Going to bed last night, I was thinking about the fact that theoretical physicists are seen by their practical and applied colleagues sometimes as being more philosophers than scientists.
It's been a "science" I've been wanting to see for some time, the physics of interpersonal relationships and how people relate to each other in groups and in society.
How massive personalities seem to attract smaller personalities in orbit around them, how every action has an equal reaction. How people seem negatively and positively charged to attract or repel each other.

My favorite science teacher when I was young said "Science never proved anything. It's hypothesis with practical application sometimes, but the point of science is to keep asking and testing."

I guess that's my issue with Einstein. A lot of his best theories and ideas happened when he was a staid young scientist, not the kooky sticking out his tongue guy people remember, the one who said all the very witty and quotable things. When he was young, poking at the cosmos, trying new ideas and coming up with ideas that contradicted popular thought was what he did that made him great, but the older he got, the less great ideas he had, and despite how wild he seemed, he was less willing to have his earlier ideas poked at, to be questioned.

I don't know what to write in here anymore. But maybe those thoughts I have before I go to sleep?
The rest of my days are pretty mundane. I'm loving it, quiet and calm and full of things I'm enjoying but are probably boring to most people.

I've been pretty imaginary for a while. Sorry about that. Just busy living a very quiet not very noteworthy life, unless you want descriptions of birds I see when I'm out walking or to hear how bizarre the gym is. (Really.. ukuleles?)

But right now I want to say something to Lissa, it may get long. I thought about sending it in an email, but it's not really private, just personal.
( a note to a lover )

I miss this. I still read everyone, but I feel like if I have anything to say in here, the words are too hard to find. So I write long emails to Meleficent or to K instead.
Lately a lot of people I know are getting in touch with me, the internet makes it entirely too easy maybe.
A lot of them have found G-d in their quests for meaning and definition, and they want to spread the Good Word with me, or assume I've already found my way to the same point they are at. Good moral lives without promiscuity, without romantic love towards someone who's the same sex. Morality that's just a lot of mores that they want to inflict on the world. Rules determined by their prejudices or the prejudices of the religion and leaders they follow.
I have nothing to say to them. I can't convert them, and they can't convert me, but I get very very annoyed sometimes at their attempts, and rather then try to fruitlessly to explain yet again that as far as I'm concerned, anything between any number of consenting adults of any gender is not. my. business. I write long emails to friends. Too many years distant, too few things in common anymore.
You know how almost everyone has that one person they think of occasionally even if they don't want to? I thought of that person today. I wondered if he found the answers to his questions in religion. Is he a vegetarian Buddhist? Has he been born again? I tried various things on him in my mind. It's been so long, I'm sure we'd have nothing left to talk about either, except days gone by, and those days are done.
Other than the normal things that make up day to day living, that's constantly on my mind lately. Not the second part.. but the first. Religion and what people find in it, and how people manage the inherent contradictions in their beliefs, how that balance works. I ask sometimes, but when I do, the answers never make much sense even when old friends take it as a serious question and not an attack on their faith.

Have you ever seen a picture of someone in daytime you only knew by night? There's a thought somewhere in the back of my mind I can't quite express clearly yet, about loving someone nocturnally and how they seem to be completely different by day. That daylight makes them cooler. Not cool like leather jackets, clove cigarettes and discussing Kerouac over coffee or beer, but cool like ice, something removed, something cleaner and more untouchable, at least to someone who lives by night.
Well.. the thought will come eventually.

