112909

This week my father told me he thinks I'm an "a-theocrat" rather than an atheist. I do believe in an essential life force that is what Tolle called Source. What I can't tolerate is bureaucrats/theocrats trying to get between me and my relationship with the cosmos.

*Lord's-Jester*

This week I picked up a perfume we made when I was in Florida; I was calling it Euros, but I think I'll end up calling it Cuir du Farceur (The Jester's Leather). To me the first iteration smells leather like, but it can smell more so, somehow. The salient notes, out of 15, are pine needle, orris-violet, frangipani, and jonquil. I toyed with the recipe a bit, and plan to re-make it with my assistant next week, with a total of 18 notes. Tobacco, cedar, star anise, and black pepper might turn it into something more like what I'm looking for. Old leather does strike me as basically dull with just a hint of sharpness. Leather scents are quite common in perfume, especially men's.

It finally really struck me how easy it is to make the different perfume strengths, eau de cologne, eau de toilette, eau de parfum (EdC, EdT, EdP), and parfum. I made an EdC once with 140-proof alcohol, but it doesn't really work (the alcohol isn't strong enough to dissolve some aromatics). From now on I will make EdC and EdT with 180-proof alcohol, and EdP and parfums with 190-proof. Once you have the right alcohol (to make 180 from 190 is easy), all you need is the total weight of aromatics; then you can calculate exactly how many grams of alcohol to add to make a given strength. I take it this is not the way most perfumers do things.

To this end, I got a nice digital scale which can weigh up to 1200 grams; the digital scale I have now is 100 grams max. It's accurate to .005 grams, whereas this new one is only accurate to .1 gram, so the old one is for aromatics and the new one just for alcohol. In this way I can be ultra precise, as I like to be with most things (poetry not so much :-) Precision has no place in poetry). Here are the sizes of containers I will be using (last week I wrote about it in ounces which makes no sense at all): liquids in 5ml open-top bottles and 10ml bottles with three kinds of tops (open, atomizer, roll-on), and solids in 7.5ml tins and 20ml and 30ml aluminum with white glass jars.

*Poems*

The last of the rancor toward my ex-wife is, I believe, expelled with these "poems." I apologize in advance.

We Kept On

We are the men who

kept on loving the women

we promised to love forever.

They've left us in the dust;

we're still hopeless

and mystified.

How can one forsake

the oaths of a lifetime,

and the other be stuck

forever in some kind of

a robotic glitch,

always repeating mistakes,

a computer hung up on itself,

unable to proceed,

crashing into eternity,

re-initializing over and over?

We kept on loving because

we didn't realize there was

any other way.

Like the streets we walked on

once that went on straight,

who turn once to look for us

before jumping, gasping,

we keep on,

one foot in front of the other,

honest to a fault,

dreaming our would-be world,

always longing for the way

it used to be.

We stamp our feet and

refuse to accept that

the way it was won't come again.

We keep on straight for

the sake of the few who love us,

for the hope of what could be,

and because we realize

we never have been hopeless in truth.

_____

Always the Last to Know

I understand now.

I can't relate but

at least I understand.

When I tell the story

of how I proposed

to you, on stage

in a skit at

an improv comedy

show, most people are

amazed and congratulate

me on a great idea.

I've never had

the nerve to mention

how you were not happy

at all in the days

to follow. Angry.

I had no idea why

but I finally figured

it out; and I realized

why your father took me

to task afterwards:

by making my proposal

on stage in front of

a hundred people,

I had effectively

removed your choice

in the matter.

You couldn't then say,

"Oh, thanks. That was

sweet. But I have

no intention of staying

married to a cripple."

You couldn't have said

that; you knew it,

your father knew it.

Always the last to know.

_____

The Oil Company

After my ex abandoned me,

with half a friend and

no family for 2000 miles,

I didn't decide to move

back home, as any sane person

would have. I stuck it out,

just to show her I could

make it without her.

Though I had arranged for

every single aspect of

our lives, I was so hard

pressed intellectually

and emotionally, still

recovering from a terrible

diagnosis and now from

desertion, I was simply

overwhelmed with all

the things I had to take

apart--she left it all

to me of course.

I must say I did

a damn good job,

but I failed at one thing.

