#20Gonna20

Solitude of Dusk, Richmond Ferry Dock

20 Images of 2020, plus One In Memoriam

The Ford Fl-Car ~ An American Automotive Allegory

Still the Busted Laptop, but with an Explanation

The Ford Fl-Car ~ An American Automotive Allegory

The Unremarkable Brain interrupts the previewed schedule of Blog posts to recount the tale of an unremarkable milestone in history of the American Automotive Industry-- the story of the Ford Fl-Car! (Pronounced “Fl-Kar”)

In February 1947, several years after Henry Ford left his corporation to dedicate his life to philanthropy, the geniuses in whose hands he had left the Ford Motor Company released their latest innovation at automotive shows in Detroit, New York and Los Angeles

Announcers proclaimed: “Ladies and Gentlemen, you will now glimpse the Future. Ford Motor Company gives you- The Ford Fl-Car!”

The Fl-Car was the World’s First Flying Car.  Breathless marketing copy averred that the Fl-Car would provide Americans the rarefied experience of setting off from home-- by taking off!

The program from the Spring 1947 International Automotive Exhibition in Detroit rapturously proclaimed, “Your neighbors will gape in awe and envy as you make your way along at the amazing altitude of 9 feet!”

Quite the innovation.

Seventy-two years on, there are no extant examples of the Ford Fl-Car on the road. Such cars, of course, wouldn’t be on the road; they’d be cruising along at vintage car shows at an amazing altitude of nine feet.

Nevertheless, the Fl-Car model was a dreadfully ignominious failure. Automotive Industry analysts attribute the model's failure to three design flaws:

1) The Fl-Car’s engine had an incurable bug-- it leaked oil continually.  Your neighbors, and most Americans, stopped gaping in awe and envy when they started getting motor oil in their mouths.

2) It did achieve and maintain an amazing altitude of nine feet but there are structures that are 10 feet, and taller. The Fl-Car frequently crashed into them.

3) The Fl-Car couldn't land.

By Summer 1947 the Ford Motor Company had pulled the Fl-Car from production. It never again was seen at Ford dealerships or cruising 9 feet above American roads. And by  Summer 1947, Henry Ford was deceased-- apparently succumbing to embarrassment.

OK--- Henry Ford did die in 1947 but probably not of embarrassment. Probably nothing could embarrass Henry Ford. And, of course, they was never a Fl-Car.

But there is Windows 10.

I've repeated the image above of the busted laptop and I feel I must explain how my laptop got busted. You see, this laptop had Windows 7 when I purchased it but by 2016, after a stop at Windows 8.oops, Microsoft was trying to shove Windows 10 into it.

Windows 10 is to Microsoft what the Fl-Car would have been to the Ford Motor Company-- the bridge too far, the product that was doomed to failure.

Windows 10 metaphorically continually leaked oil and ran into structures 10 feet above ground-- which is perhaps why it was dubbed Windows 10.

Tongue in cheek and palm to face, I blame the Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation for Windows 10. (Remember-- if Henry Ford hadn't devoted himself to philanthropy, no Fl-Car) 

When Gates left Microsoft to devote HIS life to philanthropy the Microsoft Corporation evidently experienced such a catastrophic brain drain that the brains left behind simply did not know how Windows anymore.

Hence Windows 10, hence my laptop had to die.

After many downloads of unnecessary upgrades, I was often left with a laptop that constantly consistently presented--  not the dread Blue Screen of Death-- but the equally bricked but needlessly antagonistic Blue Screen of Death with a Swirl. 

Imagine your laptop screen screaming, “I'm still alive but you can't access me!”

Because of Windows 10, I unfortunately broke my laptop in touch screen.

On one occasion, when Windows 10 needed to freshen itself up with another FORCED unnecessary download of an upgrade, I slapped the smirky swirl on my touch screen and it cracked.

On another occasion of a disabling FORCED unnecessary download of an upgrade, my fist collided with my computer. The thing ground to a halt. 

The word that popped into my head as I beat the living upgrade out of my computer? “Unproductive”.

How do I have a functioning laptop now? I learned how to use Ubuntu and currently am running Ubuntu 18.04…. or perhaps a hybrid with Lubuntu. 

There are challenges but, at least, I get to say what updates want and when I want them.
Whatever-- I don't bother it, it doesn't bother me.

Basically now I actually have an “okay car” that works. Not a fucking Fl-Car. I'm good.

Update from Forbes: 

"Windows (10) Updates (are) still a confusing mess to manage. That’s the definitive conclusion from a newly published study, which also contains a flowchart of Windows 10 update behavior that may just melt your brain."

