In search of the Quirk

Seeking a niche among the great minds of creativity, my research brought me to an assessment of my own creative process.

What makes this little clock tock?

What are the mysterious machinations of such an imaginative mind?  Oh, how to encapsulate the processes by which the mundane is made pithy?  (Spoiler Alert:  You’ve got to have a ration of mundane, for one thing.  Then just add a pinch of pith.)


Or, more directly to the point, as my husband puts it:  What are you doing all day?!

Ahem.  Let me just say that writing all this stuff takes a certain kind of person. 

And that sort of person may do particular things as a part of her writing life.  In fact, she might even do some of those things ritualistically.  So what?  Is there a problem with that?

What sorts of ceremonies might such a writer conduct?  Oh and wouldn’t you like to know! 

In fact, a guy named Mason Currey did want to know.  Not about me.  He’s never heard of me in spite of all the trouble I’ve gone to. 

My adorable, if overlooked, eccentricity notwithstanding, I commend him for his expedition into the realm of the persistent writer.  He collected working profiles of some of the creative greats and their weird little habits in his book Daily Rituals: How Great Minds Make Time, Find Inspiration, and Get to Work: How Artists Work.

First thing you’re going to notice – some of these guys are pretty whacky. 

For example, according to Currey, Igor Stravinsky stood on his head to clear his brain.  I guess it worked but his hats fit funny.

Beethoven counted out exactly 60 coffee beans for his morning cup before he sat down to compose.  Now that seems just plain goofy.  But Ludwig himself?  Not goofy at all!  In fact, if you look at his portraits he wears a perpetual frown, perhaps brought on by the bean counting.

Here’s a good one:  Benjamin Franklin started his day with an "air bath." I think that means he sat around naked.  You’ve got to love Ben!  Though somewhere I read he also had monumental scalp itch.  Dandruff.  That and an air bath.  No wonder he lived alone.


But even fully clothed, if sweats and a rally cap qualify, this writer works a cappella.  Unless you count Sports Radio.  Yep.  Just me, my worry beads, Marty Lurie and my blankie.  Sigh.

Jean Paul Sartre ingested ten times the recommended daily dose of amphetamine.  I guess they recommended amphetamine back then.  He did get a lot done.  

As much as I want to secure my niche, it looks like I’m going to have to cultivate some more interesting eccentricities. 

As it is, sneaking up on the computer is the best I have to offer, and everyone does that. 

What?  You just walk right up to yours?  In full sight?  And it lets you? 


Wow.  Maybe I am quirky.

XXX - Read me!

Pornographers have dreams too.

That’s the only conclusion I can draw from the fact that so many pornographers visit my blog sites.

They’re reading my blogs about dreams; learning dreams’ language of metaphor and self-reflection.  They contemplate my advice and apply it when establishing loving relationships; I help them find common ground in the workplace…

Yeah, I don’t think that’s it.

But there they are!  Month after month.  How do these sleaze balls find me?  Why do they keep coming back?  What words do I use that would trigger a porn site’s browser? 

I haven’t said “titillating” in forever.  And let’s be honest, those guys aren’t into teasing.  They aren’t coy.  Subtlety is not their domain.

Of course dreams are not subtle either.  They expose the truth.  Hey…  Maybe that’s it!  “Exposure.”
Ugh.

And besides, in dreams, exposure is a concept, not a brick in the face, so to speak.  Or a close-up of any other kind.

Double ugh.

I’m told if a person is trying to boost her readership online, she needs to analyze the data.  I’m trying, but my delicate constitution demurs.

All right, here goes:  I have said “hot,” and “mother,” but never in the same sentence and only in response to a dream submitted by a frantic guy who dreamed he left his wife in the desert and danced away with his mom.

OK.  I made that up.  Just now, not in the dream column.  I did it here for you.  To make a point.

Google AdSense reports to me with daily updates about my legions of readers.  They track “hits” on my pages and categorize them for my edification.

And I went to school and everything, but for the life of me, I cannot figure out what it means or how to make use of it.

