Google is Dead

"Google is dead, long live google."

I am starting a new blog, it is at paxus.wordpress.com

There are lots of reasons why, one of them being it is good to maintain a diverse internet eco-system and not have all ones stuff under the google banner (blogspot/blogger is a google brand).

Come check me out over at my new house, which promises to be a proper superset of this blog from now on. Not exactly sure what (or if) i will use this one for.

Oh the theme of the new blog is that your passport to complaining, is your willingness to do something about it.

Facebook Greens and Blues

"i love facebook" Feonix is delighted. The cute guy from the previous nights party has accepted her friend request and they are flirting on line and over SMS. "Before facebook i would have had to ask for his number which would have seemed a bit pushy or asked one of his other friends there, where would have felt a little weird. With Facebook i can just go to a mutual friend and find him and ask and he i quite likely to say yes."

My whirlwind visits in Death City, Baltimore and Philadelphia wasw winding up and i needed to get back home. I am often terrible at these types of logistics, leaving them to the last minute. This time i was proud to call the cab company over an hour before i needed to be at the Philly 30th street train station. Only to find that because of the snow, cabs were taking as long as two hours to arrive. i run into the streets of Philly and immediately get turned around and lost and i spring down a dozen blocks to hail a cab who fortunately was an Indy 500 refugee who got me to the station in record time. In Death City i walk to the Greyhound station w/ ticket confirmation number in hand. Only to find out that all the evening buses have been cancelled.

So i go back to Union stations, only to find the next train south is not til the late morning - it is basically 2 AM i have no place to stay and the usual suspects (Beth, Rez and Heather) are all asleep now. So i pull out the new netbook Zappa and fire up Facebook on the AT&T free wifi at the station.

Facebook reveals after some searching that ex-visitor Sarah is in Death City, online and willing to have me sleep on her couch. Turns out she was playing scrabble with a friend in a different time zone. i hail a cab (subways are down and the night buses are rare) and in 15 minutes i am climbing into a couch with a sleeping bag she provided. Far nicer than the sleeping in the station. Sarah is friendly and happy to see me, we have not been in touch for a year.

Winter is the time for dramas in the community. We dont have live television and fairly predictably when we are cooped up inside cold for several month stuff starts to come up. This winter a depressed member admitted that they had considered to hurting themselves when they were in the pit of their depression. The also wrote a bunch of stuff on facebook which was not flattering of their mental state.

We had a sharing circle this evening to talk about members feelings, not to make decisions, just to get hurt, fear, surprise, compassion, confusion out in a public space. Hawina called it and facilitated it. It went really well. At this particular one, the focus person was not present, they will get to hear a (likely less charged) version on Friday. I think the sharing circle went well.

In response to members being worried about his depressed facebook comments, this member decided to delete their facebook account. This will cause it's own problems, one person is already saying "it is deleting evidence." but most Oaks feel like it is theirs to keep or delete as they like.

To paraphrase the man behind me in line at the Indian Consulate (who said this of India).

"You will love facebook, or you will hate it or you will both love it and hate it - no one is ambivalent about facebook."

"it's impossible"

Andy, Sara and i left East Wind this afternoon to drive the thousand miles back east. Last night we had our last Villages in Sky meeting and got the survey initial survey results. 15 out of 16 as Winders felt good about the project, including a number of long time members and heavy hitters. i'm happy.

In the car today we finished the Phantom Tollbooth and again dramatically with poetic demons on his heals the ordinary kid Milo manages to rescue the banished princesses Sweet Rhyme and Pure Reason (depicted above). Sara was bemused by my flood of tears as i read the last couple dozen pages in Shana's Subaru flying across Indiana.

The central msg is that the quest was impossible, but they succeeded anyway and i have a bit this feeling with everything from festival organizing to the negotiations in Copenhagen. We might pull it off, but if you were a betting person, you would not be putting money on us. Fortunately, that is not the crowd i seem to be hanging with these days.

Keyvah and Caroline get hitched !

