i read a short story by neil gaiman (in the collection, "fragile things") called "october in the chair." it is similar to what i'd like to write for the story "amphibious" in that it is about the relationship (brief though it may have been) between a living (and unwanted) boy and a dead boy ("dearly" from "dearly departed"). there is a moment in the story that is particularly eloquent and apt for me: after playing with the dead boy for a whole evening, the living boy (nicknamed "the runt") contemplates his prospects: he imagines following a river to see the sea, which he has never seen before; but then, he realizes that what will really happen is that he will be found by his family, and, far from missing him and appreciating him, things will be exactly the same as they were, only worse.

there is a strange abandoned farmhouse nearby, one which "dearly" says has no living thing, but is not necessarily empty. at the end of the story (told by the month of october), the "runt" makes a fateful choice and enters the house...

i am unabashed in admitting that i admired the simplicity of the story. my encounter with it seemed serendipitous. i think i will emulate its spirit, if not its form. the problem with my story is that it is a bit more ambiguous; while the elder brother can be cruel, there is something ultimately good and redeeming about him, and so, the protagonist (my "runt") will have to come to that realization somehow. like "october in the chair," my story does use, as a sort of surrogate brother, a supernatural creature: the kappa. i have debated with myself on the nature and motives of such a creature; would he have a sinister heart, and only help the protagonist to ensure his ultimate downfall, or would he be, like the protagonist, a misunderstood but ultimately good creature?

the use of a supernatural creature is another convenient literary device; conversations with it are candid, and can reveal the "heart" of the protagonist, and, ultimately, the shape of the story. the spirit of the creature determines, in large part, the spirit of the story; is it a tale of paranoia and fear and despair, or is it one of hidden hope?

***

yesterday, when i took the kids to swim at the pool, i pointed out the thin crescent moon to aiden. he said, "grandma mitakara is smiling at us."

***

i have survived 6 days of p90x. i still have my "pouch," but i swear that it's smaller. in any case, i am enjoying the program. it's an extreme program, but it's well-designed, and exercises the body in a variety of ways, ultimately balancing development. i thoroughly "enjoyed" all of them. i actually feel like i'm missing out if i don't do the workout every day.

***

i am exploring quantum touch. it's an energetic healing system. i've been hearing a bit about it from my patients. to me, energy is still a vague and nebulous thing. i've explored aspects of it, and am pretty well known by now for my very warm hands (when working on people). but i haven't really used it in a healing setting with any degree of consciousness or awareness, and i'd like to do that. i'd also like to explore the use of energy with acupuncture. funny, we're supposed to be manipulating qi with needles, but there is little if nothing taught about how this is done, as "energy" experience is such a vague and nebulous topic. for the most part, it is assumed that the mechanical act of needling accomplishes the energy modulation, but i'm not certain this is true. in any case, i'd like to find out more...

***

i thought about michael jackson's death and the irony of death in general. a couple days ago, if you mentioned michael jackson, then the media, and, i daresay, most people would think only of "wacko jacko." they would think of all the weird things he had done.

all of a sudden, now that he's dead, people are so sad. sure, the media still looks upon the outlandish things he did, but their focus now is upon understanding his life, upon putting some kind of capstone (or headstone) on the arc of his tale, so that he may be better "seen" and loved.

tell me, where was all of this concern and sympathy a couple of days ago? are people at all sorry that they made so much fun of him? why is it that it is only when people die that we try to understand and forgive them their little quirks and idiosyncracies? why is it that it is only when people die that we learn to appreciate the good that they have brought to the world?

i'm not pretending to be "holier than thou," because i too thought he was "messed up." but i just think it odd how death seems like an on off switch that suddenly changes people from cruel and insulting to sad and forgiving and understanding.

why can't we look at the living in the same way that we look at the dead?

***

i kind of thought about this in other senses... like songs on the oldies station. the classics. listen to some of them, and you can tell that they were super scandalous and "dirty" in their time. and yet, somehow, like wine, they seem to become an accepted and acceptable part of the culture, cutesy even... something for connoisseurs.

i think when some songs first came out, they weren't received with such fanfare, they were scandalous.

what happens to a song when it becomes an "oldie but goodie?" suddenly, time makes the song safe and good and cute and true. even if the song was about some pretty racy stuff.

it's almost as though sex and death and stuff in the present are all too raw to be processed; we can only begin to digest things after they are long dead. the feelings of the past seem somehow "safe," even though they may have been just as fear-filled and violent and apocalyptic as anything we know today.

there's an irony in that.

i don't know if this insight is actionable. is it possible to look on the present as though it were just something happening again, as though it were just a "golden oldie?" is it possible to look at the past with the realization that it was once an uncertain and fresh present? hard, but i think if i could, i would somehow understand something about life and time. and the hypocrisy of human attention.