For example, here’s another puzzle:  The Czech Republic reads me.  Romania.  Sweden and Poland account for more than 10,000 hits! 

Indians, Indonesians, Portuguese, Germans.

I’ve always loved the Kazakhstanis.  It must come through in my writing.

I get a bunch of readers in Russia.  Now I do have a couple of friends in Russia, but not 637.  Maybe word of mouth? 

Maybe I’m a phenomenon in Leningrad!?  A superstar in the Ukraine.  They can’t wait for my 2014 “Dreams around the World” tour. 

I could be a regular Rodriguez…you know, that guy in Detroit living in obscure poverty while the albums he made as a young man unbeknownst to him sold millions and millions in South Africa. 

That could be me – wildly popular and praised in Eastern Europe for my poetic voice, my facility with language, my depth of insight into the human heart.  And here am I, plodding along in ignorance, in my perfectly humble way.  Of course.

A couple of months ago I had a big surge in readership.  More than 3500 hits on this column alone. 
I can tell you which browsers routed the greatest number of readers to me.  I can tell you the time of day they read and the posts they liked the best.  I just can’t tell you what I did that month that was different from any other month.

I was my normal charming self.  Witty.  Relatable.  Wise.

Supposedly, I can learn from all these numbers and double my money!  Why, if I can get a handle on this stuff, I might be able to boost my writer’s income into the double digits!

My creeping fear is that all this AdSense rigmarole means nothing. 

That’s probably it.  My readers aren’t what they seem to be.  They’re probably not readers at all, but machines combing the clouds, randomly hitting my websites knowing that I will see their links in AdSense and click on them, thereby giving them another hit so their sponsoring porno kingpins will pay them more. 

Hooray.  Always happy to be helpful.

I have to face the probability that my while the search engines may love me, it’s likely four of my friends in California and six of my cousins in Oklahoma who constitute living breathing human beings reading those blogs.  God love ‘em.


And you!  Of course you, Dear Reader.  You’re the best by the way.  Thanks.

Quest for the Quirk

Seeking a niche among the great minds of creativity, my research brought me to an assessment of my own creative process.

What makes this little clock tock.  How do I do it?


Even more fundamental:  What is it that I do?  What are the mysterious machinations of such an imaginative mind?  Oh, how to encapsulate the processes by which the mundane is made pithy?  (You've got to have a ration of mundane, for one thing.  Then just add a pinch of pith.)

Or, more directly to the point, as my husband puts it:  What are you doing all day?!

Ahem.  Let me just say that writing all this stuff takes a certain kind of person. 

And that sort of person may do particular things as a part of her writing life.  In fact, she might even do some of those things ritualistically.  So what?  Is there a problem with that?

What sorts of ceremonies might such a writer conduct?  Oh and wouldn't you like to know! 

In fact, a guy named Mason Currey did want to know.  Not about me.  He’s never heard of me in spite of all the trouble I've gone to. 

My adorable, if overlooked, eccentricity notwithstanding, I commend him for his expedition into the realm of the persistent writer.  He collected working profiles of some of the creative greats and their weird little habits in his book Daily Rituals: How Great Minds Make Time, Find Inspiration, and Get to Work: How Artists Work.

First thing you’re going to notice – some of these guys are pretty whacky. 

For example, according to Currey, Igor Stravinsky stood on his head to clear his brain.  I guess it worked but his hats fit funny.

Beethoven counted out exactly 60 coffee beans for his morning cup before he sat down to compose.  Now that seems just plain goofy.  But Ludwig himself?  Not goofy at all!  In fact, if you look at his portraits he wears a perpetual frown, perhaps brought on by the bean counting.

Pulitzer Prize winning poet W. H. Auden believed that a life of "military precision was essential to his creativity," and so this meant constantly checking his watch. "Eating, drinking, writing, shopping, crossword puzzles, even the mailman’s arrival— all are timed to the minute and with accompanying routines."  Today we call that Obsessive-Compulsive Disorder.

Auden even wrote about his practices: 

Stop all the clocks, cut off the telephone,

Prevent the dog from barking with a juicy bone…

Seriously.  He wrote that.  Poets!  What’re you going to do?

