Kurt Brindley's Blog, page 156

English is for Everyone

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English is for Everyone

The past week or so, I have been pretending to be a computer repairman (I guess in this gender-sensitive age it’s okay for me to say repairman instead of something vanilla (is it okay for me to say vanilla? does it matter that I’m white?) like repair person or repair representative, since I am, in fact, despite all the chemo’s and other drugs’s emasculating attempts, a man). It’s funny how, no matter how useless they become, old computers, along with old video games, and old phones, and old power packs, and old chargers, and don’t even get me started on unidentifiable old CDs, kind of just hang around in a corner of the basement as if it were a technological sarcophagus — lifeless computers stacked forlornly, purposeless cables and chords twisted madly into an untwistable balled bunch… Yeah.

Anyway, the past week or so I have been Dr. Frankengeek: attempting to restore ancient operating systems, rooting around in old files, deleting an old this, saving an old that.

So, so much stuff tucked away within those old computers. Who really know how much stuff is really on them? Of course we never should throw them away until the day a gadget is made that possesses unlimited memory and a magical ability to instantaneously copy old files onto it without any user prompting, whatsoever. And not just any old file, no, certainly not those intransigent .dll files or any other annoying and undeletable ones like them, only important old files. And not to worry, this gadget will know what’s what, believe me. Oh, and of course the gadget will be cordless and will have an infinite battery life.

Coming soon to an Amazon store near you…

Until I can get my hands one of those suckers, I promise all my old computers will stay unneatly stacked in my basement and conveniently out of your landfill.

Most of the past week or so has certainly been less than fun. It’s a good thing I’m jobless and have a lot of time on my hands because most of the past week or so has been nothing more than an intimate study of the Ctrl, Alt, Del keys.

If this is what the world is coming to, then I say, go ahead and let the geeks inherit the earth.

Geek salvation…boring.

However, every once in a while I did dig my way into a stash of old photos, or old school papers, or some other ancient gem that reminded me of how cool it has been to live with my wife and kids these past twenty-five years or so.

Take, for instance, the picture found at the beginning of this rambling post. I found it in a folder of old English lessons.

Back in the last century, I used to live in Japan, and for a time when I lived in Japan, I used to teach English on the side to some very wonderful Japanese folks. To find and attract those wonderful Japanese folks, I used to advertise my lessons as “English is for Everyone.” Quaint, ain’t it?

Those of you who know my family, know how talented my children are. My daughter is an especially talented artist. She always has been, as is evident by the drawing she made that is found at the top of this rambling post, and which became the logo for those old lessons. I believe we even made iron-ons out of that logo and pressed them on to tee-shirts. At any rate, we truly made a good time out of it, that’s for sure.

Within that old stash, I also found many of my old English lessons, and old worksheets, and old handouts. They all bring back fond and funny and fortunate memories. I miss all my — I hesitate to call them students because it seemed as if I ended up learning more from them than they did from me, so I’ll simply say, I miss all my friends from that period of my life.

What follows is a copy of one of the old handouts I put together to, well, handout to my friends during those old English lessons. It is a list of heteronyms (thank god for google (is that redundant?)) that exemplifies just how crazy and fun the English language is.

Come to think of it, this might be a stretch, but, English is kind of like my old computers… It’s a communication system and storage system and retrieval system, all coded and operated by a language that rarely deletes anything but continually accumulates and assumes bits and bytes of other languages into its own as it constantly and forever evolves and adapts its system to the demands of the times.

Yeah, I said it was a bit of a stretch, but still…

No wonder the English language is so difficult to learn

We polish the Polish furniture.

He could be in the lead if he would just get the lead out.

A farm can produce produce.

The dump was so full it had to refuse refuse.

The soldier decided to desert in the desert.

The present is a good time to present the present.

At the Army base, a bass fish was painted on the head of a bass drum.

The dove dove into the bushes.

I did not object to the object.

The insurance for the invalid was invalid.

The bandage was wound around the wound.

There was a row among the oarsmen about how to row.

They were too close to the door to close it.

The buck does funny things when the does are present.

They sent a sewer down to stitch the tear in the sewer line.

