friday’s business
I was actually stunned to find myself still here when I woke and got up at three this morning. Right away wondering what my business with this day would look like. ‘Business’ the right word, not ‘duty’ or ‘obligation,’ no, my business with the day. The way Jacob Marley realized it, sadly, much too long…
dancing
“I’d like to be under the sea in an octopus’s garden in the shade.” I like things that aren’t quite clear. That stand kitty corner to accepted, expected. There’s an octopus’s garden under the sea – all well and good. And there’s in the shade – hmmm. Kinda cool. My friend Karen on the North…
linking in
This is me, yesterday morning, sitting on a zafu on a blanket on the floor of the “office” room where I write and sometimes paint – the second bedroom of this two-bedroom apartment on a street marking the exact line between the Banker’s Hill and Hillcrest neighborhoods of this Southern California city. It’s 16 miles…
in my room
I’m sitting here on a day without work – and those days will be piling up soon – pondering the variety of forward-motion avenues appearing before me. With not a smidge of worry about the risk of boredom. No wondering, “Whatever will I do with all that time?” Nah. There’s none of that. Even with…
at the zoo
Paul Simon and Art Garfunkle created a lot of songs which mattered as I was growing up – ‘The Sound of Silence’, ‘Homeward Bound’, ‘America’, ‘At the Zoo’. Ann brought me to the San Diego Zoo yesterday. We spent time with some of the wonders of this life. We zinged high up over the zoo…
sunday morning
Hello. I stood on the sidewalk yesterday and watched San Diego’s ‘Pride’ parade. It was like nothing I’ve ever experienced. So joyful. So exuberantly each and every one of us counts the same. So can you see the real me? It was the longest parade I’ve ever watched, by any length of measurement, and I…
drowsy august days – autobiographical fiction
That summer, between my junior and senior years, I worked for AT&T, thanks to a connection my dad had. My job was to collect LIDS – Left In Disconnected telephones – from summer homes in Falmouth and Bourne on Cape Cod. I would get a company van early in the morning at the Wellingham garage…
in for the chance
I am happily rejoicing in the moment right now. Yeah, this very moment here. And that I am still here to rejoice in it. My friend Cory says we do the right things and we’re in for the chance. How cool is that. Last night I was locked out from this Blog. Last night I…
into the forest
It strikes me that my life is not over. I haven’t lived in the forest. Not yet. I’d like to live in the forest with Ann now. In a small cottage, painted yellow or dark green. Shutters and trim the other color. There at the edge of the forest, or, in the best of all…
magazine on a surfboard
Sometime around 2015 I found myself on the North Shore of Oahu, Hawaii. I found myself on a surfboard, in my one and only surfing lesson so far these 75 years. My surf instructor was a woman named Karen. She was deeply tanned, Hawaii all over, and she hooked me up with a “rash” jersey…
meeting makers make it
I’ve been having some meetings lately. There’s been three of us – Me, Myself, and I. Preparation for these meetings, and their desired positive outcomes, has included gathering a college-ruled two-dollar notebook, a blue medium-point pen and a blue medium-point gel pen, a yellow highlighter for marking occasional unusual ideas, my smart phone with its…
Donate please
A rare weekend post from me here at Couch Surfing at 70. Moving forward, Couch Surfing at 70 will exist, and improve, with the support of donations from its readers. Please consider a monthly donation of $5 to keep what has been free nearly six years going. Payments through your PayPal account can be made…
a bit of this, a bit of that
“Ain’t no thing like me, ‘cept me.” – Rocket, “Guardians of the Galaxy.” This is a neverending theme in my life these days. Quite a while now. It’s pretty amazing the number of invitations showing up in my life, asking, “Who are you, and what do you have to offer?” Ever reminding I am the…
spare change
On June 28th I announced that this Blog – Couch Surfing at 70 – was moving from its read-for-free, six-year run to a paid subscription. Pay a monthly fee to see posts which would otherwise be unavailable for view. This morning I’m here to tell you that is not going to happen. There will be…
of value
I’ve been wondering out loud here about what I have to offer of value – why invest precious time and energy and possibly money to read what’s posted here. Each of these weekday posts. And beyond this Blog, as I race toward a time of near-retirement and what feels like a vow of poverty: what…
harboring horseshoes
When I think of summer, I think of Little Harbor. I grew up in a small town in Massachusetts filled with beaches. Wareham. My favorite adolescent hijinks beach was Parkwood. Some of that too at Onset. Younger, it was riding our bikes to Pinehurst, sometimes Briarwood or Tempest Knob. Can’t forget arcade times at Swifts.…
in it for them
