Strung Out and Lost

There are still a few personal items I've been meaning to collect from the house. Books, mainly, a few lingering nick-nacks, but also, a hammock. A very special and historical rope hammock. A gift given to me some ~40 years ago, by my first girlfriend Holly. Received under the most absolute difficult circumstances, too.

I've kept and used this for most of my adult life. Never left outside overnight. It was set up an used in my backyard for 5 years on Loma Vista Ave., in Los Gatos, it was the hammock that my friend Bruce had wrestled to find a balanced position on just in time to have the hook on the feet side snap, recoil and strike him dead center between the legs as it dropped to the ground. My then-girlfriend Toni was on the phone with me at the time, as I sat on the patio, and she heard it happen and asked what that sound was. 

I carted that hammock to every place I lived, from there to Zinna Way, Shady View Lane, Wilder Ave, Dan's place on Meridian Ave, to my apt on Los Gatos Blvd, then to our home on Carlton, to El Dorado Hills (2 homes) and back to Saratoga briefly, and then, where it's been since, the house we bought in Los Gatos. 

There were spans of times exceeding a year or more that it went untouched while the hammock rack sat and rusted in the rains towards the end, but it never left me. It's been a treasured heirloom.



Part of what it meant to me is tied to the history of receiving it from Holly as a gift. It cost over $100 and back then, that was a lot of money that she didn't have. I'd lusted after it for some time, talking about wanting to buy it, and she went bought it for me as, if I recall, a birthday gift. She even brought it to the house on Loma Vista to surprise me, only to be surprised to find me not at home. I was elsewhere, for the night, and I'd lied to her about my whereabouts and plans for the evening. It's a long and complicated story, but when I left the place I'd stayed the next morning, I found a note on my car from her. It was a difficult time. It was pretty much the end of the relationship. I've never forgotten it, or the fact that even with all that had happened, she did end up giving me the hammock as a gift. And it has always, every time it's been used, been a point of subconsious reflection, regret and remembrance of that time, of her, and what we'd gone.

I told my ex last month, while she was doing a massive cleaning and clearing of stuff in the Los Gatos house, that she could toss the rusted hammock rack that'd been sitting on the side of the house for several years. It was beyond salvaging. In parallel, I went in search of a replacement rack on which to set the hammock up on at my new home. I found one online, got it, and contacted her to arrange to pick up the hammock on my next visit to get the kids… only to be told that as I'd authorized previously, she's thrown it in the dumpster during the massive cleaning effort, and it was gone.

I had to pause. My heart dropped. My breath escaped me for a few moments.

I wrote back, clarifying and including the original message stipulating she could toss the RACK, not the hammock. She apologized and I had to decide to let it go, or lose it over losing it.



I let it go.



Several years back, while attempting to clean the pantry after having moved out,  an apron that had belonged to her mom got thrown out in the shuffle. I was blamed for it. It's possible it was at my hands or that it fell into the recycle bins that sat below it. Either way, the circumstances were such that it was lost, and I recognized that the loss of the hammock was likely just as unintentional. I like to think it was. So I handed it gracefully and decided to move on.

Moving on meant doing a quick craigslist search, finding an identical one nearby, buying it, and accepting that the original will be lost and into another's hands. I secretly hoped I'd find it had been pulled out at the dump and I'd find it reselling. I'll be honest,  It's upsetting that it's no longer in my possession. It meant a great deal to me. But the meaning wasn't just about the item, it was about the history. The history is my memories, and those I'll always have, regardless of having the actual hammock itself. So I'll move on, I'll use this new one, enjoy the hell of it, and remember the original every time I use the new one.

Onward.

Cub Scouting In The Weeds

Some 7 or so years ago, on this very day, my son’s Cub Scout Troop had scheduled an outing to tour the USS Pampanito in San Francisco. The USS Pampanito is a historic submarine, moored on the pier at Fishermans Wharf, available for self-guided walk-through tours and even overnight campouts. (The troop had done an overnight once, and while visiting for this day trip, it was clear why they never returned. It was small, dark, dank and reeked of machine oil to the point it felt suffocating.)

Everybody Hurts

The unimaginable has happened to somebody I know, and it is something I want to share here. In part because I know some of you reading this know her. And in part, because I believe that it warrants consideration and exposure to a wider audience. Anybody with a child and anybody that’s lost somebody to suicide needs to read this, and, as much as possible, experience this by following her blog and journey through a nightmare I can not even begin to fathom. I’ve learned of this during the past week, I’ve written to her expressing my deep condolences and support of her through this awful experience, but as empathetic as I consider myself to be I have been unable to fully comprehend the agony or extent of grief. I can’t. It’s too hard to imagine. But it’s also too important to ignore, downplay, or turn away from because it’s so painful. Being humane requires compassion for the pain others endure, an awareness that also feeds into your own values and perspective.

Read more at https://maccupcake.com.