"Windows 10 Updates Are Still A Confusing Mess, And This One Image Proves It."  2/27/2019
https://www.forbes.com/sites/jasonevangelho/2019/02/27/windows-10-updates-are-a-confusing-mess-and-this-one-image-proves-it/


-------
Self evaluation

There was recently great relief in the form of a lifting of a major stressor in my life. (No, I didn't hit anyone or anything. I'll expound later.) 

The tale of the Fl-Car was a bit of schtick I've often bored people with verbally, but I was able to get it in writing here within roughly three hours. Typos? Sure.
But now I can expand the audience I bore with this schtick

From now on one "So I Went" (Maine), one "So I Heard" (Karaoke Songs - "Too Much Heaven") and many lovely photos (which you can order as Prints or Notecards, here!)

red tree flowers

red three flowers

The International Federation of Who Cares

Busted Laptop with Unmade Bed in Background

The International Federation of Who Cares

What is it that keeps people from completing the tasks they need to complete? What causes procrastination?

Many years after I gained intimate acquaintance with procrastination, I had the long-delayed epiphany that the basic origin of procrastination is hidden in the statement "Don't let the perfect be the enemy of the good". As a Italophone, I was surprised to learn that this aphorism usually attributed to Voltaire is based on the Italian: "Le meglio è l'inimico del bene".

Now, I don’t claim the procrastination in my writing work is a symptom of perfectionism. Incompletion in my work probably stems more an approach to it left over from how I wrote when I was first strongly conditioned to write. 

When most people were more focused on writing papers (which I also did) I became more concerned with writing scripts for theatrical plays because the scripts were expected of me (long story which I may or may not get to.) The scripts I wrote fit a certain format. Unlike playscripts one may read in literature class-- and as I first wrote scripts-- my endeavor  centered on writing LESS: with less scenic and lighting detail and fewer blocking details and line readings.  

I came to understand of the process of writing as one which leaves room for collaborative input from other professionals-- designers, directors and actors.  Hence, I became more inclined to leave my writing work incomplete, awaiting feedback from other.

In the folowing years event till  today, on several assignments I’ve maintained that approach towards writing and discovered that my assumption was way wrong-headed. In most instances, it was instead expected that the written material I turned in would be 100% done; not a penultimate draft on which editorial comment and collaboration would be offered. certainly. 

This attitude to prose writing is like another form of writing I did when I was younger-- songwriting. I wrote songs by myself, writing both the music and lyrics, doing my own “nitpicking” until the product suited my standard as “perfect”  This practice has oddly made me super-critical of songwriting--  especially songs written by songwriting teams.

For example-- and drawing in the topic of “nitpicking”--  the weirdest lyric that has ever leapt out of a song was written is at the beginning of the song written by the Bee Gees for Kenny Rogers and Dolly Parton.  I admire the (B)rothers (G)ibb’s writing skill and I will reinforce this admiration in referring to their work on another song which I will feature in this month’s Karaoke Song spotlight, "Too Much Heaven".

But their lyric which has always struck as flawed is that of “Islands in the Stream”. "IITS" is a fun song about mutual devotion which begins with an astoundingly off-tone analogy:

Baby, when I met you there was peace unknown
I set out to get you with a fine tooth comb

Huh? 

Anyone who has ever used a “fine tooth comb” knows that if you set out to get anything with one of these devices, you're basically seeking a louse (or its eggs). This weird phrase hasn’t prevented the song from becoming a beloved classic and the Bee Gees regarded as expert songwriters, but here we have both the literal and figurative failure of nitpicking.

Perhaps they are the charter members of the International Federation of Who Cares?  Do you wonder what IFWC is, and how to join?

My work with a team of two other co-worker in the travel industry.  We would (I believe) literally tear our hair out trying to make three destination brochures, consisting of a total over one hundred pages featuring hundred of hotels with thousands of price point absolutely error free. This longtime experience later on in my life reinforced the belief process I has as a scriptwriter-- seeing writing was a seemingly eternal collaborative free-for-all. 

The descriptive copy I wrote portraying hotels, tours and destinations would always be nitpicked over-- until the core team with which I worked discovered the International Federation of Who Cares.

For three years preparing these brochure promoting product in Hawaii, Mexico and Tahiti we always failed at being 100% perfect-- and received grief for our failed effort. Probably the grief we received was mostly self-originating, until we created the IFWC.

We didn't descend into the dismay of the impossible pit of nitpicking. Whenever my boss would lament that our work was “a complete mess", my reply was "It's not a complete mess. It’s an incomplete success”. This touchy-feeling slogan was roundly mocked.

Ultimately our route to colalborative madness wound up at the cul-de-sac of IFWC. This acronym began as an abbreviation of a phrase we’d utter in frustrate disgust as our deadline approached and yet minor errors would arise.

