On January 1 of this year, I posted an entry enthusiastically endorsing a new California law, slated to go into effect on July 1, making it illegal to drive while talking on a cell phone without a hands-free device (and would prohibit the behavior entirely for anyone under 18 years old). I said way to go California!

Well, folks, things haven’t exactly turned out like I imagined. For what I thought would happen was: people would actually obey the law.

HA! Oh, silly me!

Now, I haven’t seen any data, performed any studies, or done anything “scientific” in preparation for making this report, however, what I believe is: this law hasn’t changed shit.

People here are still driving while talking. And driving while texting. They’re endangering themselves and others to just about the same extent they were prior to July 1.

It pisses me off. I wish I could take down the license plate number of every car I’ve seen whose driver is flaunting this law. And, well: do something with it!

I am unable to do that, obviously. It would be a full-time job.

But, just so you know, I’m not doing nothing. Here’s the email exchange I had yesterday with the local police. (The “Twin Cities” referred to here are the towns of Larkspur and Corte Madera , California.)

Message Number 1 (TechnoMonk)

Greetings,

On Saturday, August 30, 2008, at app. 3:50 p.m., I was traveling west on Sir Francis Drake Blvd. from Hwy 101 to the Bon Air Shopping Center. I was following a Twin Cities police car, license plate #1225302. The driver of this vehicle weaved into the other lane about three times during the very short time I was following him. I believe that he was using a cell phone without a hands-free device.

Distressing. I thought we had a law.

Message Number 2 (Captain McDuffee)

Thank you for your email regarding the unsafe driving you witnessed. It doesn’t appear from your email that you actually observed the officer using a cellphone, is that correct? The unsafe driving may be the result of the officer using the Mobile Data Terminal in the patrol car.

In either case, I will speak to the officer about his driving. Once again, thank you for bringing this to my attention.

Message Number 3 (TechnoMonk)

Captain McDuffee,

Thanks for the quick reply.

It was, of course, the weaving that caught my eye.

At that time of day, going that direction, the sun was somewhat in my eyes. However, the driver’s head was tilted slightly to the right. His right arm was held to position his hand near his ear. I didn’t exactly see the cell phone, but it sure was a cell phone pose. The head, hand (and phone?) were in silhouette. I’d put my certainty level at about 90% that it was a cell phone.

Of course, nothing will ever come of this…it just made me feel good!

Teller was born Jacob Adam Teller, named after his two grandfathers. Most everyone, though, calls him, simply, “Teller”…with the notable exceptions being a few students, faculty, and professional colleagues who address him, respectfully, as “Dr. Teller.”

Now, given that he was awarded his Ph.D from a Big Ten school in the mid-90s, the moniker “Dr. Teller” is completely accurate and appropriate. It does, however, have a tendency to make Teller cringe just a little bit. After all, when he thinks of Dr. Teller, it’s the Dr. Teller. Edward Teller. That Dr. Teller wrote his dissertation in physics under the direction of Werner Heisenberg, developer of the Uncertainty Principle. That Dr. Teller is often referred to as the “Father of the Hydrogen Bomb” for his work on the Manhattan Project during World War II. That Dr. Teller was, during his time, commonly referred to as “the scientific voice of the military establishment.” And that Dr. Teller was supposedly the real-life person who inspired the Dr. Strangelove character.

What a contrast. As scientists, and as human beings, Teller and Dr. Teller were, and are, quite different.

When he was young, many of Teller’s schoolmates called him Jacob, Jake, or sometimes just “Tell.” But about the time he entered college it seemed there had developed a consensus, for whatever reason, to call him Teller. So, “Teller” it was. It stuck.

But this is not just a story about Teller’s name. Rather, it’s about Teller’s loves. Or, more specifically, one of his loves and how she said his name.

And, so it happened recently, Teller was talking to a new friend, giving her a short history of his significant relationships. When he was speaking about his ten years with Katrina, even he noticed that the tone of his voice changed. So, it was not at all difficult for his perceptive listener to catch on to this person’s place in Teller’s heart. When asked for a bit more detail about his time with Katrina, Teller outlined the on-again off-again nature of that relationship; his frequent feelings of heartbreak and rejection; yet his attachment to, and sense of inclusion and family he felt with, Katrina and her three children.

