A Binmore Among The Nice People

It's been a couple of days since I've returned from Christmas in a wood cabin in the snowy wilderness of the Adirondacks and I nearly feel like myself again. As I think everyone who reads this is aware of the once-in-a-century snowstorm that hit Portland on the day we were living I won't go into the trials of the trip out there. Just start off with the understanding that the six days in the cabin started with me in a state of exhaustion.

The cabin is owned by my parents-in-law, two gentle, kind caring people who clearly love the place, who clearly love their family and whose greatest joy was to spend the holidays with their family. These are nice people. Not just nice people, but Nice People. They smile a lot, they like sweaters, gentle music, uplifting stories. They love where they are from and don't really feel the need to be anywhere else, they know what they like and are going to keep doing it for the rest of their lives. They volunteer, they give, they cause no harm, they care about the environment, they are highly educated, they have raised lovely daughters. These are the sort of people that the world needs.

My family argues. We have tempers. We are strong, independent characters, restless people. We have opinions, moods, flights of fancy and dark depressions. We discuss and debate philosophy, politics, love, and hate as a basic level of our beings. We need to hide from people in solitary caves, exhausted by other people and frightened of what we might do or say. In groups we tend to lead or rebel. When my family is together it is the most interesting thing going on in the vicinity, but we do not change, submit, or follow. It is hard to be with the members of my family.

The cabin is a two story structure, but open inside with a gorgeous spiral staircase wound tightly through the center. The dimensions are, at a guess fifty feet by thirty feet, and there are three doors inside the building, two bedrooms and the bathroom. There is no place within the building that a conversation above a whisper cannot be heard anywhere else in the building. Because of the small space there is a specific place for everything, cups, dishes, cleaning supplies. You name it and it's in that cabin in a specific place. Towels are rolled, not folded, and hung with washcloth. The water is on-demand electric heat and septic tank, so you can't take a shower and have dishes done, or wash your hands, or anything else at the same time. Dishes cannot be done with running water. Wood for the fire is stacked in a particular order to dry and fetched from the special shed with a bag, emptied into a box, placed in the stove in a particular fashion and completely burned. This provides temperatures of near 80 degrees until the stove is left for a while and the freezing air from outside leaks in. Clothing is flannel nightgowns, pajamas, wool sweaters, slippers or snow boots. Each person has their own glass (marked with a tag) their own napkin (marked with a napkin holder) throughout the week. Before supper hands are held around the table and grace is said (or even sung!). Outside are drifts of snow, winds, and no people, shops or bars within reach. Within this cabin were six adults and a baby.

What I'm trying to point out is that even niceness can be oppressive and exhausting when it is not your niceness. At every single moment I felt the pressure that every culture on the earth exerts to get people to conform. There is not a single group of people on the planet that does not unconsciously do things in a certain way without thinking why, and that reacts to otherness with a certain amount of distaste. There was a right way to do every single thing, and every single time it was not the way I would have done it, and every time I got something wrong I felt the discomfort. I also felt the discomfort at my discomfort. I gave myself a C, a passing grade, having only made a complete arse of myself on three or four occasions of which I am aware an not permanently ruining any relationships. My hosts certainly did better than I.

The people at the cabin all read this blog. I'm sure none of them would have written about this subject, but I'm home, on my blog and I'm free to do what I want again.

TFOE Update: The Hounds of Winter

There has been a delay in posting an update on The Face of Evil. I know he's watching me, and so I have to be very careful. The last time I tried to post on the Beast he ate my camera. But I have snuck off and got a new one, he's sleeping now so I think may be able to get this one in without him tearing me apart. If you read this, you know that I've been successful.



The Face of Evil's plan is still in the section of biding his time and gathering his strength. He's now the size of a wildebeest, with fangs that can crush bone and steel. Wait! He stirs! Keep very quiet.

An unnatural winter has descended upon Portland, coating the world in a silent blanket of death. Seeing TFOE in what can only be his natural habitat fills me with dread.



Immune to the cold he revels in theft, intimidation, frolicking in his power. It is clear that he is akin to the great timberwolves of the past, but with demonic powers and infinite cunning. I plan to escape on the holy day approaching, but hes always watching, always watching, and always hungry.....

Jesus is just alright with me, Jesus is just all right, yeah!

