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Are we this face?

Are we this face?

All these faces and more we are
With the truth right in front of us
When our backs are turned.

Aren’t you glad you came?

Aren’t you?

–Ken Nordine

I just woke from a nap.

I dreamed that I had three swords belonging to my friend Marco. I was keeping them for some reason; he had entrusted me with them.

I was in Houston, but not so much Houston as The Place I Grew Up. I approached the back door. The place was lit by moonlight. I thought, ‘Shit, I hope they left a key,’ as I felt around my belt loop for a keychain. It was there.

I opened the door and went in. The house had no front. Something had destroyed it, as in a flood. The issue of the key was moot.

A lot of work had been done. The moon shone down on the cement floor, still a thin layer of mud and grime. Small puddles of muddy water in the corners. Here and there a loose sheet of plastic waving silently in the almost nonexistent breeze.

Walk around a corner in the darkness. A table and some chairs, the rack with the swords I’m taking care of. Someone’s there, I think it’s my mom. She asks me about the swords.

I pick out my favorite and show her. I remove it from the scabbard. It’s a nice katana. She thinks they’re all beautiful. The sword has stains on it. They look like spaghetti sauce. I explain that I need to clean it. She wants me to cut paper with it, to show how sharp it is.

Through us, I ng this pen-based in pu+ system I’m rem ‘nded Nat wrilten language requires a Certain kind of patience .

Imagine fr a moment that every aHemp7 to communi ‘cate was as tedious a us I I ny a system such as this that every third word was merely a jumble Of letter that any attempt to speak required as much patie nic as writing on a graph ‘cs table* info your computer

this is how Stephen Hawkins Can be so eloquent He has to Make sure it’s Worth the efort

This ‘blog is entitled:

How To Lose Friends And Not Influence People

http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/world/americas/2269462.stm:

The American Secretary of State, Colin Powell, has said the United States will find ways to stop weapons inspectors going back to Iraq unless there is a new United Nations Security Council resolution on the issue.

The Fake Prez has outlined his foreign policy doctrine: Invade first, make justifications later.

Not even the hawks of Cold War One were assholes enough to come up with something like this. They at least came up with lukewarm justifications before steering a nation into despotism so it wouldn’t be a commie satellite state.

George W. Bush needs to wake up and smell the Fair Trade coffee.

I am writing this b log With handwriting re cog Eh’ on software called In k E r, that is .. . Ink . It’s a standard part of Mac OS X Io .2

supposedly it will learn howI Wr.tr as I Use it.

I never realized how much I depend On Seeing the ktkrs appear under the pen or pencil 1h my hand .

Remember, kids . . . pen nanship counts !

On the flight back to Seattle, I got hit on by the rather attractive opera singer sitting in the next seat. He had been catching up on his sleep the whole flight, until he started pointing out natural landmarks in the Cascade mountains, shortly before we landed.

I couldn’t help but admire the fearlessness with which he casually dropped his occupation. “I’m flying back from a master class I was giving in Albequerqe. I have a place in New York, but I grew up in Seattle, so I’m here. In fact, I’ve only been in New York a few weeks this year.” Wide grin.

I should have at least given him my fone number. He knew the Cascades pretty well. I’ve given up trying to be queer (or hetero, for that matter), but hiking in the mountains is good.

I have friends who say they don’t want to know anything about politics. They say their life is unbearable if they try to keep up with the Political Asshole Du Jour. And this is a stance I can understand; there’s much about life I filter out because I just can’t deal.

Still, though. There’s talk of war, and there’s something important to understand about war:

War Is Not Politics

War is the opposite of politics. What’s the quote..? ‘War is the failure to solve problems like human beings.’ Something like that. War’s the end of creativity.

I’m in Texas right now. In a few days I’ll be headed back up north to the Land of Big Trees. Which is my explanation for why I was on a plane recently.

I was on a plane recently, seated in one of the bulkhead seats. They’re the ones at the front of the plane that face backward. I like them, because you get leg room, and because you get to watch people during the flight.

The man seated across and to the right of me was blind. White eyes rolling around mysteriously in their sockets. That kind of thing. He reminded me of my grandpa Joe, mostly because he was old.

The point here is that I could watch him listen. When people would walk by in the aisle, he’d move his head, just a tiny bit. Readjusting the radar. I began to wonder how different his appreciation of his surroundings really was from that of a sighted person.

And then I thought, how completely different is my perception from that of other sighted people? I can’t smell and I don’t have stereo vision (blind in my left eye). My hearing is acute to the point of overstimulating me, and I react differently to touch than a lot of people.

I made up a statistic. I said: One in ten people have exceptional sensory abilities or deficits. Then I started counting off the people in the plane.

About this time, my blind comrade began to grow impatient for the plane to leave the airport. He felt his wrist, gingerly pulled back the cuff of his shirt, and felt his watch. He opened the bezel and ran his fingers over the face. A braille watch! How cool is that?

A while later, the stewardess came by and handed out drinks and snacks. His drink cup had a lid and a straw; no one else’s did. But then came the snack. It was a featureless cardboard box, distinguishable only by writing on its surface. He asked, “Excuse me, what is this?” “There are snacks inside. Would you like for me to open it?” He agreed. The stewardess opened it and handed it back to him. She left.

Next, he took one of the individually wrapped snacks out (cheese crackers with peanut butter filling). He felt the package carefully, trying to find detail. Finally he asked aloud to whoever was nearby, “What is this?”

Everyone in the plane is now making plastic wrap noises, getting their oral fixation.

The woman near the window answered: “It’s crackers. The others are fruit snacks and Oreo cookies. And a package of peanuts.”

“Do any of these contain salt?”

A blind man with high blood pressure trying to navigate individually-wrapped snacks. It seems pathetic, and it’s so easy for everyone to cluck their tongue and say, “Aww, poor blind man…” But the fact of the matter is that we shouldn’t be eating that crap either. He sees it all better than we do.