Incidental Fauna of the Southern California Coastline, July 6th 2018

It's so nice to be here just talking to you.

The water off the coast is now (finally!) warm; very warm, very comfortable. You can swim for a long time, especially in a suit

this was the morning I'm writing about

I'm writing about some animal stuff that happened in/at it.

A little before 8 a.m., and there's a shorebird on the empty beach. Rather: there's a shorebird on the nearly-empty beach. An older man who's living rough on this patch, and whose wake-up my arrival frequently coincides with -- he stretches out of the sleeping-bag (I think) that's laid over himself, resting amidst a few bags of stuff and a mountain bike with thick tires. He's fine to me; I'm fine to him. We say good morning. No other people.

Not that many animals, either. At least not visible. But: this one bird. Pecking and scampering, doing its thing. And it's a really interesting bird: it's not a sandpiper; it's not a seagull. It's not an egret or heron. I watch it doing its thing; its thing is neat. It scampers back-forth with the waves, 'Piper-like. It clearly is hunting: it searches, it pecks. It has a long bill, it has long-ish legs. It's not a bird I've seen before.

It pecks, it hunts, and its hunting takes it gradually down the break towards where I am standing, watching it. After it gets pretty close--15 feet--it hunts for a couple of waves then takes flight; flies just twenty feet or so, to the far side of me, and continues its pecking and hunting progression.

I go for my swim (more on this below, hold on). After, later, I try to figure out what the bird was. The Internet is a weird place to figure things out; once you get there you see how winding your path was. But after a bunch of search-adjustsearch-blahBLAHblah, I settle: I'm pretty sure that it was this.

Frank Lehman / Macaulay Library at the Cornell Lab of Ornithology

I actually...I'm embarrassed to say I imagined at one point that the story of how I figured this out would be interesting. It is not. I won't tell it. But the bird was fantastic. If that's what it was. I think that's what it was: a Marbled Godwit. The name is apparently an attempt to represent their call, rather than some extraordinarily bizarre act of antiquated sacrilege. Anyway, my bird was silent. Focused!

Now, back/forward to the swim. I'm out, swimming; it's gorgeous, a pretty still day with no big scuffling or swells once I'm out past the break and the surface is glassy.

On the glassy surface, I see one of those disturbances--very small--that at once you're quite sure is some thing. I swim up; it is. It is one of these.

this image is public domain; it seems to be attributed to a Wikipedia user Hardyplants whose page does not appear to exist.

anyway.

It is flopped on its back, doomed (I think) on the water. I've kind of often wondered this: when I lived in a building with a pool, I probably saved two to five bees/wasps a day from that pool. It seems like a majorly maladaptive trait: to need water (as all living things do), but to...die? If you get to close and your wings get caught? I guess I'm saying it always surprises me that these charismatic Hymenoptera haven't kinda evolved out of this watery-doom thing. But:

The wasp is on its back, well out on the water. I lift it up from below and it's now on my finger. What's exciting about this is the super close-up view; wasps, you don't usually get to see really, right? They are zipping around, tiny threatening aerialists -- you don't get to study them up close, mostly. This one, obviously, wasn't zipping anywhere. At least not for the moment.

So then I'm faced with this question, which strikes me at once. How long am I willing to wait, for this wasp? I immediately see that the only good option is to hope it can sort itself out on my hand here--do what it needs to get going, and go. Because: (a) swimming all the way back to shore with my hand up and a waterlogged wasp sticking to it seems both kind of annoying and not very feasible; would take a long time, would suck, might not succeed (wasp washed off). (b) Just being like...f*ckit: sorry wasp-y. U die, also didn't feel right. I in general feel that way, about things like this. I'm way far from perfect, in terms of my local and broader impact on the earth and it's creatures. But whenever it's one of those choices, like: I could interrupt my swim or not; this wasp could live or die. I could get out of bed to rescue this fly or not; this fly could or die. I could run through this dumb bush, get a little cut up (or not), avoiding this lizard; this lizard could live or die. It always just seems so weak and small to choose the small comfort / ease thing for myself when the animal's stakes are existence or not. Which is how this choice felt.

But how long would I wait?

Did the wasp even have a chance? Was it too...saturated?

I watched it.

It surprised me by "preening" itself. Well: first I gently (careful of wings) kind of used the stick from one damp hand to set it right (i.e., not flat on its back with its wings plastered down) on the other, which I'd air-dried as well as I could. So but then: if I were a wasp in this spot, I think I'd be like: "sh*t: I am drying my wings." Not this wasp. No. It preened. This was a cool, cool thing to see close. Holding it up almost right to my face, I saw its tiny frontal legs making those "running forward over the carapace of the skull piece"-type motions; like it was doing its hair or cleaning its face off or something like that. I still can't explain it (and haven't revisited the research-weirdness that is trying to research these things on the web). Was it assuring the patency of its airways? That, I believe, would be really important. It had to be something important, I guess; that or I just got this very vain wasp. It did that for a while, though -- like most of our time. Preened, little front-arms rubbing over its face.

This whole time its wings were like...man. Just a mess. They were all wet and sideways and f#cked up and...that's the thing I (not I as a hypothetical was; I) was worried about. Cuz if its wings didn't work, then I did not know what.

Its antenna were awesome. So ar-tic-u-lat-ed.

So okay then it did its wings, and they took like thirty seconds. First, it messed up. It tried to extend them and flap them off--I could tell it was doing this; once I was watching it closely, over time, I was struck by how 'animal-like' it was. I tend to think of insects as strange alien things in this alien tinyworld; once I dropped down into it, this one just seemed like a creature--anyway the first time it tried to extend and like flap off its wings it screwed it up totally, tipped sideways and again plastered itself to my hand, which of course was not fully dry because we are a freaking 1/4-mile or whatever out bobbing on the ocean this whole time, wasp, wut r u doing here anyway?

So it's stuck to my hand again.

So I do the thing with my other hand, again; edge of my thumb, gently as I can, lifting its stuck wing from flush to my skin. It's at this point that it occurs it to me that yes, this is wasp; yes it is now oriented to sting. For some reason, this just occurs to me. I'm not worried about it. It is not like I'm super-tough about wasp stings or something. No way do I want that. It hurts like a lot. But I somehow feel sure that that's not how this goes down; also I have some vague trivia factoid back of my mind that maybe not all wasps even can sting (only the females? or something? I still have not checked this out because...meh. I will. Soon.).

So but then, after I thumbed its wet-plastered wing up from first failed attempt...then the whole rest of it took like ten seconds. It splayed them out: two pairs of wings, bigger-smaller. (I really saw this! Or: I thought that I saw it! This whole thing was my own tiny (wet) nature show).

And then it kind of whuzzzzzed them for not long, two seconds at most

and leapt off my hand and was gone.

That was it.

Compared to the dainty extent of its ministrations to its head / face / mandibles / ?, the whole wing thing--which I would have thought would be hard and mission-critical--took two seconds. Maybe, once it was out, it wasn't worried at all. I was a magic piece of wood or whatever (what does it care? I'm not eating it. Sure fine I am wood); it knew its wings would be fine; it wanted to sort itself out before flying.

I checked, really searched, all the water around me. In case it had dumped itself plop back in ocean. The water was glassy, and I could see several feet; I cautiously started swimming again, looking. Didn't see anything.

The whole episode took longer than three minutes and fewer than ten.

