Film Diversion

I've just watched The Impostors, with Stanley Tucci and Oliver Platt, which is a Netflik that's been at the house for, oh, four months. Let me tell you, this is funny stuff. If you like screwball comedy at all you must rent this thing, definitely a hidden gem.

They grow up so fast...

So, it's no secret that lately I've felt somewhat unmoored. Probably because I don't have anything I have to do most days. It's been a difficult adjustment. But, yesterday I was thinking, I actually do have things I need to do, I just... well, A) nobody is going to notice if I don't do them, and B) I find it easier to waste time.

But I'd probably feel a little better at the end of each day, huh? So I set myself a list for today, the main part of which was getting over to St. Pete Clay to finish glazing. I did some glazing on Saturday morning while Smittygirl was getting her hair done, but didn't quite have enough time to finish up. And... I finally glazed the martini shaker. More after the jump.

You may recall I've talked about the shaker in the past. I love it dearly. I made it... gee, I think I made it last February or so, so I've had it for almost two years, a year and a half certainly. I don't have any better pictures of it than these, unfortunately; I should have brought my camera along today to get a final shot. In these pictures it hasn't even been bisqued yet, and I haven't made the cap for it. The cap is not a traditional cocktail shaker cap, which is bowl shaped and covers the shaker. This is just a nugget of clay that rests in the shaker mouth (where the holes are). I did make a traditional cap, but it wrecked the beautiful clean lines of the shaker and lid and I didn't like it.

I left it for Smittygirl to bisque fire while I was in Djibouti last year. It survived that, but since I got home (almost ten months ago now) it's just been sitting on the shelf, unglazed. I've been afraid. I don't want to wreck it. But like so many things, as nice as it is now, if I don't finish it, it will never be worth anything. It's pink as it is and I can't deal with that any longer. I'd been thinking about salt firing it, but you never know when the salt kiln is going to be fired and I didn't feel like waiting. So I bit the bullet and glazed it.

If all works out right it should look like this. I love this black glaze; it isn't actually black, though, it's a glossy brown-black glaze called temmoku. As Wikipedia notes, this is a glaze known for being variable. It could be brownish red. It could be black. It could be streaky, or it could look like an oil spill. I'm hoping for exactly what you see on the vase above, but I don't know who fired the kiln that vase came out of or what they did, and I can't guess at how the fellow who's going to fire the kiln this will go in (perhaps as early as next week) is going to handle it.

Ah, me. I feel like I've just watched a grown child leave home. I've done what I can, and now all I can do is hope I've given it the tools it needs to become a decent person, but it's not in my hands any longer. Martini shaker, a decent martini shaker.

Smittysquirrel!

The Smitty family was temporarily one bigger this weekend. Smittygirl was out walking the dog on Sunday when a baby squirrel popped his head out from underneath a nearby car in the parking garage. We don't see many squirrels around here, just occasionally (although there are a lot of trees in the parking lot). And to see one this tiny? We figured she must be orphaned.


Given how tiny the squirrel saw was, we assumed mama had been squished and the baby here was hiding out in the garage unsure what to do. Sure enough, Smittygirl reported having seen a dead squirrel in the parking lot earlier in the week. The baby looked old enough to survive, but we were concerned that if she was hiding under cars she'd end up getting squished like her mama.

Naturally we had to go rescue the baby. Turns out, there were two of them, but although we had both of them very briefly, one escaped and ran up a palm tree. They're very young so we don't know how well the one who escaped is going to do. In any event, we brought this one in, and Smittygirl made her a little home out of an old faucet box and some flexible door screen. We gave her two dish towels and a water dish, and fed her organic granola and walnuts. She liked the walnuts.


So this is Smittysquirrel. She's cute, isn't she? But you can't keep a squirrel forever, so Smittygirl called up a wildlife rescue place, and I took her up there this morning. Jackson was exceedingly excited about the squirrel the whole time; I think he's experiencing some withdrawal as he seems a bit depressed right now. Poor guy.

The Gods Drink Whiskey

The Gods Drink Whiskey, by Stephen Asma, is not quite what it seems. It was deep, fascinating, and well worth a read. And I don't think the cover blurbs were written by people who'd actually read the thing.


I picked this book up thinking it was a travelogue. The top cover blurb from the Dallas Morning News says "An account of the ultimate hippie road trip." Steve Asma isn't a hippie. This isn't a road trip. And if you look at the entire blurb from the DMN on the back, it becomes apparent that the reviewer never actually read the book.

This is not a book about getting drunk and stoned and patting the Buddha's belly at Angkor Wat. It's not even a travel book, except in the sense that Asma did in fact travel to Cambodia and did do some traveling while he was there. But while he went to Vietnam and Thailand and possibly elsewhere, chronologic tales of these trips are glossed over in favor of philosophical trips the author took while on those travels. It's a much deeper book for this.

I actually wanted to read this with a highlighter at times. Asma says much that I've been thinking lately (and no doubt this book has influenced my thinking plenty). He discusses what I mentioned above, the incapacity of Americans both to be happy where they are and to actually be happy when they get that one thing they wanted that they thought would make them happy. By contrast southeast Asia's Buddhists are taught to eliminate craving and find their happiness and satisfaction whatever the present circumstances, to experience the now and not confine themselves in the prison of craving for the future or living in remorse for the past.

But Asma, a Buddhist himself (he traveled to Cambodia not for some hippie road-trip but to teach Buddhist philosophy at the Buddhist Institute in Phnom Penh, quite an honor for an American but important since Cambodian Buddhism lost most of its philosophers during the Khmer Rouge era), is no starry-eyed idealist about the virtues of Southeast Asian Buddhism and lifestyle. Around him he sees grinding poverty, blind mysticism, meaningless violence. He sees where Buddhism has helped the people live in this environment, but also sees where a little Western modernity would help them live better in their environment. He wants neither to make Cambodia a Buddhist America, nor to make America a prosperous Cambodia. No place is perfect, no society has all the answers. But there is good in many places, and Asma notes how these goods could be combined, if only.

If only is the problem, and again, our author and mentor and tour guide is a realist. He has trouble grasping the horrors of Khmer Rouge era when confronted with them at the S-21 prison, where tens of thousands of innocents, many of them children, were tortured and killed for no real reason. He has trouble reconciling the mystical neak ta temples and lingam (penis) worship cults with the deliberately non-mystical Theravada Buddhism that is the official religion of the state (and Mr. Asma).

I'll go ahead and say this is my favorite book of the year thus far. Whether it's the best is open for debate depending on your view of "best." I tend to think Fierce Invalids might have been "better," and it gave me plenty to think about, too, but The Gods Drink Whiskey was just the sort of philosophical brain food I needed right now. I mean, Asma makes the point in chapter 3 (I think) that Americans are actually often made prisoners of their liberty as much as they are liberated by it. Because we have, and demand, freedom of choice in so many areas, we are often overloaded by choices, incapable of feeling confident about making the right choice, and beset by anxiety over how to choose. That's me to a tee. I would fain lay down my life before I'd give up my liberty, but I clearly don't understand how to use and appreciate it. It makes me anxious and depressed; I don't trust my instincts and frequently regret my choices. Sometimes with hindsight and meditation I can be satisfied with choices I've made in the past, but I worry excessively about upcoming choices and refuse to let myself be satisfied once a choice is made. Asma isn't too sure that we wouldn't all benefit from a little less liberty and opportunity at times, and while I'm not convinced of that I had to put the book down and take a walk after reading his discussion of it because it rang so true in my life and I've never considered it. With effort I hope I can learn to recognize the benefits of liberty without allowing myself to sink into the prison of it.

And there was the comment about the division of labor in Southeast Asian families vice that in American (and most Western) ones. Asma doesn't claim the patriarchal society and family values of Cambodia are better than the equality of American family life. Actually, he believes Cambodia could benefit from a little Western-style women's liberation. But he also notes that in the Cambodian family, there is less family strife because family roles are clearly delineated. Thus even arranged marriages tend to hold up better than Western marriages do because everyone understands going in what they can expect of the other partner and what is expected of them. It isn't that the man should work and the woman should run the household; it's that somebody needs to take on the responsibility of running the household finances, and somebody needs to give that responsibility up to the other partner, instead of both constantly fighting to get things done their way. Indeed, it isn't at all necessary that one partner work and the other stay home, as long as both partners recognize that each will responsible for certain things. If both work, no one can be responsible for maintaining the household. Asma points out, too, that while in Southeast Asia the men are responsible for making the money, the women are entirely responsible for spending it--and they have a responsibility to be thrifty and spend less than the husband makes. I would say in American families, with both partners working (okay, I know I'm not working now, but that's not intended to be permanent, and I am still drawing a paycheck), the key is to say, we will live entirely off of one partner's paycheck (as much as possible). Should that partner then be responsible for the family budget? Should the other partner be responsible for keeping house? It doesn't matter; the key is, those responsibilities should be delineated, and expectations should be understood, so couples aren't fighting over every decision. The same can then be extended to dealing with kids.