One of my big attractions to Twin Oaks is that it is a place which inspires people to do things that other people are not even thinking about doing. To do things which some people think are impossible or at least incomprehensible. Caroline and Keyvah are doing such a thing today. Pairs of women get hitched all the time these days, but like their heterosexual counterparts, their primary motivation is their romantic connection to each other and secondary is their desire to have family together.

Both of these amazing women are key players in my son, Willow's life. And as only a parent can, i see their influence on him, Caroline's theatrics in the quirky YouTube videos they make together, Keyvah's "bored kid does complex math" tricks. And in a kind of spooky transference, Willow now seems to be able to tell when i am going to leave the room, moments before i actually get up and go - an art Caroline and Keyvah perfected sometime back.

And through this unorthodox home schooling they have built something Caroline coined "Framily". A fusion of friends and family. It turns out that the Nigerian proverb is right and it takes a village to raise a kid. But unlike the politicians and educators who spout this phrase i have seen it happen with my son and these wonderful women and our fluidly designed framily.

And i am excited to be on this journey with them and know they will help guide their own extraordinary kids.

Compost Cafe Micro Party

There was an irreversible turning point. And this is what funologists hunt.

Sabrina had been dragged away from reading her book to come to the party which was happening in the compost cafe (the small smokers lounge in the courtyard of the community). Firefly got her, apparently promising there was dancing. What there was was a lovely collection of mostly young people and mostly oakers. The few outsiders were Adam who had lived at East Wind and is well liked and appreciated here and Sara Tansey who seems to have nearly everyone fall in love with her nearly everywhere she goes.

"There is not even any dancing. You got me out of bed for this?" Sabrina complains in a whine that is so uncharacteristic of her normal stoic nature, the universe tilts.

"We absolutely did" replies Shiloh and within a minute almost all the room is standing and Sparkles ipod shuffle has taken over the sound system and dancing ensues.

Trout is anxious for another game of chess with me, when the music tones down a bit he asks if i am willing to leave the party. But i can not "This is a funologists wet dream" i say, certain that i will be misunderstood and mocked. And immediately i am.

But what makes it so funologically important is that it is a nearly perfect party, intimate, intense, highly inexpensive (accepted visitor Hale - who is tall and Nordic and charming and 27 - bought a case of cheap Mexican beer and one of Miller high life), spontaneous, simple/elegant and triggered.

But from this funologist perspective it may be triggered that is the most important piece. The talking and minimal milling and cuddling/massaging before the dance portion was nice. but what brought up the energy and added enchantment was the dancing. Bean, Firefly, Louisa, Foxx, Rusty, Sara, Shiloh, Jason (unusually), Trout, Sabrina and Mushroom make a strikingly telegenic lot bogeying. Biddy, Benji, Andy, Hale and i were more peripheral to the dancing, yet somehow holding the space for the others. And there is no way film can catch this tight, tangled event. Despite how crowded it is the group does not want to move to larger space - moving would break something and the compressed space gives it an added air of impossibility.

We are, in fact, building the better party.

Farewell Allen

About a week back a new member of Twin Oaks, Allen, took his life. He had wrestled with depression for much of his adult life and his mother said at the community sharing circle that "Twin Oaks had been the happiest month and a half of his life."

The morning before he took his life i was in the tofu hut with Mushroom and in one of those rare moments when there is no one else there but the lone kettle person and the lone trays person she said to me. "Who do you think is the sexiest person on campus?"

"Allen" was my immediately response. He was quiet, diligent, attractive, musical, mechanically inclined. I had hooked him up with ex-member Denny Ray to help with the communities perennial problem of equipment maintenance. They had fixed the Llano refrigerator together and Denny had been impressed by his quick learning and eagerness. They were working on the ice machine together the day he passed.

16 years ago this community was torn apart by Delancies suicide. It was the last one we had and it was completely different. Unlike Allen, there was lots of warning. Unlike Allen there were many who felt the community could have done more. Unlike Allen there were many who were furious with other members perceived insensitivity to mental health problems. Unlike Allen, half a dozen people left and McCune quit work for a year (something our labor system permits for people who have sufficient balance to do so).