Lucky (sunglasses)

I've written in this space about compulsions, and the tensions of my own largely on-top-of-it relationships to my own. I've also written, in a general way, about what a lucky life I have. THIS IS A POST ABOUT BOTH.

A thing I'm compulsive about, after runs, is forgetting my sunglasses. Look, I know they're not fancy; I bet you have nicer ones (they cost $46.44 when I bought them in 2014, which is-- what? $Eight-grand, today? ). They're not fancy but I like them; I've used them on runs and on bikes for four years! They work great! And if I lost them I'd be sad -- I'd have to get something else, it would cost more, and I'd be sad.

This is dumb, right? I mean.

So anyway I'm concerned always, specifically, about leaving them on top of my car. You drive to the trailhead, you do your trail run (today: 9 miles here), and you come back and you're changing out of your sweaty clothes and you've got all this stuff and you're putting things on top of your car to dry while you change and...you might forget your sunglasses, right? Like some (most?) of my compulsions, this one isn't crazy and has an upside -- I am inclined to forget my sunglasses on top of my car, they blend into the blackness and--especially if I've not in fact worn them for much of the run--they're somehow sort of the last thing on my mind. But I've never done that, because I'm like, worried about it!

Till today.

Today I got home, and I did not have them. I looked for them in my room, after dumping my stuff. I looked for them in the area outside my room, where I kind of stage some dumped post-run stuff before sorting it out. I looked in the various bathrooms I'd used and had not. I walked to my car and I looked in it. I found the other pair of sunglasses I'd (why?) decided to wear for the drive home, but not these. It was looking bad.

I worked for awhile, telling myself it didn't matter (with success). I ate some food, walked back to check my car one last time. On the walk, I acquainted myself with the reality in which I had sustained the jagged loss of this pair of sunglasses; the positive angle of getting a newer pair that might even be better (I knew it would not, but I was being very brave). I gave my car one last--

Here is the drive, back from the trailhead to my house:

That's a 17-minute, eight-mile drive; for those who don't know: the "1" is a freeway that runs 'long the ocean, then that hook left (as you're driving, right as you stare at the image right now) is onto the "10", which is one of L.A.'s main arterial freeways. So: freeway driving, lane-switching, etc.

--look and smiled at once:

I'm already so lucky! It's totally dumb! Why should I get this luck-nugget as well? Tucked against bicycle rack, just so, such that...

hwelp: I'm not going to question it.

I put them on, walked my desk, and began typing this to tell you.

Killed a Lizard

The western fence lizard is familiar to anyone familiar with the low-lying mountains of southern California; these scuttering, dusky little lizards pop up all over the place, doing their funny lizard push-ups and scampering up walls and all of the lizard things.

i didn't kill this lizard. i saved this lizard; the little interloper got caught in my door in my place in Topanga; I found it once it had exhausted itself from trying to scrabble up/through the glass, but (I really do think) before it was dehydrated past hope or whatever. I was able to scoop it up (carefully!) just with my hand and a sheet of paper, and release it.

On runs--not them; me--they do something else. I've indulged in many jeremiads about this thing that they do, to friends and family, because it is frustrating and self-endangering;

what they do is, when scampering across the path, while you're running, behave in a way that seems to me to be totally totally maladaptive if you're interested in not being eaten by a predator:

I am running on a narrow single track -- the whole thing is say two-and-a-half feet wide, hemmed in by thick chaparral and brush either side. A lizard darts out and, incredibly, instead of continuing its direction of motion to dash into the protection of the thick brush, charts a straight course that is clearly along my trajectory, as if trying to outrun me as of course it cannot since it is a tiny lizard, causing me to pull up my pace and often do all kinds of side-stepping calisthenics to avoid it. I've never had to, like, toss myself off the side of a cliff to avoid one, but I've sure stumbled and scratched up my legs and just generally emerged from these encounters shaking my head at the tiny reptile brains of these things that veer off what seems like a promising course to safety in order to endanger themselves (what if I were a hawk?) and also make me have to do silly trail-dances to dodge them. But I'd never--or, at least, not knowingly--stepped on one until a few days ago.

I've reviewed this a bunch; there really was not anything I could have done. This was not, actually, a scenario like the one I've just described. I'd feel worse then, because (presumably) if I'd simply stopped running the lizard would have escaped. This was more sudden. I was going downhill in Temescal, running the return of a pleasant short loop of the kind I've been doing a good deal of lately. I saw a flash of dark from the brush; it was either after I'd pushed off my left and was coming down on my (I'm pretty sure) right foot, or--the earliest possible, as my memory has it--just as I pushed off my left to come down on my right. Running perpendicular across my path. And the dark flash slipped perfectly underneath my shoe, disappeared for a moment during which I felt nothing, and then I was past it and on down the trail.

And I stopped, of course; and here...it's not like this is so horrible, so if you're titillated by that sorry no dice, but it does get a bit unpleasant so perhaps you'll want to skip this paragraph. I'll put all the this-kind-of stuff in this paragraph. So I stopped, of course, and turned back up the trail; my idea was (a) to make sure, and (b) to see if, you know, there was a situation where I had to do a thing to finish a thing. And for a second I was happy, because I saw nothing, and then a saw a fluttering shadow and knew I'd been right. And I approached it, and it was already in the process of-- I don't know, it may not even have been conscious or neurologically active: it was flopping around like a broken machine, or a wind-up toy losing gearage with half its parts missing, jack-knifing in strange ways on its side, flopping spasms. It was a pretty big one, big as my hand nose to tail (for these lizards, at least the ones that I see, that is pretty big). And after some moments its flopping spasms subsided, replaced by twitches in its small, pronged lizard feet. I picked it up, pretty sure I would not need to do a thing to finish a thing; pretty sure it was finished. Its little feet still jerked and spasmed, but I was practically certain it wasn't in pain -- I had not popped its head or anything dramatic, but a thick foam of blood had soaked out from the whole right side of its jaw, and my guess is that I'd broken its neck or otherwise utterly shattered the machinery of its neurological/physical systems. It had a blue-brushed belly; a couple weeks earlier, talking to my parents about lizards on the trails, my mom had observed (from her internet research) that western fence lizards sometimes have blue bellies, and then said oh but maybe I haven't seen any like that, and I'd corrected her that no, they were dusky on top but I'd seen their blue bellies, I'd liked their blue bellies.

I held it in my hand -- after ten, fifteen seconds even foot twitches subsided. I laid it to the side of the trail, so its form would not be further mangled by footfalls. I hoped that something would come, eat it soon; I'm practically certain that hope was well-founded. I finished my run.

It's a small thing, compared to all the things. OF COURSE. But these inexorable things are, like, very inexorable; there's no positive gloss or yeah, but... I didn't beat myself up: I really don't think there's much I could have done. It just made me sad. And it felt/feels unfair, in the way of these things, and in a way that--perhaps--part of my sadness is about how these stories are always so broken and unfair. An existentially catastrophic thing happened to this animal; a thing that was--for I hope just a flash--horribly painful as well, no doubt. And I'm the one who gets to talk about it; I'm the one who gets to think about that lizard, on my next trail run, or right now, or whatever. I KNOW I AM TALKING ABOUT A F#*(ING LIZARD, THANKS; I GOT THAT. But it's a tyranny of narrative that applies to all of these things, and is why--leap here, lookout--our fixation on murderers and perpetrators of harm in the stories we tell is so odious to me. Because one of the grievous harms of physical and psychological harm, of victimization, is that it takes you out of the world in a way that ends your story. Ends or compromises your ability to tell it; ends or curtails the timeline of it. And it's not fair! To the extent that anyone did a bad thing in this setting, I did -- I went recreationally to a place that's not really mine, or that is I M H O more that lizard's than mine, and as a result of my going to that place and how I chose to behave there, even if I was not being a big crazy jerk, that animal died. I did the bad thing, but I get the story. That's bullshit. It's bullshit. That's not how it should be.

