...and I thought I was the ultimate walkabout photographer. Not hardly.

Here’s my response to “Pistachio’s” post, published yesterday, challenging us all to a game of “meme tag.”

The instructions for this blogging exercise are...

● Republish these rules.
● Link to your original tagger(s) and list these rules in your post.
● Share seven (preferably not-well-known) facts about yourself in the post.
● Tag seven people at the end of your post by leaving their names and the links to their blogs.
● Let them know they’ve been tagged.

The problem for me in playing this game is that I’m not sure what I could possibly disclose here that would be more revealing than stuff I’ve already written about. Plus, I’m pretty reluctant to actually “tag” somebody at the end. But, here goes anyway...

1. I had blond hair for the first few years of my life. I think I really was meant to be a California surfer dude, but things just never turned out that way since I was born in the Midwest. I moved to the Golden State way too late.

2. My first job was as a paperboy for the Eau Claire Leader-Telegram (I had a route in Rice Lake, Wisconsin). I absolutely hated the job during the dark, sub-zero mornings of northern Wisconsin winters. My second job was as a shelf-stocker and box-boy at a local grocery store. I still have the box cutter I was issued at that job.

3. My first “publication” was in the same Leader-Telegram, a letter to the editor, appearing on May 4, 1970...the same day as the massacre of four students at Kent State University. It was written to express my outrage over President Nixon’s decision to expand the Vietnam war with the invasion of Cambodia. Before graduating later that month, I boycotted classes and was part of the largest demonstration in the college’s (University of Wisconsin – Eau Claire) history. I wore an arm-band over my graduation gown in protest of the war.

4. I was married for ten years, in my twenties. We didn’t have kids, just two Siamese cats named “Jude” and “Jo-Jo.” I haven’t seen or talked to her in over 25 years.

5. I went to parties for a living for several years of my life...back in the late 70s and early 80s. Well, really, I was called an “event photographer,” but that just meant I went to fraternity and sorority functions all the time: sometimes every day of the week. Looking back, it was a pretty bizarre life (and lifestyle). In the end, I just never made it as a “starving artist.”

6. At age 37, I lived with a 23-year-old woman for about three months. The relationship fell apart quickly. At one point I mentioned “Woodstock.” She thought I was talking about a pizza joint.

7. A married woman half my age who lives in another state calls me her soul-mate. And vice versa. (No, it’s not Pistachio.)

8. While having breakfast at Noah’s Bagels this morning, I heard “Bubbly” by Colbie Caillat playing in the background. I just love this song. I almost always am on the verge of tears when I hear it. It’s just one of those emotional kind of tunes for me.

(Ooops! That makes eight!) Anyway: The End. (I’m not going to single out any other blogger(s) for this challenge. But, please, if you take me up on it because you’ve read this post, let me know!)

Soundtrack Suggestion

I’ve been awake for a while now
you’ve got me feelin like a child now
cause every time I see your bubbly face
I get the tinglies in a silly place

It starts in my toes
and I crinkle my nose
where ever it goes I always know
that you make me smile
please stay for a while now
just take your time
where ever you go

Where ever, where ever, where ever you go
Where ever, where ever, where ever you go
Where ever you go, I’ll always know
Cause you make me smile here, just for a while

(“Bubbly” – Colbie Caillat)

It’s time for a change. Today is the day! Inauguration 2009! 

homesick (hōm′-sik): longing for home and family while absent from them

The little lady at the left, Grace, shown here at five months, just had her fifth birthday on January 9. She lives in Oregon, both near and impossibly distant at the same time. I’ve known Grace since she was six hours old, the only human being on the planet I’ve ever met so early in life.

Shortly after her birth, I was in the hospital room with Grace, her parents, and her grandmother. They asked, “do you want to hold her, Jim?”

“Uh. OK.” (I said nervously.)

And, then, in my arms, just like that, the bond I had felt with the mother and grandmother, was extended to this new little one as well.

I assume there was a birthday party for her fifth. I wasn’t there. And, there’s been this feeling, this knot in my stomach, this emptiness, lately. A feeling borne from being absent. A longing for familiar places and people.