Yeah, this was a book I needed to read right now. But lest you think it's all philosophy and Eastern wisdom, I'd like to point out the marijuana pizza, and the story of the schoolchildren who wanted their pictures taken with exotic white foreigner who threw up all over the front lawn of the sacred shrine (to the Buddha's toe, or hair or something). I mean, this is actually a really fun read, and I would be doing the book a great disservice not to point that out. There are plenty of laughs here, and the narrative moves along. There are a good number of unfamiliar words, and as ever I wish Asma has at least given us approximate pronunciations of the Khmer words ('Khmer' included), since there are lots of unfamiliar consonant combinations there and I stumbled over lots of the terms. Still, this isn't important.

Asma's prose is generally light and enjoyable, although at times following his train of thought through levels of philosophy takes some work. It's well worth it, though, and at the turn of the page he brings the reader back to the surface for a breath of air and a comment about something funny such philosophical introspection brings to mind when surrounded by a totally foreign culture.

In other words, this book is both fun to read and challenging at the same time. It's tough to marry those two, and for that reason alone this book is a worth a read. I highly recommend it.

The Gods Drink Whiskey

The Gods Drink Whiskey, by Stephen Asma, is not quite what it seems. It was deep, fascinating, and well worth a read. And I don't think the cover blurbs were written by people who'd actually read the thing.


I picked this book up thinking it was a travelogue. The top cover blurb from the Dallas Morning News says "An account of the ultimate hippie road trip." Steve Asma isn't a hippie. This isn't a road trip. And if you look at the entire blurb from the DMN on the back, it becomes apparent that the reviewer never actually read the book.

This is not a book about getting drunk and stoned and patting the Buddha's belly at Angkor Wat. It's not even a travel book, except in the sense that Asma did in fact travel to Cambodia and did do some traveling while he was there. But while he went to Vietnam and Thailand and possibly elsewhere, chronologic tales of these trips are glossed over in favor of philosophical trips the author took while on those travels. It's a much deeper book for this.

I actually wanted to read this with a highlighter at times. Asma says much that I've been thinking lately (and no doubt this book has influenced my thinking plenty). He discusses what I mentioned above, the incapacity of Americans both to be happy where they are and to actually be happy when they get that one thing they wanted that they thought would make them happy. By contrast southeast Asia's Buddhists are taught to eliminate craving and find their happiness and satisfaction whatever the present circumstances, to experience the now and not confine themselves in the prison of craving for the future or living in remorse for the past.

But Asma, a Buddhist himself (he traveled to Cambodia not for some hippie road-trip but to teach Buddhist philosophy at the Buddhist Institute in Phnom Penh, quite an honor for an American but important since Cambodian Buddhism lost most of its philosophers during the Khmer Rouge era), is no starry-eyed idealist about the virtues of Southeast Asian Buddhism and lifestyle. Around him he sees grinding poverty, blind mysticism, meaningless violence. He sees where Buddhism has helped the people live in this environment, but also sees where a little Western modernity would help them live better in their environment. He wants neither to make Cambodia a Buddhist America, nor to make America a prosperous Cambodia. No place is perfect, no society has all the answers. But there is good in many places, and Asma notes how these goods could be combined, if only.

If only is the problem, and again, our author and mentor and tour guide is a realist. He has trouble grasping the horrors of Khmer Rouge era when confronted with them at the S-21 prison, where tens of thousands of innocents, many of them children, were tortured and killed for no real reason. He has trouble reconciling the mystical neak ta temples and lingam (penis) worship cults with the deliberately non-mystical Theravada Buddhism that is the official religion of the state (and Mr. Asma).

I'll go ahead and say this is my favorite book of the year thus far. Whether it's the best is open for debate depending on your view of "best." I tend to think Fierce Invalids might have been "better," and it gave me plenty to think about, too, but The Gods Drink Whiskey was just the sort of philosophical brain food I needed right now. I mean, Asma makes the point in chapter 3 (I think) that Americans are actually often made prisoners of their liberty as much as they are liberated by it. Because we have, and demand, freedom of choice in so many areas, we are often overloaded by choices, incapable of feeling confident about making the right choice, and beset by anxiety over how to choose. That's me to a tee. I would fain lay down my life before I'd give up my liberty, but I clearly don't understand how to use and appreciate it. It makes me anxious and depressed; I don't trust my instincts and frequently regret my choices. Sometimes with hindsight and meditation I can be satisfied with choices I've made in the past, but I worry excessively about upcoming choices and refuse to let myself be satisfied once a choice is made. Asma isn't too sure that we wouldn't all benefit from a little less liberty and opportunity at times, and while I'm not convinced of that I had to put the book down and take a walk after reading his discussion of it because it rang so true in my life and I've never considered it. With effort I hope I can learn to recognize the benefits of liberty without allowing myself to sink into the prison of it.

And there was the comment about the division of labor in Southeast Asian families vice that in American (and most Western) ones. Asma doesn't claim the patriarchal society and family values of Cambodia are better than the equality of American family life. Actually, he believes Cambodia could benefit from a little Western-style women's liberation. But he also notes that in the Cambodian family, there is less family strife because family roles are clearly delineated. Thus even arranged marriages tend to hold up better than Western marriages do because everyone understands going in what they can expect of the other partner and what is expected of them. It isn't that the man should work and the woman should run the household; it's that somebody needs to take on the responsibility of running the household finances, and somebody needs to give that responsibility up to the other partner, instead of both constantly fighting to get things done their way. Indeed, it isn't at all necessary that one partner work and the other stay home, as long as both partners recognize that each will responsible for certain things. If both work, no one can be responsible for maintaining the household. Asma points out, too, that while in Southeast Asia the men are responsible for making the money, the women are entirely responsible for spending it--and they have a responsibility to be thrifty and spend less than the husband makes. I would say in American families, with both partners working (okay, I know I'm not working now, but that's not intended to be permanent, and I am still drawing a paycheck), the key is to say, we will live entirely off of one partner's paycheck (as much as possible). Should that partner then be responsible for the family budget? Should the other partner be responsible for keeping house? It doesn't matter; the key is, those responsibilities should be delineated, and expectations should be understood, so couples aren't fighting over every decision. The same can then be extended to dealing with kids.

Yeah, this was a book I needed to read right now. But lest you think it's all philosophy and Eastern wisdom, I'd like to point out the marijuana pizza, and the story of the schoolchildren who wanted their pictures taken with exotic white foreigner who threw up all over the front lawn of the sacred shrine (to the Buddha's toe, or hair or something). I mean, this is actually a really fun read, and I would be doing the book a great disservice not to point that out. There are plenty of laughs here, and the narrative moves along. There are a good number of unfamiliar words, and as ever I wish Asma has at least given us approximate pronunciations of the Khmer words ('Khmer' included), since there are lots of unfamiliar consonant combinations there and I stumbled over lots of the terms. Still, this isn't important.

Asma's prose is generally light and enjoyable, although at times following his train of thought through levels of philosophy takes some work. It's well worth it, though, and at the turn of the page he brings the reader back to the surface for a breath of air and a comment about something funny such philosophical introspection brings to mind when surrounded by a totally foreign culture.

In other words, this book is both fun to read and challenging at the same time. It's tough to marry those two, and for that reason alone this book is a worth a read. I highly recommend it.

Smitty's State of the World

This morning I was reading an article in this week's Economist about the state of the world economy. I was intrigued by the statement that the global economy, which has been remarkably smooth for many years and has weathered a number of serious challenges without great incident (the Asian meltdown in 1998, the Russian default that year, 9/11, and so on), may yet be more seriously challenged by the current credit crisis because it is combined with a housing market crash at the same time. I thought that was interesting so I rambled on about it after the jump.

In reality, the credit market has matured in such a way that the housing and credit markets are simply two heads of the same hydra. The much vaunted diversification of credit markets and bundling of risk has allowed more people to purchase risk, thus spreading it out. But nobody understands what they've bought anymore, and that includes banks and hedge funds, not just the investor herd. Since banks and large institutions no longer can be sure exactly what sort of risk is backing the instruments they've bought, they've suddenly become less inclined to purchase new debt instruments.

