--Joseph Conrad, Heart of Darkness
We stopped driving last night after 2200 miles. We extended our trip by 500 miles to see the Grand Canyon. Kathleen, who had never seen it, said: "It was worth it."
Kenyon really perked up on the south rim of the canyon, trotting and sniffing despite his bad right front wheel. Although we nearly always carry plastic bags for his doo-doo, we were so weary that we left them behind. But Kenyon, whom we cleaned up after in Mexico and at cheap motels on the road, decided to donate two large steaming brown souvenirs, which he strategically deposited on the snow-patched, groomed dirt along the asphalt path. (Timing is everything, or as they say in real estate, "location, location, location.") As we'd already paid $20.00 for a two-hour visit, we left his little monuments, dwarfed by the Canyon, as mementos of his continuing recovery from PSTD, figuring our donation had covered the cost of his donations at $10 apiece, while regretting the aesthetic dissonance.
The experience of the Grand Canyon is beyond language. I can hardly whisper in its presence. Its vast, multi-colored, stratified, ancient, pyramid and temple-islanded expanse seemed to wash Mexico right out of my mind. You could throw LA and NY into its mile-deep well and they would hardly make an impact, just a little dust joined to the eons. Nature is more powerful than man, we remember on occasion, and will ultimately triumph over our brief interruption of its cataclysmic history. Anyone remember the Tsunami? How about Katrina?
******************
Despite the temptation not to drive today, I did go on a couple of errands that required it. It's SoCal, so what can you do?
First I went to see my pain management doctor, who had lost 25 lbs. since last I saw her and couldn't stop talking, making me suspect she might have dipped into the stimulant jar for help.
Even I, as a practicing doctor, listened more than I talked. Any who know me will attest to what a miraculous discipline that implies for my garrulous nature, (later improved upon by falling in love with my deaf wife).
Our marriage has been called the "perfect match" by my immediate family because Kathleen's deafness can muzzle my bloviations. When her effort to match my lips to the noises in her hearing aid wilts under the attendant strain, I am forced to speak more telegraphic utterances in the hope of being 'heard' by her ('heard' being more symbolic than literal in this case).
So was my doctor on stimulants? I doubt it but who knows, since doctors' drug abuse averages 25 times that of the population, last I checked, through a combination of stress and easy access.
She did, however, fax her notes about to Principal Financial, the only disability insurance company I know that sends detectives from Iowa to deep Mexico to ask a doctor if I had actually seen him, only to afterwards dismiss him as "unqualified." Whether they network with Homeland Security is another question. I suspect large business interests have better intelligence about than the government does. Can you think of anything the Government does better besides print money?
Under constant surveillance by Principal I'm doing everything I can to get off disability. Some have suggested, for instance, that this blog might have commercial potential. Suggested is the key word. I've had no actual approaches by agents or promoters. So any who find entertainment in these humble offerings, enjoy. If there are any who actually know the writing business and would like to sign me, I recommend you first take a vacation, then see a shrink, and if you're still interested, well, write me when you're sober.
I am a wash-out at self promotion (see my previous blog about selling shares in my future celebrity). Mediocrity can be easily marketed while excellence is more difficult to sell, going as it does unrecognized by the great unwashed. Many of the best television commercials have never been aired because the corporate client feared something bold; this same culture brings you your next CD from
Sony Entertainment, guaranteed neither to inspire nor make you gag-- just the right music, demographically, to make a slight profit and be recycled in elevators. Quality? That's just a Britney Spears boob-job. And my does she look hefty since her pregnancy!
Back to my errands and the horror of incompetence, which I will quickly get to. I went 1) to visit to doctor; 2) to Costco to get brandy and fill the doctor's prescription (I never mix them, of course); and 3), to add credit to my Cingular cell phone and get it working again.
After dropping off the Rx at Costco (an angel of light for those lost in the darkness of no health insurance, much less medication re-imbursement), I had 40 minutes to drive to the nearest Cingular store, so I decided to tackle the phone issue while the Rx was being filled.
At a mall in La Mesa I walked into a nearby Cingular store and asked about adding time to my pay-as-you go cell phone I purchased from them a year ago for $119.99. They offered me a $49.99/mo. plan for 1500 minutes that would save me money, truly. I requested the plan. My credit passed with a 'C' rating.
After data was entered on my behalf, I said, "So I can just use this phone you sold me a year ago?"
The tall, shapely mulatto, her hair pulled back severely into an occipital bun, while some tufts of curly black dripped from her olive neck beneath her hair's tight sweep, said: "You can't have a new sim card if you don't leave with a phone."
"But I have a phone," I said, as the bubble of her butt rose from her chair like a helium-impregnated superball.
"You can't leave the store with a sim card without a phone," she said again.
Turning to her white, pimple-cheeked Survivor-hair lost goth wannabe underling and the forever-in-training endomorphic lackey whose ancestors were sold from what is now the poorest continent, she said: "That's right, isn't it?"
Her two thralls looked down and nodded, apparently afraid to stare at her butt, which I was able to do with the advantage of sunglasses, though being the alpha dog, I would have done it if I hadn't been wearing my Ray-Ban knock-offs. Her lackeys were but distant betas dreaming of her legs. Unashamedly I sized up her ass.
"You mean I have to buy a new phone," I said.
"You can't leave the store with a new sim card and no phone, that's policy, isn't it?" she demanded of her sychophantic retinue. They looked away.
"You mean I can't subscribe to this payment plan you've already approved unless I buy a new phone?"
The endomorphic young man with his pleasant, peace-making smile, offered: "If you sign up for two years we can give you the phone for $19.99."
"I don't want a new phone, and I don't want to sign up for two years," I emphatically said. Stupidly continuing, as if clerk-robots who have no idea of electromagnetic field theory could think outside the fuse box, I added: "Do you think that's a wise policy? I mean, to require a client already using your services to buy a new phone after you sold him a perfectly good one a year ago?"
I couldn't get the shapely supervisor to say I had to buy a new phone. She only repeated the programmed shibboleth of marketing and sales: "You can't leave the store with a new sim card unless you get a phone."
"Do you have a supervisor, or is there anyone I could talk to about this?" I said, without hope. Whereupon the white pizza-faced geek offered:
"You might be helped at a direct Cingular store. There aren't any in this mall."
"You mean there are other Cingular outlets at this mall?"
"Yes, three."
"God, you're worse than McDonald's."
"Not funny" their faces said.
Recovering, I asked, "Do you know where I can find one?"
"I don't know" said the bubble-butted supervisor with the dark curls hanging like pubic hair from her neck, hands on her hips (where both the kids wanted theirs). Pausing to see if he were allowed, Pizza Geek gave me directions to another mall with multiple Cingular stores, warning me only to go to the "direct" store.
I hit the freeway and found the mall, crowded per usual, although everyone moans about the economy up here. With all the late model cars and kids in designer jeans, it's hard to imagine what they mean. America in general gives the impression of immense prosperity to most of the world visiting here. Poor means a one-car family it would seem.
Keynes was right; borrow enough money to enjoy spending again and the economy cures itself.
I entered the new mall, another climate-controlled haven for the nature-challenged, and found the central heiroglyphics listing stores. I found three Cingular wireless stores, each with its own cryptic numerical designation. I located the closest store and could not find it until I discovered it was only an island kiosk in the the linoleum freeway.
I explained my problem to another descendent of the earliest humans, with a bad, diagonally striped tie leaking from a non-button down collar, blue on blue with a cheaper-than-Target feel, although he did wear a four carat what I presume to be cubic zirconium in his left ear lobe.
"No problem, he said." He took my information, promising me a monthly charge for minutes--but instead of the other store's $49.99/mo. for 1500 minutes, he could only offer 900 minutes for $59.99/mo. I quickly pointetd out that if I had gone for the previous Cingular deal, I would have gotten more minutes for the same price as the difference would have payed for the required new cell phone purchase.
Whereupon the not-as-shapely as the previous supervisor, a tall Latino, tattoos on her ankles, still very shapely (only rendered less so by the amazing figure of the first supervisor), called the previous store and told me they had approved an option no longer available.
Whereupon the blue diamond man tried to draw up my account using every ID known to the average American under constant surveillance. Alas, he couldn't pull up my previous account. He kept trying the same entry data and staring at the screen, dumbfounded that he couldn't find me in the system. (He didn't ask his supervisor for help.) The computer's failure to identify me completely paralyzed him. He entered the same data, with only minor variations, for ten minutes before I finally hit the "tilt" light in the pinball machine of my brain, and blurted out: "I have an appointment, I have to go."
I turned and walked away down the preternaturally sterile American shopping culture's plant-appended aisle, some plants being real, while he of the four carat zirconium earring stared with incomprehension at his computer.
Yes, I could have just bought a new pay-as-you-go card and begin charging expenses by credit card for ongoing phone costs.
But I was whipped by the dissonance between pretended service and technological incompetence. At least car salesman used to be able to raise the hood and say, "Look at this baby! 300 horsepower, 260 foot pounds of foot-torque."
Those days are gone. The ignorance of the average service employee for the buying public is nowadays accepted as the best we can do. God forbid we ask for excellence-- we hope they show up and don't smell too bad. Then most sheep don't make original requests as I did, or the repeated crashes attempted problem-solving might inflict on such employees might increase the cost of their psychiatric benefits. Benefits are, after all, over 50% of the cost of an employee nowadays.
I could have had the first deal if I bought an additional unneeded phone. The second deal offered me a free cell phone but worse rates, which I was willing to accept-- to put an end to it all. But the clerk with the amazing earring couldn't find me in the system and didn't think to suggest a new number.
What if his earring were real? Bigger than Jordan's? If that were true I was going to get myself to a kiosk. But I don't think he was making that kind of money.
Not trying to be curmudgeonly, just trying to re-introduce myself to a culture becoming more vacuous and incompetent each day, as human devolution before technology is making the average Joe exceedingly lazy and stupid.
The sins of countries are unique to countries. The great sin of America today is the downgrading of human capacity in order to accept a functioning drone driven by corporate manuals instructing him how to manage technologies he can't understand. Such workers are worse than phone solicitors (many of whom can think on their feet while sitting).
"Let us get down on our knees to thank God we are still on our feet," so the Irish pray in their bulls.
Tomorrow on to the two daughters in Long Beach. Already conflict has struck; daughter Keturah won't let stepmother Kathleen's guide dog into her apartment because "she hates dogs."
Kathleen responded by declaring that she would sleep in the van with her aching sciatica rather than leave Kenyon alone.
We really want a place to plant a garden and rest our old bones. We're heading for Ft. Bragg on the north California coast. Here's to marigolds and and tomatoes!
In Transitional Shock from American "Culture,"
C. E. Chaffin,
Professional Sufferer
Friday, February 24, 2006
Friday, February 17, 2006
Brief Update
Off to California today, should arrive in San Diego Wednesday night, Long Beach Friday night (2/24) and then head for parts north before my next child support hearing March 6.
The new (and last) issue of our magazine, The Melic Review, is now online: www.melicreview.com (press ¨current issue¨), in which you can judge the worth of my Eliot tome on Four Quartets, should any have the stamina. It still needs some tweaking, I think, but the webmaster wanted it up.
Now for our escape from Mexico..... can we do it? shudder shudder
¨Pray for us sinners at the hour of our death.¨
CE
The new (and last) issue of our magazine, The Melic Review, is now online: www.melicreview.com (press ¨current issue¨), in which you can judge the worth of my Eliot tome on Four Quartets, should any have the stamina. It still needs some tweaking, I think, but the webmaster wanted it up.
Now for our escape from Mexico..... can we do it? shudder shudder
¨Pray for us sinners at the hour of our death.¨
CE
Saturday, February 11, 2006
Free, Free, Free at Last!
Unbelievable. After receiving documents that our next hearing would be February 17, the prosecutor moved the date up to the ninth, and told us to bring a truck!
Kathleen, bereft of hope, cried herself to sleep Wednesday night, the eighth, muttering between sobs: "I know he's dead Craig, I just know it."
At the courthouse Maria came with her two sons, all dressed in black and looking sullen, fearful and angry. None would look me in the eye. They were ordered to return our items forthwith, but had to actually present the dog to the judge. Kenyon looked haggard, was limping on his right front paw, and when I picked him up out of the pick-up the first thing he did was smell the fence and pee. Obviously he's still a dog.
The only thing I said to Maria as she walked away from the courthouse was:
Es mas malo que el diablo para sequester un perro de servicio desde las sordas por dinero.
"It is more evil than the Devil to kidnap a service dog for the deaf."
Naturally she didn't reply.
Before collecting our possessions, naturally, I brought Kenyon straight home to Kathleen, who woke to find her puppy curled on the floor beside her. Incredulous, streaming tears of joy, she was enraptured. In short breaks between talking to Kenyon ("Good dog! My beautiful puppy dog! Oh Kenyon! I have part of my heart back!) she thanked me repeatedly and called me her hero. She had nicknamed me "Canus Pitus" long ago because of my indomitable nature. That doesn't mean bullheadedness is necessarily a virtue, as there have been times in my life when I should have given up sooner. I was pretty close to giving up this time.
Yet it seems like that's always the time when the worm turns, or for believers, when God intervenes--after all our human resources have been spent. How could I give up on Kenyon? I mean, in essence, we already lost our son down here, who has been banished from my presence indefinitely for crimes against us I will not detail, and though Kathleen accepts and supports this judgment, she does, of course, keep in touch with him but won't allow him past our door. But for her to lose her only son and her guide dog in one swell foop was never acceptable to me. Her suffering only increased my determination.
After the joyful reunion with Kenyon, I went to the evil triumvirate's domicile, where we recovered the most important items: valuable papers, good shoes, clothes, a little furniture, all my CDs (miraculously!) and other items.
She denied possession of two refrigerators and a desk and dining table, and the computer printer was missing, among other things, but I was more than happy to recover the essentials, which ought to fit in our mini-van since one item she did not return was our back bench, likely now adorning her living room. Our other two seats we left in Texas as surety for a car repair bill we couldn't pay last November--along with Kathleen's rubies, but they have not returned my inquiries as I'm sure the rubies were worth much more than the balance. C'est la vie).
The resentment was palpable as Benjamin brought box after box to his porch and tried to drop them before I caught them. He succeeded a few times but nothing was damaged. One Mexican friend of mine wanted the extensive plants and planters we had installed in the garden, so we stripped that pretty good to their great displeasure. Their sullen, downcast faces, recalling to mind "Mr. Yuck," gave me a good deal of satisfaction. As rather ignorant if cunning natives, I think they were shocked and embarrassed by the whole process, and best of all, they endured a great loss of face. No Mexican in his right mind believes one can actually win a case in their system of justice. Here the police are the biggest thieves. I've been told by Gringos and Mexicans alike that our triumph in in just 5 1/2 months may qualify for a record.
As for my papers, the majority were hopelessly water-damaged, but miraculously (I know that's the second time I used that adverb), most of my original songs as well as the second half of my manuscript, In Search of the Spirit were intact. Much of the rest I have on disk else lawyers and accountants have duplicates.
Kenyon we took to the vet immediately yesterday morning, and he needed two vaccines, antibiotics, a program employing a special shampoo, de-worming pills, and was given a diagnosis of arthritis in his right front paw (and what I call in ignorance his ankle--fetlock?). He hardly wagged his tail Thursday but by last night it had begun to wag as he joyfully presented me with my dirty socks, which he loves to smell and chew and carry around like a prize that I must pry away from him.
Initially he looked so depressed I asked the veterinarian, at Kathleen's behest, if dogs could take Prozac, but he said no. We'll love him back into health, and swimming and grass and dirt surfaces (rather than the endless stone streets of San Miguel) should improve his limp, along with resuming his glycosamine.
