If Chuck Norris has five dollars…

As reported by W.C. Varones, this is just funny. Number 1 is still my favorite.

Irrational living

Saw the movie “Away From Her” last night, and it’s stayed with me all day like a punch in the chest. It sometimes seems impossible to be joyous when you know it’s all going to end some day, that even the luckiest will age and have to say goodbye. Happiness in the face of this realization seems almost irrational. Yet to take a life, fleeting as it may be, and spend it being sad is at least equally irrational (and to no real purpose I can see.)

Maybe rationality is just something we impose upon the world (or at least our perception of it.) Like justice or beauty. In any case, between irrational happiness and sadness, the rational choice seems obvious. But people FEEL, and there’s the rub. Reminds me of great words by e.e. cummings, sent to me by a friend some time ago.

since feeling is first
who pays any attention
to the syntax of things
will never wholly kiss you;
wholly to be a fool
while Spring is in the world

my blood approves,
and kisses are a better fate
than wisdom
lady i swear by all flowers. Don’t cry
—the best gesture of my brain is less than
your eyelids’ flutter which says

we are for each other: then
laugh, leaning back in my arms
for life’s not a paragraph

And death i think is no parenthesis

What’s my age again?

Been hearing that 30 is the new 20 for some time now, which I suppose makes 40 the new 30. Which is nice if you’re 40. On the other hand, with kids growing up faster than ever, I don’t doubt that 13 is the new 16, which would make 16 the new 19 and 18 the new 21, but don’t try to tell that to the authorities. And anyone who watches professional sports knows that 20 is the new 25. I’m also certain that 70 is the new 60 (if not 50), given the knuckle-dragging septuagenarians I’ve seen on the slopes recently. I know that as soon as I strapped on a snowboard I became ten years younger. This is all without mentioning that, in the last ten years, unprecedented upheavals in technology, juxtaposed with ever greater and faster exposure to everything, can either make you feel like you were born yesterday or are wise beyond your years, depending on the day.

All in, I lose track, though I think I may be around twenty. Which is unfortunate because I’m craving a shot of tequila (or maybe just a wine cooler).

All together now

“An elementary particle is not an independently existing, unanalyzable entity. It is, in essence, a set of relationships that reach outward to other things.” – Henry Stapp, atomic physicist

“Things derive their being and nature by mutual dependence and are nothing in themselves.” – Nargarjuna, Buddhist philosopher

Happy Valentine’s Day. Love the one you’re with.

Your last words

Recently read an article about the new manager of the Yankees, whose mother died some time ago. According to the article, her last words to her son were, “Don’t forget me.” Somehow this is painful to the heart even though it seems likely that every one of us will feel the same way at our death.

Likely there will be many, many things we want to say in our final moment. But how to prioritize? And what to finish with? I don’t judge this man’s mother, as I may place the exact same burden (gift?) on anyone still hanging around when I go. But I hope that I will finish as the Zen master did (can’t recall which one. Basho?), that I will be fortunate and content enough to simply say, “Thank you, thank you, thank you!”

Winter Green

I am here,
Sitting,
Not noticing the climate control,
Unaware of the summer lingering
In the November breezes of San Diego.
I am thinking
On a colder wind
Sweeping over an empty green.
Everyone inside,
At dinner and aware
Of the boots stomping through the briefly opened door
Cold, quick gusts circling them and stealing in.
They are felt. The people are aware of them,
And can feel the cold pushing through
Old cracks in older walls, thick and warm.
They are alive;
They are all so alive.
Cold winds play
On the dark green;
And the lights glow warmly from the top of the Hop.
Yes,
The lights are still on
In the Hop.