So why has risk suddenly become riskier? Because of the housing market collapse. Why has the housing market collapsed? Because in the rush to create new risk instruments to sell at profit, banks and lenders lent money to less creditworthy consumers than they would have done in the past. What did those less creditworthy consumers do with their loans? They bought larger homes than they could afford. How did they manage that? By using exotic new debt instruments like adjustable rate mortgages, piggyback loans, and the like. I bought my house on a piggyback loan, but unlike most homebuyers in the last five years I bought less home than I could afford, not more, so I've already almost paid down the adjustable rate equity line of credit I used for my downpayment. I'd like to say this is because I was a savvy homebuyer, but the fact is I just got a good deal on this place and I'm lucky.

So the credit market encouraged the expansion of the housing market, which enabled the expansion and diversification of the credit market. So the current economic shock is not a double-whammy of a housing collapse with a credit crunch. The housing and credit markets are essentially the same market. They're a bigger market than either was when they were easily separated, but if one was to collapse the other had to follow since they are so intertwined.

I can't speculate as to whether this is going send the world economy into a recession and won't try to. That's for wiser folks than I (and they'll probably get it wrong anyway; economics is better at hindsight than forecasting and frequently the media confuses the two anyway). But I am interested in the idea that the current crisis was precipitated by the people and corporations who were selling the homeownership dream to people who'd never been able to grasp the dream before.

I actually don't think ARMs and piggybacks and other creative lending instruments are a bad idea and of themselves, and any expansion of the credit market to the poor and less creditworthy among us is inherently good (as I see it) since it broadens the market and brings more people up an economic level. However, such lending instruments, it seems to me, aren't presented as a way to climb up the heap a little bit. They're presented as blank checks or lottery tickets.

This is part of a society-level problem, which is that we all want what we can't have, and we all continue to want more after we get what we wanted in the past. You've always dreamed of owning a home, so are you satisfied buying a small place you can afford? Of course not! You want something bigger and better, in a nicer neighborhood, and since the mortgage company has all these bizarre debt instruments you couldn't hope to understand fully you know they can find a way to get you the bigger, better home you deserve.

Same is true of cars, vacations, everything really. Promotions at work. We're always looking just over the horizon, saying, if I can just get that one thing, satisfy that one desire, then I'll finally be happy. If I can just buy that new car I'll never want another one again. If I can just buy that bigger house in the better neighborhood I'll finally be satisfied. If I can just get that one last promotion at work, then finally I can relax and be happy forever.

Fat chance. We're never happy forever. We're never satisfied. I think what's happened is that good old Protestant work-ethic that says you should work hard and get ahead has been allowed to morph into this idea that you must get ahead and damn the hard work it takes to get there. We've changed a healthy propensity to strive into an unhealthy incapacity to be satisfied. Certainly having ambition is good, but I don't think we as Americans are capable of being satisfied where we are anymore, at any level, regardless of where we are. And I think we create unhappiness for ourselves that way.

There's actually no reason why being satisfied with what you have needs to stop you from striving for more. But I think we've forgotten that--I believe we as Americans, the society we've created and the entertainment/media industry we allow to rule us, have lost sight of the notion that ambition and achievement don't create happiness. You can be happy with what you have but still want something more, but we've lost
sight of the satisfaction in our blind craving for more.

The housing/credit market conflation and crunch are a symptom of that and not anything more. I think we can argue that the diversification of risk has created problems by making risk-buyers less aware of what they've bought and whose debt they actually own. But the diversification of risk is not a bad thing, any more than the buy-up of technology by firms that didn't really know what to do with it during the tech bubble was a bad thing. What's happened is people have created value where there wasn't any, which they've done by not understanding what they're buying. The housing bubble was created the same way.

What interests me is this. The housing market had to cool down, because property was being bought and sold for more than it was justifiably worth. A home's inherent value comes from the fact that you can live there; when prices climb above what you can afford to pay and still live there, the market itself is creating value that isn't inherent in the property. As more people were priced out of the market the inherent value of homes stopped rising, but the market value kept climbing, in part because creative financing allowed people to purchase homes at higher prices than they could really afford, but also in part because property became another way to get rich without working, and that siren song ultimately kept the bubble inflating for longer than it might have otherwise.

Now prices are coming back down, which I believe is a good thing. The trouble is as they come back down, investors are going bankrupt. At the same time, lower-income home buyers who bought too much house are seeing their adjustable rate mortgages adjusted upwards while their income is remaining relatively flat, so some of them are losing their homes. These two things combined will damage the debt market, but I don't believe irreparably. On the other side of this, we'll have a broader debt market and more accessible credit, and hopefully people on both sides of the lending desk will have learned from the experience. Creative lending is good if you take advantage of it to buy only what you can afford. If that lesson is learned, the entire economy will be that much stronger for it.

What concerns me is that, like the dot-com bubble, this bubble was created by that societal craving I mentioned above. People bought more than they could afford because they wanted it and deserved it and thought it would make them happy. But it didn't, so they bought more. They leveraged the equity in the homes they couldn't afford to buy more stuff they couldn't afford, and still they weren't satisfied. The dot-com bubble included lots of people making lots of money for not working and eventually going bankrupt; the current property/credit bubble looks essentially the same.

So after this one, what will be next? When the economy rebounds, as I expect it will within a couple years, what new get-rich-without-working bubble will develop?

There's lots of talk in The Economist and elsewhere about whether the "Business Cycle" has been defeated. Maybe so, maybe not. But I believe we are doomed to endlessly repeat the cycle we've just seen--a new product, technology, or market comes to attention, people make money off it, other people jump on board, it becomes exploited, it becomes valued far above its intrinsic worth, and then it collapses and takes a bunch of investors with it. This collapse weakens the entire economy for a time, but because some sectors of the economy aren't involved, the economy is able to rebound. So whether the business cycle has been defeated or not, we're going to continue to see a cycle of investment, exploitation, and collapse.

I believe much of that cycle could be defeated by eliminating craving and desire, but the only way to do that is to have some sort of great awakening across Western (especially American) society to the notion of being satisfied with what you have where you are and not sacrificing that satisfaction to ambition and craving.

That's not realistic, of course. I can try to do that myself, and you can, but across the entire society it won't work. And since consumer spending is now the basis of the world economy, if we all decided we didn't need the next big thing or the better version of what we already have, the economy really would contract. Or would it?

Ah, this didn't go anywhere, did it? What the hell, there you have it.

Burma, Baby, Burn

Because Britney Spears isn't dead yet the major U.S. news outlets are still underplaying just about everything else. One of the biggest stories you're not hearing very much about is the escalating series of protests by Buddhist monks in Burma. The Burmese military government, in power for 40 years, is one of the last surviving examples of a pre-industrial government: a small self-appointed clique in control of a police state where all instruments of power are dedicated to supporting the leadership and the needs of the people are ignored. Burma is one of those countries where there's absolutely no good reason the place isn't already South Korea or Taiwan or something, except for the fact that they have rotten government--an evil government, according to the monks.

The junta has been threatened before by protests, and even once opened the country up to democracy, in 1990, but anytime they don't like the way things are going (as when their party didn't win elections in 1990) they storm in, shoot people, throw everybody they can get hold of into prison, and clamp down again for a few more years. These people are exactly why large standing armies are usually so frightening to people.

It's hard to say what will happen. The monks are, supposedly, untouchable as far as the military goes, meaning they won't get shot or detained. But that assertion may be a bit too rosy and I doubt the government much cares in the end as long as they stay in power. But the protests are growing, and the security forces reportedly seem unsure what to do.

This bears watching. You can be sure the U.S. won't do anything but stand on the sidelines and shout encouragement to the people who will end up getting killed, since Burma doesn't have oil and the Burmese intelligence service didn't try to kill George Bush's daddy. Doesn't mean this isn't an important story.

The Epistemology Part of It

Well, that last post was getting outrageously long, and while I'll certainly be reviewing it from time to time many readers may not want to go through the whole thing. No problem. After the jump I've got the real questions raised by the dream in a fairly quick format. You can ponder them yourself, try to answer them, add more of your own, or ignore the whole thing at your leisure.



I've spent too much time on this today already (it's after 2 and I wanted to go to St. Pete Clay today... not gonna happen. Perhaps tomorrow, unless I stay until after dinner) so, forthwith, the larger questions raised by the dream I described in the previous post.

