Going to Normal School

I had an interesting conversation the other day.

I was talking to a colleague about this, that and the other and happened to mention that I was a bit bored now that I only have one job. Uhm, well… one job and a freelance thing and two other projects. The guy looks at me. And looks at me.

-You should take a course in how to be normal, he says.
-The what with the who now? I answer intelligently.
-Yeah. You should be sent to normal school.

He pauses. Considers.

-It would be the only course you ever failed, he says and chuckles at his own joke, being sort of lame like that.
-Probably, I concede. “I’m fucked-up in about nine different ways.”

All true too.

I can’t really explain the many ways in which this is funny without going into how many people I know who have at some point told me how weird I am – while I on the other hand of course think I’m perfectly normal and sane and with all the shit I know about people (I have that kind of face, you know? people tell me shit) think that they’re all bonkers.

It’s really a sliding scale. It is. Normal … well, now, that’s one of those concepts that guys like Foucault get off on picking apart. It’s just what the general consensus has decided for the moment should be taken as the normative state. So I don’t really have a lot of confidence in the general principle behind the concept.

Here’s what you need to keep at the front of your frontal lobe – normal only means “normal to me”, as in “what I find normative due to societal consensus”.

Uhm. I guess pleading my case with the aid of French post-structuralists doesn’t really help, does it?

Anyway – Normal School. We probably all took that course.

Some of us just sat at the back and doodled in our notebooks, is all.

ROL

More food for thought

I believe in the betterment of your mental faculties. I would, too, being a rational and reasonably intelligent creature.

The more time you spend thinking about your philosophical predicament, the less time you spend thinking about the shit that’s going to give you an ulcer.

To that end I will furnish my reader with more food for thought in the form of modern day koans.

Here is today’s thought fodder:

* How much can I get away with and still go to heaven?

* If time heals all wounds, how come bellybuttons don’t fill in?

* Why is it that bullets ricochet off of Superman’s chest, but he ducks when the gun is thrown at him?

ROL

Modern day koans

I assume my esteemed reader is a learned person. I assume my most cherished and learned reader is well educated and intelligent. The beauteous spark of my enchanting reader’s acumen is what engenders such concord between us.

I am speaking to you today of the notion of the “koan” – as used in Zen Buddhist meditation. There the teacher may ask the student to ponder such a question as “does a dog have Buddha-nature or not?” – though I think the most famous ones are “if a tree falls in the forest and there’s no one there to hear it, does it still make a sound” and “what is the sound of one hand clapping” – you know, stuff f that nature.

When you spend a great deal of time amounting a mass of words, like I have, you tend to go off on things like that.

This is neither here not there, I guess, but I found what you might describe as modern day koans and I will now, in my Zen way, share some of them for the pleasure and amusement of my most valued and esteemed reader for them to ponder at their leisure.

They are as follows:

* Whose cruel idea was it for the word ‘lisp’ to have an ’s’ in it?

*Why are there flotation devices under airplane seats instead of parachutes?

* Why did kamikaze pilots wear helmets?

*Why do toasters always have a setting that burns the toast to a horrible crisp, which no decent human being would eat?

Now, run along and meditate on these under a bodhi tree and see if you might, by this measure, gain enlightenment.

I remain, as always, you humble servant.

ROL

What du you want from me? Blood?

So – my boss decided that it was a good idea to send us all for a health check-up type thing.

I don’t like doctors. Nothing personal, if I’m bleding out or if my appendix bursts or something like that I definitely want them around. Other than that, not so much.

So – anyway – I get worked over by two charming ladies, they ask the standard twenty questions, you know: Any history of diabetes in the family? Heart problems? Depression? Have trouble sleeping?

Uh, the last one there was kind of hard to get into without mentioning Tyler Durden, but I did my level best. And after that they hook you up to some machines, measure your heart rate, all that. The sucktion cup noise of them hooking that one up was kind of funny. And I managed not to leer at the twenty-something nurse who asked me to take my clothes off. I’m a lamb.

Anyway – this is all good and fine, right up to the point where she tries to draw blood.

