Category: General Musings

Whatever else deemed interesting enough to write about.

independence

Why is it that we fear those parts of ourselves we least understand? Why do we let others pre-define how we should feel about certain ideas? Strength is accepting the freedom we have and finding the distance needed to understand that the voices we listen to all have their own needs and wants; that no matter how kind and well-intentioned they are, no matter how professional and educated they sound, they cannot separate their own desires from the message they carry. No one can. The voice you most need to listen to is the one hardest to hear. Your own.

Hate me.

Hate me.

Hate me for understanding your need; under me, there are no excuses to hide behind, no doubts to hold you back, no fears to blind you. My belief will sustain you. My faith will guide you. My acceptance will free you.

Hate me for using your own body against you. My hands will learn the language of your cries. My lips and teeth will coerce secrets from your tender skin. I will be relentless, plying you open until your entire body betrays you, allowing you to enjoy the sweet indignities found in complete capitulation.

Hate me for having no mercy; my desire to watch you slip over the edge is matched only by my sense of cruelty; the delicate balance that keeps you helplessly teetering at the cusp is just the beginning, for I will see you fall again and again until I am satisfied you have suffered enough.

Hate me for making you remember; hate me for reminding you of all those feelings you had worked so hard to bury; hate me for awakening a need you thought was no longer there.

Hate me for not backing down; I will call your bluff and accept your challenge; I will have you on your knees before you have time to reconsider your ill-advised defiance; my judgment will be swift, if not severe, and you will taste me in each reminder I've left upon your skin.

But hate me most for the ending, when I brush away the tears and tell you the dream is over.

sunset

I've watched many sunsets, but last week I watched my first setting sun.

It was a subtle disappearing act, a splash of semicircle red that slid under the horizon with unexpected grace.

I had just finished one of the best meals I've ever had, and was sharing a drink with NE and Bear at a club next to the restaurant. We sat out back, leaning over the wooden side, smoking cloves and cigarettes. We had an unobstructed view of the sky and in the silky haze of good food glazed with excellent wine, we watched the sun dip under the water of the bay.

adiago

It started with listening to lectures on the lives of classical composers while commuting to work. Mozart, Tchaikovsky, Beethoven, Brahm.

And now I find that I have immersed myself in the music, and I cannot stop.

Sonatas, concertos, symphonies, operas – one after a other, pausing when I find one that resonates, to listen again, and again, until I am lost to the strings and the wind.

mortality

When I was ten or eleven, an older cousin of mine told me the story of Our Lady of Fatima. The general story is relatively simple – in 1917, Mary appeared to three young children in Fatima, Portugal and shared with them three great secrets. The first two secrets described hell and the saving of souls sent there. The third secret was meant to be shared with the world in 1960 – but, at the time I was being told the story, in the mid-1980s, it had yet to be told to the public.

The reason the church had not shared this third and final secret, my cousin explained, was because it spoke of terrible things. The end of the world.

Now, as a young child, the idea of my own death was much too abstract for me to even begin to grasp. But the idea of the world itself ending was just large enough for me to understand. Frightened, I locked myself in my grandparent's bathroom and tried to cope – it felt like a large chasm had opened beneath me, and there was nothing, nothing, that could pull me away from it except for my own fraying willpower.

This was the start of my grappling with mortality and religion. Raised Catholic, I was well acquainted with the idea of an afterlife. But my increasingly logical understanding of the world around me insisted that such ideas were created to stave off the threat of oblivion. No matter what other feelings I have about religion and faith (which is another topic entirely), a part of my mind simply refuses to rely on the fact, on death, I'll be banished to hell or lifted to heaven.

For some, the idea of oblivion is a balm. But for me, my mind refuses to accept the idea that I may someday no longer exist as a sentient being.  For most of my life, my answer to this was simple.

I would avoid thinking about my own death.

For a while, this worked quite well. But the older I get, the harder a fact it becomes to ignore. It does not help that I am not in the habit of ignoring an issue. I tend to hit them head-on, deal with the consequences, and move on.

And I did, in fact, try confronting my fear, spending entire nights laying awake and staring straight into the void that I know awaits me. This lead only to a sickening feeling that refused to go away and a distinct lack of sleep.

It was time for a different approach. In my mind, I separated myself – the self that understands and accepts inevitable oblivion, and the self that goes on. Now, whenever my thinking skates along the back of mortality – such as exploring the limitations of human thinking or examining the inherent fragility of human life –  I direct the output of such though experiments to my other self. 

nice guy

Someone said something to me today that made me smile.

"you make it ok to be bad"

I've considered why this is.

I am attentive. I listen to what people are actually saying and the way that they say it.

I don't judge a person on creed, appearance, or morality.

I let them be comfortable in their own skin

And then I take indecent advantage of they're trust and vulnerability by encouraging their exploration of their suppressed desires and unspoken needs, always for my own ends.

“Wine, madam, is God’s next best gift to man.”

“I have enjoyed great health at a great age because everyday since I can remember I have consumed a bottle of wine except when I have not felt well. Then I have consumed two bottles.” – Bishop of Seville

I enjoy wine.

I am not a wine expert – I favor ports, or mixed drinks – but over time I’ve grown to appreciate the possibilities. My first exposure to wine started in college with boxed wine and Boone’s. In my post-college years, my tastes expanded to embrace the wines favored by NE and other friends (White Zinfandel and Rieslings).

Last Saturday, to celebrate NE and Bear’s birthday, I had dinner at Ruth’s Chris with several friends. The food, as always, was excellent. But what made the evening memorable was the attention we received from the restaurant’s sommelier. He made a point to stop by often, suggesting wines that would complement our food and then bringing us samples for us to try.

In particular, his selections for our desserts were spot on and went a long way in convincing me that the right wine can transform a meal. In the spirit of epicureanism, I’ve included his suggestions below (with a brief description and suggested dessert).

Ferrari-Carano Eldorado Noir
Unique dessert wine, made from black Muscat grapes.
Chocolate Sin Cake

Lilly Pilly Noble Blend
Sweet dessert wine.
Crème brûlée

Castello del Poggio Moscato D’Asti
A sweet white wine style which falls somewhere between spritzy and sparkling.
Any sweet dessert.

playing god

I couldn’t convince my brother to upgrade the SQL database on his server which in turn would allow me to upgrade my blog to the newer versions of WordPress, so I finally caved and moved my blog to a commercial server.

I’m sure I’ll be playing around with WordPress themes for the next week or so until I find one I am comfortable with.