To sincerely hoping that Rick films again

[Old and mistakenly unpublished post from June 5, 2007]

I had an overly significant conversation with the photographer at the local Wal-Mart today. It's not the first time this has happened; I have been paying him a visit for document photos about once a semester, and though I understand that he can't possibly remember me given the number of people he deals with every day, I certainly remember him. I really like the man; he tells me about films and writing and film-writing, and his passion for all of the above and beyond is truly admirable. I tell him about my aspirations, and he tells me not to ever give them up but to remember money issues because he didn't think of money issues until he fell into an unexpectedly long soujourn at Wal-Mart. But he's not bitter; he's incredibly kind. I have a lot of respect for artists and dreamers alike, and I especially admire artist-dreamers. I vow to be one of them (even if not in what one'd call the most direct sense of the term).

I'm afraid of artist-dreamers. I trust them so much that I'm not entirely sure that I can trust that I can trust them. It's an odd kind of fear that drives me to simultaneous super-vulnerability and gratitude.

But perhaps that fear stems from the harsh realities we're faced with in this money-grubbing, stumbling-through-life society; that fear of too much benefit of the doubt, because really-- why is one not to trust people?

Today a toothless middle-aged man stomped with grace to our front-door. After a five-minute telephone conversation on our front porch, he finally rings the doorbell.
Something about regular extermination of house pets.
I look at him suspiciously through the one-inch-cracked door and demand an explanation. And I'd thought he was the Fed-Ex guy.
"Well, you're Michael Herring, aren't you?"
Now, I understand that I don't look my best after rolling out of bed after a night of half-sleep, and it is true I need a haircut, but until this moment I'd been fairly certain I could pass for a female.
"Er... no..."
"Damnit, these things don't have numbers! How-one-supposed ta know?"
I calmly point to the saliently black-against-white numbers centered at the beginning of all driveways, each indicating the street number corresponding to the home at the end of the driveway, available for one's address-finding needs in case his visual prescription isn't powerful enough to notice the number displayed on each mailbox.

After a few more minutes' debate, I succeed in convincing him that I'm sure I'm not Michael Herring, and that I am not inhabiting 25 Parthenon Pointe. He glares at me with an air of suspicion and looks back often as he slowly makes his way back to his truck. I do the same as I slowly make my way back to my coffee.


Sometimes I wonder how I've managed to not get shot in the past near-20 years, and then I think about aforementioned dreamers, realizing that, perhaps, their imagination is somehow protective-- maybe they're like invisible superheroes looking out through the eyes of the bird that's made a nest for herself on our front porch, ready to spring to action if need be when toothless lunatics present themselves at the door, insisting that I am a 40-year-old man with two children ignoring the reality of my own life as I pretend to inhabit the wrong home and not to have a pet problem requiring immediate extermination services.

hm.

what you discover, you will never forget.

"L'homme n'est qu'un roseau, le plus fiable de la nature, mais c'est un roseau pensant. Il ne faut pas que l'univers entier s'arme pour l'écraser; une vapeur, une goutte d'eau suffit pour le tuer. Mais quand l'univers l'écraserait, l'homme serait encore plus noble que ce qui le tue puisqu'il sait qu'il meurt et l'avantage que l'univers a sur lui, l'univers n'en sait rien. Toute notre dignité consiste donc en la pensée. C'est de là qu'il faut nous relever et non de l'espace et de la durée, que nous ne saurions remplir. Travaillons donc bien à penser: voilà le principe de la morale."
[[B. Pascal]]

[Man is but a rose, the frailest of nature, but he is a thinking rose. It is not necessary for the entire universe to arm itself to crush him; a vapor, a drop of water suffices to kill him. But when the universe will crush him, man will still be more noble than that which kills him, for he is aware of his death and of the advantage that the universe has upon him, while the universe knows nothing of it. All of our dignity consists thus of thought. It is thence that we must rise, and not from space and time, which we know not how to fill. Let us work thus on thinking: there lies the basis of moral.]

life in a community in which soap is always available

Currentlly listening to: Bob Dylan - "The Hurricane"

School's back in gear, and my mind's racing in several different directions-- I'm sort of amazed at how my body manages to be in Oregon at Reed in classes in library at desk in various degrees of often (or at least we hope c'est vrai for immediately future days).
Being back in the whiz and whirlwind of academia is really darn strange. I spent the first week of school reminding myself that everything is relative and that I could get out of this approximately as quickly as it takes to calculate the number of steps needed to walk out the front door, but things are better. I'm going to earn (earn's right and impossibly wrung) a degree from this place, and I'm going to use it to get up to business and down this ladder. After I've finished all the studies the whole deal entails (sadly, at least a few more years).

This year, Personals take the foreground, Cancer (zodiac sign! never disease!). I don't really understand the approach to Extra-Personals, this time around, perhaps because the Personals are Really Rallying for Rememberance and Resolution.

In the mean-time, I want to read books about God and Love and Beignets and New Orleans.

And I no longer own hand sanitizer, leaving me with a vacant backpack frontpocket and dirtier hands, in the end.