xtalcy and I were talking about memory the other day, how it works to recreate and soften or intensify emotional association with an event that occurred. We didn't come to any grand conclusions or anything like that, it was just talk.
But it's that time of the year when you start thinking "How did I get here from there?" because most people just don't wind up where they planned or thought they would be. Truth is, at 17, I had no idea or plans. At 18, any plans I may have had were shattered. Friendships I thought would last forever turned out to be a lot more mortal then I ever imagined, and I made a pretty complete break. I wound up dropping out of society for while. The memories are hazy at best, exactly when everything changed, and turned around. I keep track by big events I remember fairly clearly. I was just shy of 17 when I met ... well.. never mind. Point is, I can sometimes almost see that other path, the other choices I could have made.
I had an offline message from someone I knew 20 years ago, wishing me good holidays, a happy 2009, and just to tell me he loved me.
I remembered when hearing that from him would have been all I wanted in the world. When I broke up with him, and spent a week crying and reconsidering, wishing things could be different. Typical teenage drama and puppy love. At the time, it felt pretty real and like it would matter always.
While I was in the middle of trying to sort those scrambled memories again, I got an email from Kim, just a short note. "Why are you still awake? Want to get together for coffee soon? I love you." The memories don't matter as much now, how I got here from there. Because I like it here.
Part of the problem is someone on myspace, an old high school buddy, who has had time soften and mythify his memories. He's created a mythology of that time that makes a lot closer than we were, and made it all a lot more pleasant then it was. I'm sure the truth is somewhere between my memories of a hellish ordeal of shifting loyalties, manipulations, gossip and politics worthy of a grand Prom National Convention, and his happy misty memories of everyone getting along, and me being some sort of leader who helped mix groups that normally wouldn't meet (yeah, that's pretty close to a quote. YECH.)He needs to follow someone or something, he's become an evangelical, and doesn't really understand why I wouldn't want to renew our friendship. 20 years between then and now, and he didn't know me well then. To be fair, only one person I went to hs with did actually know more than just the social face, and we can't be friends because there is so much history. Oh yeah, and the story he wrote. That comes between us too.
Right this minute, I'm very glad we are only traveling through time in one direction, and I'm glad that memory is such an inaccurate thing to go the other direction with.
And hey! I get to go have coffee with Kim, and we can talk about memory, music and men.

Thank you, whoever added a years worth of paid account time and icons. I appreciate it.
And I feel horribly guilty for not updating more. I've developed a bad habit of writing emails to various friends instead when it's just rambling and moodiness. I suspect nobody reads them, since I never gets responses.
The last few months..
Rafe, how do you DO it? Keep your mind and intelligence while going to the gym? I can't seem to. I feel like the stronger I get, the stupider I get. I'm very afraid someday I won't be bringing in the gossip mags to drop off, but I'll be bringing them in to read. Someone gave me a subscription, and I have NO idea how long, for Star magazine. It stopped being funny months ago. I peel off the labels, so nobody knows they are sent to me, and drop them off at the gym. It's sort of a game for me, to see how fast someone grabs them, or to try and guess who did grab it to read. If I start caring about it, if my mind does leave me that completely..
Maybe I should write a will for disposition of my books if my mind leaves me completely.
The other day, there was a guy in the weight room with a ukulele, and a few days later, a different guy with one. Is it the new trend among weight lifters to provide music for each other?

***kiss kiss***

The other day a young lady started a conversation with me for no apparent reason. She asked
"Do you like boys?" and while there are lot of ways to answer that, I just said yes.
So she went on to tell me about her friend Ignatius, and how she never knew someone with a name like that, so she just called him Snoopy.
"I have to write him a poem, so he can recite to himself in the morning and remember all the things he needs to remember."

While that delights me, she was a little odder then I could deal with at the time. She told me about so many people she knew, and asked me if I knew Madonna. When I said no, thinking she meant another friend of hers, she went on to tell me everything she knew about the popstar.
I think I liked Beagle B. Mosquito a bit better, he lives closer to the same world I'm in.

Kim asked me why I don't write as much lately, I'm meeting the people I'd like to write, and just have a feeling that art is too pale an imitation. That my imagination doesn't come close to the surrealism of people I meet while I'm out.
---
A friend of mine is working on a project about sapiosexuality lately. She's asked me to contribute my thoughts which means I've been trying very hard to think of it. When did I realize that intelligence did more for me then appearance. I think it was a very long time ago since without my glasses, appearances soften and blur. Everyone becomes just shape and color without defining feature, so I notice more of what they say. Part of it of course, is reading Heinlein when I was very very young. All his fiercely independent characters with their minds and sexuality. They were my best friends in grade school. I remember having crushes on the science geeks in high school. For all the good it did me, they were afraid of me, and I dated the guys I was expected to date. Looks fade, go grey or go bald, and wrinkles form. Without conversation and imagination, appearance is just the frosting. It can be sweet, but there is no substance or complexity to it. I feel a bit guilty for it sometimes. That sincerity of emotion was never enough. That I need to be with someone who can keep me interested the other 22 hours of the day and not repeat themselves too much even after 6 month, a year, a decade. Someone full of ideas and opinions that are constantly renewed by experience and information. It always seemed a lot of the people who were merely pretty ran out of things to say too quickly, they used up their cleverness trying to impress, and then relied on habit to stay together.

