Grapefruit 3-30 What were the words?

oo- Now what?
~ Nothing.
oo- okay.
~   ...
oo- hmm, hm, hmmm, what was that song you were trying to remember?
~ Could you give it a rest for a second?
oo- O00oo. Okay.   ...   'K with a echo echo echo...
~ Cut it out.
oo- I'm in a good mood today and you're not. How is that possible?
~ I've got a lot to think about.
oo- I'm the thinking portion here, when you try to do it we get stuck.
~ [sigh}
oo- That's better. Take a nice deep breath.
~ I wasn't breathing, I was sighing.
oo-  See, you are affected by the barometric pressure whereas I get whacked by your dreams.
~ Did I dream last night?
oo- You dream every night. Whatever it looks and sounds like, it's mostly me stacking up fallen boxes.
~ I like that image.
oo- Thank you, you and I just made it up.
~ It's time to go, isn't it.
oo- Ready, steady....
~ I was trying to remember what the words were to 12 Days of Peacetime.
oo- Too late....your day is filling up the aisles.

Grapefruit 3.28 We are not who we used to be a minute ago.

O- Everything's changed.
~ Shocking!
O- I'm trying to get a grasp, a handle, a perspective on where you are.
~  I'm no help. I'm not who I was a minute ago.
O- But you're not completely different, are you?
~ Yeah. Yup. For sure.
O- Now, stop that.
~ Just trying to let you know that you, my dear sweet unconscious inner being, will always be a step behind.
O- That's what you think.
~ What? neener, neener??  that's all you've got?
O- There's more in here than you know and there's more knowledge and substance than you remember.
~ A sobering thought.
O- And one of the few today that you will have which is absolutely true.
~ 'tis time to go on then.
O- I know a little less and a little more than I did a minute before this.
~  Is that another of those songs you know or used to know or is that one of the ones you just spring on me.
O-  Happy Spring, bubala, Happy Spring.

Grapefruit diaries 3-28

Conversations with myself (~) and my mind (oo) while preparing breakfast

oo- The last two slices of bread are three times thinner than the first two slices.

~ What's that supposed to be? An old Irish saying?

oo- Nah. Just something I've noticed. The last stick of butter last ten times longer than the first stick.

~ You're saying all this because we ran out of milk yesterday.

oo- No, I'm trying to make a point. You almost threw out the rest of the soup on Friday. You didn't. So today we have soup.

~ That sounds Russian somehow.

oo- I don't think you are listening.

~ I know what you are saying. Cue Joni "You don't know what you've got 'til it's gone."

oo- Not really. It's different than that.

~ How?

oo- Well, to put it bluntly. I know what we've got, but I can't get you to pay attention.

~ You see? That would be difficult to put into a song.

oo- Okay. So, today I'm the serious one and you're the flibbertigibbet.

~ I'll bet you ten miles that Spellcheck hasn't a clue what that word is.

oo- Not going to change anything until you begin to pay attention, to be aware.

~ I'll bet that word hasn't been used by anyone in ---

oo - How are you enjoying your black coffee?

~ It's fine. It's the way I'm supposed to be drinking it, right?

oo - I see you saved one slice of bread for lunch too.

~ I don't think I see this side of you enough.

oo- Oh, yes. Definitely my fault. Definitely. (sigh)

~ Ok.OK. I've got it. More awareness on my part, sharing with you, letting you know how it is out here in reality.

oo- That'll be fun. Joyful.

~ Less Irish, that's for sure.

Grapefruit/ Dis-corded

~For crying out loud.
0- Now what?
~ We are victims of technology not beneficiaries!
0- er, you want to put that into plainer English?
~ My Blackberry's battery is dead.
0- Oh. Yes, that's much clearer.
~ You know what I'm talking about.
0- I know the black thing isn't working. You want me to figure out why?
~ No. I can figure out why. I want you to think about the larger picture.
0- The wha?
~ I should wait until you've shaken off your night of sleep.
0- Actually, I'm at my best right now, I'm just messing with you. ☺
~ Well, this is serious. All of us in this modern world would be helpless without all of our gizmos.
0- I'm aware of that. It's why I constantly send out warnings to you about being so connected.
~ Connected. More like hogtied.
0- Voluntarily, I might point out.
~ I don't think this is helpful. I want you to think about what would be a better time to be human.
0- Really. Reallllly? You don't mean that.  You mean how can you live your life better and less connected?
~ Yeah. Yeah. I've got to go figure out if it's the cord or the USB port or both or is this the device and if it ..
0- take a deep breath. and hold it.
~ I can't... an hour's gone by.
0- shh. take a deep breath...
~ I'll give you fifteen minutes.
0- ☺☺☺♥