I'm glad I wrote this. I'm impressed with you, friendly reader, if you read it all through. But I wanted to write it as a final...to like...to not let myself, forget. Such a small, "stupid" thing; and isn't that crazy, too? Because it is small and stupid, compared to so many other things. I agree. BUT I BET IT DOES NOT SEEM THAT SMALL TO THAT LIZARD-- OH WAIT, NOTHING "SEEMS" ANY"THING" TO THAT LIZARD ANYMORE, BECAUSE I CRUSHED ITS BRAIN BENEATH MY SHOE BECAUSE I LIKE TRAILRUNNING.

Anyway: sorry, thanks. I will try to be nice to the world all around me, and all of the creatures and forms it contains. Thanks for reading.

Alone vs. Lonely / Talk 2 Ppl

I have been going to this terrific coffee shop in the mornings; I'm generally there at opening, 6am, though I try not to be actually loitering at the doors as they're unlocking them because that seems weird/annoying.

Here is the coffee shop, much as it looks when I arrive in the morning. I'm not sure how to credit this picture; it's not mine; it's from the website. The restaurant in which it's embedded is also good (I think); true to my rigidities, however, I've marked it as a place I go to for coffee and (usually) a freshly-baked good in the morning, and by the time the restaurant starts to fill up and the kitchen is open I'm out. Also, to be fair, I've basically gone off places where another human being takes your order and brings you food (unless I'm out with friends).

This morning, my rigidities were disrupted. I'd had this whole conversation with myself starting at 4:56am about what to eat, based on a delicious-nutritious thing that I'd baked (in the fridge), temporally proximate baked goods at the coffee shop, less temporally proximate but also relevant other good food because today's Saturday which means the Calabasas Farmer's Market will open up at 8am right outside (right outside; parking lot) the coffee shop, PLUS the fact that the Topanga Library opens at 9am today which seems like a nice thing to take advantage of and is relevant to what I'm eating at 5am because...well it's all part of a plan, right?

Let me pause: I think I come off as crazy in the paragraph above in a way that I am, but not as much as it may make me seem. A narrative schema that I often admire in novels and plays is when you're put inside the lived reality of a protagonist and themes strongly emerge--anguish, suspicion, fixation on clouds, whatever--and you're given no explanatory exposition for why this theme should be so central (because the point of the story is the story, not some book-cover summary bullsh1t approximation of the concept of the shape of a thing like a 'story') until maybe some glancing reference 2/3s of the way through.

I admire that a lot in novels and plays, but it's maybe not so super-great for blog posts so let me be clear: there's backdrop lore here that's useful to this post (and, perhaps, others). My living situation is in transition, in an accelerated and unexpected way, with some stressors attached. This is not a big deal; even mentioning it, I feel silly. But I guess I'm weak enough that it is in some ways acting on me, and that's a relevant backdrop and good to acknowledge. It's affecting productivity, logistics, mood, etc.; certainly, it's relevant to why I'm loitering outside coffee shops at 6am.

Anyway, so this morning, all my plans came to naught because I'd taken the delicious-nutritious snack from my fridge with me when I left the house at 5:30am (see backdrop lore, above) but not eaten it, on the promise of temporally proximate baked goods at the coffee shop, and--reader, brace yourself--there were no baked goods at the coffee shop. Not only that, but there was some new guy behind the counter who didn't know all the stuff (and: didn't know me) and we had a not unfriendly but y'know static-y interaction re: baked goods and coffee. Again, to make the story actual, let me be clear. I wasn't like, "Dude, where are the fucking muffins?" It was more like one of those things where we each had to say things twice; we both misunderstood each other a couple times. Static-y.

And when I went back for my refill I decided: basta, not good enough, slimb. C'mon. So I tried to be a little more of a viable human being. I was like, "Hey, are you new? I'm here lots of mornings and haven't seen you, I'm" etc.

And he was like yeah no, I worked here for awhile but then I was gone for a few months but now I'm back, I'm etc.

And I almost let this conversational offer pass (I often mess things like that up; sometimes consciously, sometimes not). But I didn't! I was like, "Oh was it a fun trip or what?" This question isn't quite as anodyne as it may seem (although that'd be fine, too: anodyne questions make the world go round). This coffee shop, for those who did not hit the link at the top, is part of this interesting complex that is coffee shop / restaurant / bike-shop. It serves lots of people in lycra with fancy bikes, and some people who work here are into that too, so I thought maybe this young hipster/granola- lookin' dude might have gone on a big bike trip or something.

Interruption: a guy with a charming and shambling sheep dog of some sort just came in the front (the entrance to the restaurant, not the coffee shop); he saw me brighten and mark and, as I took off my headphones, launched into an apology about how they were "just going straight through to the coffee shop" which trailed off at once when he saw that I was just happy to see his cool dog. He and I (the man; not the dog; don't know the dog's sex) had some bantering about the water backpack the dog had on, how he could now go and fill it with coffee. 

I'm actually a little confused about the breed of his dog because it was strikingly (gorgeously) hetero-iridiatic or whatever the right dogword is for that thing with the eye color. It was white with black speckles but kind of long-haired;
what the heck kind of dog is that? Beyond a good one, I mean. Clearly.

Anyway long story short, nope the young guy had not been on a long biking trip; he was on tour with his band, which he's in with his brother and another guy and whom I went and listened to after we talked, as I started this post, and then I went back to him and was like, "dude, you guys are grand!" and he thanked me in a way that I immediately recognized: very much over the idea that every time someone compliments your work that means you owe them some kind of performance (cuz, um: you know that your work is good. you have known this for years. it's like: the one non-objective fact that you know, beyond loving your friends and your family), but at the same time: it is, in fact, nice every time someone says something nice re: your stuff.

So now this moment of static and (absurd, privileged ⇐ duh) disappointment had become a nice small moment of connection. And I flipped from one feeling to another. Which--what is this, two-thousand words later?--is what this blog post is about.

I spend some time being "lonely", and I think I've written here about what that word means to me. Maybe you feel this sometimes, too; for me, basically, it is not net-net a bad thing. We're dealing with functions of margin, and the bad side--occasional loneliness, falling over the line--is like an inevitable overflow function of a very good side: solitude, focus, governing my own time. So in fact, if I never felt lonely, it might be a good diagnostic that I'm doing something wrong, and indeed there are times in my life when I've sure not felt lonely and man it's not good. So, in fact, "loneliness" takes on a bittersweet niceness, in memory for sure and even in the moment, because it's an acknowledged part of a whole that is, on balance, a blessing and full of very very good things.

But then there's "alone". Which is totally different, as I experience and understand it.

Here's a physical metaphor for this whole thing. I like to move my body and do fun, sometimes taxing things with it; the fact that I like to tax my body (and mind, I guess; or my fear, or whatever) means that I'm sometimes in physical discomfort or low-level 'pain'. But, just like loneliness, that 'pain' takes on a bittersweet niceness. Everyone else in the world has observed this as well ('no pain no gain'; 'pain is weakness leaving the body'; blah blah blah) so while I'm not into the fetishization of pain I'm also not into the shying fetishization of not-pain; I accept and to some extent even embrace a certain kind of pain and discomfort as the indicator that I am at the right margin, pushing the right limit.

