What happens in Vegas…

Photograph courtesy of Corbis.

Once upon a time, we were young children. We did terrible things, played games that really weren’t all that much fun for our un-willing partners, and piled embarrassment upon our Parents with our lack of inhibition and atrocious manners. Why did we do these things, you ask? I’ll tell you. The answer is simple; we were young children. Then one day, we became adolescents. Impulsive creatures of hormonal rage. We lived it up in the summertime, and danced, crawled, squirmed, or punched our way through high school. Ah, yes; High School: the house of good times, the hall of bad times. The cavern of testosterone, cheap teenage perfume, laughter, tears, cliques, and wads of chewing-gum stuck to the bottom side of rickety desks.

After this profound and pitiful chapter of the human experience, we each took our own road. Some of us went to college. Some of us did not. Some of us joined the military, some of us went to hippie communes in places we’d never heard of, simply because we wanted to get as far away as possible. However, no matter how we filled the blank pages of the post-high school choose-your-own-adventure book, we had one thing in common; slowly, we were becoming adults. Seventeen passed into eighteen. Eighteen to nineteen. Twenty, twenty one, twenty three.

And somewhere amid that cluster of years, we encountered a tragic truth. Those things which branded our high school experience—gossip, rumors, the pressure to please the people we look up to—things which we hoped would stay locked up in those classrooms and musty lockers, did not stay put in its proper place.

We don’t live with our parents or guardians any longer, and we may now do a lot more watering plants, washing dishes, and taking out rubbish than we ever did before when they were our ‘chores’. Yes, we’ve come into our own, haven’t we? We have jobs, paychecks, bills, migraines, maybe even children. But, what happens in High School doesn’t stay in high school, and we still have our daily dose of drama.

I was recently reminded once again of this ironic disappointment, because my Beloved One has a cyber stalker. It feels like High School to me. I don’t particularly enjoy it either, because I hated High School!

I suspect we’ve figured out now who her bullying cyber-prankster is. We’ve not yet agreed on the proper reaction, but, we have pinpointed the culprit and their motivation. Pain.

Revenge Begets Revenge

“Human Beings are capable of doing inhuman things.”
—John Malkovich

I’ve the uttermost confidence that nothing I write here will sway the aforementioned individual from carrying on with a string of arsewipely deeds. However, I do hope to motivate some of you people who find it difficult to let go of your past, whomsoever you may be. I honestly don’t believe that I personally know anyone like that—thank God—so I’m not dispensing advice to any of my friends when, I advise you to consider your own safety before you torment your ex-lovers for sport.

John Malkovich—kooky actor extraordinaire—tells us: “Human beings are capable of doing inhuman things.” Well, he would know wouldn’t he, he’s John Malkovich. However, when we try to stomp out our bad memories by poking the beast that caused them, we’re overlooking a fundamental trait of human behavior in our victim: everyone has a snapping point. Not a breaking point, when they’ll surrender, a snapping point, whereat they’ll go berserk. You can only slap a person so many times before they get tired of it. Most people lack the self control to not get angry and respond in kind. Apart from your immediate physical well being, you do run the risk of joining the ranks of the crude and cultureless in the process of ruining your enemy’s life. So remember, as you chuckle and consider all the deliciously humiliating and hurtful twists and turns you can hurl the object of your hate: It may not take too long for your victim to become your victimizer. People who’ve been poked and prodded along to their snapping point, encounter such a huge rush of rage and adrenaline that they are temporarily immune to universal concepts of right and wrong. As your whole ambition is to empower yourself, and take power from your foe, be careful you don’t end up in a body cast, (or body bag).

The Past Does Hurt

“The glacier knocks in the cupboard,
The desert sighs in the bed,
And the crack in the teacup opens
A lane to the land of the dead.”
—W.H. Auden

The second thing to consider is your overall sense of peace. Yes, the past does hurt. Rejection still stings, even if it is from ten years ago. We may see someone who ripped our heart and soul into shreds in a shop, and if we aren’t careful to control our thoughts, it can begin to keep us up at night. The pain of the past floods into our present. However, when we dwell on the past, we render ourselves incapable of accepting a future. And, what you truly don’t know—no matter what you believe—is what that future holds. It could be so much happier than the days gone by.

I think you owe it to yourself to let what’s passed wither behind you. God knows, I owe it to myself.

Let sleeping dogs lie.

© Jeffrey Puukka, 2009

A few things happening in the world.

So, Frank McCourt and Walter Cronkite have passed. One a celebrated author, the other a legendary Newsman. Do you suppose there’ll be any further to-do’s at the Staples Center to take over all the major networks?

No. I don’t either.

Now, to business:

Look at the screen of the gadget before you. To the right of this bloggishness, you’ll notice what the techies at WordPress have called, ‘the sidebar’. Look at the sidebar, and scroll down, below the archives, categories and my twitterfeed. You’ll spot my blogroll hovering there; a hodge-podge of links waiting to be clicked on and loved by someone. Someone like you.

If you hover your mouse over those links, a brief description of the website should appear.

Perhaps I should be more ambitious about developing and promoting my own stuff. However, as we all (hopefully) learned in our schooldays, where would we be without friends?

{Disclaimer}
The ‘sidebar’ is temporarily located on the right-hand side. However, if the website is redecorated, the sidebar may then move, in which case, the directions provided above would be outdated.

{Second Disclaimer}
The saying “where would we be without friends?” is figurative. The author of this blog may not necessarily know the authors of linked pages.

{Disclaimer The Third}
Disclaimer Two is a partial truth; Sotamies is a blog written by the author of this blog’s father.

{Fourth Disclaimer}
The claim that the links of the blogroll are “waiting to be clicked on and loved” is sheer personification. Frankly, the links themselves probably don’t give a damn.