We’d say/ask of the end result of our efforts: It’s Fine! Who Cares?

The phrase became “IFWC”. From there this union of good enough was universalized into the International Federation of Who Cares. This global brotherhood/sisterhood exists to this day when anyone has had enough in the search for perfection.

Anyone who is in the midst of a dispiriting search for perfection-- who has proofread and corrected to distraction and who despairs that a job well done is a job never done may join merely but taking a deep breath and intoning:

"It’s Fine! Who Cares?"

________________ Self-evaluation

Yeesh. Where to begin?  An essay on the topic of procrastination completed nine days late?  The reason: being trapped in an existential hell where the revelation of a determination is put off while the determination undergoes a "quality review" which can take several months.

I did some revision in the following days which brought the piece more into focus.

But concentration seems impossible. (No real world details will be shared in this blog until THAT process is complete.) At the very least I was able to ignore the arrival on an email related to that process until I got this posted.

the unremarkable brain returns in february

The unremarkable brain has been on hiatus last month and this month as a result of the holidays and the Federal Government shutdown-- yes, my brain actually IS a National Park, but I digress--

Great news!

The unremarkable brain will be returning in February with:

So I Thought: "The International Federation of Who Cares?" (2/9) and "Does Humor Have a Color? Yes. Green." (2/23)

So I Saw: Seven more R O Y G B I V images

So I Went: "Maine" (2/13)

So I Heard: "Karaoke Songs: Too Much Heaven" (2/17)

Dates approximate.

ALSO -- If you would like to order prints or notecards featuring my images, please see SALE to place orders!

violet cardoon at high noon

violet cardoon at high noon
the gardens at lake merritt, oakland, ca

indigo motel mood

indigo motel mood
memphis, tn

blue sign

blue sign
division street, san francisco, ca

How Great is Depression and How Long is Anxiety

So I thought it would be a worthy endeavour-- at this point-- to present a simple explanation of how I perceive depression and anxiety.

Then the wheels came off my will to post anything and once again I fell short of my goal of posting between the 9th and the 23rd of each month.

We’ll get it right in time.

This is not the complete reflection on the dual affliction of depression and anxiety but it will have to suffice for the moment. 

Also, I’ve not studied psychology or psychiatry, so I do not know whether my characterization duplicates some other thinker's writings-- but I’m sure my impression is solely my impression.  

My characterization may seem simplistic and possibly cliched but... bear with me.

Anxiety: an Affliction of the Perception of Time
A family member shared with me an account of the first occasion on which she noted that her mother might be suffering from some sort of mental illness-- which did in fact turn out to be Alzheimer's Disease. 

On a completely mundane day out shopping with her mom, she walked away for three minutes and when she returned your mother was in a state of panic.

Alzheimer's Disease of course is not Anxiety but her account nevertheless led me to wonder whether the nature of anxiety might have something to do with the inability to fix a beginning point and then end point in one’s reasonable perception of time.

Someone who's anxious may in fact regard thirty minutes as a year-- not realistically, of course,and not rationally.  But being left waiting for an anxious person approaches being unendurable.  One can learn now to suppress this sort of anxiety but if one who has anxiety is told a task was just take three minute, if they have no way of a fixing to starting point to that amount of time, they enter an uncertain realm wherein time is a joke.

Depression: an Affliction of the Perception of Space
What pairs well with time? 

Yes, that’s right: space!  

And since I was anxious to have a similar definitive description of depression, I examined whether I perceived depression as  a disorder in my perception of space. 

I do know that a depressed person-- take me for example-- by my disordered nature instinctively overestimates the load they have to bear and the distance they have to travel.

So frequently-- not always though-- a mere trip from my bedroom to the kitchen to get a drink of water can seem as daunting as carrying a ton of weight over the distance of  a mile. 

This miscalculation is naturally followed by the unanswered question “….and for what purpose?”

I will continue to extrapolate on this basic premise as possible but the gist of my message today is this: To me depression and anxiety are best defined as a internal inability to adequately objectively and reasonably judge the distance to travel the burden to bear or the time to budget to accomplish anything... and the anguish which results from this failure.

-----------------------
MORE TO FOLLOW
-----------------------

Self assessment
-----------------------
I began this on a Monday and by Friday still hadn't been able to continue work on it. Now it is Sunday and I'm finally posting.  As the week progressed I began to obsess on the fact that, although what I intend to write is as precise a definition of my experience of depression and anxiety that I can recount, my definition may differ from other's experiences or a textbook definition.

