The Machinist

Defense Mechanism

I'm overly sympathetic, which is a problem when I also tend to always say the wrong thing, often the intended meaning being something totally different. Thinking longer before speaking isn't the solution; the idea stagnates inside of me until I say it, or write it, at which point I can edit it. The right thing to say always comes later. I don't understand how concision always seems to come off rude or mean. Perhaps it's ambiguous having that little to work with. Perhaps when filling in the blanks, people insert negative meanings, which must mean they are internally negative. I know I often speak negatively, but I believe when I listen to people I insert wonder and sympathy in the blanks - or I try to.

It could be a defense mechanism that I speak [put out] one thing and think [feel] another. I often think this place isn't right for someone like me, or I'm not right for a place like this. It's tiring having that aching feeling in one's heart so often.


I'm always making plans and preparing for the worst. If I visualize something enough, I should be able to face it if it happens. There are only so many backups and eventually one has to be ready for the bottom, which I think is different for each person. Of course, I'm a fatalist. I always think I'll be fired after every mistake. Somehow my mistakes seem to elicit prolonged dissatisfaction from others, or maybe it just seems longer from the first person.

The problem with plans is they're place-sensitive; a plan may work in one place and not in another.

Closed Captions

Night Moves

Transitional Driving Revisited

Years ago I posted a poem I wrote with a song that matched its mood. I believe I wrote it during/after one of my all-day drives between Fort Collins and Dallas. Here is the link to the original post:

http://little-natty.blogspot.com/2012/01/transitional-driving.html

I like to find different mediums that complement each other, usually a song and an image. I wanted to present my writing with the song as I heard it in my head, so I have layered the two in video format.

 

Song credit: Blue Sky Black Death - Where the Sun Beats

Be Still, Undisturbed

The Daily Introduction

Today I met the maintenance man in the office building. He's portly with poofed, slicked back hair like Elvis or someone in the Italian mafia. He might be Elvis.

"Hey, I'm Norman. Stormin' Norman."

"I'm Nat - just Nat; you know, like Cher."

The World God Only Knows

Brick

"Not Hard to Realize" by Chelsea Martin

How I Escaped Texas, by Michitaka Yakimoto

At the beginning of a cloudy and starless night, I boarded a train having felt I had enough. After having found my seat, I set down my briefcase - the one with the hole cut in the top to allow my tree to come through. In haste I packed only my tree and books in the briefcase.

The evening was too young for sleep and I stood back up     deciding to visit the dining car for an evening drink     WOOOO-tak!     each door closed behind me     and I was in a red-carpeted nightclub of wood paneling and many glass bottles and all seats facing outward     A hot chocolate in my possession      I found a seat and gazed out a tall window that curved up the ceiling     reminding me that the sky was still above me     A shooting star passed above the clouds     WOOOO-tak!

Back in my seat, I found I had a neighbor, who turned to me.
"Well...     we are making good progress!"
"Really?"
"Really and truly!     That is a lovely tree     may I caress it?"
And so he did, his fingers avoiding all the hidden thorns.

My neighbor asleep, I moved to the seat across from him next to a window. Our sense of speed and urgency was diminished by the long, slow curvature of the train moving around a body of water lit by the glow of the moon which had just come out. Thin steam and ash drifted from the front of the train like the steady breath of a sleeper. I realized I would awaken outside of Texas, and that I could breathe. In a strange land, without old roots, I could redefine myself.


(in the style of Inagaki Taruho)

"It's a myth to believe that mysteries only take place at night. Even when the sun is blazing, the same kind of thing happens, but it's harder to notice because of daytime sounds and distractions."

Seneca B - Flowers

"I finally feel like this is the right life I'm actually... I'm on it now. I was a bit off track for a while, here and there, not exactly knowing who I was; now I think I know."

"Umm... I've always... known things about myself, I've just chosen to not recognize them and act on them. Like I've always been aware of my faults. I didn't crave to wanna feel great; because I hadn't--I haven't felt the way I've... been feeling recently and feel now in a very long time. Like I feel... I feel whole again."

The Perk

"I look at people holding hands in the hallways, and I try to think about how it all works. At the school dances, I sit in the background, and I tap my toe, and I wonder how many couples will dance to 'their song.' In the hallways, I see the girls wearing the guys’ jackets, and I think about the idea of property. And I wonder if anyone is really happy. I hope they are. I really hope they are."