But pain ≠ injury, this example. Pain doesn't equal chronic, sustained pain. Both of those things--injury, chronic pain--are really hard things. I don't want to say anything flip about them. They're hard and people managing them deserve deference and respect. If I could do away with discomfort, with the 'pain' of pushing yourself while training...I probably would not. But if I could do away with injury and chronic pain? Hell yes. Hell yes. Erase it forever, 4 u & 4 me.

So let's SAT analogy this whole thing (the "analogy" section was part of the SAT that...y'know what nevermind):

loneliness : alone

as

no-pain-no-gain type 'pain' or discomfort : injury or chronic pain

Do you see? The thing on the right is a sh1tty bad thing -- I'd free all of us from it forever if I could. The thing on the left...mmm. Life's not perfect! Maybe we need it. And obviously it's a continuüm: exposing yourself to the thing on the left is a gateway risk to the thing on the right. But again, tradeoffs; so...

So here's the point. It actually brings in every thing that I've said in this ramble-a$$ post, which is kind of a pleasant surprise.

The retrieval of my glancing interaction with the musician (whom I encountered as a barista: we've all gotta do what we've gotta), from a static-y interaction to a kind-of-nice interaction, underscored for me that I've pushed past the margin a bit on the lonely vs. alone thing. Because of stuff with the housing, mainly. The difference is safety, security; when I feel 'lonely' I don't feel at all unsafe or insecure--in fact it often accentuates feelings of safety, in a cozy kind of way. 'Alone' is different. And again, #JFC, this is not a big deal; I know I'm writing all this but I'm not a deranged narcisso-solipsist. But it's also how I feel, so I am writing about it.

And if you read it, all these words: thanks you.

I hope you have a great weekend with lots of good things. And perhaps a sprinkle of some not-great things, just to balance the mix. But none of the bad things. No bad things for you, ever.

last beat: The young dude setting up the bar (different dude), 

is having trouble with beer taps. They're stressing him out. 

I hope, for his peace of mind,

that he is able to forthwith resolve them.

Although I also hope, tbh, that those taps don't need use for a good many hours.

"Supercut", a Lady, the blue Pacific Ocean

"Supercut" is track 9 on Lorde's fantastic album, Melodrama. It's that song right at the end of a great album (Melodrama has 11 songs [don't give me sh1t about that "reprise" meaning there are only 10; that reprise is like a totally different song from the song it's reprise-ing]) that's like "oh u thought I was done? WH-HWAM: not done. Ur welcome."

What you probably should do is just go listen to Melodrama, or at least "Supercut", then come back to this post.

The song (sorry if you just listened to it! now I'm describing it--anyway), "Supercut", is one of those spectacular songs that are probably my favorite kind of song: it is poppy and catchy but it is about sad things. It has some driving plonky-plonk stuff that builds; at one point Lorde's voice cracks in the most surprising burst of emotion I've heard in straight pop perhaps ever (the first time I heard the song I was cooking; I stopped when she did that, went and rolled the track back just to hear the bit again; I couldn't believe what I'd heard, how great it was). So it's like a feel good chill-roll jam that you shout in your car but it's about...y'know who knows exactly, this is a pop song (in a good way), but it's about loss and a relationship that once was and the images she holds in her mind of that person? At least that's what I think it's about. I'm happy with what I think it's about.

"Supercut" was playing as I came up on the Parker Mesa Overlook in the middle of a Long Slow Distance (LSD. lol) run today; I was doing an LSD as a total audible; I called the audible mid-run, and instead of doing a shorter run-and-then-take-a-yoga-class-later type plan I redirected my whole day around the LSD as part of ongoing efforts to figure out how to master myself and my time.

This isn't the most interesting pic of the Overlook, but it's clear and representative. The Lady was on the bench on the right; I was on the bench on the left; I took her picture in that gap in the middle.

As I came up, no music in my ears, the only other person there was an Attractive Lady.

"You ran the whole way?" She asks this before my headphones are out, but I'd smiled at her so it doesn't seem weird.

I nod-smile and  she asks me how long that was.

I don't know how I know, but I know--from the manner of her taking pictures, from I don't know, I just know--that she isn't a trailhead.

My response to this realization is to give her, of course unintentionally, the most convoluted trailheaded answer possible to her question, based on the fact that I don't know where she's come up from and there are all these different...anyway. At one point I interrupt myself with "sorry this is way more than you needed" and she says something like "No I asked" which I thought was nice because it was friendly, but it also acknowledged the clear truth of the situation, which was me failing Casual Social Interactions 101 (I am a bad student in this class, in general, and have mostly stopped trying unless someone else's reputation or well-being are involved in my behavior).

Then she approaches and with what feels like summoned pluck says, "Well you're going to take my picture." She holds out her phone. It's in a pink case that perhaps even has a sticker or something like that.

I laugh and start wiping my hands; she says "so...that's all sweat" which I can tell she does not intend in a mean way but is a little...it's not so much calling attention to the fact of my being sweaty (I'm, like, so sweaty) but the way it sort of focuses both of our attention on my combined semi-nakedness and sweatiness. She is not that naked at all, for a person on these trails; she has an ordinary summer dress on that is not short/revealing, and a hat.

I was this sweaty, with this much clothes on. (I had shoes on. Such as my running "shoes" are, at this point.)

So I take her picture and I suggest that she take her hat off and I think for a second she thinks I'm either hitting on her or being artistic and then she relaxes and is like, "Oh for my face."

And I'm like "Yeah, so we know it's not a body double."

And she's like "Yeah, ha, that's me." The way she inflects 'that's me' makes me realize that she's playing on the idea that what I was saying was a compliment or comment on her body or something, and I feel bad about that but she doesn't seem upset (not that this means she isn't upset; she just doesn't seem it) and we roll on.

I take a few more pictures of her; she does things with her hair, which (her hair) can only be describes as being in 'tresses.' She does things with her tresses, floomping them out to the side, I think because they were all kinked up inside her hat.

Does anyone ever have a tress? There is a singular form of that word.

I hand her back her phone

and we have a few volleying back-and-forths;

she offers information about her not coming to LA very often; she says a thing about where she's from (in the totally sensible format of comparing this hike to hikes she's familiar with, in her local geography).

I'm friendly, I think; I guess I don't offer equivalent information about myself but I felt I offered a lot answering her as I did, showing up as a sweaty half-naked man on this hilltop in the middle of the mountains.

Anyway it's a positive interaction. Or, y'know.

And then I say "have a nice walk down"

and she smiles and says something I don't quite make out through the music, but it's a wave-goodbye type of thing,

and I'm back down the trail towards home
and "Supercut" plays again: building beats, tight melody line, words about who knows but I think:
having once been with someone and how that was nice and you're not anymore but you have the sad beautiful pictures left in your memory.

Entries Past #1: "Holy Crap, Part One"

My New Year's Resolution in 2015 (i.e., going into 2016) was to tell no lies ever to anyone. I knew that I'd fail (and recorded my failures, whenever they inevitably came), but it felt and feels like a good goal.