Just the words of Jesus.

http://www.billywray.com/WordsOfJesus.htm

Oh, by the way, here's a book that I consider slightly wiser than Jesus' words. It also has some special words for my wife, not necessarily a goal, but a role to consider,

When you realize where you come from,
you naturally become tolerant,
disinterested, amused,
kindhearted as a grandmother,
dignified as a king.

http://academic.brooklyn.cuny.edu/core9/phalsall/texts/taote-v3.html

Tooting my own Horn

One of the things about dogs is that, like almost all animals, at the core they are a tube in which stuff enters at one end and exits at another. In the modern culture of dog ownership it is considered correct to pick up this effluence and deposit in an appropriate receptacle. I thoroughly approve of this social agreement as although it is a relatively unpleasant duty, it is better than stepping in it, smelling it everywhere or having your dog roll enthusiastically in it and then lie on your couch. So I pick up my dog's crap in plastic bags and put them away.

Human beings have a behavior called, "Social loafing." In this behavior people who have a task as part of a group in which they are not directly evaluated do less than they would if directly evaluated or entirely responsible for the task. With dog owners this consists of not picking up your dog's poop when not observed by others. Sometimes you just miss that your dog has eliminated while you are talking or paying attention to something else. Sometimes in December in Portland it is pitch black outside and the poop becomes invisible, thus providing some cover stories for those unwilling to do their part. It is sometimes comic to see people's brains churning over whether they have been observed adequately for them to be poory evaluated in this duty.

As a result there is crap from other dogs lying around in parks. Since I'm against this I often pick up the cold, canine fecal-matter I see around on the ground. But that's far from the only reason I do it. I also do it so that I can feel morally superior to the unidentified culprit. I also do it to absolve myself of the guilt that might arise from not finding my dogs kaka in the dark of the night. But mostly I do it for the warm feeling that results from the adulation I imagine getting from humanity as a whole for being such a good person. Which is why I have written this post, so you now have the opportunity to adulate me for my awesome goodness.

You are being evaluated, so no social loafing with the adulation. ADULATE ME NOW!

Thoughts in the Dark of the Night.

The last few nights it has taken me a couple of hours to fall asleep. In the past this would have been an unpleasant experience, a time of frustration. That frustration would have been somewhat reasonable in the past because with the deadlines of work an hour to get to sleep is an hour less of sleep. An hour less of sleep means a noticeable increase in the unpleasant nature of the following day. But these last few nights I have just lain in a ridiculously comfortable bed, safe, secure, with no rush to do anything and just let the thoughts come and go. Here are some of them.

Why is the word "Word" pronounced werd, while what you would expect to be the pronunciation of the word "Word" is how you pronounce the word "Ward"? And this isn't a regional dialect issue, this wackiness seems essentially universal in the english language. The problem with these sort of thoughts is that you end up reading these sorts of web pages: www.fortunecity.com/victorian/vangogh/555/Spell/trublspl1.html


Does it matter whether you can remember something or not? Let's say you get so drunk that you black out and can't remember what happened. If you had a really good time that night, does it matter that you can't remember it? Is the good time simply a good time regardless of anything else? If it isn't, and that the memory of an action validates it, then this means that once you are dead all of your life means nothing, or as you get older, none of the experiences that you forget have any validity. So, I uess things are valid only for what they are. An experience is only valid as an experience and a memory is only valid as a memory. I often wake up from a good night sleep somehow aware that I have just had a very pleasant experience without any memory of what that pleasant experience might be.

Am I the same person that I was twenty years ago? How would I be able to tell?

Medical Non-Miracles

I am disappointed in the medical miracle guys. It just seems to me as though they should have got some things worked out by now.

Why can't you grow new teeth? These are just teeth, hardly the most complicated things in the world. These aren't giant organs of great complexity, they aren't even toes! Grow them in a vat and get them plugged in, should be a doddle.

Why can't you just get cartilage injected into your joints? Don't these miracle workers understand that if they don't get this worked out soon they'll be creaking down the hallway and predicting the weather in no time? Just squirt some junk into your knees, brand new cartilage. Not having this is an embarrassment.

By the way, nice job on the robot eyes. And cancer looks complicated, I'm not going to give anyone a hard time on that for a decade at least.