I'm also thoroughly disgusted by the utter twisting of my intended words that my voice to text executes. To dictate text pertaining to personal experiences and then to read its nonsensical shambles of transcription-- for me-- is to feel profound failure.

On top of this challenge, note here another nasty pitfall of mental illness.  

Sufferers are compelled to keep quiet because they fear that the symptoms they are confronting don't conform to a textbook definition and aren't easily understood by others.

As for this post, I'm going to have to resort to the strategy I used previously-- post what I have done and promise “MORE TO FOLLOW”.

Hey, it's something-- and something is better than nothing.

green feeling

green feeling
oakland, ca

The Secret of the Hummus

I previously mentioned that "What I Thought" would include recipes. Here's one:

"The Secret of the Hummus" 

Canned garbanzo beans -- or you can cook them from raw.

(Cooking the garbanzos

Into a crock pot add:

As many garbanzos as you'd like to cook,

A medium sized onion, quartered

Several stalks of celery, with leaves, use inner stalks)

Several cloves of garlic

2-3 Bay Leaves

Cook in crock pot until beans are tender, drain beans and remove bay leaves, onion and celery -- it's no great disaster if small bits of celery and onion move on in the recipe, but make sure you get all or most of the bay leaves.
I've also added roasted cumin and coriander seed in the cooking of the garbanzos, those can move on in the recipe. Proceed with the following ingredients:)


Garlic (a lot)

Olive oil (copious amounts)

Cumin (plenty)

Ground coriander (I use a former TJ's sea salt grinder with coriander seeds in it)

Dried Oregano (watch out for the stems on the little leaves)

The juice of at least two lemons...

Sesame tahini

Salt

Infuse olive oil with roasted garlic...  roast garlic cloves on a hot surface. You can use the floor of a clean oven, cookie sheet, or a skillet in an oven at 375 degrees.  When cloves are slightly browned, or even a little charred, remove them, cover with salt and smash into a paste in a bowl.  Use as much garlic as you like.  Cover with olive oil, and let sit while garlic infuses into oil.

Drain garbanzos.

Combine in a large bowl: garbanzos, olive oil (Reserve some garlic infused olive oil), garlic, oregano, cumin, ground coriander, lemon juice and salt.

Let this mixture sit for awhile (could be days in the fridge....)

Blend the marinated garbanzos, and spices in blender or food processor, with sesame tahini (Note: exercise restraint with tahini-- too much will impart a peanut-buttery flavor to the hummus). 

As you are blending, add garlic-infused olive oil, lemon juice, salt and cumin to taste.

(If a kick is desired, white pepper can be added.)

--------------------
Self assessment
This recipe was pre-written as a Facebook Note. Insomnia had me awake early but fatigue nevertheless made copying and pasting difficult and stressful. 

yellow leapday melancholy

yellow leapday melancholy
port of oakland, ca

Karaoke Tunes - Someone to Watch Over Me

It gives me no small amount of sadness that two voices that I've known and appreciated for years have been stilled even though the women who utilized these instruments are still alive.

Both sang a wide variety of songs-- my next favorite karaoke tune is one they both have performed.

The song is "Someone to Watch Over Me" and the vocalists are Julie Andrews, who no longer sings as the result of a botched vocal cord surgery, and Linda Ronstadt who no longer sings as a result of Parkinson's Disease.

The first time I recall hearing "Someone to Watch Over Me" was in this scene from Woody Allen's "Manhattan":


https://youtu.be/AsbdW6ZTFBs

The beautiful imagery of this scene was perfectly underscored by an orchestral arrangement of George Gershwin's poignant melody which I instantly loved. 

I had no idea at the time that I would become as fond of Ira Gershwin's lyric.

Andrews's performance of STWOM is from her much-lambasted Gertrude Lawrence biopic "Star". 

I've seen the film (or some chopped up version of it)  on TV; generally,  I'd describe the film "huh" dragged out past the point of "meh".

Below is a link to a clip of her performance of STWOM. 

Honestly, while I recall Andrews-as-Lawrence's performance of Kurt Weill & Ira Gershwin's "The Saga of Jenny", I have no recollection of her rendition of STWOM, or even the scene's context in the film.

Ronstadt's version is from her first album of standards, conducted and arranged by Nelson Riddle.

Over their careers, the performances of both artists have demonstrated great technical skill but inconsistent emotional expression. 

For example, Andrews's "Feed the Birds" from "Mary Poppins" and Ronstadt's "Love Has No Pride", among other performance" genuinely move me.

Sadly, neither of these takes on STWOM feels right to me. 

I invite you however to give both performances a listen. Please share your opinions of either or both recordings. Maybe I'm
missing an epiphany....