Unsurprisingly, it's most challenging in semi-trivial social situations. Like--I hope!--most of us, I don't go around lying to my friends, or even chalking up the small misrepresentations that under this rubric do get tagged as 'lies'. But in semi-trivial social situations--not totally trivial, where you just breeze through, but with people who aren't quite friends either--I found I had the frequent impulse to lie ("absolutely! dinner soon!" ⇐ This is a lie, if you know it won't happen).

It was important, from the start, to establish a sense of the line between 'omission' and 'lie'. The best example of something at the line is answering "How are you?" It's probably obvious that it's not a 'lie' to answer that question by barfing up every single thing about 'how you are' at this moment to whatever poor person has unwittingly put themselves in the cross-hairs of your radical transparency. On the other hand, a bright 'yeah, great!' when really you're not is probably kind of a lie. What a lot of it comes down to, to me, is the intention; 'how are you?' is a pretty reflexive question -- in most day-to-day situations the person is explicitly not saying, "unburden yourself unto me." BUT, in most day-to-day situations, they probably are saying, "hey, person that i know: what is up?" So that's where the measure of what an 'honest' answer to that question comes from.

Why am I talking about this?!? Because! This is a space that I perceive to be between me and my friends. While that's literally true, it's also figuratively true: like it is for many people, the act of writing this stuff out is an act of friendship for me. NOT LIKE I THINK I'M DOING YOU SOME SERVICE!! Oh my gosh that'd be hilarious. No: but I think the space, if you will, of this blog is a friendship space defined mostly by your presence here right now as a reader, and it is a solace and relief to me that I'm grateful for.

So I feel bad that I've lied to you.

Remember the line between 'lies' and 'omission'? I was looking over my drafts of unfinished blog posts--these go back years--and my sense of it began to push from the (okay) to the former (not). The issue was the volume and scope of things I have left unsaid; things I have wanted to say but--and here is the crux HERE'S WHAT'S HARD ABOUT NOT LYING MOSTLY (unless you're a nefarious thief)--lacked the skill or time to say in a way that was worthy of reading, rather than some simpler lying way that fell back onto established scripts that shield the speaker and obscure the essential specific truth of a given instance.

Buuuuuuuuuut...also, these are posts from years ago, and a lot of them are not "good" ideas, or "good" posts. I certainly do not want to spend hours writing up bad ideas I had six years ago.

Thus, this series: "Entries Past".

In "Entries Past" I will give quick and rough treatment to each of these drafts. There will be a format, perhaps fine-tuned over time but outlined quite clearly in the first entry, below. And that's it! Will cruise through 'em! Sometimes, I will not remember what the heck I was getting at. These will be the best ones.

Title Holy Crap, Part One

Body Last Tuesday I mistimed a dusk run out and back on Westridge, a trail in the Santa Monicas that runs about 3.5 miles (during which time you do about 500 feet in elevation). I was 25 minutes later than intended, and my dusk run became a night run in its latter half, for which I was unprepared, particularly in that I had no light. Running along the Westridge fire road - a trail wide and clear enough for a car -  is pleasant and challenging during the day, and nice enough at dusk except that apparently there are invisible rattlesnakes who want to kill you. At least this is how my predicament who was explained to me by a woman running ahead of me on the way down, by which time it was quite dark.

Date 10/16/11

Rating 11/10

Notes I totally remember this run. I hadn't lived in L.A. that long (I moved here in March of 2011, but volleyed back and forth between the coasts that summer and didn't start to settle until July (6 years ago!!!)). I remember being on the Westridge fire road as dark descended more quick and dark than expected; I remember losing first the fine then the broad contours of the trail, my pace slowing and step getting more careful in fear of twisting an ankle. And I remember this lady, who 100% got way up in bizness as I passed her, about the snakes and the lateness and how unsafe it was to run at night without a headlamp.

Bearded --> Not; But Really: Erra

I've been feeling caught in the time suck of Hotel California (you will not be surprised by the link, don't...fine. welcome back). I've been feeling as if I've been doing the same thing for years, spinning through a cycle of seasons that blend. I feel this way because it is taking so long to finish Erra, of course.

And I am right. It's true.

It's also not THAT true.

This post is about that. Because in a series of pictures taken almost exactly one year ago, I recall that just one year ago I had that preposterous freaking beard -- in fact, I'd had it for months! And, and, just one year ago I was in the midst of mending my psyche after getting rolled by a ♀. And, just one year ago, some neighbors who were always very generous to me performed one of their most-generous-ever services: improving my face by removing that beard.

What preposterous beard, you ask?

It would be disingenuous of me to be like, oh, WHAT I was thinking?! that thing looks so stupid! I mean yes: it looks stupid. But I mostly thought that throughout the period that I had it, too. I know exactly what I was thinking. (Did I explain here, ever? I can't remember -- I said it to so many people. Sorry if I did.) What I was thinking was: I am obsessed all the time (Erra). My obsession is 'captivating' in both good and bad ways. In order to be in good faith with those around me, I should wear some mark of this obsession, some aspect so that people can know--even if they do not know what I'm obsessed with--that I am a person deranged and obsessed.

Also, I was thinking that I look dumb with a beard--it grows strange on my face--so yeah basically I'm punishing myself to get this thing done.

And what's a little...okay, "interesting" is a stretch; what for me is interesting is that these pictures of me and my idiot beard, recalling the thinking and actually having the thing on my face, help me recall more about the arc of the process with Erra.

What I remember is swims. The swims of the summers of 2016 and 2015, and how they were different.

Here we are, now: 2017. I will withhold account of what my swims are/were/will be "about" this summer. Let's see!

The summer of 2016--that's the summer you're looking at pictures of now; the summer during which I had then shaved off this dumb beard--I was spending long ocean swims kind of zoning out (not like that, mom -- don't worry; very attentive to surroundings). My brain would lapse into rhythm and pace and stroke count. But, in that state, I would also kind of roll around with thoughts, considerations. And the essence of these thoughts/considerations was VERY uneasily slipping into the idea that making Erra as good as I believed and believe it could/can be is going to take way too long; that this crazy notion I'd had a few months earlier (Jan/Feb 2016), this idea of going back and reworking Column 5 just a bit, was a good idea in that Column 5 needed it, I wasn't futzing around.

But it was also a very bad idea in that...well, it is now 2017. I'm working to finish up Column 2, having taken this approach all the way back to the beginning. So, y'know: bad idea as well, clearly.

Then, if we go back another summer--to the summer of 2015--I recall different swims. In these swims, 2015, my mind was wandering in ways that seem funny to me, now.

I was trying to figure out the story.

I knew the story, but I wasn't satisfied with it. Crucial elements of the first draft that I'd written...almost two years (?!?) before that were just not clicking. NOT "in need of reworking"; I hadn't found quite the right things: events, plot widgets. Plot widgets, mostly. And I would spend these swims trying to find them: feeling a rush as I attached myself to some idea that occurred to me, even as I knew elsewhere in my mind that this idea wasn't it

stroke-stroke ocean ocean "there's a pelican, that's so nice"

And plot widgets, again.

I don't remember the summer of 2014 in this way, one way or another. I'm not sure how much I was swimming then. I did not have a beard. I've only ever once had a beard, during this latter part of 2015/first part of 2016 that we're temporally dancing through here.

My point is, I guess, that the maddening incrementalism of most kinds of progress--at least "progress" such as I'm currently able to achieve it--might sometimes obscure ways that things are indeed changing, progressing. Perhaps improving, although honestly that seems a bit much.

