2013 – A Park Oddity

This week has been a working week.   The deadline on the project where Nothing Works draws inexorably closer and we’re scrambling to write a report, so Wednesday, after working all morning, I decided to take a lunch break for a walk in the park.  I have made a mid-year resolution to walk twelve miles this week … not to long ago that would have been a resolution to run thirty, but that’s in the past.  Knees and Achilles tendons worn by years of running are not up to that any more.  At any rate, I took my 45 minute walk, meditated in my camp chair for fifteen minutes, then headed off to Costco for a cheap lunch (hot dog and drink, $1.59).   On the way out, I stopped at the men’s room near the far end or the park to … well, you know.  As I was standing there … well, you know … someone emerged from the stall and walked behind me, repeating something over and over in a sing-song voice.   I glanced over my should and saw a fortyish man in an orange T-shirt.  He dropped something in the trash and walked back to the stall, saying the same thing several times.  This time I

Temper, Temper

Tuesday morning the renovation of our kitchen continued with the installation of the tile backsplash.  Since it is convenient for the workers to use the garage, I parked both cars on the street and the tile-guy parked his truck in the driveway.   Half an hour later, I heard an ominous drone.   You see, Tuesdays are street sweeping days … no parking on the street.  I ran to one of the cars and was opening the door when the sweeper came around the corner.  I signaled to him that I was moving it but he ignored me, making his two passes around the cul-de-sac then pointed down the street.   I knew what was coming … the Street Sweeper Parking Nazi in his little white car.   Everyone on the street has tried to reason with him to no avail.  He pulled up behind our car and began punching our license plate number on his keyboard.  I tapped on his window.  He ignored me.  I tapped again.  He ignored me again.  I don’t like being ignored.  When he got out of the car, ticket in hand, I tried reason with him.  We’re having work done and there was no place to park.  I tried to move it.  SSPN had every I’m only-following-orders response ready.  If I don’t ticket you, the guy in the street sweeper guy will report me (Blame someone else). If I don’t ticket you the neighbors will report me.   C’mon, I said, I’ve seen each one of them trying to reason with you.  That’s why I have to ticket you, he said.  They’d complain (Blame society).  By this time he was putting the ticket on one car and eying the other parked in front of our house.  By this time, my Inner Curmudgeon was fully engaged.  IC asked, How do you sleep at night, being like this?

Passion

A friend recently told me that she owed some people an apology because she got angry at them in the course of a discussion.  I told her that I don’t think we owe anyone an apology just for getting angry.  I may be in the minority but I think that anger gets a really bad rap in our society.  Yes, I know.  I’m well-versed in self-help psychology.  Inappropriate anger is … well, inappropriate.  Acting on your anger in appropriate ways like, for example, throwing dishes or verbally abusing someone is more than inappropriate … it may be a crime.  Going around angry all the time will eat you alive from the inside out, destroying your health.  But sometimes … the opinions of Mr. Spock and certain self-help gurus notwithstanding … anger is the appropriate emotion.  It tells you your boundaries are being violated and gives you the courage to stand up for what you believe.  Being passionate is not a defect of character, nor is being assertive but those uncomfortable with people who are direct often confuse Passion with anger and assertiveness with aggression.

Words and Pictures

I  asked a friend who knows about such things why people … and I, in particular … who have perfectly good relationships still love heartbreak songs.   She said, Often, people have sadness to deal with that they can’t face directly, so they sublimate it onto the music.   That is part of the fascination of art journalling for me … it brings out things that might remain in my unconscious otherwise, things that might not even be revealed in my Morning Pages.  The combination of prose or poetry with freeform art recommended in Jeanne Carbonetti’s The Yoga of Drawing has particular power to bring forth work that surprises me.

Angry Days

What do you do when you’re having an Angry Day?  Not just ticked off at someone or something but go-away-and-leave-me-alone, PO’d at the world angry?   Picking on people you don’t even know at the park angry?   Twenty years ago, I found myself in a self-help group facilitated by a therapist named Gil.   Gil asked me, Are you an angry man?  I was two-hundred words into my seven hundred and fifty word answer when he stopped me.  Think about it, he said, going onto his next victim.  I did.  For the first time I understood what people meant when they said, My insides didn’t match my outsides.  Outside, I was Mr. Calm and Rational, angry only when someone gave me reason.  Inside, I was a ball of anger and resentment.

So Much for Nice

This week just keeps getting better and better.   As much as a curmudgeon as I can be, I’m inclined to think people are mostly nice.  Perhaps that’s why it knocks me so off-kilter when someone turns out to be a jerk, like a certain someone did today.   If you recall, last Saturday, I blacked out for a few seconds as I was finishing up my bike ride and crashed into a Hyundai Sonata.  Keep those two words in mind  … bike and Hyundai.  Pretty scary but my health checked out OK.   There was the little matter of the dent I put in the right rear fender of the Hyundai Sonata.   I dutifully hunted down the owners and reported my accident, asking them to send me an estimate for repairs and I’d take care of it.   Although the male owner was understandably unhappy about damage to his new car, he and his wife were very nice about it.  Now, as reported in Ouch, last December a Jeep Cherokee hit my Acura TL in a parking lot … left rear bumper and trunk … and the damages were about $3000.  Remember those words … Jeep and Acura.  So I figured it might be a thousand or two to fix the Hyundai and that I’d pay it out of pocket.

Breathe

When my Dad was in his eighties and worked himself up into a curmudgeonly tizzy about something or other, my sister would tell him to Breathe.   I am breathing, he’d say, annoyed by her suggestion and uninterested in her meaning.    My father has a permanent residence inside my head (second floor, right behind the left eye where he can see what’s going on), and as I get older, he finds it easier to take control of my vocal cords.