I took this web-based personality disorder test, and was not at all surprised by the results.

It said I was highly schizotypal but not at all schizoid, which makes sense because I’m freakin’ autistic. The rest of the ‘high’ and ‘very high’ ratings (narcissistic and avoidant disorders) come about as misdiagnoses of symptoms of Asperger’s, and the fact that the questions themselves are yes/no questions with very little room for an answer besides the one that shunts you to one of those diagnoses.

So color me in as someone who objects to the term ‘personality disorder.’ There’s nothing wrong with my personality; you’d have a similar one if you were as screwed up as I am.

I often wonder how many people there are out there who have high-functioning Asperger’s (a neurological disorder) but are dutifully trying to get to the bottom of their personality disorder.

For Sejanus, regarding nut-jobs who hate Bush:

This.

Looking around at old pictures of Galveston after writing the last ‘blog, I found this: A history of the Galveston-Houston Interurban electric railway line. Between 1911 and 1936 you could ride between the two downtowns in somewhere around 75 minutes. A veritable bullet train for the early third of the last century.

That leads to the Houston streetcar history pages, which I find amusing given the new Metro light rail. If you check out this picture, you can see the ‘Easy Credit’ neon in the background. That’s over what used to be one of my favorite places in all of Houston, no tsu oH. Sadly it’s gone now, so there’s no reason for me to move back. Besides my family, of course.

I’m thinking about my life, and the image that comes to mind is:

When I was a little kid, the family would sometimes go to the beach. We lived in Houston, and Galveston was just down the road. We’d go out on the island and down to the seawall.

The seawall was created after a hurricane eroded a significant chunk of Galveston away. It’s a huge strip of concrete about 20 feet high, straight as a ruler. Long jetties made of concrete chunks push out into the Gulf every couple hundred yards, perpendicular to the seawall. There’s a road along the wall, on the high side, called Seawall Boulevard. Along Seawall Blvd., there are innumerable hotels and motels, and restaurants, and places to rent bikes and skates and buy t-shirts with the word ‘Galveston’ on them.

I remember the whole family crammed into a motel room along the seawall. I think it was spring or fall, since it wasn’t oppresively hot, and the breeze off the Gulf through the motel room’s open door felt good. I remember pouring a Coke into one of those little glasses, with ice from the machine down the hall. Sipping the Coke, because it felt so much more civilized coming from a glass instead of the can.

I remember crossing the boulevard and going down the steps to the beach. Feeling the power of the waves tossing me up and down. Swimming out to where my brother and sister were, where it was only barely too deep for me to stand, though they didn’t have any problem. Just out of control, but in control enough to body-surf back to the shore. Stretch out and do a little half dive, catching the wave, paddle in between, and stretch out again for the next one.

When I got back to shore, I sat in a squat, loosely curled up, arms around my knees, in relatively shallow water. My feet were swallowed up by the wet sand, and that felt reassuring, anchored and boyant.

Eventually, I followed my dad and brother out onto the jetty. We made our way out to the tip, where people were fishing. We could see people on the closest jetty, the one to the west. There were some teenagers out there diving off, and I remember my brother arguing with dad about wanting to do the same thing. Nothing doing. I wanted to do it, too. I thought about just jumping off and seeing what happened, but it occurred to me that maybe I should have more of a plan than that.

I’ve read some people’s memoirs, and they always have very detailed accounts of episodes like this one. They have dialogue and characterization and gravity. I couldn’t begin to remember if my brother was serious about diving, and I can’t remember what sort of disipline dad gave. I can’t remember if it was spring or fall, and I’m only down to those two guesses through deduction. I remember the feeling of the ocean throwing me around, and feeling truly insignificant. I remember the seawall, the road, the motel, the Coke. I remember the set, but not the dialogue, the sense but not the people.

What I remember the most, though, is that feeling of my feet being held in the sand, of being gently boyed by an ocean so powerful it had to be held back by a seawall.

Update: Old postcards of Galveston, The ‘Robert’s Rules Of Order’/Galveston seawall connection, Bruce Sterling and future storms, and finally, an actual decent picture of the seawall and a jetty.

Uh….

Nader.

If Al Sharpton can run, Ralph Nader can run. End of discussion.

Update: Tom Tomorrow has a pretty good blog about it.

A link: http://corrente.blogspot.com/2004_02_15_corrente_archive.html#107738530715035157

This is a then/now comparison of rhetoric from the ’50s, ‘debating’ whether or not to allow gays to work in government, and now, with the gay marriage ‘debate.’ Debate in quotes because, well… you know.

Also: The ATTACK of the GAY AGENDA!!