I’ll just clear up any misconceptions right now:  I might have a twist or two, but I’m not W.H. Auden.  Although I will admit to having a bunch of old wind-up chiming clocks that need frequent cajoling, so maybe I am checking them all the time.  But it’s not the same. 

On the other hand, perhaps I should take my neighbor’s dog a juicy bone as he hasn't quit barking since Arbor Day.  I’ll just wedge it between his molars.

Here’s a good one:  Benjamin Franklin started his day with an "air bath." I think that means he sat around naked.  You've got to love Ben!  Though somewhere I read he also had monumental scalp itch.  Dandruff.  That and an air bath.  No wonder he lived alone.

But even fully clothed, if sweats and a rally cap qualify, this writer works a Capella.  Unless you count Sports Radio.  Yep.  Just me, my worry beads, Marty Lurie and my blankie.  Sigh.

Jean Paul Sartre ingested ten times the recommended daily dose of amphetamine.  I guess they recommended amphetamine back then.  He did get a lot done.  

As much as I want to secure my niche, it looks like I’m going to have to cultivate some more interesting eccentricities. 

As it is, sneaking up on the computer is the best I have to offer, and everyone does that. 

What?  You just walk right up to yours?  In full sight?  And it lets you? 


Wow.  Maybe I am quirky.

Mr. Moodgeist and the commute of the future

Ever vigilant in my quest for cutting edge technology to make your life safer, happier, more pleasant, I bring you the wave of the future:  Ladies and Gentlemen; Moodgeisting!

That’s right, Moodgeisting! – The latest and greatest creep into your private moments.  An ostensibly altruistic attempt at control.

Now, picture yourself on the freeway in your Toyota.  (We all drive Toyotas now, don’t we?) 

And this morning, you’re feeling a little bit crabby.  Say the dog drooled on your croissant and your pants leg and your file folder with today’s presentation.  Say you jammed your toe on the sprinkler head just before it spurted into motion dousing the fresh pants you changed into.
 
Your good humor is threadbare and you have strapped yourself into a one-ton fuel-efficient marvel of a mechanized stress-venting machine.

So you head onto the freeway to find that gusty winds have fellow commuters swingin’ and swayin’ their way into the city.  Oh boy.  This is going to be fun.

By the way, research indicates that a driver in a bad mood is more likely to have an accident than a gleeful goofball with kids on the honor roll and a new pair of shoes who’s zipping in and out of traffic while singing along with Bob Marley.

And I don’t know about you, but when my sunshiny self is overcast by an eventful morning, I’ve been known to grip the steering wheel with a tad more zeal.  Or grit my veneers just so.  These telltale indicators should prompt me to reassess my determination to get ahead of this jerk in the Escalade.  But sometimes I lose track of my higher self.

Not to worry!  Toyota has anticipated this very situation.  Toyota has Moodgeisting!  That’s right.  They’ve included mood-reading technologies “in-cabin” to provide drivers like you and me with mood metrics and calming advice.

What mood-reading technologies, you might ask.   Why, facial recognition, for one.  And we’re not talking about the kind of facial recognition where your car greets you like Bat Man, fires up on 12 cylinders and purrs down the expressway inspiring awe in those around you.  Though it might do that if you’d only cheer up. 

No.  We’re talking about in-cabin facial recognition technology that scans your face looking for frownies.  Frownies are bad for you; frownies could cause accidents. 

Yes, your invisible Moodgeisting buddy employs a range of biometric indices of your disposition comprised of analysis of your voice, sweat, pupil dilation and grip, among others.

Like Santa Claus, Mr. Moodgeist knows if you’re being bad or good.  He knows that happy motorists speak in sweet voices and rest dry palms on the wheel.  You just can’t fake sweet and dry, now can you? 

Yes, Mr. Moodgeist, for your own safety you understand, can sense when you’re on the verge of spontaneous combustion.  And as a first line of response, he gives you the readouts of your escalating biometrics, so you can bring yourself back into line. 