Grapefruit 3-26

0- I forget. Am I the mind or are you?
~  um. How can you forget?
0- Um is not an answer.
~  Boy.  Can I ask why we are up so early?
0- This isn't early. If you were working, this would be late. It's almost six.
~  Just because you can't find your way back into sleeping is no reason... .
0- Oh, I just remembered. I'm not the reasonable one. I'm the mind.
~  What are you talking about? The mind is where all the reasoning is done.
0- Just a myth, my friend. You, the conscious one, are the only one of us who knows what is.
~ But, I thought.
0-  That's right. You do the thinking, I'm in here with all of your emotional baggage and garbage.
~ Don't do that.
0- What?
~ Use interesting words. Like now I want to know what the suffix -age is all about and if there are any other words using it.
0- You mean like roughage and entourage?
~  Are they related?
0- Only that they are probably French in origin.
~  I like you.
0- I like you.
~ So, do you want to know what are my thoughts about today?
0- Sure. Hey. Is it raining like they said it would?

Baby Bird in Hand

One of my best running tips is never found in the conventional coaching books.
Here it is: have the left lens of your glasses fall out about two minutes after the start.

Having your lens fall out might not really help you, but it helped me. If your glasses fall apart, you'll be forced to run the rest of the race with your glasses clutched gently in one of your hands. If you hold too tightly the frame might get bent in some way, holding them too loosely will bring on the disaster of trying to find the dropped lens in amongst twenty or so thousand moving running shoes. (Talk about impossible; in this Sunday morning's race I saw a plastic sandwich bag in the middle of the roadway just before the startline. In it, clearly visible, was a ten dollar bill.  About 100 people ran by it in the three or four seconds I was watching. I'm sure someone braved the on rushing crowd, but not me.)

This wasn't the first time I had to run with my glasses in my hand. The lens popped out on the beach in Florida once. It's subject to humidity and temperature it seems. It took forever to find it amongst the sea shells. A couple of times, it just seemed easier to see in a snowstorm without the glasses than with, sometimes I was bothered by the sweat in my eyes and I just took them off and in the 18 mile marathon warm-up last year, the weather was a softly blowing rain, not enough to soak you through but enough to fog my lens like a coating of Vaseline.

So, you carry your glasses as if they were a baby bird and because of that, because you can't hurtle along with clenched fists and half closed eyes, puffing like a toad and pounding your feet while zigging and zagging through the crowds of runners, you relax into the running. You can't do anything else. Holding a baby bird has this odd effect.   All you can do, baby bird in hand, is keep your pace steady and your breathing clear. This does not happen all at once, but it does seem to happen without you trying to do it. Your arm swing evens out and you start to place your feet upon the pavement. Place, not plop, or plunk or thwack, you -place -each -foot  where it needs to go.

You are able to take notice of the things happening around you, see the faces of the families and friends who will stand by the roadside for two hours to see the six second vision of their friend, their spouse, their sister, their sons and daughters running by, you hear a guy bemoaning the early defeat of Kansas in the NCAA tourney,  listen in as you pass the seven mile mark to a mom talking via her cellphone on a speakerphone to all her kids at home eating breakfast while she is out here running or you just listen,    listen,,,  to the myriad sounds of the footsteps and the breathing. That includes, of course, your own breathing which its now moving in and out of you so evenly you can almost see the arrows of it's direction.

