Why Should Certain Aural Patterns Make You Happy?
If I were a Cognitive Scientist, I’d be doing some pet scans (positron emission tomography, darling, not Mas or Fido) on music listeners. Just to see where & when that old limbic system lights up. Of course even when/if we found out the details of brain response to patterned sound, we still wouldn’t know why. Well, that’s the thing about why questions innit? Pick an answer.
Some things that make us happy are good for us, some of the things are good for the race, & I think some of them are just, ah, epistemological ruffles. Window dressing. Because the brain reaches out in all directions & grabs. Thus, I try to account for the effects of opiates, alcohol, & such like. Oh & risk, among the risky. I guess we should be happy (!) that there are things out there to happify.
Otherwise we’d never go outside & what fun would that be?
Fun, yeah.
*
My achey right shoulder feels distinctly like a case of bursitis. I have taken ½ an aspirin & I am going to buy some Tiger Balm.
J. is still whiney about being dumped by her old h.s. guy-friend, the one who could Do Things for her. I’m not entering into the spirit of cheering her up any more than I have (some) because she’s into it. I wish she’d pull herself together, or if she can’t do that, shut up.
She’d rather whine.
Words from Loose/Yellow Leaves
…[notes from the couch papers]
Living W/ People. Living Alone.
When I moved out of the last shared house, I wasn’t in very good shape. For one thing, I had 4 broken teeth. I had been living with 27 five year olds. (Little joke.) Of course my shoulder didn’t hurt…but you can’t go through life being thankful for all the evils that haven’t (yet) befallen – can you? Should you?
I like the idea of getting clear of some of those phrase-defaced yellow sheets (hm, I wonder what I meant by that…), but it loses something in the transcription. (e.g., some of the originals are in red ink.)
*
I am trying to forget how much I want something wonderful to happen, because wanting keeps wonderful things at bay.
Poorly
How I’m doin, hoping that my belly un-ease will go the way of the dodo. (Hope it’s not my vestigial vermiform appendix.) There’s a long list of things I don’t want in my belly, starting (or ending) with cancer. I mean my immune system is too busy attacking my shoulder to have time to go after Rogue Cells.
But it most likely is something I ate.
I’m going for Medicine, as soon as I’ve finished here: laxatives, I think & cranberry juice. Just in case.
And I’m drinking more water too.
*
It’s a gloom-over Sunday, and I went for a
I got another email from J. whining about her money-bags ex-boyfriend. I feel—as I always do w/ J’s affairs—cold. She makes so much of her hurts.
But that’s the thing about other people’s hurts, we can’t feel em. (If we feel em, then they’re ours.)
I have a ways to go in compassion. But then I’m reading a biography of George Orwell & have—as a result—too much perspective.
Not Talking
Earlier today I had some idea that seemed worth writing down, like I had a word in mind worth looking up in the OED. But you know how it is with writing down & looking up worthiness…if we try to keep it in the overstuffed brain, it gets lost. I don’t know what became of the locket Mom was going to give me either. If she actually gave it to me, I lost it.
Speaking of loss. Doesn’t it all just slip away?
In the rain. Classic winter Friday rush-hour downpour & we go dashing & splashing across the streets. If we don’t get hit, we count it a success.
No word today. A little flurry of gambling $ the last few days, and I don’t know but it feels like my lucky streak is over.
Bway «Bucks 1/23?/04
Attrition
I walked down the hill & saw the disk (or discus) of the space needle against a scalloped edge of cloud blanket & I thought—why isn’t this better? Why isn’t it good? What am I doing here—still?
And I thought how the good things slip away. But then I told myself that I could still have a brainstorm.
As I was walking into the café, the boy outside, a political haranguer, was replying to another boy, “It depends on what you mean by civilization.” And I laughed fiendishly. Now I sit in the window outlooking Broadway on a Saturday night & I see things that make it all seem worthwhile. Like that wiry woman (?) with the mass of grayish curls & jeans cut off to clam-digger length.
