Aim High in Steering

That, unfortunately, was one of the few tokens of wisdom I took away from Driver's Ed, circa 1991. The goal was to use a catchy little phrase to remind tender 16 year olds to look far in the distance while driving, as opposed to playing Crouching-Tiger-Hidden-Dragon with the steering wheel. Assuming it was just an obligatory lesson, I'm sure it was dismissed as such by most of us; it's retention about as permanant as a Garfield press-on tattoo from the State Fair. Yet I can still remember the grainy, late 1960s-produced film, and the fuzzy Times New Roman font bearing the words across the screen, and the voiceover audio of a man who still looks like Walter Cronkite in my head. But for some reason, the very phrase that meant little more to me than yarn at the time, took on a much deeper, more resiliant form today.

As I was careening around a curve I've navigated thousands of times, I felt my anti-lock brakes spring into action and remind me to slow the fuck down. There was a 2-inch-thick layer of ice caking the pavement, and though I knew every dip, every pothole, every chink in the ice floor to scrutinize in order to save my chasis, I diverted my gaze to ground much further away and around the curve, in anticipation of someone else driving just as wrecklessly towards me. "Aim High in Steering" rushed to the front of my memory's stage...and an epiphany fell on my anxious mind: this ridiculous phrase also rang true in life.

Now I'm no radical philosopher, but try to follow me here. When "aiming high" in steering, you're not staring at the road 3 inches in front of your vehicle as you travel. It would greatly hinder your ability to anticipate, or appreciate for that matter, the scenery approaching and/or surrounding. Whether it be a lovely park or perfectly-timed convenience store or a weary driver drifting into the on-coming lane, chances are you'd miss it all completely, and would have nothing but redundant gravel, a full bladder, or bits of glass and teeth to pick up from an area much larger than the initial 3 inches, respectively.

But in aiming high, you not only catch the aforementioned 3 inches in your peripheral vision, but you also gain great perspective on the world around you, both familiar and unexpected. That beautiful pink and orange hued sunset, kissing the horizon with it's cottony lips? Saw it. That group of deer bounding across the center median? Averted. That incredible high moon you followed for miles? Like you could almost touch each and every delicate crater. Sure, you didn't hone in on the dip in the road you knew was coming...you've travelled that path hundreds of times. You rolled over it's mediocrity and ignored it's repetition, and fully appreciated the new landscape sprawling across the vast road in front of you. Go a little further than you had initially...Hey, you may just see a stranger on the side of the road that needs a little help that you could provide, and watch as those Hidden-Dragon drivers are going to blaze right past. And while today you weren't necessarily planning on much personal interaction, there was the oppotunity to help, to meet, to interact, and you took it. That one person in distress, innocently waiting for a kind sole to hap apon them, could be the most important person that ever graced your presence. And you would've missed it had you not been....Aiming High in Steering.

Funny....a menial little phrase from Driver's Ed just catapulted me into preemptive nostalgia! All I know is, taking the same road so many times and knowing all the dips and potholes and ice pockets gets you to the same place....but one flip in the script and you may very well find yourself staring down the barrell of the most amazing experience you would have never seen coming had you focus on the old observatory routine.

Next lesson: The I.P.D.E. Method....stay tuned.

You know the saying....

Since all other avenues have been explored, and all other possible excuses have been exhausted, the only explanation remaining - though not entirely plausible - is the repetition of past lives. As cosmicly crazy as it sounds, it has to be. Somewhere in history, a great injustice was committed, and I must be charged with "righting" the "wrong". On some distant plane, someone must have really fucked up, and for some damn reason, I'm the one responsible for picking up all the pieces, making some sense out of them (even though none of them fit together properly), and assembling them into some kind of presentable masterpiece. As we learned when Bobby played ball in the house, you can glue a shattered vase back together without anyone noticing...but fill it with water, and it's gonna spring a leak. And to top it off, Mom's gonna be pissed.