 Now let me be clear, this just-right-tight-grip, steady pace, clear breathing and listening in on your surrounding universe does not mean running slower than your goal, it doesn't mean running slower at all. If anything, you notice that you are keeping or beating your average pace goal and you aren't getting all stressed about it. The hills are just there and then the tops of those hills. The downhills are run with the brakes off but you never seem to have the feeling of being out of control. Try as you might you cannot hear the sound of your own shoes on the roadway because you are nearly floating along.

Okay, and now here's the weird part, at some point you do feel as if you were floating. Really. That Vaseline look that the rain-covered lenses gave you now becomes how you see the whole world outside of you, moving from vaguely unformed features to see everything sharply crystallized. You become aware that you are seeing, but the body the eyes are in doesn't feel connected to the eyes. You know you are running and you feel as if you could run forever.

I told you it was weird.

The first time it happened to me, I was a little shocked and I tried to hold onto the moment, to hold onto the feeling, but that is like holding a babybird too tight. I slowed down and tried to drink in what I was seeing....and it was gone. And I could not get it back.

Weeks went by and then one morning, just as I was finishing a really good dream about being in someone's big home in the mountains, someone in the dream said "When it comes, go."
I woke up.
--
I do still run with my glasses sometimes, but not unless I will need them to read something after the run. Most of the time I do take my headset and listen to books on Physics or Cosmology or the creation of modern English or Math.** But, most of the time, I just take me.

And in one of my hands I imagine I am holding a little baby bird.

