostalgia for the place, be it ever so humble. Oh don't worry, it's mostly just that, you know...

...every life form that exists gives out a tiny sublimal signal. This signal simply communicates an exact and almost pathetic sense of how far that being is from the place of his birth. On Earth it is never possible to be further than sixteen thousand miles from your birthplace, which really isn't very far, so such signals are too minute to be noticed.

I guess I've got about 12,000 miles on me. Feeling a little detectable, that's all.

*BTW don't ask me how but John somehow segeued from Woody Guthrie tributes to the fact that Gerald Ford's middle name is Rudolph and is now playing "Rudolph the Red Nosed Reindeer" unapologetically in July. Ah. I do miss Austin too...and now he's playing Beastie Boys. No wonder I never bought CD's back then

I still don't have access to my regular email, so if you tried to contact me in the last couple of weeks it's not that I'm ignoring you. The universe will return my computer soon and I will write you back in furious haste with regretably effusive proclamations that will only make you more nervous.

Or still kicking? The last couple weeks sans blogging and music have been a good kick in the pantsers as my buddy Jim (the folksinger, not the lawyer) would say. Living without the blog was easy, good really. I did read more than ever (if that's possible). Also got more sleep, cooked healthier food, wrote about stuff that's not for public consumption. Brilliant.

Living without music was harder. The silence, the walls, the voices in my head. That was intolerable. Thus the reading helped, perhaps too much. I started realizing that reading was just another entertainment. Not really all that edifying, no matter how good it is. I loved Life of Pi. Read the Pico Iyer about Kyoto in the late 80's. The combination of the two led me to drag my old Zen textbooks off the shelf, but that just washed over me mostly, although perhaps Miss Marie and I will go sit at a temple early morning Thursday. Not sure if that's Zen or a more Christian form of penance for our sins but it'll be something to do and I do like getting up early. And finally dragged the Pynchon off the shelf. Halfway through and no more than merely interested sadly, but I'll destroy the beast nonetheless.

Many other things happened, the show in Tokyo was wow, just wow. The best thing evar...best production I've ever seen if not the best script (but darn close, though I only understood what I did because I knew the gist from reading the short stories). The acting was something else. But the real glory of this show was the tech. Multi media and flesh bright and cold in a space that went from vast to minimal to mad. The characters were the only center of gravity and they floated through the stratosphere at times. There was no up or down. And it was good.

I could explain more but blogging again after so long feels odd. Guilty even.

Other dumb things happened. A good one was the one year reunion of my training group. We all got along so well and most of us made it back for a night of raucous debauchery. And yes, I planned it. So raucous and so debauched I am still giggly about all the ways we embarrassed ourselves. Oh just clubs and karaoke but it is fun to pretend I'm not an old fogey sometimes, and no one bothers to kill my illusion.

New news, I may take a road trip with some of the aforementioned rabble rousers over Obon if Paul can get his international license. Take the show on the road as it were. The great 04 tour of Japan. That or I am going to do all the stuff I've been meaning to around Kansai like go to a campy erotica show or find the Nashville Club, famous for their Elvis imitator--not impersonator, apparently he has a style all his own.

So between Zen and acting like an 18 year old with a shiny new credit card (neither of which resembles the truth) I'm going to continue to fiddle with the input output nodes on my brain to see what it does next. Then I'll move to a farm and raise goats.

My computer may be back this week. What will happen?