I felt proud of my job, somehow, walking slowly to it, on a hot day, enjoying the cool of the woods, then past the brick walls of Dumbarton Oaks...  turning right, passed the cool glass of Philip Johnson museum of round pods, the shade of the spruce, the old brick house with the gate, walking along the fence the forest below, then past the cottage, then the final stand of larches before the parking lot and the avenue.


"What do you hope to achieve...  Expecting a different outcome..." was my therapist's reaction to my joining twitter, and finding a follower.. skeptical as I told her, following an old acquaintance perceived as a friend, her following me back.  Oh, it's no big deal.  We share the same politics, I said, shrugging it off.  Pro-environment.  Anti-Trump.  She looked at me.  We were near the end of the session.  I'd done what I could at that point.  I wrote a check and slipped out the door.


Every day the worker must go to work.  For the writer, no different.

People have been doing physical work since Adam's time, and so too have they been playing with words.  I found my own life and my jobs no different.  There was an accepting pride in it, at a molecular level, and endeavored always to do it as best I could.  I wasn't above manual labor.  I like working with my hands.  Opening wine bottles, keeping a bar tidy.   I might have felt sad I wasn't, say, teaching, inspiring young minds, but for me, that's where writing came in.  Writing is as important as the physical work.  I get paid for the work at the bar.  The writing has a pay-off all its own.


There are brighter minds out there.  Sophisticated, good on the important issues of the day.  Sometimes, I check in on them.  And then will I go back into my own seeming childish way of viewing the world, having imagined myself as a sort of simpleton, village idiot.  Not willing to be part of the great argument, the great political culture wars of the day which have grown very dire and loud and polarized in singularly depressing ways, having created one of the most divided and unhappiest of times.


To my tastes, as much as the sophisticate might take on an issue, eloquently state a position, have the right things in mind as far as equality, be quite clever and a wordsmith, yet somewhere lurking within eventually emerges a hypocrisy.  The deeply embedded hypocrisy is perhaps no one's immediate fault, but rather a measure of what can only be corrected with the proper thought, proper speech, proper action, proper occupation, proper vocation, such as the Buddha observed two thousand five hundred years before us.  Behaving properly, with proper conduct, we would refrain first from the behavior, say, being outspoken of opinion, offering a judgement, quickly and with such a confidence...


Indeed, before observing the beam, the dust, in the eyes of another, first take it out of your own.


I went to work feeling liberated, later that day.  I'd had a bike ride to start the day, thirty five minutes, a good sweat, I did some yoga, very satisfactorily.  And then, as I walked to work, a hot day, but not bad for the humidity, only around fifty percent, I felt a whole genre of illusions being dispelled.  At first I felt sad, as if I'd hoped that a conversation with an old friend could be pursued in the spirit of friendship and good humor.  After the initial social media acceptance, I had, upon getting up finally, found myself blocked.  I felt stung.  There I go again, being a creep, being taken as a creep.  Oh, well.

And this is about writing, even in social media form;  this is where I live.  Rejection of politely meant efforts hurts.


But with the yoga and the meditations and the Buddha in place, I felt good enough, healthy enough to shrug on my way to work.  I had created it all, in my mind, and now, feeling decently and in good health, I found a new power, and one aimed at dispelling it all.

It was still, in some world of communications that never happen, necessary to apologize for my blundering foolishness, offering up a silly poem regarding my old friend's quip about her hair color.  It had, apparently, not being well-received, imagine that.  It was not intended to be trolling, nor to be offensive, nor to make something out of nothing.

Attempts to address such awkwardness with humor are in untouchable arena.  Fault has an all-reaching abundance.  The innocent is proven guilty.  And too often the ostensibly proper will jump on the bandwagon of accusal.



At a stage in life, one begins to wonder.  Why should I need the approval of any external influence?  And one largely created in my own mind, anyway.  How silly the whole thing!  And why should I need to look toward anyone for approval,  or to continue on with my diminishment of self.  Why should I look badly upon my efforts of hardwork and making a room full of people and wine bar regulars feel welcome, content, accepted.  Why have I become the wrong-doer?

Only in the eye of the artist, forward thinking, not bound so to the law and order of cop mentality, will the offender be seen as the innocent one, the good and decent man.

Indeed, because of the strive for sophistication, some people end up standing for the very opposite thing you do.  And what can you do but continue to accept yourself and your efforts as valid and self-driven.

And why get worked up about anything related to social media anyway...

Judge not, lest ye be judged.

And yet judgment is emphasized.


It had been ordained, as if a long long long time ago, at the very creation of things in the great burst, that I would live such a life and ultimately become.  I don't know exactly what, but something along the lines of a Buddhist, a Christian, a thinker of Theosophical tradition...


It was not an easy night.  Georgetown University, a fourteen top in the back room.  A jazz trio, singer, keyboard, bass...  Temperature at the wine bar around 79 degrees.

But yeah, I get it...  Who wants to be involved with other people... when lives are full of the tragic and complexities...  Who necessarily wants people cast off in the past back in their minds again...  Knowing people hurts.