Being the bigger person doesn't FEEL bigger. It feels awful. Where it should feel empowering, in actuality, it feels like defeat. Where the cream should rise to the top, it instead turns to useless sediment, slowly drifting to the bottom and collecting in a pile of stagnant debris. The dark horse should wear the silver-lined blanket...but instead he's got a shotgun to his head because of a hangnail. Imperfections are rarely rewarded, but since when is stepping up to the plate an imperfection? They never told Babe Ruth, "Hey...714 isn't bad. But you're kinda chubby, so really, it's a wash. Try soccer."

It's not easy to be kind to those who haven't been kind to me. I also assume hitting 714 career homers wasn't real easy either. Some people just have a knack for certain things, I guess. Personally, I'd take 713 dingers if it meant no one would call me fat.

If you love someone, its quite possible they're not going to love you back. It's also entirely possible they don't even deserve your adoration, for whatever reason. Love them anyway. I suppose there's always a tube of waterproof glue somewhere, or a beautiful pitch with a sweet spot and your name on it.

This, too, shall pass....

I can remember being about sixteen years old, sitting on the living room couch - the one no one ever sat in because it was in the "living room", rather than the "family room" - and crying rivers over some boy who had broken my heart. Although scientists say one cannot physically recall pain, making it impossible for child-bearing mothers to recant the actual pain of childbirth, I can almost certainly remember that same gnawing feeling of pain, deep in the center of my chest. My mother came to me, and sat with me, and stroked my tear-soaked hair, telling me it would "all work out in the end, it always does". I can also most certainly remember the terrible feeling of not believing her.

As I sobbed, I remember saying, "I thought this kind of thing would get easier as you got older..." and she quietly chuckled to herself. Composed, she then whispered, "No...no it doesn't get easier. As a matter of fact it probably gets more difficult, because as you grow, you start to love even deeper, and the deeper you love, the more deeply it hurts." I'm quite certain I wasn't able to see the irony of her words at the time, and probably didn't possess the capability of understanding that she, too, had loved deeply, and therefore had felt "hurt" just as deeply.

It's amazing how certain smells, songs, phrases, TV shows, or even trinkets laying on a coffee table have the ability to bring some of that pain right back. No matter how many safeguards you take, no matter how many times you shut off the radio, change the channel, or stash away those physical memories, dammit there's always something that makes it's way back in to remind you of exactly what you were running from. Years can go by, and just hearing the name of that boy who first broke my heart can still somehow manufacture that that deep, gaping, empty chasm in my chest...even more so now that it has a head-start with the current situation.

Someone else told me once that "God answers every prayer...but sometimes his answer is 'No'." Whether you (or I) believe in a conventional, organized religion's God, or some other higher power to whom you deliver the inevitable "Please God, let _____ happen" message to, I guess the inevitable disappointment remains. Invariably, when we do make the call, we are usually asking to be "granted" something: "Please let him/her call." "Please let me get this job." "Please let them be okay." Whatever the case is, it's almost always something we are whole-heartedly hoping to get a positive "Yes" answer from...we always want to "get" something. That's why we "ask", right? A strange paradox...how often do we ask for something to be taken away?

Today the rain pours down in almost perfectly symmetrical vertical lines, as though it was created by some cosmic Hollywood rain machine miles and miles above the earth, developed specifically for poignant, deliberate, dramatic film. Irony abounds, as in recent "better days", the sun has brilliantly shined, almost annoyingly. And each pounding drop hammers another dent into the hole that is quickly becoming the chasm to which my mother spoke of; the one that would inevitably return, and with greater depth.

Professor Cock n Balls

I am so mildly inspired to write about the obscenely strange combination of surroundings around me right now, that I simply must try to explain in order to distract myself from the misery that has permeated my brain for the past 17 hours.

Here I am, 5:02pm on a Saturday evening, sitting in a coffee house in Albany with a giant - I mean GIANT - cup of chai latte to my right, my ipod to my left, playing "White Horse" by P.Funk in my earbuds at an ear-bleeding volume...if only because I need to drown out the mock-intellectual types that are apparently having their monthly "We're Better Than Everyone Because We Talk About Behaviorism in Canines" meeting, and of course, they require making all their points at an equally as ear-bleeding volume....

"If you wanna be rich, you got to be a bitch...."