And we fly.

~~~~~
**(Someone asked me the other day why I listen to books on Physics or Cosmology or the creation of modern English or Math. I said it was because I don't know anything about Physics or Cosmology or the creation of modern English or Math.)

Grapefruit 3 25

0- unnnh

~ I agree
0- sound..bagel, heard it.
~ Be right back....ah..good and crunchy.
0-yummm mmm
~You're on some very basic level this morning.
0- my active parts are mostly still sleeping.
~ Yes. I've noticed. Can you get the eyes to focus a little better?
----

~ Hey?
0- I'm working on it. Maybe you should go wash your face.
~I'm having a big swig of coffee and the rest of this grapefruit.
0- 0k
~Then we are going to divide the day into 20 minute segments.
0- I hate that
~ No you don't.
0- How are the eyes doing?
~ Twenty minute list, please
0- 20m/jobsearch/writing/cleaning -do for two hours then//1hr/exercise//20m/jobsearch/writing/cleaning.....
~ Not so hard to do.
0- We'll I'm not in the mood.
~ Wash your face. Here we go.

Grapefruit 3 24

ALL days are glories,
some days it's just easier to see.








(Grapefruit Diaries are conversations I have with myself while cutting up the morning fruit.)

ALL days are glories, some days it's just easier to see.
~ That's nice. Who wrote that?
I did.
~ What? Just now on the stairs?
Yeah.
~Really?
Weren't you listening?
~Yes....but I thought you were remembering a line from something.
I don't think so. Let me try to remember and you do a Google Search for it.
~Okay.
(pause for search and thought)
~ I got nothing in Google.
I'm pretty sure I just thought it up. I do that you know.
~Still sounds like the opening line of a song.
Maybe it will be, but for right now, it's just the opening line for today.

==
More at http://transitionalspecies.blogspot.com/ 

Grapefruit Diaries 3/22

-- Gotta go.
+ You're all raring today as they say.
-- Yep, let's go.
+ Don't want to talk this out.
-- Waste of time today. It's all clear.
+What is?
-- I'm telling you, just let's go. I've got the list in my head.
+ Oh,  a list.
-- I'm gone already. Try to keep up today.
+ Yeah. We'll talk tomorrow about today.

Grapefruit Diaries 20 March

- Red biscuits.
+What do you mean 'red biscuits'?
- I, your brain, just thinks of these things.
+ Red Biscuits. Huh.
-Yeah, while you were putting the eggs in the pan, I thought 'red biscuits'.
+ There's no such thing.
- There is in your mind.
+ Well, you might be trying to remember some Southern stuff because we are out of bread.
- Sorry about that. I really wanted that extra toast yesterday afternoon.
+ So, this morning, no bread, so I decided to make some eggs and rice, kind of Louisiana style.
- They make red biscuits?
+ Not that I know of. I put some red pepper flakes in the rice, maybe that's the trigger.
- It was pretty clear.
+ Yeah, most delusions are.
- Is there more coffee?
+ Red Eyed Gravy. You were trying to remember Red-Eyed Gravy.
- I don't even know what that is.
+ You don't know what red biscuits are either.
- It's Spring today. At 12:35.
+ I know. We are going to the park to eat lunch and read and take pictures.
- You think so?
+ Well, that's the plan.
- Yeah, yesterday morning you planned to have some bread left over for this morning.
+  Have some more coffee.

Grapefruit Dairies 3/19

-Ah ha hah ahh ahhha hah ha ha ha hah!
+Shut up.
-No, I can't...ha ha ha ha.
+Can we get started?
-An onion!  Ha Ha HA
+Look, I don't want this to be about grapefruit or anything like that.
-But when you reached into the fridge today for a grapefruit, you pulled out an onion AND you were about..
+Alright, alright...I'm a little sleepy and it was a very big onion.
-Yeah, yeah, yeah, nice onion!! Isn't that another word for..
+You are such a child sometimes.
- yeh. heh heh.
+No, really, you've got to get some kind of con-
~~When did you go to bed last night?
-Who's that?
+Sshhh, it's E.T.
-You mean like the thing in the movie?
+ No, it's my mom. Eileen T. I call her E.T.
-Is it the one who yells all the time?
+No, that's Coach D.I.--drill instructor... ET just asks hard questions and makes me cry when children sing.
~~ What time did you go to bed last night?
+ Uh, it was late.
-  He wanted to see if Kansas was going to win. Ha ha ha.
~~ Well, did they win? Because now aren't you really, really tired and don't you have....
+ I don't know, I fell asleep before the end of the game.
- He tried to cut up an onion!!!
~~ Do you think there ought to be some changes made around here?
+Well, yes. That's what this is supposed to be about,   transitions, changes,,
- I'm going to sing some Paul Simon song now, just a few bars..."Thisisthestoryofhowweremember...
+ IF I could get a word in edgewise.
- OOoooo.
^^ Okay, day's begun, Let's get started.
!! You are going to DO three sets of Push-ups and two sets of crunches NOW!
 + Good morning, Coach.
!! And I see your weight's UP!
^^  First, breathe......
+ No, first, I'm going to drink the rest of this coffee and see if Kansas won.  Ah....
~~ And that, I suppose, is what you think is the start of real changes??
^^ I'll take that AH as a breath.
+  No, but it's today's starting point.

{ more at http://transitionalspecies.blogspot.com/  Follow there or on Facebook}

Slices of the Grapefruit 3/18

-I don't think you got all the grapefruit juice off of your fingers.
+Could we just get on with this?
