The track of time

I hate the sound of ticking clocks; as if they seek to remind me that time slips by so fast, that our moments on Earth are but a cosmic blip, sparkle and fade.

The tick tock of analogue clocks has vexed me since early childhood. I began to actually hate it after my second brother died, it was as if the sound was a constant, unending reminder of impending death.

Life seemed so short, and death was as cold as it was omnipotent and inescapable. I wanted to go faster. Faster than what's ever been possible. As life is measured in heartbeats, I wanted to redshift and run away from the constraints of Earth time.

Eventually...

I learned to appreciate slowing down.

I met someone special, and an instant, saw a lifetime with her unravel in that single moment.

I met an interesting older man at the Montblanc store — we would talk about life, embodied in fine hand-craftsmanship.

Inside lucid dreams, I built entire cities that I've spent ten lifetimes exploring and enjoying.

However — I still find near intolerable, that agitating noise of a ticking clock.

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Atypical Saturday Morning During Grand Slam Tennis

My "normal Saturday morning" would probably seem strange to many people, but today, right now, my morning seems strange to me.

First, I'm eating "Haw Flakes," a "product of China." This by itself is odd; I normally don't have any "haw," and certainly not in the morning. (insert a "haw haw" when appropriate.) One of my uncles (whom I haven't seen in decades) bought them for me; he gave them to my mom, and she gave them to me — from him. I'm thrilled.

By the way, if you feel like giving me a treat, and my Amazon wish list is too subtle (or expensive), you can buy me Haw Flakes! According to the Internet invented by Al Gore, Haw Flakes are ridiculously inexpensive (ten rolls per pack, fifty cents per pack) and are a medicine that's good at curing basically everything. I think you can find them in Chinatown — just a guess.

Second, I'm blogging from my iPhone 4 in my bathroom, bedroom, hallway, elevator and garage... while jogging backwards doing a handstand.

Well, not "literally," but after developing iPad keyboard muscle memory, typing on the tiny swype-less iPhone 'board feels like ninja gymnastics, thumb edition. Normally, I'd be writing this on my precious, my iPad 2, but it's charging at the moment because I'd spent a few hours playing Epic War TD HD while watching Wimbledon coverage on ESPN2 HD.

Last night, I'd wrote up a rant/proposal concerning drunk driving — "impaired driving," rather — and the laws/consequences regarding DUI/DWIs. I very proudly shared it with Stephanie while flexing my oratory prowess.

Totally flopped. "Not visceral enough," was the clear conclusion... "well written," but lacking that punch-in-the-gut, face-kick, "secret ancient-two-finger-ballslap" quality. I'd intended to post it today, but it needs rewriting.

Instead of creating flop-draft: number two, I started a dozen "Words With Friends" and Facebook Scrabble games. I'll try writing seriously later; at the moment, Wimbledon coverage is on, and I was watching Nadal, Del Potro, Fish and now Federer. I also want to play some more inFamous — that's a damned fun game — I'm referring to the first one, downloaded for free as part of Sony's "Welcome Back" aka "Sorry we got haxx0red and your privacy got totally screwed" program.

A second wind.

You probably know that I live in Oakland. Nearby, a fight just broke out — strange — no gunfire. But you know what's been really weird? The weather. Andy Murray, Scot Tennis player, said on Twitter that everyone is a "weather expert" during Wimbledon. I say, "yea, opposed to the 'real' experts, right?"

So some people will be gloomy because of the fog; me, I'm ecstatic, I hope it stays cold. So I enjoy the occasional smoke, big deal, apparently, so does most of America — 240 million people.

I was thinking about posting this entry without an image; that would be atypical, right? But also boring. Squarespace likes to keep things unpredictable; I'm writing this in their app on my iPhone, and I'm thinking that there's a 50/50 chance that I'll lose all of this text, and a 100% chance this won't post properly! Awesome!

(By the way, there's a link on my sidebar — in the form of a "Powered by Squarespace" image — that you can use to sign for your very own Squarespace blog. True 'tastic-ness.)

Squarespace says these issues will be fixed soon, but they said that one year ago as well. Maybe they mean "soon" like Obama does, when referring to getting our troops home. I've also read that a new UI is in the works. That actually looks cool.