1 What is lucid dreaming and why does it happen?

2 My subconscious was wrestling with the notion of duality (a soul and a body) as opposed to impermanence (you are your body and the collection of impulses therein and will cease existing when you die). Why did the tormenting skeleton not respond to my assertions of impermanence only to decompose into dust when I acted against him physically? If the skeleton asserted that it was a ghoul, does that mean it was a soul? If so, what happened to its soul when the body decomposed? If an evil spirit is considered to have a soul, how was it created differently from the soul that resides in a human, or is there no difference?

3 Why do our depictions of hell resort to tortures that would only affect a physical body? What torture is available to a non-physical soul? Do any Western theologies teach that the body goes to hell or heaven with your soul, and if so, what then is the point of there being two natures?

4 If a soul is eternal, can it be destroyed? If so, and if evil souls are destroyed, is that destruction functionally different than Buddha's assertion that all things are impermanent and the concept of the self dies with the body? If not, what is the punishment for a soul? Isolation from God and Paradise? Are souls given second chances or are they only granted one go-round on Earth to find and follow God? If the latter, why?

5 If the Buddha is right and everything is impermanent (and you can consider this question whether you believe that assertion or not), what then is the purpose of following the Eightfold Path (right view, right intention, right speech, right action, right livelihood, right effort, right mindfulness, right concentration)? If nothing lasts and all is vanity, how is moral good to be determined, and more important, why does it need to be? Is it simply that following the Path and doing right things make a person happier? Is that true? Doesn't Tucker Max seem to disprove that notion--or is there a plane of happiness amoral people are incapable of achieving? Furthermore, if one follows the Path and does right, one is living as God has asked--so would God deny a good Buddhist entry to heaven because of the Buddhist's rejection of God? If so, what sort of damnation would be experienced by a good and moral soul that did not embrace God? Would it be different from the damnation of an evil soul? Is a soul that was moral in life on Earth but still rejected or did not know God inherently as evil as a soul that lives an outwardly evil life?

6 I am undergoing a period of uncertainty and questioning about Christianity and my faith; I suppose many people do so. It is not at the level of a personal crisis nor do I expect it to be for many years, but it is there. My two fundamental problems with Christianity are as follows: 1. Why would an omnipotent and (presumably) beneficent God reveal himself only to one small tribe in the Negev Desert four thousand years ago, leaving all others to perish? Why would said God go to the trouble of creating souls for people He would have no choice but to destroy (or commit to eternal damnation)? If God would not destroy those souls, what happens to them--are they recycled (reincarnated) and given a chance to be saved; are they granted admission to paradise because they never had a chance to know God, and if so how does that square with God's desire to have all people follow Him, if those who don't follow him are granted the same rewards as those who do? 2. Why would an omnipotent and (presumably) beneficent God create distractions and diversions to throw people off the trail if He wants them to follow Him? I'm not referring to gambling, drink, and loose women; what I want to know is why create dinosaur bones, why create the processes for radioactive decay that allow us to date dinosaur bones, why create Australopithecus bones and genetic logs of evolution, why create redshift and an apparently multi-billion-year-old universe to sow confusion and discord in the world? If the Creation story as handed down in Genesis and elsewhere is correct, why would God create those red herrings? If the Creation story is (as I believe) meant to be read as metaphor, why is that not clear? And what is the purpose of the metaphor? Ultimately, what is God's purpose in allowing such a wide variation in interpretations of His message? Are all equally valid? If only one is equally valid, is it possible to know the one right path? Or is a relationship with God meant, in His view, to be a personal affair between you and Him, and as long as you commune with Him and accept Him it matters not what doctrine you choose to follow? If a personal relationship is the most important, what are we to make of individuals who, believing they have communed with the Almighty, take the lives of dozens or hundreds or more of innocent people? Can God call us to acts of evil and violence, and if so, why? Ultimately, if faith is what really matters, does that mean that a person who believes fervently that he must do evil things is not evil in the eyes of God? In other words, how can a lifetime of evil be forgiven by a deathbed conversion and repentance while a lifetime of good results in damnation for souls that did not have faith? If faith is all that matters and faith must be held in the face of all evidence to the contrary, what is the purpose of life and experience? Why create life at all?

Okay, there you have it. It was quite a dream, apparently.

An Epistemological Quandary

Last night while it was supposed to be sleeping my mind decided to debate, via a bizarre series of connected dreams, a number of issues that have been floating around the periphery of my thoughts for a good while. I slept very poorly. I was conscious of at least two of the dreams and in fact was able to have a conversation with one of the characters in one dream in which I felt I was supplying only my half of the responses, and the character's responses were be generated outside my consciousness.

Like the dreams this post will be long, rambling, and somewhat incoherent. I also plan to publish it in stages. The whole thing will be after the jump, but you'll note here whether I've written anything new since you last read it.
Published so far: Part I, Part II, Part III


I - The Dream

The dream began back in Africa. It was not Djibouti, but I was certain--despite a general lack of outside references indicating as much--that the base I was at was in Africa somewhere. I arrived out there via a chartered airplane. Construction was ongoing. I do not know, or at any rate can't recall, what my mission or purpose was there, if anything. But, like the deployment to Djibouti, it's possible it was a standard proto-AFRICOM staff deployment and there was no purpose.

This part of the dream is unclear. I recall eating at the chow hall with George, a friend from Djibouti. But when I confronted George about having been in Djibouti, he disappeared in a wisp of... well, it wasn't smoke, but it was something. While walking around the camp later--and this is why I can say it wasn't Djibouti, because the camp was different in layout and design and the climate matched the Serengeti more than Djibouti--I began to grow concerned about the fact that here I was deployed and yet I hadn't yet heard back from my commander or legal counsel regarding whether the Secretary of the Air Force had accepted my resignation. Further I believed they didn't know I was deployed out there and would be unable to contact me. Would I continue getting paid? Would I be left out there forever?

Then I noticed that I wasn't in uniform. I considered that I'd come in on a chartered airplane and suspected I was not, in fact, in the military at all but was at this base--if indeed it was a base--as a civilian. Then I went back to my residence, which was not a tent or a dorm. I can't remember at all what it looked like outside. The only room I recall from the inside was a large paneled room, the size of my living room or so.

The front wall of this room was unfinished, or semi-finished. It was tough to tell. It seemed meant to have a large television or movie screen and other equipment installed in it, and so I got to work on that, which involved rewiring everything. As I was working on that, Rick, an old Air Force friend of mine, came in, along with someone else who I knew in the dream but whose face I can't recall now. We worked on the project together.

While we worked I noticed that it was very very quiet outside. I also recall that the work progressed as "work," and after a certain period I no longer recall what the actual work was, only that we worked. At some point we began drywalling. Rick was calling all the shots, in fact being very dictatorial, which was dissatisfying to me. He said at one point that he knew how it was supposed to be and I did not and so I had to listen to him. I chafed. I believe I woke up at this point but I can't be sure; in any event I was back in the dream very shortly.

Then I said it would be easier if we paneled rather than drywalling. To prove my point, I waved my hands at the wall and, voila, it was paneled and several large screens were installed. This caused Rick to disappear in the same manner that George had done earlier. The other person walked out of the room without speaking. It was now very quiet. I have the impression that light was coming in from outside but can't recall whether there were windows; in any event I didn't look out them.

Then the screen came to life. The person looking at me from the screen felt familiar but I can't recall who it was if indeed it was anyone I know at all. The person explained to me that I needed to come over to my dad's house. I said that I was quite happy where I was, thank you. The face then noted that it was the apocalypse and I should join everyone at Dad's, but whatever. In the background were several familiar people.

So I decided to go over there. I left the building I'd been in, but I still don't know what it looked like. It was dark outside. I walked, presumably, and in any event appeared at a house in a very short period of time, and went inside. This was obviously what was meant by "my father's house," but it was also not my father's actual house nor was actual father there; the house was more like an old farmhouse. Instead there were about eight or ten other people, three of whom I can recall their faces. There were two women but I can't recall what they looked like. One was motherly and welcomed me in from the cold and gave me a hot drink, which I don't think I touched.

I noticed that there was a big man there, not especially tall or anything but just a big-bellied, barrel-chested, round-faced, jovial fellow. He was dressed very simply in a white shirt and grey pants and jacket. Sometimes he was wearing a hat like the picture on the Quaker Oats box, sometimes not. At some point after arriving it became clear to me that he was in fact a Quaker, as were all the rest of the people here, or at any rate they were seeking refuge here because the Quakers in this house were protecting them.