-Get on with this? Hmm. Why do you sound like Simon Cowell this morning?
+You're right. Aboutthe sticky fingers. Wait here.
.....
.....
.....
+Okay.
-Where the hell were you?
+I put on some sweat pants. I was getting cold.
-Well, ....this is boring.
+I also changed the clock in the bathroom to the correct time.
-Now we are getting somewhere. What were your thoughts?
+You mean what were your thoughts? You're the brain.
-Okay, I'm thinking that we miss Ruby the cat waking us up.
+Oh, don't get into that, that stuff just
-What?
+makes the whole day start off sad. I'm not sad this morning, I'm cold and sleepy.
-I think you better make out a schedule for today.
+I will.
-No, really. It's important that you keep organized and on track and active.
+Are you feeling a little dull-witted?
-Funnyman, but yes.
+The coffee will kick in soon and
-Did you see the questions on that employment exam from the the Census Bureau?
+I saw them.
-Do you remember how I felt when I saw them?
+I remember a feeling of being swept overboard.
- I think I am shrinking.
+Oh come on, brain, you're not shrinking, it's just the morning blues, the early thickness.
- Thanks, but I think we'd better start doing more to exercise me.
+ I'll get the book.
-We have the book. We even started it. We need a schedule.
+I'll make out a schedule.
-Put some math on it. I'm turning to mush on math.
+You were never good at math.
^^ Don't say that. You sound like your mother.
-Who's that?
+You know who that is, Mr. Upbeat, Mr Read-Your-Affirmations and Do-your-Yoga Morning Person.
-Why does he sound so grouchy?
^^Let's breathe in this day.
+There he goes.
^^ Get up now and do three Salutations.... Get up now.
+Okay, talk to you later.
-I'm going to be here, I've decided to sing the same three bars of the Verizon ad I was singing yesterday over and over until I explode.
^^ Are we up?
+Yes.  Yes we are.

Grapefruit Diaries 3 Did I miss the Ides?

As I reached for the grapefruit this morning I remembered that I had forgotten to remember something. I had meant to look up what exactly is an Ide.

Note: I already know that "IDE" is not a word you can play in Scrabble, although it is a word found in some crossword puzzles, kind of like the word
ADE. Clue-4 Down-Summertime Treat.

Right.

But not a three letter actual word. Scrabble and Crosswords are part of my world, a bigger part these days than I would have imagined say, a year ago. I do a Crossword every day, some not so successfully, some I knock out over a cup of tea before it, the tea, gets cold. I play Scrabble on line and in person. This week will be the first Springtime meet-up of the Friday Night Orphans of Love Scrabble Association. Applications for membership are open. I have two friends who, as I do play for the love of the game, and tooth and nail to win. Challenges occur very often but I am always trying to slip a word or two through if I can. It's important to remember that QUA is valid, QUI, QUO, QUE are not.

I like to look up the meanings of the words even though it's not necessary to know the meanings in Scrabble, you can play XI or XU or QI, but I like to know that the middle one there is a Vietnamese coin. (Who said the words had to be in English?? The Scrabble people did....but they like to stretch English juuussssst a bit.)

There is no such thing as an IDE, an IDES however, is variously defined as a feast day of March and also May, July and several others months, usually on the 15th day but also on the 13th in some months which I will have to go look up now because, even though I read about this only minutes ago, the CD-ROM (not a word in Scrabble) didn't process all of the information.
.....
It all, of course, has to do with the Moon and Market days. Read here: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Roman_calendar#Months

...
So, I missed the Ides of March and we have shifted time so much that this year the 15th marks the New Moon of March, not the Full Moon which doesn't arrive until the 30th. Wine and Cheese on the roofdeck for sure.

Grapefruit Diary 2/ A Proper Census of My Household

If I filled out the Census Questionnaire properly, it would be a dozen pages long and take me most of the rest of the month to complete. It asks how many persons live at a particular place, the place where I am, but it never says whether to exclude any of those who only live here in my head.

 First, there is me, there is I, yes, Person Number One, yes, I am.

(My brain wants now to talk about how many households fall into conflict over which of those who live in a household is the Number One Person. Whew. I sent my brain back to bed.)

I, person Number One, do live here, but there are days, and the questionnaire asks about this, when it doesn't seem like Person Number One is here, that he is off traveling or floating or trying to find certain shapes in cloud formations.
In the morning, after waking and cutting up the grapefruit, I do find clues he was here - the ends of eaten shrimp, a half a' tomato left on a saucer, the keys near, but not on the hook. So, should I write in that Person Number One is not always here, but that I could not say where he goes?