A Road To Nowhere

I read somewhere recently that the definition of insanity is doing the same thing over, and expecting different results. So, I’m likely "certifiable" at this point. I need to really work on better understanding why I’m doing what I’m doing. I can’t keep getting angry at the world for being what it is. I can’t keep expecting that I will be able to manage everything in a way that meets everybody's expectations including my own, or that she will be reasonable, or he will improve overnight, or that work won't require 'work' on my part. Or that, with all I have going on, and all that I’ve wrestled with for so many years, it’s not a surprise to be worn down, to feel no control, scattered, unable to focus and to feel like a failure. But if I keep doing the same thing over... and failing... well... that's something I need to look at, no?

Cutting It Short

Finding every option to reduce distractions and to simplify.

Dumb Founded

"I Signed By Accident!"

Something terrifying was suggested in the recent Senate hearings with Mark Zukerberg regarding Facebook’s business structure and privacy policies. The bar got lowered. I thought that hit bottom on November 8, 2016. But in today's hearings, Sen. John Kennedy implied that Zuckerberg should go rewrite his terms “in plain English” so people can actually understand them.



The abuse of Facebook by Cambridge Analytica to target propaganda is a problem with Cambridge Analytica. Yes, constraints on the ability to create fake user accounts would help, but these are not a realistic solution. You can’t pull this back. The genie is out of the bottle, the nature of the internet has a life of its own and to quote Jeff Goldblum’s character in Jurassic Park… “Life finds a way”.


I agree that the “legal-ese” of terms of use statements are over the top. I suspect that it’s the result of years of legal input and entanglements over being sued for the slightest thing in our highly litigious society. And sure, you could ‘streamline’ and reduce the user agreement details down to something more ‘digestible’ to the ‘average user’. But what does that say about our country and society? 


I don’t think that people’s inability to focus on and read anything with more than two-syllable words and longer than 4 sentences should be overlooked as a far larger part of the problem. We don’t need to keep “dumbing down” things to support an ignorant and lazy society. We need to up the game, demand responsibility for actions, and for fuck’s sake, make education essential to survival.


Who doesn’t know or understand that Facebook, Google, YouTube and every other online entity that you don’t pay to use, mines and uses your data for ad targeting, analytics and more? That’s implicit. Documented. It’s understood. And if you don’t know that, then YOU are at fault. You can’t backtrack and say “oh wait, that thing you told me to read and agree to, well I didn’t read it but I agreed to it, so that’s not fair. You tricked me with too many words.”



BTW what I think is far more worthy of time and regulation is the deceptive language in things like “airline ticket cancellation insurance” which implies a right to cancel but doesn’t explain the specifics up front as being only under very rigid and selective conditions like natural disasters or your own hospitalization, but not because you had a change of heart about your travel plans. Or the same for “extended warranties”. And don’t get me started on the release forms for medical procedures. Why are those still allowed? 


And why, when we’re faced with the existence of factions that abuse a social network are we more obsessed with belittling and demeaning the business that got abused instead of going after the abusers? How about putting some of that "border wall" money towards regulating THAT?


We’re a nation full of idiots. Short-attention-span, conspiracy-theory-driven, history-denying, science-ignorant idiots.

Tormental Breakdown

A friend of mine that’s aware of these personal writing recently said: “You really put yourself out there.” My response, without hesitation, was “of course I do, why wouldn't I? We're all human, we all have these experiences, but nobody talks about them”. I said that an hour of rock and roll trivia conversation with him might fulfill me for the moment, but to recognize a shared human experience between us would fulfill me for far longer. There’s great solace in the validation of knowing you’re not alone in things you’ve felt.

I Cleared Another Path

I went out on a limb this morning and pruned about 80% of the podcasts from my library. I want, so much, to listen to so many interesting and fascinating things. The options are as vast and available as “how to” videos are on YouTube. But I am overwhelmed by all the choices and recommendations I have. With a full time job, kids to be present for and engaged with, routine errands and key needs to put my time into meditation or reading and writing . . . these 25+ daily 1hr-long listening options just don’t have a chance. So they’ve been weeded out. Cut. Bagged. Mulched. My podcast library is the latest casualty in my reclamation of my limited time, and it's best use. Buh-bye Techno-talk, cinematic trivia, wait wait don’t tell me and a dozen or more others that I keep thinking I’ll eventually get around to. Because I simply won’t. Sure, I'll listen to "Rock Tale Hour", "TWiT" other any tangential interests as desired, but my 'feeds' are now tightly focused on those things that improve my outlook, my professional skills, my parenting and my overall happiness.

Burst Out Laughing

I received an email this morning from what I suspect is somebody in Belgium, based on a quick google search. They appear to sending what looks like a well intended fun photo to two family members …, not realizing that I'm not one of them. I think they have my email address wrong.

This was the entire body of the message… just a photo… THIS photo...

Of course, being a good netizen, I decided I'd let them know it was misdirected… and at the same time, volley back a similar image using the "BURST" filter on MacOS X's "PhotoBooth" App.

"Hello. You don't know me, but I believe you have my email mistaken for somebody else.

I thought I'd respond and let you know that whoever you wanted to send that photo to isn't getting it, but I am. You might want to fix the address in your email.

In either case, in the spirit of the fun image, here's my response….hope it makes you laugh."

I'm eagerly awaiting a response!

It Boils Down To Words

Our electric water kettle. Hard water deposits build up, so it helps to drain it each time. Making this reminder label gave me a chance to play with words. My happy place.