-Which arm? she asks.
I’ve already rolled up my left sleeve.

I used to be a blood donor back in the day so I recognize a rookie when I see one. Hell, given enough incentive even I can find a vein if I have to.

Not so my nurse.

She poked and prodded in my left arm first which is where the blood donor people used to prefer taking my blood. It’s an interesting sensation when someone gropes around for a vein with a needle. And fails to find one. Twice.

We switched arm after that.

Eventually she hit the main line, but not until she had reduced me to pin cushion status. I was well stabbed and kind of resigned about it at that stage.

In search of a pleasant day to round off the day after that I watched what can best be described as a very bad vampire movie. Yeah, there’s a sliding scale there. Some are good – others not so much. Actually this one was terrible. The vamps didn’t sparkle in the sunshine, but they sure as hell weren’t very scary either. Morality tales have their inherent flaws and yeah, well, I was out for blood and didn’t even get it.

Sort of like that nurse of mine.

ROL

It’s all fun and games until someone gets hurt… serial killer style

I had a reasonably hard day of work behind me and a head full of cotton, so I figured I’d watch some TV, ‘cause that’s about as efficient in making my headspace go all nice and blank as staring into a fire.

Turns out sometimes not so much.

Here’s what I wound up watching – a documentary about homelessness complete with interviews of the sixteen year old daughter who’s mother is working as a prostitute. The girl saying “the worst thing isn’t that I know she’s doing it, the worst thing is she tells me about it”. A documentary about serial killers from the perspective of the criminologists doing active research on guys like Elmer Wayne Henley and a deeply disturbing piece of social commentary.

I think the part that freaked me out about the psychopaths was probably the German serial killer who had been let out after having served ten years (he had racked up a body count in the double digits) and who was now volunteering as a Santa at a local Christmas market. His priest thought it was wonderful how people can change… Five minutes in to the interview my hackles are all the way up already and then the guy starts talking about how he’s clairvoyant and can see peoples auras and sometimes he can see the ones who are ready to die. It’s okay, though, he loves working with little children. The joy on their faces makes him happy.

Yeah. Alright.

What we all know about psychopaths … well, one of the things we should all know, though maybe I have a head start here, I’ve studied some criminology and I’ve made a special study of guys like this, is that they don’t actually change. They can’t be cured. They are also, by their very nature, manipulative and charming and can pretty much sell ice to an Eskimo. It’s actually in the profile.

So – I think I should maybe go back to controlled viewing for a while, ‘cause I got a little too much human nature heaped over me there in a very short space of time.

And my headspace wound up filled with stuff that was the very opposite of nice and blank.

Damn it.

ROL

I just wanna be a cowboy, baby…

When you’re halfway asleep and your brain is running on in whatever track it happens to be stuck on you get some weird stuff sometimes.

My thoughts were shaped pretty much like this “…I got to get up and saddle the Apploosa, go round the property see how the fence posts are doing… Storm might have knocked  some of them down… don’t want the livestock to get out… hate when that happens… wonder if there’s any coffee yet…”

I was ready to pull on my Tony Llamas and amble out into the kitchen, drink my coffee from a chipped enamel mug and then mosey on off to the barn to saddle up and head out.

When I peeled my eyes all the way open I realised that – hey, you know what? I’m actually not a ranch hand.

Well. Fuck.

I coul have understood it if I had been watching old cowboy movies, or reading cowboy stories, or even just … I don’t know, heard Kid Rock on the radio or something, but no.

Man, I wonder what the hell I was dreaming.

Also, pretty much par for the course, note that I didn’t dream of long lazy days in Texas heat, drinking sweet tea on the porch or anything, no of course not, I was dreaming of getting up and going to work.

Imm’a thinkin’ that’s some typical stuff right there. Just sayin’.

Tip of the cowboy hat to y’all.

ROL

The clonk-mysteries

There are certain times when you feel… oh, how shall I put it… perhaps a little more vulnerable than others.