Inconsequential and Possibly Gratuitous Personal Note: When I sing STWOM, I make one lyric change. The idea of referring to myself as a "lost lamb" feels  ridiculous, so this Aries pronounces himself a "lost ram".

Same species; approximately equivalent pathos.

--------------------------------------------------------
I don't own the rights to this song or these performances.


These links are offered to facilitate an appreciation of the song. named.

Someone to Watch Over Me - Julie Andrews
https://youtu.be/QKvnUGSNbys

Someone to Watch Over Me - Linda Ronstadt
https://youtu.be/_wzuAyAdecc



--------------------------------------------
Self Assessment
This post went in a much different direction than I first planned and  took far too long for me to  complete. 

I attribute this to my focusing  on preparing some dishes around the Thanksgiving holiday and my inability to focus on two endeavors simultaneously.

Nevertheless they're done now.

orange autumn light

orange autumn light
lake merritt, oakland ca

red morn

red morn awaiting a sailor
13th street, oakland, ca

The Klutz with the Clots

The Teaser: (composed Nov. 9, 2018) 
This first post of November 2018 is a meditation on my uncommon blood and what I did when doctors told me to ingest rat poison and also my recent reflection on being prescribed yet ANOTHER med.

As October 2018 ended and November began, I underwent a medical procedure-- two days later a consultation with medical specialist.

I'm going to write about my consultation with the specialist because you don't want to hear the story of my colonoscopy. (But, believe me, it’s a story…)

I inaugurated this blog's posts last month with comments about my unremarkable brain..

NOTE: Genealogically my blood is as common as anyone’s. What makes the stuff my heart pumps so unusual is its not one--  but two!-- genetic factors which makes it clot really really really well...

My Uncommon Blood 
Quite accidentally in July 2010, I ran a test on myself which revealed my blood contained not just the Factor V Leiden clotting factor but also the Factor II. This just means I clot like a beast.  

What was the test?  Well, I don't really know.  Midweek the first week of July I started to have pains in my left calf which I thought might be a charleyhorse, but which I couldn't stretch out.

Yadda yadda yadda -- clots in my lungs which required six days in the hospital.

What I Did when Doctors Told Me to Ingest Rat Poison
Perhaps you all recall those TV commercials with the late Arnold Palmer, comedian Kevin Nealon, basketball great Chris Bosch and some NASCAR star? They were advertising a prescription drug which helps folks with really clotty blood like mine.

Was I prescribed this medication? No.  In 2010, my health insurance wouldn't pay for THAT medication.

Instead I was prescribed Wonder Drug of the 1950's: Warfarin.

Some of the details in the following History of Warfarin may be incorrect but basically:
1) Scientists develop a substance
2) Scientist test substance on rats
3) Rats die of internal hemmoraging
4) Substance marketed as rat poison
5) Demand for rat poison wanes
6) Some nut decides substance can be used to treat folks with blood that clots like a beast if the people taking the substance can adhere to dietary limitations and, since those folks usually die really quickly anyway,...
7) Wonder drug Warfarin introduced

Sixty years later-- I was told to ingest rat posion and given ridiculously impossible dietary restrictions to follow involving the intake of Vitamin K.  Since the drug was introduced in back when men had wives who stayed at home (or cooks) who planned their meals, no problem looking out for that pesky Vitamin K.

When I insisted I didn't want to take the stupid medication anymore because I missed certain foods, my idiot doctors would insist: "no one said you couldn't have blueberries anymore, you just have to consistently eat 7 blueberries every day...."

By 2014, it was decided I could take one low dose aspirin every day. Which I'm cool with....

But...

My current medical profession recently sent me to see a hematologist and the recommendation: now that the cost of the TV anticoagulant has dropped, it's time to take that...

Except--- I would have to watch out if I ever traveled to a remote location.... because, if I were injured there probably wouldn't be anyone with the antidote to the anticoagulant around....

Now, I'm not big on traveling to remote locations-- it's not a fave for me like blueberries. But it's at lease something I enjoy as much as cranberries-- which also raised Warfarin warning flags.

Even more so, I know myself and have come to know myself better in light of my diagnosis as having depression and anxiety.  While it may be oversimplifying the dual affliction, for me they lead to periods in which I am overcome with horrific inertia (depression) which simultaneously cause me such inner distress (anxiety) that I tend to hurl myself into action. 

(NOTE:  I am actually completing this entry in one of those "hurlings")

Knowing that I have this inclination explains why I can be a klutz at times-- I simply don't "stick the landing" well when I vault from wherever I've been sitting or laying in depressed inertia.

Recognizing this makes the idea of taking some medication which requires an antidote were I to injure myself VERY undesirable. 