He found himself saying, “someday I’ll figure how and why it was I let that go on so long.”

For some reason, during that conversation, Teller could not admit, out loud, to the simplicity of the explanations he’d come up with so far. He acknowledges that he frequently ponders the question of how it was that a decade of his life slipped away on him, believing that that relationship would work out when it was so apparent, now in hindsight, that it wouldn’t.

It was some very small things, really…that made Teller’s life oh-so-complicated for oh-so-long. For example, there was that sunny summer day when Teller drove from his apartment over to Katrina’s house to pick her up to go for a hike. He parked in the driveway and was walking to the front door when he saw her face smiling at him from the kitchen window. Teller, simply, will never forget his greeting that day. A smile so open. So genuine. So loving. So unbelievably warm and radiant. So obviously and completely for him.

For Teller, truly, it was the smile of a lifetime. And he wanted that smile, and the quickened-hearbeat he had in response, to last forever. So Teller tried to make it last, to get it back. But somewhere, along the way, the source of the display that day…went away.

And, then there was the way she often said his name: the way it rolled from her lips when they were alone. (Or, occasionally used it in email greetings.) Not using the name that everyone else used, but calling him, whispering to him, “Jacob Adam.” Or, more accurately: jacobadam, all one word, said oh so softly and gently. No one had ever called him by both names before, and surely not in the manner in which her voice delivered it. Soft, deliberate, seductive, intentional. Wholly, totally, overwhelmingly intimate.

So, Teller had stayed. For ten years. Searching for a repeat of that smile. Longing for one more whisper of his name.

Though, at some point, he now admitted, it had all disappeared. The smile, the warmth, the voice, the love.

Gone.

Soundtrack Suggestion

You know my name, look up the number
You know my name, look up the number
You, you know, you know my name
You, you know, you know my name…

(“ You Know My Name ” – Lennon/McCartney )

Teller had (a little over a year ago now) moved on from all that Cascadia nonsense. He had paid attention to: those dreams, the Morse code in his head, his common sense, his failing health, and, most of all, his Higher Self. After expending most all his available life energy to escape that soul-sucking spot on the globe, he finally found another little college and a new life…in a land that millions called “golden.”

Teller had been here in this garden of the rich and beautiful for awhile now, and he often found himself wondering if his existence  was now going to be forever defined by these new environs: a place known far and wide for its wealthy residents, outrageous real-estate prices, and seductive proximity to The City. A rather strange place, this: with a small town look-and-feel; self-obsessed; hosting a populace preoccupied with their hugely-inflated senses of privilege and entitlement.

For Teller, the past was past. With the unhealthiness of Cascadia behind him, a semblance of personal well-being had returned. Some robust color was actually, at times, evident in his cheeks…with little evidence remaining of that sickly, ashen hue he had once frequently exhibited.

His life had changed immensely, though, and he missed his home state, his adopted family: almost everything (and everybody) that was comfortable and familiar. And, in the week leading up to today, the day he would mark as the beginning of his sixty-second year, he had been having some rather disturbing thoughts. He had had a history of troubled times in August, in the days surrounding the anniversary of his birth, and this year was somewhat reminiscent of earlier periods.

Just last night, for example, after sleeping for a couple of hours, he awoke. For some reason he was acutely aware of his left foot…the body part that had, for over three years now, been afflicted with peripheral neuropathy. But, tonight, something felt uncomfortably, markedly different. It was about midnight, and he turned on the bedroom lamp to examine his foot.

Teller gasped. With a sharp intake of breath that led to profound dizziness, he saw that he had a really serious problem. For, now, he had just four toes — as the little one had apparently fallen off. The remaining digits were all as black as charcoal. They looked like shaved pieces of charcoal. His big toe was missing the nail, and appeared as if it had been whittled (or, perhaps, chewed) to a point; it was now only about half as long as the second toe. The second toe was twisted at a ninety-degree angle and oozing some kind of greenish, purplish, pussy-looking substance. Toes three and four were merely black and bleeding — from what looked like a series of long, razor-made cuts.