 

Really great acting from Brad Pitt and Anthony Hopkins, and good screenwriting. Based off the movie Death Takes a Holiday, which is paid homage to in one of Pitt's one-liners. The dialogue seems very simple in its ambiguity; a more difficult thing to pull off, I think. Just a very neat, linear, and well-paced movie, despite being three hours long.

Cross-section, Colorado

I was able to go to the DMV in Golden this week, purportedly a less busy and more well-off town. In fitting with the criteria of a DMV, a technical glitch was ongoing, therefore no processes could be started until they were running again.

The interesting thing about a DMV is that everyone must gather there at their determined time. Like death, the DMV seems to be a great equalizer; everyone had the same thing in common - we were in the same man-made State. I feel that makes it an unbiased sampling of the Colorado population. Not to mention it's a place where you can see all these different people wearing the same expression of frustration and anger.

I met one woman who called herself "Jessica of Illinois" who also had recently moved from out-of-state. She had another appointment to keep and I agreed to text her if things cleared up.

An elderly couple who were at least in their eighties sat across from me. The woman needed a photo ID despite her claim that she didn't drive anymore. Her head continually shook, whether from age or everlasting discontent, I couldn't tell. "I've been here since January," I exclaimed. "I didn't have a beard when I first entered!" She didn't laugh.

I was on the verge of hallucination and unconsciousness from having not eaten enough breakfast when Jessica of Illinois returned. She offered to buy a sandwich for me and I agreed to a bag of chips. Having lived in Fort Collins, a college town, I figure most of the people there were from other states. My short experience in Denver so far causes me to wonder if the majority of nice people in Colorado are transplants. Everywhere I go there is at least one disgruntled person who looks like they have always been here, and they are angry with services rendered by some employee or just at the general atmosphere. The switch has been flipped from reasoning to reptilian fight or flight (mostly fight, it seems).

One interesting person I observed was a teenager with a large body and baggy clothes, and a very small head that made his baby features seem squeezed like a lizard's physiognomy. His hair was like a samurai's, shaved with a folded bun on top. His expression looked so simple it was frightening.
***************
His mouth sprayed a mist of saliva when he opened it towards his food, anticipating. It was as if his body had no time for digestion, let alone the first bite.

R.O.D.

Life on the Move

R.O.D.

Light Ceiling Completed

Just showing this off; the last apartment had an entire wall draped with these icicle lights. The new apartment has no ceiling light or fan, so I decided to go for a star theme; though, it ended up like an outdoor festival. The neat thing is how evenly it coats the room in soft light.

“Let’s suppose that you were able every night to dream any dream that you wanted to dream, and that you could, for example, have the power within one night to dream 75 years of time, or any length of time you wanted to have. And you would, naturally as you began on this adventure of dreams, you would fulfill all your wishes. You would have every kind of pleasure you could conceive. And after several nights, of 75 years of total pleasure each, you would say ‘Well, that was pretty great. But now let’s have a surprise. Let’s have a dream which isn’t under control. Where something is gonna happen to me that I don’t know what it’s gonna be.’ And you would dig that and come out of that and say ‘Wow, that was a close shave, wasn’t it?’. And then you would get more and more adventurous, and you would make further and further out gambles as to what you would dream. And finally, you would dream where you are now. You would dream the dream of living the life that you are actually living today.” 
Alan Watts

First Movie in CO

Lost in Translation

The apartment is coming together after a new lamp here and a new storage bin there. There are some minor maintenance things I need to do, like grease door hinges and seal a gap in a screen door frame, but otherwise it's just unpacking books and rearranging things. My parents have been very helpful in this move, and the funny thing is others at work who made similar moves also had their parent's help, at all different ages and life stages. I would have had to leave some things behind and the packing and unpacking would have been much slower without their help.

I also get to use the 'firsts' tag again. My parents found a particular Great Harvest Bread Co. and got to know the owner. I went with them today.
You know you're in Colorado when you make an appointment with your baker to buy a loaf of bread.
It's a gouda bread made with stout beer instead of water. I'm looking forward to it, this Tuesday at 5PM. Maybe I'll get a postcard in the mail reminding me to make my next appointment, like with doctor's offices.

Cogs

Old idea, previously from Facebook:

"Eventually, society advances primarily because of improved efficiency; efficiency improves by becoming great at a specific task through repetition; insanity is performing the same action over and over and expecting a different result."

I should really keep unpacking

R.O.D.