Allen's death is a gift to us. We pull together. We support each other. Many people, especially Louisa, his lover of 9 years, are saying "it is this type of support that is the reason i moved to community". In fact the most powerful msg from our sharing circles and healing rituals is "i dont want to go back to normal"
What we want instead is a place where someone can be crying in public space, without anyone feeling put out by it or drawn into it against their will.

Christian was holding and comforting Bridget in the Tupleo Kitchen. I was in there with WIllow who was being noisy and lively. There was a whole mini-circus that passed before the mourners. When we are at our best, we integrate our sadness and our daily lives.

And his death is a challenge to us. How do maintain some piece of this incredible support we are offering each other. How do we maintain this transparency, this willingness to speak our personal truths. I learned of several peoples struggles with suicide as part of this process. i joined the care team for one of the people today, who i care for and was unaware of their struggle. Allen has helped us shine a healing light on ourselves and now we want to figure out how to keep it shining.

if we are really good, we will find the switch for that light. and if we can i am sure Allen would be proud of us.

Arguing with Willow

Part of the communities agreements is that children will do small amounts of work for the collective good. The amount they are asked to do is based on age and for a 7 year old, only here part time (because Willow spends part of each week in Cville with Sky) is one hour per week. Next year it will be two hours per week.


For a while we often did part of Willow's quota in the hammock shop. He was getting pretty good at winding shuttles and toddling them over to the welding station. But the economy and our own inability to market hammocks swept the business and now the hammock shop is nearly closed. Hawina has been having Willow do a bit of food processing (where we preserve our harvest for later in the year) and he has been unloading the dishwashers are Tupelo and MorningStar. While we continue to seek places to find labor credits for him.

We had an argument about it yesterday.

Our clothes were up to dry outside MorningStar and Willow and i were taking them down. "You can take labor credits for this." i replied casually. "No i cant." replied my clever son. "These are our clothes and not community clothes" And i realized he understood the system better than i had given him credit for. Indeed, normally one can not take labor credits for work which just benefits ones self.

I explained to Willow that there was actually a policy which gave members labor credits for drying their own clothes on the line, instead of using a dryer to save electricity and money for the community. He was having none of it.

"Can i get labor credits for taking down our own laundry?" Willow asked Hawina, skeptical of my claims. Hawina explained about the perhaps passed eco-laundry labor credits. But i could tell it was not sitting well with Willow. "You should not get labor credits for doing your own stuff." i could see him thinking.

When i was 7, i had quite some notion of family, and some vague notion about states and countries. But i had nothing like the sense of fairness and equity that my small partner seems to have developed.

The Call

When you are a support person for someone who is in trouble, you run a low level anxiety about when they are going to call you.

We have been trying to get this meeting of my international friends and my fellow communards to possibly start a new community near Twin Oaks. It was quite tricky to find a timing which worked for all the players. So we had spent the early part of the evening at Twin Oaks exploring FEC possibilities and had gone to Acorn where i was finally going to get to relax a bit and enjoy the company of these other people who i wanted to get to know Roberto and Marta.

Then the call came. Just as we were about to walk in. But there was no question, no hesitation. You've said you will be there, it's show time.

At one point when i had gotten into trouble for something Kristen and Keenan were talking about my personality and Kristen helpfully said "i just wish Paxus would follow the rules more." and Keenan replied "Pax is not a following the rules kind of guy. He is the guy you call, when you only have one call."

Tonight i got the call and delivered.

How do we choose our teachers?

It starts with respect. You have to believe that your teacher knows something that you desire to learn and has the capacity to share it with you in a way which you can hear. Their experience, be it lived or learned, has to have taken them to a place you want to go to.

Capacity is a function of shared language. This is not so much about English or algebra, but about assumptions. Do we share a belief in science or magic? Is it about our personal experiences, or the counsel of great minds? Does it matter if it is couched in politically correct terminology or off color jokes?