I was having this conversation with Gavin last night. I was saying that I write books and poems and I create paintings and from them greeting cards and note cards, even a long-ago zine. Then I offer those creations up for sale and, I said to my Oakland pal, for the most part any sales…
cool failing
“Ever tried. Ever failed. No matter. Try again. Fail again. Fail better. ” — Samuel Beckett “You won’t believe what you can accomplish by attempting the impossible with the courage to repeatedly fail better.” — Ryan Marrinan A couple of quotes which strolled into reading time Wednesday. The idea of “failing better” is kind of…
serving somebody
I’m excited to tell you my book “It’s Like This” is about to be available as an ebook on Amazon. Like any moment now. If reading on one device or another is your thing, you’ll be able to bring along Hector the rat(s), Phil with all his books, the fun-loving-robbing trio in ‘Beats Me’, and…
mess of help
Yesterday afternoon I told Ann I had spent two, two-hour periods of time working to set this Blog up for its new persona the middle of this month, and had not made one inch of progress. She asked me if I’d learned anything, and I said no. Maybe half an hour later I said, yeah,…
this is not that day
My son Cameron ran and completed his first marathon yesterday. In Missoula, Montana. Cameron came upon, and passed, the sign pictured above at mile 19, and he told me later it was quite emotional, and powerfully encouraging. Affirming. This is you, you have suited up and shown up, and you are doing this. You will…
changes coming to couch surfing
I want to begin today by letting you know I’ve made a decision to begin charging for couchsurfingat70. The plan is to set a “membership” system in place, starting Monday, July 15. Beginning that day, posts here will be visible only to people who have signed on as ‘members’. It will cost you $5 a…
why do I Blog?
This question came to me while on this morning’s walk. I got to shake hands with a young guy wearing a Bob Marley t-shirt on the walk as well. I also had the joyful opportunity to have two non-human conversations with kitties in windows, one in a home, one an apartment. On my walk I…
night school
“Well, you’ve certainly got us into a pickle this time, Ollie.” Or something like that. You probably had to be there. (‘Laurel and Hardy’) There is much going on, with changes hovering all about. The great welcoming hello of possibility, and abundance. I have clear thoughts about creating a new Blog, one with a paid…
there’s a cat in the window
This morning my meditation was filled with morning doves. That’s what comes from opening the window.
all together now
It was hot in San Diego yesterday. Fortunately Ann and I had agreed on a Sunday morning date a few days earlier. Farmer’s market, hike around Cabrillo Point, coffee, the Silver Strand, and the IB Pier. Most of which close by the Pacific, or air conditioned. The Silver Strand is a seven-mile isthmus between the…
love is ‘strange’
I received small boxes of new greeting and note cards yesterday. I’ll be publicly sharing and promoting and rejoicing in and with them through the weekend. As I was leaving work at the library yesterday, Eddie (one of the librarians) stopped me to talk about “Rat Boy”, one of the stories included in “It’s Like…
a million miles away
I played a song earlier which brought into the room with me my old friend Doug Martin, who passed away in 2003. That’s Dr. Doug Martin, him with a Ph.D. from UCLA in Urban Planning or some such thing. We met in 1977 when my other friend Bob Zimmerman – who passed away in 2010…
I was alright
Today is Juneteenth in California. I guess it’s a federal holiday now, I’m not sure if every state celebrates it. The libraries here in San Diego are closed today, in honor of the joy which is Juneteenth, and I have the day off. I’m not sure what to do with it. In a Zoom group…
hauled out from ‘about me’
(Verbatim transcription from 11/22/18 Morning Pages, unless in parentheses) I need an office. Maybe this is it, the old Cushman (kitchen) table and my stuffed up computer and papers all over the ping-pong table. It’s not romantic, but it probably has to do. Anyway, I need an office in which to keep and add research, and…
a nice story
Josh is the cashier on register one at the People’s Food Co-op in Ocean Beach where I support a younger woman named Jolene three hours or so every Tuesday morning. For Josh, the check-out life is a part-time gig. His primary work is taking in and caring for the pets of people going out of…
frappe is a New England word
My psyche has been pounded lately. There’s no better way to say it. Deep, emotional, bang-a-gong wacks up the side of the head pounded. All around the heart as well. I’m not a victim. I’m not complaining. This is reporting. Couch surfing – on Electric Avenue, in Electric Ladyland. You know what else? Nobody’s been…
morning
I really have nothing to say this Thursday morning. Beyond, “There’s a lot to it.” If the creek don’t rise, and there ain’t no meltdown, I’ll be back with a few more words tomorrow.