I don't recall much of this part of the dream. I went to the basement, which was set up like a gym. At least five guys were down there working out. They seemed to know me and urged me to stay. They had been there for a few days. One of them said to me that he'd gained six pounds of muscle in five days. Then they started comparing their biceps. I went back upstairs. I saw the big Quaker again. I don't believe I ever spoke with him but he was very familiar.

About this point I woke up. I am fairly confident that I remained awake for much of the next phase of the dream, or was at any rate lucid if not awake. However I spent a moment or two in a confused state, not in the dream, recollecting the earlier parts of the dream, but I was back in the dream soon enough. During this period I became convinced that the big Quaker was in fact my Uncle Carroll, Carroll Solenberger, who is the only person I can recall who was a Quaker. He was my great uncle, my mother's uncle, who married one of my grandfather's sisters. When I knew him he was fairly old, more or less confined to an early version of one of those chairs that lifts to put you in a standing position. It was brown vinyl if I remember. I can only clearly recall his face in a single scene in my memory.

That was the face of the big Quaker when I realized I was dreaming. Whether that was the face before I decided it was Uncle Carroll or after I don't know. I don't recall speaking to him. I went back outside the house, where it was still dark and quite cool. There were streetlights and along the opposite side of the street from the house--which was the only house on the street--was an apple orchard. I suppose it could have been peaches or something.

I walked by a skeleton, which began to follow me. The skeleton then began to speak to me. I can't recall the words but it was extremely threatening. It matched my pace, whether I walked or ran, staying a few feet behind me but never losing ground. It suggested I go back in the house because I would be safe there. It said that if it caught me, it would take me to hell for an eternity in damnation.

I began to question what I was doing wrong, what I had done to deserve eternal damnation. The skeleton was quite clear that by going back to the house I would be safe, but of course it was hopeful I wouldn't. Then it began to describe the tortures that awaited me in hell as soon as it caught me. But the description wasn't focussed on the torture itself, but rather the length of it--eternity. That it would go on unceasingly, without end.

I was running by this point, while the skeleton kept pace behind me. I began to shout at it about "the impermanence of all things," how nothing could go on forever. It laughed at that and said it was things like that that would send me to hell. I again said it couldn't last forever as my consciousness would disappear when I died. The skeleton said if I stopped and it caught me, I would find out exactly what forever was like. Then I stopped.

The skeleton stopped. I said, you're a skeleton. You can't be keeping up with me as I run, because you don't have any muscles or tendons to run with. Your cartilage has turned to dust. You are impermanent. You shouldn't even be standing there. The skeleton countered that it wasn't a skeleton, but simply a "ghoul." I said, now you're telling me I have to believe in a realm of the supernatural I do not in fact believe in. The skeleton said all it had to do was touch me to take me away to hell. I said it could neither touch me nor take me to hell. It stood there and laughed at me but made no move to touch me. Then it said, are you ready to suffer for eternity?

At this point I considered my life. Had I done anything so rotten as to justify that? My greatest sin probably is questioning the existence of God, but plenty of others have done so. Augustine of Hippo and C.S. Lewis are pretty good company for a Christian. Why should I spend eternity in torment for seeking to understand that which cannot be understood? What else had I done? I'd been reasonably charitable, nice to children and animals, guilty of minor sins but nothing for which an eternity in torment seemed justified. The very notion was absurd. What just God would consign me to hell for eternity?

So I said to the skeleton, no. And I reached out and touched him. I grabbed the breastbone, wrapping my fingers around it between the ribs. And as I did so, it screamed. The bones collapsed and I was left holding a broken breastbone. As I watched the bones on the ground turned to dust and blew away.

I spent the rest of the dream walking along the road. Along one side of the road was the aforementioned orchard; on the other side were farms: plowed fields, silos, windmills, occasional farmhouses and red barns. As I walked, the sun slowly came up, and I spoke aloud my questions. How can human life have a dual nature? How is it that there is a soul separate from the body that exists after death? What is paradise, and what is hell, and how can we know either exists or what their natures are? Again I asked what just God would consign a person to an eternity of torment for any reason. What is the purpose of creating eternal souls if only to banish them for eternity? What is the nature of that eternity? If a soul has no physical presence, why is it that our depictions of torment all involve pains that would affect only the physical body, which is destroyed after death? Why were the Quakers able to protect other people from the torments of "ghouls," when in fact the ghouls did not exist? Why, indeed, were they Quakers and not Baptists or Evangelicals or Catholics or something? Would God send a Halloween-esque nonsense creature to do His bidding instead of something corporeal or at least capable of existing? Why does so much of religion require suspension of disbelief? Why are so many things in religion contradictory or counter to the only available evidence? Why would God create only one path to salvation--call it Christianity if you want--and then allow the creation of untold millions of souls to lead lives of grinding poverty and oppression and never even have the opportunity see or hear about that path? Can I believe that the vast majority of souls on Earth are doomed to an eternity of torment? To what end? Why would God make Himself available only to a small tribe in the Negev and leave all others to rot? And yet if there is no God why does the Buddha insist on following the Eightfold Path and living a good life? If all things are impermanent what is the rationale behind living a good life? And ultimately, what the fuck just happened here?

It seemed as though I walked for some time. I woke up very very slowly this morning and was not really awake when I walked the dog. So that's the dream I had last night. Now I need to rouse myself from this chair and go to the gym. I'll come back and write the next part before lunch.

II - Where did this come from?

I think in dream interpretation it's important to clear out all the noise before you can get to the meat of the dream. By "noise" I mean, stuff that appeared because it's in your subconscious or even your conscious memories and your mind is using those to fill in gaps to create a narrative. I'll start from the beginning.