Someone ‘blogged recently about praying in a restaurant after church. (It was a protected post, or I’d link to it.) It got me thinking about going to church on Sundays with my family.

I hated going to church. It didn’t make any sense to me. But that’s a whole other ‘blog, one I’ve probably already written.

After church let out, we’d go out to eat. The specific times I’m thinking of, I can’t remember my sister being along. It must have been after she went away to college. I would have been 10 or 12.

There was a cafeteria at the mall… It sounds awful to say it was a cafeteria at a mall, but it wasn’t that bad. I’m trying to remember the name of it, but I can’t. It had a tudor theme, so there was lots of deeply burnished wood, the occassional non-sequitur fake suit of armor, ‘antiqued’ banners and flags made of tin, and a big scary-looking chandelier with those tiny orange flickery light bulbs.

I can’t remember ordering anything specific. In fact, my vague recollection is that I never actually ate anything there, which is probably not true. I remember generic cafeteria food, like you’d find at Luby’s or your local equivalent. Being from the south, the comparison for me is Luby’s. But I mostly remember standing in line forever, because this was the only restaurant that was open within convenient driving distance of about ten churches, so everyone went there.

We’d stand in line and stand in line and stand in line some more. My parents would see people from church, people they knew who went to other churches.. All in their Sunday best. Pity the poor underdressed godless heathen who showed up. But regardless, we’d stand in line for ten years, and finally get to the serving line. This is where the first of the many fake suits of armor were located. This one had a (seemingly) huge battle axe, poised as if it was going to attack you as you got your tray. My brother would always kid me that the guy in the suit was going to cut my arm off when I reached for my tray, and even though I didn’t believe him, it creeped me out. And really: Who puts an armed guard on the trays at a cafeteria?

Cafeteria line: Tile floor (soft click of dress shoes), chrome tray railing at chest level, dark except for the radiant lighting keeping the food warm. Women in hairnets. Thinking, ‘The workers aren’t like us,’ but never daring to say it. The little bit of moisture on the tray that soaks into your napkin. Having to choose a dish before you get to see all the choices, which underlines how none of them really stand out anyway. Getting water and iced tea. Pumpkin pie. Those little cups of cubed jello, with kool whip.

We’d sit in a booth, which felt private, like it was a family encampment or something. Mom and dad would wave to other encampments, and sometimes go visit them, though mostly they just waved.

After eating, mom and dad would want to talk, so I’d go with my brother out into the mall. Most of the stores were closed on Sunday (how things have changed since then), so it was empty. Sometimes we’d wander around the empty mall even though dad told us not to, but usually we sat around in this carpeted step area playing a game my brother devised.

First, I want to describe the step area. This was the 70s, so it comes as no surprise that the terrazzo floor of the mall had a rather large, uh… dip? Basically five broad steps down into an expanse, and then five broad steps up. For no reason, other than to be a place to put some carpet on the floor. It was an architectural abberation, no doubt placed there because the pattern on the blueprint looked cool to the stoned architect. It was the 70s, after all. The carpet was bright orange. Shield-your-eyes orange. I suppose to prevent people tripping into the needless hole in the floor. It was surrounded by large potted plants, of course, in fiberglass containers, of course.

Rob and I would sit on these broad steps. Or, mostly, Rob would sit on the steps and I would run around. See, in church, in the back of the pews, there were little envelopes to put your tithe into. And there were little pencils, about three inches long, to use to write something on your tithe envelope. And of course Rob had pocketed a few of these pencils. He had also pocketed some rubber bands from Sunday school. And now, what he was doing, was shooting the pencils up into the air with a rubber band, and I was chasing the pencil down and bringing it back so he could shoot it again.

I was the youngest.

One of the bizarro things about having a backwards sleep schedule is that today I was up just after sunup. Fog and sunrise mean photography.

So I went over to Magnuson Park and burned through the AA batteries.

On the way there, I snapped this bunny. I’d guess it wasn’t supposed to be out in the driveway.

Some people have asked me why I live in Seattle. Here’s one answer:

This is Mercer Island, off in the fog.

Wet pussy. Willow. Pussywillow.

So the light was changing at Magnuson Park, and I wanted to put some coffee in me, and I knew the big bridges would look cool in the fog, so off to Fremont I went. Stopped under the I-5 bridge to take a few; this is my favorite.

The Fremont bridge.

The Aurora bridge, from the Fremont bridge.

DOUBLEPLUSSPIRITUAL

So this whole 1984/Newspeak vibe going on around the Homer household got me thinking about operant conditioning. I was curious to find out what sort of stuff is out there on the web dealing with disciplining the mind, through behavior modification. Not because I want to become Big Brother, but because I want to see what kind of advice random advice-givers on the web might give. So I plugged ‘behavior modification’ into google, and ended up at this page: The Behavior Modification Index on innerself.com. It’s a big list of articles having to do with self-development.

