Alone

Well, I haven't had to come here for some time, but here I am. Before me is some sort of operation. I HATE operations. I've worked scrupulously my whole life to avoid them.

But I was born with a bicuspid valve, so I can avoid an operation no longer.

The only option available to one in my position has long been open-heart surgery. Now, thanks to the advance of medicine, there is a far less invasive option, the TAVR procedure, that may be available to me if I can qualify for a study. But either way, I have to have it done, more or less, now.

Now, this is an existential threat. But as such things go, it is the mildest sort of existential threat.

And yet, I am terrified. And horrified.

As I write, I expect that within the next week I will either be done with the TAVR procedure, or setting up the other option. And I find that I have no one to whom I can talk unreservedly. Not just about this present situation, but about whatever is uppermost in my mind.

I don't think I am merely feeling sorry for myself. What I am feeling, more than fear, is solitude.

I was just trying to talk to my wife about an unrelated, and I thought safe, subject. And I saw her face harden.

Wow, that hurt.

My best friend, by an unfortunate coincidence, is out of town. Other friends are keeping me at arm's length. Still other friends are choosing now to be sheep regarding Facebook.

And I have no one with whom I may be frank, or even free-associating. No one who is willing to listen to whatever I have to say with equanimity, and without prejudice.

A harsh indictment of me. I quite obviously don't rate, even among my closest confreres.

And so I am submerged in sadness. Short of breath. I feel I am in narrow straits, acutely needful of companionship, and profoundly deficient in it.

I guess it's true that we enter and exit this world alone.

Mr. Spencer's Neighborhood

Here I am again, on my Easter Egg blog, expressing ideas unsafe to express to anyone in my actual life. This is the blog where I talk to myself, safe in the knowledge that no one is interested in what I have to say.

In tonight's post, I will talk about communication.

Communication has been my motive force lo these many years.

Ooh, dramatic one-sentence paragraphs.

There's the effing critic stomping on my expression again. Well, fie on him. No one is reading this anyway.

Anyway, my upbringing was like a good thrashing in a riptide, leaving me far from shore, trying to find my way back home after ripping my glasses off me and leaving me blind. I am trying not to whine; I am trying rather to describe where I was post-puberty. 16 years old.

At Sweet 16, I had spent the past four years in an Osterizer of having everything I had been brought up to believe having been pureed and frapped. Accent grave on the appropriate E's.

Stubbornly enough, I continued to stick to everything I had been brought up to believe, because I had thought that all through, and nothing had popped up to compel me to diverge from it.

Here's the thing. I was surrounded by those who felt compelled to explain everything, and I was unwilling to explain what I could not explain logically. What I could not explain logically, I had to take on faith.

When I made that decision not to "outdrive my lights," I suddenly found myself on a pretty lonely path.

And pretty lonely I have been since. At times I have found those who seem to admire me for my choice of path, and one who even loves me for it.

And yet, I have never found anyone else following me on that path. But I have been advised that I may not remark upon that fact, or I will be labeled a martyr.

And THAT is the problem in talking about oneself, and that is why I don't like to do it to others. If I should happen miraculously to strike a vein of truth that serves to justify my choice of path, it will invariably be labeled as self-serving.

Yeah, OK, that is pretty much the definition of a martyr. So maybe the label fits.

So maybe my contribution is no greater than my existence.

So never mind my initial point.

Oy

I have a giant floater in my right eye that effectively kills my ability to do anything independently of others. I am even having trouble typing. My opto tells me to deal with it.

Waah.

Species argument

Cats see only your good points. Dogs may love you more unconditionally, but they are more attentive of your bad side, and they never forget it when they see it. But cats say, "It's cool," and move on, unless you really are an a-hole. More than anything, I sincerely try not to be an a-hole.

As carnivores and unapologetic predators, cats understand a dark side is not a defining one. And, yes, I have a dark side. Only dark in outlook, mind you; I am as gentle a soul in action as was my father. I suppose I can't help being a bit of a predator myself. But I see the bad things, and I predate against them. I know I may be wrong in my judgment, and that's what stops my decisive, rhetorical coup de grace. Usually.

People say of cats they like, "They are very dog-like." I consider myself neutral on the cat/dog axis, or on the cat/dog/human/sentient being axis. I judge the beer in the glass.

Hey, did you know I was a Certified beer judge?

But the greatest dog I've known, Lucky the Second, was catlike in his acceptance of the extremes of my behavior. He took a long time to judge me, but once he judged me thumbs-up, I was aces to him. He wanted to be by my side 24/7, my wing man, my sidekick.