{Disclaimer 5}
Disclaimer Four is an assumption. Maybe the links have feelings after all. Click gently.

© Jeffrey Puukka, 2009

Just after the daily ponder

Here’s an experience a lot of us have had.  You see [Fill in the blank] for the first time in [Fill in the blank].  As you’re standing there going on about [Fill in the blank] something about them slowly begins to eat at your brain.  That is, their general visage or persona strikes you with that sense that you aren’t saying something.  Something, moreover, that you really should say.  It would only be polite.  You’re supposed to comment.  Why?  Because something’s different!  That’s why.  You can’t quite place what is different, but you know very well that something has changed since the last time you had the [Fill in the blank] fortune to see them.  Their hair?  Could that be it?  Have they changed their hair; cut it?  Grown it?  Colored it?  Have they lost weight?  Are they wearing a brand new outfit?  Do they suddenly have blue eyes instead of green, or red eyes instead of blue? 

Well, I bring up that socially awkward scenario because; depending upon how often you visit my page/read this blogship; you may not notice that it’s different.  As of today, it’s different.  New colors, slightly new lay-out.  It occurred to me, as I was sitting in front of the window.  There I was, watching rain fall and pool upon the roof of the used-car lot’s office {which sits smack outside my living room}, it occurred to me that it is no longer winter.  Things on my little corner of the web ought to look more ’springly’.  Brighter.  Merrier.  Cheerier.  More color.  So that’s what I did. 

And you [shame, shame, shame] probably don’t visit nearly often enough to appreciate it. 

A sketch of Shakespeare; one with which I can well identify at the moment.

Now, before I bailed you out on having to figure out for yourself what had altered around here, I was sitting in front of the window, having a wee ponder.  It was today’s repetition of the always predictable daily ponder that happens after I’ve come home from work. 

It probably drives my beloved one slightly mad.  She probably feels as though I’m not interested in her, when I come home and the first thing I do is sit in a chair, seeming to stare out at nothing, lost to all living things around me. 

Yes.  It must be maddening for my Beloved one.  But I’ve come to understand there’s a reason I do it so often.  It’s a sort of rethinking of maybe useful thinking that was done earlier that day without my control.

Alright, that makes no sense!  Perhaps what follows will be just as mad, but I’ll try to make a metaphor.    

At the moment I still have no dedicated space from which to do what I used to do in my office.  That’s been the case for the last few years.  Now its not as much of a hurdle as it was six months ago because I have a laptop.  There’s not as much need for an isolated desk if you have a laptop.  However, I do miss having an isolated room.  I’ve noticed I do my best work when I have space to absorb that work, and then spit it back out at me.  The research I do for [Fill in the blank] can take over the wall.  Then, the work that needs to be done happens smoothly in that environment, because I’m swimming in a room full of research, musings, reminder notes, and so on.  And of course, when the subject that needs working-on changes, the rubbish on the wall gets torn down and replaced with new, much more important material.  Now, I don’t have such a closet or cubicle at the moment.  That means the ‘office’ tends to be world-wide, scattered, unorganized, and very much an imagined place I go to inside my head.  That seems to be where I go during the daily ponder.

I think I’ve figured it out, and I suspect it works like this… 

1.  On the way to or from work I tend to read/scribble about things vaguely similar to whatever it is I’m working toward creatively…  {At the moment, solving and building up the infrastructure of The Lab, so that it’s fit to put out work again in a year or so.} 

2.  When I get back home, I seem to be incapable of doing anything around the house until I’ve unwittingly dedicated a-few-cigarettes’ worth of time to staring out the window. 

3.  In that time, I think part of my brain is trying to pin those unorganized and maybe useless thoughts (from the bus rides) to some sort of order in my head.  In other words, I’m tacking all those articles, bits of research, musings, and reminder notes to an imaginary wall instead of a real one. 

4.  So, I sit at the window.  The two eyes in my face are watching the rain gather on the roof of the car lot’s office.  Somewhere in my mind, I’m in my non-physical office of no walls, working away, and actually—surprisingly—getting things done sometimes.

Now, I’ve had a few interesting ponders lately.  And, I suspect that soon I’ll have a much clearer understanding of exactly what I’m going to do, in my efforts towards building up The Lab.  I have a non-linear, not-very-useful vision at the moment.  After all, it’s really hard to tack a linear thing like a time-table to a non-existent {and often spinning} wall in one’s head.  It makes one feel a bit mental!  But I can tell, I can tell, I can tell that soon the eggs will be in a basket.  Then, I’ll be prepared to write a bit about what can be happening, and when.

The only thought to make a note of at the moment, is this.  As a member of the audience, as a director, as a reader, as an actor, the one artist I’ve constantly been moved by is Shakespeare.  There’s a lot of willing and ready arguments for why we should not do Shakespeare.  He’s too old, he’s been done too often, he doesn’t apply to us now, and so on. 

Wrong.  Wrong, wronger, wrongest, wrong as possible.  I’m happy they shared their opinion, but I’m choosing to ignore it.  Shakespeare, as a writer, was very, very daring.  There are a lot of contemporary playwrights who just aren’t that daring.

So, I’m sort of going to just say face it: I am who I am, and certain things about my taste don’t seem to change.  I am deeply drawn to the beauty, the brilliance of the language, and constant echoes of relevance in Shakespeare’s mountain of work.

So, while many of my daily ponders over the last year have had to do with why I should not do Shakespeare, when The Lab is up and running again, the Bard may play a big part in the work we do. 

As I said in one of my recent entries, nothing’s going to be happening right away.  I have a lot of gardening to do, in a sense.  But seeds grow, and blossom when the conditions ripen a bit.

©  Jeffrey Puukka, 2009