Life At Windrush Lake...

Life At Windrush Lake

My Ole Sweater

Journal Entry: 12/30/17

Another beautiful steel blue sky. Steady cool wind from the South to make my favorite wool sweater feel just the way I thought it would feel. I save this sweater for special days. When I put It on I know I have reconnected with an ole friend. The sweater who knows it was selected special for this day. The one who only shares the days when It’s warmth makes it just right.

It seems today is the day they are delivering the Yellow Pages book to all the neighborhood. All placed in these hermetically sealed plastic bags and thrown from a slow moving car, traveling about twenty yards and, hopefully, landing right up next to the steps leading to the porch. I watched this airmail delivery system all the way up Woodberry. I must say, the one throwing had some talent. This was no relief pitcher. No sir, this was a starter, and if he has a good contract I’m sure he will be back this same time next year. Who even uses Yellow Pages anyway?

I turned down Buckhorn to walk through Savannah Park. It’s a small park nestled against a wooded area. Occasionally I spot wild life just on the edge, peering into civilization and more times than not, racing back into their wooded protection. This day I ran into one of my neighbors trying to place a Blue Bird Box. He gave me that slight wave and a nod and asked...

”Got any suggestions?”

”Can you be more specific,” I asked.

”About the direction to place the opening.”

”Pete, do you want to hear my suggestion or just my opinion?”

Well that started a lengthy discussion. He said he read somewhere they like the opening to face south. I related that it probably did not make a whole lot of difference but had to do more with the location. To me question of direction does not always refer to compass bearing, but rather the orientation the house opening faces to afford safety, comfort and convenience after the bluebird pair mates. If placed along a road or highway, the bluebird house should open parallel to, or away from the road so the birds will not be hit entering or leaving their nests. If placed to the South and West it would be to exposed to extreme weather. Ideally, I would think the nest box's opening should face toward trees or shrubs so young bluebirds have a place of safety for their first flight and the parents have a direct access to easy catch to feed the hungry brood insects after hatching. That would be East, and besides, facing East they can see the sun rise each day. 

“How about West?”

“Nope...facing West they would be in full view of the Fisher Man that lives on the corner. I know him well, and the little hatchlings do not need to be exposed to his likes.”

Well that’s my reasoning. It’s about time to leave Pete so he can solve his own problems. But on my walk tomorrow it will be interesting to see if he took my suggestion or just wanted my opinion. Makes little difference, I feel good in my favorite sweater, on this day.

Be well and for Pete’s sake, just make peace with yourself...Doc

Reflections From The World...The French Quarter Series

That Night On Bourbon Street

I turned toward Canal and walked down to the corner of Dumaine and Bourbon. Bourbon 

Street was blocked off as it is at night and an enormous crowd filled the streets as far as I could see. Music from an outdoor concert three blocks away washing over the crazed 

revelers. I love to watch people and this was a fantastic place to do so.

Then I noticed someone who seemed beautifully and oddly out of place. Tucked back against one of the old brick buildings, was a fresh-faced young woman sitting in a folding chair behind a tiny, makeshift desk. She was surrounded by the dense crowd literally falling out of the open doors of the burgeoning Cafe Lafitte in Exile across the street. Revelers high above on the balcony called those in the packed street below. Before her sat an old-fashioned manual typewriter. Most people her age have never even seen a manual typewriter (or an electric one for that matter), much less used one. Taped to the edge of her “desk” was a small cardboard sign with a hand written message: “Poet for Hire.”

This was an unexpected sight to say the least. She was not a “street person,” along with the fortune tellers or street performers around Jackson Square. She seemed serious and vulnerable sitting there. I ventured over and asked what she was doing. She said she was a writer and this was her practice – to write publicly. I asked how it worked and she replied that I could tell her something I had been thinking or maybe some idea or a word of interest and she would write a poem for a donation. I immediately dug into my wallet while telling her what I had been thinking during my walk following my solitary dinner. She seemed to understand. Then, she took out two small pieces of paper, sandwiched an equal sized piece of carbon paper between them (who uses carbon paper anymore?), rolled it into the typewriter, and began. I excused myself to fight my way through the crowd to use the bathroom at Lafitte’s, partially so I would not be standing over her as she wrote. Never mind that she was surrounded by thousands of very raucous people, but now we had a kind of spontaneous and unspoken intimacy that required respect.