***kiss kiss***

“Truth is stranger than fiction, but it is because Fiction is obliged to stick to possibilities; Truth isn't.”
-Mark Twain

Last night, I decided I wanted to go to the thrift store. Every so often I get these urges, and I've learned to follow them, because I'll find a treasure or great deal or something I wouldn't have otherwise. Yesterday, I found Mr. Mosquito. I noticed his car going in. It was covered with bumperstickers. "Enforce Indian Treaties" "Trust the Lord, but lock the car." and so many others. The "Enforce Indian Treaties" one made me smile the same way this shirt does. The driver was talking on his cell phone to someone, and I didn't want to interfere just to tell him I loved the sticker. He was wearing a bright headband.
So I went in to do my browsing, and a few minutes later, I hear someone say "I'm jealous of your hair." (my hair is waist length)
"Oh! Hello! I'm jealous of your bumper stickers. I was noticing them when I came in."
"My brothers made me cut my hair and shave when my father died. I haven't spoken to them since."
We started talking, and he told me he should bite me. He was charming. Really. He showed me his driver license,and I spotted his V.A. card in his wallet, which I'm sure is a whole bunch of stories I'd love to have. His name was Beagle B. Mosquito, and he insisted that since beagles and mosquitos bite, and bees sting, he should bite me. He was 83 years old and funny and whimsical and passionate about native rights. He asked me who my people were, and I told him, and he told me who his were. We were a traffic menace to the sorts of kids you never see in thrift stores except before Halloween.
Sometimes, when I talk to the very old, I'm just stunned by how much they've seen in their lives, it's overwhelming to think of it. But Beagle B. Mosquito would have been astounding to meet if he was 50 years younger, with that sense of humor and his smiles. I feel like I lost a big opportunity by not giving him my cell number and asking if he and his wife would like to have dinner sometime.

But I can comfort myself with at least knowing that I had a chance to talk to him, and he was extraordinary and seemed like someone I wish I could have made up. He would be a great imaginary friend. It's sounds like the name of an imaginary friend doesn't it? But it's not. He's very very real. And as long as people like that exist, the world is a more interesting place then a book anyway.

Last night, Nova was about Einstein's big idea.. and so now I'm talking about Einstein, Lise Meitner, elements, fractals, and guitar chords with someone who is much smarter then me.

It's a wonderful way to start the day.

I love having friends who are smarter then me and know more.

Well.. it's not like anyone thought Alaska would suddenly go blue anyway.

Where this gets really interesting though, our lt. governor is running for Congress against Young, which I mentioned before. They are still counting ballots, it's really close. Within 150 votes.

But how does being Mayor of a town with just over 6000 people, then a Governor for 2 years of a state with less then a million people in the whole state start to qualify you for vice president??

Don't get me wrong,she's been a good governor. (sneers at the anonymous person who said I shouldn't support her over Murkowski) She's done a lot for our state in that 2 years. But she also supports the Pebble Mine Project.

The news here is showing a definite bias. I've heard them say twice "Palin will be vice president." Uh.. sure. If we get the choice. Our electoral votes always go to the G.O.P., but it's not our choice. So please.. prove them wrong. Leave us our good governor, and give us a president who's not McCain.

But if for a minute, I thought I'd vote for Obama, it's not going to happen now, because it just won't matter. Palin's too popular here. So I'm voting for Nader.

Apparently, even if you're a senile old man who inspiressongs about how clueless you are, even if you have been indicted Federally for corruption... you can still win your primary and run for re-election. Alaskans are just kooky like that. Or maybe we're afraid he'll run for governor, and it will be worse then Murkowski?
----
I'm talking in the past tense and living in the past sense in my dreams lately. It's disturbing. Like things have slowed down to the point that a lot of memories are able to surface.

I learned a bit more about how to knit. I'm still awful at it, but slowly getting better. Very slowly.