Finally, for me, it is about being seen. I seek a teacher who both appreciates what i have done and recognizes where their lessons may help me to grow.

I spent the weekend with George. He was a successful Wall St wizard who got out when that kind of work stopped being fun. A time which seems to correspond with the arrival to the financial markets of the current ponzi scheme/robbery artists who are currently so fashionable. He is an urban income sharing community pioneer, having helped found Ganas on Staten Island over 30 years ago and helped it grow to 70 people and 8 houses. With its intense and highly public interpersonal growth work it has been quite a wild ride. He is practices polyamory (which he prefers to call "free love" because he wants it freely chosen). A historian and a polyglot, with roots in Spain and Germany, he speaks eloquently of Catholic priests who espouse zen and the scientific basis of magical orgasm. He decoded his own chronic stress (where the specialists could only treat the symptoms) with a complex mix of practiced biofeedback techniques and dead simple meditation. He is unequal parts pragmatist, philosopher and clown.

He is writing a book (that i have my doubts about its completion) about being the Canary in the Coal mine. About what he learned in starting community and how the scientists/materialists can find their hearts and integrate. And after this weekend lively meandering conversations, punctuated by his animated laughter, it is already clear he has much to teach me.

He is arrogant, heretical and iconoclastic. He is a giant among men and i am proud to call him my new friend.

Fabian

For the two years before i left Europe i gave semen to Micha and Wieneke to help them have a baby. Now that baby is 10 and plays a pretty mean game of chess.

Wieneke asked both of us if we had any feeling about our biological connection when we were near each other. We both said no.

And in retrospect, i am very happy to have crossed 3 countries every month for nearly two years. Wieneke and Micha and Fabian are fabulous together. And i am lucky to be the outlaw uncle.

Poltical Paradoxes

I am the Am*dam chair of Anarchist for Obama. I have to go down to the generous WISE offices and get my ballot and fax it in. Virginia is polling between 3 and 8% for Obama as i write this, but i read a pretty horrifying article in the New Yorker magazine about racists simply refusing to vote for Obama and refusing to participate in polls - who knows how many there are in Virginia, but more than a few.

"Anarchists voting ? But i thought you guys were anti-government?" Sure are. And i hold no illusions about Obama giving up the industrial capitalist/"Free Trade" policies which are accelerating the degradation of the planet and creating wage slaves both at home and abroad. And the political realities are that McCain is much worse, and Palin down right scary. McCain started his campaign repeatedly talking about "Other Wars" - i think 2 is quite enuf, actually about 2 too many.

In 1988 my dearest comrade M and i argued for hours about the presidential election, with him ultimately convincing me that voting was the wrong thing to do. In 1992, M showed up at my Am*dam flat and informed me that "You voted for a winner." After i disavowed voting for Clinton he informed me that he had snuck into my polling place, claimed to be me and voted for me.

I protested "You were the one who convinced me that voting was the wrong thing to do, 4 years ago." He shot back "Things are getting really bad, we needed to do something." The irony lost on neither of us.

It was former US Gen Sec Boutros Boutros-Ghali who famously said "Only stupid peope dont change their minds." Not that anarchists are often inspired by the head of the world government.

PS my North Anna co-defendants appeal went well, their fines were seriously reduced.

God Play

One of the biggest advantages of being an international activist is you get to meet some honest-to-goddess heroes. I call him Lucifer. He looks like a punk version of Rasputin: chain smoking, scraggly hair, a disarming sideways glance. He is one of these rare people who was doing direct action politics in the Soviet Union before it collapsed, locking himself to the top of smokestacks when one could easily be disappeared by the government for this type of work. He navigated that mine field only to find the current democratic illusion in Russia makes Putin's repression more effective than Khrushchev's could ever be.



Unsurprisingly, he calls me goddess. Even with all my immodesty it does not quite sit comfortably, but i take it in the spirit it is jokingly offered. When i landed in the Netherlands i was quick to reconnect with him. He is one of the only highly active international anti-nuclear activists in Russia - if you want to work in the dark empire you need to go thru Lucifer.