When I returned, she was still writing, so I sat down next to her on the sidewalk amid the empty Red Bull cans and scattered beer bottles. I just sat in silence as she tapped away amid the chaos. In a few minutes I heard the unmistakable sound of paper being extracted from the roller of an ancient typewriter and she handed me my poem. Here is what she had written.

We party like pirates

who are going to be ghosts tomorrow

The streets are stained

with sweat and rain

The brick walls rent by the shifting earth

and in the fissure the hot green rot

of new life, licking at the flames

It is our pain

These gaping wounds

that make way for the river

that flows through us all

making us beautiful places to visit

Aching and crumbling

and crying make sweet breaking music

A trilling trumpet on the air:

One last drowning cry.

Erin Lierl

Bourbon Street, New Orleans

She had really heard me, and beyond that, she had penetrated my evening musings in a way I never expected. She took my first thought and moved it deeper and opened it further. This is what we hope to do for each other as spiritual friends. In this case, we had made a tiny, temporary island of connection in the rolling humanity and humidity of Bourbon Street. Aside from the content of the poem itself, this young woman had appeared mysteriously, in an unlikely place and time, and had touched me with her wisdom and compassion. 

I walked back by her again later that night returning to my hotel. She was writing for herself amidst the even more inebriated crowd. I hoped to find her the next day...but she was gone.

May your day be filled with the spirit of The Big Easy...Beau B.

Entry Note To Self...RIP

Just A Collection Of Thoughts

Journal Entry: 1/15/18

As I progress into the last quarter of my life, I find that I have more time to answer people’s questions. Questions that use to bother me when asked, for example...”what do you want put on your headstone?” I use to blow that one off. “Who the hell wants to think about that.” 

Well that use to be. Now I have the time to answer that question. I have always leaned toward, “I have nothing more to say.” Seems like the “right” last thing to say as you are signing off. 

Lately this other thought on that subject has started to creep. If it were today, right now even, I think I would go with, “I always wanted to be a sheep herder!!”

Don’t really know why? Don’t even want to think about that. It’s just a thought, tucked away with other collections of thought.

The other thought I had, was to be cremated and put a pinch of me in these little glass vials on a necklace and have them distributed to everyone at my memorial. Maybe they will feel obligated to hang me around their necks for just a little while. It would be funny to watch and see how they disposed of me on the way home...:)

This whole dilemma would have not come up had it not been for someone referring to me as “ Looking Dapper” the other day. It struck me that I have never been called that before and for good reason. I wasn’t old enough. 

It’s an adjective that is applied only to men – never to women – after a certain age. It’s meant as a compliment: your suit was obviously dry-cleaned in the recent past, your shirt was ironed, your hair is combed, you shaved yourself within the past few days. 

It’s like that other indication that you have crossed a threshold and are drawing every closer to your appointment with the grim reaper. That’s when you meet someone younger than you and they look at you wide-eyed, with slightly raised eyebrows and declare with a hint of surprise that "you’re looking very well”.

It’s the sort of thing you don’t say to teenagers or to people in middle age. It is reserved for, well, people like me. You are not dead, it means you are not dribbling, you are not lying on a trolley in a corridor. No indeed, you are looking very well.

If I recall, there was even a doll in the 50s called Dapper Dan with his girlfriend Dressy Bessie...?

What is your life? For you are a mist that appears for a little while and then vanishes...

Just thoughts...now off to do my chores here in The Sane Asylum 

Be Well...Doc
https://www.facebook.com/skyvillelive/videos/1995324297348804/

Photo By: Christopher Bryson

Entry Note To Self...Meaning?

Red Umbrella Under Moonlight Sky

Journal Entry: 1/16/18

One of my favorite things to do is walk around whatever neighborhood I’m in. I walk every day and I look at the sky, the fields and even the smallest of things and I say: 'Oh, what a blessing.' Then you realise it's important to put it in a context beyond this woman, this man, this city, this country, this universe. It goes beyond everything. It goes to the core of our reason for being here. ”What if there is no reason for being here and – there's no easy way to put this – nice walks around the neighborhood are as good as it gets? It's still a blessing."

Today I do not want to resolve the mysteries...I just want to walk...Doc

Photo: Christopher Bryson Collection

Lest we forget...