1. I liked Africa (if not my job or the base). I want to go back to Africa. I'd go there to work as a contractor for a while again if the job was right and it was worth the separation. Haven't found a job like that and don't expect to, but if I did I'd consider going back. Africa is a fascinating place, and in many ways it's still an unknown frontier. That a dream would be set there isn't that unusual.
2. The chartered airplane. I haven't flown in over a year. Yeah, that's what that's about.
3. George is the one person from Djibouti I'd like to chat with again but haven't. Thanks to BDUB for leaving a note here; good to hear from you. I suspect George appeared and then disappeared because I'm wondering about what he's doing.
4. I'm still waiting on word as to my resignation. That it has taken almost two weeks isn't unusual, but I haven't had any updates. Not having any information is worse sometimes than having bad information. Of note here is that I could call in to my counsel and find out if there's been any word, and have been meaning to do so but haven't. I'll do that today to answer my subconscious fears.
5. The fact that I wasn't in uniform, but at first assumed I was still in uniform, doesn't mean anything. It's just my mental state at the moment, since I'm in between two worlds and don't feel a part of either.
6. The large paneled room, if I had to guess, was some echo of the basement in the house I lived in in Maryland mixed with elements of a and Dan's basement theatre. That's where the imagery came from anyway; why my mind picked that I don't know.
7. Working on the room... hmm, I don't know, I've installed or rebuilt or painted or refurbished a lot of crap in this house recently. I'm sure that had something to do with the need to work on a home improvement project in the dream.
8. I don't know why Rick comes in. I don't know who the other person was or what he/she may have symbolized. I'll speculate in Part III.
9. The magic paneling installation I believe is from an inherent desire to be done with all the home improvement work around here. Note that it was after the first wake-up so I was semi-lucid at that point, and I was sick of working on that wall. Who wouldn't want to wave their hands and have all the projects completed?
10. I don't know who the face in the screen was or why the screen came to life on its own. Perhaps it didn't; I may have turned it on in the dream and just don't recall that.
11. Why the apocalypse? This is a bit of speculation but I have been pondering these issues lately, about the nature of eternity versus impermanence, and though I haven't touched on the end times in my meditation I suppose it's bubbling in the subconscious. Or it may have just been a tool to get to the next phase of the dream. I don't think we understand how the brain puts dreams together yet.
12. The place to go was my father's house. I'll speculate more on this in Part III as well, because any symbolism I try to add to it is post-hoc and thus speculation only.
13. The house looked like an old farmhouse. It was not in any way familiar; it was not any farmhouse I've seen or visited. But I am ready to move out of the city and won't be doing so for a few years yet (Smittygirl is, too; city living is fun but after a while you just want a change, period; I'm not a go-out-all-night guy). No doubt if there was a "place to be" it would look like the place I want to be.
14. Quakers. Okay, my dog tags say "Quaker" on them for my religion. Partly this is because I haven't been to a Methodist church regularly in a long time and don't feel any more than a congenital attachment to the denomination, and at the same time some aspects of Quakerism (the Society of Friends to be more accurate)--the Testimonies of Simplicity and Integrity in particular along with the de-emphasis of doctrine--appeal to me; partly this is because the Friends are the best-known Peace Church and I don't have very many ways to say I hate this damned war while I'm still in the uniform.
15. Uncle Carroll. It was clear he was a Quaker before it was clear he was Uncle Carroll. While I did not, when I knew Uncle Carroll (he passed when I was very young), know he was a Quaker, I do know that now. So, either my mind put Uncle Carroll's face on the Quaker (who's dress was drawn from the oatmeal box) because he was a Quaker I knew, or, after I woke up for the second time, I lucidly applied Uncle Carroll to the Quaker to give me something familiar. Given the way this part of the dream "felt," I have to go with the first description there.
16. The gym in the basement. I've been going to the gym again lately and plan to continue doing so. I even joined a civilian gym that's much closer to my house because I didn't want to drive all the way to the base every time I wanted to work out. As to why this is in the dream at all I can't speculate.
17. The guy who gained 6 pounds of muscle in 5 days. Hey, who wouldn't want to be able to do that? But I'm too smart to believe that sort of claptrap. Either the "study" was done under unique conditions and bankrolled by a supplement company, or the guy was on roids. I can't gain 6 pounds of muscle in 5 days, it's absurd. Rather than try to find out what he was doing I left. A sign of maturity perhaps? Or a warm-up for the conversation to come? I have no idea.
18. The people who were in the basement working out were probably familiar faces from the gym--they did seem familiar--but I can't be sure. They started comparing biceps, which I would have liked to stick around for. Comparison is good. But I also have a very neurotic sort of modesty in this area such that I would not in real life participate in any sort of "showdown," but I will wear shirts that are too small. I don't even want to try to explain where that comes from.
19. I can only speculate as to why I left the house, but I assume it was because I had to leave the house to have the conversation with the skeleton. I believe that to some degree dreams have plots and must somehow fit a plot structure, even if said structure doesn't make sense. Sometimes you ride a flying carpet to the next scene because you need to get to the next scene, not because you need to ride a flying carpet.
20. The orchard and farm scenery in the background was also not familiar. The farms on the one side of the road seemed a bit cartoonish. Again though I'll go back to the idea that I want to move to the country for a while and so here I was in the country.
21. I'm going to guess my tormentor was a skeleton because it's getting on toward Halloween and all the discount stores we've been shopping in have skeletons hanging in the windows and stuff (some are very cute; one mobile-type skeleton in the Dollar Tree was holding a martini glass. I'd hang that on the window, it was very funny). It's possible that it was a skeleton because it set up the later part of the dream though I'm going to discount that possibility. I don't know that the brain thinks that far ahead in dreams, and although I was lucid later on the notion that I was that solidly in control seems far-fetched.
22. I was in control of at least some of the remaining course of the dream, though not, I don't think, of the fact that the skeleton seemed unable to get any closer to me than he was to begin with regardless of my speed. He didn't approach even when I stopped running. I'm not real clear on how lucid dreaming works, but this felt like something I noticed and not something I caused. I also believe the conversation was at least partially from the subconscious and not my lucid mind, but how much I can only guess.

Okay, so that's the bits of this dream I can explain, sort of.

III - Speculation and torment

Mainly I wanted to add some speculation about parts 8 and 12 above. In part 8 I mentioned that I didn't know why Rick came in. In truth, I don't know why anyone came in. I don't know who the third person was or why there was a third person. Rick and I worked together in the Mobility shop for a good long time, during which neither of us deployed. I was superior to Rick by right of rank. We worked well together but are very different personalities.

The appearance of Rick, someone I care about, is not unusual, though the direction taken by the dream after his appearance is interesting. Rick is more assertive and directed than I am--I work by feel. I get things done, but I do things in the order I want, work on multiple projects at once, often finish up right at the deadline, and focus more on completing work correctly than on appearance. Rick works in a more structured manner much more befitting the industry we worked in and places greater emphasis than I do on good appearance (obviously when the job is to look good, as in painting the kitchen, that's what I focus on, but if you want me to produce data I don't really concern myself with how it's presented if the data is good). Rick's work style is suited to the military; mine is not.

I mentioned earlier that I am caught between two worlds at the moment, military and civilian, and don't feel a part of either. Being so caught forces me to reflect on the good and bad aspects of both. It is thus possible that Rick's appearance was simply as an Air-Force related person who would intrude on a non-Air Force task I was doing as a way of emphasizing this notion of being between things. If so, the choice was particularly apropos as he was a person who it was believable would take over the project and direct it be done in a certain way. I don't believe this was to be taken as an issue of personality conflict; I believe he appeared, and we fought, because I am fighting over what lessons I should draw from my time in the Air Force, what I learned about myself both positive and negative, and how I want to engage now that I am outside the Air Force. That's my supposition.

But I still don't understand the third person. When Rick and I worked in the Mob shop together, there was usually a third person around, sometimes a fourth. This third person changed; since we didn't deploy or travel much, we were always there, but occasionally other people were also there. It's possible that this third person was simply reflecting that reality. However, if that's the case, it works in favor of the idea that Rick was not simply an Air Force body but was Rick, and that we fought because he was Rick and I was me and not because our work styles differed.

But then why did he simply decompose to dust when the paneling was installed? I don't get that, either. Perhaps it was simply that that portion of the dream was over--in other words, he decomposed to dust rather than fly away on a carpet or walk or drive simply because the dream necessitated his leaving and that was one way among many to do it. George had disappeared in the same way earlier and it's possible my subconscious was just enjoying the idiom.

Or, perhaps he was a menacing authority I thought I wouldn't have to deal with anymore, and once I showed the menacing authority that I could work well on my own, he disappeared. In this case Rick would be a generic person and not Rick. In any case it's all a bit confusing and I'm not sure exactly how to read it.

As for part 12, why was the place I was going my father's house, when it clearly was not my father's house and the big Quaker there was clearly not my father--not my actual father, nor in the dream did we act as if we were father and son, nor did I feel that I was looking at my father when I looked at him.

An obvious answer is that I was going to my Father's house--a church, or Paradise, or something, and the farmhouse we've already described as a place I'd like to go filled the role of my Father's house. Was this my subconscious arguing that I needed to go to church? Wondering whether I needed to go to church? Or simply saying that I needed to re-engage with Christianity? Tough to say.

Perhaps because I am a Christian and was raised a Christian my waking conscious mind is just associating the "father's house" in the dream with The Father. But, if my subconscious was not also making that association, what was it getting at? The face on the television was very clear that the place to be was my father's house, there's no question about that. But given that neither the house nor the father reflected waking reality I have to question what the meaning was. If, in the dream, I had felt or acted toward the big Quaker as if he was my father I could understand this. But he was simply a Quaker. We never spoke to one another.

I find myself being forced to assume this was blatant Christian imagery, that my father's house simply meant the House of God and nothing else. Now, it was a house, literally, not a church. Friends meetings may take place in homes or businesses if there is no Meetinghouse nearby, so there's nothing especially remarkable about the fact the farmhouse was a farmhouse. No actual meeting was occurring, though, people were simply gathered there. What is implied by that, I have no idea.

I come down on the side that dreams are not prophetic and do not contain messages from God or the dead. Dreams are simply the subconscious mind's way of addressing issues or concerns it wants addressed more directly than the conscious mind is doing. So if I accept the father's house as Christian symbology and the farmhouse and gathering as significant and not accidental, I find myself saying that most likely my subconscious is seeking answers as to what it means to be Christian--is it more than belief? Does it require regular churchgoing? Does it have to be a church? Can informal gatherings where religion isn't even discussed qualify as Christian gatherings?

And if it does require more than belief, what exactly is required? The pat answer would be "faith," but belief without faith is insanity and I don't consider that a valid answer. I don't have the answers here, I'm just pondering these things. Can I call myself a Christian and not do the outwardly obvious things--go to church, quote chapter and verse, put a fish on my car? If not, what is Christianity but a collection of symbology? If I have faith in God the Creator and Christ his Son as my Redeemer, is that sufficient? A life led by Christian faith is necessarily moral and charitable, or else it is empty of meaning in this world (I can claim to be a Christian but be an irredentist sinner and a bad person, but my claim is hollow and pointless and does more damage to the faith and my soul than disclaiming Christianity), but is that enough?