Alaskan politicians are so much fun.
Yes, Stevens is running for re-election. Even with his legal troubles, AND he's got a defense fund. Because you know.. after he got a quarter million dollars from Veco, you know we are all just anxious to help a millionaire pay for his lawyers.
Young is fighting to hold his seat as well. An incumbent Republican, with a lot of seniority. You'd expect the Republican governor to campaign for him? No. She's campaigning for Parnell, the Lt. Governor to take his seat. Despite the current scandal about her, her popularity ratings remain high.
I'm watching the debates, because they are hilarious. Stevens just comes off as completely offended that despite being a corporate whore who's paid well for screwing the whole state, there's opposition. He's very nearly foaming at the mouth. Well.. at least it proves finally he does notice some of what's going on around him. Maybe he learned it through the tubes.
Young is popping up with all sorts of memorable quotes. In one interview, he said "My opponents are running against me just to get elected."

Uh.. HUH? I mean.. I know people who've run for office not to get elected, but to get a message out there. Like "Mafia Mike" who had a pizza company up here ran back in the 80s to make his case on legalized gambling clear. But generally speaking, don't most people run to get elected?
Well.. if Homeless Bill carries a sign that says Homeless Bill for Senate or Homeless Bill for Congress, I know who I'm writing in.

***kiss kiss***

Another 4th of July and nobody got seriously injured in my neighborhood. So I'm impressed.
I keep running into people I haven't seen in a decade or two lately, and they all want to talk. It's almost like being nearly 40 is a foreign country, and so you'll talk to anyone from back home (the teens or your 20s) even if you had nothing to say to them. They don't understand why I don't want to talk. I'm sort of horrified, I don't know them, they look nothing like they did, they recognise me somehow, and I think I've changed a lot from when I was 12, 13, 23.. but apparently I haven't changed that much on the outside. A lot of them are like reverse butterflies.. in their youth, they were beautiful, and they had a few years in a cocoon to lose their wings and their colorful spots. They want to talk to someone who remembers, as they do, those beautiful butterfly days.

Are repeated behaviors fractals that make up the image of our lives?

"The Holy Kiss that's supposed to last eternity
Blow up in smoke, its destiny..
-Bob Dylan

Tell me a secret anonymously about the first time you fell in love. Comments are screened if you want to get personal and only want me to know. If it's okay if I unscreen it, let me know.

I have a myspace account. It's connected with my online job, and mostly for public consumption. This journal, not so much for the public, only a few people who know me know about this journal. My life lately has been pretty open and optimistic, so I haven't been writing as much in here. Plus.. that whole talking to R almost every day thing.. so much of what I would write in here, I tell her instead.
But it's awfully early in the morning where she is, so she's not online.
Back to the myspace thing.. I don't update often. Just when Kim reminds me I haven't in a while mostly. But old friends do track me down on it. Like.. really old friends. Back in high school friends, and I just turned 37. And they always ask "What have you been up to?" Usually, I figure they really don't care, they want me to ask in return so they can tell me all about thier lives, so I give them a brief answer, and ask in return. But today I got an email from someone who very specifically wants to know what I've been up to for the last 20 years. He'd like it if I called him, and told him all about it.
How do you even start to sum up 20 years of experience?
I've loved, I've hated, I've been homeless, I've been married and divorced, I've had children, I've fallen in love twice, and in something very like it if you twisted it, folded it and made origami of the emotion a few times. I've danced naked for money, I've found new talents, made new friends.I've isolated, I've had a nervous breakdown, I've lost people who meant the world to me, and found new people who are worlds in themselves, if not even more then that. I had a hysterectomy, and surgery on my face. I've started weight lifting, and I've read thousands of books and listened to thousands of songs. I've lived lifetimes in the last 20 years, and I don't feel I've changed at all, just that I'm discovering and rediscovering things about myself. I've taken acid and danced barefoot in the rain with people I thought would be friends forever, but then again, I thought that in high school too. Now I'm understanding what a lifetime is, and I do have friends I think will last that long. I can't sum it up, because so many choices I've made need context, and to have that context, you had to be there.
In short, I've lived. And yes, I'm still, in major part, the same person I was 20 years ago. But I'm more now as well. The things I've learned, the people I've loved and fought with. The things I've gone through and chosen have refined my ideals, and given me conviction and doubts.
We lack the shared experiences now to really have much in common. If he could sum up 20 years of history in a phone call.. because I couldn't. I couldn't even sum up 1993 in one call. Much less all the other years. Last time we talked was right before I dropped out of society, before that first big break that I needed to decide for myself what was worth taking seriously.
I guess I'll figure out something to say when I write him back, but I'm not calling. I don't like talking on the phone much, so when I do, it's with the people I care about most.