He looked like he'd aged three years in one; that's 21 human years!--long enough to attain legal drinking age. Kathleen and I have likely aged three years as well, so if any of you are shocked by our appearance upon our return to the States, forgive our wasted youth--but it was worth it.
We're having a big party today at a restaurant to celebrate Kenyon's release and to say good-bye to our friends, who regularly beg us not to leave (I'm known, among other things, as "Dr. Feelgood" here, for helping with any number of psychiatric maladies, many serious, referred by word of mouth through other Gringos.) Kathleen has been dubbed "The Silver Queen of San Miguel," not only because she's beautiful, but being deaf, everyone mistakes her for the most compassionate and patient listener they've ever met.
Kathleen and I are halfway through the 3rd draft of my Eliot opus and will finish it before we leave so the last issue of Melic can be released. She's a tough editor! She makes me "want to be a better writer." And yes, Jack, I am taking my pills.
We hope to leave for the States next Wednesday or Thursday (2/15-2/16) and will first stop in San Diego for my doctor's appointment, visiting with Ralph and family, and afterwards head to Long Beach to see two of our daughters, lastly to parts north to see Rachel and our grandson, Jacob, as well as my faithful siblings.
After that we hope to settle north of San Francisco near the blue pacific and a clear river, tentatively Ft. Bragg, whose economic depression may render housing affordable.
God how I miss the greens and blues of Northern California!
So glad we can share this happiness with you, but this is not the end of my blog or the story; re-adjusting to the U.S. may read a little like Stranger in a Strange Land or A Connecticut Yankee in King Arthur's Court.
We give thanks to God, our friends, our family, and to Prosecutor Garza who stuck with us all the way when our own lawyers deserted us.
Do take a moment today to celebrate with us. Put down that paper and enjoy some good news!
Thine in Truth and Art,
C. E. Chaffin
Kathleen, bereft of hope, cried herself to sleep Wednesday night, the eighth, muttering between sobs: "I know he's dead Craig, I just know it."
At the courthouse Maria came with her two sons, all dressed in black and looking sullen, fearful and angry. None would look me in the eye. They were ordered to return our items forthwith, but had to actually present the dog to the judge. Kenyon looked haggard, was limping on his right front paw, and when I picked him up out of the pick-up the first thing he did was smell the fence and pee. Obviously he's still a dog.
The only thing I said to Maria as she walked away from the courthouse was:
Es mas malo que el diablo para sequester un perro de servicio desde las sordas por dinero.
"It is more evil than the Devil to kidnap a service dog for the deaf."
Naturally she didn't reply.
Before collecting our possessions, naturally, I brought Kenyon straight home to Kathleen, who woke to find her puppy curled on the floor beside her. Incredulous, streaming tears of joy, she was enraptured. In short breaks between talking to Kenyon ("Good dog! My beautiful puppy dog! Oh Kenyon! I have part of my heart back!) she thanked me repeatedly and called me her hero. She had nicknamed me "Canus Pitus" long ago because of my indomitable nature. That doesn't mean bullheadedness is necessarily a virtue, as there have been times in my life when I should have given up sooner. I was pretty close to giving up this time.
Yet it seems like that's always the time when the worm turns, or for believers, when God intervenes--after all our human resources have been spent. How could I give up on Kenyon? I mean, in essence, we already lost our son down here, who has been banished from my presence indefinitely for crimes against us I will not detail, and though Kathleen accepts and supports this judgment, she does, of course, keep in touch with him but won't allow him past our door. But for her to lose her only son and her guide dog in one swell foop was never acceptable to me. Her suffering only increased my determination.
After the joyful reunion with Kenyon, I went to the evil triumvirate's domicile, where we recovered the most important items: valuable papers, good shoes, clothes, a little furniture, all my CDs (miraculously!) and other items.
She denied possession of two refrigerators and a desk and dining table, and the computer printer was missing, among other things, but I was more than happy to recover the essentials, which ought to fit in our mini-van since one item she did not return was our back bench, likely now adorning her living room. Our other two seats we left in Texas as surety for a car repair bill we couldn't pay last November--along with Kathleen's rubies, but they have not returned my inquiries as I'm sure the rubies were worth much more than the balance. C'est la vie).
The resentment was palpable as Benjamin brought box after box to his porch and tried to drop them before I caught them. He succeeded a few times but nothing was damaged. One Mexican friend of mine wanted the extensive plants and planters we had installed in the garden, so we stripped that pretty good to their great displeasure. Their sullen, downcast faces, recalling to mind "Mr. Yuck," gave me a good deal of satisfaction. As rather ignorant if cunning natives, I think they were shocked and embarrassed by the whole process, and best of all, they endured a great loss of face. No Mexican in his right mind believes one can actually win a case in their system of justice. Here the police are the biggest thieves. I've been told by Gringos and Mexicans alike that our triumph in in just 5 1/2 months may qualify for a record.
As for my papers, the majority were hopelessly water-damaged, but miraculously (I know that's the second time I used that adverb), most of my original songs as well as the second half of my manuscript, In Search of the Spirit were intact. Much of the rest I have on disk else lawyers and accountants have duplicates.
Kenyon we took to the vet immediately yesterday morning, and he needed two vaccines, antibiotics, a program employing a special shampoo, de-worming pills, and was given a diagnosis of arthritis in his right front paw (and what I call in ignorance his ankle--fetlock?). He hardly wagged his tail Thursday but by last night it had begun to wag as he joyfully presented me with my dirty socks, which he loves to smell and chew and carry around like a prize that I must pry away from him.
Initially he looked so depressed I asked the veterinarian, at Kathleen's behest, if dogs could take Prozac, but he said no. We'll love him back into health, and swimming and grass and dirt surfaces (rather than the endless stone streets of San Miguel) should improve his limp, along with resuming his glycosamine.
He looked like he'd aged three years in one; that's 21 human years!--long enough to attain legal drinking age. Kathleen and I have likely aged three years as well, so if any of you are shocked by our appearance upon our return to the States, forgive our wasted youth--but it was worth it.
We're having a big party today at a restaurant to celebrate Kenyon's release and to say good-bye to our friends, who regularly beg us not to leave (I'm known, among other things, as "Dr. Feelgood" here, for helping with any number of psychiatric maladies, many serious, referred by word of mouth through other Gringos.) Kathleen has been dubbed "The Silver Queen of San Miguel," not only because she's beautiful, but being deaf, everyone mistakes her for the most compassionate and patient listener they've ever met.
Kathleen and I are halfway through the 3rd draft of my Eliot opus and will finish it before we leave so the last issue of Melic can be released. She's a tough editor! She makes me "want to be a better writer." And yes, Jack, I am taking my pills.
We hope to leave for the States next Wednesday or Thursday (2/15-2/16) and will first stop in San Diego for my doctor's appointment, visiting with Ralph and family, and afterwards head to Long Beach to see two of our daughters, lastly to parts north to see Rachel and our grandson, Jacob, as well as my faithful siblings.
After that we hope to settle north of San Francisco near the blue pacific and a clear river, tentatively Ft. Bragg, whose economic depression may render housing affordable.
God how I miss the greens and blues of Northern California!
So glad we can share this happiness with you, but this is not the end of my blog or the story; re-adjusting to the U.S. may read a little like Stranger in a Strange Land or A Connecticut Yankee in King Arthur's Court.
We give thanks to God, our friends, our family, and to Prosecutor Garza who stuck with us all the way when our own lawyers deserted us.
Do take a moment today to celebrate with us. Put down that paper and enjoy some good news!
Thine in Truth and Art,
C. E. Chaffin
Thursday, February 02, 2006
Suspended between Pole and Tropic
The unfaithful, ungrateful, diabolical servant, Maria Martinez (talk about a generic Spanish name) was briefly jailed last Friday and posted bond and has since been released. All week I've been trying to get our lawyer to find a date to get our dog and stuff back.
Monday I signed four copies of an official letter to the judge requesting the return of our possessions, considering that Maria was guilty and did not deny her perfidy. Before composing the letter our lawyer asked me in all seriousness what he should list for recovery. I told him if her read the prosecutor's file there was a two page list of the same. Without embarrassment he said, "OK," and wrote: "All things listed in the prosecutor's file." Hard to find good help anymore. Hard to find good professional help in Mexico altogether.
I called him again today, but he was out sick and not answering his cell phone, which he rarely does, having actually returned two calls in four months. So I called the prosecutor and he's going to meet with us tomorrow to decide on a date to get our stuff back. (Every time I write "stuff" I think of George Carlin).
What that date will be, I don't know, but our stuff is now spread between three of her domiciles and we don't know where Kenyon is.
I will request a police escort for a show of force. After we have everything that remains, if she hasn't sold it all for fun and profit, nor made tacos of our dog, we can get out of here. And return to that enfant terrible to the north.
I've always wanted to eat dog. They have a special medium-size hairless breed here that some keep as pets, descended from the Aztecs. As dog was an Indian delicacy and remains a Korean one, I have an open mind. Besides, a street vender in Morelia was not long ago arrested for serving human tacos; they found a refrigerated torso in his basement, but it wasn't clear that he murdered anyone; he was just trying to lower his butcher's bill, apparently.
I have completed the second draft of my tome on T. S. Eliot's Four Quartets, which weighed in at 35,000 words after Kathleen's edits. Now she's begun editing the third draft, which will appear in the last issue of our magazine, The Melic Review, sometime this month. Many prominent net editors have already sent their condolences on our demise, and we really appreciate it, but it's time to move on and concentrate on my own writing for the sole purpose of filthy lucre.
I have hopes my book-length series of essays on Eliot may be accepted by a university press to ease the undergraduate puzzlement that often afflicts young readers of Eliot. If only it could become a required textbook, I could do well! Unfortunately, at UCLA, I noticed most assigned books were either written or co-authored by the very professors that ordered us to buy them (at inflated prices). And people think the Bush administration insular?
How about that great "State of the Union" speech? Bush has become the green president, and that doesn't just mean the largest budgets and shortfalls in U.S. history. Go, gasohol! Go, solar! Go, golf courses! Go, Green Eggs and Spam!
(It is said that the tides represent the greatest source of energy on earth we might employ; unfortunately, no one has figured out how to harness them, though the occasional Tsunami does try to get our attention.)
I think that's all for today. BTW, Kathleen M. Chaffin will soon be featured in Gary Blankenship's Mindfire, and I'm dem proud of her. Here's the URL for the last issue I know:
http://www.mindfirerenew.com/issue4fall05/frontfall05.html
Kathleen's out looking for a dress today for our good friend Bill Taylor's 60th birthday party. The poor bastard had his first heart attack at 30 and has had three bypasses. When he says, "I didn't expect to live this long," I believe him. And amazingly, he credits his doctors! So nice to hear someone speak of my profession positively (for a change).
Anybody watch "House" on FOX? It's the first medical show I could tolerate. Rachel, our oldest daughter, recently became enamored of it. She said Dr. House reminded her of a wimpy version of her Papa. LOL!
Now that I'm done with Eliot and we almost have our stuff back I'm more bored than ever. And I was especially disappointed when I rented Terry Gilliam's "The Adventures of Baron Von Munchausen," that Uma Thurman did not appear naked (as Botticelli's Venus) as I had remembered. Only one breast showed. Kathleen was disappointed, too.
A recent quote from my boon companion: "The only thing Craig loves more than me is air conditioning; I guess I don't blow as hard."
When she reads that I know I'm in for trouble, but hey, she said it in public in a mostly male crowd. Sometimes she can be a bit off-color, and it always surprises people, since everyone's impression of her is that of "a real lady."
Thine in Semi-Stasis,
C. E. Chaffin
Monday I signed four copies of an official letter to the judge requesting the return of our possessions, considering that Maria was guilty and did not deny her perfidy. Before composing the letter our lawyer asked me in all seriousness what he should list for recovery. I told him if her read the prosecutor's file there was a two page list of the same. Without embarrassment he said, "OK," and wrote: "All things listed in the prosecutor's file." Hard to find good help anymore. Hard to find good professional help in Mexico altogether.
I called him again today, but he was out sick and not answering his cell phone, which he rarely does, having actually returned two calls in four months. So I called the prosecutor and he's going to meet with us tomorrow to decide on a date to get our stuff back. (Every time I write "stuff" I think of George Carlin).
What that date will be, I don't know, but our stuff is now spread between three of her domiciles and we don't know where Kenyon is.
I will request a police escort for a show of force. After we have everything that remains, if she hasn't sold it all for fun and profit, nor made tacos of our dog, we can get out of here. And return to that enfant terrible to the north.
I've always wanted to eat dog. They have a special medium-size hairless breed here that some keep as pets, descended from the Aztecs. As dog was an Indian delicacy and remains a Korean one, I have an open mind. Besides, a street vender in Morelia was not long ago arrested for serving human tacos; they found a refrigerated torso in his basement, but it wasn't clear that he murdered anyone; he was just trying to lower his butcher's bill, apparently.
I have completed the second draft of my tome on T. S. Eliot's Four Quartets, which weighed in at 35,000 words after Kathleen's edits. Now she's begun editing the third draft, which will appear in the last issue of our magazine, The Melic Review, sometime this month. Many prominent net editors have already sent their condolences on our demise, and we really appreciate it, but it's time to move on and concentrate on my own writing for the sole purpose of filthy lucre.
I have hopes my book-length series of essays on Eliot may be accepted by a university press to ease the undergraduate puzzlement that often afflicts young readers of Eliot. If only it could become a required textbook, I could do well! Unfortunately, at UCLA, I noticed most assigned books were either written or co-authored by the very professors that ordered us to buy them (at inflated prices). And people think the Bush administration insular?
How about that great "State of the Union" speech? Bush has become the green president, and that doesn't just mean the largest budgets and shortfalls in U.S. history. Go, gasohol! Go, solar! Go, golf courses! Go, Green Eggs and Spam!
(It is said that the tides represent the greatest source of energy on earth we might employ; unfortunately, no one has figured out how to harness them, though the occasional Tsunami does try to get our attention.)
I think that's all for today. BTW, Kathleen M. Chaffin will soon be featured in Gary Blankenship's Mindfire, and I'm dem proud of her. Here's the URL for the last issue I know:
http://www.mindfirerenew.com/issue4fall05/frontfall05.html
Kathleen's out looking for a dress today for our good friend Bill Taylor's 60th birthday party. The poor bastard had his first heart attack at 30 and has had three bypasses. When he says, "I didn't expect to live this long," I believe him. And amazingly, he credits his doctors! So nice to hear someone speak of my profession positively (for a change).
Anybody watch "House" on FOX? It's the first medical show I could tolerate. Rachel, our oldest daughter, recently became enamored of it. She said Dr. House reminded her of a wimpy version of her Papa. LOL!
Now that I'm done with Eliot and we almost have our stuff back I'm more bored than ever. And I was especially disappointed when I rented Terry Gilliam's "The Adventures of Baron Von Munchausen," that Uma Thurman did not appear naked (as Botticelli's Venus) as I had remembered. Only one breast showed. Kathleen was disappointed, too.
A recent quote from my boon companion: "The only thing Craig loves more than me is air conditioning; I guess I don't blow as hard."
When she reads that I know I'm in for trouble, but hey, she said it in public in a mostly male crowd. Sometimes she can be a bit off-color, and it always surprises people, since everyone's impression of her is that of "a real lady."
Thine in Semi-Stasis,
C. E. Chaffin
Thursday, January 26, 2006
Of Course It Wasn't Judgment Day....