From The Archives

Dumb A** Mistake 

Well, it’s that time of year again. Lest we forget...

For the last few days I have been watching more football than my brain can enjoy. But what the hell, everyone else seems to be enjoying so why not join in. 

There is a lot of talk about the coaches...mostly about how much they make and second guessing their play calling. What I noticed most was the dumb ass mental mistakes by the players. Case in point. The Off Side call. The lineman execute this down set before you snap the ball thousands of times, but every once in a while they just jump off sides before the ball is snapped for no dump ass reason. The brain just makes a dumb ass reflex.  Can't explain it. The reflex just happens. Grown men slapping their helmet in disgust and lip syncing "What the --".

The other day I was backing out of my garage. I thought I put the car in reverse but guess it was a dumb ass mental mistake and I dropped it a notch or two lower into drive. Now when you accelerate and you sense you are going in the wrong direction your brain wants to help out and slam on your breaks. It knows how to do that, but the brain makes a big dumb ass reflex and presses the foot harder on the accelerator rather than withdrawing. "What the --", I thought as I sat in my storage closet looking at the rake and hoe hanging on the wall. Never use them but there they were, hanging neatly just outside my car door. Ended up off sides in my storage closet.

Now I must say, Ms. Ego was not very happy, even after I tried to explain to her that it was a big dumb ass mental mistake followed by a dumb ass brain reflex. "It was only a mental mistake and a brain reflex, can happen to anyone", I pleaded.  I even tried to explain to her that older people's response time is much slower and it never occurred to me to take my foot off the accelerator.  A lot like my recall lately. Things just don't occur to me like they use too. I went so far to explain that the average reaction reflex time to a visual stimuli is .025 of a second and .017 to an audio stimulus, and if she would have been watching she could have yelled at me and maybe I would have stopped sooner...She's not happy!

Reflexes come in all kinds. Conditioned, unconditioned and just the ordinary kind when an action is carried out through the mediation of the nervous system but not requiring the cooperation of the brain for its execution. Just a response of a perturbing stimulus that acts to return the body to homeostasis. The reflex arc, the receptor at the end of a sensory neuron, the afferent neuron, the efferent neuron traveling up the efferent pathway. I know all that crap but it was of no value in explaining how I ended up in the storage closet due to a dumb ass reflex.

I needed some deeper insight on this reflex subject, so I called my good friend Jess Ben Rambling and related how I had been hit hard of recent by "dumb ass reflexes".  Now I don't  know what I was expecting to hear. Maybe some sympathy followed by "it can happen to the best of us". Or maybe, "are you ok?". Hell, I would have settled for, "that was a real dumb ass reflex". He was silent for a moment trying to make contact with his deeper self, I suppose, then responded..."Many times I reflex on past memories and friends."

What the --!

Somewhat-not-half-bad-on-a-good-day...Doc

From The Far Side Of The Screen...privacy

From The Far Side Of The Glass

My Bent On Privacy

Journal Entry: 1/11/18

One thing that intrigues me about Facebook is the amount of open transparency. I’m not faulting this at all. It is just the way it is. I just have never been the type to let everyone know I was having a fish taco at Don Juans. For some reason, I have always had the bent to be more private and I find that I am that way as I communicate with my G+ circles. 

Not much different than the rest of my life...I tend to keep a garden of friends and acquaintances just large enough that I can care and maintain but still retain my privacy. It surprises me in some ways, because I find myself prying a little into other people’s privacy. Mostly strangers, just trying to know them better and acknowledge them as my fellow human. 

I was up St. Augustine way a week after Hurricane Irma had made her dance up the coast line. She waltzed her way up the coast right on the heels of Hurricane Harvey. . Anyway, I introduced myself to this gentleman on the elevator. He looked like the engineering type. Very proper looking, I might add, as he reached out his hand and said ”my name is Harvey”.

When I asked him did he miss Irma, not a smile did he show. Never even asked me “Who’s Irma?” I suppose he is just very private that way.