You can look at the rising thermometer next to “pulse,” for example, and say to yourself, “My oh my!  I must breathe deeply to drop my heart rate and alleviate my agitation.  Driving under stress is unsafe, according to research.”

“I’ll just chant my mantra and coax my sweat glands into submission.  Mellow!  Mellow!”

And here’s the greatest thing:  If you can’t talk yourself down from the carpool lane crazies; if your pupils remain dilated; if you continue to wrench the steering wheel on its post and sweat through your work shirt, Mr. Moodgeist will take over and speak to you in soothing tones with calming advice.

I imagine he’ll say something like, “Slow down!  Slow down!  You’re going to kill yourself!”  Or, “Think of your children!  They need you!”  Or, “For God’s sake, brake!  Brake!  Steer INTO a skid!” 

Hahaha!  Just kidding.  I’m sure Mr. Moodgeist is programmed with just the right balance of logic and psychology to calmly tap into the Stepford stem of your brain, ensuring that you will reduce your speed, graciously permit others into your lane, and courteously pull over so others can pass.

Just surrender, Dear Reader.  Just give in. 


Mr. Moodgeist knows best.  You can trust him in these matters.  Relax.

Facebook made me inane!

Evidently, I’m in favor of animal abuse. 

You see, I just can’t bring myself to re-post the picture that came up on my Facebook news feed this morning.  It shows an orange ribbon with a banner that reads:

“I’m against animal cruelty.  Share if you are too!”

I’m not going to click the button!  Of course, I’m not going to pinch my cat either.  Or tell the dog he’s ugly.

But you can’t make me share!  There it is.  Deal with it.

It’s stupid anyway.  Who’s NOT against animal cruelty?  It might be more important to identify those people, don’t you think?  Why doesn’t someone create a post that says “Share if you want to kick the dog,” or, “How many ‘likes’ for Michael Vick?”

I will confess to a twinge of guilt for not re-posting.  It’s only a click after all.  What kind of misanthrope am I?  Why won’t I take two seconds to stand with the masses of decent people against meanness to our fuzzy buddies?

A person can only take so much manipulation, that’s why. 

“Share if you wish there were no cancer.”  Well, duh. 

And if I don’t share does that mean I’m OK with cancer?  If I do share will my wishes be joined in the cosmos with the wishes of all the other really nice people and thereby eradicate that foul disease? 

“Keep this going if you miss someone in heaven.”  OK…

And then there’s, “Re-post if you love your kids with all your heart NO MATTER WHAT!”

Why?  Why would I re-post those pink hearts and balloons? 

Wait a minute…Are you saying I don’t love my kid? 

And if I do re-post (which I do not) – who is my intended audience?  Who am I trying to persuade of my motherly love?  That woman who overheard me threatening my son in the candy aisle of Safeway all those years ago? 

Listen Lady:  #1 Mind your own business!  You weren’t there that morning when he ate an entire tub of chocolate cake frosting on the day we were supposed to take cupcakes to his soccer team.  And #2… Oh I don’t know!  Just leave me alone with your eye rolling and your sharing.

I love the kid, all right?! 

The only logical conclusion in the midst of all this schmaltz is that there are a bunch of miserable posters on Facebook and they’re looking for company.  That’s gotta be it. 

Of course, they’re all my friends…

“Thousands of pictures of babies and puppies and I’ll bet only 10% of you will re-post this picture of a brave soldier.”

OMG.

And the grammar!  Old English teachers cannot be at peace on Facebook:  There are dozens of aphorisms, witticisms and words to the wise – just the kind of sappy stuff I thrive on – but cannot in good conscience like or share because they’re chock full, chock full I tell you, of misspelled words and poor punctuation.  Damn you, Standard English!

But in fairness, if I’m going to wax curmudgeonly on the posts I peruse every day –
if I’m going to be all uppity about the sentiments of others – I should probably complete an objective review of my own shares and posts.  And who better to do it than me?

So here we go.  Here are samples from the timeline of an erudite contributor to the collective conversation:

OK.  Choosing randomly:

Here’s a cartoon of a pig in a hospital room staring in shock at a ham on the bed.  The pig doctor stands by proudly announcing, “He’s cured!”