To help with planting, the farmer taught his fat sow to sow the seeds.

The wind was too strong to wind the sail.

After a number of Novocaine injections, my jaw became number.

I shed a tear when I saw the tear in my pants.

I had to subject the subject to a series of tests.

How can I intimate this to my most intimate friend?

I spent last evening evening out a pile of dirt.

My Subjunctive Mood Always Brings Me Down

If I was were a less sensitive grammarian, then I would care less whether my grammar were was more or less correct. However, if it was were true that I were was less sensitive grammarian, would it then mean that I were was a less caring person?

Life Is Mostly Understood

The door finally opened; February’s unforgiving chill entered with him. He immediately went to her and hugged her gently. After a noticed hesitation, she weakly returned his affection. Neither spoke.

Neither spoke as he helped her with her coat. Neither spoke as he led her to the car. Neither spoke as they drove away.

Eventually, she spoke. “What are we going to do now?”

His grip tightened on the steering wheel. “Why didn’t you tell me?”

“I don’t know. I thought it would make you…” She couldn’t hold back the sob.

He pushed the handle down to signal a turn, but the light quickly changed. They stopped and they waited.

He watched the signal blink.

She watched him, crying uncontrollably now.

“Well…aren’t you?”

Only the blinking signal responded.

The light changed again and they eventually made the turn.

Even Lonely Roads Provide No Refuge

The little white dog romped in the wild grass along the side of the road while the man waited impatiently, as if he was being kept from an important engagement; though, when the dog returned to the road and started making her way forward again, the man kept a slow pace behind her, as if he was afraid to lose sight of her, as if she was some kind of jubilant roaming compass that he was dependent upon for direction.

The dog darted back into the tall grass and all he could tell of her existence was her green, waving wake. He growled at her to watch for ticks. She popped back out onto the road and, free from the constraints of the wild, quickly motored forward. He was able to only take three or four strides before she caught another scent and was back, once again, into the wild on another hunt.

He stopped, growled something else at her, and then let his eyes fall on the expansive, gray view. Row after row of severed stalks, some upright and blunt, some twisted and mangled, ran precisely, helplessly, down to the bottom of the hill. It seemed to him as if he was looking upon some kind of strange, abandoned cemetery. Above it all, cold, settled clouds threatened the coming of snow. A chill overtook him and he tugged on the already well-zipped zipper of his coat. The old dog was still joyously frantic with scent. Neither noticed the car as it approached.

He jumped some when the woman said, “Shouldn’t you have that little puppy on a leash?”

It took him several seconds before he could accept the intrusion; then he looked hard at the woman. She was old, but he was unable to make out just how old, her dyed hair was that red. Besides, her hair was just about all he could make out of her through her door’s opened window. How could she see the road to drive, he wondered.

“Excuse me?”

“I’ve seen you out walking with your little puppy before. She’s so tiny and cute. Aren’t you afraid she might get hit by a passing car?”

He looked down at the oblivious dog and calculated that she was at least three feet into the grass. He then slowly, blatantly, looked up and down the lifeless road. Finally, looking down on her, he replied, “Is your driving so dangerous that I need to be afraid?”

It was the woman’s turn to ask, “Excuse me?”

He bent down into the grass and scooped up the old dog. He then stared at the woman briefly before slowly heading back in the direction from which he and the animal had come.

The headwind was strong and he spoke harshly into it. “Neither me or my dog are puppies,” he said. “Neither me or my dog requires a leash.”

The Sophistry of Now

He was often troubled (their word, not his) by unconstrained and unaccountable lapses in time: reality would fade away from him without the slightest tipping of the hat or bidding of adieu; and then, just as stealthily as it had departed, it would just as unstealthily return, snapping into focus before him like a crazy beautiful melodramatic John Currin landscape (if he was to do landscapes). If he didn’t make a concerted effort just as soon as he realized reality had returned, wherever it was it had gone would be forever lost within the ether of lost dreams.

He was relatively young, especially compared to those who more and more each day are seemingly living longer and longer and whom those TV morning things tend to exuberantly highlight, so it couldn’t possibly be due to any age-related withering of gray matter; though, of course, never being able to truly account for the synergistic effects of the foods and the medications and the environmental pollutants and all the other unknowns he had consumed or had been inadvertently, and possibly even advertently (why is that not a real word?), exposed to, it possibly could.