When we moved in,

I was told I had to

set up an account for oil

(heated by an oil furnace).

Naturally, I assumed that

upon my moving out,

the property management

company would take the oil

account back to their name.

What a grievous error.

About five months later,

I got a bill from

the oil company

for the oil burned

all during a northern winter.

I called the oil company

saying there must be some

mistake; how could I be

billed for oil burned

in a house I wasn't

living in?

Nothing to be done they said;

the bill was on me.

I called the property

management company,

expecting they would be

apologetic and fix things;

they were nothing short of

indignant, insisting I

should have called to cancel

my account. They would do

nothing. In the end,

it was $700 I lost

senselessly,

in much the same way

I did my ex-wife.

*Quotations*

I believe in the unsubmissive, the unfaltering, the unassailable, the irresistible, the unbelievable--in other words, in an art of life.

--Margaret Anderson

We can only be said to be alive in those moments when our hearts are conscious of our treasures.

--Thornton Wilder

One's own self is well hidden from one's own self; of all mines of treasure, one's own is the last to be dug up.

--Nietzsche

Truth is the property of no individual but is the treasure of all men.

--Ralph Waldo Emerson

Unless we place our religion and our treasure in the same thing, religion will always be sacrificed.

--Epictetus

God, as Truth, has been for me a treasure beyond price. May He be so to every one of us.

--Gandhi

It is by going down into the abyss that we recover the treasures of life. Where you stumble, there lies your treasure.

--Joseph Campbell

Though sages may pour out their wisdom's treasure, there is no sterner moralist than pleasure.

--Lord Byron

My own understanding is the sole treasure I possess, and the greatest. Though infinitely small and fragile in comparison with the powers of darkness, it is still a light, my only light.

--Jung

Learning is a treasure that will follow its owner everywhere.

--Chinese proverb

Peace love and ATOM jazz

112209

This week I went with two old friends to a buddy's jazz club in Brooklyn, Puppet's (Puppet's). Had a blast and heard the Alex Blake Quartet. Alex Blake is a stellar double-bass player, and our friend Jaime played a mean trap set. Alto-sax player really shined. An excellent evening out.

*Lord's-Jester*

Last week a lady came to my house who has some renown as a perfume writer. She loved my perfumes, in particular the one I call Demeter (used to be called Blondie), based on tobacco, hay, and 14 other notes. [We are in discussions now as to the proper name for it.] She said, with a very large readership, that as soon as I get ecommerce going on my web site, she will write about my stuff. She said Demeter is one of the best tobacco scents she's ever smelled. !!! Also, I sent some samples to a friend in Australia (Selene and Phoebe); her business partner said my perfume is in the same class as Mandy Aftel. !!!!!

In natural perfume, there could not be a better compliment. Ms Aftel is without a doubt the best in the business, and founder of the Natural Perfumers Guild.

This week my assistant and I remade Demeter, and also Heracles. With Demeter, my goal was to brighten it up a bit, to give it some lift. To accomplish this, I added sandalwood in the base, and neroli, juniper, and templin in the top (templin is distilled from fir cones). We'll see; I may go back to the first or second recipe. With Heracles, my goal was to tone down both the black-currant bud and the boronia, which were way too strong in the first iteration (which I called Down Under). Again, here, I took the total weight of the aromatics and calculated how much alcohol to add to make a light parfum. First whiff makes me think the black currant is still too strong. Time will tell.

I am simply overjoyed that I now have an ounce of orris-root/violet-leaf co-distillation; the only company I know who sells it has been out of stock for months. I can work magic with orris-violet, especially when combined with the orris dilution I now also have. A Facebook update: 'I am beyond excited that a rare co-distillation is back in stock at Floracopeia. It's like my life was on hold while they were out of stock. Magic has returned!' And also: 'I've discovered I have a sense of a certain completeness, knowing I have all the aromatics I need to make great natural perfume. I want for nothing if I can rest assured that task is feasible.' I might even be able to get some more boronia soon.