I love this one:  It’s a photo of a German shepherd trotting happily toward the camera, smiling, wearing sunglasses, and there’s a cat riding on his back!  And the caption says, “You might think you’re cool; but you’re not a cat riding on a dog wearing sunglasses cool!” 

Cute, huh? 

And here’s that “Stealth Kitty” video.  Priceless!

Oh, I love this line drawing of a young woman gazing into the eyes of her Prince.  The caption:  “You had me at your proper use of ‘whom.’”

And this is classic:  “It’s hard to explain puns to kleptomaniacs because they always take things literally.”  Hahahaha! 

Come on!  You loved it!!

Seriously!  Like and share!  

Sleeping with one eye open!

When do freckles become age spots? 

These innocent points of pigment used to be cute.  Now, they’re just another element in the conspiracy.   

As best as I can determine – and I have studied the phenomenon – freckles convert to “dark spots,” – the current euphemism for what my grandma called “liver spots,” –
Ew! – at roughly the point when a person looks away.  For an instant.   

That fleeting lapse in attention allows spider webs to convert into cob webs and freckles to go bad. 

It’s that pause between perfect teenage skin, with its concomitant arrogance, and old age.   

You know, that blink of the unsuspecting eye when you’re living your life, somewhere in between flagrantly sunning in a bikini in your backyard kiddie pool and frantically slathering sunscreen on your extremities before dashing from awning to awning if you should happen to find yourself outdoors in daylight. 

It’s that moment when a person wakes to find the Louisiana Purchase mapped out on her fanny. 

It’s that fateful flash when you glance at your reflection in the mirror and say, “Holy Lewis and Clark!”  And you vow not to look again tomorrow because it’s a sure bet that Western Expansion is on “the horizon,” if you know what I mean.  

Recently, a dermatologist, responding to my worries over what seemed to me to be an especially aggressive freckle, a freckle that woke in the wee hours of the night and annexed new territory at will, Attila the freckle, the freckle that ate Manhattan…   

I pointed this thing out to my dermatologist you see, with my head turned slightly away.   I thought she would don her welder’s mask and hazardous waste gear and scorch me with her freezing hot laser wand.   

Instead, she brushed her forefinger across it casually and said with a sinister smile, “Oh, no!  These ‘wisdom spots’ are nothing.  We all get them – eventually.” 

OK.  Two components of that dismissal require attention.   

First, let me just say that the startling transformation from a charming splash of speckles like a reverse image of stars in the night sky to a map of Texas on the back of my leg isn’t nothing!     

My heretofore darling flecks of color, my trademarks, my Opies are turning against me I tell you!  They’re organizing!  They’re forming ranks!  That is not nothing.  It’s something. 

And “wisdom spots”?  Puh - lease.  Oh.  My.  Goodness.  I haven’t seen that much blatant condescension since our son was a teenager. 

And that’s right Sweetie.  That’s right.  We all get them and your eventuality is closer than you think!  You’re looking the other way right now, I’ll bet.  You’re living your life with your flawless skin and your medical degree and your… 

Oh all right.  She made me mad.  When did my innate good humor morph into to cantankerousness?  Why I’m known for my sunny disposition!   

I used to get compliments on my smile until I discovered that all these years I’ve been YELLOWING! 

What’s next?  Enlarged ears?  Unruly nose hairs??!   

Note to self:  Never ask what’s next.  There’s always something next.  We’re all in line in a vast deli whose menu includes cataracts and four-footed walking canes.   

And our numbers are coming up. 

And so what?  What’s a person to do with this new evidence of treachery?  Just add it to the list! 

Check it off the roster of insults advancing in the night:  You go to sleep a young person and wake up with a crow’s foot.  Then it’s a laugh line.  And suddenly you look like some nut who’s been seized with fits of hilarity over a lifetime spent in a padded room. 

Maybe you’re one of those philosophical types who waves it all off as signs of character.  Life’s lessons.  Sagacity.  Indeed. 

But not me!  I’m not going to chuckle and pat Old Age on the back like an eccentric aunt who made a faux pas at the dinner table.   