We got the judges in agreement. They sent their decision to the prosecutor. A warrant for our maid's arrest was to have been issued Monday, January 23. Today our lawyer, whom I consider lazy and worthless like all Mexican lawyers I've encountered--OK, maybe not lazy but still worthless--imagine an American lawyer taking over a month's vacation, leaving no substitute, and not even informing us of the first decision that went against us! To be fair, because he hurried the case to a civil judge, who may also hear criminal cases if the criminal court is overloaded, he tried to expedite matters. I think it was a stategic mistake causing over a month's delay, because what I understood of their conversation made me suspect the judge resented the extra work load, especially since it was requested by our connected, red-haired and whiter-than-I lawyer, so the judge may have responded in a passive-aggressive fashion.
There are always Kafka and incompetence to consider, not to mention the Voodoo curses we think our maid has inflicted on us, and though we are sometimes tempted to enlist the dark side as well, our religion prevents us, though to be fair, our religion also forgives our sins. I still believe in the power of light over darkness, so just as God has suspended our man's judgment all these centuries so likewise I ought to accept the mercy of the Mexican system. This is specious reasoning if ever I heard it, though the parallel pleases me.
We are so bored!
I work on my Eliot essay and the new and last issue of The Melic Review, Kathleen edits, works crossword puzzles, reads innumerable books, while I watch more TV. We relax at night in the gas chamber of our rooms, hope the buses aren't spewing Xylon B. Or sometimes that they will.
Yes, we have friends, but though they pretend concern, I'm sure they're as thoroughly borerd with our story as we are with telling it. And Kathleen keeps saying, "I think Kenyon's dead," which always lifts my spirits without fail.
We do lift spirits at night to make boredom tolerable, as it increases our ability to enjoy television, and we've also rented a lot of bad movies, like "A Beautiful Mind" and "Mr. and Mrs. Smith," though "The Motorcycle Diaries" were OK. Can't believe "A Beautiful Mind," so terribly uneven, and arguing against Nash ever being truly schizophrenic--I don't know what he had--got good reviews. I did not like Jennifer Connelly that skinny in any event. She's a fine-figured lady!
For boredom perhaps President Morales will send us coca leaves to chew as a goodwill gesture, though I'd love to have our portrait done in them as he did for Hugo Chaves.
Back to business. (My birdwalks in thought, I learned, can also be called by the quaint English term "false hares," so I now have two cliche's for my associative brain patterns, necessary for a poet but terrible for locating misplaced keys.)
Today I think I understood, through a bad cell phone connection with Inaki, our main lawyer (his secretary afterwards informed me that she has had trouble understanding him as well, so it's not just the language barrier), that the prosecutor had not issued a warrant because the lesser judge had not completely signed off on it.
The ping-pong game of Napoleonic law goes on. I can't imagine a country now where they would actually arrest someone for a crime not directly witnessed by police and actually jail or bail them. As Kathleen's dentist said today (I'm bringing Kathleen's pearlies up to date, though she fears dentists, which I can't understand--while I hold her hand), "Although the Mexican justice system is supposed to help the victim, it actually works against them, especially if they have light skin and are thus perceived to be rich."
Us, we got $5,000 American to our names, and our former maid is now worth $500,OOO based on a recent inheritance, but she looks like an Indian, and I learned how important appearances were sometime in my mid-thirties, whereas my socially brighter siblings realized it in their teens. My mom used to make me go to a dermatologist when I didn't care how many blackheads were in my ears.
Hell, I had to find the truth about everything before I thought about appearances. Thank God electroshock helped temper my Faustian delusions when I was 30!
Enough about me. How are you? What can you do for us? Well, money's always nice, but we can wait until we get back to the States to beg when we'll need a bit to get a rental up in NorCal, where they are cheaper for CA but not nearly as cheap as those to be had in Mexico. Out of solidarity you can also read Kafka and Finnegan's Wake; knowing that you are struggling with them will give us a certain mutual Schadenfreude.
The plot thickens in February when my six-month check-up with my pain specialist in San Diego is due, though Principal Lifeless won't commit to telling me if six months is adequate for sustaining my pension, as I proved to them that "being under a physician's care" was not specified as to frequency in my original policy.
Tomorrow we plan to quit smoking again, as we did for four months before our final blow-out with our son which left us both emotionally devastated and uncaring about our health or lives. Having recovered, it's back on the horse, absent the Marlboro Man (who I understand died of lung cancer near Smokestack Mountain).
If my health permits (I've been under for a week with amebiasis again, competing with Bolivia's natural gas preserves), I will update our saga as soon as anything equally unsubstantive and seductively promising occurs.
Until then.
Thine as ever,
CE
There are always Kafka and incompetence to consider, not to mention the Voodoo curses we think our maid has inflicted on us, and though we are sometimes tempted to enlist the dark side as well, our religion prevents us, though to be fair, our religion also forgives our sins. I still believe in the power of light over darkness, so just as God has suspended our man's judgment all these centuries so likewise I ought to accept the mercy of the Mexican system. This is specious reasoning if ever I heard it, though the parallel pleases me.
We are so bored!
I work on my Eliot essay and the new and last issue of The Melic Review, Kathleen edits, works crossword puzzles, reads innumerable books, while I watch more TV. We relax at night in the gas chamber of our rooms, hope the buses aren't spewing Xylon B. Or sometimes that they will.
Yes, we have friends, but though they pretend concern, I'm sure they're as thoroughly borerd with our story as we are with telling it. And Kathleen keeps saying, "I think Kenyon's dead," which always lifts my spirits without fail.
We do lift spirits at night to make boredom tolerable, as it increases our ability to enjoy television, and we've also rented a lot of bad movies, like "A Beautiful Mind" and "Mr. and Mrs. Smith," though "The Motorcycle Diaries" were OK. Can't believe "A Beautiful Mind," so terribly uneven, and arguing against Nash ever being truly schizophrenic--I don't know what he had--got good reviews. I did not like Jennifer Connelly that skinny in any event. She's a fine-figured lady!
For boredom perhaps President Morales will send us coca leaves to chew as a goodwill gesture, though I'd love to have our portrait done in them as he did for Hugo Chaves.
Back to business. (My birdwalks in thought, I learned, can also be called by the quaint English term "false hares," so I now have two cliche's for my associative brain patterns, necessary for a poet but terrible for locating misplaced keys.)
Today I think I understood, through a bad cell phone connection with Inaki, our main lawyer (his secretary afterwards informed me that she has had trouble understanding him as well, so it's not just the language barrier), that the prosecutor had not issued a warrant because the lesser judge had not completely signed off on it.
The ping-pong game of Napoleonic law goes on. I can't imagine a country now where they would actually arrest someone for a crime not directly witnessed by police and actually jail or bail them. As Kathleen's dentist said today (I'm bringing Kathleen's pearlies up to date, though she fears dentists, which I can't understand--while I hold her hand), "Although the Mexican justice system is supposed to help the victim, it actually works against them, especially if they have light skin and are thus perceived to be rich."
Us, we got $5,000 American to our names, and our former maid is now worth $500,OOO based on a recent inheritance, but she looks like an Indian, and I learned how important appearances were sometime in my mid-thirties, whereas my socially brighter siblings realized it in their teens. My mom used to make me go to a dermatologist when I didn't care how many blackheads were in my ears.
Hell, I had to find the truth about everything before I thought about appearances. Thank God electroshock helped temper my Faustian delusions when I was 30!
Enough about me. How are you? What can you do for us? Well, money's always nice, but we can wait until we get back to the States to beg when we'll need a bit to get a rental up in NorCal, where they are cheaper for CA but not nearly as cheap as those to be had in Mexico. Out of solidarity you can also read Kafka and Finnegan's Wake; knowing that you are struggling with them will give us a certain mutual Schadenfreude.
The plot thickens in February when my six-month check-up with my pain specialist in San Diego is due, though Principal Lifeless won't commit to telling me if six months is adequate for sustaining my pension, as I proved to them that "being under a physician's care" was not specified as to frequency in my original policy.
Tomorrow we plan to quit smoking again, as we did for four months before our final blow-out with our son which left us both emotionally devastated and uncaring about our health or lives. Having recovered, it's back on the horse, absent the Marlboro Man (who I understand died of lung cancer near Smokestack Mountain).
If my health permits (I've been under for a week with amebiasis again, competing with Bolivia's natural gas preserves), I will update our saga as soon as anything equally unsubstantive and seductively promising occurs.
Until then.
Thine as ever,
CE
Monday, January 16, 2006
Judgment Day
Tomorrow the Scheisseman / Iceman cometh, when the Mexican Justice System, founded on Kafka's Napollockeonic Law claims it will reach a decision.
The appellate judge, about 25 years old I would estimate (they send them straight from bad law schools to the bench here), is meeting with the first judge and the Assistant D.A., supposedly to overturn the first decision--which I just found out went against us Nov. 30 because our lawyers never informed us, indeed took a month's vacation without back-up during some of the most crucial parts of the process, during which, yo, in my imperfect Espanol, had to serve as my own pleading counsel--although my disability insurance company forbids me to doctor myself, for which I am better qualified, despite the adage that "Any doctor who treats himself has a fool for a patient." I say to that: "Any well-trained American doctor who subjects himself to a Mexican doctor has a death wish."
Now, for any who pray and read this today, pray. Atheists, please send us good vibes. Agnostics, dare to doubt while wishing to pray for us. Buddhists, forget about your desire to help us, it is just part of the wheel. Hindus, rejoice in our education as our experience is surely a sign that we must still be learning and will not escape reincarnation. Muslim extremists, please send a suicide bomber to our former maid but spare the dog.
Voodoists, please sacrifice more than one chicken. Sikhs, wrap your turbans more tightly. Zoroastrians, pray that the evil god is defeated by the good one. New Agers, shake your best crystals. Poets, write about yourselves--I know it's impossible for you to write with concern for us.
Hillary, display your bad legs in public to assure your solidarity. Bush, send troops. Cheney, hit your implanted defibrillator once to show some empathy.
Tellytubbies and Barney, please stay away, you scare the hell out of me.
BTW, Happy Birthday to my Sweet Sarah on her 17th today! XXOXXO
And thanks to Paolo for commenting. There's not such thing as a free blog and if I don't get more comments I'll write it anyway, so there.
I wish I had a picture to post of our dog, Kenyon. A Newfoundland-Black Labrador-Golden Retriever mix, with the large head and webbed paws of a Newfie, the good nature of a Lab, and the beautiful golden fur of a Golden, save it is much longer because of the Newfie blood. He looks like a noble lion; we pray he still lives.
Dognapping has become popular here; to Mexicans dogs are just nameless furry burglar alarms; they think Americans' attachment to their pets absurd and deserving of exploitation. Again, not all Mexicans, just the brown ones.
Love You, Blogees!
Mad Doctor Hoping for a Miracle Tomorrow but More Expecting
Further Kafka Beckett Inscrutable Delays.
The appellate judge, about 25 years old I would estimate (they send them straight from bad law schools to the bench here), is meeting with the first judge and the Assistant D.A., supposedly to overturn the first decision--which I just found out went against us Nov. 30 because our lawyers never informed us, indeed took a month's vacation without back-up during some of the most crucial parts of the process, during which, yo, in my imperfect Espanol, had to serve as my own pleading counsel--although my disability insurance company forbids me to doctor myself, for which I am better qualified, despite the adage that "Any doctor who treats himself has a fool for a patient." I say to that: "Any well-trained American doctor who subjects himself to a Mexican doctor has a death wish."
Now, for any who pray and read this today, pray. Atheists, please send us good vibes. Agnostics, dare to doubt while wishing to pray for us. Buddhists, forget about your desire to help us, it is just part of the wheel. Hindus, rejoice in our education as our experience is surely a sign that we must still be learning and will not escape reincarnation. Muslim extremists, please send a suicide bomber to our former maid but spare the dog.
Voodoists, please sacrifice more than one chicken. Sikhs, wrap your turbans more tightly. Zoroastrians, pray that the evil god is defeated by the good one. New Agers, shake your best crystals. Poets, write about yourselves--I know it's impossible for you to write with concern for us.
Hillary, display your bad legs in public to assure your solidarity. Bush, send troops. Cheney, hit your implanted defibrillator once to show some empathy.
Tellytubbies and Barney, please stay away, you scare the hell out of me.
BTW, Happy Birthday to my Sweet Sarah on her 17th today! XXOXXO
And thanks to Paolo for commenting. There's not such thing as a free blog and if I don't get more comments I'll write it anyway, so there.
I wish I had a picture to post of our dog, Kenyon. A Newfoundland-Black Labrador-Golden Retriever mix, with the large head and webbed paws of a Newfie, the good nature of a Lab, and the beautiful golden fur of a Golden, save it is much longer because of the Newfie blood. He looks like a noble lion; we pray he still lives.
Dognapping has become popular here; to Mexicans dogs are just nameless furry burglar alarms; they think Americans' attachment to their pets absurd and deserving of exploitation. Again, not all Mexicans, just the brown ones.
Love You, Blogees!
Mad Doctor Hoping for a Miracle Tomorrow but More Expecting
Further Kafka Beckett Inscrutable Delays.
Tuesday, January 03, 2006
Marooned in Mexico's Endless Christmas
Our host, Carlos, doesn't drink all year until the special allowance granted him from the day of the Virgen de Guadalupe to the Dia de Los Reyes (Dec. 12 - 1/6). It is every Mexican's right, he explains, even if committed to sobriety the rest of the year, to be able to get drunk during this special time--a time also when nothing gets done, you rarely see police, and people park anywhere because no one issues tickets. At least the primitive garbage trucks still run, though they have no schedule--one is only alerted by a clanging gong in the street, when everyone rushes out with their plastic bags and hoists them up to the truck, where the workers take the time to open every bag for potential profit while the crowd waits and the buses back up.
Now as to our current situation: Resisting violence towards our dog's kidnapper during this period is difficult and leaves me exhausted. With my surgical knowledge I imagine all sorts of procedures in the still of night to perform upon my enemy, one of which would insure no further progenty from this line of idiot Indian vipers. And having surgical supplies with me, I could tape him down and do a neat job, stitch up his custom bag, and afterwards everyone could call him "No Juevos Benjamin."
I haven't broken the fingers of his younger brother either, who is basically innocent and controlled by his mad mother, Maria, who holds our possessions for a ransom we can't pay, which possessions include, besides deaf Kathleen's hearing ear dog, Kenyon, also manuscripts of mine I failed to scan to hard drive and cannot replace along with near 200 original songs.
Now my lawyers, supposedly connected, one being the son of a supreme court justice and the other the brother of the mayor, promised us our stuff back long before Christmas. I kept warning them it couldn't go beyond Christmas as nothing would get done. They reassured me everything would be over soon. Now, after New Year's, I try to contact the one lawyer and he's out of town until January 15. His partner, the mayor's brother, was supposed to be in town; his secretary tried to contact him yesterday and got no answer; today I called her and she said, "I'm so sorry, Dr. Chaffin, he's in Spain now."
"And so it goes." --Billy Pilgrim If only the Tramfalmadorians or whatever they're called would imprison me in their interplanetary zoo I might have a purpose in life.
So how do Kathleen and I deal with boredom? How do we extend our sanity in a world worse than Kafka's, when sometimes I wonder how to shave my chitin and trim my antennae when I gaze in the mirror in the morning?