Also this week I did more work on Lord's Jester Inc. I got a corporate bank account, enlisted the services of an accounting firm, finalized packaging, etc. I will offer liquid perfumes in two sizes, .17oz (almost .2oz) and .4oz, and solid perfumes in three sizes, .25oz tins (cool retro tins that snap shut and are highly portable), .68oz and 1oz jars (great aluminum jars lined with retro white glass). The small perfume bottles have very small openings, small enough that you can turn the bottle over to put some on you finger, or put some drop by drop onto a handkerchief. [By the way, samples of handkerchiefs embroidered with the company name are on their way to me from India.] For the larger bottles, I've now got screw caps, spray tops, and roll-on tops; combined with a handkerchief, this will offer the user multiple options for application.

*Chi*

I want to understand more fully what Tolle is talking about in the following passage. I get it in theory, but how about practical terms? From Eckhart Tolle:

"The Unmanifested is the source of chi. Chi is the inner energy field of your body. It is the bridge between the outer you and the Source. It lies halfway between the manifested, the world of form, and the Unmanifested. Chi can be likened to a river or an energy stream. If you take the focus of your consciousness deeply into the inner body, you are tracing the course of this river back to its Source. Chi is movement; the Unmanifested is stillness. When you reach a point of absolute stillness, which is nevertheless vibrant with life, you have gone beyond the inner body and beyond chi to the source itself: the Unmanifested. Chi is the link between the Unmanifested and the physical universe."

*Morals*

I am what some call a "moral atheist." It perturbs me that the word 'atheist' must be qualified. Do people really imagine there are amoral atheists? In my experience, there are some apathetic atheists; they aren't amoral so much as they just don't give a crap, about moral questions, about the existence of god, about developing a code of conduct. Most of us are deeply moral, more so than your average theist, I must assert, because we had to develop our sets of ethics on our own. Instead of having it handed to us in a book, we've struggled over many years to make our own standards of conduct. I myself have no trouble with folks who do get their ethics from a book, whether it's the Bible, the Koran, the Torah, the Bhagavad Gita, or the writings of Buddhist monks. What I do have trouble with is folks assuming I have no morals simply because I'm not a theist.

What is theism? The belief that there is a deity of some kind who gives rise to the universe. I do not believe that; my beliefs are most closely reflected in Taoism. In this statement I mean to bring up what is, for me, the best ontological argument for the existence of god, St Anselm's, which says simply that god is that than which nothing greater can be conceived. For me that greatness is the sum total of all the events happening across the universe in a split second, from the formation of new stars, to the many life cycles of the earth, to the blood coursing through all our veins, to our intimations of divinity, to our deathless dreams; all of it at once is the cosmos, which is that than which I can conceive of nothing greater. The cosmos is my god.

*Asian-Ladies*

In my life, I've gone out with two Asian women. The first was a Chinese-Japanese lady in Taiwan; the second was a Cambodian woman in Seattle. I mention them just because my relationships with them were very different from all the others. With the lady in Taiwan, who called herself Ms Liang, our time together was riddled with dishonesty and subterfuge on her part. Every word the woman ever told me was a lie. I've no idea what her real name was, how old she was, what she did (other than burn through her parents' money), whether or not her father was in the Taiwanese military as she claimed, or if in fact she was married, an idea she denied completely.

Eventually it came down to this: a man claiming to be her husband confronted me violently in public and told me to leave Taipei if I valued my life (in Chinese, which I was only just beginning to speak). One of the first things other foreigners had told me after I arrived on the island was that a foreigner's hand must never touch a Chinese person in anger, in public anyway; to engage in such behavior would be to run amok--every man in Taiwan was required to do two years military service, so the streets are basically lined with trained assassins. When confronted on the crowded street, I had no choice but to run for my life.

With the Cambodian lady in Seattle, things were much tamer but still a little odd. I had thought of her as the most beautiful girl at Seattle Central Community College for a year and a half; one day in my new anatomy class I found her giving me clear signals that romantic overtures would be welcome. I asked her out that day, but it took a couple of weeks of convincing before she agreed. It turned out she was very traditional and couldn't easily accept premarital sex; it didn't take long for her to give in, but I did have to say I was open to the idea of marrying her, which at the time I was. We tried to make it work after I moved to Bellingham to finish college but we failed.