He is working on stopping the shipment of uranium tailings to Russia from France, Germany, and the Netherlands. There is an EU and an international agreement on not exporting toxic wastes. The Russians and their western partners get around this by claiming the tailings are a resource - an input into uranium fuel fabrication. It is clear that with over 500K tons of tailings untouched, Russia does not need more.

The interesting thing is that we may well be on the way to winning this fight. Rosatom has said they will stop after 2009, and amazingly attributed this decision in part to public protest. The German giant power utilities RWE and EOn have said they will drop out of the German consortium, which still has other major utilities in it. This is the result of Lucifer and some German allies fine work.

The effect of this is significant. Thru a chemistry i must admit i don't yet fully understand, raw tailings must be treated to be moved IF they are not considered a resource in their untreated form. Pull Russia out and this incredible quantity of Dutch, German, and French waste needs to be handled and processed, skyrocketing the costs. Another break on the nuclear relapse.

Recently, curiously, both Lucifer and Honza are attributing to me something i did not quite say in the 90s. "Besides hard work, the only things you need to stop a reactor is to be brilliant and to be lucky."

But i will take credit for it. As was pointed out repeatedly this year at Burning Man, the truth is not what is ultimately important, but rather it is the compelling story that we seek.

Gidy in Am*dam

It is like a huge clock with a mechanism made of canals and trams and hobbit like bridges. I am thrilled to be back - in part because the city itself is the best of contemporary civilization - successfully multicultural, low crime, great mass transit, decriminalization of victimless crimes (like soft drugs, gambling and prostitution) and quite clean. And in part because some of my favorite people in the world live here.

Honza tells a story of his neighborhood association picnic, where some city representative asked what they would like changed and how they were willing to help. They said they would like to have a front garden on their flat, like some of their neighbors had. Within two weeks the municipal work crew with some local volunteers came and pulled the concrete out from in front of their house and delivered planting soil. Honza and Hanka said they would plant and support a garden and they have. Where else does this happen?

Honza also talked about the European Football (soccor) championships. When ever the Dutch team played, the city brought out these large display screens and set them up in some public squares. No big surprise here, the sport is very popular. But what is a surprise is that the city also brings these huge screens out when ever the Moroccan or Turkish national teams are playing, because these groups are a significant part of the local culture.

Strange Religions

Xavier and Irene (Hawina's niece who lived at Twin Oaks for some month a couple years back) have been gracious hosts to the crashing Star family - which is constantly reconfiguring, but currently is Sky, Willow, Hawina and myself. We are staying in their small apartment in Heerlen, about half an hour walk from the German border on the southern edge of the Netherlands.

It costs 29 Euros to take the train from Heerlen to Am*dam (about $45). And we have had good news recently about our recent choice to become community supported activists. People have been inspired by our various projects and are being generous in supporting us. Despite Wall St crashing, activist stocks seem to be rising (some might argue because of it). So 29 Euros would seem accessible, especially since we want to support the efficient, comfortable, comprehensive Dutch mass transit system.

But it misses the point - the point which is about radical sharing. And about story telling. And about dropping social barriers. And about taking useful risks. And about modeling behaviors for a more sustainable future.

i am talking about hitchhiking.

The Dutch weather is perfect today - it is cloudy and threatening. So even if i am not now wet, i could be in moments. You get to be a hero for picking up someone at the edge of a storm. Many people wave, some indicate that they are only going a short distance or that their vehicles are filled with family or junk. One woman gives me a thumbs down, but she is the exception.

After perhaps 45 minutes (i am without cell phone these days, so my clock is gone), a car stops on the wide breakdown lane entering the highway to the north. He is going to Eindoven and on to Tilburg - this is far enough along my way to give up my good spot, for what might be a poor one further on.