First we take many psychiatric medications, thankfully cheaper and over-the-counter here, for our mood disorders. These are fortified with the blessing of the grape and that great friend of mankind, television, though Kathleen reads more. I can't concentrate enough to read. Writing is really easier. But my Eliot project is stalled because I feel such an emptiness--not a depression--just a wasteland of futility inside my chest--although the new coughing from succumbing to a few cigarettes lately does help the vacuum somewhat. Yes, fourth months off cigarettes, have a fight with my love, and end up smoking one on New Year's. Bizarro World. How come Jerry Seinfeld, Superman fan supreme, never mentions Bizarro world enough?
In the mornings I clutch Kathleen like a life raft (now that she allows me to touch her again), and I don't want to let go. Eventually I must, if only temporarily, because one of us has to pee, though I'd prefer to continue holding her and wear Depends. Once separated in the morning, with the delicacy of emotional separating Siamese twins, I do perk up a little and venture out. We have lunch, read the paper, and run into other crazy gringos who tell us to call them--as today, when I asked Kathleen if she had so-and-so's number who said "Call me!" Kathleen nodded.
Afterwards, checking out strange books from the library, one on man-eating tigers to help me sublimate my murderous anger, Kathleen asked me: "Do you think changing a verb tense constitutes a lie?" I thought and replied: "Yes, as in 'I was a junkie' vs. 'I am a junkie.'" Kathleen smiled and said, "I had her number. But she's crazy!" Enough said. I think the company of the crazy preferable to the company of my own mind at present and was only mildly disappointed by Kathleen's elegant deception.
One new plot I have is to buy a ladder and pay a Mexican to start painting our enemy's house during the day, dismiss him at twilight, then sneak over, pull the ladder behind, and take what's mine. Not that I'm in any hurry; I just have a court date in a week in CA re: child support and a disability exam in February to insure my pension continues (from the evil monolithic Iowa-based scheister company, Principal Life). Not to mention I miss my kids, my grandson, my sibs, friends, and trees over twenty feet tall known to actually exist back in CA, along with the ocean, my spiritual mother. Here the lakes are so polluted there are no fish.
What else to report? For New Year's Kathleen and I lay in our separate beds alternately weeping over our recent fight, previously acknowledged, though she being a private person and I a public blabbermouth I am loathe to describe it here beyond my previously posted public repentance. But I am thinking of changing my gravestone from "It's all good" to "It's all my fault." Please send in your vote.
I think this blog is nearing 30 posts, btw, so it's probably too long for any to catch up with unless they find it a verbal alternative to a reality show. Did I mention Kathleen and I discovered the first reality show we liked? It's called "Trading Spouses" and you can find it on FOX.
If I stop writing now, what shall I do? I could check our mail and weigh how many new psychiatric journals have accumulated, or even hope for something personal like a note from Ed McMahon about the Publisher's Clearing House, maybe even a personal note from Ken Mehlman or Howard Dean, but I try not to get my hopes to high. In fact, what is hope? There's a good question for my next post. Must one have experienced a reason to hope within the last two years to be able to conceptualize hope? For now abideth faith, hope, and love, yet I hear Job's wife saying, "Curse God and die!"-- but that's where I draw the line. I will not give into bitterness until I am able to commit suicide without it-- that's my rock-bottom faith. Meanwhile Kathleen has (I hope) temporarily quit wearing the Celtic cross my sister gifted her because "I don't feel like a Christian."
And here I thought faith had little to do with feeling. Yet even a leprous monkey with no hands or feet deserves a banana from God every five years.
For those only browsing, unable to endure my sustained sarcastic fringehead wisdom, my previous "New Year's Sayings" post I thought halfway amusing, as in: "Michael Jackson was innocent, he was only trying to expand the concept of the petting zoo."
Love to all, and to all Kafka Kafka Monkey Monkey Blah Blah Blah-- this has been our mantra for over a year now. Not "Busy, busy, busy," but "stuck, stuck, stuck."
And please promote my blog with all your friends; I feel too hopeless to do so except to that rare inner circle who tolerates me.
Your ever faithful raving literary doctor,
C. E. Chaffin
Now as to our current situation: Resisting violence towards our dog's kidnapper during this period is difficult and leaves me exhausted. With my surgical knowledge I imagine all sorts of procedures in the still of night to perform upon my enemy, one of which would insure no further progenty from this line of idiot Indian vipers. And having surgical supplies with me, I could tape him down and do a neat job, stitch up his custom bag, and afterwards everyone could call him "No Juevos Benjamin."
I haven't broken the fingers of his younger brother either, who is basically innocent and controlled by his mad mother, Maria, who holds our possessions for a ransom we can't pay, which possessions include, besides deaf Kathleen's hearing ear dog, Kenyon, also manuscripts of mine I failed to scan to hard drive and cannot replace along with near 200 original songs.
Now my lawyers, supposedly connected, one being the son of a supreme court justice and the other the brother of the mayor, promised us our stuff back long before Christmas. I kept warning them it couldn't go beyond Christmas as nothing would get done. They reassured me everything would be over soon. Now, after New Year's, I try to contact the one lawyer and he's out of town until January 15. His partner, the mayor's brother, was supposed to be in town; his secretary tried to contact him yesterday and got no answer; today I called her and she said, "I'm so sorry, Dr. Chaffin, he's in Spain now."
"And so it goes." --Billy Pilgrim If only the Tramfalmadorians or whatever they're called would imprison me in their interplanetary zoo I might have a purpose in life.
So how do Kathleen and I deal with boredom? How do we extend our sanity in a world worse than Kafka's, when sometimes I wonder how to shave my chitin and trim my antennae when I gaze in the mirror in the morning?
First we take many psychiatric medications, thankfully cheaper and over-the-counter here, for our mood disorders. These are fortified with the blessing of the grape and that great friend of mankind, television, though Kathleen reads more. I can't concentrate enough to read. Writing is really easier. But my Eliot project is stalled because I feel such an emptiness--not a depression--just a wasteland of futility inside my chest--although the new coughing from succumbing to a few cigarettes lately does help the vacuum somewhat. Yes, fourth months off cigarettes, have a fight with my love, and end up smoking one on New Year's. Bizarro World. How come Jerry Seinfeld, Superman fan supreme, never mentions Bizarro world enough?
In the mornings I clutch Kathleen like a life raft (now that she allows me to touch her again), and I don't want to let go. Eventually I must, if only temporarily, because one of us has to pee, though I'd prefer to continue holding her and wear Depends. Once separated in the morning, with the delicacy of emotional separating Siamese twins, I do perk up a little and venture out. We have lunch, read the paper, and run into other crazy gringos who tell us to call them--as today, when I asked Kathleen if she had so-and-so's number who said "Call me!" Kathleen nodded.
Afterwards, checking out strange books from the library, one on man-eating tigers to help me sublimate my murderous anger, Kathleen asked me: "Do you think changing a verb tense constitutes a lie?" I thought and replied: "Yes, as in 'I was a junkie' vs. 'I am a junkie.'" Kathleen smiled and said, "I had her number. But she's crazy!" Enough said. I think the company of the crazy preferable to the company of my own mind at present and was only mildly disappointed by Kathleen's elegant deception.
One new plot I have is to buy a ladder and pay a Mexican to start painting our enemy's house during the day, dismiss him at twilight, then sneak over, pull the ladder behind, and take what's mine. Not that I'm in any hurry; I just have a court date in a week in CA re: child support and a disability exam in February to insure my pension continues (from the evil monolithic Iowa-based scheister company, Principal Life). Not to mention I miss my kids, my grandson, my sibs, friends, and trees over twenty feet tall known to actually exist back in CA, along with the ocean, my spiritual mother. Here the lakes are so polluted there are no fish.
What else to report? For New Year's Kathleen and I lay in our separate beds alternately weeping over our recent fight, previously acknowledged, though she being a private person and I a public blabbermouth I am loathe to describe it here beyond my previously posted public repentance. But I am thinking of changing my gravestone from "It's all good" to "It's all my fault." Please send in your vote.
I think this blog is nearing 30 posts, btw, so it's probably too long for any to catch up with unless they find it a verbal alternative to a reality show. Did I mention Kathleen and I discovered the first reality show we liked? It's called "Trading Spouses" and you can find it on FOX.
If I stop writing now, what shall I do? I could check our mail and weigh how many new psychiatric journals have accumulated, or even hope for something personal like a note from Ed McMahon about the Publisher's Clearing House, maybe even a personal note from Ken Mehlman or Howard Dean, but I try not to get my hopes to high. In fact, what is hope? There's a good question for my next post. Must one have experienced a reason to hope within the last two years to be able to conceptualize hope? For now abideth faith, hope, and love, yet I hear Job's wife saying, "Curse God and die!"-- but that's where I draw the line. I will not give into bitterness until I am able to commit suicide without it-- that's my rock-bottom faith. Meanwhile Kathleen has (I hope) temporarily quit wearing the Celtic cross my sister gifted her because "I don't feel like a Christian."
And here I thought faith had little to do with feeling. Yet even a leprous monkey with no hands or feet deserves a banana from God every five years.
For those only browsing, unable to endure my sustained sarcastic fringehead wisdom, my previous "New Year's Sayings" post I thought halfway amusing, as in: "Michael Jackson was innocent, he was only trying to expand the concept of the petting zoo."
Love to all, and to all Kafka Kafka Monkey Monkey Blah Blah Blah-- this has been our mantra for over a year now. Not "Busy, busy, busy," but "stuck, stuck, stuck."
And please promote my blog with all your friends; I feel too hopeless to do so except to that rare inner circle who tolerates me.
Your ever faithful raving literary doctor,
C. E. Chaffin
Friday, December 30, 2005
Public Repentance
I want to publicly repent for something I said last night to my dear wife, Kathleen, about her son, my stepson. It was cruel, cruel, cruel and I can't take it back. I could blame the brandy but I won't. I'm just a bastard and sometimes my remarks can be more cutting than a chain saw.
You always hurt the one you love, especially cooped up in Mexico for months with no respite. I have never spent as much extended time with any one person as I have with Kathleen; I think she is the only one who could put up with me. She's certainly the only one I could live with in close quarters every day and still smile at her face in the morning and be grateful for her sweet company. After six years I'm still desperately in love with her.
Propinquity can sometimes be a curse, however, and we don't take enough breaks from each other, ending up in a rut wondering what to do each day. But this is no excuse for the cruelty of Craig. I was trained by a master, my father, and I can't seem to entirely escape his training, especially when my judgment is impaired by demon rum, just as his often was. Now my poor darling's eyes are swollen and she wants nothing to do with me, for which I don't blame her.
I was evil, I was cruel, I was careless, I repent. I trust she will forgive me but I doubt that will be soon. Each wound we inflict on each other runs the risk of diminishing the love and trust we bear a little more, something I dread more than death. Her love is the greatest gift I have received in this life and I spit in its face last night. I don't deserve Kathleen.
"Pray for us sinners at the hour of our death."
In grief and repentance,
CE
You always hurt the one you love, especially cooped up in Mexico for months with no respite. I have never spent as much extended time with any one person as I have with Kathleen; I think she is the only one who could put up with me. She's certainly the only one I could live with in close quarters every day and still smile at her face in the morning and be grateful for her sweet company. After six years I'm still desperately in love with her.
Propinquity can sometimes be a curse, however, and we don't take enough breaks from each other, ending up in a rut wondering what to do each day. But this is no excuse for the cruelty of Craig. I was trained by a master, my father, and I can't seem to entirely escape his training, especially when my judgment is impaired by demon rum, just as his often was. Now my poor darling's eyes are swollen and she wants nothing to do with me, for which I don't blame her.
I was evil, I was cruel, I was careless, I repent. I trust she will forgive me but I doubt that will be soon. Each wound we inflict on each other runs the risk of diminishing the love and trust we bear a little more, something I dread more than death. Her love is the greatest gift I have received in this life and I spit in its face last night. I don't deserve Kathleen.
"Pray for us sinners at the hour of our death."
In grief and repentance,
CE
Wednesday, December 28, 2005
Great New Year Sayings!
Some are stolen, some are original. The challenge is to cite the stolen.
I haven't given up on fame; fame has given up on me.
Katie phone Holmes.
Everybody talks about the weather but no one does anything about it.
Golf is a good walk spoiled.
The problem with this world is that there's too much me to go around.
Some people are so dumb I wouldn't tie my horse to them.
There are worse ways to get through a war than a quart of scotch a day.
Give me liberty or maybe I could trade it for increased security, invasion of privacy, and a pointless war?
Surgery kept me young, but alas, drugs aged me.
San Miguel, home of hip hip fractures, the largest outdoor mental asylum in the world: where half the people are on drugs and the other half should be on medications.
Just because I strangled my mother doesn't make me a bad guy.
The Ramones were great unti they went punk.
The only way to insult a pig is to eat it.
A good day is when you pull the sheet off your own face.
Lick Ass and Eat Crow are not Indian tribes but the surest way to corporate promotion.
The chief source of human conflict is that each of us expects others to be like ourselves and judge them accordingly, as in: "Why aren't you writing a fucking blog?"
Distracted from distraction by distraction.
For once, then, something.
It ain't over until the fat lady gets off you and you get paid.
A rut's just a grave with the ends kicked out.
If ifs and buts were candy and nuts then every day would be Christmas.
Let's keep the '$' in "$Mas!
The mantra of the uncommitted: "I'm not religious, I'm spiritual."
Better a eggs without bacon than a soldier without an -ism.
OJ: squeezed until innocent. .
Michael Jackson, also innocent, should be credited with expanding the concept of a petting zoo.
To a blind men we all look alike, to a deaf man we all sound alike; an aardvark does not notice us because we are not ants.
Alzheimer's? Fughedaboutit.
In the bad movie we call life I drink to keep other people out of focus.
If I were rich we wouldn't be doing this.
You catch more flies with heroin than honey.
Zippers for the impatient, buttons for the shy.
Every bee-bee gun should come with a dead sparrow.
Celebrity deprivation will be the new disease of the century.
Jews don't control Hollywood, their lawyers do.
To be saggy, bald and fat does not necessarily mean you're a baby-boomer, though the odds are good--if you're wearing diapers you might still be a WWII veteran! Too bad the generation that saved a continent could not save __________.
If you love something let it go; if it comes back, humiliate it.
All the wisdom for today,
C.E. Chaffin
p.s. "Give Dobey the Jaguar."
I haven't given up on fame; fame has given up on me.
Katie phone Holmes.
Everybody talks about the weather but no one does anything about it.
Golf is a good walk spoiled.
The problem with this world is that there's too much me to go around.
Some people are so dumb I wouldn't tie my horse to them.
There are worse ways to get through a war than a quart of scotch a day.
Give me liberty or maybe I could trade it for increased security, invasion of privacy, and a pointless war?
Surgery kept me young, but alas, drugs aged me.
San Miguel, home of hip hip fractures, the largest outdoor mental asylum in the world: where half the people are on drugs and the other half should be on medications.
Just because I strangled my mother doesn't make me a bad guy.
The Ramones were great unti they went punk.
The only way to insult a pig is to eat it.
A good day is when you pull the sheet off your own face.
Lick Ass and Eat Crow are not Indian tribes but the surest way to corporate promotion.
The chief source of human conflict is that each of us expects others to be like ourselves and judge them accordingly, as in: "Why aren't you writing a fucking blog?"
Distracted from distraction by distraction.
For once, then, something.
It ain't over until the fat lady gets off you and you get paid.
A rut's just a grave with the ends kicked out.
If ifs and buts were candy and nuts then every day would be Christmas.
Let's keep the '$' in "$Mas!
The mantra of the uncommitted: "I'm not religious, I'm spiritual."
Better a eggs without bacon than a soldier without an -ism.
OJ: squeezed until innocent. .
Michael Jackson, also innocent, should be credited with expanding the concept of a petting zoo.