It really doesn't matter to me if I fall in the company of many people in an exotic locale or by myself at home-- in both instances, I could still bleed internally to death.  

So, please pass the baby aspirin....

-----------------------

Self assessment

In November, the added challenge will be sticking with the schedule I previously mentioned of posting between the 9th and 23rd of each month.  I adopted this schedule assuming that a horrifically stressful but periodically resolvable situation would be on track to its periodic resolution. This situation hasn't been resolved so I am in anxiously uncharted territory. After dragging myself out of a multi-day emotional roadside ditch, I concluded that-- in order to proceed with and meet my schedule-- I'd make the adjustment of providing teasers for my posts whenever I cannot complete the entire post, then double back to complete it later.  It, of course, complicates my overall task but it's all I can do.  There's no point of getting even MORE depressed and anxious about shit.
Now I'm going to eat a shit-ton of blueberry coffee cake (and a piece of fruit!), post this to Facebook (but first a birthday shoutout to a college friend!), do a little cleanup on my post labels till 1:30p (and a maybe start this month's R O Y G B I V cycle), finish my coffee and go look for this farmers market in West Oakland I keep missing. (Didn't find it this time either.)

Whither this Blog?

UPDATE

I've had this phrase going through my head lately. It seems like an old adage or saying but the more I think about it the less sense it makes.

(I refuse to Google it at this point but I may reconsider…)

Is there really a saying that goes: “Take care of the little things and the big things will take care of themselves”?

Don't Big Things always take care of themselves?

-----------

About 3 weeks ago I had arrived at a decision that I was going to work on this blog--  at most-- for 2 weeks out of every month.  And since I worked on the blog in October between the 9th through the 23rd, I decided I should do my monthly blog posts each month between the 9th through the 23rd.

Then I thought posts I might make in October… 

Then I didn't do make any of them…..

Sooooo -- back to the original decision: my monthly blog posts will appear each month between the 9th through the 23rd.

Final answer.


__________________________

Self assessment

This blog post-- brief as it is-- was a long time coming. Just coming through a stretch of feeling no need or use in communicating.  












Answer tba

The Quake and Mrs. Eccleston

It’s been 29 years and a week since 1989’s Loma Prieta Earthquake; quake anniversaries are significant in the Bay Area so commemorations were abundant of late. It's funny how I remember a point in time most clearly sometimes by recalling my interaction with one person.

Most of my specific memories of the '89 quake are associated with my friend and coworker at Runaway Tours, Dorothy Eccleston.

Dorothy was a charming affable woman in her 70s who was very much comfortable as a peer among us 20-something pseudo-bohemians. She lived with her mentally challenged adult daughter, Andrea, in a small tidy apartment in San Francisco's Tenderloin. 

Her husband, Dr. Eccleston was deceased. He had been an obstetrician who, Dorothy attested, would say of every baby he delivered-- not matter how ugly---,  “Now THAT’S a baby!”.

Dorothy and Andrea subsisted on Andrea's social security and Dorothy’s meagre earnings from Runaway. As reservation agents, both Dorothy and I were entitled to a commission over a certain threshold--- I don't recall ever making commission but Dorothy's cheerful attentiveness in her dealings with travel agents who were the company’s clients made her one of their favorites.

Undoubtedly, Dorothy netted commission frequently.  Nevertheless, she often spoke with dread about being only a paycheck away from the street,

Despite any existential concerns  Dorothy Eccleston was the purest version of a bon vivant: she still kept up her season tickets to the San Francisco Opera and spoke rapturously of the performances she attended.  She had gentlemen friends: I recall her giddy account of an outing on the weekend to one of the local race tracks. She laughingly recounted how-- after a few glasses of champagne-- she’d applauded a race finish so enthusiastically her rings flew off her fingers.

We were all at work late in the afternoon October 17, 1989 when the Loma Prieta Earthquake entered our lives.

Our offices were then on Union Square and the building, 291 Geary, was actually two buildings somehow lashed together.  The building was quite “live”.  In describing it to my cousin, I once mentioned that the office seemed to move when one of the “big girls” walked through the office.  My cousin chided me for making a sexist remark-- I replied in SF, “big girl” didn't apply exclusively to females.

I was on the phone with a travel agent in San Jose at a few minutes after 5 o'clock
Out of the blue she said, "Oh my God. We're having an earthquake!"
At the second she said that, all was calm in SF but before I could say "Really?", suddenly our building started shaking violently. 

The quake was 17 seconds of sheer terror--- as if the building that you were in suddenly an airliner in the midst of horrific turbulence. It went like this: shakeshakeShakeShakeSHAKESHAKESHAKESHAKEShakeShakeshakeSLAMSHAKESHAKESHAKESHAKEShakeShakeshakeshakeshakeShakeShakeshakeshakeshakeshake.

