pantoum's Diaryland Diary

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AND NOW, EVEN MORE BEAUTY AND TRUTH

I told myself on the way into work today that I will post a blog entry even if it causes me to miss a deadline. I like updating my blog, stepping back for a few minutes and pondering my life instead of just living it on frantic autopilot but, right now, life is interfering with my ability to contemplate it.

Came back to town on the tenth, but have been so slammed with commitments that I've barely written. Wound up spending half a day at the dentist on the eleventh because the woman cleaning my teeth knocked my dental implant out. Was back there yesterday and have now been referred to a periodontist because the implant is not fitting correctly and so my tissue is inflamed. That will be more money on this multi-thousand dollar tooth. Then another trip to the oral surgeon who, we trust, will finally use permanent glue to attach what must be a solid gold tooth by now to the gawd-awful big titanium bolt that they drilled down into my jaw bone some time ago.

Have also spent almost three full days since vacation trying to get to the bottom of problems with our on-site high-speed photocopier and now understand that the assistant (who is on his own while the print-room supervisor is out for unexpected post-surgery leave) has just not been leveling with me. He cites equipment failure when, really, it's user error. And he just doesn't understand the machine—even when he has instructions in front of him and people explain its operations to him. And he is afraid to admit this, so he tries to cover his ass and make it appear that work is getting done that is just not getting done.

I hope I have explained to him why he must level with me in a manner that stops this. And I hope the screenshots I made as I frantically read the manual, trying to understand the machine myself, make running the thing on his own a lot less intimidating. And I hope, when he retires (which he could do as early as next month), I can hire someone who actually knows how to run the damn machine.

Finally, I hope that I don't have to continue to hold his hand and review every detail of every one of his movements for much longer because I just hate being that kind of overbearing boss and I just don't have the time to do this. Don't have much choice though, if he won't level with me.

Did have some fun this weekend. Went to a chorus pool party, which was an absolute blast, and got a nice sunburn that has now morphed into tanned shoulders, neck, chest, and nose. Musicgrrl and Computergrrl both climbed up onto my shoulders and arm-wrestled BeBop, who was on Suzie's shoulders, as I tried to knock Suzie over. And we competed in Lipton Iced Tea Plunge competitions and cannonball competitions. Also tossed a football around and I taught someone how to throw a spiral, which was cool.

Am taking off on Thursday to drive to South Carolina and pick up CeeCee, my six-year-old niece, who will be visiting Camp Bird. Pottergrrl will arrive Friday night, thank goodness, and she's a mom, so maybe we will manage.

Am trying to decide if I need to cut out more of those paper-doll clothes to put over the nudes in CeeCee's bedroom.

The visit will be a little odd, since Pottergrrl and I have recently acknowledged our attraction to each other so having a little kid in tow could be, well, restricting. Should be fun too though.

I'll probably drive her back to South Carolina Sunday evening, so I don't have to drive ten hours before returning to work on TU.

The trip might be weird because, as of yesterday, I'm sporting bifocals, folks. It is very strange to walk through the world in bifocals. Sort of like being drunk with no depth perception with glasses that are very, very dirty on the bottom half. Helps to to tilt my head instead of moving my eyes, but it's going to take some getting used to.

•

I wrote earlier about Rob Brezsny's cool website, horoscopes, and books. For locals reading this, remembering the Dear Esther column will give you a sense of his writing.

Yep, he really reminds me of Esther, who now has a shrine built in her honor near my office.

Rob wrote Pronoia (the Antidote to Paranoia, or, How the Whole World is Conspiring to Shower You with Blessings), of which one reviewer wrote:

Human beings are selfish, small-minded, violence-prone savages; civilization is a blight on the earth; the rising tide of chaos that surrounds us on all sides ensures that everything's going to fall apart any day now. Right? Wrong, says Rob Brezsny. In fact, evil is boring. Cynicism is stupid. Despair is lazy. The truth is that the universe is inherently friendly. Life is a sublime game created for our amusement and illumination, and it always gives us exactly what we need, exactly when we need it.

But Brezsny's buoyant perspective is not rooted in denial. On the contrary, he builds a case for a cagey optimism that does not require a repression of difficulty but rather seeks a vigorous engagement with it.

Brezsny's rowdy and erudite astrology column, Free Will Astrology, has been the most widely syndicated feature in North America's alternative newsweeklies for years. In this book, he unfurls the fullness of the subversive compassion that underlies the column.

Dunno what I think about life being created for our amusement. I think the earth is, probably, indifferent to humans at best and really ought to be trying to actively get rid of us before we completely destroy it. And I really don't believe that the Earth exists purely for our amusement. Of course, Rob's probably talking about our LIVES existing for illumination and not the world, LIFE. If that's the case, then I'm right there with him.

I know that relationships, connections, illumination, creation, insight are really all that matter in the end, that everything else is just fluff that will float away like so many dandelion blooms in a breeze whenever we come face to face with our core selves.

MORE FROM PRONOIA

"If you bring forth the genius within you," said Jesus in the Gnostic Gospel of Thomas, "it will free you. If you do not bring forth the genius within you, it will destroy you." Is there any aspect of the genius within you that you're not bringing forth? If so, what can you do to change that?

And here's another "sacred advertisement" that I sent to Pottergrrl recently:

You're a star—and so am I. I'm a genius—and so are you. Your success encourages my brilliance, and my charisma enhances your power. Your victory doesn't require my defeat, and vice versa. Those are the rules in the New World—quite unlike the rules in the Old World, where zero-sum games are the norm, and only one of us can win each time we play. In the New World, you don't have to play down or apologize for your prowess, because you love it when other people shine. You exult in your own excellence without regarding it as a sign of inherent superiority. As you ripen more and more of your latent aptitude, you inspire the rest of us to claim our own idiosyncratic magnificence.

Also sent this:

Even if you're an intellectual atheist who doesn't believe in mysteries you can't see, I encourage you to make Artemis your ally. The goddess of wild places, she asks you to believe that the best place to rest and recharge is not a luxurious spa where all your needs are attended to, but rather a lush wilderness deep in the middle of nowhere. Artemis loves the animals, and she loves the animal in you. She arouses your instinctual fertility, which may fill you with a kind of longing that awakens your creativity. A fierce nurturer, she feeds your soul by stirring your sense of adventure. She unleashes the wild woman within you, even if you're a man.

And more from Rob:

At the heart of the pronoiac way of life is an apparent conundrum: You can have anything you want if you'll just ask for it in an unselfish way. The trick to making this work is to locate where your deepest ambition coincides with the greatest gift you have to give. Figure out exactly how the universe, by providing you with abundance, can improve the lot of everyone whose life you touch. Seek the fulfillment of your fondest desires in such a way that you become a fount of blessings.

The preceding oracle comes from my new book. It's called PRONOIA.

BEST-OF SPAM: bark • blow your liffe

LISTENING TO: Sibelius, the Swan of Tuonela, Op. 22, No. 3, Andante moto sostenuto

10:23 a.m. - 2005-07-19

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