To a blind men we all look alike, to a deaf man we all sound alike; an aardvark does not notice us because we are not ants.
Alzheimer's? Fughedaboutit.
In the bad movie we call life I drink to keep other people out of focus.
If I were rich we wouldn't be doing this.
You catch more flies with heroin than honey.
Zippers for the impatient, buttons for the shy.
Every bee-bee gun should come with a dead sparrow.
Celebrity deprivation will be the new disease of the century.
Jews don't control Hollywood, their lawyers do.
To be saggy, bald and fat does not necessarily mean you're a baby-boomer, though the odds are good--if you're wearing diapers you might still be a WWII veteran! Too bad the generation that saved a continent could not save __________.
If you love something let it go; if it comes back, humiliate it.
All the wisdom for today,
C.E. Chaffin
p.s. "Give Dobey the Jaguar."
Saturday, December 24, 2005
Christmas Ravings from Mexico
It´s that time of year again, as opposed to that time of month, which affects fertile females under forty-five, roughly, and I do mean roughly-- though the implantation and successful pregnancy of a sixty-something Italian lady not long back did stretch the stretch marks of my nugatory obstetrics. Nugatory. Like that word? Amend your nescience and anoint it as your vocabulary word for the day, O idiot blogees!
They say you catch more flies with honey than vinegar, but at this time of year, there being no flies to darken my blog, I take the liberty of insulting my absent audience, the same kind of audience the Pope afforded me.
Chinga bells, chinga bells, chinga all the way!
(Best sung in a Mexican bar where the patrons are spoiling for a fight from cheap tequila.)
I do want to wish all you who are not reading this a very Merry Christmas and say to those who are,¨"Get a life!"
And no, I will not take the Christ out of Christmas just as I won´t take the spike out of egg nog nor the Shrike out of Hyperion (by Dan Simmons) Great book, btw, for a late Christmas gift; for non-fiction I always recommend Denial of Death by Ernest Becker, though this may be a bad time of year to market the notion, being concerned with nativity and all, but remember "In my beginning is my end" which adorns the container of Eliot´s ashes at East Coker, and was also the motto of Mary Queen of Scots, though I wonder if it´s just about sitting down to dinner.
We´re having a nice repast of smoked turkey tonight with our Mexican hosts, in whose rooms we´ve now stayed for over four months. (Yes, Virginia, we are paying customers.) Luckily I left my guitars and desktop computer with them else there would be more to recover from the dastardly maid who is extorting us for the rest of our stuff, still unreturned, her fat ass still not in jail--but it shall be, O it shall be, if my name isn't the Gringo Grinch!
Carlos, the dueno of the posada, is a very intelligent man who likes to torture Jehovah´s Witnesses and Mormons. After he twisted the Witnesses he now innocently asks his Mormon instructors how there could be steel, cows and horses in Mexico before the Conquistadores, as their holy book recounts. I think they reassure him that this land, second only to Egypt in archeology, just needs a few more lucky digs to prove the theory of the lost tribe of Nehi, who instead of promoting soda supposedly crossed Asia and the Pacific to make those cool pyramids.
Still, how can you not like Mormons? There´s over a million here in Mexico and more official temples than anywhere else but the US. They even admit now that their founder had faults, perhaps why he was taken out of jail and lynched, in part for sleeping with his follower's wives. The revolution may eat its children, but I guess that David Koresh gene has some survival value after all.
Funny how the rules never apply to the prophets. Even Mohammed changed the rules in the Koran, where he made an exception for himself in order to marry his daughter-in-law, a practice he had formerly forbidden. The Koran is even more boring than the Book of Mormon, btw, so I recommend neither for your Christmas reading list.
I wander far afield where no angels sing inside my head. Which reminds me of Aldous Huxley´s wonderful essay, "Wordsworth in the Tropics," where he rightly asserts that if Wordsworth had grown up in the Congo he would not have honored the benevolent God of the English countryside, rather bloodthirsty demons as did Mr. Kurtz.
"Mr Kurtz, he not dead. He live on in delusion of Iraq. He live on in Mormon missionary zeal."
Again, how can you not like Mormons, whose skinny ties always remind me of David Byrne of The Talking Heads? That short-sleeve-white-shirt-skinny-black-tie look "could never die while you´re near me." One Mexican convert here was quoted in the paper as saying that he first followed Mormon missionaries around because he was so impressed by their ties, which in this climate certainly qualifies as a miracle. How The Book of Mormon can explain horses is another question, but hey, when did faith depend upon facts? That only applies to historical religions like Christianity (sadly not to Neoconservatism).
Hey, I better lay off the Mormons here before the ghost of Joseph Smith lays on my wife. Wonder if he still has the golden plates or just a bridge? Dental work is cheaper down here, you know.
So again, for Christmas, another gift item is a ticket to Mexico for dental work. Mexicans have clever hands and make good dentists; just don't ask them to think diagnostically or they´ll make up a reason to save face. ¨"Yes, it was a chupacabra´s bite that ultimately deformed your wisdom teeth." I'm not kidding about this, as any of you who certainly did no read my link below to ¨"Dead-End Thinking" don´t know. If you say to someome in Mexico, "Yesterday I saw a green pterodactyl," they will receive the news as if you mentioned the weather. Everything here is simply believed. Which reminds me of a conversation I had with one of the lawyers I fired, though not for her faith.
"My parents are Christian," she explained with some trepidation.
"And you?" I asked.
"Oh no!" she exclaimed. "I´m Catholic. Those poor Christians only get Jesus while we have Mary and the angels and all the saints."
Hard to argue with the advantage of a spiritual smorgasbord. Mexican Catholicism truly skirts polytheistic idolatry, but then in the U.S. we have opinion polls, so what´s the difference?
Having said all I want to say and then some, I hope this Christmas note leaves you in fine spirits, or if a teetotaler, perhaps with a contact high. Wish you could smell my breath through the internet ether.
"I do, I do, I do believe in Christ! Just not in flying monkeys!"
Thine as ever,
Dr. Chaffin
They say you catch more flies with honey than vinegar, but at this time of year, there being no flies to darken my blog, I take the liberty of insulting my absent audience, the same kind of audience the Pope afforded me.
Chinga bells, chinga bells, chinga all the way!
(Best sung in a Mexican bar where the patrons are spoiling for a fight from cheap tequila.)
I do want to wish all you who are not reading this a very Merry Christmas and say to those who are,¨"Get a life!"
And no, I will not take the Christ out of Christmas just as I won´t take the spike out of egg nog nor the Shrike out of Hyperion (by Dan Simmons) Great book, btw, for a late Christmas gift; for non-fiction I always recommend Denial of Death by Ernest Becker, though this may be a bad time of year to market the notion, being concerned with nativity and all, but remember "In my beginning is my end" which adorns the container of Eliot´s ashes at East Coker, and was also the motto of Mary Queen of Scots, though I wonder if it´s just about sitting down to dinner.
We´re having a nice repast of smoked turkey tonight with our Mexican hosts, in whose rooms we´ve now stayed for over four months. (Yes, Virginia, we are paying customers.) Luckily I left my guitars and desktop computer with them else there would be more to recover from the dastardly maid who is extorting us for the rest of our stuff, still unreturned, her fat ass still not in jail--but it shall be, O it shall be, if my name isn't the Gringo Grinch!
Carlos, the dueno of the posada, is a very intelligent man who likes to torture Jehovah´s Witnesses and Mormons. After he twisted the Witnesses he now innocently asks his Mormon instructors how there could be steel, cows and horses in Mexico before the Conquistadores, as their holy book recounts. I think they reassure him that this land, second only to Egypt in archeology, just needs a few more lucky digs to prove the theory of the lost tribe of Nehi, who instead of promoting soda supposedly crossed Asia and the Pacific to make those cool pyramids.
Still, how can you not like Mormons? There´s over a million here in Mexico and more official temples than anywhere else but the US. They even admit now that their founder had faults, perhaps why he was taken out of jail and lynched, in part for sleeping with his follower's wives. The revolution may eat its children, but I guess that David Koresh gene has some survival value after all.
Funny how the rules never apply to the prophets. Even Mohammed changed the rules in the Koran, where he made an exception for himself in order to marry his daughter-in-law, a practice he had formerly forbidden. The Koran is even more boring than the Book of Mormon, btw, so I recommend neither for your Christmas reading list.
I wander far afield where no angels sing inside my head. Which reminds me of Aldous Huxley´s wonderful essay, "Wordsworth in the Tropics," where he rightly asserts that if Wordsworth had grown up in the Congo he would not have honored the benevolent God of the English countryside, rather bloodthirsty demons as did Mr. Kurtz.
"Mr Kurtz, he not dead. He live on in delusion of Iraq. He live on in Mormon missionary zeal."
Again, how can you not like Mormons, whose skinny ties always remind me of David Byrne of The Talking Heads? That short-sleeve-white-shirt-skinny-black-tie look "could never die while you´re near me." One Mexican convert here was quoted in the paper as saying that he first followed Mormon missionaries around because he was so impressed by their ties, which in this climate certainly qualifies as a miracle. How The Book of Mormon can explain horses is another question, but hey, when did faith depend upon facts? That only applies to historical religions like Christianity (sadly not to Neoconservatism).
Hey, I better lay off the Mormons here before the ghost of Joseph Smith lays on my wife. Wonder if he still has the golden plates or just a bridge? Dental work is cheaper down here, you know.
So again, for Christmas, another gift item is a ticket to Mexico for dental work. Mexicans have clever hands and make good dentists; just don't ask them to think diagnostically or they´ll make up a reason to save face. ¨"Yes, it was a chupacabra´s bite that ultimately deformed your wisdom teeth." I'm not kidding about this, as any of you who certainly did no read my link below to ¨"Dead-End Thinking" don´t know. If you say to someome in Mexico, "Yesterday I saw a green pterodactyl," they will receive the news as if you mentioned the weather. Everything here is simply believed. Which reminds me of a conversation I had with one of the lawyers I fired, though not for her faith.
"My parents are Christian," she explained with some trepidation.
"And you?" I asked.
"Oh no!" she exclaimed. "I´m Catholic. Those poor Christians only get Jesus while we have Mary and the angels and all the saints."
Hard to argue with the advantage of a spiritual smorgasbord. Mexican Catholicism truly skirts polytheistic idolatry, but then in the U.S. we have opinion polls, so what´s the difference?
Having said all I want to say and then some, I hope this Christmas note leaves you in fine spirits, or if a teetotaler, perhaps with a contact high. Wish you could smell my breath through the internet ether.
"I do, I do, I do believe in Christ! Just not in flying monkeys!"
Thine as ever,
Dr. Chaffin
Wednesday, December 21, 2005
A Wandering Mind Approaches Christmas
A wandering mind is a terrible thing to put shoes on.
Yesterday I found myself brushing my teeth while sitting on the throne. Never multi-tasked that one before. Which reminds me when I was peeing at MacDonald's once while drinking coke from a straw. The symmetry astounded me.
I hate to be disappointed, so here's a short Christmas list:
For George Bush, a wife smarter than he.
For Dick Cheney, a lesbian daughter who gives him some undeserved credence with the left.
For John Ashcroft, Tommy Chong sent to prison for an obscure, ten-year old law never tried before.
For carpetbagger Hillary Clinton, a new shift to biblical values.
For John Kerry, a bunch of murky medals.
For Andy Rooney, abstention from Botox.
For Conan O'Brien and Lyle Lovett, big hair.
For Bill Frist, the hochmut to think himself a neurospychiatrist, expert in Schiavotology, instead of the lowly heart surgeon he is.
For Americans, to continue freely giving away the rights their forefathers bled for in exchange for an empty promise of security against a foe who can never be stopped.
For all young female celebrities: lots of preggie talk.
For aging female celebrities: more Botox.
For Brad Pitt: bad hair.
For all Hollywood: bad hair, known in LA as the "urban survivor" look.
For the Simpsons: that Maggie never talks.
For Paul McCartney: no hit song.
For eminent domain: more strip malls.
For Rachel and Jacob, red hair; for Keturah, determination; for Sarah, more starring roles in theater.
For Howard and Elisa, lots of money!
For Dobey, lots of indecision and obsession and good people skills.
For Chris, exquisite taste.
For Elvis and Gidget, long hair.
I'll stop there and take a breath, seeing as how I went from celebrities to immediate family.
But I think all the Christmas wishes above will surely be granted.
Now about my blood pressure: the doctor treating me here, who cannot be myself as my insurance company rules (even if I am the only competent doctor in San Miguel), has me on a beta-blocker and a diuretic--with some success--and my mood seems to have notched up a bit since BP control has been better. Then beta blockers do make me sleep more and worry less, though they have also induced depression in the past. Then I have my trusty Lamictal. And my appetite has been outstanding. Despite this my jeans still fit by sliding under my pot belly. I don't wear a belt because my lumbar spine hurts too much, so my fashion is to tie a scarf between two loops of my pants to tighten the waist beneath the spare tire.
Face it, ladies and germs; as we age it's not the weight, it's the gravity and the sagging skin. Anyone seen Jack LaLane lately? Not even the original juice man can escape. And trust me, as a doctor, I have rarely seen a young women with flawless skin from head to toe--always some blemish or secret pocket of seborrhea or cellulite.
C'mon, people, give up on People and Hollywood and all the stick-figure nonsense ideal of health. Feel good, look good. Quality not marketability. (Then I have two brothers in advertising for which such advice must be anathema.)
And how am I doing? As if you care! I'm burned out on writing about Eliot; must re-group before the final issue of Melic. I consult with patients here out of the goodness of my heart, but never knew before that an 80-yr-old wheelchair-bound by Myasthenia Gravis would have a mind flexible enough to make psychotherapy and hypnosis worth doing.
As my insurance company knows, in these charitable endeavors, it is my sitting limit of two hours that trumps my employability as a physician, except as a courtier lying on a velvet couch. "Peel me a grape, Principal Financial." This is why I have to write fast during my alloted two hours, as I just wrote this in fifteen minutes. I can write a decent sonnet in fifteen minutes. I bless my verbally talented parents!
Deceased, I hope they read this, though I'm told the dead are a tough audience except here in Mexico where they are party animals. "Folded into a single party," as Eliot wrote.
Any Hortonhearsahoo, Merry CHRISTmas! (I did that for Hillary) to all my blogees!
CE aka Dr. Diego
p.s. My poetry is quoted in a new antropology text for bipolar culture being published by Princeton Press. Can fame be far away? Harummph!
Yesterday I found myself brushing my teeth while sitting on the throne. Never multi-tasked that one before. Which reminds me when I was peeing at MacDonald's once while drinking coke from a straw. The symmetry astounded me.
I hate to be disappointed, so here's a short Christmas list:
For George Bush, a wife smarter than he.
For Dick Cheney, a lesbian daughter who gives him some undeserved credence with the left.
For John Ashcroft, Tommy Chong sent to prison for an obscure, ten-year old law never tried before.
For carpetbagger Hillary Clinton, a new shift to biblical values.
For John Kerry, a bunch of murky medals.
For Andy Rooney, abstention from Botox.
For Conan O'Brien and Lyle Lovett, big hair.
For Bill Frist, the hochmut to think himself a neurospychiatrist, expert in Schiavotology, instead of the lowly heart surgeon he is.
For Americans, to continue freely giving away the rights their forefathers bled for in exchange for an empty promise of security against a foe who can never be stopped.
For all young female celebrities: lots of preggie talk.
For aging female celebrities: more Botox.
For Brad Pitt: bad hair.
For all Hollywood: bad hair, known in LA as the "urban survivor" look.