And furthermore, if that faith is tempered--interrupted even--by questioning about the faith, is it faith? I don't look for proof, as proof denies faith. But philosophically I have more questions than answers regarding Christianity. Given my questioning, can I claim to be an adherent? Again, I don't know. I believe this part of my dream was meant to bring these questions up. How I can answer them I don't really know.

Lunch!

It is an age-old dilemma. What do you do when the number of hot dogs and hot dog buns in your house doesn't match up?
Usually there are too many hot dogs. But if you buy the good kind of hot dogs, they mostly come in packs of eight nowadays, as buns have always done. Cheap hot dogs still come in packs of ten, forcing you to either buy forty each of buns and dogs to get an even number, or eat two dogs straight out of the freezer (don't you dare claim you didn't do that when you were a kid, I know you did).

Recently we purchased hot dog buns and Johnsonville turkey sausages with cheese (mmm, sausages with cheese....). There were six. We had two extra hot dog buns. And some cheese, tomatoes, sliced mushrooms, and leftover beef roast, and a toaster oven. So:



Voila! I used a small plate so they look like regular hoagie rolls, but they're just hot dog buns. I had to hold them together with toothpicks. Mmmmm, lunch.

[Endcap]
Did you know that "baby portabella mushrooms" they sell in the store are in fact exactly the same as "button mushrooms" or "white mushrooms?" It's true. All three--the portabella, the "baby portabella," the standard white button, and the "crimini" are all the same species, Agaricus bisporus. The difference is a matter of hours: a baby bisporus is a button mushroom. Give it about a day and you get a regular white mushroom. Give it 12 hours or so and you get a "baby portabella." Another 48-72 hours later and it's a portabella. Why are they all priced differently? Ah, that would be the scam, wouldn't it?

Climate Change

I just got in from moving my most favorite piece of furniture I have ever owned into the back of my car, to take it to Smittygirl's place to be sold. I'm feeling a bit melancholy, but not really in a bad way. I would have moved it over there now but it was starting to drizzle and I decided to come back upstairs.

As I sat quietly drinking my second cup of lapsang souchong and listening to the wind blow the pots hanging on the baker's rack into one another like some gustatory wind chime, I thought to myself that perhaps if I spent an hour meditating on the impermanence of all things I might, aided by the weather and a general feeling of satisfaction, achieve enlightenment.

Alas it was not to be. I couldn't get a good sit going, which requires that I get all the music out of my head (also, I'm not likely to achieve enlightenment any time soon anyway). This morning it's Sarah McLachlan's "Angel," which is far far better than what was stuck in my head when I actually rolled out of bed this morning (the Mouseketeer theme song, I don't know why). Thanks to Pandora Internet Radio I can hear this song and lots more just like it, which is what I'm doing now as I sip my tea.

The dog pointed out to me, when I got up from meditating, that perhaps the fact that I microwaved the tea indicates I wasn't really ready for enlightenment this morning. That the dog pointed this out to me means that maybe the lightheadedness that was affecting Smittygirl this morning isn't restricted to her. I don't know.

This is what it looked like outside yesterday. Nice, certainly. It's looked like that for months now, though; even though yesterday was cool and pleasant, the last few months--it feels like forever, really--have been hot and unpleasant.

This is what it looks like outside today. It is cool and wonderful. I'm going to go play on the porch for a bit. A little drizzle, overcast, not really either cool or warm; this is perfect weather as far as I'm concerned.

Showing off

Finally! I can post pictures of what the kitchen actually looks like now!

I must thank SmittyDad, who came down on Monday and stayed until Tuesday, painted most of the kitchen himself Monday night, and without whom I'd still be painting today (if not tomorrow as well).

That out of the way, follow the jump for (at long last) the AFTER photos!


Well, the painting well pretty well. What with Dad's work on the walls Monday evening, we were finished with both ceiling and walls by 10 Tuesday morning and cleaning up. Looks nice if I do say so myself but I'll let you judge.
Amazing, huh? Ten days ago we had a fully functioning kitchen and a livable if messy house. Now we have a fully functioning kitchen and a completely trashed house. You wouldn't think I'd be happy about that.

But I am. Because as you see here, we at last have a real kitchen!Isn't it nice? Note the shiny black dishwasher. You can see the edge of the sink; it's a single-basin instead of a double-basin, which wasn't what we wanted, but the sink had to shrink to fit the corner cabinets in, and 28" double-basin sinks are only available at $500 and up. The current sink is the same thing I could buy at a plumbing supply store for $498, same brand and everything, only I bought it at Home Depot for $99. Like the little jug lamp in the corner? It's pretty cool. Note the top corner cabinet; tons of room in there that didn't used to exist in the old cabinets. It's wonderful. The walls really look blue in this picture, don't they?

And check out the handiwork up above. Remember how crappy this looked before? Couple coats of flat ceiling paint and that looks pretty sweet, eh? Well, it was more than paint. I had to mud and tape the area multiple times to get it nice and smooth, and even then I can tell where I worked. But that's me; you may not immediately see it since you haven't had to stare at it every day for three years. Note the color of the wall paint here. Same paint, different lighting. It's a pretty cool color.

This is the fridge corner. Remember how much wasted space there used to be next to the fridge? Two feet or more, right? Now it's about 11 inches, just room enough for a step-stool, or a 10.2" cabinet from Wal-Mart, or something. The cabinets above the fridge, like similar cabinets in every kitchen, aren't much good. A step-stool would help and I know where I can get one, so that may be purchased this week. Right now it has a coffeemaker in it. I don't drink coffee. If you do drink coffee and would like to stop, I suggest putting your coffeemaker in your own above-the-fridge cabinets, since you'll never bother to take it down.

I like this one. This is the bakers rack we bought to replace the crappy old shelving. I guess I should stop saying it's crappy since we want to sell the shelves... actually we're going to give them away. Obviously it's not loaded yet, but check out the wine storage at the bottom! And hooks to hang frying pans and barbecue grill cleaners from! I like it. It's a definite improvement. Look at how light grey the wall looks. Same paint.

But where will the food that used to be on the shelves go? Well, we're going to be moving in a small stand-alone pantry with a couple shelves in it for some things. But check this out. You know how there was that useless corner cabinet beside the stove I complained about earlier? Ta-daa! A lazy susan! That is why we had to move the sink down a couple inches (and the dishwasher etc), but for that much extra storage space? Yeah, it's worth it. Well worth it. I wonder what the weight limit is on one of those things? This picture also shows the tile pretty well.

So there you have it! We'll be making other changes as time goes on, and of course I have this week to move things around and make the house truly livable again so we can move back in this weekend. We bought all sorts of organization things to increase storage space in the kitchen, so hopefully there won't be junk lying around all the time. And I haven't even shown you the brand-new door we made for the laundry area! Yep, all kinds of cool things to see and do here in Smitty's World. If you feel like stopping by, the weather's pretty nice in Tampa in the winter...
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One Last "Ongoing" Post

Okay, here's a quick rundown.
See, by midafternoon Friday, we had a kitchen with a floor. It was great! It was also a mess. And the walls were... bad. I mean, I was okay with leaving them white for a while and painting gradually after we'd moved back in. But once the new cabinets were up, it was obvious where the old cabinets had been. The baseboard was missing in one area, and the horrible old vinyl-wire shelving along one wall just cheapened the appearance of the whole kitchen. It was time for more changes. So, we decided to paint. Immediately. Pictures and more after the jump.


This decision was not taken lightly. We entertained our parents this weekend and I still thought even then that I'd "get around to" painting over the next week or so. But Saturday night, after the folks had left town, Smittygirl and I went to Lowe's and found paint we liked. And we decided it was time to do it, do it all at once, before we moved back in, and be done with it. That evening we went to Wal-Mart to get some fun storage stuff (racks for the back of the cabinet doors to put ziploc bags and aluminum foil in. How neat! I never thought of that!). We managed to get a $90 over-the-toilet storage cabinet for the guest bath for $30. It was on a "store employees marked the price wrong and nobody would come address the situation, so we took it for $30 thanks to our very nice checkout clerk."

Sunday we shopped with purpose. We also removed all the food off the old shelving and tore the shelves out of the wall. This is what the wall looked like afterward.
We managed to get a baker's rack through craigslist on Sunday, too, which we wanted to put there... but not until after it was painted. You may note that the ceiling looks funny in that picture. More on that later.