Anyway.

game on.

This was a fun for, like, a transitional day

Don't Know What She Looks Like

So here's an odd thing: I've thought so much on this post that it was basically written when I logged in tonight; written and in-fact revised a few times. Which meant I was certain I had in fact drafted it. But I hadn't! I'd just spent lots of time in my head.

You now know my inner life. It may looks much like yours, with different particulars.

Here are some of my particulars:

You know how it is, that it sometimes only takes a couple of instances for a practice or habit to become that thing that you do Mondays (or whatever)? A version of that that I'm having is this: I've been five or six times, in total, but a thing that I like to do Mondays--when I can--is go to this yoga teacher's really excellent class at Yogaworks (gorgeous) Westlake Village location. I go early, to "avoid traffic", even though in fact there is very little traffic in either direction between Topanga and Westlake Village at any time of day; I camp out in a great place to work for the afternoon (I never buy food; I buy one cup of coffee, take advantage of refills, and semi-surreptitiously eat protein bars; I tip well).

What's good about this teacher's class for me is that it is about music and flow and has a distinct and I would say joyful energy; it's not particularly technical re: what she calls out but it's athletic and moves fast and is a class where she gives you the room to do stuff that you want and the vibe of the class validates that: doing stuff that you want. It's a class where people think it's fun, or at worst cool wutever, if there's a sweaty guy in the front doing arm balances, rather than people thinking that's...whatever. Anyway.

The point of this post is
I've been to this teacher's class I'd say five or six times,
I'd like to go a bunch more,
and I have very little idea what she looks like.
I'm trying to keep it that way.

It started the first time I went to her class. I had pushed myself to do a bit of an exploration; Westlake Village isn't that far from where I live, but you have to want to go there from where I live. And/but I was having trouble finding classes I liked close to me, so exploring seemed smart. And so I'd pushed myself to do this afternoon exploration, and I'd done the thing with the coffee and sneaking my protein bars, and I was either tired or pissed off or one of these dumb stupid things that I get, so for the preamble to and the start of that very first class I was on my back, then face down and just doing the flow, not looking around, not saying hi to the teacher. And she is particularly mobile, particularly vocal: she's a chatty and dynamic presence, padding around, making jokes/observations (another reason I like her class: my favorite thing is when yoga teachers simply do not do the "yoga teacher talking" stuff. BUT, if they must, it's better if it is interesting/not dumb. This teacher is uniformly interesting, always generous, and never dumb; she veered into woo-woo like, one time for one sentence, and immediately laughed about it and etc.).

Anyway the point is I got about half-an-hour into my first class with her and I realized two things:

1. I really liked her voice; both for itself (she has a nice voice, she says good stuff), and for the quality it had, bouncing around in this gorgeous high-ceiling'ed studio; and
2. I had no idea what she looked like. Which was a little bit helping me love her voice, more.

So basically I decided to just go with that. And I have.

I know that she is a slim, Caucasian woman. I know that she has dark brown or maybe black hair. I have a couple of concepts regarding her nose. But beyond that: nothing. I do not think I could pick her out of a lineup. When I got that link for you, above, the one to her website, I averted my eyes from the screen where it showed so I again saw just "slim white lady dark hair".

I know that this affects my affect in class. I say "thank you" at the end, of course, or I do when the opportunity arises (it's a big class; she's very popular, chatting with regulars after). But I do not look up and make eye-contact during; I have never engaged with her, directly face-on. This is probably not weird from her viewpoint, at all; it's not like every yoga student has lots of face-on interactions with every yoga teacher. But it's a little weird for me: I tend to like connecting at least once or twice per class with teachers I like; a smile, a joke, whatever. If she has perceived any aspect of this, at all, I imagine she thinks that I'm shy or whatever. Or possibly cold, I guess -- I'd prefer not to think that but I suppose it could be.

But I...love it. I love not really having a physical concept of her. Having nothing to do with blahBLAHblah all that; I just love knowing her only as a presence, a voice. It makes her exist purely as a presence, a voice. And of course she is a whole person, with a whole-person life, and in fact because she has added nice things to my life I wish her nothing but goodness in that whole-person life. But as she weaves through my life: she's a good yoga teacher; that's her principal role. And until the day--it will come--when I glance up at the wrong time and BAM: FULL INSTANTIATION -- until that happens she lives as a voice and a form and a practice and thoughts I enjoy and appreciate exactly for themselves.

J. and M. at Primo's Donuts

I am at Primo's Donuts, a famous donutery in Los Angeles.

The go-to "buttermilk" donut (click link, scroll to "Specialty") is exceeding expectations. Paired with a cup of (good!) coffee, it's great-- a rush of sugar, fat, caffeine. I'm happy about this. I'm into the idea of the L.A. donut thing, but I rarely do it because in practice it often disappoints. So I'm in a good mood on this stop on the way to my mentee, early on an L.A. Saturday morning.
Someone else had arrived at the same time that I had. Older man...mid-60's; African-American. Noteworthy mostly in the conspicuousness with which he presented as a military veteran: fatigue pillbox cap; snug olive t-shirt that looked army surplus-y even before I saw that it said "Marines"; camo cargo pants. He looked like he liked how he looked, looking like this.

This man's name was a name I know. We'll call him J.

Primo's has three, maybe four tables. It's a small shop and people mostly come in, grab donuts, go.

I stashed myself in the back table by the wall. I was gonna enjoy donut and coffee, read some, and head out.

J sat at the table immediately next to me, one table closer to the front door. The tables in Primo's are snugly fit, so he was ~two feet away.

At this table already was a man we'll call M. M was Caucasian, J's age, with a full head of white hair in a careful, kind of boyishly curliqued, part. Pinkish roundish face. He wore khaki shorts and a blue-tone Hawaiian print shirt.

M had dismantled the day's newspaper; by the time J arrived its guts were all over their table.

I will now begin, best I can, to recount from my notes how they talked to each other. I can promise that I did not capture everything. But I can also promise that everything here is words that were said, with punctuation added only for clarity, etc.

PAUSE is a pause, during which we are listening to their silence.

BREAK is a discontinuity in the action: jump-cut in time.

J (having picked up a fragment of paper; reading)   Ha. Here...this guy's complaining about, but I like it, how they're going to get rid of all the EPA requirements. But I like that. I like it.

M (face in paper, not looking up) Mmm.

J (paper down, fixing M with a stare) Cuz they, we...at the [name of golf club] we've been dealing with these forestry service requirements? These rules, that...

Whereupon J recounted a baroque, years-long set of misadventures that this golf club has had with fulfilling these (per J) complex and onerous forestry service requirements. I'm eliding the details because (a) J's narrative skipped around, and (b) there's no reason to get too specific, here.

J (finishing up) And...so we're invested in it now. And if we start with a new person we start the whole thing again. And it's cost us [millions], this whole process. We'd just done what they wanted, it'd've cost [much less]. But the process cost [millions].

M (not looking up; has not looked up this whole time) What process is that?

BREAK

M (lowering paper; shows it to J) I've killed a moose that big.

J responds with what I'd call more-than-polite interest, leading to a discussion of the specific weight/size of such a moose, as photographed; how one can sort of tell weight/size by the antlers; and M's observation that the hunter and corpse in these photos are always positioned in such a way that the perceived size of the corpse is maximized.