Then there is Joe. You know, Joe Nation, there's another wreck of humanity for you. Oh yes,. You say, oh no, he's not a wreck, just a bit leaky when it comes to shortening the stories he tries to tell.  Right. Ain't there gonna be some discussion coming about over whether he ever calls anywhere home. He said that, not me. Of course, he is the main problem with this census thing because he is the one who keeps bringing people home and depositing them around the apartment like so many hats, lamps and books of ancient languages.

Some have names. That's good, because the sheet is supposed to be filled out with names.
CALVIN (Nasca) BARAMON - I don't know him, but he has dogs which are quite likable and three cats which do not shed. He plays guitar.
EDDIE GYMEP - A Russian, I think, maybe from the Ukraine. One of my coaches.
YALOR and CLIP'SE DAKOTEE - they are sisters or cousins or brothers. They laugh at meals and mumble comments during movies.

My uncles live here, did I mention them yet? Ah. Okay, just in order of either birthdate or how I remember meeting them.
Bud, the youngest but see below.
Frank, answers the phone
William, fills out the paperwork except for this census
Pat, known for his ability to mix up eggs.
Eddie (Don't get him mixed up with the coach.) much nicer, takes photos.
O'Sky -the family's last hippie guy
Cornelius  (Con)- can sing more Irish songs than anyone drunk or sober
Paul - makes the bed up every afternoon, likes to fold towels
Mick - Tries to keep quiet, but isn't allowed.
Edward (He hates Edward as a name but we already had two Eddies) Of course, as the actual youngest, his philosophy of life is that we are the stupidest folks on the face of the Earth and about three-quarters of Mars.
Bertie/Birdie/Birdue/Bir-debt, who sometimes thinks about smoking on the fire escape or getting a tattoo.

Tomorrow, if the grapefruit speaks of them, I'll list off all females around here. oogod. They are crammed in every corner, line half the shelves in both the closets and are constantly picking at my food. I am swept away by all of them.

The Grapefruit Diaries (1) 3/14/2010

Confession
I have been holding out on you. Every morning I have coffee, toast and a half a grapefruit for breakfast. I put the toast in, the coffee on and, while cutting up the grapefruit, I have a conversation with myself which I alway intend to pass along especially if it's at all interesting. I never do.
It's a shame, it's my shame and things are going to change (insert blues riff here) Maybe the weekend rain made things different in the mind.

I don't know about your mind, but in the early morning before anything about the day has really started to become real, my brain spiels out the oddest observations like:
-Did you see that? (It's speaking to me now.) You put the toast in and the coffee on.
- Yes, I say, I saw/see that, what of it?
- Well, it speaks of how we fit words together in particular ways, if you'd put the coffee up, you'd be putting it in a cabinet. If you use any other preposition other than 'on' the whole meaning of the sentence might be changed.
-Right. What else you got?
-Four hours is a long time to be stuck in traffic.
-God, yes. (The mind is referring to a friend who was coming to dinner last night and got caught in a traffic jam on the West Side of the George Washington Bridge. It took him fours hours to go the last three miles into the city ----and he still insisted on paying for dinner.)
-There won't be a sunrise this morning, even though it coming up an hour later.
-Have we moved on from waiting for four hours to cross the bridge?
-Oh...um, (Tries to think of something which never works.)
-Okay, never mind, I'll say it, You never know what is going to happen, so be ready.
-I was going to say that you got your kitchen counters really clean while waiting for him to arrive.
-Yes, that's true.
-And yesterday, when the Internet and the cable was out, you really got a lot of writing done. Or, at least, you got a lot of ideas down on paper instead of just thinking about them.
-Are you saying I should unplug a few things?
-I was thinking you had some interesting dreams last night about running in the breezy sunshine and that thing about the cheeseburgers and OH that mother and child and the anaconda.
-The toast is up. (hmmm----you put it IN but you take it OUT when it's UP.)

I going to sip this coffee now.


-

I lose it to the evening news

 I cannot watch another moment

Tonight the shiny people looked out at me
and read out to me
of how the babies died
 how the babies
held tight in baby slings....
I looked away...remembering
then
how a guy
just trying to make a living,
named Umberto
ended up shot and run over by his own bus.....
I thought
I started to think
I've seen that bus, but
 Oh the happy mothers, with the baby slings
Oh, the happy helping fathers with the baby slings...
 
... but we reached a high of 61° today at....
 
the babies' chins touched their tender chests...
their airways were tenderly compressed
their little sighs not heard above the passing traffic...
 Someone being shot in the passing traffic....
 
I cannot imagine it
the moment it
it cannot have been like anything
like anything I've ever...
 
no
 that, that is not so,
 I have....
no one knows this,
no
every parent, 
Oh mothers, Oh fathers,,,,
 knows this,
how each has
 gotten up
in the pitch of night
to touch one of the poor little fever hot sick babies.
..yes...
To see if they were still
or
still breathing
 
Sports is next
but
I cannot watch another moment.