Back to my original thought...when I started posting a few years back I still had some business and professional ties. It was really none of their business what I posted or had to say to the world...but it was. So I started posting under the moniker of Dr. Ego Prozac. That way no one would really know who I am. Well, as I got deeper into it I got concerned that the big Pharm would take me down for using their trade name Prozac, so I decided to go underground and started posting under the name Dr. Ego Prozac Underground. I still have an active blog today with that same name. I go there when I want more privacy. :)

This “Selfie Thing” has me a bit confused. How can I be more transparent but still remain private? I think it’s important to show our resemblance. Just some glimpse of our shadow helps. Funny how many post there are of people showing their shadow. For me, I have played with different forms but mostly it’s just me trying to look less vain, always looking down, and fuzzed out by this app. called Imagine Edit. Showing just enough to make me look real.

I don’t have those professional ties anymore, so I no longer have to hide my twisted mind and crooked smile, but even without the restraints, I am bent on being a little private.

Good news is, it’s just a few weeks away until Mardi Gras and then I can put on my mask and be anyone I want to be! Maybe I will just be myself this year? A Pirate!

https://youtu.be/ITDgDkqYbss

So, From The Far Side Of The Glass...here’s looking at you?

Let the good times roll...

Doc

P.s...Be free, impose yourself but remain discreet, mark your imprint on the world, be the masterpiece of your birth and the meaning of something for someone.

Entry Note To Self...2%

la part des anges...The Angels Share

Journal Entry: 1/8/18

Once upon a time there were two sisters...

Ura Aging is the sister of Imma Wrinking. They are Ole Maid school teachers. Both are retired and live in Fisher, a small sawmill village owned by 4L Lumber Company.

On most days you might spot them sitting on their front porch drinking the Angles Share of Pappy Van Winkle. If you ask them what they are drinking, it will always be the cry, "

”23 year old Angels Share."

I like the number 23. It's a fitting age to end on for whiskey and has played a central role in every important event in history. When you start looking, it all seems so obvious: Julius Caesar stabbed 23 times. Michael Jordan’s jersey number, and of course, 23 year old Pappy Van Winkle.  

Now if you know anything about good whiskey you will know the Pappy blend is quiet sought after and hard to come by. Considered the most expensive bourbon in the world. 

How anyone gets Pappy is somewhat of a mystery. Some serendipity combined with a little bit of luck I suppose. Each year around Thanksgiving, Buffalo Trace Distillery begins allocating their yearly allotment. Only a ridiculously small amount of Pappy is distributed to liquor stores; most of the bottles go to bars and restaurants where an ounce can go for $100.

Now don't get Pappy Van Winkle and Rip Van Winkle confused. Rip took to the woods to escape from a nagging wife, drank some Dutch elixir and feel asleep for twenty years. Since that time henpecked husbands often wish they could have a sip of Rip Van Winkle's elixir to sleep through their own wives' nagging..

  

No one knows how Imma and Ura acquire their Pappy. I personally think it is their good looks. All in all, it seems to help their arthritis. The sisters stay busy making casserole dishes for the widowed and posting on Facebook. On rare occasions, they have been spotted late at night, skinny dipping in the mill pond with brothers John and Vern Funderburk. Quiet the gossip around the village. Must be the Angels share of Pappy taking hold?

May all the Angels be your sheltering and joyful guardians...May you partake of the Angels share of life before it is to late...Doc

Entry Note To Self...Things of the heart

The Biology Of Love

I always think of my ole friend, Pablo, and our discussions of language and how language produces within us a Biology Of Love. Especially so on this cool and bright morning. 

As I made my normal rounds this morning, I happened upon this guy named Harvey. Looked like an engineer type. Very precise and proper. In a good way. I never took offense at his manner. Quite a nice surprise on this beautiful day. We even conversed, discussed and cussed our way around the world and then I asked him, "Do you miss Irma?"  "Just joking Harvey." And did I say he had no humor button?

Well, I was just joking...seems Harvey had no clue. Not even a smile did he give. But it did remind me of the many in my life I truly miss.

"I just don't feel like myself without you," is probably something you've thought when you've missed someone you care about.

This idea randomly popped into my head as I walked on. I remember the words of Pablo;

"I am not entirely sure if the science behind this is accurate because even the scientists aren't sure about the accuracy. Emotions are difficult to understand, and neurotransmitters are difficult to track."

So with that said, here's my take on things: a layman's definition of why you might actually feel like a different person when you're away from your significant other (or anyone close to your heart). Anyway, I'm out here on this grand morning, so why not muck it up with some thought....