Primo's "buttermilk bar"
photo credit: Endo's Edibles

By this point I have, as you can tell, totally given up on 'reading'. I am in fact on my phone, taking these notes. In my defense (if defense is required) we're in a bustling coffee shop--it's not as if these guys are trying to be private. And I'm there, flush to the wall, close quarters. They're not being rude or impinging on me. I'm just saying: my choices boil down to "listen, or leave."

So, yeah: duh.

I am at this point working with two non-mutually-exclusive hypotheses:
(1) J is a more generous conversationalist than M. He's nicer about showing interest in M's topics than M has so far been about topics that J brings up (Forestry regs vs. moose).
(2) J and M may also have disagreements, re: public affairs. I'm almost sure they're both vets; they interact with the easy companionship of older people who share biographic essentials. But their conversation has already had these little moments that feel like...either static or deliberate dodges. The most obvious so far has been M's forceful disinterest during J's jeremiad about the environmental regulations. M was so consistently disinterested that I started out thinking he might be a jerk, or in fact disliked J; as it became clear that neither of these things was true, and a few other things happened, I began to think that this hypothesis (2) was a possibility.

BREAK

M Yesterday, I did my little estate sale circuit, and you know...you know how estate agents will advertise a sale for a whole area? So I thought before church I'd go drive by.

J Mm.

BREAK

M (drops his paper with intent) Okay so, J....do you feel wetness?

J (it is clear that he's answering "do you feel wet, right now?") ...no.

M That's the right answer. But why is it the right answer? If you have a wet towel on your arm, do you feel wetness.

J (again, kind of transparently reorienting) ...yes.

M No. "No" is right answer.

Thus follows a long exegesis by M of this article he's read. It is about how skin can only feel five sensations, and "wetness"--the fact of a thing being wet--is not one of them. So "feeling wetness" is one of our learned responses. It's a combination of other sensations that we learn to process as "wetness". This apparently also goes for "oily", "soft", and "hard".

J (engaged) ...then, if the water is the temperature of your finger and you stick your finger in the water, what're you feeling?

M Perhaps pressure?

PAUSE

M I just thought that was interesting.

J (not unfriendlily) It goes into a level that I find, uh, what...unnecessary.

M Minutiae.

J Exactly.

M I like things that are counter-intuitive.

J Do you think...would you say that you're more into the, uh, the physical side than the social, the human side?

M (gives it thought. Then:) I think so.

J I'd say so, with you.

BREAK

J (with the paper up, open, splayed in his face -- like an improv comedian miming "reading the paper") Did you read this with the Tulsa cop? Why do they think she shouldn't be on patrol.

Whereupon M begins a delicate recitation of the details of a recent police shooting: a white Tulsa cop shot a black citizen under questionable (at best) circumstances. I might, of course, be projecting my own priors onto this scene, but I got the sense that M was aware of and wrestling with separate concerns:

• he, a white man, was recounting an episode that many see as a manifestation of systemic racism--the murder of a black citizen at the hands of police--to his friend J, who is black.
• BUT J, the black man in this conversation, is also the man more inclined to take the cop's side in this kind of thing. Certainly, that was the inflection of J's opening this topic, which was done with a tone of now what's this fresh nonsense? re: the fact that the cop had been taken off-duty.

As M is trying to explain what is known of the shooting itself:

J You know how you white people are (does breathlessness:) he was a 'big scary black guy'. I still don't see how they can uh...I don't see 2nd-degree murder but I can see manslaughter-- (I might be making this up, of course, but he really looked to me like he got a little bit sad) oh, and not guilty of manslaughter unanimously.

M Well 'not guilty' has to be unanimous otherwise a hung jury.

J Oh oh--

M (joking) 'Duh'--

J You're right I got caught up by the press's hyperbole. (pronounces the world "hyper" "bowl"; he continues reading. His shoulders shift.) And she's been returned to the force that's a mistake...I wonder if she just, she had her finger on the trigger and just tightened it or something.

Reader, you may notice a conflict in J's view here; I did, as well, but no there was no inflection point I'm not recounting. He just kind of eased into two separate responses. M again explicates facts of the story, and the dynamic crystallizes. J seems visibly moved by an aspect of the event. But he also continues to make allowances for the cop. 

M relates that no, the cop herself in this case was not reaching for mitigation; part of the reason she was back on the force at all was that she had owned full responsibility and thought she could be useful in counseling other cops on how to deal with similar situations. [note: I am doing my best to wipe my own views on this story, which is of course an emotional one, from the account. I'm sorry if the whole inevitably triggers anyone reading. I'm also just recounting their conversation, without recourse to independently confirmed facts of the event (not that M's facts are necessarily wrong)].

J Still for her to be back on the force. That's a mistake.

BREAK

J (dropping paper; perhaps relieved with some lightness after previous subject) Oh this is funny. "To save the republic, take away Trump's twitter account." (laughing) Let's take away people's rights, especially the president.

M talks about how "the twitter guy" had "apologized for Trump" -- meaning not on Trump's behalf, but rather for Twitter's role in Trump's prominence/election etc.

J Hoisted on your own petard. Do you know the meaning of that phrase?

M ...I know a [some totally unrelated thing (M does not know the phrase)]

J No no it...a petard, was a bomb, in the middle ages. And so if it blew up in your hand, if your own bomb blew you up, that was being 'hoisted on your own petard'.

[note: I had a completely different understanding of this phrase. Completely. I checked, sitting there: J's version was right.]

PAUSE

M That reminds me of, when I was a cop in South Central. There was a guy on the force, who was a little...let's say he was a little wild, let's say. And he found some kids, they were playing with firecrackers, and he wanted to show them how dangerous firecrackers were.

The story ends when this "wild" cop does some crazy thing where he confiscates the kids' firecrackers, wraps them all together in an alley and sets them off and, because they're packed so tight or something, they blow up like a bomb and a piece of the shrapnel takes off the "wild" cop's finger.

M So you could say, there, he was 'hoisted on his petard.'

J Yes you could.


M So he certainly showed them how dangerous those were.

J Yes, he did.

Frankly, primed by their previous topic and the preface of a "wild" cop in South Central in the '70s or '80s, I was braced for a much sadder story than that.

M (standing) Okay J.

J Oh you're taking off.

M Yeah I'm gonna go, hit those garage sales.

The two go through a summary of convoluted social plans; a lot of names are mentioned and my sense is that some friends of theirs (a couple?) want to do a thing like a dinner, and that J and M's wives (female names; spoken of with a mix of emotions (mostly positive!)) want this dinner to happen and J and M are happy to go along with that.

M leaves: walks out the door, gone. I can see him through the window, like a character in a stage play. And then, also like the character in a much too broadly directed stage play, he does a whole take and he stops, pauses, turns back and comes in. It really looks like, basically, bad acting. It really, as far as I can tell, is not bad acting.

A conversational thread I skipped earlier was that
M had asked J
in what was clearly a somehow loaded way
if J had "sent those emails and made those calls."

And J had said something that,
even then,
I registered as clearly a kind of a shrug or avoidance.

M is still acting, badly; he is doing "guy squaring up uncomfortably with his friend but he feels like he's gotta."

M So you had stated that you couldn't live with misleading [name and name]. But you're planning on misleading them.

J (slight smile, sloooowly looks up from the paper) ...and?

M You are compromising on the values you stated.

J (this does bother J; he does not find 'compromising on values' funny) No. I am, going to [do the thing I said, just in a different way].