Must be summer. The neighbors are outside drunk and hollaring and cats keep sleeping on my roof.

Sorry. I'm still here, but my life lately has been the sort of thing that fits just fine into my more public journal.

I'm currently reading the Queen of Apostles Prayer Book and Days of War, Nights of Love, the first is a Catholic book of prayers, the second is this book. I'm enjoying both in limited doses. So far, there isn't anything new in Days of War, Nights of Love, but I do think I'm going to get a couple copies for friends.

Remind me please, not to tell R everything so I start updating here more often.

***kiss kiss***

For some reason, I have Mariah Carey on my ipod. Which means this thing is spawning music somehow. The computers.. they are messing with my mind.
Or maybe I'm just managing music for too many people's ipods?

Morning deejays. If you live in the Anchorage area, do you listen to Bob and Mark? I don't think I've met Bob, but I went a dinner part sort of thing with Mark and his family a couple months ago. Nice guy, and I do like a lot of the parody spots they do, and I really enjoy the mornings they go to work without a plan at all about what they are going to talk about. Yesterday morning, Mark asked what you would do if you had absolute proof on paper of the non-existence of G-d, would you tell other people, would it change your life.. I was talking to M about it, and I said "What kind of proof?" and he said "I have no idea. Maybe a note? 'I'm not real. -God'" and the silliness of G-d proving his non-existence by writing a note made me giggle. I think I want an icon that says "I'm a figment of My own imagination.- God" We talked a bit about non-deity religions.

Yesterday I met a nice older lady who reminded me a lot of my Uncle's wives and girlfriends while I was growing up. Manners from a different era. We exchanged recipes. Not that I think I'm making ox-tail soup any time soon, but it was kind of neat to get into an ordinary conversation.

In other news, I misplaced my GL ring. Anyone have any idea where I could put it?

***kiss kiss***

Yesterday I spent a big part of the day with a friend, we met up for breakfast, then walked and talked for a few hours. We talked of sex, drugs, life, and philosophy, and I got through those sort of conversations without ever mentioning Nick. Which is terribly impressive to me at least, as an example of drug or sex related insanity in my life he is peerless.
( long, boring. Skip it. )
---
The other day I was on the bus, and a stranger gave me candy. So I'm bad. I accepted candy from a stranger. But it was chocolate!

***kiss kiss***

Sometimes I wonder if their is a finite amount of happiness, and if some very greedy people are using it all up before it can renew itself.

Which means I'm no where near as interesting as anyone on my friends list this week. So go there. Read them. They are living through Febuary with considerably more grace then I am. Febuary is the born again member of the year that May and June frankly laugh at, and November and January are a little embarrassed by. The rest of the year just sort of ignores him and says "It's a size issue, Febuary is compensating for being short by being miserable about it and making everyone else feel the same way."

Sometimes, I think people are monkeys, and sometimes a good argument can be made for lemmings, but lately, I keep thinking hamsters. Of course, that's because I'm at the gym entirely too often now.

I live in a state where my vote is pretty inconsequential, it's a shame to say, but Alaska is one of a handful of states that only has 3 votes, and nationally, Alaska votes Republican. Truthfully, I get it. Democratic candidates might be better for the nation, but they are worse for our state, Republicans leave us mostly alone. We want ANWR opened for drilling, the percentage of our total state and national parks they are talking about opening is tiny, but as long as people are hollaring about the pristine Alaskan wilderness,they aren't stopping to find out what we want or even taking a look at how much of our state IS protected wilderness. So I'm opting out of the political commentary for now about the various campaigns. Chances are pretty good I'll write in an independent candidate in the Presidential race since it's not even going to be close in Alaska, and I figure my vote is better spent making a statement that people want other choices.