I remember the picture of Mary Lou Retton on that Wheaties box.  That bright winning smile, an American icon of winning and success.  I remember, too, that my father used to come home from the turkey ranch, stinking of shit.  The stench was so bad that it was difficult to be anywhere near him until he had washed and changed out of his work clothes.

I don?t think he ever saw that Wheaties box but he went to work every day, whether it was to that turkey farm or some other menial job.  He worked, brought home the paycheck, and supported his wife and kids.  I don?t know if he ever dreamed of doing anything that would land him on a cereal box or in a magazine, but I do know that working in shit was worth it to him.

Some times I think about some of the people I know and their dreams.  I don?t know that many people, but there are lots of people with dreams in LA so I?m bound to meet one here and there.  I wonder to myself what it is that is so terrible about their lives in Iowa or Illinois, etc., that makes them so desperate to chase their dreams out here.  What is it that they are chasing? or running away from?  Maybe they worked in horse shit.  I?ve seen horse shit, and they come in bigger piles than turkey shit.

In LA, images are flashed at me everyday about what I ought to be.  I ought to be a party kid on Sunset, my name on every guest list.  I ought to be a playa in a jogging suit with 14 carat electroplated bling.  A baller, an outcast, a greaser, a neo-hippie, a Democrat, a wheeler and a dealer.

The message is that I ought to be someone other than me.  I?m a reasonably open-minded person, and I?m open to the notion that I ought to be someone aside from me, but it?s not clear who ?me? is.  If I knew who I am, then it?d be a cinch to not be me.  I see parts of me in the billboards and the images, but I?m not sure if I came first or I became them.  If I dig deep into the center of myself, that warm spot two inches below the navel, I find that the one thing I am absolutely certain of is that I don?t want to work in shit.  That?s a start at least.

Looking for the Evening Star by whose milky light my world is illumined.
Toward Her Unwavering Gaze is my navigation firmly destined.
Weary traveler I have been, a solitary gait seeking Yonder Beacon.
Dark earth beneath black sky into Wonderland will my landscape blossom.

To be a saint is a full-time job, and I admit that I?m already otherwise gainly employed.  Thus, to those I?ve offended on purpose or not, to those I?ve slighted in ways large and small, I apologize.  The lady whose fish-print dress I snickered at, the homeless beggar I pretended to ignore, the child whose lollipop I stole, to you and you and you, most of all, I submit my remorseful regret.  If these humble notes do not satisfy the anger and shame and distress I might have caused, please excuse a simple working man who, to the saints, must one day make amends.

In him the dragon untamed, roaring and belching its acrid malcontent.  Every word is a curse.  Every gesture perverse.  Around him people shiver and hide, disgust and pity pushing their backsides.  He sees nothing in the mirror that pleases but the reflection is the mantle he knows.  Twist and turn he might, fleeing into the uncaring night.  Turn around, Mr. Black, the beast is on your back.

The two room hotel we're staying at tonight has two towels for guests.  This was explained to me by Yousef apologetically after I asked for a third twice.  It seems Morocco is famous for it's $50 per sq. foot rugs, not for it's abundance of towels.

Mom used the first one to soak up the water in the shower.  The second, and last towel, became the issue of some debate between Mary and I after some cajoling with my mom about the first.

Cajoling, teasing, joshing.  We make light-hearted fun of people who are different, people who stumble, people who love us and changed our diapers but now look to us for help.  When does teasing become bullying and demoralizing?

Every joke has a grain of truth.  Truth as we see it and truth about ourselves, not necessarily truth as it really is.  We some times conceal exasperation or condescendence with such a joke.  But when a person asks you for help, really needs your help, no matter the size of the task or what you view as the absurdity of the task, it is cruel to make light of it, it is right to just do it.

Thus, the woman who washed my sheets when I peed my bed in junior high shouldn't have to ask me twice for a glass of hot water or put up with a snide remark, even if it's 100 degrees out and the waiter barely understands English.

Tomorrow will be a better day for both of us.

We dance with arms embraced,
twirling beneath the night,
the world a blur around us,
the center between us.

A little misstep,
a little stumble,
I catch you,
or do you catch me?

Our soft-slippered feet
tap lightly across tiled floor, 
carrying our laughter
across oceans to rainbow's end.

We leave our footprints in the sand
and in the grass of foreign lands,
chasing the summer sky,
the blooms of spring gone by.

Fall encroaches,
and in the winter of our lives,
pale snow settled on wrinkled brow,
we look back,
on two ribbons of light,
leading us to that night,
when our dance first took flight.

How do you put into words the surges and urges of the soul?  Formless feelings and thoughts that you comprehend without asking, without logic.  Such are the moments when you are alone in the universe within yourself.  All other concerns are meaningless and extraneous.  Everything beyond the mold of your skin is another reality; one that you observe from a distance of two inches or two miles.  There is no measurable distance between the universe of self and the universe of not self.  You forget your name, your place, your society.  All there is to know is inward, ever inward, and you search not for there is nothing to be searched and nothing to be found.  You are you, whoever you are, whatever you may be, and that is enough.

I had a feeling it was coming, and it did.  My web host turned off my account suddenly yesterday.  I've managed to find a new host (GoDaddy.com) and get a few things set up but it'll be a long while before everything is tweaked to my liking.  I've lost most of my old content.  It may be recoverable but I don't know that I have the energy to do it.

Part of the problem is that I'm switching from WordPress (a Linux application) to blogengine.net (an ASP.net application) and the data formats are not easily compatible.  The reason for the switch is mainly that I want to experiment with an ASP.net web site.  WordPress worked well and was mostly easy to mantain and had lots of community support.  blogengine.net is newer, has less support thus far, but since it runs on ASP.net, I'm hoping that creating widgets and customization will be easier.  Time will tell.  One immediate problem was that GoDaddy runs ASP.net application at Medium trust level, which meant that I had to find a modified version of blogengine.net (http://www.van-zand.com/ModPack/).  Problem solved and here we are today.

I should be packing right now.  I'm headed up to San Francisco for the Game Developers Conference.  I don't usually go to these things because you can't learn anything immediately useful in a one hour lecture and three days is a lot of valuable production time lost.  However, rather than hoping to learn something, I'm hoping to see something inspiring this year.  The realist side of me says that even if I am inspired, I can't apply that inspiration to my work because deadlines and production pipelines won't allow for it.  Nobody likes a realist though, not even the realist.