Seriously, Squarespace isn't bad. Their customer support is quick, and I've had far more trouble with LiveJournal, WordPress and TypePad.

Back to the future aka 'now,' in a little bit.

As Bradtastic posts go, this one is truly odd. Earlier this week I watched the new "Through the Wormhole" with Morgan Freeman, and it was all about time, and if time really exists. According to the show, there are two main schools of thought, and a musician: time is an illusion, time is the only real thing, and nine spatial dimensions of string theory with two-dimensional time. Several things truly worthy of note: one mad genius talked about marijuana, and why it makes everything seem to take more time, and the other thing... well, I don't remember. That program was on a long time ago, and it felt like, nine hours long.

Kidding.

Normally, I'd now say to myself (and anyone still left listening) "all jokes aside..." presently, however, that wouldn't make any sense. I'd have to quit writing.

Perhaps that's for the best. Enjoy a weird weekend every once in a while. Enjoy life; this shit's short... I feel old already.

First One Back

Sometimes an onset creativity, inspiration, and passion doesn’t coincide with “free time.”

And sometimes, there’s illness involved, too… on top of all the normal — more common, rather — incidents and accidents… like automobile breakdowns, bad news about a family member or a friend.

Truthfully, for most people, free time is a myth — and a paradox. Most people claim to “want it,” few people actually have it… and many consider it a badge of honor to “never have any.” Time, the way we commonly measure and refer to it, remains relatively constant for us — the same 24 hours that everyone else has.

But what do we choose to do with it?

Life is a series of choices — sacrifices, really. “Which one of these two things sucks less? That one? Okay, I’ll take it.”

That might be too optimistic of me, actually.

But how many times have you heard — or even said — “I don’t have time for (insert something),” when you meant (and felt) that you just didn’t want to make time for… whatever it is (was)?

Time spent, ne’er to return…

Either way, the past is the past. We can learn from it, change or adapt, but can’t change the past. My *first entry back* was going to be about Tuesday, September 11, 2001. However, after writing a chunk of it, the post didn’t feel right. It was too serious, too important, to screw up.

The “art” of writing is important to me; it’s always on my mind, and when I hear something news or noteworthy I think, “What could I write about this?” Then, usually, I do — I write, by hand, in a journal. I have many now, completed end-to-end. The *finished* (is art ever really “finished?”) journals sit on a high shelf, thanks to Stephanie. She embarked on one helluva crazy effort — trying to bring a semblance of order to my chaos.

Blogging… it’s different, right?

When I’m thinking about blogging (now), I think about what I want to say — what I want to share. I don’t want to share everything that I write, but if I blog about something, well, it’s out there. But that’s not the only difference.

Many of the rules outlined in “The Elements of Style” just don’t apply to blogging — they shouldn’t. It’s definitely audience-specific — tailored, I mean — but I figure, most of the people reading this blog in-particular know me (or know of me) directly somehow…

… so, most of you know that I can write, pretty-darned well, if I mean to. But being a reader myself, when things are “well written,” it often feels a bit like work — taking it in… processing the information. And if the writer is poetic, then there are metaphors, potentially leading to ambiguity.

My intentions… maybe.

I enjoy being a student of human nature — all aspects of it, the good and the bad. There are so many fascinating things in this world alone (and galaxies beyond that!) — I don’t have time for a mere-fraction of it, none of us can take in everything. We have to pick and choose what’s important… what’s important enough.

I studied psychology briefly, before honing in on key areas: deception, manipulation, criminology, attraction… NLP and mentalism are delightful. Hypnosis is a complexity to me, mysterious in ways, still… but I haven’t had the same kind of research time that age has afforded to many of the half-century old Professors who claim to have some kind of a grasp on their chosen field.

Maybe I’ll get there someday… maybe I’ll waste some time. Maybe I’ll waste some of yours.

But… I’d bet we’d enjoy the heck out of it!

Do us all one thing, though: tell the people you care about how much they mean to you. I’d bet that they’d appreciate it.

BTW: I’m going to Reno* soon… and I gamble. You do, too… apparently.

You might also go to Reno, occasionally, and if you’re going soon — good luck!