While I was still in Seattle, I did have ample opportunity to witness Cambodian-American culture. What I can say is that if you want to get an idea what it's like, see Eastwood's recent classic Gran Torino; the nature of the cultures of immigrants from south Asia is captured with such aplomb, it's a miracle. In my Seattle girlfriend's case, her parents both refused to speak English, her brother was a gang banger (South Seattle is one of the most ethnically diverse neighborhoods in the country), and the whole family was addicted to gambling. All Nikki ever wanted to do was hit the casino, which eventually was our undoing. Gambling addicts but ultra conservative; go figure.

*Quotations*

We are the living links in a life force that moves and plays around and through us, binding the deepest soils with the farthest stars.

--Alan Chadwick

[Mr Chadwick's work on intensive gardening led directly to the development of Biointensive methods, as practiced by John Jeavons and Ecology Action.]

If you can't create physical life, you find a life force. If that's in music, that's in music. I started to find this deep, primitive rhythm, and I started to move to it. And I held hands with sorrow, and I danced with her, and we giggled a bit.

--Tori Amos

[It's all about giggling a bit.]

There is a vitality, a life force, an energy, a quickening, that is translated through you into action, and because there is only one of you in all time, this expression is unique.

--Martha Graham

[Eloquent proof.]

Luminous beings are we, not this crude matter.

--Yoda

[My favorite wise man.]

Duct tape is like the Force: it has a light side, a dark side, and it holds the universe together.

--Carl Zwanzig

[I am never without a roll.]

One day seven years ago I found myself saying to myself: I can't live where I want to, I can't go where I want to go, I can't do what I want to, I can't even say what I want to. I decided I was a very stupid fool not to at least paint as I wanted to.

--Georgia O'Keefe

[Insert "perfume" and "write" instead of "paint" for me.]

Over the years I have developed a distaste for the spectacle of joie de vivre, the knack of knowing how to live. Not that I disapprove of all hearty enjoyment of life. A flushed sense of happiness can overtake a person anywhere, and one is no more to blame for it than the Asiatic flu or a sudden benevolent change in the weather (which is often joy's immediate cause). No, what rankles me is the stylization of this private condition into a bullying social ritual.

--Philip Lopate

[One should read my piece Some People Always Smile]

Your task is not to seek for love, but merely to seek and find all the barriers within yourself that you have built against it.

--Rumi

[I'm slowly learning the importance of this wisdom.]

I don't have a career; I have a typewriter.

--Don Delillo

[I live more fully than I would otherwise because of my keyboard.]

A writer is committed to trying to make sense of life. It's a search. So there is that commitment first of all: the commitment to the honesty and determination to go as deeply into things as possible, and to dredge up what little bit of truth you with your talent can then express.

--Nadine Gordimer

[With natural perfume, I give myself over to beauty; with words, over to truth.]

Peace love and ATOM jazz

111509

This week my old friend Adam got us tickets see a Letterman taping. We've been watching Letterman together for some 25 years--he only started 28 years ago. The show live is a total trip. He runs a very tight ship around the studio. Two things I noticed: 1) Paul has started singing a lot and he's a terrible singer, and 2) while Dave does interact with the audience for a few seconds, it's only to gather fodder for the bit he does (I realized it's every single show) about something an audience member said; the rest of the show at commercial breaks he has several rows of people between him and the audience--zero interaction. I always imagined he talked to the audience for a few minutes; 20-30 seconds is all he needs. Way cool of my buddy to get some tickets lined up. Had a blast.

*Status*

Facebook status update, 11.13.09:

The most amazing thing happened yesterday, my 40th birthday: most of my life has been spent continually searching for romantic love (cut me some slack--I am Scorpio), but I realized yesterday I don't in fact need it, or even want it, if I'm to accomplish what I've set out to between now and my dying day. I am finally free.

*Poem*

Ariell

Not long after my ex walked out

I met a young woman; she was 19

and I was 32. She was on the road

and I met her at a poetry reading.

That very night I invited her

to stay at my house; I remember

telling her that what I sorely

missed was simply company, was

knowing my house was not

interminably empty, was the simple

kindness we all take for granted.

One night I took her out to

dinner at a romantic Italian place.

What strikes me most when I

think back on that time is

the blind hope I had that I've

not had again. What strikes me

is that my reaction to being

deserted was to be thankful

and hopeful. But what I also

remember with no small amount

of discomfort is that we,

that I, walked most of the way

to the restaurant, without

even thinking about it.

