Posts in the “personal” category

“Awareness admits no obstructions. It can be boundless even when we are confined.”

~ A Tibetan monk in Bloomington, Indiana (Arjia Rinpoche)

“Make today the most important day of the year, because tomorrow is not guaranteed.”

~ a quote from John Altobelli, who lost three-fifth’s of his immediate family in one day

Hold me in your thoughts
Take me to your dreams
Touch me as I fall into view

When the winter comes
Keep the fires lit
And I’ll be right next to you

Shadows are fallin’ and I’m runnin’ out of breath
If I leave you it doesn’t mean I love you any less
Keep me in your heart for a while

~ Keep Me in Your Heart for a While, Warren Zevon (lyrics slightly rearranged)

When I went to Texas A&M University, we discovered a restaurant just down the road in Bryan, Texas, called the “Chicken Oil Company.” Once there, we discovered that they made something called a “Deathburger,” known in this photo as the, “Hamburguesa de Muerte.”

Back around 4:30am on January 13, 2014, I pulled into a rest area in Virginia after staying in Virginia Beach for a while (and experiencing a tornado warning there), and found this cat waiting for me.

It felt like we might have a tornado in Virginia Beach today, with that familiar and unusual low-pressure feeling. At one point it even looked like the ocean water was being pulled up into the sky.

~ January 11, 2014

As I walked into the Starbucks today here in Virginia Beach, an alarm went off on my phone saying there was a tornado warning. So I asked the three people working there, “Which is worse, a tornado warning or a watch? I can never remember which is which.”

So rather than google it, we talked about whether “watch” or “warning” implied more danger, then we talked about some other things while we watched stuff go flying down the street. Never did figure out which is worse, but eventually I got a coffee.

Later in the day as I was walking down a street I came across a gift shop that had been blown all over the place by the winds, and found this t-shirt amongst the ruins.

~ January 11, 2014

“One’s agony is assuaged to some extent even by speaking of it, but to whom shall I speak about it? For there is no one who will understand. The reality about the chord of love that binds you and me, dear, is known to my soul alone; and my soul ever abides with you. Know this to be the essence of my love.”

~ A god speaking about his love for a devotee in the Ramayana, as seen in the book, Miracle of Love

“Sometimes I think of Frank as the catcher in the rye, standing at the edge of the cliff, trying to save the world.”

~ Catherine talking about Frank, in Millennium

(Holden: “Anyway, I keep picturing all these little kids playing some game in this big field of rye and all. Thousands of little kids, and nobody’s around — nobody big, I mean — except me. And I’m standing on the edge of some crazy cliff. What I have to do, I have to catch everybody if they start to go over the cliff — I mean if they’re running and they don’t look where they’re going I have to come out from somewhere and catch them. That’s all I’d do all day. I’d just be the catcher in the rye and all. I know it’s crazy, but that’s the only thing I’d really like to be.”)

“I met a dolphin down there, and I swear to God that dolphin looked not at me, but into my soul, into my goddamn soul, and said, ‘I’m saving you Megan.’ Not with his mouth, but he said it — I’m assuming telepathically — we had a connection that I don’t even know if I can explain.”

~ from the movie Bridesmaids

These are some notes from the initial test of psilocybin (the chemical in magic mushrooms) on 200 people by Timothy Leary and Richard Alpert. I think I found this in a book by Ram Dass (nee Alpert). Note that you can get the same effects more safely from meditation.

I know your anger
I know your dreams
I’m everything you want to be
Like Mussolini and Kennedy
Like Joseph Stalin and Gandhi

Neon lights, a Nobel Prize
A mirror speaks, the reflection lies
I sell the things you need to be
I’m the smiling face on your t.v.
I tell you one and one makes three
I exploit you, still you love me

You gave me fortune
You gave me fame
You gave me power in your own god’s name
I’m every person you need to be
I’m the cult of personality

~ from The Cult of Personality, by Living Colour, 1988

For me, seeing the University of Louisville (UL) and Texas A&M play this afternoon — December 30, 2015 — must be how it feels to see two of your kids fighting. When I went to UL I lived in the basement of the house on the left, and when I went to A&M I lived in that brick and cinder block place on the right.

As George Costanza would say, “An Al divided cannot stand.”

A few weeks ago I started my morning with some hot chocolate. :)

December 23, 2019:

Nurse at the hospital, as part of a questionnaire: Do you feel suicidal?

Me: Well, I want to be careful with this because I don’t want you to get the wrong idea ... I don’t mind living ... and I don’t mind dying, but this in-between stuff where you’re constantly sick and can’t work or have any fun ... it is ... very frustrating.

Nurse: So ... [long pause] ... not yet?

Me: Yes, that’s fine.

“Is that a dagger or a crucifix I see you hold so tightly in your hand?”

~ Blood of Eden, Peter Gabriel

This is a photo of Zeus, a Siberian Husky we adopted back in the 1990s.

Our dog, Zeus, who had mange when we first “rescued” him.

(“Who rescued who” is an excellent question ... see alvinalexander.com/zeus for more information.)

In the “lucid dream holodeck” this morning, I was hanging out with a group of peeps when a tornado suddenly appeared. Everyone started running for cover, and I grabbed a dog and started running for a basement when I looked back at it and thought, “This isn’t a tornado, it’s just an insane amount of energy.”

Holding the dog under my right arm, I stood my ground. When I did this, the energy stopped moving like a tornado, and — skipping over the whole “Transformers” thing — it eventually took on a female human form.

Further skipping past our introductions ... I eventually suggested that she talk to some other people in the dreamspace, but she said no, I had less “hate-y bits” than the other people. (Language differences often make for interesting translations.)

A sidewalk, somewhere in Santa Fe, New Mexico.