fifth-grade art
And then Wednesday came around and my mind was like a spider spinning her web and slowly scurrying around in a shaded corner of the big room. That’s ‘The Big Room.’ Reading and writing, and – honest to goodness – even some ‘rithmetic. What’s 12 times 15? What’s 180 into a thousand? Really, really grateful…
she don’t remember the Queen of Soul
I was thinking a while ago about the post here today being a listing of the predicted temperatures today for all the places I’ve lived so far. Which I’m not going to do, though it wouldn’t surprise me if San Diego’s the coldest of the bunch. Which wouldn’t be a comment about anything, just a…
two and one equals three
There are three doors. Just three. Right now I can show you two. Door number One is I actually retire for good, quit working. That means moving out of San Diego. Not working equals moving from San Diego. The expense. Door number Two is not retiring, not doing what both my body and soul are…
if it feels nice, don’t think twice
Came across this (like a bridge) in the morning yesterday and it held hands, like lovers strolling around a pond, with the morning that had already happened. And with the last few months. From John Tarrant’s “bring me the rhinoceros”: “The point is that, in an impasse, life becomes more real and more interesting, so…
just fine
I don’t really have a single thing to talk about this morning, other than I was thinking about seagulls earlier. I appreciate seagulls. They have a Mad Hatter keep-on-keepin’-on quality – it’s a food thing – and I have always been delighted by the call of a seagull slipping over a beach, on the roof…
Bowie in ’70
A Zen Koan: “Tree withers. Leaves fall. Like That. Golden wind manifests.” Pretty much the story of my yesterday.
seeming for all the world
There is a rule. It is ‘Rule 62.’ It says, “Don’t take yourself too damn serious.” There is a particular verse in Dongshan’s “Five Ranks.” It says, “Conceal your practice, function in secret, seem for all the world like a fool or an idiot…” My first year at Salem State College, which got going as…
all tomorrow’s parties
“And what costume shall a poor boy wear, to all tomorrow’s parties?” – Velvet Underground (slightly amended) I listened to this song in the Camry Saturday morning on the way to drink a coffee by myself in the Mission Hills Starbucks. I listened to it a couple of times. There was something of a sub-sonic…
not so much
I woke up at 1am today, couldn’t fall back asleep. It’s been that way all week. They say, “No one ever died from a lack of sleep.” I haven’t heard it said, “Doesn’t mean you can’t pass for psychotic pretty darn easily, kid.” This morning I pulled myself out of bed at 1:45 and began…
I’ll be your mirror
I feel hesitant to write here in the Blog today because my mind is all filled up with interconnecting thoughts and ideas which only I can begin to make sense of – possibly – the hopping and skipping from one thing to something wildly other – just like that. The Velvet Underground tune from which…
gangster of love
Like, um, couch surfing at 75. That amazement, like standing on a corner in Mission Hills, San Diego, California at 4:30 on a Tuesday afternoon at age 75 in hopes of selling a guitar I ordered two years before from Germany to a guy I don’t know from Point Loma. Where I’m having coffee with…
“Rosalita jump a little higher”
You know, I’ve been trying to sell my Harley Benton electric guitar. The story of how I actually came into possession of that guitar is crazy, some of it involves an illegal cadre of electric criminals within the staffing of a massive UPS warehouse in Tennessee. I don’t remember exactly which city. The guitar traveling,…
like the Concord River in the afternoon sun
Feeling like old man river. Trying to sell books, trying to sell paintings, trying to sell guitars — just keep rolling along.
my dad told stories
In the company of rattlesnakes and scorpions, roadrunners and morning doves, I fell out of last night’s dream and went chasing after my dad, so we could have one of the 10,000 talks we missed. “There’s something warm about the rain.” — The Jesus and Mary Chain, ‘About You.’
mama said there’d be
Back when my mother was living in a lovely little cottage, senior housing in the town of Harwichport, Massachusetts on Cape Cod, she told me once that there were months when she had to choose between heat and food. A life on Social Security. I should have slammed my whole being’s brakes on then and…
this begging bowl
It is said, upon waking for the day the Buddha would sit in his morning meditation practice. He would then take his bowl and walk into town and beg for food. Most often rice. So sustained, he would spend all the rest of the day teaching. I am most fond of that image. It resonates…
land of a 1000 dances
This morning I felt the feeling I was reading the specific, exact pages which have been waiting for me to read them this very day for 75 plus years. The feeling was clear. Here’s a quote from what I read, though this particular passage didn’t, of itself, bring me to that wonder of something like,…