How apropos....and I only use that asshole word because I've heard it forty five thousand times from these douche bags, with their asshole haircuts and cheap shoes and embroidered Mac laptop bags....drinking their sweetened foamy steaming half-caff soy skinny latte fuck drinks....speaking with faux European accents...I shit you not, one of them even has their dog with them. And honestly, the dog, in all it's silence, has had the most interesting things to say of the bunch...

I am almost laughing out loud right now, as the most intriguing thing about all this is that I, myself, am sitting in this coffee sanctuary (I must add here that this is an independant and pretty hip, happenin' coffee joint....there's no corporate conglomerate smattering of green circles with white outlines of Grecian women drinking coffee...I won't name the chain since one day I might be published and fear lawsuits...but you know exactly what I'm talking about, and any self-respecting coffee drinker, freelance writer, literary glitterati, music lover, food eater, or oxygen breather shouldn't ever set foot in one of said chains ever....I digress), using my laptop (NOT a Mac...), listening to my iPod (yes, THAT'S a Mac), drinking a giant - I mean GIANT - cup of chai latte. And although they ARE fabulous, my shoes ARE also cheap...but now - and this is the laughable part - "Don't Cha" by the Pussy Cat Dolls is blaring in my ears, and I'm watching these mindless chatterfucks STILL talking about garbagey garbage.

Their body language is hysterical to me: they're all leaned deeply into the table, chins resting on palms in between mind-alterning statements, using words like "notify" and "juxtapostion" and "glitterati"...the middle-aged trashy women sub-consciously covering up their 25 year old mistake manifested in the form of a wrist tattoo that says "Born to Ride" in light blue ink...the obnoxious, slightly overweight and latently perverted men nervously shifting their weight in their chairs in order to impose some sort of uncomfortable feeling that will deflate their inadvertant hard-on...

And fortunately for me, what is now floating into my brain via the Mini Macintosh Music Miracle is Tom Petty's "Into the Great Wide Open"...which is bringing me back to ground zero, reminding me that even though I may share similar physcial surroundings with this group of total fucking idiots (computer, GIANT frothy drink, faux intelligence), I know I'll never be them, and they'll never be me, and for that I am truly thankful.

Pathetic: the 100% purebread SOMETHING keeps wandering over to my table and looking up at me with saddened eyes as if to say "I can't take their mindless jibberish anymore...would you PLEASE just throw a stick or something for me? I mean a real STICK, one made of WOOD. Not something this bitch picked up at Pier One because its tag claimed it was fashioned out of some rare South African plastic by a Cambodian war criminal and whose purchase resulted in a 10% donation to the World Children's Coffee Association...just a god damn STICK. I'm a DOG for Christ's sake...get me OUT of here!"

Ahh...."Wish You Were Here"...we've come full circle, back to Pink Floyd, as before I opened my laptop, "Mother" was the inspiration behind the post. Why? Not sure, but it was. Something about Roger's lyrics, David's strumming, and Syd's ghost....

I will end here, as I need to pack up, return to the misery plaguing my mind, and of course, take my dog for a walk....OUTSIDE.

Please Don't Step on Caterpillars

Yes, I fully realize that the last, oh, I dunno, 5 or 6 posts, have had something to do with insects, and how profound their appearances have been to me. And yes, this is another one. Deal with it.

I was on my daily Forrest Gump-style run yesterday, enjoying the early-summer evening’s mild breeze, the late sun beating down on my sweat-soaked neck, and as usual, taking in all the sights, sounds, and smells around me. They’ve kind of become story-generating adventures for me, my runs…Maybe its something about the clarity that comes to you when you’re starting your second mile, when you can no longer feel your legs, you have no regard for the snot dripping down your upper lip, and pushing oxygen through your lungs feels like trying to shove hotdog meat through a swizzle stick.

The area that I live in (and run around) is surrounded by patches of wooded areas and dense thickets of cattails and tall grass…of course a natural habitat for hanging inch worms, milkweed pods, and caterpillars. The latter of the list is really what got me thinking, as their abundance was almost sci-fi in nature. As I came around mile 1.75 and up towards the area where the parking lots meet the woods, I noticed a tremendous amount of rather large monarch caterpillars, making their pilgrimage across the lot to what must be some sort of caterpillar Mecca.