Or maybe the Currin was where it went.

Only In The Movies

What a bunch of nonsense.

He sighed and looked at his watch: easily another thirty minutes. If the score wasn’t so loud he’d at least be able to nap until it was finally over. He looked down at his date: she had curled herself up in her seat and was holding tightly onto his arm, using it as a shield whenever a scene became too unbearable for her to watch.

He looked back to the screen: what garbage. Look at that idiot going into the house like that knowing what he knows. Like someone would really do that.

He sighed again and wondered how someone whom he he had met in the library’s science section amongst all the physics books and who had seemed to him to be so rational and perceptive and…smart, could, firstly, choose such nonsense for their inaugural date and, secondly, enjoy the nonsense as much as she seemed to be enjoying it.

There came a sudden scream from the screen, then, near-simultaneously, came a scream from his date, and then, finally, from within his own head came the loudest scream of all as a self-chastisement for killing so many of own brain cells with such nonsense.

#

The car came to a stop in front of a lonely, darkened house. She put the transmission into park and pressed the button to kill the already silent engine.

He sighed.

She looked at him with a seductive smile and said, “So, didn’t you say something about having the house all to yourself this weekend?”

“Did I?” he said brusquely.

“Yes, you did,” she replied. She lightly placed her hand on his thigh and leaned across him to look out his window. “Your house looks so dark and lonely. Maybe I better come in with you so you don’t, you know, get scared in there all by yourself.”

He scoffed and opened the door. “Look, thanks for such a…well…interesting evening. But I’m a little tired so, perhaps it’s best that we just say goodnight here.” Without waiting for her to reply, he got out of the car, gave her another quick thanks, and then closed the door.

Incredulously, she watched as her date walked toward the empty house. As she sat there in the driver’s seat trying to figure out what had just happened, she noticed the silhouette of a rather large person in the second-floor window looking down on the scene below.

She was certain her date had said that his roommates were going to be gone for the weekend. She looked back up at the window. Still, someone was in the house.

Both she and the large silhouette watched as her date unlocked the front door, stepped inside the house, and closed the door behind him. She waited for a light to be turned on but the house remained dark.

She looked up at the window. The silhouette was gone.

Goosebumps, hardly having subsided after the haunting movie, returned with a chill as she pressed the starter button. The engine softly came back to life and then went silent as she quickly, but resolutely, drove away from her disappointed date’s lonely, darkened house.

Short Verses and Other Curses #3

(a third round-up of haiku and other diminutive discourses of mine posted in various places throughout the cybersphere)

*

I have no answers

I know just that grass will grow

and that leaves will fall

*

destroy to create

say the gods and demagogues

pain’s higher purpose

*

think and I ignore

say and I start to wonder

do and I believe

*

when everything hurts

each thought, each breath, each step, each…

then nothing can hurt

*

it’s not the disease

it’s the dis ease found within

the mind is the cure

*

low, gray clouds advance

footsteps crack like breaking bones

the wind’s chill churns deep

*

each quest has an end

each question has an answer

stay still; stay silent

*

time is everywhere

and moves in all directions

clocks mislead us all

*

existentially

to exist means to suffer

it’s the angst of choice

*

sometimes, to be heard

it’s best to remain silent

to be seen–vanish

*

it’s the irony

it’s the humor and folly

life’s absurdities

*

the shield or the sword

cower safe behind despair

or attack with joy

*

the wind fuels the flame

the light sustains the shadow

life’s paradoxes

*

the pine’s evergreen

or the maple’s sudden fall

flare comes with a cost

*

who’s the next Gibran

who’s the next Kurosawa

can twitter tell me

*

each morrow’s a chance

what becomes becomes what was

is is all there is

*

struggle through the din

yield not to the damning knell

onward to the calm

*

absence is sublime

the void becomes the proxy

memories feint truths

*

dismiss this missive

for to me alone it speaks

a lone I must heed

*

Tear me into pieces

and throw me to the wind

release me to the currents

never to be whole again

Each scattered bit of me

soon forgotten as a whole

will never forsake my spirit

and will forever retain my soul

The Angel In the Cracked Mirror

It’s hard not to be aware of a crack in the mirror; just as it’s equally hard not to recall how the crack came into being each time the crack is noticed. Yet, as distractive as both the crack and the cause of its infliction were, she didn’t mind. She much rather preferred to have cause to be distracted by the crack and the sad story it had to tell than have to constantly be made aware of what it was the mirror actually was insistent upon revealing to her each time she stood before it.