For the Simpsons: that Maggie never talks.
For Paul McCartney: no hit song.
For eminent domain: more strip malls.
For Rachel and Jacob, red hair; for Keturah, determination; for Sarah, more starring roles in theater.
For Howard and Elisa, lots of money!
For Dobey, lots of indecision and obsession and good people skills.
For Chris, exquisite taste.
For Elvis and Gidget, long hair.
I'll stop there and take a breath, seeing as how I went from celebrities to immediate family.
But I think all the Christmas wishes above will surely be granted.
Now about my blood pressure: the doctor treating me here, who cannot be myself as my insurance company rules (even if I am the only competent doctor in San Miguel), has me on a beta-blocker and a diuretic--with some success--and my mood seems to have notched up a bit since BP control has been better. Then beta blockers do make me sleep more and worry less, though they have also induced depression in the past. Then I have my trusty Lamictal. And my appetite has been outstanding. Despite this my jeans still fit by sliding under my pot belly. I don't wear a belt because my lumbar spine hurts too much, so my fashion is to tie a scarf between two loops of my pants to tighten the waist beneath the spare tire.
Face it, ladies and germs; as we age it's not the weight, it's the gravity and the sagging skin. Anyone seen Jack LaLane lately? Not even the original juice man can escape. And trust me, as a doctor, I have rarely seen a young women with flawless skin from head to toe--always some blemish or secret pocket of seborrhea or cellulite.
C'mon, people, give up on People and Hollywood and all the stick-figure nonsense ideal of health. Feel good, look good. Quality not marketability. (Then I have two brothers in advertising for which such advice must be anathema.)
And how am I doing? As if you care! I'm burned out on writing about Eliot; must re-group before the final issue of Melic. I consult with patients here out of the goodness of my heart, but never knew before that an 80-yr-old wheelchair-bound by Myasthenia Gravis would have a mind flexible enough to make psychotherapy and hypnosis worth doing.
As my insurance company knows, in these charitable endeavors, it is my sitting limit of two hours that trumps my employability as a physician, except as a courtier lying on a velvet couch. "Peel me a grape, Principal Financial." This is why I have to write fast during my alloted two hours, as I just wrote this in fifteen minutes. I can write a decent sonnet in fifteen minutes. I bless my verbally talented parents!
Deceased, I hope they read this, though I'm told the dead are a tough audience except here in Mexico where they are party animals. "Folded into a single party," as Eliot wrote.
Any Hortonhearsahoo, Merry CHRISTmas! (I did that for Hillary) to all my blogees!
CE aka Dr. Diego
p.s. My poetry is quoted in a new antropology text for bipolar culture being published by Princeton Press. Can fame be far away? Harummph!
Wednesday, December 14, 2005
A Plethora of Exciting Links!
First, some nuts and bolts. I've changed the settings here so you shouldn't have to create your own blog to post a comment. Also there is a verification requirement to type a few letters in order to prevent spam.
Now back to Mexico. Some of you may not know that I've written a number of cross-cultural columns on this magical land for various journals. Here are some links. I tried to make them click-on links in this blog format with no success, so if your computer is like mine you'll have to go to all that work of copying and pasting the sites in--apologies in extremus!
"Escape from LA" http://www.eclectica.org/v7n1/chaffin_salon.html
"Yes We Have No Bananas" http://www.eclectica.org/v7n2/chaffin_salon.html
"Dead-End Thinking"
http://www.eclectica.org/v7n4/chaffin_salon.html
"Borges on Basketball" http://www.eclectica.org/v8n3/chaffin_salon.html
(one of the best things I've written)
"The Doctor and Dysentery"
http://www.eclectica.org/v8n2/chaffin_salon.html
"From the Land of Burros but No Asses"
http://www.melicreview.com/archive/iss19/li_dweebler_cramden.html
(Probably the funniest, written by my alter ego, Dweebler Cramden, "The Gigolosaurus.") Here's an excerpt:
"Now for Mexican women, most of whom are mestizos of mixed Indian and Spanish descent. It’s a sad, sad fact, but Mexico should be known as the land of flat asses. Pancake keisters. Nalgas de tortillas!
The more Indian blood in a woman here, the more likely it is that properly heated, her posterior could iron my dress shirts without leaving a single crease. Most mujeras are built squarely and carry weight in their bellies and limbs without an extra ounce to donate to that great hemisphere of feminine supremacy, as typified by Serena Williams, whose marvelous plum adorns the American sports pages. I don’t know if she’s an athlete in bed, and though a little anorexic, I’d take her if she’d have me, though we might require a few extra pillows.
I have several theories to explain the tortilla butt of the average Mexican woman. Chief among them is the fact that I have yet to see, much less sit upon, a cushiony chair or couch since coming here.
I had some new publications to promote, but this blogging software stole it away. Besides I've already inundated you above with over 10,000 words of links, but I promise, with a blog-back guarantee, that if you read all of them you will laugh out loud at least three times.
Hostage in Kafka's Mexico,
CE
Now back to Mexico. Some of you may not know that I've written a number of cross-cultural columns on this magical land for various journals. Here are some links. I tried to make them click-on links in this blog format with no success, so if your computer is like mine you'll have to go to all that work of copying and pasting the sites in--apologies in extremus!
"Escape from LA" http://www.eclectica.org/v7n1/chaffin_salon.html
"Yes We Have No Bananas" http://www.eclectica.org/v7n2/chaffin_salon.html
"Dead-End Thinking"
http://www.eclectica.org/v7n4/chaffin_salon.html
"Borges on Basketball" http://www.eclectica.org/v8n3/chaffin_salon.html
(one of the best things I've written)
"The Doctor and Dysentery"
http://www.eclectica.org/v8n2/chaffin_salon.html
"From the Land of Burros but No Asses"
http://www.melicreview.com/archive/iss19/li_dweebler_cramden.html
(Probably the funniest, written by my alter ego, Dweebler Cramden, "The Gigolosaurus.") Here's an excerpt:
"Now for Mexican women, most of whom are mestizos of mixed Indian and Spanish descent. It’s a sad, sad fact, but Mexico should be known as the land of flat asses. Pancake keisters. Nalgas de tortillas!
The more Indian blood in a woman here, the more likely it is that properly heated, her posterior could iron my dress shirts without leaving a single crease. Most mujeras are built squarely and carry weight in their bellies and limbs without an extra ounce to donate to that great hemisphere of feminine supremacy, as typified by Serena Williams, whose marvelous plum adorns the American sports pages. I don’t know if she’s an athlete in bed, and though a little anorexic, I’d take her if she’d have me, though we might require a few extra pillows.
I have several theories to explain the tortilla butt of the average Mexican woman. Chief among them is the fact that I have yet to see, much less sit upon, a cushiony chair or couch since coming here.
I had some new publications to promote, but this blogging software stole it away. Besides I've already inundated you above with over 10,000 words of links, but I promise, with a blog-back guarantee, that if you read all of them you will laugh out loud at least three times.
Hostage in Kafka's Mexico,
CE
Friday, December 09, 2005
I Grow Old
And how should I presume? And how should I begin?
"I grow old, I grow old,
I shall wear the bottoms of my trousers rolled."
Actually I only wear jeans. My good clothes are being held for ransom by our former maid, as any of you know who've troubled to read this saga. But age, age, yes--these last two years have aged me precipitously. I have developed high blood pressure. When we got back to Mexico last December with only a liter of gas and five pesos, my pressure was 190/110. As BP meds are over-the-counter here, I have tried Cardizem and Zestril with varied success, but I know I need to stop drinking altogether as that is my highest factor. When I give up drinking the only drug left to me will be caffeine. Thus I'll end up like all my Nordic relatives in Minnesota, who invariably ask for coffee at cocktail hour. Our own Chaffin family tradition is to get "half in the bag" at cocktail hour and then decide whether to exercise the "full bag" option later, which our father frequently did. To find him early in the morning curled up in a fetal position always seemed so strange--that such a large and loud man could look so much like an infant. But "The child is the father to the man."
The newest delay in our court case was explained to me yesterday: The civil judge did not know what felony to charge, so he passed the case on to the criminal judge, who increased the felony charge to "extortion," which carries a mandatory prison sentence. Now we wait for the maize-grinding wheels of justice to slouch toward Bethlehem. And as good Christians, Kathleen suggested we visit Maria in prison, if we stay that long.
I did give up drinking for five years around age 40. In looking back I don't think my life was any better or worse, though my health was. And I was definitely less social during that time.
To give you an idea of how I've transitioned into old age, I was playing chess with a friend last night and we were comparing blood pressures with different machines. He's a 65-yr-old former dentist who claims his frequent use of herbal smoke keeps his pressure down; I told him he'd smoke it even if he didn't have a BP problem, but that he sure has a good excuse.
If I play chess and compare blood pressure with my friends, can shuffle board and feeding pigeons be far behind? Then diapers would be a convenience, as I wouldn't have to get up at night. When I stop drinking maybe I won't have to--at least for a while. And I, too, would someday like to terrorize shopping aisles with my souped-up electric wheelchair--my, those hot-rodding chairbound geezers are a public menace!
"Thoughts of a dry brain in a dry season,"
Thine if you'll have me,
CE
"I grow old, I grow old,
I shall wear the bottoms of my trousers rolled."
Actually I only wear jeans. My good clothes are being held for ransom by our former maid, as any of you know who've troubled to read this saga. But age, age, yes--these last two years have aged me precipitously. I have developed high blood pressure. When we got back to Mexico last December with only a liter of gas and five pesos, my pressure was 190/110. As BP meds are over-the-counter here, I have tried Cardizem and Zestril with varied success, but I know I need to stop drinking altogether as that is my highest factor. When I give up drinking the only drug left to me will be caffeine. Thus I'll end up like all my Nordic relatives in Minnesota, who invariably ask for coffee at cocktail hour. Our own Chaffin family tradition is to get "half in the bag" at cocktail hour and then decide whether to exercise the "full bag" option later, which our father frequently did. To find him early in the morning curled up in a fetal position always seemed so strange--that such a large and loud man could look so much like an infant. But "The child is the father to the man."
The newest delay in our court case was explained to me yesterday: The civil judge did not know what felony to charge, so he passed the case on to the criminal judge, who increased the felony charge to "extortion," which carries a mandatory prison sentence. Now we wait for the maize-grinding wheels of justice to slouch toward Bethlehem. And as good Christians, Kathleen suggested we visit Maria in prison, if we stay that long.
I did give up drinking for five years around age 40. In looking back I don't think my life was any better or worse, though my health was. And I was definitely less social during that time.
To give you an idea of how I've transitioned into old age, I was playing chess with a friend last night and we were comparing blood pressures with different machines. He's a 65-yr-old former dentist who claims his frequent use of herbal smoke keeps his pressure down; I told him he'd smoke it even if he didn't have a BP problem, but that he sure has a good excuse.
If I play chess and compare blood pressure with my friends, can shuffle board and feeding pigeons be far behind? Then diapers would be a convenience, as I wouldn't have to get up at night. When I stop drinking maybe I won't have to--at least for a while. And I, too, would someday like to terrorize shopping aisles with my souped-up electric wheelchair--my, those hot-rodding chairbound geezers are a public menace!
"Thoughts of a dry brain in a dry season,"
Thine if you'll have me,
CE
Saturday, December 03, 2005
Dog Days
Nothing is more boring than waiting around in interminable uncertainty. On Dec. 11 we will have been here four months, when we only came for a week. We now have the best-connected lawyers in town and the case is in a judge's hands, but there is some question of exactly what felony our maid is guilty of, since the stuff is at her house. I should think kidnapping sufficient, but it's Mexico, and here, more than the U.S., one's home is one's castle.
I stay busy answering psychiatric needs of various folks, finishing my book on Eliot, editing the last issue of The Melic Review, singing in the choir and attending church, and playing some music here and there. "Bloom where you're planted" as they say. Trouble is, we're not planted. I don't know if I'll be here next week! This discourages me from extroverted behavior, though I know I must strive harder for involvement than I have.
Kathleen has been much more isolated. We go out to eat, usually once a day, and she sees acquaintances at our usual haunts but as you know, she can't use the phone, and her friends say "call me" unthinkingly. She had several good friends here at one time, but things change, people get into their own shit--wait, everyone's always into their own shit except for exceptional humans--and so it goes, Billy Pilgrim. Kathleen reads close to a book a day. And she is helping me edit my long essay on Four Quartets.
As for humor, our son, who sleeps in our van, was especially frisky this morning. I correctly surmised he'd been physically serviced the night before after a long draught. Although he attends church with us for reasons unknown, he is not a Christian, therefore fornication is no sin for him. But given my experience with church youth, avoiding fornication has long been deserted as a standard anyway.
Hell, I was a virgin when I got married the first time, and that was my worst marriage. But we shouldn't judge standards by results. It does, however, bug me that the only deacon at our church parades around town with his younger Mexican boyfriend, as the entire Anglican Communion, except for New Hampshire, is opposed to such shenanigans among the sacerdotal ranks. Nevertheless, when he serves me communion I don't scream "FAG!" God uses him like everyone else. It isn't any antipathy on my part, just the feeling that without standards there would be no religion, as there would be no need for forgiveness.
This philosophical tendency in myself and my writing is likely the reason I was a virgin when I got married. In high school I used to bore my dates with discussions of Goethe and Nietzsche instead of telling them how lovely their eyes were. Then I was a pizza-faced geek in any case, but as they say, sometimes even a blind pig finds an acorn.
So here we are, "suspended between pole and tropic," awaiting the slow wheels of Mexican justice to free Kathleen's beloved service dog, Kenyon. We are bored out of our minds, truly. Our apartment abuts a main bus line that turns our lungs into diesel bags. The menu at the posada is so limited we've begun to eat cup of noodles for relief. We buy cheap brandy and mix it with apple soda at night and fade into TV Land; unfortunately, only rarely do we get English captions, which tries Kathleen to no end. Just yesterday I found out our host has a DVD player. But I'm too bored to go to Blockbuster. Maybe I'll get the energy up tomorrow. Who knows?
Meanwhile, keep those cards and e-mails coming to cechaffin@hotmail.com
Anything new is great. My sister sent a hilariouis link to an e-bay sale of leather pants. Maybe I can find the link.
What do I have for e-bay? Nothing; our former maid has it all. May she burn in hell like an Aztec sacrifice that was burned before having its living heart excised. Then she's so fat, they'll probably need a machete and a wheelbarrow.
As a good Christian I don't actually mean the above, but I do have feelings. "Prick me, do I not bleed?" Damn straight. (Wish the deacon was, too.)
Your ever faithful literary doctor,
C. E. Chaffin
I stay busy answering psychiatric needs of various folks, finishing my book on Eliot, editing the last issue of The Melic Review, singing in the choir and attending church, and playing some music here and there. "Bloom where you're planted" as they say. Trouble is, we're not planted. I don't know if I'll be here next week! This discourages me from extroverted behavior, though I know I must strive harder for involvement than I have.
Kathleen has been much more isolated. We go out to eat, usually once a day, and she sees acquaintances at our usual haunts but as you know, she can't use the phone, and her friends say "call me" unthinkingly. She had several good friends here at one time, but things change, people get into their own shit--wait, everyone's always into their own shit except for exceptional humans--and so it goes, Billy Pilgrim. Kathleen reads close to a book a day. And she is helping me edit my long essay on Four Quartets.
As for humor, our son, who sleeps in our van, was especially frisky this morning. I correctly surmised he'd been physically serviced the night before after a long draught. Although he attends church with us for reasons unknown, he is not a Christian, therefore fornication is no sin for him. But given my experience with church youth, avoiding fornication has long been deserted as a standard anyway.