As it began someone yelled “Get under your desks” and we did. Dorothy cries of worry for Andrea who pealed out and each of us-- imagining she was running about-- yelled back, “Dorothy, get under your desk”. 

After the fifth such direction to her, she rather bluntly replied “I AM UNDER MY DESK!!!”

When the shaking stopped, we evacuated into Union Square and milled about unsure of what to do or where to go as San Franciscans must have in 1906.  People asked, “Are you 
okay?” and said “oh my God” a lot.  Someone with a transistor radio cried out, “The Bay Bridge collapsed!” and I wondered how since from the Square I could still see the top of one of the suspension section’s towers.

Dorothy was understandably anxious to get back to her apartment to check on her daughter. A handful of us accompanied her up Geary Street into the Tenderloin. At her building we climbed five flights of darkened stairs to her floor.  

When we reached Andrea, I recall her being fortunately quite calm, more concerned about her mother-- I guess it runs in the family.

As the initial relief of the reunion ebbed and I announced I was going to head to my boyfriend's apartment, Dorothy turned to me.  She and Andrea owned two flashlights and I was about to be sent on a mission of mercy.

“Donald,” Dorothy urgently explained, “You have to take this flashlight to my friend upstairs on the sixth floor. She’s an elderly woman and with the power out she must be terrified.  Bring her this flashlight and tell her it’s from Dorothy.”

I agreed to do so, silently marvelling at Dorothy’s perception of her neighbor as bing “elderly”.  I climbed another flight of darkened stairs and peered down the sixth floor hallway.  

As I proceeded along in the twilit quake-shook dusty space, it seemed that every apartment door was wide open and in each stood an at least somewhat terrified elderly lady-- partly terrified from the quake, and probably by the fact that, in its wake, a strange man was stalking down their hall, peering in their apartments. Regardless, I felt I had to solve the puzzle of just to whom I should deliver the flashlight.

I received the incentive to solve the puzzle as the quakes first powerful aftershock hit. As the building shimmied, I turned to the nearest elderly lady, pressed the flashlight into her hands and yelled, “Dorothy wants you to have this!”. With that I fled, exiting to Geary Street and made my way to the home of my boyfriend-at-the-time.   

For weeks after that day such aftershocks continued happening at uncertain intervals, morning noon and night. The random terrestrial echos of Loma Prieta wore nerves down and going to stand in a doorway for protection got to be rote and annoying,  I recall watching a segment on aftershocks on the local evening news during which an aftershock struck.

But I must note that, on the day of the quake I witnessed a sort of shell-shocked benevolence from everyone I saw from Union Square to the Western Addition to Alamo Square. Out of a newly discovered sense of shared frailty people began looking out for each other; for example. as there were no traffic signals operating civilians even stood in intersections, directing traffic. This I witnessed.

The quake shook common purpose out of us all and ruptured the lines that alienated one from the other.  A lot of good was unleashed on October 17, 1989.  Years later, I heard a phrase that rang out most truth listening to a CD I'd bought outside a supermarket from an aspiring hiphop artist. “The only time we deal with one another's when there's an earthquake”.

The Loma Prieta Earthquake, of course, took lives and those aftershocks left scars.

Ten days after the quake my friend Robin Dolan and I took BART into Oakland to see Eurythmics at the Kaiser Auditorium.  The train rolled  past the collapsed Cypress Freeway where several lost lives-- their l. As the concert began, Annie Lennox strutted on stage asking us all “How are you doing Bay Area”? 

We were okay just then-- some of us. Qr just starting to begin to be okay. 

After the quake, Dorothy became even more anxious about Andrea and phobic of going pretty much anywhere. 

She stopped going to the opera. She offered me her tickets to a performance of Tannhauser and wished me well.  

As I climbed all the stairs to her nosebleed seats, I recall seeing the many cracks running through the walls of the Opera House stairwell.

-------------
Self Assessment
This was hard. 
I began this account about a traumatic experience while waiting in Oakland's Housing  Assistance Center-- ground zero for anxiety. I had paperwork to fill in to challenge a capricious rent increase but I have made an appointment with an attorney and will fill in the paperwork with her. I'm writing this to step out of the stress of the moment. 
The attorney appointment this Wednesday was the victory I sought on Monday. 
My city's current rental plight is this day's earthquake of greed, taking lives and leaving many unsheltered.
I completed this Tuesday afternoon. 
In the morning I attended a poll workers' training and, although I'd had a full night's sleep, an hour and a half in, I became sleepy and was almost unable to concentrate. 
After a short break two and quarter hours in, the course went on for another hour and I grew edgy and-- internally-- upset.
I was ravenously hungry when I got home so I cooked and ate lunch then wrote for an hour and a half but grew weary. 
I posted this in the evening, after wrapping up just before 7pm.
It'll undoubtedly will need clean up.