He is totally charming. Speaks good English. He is an art lecturer, who amazingly makes his money from the entry fees to his lectures. He rents out auditorium space, self promotes and makes enough to live relatively comfortably. I can't conceive of someone doing this in the US, unless they had a huge name - and then thy would not do their own promotion.

We talk about Jackson Pollack who i have never understood (my lover Caroline, now in art school in Barcelona, has offered to explain him, but i wanted to do this face to face). And Andy Warhol (who he respects the intellect of, but is not impressed with his art). I ask him about Rembrant and the Night Watch and why it is so important. He talks about artists as revolutionaries, as challenging our perceptions of the world. In Pollacks case, he talks about revolutionizing the tools artists use- throwing out the brush and the eisal. I tell him stories, talk about the commune and of course memetics. He is enchanted, very glad he took the risk of picking up a hitchhiker.

We part in Tilburg. We never shared names - often it is part of the culture of hitching - to be vulernable and nearly intimate with someone and never know this label on their identity.

The Perfect Nag

i've never had a blog before. And i have a bunch of ideas which i think are important and i am going to hurl them into the blog as we go along and i am inspired to do so. Tonight's memetic construct is the perfect nag - this come from the work we did on an activist personal growth system called co-empowerment.

The basic idea is to design for failure. Especially with project which have lots of individual efforts which need support, designing a perfect nag is one method to increase the chances of success of your project. It goes something like this.

You have a task list. You have an ally who wants to support you with making progress on this list (but likely is not especially involved in your part of the project). They agree that that they are gong to call and check in with you about how you are progressing. This is called nagging.

Perfect nagging is when you premeditate the script for what your nag says when you fail to do something you have promised to do. For example, do they get angry with you? do they cheerfully suggest a new deadline or other possible solutions ? do they send stony cold signals and wait for you to be appropriately apologetic and make suggestions ? Depending on who you are, and what you need - different answers would make sense.

The robust designing of perfect nags could save the world.

And we might be too busy for that (or as Vonnegut said "we could have saved it, but we were too damn cheap and lazy.")

Tara

"Are you a story teller?" she asks me on the dance floor.

"Yes" i reply over the enticing performance of the Goddess Alchemy Project.

She takes my hand and leads me off the floor. We weave thru the crowd at Portland's impressive Village Building Convergence evening show. We find a spot to sit, between the eco-friendly building supplies and the progressive bookstore.

She begins breathlessly, "At Burning Man, my friends and i were doing an aerial performance at the center camp stage and after our show you came up and said you had an important story to tell us.” Her eyes seek confirmation from me. ‘Is this you? Are you the right guy?’ I nod for her to continue, I did not remember saying it was an ‘important’ story, but never one for modesty, i certainly could have.

“That was such an amazing story, about the princess and the three secrets. It was a turning point for me and my life and i never thought i would see you again and i just moved to Portland. And here you are.” i had to explain to Tara that i was not actually living in here. And i was quite touched by the impact the story had had on her.

Last fall, Sabrina could not understand why I went around Burning Man telling the same small set of stories. Besides my need for practice to getting better, it is interactions like this one, sometimes months and years later – that feed the soul (and yes the ego) of this wanna-be bard.

Below is the video which convinced Rob Jones to go to Burning Man "i dont want Hitler angry with me."

daily practice - frisee and enchantment

"Get a daily practice" nags my co-dad, Sky.

"It can be meditation, running with Keenan each morning, or even something you have home grown like co-empowerment. but you need something to get more organized so you will be less frustrating and more respectful of people who you deeply care about."



More recently Angie has struggled heroically to help me to get organized - building tools and attempting to craft better work culture - shared document spreadsheet flow charts of things to do and checking in with me on progress daily.

Angie wants to have a philosophy discussion on why i remain "the most disorganized organizer" she has even know. Hoping to avoid this conversation, i developed a daily practice. It goes something like this:

Everyday, at last briefly - ideally first thing, i will go to the hammock shop and start weaving a hammock. I'll put my labor sheet at the end of the gig with a pencil. On the back of the sheet will be my to do list addendum (to be added to the Angie's automated system when convenient).