I've loved a lot of estimable dogs and look forward acutely to meeting them all at Rainbow Bridge, but I've never met the likes of Lucky before or since, and don't expect to. With him, I could do no wrong. When I sang, he got happy, and he always wanted to be by my side. When he passed, I sensed that he was THE dog of my life, and so far that has held true.

I miss Lucky the Second every day of my life.

If I am a very lucky man, there may be more such dogs, but as watchful as I am for them, I don't expect it. Our current dogs are attentive to me, but Lydia is the center of their universe. She deserves that with all of our pets, because she IS that. All beings gravitate towards her; her goodness is a center of gravity.

But I am an acquired taste with every living thing, like haggis or Lightning Smith. When a sentient being actually gravitates towards me, like Lydia or Lucky or most cats, it touches me deeply. I am grateful, sincerely so, because it is so rare, and its rare encouragement keeps me going.

But the surprise at meeting any creature that takes to me never diminishes. I have too much perspicacity, and too much experience, for it to be otherwise. As Jean Shepherd put it, I am the blind date. I am the Bride of Frankenstein.

Is there anyone remaining who gets that reference?

Mission Statement

So if you are reading this, you are either me or a really nosy person.

Yeah, just kidding about that second part of the last sentence. No one reads this but me. This blog is about my getting stuff out of my system without burdening others. And by "others", I mean Wifey.

You see, I'd like to be entirely sanguine about life in general, in all its aspects. In fact, I strive to be. I also strive to be perfect. I am equally successful at both efforts.

And by "successful", I mean comprehensively unsuccessful.

I strive to be perfect because, as they used to exhort us to do in Driver Education, I "aim high in steering." I figure the best way for me to get as close as I can to perfect is to aim directly at it.

It has been my personal Hell my whole life to be dark when my soul wants to be bright white. Well, "wants" is the wrong verb. What I mean is that my central sin is my inability viscerally to embrace the blinding goodness that is central to our existence.

I believe in God. I believe a volitional higher power created us, and that this higher power is Christian. I believe in the Holy Trinity.

But I don't buy into any current Christian dogma. I'd passionately, desperately love to buy into Catholicism, because Lydia finds sublime comfort in it, and I find sublime comfort in her.

But she is much smarter than I. And I am stubborn.

I believe that God put us here with the analogue of a compass, a canteen of water and some hardtack. He gave us what we needed to thrive, and to find our way back to Him. In this analogy, the compass is our intellect, which is limited by the imperfection of our direct perception.

What I mean by "the imperfection of our direct perception" may best be described thusly: imagine your left hand submerged in 78-degree water, and your right hand submerged in 100-degree water. Now imagine then plunging both of your hands in 89-degree water. You, if you have an accurate imagination, will anticipate that simultaneously one of your hands will interpret that the water is cold, and the other that the very same water is warm.

Our direct perception of our condition is limited by the context in which we perceive it. Also limited by this is our logic.

Faith exists beyond this limit. In some degree, so does hope.

Ever driven at night? Then you know that your speed at night is limited by what your headlights illuminate. Irrespective of how powerful your motor is or how well your car handles, you cannot safely drive faster than what the evidence presented by your headlights indicates. Or, to put it in the common argot, "You can't outdrive your headlights."

Similarly, you can't expect your logic to be effective beyond the limits of your perception.

In my Christian-without-portfolio existence, the realm of faith is between the limits of our perception and the extent of our existence. To put it another way, faith bridges the gap between what we understand and what we experience.

Hey, I'm doing the best I can.

Is This Thing On?

I have another blog which I've kept for nearly four years now. It's about our work on our Victorian home. We bought it as a derelict nearly 17 years ago. It took five years to get our ducks all in a row and jump through all the requisite hoops, and another few years to bring the house up to modern standards of safety and habitability. When we at last moved here, late in 2005, the vast majority of the cosmetic restoration remained to be done, and the work has dominated my life since.

I started the blog six months into the massive task of restoring the exterior. My intention from the start has been to make a record of my work: not just for my own purposes, but also to guide others who seek to undertake their own similar restoration projects.

Those were my main goals, but there were others. I wanted to have an opportunity to do some mental work to go along with all the physical work; I wanted to become a better writer; and most of all, I wanted to keep friends and relatives apprised of what I did with all my time.

Now, four years in, I feel that I've been meeting all my goals for the blog save one: the last one.

Other than my wife, a few dedicated friends, and (occasionally) one of my brothers, virtually no one reads the damn thing. Certainly, none of my other friends or relatives does. Not one blasted word. They won't even look at it, as far as I know.

I sure wish I knew why.