Hell, I was a virgin when I got married the first time, and that was my worst marriage. But we shouldn't judge standards by results. It does, however, bug me that the only deacon at our church parades around town with his younger Mexican boyfriend, as the entire Anglican Communion, except for New Hampshire, is opposed to such shenanigans among the sacerdotal ranks. Nevertheless, when he serves me communion I don't scream "FAG!" God uses him like everyone else. It isn't any antipathy on my part, just the feeling that without standards there would be no religion, as there would be no need for forgiveness.
This philosophical tendency in myself and my writing is likely the reason I was a virgin when I got married. In high school I used to bore my dates with discussions of Goethe and Nietzsche instead of telling them how lovely their eyes were. Then I was a pizza-faced geek in any case, but as they say, sometimes even a blind pig finds an acorn.
So here we are, "suspended between pole and tropic," awaiting the slow wheels of Mexican justice to free Kathleen's beloved service dog, Kenyon. We are bored out of our minds, truly. Our apartment abuts a main bus line that turns our lungs into diesel bags. The menu at the posada is so limited we've begun to eat cup of noodles for relief. We buy cheap brandy and mix it with apple soda at night and fade into TV Land; unfortunately, only rarely do we get English captions, which tries Kathleen to no end. Just yesterday I found out our host has a DVD player. But I'm too bored to go to Blockbuster. Maybe I'll get the energy up tomorrow. Who knows?
Meanwhile, keep those cards and e-mails coming to cechaffin@hotmail.com
Anything new is great. My sister sent a hilariouis link to an e-bay sale of leather pants. Maybe I can find the link.
What do I have for e-bay? Nothing; our former maid has it all. May she burn in hell like an Aztec sacrifice that was burned before having its living heart excised. Then she's so fat, they'll probably need a machete and a wheelbarrow.
As a good Christian I don't actually mean the above, but I do have feelings. "Prick me, do I not bleed?" Damn straight. (Wish the deacon was, too.)
Your ever faithful literary doctor,
C. E. Chaffin
Friday, November 18, 2005
New Lawyers Bring Hope?
Hey, blogees. I fired our lawyer Wednesday and hired some lawyers with juice; one is the brother of the mayor, one has a grandfather on the supreme court and a nephew in congress. I don't know which of these politicos I'm supposed to pay but I think it's the nephew in congress since he controls funding to the local ministries.
Anyway, the mayor's brother marched me into the DA's office Wednesday, and as he had some goods on him, the man immediately called his subordinates to get our damn case to a judge. Then in Mexico one never knows if such things are theater to save face or actually happening. But it felt good!
On Wednesday Derek also had to make a statment about the supposed break-in; the public attroney and our attorney (before I fired her) both advised him to say nothing. You can take the 5th in Mexico, too. So the authorities badgered him for two hours and he stuck to his guns, God bless him. "My lawyer told me to say nothing," he kept saying, as they prodded him with questions, unable to believe that's exactly what he'd do.
Funnier was my forty-minute session with the chief adminstrator of the Ministerio Publico. I brought placards in Spanish declaring, "No justice for Americans in Mexico," and, "The government knows the name and address of our dog's kidnapper but hasn't done a thing!" into the entrance hall.
I sat there as all the bureaucrats passed and read the signs. The administrator was soon summoned, and summoned me upstairs, obviously flummoxed by my action. "It just isn't done," he said. "It's not our fault, we're just trying to help you." "We're just a small part of the process."
And I: "But you are part of the government, aren't you? And doesn't Mexico have free speech? Are you going to arrest me?"
"You don't understand--it's just not done here, it won't help."
"If it won't help how come I'm getting all this personal attention from your honor?"
"I'm trying to explain how it is."
"That I can't do it?"
"Not exactly, but there may be a federal law forbidding non-citizens from protesting publicly."
"Really? So the Federales are coming after me and my butt's going to rot in jail?"
"I didn't say that."
"You got kids?"
"Yes."
"If ten weeks passed after one were kidnapped and nothing was done, how would you feel?
"That's not the same! We're talking about a pet here!"
"No, were talking about a service dog, which Mexicans don't understand, as they treat their dogs like furry alarm clocks."
"What?"
"Guard dogs, underfed and full of worms. You do worm your kids, don't you?"
"Huh?"
"BTW, is the public lawyer here to talk with me as we arranged?"
"No, he had to leave on an emergency."
(Right: Mexico is full of emergencies.)
"Ok, why didn't you tell me instead of wasting forty minutes of my time. I'm a doctor, I'll send you my bill."
And with that I left the king of dead-end thinking confused, wondering why gringos are so crazy. I did something no one had done before and no one is likely to do again. But ah, the pleasure of it. How I enjoyed my Socratic ignorance. He could never wrap his brain around mine, poor concrete-thinking culturally rigid unimaginative Kafkaesque functionary!
All for today,
CE
Anyway, the mayor's brother marched me into the DA's office Wednesday, and as he had some goods on him, the man immediately called his subordinates to get our damn case to a judge. Then in Mexico one never knows if such things are theater to save face or actually happening. But it felt good!
On Wednesday Derek also had to make a statment about the supposed break-in; the public attroney and our attorney (before I fired her) both advised him to say nothing. You can take the 5th in Mexico, too. So the authorities badgered him for two hours and he stuck to his guns, God bless him. "My lawyer told me to say nothing," he kept saying, as they prodded him with questions, unable to believe that's exactly what he'd do.
Funnier was my forty-minute session with the chief adminstrator of the Ministerio Publico. I brought placards in Spanish declaring, "No justice for Americans in Mexico," and, "The government knows the name and address of our dog's kidnapper but hasn't done a thing!" into the entrance hall.
I sat there as all the bureaucrats passed and read the signs. The administrator was soon summoned, and summoned me upstairs, obviously flummoxed by my action. "It just isn't done," he said. "It's not our fault, we're just trying to help you." "We're just a small part of the process."
And I: "But you are part of the government, aren't you? And doesn't Mexico have free speech? Are you going to arrest me?"
"You don't understand--it's just not done here, it won't help."
"If it won't help how come I'm getting all this personal attention from your honor?"
"I'm trying to explain how it is."
"That I can't do it?"
"Not exactly, but there may be a federal law forbidding non-citizens from protesting publicly."
"Really? So the Federales are coming after me and my butt's going to rot in jail?"
"I didn't say that."
"You got kids?"
"Yes."
"If ten weeks passed after one were kidnapped and nothing was done, how would you feel?
"That's not the same! We're talking about a pet here!"
"No, were talking about a service dog, which Mexicans don't understand, as they treat their dogs like furry alarm clocks."
"What?"
"Guard dogs, underfed and full of worms. You do worm your kids, don't you?"
"Huh?"
"BTW, is the public lawyer here to talk with me as we arranged?"
"No, he had to leave on an emergency."
(Right: Mexico is full of emergencies.)
"Ok, why didn't you tell me instead of wasting forty minutes of my time. I'm a doctor, I'll send you my bill."
And with that I left the king of dead-end thinking confused, wondering why gringos are so crazy. I did something no one had done before and no one is likely to do again. But ah, the pleasure of it. How I enjoyed my Socratic ignorance. He could never wrap his brain around mine, poor concrete-thinking culturally rigid unimaginative Kafkaesque functionary!
All for today,
CE
Monday, November 14, 2005
Death by Lawyers
It's come to this: Kathleen has had recurrent bouts of depression over her hearing-ear dog being locked away less than half a block from where we're staying.
Last week while I was sleeping she underestimated her rum intake, went outside, roused Derek from our van where he sleeps, and together they tried to break in to the place-- only to have the evil son of our former maid slam the door on Derek's now blue fingernails.
Ouch!
Afterwards the police picked them up and impounded the van.
I woke with my wife, car, stepson and some money missing.
As this was not the first time Kathleen had... err... indulged in an adventure, I didn't panic, I just stayed home and waited. The police called near 2PM; I had them bailed out by 4.
They were more afraid of seeing my face than being in jail. ;-) I was briefly angry but could not stay angry long. I saw that the health of my family was more important than our dog, my manuscripts, or my folder of two hundred or so original songs. So we hope to transfer power of attorney to our friend Carlos and bail, and if I have to come back, I will, by plane or train or automobile-- some day.
Yet, as luck wouldn't have it, our attorney informed us that we cannot transfer power of attorney without obtaining a new FM 3, or resident visa, for which they charged us 4000 pesos to cancel (we were a month late) when we crossed the border. This will take more time, more fees, photos, paperwork-- the usual bureaucracy from Kafka Hell experience. But we shall endure.
Our case, by the way, after two months, is right back where it started, with the investigators. The prosecutors sent it back twice because some detail was missing or some form out of order. Mexicans love to have their paperwork right, then never look at it again, in my experience.
I'm up to 30,000 words in my essay on Eliot's Four Quartets, just two movements from the finish, and I'm becoming a bit peevish with him. Must be overexposure. When he tells us in "Little Gidding" that the self and its attachments both vanish and are forgotten, I ask: "Then why should I read the forgotten attachments of your vanished self, Mr. Eliot?" Grrr....
Anyway, though embarrassed, Kathleen and Derek are fine.
"Pray for us sinners at the hour of our death" (by the hands of Mexican lawyers).
Gotta sign off now and consult another lawyer.
--CE
Last week while I was sleeping she underestimated her rum intake, went outside, roused Derek from our van where he sleeps, and together they tried to break in to the place-- only to have the evil son of our former maid slam the door on Derek's now blue fingernails.
Ouch!
Afterwards the police picked them up and impounded the van.
I woke with my wife, car, stepson and some money missing.
As this was not the first time Kathleen had... err... indulged in an adventure, I didn't panic, I just stayed home and waited. The police called near 2PM; I had them bailed out by 4.
They were more afraid of seeing my face than being in jail. ;-) I was briefly angry but could not stay angry long. I saw that the health of my family was more important than our dog, my manuscripts, or my folder of two hundred or so original songs. So we hope to transfer power of attorney to our friend Carlos and bail, and if I have to come back, I will, by plane or train or automobile-- some day.
Yet, as luck wouldn't have it, our attorney informed us that we cannot transfer power of attorney without obtaining a new FM 3, or resident visa, for which they charged us 4000 pesos to cancel (we were a month late) when we crossed the border. This will take more time, more fees, photos, paperwork-- the usual bureaucracy from Kafka Hell experience. But we shall endure.
Our case, by the way, after two months, is right back where it started, with the investigators. The prosecutors sent it back twice because some detail was missing or some form out of order. Mexicans love to have their paperwork right, then never look at it again, in my experience.
I'm up to 30,000 words in my essay on Eliot's Four Quartets, just two movements from the finish, and I'm becoming a bit peevish with him. Must be overexposure. When he tells us in "Little Gidding" that the self and its attachments both vanish and are forgotten, I ask: "Then why should I read the forgotten attachments of your vanished self, Mr. Eliot?" Grrr....
Anyway, though embarrassed, Kathleen and Derek are fine.
"Pray for us sinners at the hour of our death" (by the hands of Mexican lawyers).
Gotta sign off now and consult another lawyer.
--CE
Tuesday, November 01, 2005
Why My Blog Is a Failure
Here in Mexico at the Bagel Cafe I found a copy of Time with a page of tips on how to have a successful blog. I have followed none of them.
First, you need a lot of links to other blogs and sites and topics to make the search engines.
Second, you need to stay on one topic.
So, a man goes into a blog and asks for some ink.
"We don't serve ink."
"How 'bout some paper?"
"Nope."
"All right, give me pixels on ice."
"We only serve pixels neat."
"Whatever."
This passes for humor? Not! I just made it up out of a bad pun. I apologize if you read it.
Who reads this crap, anyway? Gotta stay on one topic... hmmm.....
My one consistent topic is going be well-considered, factually researched and currently hot.
To pic from so many topics--ouch! Yet I have chosen one, the one you're dying to hear about.
My topic, thus, is you. My blog is entirely devoted to you.
How are you? What are your worries? Money, weight, relationships, illness? E-mail me your troubles or bravely post them here.
By the way, Dear Abby died and her daughter's doing the column. I'm so much better qualified! Not only am I a family doctor, I trained in psychiatry.
You can't afford my help. But soon I'll publish my PayPal account.
What's free advice worth, anyway?
Still, my topic is you and your health and happiness.
Ask me anything.
Why just yesterday a man complained to me that his wife thought she was a refrigerator.
I said, "So what?"
He said, "I wouldn't mind but when she sleeps with her mouth open the light keeps me up."
This passes for wit? Not! I stole the joke from some movie I can't remember.
I'm forgetting more and more these days as my hard drive is full and every new memory must replace an old one--like the etomology of aardvark (Dutch for earth pig). Why should this fact remain in my head when I've forgotten my niece and nephew's birthdays? (Sorry, Jack and Gilly)
This blog affords me the opportunity to stay on topic and talk about you.
You, hypocrite lecteur! Mon semblable, mon frere!
Thine,
CE, the Failed Blogger
p.s. There's a picture up of me now for the brave of heart.
First, you need a lot of links to other blogs and sites and topics to make the search engines.
Second, you need to stay on one topic.
So, a man goes into a blog and asks for some ink.
"We don't serve ink."
"How 'bout some paper?"
"Nope."
"All right, give me pixels on ice."
"We only serve pixels neat."
"Whatever."
This passes for humor? Not! I just made it up out of a bad pun. I apologize if you read it.
Who reads this crap, anyway? Gotta stay on one topic... hmmm.....
My one consistent topic is going be well-considered, factually researched and currently hot.
To pic from so many topics--ouch! Yet I have chosen one, the one you're dying to hear about.
My topic, thus, is you. My blog is entirely devoted to you.
How are you? What are your worries? Money, weight, relationships, illness? E-mail me your troubles or bravely post them here.
By the way, Dear Abby died and her daughter's doing the column. I'm so much better qualified! Not only am I a family doctor, I trained in psychiatry.
You can't afford my help. But soon I'll publish my PayPal account.
What's free advice worth, anyway?
Still, my topic is you and your health and happiness.
Ask me anything.
Why just yesterday a man complained to me that his wife thought she was a refrigerator.
I said, "So what?"
He said, "I wouldn't mind but when she sleeps with her mouth open the light keeps me up."
This passes for wit? Not! I stole the joke from some movie I can't remember.
I'm forgetting more and more these days as my hard drive is full and every new memory must replace an old one--like the etomology of aardvark (Dutch for earth pig). Why should this fact remain in my head when I've forgotten my niece and nephew's birthdays? (Sorry, Jack and Gilly)
This blog affords me the opportunity to stay on topic and talk about you.
You, hypocrite lecteur! Mon semblable, mon frere!
Thine,
CE, the Failed Blogger
p.s. There's a picture up of me now for the brave of heart.
Saturday, October 29, 2005
Daily Briefing
Would you trust a Chief of Staff named Scooter Libby? Sounds like a minor character from the Andy Griffith show. And his last name is the first name of my first wife, ecch!
To more serious matters, if I can seriously engage you in a serious discussion about seriousness, which should be taken seriously and by no means should be subjected to any superficial dismissals of its abiding importance, which I herewith most seriously aver, confirm, and opine.
To speak seriously is to speak from the mind and heart and balls, but as I am incapable of Matthew Arnold's "high seriousness" (which is why Milton and Wordsworth bore me), I shall likely remain a very minor poet with a very good sense of humor, however dark my humor may be--which may mean I should be taken seriously for my dark humor.