[note: I'm eliding details here, clearly. Which is a shame. But, y'know.]

M But you're misleading them on it.

J Yes but I am going to [do that thing.] Just, [differently].

M Yes but you're okay misleading them on it.

That's kind of where it ends. They don't have a conflict; from the start M projects this sense of "I've just gotta say," and J projects "I guess I hear you, but this is my thing." To wit, to conclude it:

J But I appreciate your, (laughing, not unkindly) ah registering your, ah...

M leaves. Not in a huff; everything seems basically fine. He said the thing; he's off.

Within...I'd say within 90 seconds of M leaving, J--whom I have already pegged as a highly, highly interactive human being--turns to me and

J (tipping his chin at my phone, in my hands, on which I am basically writing these words)   I mean, you've been working on those fingers all morning.

And I totally straight-up lie to this nice man; well, a lie of omission. I say (which is true) that I am trying to text with this kid that I mentor, because it's a bit of a scramble to figure out scheduling and I don't want to wake up his household by arriving too early.

Yes, this is a lot of information to just share. But I sense J is not a man who will mind. Indeed: he goes back to his paper, but then within a minute:

J   How long've you been, doing that?

I tell him.

He tells me a long story about mentoring: how he mentored this guy through ROTC, how the guy is now 46 and has a family and he (J) jokes that this guy is "my dad's vengeance on me," meaning that the ups-and-downs of this guy's life, and how J's own heart was tugged along on that ride, was J's dad's vengeance for some stuff I guess J put his own dad through. Because J never had a son himself, see, so this guy this mentee that he started working with through ROTC, this was how J got a sense of all he must've put his poor old dad through.

I smile and laugh--I don't mean I perform those things, I mean this guy in this donut shop is telling me a wonderful story.

He says he really valued that, mentoring through ROTC.

I'm happy that I can tell him, in total sincerity, that one my own mentees favorite things is Junior ROTC. He takes the stuff where you memorize the rules and procedures pretty seriously; he seems really rewarded by advancing through it.

I thank J and he thanks me and we wish each other good mornings. I leave Primo's, and go to hang with my mentee.

Simply Summer's Eve

As you may know, yoga studios / gyms / etc. often get samples of products to distribute to members; these samples are often placed in the bathrooms or at the check-in desk. I currently have a LOT of B-12 vitamins in little packets for this reason (tastiness of vitamins: abundant; evidence that these vitamins will do what the packet claims they will: minimal).

I've also, of late, grabbed a bunch of a particular little cleansing wipe that's been stashed into these "Take One!" wicker baskets. They're the kind of thing that you'd expect in this setting: "single-serve" packets in plastic with a coupon attached in case you want to go buy the product.

I've been grabbing one or two every time I go into this particular studio, where I practice a fair amount, so I've got...I dunno. Twenty? I'm not hoarding: this kind of thing is useful! Wipes for your face/mat? Great. They've got a picture of an orange on the front. I like grabbing a couple, ripping open the external plastic baggie (not the one sealing the product) to throw it away and recycle the ancillary materials, stashing them in my gym bag.

Some of you may see where this is headed.

I am home yesterday, working; I am fussing around between Doing Real Things; I decide that a semi-productive way to fuss would be to clean my keyboard and mouse. They need it: they're a bit schmutzy and I look at them often like, "I should clean these."

And now I have just the thing: cheerful "mandarin blossom" "cleansing cloth"es!

I crack open a "cloth" and use it to clean off my mouse and keyboard. It works well -- it's not too wet or astringent and within a few minutes the shiny black plastic of my gaming keyboard and mouse is shiny and black, free of schmutz.

As I'm finishing up I take a look at the marketing copy; these things smell good. Maybe I'll grab some!

"For freshness on the go..."
"Infused with botanical extracts that cater to your most intimate parts..."
"The de-light-fully scented, individually wrapped clothes..."
"Gynecologist tested..."

By the time I got to "For external vaginal use only" I'd grokked the situation. To be clear, the situation was not troubling. If anything, I hope and assume that any "cleansing cloth" meant to go anywhere near anybody's vagina is vastly overqualified to clean off my keyboard and gaming mouse. And, I mean, they did a great job! They smell nice!

Anyway these are the clothes. I will have a Moment before first doing so, but I have no doubt I'll be using them to clean off my face and yoga mat throughout the summer. I have, f'real, a bunch.

smells gr8
not specifically designed for gaming peripherals

#ShowingUp

Ugh I f#&ked up I just realized
I wanted to share because idk,
maybe @ some point in future it could help you
not f#&k up like I have.

This is about showing up. #showingup. ;)

I'm keeping names and links out of it because
although I have nothing but good to say about anyone in the story (except me)
and it's easy to figure out who I mean if you know me
(and if you're reading this: odds are u know me)
and all facts are public on social media and media-media,
STILL
I'm personalizing a narrative
and don't want to name other people by name
as I filter their major events
into my own tiny observations.

There is a yoga class in L.A. that I love.
The teacher is unique and inspiring.
I like and admire many yoga teachers and classes, but this class: the challenge, the camaraderie, the sense of a community built over time -- it's unique and a gift and I'm so glad I found it.

The teacher--this wonderful, inspiring teacher--has been out for a couple of months.
He suffered a personal tragedy and he's been out.
Also, he's been working on projects for this cool other life that he leads, non-yoga.
Point is: he's been out.

We're not "friends", meaning I do not know him outside the class. So qua his tragedy, I feel okay qua my response: I've tried to ping and like things that he is posting to social media about his loss and the work that he's doing, being part of a substrate of support from his broader community. Perhaps I could've done more, but I'm not at all sure I could've "done more" without overstepping or in-fact doing harm, so that's not (I don't think) where I f*#ked up here.

But: I haven't been going to his class.

Cuz he's been out! Right? And it's a long drive! I know (and like) the sub who's replaced him; she's part of the community/camaraderie thing, she's cool and funny and good at yoga (teaching, doing). But it's a long drive and it's nice to have the flexibility of not doing a long drive any given day, right? et cetera. All totally reasonable.

I f&*ked up, though. I think. Here is why.

I saw a picture as part of these social media streams: the people in class, just a nice shot that got posted in support of the regular (absent) teacher, thanking his sub, talking about keeping "the flame burning" or a similar straightforward metaphor for "maintaining the continuity of this community that he's built with this class."

Lemme be clear: I'm not even in this story, from anyone's perspective but my own. It's not as if anyone cares or should even notice my presence/absence/whatever.

But I, for me, have f*@ked up.

If I respect this teacher and this thing that he's built,
if I value many aspects of this thing that he's built; his instruction, for sure, as the central feature.
But also the community, the excellence of practice in the room, the other humans,
all of that,
and I want in any way to be part of it,
for me,
then I have to show up.
Especially now.

So it's there, what he built, when he's ready to come back to it; and so this thing that he's built--to the tiny extent that each person contributes to something like that--maintains its strength, even grows, for whenever he gets back. Because in fact it's not even "about him" -- in a good way, that I think he'd agree with:

Because this thing that he's built has great worth in itself.

That's the point.

It's still a long drive! It's not a given I can make it any given day.

But I should start #showingup when I can.

The fact that he is not teaching should not take it off of my radar. That's transactional thinking: just about me and my experience; in fact, it's thinking about "my experience" in a rather incomplete and narrowly defined way.

I'm mortified that it took me a month and the click of a social media post to learn that. I am so, so dumb sometimes.