Biology and psychology teach us that our bodies naturally produce certain chemicals- hormones are produced by glands, and neurotransmitters by the central nervous system. Evolutionarily these chemicals help us to form emotional bonds to be able to maintain group relationships, intimate relationships, and parental relationships. They help keep us alive. Today, there's a lot more added to the mix, and as a result there's a lot more grey area.

The hormones related to "love" are estrogen/testosterone, and oxytocin. The neurotransmitters most closely involved are seratonin and dopamine.

Again, we produce all of these chemicals naturally, but when you are with someone you love, they surge. When they surge, your body speeds up to process them all. When you spend an extended period of time with someone you love, you basically become addicted to an elevated level of all of these chemicals, and your body becomes used to processing them all more quickly.

If your body is used to producing all of those chemicals, and processing them quickly, can you imagine what happens when you leave the person that causes it? In short, withdrawal happens. Your body stops producing an abundance of seratonin, oxytocin, etc., and to make matters worse, the chemicals that your body does produce continue to be processed so quickly it's as if they were never there.

Now you might be wondering, how does this impact one's emotional state? Well, in many ways, but it usually mimics symptoms of depression and anxiety. This is why so many people say, "I don't feel like myself," or, "I miss my other half," because their body has become used to certain stimulation that they are no longer receiving.

If you think about it, that's why the honeymoon phase in a romantic relationship feels like such a high at the beginning. Because that surge is new, and it feels good. They're all happy chemicals after all. But just like any drug, your body gets used to it, and it still feels good, you just might need extra every once in a while (hello date night).

Anyway, when you're ripped from the person that you love, it hurts. It could take months for your body to get back to normal, and every time you see that person in between, the clock is reset.

So before you beat yourself up for missing someone so much, remember this: "you can't help it."

No discussion needed on this one...best we think for ourselves about this subject. After all, it's just what I think, and I could be wrong...:) 

Whatever may be the reason..."I would say it’s a very nice feeling to miss someone" ...Regards, Doc

Reflections From The World...

The Christopher Bryson Series...

As I sat there enjoying Jambalaya and Boudin Balls, I heard the trumpet play "It's the End of the World As We Know It"...It was perfection. Life In The French Quarter

Would you like

To ride on a train,

Walk in the rain,

Or feel no pain?

Reflections From The World...Pretending

Ed Valfre’s Dreamland...

Every afternoon, she would sit on the same bench under the same tree and pretend to read an interesting book. It had been her hope that a nice young man with intellectual taste would one day notice her and strike up a conversation. She finally met a sweet young man, who as luck would have it, also liked pretending to read interesting books.  

Entry Note To Self...Waiting

Waiting

Journal Entry: 1/2/18

Today, I had to wait for 45 minutes for something in a waiting room full of people. To most people, that may sound quite tedious. However, I didn’t mind. I like waiting. I know... that is strange. But I really do.

Why do I like waiting?  Older people are just good at waiting. We don’t mind, or we don’t show that we mind, to a point. If we do mind or get to the point when we start minding, we complain, but only in a very jolly sarcastic way. We complain with humor. We complain apologetically. That is, if we complain at all. Mostly, we just put up and shut up.

Now I have my reasons. Firstly, if I am waiting then I am not engaged in real life. This is especially so if I have no phone signal (as was the case today). Nobody can get hold of me while I am waiting. They can wait. Bliss.

Secondly, waiting gives me thinking space. All I can do is think while I wait. Thinking is healthy. We all should stop and just think now and then. It’s amazing what your mind can come up with if left with it’s own vices.

Thirdly, I love reading really old copies of Women’s Weekly.  Who doesn’t?

Fourthly, I love reading the random signs and notices that are always present in places of waiting: the adverts for coping with dementia, what to do if you think you have an STD, how much water you should drink a day, where the local support group for people with random unusual disease meet or the signs that tell you ‘please be patient if you have been waiting a long time’.

Finally, and most importantly, I love people watching and eavesdropping on those people. So for me, waiting is like being in the Frozen Frog Yogurt shop.