I was hopeful once after being

abandoned but now I can't walk

to romantic restaurants so

where does that leave me?

*Politics*

By Josh Hammond

"There is a rising chorus of impatient progressive bloggers, some on these pages, calling Obama a failure and a do-nothing president only nine months into his first of four years as president. SNL's "do-nothing skit" on Obama may well have empowered some on our side to start playing on the fringes of the Limbaugh sandbox. While the charges and name-calling are not as vicious as the Limbaugh Lemmings, it has started nonetheless. So what has our newly-minted asshole president been doing for nine months?

"Let's start with what he has not done. He has not found a cure for cancer, reversed climate change, ended poverty, brought peace to the Middle East, ended all wars, created enough new jobs, or created a single-payer healthcare system. These are big ticket items that no president will ever accomplish, so it is a little disingenuous to suggest a standard for Obama that does not apply to all past presidents or to future presidents. As Princeton economics professor Alan Blinder says in assessing what Obama has accomplished so far, "If he seems to have achieved little, it's partly because he set out to do too much." To which I would add, and we created an unrealistic agenda for what we wanted him to accomplish.

"Let's continue with what he has done. First and foremost, none other than the Wall Street Journal, in an assessment titled, "Democrats Quiet Changes Pile Up", says he has accomplished more in nine months than George Bush did in his first nine months. Let's be specific:

"1. Significantly, he buried the Imperial Presidency of George Bush and restored the Constitutional balance of government by respecting the equal standing of the legislative branch of government. As a former constitutional law professor, this is a major matter of change of tone and style that he promised during the campaign, and he has delivered. (Not pretty or necessarily effective given the Reid-less leadership in the Senate, but we are a constitutional democracy.)

"2. Passed and signed the stimulus package, the biggest piece of legislation--ever--in blinding speed, thus being able to start to stabilize the economy, with GDP now projected to grow at the rate of 3 percent by the end of the year. Check the comeback of your 401K since Obama has taken over.

"3. Stabilized the top 20 banks without federalizing them.

"4. Reduced the rate of foreclosures inherited from the Bush administration.

"5. Signed the Lilly Ledbetter Fair Pay Act that makes it easier to sue for wage discrimination, a dramatic reversal of the bill's fortunes under Bush.

"6. Granted regulatory power to the FDA to control tobacco products, another dramatic reversal of the Bush years that industry has lobbied hard to prevent.

"7. Signed the Matthew Shepard Hate Act that expanded federal hate crime protection to categories of sexual orientation and gender, to the major consternation of the Religious Right.

"8. Killed the F-22 fighter jet program, a popular program with Congress, saving billions of dollars.

"9. With a stroke of a pen, enacted, by executive order, (see correction below in comments, it was a bill signing) the largest conservation measure in 15 years, spanning the Bush and Clinton records.

"10. Implement an electronic medical record system before any healthcare legislation was introduced. This new technology will be singularly responsible for saving lives and reducing the high administrative costs of healthcare, a key element of reform.

"11. Extended a $2500 tax credit to 5 million families to help with college tuition.

"12. Cooperated with Japan in bringing a $5 billion stabilization package for Pakistan.

"13. Engaged the Muslim world in a dialogue, beginning with his unprecedented speech in Cairo, followed by an interview with Al Arabiya, and face-to-face discussions with Iran, a total reversal of the Bush years of Muslim baiting and hate.

"14. Dramatically reversed the reputation of the United States around the world, with now most nations looking favorably on the US, and receiving the Nobel Peace Prize as one consequence.

"15. Agreed to plan for bringing the troops home from Iraq, at a slower pace than what he promised, but based on knowledge that commanders-in-chief, not candidates, have.

"16. Brought the White House online, doing for the White House what he had done for political campaigning. There are now online Q&A's with the administration, and a White House blog.

"17. Released the names of all visitors to the White House, a total reversal of the secret Bush years.

"18. Told Mexico that the US is responsible for some of their drug problems, a no small, but truthful admission.

"19. Restored the rights of states to regulate the medical use of marijuana without fear of federal law enforcement intrusion.

"20. Banned the use of torture, and he has begun a complete review of the torture policies under Bush.

