Posts in the “personal” category

“Intelligence is something we are born with. Thinking is a skill that must be learned.”

~ Edward de Bono

Hey, waitress, pour me another cup of coffee,
Pop it down, jack me up, shoot me out, flyin’ down the highway,
Lookin’ for the mornin’ ...

~ Drivin’ My Life Away, Eddie Rabbitt

One thing about being named Alvin Alexander is that I’ve been called Al, Alvin, Alex, and Alexander by various people lately. I don’t mind any of them, but I laugh at Alex because I used that as a fake name when I traveled to Alaska in 2007 and 2010. (I was also known as Ken in Alaska.)

One thing about specifically being named Alvin is that when people are happy with me they call me Al, and when they’re unhappy they tend to yell, “Alvin!” I don’t know if that’s just a chipmunk thing or if everyone with a multi-syllable first name goes through it, but I’ve noticed that as well.

“We should think and feel over and over: ‘May the suffering that this being and many others are experiencing cease, along with its causes. I will do everything I can to free them from this pain.’”

That’s from this tweet by Tulku Thondup.

I have to be honest, I can’t feel this for my loud downstairs neighbor here at the Terracina apartments. The only nice thing I can currently pray for is for him to move. I’m trying to work on that, but when someone plays their music so loud that your floor vibrates and your kitchen range rattles, it’s hard to think about his suffering and pain. (Just being honest about how I feel today.)

I just started watching A Little Bit of Heaven, and of course the correct answer for Wish #3 is that you want to feel love.

I edited Chapter 6 of my new book whilst listening to Moon Baby by Godsmack. I’m not sure I can be held responsible for whatever ended up in that chapter. :)

A couple of things happened recently that make me feel like a piece of meat in the organ grinder of life. First, I was in talks with a publisher about publishing a book with them, and their contract began, “You grant to Us ... the exclusive right to ... sell and otherwise commercially exploit your Work.” I thought, “Well, I guess that’s what work is about, organizations exploiting your work for their commercial profit,” but their writing felt dirty and sleazy, like it was totally controlled by a scumbag lawyer or CEO.

Next, I live in the Terracina apartments in Broomfield, Colorado, and they were recently bought by a new company. With the old company everything here felt like a family, but when the new company bought the place they fired the previous staff, and with most of the new staff it feels like I’m just a number. When I walk in the office the reception feels like, “Number 232 ... you always complain that your kitchen range is vibrating because your downstair’s music is so loud, what do you want? We’re trying to make a lot of money here and you’re a troublemaker.” Twice the office manager has barely looked away from her computer monitor while talking to me.

Both situations remind me of the Bon Seger song, Feel Like a Number.

As seen in Santa Fe, New Mexico, in 2017.

“I just want something beautiful, Mo.”

“We all want something beautiful, Willie.”

This land today, shall draw its last breath
And take into its ancient depths
This frail reminder of its giant, dreaming self
While I, with human-hindered eyes
Unequal to the sweeping curve of life
Stand on this single print of time.

This land, today, my tears shall taste
And take into its dark embrace
This love, who in my beating heart endures
Assured, by every sun that burns
The dust to which this flesh shall return
It is the ancient, dreaming dust of God.

~ Human Wheels, John Mellencamp

When working from home, my preferred writing environment is to use a huge fixed-width font on a large monitor with a matte finish, and nothing else on the screen. I write my text using either Markdown or LaTeX, depending on what the output format is going to be. And Yoda and Meditating Guy make me feel a little less crazy when I’m talking to myself. ;)

“I was dreaming when I wrote this, forgive me if it goes astray.”

~ Prince Rogers Nelson

Her, romantically: I can feel you tremble when we touch.

Me: Oh, sorry, that’s just the mast cell disease.

(A conversation somewhat inspired by the Survivor song, I Can’t Hold Back.)

Just saw that Guns n’ Roses will be playing at the Louder Than Life festival in Louisville, Kentucky this fall.

I get to be radioactive again in a couple of weeks. I heard them say “gamma,” so I’m hoping this has to do with a childhood Christmas wish regarding The Incredible Hulk.

Lyrics from the Genesis song Undertow, which just came across my random playlist:

Better think awhile
Or I may never think again.
If this were the last day of your life, my friend,
Tell me, what do you think you would do then?

Stand up to the blow that fate has struck upon you,
Make the most of all you still have coming to you,
Lay down on the ground and let the tears run from you,
Crying to the grass and trees and heaven finally on your knees.

Let me live again, let life come find me wanting.
Spring must strike again, against the shield of winter.
Let me feel once more the arms of love surround me,
Telling me the dangers past, I need not fear the icy blast again.

One of my nieces got marries recently, and I created this “cartoonized” image from a wedding photo using Gimp. It probably took about ten steps in this case, but I had to significantly reduce the light coming in the large window behind them; pump up the color a lot; apply several “artistic” filters to it (Van Gogh and Oilify, several times each); and then kept applying different levels of the “cartoon” effect. I didn’t really want a cartoon image, but I couldn’t get the Oilify image to look the way I wanted in the time allotted, so I applied the Cartoon filter, and I was happier with it.

This is a note that I originally posted here in 2014:

I learned yesterday that my endocrinologist wants me to take a dose of radioactive iodine in about two weeks as a followup treatment for the total thyroidectomy surgery I had two weeks ago. I did some research before and after my meeting with her, and was surprised/amazed to read things like this.

“The limits of what we know, that’s something you can get lost in.”

~ from the tv series Limitless

Today’s song of the day is When You’re Gone, by the Cranberries.