Now, I’m a fairly paranoid person, but in a healthy “don’t take candy from strangers” kind of way. That is to say, I’m not a “nut living in the wilderness with a 110 pound Rottweiler named Butch and a knife collection” kind of paranoid. Uh… okay, so maybe a small knife collection, but it’s really very reasonable and it’s not like I collect them on purpose, they just tend to accumulate.

Anyway…

So there are times when you feel slightly more vulnerable than others, is what I’m trying to convey here in my very “not a loner in the woods” way.

I take my baths seriously. Yeah, I’m one of those people. I like the temperature just about one degree below my-god-I’m-cooking-alive and I bring a pitcher of water to drink and occasionally a book. You have to be specific about the book too, just in case there’s unintentional slippage hence leading to the reading material becoming slightly more soggy than nature intended.

So there I am in my bath with my book. The inevitable relaxation that the near cooking temperature induces has just started setting in and knotted muscles are unraveling at the solid pace of about one layer ever tree pages, if you measure your time at reading pace. I’m getting good and mellow.

Suddenly there’s a clonk.

Let me define this clonk a little more clearly. I live alone, I haven’t given away any spare keys and there should be no appliances, devices or living entities capable of producing a clonk anywhere near my vicinity. Especially not while I’m wet and naked.

We’ve all seen this movie, haven’t we?

If I ignore the sound the crazed ax murderer will wait until I lean my head back and close my eyes and then ax-murder me in the tub, blood spatter reaching the ceiling and splashing decoratively over some white towels by my side.

If I get up to investigate, wearing only a towel, the crazy ax murderer will hide behind the door and then wait until I’ve done a walk through and then ax-murder me just as I turn my back to the door to get back in the tub.

If I go for my phone the only sound it will produce is the tired bleep-bleep of a dead line and then the ax murderer will be standing behind me to ax-murder me when I turn around.

Still, there was a clonk. The clonk will not be ignored.

I ponder it for about a second and a half and then I figure – fuckit.
I go back to my book.

When I do get out of the bath, a well cooked piece of relaxed paranoia, I do the walk through anyway. You know, just in case the clonk did originate somewhere that might actually require some kind of attention from me.

Things are eerily undisturbed.
I guess I’ll never know the nature of the clonk. The origin of the clonk. Its very clonk-ness eludes me.

And the quote of the day comes from the excellent movie Strange Days in which Philo says “Paranoia is just reality on a finer scale”.

Down, Butch!

ROL

Sinners, every last one of us

I have told you about that whole Asking-thing, yeah?

People ask me the darndest things randomly in the street – one of my favourties is still “what date is it?” but we’ve got a strong contender now.

I was accosted as per the usual arrangement, not as randomly as it might seem by a pair of gentlemen of an early Sunday morning.

And I guess that’s just how it takes you sometimes. You wake up in a foreign city early a Sunday morning with an unpleasant taste in your mouth and a dire need to attend mass and quite possibly confess your sins. Excess or guilt or maybe just good habits – or really, really bad ones are going to dictate your behaviour anyway and well…  We all need direction at times, I guess.

I’m well beyond pondering what makes people chose me to ask. I either look like someone who has their shit together or I look like a sinner, and that’s fine with me. Both and neither are equally true.

The scary part is I could actually point the gentlemen in the direction if the nearest Catholic church.

I am a lamb.

ROL

Mad man howler monkeys and Tom Waits

I find lots of things to ponder when it comes to human behaviour. My own as well as other peoples. On a scale from one to ten, most people manage pretty well when it comes to interactions with other human beings, given variables like time, place and situation.

That being said…

I generally like to listen to music when I go out and about. There is a reason for that. I actually don’t want to hear the drivel spoken around me. I have problems maintaining my faith in mankind as we stand and I don’t need to make that harder than it already is.

Picture if you will, me ambling along – or, actually I keep a pretty spanking pace… well, anyway, I walking, okay? The weather today has been one of those hazy, humid and hot kind of days when you don’t know if it’s fog or heat haze or smog making you squint. I got Heartattack and Vine going on my MP3, my sweat tacky shirt is sticking to the small of my back, the lazy wind tries to dispel some of the city funk and Tom Waits is singing “don’t you know there ain’t no devil, there’s just god when he’s drunk” when a car passes me by.