Now I’m no botanist, or bug-guru, but I know these particular caterpillars are indeed those of the monarch species. When I was in grade school, and when walking three miles home from school by yourself was still relatively safe, there was a patch of milkweed pods just before the Cochran’s house (this was a landmark to anyone who attended G.A. Persell Elementary…). We had learned in school not only what the caterpillars looked like, but that monarch caterpillars thrive on milkweed, and coincidentally (or perhaps not), there was a pretty good population of the beautiful orange and black butterflies by mid-summer. I can still remember the wonder and amazement and total tranquility I would feel when the first cocoons had opened, and the air was filled with flying color. The daytime sky became a field of dreams to these beautiful marvels, and when they slept, the “lightening bugs” took their place as shooting stars against a midnight-blue canvas.

(As usual, I digress….sometimes I get a little caught up in these childhood remembrances….)

At any rate, I was trying to maintain my cadence, my rhythm, if you will, of a steady-paced run. (Runners call this “finding their spot”, but since I’m a novice, I’ll just call it my rhythm.) When you’re running for mileage, you really do need to find this “spot”, because once you break the rhythm, you can really fuck up a good run and slow down or shorten your strides. So this focus has become somewhat important to me.

But as I glanced down at my shiny New Balances, I realized I was coming inches, nay, millimeters, from trampling these tiny, hairy pre-miracles that were the monarch caterpillars. I mean, there were HUNDREDS of them, everywhere I looked. I jumped to one side (again, still maintaining my rhythm), only to have to dodge immediately to the other side…they were out in masses. It was like the Million-Monarch-March in Latham.

If you’ve been following along with my posts, you know that lately I have had many issues – perhaps spiritual, perhaps irrational – with killing anything, specifically insects, without some great justification. The thought of me selfishly pounding away on the blacktop and smashing what will ultimately become one of the most beautiful and unappreciated pieces of natural art just killed me. And at this point, I was wholly engaged in caterpillar defensive guerilla warfare. What started out being a leisurely run in the tepid twighlight had now become an obstacle course of great magnitude, and caused me to move as though I was a trained soldier, running through a field laced with 2-inch landmines spread about 5 inches apart.

Nimble as a rabbit, cagey like a panther, I managed to dig deep and re-strategize my formerly straight course. I zigzagged through the lot, scaling puddles (that appeared to be the caterpillar’s bathhouses), leaping over speed bumps, and probably looking like a cracked out hooker in Nike clothing. Sweat caused my mascara to run down my face, and my hair had turned into a soaked mop of flatworms, but I pressed on, leaping from side to side. Why all this over some goddamn caterpillars?

Because – and this may not be very profound or revolutionary – these creatures, in their fuzzy, spotted simplicity, represent CHANGE. Beautiful, evolutionary change. I needed to protect them, and protect the beautiful change that, I hoped, was symbolic to my near future, and me. CHANGE.

As I’ve alluded to in previous posts, I do fully believe that things that you take particular notice of – whether it be an insect, a street sign, a song on the radio, an ad in the paper – are “sent” to you for a particular reason. The reason may not be clear at the time, but rest assured, there IS a reason, if you’re acknowledging it.

I’ve had a tough couple of weeks, and I’m needing some beautiful change. The kind of change that comes from the story of the Ugly Duckling, the kind of change that comes from a monarch caterpillar. In prehistoric times (or whenever it was that monarch caterpillars made their appearance), I’m pretty sure no one would have ever thought that an “animal” so simple, covered in dots and hair and slithering on footpaths and tree-limbs, could have much of a purpose, or a future in beauty. Other than being bird food and what some would call a nuisance, I’m sure there was never a speculation that this creepy-crawly had the potential to wrap itself in silk, hibernate for a handful of days, and emerge as one of the most beautiful sights, in my eyes, known to man. Something that may cause some people fear, anxiety, maybe even disgust, could actually morph itself into a stunning piece of artwork, able to delicately float on the wind and bring joy to children on their way home from school.

So, if you can, please, don’t step on a caterpillar. It could be you. It could be me. It could be just what we need. Change. Beautiful change.