Grace, her mother, and her grandmother, were all part of the group in Oregon that had referred to me as “family.” Although life and relationship with “C,” the grandmother, were fraught with difficulty, the closeness and inclusion I experienced was an extremely significant element of my life for a decade. And, I had “adopted” (in my heart), C’s three children and two grandchildren.

For the most part, that all disappeared right after I moved to California.

America is about to embark on a new journey. Barack Obama will be inaugurated tomorrow and an overwhelming sense of hope and optimism prevails, even in these times of deep economic despair.

And while the rest of the country celebrates, I am ailing with melancholy. I would love to be home for this occasion.

Soundtrack Suggestion

Homeward bound
I wish I was
Homeward bound
Home, where my thoughts escaping
Home, where my musics playing
Home, where my love lies waiting
Silently for me

(“Homeward Bound” – Simon & Garfunkel)

I’ve been thinking, in recent days, that it’s possible I might have to relinquish my well-earned, and entirely appropriate, moniker of “TechnoMonk.” As you may recall (or likely not), the name was given to me by “C” in recognition of my propensity for always acquiring the latest and greatest technology toys – and my concomitant inclination toward Spartan furnishings in the rest of my life. Probably the most notable of my minimalist tendencies has been the practice of sleeping on a futon. And not only have I slept on one for a very long time, it’s been placed on the floor in my various bedrooms – giving those spaces a perpetually-bare, “monkish” appearance.

Well, all that is about to change. I bought a new mattress/box-spring set that is scheduled to be delivered next weekend. In terms of the events of my life (and if you don’t count all the job changes and moves in recent times), this act is practically revolutionary.

I say this because this is something that I’ve put off doing for years and years. Well, truth be told: decades. I am admitting here to unhealthy, counter-productive behavior, and perhaps even a totally neurotic tendency, of delaying a purchase that I’ve long suspected would be good for me.

So, what’s the back story here?

Well, I was divorced in 1978. Yes, very long ago. A much different time. Jimmy Carter was president, for crying out loud. When we were married, “M” and I had a wonderful queen-sized bed, made of teak. We used a foam mattress, which gave us a very firm, supportive sleeping surface. And it was a beautiful piece of furniture.

I left that teak bed behind when I left the marriage. I subsequently moved into an apartment with practically no furnishings. I spent the first couple weeks sleeping in a sleeping bag on the floor – before finally purchasing a foam mattress (that I also kept on the floor). Even though I had no immediate plans to be in a relationship again, I thought, even back then, that purchasing a “real bed” could wait...that I could buy another one, eventually, with another partner.

In my (much to my surprise) perpetually-single state, though, the foam mattress lasted for years. Finally, a year after I moved to Indiana, in 1991, I replaced the foam with a new futon. Again, I placed this bed on the floor. Despite occasional recommendations, over the years, from chiropractors and other health-care practitioners, that I find a more suitable sleeping surface, I persisted. I was always thinking that “the one” was right around the corner...and no sooner would I buy a bed that it would be the wrong one for “us.”

Well, here I am over 31 years later. (Holy crap, how did this happen?) I’ve been sleeping on the floor for three-plus decades. Despite, at one point, being close to having all that change. In early 1998, I suggested to “C” that I was thinking about buying a new bed (to make her visits to my place more accommodating). The huge negative reaction to that idea on her part was totally shocking...and I should have known right there that this was not a relationship with long-term prospects. Ah, all the missed clues!

Yes, and even our last night together involved a spat that involved rejection of both me as well as the futon we were on. The truly bizarre admission that I have to make here in this essay, is that after that last night together, I kept the futon on the floor in the bedroom, but I spent approximately the next five years sleeping on the sofa: so much did I hate the site, the futon, of our final staking-out-of-positions...that led to the end of us as a couple. I have never admitted this to anyone. Well, until y’all, right now.

So, here I am, almost ten years past that point...finally making steps to take care of myself: to no longer punish myself by sleeping on an inappropriate surface, or banishing myself to the sofa to avoid negative memories of “the end.”

I have made great strides in improving my chronic pain issues in the last year. There is still progress to made, though. And I suspect that sleeping on a real bed will make a difference.

Though this may all put my “TechnoMonk” reputation at stake, I’m willing. And eager. To be healthier.

But still “the monk.”