I got to spend Friday night sipping whiskey in front of a fireplace while listening to country rock, Saturday afternoon splitting wood with the old man, and Saturday evening catching up with old classmates, teachers and neighbors at the Palinski's barn party, an annual collection of interesting and accomplished humans that likely rivals that of any small town east of the Mississippi.

 Sunday was rainy driving, listening to John Mayall on the highway and Cradle Switch while riding past farms and fields.  I met the latter's lead singer at the party the night before, and I highly recommend streaming their record of Americana music if you like that sort of thing.  The singer, Ferrilyn, sang Forever Young at Bill's funeral 15 years ago, so meeting her was a bit of a full circle deal.

I'm back in Manhattan now.  The camaraderie of the North Country and the lessons of Bill's life inspired me to make plans with close friends as soon as possible.

When I returned I called one of my best friends in the city so we could finally schedule completion of Ken Burns' Vietnam documentary series, which we commenced in November and took a while to get through, because, you know.

Then I arranged the first purely Cambridge crew mountain lake gathering in a decade.  The last time the four of us were alone up there, I was in between globetrotting journeys.  Now they're all married with kids or cohabiting in houses, and I'm a Harlem globetrotter

When I got off the train at 135th and St. Nicholas after the (much shorter) train ride back to Harlem last night, I was faced with this ad I had yet to see:

Taken during my lunch break near school

Ya know, this is one of those weeks where the best cure for stress is listening to Boston's "Peace of Mind" again and again and again

I'm on the J train right now, and it's a new day.  It's been a very long week, but today is the day of birth for three special people, so I had to embark on what turned out to be a 100 minute journey around 9 pm so I could see my friend Noah play a jazz show in Brooklyn for his birthday.  Since it's also Ella Fitzgerald's birthday and my friend Jack Steiner's birthday (he once gave me his last slice of bread in the name of friendship) I couldn't get away with staying home and going to bed early like I should.  Adventure called, and how!

I... got on the train... and then waited a very long time for the next train, and then it went slow as molasses... and then the same with the next train... and it all added up to an extra half hour of travel, 100 minutes in all.  But I read a good book written by a Nobel Prize winner, so the time passed relatively quickly.  I knew I would eventually make it to the show, and I did. 

Best of all, when they came around with a tray of free chocolate chip cookies after midnight, I knew the long journey had been worthwhile.  On top of that, Noah's girlfriend went back to grab us some more after they had already served us.  It was then that all those tough days on the road in India finally came to a climax!

On the way to the show, I took a train car which I thought was late, but turned out to be right on time... as usual

I am sitting at this desk, getting these words to do something together after 11, because I want to make something of the world

Guess Outliers

"What do you think?  Guess," I say.

"29."

"You?"

"Thirty...five."

"You?"

"Forty-five."

"Forty-five?"

"Yes."

"You?"

"39?"

"And you?"

"30."

"The correct answer is 34.  You were close!  Except... 45?!"

Laughter.

"Your beard..."

When I was 23 my roommates and I had just had dinner with the mother of the friend who was living on our couch.  I mentioned something about being 23, and the friend's mother remarked, "Huh... you act like you're 32."

Later, my friend told me that his mother complimented my beard, which was much smaller then.  I still rib him for that.

After being told I had a baby face for much of my early adulthood, I always relished being mistaken for an older gentleman.  Now I'm three months shy of having no legal excuses for not fulfilling the presidential ambitions of my seven year-old self, and I'm not sure how I feel about the overestimates of my age.

Often, when age comes up in class, I'm eventually asked, and I always challenge them to guess.  I started teaching at this school when I was 29, and back then people guessed I was between 23 and 35, with someone always aiming high in the 40's.  Now I rarely receive guesses below 25, and most people pretty accurately pin me in the mid-30's.

Some white whiskers started appearing in my beard three years ago.  I used to snip them out with surgical precision, especially after rereading the section from Jitterbug Perfume where Alobar has to escape a death sentence because his people's tradition was to execute the king as soon as a white whisker gave evidence of age.  Not to spoil anything, but he ends up living a while, and having the best sex of his life!  After I reread that, I tend to let nature run its course.

Today I was reading this Atlantic article about mid-life crisis, something which I hope is still thirty years away, if at all.  Basically, the more you think about your connections to other people and appreciate what you have and the less you think about competition, the more psychologically prepared you will be.  Then again, they also say that, according to the U-curve, people are supposed to, on average, become less happy from their early 20's all the way into their 40's, and that hasn't been my trajectory so far.  In fact, I remember my parents saying that their 30's were the best because they didn't have all those anxieties and neuroses from their 20's, but were still young enough to enjoy the benefits.  I guess there are no rules, only experiences.

And white beards have their charm, yes?  There are plenty of role models: Santa Claus, Walt Whitman, my dad, Zeus and The Most Interesting Man in the World...

That said, our goals are still goals, and a little healthy competition with the self can push you to greater joy.

Despite what one student may have thought, I ain't 45, so I gotta keep moving. I've been given more days, so that seems like the right way.

I've got years of editing, teaching, and writing experience... yet I still wrote "where" instead of "where."

Yes!  I'm not perfect!

I spent money on three books, which makes this feeling, reminding of a road and pursuing your goals

4/19

Today I got up and went to the dentist.  As I sat in the chair, the hygienist was really on the attack with that sharp metal poker they always start with, and it was more painful than any visit in recent memory.

Even so, as I dreamed about how I would rather still be in my cozy bed so I could sleep off this nagging cold I've had for five days, I remembered, "Hey, it ain't crucifixion."