It’s got three guys in tank tops in it. They look like rejects from some cheap New Jack City -wannabe gangster movie, complete with bad tattoos and even worse music belting out of the surprisingly crappy car stereo.
The guy in the back seat leans out and screams at me.
No – seriously.
He literally leans out of the window and lets loose the yowling holler of a howler monkey trapped on an electrical fence.

My only response to that kind of thing is … ? …

See this is what I don’t understand about human behaviour.

I have the kind of mind that immediately sets to work on that kind of thing. It runs lightning quick through scenarios that would merit that kind of action. The why? The what? The many variables including heat and light and timing involved in such behaviour.

Unfortunately I think it’s actually quite possible that the only explanation is that the guy was an idiot. Eh, what are you gonna do?

Meanwhile Tom says:

Doctor, lawyer, beggar man, thief, Philly Joe remarkable looks on in disbelief,
if you want a taste of madness, you’ll have to wait in line, you’ll probably
see someone you know on Heartattack and Vine.

Damned straight.

ROL

The thing that goes ping goes ***

It’s been a while, but there’s that music of chance thing that happens, though in my case it’s actually more of a clang and boom and steam kind of thing.

The morning, man, it is a bitch. I get to work and hook myself up to all the machines to start the process of starting the day and all computers available are doing that pouty, “not gonna/don’t wanna” thing they sometimes do.

It’s been a while since they were that bitchy towards me so I stroke their little consoles and try sweet-talking them for a while. Nothing doing.

Eventually I give it up and hit the attic space. That’s where Mother lives.

Now, Mother usually has all kinds of fans whirring and lights blinking and bleeps bleeping and that kind of stuff. Today she is cold, dark and silent. Uh-oh. Huston, we have a problem.

It wouldn’t bother me so bad if it wasn’t for the fact that I know the support guy is out of town – I talked to him last night and by then he was drunk on Champagne, which is not a bad way to get drunk if you ask me.

I try calling him anyway.

No answer. Not really a big surprise there. This is so obviously a hardware problem of some kind, but … well … Mother is being a bit of a Mother, you know? Imagine half a maching park with cables and cords running like many tentactes in a teleological growth kind of way and stacked in a haphazzard pattern the likes of a mangrove forrest and that’s not a bad image. For something so technological it’s awful … organic is the word I’m looking for I guess.

Anyway.

Now it’s all dark. I manage to get a hold of the slightly hung over tech eventually. That leads to me on my knees crawling around the attic looking for the thing that connects to the do-hickey that attaches to the thinga-ma-bob. I do that for a while. What it all finally boils down to is that the actual outlet has no power. And everything is connected to the same socket.

We’re talking all of the assembly of machinery here. Including the back-up power source for the server. All into one socket.

I might not be a computer genius, but I do pride myself in some kind of common sense. Even I know you don’t do that. You don’t put all your eggs in one basket. Or, well, you can but then you might be faced with the slight problem I had this morning.

It’s not glamourous, starting the day in the attic on your knees with a flashlight stuck in your mouth because you need both hands to try and follow the right cable to the right piece of machinery.  Not how I figured I was going to start my day, you know?

I finally find another socket to stick the plug in and everything lights up and bleeps and blinks and whirrs and pings. It’s an oddly soothing sound. I’ve turned the cooling units back on. We’re back online.

All this seems like a rather good metaphor of something or other. Especially considering I had the tech in my ear the whole time saying things like “huh, that’s never happened before” and “there’s supposed to be a button there” and “I know what I’m doing” and “well, i can find my way around it” all of which is spectacularily not helpful as things stand. I think I was surprisingly calm and together with the guy. He was hung over after all – me screaming “so-of-a-bitch” in his ear might not have been helpful.

I did drawl a bit of sarcasm at him when I found out the back-up was connected to the same socket as the main powersource – but he just went “uh, yeah, it’s like, uh, you know” so I’m guessing he was probably thinking that wasn’t the smartest thing he’d ever done.

Surprisingly – I didn’t get angry though. Hmm. Weird.

ROL