How dark is my humor? I find death exceedingly funny. Though a Christian I even mock God. Why? Because the Bible says, "Be not deceived, for God is not mocked." If God cannot be mocked I cannot mock him, therefore am committing no sin. My chief complaint of God is that he has much too much faith in us, as if he's gambling our fate on drawing to an inside straight.
My poor hypochondriacal daughter, Rachel, used to ask me when growing up what this or that bump or pain meant. As a doctor, and with a straight face, I would say: "I think it's cancer, dear." Afterward she'd yell at me. So I afflicted my very own spawn with my dark humor.
Seriously, while some rise by their gravity I seeme to sink by my levity. (I stole that line from a curate standing futilely under the miter-tree).
Now, if you'll just bear with me, I'll come up with some truly serious comments as a challenge to my basic flippancy.
On Iraq:
We cannot leave Iraq now or the future troops who die will be robbed of the honor of not dying in vain, like the heroic Halliburton chess pieces that have gone before. How could we deprive them of this honor? It's simply unpatriotic. We must stay the course in order that more may die to prove others did not die in vain, though I have not come up with a precise number yet--I leave that to the Pentagon. (I stole this basic idea from Doonesbury).
Nevertheless, I did write a serious poem about the Vietnam Memorial, which I'll paste in below to prove I can be serious to all serious doubters of my seriousness.
At the Vietnam War Memorial
Black granite stretches its harsh, tapering wings
up to pedestrian-level grass but sucks me
down, here, at the intersection of names.
I forgive, I must, though I wish something
could heal this gash in the earth.
Behold, all theorists, the price of theory:
extreme unction by napalm and blood,
buried whole or in pieces.
The VA grants prostheses
but not minds free of horror.
In jungles tumescent, through villages
of straw, by the Mekong where catfish
sleep in mud-heaven, we tramped,
disarmed mines and flushed tunnels,
shot women and children for potential collaboration,
smoked Thai-stick until stuporous
and still the sound of Charlie
played on every frond.
Beat against this polished rock, America,
this vast projective surface for your sins,
wear your heart out. It's not how many died
but that they died in vain, achieving
nothing except our grief for them.
It's said you cannot write a good poem
until recollected in tranquility.
Let this be a bad poem, bad as the war,
dividing author from reader and reader from page.
Let it drive a wedge between fathers and sons:
let fathers mistake rebellion for disloyalty,
let sons mistake honor for stupidity,
let senators mistake appropriation for commitment,
let mothers confuse waste with sacrifice,
let sisters turn to prostitution to forget,
Let teachers suicide in public in partial recompense,
let preachers castrate themselves for passive assent,
let everything in America that breathes
hang its head in irrefragable shame.
Here is the legacy of your assumptions,
here the necropolis of your dark-suited wisdom:
A city set in a pit cannot be hid..
(published in the Adirondack Review)
Now go have a drink and consider writing a letter to your congressman to get the hell out of Iraq and let the civil war begin until another strongman restores order.
Doesn't anybody at Foggy Bottom read history? I guess they're more interested in writing it.
Seriously Thine,
C. E. Chaffin
To more serious matters, if I can seriously engage you in a serious discussion about seriousness, which should be taken seriously and by no means should be subjected to any superficial dismissals of its abiding importance, which I herewith most seriously aver, confirm, and opine.
To speak seriously is to speak from the mind and heart and balls, but as I am incapable of Matthew Arnold's "high seriousness" (which is why Milton and Wordsworth bore me), I shall likely remain a very minor poet with a very good sense of humor, however dark my humor may be--which may mean I should be taken seriously for my dark humor.
How dark is my humor? I find death exceedingly funny. Though a Christian I even mock God. Why? Because the Bible says, "Be not deceived, for God is not mocked." If God cannot be mocked I cannot mock him, therefore am committing no sin. My chief complaint of God is that he has much too much faith in us, as if he's gambling our fate on drawing to an inside straight.
My poor hypochondriacal daughter, Rachel, used to ask me when growing up what this or that bump or pain meant. As a doctor, and with a straight face, I would say: "I think it's cancer, dear." Afterward she'd yell at me. So I afflicted my very own spawn with my dark humor.
Seriously, while some rise by their gravity I seeme to sink by my levity. (I stole that line from a curate standing futilely under the miter-tree).
Now, if you'll just bear with me, I'll come up with some truly serious comments as a challenge to my basic flippancy.
On Iraq:
We cannot leave Iraq now or the future troops who die will be robbed of the honor of not dying in vain, like the heroic Halliburton chess pieces that have gone before. How could we deprive them of this honor? It's simply unpatriotic. We must stay the course in order that more may die to prove others did not die in vain, though I have not come up with a precise number yet--I leave that to the Pentagon. (I stole this basic idea from Doonesbury).
Nevertheless, I did write a serious poem about the Vietnam Memorial, which I'll paste in below to prove I can be serious to all serious doubters of my seriousness.
At the Vietnam War Memorial
Black granite stretches its harsh, tapering wings
up to pedestrian-level grass but sucks me
down, here, at the intersection of names.
I forgive, I must, though I wish something
could heal this gash in the earth.
Behold, all theorists, the price of theory:
extreme unction by napalm and blood,
buried whole or in pieces.
The VA grants prostheses
but not minds free of horror.
In jungles tumescent, through villages
of straw, by the Mekong where catfish
sleep in mud-heaven, we tramped,
disarmed mines and flushed tunnels,
shot women and children for potential collaboration,
smoked Thai-stick until stuporous
and still the sound of Charlie
played on every frond.
Beat against this polished rock, America,
this vast projective surface for your sins,
wear your heart out. It's not how many died
but that they died in vain, achieving
nothing except our grief for them.
It's said you cannot write a good poem
until recollected in tranquility.
Let this be a bad poem, bad as the war,
dividing author from reader and reader from page.
Let it drive a wedge between fathers and sons:
let fathers mistake rebellion for disloyalty,
let sons mistake honor for stupidity,
let senators mistake appropriation for commitment,
let mothers confuse waste with sacrifice,
let sisters turn to prostitution to forget,
Let teachers suicide in public in partial recompense,
let preachers castrate themselves for passive assent,
let everything in America that breathes
hang its head in irrefragable shame.
Here is the legacy of your assumptions,
here the necropolis of your dark-suited wisdom:
A city set in a pit cannot be hid..
(published in the Adirondack Review)
Now go have a drink and consider writing a letter to your congressman to get the hell out of Iraq and let the civil war begin until another strongman restores order.
Doesn't anybody at Foggy Bottom read history? I guess they're more interested in writing it.
Seriously Thine,
C. E. Chaffin
Wednesday, October 26, 2005
Great Comments!
As you can see below, my blog generates many unselfish comments, witness the two appended to yesterday's note:
bigsat05 said...
"Magdalena Movie In Works Scott Mitchell Rosenberg, chairman of Platinum Studios, and Gale Anne Hurd, founder of Valhalla Motion Pictures, announced that they are developing Magdalena , a spiritually themed film based on a Top Cow ...
anon"
3:41 PM
accordion-5061B4 said...
"Great Blog! I also have a site about Nestle toll house chocolate chips. You can check it out at Nestle toll house chocolate chips. Also, as a thank you for visiting my site, I'd like to tell you about a great site that is giving away a FREE DVD Camcorder! Just click the following link and enter your Zipcode to see if the promotion is available in your area! FREE DVD Camcorder"
So, the commercial engines are already out there, hawking cookies and movies and camcorders on other folks' blogs, and human contact decreases--or should I say machine-human interaction increases?
Yes, I do have the option to limit comment on this blog by selecting a filter, but I won't. Comments by self-promoting software are better than silence.
And to think these programs care more to comment than my own friends and family!
Hey, I'm not proud, I'll take what I can get.
I mean, I didn't complain when I ordered a garlic bagel today and they brought me something else. I did cuss at a woman who cut in line at the U.S. Consulate, however, only to discover she didn't speak English. I assumed she did because she looked like a norteamericano. Afterwards she explained in Spanish and I apologized. But I think some English speakers in the neighborhood gained a new respect for me.
I am so bored. So, so bored. How bored? Look at what I've written. We are here in San Miguel against our will; our lawyer's number was busy today, as were our friends'; I did, however, receive a package from daughter #2 today which I have yet to open, my first birthday gift, I presume. Keturah is such a trooper, real Erickson blood. But if I open the package, what can I look forward to? Another Astros loss tonight?
Maybe I'll end this note with a stream-of-consciousness attempt:
Woe unto the disenfranchised sons of lost time dwelling in the dust of Guanajuato where the silverfish thrive and the eagles are brown, where the parasites are many and the clean water scarce, where sugar skulls are sold to honor the dead and promote Mexican dentists, of which there are too many, but this is hardly streamofconsciousness as I planned-- magnolia butter on a half shell shrimp barbacoated in delicious bacterial membrane lifted from the remains, remains of the day, day of the remains, Day of the Dead, we're all dead and dying, frying, trying to get inside our own heads, blank chambers without bullets, hot lead injection in the medulla oblongata, whatyougotta, Jake LaMotta, middleweights, featherweights, feathers of Quetzacoatl hanging from my unclipped nose, colorful nosehairs, the candy-colored clown they call the sandman.
There.
Thine,
CE
bigsat05 said...
"Magdalena Movie In Works Scott Mitchell Rosenberg, chairman of Platinum Studios, and Gale Anne Hurd, founder of Valhalla Motion Pictures, announced that they are developing Magdalena , a spiritually themed film based on a Top Cow ...
anon"
3:41 PM
accordion-5061B4 said...
"Great Blog! I also have a site about Nestle toll house chocolate chips. You can check it out at Nestle toll house chocolate chips. Also, as a thank you for visiting my site, I'd like to tell you about a great site that is giving away a FREE DVD Camcorder! Just click the following link and enter your Zipcode to see if the promotion is available in your area! FREE DVD Camcorder"
So, the commercial engines are already out there, hawking cookies and movies and camcorders on other folks' blogs, and human contact decreases--or should I say machine-human interaction increases?
Yes, I do have the option to limit comment on this blog by selecting a filter, but I won't. Comments by self-promoting software are better than silence.
And to think these programs care more to comment than my own friends and family!
Hey, I'm not proud, I'll take what I can get.
I mean, I didn't complain when I ordered a garlic bagel today and they brought me something else. I did cuss at a woman who cut in line at the U.S. Consulate, however, only to discover she didn't speak English. I assumed she did because she looked like a norteamericano. Afterwards she explained in Spanish and I apologized. But I think some English speakers in the neighborhood gained a new respect for me.
I am so bored. So, so bored. How bored? Look at what I've written. We are here in San Miguel against our will; our lawyer's number was busy today, as were our friends'; I did, however, receive a package from daughter #2 today which I have yet to open, my first birthday gift, I presume. Keturah is such a trooper, real Erickson blood. But if I open the package, what can I look forward to? Another Astros loss tonight?
Maybe I'll end this note with a stream-of-consciousness attempt:
Woe unto the disenfranchised sons of lost time dwelling in the dust of Guanajuato where the silverfish thrive and the eagles are brown, where the parasites are many and the clean water scarce, where sugar skulls are sold to honor the dead and promote Mexican dentists, of which there are too many, but this is hardly streamofconsciousness as I planned-- magnolia butter on a half shell shrimp barbacoated in delicious bacterial membrane lifted from the remains, remains of the day, day of the remains, Day of the Dead, we're all dead and dying, frying, trying to get inside our own heads, blank chambers without bullets, hot lead injection in the medulla oblongata, whatyougotta, Jake LaMotta, middleweights, featherweights, feathers of Quetzacoatl hanging from my unclipped nose, colorful nosehairs, the candy-colored clown they call the sandman.
There.
Thine,
CE
Tuesday, October 25, 2005
Late Night Movies
Hey blogees!
Last night I watched two movies: first, "Everyday Lives" (Robert Altman), which I'd never made it through before but really enjoyed. Kathleen even turned the light off to desert her latest novel and watch the Spanish captions because she liked it so much.
Unfortunately I had a depressive dream later, haunted by that horrible red-headed singer who featured so prominently in Altman's movie, though she would have been equally at home with David Lynch. Perhaps she reminded me of my first wife, who knows? But depressive dreams are no fun and are always a warning of the storm to come, and it scares me because my meds are already pretty much maximized.
Anyway, the horrible husky-voiced cigarette-smoking narcissist supposed jazz singer is all I remember now from the depressive dream. When it woke me in the night I took half a Zyprexa and watched TV until I fell asleep, and Lo and behold!-- I watched another movie with Roy Scheider and Olympia Dukakis I had never seen, one that reminded me very much of "Mosquito Coast," a movie that came highly recommended from my sibs (long ago) in view of the family illness.
In the movie a long absent father returns and turns his wife and family of adult children into a survivalist cult until they see through him. Interesting if not outstanding, only because it's another study in a crazy but well-meaning father.
We're getting close to the point of simply bailing here and giving a friend power of attorney to recoup our stuff, it's just the dog that's the sticking point, don't want to leave without him... may have to... and I don't want to return... may have to... can't hold out much longer.
Kathleen and I had margaritas and ceviche and shrimp cocktails for lunch at one of our favorite restaurants here, curiously named "El Viking." Must be for the seafood, though there are plenty of flies, as well as two hairless dogs who live on the roof, the very kind the Aztecs used to eat. Why we order seafood there.
All the retirees here are simply extreme. Beware of people who can do what they want, like the idle rich. They may try to make CDs or bar-hop only to find you and bore you, or focus on conspiracy theories, or make everyone call them "Colonel," or claim to be ex-wives of Greek shipping magnates, to name but a few types.
All for today (in a light vein, I hope).
And don't forget your flu shots!
Thine,
C. E. Chaffin
Last night I watched two movies: first, "Everyday Lives" (Robert Altman), which I'd never made it through before but really enjoyed. Kathleen even turned the light off to desert her latest novel and watch the Spanish captions because she liked it so much.
Unfortunately I had a depressive dream later, haunted by that horrible red-headed singer who featured so prominently in Altman's movie, though she would have been equally at home with David Lynch. Perhaps she reminded me of my first wife, who knows? But depressive dreams are no fun and are always a warning of the storm to come, and it scares me because my meds are already pretty much maximized.
Anyway, the horrible husky-voiced cigarette-smoking narcissist supposed jazz singer is all I remember now from the depressive dream. When it woke me in the night I took half a Zyprexa and watched TV until I fell asleep, and Lo and behold!-- I watched another movie with Roy Scheider and Olympia Dukakis I had never seen, one that reminded me very much of "Mosquito Coast," a movie that came highly recommended from my sibs (long ago) in view of the family illness.
In the movie a long absent father returns and turns his wife and family of adult children into a survivalist cult until they see through him. Interesting if not outstanding, only because it's another study in a crazy but well-meaning father.
We're getting close to the point of simply bailing here and giving a friend power of attorney to recoup our stuff, it's just the dog that's the sticking point, don't want to leave without him... may have to... and I don't want to return... may have to... can't hold out much longer.
Kathleen and I had margaritas and ceviche and shrimp cocktails for lunch at one of our favorite restaurants here, curiously named "El Viking." Must be for the seafood, though there are plenty of flies, as well as two hairless dogs who live on the roof, the very kind the Aztecs used to eat. Why we order seafood there.
All the retirees here are simply extreme. Beware of people who can do what they want, like the idle rich. They may try to make CDs or bar-hop only to find you and bore you, or focus on conspiracy theories, or make everyone call them "Colonel," or claim to be ex-wives of Greek shipping magnates, to name but a few types.
All for today (in a light vein, I hope).
And don't forget your flu shots!
Thine,
C. E. Chaffin
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