The Chronic Pain of Naivety

I've had this lifelong insecurity around the dreaded suspicion that my very nature is hobbled by chronic naivety.

This culture’s general attitude is that naivety is childish, a foolish and easily fooled frame of mind out of which a well-adjusted adult must grow.  It's regarded as shameful to an adult yet naive. But, it's apparently not a state out of which some of us grow.

Perhaps our culture should recognize that the inability not to be naive-- like blindness or deafness-- is not a deficiency. And, just as it would be morally repugnant to mock a person's blindness or deafness, asserting cynical advantage on a person unaware of deviousness is stooping beneath acceptable human stature.

Merely a suggestion-- and admittedly one made out of self-preservation.

The best illustration I can make of the nature of my character to which I refer is my reaction to two separate friends playing the same game.

Sometime in the mid-80’s, I and a group of friends-- artsy theater types-- sat and played the game “Scruples".

The game, as I recall, consisted of selecting cards, each presenting a moral dilemma. The card-drawer would share with the group how she would react to this dilemma. The group in response would share their opinion of the card-drawer’s “confession”.

It's significant that I don't have a clue from that first experience how the game is scored or how one wins. I don’t recall who won-- that wasn’t the point, it seemed.

The second time I played “Scruples” was about year later, again with a completely different group of artsy theater types. My initial enthusiasm about participating drained away as I witnessed this group’s approach to the game.  

Scoring and winning was very much the point of the game and one successfully gained points by being utterly disingenuous about how one would react to the moral dilemma presented on the game’s cards. The more convincingly you lied, the more points you gained.  It was explained to me that the game had no point otherwise. 

I’m sure I grew huffy; I don’t recall who won but, even though I must have tried to adjust to this new and unexpected strategy, I’m sure I didn’t score many points. (My passive-aggressive revenge was to contribute names such as “Dame Kiri Te Kanawa” and “Hermes Pan” in a subsequent game of Charades.)

I consider most of the individuals with whom I played these two different versions of the same game friends and make no judgment on their character or morality.

But I do assert that I believe we are now in the midst of a massive national game of Scruples and I am appalled at the utter dishonesty of those have always claimed the higher ground-- which I will assert include members of my own family.

Much has been made of the recent confirmation hearings for a very dishonest individual to sit on this country’s highest court. Sharp criticisms have been made of the uncertain and ultimately unsuccessful efforts of the Democrats on the Senate Judicial Committee to hold a arrogant undistinguished man to account for recent unethical professional behavior and his patter as a young adult of exploiting intoxicated individuals.

I’ve heard for years of the U.S. Senate’s decorum, a kind of institutional naivety, grounded on the high-minded and-- perhaps-- utterly foolish notion that we as a nation are all pulling in the same direction. If the Democrats on the Judicial Committee seemed haplessly unmoored, they were-- from the principle that the Senate’s decorum would surely prevent the Republicans from forcing rotten meat into the country’s gullet.

But-- lo and behold-- there was the wizened Senator from the Smelly Dump of Rot in the Heart of the Heartland (this, by the way, is a clue to the riddle on the So I Went page) presiding over the foisting of diseased mediocrity onto another national institution which demands always superior candidates.

I can’t prescribe a remedy for the pain of such injury. Personally, pain relievers have  never worked on me and my other meds are not showing much effect on my overall depression and confusion. 

It is not wrong to feel unmoored when the person opposite you abandons principle and continually changes the rules, so much so that the once familiar game is unrecognizable.

It is, at last, all one can do to stand aghast regarding these New Strangers, who once were countrymen and family, with an unconcealed expression of stricken naivety.  

Expecting them to have a corrective crisis of conscience is a voyage beyond naivety’s Final Frontier.

-----------------------------------------

Self Assessment: This was an unusually easy task in conception and composition, especially given the wretched insomnia I suffered last night and my lack of sleep. 
Sometimes, when feelings are strong, words flow more readily and for most of the day yesterday I was more depressed than I've been in months.
While I'm pleased with the way this came out, it doesn't represent work I'm capable of under the weight of a deadline or expectations of consistency.
This links back to my first examination by a neurologist. After a brief series of simple tests his estimation was that I was all right. I had to advise him that I am conditioned to perform well on tests and let him know the mnemonic tricks I used to get my replies. Having coping skills to succeed at tests are literally brilliant-- until your coping skills begin to fail.