Now, a while back I was considerably more ‘newagey’ than I am now. Like, way, way more. Like the Firesign Theater says, “There’s a seeker born every minute,” and I was one of ‘em. My situation was unique, however, in that I was carrying around an undiagnosed neurological disorder. Or perhaps it wasn’t so unique, but the point is that none of this newagey stuff was going to provide me what I actually needed, even though it’s undeniably nice to go on a guided visualization from time to time.

So, here I am at the Index for all things newagey and Behavior Modification-esque. I’ve recently seen ’1984,’ and I’m thinking about how there’s a bill in congress trying to exempt federal court rulings from judging cases based on the doctrine of the separation of church and state. Free speech is managed in ‘free speech zones’ wherever the president goes, and it turns out the only partisan alternative to the president, the Democratic party, is going to set up a ‘free speech zone’ of their own at their convention.

And then I read this:

Living in the Moment
by Jacob Liberman with Erik Liberman.

Being spiritual and taking care of our everyday affairs are exactly the same thing. There is no difference. With clarity we become ordinary — simply taking care of whatever comes before us. In this process, we develop trust that whatever shows up in our lives, we will meet it.

And this:

Learning to Process Emotions
by Gary Reiss, LCSW.

One of the biggest problems that people bring to therapy is not knowing what to do with a wide range of feelings, including sadness, anger, ecstasy, fear, and depression. Many visits to medical doctors are attempts to deal with feelings unable to be expressed or released. Learning how to work with our feelings is a basic area of growth.

Pardon me, I don’t properly know how to process my negative emotions. Can you point the way to the room with the disposable china in it, so I can smash some?

Then we come to Deepak Chopra, who emerged on the newage (rhymes with sewage) scene concurrent with my decision to leave the newagey sphere of spiritual reality behind. He says things like this:

The fourth spiritual law of success is the Law of Least Effort. This law is based on the fact that nature’s intelligence functions with effortless ease and abandoned carefreeness. This is the principle of least action, of no resistance. This is, therefore, the principle of harmony and love. When we learn this lesson from nature, we easily fulfill our desires.

…And that is bullshit. I’m qualified to say that Deepak Chopra is full of shit. I’m smarter than he is, and wiser, too. I’ve been reincarnated more times, and my kung fu is stronger than his.

Seriously. I’m smarter and wiser and my kung fu is stronger than his. I will take revenge for the death of my master!!

Gettin’ a little carried away.

Anyway: The doctrine should be that the effort required to create ‘effortlessness’ kinda makes the point irrelevant, don’t you think? He goes on:

If you observe nature at work, you will see that least effort is expended. Grass doesn’t try to grow, it just grows. Fish don’t try to swim, they just swim. Flowers don’t try to bloom, they bloom. Birds don’t try to fly, they fly. This is their intrinsic nature. The earth doesn’t try to spin on its own axis; it is the nature of the earth to spin with dizzying speed and to hurtle through space. It is the nature of babies to be in bliss. It is the nature of the sun to shine. It is the nature of the stars to glitter and sparkle. And it is human nature to make our dreams manifest into physical form, easily and effortlessly.

Now, getting into mythopoetic mode for a moment, sure, dude has a point. We can imagine a road that is easy to walk, has the most beautiful scenery, and is never too long to tire us out. And if we never imagine that road, we might never be able to believe it could possibly exist. But if you look at where you actually need to go, and you have to go 50 miles up 8% grade in muddy wagon ruts during the rain, through the largest chemical refinery on the planet, that’s where you have to go, and it will hurt like a motherfucker.

And please. It is the nature of babies to shit and cry.

So imagine, if you will. Me, ten years ago, with my undiagnosed neurological disorder that makes me hyper-literal. I’m in a deep depression because of the problems associated with the aforementioned undiagnosed hyper-literal disorder-y thing. I’m searching for answers, because a dozen psychologists and neurologists and this-and-that-ologists can’t freaking diagnose my undiagnosed neurological disorder. And I read something like what I’ve quoted above… It’s the answer! The answer is to get out of my own way! If I just get aligned with some kind of flow or something, it will whisk me to the promised land!

How can anyone accept such utter hogwash (besides having a neurological disorder, of course <- joke)? How can anyone deny that life is difficult? How can a spiritual leader such as Chopra emerge on a bubble of wishful thinking? The answer is more clearly present in '1984' than anyone involved would want to admit. The Newage Party has the answers. Just ignore your pain; doublethink it out of existence. It is crimethink. The pain is your crime against yourself! Transcend!

Feh.