However, I know the difference between seems & is.
(I think the boy—and now a girl w/ Billy Idol hair & a puffy red jacket—is pushing Socialist papers. I’m reminded of how Jimmy Lewis told those Revolutionary Socialist Workers peddling papers that they were lackeys for the CIA—in 1975!
*
Today nobody loves me.
Today I have no luck.
Turn.
Broadway «Bs
Sitting Around Waiting
I’m sitting around, waiting for the bird flu to mutate. Not long perhaps. I think I’ll have time to finish my coffee.
I’ll be glad to see the last of the Hungry Man, who stands out on the corner (oh, the one-legged looney stumps by—and doesn’t give him a dime. Ha!). I especially hate it when a young girl stops & gives him something. I want to rap sharply on the window & say, “Young lady, if you feed them, they breed.” But I content myself with raying cold eye-beams. Beaming cold eye-rays. You know.
A woman who reminds me of Kathy Iglesias (remember her, who worked at PMC in 1971 & her therapist hated her?).
Cold but no rain, nor snow. I talked to Mom today (usual Sunday) & she was hesitating finding words, it seemed, a little more than usual. I worry. A little.
B’way «B’s
Funny, I Don’t Feel Lucky
Or rather, I didn’t feel lucky last night (rather jaune, in fact) when I bought 2 scratch tix worth $27. This morning when I scratched em, I felt lucky (a good feeling) for 10 minutes. Then I wanted more. I got more ($2 on a L. for L.) & it wasn’t enough. Did Dostoevsky end up like this?
So here I am at sunset in the rain. It started raining exactly when I walked out at
The lights in the café give a warm & welcoming glow, and still I’m not satisfied.
What do I want? You want a list?
Last night I told myself I was going beyond, at least to dream my animal. But I didn’t see any talking cats. Two nights ago I dreamed toads or frogs mud-buried in the (blind man’s?) ditch (?). I suppose those toads/frogs are mine.
Last night I dreamed vividly—Jana’s husband Mark was there & I think I was sitting at his feet (!). And I was in a room at Fred’s: a porch or store-room with white-painted cupboards up on the left (by the ceiling): it’s still clear—but I couldn’t move any further into his house. Probably just as well.
Then Lee called me at
/Images?/
Bway «Bux
Dream with a Happy Ending
Went to sleep looking for my animal. Had a dream of After. I was the red-hired girl. We had to flee. My friends went on ahead to see what they could organize. I gathered things into a big round basket, including the cat, then I picked up the kitten & put it in too & ran out. Fell sprawling just as the car drove up (oh oh). Then close up of my friends in funny wigs & disguises. “Come on!”
And I woke up… More a movie than a message. But life is so full of stuff.
*
I have to say, when I think of what we did: hunted the herds & the flocks down to nothing & then raised: cattle, sheep, pigs, ducks & chickens, I think: Shame. Enough Basta! Be gone.
It’s coming. And it’s coming from the chickens and ducks, and maybe the pigs.
Appropriate.
Broadway «B’s
Symbol: Home
I call it “the folks’ house” now when I dream about it. The only “folk” who lives there now is mom. It was my home from 1955 until 1966, longer than any place else. And when I think of places I have lived…home being where the heart is, what if you don’t have a heart? Places: I think Rich Coxon’s place (the whole flat) on
With all the places along the way…the flat on Dolores (451), but that was only perfect after Jean moved in, before Jimmy moved out—about a month. Then when Caryn was gone. Maybe the flat on Diamond because of the yard, but it was cursed by bad roommates & brain-damaged landlord.
So, the cabin on the lake was home. The flat on Dolores w/ Janice & Xavier (1421), a funky, mousey sort of home.
The house at
I can imagine a home. I can almost furnish it. Not too much upholstery. Two cats. One close friend (?).
B’way «B’s
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