"21. Appointed the first Latina to the Supremes: Imagine what would have happened to the Supreme Court under four more years of radical Republicans. Obama has thus averted a long-term dramatic swing to the extreme right on the court, and appointed a progressive to keep matters in check.

"In summary, and to those on these pages and elsewhere who see things differently, I say this feels a little like Waiting for Godot. Let's recall one thing that Samuel Beckett said in the mischievous play: "The tears of the world are a constant quantity. For each one who begins to weep somewhere else another stops. The same is true of the laugh. Let us not then speak ill of our generation, it is not any unhappier than its predecessors. Let us not speak well of it either. Let us not speak of it at all. It is true the population has increased.""

*Letter/poem*

Dear Ariell

I love you too. You must know that you touched me deeply, while I knew you. I often pray for you, in my own way, specifically I pray that somehow, out from under the misery of divorce and disease, I managed to set you on some kind of a right path. I know that whatever path you have followed and will continue to follow in fact has little to do with me. I was destroyed, in total, by abandonment and I've only just started to emerge--to re-collect myself again from ashes. I had no capacity to feel anything when I knew you, and for that I am interminably sorry. But I have risen from ashes many times before. It's frightening to reveal just how many layers I'm made of. My life has been peeling away the layers, and one day I'm sure to end up a single hulking mass of Central Nervous System.

You sang Summertime Rolls to me the first night we met. No one I've ever known has given as much to me as you did Ariell, no strings attached, free, loving. While I always felt I deserved that in some way, I have never gotten myself to feeling generally deserving of anything even remotely like that kind of unconditional love. The months and years after I met you were the darkest in my history. Somehow I made it back to where I belong. I'm alive again. I can feel every moment. I'd like to say I would treat you with the love you deserve now, but I can't be sure I would. All I've known, the world over, has been straining just to stay alive. The MS has gotten significantly worse over the past few years; I'm still straining, and I will be indefinitely. I don't think a person who struggles to get through each day could ever really love. I've given up the search.

I need to become the greatest natural perfumer the modern world has yet known. I need to become a brilliant novelist and playwright. These are my two objectives with the time I have left. It's going to be a party. If love fits in somewhere, great; if not, so be it. Five years ago, I never would have said that. Being home again and being 40 have transformed me. I do love you and care about you a great deal. I trust now that everything works out for the best. We will see each other again--how could you never come to New York? This is the epicenter of everything great in the universe. It's, "Show us what you got or shut the hell up." Best of the best around every corner. Letterman, the UN, Broadway, poets, music, etc etc.

Hope to see you again some day. My thoughts and heart are with you. Love, Adam

*Quotations*

Whether it’s self-medicating, anger or violence, these are the consequences of war, and you have to think about all the people affected by soldiers coming home, the parents, spouses, children, brothers, sisters, aunts and cousins.

--Cynthia Thomas

One finds, especially by the time one reaches one's fifties, that there are a limited number of types of people in the world, and you went to high school with every single one of them. You can visit the Eskimos, you can visit the Bushmen in the Kalahari, you can go to Israel, you can go to Egypt, but everybody you meet is going to be somebody you went to high school with.

--PJ O'Rourke

[I can't tell you how true this is. In China, I often remembered people by who they reminded me of from high school. The danger is forgetting that they are _not actually_ like those people.]

Lives of great men all remind us

We can make our lives sublime,

And, departing, leave behind us

Footprints on the sands of time ;

Footprints, that perhaps another,

Sailing o'er life's solemn main,

A forlorn and shipwrecked brother,

Seeing, shall take heart again.

--Henry Wadsworth Longfellow

To be great is to be misunderstood.

--Mary Ann Evans Cross

No really great man ever thought himself so.

--William Hazlitt

There is a great man who makes every man feel small. But the real great man is the man who makes every man feel great.

--GK Chesterton

There are no great men, only great challenges that ordinary men are forced by circumstances to meet.

--William F Halsey

A man can be short and dumpy and getting bald but if he has fire, women will like him.

--Mae West

Is man one of God's blunders? Or is God one of man's blunders?

--Nietzsche

The young man who has not wept is a savage and the old man who will not laugh is a fool.

--George Santayana

Peace love and ATOM jazz

110809

Tonight I'm having a dinner party for my 40th birthday. I'm a little distracted and preoccupied, so this installment will be brief.