I'll think about what is the most important thing to do today, the one thing. And ruminate on the rest of my various projects and relationships and assess if i am doing the right thing.

As i stood in front of the hx, counting the 14 stitches i felt an amusing comfort that i might have stumbled onto something that i can do that might work. I was about 5 minute in but fairly deep in meditation when Apple bounced into the hx shop asking who was going to come play frisbee. .

I was thinking at first - i am just figuring this out, this is important, i should work on this daily practice thing more. But then i went back to first principals "What is most important here?"

Today is a beautiful day. The kind of mid-february 70 degree sunny day, which convinces you both climate change is happening and that some of it is beautiful. So in walking out to the frisbee field i recommitted myself to treasuring these fringe benefits of the collapse of the eco-system.

Eleven others - mostly strapping youth come to the windy frisbee field. I am there early, joking with Ezra. We created Boris Goodenov, for the question in a stylized Russia accent "Are you good enough?" "Yes i am Goodenov, Boris Goodenov from the Soviet Frisbee team." And for a brief period we were all calling each other Boris "Throw to me Boris" or "Boris pay attention" which was a call to everyone in its comic way.

i was the only one on the field over 30 - i guess Elsa is 30. i am happy to be there, i play a respectable game - even have one very nice catch in the end zone and some good passes.

i am deeply appreciative of this very low maintenance body of mine, which allows me to play this wonderful game with these amazing people. i think that every gift is an obligation. And the look on Apples face when i actually showed up on the frisbee field was enuf to melt my heart.

On todays list of things to do:

count blessings - and
1) brilliant intimate advisers
2) treasuring the collapse
3) appreciate rugged bod
4) Bucket and engaging ed

It is too windy to keep playing, we decide on soccer, but the ball is at Kaweah, a good 10 minute bike ride each way. I decide to go get the ball, but confusedly walk off in the wrong direction. Then i hop on a bike, but Noah has gone off ahead of me. I ride to catch up and then i realize it is foolish because he is way ahead of me and much faster than me, even when i am trying to cathc up with him - he is booking.

So i swing thru Harmony, shower, change to another pair of boxers - find a trade local t-shirt. And stumble into the tremendousness which is Bucket - who is using D & D monster handbooks and many multicolored and various sided die to teach fast arithmetic.

"You look thru the closing cosmic portal. What do you do?"
"Nothing" sez Willow
"you see something red, inside." entices Bucket
"we jump thru" sez an enthused Gwen
"Gwen is thru" corrects Bucket.
"I jump thru" hastens Willow
"Jonah?" Bucket looks to Jonah, who quickly complies

"You are on the top of a large grassy hill" Bucket begins in a calm voice
"And when you look over the side of the hill you see 100,000 of these.

"what do you do?" but before Bucket finishes Willow is already screaming and running in place.
"You see a door."
"We go thru it." Shouts Jonah.
"There are 100,000 of these guys outside, what do you do?" Bucket entices
"You could close the door."
"We close the door" advises Jonah
"There is a lock"
"We lock the lock" says Gwen
"To lock the lock you need to solve this math problem.
And you have to do it before the monsters break down the door." Bucket grabs a piece of paper and starts scribbling and the kids gather around excitedly.

Dying at home

My father is dying. i can hear him coughing in the other room. He has Parkinson's, he's been diagnosed with it for a decade now. i have been spending more time with him recently, in an effort to spell my mother who is his primary care giver.

He is lucky. He worked hard and was successful over his life and now the medical establishment, which is so easy to be critical of in this country, is working hard for him. Because he has access to resources. It is not fair, of course. But it is the system we have, and for him and those who care for him, we are thankful. i guess it is not lucky - it is smart.

We have never been very close. My father, like me, defines himself by the things that he does. He was an architect, founded a firm with him name. And spent the vast majority of his waking hours building the firm, designing and creating beautiful buildings and houses, like the one he lives in. The one i grew up in. The one i am sitting in right now.

He focused on this one passion, i focus on many.