In shock, Teller slowly glanced at his other foot. It seemed mostly normal, but the toes had a distinct grayish cast, as if, perhaps, they were making their way toward the charcoal-like character of the left foot. They were definitely more tingly than they usually were.

His hands. He wondered. He looked. Yes, his fingers, all of them, were numb and turning color as well.

He stumbled into the bathroom, dragging his left foot, leaving a bloody, pussy trail on the carpet, and turned on the light. And immediately noticed his eyes. The circles under them were nothing short of a death look. Truly. How could anyone with this appearance still be alive?

This time his gasp turned into a SCREAM, not caring if the neighbors were awakened…and, at that point, Teller, himself, woke up.

Sweating. Scared. Relieved: this was just a dream!

Teller spent the rest of the night blessedly dream-free. But when he got up early to watch the sunrise on his birthday, it was with an enhanced sense of age and aging. Questions about what he had made of his life predominated. Mostly, Teller’s thoughts turned to those he had loved, and those who had loved him.

Teller, though he had loved, and loved dearly and deeply, was mostly a loner, and found himself, again on this birthday, still alone. And lonely: afflicted with a presumably chronic, and life-long, state of solitude. Not a condition as serious, or as ugly, as those blackened, decaying extremities, but a state of being that overwhelmed him just the same.

He reflected on his dream of bodily decomposition. A body that was living, but not quite all alive. Teller meditated on his desire to share body and soul with the soulmate he still believes is out there. Somewhere.

Teller embarked on his the rest of his birthday day asking himself, still: where do I fit? With whom do I fit? Will I ever fit?

Soundtrack Suggestion

night time slows, raindrops splash rainbows
perhaps someone you know, could sparkle and shine
as daydreams slide to colour from shadow
picture the moonglow, that dazzles my eyes
and i love you…

(“Pure” – Lightning Seeds)

It hasn’t exactly been the blink-of-an-eye, but, as of today, August 13, it has been a quarter of a century of sobriety for me. Read the full story here.

I am here at the UCLA campus early on a Sunday morning. Conference registration starts at 9:00 a.m., but it’s just now 8:00 and I’ve already eaten breakfast and am ready to go. I dig my camera out of my backpack and decide to go for a walk. About three blocks from my residence hall, I discover an athletic field filled with young women attending a cheerleading camp. I keep a respectful distance yet take a couple of shots. I climb the bleachers to get a different angle. A person with the group comes up to the top to talk to me…to ask me what I’m doing. “Just taking pictures,” I reply. He indicates that that is not allowed here, and could I please leave? Which, of course, I do.

I’m sitting on a bench at a local park here in Marin. Reading. Getting a few minutes of sunshine. I’m wearing khaki-colored shorts and a grey t-shirt that says “Oregon State University” in big letters. A man and a woman slowly go by while walking their dog, giving me just a little glance. They finally get past me, but the gentlemen eventually turns around and asks, “are you an old Beaver?” I sigh and reply, “yes, I’m an old Beaver.” Then, stealing a Michael Douglas line from The American President, I add, “but I’m not all that comfortable with the old part.”

I’m sitting at a table outside a neighborhood Starbucks. Again: reading. The same novel (Haunted by Chuck Palahniuk) as before, as a matter of fact. I have on the table beside me: a cup of tea (hot tea), a partially-eaten toffee-almond cookie (a newly-discovered weakness), a couple of napkins, and my cell phone. A woman and her (big) dog walk by. (I think it’s a Golden Lab.) She’s blabbering away on her cell phone. The leash is very loose, and the dog wanders over to me. I start to pet him/her and it jumps up on my lap. Then, right away, it’s on the table (front legs only) and gobbles down my cookie. The cup of tea goes flying and I try to catch it. I do, and spill hot liquid all over my right arm and cell phone. The woman sees what’s happening and gives a firm tug on the leash. While I start to mop up, she and the dog walk away. She’s still talking on her phone.