No.  I’m bleaching my teeth until I look like Bob Barker.  I’m buying a vat of vanishing cream and I’ll sit in it ‘til I’m all pruned up.   

Oh. 

I see how it is.  Coming and going.  Chinese finger trap.   

I feel so much better now.  Thank you.

Pilates ~ Caveat Emptor!

My pants came down in my Pilates class this morning. 

The Pilates people don’t tell you about that.  They don’t tell you about those waffle-y rubber floor mats and their gripping power. 

No!  It’s all about your core and your health and feeling so much better.  Oh Pilates!  Pilates!  You’ll be so glad you went to Pilates! 

Well, let me tell you I did NOT feel all that much better with my drawers hanging out!  It could have been a real disaster.  Face it.  It could have been a lunar phenomenon. 

There I was like a teenager doing the prison walk – britches sagging and bloomers, well, blooming! 

Thank goodness I always set myself up like a poker player at the Long Branch Saloon – near the exit with my back to the wall and a clear view of everything and everyone around me. 

I’m no fool you know.  Except maybe when it comes to trusting “fitness experts” who clearly have their own agendas no matter what they say to you with their smiling teeth and their clipboards and their grippy mats. 

I should have known better.   

They’re all skinny for one thing.  There’s always an undernourished one up at the front of the class, sweat free, calling all this “fun.”   

Where are all the normal people at the gym?  Oh, here they are, rolling around on the floor with me like so many sea mammals on the beach at Ano Nuevo, snorting and making sand angels.   

There had better not be any cameras in this joint! 

The trainers are young, too.  I hate that.  Why aren’t the old people running the gym?  We’re the ones with the money!  Oh never mind.  I already know.  We’re not running the gym because we’re on the floor with our feet in the air. 

And who is this Pilates guy anyway?  Sounds like a foreigner.  What kind of name is “Pilates”?  Has to be Greek.  I dated a Greek guy once.  Oily.  Must have been all those olives.   

OK.  Wait a minute.  Checking the web.  Here he is:  Joseph Pilates and his theory of fitness.  Whooptifrickin’do!  

Greek!  I knew it!   

“Pilates was a sickly child suffering from asthma, rickets, and rheumatic fever… He dedicated his entire life to improving his physical strength…  By the age of 14, he was fit enough to pose for anatomical charts.”   

Well that’s just plain creepy.  But OK.  He worked hard. 
 

Pilates came to believe that the "modern" life-style, bad posture, and inefficient breathing were the roots of poor health.  And that was the early 20^th century “modern”!   

I don’t know, but I’m thinking they were a wee bit more active back then than we are today.  They walked with their eyes on the horizon for one thing.  That keeps you going at a respectable clip.   

No need to slow down to avoid mis-texting while crossing the parking lot for a scone and a latte. 

Get this:  Pilates started out as a gymnast, diver, and bodybuilder.  But ultimately he earned his living as a professional boxer, circus-performer, and self-defense trainer at Scotland Yard. 

I’ll bet you skimmed right over that one critical detail just like I did the first time through:  Joseph Pilates was a circus performer?  I’m following a fitness routine devised by a CIRCUS PERFORMER?!!   

Why not just call it the Ringling Brothers and Barnum & Bailey method of embarrassing yourself and amusing others?  A little truth in advertising, please! 

It all makes sense though, all this stiff-legged toe-pointing, swimming on the ground.  Just put me in a tutu, stand me upright on a trapeze and voila! I’m a Flying Walenda! 

Old Joe’s probably spinning in his grave at the specter of “modern life” in the early 21^st century.  Of course he’d be spinning hands free, toes rotated outward, using only his lower abdominals, just like we do in class. 

That’s right.  Once you get really good at it, you never touch the ground.  You breathe deeply, pull those abs up behind your ribs and just drift upwards.  That’s right.  Float.  Now hold it!  Hold it! 

We earthbound beginners however, must struggle against gravity and the Velcro-like connection between polyester workout pants and waffled rubber mats.   

I think I’ll invest in some suspenders.