072510

The MS totally destroyed my marriage. It started out one way, and by the end she was totally fed up. I can't take too much blame though; she didn't know total disability was around the corner. That's the way it goes when you've got tremendous MS. I still miss her (it's been seven years) but things work out the way they should. No contact with me since she left. That was on the west coast, long ago and far away.

--Adam on Facebook

_____

I don't think anyone realizes how desperate I am: I can't go anywhere without my wheelchair--do you know how hard it is to get women to pay attention to you when you're in a wheelchair? No, I'm fucked. Can't do any bills, can't see straight, can't walk, etc. The only people I ever get to see are my assistants. I am totally screwed.

*Hong-Kong*

Once, when I was in Hong Kong for my visa trip, I met a couple of Americans, one a b-boy and the other a woman of Japanese descent. I made their acquaintance slowly. I think on my first visit, they were checking to see whether or not I had some kind of staying power; on my next visit I found them to be quite hospitable. See, we were all basically white, and so we had to make use of the trails which had been blazed before us. In some cases, that means accepting what had come before; in other areas, one was free to make it up as one went along.

One area the three of us got into was late-night music clubs. B-boy you see (cannot for the life of me remember his name) was a graffiti artist; that's how he met his woman, in those circles. Needless to say, the lot of them have a much dirtier, nastier reputation; as far as I can tell, the vast majority of graffiti come from wealthy backgrounds. B-boy made like he was from Southie, a tough suburb of Boston; I'm sure he was indeed from a suburb of Boston, just not that particular one.

Among other things, he taught me to dance. Very much on a hip-hop sort of a tip; we did some nasty dancing too! He taught me one move I remember clearly: when standing square, pull your back leg up to meet the front one; then spin in place to face the other way. Got a lot of mileage out of that spin move. We got up to no good; I'm sure I was flirting with his Asian woman. On a few trips to Hong Kong (we were in the lowly Kowloon), he hooked us up with some mad digs.

One time, in Kowloon, he was walking along in front of our guesthouse; as there is a bunch of Indian clothes stores in the neighborhood, B-boy was accosted by a salesman, probably wanting to sell him a suit of some kind. There he walked, and he felt a light tap on the shoulder. He swung around and clocked whoever it was that was tapping. He made like he was mortified, but the Indians had an unspoken rule: to engage in a sale, one must never touch the mark. I think B-boy was pretending to be broken up.

*Top-Five*

5. The garbage here is out of control--somehow it all gets cleaned up. This is, of course, the original garbage landscape.

4. Museums and galleries are just waiting.

3. Broadway shows

2. The best music in the world

1. The streets

*Perfume*

From the Mystery and Lure of Perfume by CJS Thompson (1927):

"It is a well-known fact that the sense of smell varies considerably in individuals and is much more acute in some than in others. This depends on the sensitiveness of the olfactory nerves, the human organ of smell, which are situated at the upper part of the nasal cavities. They were first recognized by Theophilus Protospameaus, a Greek monk in the eighth century. The organ is essentially formed by the filaments of the olfactory nerves, which are distributed in minute arrangement in a limited portion of the mucous membrane of the nose.

"The sense of smell is therefore derived exclusively through those parts of the nasal cavities in which these nerves are distributed. If the nasal cavities be filled with rose-water, no smell is perceived. It is a curious fact that some persons whose sense of smell is quite normal cannot distinguish certain odors. When a perfume is placed under the nose, there is no sensation of smell so long as the breath is held, or breathing is carried on through the mouth.

"It is common knowledge that there is an intimate relation between the senses of smell and of taste and the same substance which excites the sensation of smell in the olfactory nerves may cause peculiar sensation through the nerves of taste, and may produce an irritating effect on the nerves of touch, but the sensation of odor is yet separate from them.

"Man uses the sense of smell in combination with taste much more during mastication and deglutition than during the act of putting food into his mouth, the chief importance of smell in association with taste being to perceive the quality of foods, to influence their selection, and to excite appetite. Although the susceptibility of man to odors is more extended, he is inferior to animals of both classes in the sense of smell. The distance at which a dog can track his master is extraordinary."

*Quotations*

The past is our definition. We may strive, with good reason, to escape it, or to escape what is bad in it, but we will escape it only by adding something better to it.

--Wendell Berry

Needless to say, one more time, deconstruction, if there is such a thing, takes place as the experience of the impossible.

--Jacques Derrida

Never apologize for showing feeling. When you do so, you apologize for the truth.

--Benjamin Disraeli

Libraries are reservoirs of strength, grace, and wit, reminders of order, calm, and continuity, lakes of mental energy, neither warm nor cold, light nor dark. In any library in the world, I am at home, unselfconscious, still, and absorbed.

--Germaine Greer

Continuing to write after that heartache of disappointment doesn't take only discipline, but also self-forgiveness.

--Elizabeth Gilbert

I don't think you ever stop giving. I really don't. I think it's an on-going process. And it's not just about being able to write a check. It's being able to touch somebody's life.

--Oprah Winfrey

The moment the slave resolves that he will no longer be a slave, his fetters fall. Freedom and slavery are mental states.

--Gandhi

I never teach my pupils. I only attempt to provide the conditions in which they can learn.

--Einstein

Dare to err and to dream. Deep meaning often lies in childish play.

--Friedrich Schiller

Maybe I am slightly inhuman. All I ever wanted to do was to paint sunlight on the side of a house.

--Edward Hopper

Peace love and ATOM jazz