*Peace*

This week a Facebook friend emailed me about my saying I'm trapped but I'm at peace. I am definitely trapped--my inability to walk or do most anything for myself is _not a choice_, therefore it follows that I am trapped. But this lady seemed to think that I couldn't feel simultaneously trapped and at peace. But I can and do. Why am I at peace? Because I do not fight anymore, my body, my condition, my person. I am not waging war on MS; I am waging peace, so with each new symptom that comes up, I learn what I have to do to accommodate it. I don't fight it as many do--and I am better off by miles because of it. Please, please don't ask me to do things I know I can't do safely--I am at peace because I don't struggle with myself. That certainly doesn't mean I'm happy all the time, quite the opposite, but by not waging a war I could never win, I am at peace.

Think about how incontrovertible this is:

Peace will only come by not fighting.

How can you have peace if you're fighting? You can't. And believe me, it's true what they say: to wage peace takes a great deal more courage, strength, and sheer gumption than it will ever take simply to wage war.

*Symptoms*

An odd heading. But I've realized that my needing to spread myself ultra-thin is not just indicative of who I am; it's all symptomatic of the MS as well. I cannot do one thing. I always bring at least four areas to whatever it is I'm working on. I cannot imagine living any other way. Here's a short list of the subjects I know a good deal about:

engineering, alternative fuels, electric and hybrid cars, sustainable agriculture, mini farming, organic gardening, basic construction, alternative homes, renewable energy installation and maintenance, physics, calculus, moral philosophy, environmental science, geography, transportation systems planning, land-use law, civic planning, film production, photography, graphic design, poetry, spoken word, playwriting, natural perfume, jazz music (as a player and aficionado, and especially contemporary jazz), being a radio DJ, being a producer of shows and concerts, Mandarin Chinese (fluent), Chinese culture, Nepali language and culture, Spanish, French, Latin, being an ESL teacher, etc.

It's a tad frightening to think of all that stuff in my head! And more! None of these is a passing fancy. I've spent most of my life devoted to these subjects, and there's no sign of my interest letting up any time soon.

*Poetry*

Here is another piece which helped to determine my writing identity. Written in 1943, it ushered in the office life of modern America:

Dolor

Teddy Roethke

I have known the inexorable sadness of pencils,

Neat in their boxes, dolor of pad and paper-weight,

All the misery of manila folders and mucilage,

Desolation in immaculate public places,

Lonely reception room, lavatory, switchboard,

The unalterable pathos of basin and pitcher,

Ritual of multigraph, paper-clip, comma,

Endless duplication of lives and objects.

And I have seen dust from the walls of institutions,

Finer than flour, alive, more dangerous than silica,

Sift, almost invisible, through long afternoons of tedium,

Dripping a fine film on nails and delicate eyebrows,

Glazing the pale hair, the duplicate gray standard faces.

*Maine*

When I left New York in 1992, I moved to family land in Maine with a new girlfriend. The only structure on the land at the time was the old barn; the fact this woman came with me, to live in a barn, having only known me a few weeks is a miracle. I guess I used to have a certain charm, a charm which has long since left me completely, judging by the many women who have said, "No thanks," over the past 10 years. We had a hell of a time up there, alone in the woods, putting up a cabin, making love everywhere. God it feels good to remember! I have known love and lust, and if they never return, I made the most of them while I could. Here's an old letter poem I wrote to Nicole:

Dear Nicole

I picked up one of my oldest books the other day

and I found a note from you in the back saying,

"I hope when you find this note one day

that you are thinking of me fondly."

In an instant I remembered what it was like

to be just beginning, and so, unstoppable.

When we walked together into cafes and shops

and dance halls, folks used to turn and look.

I always felt like we carried The Great Middle Path

with us wherever we went. We were about

to discover, at any moment, every drop

of what had gone missing from all our lives.

We ate only the things that would help us

live forever. And I was straight for months,

months at a time. I remember what it was like

to be straight once, lucid, mindful. I remember

what it was like to not care about

not having enough hours in the day

to thoroughly live. But I do care now;

I am desperately rushed and cannot spare

a minute because too much time has already

been spent in the clouds. I used to think

I had extra senses, was just waiting to take my place,

finally, beside the North Star and the symbol

of the next epoch. But, you know what?