After all, it's Good Friday.  That's why I have the day off in the first place.  They say it's named that because it's about that man going up to heaven, and not about him getting tortured and killed... but then why do people wear crosses around their necks instead of cumulus clouds or stars?  How about a shining sun, like the one that can now shine a light through the ceiling of Notre Dame?  I think I remember something about the way and the light...

"Ring the bells that still can ring, forget your perfect offering.  There is a crack in everything.  That is how the light gets in."

Leonard Cohen sang that.  He also sang "Hallelujah!"  In related news, Happy Bicycle Day!

Then I remembered that old Hindu teaching from The World's Religions about transferring your attention from your immediate situation so that you can understand the ups and downs of life and how the world is still doing fine even if you're not so happy in the moment, and how the example Huston Smith gave was about a woman in pain in a dentist's chair imagining herself floating above herself and feeling sorry for herself, but then realizing that she's experiencing plenty of delightful moments in other situations.

I also was reminded of the Taoist teaching, "Who knows what's good or bad?" and thought that maybe I'd get a story out of this somehow.

And of course, I also thought of the Sufi's from Islam teaching that there is nothing but God, which would imply that even that sharp metal thingy stabbing the nerves in my mouth is the holy manifestation of God and I should just be thankful to be in this at all.

While I was driving home, I saw a man with a Christian collar on holding a sign that said, "Palestinians are God's children too," so I gave him a thumbs up and he nodded, and then I pulled up behind a line of cars, and I was idling by a Jewish temple.  There wasn't anyone outside, but I still gave a nod.  I'd begun the day with my first What'sApp from my friend Jacob (who was born into a Jewish family) sending me a positive message from India, and I'd spent Wednesday night in Manhattan watching my Israeli friend Noah play jazz guitar while his Christian girlfriend from Portugal smiled back at him.

Eventually, when I got home, I read this George Saunders story, and it was incredibly sad.  A boy is unloved and told that he's basically a loser by his mom and stepdad, and then gets hit by a car, and as he's dying and thinking that the man standing over him and begging for him not to die is kind of lame, he hears the man telling him that he is beautiful and God loves him and sent his only son to die for him.  Saunders is a Buddhist.

I wanted to feel better, so I opened up the collection of Life Prayers my mother gave me, and right on page 267 is a poem whose words "All is well all is well all is well" seem to jump out of the page.

Last night I walked around by the light of a full moon and thought of the Iroquois prayer to Grandmother Moon guiding the birth of children in this world, and thanking the Great Spirit for providing everything we need to live on this Earth.

We went to dinner in Greenwich (pronounced "Green Witch"), which reminds me of that story told by that black lesbian Wiccan who informed the audience that Wicca teaches the embrace of love in all of its forms.

Anyway, my old Earth Science teacher came up to us to say hello at dinner.  He'd taught me about geology, meteorology, ecology and astronomy, and I was happy to relate a story about something he'd taught us about the Earth's rotation on its axis during halftime of a basketball game, because he was also our basketball coach.

So many ways to spin a ball...

I've really been trying my hand at understanding people

I have serious writing on my plate

I am writing every day

New adventures

I have imagination, experience and am exceedingly curious, as Tom Robbins has encouraged, so expanding courage and love will help make this all get on as a story

I read a very imaginative book as I walked into class, and thanked Vonnegut for that lesson where he asks the whole audience to look at the human next to them and say the name of a teacher who made them feel honored to be alive

I stroll around New York listening to jazz after compliments from this sweet woman

Enjoyed a nap

Hello!

Thank You

Six years ago I woke up to this loud doorbell, so I got up to open the door for some really annoying people who lived upstairs, and then tried to get back to sleep to the sounds of the 101.  That didn't happen, so I got up to cook, and listened to a really powerful emotional song with deep significance in this journey.  I came back to my room to sit in front of my collage of various photographs from travels around the world, people who had loved me whom I still loved, and places I've lived.  And looking up at this whole puzzle working together in the shape of a heart had me feeling so very truly lonely with the isolation and pain of the world I'd come to know and made the tears flow like waterfalls I'd seen in places of beauty radiant and so serene.  Then I looked up, and saw the light reflecting from the heart of a hard working artist who knew how to manage, and I rose, thanking heart art while dedicating my energies to making the heart larger.  What a lesson to learn... the battles of loneliness and sadness overcome with the expansion of the expression of heart's love.

That day I worked so hard on my art because I didn't have to go to work teaching language to international students.  I worked five hours a day, four days a week, because that's all they had at the school in San Francisco where I worked and basically learned how to manage diverse classes.

Even when I lived on the opposite side of the country from everyone I was truly close to, I had people.  Those souls living the many walks of life have been my teachers ever since.  I hadn't seen any of my closest friends or family in a year, but human connection was always somewhere near.

Viewing all that from today's point of view, I feel strengthened, although similarly if not more tired than I did way back then, when I didn't even have a box spring or a chair sturdier than my fold-out camping chair (which I called my "director's chair," because I worked there).  Now I work full-time, and that means seven full teaching hours four days a week, and four on Friday morning.  I've been getting more sleep than I had that night six years ago, but not always.  Broadway can be much louder than the 101, although I've expressed creativity in both cities.  I've met so many people who improve journeys.

Eventually, I met one who completed two years of study today, because she has to move to another place of study, as per the rules.  She's a real artist with exhibits and so on, specializing in collages.  Because I'd asked her the previous day where one could check out her art, today she presented me with a copy of a collage she made from newspapers named "Bable."  She is truly "A" talent.  I said something to the effect of her being a "real" artist, and she responded that I was one, and that put a smile on my face... temporarily.  There are always more on the way

I laughed out loud reading a story in the subway car

Universe is dancing and singing while composing energy's prose symphonies which aim to uniquely please