We selected our paint and I decided I'd start painting on Monday morning. I also made a desperate phone call to my father seeking assistance. He consented. Thank goodness! Well, not much left for it then but to take some before pictures, and here they are.This is the sink wall. Note the plate rack above the sink. Smittygirl's special request.

And this here is the other wall, along the stove. Note how much more space there is between the stove and the fridge. It's not huge, about three feet and change, but man, when you've lived with a 14" countertop in that space for four years, the change is night and day.

Now, there was one other thing that needed to be done, had, in fact, needed to be done for months, years in fact, almost since I moved in. Back in December 2003--the very day we caught Saddam, in fact--there was a tremendous roof leak into my kitchen and front hallway. I'd had the wall and ceiling in the front hall repaired some years ago, but the kitchen ceiling was still... well, it still looked like this here. I took this picture on Sunday.
Note that the paint is off in a large section of the ceiling--it was latex paint of all things (on a ceiling?), peeled right off in my hands. There was some damage to one side of the light fixtures, and more significant damage to the right there toward the hallway. Gypsum had fallen down. Note, please, that I took this on Sunday. Have I mudded and taped? Pulled down bad gypboard and replaced it? Caulked? No. None of that. And I was going to start painting on Monday?
Well, I knew I had to do the ceiling before I could do the walls, at least in that area. It was my hope that I could get a paint to match the existing ceiling paint close enough that I wouldn't need to paint the whole thing.

Yeah, right. Sure. The paint is 20 years old. It's basically faded to Antique White, and they don't sell Antique White ceiling paint. Plus, I didn't want to put latex up there again, it's such a mess to clean up. They said a quart of flat white would work... I just didn't want to do the whole ceiling. Of course, I should have painted it before they did the floors... and I should have painted the walls while the cabinets were off on Tuesday afternoon, but what can you do?

The Good Ship Bistrosmith

On Thursday when the tile guys pulled up the rug in the hallway, what do you suppose was under the rug? I would have assumed some padding and then concrete, but boy would I have been wrong. Apparently at one point, our hallway looked like this:
How cool is that?

...Still During...

Well, we're still not living in the condo; the Smitty family has temporarily moved domicile to Smittygirl's apartment. We'll be moving back in this week or perhaps as late as this weekend; depends how it all goes.

I have many pictures! It's very exciting. But I need to button the place up for the afternoon and go home and walk Action Jackson and start dinner. We'll come back this evening, and tomorrow I promise I will have a post with numerous photos! In fact I will probably be writing said post tonight, though it will have to wait til tomorrow morning to appear here.

Suffice to say... let me see, when last I posted I discussed Thursday's tile installation. Friday there was more tile, and so forth and so on... so I have a few posts to write. But as it stands, we have:

- Fully functioning plumbing

- Fully functioning electricity and appliances

- A nice new tile floor, 2/3 of which is clean enough to walk on in bare feet

- Nice new cabinets, a few of which even have things in them

- A new-to-us baker's rack (thank you craigslist) to replace our crappy old wire shelves
- A gigantic mess in the rest of the house

It's my job to correct the last part of that over the next couple of days. Should be a good time.

...Still Ongoing...

Wednesday the guy came to build the cabinets. This actually went surprisingly well. In fact, I would post pictures here, but the tile is being laid in the kitchen and I can't walk on it right now. Plus there are four tile workers here and there's not really room for more than four people in the kitchen at one time. People who have visited this house can verify that.

The cabinet guy actually showed up at the condo before I did. Funny. He worked straight from about 0840 until 1500 or so and got everything installed. Smittygirl and I came back last night and looked at everything; they look very nice. We tightened one of the doors, and Smittygirl brought up the fact that maybe I had the guy install the plate rack the wrong way. Not the end of the world but on looking at it this morning I agree that I could have had the facing installed on top instead of on the bottom and it would have looked better. Oh well. Had to make a spot decision. Sometimes those are wrong. But sometimes they're right, too. Hey, we have new cabinets, that's what's important.

More on John Edwards

I would like to point out that as of today, five full days after sending the letter to the John Edwards campaign, I have still not received a word of response. Nothing. Zip. I donated money to John Edwards in 2004 and again late last year. Huh.

...During...

So Tuesday the cabinets came, and I also had to go to work to turn in my resignation. And the old cabinets were supposed to be torn out. It all happened, but it was a bit more... unplanned than I had expected.

Cabinets began to arrive at about 0900. But there were no countertops. This was all a bit of stupid confusion because I had to put the cabinets and tops on separate checks, but in any event there were no countertops in the truck. Uh-oh. More of the saga follows the jump, with pictures!

I was also deeply confused by the fact that the guys who delivered the new cabinets weren't going to remove the old ones. I thought it would all be the same crew--delivery, tear-out, and install--but clearly I was wrong. No complaints, though; home construction is pretty flat right now so if the cabinet company wants to hire more subcontractors and spread the work around that's fine by me.

I tried to call the cabinet company three or four times to find out when the tear-out guy would arrive, but we kept playing phone tag and I never got an answer. So I waited. Around noon I decided I was going to go to the base to turn in my paperwork... and as I was getting ready to go, the countertops arrived. I called the cabinet place to say they'd arrived, and they said the tear-out guy would be there within the hour. It's a forty-minute round-trip commute to the base assuming no traffic, so I didn't want to leave. And the carpenter did come and tore out the cabinets.

This was made more difficult by the dishwasher. Now, I did manage to disconnect and remove the old dishwasher. It resulted in a flooded kitchen, but that was due to the obvious oversight of failing to turn off the water to a device that hadn't worked in over three years and not anything I did wrong in the disconnection. This time I did turn the water off (hooray!) so there was no flooding. But what I couldn't do was disconnect the wiring. The old dishwasher was easy: two wires and ground came in through a metal tube, and they connected to two wires and a screw on the dishwasher. This newfangled thing, I love it, I really do, but I would need a degree to understand the schematic that explains what happens to those two wires and the ground that come in from the wall. There are over a dozen connections under there. Now I understand why it took the installer almost two hours to get the thing installed. I wasn't about to play with disconnecting that, so I cut the power off at the fuse box and told the carpenter to be very careful.

He was working alone. No doubt in better days he'd have brought an assistant along, but the construction economy being what it is I don't think he could afford it and still keep his own bank account in the black. I helped out a little around the dishwasher and sink plumbing and he borrowed some of my tools (hard as that is to believe).

And when he was all done, I fled to the base as quick as I could, turned in my resignation, chatted with one of my stable of replacements, and left, having spent less than ten minutes in the office total. Sweet. I like a day like that.

Sadly, I did not take any pictures of the kitchen with no cabinets in it. You'll have to satisfy yourself with this selection.
First we have the cabinets along the sink/dishwasher wall. Note that the sink looks naked without its faucet. Poor sink. See the shiny new dishwasher? It doesn't look nearly as out of place now, with new cabinets and counters and floors around. Notice the corner cabinets up above? There was at least four cubic feet of dead space in that corner, probably six.

Here we have the insanely large empty space from the corner where the fridge is. Note that there is like 30" of dead space next to the fridge. That could be quality counterspace, for goodness sake! Now all it is is paper grocery-sack storage. Oh, and that upright vacuum cleaner, but it needs to have a belt replaced and I'm just going to donate it to somebody and adopt Smittygirl's.

This is the hideous linoleum floor. At one time I believe this might have been white, but the color you see there is the actual color. No photoshop here; none was needed.

And in this picture you can see the tiny countertop between fridge and stove. This was barely big enough for a crockpot. And yet there was so much dead space next to the fridge. Needless to say we corrected that problem. Note also the lovely stove hood sitting on the counter. This picture was obviously taken post-victory in my battle with the hex cap screws. Please note, I pushed the stove back in to take the picture; I wasn't trying to remove the hood with the stove still in place. I'm not quite that boneheaded.

Finally, my least favorite aspect of the kitchen when I was a bachelor was this asinine little cabinet. The door opening was four inches across. Think about that, that is half the span from your thumb to your pinkie. You can't even put a large box of corn flakes in there. The cabinet went all the back to the corner, but you couldn't put anything in there. Tons of wasted space. And the best part was that there was no cabinet wall next to the dishwasher. Cinders once got into that cabinet and made his way back around behind the dishwasher. I heard him crying in there. Thank goodness he found his way out when I rattled his food dish or else I'd have been tearing out the cabinets myself to rescue him.