Today, while waiting, I heard all about one woman’s issues renovating her house and what happened when a curtain rod fell down on her sleeping husband during the night. I helped an elderly lady of 85 work out what day it was. I amused a random man with my desperate need to know more about a ‘Tilt Test’. He asked the receptionist for me, she wasn’t sure. I exchanged mutual society horror stories with a lady called Julie . I watched as a doddery old man with a thatched head of pure white hair called John, (the man, not the hair) as he was called into his appointment. I observed a lady called Florence amble past to her appointment shortly after John. I created a life for her in my head, (lives in the country, higgldy piggldy house, too many books and cats, loves Walmart, eats a lot of potato chips). I saw a youngish man called Paul with a funny hat get called into his appointment. I amused a random couple with my grammatical pedantry. _

_If only I had my sketch pad today. The adventures my pen and I would have told. As it were, I decided that an hour in a random waiting room would make for a great Broadway play or a Samuel Beckett story. It was an existentialist’s dream- waiting for something you don’t want to experience, and waiting patiently at that, and more importantly, being forced to consider your mortality and meaning on this planet while waiting for that thing you don’t want to happen. Arguably, there isn’t anything more existential than that.

When my time waiting came to an end, 45 minutes after it began, I hate to admit it but I was sad. For I will miss my new friends: John, Julie, Florence and Paul to name but a few. Perhaps our paths will cross again, in another waiting room somewhere else?

P.S. hope you like my Andy Warhol selfie??? 

Waiting Patiently...Doc

From Inside The Sane Asylum...Jess

”Hallelujah, Doc said my give a Sh_ **er  is in remission.”

Journal Entry1/1/18

Let’s start the New Year with a friend and a grin...here is to Jess B. Rambling

I don’t know how many of you will remember my friend Jess B? You just may recall that Jess is one of the original Sane Asylum homesteaders.

It is Jess B in present tense and Jess Ben Rambling in past tense. Jess is a wondering pilgrim and not seen a lot in public, but on occasions he will have something to point out and in his cynical way make his presence known.

He usually likes to do nothing on most days and seems he never gets finished of doing nothing. He often relates, that if you never start anything you will never have to finish. He is also quick to remind you that Lolly Gagging and Dilly Dallying are skilled behaviors that must be practiced often.

Jess has this gift of finding Hysterical Sites. He will ponder, travel great distances and investigate well before he documents his findings. He is credited with documenting several pseudo normal sites in The Sane Asylum.

No one really sees much of Jess, but from time to time he will send me facts and pictures from some hysterical site he has run across. Like the time he found a street in Austin called West Street, but it really ran North and South. He sent me a picture of him holding a compass under the West Street Sign to validate his findings that it truly did run North and South. Or how about the time he traveled to St. Augustine to find the original St. Augustine Grass. Picture to prove it.

Then there was this intersection in rural Louisiana where North Tucker Road crossed South Tucker Road. That corner still puzzles Jess to this day. There is not a visit that goes by that he does not discuss it as a true sign we are living in The Matrix.

Well this morning look what walks through my door...Jess Ben, wearing an old pair of fatigue cutoffs and a green t-shirt with the inscription, “Johnny Barber co-ed benefit Softball Tournament 2008.” Don’t know why that caught me as rather strange, but it did.

I asked Jess where did he get that old t-shirt? He mumbled something that sounded like “County Jail”.

“A long story”, he said.

Nothing like a long story from Jess to whet the appetite or is it wet the appetite? Always get those confused. So, I pour him a whiskey over ice and listen to his tale.

The First Lie Of The New Year

As he tells it...

”I went down to get my drivers license renewed this morning. Made it through the long line, passed the eye test after a few tries, took my mug shot and went to the clerk’s office to pay for my renewal with my credit card. The clerk looked at my card, then at yours truly and said “strip down please”.

I really thought it was some new security requirement and proceeded to take my cloths off. It only took seconds and I was subdued by a large swarm of Security Guards, followed quickly by the local Police department Swat Team pushing me in the back of a Paddy Wagon.

The holding cell interview was just shy of water boarding, but I am sure it was to determine if I had been radicalized. Imagine that.

I kept telling them over and over that the clerk told me to strip down! They kept telling me that the clerk meant for you to slide your credit card ‘with the strip down’.

I’m sure it’s just a misunderstanding, but I am out on bond, and wearing clothes from the discarded box in County Jail.

They said they needed to keep my clothes as evidence.”

Not half that bad on a good day...Doc

P.s...and yes, Jess’s give a sh**’er is still in remission.