You

Just some poetry for today, folks....maybe more later....

He saw her hand reaching out of the water, just as her head was about to go under.
He pointed and stared, mesmerized by the horrible beauty.
He laughed when she said she liked the feeling of the caterpillar’s soft coat.
Told her she was a child, though not with words.
He had no regard her desire for life, her willingness to survive.
Discarded like yesterday’s trash, moldy with guilt and fear.
He ignored the subtleties of what was to be, amused by the irony,
Un-tempted by fate.
He blamed his happiness on her,
And she was punished for his pain.
He tortured her soul with incorrigible dignity,
And watched in pleasure as she pulled the sticky cobwebs from her hair.
Spindly fingers, twisted and struggled.
She believed in him, and in his belief in her.
But it was just a paper bag.
She blindly cloaked herself in his sincerity,
Becoming the standing joke of the year.
She bathed in his lavish scent, primal and deep.
”How nice things smell before they burn…”
He left her tattered and worn, and handed her a broom.
She picked up the pieces of his misery, and carried them next to her heart.

Chateaubriand vs. Hamburger

Yesterday’s reference, “Instinct attracts us, but intellect bonds us”, sat on my mind like a fat Buddha for most of the day. There are many interpretations available for this one, and my brain ingested, digested, and engaged in reverse peristalsis several times before I put it to rest…quite happily, I might add. Another Sagittarian quest to seek truth, analyze, and decide…completed.

I stumbled across another quote that I found rather remarkable…but “remarkable” in the sense that it, to me, is remark-worthy. But since remark-worthy isn’t really a term, “remarkable” is what I came up with….anyways….

“You can choose hamburger or Chateaubriand. Either way, you get a piece of meat.”

This one, like yesterday’s, rings in my ears like a death knell. Again, it is wide open to interpretation, and application to just about any facet of your particular current situation. Breaking it down in my personal elucidation, I find it eerily provocative, like the moth’s obsession with white-hot light, as it is drawn to its beauty that will inevitably lead to certain death.

Culinarily speaking, sure, I’ve always preferred the Chateaubriand route…it’s a hell of a piece of meat. Even if the chips are down and I can’t particularly afford such a luxury, it’s not necessarily just about the taste at that point, but rather it’s about the quality of said product, and the pure blissful enjoyment I have come to expect from such a succulent delicacy. Maybe it’s what I feel I deserve, for being a.) a non-professional yet passionate culinary student, b.) raised to appreciate, not expect, the finer things in life, and c.) like Heather Locklear in Clairol commercials, hey, I’m worth it.

This is not to say I don’t enjoy a tasty burger here in there. Even from Big Kahuna Burger, at 9:30am. (PLEASE get that reference….) Its tasty, it’s beefy, it’s a burger. What’s not to like?

So what’s the main difference? Quality? Enjoyment factor? Appreciation? Condiments?

To me, a delicately and masterfully cut piece of Chateaubriand is simplistic, yet rustic. Elegant, yet classic. Cared for, and matured. Delicious, but not pretentious. I guess my preference comes from the very basic nature of it…no gray area, no question…just pure, real, unadulterated beef.

Whereas the burger, well we all know there’s not much of a standard of quality for the meat grinder…Lips, hips, and assholes can pretty much make their way in. Scraps, fat, cheap cuts, whatever’s left over and questionable can make it in the ol’ food mill. Not much truth behind a smattering of drippings left on the cutting board, now is there?

This is also not to say that Chateaubriand is the only way to go. It is simply saying that if you are searching for real, unequivocal, no nonsense, quality-aged meat, it’s a safe bet you’re going to get what you paid for.
However, if you’re satisfied with the status quo, although questionable and unreliable, it’s probably still going to taste okay. And again, you get what you pay for. You may have better odds of contracting diphtheria, e-coli, encephalitis, or gangrene, but none-the-less, it’s going to serve its purpose for the three to four minutes it takes to inhale.

The great thing about it is…red wine goes well with both. It’s just easier to tolerate the burger when you’re drunk.

In the end, you’re still gonna get a piece of meat. Depends on what you’re looking for.

So from one Grade A USDA Choice Kobe filet to another, “Sante”.