The crack, initially not much to notice, began at the bottom left corner of the mirror—your standard medicine cabinet mirror (nothing fancy)—and extended upward and diagonally toward the center, and, for the time being, stopped its ascent right where the left corner of her mouth appeared whenever she had cause, or took pause, to look at herself in the mirror.

Awareness is a tricky thing: She was obviously aware of what was found in the mirror—the crack, her reflection, and all the sad stories they both had to tell—but she was not aware of her awareness. While, because of the larger mirror that was set over the sink behind her, she was was aware of the infinitely expanding reflections of herself in the cracked mirror, she was not yet aware of all that she saw. As a result, she did not see her infinitely expanding universal self: an expanding awareness of everything there is to know; an expanding awareness of everything that is not known; an expanding awareness of everything that is unknowable.

Everything was revealed for her in that cracked mirror and she saw it all for herself; yet, still, she remained unaware that she was aware, preferring, instead, to let her self be distracted by the crack and the sad story it had to tell.

The Moment Before He Realized He was Happy

Even the day seemed depressed:  Clouds, swollen, heavy, and low, cried and cried their raindrop tears.  Though he wished he could, and though he certainly felt as if he should, he did not cry in solidarity with the clouds.  The clouds cried alone and for reasons which he did not understand, and for reasons which he did not contemplate; for he had his own reasons for which he wanted to cry and for which he spent a considerable amount of time contemplating.

But the day wasn’t really depressed.  Intellectually, he knew that as a matter of fact; but, as a matter of feeling, he couldn’t help but think that because of his own sadness, the day, too, was sad.  He thought, couldn’t we, by the sheer force of our moods, affect the environment around us? If our brainwaves are electric, then surely our electric thoughts must do something to that, and those, around us, right?

He softly scoffed at that thought, knowing as a matter of fact that it was impossible for his thinking to affect the weather.

He tried to remember whether he was sad before the day turned dreary or whether the day turned dreary before he became sad. As he pondered the order of the day’s depression, the clouds suddenly broke and a sharp beam of sunlight sliced its way through all the grayness and found its way through his window and turned his room into a brilliant denizen of light. The change in the room from gloom to glow was drastic and forced his eyes into a tight, reactive squint, which, in turn, forced the corners of his mouth upwards into an unsuspecting smile.

Steroid Psychosis Blues

It has been over three months since I stopped taking an extremely potent and addictive steroid called Prednisone. I had been taking it for over a year in an attempt to control my graft versus host disease, which I contracted as a side-effect result from my bone marrow transplant.

As I have detailed in several posts in the past, prednisone, while being a very amazing drug that my have saved my life, comes with a cost…and that cost is many dangerous side-effects.

One of its most annoying side-effects are severe mood swings. When I woke up each morning, I always had to wonder who I would be that day. Would I be one who was effusively overcome with happiness and joy? Or, would I be one who was trapped in a deep, dark depression? Or, would I be a paranoid, hypersensitive mad–as in angry at any little slight–man?

It was an interesting time in my life, to say the least.

But now that I am three-months removed from that oscillating mental trip, I have been reading through the articles that I wrote during that time and I am not all pleased with what I am finding: The articles are either overly sentimental or overly psychotic.

Nevertheless, the articles represent my mindset at the time they were written…a mindset struggling with what is medically termed as "steroid psychosis."

Today is the first day of spring and I must admit that, in spirit of the season, I have done a little spring cleaning on this site by throwing out a few of the more embarrassing and ridiculous articles; however, I left most of the ones that I feel best represent how my mind processed information, as psychotic as it may have been, while strung out on the evil mind warping drug called prednisone.