I haven't remembered a single one of my dreams

in years. I'm fairly certain now it's all in

black and white, though. I sleep and

I eat in black and white, and I can see the edges

of the universe from where I stand, no more

mysteries. I still carry that one December

in my head when you finally stopped me

in the aisle. We used to pass each other

almost every afternoon, and then, one day, that

was it, one simple, "Hey. What's up?" was

all it took. We dropped everything a few weeks

later, piled what we couldn't let go of into that

station wagon we borrowed, fled the city without

asking questions, drove slowly north into the last

winter storm. The snow was thick, and we pulled over

at one point for lack of clear vision. I felt

like Noah with the howling outside,

ice instead of rain, books and changes on the inside

instead of ducks and cattle. We were

thrown together. We were not ready. We were

like two young strangers must have been

in the old country, thrown together one day,

aiming for a hillside they could plant on.

We were strangers thrown together.

We were not ready. Most of all,

I remember our designs and visions. I remember

digging holes for posts to hold our floor, milking

enough stones out of the meadow to build

a whole new world. I remember sleeping

on a single mattress inside the little cabin

we put up. Being tightly knit like that,

but still alone together, just wasn't enough,

was it? We were still ignoring some deep thirst,

weren't we, Nic, the sort of thirst a person

just can't shake these days? I laid down next to you,

listened to you breathe, listened to the wind

in the trees, and I thirsted. Thirsted for some answers,

longed for some old roads and some

new ways of living without having

to die so fast. Have you found a way to quench

your thirst? Have you found any water clean enough

to drink yet? I guess I'm writing mostly to tell you

I'm working on a book. Look for it. It will be

real and even larger than life. I am in it, of course,

and my part is that of a deliverer. No longer

like Noah, less like a simple vehicle,

now even more like a deliverer, like Moses. I am,

in fact, most like the sea that Moses parted,

divided down the middle, both sides

heaving and waiting to converge again.

There will be just enough time for

public flight through me back to the old country.

When we reach what used to shallow on the other side

of the sea bed, it will really be deep. Beyond

the banks of the sea, once the waters behind us

have met again, there will not be paths.

We will walk straight out into the expanses

we come upon nevertheless, will tangle ourselves

in the undergrowth. We will sit down peacefully

at the end of the day, and not go anywhere

again, and live forever at last.

If you can't quite find the people and the places

you were looking for way back when, then

look for this book I'm promising you, and

come along for the ride. It will really be fine,

I'm sure. Until then, be sure to quench

your thirst as if you mean it, and be sure to live

as if your kids will never die.

All my love, Adam

God how convoluted! I was just at the beginning, of a world of learning, of immersing myself in the globe, of learning how to love. It brings me to tears to read this and remember the incurable idealist and romantic I used to be. I ask myself, "Where did it all go wrong?" I can really only think of one answer: the west coast. Good riddance.

*Quotations*

Ordinary riches can be stolen, real riches cannot. In your soul are infinitely precious things that cannot be taken from you.

--Oscar Wilde

Perfume is a veil that reveals the soul.

Perfume is the fanfare of our individuality sounding differently to everyone who listens.

Perfume is a signpost to our true selves--a different journey for the brave to travel.

Perfume is the weather of our inner world bringing life to a personal landscape.

--Christopher Brosius

Life is no "brief candle" for me. It is a sort of splendid torch which I have got hold of for the moment, and I want to make it burn as brightly as possible before handing it on to future generations.

--GB Shaw

Poetry is thoughts that breathe, and words that burn.

--Thomas Gray

A revolutionary poem reminds you where and when and how you are living and might live; it is a wick of desire.

--Adrienne Rich

When we are born, we're born with a matchbook. The question is: how do we use it? Burn, baby, burn, brightly. You've got so much to give.

--Sonya Kitchell

The hardest thing in life is to know which bridge to cross and which to burn.

--David Russell

We must embrace pain and burn it as fuel for our journey.

--Kenji Miyazawa

Books won't stay banned. They won't burn. Ideas won't go to jail.

--Alfred Whitney Griswold

English history is all about men liking their fathers, and American history is all about men hating their fathers and trying to burn down everything they ever did.

--Malcolm Bradbury

Peace love and ATOM jazz